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Daily Chinese Economy News Chinas economy has been a powerhouse in recent years. But times are a changing and China, for better or worse, is a subject of heated debate. Are there investment opportunities to be still had from China, and how will they affect your wealth at home? Find out here.

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Global Economy News Dont just follow the news on the global economy  get an inside peek into whats happening in developed and emerging economies around the world  and what it could mean for your investments. Go here for more.Would you like to receive breaking news notifications from The Post and Courier?

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Please enable notifications in your browser and reload the page.Branch manager and loan originator in Lake Mary, Florida, Matt Andre is a top-producing loan officer with FBC Mortgage. With over a decade of experience under his belt, Andre achieved $1 billion in career loan volume last year, and below he shares with us the tactics that have got him to where he is today.



Power Originator: How did you get started in the mortgage business?

Matt Andre: I got in the business in June 2004. While studying finance at Florida State University, I came across an ad for a mortgage broker position in Winter Park, FL. I interviewed with the branch manager, he encouraged me to get my license while still in school, which I did, and I started the Monday morning after my last final exam on a Friday afternoon.



PO: What marketing strategies have you found success with?

MA: I send a monthly recipe card out to all of my past customers. Its a great way to stay in front of them on a regular basis and I know that a lot of them put it right on their refrigerators upon receipt, so they see my face several times a day. If I ever turn it off for a month, my phone blows up with folks hoping they were not accidentally removed from my database (which tells me it works). As far as new client acquisition goes, Ive put a lot of time lately into homebuyer seminars and lunch & learn seminars for new homebuilder sales reps and real estate agents. Our business has changed quite a bit over the past couple years and making sure our customers and referral partners (our true clients in my eyes) are up-to-date on these changes is key.



PO: How do you use technology to help you focus on selling?

MA: Our company has developed an incredible resource for customers called Simple Loan. Simple Loan allows new applicants to fill out an application from any smart device, import their pay stubs, W2s, and bank statements and, after pulling the borrowers credit, the application is sent for pre-approval through one of our underwriting engines. A pre-approval letter can be generated in about eight minutes. After receiving their pre-approval letter, it can be forwarded to the borrowers real estate agent or new homebuilder sales rep. We have setup kiosks in many model homes for our builder-partners where applicants can get pre-approved, then sign a purchase contract on site.



PO: What has been the key to your success in recent years?

MA: Ive built an incredible team over the past several years. Having multiple team members to assist me results in 7-day availability, extremely fast answers & approvals, and excellent, steady communication throughout the process to both the customer and our referral partner. Another key to my success is simply experience. In 2017, I reached one billion dollars in career loan volume. Having my hands on that many different loans means that Ive seen nearly every scenario there is. My referral partners know that we know how to structure loans better than anyone else out there and, if we say it cant be done, it cant be done anywhere.



PO: What advice would you give mortgage brokers today to grow their business?

MA: Communicate, communicate, communicate! I heard one of my mentors the other day tell someone: Were not in the mortgage business; were in the communication business. Realtors and builders just want to be kept in the loop. Its really very simple. Be available, get back to them quickly, and constantly keep them updated throughout the process. There are so many people in our business that do a poor job at this, that its expected. If you do it right, youll pleasantly surprise people out there and theyll continue to send you business.The Massachusetts attorney general has announced that Nationstar Mortgage, now known as Mr. Cooper, will pay millions of dollars to settle claims that it placed the states homeowners at risk of foreclosure through unfair and deceptive practices.On Tuesday, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey announced that her office had secured millions of dollars in relief for Massachusetts Nationstar customers. The exact amount was not specified, but will include $500,000 in restitution to some foreclosed-on homeowners. As part of the settlement, the company will provide direct payments and loan modifications to hundreds of homeowners in the state. It will also update its practice and be subject to oversight from the AGs office.In Massachusetts, mortgage servicers are required by law to help prevent unnecessary foreclosures and keep families in their homes, Healey said. Nationstar failed to stop foreclosures, and this settlement gives homeowners in the hardest-hit areas of Massachusetts a chance to stay in their homes. It also sends a clear message that we will hold accountable companies that are not following the law.The AGs office alleged that Nationstar had violated a 2012 state law that protects certain borrowers from foreclosure. The law requires creditors to make a good-faith effort to avoid foreclosure for borrowers whose mortgages have unfair subprime loan terms, the AGs office said.The AG accused Nationstar of offering unfair and deceptive short-term, interest-only loan modifications that didnt consider the borrowers ability to repay the mortgage over the life of the modified loans. After a year or two, according to the AGs office, the monthly payments on those modified loans ballooned to an amount higher than that on which the borrower originally defaulted. Nationstar also allegedly failed to provide a fair opportunity for modification reviews; even when borrowers provided the necessary forms, the company allegedly failed to log, track and process them as required by law.Instead, borrowers faced massive delays, repetitive requests for modification paperwork and were often denied loan modifications on the grounds that they had failed to submit proper documentation, which had indeed been submitted, the AGs office said.Between 500 and 600 borrowers in the state will be eligible for loan modification under the settlement, and more than 100 foreclosed-on borrowers will be eligible for restitution, according to the AGs office.Fire Destruction In Sonoma County View Photos

Californias insurance commissioner reports that 45,000 insurance claims were filed from wildfires occurring between October and December, totaling $11.79-billion in losses.

The fires, first notably occurring around Napa and Sonoma, and later in Los Angeles and San Diego, resulted in the loss of 32,000 homes, 4,300 businesses, 8,200 vehicles, and various watercraft, farm equipment, etc. In total, wildfires ripped through 14 counties.

At nearly $12 billion in insured losses, these claim numbers are staggering and represent the costliest fires in California history, says Jones. The fires were unprecedented for their severity and disastrous consequences. Whole neighborhoods were wiped out, as wind-driven flames destroyed thousands of homes, upended tens of thousands of residents lives and tragically killed more than 45 people across the state.

The hardest hit area was Montecito where 400 homes were destroyed and 21 people died.As the start of February sweeps approaches, an appealing new 10 p.m. news face is greeting San Antonio TV viewers.

Well, new may not be the right word, although it isnt a visage usually associated with KENS late broadcast.

Deborah Knapp, a seasoned anchor of more than three decades in San Antonio and Philadelphia, is joining Jeff Brady, another vet of the news both here and in Dallas, on the 10 p.m. newscast for February ratings and maybe even beyond.

RELATED: San Antonio 'Survivor' alum lands new anchor jobs

Sweeps runs from Thursday through Feb. 28. Its one of Nielsens four yearly periods that help determine ad rates charged by local stations.

Knapp also will continue to shoulder her two other newscasts - at 4 p.m. and 5 p.m.

The move has been described as stop-gap, a temporary solution to the sizable vacancy left by Sarah Lucero who bid farewell to 19 years at KENS toward the end of November sweeps.

But viewers enjoying the pairing wonder if it could become permanent.

Its wonderful to have an authoritative presence on with Jeff instead of the parade of young ones who have filled in since losing Sarah. Hope it lasts, Melanie Davis wrote in a Facebook message.

KENS General Manager Tom Cury indicated other plans for the 10 p.m. news may be in the works, however, saying via email that Deborah volunteered to fill in while we continue our nationwide search.

RELATED: 10 fun facts about KENS-TV's new anchorman

On the plus side, both he and KENS executive news director Jack Acosta also wrote how much they value Knapp.

Were fortunate to have a thirty-plus year veteran in the anchor seat, Cury said.

Deborah has been a big part of the KENS5 newsroom for years. We are lucky to have her, Acosta added.

As for Knapp? She said shes happy to be helping out at 10 p.m., but concerning a permanent spot there, thats in wait-and-see mode.

My husband and I are seeing how it goes, she wrote in a text. I do love working with Jeff, Bill (Taylor), Joe (Reinagel) and this entire news team.

RELATED: KSAT-TV weathercaster one of nation's 'coolest'

In fact, she added, shes never been happier at the station.

It shows. On Tuesday nights news, for instance, Knapp and that aforementioned band of merry men seemed to be having a ball during a segue into a special feature this week  Super Bowl Eats  which challenges each member of the 10 p.m. news quartet to whip up a special snack or dish that can be enjoyed during Sundays big game.

Knapp, Brady, meteorologist Taylor and sportscaster Reinagel radiated such fun chemistry, in fact, that I felt momentarily transported back to the old heyday of KENS 10 p.m. news.

As is always the case, audience reaction and ratings also are factors.

Well have to see what viewers say, Knapp said of her time at 10 p.m., and of course my husband!

As for the other local news slots and stations, more temporary situations will continue during sweeps.

Weekend anchor Phil Anaya has yet to take on a partner in the wake of Karen Graces resignation. According to Don Smith, KENS director of marketing, Anaya will continue soloing the weekend through ratings.

RELATED: San Antonio anchor leaving KSAT for coffee

At No. 1 news station KSAT, chief anchorman Steve Spriester has been sharing the hourlong 10 p.m. news with sunny Myra Arthur, whos subbing for Isis Romero until she returns from maternity leave.

Still no word on Isis return, KSATs creative services director David Cuccio wrote in an email.

At WOAI, meteorologist Jeannette Calle of the bright smile and upbeat delivery will keep filling the gap left by veteran Albert Flores, who abruptly retired from the station in early January.

Calle, who normally handles the morning and midday weathercasts, will deliver the early evening and 10 p.m. forecasts through February, if not longer.

KABBs capable Mike Hernandez, meanwhile, will keep subbing in the a.m. on WOAI.

No final decisions have been made on the meteorologist position at this time, WOAI General Manager Dean Radla said of Flores old post in an email.

As a footnote, Radla wrote that he has high hopes that WOAIs news will get a boost from NBCs Winter Olympics broadcasts, which air from Feb. 8 through 25.

We have terrific, exclusive news content planned for News 4 during the Olympics to maximize the sampling opportunity this event always provides our station, he wrote.

Jeanne Jakles column appears Thursdays and Sundays in mySA. jjakle@express-news.netLongtime area pizza trailer operator John Winkler is ready to set down some roots.

Hes among the first occupants to sign on with a redevelopment project at 1602 E. Houston St. in Dignowity Hill. He intends to open the first brick-and-mortar location of his Sulla Strada Pizza brand in a 1,500-square-foot space there this summer. Sulla Strada has served customers wood-fired pizzas for four years, most regularly parked at The Squeezebox on North St. Marys Street.

RELATED: Your sneak peak at Southtown's Battalion new Italian lunch menu

This was always the goal when we started the mobile unit, Winkler said. Ill basically be doing the same thing on a bigger scale, and probably open to adding some salads, calzones and other things.

Winkler estimated the new spot, which is still in very early developmental stages, will be able to seat about 50 customers with some outdoor patio space available. He hopes to eventually receive permits to serve alcohol. Winkler said he will continue to operate the existing trailer once the business opens. More at Facebook: Sulla Strada Pizza.

pstephen@express-news.net | Twitter: @pjbites | Instagram: @pjstephenA Texas man is facing federal charges after agents said he had more than 115,000 files of child pornography.

Seth Perricone, 43, was taken into custody Friday on charges of possession of child pornography, according to federal court records.

According to court documents, an FBI special agent used a torrent application to conduct the undercover investigation, which started on July 31, 2017.

RELATED: 5 Bexar County deputies suspended in 2018, extending turbulent period in sheriff's office

The agent successfully downloaded more than 115,000 child porn files from Perricone's IP address, authorities said.

"A majority of these files depict the sexual exploitation of children," the agent wrote in his affidavit.

The FBI tracked the IP address to Perricone's home, and executed their search warrant on Thursday, seizing his computer and other electronic devices.

Perricone was at work when his home was raided, according to the affidavit, but agreed to speak to federal agents while he was at his job.

He allegedly told agents he's only the person who has access to his computer and admitted to downloading the files.

"Perricone told agents there is no excuse or justification for his actions," the agent wrote.

Public records show Perricone was accused of sexually assaulting a child in Harris County in 2009. He was acquitted by a jury in 2011.

If convicted for the federal offense of possessing child pornography, he faces up to 20 years in prison and a lifetime of supervised release.

Fares Sabawi covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County for mySA.com. Read more of his stories here. | fsabawi@mysa.comThe European Union (EU) has injected $17 million into Zimbabwes justice system, in a move meant to improve justice delivery and strengthen the rule of law.

The funds will be spread across stakeholders in the justice sector such as the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), Law Society of Zimbabwe (LSZ), Legal Resources Foundation (LRF), the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and the Chiefs Council.

The assistance came following a recent undertaking by the EU to work with the Government after President Mnangagwa assumed power in November last year.

President Mnangagwa has called for strict adherence to constitutionalism. He has insisted that Zimbabwe will go to elections in the next five months, promising these will be free, fair and credible.

Addressing justice stakeholders at the launch of the Zimbabwe Justice Sector Programme in Harare yesterday, EU Ambassador to Zimbabwe Mr Phillippe Van Damme said the EU had put in Euros 14 million, which translates to $17 million.

In total, the value of the support to the justice and rule of law sector under this new programme comes to Euro 14 million, roughly $17 million, he said.

Ambassador Van Damme said the launch of the projects was timely.

The projects we launch today are starting at an opportune time. The ongoing political transition presents a hopefully favourable environment for intensifying justice sector reforms. His Excellency, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, in his inaugural address and in his State of the Nation Address underscored the need for accountability to the people and for delivering services impartially, equitably and without bias, said Ambassador van Damme.

He reiterated the EUs willingness to cooperate with Government.

Let me end by reiterating the recent EUs Council conclusions on Zimbabwe that:

The EU reaffirms its availability to engage constructively with the new authorities including through a structured political dialogue with political actors across the spectrum and with civil society on the basis of a mutual commitment to shared values focused on human rights, democratic principles and the rule of law, he said.

Chief Justice Luke Malaba hailed the EU and the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) for the support saying the partnership was based on the principle of mutual respect.

The partnership has lasted for so long and achieved its objectives because it is based on the principle of mutual respect. The EU and the ICJ respect the principle that the Judiciary and the JSC are independent institutions with the right to conceive and decide on the appropriate course of action to be taken to achieve specific goals, said Chief Justice Malaba.

Our partners have not attempted to foist programmes on us. They appreciate that their role is to support us with funding and expertise to attain our objectives, he said.

In turn, we have recognised and respected their position by committing all support funds and other resources to the purposes for which they are intended. We have and will continue to ensure that there is maximum transparency and accountability in the management of such resources, he said.

Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi said Govermnent was advocating for the promotion of judicial independence. He applauded the EU for its continued support to Zimbabwe.

As Government, we are much for the independence of the judiciary. We are also behind the strengthening of the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary. We want strong institutions that allow us to deliver world-class justice, said Minister Ziyambi.

We thank the EU for the continued support and I implore you to continue working with us and supporting us, said Minister Ziyambi.

The funding will be used in the training of traditional leaders in areas such as sentencing and other legal issues to capacitate them to justly deal with cases in areas under their jurisdiction.

The EU will also assist in the establishment of the specialised anti-graft courts to deal expeditiously with corruption-related cases. Part of the funds will be channelled towards training of magistrates, judges, court interpreters, clerks, court reserchers and others.

Chiefs and headman, who preside over court cases, will also be trained on the correct procedural justice, human rights and gender. The programme will also fund lawyers who assist those who cannot afford legal practitioners.

Lawyers will be capacitated to assist the needy on electoral and constitutional matters.

 Herald

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Related Zimbabwe Latest NewsThree Tipperary secondary schools are taking part in a computer science initiative.

The Tipperary schools participating in Junior Cycle Coding in Action are:

 CBS Thurles;

 Central Technical Institute, Clonmel;

 Nenagh College.

The recent announcement by Minister for Education and Skills, Richard Bruton T.D. regarding the introduction of Computer Science as a leaving certificate subject in September 2018 see huge strides for the area of Computer Science. However, many students are already engaging in innovative learning of this type by undertaking the short course in Coding as part of their junior cycle programme, and this number looks set to rise further in the coming years.

Of these, 50 post-primary schools are currently participating in Junior Cycle Coding in Action, a collaborative initiative between Intel Ireland; Lero  the Irish Software Research Centre and Junior Cycle for Teachers (JCT), a Department of Education and Skills support service. The two-year initiative is designed to support schools and teachers in their introduction of the short course in Coding within their junior cycle programme.

As part of the two-year programme, Intel will donate 500 Genuino 101 development boards across participating schools. The boards, geared to learning environments, are powered by the Curie microchip developed by an Intel Ireland design team. This donation is supported by both online and elective training events for participating teachers, including an intensive workshop for teachers held on Sat 27th January in the Intel Ireland Campus in Leixlip, Co. Kildare.

This is the biggest involvement by post-primary schools since we began the programme of support for schools interested in including the Coding short course at Junior Cycle. 175 schools applied which reflects the growing appetite and enthusiasm in developing teacher and student skills in the vitally important area of coding, commented Clare McInerney, education and outreach manager of SFI-backed Lero.

Maeve Byrne, Public Affairs, Intel added, Computer science is present in every aspect of modern society and is creating millions of fulfilling and well rewarded jobs in Ireland and across the globe. Fundamental understanding of how computer hardware and software operate and relate to everyday life is central to a 21st century educational system. Intel is delighted to be participating in this programme and making available technology developed right here in Ireland.

Dr. Padraig Kirk, director, JCT commented, This is part of our continuing professional development (CPD) programme for post-primary school teachers and reflects JCTs commitment to supporting schools who wish to develop in this area.Students from St. Anne's inTipperary Town are celebrating an impressive triumph after winning a Gael Linn regional debating title.

The St. Anne's team pulled off a fantastic victory at the regional final of Comortas an Phiarsaigh Gael Linn 2018.

The event took place in the Firgrove Hotel, Mitchelstown on Thursday, 25 January.

Comortas an Phiarsaigh is a national debating competition organised annually by Gael Linn for second level schools nationwide, with funding from Foras na Gaeilge.

Teams from Colaiste Ide agus Iosef, Abbeyfeale, Laurel Hill Secondary School, Limerick, St. Annes Secondary School, Tipperary Town and Sacred Heart College, Carrignavar, contested the senior debate.

This time, the teams had a chance to air their views on the topical motion, Tugann na mormheain chumarsaide in Eirinn leargas cruinn ar a bhfuil ag tarlu! ( The mass media in Ireland give a true account of whats happening ! ), and unsurprisingly, there were plenty of allusions to fake news throughout!

Again, choosing the winners posed a challenge for the adjudicators, but in the end, it was the Tipperary Town talkers (Eve Ni Dhonnabhain, Ellie Ni Dhonnchu and Ciara de Burca ) who emerged victorious.

Teachers Maire Ni hAodha and Niamh Ni Riain have mentored the team through the various heats to this regional success.

Recognising the high standard of debating achieved by all the participants, Gael Linn presented awards to each speaker on the night.

St. Annes now progress to the All Ireland Final of the competition, due to take place in March.

Organiser Jamie O Tuama comments: This year marks Gael Linns 65th anniversary and we are very pleased with the level of entries in Comortas an Phiarsaigh and delighted with the high standard of debating skills shown by students. We are greatly indebted to teachers for their enthusiastic support for the debating competition.Canada assumed the chair of NATOs Military Intelligence Committee from Belgium on Wednesday 24 January 2018. A handover ceremony took place in the premises of the Joint Delegation of Canada to NATO in Brussels.

Read-Admiral Scott Bishop, Canadian Navy, will serve as Chairman. He said: Canada is truly honoured to chair the NATO Military Intelligence Committee together with the Joint Intelligence and Security Division (JISD), and our team is dedicated to the successful attainment of Alliance objectives. I want to thank Lieutenant-General Testelmans for his personal commitment to NATO Intelligence and the outstanding efforts that Belgium exerted in supporting NATO through 2017.

There is no doubt that NATO Intelligence has positively transformed following the creation of the JISD and through the leadership of General Testelmans and Assistant Secretary General Freytag von Loringhoven. As the new MIC Chair, we intend to build on the great work accomplished by Belgium, and our team at Canadian Forces Intelligence Command is prepared to build on their accomplishments and to continue the successful attainment of NATO objectives with our Co-Chair, ASG Freytag von Loringhoven, and his staff, he concluded.The NATO Deputy Secretary General, Rose Gottemoeller, will visit the Republic of Latvia on Thursday, 1 and Friday, 2 February 2018.

She will meet the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Edgars Rinkevics, the State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Andrejs Pildegovics, the State Secretary of the Ministry of Defence, Mr. Janis Garisons, and the Chairman of the Parliaments Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr. Ojars Kalnins.

The Deputy Secretary General will visit NATOs enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) battalion in Latvia at Camp Adazi with the State Secretary of the Ministry of Defence. More information on the battalion is available here: http://bit.ly/2nrN7jR

Ms. Gottemoeller will deliver a lecture on NATOs adaptation at the Riga Graduate School of Law and she will also visit the NATO Centre of Excellence on Strategic Communications.

Still and video images will be available on the NATO website (www.nato.int) after the event.From 28 to 30 January 2018, the NATO Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and Security Policy, Ambassador Alejandro Alvargonzalez, paid an official visit to Israel, in the framework of the Mediterranean Dialogue partnership.

During his visit, Ambassador Alvargonzalez met with senior civilian and military officials at the Foreign Affairs and Defence Ministries, conducting political consultations and discussing practical cooperation activities between NATO and Israel. He also exchanged views on current developments in the Mediterranean and in the Middle East within the NATO-Israel Strategic dialogue talks.

During his visit to Israel, Ambassador Alvargonzalez also met with various representatives from Israels legislative body, the Knesset, in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Israel has been a member of NATOs Mediterranean Dialogue since it was established by NATO Foreign Ministers in December 1994. Israels current Individual Partnership and Cooperation Program (IPCP) was agreed between NATO Allies and Israel a year ago, on 30 January 2017.Good afternoon.

It is really a great pleasure to welcome Special Envoy Jolie to NATO Headquarters.

Angelina, you have really a strong voice and we admire your great leadership in the fight for empowering women and the fight against sexual violence. And therefore Im also pleased that we have agreed to work together, and I really look forward to work together with you, addressing these very important issues. NATO is a military alliance providing defence against military threats.

But we are also a political alliance based on our core values: democracy, individual liberty, the rule of law, and the UN Charter. Therefore, NATO has the responsibility to be a leading protector of womens rights.We know from experience that strengthening the role of women in the armed forces is not only the right thing to do, but also the smart thing to do. NATO has a long record of fighting extremist groups, such as the Taliban and ISIS. These groups have the oppression of women at their very core.

Therefore, I welcome the progress NATO and NATO allies have made on the battlefield against extremism. We remain committed to this fight. Sexual violence is a tactic of war. Against women and girls, but also men and boys. NATO is already doing a lot to tackle this issue. But there is more we can do.

Today, Special Envoy Jolie and I have decided to work together. Focusing on three points: training; monitoring and reporting;

and awareness.

First, training. NATO expects that all our troops live up to the highest standard of professionalism and respect for others. We already have extensive pre-deployment training for soldiers and civilians operating in the field. We deploy gender advisors in our operations. For instance, in Kosovo and in Afghanistan.

In fact, you will meet some of our gender advisors later on today. You will also meet some of our top military commanders and there you can discuss how we can work together, addressing training of NATO soldiers. In addition, every day, NATO is training partner militaries around the world. We will look to strengthening existing training on combatting sexual violence.

Second, monitoring and reporting on sexual and gender-based violence in conflict. This is a core task for NATO commanders in the field. We must be faster and more systematic in our reporting. Better data will help identify patterns and trends. So that NATO can respond more quickly to prevent violence and help bring perpetrators to justice.

Third, awareness. We must shine a bright light on these darkest of crimes. Increased awareness will help put gender violence higher on the agenda, and contribute to changing behaviour. Awareness triggers action.

So thank you once again for being with us today and for being a powerful advocate for those who are the most vulnerable. Your presence helps raise awareness of what we are doing and especially of what more we must do together. I look forward to working with you to turn our words into actions.

So Angelina, please you have the floor.

Angelina Jolie (Special Envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees): Thank you very much, I am very honoured to make my first visit to NATO.

Violence against women and children, particularly sexual violence, is an increasing feature of conflict and insecurity worldwide.

Yet the use of rape as a weapon of war has been regarded inevitable feature of conflict as a lesser crime and a problem too difficult or too uncomfortable for societies to address.

This is a historic injustice and a critical issue of international peace and security.

This is rape used as a weapon to achieve military or political goals. It affects men and boys as well as women and girls. It is used as a tool of political control, terrorism and ethnic cleansing.

It is a major factor in the creation of refugee flows. Wherever it occurs, peace is far harder and far more costly to achieve. It therefore has a direct bearing on NATOs efforts to protect stability and manage crisis that affect the security of Europe and global security.

So we have talked today about NATOs potential role in helping to create greater global accountability and deterrence for crimes against women in conflict zones.

To increase the representation of women in militaries and to strengthen training and doctrine to make NATO the global leader, military leader in this area.

As the Secretary General said, we are going to focus on training, reporting, monitoring and awareness as a way of ending impunity.

But this is not only a question of protecting women, this is a question of valuing women.

As the Secretary General and I have discussed today, none of the challenges we face from civil conflicts to the global refugee crisis can be addressed without far greater attention to the needs, rights and positive contribution of women.

This has been a missing piece in so many of our efforts to prevent and resolve conflict worldwide for generations. There can be no lasting peace and security without equal rights and participation for women in all societies and those rights cannot be achieved in an environment where there is impunity for mass crimes against women and girls.

I am very impressed and encouraged by the commitments NATO has already made and the signal that that sends to other militaries around the world.

Our meetings today have been about how we can build on those commitments together and to go forward.

As the Secretary General has said, we have just met with the North Atlantic Council and Military Committee and I will be having further meetings with NATO political representatives and NATO commanders this afternoon, including Supreme Allied Commander Scaparrotti.

I am very grateful to you, to the Secretary General, for his leadership; I am very honoured that I will be working with him over the coming months and years.

We are very clear that this effort must be about practical results that make a real difference on the ground in conflict affected areas and in changing attitudes towards women globally.

So thank you for allowing me to be here and join you and thank you all.

Oana Lungescu (NATO Spokesperson): OK, we have time for a few questions, Wall Street Journal.

Question: Julian Barnes with the Wall Street Journal.

To the special envoy, the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan released a report critical of the failure of international troops to stop the abuse of boys and girls in Afghanistan. Is NATO and the Resolute Support Mission doing enough to protect children from sexual exploitation by NATO trained forces? And Secretary General I wonder if you could address the same matter? Have you requested any reviews of the training that NATO forces provide Afghan security forces or anything that you want to see NATO do to report potential abuse more effectively?

Jens Stoltenberg (NATO Secretary General): Well since we have received the first reports about this, about the abuse several years ago, we have done a lot.

First of all, we have increased awareness about the issue in general in Afghanistan.

Second, we have implemented mandatory reporting so the routines of reporting every time we have some knowledge about the potential sexual violence or abuse then it is reported and that is reported in the line of command.

And third, we have improved and strengthened training.

So training, reporting, monitoring and awareness are the three key tools which we use in many missions or in all missions on operations but especially in Afghanistan. And there are many problems, there are many challenges but I think that in Afghanistan its actually a country where we have made a lot of progress when it comes to empowering women, fighting sexual violence and also fighting abuse in the armed forces.

Let me also add that one of the countries we are  we have not decided where we are to go, but one potential, one issue we discussed during our meeting today is how we can also work on strengthening our efforts in different countries where NATO is present including Afghanistan.

Angelina Jolie: Yes, Afghanistan is a country I have been to a few times, very dear to my heart, and I have deep concern and care for the Afghan people, especially the vulnerable women and children and that is what we are doing here, many of the conversations we had were, yes this is, yes there are things that the Secretary General said that have been focused on and there has been some improvement, there is a lot more work to be done and so one of the countries we have been focusing on, possibly being one of our first to visit, is Afghanistan for these very reasons.

Oana Lungescu: Agence France Presse.

Question (AFP): Yes, Madam Jolie also Mr Stoltenberg. How do you see concrete improvements and from NATOs side and also the contributions that NATO can do in this fight against the impunity for perpetrators of sexual violence? If, at the same time, and its not a secret NATO is seen in large parts of the world as the vehicle of American imperialism and is suffering from these negative images. I mean of course in the Middle East but also in some parts of Afghanistan where civilian population has been the victim sometimes of indiscriminate  (inaudible).

Thank you.

Angelina Jolie: Yes, well I am sure you will speak to the NATO side, as a humanitarian, you know this is an interesting step for me because I have spent the last 16 years working really in the field solely as a humanitarian and I am joining NATO as a humanitarian. I am here to be working, you know I am not a military personnel but I am here to help to work on the side of where NATO does training that affects their relationship to the civilians on the ground and their accountability to the civilians on the ground and their impact.

So part of it is the investigation for myself and as I have been learning about NATO and seeing where they are doing some very good work.

Of course, also questioning where they need to improve and change and from what I have learned from the many people I have met, you know there are many, many people, many, many countries but they do understand that the, they were built to come together to share core values and to do very specific things and hold a moral standard and they have to hold themselves to that standard and I hold them to that standard, and I know the Secretary General holds them to that standard and when they fail or falter they must correct themselves and be, never be  you know whenever  always to be a part of the solution and when they are not they must correct.

Jens Stoltenberg: Well I think that partly I have already addressed the issue of how to make sure that the perpetrators are held responsible.

This is about reporting and therefore we are training our soldiers in being able to identify to detect when sexual abuse is taking place or when we see sexual violence as a tool in war.

So its about reporting, monitoring, its about training awareness but let me add two other elements. Its about more women in the armed forces and one of the issues we really are working on in many of our partner countries, for instance, in Kosovo, in Afghanistan, in Jordan and other places, is how to have more female soldiers and also more female police.

We are training them, we are empowering them and we believe that more women in the armed forces is good for the empowerment of women, but it is also good for our security and for the armed forces. And we are also working with institutions, like for instance the Red Cross. I met with the Red Cross in Geneva some months ago and we agreed that we should try to do more together on these issues.

We work with the UN and now also with Special Representative Jolie. The main reason why we work together is to be able to do something which is a big problem and by working together with her I really believe that we can step up the efforts, do more, increase awareness and then also be able to hold moral those who are responsible for these crimes accountable.

Oana Lungescu: NRK.

Question (NRK): A question for both the special envoy and the Secretary General.

The Me Too Campaign has opened a new chapter within feminism and a discussion on equality. Is there a similar tool mechanism that can be used, a hashtag that can be used to promote the rights of women in the poorer parts of the world who are living in less secure circumstances in refugee camps and in conflict areas?

Angelina Jolie: Our focus is going to be really on making sure we understand the practical changes we can make on the ground, the laws that we are focusing on changing, the education to bring education to women around the world and men. So there is not a particular hashtag; its more focused on some of the practical solutions at this time.

Jens Stoltenberg: Let me just add that we have been focused on actions, on what concrete we can do in the operations, in the field, both when it comes to NATO soldiers, but also with all the soldiers in the partner nations where we are working. And again monitoring, training, reporting, are key tools we have been focused on, and this is about protecting the most vulnerable people in armed conflicts: women, girls, but also sometimes vulnerable boys and men.

Oana Lungescu: Deutsche Welle.

Question (Deutsche Welle): What do you expect from NATO in terms, how can they contribute in your fight against sexual violence and if I may your initiative has potential to fight, to bring justice, to bring perpetrators to justice but at the same time human rights activists are saying that, for example, the response to the Rohingya crisis was quite slow. Do you expect that in combination with NATO, for example, in a more broader field that can be more effectively your work on the ground? Thank you.

Angelina Jolie: Thank you very much for your question. I am very concerned about the Rohingya. I am very angry that the response internationally has been lacking. I am very concerned about the stories of the ten year old girls who are being raped and there is a lot of discussion, there is maybe too much discussion and very, very little action and we see this is all too often the case these days.

So yes, its one of the reasons I am here. I have been working with UNHCR. I then started prevention of sexual violence initiative in the United Kingdom five years ago.

We have seen  you know we are pushing different countries. We have 157 countries now signed up and what they are expected to do if they sign up and there are very particular things; they need to do things that need to be changed, commitments made. Theres new practice on the ground, new training of peacekeepers, new training of soldiers, new training of these  all of these things because really this has to be done in a very comprehensive way - these answers for these people.

For me, I am like all of you, I am quite overwhelmed. We have 65 million people displaced in the world; we have many ongoing conflicts.

We have very, very little examples of real active diplomacy making changes or peace agreements being met that are making a difference to civilians on the ground.

Very concerned about Syria, just came back from Jordan.

Yes, I am here because I believe that when you come, especially at this time, we need those who are, who have the capacity to make change to be focused on the right things and doing the right things and there is in all of the countries within NATO and all of their outreach and all of their efforts and all of, you know on the ground, they, if they are activated and focused even further in this direction they can make a change and its a choice and I was I have been speaking to many different people, many different leaders on these issues. I cannot tell you what it meant when I first spoke to the Secretary General and found his really true commitment to this issue and to push on the other countries to do more which will then push on those in the field which will then get to the civilians into the field. But I think on their anger for example; I think we should all  you know - in many countries around the world, many crises, we should all be quite  you know - hang our heads in how little we have been able to do for them.

Question (VRT News): To the special envoy, where do you keep finding the inspiration to do what you do and in this special case on gender-based violence? And Mr Secretary General, how important is the commitment of Mrs Jolie in this?

Angelina Jolie: Well, it really is my honour. I have met with victims of sexual violence, male and female, young and old, around the world and when I meet them I wish that I could put a camera to them and I wish the world could hear their voices and they could speak for themselves. They have taught me so much about resilience and about life and so the least I can do, and really it is my honour, is to be able to be a voice on occasion for them and try to fight for them to have the support and protections that they deserve. You know, this is something I think every one of us standing here, I dont need to convince you; this fight for equality. Somebody said the other day about giving women their rights. You dont give it to them, they have it, they are born with their rights. This is something that they - every women, every girl, was born with her human rights and we must protect them and fight for them. So its a pleasure.

Jens Stoltenberg: For NATO its very important that we now are stepping up our efforts to address sexual violence in conflicts and the cooperation with Special Envoy Jolie is something we value very much because she has a lot of experience; she has a lot of knowledge. She worked with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees for many, many years so she has travelled; she has seen; she has experienced what this is about - how vulnerable people are in armed conflicts, especially women and girls. And all that experience, all that knowledge is important when NATO now is stepping up our efforts and she can also help us increase awareness, and as I said, awareness is important because by more awareness these issues are high on the political agenda and that will trigger action.

So words are important, awareness is important because thats the first step towards action.

So I am really grateful for her commitment to work together with us, and this is important for NATO but the most important thing - its important for vulnerable girls, people, refugees in armed conflicts which can get more protection and more help when NATO now is stepping up our efforts together with the Special Envoy Jolie.

Oana Lungescu: Thank you very much. This concludes this press point.UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Special Envoy Angelina Jolie visited NATO Headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday (31 January 2018). Welcoming Ms. Jolie, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg praised her strong voice and great leadership for empowering women and the fight against sexual violence. Noting that NATO is based on democracy, individual liberty, the rule of law and the UN Charter, Mr. Stoltenberg pointed to the Alliances long record of fighting extremist groups which oppress women, like the Taliban and ISIS. NATO has the responsibility to be a leading protector of womens rights, he said.

In a joint meeting of the North Atlantic Council and the Military Committee, Ms. Jolie and Allied representatives focused on NATOs efforts to prevent sexual and gender-based violence, and discussed what more the Alliance will do. Following the meeting, Secretary General Stoltenberg announced that Special Envoy Jolie and I have decided to work together, focusing on three points: training, monitoring and reporting, and awareness.

NATO has extensive pre-deployment training for soldiers and civilians in the field, and deploys gender advisers to operations. NATO will work to strengthen existing training on combatting sexual violence. Monitoring and reporting is a core task for NATO commanders, and the Alliance will work to be faster and more systematic in ways so that perpetrators can be brought to justice. Increased awareness will help put gender violence higher on the agenda and contribute to changing behaviour. Mr. Stoltenberg stressed: we must shine a bright light on these darkest of crimes.

At NATO, Special Envoy Jolie is also meeting with Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller, as well as the Alliances new Special Representative for Women, Peace and Security, Clare Hutchinson. Ms. Jolie will also meet with the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, and receive briefings from NATOs gender advisers in Afghanistan and Kosovo.

In December, Secretary General Stoltenberg and Special Envoy Jolie published a joint op-ed entitled Why NATO must defend womens rights.

(Natural News) In an ironic twist of fate, one of the most liberal universities in the country (and perhaps the world) has published a new study that openly declares women to be the most difficult people to deal with in life.

After surveying thousands of both men and woman about who they feel are the most annoying whiners, naggers, and control freaks in their lives, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley found that most of the respondents pointed to their female kin, including wives, mothers, and sisters, as being the biggest sources of relational strain.

Published in the journal American Sociological Review, the paper evaluated toxic relationships in general and how people tend to deal with them. Most of the problems seem to reside within the family, it reveals, and the most common culprits appear to be those of the fairer sex.

The studys results were compiled using data gathered from amongst 1,100 diverse respondents who described more than 12,000 of their closest relationships. For respondents between the ages of 21 and 30, sisters were named as the most problematic, followed by wives and mothers. Way down on the list were male kin, including fathers, brothers, boyfriends, roommates, and co-workers.

Amongst older people between the ages of 50 and 70, mothers and girlfriends were listed as the most difficult relationships. Just like with the younger group, male relationships were all the way down at the bottom of the list, suggesting that men are preferred to women when it comes to peoples desired relationships.

The message here is that, with female relatives, it can be a two-sided thing, study author Claude Fischer stated. They may be the people you most depend on, but also the people who nag you the most.

Men and women are different, Berkeley researchers inadvertently admit

That UC Berkeley would admit something like this, and in a scientific journal no less, is shocking  especially considering that this is the same institution of higher learning thats been in the news on multiple occasions for tolerating riots by Antifa terrorists whenever conservative speakers come to its campus.

Its also somewhat eye-opening that this leftist college is basically admitting that males are different from females as well. If the sexes were exactly the same in every way like many modern-day feminists like to claim, then such a study would have found that the most annoying people are all people  which wasnt the case.

Not only were women directly pinpointed here, but one could also make the argument that, since those polled for this study all live in the San Francisco Bay area of California, the most annoying people are actually feminist and left-leaning females  which is perhaps even more triggering for not only feminists but those of gender amorphous persuasion.

Another tidbit from the study that will probably anger the gender confused is the fact that most people seem to have relationship troubles at work, meaning their co-workers are the biggest source of stress in their lives. Combined with the fact that most people find women to be the most troublesome relationally, the implication here is that women in the workplace is a bad idea.

Overall, workplaces were hotbeds of trouble, but not of the difficult engaged kind, the studys authors point out, further suggesting that the most annoying people tend to be those with whom it is impossible to fully cut ties  including co-workers.

Whether its an alcoholic father whom you want to cut ties with, an annoying friend with whom you have a long history or an overbearing boss, relationships are complicated and in many cases unavoidable, Fischer added.

Sources for this article include:

Berkeley.edu

TruthRevolt.org

NaturalNews.com(Natural News) Its often quite shocking and downright pathetic how far liberals will go to make all of society fit neatly into their progressive vision for America. In their minds, even some of our most basic societal norms and customs must be modified or reinvented in order to make them compatible with the principles of liberalism and social justice. As it turns out, even science is not safe from the lefts quest to fundamentally transform American society.

At the University of California, Santa Cruz, students will soon be able to participate in an event titled Research 101: Tools for Feminist Science. As if the title alone wasnt enough to convince you that this is yet another ridiculous stunt being pulled by the radical left, consider the event description, which reads: Participants will be challenged to apply principles and practices of justice to their own work, interrogating questions such as: Who benefits? Who is harmed? Who is most vulnerable? And ultimately, who do we do science for, and why?

The description of the event goes on to explain that students will walk away with the skills and resources that they need to urge researchers in their communities to be more inclusive, equitable and attentive to social justice.

As you probably could have guessed, this event is not being hosted by a conservative group on campus. Rather, it is being held by a group called Free Radicals, which describes themselves as a group that is committed to bringing about political and social change by urging scientists to think through the hidden assumptions in their methodological approaches and by encouraging them to think more deeply about the political implications of their work, according to their website and reported by The College Fix.

So in other words, the goal of the Free Radicals is to convince scientists to change or modify their findings in order to comply with the values and principles of social justice. The first thing that comes to mind when we think about liberals replacing science with their own twisted ideology is the issue of gender. The social justice activists and the political left are hellbent on convincing the entire country that there are more than two genders, even though science has made it clear that biologically, human beings are either male or female. This inconvenient truth doesnt sit well with them, though, and as a result, science is discarded and ignored. (Related: There has been a huge increase in the number of young people being indoctrinated with gender identity propaganda.)

In some cases, the liberals have even gone so far as to condemn those who do believe in science, and who do believe that there are only two biological genders. Back in 2016, the Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF) argued that the belief that the only two genders that exist are male and female should be treated as genderism.

The DCF officially defined genderism as The system of belief that there are only two genders (men and women) and that gender is inherently tied to ones sex assigned at birth. It holds cisgender people as superior to transgender people, and punishes or excludes those who dont conform to societys expectations of gender. (Related: However you identify, there are only two types of brains: male and female.)

Its unfortunate, but all across the country, liberals are calling for science to be turned into social justice propaganda. Science, biology and facts all point to the fact that there are only two genders  male and female  but the liberals continue marching forward with their agenda, insisting that gender exists on a spectrum and even criticizing those who disagree with them.

Follow real science news at RealScienceNews.com.

Sources include:

PJMedia.com

TheCollegeFix.com

DailyCaller.com(Natural News) The European Southern Observatory (ESO) announced that a French-led project, known as Exoplanets in Transits and their Atmospheres (ExTrA), may help space experts better observe the night sky for signs of Earth-like planets through three new telescopes installed at the La Silla Observatory in northern Chile. According to ESO, the new telescopes were designed to monitor the night sky to detect exoplanets that revolve around a red dwarf star. Red dwarf stars were perfect for the observation as they were expected host many Earth-sized planets, the researchers explained in a Space.com article.

La Silla was selected as the home of the telescopes because of the sites excellent atmospheric conditions. The kind of light we are observing  near-infrared  is very easily absorbed by Earths atmosphere, so we required the driest and darkest conditions possible. La Silla is a perfect match to our specifications, lead researcher Xavier Bonfils stated in an ESO press release.

The scientists noted that the telescopes, which were operated remotely from Grenoble, France, already made their first successful observations. The ExTrA project was funded by the European Research Council and the French Agence National de la Recherche.

How the new telescopes work

According to the ESO press release, the ExTrA project utilized three 0.6-meter telescopes that were designed to regularly monitor the amount of light received from many red dwarf stars. The telescopes were then programmed to analyze discrepancies in brightness that could be caused by a transiting or passing exoplanet across a stars disc, which in turn may obscure some of its light. (Related: Have you heard of a GIGAPIXEL? The hunt for alien life is getting a new gigantic telescope in Chile equipped with the biggest digital camera on Earth.)

The new technology was also touted to use a novel approach that incorporated data on a stars brightness in many different colors in order to effectively compare light changes with other reference stars. The researchers noted that the telescopes will collect light from the target star and four comparison stars, which will then be fed through optical fibers into a multi-object spectrograph. This method would significantly increase the datas precision as it would minimize the disruptive effects of Earths atmosphere, as well as effects induced by instruments and detectors, the experts added.

With the next generation of telescopes, such as ESOs Extremely Large Telescope, we may be able to study the atmospheres of exoplanets found by ExTra to try to assess the viability of these worlds to support life as we know it. The study of exoplanets is bringing what was once science fiction into the world of science fact, Bonfils added.

With ExTrA, we can also address some fundamental questions about planets in our galaxy. We hope to explore how common these planets are, the behaviour of multi-planet systems, and the sorts of environments that lead to their formation, team member Jose-Manuel Almenara noted.

Log on to Space.news and be updated with the latest developments in space science and related technology.

Sources include:

Space.com

ESO.org(Natural News) According to a recent study, bicarbonate of soda (also known as baking soda,) helps women avoid Caesarean-sections. The findings of the study, which were published in The Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine, revealed that baking soda dissolved in water can help at least 17 to 20 percent of women to give birth naturally if they are experiencing delivery complications. Women who are having slow or difficult labors were able to give birth and the infants were unharmed during the procedure.

In an episode of BBCs Today, Professor Susan Wray, study author from the University of Liverpool, reveals that baking soda can help neutralize acid in the uterus. This then helps women give birth naturally. The baking soda used in the study is the standard kind that can easily be bought in grocery stores.

In the U.K., at least one out of four births are done via C-section. While the procedure is usually a safe one, it can sometimes cause blood clots, excessive bleeding, and womb infections among women.

The researchers from the university, who collaborated with scientists from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, looked into the condition of 200 participants who had difficult or slow labor.

Some of the women who were observed in the study drank water with baking soda. After an hour, the participants received oxytocin, a hormone that is given to women to help induce labor. Oxytocin can make the uterus contract. Meanwhile, the women who didnt ingest baking soda mixed with water were given oxytocin right away.

The scientists posit that drinking water and baking soda is a simple, cost-effective way to help women give birth naturally no matter where they are in the world. (Related: Acupuncture reduces medical interventions used in labor and delivery!)

Professor Wray shares that baking soda can be bought as an antacid. She concluded, Its really low rent. You can buy it if you feel a little bit hungover, heaven forbid, or if you feel youve got indigestion.

How to avoid a C-section

Childbirth is already a nerve-wracking experience for first-time moms, and you dont need to add any worries about a C-section into the mix. Here are some tips to help you avoid this procedure:

Stay in shape during the pregnancy  Ensuring that your body is in good shape when youre pregnant can increase your chances of giving birth naturally. Since birth is often a complex process, following a healthy diet and staying away from processed foods significantly lowers your chances of being overweight, having high blood pressure, and being diagnosed with diabetes. These three conditions all increase your risk for cesarean section.

 Ensuring that your body is in good shape when youre pregnant can increase your chances of giving birth naturally. Since birth is often a complex process, following a healthy diet and staying away from processed foods significantly lowers your chances of being overweight, having high blood pressure, and being diagnosed with diabetes. These three conditions all increase your risk for cesarean section. Familiarize yourself with the birth process  If you know what to expect, you can minimize any anxiety you may feel and you can give birth in a calm state of mind. If you and your partner know what to expect, you wont show up at the hospital too early. Doing so can increase the chance of having some sort of intervention, which can also increase the risk of having a C-section.

 If you know what to expect, you can minimize any anxiety you may feel and you can give birth in a calm state of mind. If you and your partner know what to expect, you wont show up at the hospital too early. Doing so can increase the chance of having some sort of intervention, which can also increase the risk of having a C-section. Do not induce labor  Take note that according to studies, this allegedly safe practice can more than double your risk of cesarean section.

 Take note that according to studies, this allegedly safe practice can more than double your risk of cesarean section. Consider having a doula as your support person  A doula, or a woman who has received training to assist another woman while she is giving birth, is often associated with shorter labors, less need for pain medication, increased breastfeeding rates, and less vacuum-assisted births. With the support of a doula, you can stay home longer once labor starts.

You can read more articles about infant health and pregnancy news at WomensHealth.news.

Sources include:

DailyMail.co.uk

SavoryLotus.com(Natural News) In a recent interview with Natural News founder Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, Idaho congressional candidate Michael Snyder, founder of The Economic Collapse Blog, among other sites, talked about why he believes now is the time to run for Congress: The countrys freedom, liberty, security, and future is literally on the line.

Once upon a time, Snyder was a D.C. lawyer, so knows all about the swamp that President Donald J. Trump, whose unexpected victory served as Snyders motivation to run, wants to drain.

But he escaped that life, moving with his wife, Meranda, to Idaho six years ago where his focus became advocating for freedom and liberty via the written word. After rising to the top of the so-called alternative media, Snyder has now decided to take his advocacy to the next level.

This is a decision that isnt without risk, however  literally. During the interview, Adams and Snyder discussed the recent rise in vicious intolerance by Alt-Left supporters of the Democratic Party, including the domestic terrorists of Antifa and the violent sheep-like followers of socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders.

In particular, Adams asked Snyder his thoughts about the attempted assassination last year of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., by a Sanders supporter who wanted to kill as many Republicans as possible while they practiced softball in the early morning hours last summer.

Democrats and their supporters, Adams correctly note, either condone or act to carry out violence against Trump and his Republican and conservative backers.

My wife and I have talked about the Scalise shooting and the increase in violence, Snyder told Adams, which also includes a recent physical attack against Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., by a neighbor who broke Pauls ribs, severely injuring him.

This is the environment were living in today, Snyder noted. Were so divided as a nation, theres so much anger, particularly on the Left where, you know, you have like, Antifa, where they openly embrace violence.

In this type of environment, you know, we believe that the Lord is leading us in that direction, he continued, meaning his run for Congress, and that Hell protect us for what He wants us to do. But we realize the danger and were always aware of that when we travel, were prepared, and were armed, lets just say, to deal with whatever we need to deal with.

Snyder then invoked the Founding Fathers, each of whom literally put their lives and, for some, their fortunes, on the line to break away from England so they could create the freest, most unique form of government at the time.

And because they did, the United States of America exists today, Snyder said. Weve got to have that same kind of passion.

Snyder told Adams something that many Americans feel today  that our country is at a crossroads, and we could go down the path of pro-growth freedom and liberty, or down the path of anti-growth socialism and authoritarianism.

We could lose America in this generation if we dont fight to keep it, the Idaho Republican said.

He said the Trump presidency has given Americans concerned with losing their country a narrow window to take it back  an assessment that Adams said he agreed with  which is another reason why Snyder said he was inspired to run for Congress now rather than later.

Adams said Americans are nearly already at the point of having lost the country, given all of the socialist/Marxist operatives within unaccountable bureaucracies, the Deep State, the mainstream media, pop culture and academia.

Snyder agrees with that, noting that Trumps victory provides Americans with an opportunity to take back control over the government and return it to the people.

Check out his campaign website for more information, where you can also donate: www.MichaelSnyderForCongress.com.

Watch the full interview here and visit Conservative.news for more news coverage.

J.D. Heyes is editor of The National Sentinel and a senior writer for Natural News and News Target.

Sources include:

TheNationalSentinel.com

NaturalNews.comSan Joses Happy Hollow Park and Zoo is mourning the loss of four miniature horses and a Sicilian donkey after they were mauled to death by three dogs who sneaked into their pen on two different nights earlier this month.

The first victim was miniature horse Sweet William, who was killed on Jan. 15.

"We had multiple agencies come out and do a thorough investigation, and we were able to see on video there that there were dogs that had gone into the park," said Zoo Director Valerie Riegel.

Surveillance video showed three dogs crawling into the park by squeezing under a back gate. The zoo added patrols and moved the horses to a much taller fence, but five days later, the dogs returned, killing the remaining three miniature horses and a donkey.

"It's so sad to hear," Santa Clara resident Coral Soto said. "Especially because my kids love the petting zoo."

San Joses Animal Care and Services division is conducting a complete investigation.

One shepherd mix dog was captured on the scene, a second shepherd mix one is now in Animal Care and Services custody and a third dog, a Chihuahua terrier mix, is still at large but is not considered a threat.

Director of Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services, Angel Rios Jr. said an increase in surveillance and fence line monitoring has been implemented and Animal Services officers will continue to patrol the area while a permanent solution is reached.

"Zookeeprs and zoo staff do everything they can to provide the utmost care for every animal," Rios said in a statement. "Two of the miniature horses, as well as the donkey, were born at the zoo, and the passing of these animals is an incredible loss to the HHPZ family and community."

The park remains open to the public as there is no public safety risk.Police arrested an elementary school teacher in San Francisco on Tuesday after he was allegedly seen cradling and holding a student over a balcony on the second floor of the school on Dec. 19.

Andres Tobar, 47, turned himself into SFPD after an investigation conducted by the Special Victims Unit led to his arrest on suspicion of child abuse.

Tobar was booked into San Francisco County Jail for felony child endangerment and abuse.

An employee of the San Francisco Unified School District, Tobar was initially placed on paid administrative leave following the incident in December.

Although an arrest has been made, San Francisco police encourage anyone with additional information to contact the SFPD anonymous tip line at (415) 575-4444.For the first time in about 150 years, the moon treated Bay Area stargazers to quite the rare and celestial show.

A blue moon, supermoon and total lunar eclipse, all bundled together as one, illuminated the pre-dawn sky for roughly three hours Wednesday morning.

[BAY ML BW]Rare Super Blue Blood Moon Delights Bay Area Stargazers

The phenomenon known as a super blue blood moon hasn't happened since 1982, and it's the first time since 1866 that people in the United States have actually been able to catch a glimpse of the lunar trifecta. The next super blue blood moon won't happen again until 2037.

A blue moon is the second full moon in a month. A supermoon is a particularly close full or new moon, appearing somewhat brighter and bigger. A total lunar eclipse  or blood moon for its reddish tinge  has the moon completely bathed in Earth's shadow.

Bernie Sanders was projected to win the Democratic primary in Oregon on Tuesday, while front-runner Hillary Clinton was the apparent winner of an extremely close race in Kentucky, NBC News reported. Clinton was hoping a strong showing Tuesday would blunt Sanders' momentum ahead of a likely general election matchup against Republican Donald Trump. Trump, the only Republican candidate in the race, picked up another state on Tuesday by winning Oregon.

The eclipse was visible best in the western half of the U.S. and Canada before the moon set Wednesday morning. The total lunar eclipse started to take shape at 3:48 a.m. before the full eclipse kicked in between 4:51 a.m. and 6:07 a.m. The partial eclipse came to an end at 7:11 a.m.

Aside from simply stepping out of one's home, finding the nearest rooftop or climbing to the nearest hilltop, people across the Bay Area were allowed to visit a few locations that opened early to witness the rare display.

Rise and shine, Bay Area. The moon is putting on quite the show Wednesday morning. Sharon Katsuda reports.

Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland opened up its observatory deck at 3 a.m. for viewing. Those interested in attending were encouraged to bring a pair of binoculars, warm clothes and a blanket or two.

Right down the hill, another viewing party took place at the USS Hornet Sea, Air and Space Museum stationed in Alameda. Visitors 6 years old and above were allowed to spend the night aboard the ship and wake up hours later to take in the lunar trifecta.

NBC Bay Areas Scott Budman tracks the super blue blood moon from the South Bay.

Folks near Los Altos Hills paid a visit to Foothill College Observatory where a viewing event was scheduled between 4 a.m. to 6 a.m.

The Stanford University Astronomical Society hosted a viewing from Lake Lagunita by the bonfire pit with hot beverages and snacks from 5 a.m. to 6 a.m.

For those who couldn't make it outside or find a clear viewing area, NASA provided a live stream of the moon from telescopes in California and Arizona.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

NBC25

DPDRep. Trey Gowdy, who led an investigation into the attack on Americans in Benghazi, Libya, that inadvertently revealed Hillary Clinton's private email server, announced on Twitter Wednesday that he was leaving Congress at the end of his term to return to the justice system.

Gowdy, a congressman from South Carolina and a former prosecutor, said in a tweet that he would not seek re-election to Congress nor to any other political or elected office; instead I will be returning to the justice system.

He said that his skills were better used in a courtroom than in Congress and that he enjoyed the justice system more than the political one.

Gowdy, chairman of the select committee on Benghazi, headed the investigation into the 2012 terrorist attack which left U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans dead at a U.S. State Department compound in Benghazi.

The final report, released in June 2016, found bureaucratic and inter-agency blunders but no evidence of wrongdoing by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But the panel did discover that Clinton had relied on a private email server while secretary of state, a controversial decision that was damaging to her 2016 campaign for president.

Democrats accused Republicans of using the inquiry, which took more than two years at a cost of an estimated $7 million, to try to hurt Clintons chances in the race.

Gowdy, as a member of the House intelligence committee, also has been part of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

NBC News noted that there is an opening on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes jurisdiction over district courts in South Carolina. An appointment to that judgeship would require a presidential nomination and Senate confirmation.

He is among at least 20 Republican incumbents who are retiring this year, adding to the anticipation of Democratic victories in November. Other Republican representatives who have announced they would not seek re-election include Darryl Issa and Ed Royce of California and Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey.

Gowdy was elected in the 2010 tea party surge that returned control of the House to Republicans.

According to his congressional biography, he was a federal prosecutor for six years, handling narcotics trafficking rings, bank robberies, child pornography cases and the murder of a federal witness.

The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, who was formerly governor of South Carolina, thanked him in a tweet, saying, "I always said that the reason @TGowdySC was amazing at his job was bc he disliked politics so much."Last year's address to a joint session of Congress was not technically a State of the Union, so Tuesday night's speech will mark President Donald Trump's first.

Members of Congress typically like to send a message with their invited guests, and while this year is no different in that regard - some of Illinois' lawmakers are choosing to make a stronger statement by skipping Tuesday's speech entirely.

Three Democrats are boycotting the State of the Union, including Reps. Jan Schakowsky, Danny Davis and Bobby Rush.

"I just could not participate in normalizing President Donald Trump," Schakowsky said of her decision.

"For a year, over a year now, Americans have been subjected to his racist and erratic and divisive comments," she added.

"This has been the most chaotic, divisive, and incompetent first year of any administration, and I will not sit and watch as Trump pretends that hes off to a successful start. Hes not," Rush added in a statement.

Davis echoed those sentiments, saying he "cannot in good conscience stand silently by and watch generations of struggle for equal rights, for civil, human and voting rights, for the rights of women, for social and economic justice be undone from the highest office in the land."

As for attending the speech, they're putting their priorities on display with who they've chosen to invite.

Sen. Dick Durbin, is bringing Cesar Montelongo, a medical PhD student at Loyola University and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient. Durbin has been at the forefront of negotiations over so-called DREAMers for years, most recently embroiled in the controversy surrounding Trump's reported use of an the word "s--tholes" to describe Haiti and African nations.

That controversy spurred Rep. Robin Kelly to invite state Sen. Kwame Raoul as her guest to the State of the Union. A candidate for Illinois attorney general, Raoul's parents are from Haiti and was highly critical of Trump's use of that expletive.

"I thought of him immediately when our president used the word s-hole, I won't say it on TV, to describe Haiti," Kelly said.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth is bringing Cairo Junior/Senior High School Principal Lisa Childs Thomas, the senator's office said in a statement. Thomas grew up in Alexander County Housing Authoritys McBride public housing complex in Cairo, which Duckworth said the Trump administration shuttered without a plan to rehouse those that will be displaced.

Like many of her colleagues, Duckworth will be wearing black in solidarity with the #TimesUp and #MeToo movements.

Those movements were likely part of the decision behind both Reps. Mike Quigley and Dan Lipinski's choices in guests - women who work with sexual assault survivors.

Lipinski is bringing clinical therapist Faith Ann Rys, an expert witness on sexual assault who specializes in treating high school and college-age survivors, while Quigley selected Erin Walton, executive director of Chicago-area not-for-profit Rape Victim Advocates.

"We need to change the culture and men have to absolutely step up," Quigley said.

In a show of bipartisan support, Democrat Brad Schneider and Republican Randy Hultgren are planning to sit together - a sign they can put party differences aside.

"He and I are going to be sitting together, but also talking together, figuring out things that we can be working on."

Schneider invited Lake County States Attorney Mike Nerheim, citing his work as an an outspoken leader in his countys efforts to directly tackle the opioid epidemic afflicting our entire nation," while U.S. Naval Academy Midshipman Alex Vandenberg of Sugar Grove will join Hultgren.

Their spirit of bipartisanship is what Trump will make an appeal for in his address, the White House said, with the president himself saying Tuesday, "Unity is what I'm striving for."Among a bevy of Democrat responses to the State of the Union address Tuesday night, one Illinois lawmaker had particularly harsh and accusatory words for President Donald Trump.

Even though I disagreed with almost everything he said, for Trump, the speech was clear and well-delivered, Rep. Luis Gutierrez said in a statement. Whoever translated it for him from Russian did a good job.

The investigation into whether or not the Trump campaign colluded with Russian operatives during the 2016 campaign has cast a shadow over the first year of his presidency. The president has vehemently denied any Russian involvement in his campaign, but it wasnt the only issue the congressman brought up.

Trump riffed on the debate over immigration, weaving stats and anecdotes throughout the address, all while boasting of economic growth and the general optimism of what he called "the new American moment."

"My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans -- to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream," Trump said. "Because Americans are dreamers too."



Gutierrez, a prominent national voice for immigrant rights, said he did not believe Congress and Trump would ever come to an agreement that would allow Dreamers--those brought to the country illegally as children--to stay in the United States.

The speech did nothing to bring the pro- and anti-immigrant sides closer together, Gutierrez said.

Gutierrez, who has been highly critical of the administrations response to Hurricane Maria, also said he had hoped for some sort of apology on Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico is a metaphor for how this President sees all Latinos and people of color: he does not see us as his equals and he does not see us as fellow human beings, Gutierrez said. If you look at how the President has treated Puerto Rico, you have to conclude that he just doesnt care and probably thinks of Puerto Rico as just another (shhole) country.

The congressman noted he grew up in a time of racial segregation and was proud to see the progress the United States has made since those days.

I was hoping to get through my life without having to witness an outwardly, explicitly racist American President, but my luck ran out, he said.

Gutierrez, who announced in November he would not seek re-election next year, wasn't the only Democrat to take issue with the speech.

These Are the 10 Races to Watch in Illinois Politics This Year

Rep. Brad Schneider, another Illinois Democrat, said in his own statement he would judge Trump not by the words in his speech Tuesday night but by the presidents actions in the future.

Schneider said he agreed with some of the issues Trump homed in on, like investing in infrastructure. He said ending family reunification, however, was something he strongly disagreed with.

In his first year in office, President Trump has also created his own crises, both through short-sighted decisions such as rescinding DACA and withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement, and through a disrespect for the responsibilities of the office he occupies, including his comments about immigrants, attacks on a free press, and bellicose handling of potential conflict with North Korea, Schneider said. I hope in the year ahead he proves more willing to put the national interest first. Where he falls short, I will continue to hold him and his Administration accountable.

Democratic Rep. Bill Foster said he was disappointed in the address, saying the president has failed to unite the country.

I am ready and willing to work with my Republican colleagues to rebuild and repair our infrastructure, grow our economy, and combat the opioid epidemic, Foster said. But I did not hear the President discuss how he would achieve these goals without burdening our children with future debt. I was also disappointed to hear the President discuss the construction of a wall on our southern border.

That money, Foster said, should be invested in education, scientific research, and an infrastructure plan.

Three other Illinois Democrats boycotted the State of the Union: Reps. Jan Schakowsky, Danny Davis and Bobby Rush. Others, like Sen. Tammy Duckworth, wore black in solidarity with the #TimesUp and #MeToo movements.A piece of the meteor that lit up the night sky in Michigan earlier this month has arrived in Chicago for study at the Field Museum.

The peach pit-sized meteorite arrived via FedEx on Wednesday, and scientists at the museums Robert A. Pritzker Center for Meteoritics and Polar Studies are already hard at work studying it.

It was probably tens of feet in diameter and it was moving pretty fast when it hit our atmosphere, and it broke apart, Dr. Philipp R. Heck said.

[[471108093, C]]

Dr. Heck believes that the meteorite came off of an asteroid that was orbiting somewhere between Mars and Jupiter. Estimates are that the meteorite is around 4.6 billion years old.

The meteorite was found two days after it fell from the sky. Meteorite hunter Robert Ward found it on a snow-covered lake near Hamburg, MI, and instead of selling it for profit, which some hunters do, he donated it to the Field Museum instead.

Scientists at the museum are now looking at the meteorite under an electron microscope, and are hoping the fragment will reveal details about our solar system.

Were looking at where it came from, how long it was in the universe, (and) what kinds of impacts it made as it tumbled through our atmosphere, Corrie Moreau, Director of Integrated Research at the Field Museum, said.Chicagos iconic Field Museum dinosaur, Sue the T-Rex, will be taken apart next week to make way for the worlds largest dinosaur ever discovered.

Officials announced that starting on Feb. 5, Sue will be dismantled and relocated from Stanley Field Hall to The Griffin Halls of Evolving Planet floor.

The new dinosaur said to take the up-and-coming spotlight in June, is a titanosaurs found in Argentina and believed to be 102 million years old.

The dinosaur is a cast made from the fossil bones of a giant, long-necked herbivore from Argentina thats part of a group of dinosaurs called titanosaurs, officials said. From snout to tail, it stretches 122 feet long, longer than two accordion CTA buses end-to-end.

The Field Museum will be offering free admission to Illinois resident throughout the entire month of February.A Florida man is facing a battery charge after authorities say he punched his girlfriend, who has no arms and no legs, because he was "tired of taking care of her."

Patrick Moan, 37, of Vero Beach, was arrested Sunday after his live-in girlfriend of two years accused him of punching her in the ear during an argument, according to an Indian River County Sheriff's Office arrest report.

According to the report, Moan said he hit her "because he was tired of taking care of her and her yelling at him." Moan took his girlfriend to Walmart, where he told a patron to call police, the report said.

"[The victim] is unable to call law enforcement due to not having the ability to call 911 due to having no arms or legs," the report noted.

The woman said Moan beats her up about twice a month when he drinks, the report said. A deputy noted in the report that the woman's face was red.

"Moan said he is tired of taking care of her and pushing her in her wheelchair everywhere," the report said. "He said he is also tired of being her primary caregiver and felt if he punched her then confessed to it he would no longer have to take care of her, and she would become the state's problem."

Moan's girlfriend was hospitalized to have her ear checked out because it was ringing, the report said. Moan was booked into jail, where he remained held on $1,000 bond Tuesday, records showed. Attorney information wasn't available.Reductions following years of budget cuts, lapses and holdbacks are all weighing on Connecticuts community colleges, and the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities president is pushing consolidation as the solution.

I believe the best approach similar to how other states have operated is that one accredited institution with 12 campuses organized on a regional basis, CSCU president Mark Ojakian said.

On Tuesday Ojakian made the case for a community college consolidation model before the Higher Education and Employment Advancement Committee, arguing this option is better than the alternative.

My fear is that closing campuses or raising tuition to close the hole we are going to be pricing students out of their education, Ojakian said.

A few members of the committee countered that this plan will actually take away something else.

How do you respond to the notion that this is taking community out of community college? One member asked.

And criticism doesnt stop there.

Show us show us your financials show us the money where is the savings and those numbers have never been revealed, said Connecticut State University American Association of University Professors President Elena Tapia.

Ojakian is promising $28 million in annual savings, but acknowledges there will be a net job loss of 200 positions.

We have a lot of fiscal issues budgetary, state funding is down we have to do something, said Lester Primus, the dean of administration at Capital Community College.

Primus is more pleased with the potential plan than the timeline.

On paper it looks like things are being addressed but again Im concerned about implementation. I just dont think we can implement something like that in a year or two, Primus said.

That timeline is not far off. Ojakian said the goal is to have a new leadership structure in place by July 1, 2019, knowing it will take years past that for a plan like this to become fully functional.

At the moment there are still more steps that need to take place. The next one is submitting a formal accreditation proposal in March.A white former Connecticut university student accused of smearing body fluids on her black roommate's belongings asked a judge Tuesday to allow her into a probation program that could erase criminal charges from her record.

Brianna Brochu, 18, a former University of Hartford student from Harwinton, applied for accelerated rehabilitation during an appearance in Hartford Superior Court. The program, generally for first-time, nonviolent defendants, allows charges to be erased upon successful completion of a probation period.

A judge set a hearing on the application for March 12.

Brochu is charged with misdemeanor criminal mischief and breach of peace.

West Hartford police say she wrote on Instagram in October about rubbing used tampons on her roommate's backpack and putting her roommate's toothbrush "where the sun doesn't shine." She also called her roommate "Jamaican Barbie," and wrote that she put moldy clam dip in her roommate's lotions and spit in her coconut oil.

Her roommate, Chennel Rowe, said she developed throat pain.

The state NAACP and other supporters of Rowe have been calling for felony hate crime charges against Brochu. Brochu's lawyer, Tom Stevens, said the roommates had a falling out and Brochu's actions were not racially motivated.

Hartford State's Attorney Gail Hardy said Tuesday that hate crime charges aren't warranted.

"We don't have evidence to support that the conduct that Brianna Brochu engaged in was committed to intimidate or harass Miss Rowe because of her perceived race or ethnicity," Hardy told The Associated Press.

State NAACP President Scot X. Esdaile said he was upset that Brochu won't face hate crime charges.

"This was blatant racism. The whole country saw it," Esdaile said.

Stevens said Brochu clearly meets the requirements to be accepted into the probation program.

"Why burden an 18-year-old with a criminal record when you have the belief that it was an isolated incident that will never happen again?" he said.A Connecticut father who garnered support from across the state during his fight to stay in the country has boarded a plane to Guatemala to comply with the terms of his deportation order, his attorney confirmed Wednesday.



His attorney confirmed that 33-year-old New Fairfield dad Joel Colindres boarded his plane just before 3 p.m. Wednesday.

Colindres' fight against the deportation order has been ongoing for months, and his history with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement goes back for years.

Why? I dont understand why. We are devastated, said his attorney, Erin ONeil-Baker.

The father of two fled Guatemala in 2004 after becoming the target of religious persecution and death threats. His attorney said that when he came to the US, he immediately went to a police department in Texas seeking help.

For the last 14 years, she said he has been filing requests for ICE to hear his asylum case. No immigration judge has heard his claims and his second deportation stay was denied last night.

Now the concern is for his family.

Im extremely worried for Mr. Colindres. Im extremely sad for the children. I am very concerned about his wife. I dont know how they move forward without him here, ONeil-Baker said.

Colindres, a carpenter married to a US citizen and a father to two young children, was given the deportation order late last month.

His attorney said hes a homeowner, pays taxes, and does not have a criminal record. In August of last year, he was spared deportation just before hopping on a plane.

Its very hard for me to understand exactly why. We are a country of immigrants. We were founded on people coming to this country, said Michael Thomas, with Connecticut Shoreline Indivisible, a resistance group that has advocated for Colindres stay.

We ask the Holy Spirit to be with them today giving them courage and let them know that they are surrounded by love and comfort from all of us, said another member, Gini King.

Lawmakers whove supported the Colindres family are also speaking out.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal said in a statement, that the deportation is recklessly destroying a family and sending Joel to a country where he faces immediate risk to his life. My heart is breaking, but I will not give up. This deportation is a betrayal of American valuesan immoral decision that history will judge in the harshest of lights.

Congresswoman, Elizabeth Esty said in part, Our federal governments resources should not be used to tear good people like Joel from their families. She further stated, Connecticut stands with you. We stand with you, we embrace you, and we will continue to help you in every way we can.

The Colindres family chose not to comment today.

After multiple attempts to reach out to ICE Wednesday, NBC Connecticut has yet to hear back. An ICE spokesperson released the following statement on Colindres case earlier this month:

Joel Colinders-Guerra, an illegally present citizen of Guatemala, was issued a final order of removal by a federal immigration judge in 2004. Since then he has sought relief from removal via several court actions and has been denied each. He remains subject to a final order of removal. For operational security reasons, the agency does not discuss specific removal arrangements prior to an individuals successful repatriation, ICE officials said in a statement.Guilford police have arrested a man accused of stealing a distinct part from several cars.

Somebody who knows what theyre doing, 30 seconds theyve got that catalytic converter, Deputy Chief Butch Hyatt said of the part of the exhaust system that reduces carbon emissions and noise.

There have been a couple dozen recent cases of catalytic converters being stolen from cars parked at commuter and train lots along the shoreline, Hyatt told NBC Connecticut. The thieves, he said, stand to make a few hundred bucks from a scrap dealer.

It costs other than the inconvenience to the victims that are out there with the cars, Hyatt said, Were talking a thousand to $2,000 to replace those catalytic converters on those cars.

The thieves tend to target bigger cars, police said, like the SUV Kevin Crosby from Thomaston drives.

I can crawl under there no problem, Crosby said.

While working on a job in Guilford, Crosby parks his car at commuter lot near I-95.

Ive seen the cars on cinderblocks with tires gone, he told NBC Connecticut, Ive never heard of the catalytic converter getting ripped off.

Late Monday morning, Guilford Police arrested 29-year-old Jeremy Ghiroli of Branford. They say they caught him at the commuter lot trying to hide four catalytic converters in his car.

Two of the four have been returned to their owners who had parked their cars at the Madison train station, police said.

Id like to say that we probably put a good dent in the ones that were happening on the shoreline now with this arrest, Hyatt said. We think that (Ghirolis) involved in dozens and dozens of those up and down the shoreline but theres always somebody else out there.

Police want people parking shoreline commuter and train lots to remain vigilant.

If I saw some random guy crawl under a car thats the first thing Ill do is call the police, Crosby said.

If youve had a catalytic converter stolen from your car, police would like to hear from you.

Ghiroli is charged with sixth degree larceny in Guilford and criminal mischief in Madison. He was released on a promise to appear in court next month after his arraignment Tuesday in New Haven.Snow falling early Friday morning has caused some slippery conditions on roads across Connecticut.

Winter Weather Advisories are in effect for Windham and Tolland counties, but the snow is falling through most of the state.

Conditions have led to dozens of school closings and delays. See the full list here.

Some areas in northern Connecticut reported 5 inches of snow before daybreak. Most areas should expect 2-3 inches before the snow ends around 7 a.m.

We're also watching a more significant system for Super Bowl Sunday. Some of our computer models cut the storm to our west, which would result in a brief period of snow before transitioning over to rain statewide.

We're keeping a close eye on this system. If the storm trends east it would result in more of a wintry forecast.The radio DJ who groped music superstar Taylor Swift has a new job at a Mississippi radio station, a decision that the head of the station said has resulted in a "vile" reaction from Swift's fans, including a death threat and a bomb threat to the station.



David Mueller started at KIX-92.7 on Monday, Delta Radio CEO Larry Fuss told NBC. Mueller, who uses the last name "Jackson" on air, is now a host of "Jackson and Jonbob."

Fuss said there hasn't been any local blowback to hiring the man whom a federal jury determined had assaulted and battered Swift by grabbing her under her skirt as they posed for a photo. The case generated nationwide interest, with Swift seeking a symbolic $1 in damages, but Mueller still denies it.

Fuss added that "the blowback from Taylor Swift fans worldwide though has been overwhelming and most of it is vile, vicious, venomous and profanity-laden, which really disappoints me."

The response included a death threat and a bomb threat, Fuss said in a call early Wednesday morning, adding that they were being reported to authorities.

The bomb threat was reported to the Greenwood, Mississippi, police about 9 a.m. CT Wednesday, and a subsequent check of the radio station turned up no threat, Chief Ray Moore said. He noted the incident is "under investigation because we take these very seriously in today's climate."



Officers saw the email with the threat, Moore said.

An FBI spokesman said in an email the bureau is "aware of the incident in Greenwood, and we are in contact with state and local authorities."

Fuss said, "I can't imagine Taylor Swift condoning her fans acting like this. It's rather juvenile and irresponsible."

A representative for Swift didn't respond to a request for comment.

Mueller's hiring comes as the #MeToo movement draws attention to sexual assault and harassment.

The New York Daily News first spoke to Fuss about hiring Mueller, reporting that he believed Mueller's version of the story. Fuss said Mueller sounds good on air, but allowed that his decision also was "maybe a tiny bit" about publicity.

Asked about believing Mueller's side of the story over Swift's, Fuss told NBC, "I never sat down with her face to face" and that Mueller's "story is very compelling."

He said he believes Swift's story has inconsistencies, and when asked why a jury would side with her, said "they could have been star struck."



Fuss added, "This is not a referendum on sexual abuse or sexual assault. This is me, a small radio show station, giving a talented radio guy a second chance."

A phone number listed for Mueller on the Delta Radio network's website did not connect.

It all started for Anita Butler on a vacation to Jamaica.

"He was the DJ, the resort DJ, and we just started spending time together and talking and we kinda clicked," said Butler.

She and her new beau Elvis stayed connected after that trip, fell in love, and eventually tied the knot.

They began the lengthy process of Elvis becoming an American Citizen.

"You pretty much have to have a degree to figure out the instructions of their paperwork," said Butler.

She filled out everything, went to the post office and purchased more then $1,200 in money orders for the fees. She says she put it all in one envelope and sent to Immigration.

They got the paperwork, but somewhere along the way, the money orders were lost.

"I had faith the government was going to give me money back," said Butler.

She started calling and visiting the post office. Workers told her they mailed replacements, but she never got them.

Weeks turned into months, and Elvis' timeline to get paperwork was running out so she called NBC 5 Responds.

"As soon as y'all contacted the post office, it was almost immediately I received my money order," said Butler.

The post office reprinted the money order and stayed open after hours so Anita could get there after work and pick up the replacement money orders.

"In fact I had an audience, because they wanted to know who was the lady so persistent in getting her money back," said Butler.

The post office is looking into exactly why the process to get replacement money orders took so long for Anita.

They did give us a statement.

"We became aware of the issue and took immediate steps to quickly resolve the customer concerns. In this specific case, local management has communicated with the customer to offer an apology and resolved the money order claim. We apologize for any inconvenience the customer may have experienced."

Replacing lost money orders and checks can be a complicated process, make sure you keep all your receipts, case numbers, and paperwork and ask for someone higher up to help.

If that doesn't work, contact NBC 5 Responds by clicking here.Soaring stock prices under President Donald Trump have boosted investor portfolios and corporate profits but have not eased the economic anxieties of middle-class families, Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy III said Tuesday night in the Democratic response to Trump's first State of the Union address.

In calling on Americans to reject the "chaos" of the Trump era, Kennedy also outlined a Democratic vision that promises a "better deal for all who call this country home."

Democrats support a higher minimum wage, paid leave for employees and affordable child care, among other priorities, Kennedy said.

"We choose pensions that are solvent, trade pacts that are fair, roads and bridges that won't rust away, and good education you can afford," he said in a speech from a vocational high school in Fall River, Massachusetts, a onetime manufacturing hub now struggling with high unemployment and other problems.

Kennedy, 37, a three-term congressman and grandson of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, has argued that Democrats should focus on the economic concerns of working-class voters who bolted the party in the 2016 elections.

Fall River, home to many blue-collar workers, "has faced its share of storms," Kennedy said. "But people here are tough. They fight for each other. They pull for their city."

In an apparent reference to Trump, Kennedy said that "bullies may land a punch" and leave a mark but that they have "never managed to match the strength and spirit of a people united in defense of their future."

In a hard-hitting speech for a political newcomer, Kennedy decried a rollback of civil rights protections, noting proposals that target Muslims, transgender people and others.

The Trump administration "isn't just targeting the laws that protect us  they are targeting the very idea that we are all worthy of protection," Kennedy said.

Trump's record is "a rebuke of our highest American ideal: the belief that we are all worthy, we are all equal and we all count  in the eyes of our law and our leaders, our God and our government," Kennedy said.

The red-haired Kennedy was elected to the House in 2012, returning the family to Congress two years after the retirement of Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy, the son of Joe Kennedy III's great-uncle Ted.

Known mostly for his famous last name, Kennedy's selection has been criticized by some as tone-deaf at a time when sexual harassment of women and the Black Lives Matter movement are at the forefront of American politics. Speaking without a suit coat in front of a rebuilt car and an enthusiastic audience, Kennedy tried to defuse that Tuesday by citing the #MeToo movement and declaring, "Black lives matter."

In a nod to "Dreamers," the 700,000 young immigrants brought here as children and now here illegally, Kennedy spoke in Spanish as he said Dreamers are a part of America's story and promised that Democrats will not walk away from them.

Kennedy said Trump and his administration were breaking a core promise of America  that everyone will be treated equally under the law. He accused the administration of "callously" appraising Americans' worth and deciding "who makes the cut and who can be bargained away."

Under the leadership of Trump and congressional Republicans, Americans are "bombarded with one false choice after another," Kennedy said. "Coal miners or single moms. Rural communities or inner cities. The coast or the heartland."

Democrats "choose both," Kennedy said.

A former Peace Corps volunteer, Kennedy was an assistant district attorney in two Massachusetts districts before being elected to Congress. He has focused on economic and social justice in Congress and has advocated on behalf of vocational schools and community colleges and championed issues such as transgender rights and marriage equality.

To illustrate that message, Kennedy invited U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Patricia King, a transgender woman, as his guest to the State of the Union. King, an infantry squad leader at Fort Lewis, Washington, was the first person to have gender reassignment surgery paid for by the military.

Kennedy's speech was one of several Democratic responses. Elizabeth Guzman, one of the first Latinas elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, delivered a Spanish-language response, while former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders spoke on Facebook Live and Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., spoke on BET.The Pentagon has ordered an independent federal auditor to stop providing the public with key information about U.S. war efforts in Afghanistan, accelerating a clampdown on data, such as the size of the Afghan military and police forces, that indicate how the 16-year-old stalemated war is going.

The crackdown on information comes just months after President Donald Trump announced a new Afghanistan strategy aimed at breaking a battlefield stalemate by accelerating Afghan-led operations against the Taliban and other insurgent groups in the country. Trump on Monday railed against the recent string of attacks in Afghanistan, and ruled out any U.S. discussions with the Taliban as part of the effort to seek peace talks between the Afghan government and the insurgents.

The auditing agency, established by Congress and known as the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, revealed the new gag order in its latest three-month assessment of conditions in Afghanistan. The restrictions fly in the face of Pentagon assertions over the past year that it was striving to be more transparent about the U.S. war campaigns across Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.

Over the years, the SIGAR auditing effort has revealed many dubious practices by the U.S., including instances of contractor fraud. Since January 2016 it had published data on the number of governing districts controlled by Kabul, the number controlled by the Taliban, and the number that are contested.

John F. Sopko, head of the auditing organization, expressed disappointment that the Pentagon had forbidden release of the data on relative control of the governing districts.

"This development is troubling for a number of reasons, not least of which is that this is the first time SIGAR has been specifically instructed not to release information marked 'unclassified' to the American taxpayer," Sopko wrote.

"Aside from that, the number of districts controlled or influenced by the Afghan government had been one of the last remaining publicly available indicators for members of Congress  many of whose staff do not have access to the classified annexes to SIGAR reports_and for the American public of how the 16-year-long U.S. effort to secure Afghanistan is faring," he added.

In response, the Pentagon said the U.S.-led coalition of NATO and allied nations in Afghanistan made the decision to restrict the public release of the information.

The Defense Department told SIGAR this month that it doesn't "have the authority to overrule the classification determination made by NATO Resolute Support," said Lt. Col. Michael Andrews. He said that similar information was included in the department's December 2017 semi-annual report to Congress, and the Pentagon encouraged SIGAR to use that data.

The Defense Department report said the Afghan government has control or influence over 60 percent of the population, while insurgents had control or influence over approximately 10 percent of the population, with the remainder contested.

In November, Gen. John Nicholson described the Afghan government control during remarks to reporters at the Pentagon. He said it remained "roughly the same" as in 2016. "About 64 percent of the population is controlled by the government, about 24 percent live in contested areas, and the Taliban control the remaining 12 percent," he said. He did not reveal the number of districts held by each side.

Sopko wrote that historically, the number of districts controlled or influenced by the government has been falling since his office began reporting on it, while the number controlled or influenced by the insurgents has been rising  "a fact that should cause even more concern about its disappearance from public disclosure and discussion."

The war effort has sometimes faded from U.S. public attention, even though the U.S. has invested about $120 billion in reconstructing Afghanistan since 2002.

Sopko said in his report that the Pentagon also classified or otherwise restricted information that his organization had previously reported publicly, including such "fundamental metrics" of the Afghan military and police performance as Afghan casualty figures and most measurements of the battlefield capabilities of the Afghans military.Several members of Texas' Republican congressional delegation were on board a train that collided with a truck, killing the driver, Wednesday in Virginia.

The lawmakers were on their way to a Republican policy retreat when the crash happened just south of Charlottesville.

U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Denton, describes the collision involving a train carrying many Republican members of Congress and a garbage truck.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders later said there were no serious injuries among members of Congress or their staff members.

U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Denton, described the moment of impact for those on board.

"I didn't know what was happening. But, yes, there was no mistaking that something bad had happened, and in the age that we live in, with a train full of congressmen, the first thing you think of was this was something that was done. But it appears to be a very, very unfortunate accident, and there is nothing more to it than that from a standpoint of someone trying to damage the train or damage members of Congress," Burgess said.

The fatality and critical injury involved people in the truck, and further information on their identities has not been released.

Burgess, a medical doctor, was among the lawmakers who assisted the victims after the crash, according to his spokeswoman, Emma Thomson.

"Following the accident, he [Burgess] helped to administer aid to victims - like he does during any emergency. We hope to share more info soon," Thomson said, according to a tweet from Burgess' account.

Statement from Dr. Burgess Spokesperson Emma Thomson: I have spoken to Dr. Burgess and thankfully he was not injured in the train accident. Following the accident, he helped to administer aid to victims - like he does during any emergency. We hope to share more info soon."  Michael Burgess, MD (@michaelcburgess) January 31, 2018

Minnesota Rep. Jason Lewis was taken to a hospital for a reported concussion.

Other Texas representatives, including Sen. Ted Cruz, sent tweets following the crash saying that they were OK and were praying for the victims.

Thanks to all who have showed concern, I am just fine. Please keep in your prayers any others involved in the collision who have been injured.  Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) January 31, 2018

Karen, my staff members, and I are all on the train to the GOP conference and we are all safe.  Pete Sessions (@PeteSessions) January 31, 2018

Thank you to everyone who has reached out about the accident with the train carrying members to the GOP Retreat. I am safe. First responders are on the scene.  John Ratcliffe (@RepRatcliffe) January 31, 2018

Roxanne and I were on the train, but are okay. Please pray for those injured in the truck that was on the tracks. They need it.  Brian Babin (@RepBrianBabin) January 31, 2018

The train to the GOP Retreat in West Virginia has hit a truck that was trying to cross tracks. Gina and I are okay. More news later.  U.S. Representative Bill Flores (@RepBillFlores) January 31, 2018

Hope no one was seriously injured in today's train crash. Prayers for all involved. Debbie and I were not on the train, we are driving.  Blake Farenthold (@farenthold) January 31, 2018

I used other transportation and was not on the train. Praying for the passengers of the truck that were involved and their families. https://t.co/eKQojl7ptS  Kenny Marchant (@RepKenMarchant) January 31, 2018Lawmakers approved an official audit of California's high-speed rail project Tuesday with the goal of understanding whether the ambitious infrastructure plan can be completed on time and without more dramatic cost increases.

"What we are all trying to do is to get past all of the noise, to get past all of the politics, to get down into a thorough audit that is going to give us a very good heads up as to what is coming and what has happened," said Republican Assemblyman Jim Patterson of Fresno.

Patterson requested the audit alongside Democratic Sen. Jim Beall of San Jose. The bullet train is projected to first connect the Central Valley to Silicon Valley before eventually going down to Los Angeles. It's been plagued by delays and cost overruns, with the California High-Speed Rail Authority recently announcing a $3 billion jump in costs in the Central Valley alone.

State auditor Elaine Howle said her evaluation would take six to nine months.

Republicans on the committee offered a more critical take of the project and whether it can realistically be up and running without needing state subsidies to operate. As Democrats backed the audit, they highlighted the project's benefits including the roughly 1,500 construction jobs it's created in the Central Valley.

"I look forward to the rest of the state realizing the benefits that are happening in my community," said Democratic Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula, who represents part of Fresno.

Dan Richard, chairman of the California High-Speed Rail Authority's board of directors, said he welcomes the transparency the audit will bring and that the authority will implement its recommendations.

"It's critical that the public maintain their confidence in our ability to do this," he said. "I think the public confidence will be sustained if they know, well, you've done some things well, but these things need to be improved and you're doing that."

Voters approved $10 billion in bonds to help finance a train that can take people from Los Angeles to San Francisco in less than three hours in 2008. Then, the project was estimated to cost about $40 billion. Now, the costs are upward of $65 billion. The timeline of the project has changed too, with the authority switching and building north first instead of south in 2016.

A new business plan is due to lawmakers this spring. It is likely to offer updated costs and a new timeline, as well as an evaluation of whether the operating costs of the train can be paid for without state subsidies.

The lawmakers' audit request comes as the authority brings on a new chief executive officer, Brian Kelly, most recently the head of California's state transportation agency. The lawmakers said an audit would help ensure "effective management" of the project.

Beyond looking at the cost and the timeline, Howle, the auditor, will evaluate the economic benefits of the project to communities where it is being built and whether the train will meet its sustainability goals to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The auditing team will also examine the authority's process for approving changes to contracts. The board has updated contracts on numerous occasions, often adding more money due to delays from lawsuits or trouble gaining rights of way or environmental approvals.

Some Republican lawmakers said they wanted to see the audit's scope go even further.

"Every red flag that you could raise about a public works project is raised with high-speed rail," said Republican Assemblywoman Catharine Baker of Dublin.

Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown has defended the project in his State of the State address.Three people killed in the crash of a helicopter in a Newport Beach neighborhood were identified Wednesday while federal investigators continued what will be a months-long effort to determine what caused the aircraft to come down.

The people who died were identified as Brian R. Reichelt, 56, of Hollywood, Florida; Joseph Anthony Tena, 60, of Newport Beach; and Kimberly Lynne Watzman, 45, of Santa Monica. Watzman worked as the general manager of The Standard hotel in West Hollywood.

Reichelt worked for The Standard in Miami as a regional finance director "It was an honor to be her brother for my 40 years," Watzman's brother, Ryan, said. "... I plan on doing my best to honor her and find out what happened."

Ryan Watzman said his sister dropped off her dog, Harley, at their parents' house in Marina del Rey Tuesday morning, telling them she was taking a day trip to Catalina Island.

Amar Lalvani, CEO of Standard International, issued a statement saying, "We are heartbroken by the tragic loss of our friends. Our focus now is on supporting their loved ones and our team during this difficult time."

National Transportation Safety Board investigator Joshua Cawthra told reporters Wednesday morning that all three people who died were aboard the Robinson R44 helicopter that crashed about 1:45 p.m. Tuesday near Shearwater Place and Egret Court. A fourth person aboard the helicopter was seriously injured, while a bystander on the ground was also injured.

Cawthra said the helicopter pilot was killed, along with two passengers. He said there was no known distress call from the pilot prior to the crash. The helicopter was apparently being flown from John Wayne Airport to Catalina Island. An official from Orange County Global Medical Center said one patient from the crash was listed in critical condition at the hospital. Witnesses described a plume of smoke as the helicopter plunged to the ground.

It appeared to clip the tile roof of one home, then skid along the ground through the residential intersection before smashing into a side wall of another home. The helicopter pushed in a master bedroom wall, and its tail section ended up in a side yard. A woman who lives nearby said it "sounded like a train coming through."

She got to the scene and said she "saw one man out, I'm not sure if he fell out, and there was body parts ..." She said she put her hand on the wreckage and prayed for the victims. The woman said the residents of the house that was struck were at home, but they were in another part of the residence and were unharmed. The helicopter is owned by Spitzer Helicopter LLC of Canyon Lake in Riverside County.

The company's Eric Spitzer said he leased the 2003-model helicopter to John Wayne Airport-based Revolution Aviation. According to the company's website, Revolution Aviation has been operating since the 1960s, offering pilot-training and sightseeing trips.

The website boasts a 100 percent safety record.

"Although we anticipate that the NTSB's investigatory work at the crash scene will take several days to compete, residents of the neighborhood are able to access their homes," according to Newport Beach police.

What to Know Louis Blanco turned himself in Tuesday to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with his lawyer saying he will likely be transferred to Miami

Blanco entered the country one time and was deported before re-entering in 1998 illegally.

Since then, he married and has worked to help raise his five daughters and one son  with another child on the way.

A man who has been living in the Tampa area after entering the United States from Mexico twice as an undocumented immigrant could find himself behind bars before being deported again  leaving behind a pregnant wife and six kids.

Louis Blanco turned himself in Tuesday to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to NBC affiliate WFLA-TV, with his lawyer said he will likely be transferred to a detention center in Miami as officials determine their next course of action.

"It seems like their mind was made up before we even walked into the door," said attorney Daniela Hogue.

Blanco entered the country one time and was deported before re-entering in 1998 illegally. Since then, he married and has been a construction worker to help raise his five daughters and one son  with another child on the way.

His family said Blanco knew this day was coming after his latest appeal to stay was denied.

"It was pretty heartbreaking because I know my dad, you know, he just wants the best for us and seeing him have to go into this detention is pretty heartbreaking," said his daughter, Jennifer.What to Know Also Tuesday, the House released a similar proposal to fight sexual harassment

Under Book's bill, state agency workers, elected officials, lobbyists and candidates could face fines of at least $5,000 and up to $20,000

Republican Sen. Jack Latvala stepped down and Democratic Sen. Jeff Clemens resigned recently

Florida lawmakers began moving forward Tuesday with proposals to fight sexual harassment in state government, an issue that's been under increased scrutiny with recent resignations and the national movement to put a focus on sexual misconduct.

The Senate Ethics and Election Committee unanimously passed a bill Tuesday that would create new penalties for elected officials, candidates, state agency workers and lobbyists who commit sexual harassment.

Democratic Sen. Lauren Book, who has spent her entire professional career helping victims of sexual abuse and seeking tougher penalties for abusers, choked up just before the vote as she talked about the bill. Earlier, she said sexual harassment has been largely ignored in the Capitol for years. She noted the Senate is supposed to have 40 members, but is missing two who resigned over sexual scandals.

"For far too long bad actions have been able to hide in the shadows of this process, remnants of a good ol' boys club that has passed the baton of bad behavior from generation to generation and set the stage for sexual harassment, coercion and misconduct to continue," Book said. "Until now, you either got with the program, or you were intimidated, you were threatened or you were forced out."

Also Tuesday, the House released a similar proposal to fight sexual harassment. While there are differences in the proposals, there's more in common and not and Book and Democratic Rep. Kristin Jacobs were confident the differences would be worked out before the legislative session ends March 9.

Under Book's bill, state agency workers, elected officials, lobbyists and candidates could face fines of at least $5,000 and up to $20,000 if the Florida Commission on Ethics finds they have committed sexual harassment. Lobbyists could also be barred from lobbying.

Lobbyists and state officials would be required to review state law and polices on sexual harassment. The House and Senate proposals would create a task force to review sexual harassment in state government and make recommendations on preventing it. People who report harassment would be offered the service of a victim's advocate to help protect them from continued harassment or retaliation.

Jacobs said she was surprised after she was elected in 2014 just how much sexual misconduct was a problem in the Capitol.

"The stories are just shocking," she said. "The response from other members was, 'Well, everyone knows you don't close that member's door. If you're a woman you don't go in and let that door get closed.' It's like, 'Really? It's that common and we just have been putting up with it?' This is changing a culture."

In the past few months, Republican Sen. Jack Latvala stepped down after an investigation found evidence of sexual misconduct, Democratic Sen. Jeff Clemens resigned after admitting to an extramarital affair with a lobbyist and Public Service Commission appointee Ritch Workman stepped down after a senator accused him of touching her inappropriately.What to Know A local city college launched New York states first slavery records database Wednesday.

The New York Slavery Index was compiled by John Jay College of Criminal Justice, provides records, documents, narratives and other sources

The free database features 35,000 records

A New York City college launched the states first slavery records database Wednesday.

The New York Slavery Index, compiled by CUNY's John Jay College of Criminal Justice, provides records, documents, narratives and other sources that identify individual enslaved people and their owners from 1525 through the Civil War.

Karol V. Mason, president of John Jay College, said in a statement that the index will mark a significant contribution to "understanding and remembering the countrys history of slavery."

"This vast, public database will serve as an important research tool that will support information-based scholarship on slavery in New York and across the nation," Mason said.

Visitors to the free public database can search 35,000 records related to New York state, including the names of the slave-owning senators in 1790 and 1800, birth certificates of enslaved individuals.

Advertisements for the capture and return of enslaved New Yorkers and records of almost 200 people who escaped slavery in the South and came to the Empire State on the Underground Railroad will also be listed in the resource.

The database was developed and is administered by two professors and a team of graduate students in the colleges Master of Public Administration programs.What to Know A man who has been stockpiling MetroCards since he was a kid in the 1990s has given them away on Reddit

The collection documents historical moments like the Grand Central centennial

It also includes a few CTA cards from Chicago and some LIRR monthly cards

A man accumulated dozens of MetroCards over the course of two decades, a collection that offers a unique timeline of the city as seen through the cards' artwork and design.

User yamleaf recently offered the collection of 174 cards to other users on Reddit, saying he wanted to give them to a history or transit buff who could really appreciate their value.

Yamleaf said Reddits response to his offer was so much more than I expected! He said he got numerous private messages from history fans and subway fanatics (and a self-proclaimed "MetroCard hoarder") asking about the cards.

Despite the impressive collection, he said part of him still felt the cards were just junk. But he thinks they'll go up in value now that the MTA has moved to phase out the cards and replace them with a contactless payment system.

MetroCards were introduced in 1992 to replace subway tokens, which had been around since 1953 and were discontinued in 2003. For the first five decades of the subway, straphangers paid with nickels and then dimes. When the price of a trip rose above a dime, the token was introduced to retain the single-coin system.

Yamleaf, who works as an urban planner, said he began collecting the cards back in grade school, when hed get them for free as a New York City school student.

As a kid who didnt grow up with too much, you end up hanging on to the few things you do own yourself, even if you know they are technically worthless, he said.

In the end, he gave the card collection to a city historian and tour guide who manages the popular Twitter handle @Discovering_NYC.

She got it because she literally responded within four minutes of my initial post, he said.

The cards, strung together with a chain, offer a glimpse of the city's history from the 1990s until the present day. Yamleaf said his favorite cards in the collection are the ones the MTA created for the Grand Central Terminal centennial.

The only card I kept refilling right up til the expiration date, even when getting a new one would have been free, is one with a black-and-white photo of Grand Central, he said. The sunlight is streaming into the windows of this gorgeous Beaux-Arts train hall.

That scene with the sunlight streaming in can never happen again because of the buildings that have grown up around it. Its just a sign of how the city is constantly changing.What to Know President Donald Trump delivered his first State of the Union address Tuesday night

He said "320 million hearts are breaking" for the parents of two Long Island teenagers thought to have been killed by members of MS-13

The president and joint houses of Congress applauded at length for the families of Nisa Mickens and Kayla Cuevas

President Donald Trump said "320 million hearts are breaking" for the parents of two Long Island teenagers thought to have been killed by members of the MS-13 gang in 2016.

The president and joint houses of Congress applauded at length for the families of Nisa Mickens and Kayla Cuevas as they stood alongside first lady Melania Trump during the State of the Union address Tuesday night. It came as Trump called on Congress to close what he called "deadly loopholes that have allowed MS-13 and other criminals to break into our country."

Addressing a deeply divided nation, President Donald Trump called for a "new American moment" of unity and challenged lawmakers to make good on long-standing promises. Melissa Russo reports.

"Many of these gang members took advantage of glaring loopholes in our laws to enter the country as unaccompanied alien minors - and wound up in Kayla and Nisa's high school," Trump said.

He added, "Evelyn (Rodriguez), Elizabeth (Alvarado), Freddy(Cuevas), and Robert (Mickens): Tonight, everyone in this chamber is praying for you. Everyone in America is grieving for you. And 320 million hearts are breaking for you. We love you."

MS-13, or the Mara Salvatrucha, is believed by federal prosecutors to have thousands of members across the U.S., primarily immigrants from Central America. It has a stronghold in Los Angeles, where it emerged in the 1980s as a neighborhood street gang, but it also has wreaked violence in cities and suburbs across the U.S.

A group of immigrants in Queens and a group of Trump supporters on the Upper East Side had different reactions. Michael George reports.

Prosecutors said Kayla was targeted because of ongoing disputes with gang members at her school. They said her lifelong friend, Nisa, was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The girls' alleged killers were facing murder charges that could result in the death penalty.

Top Tri-State News PhotosBorder Patrol agents in Texas discovered 76 undocumented immigrants, including 13 unaccompanied children, crammed inside the trailer of a big rig.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a news release that agents at a Border Patrol checkpoint in Laredo stopped a truck Friday on the northbound side of U.S. 83 and questioned the driver regarding his immigration status.

The truck was referred to a secondary inspection, which led to the discovery of the trailer's human cargo, according to the CBP.

The undocumented immigrants from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala were found in "good health," the agency said. The driver, a U.S. citizen, was arrested and the semi-truck was seized by Border Patrol.

"These criminal organizations view these individuals as mere commodities without regard for their safety. The blatant disregard for human life will not be tolerated," said Laredo Sector Assistant Chief Patrol Agent Gabriel Acosta in a news release. "We will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to disrupt and dismantle these organizations and prosecute those responsible."

A photo of the overcrowded trailer shows dozens of immigrants sitting shoulder-to-shoulder while others lay sleeping on one another.

Border agents have reported an increase in the usage of semi-trucks to smuggle people. Last summer, 10 people died and nearly three dozen were hospitalized from heat exposure after they were crammed into the back of a sweltering tractor-trailer in Laredo and smuggled to San Antonio.

The truck driver, James Matthew Bradley Jr., initially told authorities that he was not aware of the illegal stowaways. He plead guilty to the deadly human-smuggling operation and could face life in prison. Bradley remains jailed awaiting sentencing.Just how well informed is Pope Francis about the goings-on in his 1.2-billion-strong Catholic Church?

That question is making the rounds after the pope seemed completely unaware of the details of a Chilean sex abuse scandal, a failing that soured his recent trip there and forced him to do an about-face. It also came up after his abrupt, no-explanation dismissal of a respected Vatican bank manager.

And it rose to the fore when he was accused by a cardinal of not realizing that his own diplomats were "selling out" the underground Catholic Church in China for the sake of political expediency.

Some Vatican observers now wonder if Francis is getting enough of the high-quality briefings one needs to be a world leader, or whether Francis is relying more on his own instincts and informants who slip him unofficial information on the side.

In his five years as pope, Francis has created an informal, parallel information structure that often rubs up against official Vatican channels. That includes a papal kitchen cabinet of nine cardinal advisers who meet every three months at the Vatican and have the pope's ear, plus the regular briefings he receives from top Vatican brass.

The Vatican this week issued a remarkable defense of Francis' information flow and his grasp of the delicate China dossier. The Holy See press office insisted that Francis followed the China negotiations closely, was being "faithfully" briefed by his advisers and was in complete agreement with his secretary of state on the topic.

"It is therefore surprising and regrettable that the contrary is affirmed by people in the church, thus fostering confusion and controversy," said Vatican spokesman Greg Burke.

Francis lives at the Vatican's Santa Marta hotel rather than the Apostolic Palace, where he can more easily keep his door open at all hours, and where a network of friends, informants, and advisers provide back channels of information to him.

"The problem is he's the victim of the Santa Marta syndrome," said Massimo Franco, columnist for the Italian daily Corriere della Sera. "The pope wanted to live there because he didn't want any filter from the secretary of state. But the other side of the coin is that he's condemned to receive quite casual information, and not always very accurate."

At Santa Marta, the pope sets his own agenda, makes his own phone calls and arranges his own visitors' schedule, often without the knowledge of the Vatican's protocol office. He neither watches TV nor browses the internet but reads the Rome daily Il Messaggero and a selection of press clippings for his non-Vatican news.

Some of his information arrives in person, some of it on paper, left for him in a red leather-bound folder at the Santa Marta front desk, brought upstairs by a Swiss Guard and handed over to one of the pope's two private secretaries.

Francis has two main gatekeepers, Monsignor Yoannis Lahzi Gaid, an Egyptian Copt who used to work in the Vatican's secretariat of state, and Monsignor Fabian Pedacchio, an Argentine priest who Francis, when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, dispatched to Rome in 2007.

He also has the perfect of the papal household, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, who arranges official audiences and decides who gets to greet the pope after his weekly Wednesday general audience.

Sometimes popes suffer when their gatekeepers fail them: Pope Benedict XVI famously lifted the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop, unaware that a simple Google search would have turned up the bishop's belief that the Nazi gas chambers were a myth.

But more than his immediate predecessor Benedict, Francis still relies on a close circle of friends from his days in Argentina and as a high-ranking Jesuit to give him the pulse of what's going on.

And he can be fiercely stubborn once he has made up his mind based on information that does reach him, such as his recent dismissal of the respected No. 2 at the Vatican bank, Giulio Mattietti, who was fired without explanation at the end of the year.

In his subsequent Christmas address to the Vatican bureaucracy, Francis blasted Vatican staff who have been sidelined, saying "they wrongly declare themselves martyrs of the system, of a 'pope kept in the dark.'"

But with Chile's priest sex abuse scandal, Francis was forced to admit he had not only made a mistake but maybe he was the one in the dark.

The Vatican announced Tuesday that Francis was sending the Vatican's top sex crimes investigator to Chile to look into a bishop accused of covering up for the country's most notorious pedophile priest. Francis had staunchly defended the bishop, Juan Barros, while in Chile and his about-face came only after "recent information" had reached the Vatican, Burke said.

Francis seemed completely unaware that Chilean abuse victims of the Rev. Fernando Karadima had for years said that Barros knew of Karadima's perversions, had even witnessed them, and did nothing. One survivor, Juan Carlos Cruz, even testified to Chilean prosecutors.

But apparently that information never reached the pope  and that led to one of the greatest gaffes of Francis' five-year papacy. He demanded "proof" that Barros was guilty of covering up for Karadima's crimes and said without that, such accusations were mere "calumny."

Francis later issued a partial apology. But even as he flew back to Rome on Jan. 21, Francis was saying he was convinced that Barros was innocent, though he was open to hearing from anyone with other information.

In such a case, the pope would have been receiving information from his ambassador in Chile, who like other Vatican envoys writes daily encrypted briefs to the Vatican secretariat of state that the pope reads each morning. He also hears from the local church hierarchy, who visited him en masse in February 2017.

For information on Chile, Francis also has one of his nine cardinal advisers, Cardinal Francisco Errazuriz, the retired archbishop of Santiago. Errazuriz has testified that he didn't believe Karadima's victims and shelved the investigation until he was forced to reopen it after they went public with their claims.

At any stage, then, anyone who didn't believe the victims or wanted to protect Barros might have filtered out the victims' testimony from briefings or cast doubt on it before it ever got to the pope.After coming under excoriating public criticism, Pope Francis decided Tuesday to send the Vatican's most respected sex crimes expert to Chile to investigate a bishop accused by victims of covering up for the country's most notorious pedophile priest.

The Vatican said Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna would travel to Chile "to listen to those who have expressed the desire to provide elements" about the case of Bishop Juan Barros.

The move marks the first known time the Vatican has launched a full-blown investigation into allegations of sex abuse cover-up, and it comes after Francis was harshly criticized by the media, survivors of abuse, his fellow Jesuits and some of his top advisers for his unwavering defense of Barros.

The Barros controversy dominated Francis' just-ended trip to Chile and Peru and exposed his blind spot about clerical abuse. Even the head of his abuse advisory panel, Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston, publicly rebuked him for his dismissive treatment of victims and tried to set him straight.

Barros was a protege of the Rev. Fernando Karadima, a charismatic and politically powerful priest who was sanctioned by the Vatican for sexually abusing minors in 2011. His victims testified to Chilean prosecutors that Barros and other priests in the El Bosque community saw Karadima kissing youngsters and were aware of his perversions, but did nothing.

After Karadima was sanctioned by a church court, Chile's bishops were so intent on trying to stem the fallout from the scandal that they persuaded the Vatican to have Barros and two other Karadima-trained bishops resign and take a yearlong sabbatical, according to a 2015 letter obtained by The Associated Press.

But Francis stepped in and put a stop to the plan, arguing there wasn't any proof against them. He overruled the Chilean bishops' objections and in January 2015 appointed Barros to head the diocese of Osorno. Barros' presence there has badly split the dioceses, with both laity and priests rejecting him ever since.

The issue haunted Francis' recent trip, and imploded after he told a Chilean journalist Jan. 18 that the accusations against Barros were slander and he demanded "proof" against Barros to believe them. After O'Malley rebuked him, Francis apologized for having demanded proof, but he stood by his belief that the accusations against Barros were "calumny."

"I am convinced he is innocent," Francis declared during an in-flight news conference while returning home from Peru on Jan. 21.

Francis seemed unaware that Karadima's victims had placed Barros at the scene and were the original source of the accusations against him.

Barros said Tuesday that he welcomed "with faith and joy" the pope's decision to have Scicluna investigate and prayed that the process would uncover the truth, according to a statement read by the spokesman of the Chilean bishops' conference. He has denied seeing any abuse or knowing of it.

In the days after the pope's comments, Karadima victim Juan Carlos Cruz pointedly told Francis that he couldn't offer the "proof" the pope demanded.

"As if I could have taken a selfie or a photo while Karadima abused me and others and Juan Barros stood by watching it all," Cruz tweeted Jan. 19.

After Francis insisted he had never received any testimony from victims but would welcome it, Cruz told The Associated Press: "If he wanted evidence, why didn't he reach out to us when we were willing to reaffirm the testimony that not only us, but so many witnesses, have been providing for more than 15 years?"

Scicluna is going to Chile precisely to do that. Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said Scicluna would travel to Santiago "as soon as possible," but he noted that the case requires preparation and thoroughness.

Karadima's victims, who are Barros' main accusers, declined to comment Tuesday on the advice of their lawyers. A group of lay Catholics from Osorno, who have been protesting Barros' appointment for three years, said they would be willing to speak to Scicluna but expressed some doubt about the procedure and his independence.

"We hope the pope reacted based on the sentiments of the faithful, more than media pressure, but he did it," said a statement from Juan Carlos Claret, spokesman of the Osorno laity group.

Scicluna was the Vatican's long-time sex crimes prosecutor in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and he was instrumental in finally bringing to justice the 20th century Catholic Church's most notorious pedophile, the Rev. Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legion of Christ.

Scicluna was put in charge of gathering testimony from Maciel's victims, the Legion seminarians who for years had denounced Maciel's sex crimes, only to be discredited publicly by senior Vatican and Legion officials and accused of slander.

Scicluna, currently archbishop of Valletta and head of a sex abuse appeals tribunal at the Vatican, is now something of a hero to survivors for having vigorously prosecuted Maciel over the objections of the Vatican's then-secretary of state, as well as thousands of other pedophiles.

That former secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, was the Vatican ambassador in Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship and was known to have been a supporter of Karadima. Sodano still wields influence in the Vatican as the dean of the College of Cardinals, and in that capacity recently celebrated the funeral Mass of Cardinal Bernard Law, who resigned in disgrace as the archbishop of Boston after documents showed he moved serial pedophiles around rather than report them to police.

Andrew Chesnut, the Catholic Studies chair at Virginia Commonwealth University, said Francis' decision to send in Scicluna was an attempt to "repair the damage inflicted on his Chilean tour."

"The Vatican had already attempted to negotiate the resignation of Barros, so it's likely that the embattled bishop will step down soon," Chesnut predicted.

Barros twice offered his resignation, but Francis twice rejected it.

The decision to send Scicluna in to investigate allegations of a cover-up marks a new phase in the Vatican's decades-long effort to come to terms with clergy abuse, and it could fuel demands for the Vatican to more actively investigate and sanction religious superiors who turn a blind eye to priests who rape, sodomize and molest children.

While thousands of abusive priests have been defrocked and sanctioned over the years, only a handful of bishops are known to have been removed because they mishandled reported cases.

Francis vowed to hold such bishops accountable, but he scrapped a proposed Vatican tribunal to discipline negligent bishops after Vatican canon lawyers objected. Instead, he said such cases would be investigated by existing Vatican offices, but the process lacks any transparency.

Associated Press writers Luis Andres Henao in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Patricia Luna in Santiago, Chile, contributed to this report.A strong magnitude 6.1 earthquake rattled Pakistan and Afghanistan on Wednesday, including the capital cities of both countries, killing a young girl and injuring 15 others, officials said.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported the quake's center was in northeast Afghanistan near the Pakistan border, about 35 kilometers (22 miles) south of Jarm in the Hindu Kush region. It had a depth of 191.2 kilometers (119 miles).

TV footage showed people in Islamabad fleeing offices and schools in panic.

Rana Hamid Ali, who works at a private company, said when the quake hit he started running toward the stairs instead of using the office elevator to get out of the building.

"We were doing routine work in our office when a strong earthquake suddenly rattled our building and we came down through the stairs, there was no time to wait for the elevator," he said.

Another resident, Azeem Chaudhry, said his home's walls swayed when the quake struck.

At least one girl was killed and eight others injured when roofs collapsed on mud-brick homes in the village of Lasbela in Pakistan's Baluchistan province, said local government official Izat Nazir Baluch. He said authorities were still trying to assess the damage in the province.

Four schoolchildren were also injured when students stampeded out of their school in the northwestern city of Peshawar, but none was listed in serious condition, according to police and government officials.

The quake was felt in the Afghan capital Kabul, where an official said at least three people were injured when a wall collapsed in a village in northeastern Badakhshan province near the border with Pakistan.

Gul Mohammad Bedar, provincial deputy governor, said the temblor also caused cracks in the walls of a number of other houses there.

Bedar said officials were trying to collect more details from the remote villages in Jarm. Authorities faced problems getting details in the remote district where the Taliban have a strong presence.

Mohammad Mustafa, acting district governor in Jarm, said they had no communications with about 52 villages, which makes it difficult to get details about quake-related damage.

The earthquake also was felt in the Indian capital New Delhi and the Indian Kashmir region. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage to buildings there.

A magnitude 7.6 quake in 2005 killed thousands of people in Pakistan and Kashmir.

Associated Press writer Amir Shah contributed.The FBI said Wednesday it has "grave concerns" about the accuracy of a classified memo on the Russia investigation that President Donald Trump wants to release to the public. It was the first time the bureau has weighed in publicly on an issue that has openly divided the Justice Department and the White House.

In its unusual public statement, the FBI said it was given only a limited opportunity to review the four-page memo, which was drafted by Republicans on the House intelligence committee led by Rep. Devin Nunes of California.

Republicans have said the memo reveals improper use of surveillance by the FBI and the Justice Department in the Russia investigation. But the FBI said Wednesday that important facts were omitted.

"As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo's accuracy," the FBI said.

The statement escalates the intra-government conflict over the memo, which had already touched off a partisan brawl with Democrats and has pitted GOP lawmakers ordinarily supportive of surveillance against the FBI and the Justice Department. The FBI director and the deputy attorney general have told the White House releasing it could set a dangerous precedent.

On Wednesday afternoon, Nunes, the Republican chairman of the committee, escalated the conflict over the memo, calling the FBI and Justice Department objections "spurious."

"It's clear that top officials used unverified information in a court document to fuel a counter-intelligence investigation during an American political campaign," Nunes said. "Once the truth gets out, we can begin taking steps to ensure our intelligence agencies and courts are never misused like this again."

NBC News reported Wednesday that the memo was likely to be released Thursday.

The saga took another turn late Wednesday when the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee said the vote earlier this week to release the memo is invalid because Republicans changed part of the document before sending it to the White House for review.

California Rep. Adam Schiff sent a letter to Nunes that charged the document had been "secretly altered" by Republicans after the vote. Schiff did not detail the changes. A spokesman for Nunes did not immediately return a request for comment.

Trump was overheard Tuesday night telling a Republican lawmaker he was "100 percent" in favor of releasing the memo, and his chief of staff said Wednesday the document is likely to be released "pretty quick."

The encounter on the House floor with South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan was captured by television cameras after the State of the Union address. When Duncan implored him to "release the memo," Trump said: "Oh yeah, don't worry. 100 percent."

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told CNN Wednesday that a legal and national security review of the document was continuing. Trump had not read the memo as "as of last night prior to and immediately after the State of the Union," she said.

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said Wednesday on Fox News Radio that he expected the memo to be released "pretty quick."

According to Republicans, the memo alleges surveillance misconduct in the early stages of the FBI's investigation into potential Trump campaign ties to Russia. But Democrats have called the memo a "cherry-picked" list of GOP talking points that attempts to distract from the committee's own investigation into Russian meddling in the election that sent Trump to the White House.

Trump has been telling confidants in recent days that he believes the memo will validate his concerns that the FBI and Justice Department had conspired against him, according to one outside adviser familiar with those conversations but not authorized to speak publicly about private discussions.

The president has told allies that he believes the memo bolsters his belief that accusations of collusion between his campaign and Russian officials are false and part of a conspiracy to discredit his election.

The memo arrived at the White House on Monday evening after Republicans on the House committee voted to release it. The White House counsel's office has been in possession of it, officials say.

The National Security Council is leading a review, which will also involve the White House legal team.

Under committee rules, the president has five days to object to its disclosure, though the president has urged the memo's release and the White House may not adhere to the five-day waiting period.

It had not yet been settled whether the White House or the committee would handle the actual release, which could come as soon as late Wednesday or Thursday.

Schiff, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Wednesday that nothing in the memo vindicates Trump. Speaking at an event sponsored by the news site Axios, Schiff said Nunes was pushing a "misleading narrative."

House Speaker Paul Ryan supports the memo's release, saying Tuesday that it shows "there may have been malfeasance at the FBI by certain individuals." He did not provide additional details, only saying that "there are legitimate questions about whether an American's civil liberties were violated by the FISA process," a reference to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

But Ryan said the memo shouldn't be used to undermine special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election and whether Trump's campaign was involved.

The vote to release the memo was unprecedented in the committee's history. The panel usually goes out of its way to protect classified information in the interest of protecting intelligence sources and methods.

In the hours before the Monday vote, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray warned Kelly that releasing the memo could set a dangerous precedent, according to a person familiar with the conversation. Rosenstein also told Kelly the memo didn't accurately characterize the FBI's investigative practices, the person said.

The Washington Post first reported the details of the White House meeting.

The Justice Department had said in a letter last week that it would be "extraordinarily reckless" to release the memo without first giving the FBI and the department the chance to review it.

After those complaints, Wray reviewed the memo over the weekend. Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., who was with Wray when he reviewed the memo, said the FBI director did not raise any national security concerns with him. Gowdy said the memo doesn't reveal any intelligence methods but does reveal "one source."

So far, a senior White House official said, the Justice Department is the only agency opposing the release.

Democrats have said the memo's release could compromise intelligence sources and methods. And some Republican senators have also said they don't want to release it.U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, the powerful Democratic Party boss in Philadelphia for more than 30 years, will not seek re-election to an 11th term in Congress.

"Basically, I want to come home," Brady said while announcing his retirement, noting a desire to spend time with his grandchildren. "It wasn't a factor of whether I would lose or wouldn't lose."

"I want to walk a grandchild to school, which I've never, ever done," he said.

The 72-year-old son of a city police officer, who rose through the party ranks while also gaining power in the city's organized labor sector, has previously faced little opposition in his re-election bids in Pennsylvania's 1st District.

But a cloud of suspicion has hung over him in the last year as the FBI probed into his 2012 campaign. In Dec. 2017, a political consultant to Brady pleaded guilty to lying about a $90,000 campaign contribution. The consultant, Donald Jones, admitted to making false statements about the contribution from Brady's campaign to an opponent, allegedly in order to get the opponent to drop out of the race.

Brady has not been charged with any crime.

He said Tuesday that his attorney had advised him to say that he wouldn't be charged, and that the case had nothing to do with his decision.

In addition to the FBI probe, some strong candidates have emerged to challenge Brady in the May Democratic primary.

Three women have already announced runs for the seat, which represents parts of Philadelphia and Delaware County. Nina Ahmad, a former deputy mayor, Michele Lawrence, a former banking executive, and Lindy Li, are among a field expected to grow with Brady exiting.

Another deputy mayor, Richard Lazer, who remains a part of the Kenney administration, is also rumored to announce his bid soon.

Brady announced the end to his term in Congress at a meeting with Democratic Party ward leaders. He told the party officials that he would not step down as head of the city political machine.

Refresh your page for continuing updates to this breaking story.Police have identified a Virginia man who was shot and killed after he allegedly intentionally struck a pedestrian with his car and then attacked an off-duty officer who confronted him.



Police say Khalil Lawal, 31, of Arlington, Virginia, was driving a black Honda Civic south on Broad near Marconi Plaza around 7:30 a.m. He then made a left onto Bigler Street and struck a man who was exiting his parked car. Investigators say it appears Lawal did this intentionally.

Police say Lawal continued driving east on Bigler before making a U-turn and returning toward the intersection of Broad and Bigler near Marconi Plaza. As he approached the intersection, a Good Samaritan used his truck to block his path, according to investigators. The Good Samaritan told Lawal he had struck a pedestrian. Lawal then allegedly chased the Good Samaritan on foot before walking back to his Honda.



As Lawal walked back to his vehicle, an off-duty detective who witnessed the incident approached him and identified himself as an officer, police said. Police say the detective told Lawal to get on the ground. They also say they obtained surveillance video showing the detective drawing his department-issued weapon and Lawal, who was around 6-foot tall and weighed around 250 pounds, charging at him.

"They got into a violent struggle where the male struck the detective several times," said Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross.

Police say several shots were fired during the struggle as Lawal tried to disarm the officer.

"All we heard was pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. A lot of shots," a witness told NBC10. "And people running and scurrying around. It was really scary. There was even a baby seat in the car so that was scary too."



Lawal, who police don't believe was armed, was shot in the torso, legs and face during the scuffle. He was taken to the Penn Presbyterian Medical Center where he was pronounced dead at 10:15 a.m.



The officer was taken to the hospital and treated for head and shoulder injuries. He was later released. The pedestrian who was struck by the suspect's vehicle was also treated at the hospital and later released.

Police say they would not immediately release surveillance video that is part of the investigation. The officer has been placed on administrative leave.

Ross said that he had "concerns" about the incident.

"I do have some concerns about the shooting, in particular whether all the shots were necessary," Ross said. "Right now we're canvassing the neighborhood for more video and additional witnesses."

Ross also addressed initial reports that Lawal was targeting multiple pedestrians with his car.

"Right now we have not been able to confirm this at all," Ross said. "The only thing we know is of this one incident at this point in time that we are still investigating."

Police also don't believe the incident was a case of domestic terrorism.

If you have any information on the incident, please call Philadelphia Police at 216-683-1866.

The governors of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts announced a friendly wager Wednesday ahead of the Super Bowl matchup between the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf wagered Philly food:

Federal Donuts

Soup from the Rooster Soup Company

Reading Terminal Market Scrapple

Coffee from La Colombe in Philadelphia

Pizza slices from Rosa's Fresh Pizza

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker wagered:

Clam Chowder from Legal Sea Foods in Boston

Craisins from Ocean Spray in Middleborough

Apple Cider Donuts from Smolak Farms in North Andover

Apple Pie, Chicken Pot Pie and Maple Syrup from Hollis Hills Farms in Fitchburg

Grillo's Pickles from Needham

Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes and Lemon Squares from Koffee Kup Bakery in Springfield.

The governors have agreed to donate their winnings to a local food pantry of their choice.

"As the New England Patriots prepare for their eighth Super Bowl of the last seventeen years, the full force of the Commonwealth and all of New England is behind them every step of the way because we know their jobs are not done yet," Baker said. "We are proud to have another opportunity to offer up some of Massachusetts finest local products for a good cause and look forward to the Pats bringing home another Super Bowl win."

"Over the last year, the Eagles have battled adversity and inspired millions of fans, both on and off the field," Wolf said. "I am putting some of my Philly favorites and Phillys finest and most iconic food items on the line but look forward to Governor Baker sending some Massachusetts food to Pennsylvania."



The Patriots are scheduled to play the Eagles at 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 4 in Minneapolis.Boastful even within the traditional confines of a State of the Union speech, President Donald Trump inflated the impact of his tax cuts Tuesday night, declared an end to a "war" on energy that did not exist when he took office and displayed a faulty grasp of immigration policy.

A look at some of the statements in his speech and how they compare with the facts:

WAGE GAINS

TRUMP: "After years and years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages."

THE FACTS: Actually, they are not rising any faster than they have before. Average hourly pay rose 2.5 percent in 2017, slightly slower than the 2.9 percent increase recorded in 2016.

Most economists say wages should increase at a faster rate as the unemployment rate drops. The unemployment rate stands at a 17-year low of 4.1 percent, but that has done little so far to spark rising wages.

The last time unemployment was this low, in the late 1990s, average hourly pay was rising at a 4 percent pace.

DIVERSITY VISAS

TRUMP: "The third pillar (of my immigration plan) ends the visa lottery  a program that randomly hands out green cards without any regard to skill, merit or the safety of our people."

THE FACTS: That's a highly misleading characterization. The program is not nearly that random and it does address skills, merit and safety.

The diversity visa program awards up to 50,000 green cards a year to people from underrepresented countries, largely in Africa. It requires applicants to have completed a high school education or have at least two years of experience in the last five years in a selection of fields identified by the Labor Department.

Winners are then randomly selected by computer, from that pool of applicants who met the pre-conditions. Winners must submit to extensive background checks, just like any other immigrant.

COAL

TRUMP: "We have ended the war on beautiful clean coal."

THE FACTS: Coal is not clean. According to the Energy Department, more than 83 percent of all major air pollutants  sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, toxic mercury and dangerous soot particles  from power plants are from coal, even though coal makes up only 43 percent of the power generation. Power plants are the No. 1 source of those pollutants.

Coal produces nearly twice as much heat-trapping carbon dioxide per energy created as natural gas, the department says.

In 2011, coal burning emitted more than 6 million tons of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides versus 430,000 tons from other energy sources combined.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

TRUMP: "The first pillar of our framework generously offers a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants who were brought here by their parents at a young age  that covers almost three times more people than the previous administration."

THE FACTS: Not so. The Obama administration pushed legal status for many more immigrants and was prevented by Congress and the courts from offering it. A 2013 bill that passed the Senate but died in the House would have bestowed legal status on about 8 million people, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate.

In 2014, the Obama administration announced an expanded program that included parents of young immigrants who were shielded from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. According to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, the measure would have given legal status to up to 4 million people. The Supreme Court deadlocked on the plan, letting a lower court ruling stand that blocked it.

TERRORISTS

TRUMP: "In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds and hundreds of dangerous terrorists only to meet them again on the battlefield, including the ISIS leader, (Abu Bakr) al-Baghdadi, who we captured, who we had, who we released."

THE FACTS: Trump is correct that al-Baghdadi had been released after being detained at Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca, U.S. detention facilities in Iraq. But Trump made his comment while announcing that he had signed an executive order to keep open the controversial U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. If he meant that "hundreds and hundreds" of Guantanamo detainees had been released only to return to the battlefield, his math is off.

The office of the Director of National Intelligence said this summer in its most recent report on the subject that of the 728 detainees who have been released from Guantanamo, 122 are "confirmed" and 90 are "suspected" of re-engaging in hostile activities.

MS-13

TRUMP: "We have sent thousands and thousands and thousands of MS-13 horrible people out of this country or into our prisons."



THE FACTS: That's an exaggeration and goes beyond how even how Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Trump administration's most aggressive anti-gang enforcer, characterizes the scope of the effort.

Sessions said in a speech this week that federal authorities had secured the convictions of nearly 500 human traffickers and 1,200 gang members, "and worked with our international allies to arrest or charge more than 4,000 MS-13 members." On other occasions, the attorney general has specifically said the 4,000 number reflects work done with "our partners in Central America."

That suggests that at least some of the MS-13 members Trump is referring to weren't actually in the U.S when they were arrested, and aren't now in U.S. prisons.

OPIOIDS

TRUMP: Changes in immigration policies, including more border security, "will also support our response to the terrible crisis of opioid and drug addiction."



THE FACTS: Drugs being brought across borders are only part of the problem contributing to the nation's opioid crisis.

According to the U.S. Centers on Disease Control and Prevention, about 40 percent of the opioid deaths in 2016 involved prescription painkillers. Those drugs are made by pharmaceutical companies. Some are abused by the people who have prescriptions; others are stolen and sold on the black market.

The flow of heroin into the U.S. from Mexico is a major problem, but drugs that are brought from other countries don't all come over land borders. Illicit versions of powerful synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, which are a major factor in rising overdose numbers, are being shipped directly to the U.S. from China.

TRUMP: "My administration is committed to fighting the drug epidemic and helping get treatment for those in need."

THE FACTS: The bipartisan National Governors Association doesn't think he's lived up to that commitment. Earlier this month, the governors called on Trump and Congress to do more to pay for and coordinate a response to the opioid epidemic.

The Trump administration has allowed states to begin allowing states to seek permission to use Medicaid to cover addiction treatment in larger facilities  a measure advocates say is needed.

VETERANS

TRUMP: "Last year, the Congress passed, and I signed, the landmark VA Accountability Act. Since its passage, my administration has already removed more than 1,500 VA employees who failed to give our veterans the care they deserve."

THE FACTS: This statement is inaccurate. It's true that more than 1,500 firings at the VA have occurred so far during the Trump administration. But more than 500 of those firings occurred from Jan. 20, when Trump took office, to late June, when the new accountability law began to take effect. That means roughly one-third of the 1,500 firings cannot be attributed to the new law.

Congress passed the legislation last June making it easier to fire VA employees and shortening the time employees have to challenge disciplinary actions. But the law's impact on improving accountability at the department remains unclear: More VA employees were fired in former President Barack Obama's last budget year, for instance, than in Trump's first.

BORDER SECURITY

TRUMP: "For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities."

THE FACTS: "Open borders" is an exaggeration. Border arrests, a useful if imperfect gauge of illegal crossings, have dropped sharply over the last decade.

The government under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama roughly doubled the ranks of the Border Patrol, and Bush extended fencing to cover nearly one-third of the border during his final years in office. The Obama administration deported more than 2 million immigrants during the eight years he was in office, more than in previous administrations.

Studies over several years have found immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the United States.

FAMILY IMMIGRATION

TRUMP: "Under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives."

THE FACTS: It's not happening because the waiting list is so long.

There is currently no wait for U.S. citizens to bring spouses, children under 21 and parents. But citizens must petition for siblings and adult children, and green-card card holders must do the same for spouses and children.

On Nov. 1, there were 4 million people in line for family-based visas, according to the State Department. The waits are longest for China, India, Mexico and the Philippines. In January, Mexican siblings of U.S. children who applied in November 1997 were getting called, a wait of more than 20 years.

An immigrant could theoretically bring an uncle by bringing a parent who then brings his sibling, but the wait would be interminable for most.

OBAMA'S HEALTH LAW

TRUMP: "We repealed the core of the disastrous Obamacare  the individual mandate is now gone."

THE FACTS: No, it's not gone. It's going, in 2019. People who go without insurance this year are still subject to fines.

Congress did repeal the unpopular requirement that most Americans carry insurance or risk a tax penalty but that takes effect next year.

It's a far cry from what Trump and the GOP-led Congress set out to do last year, which was to scrap most of the sweeping Obama-era health law and replace it with a Republican alternative. The GOP blueprint would have left millions more Americans uninsured, making it even more unpopular than "Obamacare."

Other major parts of the overhaul remain in place, including its Medicaid expansion, protections for people with pre-existing conditions, guaranteed "essential" health benefits, and subsidized private health insurance for people with modest incomes.

AUTOS

TRUMP: "Many car companies are now building and expanding plants in the United States  something we have not seen for decades."

THE FACTS: He's wrong about recent decades. The auto industry has regularly been opening and expanding factories since before became president. Toyota opened its Mississippi factory in 2011. Hyundai's plant in Alabama dates to 2005. In 2010, Tesla fully acquired and updated an old factory to produce its electric vehicles.

Trump also declared that "Chrysler is moving a major plant from Mexico to Michigan." That's not exactly the case, either. Chrysler announced it will move production of heavy-duty pickup trucks from Mexico to Michigan, but the plant is not closing in Mexico. It will start producing other vehicles for global sales and no change in its workforce is anticipated.

ISLAMIC STATE

TRUMP: "Last year I pledged that we would work with our allies to extinguish ISIS from the face of the earth. One year later, I'm proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated almost 100 percent of the territory once held by these killers in Iraq and Syria. But there is much more work to be done. We will continue our fight until ISIS is defeated."

THE FACTS: Although it's true that the Islamic State has lost nearly 100 percent of the territory it held in Syria and Iraq when the U.S. began airstrikes in both countries in 2014, Syria remains wracked by civil war, with much of that country controlled by the government of Russian ally Syrian President Bashar Assad and not by U.S.-allied groups. The Iraqi government has declared itself fully liberated from IS.

The progress cited by Trump did not start with his presidency. The U.S.-led coalition recaptured much land, including several key cities in Iraq, before he took office. And the assault on Mosul, which was the extremists' main stronghold in northern Iraq, was begun during the Obama administration. But in the past year the counter-ISIS campaign has accelerated, based largely on the approach Trump inherited.

He's right that more remains to be done to eliminate IS as an extremist threat, even after it has been defeated militarily. The group is still able to inspire attacks in the West based on its ideology, and it is trying to make inroads in places like Afghanistan and Libya.

MIDDLE-CLASS TAXES

TRUMP: "Our massive tax cuts provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small businesses."

THE FACTS: That depends on how you define "tremendous." The biggest beneficiaries from the tax law are wealthy Americans and corporations.

Most Americans will pay less in taxes this year. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that about 80 percent of U.S. households will get a tax cut, with about 15 percent seeing little change and 5 percent paying more.

Middle-class households  defined as those making between roughly $49,000 and $86,000 a year  will see their tax bills drop by about $930, the Tax Policy Center calculates. That will lift their after-tax incomes by 1.6 percent.

The richest 1 percent, meanwhile, will save $51,140, lifting their after-tax incomes by 3.4 percent, or more than twice as much as the middle class.

ENERGY EXPORTS

TRUMP: "We are now an exporter of energy to the world."

THE FACTS: There's nothing new in that: The U.S. has long exported all sorts of energy, while importing even more. If Trump meant that the U.S. has become a net exporter of energy, he's rushing things along. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that the U.S. will become a net energy exporter in the next decade, primarily because of a boom in oil and gas production that began before Trump's presidency. The Trump White House has predicted that could happen sooner, by 2020. But that's not "now."

TAX CUTS

TRUMP: "We enacted the biggest tax cuts and reform in American history."

THE FACTS: No truer now than in the countless other times he has said the same. The December tax overhaul ranks behind Ronald Reagan's in the early 1980s, post-World War II tax cuts and at least several more.

An analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget in the fall put Trump's package as the eighth biggest since 1918. As a percentage of the total economy, Reagan's 1981 cut is the biggest followed by the 1945 rollback of taxes that financed World War II.

Valued at $1.5 trillion over 10 years, the plan is indeed large and expensive. But it's much smaller than originally intended. Back in the spring, it was shaping up as a $5.5 trillion package. Even then it would have only been the third largest since 1940 as a share of gross domestic product.

WORKER BONUSES

TRUMP: "Since we passed tax cuts, roughly 3 million workers have already gotten tax cut bonuses  many of them thousands of dollars per worker."

THE FACTS: This appears to be true, but may not be as impressive as it sounds. According to a tally of public announcements by Americans for Tax Reform, a conservative group that supported the tax law, about 3 million workers have gotten bonuses, raises or larger payments to their retirement accounts since the tax law was signed.

That's about 2 percent of the more than 154 million Americans with jobs. The Labor Department said before the tax package was signed into law that 38 percent of workers would likely get some form of bonus in 2017.

Few companies have granted across-the-board pay raises, which Trump and GOP leaders promised would result from the cut in corporate tax rates included in the overhaul. Many, such as Walmart and BB&T Bank, said they will raise their minimum wages. Walmart made similar announcements in 2015 and 2016.

ENERGY PRODUCTION

TRUMP: "We have ended the war on American energy - and we have ended the war on clean coal."

THE FACTS: Energy production was unleashed in past administrations, particularly Barack Obama's, making accusations of a "war on energy" hard to sustain. Advances in hydraulic fracturing before Trump became president made it economical to tap vast reserves of natural gas. Oil production also greatly increased, reducing imports.

Before the 2016 presidential election, the U.S. for the first time in decades was getting more energy domestically than it imports. Before Obama, George W. Bush was no adversary of the energy industry.

One of Trump's consequential actions as president on this front was to approve the Keystone XL pipeline  a source of foreign oil, from Canada.

Contributed by Associated Press writers Deb Riechmann, Seth Borenstein, Eric Tucker, Geoff Mulvihill, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Elliott Spagat, Robert Burns, Josh Lederman, Calvin Woodward, Christopher Rugaber and Hope Yen.The state of the union is ...

Great again? Or not quite?

However he describes the country's condition on Tuesday night, President Donald Trump will defend his accomplishments and lay out his plans before a chamber packed with members of Congress, the Cabinet and the Supreme Court plus a few choice guests  and with millions of Americans watching on television. It will be the former reality show star's first State of the Union speech, a formal report to Congress that the Constitution requires of the president "from time to time."

For any president, the prime-time speech is a high-stakes statement of purpose. A year into his presidency, Trump stands before the nation to account for his promise to "make America great again" amid talk of a rising threat of nuclear war and special counsel Robert Mueller's probe of the president and his 2016 campaign.

For both parties, the speech operates like the pop of a starting gun for the midterm elections, when Republicans will defend their majorities in the House and Senate.

A look at what to watch:

HOW SUPERLATIVE?

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Monday previewed the speech by describing the state of the union as "incredible."

But will the hyperbole-loving president tone down his bombastic speaking style a bit? The White House is setting expectations as close to "yes" as possible  but only for as long as the speech itself lasts. Expect the president to cast the tax overhaul he signed in December and the strong economy as Trump initiatives that help all Americans. Thematically, Trump is expected to speak of having built the foundation for a safer and stronger nation.

But can Trump stay on message  and off Twitter  after the reviews come in?

THE ELEPHANT IN THE CHAMBER

Will Trump make any mention of Mueller's probe of Russian connections and obstruction of justice, or his own expressed willingness to be interviewed under oath? Trump told reporters last week he'd "love" to be interviewed under oath about the matter. But his lawyers didn't seem as enthusiastic and are still negotiating.

Past presidents have addressed  or notably avoided  their own controversies in past speeches. Former President Richard Nixon used his 1974 State of the Union speech to decry that "one year of Watergate is enough." He was out office within a year. Former President Bill Clinton went the opposite route, avoiding mentioning his own scandals during his State of the Union addresses. His 1999 speech came the same day his Senate impeachment trial began. Former President Ronald Reagan addressed what he called a "major regret" following revelations that his administration was involved in a sale of weapons to Iran to secretly fund Contra rebels in Nicaragua, CNBC reported. "I took a risk with regard to our action in Iran," Reagan said. "It did not work, and for that I assume full responsibility."

FLOTUS

First lady Melania Trump will face extra scrutiny this year  and not just because of the former model's fashionable couture.

Mrs. Trump's movements have been closely watched ever since The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that the president's lawyer had arranged a payment to an adult film star, Stormy Daniels, to keep her from talking about an alleged 2006 affair with the future president. The couple's 13th wedding anniversary passed without public comment last week, and Mrs. Trump abruptly announced she was skipping a trip with her husband to an economic summit last week in Switzerland.

WHO'S THERE

Often who is in the chamber reflects the president's priorities. Seated around Mrs. Trump will be more than a dozen guests, including small-business owners, beneficiaries of tax relief, victims of gang violence and a police officer who adopted a baby from parents addicted to opioids.

Democrats are strategically populating their guest lists, too  with faces of the immigration debate that is roiling Congress and vexing Trump. Their guests will include immigrants who are among the nearly 700,000 people who received protection from deportation under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Trump canceled the program last year but gave Congress until March to come up with a legislative fix.

Only four Supreme Court justices, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch, are expected at the speech. Roberts, Breyer and Kagan regularly attend, as do justices appointed by the president who is speaking. Trump nominated Gorsuch a year ago.



WHO'S NOT

Traditionally, one member of the Cabinet stays away from the address for security reasons. One question is whether Justice Neil Gorsuch, whom Trump nominated for the Supreme Court, will attend the speech. Justice Samuel Alito, who shook his head and mouthed "not true" at President Barack Obama during the 2010 State of the Union speech, has not attended a presidential address since. And Clarence Thomas hasn't been in years.

Justice Anthony Kennedy's long-standing travel plans have him in California, while Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is in Rhode Island and Justice Sonia Sotomayor is in Panama.

Some Democratic lawmakers also plan to boycott the president's address.

WHAT THEY WEAR

Typically, some female lawmakers wear bright colors so they will stand out on television. But this year, several Democratic women plan to wear black to protest sexual harassment after a season of scandals toppled male leaders across industries. Congress is no exception: Accusations have forced resignations and retirements in both parties. Trump, too, has faced sexual assault allegations.

REBUTTAL

Rep. Joe Kennedy of Massachusetts will deliver the Democratic response to the president's address. He is the grandson of the late Robert F. Kennedy, the senator and U.S. attorney general, and the son of former Rep. Joseph Kennedy II, who served in the House from 1987 to 1999. Democratic leaders are pitching Kennedy as someone who can champion Democratic policies to the middle class.

THEN THIS HAPPENS

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is scheduled to appear on ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" following Trump's address. She said she had an affair with Trump shortly after he married Melania Trump.Authorities say a grenade launcher, loaded with a live grenade, was left with other donated items at a Florida Goodwill store.

Employees at a Goodwill store near Tampa discovered the weapon on Sunday, the Bradenton Herald reported.

The Manatee County Sheriff's Office says the store manager told deputies that the grenade launcher had come in a shipment from another store several days earlier. Employees from the store where the launcher was originally donated said they sent it to another location, because they didn't know what it was.

Deputies say they disposed of the active grenade in a Hazmat locker, and the launcher was stored in the agency's property room.

It's not clear who donated the items.There were nine unprovoked shark attacks along the West Coast in 2017, none fatal. That's according to new information released by the Shark Research Committee.

Eight of the attacks happened along the coast of California and one from Washington State.

In 2016, there were five reported shark attacks along the West Coast.

But experts added the higher number of attacks in 2017 does not necessarily mean there is a significant increase in shark attacks. Rather, more people could have been in the water and other factors could have lead to the increase.



The most shark attacks for 2017 happened in July, when there were four.

Kayakers were attacked by sharks the most in 2017, followed by surfers, paddleboarders, freedivers and swimmers.

Experts believe the sharks might have seen the kayakers as intruders and were trying to drive them away.

It could also be that more people were out kayaking last year because we had great weather," added Chris Lowe, a professor of marine biology at California State University, Long Beach. "We have to start educating people that shark populations seem to be recovering and there are more white sharks around than there have been in the past.



However, since 2000, surfers have been the most likely to be attacked, followed by kayakers then swimmers. 62 out of 103 attacks by sharks were on surfers, about 60 percent.

Lowe added the shark population is increasing due to protections.

"In 1994 we started protecting sharks because we realized how easy it would be to overfish them," said Lowe. "In addition, their food source, marine mammals, have come back in a big way, so that has fueled their numbers."

Sea lion populations, a natural prey animal of sharks, have increased over the last 40 years off the coast of California, research suggests.

The Great White Shark was most likely the suspect in all nine attacks, researchers added.

With sharks you want to fight back, added Lowe. If a shark is biting you, you want to hit it in its eyes, stick your hand in its gils, bang it on its nose. Those are all sensitive areas that might get the shark to release.

One shark attack was reported south of the Santa Barbara County line, with the remaining eight attacks from Santa Barbara County north.What to Know A new D.C. law will allow pharmacists to prescribe birth control.

Women who want contraception would take a self-assessment of their health, then a pharmacist could give a 12-month supply of birth control.

Eight other states have similar laws, but the rules and regulations vary widely.

A bill that will give women access to birth control prescriptions at pharmacies was signed into law by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser on Wednesday, meaning that within a year, many women could get contraception without a doctor's visit.



"We trust women to make their own decisions," Bowser said ahead of signing the bill.



D.C. would be the eighth state to support such a law, NBC Washington reported in December.

Insurers will also be required to pay for contraceptives.

Under the law, pharmacists could start prescribing up to a 12-month supply of contraceptives to eligible patients as early as October.

Women would be required to use a self-screening tool developed by the D.C. Board of Pharmacy to identify risk factors, including high blood pressure, liver tumors, heavy smoking or heart disease so pharmacists can determine if it's safe to prescribe.

Patients who face serious risks from contraception will be referred to their primary care doctor or a nearby clinic.

Not every pharmacist would be automatically eligible to prescribe, but every local pharmacy will be required to publicize in stores and online when women could come see a pharmacist licensed to prescribe contraception.

Bowser signed the law, which covers a range of women's health issues, at Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington's headquarters in Northeast D.C.

"Regardless of what happens at the federal level, health insurance really has to mean something," the mayor said. "No woman should ever have to decide between paying rent and going to simple check ups."

Regulations on pharmacist-prescribed or over-the-counter contraception vary widely in the eight states that have similar laws.

For example, many California pharmacies choose not to offer contraception without a prescription, despite state laws that allow pharmacists to prescribe them, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Increasing birth control access is only one rule in the broad Defending Access to Women's Health Care Services Amendment Act, which the D.C. Council unanimously passed in January.

Insurance companies will be required by D.C. to pay for a number of preventative health services, including breast cancer, diabetes and HIV screenings; well-woman exams; counseling for domestic violence survivors and breastfeeding support. Insured residents can access those services without paying anything out of pocket.

The local chapter of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists told News4 the legislation should go further and make birth control available over the counter, like ibuprofen is. However, they voiced support of the bill as a whole.

"This bill is much bigger than that single provision. We support the broader legislation because, in the face of the administration's attempts to undermine coverage, the D.C. City Council can and must be a backstop. With its passage, we will send a message to the administration: women's health is medical, not political," the organization's vice chair, Sara Imershein said in a statement.

As with every D.C. law, Congress has a chance to review the legislation within 30 days.

No other state or local jurisdiction in the country has to worry that a random congressman is going to try and meddle with a locally passed law, Council member Charles Allen, who authored the bill, said in a statement.

But I am worried that with a Congress obsessed with overturning a law that protects women from being charged more for basic care, we need to be ready to fight back and say hands off D.C.A Virginia woman is in intensive care with pneumonia after twice going to the doctor with flu symptoms and being sent home, her family said.

Hope McCord McFarland, 45, of Spotsylvania County made those trips to the doctor earlier this month. Then, on Jan. 16, she went to her mother in the middle of the night in the home they share saying she couldnt breathe and needed an ambulance.

She went straight downhill so fast, said her aunt, Patty Arthur. It was unbelievable.

McFarlands symptoms were so bad, she was flown to VCU Medical Center in Richmond two days later.

She's on a ventilator, dialysis and many other live-saving machines after her initially undiagnosed flu became pneumonia, leaving her unable to breathe.

When you walk into the room and you see your baby not be able to breathe on her own  and not be able to move a muscle because of the paralytic drug, it's something no mom should ever have to see, Ann McCord said.

McCord and Arthur take turns at McFarlands bedside. Her son, Danny, isn't visiting because he has a cough and it's a lot for a 10-year-old boy to handle.

I just talk to her and tell her about people asking about her, tell her how much she's loved by me and her son here, McCord said.

McFarland didnt get a flu shot. Her family wants others whove skipped the vaccine to go get it.

I want people to understand that the flu shot saves lives, McCord said crying. If you get the flu shot, you wont be living the nightmare I'm living now.

Rappahannock Area Health District Director Dr. Brooke Rossheim stressed it's not too late to get the shot, and if it doesn't fully protect against the flue, it can make a big difference for those who do catch it.

A person who is not vaccinated who gets really sick may end up in the hospital, Rossheim said. That person with a vaccine may just end up at home.Police arrested a 17-year-old boy and are calling him a person of interest in the death of a 16-year-old girl who went missing from her Virginia home in early January.

Maj. Rich Perez of the Fairfax County Police Department said the teen was charged in a previously unreported assault on Jholie Moussa. The teen, who police did not identify because he is a juvenile, has not been charged in her death.

Moussa left home in the Alexandria section of Fairfax County on Friday, Jan. 12 after telling her twin sister she was going to a party in Norfolk, nearly 200 miles away.

"The departments efforts towards resolving this case and bringing a measure of justice for Jholie and her family continues and will be relentless," Perez said. "Every resource necessary has been and will continue to be deployed."



Perez said the teen is also being considered a person of interest in Moussas death. He said the teen was taken into custody on Jan. 18 for the previous assault and has been in custody since then.

Moussas body was found in a wooded area of Woodlawn Park on Jan. 26, less than a mile from where she was last seen in the 4200 block of Sonia Court. An officer found her body almost entirely covered by leaves.

A vigil of support for Moussa and her family is planned for Thursday night at 6 p.m. at the New Life Bible Church in Springfield.More than two years after a man used a hammer to beat a teenage employee at a Virginia outlet mall, leaving him paralyzed, officials discovered and arrested him in Texas last week, police said.

Bradford Cellucci, 25, was indicted on one count of aggravated malicious wounding for his involvement in the July 2015 attack at Leesburg Corner Premium Outlets, police said. Leesburg Police havent revealed how they connected Cellucci to the crime or why he was in Texas.

As a Polo Ralph Lauren employee accompanied him toward the stores fitting rooms, Cellucci revealed a 6-inch hammer and beat the victim in the neck using the claw end of the tool, police said. Then, Cellucci released the hammer and fled toward the malls parking lot.

The victim suffered puncture wounds in his neck but was in stable condition at a local hospital after the altercation.

Police are holding Cellucci in the Smith County Jail in Texas. He is expected to be sent back to Loudoun County for a trial.The governors of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania announced a friendly wager Wednesday ahead of the Super Bowl matchup between the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker wagered some of the state's foods, including:

Clam Chowder from Legal Sea Foods in Boston

Craisins from Ocean Spray in Middleborough

Apple Cider Donuts from Smolak Farms in North Andover

Apple Pie, Chicken Pot Pie and Maple Syrup from Hollis Hills Farms in Fitchburg

Grillo's Pickles from Needham

Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes and Lemon Squares from Koffee Kup Bakery in Springfield.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf wagered the following items:

Federal Donuts

Soup from the Rooster Soup Company

Reading Terminal Market Scrapple

Coffee from La Colombe in Philadelphia

Pizza slices from Rosa's Fresh Pizza

The governors have agreed to donate their winnings to a local food pantry of their choice.

"As the New England Patriots prepare for their eighth Super Bowl of the last seventeen years, the full force of the Commonwealth and all of New England is behind them every step of the way because we know their jobs are not done yet," Baker said. "We are proud to have another opportunity to offer up some of Massachusetts finest local products for a good cause and look forward to the Pats bringing home another Super Bowl win."

"Over the last year, the Eagles have battled adversity and inspired millions of fans, both on and off the field," Wolf said. "I am putting some of my Philly favorites and Phillys finest and most iconic food items on the line but look forward to Governor Baker sending some Massachusetts food to Pennsylvania."



The Patriots are scheduled to play the Eagles at 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 4 in Minneapolis.New Hampshire police arrested a suspect for the hit-and-run driver that critically injured a woman in Epping, New Hampshire early Monday morning.

Andrea Rich, 55, of Epping was arrested at approximately 9:00 a.m. on Monday. She is charged with conduct after an accident.

Police were called to the Xtra Mart/Dunkin Donuts on Calef Highway just before 4 a.m. where a woman was on the ground suffering from "extensive injuries."

An investigation determined that the victim had been walking on the south side of the building when she was struck by a pickup truck.

Police said Rich got out of the vehicle, then got back in and fled the scene.

A customer found the victim a short time later and called for help.

The victim, who has not been identified, was taken to a local hospital to be treated for life-threatening injuries. Her current condition is unclear.

The investigation is ongoing and Rich may face additional charges. Her arraignment is set for Feb. 9. It is unclear if she has a lawyer.

Anyone with information on the incident is asked to contact Epping police at 603-679-5122.Australia's military said on Tuesday that a fitness tracking application did not breach security despite revelations that an interactive, online map using its data can show troop locations around the world.

The Pentagon announced this week that it was doing a broad review of how the U.S. military forces use exercise trackers and other wearable electronic devices after the revelations about GPS tracking company Strava's application. Strava's online Global Heat Map shows the locations of its users.

Australian Defense Industry Minister Christopher Pyne said the Defense Department was preparing a report for the government on the matter. A department statement said it was aware of the possible risks of the collection of location data through personal electronic devices and apps.

"The circumstances of this application do not constitute a security breach," the statement said.

The issue was first publicized last weekend when Nathan Ruser, a 20-year-old student who is studying international security with a double major in Middle Eastern studies at Australian National University in Canberra, tweeted that "U.S. bases are clearly identifiable and mappable." It was later reported by The Washington Post.

The map uses satellite information to show the locations of subscribers to Strava's fitness service. The map shows activity from 2015 through September 2017.

Heavily populated areas are well lit, but warzones such as Iraq and Syria show scattered pockets of activity that could be caused by military or government personnel using fitness trackers as they move around. Those electronic signals could potentially identify military bases or other secure locations.

"Who knows if someone from any of the intelligence services noticed it before, but as far as I know, I'm the first person in public to put two and two together," Ruser told The Associated Press from Thailand, where he is visiting family.

He said more people were interested in the issue than he expected.

"I expected it to hang around pretty quietly in some of the open-source analyst circles, intelligence wonks would look at it and then for the government or the company to quietly fix the security vulnerabilities, but it's got pretty big," he added.

He called the map a "wakeup call."

"I wouldn't say it provides an acute security risk to any personnel because a lot of those bases are known and even though this map gives you a huge advantage if you were to prioritize targeting the base, none of America's current adversaries like ISIS can walk up to one of those bases and bomb it," he said.

Ruser said he had not been contacted by Strava or any security agency since his tweet attracted attention.Judge refuses to change ruling restricting the use of land

A HIGH Court judgement has refused to change the injunction conditions associated with a piece of land adjacent to Culhams Mill in Silchester, which is owned by travellers.

The injunction proceedings initially arose in February 2017 after an extensive area of hard standing was created on the site and caravans positioned on it.

The planning application was submitted the same day as the work began.

This injunction prevented any tree felling or taking building materials on to the site.

In essence, it was to allow only the caravans present on the land at the time of the original injunction to remain there.

The travellers claim they were living on the land at the time the injunction was issued, but Basingstoke and Deane Council claimed at the High Court hearing in December that this was not the case.

Judge Bidder QC, who resided over the High Court of Justice, said: To vary this injunction would be wholly to undermine the courts authority and the planning system and would give a green light to strong arm tactics designed to bypass or unfairly influence planning decisions.

Head of planning and infrastructure at Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council Matthew Evans said: The injunction remains in place and will do so pending the outcome of the current planning application, or any appeal, or enforcement notice, unless a court decides otherwise.

An application has been made by the landowners to vary the terms of the injunction to allow some occupation of the site, which the council is defending.

The application was criticised by villagers and a resident group  known as the Calleva Society  raised in excess of 12,000 to fight it.

The site was originally purchased by two travellers  Jade Nolan and Freddy Loverage  in November 2016 for 240,000.

The landowners say they want to create a site for gypsies and travellers with proper facilities for all, including safe facilities for children, introducing stability into their lives and encouraging their education and good healthcare.

The planning application is still with Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council and there is no set date for when a decision will be made.Community to appear on TV tonight after reaching semi-finals

COULD the UKs village of the year be right here in West Berkshire?

Hampstead Norreys has made it through to the semi-finals of Channel 4s in the South East region

The picturesque village featured in the programme on Monday and was unanimously chosen by judges, who said Hampstead Norreys was energetic, ambitious and encouraged villagers to try new things and gain new skills.

Pamela Betts, who nominated the village, said: We are delighted to have made it through to the semi-finals.

Hampstead Norreys is a wonderful village to live in, with a fantastic community spirit, so I am so pleased its qualities have been recognised by this TV programme.

Lets hope we make it through to the next round.

Hampstead Norreys is now in the final 76 villages featured in the series, presented by Penelope Keith, having been shortlisted from a list of more than 400.

Ms Keith and her team of judges, Alex Langlands, Juliet Sargeant and Patrick Grant, travelled the country to find the one village worthy of the prestigious title.

Mr Grant visited Hampstead Norreys to film the episode that aired on Monday at the end of May 2017, during the villages FreeFest Arts Festival and summer market.

During his visit, Mr Grant made coffees for customers in the community shop and knitted for people with dementia.

The programme celebrates how villages are looked after and the people who live there.

Its scope is wider than a traditional best kept village competition, however, as judges are interested in villages that have soul as well as beauty.

Hampstead Norreys is being judged for its appearance, history and heritage, village events, activities to do and visitor experience.

The winning village will receive 10,000 to spend on a project to benefit the community, with Hampstead Norreys eyeing the prize-money for a major refurbishment of its village hall.

The airs on Channel 4 every weekday at 3pm and at weekends at 8pm, until February 10.

Hampstead Norreys will feature today (Saturday).Lung cancer treatment often pairs targeted therapies with genetic alterations driving the disease. This makes detecting these genetic alterations an essential step in diagnosis. In 2013, an expert panel made up of members of the College of American Pathologists, the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, and the Association for Molecular Pathology published guidelines describing the genetic tests that should be performed to evaluate a patient's lung cancer. Now a similar expert panel updates these guidelines.

"There have been important changes since 2013. We're discovering new genetic alterations driving lung cancer, new drugs to target these alterations, and are refining our use of tests to find these alterations in individual patients," says Dara Aisner, MD, PhD, investigator at the University of Colorado Cancer Center, molecular pathologist at CU School of Medicine Department of Pathology, and one of the panel experts.

One major change is the recommendation to test for alterations to the gene ROS1 in all cases of lung adenocarcinoma, which make up about half of all cases of non-small cell lung cancer. The recommendation is due in large part to a growing body of evidence demonstrating the clinical benefit of treating patients whose tumors harbor this alteration with targeted therapy.

"In clinical practice, many forward-looking centers have already been testing for and treating ROS1 in lung cancer, but putting it into formal guidelines helps to encourage practitioners everywhere to include it in their targets for testing," Aisner says.

Another update to the 2013 guidelines is the use of cell-free DNA, also called circulating tumor DNA, to test for genetic alterations when appropriate tissue for testing is unavailable.

"People have been using circulating tumor DNA to try to make a few kinds of decisions - this is one of the first formal guidelines to endorse that use," Aisner says.

On the plus side, Aisner points out, testing via circulating tumor DNA returns very few false-positives - when a test discovers DNA with a cancer-causing genetic change, it is strong evidence that this alteration is, in fact, present in the patient's cancer. However, tests that use circulating tumor DNA also have a high rate of false-negatives, meaning that even if a test of this type fails to discover altered DNA, it may still be present in a patient's cancer.

"For this reason, when there's not enough tissue for other kinds of testing, we recommend tests using circulating tumor DNA to 'rule in' targetable mutations, but not to 'rule out' targetable mutations," Aisner says.

In addition to the use of circulating tumor DNA, the recommendations include another option for molecular testing with very little tissue, namely the expanded use of cytology specimens.

"Many lung cancer patients have their diagnosis made by fine needle aspirate - doctors extract cells via a long needle. This allows pathologists to diagnose the existence of cancer, but the sample tends to be very small, and there's been some debate about how useful that small amount of material can be for molecular testing," Aisner says.

One approach with this kind of material is to use what is called a cytology cell block, in which the extracted cells are treated similar to a biopsy. Another approach is to place extracted cells directly on a slide, in what is called a smear preparation. The previous guidelines specifically recommended the use of only cytology cell blocks for testing, but the new guidelines endorse using the smear preparation as well.

"This is an important step forward, as it means that for some patients, testing will be possible when it wasn't before," Aisner says. In fact, the Aisner lab has been instrumental in showing the benefit of using cytology smear preparations for molecular testing in lung cancer.

Aisner also points out an important, intentional omission from these guidelines. Just as many informed clinicians were testing for and targeting ROS1 alterations even before these current guidelines, clinicians are starting to test for and target alterations of the gene BRAF in lung cancer.

"The FDA approved a combination treatment against BRAF alterations in lung cancer and, clinically, many people are starting to include BRAF in the list of tests. This is a case of technology moving faster than our ability to complete systematic reviews of it," Aisner says.

She also points out that while the combination of dabrafenib and trametenib earned FDA approval against lung cancer with BRAF V600 mutation in the United States, the combination hasn't yet earned such approval in other countries, and these guidelines are meant to guide care not just in the United States, but internationally.Sugar and spice are not so nice, at least when it comes to vaping or inhalation. Exposure to e-cigarette flavoring chemicals and liquids can cause significant inflammation to monocytes, a type of white blood cell -- and many flavoring compounds are also toxic, with cinnamon, vanilla and buttery flavors among the worst. That's the finding of new research published in open-access journal Frontiers in Physiology, which also found that mixing e-cigarette flavors has a much worse effect than exposure to just one. The study adds to growing evidence on the harmful health effects of e-cigarettes.

The use of e-cigarettes has exploded in the past decade as traditional cigarette consumption has declined. In the United States alone, more than 500 e-cigarette brands with almost 8,000 uniquely flavored e-juices are available to consumers.

Vaping exposes the lungs to flavoring chemicals when the e-liquids are heated and inhaled. Since the flavoring chemicals are considered safe to eat, e-cigarettes are often considered -- and advertised -- as a healthier alternative to traditional cigarettes. However, the health effects of inhaling these chemicals are not well understood.

This new study, led by researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Centre in the United States, wanted to test the assumption that vaping nicotine-free flavored e-liquids is safer than smoking conventional cigarettes. Previous studies show that flavors used in e-cigarettes cause inflammatory and oxidative stress responses in lung cells. Users of e-cigarettes also show increased levels oxidative stress markers in the blood compared to non-smokers. The new study extends this to assess the effects of commonly used flavoring chemicals, as well as e-liquids without nicotine, directly on immune cells -- namely, a type of white blood cell called monocytes.

Exposure to the e-cigarette flavoring chemicals and e-liquids led to higher production of two well-established biomarkers for inflammation and tissue damage mediated by oxidative stress. Furthermore, many of the flavoring chemicals caused significant cell death -- with some flavors being more toxic than others.

The study's first author, Dr Thivanka Muthumalage says that while the flavoring compounds tested may be safe for ingestion, these results show they are not safe for inhalation. "Cinnamon, vanilla and butter flavoring chemicals were the most toxic but our research showed that mixing flavors of e-liquids caused by far the most toxicity to white blood cells."

Senior author, Dr Irfan Rahman, says he hopes this new data will provide insights into understanding the harmful effects of flavored e-juices without nicotine.

"Currently, these are not regulated, and alluring flavor names, such as candy, cake, cinnamon roll and mystery mix, attract young vapers," he says. "Our scientific findings show that e-liquid flavors can, and should, be regulated and that e-juice bottles must have a descriptive listing of all ingredients. We urge regulatory agencies to act to protect public health."

This study directly exposed monocytic blood cells to e-liquids. The authors plan to undertake further research to simulate live vaping, by exposing cells to e-liquid aerosols in an air-liquid interface system. They also call for further long-term human studies to assess the harmful effects of e-cigarettes.

Source: http://www.frontiersin.orgResearchers at Baylor College of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the University of California, San Francisco have gained new insights into how the small intestine, one of the fastest renewing tissues in the human body, repairs itself after injury caused by intestinal rotavirus infection. Their findings have led them to propose that, contrary to the current thinking, how the intestine repairs itself seems to depend on the type of damage, and they found that triggers that were previously thought to be unimportant are actually essential for repairing virus-caused injury. The study appears in Cell Reports.

"When we began this project, most studies in the field focused either on the normal turnover of the small intestine or on the repair of damage caused by radiation, for example," said first author Winnie Zou, a student in the Medical Scientist Training Program (M.D./Ph.D.) in Dr. Mary Estes' lab at Baylor. "We studied a different damage model, damage caused by rotavirus, a common small intestinal viral infection that affects young children."

Repair and turnover of the epithelium, the most external cellular layer of the small intestine responsible for absorption of nutrients and other functions, depend on the intestinal stem cells, regardless of the cause of the damage. There are two types of intestinal stem cells: CBCs (crypt-based columnar cells) and reserve intestinal stem cells. The type of injuries studied until now damages the highly proliferative CBCs, and when these stem cells are destroyed, the reserve intestinal stem cells respond to restore the damage. The response to injury caused by rotavirus, however, is different.

"Rotavirus is an infection and has a very specific damage pattern," Zou said. "The virus specifically infects epithelial cells, but not the stem cells. Because the stem cells are intact, we wanted to investigate the type of repair response that would restore the epithelium destroyed by the virus."

"Nobody had looked at this situation before," said senior author Dr. Mary Estes, Cullen Foundation Endowed Professor Chair of Human and Molecular Virology in molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor and emeritus founding director of the Texas Medical Center Digestive Diseases Center. "This is the first study of mammalian intestinal epithelial cell injury in which the stem cells are not damaged."

Two unexpected findings

"Our first finding refers to the type of stem cell involved in the repair of the epithelial cells damaged by the virus," said Zou. "Previous studies had shown that when CBC stem cells are damaged, the reserve stem cells come to their rescue leading the reconstitution of the damaged epithelium. When rotavirus damages the epithelium, but not the stem cells, we found that the CBCs, not the reserve stem cells, are the primary cell type involved in the restoration of the intestinal epithelium."

"Until now, CBCs were not considered important for the repair of intestinal epithelium, but our results show that they are crucial for injury repair after rotavirus-induced epithelial cell damage in contrast to previous studies supporting the reserve intestinal stem cells as the cell type involved in epithelial restitution," said Estes, who is also a member of the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center and holds a joint appointment in gastroenterology and hepatology at Baylor.

The second unexpected finding refers to the source of the signaling molecules - called WNTs - that trigger the growth and activation of stem cells leading to injury repair. Scientists have described two sources of WNT molecules, epithelial cells and mesenchymal cells. Until now, research has considered the mesenchymal and the epithelial WNT to be redundant and not essential on their own.

"We found that the epithelial WNT molecules were essential to signal the stem cells to repair the damage caused by rotavirus infection," said Zou.

"This was the biggest surprise. The predominant idea in the field is that the epithelial WNTs have no specific function, and here we found the first model indicating that in some cases epithelial WNTs do have a specific function. We show that epithelial and mesenchymal WNTs are not interchangeable, as it was thought before," Estes said. "I think this finding will be exciting for intestinal stem cell researchers. Now, we are exploring what the infection is doing that triggers WNT production in the epithelium."Multi-year Phenomics Consortium sponsored by Israel Innovation Authority includes 10 leading companies and academic institutions

Evogene Ltd., a leading biotechnology company developing novel products for life science markets through the use of a unique computational predictive biology platform, announced today its participation in a three-year Israel Innovation Authority sponsored Phenomics Consortium to develop tools and systems for precision agriculture and innovative development of agriculture products.

In addition to Evogene, the Phenomics Consortium consists of Elbit Systems, Hazera Seeds, Opgal Optronic Industries, Rahan Meristem, Sensilize, the Volcani Center of the Agricultural Research Organization, Ben-Gurion University, the Technion  Israel Institute of Technology and the University of Haifa. The goal of the consortium is to develop plant phenotyping technologies, including the generation of comprehensive agricultural Big-Data and the development of artificial intelligence algorithms for real time analysis of phenotypic data. The analysis of this data is expected to assist farmers in managing their crop season more efficiently thereby improving yield per acre. IP developed within the framework of the consortium (not including background IP) will be available for use by each of the consortium members.

It is expected that technologies and comprehensive data to be developed by the consortium will potentially be transformative for precision agriculture plant treatment solutions, while at the same time providing new and advanced capabilities for all science based research and development of agricultural products.

The consortium is expected to span over three years, subject to both re-approval each year and an option to be extended to five years. The grant approved for the consortium for calendar year 2018 is ~$5 million, of which ~$1.4 million to Evogene.

Ofer Haviv, Evogenes President and CEO stated:How Jeff the Land Shark snuck up and took a bite out of Marvel fans' hearts

Youre about to fall in love with Marvels weirdest pet hero: Jeff the Land SharkLONDON - The passengers stepping off the Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt, Germany, last month head straight for the passport-scanning machines that allow European residents to enter Britain quickly and without any human interaction.

A lone figure in a black hoodie and jeans breaks off from the pack.

"Too many biometric details," says Andy Muller-Maguhn, eyeing the cameras on the timesaving devices.

He has come here, as he does most months, to meet with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the world's most controversial purveyor of government secrets. For most of the past six years, Assange has been confined to the Ecuadoran Embassy in London, fearful that if he leaves he will be extradited to the United States for prosecution under the Espionage Act. Ecuador recently granted Assange citizenship, but British officials said he is still subject to arrest if he leaves the embassy.

Muller-Maguhn is one of Assange's few connections to the outside world. He typically brings Assange books, clothes or movies. Once in 2016, he delivered a thumb drive that he says contained personal messages for the WikiLeaks founder, who for security reasons has stopped using email.

These visits have caught the attention of U.S. and European spy chiefs, who have struggled to understand how Assange's organization operates and how exactly WikiLeaks came to possess a trove of hacked Democratic Party emails that the group released at key moments in the 2016 presidential campaign.

The three major U.S. intelligence agencies - the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency - assessed "with high confidence" that Russia relayed to WikiLeaks material it had hacked from the Democratic National Committee and senior Democratic officials. And last year, then-FBI Director James B. Comey said that the bureau believes the transfer was made using a "cut-out," or a human intermediary or a series of intermediaries.

Exactly how the Russians delivered the email trove to WikiLeaks is the subject of an ongoing examination by U.S. and European intelligence officials. As part of their effort to understand the group's operations, these officials have taken an intense interest in Muller-Maguhn, who visits Assange monthly, U.S. officials said.

Muller-Maguhn insists that he was never in possession of the material before it was put online and that he did not transport it.

"That would be insane," he says.

U.S. officials who once dismissed WikiLeaks as a little more than an irritating propaganda machine and Assange as an antiestablishment carnival barker now take a far darker view of the group.

"It's time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is: a nonstate hostile intelligence service," CIA Director Mike Pompeo said in the spring after the group released documents describing CIA hacking tools.In December, he doubled down on that assessment, describing WikiLeaks as a national security threat and suggesting that Assange cannot protect those who pass him state secrets.

"He ought to be a bit less confident about that," Pompeo said.

In an interview at the Ecuadoran Embassy last month, Assange insisted that Muller-Maguhn never possessed the hacked DNC emails and blasted Pompeo's statementsas "very strange and bombastic."

Muller-Maguhn is more cautious. "How many of you wouldn't be scared s---less by the head of the CIA declaring you the next target?" he asks.

The 46-year-old hacker moves through Heathrow Airport like a man who knows that powerful governments are tracking his every move. A Washington Post reporter travels with him as he goes through passport control.

He switches off his cellphone, fearful that British immigration officials have technology that can steal his data. Muller-Maguhn could enter the United Kingdom with his German identification card but prefers to use his passport. "The ID card has my address on it," he says.

A heavy-set immigration officer looks over Muller-Maguhn's passport and stares for several seconds at a computer screen.

"Why are you in the U.K?" he asks.

"I'm visiting people," Muller-Maguhn replies.

The officer pecks at his computer. Necks crane to catch a glimpse of the man clad in all black who is holding up the normally brisk line of passengers headed to early morning business meetings.

After a few minutes, the officer waves through Muller-Maguhn, who is walking toward the exit when the officer remembers one last question.

"Sir, sir, where are you traveling from again?" he shouts.

"Frankfurt," Muller-Maguhn replies.

And with that he is gone. Behind him, the immigration officer is still typing. The travelers who briefly took notice of Muller-Maguhn are back staring at their phones or marching toward their destinations. Muller-Maguhn heads for the Heathrow Express into London.

- - -

The roots of Muller-Maguhn's relationship with Assange trace back to his teenage years in the 1980s when his walk to school in Hamburg took him past of the offices of the Chaos Computer Club.

The group embodied postwar Germany's anti-fascist convictions and the hacker underground's libertarian ethos. Now the largest hacker club in Europe, it bills itself as "a galactic community of life forms independent of age, sex, race or society orientation that strives across borders for freedom of information."

Muller-Maguhn soon became a friend, confidant and adviser to the group's founder, Wau Holland. "They were like a strange couple," said Peter Glaser, a club member, journalist and friend of both men. "Andy was very young and behaved like an adult, and Wau was older and behaved like a child."

Muller-Maguhn later parlayed his interest in computers and surveillance into a business he co-founded in 2003 making encrypted phones. He had hoped to sell the phones to journalists and dissidents but quickly discovered that military and intelligence agencies in Europe, Asia and the Middle East were the only clients who understood the technology and were willing to pay for it.

"This was during the time I was following the path of capitalism," he said with a smile during one of several lengthy interviews in Berlin.

Muller-Maguhn spent 10 years selling the phones before leaving the company. "You can imagine, I know really strange people in really strange places," he adds. These days, Muller-Maguhn says, he runs a data center that hosts websites and manages email for businesses. He also works as a security consultant, helping companies and governments safeguard their secrets. One of his clients is in China, a state known for its suppression of the internet and its surveillance of dissidents.

By Muller-Maguhn's calculus, the nominally communist government is less prone to violence overseas and less of a threat than the United States is. "They don't have the wish to apply their standards to the rest of the planet or have others dance to their music," he says. "So there's a big difference."

In recent years, Muller-Maguhn's consulting and advocacy work has carried him all over the world, including Moscow, where in 2016 and 2017 he attended a security conference organized by the Russian Defense Ministry.

On his way into London for his meeting with Assange, Muller-Maguhn casually mentions that he is just back from a three-day trip to Brazil.

"It was business-related," he says, declining to elaborate.

Muller-Maguhn hops out of a cab in Knightsbridge, a posh section of London that's home to Harrods department store, the Ecuadoran Embassy and Assange. On this cold December day, the stores are decked out for the Christmas season. Muller-Maguhn raises a camera with a telephoto lens and aims it at a building down the street from the brick embassy where Assange has been holed up since 2012.

The shutter on his Nikon camera clicks as he snaps a few shots, hoping to spot surveillance equipment pointed at Assange and the embassy. Women in fur coats rush by him as Bentleys and Rolls-Royces roll past on the busy road. Muller-Maguhn moves down the sidewalk to get a better angle, takes some more pictures and then slings the Nikon over his shoulder.

Farther down the block and closer to the embassy, he points up toward an apartment building where he suspects that the Spaniards, angry about Assange's tweets in support of Catalan separatists, may have set up a surveillance team.

Then he bounds up the steps of the building that houses the Ecuadoran Embassy, takes one last glance over his shoulder and rings the bell of the front door, where a guard immediately recognizes him and welcomes him inside.

Muller-Maguhn met Assange through the Chaos Computer Club in 2007 when the WikiLeaks founder was seeking support for his then-fledgling organization.

In those early days, Assange described his creation as a group committed to the mission of publishing original source material so citizens of the world could see "evidence of the truth" about global corporations and their governments.

Just past the doors to the embassy, a guard asks Muller-Maguhn to turn over all electronic devices: cameras, mobile phones, as well as his watch and car keys.

"The last time, they even looked into the fruit I was bringing," Muller-Maguhn says. "These guys have their job. They have their instructions. So I am not complaining."

Since WikiLeaks' early days, Assange's circle of contacts has contracted significantly. Some allies, such as Daniel Domscheit-Berg, who first invited Assange to the Chaos Computer Club and signed on as WikiLeaks' spokesman, broke with WikiLeaks in 2010 after Assange released hundreds of thousands of pages of U.S. military documents without redacting the names of local Afghans who had helped the military and could be targeted by the Taliban. Other backers were put off by Assange's legal troubles and allegations of sexual assault in Sweden or his Manichaean view of the world.

Still others alleged that the group allowed itself to be used as a tool by the Russians in their campaign to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

"Look, he has messed up with so many people, I have no idea how many people he has left as friends," Muller-Maguhn says.

Assange continues to fear that he will be prosecuted by the United States and as a result is afraid to leave the embassy, saying that doing so would lead to his extradition. The Justice Department is considering a case against him, according to people familiar with the matter. Several months ago, Domscheit-Berg said, the FBI sought an interview with him in connection with a long-running grand jury investigation of WikiLeaks' publication of State Department cables. Domscheit-Berg said in an interview that he rebuffed the request. "No matter the differences that Julian and I had, I'm not going to talk to anybody about what happened," he said.

- - -

As WikiLeaks has contracted and Assange has retreated from public view, it has become harder for Western intelligence agencies to get a sense of how the group operates. An internal CIA report from November said the U.S. intelligence community has "gained few good insights into WikiLeaks' inner workings." The agency predicted that Assange's negative views of Washington would lead the group to continue to "disproportionately" target the United States.

Former WikiLeaks supporters say the group is governed by Assange's whims. "The way to think of it is always just chaos," said one former WikiLeaks activist who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a frank opinion and avoid retribution from Assange. "There aren't any systems. There aren't any procedures - no formal roles, no working hours. It's all just Julian and whatever he feels like."

During the 2016 campaign, Assange put out word that he wanted material on Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. "He was kind of asking everybody, 'Can we get something for the election?' " Muller-Maguhn recalls.

Assange signs off on all WikiLeaks publications but does not review everything that comes to the group. "For security reasons, he does not want that," Muller-Maguhn says. Muller-Maguhn, though, is vague about WikiLeaks' internal workings.

A former WikiLeaks associate said Muller-Maguhn and a colleague oversaw submissions through WikiLeaks' anonymous submission server in 2016 - although Muller-Maguhn denies such involvement.

Asked to explain the submission review process, he replies, "I don't want to."

The only reliable way to contact Assange, he says, is through Direct Message on Twitter. "He seems to live on Twitter," adds Muller-Maguhn, who doesn't hide his disdain for the platform. "On Twitter you follow people, and that's what German history forbids you to do," he says.

The size of WikiLeaks' staff and its finances are also murky. Neither Muller-Maguhn nor Assange will say how many people work for the group or where they are located. "It seems to be a rather small team," Muller-Maguhn says.

WikiLeaks has amassed a stash of bitcoin, a digital currency that enables anonymous, bank-free transactions. As of this week, the stockpile is worth about $18 million, although in late December, with the currency's spike in value, the group was sitting on $25 million, according to public online ledgers that record such transactions. Over the past several years, the Wau Holland Foundation, which was started in 2003 after the founder of the Chaos Computer Club died, collected hundreds of thousands of dollars for Assange's group.

Muller-Maguhn sits on the board of the foundation, which seeks to promote "freedom of information and civil courage in various forms." He says the foundation has provided support for some of WikiLeaks' releases, such as last year's "Vault 7" disclosure of CIA hacking tools.

He describes the Vault 7 releases as a public service, adding that the CIA was "messing up other people's computers and making it look like someone else had done it."

To Assange, any suggestion that Muller-Maguhn may have served as an intermediary to deliver the DNC emails is "a lame attempt" by U.S. intelligence agencies to hurt the Wau Holland Foundation, which is a key conduit for tax-free donations in Europe.

The threat is all the more significant because the only other source of tax-exempt donations, the U.S.-based Freedom of the Press Foundation, has cut ties to WikiLeaks.

Muller-Maguhn says he cannot say with certainty what was on the USB drive that he delivered to Assange. "How can I prove what was on there?" he says. "I cannot." But he adds that it would be risky and impractical to deliver sensitive files by hand, rather than through encrypted channels.

"A classical walk-in? You saw too many movies from the 1970s," he says.

These days, Muller-Maguhn describes his visits to the embassy as motivated by an increasingly rare commodity in Assange's world: friendship. Assange's visitors include celebrities, such as actress Pamela Anderson, and politicians, such as Nigel Farage, a vocal advocate for Britain's exit from the European Union, and Dana Rohrabacher, a GOP congressman from California.

When he talks to visitors, Assange turns on a white noise generator in the embassy conference room to counter listening devices. Above the door, he points out a surveillance camera and indicates that sensitive messages should be communicated only via handwritten notes, shielding the text from the camera with a hand or notepad cover.

On July 3, 2016, Muller-Maguhn visited Assange at the embassy to celebrate Assange's 45th birthday. Inside the brick building, Ecuadoran children, dressed in traditional garb, serenaded Assange with little guitars and pipe flutes.

As the children sang, Muller-Maguhn's mind flashed forward.

"I had this s---ty impression of me standing there watching 50-year-olds making music for us, and Julian would still be there," he said.

After about two hours inside the embassy last month, Muller-Maguhn emerges from the building, carrying his black leather satchel, stuffed with documents, and his Nikon camera. He quickly makes his way through the Christmas crowds and back to Heathrow Airport for an evening flight home to Germany.

He tries to minimize his time in Britain. "I don't like to stay overnight in a country that is hostile toward me," he says.

- - -

Jaffe reported from Washington. The Washington Post's Greg Miller, Rachel Weiner and Julie Tate in Washington, Karla Adam in London and Stefan Pauly in Berlin contributed to this report.NEW HAVEN  Feray Gokcek is giving it another try.

A native of Turkey, in August he petitioned the city to name a corner of the one-block-long Scarboro Street to Ataturk Street, and submitted three signatures from his immediate neighbors.

Turned down by the city for not having enough signatures and for other shortcomings, Gokcek will be back to testify before the aldermanic Legislation Committee, this time with almost 300 signatures.

Gokcek said he wants Americans to know more about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern-day Turkey, who introduced secular reforms there in the early 20th century, changes Gokcek said are now being unraveled by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the current president.

Gokcek, who became a U.S. citizen in 1997, installed an 11-foot-tall statue of Ataturk in his yard at 560 Middletown Ave. two years ago, a tribute to the deceased leader that is clearly visible from this main thoroughfare and Scarboro Street.

Alder Anna Festa, D-10, who represents the area, said there is still a question as to whether there are enough signatures from residents of the Quinnipiac Meadows neighborhood. She said it is also still confusing if the request applies to the corner or the street.

Gokcek, 55, said he is only interested in the corner. I dont want to change history. I respect history, he said of renaming the street.

Gokcek said there are statues to honor Ataturk all over the world, but he did not think there are any in the U.S., which is why he and the Ataturk Union of USA underwrote the purchase of the 3,000-pound statue, which they unveiled in a backyard celebration at his house in May 2016.

Gokcek, who immigrated here in 1992, made a case for recognizing a foreign leader here. He said there is a main thoroughfare in Istanbul named for U.S. President John Kennedy.

The City Plan Commission in September 2017, in considering Gokceks original request, said a petition for an honorary naming of a street corner should show the site, as well as the proposed signage drawn to scale; the proposed wording of the signage; and a petition of at least 250 city residents, of which at least 166 should be residents of the neighborhood.

One official thought the definition of the neighborhood can be somewhat liberal, but generally speaking it should include residents east of Interstate 91 and north of Route 80.

Gokcek attached 13 pages of tributes to Ataturk to the documentation he sent to the alders by way of attesting to Ataturks contribution.

Ataturk carved modern-day Turkey out of a crumbling Ottoman Empire and served as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. As part of introducing democracy there, he also diminished the role of Islam in public life.

Festa said she has also been told that some of the land in that area of Quinnipiac Meadows was donated to the city by a Rhode Island family who stipulated that the streets reflect the name of towns in that state. She did not know if naming a corner honoring someone would be an issue.

This kind of honorific is not uncommon in New Haven, but Festa thought it generally was a local person who has made some contribution.

At the intersection of College and Chapel streets in New Haven however, above the two street signs, there is one that reads, Bishop Tutu Corner, named for Desmond Tutu, the South African Anglican cleric known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist.

Festa said Tutu had been a visitor to the city, so there was that connection.

Gokcek, a vegetable wholesaler, said he and a friend spent a long time collecting the signatures by going door to door and then to area businesses. He estimated each interaction took about 35 minutes as he had to explain who Ataturk was and why he wants the sign.

It was a very difficult job, he said, although he said people in the end were wiling to sign it.

He said learning about Ataturk will add to the culural richness of the city of New Haven, the ethnic mosaic here.

The U.S. gave me everything. Two kids, a home, a car, Gokcek said of his life in America.

He said it was important that Ataturks contributions to democracy and secularism and the rights of women is made known.

mary.oleary@

hearstmediact.com; 203-641-2577HARTFORD  Solar industry representatives in Connecticut expressed dismay over a new tariff on solar-energy cells and panels.

Announced last week by U.S. President Donald Trump, the tariff is meant to create jobs and revive U.S. manufacturing, but Connecticut officials say it will cost them more jobs than it will create.

This country gave up supporting the solar industry back in the 70s, Mike Trahan, executive director of Solar Connecticut, Inc. said. This is why we are so dependent on parts from other countries.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer announced the tariffs on imported solar panels and modules, as well as washing machines following an investigation by the U.S. international Trade Commission. The investigation resulted from complaints by domestic manufacturers regarding unfair trade practices.

Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), a trade organization for the industry in the United States, estimated that the country would lose 23,000 green energy jobs this year as a result of the tariffs. The association also stated that billions of dollars marked for investment in solar power would be lost.

The association estimates that there were more than 53,000 homes in Connecticut with solar power and that it accounted for 1.19 percent of the electricity in the state.

Read more.

This story has been modified from its original version. To view the original, visit ctnewsjunkie.com.Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

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Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.You are clearly a super-user of NUVO.net. Thats a good thing. It means you depend on independent and local news sources to keep you informed. You are a smart person.



Coincidentally, independent and local news sources depend on you too. Youve read 25 articles this month and now, wed like you to be join our mission and become a NUVO Supporter. For as little as $4 a month, you can keep us alive and fighting -- and can have unlimited access to the independent news that cant be found anywhere else.On February 29, 2016, IDF sargeant Shimon Yifrach and his comrades were called to rescue two soldiers who had mistakenly entered the Qalandiya refugee camp, on the outskirts of Jerusalem. They were forced to abandon their vehicle, which was set on fire by Palestinians, and escape the crowds call for their lynching.

Yifrach, a career soldier in the armys Border Patrol unit for eight years, worked frantically with his comrades to reach the soldiers, who had lost contact with their commander. The soldiers were finally located and evacuated under heavy fire, but Yifrach took a hit. He suffered severe wounds from the gunfire and shrapnel that penetrated his body. After several life saving surgeries, Yifrach began an arduous course of rehabilitation.

Ten months later, December 2017, on the seventh night of Chanukah, Yifrach, supported by crutches, shared his story with 500 guests at Chabad Israel Centers dinner in the Capitale Banquet Hall in New York City. He was one of twelve wounded Israeli veterans being honored at the dinner as part of an all-expenses-paid trip to New York, courtesy of BLev Echad. Still in rehab, Yifrach used the opportunity to cross a major milestone. In the presence of a visibly moved audience, he turned to his girlfriend, Anat, who was at his side through his long ordeal, and asked for her hand in marriage.

Shimon Yifrach proposes to his girlfriend, Anat, in front of a crowd of 500 at BLev Echads dinner this December (2017).

BLev Echad (translated as with one heart) was founded by Rabbi Uriel and Shevy Vigler of Chabad Israel Center of the Upper East Side in 2009. Many members of the Chabad Israel Center community served in the IDF, inspiring the rabbi and rebbetzin to honor the wounded veterans for their sacrifice and service.

Blev Echad brings groups of wounded IDF veterans for a ten-day trip to New York. The itinerary is packed with adventure, healing, and meaning. Along the way, lasting friendships are formed.

IDF war hero Ido Kahlon joined the March 2016 trip to New York, where he met Sarah Morgan, one of the volunteers. At one of the events, Sarah heard him speak about the challenges he faces due to his 2003 injury. Captivated by his strength and optimism, Sarah made aliyah, and in November 2017, Rabbi Vigler officiated at Ido and Sarahs wedding ceremony in Israel.

Once the veterans are back in Israel, BLev Echad is on the ground helping the soldiers resume life. The organization provides legal assistance to soldiers struggling with the bureaucratic red tape surrounding official recognition of their injuries and the accompanying financial assistance. BLev Echad has provided academic scholarships to soldiers of limited financial means and works to support soldiers facing depression and PTSD.

After spending years in hospital wards surrounded by other injured soldiers, these young individuals often believe that they are no longer capable, that they can never be successful. They are afraid of further disappointment . . . of being rejected. We are there for the soldiers as they take the steps to further their education and enter the job market, Sharon Shtrachman explains.

Sharon, and her husband Miki, head BLev Echads operations in Israel. Their daughter was injured in a car ramming attack while serving as Border Patrol officer in Jerusalem, and participated in one of the BLev Echad trips to New York City. After seeing the impact that the trip had on her own daughter, Sharon was moved to join the organization, helping soldiers find employment, gain academic training, and connect with professionals in various disciplines who volunteer their time to support the soldiers in their respective areas of interest.

The soldiers have the capability to reach their dreams and goals, we only serve as a ladder to get them there. In the end they see themselves for the champions that they are, Sharon emphasizes.

To date, 177 soldiers were honored by BLev Echad with the royal treatment. They are wined and dined with attention to their comfort. Its a small gesture, says Vigler, to show gratitude for their sacrifice.

BLev Echad will be holding a Bike-a-Thon in New York City in April 2018. More information is available at www.belevechad.nyc.Thank you for reading The Cascadia Advocate, the Northwest Progressive Institutes journal of world, national, and local politics.

Founded in March of 2004, The Cascadia Advocate has been helping people throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond make sense of current events with rigorous analysis and thought-provoking commentary for more than fifteen years. The Cascadia Advocate is funded by readers like you and trusted sponsors. We dont run ads or publish content in exchange for money.

Help us keep The Cascadia Advocate editorially independent and freely available to all by becoming a member of the Northwest Progressive Institute today. Or make a donation to sustain our essential research and advocacy journalism.

Your contribution will allow us to continue bringing you features like Last Week In Congress, live coverage of events like Netroots Nation or the Democratic National Convention, and reviews of books and documentary films.

Become an NPI member Make a one-time donationEspecially because during her husbands address last year, Mrs. Trump came under fire very quickly for her choice of what was seen as a let-them-eat-cake black sequined Michael Kors suit, so she must know how much what she wears to this particular event matters. Especially because she has proved, over the last few months, perfectly cognizant of the way dress can be used as an implicit form of messaging, wearing red Dior for her trip to France for Bastille Day, and Dolce & Gabbana to the G-7 in Sicily.

And especially given the almost elated reception that greeted her decision to wear a bright pink pussy bow blouse for an appearance during the campaign after her husbands previous public sexual shaming, the Access Hollywood tape in which he made vulgar remarks about women. If she has paid any attention at all to public reaction (or if her team has), she cannot be ignorant of the fact that when she seems to use clothing as a subversive tool to suggest what she presumably cannot say, it provokes a groundswell of support.

Though it was unclear at the time whether Mrs. Trump really understood the implications of that blouse choice, wearing a white suit to the State of the Union indicates that, indeed, she did. That when it comes to what she wears and what she means by it, she chooses her moments. Sometimes, such as at the Easter egg roll, its just about a pretty dress. But other times, as this time, her fashion is accessorized with a pointed subtext.

At the very least, its dangled as a tease to those who would like to think it could mean more.

But taken together with the wardrobe choices of the Democrats and the Republicans, the first ladys white suit was the final piece of what appeared to be an unprecedentedly politicized use of dress during a State of the Union. Indeed, Ivanka Trump, in understated plaid Oscar de la Renta, was one of the rare people in the room who didnt seem to be using her clothes to communicate anything other than taking a back seat. The audience was theoretically supposed to be silent  the president was talking  but their clothes spoke for them. And they did it at a time when millions of viewers across the country were watching, and could read the message in the material. Why wait for the official rebuttals? They can start white now.Making The Daily has been a singular experience, both for Mr. Barbaro, who had been a business and political reporter for The Times since 2005, and for the founding producers, who came from an equally august  and entrenched  tradition, in public radio. Ms. Tobin, the executive producer of New York Times Audio, formerly worked at WBUR; Andy Mills came from Radiolab, and Theo Balcomb from All Things Considered.

All four knew from the beginning that The Daily would stand apart from both the kind of incremental, by-the-book radio news broadcasts that date back to the 1920s and the kind of pure narrative that has made shows like This American Life so popular in more recent years. Rather, The Daily combines elements of both  often in very different ways from day to day. Over two days last month, for example, an interview with the Times reporter Catrin Einhorn about her reporting on sexual harassment at Ford was followed by an episode consisting entirely of sound clips from throughout 2017, with no preamble or commentary: an audio time capsule.

The shows team has benefited from the free rein to produce boldly experimental work, as well as from the considerable intellectual resources represented by their colleagues in The Timess newsroom. Most episodes of the show center on Mr. Barbaro interviewing Times reporters, focusing especially on how the particulars of the days breaking news are shaped by the contours of the beats theyve covered, in many cases, for years.

It was, at first, a big ask. So often, we were asking the reporter who truly had the least time to spend the most time with us, Ms. Tobin said. But if the 126 journalists who have appeared on the show have been generous with their time, The Daily has presented a fresh opportunity for them, too.

The Washington correspondent Matt Apuzzo, who has been featured on 19 episodes, said that taping a spot on the show in the middle of writing a big story often helped him to clarify his approach. The feedback, too, is better: I think people understand better the time that we put into the reporting, and the time it takes to try to figure things out, he said. In a particularly frenzied year for news out of the White House, talking with The Daily also helped listeners understand how were trying to make sense of it, in a way that you just cant do in the printed word, he added.Columbia University announced on Tuesday that it would not bargain with its graduate students who voted to unionize more than a year ago. The case will now wind its way to a federal appeals court.

In addition to studying, graduate students do much of the teaching of undergraduates at many universities, and the question of whether they can unionize has seesawed back and forth for years. The National Labor Relations Board established the right during the Clinton administration in a case that involved graduate students from New York University. A few years later, that decision was reversed during George W. Bushs presidency with a case out of Brown University. During the Obama years, in 2016, the N.L.R.B. ruled again, this time in favor of graduate students at Columbia.

A few months after that ruling, the Columbia students voted overwhelmingly in favor of unionizing, 1,602 to 623. The university appealed to the labor board, which found in December that the election had been fair and that the union should be certified. Julie Kushner, the director of region 9A at the U.A.W., which hopes to add Columbia graduate students to its ranks, said that while the majority of the N.L.R.B. members at the time were Republicans who might have been sympathetic to Columbias cause, the case before the board in December was a narrow one that focused on the fairness of the election.

John H. Coatsworth, provost of Columbia, sent an email to the Columbia community on Tuesday announcing the decision.Benedicte Pesle, a Frenchwoman who was so impressed with the stage performances she saw during visits to the United States that she devoted herself to bringing the adventurous works of Merce Cunningham, Robert Wilson and other American artists to European audiences, died on Jan. 17 in Paris. She was 90.

Her death was announced by the culture services division of the French Embassy in the United States.

Ms. Pesle (pronounced pell) did her work behind the scenes, eschewing labels like producer and presenter while performing a wide array of functions  go-between, convincer, fund-raiser and more  that might in fact have fallen under those job descriptions.

When pressed, she would use a humble term to characterize her role, said Denise Luccioni, who worked with her: secretaire dartistes  secretary of artists.

She did whatever needed to be done, Ms. Luccioni said by email. But before that, she had had the idea for it, the clear vision of how it should be done, and she had transmitted her passion and enthusiasm and convinced whoever needed to be convinced that that was the way to go. Then she did all the practical things, because nobody thought of all the things she thought of.Dennis Peron, who openly dealt marijuana from a supermarket in San Francisco in the 1970s before leading a successful campaign to legalize it for medical use in California two decades later, died on Saturday at a San Francisco hospital. He was 71.

John Entwistle Jr., his spouse, said the cause was respiratory failure.

Mr. Peron was identified with marijuana all his adult life.

He began smoking it at 17. He continued in Vietnam, where he served in the Air Force, and smuggled two pounds stateside in his duffel bag after his discharge.

I came back and kissed the ground, he told Leafly.com, an online cannabis website, in 2014. I was happy  partly because I had two pounds with me. That started a career that would span 40 years.On the same day it was reported that the C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, had said he expected Russia to meddle in the 2018 midterm elections, the Trump administration failed to fulfill a congressional mandate to punish Russia for its meddling in the 2016 election.

Both houses of Congress almost unanimously approved legislation last year requiring more sanctions against Russia, and those who do business with Russia, in response to the hacking and disinformation campaign with which American intelligence agencies say Moscow sought to swing the election to Donald Trump. But in an announcement Monday night, the administration ignored the laws core intent.

While the law has been in effect for six months, not one new sanction has been imposed even as Russia has continued to interfere in democratic institutions here and abroad.

The law was forced on Mr. Trump because he not only refused to punish the Russians, he refused then and refuses now to even acknowledge the Russian role in this assault on the American democratic process. Heck, the head of Russian foreign intelligence met with administration officials outside Washington last week even though he is under sanctions, according to the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer. How does that happen?The F.B.I. director, Christopher Wray, has begun clearing the Augean stables at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which should prompt a broader  and long overdue  cleanup of the governments sloppy intelligence operations.

But he and Attorney General Jeff Sessions may face their greatest obstacle in the form of their president. Donald Trumps impulse to transform every activity of government into a partisan conflict undermines the difficult task of repairing a Justice Department that sorely needs it.

On Monday, Mr. Wrays reform effort took an important step forward with the resignation of Andrew McCabe, the F.B.I.s deputy director. Mr. McCabe had worked on the F.B.I.s investigation into Hillary Clintons unsecured private computer network even though his wife, as a candidate for a Virginia State Senate seat, had received $500,000 in campaign contributions from a Clinton friend.

That conflict of interest was one of many during the 2016 election that seemed to afflict Main Justice, as the Justice Department headquarters is known (and where I worked in the George W. Bush administration with Mr. Wray, whom I have known since law school). Attorney General Loretta Lynchs tarmac meeting with former President Bill Clinton in June 2016, while his wife was under investigation, created another appearance of a conflict of interest. Ms. Lynchs recusal led to the July news conference where James Comey announced that he would not seek charges against Hillary Clinton.So whats Israels strategy to keep its conflict with Hezbollah and Iran on a low flame? First and foremost, its been to reinforce to Hezbollah and Iran, through many channels, that they cant out-crazy Israel. That is, if Hezbollah and Iran think they can place rocket launchers in densely populated Lebanese and Syrian villages and towns  and expect that Israel will not take them out if it requires large collateral civilian casualties  they are as wrong today as they were in 2006.

Israeli military planners are more convinced than ever that the key reason Hezbollah has avoided major conflict with Israel since the big Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon in 2006 is that Israels Air Force  without mercy or restraint  pounded Lebanese infrastructure, Hezbollah offices and military targets in the southern suburbs of Beirut  not to kill civilians but not to be deterred by them, either, if they were nested amid Hezbollah weapons or headquarters.

Yes, it was ugly and brutal, say Israeli planners, but it worked. This is not Scandinavia. The reality here starts where your imagination ends, said one Israeli officer. Sometimes only crazy can stop crazy. And Hezbollahs leader, Hassan Nasrallah, definitely got the message. He declared after the 2006 war that he never would have set off that conflict had he known beforehand that Israel would inflict that much damage on his Shiite supporters and their property  absolutely not, he said.

Israeli military planners hope he remembers that, and that Iran does, too. They say that if Tehran thinks it can launch a proxy war against Israel from Lebanon and Syria  while the Iranian home front is untouched  it should think again. Israel has not purchased Dolphin-class submarines that can operate in the Persian Gulf, and armed them with cruise missiles, for deep-sea fishing.

But Iran is a determined and wily foe. It has been perfecting its ability to convert dumb surface-to-air missiles, with 1970s technology, into smart, precise surface-to-surface rockets, by reconfiguring them with GPS links, inertial navigation systems, dynamic wings and smart cards. Irans ally in Yemen, the Houthis, has used these types of rockets in recent months.

The Israelis told Putin that they would not allow Iran to build such rocket facilities in Lebanon or to transfer such precision missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon via any depots or factories in Syria, and that Russia should not interfere with Israeli operations against them. Its not clear Putin made any promises.A few hours before Donald Trumps first State of the Union speech on Tuesday evening, the news broke that the White House was scrapping its choice for ambassador to South Korea, a position that remains unfilled a year into the administration.

According to The Washington Post, the nomination of Victor D. Cha, a hawkish veteran of the George W. Bush administration, was very close to being sent to the Senate, but was derailed when Cha privately expressed reservations about a preventive American strike on North Korea. The Financial Times reported that Cha was asked if he was prepared to help manage the evacuation of American citizens from South Korea, which would be necessary in the event of an American bombing. This is terrifying, because it suggests that Trump is serious about starting a war.

Indeed, Cha himself seems frightened; just before the State of the Union started, he published an op-ed in The Washington Post arguing against a preventive attack. Apparently assuming that some readers would be indifferent to millions of potential Korean deaths, Cha emphasized that many Americans would also die in a military confrontation. To be clear: The president would be putting at risk an American population the size of a medium-size U.S. city  Pittsburgh, say, or Cincinnati  on the assumption that a crazy and undeterrable dictator will be rationally cowed by a demonstration of U.S. kinetic power, he wrote.

Chas warning made Trumps State of the Union bellicosity toward North Korea particularly frightening. More than an hour into an interminable speech, Trump said, North Koreas reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland. He added: Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation. I will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got us into this very dangerous position.Early this month he invited television cameras into the White House so that we could behold his placid demeanor as Democrats made their pitch for Dreamers and he recommended a bill of love. Within 48 hours, he was ranting about shithole countries whose human effluvium befouls our shores.

Senator Chuck Schumer, the leader of his chambers Democratic minority, said that negotiating with Trump was like negotiating with Jell-O. Food-wise, he gave the president the benefit of the doubt. Trump is squishier, and far less innocuous. Negotiating with him must be like negotiating with sour cream.

On Tuesday night, Trump dwelled boastfully on certain economic indicators  unemployment figures, the stock market  to portray America as a newly industrious land, dizzy with sudden riches. But we Americans arent that dizzy: We still expect more from our country and president than a Dow above 25,000, and thats why Trumps approval rating is below 40 percent.

He took starkly partisan positions on regulations, gun rights, foreign aid, religious liberty and more, then dared to pretend that he was extending an open hand to Democrats. He did this serenely, no trace of the volcanic temper that his aides have come to fear.

There were howlers aplenty in his address. Americans love their country, and they deserve a government that shows them the same love and loyalty in return, he said. How does minimizing Russian interference in the 2016 election  and thwarting the investigation into what happened  accomplish that?

There were fictions galore. For the last year, he asserted, we have sought to restore the bonds of trust between our citizens and their government. No. He, his brood, Steven Mnuchin, Louise Linton and Tom Price (remember him?) swanned around on the governments dime, their self-promotion and self-celebration extraordinary even by Washingtons standards.

Trump on Tuesday night identified priorities: immigration reform, infrastructure. But we cant trust his commitment to either, because he doesnt know his own mind.INTERNATIONAL

An article on Saturday about popular support for Turkeys military offensive in Syria misquoted Mehmet Akif Perker, a representative of the Republican Peoples party. He said his party is against war, not against the war in Syria.

NATIONAL

An article on Tuesday about energy savings associated with Americans spending more time at home misspelled the surname of the lead author of a study in the journal Joule. He is Ashok Sekar, not Seka.

THE ARTS

An entry on Monday in the Whats on TV highlights misidentified the Avett brother quoted. He is Seth Avett, not Scott.



A Critics Notebook article on Friday about design breakthroughs allowing apparel to fit people across larger size ranges misstated the surname of one of the designers who coined the term super normal. He is Jasper Morrison, not Meyerson.Great ideas are not always good ones, as the characters in Greg Pierces new play, Cardinal, learn.

The great idea in this case is Lydias. A sparkler of a young woman who has been burned a few times, Lydia (Anna Chlumsky) returns from a life in Brooklyn to her depressed Rust Belt hometown with dreams of saving it from further disintegration. Already the population has declined by 50 percent since her school days there.

Her plan, which she must first sell to the mayor, Jeff Torm, is to paint six blocks of Main Street, from Plum to Swan, cardinal red. What a great tourist attraction it will be, she explains at a town-hall meeting in the high school gymnatorium: Just like in Chefchaouen, Morocco, the blue city, or Izamal, Mexico, the yellow one, tourists will soon arrive by the busload.

Perhaps you will buy this premise, as Jeff (Adam Pally) and the voters provisionally do. Perhaps you wont care whether you buy it or not, because the play, which opened on Wednesday at Second Stage Theater, at first seems to be heading in a pleasant rom-com direction. Tirelessly upbeat Lydia and hapless Jeff, as depressed as his town, are an opposites-attract couple whose feints and parries seem to come with a laugh track. Ms. Chlumsky, of Veep, and Mr. Pally, of Happy Endings and The Mindy Project, both know how to play that game.We also hear accounts, firsthand and distortingly recycled, of their family histories. And while Chriss is cushioned in an affluence that Kay has never known, they both carry a legacy of racially mixed sexual relationships. Kays father was white, and her mother, who is black, died not long after giving birth to her at 15  possibly a suicide, possibly a murder victim.

Chriss father, Harrison Aherne, is both an architect of segregation and a man with black mistresses, by whom he has had several children. He has lovingly overseen the creation of the graveyard in which these women and their families can be buried.

Kay and Chris grew up watching each other from a fascinated distance. T he play follows their tentative courtship, from the eve of Chriss departure to New York City (he hopes to become an actor) to the moment of Americas entry into World War II. Human and historic events turn out to be intertwined in unexpected ways.

It is important to note that while Box is a two-character play (three, if you count Chriss father, who is represented onstage by a cadaverous dummy), it is not really a dialogue. As Chris and Kay relate the facts and myths of their genealogies, it seems as if they are not connecting through shared history but pushing themselves into ever greater isolation.

As in most of Ms. Kennedys work, the narrative is delivered in a kaleidoscope of shards. These take the form of letters, recollections of conflicting tales told by family members, itemized descriptions of a train station, a savage moment from the Brothers Grimm (which gives the play its title), wistful period songs and lines from two very different shows  Noel Cowards operetta Bitter Sweet and Christopher Marlowes lurid revenge tragedy The Massacre at Paris.

Only Ms. Kennedy, perhaps, could gracefully balance such disparate works as mood-defining reference points of equal weight. And while the implicit connections between Chriss father and Nazi Germany might feel overly contrived in a more traditional play, here they become natural echoes in a nightmare that enwraps the whole world.Health care is a business that requires a lot of regulatory compliance and negotiation with established players. A new entrant could bring innovative approaches to old problems, but it may also become stymied by the industrys complexity. The entrepreneurs who launched Oscar Health, one of the insurance start-ups to sell policies under the Affordable Care Act, wanted to create something radically different from the competition. But it has had a difficult time living up its initial hopes and has lost substantial sums in what has proved to be a very challenging business.

Classic disruption rarely applies in health care

Most disruptive companies enter a market with a product that is lower in value than that of market incumbents, but much lower in cost. Thats the model for classic disrupters, like Southwest Airlines, MP3s or Japanese carmakers. Health care tends to be different, because consumers dont usually want to settle for a lower-quality product, even if it is substantially cheaper.

Amitabh Chandra, a health economist at Harvard, said that perhaps the easiest way to squeeze a lot of dollars out of the health care system would be to reduce what he called low-value services  health care treatments that are expensive, but only slightly more effective than cheaper options.

But reducing their use is hard because many people still want the better therapy, even if its not a particularly good value. Highly compensated employees, like those at Chase or at Amazon headquarters, may be particularly attracted to cutting-edge cancer treatments or the latest prescription drugs, he noted. A health plan that cut out such services might hurt the ability to recruit and retain workers needed to succeed in other parts of the business.

If there was pure inefficiency, I think it would be a lot easier to make progress, he said. The problem is that all of this stuff has some small benefit.

There are some ways that a smart company might seek to wring real inefficiencies out of health care. It could, say, lower the prices paid to monopoly hospitals, eliminate services that have no value or tighten the supply chain for drugs. Optimists about the venture say, if the company succeeds, it will most likely do so by finding strategies that improve care and reduce cost.WASHINGTON  Standing outside in the freezing cold, dressed in a new navy blue suit and red tie, Leonardo Reyes was feeling a little overwhelmed Tuesday afternoon as he headed to Capitol Hill for President Trumps State of the Union address. He was the guest of his home-state senator, Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon.

It feels a little strange, Mr. Reyes said. Its not just the suit. Its the fact that we are in this space where people have the power to determine the outcome of your life.

Mr. Reyes, 27, is a so-called Dreamer, a young undocumented immigrant shielded from deportation under an Obama-era initiative that Mr. Trump rescinded. Democrats had invited several dozen of them to sit in the gallery overlooking the well of the House on Tuesday night to put a face on the roiling congressional debate over their future.

That seemed like a good plan  until Representative Paul Gosar called the cops.

Mr. Gosar, Republican of Arizona, who is known as an immigration hard-liner, provoked considerable eye-rolling on Capitol Hill on Tuesday when he wrote on Twitter that he had contacted the Capitol Police, as well as Attorney General Jeff Sessions, asking they consider checking identification of all attending the State of the Union address and arresting any illegal aliens in attendance.Reporters from The New York Times checked the facts, falsehoods and statements in need of context from President Trumps first State of the Union address. Watch a replay along with real time analysis here, and read an annotated transcript of the speech.

economy

Since the election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs, including 200,000 new jobs in manufacturing alone.

The math is correct, but context matters.

The economy has added about 169,000 jobs a month since the 2016 election, but that is somewhat less than the 185,000 jobs per month that the economy added over the previous seven years.

 Binyamin Appelbaum

economy

African-American unemployment stands at the lowest rate ever recorded.

True, but needs context.

Its true that the black unemployment rate in December, 6.8 percent, was the lowest recorded, but that is also the culmination of a longer-term trend. Moreover, its an open question how much credit a president, especially in his first year, can take for the economy.

 Linda Qiu

economy

After years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages.

False.

Wages are, in fact, rising  but at a slower rate than they were at the end of President Obamas second term.

 Jim Tankersley

health care

We eliminated an especially cruel tax that fell mostly on Americans making less than $50,000 a year  forcing them to pay tremendous penalties simply because they couldnt afford government-ordered health plans. We repealed the core of disastrous Obamacare  the individual mandate is now gone.

True, but needs context.

In the newly passed tax law, Congress eliminated penalties for people who go without health insurance, starting in 2019. An estimated 4.5 percent of taxpayers paid the penalty in 2015, and nearly 60 percent of those who did earned less than $50,000 in 2015  though the Kaiser Family Foundation found that a sizable amount of low-income Americans paying the penalty could find coverage for less.

People could, in many cases, obtain exemptions from the penalties that were indeed a major element of the Affordable Care Act. Other elements of the health care law remain intact.

 Robert Pear

economy

Apple has just announced its plans to invest a total of $350 billion in America, and hire another 20,000 workers.

This needs context.

The technology giant Apple did, indeed, say after the tax cut passed that it would invest $350 billion domestically over the next five years. But at least $275 billion of that was simply continuing the companys past spending trends. The actual amount of new investment appears to be roughly $37 billion.

 Jim TankersleyChristopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein went to the White House on Monday in the hopes of getting West Wing aides to in turn persuade Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, to delay the vote that night, according to a current administration official and a former one who were familiar with the events. Mr. Wray and Mr. Rosenstein spoke with John F. Kelly, the presidents chief of staff, but were unsuccessful.

Even without having seen it, Mr. Trump, whose preferred cable channel, Fox News, has focused on the memo extensively, has told people close to him that he feels strongly that the memo makes the case that F.B.I. and Justice Department officials acted inappropriately when they sought the highly classified warrant in October 2016 on the campaign adviser, Carter Page.

The memo, drafted by Republicans on the Intelligence Committee staff, is said to contend that officials from the two agencies were not forthcoming to a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge in seeking the warrant. Republicans accuse the agencies of failing to properly disclose that Democrats financed research used in the application for the warrant, people familiar with the memo said. The research was assembled by a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, who produced a dossier of unsubstantiated allegations about Mr. Trump.

The memo is also said to highlight the role of Mr. Rosenstein, who authorized the renewal of the surveillance of Mr. Page in the spring of 2017. People who have read the memo say it mentions Andrew G. McCabe, the former deputy director of the F.B.I., who has been a target of the president and Republicans in Congress. Mr. McCabe stepped down on Monday, telling people close to him that he felt pressured to because of a separate Justice Department inspector general investigation.The memo is their latest salvo. Led by Mr. Nunes, the House Intelligence Committee is pivoting from examining Russias election meddling to instead investigating F.B.I. and Justice Department officials connected to the inquiry, putting them  with Mr. Ryans clear blessing  at the forefront of the broader pushback.

Republicans are pushing the narrative that a cabal of politically biased law enforcement officials set out to sabotage Mr. Trump. And they are portraying a dossier written by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent, which laid out unverified claims that Russia had compromised Mr. Trump and was conspiring with him, as the fountainhead of the Russia investigation. That assertion disregards unrelated evidence that Russia sought to influence the election and the pattern of contacts between Russians and Mr. Trumps associates.

Mr. Nuness three-and-a-half page memo bolsters conservatives story line. According to people who have read it, the memo centers on a fall 2016 application for a wiretap order targeting Carter Page, a onetime Trump campaign official who had visited Moscow that June and was preparing to return there in December. The memo is said to criticize law enforcement officials for including information provided by Mr. Steele in the application without adequately explaining to the judge that Democrats financed Mr. Steeles research.

Democrats have pushed back. Representative Adam B. Schiff, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, who has seen the underlying classified materials on which the memo is based, has said the memo contains both inaccurate assertions and material omissions to misleadingly impugn law enforcement officials. Other people familiar with it say, for example, that Mr. Steeles information was only one thread in a tapestry of evidence from various sources that the memo ignored, exaggerating its relative importance.

Democrats on the committee produced their own classified memo that they said pointed out and explained inaccuracies in the Republican memo and filled in the missing context. But on Monday, the committee voted along party lines to make the Republican memo public and rejected a request to simultaneously make public the Democrats rebuttal.During the 2016 campaign and his first year in the White House, Mr. Trump and Mr. Miller have developed an easy working approach to the presidents speeches, according to a former campaign adviser. Their process, which a White House official said began last fall and in earnest in mid-December for this speech, usually involves Mr. Trump telling Mr. Miller what direction he wants to take with the speech. He will then talk out some lines.

Then Mr. Miller, who drafts the material with a keen ear for applause lines he has heard during the presidents previous speeches, usually revamps the speech and hands it back to Mr. Trump.

On at least one occasion, the president has noticed that Mr. Miller struck a line he had said he wanted in. It is usually restored.

Mr. Trump took at least a few minutes out of his day for a photo op, posing in the Oval Office with the guests who are expected to be seated near the first lady, Melania Trump, during his address. In photographs released by the White House, Mr. Trump shook hands with some guests and flashed his trademark thumbs-up sign while standing next to others.

If tradition is any indication  and at least for today, it was  the last minute back-and-forth between Mr. Trump and his speechwriters could continue until the moment the president departed the White House for the Capitol.

Mr. Clinton was known to agonize over the details in his speeches until the last minute. He was also able to speak extemporaneously at times, including during the first minutes of his September 1993 address to a joint session of Congress on health care, when a speech from earlier that year was accidentally fed to a teleprompter.Mr. Cha has also publicly voiced the high cost to both Washington and Seoul of ripping up the Korea Free Trade Agreement, as Mr. Trump has threatened to do, unless the South Koreans agree to renegotiate the deal.

The White House declined to comment Tuesday on the reasons for its decision, though a senior official played down policy disagreements as the cause. The administration had not formally submitted Mr. Chas name to the Senate, even after he had undergone months of vetting.

Image Victor D. Cha will not be the American ambassador to Seoul. Credit... Yonhap, via European Pressphoto Agency

The White House had initially hoped to have a new ambassador in place in time for the Winter Games, which begin in 10 days in the South Korean town of Pyeongchang. But as the deadline approached, Mr. Cha told friends he had heard nothing from the White House or the State Department about the status of his nomination. The Washington Post first reported that the White House was not moving forward with his nomination.

Michael J. Green, a colleague of Mr. Cha, said the dropped ambassadorship was discouraging in terms of what it says about the administrations North Korea policy, but also their ability to attract qualified people to come into these kinds of jobs.

In his speech, Mr. Trump made no mention of the Winter Olympic Games. Nor did he mention a budding detente between North and South Korea, which have agreed to march their teams into the opening ceremony under a single flag and to field a unified womens ice hockey team.

For the president, cataloging the horrors inflicted by North Korea was part of an exercise that he called restoring clarity about our adversaries. He said he had stood up for antigovernment demonstrators in Iran and asked Congress to fix the flaws in the terrible nuclear deal that world powers brokered with the country in 2015.DUBAI, United Arab Emirates  Iran has sentenced an Iranian-American art dealer and his wife to prison for being Zoroastrians, a New York-based human rights group said Wednesday. It is the latest case in which Tehran has imprisoned people of Iranian descent who hold dual citizenship.

The art dealer, Karan Vafadari, was sentenced to 27 years in prison, while his Iranian wife, Afarin Neyssar, who has permanent residency status in the United States, received a 16-year sentence, said the group, the Center for Human Rights in Iran.

The sentences have yet to be reported in Iran. Irans mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The two were arrested by Irans paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in July 2016. Little information has come out about their case since then.BEIRUT, Lebanon  Most of Syrias rebel groups refused to come to the Russian-sponsored peace conference in the resort town of Sochi on Tuesday. Those who did come refused to leave the airport.

Some delegates said there was no point in drafting proposals because the talks final statement was largely agreed upon before they began. Instead, some brought empty suitcases to fill with Russian goods to sell back home, and the schedule was almost evenly split between talks and meals.

It might have been a political comedy, except that back in Syria, at least 35 people were reported killed since Sunday, including a mother and three children, in the governments Russian-backed aerial bombing campaign on rebel-held territory. The week before, eight people were killed, including a small child, when a rebel mortar round hit Damascuss old city.

The Sochi talks were called by Russias president, Vladimir V. Putin, with the stated goal of breaking a longstanding impasse in negotiations to end the seven-year civil war. Those other talks, sponsored by the United Nations, have made no progress toward the negotiated political transition they envision.AL MUKALLA, Yemen  A simmering split within the Saudi-led coalition that has been fighting rebels in Yemen since 2015 exploded into deadly combat this week, paralyzing the southern city of Aden, the governments temporary seat of power.

The fighting, which began Sunday, has pit allies armed with heavy weapons against each other and further complicated prospects for a resolution of the war in Yemen, the Middle Easts poorest country and home to one of the worlds worst man-made humanitarian crises.

The coalition includes forces loyal to the Saudi-backed president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, and a faction supported by the United Arab Emirates, known as the Southern Transitional Council. The council has accused Mr. Hadis subordinates of corruption and incompetence, and has advocated the revival of a separate state in southern Yemen, which merged with the north in 1990.

Last week, the council gave Mr. Hadi an ultimatum to dismiss the cabinet, and as the deadline neared, the forces of the two sides started shooting at each other on Sunday with tanks, artillery and automatic weapons.The agreement will also lead to increased payments to retirement plans  a major sticking point in the talks. The company eliminated payments to defined contribution retirement plans for a year after the recent recession hit, and then restored them at half their previous level  3.75 percent of income, down from 7.5 percent, the union said. The new agreement calls for the company to increase its contribution to 4 percent in the third year of the new contract.

The companys management disputed some of the figures, but declined to say which ones. Kelly Ryan, a spokeswoman for the company, said, we dont want to comment on specifics. She said that the company was pleased that it had reached an agreement.

The agreement must still be reviewed by the unions board of governors.

We are very pleased to successfully conclude these negotiations and I know that these dedicated artists are now looking forward to embarking on a successful U.S. tour, Leonard Egert, the national executive director of the Guild, said in a statement.The Museum Board is in dereliction of its duty of care to its main constituency, the wonderfully diverse people of Queens, in allowing such hateful and divisive purely political entities into our community space, Mr. Nammack said in his letter. I stand in solidarity with Laura Raicovich, who resigned her role as executive director earlier this week, for much the same reasons.

When the Israel event  to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the United Nations vote establishing the State of Israel  was initially canceled last summer, Councilman Rory I. Lancman accused Ms. Raicovich of anti-Semitism and called for her removal. The museum started an investigation into its handling of the event, which was eventually reinstated. Mr. Lancman has questioned the museums delay in releasing the results of its investigation (the museum said it is due out in the next two weeks). Progressives lose their way when we tolerate anti-Semitism, or cast Jews and the Jewish homeland as lesser identities, Mr. Lancman said in a statement on Monday. That wont be tolerated in Queens.

The curators letter, initiated by Carin Kuoni, the director and chief curator of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School, was signed by important art-world figures including Mary Ceruti, the executive director and chief curator of the SculptureCenter and Helen Molesworth, the chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

During her three years as president and executive director at the Queens Museum, Ms. Raicovich was an outspoken advocate for immigration rights and positioned the museum as a leader on social issues. On Jan. 26, she announced that she was stepping down, saying that her vision and that of the board werent in enough alignment.In Paintings From the Old World, Gianni Politis gallery debut in the United States, the Italian artist is showing six striking painting-related works whose presence and meanings expand as you look at them. They are a blend of painting, collage and clothing, if not fashion: shirts made from coarse, wheat-colored fabric that hang from pegs by their collars. More or less wrinkled, they resemble work shirts, or more precisely artists smocks, since they are randomly daubed, stained and brushed with paint in lovely, fresh colors. The brush strokes conjure everything from Abstract Expressionist scumbling to Tiepolo-like sunsets, but the handiwork never crosses the seams; closer examination indicates that the fabric is actually raw linen. Mr. Politi paints on it while it is temporarily stretched, then gives it to his local tailor who cuts it up according to the artists instructions and sews the pieces together.

In this manner, the medium is pushed from pure form toward function, perhaps from an old world where painting was mens work, or into a more demanding new world where nothing is wasted. The shirt paintings also comment on the mediums commodity status, as well as on various collaborations between artists and fashion houses, of which Jeff Koonss ridiculous Louis Vuitton handbags are but the latest example. And they play with the way that much art, especially painting, both builds on  reuses  and comments on previous art. In Mr. Politis case, Italian Arte Povera, which had an iffy relationship, at best, to painting, might be both a source and a target. I like the piquant way these objects serve no purpose but look as if they might. I also think Mr. Politi might want to rethink his longer titles  like Really Dark Place Where We Used to Rave and Do Heavy Drugs (Happy Days). Maybe self-deprecation is the aim, but the effect is a ponderously adolescent buzzkill.Welcome to The Month in Live Jazz, a column highlighting five outstanding performances from the past month on stages across New York City.

Honoring an Icon

TRIBUTE TO GERI ALLEN Tishman Auditorium at the New School, Jan. 15

Geri Allen, who died last year, was one of jazzs great sense-makers of the past 35 years  a splintered and confusing time in the music, by any account. But she will be remembered mostly for her luminescent attack as a pianist, her way of guiding a band, and pushing it toward a breakthrough.

To open this tribute concert, a video of Allen performing played on a screen high above the stage, and slowly, the pianist Craig Taborn joined in, offering scattered, bright-hued flights in duet with the recording. He is one of the major inheritors of Allens influence, a player who can be abstract and rhythmic and crisp all at once. His playing implied what the rest of the evening guaranteed: that Allens impact will continue to ripple throughout almost every pocket of the jazz world.

Organized by the drummer Terri Lyne Carrington and presented as part of Winter Jazzfest, this concert was not a simple rehashing of Allens repertoire. A quartet featuring Ms. Carrington, the alto saxophonist Tia Fuller, the pianist Kris Davis and the bassist Linda May Han Oh played a sharp but untethered rendition of Miss Ann, by Eric Dolphy, who was the subject of Allens masters thesis. Later, the TEN Trio  Ms. Carrington, the bassist Esperanza Spalding and the trumpeter and pianist Nicholas Payton  played two tunes with a tightly wound urgency, the driving RTG and the spacious Unconditional Love. Ms. Carrington and Ms. Spalding used to play with Allen; after her death, they joined with Mr. Payton. The new trio has quickly developed a rapport, and its performance was a highlight.Oprah Winfrey has dropped contributions by the hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons from her latest book, its publisher said, after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct, including rape.

The Wisdom of Sundays, a spiritual advice book that has been on best-seller lists since its publication last fall, features selections from conversations between Ms. Winfrey and her guests on Super Soul Sunday, a TV series on the OWN network. The words of motivational speakers, religious leaders and authors including Deepak Chopra and Elizabeth Gilbert were excerpted. Mr. Simmons was featured in passages describing the impact meditation has had on his life, as well as musing on the soul, abundance and wealth; future editions of the book, available in stores starting in February, will not contain those segments, Marlena Bittner, a spokeswoman for the publisher, Flatiron Books, said.

The publisher made the announcement in response to an inquiry from The New York Times. Ms. Bittner said the decision to remove the pages was made jointly by Ms. Winfrey and the publisher, but declined to say when they made that choice. Ms. Winfrey has lately been a vocal advocate of the #MeToo movement, making a fiery speech promoting Times Up, the Hollywood initiative to combat sexual harassment and discrimination, at the Golden Globes in early January. In the book, she also writes about being a victim and coming to terms with her own abuse by learning to confront it. You cant win, she wrote, if youre fighting the truth.

Mr. Simmons has been the subject of intensifying misconduct allegations since last November; he has denied all the allegations but stepped down from his businesses and foundation soon after they were made public. Last week, a California woman, Jennifer Jarosik, filed a $5 million lawsuit against him, alleging that he raped her in Los Angeles in 2016. On Tuesday, Ms. Jarosik appeared on Megyn Kelly Today and described the incident as well as an earlier assault by Mr. Simmons in New York. She plans to press criminal charges in both cities, her attorney said. The police in New York began an investigation into the allegations against Mr. Simmons last year.What was the pianist Stephen Hough doing opening his Carnegie Hall recital on Tuesday, honoring the 100th anniversary of Debussys death, with Clair de lune? The piece has been so overplayed thats its almost past cliche.

Why not do the full work from which its drawn, Debussys early Suite Bergamasque, which you dont often hear? And what were Schumanns formidable Fantasy in C and Beethovens stormy Appassionata Sonata doing on a recital dedicated to Debussy, who didnt have much interest in either composer?

Well, the adventurous Mr. Hough, who is also a composer, knew just what he was up to. His subdued account of Clair de lune set a contemplative mood in the hall. I think Mr. Hough was also sending another message: Dont assume anything about Debussy; even this popular early piece reveals a radical in the making. Mr. Hough conveyed the exploratory elements of Clair de lune by playing it with rhythmic integrity and not a trace of expressive milking. He emphasized the halting flow of the ethereal melody, which unfolds in abrupt phrases that keep stopping momentarily to let a plush harmony linger.According to its organizers, the New York mobilization attracted 400,000 marchers. (The police and The New York Times estimated between 100,000 and 125,000.) Weiss and his crew followed the 1,500-strong Harlem contingent, led by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee chairman, Stokely Carmichael, with whom King had to be persuaded to share a platform. Carmichaels black power position is clear when his followers refuse to let a white Harlem resident join the march.

The filmmakers stand in for the white power structure, eliciting all manner of frank comments from marchers and onlookers: Why should we fight for you? You got it all. Intermittently, the three G.I.s give detailed testimony regarding the Armys pervasive inequality. One who studied to be an air traffic controller at a Southern base was banned from his squads graduation party; once in Vietnam he was assigned to be a driver, but when he complained he was sent into the field. All three men  Dalton James, Preston Lay Jr. and Akmed Lorence  were radicalized, expressing alienation from the Army and identification with the Vietnamese.

The movie is alive with incidents. Several youthful observers of the march, followers of Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam, disdainfully tell the filmmakers that, as Muslims, they dont need to demonstrate (We respect the government) while, several blocks along, in front of a tavern, people enjoy a spring afternoon ragging on the war as the Supremes blast out of the jukebox. In Midtown, the irate white counter-demonstrators include members of the National Renaissance Party, bedecked with crypto-fascist imagery like swastikas and Bomb Hanoi pins, coolly explaining their nativist ideology.

The filmmakers give the G.I.s the final word. One, who suffers from a stutter, becomes increasingly eloquent as he grows more militant. Its almost a metaphor. The movie ends with a long, seemingly extemporaneous speech which, as passionate as it is lucid, another vet analyzes the situation of American blacks with a mounting fury, challenging the camera: How can you tell me its too much to ask to be a human being?

Weiss, who died in his early 90s in 2005, was born in Warsaw and immigrated to the United States as a child. He was, among other things, a founding member of the Socialist Workers Party and a proofreader for The New York Times; he rode the rails during the Depression and, well into his 50s, studied filmmaking at New York University, recruiting his crew among his fellow students. (Michael Wadleigh, who later directed Woodstock, is one of the cameramen.)In its fantastic second season, NBCs The Good Place found empathy within the devil.

Michael (Ted Danson), an immortal bureaucrat charged with torturing four souls in The Bad Place  a version of hell where his prisoners are meant to inflict their neuroses on one another  develops a conscience and helps them escape.

While they argue their eternal cases in front of an omniscient judge (Maya Rudolph), Michael explains himself to his infernal supervisor. I was just trying to prove that humans could be made to torture each other, he says. Instead, they helped each other. They were bad people. This wasnt supposed to be possible.

People never learn, people dont get better: These are unsurprising beliefs from a minion of hell. But theyve also been the guiding principles of the last two decades of TV. From the dawn of The Sopranos through the rise of Netflix, acclaimed antihero dramas have focused on bad people getting worse or good people going bad. (In Breaking Bad, the concept is right in the title.)

There are many delights to The Good Place, which ends its too-short 13-episode season Thursday: its ingenious twists, its riffs on the banality of damnation. (Hell is stocked with Hawaiian pizza and plastered with movie posters for Pirates of the Caribbean 6: The Haunted Crows Nest or Something, Who Gives a Crap.) Our national correspondents were in the field to gauge the reaction to President Trumps first State of the Union address, called for unity at home and a more muscular America abroad.

One viewer put it this way: Im happy with him and Im embarrassed by him at the same time.

But Washingtons focus shifted when an Amtrak train carrying Republican members of Congress to a retreat crashed into a large truck, and the F.B.I. director publicly clashed with Mr. Trump over a Republican memo accusing the bureau and the Justice Department of surveillance abuses.The Consumer Financial Protection Bureaus director can be fired by the president only for cause, a federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday, restoring security to a job that has become a political lightning rod.

When Congress created the bureau seven years ago, it specified that the director  after being nominated to a five-year term by the president and confirmed by the Senate  could be removed only for inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance. That standard differs from those in effect at most other federal agencies, whose leaders can typically be removed at will by a president.

Last year, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found the bureaus setup to be unconstitutional. On Wednesday, the full circuit court issued a ruling that vacated the earlier decision and upheld the constitutionality of the consumer bureaus structure.

There is no constitutional defect in the unusual independence that lawmakers granted to the bureaus director, the ruling issued on Wednesday said. The court added: Congresss decision to provide the C.F.P.B. director a degree of insulation reflects its permissible judgment that civil regulation of consumer financial protection should be kept one step removed from political winds and presidential will.When Xerox introduced its popular copying machines in 1959, their wizardry was considered as high tech as the iPhone when Steve Jobs presented it to the world almost 50 years later.

But just as Xerox made carbon paper obsolete, the iPhone, Google Docs and the cloud made Xerox a company of the past.

On Wednesday, Xerox said that, after 115 years as an independent business, it would combine operations with Fujifilm Holdings of Japan. The deal signaled the end of a company that was once an American corporate powerhouse.

Xerox is the poster child for monopoly technology businesses that cannot make the transition to a new generation of technology, said David B. Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School.FRANKFURT  The German carmakers BMW and Daimler said on Wednesday that they had taken action against executives involved in an organization that sponsored emissions experiments on monkeys, as the companies tried to squelch a public outcry that threatens to tarnish the image of Germanys most important exports.

The executives, who were not publicly identified, belonged to the board of an organization established by BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen. The group commissioned research intended to play down the health risks caused by diesel exhaust.

Details of the research, reported last week by The New York Times, have called attention to questionable methods employed by the car companies in trying to influence the public debate. On Tuesday, Volkswagen said it had suspended its chief lobbyist, Thomas Steg, amid the mounting furor over the experiments.

Even before the monkey research came to light, the carmakers had been struggling to stem a decline in diesel vehicles share of the European market, which is at its lowest point in a decade.Kevin Spacey is out. Diane Lane and Greg Kinnear are in.

The sixth and final season of House of Cards will introduce new characters as it tries to move past a sexual misconduct scandal that put the Netflix series in peril and forced out its biggest star.

Mr. Spacey, who played the central character, Frank Underwood, a ruthless politician who becomes president, was shown the door amid allegations of sexual misconduct last year.

Production for the new season, after a three-month hiatus, resumed on Tuesday.

Netflix did not disclose what roles Ms. Lane or Mr. Kinnear will play other than that they will be brother and sister. Mr. Kinnear, 54, and Ms. Lane, 53, are both Academy Award nominees. Robin Wright, the co-star of House of Cards, will be at the center of the final season.

The return to production ends a three-month odyssey that began shortly after The New York Times published an investigation detailing sexual harassment and assault allegations against the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and a national reckoning on sexual harassment began in earnest.Want the latest climate news in your inbox? You can sign up here to receive Climate Fwd:, our new email newsletter.

WASHINGTON  The Trump administration has formally suspended a major Obama-era clean water regulation ahead of plans to issue its own version of the rule later this year.

President Trump has taken aim at the bitterly contested rule, known as Waters of the United States, since his campaign, calling it one of the worst examples of federal regulation. Among Mr. Trumps first actions in office was an executive order directing his Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Scott Pruitt, to begin the legal process of rescinding the rule and replacing it with a more industry-friendly alternative.

On Wednesday, Mr. Pruitt took a major step toward completing that task, filing the legal documents required to suspend the Obama rule for two years. The rule was set to be implemented in the coming weeks, following a Supreme Court decision last week that gave jurisdiction of the matter to district courts.1. Embrace the New Pink

Its official: Fuchsia has supplanted millennial pink as the rose du jour. Dont save it for accents. Take counsel from a prefall collection like Pucci and wear as much of it as possible, ideally in streamlined shapes that defy any notion of Barbie-dom.

Staud silk organza trench coat, $350 at staud.clothing; Altuzarra stretch wool blazer, $1,695, and flared pants, $695, at Neiman Marcus, neimanmarcus.com; Calvin Klein cotton logo turtleneck, $295 at Saks Fifth Avenue, saksfifthavenue.com.I am a physician often approached to write letters for people. These letters generally fall into two classes: 1. Asking for work accommodations based on illness, or 2. Requests to be exempted from some requirement, like participating in jury duty. Recently I was asked to provide a letter for an elderly woman with a medical illness that would enable her to apply for citizenship without taking the exam, which she would be unable to pass because of her illness. She has been in the U.S., legally according to her family, for less than 10 years, has never held a job and has never paid taxes. They want her to have citizenship because it will allow her to receive more in benefits. (I am not sure this is true, but I am not a lawyer or even that interested. I have no interest in seeing a person without a valid status be deported either.) My concern is that she is requesting an exemption in order to collect benefits toward which she has contributed absolutely nothing. In a world of scarce resources, this makes me uncomfortable. On one hand, she is one person, whose costs will not be particularly burdensome to the state in which she lives, which is large. On the other hand, she is asking not to play by the rules. However, the illness is real, and I am not being asked to falsify anything; she truly has the illness, and it truly prevents her from taking the exam. However, Im not 100 percent comfortable doing this for her. Finally, she is not even my patient. She came to see me only to get the letter because only a doctor in my specialty can certify that she has the illness in question. Whats your thinking? Name Withheld

Of all these testimonies about testimony, your case is the most straightforward. Your job in this process is to certify what, in your professional judgment, is true about her medical condition. Your only objection to doing so is that the truth here could entitle her, under the law, to benefits she wouldnt otherwise get. You think this is wrong because she didnt pay into the system thats going to help her. Note, first, that this has nothing to do with her being an immigrant. There are native-born Americans who never pay into the system. But also note the assumptions youre making about giving and taking. Our social welfare system is, in effect, a system of social insurance. Its designed so that people get out what they need, not what they put in. Thered certainly be no point in the system if we were allowed to take out only what we put in. We could just stash money away for a rainy day. Once people join our society, we should surely want them to flourish like everyone else. Even if you think Im wrong about this, though, the right thing to do is to focus on changing the laws, not preventing someone from doing what, at present, she may be lawfully entitled to do.Delrisa Sewell-Henry, a home health aide, was resigned to spending two hours on a bus and three subway trains just to get across Queens to care for a disabled man.

But when one train recently stopped for a sick passenger, her commute expanded to a mind-boggling three hours and 15 minutes. She was late. To make up the lost time, she stayed longer with her patient instead of picking up her granddaughter from school. She had to enlist a neighbor to do that  for $35.

Then last week, another train was delayed. And she was late again.

It makes me angry, said Ms. Sewell-Henry, 54, who earns $13 an hour. Its not like were sitting around watching T.V. and doing nothing. Were doing something. We have to be there on time.

By now, the many ways New York Citys failing subway system has upended countless lives have been well documented. But a new report finds that no group has been hurt more than the citys army of health care workers who fan out across the city every day to take care of older people, the frail and the sick. They ride trains and buses because they do not earn enough to take taxis or Ubers. Every disruption impacts patients and their families who count on them to arrive on time to provide medication and meals. For the workers, it can lead to reprimands, docked pay and being fired.The academic gaps between groups of students  the poor and the middle class, or black and Hispanic children and their white and Asian peers  often are examined in broad strokes, across a district or an entire city. But a new analysis from the Center for New York City Affairs at the New School takes a closer look by mapping the achievement gaps within each public elementary school in New York City. The results reveal the challenges of integrating students across the system, and of integrating under one roof.

The study is a snapshot that looks at student performance on a single test, the state math assessment given in 2016 to third through fifth graders. At each school, it looks at the race of the test takers and estimates their household income using census information about where they live.

The report illustrates how closely race, income and academic performance are tied in this city. Almost all students in the study with estimated household incomes below $30,000 were black or Hispanic, while students with household incomes above $80,000 were predominantly white. And the poorer students were, the lower they tended to score on the test, even when they went to the same school as wealthier children.

Take P.S. 8, the Robert Fulton school in Brooklyn Heights, which the Center for American Progress identified last year as having one of the richest Parent Teacher Associations in the country, and which has a relatively diverse student body. While 64 percent of its students passed the state math test in 2016, compared with 36 percent of students citywide, black students at the school were nearly a full proficiency level behind their white peers.When someone tells you who they are, believe them.

In his State of the Union address, Donald Trump told us exactly who the modern-day abortion opponents are  and exactly what they think of women.

This revelation came more than halfway through the speech Tuesday, and probably by accident, when President Trump told a story that was, at least nominally, about human kindness as a cure for the opioid epidemic. As Mr. Trump described it, a 27-year-old Albuquerque police officer, Ryan Holets, happened upon a pregnant woman who was homeless and was preparing to inject heroin. The president continued: When Ryan told her she was going to harm her unborn child, she began to weep. She told him she did not know where to turn, but badly wanted a safe home for her baby.

The president said that Officer Holets felt God speak to him, that he took out a picture of his wife and their four children, and went home to tell his wife Rebecca. In an instant, she agreed to adopt. The Holets named their new daughter Hope.

You might have been wondering  I know I was  what happened to that homeless woman? Was she offered treatment? Was she given a chance to reunite with her newborn baby, which could have been a powerful incentive to get clean? Can she be part of the babys life? Where is she now? Is she O.K.?On Dec. 22, Gov. John Kasich of Ohio signed Senate Bill 164 banning doctors from performing abortions in cases in which a fetus is likely to have Down syndrome according to prenatal testing. Despite being staunchly pro-choice, I was primed to sympathize with the bills supporters more than ever, given my personal circumstances.

Id just moved to Ohio shortly after giving birth to my daughter in August. My husband and I are both (very differently) disabled: he, quadriplegic; me, neuroatypical (anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorders). Moreover, one of his close family members has Down syndrome. Rhetorical gestures toward protecting the lives of disabled individuals constitute a familiar refrain in anti-abortion justifications for legislation like SB 164, with supporters claiming to combat the systemic devaluation of the lives of people with disabilities. But the reality of how this brand of legislation uses the idea of disability to gain political traction is much more complicated.

The business of birth itself is often structured around the specter of disability. My husband and I had just been made privy to this via my own pregnancy and birth experience. An early ultrasound revealed our daughters possible congenital lung malformation; that, coupled with my own neuroatypicality, our family history of Down syndrome and my husbands spinal cord injury, made us an eyebrow-raising trio for every clinician we encountered over the course of my prenatal care.

For six months, I dutifully shuffled into Southern California business parks for twice-weekly ultrasounds, nonstress tests and countless appointments with specialists, growing ever more anxious at the looming prospect of we-didnt-know-what. Our daughters potential lung problem fully resolved on its own in utero  she was born asymptomatic at birth and has been ever since  but I remained designated as high-risk, the pregnancy now haunted by solemnity and fear.Not everyone needed 80 minutes behind a microphone to make a statement at the State of the Union address.

The Democratic Womens Working Group wore black pantsuits, skirts and dresses. In doing so, they followed the women of Hollywood, who wore all black to the Golden Globes in honor of the Times Up and #MeToo movements.

It was a stark contrast to what has, in the past two years, become the Democratic womens unofficial color: white. Hillary Clinton memorably wore a white pantsuit when she became the first woman to accept the Democratic nomination for president  a nod to the suffragists, who adopted it as one of their signatures in 1913. And last February, Democratic women wore all white during Mr. Trumps address to Congress.

Yet on Tuesday, in a strange turn, it was Melania Trump who chose white  a gorgeous pantsuit by Christian Dior. Was it meant to stand out against the all-black crowd? Was it a nod to womens rights? Or perhaps a thumb in the eye of her husband, who was recently accused of having an affair with the porn star Stormy Daniels just weeks after Mrs. Trump gave birth to their son? To judge from Melanias face and the reports that she traveled to the speech apart from her husband, I suspect the latter.In this sense, and also in the canny and sometimes moving choices of inspirational figures in the balconies, I suspect the speech was effective, that it might help lift Trump temporarily upward from his mean of 38 percent approval toward the were holding the House by our fingernails promised land of 44 percent.

But an effective speech is not the same thing as an effective agenda, and right now there are no prospects for Trumps popular ideas getting enacted or even really considered on the Hill. His partys ideologues dont want them, the opposition party doesnt want to make a deal with Trump to get them, and his White House doesnt actually have any detail behind the rhetoric. The ideas are just things that the president would probably like to do but that someone will talk him out of, or that hell forget about, or that hell offer in a halfhearted way and that Congress will never bother to take up.

The only exception, the only issue where he does actually have some details to offer, is immigration reform. But here the speechs appeal to the assembled legislators to make a version of the deal hes offering on DACA  essentially an amnesty and path to citizenship now in exchange for future immigration reductions  was undercut by all the fearmongering about immigrant crime that Trump wrapped it in. For Democratic politicians whose base doesnt want to compromise and whose own political interest isnt served by any kind of major immigration deal, the bloody-shirt business with MS-13 murders was a permission slip for intransigence: Why make a bargain with a president who talks like half your immigrant constituents are gangbangers?

So this State of the Union both showed what a more successful version of the Trump presidency would look like  still conservative on many fronts but more genuinely populist, less same-old G.O.P.  and why the possibility of that success has probably already slipped from this administrations grip. There were ideas here that could make Trumps second year more successful than the first, but there was no plan to actually enact them, no sign that Trump is prepared to build bridges where hes burned them, no plan for getting more out of this speech than just a temporary polling bump.

What there was instead was something you can expect to hear a lot of between now and November 2020: If you like this economy, you should like me, too.This, in fact, is our new American moment, President Trump declared in his State of the Union speech. There has never been a better time to start living the American Dream.

But which American Dream? Trump portrayed a dark and menacing world in which immigrants, who stand at the heart of the American idea, were equated with gangs, murderous criminals and horrible people.

In his 80-minute speech, the word woman did not come up once. Other words or phrases never mentioned included peace, human rights, equality, Europe, multilateral, civil rights and alliance. The Constitution flitted onto Trumps radar chiefly in the context of appointing his kind of judges.

If there was a theme, it was the demonization of immigrants and of the rest of the world, combined with an exaltation of American might. He spoke of building a Great Wall on the Mexican border, but it may as well have been against the rest of humanity. Trump once again put the world on notice that the rules-based, post-1945 world order founded on alliances like NATO and American-backed multilateral organizations is one he would rather shred than bolster.The conflict between Turkey and the Kurds has escalated since Turkey started a military offensive against the Syrian Kurdish enclave of Afrin on Jan. 20. The Kurdish militia, the Peoples Protection Units, which is the United States-led coalitions top partner in the fight against the Islamic State, controls Afrin. And Turkey is a critical NATO ally.

The Trump administration is floundering. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has ignored President Trumps appeal to avoid actions that might risk conflict between Turkish and American forces and torpedo the campaign against the Islamic State. Mr. Erdogan has vowed to carry the battle further east to militia-controlled territory stretching all the way to the Iraqi border, where an estimated 2,000 American Special Operations Forces are deployed.

Turkey blames Washingtons support for the Peoples Protection Units for the meltdown in American-Turkish ties. Many of the militias top cadres are drawn from the Kurdistan Workers Party, or P.K.K., the armed group that has been waging a bloody campaign for self-rule inside Turkey. The State Department lists the P.K.K. as a terrorist organization but does not so designate the Peoples Protection Units. Turkey insists that the P.K.K. and the militia are the same.

Turkish officials believe that once the Islamic State is defeated, the Peoples Protection Units will melt back into the P.K.K. and train its American weapons on Turkey. American officials retort that it was Turkeys tolerance for  if not outright collusion with  thousands of jihadist fighters who flowed into Syria through Turkey that forced them to embrace the militia. Both arguments have merit.For decades, it was Fourth Avenue, a sleepy office district that was even more hushed at night when insurance companies and book publishers turned off the lights. The city tried to perk it up in 1959, rechristening the 15-block stretch from East 17th to East 32nd Streets as Park Avenue South  an extension of the fancy uptown thoroughfare.

The experiment seemed to fall flat. Mail was occasionally delivered to the wrong addresses  to that other Park Avenue, residents said  and the street appeared to be trapped in real-estate limbo. It was neither here nor there, brushing by brand-name enclaves like Gramercy Park and Flatiron, but not belonging to them, and never really developing a personality of its own.

Today, though, the street is packed with upscale apartments and energetic night life. It seems to have finally come into its own, even if some still scratch their heads.

When Im in a cab, I always just say, Take me to 19th Street, said Sam Greene, 46, who has lived on the street since 2003. Thats how I make sure they know where theyre going.More than 100 million years ago, dinosaurs roamed Maryland. So did our ancestors  small mammals the size of squirrels or badgers  and the flying reptiles known as pterosaurs.

Amazingly, the footprints of all these creatures of the Cretaceous era were preserved on a single 8.5-foot-long slab of sandstone unearthed on the grounds of NASAs Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Md., not far north of the nations capital.

Its unusual to have such a large concentration of different kinds of tracks and small tracks in such a small space, said Martin Lockley, an emeritus geology professor at the University of Colorado Denver who studied the tracks.

Dr. Lockley and his colleagues described the findings in an article published Wednesday in the journal Scientific Reports. The slab offers unique insights into the behavior of dinosaurs and early mammals; possibly some of the dinosaurs were looking to make a meal of the mammals.In September 1944, trains in the Netherlands ground to a halt. Dutch railway workers were hoping that a strike could stop the transport of Nazi troops, helping the advancing Allied forces.

But the Allied campaign failed, and the Nazis punished the Netherlands by blocking food supplies, plunging much of the country into famine. By the time the Netherlands was liberated in May 1945, more than 20,000 people had died of starvation.

The Dutch Hunger Winter has proved unique in unexpected ways. Because it started and ended so abruptly, it has served as an unplanned experiment in human health. Pregnant women, it turns out, were uniquely vulnerable, and the children they gave birth to have been influenced by famine throughout their lives.

When they became adults, they ended up a few pounds heavier than average. In middle age, they had higher levels of triglycerides and LDL cholesterol. They also experienced higher rates of such conditions as obesity, diabetes and schizophrenia.In a paper published Wednesday in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, scientists report that a 16-year-old orca named Wikie was able to copy a variety of new sounds on command. The study joins a growing body of research illustrating the deep importance of social learning for killer whales.

We wanted to study vocal imitation because its a hallmark of human spoken language, which is in turn important for human cultural evolution, said Jose Zamorano-Abramson, who led the study as a postdoctoral researcher at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. We are interested in the possibility that other species also have cultural processes.

In the wild, killer whales live in tight-knit, matriarchal pods with unique vocal traditions. For decades, scientists have suspected that orcas acquire these dialects through social learning rather than genetic inheritance. Observations of captive killer whales making new calls when moved to a different social setting, or even mimicking the whistles and clicks of dolphins and the barks of sea lions, suggested that might be the case.

When we asked readers last week to suggest new names for the generation after millennials, we received thousands of replies, both from those we had called on (22 and under) and those we hadnt (everyone else).

Hundreds wrote in only to ask why we had bothered. They argued that this was an empty exercise.

Kiernan Majerus-Collins, the 22-year-old chairman of the Democratic Party in Lewiston, Me., wrote: Dont call us anything. The whole notion of cohesive generations is nonsense.

It was the second-most popular comment on our Facebook post. He has a point. Malcolm Harris, the author I interviewed for the original reader callout, described those jostling to coin a lasting name as hacks and salesmen. (Hes 29, a year older than I am.)

Mr. Harris, an editor for The New Inquiry, is more amenable in his book, Kids These Days: Human Capital and the Making of Millennials, which makes a case that these labels help explain the political, economic and social trends that shape our lives.Muscle spasm (my dinner diagnosis) is one of the most common diagnoses, but other common causes include nerve pain, skin conditions, low estrogen and endometriosis. There are psychological factors, but that does not mean that it is in your head. Ever.

If sex hurts, many women begin to anticipate the pain, which increases the pain response and diminishes lubrication and libido. If every time I offered you the finest chocolate in the world I hit you with a hammer at your first bite, you would soon learn to dread and fear chocolate. You may also reflexively flinch at the smell of chocolate, or even when I walked into the room, and lose your taste for chocolate altogether. For some women sexual trauma can also be a factor and start a cycle of pain.

Getting facts ahead of fallacies in medicine is hard enough, but with sex there are many more layers. Most people receive a less than adequate sex education, and many do not learn how to talk about sex. When I ask a woman if she has discussed her pain or her sexual needs with her partner, it is not uncommon for me to hear, I cant. That many doctors do not feel comfortable discussing sex only compounds the issues.

There are also some other solutions:

Addressing the sex itself. Treating pain with sex involves addressing the physical aspects, making sure technique is appropriate, discussing emotional consequences, and, of course, looking at the relationship. If you are deeply unhappy, you may not get the kind of sexual stimulation you need or be able to mount an adequate sexual response. No medical therapy can compensate for not liking your sexual partner.

Lubricant can help many women who have pain with sex, and no, it does not mean there is something wrong. The other myth that I frequently dismantle is this idea that women should achieve some kind of fantasy wetness. I have heard many women tell me that lubricant helps their pain, but their male partner does not like it or judges them for it. That, my friends, is messed up. No one thinks you are less if you need glasses. Some people have always needed glasses, and some of us, ahem, need glasses as we age. Who cares as long as you can see?THE CROWD

Unassuming and unpretentious, mostly professionals in their 30s. On a recent Thursday night, there were a pair of bros in matching button-down shirts chatting about their sales jobs on Long Island, and groups of tipsy women laughing about the most recent episode of The Bachelor. In one corner, a business-casual couple were necking in a cozy booth over white wine and small plates of charred swordfish.

THE PLAYLIST

An incongruous smattering of progressive electronic R&B, early Prince, Motown classics and well-worn singles from the Weeknd.

GETTING IN

Guests can enter through a spiral staircase tucked behind the elevator banks, or from the street, down the steps just past the hotels main entrance. Theres been talk of a secret code, but none was required on a recent visit. A bodysuit-clad hostess gladly opened the door after one knock.In this series for T, Emily Spivack, the author of Worn Stories, interviews creative types about their most prized possessions.

Inside the High Maintenance co-creator Katja Blichfelds New York apartment, there are two chairs that once belonged to her enigmatic aunt. Here, she details how they serve as a reminder of her Tante Laura  and of the way she wants to live her life.

My dads aunt, Laura, who we called Tante Laura, was one of the two relatives that I had stateside  everyone else lived in Denmark.

Tante Laura followed her husband to the United States from Denmark in the 1920s. She worked as a nanny and did some housekeeping while her husband was a bartender. Things with him werent as picturesque as she hoped they would be. He had a drinking problem. He was a ladies man. But she was religious, a good girl from a rural Presbyterian family, and she never would have left. She probably thought it was her duty to stay with him.Pretend you are the lead detective on a hit new show, CSI: Terrible Stuff on the Internet. In the first episode, you set up one of those crazy walls plastered with headlines and headshots, looking for hidden connections between everything awful thats been happening online recently.

Theres a lot of dark stuff. In one corner, you have the Russian campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election with digital propaganda. In another, a rash of repugnant videos on YouTube, with children being mock-abused, cartoon characters bizarrely committing suicide on the kids channel and a popular vlogger recording a body hanging from a tree.

Then theres tech addiction, the rising worry that adults and kids are getting hooked on smartphones and social networks despite our best efforts to resist the constant desire for a fix. And all over the internet, general fakery abounds  there are millions of fake followers on Twitter and Facebook, fake rehab centers being touted on Google and even fake review sites to sell you a mattress.

So who is the central villain in this story, the driving force behind much of the chaos and disrepute online?When Kathryn Schipper discovered in December that her iPhone had slowed down because it needed a new battery, she unknowingly walked into the middle of a growing Apple controversy  and is now mired in the continuing fallout.

Late last year, Apple said a software feature was slowing down iPhones that had aged batteries, immediately drawing accusations that the company was trying to force people to upgrade to its newest iPhones. In response, Apple said customers could get their iPhone batteries replaced at its stores for a discounted price of $29, down from $79.

Yet when Ms. Schipper, who lives in Seattle, took her iPhone 6 Plus, purchased in 2014, to an Apple store in early January, she was told that the store was out of replacement batteries for at least two weeks. An Apple representative later left her a voice mail message with a new estimated wait time: up to four months.

I feel like Im waiting outside of a club and the bouncer wont let me in because Im not fashionably enough dressed, Ms. Schipper said in a phone interview. Im at the back of the line because I dont have a fancy phone.Since its founding in 1975, Soho Rep has sheltered the theatrically unruly and risky and weird. We think people might really hate this one  and then were very excited about it, Cynthia Flowers, the companys executive director, said. Heres a quick look at some of the most form-twisting, boundary-breaking and acclaimed works the theater has produced. ALEXIS SOLOSKI

Dark Ride (1981)Guillermo del Toro, 52, who has best director and best screenplay Academy Award nominations for The Shape of Water (he won a Golden Globe Award for best director for the film), is well-known for his science-fiction and horror movies. (His other films include Pacific Rim and Pans Labyrinth.")

But Mr. del Toros talents go beyond film: he has also co-authored a trilogy of vampire novels and is the creator of the computer-animated Netflix series Trollhunters.

One of his latest projects, the drawings for the box of a limited-edition tequila from Patron called Patron x Guillermo del Toro, is a homage to his upbringing in Guadalajara, in the central western Mexican state of Jalisco. There, he would often see the fields of agave teeming with jimadores  the farmers who harvest blue weber agave plants used to make tequila. It was fascinating to watch them work because their craft of picking and trimming the plants is so intricate, he said.

Its the jimadores who inspired Mr. del Toros drawings, he said.

And while Mr. Del Toro currently lives in Toronto and Los Angeles, he returns to Guadalajara every six weeks to visit his family and still sees the jimadores working in the fields.The result has been legal limbo: People whose behavior would not now be considered illegal are sometimes unable to find work, get college loans, obtain professional licenses, or find decent housing because of the blot on their record.

Those who argue against expunging criminal records say people who violated the law should live with the consequences, regardless of subsequent legal changes.

In all the other states, the process has been messy, said Robert Mikos, a professor at Vanderbilt University who studies marijuana law and policy. But whether people agree with what they did or not, California at least addressed it and theres value in that.

Even in California, there is significant variation in how counties are handling misdemeanor marijuana convictions. Some, like Fresno County, are dealing with them on a case-by-case basis, said Steve E. Wright, the countys assistant district attorney. Jeff Rosen, district attorney of Santa Clara County, said he was working with the local public defenders office to identify cases. And prosecutors in San Francisco and San Diego have been more proactive, with both cities planning to automatically dismiss misdemeanor convictions and to reduce felony convictions to misdemeanors.

In San Francisco, Mr. Gascon said he wanted to avoid putting people through a process that he said violates the spirit of legalization.

A lot of people dont even know they qualify, and I dont think its the right thing to do to make people pay lawyers fees and jump through a bunch of hoops to get something they should be getting anyway, he said.

In November 2016, California voters approved Proposition 64, which allowed adults 21 and older to buy or possess 28.5 grams of marijuana  about one ounce  or grow up to six plants at a private residence.Good morning.

(Want to get California Today by email? Heres the sign-up.)

On his first day as the new editor in chief of the Los Angeles Times, Jim Kirk held a meeting. His newsroom had suffered through several months of turmoil  and staff members had many questions.

One of the most poignant came from a columnist, Robin Abcarian: Had Mr. Kirk ever been a defendant in a sexual harassment lawsuit?

No, he replied, which Ms. Abcarian said prompted a round of applause.

Her question, Ms. Abcarian said in a telephone interview on Tuesday, was an earnest one. It came less than two weeks after Ross Levinsohn, who was named The Timess publisher in August, was put on leave after a National Public Radio article detailed sexual harassment allegations made against him while he worked at other companies. (The New York Times reported this week that Tronc  the parent company of the Los Angeles Times  vetted Mr. Levinsohn before he was hired, but the company was not aware that he had twice been a defendant in sexual harassment lawsuits.)

Mr. Kirk, who had recently served as the interim executive editor of the Los Angeles Times, replaced Lewis DVorkin.Democrats have called the Republican document a dangerous effort to build a narrative to undercut the departments investigation into whether Mr. Trumps associates colluded with Russians and whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice. They say it uses cherry-picked facts assembled with little or no context and could do lasting damage to faith in federal law enforcement.

The F.B.I. statement ran counter to the decidedly low-key approach that Mr. Wray has taken as director, avoiding news media interviews and delivering anodyne speeches to law enforcement groups. He had worked quietly in the hopes of keeping the F.B.I. out of the presidents cross hairs.

Since taking over the F.B.I. about six months ago, Mr. Wray has had to defend the bureau against the presidents broadsides. But the director has done so in a nonconfrontational manner. In December, when Mr. Trump said the F.B.I.s standing was the worst in history and its reputation in tatters, Mr. Wray sent a message to the bureaus more than 35,000 agents and support staff saying that their professionalism and dedication were inspiring.

Stephanie Douglas, a former top F.B.I. executive, said Mr. Wray had to act on his concerns.

His role as the F.B.I. director is about credibility, she said. Hes obligated by his role to speak the truth. I think he did the right thing. Thats his job. If he didnt say something about a document lacking factual accuracy, he would have to make up for a lot of lost trust.

Mr. Wray had strongly objected to the move to release the memo and was allowed to review it only on Sunday, after Mr. Nunes relented. Mr. Wray made a last-ditch effort on Monday, going to the White House with the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, to try to persuade the White House to stop the release of the memo. They spoke to John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, but were unsuccessful.

Mr. Rosenstein was also asked by the president last month whether he was on my team, according to an official briefed on the exchange. Mr. Rosenstein appeared surprised but responded affirmatively, according to CNN, which first reported the encounter.Why is the president ignoring the sanctions? asked an exasperated Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, a veteran of three decades in Congress. Ive never seen it like this.

Republicans, in praising the president for bold leadership, say Democrats bear some responsibility for finding bipartisan solutions and need to get past their animosity for Mr. Trump if they want a deal on immigration.

If Democrats refuse to negotiate now after what President Trump put on the table, perhaps they should migrate out of Congress, said Representative Jeb Hensarling, Republican of Texas.

The ongoing hostility is not without consequences. Government funding runs out again on Feb. 8 and delicate negotiations are continuing in an effort to reach an immigration deal by early March at the latest. The parties need to have some level of trust and willingness to work together to resolve these difficult issues, since both spending and immigration measures will require votes from both sides of the aisle to become law.

To that end, Mr. Trump said in his speech that he was extending an open hand to work with members of both parties. He urged lawmakers to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve.

But to many Democrats, that appeal rang hollow given the past year that saw the Republican effort to unravel the Affordable Care Act and Mr. Trumps tendency to back away from tentative compromise agreements with Democratic leaders after objections from Republicans.A person familiar with the lawmakers plans said that Mr. Gowdy had turned down an offer by the Trump administration to nominate him for a judgeship on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and that he planned to enter private practice in South Carolina instead.

Whatever skills I may have are better utilized in a courtroom than in Congress, and I enjoy our justice system more than our political system, he said in a statement. As I look back on my career, it is the jobs that both seek and reward fairness that are most rewarding.

Mr. Gowdy, 53, made his name on Capitol Hill as one of Congresss most strategic and polarizing investigators. As the chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, he led one of the longest and most bruisingly partisan congressional investigations in history. The committee ultimately found no new evidence of culpability or wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton in the 2012 attacks in Libya that left four Americans dead.

But the committees work had another lasting effect: It discovered that Mrs. Clinton had used a private email server during her time as secretary of state. The revelation would lead to an F.B.I. investigation and would dog Mrs. Clintons presidential campaign.

Mr. Gowdy won the chairmanship of the powerful Oversight Committee last year, after the early retirement of another rising Republican, Jason Chaffetz of Utah. He has been criticized in that role by Democrats who say he was more interested in using the committees powers to look backward and investigate the administration of President Barack Obama than that of Mr. Trump.Mr. Booher insisted on Wednesday that FEMA was not backtracking on its food and water aid plans in response to public criticism. Had the agency planned to end the assistance, it would have required giving notice to the Puerto Rican government, Mr. Booher noted, and FEMA had no plans to end the aid without consulting with Puerto Rico. A statement on Tuesday from Hector M. Pesquera, the islands public safety secretary, said that the government had not been informed about any cutoff before the NPR report.

Ending the emergency aid would require a transition of at least two weeks between the federal and Puerto Rican governments, Mr. Pesquera added. FEMA has been distributing water bottles, snack food boxes and ready-to-eat meals to Puerto Rican municipalities, where local mayors have handed them out to needy residents.

On Wednesday, Gov. Ricardo A. Rossello told reporters in San Juan that his administration had reached out to the homeland security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, whose department oversees FEMA, to ensure the aid would continue. FEMAs plans, Mr. Rossello said, had been perhaps miscommunicated.

Puerto Rico intends to rely on mayors to let his administration know when their residents no longer need emergency food and water, Mr. Rossello said.

You cant pretend to end it overnight, he said.

The local FEMA workers cited by NPR on Monday  Alejandro De La Campa, the director of the agencys San Juan-based Caribbean division, and Delyris Aquino-Santiago, a spokesman  mistakenly thought that the date being used in a planning exercise for what ending aid would look like was real, Mr. Booher said.

The reported cutoff date had baffled Washington lawmakers. While major cities like San Juan have had much of their power restored  allowing people to refrigerate their food  some towns in the islands mountainous interior are still in the dark.

Cutting this aid to the people of Puerto Rico, almost a third of them who still do not have electricity  its unconscionable, and its a travesty, Senator Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, said on the Senate floor on Tuesday. Thirty lawmakers from both parties had signed a letter imploring FEMA to change course.

In clarifying FEMAs position, Mr. Booher noted that the agencys aid has become less necessary as supermarkets and restaurants return to regular business. The agency has full stockpiles of food and water to distribute to towns and does not need to bring new supplies to the island for now, he said. FEMA has provided more than $1.6 billion in food and more than $361 million in water, in addition to more than 100,000 liters of water, he said.As sexual misconduct continues to dominate the news, were providing updates and analysis in a weekly newsletter. Today, Daniel Victor, a reporter who covers breaking news and culture, writes on the conversations hes heard recently among men. Tell us what you think at nytgender@nytimes.com, and sign up here to receive future installments of this newsletter.

Ten men, ranging in age from their 20s to 50s, arranged their chairs in a circle. The only woman in the group, a sex educator who had organized the gathering, promised not to speak.

The event  called Im a Straight Male. Now What? was branded as a place for men to unpack aggression and share not-so-politically correct thoughts in the midst of the cultural moment that has become highly politicized. The men whod shown up  among them a marketer, a journalist, a podcaster and an organizer of sex-play events  were encouraged to say to each other what they were uncomfortable saying publicly about #MeToo. It took place in a small event studio in downtown Manhattan.Watching is The New York Timess TV and film recommendation website. Sign up for our thrice-weekly newsletter here.

Christopher Nolans World War II film Dunkirk is one of the most critically lauded of this years Academy Awards nominees, racking up nominations not only for best picture but also for cinematography, editing, production design and director (Nolans first). The heavy praise in both creative and technical categories speaks to the scope of Nolans accomplishment: In his telling of the Dunkirk evacuation  in which over 300,000 Allied soldiers, pinned down on a French beach by the Germans, are evacuated against all odds  he made a war movie that is both precise in its craft and compelling in its storytelling.

Of course no film, however great, arises in a vacuum. If you value Dunkirk as much as the Academy does, here are a few streamable films that are bound to resonate, whether in story or aesthetic.With no traditional options left, I enrolled in a clinical trial. At best only a few hundred people around the world had taken the drug being tested, and no one really knew what it did to you. It made me as sick as traditional chemotherapy, required full body scans every three to six weeks (thats a lot of radiation) and lots of platelet transfusions. But miraculously, it put me into complete remission. They told me I was only one of two people known to achieve this.

Doctors didnt know if the drug would keep me in remission, or whether I should stay on it or not. We took a gamble. I went off it and began proton therapy, a new approach to radiation at the time. It was more targeted, with less damage to healthy tissue, but there was little data on its use for lymphomas. I finished 35 rounds of radiation and was still in complete remission. After seven months I was finished with treatment, but now came the hard part: once again living my life scan-to-scan and playing the cruel mental game of wondering what the chances were that my cancer would return.

Its been seven years and Im still waiting. My doctor and I will never use the word cure and while Im unsure Ill ever fully move on, Ive been living life to the fullest. I moved to Chicago to be closer to family, and there met my husband. My doctors had told me the transplant would leave me infertile, unable to ever conceive, but together we somehow produced the most amazing daughter. We say she was destined to be here, and she is.

Like many new mothers, I had postpartum anxiety, anxiety that was amplified by my complex medical history and the unanswered questions that overwhelmed me. How much time do I have before my cancer returns again? What are the odds that I will see my daughter grow up, that I will take her to her first day of school, see her off to college or walk her down the aisle on her wedding day?

When my daughter was 8 months old, I ended up in the emergency room the day after Thanksgiving after a terrible headache that had lasted for three days. An hour after I had a CT scan, a young doctor came in and told me I had a large mass on the right side of my brain. She suggested there was a good chance my lymphoma was back and had spread to my brain, telling me this almost with a sense of pride, as if she had solved a great mystery.

I was paralyzed by the news and wanted to rip the IV out of my arm and run home to my daughter, but I couldnt move. I felt an arm come around me and looked up to see my husband crying, the only time Ive ever seen him shed tears.

After several weeks of doctors appointments and many scans and medical tests later, the doctors concluded there was nothing malignant lurking in my brain. I had suffered a stroke and am now epileptic and often have severe headaches because of it, but I did not have cancer.The case of Lawrence G. Nassar, the former doctor for the American gymnastics team who was sentenced last week for systemic sexual abuse of his young patients, raises many uncomfortable questions. One of the more troubling is the way the team doctor duped patients, parents and other physicians into believing that his treatments were medically appropriate, even after complaints were lodged.

It wasnt entirely implausible. A form of physical therapy called pelvic floor physical therapy uses internal vaginal soft tissue manipulation, or massage, to relieve pelvic pain by accessing muscles that cannot be reached any other way. The therapy has been tested and found effective in several small studies and clinical trials published in peer-reviewed medical journals.

But medical professionals use pelvic floor physical therapy primarily for conditions like persistent pelvic pain, bowel and bladder problems like incontinence, and painful intercourse. It is not the first line of treatment for the kinds of problems that typically afflict gymnasts, like lower back and hip pain, which are less likely to require internal vaginal manipulations, experts say.

Furthermore, physicians generally do not perform the therapy themselves, even if they are, like Dr. Nassar, osteopathic physicians who are trained in hands-on techniques that use stretches and pressure to relieve muscle pain. Doctors who recommend pelvic floor physical therapy usually refer patients to physical therapists who specialize and are certified in it. And most of those therapists are women.HONG KONG  Hong Kongs legislature voted on Wednesday to ban all ivory sales by 2021, closing what activists called a major loophole in the global effort to end the trade and protect elephants from poaching.

The ivory trade has been banned in most of the world since 1990 under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or Cites, which Hong Kong and all but a handful of countries have agreed to honor. But the sale of antique ivory acquired before the 1970s had remained legal here. Elephant tusks and ivory statues, carvings and chopsticks are still sold in Hong Kongs antique stores.

City officials originally said that allowing the sale of antique ivory would give local traders time to liquidate their stocks and find a new line of work.SEOUL, South Korea  When President Trump wanted to highlight the brutality of North Koreas government during his State of the Union address on Tuesday, he pointed to a man in the audience who had traveled thousands of miles on crutches to find freedom.

The story that man, Ji Seong-ho, tells of his escape is remarkable even by the standards of North Korean defectors. When Mr. Trump pointed him out, Mr. Ji jubilantly raised his crutches as television cameras captured the moment.

In 1996, Mr. Ji was 13, his parents eldest son, living in a mining village near the city of Hoeryong in northern North Korea. The country was in the midst of a famine that would kill more than two million, by some estimates. Surviving on roots and corn stalks, Mr. Jis family became so weak that they spent most of the day lying on the floor, sometimes hallucinating, he said in a 2014 interview.

His grandmother had died of hunger the previous year. In school, teachers were too weak to teach. Few students showed up to class.TAIPEI, Taiwan  Prosecutors in Taiwan have accused a former judge and his son of violating United Nations sanctions on trade with North Korea, the second such case involving citizens of Taiwan so far this year. Both cases also involve Chinese nationals.

The Taipei District Prosecutors Office said in a statement on Monday that Chiang Kuo-hua, previously a High Court judge, and his son, Chiang Heng, chartered a cargo ship through a Chinese middleman, which they used to transport coal to Vietnam from North Korea last summer.

On Sunday, prosecutors and police officers raided the offices of a company Mr. Chiang founded, as well as the residences of Mr. Chiang and his son and two other men believed to have been involved in the coal shipment. All four men were questioned on Sunday and have been accused of assisting terrorists and forging documents.

Prosecutors have accused Mr. Chiang and his son of purchasing four tons of anthracite coal at the North Korean port of Nampo, which they then shipped to the Vietnamese port of Cam Pha. To avoid detection, the crew reportedly switched off the ships Automatic Identification System, a tracking device required of ships carrying a certain amount of tonnage.Im not a quitter and there is a long-term job to be done, she said, according to Reuters. That job is about getting the best Brexit deal, about ensuring that we take back control of our money, our laws, our borders, that we can sign trade deals around the rest of the world.

China, the worlds second-biggest economy, could become a more important source of customers and investment for Britain as its scheduled March 2019 departure from the European Union looms. After her meetings in Beijing, including with Mr. Xi, Mrs. May will visit Shanghai to promote trade and investment.

In 2016, China was the destination for 3.1 percent of British exports of goods and services, while 43 percent went to other European Union member countries. Chinese officials are eager to talk up prospects for more business, and British exports to China have been growing. Representatives of more than 40 companies, universities and trade groups are accompanying Mrs. May on her trip.

In a press appearance with Mr. Li, Mrs. May said that she had won Chinas agreement to take steps toward lifting a ban on British beef imports, which dated back to the crisis over mad cow disease during the 1990s.

But China also bristles with policies and practices that protect many domestic industries from foreign competitors, and Mrs. May has sounded a more guarded note about prospects for cooperation than did Mr. Cameron and his Labour Party predecessors, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair.

Mr. Cameron and George Osborne, the former chancellor of the Exchequer, courted Chinese investment aggressively, placing less emphasis on contentious issues like democracy, human rights and the future of Hong Kong, a former British colony. In 2015, Britain also bucked the United States by joining Chinas fledgling Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.LONDON  There is a loud outcry throughout England against the generous rations that are given to the German war prisoners in internment camps in Great Britain. This criticism is being accentuated as the food queues in London lengthen and as the Germans continue their bombardments of London.

Letters innumerable are written to the newspapers complaining against the allowances of food to the Germans, and the Government is almost ordered by public sentiment to reduce their fare.

A correspondent, writing to the Daily Express, says: 

For breakfast the fortunate people in the camp have a big plateful of porridge, tea, bread, margarine, and part of their weekly ration of 7oz. of jam if they care to draw on it. For dinner they have 6oz. of beef or mutton, 10oz. of vegetables (potatoes and cabbage, cauliflower or other greenstuff in season), bread, and rice, tapioca, or semolina, when cheese is not available. They had cheese up to last week, although very few people outside the camp could get it. For tea they have bread, margarine, jam and tea. They have two meatless days a week, and on these occasions they are provided with 12oz. of salted herring a day.

The meat supply, we are told, is only sufficient to allow each British citizen a pound a week; but in practice even this amount cannot be had. The allowance of the German is nearly double, and he gets his supply daily without effort and without worry.

 The New York Herald, European Edition, Jan. 31, 1918ISTANBUL  An Istanbul court on Wednesday ordered the release of Amnesty Internationals top representative in Turkey, one of the most prominent political prisoners in the country detained under a widespread crackdown against government critics.

The court ordered the release of the prisoner, Taner Kilic, chairman of Amnesty International Turkey, but the terrorism charges against him have not been dropped. A local court later stopped his release.

Mr. Kilic has been imprisoned for more than six months in Izmir, his hometown. He was accused of links to the outlawed movement of Fethullah Gulen, a cleric living in exile who is accused by the government of terrorism for a coup attempt in 2016.

The ruling was met with shouts of joy by supporters who hugged each other in the Istanbul courtroom, as Mr. Kilic was shown via videolink from Izmir.Please allow ads as they help fund our trusted local news content.

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If you want further access to Ireland's best local journalism, consider subscribing to our ePaper and/or free daily Newsletter .

Support our mission and join our community now.6.2 magnitude earthquake jolts Afghanistan, Northern India, 1 dead in Pakistan

India

oi-Deepika

By Deepika

Earthquake of 6.2 magnitude hits Afghanistan, Tremors felt in Northern India | Oneindia News

Tremors were felt in several parts of north India today following a 6.2 magnitude earthquake on the Afghanistan-Kazakhstan border, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said. There were no immediate reports of any damage or casualties.

The tremors were also felt in the Delhi-NCR region and the rest of northern India at around 12:40 pm. Tremors from the earthquake have been felt in many parts of Punjab and Haryana as well. According to news agency IANS, people in Chandigarh also felt the tremors, which lasted a few seconds. The tremors were felt around 12:45 pm.

As the tremors were felt, people in high-rises rushed outside to safety while the services of Delhi Metro were halted for about three minutes.

Delhi-NCR jolted

Tremors were felt in several parts of northern India, including Delhi-NCR, Jammu and Kashmir and Rajasthan. Panicked people were seen rushing out on streets after they felt the tremors.

The Indian Meteorological Department said the magnitude of the quake was 6.2, and it was recorded at 12.36pm.

There were no reports of any damage in India due to the earthquake.

In New Delhi, Delhi Metro trains were halted briefly but services were not disrupted, said an official.

Officials snapped electricity supply briefly as a precautionary measure.

Powerful quake rattles northern Afghanistan

A powerful 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck northern Afghanistan, the USGS said, with tremors felt as far away as Islamabad and New Delhi.

The quake hit at 0707 GMT (1237 IST) near Afghanistan's northern border with Tajikistan in the Hindu Kush mountains at a depth of 191 kilometres, the US Geological Survey said.

Quake jolts Pakistan

A powerful earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale jolted several parts of Pakistan, killing at least one person and injuring 11 others, media reports said.

The epicenter of the quake was in the Hindukush mountains and its depth was recorded at 178 km, the Pakistan Metrological Department (PMD) said.

The intensity of the tremor was 6.1 on the Richter scale, it said. A girl was killed and nine persons were injured in Lasbella area of Balochistan due to collapsing of a house, Geo News reported.

Two school children were injured in Peshawar while running in panic from school building. The quake was felt in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces as well as in capital Islamabad and Pakistan- occupied Kashmir.

The spokesman for Provincial Department Management Authority (PDMA) said the authorities were in contact with all the districts of the province to ascertain about damage of property or any casualty.

Pakistan has suffered several quakes in the past, including the deadliest one in 2005 which killed at least 74,000 people.

The epicentre of the earthquake was near Afghanistan's Jarm, which was hit by a devastating 7.5 magnitude quake in October 2015 that triggered landslides and flattened buildings, killing more than 380 people across the region.

OneIndia NewsKeep the faith, we are with her in this struggle: Subramanian Swamy to Kangana Ranaut

After Mehbooba, Swamy now trains gun at Sitharaman over Shopian firing incident

India

oi-Vikas

Amid raging debate over FIR against Army personnel following the stone pelting incident at Shopian, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on Wednesday questioned Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's silence over the matter.

Swamy had yesterday lashed out at the Mehbooba Mufti-led government in Jammu and Kashmir over the FIR against Army pesonnel. Swamy had said that Mehboob Mufti should withdraw the FIR "or else her government would be toppled."

"You see according to media reports and social media Jammu and Kashmir CM at the floor of the House said, 'I had brought the Shopian army firing issue to notice of the Defence Minister and she said that if you feel that a crime has been committed, go ahead and take an action'," Swamy told ANI

"Wondering why even today Defence minister has not given a clarification. Do we take her silence to mean yes. If it is, then it's totally against party policies, sentiments of Indians and patriotism. If she doesn't give a clarification by 2 February I will ask it in the House," he added.

[Withdraw FIR against Army or your govt will be toppled, Swamy tells Mehbooba]

Meanwhile, a youth, who was injured in Army firing during demonstrations on January 27 in Shopian, died in a hospital on Wednesday, taking total number of civilians killed to three.

Earlier, two youth Javed Ahmad Bhat (20) of Balpora and Suhail Javed Lone (24) of Rawalpora Shopian died while several others were injured in army firing at Ganapora area of Shopian.

Following the incident, an FIR was registered against two Army officers by the Jammu and Kashmir Police. The FIR was lodged under sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) of the Ranbir Penal Code against the personnel of 10, Garhwal unit, of the Army. An Army Major, who led the Army personnel at the time of the incident, was also named in the FIR.

[Shopian firing: Injured youth succumbs to injuries, civilian death toll rises to 3]

The BJP strongly protested the FIR, even as its coalition partner in Jammu and Kashmir, the People's Democratic Party (PDP), asserted that the FIR will be taken to a "logical conclusion".

PDP chief and J&K chief minister Mehbooba Mufti said she did not believe the FIR would have a demoralising effect on the Army.

OneIndia NewsWhat is a Super moon?

A Super moon is a full or new moon which passes the earth at its closest point. This point is known as the "perigee".

They occur when a full moon coincides with the moon's perigee, the point in its orbit at which it is closest to Earth.

According to NASA, Perigee full moons appear about 14% bigger and 30% brighter than full moons that occur near apogee in the Moon's orbit.

Since the Moon's orbit is elliptical, one side (the apogee) is about 30,000 miles (50,000 km) farther from Earth than the other (the perigee).

The event slated for January 31 is the last in a series of 3 supermoons, with the previous two being visible on December 3, 2017 and January 1, 2018.

The supermoon' name was first coined by an astrologer, Richard Nolle, in 1979.

What is a Blue moon?

Blue moons are defined as the second full moon in a calendar month. Usually there is just one full moon in each month.

This event is a rarity, as it has been found to arise once every two-and-a-half years on average, says NASA.

A full moon occurs every 29.5 days. However, aside from February, our months are longer than this period, meaning that every couple of years there is a month with two full moons.

Are they blue in color?

Blue moons aren't blue in colour at all: the name is believed to be a corruption of 'belewe moon', from the ancient word for 'betrayal' as the additional moon in a season was seen to betray the traditional definition of a season as a period of three full moons.

"Most Blue Moons look pale gray and white, indistinguishable from any other moon you've ever seen," according to NASA. "Squeezing a second full moon into a calendar month doesn't change the physical properties of the moon itself, so the color remains the same."

What is a Blood moon?

A "blood moon" happens when Earth's moon is in full eclipse. While it has no special astronomical significance, the view in the sky is striking as the usually whiteish moon becomes red or ruddy-brown. While there is no direct sunlight on the moon, Earth's atmosphere refracts sunlight, creating an indirect red light on the moon.

Why is it called blood moon?

Sometimes an eclipse moon is called a "blood moon" because of this rusty color. But why does the moon turn red, and not simply darken to black when it goes into the shadow? As NASA explains, it's because the Earth's atmosphere extends beyond the planet, and sunlight passes through it, still reaching the moon.

However, the moon is not completely blocked out and the only light that we tend to see is red, because the earth's atmosphere allows the red wavelengths to pass through, while all blue light is scattered.

What is total lunar eclipse?

A lunar eclipse can occur only at full moon. A total lunar eclipse can happen only when the sun, Earth and moon are perfectly lined up - anything less than perfection creates a partial lunar eclipse or no eclipse at all.

Data from NASA shows that stargazers in India will get to experience this rare event on the evening of January 31, as the moon rises. The total lunar eclipse will start in India from 4:21 pm and last till 7:37 pm.Congress aggravating religious divide in Karnataka: Rajeev Chandrasekhar

India

oi-Vicky

Rajya Sabha MP and NDA representative Rajeev Chandrasekhar has charged with the ruling Congress in Karnataka with playing 'catastrophic divisive politics' as they do not have anything to boast of on development.

One example of this was the recent Police communique directing withdrawal of cases registered against "innocent minorities" on charges of rioting among others, which, he said, 'exposes the Siddaramaiah government's policy of appeasement.' "This is a clear attempt of appeasement at the cost of security to people and overall national security," he said.

Moreover, this was not just a bid by Congress to ensure their vote bank was safe, but also one to 'aggravate' religious divide in Karnataka, he told PTI. The state government had later amended the words to 'innocent people' and clarified that the comminique referred to all minorities.

"Moreover the government's Tipu Jayanti celebrations saw communal tensions in Kodagu and Dakshina Kannada," Chandrasekhar said, referring to the state-wide protests against it on November last year.He said another example of the state government playing divisive politics was on the separate religious status for Lingayats, "which they have been stoking ahead of the coming assembly election, purely to divide Lingayats for electoral gains."

The demand for a separate religion tag to Veerashaiva/ Lingayat faiths has surfaced from the numerically strong and politically-influential community, amidst resentment from within over projecting the two communities as the same.

While one section has demanded separate religion status, asserting that Veerashaiva and Lingayats are the same, the other group wants it only for Lingayats as they believe that Veerashaivais one among the seven sects of Shaivas, which is part of Hinduism.

Targetting the Congress government, Chandrasekhar said that instead of ensuring citizen-centric governance, it has the knack of approving 'flashy' expensive projects like the steel flyover and pod taxi, "which serves no purpose." He alleged that the sole purpose of the government in announcing Rs 2,491 crore worth projects for Bengaluru was a ploy to mislead citizens ahead of the coming assembly polls. Chandrasekhar said Bengaluru has become a city exploited by Congress and added that a cabal of builders and contractors were deciding where public money was going to be spent and citizens have no say in it.

OneIndia NewsCountry has "sadly" not seen enough of "interesting" person Rahul Gandhi: Shashi Tharoor

India

oi-PTI

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday said party president Rahul Gandhi is an "interesting" person with a tremendous intellectual curiosity, but the country "sadly" has not seen enough of him.

He was replying to questions from students of the Delhi University's Hindu College at the 'Mushaira Literature Festival' after delivering a lecture in a jam-packed auditorium.

Asked about his opinion about the new party chief, Tharoor said, "Gandhi has grown up with ideas, perspectives, anxieties, and a degree of knowledge and vocabulary base that many of the youths will find congenial."

Gandhi has "thought very deeply about religion and matters of faith. He is a Shiv bhakt and seriously practices Buddhist Vipassana and can talk about differences between various schools of it and Hindu philosophy", he said.

Citing an anecdote, Tharoor said when all the political chatter was happening at the time of his elevation as the party's vice president in Jaipur in January 2013, "Gandhi was seen explaining a new book released by inventor of 'black swan theory' Nassim Nicholas Taleb".

Tharoor said Gandhi "is an extremely interesting guy with a tremendous intellectual curiosity and is extraordinarily well-read. I say this because for a couple of years between my two ministerships, I sat directly behind him in Parliament.

"Everyday we would chat and invariably the subjects he raised were about the books he was reading. That is the kind of the person he is and the rest of the country sadly has not seen it enough," he added.

Tharoor, a Lok Sabha member, said India was facing a choice between two different styles of leadership.

"On the one hand we have a one-man-show. We have a hero on a white stallion cantering down to the appraisal saying he has all the answers to all the questions.

"On the other hand, you got a guy who says I don't know all the answers but I will come to you and listen and bring a group of experienced people to work together," he said.

Tharoor also hit out at the right-wing in the country and said traditionally the idea of the Right and Left emerged due to economic reasons, but today the right-wing was about "cultural nationalism".

Cultural nationalism, he said, was about people saying "we are more anchored in our religion and authentic national identity and, therefore, we are the real people of the country".

He said, "Because of such conviction, they make a dangerous mistake of identifying their party with the government and in turn with the nation. Therefore, those opposing will become anti-national."

The event was organised by the university's student newspaper DU Beat and students' representative body Hindu College Parliament.

PTI

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Story first published: Thursday, February 1, 2018, 0:29 [IST]Curfew in Ahmedabad extended till 6am on May 21; Night curfew to continue in 36 cities for another 3 days

Into the deep: Ahmedabads Science City gets a boost! Nature Park, Aquatic, Robotic Galleries and more!

Court drops attempt to murder charges against Togadia following Gujarat govt request

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

A metropolitan court in Ahmedabad has dropped all charges against Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader, Pravin Togadia and 38 others in a two decade old case.

It may be recalled that a few days back the same court had issued non-bailable warrants against Togadia and the other accused while directing to appear before the court. "The order was pronounced, exonerating all the 39 accused in the case," said Public Prosecutor Y K Vyas.

The government lawyer told the magistrate that the state government was not in the favour of fighting the case.

The magistrate acceded to the request for withdrawal of case and acquitted all the 39 accused.

The case pertains to a Bharatiya Janata Party event at Sardar Patel Stadium on May 20, 1996. After then BJP member Shankarsinh Vaghela revolted against then Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel, Kesbhubhai loyalists attacked Atmaram Patel, then senior BJP leader, and those believed to be loyal to Vaghela.

Dubbing the entire incident a conspiracy, Togadia had cried foul and said that the police never delivered him summons despite him having Z+ security apparatus. Togadia had then gone missing for ten hours in an another case. He was later found in a hospital, from where he hit out at BJP government, accusing it of plotting an "encounter" on him.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 31, 2018, 7:35 [IST]Government employees get big salary hikes in Karnataka ahead of assembly elections 2018

India

oi-Anusha

Karnataka government doles out big fat hikes for its employees ahead of assembly elections |Oneindia

Siddaramaiah-led Karnataka government is all set to dole out big fat hikes to its employees ahead of assembly elections 2018. At an additional burden of Rs 10,508 crore per year, the Sixth State Pay Commission has recommended a 30 per cent hike to state government employees.

The implementation will benefit not just 5.20 lakh state government employees but also 73,000 employees of aided educational institutions, local bodies and non-teaching staff of colleges and universities. The commission's recommendation to increase the pension of retired state government employees by 30 per cent is expected to benefit 5.73 lakh families of pensioners. The pay hike to woo state government employees is expected to be a gamechanger for the Congress ahead of the Karnataka Assembly Elections 2018.

Karnataka government employees set to get pay hike in February, additional day off

The first volume of the Sixth State Pay Commission report was filed by chairman M R Srinivasmurthy, IAS (Retired) on Wednesday. The recommendations include a revised minimum pay scale of Rs 17,000 and maximum scale of Rs 1,50,600 plus allowances. The revised minimum pension is Rs 8,500 with the upper limit of Rs 75,300 per month. The commission has recommended an upper limit of Rs 45,180 per month for family pension.

The state government has decided to implement the commission's recommendations of the pay hike, revised salaries and pensions as well as pay scale post a cabinet meet. The recommendations will be notionally effective from July 1, 2017, which means that state government employees will receive benefits of the Sixth State Pay Commission recommendations from July last year. Employees will receive financial benefits from April 1, 2018.

Karnataka's Sixth State Pay Commission recommendations

30 per cent hike in salaries of employees and pensions of retired staff

Additional 45.25 per cent dearness allowance to be added to hike on basic salary payable from July 1, 2017.

Minimum pay scale of Rs 17,000, minimum pension of Rs 8,500

Age of retirement for government employees to remain at 60 years

Minimum qualification service for voluntary retirement to be reduced to 10 years

Eligibility to receive full pension reduced to 30 years from present 33 years

House rent allowance rate: revised to 24 per cent, 16 per cent and 8 per cent of basic salary

Maximum limit of Death-cum-Retirement Gratuity proposed to be increased to Rs 20 lakh

Additional pension for pensioners aged over 80 years at the rate of 20 per cent for those between ages 80 and 85, 30 per cent for those between 85 and 90, 40 per cent for those between 90 and 95, 50 per cent for those between 95 and 100 and 100 per cent additional pension for those aged above 100 years.

Extension of medical reimbursement benefit to retired employees and families of pensioners at a cost of Rs 500 crore per year

Increase in City Compensatory allowance, travelling allowance, uniform allowance and special allowance

Increase in subsidy to purchase motorized or mechanical vehicle for differently-abled employees upto Rs 40,000

Educational allowance for children of physically challenged staff to be hiked to Rs 1000 per child per month

The recommendations will not be applicable to staff of All India Services and judicial officers drawing NJPC pay scale. It is also not applicable to teaching staff drawing UGC/AICTE pay scales. Allowances will be according to the state's revised rates. This pay hike is the eleventh such in Karnataka. The state government had revised salaries for its employees last in 2012.

Karnataka Assembly Election dates Date of notification April 17 Last date to file nominations April 24 Last date to withdraw nominations April 27 Date of polling May 12 Date of counting May 15

OneIndia NewsPakistan: Blast in Quetta kills at least three, 20 injured; Tehreek-e-Taliban claims responsibility

Taliban-Haqqani rift brings Pakistans ISI out of the woodwork in Kabul

Taliban has Pakistan to thank for its takeover of Panjshir

Pak supports 'culture of violence' at home, across borders: India at UN

A call from Alipore jail to Karachi and the 9/11 link

What Mullah Baradars passport says about Taliban ties with Pakistan

How Pakistan funded Kashmir separatists to foment trouble in the Valley

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Pakistan based outfits provided funds to foment trouble in the Kashmir valley, the National Investigation Agency said. The outfits based in Pakistan conspired to wage a war against the Indian government, the NIA has also said.

The agency told additional sessions judge Tarun Sherawat that Pakistan-based outfits have been passing on money through hawala channels and alleged that officials of country's high commission were also playing an active role.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) had on January 18 filed its 12,794-page chargesheet, along with annexures, against 12 people including Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed and Hizbul Mujahideen head Syed Salahuddin. Both Saeed and Salahuddin are absconding, it said.

"A conspiracy under the supervision of Pakistan-based organisations was hatched. The accused persons were working in connivance with Saeed and Salahuddin to raise funds for the terror activities," special public prosecutor and senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, appearing for NIA, said.

The submissions were made by the agency when the court asked what evidence they had gathered to try the accused.

Kashmir terror funding: ED questions separatist Shabir Shah's wife for 7 hours

The agency alleged that high commission officials were passing money through arrested businessman Zahoor Watali, who would hand it over to separatists after deducting his cut. He is currently in judicial custody.

Besides Pakistan-based terrorists Saeed and Salahuddin, and Watali, the agency has also named hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani's son-in-law Altaf Shah alias Altaf Fantoosh, Bashir Ahmad Bhat and photo journalist Kamran Yusuf, who has been identified along with Javed Ahmad Bhat as a stone pelter.

Hurriyat Conference leaders Nayeem Ahmad Khan, Farooq Ahmad Dar alias Bitta Karate, Mohammad Akbar Khanday and Raja Mehrajuddin Kalwal have also been charged by the agency.

It alleged that the arrested accused were associated with "Hurriyat Conference and were prominent members of the society and that they had conspired to generate funds for the terror activities to oppose the lawful government of Jammu and Kashmir".

The NIA also submitted that a calendar, allegedly issued by the Hurriyat Conference, was recovered from Altaf Ahmad Funtoosh, mentioned the activities they conduct.

Luthra said the "people who get hurt or killed in action by the security forces were hailed as martyrs" and claim "freedom as their goal". "It's a misconceived cause," he said.

Letter heads of Hizbul Mujahideen were recovered from some of the arrested accused, the agency claimed, adding that Geelani had termed Afzal Guru a hero of Kashmir.

The court posted the matter for consideration of the chargesheet on February 1.

The NIA has alleged that Watali brought money from offshore accounts without any explanation. "There is an anti-terror operation and suddenly the stone-pelting is organised. Mob is not spontaneous but have been funded by these organisations," the agency said.

The evidence also include the videos of the sting operation done by some news channels showing how the funds are raised, the NIA claimed.

The ten arrested accused, who are currently in judicial custody, were produced before the court.

The NIA said that a number of places were searched during the investigation which led to the recovery of various incriminating documents and other evidences which relate them to the terror organisations and the funding for the terror activities.

The chargesheet has charged all the 12 accused persons with criminal conspiracy, sedition, and under stringent provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 31, 2018, 7:47 [IST]IGI airport: Gold worth Rs 13 lakh seized

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, Jan 31: The customs department today seized gold worth Rs 13 lakh from a man at Delhi international airport, officials said. The accused was intercepted after his arrival at the Indira Gandhi International Airport from Italian capital Rome.

A search resulted in the recovery of 585 grams of gold concealed in his hand baggage, the officials said. The gold seized is valued at Rs 13 lakh, the officials said, adding that the passenger was yet to be arrested.

On Monday, Air Intelligence officials of the Customs at the International airport in Kochi seized gold totally weighing over 500 grams, valued at around Rs 16 lakh in three separate cases.

In December, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has seized one of the biggest consignments of smuggled gold at Mumbai International Airport. Acting on a tip-off, the DRI officials and Mumbai Customs, successfully made the seizure of 50-kg gold from a DHL courier packet, which arrived from Gulf region.

PTIKarnataka assembly elections 2018: Congress looks to win polls, BJP style

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Win booths, win the elections. The Congress has decided to adopt this strategy ahead of the Karnataka Assembly Elections 2018. Following a crucial meeting, the Congress decided to rope in its senior leaders and put them in charge of polling booths where he or she would have to win the maximum number of votes.

The strategy appears to be similar to the one adopted by the BJP which had emphasised on the need of appointing 'Panna Pramukhas' in all booths. The chief of the Karnataka Congress, Dr G Parameshwar said that programme would be called Namma Kshetra Namma Hone (our constituency, our responsibility). It would be launched on February 5, he also said.

The programme is aimed at enthusing the booth level workers in the state. The focus would be on all the 57,000 booths, he also added. Leaders such as Siddaramaiah and Mallikarjuna Kharge would also be given the responsibility of the booth at which they vote.

The programme would not just involve senior leaders. It would also see the participation of leaders at the Gram and Taluk panchayats. Parameshwar said while this would enthuse the booth level workers, it would also help the Congress overcome the anti-incumbency factor.

The booth level workers would be trained on how the EVMs functions and there would be periodic consultations as well, he said. Further the leader explained that the booth level workers also should be aware of the social media. They would be trained on how to use WhatsApp groups, social media websites and this would help in better monitoring.

Parameshwar further said that the Congress would always practise inclusive Hindutva. There would be no soft or hard Hindutva, he said.

Karnataka Assembly Election dates Date of notification April 17 Last date to file nominations April 24 Last date to withdraw nominations April 27 Date of polling May 12 Date of counting May 15

OneIndia NewsKashmiri separatist leader Shabir Shah denied bail by court

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, Jan 31: A Delhi court denied bail to Kashmiri separatist leader Shabir Shah in a 2007 money- laundering case, noting the Enforcement Directorate's charge that he took money from Pakistan to create unrest in the Valley.

Additional Sessions Judge Sidharth Sharma, who had in August last year denied the relief to Shah citing the ongoing probe, dismissed his fresh bail plea.

The court took note of the submission by special public public prosecutor N K Matta, appearing for ED, that "Shah is involved in channelising illegal money sourced from Pakistan, avoiding banking channels, to fund terror organisations in J and K and other parts of the country and if released on bail, he may use his influence in threatening the witnesses."

The agency said that further investigation was going on and the properties were being identified and if granted the relief, the accused, who was arrested on July 26 last year in the case, will not be available for the trial.

"ED is trying to establish the money trail. Call records leading to Pakistan is being are being scrutinised including mails and the list of donors who paid money to Shah is to be identified and examined. If released on bail at this juncture, the entire effort of the ED to unearth the large conspiracy would be a futile exercise," it said.

In his bail application moved through advocate M S Khan, the accused told the court that there were no possibility of him influencing the witnesses because most of them are either police or ED officials. "The other witnesses are Shah's family members whom he can influence even while being in the the jail," Khan said.

He said Shah was a permanent resident of Jammu and Kashmir and a prominent politician and there was no likelihood of him escaping from the justice. "There is no connection between me and the co-accused Aslam Wani from whom the money was recovered following which the present case was registered," Khan said, adding that the probe into the case was complete as the agency has filed its charge sheet. The court had on August 22 last year rejected Shah's earlier bail plea after the ED said it was probing whether he had received money from countries such as Pakistan to promote terrorism in India.

On November 15, the court had framed money laundering charges under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against Shah and alleged hawala dealer Mohammad Aslam Wani, also in the judicial custody, in the case. Both the accused have pleaded not guilty and claimed trial.

The gency told the court that now 36-year-old Wani had come to Delhi from Srinagar "at the directions of Shah" sometime in April, 2003 and that was the first time he had met him. Wani was arrested by the ED on August 6 from Srinagar.

The ED alleged that Wani was asked by Shah to "work for him (on a commission basis) in collecting hawala money from Delhi and deliver to him at Srinagar". The case dates back to August 2005 in which the Delhi Police's Special Cell had earlier arrested Wani.

Wani had then claimed that he had given Rs 2.25 crore to Shah, following which the ED had registered a case under PMLA against the duo in 2007. He was arrested with Rs 63 lakh, allegedly received through 'hawala' channels from the Middle East, and a cache of ammunition, on August 26, 2005.

In 2010, a Delhi court had cleared Wani of terror funding charges in the 2005 case but convicted him under the Arms Act.

PTILeopard vs cat in Nashik well: See who wins the battle in viral video

Cops searches house of Karuna Sharma who claims to be second wife of Dhananjay Munde

Maharashtra Cabinet approves converting Navi Mumbai SEZ into industrial area

India

pti-PTI

Mumbai, Jan 31: The Maharashtra government has given an in-principle approval to convert 2,140 hectares of the Navi Mumbai Special Economic Zone (NMSEZ) into an 'integrated industrial area'.

The decision to this effect was taken yesterday at the state cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

With this, the NMSEZ can apply for denotification of its special economic zone status. The Centre had already started the denotification process of the SEZ.

However, the state government had requested the Centre to put the process on hold, a release from the Chief Minister's Office said.

The cabinet decision will help the promoters use 15 per cent of the total leased land - around 1,842 hectares - for residential uses, while the rest will have to be utilised for industrial purposes, the release said.

The Navi Mumbai SEZ has been proposed to be developed in three phases on 2,140 hectares of land in Dronagiri, Ulwe and Kalamboli areas of the township.

PTIInterfaith marriage: Allahabad HC quashes FIR, says adult woman has right to live as she wishes

Shun my way or no way attitude, welcome suggestions: Allahabad HC

PIL in Allahabad HC against coercive action against those appealing for oxygen on social media

Medical admission scam: Allahabad judge S N Shukla to be impeached

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra has recommended the impeachment of Justice S N Shukla following an adverse report on him by an in-house panel. The CJI has set the process in motion after he wrote to the Prime Minister of India for the impeachment of the judge.

On Tuesday the Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court withdrew all judicial work from Justice S N Shukla. It may be recalled that he was recently probed for his role in the medical admission scam.

Justice Shukla was under the scanner for allegedly granting permission to a private medical college to admit students despite the ban by the Medical Council of India and Supreme Court.

Complaints of corruption were made against the judge and the same was received by the Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra. An in-house inquiry was then set up to probe the allegations.

Medical admission scam: No judicial work for Allahabad HC judge

The three-member committee, comprising Madras high court Chief Justice Indira Banerjee, Sikkim high court Chief Justice SK Agnihotri and Madhya Pradesh high court judge PK Jaiswal, recently concluded its probe against Justice Shukla and made adverse remarks against him in their report.

Based on the recommendations, the CJI asked Justice Shukla to either resign or opt for voluntary retirement. He however refuted the charges and turned down both the suggestions.

The CJI then advised the Chief Justice of the High Court to consider withdrawing judicial work from Justice Shukla. Article 217 states that a judge can be removed by an order of the President of India after both Houses of Parliament vote for the removal on the ground of proven misbehaviour and incapacity. The vote must be by a two-thirds majority.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 31, 2018, 6:02 [IST]Take care of yourself as govt busy with sales: Rahul Gandhi's dig as Covid cases spike

In Meghalaya, Rahul Gandhi attacks RSS, calls it anti-women

India

oi-Deepika

By Deepika

Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday attacked the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) claiming that the ideology of the party is aimed at disempowering women.

"RSS idea aimed at dis-empowering women. Does anyone know many leadership positions are with women in RSS? Zero. If you see pix of Mahatma Gandhi you'll find women on this side (right), this side (left) but if you see pictures of Mohan Bhagwat, he'll be alone or surrounded by men," Rahul claimed.

"What BJP and RSS is doing in all over India and particularly in North-east is attempting to undermine your culture, language, and way of life," Rahul said.

Rahul is on a two-day visit to the poll-bound state where elections are due to be held on February 27 and counting will be held on March 3.

"I am here to tell you that the Congress party is going to work together. We will protect your languages and tribal customs. We are not going to allow the imposition of one idea," a senior Congress leader quoting Gandhi as saying at the party meeting.

Gandhi also lauded the Mukul Sangma government in the state for launching the social audit bill and stated that Meghalaya is one of the few states that provides universal healthcare.

He accused the BJP and the NPP of using money power ahead of the assembly election. "I am very sad to hear that the BJP offered money to our churches. No amount of money can buy the people of Meghalaya," Gandhi was quoted as saying.

One of the five states and Union Territories under Congress rule at present, Meghalaya goes to the polls on February 27. Counting of votes will be held on March 3.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 31, 2018, 17:46 [IST]Report says 3 million Indian IT jobs to be slashed by next year

Pakodanomics: Will Budget 2018 give jobs to unemployed?

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia

New Delhi, Jan 31: India: Where are the jobs, Mr Prime Minister?

Narendra Modi: Go sell pakodas (country's favourite snacks).

Is this a joke? No, this is the (pakoda) conversation India is having over jobs (not over chai (tea), another favourite of PM Modi) when the ruling government at the Centre is blissfully oblivious about the plight of rising unemployed people in the country.

As the Narendra Modi government is all set to present its last full budget before the all-important Lok Sabha elections in 2019, everyone is asking, "Where are the jobs?"

Union finance minister Arun Jaitley is all set to present the much-awaited Union Budget 2018 on Thursday (February 1). The upcoming budget will be the last full budget of the Modi government. The budget in 2019 will only be a vote-on-account.

If on Thursday's budget, the finance ministry does lay out a concrete vision to provide jobs for unemployed (mostly the youngsters) in the country, there is little hope that PM Modi would fulfill his much-talked about promise of giving jobs to one crore Indians.

In 2013, Modi promised one crore jobs for the country's youth if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) comes to power at the Centre.

The promise is yet to be fulfilled as the ruling BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre is all set to complete its fourth year in the office in May this year.

Whenever the government is being asked about jobs, BJP ministries have been successfully dodging the question by giving vague assertions like creation of self-employment and entrepreneurship among the masses in India. Unfortunately, the data does not support any of the claims of the government.

In fact, the rate of unemployment has increased from 3.8 per cent in 2011-12 to 5 per cent in 2015-16. According to an International Labour Organisation (ILO) report, unemployment in India will increase from 17.7 million in 2016 to 18 million in 2018.

These numbers are big, and if not tackled immediately might lead to social unrest. The skilled and educated youths without jobs will be forced to get involved in anti-social activities to eat two square meals daily.

While on the one hand, the Economic Survey 2018--the annual pre-budget economic report of the country tabled in Parliament by Jaitley on Monday on the first day of Budget session 2018--has predicted that India is likely to become the fastest growing major economies in the world in the coming days, it has stressed on the need to create more jobs to keep the country's growth story promising. As per the survey, this budget will give special emphasis on job creation.

Giving some succor to the Modi government against criticism, the latest data by the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) accounts suggests that contrary to the jobless-growth narrative, at least seven million jobs were created annually.

However, other reports paint a dismal picture regarding job creation by the BJP government.

The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy Pvt Ltd (CMIE) report says 1.5 million jobs were lost in the quarter right after demonetisation and another 0.4 million in May-June 2017. The government's own figures put out by the Labour Bureau in its Quarterly Employment Survey also paint a sad picture.

Then, why is the government not doing anything about jobs? When the job question was posed to the PM during one of his recent television interviews, he reacted in a bizarre manner, perhaps to hide his government's failure to create employment opportunities for the growing list of jobless people in the country.

Modi, during ZEE TV interview, told the nation that selling pakodas (fritters) is also a job.

In the interview Modi stated, "If a person selling pakodas earns Rs 200 at the end of the day, will it be considered employment or not?"

The statement angered several people, as experts and the Opposition continue to attack the Centre on the employment scenario in the country.

Since then social media to opposition leaders, the Modi government has come under attack for its failure to create jobs. The debate over "pakoda" has literally become the favourite pastime for many during the Budget session 2018 of Parliament. The Budget session started on Monday.

In the last few days, social media is full of sarcastic tweets against the ruling BJP government under the hashtags-- #pakodanomics, #PakodaRojgar, #Pakoda and #Pakodafor2019.

On Sunday, former finance minister P Chidambaram joined the debate on pakoda or job creation. "Even selling pakodas is a 'job' said PM. By that logic, even begging is a job. Let's count poor or disabled persons who are forced to beg for a living as 'employed' people," tweeted the former finance minister under the previous Manmohan Singh regime.

He also tweeted, "Another minister wanted MGNREGA workers to be counted as holding jobs. So they are 'job' holders for 100 days and jobless for 265 days."

The members of National Students' Union of India (NSUI) staged pakoda protests in reaction to the PM's comments twice in Bengaluru recently.

Now, we have to wait and see how the Modi sarkar is going to restrict the growing jobless graph in the budget. Or are we going to be served only pakodas by jobless men and women on the streets of India?

OneIndia NewsCannot order for use of traditional remedies like Red Ant Chutney as cure for COVID-19: SC

Rape of 8-month-old baby: Team of doctors to decide if infant needs to be shifted to AIIMS, says SC

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

Asserting that it was "very much concerned" about 8-month-old baby who was raped in Delhi, the Supreme Court on Wednesday directed a team a two doctors to supervise the case and decide if the infant needs to to shifted to All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). The infant underwent a three-hour-long surgery at the city's Kalawati Saran Children's Hospital on Tuesday.

The baby was allegedly raped by her 28 year old cousin, Suraj. A case has been registered against Suraj under the provisions of POSCO, said a report. The infant's father had said that both he and his wife had gone out for work while the sister-in-law was supposed to baby-sit. Reports say that the child's cousin was playing with her for a while.

The Supreme Court has ordered Delhi Legal Services Authority to assist in the case, reported ANI. The apex court has set mthe next date of heairng in this case for tomorrow.

Delhi Commission for Women chief Swati Maliwal, who visited the girl, described her injuries as "horrific". Maliwal said that a mechanism should be set up wherein perpetrators of such heinous crimes should be tried in fast track courts and sent to the gallows.

[Brutal rape of 8-month-old infant in Delhi shocks the nation]

According to reports, when the baby's mother, a maid, returned from work, she found the infant bleeding profusely. Her father, speaking to television reporters, said the bed the baby had been lying on had been smeared with blood.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 31, 2018, 15:26 [IST]Centre welcomes Hindus, Sikhs but not Muslims from other nations, Prashant Bhushan tells SC

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The National Human Rights Commission raised the issue of the Rohingya refugees in the Supreme Court today. While batting for their rights, the NHRC sought for protection of Rohingya refugees in India including access of their children to schools and other facilities.

Represented by senior advocate, Gopal Subramanium, the NHRC said that the refugees had the right to approach the Supreme Court to secure their basic rights such as education, health care and security.

Appearing for the refugees, advocate, Prashant Bhushan said that the Indian government must be prevented from stopping more Rohingyas entering India because of the persecution they face in Myanmar. He siad that those Rohingyas who want to enter India to save their lives cannot be pushed back by the BSF using stun guns and chilli powder. This amounts to violation of the international conventions.

The Centre represented by additional solicitor general Tushar Mehta said that the petitioners have no complaint of any refugee being thrown out of the country. He said the Centre would file its reply in 4 weeks to the plea that sought to give refugee children access to education and other facilities.

Mehta told the Bench that the executive is taking diplomatic measures to resolve the issue and the court must permit the centre to discharge its constitutional duties.

Bhushan however pointed out that the Centre has a policy to welcome Hindu, Sikh and others, but not the Muslims from other nations. Why are Muslims from other countries not being welcomes, Bhushan asked.

Mehta however shot back and said that there was no welcome. The Bench intervened and said that the word welcome may be an exaggeration while posting the matter to March 7.

OneIndia NewsIt may take 2-3 years for the creation of theatre commands

Shopian firing: Army files counter-FIR, says 'we responded to ultimate provocation'

India

oi-Deepika

By Deepika

The Army on Wednesday filed a counter FIR in Shopian firing incident, in which an Army Major has been booked.

The counter-FIR came even as a third civilian, who was critically injured in the firing, succumbed on the day.

Meanwhile, BJP legislators are demanding the withdrawal of the FIR against the Army and cases lodged against the protesters.

On January 27, two youths were killed when Army personnel fired at a stone-pelting mob+ in the Ganovpora area of Shopian, prompting chief minister Mehbooba Mufti to order an inquiry into the incident.

Police had on Sunday filed an FIR+ under sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) of the Ranbir Penal Code against the personnel of 10, Garhwal unit, of the Army. A Major, who led the Army personnel at the time of the incident, was also named in the FIR.

The Army claims it opened fire on the crowd in self-defence and in the face of the "ultimate provocation", after seven of its personnel were injured.

A defence spokesman had said that the troops resorted to firing when a mob tried to lynch a junior commissioned officer and snatch his service weapon.

"An Army administration convoy was passing through Ganovpora when it came under unprovoked and intense stone- pelting by a group of 100-120 stone-pelters. Within no time, their number swelled to 200-250 persons," the spokesperson said on Sunday.

The PDP-BJP coalition in J&K is in turmoil after Mufti defended the police action and refused to cave in to the saffron party's demands for immediate withdrawal of the FIR.

Countering this, Mufti said: "If some Army officer has committed a mistake, an FIR has been lodged and it is the duty of the government to take it to a logical conclusion."

OneIndia News (with PTI inputs)

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 31, 2018, 17:58 [IST]Shopian encounter: Here is why Army is initiating action against its men

Shopian firing: FIR against Army major unfortunate, says Lt Gen Devraj Anbu

India

oi-Deepika

The Indian Army has reacted to the FIR lodged in the case of two civilians killed in the firing in Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian district.

The Northern Army commander Lt Gen Devraj Anbu said that ab FIR against the Army Major was unfortunate, in such a case a generic FIR should have been filed.

"That is an unfortunate thing, in such a case a generic FIR should have been filed. I think they have prematurely put the name of an individual, I am sure when they investigate truth will come out," Lt Gen D.Anbu, told ANI.

"It is an initial step, they have lodged FIR. Everything will come out in an investigation. Notwithstanding what state government did, we had our own inquiry and are clear that we responded when we were provoked to the ultimate," he added.

Two civilians were killed when Army personnel fired at a stone-pelting mob in Shopian on Saturday, triggering protests and prompting Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti to order an inquiry into the incident.

On Sunday, the police registered the FIR under sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) against the personnel of 10, Garhwal unit, of the Army. The Major, who led the Army personnel at the time of the incident, was also mentioned in the FIR.

However, the Army sources have claimed that the Army major, who was mentioned in the FIR over death of two civilians in the firing incident in Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian district, was not present at the spot of the incident.

The BJP strongly protested the FIR, even as its coalition partner in Jammu and Kashmir, the People's Democratic Party (PDP), asserted that the FIR will be taken to a "logical conclusion".

PDP chief and J&K chief minister Mehbooba Mufti said she did not believe the FIR would have a demoralising effect on the Army.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 31, 2018, 12:46 [IST]Shopian firing: Injured youth succumbs to injuries, civilian death toll rises to 3

India

oi-Deepika

By Deepika

A youth, who was injured in Army firing during demonstrations on January 27 in Shopian, died in a hospital on Wednesday, according to ANI.

Rayees Ahmad Ganie son of Mohd Yousf Ganie (19) of Narpora, Shopian succumbed to injuries today wee hours after battling for life for about last five days at here at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) Soura.

Earlier, two youth Javed Ahmad Bhat (20) of Balpora and Suhail Javed Lone (24) of Rawalpora Shopian died while several others were injured in army firing at Ganapora area of Shopian.

Following the incident, an FIR was registered against two Army officers by the Jammu and Kashmir Police. The FIR was lodged under sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) of the Ranbir Penal Code against the personnel of 10, Garhwal unit, of the Army. An Army Major, who led the Army personnel at the time of the incident, was also named in the FIR.

The BJP strongly protested the FIR, even as its coalition partner in J&K, the People's Democratic Party (PDP), asserted that the FIR will be taken to a "logical conclusion".

State BJP spokesperson Virender Gupta in a statement termed as "unfortunate and disgusting", the lodging of the FIR against the army when no FIR was lodged or enquiry ordered against the stone pelters. He said nothing should be done that demoralises the forces.

PDP chief and J&K chief minister Mehbooba Mufti said she did not believe the FIR would have a demoralising effect on the Army.

"I do not accept that the Army gets demoralised by such actions. The Army is an institution and has done a wonderful job. But a black sheep can be anywhere ... Among judges there can be black sheep, but we can't paint everyone with the same brush," Mufti said.

The incident rocked Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly and Council, where opposition clashed with Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) members, who were justifying the firing on demonstrators.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 31, 2018, 10:50 [IST]UP seeks urgent listing of plea in SC against Karnataka HC order quashing notice to Twitter official

Superstitions about total lunar eclipse forces Karnataka politicians to perform 'special puja'

India

oi-Deepika

By Deepika

Watch 'Super blue blood Moon lunar eclipse' live | Oneindia News

A rare celestial event will grace the skies today when a blue moon and lunar eclipse combine with the moon being at its closest point to Earth, resulting in what is being called a "super blue blood moon".

It is happening after 152 years and the last time it happened was in 1866. The event has kept the Internet abuzz from the beginning of the year and people are eager to witness the celestial event. But this is not case for our politicians, that too in poll-bound Karnataka, where politicians are conducting special poojas and rituals at their houses and temples, sensing bad omen.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister and JDS supremo HD Deve Gowda performed a Sathyanarayana Pooja at his house in Bengaluru.

Speaking to News18, Gowda said that it was a routine Sathyanarayana Pooja on poornima (full moon) and that there was nothing special about it. He said, "We perform Sathyanarayana Pooja on every full moon day and lunar eclipses happen only on full moon nights. I am a believer in god and Hinduism, I perform poojas with great belief and dedication."

Known for his immense faith in astrology, Deve gowda's elder son HD Revanna is also performing special poojas at several temples in neighbouring Tamil Nadu.

The Gowda family had performed a special Havan for 11 days, called "Athi Rudra Yaaga" at Shringeri, one of the four most ancient temples founded by Adi Shankaracharya.

However, B S Yeddyurappa family claims that he is not conducting any specials poojas to please the moon god on Grahana day. "There are no special pooja or anything. Some local news channels are running a false news that he is busy performing poojas," said his aide.

Also, State Congress campaign committee chairman and Power Minister DK Shivakumar, state Congress president Dr. G Parameshwara, JDS state chief H D Kumaraswamy and over a dozen cabinet ministers are expected to offer special prayers in the night, reports News 18.

Owing to total lunar eclipse on January 31, the local temples in various states will also remain closed for almost 12 hours.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 31, 2018, 16:51 [IST]Take care of yourself as govt busy with sales: Rahul Gandhi's dig as Covid cases spike

Sweet revenge? BJP mocks Rahul with soot-boot ki sarkar jibe for flaunting Rs 70,000 jacket

India

oi-Staff

By Oneindia Staff Writer

BJP Mocks Rahul Gandhi's Expensive Jacket | OneIndia News

Shillong, Jan 31: If Congress president Rahul Gandhi is under the impression that he has managed to evolve as the 'king of pun and sarcasm' (mostly by attacking the rival Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi) with his witty and sharp one-liners on Twitter in the recent past, then he might need to do some serious introspection.

The ruling BJP which has been quietly sulking over regular taunts against its top leaders by the Congress president has decided to pay him back in his own coin.

Rahul, who reached Shillong, Meghalaya, to campaign in the poll-bound state on Tuesday was seen flaunting a reportedly expensive jacket. Viola! Here comes the BJP's big chance.

The BJP, which is trying its best to unseat the incumbent Congress from Meghalaya, did not want to lose the opportunity and decided to attack Rahul with "soot-boot ki sarkar" jibe, taking a page out of the Congress president's book.

Back in 2015, Rahul, then the vice-president of the Congress, attacked PM Modi with "suit-boot ki sarkar" jibe for wearing an expensive monogrammed suit during a meeting with former United States (US) President Barack Obama, to highlight the plight of Indian farmers. The same suit of Modi was later sold for Rs 4.31 crore at an auction.

However, the BJP slightly tweaked Rahul's "suit-boot ki sarkar" jibe with "soot-boot ki sarkar" taunt to imply the rampant irregularities in coal mining in Meghalaya, the northeastern state which is under the Congress' rule for the last 15 years.

Probably, the BJP's social media team also wanted to highlight the black colour of Rahul's expensive clothing, which according to reports is a two-in-one down puffer jacket from Burberry--a British luxury fashion brand. On the Bloomingdales website, the cost of the jacket was listed as Rs 68,145, stated ANI.

"So @OfficeOfRG , soot(pun intended!)-boot ki sarkar with 'black' money fleeced from Meghalayan State exchequer by rampant corruption? Instead of singing away our woes, you could have given a report card of your inefficient govt in Meghalaya! Your indifference mocks us!" tweeted Meghalaya BJP.

So @OfficeOfRG , soot(pun intended!)-boot ki sarkar with black money fleeced from Meghalayan State exchequer by rampant corruption? Instead of singing away our woes, you could have given a report card of your inefficient govt in Meghalaya! Your indifference mocks us! pic.twitter.com/sRvj5eoyRb  BJP Meghalaya (@BJP4Meghalaya) January 30, 2018

In the tweet, along with Rahul's picture where he was seen wearing the jacket and a pair of blue denim and shaking hands with a person, the BJP posted another picture of the jacket with its price.

Although, Rahul is yet to react to the BJP's "soot-boot ki sarkar" jibe, Congress' spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi stated that the saffron party was worried about Rahul "gelling with the Meghalaya way of life".

"Worried about him gelling with the Meghalaya way of life? Because Meghalaya is definitely not ready for hypocrisy & jumlebaazi as their way of life ;) #DontWorryBeHappy," tweeted Priyanka.

Worried about him gelling with the Meghalaya way of life?

Because Meghalaya is definitely not ready for hypocrisy & jumlebaazi as their way of life ;) #DontWorryBeHappy pic.twitter.com/g7oPDLNxfo  Priyanka Chaturvedi (@priyankac19) January 30, 2018

Rahul wore the jacket during a music festival in Shillong where he met and interacted with a huge crowd, mostly youngsters. The poll-bound state is voting for the upcoming Assembly elections on February 27.

Meghalaya Assembly Party 2013 Current Standing CONG 29 24 Election Date : Feb 27 2018

Counting : Mar 03 2018 IND 13 09 UDP 08 07 HSPDP 04 04 NPP 02 02 NCP 02 02 BJP 00 02 GNC 01 00 NESDP 01 01 OTHERS 00 00 Total 60 51 (9 Vacant)

OneIndia NewsKasganj: 'If father of man killed in clashes registers complaint, investigation will be done'

UP govt submits report to Centre on Kasganj violence: Top developments

India

oi-Deepika

By Deepika

A day after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath warned of stringent action against those behind the communal clashes in Kasganj, security personnel mounted their patrolling in sensitive areas to instill confidence among people shaken by the recent violence.

Tension still prevailed in a few pockets of the western Uttar Pradesh town. Life, however, appeared to be returning to normal.

UP govt submits report to Centre

The Uttar Pradesh government has sent a report to the Centre giving details of the communal violence in Kasganj, where one person was killed and two others were injured, and the steps taken so far, an official said today.

The state government's report contains details about the arrests made by the UP Police and circumstances leading to the death of the lone victim Chandan Gupta.

The government conveyed to the Union home ministry that the police are investigating the case and all facts are being ascertained to know if the violence was pre-planned.

Congress team stopped on way to Kasganj

Authorities stopped a Congress delegation in Mirhachi area in Etah on the border of Kasganj district. They denied permission to the delegation from entering the troubled areas, citing law and order issues, official sources said.

District Magistrate, Kasganj, R P Singh had refused to give permission to the Congress delegation sensing that their visit to the troubled areas might create additional problems.

Prime accused in murder of Chandan Gupta held

Police arrested on Wednesday the prime accused in the murder of 23-year-old Abhishek Gupta alias Chandan during communal clashes on Republic Day in Uttar Pradesh's Kasganj town.

Uttar Pradesh Police identified the accused as Saleem Javed. Police said Saleem, his two brothers - identified only by their first names Waseem and Naseem - and 17 others have been charged with murder and under other sections of the Indian Penal Code.

Video goes viral

A video has now surfaced which shows Hindu youths marching towards a Muslim-dominated area in Kasganj on the morning of January 26 carrying guns. Some of them then fire several rounds. The video, shot from the roof of the local tehsil office, also shows many in the group holding clubs and sticks.

In the video, gunshots can be heard clearly. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a senior IPS officer said, "This was the very point where Chandan Gupta, 21, was shot dead." Incidentally, police have arrested one Waseem and five others for the crime and charged them with murder.

Bareilly DM takes down Facebook post

After being trolled, the Bareilly district magistrate, Raghvendra Vikram took down his Facebook post in which had questioned the need to raise 'anti-Pakistan' slogans in Muslim dominated areas.

In a fresh post on Tuesday afternoon, the DM wrote on Facebook: "My post was in the backdrop of the law and order situation which we had to face during the kanwar yatra last year. I had hoped there would be academic discussions (around it), but unfortunately it had taken a different angle. Extremely sad."

Following the communal violence at Kasganj in Uttar Pradesh, the district magistrate had questioned the need to raise anti-Pakistan slogans in Muslim localities and then create a ruckus.

In violence that followed, one man was shot dead and two seriously injured. Rampaging mobs had then set several vehicles, shops and houses on fire. Some places of worship, too, were targeted.

As many as 118 people have been arrested in connection with the violence while security forces are maintaining a tight vigil.

OneIndia News (with PTI inputs)

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 31, 2018, 15:38 [IST]Take care of yourself as govt busy with sales: Rahul Gandhi's dig as Covid cases spike

What's the cost of Rahul's much-attacked jacket, Rs 70,000 or Rs 700?

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

The BJP and the Congress have locked horns over the cost of Rahul Gandhi's Burberry jacket that he wore at a music concert in Shillong on Tuesday. The Congress president was in Shillong to kick off the election campaign of the party in poll-bound Meghalaya.

Soon after the concert, BJP's Meghalaya unit Tweeted a picture of Rahul Gandhi donning the jacket with its original price and photo. The jacket is two-in-one down puffer jacket from Burberry, which is a British luxury fashion brand. On the Bloomingdales website, the cost of the jacket was listed as Rs 68,145 (or $995).

So @OfficeOfRG , soot(pun intended!)-boot ki sarkar with black money fleeced from Meghalayan State exchequer by rampant corruption? Instead of singing away our woes, you could have given a report card of your inefficient govt in Meghalaya! Your indifference mocks us! pic.twitter.com/sRvj5eoyRb  BJP Meghalaya (@BJP4Meghalaya) January 30, 2018

Congress leader Renuka Chaudhary hit back at the BJP and said that she can get the jacket for Rs 700.

"I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the desperation of the BJP. They have no other work. I can show yout he same jacket for Rs 700. If the the Prime Minister wants it then i can send one. only I don't have his measurements other than chappan inch seena. This is coming from suit boot sarkar," she told news agency ANI.

#WATCH Congress' Renuka Chowdhury reacts to BJP's allegation stating that Rahul Gandhi wore a jacket worth Rs.70,000, laughs and says, 'I can show you the same jacket for Rs 700.' pic.twitter.com/8JHCrHbw4B  ANI (@ANI) January 31, 2018

Rahul and other Congress leaders have time and again called the NDA government as a "suit boot ki sarkar" after PM Modi wore a monogrammed suit during a meeting with then US President Barack Obama in 2015. The base price of the suit at an auction was Rs 11 lakh, and it was sold for Rs 4.31 crore.

The polling for the 60-member state assembly will take place on February 27 along with Nagaland. The results will be declared on March 3.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 31, 2018, 13:51 [IST]Why Tripura CM Manik Sarkar, poorest politician, is richest man in India, in terms of honesty

India

oi-Staff

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Agartala, Jan 31: They have mind-boggling wealth and equally startling confidence to flaunt it openly. Well, we all know how our politicians accumulate wealth, by looting exchequer money, in most cases.

However, there are exceptions too, even among our otherwise "corrupt" political class, who proudly wears the badge of honesty. Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar is one of them, perhaps the only one.

Will anyone believe that an Indian politician owns only Rs 3,930? Perhaps not. If official documents are to be believed, the Tripura CM's wealth stands at just Rs 3,930.

On Monday, when Sarkar went to file his nomination papers to contest polls for the upcoming Tripura Assembly elections, the 69-year-old leader revealed that he has Rs 1,520 in hand and Rs 2,410 in his account in a nationalised bank.

He does not have any other bank deposit, the affidavit said. Till date, the CM has never filed an income tax return, as his earning is too less to be taxed by the government.

Regarding his official salary as the CM of Tripura, the Left leader donates his entire salary to his party, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M). However, he gets Rs 5,000 from the CPI-M as subsistence allowances.

He has no cultivable or homestead land. He stays in the CM's official residence in the state capital, Agartala.

His wife Panchali Bhattacharya, a retired central government employee, has Rs 20,140 as cash and Rs 1,24,101 and Rs 86,47,378 in two bank accounts. She also has three fixed deposits of Rs 2 lakh, Rs 5 lakh and Rs 2.25 lakh, besides 20 grams of jewellery.

Bhattacharya inherited 888.35 sq ft area of land and till date invested Rs 15 lakh for construction there. The current value of the land is Rs 21 lakh. She filed her last income tax return in 2011-12, where she showed her income as Rs 4,49,770. After that, she did not file an income tax return.

The elections in the state will be held on February 18. The CPI-M leader is going to contest polls from Dhanpur constituency. If his party wins the polls once again, Sarkar is likely to become the CM of the northeastern state once again.

It's not just his simple living, minus all the trappings of wealth, which attracts the attention of all. Sarkar is also one of the longest serving CMs of India. In 1998, he became the CM of the state for the first time. Since then, for the last 20 years, he is heading the Left government in Tripura.

Next, time you curse politicians for being corrupt and shameful, just think about Sarkar, India's "poorest active politician" (holding a high office) and "richest man", in terms of honesty.

Tripura Assembly Party 2013 Current Standing CPIM 49 50 Election Date : Feb 18 2018

Counting : Mar 03 2018 CONG 10 02 CPI 01 01 BJP 00 06 OTHERS 00 00 Total 60 59 (1 Vacant)

OneIndia NewsTrump says India has just been devastated by COVID-19

Collapse of Kabul will go down as one of the greatest defeats in American history: Donald Trump

Thousands of terrorists might have been airlifted out of Kabul: Trump slams Biden

Never in history has withdrawal from war been handled so badly: Trump

US will continue fighting until ISIS is defeated: Trump

International

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

Asserting that trading relationships need to be fair and reciprocal, US President Donald Trump on Wednesday spoke on a number of important issues during his address to the joint session of Congress. Calling on lawmakers in both parties to join forces to modernise the nation's crumbling infrastructure, Trump said, "I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to protect our citizens, of every background, colour, and creed."

He said that a new tide of optimism was already sweeping across America, adding that 2.4 million jobs have been created since his election.

Trump had earlier criticised the one-sided and unfair trade relationship between the US and China and asserted that America must address the unfair trade practices that drive the trade deficit.

"The era of economic surrender is over... From now on trade will be fair, and more importantly, reciprocal..We will work to fix bad trade deals and negotiate new ones," he said.

On major changes in thew tax legislation undertaken his government, Trump said, "We enacted the biggest tax cuts and reform in American history..Since we passed tax cuts, roughly three million workers have already gotten tax cut bonuses - many of them thousands and thousands of dollars per worker."

Trump said that the time had come to move towards a merit based immigration system.

"One that admits people who are skilled, who can contribute to our society, who can love and respect our country," he said.

Trump on terrorism and ISIS:

Trump said that the United States would continue to fight the dreaded terrorist group ISIS till it is defeated.

"Terrorists are not merely criminals. They are unlawful enemy combatants. And when captured overseas, they should be treated like the terrorists they are," he said.

On ISIS leader Al-Baghdadi, Truimp said the US has "foolishly" released hundreds of terrorists in the past, only to meet them again on the battlefield.

Trump on North Korea:

"No regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally&more brutally than the cruel dictatorship in North Korea.Its reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland.We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from ever happening," Trump said in his address.

OneIndia NewsLike 26/11, Pakistans ISI trained terrorist in Kabul attack

International

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Pakistan's ISI trained a terrorist who was involved in the Kabul Intercontinental Hotel attack in which over 20 people were killed, a top Afghanistan envoy has alleged.

Afghanistan's permanent representative to the UN, Mahmoud Saikal, made the serious allegation against the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in a tweet on Monday. "Abdul Qahar, father of one of the terrorists involved in last week attack on #Kabul Intercontinental Hotel, concedes his son was trained in Chaman of #Balochistan Province of #Pakistan by the Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan. Qahar is currently in custody of Afghan authorities," Saikal tweeted.On January 20, Taliban men armed with Kalashnikovs and suicide vests attacked the landmark Intercontinental Hotel and killed around 25 people, going from room to room, searching for foreigners during the more than 12-hour ordeal.

A mid-level diplomat at the Afghan embassy in the US has alleged that the attack was planned by Pakistan.

"A clear proof that the attack on Kabul's Inter (Con) Hotel was planned in a madrasa, on Pakistan's soil. Abdul Qahar, the father of one of the suicide attackers is an eyewitness of the story," tweeted Majeed Qarar, cultural attache at the embassy of Afghanistan. "The night vision goggles found with Taliban attackers in maiwand's ANA base were military grade goggles (not sold to public) procured by Pak army from a British company & supplied 2 Lashkar-e-Tayyeba in Kashmir & Taliban in Afghanistan. Lashkar-e-Tayyeba is an int'l terrorist org," he said in another tweet.

The hotel strike in Kabul was similar to the attack on Taj and Trident hotels in Mumbai on November 26, 2008. US intelligence agencies reportedly had evidence of the ISI hand behind the 26/11 terror attack. The Afghan ambassador to the US, Hamidullah Mohib, did not respond to questions on the tweet by one of his cultural attaches. The hotel attack was followed by a Taliban-claimed ambulance bombing on January 27 in Kabul that claimed over 100 lives.

The continued attacks in Afghanistan by the Taliban prompted severe condemnation from the US as well as the UN Security Coem.

"I condemn the despicable car-bomb attack in Kabul today (January 27) that has left scores of innocent civilians dead and hundreds injured. This murderous attack renews our resolve and that of our Afghan partners," Trump had said, ruling out having talks with the Taliban.

OneIndia NewsCollapse of Kabul will go down as one of the greatest defeats in American history: Donald Trump

Thousands of terrorists might have been airlifted out of Kabul: Trump slams Biden

Never in history has withdrawal from war been handled so badly: Trump

Srinivas Kuchibhotla's widow attends Trump's first State of the Union address

International

pti-PTI

Washington, Jan 31: The widow of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, Sunayana Dumala, on Wednesday attended President Donald Trump's first State of the Union Address. Kuchibhotla was shot dead in a hate crime incident in the US last year.

Sunayana, 32, was invited as a guest by Congressman Kevin Yoder to attend the event. Her husband Srinivas Kuchibhotla was shot dead while his colleague, also an Indian, sustained bullet injuries after an American navy veteran opened fire in a crowded suburban bar in Olathe city in February last year.

The shooter, thought they were Middle Easterners and was heard telling them to "get out of my country" at the time of the shooting. Earlier in the day, Sunayana, met a number of Congressional leaders including House Speaker Paul Ryan. The speaker said he knows Sunayana's story and remembers her.

Yoder said that he had asked Sunayana to be his guest as a recognition for her tireless efforts to promote peace, and as a message to the Indian community that the US is a nation of immigrants and they are welcome here.

"Each year, I have the privilege of inviting one guest to attend the president's State of the Union address. This year, I invited Sunayana Dumala, widow of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, the Indian immigrant who was tragically killed in the hate crime shooting last year at in Olathe," Yoder had said.

The Indian-American community welcomed the move. Brijpal Singh, the chairman of the India Association of Kansas City, said this step will not only assure the Indian community but also send a strong message about the unstinted support from the elected representatives and administration towards the Indian community.

"This further strengthens our belief and confidence in the American system and its Constitution where everyone is respected, loved and is welcome," Singh said in a letter to Yoder.

The State of the Union Address is a traditional annual speech of the US president to a joint session of the Congress where he gives an account of the situation in the country.

PTIDe-escalate tensions with India, US lawmakers tell China in legislation

Seven US Lawmakers write to Mike Pompeo on Farmers' protest In India

Train carrying lawmakers to GOP retreat hits truck in Virginia

International

oi-Madhuri

Train carrying GOP House members to retreat in West Virginia has hit a truck, reported The Associated Press quoting Republican lawmaker.

No lawmakers injured in accident involving train carrying members of Congress to Republican meeting, reports The Associated Press quoting Republican lawmaker. The incidnent took place around 11:20 a.m. in Crozet, Virginia.

The impact threw train passengers from their seats, but so far, lawmakers appear not to have sustained major injuries. Many are also traveling with their spouses and staff.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Wednesday, January 31, 2018, 23:05 [IST]Mega Fortune Does it Again: SlotsMillion Player Wins 2.5M Jackpot

Published January 31, 2018 by Arthur M

NetEnt's Mega Fortune slot machine has just created yet another millionaire, and it's the first 7-figure jackpot won by a SlotsMillion player.

A UK-based SlotsMillion Casino player has become the latest multi-millionaire thanks to the popular Mega Fortune slot machine. A perfect start to 2018 came in the form of a 2,553,604.67 payout claimed just after 8pm GMT on 23rd January.

A New SlotsMillions Millionaire

The fortunate player had only been a SlotsMillion customer for a few days before he scooped this massive jackpot. It's the first time a customer of this casino has won a prize of this magnitude. It's also the first time in 2018 that Mega Fortune has paid out a jackpot of over 1 million, having awarded over 75 million in 2017, so there's plenty more wins in store for players at the many online casinos that carry this game.

Congratulations From NetEnt

Commenting on this great win, the Chief Product Officer at NetEnt, Henrik Fagerlund has said ''What a great start to the year its been for the lucky winner and were so pleased that weve been able to play a part in his life-changing moment.'' He added that ''Mega Fortune is a long-time favourite with NetEnt players, so its no surprise to see it claim the first winner of 2018 and we hope it continues to be a lucky year for everyone who has a spin!

About Mega Fortune

Mega Fortune is a famous slot machine that holds the record for the biggest ever online progressive jackpot payouts. In 2013, a player from Finland won a staggering 17.8 million, breaking a record that still stands today.

Themed around the luxurious lifestyle that riches can bring, Mega Fortune, and its sister game Mega Fortune Dreams, are filled with images of cars, jewels, yachts and champagne. Of course, most of us won't claim a huge progressive jackpot, but there's lots of other features to this 5-reel, 25-payline slot, such as wild substitutions and a free spins bonus game where win multipliers can rise to 5x the base value.Would you like to know how many people have read this article? Or how reputable the author is? Simply sign up for a Advocate premium membership and you'll automatically see this data on every article. Plus a lot more, too.

From Smirking Chimp

On January 23, an overcrowded smuggling boat capsized off the coast of Aden in Southern Yemen. Smugglers packed 152 passengers from Somalia and Ethiopia in the boat and then, while at sea, reportedly pulled guns on the migrants to extort additional money from them. The boat capsized, according to The Guardian, after the shooting prompted panic. The death toll, currently 30, is expected to rise. Dozens of children were on board.

The passengers had already risked the perilous journey from African shores to Yemen, a dangerous crossing that leaves people vulnerable to false promises, predatory captors, arbitrary detention and tortuous human rights violations. Sheer desperation for basic needs has driven hundreds of thousands of African migrants to Yemen. Many hope, upon arrival, they can eventually travel to prosperous Gulf countries further north where they might find work and some measure of security. But the desperation and fighting in southern Yemen were horrible enough to convince most migrants that boarded the smuggling boat on January 23 to try and return to Africa.

Referring to those who drowned when the boat capsized, Amnesty International's Lynn Maalouf said: "This heart-breaking tragedy underscores, yet again, just how devastating Yemen's conflict continues to be for civilians. Amid ongoing hostilities and crushing restrictions imposed by the Saudi Arabia-led coalition, many people who came to Yemen to flee conflict and repression elsewhere are now being forced yet again to flee in search of safety. Some are dying in the process."

In 2017, more than 55,000 African migrants arrived in Yemen, many of them teenagers from Somalia and Ethiopia where there are few jobs and severe drought is pushing people to the verge of famine. It's difficult to arrange or afford transit beyond Yemen. Migrants become trapped in the poorest country in the Arab peninsula, which now, along with several drought-stricken North African countries, faces the worst humanitarian disaster since World War II.

In Yemen, eight million people are on the brink of starvation as conflict-driven near-famine conditions leave millions without food and safe drinking water. Over one million people have suffered from cholera over the past year and more recent reports add a diphtheria outbreak to the horror. Civil war has exacerbated and prolonged the misery while, since March of 2015, a Saudi-led coalition, joined and supported by the U.S., has regularly bombed civilians and infrastructure in Yemen while also maintaining a blockade that prevented transport of desperately needed food, fuel and medicines.

Maalouf called on the international community to "halt arms transfers that could be used in the conflict." To heed Maalouf's call, the international community must finally thwart the greed of transnational military contractors that profit from selling billions of dollars of weapons to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and other countries in the Saudi-led coalition. For instance, a November, 2017 Reuters report said that Saudi Arabia has agreed to buy about $7 billion worth of precision guided munitions from U.S. defense contractors. The UAE also has purchased billions in American armaments.

Raytheon and Boeing are the companies that will primarily benefit from a deal that was part of a $110 billion weapons agreement coinciding with President Donald Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia in May.

Another dangerous crossing happened in the region last week. U.S. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) arrived in Saudi Arabia, along with a congressional delegation, to meet with the monarchy's King Salman and subsequently with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who has orchestrated the Saudi-led coalition's war in Yemen. Following that visit, Ryan and the delegation met with royals from the UAE.

"So rest assured," said Ryan, speaking to a gathering of young diplomats in the UAE, "we will not stop until ISIS, al-Qaeda, and their affiliates are defeated and no longer a threat to the United States and our allies.

"Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, we are focused on the Iranian threat to regional stability."

Beyond the simple well-recorded fact of lavish Saudi financial support for Islamist terrorism, Ryan's remarks overlook the Saudi-led coalition military assaults and "special operations" in Yemen, which the U.S. supports and joins. The war there is arguably undermining effort to combat jihadist groups, which have flourished in the chaos of the war, particularly in the south which is nominally under the control of the government allied to Saudi Arabia.

The Iranian government Ryan denounced does have allies in Yemen and may be smuggling weapons into Iran, but no one has accused them of supplying the Houthi rebels with cluster bombs, laser-guided missiles and littoral (near-coastal) combat ships to blockade ports vital to famine relief. Iran does not provide in-air refueling for warplanes used in daily bombing runs over Yemen. The U.S. has sold all of these to countries in the Saudi-led coalition which have, in turn, used these weapons to destroy Yemen's infrastructure as well as create chaos and exacerbate suffering among civilians in Yemen.

Ryan omitted any mention of the starvation, disease, and displacement afflicting people in Yemen. He neglected to mention documented human rights abuses in a network of clandestine prisons operated by the UAE in Yemen's south. Ryan and the delegation essentially created a smokescreen of concern for human life that conceals the very real terror into which U.S. policies have thrust the people of Yemen and the surrounding region.

Potential starvation of their children terrifies people who can't acquire food for their families. Those who can't obtain safe drinking water face nightmarish prospects of dehydration or disease. Persons fleeing bombers, snipers, and armed militias who might arbitrarily detain them shudder in fear as they try to devise escape routes.

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Israeli soldiers shot 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi's cousin in the face, shattering his skull. Shortly after, Ahed slapped an Israeli soldier who was trying to forcibly enter her home.

So they stormed into her house in the middle of the night and took her to a military prison, where she is being abused and traumatized.

Israeli writer Ben Caspit has publicly called for Ahed Tamini to be sexually assaulted while she is being imprisoned.



Quotation from Israeli writer

(Image by CODEPINK) Details DMCA



What you can do:

*You can send Ahed a message of support for her birthday, Jan, 31, 2018, via CODEPINK here: as well as read the inspiring messages of support which people around the world are writing to her. You can also download, print and post the card to: Ahed Tamimi, HaSharon Prison, Even Yehuda, P.O. Box 7, 40 330 Israel.

*CODEPINK has been actively demanding Ahed's release, sign their petition here.

*Tamimi's father and Avaaz are also demanding Ahed's release, sign their petition here.

ADDED FEB 1, 2018, 8:20 AM EST:

I just celebrated Ahed Tamimi's 17th birthday by empowering two refugee sewing moms in Palestine with Kiva loans. Both Sonia and Saeda live in the Gaza strip. They both supplement their family's income with sewing, and the loans will help each of them get a new sewing machine and materials for her work.

You can help Sonia here

You can help Saeda here.Would you like to know how many people have read this article? Or how reputable the author is? Simply sign up for a Advocate premium membership and you'll automatically see this data on every article. Plus a lot more, too.

CODEPINK co-founders Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans were detained on Sat. Jan 27 in the West Bank city of Hebron along with Palestinian human rights defender Issa Amro and CODEPINK activist Tighe Barry. The three CODEPINK activists had traveled to the West Bank to join with Palestinian activists in in their efforts to end Israel's occupation. All four were taken to a police station.

The day before, the CODEPINK activists had met with Basim Tamimi, father of 16-year-old Palestinian political prisoner, Ahed Tamimi. Ahed was arrested on Dec. 19, 2017, for slapping an Israelli soldier who was trying to enter her home, shortly after her 15-year-old cousin Mohammed Tamimi had been shot in the head by an Israeli soldier. Since then, an Israeli writer has publicly called for Ahed's rape while she is imprisoned, and CODEPINK has been actively demanding her release, sign their petition here.



Ahed Tamimi

(Image by Aavez) Details DMCA

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The only insightful thing I ever heard Donald Trump say was that the average guy didn't dislike him; he wanted to be like him. He made this comment several years ago and he was right. The average American male would like to be rich and famous and be able to have sex with beautiful women at his discretion.

Was this always the case? Perhaps. It was certainly the case after 1953 when Hugh Hefner launched Playboy Magazine. There was, however, a distinct difference. Hugh Hefner was not just a ruthless businessman/hedonist without a moral compass. In fact, he had a strong set of ethics and frequently championed many civil-rights issues throughout the years on the pages of his magazine.

Like Hefner, many men of that era generally had a strong sense of what was right and wrong and eschewed lying (my father among them). And though they may not have been the most tolerant guys in the world and certainly had their prejudices, generally speaking they believed in fair play and keeping their words. Often, a handshake was all that was needed in order to seal a deal between them.

When did this change? Well, it certainly began to shift during the Nixon era when lying and deceit entered the Oval Office, which worked to Jimmy Carter's advantage when he ran for office and proclaimed, "I'll never lie to you."

Unfortunately, Carter's sanctimonious evangelical fervor and sermons on collective sacrifice did not catch on with most Americans and they were ready for something more individualistic and invigorating in the 1980s. Enter Ronald Reagan, the conservative movement's wet dream. And like any good salesman, he told the American people what they wanted to hear; namely, it was time for America to put traditional ethics and self-sacrifice aside and "go for the gusto," to quote an old TV Schlitz beer ad.

In right-wing parlance, this meant supporting a tired old elitist economic agenda based on the anti-Keynesian philosophies of Fredrich Hayek and Ayn Rand. Greed is good, they were told. Capitalism is king. And Big Business is your friend. Big Government, as Ronald Reagan was fond of saying, wouldn't solve your problem. It was your problem.

Did most Americans fall for this trickle-down nonsense? I don't know about most, but many did, even working-class stiffs. Suddenly, it was cool to be a ruthless amoral capitalist. Gone were the days of the unselfish traditional hero, the kind John Wayne portrayed on the silver screen. And gone, too, were the anti-establishment heroes of the late sixties and early seventies portrayed by Clint Eastwood. Yes indeed, in the Reagan era, everyone wanted to be Gordon Gekko, the epitome of a rich, ruthless, greedy capitalist with absolutely no sense of ethics.

Ironically, it was real-life guys just like Gordon Gekko (with the help of their political stooges in Congress) who paved the way for the next three decades of stagnant wages and huge wealth and income disparities between the upper one percent and everyone else. Finally, during the Obama era, many guys woke up from their somnambulistic trance and realized they never would achieve the fame or financial success of a Gordon Gekko. Better late than never, of course, but by that time many of them had lost their houses, their health care, and their good union jobs.

Fortunately for the ruling class, Americans have a memory span of about two weeks, as Gore Vidal once noted. So when it came time for the next election, they were susceptible to the same old sales pitch. Only this time it wasn't "an amiable dunce" like Reagan reciting the old bait-and-switch but a consummate con artist and reality TV host named Donald Trump. This is a joke, right? The Democrats asked, licking their chops. We can easily beat this buffoon!

So what did they do? Instead of the big-money boys (and gals) of the Democratic Party getting behind Bernie Sanders, a decent, impassioned, ethical Congressman, a real populist, who actually would help average Americans not get screwed over by "millionaires and billionaires," they threw their support to Hillary Clinton, a corporate elitist who was disliked by almost everyone. As a consequence, Trump won the presidential election and revitalized the Gordon Gekko paradigm that had faded during the Obama years. And once again the average guy thought it was cool to be a ruthless businessman who talked tough and exploited women.

But this time it wasn't just the guys. Thanks to the daily propaganda and brainwashing of Fox News, Breitbart, and conservative AM radio, many women love Trump, too, despite his sexual misconduct. And so do evangelical Christians, even though Trump is the antithesis of a true Christian. And as of this writing, the president's overall approval rating is nearly 40%. So what does that tell us?

That Trump supporters (both men and women) like the president because they are just like him--only without the money and power. Like Trump, they have no ethical core. They frequently lie to themselves and to others. They are driven by their egos and prejudices and have no depth of character. They are easily impressed by status symbols and material possessions. They are easily fooled by demagogues and hustlers. And they have no spiritual dimension to their lives, despite the fact they go to church on Sunday and proclaim to be good Christians.

In essence, Donald Trump is the living embodiment of his supporters. He didn't create them; he merely exploited them, the same way Reagan did. I suppose we can be grateful that 60% of the population can see through his lies and perfidy. But 40% is a lot of people, enough to drag down the country and set it on a path of destruction. Will they attempt to do this if their fearless leader is run out of office? Well... As Trump himself likes to say: "Let's see what happens."Would you like to know how many people have read this article? Or how reputable the author is? Simply sign up for a Advocate premium membership and you'll automatically see this data on every article. Plus a lot more, too.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes

As I read Ray McGovern's latest, "Will Congress Face Down the Deep State" [1] , I asked myself is it the cynicism in me reflecting on the historical record whereby high ranking officials in the US usually get a pass that makes me think this way? And if so it has to be they weren't held accountable in the past for the crimes they committed against a Constitution they swore to uphold.

Even Nixon was given a full pardon for any crimes he may have committed as president by President Gerald Ford when it was clear beyond much doubt "tricky" Dick was guilty in the crimes related to Watergate-and much more.

Let's face it official government investigations from the Kennedy assassination to 9/11 and all those in between were shams never meant to reveal the truth. There was never any intent to let the chips fall where they may and begin to cleanse the nation of official wrongdoing by holding them to account.

So why should a memo exposing "Russiagate" as a sham be any different? That top officials in the DOJ, FBI, CIA , NSA colluded to make sure Hillary got elected-oops- and the Mueller investigation is just another sham.

Of course one should never say never but I guess one has to start somewhere.

Firstly I believe many/most people in the US don't trust the government or the corporate MSM that spew "official" lies and for good reason. It just makes sense. How to overcome something so ingrained?

Well you give it your best shot.

In order for those in the aforementioned agencies be held to account a grand jury and a special prosecutor of impeccable integrity be sworn in. They could begin to unravel the crimes these officials committed against the Constitution.

This is "white collar" crime that usually gets bought off with fines, suspended sentences or at worst serving minimal time in country club type prisons.

No, there can't be any slaps on the wrist. Actual jail time to be served in real federal prisons is necessary.

Then people might begin to have trust in the law; that the old saw no one is above the law actually has some meaning.

The question is will real accountability occur? And if so how far will this special prosecutor and his grand jury go.

Because this memo revealing official wrongdoing would be just the tip of the iceberg.





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See original here

President Trump delivered his first State of the Union Tuesday night. During the lengthy address, Trump announced he'd signed an executive order keeping the Guantanamo Bay military prison open, and escalated his warmongering rhetoric against North Korea, calling the North Korean government "depraved" and warning it poses a nuclear risk to the United States. For more, we speak with Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, America's oldest weekly magazine.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: President Trump delivered his first State of the Union Tuesday, claiming this is, quote, "our new American moment." He focused heavily on immigration, renewing his call for a border wall, while linking immigration to terrorism.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: In recent weeks, two terrorist attacks in New York were made possible by the visa lottery and chain migration. In the age of terrorism, these programs present risks we can just no longer afford. It's time to reform these outdated immigration rules and finally bring our immigration system into the 21st century.

AMY GOODMAN: President Trump never mentioned the words "climate change" or "global warming," but he did acknowledge the recent deadly hurricanes and wildfires that devastated parts of the country.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: To everyone still recovering in Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands -- everywhere -- we are with you, we love you, and we always will pull through together. Always.

AMY GOODMAN: That was President Trump's only reference to Puerto Rico, where today FEMA is ending shipments of food and water, even though about a third of the island still has no electricity, over four months after Hurricane Maria struck.

On the foreign policy front, Trump threatened North Korea again, suggested he'll start sending more prisoners to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo in Cuba, where no new prisoner has been sent in almost a decade.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I just signed, prior to walking in, an order directing Secretary Mattis, who is doing a great job -- thank you -- to re-examine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay. I am asking Congress to ensure that in the fight against ISIS and al-Qaeda we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists wherever we chase them down, wherever we find them. And in many cases, for them, it will now be Guantanamo Bay.

AMY GOODMAN: The prison population at Guantanamo is currently 41, down from a high of 684 in 2003. President Trump also used the State of the Union to issue a veiled threat to federal workers.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: So, tonight I call on Congress to empower every Cabinet secretary with the authority to reward good workers and to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, today we spend the hour looking at what President Trump said and didn't say during his State of the Union. We begin with Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, America's oldest weekly magazine.

Overall, your response to what you saw last night?

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In an act of insane escalation of provocations against Russia, Washington has produced a list of 210 top Russian government officials and important business executives who are "gangsters," "members of Putin's gang," "threats," "people deserving to be sanctioned," or however the Western presstitutes care to explain the list. The absurd list includes the Prime Minister of Russia, the Foreign Minister, the Defense Minister, and executives of Gazprom, Rosneft, and Bank Rossiya. In other words, the suggestion is that the entirety of Russian political and business leadership is corrupt.

The Russians do not seem to understand the purpose of the list. Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the government sees the list as an attempt to interfere in the Russian presidential election. There is no doubt that Washington would like to reduce Putin's public support so that Washington can use the Western-funded NGOs operating in Russia to present American stooges as Russia's true voices. However, it is unlikely that the Russian people are stupid enough to fall for such a trick.

Washington's list has three purposes:

1) To undercut Russian diplomacy by presenting the top echelons of Russia as gangsters.

2) To present Russia as a military threat as per the ridiculous announcement by British defense minister Gavin Williamson on January 26 that Russia intends to rip British "infrastructure apart, actually cause thousands and thousands and thousands of deaths," and create "total chaos within the country."

3) To shift American and European attention away from the coming release of the House Intelligence Committee's report that proves Russiagate is a conspiracy between the FBI, the Obama Department of Justice and the Democratic National Committee against President Trump. Washington's Russian list will give the presstitutes something else to talk about instead of the act of treason committed against the President of the United States. Expect to hear nothing from the presstitutes except that the House Intelligence Committee report is only a political effort to shield Trump from accountability.

There is likely a fourth reason for the list. Israel wants Washington's pressure on Russia, because Russia has so far prevented Israel's use of the US military to create the same chaos in Syria and Iran as has been created in Iraq and Libya. Israel wants Syria and Iran destabilized because they support Hezbollah, which prevents Israel from occupying the water resources of southern Lebanon. The Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which requires the list, passed the House and Senate by a vote of 517-5. Normally, such unanimous foreign policy votes are associated with demands from the Israel Lobby.

The Russian government and the Russian people need to understand that Washington considers Russia to be a threat because Russia is not under Washington's thumb. The Zionist neoconservatives control US foreign policy. Their ideology is world hegemony. They do not use diplomacy. They rely on disinformation, threats, and violence. Therefore, there is no American diplomacy with which Putin and Lavrov can engage.

Putin, being a responsible political leader of a great power, does not respond to provocation with provocation. He ignores the insults and continues to wait for the West to come to its senses.

But what if the West does not come to its senses?

For the West to come to its senses requires the complete overthrow of the Zionist neoconservatives and/or the breakup of NATO. The overthrow of the neoconservatives would require a rival foreign policy voice, and that voice is very weak, as it is shut off from the media, the think tanks, and the universities. The breakup of NATO would require European political figures to give up their Washington subsidies and the career advancement that Washington provides.

As I write, the Atlantic Council is holding a members and press call-in for a discussion with Atlantic Council members Amb. Daniel Fried and Anders Aslund. The Atlantic Council is a neoconservative propaganda agency. The purpose of the "discussion" is to further undermine US-Russian relations.

The Russian government faces a difficult situation. The foreign policy of the US, and thereby of the Western world, is controlled by neoconservatives who are determined to present Russia in the most threatening light. Russian diplomacy can do nothing to change this. The non-provocative and responsible Russian response has the effect of encouraging more provocations from Washington. At some point Russian passivity might convince the neoconservatives that they can successfully attack Russia. Alternatively, the continual provocations might convince Russia that the country is targeted for attack, thereby causing a Russian pre-emptive action.

Everyone in the world should realize the threat of nuclear war that is inherent in Washington's policy toward Russia, and everyone in the world should understand that the only threat that Russia poses is to Washington's unilateralism.Progressive Content Not Found

Sometimes, authors delete their progressive content after publishing.



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Today is day 11 of Turkey's War on Kurdish People in Afrin. The US and allies are not making any move against Turkey's President Erdogan aggression because they are afraid that his governments are going to dump NATO allies for good by joining Russian, Iran, and Syria. You can say the same thing about the Russian, Iran, and Syrian alliances too.

Kurdish people are facing genocide by the Turkish Sunni Islamist, Iranian Shi'a Islamist, Iraqi Shi'a, and Syrian Alawi loyal to Iran plans to take over Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, and part of Saudi Arabia.

President Donald Trump's flip-flop policies could hurt the US interest in the Middle East and Asia for the generation to come.

It is clear that Turkey's President Erdogan is going to be against the interest of the US regardless of what President Donald Trump's administration wants to do.

If the US takes Turkey's side then Russian and Iran will help Kurds to create Vietnam for the American alliances. But logically alliances with Kurdish people can consolidate the protection of the US interest in Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Arab Persian Gulf countries for generations to come.

Fifty million Kurds in Caucasus and Zagros mountain ranges can help the US interest in the Middle East and Part of Asia.

The oil and gas line will be secured while the entire region will be stabilized by the Kurdish people's liberation. Today majority of Kurds are united and joined the teaching of Abdullah Ocalan. The classical Kurdish political parties led by Mafia families of Barzani and Talabani are useless now in Kurdistan.

Why the US government of President Donald Trump has the hard time to make the decision?

Turkey's is bombing Kurdish people indiscreetly:

.youtube.com/watch?v=xyxcf3eHjaMTelecom Application Server Market: Global Key Players: IBM, Microsoft, RedHat, SAP, Adobe System, Oracle

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A telephony application server (TAS), sometimes known in a telephony context only as an application server (AS), is a component used in the core network of a telecom network operator to provide telephony applications and additional multimedia functions.This report gives an in-depth research about the overall state of Telecom Application Server market and projects an overview of its growth market. It also gives the crucial elements of the market and across major global regions in detail. Number on primary and secondary research has been carried out in order to collect required data for completing this particular report. Sever industry based analytical techniques has been narrowed down for a better understanding of this market.Get Sample copy of this Report @:The report covers all the major trends and technologies playing a major role in the market growth over the forecast period. The competition in the global market for Telecom Application Server will likely heat up in the next couple of years on the back of entry of a substantial number of solution providers. This statistical surveying report presents an all-inclusive assessment of the worldwide market for Telecom Application Server, taking several market verticals, such as the production capacity, product pricing, the dynamics of demand and supply, sales volume, revenue, and the growth rate of this market into consideration.Companies Profiled in this report includes, IBM, Microsoft, RedHat, SAP, Adobe System, Oracle, Attachmate, NEC, Software AG, Fujitsu, Market Participants, CompuwareGet 20% Discount on this Report @:The report provides competitive landscape of the Telecom Application Server market, thereby listing out all the major players according to their geographic presence, market attractiveness and recent key developments. The competitive landscape section of the report gives an overview about the market share of several key players for the forecast year. Moreover, key takeaways section provided at the end of competitive landscape section would help the operating companies to make the best move in the market.Microeconomic and macroeconomic factors which affect the Telecom Application Server market and its growth, both positive and negative, are also studied. The report features the impact of these factors on the ongoing market throughout the mentioned forecast period. The upcoming changing trends, factors driving as well as restricting the growth of the market are mentioned.For More Information @:The manufacturers in the global Telecom Application Server market are explained on the basis of their competitive tendencies as well. This includes analyzing each player on the basis of their current situation and trends adopted, the concentration rate of each player on key regions, a ranking of the top 3 and top 5 manufacturers in the market, and a brief history of mergers, expansions, and acquisitions performed in the recent past.The stages of development of Telecom Application Server market with respect to many geographic regions have also been presented thoroughly. This information which is provided helps the emerging players gain up-to-date information which can help them take perfect business decisions. In similar way, many other segments and sub segments are mentioned in this market helping in conveying impeccable data to the users.Table of ContentsGlobal Telecom Application Server Market Research ReportChapter 1 Telecom Application Server Market OverviewChapter 2 Global Economic Impact on IndustryChapter 3 Global Market Competition by ManufacturersChapter 4 Global Production, Revenue (Value) by RegionChapter 5 Global Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by RegionsChapter 6 Global Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by TypeChapter 7 Global Market Analysis by ApplicationChapter 8 Manufacturing Cost AnalysisChapter 9 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream BuyersChapter 10 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/TradersChapter 11 Market Effect Factors AnalysisChapter 12 Global Telecom Application Server Market ForecastAbout QYReports:We at, QYReports , a leading market research report publisher accommodate more than 4,000 celebrated clients worldwide putting them at advantage in todays competitive world with our understanding of research. Our list of customers include prestigious Chinese companies, multinational companies, SME's and private equity firms whom we have helped grow and sustain with our fact-based research. Our business study covers a market size of over 30 industries offering unfailing insights into analysis to reimagine your business. We specialize in forecasts needed for investing in a new project, to revolutionize your business, to become more customer centric and improve the quality of output.Contact:QYReportsJones John(Sales Manager)+91-9764607607sales@qyreports.comNuclear Medicine Market Analysis, Market Size, Regional Outlook, Competitive Strategies and Forecasts, 2017 To 2022

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A comprehensive analysis of the Global Nuclear Medicine Market is been done in this intelligence report. It includes the investigations done on the past progress, ongoing market scenarios, and future prospects. An accurate data of the products, strategies and market shares of leading companies in this particular market is mentioned. This report presents a 360-degree overview of the competitive scenario of the Global market. The report further projects the size and valuation of the global market in the coming forecast period. The report also presents a thorough qualitative and quantitative data affecting to the projected impact of these factors on markets future growth prospects.Top Key Vendors: Toshiba Medical, Company B, GE, Eckert & Ziegler Group, Bracco Imaging S.p.A, Siemens.Get Sample Copy of this Report @The Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) vertical is expected to hold the largest market share in the Nuclear Medicine market in 2012. The healthcare sector is expected to grow at the highest CAGR from 2017 to 2022, in the Nuclear Medicine market. The BSFI industry will be investing greater resources in the market to focus on providing better services to customers through their limited global and local workforce. Authorities are encouraging investments in the healthcare industry in a bid to modernize and digitize the industry infrastructure and workforce.Global Nuclear Medicine Market to grow at a CAGR of +13% during Forecast Period.It explains a detailed outline of the Nuclear Medicine Market depending on the important parameters. End users, products, regions, and many other segments are studied and explained. A brief idea of the driving forces which help make the market more flourishing is discussed in order to help the client understand the future market position.Know more about this Premium Report:According to the research report, the global market for Nuclear Medicine Market is witnessing a continual rise in its valuation with the advancement in technologies, which is impacting the consumer behavior and, accordingly, their purchasing patterns to a great extent. In addition to this, the rising penetration of internet and the surge in mobile surfing are anticipated to boost the demand for network management software across the world, states the research report.On the basis of geographical regions, the Global Nuclear Medicine Market is segmented broadly into Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific. The global market is still in its exploratory stage in most of the regions but it holds the promising potential to flourish steadily in coming years. The major companies investing in this market are situated in Canada, U.K., and the US, India, China and some more countries of Asia Pacific region. Consequently, Asia Pacific, North America, and Western Europe are estimated to hold more than half of the market shares, collectively in coming years.This statistical surveying research study presents an all-inclusive evaluation of the worldwide market for network management software, taking various industry parameters, such as the capacity of production, product pricing, demand, supply, and sales dynamics, returns on investments, and the growth rate of the overall market into consideration.In the last sections of the report, the manufacturers responsible for increasing the sales in the Nuclear Medicine Market have been presented. These manufacturers have been analyzed in terms of their manufacturing base, basic information, and competitors. In addition, the technology and product type introduced by each of these manufacturers also form a key part of this section of the report.Table of Content:Global Nuclear Medicine Market Research Report 2017-2022Chapter 1 Nuclear Medicine Market OverviewChapter 2 Global Economic ImpactChapter 3 Competition by ManufacturerChapter 4 Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2017-2021)Chapter 5 Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2017-2021)Chapter 6 Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by TypeChapter 7 Analysis by ApplicationChapter 8 Manufacturing Cost AnalysisChapter 9 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream BuyersChapter 10 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/TradersChapter 11 Market Effect Factors AnalysisChapter 12 Market Forecast (2017-2021)Chapter 13 AppendixAbout Research N Reports:Research N Reports is a new age market research firm where we focus on providing information that can be effectively applied. Today being a consumer driven market, companies require information to deal with the complex and dynamic world of choices. Where relying on a sound board firm for your decisions becomes crucial. Research N Reports specializes in industry analysis, market forecasts and as a result getting quality reports covering all verticals, whether be it gaining perspective on current market conditions or being ahead in the cut throat Global competition. Since we excel at business research to help businesses grow, we also offer consulting as an extended arm to our services which only helps us gain more insight into current trends and problems. Consequently we keep evolving as an all-rounder provider of viable information under one roof.Contact us:Mr. Sunny DenisContact No. +1-888-631-6977sales@researchnreports.com(ResearchnReports)Lyndhurst Movers is the moving company in Jersey City you can count on

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United States 31-01-2018. Lyndhurst Movers is the leading and trusted company offers moving services in New Jersey. If you are looking for the moving company in Jersey City, NJ then make sure you prefer Lyndhurst Movers. It has the expertise and knowledge that is crucial to safely move your office or home to the new location. By hiring moving services, you can rest assured while professional movers and packers are working for you. They have good knowledge and expertise in packaging all the items in right way without damaging anything.The professionals know how best they can pack the furniture or other belongings to prevent from damage during moving. They bring equipments to pack your goods and different kind of vehicles to move the different goods in the safest manner. They are able to move any size of home or office with no hassle. While professional movers and packers are doing their job then you can have peace of mind or you can prepare yourself for new place.Here at Lyndhurst Movers, you will be amazed to get professional moving services from the highly experienced movers. The moving services by moving companies in Hackensack will cost you very low and give you peace of mind. Hiring a moving company can help you save your time and make your move a hassle-free process. If you want to prevent your goods from damage or want to prevent yourself from the hassle of packing and moving goods then take advantage of moving services. These services are simply pertinent to give you the great moving experience.If you are planning to move your home or office and looking for the trusted moving company in Jersey City, NJ then make sure you prefer Lyndhurst Movers. It is always ready to help you with professional moving services or can make your move hassle-free.To know more about the moving company in Jersey City, NJ simply visit at:Lyndhurst Movers is the specialized moving company provides highly professional and specialized moving services at very good price. It has expert movers and packers in Hackensack who are always ready to make your move hassle-free.For hassle-free and safe move of your home or office, if you are looking moving companies in Hackensack then only prefer Lyndhurst Movers.78 John Miller Way, Kearny, NJ, 07032, United StatesBeta Exchange Minimal Functionality

Beta Exchange is the early version of Exscudo exchange, real-time trading tool operating 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. As announced earlier, open beta testing of Exscudo exchange will start in February, and trading on the actual exchange - in Q1 2018.Open testing is an important stage of the Exscudo exchange development. During this period Exscudo team will fix all the major bugs, and users will have a chance to explore the new features. At the beginning beta exchange will have minimal functionality. Here what you will be able to do from the very start:Register your account with your email;Be authorized;Use quote tools;Perform trade operations;Check order history;Check your balance.Initially Limit order will be available for users only. Another orders, including Market, Stop-Limit, Profit-Lost, will be introduced later on.Users participating in the exchange testing will be granted with coins automatically. But, please, be aware that coins circulating into the beta exchange have no real value and are for testing purposes only. They are invalid in the actual exchange and can be neither transferred, nor used there.Exscudo is the nextgen financial ecosystem that unites the traditional financial system and the cryptocurrency market. The main goal of the project is to create a single gate to cryptocurrency market for everyday users, professional traders, investors and financial institutions. Exscudos ecosystem consists of a Stock exchange, a b2b cryptocurrency merchant, mobile wallets, trading terminals, bank cards and a protected messenger. The developers team consists of professionals who have many years of experience in the development of financial products and services. More information about the team can be found on the Exscudo website.TallinnMerirahu 58Jan 31, 2018: Cutting Discfor Surface Treatment Market Share 2023 Polylok, Arven, Saint Gobain Abrasives BV

Cutting Discfor Surface Treatment Market

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Cutting Discfor Surface Treatment Market Research 2018A market study "Global Cutting Discfor Surface Treatment Market" examines the performance of the Cutting Discfor Surface Treatment market 2018. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Cutting Discfor Surface Treatment market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Cutting Discfor Surface Treatment market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Cutting Discfor Surface Treatment Market 2018 report includes Cutting Discfor Surface Treatment market Revenue, market Share, Cutting Discfor Surface Treatment industry volume, market Trends, Cutting Discfor Surface Treatment Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Cutting Discfor Surface Treatment Price during the Forecast period from 2018 to 2023.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Cutting Discfor Surface Treatment Market 2018 : Sia Abrasives WEILER Werkzeugmaschinen AOLI PUMP MANUFACTURE Arven Hailo Professional MOLEMAB Polylok Saint Gobain Abrasives BV UTTIS WALTERFirstly, the report covers the top Cutting Discfor Surface Treatment manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Further, the Cutting Discfor Surface Treatment report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Cutting Discfor Surface Treatment industry, Cutting Discfor Surface Treatment industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Cutting Discfor Surface Treatment Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.Browse Full Report Here:The Cutting Discfor Surface Treatment research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Cutting Discfor Surface Treatment market revenue worldwide.Finally, Cutting Discfor Surface Treatment market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:"Spire Market Research" is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact Us5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244, USAWeb:Email: sales@spiremarketresearch.comJan 31, 2018: Four Point Contact Ball Bearing Market Share 2023 ZKL, NSK, NTN, SKF, INA, FAG

Four Point Contact Ball Bearing Market

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Four Point Contact Ball Bearing Market Research 2018A market study "Global Four Point Contact Ball Bearing Market" examines the performance of the Four Point Contact Ball Bearing market 2018. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Four Point Contact Ball Bearing market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Four Point Contact Ball Bearing market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Four Point Contact Ball Bearing Market 2018 report includes Four Point Contact Ball Bearing market Revenue, market Share, Four Point Contact Ball Bearing industry volume, market Trends, Four Point Contact Ball Bearing Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Four Point Contact Ball Bearing Price during the Forecast period from 2018 to 2023.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Four Point Contact Ball Bearing Market 2018 : SKF ZKL Koyo NSK NACHI NTN TIMKEN FAG INAFirstly, the report covers the top Four Point Contact Ball Bearing manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Further, the Four Point Contact Ball Bearing report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Four Point Contact Ball Bearing industry, Four Point Contact Ball Bearing industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Four Point Contact Ball Bearing Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.Browse Full Report Here:The Four Point Contact Ball Bearing research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Four Point Contact Ball Bearing market revenue worldwide.Finally, Four Point Contact Ball Bearing market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:"Spire Market Research" is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact Us5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244, USAWeb:Email: sales@spiremarketresearch.comAutomotive Capless Device Market: Current trends, Opportunities and challenges

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Automotive Cap less Device Market: OverviewA capless fuel filler makes refueling your car a lot easier. A capless automotive fueling system has a funnel with a port open to receive a fuel filling nozzle. Theres no need to remove the gas cap before inserting he hose. Instead, the hose has to be directly inserted into the filler. Theres a small spring loaded flap in the filler neck which prevents gas fumes from escaping from the fuel tank.Browse the Report @It reduces the fumes because there is no waiting between the times the fuel nozzle is removed and when the fuel tank is sealed. Ford was one of the first manufacturers who introduced capless fuel system in their vehicles. The capless fuel system was interlinked with keyless entry system. When the cars doors are locked, the capless fuel system gets locked too. This was introduced to reduce the stealing of fuel from cars.Request Sample @Automotive Cap less Device Market: Drivers & RestraintsThe major factors which are boosting the growth of thermo chromic labels market are increasing use of automobiles. Fuel is the most important factor required to run a vehicle, and to store fuel, theres a need for fuel tank. The increasing use of automobiles across the planet has increased the demand for the capless fuel system. The capless fuel system is a safe way to prevent the fuel from getting stolen, as it only opens when fuel nozzle is inserted into it. It also prevents fuel fumes from escaping which are few of the reasons driving the capless fuel system. The growth of capless fuel system is restricted to only automobiles for now as it is not incorporated in other machines which need fuel.Automotive Cap less Device Market: Regional OutlookIn terms of regions, Europe accounts for significant share for Automotive Cap less Device Market, owing to the high growth and demand for automobiles in the region as compared to other developed regions. North America region accounts for a healthy share in terms of automotive cap less device primarily used in automobiles.The passenger car in the region is anticipated to further add value to the Automotive Cap less Device Market in the region. In terms of developing region of Asia-Pacific, the growth of the capless device is significantly high and with comparatively high CAGR in forecast period owed to factors such as such as rapid economic development, globalization and increasing demand of the capless device in automotive industry and its sub-verticals.Automotive Cap less Device Market: Key PlayersFew of the key players in the market include, Toyoda Gosei, Stant, ITW, Ford. Ford being the pioneer of the cap less device, leads the market. Increase in the consumers looking for convenience has also driven the cap less device market up frontAbout UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Jan 31, 2018: Geraniol Industry Market Share 2023 Guangzhou Baihua Flavours And Fragrances Company

Geraniol Industry

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Geraniol Industry Market Research 2018A market study "Global Geraniol Industry Market" examines the performance of the Geraniol Industry market 2018. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Geraniol Industry market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Geraniol Industry market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Geraniol Industry Market 2018 report includes Geraniol Industry market Revenue, market Share, Geraniol Industry industry volume, market Trends, Geraniol Industry Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Geraniol Industry Price during the Forecast period from 2018 to 2023.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Geraniol Industry Market 2018 : Changsha Choice Chemicals Ltd. Shanghai Jiulin Industrial Co., Ltd. Guangzhou Baihua Flavours And Fragrances Company Ltd. AOS PRODUCTS PVT. LTD.? Triveni Interchem Pvt. Ltd.Firstly, the report covers the top Geraniol Industry manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Further, the Geraniol Industry report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Geraniol Industry industry, Geraniol Industry industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Geraniol Industry Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.Browse Full Report Here:The Geraniol Industry research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Geraniol Industry market revenue worldwide.Finally, Geraniol Industry market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:"Spire Market Research" is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact Us5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244, USAWeb:Email: sales@spiremarketresearch.comJan 31, 2018: Gold rings Market Share 2023 Bellojewels, Tempus Gems, Arcadia Jewellery, Fusion Arts

Gold rings

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Gold rings Market Research 2018A market study "Global Gold rings Market" examines the performance of the Gold rings market 2018. It encloses an in-depth Research of the Gold rings market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of Gold rings market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global Gold rings Market 2018 report includes Gold rings market Revenue, market Share, Gold rings industry volume, market Trends, Gold rings Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, Gold rings Price during the Forecast period from 2018 to 2023.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global Gold rings Market 2018 : Karp Jewellery Mfg HK Ltd China Global Gems & Jewelry Ltd PEACOCK STAR INTERNATIONAL LIMITED Arcadia Jewellery Ltd QPF Ltd Sheetal Diamonds Limited Valentine Jewellery India Private Limited Gemco International, Jaipur Fusion Arts Bellojewels Tempus Gems Pvt. Ltd. Sri Radha Krishna Jewellery (jewelry Karigiri)Firstly, the report covers the top Gold rings manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Further, the Gold rings report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of Gold rings industry, Gold rings industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. Gold rings Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.Browse Full Report Here:The Gold rings research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the Gold rings market revenue worldwide.Finally, Gold rings market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:"Spire Market Research" is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact Us5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244, USAWeb:Email: sales@spiremarketresearch.comGrowing demand for autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles has fueled the market for automotive smart display

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With the increase in disposable income and globalization, consumers are heading for technologically advanced products, such as automotive smart display. Automotive smart display consist of indicators and other displays in the instrument panel, and can even be provided for the rear seat passengers.Automotive Smart Display Market Overview:Automotive vehicle manufacturers nowadays have started focusing on developing and innovating slim looking interiors, dashboards, and display, which are easier, safer, and controlled to use. Automotive smart display is one of these innovative developments, highly demanded by customers nowadays. Automotive smart display is expected to replace the traditional automobile displays in the coming years.Browse the Report @Automotive smart display consist of indicators and other displays in the instrument panel, and can even be provided for the rear seat passengers. Navigation systems, radio and audio, and board computers are also included within automotive smart display. The term smart is used with these displays, because apart from providing all traditional display functions, these can also be connected to the internet via Wi-Fi. One of the best applications where automotive smart display is being used is in cabs and taxis.Request Sample @Market Dynamics:Growing demand for autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles has fueled the market for automotive smart display. Also, the demand for comfort features as well as safety requirements is expected to push the growth of Automotive Smart Display Market. In many countries, the government has made regulations regarding automobile safety and mandatory in-vehicle GPS systems for commercial vehicles.One of the major restraints that is likely to hinder the growth of Automotive Smart Display Market is the cost factor associated with it.The newest technology in the Automotive Smart Display Market is the ability to see augmented reality displays over the windscreens of cars. This technology if incorporated in the vehicle adds lot of functionality to the car.Asia-Pacific region is estimated to be the region with highest growth in the Automotive Smart Display Market. This growth is attributed to the increasing cases of road accidents and the need for implementation of the measures related to road safety.Key Players:Some of the major players identified in the Global Automotive Smart Display Market include Nippon Seiki Co, Ltd., LG Display Inc., AU Optronics Corp., Japan Display Inc., Yazaki Corporation, Visteon Corporation, Continental AG, Denso Corporation, Panasonic Corporation, and Robert Bosch GmbH.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Jan 31, 2018: H7N9 Vaccine Market Share 2023 Sinovac, Hualan Bio, Beijing Tiantan Biological Products

H7N9 Vaccine Market

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http://www.spiremarketresearch.com/global-h7n9-vaccine-market-2018-size-review-overview-forecast-2025

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H7N9 Vaccine Market Research 2018A market study "Global H7N9 Vaccine Market" examines the performance of the H7N9 Vaccine market 2018. It encloses an in-depth Research of the H7N9 Vaccine market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of H7N9 Vaccine market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global H7N9 Vaccine Market 2018 report includes H7N9 Vaccine market Revenue, market Share, H7N9 Vaccine industry volume, market Trends, H7N9 Vaccine Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, H7N9 Vaccine Price during the Forecast period from 2018 to 2023.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global H7N9 Vaccine Market 2018 : Beijing Tiantan Biological Products Hualan Bio SinovacFirstly, the report covers the top H7N9 Vaccine manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Further, the H7N9 Vaccine report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of H7N9 Vaccine industry, H7N9 Vaccine industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. H7N9 Vaccine Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.Browse Full Report Here:The H7N9 Vaccine research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the H7N9 Vaccine market revenue worldwide.Finally, H7N9 Vaccine market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:"Spire Market Research" is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact Us5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244, USAWeb:Email: sales@spiremarketresearch.comIndustrial Fieldbus Solution Market: Technological Breakthroughs and Competitive Landscape

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Industries have started adopting technologically-advanced solution to increase the efficiency of plants and decrease downtime. Industrial fieldbus solution are a part of this advancement. In order to stay ahead of their competitors, industries and other manufacturing plants are soon adopting advanced automation to provide good quality products to their customers as well as maximize their profits and productivity. Industrial fieldbus solution are a part of this advanced automation. Industrial fieldbus solution are a part of industrial communication networks that are connecting factories to the smart factory techniques.Browse the Report @Industrial Fieldbus Solution Market Overview:Industrial fieldbus solution are standardized as IEC 61158 and find use in real-time distributed control system applications. Industrial fieldbus solution represent a group of industrial computer network protocols. Manufacturing assembly lines require distributed control system wherein industrial fieldbus solution are applied.In distributed control systems, there is a Human Machine Interface (HMI) at the top. Then, there is a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) in the middle layer connected to the top layer via Ethernet. The bottom layer consists of a fieldbus that links the PLC to the components such as contactors, valves, switches, electric motors, actuators and sensors that do the actual work.Request Sample @Market Dynamics:Industrialists are now shifting to industrial fieldbus solution and replacing the older similar technologies. Requirement for optimized plant asset management is another factor that is driving the growth of the Industrial Fieldbus Solution market. Industrial fieldbus solution help operators communicate with sensors and other plant assets in real-time in such a way that operators are able to check the status of the plant assets. This helps in increasing productivity of plant.The integration of IIoT with the industrial fieldbus solution for application in the process industries is enhancing the demand for industrial fieldbus solution in the market. Integration of IIoT with the industrial fieldbus solution provides high performance, better connectivity, security, and safety.Market Segmentation:Industrial Fieldbus Solution market is segmented into three types based on product type, end-user type, and by region.Based on the product type, Industrial Fieldbus Solution market is segmented into Foundation fieldbus Profibus, SERCOS, Modbus, AS-I, and DeviceNet.Based on the application type, Industrial Fieldbus Solution market is segmented into power generation, flowmeters, hydrocarbon processing, pressure transmitters, control valves, and other measurement devices.Based on the region type, Industrial Fieldbus Solution market is segmented into- Latin America, North America, Asia-Pacific Except Japan (APEJ), Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Middle-East and Africa (MEA) and Japan.North America holds the highest market share in the Industrial Fieldbus Solution market. Oil and gas industry, in particular, is seeing tremendous demand for the industrial fieldbus solution. Oil and gas plants require industrial fieldbus solution for secure and robust communication that ensure efficient plant operation.Key Players:Some of the players operating in the Industrial Fieldbus Solution market include - Schneider Electric, Yokogawa Electric, ABB, SAMSON, Emerson Electric, Pepperl+Fuchs, Endress+Hauser, Metso, Siemens, Krohne Group, Azbil Corporation, and Eaton Corporation.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Industrial Pressure Switches Market: Value Chain and Stakeholder Analysis

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Industrial pressure switches, particularly the electronic pressure switches segment is witnessing major growth trends in the Asia Pacific except Japan (APEJ), Middle East and Africa (MEA) and Latin America regions. Industrial pressure switches are soon becoming a necessity and irreplaceable components in various industries. It is expected that the Industrial Pressure Switches market will grow at a high CAGR during the forecast period.Browse the Report @Industrial Pressure Switches Market Overview:In industry applications, pressure switches or industrial pressure switches are used as switches that close the electrical contact when the fluid pressure reaches a certain set limit. Industrial pressure switches are used in a variety of applications to make contact either in the scenario of pressure rise or in the scenario of pressure fall. Industrial pressure switches are widely used to automatically control and supervise systems that utilize pressurized fluids. Industrial pressure switches to detect mechanical force are also manufactured in the industry.Request Sample @Market Dynamics:Industrial pressure switches provide continuous data regarding the pressure levels of fluids inside machines and equipment. Industrial pressure switches have become highly essential in the industries. Reason behind the fact that industrial pressure switches are gaining a lot of importance is that many accidents keep on happening due to uncontrollable pressures that ultimately lead to blowouts.Governments of various countries have made regulations regarding workplace safety that are forcing the industrialists to install safety devices such as industrial pressure switches. Industrial pressure switches control and monitor pressure levels in work areas. Plants need to be certified by the regulatory bodies before starting operation. These safety standards vary with countries and regulatory bodies.Some of the regulatory bodies include International Organization for Standardization (ISO), Occupational safety and health administration (OSHA), International Electro-Technical Commission (IETC), Canadian Standards Association (CSA) and China Compulsory Certification (CCC). These factors are estimated to be responsible for the growth of Industrial Pressure Switches market in the forecast period. Safety levels provided by the industrial pressure switches is increasing their demand in the market.Market Segmentation:Industrial Pressure Switches market is segmented on the basis of type, product type, end-user type, and region.Based on the type, Industrial Pressure Switches market is segmented into Mechanical pressure switches and Electronic pressure switches. Mechanical Pressure Switches are further segmented into Differential pressure switches, Vacuum pressure switches, Gauge pressure switches and Hydraulic pressure switches.Based on the end-user type, Industrial Pressure Switches market is segmented into Machine tool industry, Oil and gas industry, Chemical and petrochemical industry and Power generation industry.On the basis of region type, Industrial Pressure Switches market is segmented into - Latin America, North America, Asia Pacific Except Japan (APEJ), Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (MEA) and Japan.Key Players:Some of the players operating in the Industrial Pressure Switches market are; Wako Electronics, Bosch Rexroth, United Electric Controls, Danfoss, Taihei Boeki, Honeywell Sensing, SUCO Robert Scheuffele, Parker Hannifin, SMC Corporation, Setra Systems, BD|SENSORS, OMEGA Engineering, Barksdale Control Products, LEEG Instruments, Baumer Group, Huba Control, BCM Sensor, and Fujikura.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. We have an experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, who us e proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR Syndicated Research report covers a different sector  such as pharmaceuticals, chemical, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, our syndicated reports thrive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.ContactTransparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Jan 31, 2018: HD (UHD) PTZ Camera Systems Market Share 2023 Sony, Vicon, Canon, Pelco, Vaddio, Panasonic

HD (UHD) PTZ Camera Systems Market

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HD (UHD) PTZ Camera Systems Market Research 2018A market study "Global HD (UHD) PTZ Camera Systems Market" examines the performance of the HD (UHD) PTZ Camera Systems market 2018. It encloses an in-depth Research of the HD (UHD) PTZ Camera Systems market state and the competitive landscape globally. This report analyzes the potential of HD (UHD) PTZ Camera Systems market in the present and the future prospects from various angles in detail.The Global HD (UHD) PTZ Camera Systems Market 2018 report includes HD (UHD) PTZ Camera Systems market Revenue, market Share, HD (UHD) PTZ Camera Systems industry volume, market Trends, HD (UHD) PTZ Camera Systems Growth aspects. A wide range of applications, Utilization ratio, Supply and demand analysis are also consist in the report.It shows manufacturing capacity, HD (UHD) PTZ Camera Systems Price during the Forecast period from 2018 to 2023.To Get Sample Report Click Here:Manufacturers Analysis and Top Sellers of Global HD (UHD) PTZ Camera Systems Market 2018 : AXIS FLIR Panasonic Honeywell Bosch Security Systems Sony Canon Pelco Vaddio Vicon Videotec Hikvision Dahua Technology Wolfowitz Infinova(China) YAANFirstly, the report covers the top HD (UHD) PTZ Camera Systems manufacturing industry players from regions like United States, EU, Japan, and China. It also characterizes the market based on geological regions.Further, the HD (UHD) PTZ Camera Systems report gives information on the company profile, market share and contact details along with value chain analysis of HD (UHD) PTZ Camera Systems industry, HD (UHD) PTZ Camera Systems industry rules and policies, circumstances driving the growth of the market and compulsion blocking the growth. HD (UHD) PTZ Camera Systems Market development scope and various business strategies are also mentioned in this report.Browse Full Report Here:The HD (UHD) PTZ Camera Systems research report includes the products that are currently in demand and available in the market along with their cost breakup, manufacturing volume, import/export scheme and contribution to the HD (UHD) PTZ Camera Systems market revenue worldwide.Finally, HD (UHD) PTZ Camera Systems market report gives you details about the market research findings and conclusion which helps you to develop profitable market strategies to gain competitive advantage.About Us:"Spire Market Research" is a leading market intelligence team which accredits and provides the reports of some of the top publishers in the field of technology industry. We are as a firm expertise in making extensive reports that cover all the necessary details about the market assessments such as major technological improvement in the industry.Contact Us5001 Spring Valley Road,Suite 400 East,Dallas, TX 75244, USAWeb:Email: sales@spiremarketresearch.comGlobal Construction Paints and Coatings Market to Rise at 5.8% CAGR from 2013 to 2019

Construction Paints and Coatings Market

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Transparency Market Researchs new market study on the global paints and coatings market examines the developments in the said market from regional, product, and application considerations for the 2013-2019 period. The report, titled Construction Paints and Coatings Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2013 - 2019, says that the global construction paints and coatings market will reach a valuation of US$76.1 bn by 2019, increasing from US$51.6 bn in 2012. This amounts to a CAGR of 5.8% between 2013 and 2019, adds the report.The report points out that the growth of the construction paints and coatings industry is, naturally, dependent on the progression of the construction industry. Currently, the construction industry is displaying robust growth thanks to economic development following the 2008-09 economic slump, which affected most major economies around the world. Residential, commercial, and industrial undertakings that are up all over the world are indirectly contributing to the growth of the construction paints and coatings industry.Browse Research Report With Complete TOC @Major impediments that are challenging the growth of this market are the price volatility of petroleum-based feedstock and laws in place that regulate the permissibility of volatile organic compounds that can be added to paints and coatings formulations.Paints and coatings are used in building construction for several purposes. Some of these are increasing the visual appeal of the buildings facade, protection of the structure against climatic extremes, waterproofing of the buildings surface, increasing its durability, and protecting the surface from harmful creatures such as termites.Asia Pacific is the largest regional market for construction paints and coatings; the region, along with Europe, held a share of close to 70% in the global market in 2012. In Asia Pacific, large-volume infrastructural development, especially in the emerging economies of China and India, proffers immense growth prospects for the construction paints and coatings market. The Middle East and Africa region is also a hotspot of construction activities due to a host of government-driven infrastructural development projects coming up in the U.A.E, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. This will result in increased demand for construction paints and coatings for these undertakings, So much so that the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region will emerge as a significant region contributing to the growth of the global construction paints and coatings market.Among the product types of construction paints and coatings, waterborne paints and coatings dominated the market in 2012 and held a share of close to one-third of the global market. Other product segments of the construction paints and coatings market are solvent-borne coatings, powder coatings, high solids/radiation cured coatings, and others.Request a PDF Brochure with Research Report Analysis @The report also analyzes the global construction paints and coatings market from a competitive standpoint. BASF SE, PPG Industries, Sherwin-Williams Company, AkzoNobel, and Asian Paints are some of the companies that are actively involved in this industry. Using analytical tools such as Porters five forces and SWOT analyses, the report elaborates on the competitive dynamics of the market during the forecast period.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:U.S. Industrial Boiler Market size in 2016 was valued over USD 450 million and is predicted to witness gain of over 3% from 2017 to 2024

Industrial Boiler Market

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U.S. Industrial Boiler Market has gained popularity over the past years due to stringent environmental norms towards eliminating carbon footprints and harmful pollutant emissions. Shifting focus of industrialists towards curtailing the use of fossil fuel-based plants will stimulate the U.S. industrial boiler industry. Moreover, rising clean-energy fuel demand coupled with favorable government initiatives in the region will push the industry growth.Fluctuating fuel prices over the past few years has triggered the demand for high efficiency boilers, which ensure significant reduction of fuel costs. Fuel accounts for 80% of the total operational cost in boilers. These high efficient boilers will drastically cut down the expenditures on fuel cost which will boost their adoption across the globe. High costs of fuel will encourage the replacement of old boilers with advanced ones driving the U.S. industrial boiler industry revenue.The most lucrative industry contributing significantly to the U.S. industrial boiler market is the chemical industry, owing to the rising chemical production. The statistical study conducted by the American Chemical Council stated that the chemical production will witness a surge by 1.6% in 2016 and 3.7% in 2017. Furthermore, the increasing demand from the food processing and paper industry is also poised to benefit the U.S. industrial market share.Request for Sample Copy of this research report @Below are the key highlights pertaining to the U.S. industrial boiler applications:The chemical application is estimated to be the largest revenue generator for the U.S. industrial boiler industry and is predicted to beat USD 150 million by 2024. Favorable government initiative to reduce environmental hazards will augment the U.S. industrial boiler market growth in chemical sector.Paper application is projected to exhibit an annual growth rate of 3%, owing to favorable demand from shale gas, dyes and cosmetics industry.Food industry is estimated to be the third most lucrative sector favoring U.S. industrial boiler market revenue. It has contributed over 27% of the total revenue for 2015.Refinery and metal industry will bring a huge set of opportunities for U.S industrial boiler business space. Growing demand for refinery products and steel consumption will influence the U.S. industrial boiler market growth in the coming seven years.U.S. industrial boiler industry is further categorized based on its capacity (< 10 MMBtu/hr, 10-50 MMBtu/hr, 50-100 MMBtu/hr, 100-250 MMBtu/hr, and >250 MMBtu/hr). This segmentation of capacity finds application as per the need of power generation, such as extensive capacity boilers for refining industry and limited capacity boilers for the food processing industry. The U.S. industrial boiler market share was dominated by the boiler having capacity < 10MMBtu/hr which are mostly preferred by chemical and food industry.Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @The escalating gains and constructive growth of the paper industry has led Alabama industrial boiler market revenue to surpass USD 10 million by 2024.The growth in chemical and food processing industries has led Ohio industrial boiler market size to witness 2% industry expansion.With increasing focus on new technologies, the market players will invest more in R&D and accentuate on offering advanced products with higher heat transfer rates and lower fouling. Leading key companies operating in the U.S. industrial boiler market include Hurst & Welding Company, Inc., Clayton Industries, Unilux Advanced Manufacturing, Parker Company, Acme Engineering Prod. Ltd., Vapor Power International, Hurst & Welding Company, Inc., Superior Works, Inc., Bryan Steam LLC., Cleaver-Brooks, Inc, etc.Browse Related ReportGlobal Residential Boiler Market Size By Technology (Condensing, Non-Condensing), By Product (Fire-tube, Water-tube), By Fuel (Natural Gas, Oil, Coal) Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, Mexico, France, UK, Poland, Italy, Spain, Austria, Germany, Sweden, Russia, China, India, Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, UAE, Nigeria, South Africa, Argentina, Chile, Brazil), Competitive Market Analysis & Forecast, 2017  2024About Global Market InsightsGlobal Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary researchContact Us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb:Blog:Radiation Cured Products Market to Exhibit 7.0% CAGR through 2019 with Infrastructure Boom in Developed Regions

Radiation Cured Products Market

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By 2019, the global radiation cured products market will be worth US$ 7,930.1 million, states a recent study by Transparency Market Research. The U.S.-based market intelligence firm projects that the global radiation cured products market, generated revenues of US$4,938.5 million in 2012, will exhibit a 7.0% CAGR from 2013 through 2019. Coatings, adhesives, inks and paints have to often be cured using radiation to ensure that they adhere well to a surface and last long. These radiation cured products are typically used in a variety of end-user industries such as metal, paper, wood, glass, and more. These findings are further analyzed in the report titled Radiation Cured Products Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2013 - 2019.Browse Research Report With Complete TOC @For the purpose of this study, the market has been segmented based on radiation cured product types as: coatings, inks and adhesives. Of these, the largest market share-in terms of both revenues and volume-was held by radiation cured coatings, as of 2012. The next largest product segment was that of radiation cured inks, while radiation cured adhesives took the third spot in the global radiation cured products market. Backward integration prevails to a significant degree in the RCP industry because for the most part, RCP producers are also engaged in ancillary business lines such as the production of RCP feedstock material. This puts companies in the radiation cured products market in an advantageous competitive position because they wield a higher control over the procurement and supply of raw material without having to depending excessively on third parties.Further, the report states that the greatest advantage that the global radiation cured products market possesses is that it is a faster curing method, especially as compared to traditionally-used thermal curing processes. The radiation curing process is more compliant to the latest environmental regulations, and has thus been witnessing higher demand over the last few years. The report identifies the other key growth driver for the global radiation cured products market as an augmentation in infrastructure activities in major developing regions of the world. The need for wood coatings, especially, has risen, thus proving favorable to the overall global radiation cured products market. End-users are also especially attracted to radiation cure (radcure) technology because it ensures optimum material utilization and any waste generate through this process can be disposed of in according to general waste disposal guidelines.Radiation cured inks have a promising future, the report states. According to TMR analysts, this is because industries are moving toward high-value digital inks and energy cured inks that will offer an impetus to the global market for radcure inks (especially in the printing and packaging industries).However, the global radiation cured products market will have to face headwinds in the form of an escalation in raw material prices. The most vital raw materials in the radiation curing process are monomers and oligomers, which are derived from crude oils. The frequent and sudden fluctuations in the global crude oil prices create a certain degree of instability in this market.The largest regional markets within the global radiation cured products market, as of 2012, were Asia Pacific and Europe. About 40% of the total demand in the global radiation cured products market came from Asia Pacific in the aforementioned year, making it the leading regional player. This will lead to more investment dollars being pumped into the APAC region over the next few years.Request a PDF Brochure with Research Report Analysis @Capacity expansion will be a core competitive strategy for players in the global radiation cured products market. This has been prompted by growth in industries such as wood coatings, textiles, and packaging. The report contains profiles of key market leaders such as Ashland Inc., Bayer MaterialScience, BASF SE, Cytech Industries, DIC Corporation, and others.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Stand Up Pouches Market - Industry Analysis, Growth and New Market Opportunities Explored

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A pouch is a container used for carrying goods or products. A stand up pouch is one that has an ability to stand on its own. The base on which it stands is called a bottom guzzet (in a stand up pouch). Stand up pouches are the most popular and widely used form of flexible packaging. Stand up pouches come with market friendly features, such as zipper reclosure, tear notches, hang-hole features, and attractive billboards for label and graphics. They are mostly used in the food and beverages industry. However, these pouches are still gaining importance in other end use packaging applications, such as dry food packaging, baby food, pet food, and natural products.Obtain Brochure@Major growth drivers for the stand up pouches market include: reduced cost of shipping and storage of products, aesthetically pleasant appearance resulting into better branding, and wide acceptability among consumers due to their lightweight and easy to handle features. In addition, these pouches are more cost effective as compared to glass or pet bottles, offer flexibility to print as per custom design, and ensure a better shelf visibility, thereby driving their market growth further. Surge in the number of end user industries of stand-up pouches has also been responsible for their increasing demand across the globe. However, high investment required for the purchase of stand-up pouches packaging line is considered to be a major threat for its market growth.Stand up pouches can be classified on the basis of material used, which include plastic, aluminum foil, kraft paper foil, or a combination of these. Secondly, the stand up pouches market is also segmented on the basis of shape into: round bottom, K seal, and corner sealed. Other pouch styles include: 3 side seal pouches, box pouches, and tap and gland fitment. Meanwhile, pouch closure options include spouts and fitments, press to close zippers, sliders, hooded sliders, etc. Manufacturers also offer additional options based on the product requirement. Additional pouch features include rounded corners, mitred corners, tear notches, clear windows, shiny or matter finishes, venting, handle holes, mechanical perforating, and laser perforating.Regionally, Asia Pacific is estimated to account for more than 50% share of the overall stand-up pouches market, owing to the increasing number of middle class customers in the region, which are more attracted toward the stand up pouch packaging type, especially in India and tier 3 cities of China. However, this can only be attributed to the high population in these countries, as per capita consumption of stand up pouches has been witnessed to be much higher in North America and Europe as compared to Asia Pacific. The market in Asia Pacific is expected to be followed by Europe and North America markets, respectively. The MENA and Latin America, together, are anticipated to account for less than 15% share of the global stand up pouches market over the forecast period.Browse Market Research Report @Major players in the stand up pouches market include: Amcor Ltd.(Australia), The DOW Chemical Company (U.S), Mondi Group (Austria), Berry Plastic Corporation (U.S), Smurfit Kappa Group (Dublin), Bemis Company Inc. (U.S), Essentra PLC (U.K), Bischof+Klein (Germany), Coating Excellence International (U.S), Hood Packaging (U.S), Printpack (U.S.), ProAmpac (Canada), Sealed Air (U.S.), Sonoco (U.S), and Winpak Ltd (Canada). Currently, the market is highly unorganized due to the presence of various small and medium level manufacturers.Product innovations and expansion are the key strategies adopted by major players in the global stand up pouches market. Recently, two major players, Prolamina (U.S) and Ampac (U.S) merged their packaging business and formed a new company called ProAmpac Intermediate Corp. ProAmpac includes four divisions, namely Prolamina, Ampac, Tulsack, and Business Deposits Plus. In addition to the new name, Prolaminas Terrebonne, Quebec (Canada) site will shift to the Ampac division, as its product offerings match with the adhesive laminated roll stock and pouching offered by Ampac.About TMRTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Contact TMR90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Global Flexible Packaging Market to Reach US$99.1 bn by 2019, Rising Demand in Food and Beverages Industry Drives Growth

Flexible Packaging Market

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A research report on the global flexible packaging market, published by Transparency Market Research (TMR), estimates it to expand at a CAGR of 4.40% during the period from 2013 and 2019.The research report is titled Flexible Packaging Market for Food & Beverages, Retail Non-Food, Pharmaceutical and Other Applications - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast, 2013 - 2019.A package or a packaging container that can alter its shape easily when filled with goods can be referred as flexible packaging. It is widely utilized for consumer as well as institutional products and in various industrial applications to package and distribute a varied range of products.Browse Research Report With Complete TOC @The flexible packaging market has emerged as the most rapidly rising segment in the overall packaging industry. The market is projected to increase from US$73.5 bn in 2012 to US$99.1 bn the end of the forecast period. The rising demand for flexible packaging products from the food and beverages and the pharmaceutical industry is boosting this market significantly.In this report, the global market for flexible packaging has been studied on the basis of the product, application, and the region. Aluminum, plastic, paper, and cellulosic packaging have been identified as the major products available in this market. In 2012, the plastic packaging segment dominated the overall market with a share of 70%.The cost-efficiency and durability offered by plastics have been boosting demand for plastic flexible packaging across the world. However, the implementation of stringent rules and regulations by several governments and the increasing concerns over environmental issue pertaining to carbon emissions are likely to reduce the usage of plastic for packaging goods over the forecast period. As a result, the demand for cellulosic packaging products is projected to exceed the demand for plastic packaging products in the coming years, notes the research study.Based on the application, the report has classified this market into food and beverages, pharmaceuticals, retail non-food items, and other applications such as packaging of industrial machines and vending machines.The food and beverages segment has emerged as the biggest consumer of flexible packaging in the recent past, owing to the increasing demand for packaged food across the world. However, the demand for flexible packaging is projected to increase rapidly in the pharmaceuticals segment over the forecast period, establishing it as the largest application segment, states the report.Geographically, the worldwide market for flexible packaging has been segmented into Europe, Asia Pacific, North America, and the Rest of the World. Asia Pacific led the global market in 2012. The growing population base and the rapid rise in the disposable income of people in this region have boosted the demand for packaged beverages, food items, pharmaceuticals products, and personal care products, resulting in a significant rise of the flexible packaging market in Asia Pacific.Request a PDF Brochure with Research Report Analysis @Analysts predict this regional market to rise at a CAGR of 4.40% during the forecast period. Asia Pacific is thus expected to retain its dominance in the market over the reports forecast period. India and China are likely to drive the demand for flexible packaging in this region. The markets for flexible packaging in North America and Europe are also expected to register healthy growth, states the research report.A competitive analysis of the global flexible packaging market has also been presented in this report. Analysts have evaluated major participants in this market to determine the current market hierarchy. Wipak Group, Ukrplastic, Sonoco Products Co., Sealed Air Corp., Mondi Plc, Huhtamaki Oyj, Flextrus AB, Constantia Flexibles International GmbH, Bischof + Klein SE & Co. KG, Bemis Co. Inc., Ampac Holding, and Amcor Ltd. are the leading market players, profiled in this research study.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Permanent Magnet Market Will Reach USD 28.70 Billion in 2019

Permanent Magnets Market

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A New Report Published by Transparency Market Research  Permanent Magnets Market - Global Forecast, Market Share, Size, Growth and Industry Analysis, 2013 - 2019,  the global permanent magnet market was valued at USD 15.32 billion in 2012 and is expected to reach USD 28.70 billion in 2019, growing at a CAGR of 9.5% from 2013 to 2019. In terms of volume, the demand was 650.0 kilo tons in 2012 and is expected to be 1,168.7 kilo tons in 2019, growing at a CAGR of 8.8% from 2013 to 2019.Browse Research Report With Complete TOC @Permanent magnets are used in a broad range of applications such as, electronic, medical devices, household equipment, electricity generation, and automobiles among many others. These are retentive types of magnetic materials. They own the ability of creating its own magnetic properties even in the lack of an external electric field. Permanent magnets are made from a magnetized material, either forming ferromagnetic or ferromagnetic type of magnetism. These magnets are industrially manufactured through a process of sintering and do not lose their magnetic property unless they are heated above their curie temperature.Given the huge potential of permanent magnet market, it attracts various industries due to its low cost and other physical properties. Some of the factors driving the demand for permanent magnets are coming from modernization of infrastructure, current & emerging applications, development, and increasing demand for efficiency & miniaturization. The use of these magnets is substantially seen in the wind energy generation industry. Numerous factors such as, rising consumer awareness regarding environment protection, demand for clean air, and increasing demand for cheap electricity is expected to boost the growth of the market within the forecast period. The demand for permanent magnets in the energy generation is expected to be 90.5 kilo tons by 2019.In addition, rising application scope of magnets used in HEVs coupled with rising demand for automobile vehicles is expected to open new opportunities for the growth of this market in the forthcoming years. The automotive segment accounted to be the largest application segment for permanent magnets in 2012. Permanent magnets are the most common devices used in automobiles to reduce overall weight of the vehicle, and thereby improving efficiency of vehicles.The report study based on permanent magnets caters detailed analysis and forecast of this market on a global, as well as regional level. The market has been broadly segmented based on product and applications. The segments have been analyzed thoroughly and the forecast is based on volume (kilo tons) and revenue (USD million) for 2013 to 2019. Some of the key products analyzed in the permanent magnet market study include ferrite, Neo (NdFeB), SmCO and Alnico. Ferrite magnets were the most effective types of permanent magnets as compared to the other kinds of magnets. They accounted for over 80% of the global demand in 2012. Due to its abundant availability, low costs and high magnetic property, the demand for ferrite magnets is expected to rise gradually in the forecast period. Moreover, owing to a growing demand in electricity generation, NdFeB magnets are expected to show the fastest growth over the next few years.Request a PDF Brochure with Research Report Analysis @By geography, China dominates the permanent magnet market with its highest shares. On account of increasing industrial activities, rising growth of the energy generation and demand for automobiles, China continues to lead the global permanent magnet market today. It is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.0% from 2013 to 2019. However, Asia Pacific (excluding China) is the next upcoming market in the given forecast due to its on-going activities in the growth of wind power industry.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Adhesives Applying Equipment Global Market 2018: Key Players CHEMENCE LTD., DYNEA OY, ITW DYNATEC

Adhesives Applying Equipment

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Report Scope:The report has been prepared in a simple format that can be easily understood through tables and figures.Its scope includes a detailed study of global and regional markets for various adhesives, with the reasons given for variations in the growth of the industry in certain regions. The report also studies the equipment used for applying adhesives and its global and regional markets.GET SAMPLE REPORT @Key Players3M CO.ACCUMETRIC LLCADCHEM CORP.ADHESIVE FILMS INC.ADHESIVE PACKAGING SPECIALTIES LLCADHESIVES RESEARCH INC.ADHEZION BIOMEDICAL LLCADVANCE TAPES INTERNATIONALAMERICAN BILTRITE INC.ARKEMA S.A.ASHLAND INC.AVERY DENNISON CORP.BEARDOW & ADAMS (ADHESIVES) LTD.BEMIS ASSOCIATES INC.BOSTIK S.A.CHEMENCE LTD.COVALENCE SPECIALTY ADHESIVES LLCDEXERIALS CORPORATIONDIC Corp.DOW CORNING CORP.DYNEA OYELMER'S PRODUCTS INC.EMS-CHEMIE HOLDING AGEVANS ADHESIVE CORP. LTD.FORBO INTL. S.A.FOSHAN MAYDOS CHEMICAL CO. LTD.FRANKLIN INTL. INC.GARDNER-GIBSONGLENMAR TECHNOLOGYGLUE DOTS INTERNATIONALGRACO INC.H.B. FULLER CO.HENKEL & CO KGAA AGHERNON MANUFACTURING INC.HEXION SPECIALTY CHEMICALS INC.HINDUSTAN ADHESIVES LTD.HUBEI HUITIAN NEW MATERIALS CO. LTD.HUNTSMAN CORP.ILLINOIS TOOL WORKS INC.INGREDION (NATIONAL STARCH & CHEMICAL CO.)ITW CHEMIN INDIA LTD.ITW DYNATECITW PERFORMANCE POLYMERS & FLUIDS, CHINAJENSEN GLOBAL INC.JOWAT CORP.KISLING AGLOHMANN GMBH & CO. KGLORD CORP.MACTACMAPEI SPAMASTER BOND INC.MOMENTIVE PERFORMANCE MATERIALS INC.MYCRONIC ABNANHAI NANGUANG CHEMICAL & PACKAGE CO. LTD.NICHIBAN CO. LTD.NINGBO LOCKE GLUE INDUSTRY CO. LTD.NINGHAI DINGCHENG ADHESIVE CO. LTD.NITTO DENKO CORP.NORDSON CORP.PARAMELT BVPIDILITE INDUSTRIES LTD.POLYMERIC SYSTEMS INC.POWER ADHESIVES LTD.QUILOSA INDUSTRIAS QUIMICAS LOWENBERG S.L.ROHM AND HAAS CO.ROYAL ADHESIVES & SEALANTS LLCRPM INTL. INC.SCA SCHUCKER GMBH & CO. KGSCOTT BADER COMPANY LTD.SHANGHAI KANGDA NEW MATERIALS CO. LTD.SHURTAPE TECHNOLOGIES LLCSIKA AGSPECIALTY ADHESIVE FILM CO. INC.SUPER GLUE CORP.TECHADHESION SYSTEMS LTD.TESA AGTHREEBOND INTL. INC.TOTAL S.A.UNISEAL INC.VAGNONE & BOERI S.R.L.VALCO MELTONVIBAC GROUP S.P.A.WACKER-CHEMIE AGWISDOM ADHESIVES CO.WUXI WANLI ADHESION MATERIAL CO. LTD.YIWU CITY HENGTUO ADHESIVE ARTICLES CO. LTD.YUYAO MUNICIPAL KEXING ADHESIVE CO. LTD.Report Includes:- An overview of the global as well as regional markets for adhesives and adhesive applying equipment.- Analyses of global market trends, with data from 2016, estimates for 2017, and compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) for the five-year period through 2022.- Discussion of the various technologies involved in the manufacturing of different types of adhesives, including the value of such products produced and utilized globally as well as in different regions.- Coverage of product lifestyle and technology lifestyle (TLC) of various types of adhesives and methods employed by various manufacturers and users in maintaining ecological balance.- Information on various manufacturers of different raw materials needed for the production of adhesives and the market shares of such manufacturers and suppliers.- Analysis of the market's dynamics, specifically growth drivers, inhibitors, and opportunities.- Profiles of major players in the industry.Table of Content: Key PointsChapter 1 IntroductionStudy Goals and ObjectivesReasons for Doing This StudyScope of the ReportInformation SourcesMethodologyGeographic BreakdownAnalyst's CredentialsRelated BCC Research ReportsChapter 2 Summary and HighlightsOverviewGlobal Market for Adhesives and Adhesive-applying EquipmentChapter 3 Technology BackgroundIndustry DefinitionIndustry ConceptsIndustry ImportanceAdhesive TechnologyAdhesive Bonding ApplicationsAdhesive BenefitsContinuedACCESS REPORT @Get in touch:LinkedIn:Twitter:Facebook:Wise Guy Reports understand how essential statistical surveying information is for your organization or association. Therefore, we have associated with the top publishers and research firms all specialized in specific domains, ensuring you will receive the most reliable and up to date research data available. We also provide COTS (Commercial off the Shelf) business sector reports as custom exploration agreeing your particular needs.WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersPune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaWhy cryptocurrency and blockchain technology is best for business?

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Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have taken over the market with their meddle-proof system and decentralized ledger. But did you know that the technology employed cryptocurrencies, blockchain, can also be revolutionise businesses? To understand what can blockchain do for you, first lets understand what is cryptocurrency.Cryptocurrency is a digital currency that uses cryptographic encryption for safe transactions. The new age currency is safer as its transactions are recorded in an electronic ledger that is programmed and incorruptible, known as blockchain technology. The most commonly known cryptocurrency is Bitcoin, but other forms like ethereum and RPAY are also available.The blockchain is an efficient way of keeping track of the cryptocurrency in the market without maintaining a centralized database for the transactions. The cryptography is used to maintain the secrecy of transactions. These features make cryptocurrency ideal for the market but to use it a markerter has to gain a basic understanding of its concept and how to invest in it. Due to high dependency on computer knowledge and volatile nature of its market, an in-depth understanding of blockchain technology is must before start trading in any cryptocurrencies.Blockchain Technology--The blockchain is a software application, which allows the information to be stored in the database but is restricted for any change or deletion with the help of cryptographic encryption. This distributed ledger technology, employed by the blockchain, has become the preferred method of transaction accounting in the commercial market.The blockchain is similar to several day-to-day applications and can easily be understood. A blockchain is a distributed database that allows the complete all-time access to the peers. It is like a spreadsheet that has day-to-day update facility. In blockchain, the information is shared and frequently updated. All the information blocks are connected to each other so that its content can easily be verified. The corruption of the data is ensured with the decentralized content.Blockchain is durable and robust in the sense that information in the blockchain is identical all over the network. The durability proved that it is durable as it existed over 30 years. Since then the technology has developed in a better way. It exists in an environment where it checks at a fixed interval of ten minutes. It has data which is embedded within a network and accessible to the public for access.Blockchain and retail market-Blockchain can help retail chains generate a trust bond between the customer and the transactional route, as it provides verification for each transaction and maintain a database for the transaction all over the network.The digital identity is the authentication code for the verification of the user accessing the database. The other operations of the market like shipping and warranties of the products can also be ensured with the implementation of some of the blockchain technology in the retail market.These features makes blockchain recommended mode of payment system in todays market. Applications like RPAY can help the bridge the gap between cryptocurrencies and retail. RPAY is a revolutionary approach to the retail that can ensure decentralized backend for the peer-to-peer transactions. This reduces the time consumption for the transaction with the reduction in the fees involved.RPAY is developed with a long term goal of making cryptocurrency as the base currency for all transactions in the retail market. For the RPAY the cryptocurrency is R Token which estimates to reduce the overall transactional cost up to 40% of the traditional transactions.This is ethereum based blockchain technology which enables the customers to make easy transactions and expansion of their businesses. RPAY is highly efficient for the e-commerce sector.For retail market, it is estimated to help the companies in the development and ensuring huge profits. Several consumer services and payment services are embedded in the program of RPAY. Tracking is one of the significant features of RPAY and provides a secure delivery of the product as well as transaction.Being an application over blockchain, it is considered as safe, secure and permit transparent transactional platform for all kind of trades.Some trending applications of RPAY include smart contracts, tokens, etc. which speed up the retailing of the product in the market. RPAY is developing several strategies for understanding the need of the market and conducting several introductory programs for introducing RPAY in the market.Cryptocurrencies are ruling the market with their features and secure transactional platforms. The base technology for the transactions ensures the safe and secure transaction with the complete documentation of each transaction. RPAY is one of the latest trending cryptocurrency. It is estimated that the implementation of the cryptocurrency like RPAY in the retail and trade will help in growing the market at massive scale with the reduction in the transactional cost.RPAY (PAY THROUGH CRYPTO)An Efficient Payment System that is Trusted GloballyRPAY is a revolutionary approach in Retail and Trade. It is built on an ecosystem of P2P connected nodes with no servers for transaction authentication, ensuring a completely decentralized backend built over blockchain technology. RPAY leverages web 2.0 to allow users to interact and exchange value directly, eliminating the need for middlemen, which in turn, eliminate fees, overhead restrictions and the inherent delays in transaction and settlement.RPAYs vision is to make cryptocurrency mainstream and achieve widespread adoption by enabling everyone to pay using crypto for retail and services in this Blockchain Era. It aims to do so by providing seamless user experience without the need for a steep learning curve, yet retaining the security, transparency and usability of cryptocurrency. RPAY will allow users to shop for retail products, consumer and professional services, using R Token, which is an inherent cryptocurrency fueling the RPAY platform. The power of community will assist consumers to make verified purchases and save approximately 40% to 60% on transaction costs for products and services they love and use in daily life!PR DEPARTMENTGOLDMINE ADVERTISING LIMITEDOffice:4834/24, 1ST FLOOR, KIRAN MANSION,ANSARI ROAD, DARYAGANJ, NEW DELHI -110002Global Home Security System Market Share, Size, Growth, Trends and Forecast Report 20182023

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The global home security system market has been experiencing a sustained growth over the past several years. This can be accredited to the growing technological advancements and the rising security concerns across the globe.Request a sample report:Home security system is a network of integrated electronic devices designed to detect and defend against burglars and other potential home intruders. It works on a simple principle of securing all entry points by deploying sensors throughout the home which can be monitored by a control panel. A new research report by IMARC Group, titled Home Security System Market: Global Industry Trends, Share, Size, Growth, Opportunity and Forecast 20182023, estimates that the market reached a value of more than US$ 24 Billion in 2017. The report further anticipates the market to cross US$ 36 Billion by 2023, at a projected CAGR of around 9% over the forecast period.Read full report with TOC:Global Home Security System Market Drivers/Constraints:In the recent years, the rise in the crime rates, burglaries, and home invasions have led to increased security concerns among the consumers. This has accelerated the demand for enhanced home security system worldwide.The emergence of smart phones and the advancement in technology such as wireless integration and other smart home features which provide greater flexibility and convenience to the consumers are expected to be the other major drivers propelling the growth of home security system market across the globe.The improvement in network infrastructure, broadband and internet penetration along with the introduction of home automation, service bundling and intelligent building are also contributing towards boosting the market for home security systems.The high installation cost of home security systems and their maintenance has placed the technology out of reach from many consumers, thereby restraining the growth of the global home security system market. Moreover, the low rate of IT literacy, particularly in the under-developed nations is also marring the markets growth.Product Type Insights:On the basis of type, the market is segmented into security cameras, electronic and smart locks, sensors and detectors, alarms, security solutions and DIY home security. Currently, security cameras are the most popular product type, on account of their various advantages such as high video quality, Wi-Fi connectivity, accessibility on Android and iOS devices through apps, and replaceable and rechargeable batteries.Application Insights:Based on application, the market is segregated into the commercial, residential, public and industrial sectors.Regional Insights:Region-wise, the report covers North America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Latin America. Currently, North America represents the largest region due to the availability of low-cost devices and the increasing usage of advanced technologies and digitalization.Competitive Landscape:The market is highly fragmented with the presence of several small and large manufacturers who compete in terms of cost and quality. The innovation in technology and products has led to an intense competition among the leading manufacturers of the market. Some of the key players operating in the market are:Bosch Security Systems, Inc.,Honeywell Security GroupJohnson Controls, Inc.,Assa AbloyUTC Climate Controls & SecurityBrowse related reports:Home Automation System Market Research Report:Home Audio Equipment Market Research Report:About UsIMARC Group is a leading market research company that offers management strategy and market research worldwide. We partner with clients in all sectors and regions to identify their highest-value opportunities, address their most critical challenges, and transform their businesses.IMARCs information products include major market, scientific, economic and technological developments for business leaders in pharmaceutical, industrial, and high technology organizations. Market forecasts and industry analysis for biotechnology, advanced materials, pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, travel and tourism, nanotechnology and novel processing methods are at the top of the companys expertise.Contact usIMARC Group309 2nd St, Brooklyn, NY 11215, USAWebsite:Email: sales@imarcgroup.comUSA: +1-631-791-1145Follow us on twitter: @imarcglobalGlobal Investment Immigration Summit 2018 in India by BLS Global

Global Investment Immigration Summit 2018 in India by BLS Global

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https://events.citizenshipinvestment.org

Diversification of both business and personal affairs through multiple residences can deliver increased quality of life, mobility, security, educational options, and improved tax and estate planning capabilities. WHAT: Global Investment Immigration Summit WHEN: 27th - 28th February 2018 WHERE: JW Marriott, Juhu, Mumbai, India WHY: Global residency and citizenship is an increasingly important aspect of the private and professional life of this new trend of global citizens.Many of the investment options leading to residency and citizenship around the globe are based on investments in real estate, business start-ups. For entrepreneurs and investors from India (MENA), citizenship by investment is appealing because it presents the opportunity to build assets across two or more nations and to diversify their wealth thereby. Also, as investors become more global and travel the world visa-free, they often need to invest in a property or two at their destination of choice.Sam Hussain, Managing Director of BLS Global, commented on the increasing demand for Residency and Citizenship from India. Currently, more than 15.6 million Indian Immigrants were residing abroad, and the market and desire from Indian clients for outbound migration and investment opportunities continues to grow. It is therefore widely recognized that India is in need of a one-stop-shop event outlining all the major immigration programs.Citizenship by investment programmes is becoming increasingly popular among business persons and international families because they genuinely are the insurance policy of the 21st century. The advantages are clear  flexibility, mobility, and the freedom to live and work in an increasingly global environment.Caribbean Citizenship By Investments countries include Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Granada, Grenada St Kitts & Nevis, and St Lucia. The St Kitts and Nevis Citizenship by Investment Programme, the worlds first-ever citizenship by investment programme, has a longstanding reputation for trustworthiness and excellence and is a prime example of the Caribbeans leadership role. The Caribbean is an enticing region to high net worth families, business persons, and world travellers. It is here that physical safety, asset development, and higher mobility is guaranteed.To provide more a better insight Indian investors, agents, brokers, industry players. BLS Global will be organizing the first ever Global Investment Immigration Summit  India, taking place on 27th  28th February 2018 at The Marriott Hotel, Juhu, Mumbai. The event will feature Educational sessions outlining all the major programmes from the Caribbean, Europe, US, Canada. Informative panels will be moderated by the Head of Citizenship/Residency Units, experienced in Immigrant Investor Program. Potential investors and residency seekers are urged to attend and learn more about the global investment immigration programs.The first ever Global Investment Immigration Summit  India is an opportunity to expand your international network in the field of investment immigration.Mr. Sam Hussain, an organizer of GIIS India 2018, said We are helping thousands of people to get ahead in life across different countries. Distinguishing from the disorder and imperfection over the current market, we expertise in getting the right candidates from India, to have face-to-face talkwith potential representatives from Australia, Canada, Cyprus, Caribbean Islands, Germany, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Singapore, Malaysia, Panama, New Zealand, Thailand, Malta, USA, and UK.Speakers ProgrammeIndustry leaders will be present and assist aspirants in the complex decision-making, documentation and application process. We also have a Conference to provide knowledge on specific country programs and discuss directly with the government entities on different programs.Event Speakers Kaisha Ince, Chairman (Grenada Citizenship By Investment Committee) Bruno Lecuyer, Chief Executive (Investment Immigration Council) Ambassador Emmanuel Nanthan (Head of Dominican Citizen by Investment) Les Khan, CEO (Citizenship By Investment Unit, Government of Saint Christopher and Nevis) Ryan Devaux (Chairmen  Citizenship Investment Programme, Saint Lucia) Mona Shah Esq, (MSA Global) Prashant Ajmera, Founder (Prashant Ajmera & Associates) Matt Hogan, Vice President of Project Development (CMB Regional Centers) Manuel Ortiz Vice President, Head of EB 5 Investor Relations Joseph C. LeBas, Jr, President (Concorde EB-5 Advisors, LLC) Mike Fitzpatrick (Baker Tilly) Stefan Taschjian (Stefan Taschjian Law Offices, Immigration Germany)The upcoming Global Investment Immigration Summit  India is also expected to draw the participation of more than 25 exhibitors from 20 countries. DGTLmart will be the India partner for the promotion of the event.BLS Global is a trusted partner in the migration/investment industry.Head quartered in London, UK BLS Global is a highly specialised and established international Multi-Platform media and communications company  they are the renowned leading media experts within the investment-citizenship sector.BLS Global experience and expertise in this sector is underpinned through their industry partnerships and as official publishers of CBI (Citizenship By Investment Magazine) and Trade & Invest in America The EB-5 Gateway. This is a unique publication catering to the UHNWI and Families.In 2018 BLS Global is planning events across India, the UK, and the Middle-East  please keep in touch to collaborate with us on these exciting projects.BLS Global London Office: Unit 5, Hiltongrove N1, 14 Southgate Rd, London N1 3LY, UKTelephone: +44 (0) 207 241 1589Email: marketing@blsmedia.co.ukCompany Website:Event Website:GIIS contact details (India):Email Id: contact@giis18.comPhone No: +91 8700841062 / 8588955455Pheochromocytoma Market To Record Sturdy Growth By 2025

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Pheochromocytoma is an efficient catecholamine-secreting tumor of the adrenal gland medulla. Catecholamines include norepinephrine, epinephrine, and their derivatives. Symptoms of pheochromocytoma include flank skin, elevated heart rate, elevated blood pressure, anxiety, sweating, headache, and weight loss. Within normal limits, norepinephrine and epinephrine hormones are responsible for regulating the blood pressure and heart rate. Excess production of catecholamine due to pheochromocytoma is a reason for high blood pressure with life-threatening and potentially serious difficulties such as stroke and heart attack. Pheochromocytoma occurs most frequently in adults aged between 30 and 60 years. Pheochromocytomas are not life-threatening mostly, but have 10% chances of being cancerous. High blood pressure is the most significant symptom; however, excessive sweating, light-headedness, a fast and pounding pulse when standing, severe headache, rapid breathing, and other symptoms may also occur.The Pheochromocytoma Market can be segmented based on diagnosis, treatment, and region. Based on diagnosis, the market can be segmented into laboratory tests, imaging tests, and genetic testing. Laboratory tests include 24-hour urine test and blood test. These tests help in measuring the levels of noradrenaline, adrenaline, and byproducts of these hormones in the patients body. Furthermore, imaging tests include computed tomography (CT) scan, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), M-iodobenzylguanidine (MIBG) imaging, and positron emission tomography (PET). Genetic testing includes profiles of plasma catecholamine metabolites in patients with hereditary pheochromocytoma. Based on treatment, the pheochromocytoma market has been segmented into medications and surgery. Medications include Beta blockers that decrease the heart rate and reduce the blood pressure and antihypertensive drugs that lower the blood pressure. Moreover, surgery includes adrenalectomy, which is surgical removal of one or both the adrenal glands.Request to View Brochure of Report -Based on geography, the global pheochromocytoma market can be segmented into four major regions: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of World. North America dominates the global pheochromocytoma market, followed by Europe. Key factors driving the market in these two regions are growing awareness about malignant effects of tumor among the people and availability of sophisticated and technologically advanced treatment options in these regions. According to Clinical Key, a health care website by Elsevier, Inc., the prevalence of tumor is estimated to be around 2 cases per 100,000 individuals in the U.S. every year. Around 5% of adrenal incidentalomas are pheochromocytomas. Studies have also shown that about 25% of them are hereditary. Hence, increasing expertise in gene therapy may also help in curbing the cancer growth. Advancements in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer are likely to add to product offerings in the near future.The prevalence of cancer is increasing in developing countries. Thus, cost-effective treatment options are likely to witness high demand in these countries. According to an article published by Progenics Pharmaceuticals Inc., the number of patients in the U.S. is around 4000 to 6000 currently, with less than 1000 new cases diagnosed in 2016. Additionally, unhealthy lifestyle habits such as smoking and drinking are contributing to growth of the pheochromocytoma market in North America. Asia Pacific is one of the most promising markets for pheochromocytoma, as the region is developing rapidly. Furthermore, presence of emerging economies and easy penetration of the market in developing countries in Asia would drive the pheochromocytoma market in Asia Pacific in the near future.Several pharmaceutical companies are currently developing therapeutic treatments to reduce the malignant effects of the pheochromocytoma. Some of the top players operating in the global pheochromocytoma market are Exelixis, Inc., MediaPharma s.r.l., Pfizer Inc., Progenics Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc.Pre-Book Full Report -About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Human Combination Vaccines Market To Develop Rapidly By 2025

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A combination vaccine is designed to provide protection against two or more diseases or against single disease caused by completely different or similar organism. A combination vaccine also boosts the immune system to fight against infection. These vaccines contain two or more antigens that are either combined in ready form or mixed before administration. Safety, efficacy, and immunogenicity of a combined immunizing agent are high.Based on vaccine type, The Global Human Combination Vaccines Market can be segmented into inactivated vaccine and live attenuated vaccines. High acceptance of inactivated vaccine among physicians is attributed to strong growth of the segment. Moreover, inactivated vaccine is stable and can easily be stored and transported in freeze-dried form. In terms of end-user, the human combination vaccines market can be segmented into hospitals, clinics, and others. Hospitals is the leading segment of the market due to increase in government awareness and initiation of different programs for immunization against various diseases.Additionally, hospitals are preferred by both patients and physicians as these are modernized with all types of vaccines. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), vaccination has reduced the global weight of contagious ailment to a great extent. Low risk of side effects related to vaccines is leading to a positive response from numerous demographics and growing alertness regarding vaccination by several government and non-profit organizations are the key factors driving the human combination vaccines market. Vaccine manufacturers are working toward advancement of existing vaccines as well as development of novel vaccines. Moreover, combination vaccines reduce the cost of extra health care visits. However, manufacturers have to be encouraged to invest extensive capital and undergo rigorous regulatory approval processes for the development and approval of latest vaccines. Handling, storage, and transportation of vaccines incurs significant costs which can hamper the growth of the market.Request to View Brochure of Report -In terms of geography, the global human combination vaccines market can be segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa region. North America is the leading market for combination vaccines due to rise in demand for vaccination among adults and children. Moreover, government efforts towards the different vaccination programs especially for the children add fuel to the North America market. The market in Asia Pacific is expected to witness the strongest growth. Prevalence of various diseases such as polio, flu, and rotavirus, and government efforts toward immunization boost the growth of the market.Moreover, China is likely to dominate the human combination vaccines market in the region during the forecast period owing to a large population base and growing government support for vaccination. Europe is also a significant market for human combination vaccines due to well-developed health care infrastructure and increased spending on health. According to the World Health Organization, over 40% of children from sub-Saharan Africa have not received the required three doses of diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccine and demand for vaccination is increasing to address the unmet need. These factors are likely to augment the human combination vaccines market in Middle East & Africa during the forecast period.Major players operating in the global human combination vaccines market are GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Sanofi, Sun Pharmaceuticals, Takeda Pharmaceutical, Bavarian Nordic, and Pfizer, Inc.Pre-Book Full Report -About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Gonorrhea Therapeutics Market To Be At Forefront By 2025

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Gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted disease (STD) caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhea. It tends to infect urethra, vagina, anus, and other sexual organs; even eye or throat area may be affected sometimes. Gonorrhea passes from one person to another due to unprotected sexual practices or persons who have multiple sexual partners.The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that the global incidence of gonorrhea increased from 87.7 million in 2005 to 106.1 million in 2008. An article published by Newman et al (2015) estimated the global prevalence of gonorrhea at 0.8% among women aged 15 years to 49 years and 0.6% among men in the same age group in 2012. Rise in new cases of gonorrhea, public awareness about the disease, high rate of diagnosis, high risk of complications, novel therapeutic options, and government regulations about antibiotic uses are the major drivers of The Global Gonorrhea Therapeutics Market. However, antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea is a growing concern among physicians.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends two types of therapy for gonorrhea: mono therapy (single dose of 2g oral azithromycin) and dual therapy (single dose of 250 mg of ceftriaxone and 1g of azithromycin). Babies born to mothers with gonorrhea receive a medication in their eyes immediately after birth. Based on therapy, the global gonorrhea therapeutics market can be segmented into mono therapy and dual therapy. In terms of route of administration, the market can be categorized into enteral, parenteral, and topical.Based on distribution channel, the global gonorrhea therapeutics market can be classified into hospital pharmacies, retail pharmacies, and online sales. The numbers of retail pharmacies are increasing with the growing number of registered pharmacists who can dispense antibacterial drugs for gonorrhea treatment. On the other hand, the hospital pharmacies witness small growth in revenue due to the consolidations (joint venture, merger and acquisitions) among hospitals.Request to View Brochure of Report -The global gonorrhea therapeutics market can be segmented into five major regions: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa, and Latin America. According to the CDC, around 468,514 cases of gonorrhea were reported in the U.S. in 2016, with a rate of 145.8 cases per 100,000. More significantly, the disease is not prevalent in any specific age group. Ontario, Canada reported 30% increase in gonorrhea affected patients between 2013 and 2015. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) indicated that 66,413 cases of gonorrhea were registered in Europe in 2016. The same organization also revealed that the U.K., Ireland, and Denmark reported higher number of confirmed cases, although Eastern Europe exhibited higher prevalence of gonorrhea due to low public awareness.According to the International Journal of Infectious Disease, in 2014, the annual incidence of gonorrhea was 4.0 to 27.3 per 1,000 in Asia. Latin America represented a higher rate of gonorrhea cases at 27.9 per 1,000, while Africa exhibited highest rate of gonorrhea (63.3 per 1,000 population). Lack of diagnosis and treatment, inadequate public awareness, and insufficient health care infrastructure are the key factors for high rate of gonorrhea in Sub-Saharan Africa. Conservative culture and improved health care facilities in countries in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia and Israel lower the prevalence of gonorrhea affected victims.Key players in the global gonorrhea therapeutics market are Bharat Pharmaceuticals, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck Millipore, Pfizer, Entasis Therapeutics, Inc., and Melinta Therapeutics among others. Zoliflodacin is a novel antibiotic drug for the treatment of uncomplicated gonorrhea which will be launched through a collaborative efforts of Entasis Therapeutics and the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership. Melinta Therapeutics delivered a prospect of another novel antibiotic agent RX-P2177 to treat gonorrhea in July, 2017.Pre-Book Full Report -About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:SMB Telecom Voice and Data Services Market in the US Expected To Grow At CAGR Of 6.36% Between Years 2017-2021

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"The Latest Research Report SMB Telecom Voice and Data Services Market in the US 2017-2021 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"The SMB telecom voice and data services market in the US saw an increased number of subscribers in 2016. This is the only sector that touches technology-related businesses and offers services such as wireless communication, fiber optics, the Internet, and satellites to the US enterprise segment. The SMB segment of the US enterprises relies heavily on such services.Technavios analysts forecast the SMB telecom voice and data services market in the US to grow at a CAGR of 6.36% during the period 2017-2021.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the SMB telecom voice and data services market in the US for 2017-2021. The report presents a detailed picture of the market by way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources.Get Sample Copy of this report @Technavio's report, SMB Telecom Voice and Data Services Market in the US 2017-2021, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendorsAT&TT-MobileVerizonOther prominent vendorsCenturyLinkComcastConvergiaSprintTelePacificUS CellularWindstream CommunicationsMarket driverDemand of quality over voice services in USFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challengeIntense competition from OTT VoIP servicesFor a full, detailed list, view our reportBrowse Complete Report with TOC @Market trendUpcoming 5G networkFor a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this reportWhat will the market size be in 2021 and what will the growth rate be?What are the key market trends?What is driving this market?What are the challenges to market growth?Who are the key vendors in this market space?You can request one free hour of our analysts time when you purchase this market report. Details are provided within the report.Table of ContentsPART 01: Executive summaryPART 02: Scope of the reportPART 03: Research MethodologyPART 04: IntroductionMarket outlinePART 05: Evolution of 3G and 4G network3G (mobile broadband revolution)Comparison of 3G and Enhanced Data for GSM Evolution (EDGE)4G (LTE-Advanced)Proliferation of IoT in industrial landscapePART 06: Market landscapeMarket overviewMarket size and forecastFive forces analysisView Sample PDF @PART 07: Market segmentation by productBroadband connectionsBundled Internet and telephone servicesPART 08: Decision frameworkPART 09: Drivers and challengesMarket driversMarket challengesPART 10: Market trendsUpcoming 5G networkEmergence of next-generation wireless networksGrowing popularity of IoTIncorporation of VoLTE with VoWi-FiRising adoption of LTE technologyPART 11: Vendor landscapeCompetitive scenarioPART 12: Key carriersAT&TT-MobileVerizonOther prominent carriersBuy Now This Report From Here @About usMarketResearchReports.biz is the most comprehensive collection of market research reports. MarketResearchReports.Biz services are specially designed to save time and money for our clients. We are a one stop solution for all your research needs, our main offerings are syndicated research reports, custom research, subscription access and consulting services. We serve all sizes and types of companies spanning across various industries.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.bizMultifunctional Food Ingredients Market Projected to Grow Steadily During 2015-2025

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Food ingredients are used in food manufacturing industry to get desired product quality. Multifunctional food ingredients is defined as, ingredients which are used to replace gums, gluten, fats and other expensive ingredients. These ingredients ensures food safety and enhances shelf life, increases product yield, maintains taste, texture and appearance. In meat and poultry industry, multifunctional ingredients are used to provide safety of production during storage, to increase firmness of products, and also provide optimum indicators of rheological and thermodynamic characteristics, it helps to achieve the improved consistence and moisture holding ability of finished goods. Oat derived multifunctional ingredients are used in bakery products to extend shelf life as it hinders the moisture migration. It also helps to improves volume and yield, enhances texture and improves nutritional value of finished products. Multifunctional food ingredient are also derived from food grade yeast and it is used to improve the flavour of fat reduced salad dressings which are pourable and this addition reduces the acid bite of added vinegar. The addition yeast extract results in a smoother and balanced flavour. Addition of multifunctional ingredient does not increases viscosity.Multifunctional Food Ingredients Market: SegmentationMultifunctional food ingredients are segmented on the basis of ingredient type, applications and region. On the basis of ingredient type, multifunctional food ingredients market is segmented as flavours and emulsions, yeast extracts, oat extracts, bulking agents, fibers, hydrocolloids, and others (dairy powders). Among these segments hydrocolloids is expected to grow during forecast period. Multifunctional fibers are made from fruits and vegetable peal and pulp are used to replace expensive ingredients such as eggs, oil and pectin. With increasing application of bulking agents, this segment is expected to show fastest growth in near future. Multifunctional food ingredients market is segmented on the basis of application type, includes dairy product, bakery and confectionery products, meat and poultry, dessert and toppings, and processed food products. Among these segments meat and poultry represents the mature market and expected to be dominant during forecast period. Multifunctional food ingredients are used in confectionery products to increase flavor intensity and taste enhancement and it ensures product stability during shelf life. Multifunctional flaxseed ingredients are used as gum replacer in cereal products such as tortillas, gluten-free products, pizza crusts, sheeted dough, batters and breads.Request For Report Sample:Multifunctional Food Ingredients Market: Region-wise OutlookMultifunctional food ingredients market is segmented on the basis of region includes North America, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Japan and Middle East and Africa. North America and Europe are established markets for multifunctional food ingredients. With increasing demands for processed food and ready-to-eat products, multifunctional food ingredients market is expected to register healthy CAGR during forecast period.Multifunctional Food Ingredients Market: DriversConsumers demand for clean label products and natural ingredients are major drivers for multifunctional food ingredient market. As companies are launching new ingredient blends with all natural ingredients which can be used to improve product quality without processing loss. In early 2015, Corbian launched new range of multifunctional food ingredients for meat and poultry products. Many companies are launching new products to fulfill the different gender specific requirements. For instance, in 2015 NutraGenesis LLC launched functional ingredient called Sensara which can be used in foods and beverages and it provides wellness benefits to nourish and protect a womans mind and body. Marine sources are used as a raw material for multifunctional food ingredients, algae is most commonly used because of its oil content, fiber content and the small particle size. Algal flour acts as multifunctional food ingredients and it can be used in bakery products such as breads, dough products, dressing, sauces and nutritional beverages.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Multifunctional Food Ingredients Market: Key PlayersThe key international players operating in multifunctional food ingredients market includes AlgaVia, Arla Foods Ingredients, Ashland Inc., Butter Buds Inc., E & R Food Ingredients B.V., Florida Food, Inc., Fiberstar, Inc., Z Trim Holdings, Inc., NutraGenesis LLC., Glanbia Nutritionals, Solazyme and many others.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Abhishek Bhudoliya616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:Cone Beam Computed Tomography Market: Popular Trends & Technological Advancements to Watch Out for Near Future 2023

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According to the research report published by Transparency Market Research (TMR), the opportunity in the global CBCT market was worth US$407.5 mn in 2014. However, analysts predict that the valuation of this market will be worth US$960.8 mn by 2023 as it expands at a steady CAGR of 10.0% between 2015 and 2023.Rising Pool of Geriatrics to Determine Market GrowthStatistics published by the United Nations Population Division in 2013 suggested that the aging population is anticipated to reach 2 billion by the end of 2050 from 841 million in 2013. This whopping rise is likely to be the basic premise ushering in a new wave of growth for the CBCT technologies across the globe. The dental complications of the aged people are going to increase the demand for sophisticated imaging techniques in dentistry, thereby propelling the revenues earned by these technologies in the coming few years. This growth will also be complemented by factors such as the need for effectiveness in medical interventions and result-oriented research and development activities.Read Report Overview:Heavy Excise Duties Hamper MarketThe tough excise duty imposed on the sale of medical devices across the U.S. is an unfair constraint for the CBCT market. The high cost of utilizing this technology is also holding back several institutes and healthcare centers to use CBCT technologies. TMR analyst says, The adamancy to stick with conventional methods instead of adopting new-age technologies is also hampering the growth of the CBCT technologies across the world.Developing Nations Open Up Growth OptionsAnalysts predict that strengthening economies of Mexico, Brazil, China, and India will offer a score of opportunities to the overall CBCT market to grow in the near future. Furthermore, the increasing healthcare expenditure of these countries is also going to play a major role in the surge of this market. The improving disposable incomes of Asia Pacific are also going to contribute generously to the CBCT market in the coming years.Request to view Sample Report:The report published by Transparency Market Research states that the opportunity in the global CBCT market will be worth US$ 960.8 mn by the end of 2023. As of 2014, the market was valued at US$407.5 mn. However, the market will expand at a CAGR of 10.0% between 2015 and 2023. The report also suggests that oral surgery will be fastest-growing application segment promoting the use of CBCT technology. As of 2015, this application segment held a share of 26.4% in the overall market. Regionally, North America held a share of 41.4% in the total of CBCT market in 2015. The soaring demand for dental procedures is expected to keep this region as the leading geographical segment in the coming years.The trend in the global cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) indicates that players must invest in developing countries to cater to consumers unmet medical demands and attain bigger revenue shares, says Transparency Market Research in a new report. Danaher, Planmeca, and Sirona jointly held a massive share of 70% in the global market in 2015.Buy Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) Market Research Report:Analysts have identified Asia Pacific as the most promising region for growth in the coming few years. Furthermore, leading players are also focusing on strategic mergers and acquisitions to expand their product portfolio and their access to the customers.About us:Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a U.S.-based provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:High Potency Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient Market: Popular Trends & Technological Advancements to Watch Out for Near Future 2023

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The vendor landscape of the global high potency active pharmaceutical ingredient (HPAPI) market is highly fragmented due to presence of a large number of players. Some of the prominent players in this market are WuXi AppTec, Pfizer, Inc., Novartis AG, Lonza Group, Novasep, Dr. Reddys Laboratories Ltd., Cambrex Corporation, and Sigma-Aldrich Corporation. Transparency Market Research has estimated that the individual revenue share of these players range between 3% and 4% of the overall market. These players are focusing on cost containment to sustain their profit margins. Furthermore, various companies in this market are involving in strategic partnerships to remain significant occupant and gain the first-mover advantage in the market.Transparency Market Research has estimated that the HPAPI market valued at US$2.64 bn in 2014 and expected to reach US$25.11 bn by 2023, while exhibiting a steady CAGR 8.3% during the forecast period 2015-2023.Read Report Overview:Regionally, Asia Pacific is expected to show significant opportunities to the market due to soaring contract manufacturing activities in the region. Within this region, Japan contributes the leading share. However, due to supportive foreign exchange policies, well-equipped manufacturing plants, and low labor costs, China is expected to surpass Japans total revenue in the forthcoming years.Extensive Research and Development Aimed at Cost-efficiency to accelerate the Market GrowthThe high potency active pharmaceutical ingredient market is expected to grow exponentially over the next few years due to rising cases of diabetes, cancer, and various cardiovascular diseases and the booming ongoing oncology research. The cost of drugs have been reduced due the cost containment strategies followed by the players in this market. This has in turn made these drugs more affordable to a larger audience. This trend has boosted the market and is expected to help the market grow in the coming years. Furthermore, promising pipeline of targeted therapeutic drugs is most likely to add advantage to the market growth. Without any lingering after effects, these drugs help patients to impact targeted areas and recover faster. Continuous development and research going on in mimic branded drugs are envisioned to create cost-effective treatments, further accelerating the growth of the market.Request Sample of Report :Post treatment effects of chemotherapy such as infection to non-cancerous cells are motivating numerous health facilities to adopt targeted therapy as they do not harm non-cancerous cells. This trend is expected to fuel the market growth during the forecast period. HPAPI are extensively used in hormonal drugs that are used for treatment of breast cancer. The other prominent applications of HPAPI is for the treatment of glaucoma. The increasing incidences of glaucoma is most likely to poise to the growth of the market. Applications of HPAPIs in musculoskeletal drugs, central nervous system drugs, and cardiovascular drugs are increasing adding benefits to growth of the market.High Labor Cost for Drug Manufacturing Could Impede Market GrowthThe capital intensive nature of manufacturing activities of high potency active pharmaceutical ingredient have been a major subject of concern for the players in this market. Furthermore, the manufacturing of these drugs need highly skilled labors, which could increase the labor cost hence the cost of the pharmaceutical ingredient. This can act as a restraining factor for growth of the market. In addition, the absence of norms pertaining to environmental, health, and occupational safety while manufacturing and researching potency APIs is threatening the market growth.Buy High Potency Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient Market Research Report:Nevertheless, the increasing incidence of cancer are expected to help the market sustain its growth. The escalating occurrence of cancer have augmented the research and development activities in healthcare sectors of various regions such Asia Pacific and North America. This has resulted in the increased demand for effective anticancer drugs, assisting growth of the high potency active pharmaceutical ingredient market.About us:Transparency Market Research (TMR) is a U.S.-based provider of syndicated research, customized research, and consulting services. TMRs global and regional market intelligence coverage includes industries such as pharmaceutical, chemicals and materials, technology and media, food and beverages, and consumer goods, among others. Each TMR research report provides clients with a 360-degree view of the market with statistical forecasts, competitive landscape, detailed segmentation, key trends, and strategic recommendations.Contact us:Transparency Market Research90 State Street,Suite 700,AlbanyNY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Building Management System Market 2017-2024: Global Report Size, Market Share, Application Analysis, Growth Trends and Top Key Players (ABB Group, BuildingIQ, C3 Energy)

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Building Management Systems (BMS) or building automation systems (BAS) are computer based control systems installed in buildings, which monitor and control the buildings electrical and mechanical equipment such as security system, fire system, power system, lighting and ventilation.Data Bridge Market Research provides new industry report Global Building Management System Market" accounted to USD 54.0 billion in 2016 growing at a CAGR of 11.0% during the forecast period of 2017 to 2024.Click Here for Sample Report Visit @Major Market Competitors of Global Building Management System MarketSome of the major players operating in Building Management System Market are Johnson Controls International PLC, Honeywell International Inc., Siemens AG, Schneider Electric SE, United Technologies Corp., IBM Corporation, Ingersoll-Rand PLC, Delta Controls, Crestron Electronics, Inc., Distech Controls Inc., Gridpoint, Inc., Bosch Security, Bajaj Electricals Among others.In 2017, Honeywell launched new particle sensor designed to help building owners and consumers monitor the air for potentially harmful particulate contaminants caused by dust, soot and smoke.Request for Table of Content @Market Segmentation of Global Building Management System MarketOn the basis of software the Building Management System Market is segmented into Facility Management, Security Management, Energy Management, Emergency Management, and Infrastructure Management. The Energy Management market is expected to grow in the forecasted period.The Facility management is further divided into Lighting Control, HVAC Control. The Lighting control market is expected to grow in the forecasted period.The Security management is further divided into Video Surveillance, Access Control. The Access control market is expected to grow in the forecasted period.On the basis of services type the Building Management System Market is segmented into Professional Services, Managed Services. The Managed service market is expected to grow in the forecasted period.On the basis of application the Building Management System Market is segmented into Residential, Commercial, and Industrial. The Industrial market is expected to grow in the forecasted period.This report also presents Building Management System product specification, manufacturing process, and product cost structure etc. Production is separated by regions, technology and applications. In the end, the report includes Building Management System new project SWOT analysis, investment feasibility analysis, investment return analysis, and development trend analysis.Read more about Global Building Management System Market Report Visit @Related ReportGlobal Medical Aesthetics Market  Industry Trends and Forecast to 2024Global Medical Aesthetic Market, By Product Type (Aesthetic Laser Devices, Energy Devices, Skin Tightening and Body Contouring Devices, Aesthetic Implants, Facial Aesthetic Devices), By Applications (Anti Aging and Wrinkles, Facial & Skin Rejuvenation, Vascular Lesions, Body shaping & cellulite, Breast Enhancement, Scars, Pigment Lesions, Reconstructive Surgery, Tattoo Removal, Hair Removal, Psoriasis & Vitilgo, Skin Surgery, Skin Tightening), By End-User (Hospitals , Dermatology Clinics, Cosmetic Centers, Medical Spas & Beauty Center), By Distribution Channel (Direct Tenders, Retail), By Geography (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa)  Industry Trends and Forecast to 2024Report Access:About Data Bridge Market Research:Data Bridge Market Research set forth itself as an unconventional and neoteric Market research and consulting firm with unparalleled level of resilience and integrated approaches. We are determined to unearth the best market opportunities and foster efficient information for your business to thrive in the market. Data Bridge endeavors to provide appropriate solutions to the complex business challenges and initiates an effortless decision-making process.Contact:Vishal DixitData Bridge Market ResearchTel: +1-888-387-2818Email: Sales@databridgemarketresearch.comInvestor: investors@databridgemarketresearch.comVisit Blog:Follow us on LinkedIn:Coagulation Analyzers Market to Surge to US$ 13.17 Billion by 2025

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The Global Coagulation Analyzers Market, By Product Type (Analyzers (Clinical Laboratory Analyzers, Point of Care Analyzers) and Consumables (Reagents & Kits, Point-of-care strips), By Test Type (Activated Partial Thromboplastin Time Test, Prothrombin Time Test, D-Dimer Test, Fibrinogen Test, and Other Coagulation Tests), and By End User (Hospitals, Diagnostic Laboratories, Research Institutes, and Others) was valued at US$ 2,481.78 million in 2017 and is projected to exhibit a CAGR of 9.7% over the forecast period (20172025), as highlighted in a new report published by Coherent Market Insights.Request Sample Copy of the Report:Coagulation analyzers are used in diagnosis of bleeding disorders and thrombotic cases. The presence of coagulation analyzers these days are fully automated infuse with several advanced features to perform various functions such as cap piercing, primary tube sampling, dilution and automatic rerun. This ultimately, lowers total cost, improves the quality of patient care and assures regulatory compliance in the clinical laboratory. Instrumentation Laboratory  a Werfen companys product  ACL TOP Family 50 series is designed for mid- to high-volume clinical laboratories, which offers the most advanced automation and quality management, for routine to specialty assays, including clotting, chromogenic, and immunological assays. These devices are highly sensitivity and offers accurate information and results thus, boosting the market growth of the coagulation analyzers over the forecast period.Browse 22 Market Data Tables and 28 Figures spread through 150 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Coagulation Analyzers Market, by Product Type (Analyzers (Clinical Laboratory Analyzers, Point of Care Analyzers) and Consumables (Reagents & Kits, Point-of-care strips), by Test Type (Activated Partial Thromboplastin Time Test, Prothrombin Time Test, D-Dimer Test, Fibrinogen Test and Other Coagulation Tests) and by End User (Hospitals, Diagnostic Laboratories, Research Institutes and Others) - Global Forecast to 2025"Companies are focusing on developing next generation diagnostic analyzers to help to improve specificity, accuracy, and overall productivity without making the test expensive. They are developing portable and small sized analyzers, in order to enhance their market share. These innovative analyzers offer the same results in less turnaround time making them hassle free and feasible for the operators. For instance, in July 2017, Sysmex America, Inc. launched its XN-L automated hematology analyzers in the U.S. to meet the demand of lower-volume hematology analyzers. Moreover, in 2014, Siemens Healthineers product Xprecia Stride Coagulation Analyzer  a handheld device  received U.S. FDA approval for reliable monitoring of oral anticoagulation therapy with warfarin, a vitamin K antagonist. Moreover, in 2015, this same analyzer, received the Red Dot award for its design quality. The Red Dot Award is the largest and most recognized international product competition in the world for product design quality. These factors are expected to augment growth of the coagulation analyzers market over the forecast period.Key players in the market are also engaged in strategic acquisitions and collaborations to increase their product portfolios and to introduce new platform technologies. For instance, in January 2012, Roche entered into a strategic alliance with Technoclone  a reagent specialist in thrombosis and cardiovascular diagnostics based in Vienna, Austria  to further expand the companys reagent portfolio in coagulation diagnostics. This in turn, will help the Roche to retain the market share in in-vitro diagnostics. Furthermore, in August 2015, Abbott Laboratories entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Omnilab  a middleware provider for clinical diagnostics and blood transfusion laboratories  to expand lab offerings to international markets outside the U.S.Ask for customization:Key Takeaways of the Coagulation Analyzers Market:The global coagulation analyzers market is expected to exhibit a CAGR of 9.7% over the forecast period (20172025). This is attributed to increasing adoption of these devices, as it provides accurate results in low turnaround time.Among product types, clinical laboratory analyzers segment is expected to account for the largest share in the global coagulation analyzers market over the forecast period. This is attributed to increasing use of these devices in hospitals for hematological analysis of patients on a daily basis.Among test types, prothrombin test segment accounted for the largest share in 2016, and this is owing to increasing incidence of cardiovascular and blood related diseases. According to Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), 2014, annually, 790,000 people in the U.S. suffer from heart attack, which indicates a potential need for immediate diagnosis and need for the early treatmentPrevailing trend of outsourcing hemostasis tests to diagnostic centers for quick reports is expected to be factor for growth of the diagnostic laboratories segment over the forecast period.Some of the major players in the global coagulation analyzers market are Siemens AG, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Instrumentation Laboratory, Sysmex Corporation, Beckman Coulter, Inc. (Danaher), Diamond Diagnostics, International Technidyne Corporation, Nihon Kohden Corporation, and Alere Inc.To know the latest trends and insights related to coagulation analyzers market, click the link below:About Coherent Market Insights:Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.Contact Us:Mr. ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email: sales@coherentmarketinsights.comVisit our news Website:Europe feed Mycotoxin Binders Market to witness commendable progressions over 2017-2024, primarily driven by a favorable regulatory framework

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Feed mycotoxin binders market, over the recent years, has been exhibiting an encouraging growth potential owing to the worldwide rise in consumption of meat products coupled with the increased consumer inclination toward safe and healthy food. Furthermore, the recent spurt in instances of livestock based ailments caused by contaminated feed ingredients have necessitated a wide scale usage of feed binders to lower the toxic effects. Reportedly, these binders prevent contamination of compound feeds and animal feed ingredients by toxic metabolite moulds known as secondary metabolites. The increased usage of these binders is bound to contribute toward the swift expansion of feed mycotoxin binders industry share across the globe. According to estimates, the global feed mycotoxin binders market share exceeded USD 130 million in 2016, in terms of revenue.Stringent regulatory frameworks across the globe to boost feed mycotoxin binders market expansion:While elaborating further on the growth prospects of feed mycotoxin binders industry, it is quite imperative to take note of the regulations set forth by various governmental and safety agencies across the globe. The major regulations prescribed by these authorities are directed toward standardizing meat and poultry products by mandating the usage of toxin binders and other feed additives. Furthermore, the rising prevalence of antibiotic resistance in animals across the world has compelled the regulatory agencies to lay down strict guidelines in a bid to regulate the usage of antibacterial growth promoters and antibiotic medicines. Enumerated below are a few prominent instances highlighting government regulations, that would assist in augmenting the revenue graph of the global feed mycotoxin binders industry:If the recent news reports are to be believed, the European Commission is making a concerted effort to standardize the medicated feed and set long-term antibiotic targets for the overall animal health and welfare. It has been focusing on two major regulations namely Medicated Feed Regulations and Veterinary Medicines Regulations, which are currently being reviewed by the Commission which underlines the importance of European Unions feed mycotoxin binders industry share. Elaborating further, Medicated Feed Regulations would aim to update the prevailing government controls that oversee medicated feed manufacturing and examine the concerns pertaining to antimicrobial resistance. On the other hand, Veterinary Medicines Regulations would intend to streamline the existing regulatory procedure to aid easy availability of veterinary medicines across Europe. As per estimates, Europe feed mycotoxin binders market is estimated to surpass USD 100 million by 2024.Get a Sample Copy of this Report:@Recently, Animal Health Australia (AHA), a not-for-profit company has released Australian Animal Welfare Standards and Guidelines for Poultry for public consultation. The draft is being touted as a significant move as it aims to overhaul the prevailing voluntary arrangement to national regulation, ensuring poultry welfare in Australia. Speaking along similar lines, global feed mycotoxin binders market size from poultry applications is estimated to surpass USD 120 million by 2024. It would be prudent to mention that the draft has been reportedly developed by AHA in partnership with the Australian government, welfare organizations, foremost livestock industry associations, and other stakeholders to curtail the emergence of new diseases, enhance animal health, and nurture the integrity and resilience of the nations animal health system. Needless to say, such dynamic and proactive measures from all concerned parties shall favorably influence the regional feed mycotoxin binders market progression.The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), an autonomous agency under the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, has recently notified amendments to the Food Safety and Standards Regulations, 2011. The amendment aims to prescribe the maximum limit while utilizing 37 antibiotics and 67 other veterinary drugs in meat, particularly chicken, as the residue of antibiotics in food from animal sources pose grave threat to human health, given that the residues may develop antibiotic resistance.Considering the above declarations, the prominent feed mycotoxin binders industry players such as Alltech, Bentoli, Selko, Visscher Holland, and Biomin among others are anticipated to incorporate advanced methods to strengthen their production capability and expand their distribution networks to stay relevant in this moderately concentrated business sphere. Apparently, the global feed mycotoxin binders market is forecast to surpass a total revenue of USD 250 million by 2024, claims a recent report collated by Global Market Insights, Inc.Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb:Blog:Connect with us: Facebook | Google+ | LinkedIn | TwitterMedical Spa Software Market 2018 Size, Share, Development Status, Type and Application, Segmentation, Forecast by 2025

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This report studies the global Medical Spa Software market, analyzes and researches the Medical Spa Software development status and forecast in United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia. This report focuses on the top players in global market, likeAcuity SchedulingYou'reOnTimeSimpleSpaOrchid Spa SoftwareBookeoReservioCHIDESKMassageBookElite Salon & Spa ManagementMilano MediAdvantagemSPARequest a Sample Report @Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEUJapanChinaIndiaSoutheast AsiaMarket segment by Application, Medical Spa Software can be split intoSmall Businesses and Individual ProfessionalsMidsize BusinessesLarge EnterprisesIf you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Table of ContentsGlobal Medical Spa Software Market Size, Status and Forecast 20251 Industry Overview of Medical Spa Software1.1 Medical Spa Software Market Overview1.1.1 Medical Spa Software Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Medical Spa Software Market Size and Analysis by Regions (2013-2018)1.2.1 United States1.2.2 EU1.2.3 Japan1.2.4 China1.2.5 India1.2.6 Southeast Asia1.3 Medical Spa Software Market by End Users/Application1.3.1 Small Businesses and Individual Professionals1.3.2 Midsize Businesses1.3.3 Large Enterprises2 Global Medical Spa Software Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Medical Spa Software Market Size (Value) by Players (2013-2018)2.2 Competitive Status and Trend2.2.1 Market Concentration Rate2.2.2 Product/Service Differences2.2.3 New Entrants2.2.4 The Technology Trends in Future3 Company (Top Players) Profiles3.1 Acuity Scheduling3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 Medical Spa Software Revenue (Million USD) (2013-2018)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 You'reOnTime3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.2.4 Medical Spa Software Revenue (Million USD) (2013-2018)3.2.5 Recent Developments3.3 SimpleSpa3.3.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.3.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.3.4 Medical Spa Software Revenue (Million USD) (2013-2018)3.3.5 Recent Developments3.4 Orchid Spa Software3.4.1 Company Profile3.4.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.4.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.4.4 Medical Spa Software Revenue (Million USD) (2013-2018)3.4.5 Recent Developments3.5 Bookeo3.5.1 Company Profile3.5.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.5.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.5.4 Medical Spa Software Revenue (Million USD) (2013-2018)3.5.5 Recent Developments3.6 Reservio3.6.1 Company Profile3.6.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.6.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.6.4 Medical Spa Software Revenue (Million USD) (2013-2018)3.6.5 Recent Developments3.7 CHIDESK3.7.1 Company Profile3.7.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.7.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.7.4 Medical Spa Software Revenue (Million USD) (2013-2018)3.7.5 Recent Developments3.8 MassageBook3.8.1 Company Profile3.8.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.8.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.8.4 Medical Spa Software Revenue (Million USD) (2013-2018)3.8.5 Recent Developments3.9 Elite Salon & Spa Management3.9.1 Company Profile3.9.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.9.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.9.4 Medical Spa Software Revenue (Million USD) (2013-2018)3.9.5 Recent Developments3.10 Milano Medi3.10.1 Company Profile3.10.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.10.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.10.4 Medical Spa Software Revenue (Million USD) (2013-2018)3.10.5 Recent Developments3.11 Advantage3.12 mSPA4 Global Medical Spa Software Market Size by Application (2013-2018)4.1 Global Medical Spa Software Market Size by Application (2013-2018)4.2 Potential Application of Medical Spa Software in Future4.3 Top Consumer/End Users of Medical Spa Software5 United States Medical Spa Software Development Status and Outlook5.1 United States Medical Spa Software Market Size (2013-2018)5.2 United States Medical Spa Software Market Size and Market Share by Players (2013-2018)5.3 United States Medical Spa Software Market Size by Application (2013-2018)ContinuedMake an enquiry of this Report @ABOUT US:Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe. Wise Guy Reports features an exhaustive list of market research reports from hundreds of publishers worldwide. We boast a database spanning virtually every market category and an even more comprehensive collection of market research reports under these categories and sub-categories.ADDRES:WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaSurgical Navigation Software Market Size, Revenue, Industry Analysis and Forecast during 2017 - 2023

Infinium Global Research

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The recent report on global surgical navigation software market identified that Americas dominated the global surgical navigation software market over the last couple of years, while emerging markets of Asia-Pacific and Latin America are anticipated to contribute significantly to the growth in the surgical navigation software market worldwide.Get Sample Pages:Surgical Navigation Systems market is experiencing growth due to the increasing adoption of minimally invasive surgical Procedures traditional surgeries for the treatment of various diseases, Rise in increased incidence of orthopedic and neurological disorders, and, high prevalence of ENT disorders. Applications of optical technologies for performing surgeries and increasing preference for optical navigation technology surgeries are further likely to augment the market size of Surgical Navigation Systems Market. On the other hand, high cost and high product recalls are the main restraining factors affecting the growth of surgical navigation system market over the period of 2015 to 2023.For More Details:The report on global surgical navigation software market is an in depth analysis of the segments and sub-segments in the surgical navigation software market. The report provides analysis for the global as well as regional markets over the period of 2015 to 2023. According to report the global surgical navigation software market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.5% over the forecast period of 2017 - 2023.The report segments the global surgical navigation software market on the basis of application.Global Surgical Navigation Software Market by Application Orthopedic Neurosurgical Navigation ENT Surgical OthersCompanies Profiled in the report: GE Healthcare Medtronic B. Braun Melsungen AG Stryker Corporation Fiagon GmbH AllEarth Renewables Amplitude Surgical Scopis GmbH Karl Storz GmbH & Co. Kg OthersView Full Report:About Us:Infinium Global Research and Consulting Solutions is started with a single motto of being business partner of first choice. We at Infinium work on the strengths of our clients to ensure we help them consolidate their market position. We firmly believe in the fact that if you are able to develop newer opportunities then you find there is no dearth of opportunities for you.Contact Us:Infinium Global ResearchGoyal Shinde Park, Bhau Patil Road,Bopodi, Pune-411 020.U.S. + Canada Toll Free: 1-800-638-0796Email: sales@infiniumglobalresearch.comGlobal Chinese Herbal Toothpastes Market Size, Revenue, Industry Analysis and Forecast during 2018 - 2025

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An up-to-date research has been disclosed by questale highlighting the Global Chinese Herbal Toothpastes Market segment. The report deep dives into the dynamics of the industry providing useful and unique insights shared in a precise and structured manner, giving executives and leaders an accurate picture of the upcoming market movement. The document utilizes a number of monographs, pie charts and bar-graphs to provide data which can be used to derive the latest trends in the industry. The report studies the Chinese herbal toothpastes industry worldwide, especially in North America, China, Europe, Southeast Asia, Japan and India, with production, size, growth, revenue, consumption, import and export in these regions.Click here to get a FREE sample report@Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), market share and growth rate of Chinese Herbal Toothpastes in these regions, from 2013 to 2025 (forecast), coveringNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaGlobal Chinese Herbal Toothpastes market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players includingCCA IndustriesChurch & DwightColgate-PalmoliveColgate-PalmoliveUnileverGaba HoldingDabur IndiaHindustan UnileverHenkelJohnson and JohnsonLG Household & HealthLion CorporationProcter & GambleSunstar SuisseOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split into90G180G250GOtherOn the basis of the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, consumption (sales), market share and growth rate for each application, includingOnlineOfflineFind detailed table of contents for this report@Table of Content:1 Chinese Herbal Toothpastes Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Chinese Herbal Toothpastes1.2 Chinese Herbal Toothpastes Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global Chinese Herbal Toothpastes Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category)(2013-2025)1.2.2 Global Chinese Herbal Toothpastes Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20171.2.3 90G1.2.4 180G1.2.5 250G1.2.6 Other1.3 Global Chinese Herbal Toothpastes Segment by Application1.3.1 Chinese Herbal Toothpastes Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2013-2025)1.3.2 Online1.3.3 Offline1.4 Global Chinese Herbal Toothpastes Market by Region (2013-2025)1.4.1 Global Chinese Herbal Toothpastes Market Size (Value) and CAGR (%) Comparison by Region (2013-2025)1.4.2 North America Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.3 Europe Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.4 China Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.5 Japan Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.6 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.7 India Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Chinese Herbal Toothpastes (2013-2025)1.5.1 Global Chinese Herbal Toothpastes Revenue Status and Outlook (2013-2025)1.5.2 Global Chinese Herbal Toothpastes Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2013-2025)2 Global Chinese Herbal Toothpastes Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Chinese Herbal Toothpastes Capacity, Production and Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.1.1 Global Chinese Herbal Toothpastes Capacity and Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.1.2 Global Chinese Herbal Toothpastes Production and Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.2 Global Chinese Herbal Toothpastes Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.3 Global Chinese Herbal Toothpastes Average Price by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.4 Manufacturers Chinese Herbal Toothpastes Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area and Product Type2.5 Chinese Herbal Toothpastes Market Competitive Situation and Trends2.5.1 Chinese Herbal Toothpastes Market Concentration Rate2.5.2 Chinese Herbal Toothpastes Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers2.5.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, ExpansioncontinueEnquire about this report @About Market Research Hub:Market Research Hub (MRH) is a next-generation reseller of research reports and analysis. MRHs expansive collection of retail industry research reports has been carefully curated to help key personnel and decision makers across industry verticals to clearly visualize their operating environment and take strategic steps.MRH functions as an integrated platform for the following products and services: Objective and sound market forecasts, qualitative and quantitative analysis, incisive insight into defining industry trends, and market share estimates. Our reputation lies in delivering value and world-class capabilities to our clients and customers.Contact Us:90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United StatesToll Free: 800-998-4852 (US-Canada)Email: press@marketresearchhub.comWebsite:Read Industry News at-Recent Research on Activated Carbon Market by 2023 Future Insights, Share, Demand, Sales, Key Companies and Trends Analysis

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The report on global activated carbon market provides qualitative and quantitative analysis for the period of 2015 to 2023. According to report the global activated carbon market is expected to grow at a CAGR between 8.5% and 9.5% over the forecast period of 2017  2023. The activated carbon market was valued at USD 4.7 billion in 2015.Market Insights:The report identified that global activated carbon is driven by factors such as check over mercury emissions for pollution control leading the demand for activated carbon, stringent regulations on water purification to escalate demand for activated carbon and research and new product development, and research and new product development. While the restraining factors include scarcity of raw materials causing price hikes of activated carbon in Asia-Pacific. Further, the report identifies the opportunities in the world market as reactivated carbon: an opportunity for activated carbon producers to maximize profits, and weak economic conditions lowered industrial growth eventually impacting activated carbon sales.Get Sample Copy of this Report:Activated carbon, also referred to as activated charcoal, is used as colorants, and catalysts in industrial processes. Activated carbon is processed to create millions of pores between carbon items which in turn increase the surface area. The increased surface area helps in absorbing impurities from gas, vapors and liquids. Owing to its usefulness in industrial processes the demand for activated carbon has surged over the past few years. The global activated carbon market is expected to be primarily driven by factors such as check over mercury emissions for pollution control leading the demand for activated carbon, stringent regulations on water purification to escalate demand for activated carbon and research and new product development. However, the growth in global activated carbon market is likely to be restrained by factors such as scarcity of raw materials causing price hikes of activated carbon in Asia-Pacific.Segments CoveredThe report on global activated carbon market covers segments such as type and application. On the basis of type the global activated carbon market categorized into powdered activated carbon, granular activated carbon, others. On the basis of application the global activated carbon market categorized into liquid phase, gaseous phase.Make an Enquiry:Geographic Coverage and Analysis:The report provides regional analysis covering geographies such as North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of the World. In this section the key trends and market size for each geography is provided over the period of 2015  2023.The regions covered in the report include North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of the World. North America region covers the country markets such as U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Furthermore, Europe includes the country markets such as Germany, U.K., France, Spain, and Rest of Europe. The Asia-Pacific region covers the analysis of countries such as China, Japan, India, Australia, New Zealand, and Rest of APAC. Among the geographies Asia-Pacific is expected to be the largest market for activated carbon market over the Forecast period 2015 to 2023. Furthermore, Asia-Pacific is expected to grow at the highest CAGR over the forecast period.Get Discount on this Premium Report :Companies Profiled:The report provides profiles of the companies in the global activated carbon market such as, Osaka Gas Co., Ltd., Cabot Corporation, Calgon Carbon Corporation, Kuraray Co. Ltd, Haycarb PLC, Haycarb PLC, Kureha Corporation, Donau Carbon GmbH, Silcarbon Aktivkohle GmbH, Prominent Systems Inc., and Oxbow Activated Carbon LLC.About UsInfinium Global Research and Consulting Solutions is started with a single motto of being business partner of first choice. We at Infinium work on the strengths of our clients to ensure we help them consolidate their market position. We firmly believe in the fact that if you are able to develop newer opportunities then you find there is no dearth of opportunities for you. With our strategic research approaches and deep dive in the market segments, we try to find out new opportunities that our clients can encash with their existing resources. Our experts with over 100 years of cumulative experience in research offer the best in the industry services to our clients to ensure that they achieve their business goals.Contact UsInfinium Global Research,Toll Free:U.S. + Canada: 1-800-638-0796,UK: +44-2033182010Website :Email: sales@infiniumglobalresearch.comMMD presents professional display innovations from Philips monitors at ISE 2018

Philips 328P6AUBREB

www.philips.com/monitors

www.mmd-p.com

Latest display line-up features impressive colours and brilliance, heightened simplicity, greater comfort, and improved productivity for professionalsAmsterdam, 31 January 2018  MMD, the leading technology company and brand license partner for Philips monitors, will demonstrate its commitment to brilliant colour, superior resolution, and cutting-edge technology at ISE 2018, offering visitors the chance to discover the latest display innovations developed to make their lives easier and more productive. ISE (Integrated Systems Europe), the largest AV systems integration show in the world, takes place from 6-9 February 2018 at Amsterdam RAI. MMD is exhibiting at the Philips stand 10-K170.MMD Philips monitors highlights:A wider range of colour and brilliance for life-like images: featuring an expansive crystal-clear QHD IPS display for full colours and wide viewing angles, the 328P6AUBREB enables users to see the big picture without missing any of the details. Particularly well-suited for corporate uses, it offers single-cable peripheral docking to simplify workspace layout and increase productivity, as well as a new USB 3.1 Type-C cable for ultra-fast data transfer. In order to prevent late nights at the office from taking a toll on users eyes and posture, the SmartErgoBase provides ergonomic display comfort and a LowBlue Mode ensures enhanced wellbeing.Simplified connection and crystal-clear IPS images: also an ideal choice for corporate use, the 241B7QUPBEB will be on display at ISE. This Philips B line monitor with USB-C connector offers users simple notebook docking via one cable for fast data and video transfer to full HD IPS display, as well as charging. The monitors ultra-narrow borders maximise viewing size and are especially well-suited for multi-display set-ups. Its SmartErgoBase enables people-friendly ergonomic adjustments while its EasyRead mode provides a paper-like reading experience and its LowBlue Mode and Flicker-Free technology ensure heightened productivity while protecting users eyes.A perfect all-around display: a vast array of features makes the 243V7QJABF monitor ideal for many kinds of users, especially those in the education sector. The three-sided frameless IPS 16:9 Full HD display delivers crisp, vivid, edge-to-edge images, while features such as SmartContrast (for rich black details) and SmartImage (for easy optimised image settings) ensure a stunning appearance every time. Flicker-Free technology, LowBlue Mode, and EasyRead mean less eye fatigue. In addition, this monitor can adapt to any space with its compact slim design, built-in speakers for audio without desktop clutter, and VESA mount for greater flexibility.Crisp views and sustainable eco-design: another monitor especially well-suited to the education sector is the 241B7QPJKEB, which combines efficiency, aesthetics, and eco-friendly technology. Its Philips PowerSensor display minimises power consumption and uses 85% post-consumer recycled plastics and PVC/BFR-free housing to achieve maximum performance yet minimal environmental impact. Built-in stereo speakers deliver sound as immersive as the visuals and an integrated webcam provides both convenience and privacy, as it can be popped up when needed and tucked away afterward. With IPS technology for full colours and wide viewing angles, a narrow border display for a seamless appearance, and SmartImage pre-sets for easy optimised image settings, this monitor looks fantastic. Equipped with LowBlue Mode, Flicker-Free technology, and SmartErgoBase, it ensures productivity as well as comfort.Advanced design and stunning panoramic views: certain to wow visitors, the 349X7FJEW features a curved UltraWide 21:9 format, 100 Hz fast refresh, and AMD FreeSync technology that together make it the perfect choice for professionals who need impeccable graphics. With an extraordinary 34 display and Crystal clear 3440 x 1440 images, this monitor guarantees an immersive experience. Narrow borders provide a seamless appearance, while MultiView enables simultaneous active dual connect and view. Easy to connect and easy to enjoy, it offers HDMI for quick digital connection and a DisplayPort connection for maximum visual impact. USB 3.0 enables fast data transfers and smart phone charging, and the monitor is even height-adjustable for better ergonomic comfort, making it a true pleasure to use.More information on Philips monitors:About MMDMMD is a wholly owned company of TPV established in 2009 through a brand license agreement with Philips. MMD exclusively markets and sells Philips branded LCD displays worldwide. By combining the Philips brand promise with TPVs manufacturing expertise in displays, MMD uses a fast and focused approach to bringing innovative products to market. MMD serves the Western European markets from its headquarters in Amsterdam. The Eastern European and CIS markets are served by a local office in Prague. Through its network of local sales teams MMD works with all major IT distributors and resellers. The companys design and development centre is located in Taiwan.Press contact:united communications GmbHElena StrzelczykRotherstr. 1910245 BerlinTel.: +49 30 7890760Philips.Displays@united.deCompany contact Europe:MMD Monitors & Displays B.V.Xeni BairaktariPrins Bernhardplein 200 6th floor1097 JB AmsterdamTel: +31 205046945xeni.bairaktari@tpv-tech.comChanakya IAS Academy announces a free seminar on Civil Services Exam at its recently launched study centre at Rajendra Place Chanakya IAS Academy has added one more study centre to the list and announces a free seminar at it recently launched centre at Rajendra Place. The Seminar titled How to Crack Civil Services Exam will be conducted on 3rd February 2018 from 3 pm onwards at Chanakya IAS Academy, 5th Floor, Plot No 3B, Rajendra Park, Pusa Road, New Delhi.



Success Guru AK Mishra, Chairman & Managing Director of Chanakya IAS Academy, will address the participants at the seminar and will enlighten the aspirants with his enriching experiences and guidance to crack Indias most competitive examination.



Success Guru AK Mishra will help aspirants learn the Art of Success for Civil Services examination and give a detailed insight on Civil Services exam, pattern, syllabus, services followed by right time management techniques, subject wise preparation tips and a lot more relevant information associated with Civil Services Exam. Successful candidates of Civil Services Examination will also be a part of the seminar as guest speakers and will share their journey to success and their on-the-job experiences. They will also take up the queries of the participants and will clear their various doubts and myths related to Civil Services Exam.



Success Guru AK Mishra, besides educating students on Civil Services Exam, will also narrate inspirational stories and motivate the participants with his words of wisdom while bringing out the participants true potential. The seminar will also aim at helping the attendees develop right administrative traits which are prerequisite to successfully get through Civil Services Examination.



Chanakya IAS Academy aims to develop amongst its students a competitive attitude along with sound academic base through quality teaching and individual attention as its hallmark. The Academy has been organizing seminars and workshops with the help of civil servants and experts in soft skills to train the aspirants to think, feel and express like administrators.



While sharing insights on the seminar, Success Guru AK Mishra said, Rajendra Place Branch is our latest feather in the Hat. After 21 successfully operating branches, we have launched this center with an aim to provide our future administrators with the best of guidance. This seminar is being organized not only to make students aware of our new Centre but to also empower the students with some important insights on Civil Services Exam. I chose to personally address the students in this seminar and answer their queries or doubts so that our future leaders should not be left with any myth, doubts or confusion during their preparation for the most coveted Civil Services Exam. To attend the seminar, students can simply call on 9599189564 and register their seats for free.



Chanakya IAS Academy which was established in 1993 has given more than 2500 selections in IAS, IPS, IFS & other central services. The academy with the help of students, popular universities, specialist teachers, thinkers, bureaucrats and the employees continues to work hard for the betterment of students and the society by helping them overcome their fears, and realizing their true potential and ultimately leading them to a successful life. Today the academy has 22 branches across India.



Chanakya IAS Academy, Rajendra Nagar Branch,

5th Floor, Plot No 3B, Rajendra Park, Pusa Road,

Near Rajendra Place Metro Station, Gate No 4,

Delhi - 60

Ph.: 9990767766



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ReportsWeb

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Cellular M2M modules support cellular communication between IoT devices or M2M applications. They also refer to radio chips embedded in IoT solutions that enable communication over cellular networks. Cellular M2M modules are used in various applications, including home appliances, smart utilities, and healthcare devices.Publisher's analysts forecast the global cellular M2M module market to grow at a CAGR of 23.28% during the period 2018-2022.For more information about this report:Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global cellular M2M module market for 2018-2022. To calculate the market size, the report presents a detailed picture of the market by way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:-Americas-APAC-EMEAPublisher's report, Global Cellular M2M Module Market 2018-2022, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendors-Gemalto-Huawei Technologies-Sierra Wireless-TelitRequest Sample Copy atMarket driver-Use of M2M technology for remote patient monitoring-For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challenge-Growing privacy and security concerns-For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trend-Growth of smart cities-For a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this report-What will the market size be in 2022 and what will the growth rate be--What are the key market trends--What is driving this market--What are the challenges to market growth--Who are the key vendors in this market space-Inquire for Report atContact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@reportsweb.comReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer service and our customer support team is always available to help you on your research queries.Pune, IndiaGlobal Marine Hybrid Propulsion Market by Players, Regions, Product Types & Applications 2018-2025

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Albany, NY, 30th January : Recent research and the current scenario as well as future market potential of "Marine Hybrid Propulsion Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth Trends, and Forecast 2017 - 2025" globally.This report analyzes and forecasts the market for marine hybrid propulsion at the global, regional, and country level. The market has been forecast based on revenue & units (US$ Mn & units) from 2017 to 2025.Get PDF for more Professional and Technical insights @The study includes drivers and restraints of the global marine hybrid propulsion market. It also covers the impact of these drivers and restraints on demand for marine hybrid propulsion during the forecast period. The report also highlights opportunities in the marine hybrid propulsion market at the global and regional level.The report comprises a detailed value chain analysis, which provides a comprehensive view of the global marine hybrid propulsion market. Porters Five Forces model for the marine hybrid propulsion market has also been included to help understand the competitive landscape in the market. The study encompasses market attractiveness analysis, wherein end-users are benchmarked based on their market size, growth rate, and general attractiveness.Global Marine Hybrid Propulsion Market: Scope of the StudyThe study provides a decisive view of the global marine hybrid propulsion market by segmenting it in terms of propulsion type, end-use, power rating, stroke, RPM, and region. These segments have been analyzed based on present and future trends. Regional segmentation includes the current and forecast demand for marine hybrid propulsion in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. The marine hybrid propulsion market has been further broken down into country/sub-region.The report provides the estimated market size of marine hybrid propulsion for 2016 and forecast for the next nine years. The global market size of marine hybrid propulsion has been provided in terms of volume and revenue. Market numbers have been estimated based on key type, component, application, and regional segments of marine hybrid propulsion market. Market size and forecast for each major types have been provided in terms of global and regional/country markets.View Complete TOC with tables & Figures @Global Marine Hybrid Propulsion Market: Research MethodologyIn order to compile the research report, we conducted in-depth interviews and discussions with a number of key industry participants and opinion leaders. Primary research represents the bulk of research efforts, supplemented by extensive secondary research. We reviewed key players product literature, annual reports, press releases, and relevant documents for competitive analysis and market understanding. Secondary research also includes a search of recent trade, technical writing, internet sources, and statistical data from government websites, trade associations, and agencies. This has proven to be the most reliable, effective, and successful approach for obtaining precise market data, capturing industry participants insights, and recognizing business opportunities.Secondary research sources that are typically referred to include, but are not limited to company websites, annual reports, financial reports, broker reports, investor presentations, and SEC filings, internal and external proprietary databases, and relevant patent and regulatory databases, national government documents, statistical databases, and market reports, news articles, press releases, and webcasts specific to companies operating in the market, National government documents, statistical databases, and market reports, UN Comtrade, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Factiva, etc.Primary research involves e-mail interactions, telephonic interviews, and face-to-face interviews for each market, category, segment, and sub-segment across geographies. We conduct primary interviews on an ongoing basis with industry participants and commentators in order to validate the data and analysis. Primary interviews provide firsthand information on market size, market trends, growth trends, competitive landscape, and outlook, etc. These help validate and strengthen secondary research findings. These also help develop the analysis teams expertise and market understanding.Global Marine Hybrid Propulsion Market: Competitive LandscapeThe study includes profiles of major companies operating in the global marine hybrid propulsion market. Key players in the marine hybrid propulsion market include Siemens AG, Volvo Penta, General Electric, Rolls-Royce plc, BAE Systems plc, Wartsila, MAN Diesel & Turbo SE, etc. Market players have been profiled in terms of attributes such as company overview, financial overview, business strategies, recent developments, and SWOT analysis. The market for marine hybrid propulsion is primarily driven by its operation efficiency, cost-effective operation, automation and digitalization, growing infrastructural activities, water utility, waste water treatment, water distribution/transport networks, integration of several systems and components to form a complete intelligent pumping solution for various applications, etc.Global Marine Hybrid Propulsion Market: Propulsion Type AnalysisDiesel-electricParallel HybridSerial HybridGlobal Marine Hybrid Propulsion Market: End-use AnalysisTugboatsOffshore Support Vessels (OSVs)FerriesDefense VesselsYachtCruise ShipsOthersGlobal Marine Hybrid Propulsion Market: Power Rating Analysis0-300 kW301-500 kW501-800 kWAbove 801 kWGlobal Marine Hybrid Propulsion Market: Stroke AnalysisTwo StrokeFour StrokeGlobal Marine Hybrid Propulsion Market: RPM Analysis0-1,000 rpm1,001-2,500 rpmAbove 2,500 rpmGlobal Marine Hybrid Propulsion Market: By Region/Country/Sub-regionNorth AmericaU.S.CanadaEuropeGermanyFranceU.K.SpainItalyRest of EuropeAsia PacificChinaJapanIndiaASEANRest of Asia PacificBrowse Report @Middle East & AfricaGCCSouth AfricaRest of Middle East & AfricaLatin AmericaBrazilMexicoRest of Latin AmericaResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.ResearchMozMr. Nachiket Ghumare,90 State Street, Albany NY, United States - 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA-Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn @Follow me on :Smart Roads Market Key Players - Alcatel Lucent, Kapsch AG, Indra Sistemas by Forecast to 2023

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Market Highlights:The potential of smart roads is enormous. These roads are designed not only to keep us safe by identifying the route of the vehicle along with the road condition to regulate the speed of the vehicles. These roads implement warning systems and also transmit real-time data to share information across the wireless network, making it simpler and quicker to get around, to find parking, to commute effectively with other vehicles. The market is segmented into technology, sensors, deployment, and region.Smart Roads Market include deployment of various sensors for the safety, security, and communication purposes. These technologies are designed to help the drivers and riders with safe journey until their destination arrived. Growing urbanization and need for safe roads are some of the major driving factors behind the growth of the smart roads market. Among regions, North America is expected to lead the smart roads market during the forecast periodMajor Key Players: Alcatel Lucent (France) Kapsch AG (Austria) Indra Sistemas S.A. (Madrid) LG CNS (South Korea) Siemens AG (Germany) Cisco (U.S.) Kapsch TrafficCom (Austria) Xerox Corporation (U.S.) Huawei (China)Request a Sample Report @Regional Analysis:North America is the leading region in global smart roads market. Industrialization and various investment of the local and central government bodies in the North American region and the presence of technologically advanced countries such as the U.S. and Canada are providing enterprises with a competitive advantage over other regions. Europe, on the other hand, holds the second largest share of the global smart roads market. This stronghold over the market is due to the presence of several developed countries such as Germany, France, Italy, the U.K. and the Netherlands in the region.On the other hand, Asia Pacific region is expected to emerge as the fastest growing market among all the regions during the forecast period. The market is majorly driven by the various initiative of the government of Asian countries such as China, Japan, and India. Additionally, China and India are one of the largest potential markets where the enterprises are willing to make investment leading to heavy demand for smart road components. In the last ten years, the government of these countries has announced a various collaboration with the multinational companies for upgrading their current infrastructure, which includes roads as well. The companies are working closely with the local bodies of the government for the development and up-gradation of the instructor.Browse Full Report Details @Table of Contents1 Market Introduction1.1 Introduction1.2 Scope of Study1.2.1 Research objective1.2.2 Assumptions1.2.3 Limitations1.3 Market StructureContinued..About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by Components, Application, Logistics and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.Contact:Market Research FutureOffice No. 524/528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.comHealthcare 3D Printing Market share to see growth of 20% from 2017-2024

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A revolutionary concept currently standing on the precipice of fame and fortune, 3d printing in healthcare market has unquestionably given rise to a plethora of documented successes, once considered miracles, and invariably, has also paved the way for a debatable set of questions, primarily concerning large-scale deployment of the technology in the medical sector. Healthcare 3D printing market, according to some analysts, has already gone mainstream, however, many others claim that this fraternity is yet to be commercially, legally, and ethically available for the masses. The former speculation by the proponents may be based on the fact that 3D printing has already been used for manufacturing dental implants, dental devices, hearing aids, and more. For instance, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have recently brought forth a unique device called Earable, that is essentially a 3D printed sensor designed to monitor a persons core body temperature in real time, besides functioning as a regular hearing aid and a sign sensor. Another path-breaking innovation that recently came to the fore is the 3D printed titanium hearing aid by Sonova. These developments stand as a crucial evidence to the score of enhancements that have been making the scene in healthcare 3D printing industry recently.Request for a sample of this research report -Healthcare 3D printing market trends in the dental sector:Dentistry was one of the first application arenas that deployed the 3D printing technology. Today, with the magical combination of CAD/CAM designs, 3D orienting, and oral scanning, the manufacturing of stone prototypes, plaster models, crowns, bridges, and aligners has become rather convenient, propelling healthcare 3D printing market from dental applications. A 3D scan is taken initially and is later converted into a 3D prototype and then 3D printed to develop a range of retainers, aligners, and orthodontic appliances. As per statistics, healthcare 3D printing industry from dentistry will grow at a rather appreciable pace over 2017-2024, subject to the customization of dental implants and devices and increasingly affordable prices.The Radboudumc University Medical Center in Nijmegen, Netherlands, has been using the 3D printing technology since 2014. The University has made it possible for toothless/worn-jawed patients to be fitted with an efficient 3D printed denture. Apparently, the first trials of this product were remarkably successful, and in the event that it enters the mass market, it would undoubtedly upscale the demand for healthcare 3D printing market.Browse key industry insights spread across 150 pages with 94 market data tables & 15 figures & charts from this 2017 report Healthcare 3D Printing Market in detail along with the table of contents at:Healthcare 3D printing market trends in the pharmaceutical sector:Medical experts have exhibited incredible optimism with regards to the application of 3D printing in healthcare industry, especially in the pharmaceutical domain. In a study conducted by the Queensland University of Technology, Australia, researchers state that a 3D printable bio-ink designed to depict numerous mechanical properties and support human cell growth may be the answer to the failure of clinical drug trials. Using 3D printing, drugs can be customized and printed as per patient requirements, which may also reduce the usage of animals for drug testing. This factor alone may act as a major driver propelling the growth map of healthcare 3D printing market.As per a study published in 2016, the first 3D printed drug, Sprintam, for the treatment of epilepsy, was manufactured and commercialized by Aprecia Pharmaceuticals, and has obtained the approval of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Three-dimensional printing allows for the manufacture of porous medicines, enabling the possibility of inducing high drug doses in a single tablet that can be ingested quickly. The deployment of 3D printing from drug manufacturing is thus, likely to augment healthcare 3D printing industry share from pharmaceutical applications.Healthcare 3D printing market trends in the organ regeneration & prosthetics sector:Even prior to the official deployment of 3D printing for organ regeneration, experts had predicted that the technology would indeed bring about a slew of changes in the prosthetics and organ regeneration sector. Numerous instances provide unabashed evidence of the same, thereby paving the path for the growth of healthcare 3D printing market. The usage of 3D printing for prosthetics has been gaining remarkable traction of late, subject to the surprisingly modest success rate. For instance, recently, the National Institute of Rome Tumori Regina Elena, Italy, became the first hospital in the country to use personalized titanium implants for repairing the bones damaged due to bone cancer. Furthermore, a research paper published in Nature Biotechnology categorically states that a group of scientists were able to fabricate the bone, muscle, and cartilage structures to print a human ear by means of a self-created 3D-bioprinter.Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @This study only goes to prove the extent to which 3D printing may help in organ regeneration, which by extension, will fuel healthcare 3D printing industry. In the event that this technology combats the pressing issue of organ shortage for transplants, healthcare 3D printing market will observe a meteoric rise like never before. In the year 2013, a 2-year old born without the trachea actually had a 3D-printed windpipe built with her own stem cells. The incident led to the U.S. government funding a body on a chip project to print tissue samples mimicking the functions of vital organs such as the liver, heart, and lungs. All in all, the numerous innovations in healthcare 3D printing market only go to prove that this industry is slated to achieve remarkable heights of growth in the ensuing years.Healthcare 3D printing industry veraciously boasts of a rather diverse and colossal application sphere. The 3D printing technology is undoubtedly one of the most revolutionary technologies of its time, predicted to transform the perspective of the medical fraternity. It would be gravely erroneous to state that healthcare 3D printing market is at the nascent stage, pertaining to the fact that this business space is experiencing an opulence of innovations that have the capability to bring about a breakthrough in the dynamics of the healthcare sector. Major 3D printing healthcare industry players have been doing their utmost to bring about novelty and innovation in 3D printed medical devices since many years, that may very soon penetrate the masses. For instance, in 2013, the Nano3D Biosciences launched a new technology deploying magnetic levitation that enables four types of products to be assembled into the lung tissue. Besides, experts claim that the deployment of 3D printing in healthcare market is likely to bring forth a near permanent solution for organ transplants.However, it is also true that healthcare 3D printing industry may experience slight obstacles on the path to success, subject to the robust enforcement of regulatory norms pertaining to the mass commercialization of this technique. In the event that the technology fails to work successfully on certain patients, which may very well be the case, subject to the fact medical technologies work differently on different patients, as per their body constituency and genetic systems, companies operating in healthcare 3D printing market may find themselves embroiled in an ugly legal battle of sorts. Attesting to this very fact, healthcare 3D printing industry has not been accepted in the lines of the conventional verticals of the medical fraternity. Nonetheless, this only serves to indicate that this business space will witness widespread popularity over the years to come, with an incessant number of R&D activities being carried out to validate its working methodology for most human body systems. In addition, the repeated successes related to 3D printing that are being chronicled on a daily basis provide ample testimony to the fact that the application of 3D printing in healthcare market is indeed the most progressive, radical phenomena that the medical sector may have experienced in a long, long time.Browse Related Reports:Holographic Imaging Market Size By Product (Holographic Display, Holography Software, Holography Microscopes, Holographic Prints), By Application (Medical Imaging, Medical Education, Biomedical Research), By End-Use (Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology Companies, Research Organizations, Academic Medical Centers, Hospitals & Clinics), Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain, China, India, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa), Application Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2017  2024About Global Market Insights:Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact Us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb:Blog:Global E-Bike Sales Market Analysis, Configuration & Demand Status 2017

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report "Global E-Bike Sales Market Report 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.The market study on the global market for E-Bike examines current and historical values and provides projections based on accumulated database. The report examines both key regional and domestic markets to provide a conclusive analysis about the developments in the E-Bike market over the 2018-2025 period.The report is collated in a chapter-wise layout with each chapter consisting sub-sections to discuss key segments in detail. The annex section discusses market attractiveness and a feasibility analysis of new undertakings in the E-Bike market in the forthcoming years. The report that has been compiled after primary and secondary research phase involves reaching out to industry-centric databases and collecting data from publications and scientific journals pertaining to vital business aspects of the E-Bike market.This report studies sales (consumption) of E-Bike in Global market, especially in United States, China, Europe and Japan, focuses on top players in these regions/countries, with sales, price, revenue and market share for each player in these regions, coveringCurrie TechnologiesDerby CycleJiangsu Xinri E-VehicleZhejiang Luyuan Electric VehicleEZee KineticsGeobyGiant BicyclesGracePedegoEnter your information below to receive a free sample copy of this report @The beginning of the report outlines standard terms and terminologies used in the E-Bike market, before moving on to industry statutes, policies, and industry chain structure. Following this, the report covers the competitive landscape, profiling leading players based on their key competitive characteristics. Each of the companies is examined over a time period to comprehend the changing competitive structure of the E-Bike over the years.The report is divided into divisions with each division examining different industry aspects at length. Industry statues and industry structure, industry framework, and industry news and developments are the some of the key aspects that have been analyzed in this section of the report. The report includes a cost analysis of products coupled with insights into manufacturer profit in the E-Bike market. The dynamics between several applications of the E-Bike market and how they impact the industry chain have also been analyzed.Table of ContentsGlobal E-Bike Sales Market Report 20171 E-Bike Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of E-Bike1.2 Classification of E-Bike1.2.1 Electric BicycleYou can find the detailed table to contents for this report at :2 Global E-Bike Competition by Manufacturers, Type and Application2.1 Global E-Bike Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1.1 Global E-Bike Sales and Market Share of Key Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.1.2 Global E-Bike Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2012-2017)2.2 Global E-Bike (Volume and Value) by Type2.2.1 Global E-Bike Sales and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)2.2.2 Global E-Bike Revenue and Market Share by Type (2012-2017)About Us:QYResearchReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYResearchReports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.Contact Us:1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.comBlog:Smart Watch Market Going to Touch at Value of US$ 30,811 Mn by 2025

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According to an exclusive study on global smart watch market by Persistence Market Research, the market is estimated to exhibit tremendous growth with 16.6% CAGR to reach above US$ 30,811 Mn by the end of forecast period (2017-2025). Continuous innovations in smart watches have led this market to achieve highest expansion.Every passing day, peoples desire to represent themselves with trending fashion is leading to adopt latest attire. Smart watches are trending wearable, that are blend of smart technology and fashion. Further, people those are health conscious are lucky to have this smart way to monitor different aspects related to health and can easily share it with their health advisors through digital techniques. Smart watches are equipped with technology that allows it to connect with smartphones via Bluetooth or other sharing techniques so as to quickly go through notifications or messages etc.Smart watches allow one to integrate apps and extend usage of the mobile phone. Latest features in smart watch with android operating system include handwritten recognition, much easier way to reply to messages, Google assistance on the wrist and the apps can now run without the phone in reach. According to the report, the android wear smart watch segment is anticipated to increase at double-digit CAGR value over the assessment period. Whereas, the smart watches based on iOS platform will expand at steady growth rate and are anticipated to retain its dominance in the smart watch market throughout the assessment period.Several smart watches have technology to pay bill through just a tap. The apple pay features provides this facility to consumers to pay hassle-free. Ones credit card details can be stored in the watch without opening wallets, he/she can pay through it. However, these smart watches cost a lot more than regular one. Such kind of facility wont be available in medium price smart watches. The report reveals, in terms of revenues, the medium price smart watches are likely to witness steady expansion through 2025, while low price smart watch segment will showcase high y-o-y growth rate.Request Sample Report@Also, on the basis of age group, 25-34 years segment is likely to remain most attractive in the global smart watch market, in terms of value throughout the forecast period. Moreover, 15-24 years segment is likely to witness expansion at double digit CAGR over the assessment period.The study also analyzes dynamics of market on the basis of sales channels. The market has been segmented into organized retail chain, unorganized retail chain and e-commerce stores. Among these, organized retain chain segment is expected to register high y-o-y growth over the assessment period. Further, in terms of value, the segment is anticipated to increase at staggering double-digit CAGR throughout the assessment period. The online e-commerce segment had secured over US$ 3,876 Mn revenues in 2016 and projected to grow at steady CAGR throughout the assessment period. However, the online e-commerce store segment is expected to be most lucrative segment of the global smart watch market over the assessment period.Download and View Report TOC, Figures and Tables @On the other side, the market also has been segmented in to extensive smart watch, hybrid smart watch, standalone smart watch, on the basis of product type. Among these, the standalone smart watch segment retained its dominance in 2017, procuring more than one-third revenue share of the market.The North America, Latin America, MEA, APAC and Europe are 5 key regions that are analyzed in the report. Asia Pacific retained its dominance in 2017 in smart watch market with the contribution of more than US$ 2,915 Mn to the global market. In addition, the North America smart watch market is anticipated to grow at high CAGR throughout the assessment period.Number of companies are contributing in growth of the smart watch market. Some of the leading companies that have huge contribution are profiled in the report include, Nokia Corporation (Withings), Apple Inc., Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Xiaomi Corporation, Sony Corporation, Fossil Group, Inc., Garmin Ltd., Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., and Fitbit Inc.Report overview @About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:Discover the Growth of the Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) Therapeutics Market 2017 - 2025

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Leukemia are a heterogeneous group of cancers affecting the bone marrow and White Blood Cells (WBC). Leukemia is characterized by the rapid increase of abnormal blood cells growth or blasts, resulting in a decrease in the numbers of healthy, normal fully modified blood cells, leading to the typical symptoms of bleeding, anemia, and high risk of infection. Leukemia can grow along either the myeloid or lymphoid stem cell lines, it depends on the effect of genetic and epigenetic mutations on the progression of pluripotent stem cells to the various lines of mature cells which then pass into the blood.Request for Table of Contents @The effected line, combined with the rate of action and growth of disease reflects the four types of leukemias- Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), chronic lymphoblastic leukemia, chronic myeloid leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia. AML: Acute Myeloid Leukemia, is a serious condition, its the most common leukemia suffered by adult people. According to a report from American Cancer Society, the average age for first diagnostic for AML is 64. With few days without treatment, AML develops fast, in duration of few weeks, the patient becomes severely ill. Due to its fast onset and acuteness in nature, there is no staging system for Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML).The treatment for Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) has changed in last 4 decades.The drug approval process is difficult in AML, (many drugs have not been approved by USFDA, for instance Laromustine, Dacogen and Tipitarnib) efforts have been made to introduce new therapies in the AML market.Primary drivers boosting the growth of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) therapeutics market are minimal but increased prevalence of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), increased drug approval rate for AML, classification of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) as an orphan disease. Over the forecast period, population of people over 65 year is anticipated to increase, which is another key driver for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) therapeutics market.However, lack of targeted therapies in current acute myeloid leukemia (AML) therapeutics landscape, the drug difficult approval process in AML can hinder the growth of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) therapeutics market, but this restraint has opened an opportunity for key players to innovate acute myeloid leukemia (AML) therapeutics market.The global acute myeloid leukemia (AML) therapeutics market is anticipated to show lucrative growth owing to increased investment in innovative technologies by key players. Players in this market using various strategies to fuel their global footprint and to gain a competitive edge. Product pipelines, new product launches, agreements and collaborations, acquisitions, mergers and clinical trials are some key strategies applied from global players in recent years are anticipated to give a robust hike to the market in the forecast period.Geographically, acute myeloid leukemia (AML) therapeutics market is segmented into regions viz. North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Japan, Middle East and Africa. North America is anticipated to be major contributor to this market accounting maximum percent of share in AML therapeutics market followed by Europe. Slow but constant growth in prevalence for AML in North America is anticipated to fuel the growth in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) therapeutics market. In Asia pacific region, China and India are anticipated to show high growth in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) therapeutics market due to new developments in healthcare infrastructure in the region.Request to View Sample of Research Report @The players in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) therapeutics market include Ambit Biosciences Corporation, Celgene Corporation, Cephalon Inc., Clavis Pharma ASA, Eisai Co. Ltd, Genzyme Corporation, and Sunesis Pharmaceuticals Inc., Abbvie Inc., Astellas Pharma Inc, CTI Biopharma Corp etc.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,Telephone - +1-646-568-7751USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:Sodium Cyanide Market: Emerging Market Trends, Size, Share and Growth Analysis

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Sodium Cyanide is used as a reagent in the mining industry for the extraction of minerals, primarily gold and silver. It is mostly used as a flotation reagent in the mining industry. The processing of gold and silver accounts for almost two-thirds of sodium cyanide application. In some regions, where there is a shortage of hydrogen cyanide, sodium cyanide can be used as an intermediate as it is easier to transport and store. Apart from its use in the mining industry, sodium cyanide is used as an intermediate in the manufacture of vitamins, jewelry, adhesives, computer electronics, fire retardants, airplane brakes, cosmetics, dyes, nylon, nail polish remover, paints, pharmaceuticals, Plexiglas, rocket propellant and table salt. The overall sodium cyanide market is estimated to grow at a moderate CAGR over the forecast period.There has been an increase in the demand for flotation reagents, such as sodium cyanide, due to the decreasing quality of gold and silver ores. Sodium cyanide, being economic, is widely used in the extraction of gold. Further, there have been continuous fluctuations in gold prices over the past few years. As a result, manufacturers are focusing on the extraction of gold from deeper mines that have been winding down. Consequently, there has been a surge in the demand for sodium cyanide.Request Report For TOC @There has also been a rise in local and foreign investments in regions, such as Latin America, which is driving the demand for reagents, such as sodium cyanide for gold and silver extraction.There are numerous regulations pertaining to the use of sodium cyanide. Agencies, such as International Cyanide Management Code has defined a particular limit on the use of sodium cyanide. An excess amount of sodium cyanide is harmful for human consumption and as a result, there has been an increase in focus on using safer alternatives.The global sodium cyanide market is dominated by Asia Pacific. More than half the demand for sodium cyanide hails from this region. Globally, China is the leading producer of Sodium. Along with China, Australia also has a considerable number of sodium cyanide manufacturers and the region has shown growth in the mining reagents market. Latin America also holds a significant share in the global sodium cyanide market. Countries, such as Chile, Peru, and Columbia have exhibited an increase in the demand for mining reagents.There are not many manufacturers for sodium cyanide in Europe; however, in the coming years, the region is slated to witness growth as compared to the present number. Thus, decreasing its dependency of imports from Asia Pacific, mainly China and South Korea. Middle East and Africa, especially South Africa have also contributed notably in the global sodium cyanide market. North America is projected to exhibit moderate growth over the outlook period. Additionally, Japan has also shown no significant demand for sodium cyanide, due to the relatively low number of gold mines in the region. Hence, the region is estimated to show stagnant growth over the forecast period.Orica Limited, Cyanco, Coogee Chemicals, Australian Gold Reagents Pty Ltd, Cyplus GmbH (Evonik Subsidiary), Union Group Chemical Company S.l, Azoti and American Elements.Request to Sample of Report @About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a U.S.-based full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.ContactPersistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:Global Sleep Aids Market worth US$ 80.8 Bn by 2020

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According to a new market report published by Persistence Market Research Global Market Study on Sleep Aids: Sleep Apnea to Witness Highest Growth by 2020, the global sleep aids market was valued at US$ 58.1 Bn in 2014 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 5.7% to account for US$80.8 Bn by 2020.Sleep aids are drugs and medical devices that help a person to fall asleep. Lack of quality sleep leads to a medical condition known as a sleep disorder. Sleep disorder occurs due to changes in sleeping pattern of a person which can be caused by physical disturbances, medical issues, psychiatric problems, and environmental issues.Global Sleep Aids Market Report overview @Globally, the sleep aids market is witnessing significant growth due to rising incidence of sleep disorders due to growing geriatric population, increasing demand for sleeping pills due to stressful modern lifestyle and rising initiatives by various health organizations to increase awareness about sleep disorders. However, factors such as side effects associated with sleep aids medications and patent expiration of major sleep drugs are key restraints for the growth of the global sleep aids market. The global sleep aids market was valued at US$ 58.1 Bn in 2014 and expected to account for US$ 80.8 Bn by 2020 at a CAGR of 5.7%.Request to Sample of Report @North America has the largest market for the global Sleep Aids market. This is due to technological advancements in the region. The North American sleep aids market was valued at US$ 31.9 Bn in 2014 and is expected to account for US$ 44.5 Bn by 2020 at a CAGR of 5.7%. In terms of sleep disorders, sleep apnea is the fastest growing segment. In terms of product, mattresses and pillows are the largest segments in the sleep aids market. In terms of medication, prescription medications are the largest segment in the market.Download and View Report TOC, Figures and Tables @Some of the latest trends in the global sleep aids market are increasing usage of home sleep test for diagnosis of sleep apnea, continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy to treat sleep apnea, and growing adoption of wearable monitors and passive-off body sensors.Sanofi, Merck & Co., Pfizer, Koninklijke Philips N.V. (Philips), GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Care Fusion Corporation, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. are some of the leading players in the global market for Sleep Aids market. Some of the other major players in Sleep Aids market are; Cadwell, SleepMed, Inc, Natus Medical manufactures, DeVilbiss Healthcare LLC, and Compumedics Limited.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:Organic Pea Protein Market 2018 Global Key Players: Axiom Foods, The Scoular Company, Farbest Brands, AIDP, Shaanxi Fuheng Biotechnology,.

Organic Pea Protein Market

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Organic Pea Protein Market:WiseGuyReports.com adds Organic Pea Protein Market 2018 Global Analysis, Growth, Trends and Opportunities Research Report Forecasting to 2025reports to its database.Executive SummaryGeographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), market share and growth rate of Organic Pea Protein in these regions, from 2013 to 2025 (forecast), coveringNorth AmericaEuropeChinaJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaGlobal Organic Pea Protein market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players includingAxiom FoodsThe Scoular CompanyFarbest BrandsAIDPShaanxi Fuheng BiotechnologyWorld Food ProcessingThe Green LabsPhyto-TherapyBioway (Xi'An) Organic IngredientsZelang GroupRequest Sample Report @On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoIsolatesConcentratesTexturedOn the basis of the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, consumption (sales), market share and growth rate for each application, includingNutritional SupplementsBeveragesMeat Extender & AnalogsSnacksBakery ProductsIf you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.For further information on this report, visit Table of content:Global Organic Pea Protein Market Research Report 20181 Organic Pea Protein Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Organic Pea Protein1.2 Organic Pea Protein Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global Organic Pea Protein Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category)(2013-2025)1.2.2 Global Organic Pea Protein Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20171.2.3 Isolates1.2.4 Concentrates1.2.5 Textured1.3 Global Organic Pea Protein Segment by Application1.3.1 Organic Pea Protein Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2013-2025)1.3.2 Nutritional Supplements1.3.3 Beverages1.3.4 Meat Extender & Analogs1.3.5 Snacks1.3.6 Bakery Products1.4 Global Organic Pea Protein Market by Region (2013-2025)1.4.1 Global Organic Pea Protein Market Size (Value) and CAGR (%) Comparison by Region (2013-2025)1.4.2 North America Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.3 Europe Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.4 China Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.5 Japan Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.6 Southeast Asia Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.7 India Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Organic Pea Protein (2013-2025)1.5.1 Global Organic Pea Protein Revenue Status and Outlook (2013-2025)1.5.2 Global Organic Pea Protein Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2013-2025)2 Global Organic Pea Protein Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Organic Pea Protein Capacity, Production and Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.1.1 Global Organic Pea Protein Capacity and Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.1.2 Global Organic Pea Protein Production and Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.2 Global Organic Pea Protein Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.3 Global Organic Pea Protein Average Price by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.4 Manufacturers Organic Pea Protein Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area and Product Type2.5 Organic Pea Protein Market Competitive Situation and Trends2.5.1 Organic Pea Protein Market Concentration Rate2.5.2 Organic Pea Protein Market Share of Top 3 and Top 5 Manufacturers2.5.3 Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion3 Global Organic Pea Protein Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2013-2018)3.1 Global Organic Pea Protein Capacity and Market Share by Region (2013-2018)3.2 Global Organic Pea Protein Production and Market Share by Region (2013-2018)3.3 Global Organic Pea Protein Revenue (Value) and Market Share by Region (2013-2018)3.4 Global Organic Pea Protein Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)3.5 North America Organic Pea Protein Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)3.6 Europe Organic Pea Protein Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)3.7 China Organic Pea Protein Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)3.8 Japan Organic Pea Protein Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)3.9 Southeast Asia Organic Pea Protein Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)3.10 India Organic Pea Protein Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)4 Global Organic Pea Protein Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Region (2013-2018)4.1 Global Organic Pea Protein Consumption by Region (2013-2018)4.2 North America Organic Pea Protein Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2013-2018)4.3 Europe Organic Pea Protein Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2013-2018)4.4 China Organic Pea Protein Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2013-2018)4.5 Japan Organic Pea Protein Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2013-2018)4.6 Southeast Asia Organic Pea Protein Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2013-2018)4.7 India Organic Pea Protein Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2013-2018)5 Global Organic Pea Protein Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type5.1 Global Organic Pea Protein Production and Market Share by Type (2013-2018)5.2 Global Organic Pea Protein Revenue and Market Share by Type (2013-2018)5.3 Global Organic Pea Protein Price by Type (2013-2018)5.4 Global Organic Pea Protein Production Growth by Type (2013-2018)6 Global Organic Pea Protein Market Analysis by Application6.1 Global Organic Pea Protein Consumption and Market Share by Application (2013-2018)6.2 Global Organic Pea Protein Consumption Growth Rate by Application (2013-2018)6.3 Market Drivers and Opportunities6.3.1 Potential Applications6.3.2 Emerging Markets/CountriesContinuousBuy this Report @Contact Us:Norah Trentsales@wiseguyreports.comPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US); +44 208 133 9349 (UK)Wise Guy Reports Is Part Of The Wise Guy Consultants Pvt. Ltd. And Offers Premium Progressive Statistical Surveying, Market Research Reports, Analysis & Forecast Data For Industries And Governments Around The Globe. Wise Guy Reports Features An Exhaustive List Of Market Research Reports From Hundreds Of Publishers Worldwide. We Boast A Database Spanning Virtually Every Market Category And An Even More Comprehensive Collection Of Market Research Reports Under These Categories And Sub-Categories.Addres:WISEGUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersPune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone :+91 841 198 5042Nonylphenol Market to Expand with Significant CAGR During 2017 - 2025

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Nonylphenol is an organic compound which belongs to the category of alkylphenol group. Nonylphenol is a colorless to pale yellow, viscous liquid, having a characteristic smell. Generally, Nonylphenol is manufactured by the alkylation between phenol and nonenes mixture in presence of acid catalyst. Nonylphenol can be the branch or linear chain compound, however, branched Nonylphenol are industrially preferred and depend upon the attachment of nonyl group to phenol i.e. on 2 or 4 (para) position, Nonylphenol are categorized. Nonylphenol is also further processed in order to produce nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPE) which is non-ionic in nature owing to which it is predominantly used as emulsifiers, detergents, antioxidant, cleaners and in several other industrial application. Furthermore, Nonylphenols are used as chemical intermediate/ precursor in the manufacturing of phenolic oximes, phenolic resins, epoxy resins, paints, additives for tire industry and for the mining industry, among others. However, half-life period of Nonylphenol is around 60 years that indicate the slow rate of Nonylphenol degradation. As, many products such as detergent, soap, etc. contain Nonylphenol owing to which even in sewage treated water contained Nonylphenol that further accumulated in agriculture land and caused an effect on its fertility. Thus, many countries have restricted limits for the Nonylphenol amount in the manufacturing.Request Report For TOC @Nonylphenol Market: DynamicsGrowing demand for the detergent/ surfactant in various end-use industries as well as in domestic application across the globe is expected to drive the demand for the Nonylphenol. Being the major precursor compound for the resins manufacturing coupled with the growing market of polymer and plastic that subsequently resulted in increase in demand for Nonylphenol. Furthermore, increasing per capita expenditure and the personal care and cosmetic products wherein the Nonylphenol compounds are used in manufacturing, in turn, boost the market demand. Apart from this, government regulations in the developed region such as in Europe and US and initiative for the sustainability development that leads to increasing in demand for biodegradable compound owing to which Nonylphenol market growth may get hampered. However, a major manufacturer of Nonylphenol is focussing on an enhancement of production facility and presence in a major market such as India, China, etc. as Nonylphenol find usage in a variety of applications. Thus, many countries had imposed an antidumping duty on the Nonylphenol in order to support the domestic manufacturer.In terms of production and consumption, the global Nonylphenol market is dominated by the Asia Pacific region (APAC). The growth of end-use industries such as chemical, textiles, Personal care, cosmetics and polymer industries is prompt in the APAC region coupled with the increasing per capita spending has translated into an increasing demand for Nonylphenol. In the APAC region, China, followed by India is a major market for Nonylphenol in terms of value and volume. The APAC Nonylphenol market is expected that register a significant CAGR over the forecast period. North America and Europe collectively hold the second spot in terms of market share. Rising demand for surfactant, emulsifier, and chemical synthesis applications in North America and Europe are expected to increase the demand for Nonylphenol over the forecast period. In Europe, Western Europe dominates the Nonylphenol market in term of consumption. However, government regulation in North America and Europe may effect on the growth of Nonylphenol markets. North America and Europe Nonylphenol market are expected to register steady growth over the forecast period. The MEA and Latin America Nonylphenol market are projected to register slow growth over the forecast period.Nonylphenol Market: Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the market participants in the global Nonylphenol market, identified across the value chain include, Huntsman International LLC, Dover Chemical Corporation, SI Group, Inc., PCC Group, China Man-Made Fiber Corporation, FORMOSAN UNION CHEMICAL CORP., and Jiangsu Jiafeng Chemical Co., Ltd., among othersRequest To Sample Of Report @About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA,Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:Textile Reinforced Concrete Market Latest Trends and Forecast Analysis up to 2025

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Textile Reinforced Concrete is now worlds popular building material which can bear high pressure and whose structures are produced from glass or carbon fibers are an excellent alternative and balance the existing reinforcement materials made from steel. Textile Reinforced Concrete/Carbon Reinforcement uses corrosion resistant reinforcements like alkali resins/glass fibers, carbon, aramid, basalt out of which carbon is said to be optimally potential. Basalt is said to have least cumulative energy demand, whereas carbon has least environmental impact. Combination of carbon or glass fibers reinforcements and impregnation materials using epoxy resins or styrene butadiene is superiority of Textile Reinforced Concrete. For flat carbon textile epoxy resin is impregnated. For moulded reinforcement as L angle alkali resins, glass and epoxy resin is impregnated whereas for rollup reinforcement styrene butadiene is impregnated. Concrete is alkali in nature and one of the two largest producers of CO2.Use of Textile Reinforced Concrete in civic structures has led to minimization of concrete use. Textile Reinforced Concrete when used in facades saves 80% concrete, pre-fabricated garages become 35% lighter whereas, foot and bicycle path bridges become 60% lighter. The current generation of textile reinforcements has reached strengths well over 1,500 N/mm. Textile Reinforced Concrete has applications in sandwich panels, facade, 2D and 3D reinforcements and others. Suitable production methods include laminating, casting, spraying, spinning and injection moulding. Textile Reinforced Concrete can be recycled and even be used the second time. Apart from regular construction Textile Reinforced Concrete can be used as functional material too.A renewed interest for an ecofriendly and sustainable material in the construction sector has created interest for new infrastructural developments leading to a high demand for the Global Textile Reinforced Concrete throughout the forecast period. Composites are playing a bigger role in construction. Textile Reinforced Concrete will be found in textile applications like roofs and balconies, precast elements and lost formwork for slabs, beams and columns and others creating growth opportunities for modern construction techniques thus increasing the Global Textile Reinforced Concrete Market.Request Report For TOC @Reduction in material reduces environmental load. Implementation and integration of sustainable and recyclable materials in construction has become important leading to an increase in demand for the Global Textile Reinforced Concrete Market. Increase in demand for new commercial and industrial construction projects are some other factors influencing the Global Textile Reinforced Market. At present Textile Reinforced Concrete are used for repair and strengthening of old buildings and creation of finished precast parts with new design possibilities which drives the Global Textile Reinforced Market.Owing to the ongoing innovations in the textile reinforced concrete the permission to use Textile Reinforced Concrete is only for strengthening structures of reinforced concrete or to improve their load bearing. There is lot of potential for new materials like Textile Reinforced Concrete. Street furniture and modular toilets made from Textile Reinforced Concrete is planned for upcoming projects.As a construction material, Textile Reinforced Concrete is not regulated by standards. The industries follow their own made standards and regulations. Textile made from Carbon Concrete Composite (C3) is currently in trend and is supported by Government. In the C3 project the newly developed mineral insulation Calostat is used. Other natural insulating materials like flex or hemp are also considered. The research and development as well as funding from government is another factor for the growth of the Global Textile Reinforced Concrete Market. However, for the adoption of new construction materials and techniques huge investments would be required which may slow down the Global Textile Reinforced Concrete Market.Some of the key players identified in the Global Textile Reinforced Concrete Market are Solidian, Weserland GmbH, ADCOS NV, DistTEX, Hanson Australia Pty Ltd, Rezplast Mfg, Tradecc, V Fraas, JCT Limited, Hering Architectural Concrete.Request to Sample of Report @About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a U.S.-based full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.ContactPersistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:Macroeconomic Developments will Contribute to Communication Relays Market Growth By 2025

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Communication Relays Market: OverviewThe Communication Relays are playing an important role in the development of next generation communication systems. The use of communication relays can significantly improve the throughout performance of the coverage of communication systems. They can improve the service availability and network efficiency. The Infrastructure relays offers savings of operators backhaul cost as it do not need wired connection to network. The key players are seeking growth opportunities in the field of wireless communication.Request Report for TOC @Communication Relays Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe growth of communication relays market is attributed to the demand from various communication components manufacturers such as telephone switching equipment, broadband equipment, mobile base stations etc. The worldwide spending on broadband equipment have experiencing a significant increase particularly in countries such as India and China from APEJ region. The broadband operators around the world are seeking a flexible, interoperable technology for offering higher bandwidth speeds to the customers.In addition to this the global telecommunication equipment market is growing at a fast pace. The dramatic expansion of the manufacturing capabilities and rising consumer demand worldwide have transformed the global telecommunication equipment market. The growth in this market is expected to drive the demand for communication relays over the forecast period. The consolidation between large and medium players is anticipated since the government of various developing countries such as India and China has been encouraging industry consolidation with the objective to increase the competitiveness in the global communication relays market and to regulate the industry.In addition to this, the increasing demand for new and faster video broadband services and new architecture are driving the growth of CATV network infrastructure which in turn expected to drive the communication relays market over the forecast period. The mobile operators in developing economies are expanding their area of operation by installing new mobile base station due to the drastic growth in sales of smartphones and tablets across the globe and increasing number of cell phone users. This factor is projected to drive the global communication relays market over the forecast period. The lack of innovation and investment on research and development activities by manufactures from countries such as China is expected to limit the growth of communication relays market over the forecast period.Request to Sample of Report-Communication Relays Market PlayersCommunication Relays market has several global players, some of the stakeholders among them includeRJS ELECTRONICS LTDOmron Electronic Components LLCSiemens AGPanasonicIDECSong Chuan GroupMitsubishi ElectricFuji ElectricGuizhou Space Appliance Co., Ltd.About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:Non Aromatic Fuels Market: Worldwide Industry Analysis and New Market Opportunities Explored

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Researchers, scientists, and various commercial institutions are striving to develop a perfectly combustible product which can bring about complete combustion of fuels and full utilization of the generated power. Moreover, rising concerns regarding the depletion of natural resources which are used for the production of fuels and associated emission, which, in turn, harm the environment are the main reason for shift of many industries towards alternative fuels, which are economical and eco-friendly. The various properties of the fuel used, determine the emission and performance of fuel operated engines. The fuel used is a complex mixture of hydrocarbons which include Non aromatic, mono-aromatic and poly-aromatic hydrocarbons.The fuels are divided into two categories -- aromatic fuels and Non aromatic fuels. Non aromatic fuels, also called as ultra-low aromatic fuels, belong to the class of straight chain hydrocarbons. Nonaromatic fuels have lighter molar mass as compared to aromatic fuels. Composition of Non aromatic fuels majorly depends on the cetane number of the fuel. In case the cetane number is higher, the concentration of Non aromatic fuels increases. Non aromatic fuels are effective alternatives to conventional fuels; these hydrocarbon fuels find applications across various industries and are used as fuels in chemical intermediates, metal working fluids, and many more.Request Report For TOC @Conventional fuels are composed of relatively higher levels of aromatic contents and hence, are characterised by relatively higher levels of organic components too. Growing concern about ill-effects of fuels, which includes their high VOC content, is leading to an increase in demand for Non aromatic fuels. The trend is expected to continue during the forecast period. Stringent policies and regulations have resulted in end users switching to Non aromatic fuels products that are equally effective but contain relatively low levels of VOCs. Non aromatic fuels are produced through a complex process which requires a controlled environment to ensure the safety of personnel and process operation.Unavailability of substitutes of traditional conventional fuels such as petroleum, coal, natural gas, stringent regulations related to VOC emission and steady growth of end use industries are some of the positive factors expected to drive the growth of the Non aromatic fuels market during the forecast period. However, along with these positive factors, there are some negative factors that are likely to restrict the growth of Non aromatic fuels market. These include growing consumption of bio-based product offerings and relatively slow growth in developing regions.Major players in the Non aromatic fuels market are making efforts to create and offer aromatic fuels that are tailored for specific end-use requirements. These days, key players are offering high value-added fuels to increase their revenue share in the global market. The growing consumption in developing region is expected to create new trends in the Non aromatic fuels market over the forecast period. On the basis of geographical region, Asia Pacific is expected to lead the demand for Non aromatic fuels market followed by North America and Western Europe.Request to Sample of Report @About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a U.S.-based full-service market intelligence firm specializing in syndicated research, custom research, and consulting services. PMR boasts market research expertise across the Healthcare, Chemicals and Materials, Technology and Media, Energy and Mining, Food and Beverages, Semiconductor and Electronics, Consumer Goods, and Shipping and Transportation industries. The company draws from its multi-disciplinary capabilities and high-pedigree team of analysts to share data that precisely corresponds to clients business needs.PMR stands committed to bringing more accuracy and speed to clients business decisions. From ready-to-purchase market research reports to customized research solutions, PMRs engagement models are highly flexible without compromising on its deep-seated research values.ContactPersistence Market Research Pvt. Ltd305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.commedia@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:Global Mezcal Market 2018 is Expected to Reach at High Growth Rate by 2025 : Juarez, Alipus

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report "Global Mezcal Market Research Report 2018" to its huge collection of research reports.The commerce and business intelligence study on the global Mezcal market in an analytical evaluation that has been prepared to help the business decision making capabilities of vendors associated to the value chain of the market. The report serves to aid its targeted audiences to detect growth spaces and hence gain edge over their competitors. It presents an analysis of growth behavior of key segments and sub-segments in key regions of the Mezcal market. To provide a thorough analysis, the report provides historic performance and current performance based on which market size and revenue projections are provided. The research report provides a conclusive analysis of the Mezcal market by carefully segregating it based on a few vital criteria.For more info, Get a Free Sample Report:Global Mezcal market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players includingSauzaPatrnEl JimadorJose CuervoJuarezDon JulioDestilera TlacolulaFamilia Camarena TequilaThe study covers drivers, trends, opportunities, and restraints defining the dynamics of the global Mezcal The report covers demand drivers, challenges, opportunities, and trends defining the dynamics of the Mezcal market along with an analysis of their impact on demand in the overall market. Further, the report covers barriers or pitfalls in the worldwide Mezcal market. Following this, the report encompasses detailed value chain analysis to present an in-depth overview of the market. Using standard analytical tools and proven research methodologies, it helps understand the competitive landscape of the market. Included in the report is a market attractiveness analysis that market stakeholders can leverage to make lucrative investments.One of the highlight of the report is a dedicated chapter on company profiles wherein market share of key companies operating in the Mezcal market have been presented. Not only this, market share projections and the changing competitive hierarchy over the reports forecast period is presented herein. Each of the companies is profiled for their distinguishing business attributes such as business overview, product portfolio, recent developments, business strategies, and revenue margin.Table of Contents1 Mezcal Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Mezcal1.2 Mezcal Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global Mezcal Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category)(2013-2025)1.2.2 Global Mezcal Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20171.3 Global Mezcal Segment by Application1.4 Global Mezcal Market by Region (2013-2025)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Mezcal (2013-2025)1.5.1 Global Mezcal Revenue Status and Outlook (2013-2025)1.5.2 Global Mezcal Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2013-2025)2 Global Mezcal Market Competition by Manufacturers2.1 Global Mezcal Capacity, Production and Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.1.1 Global Mezcal Capacity and Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.1.2 Global Mezcal Production and Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.2 Global Mezcal Revenue and Share by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.3 Global Mezcal Average Price by Manufacturers (2013-2018)2.4 Manufacturers Mezcal Manufacturing Base Distribution, Sales Area and Product Type2.5 Mezcal Market Competitive Situation and TrendsTo Get Discount On This Report Click here @3 Global Mezcal Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2013-2018)3.1 Global Mezcal Capacity and Market Share by Region (2013-2018)3.2 Global Mezcal Production and Market Share by Region (2013-2018)3.3 Global Mezcal Revenue (Value) and Market Share by Region (2013-2018)3.4 Global Mezcal Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)3.5 North America Mezcal Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)3.6 Europe Mezcal Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)3.7 China Mezcal Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018)4 Global Mezcal Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Region (2013-2018)4.1 Global Mezcal Consumption by Region (2013-2018)4.2 North America Mezcal Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2013-2018)4.3 Europe Mezcal Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2013-2018)4.4 China Mezcal Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2013-2018)4.5 Japan Mezcal Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2013-2018)4.6 Southeast Asia Mezcal Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2013-2018)4.7 India Mezcal Production, Consumption, Export, Import (2013-2018)5 Global Mezcal Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type5.1 Global Mezcal Production and Market Share by Type (2013-2018)5.2 Global Mezcal Revenue and Market Share by Type (2013-2018)5.3 Global Mezcal Price by Type (2013-2018)5.4 Global Mezcal Production Growth by Type (2013-2018)About Us:QYResearchReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. 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Worldwide Market Reports added Latest Research Report titled " Global Cinnamon (Canella) Industry Market Research Report " to its Large Report database.Based on the Cinnamon (Canella) industrial chain, this report mainly elaborate the definition, types, applications and major players of Cinnamon (Canella) market in details. Deep analysis about market status (2012-2017), enterprise competition pattern, advantages and disadvantages of enterprise Products, industry development trends (2017-2022), regional industrial layout characteristics and macroeconomic policies, industrial policy has also be included. From raw materials to downstream buyers of this industry will be analyzed scientifically, the feature of product circulation and sales channel will be presented as well. In a word, this report will help you to establish a panorama of industrial development and characteristics of the Cinnamon (Canella) market.Request for Sample Copy of Premium Research Report:Major Players in Cinnamon (Canella) market are:Company 1Company 2Company 3Company 4Company 5Company 6...Major Regions play vital role in Cinnamon (Canella) market are:North AmericaEuropeChinaJapanMiddle East & AfricaIndiaSouth AmericaOthersRequest for Discount @Table of ContentsGlobal Cinnamon (Canella) Industry Market Research Report1 Cinnamon (Canella) Introduction and Market Overview1.1 Objectives of the Study1.2 Definition of Cinnamon (Canella)1.3 Cinnamon (Canella) Market Scope and Market Size Estimation1.3.1 Market Concentration Ratio and Market Maturity Analysis1.3.2 Global Cinnamon (Canella) Value ($) and Growth Rate from 2012-20221.4 Market Segmentation1.4.1 Types of Cinnamon (Canella)1.4.2 Applications of Cinnamon (Canella)1.4.3 Research Regions1.4.3.1 North America Cinnamon (Canella) Production Value ($) and Growth Rate (2012-2017)1.4.3.2 Europe Cinnamon (Canella) Production Value ($) and Growth Rate (2012-2017)1.4.3.3 China Cinnamon (Canella) Production Value ($) and Growth Rate (2012-2017)1.4.3.4 Japan Cinnamon (Canella) Production Value ($) and Growth Rate (2012-2017)1.4.3.5 Middle East & Africa Cinnamon (Canella) Production Value ($) and Growth Rate (2012-2017)1.4.3.6 India Cinnamon (Canella) Production Value ($) and Growth Rate (2012-2017)1.4.3.7 South America Cinnamon (Canella) Production Value ($) and Growth Rate (2012-2017)1.5 Market Dynamics1.5.1 Drivers1.5.1.1 Emerging Countries of Cinnamon (Canella)1.5.1.2 Growing Market of Cinnamon (Canella)1.5.2 Limitations1.5.3 Opportunities1.6 Industry News and Policies by Regions1.6.1 Industry News1.6.2 Industry PoliciesAbout WMRWorldwide Market Reports is your one-stop repository of detailed and in-depth market research reports compiled by an extensive list of publishers from across the globe. We offer reports across virtually all domains and an exhaustive list of sub-domains under the sun. The in-depth market analysis by some of the most vastly experienced analysts provide our diverse range of clients from across all industries with vital decision making insights to plan and align their market strategies in line with current market trends. Worldwide Market Researchs well-researched inputs that encompass domains ranging from IT to healthcare enable our prized clients to capitalize upon key growth opportunities and shield against credible threats prevalent in the market in the current scenario and those expected in the near future.Contact Us:Mr. ShahWorldwide Market Reports1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154,U.STel: +1 415 871 0703Email: sales@worldwidemarketreports.comAC Motor Drives Market 2018: Invertek Drives, Omron, Siemens, Eaton

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HTF MI recently broadcasted a new study in its database that highlights the in-depth market analysis with future prospects of AC Motor Drives market. The study covers significant data which makes the research document a handy resource for managers, industry executives and other key people get ready-to-access and self-analyzed study along with graphs and tables to help understand market trends, drivers and market challenges. Some of the key players mentioned in this research are Invertek Drives, NovaTorque, Inc., Emerson Industrial, Eaton, Yaskawa America, Inc., Omron, Siemens & Rockwell Automation.Enquire for customization in Report @The research covers the current market size of the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) AC Motor Drives market and its growth rates based on 5 year history data. It also covers various types of segmentation such as by geography [Europe: Germany, France, UK, Russia, Italy and Benelux; & Middle East: Saudi Arabia, Israel, UAE and Iran;], by product /end user type [Induction Motors, Synchronous Motors, Sensorless Vector Drives & Servo Motors], by applications [Commercial Use & Industrial Use] in overall market. The in-depth information by segments of AC Motor Drives market helps monitor performance & make critical decisions for growth and profitability. It provides information on trends and developments, focuses on markets and materials, capacities, technologies, CAPEX cycle and the changing structure of the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) AC Motor Drives Market.Get Access to FREE sample pages @This study also contains company profiling, product picture and specifications, sales, market share and contact information of various international, regional, and local vendors of EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) AC Motor Drives Market, some of them are Invertek Drives, NovaTorque, Inc., Emerson Industrial, Eaton, Yaskawa America, Inc., Omron, Siemens & Rockwell Automation. The market competition is constantly growing higher with the rise in technological innovation and M&A activities in the industry. Moreover, many local and regional vendors are offering specific application products for varied end-users. 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To get a deeper view of Market Size, competitive landscape is provided i.e. Revenue (Million USD) by Players (2012-2017), Revenue Market Share (%) by Players (2012-2017) and further a qualitative analysis is made towards market concentration rate, product/service differences, new entrants and the technological trends in future.Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @Key questions answered in this report - EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) AC Motor Drives Market Report 2018What will the market size be in 2022 and what will the growth rate beWhat are the key market trendsWhat is driving EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) AC Motor Drives marketWhat are the challenges to market growthWho are the key vendors in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) AC Motor Drives market space?What are the key market trends impacting the growth of the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) AC Motor Drives market?What are the key outcomes of the five forces analysis of the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) AC Motor Drives market?Buy PDF version of this research report @There are 15 Chapters to display the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) AC Motor Drives market.Chapter 1, to describe Definition, Specifications and Classification of AC Motor Drives, Applications of AC Motor Drives, Market Segment by Regions;Chapter 2, to analyze the Manufacturing Cost Structure, Raw Material and Suppliers, Manufacturing Process, Industry Chain Structure;Chapter 3, to display the Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of AC Motor Drives, Capacity and Commercial Production Date, Manufacturing Plants Distribution, R&D Status and Technology Source, Raw Materials Sources Analysis;Chapter 4, to show the Overall Market Analysis, Capacity Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment);Chapter 5 and 6, to show the Regional Market Analysis that includes Europe: Germany, France, UK, Russia, Italy and Benelux; & Middle East: Saudi Arabia, Israel, UAE and Iran;, AC Motor Drives Segment Market Analysis (by Type);Chapter 7 and 8, to analyze the AC Motor Drives Segment Market Analysis (by Application) Major Manufacturers Analysis of AC Motor Drives;Chapter 9, Market Trend Analysis, Regional Market Trend, Market Trend by Product Type [Induction Motors, Synchronous Motors, Sensorless Vector Drives & Servo Motors], Market Trend by Application [Commercial Use & Industrial Use];Chapter 10, Regional Marketing Type Analysis, International Trade Type Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis;Check for discount @Chapter 11, to analyze the Consumers Analysis of AC Motor Drives;Chapter 12, to describe AC Motor Drives Research Findings and Conclusion, Appendix, methodology and data source;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe AC Motor Drives sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia.About Author:HTF Market Report is a wholly owned brand of HTF market Intelligence Consulting Private Limited. HTF Market Report global research and market intelligence consulting organization is uniquely positioned to not only identify growth opportunities but to also empower and inspire you to create visionary growth strategies for futures, enabled by our extraordinary depth and breadth of thought leadership, research, tools, events and experience that assist you for making goals into a reality. Our understanding of the interplay between industry convergence, Mega Trends, technologies and market trends provides our clients with new business models and expansion opportunities. We are focused on identifying the Accurate Forecast in every industry we cover so our clients can reap the benefits of being early market entrants and can accomplish their Goals & Objectives.Contact Us:HTF Market Intelligence Consulting Private LimitedUnit No. 429, Parsonage Road, Edison, NJ USA - 08837sales@htfmarketreport.comPh: +1 (206) 317 1218eReader Market: Amazon, Sony, Ectaco, Ematic

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HTF MI recently broadcasted a new study in its database that highlights the in-depth market analysis with future prospects of eReader market. The study covers significant data which makes the research document a handy resource for managers, industry executives and other key people get ready-to-access and self-analyzed study along with graphs and tables to help understand market trends, drivers and market challenges. Some of the key players mentioned in this research are Amazon, Sony, Barnes &Noble, PocketBook, Kobo (Rakuten), Bookeen, Ectaco, Ematic, DistriRead (ICARUS), Aluratek, Tolino, Hanvon & Onyx.Enquire for customization in Report @The research covers the current market size of the United States eReader market and its growth rates based on 5 year history data. 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The market competition is constantly growing higher with the rise in technological innovation and M&A activities in the industry. Moreover, many local and regional vendors are offering specific application products for varied end-users. The new vendor entrants in the market are finding it hard to compete with the international vendors based on quality, reliability, and innovations in technology.The research study is also segmented by Application such as Ages50 with historical and projected market share and compounded annual growth rate.Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), and market share and growth rate of eReader in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast). To get a deeper view of Market Size, competitive landscape is provided i.e. Revenue (Million USD) by Players (2012-2017), Revenue Market Share (%) by Players (2012-2017) and further a qualitative analysis is made towards market concentration rate, product/service differences, new entrants and the technological trends in future.Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @Key questions answered in this report - United States eReader Market Report 2018What will the market size be in 2022 and what will the growth rate beWhat are the key market trendsWhat is driving United States eReader marketWhat are the challenges to market growthWho are the key vendors in United States eReader market space?What are the key market trends impacting the growth of the United States eReader market?What are the key outcomes of the five forces analysis of the United States eReader market?Buy PDF version of this research report @There are 15 Chapters to display the United States eReader market.Chapter 1, to describe Definition, Specifications and Classification of eReader, Applications of eReader, Market Segment by Regions;Chapter 2, to analyze the Manufacturing Cost Structure, Raw Material and Suppliers, Manufacturing Process, Industry Chain Structure;Chapter 3, to display the Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of eReader, Capacity and Commercial Production Date, Manufacturing Plants Distribution, R&D Status and Technology Source, Raw Materials Sources Analysis;Chapter 4, to show the Overall Market Analysis, Capacity Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment);Chapter 5 and 6, to show the Regional Market Analysis that includes The West, Southwest, The Middle Atlantic, New England, The South & The Midwest, eReader Segment Market Analysis (by Type);Chapter 7 and 8, to analyze the eReader Segment Market Analysis (by Application) Major Manufacturers Analysis of eReader;Chapter 9, Market Trend Analysis, Regional Market Trend, Market Trend by Product Type [E-ink eReader & LCD eReader], Market Trend by Application [Ages50];Chapter 10, Regional Marketing Type Analysis, International Trade Type Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis;Check for discount @Chapter 11, to analyze the Consumers Analysis of eReader;Chapter 12, to describe eReader Research Findings and Conclusion, Appendix, methodology and data source;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe eReader sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia.About Author:HTF Market Report is a wholly owned brand of HTF market Intelligence Consulting Private Limited. HTF Market Report global research and market intelligence consulting organization is uniquely positioned to not only identify growth opportunities but to also empower and inspire you to create visionary growth strategies for futures, enabled by our extraordinary depth and breadth of thought leadership, research, tools, events and experience that assist you for making goals into a reality. Our understanding of the interplay between industry convergence, Mega Trends, technologies and market trends provides our clients with new business models and expansion opportunities. 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It offers a detailed analysis of the key segments in the Azerbaijani insurance industry, along with market forecasts until 2021. It covers an exhaustive list of parameters, including written premium and claims. It analyzes the various distribution channels in Azerbaijan. It profiles the top insurance companies in Azerbaijan and outlines the key regulations affecting them.Browse Full Report with TOC:Reasons To Buy Make strategic business decisions using in-depth historic and forecast market data related to the Azerbaijani insurance industry and each segment and category within it. Understand the demand-side dynamics, key market trends and growth opportunities in the Azerbaijani insurance industry. Assess the competitive dynamics in the Azerbaijani insurance industry. Identify the growth opportunities and market dynamics in key segments. Gain insights into key regulations governing the Azerbaijani insurance industry and their impact on companies and the industry's future.Key Highlights On June 15, 2017, Pasha Insurance introduced a new product for travelers called Property Insurance while traveling, through which travelers can insure a trip with special property insurance. On April 18, 2017, Pasha Insurance started new voluntary medical insurance for tourists visiting Azerbaijan for the first time. In December 2016, the government started a strategic roadmap to improve the economy and develop 11 key sectors. This strategic roadmap is set to achieve medium and long-term goals through sustained development. The Azerbaijan State Agency for Compulsory Health Insurance will introduce a pilot project for the introduction of mandatory health insurance by 2017.Enquire About This Report:About Market Research Hub:Market Research Hub (MRH) is a next-generation reseller of research reports and analysis. MRHs expansive collection of insurance market research reports has been carefully curated to help key personnel and decision makers across industry verticals to clearly visualize their operating environment and take strategic steps.MRH functions as an integrated platform for the following products and services: Objective and sound market forecasts, qualitative and quantitative analysis, incisive insight into defining industry trends, and market share estimates. Our reputation lies in delivering value and world-class capabilities to our clients.Contact Us90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United StatesToll Free: 800-998-4852 (US-Canada)Email: press@marketresearchhub.comWebsite:Read Industry News at -Data Center Construction Market 2018 Top Key Players: - AECOM Inc, ISG PLC, Jacobs, John Sisk & Son

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Rising digitization in the business world as well as demand for highly resilient data management services have resulted into increased demand for data center services across Europe. Mercury Engineering, LZ technologies, SISK Groups, Kedington and Jones Engineering Group are among the major players operating in this market. Europe, being a technologically advanced region along with high number of small and large enterprises, is anticipated to witness significantly high adoption of data centers by various organizations. Data center construction market is expected to grow from US$ 9,558 Million in 2016 to US$ 22,829.1 Million by 2025 at a CAGR of 10.3% between 2017 and 2025.The report focuses on in-depth segmentation of this market segmented by design type, across the European region. The geographic segmentation of the report covers seven major countries including; Germany, France, Ireland, Denmark, Netherlands, England, and Belgium. By design type, Electrical design accounted for the largest share of the data center construction market in 2016.Request Sample Copy @The report aims to provide an overview of European data center construction market with detailed market segmentation. Also, it analyzes the current data center construction market scenario and forecasts the market till 2025. The report covers market dynamics effecting the market during the forecast period. Furthermore, the report analyzes the competitive scenario, geographic trends, and opportunities in the markets with respect to all geographic regions. The report also includes the detailed company profiles of the key players in the market along with their market strategies. The report also provide PEST analysis for the European region, and SWOT analysis for all companies profiled within the scope of this report.Buy Report atUK is one of the prominent countries in European data center construction market which will contribute highest revenue, due to technological developments and considerable implementation of data centers by numerous organizations. Amongst all major European countries, Ireland is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period. Moreover, presence of big tech-giants in Ireland, is one of the major reason behind the availability of highly educated, and flexible workforce for data center construction market. Some of the key players of data center construction market in Europe include ISG plc, Arup Group, John Sisk & Son, Jones Engineering Group, Jacobs, Mace Group and others.View Complete Report atContact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@theinsightpartners.comThe Insight Partners is a one stop industry research provider of actionable intelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We are a specialist in Technology, Media, and Telecommunication industries.533, 5th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028Photomask Market 2018 Top Key Players: - Advance Reproductions Corporation, Compugraphics International Limited Brugg Group, Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd.

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Global photomask market is expected to grow from US$ 3,320.0 million in 2015 to US$ 4,949.1 million by 2025 at a CAGR of 4.6% between 2017 and 2025.Owing to the rapid rise in semiconductor and IC devices along with flat panel display devices, the demand for photomask which is used to imprint the circuit schematics onto the circuit board or display boards, is also set to increase. Ongoing miniaturization of circuit boards has led to its manufacturing by layers. Each board layers have a unique pattern which are etched onto a photomask. Thus, with the ever-increasing layers in a semiconductor wafer, the demand for newer set of photomasks is also set to increase. Additionally, with newer display technologies such as the switch from LCD to LED or AMOLED screens is also going to create a strong demand of photomask from the flat panel display manufacturers. Asia Pacific, being the hub for semiconductor fabrication, along with high number of small and large semiconductor plants, has witnessed highest adoptions of photomask by various organizations. North America is the second largest adopter of photomask solutions, while Europe region with growing numbers of various organizations and increasing technological trends lags behind the above two regions.The photomask market report focuses on an in-depth segmentation of this market based by type, application and end-user verticals. The geographic segmentation of the report covers six major regions including; North Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC), Middle East and Africa (MEA) and South America (SA). The regional market has been further bifurcated by respective countries. By end-user vertical semiconductor & IC sector accounted for the largest share of the photomask market in 2016; whereas, APAC region is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period.Request Sample Copy @The photomask market report aims to provide an overview of global photomask market with detailed market segmentation. Also, it analyzes the current photomask market scenario and forecasts the photomask market till 2025. The report covers market dynamics effecting the market during the forecast period. Furthermore, the report analyzes the competitive scenario, geographic trends, and opportunities in the markets with respect to all geographic regions. The report also includes the detailed company profiles of the key players in the market along with their market strategies. The report also provides PEST analysis and SWOT analysis for all company profiled in the report.Asia Pacific is one of the prominent regions in photomask market which will contribute highest revenue globally due to the presence of some of the worlds largest semiconductor and display fabrication units along with considerable implementation of photomask technology in different application segment. Rapidly growing economies in Asia-Pacific (APAC) with significant growth in IT sector will pave the path for increasing adoption and propel the market for photomask. The region is expected to lead the market with highest CAGR during the forecast period.Buy Report atSome of the key players of photomask market include1. Advance Reproductions Corporation2. Compugraphics International Limited Brugg Group3. Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd.4. HOYA GROUP5. LG Innotek Co., Ltd.6. NIPPON FILCON CO., LTD.7. Photronics, Inc.8. SK-Electronics Co., Ltd.9. Taiwan Mask Corp.10. Toppan Photomasks Inc..View Complete Report atContact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@theinsightpartners.comThe Insight Partners is a one stop industry research provider of actionable intelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We are a specialist in Technology, Media, and Telecommunication industries.533, 5th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028Drain Cleaning Equipment Market Size, Shares, Status, Analysis and Forecast Report 2018-2025

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Drain cleaning equipment are the devices that are used for dislodging clogs in drain pipes. Dropbox, Microsoft, Google, Box and Citrix are among the major players operating in this market. Europe is largest adopter of drain cleaning equipment, followed by North America, while Middle East & Africa region with growing numbers of infrastructures and increasing technological trends is anticipated to be the fastest growing region in terms of drain cleaning equipment market. Global drain cleaning equipment market is expected to grow from US$ 573.7 million in 2016 to US$ 936.2 million by 2025 at a CAGR of 5.7% between 2017 and 2025.The report focuses on an in-depth segmentation of this market based by product type, power source, sales channel and end-user industry. The geographic segmentation of the report covers six major regions including; North Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC), Middle East and Africa (MEA) and South America (SA). The regional market has been further bifurcated by respective countries. By end-user segment professional sector accounted for the largest share of the drain cleaning equipment market in 2016; whereas, Middle East & Africa region is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period.Request Sample Copy @The report aims to provide an overview of global drain cleaning equipment market with detailed market segmentation. Also, it analyzes the current drain cleaning equipment market scenario and forecasts the market till 2025. The report covers market dynamics effecting the market during the forecast period. Furthermore, the report analyzes the competitive scenario, geographic trends, and opportunities in the markets with respect to all geographic regions. The report also includes the detailed company profiles of the key players in the market along with their market strategies. The report also provides PEST analysis of all five regions along with the SWOT analysis for all company profiled in the report.Europe is one of the prominent regions in drain cleaning equipment market which will contribute highest revenue globally due to technological developments and considerable application of drain cleaning equipment in different end-user segment. Rapidly growing economies in Asia-Pacific (APAC) with significant growth construction sector will pave the path for increasing adoption and propel the market for drain cleaning equipment market. The MEA region is expected to lead the market with highest CAGR during the forecast period. Some of the key players of drain cleaning equipment market include Spartan Tool, LLC, Ridgid, Gorlitz Sewer & Drain, Inc., Goodway Technologies Corp., General Wire Spring, Aussie Pump, Duracable Manufacturers, Nilfisk group, Flowplant Group Inc. and Electric Eel Manufacturers, among others.Buy Report atThe key players profiled in the Drain Cleaning Equipment market report are SPARTAN TOOL, LLC RIDGID Gorlitz Sewer & Drain, Inc. Goodway Technologies Corp. General Wire Spring Company Aussie Pump Duracable Manufacturers Company Nilfisk Group Flowplant Group Inc. Electric Eel ManufacturersView Complete Report atCleaning Equipment-marketContact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@theinsightpartners.comThe Insight Partners is a one stop industry research provider of actionable intelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We are a specialist in Technology, Media, and Telecommunication industries.533, 5th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) System Market worth US$ 1654.4 Million in the year 2025

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Rising urbanization is expected to drive the automatic number plate recognition market at a CAGR of 12%The Automatic Number Plate Recognition market is growing at an exponential CAGR of 12% and is expected to reach US$ 1654.35 Mn in 2025.21st century has witnessed a lot of changes in the business models and standard of living of people. Emerging economies are striving their best to compete with already developed economies of the world. The biggest challenge faced by the world today is rising urban population. As per the statistics, 35% of the world population resides in the urban areas while the rest still reside in the rural areas. Rising urban population has given rise to many sorts of pressures on the environment. Increasing traffic congestions is the biggest challenge in the urban cities and the use of tools required to ensure smooth traffic flow is thus on the rise. ANPR cameras enable faster processing of vehicles on toll booths or are used to communicate the optimal route to the driver with the use of IoT technology. Their contribution towards reducing traffic is immense as is towards reducing air pollution and hence there is a huge demand for these tools by end-users.Request a Sample Report atAutomatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) Market Players:- PIPS Technology Ltd.- Siemens AG- COBAN Technologies- ARH Inc.- TattileS.r.l.- CA Traffic Limited- Vysionics Intelligent Traffic Solutions Ltd.- Quercus Technologies- Q-Free ASA- ELSAG North America LLC- Bosch Security Systems- NDI Recognition Systems Ltd.- Genetec Inc.The report provides a detailed overview of the industry including both qualitative and quantitative information. It provides overview and forecast of the global Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) market based on product and application. It also provides market size and forecast till 2025 for overall Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) market with respect to five major regions, namely; North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC), Middle East and Africa (MEA) and South America (SAM), which is later sub-segmented by respective countries and segments. The report evaluates market dynamics effecting the market during the forecast period i.e., drivers, restraints, opportunities, and future trend and provides exhaustive PEST analysis for all five regions.Buy Report atReason to Buy- Highlights key business priorities in order to assist companies to realign their business strategies.- The key findings and recommendations highlight crucial progressive industry trends in the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) market, thereby allowing players to develop effective long term strategies.- Develop/modify business expansion plans by using substantial growth offering developed and emerging markets.- Scrutinize in-depth global market trends and outlook coupled with the factors driving the market, as well as those hindering it.- Enhance the decision-making process by understanding the strategies that underpin commercial interest with respect to products, segmentation and industry verticals.View Complete Report atContact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@theinsightpartners.comThe Insight Partners is a one stop industry research provider of actionable intelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We are a specialist in Technology, Media, and Telecommunication industries.533, 5th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028Engineering Software Market Size, Development, Key Manufacturers and Forecast Report 2018-2025

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Engineering Software Market Analysis to 2025 is a specialized and in-depth study of the Engineering Software industry with a focus on the global market trend. The report aims to provide an overview of global Engineering Software market with detailed market segmentation by product/application and geography. The global Engineering Software market is expected to witness high growth during the forecast period. The report provides key statistics on the market status of the Engineering Software players and offers key trends and opportunities in the market.A significant reduction in time and cost can be achieved in the product development cycle with the introduction of engineering software such as CAD, CAM, CAE, and EDA among others. Also, engineering software provide easy accessibility to the users, thus reducing extra efforts and increasing efficiency and work quality, thereby driving its adoption. The engineering software market is further flourishing due to the rising adoption of portable computing devices at workplace coupled with easy availability of these software over cloud. Rising need of automation in process industries (such as oil & gas, manufacturing and offshoring industries among others) is expected to create new opportunities for the global engineering software market during the forecasted period.Request a Sample Report atThe report provides a detailed overview of the industry including both qualitative and quantitative information. It provides overview and forecast of the global Engineering Software market based on product and application. It also provides market size and forecast till 2025 for overall Engineering Software market with respect to five major regions, namely; North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC), Middle East and Africa (MEA) and South America (SAM), which is later sub-segmented by respective countries and segments. The report evaluates market dynamics effecting the market during the forecast period i.e., drivers, restraints, opportunities, and future trend and provides exhaustive PEST analysis for all five regions.Also, key Engineering Software market players influencing the market are profiled in the study along with their SWOT analysis and market strategies. The report also focuses on leading industry players with information such as company profiles, products and services offered, financial information of last 3 years, key development in past five years.Buy Report atReason to Buy- Highlights key business priorities in order to assist companies to realign their business strategies.- The key findings and recommendations highlight crucial progressive industry trends in the Engineering Software market, thereby allowing players to develop effective long term strategies.- Develop/modify business expansion plans by using substantial growth offering developed and emerging markets.- Scrutinize in-depth global market trends and outlook coupled with the factors driving the market, as well as those hindering it.- Enhance the decision-making process by understanding the strategies that underpin commercial interest with respect to products, segmentation and industry verticals.View Complete Report atContact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@theinsightpartners.comThe Insight Partners is a one stop industry research provider of actionable intelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We are a specialist in Technology, Media, and Telecommunication industries.533, 5th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028Future Outlook of Rail Logistics Market Growth by Type, Cargo Services, Rail Management, Future Opportunities and Industry Forecast 2023

Europe Rail Logistics Market

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Rail logistics refer to the movement of different commodities, inbound raw materials, and other supplies from one place to another. It plays a major role in cargo handling. It is the most effectual mode of freight transportation as railways can handle a large volume of cargo in a short time. Rail cargo transport plays a vital role in generating a sustainable and competitive transport market. A higher traffic congestion in highways is an essential factor responsible for the growth of rail logistics market. In addition, increase in investment, rapid evolution of regulatory policies, and mega infrastructural projects in the past few years have strengthened the rail logistics market.Get Sample Copy @:The study presents a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the market, its key segments, regulatory landscape, and competitive scenario, and recent developments. A detailed analysis of factors expected to drive and challenge the growth of the market as well as the trends that decide consumer inclination are highlighted. The report utilizes a variety of primary and secondary research methodologies for gathering quantitative as well as qualitative data on Europe as well as regional fronts. With the help of a number of industry-best analytical methods, the vast amount of market data thus gathered is filtered and narrowed down to the details that matter the most to companies operating in the Europe Rail Logistics Market or aspiring to enter it.Companies Profiled In This Report:Union Pacific, BNSF Railway, CN Railway, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Kuehne Nagel, VTG Rail Logistics, CTL Logistics, D B Schenker, RSI Logistics, Tschudi Logistics, Genesee and Wyoming, GeoMetrix Rail Logistics, Ozark Rail Logistics, Rhenus LogisticsAvail 20% Discount On This Report @:The Europe Rail Logistics Market is highly consolidated and dominated by a few Europe vendors due to their vast geographical presence. The market is also competitive and mostly dominated by leasing companies. Consequently, the rail logistics suppliers in this market have been compelled to develop new products that are energy and carbon efficient and address core requirements of the clients regarding transportation.Marketing strategies and marketing channels adopted by key companies are highlighted in the report. Corporations are concentrating on improving direct and indirect advertising strategies and develop various promotion channels, brand strategies, and pricing strategies. This statistical surveying report finds that major corporations functioning in the Europe Rail Logistics Market are concentrating on acquiring a few startup companies in the near future. With this, the key companies will get a chance to focus on adopting new trends and innovations in the market products. Additionally, by merging with startups, leading companies are aiming to maintain their dominance in the Europe market.For More Information @:Reason to Access Europe Rail Logistics Market Research Report:Analysis of Europe Rail Logistics Market and its upcoming growth prospects is been mentioned with maximum precision. This study includes an elaborative summary of market which also includes snapshots that offer depth of information of various other segmentations. Through qualitative and quantitative analysis of key factors which are responsible for boosting or hampering the market growth and the promising opportunities in market have been provide. Primary and secondary research is been done in detail which helps the readers have a strong understanding of the complete market for the forecast period.Get This Report Now @:Table of Contents:Europe Rail Logistics Market Research Report 2017Chapter 1: Europe Rail Logistics Market OverviewChapter 2: Europe Economic Impact on IndustryChapter 3: Europe Market Competition by ManufacturersChapter 4: Europe Production, Revenue (Value) by RegionChapter 5: Europe Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by RegionsChapter 6: Europe Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by TypeChapter 7: Europe Market Analysis by ApplicationChapter 8: Manufacturing Cost AnalysisChapter 9: Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream BuyersChapter 10: Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/TradersChapter 11: Market Effect Factors AnalysisChapter 12: Europe Rail Logistics Market ForecastIf you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.We at, QYReports , a leading market research report publisher accommodate more than 4,000 celebrated clients worldwide putting them at advantage in todays competitive world with our understanding of research. Our list of customers include prestigious Chinese companies, multinational companies, SME's and private equity firms whom we have helped grow and sustain with our fact-based research. Our business study covers a market size of over 30 industries offering unfailing insights into analysis to reimagine your business. We specialize in forecasts needed for investing in a new project, to revolutionize your business, to become more customer centric and improve the quality of output.Jones John(Sales Manager)+91-9764607607sales@qyreports.comLatest Research Report on Wind Tower Market by Type, Application, Market Share, End User, Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast 2023

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Definition:A wind tower is the support structure for a wind turbine and its other components. It helps the wind turbine blades to safely clear the ground and elevate the turbine to an optimum height to generate electrical energy from the wind. As speed increases with altitude, it is better to install tall wind towers to produce maximum output.Analysts forecast The Europe Wind Tower Market to grow at a CAGR of +10% during the period.The market witnessed significant growth opportunities in Europe, owing to increase in the demand for wind towers on onshore wind farms. Henceforth, boom in onshore energy sector is expected to lead the market growth. Strong government support and initiatives for wind energy enhancement in several countries around the world majorly drive the growth in the wind tower market. Governments of both the developed and the developing nations are strongly promoting wind energy as an alternative to conventional energy sources and hence positively influencing the market for wind towers.Get Sample Copy @:The study presents a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the market, its key segments, regulatory landscape, and competitive scenario, and recent developments. A detailed analysis of factors expected to drive and challenge the growth of the market as well as the trends that decide consumer inclination are highlighted. The report utilizes a variety of primary and secondary research methodologies for gathering quantitative as well as qualitative data on Europe as well as regional fronts. With the help of a number of industry-best analytical methods, the vast amount of market data thus gathered is filtered and narrowed down to the details that matter the most to companies operating in the Europe Wind Tower Market or aspiring to enter it.Companies Profiled In This Report:Vestas, CS Wind, Enercon, Trinity Structural Towers, Windar Renovables, GE, Siemens, AMBAU, Dongkuk, Gamesa, KGW, SuzlonAvail 20% Discount On This Report @:At present, the wind tower market is well diversified by the presence of international and regional vendors. Regional vendors dominate the market in both the developing and developed countries, which has intensified the competitive scenario in these countries. To gain a competitive advantage, manufacturers are increasing their focus on providing innovative low-cost products that have high efficiency and are lightweight. Also, leading companies are aggressively making efforts to gain the market share through joint ventures and memorandum of understanding (MOUs).Marketing strategies and marketing channels adopted by key companies are highlighted in the report. Corporations are concentrating on improving direct and indirect advertising strategies and develop various promotion channels, brand strategies, and pricing strategies. This statistical surveying report finds that major corporations functioning in the Europe Wind Tower Market are concentrating on acquiring a few startup companies in the near future. With this, the key companies will get a chance to focus on adopting new trends and innovations in the market products. Additionally, by merging with startups, leading companies are aiming to maintain their dominance in the Europe market.For More Information @:Reason to Access Europe Wind Tower Market Research Report:Analysis of Europe Wind Tower Market and its upcoming growth prospects is been mentioned with maximum precision. This study includes an elaborative summary of market which also includes snapshots that offer depth of information of various other segmentations. Through qualitative and quantitative analysis of key factors which are responsible for boosting or hampering the market growth and the promising opportunities in market have been provide. Primary and secondary research is been done in detail which helps the readers have a strong understanding of the complete market for the forecast period.Get This Report Now @:Table of Contents:Europe Wind Tower Market Research Report 2017Chapter 1: Europe Wind Tower Market OverviewChapter 2: Europe Economic Impact on IndustryChapter 3: Europe Market Competition by ManufacturersChapter 4: Europe Production, Revenue (Value) by RegionChapter 5: Europe Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by RegionsChapter 6: Europe Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by TypeChapter 7: Europe Market Analysis by ApplicationChapter 8: Manufacturing Cost AnalysisChapter 9: Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream BuyersChapter 10: Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/TradersChapter 11: Market Effect Factors AnalysisChapter 12: Europe Wind Tower Market ForecastIf you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.Research N Reports is a new age market research firm where we focus on providing information that can be effectively applied. Today being a consumer driven market, companies require information to deal with the complex and dynamic world of choices. Where relying on a sound board firm for your decisions becomes crucial. Research N Reports specializes in industry analysis, market forecasts and as a result getting quality reports covering all verticals, whether be it gaining perspective on current market conditions or being ahead in the cut throat Global competition. Since we excel at business research to help businesses grow, we also offer consulting as an extended arm to our services which only helps us gain more insight into current trends and problems. Consequently we keep evolving as an all-rounder provider of viable information under one roof.Mr. Sunny DenisContact No. +1-888-631-6977sales@researchnreports.com(ResearchnReports)Biologics Market Segments, Key Players Strategies, Analysis and Forecasts Till 2027

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The Global Biologics Market report titled Biologics Market Research Report-Forecast to 2027 is a specialist investigation report by Market Research Future includes broad essential research alongside the definite examination of subjective and additionally quantitative perspectives by different industry specialists, key sentiment pioneers to pick up a more profound understanding of the market and industry execution.TRY SAMPLE REPORT @Market Research Future published new report, titled Biologics Market -Research Report: Global Forecast till 2027.Competition in the Global Biologics Market and are profiled in MRFR Analysis. Global Biologics Market by Manufacturers, Countries, Type and Application, Forecast to 2027 Report Provides In-Depth Analysis Of Parent Market Trends, Macro-Economic Indicators And Governing Factors Along With Market Attractiveness As Per Segments.Global Biologics Market  Overview:Biologics are compounds of pharmaceutical importance such as sugars, proteins, and nucleic acids or complex combinations of these substances, or they can be living entities by themselves which are inclusive of such cells and tissues. Biologics can be isolated from natural sources including human beings, animal, or microorganism, and may be produced by biotechnological procedures through various cutting-edge technologies. Gene-based and cellular biologics are at the forefront of various biomedical research, and can be used as novel strategy for the treatment of a variety of medical conditions. Rising prevalence of different chronic and acute diseases such as cancer, diabetes, besides others, and increasing demand for the better and biological therapy drives the growth of the market during the forecast period. According to the National Cancer Institute in 2016, approximately, 1,685,210 new cases of cancer were diagnosed in the U.S. and 595,690 people died from the disease. Moreover, it was estimated that the national expenditures for cancer care in the U.S. could reach from USD 125 billion in 2010 to USD 156 billion by 2020. Additionally, growing geriatric population and rising healthcare expenditure boosts the market growth. According to the Johns Hopkins University, for people who are over the age of 65 years, there is an 11-fold increased incidence of developing cancer as compared to younger individuals. Moreover, according to the Population Reference Bureau, the number of the Americans who age 65 or more is projected to reach over 98 million by 2060. However, the market growth can be restricted by the long term approval time and high cost for environmental condition management.The global biologics market is growing with a sound pace. According to a recent study report published by the Market Research Future, the Global Biologics Market is booming and expected to gain prominence over the forecast period. The market is projected to demonstrate a sound growth by 2027, surpassing its previous growth records in terms of value with a striking CAGR during the anticipated period (2017  2027).ACCESS COMPLETE REPORT @Global Biologics Market  Competitive Analysis:AbbVie, Amgen, Biogen Idec, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Company, GlaxoSmithKline plc., Johnson and Johnson, Merck and Co., Merck KGaA, Novartis, Pfizer, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, and Sanofi are some of the prominent players at the forefront of competition in the Global Biologics Market and are profiled in MRFR Analysis.Characterized by the presence of several well-established and small players, the global biologics market appears to be highly competitive and fragmented. International players are expanding their footprint in the developing economy, making it difficult for regional vendors to compete with them, especially in terms of features such as product portfolios, quality, and pricing. The market is witnessing intensified competition which is expected to get more intensified further during the forecast period. The intense competition prevalent in the market dictates the consolidation among marketers.Well established players incorporate acquisition, collaboration, partnership, expansion, and product launch in order to gain competitive advantage in this market and to maintain their market position.Merck KGaA is one of the prominent players in the Global Biologics Market and is headquartered in Darmstadt, Germany. In January 2017, the company acquired acquired BioControl Systems Inc., a global leader in food safety testing. The acquisition opened growth opportunities for Merck in the food and beverage space; particularly in the U.S.In August 2016, FDA approved Pfizers TROXYCA ER extended-release capsules CII for pain management. This drug is used for abuse-deterrent properties for the management of pain and will help Pfizer to improve their goodwill and sales with this new productIn April 2017, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. FDA for the CINtec Histology test. This test is the only clinically validated p16 biomarker test. The CINtec Histology test will help physicians make informed decisions as to the best course of care for patients with high-grade pre-cancerous cervical disease.Global Biologics Market  Regional Analysis:Geographically, the North America has the largest biologic drug market. Due to increasing prevalence of diseases like Cancer and diabetes in the North America is the major factor for the growth of the market. North America is followed by Europe in biologic market. Asia Pacific is the fastest growing region for biologic market. Biologic market growth of Asia Pacific is majorly driven by Japan, China and India. Beside this a huge population base in this region has provided a fuel for the growth of the market. Middle East and Africa has the least biologic market.World Biologics Market  Segments:The World Biologics Market research report is segmented in to 3 key dynamics for the convenience of the report and enhanced understanding;Segmentation on the basis of Product Type: Comprises vaccines, blood and blood products, allergenic extracts, human cells and tissues, proteins and others.Segmentation by Application: Comprises Rheumatoid arthritis, renal failure, Anemia, Cancer, Diabetes and othersSegmentation by Source: Comprises Humans, Avian Cell Culture, Yeast, Bacteria, Insects Cell Culture, Transgenics and othersCONTINUEDAVAIL DISCOUNT @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Contact:Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune  411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: salesteam@marketresearchfuture.comTicagrelor Market Segments, Key Players Strategies, Analysis and Forecasts Till 2027

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The Global Ticagrelor Market report titled Ticagrelor Market Research Report-Forecast to 2027 is a specialist investigation report by Market Research Future includes broad essential research alongside the definite examination of subjective and additionally quantitative perspectives by different industry specialists, key sentiment pioneers to pick up a more profound understanding of the market and industry execution.TRY SAMPLE REPORT @Market Research Future published new report, titled Ticagrelor Market -Research Report: Global Forecast till 2027.Global Ticagrelor Market  Overview:Ticagrelor is an antiplatelet drug which is a member of a section of pharmaceuticals which tackle the problem of platelet aggression. The global ticagrelor market is expected to grow at a healthy growth rate during the forecast period 2017-2027. The major factors influencing the growth of the market include high patient pool suffering from heart problems, increasing development in the product by the companies, commercialization and improving market access scenarios and funding for research and development by the market players and many others. Moreover there is a huge opportunity in developing countries that is grabbed by various market players for expanding their presence in the region. The market is forecasted to demonstrate a double digit growth by 2027, surpassing its previous growth records in terms of value with a striking CAGR during the anticipated period 2017  2027.Global Ticagrelor Market  Competitive Analysis:AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Boehringer, Ingelheim, Pfizer, Amgen, Merck, Roche, GSK, Alexion, Boehringer, Ingelheim Pfizer, Amgen are some of the prominent players at the forefront of competition in the Global Ticagrelor Market and are profiled in MRFR Analysis.Characterized by the presence of several well-established and small players, the global market of Ticagrelor appears to be highly competitive and fragmented. With well-established market in the North America region major companies like AstraZeneca Eli Lilly, Pfizer, GSK, Pfizer, Amgen and various others have their home in the region and generate maximum market share. These companies have expanded their operating unit in various other emerging regions as well. Moreover the other small and medium scale players are generating revenue from local market.ACCESS COMPLETE REPORT @There has been increasing development in the product and commercialization of the product. AstraZenecas a Swedish multinational pharma and biotech involved in the production since the beginning. Brilinta the companys product in 2016 generated a sales of about $ 839 million. The product perceived 45% year on year (YoY) revenue growth in the United States and about 15% year on year increase in sales in the European market. The increase in the product revenue is majorly due to changes in the brand name of the competitor product as well as growing use of Brilinta by patients discharged from hospitals in European region. More over the development in Brilinta with the launch of 60-mg version of Brilinta, which in 2016 accounted for 10% of the total prescriptions of the drug in the United States. This development and improving market access for the product is expected to increase the growth of the revenue in 2017 as well. It is expected that the product Brilinta by AstraZeneca to exceed the $ 1.0 billion sales in 2017 and turn out to be a blockbuster therapy.AstraZeneca furthermore concentrating on commercialization of the product in order to increase product availability across the globe. AstraZeneca announced the collaboration of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., according to the agreement the company Sun Phrma agreed to distribute AstraZenecas new brand of ticagrelor Axcer in India. Sun Pharma is and Indias top pharmaceutical company and the worlds 5th largest specialty generic pharmaceutical company. This collaboration will authorize AstraZeneca to enhance usage of this molecule through wide reach to doctors and thereby helping a greater number of ACS patients.Global Ticagrelor Market  Regional Analysis:The global market is segmented into the various regions including Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East & Africa. The Americas accounts for the largest market share of about more than ~40% of the market share due to extensive use product by the patients discharged from hospitals in the regions, major manufacturers developing the product in the region.Europe is the second largest market of Ticagrelor followed by Asia Pacific. However Asia Pacific market is expected to grow at the fastest growth rate due to awareness of ticagrelor, Asia Pacific accounting for more than 60% of the global population and increasing cardiovascular patients. Particularly, India and China are anticipated to be a growing and the fastest growing market. Many major players seeking opportunity and expand their presence in this region influencing the growth of the market.The Middle East & Africa holds the least share in the ticagrelor market due to lack of awareness, less market access scenarios activities, and poor medical facilities.The report for Ticagrelor Market of Market Research Future comprises of extensive primary research along with the detailed analysis of qualitative as well as quantitative aspects by various industry experts, key opinion leaders to gain the deeper insight of the market and industry performance. The report gives the clear picture of current market scenario which includes historical and projected market size in terms of value and volume, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors in the market. The report provides details information and strategies of the top key players in the industry. The report also gives a broad study of the different market segments and regions.CONTINUEDAVAVIL DISCOUNT REPORT @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Contact:Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune  411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: salesteam@marketresearchfuture.comMicrobial Products Market Segments, Key Players Strategies, Analysis and Forecasts Till 2027

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The Global Microbial Products Market report titled Microbial Products Market Research Report-Forecast to 2027 is a specialist investigation report by Market Research Future includes broad essential research alongside the definite examination of subjective and additionally quantitative perspectives by different industry specialists, key sentiment pioneers to pick up a more profound understanding of the market and industry execution.TRY SAMPLE REPORT @Market Research Future published new report, titled Microbial Products Market -Research Report: Global Forecast till 2027.Global Microbial Products Market  Overview:Microbial products are produced by microbes such as a bacteria, yeast, or fungus. Medicinal microbiology include production of enzymes, antibiotics, nutrients such as amino acids, vitamins, and organic acids, chemotherapeutic agents, vaccines etc. Some of the applications of microbial products are manufacturing of solvents and reagents such as ethanol, lactic acid, butanol etc. Synthesis of amino acids such as are L-Methionine, L-Lysine, L-Tryptophan, L-Glutamic acid etc. are another use of industrial microbiology for production of microbial products.According to a recent study published by the Market Research Future analysts, the global microbial products market is growing at a moderate rate. The market for microbial products is driven mainly due to growing prevalence of diseases, rising demand for healthcare nutrients such as vitamins, rising rates of cancers, rising demand for diagnostics microbial products, rise of lifestyles industry recommending many of these products etc.On the other hand, there are certain hurdles for the growth of this market. The highly fragmented nature of the industry, pressures on profits due to cut throat competition, secrecy surrounding the fermentation process, substandard low quality producers operating from unknown locations are some of the factors that may hinder the growth of the microbial products market in the near future.Global Microbial Products Market  Competitive Analysis:The global market consist of players such as Amgen Inc. (U.S.), Merck & Co. Inc. (U.S.), Valent BioSciences LLC (U.S.), GlaxoSmithKline plc (U.K.), Pfizer Inc.(U.S.), bioMerieux SA (France), Ajinomoto Co.Inc. (Japan), Sanofi (France), Novartis AG (Switzerland), NovaDigm Therapeutics (U.S.), Kyowa Hakko Bio Co., Ltd. (Japan), and others. These are the prominent players at the forefront of competition in the global microbial products market and are profiled in MRFR Analysis report.There are large number of companies involved in the development of the products, reagents kits, and other microbial products which are now being used in majority part of the developed countries. Major companies are adopting a specific strategy to enter and create unique space in this market. The different strategies includes, product launch, agreement and collaboration, partnership and expansion, joint venture and strategic alliance etc. All major players are focusing on new product development to provide new and innovative solutions to the market. The recent advancements in microbial products is the development of ultra-pure products especially high quality products which are being used in high-tech research.Global Microbial Products Market Report: Applications:Application of Microbial products varies different for the end user industries. Agriculture sector is the biggest consumer for the microbial and the application includes in the segment of pesticides, fertilizers and animal feed additives. In the pesticides segment it is been used as fungi, bacteria, protozoa among other followed by in fertilizers segment it is been used as nitrogen fertilizers, phosphorus among others. Other industries includes healthcare where it is used in technology, in the manufacturing industry it is been used as food processing where it includes baking, brewing among others. In the energy sector it is been used as biofuels production. In the environment market its uses are in the segment of environmental monitoring and bioremediation.ACCESS COMPLETE REPORT @Global Microbial Products Market  Regional Analysis:In 2016, North America and Europe were holding more than half market share of global microbial products market. Increasing funding for R&D is major driving force for the market growth. The funding for microbiology research in US is one of the highest as compared to other countries. Rapid adoption of advanced products and techniques are driving the growth for North America market. Increasing demand for high quality reagents, and solvents for the use in performing various test are promoting the research related activities in this region.Independent laboratories are dominating the North America market by adopting new technologies and trends.European market is second highest revenue generator after North America. Europe microbial products market has benefited by the presence of some major players in this region. Moreover, increasing innovation and changing laboratory practices are driving the growth for Europe microbial products market.Microbiology products have huge and increasing demand not only in developed countries but also in developing countries like India & China. The presence of unmet medical needs and the growing industrial demand are the strongest driver for the growth in these markets. Thus, there is larger potential to grow in the developing regions due to less competition. The growing number of biotech firms and the growing demand for high quality solvents to satisfy the industrial base will drive the future market.The Middle East and Africa microbial products market is growing gradually with the development in the research. Moreover, developing healthcare infrastructure in some of the countries like UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, South Africa have helped the growth of the overall healthcare segment also including the microbial products. However, there are some factors are affecting the microbial products market in this region such as, limited access to the healthcare facilities in underdeveloped parts, lack of knowledge of new microbial products, less market penetration by companies, and limited availability of products etc. Currently Middle East & Africa region contributes least in the global microbial products market.Every report of Market Research Future comprises of extensive primary research along with the detailed analysis of qualitative as well as quantitative aspects by various industry experts, key opinion leaders to gain the deeper insight of the market and industry performance. The report gives the clear picture of current market scenario which includes historical and projected market size in terms of value and volume, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors in the market. The report also gives a broad study of the different market segments and regions.Global Microbial Products Market Report: Market Influencer:The main factor which is driving the market for Microbial products is the demand for various industries. Agriculture industry is growing with rapid speed there by increasing the demand for the microbial products. As per the report agriculture industry has been growing with the CAGR rate of more than 5% and it is creating the demand for all the products associated with the agriculture. Microbial has various applications in the agriculture industry including as the pesticide and fertilizers. Another market driver for the microbial product is the demand from the food and additives industry. In this industry the uses includes the baking and brewing in the dairy product and as the demand for the dairy products are increasing it is the taking the microbial products market to new high.CONTINUEDAVAIL DISCOUNT @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Contact:Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune  411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: salesteam@marketresearchfuture.comDPT Vccine Market Segments, Key Players Strategies, Analysis and Forecasts Till 2027

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The Global Diphtheria Tetanus and Pertussis Vaccine Market report titled Diphtheria Tetanus and Pertussis Vaccine Market Research Report-Forecast to 2027 is a specialist investigation report by Market Research Future includes broad essential research alongside the definite examination of subjective and additionally quantitative perspectives by different industry specialists, key sentiment pioneers to pick up a more profound understanding of the market and industry execution. Globally the market for DPT vaccine market is expected to grow at the rate of about 7.3% CAGR from 2016 to 2027.TRY SAMPLE REPORT @Market Research Future published new report, titled DPT Vaccine Market  Research Report: World Forecast to 2027.Competition in the Diphtheria Tetanus and Pertussis Vaccine Market and are profiled in MRFR Analysis. Diphtheria Tetanus and Pertussis Vaccine Market by Manufacturers, Countries, Type and Application, Forecast to 2027 Report Provides In-Depth Analysis Of Parent Market Trends, Macro-Economic Indicators And Governing Factors Along With Market Attractiveness As Per Segments.Global Diphtheria Tetanus and Pertussis (DPT) vaccine Market  Overview:The Global Diphtheria Tetanus and Pertussis Vaccine (DPT) vaccine Market is growing exponentially owing to rising prevalence of chronic disease and increasing usage of combination vaccine and therapy are the major factor driving the DPT vaccine Market.There is an increase in demand of diphtheria tetanus and pertussis vaccine across the globe and rising awareness regarding prevention of diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis is major factors which are responsible for the growth of this market. The market is expected to show large opportunities in the coming future with the advancement of technology in developing countries and new products with increased accuracy.Diverging product markets can be seen in preferences for traditional vaccines such as DTP. According to WHO, developed countries prefer to purchase a component of the DPT vaccines such as procure acellular pertussis (DTaP), while most developing countries purchase vaccines with whole cell pertussis (DTwP) components.However, some of the challenges which the market is expected to face includes competition from new entrants or big pharmaceutical giants entering the business or market and the continuous advancements in the product. Furthermore there are some hindering factors which are restricting the market growth such as side effects and complications during inhalation, high prices of devices, and lack of accuracy etc.ACCESS COMPLETE REPORT @Global DPT vaccine Market  Company Analysis:Merck: Merck provides a wide range of vaccines which includes BCG USP, Pneumonix, Varivax, Pedvax HIB, Recombivax HB and others.Sanofi: Sanofi is a global life sciences company committed to improving access to healthcare and supporting the people we serve throughout the continuum of care. From prevention to treatment, Sanofi transforms scientific innovation into healthcare solutions, in human vaccines, rare diseases, multiple sclerosis, oncology, immunology, infectious diseases, diabetes and cardiovascular solutions, consumer healthcare, established prescription products and generics. Diphtheria and Tetanus Toxoids and acellular Pertussis Vaccine called Daptacel is the product offered by Sanofi which is the major market player.Merck & Co., Inc (U.S), Sanofi (France), GSK (U.S), Lanzhou Institute of Biological Products (China), Wyeth (U.S), Chiron Pharmaceutical Pvt Ltd (India), Serum Institute of India Pvt. Ltd. (India), Lanzhou Institute of Biological Products (China) and others are some of the prominent players at the forefront of competition in the Global DPT vaccine Market and are profiled in MRFR Analysis.Global DPT vaccine Market  Regional Analysis:Globally, DPT Vaccine market consists of four regions North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Middle East and Africa. North America is the largest market for diphtheria tetanus and pertussis vaccine (DPT) vaccine.The North American market for DPT Vaccine is expected to grow steadily over the forecasted period. This is due to the presence of high concentration of major market players in North America and its emphasis on vaccination against DPT. North American market consists of countries like the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Death rate sue communicable disease is seen to be growing, thus highlighting the importance of immunization. For instance, In March 2015 U.S FDA approved the use of Quadracel for immunization of children from 4 to 6 years of age. This was a great achievement for Sanofi helping it to maintain its leading position in the market.Europe is the second-largest market for DPT Vaccine which is expected to grow at an overwhelming CAGR during the forecast period. This is due to increasing research and development activities by pharmaceutical companies and research institutes. The market is growing continuously in Europe as the key market players invested huge financial resources on research and development activities for the production of effective vaccines. Increasing awareness about immunization of children against Diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis also drive this market in Europe.Moreover, Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing market for DPT Vaccine market. India is expected to be the emerging and fastest growing market. Presence of large patient pool drive this market in Asia-pacific. This region is expected to grow at a higher rate due to rapid population growth, increase in adoption for vaccination, and growth in prevalence of infectious disease. Governments in developing countries of Asia-Pacific have undertaken various vaccinations programs. National Health Mission in India provide vaccination against diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus and polio.The market shows steady growth in Middle East and Africa. In Middle East and Africa the demand for DPT vaccine is less than other regions across the globe.CONTINUEDAVAIL DISCOUNT @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Contact:Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune  411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: salesteam@marketresearchfuture.comLive Attenuated Vaccines Market Segments, Key Players Strategies, Analysis and Forecasts Till 2027

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The Global Live Attenuated Vaccines Market report titled Live Attenuated Vaccines Market Research Report-Forecast to 2027 is a specialist investigation report by Market Research Future includes broad essential research alongside the definite examination of subjective and additionally quantitative perspectives by different industry specialists, key sentiment pioneers to pick up a more profound understanding of the market and industry execution. The global market for live attenuated vaccines is growing continuously and expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.7% during the forecast period 2017-2027.TRY SAMPLE REPORT @Market Research Future published new report, titled Live Attenuated Vaccines Market -Research Report: Global Forecast till 2027.Global Live Attenuated Vaccines Market  Overview:Vaccines created by reducing the virulence of pathogens are known as Live Attenuated Vaccines (LAV). These pathogens are weakened under laboratory conditions. The vaccine triggers a potent immune response against infectious diseases. They initiate memory cell production in order to respond to the pathogen that previously invaded the body. Increasing awareness about vaccination, growing government funding for vaccination programs and increasing prevalence of infectious diseases drive the growth of this market. Improving healthcare infrastructure, increasing demand for live attenuated vaccines, and emphasis on prevention of diseases also drives this market.The global live attenuated vaccines market is growing at a very reasonable pace. The global market for live attenuated vaccines is growing continuously and expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.7% during the forecast period 2017-2027. According to a recent study report published by the Market Research Future, The global live attenuated vaccines market is booming and expected to gain prominence over the forecast period growing rapidly. The market is forecasted to demonstrate a spectacular growth by 2027, surpassing its previous growth records in terms of value with a prominent CAGR during the anticipated period (2017  2027).Availability of funds from government agencies, vaccination programs carried out across the region and technological advancement in vaccine production drive this market in America. World Health Organization (WHO) launched Global Vaccine Action Plan in May 2012 with a motive of strengthening immunization programs and reduce the occurrence of infectious diseases. It was a product of Decade of Vaccines Collaboration (DoV) and consisted of 194 member states. Guidelines were published by UNICEF and WHO to develop a plan for immunization. In 1963 the government introduced measles vaccine, which resulted into a significant decline in mortality rate caused by measles. States in the U.S have made vaccination mandatory before admitting a child to school. Schools are also taking a major initiative in vaccination of children.Global Live Attenuated Vaccines Market  Competitive Analysis:The market for live attenuated vaccines is characterised by the presence of several well-established and small players, the global market of live attenuated vaccines appears to be highly competitive and fragmented. Global players are increasingly expanding their footprint in the emerging nations, making it putting pressure on the regional players, especially in terms of features such as type, product portfolios, and pricing. The market is witnessing intensified competition which is expected to get more intensified further during the forecast period. These players possess state of art manufacturing facilities and strong sales and distribution network which have helped them to gain leadership position in the market.For instance, companies like in September 2017, Merck has launched INNOVAX-ND-IBD, the first live vaccine made with biotechnology that protects against three highly infectious diseases in poultry Infectious Bursal Disease (IBD), Newcastle Disease (ND), and Mareks disease (MD). When given to chickens either in ovo or subcutaneously in the hatchery, it provides life-long protection for ND, IBD and MD simultaneously.ACCESS COMPLETE REPORT @Moreover, October 2017, Company named MedImmune a biotechnology company developing optimized therapeutic antibodies targeting AMHR2 for the treatment of cancer has entered into a licensing agreement under which GamaMabs will use MedImmunes proprietary pyrrolobenzodiazepine (PBD) toxin and linker technology to research and produce an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) as a potential cancer therapy.Moreover, in July 2017, company named Emergent BioSolutions Inc. is licensing agreement with Valneva SE for global exclusive rights to Valnevas Zika vaccine technology, ZIKV. This will help the company to acquire revenue-generating products and advancing products to aligning with partners such as Valneva to develop innovative products that could potentially serve the needs of both government customers and the commercial market.Therefore, the growing innovations in the field of live attenuated vaccines and rising research and development and clinical approvals for various competitive products by the major players has spurred the growth of the market.GlaxoSmithKline, plc. (U.K.), Merck & Co. (U.S.), Pfizer, Inc. (U.S.), Astellas Pharma Inc. (Japan), Johnson & Johnson (U.S.), CSL Limited (Australia), Emergent BioSolutions, Inc. (U.S.), MedImmune, LLC (U.S.), Sanofi (France), and Serum Institute of India Pvt. Ltd. (India) are some of the Prominent Players at the forefront of competition in the Global Live Attenuated Vaccines Market and are profiled in MRFR Analysis.Global Live Attenuated Vaccines Market  Regional Analysis:The report for Global Live Attenuated Vaccines market of Market Research Future comprises of extensive primary research along with the detailed analysis of qualitative as well as quantitative aspects by various industry experts, key opinion leaders to gain the deeper insight of the market and industry performance. The report gives the clear picture of current market scenario which includes historical and projected market size in terms of value and volume, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors in the market. The report provides details information and strategies of the top key players in the industry. The report also gives a broad study of the different markets segments and regionsLive, attenuated vaccines contain an adaptation of the living microorganism that has been weakened in the lab so it cant bring about disease. Since a live, constricted immunization is the nearest thing to a characteristic contamination, these vaccines are great tutors of the invulnerable framework: They elicit solid cell and antibody reactions and frequently long lasting safety with one or two dosages.Global Live Attenuated Vaccines market has been segmented on the basis of types which consist of Measles, Polio, Smallpox, Rotavirus, Tuberculosis, Yellow fever, Varicella zoster and others. On the basis of end users which includes hospitals clinics and healthcare research institutes.CONTINUEDAVAIL DISCOUNT @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Contact:Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune  411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: salesteam@marketresearchfuture.comOsteoarthritis Market Segments, Key Players Strategies, Analysis and Forecasts Till 2023

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The Global Osteoarthritis Market report titled Osteoarthritis Market Research Report-Forecast to 2023 is a specialist investigation report by Market Research Future includes broad essential research alongside the definite examination of subjective and additionally quantitative perspectives by different industry specialists, key sentiment pioneers to pick up a more profound understanding of the market and industry execution.TRY SAMPLE REPORT @Market Research Future published new report, titled Osteoarthritis Market -Research Report: Global Forecast to 2023.Global Osteoarthritis Market  Overview:Osteoarthritis is a type of arthritis that occurs when flexible tissue at the ends of bones wears down. Increasing age is the major factor for the cause of the disease. Market Research Future, a firm which specializes in market reports related to the healthcare sector among others, recently forecasted in its report on Global Osteoarthritis Market Research Report- Forecast to 2023 that the market will demonstrate a steady CAGR of 7.3% while achieving million dollar growth readily in the forecast period.Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis which generally affects the hands, knee, hip and spines. It can causes pain, swelling, and reduced motion in the joints. Geriatric population and over-weighted individuals are at higher risks of osteoarthritis. Factors like growing geriatric population, rising prevalence of the osteoarthritis and increasing per capita healthcare expenditure will drive the market growth during the forecast period. In 2015, according to the National Institutes of Health, the American geriatric population is expected to nearly double from 48 million in 2015 to 88 million by 2050. Moreover, in 2015, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, in the U.S. the total healthcare expenditure accounted for 17.8% of the total gross domestic product (GDP), which accounted for USD 3.2 trillion. However, low per capita income in the developing countries and side effects of the treatment procedures will restrain the market growth during the forecast periodOwing to the increasing number of the people suffering from osteoarthritis many companies are involved in the manufacturing and introduction of the better and effective treatment and diagnostic options. A number of diagnostic treatment such as imaging (X-rays, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and bone scan), joint fluid analysis and others are available. However these are not that effective thus, many private and government organizations are providing support to the manufacturer for the development of the new and advanced devices.Global Osteoarthritis Market  Competitive Analysis:A number of industries are working in the development and production of osteoarthritis products. It is found out that the market players have adopted the organic strategy of development of better and cost-effective products, and acquisition. The companies are aiming to capture a considerable share of the market segment as early as possible, due to continuously increasing competition. In order to gain the customer attention the companies have launched innovate products.The Key Players profiled in osteoarthritis are Abbott. (U.S.), Novartis AG (Europe), Pfizer Inc. (U.S.), Eli Lilly and Company. (U.S.), ABIOGEN PHARMA S.p.A (Europe), Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. (U.S.), TissueGene Inc. (U.S.), Ampio Pharmaceuticals Inc. (U.S.), Regeneron (U.S.), and others.ACCESS COMPLETE REPORT @Global Osteoarthritis Market  Latest Industry Updates:Being a competitive market, a number of different manufacturer are focusing on the product launch, and acquisition for the market development. Some of the latest development in the market are-May 2017 Ablynx, a biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Belgium, announced the completion of a preclinical package for a novel nanobody, ALX-1141 for the treatment of the osteoarthritis. Merck will now be responsible for further clinical development of the molecule.Jul 2017, Kolon Pharmaceutical got the approval for the Worlds first cell and gene therapy for knee osteoarthritis in Korea.Aug 2016, Bioventus, a global leader in orthobiologic solutions launched GELSYN-3, a three-injection hyaluronic acid (HA) product for pain relief associated with osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee.Global Osteoarthritis Market  Regional AnalysisGeographically, the global osteoarthritis market is segmented into America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East & Africa. America dominates the global osteoarthritis market owing to a well-developed healthcare sector and huge patient population for osteoarthritis. Apart from this, changing lifestyle and increasing healthcare expenditure have boosted the growth of the market in America. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about 78 million (26%) U.S. adults ageing 18 years or more are estimated to have doctor diagnosed arthritis, by 2020. Europe is the second largest osteoarthritis market, which is followed by Asia Pacific. Availability of funds for research, huge patient population, increasing healthcare expenditures, well-developed healthcare sector and government support for research & development are projected to drive the market growth during the forecasted period. Asia Pacific is the fastest growing region in global the market due to the presence of a huge patient population. Moreover, continuously developing economies like India and China, and presence of huge opportunity in the market fuels the market growth. On the other hand, the Middle East & Africa holds the least share in the global osteoarthritis market due to presence of poor economy, especially, in African region. Majority of the market of this region is held by the Middle East due to the well-developed healthcare sector and huge healthcare expenditure.Global Osteoarthritis Market  Segmentation:The global osteoarthritis market is segmented on the basis of type, diagnosis, treatment, and end users.On the basis of type, the market is segmented into hip osteoarthritis, wrist osteoarthritis, spinal osteoarthritis, and others.On the basis of diagnosis, the market is segmented into imaging, joint fluid analysis, and others. The imaging segment, is sub segmented into X-rays, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and others.On the basis of treatment, the market is segmented into medication, surgery, therapy, and others. The medication segmented is sub segmented into analgesics and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and others. The analgesics sub segment, by medication, is further segmented into acetaminophen, duloxetine, and others. The non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs sub segment, by medication, is further segmented into aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen sodium and naproxen, and others.On the basis of end users, the market is segmented into hospitals & clinics, medical institutes, research organization, and others.MAJOR TABLE OF CONTENTS:Chapter 1. IntroductionChapter 2. Research MethodologyChapter 3. Report ExcerptChapter 4. Forecast IndicatorsChapter 5. Global Osteoarthritis Market, By TypeChapter 6. Global Osteoarthritis Market, By TreatmentChapter 7. Global Osteoarthritis Market, By End UserChapter 8. Global Osteoarthritis Market, By RegionChapter 9. Competitive LandscapeChapter 10. Company ProfilesChapter 11. ConclusionChapter 12. Key FindingsChapter 13. AppendixCONTINUEDAVAIL DISCOUNT @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Contact:Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune  411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: salesteam@marketresearchfuture.comNew Study Focusing on Internet Protocol (IP) Telephony Market growth, Trending Strategies, Regional Market Analysis, Consumer Analysis & Overview by Top Manufacturers

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Cashing in on the latest technologies, several players are offering improved cloud-based telephony systems. Besides this, collaborations are a part of strategic activities conducted by various companies to attain lead in the global IP telephony market. For instance, in May 2017, one of the prominent telecommunications service providers - Optus collaborated with Broad soft, which specializes in cloud software, to provide improved cloud-based telephony systems for medium and small-sized businesses, which offer fixed line services and hybrid mobiles.This report delves into the complete scenario of the global Internet Protocol (IP) Telephony market. During the research, it has found that the driving force behind this market is the consumers demand for the Internet Protocol (IP) Telephony products. The growing consumers demand is pushing companies to come up with efficient products which in turn is aiding the growth of the industry.Get a sample @:Companies Profiled in this report includes, Gigaset Communications, Cisco Systems Inc., LG Electronics., Polycom Inc., Ascom Holding AG, Yealink Inc., Avaya Inc., Mitel Networks Corporation, Panasonic Corporation, NEC Corporation and Grandstream Networks Inc.Internet Protocol was one of the first steps taken toward modern unified communications technology, released roughly a decade and a half ago and still spreading around the globe and across industries. IP telephony is a strong market because of the vast range of benefits that companies tend to enjoy following deployment, including lower costs for communications specifically linked to voice plans on a monthly basis.Get Reasonable Discount on this Report @:This research, highlighting the current situation of the Global Internet Protocol (IP) Telephony market, focuses on answering some of the important questions faced by stakeholders. By providing answers to all of these questions related to the key drivers and dominant companies, the reports authors also focus on different factors, which would create new growth opportunities in the global market. Prepared by an expert team, the report on the global Internet Protocol (IP) Telephony market highlights recent developments, key trends, and new project developments in the market. As leading companies take efforts to maintain their dominance in the global market, the right way to do so is by adopting new technologies and strategies.Global Internet Protocol (IP) Telephony Market in terms of feasibility of investments in the various segments of the market, along with a descriptive passage that outlines the feasibility of new projects that might succeed in the market in the near future.For More Information @:Table of ContentsGlobal Internet Protocol (IP) Telephony Market Research Report 2017Chapter 1 Global Internet Protocol (IP) Telephony Market OverviewChapter 2 Global Economic Impact on IndustryChapter 3 Global Market Competition by ManufacturersChapter 4 Global Production, Revenue (Value) by RegionChapter 5 Global Supply (Production), Consumption, ExportChapter 6 Global Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by TypeChapter 7 Global Market Analysis by ApplicationChapter 8 Manufacturing Cost AnalysisChapter 9 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream BuyersChapter 10 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/TradersChapter 11 Market Effect Factors AnalysisChapter 12 Global Market ForecastABOUT USAt IT Intelligence Markets, we model all our work on our core philosophy that believes in customer satisfaction. We serve a global clientele by supplying market intelligence research reports after conducting exhaustive research. Our reports are replete with productive insights & recent market dynamics as the healthcare industry is constantly undergoing changes like ever-changing consumer preferences, supply channels and latest technologies. Our market research analysts not only investigate the market for drivers, restraints & challenges but also gauge the overall progress of the market by comparing chief market players. Our report forms a crucial piece of intelligence using which our clients can unleash their potential & tap their capacity to harness the correct technologies & surpass their competitors.Name: Vijay TannaCompany: It Intelligence MarketsMail Id: sales@itintelligencemarkets.comContact No: +91 705-760-0700The worlds most famous liar took two hours of my time last night, and I barely laughed.

I endured Trumps State of the Union. Originally, I had a different evening planned. My friend B and I were going to watch Phantom Thread. Then B remembered the Orangeman was going to deliver Stephen Millers new commandments that very night. He convinced me to hate-watch the State of the Union instead: Rhode, its going to be incredible. Trump would go off the rails at some point. The Grammys had dissed him. He couldnt help himself.

The more I thought about it, the more attractive it seemed. Whatever the oaf-in-chief said, however he said it, this was the first Trump State of the Union. The transcript was sure to occupy an uncomfortable page in some future poli-sci textbook. Would the State of the Union be an evening of senile bragging punctuated by Candice Bergen anecdotes? With a braying ass on the stage, anything was possible. Perhaps, at long last, the Congress would be eaten by a wild Virginia dog pack. But Trump was guaranteed to be the main attraction.

B and I talked it over, like a pair of bond traders considering the easiest path to hell. We both agreed that seeing Americas chemically-unbalanced uncle possibly stroke out on live LCD feed was superior to Daniel Day-Lewis final performance. The movie could wait.

So we spent Tuesday evening watching the speech. And I was surprised. There was barely any cursing. The President didnt purr about his daughters appearancenot once. But thats the really bizarre thing about Trump: no matter how much he disgusts you, theres always a lower basement. I went in expecting Trump the dullard, and I got Trump the racist, nuclear-war craving, torture-porn aficionado instead.

The President was so blatant in his bigotry and stupidity, that he was almost interesting to watch. Almost. His State of the Union was the ass-covering to end all ass-coverings, a hard tack right to rescue his deeply unpopular regime. There was something for every part of the reptilian brain. At no point in his speech did he pretend to be the champion of diverse, decent America. Even his pandering moments, when he leaned on the good deeds of ordinary citizens, felt strange. They had a deep awkwardness to them, like a rich leper whispering comments about someone elses smooth skin.

Trump is a master liar. He was in peak form Tuesday. He lied over and over again. He lied about Obama setting the ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi free in 2009. Never happened. He lied about his party. He lied about his administration, and lied about his lies. He lied about economic facts. His claim about energy exporting is flat wrong, under any definition. His tax cuts werent the biggest in U.S. history. The low point for Hispanic employment was in 2006-2007. Most of the jobs created during the last two years are McJobspart-time service jobs with poor pay and no benefits. Most of all, Trump lied about immigrants. He lied about chain migration. He lied about the danger they posed. He lied about loopholes. How did Simon and Garfunkel put it? Lie lie lie (various explosions), lie lie lie lie lie lie lie.

Not only has Trump mastered the skill of mendacity, he is a tremendous, beautiful pioneer in the art of hypocrisy. He sang the praises of Puerto Rico just hours before his FEMA abandoned Puerto Rico. He promised the working poor cheaper medications, and in the same speech bragged about cutting Obamacare. He condemned the torture of a North Korean prisoner as he promised to keep his own private torture prison open in Cuba. Trump pledged to fund vocational schools, but didnt say a word about community colleges, or student debt. He promised infrastructure repair, but wouldnt tell the audience about private enterprises plans to charge tolls on public works. He opined about the opioid crisis, but blamed drug dealers instead of Big Pharma.

In between his promises of racial profiling, perpetual war, foreign aid cuts, nuclear holocaust, and torture camps, Trump dropped the names of ordinary Americans. They were his shields, you see. Forget that these people are disposable to Trump, or that he wont remember their names the moment theyre out of his line of sight. Forget that among genuinely heroic folk, he included a goon from ICE, the lowest form of human life.

I was curious about his guests. There were so many people missing! Since the President has such an obvious concern for human suffering, this was puzzling to me.

For instance, what about the family of Heather Heyer, who got run down by one of Trumps very fine people in Charlottesville last year? What about the family of Osmar Epifanio Gonzalez-Gadba? He killed himself after Trumps ICE took him into custody. He was 32, from Nicaragua. Died last March in a private prison in California, hanging in his cell. Nine people died in ICE custody during the 2017 fiscal year. There are a lot of seats in the House. Surely we can accommodate their families.

Where was the family of Srinivas Kuchibhotla? He was killed in a Kansas Bar in February 2017, a month after Trumps immigrant-bashing campaign. The killer was said to have shouted go back to your country. Maybe that escaped the Presidents notice? Which is odd, given how quick Trump was to tweet about the Champs-Elysees shooting in April 2017, two months later. What about the stabbing death of Richard W. Collins III, an Army second lieutenant? I didnt see any of his friends in the audience. According to the Times, certain evidence suggested that Collins stabber belonged to a Facebook group called Alt-Reich: Nation. Hey, Donny, howd you miss that one?

The Hill reported that ten thousand people would die annually from the GOP tax cut of Obamacare. Why didnt our Glorious Leader put any of those families in the balcony? Werent their lives just as precious to him? Trump shamelessly exploited the grief of the two Long Island families, but he couldnt even get the basic facts of his exploitation right.

As the Washington Post noted in October, MS-13 was started by refugees from Central American wars-wars that were themselves profoundly affected by American intervention. The Clinton administration then tried to get rid of the gang by deporting suspected members back to unstable Central American countries. But the more members the U.S. deported, the more the gang thrived, becoming a danger both in America and abroad. In 2012, the U.S. declared MS-13 to be a transnational criminal organization, marking the first time a U.S. street gang was labeled that way. So if Trump wants to really pin the blame on anyone for MS-13, he can pin it on the American government.

But these are facts, and what do facts matter? Immigration is wingnut Narnia. Its a fantasy land for the far right, where every dumpy right-wing anxiety about people of color can be projected. On Tuesday night, Trump played a Wurlitzer organ made of dog whistles.

I have a serious question: instead of speaking all those words, why didnt Trump just burn a cross and bring out a waterboard? It would have saved me two hours of boredom. Indeed, it would have gotten his essential message across a lot clearer. The exact same people would have applauded. The same rows of middle-aged car dealers would have chanted USA.

And Trump would have been spared another public humiliation. For that is what this speech was. I have never seen a wannabe-champion of the master race so obviously needy. It was like watching a broken-legged mare foal in public. As the intolerable minutes ticked on, the Presidents insecurity floated to the surface. Trumps eyes darted to the Democratic side of the chamber, where the applause was so conspicuously absent. He began to make gestures, as if begging them to stand and praise him. Seldom had a president been so publicly rebuked, and seldom, if ever, has a President psychologically craved approval more. The alt-right has a problem. How is Trump going to fight for Stephen Millers precious Caucasian future if hes so thirsty for the Congressional Black Caucus to applaud him?

The President got his lifes ambition last nighttwo dreary hours when nobody else could steal his attention. A moment when nobody else could speak, a dinner party none of us could leave. And what did he show? A wealthy Confederate fugue dream interrupted by guest stars. My fellow Americans, the state of this union is wrong.Thankfully, the real story of this single-sided carbon strut-type thing is far more interesting than what I originally put together, so let's get this straightened out.



Fifty-year-old Milos Musil originally built his odd creation six years ago, and back then it had 120mm of travel and was bolted to the front of Musil's 26'' wheeled RB Speedster (pictured at right). Until he broke the frame, that is. His new ride, a 145mm-travel Propain Twoface, has 27.5'' wheels and much more travel than the Speedster, so he had to bump up the fork's stroke to a full 160mm to balance things out. That's where it sits right now, but how the MM fork came to be is a whole other story, one that involves Musil using components from four different suspension brands - and a bunch of homemade carbon fiber - to build what you see here.

Musi's old RB Speedster with the MM fork set to its original 120mm of travel.

The fork's chassis is a mix of Suntour and Rockshox components, along with a few homemade parts and some carbon fiber.

The two separate legs are joined by an aluminum span that's home to a set of Enduro fork seals, and the whole thing is wrapped in carbon fiber to increase strength and rigidity.

Musil's completed fork looks wild, but it appears to be finished so well that it could have come off of a (strange) production line.

Well, I dun goofed up. It clearly won't be the last time, but this one stings a bit because I deprived a very clever man named Milos Musil, @mmbike68 on Pinkbike, out of some well-deserved attention. I'm talking about the wild looking single-sided suspension fork that popped up on Spaziale Compositi's Instagram feed awhile back, a fork (strut?) that very much looked like it came from the admittedly strange Italian company. But it didn't. In fact, not only did I get the company wrong, I even flubbed the country that it came from - the Czech Republic.Musi started with an aluminum crown and tapered steerer unit from a Suntour fork and then bonded in the carbon-wrapped legs from RockShox. The two legs, which look like a single piece once they've been wrapped in carbon, are also joined at the bottom by an aluminum piece that ties them together and serves as home for the Enduro fork seals. The stanchions, also from a Suntour fork, are only 32mm in diameter, but they're both clamped by a massive, CNC'd aluminum lug at the bottom, and the titanium axle is from a Lefty. Talk about mixing and matching.Things are just as odd internally, too. Musil has kept the Suntour damper in the leading leg, but the trailing leg houses a Dual Air system from RockShox that allows for independently adjustable positive and negative air spring pressure. If you look closely, you can see the negative air valve on the CNC aluminum lug, and the positive air valve is at the fork crown.As far as weight goes, Musil leaned more towards reliability than trying to shave grams - probably a smart approach when building your own fork - and he says it weighs about as much as a RockShox Recon, which is still under 5lbs.How does it perform? I'll let Milos fill us in via Google Translate: ''''I can't tell you if Musil's wild creation is any better than an off-the-shelf fork, but one thing that I am sure of is that, better or not, it's pretty freakin' cool. Much like Jean-Francois Boivin and his Insolent downhill bike , Musil has used a mix of existing components, carbon fiber, and ingenuity to build something that he couldn't purchase.Roberto Damelian Wins Aussie Millions Event #14 (A$64,700) in 6.5 Hrs

January 31, 2018 Jason Glatzer

Australia's Roberto Damelian was the fastest winner at the 2018 Aussie Millions after it took him just 6.5 hours to win Event #14: A$1,150 Hyper Turbo No Limit Hold'em 10/10/10 for A$64,700 ($52,446).

The fast-paced event attracted 263 players to generate a massive A$269,575 prize pool or well more than double that of 102 entrants that competed in the similar event last year which ended the 2017 Aussie Millions festival.

The theme of the event involves the number 10. Players kicked off the action with 10,000 in chips, blind levels were 10 minutes in length and players had to act before a 10-second shot clock ticked down or their hand was declared dead.

Aussie Millions Event #14: A$1,150 Hyper Turbo No Limit Holdem 10/10/10 Final Table Results

Place Player Country Prize in A$ Prize in US$ 1 Roberto Damelian Australia A$64,700 $52,446 2 Nathan Manuel United States A$41,785 $33,871 3 Hussein Hassan Australia A$26,960 $21,850 4 Vesko Zmukic Australia A$21,565 $17,481 5 Michael Madden Australia A$16,990 $9,658 6 Maxwell Young United States A$13,772 $10,927 7 George Psarras Australia A$10,785 $8,742 8 Joel Lehtinen Finland A$8,760 $7,101 9 Vincent Huang Australia A$6,740 $5,463 10 Alessandro Furneri Italy A$5,390 $4,369

A total of 27 players cashed the event for a minimum of A$2,155 with 15 players in the group from the home country of Australia. Among the players to cash but not appear on the 10-max final table included United Kingdom's Adam Owen, who has $1.3 million in live tournament cashes, and two-time World Series of Poker gold-bracelet winner Kristen Bicknell, who has $1.2 million in live tournament cashes.

Italy's Alessandro Furneri recorded his third Aussie Millions cash this festival after being the first player eliminated at the final table in 10th place for A$5,390.

Australia's Vincent Huang nailed down his second Aussie Millions cash in 2018 after hitting the rails in ninth place for A$6,740.

Finland's Joel Lehtinen might be considered a hyper-turbo specialist after winning the 2017 PokerStars Festival Prague 5,200 No Limit Hold'em Hyperturbo event for 76,400. However, he wasn't able to get his second career win and instead took home the eighth-place prize of A$8,760.

Australia's George Psarras, who won the 2017 Aussie Millions Event #17: A$2,250 No Limit Hold'em for A$111,385, also didn't find the winner's circle this time after he was eliminated in seventh place for A$10,785.

Next to go was American Maxwell Young in sixth place for A$13,772. Young was the most successful live poker tournament player at the final table with nearly $600,000 in career cashes. His strong finish in this event represents his first cash outside of the United States.

Australia's Michael Madden racked up his biggest live poker tournament cash after he was knocked out in fifth place for A$16,990. His second biggest cash also came during the 2018 Aussie Millions after finishing in 39th place in Event #1: No Limit Hold'em Opening Event for A$5,045.

Two more Aussies were next to go with Vesko Zmukic finishing in fourth place for A$21,565 and Hussein Hassan snagging the third-place prize of A$26,960. Both Zmukic and Hassan have now cashed twice during the 2018 Aussie Millions and both players have around $200,000 in career cashes.

This left American Nathan Manuel and Damelian facing off heads up for the title. Manuel wasn't able to turn his first Aussie Millions cash into a win and instead claimed the runner-up prize of A$41,785.

Damelian was the last man standing to claim the coveted ANTON ring and now has almost $600,000 in live tournament cashes including 10 separate cashes at Aussie Millions events. His victory was his second-largest cash only behind a 56th-place performance in the 2013 World Series of Poker Main Event for $123,597.Heavy, blues-inspired riffs mixed with hip hop beats and hard-hitting synths is grandson's idea of the future of rock and roll.

Facebook.

grandson, the stage moniker of 23-year-old Toronto artist Jordan Benjamin, began sharing his idea of rock music with the world in 2016 with the single, "Things Change." He hit his stride on the follow-up single, "Bills," and hasn't slowed down since. A year later, on the verge of releasing another single, grandson is leading the charge towards the future of a genre that wants to reclaim its edge, its relevance and its attitude.

The chorus to "Bills""On the day / That I lie still / I still have taxes / And I still have bills"might get a laugh or a scoff, depending on who's listening (his audience will be in the former group; his targets, the latter). The song's young-versus-old debate ends with little sympathy for either but the sound of the songand of each single that has followedsits confidently in the youth's corner, tearing into genre walls with a rare energy.



grandson (all lowercase), a former DJ at events around McGill University, where he went to school for a time, hasn't buried his DJ skills six feet beneath crunching guitars. Instead, he crafts songs in which the two often-incompatible instruments speak to each other fluently. His tracks take inspiration as much from rock and blues as they do from EDM and hip hop. Just listen to the solo in "Bills" that slips right into a classic blues clap rhythm or the synths in the "Blood // Water" choruses. "Best Friends" is peak big-riff blues rock but the song's adrenaline shot is its hip hop beat foundation.

It's Rage Against The Machine thrilling.

The Black Keys have never sounded like this, or anything close for that matter. After Brothers, no one was asking them to. But after El Camino, the band clearly thought it was time for a reinvention and a change of sound. So they turned blue and turned boring. grandson is not a Black Keys knockoff or a Royal Blood knockoff but his sound is nonetheless inspired by both. Some version of "Bury Me Face Down" could have been the Black Keys' game-changing evolutionary next step. Instead, they went with "10 Lovers."

"Bury Me Face Down" is a blues standard. "Oh I got troubles / They won't let me be / But I won't get tired": these are lyrics you'd just as soon hear from Son House but in grandson's track, they're layered on top of popping sub bass and drum machine hi hat flares straight from 2017.

Turn Blue revealed more of Danger Mouse's idea of the Black Keys' sound than it did of the Black Keys' idea of the future of their sound. While Danger Mouse steered the band toward a studio sound that is difficult to produce effectively onstage (example: the tight, bass-heavy, round fuzz of "It's Up to You Now" often sounds too domesticated and weak in a cavernous arena), grandson drives his songs with digital sounds that have been perfected onstage by countless EDM and hip hop DJs over the years.



When I wrote about Human, the excellent debut LP by Rag'n'Bone Man, it was exciting because he had managed to crystallize his version of the blues: an R&B-soaked, hip hop conscious, blues-rock album full of pop hooks and soaring vocals. It's a classic blues album inspired by its times. grandson's singles have announced his own version of rock and roll, a sound raised in the new millennium and fed by the revolutions of this unfinished decade.

In the short bio on his website, he says, "I genuinely believe the world needs honest rock and roll, now more than ever". Part of the honesty of his music is admission that rock and roll is not, and shouldn't be, what it used to be. That would be antithetical to the genre. Honest rock and roll does not pretend, does not serve an audience of the past.

After only six singles, grandson has already earned more confidence in his hopefully-forthcoming debut LP than the Keys have in their next album, whenever that might arrive (Turn Blue is turning four this year). Are the Keys facing a U2 dilemma, stuck in a sound that's been sucked dry and trying to escape it in the wrong direction? Have they forgotten to listen to their contemporaries in the last eight years and missed the inevitable tectonic shifts of musical tastes? grandson's working close to the forge. Can the Keys crawl out the past and compete?

Tom Twardzik is a writer covering music, film, TV and gaming for Popdust. He also contributes travel writing to The Journiest and financial tips to Paypath. Read more on his page and follow on Twitter.

POP DUST | Read More



'Gerald's Game' is a different kind of horror movie for Halloween

Tarantino's 'Reservoir Dogs' is a storytelling masterclass

Wolf Alice deliver the best rock album of the year with 'Visions of a Life'Colson Whiteheads The Underground Railroad will become a canonical text, if it isnt already. The novel shares affinities with the works of Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, and Frederick Douglass, while contributing to contemporary discourses on race. Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction, Whiteheads storytelling is vivid while his critique of Americas fundamental principles is dynamic.

The Underground Railroad is told through the life of the runaway slave, Cora. The novel begins on a Georgian plantation owned by the sadistic Mr. Randall. He enacts brutal violence in order to satisfy his own thirst for profit while creating a culture of subservience. Cora escapes the plantation assisted by another slave named Caesar. As she moves North, each state presents a different manifestation of terror. Throughout the novel Cora faces fear, humiliation, and the toxicity of systematic racism. Arguably these are the common characteristics of many slave narratives. However Whiteheads novel stands alone for the raw parallels to contemporary society. The author does not lean on moralism to convey the texts power, yet its impossible for any reader to avoid the correlations.

At times the novel attempts to be multigenerational. Readers learn about the capture of Coras grandmother Ajarry, stolen from her West African village and shipped across the Atlantic in a disease infested slave ship. Ajarrys narrative connects to that of her daughter Mabel ,who was the only slave to flee Randall Plantation and evade capture. That leads to her daughter Cora, from whom the novel springs forth. These women demonstrate a commonality thats more than familial; the impact of mercilessness and trauma live on in their bloodlines through generations. America has yet to address this.

The backstories for the secondary characters are light and in some cases underdeveloped. Characters such as Caesar or Mingo, or even Coras mother and grandmother, despite central to the protagonists motives, are infrequently more than a plot device. The novels center, however, is Cora, who bears witness to systematic violence and oppression. Perhaps its unfair to critique Whitehead too harshly for failing to include each characters testimony. Theres simply not enough time to fully develop each narrative.

The Underground Railroad is a work of fiction and this is evident by the historical liberties Whitehead utilizes. His underground railroad is a literal locomotive equipped with tracks, station agents, and tunnels instead of the series of safe-houses composing the actual clandestine network. Whiteheads railroad is allegorical and reflects the erasure of African traditions and the problems plaguing African American culture to this day. Subsequently, the potential magnificence of the black experience becomes subterranean. As a result, readers are forced to question why only violence and oppression are anomalous to the black experience in our dominating narratives, when in fact African Americans have, in spite of this violent history, contributed greatly to the cultural and intellectual discourse of this nation.

Whiteheads writing is magnificent while his storytelling strikes an emotional timbre that moves and infuriates, discourages but then reconstructs hope. for example:

Sometimes a slave will be lost in a brief eddy of liberation. In the sway of a sudden reverie among the furrows or while untangling the mysteries of an early morning dream. In the middle of a song on a warm Sunday night. Then it comes, always  the overseers cry, the call to work, the shadow of the master, the reminder that she is only a human being for a tiny moment across the eternity of her servitude (28).

Truly barbarous, the descriptions demonstrate the extent of the violence against these subjugated people. In North Carolina Cora learns that the entire state expunged the black population and the negro race did not exist except at the ends of ropes (159). The language Whitehead utilizes is grisly by its vividness but necessary because of the historical reality. Theres reason to believe that hyperbole might taint some of the novel. Yet dismissing the slave narrative genre as too gruesome is myopic. Whitehead reminds readers that the United States is a nation built by violence. Social and racial harmony or even the notion of a post-racial society are delusions if we continue to ignore that Americas foundations are murder, theft, and cruelty (285).

Coras time in North Carolina also reminds readers to be critical of the historical record. The abolitionists who harbor Cora question their motives because they are terrified. The public lynchings that occur across the street from their home serve as a nightmarish panopticon underscoring their trepidation. Reluctant abolitionists are infrequently discussed in mainstream historical narratives. Typically abolitionists are framed as confident victors who rarely questioned their resistance: the archetypal white hero. The Underground Railroad disrupts our understanding of a comforting history while warning against anesthetizing the past.

Originally published in 2016, the need for texts such as The Underground Railroad is as necessary as ever. The character Arnold Ridgeway, the malevolent and tireless slave catcher, is an allegory for ICE agents and the contemporary culture of fear. Ridgeway wasnt able to capture Mabel and his vendetta against Cora stems from unadulterated bloodlust. He believes in racial inferiority and the need to subjugate. Even parts of his speech and mission to protect the American spirit and destroy that what needs to be destroyed (226) reflects modern xenophobic and isolationist diatribes.

Its easy to let texts such as The Underground Railroad render the belief that nothing has changed except the players. But thats not true. The Underground Railroad reiterates that social awareness and understanding of history can overcome contemporary fear mongering and voodoo racial harmony. Thereby Coras consistent need to move, speak-up, and adapt reminds readers to do the same.Little Jack's oft-stolen salt and pepper shakers get retired, but not the Rarebit's Moscow Mule mugsGet the SC business stories that matter.

Our newsletter catches you up with all the business stories that are shaping Charleston and South Carolina every Monday and Thursday at noon. Get ahead with us - it's free.Lauren Sausser is the Health & Science Editor at The Post and Courier. She also writes about health care issues in South Carolina.Bill Ruth stands in front of the Rampart Room, the old Fort Sumter Hotel's restaurant, during his honeymoon stay in 1958. FilePolitical Editor

Schuyler Kropf is The Post and Courier political editor. He has covered every major political race in South Carolina dating to 1988, including for U.S. Senate, governorship, the Statehouse and Republican and Democratic presidential primaries.David Slade is a senior Post and Courier reporter. His work has been honored nationally by Society of Professional Journalists, American Society of Newspaper Editors, Scripps foundation and others. Reach him at 843-937-5552 or dslade@postandcourier.comYou are the owner of this article.Editorials represent the institutional view of the newspaper. They are written and edited by the editorial staff, which operates separately from the news department. Editorial writers are not involved in newsroom operations.President Donald Trump pauses as he gives his first State of the Union address in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol to a joint session of Congress Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018 in Washington, as Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Paul Ryan applaud. (Win McNamee/Pool via AP)Capt. Robert Johnson outside of the guard house at the Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville on Sept. 1, 2010. Johnson, a former corrections officer who was nearly killed in a hit orchestrated by an inmate using an illegal cellphone, is asking federal authorities for help to make sure nothing like it happens again. Johnson testified last year before the Federal Communications Commission about preventing inmate access to cellphones. File/Brett Flashnick/APHouse Intelligence Committee member Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., walks on Capitol Hill in Washington on Tuesday, July 25, 2017, prior to the arrival of White House senior adviser Jared Kushner to meet behind closed doors before the committee on the investigation into possible collusion between Russian officials and the Trump campaign. Andrew Harnik/APPR-Inside.com: 2018-01-31 03:51:42

The Australian Barbell Company offers an extensive range of strength and conditioning products to the health and fitness industries. Proudly celebrating 75 years in business, Australian Barbell Company has established a reputation as a leading manufacturer and supplier of gym equipment. Their onsite engineering facility specialises in producing premium quality equipment and custom-made products with fast turnaround times.If it is time to purchase some weightlifting plates for a home gym, commercial gymnasium, high performance training centre or personal training studio, Australian Barbell Company can help. The company offers an extensive range of premium quality Olympic weight plates and bumper plates to suit all your lifting needs along with a variety of racking and storage options to keep the space tidy and safe.The Black Series Bumper Plates from Australian Barbell Company are a tried and tested design. These bumpers have thick enough rubber coating for safe dropping but are thin enough to load up on a barbell for world record breaking weights. With a fresh matte black finish and brightly coloured print these plates look as good as they perform. The black rubber bumpers are available in weights from 5kg to 25kg with print in traditional Olympic colours for size recognition. This range of bumper plates are suitable for home, crossfit boxes and PT use. These plates work quietly and offer a modern look. They will not damage flooring or chip if dropped accidentally. This range is available in individual sizes or as a 150kg set including two of each size plate in 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25kg.The Pro Series Olympic Bumper Plates are a range of commercial quality premium bumper plates. Used at elite sport clubs, ADF bases, high performance facilities and boxes all over Australia, these plates are the pinnacle of the industry bumpers sourced by users for their superior quality performance, durability and modern look. This range is available from 2.5kg to 25kg. They are finished in traditional Olympic colours for simple size recognition.Australian Barbell Company is Australia's leading specialist supplier of weightlifting and strength training equipment. The company is owned and operated by the third generation of the Langford family from a large manufacturing and warehousing plant in Mordialloc, Melbourne, Australia.To contact Australian Barbell Company call 03 9580 5945 or email websales@ australianbarbellco.com From more information: https://www.australianbarbellco.com/PR-Inside.com: 2018-01-31 20:40:15

FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for Canyon Creek Food Company Ltd.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Calgary, Alberta (FSCWire) - Canyon Creek Food Company Ltd. (TSX Venture:CYF). has issued a press release with the following headline:Canyon Creek Announces Appointment of New DirectorTo view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on Canyon Creek Food Company Ltd., or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/Canyon Creek Food Company Ltd.Source: Canyon Creek Food Company Ltd. (TSX Venture: CYF, ISIN: CA1389081086)Date: January 31, 2018Time: 2:40 PM EST--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of Canyon Creek Food Company Ltd. and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2018 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.)Coagulation Analyzers Market

PR-Inside.com: 2018-01-31 09:09:26

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The Global Coagulation Analyzers Market, By Product Type (Analyzers (Clinical Laboratory Analyzers, Point of Care Analyzers) and Consumables (Reagents & Kits, Point-of-care strips), By Test Type (Activated Partial Thromboplastin Time Test, Prothrombin Time Test, D-Dimer Test, Fibrinogen Test, and Other Coagulation Tests), and By End User (Hospitals, Diagnostic Laboratories, Research Institutes, and Others) was valued at US$ 2,481.78 million in 2017 and is projected to exhibit a CAGR of 9.7% over the forecast period (20172025), as highlighted in a new report published by Coherent Market Insights.Request Sample Copy of the Report: https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-sample/1255 Coagulation analyzers are used in diagnosis of bleeding disorders and thrombotic cases. The presence of coagulation analyzers these days are fully automated infuse with several advanced features to perform various functions such as cap piercing, primary tube sampling, dilution and automatic rerun. This ultimately, lowers total cost, improves the quality of patient care and assures regulatory compliance in the clinical laboratory. Instrumentation Laboratory  a Werfen companys product  ACL TOP Family 50 series is designed for mid- to high-volume clinical laboratories, which offers the most advanced automation and quality management, for routine to specialty assays, including clotting, chromogenic, and immunological assays. These devices are highly sensitivity and offers accurate information and results thus, boosting the market growth of the coagulation analyzers over the forecast period.Browse 22 Market Data Tables and 28 Figures spread through 150 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Coagulation Analyzers Market, by Product Type (Analyzers (Clinical Laboratory Analyzers, Point of Care Analyzers) and Consumables (Reagents & Kits, Point-of-care strips), by Test Type (Activated Partial Thromboplastin Time Test, Prothrombin Time Test, D-Dimer Test, Fibrinogen Test and Other Coagulation Tests) and by End User (Hospitals, Diagnostic Laboratories, Research Institutes and Others) - Global Forecast to 2025"Companies are focusing on developing next generation diagnostic analyzers to help to improve specificity, accuracy, and overall productivity without making the test expensive. They are developing portable and small sized analyzers, in order to enhance their market share. These innovative analyzers offer the same results in less turnaround time making them hassle free and feasible for the operators. For instance, in July 2017, Sysmex America, Inc. launched its XN-L automated hematology analyzers in the U.S. to meet the demand of lower-volume hematology analyzers. Moreover, in 2014, Siemens Healthineers product Xprecia Stride Coagulation Analyzer  a handheld device  received U.S. FDA approval for reliable monitoring of oral anticoagulation therapy with warfarin, a vitamin K antagonist. Moreover, in 2015, this same analyzer, received the Red Dot award for its design quality. The Red Dot Award is the largest and most recognized international product competition in the world for product design quality. These factors are expected to augment growth of the coagulation analyzers market over the forecast period.Key players in the market are also engaged in strategic acquisitions and collaborations to increase their product portfolios and to introduce new platform technologies. For instance, in January 2012, Roche entered into a strategic alliance with Technoclone  a reagent specialist in thrombosis and cardiovascular diagnostics based in Vienna, Austria  to further expand the companys reagent portfolio in coagulation diagnostics. This in turn, will help the Roche to retain the market share in in-vitro diagnostics. Furthermore, in August 2015, Abbott Laboratories entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Omnilab  a middleware provider for clinical diagnostics and blood transfusion laboratories  to expand lab offerings to international markets outside the U.S.Ask for customization: https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-customization/1255 Key Takeaways of the Coagulation Analyzers Market:The global coagulation analyzers market is expected to exhibit a CAGR of 9.7% over the forecast period (20172025). This is attributed to increasing adoption of these devices, as it provides accurate results in low turnaround time.Among product types, clinical laboratory analyzers segment is expected to account for the largest share in the global coagulation analyzers market over the forecast period. This is attributed to increasing use of these devices in hospitals for hematological analysis of patients on a daily basis.Among test types, prothrombin test segment accounted for the largest share in 2016, and this is owing to increasing incidence of cardiovascular and blood related diseases. According to Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), 2014, annually, 790,000 people in the U.S. suffer from heart attack, which indicates a potential need for immediate diagnosis and need for the early treatmentPrevailing trend of outsourcing hemostasis tests to diagnostic centers for quick reports is expected to be factor for growth of the diagnostic laboratories segment over the forecast period.Some of the major players in the global coagulation analyzers market are Siemens AG, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Instrumentation Laboratory, Sysmex Corporation, Beckman Coulter, Inc. (Danaher), Diamond Diagnostics, International Technidyne Corporation, Nihon Kohden Corporation, and Alere Inc.To know the latest trends and insights related to coagulation analyzers market, click the link below: https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/market-insight/coagulation-analyzers-market-1255 About Coherent Market Insights:Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.Contact Us:Mr. ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email: sales@ coherentmarketinsights.com Visit our news Website: http://www.coherentchronicle.comEurope Capnography Devices Market: Market Estimation, Dynamics, Country Share, Trends, Competitor Analysis 2012 to 2016 and Forecast 2017 to 2023

Europe Capnography Devices Market

PR-Inside.com: 2018-01-31 12:59:20

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Precision Business Insights

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152  160 City Road,





London EC1V 2NX



satya

Lead Marketing

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https://www.precisionbusinessinsights.com





# 824 Words

Kemp House,152  160 City Road,London EC1V 2NXLead Marketing+1-866-598-1553

Market Outline: Europe Capnography Devices MarketCapnography is the process of monitoring partial pressure or concentration of carbon dioxide in respiratory gases by using capnogram. It is majorly used as a monitoring tool during intensive care and anesthesia. Capnography helps to anesthesiologists to prevent the hypoxia and help to determine the situations that can lead to hypoxia and may cause irreversible brain damage. Due to these advantages, capnography is widely used in endoscopic suites, emergency rooms, x-ray rooms, and on-site emergency and trauma centers. In healthy individuals, difference between the arterial blood and expired CO2 partial pressure is very small however, in presence of lung disease, and some congenital heart disease the difference is increased and can exceed 1 kPa.Market Dynamics: Europe Capnography Devices MarketIncrease in the prevalence of respiratory diseases such as COPD and asthma in Europe region mainly in UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland, technological advancements in the capnography devices, and recommendations by European Resuscitation Council (ERC), Association of Anaesthetists of the Great Britain & Ireland (AAGBI), and Intensive care Society in U.K. for the using of capnography devices are anticipated to fuel the capnography devices market. However, alternative devices availability for capnography such as pulse oximeter, new clinical studies restraining the usage in non-intubated individuals, and issues associated with capnography usage are impede the growth of capnography devices market.A sample of this report is available upon request @Market Scope: Europe Capnography Devices MarketCapnography devices market is segmented on the basis of product type, technology, application, and end userBased on product type, market is segmented into the following: Capnographso Micro-Stream Capnographso Side-Stream Capnographso Main Stream Capnographs DisposablesBased on technology, market is segmented into the following: Hand-Held Monitors Stand-Alone Monitors OthersBased on application, market is segmented into the following: Anesthesia Procedural Sedation Intensive Care Pain Management Emergency Medicine OthersBased on end user, market is segmented into the following: Hospitals Clinics Ambulatory Surgical CentersTo view TOC of this report is available upon request @Country Analysis: Europe Capnography Devices MarketGeographically, Europe capnography devices market is segmented into Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Russia, Poland, UK, and Rest of Europe. Germany capnography devices market is growing due to increase in the prevalence of COPD (approximately 6,155 cases observed per 100,000 people), increase in the R&D activities for the innovation of newer products, and expansion of business by market players are propel the market. France capnography devices market is projected to grow at a significant rate, which is attributed to rise in prevalence of COPD and other respiratory diseases (according to European COPD Coalition, 3.5 Mn COPD cases were present and approximately 16,000 people die every year), and mandatory usage of capnography devices in anesthesia conditions are expected to boost the market. U.K capnography devices market driven by increase in geriatric population and change in lifestyle, rise in focus on the development of newer devices by market players, and product approval and launchings are propel the market over forecast years in the country.Competition Assessment: Europe Capnography Devices MarketSome of the players in the Europe capnography devices market include: Covidien plc (Medtronic, plc. (Ireland)) Masimo Corporation (U.S.) Nihon Kohden Corporation (Japan) Smiths Medical, Inc. (U.S.) Nonin Medical, Inc. (U.S.) Welch Allyn Inc. (U.S.) Koninklijke Philips N.V. (Netherlands) Dragerwerk AG & Co. KGaA (Germany) Viamed Limited (England)Need more information about this report @Key Features of the Report: The report provides granular level information about the market size, regional market share, and forecast from 2017-2023 The report covers in-detail insights about the competitors overview, key findings, and their key strategies The report outlines drivers, restraints, challenges, and trends that are currently faced by the industry The report tracks recent innovations, key developments and start-ups details that are working in the industry The report provides plethora of information about market entry strategies, regulatory framework and reimbursement scenarioGet access to full summary @About Precision Business InsightsPrecision Business Insights is one of the leading market research and business consulting firm, which follow a holistic approach to solve needs of the clients. We adopt and implement proven research methodologies to achieve better results. We help our clients by providing actionable insights and strategies to make better decisions. We provide consulting, syndicated and customised market research services based on our client needs.Precision Business Insights mission is to provide high-quality market research reports and generate key insights to our clients. PBIs approachable strategies are to help clients to make key decisions for business growth.Precision Business Insights vision is to become most valued partner to fortune 500 companies by providing agile, accurate, and actionable market insightsContact to Precision Business Insights,Email: sales@ precisionbusinessinsights.com Website @ https://www.precisionbusinessinsights.comAs per 2017 report by Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the U.S. alone is expected to account for a prevalence of 8,16,834 and incidence of 80,500 for lymphoma.

Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Market

PR-Inside.com: 2018-01-31 09:10:19

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Coherent Market Insights

1001 4th Ave,





#3200



Mr Shah

CEO

2067016702

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# 677 Words

1001 4th Ave,#3200CEO2067016702

Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is a procedure in which multipotent hematopoietic stem cells sourced from peripheral blood cells, bone marrow or umbilical cord blood are transplanted into a patient. Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is commonly used in the treatment of lymphoma (Hodgkin, Non-Hodgkin), leukemia, multiple myeloma, thalassemia, sickle cell anemia, and osteoporosis. It includes two transplantation sources namely, autologous that uses stem cells from the patients own body and allogeneic that sources stem cells from a donors body. According to World Health Organization (WHO), over 50,000 hematopoietic stem cell transplantation procedures are carried out globally, every year and this number is expected to increase over the years.Rising incidence of leukemia and lymphoma and continuous research on hematopoietic stem cells are expected to drive market growthAs per 2017 report by Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the U.S. alone is expected to account for a prevalence of 8,16,834 and incidence of 80,500 for lymphoma. Increasing rate of incidence is in turn, expected to increase the demand for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation thus, propelling growth of the hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) market. Increasing awareness about stem cell therapies among the population is also expected to propel growth of the hematopoietic stem cell transplantation market. As per survey by World Network for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (WBMN), around one million hematopoietic stem cell transplantation procedures were performed during 2006 to 2014, which indicates potential opportunities for market players.However, high costs associated with hematopoietic stem cell transplantation procedures are expected to hinder growth of the market. Other factors such as difficulty in finding a donor for allogeneic transplantation, technological barriers (currently used culture technologies, point of care delivery, and lack of analytical assay), and side effects such as graft vs. host disease, are also expected to slow down growth of the hematopoietic stem cell transplantation market.Ask For Table Of Content@Global Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Market TaxonomyOn the basis of indication:Leukemia,Lymphatic disorder,Myeloma,Other non-malignant disorders (thalassemia, sickle cell anemia, Osteoporosis, Immunodeficiency syndrome)On the basis of application:Peripheral blood cells,Bone marrow,Umbilical cord bloodIncreasing adoption of the growing trend of personalized medicine is expected to drive growth of the hematopoietic stem cells transplantation market. A collaborative research study on hematopoietic stem cell transplantation initiated by World Network for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (WBMN) in 2013 in the domain of promotion of access to hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, developed a donation guidance document, technical and scientific input on safety, and quality of HSCT as mentioned in annual report of the WBMN.In March 2017, Gilead Sciences announced the acquisition of Kite Pharma, which produces products such as Axi-cel to treat non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Plasticell, which specializes in the development of stem cell technologies and cell-based therapies, announced entering into an agreement with Nan yang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore on March 2017, to advance its therapeutic stem cell pipeline. Plasticell also announced collaboration with Anthony Nolan, a research organization in blood cancer, to progress clinical development of Plasticells ex vivo expanded cord blood-derived hematopoietic stem cell product in December 2017. Also, GE Healthcare announced the introduction of Thaw CB1000, for thawing large volumes of cell therapies cryopreserved in cryo-bags majorly intended for use in research laboratory, in September 2017.Important players present in the hematopoietic stem cell transplantation marketMajor players operating in the hematopoietic stem cell transplantation market include Pluristem Therapeutics Inc., CellGenix Technologie Transfer GmbH, Kite Pharma Inc., Regen Biopharma Inc., BiolineRx, Cynata Therapeutics, Lonza Group Ltd, Cesca Therapeutics Inc, TiGenix N.V., Escape Therapeutics Inc., Bluebird Bio, and Cellular Dynamics International.Get More Details On this Report:About Coherent Market Insights:Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.Contact Us:Coherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email:sales@ coherentmarketinsights.com Visit our news Website: http://www.coherentchronicle.comLatin America Capnography Devices Market: Market Estimation, Dynamics, Country Share, Trends, Competitor Analysis 2012 to 2016 and Forecast 2017 to 2023

Latin America Capnography Devices Market

PR-Inside.com: 2018-01-31 13:51:21

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Precision Business Insights

Kemp House,





152  160 City Road,





London EC1V 2NX



satya

Lead Marketing

+1-866-598-1553

email

https://www.precisionbusinessinsights.com





# 630 Words

Kemp House,152  160 City Road,London EC1V 2NXLead Marketing+1-866-598-1553

Market Outline: Latin America Capnography Devices MarketCapnography is the process of monitoring partial pressure or concentration of carbon dioxide in respiratory gases by using capnogram. It is majorly used as a monitoring tool during intensive care and anesthesia. Capnography helps to anesthesiologists to prevent the hypoxia and help to determine the situations that can lead to hypoxia and may cause irreversible brain damage. Due to these advantages, capnography is widely used in endoscopic suites, emergency rooms, x-ray rooms, and on-site emergency and trauma centers. In healthy individuals, difference between the arterial blood and expired CO2 partial pressure is very small however, in presence of lung disease, and some congenital heart disease the difference is increased and can exceed 1 kPa.Market Dynamics: Latin America Capnography Devices MarketIncrease in the prevalence of respiratory diseases such as COPD in Latin American Countries such as Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela, technological advancements in the capnography devices, advances in economic growth, and expansion of businesses by the market players are anticipated to fuel the capnography devices market. Moreover, wide range of applications of capnography devices such as hypoventilation, esophageal intubation, and endotracheal tube placement along with its minimally invasive nature, ease of usage are expected to propel the capnography devices market over forecast period. However, alternative devices availability for capnography such as pulse oximeter, new clinical studies restraining the usage in non-intubated individuals, and issues associated with capnography usage are anticipated to impede the growth of capnography devices market.A sample of this report is available upon request @Market Scope: Latin America Capnography Devices MarketCapnography devices market is segmented on the basis of product type, technology, application, and end userBased on product type, the market is segmented into the following: Capnographso Micro-Stream Capnographso Side-Stream Capnographso Main Stream Capnographs DisposablesBased on technology, the market is segmented into the following: Hand-Held Monitors Stand-Alone Monitors OthersBased on application, the market is segmented into the following: Anesthesia Procedural Sedation Intensive Care Pain Management Emergency Medicine OthersBased on end user, the market is segmented into the following: Hospitals Clinics Ambulatory Surgical CentersTo view TOC of this report is available upon request @Country Analysis: Latin America Capnography Devices MarketGeographically, Latin America capnography devices market is segmented into Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico, and Rest of Latin America. Brazil capnography devices market expected to witness significant growth due to increase in the prevalence of COPD and other respiratory disorders (approximately 4,241 COPD cases observed per 100,000 people in Brazil), increase in number of plastic surgeries, and rise in medical tourism in the region. Uruguay capnography devices market is projected to grow at a significant rate attributed to recommendations by The Uruguayan Society of Anesthesiologists and American Society of Anesthesiologists for capnography devices usage during anesthetics & sedation, and high prevalence of COPD disease in Uruguay (approximately 5,031 COPD cases observed per 100,000 people) are expected to bolster the market over the forecast period.Need more information about this report @Key Features of the Report: The report provides granular level information about the market size, regional market share, and forecast from 2017-2023 The report covers in-detail insights about the competitors overview, key findings, and their key strategies The report outlines drivers, restraints, challenges, and trends that are currently faced by the industry The report tracks recent innovations, key developments and start-ups details that are working in the industry The report provides plethora of information about market entry strategies, regulatory framework and reimbursement scenarioGet access to full summary @Contact to Precision Business Insights,Email: sales@ precisionbusinessinsights.com Website @ https://www.precisionbusinessinsights.comPR-Inside.com: 2018-01-31 22:28:11

Press Information

New Lynn Dental

14 Delta Ave, New Lynn, Auckland 0600



Sylvie

Business Representative

09-827-1664

email

https://www.newlynndental.co.nz/





# 344 Words

14 Delta Ave, New Lynn, Auckland 0600Business Representative09-827-1664

According to New Zealands Ministry of Health, 53% of Kiwi adults with natural teeth have not visited a dental health care worker in the past year.Regular dental check-ups are normally done once every six months, where a dentist examines a patients mouth, teeth and gums to detect any signs of deterioration or potential disease. There are normally coupled with regular teeth cleaning by a dental hygienist.These days many Kiwi adults are deciding to skip dental check-ups altogether, mainly because of the cost. Visits to the dentist are not necessarily cheap and are considered almost a luxury in New Zealand.Dr David Crum, Chief Executive of the New Zealand Dental Association, said: Youre getting a large group of people who are seeing a dentist when they have got problems rather than doing the recall and check-up, and amongst that group there are a significant number [for whom] the cost is a barrier." This avoidance for regular check-ups results in a lot of adults putting off dentist visits until absolutely necessary. However, costs to finally treat or fix dental problems can snowball to the thousands if left unchecked or untreated. Worse, many people get their teeth extracted too early because their teeth are in terrible health.The good news is that most dental diseases are actually preventable. This can be achieved though preventative dental care, including consistent blushing, flossing, and regular dental check-ups and teeth cleans.Former Prime Minister Helen Clark also recently urged the NZ government to consider free dental care for Kiwi adults. However, that could cost about $800 million to a billion a year, according to Crum. Realistically, preventative dental care should be top priority for the country so Kiwis can achieve good dental health early on.Visit your local dental clinic today, New Lynn Dental Care, for holistic and affordable dental services. They provide routine check-ups as well as the best emergency dentist Auckland wide.Start your journey to healthier teeth and book an appointment on the New Lynn Dental Care website today: https://www.newlynndental.co.nz/Disclaimer: If you have any questions regarding information in this press release please contact the company added in the press release. Please do not contact pr-inside. We will not be able to assist you. PR-inside disclaims the content included in this release.PR-Inside.com: 2018-01-31 17:47:15

FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for ProSmart Enterprises Inc.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Kelowna, BC (FSCWire) - ProSmart Enterprises Inc. (TSX Venture:PROS). has issued a press release with the following headline:ProSmart Announces Changes to Its Board of Directors and Amends Option TermsTo view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on ProSmart Enterprises Inc., or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/ProSmart Enterprises Inc.Source: ProSmart Enterprises Inc. (TSX Venture: PROS, FWB: 1R6, WKN: A143NS, ISIN: CA83581Q1054)Date: January 31, 2018Time: 11:46 AM EST--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of ProSmart Enterprises Inc. and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2018 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.)Until now junk car wracks did not have much going for them. From what was once a vehicle, only immovable and heavy metal pieces remain that collect rust. And even if the owner of these left overs goes to a junk yard, one will likely not be able to expect more than a few dollars. But this bleak reality can now be a thing of the past thanks to Junk Cars Corp, an Hollywood based junk car removal company that offers fast and easy service and will give you an honest value for your vehicle.

Junk Car Removal Hollywood FL

PR-Inside.com: 2018-01-31 20:36:58

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Junk Cars Corp

5640 Taft St# A, Hollywood FL 33021



Customer Service

Open 24/7

954-990-4699 / 305-517-3942

email

http://www.junkcarscorp.com/





# 535 Words

5640 Taft St# A, Hollywood FL 33021Open 24/7954-990-4699 / 305-517-3942

There was a time when you had to pay for a junk car removal company to tow off your vehicle. But now you can sell your junk car and make some good money off of it! A simple phone call will give you an estimate for the sale and removal at your convenience; most times within 24 hours. At the time the vehicle will be towed off for free, you will receive your honest value in cash or money order. Without having to wait for a cash to clear, you will be left absolutely worry free. It is not a secret that there are bad businesses out there that will seek any opportunity to take advantage of you. This is even truer when it comes to scrap cars. After all they are called junk for a reason. And if you do not happen to be well-versed in car mechanics and evaluation, chances are that you could be somebodys easy victim. But as Floridas biggest junk car buyer, operating in both Miami-Dade and Broward County, Junk Cars Corp has a reputation to keep. They will give you a true price; no bait-and-switch gimmicks that will coerce you to lower your expectations. According to their website, they promise to give you a great price that you can agree to or not, no obligation.When you are given this chance, you decide whether you feel the price is fair or not. You are treated with respect and dignity.- Junk Cars CorpHaving Junk Cars Corp, a licensed junk car buyer, take care of your car also protects the environment, because all scraps are recycled as required by the latest state regulations. In addition, you will receive a legal Certificate of Destructions and they can even help you with the DVLA documents if needed.Speaking of documents, missing ownership paperwork does not make it impossible for someone to sell their cars. In regards to the registration, the rules for the procedure are depending upon the state. Therefore even if you cannot find it, you should still contact Junk Cars Corp and have them consult with you. In case your cars title misplaced, a lost title application can be easily filled out to resolve this issue.Moreover, even your car keys disappearing is not an obstacle. Junk Cars Corp will buy your scrap vehicle with or without keys.No make or model is excluded from their services. And even more, no condition of vehicle is excluded. A car that runs and works can also be sold. Sometimes car owners will feel unconfident with selling their scraps because it is in a bad state or is missing certain elements. They will attempt to sell or parts of their vehicle and as a result be left with very little of value. Junk Cars Corp is the smartest choice; financially and timewise. Even if you are skeptical, there is no harm in calling them. In fact, they operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.For more information and an absolutely honest car evaluation, please dial 954-990-4699 in Broward County or 305-517-3942 in Miami-Dade County. You can also look into their highly informative website at www.junkcarscorp.comPR-Inside.com: 2018-01-31 01:17:18

FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for Subscribe Technologies Inc.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Vancouver, British Columbia (FSCWire) - Subscribe Technologies Inc. (CSE:SAAS). has issued a press release with the following headline:Subscribe Technologies Inc. Announces the Grant of Stock OptionsTo view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on Subscribe Technologies Inc., or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/Subscribe Technologies Inc.Source: Subscribe Technologies Inc. (CSE: SAAS, OTC Pink: SRBBF, FWB: 6GQ, WKN: A2DX5G, ISIN: CA86432L1004)Date: January 30, 2018Time: 7:16 PM EST--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of Subscribe Technologies Inc. and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2018 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.)With a vision to serve Middle Eastern clients proactively, Promatics has recently opened up its new office in Dubai. This new move will enable the company to develop its business in the region as well as tap new markets for a global expansion.

PR-Inside.com: 2018-01-31 19:09:38

Press Information

Promatics Technologies Pvt Ltd

Levels 41 & 42, Emirates Towers,





Sheikh Zayed Road,





Dubai, UAE



Miriama Chmurova

Marketing Manager, UAE

+971-43132840

email

http://www.promaticsindia.com





# 866 Words

Levels 41 & 42, Emirates Towers,Sheikh Zayed Road,Dubai, UAEMarketing Manager, UAE+971-43132840

Dubai, 31st January 2018: An established software company with a core focus on mobile apps, Promatics has been supporting clients to boost their business in multiple ways. With a number of offices in India, America and Europe, Promatics has been able to cater to the exact needs of global clients round the clock. As part of its expansion plans, the company has recently opened a dedicated office in Dubai with a vision to serve its Middle Eastern clients promptly. This will not only enable the company to serve existing UAE clients exceedingly well but also discover new customers who are seeking trusted technology partners to build their mobile applications.Located in Emirates Towers on the Shaikh Zayed Road in Dubai, the new office will offer support to its rapidly growing customer base in the region and enable Promatics to leverage local knowledge and expertise to meet the new business demands of Middle East. On this new development, Arpit Jain, CEO at Promatics said: Our company has a great reputation for delivering cutting-edge technology solutions that drive business growth and our new office in Dubai will help us meet the demand for our mobile application services in the region. I am excited to explore this market further, interact with my existing clients and meet partners that can promote the development of Promatics in Dubai. It gives me great pleasure to work with diverse clients across the globe and offer our app development services to Fortune 1000 companies, global SMEs and also entrepreneurs with emerging start-ups. It has always been my vision to reach out to every business that seeks technological assistance to enrich their customer experience and with our Dubai office, I am one step closer to achieving it. Promatics is one of the top mobile app development companies in India that successfully caters to global clients since its inception. The companys core services help their clients to enhance business capabilities, reduce customer acquisition time and ultimately beat the competition. Apart from designing and developing mobile and web applications, Promatics also offers a range of other tech-based services. These include e-commerce development, CMS, cloud solutions, validation and testing, IT consulting, responsive web design and optimization and many others. With the new office in Dubai, the company will be able to tap new customers who are looking to venture into the digital space but need a knowledgeable and expert associate to assist them with the software setup.The key contributor to the success of Promatics has been the companys viable business delivery model that ensures every mobile app is built with high-quality features within the stipulated timelines. As the company has expanded its base in Dubai, it has also employed some of the sharpest minds in the industry to offer exceptional services to their clients. These include a team of creative app designers, app developers, and a highly talented and dedicated team of technical professionals. All the employees in the Dubai office are equipped to smartly handle the challenges associated with mobile apps once it enters the development phase. The team always focuses on delivering customer-centric solutions after analysing and understanding the key requirements of every client.The marketing manager at Promatics in Dubai states, By establishing an office in Dubais vibrant financial district, Promatics will get the opportunity to broaden our services to clients in the Middle East. The market in Dubai is buzzing with the latest technologies and thus, this move will further boost our ability to cater to new clients and interact with businesses that can benefit in multiple ways with our end-to-end software services. Promatics will be seen as a major player in application development and has an exciting roadmap to increase innovation in the industry. Promatics has always been the technology company of choice for many clients as the company excels at an offshore delivery model and can easily setup a clients development centre anywhere in the world. The ideal blend of state-of-the-art infrastructure, competitive pricing and technological expertise helps businesses choose Promatics over its competition. The Dubai office has been developed to assist Middle Eastern clients to ride the wave of technology while still saving business funds for key processes. With the lowered total cost of ownership, Promatics solutions enable businesses to reach out to new customers and maintain existing clients in the best possible ways. Promatics is an ISO 9001:2008 compliant company and will soon be CMMI level III certified. Clients who are seeking a company that can translate complicated and perplexed app visions into easy to deploy, simple and scalable applications will find Promatics the right fit for their business needs. Another key facet that has helped the company move to Dubai is its ability to offer a distinguished comfort level to its clients. While this was possible even with the offshore model before, having a setup where clients are located will enable better business and faster communication.The exclusive office aligns with the companys strategy to constantly innovate in the market and establish a presence close to customers for easier connections and interactions. Also, it gives Promatics a chance to collaborate with local partners and offer customized local expertise to businesses seeking success in important global markets.Flowerdeliveryuae.ae is an ideal website for sending Flowers for Valentines Day online to anywhere in UAE. Convey heartfelt feelings to dear and loved ones by sending flowers & gifts online to Abu Dhabi, Dubai and other places in UAE in just a few clicks.

Valentine Flowers

PR-Inside.com: 2018-01-31 08:57:04

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Flower Delivery UAE

Dubai - UAE



Flower Delivery UAE

Gifts Provider

+971567427222

email

https://www.flowerdeliveryuae.ae/valentine/





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Dubai - UAEGifts Provider+971567427222

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The Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, has ordered Intels Nigeria Limited (Intels) to pay an outstanding $48 million debt into the Treasury Single Account (TSA) of the agency within two weeks.

The Managing Director, NPA, Hadiza Usman, disclosed this during an interview with CNBC Africa Tuesday.

Ms. Usman added that the NPA will execute the notice of termination on Intels if it does not pay the debt within the ultimatum.

One of the issues we have had with Intels is their non-compliance with the Treasury Single Account (TSA), the NPA boss said.

As you are aware, the Nigerian government instituted the TSA which is the account that all revenues of government need to be paid into. Intels collects revenue on behalf of Nigeria Ports Authority and had refused to comply with TSA and kept retaining those revenues in their coffers.

I am giving Intels a possible two-week window to provide payment, two weeks from now, following which the notice of termination will not be withdrawn. Intels notice of termination will stand if the company failed to settle its debt.

Speaking further, she noted it is important for the logistic firm to adhere to the rules governing its operations.

I think its important for all entities operating in an environment to adhere to the rules and regulations, she said.

What we seek to ensure is that you have a level playing field and you must comply with regulations. At no point was Nigeria Ports Authority not going to remit their own portion of the revenues.

All other third-party agreements that we have in the Nigerian Ports Authority have a similar structure, so why should Intels feel it can operate outside of the law? The other companies are complying, why dont you comply?

Intels and NPA have been locked in controversy over the operations of the logistic firm in Nigerian ports in the last couple of months.

In 2017, Abubakar Malami, Minister of Justice, asked the NPA to void the boats pilotage agreement it has with Intels saying that the agreement, which has allowed Intels to receive revenue on behalf of NPA for 17 years, violates sections 80(1) and 162(1) and (10) of the constitution.

Consequently, the House of Representatives ordered the management of Intels to remit the multi-million dollar revenue accrued from pilotage service contract into the TSA, within 24 hours.

Chairman of the Ad-hoc committee on the need to ascertain the proceeds of the TSA, Abubakar Danburam, had issued the directive during an investigative public hearing.

He also mandated Intels to provide full details of the amount owed the federal government within 24 hours, just as he threatened to enforce the committees statutory powers, if the company failed to comply with federal government policy on TSA.

In its response last year, Intels apologised to the NPA and sought an agreement that would ensure mutual business transaction between both parties.The Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Tunde Fowler, said the Service collected N4.03 trillion revenue in 2017.

A statement by the Head, Communications and Servicom, FIRS, Wahab Gbadamosi, on Wednesday in Abuja, said that Mr. Fowler made this known when he led a delegation to the palace of Oba of Lagos, Akiolu I.

He said that the delegation, which comprised members of FIRS Board, some members of House of Representatives and members of states Boards of Internal Revenue Service was at the palace to seek royal blessing and advice.

The delegation was in Lagos on a Retreat organised by FIRS.

Mr. Fowler said that the collected revenue represented 82.38 per cent of the N4.89 trillion target set for the Service by the federal government during the period.

He added that the 2017 revenue was N720 billion or 22 per cent more than the N3.31trillion generated in 2016.

The 2017 collection performance exceeded the 2016 collection performance of 78.75 per cent.

With the support of the National Assembly, your support and that of other stakeholders, FIRS was able to collect over N4 trillion in 2017.

This is an increase of over 20 per cent relative to our collection in 2016.

We are hopeful that going forward and with the support of the National Assembly, FIRS will be able to fund this country through taxation, he stated.

An analysis of the collection during the period showed that non-oil accounted for 63 per cent while oil tax generated 38 per cent of the total collection.

Mr. Fowler explained from second half of 2014, there had been a sustained decline in global prices of oil.

According to him, oil revenue generated by FIRS in 2014 was N2.45 trillion while oil revenue generated in 2015 was N1.29 trillion.

That decline stopped as oil revenue generated in 2017 rose to N1.52 trillion as against N1.16 trillion in 2016.

This trend has had adverse effect on the ability of oil-dependent countries to meet their development objectives, he said.

Mr. Fowler noted that though collection increased by 20 per cent in 2017 compared with 2016, cost of collecting revenue went down to 2.49 per cent in 2017 from 2.60 per cent in 2016 and 2.62 per cent in 2015.

He attributed the development to growing efficiency in collection by the Service, with the application of Information, Communication and Technology (ICT).

On his part, Chairman, House Committee on Finance, Babangida Ibrahim, commended the monarch for supporting collection of taxes in Lagos and at the national level.

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In his remarks, Mr. Akiolu commended the National Assembly for not being a rubber-stamp assembly.

He said God has something better in store for this country. By the grace of Allah, our President will deliver.

Nigeria now needs good governance that will deliver development to the people. FIRS has collected N4 trillion and they will collect more in the future.

He urged senators and members of House of Representatives to always dialogue with the executive for synergy and give Mr. Buhari a chance.

(NAN)ADVERTISEMENT

President Hage Geingob of Namibia has suspended foreign travels of all ministers, deputy ministers and political office bearers with immediate effect, the presidents office said in a statement Wednesday.

The measure, which will remain in effect till February, is in line with Geingobs call to rein in official travel expenses.

On January 25, Geingob attended the 30th Ordinary Session of the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with just two ministers.

According to the statement, since assuming office three years ago, Geingob has been leading by example in controlling travel expenses, taking critical visits only with a small delegation.

The presidency said he forewent the use of the presidential jet both during the AU Summit in Addis Ababa and his vacation in December.(Xinhua/NAN)ADVERTISEMENT

The Kenyan government has declared the opposition coalitions Cs wing, the National Resistance Movement (NRM), as an organised criminal group.

Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiangi, in a gazette notice dated January 30, outlawed the movement as per the Prevention of Organised Crimes Act, 2010.

Matiangi issued the notice just hours after NASA leader Raila Odinga was sworn in as the Peoples President at Uhuru Park in Nairobi.

NRM, a wing of NASA, was formed in October 2017 on the eve of repeat presidential elections.

During its launch in 2017, Odinga said NASAs resistance wing would embark on vigorous pro-democracy campaign through economic boycotts and picketing and other legitimate forms of protests until a legitimate presidency is restored.

Odingas supporters say he is Kenyas legitimate leader and Kenyattas election was neither free nor fair.

Kenyattas victory in August was annulled by the Supreme Court over irregularities but he won a re-run, which Odinga boycotted because some electoral commission reforms he demanded did not take place.

Kenyatta was sworn in for a second term in November and state institutions report to him.

I, Raila Omolo Odinga, do swear that I will protect the nation as peoples president, so help me God, Odinga, who held a bible, said to the cheers of more than 15,000 people in Uhuru Park, next to Nairobis main business district.

During a speech lasting less than five minutes, Odinga declined to give details of his plans and said they would be disclosed in due course.

In a possible sign of division within the opposition alliance, Odingas vice presidential candidate and two other senior leaders were absent.

Odinga said the vice president would be sworn in at a later date.

The attorney-general had warned that Odinga could be charged with treason if the event went ahead  an offence that can carry the death penalty.

As people assembled, authorities forced independent television and radio stations reporting on the gathering off air, several outlets said  the most widespread censorship for a decade.

The UN was watching developments in Kenya closely and it was critical for the media to be able to operate freely and to report freely, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York.

He said the UN was urging that all Kenyan parties, political actors and their supporters maintain a lawful and peaceful social and political environment. (dpa/NAN)The Federal Government on Tuesday announced special intervention funds for tertiary and specialist hospitals in the country.

The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, made this known at the opening ceremony of the National Executive Council Meeting of National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) in Abuja.

Mr. Adewole said each teaching hospital would get N300 million, Federal Medical Centres N120 million each, while each Fistula Centre and Specialist Hospital would receive N120 million to improve healthcare delivery.

He said beyond the intervention in the federal facilities, the federal government would also make a special intervention at hospitals in each zone of the six geo-political zones in the country.

In our 2018 budget proposal we plan to install chemotherapy centres in all federal facilities and the government is building capacity for surgical oncology across the country.

Each of the centres will have a capacity for either cardiac or renal cancer treatment, but Maiduguri has opted for trauma centre in addition to the cardiac or renal.

As we move on things will get better for the hospitals offering more opportunities for training, he said.

The minister enjoined the medical doctors and healthcare workers to join politics to improve their working condition and facilities.

The more doctors we have at the national and state assemblies and state governors the better for Nigerias health system, Mr. Adewole said.

Politics is not dirty but if it was practiced in a dirty way you get soil, so let us join politics.

It is not enough to have a voters card we need to push more.

At the Senate Committee on Health there is one doctor, and there is no harm in having more than two doctors in such committee and make a change,  he said.

Earlier, Dr Ogechukwu Chinaka, National President of NARD, said the meeting was critical because it provide avenue for the key stakeholders to harmonise ideas on funding the health sector.

He said the meeting was themed: Making Nigerian hospitals work better: A national imperative.

Dr. Chinaka said the meeting focuses on the important fulcrum of Nigerias healthcare delivery system particularly hospitals.

Prof. Mike Ogrima, the National President, Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), urged the resident doctors and other healthcare professionals to instil inter-professional relationship.

Above all, as members of NMA, we must take care of ourselves before we take care of others; since last year we have been hammering on our working environment, Mr. Ogrima said.

He said the attitude of doctors to themselves, patients and health professionals has to be improved.

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He regretted that Nigeria was faced with Lassa fever outbreak in the last few weeks.

The NMA president advised all medical doctors not to attend to victims of such ailments without protective kits.

He said Nigeria was preparing for 2019 general elections, urging that as doctors we should not shy away from politics if we want our hospitals to be good.

I implore everybody to be registered with a political party, adding as a civil servant there is recent Supreme Court judgment that allow civil servants to participate in politics.

He said NMA has constituted a partisan politics committee at its last NEC meeting, adding the committee has submitted its recommendations and the recommendations will be implemented.

As medical doctors, we are out to participate fully in partisan politics, its a weapon to ensure that our hospitals work better, Mr. Ogrima said.

(NAN)Faith Oboh, 22, is the third in a family of 12 persons; the first daughter in a polygamous family who lost her mother before he finished with her secondary schools education.

Ms. Oboh is among the more than 200 returnees from Libya who had to undergo documentation organised by the Edo Anti-Human Trafficked and Illegal Migration team.

At the venue, her appearance looked as someone who had been cast out without any chance to succeed in life.

Narrating her experience, Faith recalled that she was a hair stylist but extreme poverty informed her decision to go through the desert of Libya in December, 2016 to seek fortune elsewhere.

From the proceeds I made from hair braiding in Nigeria, I paid N500, 000 to someone who introduced me and facilitated the journey to Libya.

My ultimate goal was to get to Italy by crossing the Mediterranean Sea but the unexpected event occurred; the engine of the boat conveying us developed fault amid the high sea and we got stranded for more than 12 hours.

Men and women, including children occupant of the boat, became prayer warriors amid tears with the wave becoming stronger and more dangerous before the captain of the boat called the Libyan police for rescue.

We later ended up in the camp to face hostility from Libyans; I went through a horrifying experience within the one year I spent in that country.

As I speak with you, I do not know the whereabouts of my sponsor and I do not know if she is alive or dead, she said.

Stating another bitter experience, Blessing Braimah, a 34-year old mother of four, said she left a thriving petty business and her children for plum job promise in a foreign country.

Ms. Braimah said she borrowed N600,000 to embark on the journey thinking the trip would turn around the life of her family.

She alleged that her husband left her with the children, the condition that made her to seek help beyond Nigerian shores.

It was a horrible experience in Libya because the place is like a war zone where you never can tell what will happen to you in the next minute, she said.

Ms. Braima said she and others were put in a prison in Tripoli, saying, it was a terrible experience; from the journey through the desert, the sound of guns everywhere, to living terrible life at the camp.

I would have been home before now, but it is not a journey you embark on like that; you just dont go to the park and say you are coming home to Nigeria.

For Osaze Imafidon, another returnee, his life would never remain the same as his journey to Libya has left him with a disability  walking with the support of crutches.

Mr. Imafidon said he sustained a gunshot injury that led to the amputation of one of his legs, insisting that, I was shot at not because I am a criminal, but its the normal way of life in Libya where people openly display guns.

Its no longer seen as illegal; you can be shot at any time with the slightest of provocation by the locals.

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No life of any black person means anything to them; they come into your apartment at will and cart away your belongings and if you dare raise your voice, you will be lucky to be alive.

Migrants preparing to cross to Europe through the Mediterranean Sea

Solomon Okoduwa, Senior Special Assistant to Gov. Godwin Obaseki on Anti-Human Trafficking and Illegal Migration said the gruesome expressions of the returnees from Libya raise concerns.

Mr. Okoduwa regretted that illegal migration to other countries by Nigerians to seek greener pasture had taken lives of number of youths, especially from Edo.

He blamed parents and guardians, accusing them of a deliberate encouragement, which in most cases, force their children and wards to undertake such trips.

According to him, this has become a cultural problem in Edo, where it is now a norm that if you dont have your ward abroad, you are missing out.

This is why these parents go to the length of even selling their property, in some cases, houses, just to see their children travel to Europe.

Again, some of these parents seek the support and collaboration of traffickers well known to them to assist their children in travelling out, he said.

Mr. Okoduwa, therefore, called for action to be taken by the Federal Government, international agencies and other relevant stakeholders, to address the challenge.

He, nonetheless, said in a bid to stop the practice, the state committee on Anti-Human Trafficking and Illegal Migration Anti Human trafficking, had begun campaigns to discourage the public against illegal migration.

We want parents and guardians to encourage their wards to stay back home here and also let them know that there is dignity in labour, if they join hands to run their little businesses together, they can go places.

We also let them know that Europe is not a bed of roses and that majority of them are being deceived by promising them of Europe tours.

People are making it here in Benin and they too can make it only if they believe; they should also support the good work the governor is doing and join hands with him to move the state forward, he said.

The governors aide noted that the campaign to churches and other public places was to further amplify the ills associated with illegal migration.

Similarly, the state Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Yinka Omoregbe, said the state government had determined to tackle human trafficking and irregular migration in the state.

We want our people going abroad to do so responsibly and not going there to suffer or go through horrifying experience.

The major pre-occupation of the government now is to reintegrate the returnees; 150 of them had already been trained on various skill acquisition programmes.

The governor has approved the N100 million seed grant and 150 hectares of land as the returnees starters pack on farming.

They will also be trained on various aspects of trade such as welding and fabrication, shoe making, catering, events management and paint making, among others.

It is an ongoing process that will go round to all those who make themselves available for the programmes, she said.

She also explained that 600 of the returnees had started receiving N20, 000 monthly as stipends from the government which would last for only three months.

Dedication to policies and programmes of empowerment, employment and reintegration of returnees, are part of state governments attempt to mitigate the root cause of illegal migration.

But there ought to be a stronger partnership between the state and the Federal Government on progammes aimed at solving the challenges that the returnees pose in the state, she said.

She also observed that the state governor recently expressed concern on the operations of National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) in the evacuation and reintegration of victims of human trafficking.

Corroborating her claim, Crusoe Osagie, Special Adviser to the governor on Media, alleged that NAPTIP and other agencies charged to cater for victims of human trafficking had not been forthcoming as expected.

He noted that NAPTIP ought to have advised government on the need to provide transport fare for those being airlifted to the country so that they would not be stranded on arriving in the Nigeria.

According to Edo government, the state is developing a new tripartite arrangement with oil companies, the state government and host communities to encourage corporate social responsibility programmes.

He said this would replace the conventional bilateral model and create a better, valuable investor-community relationship and effective service delivery to communities.(NANFeatures)ADVERTISEMENT

President Muhammadu Buhari has written to the Senate saying the police are working to arrest those responsible for the recent killings in the state.

In a letter read by the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, on Wednesday, Mr. Buhari said the federal government was initiating measures to address the killings and other security challenges, alleviate their consequences and forestall reoccurrence.

The letter reads, I thank you for your letter referenced NASS/8S/R/01/33 dated 18th January 2018 and carefully studied the resolutions and comments there in. As I briefed you and the RT. Hon speaker when we met, several courses of action have been taken prior to the senate resolution.

You may recall that I told you of the following steps taken as soon as the information came in to me about the Benue killings.

One, on Thursday 4th January, I sent the minister of interior and the deputy inspector-general of police in charge of operations for an on-the-spot assessment of the situation. Two, on Friday 5th January, the inspector-general of police briefed me verbally on the latest situation, calm had then been restored.

Three, on Monday 8th, the minister of interior met with the following, governors of Adamawa, Kaduna, Niger, Benue Taraba and Nasarawa together with the DG of the State Security Services, inspector-general of police, CG civil defence, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development and police commissioner of the six aforementioned states.

After the meeting, I instructed the Minister of Interior to brief you on the information gathered so far and steps taken.

On Tuesday, 9th of January, at a session with Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue state during which in informed of police arrests of some suspects. In addition, I told him that I have instructed to speed up trial of the suspects and give wide publicity of the police efforts.

At the instance of the governor, a meeting was held in the presidential villa on 15th with a wide cross-section of Benue personalities and frank and open discussions were held. Everybody appreciated the difficulties of this farmers-herders strife. I assured all of my commitment and assured justice would be done.

To infer therefore that nothing has been done, is incorrect. The police are strenuously working to apprehend the rest of the culprits of these heartless killings.

Furthermore, I have instructed the IGP to relocate to Benue state and redeploy forces to the most sensitive towns. The federal government is initiating measures to address these and other security challenges, alleviate the consequence of these attacks and forestall reoccurrence. The senate resolution itemised in your letter would be taken into consideration and Im instructing all relevant MDAs to factor them in their work.

On December 19 to be precise, while receiving the report of the committee that was set up to review the technical and administrative structure of the NIA, I underscored the need to review the entire national security architecture as I promised in my inaugural address on the 29th May 2015. Action is being initiated to receive maximum cooperation from the senate in line with paragraph three of the senate resolutions.Donald Duke, a former governor of Cross River State and one of the leaders of the Coalition for Nigeria, the platform proposed by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, has debunked concerns that the newly-formed political movement could ultimately benefit President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019.

I dont see how this would favour him, Mr. Duke told PREMIUM TIMES Wednesday afternoon in Abuja.

The former governor spoke on the sidelines of the formal launch of Coalition for Nigeria Movement at YarAdua Centre, where he was joined by other politicians like Olagunsoye Oyinlola, a former governor of Osun State.

Mr. Dukes comment was aimed at debunking claims that the group might end up achieving the opposite of what it was founded to do by unwittingly returning Mr. Buhari to power in 2019.

Some political commentators have accused the group of lacking basic fundamentals of politics that could portray its members as persons with clear and fresh ideas about Nigerias political future.

Critics say the group, which has yet to be formally registered as a political party, might end up playing a spoiler role in the 2019 elections by spreading the votes of the major opposition parties.

It is not a spoiler, Mr. Duke said. Were not here to help anybody.

Mr. Duke said the coalitions anger is directed more at the incumbent than any other political force in the country.

In fact, were here to express our frustration. Were all frustrated people, the former governor added.

At the launch of the movement in Abuja Wednesday morning, Mr. Duke and other politicians present said the plight of ordinary Nigerians was at the core of their goals.

Mr. Oyinlola said he had been a political player for too long to be interested in running for political offices or taking actions that would be for his own selfish interest.

He urged Nigerians not to see the coalition as a political party for now, but acknowledged that consultations were underway about whether the movement should be registered as a political party.

Kennedy Angbo, a political analyst, took a vicious aim at the movements composition, describing it to PREMIUM TIMES as a group occupied by the same set of people who have moved from the PDP to the APC with their poor record in public service.

Their dissatisfaction with Buhari might be genuine like all of us who voted for him but are now clearly against him, Mr. Angbo said. But theres no disputing the fact that theyre the same politicians without ideological traits.

Theyve moved from the PDP to the APC, once their bread is not buttered at the new coalition, theyll still move from there, Mr. Angbo added.

The analyst recognised that Nigeria is in dire need of a fresh political movement, but said Mr. Obasanjo and others who have so far shown their affiliation to the Coalition for Nigeria are not the answer.

Theres a need for a new coalition but it must be people-driven, not by the same old people like Obasanjo, he said. It must be led by persons of genuine character, although this does not mean I hold any grudges against the former president.

Demola Olarewaju, a PDP strategist, described the Coalition for Nigeria as an offshoot of the major opposition party.

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The Coalition for Nigeria is an offshoot of the PDP, Mr. Olarewaju told PREMIUM TIMES by telephone.. Its engagement in 2019 will depend on who emerges the PDPs presidential flagbearer.

If the candidate is someone favoured by President Obasanjo, then the movement may tilt towards the PDP. Otherwise, the movement would likely work against the PDP, but not necessarily for Buhar, he added.

Mr. Olarewaju, who currently consults for former Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido, said Mr. Obasanjo favours his principal and others like Ibrahim Dankwambo.

Mr. Dankwambo, the incumbent governor of Gombe State, is seen as a potential aspirant on the platform of the opposition party.

I understand that apart from Sule Lamido, Ibrahim Dankwambo is also in the good books of Mr. Obasanjo, Mr. Olarewaju said.

Atiku Abubakar is seen as a front-runner for the PDP ticket, but his muddled relationship with Mr. Obasanjo could prove a major hindrance to his ambition, analysts said.

President Buhari has not openly disclosed his intention to run in 2019, but his recent comments and those of his aides have made it difficult for his political analysts to remove him out of the equation.ADVERTISEMENT

A non-government organisation in Nigeria has asked President Muhammadu Buhari and the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, to pave the way for indigenous companies in the country to compete effectively with other multinational firms in the construction sector.

The group, Committee for Political Freedom & Responsibility (Cpfr), said one of the ways the government could achieve that was by removing the requirement that makes it mandatory for local companies to show evidence of annual turnover of up to N10 billion before they could tender for some road construction contracts.

Cpfr considers this practice to be against Nigerias national interest and against the principle of natural justice and fairness because it places a permanent advantage on the multinational companies over the local ones, the group said on Tuesday, in a press statement signed by its National Chairman, Ubong Ikpatt.

It is important to note that the multinational companies operating in Nigeria were first nurtured, supported and encouraged to grow to a certain height in their home countries before they were able to eventually expand to other places like Nigeria, the group said.

The group said it was unlikely for local construction companies in the country to achieve an annual turnover of N10 billion if they were not getting patronage from the government.

It said, The patronage for multinational construction companies, if not controlled, can continue to encourage capital flight from Nigeria, while in the other hand giving jobs to the indigenous companies can help grow the local economy.

Cpfr hereby call on His Excellency President Mohammadu Buhari, the Honourable Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola and other ministers to abolish this obnoxious policy and practice, and work out other realistic ways of assessing and grading local construction companies based on their experience, previous record of delivery, as well as their resources, the group said.

The ministry could not be reached immediately for comment on the issue.ADVERTISEMENT

The Federal Executive Council, FEC on Wednesday approved a memo presented by the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun for the purchase of 81 units of two bedroom flats for the Nigeria Customs Service.

Mrs. Adeosun, stated this while briefing State House correspondents after the FEC meeting which held inside the council chamber of the presidential villa.

Mr. Adeosun said the property located in Idu, Gwari district, Life Camp is  for use as barracks for customs officers within the Abuja area.

The Minister also said the  total amount is N1.2 billion. We are purchasing them from Brains and Hammers City.

Mrs. Adeosun said she also presented a second memo which was approved for the purchase of 50 operational vehicles that are going to be deployed for anti-smuggling or anti-rice smuggling task force being put together under the leadership of the Customs service.

 As you know, efforts to become major rice producers has resulted in the revival of local rice growing. What we have found is 90 per cent reduction in the official import of rice but smuggling has increased and of course, our borders are very, very porous.

Now, we believe that to protect our farmers, to protect the investment that people have gone back to the farm for, government must really act to stem the tide of illegal rice importation and rice smuggling.

So, there is a multi-task force agency that has been working since last July which includes customs, NAFDAC, the Consumer Protection Council, the Ministry of Finance, the Trade Mark Practices Bureau, gathering information on how this rice is coming in. What are the key entry points? And mapping out how we are going to have effective strategy to stop it, she said.

The Minister said the government is taking the measure in order to stop Customs from going to the markets to seize imported rice.

Customs should actually stop rice coming in at border points and they indicated that they need additional vehicles, additional resources as well as more information driven measures that will be taken.

But what was approved today was the purchase of 50 vehicles as part of these efforts. The contractor is Elizade and the value is N1.12 billion, she said.The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Kukah, on Tuesday said fighting corruption and fixing Nigeria required more than a God-fearing leader.

Mr. Kukah said this at the launch of a book titled The Shadow List written by Todd Moss and organised by the African Centre for Media and Information Literacy in Abuja.

He said to fight corruption and build the nation was not just about goodwill but about getting to the root of the matter and tackling it head-on.

I have said it severally; let Nigerians keep saying they want a God-fearing leader.

Nigeria does not need a God-fearing leader, because God-fearing has become an excuse to appeal to Nigerians and win elections.

Governance in Nigeria is a criminalized enterprise and a criminalized state cannot progress; so we must come to terms as to why it is that this country is in such low portion.

Fixing this country requires much more than that; national cohesion, holding our country together is the most fundamental project if we are to fix this nation.

This is what we need because I am aware of how angry and frustrated Nigerians have become, especially in an environment where people are intrinsically not concerned about corruption but about their inability to access.

Mr. Kukah said it was wonderful to talk about fighting corruption but that Nigerians could not fight it if they had not diagnosed the environment as to why and how about corruption.

He said it was sad that every time, Nigerians would be excited about a new administration but that the excitement never lasted because bad governance often set in.

The cleric said that nobody would have imagined that three to four years down the line, Nigerians would be feeling the way they were feeling now.

If you know Nigerians well, rather than thinking about the solution to the problem, we are waiting for a few men who govern Nigeria to tell us they have found a silver bullet and then we all gather around.

We will now pass through the motion pretending to be conducting election when as it is from 1999, we always have an idea of who the president will be even before the election is conducted, he said.

Mr. Kukah said quite a number of Nigerians had decided to make peace with the situation because they had decided that the building called corruption is too big for them to break down.

He added that unless the building or system which was not serving the people of Nigeria was broken down, citizens, whether Christians or Muslims, would continue to feel the way they were feeling.

Mr. Kukah said it was against this backdrop that the book should be appreciated for its intricate setting which dealt on corruption.

In his contribution, pioneer Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nuhu Ribadu, commended the author of the book for taking time to write about Nigeria and its fight against corruption.

Mr. Ribadu said the novel exposed the intricate world of organised crime and Nigerias modest effort to tackle the behemoth like when he was serving as EFCC chairman.

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Chido Onumah, Coordinator of the Centre, said the novel went beyond fiction to being a testament of the courage and determination of the men and women at the EFCC who fought corruption.

Mr. Onumah said the author had added his voice to the narrative of the anti-corruption fight in Nigeria as a first-hand person that experienced the fight.

The author of the book, Moss, who served as the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, said the inspiration for the book came out of his experience as an anti-corruption worker.

Mr. Moss said the book cut across Nigeria, Russia and Washington, adding that no country was immune to corruption.

According to him, through a collaborative effort, corruption can be curbed.

(NAN)ADVERTISEMENT

The Chief Whip of the Nigerian House of Representatives, Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, has described a comment credited to him over ongoing electoral reforms as misunderstood.

In the report by Daily Trust, Mr. Doguwa allegedly said the amendment of the electoral act was a mischievous plan targeted at the All Progressives Congress (APC) and President Muhammadu Buhari.

The Electoral Act was last week amended by the House to allow the National Assembly elections come first, followed by that of governors and members of the Houses of Assembly, while the presidential election comes last.

However, Mr. Doguwa, who walked out of the plenary in protest of the amendment, told Daily Trust in a telephone interview that the house did not have power to set timetable for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

He allegedly said the amendment would make elections costlier for government and also put INEC in a difficult operational situation and that it went against the constitution.

I came to a point where I realised that the house was trying to stage a plot not only against my party, APC, but a plot that is possibly stage managed against the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, who is my leader and from my zone.

However, in a statement he sent to PREMIUM TIMES, Mr. Doguwa said the report was a misrepresentation of what he intended to say.

The report erroneously reported me to have said that the electoral act as ammended was negatively targeted against President Mohammad Buhari.

As a leader, and a high ranking member of the House, I have enormous respect for this great institution which I have served for about 25 years now, and therefore could not have acted or spoken in a manner that would derogate, tarnish or undermine its institutional image, he said.

He said although he was not favourably disposed to some parts of the Amendments passed during the considerations of the report, it will never let him undermine the House or decisions taken by it.

He apologised to his colleagues whom he said might be offended by the publication.

I therefore, wish to in the circumstance apologise to my respected colleagues who were offended by this media mis-represntions, one way or another.ADVERTISEMENT

Top Government officials, past and present, from the South-east and beyond, gathered at the Michael Opara Square, in the Independent Layout, Enugu on Wednesday to hold an interdenominational service in honour of the late former Vice President, Alex Ekwueme.

The event, which was organised by the South-east Governors Forum, had in attendance Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State, his Enugu counterpart, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi and Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State.

It is part of a week-long the event by the Federal Government during which top government officials, family, friends and associates of the late elder statesman have been paying their tributes.

Also present at the event were the Imo State Deputy, Eze Madumere, Governor of Sokoto, Aminu Tambuwal; former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar; former Senate President Anyim Pius Anyim; Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu; former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Charles Soludo; Minister of Labour, Chris Ngige; former Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, amongst other dignitaries.

Mr. Ekwuemes remains arrived Enugu on Tuesday and is expected to depart for his hometown Oko in Anambra state, where he will be laid to rest on February 2, 2018.

The chairman of the Forum, Mr. Umahi, speaking at the event, described Ekwuemes death as unfortunate.

According to him, the governors had planned to celebrate his 85th birthday before he died.

We the South-east Governors and leaders of Ndigbo are grieved for the death of this Icon of Igbo extraction. We are grieved because we lost him at the time we were finalising plans to celebrate his 85th year on earth.

He said Ebonyi State mourned the former vice president who contributed to the development of the states university, where he was a former Vice Chancellor.

See pictures below:ADVERTISEMENT

Some directors of the crisis-riddled Nigerian prime intelligence outfit, the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), have written to a parliamentary committee investigating the recent leadership change in the institution, calling attention to possible security implications of the action.

President Muhammadu Buhari had on January 10 appointed his then Senior Special Assistant on Foreign Affairs, Ahmed Abubakar, as the new director general of the NIA.

Mr. Abubakars appointment raised ripples in security circles with some staff of the oragnisation criticising the decision to bring in an outsider as tantamount to destroying discipline and operations of the agency.

PREMIUM TIMES also reported that that the appointment of Mr. Abubakar was in disregard of the recommendation of the Presidential Review Panel on the NIA, headed by a former Secretary to Government of the Federation, Babagana Kingibe.

The panel had recommended that a new director general be appointed from the corps of serving directors of the agency.

But the presidency on Monday defended Mr. Abubakars credentials, while insisting that there was nothing wrong with the appointment.

Following the outcry over the propriety of the appointment, the House of Representatives on January 16 mandated its Committee on Security and National Intelligence to probe the appointment of the new director general, and the alleged disappearance of $44 million from the agencys coffers.

In an open letter to the committee, dated January 29, 2018, three directors of the agency, writing under pseudonyms said the plan by the new director general to sack some senior officials of the agency would be unhealthy for the countrys security.

The new DGs relationship with Chad, which the directors say is not fully unraveled, is also identified as a possible avenue for security breach.

As insiders, we are in a position to state that, the process of vetting in respect of the new NIA DG negates conventional practice, as nobody has visited Chad where he claims to have grown up and schooled to probe into his differential associates, or even his likely espionage roles.

The affected directors also prayed the House Committee to probe activties of the Kingibe panel, alleging financial impropriety on the part of the committee.

DOGARA, KYARI CONFER

However, one of the concerned staff of the agency told PREMIUM TIMES that their hope on the lawmakers to correct the subversion is now in doubt, following a clandestine meeting between the Speaker of the House of Respresentatives, Yakubu Dogara, and the Chief of Staff to President Buhari, Abba Kyari.

The speaker was said to have held a meeting with Mr. Kyari Monday night at the Chief of Staffs Defence House residence.

We have it on authority that the subject of the meeting was the committees work. We only hope that the lawmakers will rise to the occasion and save this important national institution, he said.

Mr. Dogaras spokesperson, Turaki Hassan, could not be reached to comment on the alleged meeting.The home-based Super Eagles will be gunning for a historic final ticket at the African Nations Championships, CHAN, as they take on Sudan in the second semi-final at the ongoing tournament in Morocco.

Nigeria beat Angola to make it to the semi-final while Sudan dumped out Zambia to make this stage of the tournament.

Aside from 2014 when the late Stephen Keshi led Nigeria to the semifinal, this is the only time Nigeria is making it this far in CHAN.

In 2014, the Eagles were narrowly beaten by arch-rivals Ghana before battling to win bronze in the third-place match.

Many will hope history will be made tonight as Nigeria will hope to make the final for the very first time.

Aside Sudan being a formidable side, there are injury problems for the Super Eagles who nonetheless remain undaunted in the task ahead.

Stay with PREMIUM TIMES for Live Updates of Nigeria vs Sudan match in Marrakech tonight.

Kick off is 8.30 p.m.

We are set for the semifinal game between Nigeria and Sudan The National anthems of both teams now taken

Sudan makes no change to the team that won Zambia in the quarter-final while Nigeria forced to make some changes due to injury

Game underway.. Super Eagles with the opening pass

Sudan and Nigeria have met 13 previous times with Nigeria winning seven times and Sudan picking two victories

Okpotu with a half chance but marked off by the Sudan defence

Oladapo wins a freekick for Nigeria

Ezenwa makes a timely save as Sudan almost get the opening goal

The goalkeeper is being treated for a slight knock

Sudan have a great record in the CHAN with six wins and four draws in their last 10 games

Not looking for Nigeria as Ezenwa maybe in trouble

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Big blow for Nigeria as Ezenwa is being stretched out

Dele Ajiboye is in for injured Ezenwa

This is first game for Ajiboye in CHAN

CHANCE!! Sudan with a chance

GOAL: Gabriel Okechukw with a goal for Nigeria

This is the first time Sudan will be behind in this tournament

Okpotu with a chance to double Nigerias lead but he plays the ball straight to the onrushing goalkeeper

Rabiu Ali wins a free kick for Nigeria by the center circle

Gabriel Okechukwu almost with a second goal

30 mins gone Sudan 0-1 Nigeria

Dele Ajiboye with an easy catch from a feeble header by the Sudanese

Rabiu Ali with a wasted effort there as he shoots way off the mark

Sudans Naseridin is being warned by the referee after a rough tackle

SAVE!!! Fantastic one by Dele Ajiboye

Five minutes added time

Ifeanyi Ifeanyi gets a yellow card in the dying stages of the first half

Okpotu makes a poor pass from inside the Sudan box

First Half: Sudan 0-1 Nigeria

First Half Analysis | Eagles ride their luck

The Eagles took the kickoff and tried to press the Falcons in their half but the Nigerian team suffered a huge casualty in the sixth minute when some sloppy defending from Stephen Eze got Ikechukwu Ezenwa injured. He did not respond to treatment and had to be stretchered off and replaced by Plateau Uniteds Dele Ajiboye.

Saifeldin Bakhit should have put Sudan ahead on 15 minutes but he couldnt sort out his feet on time. Straight away the Eagles went to the side and scored. Gabriel Okechukwu, who got the winner against Angola latched on to a header from Tony Okpotu and rolled the ball past the flailing hands of Akram El Hadi Salim.

In the closing stages of the half, Sudan had three chances to get on even terms but Ajiboye came to the rescue. In the space of a minute, Mohamed Bashir had good chances in the box. First, in the 44th minute, he was foiled by a tackle from Ajiboye and seconds later, Bashir thought he had the equaliser with a downward header but Ajiboye made a miraculous save off his left post.

Coach Salisu Yusuf has to bring order to his midfield as the trio of Ifeanyi Ifeanyi, Dayo Ojo, and Rabiu Ali was not able to dictate play as the Sudanese grew more dangerous.

Second Half begins

Quick chance for Nigeria but the Sudan keeper makes a good catch

Another chance but Dayo Ojos shot saved by the Sudan keeper

Samawal gets a yellow card for a rough tackle on Nigerias Oladapo

Sudan Substitution: Taheer in for Abaagala

Another chance was blown away by Sudan forward Maaz

RED CARD!!! Ifeanyi Ifeanyi sent off as he gets a second yellow card for a two-footed tackle

Nigeria down to 10 men

Sub for Nigeria: Abdullahi Musa comes in for Anthony Okpotu

Sub for Sudan: Maaz pulled out for Waleadeen

Already, host, Morocco have already qualified for the final waiting for the winner of Sudan vs Nigeria clash

Another injury for Super Eagles as Oladapo is strecthed out for treament

Another injury for Super Eagles as Oladapo is stretched out for treatment

Sub for Nigeria: 37-year Rabiu Alli out for Ibrahim Mustapha

Another spectacular save by Dele Ajiboye

Sudan pressing for a late equaliser

RED CARD Sudans Bakri sent off after tripping Dayo Ojo

Sudan down to 10 men like Nigeria

Gabriel Okechukwu voted the man of the match

Two minutes added time

Whao!!! Another fantastic save by Ajiboye

Ibrahim Musa gets a yellow card

Full Time: Sudan 0-1 Nigeria

For the first time ever Nigeria are through to the final of the CHAN tournament CONGRATULATIONS

Nigeria 1  0 Sudan | Lucky Eagles ride their luck into first ever CHAN final

The 14th meeting of two countries hoping to make the CHAN final for the first time was decided with a second goal by Gabriel Okechukwu in the first half. The Eagles had to withstand so much pressure and they have substitute goalkeeper, Dele Ajiboye to thank for getting to Sundays final.

First Half

The Eagles had Orji Okagbue back in the starting XI but Emeka Atuloma, Sunday Faleye, and Emeka Ogbuh missed out while Sudan was unchanged from the 11 that beat Zambia last Sunday.

The Eagles took the kickoff and tried to press the Falcons in their half but the Eagles suffered a huge casualty in the sixth minute when some sloppy defending from Stephen Eze got Ikechukwu Ezenwa injured. After treatment, he was stretchered off and replaced by Plateau Uniteds Dele Ajiboye. Saifeldin Bakhit should have put Sudan ahead on 15 minutes but he couldnt sort out his feet on time. Straight away the Eagles went to the side and scored. Gabriel Okechukwu, who got the winner against Angola latched on to a header from Tony Okpotu and rolled the ball past the flailing hands of Akram El Hadi Salim.

In the closing stages of the half, Sudan had three chances to get on even terms but Ajiboye came to the rescue. In the space of a minute, Mohamed Bashir had good chances in the box. First, in the 44th minute, he was foiled by a tackle from Ajiboye and seconds later, Bashir thought he had the equaliser with a downward header but Ajiboye made a miraculous save off his left post.

Coach Salisu Yusuf has to bring order to his midfield as the trio of Ifeanyi Ifeanyi, Dayo Ojo, and Rabiu Ali was not able to dictate play as the Sudanese grew more dangerous.

Second Half

The half was just seconds old when Ali freed Okechukwu but this time his shot was straight at Salim. Okpotu, who had been rudderless then had all the time to shoot wide. Salim made another save off an Ojo shot after good work down the right flank by Ali and Okpotu. Maaz Gismalla then had another chance to level the tie but he wasted too much time before shooting  which Ajiboye cradled. It went sour for the Nigerians in the 58t minute when a dangerous two-footed tackle from Ifeanyi fetched a second yellow card. Merited booking as the Nigerians went doen to 10 men. After this, it was back to the wall defending by the Eagles with Ajiboye making save after save. He made an acrobatic save with his right hand in the 84th minute then a double save in the first minute of added time to finally send the Eagles into a first-ever CHAN final where they will meet Morocco on Sunday.ADVERTISEMENT

The Chairman of the Middle Belt Forum (MBF), Bala Takaya, has vowed that the people of North-central zone would not work with other parts of Northern Nigeria in next years general elections.

He said this is to ensure that the zone is recognised as an important region in the country.

Mr. Takaya stated this on Wednesday in Jos at a one-day summit tagged: Political and Security Situation of Middle Belt: The need for roadmap.

He said the recent handshake across the Niger by leaders of the South-south, South-east and South-west was a build-up to 2019 and reaction to insecurity in Nigeria, especially, in the North-central.

The handshake across the Niger especially with South/South, South/East and South/West is to address salient issues affecting the zones. We are not standing aloof, we are working together in the struggle for equitable Nigeria through restructuring.

Leaders from these regions of the country were received by the leadership of the Middle Belt in Benue State in solidarity with the people and government of Benue State over the recent killings. We have solid relationship and we are in support of what the Benue State governor is doing. He should not waver, attack on one is an attack on all.

Mr. Takaya called on the youth of the geo-political zone to be more proactive and defend their God-given lands.

He said the zone is presently vulnerable to attacks by herdsmen because the youth are not united, adding there is the need for synergy among them to arrest the frequent attacks.

Middle Belt youths must work together to overcome these challenges. The zone now is under the carpet. In some states, you have to be their surrogates to win elections in spite of your strength and population. If you win, it can be upturned but I believe all these can stop if our youths are united for common front.

The National Leader of the Middle Belt Youth Forum, Emma Zopmal, condemned the recent spate of killings in the region and the silence of the federal government.

Mr. Zopmal urged the youth to protect themselves and their lands since the government had allegedly failed to protect them.

The keynote speaker at the conference and a former governorship aspirant in Kwara State, John Dara, also called for the unity of the zone and support for all its elected public office holders.

Mr. Dara said the youth should form a Middle Belt Frontier Force to defend their region from attacks from outside.

He said the youth should not wait till they are appointed to positions of authority but rise up and play their part and stop lamentation.ADVERTISEMENT

The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and its humanitarian partners on Wednesday launched an inter-agency funding appeal of $157 million for people affected by the Boko Haram insurgency in the Lake Chad Basin region.

Kelly Clements, Deputy UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said at the appeal launch in Niamey that the Boko Haram crisis lingers on and is far from over.

The 47 UN agencies, including the UNHCR, and humanitarian organisations participating in the 2018 Nigeria Regional Refugee Response Plan will provide support to some 208,000 Nigerian refugees.

The agencies would also provide support for 75,000 of the Nigerian refugees hosts in Niger, Cameroon and Chad.

The world should not forget the victims of this deadly conflict, especially as there appears to be little hope for a return to peace and stability in the near future, Ms. Clements underscored.

She explained that Nigerian refugees continued to arrive in very remote, impoverished communities in neighbouring countries.

She said since it started in 2013, the Boko Haram conflict has internally displaced another 2.4 million people in north-east Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

UNHCR called the menacing threat of food insecurity and severe malnutrition one of the most devastating side effects of the conflict.

In September 2017, more than 7.2 million people in the Lake Chad Basin, which spans seven countries, including most of Chad and a large part of Niger, faced food insecurity.

Across the vast region, food insecurity and malnutrition have reached critical levels, a situation only made worse over the eight years of the Boko Haram insurgency.

The future of young generations in the region is at stake, as food insecurity not only affects the dignity of families, but has serious consequences on the physical and cognitive development of children, Ms. Clements stressed.

According to her, in a region where education levels were already among the lowest in the world, the conflict has had a devastating impact.

She regretted that the situation had forced hundreds of schools to close, making education inaccessible and causing school attendance rates to drop.

Refugee-hosting communities are also in dire need of assistance, as their capacity, including basic services infrastructure, is stretched to the limit, she stressed.

Ms. Clements said humanitarian aid was needed to uplift services, including shelter, health, education, and water and sanitation sectors.

In 2017, $241 million appeal was only 56 per cent funded, she regretted.

(NAN)ADVERTISEMENT

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has confirmed the seizure of 25.6 kilograms of an illicit substance believed to be Cannabis Skunk in Yola, Adamawa.

The State Commander of the Agency, Yakubu Kibo, who confirmed the development to journalists in Yola, said that four suspects were arrested in connection to the alleged offence.

He explained the big seizure and arrest was successfully carried out on the January 19.

Mr. Kibo said the illicit substance was compressed in 24 pallets and was seized by the agencys Special Operative Officers along Yola-Numan Highway, in a luxury bus coming from Lagos to Yola.

On Friday, Jan. 19, the Command arrested four suspects and made seizure of 708.2 kilograms of assorted illicit substances which included 25.6 kg of Cannabis Skunk compressed in 24 pallets.

The Cannabis Skunk is the most dangerous species of Indian hemp plant, mostly found in some foreign countries.

The specie is much potent than the popular and conventional Indian hemp found in Nigeria. It is four times stronger with devastating mental consequences for users, Mr. Kibo said.

He expressed concern over the increasing use of commercial vehicles in trafficking drugs, pointing out that since the beginning of the year, 10 commercial vehicles have been impounded in connection to drugs offenses by the command.

Another disturbing trend is the increasing number of women in drug trafficking into the state as presently two women are in our custody in connection with drug trafficking, he explained.

He called on the parents to closely monitor their children and guide them against the ugly trade.

He urged owners of private and commercial vehicles not to entrust their vehicles to people of questionable characters.

Mr. Kibo said that any vehicle found in conveying or concealing illicit substances stands the risk of being forfeited to the federal government and owners risk jail term.ADVERTISEMENT

The Executive Secretary of Adamawa Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Board, Alhaji Umar Bobboyi, on Wednesday, said only 20 percent of 2018 Hajj pilgrims paid for the 2,601 hajj seats allocated to the state for this year.

Mr. Bobboyi told journalists in Yola, the state capital, that the dateline for payment was March 2018.

He said it was necessary for the intending pilgrims to pay early to enable Saudi Arabian authorities to prepare for the exercise in good time.

He added that the board had met over the development and resolved to embark on public enlightenment in collaboration with the states Muslim Council to ginger the intending pilgrims to expedite payment.

He stated, We will go round for advocacy; we want intending pilgrims to rush and pay as there will be no time extension.

I also want to call on those who paid but yet to submit their e-passports to do so without further delay.

The secretary also said things would be costly in Saudi Arabia this time around in view of the introduction of VAT on various services by authorities of that country.

He explained that those who went to Saudi Arabia in the past five years either for Hajj or Ummrah and wanted to participate in this years Hajj would pay additional 2,000 Saudi Riyals, an equivalent of N165,000 on their fare.

Mr. Bobboyi said the official fee for this years Hajj was yet to be announced but intending pilgrims were expected to work with last years fee of over N1.5 million, pending the announcement of 2018 fare.

(NAN)ADVERTISEMENT

The police in Adamawa State have confirmed the death of a sergeant from gunshot by a corporal, allegedly following a feud over a girl.

The spokesperson of the police in the state, Othman Abubakar, confirmed the death of the officer over a minor disagreement.

The incident happened at a bar in Madagali Local Government Area of the state.

A witness who refused to be named said the two officers had a spat over the girl said to be an alcohol seller and the girlfriend of the corporal.

They had a hot argument had on Tuesday over one alcohol seller who is girlfriend to Corporal Adamu. She had complained that late Sergeant Timothy did not pay a N100 bill for his drink.

He initially took a shot of a local gin and demanded for another shot. This situation provoked Corporal Adamu, who warned Sergeant Timothy to be careful with his utterance to his girlfriend or he would be dealt with mercilessly.

And true to his words, Corporal Adamu cocked his rifle and shot Timothy, killing him on the spot and causing pandemonium, the witness said.

Police spokesperson, Mr. Abubakar, told PREMIUM TIMES that an officer shot his colleague over a minor disagreement.

Reports from the area indicated that it was on Tuesday morning at about 11 : 00 a.m, when Corporal Bala Adamu and his colleague late Sergeant Emmanuel Timothy attached to 13 Squadron Police Mobile Force, Makurdi on special duties in Madagali, engaged each other in a hot argument that resulted to the corporal killing the sergeant with his rifle.

He said the corporal had been arrested ,while the corpse of the slain officer had been deposited at the Yola Specialist Hospital Mortuary.

The case has since been referred to the Criminal Investigation Department, Cid, at the state headquarters and investigation has commenced, Mr. Abubakar said.ADVERTISEMENT

The Army said Tuesday it killed a native doctor, Tordue Gber (Tiv Swem), who allegedly acted as spiritual counsellor to the wanted armed criminal militia, Akwazar Terwase (alias Gana), in Benue.

A statement by Sani Usman, the Director of Army Public Relations, on Tuesday, said the suspect was picked up in Tor-Dunga town in Katsina-Ala Local Government Area of the state during a raid on his shrine.

Mr. Usman a brigadier general, said troops of 707 Special Forces Brigade arrested Gber on Monday during the operation.

It will be recalled that Terwase was declared wanted by the security agencies and has been at large since 2016.

Preliminary investigation shows that Tordue Gber (Tiv Swem) acts as spiritual counselor that provides Gana with diabolical powers and the shrine serves as hideout for wanted armed militia, meeting and planning point for operations and logistics base for the criminal armed militias that operate in Benue, Nasarawa and Taraba States.

The native doctor was arrested along with one of his accomplice, Atoo Kuwe Francis, while planning to carry out an attack and abduct one Mr. Zaya at Tse Bente village in the same local government area, he said.

The army spokesman, however, said Tordue was shot dead during the struggle to disarm him.

Mr. Usman said the troops recovered a locally fabricated pistol, two baretta Pistols, 11 rounds of 9mm ammunition, three motorcycles and assorted charms from the shrine.

Other items recovered, he said, include clothings for concealing weapons, two mobile telephones and three power generators, amongst other items at the hideout. (NAN)ADVERTISEMENT

The Kaduna State Police Command said it had arrested 38 suspects, involved in kidnapping, armed robbery and street gangs from Oct. 20, 2017 to January 25, 2018.

The State Commissioner of police, Austin Iwar, made the disclosure while briefing journalists in Kaduna on Wednesday.

He said of the 38 suspects, 21 were arrested in connection with kidnapping and armed robbery, while 17 were nabbed in connection to street gangs, popularly known as Sara Sucks.

He said that items recovered within the period under review include: 41 arms and ammunition and three vehicles, adding that the command also dislodged three armed robbery syndicate.

Mr. Iwar said that the most significant of these successes was the arrest of a notorious armed robbery syndicate operating along the Zaria -Kano expressway.

Some of the suspects who were involved in kidnapping for ransom and operating in Lere and pambegua axis of Kubau and Zaria Local Government Areas were also arrested,he said.

The commissioner said that the street gangs were arrested in Rigasa, Tudun Wada, Kawo and Unguwar Rimi, all in Kaduna metropolis.

He said that the suspects who are in police custody are giving useful information which are aiding investigation, after which they will be charged to court for prosecution.

We want to reassure members of the public that the command will not relent in its effort in fighting all forms of crime and criminality in the state. he said.

He called on all citizens of the state to be part of effort, adding that the command would not fold its arms and allow miscreants to continue operate in the state.

(NAN)ADVERTISEMENT

An underage driver has killed three persons in Gusau, the Zamfara State capital, as a result of alleged reckless driving, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.

Confirming the incident on Wednesday, the Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Mohammed Shehu, a deputy superintendent of police, said the case was being investigated.

The incident happened on Monday and the hit-and-run kid driver is yet to be arrested. Already, we have gotten his details with the ongoing investigation, he said.

Also speaking on the matter, the Public Relations Officer of the Federal Road Safety Commission in the state, Nasir Ahmad, said the command had received information on the incident.

We received the information after the victims had been evacuated by the police and so the issue is with the police now, he said.

An eye witness, who pleaded for anonymity, said the driver drove at a very high speed in a Mercedes Benz car on a busy road without caution.

The eye witness said the driver lost control of the car and ran over his victims.

One of the victims was a female and a final year student at the state-owned School of Nursing and Midwifery.

(NAN)ADVERTISEMENT

Police in Jigawa have held a security summit for farmers and herdsmen in a bid to find solutions to the security challenges in the region.

The state police command in collaboration with eight local government councils in Jigawa North-east and Hadejia Emirate councils organised the summit.

The summit provided a platform for deliberation to seek solutions to the escalating herdsmen and farmers clashes faces in the state and North-east zone.

The gathering which took place on Wednesday at Kirikasamma local council headquarters, was presided over by the state police commissioner, Bala Senchi.

Mr. Bala at the event said the attendance was an indication that the people were ready to cooperate to end the carnage.

The crises control that we always implied will not solve the problems, what will solve the problems is that, the government needs to be proactive instead of reactive in responding to the problem, he said.

Ibrahim Hassan Hadejia, the state deputy governor said Jigawa witnessed a high prevalence of farmers and pastoral conflict especially in the North-eastern part of the state.

Mr. Hassan further warned both parties not to take laws into their hands.

The state will soon retrieve all reserved areas that are meant for grazing and allocate it back to its original purpose, he said adding that the state had provided 81 wind-mill pumps to the various grazing land across the state.

Mr. Hadejia was represented by the executive secretary, Farmers and Herdsmen Board, Rabiu Miko.

Meanwhile, Wada Maijaa, Chairman, Miyatti Allah, Kirikasamma local government said the most affected area of crises in the locality is Zagari village to Tinau area. He said there is no clear demarcation for grazing and farming hence the crisis.

Also the Chairman All farmers Association of Nigerian (AFAN) in Kafin Hausa local government, Abba Umar decried the fact that some politicians had turned grazing land into their personal farmland. He called on the government to, nullify the bad habit of grazing at night and using of masks by some herdsmen in the area.ADVERTISEMENT

The Sokoto State House of Assembly on Wednesday passed the 2018 Appropriation Bill of N220.5 billion as proposed by Governor Aminu Tambuwal of the state.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the passage of the bill followed a motion by the Deputy Leader, Ibrahim Arzika (APC-Sokoto North II).

The motion came after the consideration of a report by the House Committee on Finance and Appropriation.

The Committee Chairman, Malami Muhammad (APC- Sokoto South II), while presenting the report said that the sum of N67.6 billion would be for recurrent expenditure, while N152.9 billion was proposed for capital expenditure.

He said that the amounts proposed for both recurrent and capital expenditures remained the same as submitted by the governor.

That the 2018 budget amounting to N 220,500,264,565.00 is neither added nor reduced by the committee. The figures remained as submitted to the assembly by Governor Tambuwal.

However, based on the genuine request of the Sub-Committee, the Committee moved resources inwards to accommodate some important demands and interest of the people, the chairman said.

Mr. Muhammad said that the committee recommended that the State Assembly should brace up in the conduct of oversight functions.

This is to fast track budget performance and implementation in all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in the state.

There is also need for constant sensitisation and enlightenment of the citizens by all stakeholders on what budget is all about, and the expenditure of government based on cash flow.

Moreover, the Board of Internal Revenue should process the review of absolute tax laws and fines for improvement of revenue base, he said.

Mr. Mohammad commended the Interim Management Committee of Sokoto State Board of Internal Revenue for ensuring an increase in the states IGR.

He said the IGR of the state has risen by 200 per cent from the level in 2016.

The Speaker, Salihu Maidaji, said: The bill is accordingly read at the third term and passed, which was received by unanimous voice vote from members.

Mr. Tambuwal, had on Thursday December 21, 2017 presented the 2018 Appropriation Bill before the state House of Assembly.

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that this years budget is N16 billion higher than that of 2017 of N204.3 billion.ADVERTISEMENT

The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has cleared the over $2 million backlogs of foreign scholarship that accrued from 2012-2017, an official has said.

The chairman of the Governing Board of NDDC, Victor Ndoma-Egba, who disclosed this in a statement signed by his communication aide, Clara Braide, described the development as a deep relief and satisfaction.

The official said the current NDDC board and management at inception of their tenure in November 2017, inherited backlogs of unpaid foreign scholarships amounting to over $2 million.

This left hundreds of Niger Delta students stranded abroad as a result of non-payment of their upkeep and tuition fees.

This situation has been very thorny, generating negative and disturbing reactions for the commission.

The last board meeting for the year 2017, held in Abuja on December 7, the Chairman disclosed to journalists adding that there was approval and deep commitment of the Board to clear all backlogs and all issues surrounding the highly contentious foreign scholarship program.

But Mr. Ndoma-Egba said that, True to this promise, NDDC has indeed cleared all backlogs on the foreign scholarship owed to beneficiaries from 2012-2017. Over $2 million USD was disbursed in December to beneficiaries of this program. We believe this action will ameliorate all issues surrounding the scholarship scheme.

Mr. Ndoma-Egba said the commission will now develop more coordinated ways of granting and disbursing scholarships.

It is a huge relief that the issues surrounding our foreign scholarship backlogs have finally been sorted out. Going forward, we can now begin to focus on new entries and deploy more coordinated, seamless and sustainable ways of granting and disbursing our scholarships to avoid a repeat of past shortcomings.

In attestation to this facts, messages are pouring in from beneficiaries through our social media platforms expressing great relief and appreciation to NDDC for this intervention, the statement reads in parts.ADVERTISEMENT

A three-year-old boy and three others died on Wednesday when a truck plunged into the river at the Kara end of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway.

PREMIUM TIMES gathered that the incident occurred at about 8.45 a.m when a container detached from the truck while it was on motion around Kara bridge end of the road.

Witnesses said the container later rammed into a motorcycle rider and two passengers while the detachable head of the truck plunged into Isheri Olofin River.

A three-year-old boy on the motorcycle lost his life on the spot, it was gathered, while his mother sustained leg fracture.

The dead and injured have since been moved to the hospital by officials of the Federal Road Service Corps, FRSC.

The detachable part of the truck that plunged into the river was recovered by officials of LASEMA with with support from local divers.

According to LASEMA, three bodies were extricated from it and have been moved to the morgue by the FRSC.

The General Manager LASEMA, Adesina Tiamiyu, said that proper investigation would be conducted on the incident.DENVER, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- 24/7 AvaRe Healthcare, one of Colorado's top community based medical care providers, launched today its exclusive franchise program offering its medical franchise model to qualified owner-operators in select markets across the U.S. The franchise opportunity aims to help qualified investors and seasoned business professionals to provide quality and affordable healthcare in their own communities.

"The healthcare industry is a huge challenge for society because the system needs significant improvement," said Azat Akhmetov, CEO of 24/7 AvaRe Healthcare. "Our goal is to create a new structure, with the help of passionate franchisees, that offers affordability without sacrificing the quality of service. We're looking to be the solution to healthcare's biggest challenges."

Founded in 2011, 24/7 AvaRe Healthcare bridges the gap between hospital or facility-based care and full recovery. By offering an alternative to assisted living or skilled nursing facilities, the company's compassionate approach to healthcare allows patients to stay in the comfort of their own residence during recovery.

With the launch of its new franchise program, 24/7 AvaRe Healthcare seeks to attract enthusiastic and dedicated franchisees, looking to join the $93 billion medical industry, in a number of target markets across the country. As the company expands gradually, additional target markets will be added.

"Our top priority is to support our franchisees in building a community-based medical business that is available and reliable in their own communities, which is why we're taking a deliberate approach to our growth," said Akhmetov. "The healthcare industry is a challenging market to enter. In response to this, we've prioritized our training and support ensuring that our franchisees enter the market with a strong foundation and immense knowledge."

Qualified franchise owners will gain access to 24/7 AvaRe Healthcare's extensive industry knowledge and market-tested business model, in addition to comprehensive operational training, business development and marketing support. To learn more about the 24/7 AvaRe Healthcare franchise, visit www.247avarefranchise.com or email [email protected].

About 24/7 AvaRe

24/7 AvaRe Healthcare is one of Colorado's top community-based healthcare providers, specializing in skilled nursing, therapy and ongoing healthcare management. 24/7 AvaRe Healthcare provides and prioritizes healthcare services that range from negative-pressure wound care, high-tech intravenous medication administration as well as disease management - coordinating medical interventions with licensed nurses and therapists who provide treatments and manage complications, among other services. In doing so, 24/7 AvaRe Healthcare has created a recession-resistant business with little direct competition in the healthcare franchise market. Through a newly launched franchise program, 24/7 AvaRe Healthcare looks to secure 12 franchise sales in its first six months, prioritizing the surrounding markets of Utah, Arizona, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Nevada, with additional nationwide markets available.

Media Contact:

Amy Kent

[email protected]

(708) 249-1042

SOURCE 24/7 AvaRe Healthcare

Related Links

http://www.247avarefranchise.com

NEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Registration is now open for the 10th anniversary Global AgInvesting conference here April 23-25, 2018 at the Grand Hyatt New York. Each year, Global AgInvesting brings together close to 700 international investors, farm and fund managers, and agribusiness executives seeking to navigate the complex investment opportunities in the oldest industry in the world, and one of its most nascent asset classes.

At this much anticipated event, a speaking faculty comprised of industry veterans will reflect on the last decade in farmland investment, from the significant growth to key investment regions to future opportunities.

Attendees will hear from senior executives at leading agricultural asset management firms such as Arlon, Ceres Partners, NCH Capital, AMERRA Capital Management, Paine Schwartz Partners, US Agriculture, Prudential Agricultural Investments and many more. Speakers such as Jeff Conrad, managing principal and president of AgIS Capital LLC, will share his perspective as a pioneer in the sector, and investment officers from the Washington State Investment Board and Utah Retirement Systems will discuss pension fund perspectives on the sector. Additionally, Curt Covington, senior vice president for agricultural finance at Farmer Mac, will lead a panel on the importance of relationships in generating returns from farmland investments.

None of these participants will deny that the asset class is on a path of increased acceptance, with expectations for continued allocations. "During the last decade we began to see a voracious appetite for information and perspective about the farmland asset class from investors and their advisors," said Conrad in a recent article he authored for GAI Gazette. "We saw the NCREIF Farmland Index increase from $1.1 billion in 2008 to $8.1 billion in 2017. This growth had been fueled by a combination of new properties being added to the index combined with increased asset values. The expansion of the U.S. market was complemented by growth in other key markets around the world, including Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, and Eastern Europe." Conrad will continue this discussion at the event, highlighting six key trends that have shaped the farmland asset class over the last decade.

Other key sessions, panels and case studies at Global AgInvesting include:

AgTech Decade in Review  Success Stories from Start-Ups with Staying Power

Meeting Consumer Demand in Organics  Exploring Increased Investment Opportunities

Exploring the Role of Blockchain Technology in the Agriculture Economy

Assessing Agriculture as an Impact Investment

Cannabis Investment Outlook

This three-day conference will provide attendees with compelling reasons to diversify any portfolio with agricultural investments along the value chain, and the new connections to make that happen.

Learn more at www.globalaginvesting.com, @globalaginvest, or join our LinkedIn Group.

Global AgInvesting, a brand of HighQuest Group, is the world's most well attended agricultural investment conference series and leading resource for news and insight into the global agricultural sector.www.globalaginvesting.com

CONTACT: Michelle Pelletier-Marshall

[email protected]

+1.978.887.8800, x117

SOURCE Global AgInvesting

Related Links

http://www.globalaginvesting.com

WASHINGTON, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In Tuesday's State of the Union Address, President Trump praised the VA Accountability Act passed last June, and asked Congress to weaken protections against politically-motivated firing of government employees. In his speech, Trump characterized this request as a means to "empower every Cabinet secretary with the authority to reward good workers and to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people."

A member of the American Federation of Government Employees rallies for better working conditions outside Fort Gordon in Georgia in March.

In response to the President's stated intent to fire federal employees, and to his touting of the ill-conceived Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017, American Federation of Government Employees National President J. David Cox Sr. issued the following statement:

"What the President is actually asking Congress to do is give all of his Cabinet Secretaries the power to fire federal employees they consider not loyal to the administration and its political agenda. Make no mistake: this is a plan to politicize federal employment and allow the administration to hire and fire on the basis of politics rather than merit.

"Our current system makes sure that federal employees are hired and fired solely on the basis of whether they have the knowledge, skills, and ability to do the job; and politics plays no role whatsoever in that evaluation. The apolitical civil service is an important foundation of our democracy, and it represents a sacred trust with citizens that their taxes will not ever go to rewarding an administration's friends or punishing its enemies.

"While the President praised the work of AFGE members who work for ICE and Border Patrol, he failed to mention his recent plan to eliminate 6,000 desperately-needed positions at the Bureau of Prisons and start sending more federal inmates to for-profit private prisons.

"And although the President, Secretary David Shulkin, and members of Congress love to point to their legislation passed last June to show improvements at the VA, they couldn't be more off base. The reality is they are celebrating firing veterans and decreasing the access to and level of care our veterans have earned.

"The VA Accountability Act that the President bragged about has resulted in 1,442 firings at the VA. Firing American workers is nothing to celebrate or be proud of. Consider that the majority of those this administration has kicked to the curb have been the lowest paid employees of the agencies, those who earned less than $30,000 annually, and many of these fired employees are veterans with service-connected disabilities.

"Meanwhile, only 14 supervisors were removed from their roles. Few acknowledge that the 2014 scandal at the Phoenix VA was caused by bad managers gaming waitlists for bigger bonuses, and it was the frontline workers who blew the whistle. And now, we have an administration targeting frontline workers for termination. Only .009 percent of removals have been the managers causing the kind of problems that advocates of the VA Accountability Act claimed to care about.

"Accountability starts at the top. President Trump must be accountable to the American taxpayer for the negative consequences of the hiring freeze, and the budget impasse that led to the shutdown we had this past month. Secretary Shulkin must be accountable for failing to fill the 49,000 vacancies that are the real reason veterans are forced to wait for care at too many VA facilities.

"A recent survey shows that 58 percent of citizens  the highest percentage reported in the last year twenty years  want more government services, not less; instead of politicizing the civil service so you can staff the government with your cronies, and robbing the American public of the services they want the government to provide, please work with Congress to fund the government and allow federal employees to perform the jobs they were hired to do on behalf of the American people."

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is the largest federal employee union, representing 700,000 workers in the federal government and the government of the District of Columbia.

For the latest AFGE news and information, visit the AFGE Media Center. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

SOURCE American Federation of Government Employees

Related Links

http://www.afge.org

NEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Activist Investing Annual Review 2018, produced by Activist Insight in association with Schulte Roth & Zabel (SRZ), was released today. The review analyzes trends in shareholder activism, ranks the top 10 activist investors and provides predictions for the year ahead.

Highlights from the 2018 review:

Large caps saw a rise in activist campaigns. In 2017, more than 21% of all campaigns were dedicated to large-cap companies, compared to approximately 19% in 2016.

Emboldened by more aggressive defensive strategies and advice, companies became more reluctant to settle. In 2017, the percentage of publicly announced settlements declined 6%, as compared to 2016.

Click here for a PDF of the review.

Marc Weingarten and Ele Klein, SRZ partners and co-chairs of the firm's global Shareholder Activism Group, contributed expert commentary to the review. The publication also features interviews with Aneliya S. Crawford, New York-based shareholder activism and M&A and securities partner, Jim McNally, London-based shareholder activism, corporate and funds partner and Michael E. Swartz, co-chair of the firm's Litigation Group and the SRZ partner who heads the shareholder activism litigation handled by the firm.

"We expect activist investors to continue to target large caps and mega caps. The trend is the natural result of an increase in the flow of assets to activist funds based on the success of activist strategies," commented Mr. Weingarten. "The recognition by institutional investors of the benefits of activism has also increased their willingness to lend support, allowing activists to engage even larger companies with performance and operational issues," added Mr. Klein.

"Activists went big in 2017. The broadening of activist demands everywhere from M&A to environmental and social, as well as governance issues, means activists will continue to be a critical factor in public markets in 2018 and beyond," said Josh Black of Activist Insight, who serves as editor-in-chief of the review, which is in its fifth year of publication.

"The annual review offers leading edge insights from key players in the activism market," said Alan S. Waldenberg, chair of SRZ's Executive Committee. "We are pleased to present this report together with Activist Insight."

The Activist Investing Annual Review 2018 also features "The Activist Top 10," with Elliott Management topping the list for the third year in a row. Activist Insight selects the list based on the number of campaigns, average size of targets, news stories generated and annualized returns.

"The Activist Top 10" for 2018 are:

1. Elliott Management

2. Trian Fund Management

3. Third Point Partners

4. Amber Capital

5. Carl Icahn

6. Starboard Value

7. Marcato Capital Management

8. JANA Partners

9. Oasis Management Company (Oasis Capital)

10. Allan Gray (Orbis Investment Management)

About Activist Insight

Since 2012, Activist Insight (www.activistinsight.com) has provided its diverse range of clients with the most comprehensive information on activist investing worldwide. Regularly quoted in the financial press, Activist Insight is the trusted source for data in this evolving space. Activist Insight offers five industry-leading products: Activist Insight Online, Activist Insight Shorts, Activist Insight Governance, Activist Insight Vulnerability  a tool for identifying potential activist targets  and Activist Insight Monthly  the world's only magazine dedicated to activist investing.

About SRZ's Shareholder Activism Group

SRZ is the dominant global law firm for shareholder activism and activist investing. The firm advises activists, "occasional activists," investment advisers, investment bankers and issuers, providing advice on navigating the maze of applicable laws and regulations in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, as well as covering markets in continental Europe and other parts of the world. Among numerous campaigns in the past year, SRZ successfully represented Trian Fund Management in its proxy contest securing the appointment of its CEO and founding partner Nelson Peltz to The Procter & Gamble Company's Board of Directors. Procter & Gamble, a $228 billion market cap multinational manufacturer, is the largest company ever to be the subject of a proxy contest. To learn more, visit SRZ's Shareholder Activism Resource Center here.

About Schulte Roth & Zabel

Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP (www.srz.com) is a full-service law firm with offices in New York, Washington, D.C. and London. As one of the leading law firms serving the financial services industry, the firm regularly advises clients on corporate and transactional matters and provides counsel on regulatory, compliance, enforcement and investigative issues. The firm's practices include: bank regulatory; bankruptcy & creditors' rights litigation; blockchain technology & digital assets; broker-dealer regulatory & enforcement; business reorganization; complex commercial litigation; cybersecurity; distressed debt & claims trading; distressed investing; education law; employment & employee benefits; energy; environmental; finance; financial institutions; hedge funds; individual client services; insurance; intellectual property, sourcing & technology; investment management; litigation; litigation finance; mergers & acquisitions; PIPEs; private equity; real estate; real estate capital markets & REITs; real estate litigation; regulated funds; regulatory & compliance; securities & capital markets; securities enforcement; securities litigation; securitization; shareholder activism; structured finance & derivatives; tax; and white collar defense & government investigations.

Contacts:

Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP

Sun Min

[email protected] | +1 212.610.7539

Activist Insight

Josh Black

[email protected] | +1 646.475.2214

Group Gordon, Inc.

Lana Gersten

[email protected] | +1 312.846.1655

SOURCE Schulte Roth & ZabelBeginning his career at large pharmaceutical companies, Shaun transitioned to the agency side thirteen years ago. He started the payer marketing capability within Ogilvy CommonHealth and grew it into one of the most sophisticated market access agencies in the industry through investment in innovation, diversification of services, and targeted acquisitions. Promoted five years ago to Managing Partner, Shaun assumed leadership of the medical education/medical affairs business and spearheaded unparalleled growth of over 80%, earning the distinction as the fastest growing area of Ogilvy CommonHealth. He also built the agency's new business capability, improving the new business pitch conversion rate by 72% and delivering an average of $31M in annual revenue.

"Shaun's vision and passion, combined with his incomparable commitment to excellence, helped catapult the growth of the agency divisions he led," commented Inception Companies CEO Matt Giegerich. "It is Shaun's unique understanding of his clients' present and future challenges that have enabled him to implement winning strategies to address them. He has an extensive network of agency and pharma relationships built on shared trust and partnership and has earned the respect of the employees he managed. We are excited to have him join the Inception Companies team."

"I have always been intrigued by innovation and finding new, better ways to meet the needs of clients. And I have been impressed for years by the unparalleled quality of Inception's virtual meeting solutions and live broadcasts, as well as the unique storytelling capabilities of their video productions," Shaun added. "However, what really captured my interest was their vision for the future of global communication. We have a new product in development that will truly change the way organizations engage virtually with both customers and employees alike, allowing them to save millions of dollars previously spent on live meetings and events, market research and training. This new product will also address some of the challenges our pharmaceutical clients have with accessing hard-to-reach Key Opinion Leaders. I am looking forward to the future and continuing to bring new products to market that will make it easier and more efficient to work together, no matter where we live in the world."

About Inception Companies

Inception is a leading provider of video production, interactive visual solutions, broadcast and webcast platforms for virtual meetings, and audio/visual support. Comprised of Inception Digital, Kampfire, and Inception Visual, the company delivers state-of-the-art TV-style technology to clients in the healthcare, financial services and technology sectors. Independently held, Inception Companies are headquartered in Fairfield NJ, with additional offices in New York NY, Blue Bell PA and San Francisco CA.

For more information, visit www.inceptioncompanies.com

Matt Giegerich

CEO Inception Companies

SculptaHealth/Ellynn Szoke

973-840-1800

[email protected]

This release was issued through WebWire. For more information, visit http://www.webwire.com.



SOURCE Inception Companies

Related Links

http://www.inceptioncompanies.com

JUNEAU, Alaska, Jan. 30, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Compassion & Choices today praised the Alaska House Health & Social Services Committee for voting 5-2 to approve the End-of-Life Option Act, House Bill 54, which would authorize medical aid in dying in Alaska.

Medical aid in dying is a medical practice which gives mentally capable, terminally ill adult state residents with six months or fewer to live the option to get prescription medication they can decide to self-ingest to peacefully end unbearable suffering.

"We are thrilled that the House Health & Social Services Committee voted to approve this important end-of-life option," said Joe Barnes, Regional Campaign Manager for Compassion & Choices. "We will work to continue to build support in the legislature for this compassionate legislation."

"House Bill 54 would give peace of mind to all Alaskans facing terminal diagnoses," said Ella Saltonstall, Kodiak Alaska Action Team Leader for Compassion & Choices. "This law would simply give a compassionate end-of-life care option to those who face suffering in their final days."

The legislation now will now move forward to the House Judiciary Committee. House Bill 54 was introduced by Rep. Harriet Drummond (D-Anchorage).

Earlier this month, the Girdwood, Alaska Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to endorse medical aid-in-dying legislation.

Medical aid in dying has broad bipartisan support both in Alaska and across the country. According to a 3rd quarter 2017 Alaska Research Survey, 70 percent of Alaskans voters agreed that: "...a person in Alaska who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness and has been given a prognosis by two physicians of less than six months to live, should have the legal right to end their life on their own terms, through the use of a doctor's prescription."

According to a 2017 Gallup poll, 73 percent of Americans agreed that: "When a person has a disease that cannot be cureddoctors should be allowed by law to end the patient's life by some painless means if the patient and his or her family request it."

A fall 2016 Medscape online survey of thousands of physicians nationwide showed they supported medical aid in dying by a 2-1 margin, 57% to 29%.

If Alaska enacts medical aid-in-dying legislation into law, it would join six other states and the District of Columbia in authorizing this end-of-life care option. Medical aid in dying has a combined 40 years of safe use in seven authorized jurisdictions, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Vermont, California, Colorado and the District of Columbia.

Compassion & Choices is the nation's oldest, largest and most active nonprofit organization committed to improving care and expanding options at the end of life. More information is available at: www.compassionandchoices.org

Contact : Khalid Pagan, 202-821-5364, [email protected]

SOURCE Compassion & Choices

Related Links

http://www.compassionandchoices.org

HIAWATHA, Iowa, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Crystal Group Inc., a leading designer/manufacturer of rugged computer hardware, is unveiling its RS1.533S18G Rugged 1.5U Server, specifically engineered to meet modern military needs for high-performance, highly reliable computing in even extreme operating environments, at WEST 2018 Feb. 6-8 in San Diego, Calif.

The all-new Crystal Group RS1.533S18G Rugged 1.5U Server is a modern, open-architecture system in an all-aluminum chassis with internal cross-braces and stabilized components to withstand high shock and vibration. Flexible and scalable, the RS1.533S18G is designed to meet current and future needs with dual Intel processors, up to 512GB of DDR4 memory, up to nine removable solid-state disks (SSDs), and USB 3.0, audio, and Gigabit LAN interfaces.

"Crystal Group's RS1.533S18G Rugged 1.5U Server is a modern, high-performance alternative to the U.S. Navy's current combat and electronic warfare server employed in Virginia-class submarines," says Robert Haag, vice president of sales and marketing for Crystal Group. "An immediate, cost-effective, drop-in replacement requiring no physical, electrical, or software modifications, the RS1.533S18G delivers improved reliability, greater weapon system availability, superior cooling, and a smaller integrated logistic support footprint to maintain operational readiness today and in the future."

Crystal Group's RS1.533S18G is designed, meticulously manufactured, and tested to provide a low-risk path for military technology insertion, sustainment, and modernization programs to improve mission uptime and system availability in the field and at the tactical edge. Measuring just 18 inches deep and weighing 25 to 30 pounds, the new rack-mount server can quickly and easily replace aging systems in 1.5U/1U configurations, including Q-70 Navy consoles on current and future Virginia-class submarines.

"Sustainment efforts needn't be stunted by long lead times, reliability issues while underway, and dead-on-arrival units. Rugged, reliable hardware and services are needed to support the electronic warfare, sonar, combat, data-sharing, and other mission capabilities that are so critical to military readiness and mission success," says Crystal Group's Jim Shaw, executive vice president of engineering. "Crystal Group's RS1.533S18G Rugged 1.5U Server is designed from the ground up to be more effective at fulfilling modern military needs. We attended the barge test in Rustburg, Virginia last November and witnessed the RS1.533S18G successfully operate through four shots under barge shock testing and pass. It was impressive!" Shaw added.

Crystal Group is demonstrating the company's new RS1.533S18G Rugged 1.5U Server, RACE Rugged Autonomous Computer Equipment, FORCE Fully Optimized Rugged Computer Equipment, RCS7150-12 and RCS7450-24 Rugged Switches, as well as its popular RS255, RS2616S18, and RS378 Rugged Servers; RE1312, RE1401, and RE0412 Rugged Embedded Computers; and SE16 Sealed Embedded Computer in Booth #2022 at WEST 2018.

Crystal Group has a proven track record and reputation for providing quality products, services, and support, with its rugged hardware deployed on more than 500 military programs. Crystal Group has delivered more than 5,000 servers and critical system capabilities to the U.S. Navy via the Automated Digital Network System (ADNS), Integrated Shipboard Network System (ISNS), and more. Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) Integrated Logistics Support in Charleston, South Carolina, reports a considerably low Crystal Group hardware failure rate of approximately 1.6% and no dead-on-arrival (DOA) units to date, over a nine-year period. (Read more about deployments at this link.)

Visit Crystal Group in Booth #2022 at WEST 2018 to learn how the company's rugged servers, switches, and embedded computers can meet your specific program requirements, today and for the future. WEST 2018, the sea service conference and exposition co-sponsored by Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association (AFCEA) International and the U.S. Naval Institute (USNI), takes place Feb. 6-8 in San Diego, Calif.

About Crystal Group Inc.

Crystal Group Inc., a technology leader in rugged computer hardware, specializes in the design and manufacture of custom and commercial rugged servers, embedded computing, networking devices, displays, power supplies, and data storage for high reliability in harsh environments. An employee-owned small business founded in 1987, Crystal Group provides the defense, government and industrial markets with in-house customization, engineering, integration, configuration management, product lifecycle planning, warranty, and support services.

Crystal Group products meet or exceed IEEE, IEC, and military standards (MIL-STD-810, 167-1, 461, MIL-S-901); are backed by warranty (5+ year) with in-house support; and are manufactured in the company's Hiawatha, Iowa, USA, facility certified to AS9100C:2009 and ISO 9001:2008 quality management standards. crystalrugged.com

 2018 Crystal Group Inc. All rights reserved. All marks are property of their respective owners. Design and specifications are subject to change.

SOURCE Crystal Group Inc.

Related Links

https://www.crystalrugged.com

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Academy of Forensic Sciences' (AAFS) 70th Annual Scientific Meeting will take place Feb. 19-24, 2018, at the Washington State Convention Center. Themed "Science Matters" by AAFS President Betty Layne DesPortes, JD, MS, more than 4,000 national and international forensic professionals are expected to present breaking advances in the forensic sciences and hold discussions on issues facing the profession.

Current initiatives include a continued focus on research, fostering the research culture in forensic science, and expanding and integrating forensic science research within the broader scientific community. Scientific sessions will be presented on topics specific to 11 disciplines of the forensic sciences, covering a multidisciplinary range of human, technical, medical, and scientific endeavors as they apply to civil disputes and criminal investigations.

Meeting highlights include two major presentations: the opening evening session, 8-10 p.m., Tues., Feb. 20, and the annual plenary session, 9-11 a.m., on Wed., Feb. 21, both at the Washington State Convention Center. The evening session, "Forensic Science in the Public Eye: Diversity, Research and Communication," features a panel of journalists, television producers and a Washington state cannabis activist, who will bring their unique experiences regarding how to communicate the work of forensic scientists, their research, and their diversity to effect change in society. The plenary session, titled "Science Matters," examines the importance of the human examiner in forensic work. The forensic investigator is the instrument of analysis, bringing cognitive processing that underpins various aspects of forensic work. The scope and relevance of cognitive forensics will be presented, and the relevant research will be summarized to demonstrate its implication to forensic practice.

The plenary session panelists include Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.; Itiel Dror, PhD, University College London, Department of Security and Crime Science; Rush D. Holt, PhD, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, D.C.; and AAFS President Betty Layne DesPortes, JD, MS, Benjamin & DesPortes, PC, Richmond, Virginia.

For updates on AAFS during the scientific meeting, visit the AAFS newsfeed at www.aafs.org.

COMPLIMENTARY REGISTRATION FOR JOURNALISTS: Individuals able to document a current direct connection with the news media may receive free registration at the AAFS registration desk, as may journalism students by presenting letterhead-stationery certification that they are attending as part of a class activity. Everyone seeking access to any aspect of the annual meeting must be registered. Press attending special functions (e.g., workshops, seminars, luncheons) are required to preregister and pay the designated fees by the preregistration deadline of February 2, 2018.

The American Academy of Forensic Sciences is a multidisciplinary professional organization providing leadership to advance science and its application to the legal system. The objectives of the Academy are to promote professionalism, integrity, competency, and education, and to foster research, improve practice, and encourage collaboration in the forensic sciences.

Organized in 1948, AAFS serves a distinguished and diverse membership of more than 6,700 forensic-science professionals who are the focal point for public information when forensic-science issues are addressed in the public domain. AAFS publishes the internationally recognized Journal of Forensic Sciences. For more information, visit www.aafs.org.

Follow us on Facebook.

SOURCE The American Academy of Forensic Sciences

Related Links

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ROCKPORT, Texas, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Aransas County, an area battered by Hurricane Harvey last summer, is replacing its damaged voting system with the most up-to-date technology available in the U.S. in time for the March 6 election. Delivery of the Verity Voting system started within days of the County Commissioners' Jan. 22 vote, thanks to a long and supportive relationship with election partner Hart InterCivic.

Verity Voting from Hart InterCivic makes voting easy and streamlines election administration. (PRNewsfoto/Hart InterCivic, Inc.)

Elections Administrator Michele Bennett praised Hart for their help preparing the County for the upgrade and fast-tracking testing and training to prepare for early voting, which begins Feb. 20. "I've worked in elections for 11 years (including in another county), and I didn't feel comfortable with anyone else."

"The fact that the company is based in Texas was a huge deciding factor. Knowing that we can call Hart and they can get help to us in a matter of hours is very comforting," she said.

"Aransas County will not miss a beat in implementing Verity for their upcoming election," said Phillip Braithwaite, President and CEO of Hart InterCivic, an Austin-based company with more than 100 years of experience providing election solutions.

"The County has endured an emotionally catastrophic event because of Hurricane Harvey, and as their election partner since 2005, we are privileged to help in their recovery. Our team is in place, and with Verity's long product life, Aransas County residents can be confident in their elections for many years to come," he said.

Verity is a federally and state certified system designed from the ground up to be flexible, easy to use and secure with all new hardware and software. It is designed and manufactured in Texas.

Bennett is looking forward to the efficiencies that Verity will provide for her office, such as faster ballot preparation and less programming work between elections and runoffs. She also appreciates that the compact, lightweight Verity Voting equipment is easy to store and to transport to Vote Centers.

She predicts voters will embrace Verity's user-friendly, intuitive touchscreen. "Even our older voters are familiar with touchpads, and they will like the option to enlarge text for reading the ballot." Bennett also pointed out the advantage of the system's lightweight, removable tablet for curbside voting. Verity's accessibility features accommodate all voters, including those with disabilities.

Aransas County, with about 17,000 registered voters, joins a growing number of Texas jurisdictions moving to Verity. Since the Texas Secretary of State certified the latest release of the system in late 2016, Hart has shipped more than 7,000 Verity devices across Texas. Federally certified in 2015, the secure and efficient system is also in use in numerous counties throughout the U.S.

Bennett is optimistic about the County's ongoing recovery.

"We needed the Verity upgrade for the voters of Aransas County," Bennett said. "We've been through a lot."

"One of the things that led to us getting Verity was the hurricane, but we are coming out ahead. We need to look past the devastation and focus on the good things that are happening. Every day, more improvements happen. We're just going to keep going forward."

Braithwaite expects more Texas and national announcements throughout 2018.

Learn more about Verity in Texas: http://www.hartintercivic.com/texas/.

About Hart InterCivic, Inc.

Austin-based Hart InterCivic is a full-service election solutions innovator, partnering with state and local governments to deliver secure, accurate and reliable elections. Working side-by-side with election professionals for more than 100 years, Hart is committed to helping advance democracy one election at a time. Hart's mission fuels its passionate customer focus and a continuous drive for technological innovation. The company's new Verity Voting system makes voting more straightforward, equitable and accessibleand makes managing elections more transparent, more efficient and easier. Only Hart offers a completely new, certified voting system with both electronic and paper options.

SOURCE Hart InterCivic, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.hartintercivic.com

ESPOO, Finland, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Basware, the global leader in networked source-to-pay solutions, e-invoicing and innovative financing services today predicted that the number of US invoices that are processed manually using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology is moving toward extinction.

"Traditionally, onboarding suppliers to sending methods other than paper has been a roadblock, hence why OCR has become common place in most AP departments", Said Michael Jasper, Director of Basware's Network business in the Americas. "Today, the top suppliers have the capability to send an electronic invoice, and two-thirds of the remaining suppliers can send an e-mail from their accounting system. That is why OCR is going to go away", Says Jasper. "Basware has a way to read those PDF invoices without using OCR, resulting in accurate, real time data at a fraction of the cost."

McDonald's Germany has seen their invoice processing time improve from 20 days to 7, thanks to Basware's touchless invoice receiving. Basware first migrated the company's largest suppliers to electronic invoices, allowing the Accounts Payable department at McDonald's to process structured invoice data without human intervention. Together with Basware, McDonald's then offered all of its 30,000 suppliers free, flexible invoice sending methods from Basware, with the majority of suppliers choosing to send invoices via e-mail. McDonald's is now targeting to have 90% of their invoices processed automatically. "Basware PDF e-invoice helps us save time and money when processing invoices," says Daniel Voigt, Senior Manager of Process Management for McDonald's Deutschland.

McDonald's is not alone. "We are seeing a surge in growth for invoices sent and received in PDF format", says Mikko Pilkama, Senior Vice President of Basware's Network and Financing Services business. "The fact that suppliers can continue to send the same invoices they do today, and customers can ingest the data in near real time without errors, or manual validation steps is a real game changer for our industry."

"Our customers choose Basware due to our unique ability to process 100% of their invoices electronically", says Michael Jasper. "Our ability to allow a supplier to send invoices in their preferred method, and do so for free, eliminates all the supplier side objections and results in extremely high adoption rates."

Moving away from OCR and other manual processes also results in higher automation and significant cost savings. "We used to have thirty employees working for us - now we're doing the same work with a team of five", says Serge Flantua, Director of Shared Services in SUEZ.

Read more on this topic here, where Michael Jasper makes a clear case for PDF e-invoicing.

Press Contact:

Jukka Janonen

+358 (0) 400 127147

[email protected]

SOURCE BaswareAmish Tripathi , one of the highest selling authors in Indian publishing history, with 4 million copies of his books sold, is embarking on a 10-day tour of the United States of America from 1 st to 10 th February 2018. Organized by Westland Publications Pvt. Ltd, the tour will conclude with a prestigious Harvard India Conference centered on the theme 'Literature in contemporary India: Languages, Identity and Perception', where Amish will be a part of a Keynote Panel. Several cultural organizations and South Asian Studies Departments across Universities will come together to organize public events for the author in Seattle, San Francisco, Houston, New York City, Washington DC and Boston.

(Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/635822/Amish_Tripathi.jpg )



Commenting on his upcoming tour, Amish said, "The USA always promises an interesting cross-pollination of ideas. I am excited to share my experiences and meet some really distinguished individuals over the course of 10 days."

Amish's books are a fine blend of myth, fiction and philosophy. Forbes Magazine has listed him amongst the 100 most influential celebrities in India, while GQ has rated him amongst 50 Most Influential Young Indians. He is also an Eisenhower Fellow, a prestigious American programme for outstanding leaders from around the world. He has won numerous awards for his books, including the prestigious Crossword Book Award in India.

The schedule for Amish's USA tour is as follows:

Seattle

- Thursday, February 1 st, 6:00 pm at the Bellevue Community Centre.

San Francisco & Bay Area

- Friday, February 2nd, 12:00 pm at Stephens Hall, UC Berkeley

- Friday, February 2nd, 4:00 pm at USF Center for Asia Pacific Studies, University of San Francisco , Hilltop Campus

- Sunday, February 4 th, 11:00 am at India Community Centre

Houston

- Tuesday, February 6 th, 5:30 pm at Science & Research Building, University of Houston .

NYC

- Wednesday, February 7 th, 6:00 pm at Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, New York .

Washington DC

- Thursday, February 8 th, 6:30 pm at The Indian Embassy, hosted by HE Mr. Navtej Sarna .

Boston

- Saturday, February 10 th, 9:45 am at Harvard Kennedy School

- Saturday, February 10 th, 3:00 pm at Rabb Hall, Boston Public Library

Contact:

Preeti Kumar

M +1-647-551-8851



SOURCE Westland Publications Pvt. LtdHOLLISTON, Mass., Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Biostage, Inc. (OTCQB: BSTG), a biotechnology company developing bioengineered organ implants to treat life-threatening conditions of the esophagus, bronchus and trachea, today announced the appointment of Christine Finck, MD, FACS to its Scientific Advisory Board.

The Scientific Advisory Board's role is to provide scientific guidance and governance for Biostage's research and development programs. Dr. Finck joins Co-Chairmen Joseph Vacanti, MD and Stephen Badylak DVM, PHD, MD on the advisory board.

Dr. Vacanti commented, "We are pleased to welcome Dr. Finck to Biostage's Scientific Advisory Board. As a pioneering researcher in regenerative medicine Dr. Finck brings experienced scientific credentials to the Scientific Advisory Board's efforts to shape and guide the product development at Biostage, and as a leading pediatric surgeon she brings exceptional practical knowledge of the clinical challenges of esophageal atresia being addressed by the Company's organ implant technology."

Dr. Finck stated, "This is an exciting chance to contribute to the direction and rigor of the science conducted by Biostage while working with Dr. Vacanti and Dr. Badylak, two scientific giants in the field. I also foresee many great opportunities for this board to leverage its collective knowledge to impact the quality of life of complex patients suffering from esophageal diseases through the development of Biostage's technology."

Jim McGorry, Chief Executive Officer of Biostage, commented, "Dr. Finck is a great fit for Biostage's Scientific Advisory Board. Our vision is to bring together the best scientific and surgical minds focused on dramatically improving the surgical treatment of kids and adults with diseases of the esophagus. Biostage will continue to expand our Scientific Advisory Board toward this vision."

About Dr. Finck

Christine Finck, MD, FACS is the Executive Vice President, Surgeon-in-Chief and Peter Deckers Endowed Chair of Surgery at Connecticut Children's Medical Center and Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Surgery at University of Connecticut School of Medicine. She has served as Chief of the Division of Pediatric Surgery since 2007 and is an associate professor of pediatrics and surgery at UCONN Health. Most recently, she took on the role of Surgeon-in-Chief, advocating for various clinical, academic and research efforts across the institution and serving as a mentor to pediatric research investigators.

Through her own research, Dr. Finck is revolutionizing health outcomes of pediatric and neonatal diseases, most specifically spearheading efforts focused on identifying and treating those that affect the lungs and esophagus. Those innovations were recognized by The Group on Women in Medicine and Science, who awarded Dr. Finck the Outstanding Clinical Scientist Woman Faculty Award.

Dr. Finck received her bachelor's degree from Boston University and her medical degree from SUNY Upstate Medical University at Syracuse. She completed a surgery residency at SUNY Upstate Medical University at Syracuse and a pediatric surgery fellowship at Arkansas Children's Hospital.

About Biostage, Inc.

Biostage is a biotechnology company developing bioengineered organ implants based on the Company's Cellframe technology which combines a proprietary biocompatible scaffold with a patient's own stem cells to create Cellspan organ implants. Cellspan implants are being developed to treat life-threatening conditions of the esophagus, bronchus or trachea with the hope of dramatically improving the treatment paradigm for patients. Based on its preclinical data, Biostage has selected life-threatening conditions of the esophagus as the initial clinical application of its technology.

For more information, please visit www.biostage.com and connect with the Company on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Forward-Looking Statements:

Some of the statements in this press release are "forward-looking" and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These "forward-looking" statements in this press release include, but are not limited to, statements relating to development expectations and regulatory approval of any of the Company's products, including those utilizing its Cellframe technology, by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the European Medicines Agency or otherwise, which expectations or approvals may not be achieved or obtained on a timely basis or at all; or success with respect to any collaborations, clinical trials and other development and commercialization efforts of the Company's products, including those utilizing its Cellframe technology, which such success may not be achieved or obtained on a timely basis or at all. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause results to differ materially from the statements set forth in this press release, including, among other things, the Company's ability to obtain and maintain regulatory approval for its products; plus other factors described under the heading "Item 1A. Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2016 or described in the Company's other public filings. The Company's results may also be affected by factors of which the Company is not currently aware. The forward-looking statements in this press release speak only as of the date of this press release. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to such statements to reflect any change in its expectations with regard thereto or any changes in the events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.

Investor Relations Contacts:

Tom McNaughton

Chief Financial Officer

774-233-7300

[email protected]

SOURCE Biostage, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.biostage.com

RENO, Nev., Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- BlackRidge Technology International, Inc. (OTCQB: BRTI), a leading provider of next generation cyber defense solutions, is pleased to announce they have joined the Telecom Council, and have been invited to present at their ComTech Forum Predictions 2018 meeting being held on February 8, 2018 at the Silicon Valley Bank in Santa Clara, California.

BlackRidge Chairman and CEO Bob Graham, is scheduled to present cyber security prediction on Thursday, February 8 at 10:45 a.m. Pacific time. Over 100+ ComTech Forum members, futurists and communication industry leaders gather to kick off the year with ideas for what's coming next. Graham will discuss BlackRidge's perspective on impending cyber security threats to government and civilian industrial control systems and critical infrastructure, cryptocurrencies and blockchains, and today's vulnerable healthcare systems.

"Because BlackRidge develops next generation cyber security solutions for protecting enterprise and government networks, systems and cloud services, we are in a unique position to understand and counter the next generation of cyber threats," said Graham. "Our adaptive cyber defense solution enables service providers and enterprises to deliver more secure and resilient business services in today's rapidly evolving technology and cyber threat environments."

The Telecom Council Forums' mission is to connect global communication service providers and vendors with innovations that push the industry forward. For additional information visit the Telecom Council. Members of the ComTech Forum meet monthly to discover trends, technologies, products, services and new companies in the communications industry. To register for the event visit ComTech Forum Predictions 2018.

About BlackRidge Technology

BlackRidge Technology provides an adaptive cyber defense solution that enables our customers to deliver more secure and resilient business services in today's rapidly evolving technology and cyber threat environments. The BlackRidge Adaptive Trust solution provides end-to-end security that proactively isolates cloud services, protects servers and segments networks. Our patented First Packet Authentication technology authenticates user and device identity and enforces security policy on the first packet of network sessions. This new level of real-time protection blocks or redirects unidentified and unauthorized traffic to stop attacks and unauthorized access. BlackRidge was founded in 2010 to commercialize its military grade and patented network security technology. For more information, visit www.blackridge.us.

Media Contact:

Sahl Communications

Kim Plyler

+1-484-554-5582

[email protected]

Investor Relations Contact:

MZ North America

Chris Tyson

+1-949-491-8235

[email protected]

SOURCE BlackRidge Technology International, Inc.SEATTLE, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Boeing [NYSE: BA] and Oman Air celebrated the delivery of the airline's first 737 MAX airplane, one of 30 that Oman Air will operate as it expands its fleet and service.

The flag carrier of the Sultanate of Oman has long operated the efficient and reliable Boeing 737. With the MAX, Oman Air will be able to achieve a double-digit percentage improvement in fuel efficiency.

"At Oman Air, offering the best possible on board experience is key to our success and the 737 MAX has already earned a reputation for its exceptional performance, efficiency and guest experience," said Abdulaziz Al-Raisi, Acting CEO, Oman Air. "The aircraft will be a perfect complement to our 737 family as we continue to expand our operations and play an increasingly active role in promoting Oman for business as well as a unique tourism destination, which is growing rapidly in popularity with every passing year."

The 737 MAX is a family of airplanes that incorporate the latest technology CFM International LEAP-1B engines, Advanced Technology winglets, Boeing Sky Interior, large flight deck displays, and other improvements to deliver the highest efficiency, reliability and passenger comfort in the single-aisle market. In Oman Air's configuration, its MAX 8 airplane will seat 162 passengers.

Oman Air's commitment to enhancing the inflight experience will be evident in both its business and economy class on board the 737 MAX. The 12 new, specially-designed business class seats will be electrically-controlled offering passengers more privacy with enhanced trim and finishes, whilst the 150 seats in economy will also feature a refreshed interior. While the business class will offer a 17" Thales Gen V, touch-screen AVANTE monitor, economy will have a similar 10.2" monitor. In addition, there will be high powered USB port for each passenger regardless of class.

Oman Air ordered 20 MAX airplanes in October 2015 and has since entered into a lease agreement for 10 more of the jets. The new airplanes will grow the Muscat-based carrier's fleet of 27 737s and seven 787 Dreamliners.

"Today marks another milestone in our 25-year partnership with Oman Air. We are proud to have supported their growth and we look forward to the 737 MAX taking the airline to new heights," said Marty Bentrott, Sales vice president for Middle East, Turkey, Russia, Central Asia & Africa.

The 737 MAX is the fastest-selling airplane in Boeing history, accumulating more than 4,300 orders to date from 92 customers worldwide. In the Middle East, Boeing currently has a backlog of over 300 737 MAXs with four airlines.

Contact:

Saffana Michael

Boeing Commercial Airplanes

+97150 4590651

[email protected]

SOURCE Boeing

Related Links

http://www.boeing.com

LEHI, Utah, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Vice-President of Property Management Inc (PMI), Bryan Birdy, released his 2018 U.S. Rental Housing Forecast on Monday. In the forecast, Birdy states that due to indicators in the U.S. housing market, for the coming year he anticipates a continued and increasing demand for rental housing and that rental real estate will remain a sound investment choice this year.

Brian Birdy, VP of Property Management Inc., Expects Increasing Strength in the Rental Investments Market

One of the primary factors that will create the demand for rental housing is the financial situation that the millennial generation faces. "Millennials are wanting to buy homes, but they are still facing student loan debt, and high rent makes saving for a down payment challenging. Combined with the upward movement of mortgage rates, home ownership is out of reach for most millennials, increasing the demand for rentals." With this increasing demand for rentals, Birdy points out that many locations throughout the U.S. offer quality real estate investment opportunities. Birdy suggests that "by looking at employment growth, population growth, increase in home values, and rental yield, we find that both Florida and Texas have multiple cities that rank among the best places to own rental property," and he lists his 20 top cities to own rental properties in 2018.

Birdy has been in the property management industry for 18 years and is an expert in residential investment property management. He notes that forecasts are not always accurate, as 2017's housing forecast turned out to be off target but feels that 2018 will be strong for rental housing. For those looking to invest in real estate this year, Birdy recommends that you "target your properties and marketing to the millennial generation as they are most likely to create the demand for rental housing. But keep an eye open for the fastest growing demographic in the rental market, the 55-and-over group who are selling their homes and moving into rentals."

About Property Management Inc.

Property Management Inc. is a property management and real estate services company providing leading-edge technology, training, systems, and support to more than 200 franchises. The PMI network manages more than $5 billion in assets globally and is recognized as a leading property management franchise. Its innovative franchise program provides the only platform that unifies the four pillars of property management: residential, commercial, association, and vacation rental. PMI is currently named on the Inc. 5000, Entrepreneur's Franchise 500 list as "Best in Category" winner for 2017 and 2018. Additionally, PMI is ranked as one of the Top 100 Global Franchises in 2017 by Franchise Direct. For more information, please visit www.propertymanagementinc.com

Media Contact: Cassie James, Property Management Inc.

[email protected]

385.455.4151

SOURCE Property Management Inc.

Related Links

http://www.propertymanagementinc.com

CANCUN, Mexico, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Cancun.com, a one-stop shop for those looking to vacation in Cancun and the surrounding areas of the Riviera Maya, today announced that Ivan Nanney has been named the company's Cancun Experience Officer (CEO). Nanney will start as the company's CEO on March 1, 2018, spending six months in one of the most visited and beautiful vacation destinations for travelers in North America. The joint venture between Best Day Travel Group and TravelPass Group, who together operate Cancun.com, received more than 8,000 applications from candidates in 120 countries.

"We learned so much throughout this process, and came to admire all of the applicants' personal values, how each one represented themselves and their passion for travel. We'd like to thank all of the candidates for their time and hard work, and the Dreams Riviera Cancun Resort & Spa and Grand Oasis Cancun Resort for hosting the 10 finalists," said Chad Meyerson, general manager at Cancun.com. "When it came time to pick a winner though, Ivan Nanney really stood out to us. He has a great personality on and off the camera, and is a very authentic person and engaging story-teller. It is an honor to have him as our CEO, and Cancun.com is excited to see him build upon his strong skill set."

Ivan Nanney is a travel influencer and lifestyle designer with a drive to encourage others to prioritize experiences over possessions. He caught the travel bug after studying abroad in Seville, Spain, followed by a backpacking trip around Europe. A native of Boise, Idaho, Nanney runs a travel blog and YouTube channel called "Ivan the Intrepid." Prior to that, he was a host on The FIREBALL RUN Adventure Travel Series, and led two nationwide marketing tours for the Idaho Potato Commission, where he traveled over 16,000 miles and through 36 states with a 12,000 pound potato.

"My passion in life is traveling, and the transformative powers that travel can have on an individual. Being named the CEO of Cancun.com, and being able to spend the next six months in Cancun, is truly a dream come true. It's now my job to explore every nook and cranny of the Riviera Maya, engage with the culture, have fun, and share my adventures with the world," said Ivan Nanney, winner of Cancun.com's CEO search. "I can't wait to experience Cancun on a deeper level, and uncover and share adventures that inspire travelers to visit such an incredible destination."

In the weeks leading up to March, Cancun.com and the Cancun Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB) will be planning the most exciting ways to show off the accommodations, cuisines and adventures that Cancun has to offer. Nanney's first task as CEO will be to stay at the Xcaret Hotel and explore Xcaret Park, a Maya civilization archaeological site by the sea where travelers can relive the history of Mexico through colorful traditions and shows, endless activities and beautiful native flora and fauna.

"The increased interest in Cancun and the number of qualified applicants surpassed even our wildest expectations. Any of the 10 finalists would have been a great fit for the CEO role," said Lizzie Cole, director general of the Cancun CVB. "Ivan Nanney will make a great ambassador for Cancun, and we're excited to work with him to share the wonders of our destination beyond its beautiful beaches with the rest of world."

To stay up-to-date on Nanney's journey as CEO of Cancun.com, follow him on Cancun.com's Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. For more information on traveling to Cancun, visit www.cancun.com.

About Best Day Travel

Best Day Travel Group is the leading online travel agency in Mexico, and one of the leading Latin American travel industry companies with a strong focus in business-to-business distribution. Best Day Travel understands vacation travel trends and customer requests for the most popular Latin American destinations and offers the best hotel inventory content in the region. The Cancun-based company is a vertically integrated business model with an innovative technology infrastructure that leverages the expertise of six subsidiaries. These include BestDay.com, an online travel agency; BD TRAVEL Solution, a white label technology for partners; HotelDO, services for traditional travel agencies and wholesalers; BD Travel, a leading destination management company in Mexico and Punta Cana; Voiash, a travel brand focused on youth and millennials; and Gran Plan, a strategic alliance with Aeromexico working with more than 120 travel agencies in Mexico.

About TravelPass Group

TravelPass Group is a leading technology company in the travel industry. Spun out of the Utah-based company Partner Fusion, TravelPass Group is a marketplace for independent and brand name hotels, wholesalers, and the world's largest travel agencies. TravelPass Group has been featured multiple times as one of the fastest growing companies locally and nationally by Deloitte Technology Fast 500 and Inc. 5000. TravelPass Group books 10,000 room nights per day through its travel-related websites, including Reservation Counter and Reservation Desk, and a best-in-class customer service center that helps travelers access more than a million properties worldwide.

Contact:

Chelsea Robie

Method Communications

[email protected]

801.461.9787

SOURCE Cancun.com

Related Links

http://www.cancun.com

COLUMBIA, S.C., Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Cargill Protein is investing $4.2 million at its Columbia, S.C. plant to expand grinding capabilities for beef customers across the eastern U.S. The investment includes precision grinding equipment that assures consistent, high-quality ground beef products for customers. Once installed in May 2018, the equipment expands the plant's production by 15 percent, allowing the plant to produce enough ground beef to meet customer growth.

"Cargill purchased the Columbia facility in 2016 and today we have more than 200 Columbia employees delivering high-quality beef to our U.S. customers. This investment shows our commitment to the beef industry in the Eastern U.S. and allows us to deliver on the increasing needs of beef customers in the region, through the installation of higher performance production technologies," said John Keating, president, business operations and supply chain, Cargill Protein.

The investment is one more way Cargill is growing to meet the needs of its North American meat customers. Cargill Protein has invested approximately $850 million over the past two years across the U.S. and Canada, including a $111 million cooked meats plant conversion in Nebraska, $27 million egg processing facility expansion in Michigan, $50 million distribution center at its Kansas beef plant, $146 million expansion of a cooked meats facility in Tennessee, and acquisitions of meat processing facilities in Texas, South Carolina and Tennessee.

About Cargill

Cargill provides food, agriculture, financial and industrial products and services to the world. Together with farmers, customers, governments and communities, we help people thrive by applying our insights and 150 years of experience. We have 155,000 employees in 70 countries who are committed to feeding the world in a responsible way, reducing environmental impact and improving the communities where we live and work. For more information, visit Cargill.com and our News Center.

About Cargill Protein

Headquartered in Wichita, Kan., Cargill Protein is an industry leader that produces, distributes and markets beef, turkey, chicken and egg products to retail, foodservice and food ingredient companies throughout North America, and exports meat and by-products around the world. Cargill Protein's 28,000 employees, and more than three dozen protein processing facilities in the U.S. and Canada, are focused on delivering superior, innovative, products and services to help customers growth their businesses by meeting consumer desires. Cargill Protein is a unit of Minneapolis-based Cargill, Incorporated. For more information, visit Cargill.com.

SOURCE Cargill

Related Links

http://www.cargill.com

Frederick Douglass Bicentennial Celebration  A host of events and activities will be taking place in Annapolis and Anne Arundel County throughout 2018 as part of a statewide Frederick Douglass Bicentennial Celebration. The official kick-off for the Bicentennial Celebration is slated for February, Douglass's birthday month. For a complete listing of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County Frederick Douglass Bicentennial Celebration festivities, click here :

African American Experience in Annapolis Tour  For the first time ever, Colonial Tours of Annapolis is offering an "African American Experience in Annapolis" walking tour twice daily  at 10:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.  throughout February. In addition to sharing what life was like for all classes of African Americans in Annapolis, Anne Arundel County and Maryland from the colony's founding in 1632 until the present day, Annapolis native William Ridgley will step out of Colonial character on occasion to share his own personal experiences and observations as an African American growing up in Annapolis. Tradesmen, scientists, mathematicians were among the African Americans who arrived in the Maryland Colony in the 1600s. Others came as indentured servants or slaves. In his tour, Ridgley will discuss how each of the groups experienced Annapolis and Anne Arundel County in a different way. The tour also shares Annapolis links to Frederick Douglass. Exterior stops along the two-hour tour include: Banneker-Douglass Museum, Maynard Burgess House, William Butler House, Historic Annapolis Museum, Kunta Kinte Memorial and story wall, sites along Fleet and East Streets, Chase-Lloyd House, Hammond-Harwood House and the Thurgood Marshall Memorial. Tours depart from the 26 West Street Visitors Center in downtown Annapolis. Reservations are encouraged and can be made online at http://www.colonialtoursannapolis.com/. Individuals can also sign up for the tour on site at the 26 West Street Visitors Center. The cost is $17 for adults; $12 for students ages 10-17; 9 and under, free.

African American Heritage Tour  Annapolis Tours by Watermark is offering a two-hour walking tour of Annapolis's historic district on Saturday, February 17th at 1:00 p.m. in honor of the Frederick Douglass Bicentennial Celebration and Black History Month. The tour will also be offered on July 7th and August 4th, to continue the Bicentennial Celebration. Presented in partnership with the Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley Foundation, the tour covers some of the most significant events in African-American history. The tour begins at the City Dock information booth at 1 Dock Street and concludes at the Banneker-Douglass Museum. http://annapolistours.com/. Tickets are $20 for adults; $10 for children 3-11; two and under, free.

African-American Experience Tour  The Hammond-Harwood House at 19 Maryland Avenue in downtown Annapolis will be offering a tour covering nearly 250 years of the African-American experience at the historic mansion. Thanks to research by PhD candidate Christopher Mielke, the stories of the men and women, both enslaved and free, who built, maintained and lived in the house will be shared during a Saturday, February 10th tour from 2:00 p.m. until 3:00 p.m. Among other things, tour participants will learn about the lives of three enslaved women  Mary, Matilda, and Juliet  who worked at the house in the early to mid-19th century. http://hammondharwoodhouse.org/february/. The cost is $5 per person; free for members.

Freedom Bound: Runaways of the Chesapeake  The Historic Annapolis Museum at 99 Main Street in downtown Annapolis features a "Freedom Bound: Runaways of the Chesapeake" exhibit that focuses on the stories of nine real men and women whose lives testify to the universal desire for personal liberty. It uses videos, audio, historic artifacts, runaway advertisements from 1728 to 1864 and hands-on activities to convey the defeats and triumphs these men and women experienced in their struggle for freedom. Operated by Historic Annapolis, the museum is open Monday-Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Admission is free.

For a more complete listing of February events, visit VAAAC's 2018 Major Events Calendar or the VAAAC website.

Visit Annapolis & Anne Arundel County is a non-profit, membership-based destination marketing organization that generates revenues for the local economy by promoting Annapolis and the Chesapeake Bay to leisure and business travelers across the country and around the world.

To begin receiving story ideas and news updates "like" Visit Annapolis Media Resources on Facebook and follow on Twitter @visitanapMR.

SOURCE Visit Annapolis & Anne Arundel County

Related Links

http://www.visitannapolis.org

WASHINGTON, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- CenturyLink, Inc. (NYSE: CTL) and collab9, a leading FedRAMP-authorized provider of secure cloud communications, today announced a recent contract win to provide Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) capabilities to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB).

The contract, which has a term of one year with two one-year renewal options, was awarded to CenturyLink via one of the General Services Administration's (GSA) contracts held by CenturyLink's wholly-owned subsidiary, Level 3 Communications, LLC.

DNFSB is an independent organization within the executive branch of the U.S. government that is chartered with the responsibility of providing recommendations and advice to the President and the Secretary of Energy regarding public health and safety issues at Department of Energy defense nuclear facilities.

"CenturyLink is excited to work with collab9 to provide DNFSB with a modern unified communications system that helps the agency focus on its mission to ensure that America's defense nuclear facilities are operated safely with proper public health protections," said David Young, CenturyLink regional vice president, strategic government.

"collab9 is aware of the critical nature of DNFSB's mission, and we are privileged to provide our secure unified communications service to support the safe operation and maintenance of our nation's defense nuclear facilities," commented Steven Boberski, collab9's vice president of business development.

DNFSB joins the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection in embracing collab9's FedRAMP-authorized unified communications, collaboration and contact center solutions.

Key Facts

By supplying big data and IT services over its carrier-class network, CenturyLink provides government agencies with the security and reliability they need to carry out their important missions.

CenturyLink is currently ranked No. 35 on Washington Technology's 2017 Top 100 list of federal government IT contractors.

2017 Top 100 list of federal government IT contractors. collab9's secure cloud communications platform offers a number of benefits to government agencies, including:

Cost savings, reduction in capital expenditures, reduction in on-going maintenance



A modern platform to support workplace transformation



Seamless integration with existing systems



Scalability, including on-demand access to infrastructure during disasters or critical events



Service reliability



Support for Continuity of Operations Plans with multiple, dual-redundant data centers

About collab9

Collab9 is a best-of-breed, FedRAMP Authorized Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) provider catering to the public sector marketplace. Collab9's solution integrates voice, video, messaging, mobility, presence, conferencing, and customer care in one predictable, user-based subscription model. Available on multiple federal and state government procurement vehicles, collab9 enables agencies to securely move their communications infrastructure into the cloud with a platform designed to meet NIST cloud security standards. For more information, visit: www.collab9.com; follow @collab9 on Twitter.

About CenturyLink

CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) is the second largest U.S. communications provider to global enterprise customers. With customers in more than 60 countries and an intense focus on the customer experience, CenturyLink strives to be the world's best networking company by solving customers' increased demand for reliable and secure connections. The company also serves as its customers' trusted partner, helping them manage increased network and IT complexity and providing managed network and cyber security solutions that help protect their business.

SOURCE CenturyLink, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.centurylink.com

CHICAGO, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- February has been designated Insurance Careers Month by the Insurance Careers Movement, a cross-industry, multi-phased initiative that aims to raise awareness of career opportunities in the risk management and insurance professions, as well as support efforts to recruit the next generation of industry leaders.

Aligned with the company's growth and the importance of highlighting the many types of careers the insurance industry offers, Combined Insurance, a leading provider of individual supplemental accident, disability, health, and life insurance products, and a Chubb company, is announcing plans to hire 3,000 more sales agents throughout the country by the end of 2018  increasing its salesforce by 30%.

"Combined Insurance continues to grow and set aggressive goals to further expand our salesforce to provide consumers with the important insurance coverage they may need," said Doug Abercrombie, Senior Vice President and Chief Agency Officer at Combined Insurance.

Abercrombie started with Combined Insurance as a sales agent more than 30 years ago and has worked his way up to the top sales leadership position within the company, overseeing the entire U.S. Combined Insurance salesforce. In 2017, the company grew its salesforce by 19%.

"Healthcare costs continue to riseespecially out of pocket costs that major medical insurance policies may not cover," Abercrombie continued. "There is a need for the supplemental insurance products our agents offer, and there has never been a better time to join our growing company and start a career which can help others through selling these products."

Among the more than 3,000 sales agents Combined Insurance plans to hire this year, the company aims to hire:

More than 800 veterans, military spouses or individuals with a military background

More than 1,000 Spanish-speaking agents

The United States Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics industry growth projections support that the insurance industry continues to offer opportunities for career stability, growth and reward. Their research indicates that employment of insurance sales agents overall will grow 10% by 2026.

Combined Insurance has received numerous accolades for its hiring initiatives. At the end of 2017, the company was ranked a Top 5 Military Friendly Employer for the fourth consecutive year and was named the number three Military Friendly Spouse Employer in the Over $1B revenue category for 2018. Additionally, Combined Insurance has been named a "Best for Vets" employer by Military Times and a Top Diversity Employer by Hispanic Network Magazine.

Combined Insurance was founded in Chicago in 1922 by W. Clement Stone. With $100, a positive spirit and a vision to make the world a better place, Stone developed and grew the company into what it is todaystill headquartered in Chicago with sales agents and managers throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.

Known for its best-in-class sales training and onboarding for new agents, Combined's full-time sales agent careers offer a virtually unlimited income potential and a total employee benefits package that includes insurance benefits, a 401k retirement savings plan and a discounted stock purchase plan.

For more information about careers at Combined Insurance, visit combinedinsurance.com/careers.

About Combined Insurance

Combined Insurance Company of America (Chicago, Ill.) is a leading provider of individual supplemental accident, disability, health, and life insurance products and a Chubb company.With a tradition of nearly 100 years of success, Combined Insurance is committed to making the world of supplemental insurance easy to understand.The company has an A+ rating by the Better Business Bureau and is one of Ward's Top 50 Performing Life-Health Insurance Companies. Combined Insurance is also a 2018 Top 10 Military Friendly Employer named by G.I. JobsMagazinemarking the seventh consecutive year on the Top 10 employer list and fourth consecutive year in the Top 5. In New York, products are underwritten by Combined Life Insurance Company of New York (Latham, N.Y.). For more information, please visit combinedinsurance.com.

About Chubb

Chubb is the world's largest publicly traded property and casualty insurance company. With operations in 54 countries, Chubb provides commercial and personal property and casualty insurance, personal accident and supplemental health insurance, reinsurance and life insurance to a diverse group of clients. As an underwriting company, we assess, assume and manage risk with insight and discipline. We service and pay our claims fairly and promptly. The company is also defined by its extensive product and service offerings, broad distribution capabilities, exceptional financial strength and local operations globally. Parent company Chubb Limited is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: CB) and is a component of the S&P 500 index. Chubb maintains executive offices in Zurich, New York, London and other locations, and employs approximately 31,000 people worldwide. Additional information can be found at: chubb.com.

SOURCE Combined Insurance

Related Links

http://www.combinedinsurance.com

BRENTWOOD, Tenn., Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Confirmation.com, the world's leading provider of online audit confirmations, announced today a strategic partnership with Confirmations Ltd. Saudi Arabia. Through this partnership, Confirmations Ltd. Saudi Arabia will offer the Confirmation.com service to accounting firms and financial institutions throughout The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The 150-plus accounting firms and numerous financial institutions in Saudi Arabia will have the opportunity to join an already extensive network of more than 16,000 accounting firms and 4,000 financial institutions around the globe currently using Confirmation.com to manage the audit confirmation process.

"As the kingdom continues to diversify its oil-dependent economy, the accounting and auditing profession plays a vital role in fostering trust," said Saad Yousef AlMobarak. "The profession is being hindered by issues with paper-based and unsecure electronic confirmation processes, such as fax and email, which are not only inefficient but also unprotected against fraud. These issues seriously impact the audit practice in the Middle East. We must adopt financial technologies that guarantee trust, and Confirmation.com is a global market leader proven to be safe and secure."

Confirmation.com's all-in-one online solution provides a platform for auditors to perform audit confirmations securely to third-party responders, such as companies, financial institutions, and law firms, while protecting privacy and confidentiality of clients' data and reducing the risk of confirmation fraud.

"As the accounting and financial services professions in Saudi Arabia are rapidly adopting technology to improve efficiencies, combat fraud, and provide better client service to their customers, our partner Confirmations Ltd. Saudi Arabia, can deliver the Confirmation.com solution in the marketplace," said Dave Malone, president of Confirmation.com International. "We look forward to working closely with them to localize our service offerings in the region to include Arabic translation of the application and support of local currencies."

Confirmations Ltd. Saudi Arabia is the fourth reseller to join Confirmation.com's rapidly growing reseller network, which includes Confirmations Asia Pacific covering the Asia Pacific region, CQS Technology Holdings covering Sub-Saharan Africa, and Global International Management, LLC covering the Dutch Caribbean and Suriname. This new partnership begins with coverage throughout The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but there is an opportunity to leverage this reseller's unique position between three continents to expand into other Middle East and North Africa countries.

"The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the top 20 largest economies in the world, so it is an important market for our company," said Chris Schellhorn, CEO of Confirmation.com. "As the region focuses on technology and innovation, this is an opportune time to deliver our audit confirmation service, which improves the integrity of financial statements and leads to greater investor confidence."

To learn more, visit www.confirmation.com.

About Confirmation.com

Confirmation.com is the world's leading provider of secure online audit confirmations, trusted by more than 850,000 clients in 160 countries. Today, more than 16,000 accounting firms use Confirmation.com to confirm more than $1 trillion annually with responding companies, financial institutions, and law firms.

SOURCE Confirmation.com

Related Links

http://www.confirmation.com

WASHINGTON, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Corporate Whistleblower Center is urging a medical doctor with proof any type of healthcare company is bribing physicians for referrals or admissions to call them anytime at 866-714-6466 for a conversation about the federal whistleblower reward program. Recently the Department of Justice announced a $29.6-million-dollar settlement involving two medical practice groups and a hospital system involved in a referral kickback scheme. The allegations revolved around kickbacks for patient referrals. Allegedly the scheme involved a hospital system admitting patients rather than seeing them on an outpatient basis. In this instance the whistleblowers (two medical doctors) will receive $6.2 million dollars for their information. http://CorporateWhistleblower.Com

MD Kickbacks

According to the Department of Justice, "On average, Medicare pays at least three times as much for an inpatient admission as it does for outpatient care."

The Corporate Whistleblower Center is inviting a medical doctor or healthcare professional to call them anytime at 866-714-6466 if they possess proof the following type of company is bribing physicians for referrals, purchases or admissions:

A hospital or hospital company

A nursing home or skilled nursing facility

A pharmaceutical company

A hospice provider

A medical device manufacturer

A dialysis Center

An Imaging Center

An in-home healthcare provider

A blood testing company

The Corporate Whistleblower Center says, "We are 100% certain healthcare companies are paying kickbacks to physicians in every state and the potential rewards can be significant provided the whistleblower has proof or an eyewitness account of what happened or is happening on an ongoing basis. If you possess this type of proof, please call us anytime at 866-714-6466 for a conversation about the potential value of your information. Why sit on a potentially winning lotto ticket without ever knowing what it might have been worth?" http://CorporateWhistleblower.Com

Simple rules for a whistleblower from the Corporate Whistleblower Center: Do not go to the government first if you are a major whistleblower. The Corporate Whistleblower Center says, "Major whistleblowers frequently go to the government thinking they will help. It's a huge mistake. Do not go to the news media with your whistleblower information. Public revelation of a whistleblower's information could destroy any prospect for a reward. Do not try to force a company or individual to come clean stark on anti-kickback laws or overbilling Medicare. Come to us first, tell us what type of information you have, and if we think it's sufficient, we will help find the right law firms to assist in advancing your information."

The Corporate Whistleblower Center wants to emphasize there are high quality whistleblowers in every state including California, New York, New Jersey, Florida, Texas, Mass, Maryland, Rhode Island, Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Washington, or Alaska.

The Corporate Whistleblower Center is the premier advocate for whistleblowers in the United States. Unlike any group in the US, they can assist a potential whistleblower with packaging their information and they will provide the whistleblower with access to some of the most accomplished whistleblower attorneys in the nation provided the person possesses substantial proof of wrongdoing. For more information a potential whistleblower can contact the Corporate Whistleblower Center anytime at 866-714-6466 or visit http://CorporateWhistleblower.Com

For attribution please refer to the Department of Justice press release that discusses this matter: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-physician-groups-pay-over-33-million-resolve-claims-involving-hma-hospitals

Contact:

Thomas Martin

866-714-6466

[email protected]

SOURCE Corporate Whistleblower Center

Related Links

http://CorporateWhistleblower.Com

NEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Corvex Management LP ("Corvex"), the largest shareholder of Energen Corporation (NYSE: EGN) ("Energen" or the "Company") with beneficial ownership of approximately 9.9% of the Company's outstanding shares, today announced it has nominated four highly-qualified, independent candidates for election to Energen's nine-member Board of Directors at the upcoming 2018 Annual Meeting of Shareholders.

The nominees each have significant experience driving shareholder value at multi-billion dollar energy and industrial companies and, if elected, would seek to create value for all shareholders. The nominees are:

Jose Maria Alapont , former President and CEO of Federal-Mogul Corporation

, former President and CEO of Federal-Mogul Corporation Jonathan Cohen , Founder of Atlas Energy and Atlas Pipeline Partners

, Founder of Atlas Energy and Atlas Pipeline Partners Daniel Herz , former Senior Vice President of Atlas Energy and Atlas Pipeline Partners

, former Senior Vice President of Atlas Energy and Atlas Pipeline Partners Vincent Intrieri , former Senior Managing Director of Icahn Capital LP

Keith Meister, Corvex's Managing Partner, stated, "Energen has a world-class leasehold position in the core of the Permian Basin, but for years, has traded at what we believe is a material discount to its underlying value. Accordingly, today we are nominating four highly-qualified, independent director candidates who will bring fresh perspectives and relevant experience along with a simple mandate  to run the company in the best interests of all shareholders. We are confident that Energen's shareholders will benefit from having these experienced executives on the Board."

Biographies of Nominees:

Jose Maria Alapont

Jose Maria Alapont served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Federal-Mogul Corporation ("Federal-Mogul"), a public automotive manufacturing company with approximately $7.5 billion in annual sales, from March 2005 through March 2012. Mr. Alapont was the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Federal-Mogul from 2005 to 2007 and continued to serve as a Director until 2013. Prior to joining Federal-Mogul, Mr. Alapont served as Chief Executive Officer of Fiat Iveco S.p.A.

Mr. Alapont currently serves on the Board of Navistar Inc., Manitowoc Company Inc., Ferroglobe PLC, and Ashok Leyland Ltd. Previously, he has served on the Boards of Mentor Graphics Corp. and Fiat Iveco S.p.A.

Mr. Alapont earned degrees in Industrial Engineering from the Valencia Technical School and in Philology from the University of Valencia in Spain.

Jonathan Z. Cohen

Jonathan Z. Cohen is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Osprey Energy Acquisition Corporation. Previously, Mr. Cohen was a founder of Atlas Energy, Inc. ("Atlas"), an exploration and production company that completed its initial public offering in 2004. Under Mr. Cohen's leadership, Atlas helped pioneer the unconventional development of the Marcellus Shale formation, drilling more wells between 2005 and 2010 than any other company. In 2011, Atlas was acquired by Chevron for $4.3 billion dollars. Mr. Cohen was also a founder of Atlas Pipeline Partners, LP, a midstream energy company, that completed an initial public offering in 2000. Under Mr. Cohen's leadership Atlas Pipeline Partners, LP grew significantly, culminating in the 2015 sale to Targa Resources Corp. for $7.7 billion.

Mr. Cohen is a trustee of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, a trustee of the East Harlem School and a Director of Lincoln Center Theater. Jonathan received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992. He also received a Juris Doctor from American University School of Law.

Daniel C. Herz

Daniel C. Herz is currently the President of Osprey Energy Acquisition Corporation. Previously, Mr. Herz was the Senior Vice President of Corporate Development of Atlas Pipeline Partners GP, a US focused midstream energy company. Mr. Herz held that role from August of 2007 until Atlas's $7.7 billion dollar sale to Targa Resources Corp. in February of 2015. Mr. Herz also served as Senior Vice President Corporate Development for Atlas Energy, Inc., a pioneer of unconventional shale development in Appalachia, from 2007 until 2011 at which time Atlas was sold to Chevron Corporation for $4.3 Billion.

Mr. Herz graduated with a BA in Economics from Indiana University in 1999.

Vincent J. Intrieri

Vincent J. Intrieri was employed by Carl C. Icahn related entities in various investment related capacities from 1998 to 2016, including as Senior Managing Director of Icahn Capital LP and as a Director of Icahn Enterprises. Prior to joining the Icahn organization, Mr. Intrieri served as a portfolio manager at Elliott Associates from 1995 to 1998.

Mr. Intrieri is currently a director of Transocean, Ltd., Conduent Incorporated, Hertz Global Holdings, Inc. and Navistar International Corporation. Over the years, Mr. Intrieri has served as a director of several publicly traded energy companies, including: Chesapeake Energy Corporation, CVR Refining, LP, and National Energy Group, Inc. Additionally, Mr. Intrieri has served on numerous other board including Forest Laboratories Inc. and Motorola Solutions, Inc.

Mr. Intrieri graduated, with Distinction, from the Pennsylvania State University with a B.S. in Accounting in 1984.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

In connection with their intended proxy solicitation, Corvex and/or certain of its affiliates intend to file a proxy statement with the SEC to solicit shareholders of the Company.

SECURITY HOLDERS ARE ADVISED TO READ THE PROXY STATEMENT AND OTHER DOCUMENTS RELATED TO THE SOLICITATION OF PROXIES BY CORVEX AND/OR ITS AFFILIATES FROM THE SHAREHOLDERS OF ENERGEN CORPORATION FOR USE AT ITS 2018 ANNUAL MEETING OF SHAREHOLDERS WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE BECAUSE THEY WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION, INCLUDING INFORMATION RELATING TO THE PARTICIPANTS IN SUCH PROXY SOLICITATION. WHEN COMPLETED, A DEFINITIVE PROXY STATEMENT AND A FORM OF PROXY WILL BE MAILED TO SHAREHOLDERS OF ENERGEN CORPORATION AND WILL ALSO BE AVAILABLE AT NO CHARGE AT THE SEC'S WEBSITE AT HTTP://WWW.SEC.GOV.

In accordance with Rule 14a-12(a)(1)(i) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, the following persons are anticipated to be, or may be deemed to be, participants in any such proxy solicitation: Corvex Management LP, Keith Meister, Corvex Master Fund, LP, Corvex Select Equity Master Fund LP, Jose Maria Alapont, Jonathan Z. Cohen, Daniel C. Herz and Vincent J. Intrieri. Certain of these persons hold or may be deemed to hold direct or indirect interests as of 4:00 p.m. New York City time on January 31, 2018 as follows: Corvex Management LP beneficially owns 9,710,474 shares of common stock of the Company; Keith Meister beneficially owns 9,710,474 shares of common stock of the Company; Corvex Master Fund, LP is the record holder of 1,000 shares of common stock of the Company and is the street name holder of 7,009,080 shares of common stock of the Company; Corvex Select Equity Master Fund LP is the street name holder of 1,244,346 shares of common stock of the Company and holder of over-the-counter market American-style call options referencing 1,456,048 shares of common stock of the Company; Vincent J. Intrieri beneficially owns 10,500 shares of common stock of the Company; each of the Corvex Nominees has an interest in being nominated and elected as a director of the Company but no Corvex Nominee other than Vincent J. Intrieri beneficially owns any shares of common stock of the Company.

SOURCE Corvex Management LPBEIJING, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- 2017 was a year full of surprises, with the global macro economy and various asset classes significantly outperforming pessimistic expectations in the beginning of the year. Ushering in 2018, the investment community is focused on global economic, policy and political changes which will impact investment markets and how investment strategies should be adjusted to manage risk and generate positive returns.

On January 10th, CreditEase Wealth Management officially launched the 2018 Asset Allocation Guidance (hereafter referred as the Guidance). The Guidance is sponsored by the CreditEase Wealth Management Asset Allocation Committee and authored by CreditEase Wealth Management Asset Allocation Research Team and investment professionals in various asset classes, with inputs from local and global experts in the asset management industry. Structured to offer insights as well as solutions, the Guidance is research driven, practical and application-oriented and proposes an asset allocation that covers major asset classes.

CreditEase Wealth Management believes that 2018 will see an increase in market volatility, and in this environment, allocation to alternative asset classes is increasingly important. As the Chinese wealth management industry evolves, short term speculative investment strategies will become unsustainable, while long term value investing, global asset allocation and technology driven investment will be the right path.

The 2018 Asset Allocation Guidance advises investors to continue to overweight alternative assets

2017 was a year when investors regained confidence, as: many countries registered GDP growth, China's economy showed positive signs and the performance of global macro economy and various asset classes was significantly better than what was expected at the beginning of the year. Looking to 2018, the CreditEase Wealth Management Asset Allocation Committee believes that market volatility will increase.

Currently, valuations in the public equity and debt markets are at a historical high, and with a polarization of economic growth globally, markets may be more sensitive to unexpected outcomes and incidents. Potential austerity measures, geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, Russia and North Korea, Brexit negotiations and any unexpected weakness in economic growth rates may all exacerbate market volatility.

The Guidance posits that allocation to alternative assets is increasingly important in an environment with heightened risk of volatility. Against the backdrop of global financial integration, correlations among traditional equity and debt assets in different regions and countries has increased, making risk diversification within traditional asset classes difficult. Alternative assets, by contrast, can optimize portfolio performance. In the long term, alternative assets enjoy an illiquidity premium, generating higher returns than traditional asset classes. Benefiting from both economic growth and ample market liquidity, alternative asset classes including private equity, private equity real estate and private credit showed good performance in 2017.

Alternative assets accounted for a sizeable proportion in the 2017 asset allocation proposed by CreditEase Wealth Management. A portfolio structured on this asset allocation would have generated double digit returns in 2017, with additional outperformance if investors invested into the funds outperforming market median returns in these asset classes, as was the case for higher performing FOFs.

CreditEase Wealth Management encourages investors to continue to overweight alternative assets in 2018.

For an investor with RMB 100 million assets, CreditEase Wealth Management suggests an allocation of 25% to private equity, 20% to real estate, 20% to onshore fixed income assets, 20% to public equity capital markets, 5% to offshore private credit and 10% to insurance.

Asset Class Recommended Strategy Private Equity Access the private equity asset class via comprehensive FOFs, with: a focus on deployment to newly emerging sectors and consumption sub-sectors; access to secondary and co-investment opportunities, an emphasis on mid-market buyout funds and early-stage (VCs and Growth) funds with sector specialization and extensive sourcing networks. Public Equity Capital Market Access via FOF to achieve global cross-region, multi-strategy allocation, with dynamic rebalancing Real Estate Focus on private equity real estate funds via FOF, with a focus on the US, European and Asia Pacific markets as well as quality investment opportunities in tier-1 and tier-2 cities in China. Direct real estate property investment focus on tier-1 cities in Australia, the UK and the US where economic growth is stable, individual property rights systems are well developed, and housing demand is active. Onshore Fixed Income Select managers with long term track records to diversify allocation in underlying fixed income assets that emerge in the "new economy", while also enjoying the benefits of proven risk management experience. Offshore Private Credit Start to allocate to private credit, which enjoys a low correlation with economic cycles; and invest via established and reputable investment institutions in this sector to ensure diversified portfolios, and transaction structures with downside protection. Insurance Implement wealth succession solutions by using insurance trust products. A combination of permanent life insurance and family trust offers well desinged wealth suucession solutions for HNW clients.

Opportunities associated with each asset class amidst changes

Below are the key opinions of the Guidance regarding the changes and opportunities of main asset classes in 2018:

Private Equity: Capital inflows will increase global competition for assets, and benefit top-tier funds the most. Fund managers with vision and experience through cycles can still identify attractive investment areas, which may include secondary deals, M&A opportunities of the middle-market companies in Europe and America, etc. in 2018. Geographically, although China is second to America in terms of private equity market size, the sector has some way to go to reach the maturity and sophistication of the US sector. As at the end of 2016, American GDP is 1.63 times that of China, while the AUM of American PE funds is 3.33 times that of China, indicating significant headspace for the Chinese PE investment market. Looking ahead into 2018, CE WM holds an optimistic yet prudent view about the domestic PE investment market. The overall market will return to value-based investment, which bodes well for entrepreneurship in the long run. However, the drivers for high returns and associated potential risks are shifting, so focus will shift to emerging industries, AI, fintech, enterprise services, healthcare and other technology-intensive industries in particular, as well as opportunities arising from the new consumption era.

Public Equity Capital Markets: CE WM continues to be optimistic but also cautious about the A-share and H-share markets. Some stock markets in emerging economies will also benefit from the mild global economic recovery. The asset pricing fluctuation caused by geopolitical instability and economic volatility will create investment opportunities for CTA and quantitative investment strategies.

Global Real Estate: The domestic real estate market is witnessing a shift from "expanding" (new developments) to "upgrading" (existing properties). Innovators in global markets have created new demand and access paths for more property investors, such as light-industrial/logistics sector developments, long-lease apartments, etc. Residential apartments in the larger cities in Australia, Britain and America have both long-term growth potential backed by stable economic growth, sound property rights laws and strong demand from both owner-occupiers and investors.

Onshore Fixed Income: A combination of regulatory policy changes and continuous market improvement should lead to an improvement in the quality of underlying assets and returns. The reform of multiple industries should give rise to creation of new fixed income issuance, enabling quality managers to construct portfolios with high diversification and low correlation.

Offshore Private Credit: Private credit comprises a valuable part of a balanced portfolio in the sense that it provides great risk diversification. Attractive sub-sectors include direct lending and select mezzanine strategies, and access is recommended via proven managers who can add value both in terms of asset sourcing and transaction structuring.

Insurance: The insurance industry is one in which technology is playing a more and more important role, and technology-driven efficiencies and high yielding underlying assets are expected to enhance investment-linked insurance products returns. In addition to their investment function, insurance products are increasingly being recognized as a valuable wealth inheritance and succession tool for high-net-worth individuals.

FOF - the path to long-term victory in asset allocation

CreditEase Wealth Management believes that as the global economy and political environments may be faced with unexpected developments in 2018, these developments will give rise to both attractive opportunities and hidden risks, including the risk of another round of asset bubbles. In the future, short-term speculation will be less sustainable, and investors will be better served by long-term investment, value investing, global asset allocation and tech-based investment - all key trends which will prevail in the Chinese wealth management market.

HNWIs should take positive steps to enhance their current wealth management approach, which means a transition away from sole focus on the Chinese market, and a small number of asset classes, towards a more visionary, internationalized asset allocation solution, encompassing multiple asset classes. CreditEase Wealth Management suggests that investors should adhere to asset allocation and long-term investment strategies to construct a multi-asset-class portfolio comprising traditional stock and debt allocation, in addition to a variety of alternative assets.

Dr. Randolph B. Cohen, scholar at Harvard Business School and MIT, believes that for most investors, FOF is the best way to invest in alternative assets.

FOF can diversify investments across multiple top-class investment funds, including VC, PE, real estate and hedge funds, which further diversify across a variety of sub-sectors and investment strategies. This approach reduces the risk of loss incurred by volatility within a single fund, and establishes a more effective long-term asset allocation strategy.

In its 2017 Asset Allocation Strategy Guidance CreditEase Wealth Management emphasized the "Three Golden Principles" for asset allocation (i.e. cross-region allocation, cross-asset-class allocation, and overweight in alternative assets by FOF), and helped investors enjoy a year of robust returns in 2017. Being overweight in FOFs helped investors avoid single-project risks, and over-concentration in a single stock or asset.

Ning Tang, founder and CEO of CreditEase Wealth Management, shared his views in the Guidance, noting that, "The new economy in the new era has two characteristics: one is the focus on quality, rather than quantity; the other is a focus on tech innovation. FOF is the best way for Chinese HNW and UHNW individuals to embrace the new economy, invest in the new economy and enjoy their share of benefits from the new economy."

Remarks:

The 2018 Asset Allocation Strategy Guidance was prepared by the CreditEase Wealth Management Asset Allocation Committee, with a focus on three areas:

Research-focused: In-depth observations on the Chinese economy by veteran Chinese economists, as well as comprehensive viewpoints on the world's major economies and markets sourced via CreditEase Wealth Management's global partner network. Experience-focused: Sector-specific in-depth allocation strategies building on the experience of external asset management partners and asset class leaders at CreditEase Wealth Management. Practically-focused: Guidance on allocation percentages for each major asset class, to enable investors to review and assess their own portfolios for improvement and optimization.

The CE WM's Asset Allocation Committee is comprised of over a dozen experts around the world. Some are investment & research experts of multiple asset classes, and some are top-class expert consultants in the global asset management industry (e.g. Zhou Quan, Senior Partner, IDG Capital Partners, and Wang Qing, Chief Investment Officer, Shanghai Chongyang Investment). All Committee members are well established in their respective research fields, which include global public equity capital markets, PE, hedge funds, real estate investment, corporate finance, fixed income, asset securitization, insurance, immigration and family offices.

About CreditEase Wealth Management

CreditEase Wealth Management, the wealth management arm of CreditEase, is committed to provide professional global asset allocation services, wealth management and investment advisory services for Chinese high-net-worth individuals. It offers holistic wealth management products and services, including but not limited to onshore/offshore quasi-fixed income, PE, capital markets, hedge funds, real estate, insurance and protection, investment immigration advisory, study tours & education. It has multiple-currency products, such as RMB, USD, Euro, etc.

SOURCE CreditEase Wealth ManagementCHICAGO, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Crispin Cider Co., known for its portfolio of ciders made with fresh-pressed apples and pears, has declared that in 2018, the popular phrase "rose all day" becomes "rose all year" with the introduction of its latest offering, Crispin Rose. Crafted with real rose petals, hibiscus, and an elegant blend of fresh-pressed juices made from hand-picked apples and pears from the Pacific Northwest, Crispin Rose is available nationwide in six-packs of 12-ounce bottles. Beginning in March, Crispin Rose will also be offered on tap at select locations.

Crispin Rose Cider

Crispin Rose is crisp with a dry finish, featuring a dusty rose color and a light floral aroma of rose wine. Combining the refreshment and crispness of a cider with the beauty of rose, Crispin Rose is an easy to drink option for both wine and cider lovers alike. In addition, Crispin Rose comes in beautifully designed, modern packaging, serving as the perfect option to bring along to social occasions like brunch or nights in with friends.

"We have a big opportunity with Crispin Rose with female drinkers. We've been listening to and following them for a while, so we're excited to finally bring female drinkers a rose cider with quality ingredients that only Crispin can provide," said Ashley Selman, vice president of brand marketing. "Rose is a popular and ever-growing drink, and we've definitely seen our existing Crispin fans react positively to our new Rose."

To celebrate the launch of Crispin Rose, the company will host a kick-off event Saturday, February 24, in New York City, bringing a rare summertime moment to an otherwise wintry day. Hosted at a popular Manhattan rooftop bar with heated domes, the event will feature Crispin Rose, brunch bites, music and more. In addition to the launch, Crispin Rose will be supported with a national campaign, including traditional and digital media efforts, in-store sampling events and public relations.

Drinkers are encouraged to share how they #RoseAllYear by following @CrispinCider on Instagram. For more information and to find Crispin Rose and other brands within the Crispin Cider portfolio near you, please visit https://www.crispincider.com/.

ABOUT MILLERCOORS

Through its diverse collection of storied breweries, MillerCoors brings American beer drinkers an unmatched selection of the highest quality beers, flavored malt beverages and ciders, steeped in centuries of brewing heritage. Miller Brewing Company and Coors Brewing Company brew national favorites such as Miller Lite, Miller High Life, Coors Light and Coors Banquet. MillerCoors also proudly offers beers such as Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy from sixth-generation Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company, and Blue Moon Belgian White from modern craft pioneer Blue Moon Brewing Company, founded in 1995. Beyond beer, MillerCoors operates Crispin Cider Company, an artisanal maker of pear and apple ciders using fresh-pressed American juice, and offers pioneering brands such as the Redd's franchise, Smith & Forge Hard Cider and Henry's Hard Sodas. Tenth and Blake Beer Company, our craft and import division, is the home to craft brewers Hop Valley Brewing, Revolver Brewing, Saint Archer Brewing Company and the Terrapin Beer Company. Tenth and Blake also imports world-renowned beers such as Italy's Peroni Nastro Azzurro, the Czech Republic's Pilsner Urquell and the Netherlands' Grolsch. MillerCoors, the U.S. business unit of the Molson Coors Brewing Company, has an uncompromising dedication to quality, a keen focus on innovation and a deep commitment to sustainability. Learn more at MillerCoors.com, at facebook.com/MillerCoors or on Twitter at @MillerCoors.

SOURCE Crispin Cider Company

Related Links

https://www.crispincider.com

WARWICK, R.I., Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- InsureMyTrip, the travel insurance authority, today announced the results of its travel survey of 2,289 U.S. respondents. The poll reveals that a vast majority of cruisers have experienced some kind of travel itinerary disruption during a trip. Twenty-four percent polled had filed a travel insurance claim for a cruise-related issue. Health reasons also led the majority of those claims with travelers.

Summary

Illness or injury affecting a trip is a top concern for most cruisers

Medical issues drive majority of travel insurance claims

Cruise itinerary and reviews are key deciding factors when booking a cruise

The Caribbean and Europe are preferred destinations for cruisers

Getting sick or injured tops concerns

Cruisers are more concerned about an illness or injury affecting a trip than bad weather or terrorism. Fifty-two percent worry most about themselves or a family member getting sick or injured (3 percent increase from last year). Twenty-nine percent worry most about bad weather affecting a cruise. Twenty-four percent have experienced seasickness or a stomach illness during a voyage.

Tip: When comparing travel insurance, look for a comprehensive travel insurance plan that includes emergency medical coverage and trip interruption coverage.

Unexpected schedule changes are common

During a voyage, 38 percent experienced an unexpected itinerary change. Despite this type of disruption, most cruisers are pleased with their overall experience. Sixty-one percent stated a cruise always met their expectations.

Tip: When comparing travel insurance, look for a comprehensive travel insurance plan geared for cruisers.

Itinerary and reputation are deciding factor when choosing a cruise

The cruise itinerary (60%) is the top reason why travelers choose to book a particular cruise. Other top factors included reputation and reviews (17%). Price (14%) is also a consideration.

Trip cancellations, medical issues top claims

Travelers, who voluntarily participated in this survey, had all researched or purchased travel insurance within the past 24 months. Out of those polled, 24 percent had filed a travel insurance claim for a cruise-related issue. Here are common reasons for filing a claim:

Medical care required during a cruise Medical issue forced a trip cancellation Bad weather forced a delay or cancellation of cruise Missed flight led to a delay or cancellation of cruise Items were stolen or lost during a trip

Tip: Comprehensive travel insurance provides a variety of benefits including emergency medical coverage, emergency travel services, baggage protection, and trip cancellation and interruption coverage.

More understand domestic health insurance abroad

This year, cruisers report a better understanding of whether their health insurance works outside the US. Thirty-six percent said their domestic health insurance would provide coverage, while 37 percent believed their insurance plan would offer no coverage. Twenty-seven percent polled were not sure whether their domestic health insurance plan would cover any doctor or hospital visits while traveling out of the country, a decrease when comparing results from last year.

Tip: It is important for travelers to know about any limitations of domestic health insurance for emergency medical coverage while out of the country. In most cases, there are gaps in coverage. Some gaps are significant. Travel insurance is recommended because it can act as supplemental or primary coverage and also provide emergency medical evacuation coverage.

River cruising maintains momentum

Eighty-one percent of those polled have either been on a river cruise or would like to go on a river cruise. Eleven percent have no desire to go.

The Caribbean and Europe are hot spots

The Caribbean and Europe are favorite cruise destinations while 12 percent chose Alaska as a top place to visit.

35.4% Europe

33.9% Caribbean

12.4% Alaska

18.2% Other

Topic Expert:

Meghan Walch

401-773-9210

[email protected]

Methodology

The data presented in this analysis comes from customer survey results. For more information on the methodology or to request additional research, contact the IMT Research team.

InsureMyTrip

It's simple. InsureMyTrip finds you the right travel insurance plan, every time.

InsureMyTrip is the authority on travel insurance. We are committed to empowering travelers to make the best possible insurance decisions by leveraging our technology, data intelligence, and expertise.

SOURCE InsureMyTrip

Related Links

http://www.insuremytrip.com

SEOUL, South Korea, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- DOF Inc has launched the 'SHARP 2 PLUS', an upgraded version of its five-axis milling machine 'SHARP2-5X'.

The newly released 'SHARP2 PLUS' is a five-axis milling machine for both dental laboratories and dental clinics. It allows for precise fabrication regardless of the shape of the dental prosthesis. This All-In-1 Machine incorporates an integrated dust collector, air compressor and coolant system for convenience and versatility. For faster and stable processing, this product also incorporates an embedded computer and touch screen monitor. It features a high frequency electric spindle and low vibration due to its steel reinforced frame. The Sharp2 PLUS All-In-1 Machine allows for milling of virtually all dry materials, glass ceramics and titanium preforms.

An official of DOF explained, "With the SHARP2 PLUS, we have taken another step closer to the 'All-In-1 milling machine', which is the motto of DOF's milling machines," while adding, "We will continue to work hard for even more stable fabrication and user convenience."

DOF Inc. is a leading company in the global dental CAD-CAM market based on its innovative technologies. It proprietarily developed the 3D scanners 'Freedom HD', 'Swing' and 'Prime', and the five-axis milling machine 'Sharp2 PLUS', which are being exported to over 70 countries around the world including Europe, USA and Japan. The products manufactured in 2015 and 2016 were recognized for its reliability by shipping over 20 sets each to the US Navy.

DOF, which is on its way to becoming one of the top dental equipment manufacturers by recording high growth rates every year, manufacturing milling machines, sintering furnaces, and zirconia blocks in addition to 3D scanners to offer total package solutions for milling. It is also counting down to the launching of the new face scanner, 'SNAP' in the first half of 2018.

SOURCE DOF IncThe Diabetes Research, Education, and Action for Minorities , or DREAM trial, took place in several neighborhoods throughout New York City heavily populated by Bangladeshi-Americans, who have a notably higher rate of Type 2 diabetes than the general U.S. population. The study participants were randomly assigned to either a control group or a group that participated in several educations sessions with community health workers.

After six months, over 55% of those in the intervention group had blood sugar levels of seven percent or less--a measure of Type 2 diabetes management also known as Hemoglobin A1c levels--compared to 42% in the control group.

"This is the first study of a community-based program to help New York City's Bangladeshi community control diabetes," says Nadia S. Islam, PhD, principal investigator of DREAM and associate professor of Population Health at NYU School of Medicine. "To the broader issue of disease management, these results add to a growing body of evidence showing that community health worker programs are a low cost and effective strategy for controlling certain chronic diseases."

Bangladeshi immigrants make up the fastest growing segment of South Asians in the U.S., numbering over 3.4 million -- with a majority living in New York City. Foreign-born South Asians also are at greater risk of diabetes than the general population. A recent study in New York City concluded that 35% of South Asians had Type 2 diabetes while another study in California found a prevalence of 29% -- compared to a rate of slightly more than 9% among the general U.S. population.

The researchers attribute this unusually high incidence of Type 2 diabetes to several factors: heredity, economic hardship, language barriers, and illiteracy and culture differences. These, in turn, create barriers to adequate healthcare.

To help overcome these barriers, the researchers developed intervention and health education programs led by community-based health workers, who were hired and trained by centers like NYU Langone, and who often come from the same ethnic background and communities as the populations they serve.

"They understand specific challenges and tailor interventions appropriately, facilitating a community's involvement in its own care," said Chau Trinh-Shevrin, DrPH, associate professor of Population Health at NYU School of Medicine and the study's senior investigator. "Community-based health workers build on existing bonds and encourage leadership around health."

How the Trial Was Conducted

The DREAM study enrolled 336 participants who identified as Bangladeshis; resided in New York City; were between 21 and 75 years old; and had a confirmed diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes -- defined as a hemoglobin A1c level of 6.5 percent or higher.

The researchers randomly assigned 176 participants into an intervention group that participated in five, two-hour monthly educational sessions led by bilingual Bangladeshi health workers, covering topics including nutrition and healthy eating; physical activity; complications of Type 2 diabetes; preventive self-care; and stress management and family support. Each individual also participated in two, one-on-one visits where they set individual health goals.

The other 160 participants were assigned to a control group, who were invited only to the first educational session, an overview of diabetes.

At end of the trial period, 36.3% of the intervention group achieved control or stabilization of their hemoglobin A1c levels (defined as under seven percent) compared with 24.6% of the control group. In addition, 55.2% of intervention group also had decreased A1c levels at the end of the study, compared to 42.5% in the control group.

The researchers also found that both the intervention and control groups reported overall changes in behavior, including increased diabetes knowledge, increased weekly physical activity, and weekly monitoring of blood sugar. "This suggests that even minimal community engagement around health made an impact," Islam says.

In addition to Islam and Trinh-Shevrin, additional study authors include Laura C. Wyatt, MPH, and MD Taher, MPH, Department of Population Health, NYU School of Medicine; Lindsey Riley, MPH, The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research; S. Darius Tandon, PhD, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine; and Michael Tanner, MD, Department of Medicine, NYU School of Medicine.

Media Contacts: Jim Mandler

Sr. Director, Media Relations

[email protected]

Phone: 212-404-3525

Mobile: 347-714-3768

This news release was issued on behalf of Newswise(TM). For more information, visit http://www.newswise.com.

SOURCE NYU Langone HealthNEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Ernst & Young LLP (EY) announced that Citizen, a strategic digital design firm based in Portland, Oregon, has joined EY. The incoming team will complement the EY U.S. consulting business, particularly in customer experience and design, as well as expand the company's West Coast digital consulting presence.

Citizen is well-regarded as a strategic innovation, design and digital consultancy that helps companies envision and create opportunities that improve business function and customer experience. These strengths will enhance EY's existing capabilities across several areas, including strategy, digital transformation, cybersecurity, analytics, virtual and augmented reality, and technology solutions.

"At EY, we believe that a better working world means addressing complex digital strategy and execution issues to deliver outcomes that grow, innovate and protect our clients' businesses," said Kris Pederson, head of Strategy & Customer, Americas for EY Advisory. "Our union with Citizen will enable our client teams to deliver more cutting-edge solutions so they can navigate the transformative age with courage and confidence, and with a stronger digital toolset."

"We share EY's dedication to quality and strong client service," said Jenny Moede, Executive Director, formerly CEO of Citizen. "Our team is fearless when facing complex business challenges; we design user-focused digital experiences that drive positive change for our clients and their customers. This approach mirrors the EY purpose of building a better working world. Citizen and EY are a great match, we are complementary organizations with shared values and a strong, aligned, strategic view of the future."

Citizen's Portland headquarters will leverage the state-of-the-art EY wavespace network to convene clients and thought leaders and facilitate collaboration. The EY wavespace global growth and innovation network brings together multi-disciplinary talents, unique capabilities and IP, in collaborative, interactive working environments. The network focuses on disruptive growth, improvement strategies and technologies that impact specific industries.

The Citizen team also bolsters EY's ongoing investment in the West Coast consulting marketplace. In 2016, EY expanded its West Coast presence by joining forces with Seattle-based Society Consulting, an analytics and big data consultancy.

"Part of thriving in the transformative age requires being better connected," noted Fran Exley, Customer and Digital Experience Lead, Americas for EY Advisory. "By teaming up with Citizen, we connect the world class technical talent on the West Coast with the creativity and experience of our entire organization, empowering our clients' innovation agenda and their large scale digital transformation."

About EY Advisory Services

As better-connected consultants we help our clients navigate the Transformative Age. We do this by connecting the talents, creativity and experience of our entire organization and alliances. This enables us to ask the better questions and find answers to some of the world's toughest challenges and build a better working world.

About EY

EY is a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services. The insights and quality services we deliver help build trust and confidence in the capital markets and in economies the world over. We develop outstanding leaders who team to deliver on our promises to all of our stakeholders. In so doing, we play a critical role in building a better working world for our people, for our clients and for our communities.

EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. For more information about our organization, please visit ey.com.

This news release has been issued by Ernst & Young LLP, a member firm of EY serving clients in the U.S.

SOURCE EY

Related Links

http://www.ey.com

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Discover the World USA has been appointed to represent Great Events UK, a DMC specialised in professional travel and destination management in London, Cambridge and the South of England.

Fergus Wilson, Business Development Manager at Great Events UK explains, "Great Events UK specialises in delivering totally unique and customised itineraries for UK bound MICE, group travel and leisure industries. With 20 years of experience working with our domestic clients, we are excited to be partnering with Discover the World to be able to offer our unrivalled knowledge, connections and expertise to the US market. Their proactive sales strategy, the time taken to understand us, our objectives, our product and expertise, as well as their deep knowledge and close connections with the US outbound market made Discover the World an easy choice when seeking overseas representation."

"We are excited to represent this truly exceptional Destination Management Service and help further develop awareness of their brand within the US market," said Ian Murray, Executive Vice President Discover the World. "Our Discover the World operation continues to grow, and we are delighted to represent Great Events UK. MICE is a vibrant and fast-growing sector and we will be using our contacts and expertise to generate new business for Great Events across the US."

For more information about Discover the World, visit discovertheworld.com or call (480) 707-5566 or +44 203 598 8030.

About Discover the World

Discover the World has earned a reputation as a leader in global travel distribution and its success in developing a worldwide network of 85 offices in more than 60 countries capable of exceptional representation performance is unmatched. With a portfolio of nearly 100 clients utilizing its sales, marketing and business process outsourcing services, Discover the World remains a dominant innovator for the travel industry.

About Great Events UK

Great Events UK is known for their unprecedented local knowledge, resources and team of experts to help organise unforgettable corporate events for clients. Whether the client is looking for a tailored meeting, a conference, or an incentive programme, Great Events UK will deliver a unique, bespoke experience with exclusive rates due to their buying power in the UK market. Their services include excursions, tours, activities, hotel bookings, dining and transfers. For more information, please visit www.greateventsuk.com.

SOURCE Discover the World

Related Links

http://www.discovertheworld.com

RICHMOND, Va., Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- This year's Dominion Energy ArtStars award-winners are brightening communities and inspiring a whole new generation of talented students and performers across Virginia. The five non-profit organizations being honored as 2018 Dominion Energy ArtStars will be granted $10,000 each for bringing outstanding arts or cultural education into K-12 schools.

"ArtStars allows us to acknowledge the important efforts of smaller, community-based arts organizations to inspire young people and enliven communities with art, song, dance, theater and more," said Hunter A. Applewhite, president of the Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation.

The following ArtStars winners and their exceptional programs were recognized at the 2018 Virginia Commission for the Arts 50th Anniversary Program held in Richmond today:

ART 180 provides free art programs to young people in challenging circumstances at partner organizations and its own teen center in the Jackson Ward neighborhood of Richmond . See how ART 180 is helping students gain confidence and find their creative voices.

provides free art programs to young people in challenging circumstances at partner organizations and its own teen center in the Jackson Ward neighborhood of . See how ART 180 is helping students gain confidence and find their creative voices. Light House Studio in Charlottesville , a nonprofit filmmaking center, hosts 134 workshops for students in the Shenandoah region to develop their vision and build their creative skills. See how Light House Studio is empowering youth to express themselves in positive ways.

in a nonprofit filmmaking center, hosts 134 workshops for students in the region to develop their vision and build their creative skills. See how Light House Studio is empowering youth to express themselves in positive ways. Sandler Center for the Performing Arts provides access for students in grades Pre-K through 8 to live performances throughout the academic year in Virginia Beach .

provides access for students in grades Pre-K through 8 to live performances throughout the academic year in . Signature Theatre of Arlington uses theater to engage 2,000 high school students in the arts while strengthening key academic skills in literacy and critical thinking.

of uses theater to engage 2,000 high school students in the arts while strengthening key academic skills in literacy and critical thinking. Virginia's Heritage Music Trail in Abingdon incorporates traditional Appalachian music instruction in southwest Virginia schools.

About Dominion Energy

Dominion Energy (NYSE: D), headquartered in Richmond, is one of the nation's largest producers and transporters of energy. The Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation is dedicated to improving the physical, social and economic well-being of the communities served by Dominion Energy. The foundation supports nonprofit causes that meet basic human needs, protect the environment, promote education and encourage community vitality. For more information, visit the company's website at www.dominionenergy.com

SOURCE Dominion Energy

Related Links

http://www.dominionenergy.com

NEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- DoubleVerify, the leading independent provider of digital media measurement software and analytics, announced the opening of their new offices in Singapore, to accelerate the company's growth across the Asia-Pacifc region. In conjunction, Jordan Khoo has been appointed Managing Director, APAC, to lead the expanded operations across the region. These initiatives mark DoubleVerify's latest advancements in promoting digital media quality and brand safety on an international scale.

"DoubleVerify's expansion into Asia is a natural next step for our company," said Wayne Gattinella, president and CEO. "We are committed to delivering a seamless solution that protects the brand safety and media integrity of our clients around the globe. I'm excited to welcome Jordan Khoo, who has the industry experience and market knowledge to quickly contribute to our Asia-Pacific growth."

Khoo comes to DoubleVerify with nearly two decades in digital marketing and business development across the Asia-Pacific region. Khoo previously served as Vice President-APAC for Sizmek/MediaMind for the last 11 years. During his tenure he helped build and grow strong relationships with brands, agencies and digital media platforms across the region.

"Today's media landscape has made brand safety and digital ad fraud a highly visible issue around the world," said Khoo. "I look forward to supporting our customers and partners in the region to drive better ROI from their digital media investment and protecting their brand equity."

About DoubleVerify

DoubleVerify is the leading independent provider of marketing measurement software, data and analytics that authenticates the quality and effectiveness of digital media for the world's largest brands and media platforms. DV provides media transparency and accountability to deliver the highest level of impression quality for maximum advertising performance. Since 2008, DV has helped hundreds of Fortune 500 companies gain the most from their media spend by delivering best in class solutions across the digital ecosystem that help build a better industry. Learn more at doubleverify.com.

Press Contact

Susan Zemlyakova

212-631-2022

[email protected]

SOURCE DoubleVerify

Related Links

http://www.doubleverify.com

SAN DIEGO, Jan. 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Shareholder rights law firm Johnson Fistel, LLP has launched an investigation into whether the board members of Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Inc. (NYSE: DPS) ("Dr Pepper") breached their fiduciary duties in connection with the proposed merger of the Company with Keurig Green Mountain, Inc. ("Keurig").

On January 29, 2018, Dr Pepper announced that it had signed a definitive merger agreement with Keurig. Under the terms of the agreement, Dr Pepper shareholders will receive $103.75 per share in a special cash dividend and retain 13% of the combined company.

The investigation concerns whether the Dr Pepper board failed to satisfy its duties to the Company shareholders, including whether the board adequately pursued alternatives to the merger and whether the board obtained the best price possible for Dr Pepper shares of common stock.

If you are a shareholder of Dr Pepper and believe the proposed merger price is too low or you're interested in learning more about the investigation or your legal rights and remedies, please contact lead analyst Jim Baker ( [email protected] ) at 619-814-4471. If emailing, please include a phone number.

About Johnson Fistel, LLP:

Johnson Fistel, LLP is a nationally recognized shareholder rights law firm with offices in California, New York and Georgia. The firm represents individual and institutional investors in shareholder derivative and securities class action lawsuits. For more information about the firm and its attorneys, please visit http://www.johnsonfistel.com . Attorney advertising. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.

Contact:

Johnson Fistel, LLP

Jim Baker, 619-814-4471

[email protected]

SOURCE Johnson Fistel, LLP

Related Links

https://www.johnsonfistel.com

NEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- E-J Electric T&D, the transmission and distribution affiliate of E-J Electric Installation Co., is proud to announce its mutual aid assistance commitment, along with Con Edison, to restore electricity back to students at The Academia Bautista de Puerto Nuevo in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Regarded as one of the worst natural disasters in Puerto Rico, Hurricane Maria made landfall on September 20, 2017 leaving millions without electricity and widespread destruction. Students at The Academia Bautista were without power for 112 days before the E-J Electric team, along with Con Edison, provided electrical restoration services to their school. The celebration that erupted among teachers and students following the return of electricity in their beloved school can be viewed here.

"The unprecedented impact of the devastation and destruction Hurricane Maria left behind is unimaginable," said E-J Electric President & CEO Anthony E. Mann. "Our team was honored to work with Con Edison to restore power at The Academia Bautista. In times like these we are all reminded of the importance of coming together to help those in need."

Previous Disaster Relief Efforts

Following the record-breaking Hurricane Irma storm, E-J Electric T&D sent 150-line workers and 75 pieces of equipment to assist Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) and Duke Energy in relief efforts throughout Florida. The E-J Electric team provided major power line repairs, helping millions of people who were left without power across the state.

E-J Electric T&D's Commitment to Service

E-J Electric T&D was established in 2012 to assist with emergency restorations in the northeast region, as well as other nearby areas impacted by storms and unexpected weather patterns.

"While we focus on the northeast region, we never hesitate to provide our services to other areas when disasters strike," said E-J Electric T&D General Manager Joe Rubino. "The E-J Electric team has aided areas in Ohio, Michigan, Texas, Florida and Georgia, and will continue to do so whenever we can."

About E-J Electric Installation Co.

E-J Electric Installation Co., is active in all facets of electric contracting. Projects vary in size to over $200 million. Typical installations include: office buildings, hospitals, power plants, co-generation facilities, roadway and outdoor specialty, airports, industrial plants, universities, sport stadiums, transit facilities and high voltage distribution. At E-J Electric Installation Co., three family generations of practical expertise have created an organization keyed to the most modern technological advances in providing rapid and efficient solutions to today's lighting, power, energy and communication needs. E-J has a 119-year reputation for unparalleled integrity, quality and service in the electrical field. Please visit our website at www.ej1899.com to learn about the company.

SOURCE E-J Electric T&D

Related Links

http://www.ej1899.com

BOSTON, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Eaton Vance Management (International) Limited (EVMI), a subsidiary of Eaton Vance Corp. (NYSE: EV), today announced an agreement to hire a five-person global fixed-income team led by Astrid Vogler that was formerly employed by Oechsle International Advisors, LLC (Oechsle), a privately held investment manager. The team joins Eaton Vance Management's Global Income group, which is co-led by Michael Cirami, CFA, and Eric Stein, CFA. Ms. Vogler joins as vice president and lead portfolio manager of EVMI, reporting to Messrs. Cirami and Stein. Roman Kostal joins as vice president and portfolio manager, reporting to Ms. Vogler. The team currently advises approximately $830 million and will continue to be based in Frankfurt, Germany.

"The hiring of the former Oechsle fixed-income team in Frankfurt is a meaningful extension of our global fixed-income investment management and client service capabilities," said Payson F. Swaffield, CFA, Chief Income Investment Officer, Eaton Vance Management. "Located in the largest economy in the eurozone, the team's focus on developed fixed-income markets globally complements our strong research and investment capabilities in emerging and frontier markets."

The Frankfurt global income team will continue to advise its legacy client mandates, which have been assumed by Eaton Vance.

"Establishing a branch office in Germany positions Eaton Vance to better address client needs globally and enhances the service levels we can provide clients across Europe," said Thomas Body, business development director for Germany and Austria at EVMI. "Astrid and her team share a common investment philosophy with the Eaton Vance Global Income group and will benefit from access to the group's world-class 24-hour trading capability, further positioning us for investment success and future growth."

With the addition of the Frankfurt team, the Eaton Vance Global Income group now comprises 45 employees in four locations around the world and manages $17 billion in client assets. The group employs a disciplined approach to analyzing global capital markets to identify incremental return opportunities in both rising and falling interest-rate environments. The group's strategy focuses on fundamental country analysis, rigorous security selection, portfolio construction and trade implementation, and a disciplined approach to risk management.

Prior to joining Eaton Vance, Ms. Vogler was a Principal and Head of Fixed Income at Oechsle for 27 years. Before joining Oechsle, she was a Vice President at ABD International Management Corporation, a subsidiary of Dresdner Bank. Ms. Vogler began her investment career more than 30 years ago at Dresdner Bank, initially serving as an investment advisor to private clients.

Mr. Kostal was a Principal and Fixed Income Portfolio Manager and Research Analyst at Oechsle for 17 years. He previously served as a portfolio manager and analyst on the global fixed-income team for Deutsche Asset Management in Frankfurt. Mr. Kostal has more than 20 years of investment experience, beginning his career at Nicholas Stark Bank in Regensburg, Germany.

About Eaton Vance

Eaton Vance Corp. (NYSE: EV) is a leading global asset manager whose history dates to 1924. With offices in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia, Eaton Vance and its affiliates managed $432.3 billion ($USD) as of December 31, 2017, offering individuals and institutions a broad array of investment strategies and wealth management solutions. The Company's long record of providing exemplary service, timely innovation and attractive returns through a variety of market conditions has made Eaton Vance the investment manager of choice for many of today's most discerning investors. For more information, visit eatonvance.com.

Eaton Vance Management (International) Limited (EVMI) is registered in England and Wales. Registered Office: 125 Old Broad Street, London, EC2N 1AR. EVMI is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the United Kingdom. EVMI's branch office in Germany has been approved as a branch office by the Bundesanstalt fur Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht (BaFin).

SOURCE Eaton Vance Corp.

Related Links

http://www.eatonvance.com

CHICAGO, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Packback, developer of AI-powered learning communities popular among college faculty, announced today that it has raised $4.2 million in a Series A funding round led by leading edtech investor University Ventures, with participation from previous investors including Mark Cuban, Wintrust Ventures, and Wildcat Capital.

"Faculty have embraced Packback's unique approach because it is rooted in pedagogical practices that we know work, but are often hard to scale," said Professor Dr. Matt J. Goren of the University of Georgia. "Packback has helped me foster a rich, interactive dialogue with individual students in ways that cultivate curiosity and enhanced learning. It's also made it possible to incorporate - and grade - meaningful discussion in my classroom of over 2,000 students a year."

Packback's core product is an AI-powered online discussion platform used by over 100 U.S. universities, which allows students to engage in rigorous academic discourse as a core part of their instructor's curriculum and coursework. The platform enables faculty to make use of the Socratic Method within large lectures or online classes, drawing upon Packback's unique algorithms to quantify and improve difficult-to-measure behaviors such as critical thinking and curiosity, all through analyzing a student's written questions and responses. By incorporating elements of gamification, including points and leaderboards, Packback draws upon social influence to engage students and facilitate thoughtful interaction with peers.

"We want to awaken the curiosity that lies dormant in so many students today. By providing them with a space to ask the big 'What if' questions, we challenge students to think more deeply and critically about the world around them," said Mike Shannon, Co-Founder and CEO of Packback. "Students in our discussion groups encourage and challenge one another by reading and responding to each other's questions and answers, and nominating ideas that 'spark' their curiosity."

Packback's unique, human-assisted approach to AI uses feedback from college professors to train models and data sets. Its popularity among educators stems, in part, from its reliance on best practices from cognitive science and inquiry-based learning, including well-known cognitive framework Bloom's Taxonomy.

"Packback's commitment to supporting faculty with tools that enable them to engage students in thoughtful, rich interactions is well aligned with our mission," said Troy Williams, Managing Director of University Ventures. "It's about moving students from asking 'What do I need to do to pass?' into provocative discussions that encourage peer feedback. Students are inherently engaged and curious. And it's the student who can ask a great question that will know how to bridge today's educational experiences to tomorrow's challenges."

About Packback

Packback creates AI-powered learning communities for professors that improve critical thinking and support curiosity in students. Packback supports engaging academic discourse, as the AI automates time-intensive activities required to maintain, moderate, and facilitate a valuable discussion. To learn more, visit www.packback.co.

SOURCE PackbackNEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Throughout 2017, Eminence Organic Skin Care was humbled by the many honors they received in both the professional industry and among consumer media. The natural, organic and Biodynamic skin care company celebrates several accomplishments and milestones reached in the past year. Some of these moments include:

Celebrating one year as the first professional skin care company in the world to become a Certified B Corporation  ;

to become a Certified B Corporation ; Providing over 50,000 organic meals to sick children in three countries to aid in their healing and long-lasting health through the Eminence Kids Foundation;

in three countries to aid in their healing and long-lasting health through the Eminence Kids Foundation; And opening a 5 th chapter in Charleston, South Carolina !

chapter in ! 9 million trees planted through their Forests for the Future program, in which the brand plants a tree for every retail product sold in developing countries around the world;

through their Forests for the Future program, in which the brand plants a tree for every retail product sold in developing countries around the world; Welcomed visitors to explore the beautiful, award-winning heritage landmark, the Eminence Organic Farm, in Hungary , to discover where and how certified organic ingredients are grown.

In December, Eminence rounded out the year receiving several rewarding titles as voted by spa industry professionals, announced in the leading trade publication, American Spa.

Eminence Organic Skin Care received multiple 2017 Professional's Choice Awards, being voted as 'Favorite Skin Care Line' for an unprecedented nine years in a row. The brand's American Spa wins also include, 'Favorite Company for Product Education' for nine years in a row and 'Favorite All-Natural Line' for eight years in a row. This year, more than 6,000 decision-makers from day, destination, medical, and resort spas around the world cast their vote via survey. Eminence Organic Skin Care is the first company in the spa industry to ever win these consecutive years of awards.

This milestone achievement adds to the growing list of accolades the brand has received in 2017, which include:

 Associated Skin Care Professionals/Skin Deep Reader's Choice Awards  Healthline Best Beauty Blogs  Beauty Launchpad Reader's Choice Awards  Les Nouvelles Esthetiques & Spa Best of 2017  Elite Magazine Green Beauty Awards  OK! Magazine Beauty Awards  Beauty Shortlist Awards 2017  Men's Fitness Looking Great Grooming Awards  DaySpa Professional's Choice Awards  New You Beauty Awards  Dermascope Aestheticians' Choice Awards  NewBeauty Beauty Choice Awards  Healing Lifestyles Earth Day Beauty Awards  Spirituality & Health The Beauty 100



 Yoga Journal Best of 2017

Award-winning products span the collection, including the Stone Crop Hydrating Gel, Lotus Detoxifying Overnight Treatment (a new launch in 2017!), Bamboo Age Corrective Masque, Stone Crop Gel Wash, Clear Skin Targeted Treatment, Stone Crop Hydrating Mist, Rosehip and Lemongrass Lip Balm SPF 15, Stone Crop Cleansing Oil, Bamboo Firming Fluid and Clear Skin Probiotic Cleanser.

Eminence also had an outstanding presence at the 2017 International Spa Association (ISPA) Conference and Expo. The company was recognized for an unprecedented third year in a row, this time as a 2017 ISPA Innovate Award Winner: Products for the Age Corrective Ultra Collection. President Boldijarre Koronczay also presented an engaging and thought-provoking session to share the Age Corrective Ultra Collection's award-winning skin care technologies and the brand's lasting impact on the spa industry.

Eminence Organic Skin Care appreciates all the continued support, love and acknowledgments from their spa, charity and media partners and friends  and their dedicated fans, for being a part of the company's continued success.

About Eminence Organic Skin Care

An award-winning provider of the most effective, professional skin care products in the natural and organic skin care industry,Eminence Organic Skin Care is sold in leading salons and spas in more than 50 countries around the world. Eminence melds herbal craftsmanship and innovation, skin rejuvenation techniques unique to Hungary and hand-picked fresh ingredients to craft premium natural, organic and Biodynamic skin care that is good for the earth as well as good for the skin. Eminence - a Certified B Corporation - displays its commitment to the environment by harnessing wind and solar power energy to produce products in the laboratory, using recyclable packaging printed with vegetable-based inks and committing to planting a tree for every product sold. Visit www.eminenceorganics.com and https://www.bcorporation.net/community/eminence-organic-skin-care-inc for more information.

Instagram: @EminenceOrganics

Twitter: @EminenceOrganic

Facebook: @EminenceOrganicSkinCare

SOURCE Eminence Organic Skin Care

Related Links

https://eminenceorganics.com

In France, Honor View10 was sold out twice on Amazon. The excellent results made Honor View10 an "Amazon's Choice" with a 4.7 star rating on Amazon's customer reviews and a top ten smartphone sold on Amazon France. In Germany, Honor View10 also achieved exceptional sales performance and attained 4+ stars in Amazon's customer reviews.

Honor View10, one of the world's first AI smartphones powered by a dedicated Neural-Network Processing Unit (NPU), made its debut last December and soon won a series of "Best of CES" awards from Android Authority, Android Central, Android Police, Gadgetmatch, Gear Diary and Pocket-lint. Honor continues to refine user experience and, in the latest system upgrade, has added new features such as Face Unlock, Smart Notifications and Smart Rotate that further enhance ease-of-use and user experience.

Honor View10 is now on sale in Western Europe (U.K., Germany, Italy, Spain and France), Russia, India and Malaysia, and will soon be available in the U.S. and other international markets.

"We are excited about the excellent results and appreciate the tremendous support from our customers worldwide," said Mr. George Zhao, Global President of Honor. "Last December, we announced our global growth strategy that aims to make Honor a top-three smartphone brand worldwide in five years. The terrific results are driving us toward this goal. We will continue to bring outstanding technologies, user experience and value to users, and make Honor the most loved smartphone brand for young people and the young at heart."

About Honor

Honor is a leading smartphone e-brand under the Huawei Group. In line with its slogan, "For the Brave," the brand was created to meet the needs of digital natives through internet-optimized products that offer superior user experiences, inspire action, foster creativity and empower the young to achieve their dreams. In doing this, Honor has set itself apart by showcasing its own bravery to do things differently and to take the steps needed to usher in the latest technologies and innovations for its customers.

For more information, please visit Honor online at www.hihonor.com or follow us on:

https://www.facebook.com/honorglobal/

https://twitter.com/Honorglobal

https://www.instagram.com/honorglobal/

https://www.youtube.com/honorglobal

Contact:

Kiley Hayward

[email protected]

719-660-1445

SOURCE Honor

Related Links

http://www.hihonor.com

MIAMI and BOSTON, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Alpha-1 Foundation celebrates the first granting of the John W. Walsh Translational Research Award in Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency, an honorable award named after John W. Walsh, co-founder of the Alpha-1 Foundation, a visionary man who dedicated his life's work to finding a cure for Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency and helping those affected by Alpha-1.

Andrew Wilson, MD, left and Grantee Joseph Kaserman, MD

The peer reviewing Committee received four very strong submissions, and the award was granted to Joseph Kaserman, MD, instructor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and a physician in Pulmonary, Allergy, Sleep and Critical Care Medicine at Boston Medical Center.

Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency (Alpha-1) is a genetic (inherited) condition  it is passed from parents to their children through their genes. Alpha-1 may result in serious lung disease in adults and/or liver disease at any age.

The inaugural John W. Walsh Translational Research Award will be used by Kaserman to address a long outstanding question in the field of whether Alpha-1 carriers (these are individuals who have one normal Alpha1 gene (M) and one mutated gene (Z) have an increased risk of developing liver disease. As up to 2% of the U.S. population could be an Alpha-1 carrier there remains a critical need to address this important question.

For his research Kaserman will be working with specialized adult stem cells named induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which are stem cells that have been created from patients with Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency. Importantly, iPSCs contain all the genetic information of the original patient, and provide the ability to compare cells from patients that have the same mutation but different disease severity, i.e. patients who have the Z-mutation with or without liver damage.

To understand the risk associated with having either one or two Z genes, Kaserman will take advantage of a technology known as CRISPR that allows for altering or "editing" the DNA of cells including iPSCs that he has made from Alpha-1 patients. Using this approach, Kaserman will be able to conduct experiments comparing "ZZ", "MZ", and "MM" cells that all come from the same individual and thus are genetically identical, varying only at the site of the Alpha-1 Antitrypsin gene that has been edited.

Kaserman will then create liver cells from these iPSCs and examine whether MZ cells accumulate more misfolded AAT protein or are more susceptible to injury than MM cells. As there remain no approved therapies for Alpha-1 liver disease this study will also test new therapeutic agents targeting the mutated Z-protein within cells to see if this will protect the susceptible liver cells from injury.

Overall this study has the potential to not only address the concerns of many Alpha-1 carriers about their risk of developing liver disease, but also to find new treatments for Alpha-1 related liver disease helping both Alpha-1 carriers as well as Alpha-1 patients.

The award consists of up to a total of $225,000 ($75,000/year) over three years. The Alpha-1 Foundation, the Center for Regenerative Medicine of Boston University and Boston Medical Center, congratulate Kaserman, and look forward to the research findings, which will surely bring us closer to finding the cure for Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency (Alpha-1).

Back in October 2016, in recognition of John Walsh's many contributions, Mark Brantly, MD, announced a $225,000 gift from himself and his wife Judy Lew, MD, to the Foundation during the Alpha-1 Donor Recognition Dinner. The gift was intended to be the first to establish the John W. Walsh Translational Research Award.

Brantly, professor of medicine, chief of molecular genetics and microbiology and Alpha-1 Foundation research professor at the University of Florida, said about John Walsh that "Judy and I believe that the best way to honor and thank him is to help carry on his commitment to a cure through this research award."

"This is a tangible, concrete way to honor John and continue the work he was so committed to do," said Henry Moehring, President and CEO of the Alpha-1 Foundation. "The Alpha-1 Foundation is honored that AlphaNet was able to make a matching contribution to this grant, enhancing even further the value we give to John's legacy and his commitment to research," added Moehring.

John Walsh's leadership and passion helped shape the Alpha-1 Foundation into a successful organization and he was responsible for many of the Foundation's accomplishments over more than two decades.

"This award, aimed specifically at translating research findings into medical practice, is intended to carry on Walsh's commitment to find a cure for Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency," expressed Moehring.

"We are extremely gratified that Kaserman has received this award, both because it is a huge honor to be selected to help carry out John's vision and because of the significance this kind of award has in sustaining the career of a young researcher," said Andrew Wilson, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine at BUSM, and Director of The Alpha-1 Center at Boston University and Boston Medical Center.

"John Walsh had a major impact on my career and on the Alpha-1 research that we carry out at the Center for Regenerative Medicine of Boston University and Boston Medical Center. John spoke openly about hopes for a cure for AATD and encouraged us to pursue major rather than incremental advances in our research efforts. He served as a mentor both to me and to Dr. Kotton and was instrumental in bringing us into the Alpha-1 community," added Wilson.

"I am both excited and extremely humbled to have been selected as the inaugural recipient for the John W. Walsh Translational Research Award. Although I never had the pleasure of meeting John personally, I have heard numerous anecdotes from my mentor Dr. Wilson about how committed John was to the Foundation and how relentless he was about finding a cure for Alpha-1. As a pulmonologist caring for patients suffering from the complications of Alpha-1, I am continually reminded that our current therapies remain grossly inadequate, but this only reinforces the clinical relevance of our research especially if we are going to one day realize John's goal of finding a cure for Alpha-1," said Kaserman.

Boston Medical Center and the Boston University Pulmonary Center have long-standing ties to the Alpha-1 community through Gordon Snider, MD, the first chief of pulmonary medicine at Boston University, and a seminal clinician, teacher and researcher in the field. Snider's work demonstrating the role of neutrophil elastase in the pathogenesis of emphysema, and interest in the role of Alpha-1 Antitrypsin (AAT) in protecting the lung against it, created a legacy that lives on today in the form of the research that Kaserman and Wilson carry out in their lab, as well as in the Alpha-1 Center, where they see patients with AATD.

About the Alpha-1 Foundation: The Alpha-1 Foundation is committed to finding a cure for Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency and to improving the lives of people affected by Alpha-1 worldwide. The Alpha-1 Foundation is a not-for-profit Florida corporation founded in 1995 by John Walsh, Sandy Lindsey and Susan Stanley, three people diagnosed with Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency (Alpha-1). The Alpha-1 Foundation has invested more than $71 million to support Alpha-1 research and programs at 112 institutions in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Australia. For more information, visit www.alpha1.org.

About the Center for Regenerative Medicine (CReM): The Center for Regenerative Medicine (CReM) is a collaborative effort among scientists at Boston University and the Boston Medical Center that aims to advance stem cell research and regenerative medicine for the sake of patients. Drs. Kaserman and Wilson's lab is in the CReM, a state-of-the-art, multidisciplinary stem cell research facility that is home to 7 "primary investigators" (PIs) and their respective trainees. Dr. Kotton is CReM director and Wilson is one of the CReM PIs. Since its founding in 2013, AATD has been a major focus of research at the CReM, which houses the world's largest repository of iPSCs created from patients with AATD. In keeping with a dedication to the philosophy of "Open-Source Biology", CReM iPSCs are shared free of charge with researchers around the world to advance AATD research. Wilson, Kaserman, and Kotton provide clinical care to AATD patients and families at the Alpha-1 Center. The Alpha-1 Center features clinicians from multiple specialties, all experienced in caring for Alphas, to address all aspects of AATD. For more information about the CReM and the Alpha-1 Center, visit www.bumc.bu.edu/stemcells and www.alpha-1center.org.

Translational research in the biomedical field is understood as the application of basic knowledge acquired in the research laboratory to clinical practice, to improve medical care. This type of research is a necessary element for the success of any strategy that aims to improve the health of citizens through specific programs.

Media Contact:

Bernardo Pisani

Director of Communications

Alpha-1 Foundation

[email protected]

877-228-7321, ext. 230

SOURCE Alpha-1 Foundation

Related Links

http://www.alpha1.org

IRVINE, Calif., Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- As part of its ongoing effort to offer a greater level of opportunity to savvy real estate clientele beyond Orange County and throughout all of Southern California, First Team Real Estate has created a joint venture in Cerritos with Better Choice Real Estate, a renowned family-owned boutique brokerage.

Founded in 2001 by Jana Goncalves and Mauricio Montealegrea husband-and-wife duo who not only launched their real estate careers at First Team Real Estate, but who met one another while working for the organization in the late 1990sBetter Choice Real Estate is a full-service firm servicing clients throughout Southern California.

Since Better Choice Real Estate became an official part of the First Team Real Estate brand in January 2018, the office has added four sales associates to its roster of agents, which now includes a total of 20 seasoned real estate experts.

"Having spent the early days of our real estate careers at First Team Real Estate, we are very familiar with the organization's mission and core philosophies, which are very much in line with the way we do business," Goncalves remarked. "When we ventured off on our own to found Better Choice Real Estate, our goal was to bring the caliber of service for which First Team is so well known to clientele in the Cerritos area. Now that Better Choice is officially a part of the First Team family, that mission has come full circleand we couldn't be any happier. We now bring to our beloved clientele an even greater level of opportunity and service thanks to the many exclusive resources available only at First Team."

Added Cameron Merage, First Team Real Estate's Founder and CEO, this joint venture marks an important step in an exciting journey for the organization as a whole.

"A core component in our mission at First Team Real Estate is to bring our signature brand of client-focused service to clientele and communities throughout Southern Californianot just within Orange County," Merage stated. "Having worked with Jana and Mauricio years ago, I have the utmost respect for their abilities as leaders in the industry, and am delighted to welcome them back to the First Team Family as leaders of First Team's Cerritos location."

ABOUT FIRST TEAM REAL ESTATE



Beginning with a single office in Huntington Beach in 1976, First Team Real Estate is now Southern California's largest, full-service and trusted family-owned real estate agency with 27 offices across Southern California and over 2,000 real estate agents, service professionals, and employees. First Team is consistently recognized as Best Real Estate Company by Orange County Register, and mentioned among the nation's top 20 firms in RISMedia's Power Broker Report and the REAL Trends 500, which identify the largest volume brokerages in the United States. To learn more about First Team Real Estate, call 888.236.1943 or visit firstteam.com.

MEDIA CONTACT: Michael Mahon, President First Team Real Estate, [email protected].

SOURCE First Team Real Estate

Related Links

http://www.firstteam.com

Ecofleet is the current top telematics provider in the north European market, offering cost-effective, high-benefit mobile asset management solutions in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The company has over 80,000 subscribers across small-to-medium businesses and large enterprise fleets, growing Fleet Complete's subscriber base to over 110,000 in Europe and over 400,000 globally.

Ecofleet's founders and leadership team will continue driving business in the region, aligning local market expertise with Fleet Complete's global objectives. Autolog by Ecofleet  a GPS-powered automatic mileage logging solution for business tax claims  will continue to be offered as a standalone brand due to its leading market position in handling country-specific rules and legislation. Future plans include offering Autolog to other European regions as well as North America.

"Ecofleet has a tremendous team of professionals, amazing product and innovative technology, which we look forward to incorporating into our global offering," comments Tony Lourakis, CEO of Fleet Complete. "Leveraging Ecofleet's immense success and combining it with Fleet Complete's expansive IoT infrastructure and mobile carrier partnerships, we will be able to establish a powerful global IoT platform that will help more fleet-owning businesses around the world thrive."

The acquisition is consistent with Fleet Complete's global expansion strategy and gives it a leading position in the north European markets that are poised for a substantial telematics growth in the next 5 years. The company is laser-focused on penetrating the European long-haul sector, riding on the heels of its current success in North America with the mandated Electronic Logging Devices that helped bring in a record ~30,000 gross subscriber adds in the month of December 2017 alone.

Fleet Complete is also intent on developing strong relationships with commercial vehicle original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in Western Europe. These strategic partnerships will power cutting-edge IoT solutions to help businesses reduce their fleet downtime and total cost of ownership while increasing the efficiency of freight and passenger mobility. The solutions will cover fleets in the widest range of vocations, duty-cycles, and vehicle types. Fleet Complete will also harness Ecofleet's unique ridesharing capabilities to accelerate the adoption of connected vehicle technologies in Europe and other markets.

"The combination of Fleet Complete and Ecofleet brings together exceptional product and technological capabilities," says Stig Lyngsie, COO of Ecofleet. "We are perfectly aligned on our corporate values and internal cultures and, together, we will achieve greater success on the international stage. Both of our companies are customer-centric and continuously invest in innovation. We are excited to be part of the Fleet Complete team and look forward to excelling together."

About Fleet Complete

Fleet Complete is a leading global IoT provider of mission-critical fleet, asset and mobile workforce management solutions. Servicing over 400,000 subscribers and over 30,000 businesses worldwide, the company maintains key distribution partnerships with AT&T in the U.S., TELUS in Canada, Telstra in Australia, and T-Mobile in Europe. It remains one of the fastest-growing companies in North America, having won numerous awards for innovation and growth. For more information, please visit fleetcomplete.com

About Ecofleet

Ecofleet is an international software company that specializes in GPS-based fleet and team management solutions. Our focus is on optimizing car fleets and workflows to help our customers reduce costs and increase revenue. Ecofleet is one of the leading telematics providers in Scandinavia, the Baltic countries and Eastern Europe with presence in over 20 countries, servicing 80.000+ vehicles. For more information, please visit www.ecofleet.com

SOURCE Fleet Complete

Related Links

www.fleetcomplete.com

WASHINGTON, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Floyd Abrams, renowned First Amendment attorney, is the confirmed keynote speaker at the inauguration gala of Andrea Snyder Edney, 111th president of the National Press Club, on Sat Feb. 10.

Abrams is known for his successful Supreme Court defense of The New York Times from the Nixon administration's attempt to block the printing of "The Pentagon Papers." He also represented the Brooklyn Museum of Art when then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani tried to deny city support due to an exhibition he called "sacrilegious."

Edney, a breaking news editor at Bloomberg, first joined the news organization as a reporter in Prague in 1997 and became an NPC member in 2009. She previously served on the National Press Club's Board of Governors as Secretary, Treasurer, and Vice President  and was also the longtime chair of the Scholarship Committee.



The Inaugural celebration will begin with a reception at 6:30 p.m., dinner at 7:30 p.m., and an after-party featuring D.C. premiere big band, Swing Machine. Guests will dance the night away to this 19-person band comprised of a Grammy-nominated vocalist and former members of the Air Force Airmen of Note, Army Blues, Navy Commodores, and Glenn Miller Orchestra.

Tickets are $110 per person for Club members and $140 for non-members. Valet parking will be available for attendees. Click here to purchase tickets.



The National Press Club

The National Press Club is the World's Leading Professional Organization for Journalists . Founded in 1908, the Club serves its members through activities that bolster their skills, through services that meet the changing needs of the global communications profession, and through social activities that build a vital media community in Washington and across the world. The Club is where news happens in the nation's capital and is a vigorous advocate of press freedom worldwide.

For More Information

Laura Coker: (202) 662-7581 or [email protected]

SOURCE National Press Club

Related Links

http://www.press.org/

WILIMINGTON, Del., Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The following statement is being issued by Friedlander & Gorris, P.A. and Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP regarding the Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc. Stockholder Action:

IN THE COURT OF CHANCERY OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE

YVONNE WILLIAMS, on behalf of herself and similarly situated Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc. stockholders and derivatively on behalf of Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc., Plaintiff, v. HENRY JI, WILLIAM S. MARTH, KIM D. JANDA, JAISIM SHAH, DAVID H. DEMING, DOUGLAS EBERSOLE, GEORGE NG, AND ERAGON VENTURES, LLC, Defendants, and SORRENTO THERAPEUTICS, INC., Nominal Defendant. C.A. No. 12729-VCMR



SUMMARY NOTICE OF PENDENCY AND PROPOSED SETTLEMENT OF STOCKHOLDER ACTION, SETTLEMENT FAIRNESS HEARING,

AND RIGHT TO APPEAR

TO: All holders of Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc. ("Sorrento" or the "Company") common stock as of December 22, 2017 (the "Settlement Class").

PLEASE READ THIS NOTICE CAREFULLY. YOUR RIGHTS WILL BE AFFECTED BY A STOCKHOLDER CLASS AND DERIVATIVE LAWSUIT PENDING IN THIS COURT.

YOU ARE HEREBY NOTIFIED that the above-captioned stockholder class and derivative action (the "Action") is pending in the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware (the "Court"), and that, pursuant to Delaware Court of Chancery Rules 23(a), 23(b)(1) and 23(b)(2), the Court has preliminarily certified the Action as a non-"opt-out" class action on behalf of the Settlement Class.

YOU ARE ALSO NOTIFIED that plaintiff Yvonne Williams ("Plaintiff"), on behalf of herself and the Settlement Class, and derivatively on behalf of the Company, has reached a proposed settlement of the Action (the "Settlement") with defendants Henry Ji, William S. Marth, Kim D. Janda, Jaisim Shah, David H. Deming, Douglas Ebersole, and George Ng (collectively, the "Individual Defendants"); defendant Eragon Ventures, LLC ("Eragon," and together with the Individual Defendants, the "Defendants"); and nominal defendant Sorrento.

As consideration for the Settlement, Defendants have agreed to cancel all remaining options, warrants and shares issued in five subsidiaries of Sorrento to the Individual Defendants and certain executives of Sorrento; cancel a sale of stock in a Sorrento subsidiary to Eragon; for two other stock sales to Eragon, Eragon would either pay for the stock by December 31, 2017, with interest, or, as occurred, return the stock to the subsidiary; for any shares in that subsidiary retained by Eragon, Eragon will no longer have super-voting rights; a committee of disinterested and independent directors with expert advice and independent legal counsel must approve all future related-party transactions and subsidiary equity grants; all future stock plans at the subsidiaries will be submitted to a vote of the Sorrento stockholders; and a voting agreement that provided the Board with the power to vote 2.75% of Sorrento's stock in its direction will be voted in the same proportion that all other unaffiliated stockholders vote. If approved by the Court, the Settlement will resolve all claims asserted against Defendants in the Action.

If you are a Class Member, your rights will be affected by the pending Action and the Settlement. A full-printed Notice of Pendency and Proposed Settlement of Stockholder Action, Settlement Fairness Hearing, and Right to Appear (the "Notice") is currently being mailed to potential Class Members. If you have not yet received the Notice, you may obtain a copy by contacting the Settlement Administrator at Sorrento Stockholder Litigation c/o KCC Class Action Services, P.O. Box 404020, Louisville, KY 40233-4020, 1-866-657-1976. Copies of the Notice can also be downloaded from http://sorrentotherapeutics.com/notices/.

Inquiries, other than requests for the Notice, may be made to Plaintiff's Lead Counsel:

Christopher Foulds, Esq. Friedlander & Gorris, P.A. 1201 N. Market St., Ste. 2200 Wilmington, DE 19801 1-302-573-3500 David Wales, Esq. Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP 1251 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 1-800-380-8496



A hearing will be held on April 3, 2018, at 2:00 p.m., before Vice Chancellor Montgomery-Reeves at the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware, Leonard L. Williams Justice Center, 500 North King St., Wilmington, DE 19801 (the "Settlement Fairness Hearing"). At the Settlement Fairness Hearing, the Court will, among other things: (a) determine whether the proposed Settlement on the terms and conditions provided for in the Stipulation is fair, reasonable, and adequate to the Settlement Class and the Company, and should be approved by the Court; (b) determine whether the Judgment should be entered dismissing the Action with prejudice against Defendants; (c) determine whether to approve the application by Lead Counsel for an award of attorneys' fees and reimbursement of Litigation Expenses to Plaintiffs' Counsel and an incentive award to Plaintiff; and (d) consider any other matters that may properly be brought before the Court in connection with the Settlement.

Any objections to the proposed Settlement and/or Lead Counsel's application for an award of attorneys' fees and reimbursement of Litigation Expenses, must be filed with the Register in Chancery and delivered to Lead Counsel and Defendants' Counsel such that they are received no later than March 5, 2018, in accordance with the instructions set forth in the Long-Form Notice.

Please note that there is no proof of claim form for Class Members to submit in connection with the Settlement. Also, because the Settlement Class was certified as a non-"opt-out" class, Class Members do not have the right to exclude themselves from the Class.

DO NOT CALL OR WRITE THE COURT OR THE OFFICE OF

THE REGISTER IN CHANCERY REGARDING THIS NOTICE.

Dated: January 19, 2018 BY ORDER OF THE COURT OF



CHANCERY OF THE STATE OF



DELAWARE



SOURCE Friedlander & Gorris, P.A. and Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLPNEW YORK, Jan. 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Terry Li of ConsenSys and Columbia University along with Kartik Mehrotra of Deloitte and Berkeley are both among the brightest minds in the blockchain space today. They have also both hitched their wagons to Dean Patrick and G2H2 Capital, coming on to help the rapidly growing fund continue a tremendously successful period since its launch in mid-2017.

Dean Patrick is an investor, developer and crypto-economist. Patrick launched the fund despite being just 21 years old. Patrick attended Stanford University where he studied Economics and Computer Science before taking a leave of absence to launch G2H2 following the rapid rise of market capitalization of cryptocurrency assets in the spring of 2017.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/deanpatrickprofessional

https://www.linkedin.com/in/terryli0095

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kartikmehrotra9

contact: [email protected]

http://www.g2h2.capital

SOURCE G2H2 Capital

Related Links

http://www.g2h2.capital

NEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Generali Global Assistance ("the Company") today announced that its Travel Insurance division, formerly CSA Travel Protection, has been named as a finalist for two awards categories at the 12th Annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. The Company will ultimately be awarded a Gold, Silver, or Bronze Stevie Award winner in both the "Marketing Solution  New" and the "Back-Office Customer Service Professional of the Year  Financial Services Industries" categories.

Generali Global Assistance has been nominated for Marketing Solution-New for its new consumer-direct travel insurance website, www.generalitravelinsurance.com, which launched in 2017. Throughout the design process and since launch, the Company has proactively solicited and responded to user feedback to improve the customer experience, and updated the site almost daily with content changes that directly address customer questions. For example, Generali Global Assistance added a hurricane and tropical storm alert to its homepage to address high call volumes during peak hurricane season in order to alleviate any related issues. As a direct result of the new, more robust site, the Company's consumer-direct online sales have increased by 15% since launch.



Chris Carnicelli, CEO of Generali Global Assistance, North America, commented on today's news, "I would like to thank our in-house Marketing, Web Design and Ecommerce teams for working tirelessly to execute a website designed to educate, inform, and automate consumers throughout their travel insurance journey. We are honored to be continually recognized for our Company-wide commitment to the highest level of customer service, as well as for marketing innovation. I am proud to lead a group that maintains this steadfast dedication even as the industry continues to change."



Lupe Zepeda, Customer Service Manager at Generali Global Assistance, has been nominated for Back-Office Customer Service Professional of the Year  Financial Services Industries. During 2017, Generali Global Assistance both rebranded from CSA Travel Protection and launched its new, consumer-facing website, both of which led to specific customer service needs. Ms. Zepeda continued to fulfill her role as customer service champion in 2017 by leading brand awareness and recognition outreach campaigns that outlined what was new, as well as what was unchanged, for customers and partners. She also led major initiatives including a Lean transformation for Generali Global Assistance's Customer Service Department.



Bob Chambers, Vice President of Operations at Generali Global Assistance, commented on today's news, "I would like to congratulate Ms. Zepeda for her much deserved nomination, and also would like to thank her for her integral role in implementing more efficient processes throughout our Customer Service Department. We have always been recognized for our dedication to service and are continually looking for ways to improve, and we could not have reached where we are today without Ms. Zepeda. She exemplifies our mission to exceed the expectations of our business partners and the traveling public through quality customer service."



Details about the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service and the list of Finalists in all categories are available at www.StevieAwards.com/Sales.



Additionally, Generali Global Assistance was recently named a top travel insurance company for 2018 by The Elliot Readers' Choice Awards. Generali Global Assistance is a member of the US Travel Insurance Association (UStiA) and is an A+ rated Better Business Bureau accredited company.



About Generali Global Assistance

Generali Global Assistance, formerly Europ Assistance USA, has been a leading provider of travel insurance and other assistance services for more than 25 years. The Company offers a full suite of innovative, vertically integrated travel insurance and emergency services, identity protection solutions, and beneficiary companion services. Generali Global Assistance is part of the multinational Generali Group, which for over 185 years has created a presence in 60 countries with over 76,000 employees. Our success has been built on the foundation of trust that clients have placed in our ability to provide assistance in the most difficult of circumstances.



Generali Global Assistance offers travel insurance* through vacation rental and property management companies, leading travel agencies, online travel agencies, other travel suppliers and directly to consumers. For more information on Generali Global Assistance and the policies offered for travelers, please visit: www.generalitravelinsurance.com.

*Travel insurance plans are administered by Customized Services Administrators, Inc., CA Lic. No. 821931, located in San Diego, CA and doing business as Generali Global Assistance and Insurance Services. Plans are available to residents of the U.S. but may not be available in all jurisdictions. Benefits and services are described on a general basis; certain conditions and exclusions apply. Travel Retailers may not be licensed to sell insurance, in all states, and are not authorized to answer technical questions about the benefits, exclusions, and conditions of this insurance and cannot evaluate the adequacy of your existing insurance. This plan provides insurance coverage for your trip that applies only during the covered trip. You may have coverage from other sources that provides you with similar benefits but may be subject to different restrictions depending upon your other coverages. You may wish to compare the terms of this policy with your existing life, health, home and automobile policies. The purchase of this plan is not required in order to purchase any other travel product or service offered to you by your travel retailers. If you have any questions about your current coverage, call your insurer, insurance agent or broker. This notice provides general information on Generali Global Assistance's products and services only. The information contained herein is not part of an insurance policy and may not be used to modify any insurance policy that might be issued. In the event the actual policy forms are inconsistent with any information provided herein, the language of the policy forms shall govern.

Travel insurance plans are underwritten by: Generali U.S. Branch, New York, NY; NAIC # 11231. Generali US Branch operates under the following names: Generali Assicurazioni Generali S.P.A. (U.S. Branch) in California, Assicurazioni Generali  U.S. Branch in Colorado, Generali U.S. Branch DBA The General Insurance Company of Trieste & Venice in Oregon, and The General Insurance Company of Trieste and Venice  U.S. Branch in Virginia. Generali US Branch is admitted or licensed to do business in all states and the District of Columbia.

Media Contact

Jesse Tron

M Group Strategic Communications (for Generali Global Assistance North America)

+1 646.417.8516

[email protected]



www.generalitravelinsurance.com/press

Twitter: https://twitter.com/GeneraliTravel

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/generalitravelinsurance/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/generalitravel/

SOURCE Generali Global Assistance

Related Links

http://www.generalitravelinsurance.com

ATLANTA, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- World-renowned researcher Nandakumar Janakiraman, B.D.S, M.D.S., MDentSC, who is currently a full-time faculty member at the Georgia School of Orthodontics (GSO), has been appointed GSO's director of research.

Dr. Janakiraman has played a pivotal role in strengthening GSO's already comprehensive research program by using the esteemed research department to deliver superior patient care, exceptional training for GSO residents and scientific data to his peers in the orthodontic field.

Dr. Nandakumar Janakiraman

A Diplomate of the American Board of Orthodontics and member of AAO and SAO, Dr. Janakiraman has been broadly published in professional and scientific publications, including peer-reviewed orthodontic journals and orthodontic textbooks. His publications have covered numerous topics, including investigating new orthodontic techniques and appliances, re-evaluating routinely used orthodontic systems in order to throw greater light on them and, more recently, integrating the current 3D technologies into clinical orthodontics.

In addition to his published works, Dr. Janakiraman has presented his work in scientific meetings both nationally and internationally. His research has focused on reducing treatment time and improving the evidence and biomechanical knowledge of various orthodontic techniques and appliances. One of his primary objectives as a researcher and clinician has been to translate his research findings to more efficient and effective outcomes for GSO patients.

"Dr. Janakiraman brings an extensive educational background and expertise in research to this position, as evidenced by his expansive professional and scientific publications," said Ricky Harrell, D.M.D., M.A., GSO's program director. "We are privileged to have him as a member of our esteemed faculty and are fully confident that he will excel in his directorship position."

Dr. Janakiraman previously served as a faculty member at the University of Connecticut and the research director and associate professor at the University of Louisville's School of Dentistry, Division of Orthodontics. He has a master's degree in dental science in orthodontics from the University of Connecticut's School of Dental Medicine.

About Georgia School of Orthodontics

Georgia School of Orthodontics (GSO), based in Atlanta, Ga., offers an advanced specialty education program in orthodontics and dentofacial orthopedics. The 36-month residency program is structured to provide collaborative and evidence-based learning for residents while providing quality orthodontic care to patients in the school's two patient clinics located in metro-Atlanta. GSO's mission is to educate outstanding dentists to be proficient in the clinical specialty of orthodontics, while providing Georgians with the highest level of patient care available. GSO faculty and staff are dedicated to diversity in both education and practice. For more information about GSO, visit GSOrthodontics.org . To schedule a complimentary consultation, visit bracestoday.com or call 770.351.7737 .

Media contact

Lauren Bovard

[email protected]

770-645-4545

SOURCE Georgia School of Orthodontics"Each day, we strive to be a company of diversity and authenticity; a community of passionate people making a difference and working with organizations like Feeding America," said Bob Unanue, President of Goya Foods. "The very essence of who we are is reflected in our unwavering dedication to provide our consumers with quality products, to nurture our communities, and to live the values set forth for us by our founders in everything we do."

The 'Can Do' campaign is one of the many ways that Goya gives back to the community and brings people together to be a part of Goya and Feeding America's fight to end hunger in the United States. Each donation will be made in the name of Goya's retail partners throughout the country, who have participated in helping to promote the new initiative and bring awareness to Feeding America's mission. The 'Can Do' campaign is part of Goya Gives, launched in 2011 as a national initiative committed to supporting local communities through social and environmental causes.

"As Feeding America and our network of 200 food banks feed 46 million Americans each year, we are incredibly grateful for partnerships like Goya that provide valuable food while driving awareness of the issue of hunger," said Karen Hanner, VP Manufacturing Partnerships. "The Goya 'Can Do' campaign has been particularly successful this year as it's engaged the consumer, the retail community and the Goya brand in bringing an incredible 1.5 million pounds (1.25 million meals) of Goya food to families that are struggling to make ends meet in communities most in need."

The 'Can Do' campaign kicked off June 1, 2017 and will end June 30, 2018. Each month throughout the course of the year, Goya has featured a different product that consumers can purchase to participate in the overall donation, including GOYA Coconut Water, GOYA Coconut Milk, GOYA Cream of Coconut, GOYA Refried Beans, and GOYA Ready to Eat Red Label Beans. For every GOYA product purchased during the designated month, Goya will donate additional products to Feeding America.

For details on this donation, please visit www.goya.com/goyagives. Learn more about Feeding America and how it supports local food banks at www.FeedingAmerica.org.

About GOYA: Founded in 1936, Goya Foods, Inc. is America's largest Hispanic-owned food company, and has established itself as the leader in Latin American food and condiments. Goya manufactures, packages, and distributes over 2,500 high-quality food products from Spain, the Caribbean Islands, Mexico, Central and South America. Goya products have their roots in the culinary traditions of Hispanic communities around the world; the combination of authentic ingredients, robust seasonings and convenient preparation makes Goya products ideal for every taste and every table. For more information on Goya Foods, please visit www.goya.com

About Feeding America: Feeding America is the largest hunger-relief organization in the Unites States. Through a network of 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries and meal programs, we provide meals to more than 46 million people each year. Feeding America also supports programs that prevent food waste and improve food security among the people we serve; educates the public about the problem of hunger; and advocates for legislation that protects people from going hungry.

For more information, contact:

Natalie Maniscalco

845.659.6506 / [email protected]

SOURCE Goya Foods

Related Links

http://www.goya.com

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Green Hills Software, the global leader in high-assurance real-time operating systems and virtualization, is further expanding its global footprint with the opening of a new office in Korea. Located in the Richtogether Center 14, 3FL, Pangyoyeck-ro 192, Bundang-gu, Seongnam-si, Kyeonggi-do, Korea, 13524, this Korean location will act as a central support system for the company's rapidly growing Korean marketplace.

The new office will be managed by Korea Country Manager Chris Chang. With 20+ years of experience in engineering, product development and large-scale project management, Chris has held positions with various multinational corporations such as Sun Microsystems, Philips Semiconductor and Intel Corporation in the U.S, and Samsung Semiconductor and Dongbu Hitek in Korea. Chris has a technical background with a bachelor's degree in computer sciences from U.C. Berkeley.

The Green Hills Korea office will focus on selling and supporting the automotive and embedded IoT market. Additional support engineers will be added to the office staff.

Chris Chang can be reached by mail at [email protected].

By phone: US Mobile Phone: +1-805-453-1925

About Green Hills Software

Founded in 1982, Green Hills Software is the largest independent software vendor for the Internet of Things (IoT). In 2008, the Green Hills INTEGRITY-178 RTOS was the first and only operating system to be certified by NIAP (National Information Assurance Partnership comprised of NSA & NIST) to EAL 6+, High Robustness, the highest level of security ever achieved for any software product. Our open architecture integrated development solutions address deeply embedded, absolute security and high-reliability applications for the military/avionics, medical, industrial, automotive, networking, consumer and other markets that demand industry-certified solutions. Green Hills Software is headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA, with European headquarters in the United Kingdom. Visit Green Hills Software at www.ghs.com.

Green Hills, the Green Hills logo and INTEGRITY are trademarks or registered trademarks of Green Hills Software in the U.S. and/or internationally. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

SOURCE Green Hills Software

Related Links

http://www.ghs.com

SHANGHAI, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Honeywell (NYSE: HON) UOP announced today that its Callidus low-nitrogen oxides (NOx) burner technology has been selected by Sinopec Beijing Yanshan Petrochemical Co., Ltd. (Yanshan) to help meet China's new NOx emission regulations.

More than 400 burners used in Yanshan's ethylene process units have been revamped and achieved reductions of 40 to 50 percent of NOx emissions from ethylene furnaces. In addition, Honeywell UOP is providing these process units with engineering, performance verification testing, burner fabrication and service.

Under new government standards in China, emissions of nitrogen oxides from industry furnaces are required to drop from 150 to less than 100 milligrams per cubic meter this year. These pollutants are the primary cause of acid rain and increased surface ozone concentration, which have serious and direct impacts on public health and the environment.

"Our record of project experience around the globe can help Sinopec comply with new environmental regulations and gain economic value by improving their return on investment without sacrificing performance or the environment," said Henry Liu, vice president and general manager, Honeywell UOP China. "Since we opened a new research and test facility in China in 2015, we have developed low-emission and energy efficient combustion technology for customers in China and across Asia."

Among the technologies Honeywell UOP developed to meet new emissions standards are high-performance low-NOx Callidus process burners. These burners are designed to meet NOx reduction requirements for fired heaters in refinery and petrochemical plants, where space is limited and temperatures typically reach 1200 degrees Celsius.

Callidus burners can be customized to meet requirements of all types of applications, including refinery heaters, reformers, ethylene crackers, coker units, and CCR (continuous catalytic reforming) and propane dehydrogenation process heaters.

As a subsidiary of Sinopec Group, Sinopec Beijing Yanshan Petrochemical Co., Ltd. processes more than 10 million tons of crude oil and produces more than 800,000 tons of ethylene products annually. The company was established in 1970 and operates one of China's first modern, large-scale integrated refining and petrochemical complexes.

For more information about Honeywell UOP's Callidus low NOx emission burner technology, please visit https://www.uop.com/equipment/callidus-combustion-equipment/callidus-burners/.

Honeywell UOP (www.uop.com) is a leading international supplier and licensor of process technology, catalysts, adsorbents, equipment, and consulting services to the petroleum refining, petrochemical, and gas processing industries. Honeywell UOP is part of Honeywell's Performance Materials and Technologies strategic business group, which also includes Honeywell Process Solutions (www.honeywellprocess.com), a pioneer in automation control, instrumentation and services for the oil and gas, refining, petrochemical, chemical and other industries.

Honeywell (www.honeywell.com) is a Fortune 100 software-industrial company that delivers industry specific solutions that include aerospace and automotive products and services; control technologies for buildings, homes, and industry; and performance materials globally. Our technologies help everything from aircraft, cars, homes and buildings, manufacturing plants, supply chains, and workers become more connected to make our world smarter, safer, and more sustainable. For more news and information on Honeywell, please visit www.honeywell.com/newsroom.

SOURCE Honeywell

Related Links

http://www.honeywell.com

Honeywell Introduces Indoor Navigation To Building Occupant App

As demonstrated in the Minneapolis Skyway System, new Honeywell Vector Occupant App lets users easily navigate a building and rate spaces to promote improved comfort using Internet of Things (IoT) connectivityNEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Hunt Mortgage Group, a leader in financing commercial real estate throughout the United States, announced today it has refinanced two multifamily properties located in Florida. The total Hunt Mortgage Group investment is $24.5 million. The properties include:

Village at Lake Osborne Apartments. Located at 2430 Lake Worth Road in Lake Worth, Florida , Village at Lake Osborne Apartments was constructed in 2017 and is in excellent condition. The property is comprised of three, three-story apartment buildings and a leasing office/clubhouse. The property offers 118-units and 168 open parking spaces.



Hunt Mortgage Group provided a $13 million Fannie Mae DUS conventional multifamily loan to refinance this property. Lake Worth is located approximately 64 miles north of Miami . The loan term is 10-years, with 2-years of interest-only, and amortization based on a 30-year schedule. The borrower is AHS Development Group, LLC, a local customer of Hunt Mortgage Group. Property amenities at this gated community includes on-site management and maintenance, nearby public transportation, and a fitness center and pool.



Located at 2430 Lake Worth Road in , Village at Lake Osborne Apartments was constructed in 2017 and is in excellent condition. The property is comprised of three, three-story apartment buildings and a leasing office/clubhouse. The property offers 118-units and 168 open parking spaces. Hunt Mortgage Group provided a Fannie Mae DUS conventional multifamily loan to refinance this property. is located approximately 64 miles north of . The loan term is 10-years, with 2-years of interest-only, and amortization based on a 30-year schedule. The borrower is AHS Development Group, LLC, a local customer of Hunt Mortgage Group. Property amenities at this gated community includes on-site management and maintenance, nearby public transportation, and a fitness center and pool. Amelia Oaks Apartments. Hunt Mortgage Group provided a Fannie Mae conventional multifamily loan in the amount of $10.5 million to refinance Amelia Oaks Apartments. Located at 295 West 79th Place in Hialeah, Florida , the property is a recently constructed, garden-style apartment property in excellent overall condition. Amelia Oaks offers a total of 82-units housed in five, three-story buildings. This gated community also has 164 surface parking spaces.



The loan term is ten-years and amortization is based on a 30-year schedule with five-years of interest only payments. The borrower is Hialeah 2.71 Acres, LLC, a Florida Limited Liability Company. Hialeah is located within the Miami MSA.

"We were pleased to provide the loans needed to refinance these two quality properties in Southern Florida," noted Marc Suarez Director, at Hunt Mortgage Group. "Both properties were recently built and offer luxury housing to local working class residents."

"Both borrowers are knowledgeable and experienced commercial real estate and multifamily investors," added Suarez. "We look forward to partnering with them again in the near future."

About Hunt Mortgage Group

Hunt Mortgage Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hunt Companies, Inc., is a leader in financing commercial real estate throughout the United States. The Company finances all types of commercial real estate: multifamily properties (including small balance), affordable housing, office, retail, manufactured housing, healthcare/senior living, industrial, and self-storage facilities. It offers Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, HUD/FHA in addition to its own Proprietary loan products. Since inception, the Company has structured more than $21 billion of loans and today maintains a servicing portfolio of more than $13.4 billion. Headquartered in New York City, Hunt Mortgage Group has 232 professionals in 25 locations throughout the United States. To learn more, visit www.huntmortgagegroup.com.

MEDIA CONTACTS

Brent Feigenbaum

Hunt Mortgage Group

212-317-5730

[email protected]

Pam Flores

773-218-9260

[email protected]

SOURCE Hunt Mortgage Group

Related Links

http://www.huntmortgagegroup.com

MADISON HEIGHTS, Mich., Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- InfuSystem Holdings, Inc. (NYSE American: INFU) ("InfuSystem" or the "Company"), a leading national provider of infusion pumps and related services for the healthcare industry in the United States, announced today it has received notice that on January 29, 2018 the United States District Court for the Central District of California has issued an order dismissing, with prejudice, a putative class-action lawsuit against the Company.

The dismissal relates to an action brought on November 8, 2016 by a purported shareholder of the Company (Case No. 2:16-cv-08295-ODW) against the Company and two individual defendants: Eric Steen, the Company's former Chief Executive Officer, President and Director; and Jonathan Foster, the Company's former Chief Financial Officer. The complaint asserted claims against all defendants under the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws and against Messrs. Steen and Foster as control persons.

On June 19, 2017, the Company and all defendants filed a Motion to Dismiss the amended complaint. On December 15, 2017, the Court dismissed the plaintiff's first amendment to the class action compliant ("FAC"), with leave to amend. On December 20, 2017, the parties stipulated, and the Court extended, the plaintiff's time to amend the FAC up to January 19, 2018. As of January 19, 2018, the plaintiff never filed an amended complaint and the Court dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice on January 29, 2018.

About InfuSystem Holdings, Inc.

InfuSystem Holdings, Inc. is a leading provider of infusion pumps and related services to hospitals, oncology practices and other alternate site healthcare providers. Headquartered in Madison Heights, Michigan, the Company delivers local, field-based customer support and also operates Centers of Excellence in Michigan, Kansas, California, Texas, Georgia and Ontario, Canada. The Company's stock is traded on the NYSE American under the symbol INFU.

Forward-Looking Statements

The financial results in this press release reflect preliminary results, which are not final until the Company's Form 10-Q for the third quarter of 2017 is filed. In addition, certain statements contained in this press release are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act") and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"). The words "believe," "may," "will," "estimate," "continue," "anticipate," "intend," "should," "plan," "expect," "strategy," "future," "likely," variations of such words, and other similar expressions, as they relate to the Company, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. However, the absence of these words or similar expressions does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. Forward-looking statements include statements relating to future actions, business plans, objectives and prospects, future operating or financial performance, including the preliminary financial results contained in this press release. In connection with the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, the Company is identifying certain factors that could cause actual results to differ, perhaps materially, from those indicated by these forward-looking statements. Those factors, risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the potential changes in overall healthcare reimbursement, including Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services ("CMS") competitive bidding and fee schedule reductions, sequestration, concentration of customers, increased focus on early detection of cancer, competitive treatments, dependency on Medicare Supplier Number, availability of chemotherapy drugs, global financial conditions, changes and enforcement of state and federal laws, natural forces, competition, dependency on suppliers, risks in acquisitions & joint ventures, U.S. Healthcare Reform, relationships with healthcare professionals and organizations, technological changes related to infusion therapy, the Company's ability to implement information technology improvements and to respond to technological changes, dependency on websites and intellectual property, the ability of the Company to successfully integrate acquired businesses, dependency on key personnel, dependency on banking relations and the ability to comply with Credit Facility covenants, and other risks associated with its common stock, as well as any litigation to which the Company may be involved in from time to time; and other risk factors as discussed in the Company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016 and in other filings made by the Company from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Our annual report on Form 10-K is available on the SEC's EDGAR website at www.sec.gov, and a copy may also be obtained by contacting the Company. All forward-looking statements made in this press release speak only as of the date hereof. We do not intend, and do not undertake any obligation, to update any forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances after the date of such statements, except as required by law.

Additional information about InfuSystem Holdings, Inc. is available at www.infusystem.com.

CONTACT: Joe Dorame, Joe Diaz & Robert Blum

Lytham Partners, LLC

602-889-9700

SOURCE InfuSystem Holdings, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.infusystem.com

Throughout the festivity-filled weekend, specially designed and programmed light shows will be on display to celebrate key moments around the big game such as:

'Bold North' Lights will celebrate Minnesota as the host state of the big game. One of the very few areas of the contiguous United States where visitors can experience the Northern Lights, this lighting display will feature animated, multicolored LED lights that mimic the appearance of the natural wonder of the Aurora Borealis.

as the host state of the big game. One of the very few areas of the contiguous where visitors can experience the Northern Lights, this lighting display will feature animated, multicolored LED lights that mimic the appearance of the natural wonder of the Aurora Borealis. Animated blue and red, as well as green and silver LED lights will represent the two competing teams vying for the big win. Beginning at opposite ends of the bridge, the colors will gradually move toward the middle, until they collide, symbolizing Sunday's big game match-up.

A spectacular display of red, white and blue LED lights will commemorate patriotic traditions of the championship game such as the 'Star-Spangled Banner' and 'America the Beautiful.'

A bright red display will signify that one of the teams has entered the 'red zone' by crossing the 20-yard line of the opposing team and is on the verge of scoring. When a team scores, the lights will change to that team's colors.

"The revitalization of the I-35W Bridge lighting system is a great story for the State of Minnesota," commented John Pedersen, Lighting Operations Supervisor for the Minnesota Department of Transportation. "The light shows created by the new LED lighting system confirm the bridge as an icon in the city skyline and a source of pride for the entire region."

The connected LED lighting system supplied by Philips Lighting uses Philips' ActiveSite System, a cloud-based connected lighting platform that provides remote monitoring, maintenance, and management capabilities to ensure operational efficiency and the ability to program the lights without being tethered to the bridge. Reporting tools and historical analysis also provide unprecedented insight into system operations, which authorized system managers from the MnDOT can use to evaluate and optimize performance.

The connected lighting system will also include more than 650 Philips Color Kinetics outdoor architectural lighting fixtures, including the ColorGraze MX4 Powercore, ColorBlast Powercore gen4, and ColorReach Powercore gen2. These fixtures have been specially designed to meet the extreme vibration, temperature and corrosive environment conditions that the bridge is exposed to. The connected luminaires offer an expanded palette with millions of intensely saturated colors or finely tuned pastels and hues in a variety of beam angles in order to accentuate the design and multiple facets of the bridge. These capabilities also allow the LED lights to produce hundreds of possible configurations and light distribution patterns to create static displays or dynamic color shows that can be used to capture the imagination of local residents and inspire millions of visitors.

"LED lighting is having a transformative effect on cities that reaches far beyond the purpose of simply providing light. Public lighting installations like the I-35 Bridge can also contribute to the socioeconomic prosperity of a region, its local businesses and its citizens," said Roger Karner, head of Market US at Philips Lighting. "The light shows planned around the big game represent a unique opportunity for Minnesota to help capture the imagination of more than 100,000,000 people from around the world."

About Philips Lighting

Philips Lighting (Euronext: LIGHT), the world leader in lighting products, systems and services, delivers innovations that unlock business value, providing rich user experiences that help improve lives. Serving professional and consumer markets, we lead the industry in leveraging the Internet of Things to transform homes, buildings and urban spaces. With 2016 sales of EUR 7.1 billion, we have approximately 34,000 employees in over 70 countries. News from Philips Lighting is located at the Newsroom, Twitter and LinkedIn. Information for investors can be found on the Investor Relations page.

SOURCE Philips LightingThe Sandiganbayan Seventh Division has allowed former first gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo to travel five days to and from Taipei, Taiwan, saying he is not a flight risk. The anti-graft court granted Arroyos motion to travel from Feb. 2 to 6, provided he will present himself to the division clerk of court within five days after his return to the Philippines. Arroyo is facing graft charges at the Sandiganbayan Seventh Division owing to alleged irregularities in the Philippine National Polices purchase of two helicopters in 2009. The Ombudsman accused Arroyo and 19 others, including former national police chief Jesus Verzosa, of causing "undue injury" to the government amounting to P34.6 million when the second-hand helicopters were sold to the PNP as brand new.Arroyo did not cite a reason for the trip, and if any member of his familyincluding his wife, former president and current Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyowill be joining him. He only submitted to the court his itinerary and hotel accommodation in Taiwan. But Prosecutor Ferdinand Labog opposed Arroyos travel, calling it unnecessary. The court said Arroyos P90,000 travel bond will guarantee his faithful compliance with the jurisdiction of the court. It said any violation will forfeit the bond and will cause the issuance of a warrant of arrest.BOSTON, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- John Hancock Tax-Advantaged Dividend Income Fund (NYSE: HTD) (the "Fund"), a closed-end fund managed by John Hancock Advisers, LLC and subadvised by both John Hancock Asset Management a division of Manulife Asset Management (US) LLC, and Analytic Investors, LLC, announced today sources of its monthly distribution of $0.1380 per share paid to all shareholders of record as of December 29, 2017, pursuant to the Fund's managed distribution plan. This press release is issued as required by an exemptive order granted to the Fund by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Notification of Sources of Distribution

This notice provides shareholders of the John Hancock Tax-Advantaged Dividend Income Fund (NYSE: HTD) with important information concerning the distribution declared on December 19, 2017, and payable on January 31, 2018. No action is required on your part.

Distribution Period: January 2018 Distribution Amount Per Common Share: $0.1380

The following table sets forth the estimated sources of the current distribution, payable January 31, 2018, and the cumulative distributions paid this fiscal year to date from the following sources: net investment income; net realized short term capital gains; net realized long term capital gains; and return of capital or other capital source. All amounts are expressed on a per common share basis and as a percentage of the distribution amount.

Source

Current

Distribution ($)

% Breakdown

of the Current

Distribution

Total Cumulative

Distributions for

the Fiscal Year to

Date ($)1

% Breakdown

of the Total

Cumulative

Distributions

for the Fiscal

Year to Date1 Net Investment

Income

0.0733

53%

0.4140

100% Net Realized Short-

Term Capital

Gains

0.0000

0%

0.0000

0% Net Realized Long-

Term Capital

Gains

0.0000

0%

0.0000

0% Return of Capital or

Other Capital

Source

0.0647

47%

0.0000

0% Total per common

share

0.1380

100%

0.4140

100%

















Average annual total return (in relation to NAV) for the 5 years ended on December 31, 2017

12.86%





Annualized current distribution rate expressed as a percentage of NAV as of December 31, 2017

6.56%





Cumulative total return (in relation to NAV) for the fiscal year through December 31, 2017

-0.94%





Cumulative fiscal year-to-date distribution rate expressed as a percentage of NAV as of December 31, 2017

1.64%

You should not draw any conclusions about the Fund's investment performance from the amount of this distribution or from the terms of the Fund's managed distribution plan.

The Fund estimates that it has distributed more than its income and net realized capital gains; therefore, a portion of your distribution may be a return of capital. A return of capital may occur, for example, when some or all of the money that you invested in the Fund is paid back to you. A return of capital distribution does not necessarily reflect the Fund's investment performance and should not be confused with "yield" or "income."

The amounts and sources of distributions reported in this Notice are only estimates and are not being provided for tax reporting purposes. The actual amounts and sources of the amounts for tax reporting purposes will depend upon the Fund's investment experience during the remainder of its fiscal year and may be subject to changes based on tax regulations. The Fund will send you a Form 1099-DIV for the calendar year that will tell you how to report these distributions for federal income tax purposes.

The Fund has declared the January 2018 distribution pursuant to the Fund's managed distribution plan (the "Plan"). Under the Plan, the Fund makes fixed monthly distributions in the amount of $0.1380 per share, which will continue to be paid monthly until further notice.

If you have questions or need additional information, please contact your financial professional or call the John Hancock Investments Closed-End Fund Information Line at 1-800-843-0090, Monday through Friday between 8:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time.

Statements in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined by the United States securities laws. You should exercise caution in interpreting and relying on forward-looking statements because they are subject to uncertainties and other factors which are, in some cases, beyond the Fund's control and could cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements.

An investor should consider a Fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses carefully before investing.

About John Hancock Investments

John Hancock Investments provides asset management services to individuals and institutions through a unique manager-of-managers approach. A wealth management business of John Hancock Financial, we managed more than $148 billion in assets as of September 30, 2017 across mutual funds, college savings plans, and retirement plans.

About John Hancock Financial and Manulife Financial

John Hancock Financial is a division of Manulife Financial, a leading Canada-based financial services group with principal operations in Asia, Canada and the United States. Operating as Manulife Financial in Canada and Asia, and primarily as John Hancock in the United States, the Company offers clients a diverse range of financial protection products and wealth management services through its extensive network of employees, agents and distribution partners. Funds under management by Manulife Financial and its subsidiaries were C$1 trillion (US$806 billion) as of September 30, 2017. Manulife Financial Corporation trades as 'MFC' on the TSX, NYSE and PSE, and under '945' on the SEHK. Manulife Financial can be found on the Internet at manulife.com.

The John Hancock unit, through its insurance companies, comprises one of the largest life insurers in the United States. John Hancock offers and administers a broad range of financial products, including life insurance, annuities, fixed products, mutual funds, 401(k) plans, college savings, and other forms of business insurance. Additional information about John Hancock may be found at johnhancock.com.



1 The Fund's current fiscal year began on November 1, 2017, and will end on October 31, 2018.

SOURCE John Hancock Tax-Advantaged Dividend Income Fund

Related Links

http://www.johnhancock.com

"Temporary public art projects enable artists to respond to critical issues that resonate with their local communities," said Shelley Trott, the Rainin Foundation's Director of Arts Strategy and Ventures. "These unique projects leverage innovative storytelling and community building to highlight diverse voices and elevate underrepresented histories."

The selected public art projects are based in Oakland and San Francisco and address a variety of timely issues, including immigration, transgender activism, women's rights and gentrification. The projects also explore human movement and mobility within cities, upending notions of public art as static and still.

2018 Open Spaces grantees include:

TRANSITION24  The Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco , with Survival Project artists Raina Ho , Thy Tran and Bryan Wu , will produce a story-sharing project using San Francisco's 24 MUNI bus line to engage communities along its route in an exploration of survival, access, migration and community resilience. The project will feature a series of multi-media exhibits showcasing oral histories, photography and public archives, and will incorporate MUNI infrastructure as public installation sites.

TENDER (n) a person who takes charge  Jo Kreiter's Flyaway Productions, Van-Anh Vo and Sean Riley will produce a multi-faceted performance celebrating 100 years of outcast activism in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood. The event will focus on the culture of liberation among young, working women in the early 20th century; 1960s transgender activism; the stories of Vietnamese immigrants, and of the longstanding single room occupancy Cadillac Hotel.

ARTruck Residencies  Galeria de la Raza, with curator Alexandra "Lexx" Valdez and artist-in-residence Jessica Sabogal , will host screen and digital printmaking residencies to explore displacement and the housing crisis affecting San Francisco's Mission District. Housed in a mobile unit, the residences will travel along the 16th Street corridor between Mission and Bryant streets.

We So Bay  Youth Speaks, led by artists James Kass and Sean San Jose , will engage young people in six San Francisco and Oakland communities to tell stories about their neighborhoods. Audiences will travel by BART to experience these stories through live performance, audio and print.

These projects were selected from ten finalists by a panel of experts. The jury included Mildred Howard, Bay Area sculptor and mixed-media visual artist; Shannon Jackson, the Cyrus and Michelle Hadidi Chair in the Humanities at the University of California, Berkeley; Sanaz Mazinani, Bay Area photographer, videographer, and installation artist; and Norie Sato, sculptor and designer based in Seattle.

Applications for the next Open Spaces Program grant cycle open on June 25, 2018. Visit the Rainin Foundation website for more information.

As part of its efforts to encourage public art, the Foundation will host its second public art symposium, Exploring Public Art Practices, on March 10, 2018, at the Oakland Museum of California. This free event will bring together artists from a range of practices who are working in public art. Presenting artists will discuss the unique ways they engage and work in communities, and how they challenge the concept of place. The event is open to the public. Register here.

"Along with our Open Spaces Program grants, the symposium aims to build the capacity of local artists and bolster the region's public art field," said Trott. "We hope this event inspires artists to discuss the opportunities and challenges of working in public space."

About the Kenneth Rainin Foundation

Kenneth Rainin Foundation is a family foundation that collaborates with creative thinkers in the Arts, Education and Health. At the Rainin Foundation, we believe in taking smart risks to achieve breakthroughs. We support visionary artists in the Bay Area, create opportunities for Oakland's youngest learners, and fund researchers on the forefront of scientific discoveries. Since 2009, the Foundation has awarded over $20 million in funding to support small to mid-size arts organizations in the Bay Area that are pushing the boundaries of creative expression. More at krfoundation.org.

SOURCE The Kenneth Rainin Foundation

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http://www.krfoundation.org

CINCINNATI, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) announced today it will introduce its new and exciting Scan, Bag, Go shopping technology in 18 operating divisions, making the service available this year to customers at 400 stores.

"With every new product, service and technology integration, Kroger is redefining the customer experience and reimagining the store of the future," said Chris Hjelm, Kroger's executive vice president and chief information officer. "After testing Scan, Bag, Go in several locations, we are bringing this transformative technology to new stores across the country through Restock Kroger."

Kroger's in-house research and development team invented and built the Scan, Bag, Go technology. Scan, Bag, Go allows customers to use a wireless handheld scanner or the Scan, Bag, Go app on their personal device to scan and bag products as they shop for a quicker, seamless checkout experience.

Scan, Bag, Go helps to create a personalized experience for customers throughout their shopping trip, allowing them to view and download digital coupons, keep a running total of their order, and view the current week's sales ad.

Scan, Bag, Go customers currently visit a store's self-checkout area to provide payment. Customers will soon have the ability to provide payment directly through the app, allowing shoppers to exit the store even quicker.

"Many of our customers have adopted this convenient new technology and responded favorably to the seamless checkout experience," Mr. Hjelm added. "Scan, Bag, Go is one more choice, like ClickList, that Kroger provides so customers can choose when and how they want to shop with us."

By the end of the year, Scan, Bag, Go will be available at select locations in the following divisions: Atlanta; Central; Cincinnati; Columbus; Dallas; Delta; Dillons; Fred Meyer; Fry's; Houston; King Soopers; Louisville; Michigan; Mid-Atlantic; Nashville; Ralphs; Smith's; and QFC.

"The installation of Scan, Bag, Go is a collaboration between the Kroger operations and tech teams that allows us to accelerate the adoption of new technologies in our stores," said Mary Ellen Adcock, Kroger's group vice president of retail operations. "We are always excited to execute innovative ideas that benefit our customers' shopping experiences."

Scan, Bag, Go will be offered as an option alongside traditional checkout lanes staffed by friendly associates, self-checkout, online ordering, curbside pickup, and home delivery in select cities.

At The Kroger Co., we are dedicated to our purpose: to Feed the Human Spirit. We are 453,000 associates who serve nearly nine million customers every day in 2,793 retail food stores under a variety of local banner names in 35 states and the District of Columbia. Our Family of Companies operates an expanding ClickList offering  a personalized order online service  in addition to 2,258 pharmacies, 783 convenience stores, 307 fine jewelry stores, 222 retail health clinics, 1,472 supermarket fuel centers and 38 food production plants in the United States. Our Company has been recognized as one of America's most generous companies for our support of more than 100 Feeding America food bank partners, breast cancer research and awareness, the military and their families, and more than 145,000 community organizations including schools. As a leader in supplier diversity, we are a proud member of the Billion Dollar Roundtable.

SOURCE The Kroger Co.

Related Links

http://www.kroger.com

"That system is our 'weapon'. We can apply it to whichever sector, either a business-to-business or business-to-consumer market, that makes profit or wins customers," Zhao said on a recent panel discussion. "We have reached deep cooperation with Chinese tech giants including Baidu Inc, Alibaba Group, Tencent Holdings Ltd, and JD.com."

He made the remarks on the 2018 SAIF MF International Youth Leadership Finance Summit in Shanghai. The four-day event, starting on January 27, gathered a host of scholars, experts and business leaders who have domain expertise in the financial sector.

Distinguished keynote speakers include Chang Chun, executive dean and professor of finance at Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance, Che Pinjue, expert partner of Sequoia Capital China, and Mu Haijie, senior vice president and president of Remittance Data, Remittance World.

This year's summit put the spotlight on fintech, with topics ranging from robo-advisors to data mining.

Four topics have drawn wide attention and thorough discussions and they were Rotation Strategy within the Banking Sector, Design of Blockchain Application, Quantitative Asset Allocation Using Black-Litterman Model and Credit Risk Model for Individual Loan.

In the past, financial managers get to know their customers mostly based on the one-page form they populate, and thus make suitable product recommendations or decide proper loan limit.

That one-page form, according to Zhao, was far from enough to adequately allocate financial resources. In a roundtable, he outlined his vision for a change that fintech helps improve the marketing strategy of financial products.

Competition in the fintech sector becomes increasingly intense, as more and more established firms and fledgling private companies jump on the bandwagon.

They are attracted by the disruptive nature of fintech, look for partnerships to boost their operational efficiency, and meet customer demands for innovative services.

Last year four Chinese tech tycoons, Baidu Inc, Alibaba Group, Tencent Holdings Ltd and JD.com (collectively known as BATJ), announced, respectively, to engage in considerable collaboration with one of four State-owned banks including Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Bank of China.

According to PwC's DeNovo, recent achievements in AI have enabled the technology to top the list for financial services.

Startups that integrate AI with financial services have been funded more extensively, with an average funding of $1 billion over the last two years, the report said. Also, thirty percent of large Financial Institutions are investing in AI.

Eighty-two percent of incumbents are expected to increase fintech partnerships in the next three to five years, indicated by PwC's DeNovo. Annual return on investment on fintech related projects is estimated to be 20 percent.

Facing fierce competition, the crucial method for startups to maintain healthy and sustainable development is how to position them in a unique manner, business insiders said.

"Kuai Niu positions itself as an AI-enabled group that delivers technology solutions for upgrading financial sector. Our goal is to outpace financial services companies (rather than BATJ). All we need to do is to provide technologies and services better than other financial services firms," Zhao said. Founded in 2014, the company has received B+ round financing.

"Startups and small-and-medium enterprises are nimbler than established ones," Zhao added.

Che Pinjue, expert partner of venture-capital firm Sequoia Capital China, agreed with Zhao's view. He said big companies' problem lies in the fact that too many opportunities and temptations distract them from identifying core issues.

"But a startup could lay laser focus on one field, and make the most out of it," said Che, who was former vice-president of Alibaba Group.

Che said data is industry barrier and computing is innovation, citing Didichuxing, one of the leading ride-hailing companies in China.

Experts called on efforts to ensure that fintech -- still in its infancy -- develops in a well-regulated environment.

"Risk regulation is needed to protect consumers' rights and to fight against financial fraud. Workers in new finance should follow the rules of the financial industry and accept regulations, rather than trying to avoid them," Yang Zaiping, secretary-general of the Asia Financial Cooperation Association, wrote in an article published on China Daily. He was also former deputy president of the China Banking Association.

Risk regulators should put fintech under regulation, Yang elaborated. "They cannot ignore it, or only see parts of it. They should also conduct research into characteristics of fintech, learn about its rules and then make new regulating solutions based on its features and development rules."

"The regulators should recognize and encourage mature technologies to be applied in the financial sector, such as blockchain. They should also tolerate unsystematic risks in the early stages, and encourage industry associations to practice self-discipline and self-regulation," he added.

Liu Ruixue, co-founder and vice-president of VFinance, said regulation should also keep abreast of the times. "Regulators should also consider capitalizing on technologies, which can give them more information."

By accumulating large amounts of data, regulators are able to analyze and assess the market and set the landscape for innovation while ensuring that they evolve, according to the PwC Global FinTech Report 2017.

The report also found the use of blockchain is also a specific area of interest for regulators given the native 'regulatory capabilities' that are embedded in the technology. Transactions can be validated on the fly rather than monitored by intermediaries after the fact.

SOURCE Kuai Niu GroupHOUSTON, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Lakewood Church will hold their 3rd annual M3 Mobilizing Medical Missions Conference hosted by Dr. Paul Osteen February 23 - 24 in Houston, Texas.

The first of its kind on the Gulf Coast, the international M3 Conference is designed to bring together doctors, nurses, dentists and other healthcare professionals, as well as anyone who has a desire to use their skills to meet pressing global healthcare needs.

New this year will be an Emergency Field Hospital (EFH) from Samaritan's Purse; one that is similar to the organization's EFH used in Northern Iraq. The hospital will be set up and available for tours throughout the conference.

More than 50 global missions organizations will be at the M3 Conference, organizations that change lives, communities and nations. From caring for the sick to drilling for clean water, caring for orphans, and fighting human trafficking. The M3 conference is about connecting medical and missions expertise, interest and passion to the world's needs.

"I have seen men and women who are in the trenches; doing what they can do to help people in extremely resource-limited settings. We don't have to have all the answers; we just have to do our part. I believe your heart will be moved with compassion and you too will be inspired to do what you can to help," said Dr. Paul Osteen.

Attendees will hear from over 30 speakers and leaders from renowned organizations including Keynote Gary Haugen, JD, Founder and CEO of International Justice Mission, Hope Through Healing Hands, MedSend, Samaritan's Purse/World Medical Mission, and many others. Attendees don't have to be working in the medical field to attend.

What: M3 Mobilizing Medical Missions Conference

When: Friday - Saturday February 23  24

Where: Lakewood Church 3700 SW Freeway Houston, Texas

Registration: M3missions.com

Paul Osteen, MD, FACS

Osteen is a general and vascular surgeon. After practicing surgery for many years in Little Rock, Arkansas, he now travels for 4-5 months each year providing surgical care and medical education to remote and under-resourced countries in sub-Saharan Africa. When not abroad, he serves on the pastoral staff at Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas. For more information, go to M3missions.com or Lakewoodchurch.com

SOURCE Lakewood Church

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http://www.lakewood.cc

ATLANTA, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- LCG Associates, Inc. a national, institutional investment consulting firm, elected David R. Emerson, CFA, CAIA to the firm's Board of Directors. Emerson has been with LCG since 2003.

"Dave's election to the Board is a reflection of his hard work, leadership, willingness to help others and dedication to our company," said Ed Johnson, President and CEO.

Emerson is a Senior Vice President, Principal based in LCG's Seattle office. His responsibilities include lead client relationships with corporations, healthcare organizations, endowments and foundations. Emerson also conducts capital market and asset class research as well as investment manager due diligence. Additionally, Emerson serves on LCG's team focused on Nuclear Decommissioning Trusts (NDTs), which has developed proprietary modeling software that demonstrates the effects of different capital market, tax rate, and spending assumptions.

Prior to joining LCG, Emerson worked in the investment consulting industry in a variety of roles from manager research to Consultant. Emerson is a CFA charterholder. He is an active member of the CFA Institute and CFA Society Seattle. He is also a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Charterholder. Emerson holds an M.B.A. in Finance from the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. He graduated from the University of Michigan with an A.B. in Political Science.

About LCG Associates

Founded in 1973, LCG Associates is a national, employee-owned investment consulting firm. As an independent company, the firm provides proactive, value-added consulting services and research to institutional and private clients. LCG is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia with offices in Dallas, Texas and Seattle, Washington. For more information on LCG, please visit www.lcgassociates.com.

SOURCE LCG Associates, Inc.

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PETALUMA, Calif., Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- San Francisco Bay Area-based ed tech leader FrontRow has hired Leslie Mallory as its Regional Sales Manager for Southern Texas and Louisiana.

"Leslie has a unique skill set in that she understands education and pedagogy, as well as the technical side of how technology is integrated and implemented in the classroom," says FrontRow CEO Jens Holsterbo.

After teaching elementary school for five years, Mallory supervised and mentored second year teachers across eight campuses in one of the largest school districts in Texas. Subsequently, she worked for an audio-visual integrator in education technology, successfully rounding out her technical know-how.

"My goal is to share the best education technology with teachers and administrators," shares Mallory. "Education technology, FrontRow's specifically, has improved overall learning for millions of students; for instance, reading comprehension and understanding continuously shows a measurable positive impact after our edtech solutions are implemented. This is one of the many reasons I work in education technology."

Mallory lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband and their three sons. She enjoys reading, spending time with her boys, and cheering for the Houston Texans.

About FrontRow

FrontRow helps schools communicate effortlessly with students, groups, and devices. More than 15,000 schools choose FrontRow for its easy-to-use products, better academic outcomes, and a safer, more efficient campus. FrontRow edtech solutions include:

Classroom audio systems for teacher voice reinforcement and media audio amplification

Automated lesson capture and distribution

AV control and management

Campus communication and control, including IP paging, intercom, bell scheduling, and automated emergency response

FrontRow is part of the William Demant Groupfounded in 1904 and listed on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange (CSE3247)through 45 Group companies in over 20 countries, its consolidated sales exceed US$1.9 billion.

Photo

Please follow this link for Leslie Mallory's photo.

FrontRow Logo

Please follow this link for FrontRow's logo.

SOURCE FrontRow

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SAN ANTONIO, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Lilis Energy, Inc. (NYSE American: LLEX), an exploration and development company operating in the Permian Basin of West Texas and Southeastern New Mexico, today announced its 2018 capital budget and issued guidance as to anticipated production.

2018 Plan highlights:

Focus on geological and geographical delineation of our highly contiguous position

Surpass 20,000 net acres in the Delaware Basin and fill in working interests

Basin and fill in working interests 2018 drill schedule focusing on developing additional benches including the Wolfcamp A, Wolfcamp B, Wolfcamp XY and 2 nd Bone Springs

Bone Springs Two rig operated drilling program in the Delaware Basin targeting 14 gross / 11 net wells

Basin targeting 14 gross / 11 net wells Fully funded 2018 Capital Expenditures for D&C of ~ $100 million

Combination of eleven 1-mile and three 1 -mile lateral wells

Current daily production of ~4,011 net Boepd as of January 27, 2018 (~75% liquids)

(~75% liquids) 2018 Exit Rate Production of ~7,500 Boepd

Currently completing three wells, of which one is in the Wolfcamp XY

Expect completion of two wells in Eastern acreage in Q1 and Q2 2018

Enhanced optimization of per unit cost metrics for capital expenditures, operating expenses and overhead

Ronald Ormand, Lilis Energy's Executive Chairman, commented, "Lilis' 2018 operating plan will focus on delineating our acreage position, further de-risking of our eastern acreage and continued delineation of additional benches, specifically the Wolfcamp A, Wolfcamp XY and 2nd Bone Springs. We plan to run a two-rig program consisting of a combination of 1 and 1 -mile laterals in order to move toward cash flow neutrality in 2019. Our plan is to drill 14 gross / 11 net wells throughout 2018. We will continue to look for opportunities to selectively fill in and enhance our working interest position and expand our acreage position in the core of the Delaware Basin; however, drilling and delineation will be our focus in 2018 as we move towards cash flow neutrality in 2019. We also expect to be over 20,000 net acres and 5,000 net boepd in the near future. Given our balance sheet strength and committed capital partners, we are well positioned to grow the Company at an accelerated rate well into the future."

Operational Update:

Currently in the process of completing and flow testing three wells. Anticipate completion operations to commence on three wells in February, including one in eastern acreage and one in the Wolfcamp XY. We are currently drilling three wells including one Wolfcamp XY and two in the Eastern portion of our acreage. During 2018, our budget includes drilling the following benches: Wolfcamp B, Wolfcamp A, Wolfcamp XY, and 2nd Bone Spring.

Kudu #2H (Wolfcamp B)

Well reached a total depth of 17,477 MD on October 22 , 2017. Total treatable lateral is 4,936 ft.

, 2017. Total treatable lateral is 4,936 ft. On well test

Grizzly #2H (Wolfcamp B)

Well reached a total depth of 17,260' MD on December 15 , 2017. Total treatable lateral is 4,778 ft.

, 2017. Total treatable lateral is 4,778 ft. On well test

Lion #3H (Wolfcamp B)

Well reached a total depth of 17,291' MD on December 4 , 2017. Total treatable lateral is 4,847 ft.

, 2017. Total treatable lateral is 4,847 ft. Well is currently being fracture stimulated

AG Hill #1H (Wolfcamp B - Eastern Acreage)

Well reached a total depth of 17,155' MD on January 16 , 2018. Total treatable lateral is 4,664 ft.

, 2018. Total treatable lateral is 4,664 ft. Waiting on completion

Hippo #2H (Wolfcamp B)

Well reached a total depth of 17,126' MD on January 9 , 2018. Total treatable lateral is 4,734 ft.

, 2018. Total treatable lateral is 4,734 ft. Waiting on completion

Meerkat #1H (Wolfcamp XY)

Well reached a total depth of 16,590' MD on January 24 , 2018. Total treatable lateral is 4,584 ft.

, 2018. Total treatable lateral is 4,584 ft. Waiting on completion

Howell #1H (Wolfcamp B - Eastern Acreage)

Well was spud on January 25 , 2018. Currently drilling at 3,487 ft.

, 2018. Currently drilling at 3,487 ft. TVD expected of 12,158 feet and total treatable lateral of 4,400 ft.

Wildhog #2H (Wolfcamp XY)

Well was spud on January 21 , 2018. Currently drilling at 5,350 ft.

, 2018. Currently drilling at 5,350 ft. TVD expected of 12,950 feet and total treatable lateral of 4,400 ft.

Financial position:

The Company remains fully capitalized to execute on its 2018 drilling and completion program.

On January 31, 2018, the Company closed on a new $50 million first lien term loan with Riverstone Credit Partners, L.P. ("RCP") which was funded in full at closing. The Company used approximately $30 million of the proceeds received at closing to repay and retire its existing first lien credit facility and will have $20 million of proceeds and additional availability under the new facility. The new credit facility may have additional availability of up to an additional $30 million, which was uncommitted at closing.

Also, on January 31, 2018, the Company agreed to issue $100 million of newly created Perpetual Preferred Stock to Varde Partners. The Preferred Stock will pay quarterly dividends at a rate of 9.75% per annum PIK'd and holds a conversion price of $6.15. In addition, the Company has optional redemption and forced conversion features. The Preferred Stock will fund the cash portion of the recent OEP transaction as well as a portion of the Company's 2018 drilling program.

Hedging:

The Company has recently initiated an active program to hedge near-term production pursuant to targets set relative to the reserve report dated December 31, 2017 prepared by Cawley, Gillespie & Associates. The Company is currently a party to NYMEX hedges on an average of 1,000 barrels per day of expected oil production from proved, developed, producing ("PDP") wells between January 1 through June 30, 2018. The Company has hedged an average of approximately 560 barrels per day of expected oil production between July 1 through December 31, 2018. The Company will review additional hedging as appropriate and market conditions warrant.

About Lilis Energy, Inc.

Lilis Energy, Inc. is a San Antonio-based independent oil and gas exploration and production company that operates in the Permian's Delaware Basin, considered amongst the leading resource plays in North America. The Company's total net acreage in the Permian Basin is over 19,000 acres. Lilis Energy's near-term E&P focus is to grow current reserves and production and to pursue strategic acquisitions in its core areas. For more information, please visit www.lilisenergy.com.

Forward-Looking Statements:

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Such statements are subject to a number of assumptions, risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. These risks include, but are not limited to the Company's ability to finance the its continued exploration, drilling operations and working capital needs; the Company's anticipated future cash flows and ability to access other sources of liquidity; all the other uncertainties, costs and risks involved in exploration and development activities; and the other risks identified in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K and its other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). Readers are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and that actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this press release are made as of the date hereof, and the Company does not undertake any obligation to update the forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE Lilis Energy, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.lilisenergy.com

PARISHer head above water, Wikie the killer whale looks at the human trainer next to her pool, listens, then loudly vocalizes: Hello. It is not a perfect imitation, but, astonishingly, recognizable. It is the first scientific demonstration of an orca mimicking human words, which also included Amythe name of Wikies handlerBye-Bye and One-Two-Three. We were not expecting a perfect match, like a parrot, researcher Jose Abramson of the Complutense University of Madrid said of the experiment reported Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Yet in a trial with six different words or phrases, some of Wikies attempts were a very high quality match, especially given that orcas vocal anatomy is totally different to ours. It was hard not to jump for joy when Wikie first spoke, Abramson told AFP, adding the research team had not quite known what to expect. When we tried hello and she did the sound... some emotional responses came from the trainers. For us [the scientists] it was very difficult not to say anything... Seeking to measure orcas ability to copy new sounds, Abramson and a team turned to Wikie, a captive killer whale at the Marineland Aquarium in Antibes, southern France. Trained to perform tricks for Marineland visitors, Wikie was a good candidate as she had already learned the gesture commanding her to copy what her trainer does. As part of the trial, the killer whale was asked to mimic never-before-heard sounds made by other orcas with different dialects from different family groups. Then, she was made to repeat human words. In recordings of the experiment, Wikie takes several stabs at hello. Every time, she voices two syllables with something resembling an l in the middle and an o at the end. The most convincing attempt is a deep, throaty sound, a bit like a cartoon demon might say hello. The orca also manages an eery whisper that does sound remarkably like Amy.But she seems to have more trouble with One-Two-Three. The last syllable sounds a bit like a raspberrythat sound of contempt humans make by pushing the tongue between the lips and forcibly expelling air to produce a vibration. Recordings of Wikie can be found here: https://figshare.com/s/2991d28752ca0690e843 Abramson said the orcas ability to mimic does not mean she understands what she is saying. The experiment was designed in such a way that no meaning or context was attached to any of the words. But it does show, once more, that orcas are very smart animals indeed, he added. Imitation skills are a sign of intelligence, as they allow animals to learn lessons from peers. The alternative, learning through trial and error, can be every expensive... you can die just trying poisonous fish, for example, for killer whales. But if you learn from the experience of the others its more safe, said Abramson. One of the main things that fired the evolution of human intelligence is the ability to have social learning, to imitate, and to have culture. So if you find that other species have also the capacity for social learning, and of complex social learning that could be imitation or teaching, you expect a lot of flexibility in that species. This in turn, allows a species to adapt more easily to changes in their environment, improving survival chances, said the researcher. Killer whales have previously been shown to mimic dolphin sounds. Apart from parrots whose copycat skills are well-documented, beluga whales, dolphins, seals, and an Asian elephant were previously reported to have tried mimicking human language.BOSTON, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- DPA Communications has expanded its leadership team to include its first partner, Lisa Bell. Bell's promotion showcases her long-standing commitment to DPA, one of the most respected and growing PR and marketing agencies in Boston.

Lisa Bell, executive vice president and partner, DPA Communications

"Bringing Lisa Bell on board in 2016 is the second-best decision we've made next to making her a partner today," said DPA Communications Founder and Principal, Dominic Amenta. "Having her help to steer the ship further solidifies DPA's position as one of the region's most capable PR and marketing agencies, allowing us to attract new clientele and move forward with our plans for expansion and even a west coast office to better serve our clients with a national footprint."

Bell joined DPA in spring 2016 as executive vice president and quickly became an integral member of the team, managing and working day-to-day on most of the agency's accounts while also serving as a mentor to staff, Account Executives Zach Galasso and Emma O'Connor. In her role as EVP, and now partner, she will continue to develop strategy and implement PR, social media marketing and influencer relations campaigns for clients in a variety of sectors  from technology and B2B to retail, consumer goods and hospitality  including Sunday River Resort, Haymakers for Hope, Vice Cream, Kane's Handcrafted Donuts, Adhark, Veterans Legal Services and the Irish Film Festival. Bell will play a key role in not only expanding DPA's client list, but also its team in 2018.

"After joining DPA, it didn't take me long to realize that it is a company that one rarely finds  it not only does impressive work for clients, but also enables me to surround myself with colleagues who I admire both professionally and personally," said Bell. "Dominic and I have known each other for over 12 years. With that inherent trust and knowledge of each other's areas of expertise on our side, we know that DPA is poised for success and an exciting expansion in 2018."

Bell has worked in public relations, crisis communications, social media, event management and marketing for 20 years at agencies coast to coast and in various industries. Prior to DPA, she served as VP of Public Relations at 451 Marketing (now Agency 451), overseeing the PR department's personnel and accounts including large integrated campaigns for The Yankee Candle Company, Bob's Discount Furniture and HP Hood. Prior to 451, Lisa served as senior vice president at Regan Communications Group for eight years, leading many of the company's premier accounts like Simon Malls and New Balance. It was at Regan where she met and worked alongside Dominic Amenta. She also worked on technology and business accounts at agencies in New York, NY and began her career at Schwartz-MSL in San Francisco. Bell graduated from Fordham University with a B.A. in Communications, and lives in Nahant, Massachusetts with her husband and two daughters. She serves on the board for the Nahant Education Foundation, a non-profit that raises funds to enrich education, particularly STEAM programs, in the Nahant public school system.

About DPA Communications

DPA Communications  launched in March 2012  is a full-service public relations and marketing firm. DPA clients are industry leaders who rely on the agency's expertise leveraging communications strategies to meet unique business goals in a complex and cluttered media landscape. DPA's strength lies in the ability to understand clients' business needs and translate those needs into effective marketing strategies. Whether a client is an existing brand or a newcomer looking to generate a market presence, the DPA team's relationships extend their influence beyond PR strategy. Clients benefit from the strategic alliances they have cultivated with media and business leaders on local, regional and national levels. For more information, follow them @dpacommunications or visit www.dpacommunications.com.

Dominic Amenta | DPA Communications

[email protected] | 781.789.5074

SOURCE DPA Communications

Related Links

http://www.dpacommunications.com

CHICAGO, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Recently completed Technomic research shows that the hotel food and beverage space continues to show growth, with overall consumer spending increasing 4.9% in 2017 and showing a robust 5.5% annual growth since 2011. Total spending by consumers within hotels, which includes all restaurants, bars and lounges, banquets and catering, room service, in-room minibars and other areas, totaled $48.7 billion in 2017. For 2018, Technomic is forecasting continued growth of 5% in consumer spending, as demand remains strong.

The 2017 Lodging Food & Beverage Study is available for purchase here: https://www.technomic.com/available-studies/multi-client-studies/lodging

Key takeaways from the report include:

Local and regional offerings are more in demand. Featuring local products, including adult beverage brands, has helped hotels compete against restaurants in the area that may otherwise be more attractive to patrons

Hotels are reinventing themselves to focus on social and community spaces. Many new hotels are putting emphasis on flexible lobby and outdoor areas that can help boost social interaction

Operators place emphasis on upscale casual-dining experiences. Many hotels are offering upscale eateries to appeal to a wider array of patrons and to enhance the overall dining experience

Quotes: David Henkes, senior principal, Technomic

(follow David on Twitter @DavidHenkes and email [email protected] to request an interview)

"Hotels use their food and beverage programs as competitive differentiators and are investing to drive unique guest experiences. As more options appear for consumers, not only in new and emerging types of hotel properties but also in alternative channels like Airbnb and VRBO, having a strong food and beverage program is more important than ever for continued hotel success."

"The hotel food and beverage segment remains an extremely attractive area for any supplier that can service the unique needs of these operators. Having a dedicated strategy that is driven by facts will help suppliers better navigate this attractive segment."

Banquets and catering are the primary drivers for hotel programs, accounting for nearly 40 cents out of every dollar spent at hotels, and account for an even larger part of the overall revenue at upscale and luxury properties that cater to both personal and business events. Other areas that are receiving more focus at hotels include grab-and-go areas, such as lobby pantries and kiosks; breakfast areas; bars/lounges; and preferred guest lounges that help create a unique amenity for higher-status guests. Traditional areas, such as minibars and room service, are being de-emphasized by many properties, and growth in these areas lags well below other parts of the hotel food and beverage program. In particular, breakfast remains a critical touchpoint for hotels and a daypart where hotels can reach more guests.

Contacts:

Purchasing Details: Patrick Noone, 312.506.3852, [email protected]

Press Inquiries and Report Details: David Henkes, 312.506.3927, [email protected]

About Technomic

Technomic Inc., a Winsight company, delivers a 360-degree view of the food industry. It impacts growth and profitability for clients by providing consumer-grounded vision and channel-relevant strategic insights. Its services range from major research studies and management consulting solutions to online databases and simple fact-finding assignments. Its clients include food manufacturers and distributors, restaurants and retailers, other foodservice organizations, and various institutions aligned with the food industry. Visit Technomic at www.technomic.com.

About Winsight, LLC

Winsight LLC is a recognized leader in business-to-business media and information services for the convenience-retailing, foodservice and grocery industries. Winsight has an extensive media portfolio, including five publications: CSP, Restaurant Business, FoodService Director, Convenience Store Products and Winsight Grocery Business. Winsight also offers a suite of digital products, including websites, e-newsletters, webinars, video products, mobile and tablet apps, and custom marketing solutions. In addition to more than 12 major EduNetworking conferences and advisory meetings, Winsight also produces seven exclusive, large-scale executive-level conferences: Restaurant Leadership Conference, Global Restaurant Leadership Conference, Outlook Leadership Conference, Convenience Retailing University, FSTEC, MenuDirections and Restaurant Directions. In 2015, Winsight acquired Technomic Inc., a provider of primary and secondary market information and advisory services for the food industry. For more information on Winsight and its brands, go to www.winsightmedia.com.

SOURCE Technomic

Related Links

http://www.technomic.com

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- After being in stealth mode for the past six months while working on R&D focused on applying deep learning to social media analytics, Soteria Intelligence is excited to announce the release of powerful new tools for brand reputation management, customer service and marketing as well as a new website that graphically represents the company's vision of machine learning.

Soteria Intelligence's new tools empower companies by delivering social media analytics and intelligence solutions that use Natural Language Processing (NLP) to build context around, and extract true meaning from, posts on social networks. Additionally, since a picture is worth a thousand words, image recognition capabilities allow organizations to discover a social media world they never knew existed.

One of the key things that makes Soteria Intelligence unique is the creation of intuitive interfaces that guide users to provide human input that will ultimately make the software more intelligent and effective over time  a true marriage between man and machine. This supervised learning approach helps eliminate false positives and white noise while delivering actionable insights.

"We are at a pivotal point in time where artificial intelligence is starting to take over all facets of everyday life, and we see a future where humans and computers work together as a team to solve problems," stated Aaron Schoenberger, Founder and CEO of Soteria Intelligence.

The new solutions being announced today solve many of the problems organizations have faced in the past when analyzing social media, and are ideal for spotting brand reputation issues on the horizon, cultivating insights for advertising campaigns or product development, and monitoring social media to understand conversations and sentiment after the fact.

Soteria Intelligence's revamped website was created to not only showcase the company's products and services, but also take something as complex as artificial intelligence (AI), specifically machine learning, and bring it down to earth via compelling, educational illustrations.

For more information, visit the company website: https://www.soteriaintelligence.com/

About Soteria Intelligence:

Soteria Intelligence is a technology company based in Los Angeles, California that provides social media analytics solutions powered by machine learning as well as custom integrations, consulting, and an upcoming ecosystem of interconnected machine learning products.

SOURCE Soteria Intelligence

Related Links

http://www.soteriaintelligence.com

Following her undergraduate studies, she joined Teach for America as a corps member where she taught fifth grade and computers in Phoenix, Arizona, where she helped facilitate professional development programs and district curriculum development.

Wojnarwsky earned her J.D., cum laude, from the Case Western Reserve University School of Law in 2013, where she became a member of the Order of Barristers, a national honor society for excellence in advocacy. She also received a Master of Elementary Education, summa cum laude, from Arizona State University in 2009 and a B.A. in political science from Yale University in 2007, where she served as a coordinator for Dwight Hall, the largest campus-based student-run service organization in the country.

Wojnarwsky can be reached at [email protected] or 216.348.5415.

About McDonald Hopkins

Founded in 1930, McDonald Hopkins is a business advisory and advocacy law firm with locations in Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Miami, and West Palm Beach. With more than 50 service and industry teams, the firm has the expertise and knowledge to meet the growing number of legal and business challenges our clients face. For more information about McDonald Hopkins, visit mcdonaldhopkins.com.

CONTACT:

Deborah W. Kelm

McDonald Hopkins LLC

600 Superior Avenue, East, Suite 2100

Cleveland, Ohio 44114

Phone: 216.348.5733

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE McDonald Hopkins

Related Links

http://www.mcdonaldhopkins.com

BOSTON, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Actifio, the Data-as-a-Service company, today announced a partnership with MDwise, a nonprofit health maintenance organization focused on providing health coverage to individuals and families located in Indiana. Now, through Actifio and the company's partnership with Online Tech, MDwise has reliable data protection and ten-year data retention that meets regulatory compliance while being user friendly.

Founded in 1994, MDwise is a Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) to more than 350,000 members throughout the state of Indiana, focused on health coverage for Indiana individuals and families. Because MDwise must maintain data records for seven to ten years, they were running regular backups and shipping tapes to physical storage spaces. It was an expensive and time-consuming process. Eventually their backup appliance started to show signs of instability. They also feared data media storage corruption, and data recall ten years in the future seemed uncertain. The difficulties for MDwise extended beyond backup; their entire IT infrastructure was aging.

They needed assurance of a complete and reliable data retention environment that was compliant with federal HIPAA regulations. That meant not only secure data storage, but also an IT partner equipped to provide comprehensive and secure systems for data retrieval, security, and disaster recovery.

MDwise selected Online Tech as their service provider and Actifio to manage and protect their critical data. Operating seven Midwest data centers, Online Tech could provide the secure and compliant enterprise cloud resources that MDwise required. With Actifio, now data backups that once took nearly 24 hours can be completed in minutes. Backup data is deduplicated and compressed and made available directly to MDwise staff through a single console with secure permissions.

"We were managing an unstable environment and jumping through hoops to do it," said John Goerges, Director of IT at MDwise. "Now, it's fast and easy. We save time for our local engineers so they can focus on other, more strategic things. Our archiving costs are much lower. Restore times are immediate, and the native backup format eliminates vendor lock-in."

"MDwise manages an enormous amount of data, and they are constantly needing to produce reports and extracts that comply with state and federal mandates," said Ash Ashutosh, founder and CEO of Actifio. "With Actifio and Online Tech, the company is seeing drastic changes in process, helping to transform how they work and do business."

Immediate benefits include:

All IT resources managed by Online Tech with direct data access through the Actifio console

Consistent and strategic long-term data retention program

30% cost reduction for long-term archiving

Data restore times reduced from days to minutes

Eliminated $60,000 in annual maintenance fees

in annual maintenance fees Full HIPAA regulatory compliance

MDwise has begun to further exploit the Actifio platform's versatility for their application developers, providing direct access for self-service database refresh and smoothing workflow functions to automate development and database testing.

For more information on the partnership, view the case study here.

About MDwise

MDwise is a nonprofit health maintenance organization focused on providing health coverage to Indiana individuals and families. Our mission is to provide access to compassionate, high quality, coordinated health care and education in the communities we serve. MDwise provides health coverage for the following Indiana Health Coverage Programs: Hoosier Healthwise and Healthy Indiana Plan. Health coverage is currently provided through these health plans to more than 350,000 members through a broad network of primary medical providers, hospitals, specialists and other providers. For more information, visit MDwise.org.

About Online Tech

Online Tech is the leader in secure, compliant hybrid cloud, colocation, disaster recovery and data protection services. Their industry-leading portal, OTPortal, enables clients to view and manage their of their IT systems in a single pane of glass. Backed by independent HIPAA, PCI, SSAE 16 EU-US Privacy Shield and SOC 2 audits, Online Tech delivers exceptional experiences for businesses seeking a fully managed IT-as-a-service provider. For more information, call 877-740-5028 email [email protected] or visit www.onlinetech.com.

About Actifio

Actifio is the world's leading Data-as-a-Service platform. It enables thousands of users around the world to deliver their data just as they deliver their applications and infrastructure... as a service available instantly, anywhere. An enterprise-class software platform powered by patented Virtual Data Pipeline technology, Actifio frees data from traditional infrastructure to accelerate adoption of hybrid cloud, build higher quality applications faster, and improve business resiliency and availability. For more, visit Actifio.com or follow us on Twitter @Actifio.

Media Contacts:

Meredith Kelly

Bite for Actifio

[email protected]

SOURCE Actifio

Related Links

http://www.actifio.com

"Finding a way to reverse oxygen deficiency in tumors has been a goal in radiation therapy for over 50 years," says senior author John Eisenbrey, PhD, Assistant Professor of Radiology at Thomas Jefferson University and investigator at Jefferson's Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center . "We've demonstrated here that oxygen microbubbles flush tumors with the gas, and make radiation therapy significantly more effective in animal models."

Microbubbles were originally developed to help improve ultrasound imaging. However, being able to "pop" oxygen-filled microbubbles within tumors using beams of ultrasound presented researchers with an opportunity. Most solid tumors are oxygen-deficient, in part because they quickly outgrow the supply of oxygen-carrying blood vessels that can penetrate the tumor mass. That lack of oxygen also makes tumors more resistant to radiation, which is why trying to flush tumors with oxygen became such a prized goal in the field.

In this study, Dr. Eisenbrey and colleagues showed that popping the microbubble with ultrasound immediately prior to radiation treatment could triple sensitivity of the cancer to radiation. It also nearly doubled the survival times in mice from 46 days with placebo, nitrogen-filled microbubbles, to 76 days with oxygen-filled microbubbles.

How does it work? Radiation therapy works by creating oxygen  and other  free radicals in tumors, out of the oxygen present in the tissues. But when those oxygen levels are low, the free radicals produced by radiation therapy are also lower, offering less therapeutic benefit. With this approach, microbubbles are delivered to the general blood flow via intravenous injection, but are popped locally raising the oxygen level only in the tumor. Interestingly, the investigators showed that oxygen increased throughout the cancer mass, even in areas that didn't have direct access to blood vessels.

"The very act of bursting these microbubbles within the tumor tissue seems to change the local physiology of the tumor and make cells generally more permeable to oxygen and potentially to chemotherapy as well," says Eisenbrey. "We think this is a promising approach to test in patients to amplify the effects of radiation therapy."

In fact, Dr. Eisenbrey and colleagues at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center are currently using a similar approach in a first-in-human clinical trial of microbubbles for improving radiation therapy of liver cancer (Clinicaltrials.gov number: NCT03199274). Using an FDA-approved microbubble contrast agent, the researcher are bursting microbubbles in patients with liver cancer in combination with their standard treatment with radioembolization therapy. Though not filled with oxygen, the microbubble popping is thought to create enough disruption to the tumor to offer therapeutic benefit over radioembolization alone.

This grant was support by National Institute of Health R21 CA 190926; and an equipment grant from Siemens Healthcare, Mount View, CA. The authors report no conflicts of interest

Article reference: J.R. Eisenbrey et al., "Sensitization of hypoxic tumors to radiation therapy using ultrasound sensitive oxygen microbubbles" International Journal of Radiation OncologyBiologyPhysics, DOI: 10.1016/j.ijrobp.2018.01.042, 2018.

SOURCE Thomas Jefferson UniversityANDOVER, Mass., Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Minuteman Security Technologies, Inc. (Minuteman), today announced its partnership with Prospect Partners, LLC, a Chicago-based private equity firm that backs unique, growing companies. The investment from Prospect Partners and management, led by Minuteman's CEO Joseph Lynch and COO and President George Yannakopoulos, will support the company's internal growth and national expansion.

Founded in 1988 and headquartered in Andover, Massachusetts, Minuteman is a leading provider of enterprise security technology solutions. The company's security systems are used by a wide range of organizations throughout the United States. Customers include law enforcement, energy companies, mass transit, large retail chains, academic institutions, public safety agencies, and community hospitals. Minuteman recently announced its national expansion, and now operates five regional offices from Maine to Arizona.

"A national presence is key to both our growth and diversification strategies and to providing superior security systems with the high-touch customer service for which we have become well-known," said Mr. Lynch. "As we execute our plan, we look forward to the expertise, capital support, and partnership of Prospect Partners, which has a long history of growing other companies with similar business models. We are eager to introduce exciting proprietary products, like our new TransitSentry mobile city surveillance system, the most advanced public safety solution available, to new customers across the nation."

Minuteman's offering includes video surveillance, access control systems, emergency communications, intrusion detection systems and public safety security solutions. As an industry-leading security systems integrator, Minuteman partners with the best-of-class manufacturers to design, install, and maintain complex security solutions for its customers.

"Minuteman is a dominant niche systems integrator with a great brand name, exceptional product lines, and an excellent reputation for service quality," said Brett Holcomb, a Principal of Prospect Partners. "Over the years, the company has consistently been recognized for its services, innovation, and growth."

Added Lou Kenter, a Founding Principal of Prospect Partners, "Joe and George are phenomenal leaders who have built an organization with a strong culture we are proud to join. We look forward to supporting Minuteman's many exciting growth initiatives as the company continues its national expansion."

Minuteman finished 38th in SDM magazine's annual ranking of the Top 100 Systems Integrators in 2017, climbing 15 positions from 53rd in 2016.

About Minuteman Security Technologies, Inc.

Minuteman Security Technologies is a privately-held, leading provider of enterprise security system technology solutions, including custom design, installation, development, and support services. Minuteman specializes in a diverse range of advanced security management systems for a broad range of enterprise clients. http://www.minutemanst.com

About Prospect Partners, LLC

Private equity firm Prospect Partners invests nationwide in unique, growing businesses. A highly experienced and committed investor, Prospect Partners manages $470 million across three private equity funds. Since 1998, Prospect Partners has helped build more than 50 portfolio companies in widely diverse niche manufacturing, distribution, and specialty service markets. http://www.prospect-partners.com

Contact

Joseph Lynch

Minuteman Security Technologies, Inc.

978-783-0018

[email protected]

Lauren Sinai

Prospect Partners

312-782-7400

[email protected]

SOURCE Minuteman Security Technologies

Related Links

https://www.minutemanst.com

The Next Generation of AI: What technologies will fuel innovation in artificial intelligence?

Measuring Intelligence in Machines: How are AI systems learning new skills, and what are the implications?

Industry Impact of AI: The effects on enterprise, health care, finance and transportation

AI in Asia : What can we learn from China's AI Revolution?

: What can we learn from AI Revolution? Ethics in AI: From addressing bias to rethinking education, examining AI's impact on society

The growing line-up of speakers includes:

Oren Etzioni , Chief Executive Officer, Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence

, Chief Executive Officer, for Artificial Intelligence Zoubin Ghahramani , Professor of Information Engineering, University of Cambridge ; Chief Scientist, Uber

, Professor of Information Engineering, ; Chief Scientist, Uber Dario Gil , Vice President, AI and IBM Q, IBM Research

, Vice President, AI and IBM Q, IBM Research Jia Li , Head of R&D, Cloud AI, and Machine Learning, Google

, Head of R&D, Cloud AI, and Machine Learning, Google Astro Teller , Captain of Moonshots, Alphabet's X

, Captain of Moonshots, Alphabet's X Matt Wood , Director, AWS Deep Learning, Amazon Web Services

, Director, AWS Deep Learning, Amazon Web Services Hua Wu, Technical Chief of Natural Language Processing, Baidu

For full conference details, registration, and partnership opportunities visit www.emtechdigital.com.

Media who would like to cover the event should reach out to [email protected] to learn more about obtaining press credentials.

About The EmTech Event Series

MIT Technology Review's EmTech Event Series dives into emerging technologies that will drive the new global economy. From mainstage keynotes to Q&As and small discussions, these events provide a curated view of the year's most important developments. EmTech gives attendees the opportunity to discover future trends and learn from the most innovative people and companies in the world. Currently in its 18th year, EmTech events have quickly become a must-attend for entrepreneurs, innovators, policy leaders, media and more. This year's EmTech events include EmTech Digital, March 26-27; Business of Blockchain, April 23; and EmTech Next, June 4-5. Learn more.

About MIT Technology Review

Founded at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1899, MIT Technology Review is a world-renowned, independent media company whose insight, analysis, reviews, interviews and live events explain the commercial, social and political impact of new technologies. MIT Technology Review derives its authority from the world's foremost technology institution and from its editors' deep technical knowledge, capacity to see technologies in their broadest context, and unequaled access to leading innovators and researchers. For 117 years, MIT Technology Review's mission has been to equip readers with the intelligence to understand a world shaped by technology and the impact upon their careers and lives. Subscribe. Follow: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram.

Media Contact:

Meredith Chiricosta

BIGfish Communications for MIT Technology Review

[email protected]

617-713-3800

SOURCE MIT Technology Review

Related Links

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PUNE, India, January 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

ProMobi Technologies today announced that its Android Device Management Solution, MobiLock Pro, now supports Remote Control feature for Samsung, Sony, LG and Lenovo mobile devices. MobiLock Remote Control will enable IT administrators to access and control any supported device managed by MobiLock, located anywhere in the world. Working immensely in favor of IT admins, it will aid them in providing real-time support to their corporate-owned devices or administer unattended devices (Android Kiosks, Mounted Devices, Android mPOS, et al.). It will enable companies in eliminating the need for a physical/email/phone check of all devices for its issues.

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/635751/MobiLock_Pro_Logo.jpg )



"MobiLock Pro's mission has always been to help the organizations succeed in their journey towards complete Enterprise Mobility. With the launch of Remote Control, we believe our customers will not only be able to remotely manage/monitor/control their devices, but also troubleshoot the issues with the devices in real-time. This feature enhances the user support experience and is very simple and easy to use. And additionally it reduces a lot of logistical costs and saves precious time," said Abhishek Samantaray, VP-Products of ProMobi Technologies.

MobiLock Remote Control currently works on Samsung KNOX supported, Sony, LG and Lenovo devices that run on Android version 5.0 and onwards; work is being put in to extend its compatibility to other Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs).

For more information about MobiLock Remote Control or to request an evaluation, please visit: http://www.mobilock.in/

About ProMobi Technologies:

ProMobi Technologies provides a leading Android Device Management Solution under the brand MobiLock Pro. The solution securely manages the enterprise devices, apps, and content. It focuses on corporate-owned Android devices used by employees, tablet-based interactive kiosks, mobile point of sale (mPOS) and digital signages. Renowned organizations from startups to Fortune 500 trust MobiLock Pro for their Device Management.

For more information, please visit http://www.mobilock.in



Media Contact:

Swapnil Shete

[email protected]



SOURCE ProMobi Technologies Private LimitedBOSTON and BE'ER SHEVA, Israel, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Morphisec, the leading provider of Moving Target Defense-based cybersecurity solutions, announced the addition of new partners to its Channel Partner Program including Decision Tree Technologies and HoneyTek Systems, Inc. With these new partners, Morphisec continues to grow its channel ecosystem, leveraging its innovative endpoint security technology to continue its global reach.

The company's rapidly expanding partner base is direct indication of the security market's recognition of the growing problem presented by fileless, in-memory and other advanced threats, and the need for a dedicated, best-in-class security layer to prevent them from executing within enterprise and mid-market systems.

"The threat from destructive advanced attacks that time and again bypass other security solutions is driving increased demand for our breakthrough endpoint prevention solution," says Paul Laracy, Sr. Director U.S. Channels at Morphisec. "We are excited to work with these expert partners to bring our unparalleled advanced threat prevention to North American businesses. All our partners share a customer-driven focus and serve as trusted advisors, helping their customers build the security stack that best meets their individual requirements."

Morphisec stops the most dangerous cyberattacks targeting endpoints. It works seamlessly with a company's existing security infrastructure to form an extremely effective prevention stack. Morphisec's Moving Target Defense technology does not rely on any knowledge of the threat form, protecting endpoints from emerging and as-yet-unseen advanced threats, including APTs, zero-days, ransomware and evasive fileless attacks. The solution is essentially invisible to the end user and requires virtually zero management or maintenance.

"Businesses are asking for a technology that can secure their endpoints against advanced, targeted threats as other technologies have proven to be either ineffective or too invasive," said Brent Lawson, CEO of Decision Tree. "Morphisec closes a security gap, which otherwise poses enormous risk to companies in all industries. Joining the Morphisec Partner Program delivers on our commitment to our customers to bring them the most effective technology to keep their organizations secure." Decision Tree Technologies provides systems integration solutions to businesses and the public sector.

HoneyTek Systems, Inc. is an information technology solutions provider located in Ontario, Canada. Don Velinor, HoneyTek Director of Sales, said that Morphisec adds an essential element to their security portfolio, "We provide best in its class products to help our customers build a bulletproof security architecture today that will also keep them secure tomorrow. Morphisec is essential to fulfilling that goal."

About Morphisec

Morphisec delivers pioneering endpoint security solutions that provide real-time protection against the most advanced cyberattacks of today and unknown threats of tomorrow. Our patented Moving Target Defense technology prevents threats others can't, including APTs, zero-days, ransomware, evasive fileless attacks and web-borne exploits. Morphisec provides a crucial, small-footprint memory-defense layer that easily deploys into a company's existing security infrastructure to form a simple, highly effective, cost-efficient prevention stack. Our disruptive and powerful value proposition has earned us the trust of our customers and recognition in the field, such as Gartner Cool Vendor and the People's Choice Award from PwC.

For more information, visit www.morphisec.com, schedule a demo or contact Morphisec at [email protected] or 617-209-2552.

Media Contact:

Emily Eldridge

SHIFT Communications

512-792-2544

[email protected]

SOURCE Morphisec

Related Links

http://www.morphisec.com

The four countries opposed to Qatar in the Gulf crisis have slammed the UN commission on Human Rights ((OHCHR) for its report accusing the quartet for imposing an unlawful blockade on Qatar in the diplomatic crisis that has gripped the region.

Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt have issued a joint statement calling the findings of the commission inaccurate, misleading and based on unfounded allegations, al Jazeera reports citing the Saudi state news agency SPA.

Qatar, following the imposition of a sea, air and land embargo by the four countries since June last year over claims that the tiny gulf Emirate sponsors terrorism, referred to the commission for arbitration.

The commission issued its report following a sojourn in Qatar, in November, of a team of experts to document the effects of the blockade on human rights among Qatars population.

The commission noted that the embargo was discriminatory and similar to economic warfare.

The Saudi-led group rejected the UN conclusion, noting that their move was dictated by Qatars incitement of violence and promotion of hate speech in the Arab world.

The basis of this crisis goes back to the background of Qatars support for individuals and entities internationally involved in financing terrorism and supporting its activities, and promoting their extremist ideology, which incites violence and promotes hate speech in the Arab region through Qatari media platforms or funded through Qatari figures, they said.

Qatar has rejected the blockading countries assault on the UN commission.

OHCHR representatives conducted interviews with 20 government and non-governmental organizations, and 40 victims during the course of their evaluation, al Jazeera reports.HONG KONG, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- China Cord Blood Corporation (NYSE: CO) ("CCBC" or the "Company"), a leading cord blood bank operator in China, today announced that Nanjing Ying Peng Hui Kang Medical Industry Investment Partnership (limited partnership) ("Nanjing Ying Peng"), via its subsidiary, has become a major shareholder of the Company.

Following the entry of Nanjing Ying Peng, Mr. Ping Xu was appointed as a director of the Board of Directors of the Company (the "Board"). Mr. Xu is a senior vice president of Sanpower Group Co., Ltd and the authorized representative of the executive partner of Nanjing Ying Peng. Mr. Xu possesses extensive knowledge and experience in cross-border M&A and project financing. Mr. Xu also spearheaded multiple merger and acquisition initiatives both inside and outside of the People's Republic of China.

Simultaneously, the Company announced that Mr. Yuen Kam has resigned from his positions as Chairman and director of the Board and as Chairman and member of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee (the "Nominating Committee") of the Company. His resignation was accepted by the Board and is effective as of January 31, 2018.

Following Mr. Kam's resignation, Ms. Ting Zheng, Chief Executive Officer of the Company, was appointed as the Chairperson of the Board and the Chairperson of the Nominating Committee. Mr. Mark Chen, one of the Company's existing independent non-executive directors also joined as a new member to the Nominating Committee.

"We would like to express our most sincere gratitude to Mr. Kam for his years of excellent leadership and incalculable contributions. At the same time, we welcome Mr. Xu to the team. We believe Mr. Xu will be an invaluable addition to our Board leadership and his extensive experience will provide further insight towards the Company's future developments." said Ms. Ting Zheng, "We are excited and look forward to working together with Nanjing Ying Peng to continue to expand our cord blood banking initiatives."

Nanjing Ying Peng is a limited partnership incorporated in China and governed by the laws of China. Nanjing Ying Peng, which owns 65.4% of the total issued share capital of the Company, will continue to observe and comply with all relevant reporting and filing requirements.

About China Cord Blood Corporation

China Cord Blood Corporation is the first and largest umbilical cord blood banking operator in China in terms of geographical coverage and the only cord blood banking operator with multiple licenses. Under current PRC government regulations, only one licensed cord blood banking operator is permitted to operate in each licensed region and no new licenses will be granted before 2020 in addition to the seven licenses authorized as of today. China Cord Blood Corporation provides cord blood collection, laboratory testing, hematopoietic stem cell processing, and stem cell storage services. For more information, please visit our website at http://www.chinacordbloodcorp.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events, performance and results of operations, and underlying assumptions and other statements that are other than statements of historical facts. These statements are subject to uncertainties and risks including, but not limited to, product and service demand and acceptance, changes in technology, economic conditions, the impact of competition and pricing, government regulation, and other risks contained in statements filed from time to time with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. All such forward-looking statements, whether written or oral, and whether made by or on behalf of the Company, are expressly qualified by the cautionary statements and any other cautionary statements which may accompany the forward-looking statements. In addition, the Company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof.

For more information, please contact:

China Cord Blood Corporation

Investor Relations Department

Tel: (+852) 3605-8180

Email: [email protected]

ICR, Inc.

William Zima

Tel: (+86) 10-6583-7511 (China) or (+1) 646-405-5185 (U.S.)

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE China Cord Blood Corporation

Related Links

http://www.chinacordbloodcorp.com

LONDON, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, the National Geographic Society, African Parks, the Wyss Foundation and the Republic of Benin announced a groundbreaking partnership to help secure and rehabilitate one of the last remaining wild landscapes in all of West Africa, Benin's Pendjari National Park. Together, the four partners are initially committing more than US$23M to safeguard the park.

African Parks, a conservation non-governmental organization (NGO) that manages protected areas across Africa, assumed management of Pendjari, a World Heritage site, in partnership with the Presidency of the Republic of Benin in May of 2017. Earlier that year, Mr. Hansjorg Wyss, a member of African Parks' board of directors, made a transformational commitment to support parks currently under African Parks' management, and to help it bring up to five new parks into the portfolio.

The National Geographic Society's monetary commitment of US$7.5M over five years complements a portion of the Wyss Foundation's commitment to African Parks for Pendjari National Park. This partnership aims to protect, restore and revitalize Pendjari's extraordinary landscape through increased operational effectiveness, scientific research, innovative technology and visually compelling storytelling.

"Today's announcement is a testament to the power of partnerships," said Gary E. Knell, president and CEO of the National Geographic Society. "At National Geographic, we strive each and every day to achieve a planet in balance. Combining forces with African Parks, the Wyss Foundation and the government of Benin, we are capitalizing on the unique capabilities of each organization  including on-the-ground management, cutting-edge science and exploration and storytelling prowess  to create an unprecedented model for conservation."

For almost two decades, African Parks has implemented a successful private-public partnership model to conserve Africa's wildlife and remaining wild areas, providing expertise in highly effective protected area management that will be brought to bear in the day-to-day management of Pendjari. National Geographic will complement this work by leading science-based exploration of the park; developing technology to monitor and protect the site; convening stakeholders to develop a large-scale management plan; creating educational materials relevant to the community; and producing visually compelling materials that make the case for long-term financing and protection.

"We are extremely pleased to be partnering with the National Geographic Society for the continued protection of Pendjari National Park," said Peter Fearnhead, CEO of African Parks. "The scale of this commitment, and the Society's ability to help advance scientific research, develop technological solutions, and shine a spotlight on this invaluable ecological landscape, will help us to ensure its future."

Pendjari, which is located in the northwest of Benin and measures 4,800 square kilometers, is an anchoring part of the WAP complex (W-Arly-Pendjari) spanning across three countries: Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger. It is the largest remaining intact ecosystem in the whole of West Africa and the last refuge for the region's largest remaining population of elephant and the critically endangered West African lion; along with cheetah, antelope, buffalo and many other species.

According to Patrice Talon, President of the Republic of Benin, "the Pendjari National Park is an exceptional reserve, which was under threat because of poaching. This partnership with African Parks, National Geographic and Wyss Foundation encourages us to continue our efforts to reveal the potential of the Pendjari. The international collaboration for this reserve is extraordinary, especially because it comes at a time when my government is committed to making tourism a lever for long-term development. It is all at once a matter of preservation of our environment and our natural resources, sustainable tourism and social impact."

This globally important reserve, the last stronghold for key species in West Africa, faces major threats, including poaching, demographic pressure on surrounding land, and exponential resource erosion. In a progressive step to protect the nation's natural heritage, the government of Benin committed US$6M to the park in 2017, and the Presidency of the Republic of Benin put in place a plan to revitalize and protect Pendjari as part of its investment and development program, "Revealing Benin."

Said Jonathan Baillie, National Geographic Society's chief scientist and senior vice president, Science and Exploration: "The world's most dynamic ecosystems are continually threatened by human encroachment, mismanagement and the lasting effects of climate change. Through this partnership, National Geographic is furthering its commitment to the lasting sustainability of significant natural landscapes and the remarkable species that inhabit them."

"This is an exciting collaboration between the Wyss Foundation, National Geographic, African Parks and, most importantly, the government of Benin," said Mr. Wyss. "This effort is an example of how combining the best abilities of different conservation organizations and government can achieve lasting impacts."

Other key funders of Pendjari National Park include the Wildcat Foundation to help improve law enforcement and counter poaching, and the Elephant Crisis Fund and the Lion Recovery Fund for specific species-related research and protection. All three organizations are committed to protecting this critically important landscape.

About the National Geographic Society:

The National Geographic Society is a leading nonprofit that invests in bold people and transformative ideas in the fields of exploration, scientific research, storytelling and education. The Society aspires to create a community of change, advancing key insights about the planet and probing some of the most pressing scientific questions of our time, all while ensuring that the next generation is armed with geographic knowledge and global understanding. Its goal is measurable impact: furthering exploration and educating people around the world to inspire solutions for the greater good. For more information, visit www.nationalgeographic.org.

About African Parks: African Parks is a nonprofit conservation organisation that takes on the complete responsibility for the rehabilitation and long-term management of national parks in partnership with governments and local communities. With the largest counter-poaching force and the most amount of area under protection for any one NGO in Africa, African Parks manages 13 national parks and protected areas in nine countries covering over 7 million hectares in Benin, Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda and Zambia. For more information visit www.africanparks.org and Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

About the Revealing Benin Programme: In December 2016, the Government of the Republic of Benin launched "Revealing Benin," a development and investment programme of unprecedented scale in the country's history. With a budget of 9.039 trillion FCFA (13.78 billion) over the next five years, it will raise investment to 34% of GDP (compared to 18.8% currently) through a collaboration with private sector partners, who will provide 61% of the programme's total planned investment. Based on 45 major projects across nine key sectors, the programme will sustainably revitalise the country's economy. Discover more on RevealingBenin.com and @RevealingBenin.

About the Wyss Foundation: The Wyss Foundation is a private, charitable foundation dedicated to supporting innovative, lasting solutions that improve lives, empower communities, and strengthen connections to the land. Since its establishment in 1998, the Wyss Foundation has helped local communities, land trusts and nonprofit partners permanently protect more than 20 million acres of land across the American West and nearly 10 million acres internationally. These lands are now conserved in perpetuity for current and future generations to explore and enjoy.

SOURCE National Geographic Society

Related Links

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/

BOSTON, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Anyone with a pet knows how nerve-wracking it can be to transport a dog  or especially a cat  to the vet's office and back for an appointment. This hassle is a key reason routine vet visits are on the decline, which may lead to preventable, expensive emergency veterinary hospital visits for the 68 percent of U.S. families who own a pet.

Responding to a long-overdue marketplace need, a team of experienced business leaders have partnered with an experienced house call veterinarian to launch MVS Pet Care, the nation's first professional franchise network of house call veterinarians. MVS Pet Care offers general wellness care, and vaccinations as well as illness and injury care in clients' homes. Trained MVS veterinarians also provide complete end of life services, including hospice care and in-home euthanasia, striving to make these distressing experiences as comfortable as possible for the family as well as the pet.

The company will officially launch the MVS Pet Care franchise opportunity at VMX: Veterinary Meeting & Expo, to be held February 4-7, 2018, in Orlando - booth #3715. MVS (which stands for Mobile Veterinary Services) Pet Care, offers pet owners relief from the stress of vet visits by bringing quality, veterinary care to pets in their homes, where they feel most comfortable and safe. In addition to solving a longstanding problem for pet owners, MVS Pet Care provides veterinarians with new business opportunities.

"Previously, upon earning their degrees, veterinarians' options were limited to either working in a vet's office or animal hospital, or starting their own brick & mortar practice, which is tough. They're typically overworked and underpaid," said Todd Giatrelis, co-founder and CEO. "With MVS Pet Care, they can get into business with significantly lower entry costs than a brick and mortar practice. They'll receive training and support, scheduling software and access to unmatched pricing for equipment and supplies through partnerships we've cemented with national pharmaceutical, diagnostic labs and supply companies."

The mobile pet care franchise was the brainchild of a veteran team of franchise industry experts, including Giatrelis, Sarah Towne (President), and Ashley Shimabukuro (COO). The trio's previous accomplishments in franchising included the launch and growth of Flip Flop Shops  a leading global retailer of flip flops and casual footwear, eventually selling to Cherokee Global Brands in October, 2015. They also are the franchisors of Sugar Plum Parties, a growing, themed children's party concept.

Partnering and consulting to MVS Pet Care is Dr. Jeremy Gransky, DVM, an experienced veterinarian who has worked in animal hospitals since 1985. Dr. Gransky received advanced training in medicine and surgery for dogs, cats, and exotic pets at one of the country's largest and most esteemed animal hospitals. He founded At Home Veterinary in 2005, a private veterinary house call service.

"There are many benefits to owning your own house call practice, as opposed to working in an animal hospital," Gransky said. "You can really work up cases and dive into the diagnostics to figure out what's going on even at home. Plus, there's a lot of flexibility. You set your own hours and organize your life the way you want to. Conducting house calls allows you to put your own personal stamp on the practice."

Most state laws require MVS Pet Care franchisees to be licensed veterinarians. There are 15 states that don't require veterinary licenses to own the franchise, however, those franchisees would obviously need to hire a licensed, registered veterinarian to conduct the in-home veterinary care.

"We offer a comprehensive business model for veterinarians wanting to start their own lucrative house-call practice or looking to expand an existing clinical practice with a mobile business," Towne said. "This is an incredible opportunity to get in the ground floor of the booming pet industry, filling demand for a convenient service that's been long overdue for pets and pet parents alike."

About MVS Pet Care

MVS Pet Care is a Boston-based national franchise network of professional house call veterinarians, dedicated to delivering quality and convenient veterinary care in the comfort of pet owners' homes. The company is built around a veterinarian centered business model with a primary focus on delivering genuine healthcare to customers' pets and becoming a trusted source for all their pet's health needs. For more information on MVS Pet Care, call 866-VET-2PET or visit www.mvspetcare.com.

Media Contact: Ann Maher, Fishman Public Relations, 847-945-1300 x253, [email protected]

SOURCE MVS Pet CareFORT WASHINGTON, Pa., Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- More than eight million copies of the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines) were downloaded in 2017, marking a 16% increase over 2016, and setting a new personal record for the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN). Over the past two years, free downloads from NCCN.org and the Virtual Library of NCCN Guidelines mobile app increased by approximately 25%.

"Rising download numbers mean more clinicians are using the most frequently-updated medical guidelines available, and that in turn means more people with cancer are receiving the highest quality care possible," said Robert W. Carlson, MD, CEO, NCCN. "In 2017, many new treatment options became available for patients. NCCN's across-the-board increases represent the hard work we do every day to keep up with the rapid pace of medical advancement."

NCCN's growth included several milestones throughout 2017. In October, the organization achieved a registered user count of more than one million people, nearly half of whom are based outside of the United States. The number of individuals accessing the patient-friendly versions of the guidelines, the NCCN Guidelines for Patients, also increased with 29% more page views. The NCCN Foundation funded the release of five new Patient Guidelines, bringing the total library to 39, including four international translations. The NCCN Radiation Therapy Compendium was completed in 2017, as was NCCN's Imaging Appropriate Use Criteria (NCCN Imaging AUC).

NCCN held 62 different in-person meetings and events  up approximately 27% from 2016. NCCN's continuing education department reached nearly 14,000 medical professionals. In addition, the NCCN Oncology Research Program awarded funding to 11 different projects across the country, as part of NCCN's ongoing efforts to investigate new ways to improve cancer care.

This past year also represented far and away the highest number of Guidelines updates completed in a single year  with 150 total. Those updates were made possible thanks to time contributed by 1,355 panel members from across the 27 NCCN Member Institutions.

2017 was also a year for new collaborations. NCCN worked alongside the African Cancer Coalition, American Cancer Society, and Clinton Health Access Initiative to create the NCCN Harmonized Guidelines for Sub-Saharan Africa, which launched in November. And in February NCCN announced plans to work together with the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) on a brand new set of Guidelines for the Management of Immunotherapy-Related Toxicity. Those Guidelines will come out in early 2018.

"As the number of people around the world whose lives are impacted by cancer goes up every year, so does our obligation to provide them with the best care possible," explained Dr. Carlson. "We will continue to stretch ourselves in 2018, and onward."

NCCN's 23rd Annual Conference will take place on March 22-24, in Orlando, Florida. It will include presentations of three new NCCN Guidelines, an emerging issues roundtable focused on value-based healthcare, and keynote addresses on the future trends in cancer care from Ron Kline, MD, FAAP and Lee N. Newcomer, MD, MHA.

About the National Comprehensive Cancer Network

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), a not-for-profit alliance of 27 leading cancer centers devoted to patient care, research, and education, is dedicated to improving the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of cancer care so that patients can live better lives. Through the leadership and expertise of clinical professionals at NCCN Member Institutions, NCCN develops resources that present valuable information to the numerous stakeholders in the health care delivery system. As the arbiter of high-quality cancer care, NCCN promotes the importance of continuous quality improvement and recognizes the significance of creating clinical practice guidelines appropriate for use by patients, clinicians, and other health care decision-makers.

The NCCN Member Institutions are: Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center, Omaha, NE; Case Comprehensive Cancer Center/University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center and Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute, Cleveland, OH; City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center, Los Angeles, CA; Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center | Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Boston, MA; Duke Cancer Institute, Durham, NC; Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, PA; Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT; Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center/Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, Seattle, WA; The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, MD; Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, Chicago, IL; Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, Phoenix/Scottsdale, AZ, Jacksonville, FL, and Rochester, MN; Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY; Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, FL; The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute, Columbus, OH; Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, NY; Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO; St. Jude Children's Research Hospital/The University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN; Stanford Cancer Institute, Stanford, CA; University of Alabama at Birmingham Comprehensive Cancer Center, Birmingham, AL; UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center, La Jolla, CA; UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, San Francisco, CA; University of Colorado Cancer Center, Aurora, CO; University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, Ann Arbor, MI; The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX; University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center, Madison, WI; Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Nashville, TN; and Yale Cancer Center/Smilow Cancer Hospital, New Haven, CT.

Clinicians, visit NCCN.org. Patients and caregivers, visit NCCN.org/patients. Media, visit NCCN.org/news. Follow NCCN on Twitter @NCCNnews and Facebook @National.Comprehensive.Cancer.Network.

Media Contact:

Rachel Darwin, NCCN

267-622-6624

[email protected]

SOURCE National Comprehensive Cancer Network

Related Links

http://www.nccn.org

NEW YORK and LONDON, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Young finance professionals at large accounting firms view a background in finance as a springboard for a career in business, finds a new report by ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants).

Generation Next: Managing Talent in Large Accountancy Firms dives deeper into ACCA's 2016 global survey examining the career aspirations of the younger generation in finance today at the Big Four and other large accounting firms worldwide. You can read the report at http://www.accaglobal.com/gb/en/professional-insights/pro-accountants-the-future/Generation-Next-large-accounting-firms.html.

"Our research on young finance professionals globally has found that they view accounting and finance as a launching pad for success in their long-term career in business, with opportunities for developing wide-ranging skills," says Warner Johnston, head of ACCA USA. "We've also found that more than those in other sectors, young professionals in large accountancy firms see clear potential for progression and great access to learning and development opportunities within their firm."

In order to meet demands in today's evolving landscape, accountancy firms continue to diversify and evolve client offerings, looking to expand into digital, regulatory and broader consultancy services, redefining the roles and responsibilities of professionals in accountancy firms.

"Younger generations of finance professionals expect automation and technology to transform large accountancy practice, but they see such innovations in a positive light, offering opportunities for adding more value to their roles," adds Johnston.

In fact, 85% of respondents in large accountancy firms see technology as an opportunity to focus on much higher value-adding activity.

ACCA research has also found that Generation Next as a whole is particularly mobile, and that pattern holds for those employed at large accountancy firms. Young professionals in this sector are highly driven to progress fast and are ready to switch employers quickly to attain their career objectives. This is even more pronounced among Big Four respondents that other groups - 80% of respondents in this group said they were aiming at a more senior position in their next role, and 75% of all top accountancy firm respondents expect to change roles within the next two years.

Members of Generation Next have global aspirations and are willing to explore more general business roles as they progress in their career. And, in the future, the vast majority of young professionals at large firms intend to move into the corporate sector, preferably within a large corporate firm. This growing appetite for exploring roles beyond traditional finance and accounting is perhaps adding another layer of pressure on those firms' strategies for retaining the best and brightest talent of Generation Next.

Among large accountancy firms, 60% of respondents see progressing their careers as the most important factor in deciding to stay with an employer.

And while job satisfaction is higher among Big Four respondents than across any other Generation Next group surveyed, with close to 60% of respondents expressing great satisfaction with their role, more respondents in this group also stated to have a poor worklife balance in their role.

The report findings indicate talent retention may present an issue for these organizations. In particular within the Big Four, 40% of respondents said they are looking for their next role within a year (compared to an average of 36% across all large firms), with 52% of those expecting their move to be outside the organization.

About the report

In 2016 ACCA published the results of its Generation Next study, to which almost 19,000 members and students aged 16 to 36 years old responded, sharing their views on what attracted them to a career in finance, their ambitions and how they like to learn. This is the second in a series of follow-up sector-specific reports. It focuses on the approximately 1,300 respondents from that global study who are working for small or medium-sized accounting practices today.

About ACCA

ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) is the global body for professional accountants. We aim to offer business-relevant, first-choice qualifications to people of application, ability and ambition around the world who seek a rewarding career in accountancy, finance and management. We support our 198,000 members and 486,000 students in 180 countries, helping them to develop successful careers in accounting and business, with the skills required by employers. We work through a network of 101 offices and centres and more than 7,291 Approved Employers worldwide, who provide high standards of employee learning and development. Through our public interest remit, we promote appropriate regulation of accounting and conduct relevant research to ensure accountancy continues to grow in reputation and influence. For more information, visit www.accaglobal.com .

SOURCE ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants)

Related Links

http://www.accaglobal.com

ARLINGTON, Va., Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a new study released today by EdTech Strategies, Tracking: EDU  Education Agency Website Security and Privacy Practices, state and local education agency websites were found to lack important security and privacy protections for students, families, and educators. "State department of education and school district websites have become indispensable for accessing information about public schools and to communicating with school officials," said Douglas Levin, president of EdTech Strategies and study director. "However, analyses of education agency websites suggest a widespread lack of attention to issues of online security and privacy."

Based on automated and manual reviews conducted over 4 months (between October 2017 and January 2018) of every state department of education website and a nationwide sample of 159 school district websites, Tracking: EDU found that:

The use of third-party ad tracking and online surveillance technology was found to be nearly universal on both state and local education agency websites; well over 40 unique tracking services were identified in the limited scans conducted by this study.

While 63 percent of state education agency websites published a privacy policy that disclosed the presence and use of ad tracking and/or cookies on their sites, no fewer than 10 states made misleading or provably false statements about their data collection and privacy practices. School district practices were found to be even more concerning: only 12 percent of school district websites published a privacy policy that disclosed the presence and use of ad tracking and/or cookies on their sites.

School administrators, technology directors, and education policymakers are encouraged to act swiftly to address the issues raised by this first-of-its-kind study. "Partnerships with online advertising companies on school websites must be disclosed," said Douglas Levin. "The cost of seeking news and information about your state and community's public schools should not be your privacy or online safety."

About EdTech Strategies

EdTech Strategies, LLC, is a boutique consultancy focused on providing strategic research and counsel on issues at the intersection of education, public policy, technology, and innovation. For more information: https://www.edtechstrategies.com.

Photo(s):

https://www.prlog.org/12688895

Press release distributed by PRLog

SOURCE EdTech Strategies, LLC

Related Links

https://www.edtechstrategies.com

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Lacework, the industry's first solution to bring automation, speed and scale to cloud security, today announced findings from "Balancing Velocity and Security in the Cloud", the latest report from Hurwitz & Associates. Based on quantitative research, as well as qualitative interviews with industry practitioners, Hurwitz & Associates sees clear evidence that businesses are increasingly evolving their security strategy to advance their cloud strategy. The findings demonstrate that balancing velocity and security in the cloud starts with adopting new approaches to security.

"Customers are increasingly depending on cloud computing to support the need for business agility and speed of transformation. However, to be successful business leaders need assurance that cloud security is handled in a predictable manner through automation to ensure compliance and predictability," according to Dan Kirsch, the study author and vice president, principle analyst at Hurwitz & Associates.

In the cloud, continuous integration practices shorten cycle times and improve efficiency. When confronted by the cloud's increasingly complex and dynamic network environment, it is difficult for security to keep pace. According to the report, approximately 35% of the organizations surveyed are taking a cloud-first approach meaning that all new projects are done on the cloud. In addition, nearly 50% of participants are taking a selective approach to the cloud, where significant and large projects are being developed or migrated to the cloud while others will continue to remain on premises. The survey also found that automation is critical. Almost all respondents (95%) agreed that "cloud automation is increasingly important to meeting our business goals." However, 40% of respondents felt that their security solutions aren't as flexible and scalable as the rest of "our" cloud.

"The high velocity and scale of public clouds are shattering everything the security industry has assumed for the past 10 years," said Sanjay Karla, co-founder and Chief Product Office at Lacework. "The acceleration of cloud adoption is now paving the way for security teams to deploy automated security solutions that naturally augment security teams' ability to continuously validate their cloud configuration for security and maintain secure daily operations in the cloud."

Survey respondents agreed that security is a top priority for their cloud solution. Additional findings by Hurwitz & Associates include:

Asked to rank-order seven possible cloud solution characteristics, "safe and secure" topped over half of the lists (53%). The next most mentioned priority - "deliver new services and updates faster" - topped only 13% of the lists.

85% of respondents recognized that "cloud security is different than traditional data center security."

Only 35% of respondents felt that "security limits our ability to maximize the benefits of DevOps and operations automation," and 78% agreed that "we fix security vulnerabilities fast enough to avoid significant business risk."

Nearly 75% agreed that "controlling vulnerabilities related to unpatched or downrev software is a challenge."

Only 35% felt "SIEM tools give us all the security visibility we need."

Hurwitz & Associates surveyed 85 IT leaders from the Americas and Europe. Participating companies ranged from mid-size organizations to large enterprises. Most participants (56%) worked at organizations with more than 10,000 employees and a variety of industries are represented with most participants coming from: financial services, telecommunications & technology, manufacturing and retail.

Lacework delivers security and compliance capabilities specifically designed for the cloud, bringing speed, scale and automation to security processes that have traditionally been labor-intensive. The company recently announced new features that enable Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers to easily and continuously maintain an AWS cloud configuration that is compliant with proven security best practices. Lacework also introduced security controls targeted at AWS S3 buckets, enabling AWS customers to rapidly identify S3 buckets at risk or compromised due to misconfiguration. Through a targeted auditing of S3 configuration, Lacework ensures that all buckets are configured with best practices for logging, encryption and versioning, then provides continuous monitoring with AWS CloudTrail events and workload activity analysis. To learn more about Lacework, please visit www.lacework.com and follow the company on Twitter and LinkedIn.

About Hurwitz & Associates

Hurwitz & Associates is a strategy consulting, research and analyst firm that focuses on how technology solutions solve real world customer problems. Hurwitz research concentrates on disruptive technologies, such as analytics, machine learning, cognitive computing, security, and cloud computing , and service management. Their experienced team merges deep technical and business expertise to deliver the actionable, strategic advice clients demand. Additional information on Hurwitz & Associates can be found at www.hurwitz.com.

About Lacework

Lacework brings automation, speed and scale to cloud security, eliminating manual, repetitive tasks and enabling security teams to keep up with DevOps. Specifically designed for the cloud, the Lacework security platform monitors workloads, applications, processes, containers, machines, users and accounts to automatically surface anomalous behaviors out of billions of events per hour. Lacework provides unprecedented visibility, automates breach detection, delivers one-click investigation and simplifies cloud compliance. Based in Mountain View, California, Lacework is a privately held company that was incubated by Sutter Hill Ventures. Find out more at www.lacework.com.

Media Contact

John Kreuzer

Lumina Communications on behalf of Lacework

(408) 896-3307

[email protected]

SOURCE Lacework

Related Links

http://www.lacework.com

HEALTHY HAIR Heat tools, color processing, and overall dryness can cause hair to lose its strength, become weaker, or even develop split ends. However, with a few products from the new L'Oreal Paris Elvive collection , which is designed to help prevent hair damage, women can obtain beautiful, revived hair every day.

The collection features a range of hair treatments to help revive hair from all forms of damage, with two standout products in particular that can seamlessly be worked into any routine. Considering using rinse-out hair mask L'Oreal Paris Elvive Total Repair 5 Damage Erasing Balm to repair up to one year of damage to the hair's smoothness in one use. Combat protein loss in strands with L'Oreal Paris Elvive Total Repair 5 Protein Recharge Treatment, a leave-in post-shower treatment. The protein treatment is formulated to increase strength and protect against every day damage, resulting in 97% less breakage.

PRO TIP: Hair damage is personal. L'Oreal Paris is offering a one-on-one Elvive Live Chat to help consumers further understand damaged hair and receive recommendations for the products needed to bring each hair type back to life. The free service is available until mid-February.

GLOWING SKIN

With so many skincare products out there, it's important to understand the essentials needed in any skincare routine: cleanse, exfoliate, moisturize and protect.

First and foremost in any routine, cleansing is necessary to remove everyday impurities, such as dirt, oil and pollution. Try L'Oreal Paris Pure-Clay Detox & Brighten Cleanser, a clay-to-mousse daily cleanser that gently detoxifies dull skin to reveal a luminous and clear texture.

Then, prioritize exfoliation at least three times a week to soften texture and reveal a freshly healthy skin surface. Try one of the new L'Oreal Paris Pure-Sugar Scrubs, which are formulated with Cocoa, Grapeseed or Kiwi and great for all skin types.

After, it is important to nourish the skin. New L'Oreal Paris Revitalift Cicacream Face Moisturizer is formulated with Centella Asiatica (an herb used in traditional Chinese medicine) and Pro-Retinol, which is used in formulations to address multiple signs of aging. Immediately, skin is more hydrated, looks healthier and feels softer and smoother.

Finally, protect skin from sun damage with a broad spectrum SPF, such as L'Oreal Paris Revitalift Anti-Wrinkle + Firming Day Cream SPF 18.

PRO TIP: For an extra refresh, try L'Oreal Paris Pure-Clay Clarify & Smooth Mask with Yuzu Lemon after cleansing to draw out extra build-up of impurities when a regular cleanser isn't enough.

PREP WITH PRIMER

To avoid the mid-day makeup fade and other issues that arise once foundation has settled into the fine lines and dry, winter skin, use a primer. The all new L'Oreal Paris Infallible Makeup Primers will lock in foundation and concealer for long wear and create a smooth, flawless canvas for application.

L'Oreal Paris Infallible Pro Glow Lock Makeup Prime r hydrates skin underneath makeup for an all-day healthy and radiant glow. L'Oreal Paris Infallible Pro Matte Lock Makeup Primer blurs imperfections and keeps oily skin in check while creating a matte canvas. Then, lock it all in with L'Oreal Paris Infallible Pro Sweep & Lock Loose Setting Face Powder, a pro-inspired, micro-fine loose powder which blends pores and lines for a smooth finish.

PRO TIP: Don't forget the eyes. Use two-step L'Oreal Paris Voluminous X-Fiber Mascara with a black primer on one end to prep for building extremely long lashes.

All products are available at lorealparisusa.com, and mass, food and drug retailers nationwide.

About L'Oreal Paris:

The L'Oreal Paris division of L'Oreal USA, Inc. is a total beauty care brand dedicated to empowering women by offering the most luxurious and innovative products and services available in the mass market. The brand's signature tagline, "Because I'm Worth It," was born in the United States in 1971 to celebrate the beauty and intrinsic self-worth of women, and for more than 100 years, L'Oreal Paris has been providing women around the world with products in four major beauty categories: hair color, haircare, skincare and cosmetics. With L'Oreal's invention of hair color in 1909, the brand continues to serve as the leading innovator of hair products across color, care, and styling with brands such as Superior Preference, Feria, Excellence Creme, Advanced Haircare, the Ever Collection, Advanced Hairstyle, and Elnett Satin Hairspray. L'Oreal Paris provides scientifically-advanced skincare products that are clinically proven to address individual skin concerns through its renowned brands Revitalift, Hydra Genius, Age Perfect, and Sublime Bronze. L'Oreal Paris'iconic cosmetics collections include Infallible, True Match, Colour Riche, Voluminous, and Visible Lift. For more information about L'Oreal Paris and to receive personalized advice, expert tips, and exclusive content, please visit www.lorealparisusa.com or follow on Instagram (@LOrealMakeup, @LOrealHair, @LOrealSkin, @LOrealMen, Snapchat (@LOrealMakeup), Twitter (@LOrealParisUSA), Facebook (@LOrealParisUSA), and Pinterest (@LOrealParisUSA).

Contact:

Rachel Zembraski at Alison Brod Marketing + Communications

(212) 230-1800, [email protected]

SOURCE L'Oreal ParisDr. Ditri, who holds a doctorate in healthcare administration, received the award for her role in leading quality management, organizational development and patient satisfaction initiatives in hospitals throughout New Jersey. With a focus on public health, advocacy and policy efforts in mental health and substance use disorder services and maternal-child health, Dr. Ditri serves as project manager for several collaborative initiatives designed to improve access to care.

"The honor I have is to accept this award on behalf of my colleagues throughout New Jersey who, each day, work to provide access to high quality, safe patient care in each of the communities they serve," said Dr. Ditri during her acceptance remarks.

NJHA is a not-for-profit trade association committed to helping its members provide quality, affordable, accessible healthcare to their communities.

ACHE is an international professional society of more than 40,000 healthcare executives who lead hospitals, health systems and other healthcare organizations.

SOURCE New Jersey Hospital Association (NJHA)

Related Links

http://www.njha.com

The Syrian National Dialogue Congress, kicked off in Sochi on January 29 with pro-Assad delegates dominating the event.

The dialogue brings together 1,500 pro-regime delegates and few opponents of the Syrian government.

A key delegation of the armed opposition had arrived in Sochi, the venue of the Congress, only to refuse to leave the airport.

They had taken offense at the event logo, plastered around town, which used the flag of Bashar al-Assads regime in isolation. The delegation demanded that the Syrian regimes flag be removed for negotiations to start.

According to Russia, the Congress was designed to unite Syrias many warring parties around a single post-war settlement. Critics of the talks pointed to the absence of much of the armed Syrian opposition and Kurdish groups, who stayed away.

Analysts see the dialogue as reflecting a Russian endeavor to replace the United States as the most engaged global power, while reshaping the diplomatic process to fit the military and political reality: President Bashar al-Assads opponents have failed to unseat him.

No one expected Sochi to produce a peace agreement. Instead, Sochi was supposed to broaden the range of Syrian voices in the talks, and it did draw in some civilian, nonviolent dissidents and officially tolerated opposition groups based in Damascus.

Perhaps the most consequential negotiation in Sochi was between the United Nations and Russia. The United Nations agreed that its Syria envoy, Staffan de Mistura, would attend, lending Sochi credibility, if Russia would stop trying to make Sochi, not Geneva, the site of discussions for rewriting Syrias Constitution.SAN MATEO, Calif. and MAKATI CITY, Philippines, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Oracle NetSuite, one of the world's leading providers of cloud-based financials / ERP, HR, Professional Services Automation (PSA) and omnichannel commerce software suites, today announced three nonprofit customers in the Philippines that have streamlined mission-critical processes while saving significant time and costs by moving to NetSuite. The Zuellig Family Foundation (ZFF), the Philippine Council for NGO Certification (PCNC) and Grupo Kalinangan, Inc. are among a growing number of Philippine nonprofits and social enterprises that have improved operational and financial efficiency, transparency for donors, regulatory reporting and capacity for informed, data-driven decision making since graduating from entry-level business applications to NetSuite. By eliminating labor-intensive manual work, nonprofits are freeing up resources to better focus on their social missions across the Philippines in such areas as healthcare, education, business development, disaster relief and alleviation of poverty.

Zuellig Family Foundation, PCNC and Grupo Kalinangan are supported by the Oracle NetSuite Social Impact group, which makes available free and discounted software licensing to qualified nonprofits and social enterprises. The program also includes Suite Pro Bono, wherein NetSuite employees volunteer their time and expertise to help nonprofits with training and customizations to make the most of NetSuite. More than 1,000 nonprofits and social enterprises globally use Oracle NetSuite Social Impact offerings, including Philippine organizations like Coca-Cola Foundation Philippines, American Chamber Foundation Philippines, Cartwheel Foundation, Virlanie Foundation, Microventures Foundation, BagoSphere and Theo & Philo. To learn more about Oracle NetSuite Social Impact, please visit www.netsuite.com/socialimpact.

ZFF Improves Healthcare Delivery with Leadership Training

Zuellig Family Foundation (www.zuelligfoundation.org) has provided local training to improve healthcare in nearly 650 rural municipalities across 32 provinces since its founding in 2008. Established and funded by the Zuellig family, whose patriarch, Frederick Zuellig, emigrated from Switzerland in 1901 to establish trading companies in the Philippines, ZFF focuses on training local leaders to address healthcare issues. More than 2,000 leaders have participated in ZFF's health leadership and governance training programs, applying their insights to improve healthcare at the local level. Based in Paranaque City with 80 full-time employees, ZFF partners with other organizations such as USAID, UNICEF and MSD Merck for Mothers, with funding rising 35 percent since 2013 to $196.8 million USD in 2016. NetSuite helps ZFF better manage its financials, gaining speed and visibility and eliminating time-consuming manual work the nonprofit experienced with its previous application. ZFF estimates PHP1.65 million in annual savings and cost avoidance compared to an SAP solution it evaluated before selecting NetSuite, going live in 2015. With those savings in licensing, IT infrastructure, IT personnel and bookkeeper, ZFF is better able to focus resources on improving rural healthcare.

"NetSuite has simplified and facilitated our compliance with reporting requirements by supporting internal controls and providing accurate, real-time reporting with a complete set of audit trails," said Wesley Villanueva, Manager. "We have greater accountability and transparency and can generate real-time reports that aid in decision-making."

PCNC Drives Effectiveness, Accountability with NGO Certifications

The Philippine Council for NGO Certification (www.pcnc.com.ph), a nonprofit that certifies NGOs as meeting organizational standards for financial management and transparency, helps improve accountability and effectiveness of nonprofits involved in education, healthcare, poverty alleviation and other missions. Created in 1997 by a consortium of NGO networks, PCNC currently certifies approximately 450 NGOs with a "Seal of Good Housekeeping," based on evaluations conducted by more than a hundred volunteer evaluators on six criteria including mission, goals and financial management. That gives donors confidence that funding will be used for its intended purpose. Based in Manila with eight employees, PCNC also helps match NGOs with communities in need, improving local outcomes across the nation. Since going live in 2016, NetSuite has been playing a critical role by giving PCNC new capabilities to track and segment NGOs by mission, regions and other characteristics, helping bring together NGOs and beneficiaries. PCNC also uses NetSuite for automated communications, such as notification emails to NGOs six months before certification expires, and intends to use NetSuite LightCMS for a more modern website. NetSuite technical support and Suite Pro Bono volunteers have been instrumental in helping PCNC make the most of its system.

"What used to take a day of gathering and aggregating data now takes minutes," said Luis Morales, PCNC Executive Director. "We're saving a lot of time with the ability to generate data very easily and that means less cost and less manual work. We didn't realize what we were missing with NetSuite. NetSuite really knows how to work with nonprofits."

Grupo Kalinangan Advocates Preservation of Filipino Heritage

Grupo Kalinangan, Inc. ( www.grupokalinangan.org) , an organization founded in 2015 in Makati City, develops and deploys IT tools, services and support systems for local government and grassroots communities for improved cultural heritage management in the Philippines. Bringing together advocates and practitioners from allied fields including social science, architecture and IT, GKI is building a data platform and map of Philippine history and culture, while implementing projects and activities aligned with understanding how to better preserve and promote Philippine culture and heritage through big data and analytics. A key focus area for GKI, with five board members and about 50 volunteers, is the use of data exchange, analytics and software such as Arches, an open-source GIS tool to collect and share data, heightening awareness of the importance of Filipino heritage. GKI, being an early adopter of technology, has always embraced modern applications to streamline its own operations. Replacing a free Wave Accounting application with NetSuite, which went live in 2016, NetSuite helps GKI save time and money in managing financials, preparing annual reports, and improving transparency for donors and in government filings. Despite Grupo Kalinangan's initial concern that NetSuite would be too complicated, the system has proven to be easy to use, especially with the training provided by Suite Pro Bono volunteers over a six-week period. As a more cost-efficient organization, GKI can put full focus on heritage without needless overhead.

"We've definitely improved our processes with NetSuite and its capabilities," said Karl Aguilar, Corporate Treasurer. "We can focus on the most important things for our organization without getting bogged down by problems and complicated financial processes. NetSuite does the work for us."

Addressing Modern Challenges with Modern Cloud Technology

Nonprofits and social enterprises in the Philippines and elsewhere see transformational improvements by using NetSuite for functions such as accounting, donor and project management, online commerce, fund-raising and marketing. At the same time, NetSuite helps nonprofits address key pain points such as tight budgets, limited IT resources and increasing competition for funding. Benefits include:

Efficient financials and operations. Nonprofits eliminate error-prone, paper-based processes, dramatically reducing labor and cost and channeling savings into social impact programs.

Real-time visibility. Management can easily track revenue vs. expenses, fund-raising effectiveness and project status, enabling informed decisions on priority focus areas and complete tracking of results.

Greater transparency. Grant accounting at a line-item level helps nonprofits track how, when and where a grant is spent on any given project, helping to meet exacting donor requirements.

Regulatory reporting. Nonprofits speed up and simplify external audits as well as reporting to regulatory bodies, publicly documenting key financial metrics used by prospective donors to assess a nonprofit's worthiness of funding.

Increased fund-raising effectiveness. Organizations gain a 360-degree view of their constituents and can utilize email marketing tools for personalized outreach and building long-term relationships.

About Oracle NetSuite Social Impact

Founded in 2006, the Oracle NetSuite Social Impact group is empowering nonprofits to use NetSuite to further their mission, regardless of their ability to pay. More than 1,000 nonprofits and social enterprises around the world are supported by NetSuite Social Impact, which makes available free and discounted software licensing to qualified organizations. The program also includes Suite Pro Bono, under which NetSuite employees provide their expertise to help nonprofits with training and customizations to make the most of the platform. To learn more about NetSuite Social Impact, please visit www.netsuite.com/socialimpact.

About Oracle NetSuite

Oracle NetSuite pioneered the Cloud Computing revolution in 1998, establishing the world's first company dedicated to delivering business applications over the internet. Today, it provides a suite of cloud-based financials / Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), HR and omnichannel commerce software that runs the business of companies in more than 100 countries.

For more information, please visit http://www.netsuite.com.

Follow Oracle NetSuite's Cloud blog, Facebook page and @NetSuite Twitter handle for real-time updates.

About Oracle

The Oracle Cloud offers complete SaaS application suites for ERP, HCM and CX, plus best-in-class database Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) from data centers throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information about Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), please visit us at oracle.com.



Trademarks

Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE Oracle NetSuite

Related Links

http://www.netsuiteblogs.com

HOUSTON, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Platform Partners LLC ("Platform") announces the closing of Platform Partners Capital LLC ("Platform Capital") with total commitments of $129 million, exceeding its initial target of $100 million. Platform Capital will pursue a strategy focused on investing in senior/preferred equity and subordinated debt with minority ownership of lower middle-market companies in Texas and the surrounding region. Consistent with Platform's investment philosophy, Platform Capital is structured as a perpetual investment company, which allows the firm to support entrepreneurs to achieve their long-term objectives. Platform recently hired Jeremy Newsom to help lead the development of Platform Capital. Jeremy joined Platform after 17 years at Amegy Bank, where he most recently managed the Corporate Banking division.

Platform Capital is a natural extension of Platform's experience and capabilities in the lower middle-market and will provide customized and flexible capital solutions to help business owners accomplish a variety of growth and liquidity goals. Importantly, these business owners can maintain a majority ownership position while securing the necessary capital to grow their business.

"We are excited to both close the capital raise for Platform Capital and to welcome Jeremy to our team. With Jeremy's leadership and the expanded flexibility of Platform Capital, Platform can become a one-stop shop for regional business owners that need growth capital," said Fred Brazelton, CEO at Platform.

"With the support of our shareholders and the addition of Jeremy, we have added the capital and expertise needed to take advantage of this attractive market opportunity in senior/preferred equity," said Brad Morgan, President at Platform. "Platform Capital is a complimentary expansion of our capabilities and I believe strengthens Platform's position as a leader in lower middle-market investing."

"I am excited about the opportunity to join Platform and to partner with business owners to accomplish their objectives," said Jeremy Newsom, Executive Vice President at Platform. "We will target initial investments between $10 and $40 million to support internal growth capital needs, strategic acquisitions or recapitalizations to provide owners with a value-add, permanent capital provider."

About Platform Partners LLC

Platform Partners LLC is a private company based in Houston that makes investments in lower middle-market companies with the intent of growing these businesses into industry leaders through a combination of organic and acquisition growth. Platform invests through a perpetual holding company structure allowing for a long-term, patient approach to partnering with entrepreneurs to build companies. Founded in 2006, the company manages total assets of approximately $450 million. For more information, please visit www.platformllc.com.

SOURCE Platform Partners LLC

Related Links

http://www.platformllc.com

NEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Storytelling platform Playbuzz announced today that Rob Norman has joined the company's board of directors.

Norman continues to act as a Senior Advisor to GroupM following his retirement as Global Chief Digital Officer after 31 years in various roles at WPP-held companies. His collaboration with Playbuzz is unaffiliated with GroupM.

"Rob is a digital advertising pioneer who we are incredibly excited to welcome to Playbuzz's Board of Directors," said Shaul Olmert, co-founder and CEO of Playbuzz. "He is a true proponent of the evolution of digital content and inherently understands what makes consumers tick. We look forward to tapping into his expertise as we continue to bring the most engaging, interactive branded experiences to leading agencies - and their clients - worldwide."

The Playbuzz platform is relied upon by top brands who partner with the company to create interactive branded content campaigns that Playbuzz then distributes at scale to its existing network of tens of thousands of publishers. Those publishers create engaging, visually-stunning editorial content with the platform that results in meaningful consumption and improved performance.

"I am delighted to join Playbuzz's board of directors," said Rob Norman, Senior Advisor at GroupM. "In the digital world, impressions are cheap and harnessing users' attention spans has never been more important. Playbuzz has developed creative, high-performing products, as well as trusted partnerships with premium publishers, that enable brand owners to achieve engagement at scale."

In January of 2017, Playbuzz ranked #7 in comScore's Lifestyles Category and #27 in the company's list of Top 100 Video Properties, positioning it as a leader in providing high-quality, broad distribution of its innovative forms of native advertising. Branded content campaigns powered by Playbuzz garner metrics high above industry standards, such as an average of 97%+ in-item viewability confirmed by MOAT and 2-4 minute average session times (as compared to the 15 second industry average). These campaigns attract 99% human, non-fraudulent traffic as confirmed by White Ops, and have resulted in an average 86% brand lift, as reported by Nielsen.

About Playbuzz

Founded in 2012 by Shaul Olmert and Tom Pachys, Playbuzz is a leading storytelling platform used by the world's premium publishers and brands to author, distribute and monetize interactive stories that drive audience engagement.

The company has over 150 employees across its offices in New York, London, Tel Aviv, Hamburg, Sao Paulo, Moscow, Lviv and Los Angeles. Playbuzz's rapid growth is fueled by the adoption of its platform by partners who use the company's interactive storytelling and real-time analytics tools to engage users, boost their reach, raise brand awareness, improve monetization capabilities, and optimize content for maximum interaction. The Playbuzz network reaches hundreds of millions of users every month through its partners and through its owned and operated website, playbuzz.com.

In September 2017, Playbuzz announced a $35M round of strategic funding led by Viola Group with participation from existing investors Saban Ventures, Disney, 83North, Carmel Ventures and firstime.

For more information:

http://www.playbuzz.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/playbuzz / http://www.facebook.com/playbuzzbusiness

Twitter: @Playbuzz / @PlaybuzzBiz

Related Links

http://www.playbuzz.com/

http://www.facebook.com/playbuzz

http://www.facebook.com/playbuzzbusiness

Contact Information:

Playbuzz:

Lauren Gumport

Director of Communications

[email protected]

+972-58-499-7227

SOURCE Playbuzz

Related Links

http://www.playbuzz.com

PORTSMOUTH, Va., Jan. 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Portsmouth, Virginia Fire, Rescue and Emergency Services Department has purchased new high-performance radios designed to work under the most extreme conditions including fires, hurricanes and floods. Designed by Motorola Solutions, the APX-XE 500 Remote Speaker and Microphone (RSM) system is heat resistant including the radio's housing and wiring. "The radio industry realized that melting wires was a firefighter safety issue that prevented calling for help," said James E. Hoffler, chief of the Portsmouth Fire Department.

City of Portsmouth, Virginia

Touted by Motorola as being robust, rugged and reliable, the APX-XE 500 RSM features Bluetooth LED, transmit/receive LED, a high-visibility strobe light, recessed push-to-talk button, water-resistant speaker and high-impact green housing. "The operating controls are much larger and easier to use even with a firefighter's gloved hand," added Chief Hoffler. "Both the volume and channel selector are on the remote microphone so you don't have to find the body of the radio to make changes." Additionally, the radio units have technology that suppresses noise for clearer transmission and enhanced adaptive audio enables the radios to be used in closed proximity to one another without radio feedback. "The green high-impact housing encasing the radios helps to easily locate it if it's been dropped. The old systems were black and hard to see once they were dropped. We purchased a new APX-XE 500 RSM for every on-duty firefighter and medic," stated Chief Hoffler.

According to the Motorola spec sheet, the microphones and cables are rated to hold up under 500-degree heat for five minutes and can withstand being submerged in six feet of water for four hours. In addition, firefighters and first responders can wear the radio anywhere on the body  upside down or even under turnout gear while still receiving loud and clear audio.

For more information, contact Chief James Hoffler at [email protected] or 757-393-8765.

Media Contact:

Sharon R. Hoggard

Marketing, Communications & Tourism

757-393-5143

[email protected]

SOURCE City of Portsmouth, VirginiaWASHINGTON, Jan. 30, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Family Research Council President Tony Perkins released the following statement in response to President Donald Trump's first State of the Union Address:

"President Trump turned his State of the Union Address into an American pep rally. Cheering the American people for helping one another overcome a year of natural and man-made tragedies, the president cast a winning vision of unity. This is a president who is deeply committed to doing something rare in American politics -- fulfilling campaign promises. In governing with courage and conviction, he is advancing policies essential to making America good and prosperous.

"The president spoke from the heart about our shared values as Americans. One of those values that binds us together is reflected in our motto; that we are one nation under God. President Trump understands that our freedom to unite under God has been under steady assault-- and he's spent the last year reversing this devastating trend. The reality is that if Americans don't have the freedom to live according to their faith -- whether it's in the home, in the workplace, or in school -- then we really can't be free.

"The president tonight noted his 'historic actions to protect religious liberty.' This president knows that religious liberty isn't found in political proclamations, but in the policies they inspire. That's why this president who has not wavered in his determination to preserve freedom for those yet to be born.

"Yes, a lot changed during the Obama years. America went from being a zealous advocate of religious freedom and human rights for all people, to being a promoter of special rights for a few. But tonight's speech is another reminder that times are changing back again. America now has the ability to promote and protect religious freedom both here and abroad.

"The president also spoke tonight about rebuilding the military. The military continues to recover from years of depleted resources and dangerously low morale as the previous administration treated the military as a laboratory of liberal social experimentation. Those Obama era policies led to chaplains being disciplined for their faith, and religious speech being censored. We must remain vigilant to ensure that laws and military policies protecting religious liberty are enforced, ensuring that service members have the freedom to not only believe, but act on those beliefs.

"President Trump tonight opened the door even wider to policies that make America a good and prosperous nation," concluded Perkins.

SOURCE Family Research CouncilNEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Below are experts from the ProfNet network who are available to discuss timely issues in your coverage area.

You can also submit a query to the hundreds of thousands of experts in our network  it's easy and free. Just fill out the query form to get started: http://prn.to/queryform

EXPERT ALERTS

How Media Shapes Regional and National Public Opinion

Custody of Pets in Divorce Cases

MEDIA JOBS

Senior Reporter  Private Debt Investor (NY)

US Technology Reporter  Telegraph Media Group (CA)

Reporter, Airlines  The Wall Street Journal (IL)

OTHER NEWS & RESOURCES

3 Ways to Harness the Creative Chaos as a Content Creator for Hire

Five Questions With Zig's CEO and Co-Founder

Blog Profiles: Comic Book Blogs

-------------------------------------------------------------------

EXPERT ALERTS:



How Media Shapes Regional and National Public Opinion

Darryl Mace, PhD

Professor and Chair, History and Political Science

Cabrini University

"Protest versus riot; lynching versus murder; throughout history, the public receives information that is already framed for us. We must always consider who determines what is newsworthy and how certain narratives persist, are interrupted, or are silenced completely."

As an author, historian, and professor, Mace incorporates media studies, popular culture, and gender theory to examine cultural history, the Civil Rights Movement, and the experiences of Africans in the diaspora. A national speaker and media resource, his insight into the lynching of Emmett Till provides a critical analysis of how media shapes regional and national public opinion. Similarly, his research on America's greatest orations uncover the power of the spoken word to move people and effect significant political, social, and cultural changes. Mace is author of "In Remembrance of Emmett Till" (University Press of Kentucky, 2014) and editor of "American History Through Its Greatest Speeches, Volume 2" (ABC-CLIO, 2016). He is available to discuss Colonial race and gender, antebellum slavery, and 20th Century black history including African history, American political rhetoric, United States southern history, and African-American history, media studies, U.S. civil rights historiography and race-relations historiography.

Website: www.cabrini.edu/mediahub

Contact: Lori Iannella, [email protected]



Custody of Pets in Divorce Cases

Michael Ian Bender

Family Law Mediation/Litigation/Children's Representative

Law Office of Michael Ian Bender

Many laws have gone into effect in 2018, but one Illinois law that hasn't gotten as much attention as it deserves is the new law regarding pets in a divorce. On Jan. 1, a law went into effect regarding the custody of pets in divorce cases. Previously, pets had been treated much like any other material asset in a divorce, to be divided up in whatever way best balanced the scales. Now, however, judges are allowed and encouraged to consider the well-being of the pet when deciding which spouse will receive custody, in much the same way that custody of children is determined. Says Bender: "I am pleased that the legal system has finally addressed the issue of pets in divorce. As a retired judge myself, I often served on cases with pet-related conflicts. And now, as a private practice family law attorney who also happens to be animal lover, I'm happy to know that judges will look at pets as beloved members of the family."

Bender re-opened The Law Office of Michael Ian Bender in December 2013 after retiring from his tenure as a Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, where he served the People of the State of Illinois and residents of Cook County. Bender was assigned to the Domestic Relations Division, Parentage and Child Support Section, where he heard matters involving child abuse, custody, support, parentage, visitation, and college contribution. During this time, he protected the rights of minor children. Prior to becoming a judge, Bender was in private practice for 15 years. He received recognition from the American Institute of Family Law Attorneys and the American Institute of Legal Counsel where he was voted one of the "10 Best" in his field. He is based in the Chicagoland area.

ProfNet Profile: http://www.profnetconnect.com/michaelianbender

Website: http://benderlawchicago.com/

Contact: Alisa Bay, [email protected]

****************

MEDIA JOBS:

Following are links to job listings for staff and freelance writers, editors and producers. You can view these and more job listings on our Job Board: https://prnmedia.prnewswire.com/community/jobs/

Senior Reporter  Private Debt Investor (NY)

US Technology Reporter  Telegraph Media Group (CA)

Reporter, Airlines  The Wall Street Journal (IL)

*****************

OTHER NEWS & RESOURCES:

Following are links to other news and resources we think you might find useful. If you have an item you think other reporters would be interested in and would like us to include in a future alert, please drop us a line at [email protected]

3 WAYS TO HARNESS THE CREATIVE CHAOS AS A CONTENT CREATOR FOR HIRE. Creativity is perceived as something that can't be taught -- a spontaneous and unorganized spark that can strike at any moment. It can be a messy process, full of rewrites, crumpled pieces of paper, and maybe a panic attack or two. However, when creativity is your business, the inherent chaos must be tamed. Creativity can and should be a process that follows a defined set of procedures and steps. Employing the following steps won't eliminate the drama completely, but should spare you the Greek tragedy that sometimes takes place behind the scenes: http://prn.to/2DDR00i

FIVE QUESTIONS WITH ZIG'S CEO AND CO-FOUNDER. With the debut of Zig, entrepreneur Joshua James wants to change the way people engage with and consume the news. Along with co-founders Adam Platzner and John Tornow, James launched the compelling new media platform earlier this month, and it's already garnering big attention. Former Vanity Fair Editor-in-Chief Graydon Carter , music producer Quincy Jones , and Live Nation are just some of the high-profile players backing the venture. For Carter, this is his first public project since leaving his post at Vanity Fair. In a recent news release, Carter says he wants to help the team how he can and believes the app "will find a wide and dedicated audience." That's likely because Zig promises to shake up the current ecosystem -- one that has delivered mixed results for publishers in the past. Read more: http://prn.to/2EspW0W

wants to change the way people engage with and consume the news. Along with co-founders and John Tornow, James launched the compelling new media platform earlier this month, and it's already garnering big attention. Former Vanity Fair Editor-in-Chief , music producer , and Live Nation are just some of the high-profile players backing the venture. For Carter, this is his first public project since leaving his post at Vanity Fair. In a recent news release, Carter says he wants to help the team how he can and believes the app "will find a wide and dedicated audience." That's likely because Zig promises to shake up the current ecosystem -- one that has delivered mixed results for publishers in the past. Read more: http://prn.to/2EspW0W BLOG PROFILES: COMIC BOOK BLOGS. Each week, PR Newswire's Audience Relations team selects an industry/subject and profiles a handful of sites that do a good job with promoting and contributing to the conversation. This week, they look at a few comic book blogs: http://prn.to/2ntCeyk

****************

PROFNET is an exclusive service of PR Newswire.

To contact ProfNet: [email protected] or 800-776-3638, ext. 1

SOURCE ProfNet

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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Puerto Rico Tourism Company (PRTC) announced today its rapid-pace recovery efforts and positive outlook for 2018. What better occasion than at the 15th edition of the Caribbean Travel Marketplace, the most important regional tourism event of the Caribbean, and particularly meaningful this year, with Puerto Rico as host destination. This reaffirms Puerto Rico's readiness to host visitors from all over the world.

"We have made great strides because we've implemented a comprehensive strategy which has in turn secured a promising comeback for the Island," expressed Carla Campos, Acting Executive Director of the PRTC. "Puerto Rico has reached great milestones that couldn't have been achieved without Governor Ricardo Rossello's leadership and the immense support we've received from travel industry private sector partners since day one. With over 1.9 billion dollars of hospitality development in the pipeline and an existing lodging inventory undergoing exciting renovations, Puerto Rico's revamping is underway."

Major milestones important for leisure and business travelers include:

Cruises : Not only did Puerto Rico resume operations just two and a half weeks after Hurricane Maria, but by end of June, 2018, Puerto Rico will have received 1.04 million passengers. This Winter season, 14 vessels  four more than the previous season  are homeporting in San Juan , including Royal Caribbean Freedom of the Seas, the Windstar Pride, Silverseas Silver Wind and Viking Sea. The 2018/2019 cruising season is set to witness a record-breaking 1.7 million passengers, which is expected to generate roughly $250 million in revenue for the economy.

Not only did resume operations just two and a half weeks after Hurricane Maria, but by end of June, 2018, will have received 1.04 million passengers. This Winter season, 14 vessels  four more than the previous season  are homeporting in , including Royal Caribbean Freedom of the Seas, the Windstar Pride, Silverseas Silver Wind and Viking Sea. The 2018/2019 cruising season is set to witness a record-breaking 1.7 million passengers, which is expected to generate roughly in revenue for the economy. Air Access : The airline industry is rapidly restoring and growing. Two weeks after Hurricane Maria, the Luis Munoz Marin International Airport had 20 daily flights, but today, there are on average 110 daily flights. Capacity is on the rise with a current monthly seat volume of 391,000. By July 2018 , seat capacity will increase by 81,000 more. Very promising is that by early summer 2018, air access will be on par with levels this time last year, and Puerto Rico is growing at a faster pace than comparable destinations that have gone through similar situations. Growth is driven by newly established routes and existing frequency, in addition to larger aircrafts that will result in higher seat capacity.

The airline industry is rapidly restoring and growing. Two weeks after Hurricane Maria, the Luis Munoz Marin International Airport had 20 daily flights, but today, there are on average 110 daily flights. Capacity is on the rise with a current monthly seat volume of 391,000. By , seat capacity will increase by 81,000 more. Very promising is that by early summer 2018, air access will be on par with levels this time last year, and is growing at a faster pace than comparable destinations that have gone through similar situations. Growth is driven by newly established routes and existing frequency, in addition to larger aircrafts that will result in higher seat capacity. Hotels : Currently, there are over 122 hotels operating, which equates to 12,458 available rooms. An exciting 2,670 more rooms will be added to that inventory after undergoing renovations. For example, the Wyndham Grand Rio Mar Puerto Rico Golf & Beach Resort, the Ritz-Carlton Reserve and El San Juan Hotel. Looking ahead, the Puerto Rico Tourism Company estimates 25% more rooms in the pipeline for development, which equates to 3,800 new rooms. Some of the hotels in the pipeline are the JW Marriott, Aloft San Juan Convention Center, Aloft Ponce, Serafina Hotel, Four Seasons Cayo Largo, among others. Approximately $1.9 billion will be injected into new developments and renovations, which contributes to adding roughly 3,831 new jobs.

Currently, there are over 122 hotels operating, which equates to 12,458 available rooms. An exciting 2,670 more rooms will be added to that inventory after undergoing renovations. For example, the Wyndham Grand Rio Mar Puerto Rico Golf & Beach Resort, the Ritz-Carlton Reserve and El San Juan Hotel. Looking ahead, the Puerto Rico Tourism Company estimates 25% more rooms in the pipeline for development, which equates to 3,800 new rooms. Some of the hotels in the pipeline are the JW Marriott, Aloft San Juan Convention Center, Aloft Ponce, Serafina Hotel, Four Seasons Cayo Largo, among others. Approximately will be injected into new developments and renovations, which contributes to adding roughly 3,831 new jobs. Destination Attractions : A month after Hurricane Maria, the Puerto Rico Tourism Company announced that 22 attractions were open, however, today there are more than 120. Additionally, 13 golf courses and 15 casinos are also open for recreation. Travelers need not worry about being hungry while on the Island because Puerto Rico has 4,000 operating restaurants. We are seeing continued commitment from partners who are choosing to keep their big-ticket events in Puerto Rico , like the DIVAS Half Marathon and 5K , PGA, Ironman, and MLB Series, all events happening in Q1 and Q2 of this year alone.

The PRTC is proud to announce significant milestones achieved by implementing fact and case study based planning based on destination management principles and strong partnerships with the public and private sectors whom have demonstrated increased commitment and confidence in Puerto Rico's comeback. Instilling a forward-thinking approach that allows the destination to be more innovative in reaching its goals and identifying where our investments will give us the biggest return are instrumental pillars of the Puerto Rico Tourism Company Destination Recovery Strategy.

If planning a vacation is on the horizon, Puerto Rico wants to set the record straight. For more information including details on open attractions, accommodations, Puerto Rico's most popular restaurants and more, visit SeePuertoRico.com. And, for information on other Island updates (related to hospitals, ATMs, supermarkets, etc.), visit http://status.pr/. With the Island officially Open for Business, there is no better time to visit Puerto Rico.

About Puerto Rico Tourism Company

The Puerto Rico Tourism Company (PRTC), founded in 1970, is a public corporation responsible for stimulating, promoting and regulating the development of the tourism industry. It markets Puerto Rico as a tourism destination through advertising, public relations and promotional activities; promotes tourism among visitors and local residents; provides visitor orientation and technical assistance to investors; evaluates tourism facilities and establishes standards of quality; and regulates and oversees gaming operations. PRTC has offices and representatives in the U.S. mainland, Canada, Europe and Latin America.

SOURCE Puerto Rico Tourism Company

Related Links

http://SeePuertoRico.com

"The fight for equality for people of color is not over, the majority is still underpaid, disenfranchised and excluded from the so called American Dream. A strategic plan to displace the homeless and people of color out of Chicago and other U.S. cities is a real and painful truth," said Siri Hibbler , President of the Garfield Park Chamber of Commerce and several businesses in the area .

"I was told by a political figure that 'I can't be political and community also.' I firmly disagree. And, I now truly understand, how Martin Luther King, who stated 'we must negotiate, mobilize and resist,' and so many others may have felt and endured when they decided to stand up, speak out and fight for people of color and the injustices against us. Although some may not approve, we are thankful for the various elected officials and incumbents, including Chris Kennedy (incumbent, Illinois Governor) for supporting our efforts to keep people of color, small businesses and low-income families in our communities," said Siri.

"The black communities are not broke. TIFF funding of $8+ Million with acres of land for $1 and schools, in Garfield Park alone, have been given out by the Mayor from the Garfield Park TIFFS, to several non-black-owned businesses, who have never contributed to the community. Yet, there are many black-owned businesses who have been in the community for years, who can-not get 1 dime of these TIFF funds to grow their business and job training programs. With $8 million, we can revitalize schools, invest in many small businesses and real affordable housing, if the Mayor truly cared about keeping people of color in the communities," said Siri.

"As the late John F. Kennedy stated, 'ask not what your country can do for you  ask what you can do for your country.' And, we believe that we have answered the question, therefore, we gladly announce the launch of the #Pushback Chicago Initiative program, that will help people of color be inclusive and not displaced from their communities, becoming key stake holders, investors and home owners," said Siri.

The #Pushback Chicago Initiative is a crowd-funding online program launching in April 2018, where residents can invest a small amount of funds, minimum $500, into the #Pushback Fund, that will go towards the purchase of the properties that they choose for their portfolio within their own communities. This program is designed to take low-income individuals from renters to home ownership and investors, thus, allowing them to create generational wealth for their families, and remain in their respective communities. "Our lawyers are working on helping us offer this opportunity in other cities experiencing gentrification throughout the United States as well," said Siri.

"Diversity is what makes America the greatest country in the world, it is what makes Chicago one of the greatest cities in America, it's time for the people to speak and Push-Back in Chicago," said Siri.

Siri and her team will be hosting a Kick-off event and press conference for the #pushback Chicago initiative and the online crowd-funding investment site, Friday, February 9th at 2954 W. Lake Street, at 6:00 pm. To RSVP contact Brian or Siri at 708.629.9417 or 872.444.5899.

SOURCE Field of Dreams Visionary Center

Related Links

https://fieldofdreamsvisionarycenter.com/

TAMPA, Fla., Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- ReliaQuest, a leading provider of IT security solutions, has been recognized as an Excellence Award finalist in the Customer Service category for the 2018 SC Awards. Finalists are recognized for outstanding leadership and providing superior security products to the cybersecurity industry. Winners will be announced at the SC Awards ceremony on April 17, 2018 in San Francisco.

ReliaQuest was selected as a finalist for Best Customer Service, as part of the 2018 SC Awards.

"At ReliaQuest, it's our belief that if you take care of the people you work with, success for our customers is a foregone conclusion. Having a strong team with shared values is our definition of customer service," said ReliaQuest CEO Brian Murphy. "More than any technological expertise, this is how we will continue to push the security industry forward."

Now in its 21st year, SC Awards is recognized as the industry gold standard of accomplishment for cybersecurity professionals, products and services. Winners in the Excellence category are determined by an expert panel of judges with extensive knowledge and experience in the cybersecurity industry. The Excellence Award honors the professionals, products and services that have proven to be the best in the industry for protecting today's corporate world from an array of risks and threats.

"In an age where threats are ever-evolving, it is reassuring to know that one true constant is the commitment of dedicated information security professionals, as best exemplified by our SC Media Awards finalists," said Illena Armstrong, VP, editorial, SC Media. "These inspiring innovators have set a high bar for their industry peers, as they continue to protect the world from attacks and vulnerabilities that imperil our security, privacy, and digital infrastructure. The year 2017 brought us WannaCry ransomware infections, the rise of cryptominers, and bugs like Broadpwn and BlueBorne that affected billions of devices. Whatever threats rear their ugly heads in 2018 and beyond, our finalists will be ready to act."

The SC Awards gala honoring the winners attracts top professionals in the cybersecurity community and provides an invaluable opportunity for networking. To register for the 2018 SC Awards gala, please visit http://www.scmagazine.com/awards/.

About ReliaQuest

For the past 10 years, ReliaQuest has pushed the boundaries of IT security  past allegiance to any one technology, the challenges of workforce limitations, or the definitions of the managed services category. Today, ReliaQuest custom-architects and scales individualized security environments that get smarter over time. By combining existing tools and technologies with the reliability of co-management and the speed and agility of Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services, ReliaQuest transforms organizations into their own security platforms  providing unmatched visibility while normalizing the security spend. ReliaQuest operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year from Security Operations Centers in Tampa, FL, and Las Vegas, NV. ReliaQuest's model is recognized by industry experts as the emerging standard for large and complex organizations. The company has received numerous accolades for its commitment to maintaining a positive company culture. In 2017, ReliaQuest was named a national Great Place to Work, listed as one of FORTUNE Magazine's Top 100 Medium Workplaces and ranked No. 171 on Deloitte's Technology Fast 500, a list of the 500 fastest growing technology companies in North America. Also in 2017, ReliaQuest CEO Brian Murphy was named EY Entrepreneur of the Year for Florida. In January of 2018, ReliaQuest was named one of the Best Workplaces in Technology by FORTUNE Magazine and Great Place to Work.

About SC Media

SC Media is cybersecurity. For over 25 years, they have armed information security professionals with in-depth and unbiased information through timely news, comprehensive analysis, cutting-edge features, contributions from thought leaders, and independent product reviews in partnership with and for top-level information security executives and their technical teams. In addition to their comprehensive website, SC Media offers magazines, eBooks, and newsletters. They also host digital and live events such as SC Awards and RiskSec NY to provide cybersecurity professionals all the information needed to safeguard their organizations and contribute to their longevity and success.

Media contact:

Kimberly Hill

Director of Communications

813-857-5397

[email protected]

SOURCE ReliaQuest

Related Links

http://www.reliaquest.com

NINGBO, China, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Risen Energy Co., Ltd., a leading China-based PV solutions provider that's traded as an A-share on China's Shenzhen Stock Exchange, recently announced that a 12MW ground PV power station in Requena, Spain has been connected to the grid, with Risen Energy having contributed 50% of the required high-efficiency solar modules to the project. This is a clear testament that the Chinese PV leader has received recognition outside of its home market, thanks to the excellent reputation that the firm has gained worldwide, most notably in Europe, and the strong and continuous growth in shipments going back many years.

The 12MW power station, developed by a Chile-based firm, is backed by an investment of approximately 100 million euros, including loans worth 7.68 million euros from Banco Santander. Risen Energy, one of the world's leading PV power solutions providers, supplied 6MW of the necessary 325W high-efficiency modules to the project.

The Chinese provider embarked on its globalization strategy several years ago and become an active participant of the Chinese government's One Belt, One Road initiative. The firm has leveraged its strengths in power expertise, project development and after-sales services to provide best-of-class professional PV power solutions, by taking part in the development of thousands of power station projects in Italy, Germany, India and Australia as well as in several African countries.

Risen Energy president Wang Hong said: "In terms of PV development, compared with emerging Asian and African PV markets, Europe has reached a high level of maturity that includes government policies supporting the industry and project financing. To enhance the proportion of renewable energy-based power generation, European markets including Spain have rolled out a series of incentives. Given the rosy prospects for European markets, we plan to continue deepening our cooperation on the development of power station projects with European firms and to provide partners with high-efficacy products and outstanding services."

SOURCE Risen Energy Co., LtdThe Kenyan government on Tuesday declared the main opposition National Super Alliances resistance wing, National Resistance movement (NRM), as an illegal entity.

According to a special gazette notice issued on Tuesday under the Prevention of organized Crimes Act, the Ministry of Interior has declared the National Resistance movement (NRM) to be organized criminal group for the purposes of the Act.

The Act provides for a fine of Sh500,000 or a jail term of 10 years or both for such individuals.

Eight years ago, the Interior ministry outlawed some 33 criminal gangs, which included terror group Al Shabaab. Others were 42 Brothers, Jeshi la Embakasi, Jeshi la Mzee and Jeshi la Kingole.

According to Section 22 of the Act, an organized criminal group means a structured group of three or more persons existing for a period of time and acting in concert with the aim of committing one or more serious crimes.

The NRM was created by the National Super Alliance (NASA) as a resistance wing of its activities. It comprises Odingas Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), WIPER, FORD-Kenya and Amani National Congress (ANC).

The Tuesday notice came out barely an hour after NASA swore in the coalitions principal Raila Odinga as the Peoples President.

Odinga who was the presidential candidate for the opposition NASA coalition was sworn in on Tuesday, after hours of tension.

Taking the oath, Odinga said the crowds gathered at Uhuru Park came to say enough is enough with electoral rigging.NEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Rosenthal & Rosenthal, Inc., the leading independent factoring, asset based lending and purchase order financing firm in the United States, today announced the completion of a deal to acquire the domestic factoring portfolio of BB&T Corporation (NYSE: BBT), one of the largest financial services holding companies in the United States.

As part of the deal, Rosenthal will acquire BB&T's portfolio of 90 factoring clients, adding approximately $2 billion in volume to its already robust $9 billion in factored volume. Rosenthal will add a front office in Georgia and back office support in North Carolina to manage the new portfolio. These two new locations complement Rosenthal's already existing California office and New York headquarters. Twenty-five BB&T factoring professionals will join the nearly 200 Rosenthal staff currently serving the firm's clients nationwide.

The deal marks the first acquisition in Rosenthal's 80-year history and positions the firm to further diversify the regions and industries it currently serves. This significant expansion allows Rosenthal to continue to develop new business opportunities within the furniture, casual living, fabrics and textiles industries, alongside the fashion, apparel, accessories, manufacturing, food & beverage and gift & home sectors, where Rosenthal has had historically strong relationships.

"We are excited to acquire BB&T's portfolio of factoring clients and honored to welcome their talented team of professionals into the Rosenthal family," said Peter Rosenthal, President of Rosenthal & Rosenthal. "This acquisition is a logical step forward for our firm, significantly advancing our goal of establishing Rosenthal as the leading independent national finance company."

"We are pleased to be a part of this transaction with Rosenthal & Rosenthal," said BB&T Specialized Finance and Operations Manager Robert Fentress. "Both our clients and associates will benefit from an association with one of the most respected firms in the factoring and asset based lending business."

ABOUT ROSENTHAL & ROSENTHAL

Rosenthal & Rosenthal (www.rosenthalinc.com) is the leading independent factoring, asset based lending and purchase order financing firm in the United States. Founded in 1938 by Imre J. Rosenthal, the firm is now led by the second and third generations of the Rosenthal family. As a privately held company, Rosenthal is committed to providing personalized service and flexible lending to clients across a broad range of industries. Rosenthal has offices in New York, California, Georgia and North Carolina.

BB&T

BB&T is one of the largest financial services holding companies in the U.S. with $221.6 billion in assets and market capitalization of $38.9 billion as of December 31, 2017. Building on a long tradition of excellence in community banking, BB&T offers a wide range of financial services including retail and commercial banking, investments, insurance, wealth management, asset management, mortgage, corporate banking, capital markets and specialized lending. Based in Winston-Salem, N.C., BB&T operates over 2,000 financial centers in 15 states and Washington, D.C. A Fortune 500 company, BB&T is consistently recognized for outstanding client service by Greenwich Associates for small business and middle market banking. More information about BB&T and its full line of products and services is available at BBT.com.

SOURCE Rosenthal & Rosenthal, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.rosenthalinc.com

CHICAGO, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- RSM US LLP ("RSM"), the nation's leading provider of audit, tax and consulting services focused on the middle market, announced today that the leaders and staff of SecureState, a national security and privacy consulting firm located in Cleveland, Ohio, will be joining RSM. The firms have signed a definitive agreement for RSM to acquire substantially all the assets of SecureState, and the transaction is expected to close on March 1, 2018 subject to certain terms and conditions.

This transaction expands RSM's consulting practice and its growing presence in the Ohio market by adding more than 50 talented individuals to the team. It also enhances the firm's growing security and privacy practice through SecureState's deep knowledge and expertise in information security  from compliance and risk awareness to incidents and breaches, as well as its state-of-the-art incident response lab. Ken Stasiak, founder and CEO of SecureState, will join RSM as a consulting principal, and his full team will transition to RSM upon closing.

"Cybersecurity is cited by middle market business leaders as one of the foremost risks to their business," said Brian Becker, national consulting leader for RSM US LLP. "We have been experiencing tremendous growth in our security and privacy services due to clients' needs in this area. We are thrilled to enhance our ability to help existing clients and other middle market businesses address their cybersecurity concerns by joining forces with SecureState. This is yet another example of RSM's commitment to being at the forefront of the evolving needs of middle market businesses."

RSM and SecureState share a client-centric approach to doing business, with a focus on building enduring, trusted relationships. Both firms offer superior service to clients in the middle market.

"We are thrilled to be joining RSM," said Stasiak. "Our expertise and service offerings represent a perfect fit for RSM's growing security and privacy practice. We are excited to join the foremost provider of consulting services to middle market leaders, and we look forward to continuing to serve our client base while at the same time helping RSM's many clients achieve stronger levels of security within their businesses."

"Consulting has been an area of rapid growth for RSM during the last several years," said Joe Adams, managing partner and CEO of RSM US LLP. "I am constantly impressed by the team's ability to innovate and stay ahead of the changing needs of our clients. We are particularly pleased to expand our ability to provide security and privacy consulting solutions, and we look forward to the knowledge and expertise the SecureState team will bring to our firm. This is another important step toward strengthening our position as the first-choice advisor to middle market leadersglobally."

The team from SecureState will continue to be located in their existing offices at 23340 Miles Road in Cleveland, after completion of the transaction.

About SecureState

Since 2001, SecureState has been a leader in providing organizations with management consulting services focused in the Information Security field. SecureState develops solutions to organizations' most complex business problems to reduce their level of acceptable risk. SecureState partners with each client to develop roadmaps consisting of both strategic and tactical recommendations that will bring them to a secure state.

About RSM US LLP

RSM's purpose is to deliver the power of being understood to our clients, colleagues and communities through world-class audit, tax and consulting services focused on middle market businesses. The clients we serve are the engine of global commerce and economic growth, and we are focused on developing leading professionals and services to meet their evolving needs in today's ever-changing business environment.

RSM US LLP is the U.S. member firm of RSM International, a global network of independent, audit, tax and consulting firms with more than 43,000 people in over 120 countries. For more information, visit rsmus.com, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, subscribe on YouTube and/or connect with us on LinkedIn.

SOURCE RSM US LLP

Related Links

http://www.rsmus.com

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Company executed a Standard Power Purchase Agreement ("SPPA") with TANESCO (Tanzania Electric Supply Company Limited) today. This is the first SPPA TANESCO has approved since 2016 and the first executed by any company under the 2017 Guidelines which were adopted in late October 2017. The SPPA is a 25 year agreement between the Company and TANESCO for delivery of 0.95 MW of power to the main grid from a Company owned facility in an industrial area in the heart of the new Kilosa Town.



The Company has partnered with Cronimet Mining Power Solutions GmbH ("CRONIMET") on the project which represents the Company's first grid-connected Solar PV facility in a planned portfolio of six one MW facilities being developed in the Kilosa District.



Site preparation and plant equipment acquisition activities are underway. First power will be delivered by year-end 2018. The facility is being developed in Ruaha Energy's 400,000 square foot Kilosa Town complex which also includes Ruaha Energy's Regional Operations and Staging Center.



The plant also forms a part of CRONIMET's develoPPP.de programme, where CRONIMET partners with the German Investment & Development Organisation (DEG) in order to facilitate knowledge and skill transfer in the local renewable solar energy sector. Under the program the facility will be used as a demonstration plant for training purposes to universities, programmes and individuals.



The Company's CEO, John Tate remarked, "Executing the SPPA represents a significant milestone for the Company. This facility will serve as our anchor project in the Kilosa District and with the completion of our Regional Operations Center, will give us a platform for a quick launch of our Solar PV portfolio over the next couple years."



Cronimet Managing Director Rollie Armstrong noted, "John and I have been researching the Tanzania utility scale solar market for several years and have developed what we are convinced is a replicable, quick-to-market, utility scale solar PV power generation model. To see our first plant actually become a reality convinces us that the model we have designed is viable."



The facility is a solar photovoltaic power plant that will be connected to the main grid. CRONIMET designed the facility which will be built, jointly owned, operated, and maintained by Ruaha Energy and CRONIMET. Partial funding for the project was supplied through a grant awarded to the Project by EEP (the Energy and Environmental Partnership for Southern and Eastern Africa), a program funded by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, the Austrian Development Agency, and the UK Department for International Development.



Ruaha Energy brings "power to the people" by increasing customer's access to reliable and affordable energy. The Company strives to implement rural-based, sustainable, clean energy solutions that optimize the renewable resources available in each market or village it serves. Our energy solutions help accelerate economic development in the communities we serve. Electric power brings economic power.



Since 2013, CRONIMET has funded the greenfield development of utility scale PV power plants across Africa. Early results are quantifiable in a number of "Africa's firsts" including the first megawatt scale PV/diesel hybrid power plant supplying an off-grid mining company with electricity through a PPA and Namibia's first utility scale grid connected PV power plant. As CRONIMET continues to develop and finance IPPs and execute EPC and O&M activities throughout sub-Saharan Africa, the value added social-economic benefits to local stakeholder compounds.



http://ruahaenergy.com

About Ruaha Energy: Ruaha Energy is a Tanzanian registered private company that is committed to profitably developing and operating customized hybrid and standalone grid and off-grid electrical power generation facilities and distribution networks that supply green energy to underserved rural and small urban markets in Tanzania.

About CRONIMET: CRONIMET is a leading African PV developer and strategic investor. CRONIMET's expertise extends along the PV project value chain, from greenfield land development, to technical planning, IPP funding, EPC contracting and O&M Services. CRONIMET is active throughout Africa, targeting 21 countries together with the KfW/DEG, to develop PV power plants and PPAs with public and private sectors. CRONIMET operates subsidiaries in Namibia, South Africa and Botswana and forward offices in Abidjan, Ivory Coast and Dar el Salaam, Tanzania.



Media Contact:

John Tate, Chairman and CEO

[email protected]

PRLog ID: www.prlog.org/12689630

SOURCE Ruaha Energy Company Limited

Related Links

http://ruahaenergy.com

WASHINGTON, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Ksenia Sobchak is the main democratic opposition candidate registered for the upcoming presidential elections in Russia.

Ms Sobchak is a Russian politician, a TV talk show host, a journalist, and a social activist. As one of the most recognizable faces in Russia, she has been fighting for democratic values and freedom in her country for many years. On October 18, 2017, Sobchak announced her intention to challenge Vladimir Putin by running for President in 2018. The Civil Initiative, a non-parliamentary party, supported her nomination.

Her goal is to make Russia a prosperous country that is respected by the world community. She wants a country governed by the rule of law, where presidents and lawmakers are elected and not appointed over and over again, where courts serve justice and do not punish innocent law-abiding citizens, where the parliament is a truly independent branch of power and not a rubber stamp in the hands of the President, where laws support development of small and mid sized businesses rather than suppress them, and where law-enforcement agencies actually protect citizens.

Ms Sobchak's detractors are trying to focus on some of the past issues that accompanied her work as a reality show host. Ksenia Sobchak comes to Washington to answer any questions that a "Beltway insider" audience might have, and to explain who she is and what she is about in her own words.

Ms Sobchak is a fluent English speaker, so she is going to communicate with you without interpreters, and there will be no information that could be "lost in translation."

She is going to speak at National Press Center at noon Tuesday, February 6, 2018.

RSVP at [email protected]

SOURCE Ksenia Sobchak for President CampaignSAVANNAH, Ga., Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) today announced the 9th annual SCAD deFINE ART honorees, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, along with featured artists: Tom Burr, Pia Camil, Mariana Castillo Deball, Yang Fudong, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Paola Pivi, Melissa Spitz, Lily van der Stokker and Wendy White. SCAD deFINE ART is one of the university's annual signature events featuring exhibitions, lectures, performances and public events that highlight emerging and established artists and visionaries. SCAD deFINE ART runs February 20-23, 2018 at award-winning museum and university locations in Savannah and Atlanta, Georgia.

Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, "Opera for a Small Room," detail, mixed media with sound, record players, records and synchronized lighting, 2005. Courtesy of the artists and Luhring Augustine Gallery, New York.

For more information, visit scad.edu/defineart2018

EXHIBITING ARTISTS

Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller

Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller are internationally known for their immersive multimedia sound installations and innovative audio/video walks. Their SCAD Museum of Art exhibition includes two major installations, "Opera for a Small Room" and "Experiment in F# Minor." These two works are examples of Cardiff and Miller's collaborative practice and their interest in creating emotive, transformational experiences for audiences through theatrically charged environments and evocative, layered soundscapes. The artists live and work in Grindrod, British Columbia, Canada.

Tom Burr

Tom Burr draws contextual links to urban aesthetics and subcultures, minimal art and avant-garde film, using spare, enigmatic mixed media sculptures and installations. For "No Access," a large-scale, public art installation on display outside the SCAD Museum of Art, Burr assembled 18 highly-polished, darkened mirrors inspired by "Claude Glasses" used by the 18th-century-landscape painters to select views in nature. Concurrently, Burr will be presenting "Sedimental," a survey of the last two decades of his work, focusing on projects which discuss urban development, the tensions between specificity and abstraction and the regulation of civic life within the context of an ever-changing metropolis.

Pia Camil

In her paintings, sculptures, performances and installations, Mexico City-based artist Pia Camil draws inspiration from the urban landscape of Latin America and engages with the history of modernism. "Fade into Black," her new work for the SCAD Museum of Art, is a single, monumental work that comprises hundreds of castoff T-shirts in an expansive installation that is both artwork and a wearable performative garment.

Melissa Spitz

SCAD alumna Melissa Spitz (M.F.A., photography, 2014) records the struggles and complexities of her mother's life  and the artist's tumultuous relationship with her  through photography. The ongoing project "You Have Nothing to Worry About" spans eight years of documentation in which Spitz' mother, Deborah, who struggles with mental illness and substance abuse, is pictured in moments of sorrow, joy, boredom, chaos and pain. Spitz was recently named TIME's Instagram Photographer of the Year for 2017.

Mariana Castillo Deball

Berlin-based Mexican artist Mariana Castillo Deball uses installation, sculpture, photography and drawing to explore the role objects play in our understanding of identity and history. For her SCAD Museum of Art exhibition, Castillo Deball will create a large-scale interactive work based on the history of the date Feb. 20  the opening date of SCAD deFINE ART 2018.

Yang Fudong

Yang Fudong is an important figure in the contemporary art scene and independent cinema movement in China. His films and photographic work, often derived from traditional Chinese painting, examine tensions between urban and rural, historic and present, worldliness and intellectualism. This exhibition will feature the U.S. premier of his most recent film, "Moving Mountains."

Toyin Ojih Odutola

"Testing the Name" is an exhibition of new drawings by Toyin Ojih Odutola that continues her ongoing exploration of the merger of two fictional aristocratic Nigerian families through the marriage of two men. Through her virtuosic handling of her materials, she creates detailed, rich, layered surfaces that seduce and compel.

Paola Pivi

Italian multimedia artist Paola Pivi works in many international contexts. For her exhibition, Pivi engages with the language of window displays as public art by creating site-specific vignettes within the SCAD Museum of Art's Jewel Boxes, a series of glass enclosures located along the historic museum's northern facade.

Lily van der Stokker

Lily van der Stokker's multifarious approach to artmaking embraces the joys and foibles of domesticity and relationships. Through painting, sculpture and installation, as well as a blurring of these distinct categorizations, van der Stokker immerses viewers in an environment of saccharine happiness.

Wendy White

SCAD alumna Wendy White (B.F.A., fibers, 1993) explores the boundaries of painting through the combination of traditional painted canvas surfaces and nontraditional materials like vinyl signs, mirrors and deconstructed denim jeans. In the exhibition "Loves," featured at Gallery 1600 in Atlanta, the artist examines the oil and gas industry.

About SCAD deFINE ART

Contemporary art elevates our everyday world, recasting familiar objects and experiences in ways that challenge perceptions, raise complicated questions and inspire creative responses to a complex and evolving world. Every year, SCAD celebrates contemporary art through deFINE ART, a series of exhibitions, lectures, panel discussions and more, all centered around the work of internationally acclaimed artists. Past deFINE ART honorees include Carlos Cruz-Diez, Carrie Mae Weems, Xu Bing, Alfredo Jaar, Shirin Neshat, Fred Wilson, Marina Abramovic, along with artists and guests such as Jane Alexander, Theaster Gates, Nari Ward, :mentalKLINIK, Corinne Wasmuht, Margery Arent Safir, Ph.D., Beau Geste, Madame Gandhi, Jose Parla and many more.

About the SCAD Museum of Art

Housed in the oldest surviving antebellum railroad depot in the country, the SCAD Museum of Art is a teaching museum that features emerging and established voices in the contemporary art world through commissioned artworks and temporary exhibitions. In 2016-2017, the SCAD Museum of Art welcomed nearly 44,000 visitors and hosted an ambitious roster of 32 exhibitions.

The museum has presented world-renowned artists including Jane Alexander, Radcliffe Bailey, Subodh Gupta, Alfredo Jaar, Sigalit Landau, Liza Lou, Ebony G. Patterson, Robin Rhode, Bill Viola, Carrie Mae Weems, Kehinde Wiley and Fred Wilson, as well as site-specific installations by artists such as Daniel Arsham, Kendall Buster, Jose Davila, Michael Joo and Odili Donald Odita. The SCAD Museum of Art features the work of prominent artists in fashion and design like Oscar de la Renta, Vivienne Westwood, Dakota Jackson and Steven and William Ladd. Permanent collections at the museum include the Walter O. Evans Collection of African American Art, the Modern and Contemporary Art Collection, the Earle W. Newton Collection of British and American Art, the 19th- and 20th-century Photography Collection and the SCAD Costume Collection.

Since opening its doors in October 2011, the renovated museum has been celebrated for its inspired architecture and design, world-class exhibitions, and visionary community outreach and education programs that enrich art enthusiasts, educators and students of all ages. The SCAD Museum of Art is proud to be recognized by the American Institute of Architects Honor Award for Architecture; Congress for the New Urbanism, Charter Award; Historic Savannah Foundation, Preservation Award; and National Trust for Historic Preservation, National Preservation Award.

The university offers award-winning curriculum guides, free of charge, aligned to National Core Arts Standards and other standards for K-12 teachers and students.

SCAD: The University for Creative Careers

The Savannah College of Art and Design is a private, nonprofit, accredited institution conferring bachelor's and master's degrees at distinctive locations and online to prepare talented students for professional careers. SCAD offers degrees in more than 40 majors, as well as minors in more than 75 disciplines across its locations in Savannah and Atlanta, Georgia; in Hong Kong; in Lacoste, France; and online through SCAD eLearning. With more than 35,000 alumni worldwide, SCAD demonstrates an exceptional education and unparalleled career preparation. The diverse student body, consisting of nearly 14,000, comes from across the U.S. and more than 100 countries worldwide.

In 2017, the prestigious Red Dot Design Rankings placed SCAD as the top university in the United States and in the top two universities in the Americas and Europe. Career preparation is woven into every fiber of the university, resulting in a superior alumni placement rate. In a study of Spring 2016 SCAD graduates, 98 percent were employed, pursuing further education, or both within 10 months of graduation. For more information, visit the official SCAD blog.

SOURCE Savannah College of Art and DesignWASHINGTON, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- More than one-third (36%) of small businesses do not have a website, according to the websites section of the fourth annual Small Business Survey conducted by Clutch, a B2B research firm. One in five small businesses (21%) selectively use social media instead of a website in an effort to engage customers.

The survey indicates that small businesses consider cost a bigger concern than the potential repercussions of not having a website.

Percent of Small Businesses Without Websites and When They Plan to Build Them Small Business Investment in Building a Website

Social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram attract small businesses by cultivating a highly engaged user base.

However, relying solely on social media may be a risky strategy for businesses.

"Whenever you put all of your eggs into someone else's basket, it's risky," said Judd Mercer, Creative Director of Elevated Third, a web development firm. "If Facebook changes their algorithm, there's nothing you can do."

Facebook recently announced changes that potentially increase the risk of using social media in place of a website. The social media platform plans to prioritize posts from family and friends over posts from brands.

This new policy may make it more difficult for small businesses to reach their audiences through social media. As a result, websites are expected to regain importance among businesses  as long as cost is not considered an obstacle.

Among small businesses that do not currently have a website, more than half (58%) plan to build one in 2018.

Some Small Businesses Say Website Cost is Prohibitive, But Others Cite Costs of $500 or Less

More than a quarter (26%) of small businesses surveyed say cost is a key factor that prevents them from having a website. However, nearly one-third of small businesses with websites (28%) report spending $500 or less.

Small businesses may not be aware that some web development agencies offer packages that defray costs by dividing website construction into multiple phases or sliding rates for small businesses. "You don't necessarily need to launch with your first-generation website," said Vanessa Petersen, Executive Director of Strategy at ArtVersion Interactive Agency, a web design and branding agency based in Chicago. "Maybe just start small."

Mobile-Friendly Websites Becoming Standard

Businesses that do have websites are moving en mass to mobile friendly ones, the survey found. Over 90% of respondents said their company websites will be optimized for viewing on mobile devices by the end of this year.

In addition to the 81% of company websites that are already optimized for mobile, an additional 13% that say they plan to optimize for mobile in 2018.

Clutch's 2018 Small Business Survey included 351 small business owners. The small businesses surveyed have between 1 and 500 employees, with 55% indicating that they have 10 or fewer employees.

To read the full report and source the survey data, visit: https://clutch.co/website-builders/resources/small-business-websites-2018

For the raw data, a comment on the findings, or an introduction to the experts interviewed for this report, contact Michelle Delgado at [email protected].

About Clutch

A B2B research, ratings, and reviews firm in the heart of Washington, DC, Clutch connects small and medium businesses with the best-fit agencies, software, or consultants to tackle business challenges together and with confidence. Clutch's methodology compares business service providers and software in a specific market based on verified client reviews, services offered, work quality, and market presence.

Contact

Michelle Delgado

[email protected]

(202) 869-3866

SOURCE ClutchDigital Payments Market expected to hit 726 Billion by 2020

NEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - The company's latest application update responds to global market demand from Enterprises and Retail businesses integrating and marketing private or affinity card scheme programs with the need for integrated secure payment applications on popular OS. The company introduced today new features including a card emulation module with a feature rich suite of options including card create or integrate, customer registration, ekyc, multi-currency top-up & card-to-card transfers to name a few.

The payment industry for decades has been limited by choice of card management platforms, also limiting both issuers and processors with scalable solutions to deploy and meet the build-outs wanted by Retailers and Global Enterprises. The new card emulator module allows for Financial Institutions and Global enterprises the flexibility of open resources, and the ability to integrate existing card solution APIs or create and covert to their own virtual card schemes.

CEO Massimo Barone stated "We are excited about the timing of this new release as we are heading into major trade events including Seamless Asia in Bangkok, Mobile World Congress in Barcelona & the National Restaurant Association show in Chicago all this first half of the year. The importance of introducing a card emulator creates significant opportunities with financial institutions and global enterprises because of the need to support customer requirement build-outs for existing and new projects. Furthermore, with the addition of many new Cryptocurrencies our ability to support the exchange of private schemes and process multiple currencies is imperative to the company's success."

Digital payments expected to hit 726 billion transactions by 2020  but cash isn't going anywhere yet

Emerging markets

Emerging markets are expected to grow at a rate three times that of developed economies in terms of digital transaction volumes.

Digital payments in developing markets grew 21.6 percent between 2014 and 2015, compared to a 6.8 percent rise in mature markets.

Non-cash payments in Asian emerging markets are projected to grow by almost a third (30.9 percent), led by powerhouses China and India.

"Expansion in emerging Asia was due to impressive growth across all geographies as increased adoption of mobile payments and wallets generated a proliferation of card use," the authors of the study wrote.

Digital invoicing, virtual payment cards and cloud-based accounting are also seeing popular use in emerging Asian economies.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/09/digital-payments-expected-to-hit-726-billion-by-2020-study-finds.html

About the GenoPay application

The Genopay application layer is an extended mWallet module of Genorocity.com offering QR code frictionless payment, card registration and fulfilment, integrated international payment host gateway into the Genorocity.com platform. The module is developed entirely on a card emulator management solution allowing Enterprises the ability to add multiple private, membership, identification and affinity card schemes to the host. This feature rich ecosystem allows for easy integration with EMV POS, ePOS, mPOS, Ecommerce & Mobility solutions.

About SmartCard Marketing Systems, Inc.

SmartCard Marketing, Inc. (SMKG:OTC) is a Fintech Mobility solutions provider to the global payments industry delivering a cloud-based agnostic platform to Issuing & Acquiring banks, telecoms & enterprises. The company offers proprietary industry applications for payment acceptance. The brands include; Genorocity.com, a coupon & incentive management platform, Check21SAAS.com a Remote Check Deposit solution, Mtickets.events a mobile ticketing & events management solution, Emphasispay.com a payment ecosystem for alternative payment solutions & Articul8te.com its most recent offering for Social-media, Task & Content management. For more information, go to www.smartcardmarketingsystems.com

SOURCE SmartCard Marketing Systems Inc (SMKG)

Related Links

www.smartcardmarketingsystems.com

ORLANDO, Fla., Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Solodev, the web experience company, recently earned "Highest Ranking Software Tool" for the state of Florida in a nationwide study conducted by G2 Crowd  the leading online resource for independent and authenticated user reviews for business solutions.

On the same day, G2 Crowd also ranked Solodev on Florida's top 25 B2B companies for 2018. Together, these two accolades position Solodev alongside leading software brands like MailChimp, Slack and Microsoft SQL Server on a national scale.

Map of Highest-Rated Software Tools by State

G2 Crowd's state-by-state ranking reflects a company's overall user satisfaction around its top-rated product, service or solution. Solodev's Web Experience Platform software earned a score of 4.9 out of 5 in the Web Content Management (WCM) category, and also had the distinction of being the only cloud-first WCM to be ranked No. 1 in any of the 50 states.

Solodev also captured the No. 9 spot on G2 Crowd's list of Florida's top 25 B2B tech companies for 2018. These leading brands account for nearly 2,000 verified reviews from users around the country  as well as publicly available sources including LinkedIn and Crunchbase. This list also covers a variety of tech categories from e-commerce to CRM to core HR.

"We learned about both of these rankings on the same day, so needless to say we're doubly thrilled," said Shawn Moore, Chief Technology Officer at Solodev. "We work hard for our clients wherever they are, but Solodev was born in Florida  and this is our home. We love it here. We have clients across the state, and many in the public sector that are serving their communities with pride."

Some of Solodev's Florida-based clients include the City of Miami Beach, CNL, OneBlood, Florida Department of Education, Central Florida Regional Transit Authority (LYNX) and Seminole County Public Schools. As Florida's only WCM software provider built from the ground up for the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud, Solodev is helping customers across the Sunshine State  and the country  to move their websites and digital programs to AWS with greater efficiency, security and cost-effectiveness. Solodev's 24/7/365 support is also handled completely out of their headquarters in Orlando.

"We always strive to make our state better, and that includes advancing the growth of the tech sector," said Moore. "But representing Florida twice? That's an honor we could not have achieved without an amazing user base that pushes us to innovate. These achievements are all about them  not us."

G2 Crowd compiled and produced both lists; in order to qualify, each company was required to have at least 10 verified user reviews posted on G2 Crowd. Unlike other review sites, G2 Crowd independently authenticates each reviewer as a product user. In total, the data used to create the list relies on over 300,000 B2B software and service reviews in the G2 Crowd database.

ABOUT SOLODEV

Solodev is a premier Web Experience Company and the world's first enterprise Web Content Management System (WCMS) built for the AWS Cloud  the most secure, redundant and extensible infrastructure on the planet. With Solodev, organizations of all sizes can build amazing websites, custom applications and engaging digital strategies that transform the customer experience. Leading brands like the Florida Department of Education and OneBlood rely on the Solodev Web Experience Platform to create without compromise and build unique digital experiences across any device with unparalleled control and 24/7/365 U.S.-based support. An AWS Advanced Technology Partner with competencies in Public Sector and Marketing & Commerce, Solodev's revolutionary SaaS solution is available for purchase in the AWS Marketplace or at solodev.com.

Media Contact:

Shelby Rogers

Phone: 407.898.1961

Email: [email protected]

Related Files

solodev-stacked.jpg

Related Links

G2 Crowd Web Content Management Grid

SOURCE Solodev

Related Links

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Growing potatoes without precise knowledge of soil moisture can be challenging and brings on unnecessary risk. Additionally, soil compaction caused by field machinery traffic is exacerbated in wet soil conditions. Root development is hampered by too much moisture and maximized only when regular tillage operations or field work take place in drier conditions. The TDR350 is a relevant tool every potato farmer can find useful and affordable, in working toward optimal soil management.

"Historically, the potato farmer would grab a handful of soil or look at his boots to judge moisture level in the soil," says Mike Thurow, President & CEO. "The TDR350 provides farmers with an objective and consistent way to measure soil moisture, and to determine the best strategy for irrigation tillage, fertilizer application and planting operations."

TDR350's ergonomic design allows potato farmers to easily and rapidly take measurements in various soil environments with increased accuracy to capture soil Volumetric Water Content (VWC), Electrical Conductivity (EC), and surface temperature. With integrated Bluetooth and internal GPS, no additional components are necessary for wireless connectivity. The large capacity data logger can record approximately 50,000 measurements with GPS coordinates. Data records can be saved to a USB stick, or sent via Bluetooth connection to a smartphone or tablet using the FieldScout Pro Mobile App. Field readings are available in real-time by using the TDR350 in conjunction with the FieldScout Pro Mobile App and SpecConnect.

Spectrum Technologies was founded in 1987 and is headquartered in Aurora, Illinois, USA. Spectrum is a leader in providing advanced Agriculture, Horticulture, and Turf technologies to customers worldwide. Spectrum Technologies brands include: WatchDog, FieldScout, WaterScout, DataScout, LightScout, TruFirm and SpecConnect. Spectrum has 24 AE50 Awards from the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, which demonstrates the company's deep commitment to innovation and quality. For more information, call (800) 248-8873 or visit online at www.specmeters.com.

SOURCE Spectrum Technologies

Related Links

http://www.specmeters.com

Bespin Global helps enterprise customers move their legacy IT operations to the cloud, use cloud effectively and use cloud to power their digital transformation. "We are extremely pleased to partner with ST Telemedia, who is not only one of the most prominent investors in technology infrastructure and enterprise software today, but also a company with significant operating expertise and deep understanding of the cloud industry," said John Hanjoo Lee, CEO and co-founder of Bespin Global. "Over 190 enterprise customers, including some of the largest companies in the world, trust Bespin Global with their private and public cloud operation today. As we expand our customer coverage and enhance our software and services focused on performance optimisation, security and cost savings, we look forward to working with STT in all aspects of business."

Ronald Totton, Executive Vice President of STT, will join Bespin's board of directors. Mr. Totton said: "This investment in Bespin Global underscores STT's continued focus on strengthening our infrastructure software portfolio. We are impressed by the completeness of Bespin's vision as well as track record in providing compelling value propositions to some of the largest companies in the world. We believe that demand for cloud services and software will continue to grow quickly in Asia and enterprises will want to work with experienced solution providers such as Bespin Global. STT and Bespin Global have much in common and we look forward to building a successful partnership together."

Concurrent with STT's investment in Bespin Global, the two companies have signed a Business Cooperation Agreement to fosterwide-ranging business collaboration including joint development and cross-selling of products and services and sharing of best practices,branding, marketing, positioning, and joint service platforms.

The US$27 million investment included participation and support from existing investors in Bespin Global. Joon Sung Park, board member of Bespin Global and Partner of Legend Capital, said: "We believe in the Bespin Global story more than ever. Bespin is unique in that it successfully operates as a fully localised company anywhere it operates, including in China. We are impressed that they have attracted world-class customers and employees in China, and look forward to deepening our relationship with them."

More information about Bespin Global can be found at http://en.bespinglobal.com.

ABOUT ST TELEMEDIA

ST Telemedia (STT) is an active investor in the Communications, Media and Technology (CMT) space. Focused on catalysing growth and creating sustainable value for its stakeholders, STT has built a strong portfolio of complementary assets and businesses across the digital value chain. With decades of experience investing in, building and operating CMT businesses across the globe, STT has a proven track record in helping its investments grow and succeed. For more information, please visit www.sttelemedia.com

ABOUT LEGEND CAPITAL

Legend Capital was founded in 2001 and is the venture capital arm of Legend Holdings, one of the largest diversified holding corporations in China. The company specializes in early-stage and expansion-stage capital investments in Chinese and China-related innovation and growth enterprises.

ABOUT BESPIN GLOBAL

Bespin Global is a cloud MSP dual headquartered in Korea and China. Bespin Global helps businesses adopt and operate their IT on public and private clouds by combining unique set of services and software. The Professional Services group provides cloud architecture, migration and cloud strategy consulting services. The Managed Services group offers 24x7 monitoring, triage, and ongoing optimization services. The OpsNow group develops and markets a SaaS product that automates much of cloud IT operations and cost management on multi cloud environment. Bespin Global's team of over 300 employees are experts in Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Aliyun, Google Cloud Platform, IBM Softlayer, and private clouds based on VMWare, Openstack, and Microsoft Azurestack. With offices in Seoul, Beijing, and Shanghai, Bespin Global has gained the trust of over 190 corporate and government clients since its founding in October 2015. In April 2017, the Company was named to the Gartner's Hyperscale Cloud MSP Magic Quadrant.

SOURCE Bespin Global

Related Links

http://en.bespinglobal.com

The 30th Summit of the African Union held in Addis Ababa January 28 and 29 did not settle the African Unions financing solutions.

The Kaberuka tax, a 0.2% levy on imports, supposed to ensure the financial independence of the institution, did not receive unanimous approval.

The AU is reliant on foreign donors to fund its day-to-day operations and activities.

The situation, while it puts the AU in a difficult position, also creates an awkward situation that effectively makes the AU cede its sovereignty to other forces, particularly in the West.

For 2018, the budget of the continental bloc is expected to be around $782 million and the foreign partners are expected to contribute about  of the amount, the balance representing the contributions of the member countries of the Union.

In response to the funding gap, a new mechanism to fund the AU was proposed by Donald Kaberuka, the former President of the African Development Bank, who has been appointed AUs High Representative for the Peace Fund.

Kaberukas proposal, which has been adopted by the AU Assembly, entails a 0.2 per cent import levy on all eligible imports entering the continent, to fund the AU.

According to the former AfDB boss, this will generate 1.4 billion, an amount well beyond the annual budget of the continental institution.

The AU believes that the new mechanism, when fully implemented across the continent, will provide reliable and predictable funding for continental peace and security through the Peace Fund.

However, some countries that have extroverted economies have raised many questions. This is particularly the case of Egypt, Tunisia, Angola and South Africa.

As a result, many countries have not adopted the principle.

At the closing of the 30th AU Summit, the outgoing President of the African Union, Alpha Conde, explained that only about twenty countries had adopted the measure.MILPITAS, Calif., Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a new study conducted by Alan Hedge, a professor in the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis at Cornell, workers in daylit office environments reported an 84 percent drop in symptoms of eyestrain, headaches and blurred vision symptoms, which can detract from productivity.

"The study found that optimizing the amount of natural light in an office significantly improves health and wellness among workers, leading to gains in productivity," said Hedge. "As companies increasingly look to empower their employees to work better and be healthier, it is clear that placing them in office spaces with optimal natural light should be one of their first considerations."

With Americans, on average, spending more than 90 percent of their time indoors, providing the optimal amount of natural light is vital. Unfortunately, office environments introduce a number of challenges. Most notably, uncontrolled natural light can cause unwanted heat that can lead to intra-office "thermostat wars" and excessive glare on occupants' eyes and computer screens. Consequently, windows are often covered with blinds or shades, contributing to poorly daylit spaces.

To conduct the study, Hedge compared the experiences of workers in offices with traditional windows to workers in offices with auto-tinting "smart" windows that adapt to and control the sun's energy to optimize natural light and reduce glare. The smart windows were manufactured by View Dynamic Glass.

Key findings of the study include:

Controlled daylight unlocks significant health and wellness benefits for office workers. Workers in office environments with optimized natural light reported an 84 percent drop in symptoms of eyestrain, headaches and blurred vision symptoms, which often result from prolonged computer and device use at work and can detract from productivity.

Workers in office environments with optimized natural light reported an 84 percent drop in symptoms of eyestrain, headaches and blurred vision symptoms, which often result from prolonged computer and device use at work and can detract from productivity. More natural light translates to more alert employees. Workers in offices with smart glass reported a 10 percent decrease in drowsiness.

Workers in offices with smart glass reported a 10 percent decrease in drowsiness. Enhanced individual performance is tied to access to natural light. Workers sitting close to a window that optimized daylight exposure reported a 2 percent increase in productivity  the equivalent of an additional $100,000 /year of value for every 100 workers or around $2m over the window's lifetime.

Workers sitting close to a window that optimized daylight exposure reported a 2 percent increase in productivity  the equivalent of an additional /year of value for every 100 workers or around over the window's lifetime. Natural light creates a better indoor experience. Workers in offices with smart glass reported a 40 percent increase in daylight quality. Lack of daylight and access to views decreases the ability for the eye to relax and recover from fatigue. Additionally, workers in proximity to windows report 80 percent higher daylight satisfaction.

"Despite their best intentions, companies are unwittingly detracting from their employees' health and performance by limiting their access to natural light," said Dr. Brandon Tinianov, chair of the U.S. Green Building Council's Advisory Council and vice president of industry strategy at View. "These findings are a wake-up call to every executive who wants to maximize the wellness and productivity of their workforce."

To read the Cornell study report, visit http://go.viewglass.com/daylight-workplace-study.

Methodology

In November 2017, Hedge conducted a study of 313 office workers from five different locations who worked in either a View Dynamic Glass or traditional glass office environment. Located in a combination of open and private offices, workers were situated within 10 feet of windows and surveyed on daylight and its impact on their productivity, wellness and health. Hedge conducted the study independently and had full autonomy over all aspects, including the survey design, and data analysis.

About Alan Hedge

Alan Hedge is a professor in the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis, Cornell University. He directs the Human Factors and Ergonomics teaching and research programs. His research and teaching activities have focused on issues of design and workplace ergonomics as these affect the health, comfort and productivity of workers.

He has edited a book on "Ergonomic Workplace Design for Health, Wellness, and Productivity," co-authored a book on "Healthy Buildings," co-edited "Advances in Ergonomics Modeling and Usability" and also the "Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics Methods," published 41 book chapters, 74 peer-review journal articles and 164 refereed proceedings articles, 42 other conference proceedings, 15 technical reports, 13 legislative reports, 15 technical reports, and 151 additional conference presentations on ergonomics and related topics. He is extensively cited in the national and international media and has appeared on several TV and radio programs.

About View, Inc.

Situated at the intersection of human wellness, smart connectivity, and energy efficiency, View manufactures View Dynamic Glass, a new generation of architectural glass that intelligently transitions through multiple tint states to control the sun's energy, providing an enhanced occupant experience and optimum natural light and thermal comfort. View is the market leader in smart glass, with installations across 25 million square feet of real estate in a variety of commercial markets, including corporate offices, healthcare, government, higher education, airports and multifamily residential.

For more information, visit: www.viewglass.com.

Press Contacts

Cameron Craig

[email protected]

408-514-6494

Megan Gregorio

[email protected]

415-849-1310

SOURCE View, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.viewglass.com

Based on previous findings, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved tisagenlecleucel--brand name Kymriah--in August 2017 for children and young adults up to 25 years of age with B-cell ALL that is refractory or in second or later relapse. It was the first-ever FDA-approved gene therapy, as well as the first FDA-approved CAR-T cell therapy.

The updated results report new data from the Novartis-sponsored ELIANA trial, conducted in 25 centers in 11 countries worldwide.

Chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cell therapy genetically modifies a patient's immune cells to make them seek out and kill leukemia cells. The approach was developed by a team led by Carl June, MD, of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. That team collaborated with Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), the first institution to use the therapy in children with leukemia.

The current study includes longer-term follow-up of safety and efficacy data in 75 patients aged 25 and younger.

"This expanded, global study of CAR T-cell therapy gives us further evidence of how remarkable this treatment can be for our young patients in whom all other treatments failed," said lead author Shannon L. Maude, MD, PhD, a pediatric oncologist at CHOP and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "Our data show not only can we can achieve longer-term durable remissions, and longer-term survival for our patients, but that these personalized, cancer-fighting cells can remain in the body for months or even years, effectively doing their job."

In the 75 children and young adults who received the CAR T-cells, 61 (81 percent) had a response to treatment, defined as complete remission with or without complete recovery of blood counts, after at least three months of follow-up. Relapse-free survival in those 61 patients was 80 percent at six months after treatment, and 59 percent at 12 months. Overall survival in all 75 patients was 90 percent at six months and 76 percent at 12 months. The survival rates, say the authors, are evidence that the early response rates were durable. In the absence of CAR T-cell therapy, patients with multiple relapsed or refractory B-cell ALL face a poor prognosis.

Accompanying the durable responses, the CAR T-cells persisted in the patients for as long as 20 months, with a median persistence of 168 days at the point at which data were analyzed for this study. All patients in the trial received a single infusion of the CAR T-cells.

In line with earlier studies of CAR T-cell treatment, the most common treatment-related side effect was a severe flu-like condition called cytokine release syndrome (CRS), involving high fever, muscle pain, neurologic symptoms, and circulatory and respiratory problems. Nearly half of the 75 patients received intensive care unit treatment to manage CRS, but the effects were treatable and transient.

The lead investigator of this Phase 2 trial was Stephan A. Grupp, MD, PhD, Director of the Cancer Immunotherapy Frontier Program at CHOP.

"One of our more challenging questions  'can we manage the serious side effects of CAR T-cell therapy?'  was asked, and answered in this global study," said Grupp, the Section Chief of Cell Therapy and Transplant at CHOP, and a Professor of Pediatrics in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "Some of our patients get very sick, but we showed that most toxic effects can be short-lived and reversible, with the potential for our patients to achieve durable, complete remissions. That's a pretty amazing turnaround for the high-risk child who, up until now, had little chance of surviving."

The research team is pursuing ongoing clinical trials, studying ways to mitigate serious side effects and overcome relapse.

Editor's Notes: Some CHOP investigators serve or have served as consultants to Novartis to support the company's continued development of this treatment. In addition, Dr. Grupp is an inventor of a process for treating toxic reactions to the therapy.

The University of Pennsylvania has licensed some technologies involved in these studies to Novartis. Some of the scientists involved in these trials are inventors of these technologies. As a result of the licensing relationship with Novartis, the University of Pennsylvania receives significant financial benefit, and some of these inventors have benefitted financially and/or may benefit financially in the future.

Shannon L. Maude et al, "Tisagenlecleucel in Children and Young Adults with B-Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia," New England Journal of Medicine, Feb. 1, 2018.

About Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia was founded in 1855 as the nation's first pediatric hospital. Through its long-standing commitment to providing exceptional patient care, training new generations of pediatric healthcare professionals, and pioneering major research initiatives, Children's Hospital has fostered many discoveries that have benefited children worldwide. Its pediatric research program is among the largest in the country. In addition, its unique family-centered care and public service programs have brought the 546-bed hospital recognition as a leading advocate for children and adolescents. For more information, visit http://www.chop.edu

Contact: Amy Burkholder

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

(267) 426-6083

[email protected]

SOURCE Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Related Links

http://www.chop.edu

WASHINGTON, Jan. 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Tax Council Policy Institute (TCPI) announced today that Mark Prater, deputy staff director and chief tax counsel for the Senate Finance Committee, will be awarded the 2018 Pillar of Excellence Award in recognition of his extraordinary contributions to the tax community and efforts to formulate tax policy. The award will be presented at TCPI's 19th Annual Tax Policy & Practice Symposium held February 15-16 in Washington, D.C.

"The Pillar of Excellence Award is given to an outstanding tax professional who has demonstrated excellence in the field of tax law and policy, thereby helping further our mission at the TCPI," said Tim Raymond, Chair of TCPI's Board of Directors and Assistant General Tax Counsel at Exxon Mobil Corporation. "Mark's long-tenured career, coupled with his latest efforts helping to overhaul the U.S. tax code, makes him well deserving of this award."

Mr. Prater is the ninth recipient of this award, which honors those tax professionals who play a key role in formulating tax policy, as well as the development and prominence of the tax community at large.

"Mark's contributions to the tax profession over many decades are immeasurable, and he truly exemplifies the criteria set forth by TCPI for receiving the award," said Lynda K. Walker, Esq., Executive Director and General Counsel of TCPI. "Mark is highly respected within the tax policy community for his integrity and TCPI is pleased to recognize him for his outstanding work and intricate knowledge of the tax code and policy process."

Qualifications for the Pillar of Excellence Award include playing a key role in tax policy, impact on the tax business and national economy, participation in knowledge-sharing opportunities, and a demonstrated understanding of tax policies among professionals, executives and policymakers.

An Oregon native, Mr. Prater has worked on tax issues for the Committee for almost three decades. Starting in January 1990, he joined the Finance Committee as a tax counsel, quickly ascending to the position of chief tax counsel in 1993. In January 2007, his responsibility expanded to include Deputy Staff Director. A member of the Oregon and Washington State bars in 1984 and a certified public accountant, Mr. Prater worked in private practice from 1984 to 1990. Mr. Prater received his B.A. from Portland State University, his J.D. from Willamette University, and an LL.M. in Taxation from the University of Florida.

TCPI's 19th Annual Tax Policy & Practice Symposium, "Disruption and opportunity in the era of global tax transformation," will bring together leading tax professionals and policymakers from government, academia and the private sector, to explore emerging policy considerations, share insights, and exchange practical strategies for managing and mitigating the disruptions that changes in tax policy create. For more details, please visit www.tcpi.org.

About The Tax Council Policy Institute (TCPI)

TCPI is a non-profit, non-partisan, 501(c)(3) public policy research and educational organization. It was created to help bring about a better understanding of significant tax policies that impact businesses and the economy through careful study, thoughtful evaluation and open discussion. The annual Tax Policy & Practice Symposium is one of the programs utilized by TCPI to accomplish its mission.

SOURCE Tax Council Policy Institute

Related Links

http://www.tcpi.org

LONDON, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- About Smart Mattress



A smart mattress comprises technologically-advanced features such as sleep monitoring systems. Sensors located under the mattress track motion, sleeping patterns, and other vital records.







Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5303745







Technavio's analysts forecast the global smart mattress market to grow at a CAGR of 11.16 % during the period 2018-2022.



Covered in this report

The report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global smart mattress market for 2018-2022. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from the sales of smart mattress.



The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:

 Americas

 APAC

 EMEA



Technavio's report, Global Smart Mattress Market 2018-2022 , has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.



Key vendors

 Eight

 Kingsdown

 Responsive Surface Technology

 Sleep Number



Market driver

 Increasing penetration of smartphones and high-speed Internet

 For a full, detailed list, view our report



Market challenge

 Increase in price wars among existing vendors

 For a full, detailed list, view our report



Market trend

 Increasing investments in R&D Vendors

 For a full, detailed list, view our report



Key questions answered in this report

 What will the market size be in 2022 and what will the growth rate be?

 What are the key market trends?

 What is driving this market?

 What are the challenges to market growth?

 Who are the key vendors in this market space?



You can request one free hour of our analyst's time when you purchase this market report. Details are provided within the report.



Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5303745



About Reportbuyer

Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers



For more information:

Sarah Smith

Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +1 (718) 213 4904

Website: www.reportbuyer.com

SOURCE ReportBuyer

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TEL AVIV, Israel, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- TOYA, the Minecraft content-creator with a unique niche in the gaming world, is releasing three new products simultaneously in February. The multiple product launch is a first for the Israeli startup, founded by entrepreneurs Anat Shperling and Yifat Anzelevich. The two women are creating a brand of digital games and media designed to inspire children, especially young girls, to realize their full potential, and to know the accomplishments of women who have changed our world.

Brazilian Carnival Costumes skin pack by Toya The Chocolate Factory Mystery by Toya

"The Chocolate Factory Mystery" takes players through an abandoned factory in Brazil that once manufactured some of the best and most famous chocolates in the world. Players move through levels that challenge them to use actual chocolate-making skills, such as choosing and grinding cocoa. With the help of Whysa, an eccentric old lady who appears in every TOYA game, players are tested to see if they can be "the one" who re-opens the famous factory. If they succeed, players can choose flavors and make chocolate bars to sell in the Minecraft store, with a better understanding of the hard work and little bit of magic required to succeed in the business world.

As a complement to the Chocolate Factory's Brazilian origins, TOYA is also launching a new Brazilian skin pack of costumes that celebrate the country's famous Carnival. The costumes are inspired by two Sao Paulo samba schools run by women  the Golden Roses, led by Angela Basilio, and Mocidade Alegre, led by Solange Bichara Rezende  which took first prize in the Carnival in the last two years. They highlight the creativity and color with vibrant design that it takes to win the festival. Basilio and Alegre have been running their respective teams since 2003, and provide a women's perspective to the samba of Sao Paulo.

In a very different world, TOYA players will also get to discover the hidden treasures of Alexandria, Egypt, in a game called "Desert of Secrets." Players seek Cleopatra's nine Sea Heart Diamonds, and bring them back to the throne.

"It's important to us as a company to provide an array of international experiences and representations to an international audience," said Shperling, TOYA's CEO. "Setting games in Egypt and in Brazil expands the TOYA universe and the experiences we can provide to young players, especially girls, who will learn from exposure to different cultures.

"The Brazilian costumes in the skin pack were so much fun to design," said Anzelevich, TOYA's COO. "Like the Mummers and New Orleans krewes in the U.S., successful samba schools in Brazil are rarely run by women. Honoring Angela and Solange for their accomplishments in Carnival continues our theme of providing a variety of role models for young gamers. "

TOYA is dedicated to developing new Minecraft games as an alternative to the "for girls" focus on fashion, pets and homecare that is typically applied to grade-school-age girls. The company is designing for boys as well: research indicates that there is only one female for every five male characters in video games, and 76% of solo video game heroes are male, despite the fact that half of online gamers are female. Since the playful learning experience enables gamers to become explorers, adventurers and all sorts of heroes, TOYA's aim is that boys, too, will gain from experiencing the accomplishments of exceptional women from around the world. The company's first two Minecraft games, inspired by the work of renowned gorilla researcher Dian Fossey and Japanese mountain-climber Junko Tabei, were released in November and December 2017.

"It's a challenge for our small company to get three products to market at the same time," Shperling said. "But our team is dedicated to the unique values of TOYA, and expanding our product line quickly is a key strategy for reaching new audiences. It's another landmark for the TOYA approach: fun, interesting but with the serious purpose of empowering girls around the world."

Media contact:

Anat Shperling

97235270202

[email protected]

SOURCE TOYALaunched by former China Central Television reporter Fu Qiang and other Chifeng people, the gala was organized through crowdfunding actors who performed without fee. Being held in Beijing, the first two sessions had the famous performing artist Siqin Gaowa and other Chifeng stars on the stage, achieving great success.

Chifeng is located in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China. It has a historical record of 8,000 years of human activity. Once the largest city in the world, this land covers a beautiful area of about 90,000 square kilometers with rich natural resources. About 5 million people - both Mongolians and other ethnic groups - enjoy their lives here and live in harmony.

This year, the third staging of "Chifeng People All Over the World" received a video of good wishes from Chifeng people around the five continents and the works of the top ten calligraphers in Chifeng (Bai Xufeng, Chen Lizhi, Gu Jingyun, Su Tao, Wei Jinguo, Wu Feng, Wu Yincheng, Yang Shaohui, Zhang Min, Zhang Shuchang). In addition, the "Swan Goose Talents Project" provided great publicity and mobilized global Chifeng people to return home for investment and entrepreneurship. A charity event aimed at poverty alleviation was also held at the scene. Bao Xishun, who at 2.36 meters is the world's tallest man, and a number of Chifeng national champions also attended the event. Equipped with a powerful lineup, numerous stars and brilliant shows, the Spring Festival Gala could be described as a magnificent and luxurious audio-visual feast. Millions of viewers also appreciated the live show on their mobile phones.

The Spring Festival Gala included artists trained by the international super star Jackie Chan's performance group, Cheng Jia Ban. A dragon dance martial arts performance of "Come on! Chifeng People" officially kicked off the show. The perfect integration of dance, martial arts and wonderful kung fu won warm applause from the audience.

The Gala consisted of 28 exciting programs like songs, dances, spring renditions, magic, a horse head performance, poetry recitation, a Mongolian costume show, and intangible cultural heritage full of Mongolian ethnic features and unique local cultural elements. The audience witnessed the true charm of this gala.

The "Chifeng People All Over the World" 2018 Spring Festival Gala also involved a group of well-known artists who came from outside of Chifeng to express their deep love for hometown folks and dedication to this grand activity.

In short, the Gala featuring positive content, beautiful melodies, touching feelings and wonderful performances has inspired thousands of Chifeng people around the world in their effort to create and achieve brilliant dreams.

Next year, the event may go to the United States to hold the fourth session of the "Chifeng People All Over the World" Spring Festival Gala. The event is much anticipated.

In order to show their love for their motherland and hometown, Chinese people hope that this wonderful event can be held on the occasion of Chinese New Year.

SOURCE Beijing Singna MediaVWR, acquired by Avantor in 2017 as a wholly-owned subsidiary and leading global provider of product and service solutions to laboratory and production customers, supports the VWR Foundation by donating a portion of its VWR Collection product sales in the U.S. to the VWR Foundation. In 2017, sales of these products raised $350,000 for the VWR Foundation.

"VWR, its Sales Representatives and its customers help make a difference every time they sell/buy a VWR Collection product," stated Valerie Cucinotta Collado, President of the VWR Foundation. "The VWR Collection program funds the VWR Foundation so it can continue to distribute grants to worthy non-profit organizations dedicated to science. This donation is our way of saying thank you to the Sales team for making this happen."

The VWR Foundation selected ten potential organizations aligned with its three strategic priorities of research, health and well-being, and education. During the conference, VWR's Sales team members were given the opportunity to vote on which organization they wanted to support. Out of ten organizations, the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital was chosen, receiving over 40% of the votes.

About the VWR Foundation

Established in 2009 by a group of associates from VWR, the VWR Charitable Foundation is committed to giving back to the science community. The VWR Foundation has donated more than $3 million since its inception, supporting organizations and programs that align with its three strategic priorities: research for new innovation and scientific applications; improving health and well-being; and building greater awareness and improvement in science education. To find more information about the VWR Foundation, including a grant application, please visit http://www.vwrfoundation.org.

About VWR

Acquired by Avantor in 2017 as a wholly-owned subsidiary, VWR serves as a leading global provider of product and service solutions to laboratory and production customers in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, industrial, education, government and healthcare industries. The combined company is a trusted end-to-end partner to customers and suppliers from discovery to delivery. With operations in more than 30 countries and a diverse portfolio that includes more than four million branded and manufactured products, we enable customer success through innovation, cGMP manufacturing and comprehensive service offerings. Collectively, we set science in motion to create a better world. For more information visit www.settingscienceinmotion.com or vwr.com.

VWR Foundation Media Contact:

Valerie Collado

Phone: (484) 885-9338

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE VWR Foundation

Related Links

http://www.vwrfoundation.org

SHENZHEN, China, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- TrackingMore, a third party parcel tracker which supports tracking of 477 global couriers including major logistics provider giants like USPS, UPS, FedEx, DHL, China Post, Canada Post, La Poste, helps more than 100K global visitors track parcels per day. With the established cooperation between postal services and express carriers, advanced courier detection rules and robust dashboard, it is expected to provide parcel tracking services to a wider user group, especially online merchants and buyers.

100K site visitors per day is a big moment for TrackingMore because this is a good sign which proves that this site is providing value for its users. TrackingMore has already gained its popularity among cross-border e-commerce giants like PatPat, Banggood, DJI, Signifyd, Zulily, Borderlinx and so on. In 2017 alone, there were 54,566 users who had generated an account at TrackingMore.

However, this is still far from enough as network industry changes so fast that TrackingMore already smells the fierce competition. Knowing this, the team never stops discovering the essential needs of their customers. After all, people who listen to customers' hearts win customers' and the battle at last.

TrackingMore team enjoys the unique advantage of high productivity at work: all members are working in the same office, so if there is a question posted by users, they can solve it fast without experiencing long and tedious waiting process. This seems to work well as many users have showed thankfulness to their quick responses.

"We are very sure that we will help more merchants and buyers solve their problems in retrieving latest and accurate tracking info. We know very well about the essential needs of our customers. As a matter of fact, all my team members agree to the notion that 'The Customer Is God' so that we can always focus on our customers' true needs and make them happy," said Broc Liu, the CEO of TrackingMore.

Liu also says that he can sense that TrackingMore will embrace another milestone in the near future. More people are buying things online and once they do that, they need to check the parcel status. For online merchants, he believes most of them are willing to insert a track button to their e-commerce sites because by doing that, buyers will come to their sites, check order status and thus to generate more sales and traffic.

About TrackingMore

TrackingMore is an all in one parcel tracking tool which provides global parcel tracking services for people, including online merchants, buyers and e-commerce developers. Since its establishment, TrackingMore has helped more than 6,000 cross-border e-commerce sellers track millions of packages. Other supplementary services provided by TrackingMore include 477 restful courier tracking APIs, track button, dashboard, shipment status update notification, analytics, automated carrier detection and shopping cart integration. For more information, please visit: https://www.trackingmore.com/

Major Carriers Supported By TrackingMore

DHL, UPS, FedEx, TNT, USPS, Canada Post, China Post, China EMS, Hong Kong Post, Australia Post, Royal Mail, Parcelforce, Blue Dart, Yodel, Japan Post, India Post, Singapore Post, ABF Freight, CollectPlus, LBC Express, Yanwen, WishPost, 4PX, S.F. Express, S.F. International, JD Express, Deppon, GLS, TOLL, DPD, Aramex, Pitney Bowes, DSV, OnTrac, Purolator, Asendia USA, I-Parcel, LaserShip, Xpresspost, Newgistics, Estes, Greyhound, GLS, Ruston, JCEX and TGX.

To check all supported carriers, please click here: https://www.trackingmore.com/carriers.html

SOURCE TrackingMore

Related Links

https://www.trackingmore.com

Norway approves $4 million for Georgias energy development

The Kingdom of Norway is supporting the development of renewable energy sources in Georgia by approving $4 million for the country.This four-year grant program was approved yesterday after signing the Memorandum on Institutional Cooperation between Georgia and the Kingdom of Norway.The grant program aims at assisting Georgia to develop its renewable energy sources, advancing a normative base and preparing qualified staff.Per the agreement, the graduates of Georgian Technical University will undergo the masters degree program in hydro engineering in Norway this year.Also, five short-term courses will be arranged for several employees of Georgias public services in order to improve their qualifications.Norway will also help to establish hydrological and meteorological data management systems in Georgia and modeling water resources management.The grant also supports projects such as developing the Electricity Market Development Guide and supporting Georgia's energy system integration with the Turkish energy market.PORTLAND, Ore., Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Twistlock, the leading provider of container and cloud native cybersecurity solutions, today announced record growth in 2017 across all aspects of the business. Twistlock's record 2017 cements the company's position as the leader in cloud native cyber security and provides a strong basis for continued momentum throughout 2018. Twistlock also today announced the move of its corporate headquarters to Portland, Oregon, driven by significant headcount and customer growth over the past year.

In 2017, Twistlock saw significant growth as a company, including expanding to four offices worldwide, a 300% increase in headcount, and a funding round led by Polaris Partners with participation from existing investors YL Ventures, TenEleven and Rally Ventures that brought the company's funding to over $30M. On the product front, Twistlock continued to lead the industry by releasing two first-of-their kind cloud native layer 3 and layer 7 firewalls. With Twistlock 2.3, the 12th major release of the platform, Twistlock unified support for security for containers with serverless functions, thereby reinforcing the platform's position as the most comprehensive solution for cloud native cybersecurity.

"Moving our headquarters to Portland is another step in our journey to build a sustainable business. Spurred by the continued momentum within our customer base, we're laser-focused on building a true cybersecurity platform for cloud native environments in 2018 and beyond," said Ben Bernstein, chief executive officer at Twistlock. "This move will help us continue to drive business momentum by bringing us closer to customers, encouraging innovation and fostering a team of great talent."

Today's announcement caps off a period of significant growth that saw Twistlock cement its industry leadership and make significant advancements in cloud native cybersecurity research through the work of Twistlock Labs. Key milestones for Twistlock throughout 2017 include:

Over 250% customer growth, with 400% growth within the Fortune 500

Headcount growth of over 300% worldwide, and expansion to offices in New York City and Portland

and Over 175% growth of channel-based business, and over 250% growth in Twistlock Partner Program membership

The release of Twistlock 2.3, the 12th major release of the Twistlock platform, and the first cybersecurity platform to unify security for containers, serverless functions and other cloud native technologies

Discovery by the Twistlock Labs research of 3 container related 0-day exploits affecting thousands of container users worldwide

"Today's announcement highlights what a significant impact Twistlock continues to make on the cybersecurity industry," said Joshua Thorngren, vice president of marketing at Twistlock. "The growth we've seen in our customer base and partner program highlights the demand for a new, cloud native, approach to cybersecurity that does away with legacy approaches and provides automated, scalable full-lifecycle protection. It's clear from our hundreds of satisfied customers that Twistlock fulfills that demand, bringing stronger protection to enterprises worldwide."

About Twistlock

Twistlock is the leading provider of container and cloud native cybersecurity solutions for the modern enterprise. From precise, actionable vulnerability management to automatically deployed runtime protection and firewalls, Twistlock protects applications across the development lifecycle and into production. Purpose built for containers, serverless and other leading technologies, Twistlock gives developers the speed they want and CISOs the controls they need. Twistlock's mission is to provide a full, enterprise-grade security stack for containers, so organizations can confidently adopt and maximize the benefits of containers in their production environment. For more information, please visit www.twistlock.com

Twistlock Contacts

Jeannie Christensen

415.341.6713

[email protected]

Media Relations

Rachel Nelson

415-299-6600

[email protected]

SOURCE Twistlock

Related Links

https://www.twistlock.com

TURLOCK, Calif., Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Legacy Health Endowment (LHE) and the Stanislaus Community Foundation (SCF) have teamed up to fund a critical piece to solving healthcare provider shortages in Stanislaus and Merced Counties, providing a combined $1.9 million grant for a new family nurse practitioner degree program at California State University (CSU), Stanislaus.

Specifically, LHE is working with and providing a $1.6 million grant to Livingston Community Health (LCH), to help CSU Stanislaus launch a Master's Degree in Family Medicine (Nurse Practitioner Program). A major part of this grant will fund tuition relief for students in the program who agree to live and work as nurse practitioners within the Greater LHE Region for at least three years after graduation. In this way, LHE and LCH hope to increase the number of medical professionals in the underserved local area. SCF is providing an additional $300,000 to support outreach to area high schools and career navigation as well as debt relief for nursing graduates, bringing the combined total gift to $1.9 million.

The Greater LHE Region covers 19 zip codes in Southern Stanislaus County and Merced County, including the communities of West Modesto, Ceres, Turlock, Newman, Patterson, Crows Landing, Hughson, Keyes, Gustine, Newman, Hilmar, Livingston, Atwater, Denair, Winton, Ballico and Delhi. These areas suffer from an acute shortage of medical providers.

Research has shown that nurse practitioners play a key role in improving access to healthcare, allowing physicians' offices to provide care to a greater number of patients. The new degree program at CSU Stanislaus will graduate nurse practitioners each year, with the first class starting in January 2018 and graduating by December 2019, thereby, going a long way to expand access to care in the northern Central Valley.

Jeffrey Lewis, President and CEO of LHE, said, "We are proud to partner with Stanislaus Community Foundation and Livingston Community Health to tackle the acute shortage of medical professionals in Stanislaus and Merced Counties. Congress refuses to confront the healthcare perils facing women, men and children in rural communities. Republicans and Democrats have created a patchwork of efforts, filled with gaping holes and layers of obstacles."

Lewis continued, "By starting with a program to educate Nurse Practitioners, we can work toward ensuring that every person in this community has access to medical care professionals. For LHE, this is just the first step. We are fortunate to have Livingston Community Health, a nonprofit healthcare facility, as partner in helping lead this effort."

Marian Kaanon, President and CEO of SCF, said, "Stanislaus Community Foundation views this partnership as the first step in addressing the healthcare needs of our residents. SCF also recognizes we need to build a coordinated education infrastructure to ensure that we have programs in place to educate our residents and provide access to well-paying and in-demand healthcare jobs."

Leslie McGowan, President of LCH, said, "We are honored to work with Legacy Health Endowment and begin to rebuild the healthcare infrastructure in Stanislaus and Merced Counties. As we build programs to educate, retain and recruit physicians, it is also important to ensure that we recognize the value and importance that Nurse Practitioners can contribute. The future of healthcare in the Central Valley will not be solved in Washington, D.C. It will take the collaboration, vision and commitment that LHE and LCH can bring."

Legacy Health Endowment (LHE) provides funding to help develop and implement effective healthcare solutions for the benefit of residents of the Greater LHE Region. Founded in 2014, Turlock-based LHE was created as a result of the sale of Emanuel Medical Center, Inc. to Doctors Medical Center of Modesto, Inc.

CONTACT:

Jeffrey Lewis, 703-403-9695

Marian Kaanon, 209-573-3110

SOURCE Legacy Health Endowment

Related Links

http://www.legacyhealthendowment.org

TORONTO, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Unata, the leader in 1-to-1 digital solutions for grocers, is revealing the full findings from its third Annual Grocery eCommerce Forecast. The report, completed in partnership with ShopperKit, an in-store fulfillment platform, surveyed over 1,000 U.S. consumers about grocery shopping habits, intent and barriers moving into 2018 to better equip regional grocers with the insights they need to compete in this increasingly competitive industry.

Among the findings:

1) Online grocery shopping continues to rise in popularity

In 2018, 36% of U.S. consumers plan to shop online for groceries, which is up from 22% of those who shopped online in 2017.

2) The 2018 shopper wants a convenient, flexible online experience and will switch grocers to find it

76% of online shoppers will switch grocers for a better digital shopping experience.

3) The secret to a strong fulfillment offering is real-time communication

51% of online shoppers want the ability to communicate with their in-store picker during their shop.

"Online grocery adoption has risen year over year, and so has the desire for different methods of shopping online and offline, which was a prominent theme in this year's findings," said Chris Bryson, Founder & CEO at Unata. "Moving into 2018, grocers need an offering that meets the expectations of today's omnichannel shopper."

"Shoppers are fiercely loyal to their local grocery store because food is so personal, and the expectation for a convenient and trustworthy way to shop online from their local store of choice is becoming mandatory," said Jack Record, CEO of ShopperKit. "It's the execution and efficiency of a grocer's fulfillment program that will determine whether or not that expectation is met."

The complete report is available for download here. For an in-depth showcase of the findings presented by Chris Bryson and Jack Record, please download the webinar recording here.

About Unata

Unata powers industry-leading digital experiences for some of North America's most well-respected grocers, with the mission to innovate the future of the grocery shopping experience. Unata enables 1-to-1 eCommerce, eCircular and eLoyalty experiences, powering the entire digital grocery experience through a single platform. Unata's award-winning work is featured by retailers including Lowes Foods, Raley's, Longo's and more. To learn more, visit www.unata.com or follow Unata on Twitter or LinkedIn.

About ShopperKit

ShopperKit is an in-store order fulfillment platform designed specifically for Click&Collect in the grocery industry. As eCommerce continues its rapid growth, grocers are seeing their physical stores, located close to customers, act as natural distribution centers. ShopperKit's in-store fulfillment platform enables existing brick & mortar stores to receive, prioritize, and process orders from their online counterparts allowing grocers to offer in-store pickup or delivery services to their online customers.

SOURCE Unata

Related Links

https://unata.com

KUWAIT CITY, January 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

New initiative to focus on education, skills training and entrepreneurship

Alghanim Industries to commit $1.5 million , and lead efforts to raise a further $8.5 million

, and lead efforts to raise a further Target of reaching 100,000 young and child refugees by 2020

Alghanim Industries, one of the largest privately owned companies in the MENA region, announced today the launch of its new initiative, named The MENA Philanthropy Leaders Initiative for Refugee Youth and Children. The initiative aims to raise at least $10 million in private sector funds to help educate and train Syrian refugees in the MENA region.

The initiative has been formally agreed upon during the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, between the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, and the Chief Executive Officer of Alghanim Industries, Omar K. Alghanim. The announcement builds on a 2017 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between Alghanim Industries and the UNHCR. The MoU aims to fund and advocate for a series of educational and social awareness programs, including language skills and homework support groups, to aid the education of Syrian children and youth and prepare them to be contributing members to their host countries or upon their return to Syria.

The initial funding target is $10 million, with an immediate $1.5 million commitment from Alghanim Industries, which will be followed by efforts to advocate for additional private sector commitments from the business community in the MENA region. The initiative will be championed by Omar K. Alghanim, who will coordinate efforts to mobilize the much needed funds from regional business leaders and philanthropists who share the vision of preventing a lost generation.

The targeted $10 million in funding will be utilized for activities including vocational and academic education, skills training and support for refugee and internally displaced young people. The aim of the initiative is to reach some 100,000 young refugees and offer them interventions that will help them be the builders of economic and social progress when they return to their countries of origin.

Announcing the initiative, Omar K. Alghanim said: "Private sector leaders in our region must play a role in helping to rebuild economies and societies affected by the refugee crisis. We must focus our attention on ensuring displaced children and youth have access to the education and skills training they need. This is fundamental if they are to become constructive critical thinkers and great problem solvers - the next generation of business, social and political leaders."

He went on to say, "Alghanim Industries has a long track-record in providing others with the support they need to become entrepreneurs and this represents an opportunity to extend our efforts towards struggling refugees, and bring hope to countries which have experienced the tragedy of conflict and displacement. In addition to pledging $1.5 million to kick-start the initiative, I will be coordinating efforts to mobilize at least $8.5 million from other philanthropic sources. We will then work with UNHCR to ensure the funds are deployed to maximum effect."

Applauding this initiative, Filippo Grandi said: "This important initiative by Omar Alghanim is in-line with UNHCR's strategic direction towards a whole-of-society approach; individuals and companies working hand in hand to ensure that people who have been forced to flee are able to rebuild their lives and take control of their futures. UNHCR welcomes this generous commitment, which highlights the importance of MENA's business community in supporting the region's displaced communities."

Omar K. Alghanim conveyed his commitment to empowering the underprivileged, supporting education and encouraging entrepreneurship, which form Alghanim Industries' Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) pillars. In addition to its partnership with UNHCR, the company is the largest supporter of INJAZ-Kuwait, and collaborates with AMIDEAST to provide language support to children at the Children's Home orphanage in Kuwait.

About Alghanim Industries

Alghanim Industries is one of the oldest and largest, privately-owned companies in the MENA region. Founded over a century ago in Kuwait, the company today employs more than 15,000 people in 30 businesses across 40 countries in the Middle East, North Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia.

Alghanim Industries is a market leader in almost every major sector of its operations, which include: engineering, retail, automotive sales and service, insulation and pre-engineered steel building structures, logistics and warehousing, fast moving consumer goods, food & beverage, oil & gas, office automation, advertising, insurance, consumer credit and travel. The company is actively growing its brand portfolio, with a focus on top-tier global partners. Among them: Avis, British Airways, British Petroleum, Cathay Pacific, Daewoo, Honda, Saint-Gobain and Toshiba. Additionally, Alghanim Industries has created a number of successful regional businesses, including X-cite (consumer electronics), and Safat Home (lifestyle and home furniture). To learn more about Alghanim Industries, please visit http://www.alghanim.com.

SOURCE Alghanim IndustriesFREMONT, Calif., Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- LogiNext launches its voice-controlled automation feature as it integrates with Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, and Cortana. LogiNext is working on this with five enterprise clients and looking to do more pilots. The clients can now just talk to their digital assistants and get all the required information about their logistics movement instantaneously. They can give instructions to LogiNext's system to optimize routes, plan delivery schedules or assign a specific order to a delivery personnel.

With LogiNext's voice-controlled automation, managers can plan the entire schedule and route with load balancing across the last mile fleet and send ETAs by just talking to the LogiNext system. If they want a specific parcel to be assigned to a courier who is more well-equipped to deliver it, they can simply say so and it would be done. It can carry out dispatch automation with a single skill-defined command.

Manager: "Alexa! Ask LogiNext to find my Truck on Route 27!"

Alexa: "Your Truck has crossed the intersection of Greenville Road moving towards its destination."

Manisha Raisinghani, CTO, LogiNext, had this to say: "Imagine a world where all you need to do is speak to your digital assistant to manage your logistics. You can track the exact location of any vehicle simply by asking a question. What's more, you can ask a question in your native language or dialect."

Dhruvil Sanghvi, CEO, LogiNext, said: "Voice-controlled automation through digital assistants has the potential to simplify enterprise communication and cut down the reaction time for any event or circumstance. It would also bring transparency as information would flow directly to the concerned people without intermediate misinterpretations. The implications of such automation are beyond just numbers, it can drive a change in the way things are done and eventually result in better strategic balance within companies."

About LogiNext: LogiNext is based out of Fremont, California, United States, with regional offices in Mumbai, Singapore, Jakarta, Dubai, and Delhi. LogiNext leads the field workforce and logistics optimization solutions market with its industry benchmarked SaaS products for last mile, field force, on-demand delivery, and linehaul express management. With more than 150 enterprise clients across North America, Middle-East, South and Southeast Asia, LogiNext has been accepted as the fastest growing SaaS enterprise in its solution space.

Kruthi Aramanamada

+1 (339) 244-0380

[email protected]

SOURCE LogiNext

Related Links

https://www.loginextsolutions.com

HANOVER, Germany, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- A study by Cruisewatch.com, a leading metasearcher for cruises which uses artificial intelligence, has found that booking the respective cruise destination at the right time can realistically save you up to 71% off your cruise.

When to book a cruise by destination. Data provided by cruisewatch.com

The site's massive study examined 18,983 sailings by region with departures in 2017, and found a surprising trend: as the date of departure approaches, cruise prices fluctuate to a greater extent. Some regions even show up to a 71% price reduction on fares. However, there are huge differences between destinations to keep in mind.

Short-Term Planning Can Really Pay Off

According to Cruisewatch.com's intensive data analysis of over 1.8 million data points, many of the world's 15 cruise regions show the highest maximum price reduction between 75 and 55 days before departure. These include North America (71%), the Middle East (64%), South America (56%), and Southern Europe (59%).

"When booking a cruise, if cruisers are flexible with their cabin choices, they could save significant amounts of money simply by booking their cruise last minute," explains Cruisewatch CEO and co-founder Markus Stumpe. "In fact, spontaneous travelers could save up to 61% on Hawaiian cruises by booking within 3 weeks of the departure date!"

If you're wondering when to book a cruise to get the best price, you could soak up both the sun and the savings with short-term booking. Hawaii and Mexico are the best regions for this option. The best time to book Hawaiian cruises is 21 days before departure, and Mexican cruises can offer up to 46% off within 32 days prior to departure.

When to Book Caribbean Cruises for the Best Price

The Caribbean is America's favorite cruise region, and this popular playground boasts maximum price reductions of 51% off when you book around 59 days before departure. Furthermore, the trend extends to the nearby region of Bermuda, where maximum price reductions of 46% off happen exactly 51 days before cruises set sail. This means that cruise enthusiasts looking for a dose of Vitamin D can save around half off their trip by booking at the right time.

Choose the Right Regions for Long-Term Planning

According to Cruisewatch, some regions maintain fairly consistent pricing.

"For those who like to plan ahead," says Markus, "regions like Australia (35%), the South Sea (27%), and Alaska (19%) are good choices. These regions see relatively small price fluctuations, and they tend to happen 85 days before departure."

However, some regions still offer fair price reductions and more planning time. These include:

Northern Europe (45% off 70 days pre-departure),

(45% off 70 days pre-departure), Galapagos cruises (39% off 79 days pre-departure),

Asia (38% off 84 days pre-departure), and

(38% off 84 days pre-departure), and Transatlantic or Transpacific cruises (41% off 73 days pre-departure).

While these regions may not offer as extreme price drops as Hawaii or the Caribbean, knowing when to take a cruise to these locations can still save consumers a significant amount of money.

Big Data Leads to Big Results

Unlike other cruise or booking sites, Cruisewatch.com focuses on keeping things clear, simple, and personalized for consumers. They offer 100% free, automatic updates on when to book a cruise for the best price on their website. They also regularly conduct research to find new insights for cruisers, who love their accurate, industry-leading price prediction analytics.

"We are levelling the playing field and offering consumers up-to-date technology to make the right decisions," says the Cruisewatch.com CEO.

Media contact:

Markus Stumpe

[email protected]

(650) 235-4941

SOURCE Cruisewatch.comCorestate Capital Holding acquired the micro-living asset Woodie, which includes 371 student housing units This asset was purchased for the real estate umbrella fund, which was launched on the Luxembourg AIF-Platform of Universal-Investment on behalf of Bayerische Versorgungskammer. The student residence was completed in autumn 2017 and comprises a total

Photos: Corestate / Goetz Wrage



[]The London office of Greenberg Traurig has added construction lawyer Trevor Cosgrove as a shareholder in its Real Estate sector practice. Cosgrove moves to GT from his position as counsel and head of construction in the Real Estate Department at Allen & Overy LLP.

Since January 2017, the firm has adv...

[]David Jones is pressing ahead with its first stand-alone gourmet food store under its new owner, South African retailer Woolworths Holdings.

It has plans to open in the up-market Capitol Grand retail arcade development on the Chapel Street and Torook Road, South Yarra corner.

Its scheduled opening is in 2019.

The Capitol Grand store will be about 500 square metres. Larry Kestelman, with financial backing from the US investment bank Goldman Sachs, is currently constructing the $700 million Capitol Grand luxury high-rise tower. Over 75 per cent of the 500 apartments across the two towers have been sold with about 80 per cent of purchasers owner-occupiers. One-bedroom apartments in the LK Property Group development start at $700,000.

David Jones will also open a food hall in its suburban Malvern store in Melbourne in March.

It plans to spend at least $100 million over three years building a retail food business, restoring its reputation for gourmet food, differentiating the department store from rival Myer and also protecting sales from new competitors such as Amazon.

The strategy includes building a new food hall in the flagship Elizabeth Street store to replace its Market Street store in Sydney.

Most of the products, including 90% of the store's fresh food offering, will carry the new David Jones Food brand, which was launched last year.

David Jones chief executive David Thomas hopes the new proposition will resonate strongly with the local customer.

The Insider Retail website reported David Jones said that the new store format store was designed with an emphasis on fresh premium produce including pre-packed meat and seafood, and a comprehensive convenience selection comprised of pre-prepared vegetables, salads and fruit as well as innovative, restaurant-quality ready meals.

Most of the fresh produce and ready-made meals will be supplied by In2Food, a South African-based company which is the largest food supplier to Woolworths Holdings.

Last week Woolworths cut the value of David Jones by $712 million - around 34% - citing poor execution of its previously announced turnaround plans along with emerging structural changes in retailing.Georgian Chamber of Commerce and Industry to Launch Information Center for Trade with China

Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Georgia plans to create an information center for trade with China. The chamber president Nino Chikovani told the Commersant radio station that Chinese market is one of the major and rapidly growing markets worldwide.China ranks third among Georgias trade partners in terms of turnover, but ranks fourth in terms of exports, she said.Free trade agreement that came into force on January 1, 2018 enables to exempt 94% of Georgian products exported to China from customs tariffs and this is a huge achievement, because tariff tax ranges from 2% to 65%, Nino Chikovani noted.Despite preferences, Georgian enterprises and beneficiaries should know exactly what the market demands are. There are many provinces and regions in China, which have their own demands on imports of various goods. Therefore, Georgian entrepreneurs should have due information, Nino Chikovani said.Slower investor demand as a result of APRAs macro-prudential policy measures is having an impact on all major capital city apartment markets, but so too are other state and federal imposts on foreign buyers, according to JLLs Apartment Market report for 4Q 2017.

But despite the slower demand, markets are still weathering the recent strong new supply additions "relatively well".

According to JLL, tight development finance conditions and slower pre-sale rates are seeing a self-regulation of supply pipelines and far less projects move into construction.

The amount of stock under construction across the five major capital city markets (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide) at the end of 3Q17 fell to 39,760 apartments, which has shrunk by around 10,000 apartments over the last two quarters.

JLL said the peak in supply was in 2017.

They expect around 25 percent less stock to be delivered in 2018 ensuring that the major markets do not move far into over-supply and that it is a relatively soft landing for the apartment market.

JLLs Head of Residential Research, Leigh Warner said APRAs intention in clamping down on investor lending was always to slow the housing market down, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne.

"This has been successful, but the risk we are now facing is that the added imposts imposed by state governments and the Federal Government on foreign investors in residential property is slowing this important portion of demand by much more than intended.

It appears that foreign investors that have already invested are still settling sales at present, albeit often over a longer than normal period. However, it is also clear new offshore demand has fallen sharply and this is particularly impacting some larger CBD projects and projects by foreign developers.

Warner believes the markets are still showing "remarkable resilience" noting Melbourne continues to operate at low levels of rental vacancy and is seeing rental growth, while apartment prices were still growing in late 2017.

Sydney too is holding up relatively well in the face of significantly slower Chinese demand than it has enjoyed over recent years.

"Apartment prices have flattened off and are falling in some locations where supply is particularly concentrated, but the rental market is still tight and the market still appears relatively balanced after years of under-supply.

Warner noted while the large Sydney and Melbourne markets are slowing and driving overall national trends, other markets remain at very different points in the cycle.

Adelaide and Canberra are less mature apartment markets, but both have seen much stronger apartment development and are slightly less progressed in the cycle than Sydney or Melbourne.

Perth and Brisbane are more advanced in the cycle and, after a very challenging 2017, both markets appear to be edging towards the trough in the cycle.

For Brisbane, JLL said the issue has been very much about supply levels, with a considerable amount built over the past two years.

However, Brisbanes supply peak was in 2016 and a particularly tough development-financing environment will mean the pipeline will drop sharply from 2018 onwards.

Brisbanes population growth is also picking up after several weak years following the end of the mining boom, which should also help soak up surplus supply.The median house price in most capital cities rose over the December quarter, according to the latest Domain House Price Report.

Weakening investor activity and tightened lending conditions continue to impact Sydney, but Domain reported a slight increase over the December quarter.

Sydney prices in the NSW capital still sit lower than six months ago.

Meanwhile Melbourne exceeded a median of $900,000 for the first time narrowing the gap between Sydney and Melbourne to a three-year low.

Brisbane and Darwin were the only two capital cities to record median house price decreases over the quarter.



Median unit prices varied across the capital cities, with an oversupply of units that continues to impact Brisbane and Darwin.

Hobart recorded the strongest annual growth in units over the December quarter, followed by Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney and Canberra.



The national median house price increased by 1.4% over the December quarter to $813,024, while the annual rate of growth has slowed to 5%, the lowest in 15 months.



Capital city unit markets reported a minor price growth over the December quarter, increasing by 0.3% to $557,794.

Unit growth across the capital cities slowed to a 15-month low of 2.3%.

HOUSE DEC 2017 Sydney $1,179,519 Melbourne $903,859 Brisbane $548,918 Adelaide $522,815 Perth $557,567 Canberra $753,516 Hobart $443,521 Darwin $565,696 National $813,024



Sydney



A varied level of price growth across all capital cities was reflected in both the national median house and unit prices this quarter. Overall, prices rose marginally in the three months to December but the slower pace has weighed down the annual growth to its lowest rate since September 2016, said the newly installed top spokesperson, Domain data scientist, Dr Nicola Powell.

House prices in Sydney increased marginally by 0.5% over the December quarter, reaching $1,179,519. Following a recent price decline over the September quarter, Sydneys median house price remains lower than it was six months ago, with annual growth slowing to 4% year-on-year.

Sydneys unit prices decreased slightly to $736,879, a 0.4% drop over the quarter. Annually, units in Sydney grew 1.7%, a 15-month low for the capital city.

House prices in the Harbour City continue to moderate in line with an investor activity slowdown, and first home buyer participation rates are at their highest level in six years as entry-level buyers respond to State Government incentives, said Powell.

Sydneys double-digit growth phase appears to be in the rear-view mirror, and with no further rate cuts in sight, the market may continue to moderate in 2018. Demand is likely to weaken, as the heightened investor activity that Sydney has experienced is unlikely to be significantly offset by the rising number of first home buyers.

Melbourne

Another quarter of solid growth has pushed Melbournes median house price to $903,859, exceeding the $900,000 mark for the first time and narrowing the median price difference between Melbourne and Sydney to a three-year low. House prices in Melbourne grew 3.2% over the quarter and 11.3% over the year, resulting in Melbournes fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit annual growth.

Similarly, Melbournes unit market delivered strong results over the December quarter, increasing by 2.8% to reach a record high of $506,079. This reflects a healthy 8.0% annual price jump, the strongest annual gain for the Melbourne unit market in seven years.

As investor activity retreats and the housing market adjusts to tighter lending standards, it remains to be seen whether Melbournes remarkable price growth will continue. However, steady population increases and government incentives may support ongoing demand as the year unfolds, said Powell.

Similar to Sydney, first home buyer numbers in Melbourne have risen, recording its highest level of activity since 2009. This can be attributed largely to the Victorian governments entry-level buyer incentives. In the coming months we are likely to continue to see a higher demand for entry-level homes, helping to drive price growth at the lower end of the market, as well as support regional price movements throughout the state.

Brisbane

Over the December quarter, median house prices in Brisbane decreased slightly by 0.6% to $548,918, the second consecutive quarter of decline for the capital city. This has slowed the annual price growth to a margin increase of 0.4% year-on-year, the lowest rate of advancement in five years.

Brisbanes heightened supply continues to impact price movement in the unit market, with units recording a decline of 2.2% over the December quarter to $385,955  a 4.5% drop compared to last year. Unit prices in the capital city are now at a four-year low.

Brisbane offers a large inventory of houses and units that fall under $500,000, and interstate migration has fuelled the Brisbane market over the past two years as out-of-state buyers head to the Sunshine State in search of a lower price point, said Powell.

The surge of new apartments in Brisbane remains ahead of the demand, and although this continues to impact unit prices, population increases and a slowdown in new development starts and completions may work together to help balance the market.

UNIT DEC 2017 Sydney $736,879 Melbourne $ 506,079 Brisbane $ 385,955 Adelaide $ 315,794 Perth $ 369,402 Canberra $ 426,124 Hobart $ 318,467 Darwin $ 395,279 National $ 557,794

Adelaide

Adelaide house prices rose slightly by 0.9% over the December quarter to reach a median price of $522,815. This reflects a 3.5% increase year-on-year.

For the second consecutive quarter, Adelaides median unit price of $315,794 is the most affordable of the capital cities. A heightened level of supply continues to undermine Adelaides unit prices, which declined by 1.6% over the quarter  the second steepest quarterly decline after Brisbane. However, unit prices are up 2.0% over the year.

Adelaide has avoided the extreme price surges impacting Australias east coast markets. Its steady pace of growth and diverse coastal lifestyle makes it a reliable location for buyers heading into 2018, said Powell.

Perth

A marginal 0.5% increase over the December quarter has pushed Perths median house price to $557,567  2.5% lower than the previous year.

Lower levels of construction have buffered the local unit market in Perth, which improved by 1.0% to reach $369,402 over the quarter. However, year-on-year the city recorded a 1.7% drop.

After multiple consecutive quarters of house price declines and fluctuating unit prices, the Perth market is showing signs of growth. The annual pace of decline in Perth house prices has slowed compared to the steeper falls recorded in 2016, and the annual unit price decline is at its lowest in almost three years, said Powell.

Perths housing market outlook for 2018 depends largely on whether the citys economy and population track upwards throughout the year.

Canberra

Houses in Canberra reached a record high median price of $753,516 in December, recording a 5.0% quarterly increase and an 8.4% annual increase.

Canberra unit prices are beginning to show signs of recovery increasing for the second quarter by 0.1% to $426,124 in the three months to December. This is 0.4% higher than last year.

Canberra house prices have been tracking upward for 15 consecutive months, delivering the second-best performance this quarter after Hobart. Renewed buyer and seller confidence has provided the nation's capital with a substantial price boost that will likely continue throughout 2018, said Powell.

Housing finance, retail trade and strengthening business confidence has been key to driving the ACT economy, in addition to spikes in tourism, infrastructure and capital initiatives have stimulated business, contributing positively to the economy.

Darwin

Darwin recorded its second consecutive quarter of negative price movement, falling by 2.6% and reaching an eight-year low of $565,696 over the December quarter. This follows an annual decline of 7.4% over the year.

Although median unit prices in Darwin remain 14.0% lower than last year, the unit market spiked over the quarter, jumping 9.3% to reach a median of $395,279. This is the highest quarterly price increase of all the capital cities.

Darwin was the only capital city to record a median house price decline over the quarter and over the year, and a strengthening in the local market depends primarily on the state of the economy as we head into 2018, said Powell.

Despite the recent uptick in prices, annual trends in Darwins unit market are still on double-digit decline. The oversupply of unit stock in the city is impacting the market, and price drops have been a consistent trend for Darwin since December 2016.

Hobart

Over the December quarter, Hobart house prices surged 10% to a record high median of $443,521. Hobart was the only capital city to record double-digit growth quarterly and annually, with a 17.3% increase year-on-year.

Despite a minor decline of 0.8% over the quarter, unit prices in Hobart jumped 14.2% to reach a median of $318,467. Hobart recorded the strongest annual growth of all capital cities in both houses and units.

It has been over a decade since Hobart experienced such a surge in house prices over a quarter, and the capital citys results over the December quarter highlight the growing demand for homes in the Tasmanian capital, said Powell.

Despite the surges in price, Hobart still has the lowest median house price of all the Australian capital cities, and it remains a great option for buyers seeking an urban lifestyle with an affordable point of entry.News

World news

Bosnian Power Will Build a 48 MW Wind Park

The company has announced a tender for consultants for the development of the project

AUTHOR: publics.bg

The total value of the project is 65 million euro, 60 million of which will be provided by KfW.

 ERS



Bosnias second-biggest power utility ERS issued a tender on Tuesday seeking consultants to advise it on developing a 48 MW wind park to help the Balkan country diversify its energy sources and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The Hrgud wind park in Berkovici, southeastern Bosnia, will comprise 16 wind turbines with a capacity of 3 MW each. In 2015, ERS won a 50 year concession to build and operate the park with a help of a 60 million euros loan from German state-owned development bank KfW The total cost of the project is seen at 65 million euros and ERS will provide the reminder of the financing.

Potential consultants are invited to assist ERS in preparing an environmental and social scoping statement, an environmental and social impact assessment report and an environmental and social management plan.

The winner will also help develop stakeholder engagement and land acquisition plans and support the utility during consultations with the local population. Potential bidders should apply by 30 March.

The wind park, the first in the Serb Republic - one of Bosnias two postwar autonomous regions - is projected to be connected to the grid in four years and to produce 126 GWh of electricity a year.

Bosnia generates 40 percent of its electricity from hydro and the rest from coal-fired plants and plans to increase the share of renewable energy to 43 percent by 2020.

Unlike other Balkan countries that rely on power imports to cover much of their demand, it is able to export power largely thanks to its hydro capacity.

Bosnias other autonomous region, the Bosniak-Croat Federation, has given approval to three companies to start building wind farms with combined capacity of 138 MW, Reuters reminded. Several developers are seeking to add a further 320 MW in wind capacity in Bosnia over the coming years.Cookies

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A cookie is a small text file that a website saves on your computer or mobile device when you visit the site. Cookies are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site.Website use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. ("Google") to help analyse the use of this website. For this purpose, Google Analytics uses"cookies", which are text files placed on your computer.The information generated by the cookies about your use of this website - standard internet log information (including your IP address) and visitor behaviour information in an anonymous form - will be transmitted to and stored by Google including on servers in the United States. Google will anonymize the information sent by removing the last octet of your IP address prior to its storage.According to Google Analytics terms of service, Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website and compiling reports on website activity.We not use, and not allow any third party to use the statistical analytics tool to track or to collect any personally identifiable information of visitors to this site. Google may transfer the information collected by Google Analytics to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google`s behalf.According to Google Analytics terms of service, Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google.You may refuse the use of Google Analytics cookies by downloading and installing Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on. The add-on communicates with the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js) to indicate that information about the website visit should not be sent to Google Analytics.Cookies are also used to record if you have agreed (or not) to our use of cookies on this site, so that you are not asked the question every time you visit the site.You can control and/or delete cookies as you wish. You can delete all cookies that are already on your computer and you can set most browsers to prevent them from being placed.Most browsers allow you to:If you chose to delete cookies, you should be aware that any preferences will be lost. Also, if you block cookies completely many websites (including ours) will not work properly and webcasts will not work at all. For these reasons, we do not recommend turning cookies off when using our webcasting services.John August is best known as a Hollywood screenwriter, with such feature film credits as Big Fish, Go, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Since 2011 he has been producing a weekly podcast called Scriptnotes with fellow screenwriter Craig Mazin, in which the duo discusses their profession and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Though he has previously branched out into television and theater, August most recently stepped into the world of childrens publishing and will see his first middle grade novel, Arlo Finch in the Valley of Fire, to be released on February 6. He has been chronicling his experience in this new field in a podcast called Launch, which debuted January 23 and cracked the iTunes Top 10 Podcasts list on that day. We spoke with August about the genesis of his two newest projects.

What was the driver behind wanting to write a childrens book? Was it something you had always wanted to do?

This is going to sound really naive, but Im a person who gets sent these kinds of books a lot, to adapt into movies. I had this great conversation with Kenneth Oppel who had written The Nest, which I had been sent to consider for a potential movie project. In our conversation, he really talked through what middle grade fiction was, in the sense that its not really about the language in the books, but its about the age of the hero in the books, and he spoke about why he loves writing middle grade. He made such a compelling case for middle grade fiction that by the end of the phone call I said, You know what? Maybe I wont write the movie version of your book, but I think Im going to actually write a book that Ive been thinking about for a long time. I had had this nascent idea, and I wasnt quite sure where it fit, and he helped me understand, Oh, that really is a middle grade idea, and that a book could be the right way to do it.

Where did you go from there? How did you get serious about publishing a book?

The life of a screenwriter is youre generally working for other people. Youre turning in drafts and work gets stacked up and you get really busy. But I found myself, about two years ago [in 2015], with everything turned in and nothing due for about a month. That was November, two years ago, and I thought, if Im ever going to have a chance to do this, this feels like the time, so I just started writing. I wrote the first six chapters during that month, and it felt like the start of a book. I wasnt really sure what I was going to do with it, but I knew I wanted to get it out and see it all together and then make a decision once I had something that wasnt just a vague idea, but a real thing that I could show to some other folks.

You have worked with an agent for your screenwriting for a long time. Was that the same agent you went to when you were looking for representation for the book project?

Absolutely. David Kramer [at United Talent Agency] has been my feature film agent for 20 years, so he knows my writing really well. And hes been supportive as Ive gone off and done a bunch of other thingsI did a Broadway show [the musical of Big Fish], I directed a movie [The Nines].

He read through the chapters and he said, I think these are really good, but Im not the person who can best tell you what youve got here, so we need to find you a book agent. Internally [at UTA] they made a list, and Jodi Reamer at Writers House was at the top of that list. We sent the chapters to her to see whether she would feel like representing me.

She read the chapters, got it, understood it, and felt like it really was a book. She surprised me by saying she thought she could sell it just off the six chapters plus the proposal, which lays out the rest of the book and the series.

Its planned as a trilogy, right?

Yes, thats right.

Jodi made a list of editors she thought would be right for it and we were really lucky to have Macmillan come back and express great enthusiasm and make a pre-emptive offer for the book. That part of the process was fantastic, and a surprise. There was a sense that multiple people would be interested, but we werent necessarily expecting a pre-emptive offer. In screenwriting, sometimes you will write a spec script where you have an idea for a movieyou write the script, you sell the script. It used to be more common, its not very common now and its not something Ive normally done. So to have someone say, We want this thing, and now to be doing it, was exciting, and it took me back to my first days as a new screenwriter. It was a chance to be a beginner again. I think that was one of the things that appealed to me most about writing a book.

Who is your editor at Macmillan?

Connie Hsu at Roaring Brook. Shes been phenomenal. They make the offer, but its contingent on a phone call. You want to make sure its a good match, that you have the same vision for the series, for what your working relationship is going to be. Its like youre getting married over a phone call.

Can you give your nutshell summary of Arlo Finch and maybe a hint for what the journey through the next two books might entail?

Arlo Finch is the story of a 12-year-old boy who moves to the mountains of Colorado, to a tiny town called Pine Mountain. There, he joins the equivalent of scouts, called the Rangers, and he quickly learns that the Rangers can do some kind of magical things because the forest outside their town is magic. He also discovers that he has a pretty crucial role to play in a bigger narrative he doesnt quite understand that is happening there. So, its Arlo, his best friends, Indra and Woo, and the adventures of his patrol as they go through scout kinds of things, but also magical things. Its very much my experience growing up in Colorado as a kid. I was in scouts and we were running around every month in the mountains doing somewhat dangerous things. Its all that experience kind of pushed into a fantasy place.

Are there other things from your life that you have poured into this project?

I would say that although the book is set in the present day, life in small mountain towns has not changed a lot, so I got to do some time travel every day sitting down at the computer and really remembering what those experiences are like, remembering their physical details but also just what its like being a 12-year-old and how serious some things feeland how you have sort of a parallel life that interacts with the adults in your world but is not driven by the adults in your world. I was incredibly lucky to be in scouts and have the autonomy and the freedom I had. So, some of the stuff that feels like wish fulfillment in this book, in terms of how much freedom the kids had, I actually had that in my youth, and that was really remarkable.

How did writing a book compare with writing a screenplay?

When youre writing a screenplay youre ultimately writing a plan for making a movie. So you are picking every word incredibly carefully, you are really obsessing about details, but ultimately you know that no one is going to see your plan necessarily in the finished product. Because its a plan, it ends up being a very collaborative process. Youre working with executives and producers, actors, and especially a director, to figure out what that plan is going to be for that movie you hope to make.

Writing a book, the book is the book. Its a remarkable experience because youre working on the finished thing. I could really obsess about whether that comma should be there, and it mattered in a way that doesnt matter in screenwriting. As a novelist I have so many extra powers because I can describe the texture of sheets, I can describe how they smell, I can travel back and forth in time within the course of a paragraph. But because you have so many more choices, its a lot more work. Because a sentence can go anywhere in a book, you have to really work to figure out what you need to have happen next. Its a very different experience building up a whole universe.

You have been working on your Scriptnotes podcast for a while. When did the idea for doing a podcast about the launch of the book come into view?

Ive always been obsessed with process, and how things work, so I was always the kid who took apart the toaster. In the last four or five years, theres been a rise in the type of podcast that sort of talks through the process. I was really obsessed with this [National Public Radio] Planet Money show called Planet Money Makes a T-shirt, which tracked the whole process of making a t-shirt, and then another podcast called StartUp, where youre following this guy whos building a podcast company while listening to his podcast. Those were both in my head as I was having these first conversations with Kenneth Oppel, with my agent, and I realized, Im going to ask all these questions anyway, I might as well get them on tape so I actually can share these answers with other folks. I think also it gave me an excuse for why I was asking these questions. Because once you make clear that theres some sort of journalism happening here, I think people are sometimes more willing to dive into the whys and wherefores behind all these things.

How many episodes of Launch have you completed?

On Tuesday [January 23] episodes one and two come out. Episode one follows the idea of the book, me starting to write it, up through Jodi Reamer. Episode 2 follows selling the book but also the context, which is really the shadow of Harry Potter. From the first moment I started writing this book I realized that Harry Potter distorts everything in childrens publishing because its such a hugely outside success and that comparisons are sort of inevitable. So we really look into Harry Potter as a phenomenon and how a childrens book author feels about those comparisons for better or for worse. A week later [January 30] we go into Episode 3, A Book by Its Cover, which is what were editing right now, which is the whole process of figuring out the cover for the book, talking with the cover artist, and we deal with the copyediting, which is a phase that I just loved to death.

Really?

Yeah. As a screenwriter theres no copyeditor, no ones going through and arguing with you about your grammar, but I loved those conversations, and I had an amazing copyeditor.

Also in that same episode we talk about the audiobook and that whole process. With Arlo Finch we had some challenges finding the right typeface for it, but in many ways the narrator of the audiobook is like the typeface of a book. It adds this quality to it and it has to be just the right voice. And we found the right voice.

Whos going to narrate?

Its James Patrick Cronin. Hes done a lot of great stuff. Hes in L.A. so we were able to talk through his process there and he taught me a lot about that whole world. The audiobook comes out the same day as the print book and Im eager for the world to see both of those.

In the fourth episode of Launch, I go to the book publishing plant and see the whole book being printed. I travel to Harrisonburg, Virginia, behind the scenes on the production line to see every step of the process. It was amazing. It was literally the chocolate factory. One of the top 10 life experiences that Ive had. It comes out the day the book comes out [February 6].

The final two episodesits a six-episode serieswill track the book tour and wrap up about what did I learn, how did it do, how do you measure success. Well try to get into more of those meta questions and answer listener questions that have come up along the way.

What are the marketing plans thus far?

Ill be doing a two-week tour, seven cities. Lots of school visits and some live shows in San Francisco, L.A., Chicago, Denver, and New York, where well have an audience and we can talk through stuff.

Whats your biggest takeaway from the publishing experience to this point?

In high school and in college I had a print background, I did the school newspaper and college magazine, so I thought I understood how publishing would work. I thought, oh, its like movies but its printed out. But its not; its its own separate system. And to be able to talk with everybody in different parts of this ecosystem has been amazing, from agents, to editors, to Bruno, the guy whos on the print run. And talking to booksellers was the most fascinating thing because what I had not expected was how incredibly important both booksellers and librarians are in how people discover books. Some of my best conversations from this whole time have been talking to those people about how they see their job as both a gatekeeper and a cheerleader. And those are the folks who are the frontline heroes of getting books in the hands, especially, of young readers. That whole ecosystem has been great to explore.

Arlo Finch in the Valley of Fire by John August. Roaring Brook, $16.99 Feb. 6 ISBN 978-1-62672-814-1After spending two comically bleak weeks in Mexico in 2009, Cassandra Clare could be forgiven if she never embarked on a writing retreat again. On the advice of a friend, the bestselling YA author had headed south seeking peace and quiet with fellow writer Holly Black. Instead, the two ended up huddled in an unheated house with poor electricity on the outskirts of San Miguel de Allende. At one point, when Clare tried to ignite a portable heater, she accidentally burned off her own eyelashes.

Probably, on balance, we should have done more research, said Clare, looking back on the trip. Yet, by the time she returned to New England, she had written 75,000 words. Black had written 50,000.

With a mountain of writing in hand, Clare and Black decided to persevere, albeit with better accommodations. Now entering its ninth year, their retreat has been held in locations around the world, and has grown to include a cadre of Clare and Blacks closest writing friends. This year, the retreat has given rise to an ambitious project as well. With Clare at the helm, five of the attendees will self-publish eight co-authored short stories in e-book form.

Entitled Ghosts of the Shadow Market, the series will be set in the world of Clares The Shadowhunter Chronicles and include pieces by Clare, Maureen Johnson (Truly Devious), Robin Wasserman (Girls on Fire), Sarah Rees Brennan (In Other Lands), and Kelly Link (Get in Trouble). The stories will be released monthly from April through November on all major digital platforms, for $2.99 apiece.

The idea was hatched by the poolside in a small village outside Florence at the groups 2017 retreat. We were talking through aspects of our world-building, said Clare, and I was talking specifically about the Shadow Market. Its sort of a lawless place in my books, where you can buy shady things and exchange shady goods for shady services. When others in the group expressed interest in telling a series of co-authored stories that revolved around the market, the series was born.

The writers have a precedent to follow: two anthologies set in the Shadowhunters worldThe Bane Chronicles (McElderry, 2014) and Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy (McElderry, 2016)both of which sprang from earlier retreats.

Author-Turned-Publisher

Kelly Link is one of the co-authors of the current series and was among the writers at the retreat. A co-founder and owner of Easthampton, Mass.-based Small Beer Press, Link proposed that Clare self-publish the books instead of turning to her longtime publisher Simon & Schuster. To Link, the idea seemed like a natural step.

There are a lot of writers who dont want to be distracted by [publishing], but Cassandra is a very smart businessperson, said Link. She also has enormous reach in terms of audience. As a result, Clare does not face the same challenges in getting books to readers faced by small presses and self-publishers.

Clare and the others jumped at the idea. Its a cool project and exciting to have this level of minute control that we dont normally have when we publish, said Clare, who formed a company called Shadow Market Enterprises to house the venture. Clare is now directly in charge of coordinating everything from content to covers, ensuring that all of it comes together much faster than a traditional publishing process. In order to avoid spoilers, all of the books will be released before Simon & Schusters December publication of Queen of Air and Darkness, the next book in The Shadowhunter Chronicles.

For support, Clare turned to Links husband Gavin Grant, co-publisher at Small Beer Press. Grant agreed to come on board as a project manager. Ive always enjoyed taking on, and working in, different parts of publishing, said Grant. Building a tiny one-shot publishing house to live and die for one project is a weirdly fun thing to do.

However, the work is not without its difficulties. One of the main challenges is that there are five individual powerful women writers who all have multiple book contracts with multiple publishers who have them on multiple deadlines, said Grant. So saying, You have this story due Hows that going? and not being rude about it [is hard].

The viability of the project rests on the bond the authors have formed by writing together for so many years. I would be nervous if I was not getting to do this project with people who I have seen confront roadblocks in their own careers, said Link. Ive seen how they deal with problems, and they deal with them effectively. They dont direct the unpleasantness towards other people; they just deal with it and talk things through.

For instance, when Clare recently read a story draft sent by Sarah Rees Brennan, she said, Something clashed with Queen of Air and Darkness because I had just changed it. Instead of changing Brennans version of the story, Clare sat down with her assistant, drew out a timeline of events covering both stories, created a chart to incorporate the changes, and made it work.

Clare has enjoyed a similarly straightforward and supportive working relationship with Simon & Schuster. None of this is about not wanting to work with my publisher, she said. Instead, when she approached her editors at S&S about the idea, they replied, We saw this coming.

Im kind of a control freak, said Clare. They were like, Yeah, lets let her work this stuff out.  In turn, Clare has worked out an arrangement with S&S to publish the full collection of stories as an anthology next year. The volume will include two additional stories that will not be released this year in digital form. To me, thats totally practical in terms of distribution, said Clare. Doing this for e-book short stories is one thing, but I would not want to self-publish a hardcover.

Overall, Clare called the collaborative process invigorating, adding, Its a unique thing to do, and its grown out of the way we work together as a group. Thats due, in no small part, to the retreats that began in the frozen house in Mexico years ago. Now were so involved in each others creative processes, said Clare, and its because of that were able to do these kinds of projects.This article is part of an occasional feature that focuses on literacy organizations and the work they do to promote reading within their communities.

Dara La Porte and Heidi Powell, founders of An Open Book Foundation, have long believed that a great way to inspire lifelong reading is for kids to have personal interactions with authors and illustrators. Based in Washington, D.C., the organization brings authors and illustrators to schools from Head Start programs through high school; not only do kids get to meet a childrens book creator, they also receive their own signed copies of books to begin building home libraries.

La Porte, who taught seventh and eighth grade before focusing on childrens literature, met Powell while they both worked as managers in the childrens and YA department at Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C. The two bonded over their mutual love of childrens books and the experience of seeing how kids reacted to meeting authors at the store. Yet they both observed that events at Politics and Prose were largely attended by children from well-resourced schools, said La Porte. While Powell and La Porte didnt typically meet children from schools that had fewer resources, what they did see were a lot of teachers purchasing books for their students who otherwise wouldnt have them.

La Porte also recalls meeting author Linda Sue Park one day while she was perusing the stores childrens section. She told La Porte that she was buying books to bring with her on her visits to Title One schools so she could give them to the classrooms that were lacking in reading material. During their years together at the bookstore, Powell and La Porte began to see a niche that they believed needed filling: We spent a long time talking, said La Porte. Together, they came up with a literacy program model that would serve those kids that they didnt typically see coming to Politics and Prose events. The two formally launched their nonprofit literary organization in 2010, and they have been pairing under-served classrooms with authors and illustrators ever since.

For the 2016 2017 year, the organization held 135 school events with 275 individual presentations, supplying 10,500 picture books, middle grade, and YA novels to students, classrooms, and libraries. The organization relies upon a small staff of three full-time and three part-time employees, and is based in D.C. La Porte stores the books to be distributed to classrooms in my den, dining room, and my childrens old bedrooms. The books supplied by AOB come directly from publishers as well as through First Book. Schools apply online for author visits and AOB works with teachers and librarians at the schools to find an author and/or illustrator whose work suits the curriculum and community concerns of the individual student body. They carefully consider the languages spoken by the students and their families, particularly so that parents will also be able to enjoy the books with their kids when the students take their copies home.

As with any venture, Powell and La Porte have learned through putting their ideas into practice. When they first launched the organization, Powell said, they had the goal of reaching as many children as possible, and envisioned having authors and illustrators speak to large crowds of kids. However, we learned thats not the best for authors and children, Powell said. They realized that events had the most impact when authors could connect individually with students, so rather than have an author or illustrator speak at a school-wide assembly, they will instead do several small visits in different classrooms. Authors and illustrators have the freedom to design their own AOB presentations and, as a result, no two events are ever the same.

The D.C. metro area is home to what La Porte calls a great cavalry of local authors, but the organization also reaches out to individuals nationwide and even internationally. Authors and illustrators who have taken part in AOB programming include Kwame Alexander, Carole Boston Weatherford, Paul O. Zelinsky, Don Tate, Grace Lin, Sophie Blackall, Daniel Jose Older, Tonya Bolden, and Andrea Beaty. A recent grant from the D.C. government has enabled the organization to pay for author and illustrator travel expenses as well as a night at a hotel.

Inspiring Young Writers and Artists

Again and again, Powell and La Porte have witnessed authors and illustrators igniting kids creativity. Powell noted the unspoken mentoring process that takes place in the classrooms, which she described as being all the more powerful when an author or illustrator is a person of color. For many of the children, it never occurred to them that someone wrote and illustrated this book, and that writing and illustrating are viable options, Powell said. During the events, the authors and artists take the time to look at the students own artwork and writing, validating their efforts and urging them to pursue these creative outlets throughout their lives. Middle grade and YA authors will often reconnect with kids via Skype following their initial school visits to answer questions students may have after finishing their books.

Im still in tears all the time watching what authors and illustrators give; the chemistry and magic they bring still moves me, said La Porte. Beyond showing kids that they can be writers and artists, kids pick up other important messages from their classroom guests. Frequently, they discuss the revision process, so students understand that they dont write or illustrate a story perfectly the first time. They also discuss rejection, with some individuals even bringing in their rejection letters to share. Theres a message about perseverance, said Powell.

Since the students served by An Open Book arent accustomed to having authors and illustrators meet with them, La Porte and Powell believe that the students bring genuine enthusiasm and curiosity to the events. And they see this freshness of perspective reflected in students thoughtful questions for the authors and illustrators. For example, one fourth grader asked Adam Gidwitz to name his muse. Powell recalls being so floored by the questionas was Adamthat I dont remember his response!

She and La Porte have heard from school librarians that, following Open Books events, students come into the library asking for books by a visiting author or illustrators name, showing that they have made a connection between the content and the individual who created it. For students who often dont have manyor anybooks at home, being given one means a great deal; kids often hug and kiss their books after learning that they can take their copies with them.

Both Powell and La Porte find that the most gratifying aspect of their work is getting to see kids line up to have their books signed and have a special moment of interaction with a guest artist or author. An Open Book Foundation not only allows La Porte and Powell to benefit underserved children across the D.C. area, but to interact with the broader community of childrens authors and illustrators, whom La Porte calls individuals of incredible generosity and openness of spirit.

Do you know of a literacy organization that you think should be included in this series? Please send pitches here.For any Afghanistan strategy, the gap between theory and practice will remain vast until the full host of resources is employed to prevail upon Pakistan to stop supporting the Haqqani Network and the Taliban. Until Pakistan stops harboring and employing its Islamist proxies against Afghanistan, the key points of US strategy for Afghanistan will remain essentially theoretical, impossible to implement in practice. The three direct quotes above are from the most recent US report on Afghanistan, Enhancing Security and Stability in Afghanistan. The facts they convey, combined with two othersthat the Haqqani Network is an integral part of the Taliban and that Pakistan is the external supporter of bothmake Pakistan's role in thwarting US strategy abundantly apparent.From one perspective, China has enormous soft power in Central Asia, the ability, as Joseph Nye defined it (Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power, New York, 1990), to persuade others to do what it wants without force or coercion. It can and does present itself in the region as a non-European state without an imperial traditionin contrast to the Russian Federation and the West. Moreover, it is capably presenting itself both as a counterweight to the influence of those countries in the region and as a rising power interested in promoting trade and development across Central Asia. Consequently, many young people in Central Asian countries want to hitch their fate to China rather than to anyone else, even though their elders retain from Soviet times a view of China as a threat to the region.

But from another viewpoint, China has far less soft power in this region than one might expect, the result of Chinas own traditions and of the authoritarian nature of most of the governments in Central Asia. For centuries, China has based its approach to the outside world on state-to-state relationsthat is, on using its own official institutions to influence the official institutions of other countries. It is only beginning to engage in anything like the people-to-people diplomacy that most analysts conflate with soft power, although its Confucian language and cultural centers in the West and now in Central Asia are playing a growing role.

Central Asian governments welcome Chinas state-to-state approach because most of them view people-to-people efforts less as a means to promote cultural understanding and a common approach to key issues than as a tactic others are seeking to use to change the nature of their political systems or even to overthrow the existing regimes. Consequently, fearful of losing its broader soft power influence based on geographic propinquity, economic advantage and Asian identity, Beijing has been slow to develop the people-to-people initiatives that other countries, including Russia, European Union member states and the United States, have developed more widely (Central Asian Analytical Network, January 22).

But that is beginning to change: Beijing is doing more in this field, and the trend itself is now attracting its own researchers. Recently, one of the leading Kazakhstani experts on this subject, Gaukhar Nursha, has provided a detailed discussion on Chinas soft power in Central Asia, detailing both its achievements and its limitations (Central Asian Analytical Network, January 22).

In an interview with Daniyar Koznazarov, Nursha noted that China, like Russia, is a relative newcomer to the use of soft power and thus is coming from behind. But, she continues, Beijing has concluded that its interests, especially in Central Asia, require that it develop popular support in that region for China in general and Chinas goals in particular. A major reason for that, Nursha said, is that Sinophobia remains strong among the elites in Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries (see EDM, January 8), a survival of the Soviet past but one that means some political figures are always willing to play the China card to win support for their own agendas. Coping with that reality presents a real challenge for Beijing and those Chinese officials who want to use soft power in the region as opposed to those who continue to argue for the traditional state-to-state approach of Chinese foreign policy (Central Asian Analytical Network, January 22).

At the same time, the Kazakhstani scholar pointed out that those pushing for a soft power approach, perhaps especially in neighboring Central Asia, are being driven by domestic concerns. Many Chinese fear that the speed of change in their country is destroying their traditional culture; thus, some in Beijing are all too happy to point to the number of people in other countries who are learning Chinese or studying China as evidence that there is no real danger of that happening.

But in promoting people-to-people programs in Central Asia, China faces a number of obstacles besides the opposition of host governments. On the one hand, learning Chinese is difficult, and few Central Asians are prepared to stay the course to achieve fluency. And on the other hand, many of the Chinese teachers in the Confucius Centers Beijing has createdthere are now five in Kazakhstan alonecommunicate what many Kazakhs suspect anyway: They are less important for China than China wants to be for them. Both of these elements drive people away rather than win them over, as soft power is supposed to do.

Is China [nonetheless] attractive to Central Asians? Yes, Nursha asserted; but this is not the soft power that Nye and others talk about in any pure sense, because Chinese institutions in Central Asia are not independent of the state, as people-to-people links are supposed to be. Instead, they are controlled by two states, China and the host government. But what that really means, she suggested, is that the concept of soft power needs to be expanded. After all, Nusha argued, China is showing an ability to change popular attitudes by such actions and even to challenge Western and Russian soft power efforts there as well as to open doors for other states to do the same thing.

Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Earlier, he served as vice dean for the social sciences and humanities at Audentes University in Tallinn and a senior research associate at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia.

This article appeared originally at The Jamestown Foundation's Eurasia Daily Monitor.As President Trump appraises the state of the union, it's worth remembering what still ranks as one of the worst decisions of his presidency: the withdrawal of the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP. It happened just about a year ago.

You'll recall that the TPP was an agreement between the U.S. and 11 other countries  Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei, Chile and Peru  representing about 40% of the world economy.

Rejecting the TPP was, for Trump, a highly symbolic act buttressing his assertions that the United States has made bad trade deals that have diverted jobs, incomes and influence to foreign countries. He pledged to do better.

The reality is just the opposite, as a short analysis by economist Jeffrey Schott of the Peterson Institute makes clear. It turns out that the other 11 countries weren't willing to sacrifice the TPP's benefits. They decided to adopt the agreement anyway  without the United States  calling it the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, or (a mouthful) CPTPP. It's scheduled to be signed on March 8 in Chile.

The new agreement makes the United States "the biggest loser" from the whole TPP episode, writes Schott. For starters, there will be lower exports and incomes. Economic simulations done by researchers at the Peterson Institute estimated that the TPP would ultimately raise U.S. gross domestic product by $131 billion, or 0.5% of GDP. Those gains are now gone.

Schott notes that a number of TPP provisions advocated by the United States but opposed "by most other countries" have been dropped in the new agreement. These include "obligations regarding patents on certain pharmaceutical products, procedures involving investor-state disputes, prohibitions on the illegal taking and trade in wildlife" and restrictions on government-owned firms.

The biggest winner in the TPP episode is, almost certainly, China. Although China wasn't a member of the TPP, Trump's decision to withdraw leaves other Pacific-rim countries less dependent on the United States for their trade and more dependent on China  and, therefore, more subject to Chinese economic and political influence.

Rarely has the United States embraced a policy that, in contrast to the supporting rhetoric, is so contrary to its own interests. Even Trump may recognize this. In his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he hinted obliquely that he might resume negotiations with the other TPP nations "if it is in the interests of all."

The open question now is whether the president will repeat his mistake by repudiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the trade pact among the United States, Mexico and Canada that Trump has sharply criticized. The damage would be even greater.Drug Policy in Georgia and across Europe

By Vladimer Napetvaridze

Actor Giorgi Giorganashvili was sentenced to eight years in prison on January 23. He was found guilty of purchasing and possession of drugs in large quantities- 0.375 gram of Buprenorphine (Subutex), an opiate. The convicted claims drugs were planted.The courts decision caused controversies in civil sector. Many think that sentencing a person to 8 years of jail time for using drugs only for personal use is unjust and inhumane. With regard to the case, protest rallies are planned to support Giorganashvili.According to the Georgian legislation, a person can be sentenced from 8 to 20 years of prison time for possessing drugs for personal use. It is interesting to analyze the drug policy of other countries. All countries in Europe specify that the possession of drugs for personal use is an offense, though it may be defined in different ways. According to European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), which is one of the EUs decentralized agencies, the drug-policy in various European countries, is as follows:In Austria, the possession of drugs and psychotropic substances for personal use is punishable up to 6 months of imprisonment or a fine;In Belgium, the possession of drugs for personal use is punishable from 3 months to 5 years in prison or a fine;In Bulgaria, the possession of high risk and particularly, harmful plants, substances and preparations is punishable by a fine from 2000 to 5000 levs (USD 1200- USD 3000). The possession of high-risk substances is punished by imprisonment of one to six years, while the possession of risk substances is punishable by imprisonment of up to five years;In Croatia, the possession of drugs for personal use is a (non-criminal) misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of EUR 650 - 2,600 (HRK 5,000-20,000);In Cyprus, the possession of controlled drugs for personal use (defined by quantity limits) is a criminal offence punishable up to 12 years of imprisonment (for Class A drugs), up to 8 years imprisonment (for Class B drugs), up to 4 years (for Class C drugs). No more than one year in prison for a first-time offender aged under 25;In Czech Republic, the possession of a small quantity of drugs for private use is a misdemeanor punished by a fine up to 15,000 CZK = 600 Eur. The possession of drugs for personal use in "a quantity greater than small" is punishable under the Penal Code but varies by drug type. The possession of drugs is punished up to 2 years of imprisonment. The imprisonment extends from 6 months to 5 years if the quantity of drugs is "larger", and from 2 to 8 years if the amount is "significant";In Denmark, the possession of drugs is punished up to 2 years of imprisonment. A warning can be issued if possession is a result of dependence, long and persistent abuse of drugs;In Estonia, the possession of drugs for personal use in small quantities (up to ten doses) is a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of up to Eur800 or by administrative detention for up to 30 days.In Greece, when the possession is classified as "narcotics offence", it is punished by a fine or up to 2 years of imprisonment. Possession of a small amount is classified as "unlawful use of narcotics" offence, punishable by a fine or up to 6 months of imprisonment;In Finland, the possession of "narcotic" drugs for personal use is mostly charged as crime, therefore punished by up to one year in prison. Possession of narcotic drugs in big quantities is punishable up to 10 years, and EUR 7 500 000. A Prosecutor can choose this charge even for possession of a small quantity of drugs;In France, the possession of drugs is punished by imprisonment of up to 5 years or a fine. Prosecution may be refrained if the offender's guilt is minor, if there is no public interest in the offence and the narcotics were only intended for the offender's own use in small quantities;In Germany, the possession of drugs for personal use is punished up to 5 months of imprisonment. Personal possession of drugs can be unpunished if the court, considering the circumstances of the offense and the offenders personality, believes that the act is unlikely to be repeated.In Hungary, the possession of drugs is a criminal offence. Basic form of possession offence is punished by min. 1 year to max. 5 years of imprisonment. If a small quantity of drugs is possessed the charge is up to 2 years of imprisonment;In Ireland, the punishment for possession of drugs other than cannabis is charged with up to 12 months imprisonment (summary conviction);In Italy, the possession of drugs for personal use is a non-criminal offence punished by various administrative sanctions (e.g. suspension of driving license, firearms license, passport, and residential permit). In case of the first offence, when considered "particularly minor", a warning might be issued;In Latvia, the possession of drugs for personal use may be charged as a criminal or an administrative offence depending on the quantity. Possession of small quantity of drugs without an aim to sell presents an administrative offence, which is punished by a warning or a fine up to EUR 280, above this amount, possession without intent to sell is punished up to 3 years in prison;In Lithuania, according to the Penal Code, possession of drugs without intent to distribute or supply is punished by a fine, arrest or imprisonment of up to 2 years (criminal responsibility). Possession of small quantities may be punished by a fine or 10-45 days of administrative arrest;In Luxembourg, possession of other drugs (not cannabis) carries a possible prison sentence between 8 days  6 months and/or a fine of EUR 251-2500;In Netherlands, possession of drugs is punishable up to 1-year in prison for drugs included in List I ("unacceptable risk") or up to 1-month in prison for drugs included in List II ("other drugs");In Norway, possession of small amounts of drugs is punished up to 6 months of imprisonment and/or a fine. Possession of a larger quantity of drugs is punished more severely, according to the provisions of the Civil Penal Code: up to 2 years of imprisonment and/or a fine;In Poland, possession of drugs is a criminal offence punished by max. 3 years of imprisonment (basic form of the offence). In the case of a small amount, maximum punishment is a 1-year imprisonment. In case of possession of a "significant quantity of drugs," the punishment range is 1-10 years of imprisonment;In Portugal, possession of a limited quantity of drugs for personal use (up to 10 days of average individual consumption) is an administrative offence and may be punished with a fine or a non-pecuniary sanction. However, if the quantity of drugs possessed or cultivated exceeds the threshold quantity of 10 daily doses, it is considered a crime, and punished by up to 1 year in prison or 120 days of fine;In Romania, the unlawful possession of drugs for personal use is punishable from 3 months to 2 years imprisonment for "risk" drugs (Schedule III), and from 6 months to 3 years imprisonment for "high risk" drugs;In Spain, possession, provided no criminal offence is involved, is a serious infraction of public safety. It is an administrative offence, which is punished with a fine between EUR 600 - 30,000;In Sweden, possession of drugs is punishable up to 3 years of imprisonment. If the type of drug, quantity and other circumstances are minor (petty offence), it is punished by a fine or imprisonment of up to 6 months.According to the list of countries, provided above, all of the European states specify the possession of drugs for personal use as an offense and a penalty is provided for this type of crime. The penalty also varies according to the quantity of drugs, possessed by a person. Although, in some of the European countries, for example, in Cyprus, possession of controlled drugs for personal use is punishable up to 12 years imprisonment, none of the countries mentioned has a bigger imprisonment time than Georgia - 8 to 20 years.Never in the history of this Republic has there been such a jubilant celebration of lawlessness in the heart of our government as we saw at President Trumps State of the Union address to Congress. Under the gaze of Moses, George Mason, Thomas Jefferson and all the great champions of law from history, todays current crop of lawgivers in America sneered, mocked and ridiculed the mere notion that we might have laws.President Trump's first State of the Union address and the responses it triggered reflect a challenging political reality for 2018: Bipartisanship will be necessary, and also hard to come by.

After a year in which Trump was able to transform some of his campaign rhetoric into action through executive orders and a simple majority approval in Congress for legislative priorities such as tax reform, much of his second-year wish list will be complicated by a divisive midterm election year environment, a dearth of goodwill between the two parties, and a narrower Senate majority and process that will require Democratic support.

While the president called for unity and bipartisan action Tuesday night on immigration policy and an infrastructure package, his speech was short on new policy details and ways to bring about consensus, with some lawmakers less concentrated on the prepared text than on what he might say in the coming days.

He said a million different things in the last year, much of which he never even followed through on or even tried to do, said Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio. He may get up and tweet tomorrow and have a completely different agenda than he had tonight.

Like so much else in Washington, the speech was received on partisan lines, with Republicans cheering successes on the economy, taxes, and judgeships and most Democrats visibly repulsed by the presidents rhetoric on immigration.

Trumps speech was also notable for issues it did not address, including the Russia investigation, the #MeToo movement, and longstanding GOP promises to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Still, here are some key takeaways from Trumps inaugural State of the Union address:

A Roadmap for Republicans in 2018: The president and his party are preparing for a midterm election cycle with the wind in their faces and at the backs of Democrats. They have made clear in recent weeks that they intend to center their campaign message on anticipated successes from the tax law signed by Trump in December.

Trump gave them ample help in touting that signature legislative achievement Tuesday night. He name-checked some specifics of the bill, including the doubling of the standard deduction and the increase of the child tax credit; pointed out some of the corporations that have been citing the tax changes in handing out wage increases or bonuses; and mentioned that most Americans would likely see increased take-home pay next month.

The Republican tax law remains relatively unpopular in most public polling, but GOP lawmakers are convinced that once their constituents start seeing its effects -- and after a sustained effort at selling the law -- they can turn those numbers around. Trump will be key to that effort, and gave it a boost early in the speech.

He also highlighted his success at appointing conservative judges and at getting Neil Gorsuch onto the Supreme Court, two achievements that are critical to his conservative base supporters.

Immigration: Members of both parties were listening carefully to how Trump framed the issue amid divisive and slow-moving negotiations on Capitol Hill. Before the president even began outlining his immigration plan, however, he focused heavily on MS-13 gang members and violence committed by some who have crossed the border. While that may have represented a nod to his political base, who care deeply about immigration as a national security issue, he lost most of the Democrats in the room before he even laid out specifics in his proposal.

The things he said were divisive and inflammatory, said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., calling the references to gang members inflammatory.

No one in the world defends them, Durbin said. Were talking about DACA and Dreamers, for goodness sakes. Its two different worlds and he just seems to conflate both.

Still, Trump described his vision for a solution for DACA -- the Obama administration executive order protecting those who came to the country illegally as children, which Trump rescinded. It includes a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million young immigrants; an end to the diversity visa lottery; curbing family-based immigration; and investing heavily in border security.

For over 30 years, Washington has tried and failed to solve this problem. This Congress can be the one that finally makes it happen, Trump said. Most importantly, these four pillars will produce legislation that fulfills my ironclad pledge to only sign a bill that puts America first.

Some Republicans dont back the pathway to citizenship -- Sen. Ted Cruz said after the speech he doesnt support it -- but most were on board with the rest of the plan. Republicans were generally positive about Trump using his bully pulpit to outline it, but he failed to win over Democrats, who for the most part viewed the proposal as divisive and lacking in true outreach to their side of their aisle. Ultimately, it likely did little to change the status of immigration debates on Capitol Hill.

Other Key Policy Goals: The president campaigned on rebuilding America through infrastructure investments, addressing the opioid crisis, and reducing the price of prescription drugs. But so far, little progress has been made on those fronts and he offered few new details on paths forward.

Trump proposed a $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan that would include a mix of federal dollars, partnering with state and local governments, and private funds. Any bill must also streamline the permitting and approval process -- getting it down to no more than two years, and perhaps even one, he said in the speech.

But the administration has talked about such plans for the past year, and more deadline-oriented priorities like funding the government and fixing DACA are likely to continue pushing other policy goals further back on the to-do list.

Congress has yet to put the presidents infrastructure proposal into legislative text, and significant policy divisions remain. Republicans are generally wary of more government spending, especially after the tax bill added to the deficit. The question is how are you going to pay for it, Sen. John Cornyn, the Republican whip, said on infrastructure following the speech. You tell me how were going to pay for it and Ill tell you what we can do.

And while Trump could apply pressure to red-state Democrats to support his call, the opposition party wants a greater federal investment.

Trump earned bipartisan applause in calling to reduce the price of prescription drugs and saying he would direct his administration to take action. But he did not explain what that action would be or how he intends to fix the issue. Prices will come down, substantially he said.

On the opioid crisis, Trump invoked the compelling figure of Ryan Holets, an Albuquerque police officer. While on duty, Holets encountered a pregnant heroin addict seeking help, and the officer and his wife later adopted the womans baby, naming her Hope. Trump invited the couple as his guests for the address, and their compassionate actions were heartily applauded. Though the president spoke of the need to get much tougher on drug dealers and pushers, he did not offer updates on his administrations efforts to do so or details of policy initiatives. The struggle will be long and difficult -- but, as Americans always do, we will prevail, he promised.

Democrats Reaction: Their negative reaction to the address was preordained. In his official response on behalf of the party, Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy III spoke of an America that is anxious, angry, afraid. He cited some of Democrats key policy goals and outlined a positive vision for the party. But that came only after he attacked the president -- though not by name -- in stark terms.

This administration isn't just targeting the laws that protect us; they are targeting the very idea that we are all worthy of protection, Kennedy said.

Most Democratic lawmakers agreed. A large group -- including many members of the Congressional Black Caucus -- refused to stand to applaud the president when he entered the House chamber, or for any parts of his speech except those where he honored his guests. Several criticized his remarks as divisive.

It was an opportunity to try to bring the American people together. I know it was a high bar for him, but he utterly failed at doing that, Rep. Joe Crowley said. Bringing the Congress together to work in a more bipartisan way? He just failed utterly.

A few Democrats reacted favorably to the speech. Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Joe Donnelly of Indiana -- both up for re-election in deep-red states -- stood and applauded much more often than their colleagues did. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, who is running for Senate in Arizona, also applauded the president more often than her fellow House Democrats. Manchin said the speech checked a lot of boxes that were good for his state, and counted it as a relatively unifying message from Trump.

He kind of put the olive branch out there, Manchin said. Lets see if they take it and run with it.

Omissions: Perhaps the loudest cheer of the night from Republicans, at least when it came to policy, was Trump touting the repeal of the individual mandate from the Affordable Care Act.

We repealed the core of disastrous Obamacare -- the individual mandate is now gone, Trump said.

But that was the singular mention of the health care law in the entirety of Trumps remarks. It signals that though the GOP failed to repeal the law last year, instead only cutting a portion of it as part of their tax measure, any further attempts to undo the ACA in 2018 are highly unlikely. Though repealing the mandate to purchase insurance substantially changes the law, large portions of it remain in place.

Also absent from Trumps speech, as noted by some Democrats, was any mention of Russias interference in the 2016 election or administration efforts to prevent interference in this Novembers midterms. Crowley, a member of Democratic leadership, called the omission appalling. But Republicans were likely breathing a sigh of relief that Trump left out any attacks on the FBI or the various investigations into potential collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Caitlin Huey-Burns is a national political reporter for RealClearPolitics. She can be reached at chueyburns@realclearpolitics.com. Follow her on Twitter @CHueyBurns.Honduran voters got more than they bargained for when two presidential candidates claimed victory in the Central American countrys recent election. Current President Juan Orlando Hernandez was seeking a second terman illegitimate pursuit as far as the Honduran constitution is concerned. The main opposition candidate, Salvador Nasralla, had also claimed victory. Hernandez was sworn in on Jan. 27.

Despite Nasrallas victory claim, Honduras Supreme Electoral Tribunal, the official electoral apparatus, declared President Hernandez the winner by a tight margin of 1.53 percent. A wave of violent protests and social turmoil then arose due to substantial evidence of voter irregularities and fraud. This is having a detrimental impact on the already struggling Honduran economy, paralyzing opportunities for growth and greater prosperity.

This election has been called the closest and most controversial in Honduran history. Institutions such as the Organization of American States, the U.S. embassy, La Union Interamericana de Organismos Electorales, and the European Unions Election Observation Mission were engaged in the election process to ensure that no violations took place. In the Organization of American States final report, election observers detected anomalies and sloppy practices such as the crash of a computer server for three days during the election process, opened ballot boxes, and inexplicable change in vote-counting patterns.

Luis Almagro, the Organizations secretary general, indicated that the only way to solve this dispute is a call for new general elections. However, the Hernandez administration already rejected this request, accusing the Organization of inflicting damage to the countrys reputation. Meanwhile the Trump administration and 13 other countries have already recognized the Electoral Tribunals results, leaving Nasrallas party with less hope.

Under President Hernandezs watch, the homicide rate fell by nearly 46 percent between 2013 and 2017. He is the first president to send criminals and drug lords to the United States for trial. Regardless, his re-election pursuit has been controversial even beyond the constitutional question. How did this happen?

In his role as the president of Congress in 2012, Hernandez illegally fired four members of the Supreme Court in the middle of the night. The next day he packed the court with his supporters. Predictably, these loyalists played a key role in the ruling in favor of his recent re-election. This consolidation of power between the executive and judicial branches threatens to permanently erode the system of checks and balances characteristic of a democracy.

Impunity, corruption, and human rights violations are contributing to growing economic turmoil. Protesters are assaulting small businesses, damaging public infrastructure, and blocking main roads in the country. La Prensa, a local Honduran newspaper, reported substantial losses in the private sector due to looting and decreases in daily sales. The Honduran Chamber of Commerce declared that the country faces $46.7 million in daily losses due to the partial immobilization of the economy. Blocked roads prevent daily transactions and the transportation of perishable commodities such as Honduran bananas, plantains, and crude palm oil.

The use of the foreign aid is another emerging point of discussion. Honduras has been a recipient of U.S. foreign aid since 1961. The United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, has provided more than $3 billion in economic and social development assistance to the Honduran people. One of USAIDs main objectives is to strengthen democratic governance, including the promotion of human rights and the rule of law.

Thanks to the irregularities in the election process and to socio-political instability, the use of foreign aid by Honduran authorities is now under scrutiny. In the United States, proposals have been floated to make aid to Honduras contingent on anti-corruption measures.

Honduras has a history of violent and disruptive attempts to overextend executive power. When former President Manuel Zelaya sought measures to allow for re-election in 2009, it did not end well. The military banished him to Costa Rica after he attempted to modify the Constitution. After the coup, Honduras faced violence and instability as well as sanctions from multiple governments.

The United States, for example, suspended more than $30 million in foreign aid and reduced military cooperation to combat narcotics. Multilateral organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank froze more than $200 million in loans, nudging the country into an economic coma.

Honduras has reached a perilous tipping point. Only by upholding the democratic balance of power can they prevent more economic demise and social unrest. As Hernandez begins his next term and civil unrest continues, the president re-elect and other foreign leaders should take the concerns of human rights groups like Organization of American States seriously.

Anne Hobson is a program manager for Academic & Student Programs at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Lourdes Bautista is an MA fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. The views expressed are the authors' own.It was Hegel, an early-19th Century German thinker, who placed the concept of Zeitgeist (spirit or mood of the age) at the core of the philosophy of history. The concept refers to the set of ideas, principles and objectives that prevail in a given period, to the point where they attain the rank of unquestionable truths. For Hegel, thus, every age operates a scale of values that distinguishes it from other periods of time.

A colossal endeavor, undoubtedly, is to attempt to decode the scale of values in question. An efficient way of approaching the problem, this author contends, would be to take a look at the crimes and abuses that go unnoticed or are justified outright at a given age for the crucial reason that they are compatible with the certainties or prejudgments anchored in the mindset of the period under scrutiny.

The phenomenon was at work at the time of the Inquisition. To burn heretics was too often perceived as a normal endeavor that could even turn out to be salutary to those who perished on the stake. Indeed, according to some theologians of those times, the heretics thus killed would through such execution be redeemed from their sins here on earth and spared from eternal punishment in hell.

A similar pattern ran throughout the conquest of the New World. Subduing the indigenous population was widely accepted on the grounds that it helped to expand Christendom. Never mind that the aborigines evangelized by force (for their own good, they were told) were thereby humiliated, exploited, and eventually brought to physical exhaustion and extermination.

The same happened with slave trading during the expansion of colonial empires. That contemptible practice did not arouse much reprobation. The reason: Racism was compatible with the well-entrenched prejudgments of those times.

The past hundred years have, too, their crimes and abuses absolved, or at least tolerated, by the prevailing Zeitgeist. Not all the reprehensible acts of this period fall within that category, though. For example, the crimes of Nazism were the subject of an exemplary trial at Nuremberg in the aftermath of World War II. Likewise, the use of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and of napalm in Vietnam, led to multiple global initiatives to thwart nuclear proliferation and eradicate weapons of mass destruction.

As regards Latin America, last centurys right-wing military dictatorships and U.S. military interventions have been amply condemned, and justifiably so, by the media, academic circles, and political leaders on both sides of Rio Bravo.

What remains conspicuous by its absence is a similar, generalized acknowledgement of the devastation caused by self-proclaimed socialist regimes that have professed to represent and defend the have-nots of the world. The concentration camps in the Soviet Union and Mao Tse-Tungs China, their Cuban equivalents (the so-called UMAP), the assassination of kulaks (peasants) by Stalin, the famines generated by Stalin and Mao, the genocide carried out in Cambodia by Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge army, the brutalities of Mengistu in Ethiopia, and other crimes of a similar nature perpetrated on behalf of the construction of socialism, left a death toll that, at the time of the crumbling of the Berlin Wall, was estimated at 100 million by the well-documented Black Book of Communism. The research for that work was carried out by a team of reputed researchers led by French historian Stephane Courtois.

More recent studies indicate that the 100 million figure may well be an underestimation of the ravages of Communism.

Those crimes remain neglected. They are even justified by vast swaths of the public under the influence of so-called progressive leaders and activists, and a like-minded media. The reason: They are compatible with todays Zeitgeist, in which whatever is done under the guise of the fight against inequality merits sympathy and praise  in the same manner as the crimes committed in the name of Christianity or of the expansion of European empires used to pass unnoticed, or were celebrated, in previous centuries.

Outside of the genocide committed by Pol Pot and his Khmers Rouges  an exception that proves the rule  those responsible for the ravages of socialism have managed to avert trials similar to the one held at Nuremberg against Nazi criminals.

The radical left will condemn the atrocities committed by its own camp only when its ideological leaders authorise it to do so. That was the case as regards Stalin, whose crimes were stubbornly denied by that left until the 20th congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, held in 1956, decided to recognize them. Recognition came not for the sake of justice, it should be recalled, but with the aim of reassuring party officials that the time of Stalinist purges and executions belonged to the past.

There is no better proof of the contemptible tolerance to the horrors of socialism than the stance taken publicly by Eric Hobsbawm, a universally-renowned revolutionary intellectual. When a journalist of the BBC asked him in 1994 (that is to say, at the time of the crumbling of the Soviet bloc) whether the loss of 15 to 20 million human beings would have been justified had such loss served to consolidate Communism, Hobsbawm had no problem in answering yes.

The hard-left mantra is so much attuned to todays prevailing values that it has even managed to fabricate an icon of international stature: Che Guevara.

Here you have a full-fledged revolutionary whose image adorns the t-shirts and berets of men and women at university campuses in more than one continent. These men and women ignore or couldnt care less about the desire to kill that kindled their idol, which he himself boasted about by asserting: Here [I am] in the Cuban jungle, alive and blood thirsty.

Other sentences of Che Guevara are no less disquieting. Take these:

We must walk the path of liberation even if it costs millions of atomic victims. This assertion doesnt seem to upset the Che worshipers who, at the same time, swiftly condemn the launching of the atomic bomb by the empire over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the final days of World War II.

If the missiles had remained in Cuba [in reference to the October 1962 crisis], we would have used them against the very heart of the U.S., including New York. This assertion doesnt seem to upset the Che worshipers who, at the same time, claim to defend and represent the Latin American migrants who live in the empire, including in New York.

The black is indolent and a dreamer, spending his meager wage on frivolity and drink; the European has a tradition of work and saving. This assertion doesnt seem to upset the Che worshipers who, on the university campuses of America and Europe, rebel against Donald Trumps remarks on Mexicans and shithole countries.

Most fortunately, heretics are no longer burned in Europe; the indigenous population of the American continent is no longer subjugated by the conquerors of the New World; and slave trade is no longer carried out as a means of expanding colonial empires. What we do witness nowadays, however, is that dissidents and opponents to progressive regimes are currently repressed, tortured and killed, notably in Cuba and Venezuela, under the benevolent and even admiring gaze of Che Guevaras political heirs.

The standard-bearers of todays Revolution are destined to share the same fate as the eulogists of the Inquisition, of the subjugation of Americas indigenous population, and of the slave trade: History will blatantly condemn them once we manage to overcome, as surely will be the case, the Zeitgeist of Che Guevara.Got some scoop for our reporters or editors? Click on the link below to send us your information.

Send your newsOn Dec. 5, Athens for Everyone held a campaign meeting for Athens Sexual Assault Prevention to create an agenda, define goals and pitch ideas for the campaign.Students should also be weary of extremism or extremist ideals reaching them via popular social media like Twitter or Facebook. Alternatively, social media can be a great tool to combat extremism through specific organizations' pages on Facebook and other social media. Courtesy Pixabay.It was 50 years ago, but I still vividly recall the attack on Saigon.

Like many others, I woke up in the South Vietnamese capital on Jan. 30, 1968 thinking that I heard firecrackers exploding to celebrate Tet, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year.

But as I walked near the Saigon River waterfront, I realized that what I heard was automatic weapons fire, not firecrackers. In the predawn hours, Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops had launched the Tet Offensive throughout South Vietnam.

The Communist and South Vietnamese sides had separately announced that they would respect a two-day cease-fire for the Tet celebration. But the Communists had broken the truce.

Id had nearly two years experience reporting for United Press International (UPI) in Vietnam. But Id never heard shooting like this before in the South Vietnamese capital.

Saigon had suffered in the past from terrorist incidents, such as grenade attacks. And in June 1965, a Viet Cong fighter had detonated two bombs that destroyed a floating restaurant located only a few blocks from the UPI office. As many as 48 people died.

But suddenly, in the early hours of late January 1968, the Vietnamese city which Id always considered to be a relatively safe haven had now become a combat zone.

At the UPI office, I found the bureau chief taking calls from field reporters and trying to reach American officials to confirm details of a Viet Cong attack on the U.S Embassy in Saigon.

Not far from the office, the Viet Cong had attacked South Vietnamese Navy headquarters. Two American soldiers whose truck convoy was ambushed near that location had met in the street with a UPI reporter, then carefully made their way with him into the office and thrown themselves on the newsroom floor.

One of them shouted that the reporters and bureau chief who were taking dictation and typing up stories while shooting was going on nearby were crazy not to be taking cover.

American and South Vietnamese forces defeated the attackers in Saigon within a few days, but elsewhere throughout South Vietnam fighting continued in many locations. It took the Americans and South Vietnamese nearly three weeks to regain control of the old imperial city of Hue.

But in most of the country, the South Vietnamese forces fought better than many of their American advisors had expected, with the Communist side suffering high casualties. Some estimates of the number of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese killed came to 30,000 or many more.

In numerous cases, however, the allies used artillery and air strikes to dislodge the Communists, causing a large number of civilian casualties.

Civilian casualties

About five weeks after the attack on Saigon, I traveled south from Saigon into the Mekong Delta to report on the damage done during Viet Cong attacks on most of the cities in South Vietnams major rice-growing region.

Together with other reporters in the city of Ben Tre, I interviewed civilians who had been caught in the middle of gun battles when American infantrymen entered the city to retake it from the Viet Cong under the cover of air strikes and artillery fire.

The Viet Cong outnumbered the South Vietnamese Armys force in Ben Tre six to one, because roughly half of the South Vietnamese there had left their posts to celebrate the Lunar New Year holiday.

Authorities said that some 1,000 civilians were killed in the city, which was more than American, South Vietnamese, and Viet Cong casualties combined.

I later visited an ethnic Cambodian hamlet in the Mekong Delta that had been largely destroyed by U.S. Army helicopters after the Viet Cong invaded it. The Viet Cong were driven out, but the people had fled and were afraid to return without being guaranteed protection.

The number of refugees in South Vietnam already registered with the government in 1967 numbered 2.1 million. Refugees fleeing battles during the Tet Offensive numbered at least one million.

A Communist defeat

According to military historian James H. Willbanks, the Communists had three goals in mind when they launched their nationwide offensive at the end of January, 1968:

1) To provoke a general uprising among the South Vietnamese people.

2) To shatter the South Vietnamese armed forces.

3) To convince the Americans that the war could not be won.

It was clear early on that the Communists had failed to achieve the first two goals.

No uprising occurred in any location that Im aware of. South Vietnamese citizens didnt rush out to welcome the Viet Cong.

In numerous battles, the South Vietnamese Army took heavy losses but fought bravely against the Communists and regained territory that had been lost.

Communist casualties were much higher in the end than those suffered by the Americans or South Vietnamese.

After the war, the North Vietnamese leadership admitted that they had set their goals too high and made several mistakes in launching the Tet Offensive. They overestimated support for the Communists in the South, while grossly underestimating the strength and resilience of the South Vietnamese Army.

A psychological victory

But in the end the Tet Offensive proved to be a psychological victory and a turning point in the war.

As Willbanks explained in an article published recently in Vietnam magazine, the offensive achieved psychological successes, particularly in the early phases.

Television images of 19 or 20 Viet Cong guerrillas inside the U.S. Embassy grounds shocked people in the United States, although U.S. Marine guards killed most of the guerrillas and captured three.

It was later learned that the Communists had planned for a much larger Viet Cong force to arrive once sappers had cut through the compound walls, but that second group failed to make it to Saigon on time. As a result, none of the guerrillas made it into the embassy chancellery, the main building housing embassy offices.

Based on erroneous reports from military policemen outside the embassy, news agencies initially reported that the guerrillas had penetrated the embassy. They had to correct the initial reports. But the early images of dead guerrillas inside the compound stayed with some American television viewers.

According to Willbanks, the fighting that raged in Hue, Khe Sanh, and throughout South Vietnam shook the confidence of the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, causing many Americans to question the advisability of continuing the war.

Myths about the Tet Offensive

According to some accounts written over the years, U.S. media reporting on the Tet Offensive was largely responsible for undermining American support for the Vietnam War. But a new book by historian Edwin E. Moise of Clemson University, makes a strong case that this is incorrect.

Moises book is titled The Myths of Tet: The Most Misunderstood Event of the Vietnam War.

It appears, however, that one newsman did have a major impact: When Walter Cronkite of CBS concluded that the war had reached a stalemate this did affect President Johnsons views.

But most important, in my view, in undercutting American support for the war were statements in the months preceding the Tet attacks from General William Westmoreland, commander of the U.S. forces in Vietnam.

Prior to the Tet Offensive, Westmoreland had on several occasions asserted that the U.S. had succeeded in destroying many Communist units and was winning the war.

It came as a shock then to many in the U.S. when the Communists showed that they possessed the capability of attacking 36 of 44 provincial capitals, five major cities, 64 district capitals, and numerous villages and hamlets.

The photo taken by Eddie Adams of the Associated Press of South Vietnams National Police Chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a handcuffed Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon on Feb. 1 also had a huge impact in the U.S.

But as Adams later explained, pictures dont tell the whole story.

The prisoner had just killed the wife, mother, and six children of a Vietnamese officer on the outskirts of Saigon.

Did anyone see this coming?

Its often said that the Tet Offensive came as a complete surprise, and it certainly struck me at the time that it was.

But we now know that U.S. Intelligence officers had intercepted numerous Communist radio communications in the months leading up to Jan. 30, 1968 indicating that something big was being prepared by the Communist side. No one really seemed to know, however, just how big it would be.

But Lt. Gen. Fred Weyand, commander of the American forces in III Corps, the region surrounding Saigon, took the threat seriously, according Moises new book.

Weyand, Moise says, moved significant American forces away from areas near the Cambodian border area prior to the Communist attack on Saigon and closer to the Vietnamese capital.

Another persisting myth has it that Vo Nguyen Giap, the schoolmaster turned defense minister who masterminded the Communist attack in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu which drove the French out of Vietnam, must have been the key planner behind the Tet Offensive.

Thanks to new research done by American scholars, we now know that Giap was opposed to launching the Tet Offensive and was isolated from decision-making on the issue in 1967. Communist Party First Secretary Le Duan led a purge of officials close to Giap and patriarch Ho Chi Minh, who also opposed launching the offensive.

Moise says that another myth about Tet holds that the Communists had organized highly coordinated attacks. In many ways, he says, the attacks were badly coordinated. Confusing communications from Hanoi as to the start date caused some units in central Vietnam to attack a day prior to Jan. 30.

I recently found one of my old notebooks from early May of 1968. It contains descriptions of Viet Cong units getting lost on the outskirts and in the streets of Saigon.

Dan Southerland driving a mini-moke in Vietnam, in an undated photo. Dan Southerland. Lasting personal memories

On a personal level, Ill never forget several colleagues who were killed during a second wave of attacks on Saigon in early May of 1968.

Charlie Eggleston, a UPI photographer, was killed by a Viet Cong sniper on May 6, 1968. I remember Charlie as a likeable guy who was always out in front of the rest of us. In this case, he was carrying a rifle when he was hit.

The Viet Cong killing of four Western journalists in the Cholon district of Saigon a day earlier, on May 5, had a profound impact on me. Four Australian journalists and a British colleague were unarmed and riding in a mini-moke when Vietnamese civilians warned them that a Viet Cong unit was up ahead.

After it was too late for them to turn back, the Viet Cong opened fire on the mini-moke. A Viet Cong officer then drew his pistol and pumped bullets into two of the wounded men despite shouts from Australian journalist Michael Birch that they were bao chi, bao chi-- meaning press, press!

Frank Palmos, a freelance journalist from Australia and the one man who survived the killing, said that the Viet Cong commander had seemed to enjoy his work of firing bullets into wounded men.

Palmos fled into a crowd of Vietnamese who tried to protect him as the Viet Cong officer fired wildly in his direction.

In 1988, Vietnams Communist government issued a statement of profound regret for the killings, saying that it was clearly a case of mistaken identity, which it clearly was not.

The journalists were unarmed. Their mini-moke carried no military markings. They had no military escort.

After that attack, I started carrying a pistol in my pocket, which was one of the stupidest things that I did during the Vietnam War. I never learned how to use that pistol, a revolver. But if I were captured, I might have been regarded as a combatant and immediately shot.

Rocket attacks on Saigon

One of my jobs for UPI from late 1966 into 1968 was to follow up on Viet Cong-instigated explosions in the streets as well as on Viet Cong rocket and mortar attacks to report on the casualties. It was invariably Vietnamese civilians, not soldiers, who were killed and wounded in these attacks.

In one case, during what one historian called the heaviest rocket attack of the war, I drove a UPI mini-moke into an area on the outskirts of the city and found that many of the civilians there had been wounded. But no ambulance would dare to go into the area.

So I stopped being a reporter and started shuttling the wounded from the shattered area to an ambulance. I think that it may have been one of the better things that I did during the war.

In late May I reported that a mortar attack killed two teenage girls and wounded 24 other civilians near the citys waterfront. The shell was fired from the other side of the Saigon River, where, despite their setbacks, the Viet Cong were still able to fire rockets and mortar shells into the city in the early morning hours.

One had to wonder what the Communists hoped to accomplish by doing this. South Vietnamese officials speculated that they were trying to show that they were still a force to be reckoned with in the lead-up to peace talks in Paris.

One mans story tells it all

Viewing this in retrospect, the rocket attacks that killed mostly unarmed civilians could be seen as a sign of the disarray into which the Communist forces had fallen toward the end of the battle for Saigon.

Also symbolic of this disarray was the plight of a Viet Cong prisoner whom I got to interview in early May, 1968 thanks to the South Vietnamese rangers whose operations I was following.

It was rare for a reporter to get to interview a Viet Cong prisoner.

Le Van Duc, a 26-year-old farm boy from a province south of Saigon had been wounded in the right arm. He told me that was tired. He wanted to go home.

Duc described how he had changed into civilian clothes and walked through Saigons back alleys to get out of the ruins of the battle zone and into a street where life was proceeding more or less normally.

He hailed a three-wheel cyclo driven by the leg power of a man wearing short pants and a sun helmet. He told the cyclo driver that he wanted to get to a bus station, where he hoped to find a bus heading south to his native Long An Province.

On the way, Duc passed a North Vietnamese soldier who was also dressed in civilian clothes. He, too, wanted to leave the war. The two shared the cycle. It was first time that either man had been in Saigon and they were a little lost.

Vietnamese rangers stopped the cyclo. They asked the suspicious looking men to produce their identification papers. They had none. The rangers took them away.

In my interview with Duc he said, We were told our purpose was to liberate Saigon and set up a new government. Our political cadre told us we would succeed.

Our job was to attack government installations and police stations in the Fifth Precinct. But government units spotted us and fired on us before we could get to our objectives.

Why did his company fail to do its job?

We didnt have the factor of surprise, Duc said. And there was the moonlight. It was difficult to move around in the moonlight.

Dan Southerland is RFA's founding executive editor.The News in Brief

Abkhaz Opposition to Seek Khajimbas Resignation



Our purpose is to create the situation when the head of state voluntarily steps down, members of the union of political parties and public organizations of Abkhazia said during the new entitys first press conference on January 23.



The union was established earlier in January following protest rallies in response to Russian-backed Sokhumi leader Raul Khajimbas decision to release prisoner Giorgi Lukava, whom Sokhumi accuses of murder and kidnapping. The union includes Amtsakhara and United Abkhazia opposition parties, as well as several non-government organizations.



We realize the full seriousness of this demand. We understand what kind of events all this may mean. But such are the circumstances, said during the press conference a representative of the union - the head of APRA foundation and a member of Abkhazia parliament Aslan Bzhania. He added that the opposition would seek to achieve Khajimbas resignation only through legal means.



United Abkhazia party leader, Sergey Shamba said at the press conference that the president demands adherence to the law, but breaks it himself. At the same time, the representatives of the authorities move around the country and justify presidents actions. They cling to power with all their strength.



Opposition members accuse Khajimba of breaking the law by his order to release Lukava. The parliamentary commission created to review the legitimacy of Lukavas release deferred the final decision to the constitutional court, although the latter has not started to function yet.



Raul Khajimba has visited several districts of Abkhazia since January 16, meeting with local supporters and reiterating his position that he had the right to order Lukavas release. (civil.ge)







Microsoft to help Georgia implement educational projects



The Minister of Education and Science of Georgia, Mikheil Chkhenkeli continues his official visit to London with his colleagues and representatives of the field of education.



This time, the Minister met with the representatives of Microsoft; the parties discussed the introduction of modern technologies, specifically, Microsoft's virtual games and programs, in general education, which will make the learning process effective and interesting.



Educational games and programs will enable students to learn the scientific subjects and, at the same time, develop skills, such as teamwork, creative thinking, etc, that are necessary for life.



During the bilateral meeting, Microsoft officials also focused on the experience accumulated in the field of teacher training and pledged to support the Ministry in implementing various projects.



As a result of the meeting, it was decided that one of the most popular educational resources of Microsoft would become available to students in the nearest future. (pia.ge)







Dagestans social activist alleges he will be in danger in case of extradition to Russia



According to Dagestans social activist Mikail Kadiev, in case of his extradition to Russia, he will be in danger. As Kadiev told journalists at the Ministry of Internally Displaced Persons from the Occupied Territories, Refugees and Accommodation of Georgia, the Ministry refused to grant him an asylum in Georgia because he had committed a crime act in Russia, which he claims is not true.



Mikail Kadiev talked about the human rights violations in Russia and recalled the events that have taken place in the last four years.



"The Ministry of Refugees refused to grant me the status and now my passport has been canceled. They say there is no political persecution in Russia. You can just open the internet and see what has happened there in the last two weeks. In Chechnya, Grozny, drugs were planted on the head of the human rights organization. Fire was set to the human rights defender's car in Dagestan three days ago, as well as to the office of the human rights organization Memorial in Ingushetia. That's just what has happened in a month. 23 journalists have been killed in North Caucasus for the last three years. I think I have proven that there is political persecution in Russia. Secondly, they say that Russia accuses me of crime. According to them, the deputy prosecutor general of Russia stated that I have connection with crime. I would like to quote his words about me - "When your troops entered Abkhazia and South Ossetia, he called you forces terrorists." I do not say so. I recognize that Abkhazia and South Ossetia are your territories. As for my case, I have 14 witnesses who confirm my whereabouts. The murder took place in Moscow, while I was in Dagestan," Kadiev said. (IPN)



Jailed Cambodian opposition leader Kem Sokha will appear in Phnom Penh early Thursday morning to ask an Appeals Court to grant him bail following his arrest last year on charges of seeking to overthrow the government, sources said.



Kem Sokhas appearance in court will mark the first time a hearing has been held for him in the capital and away from the prison in a remote part of the country where he has been confined for what the government has called concerns over security since being jailed, his lawyer said on Wednesday.



I see this as a good development, and I am hopeful that he will be released, defense attorney Hem Socheat told RFAs Khmer Service.



Now that the court is allowing him to come to Phnom Penh for this hearing, there seem to be no further concerns over safety and security, and there is therefore no reason to continue his provisional detention before his trial, he said.



If no decision on granting bail is reached on Thursday, Kem Sokha and his defense team will ask the court to allow him to remain in Phnom Penh instead of being returned to Trapeang Prison in the faraway province of Tbong Khmum, Hem Socheat said.



Kem Sokha, leader of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), was arrested on Sept. 3, 2017, and faces charges of collaborating with the U.S. to overthrow the government of Prime Minister Hun Sens ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP).



Cambodias CPP-dominated Supreme Court ruled on Nov. 16 that the CNRP be dissolved for its part in the alleged plot, essentially eliminating Hun Sens competition ahead of a national election scheduled for July 2018.



Speaking to RFA on Wednesday from Paris where he now lives in exile, former CNRP President Sam Rainsy said that Cambodias government must free not only Kem Sokha, but also all other prisoners held for opposing CPP rule.



The government has to allow Cambodians to exercise their right to choose their own leaders through democratic means, Sam Rainsy said.



Hun Sen is behind a lot of crimes, and he is very worried that if he ever loses power, and our countrys judicial system is restored, he will be prosecuted by an independent court, he said.



Reported by RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Nareth Muong. Written in English by Richard Finney.Three Cambodian forest patrollers, including a staff member of a U.S.-based conservation group, have been killed by suspects believed to be members of Cambodias border forces in apparent retaliation for seizing equipment from illegal loggers, according to media reports.



A three-man team consisting of military police officer Sok Vathana, Environment Ministry ranger Toeurn Soknay, and Thol Khnaa local worker for New York-based NGO Wildlife Conservation Societywere attacked late on Tuesday after leaving the Keo Siema Wildlife Conservation Sanctuary in northeast Cambodias Mondulkiri province, media reports said, quoting officials.



The trio had earlier confiscated chainsaws and motorcycles from eight illegal loggers in the sanctuary near the Vietnamese border, they said, adding that police sent to investigate a report of stolen equipment suspected Cambodian border forces who backed the loggers were responsible for the killings.



Authorities have established a special committee to investigate the incident, officials said.



A staffer with a local NGO, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told RFAs Khmer Service that the three-man team had seized tools from a group of illegal Vietnamese loggers during a morning patrol of Keo Siema on Tuesday and were ambushed in retaliation that afternoon near the ORolear Police Post at the border.



The Associated Press cited a report from Mondulkiri police chief Ouk Samnang to National Police Chief Neth Savouen which identified border military officers Keut Vehar and Ngur and border police officer Phal Penh as the killers.



The Phnom Penh Post cited OReang Ov district police chief Bou Bun Chheat as saying officers are searching for Pheng Penh, a police officer in charge of the ORolear border post, and Keut Vehar, whom the paper identified as the head of the armed forces Regiment 103.



Seven bullet casings from a rifle were found at the scene of the shooting, according to the police chief.



The shooting is the latest incident in which environmental activists investigating forest crimes have been killed while carrying out their work.



In 2015, a forest ranger and a policeman were killed while looking into illegal logging in Preah Vihear province, in a case that led to the arrest of at least 10 people, including a soldier.



Prominent environmentalist Chut Wutty, of Cambodias Natural Resources Conservation Group, was investigating illicit logging operations in southern Cambodias Koh Kong province when he was fatally shot in 2012. He was allegedly gunned down by a military police officer who was also found dead at the scene.



Ouch Leng, chairman of the Cambodia Human Rights Task Force, expressed sorrow over the reports of the killings, but said he was not surprised by the incident, noting that perpetrators of forest crimes are regularly provided protection by corrupt authorities.



The killers are those who fight to protect the illegal loggersthey did it to silence those who report on the illicit activities, he said.



Ouch Leng said that following the governments dissolution of main opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) ahead of general elections set for July, national attention has been focused on political tensions in the capital Phnom Penh, while illegal loggers and criminals have a field day.



Members of the military are also involved in this dealthe logs and timber are being transported to Vietnam, he said.



My colleagues and I have been threatened with arrest or even death on several occasions as a result of our activities reporting on illegal logging.



Rampant smuggling



Cambodia has long endured the rampant smuggling of logs and timberoften with the complicity of local authoritiesto neighbors such as China and Vietnam, where the wood is used to make high-end furniture.



The United Nations says Cambodias forest cover had shrunk to 46 percent in 2013 from 73 percent in 1990.



In May last year, a report by the U.K.-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) said around 300,000 cubic meters of timberincluding endangered rosewoodhad been smuggled out of protected areas in Cambodia to Vietnam with the help of local authorities through some U.S. $13 million in bribes between November 2016 and March 2017.



The EIA separately published 2016-2017 sales invoices from Cambodian companies and Vietnamese import data in May showing that the total import value of Cambodian timber to Vietnam amounted to around U.S. $300 million since January 2016, despite Cambodias implementation of a ban on the trade that month.



At the time the report was published, Cambodias Ministry of National Defense rejected its findings outright, while the Ministry of Environmentwhich is responsible for forest conservationacknowledged that illegal deforestation is occurring in the country and pledged to investigate the EIAs claims.



Just ten days later, Ministry of Environment spokesperson Sao Sopheap dismissed the reports findings that Cambodian officials are often complicit in deforestation and smuggling, saying the EIA had failed to recognize the countrys efforts to combat the problems.



In 2002, Prime Minister Hun Sen vowed to cut his head off or resign if he could not protect the countrys forests, but little progress has been made on reducing illegal logging since then.



Reported by RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Nareth Muong. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.A Chinese man surfs the web at an internet cafe in Beijing in a file photo.

China will begin blocking overseas providers of virtual private networks (VPN) used to circumvent its Great Firewall of government censorship at the end of March, official media reported.

Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) chief engineer Zhang Feng said VPN operators must be licensed by the government, and that unlicensed VPNs are the target of new rules which come into force on March 31.

"We want to regulate VPNs which unlawfully conduct cross-border operational activities, Zhang told reporters on Tuesday.

Any foreign companies that want to set up a cross-border operation for private use will need to set up a dedicated line for that purpose, he said. They will be able to lease such a line or network legally from the telecommunications import and export bureau.

This shouldnt affect their normal operations much at all, he said.

Meanwhile, the American Chamber of Commerce in China said it had carried out a recent survey of U.S. companies in the country that showed that the inability to access certain online tools, internet censorship, and cybersecurity were impeding their operations.

Around one billion people in China had access to 4G mobile internet services last year, an increase of 76.4 percent compared with the previous year, the MIIT said.

According to Zhang, overall mobile internet and data usage also surged by 26.7 percent in 2017.

An internet user surnamed Zeng told RFA that the new regulations could also hit any Chinese businesses that need unimpeded communications with the outside world.

I have a friend who is a businessman, and makes things mainly for export, and this has already affected his order book, Zeng said. He usually uses WhatsApp to communicate [with customers] and now its very hard to log on, and this has really affected business.

He added: In future, he wont be able to log on at all, so he told me he will likely have to shut down his factory.

Internet user A Biao said the Great Firewall will continue to put huge limitations on what ordinary internet users in mainland China may do or see online.

You cant read truthful, objective and balanced information in a timely manner, he said. If you have an overseas phone, you can get online without going via the Great Firewall, but thats pretty difficult to get hold of, so there are limitations to that approach.

No end in sight

Xie Jiaye, head of the New York-based Chinese Association of Science and Technology, said he doesnt see an end in sight to the crackdown on VPNs in China.

The Chinese government already holds the power to solve this issue; if they wanted to be more open, they could do it immediately, Xie said. If they dont want more openness, then its very unlikely that this problem will ever be resolved.

Wu Fan, editor in chief of the U.S.-based Chinese-language magazine Chinese Affairs, said the new controls on VPNs werent in keeping with the ruling Chinese Communist Partys promises of an open internet.

If they opened it all up, then everybody would be able to operate and communicate normally, including Chinese companies headquartered in China, Wu said. There is a huge conflict here, as if the MITT is fighting against itself.

China said last July that it planned to force both local and foreign companies and individuals to use only government-approved software to access the global internet, as overseas firms fear losing unrestricted online services by the end of February.

State-run China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom have all been told to ensure their 1.3 billion subscribers can't access blocked content with VPNs.

Chinese internet users had become adept at circumventing the complex array of blocks, filters, and human censorship deployed by their government.

After censors succeeded in blocking Tor, VPNs became the tool of choice for "climbing the wall," in Chinese online parlance, and are used as much by government institutions, state-owned companies, and educational establishments as by the general public.

The licensing program indicates that the government plans to allow only users it trusts to scale the Great Firewall from now on.

Reported by Wen Yuqing for RFAs Cantonese Service, and by Lin Ping for the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.British Prime Minister Theresa May began a three-day visit to China on Wednesday amid calls for her to raise concerns over the rule of law and human rights in Hong Kong with its leaders.



May, who is seeking a trade deal with China to bolster the British economy ahead of the countrys exit from the European Union in 2019, has said she will raise those issues with President Xi Jinping when she meets with him, but declined to give further details.



Instead, she said her visit would intensify the golden era in U.K.-China relations, using a buzzword that echoes Xis new era of political thought ushered in at the national party congress last October.



As she prepared to leave, former Hong Kong colonial governor Chris Patten urged May to address concerns about the political situation in Hong Kong, where a pro-democracy candidate in a forthcoming legislative by-election was barred from standing on the basis of her political views, sparking sharp criticism from senior lawyers, who said her basic rights had been violated.



Patten wrote in a joint letter with Liberal Democrat lawmaker Paddy Ashdown on Monday, asking May to go on insisting on the continued validity of the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the principles of one country, two systems.'



China last year dismissed the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration as a "historical document. But U.K. officials say it is a binding bilateral treaty registered at the United Nations, and that the U.K. has a duty to ensure Beijing honors it.



In the past five years Hong Kong has seen increasing threats to the basic freedoms, human rights and autonomy which the people were promised at the handover just over 20 years ago, Patten and Ashdown wrote.



We hope that you will be able to provide the people of Hong Kong with some assurance that our developing relationship with China, vital though it is, will not come at the cost of our obligations to them,

the letter said.



It cited a recent move by Chinas parliament that will effectively impose mainland laws in a Hong Kong high-speed rail terminal, which is currently under construction.



Status under threat



The dual checkpoint has sparked fears that Hong Kongs status as a separate legal and policing jurisdiction is under threat.



It also noted with concern that Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam had referred to a human rights report written by Ashdown as a form of meddling by foreign organisations.



Lam hit out at the letter, saying its position was unfounded and unfair.



Earlier, she defended the barring of Demosisto candidate Agnes Chow from a Legislative Council (LegCo) by-election, saying that "certain political viewpoints" were in breach of the Basic Law.



"Support for Hong Kong independence or local autonomy is the most serious of these sorts of opinions," she said. "People can choose to hold such views, but they don't comply with the legal requirements [to stand for election.]"



The European Union this week accused the Hong Kong government of violating an international human rights treaty by barring Chow from the Legislative Council (LegCo) by-election on the grounds of her political opinions.



It said the move risks diminishing Hong Kongs international reputation as a free and open society.



The protection of civil and political rights in Hong Kong is an essential part of the implementation of the One Country, Two Systems principle, which the EU supports, the statement said.



Hong Kong's Electoral Affairs Commission said on Wednesday it had also disqualified former independence advocate Ventus Lau from running in the by-election in the New Territories East constituency.



While Lau has publicly changed his mind about independence for Hong Kong, an EAC official said he had only done so reluctantly and out of political expediency, and that he is insincere about upholding the Basic Law.



Unreasonable decision



Former lawmaker Nathan Law, who lost his LegCo seat when his oath of allegiance was found invalid by a Hong Kong court, said the barring of election candidates was unacceptable.



No Hong Kong resident should be deprived of their right to take part in elections; this is a violation of their basic human rights, Law said. This decision is of course unreasonable, because it is a naked form of political censorship.



It doesnt matter how they wrap it up in legalistic talk of not upholding the Basic Law: these acts of political censorship violate the international human rights covenant, he said.



He said his party, Demosisto, and the 2014 pro-democracy movement that preceded it, had always been peaceful and rational.



Six pro-democracy lawmakers including Law have been stripped of their seats in LegCo by Hong Kong courts since 2016 after a high-level intervention by Chinas parliament, the National Peoples Congress, which judged their oaths of allegiance to be insufficiently solemn and sincere after they changed the wording or displayed slogans during their swearing-in ceremonies.



'Gravely concerned'



The U.K.-based rights group Hong Kong Watch, whose founder Benedict Rogers was denied entry to the city last November, said on Tuesday it was gravely concerned by the disqualification of Agnes Chow.



Rogers said the group is taking legal advice on the barring of Chow.



[We have] grave concerns that it may constitute a violation of Hong Kongs Basic Law, Rogers said in a statement, in a reference to Hong Kongs mini-constitution.



We fear that the government of Hong Kong may be abusing the legal system for political gain, by undermining pro-democracy voices, he said.



Agnes Chows disqualification is yet another example of the erosion of freedom of expression and the political rights of Hong Kong people, he said.



Mays visit will run from Jan. 31 through Feb. 2.



Reported by Wen Yuqing and Lam Kwok-lap for RFAs Cantonese Service, and by Gao Feng for the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.For months, Chinese journalist Song Xiaowei has been investigating a case in which a young Chinese developer with the online nickname "Broken Doll" was forced to abandon a project that would help people circumvent the "Great Firewall" of government internet censorship after a 'doxing' threat to release her personal details by an anonymous group of researchers. He spoke to RFA's Mandarin Service about what he found:



RFA: Firstly, who is Broken Doll, and who was threatening her with doxing?



Song Xiaowei: Broken Doll developed a piece of software that could scale the Great Firewall. But then she was pursued by a group calling themselves Vulgar TV, who crowd-sourced a search on her. Vulgar TV then threatened Broken Doll, saying they would make public all of her personal details, her ID card and profile on [auction site] Taobao and so on, revealing her true identity, if she continued to work on this project.



RFA: What did you find when you investigated the matter?



Song Xiaowei: I finally found the real culprits. They too were working to get around the Great Firewall, and yet they still did a thing like that. I suspect that the [ruling Chinese] Communist Party has now even infiltrated the younger generation. If I'm honest, I was pretty shocked, actually.



RFA: What basis do you have for these suspicions?



Song Xiaowei: One of the biggest questions here is how they got access to police ID card databases. Also, to get her Taobao details would require a request from the police. It's not as if any old person can just access that information. I suspect that someone in power was behind this.



RFA: How long did the investigation take?



Song Xiaowei: It took me four months, and I found that the sorts of young people who are working to circumvent the Great Firewall are instead being used by the Communist Party. A lot of young people have access to technology nowadays, and they are very easily swayed by the Communist Party's words, to the extent that they are now working for them. This is a very serious situation, which I think the Chinese government is very happy about.



RFA: How do you see the situation developing? Will young people in China continue to try to get around the Great Firewall?



Song Xiaowei: I would like to see overseas dissidents and groups like that paying more attention to developers back home, because without the software that they write, nobody back home in China would find out about their activities. The more they are able to cut off these channels of communication, the greater will be the rift between ordinary people in China and dissenting voices. I think overseas dissidents should do more to help these technologically minded people.



Reported by C.K. for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.A truck entering the Rason Special Economic Zone makes its way across a bridge marking the border between North Korea (bottom) and China (top), Nov. 21, 2017.

North Korea has installed new Russian-made radio locators along sections of its 880-mile border with China to detect citizens placing illegal mobile-phone calls to friends and relatives outside the isolated authoritarian country, sources said.

North Koreans who live in border areas where mobile reception from China is available use smuggled cell phones to talk to family members living in China or South Korea. Authorities use radio locators to determine the callers' locations through the use of radio waves.

Residents are anxious about the new radio locators because they allow authorities to immediately detect and monitor call locations and conversations, sources said.

The Russian devices perform better than the German ones that authorities have been using and are especially "terrorizing" executives in governments run companies who frequently make illegal calls to the outside world, they said.

The State Security Department recently ordered installations of the newest version of additional radio locators along the border with China in Yanggang province, said source from the province, adding that the agency has already set up 30 Russian radio locators there since early January.

They are known to perform better than German radio locators that are already installed, so those who use illegal phone users are filled with terror about them, said the source, who requested anonymity.

As of the beginning of the New Year, the State Security Department, North Korea's secret police agency, stepped up crackdowns on illegal phone users in border areas, he said.

Until now, there was no problem detecting illegal calls using the German radio locators, so when residents made the calls, they had to change locations every one to five minutes to avoid detection by the German devices, the source said.

But with the new devices, which are not thrown off track by physical movement, more executives from government and judicial authorities have been caught making calls, he said.

One executive from the Yanggangs Organization and Guidance Department (OGD) got caught, and it profoundly affected the society, the source said.

The OGD is an oversight agency of the Central Committee of the Workers Party of Korea, the countrys ruling party. Its main responsibility is to implement the teachings and decisions of North Korean founder and former president Kim Il Sung, grandfather of current leader Kim Jong Un.

Blocking calls in North Hamgyong

State Security officials in North Hamgyong province also recently increased the number of Russian-made radio locators for emergency measures, installing the devices in Rajin city, Onsong county, and Hoeryong city, located opposite northeastern Chinas Jilin province, a source from North Hamgyong said.

As the New Year began, the [provincial] State Security Department installed dozens of the latest model of radio locators in the North Hamgyong area to block the inflow of outside information and the leakage of inside information to the outside, said the source who declined to be named.

Though state security authorities informed residents about the installation of the new models and said that those caught using phones illegally would be sentenced to at least six months in a labor camp, the warning has not deterred everyone from placing calls to the outside, he said.

Illegal phone calls in the border area continue, despite that those making them could face hard labor in a camp in this extremely cold weather, he said.

The source cautioned that authorities will not be able to detect all illegal calls made with the Russian-made radio locators given the high number of people who use illegal mobile phones in border areas.

Though the devices are the newest radio locators, it wont be easy to uncover all illegal phone calls, he said. If North Korea blocks all the illegal calls that executives, traders, and smugglers make, its market will be paralyzed.

And even if executives and traders are caught, they can always bribe authorities to look the other way, making use of the devices pointless, sources said.

Reported by Jieun Kim for RFAs Korean Service. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.A Tibetan nun and former political prisoner, jailed for seven years after calling for an end to Chinese rule in Tibet, has died of complications arising from a chronic ailment she developed after being subjected to torture and poor living conditions during her incarceration, according to Tibetan sources.



Ngawang Tsomo, 51, died on Jan. 27 in Phenpo Lhundrub (in Chinese, Linzhou) county in the Tibet Autonomous Regions Lhasa (Lasa) prefecture after her health began to deteriorate last year, a source inside Tibet told RFAs Tibetan Service on condition of anonymity.



In the summer, she went on retreat in Phenpo Lhundrub county, when her health condition became much worse, said the source.



She had developed an acute headache while she was in prison and, after her release, she was unable to seek proper medication for her failing health  As her condition recently became serious, she was taken to the hospital in Phenpo Lhundrub, but she passed away in the corridor of the building while waiting to receive treatment.



The cause of Tsomos death was not immediately clear.



According to sources, Tsomo was arrested in 1993 and initially held in the Gutsa detention center after taking part in a peaceful protest along with several other people in Tibets capital Lhasa calling for an end to Chinese rule in Tibet.



A court sentenced her to seven years in jail in a sham trial, without any due process, before being moved to Lhasas Drapchi Prison, said a second source, who also asked to remain unnamed.



While in jail at Drapchi Prison, like all other political prisoners, she faced inhumane treatment at the hands of the Chinese prisoner guards, the source said.



Tsomo was among a group of inmates at Drapchi who in 1998 called for freedom in Tibet after prison authorities attempted to force them to salute Chinas flag and sing the national anthem. Guards fired live rounds at the prisoners, killing two, according to the source.



The [surviving] prisoners were kept under close supervision and suffered tremendously due to retaliation from Chinese officials, the source said.



Though she lived through the ordeal, Ngawang Tsomo was among those who were victimized by the Chinese authorities.



Tsomo was released in 2000 after serving her full sentence, but her time in jail took a serious toll on her physical health, and she became chronically ill due to the torture and suffering she sustained while in detention, according to the source.



Additionally, Tsomo was prevented from reenrolling at her former monastery, due to laws prohibiting ex-prisoners from returning to their past lives as monks and nuns, and faced numerous challenges in society  eking out a living doing odd jobs for all of those years.



She had faced so much hardship while alive, and though she is gone now, her legacy and courage will not be forgotten by generations to come, said the source.



Reported by Yangdon Demo for RFAs Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.A Tibetan man previously jailed for more than 20 years for homicide and political activism is believed to have disappeared again into police custody, this time after staging a protest in Tibets capital Lhasa against Chinese rule in Tibetan areas, sources say.



Lodroe Gyatso, also known as Sogkar Lodroe, vanished on Jan. 28 and his whereabouts remain unknown, a Tibetan source in exile told RFAs Tibetan Service this week, citing sources in the region.



It is thought that he was detained for raising political slogans, but no one can confirm what he shouted or exactly where this happened, RFAs source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.



He had reportedly planned to hold a peaceful protest in Lhasa calling for the return to Tibet of [exiled spiritual leader] the Dalai Lama and for world peace through global demilitarization, the source said, adding that Gyatso had especially wanted Tibet to be declared a zone of peace.



On Tuesday, the India-based Tibet Times confirmed Gyatsos disappearance, saying the former prisoner had vanished after he staged a peaceful protest in front of the Potala Palace in Lhasa on Jan. 28, 2018.



His family and relatives fear that the Chinese may have rearrested him because of the protest, the Times said in its Jan. 30 report.



Jailed before



Convicted in 1991 of killing a man in a fight, Gyatso spent 21 years behind bars, with his original 15-year sentence extended for engaging in political activism while incarcerated, sources told RFA in earlier reports.



After being released under police supervision in May 2013, Gyatso criticized what he called Beijings oppressive policies in some of the eastern counties of Tibets Nagchu prefecture, one source said, adding that Gyatso had especially pointed to Chinese treatment of Tibetans that was contrary to national and international standards of law.



He was also critical of local Chinese authorities insistence that Tibetans wear traditional clothing lined with fur, a practice discouraged by the Dalai Lama and abandoned by local Tibetans some time before, the source said.



Jailed again, Gyatso was beaten and tortured in detention, and was finally released from prison in July 2016 after vowing to other inmates that he would someday stage a peaceful protest in Lhasa after being freed, RFAs exile source said on Tuesday.



Sporadic demonstrations challenging Beijings rule have continued in Tibetan-populated areas of China since widespread protests swept the region in 2008.



Reported by Sangye Gyatso for RFAs Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Richard Finney.UPDATED at 11:05 A.M. EST on 2018-1-31



Omurbek Eli, a 41-year-old Kazakh national of mixed Uyghur and Kazakh heritage from northwest Chinas Xinjiang region, was arrested by police in Xinjiangs Turpan (in Chinese, Tulufan) prefecture in 2017 while visiting his parents and accused of terrorist activities. He was refused legal representation and imprisoned for more than seven months, despite never having been tried by a court of law. Eli was eventually freed with the assistance of the Kazakh government, although he believes his family members in Xinjiang remain under the scrutiny of local authorities.



Since April last year, ethnic Uyghurs and Kazakhs accused of harboring extremist and politically incorrect views have been detained in prisons and political re-education camps throughout Xinjiang, where members of the ethnic groups have long complained of pervasive discrimination, religious repression, and cultural suppression under Chinese rule. Chinese authorities have not publicly acknowledged the existence of re-education camps in Xinjiang, and the number of inmates kept in each facility remains a closely guarded secret, but activists estimate that up to 1 million people have been detained throughout the region.



Eli recently spoke with RFAs Uyghur Service from Almaty, Kazakhstan about his experience while detained by Chinese authorities:



RFA: When did you move to Kazakhstan?



Eli: Twelve years ago. I became a Kazakh citizen in 2008. Since then I have been traveling back and forth between [Kazakhstan and China] conducting business. I had been traveling to [the Xinjiang capital] Urumqi without any hassle, and I have never supported any [terrorist] organizations or groups. Since 2016, I have been working for a tourism company.



In March, I went to Urumqi to attend a conference  and then I went to Pichan (Shanshan) county to visit my family. The day after I arrived, the police came to the house saying they needed to speak to me  That was on March 26. They took me away without any documentation and imprisoned me without any evidence. I was kept in prison until Nov. 4, despite being a Kazakh citizen.



They said I was a suspect. They accused me of instigating terrorism, organizing terror activities, and covering up for terrorists. After arriving at the police station, they said, There is a warrant for your arrest from the Karamay (Kelemayi) City Public Security Bureau  even though they had no paperwork.



[The police] then handcuffed me, and placed a black hood over my head  I was taken to a hospital [in Pichan], where I had blood samples taken and was then given a full body examination, without my hood being removed. I was terrified that they might open me alive to remove my organs for sale.



After the procedure was complete, I was taken to a prison, where I had to change into a prison uniform before being placed in a cell among 13  Uyghurs in shackles. I was kept there in shackles for eight days. On the first day, three menone Uyghur and two Chinesecame from Karamay to question me. They said, You assisted people with their visa applications, and took money from them claiming you could obtain passports for them.



On April 3, I was taken to Karamay in handcuff and shackles  to the Jarenbulaq district police station and placed in a basement cell. The following day the police chief came to question me  I was not allowed to sleep for two days while I was continually questioned  [about] people who have left from Karamay to Turkey, Syria, and Europe, [saying I] have been assisting them ... I denied everything they accused me of. Then, on April 17, I was taken to the Karamay City Prison.



RFA: During that period, didnt anyone visit you from the Kazakh Embassy?



Eli: Officials from the Kazakh Embassy  came on July 16 or 17a diplomat from the embassy in Beijing and another diplomat based [in the consulate] in Urumqi  They advised me that the Chinese authorities had no right to torture me or force me to do heavy labor. They said that in prison, if I am ill, the authorities must provide medical treatment and also ensure I receive three meals a day.



The worst experience I endured in prison was that from the time I arrived, my ankles were shackled together and one ankle was chained to the bed. I spent every day and night until June 13 eating, sleeping and using the bathroom on the bed, with only an occasional bath. Afterwards, they used a meter of chain attached to my upper arm and ankle to keep me in a crouching position. It was agonizingly uncomfortable, and I had to live in that position until Nov. 4, when I left the prison.



In the end, diplomats from the consulate approached the Chinese authorities, saying I should be released into their authority if I was not going to be put on trial. The day the [Kazakh] diplomats visited me in July was the only time I was free of my shackles, for about an hour and a half. When I stood up, I couldnt even maintain my balanceI staggered like a drunken man.



I knew I was innocent, but when I was locked up in prison, I lost all hope of surviving. On Nov. 4, I was asked to sign a document [admitting my guilt] as a condition of my bail. I thought, I must leave this hellhole, even if it is just to make contact with the outside world, and I signed the paper  I was then taken to a political re-education camp, where I remained for 20 days  The place was just like a prison, with guards at the gate.



RFA: How many people were sharing one room?



Eli: There were 23 in my room  There were cameras installed in the room, so we were under observation all the time. People who were kept there included teenagers, the middle-aged, and the elderly, and they were all from different backgrounds. There were government employees and teachers. I also saw a whole familyfather, mother, and child. People who had completed their prison sentences were transferred there for re-education. The government employees were accused of being two-faced [a term applied by the government to Uyghurs who do not willingly follow directives and exhibit signs of disloyalty], which was the most convenient allegation to use.



They were 70-80 percent Uyghur, 20-30 percent Kazakh, and no other ethnic groups represented. According to what I heard, there were more than 1,000 young men in the camp, which was comprised of three different areas, designated A, B, and C. I was in area C, along with approximately 300 other men.



Sleeping hours were from 12:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. In the morning, all beds had to be made in military style. If one failed to do so, it was considered an ideological failure. We were made to attend a flag-raising ceremony at 7:30 a.m. each day. After that, we would wash and attend breakfast, where we first would have to sing a red song [in praise of the Communist Party].



Those who didnt know the Chinese language well were taught Chinese. Other lessons included party laws and regulations, and red songs. All lessons were taught in Mandarin and there was an exam every week. Also, during lessons, instructors informed you of trials and sentences, and what offenses they were related to. This was to create fearthey used these examples to show people the heavy price they would pay if they did not follow the rules.



In between lessons, there were two hours of military training, marching, standing at attention, and following orders. From what I experienced, I now suffer from post-traumatic disorder and can no longer sleep properly. It damages ones psychology  but the cadres told me that it takes at least one year to complete the re-education program.



RFA: What is the food like in the camp?



Eli: It was slightly better than the prison. Breakfast is rice gruel, while lunch and dinner include some meat. I think they sent me there because they wanted me to improve before returning. I had lost 40 kilograms (88 pounds) in prison.



[In the camp] if you fell ill, you would only receive treatment if you could pay for it  In the beginning they refused to provide me with medication, but I argued that it was their responsibility to provide me with treatment. As my blood pressure was very high, in the end I was given medicine for it.



Because there are armed policesome of whom carried wooden batonsif you showed any signs of disobedience they would come immediately and give you a severe beating. Therefore there was no choice but to obey every order.



At about 3:00 p.m. on Nov. 24, I heard my name being called and I was told to collect my belongings and get ready to go. I said to my roommates, I might be taken to prison or freed, but take care of yourselves. I was collected by a policeman who told me I would be released and returned to Kazakhstan  I was sent to my sisters house and my family members were all in tears upon seeing me.



[The authorities] claim that through re-education they can liberate peoples minds to embrace the party and love the country, to obey all the party rules and regulations. It was very difficult for me to comprehend the fact that just being a Uyghur or Kazakh, you could be forced to undertake such a re-education regime in a prison. Seeing so many innocent people being treated in such a cruel way left me deeply saddened.



From my point of view, the authorities are hoping that re-educating these people will turn them into lambs, but on the contrary, they are planting the seeds of hatred and turning them into enemies. This is not just my viewthe majority of the people in the camp feel the same way.



Reported by Gulchehra Hoja for RFAs Uyghur Service. Translated by Alim Seytoff. Edited by Joshua Lipes.



Correction: An earlier version of the story erroneously stated that Omurbek Eli was arrested in Hotan (Hetian) prefecture's Guma (Pishan) county.A court in Vietnams capital Hanoi sentenced three democracy activists to long jail terms on Wednesday after convicting them of criticizing the countrys one-party communist government online, sources said.



Vu Quang Thuan, 51, Nguyen Van Dien, 35, and Tran Hoang Phuc, 23, were found guilty of spreading propaganda against the state under Article 88 of the countrys penal code and handed sentences of eight years, six and a half years, and four years in prison, respectively.



Additional terms of from four to five years of house arrest were also imposed, to be served following their release.



The defendants had been arrested and tried for posting 17 video clips on Facebook and YouTube criticizing Vietnams ruling Communist Party and government, defense attorney Ha Huy Son told RFAs Vietnamese Service after the half-day trial concluded at 2:00 p.m.



The three defendants and their seven-member defense team asked the judge to allow the videos to be shown in court, Son said.



But our request was rejected on the excuse that the courtroom lacked the facilities [to show the videos], Son said, adding that Thuan then offered to pay for the cost of screens and computers so that the clips could be shown.



The evidence given at trial was never evaluated by the court, and the judge finally ruled based only on the conclusions of Vietnams Ministry of Information and Communication that the videos contained proof of anti-state activity, Son said.



I said at the trial that the evidence being presented did not give legal grounds under Vietnamese law for the defendants to be prosecuted, but in the end they were still convicted, he said.



I think that the sentences given to them are completely wrong and unfair, he said.



Relatives, friends barred from trial



Relatives of the accused were not allowed to attend the trial, and activists said that security forces including plainclothes and uniformed police had guarded their homes for days before the trial to prevent them from traveling to show support.



I was just sitting on the street because I was not allowed to enter the courtroom, Diens father Nguyen Van told RFA after the trial.



The sentence of six years and six months is too harsh for what Dien did, he said.



Calls seeking comment from the Hanoi Peoples Court rang unanswered on Wednesday.



Authorities have been targeting activist writers and bloggers in a months-long crackdown in one-party Communist Vietnam, where dissident is not tolerated.



Vietnam currently holds at least 84 prisoners of conscience, the highest number in any country in Southeast Asia, according to rights group Amnesty International.



Reported by RFAs Vietnamese Service. Translated by Emily Peyman. Written in English by Richard Finney.A U.S.-based rights group says Iran has sentenced an Iranian-American art dealer and his wife to lengthy prison terms for being followers of the Zoroastrian religious faith.

The announcement by the nongovernmental group, the Center for Human Rights in Iran, is the latest case of a dual national being imprisoned by Iran after a closed-door hearing before the countrys hard-line Islamic Revolutionary Court.

The group says art dealer Karan Vafadari was sentenced to 27 years in prison while his Iranian wife, Afarin Neyssari, received a 16-year sentence. It says Neyssari has permanent residency in the United States.

The Center for Human Rights in Iran says it obtained a letter sent by Vafadari from Tehran's notorious Evin prison in which he denounced the prison sentences as "unjust and tyrannical."

It says the letter was dated January 21 and that Vafadari wrote he was sentenced the previous week at Branch 15 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran for being a Zoroastrian dual national.

He said that his sentence also included 124 lashes and a fine equal to $243,000.

The sentences have yet to be reported in Iran.

Iran's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request from the Associated Press news agency for comment.

In the letter, Vafadari wrote that the court granted him "the honor of being the first Iranian to be convicted under Article 989 of the Civil Penal Code."

"It means my wife and me, and every one of you dual national Zoroasatrians who returned to your country to invest in the homeland you love are always going to be in danger of losing your assets and being forced to leave the country," Vafadari wrote.

Article 989 of Iran's Civil Penal Code says foreign nationalities obtained by any Iranian citizen after 1902 "without the observance of the provisions of law" will be considered "null and void" and the person will be "regarded as an Iranian subject."

It also says all of the person's "landed properties will be sold under the supervision of the local public prosecutor."

"Unfortunately, my international activities [in the art world] raised the suspicions of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps' intelligence organization," Vafadari wrote.

He said the initial "baseless security accusations that led to our arrest were dropped, but our gallery, office, warehouses, and home remained locked and our cards, computers, and documents were confiscated."

He said those moves were followed by accusations and interrogations that "indicated a deeper plot."

With reporting by APA strong earthquake has hit the Hindu Kush mountain range in Afghanistan, causing casualties in the country and in neighboring Pakistan.

A girl was killed and at least 15 others injured in various parts of Pakistan as a result of the January 31 quake, the newspaper Dawn reported.

At least three people were injured in the northeastern Afghan province of Badakhshan, according to Gul Mohammad Bedar, the provincial deputy governor. However, Bedar said he did not know how they were injured.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck in the Hindu Kush mountain range in Afghanistan.

Its epicenter of was 35 kilometers south of Jarm in the northeastern corner of Afghanistan near the Tajik border, at a depth of 191 kilometers.

Reports said the quake was felt in Kabul, Dushanbe, Islamabad, and New Delhi.

The Pakistani girl was killed and at least eight other people injured when roofs collapsed on mud-brick homes in the village of Lasbela in the southwestern province of Balochistan, said Asmat Ullah from the provincial disaster-management agency.

In the northwestern city of Peshawar, four girls were injured during a rush to evacuate their school, local official Tauseefur Rehman said.

TV footage showed people fleeing houses, offices, and schools in panic in Islamabad and elsewhere in Pakistan after the quake struck around lunchtime.

"It was scary. We all ran out. We thought roofs and walls are going to fall on us," Adeel Ahmed from the northern town of Balakot told the dpa news agency.

Mobile-phone signals were temporarily disrupted in both Islamabad and Peshawar due to the quake, Dawn reported.

Kabul residents, already on edge following a series of deadly attacks, also ran out of buildings in panic after the earthquake.

Bedar, Badakhshans deputy governor, said that the quake caused cracks in the walls of a number of houses in the province.

He said officials were trying to collect information from the remote districts in Badakhshan, where the Taliban has a strong presence.

Mohammad Mustafa, acting district governor in Jarm, said that authorities had no communications with dozens of villages.

Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, which lies near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.

A 7.5-magnitude earthquake rocked the region in October 2015, killing more than 400 people and leaving several thousand homeless in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.

And in October 2005, a 7.6-magnitude quake struck the Pakistani-administered part of Kashmir and killed at least 79,000 people in the country, with additional fatalities reported in India and Afghanistan.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, dpa, and DawnThe Afghan intelligence chief and interior minister have traveled to Islamabad to discuss cooperation on security issues with Pakistani officials following a series of deadly attacks in Afghanistan.

Masoom Stanekzai, head of the National Security Directorate, and Interior Minister Wais Barmak arrived in Islamabad on January 31 on a surprise visit.

Javed Faisal, a spokesman for Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah said the two officials will share "evidence and documents with Pakistani officials, particularly about the recent attacks in Kabul."

Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Faisal said in a message on Twitter that the Afghan government had requested the meeting to deliver "a message from Afghan president and for discussions about cooperation between the two countries."

"The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the recent brutal attacks in Kabul. The main purpose of the [Afghan delegation's] trip was to share some information about these attacks with the Pakistani side. Our side demanded strict action and asked that Pakistan take serious steps [based on the information]," Afghanistans deputy ambassador to Pakistan, Zardasht Shams told RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal.

Earlier, Pakistan's Embassy in Kabul said in a statement that a delegation led by Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua is to visit Afghanistan on February 3 to hold "constructive and meaningful discussions" with Afghan officials on issues including counterterrorism.

The visit by Stanikzai and Barmak comes a day after Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said it handed over 27 militants to Afghan authorities in November, including members of the Haqqani network, which is based in Pakistan and allied with the Taliban.

The Afghan capital in recent weeks has been hit by several deadly assaults, including a massive suicide car bombing on January 27 that killed more than 100 people and was claimed by the Taliban.

Afghan officials said the attack was carried out by the extremist Haqqani network..

Afghanistan and the United States have long said the Haqqani network has found safe haven in Pakistan.

Early this month, Washington announced it was suspending security assistance to the Pakistani military until it took "decisive action" against the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network that are operating in neighboring Afghanistan. U.S. officials said the freeze could affect $2 billion worth of assistance.

Islamabad denies harboring militant groups that carry out attacks in Afghanistan.UN negotiator Matthew Nimetz has arrived in Macedonia for talks with the country's leadership, in a relaunched effort to settle a dispute with neighboring Greece over Macedonia's official name.

Nimetz, who has already met with Greek officials in Athens, says there appears to be momentum for solving the dispute that has poisoned the two countries' relations since Macedonia won independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991.

On February 1, Nimetz will meet Macedonia's president, government officials, and opposition leaders.

"I think there is a momentum here and we should seize the momentum," Nimetz told journalists in Athens after a meeting with Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias on January 30.

"There's a time for decision-making and I think we're there," Nimetz said. "So I think, in my view, we're talking about weeks of discussion to see where we are."

"I think there is a will [in Athens], and I believe also in Skopje, to try to reach a settlement," Nimetz said.



The dispute has frozen Macedonia's NATO accession hopes, as alliance member Greece refuses to endorse its bid until a solution is found.

Greece disagrees with Skopje using the name Macedonia, arguing that this implies territorial claims on its own adjoining province, also called Macedonia.

"The first thing to discuss is a name in the language or languages of the neighboring country which cannot be translated in any other language," Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias told ERT television after the talks.

Kotzias added that Athens will submit a draft proposal to Skopje as soon as next month.

Greek officials favor a compound name that would somehow qualify the word Macedonia, although it is unpopular with right-wing populists who are the junior government partner in Athens.

Many Greeks also object to any use of the word Macedonia in their neighbor's official name.

A nationalist rally in the northern city of Thessaloniki drew more than 100,000 people on January 21, and a similar rally is scheduled in Athens on February 4.

With reporting by AP and AFP

President Hassan Rohani has said that the Iranian people continue to support the clerical establishment despite foreign pressure but insisted that the country's leaders must listen to protesters behind a recent wave of unrest.

Rohani made the comments on January 31, hours after President Donald Trump said the United States stands with the people of Iran against the country's corrupt dictatorship.

"The Iranian nation will never give up Imam Khomeini's legacy: Islamism and Republicanism. Return is impossible," Rohani said during a visit to the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of Irans Islamic republic, near Tehran.

"As long as people love the culture of Islam and love their Iran and safeguard their national unity, no superpower can change the path of this nation," he also said, referring to the United States.

Rohani also hinted that popular support was at risk if the Iranian establishment did not listen to angry protests that have swept the country in recent weeks.

"All officials of the country should have a listening ear for people's demands and wishes," he said.

During his first State of the Union address on January 30, Trump referenced the protests that hit dozens of towns and cities over the new year.

When the people of Iran rose up against the crimes of their corrupt dictatorship, I did not stay silent, he said. America stands with the people of Iran in their courageous struggle for freedom.

"Trump again confirms his ignorance of Iran & region. Everyone knows where he stands; and it's certainly not with Iranians," Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif later said in a message on Twitter.

Rohanis comments also came a day after Mehdi Karrubi, a prominent Iranian reformist who has been under house arrest for the past seven years, said that major reforms were needed "before it is too late."

In an open letter to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Karrubi said that the recent protests were inevitable because of the depth of "injustice, corruption, and discrimination" in the country.

In his address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress, Trump also called on lawmakers to help pass legislation to fix fundamental flaws in the landmark nuclear deal between world powers and Iran.

The 2015 accord, which was negotiated under President Barack Obama, lifted crippling Western economic sanctions against Tehran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.

But the U.S. president has stopped short of tearing up the deal altogether, a move some analysts feared could lead Iran to move more quickly to develop a nuclear weapon -- something Tehran says it has not done and does not plan to do.

With reporting by AP and AFPIn July 2013, nine opposition parties and groups in Georgia's breakaway republic of Abkhazia aligned in a Coordinating Council that succeeded the following year in ousting de facto President Aleksandr Ankvab in what was portrayed as a bloodless coup. Earlier this month, Abkhazia's main opposition parties similarly established a Union of Political Parties and Public Organizations with the stated aim of using all available legal means to force the resignation of Raul Khajimba, who was elected Ankvab's successor in an early presidential poll in August 2014.

In one key respect, however, the political landscape has changed over the past five years: The parliament elected in March 2017 has begun to play a more active role, challenging perceived failings on the part of the executive branch, rather than simply endorsing legislation drafted by the presidential administration.

For most of the past three years, Abkhaz domestic politics has been dominated by the mutual antagonism between Khajimba and the opposition. Initially, the most active and outspoken opposition force was the Amtsakhara (Keep the Home Fires Burning) union of veterans of the 1992-93 war that culminated in the loss of Georgia's control over the region. In early 2015, Amtsakhara began accusing Khajimba of failing to deliver on his election campaign pledges to expedite economic growth, raise living standards, and seek reconciliation with the Ankvab camp. In October of that year, it convened an emergency congress to demand his resignation, but without success.

In December 2016, the Bloc of Opposition Forces (BOS) established the previous year by Amtsakhara; the APRA Fund for Socio-Economic and Political Research headed by Aslan Bzhania, whom Khajimba had defeated in the August 2014 early presidential ballot by just 559 votes; and two other small political groups launched a new push to force Khajimba to step down. A violent confrontation in the region's capital, Sukhumi, between supporters and critics of the president was averted at the last minute by talks between the two camps that led to the signing of an agreement on social and political stability under which the BOS would stop demanding Khajimba's resignation.

In return, they received the right to nominate a first deputy prime minister, several deputy ministers, the prosecutor-general, four members of the new Central Election Commission, and two members of the newly established Constitutional Court. In addition, the parliament was to set about drafting constitutional amendments that would redistribute power between the legislature and the executive, including the president.

The truce between the two camps lasted barely six months, however, primarily because Khajimba failed to comply with the provisions of the agreement. Following yet another emergency congress in late June 2017, Amtsakhara and the BOS issued separate statements announcing their withdrawal from the agreement on the grounds that the Abkhaz leadership had not fulfilled its obligations.

Amtsakhara and the BOS did not, however, immediately renew their efforts to force Khajimba to step down. On the contrary, the focus of opposition discourse began to shift from relentless criticism of Khajimba and the government to a more nuanced debate that prioritized the need for systemic reform over criticism of the region's leadership.

That comparative lull came to an abrupt end in late December when it transpired that Khajimba had pardoned and handed over to the Georgian authorities Georgy Lukava, an ethnic Georgian from Abkhazia serving a 20-year prison term for the kidnapping and murder of Abkhaz officials. Amtsakhara and two smaller opposition groups, Ainar and Kyarazaa, accused Khajimba of betraying the memory of those who fought and died in the 1992-93 war that culminated in Abkhazia's de facto separation from Georgia.

Some members of the Abkhaz leadership expressed reservations, too. Even Khajimba's vice president, Vitaly Gabnia, was quoted by the news portal Caucasian Knot as saying that if the Abkhaz side handed over a man sentenced for such serious crimes and we were not aware of it, then it has to be said that a mistake was made, and those responsible must be [identified]."

More than 1,000 people, including some Khajimba supporters, congregated in Sukhumi on January 3 to protest Lukava's release. Meeting in emergency session the same day, the parliament set up a commission headed by former Interior Minister Raul Lolua to determine whether Khajimba had, indeed, violated the law and the constitution by single-handedly deciding to release Lukava without securing the approval of the pardons commission. After Khajimba personally argued his case to lawmakers, however, the parliament commission decided to refer the issue to the Constitutional Court -- even though, as a result of Khajimba's rejection of opposition nominees, that body is still not at full strength.

That initiative reflects the albeit limited power of the new parliament to serve as a curb on and counterbalance to perceived infringements or inefficiency on the part of the president and government. Of the 35 lawmakers, some 20 are Khajimba supporters, even though only three are members of his Forum of National Unity of Abkhazia. In fact, few parliamentarians represent a specific political party. Neither Amtsakhara nor the former ruling United Abkhazia won representation, and only one of seven Ainar candidates was elected.

Instead, the remaining 15 lawmakers are loosely divided into three groups. Former President Ankvab and former CEC Chairman Batal Tabagua each head a group of five or six deputies, while the others are affiliated with Ainar or another opposition grouping, the news portal Caucasian Knot reported on March 28.

That model of informal loyalties is, however, proving increasingly tenuous and fluid. In late December, two nominally pro-Khajimba lawmakers, Ilya Gunia and Dmitry Ardzinba, called for a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Beslan Bartsits on the grounds that the 2018 draft budget submitted by the government to parliament prioritized financing the government bureaucracy over subsidizing agriculture or a comprehensive program of economic development. Twelve pro-government parliamentarians walked out of the parliament chamber before the actual no-confidence vote, which failed by just two votes. (Of the 21 remaining deputies, 16 voted in favor, two against, one abstained, and two votes were ruled invalid.)

Predictably, Khajimba reacted to the protests over Lukava's release by convening a series of public meetings in a bid to convince the population at large that he had acted within the framework of the law in pardoning Lukava, and that the opposition had organized those protests in order to score political points. Former Interior Minister Lolua categorically denies this. In a lengthy interview he gave to AbkhazInform, he said that there was no political undercurrent to [the protesters'] actions; citizens were simply demanding that the authorities make public the motives for and details of the release of a terrorist and murderer."

Khajimba subsequently dismissed the call by the new Union of Political Parties and Public Organizations for his resignation as a destructive position, a call for chaos."

In an apparent effort to underscore the key difference between the union's push for Khajimba's resignation and the storming in May 2014 of the presidential administration that triggered Ankvab's ouster, APRA Fund chairman Bzhania stressed at the union's first press conference on January 23 that the opposition was committed to acting within the framework of the law to create a situation in which Khajimba would voluntarily step down.

But even allowing for Khajimba's clear determination to remain in his post, the new union's chances of success are slight, for at least two reasons. First, it may prove difficult to reach a consensus on tactics and time frame, given the diverging priorities of its various members. Amtsakhara and Bzhania may argue that it is imperative to force Khajimba's resignation as soon as possible, given what Bzhania describes as the catastrophic state of the Abkhaz economy. Abkhazia Is Our Home leader Lolua, by contrast, insists that new legislation on both presidential and parliamentary elections must be passed before an early presidential election can be held.

Secondly, Ankvab and Tabagua have not acceded to the union and were conspicuous by their absence from its first press conference. Addressing Amtsakhara's June 2017 congress, Ankvab stressed the need to preserve political stability until the presidential election due in August 2019, rather than expose a population wearied by repeated political crises to new upheavals that could, in his words, undermine the foundations of the state. Instead, he continued, responsible people, meaning us, should concentrate on preparing for the upcoming presidential election in order to offer society an alternative, to convince citizens that we are right." Ankvab himself is not eligible to participate in that ballot, having reached the maximum age of 65 in December.

But even if Ankvab and Tabagua do not openly align with the new union, they could still play a key role in parliament by systematically thwarting any legal initiative for which Khajimba's supporters require a constitutional majority, with the possible exception of the long-awaited draft constitutional amendments on the distribution of powers between the legislative and executive branches.

The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL.Prominent Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan has been taken into custody in France after being questioned by police in connection with "rape and assault allegations."

French officials said on January 31 that the 55-year-old Ramadan was being held "as part of a preliminary inquiry."

Muslim feminist activist Henda Ayari has accused Ramadan of raping her in a Paris hotel room in 2012.

Another woman, who has not been named publicly, has accused him of raping her in a hotel in Lyon in 2009.

Ramadan denies the allegations, and his lawyers have accused the women of colluding to disgrace him.

Ramadan, whose grandfather founded the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, has taken a leave of absence from his post as a professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University.

He appears regularly in the Western media and has more than 2 million followers on Facebook.

Based on reporting by AFP, dpa, and APBRUSSELS -- Angelina Jolie, the Hollywood star and special UN envoy for refugees, has said that the use of rape as a "weapon of war" must not be accepted and urged NATO to take the lead in the deterrence of crimes against women in conflict zones.

Jolie spoke alongside NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg following talks at the headquarters of the Western military alliance on January 31.

"We talked today about NATO's potential role in helping to create greater global accountability and deterrence for crimes against women in conflict zones, to increase the representation of women in militaries, and to strengthen training and doctrine to make NATO the global military leader in this area," Jolie said.

"Violence against women and children, particularly sexual violence, is an increasing feature of conflict and insecurity worldwide," Jolie said. "Yet the use of rape as a weapon of war has been regarded an inevitable feature of conflict as a lesser crime and a problem too difficult, or too uncomfortable, for societies to address."

Jolie and Stoltenberg both said that they might visit Afghanistan to look into the issue of sexual abuse of boys and girls in the war-ravaged country.

There has been "some improvement" in Afghanistan, but "there are lot more things to be done," Jolie said. "One of the countries we have been focusing on...is Afghanistan, for this very reason."

Jolie was appointed as a special envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 2012, after years of involvement in the UNHCR and the cause of helping refugees.

With reporting by RFE/RL Correspondent Rikard Jozwiak in Brussels

BISHKEK -- Kyrgyz Prime Minister Sapar Isakov came under pressure from parliament on January 31 over a power-station accident that left thousands of households in Bishkek without heat in bitterly cold weather.

Lawmakers demanded that Isakov come to the legislature on January 31 and some called for his resignation after he initially sent a deputy.

Isakov showed up later in the day and said that he takes full responsibility for the accident, which came less than a year after a costly modernization of the Bishkek Thermal Power Station was completed.

He said he would do his best to determine the exact cause of the outage, which authorities say followed a problem with a pump at the plant.

The accident occurred on January 26, when the temperature in Bishkek fell to nearly minus 30 degrees Celsius. The Prosecutor-General's Office launched an investigation on January 30.

Alternate sources are being used, but residents say heating has not been fully restored. Temperatures remain below freezing.

Earlier on January 31, the government said that Isakov recommended that the power plant's director and another official be dismissed.

The modernization, started in 2014 and finished in 2017, was done by the Chinese company TBEA using a $386 million credit from China's Export-Import Bank.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree naming the 23rd fighter aviation regiment the "Tallinn" regiment, after the capital of neighboring Estonia.

The decree, which was signed on January 29, was published on the Kremlin website on January 31.

It states that the name has been bestowed "to preserve glorious military traditions." The 23rd fighter aviation regiment is based in Far Eastern Khabarovsk Krai.

Putin's decree has sparked concern in Estonia, a NATO member that has often had strained ties with Russia since it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

The Soviet Union occupied the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 1940 as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact signed with Nazi Germany in 1939 on the eve of World War II.

The three countries were later incorporated into the Soviet Union, a move that was never recognized by the United States.

The Soviet Air Force bombarded retreating German forces across Estonia in 1944.

In March 1944, Soviet planes destroyed more than 90 percent of the city of Narva.

With reporting by Estonianworld.com

A Romanian auction house has marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of former communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu with a sale of his clothes, vintage toilet paper, and other memorabilia.

The ironically named Golden Era online auction, organized on January 31 by the Artmark auction house, included some 250 items, including a fur-lined hunting cap worn by Ceausescu, who was an avid hunter. It sold for 400 euros ($500).

Bespoke shoes and a purse in mint-green leather made for his wife, Elena Ceausescu, fetched 600 euros ($750). A single roll of vintage toilet paper, which was scarce in the late days of communism, went for 10 euros ($12.5).

On January 26, the 100th anniversary of his birthday, a small group of die-hard, mostly elderly supporters gathered to mourn at his grave in a Bucharest cemetery.



Other historical items sold in the auction include a 1975 invitation to dinner from the last shah of Iran and a New Year's card from U.S. President Gerald Ford.

It also included a photo of U.S. President Richard Nixon, who visited Romania in 1969 -- the year after Ceausescu refused to join the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. That was seen as an act of rebellion that for a while earned him a reputation in the West as a maverick leader within the Soviet bloc.

One of the most expensive items, a large wool carpet featuring Ceausescu's beaming face, along with Vlad the Impaler and other Romanian heroes, sold for 1,600 euros ($2,000), twice the starting price.

Ceausescu came to power in 1965 and was popular until the early 1970s, riding a wave of a nationalist brand of communism.

He later attempted to turn Romania into a North-Korean style hereditary dictatorship, with the official communist media dubbing his rule the Golden Era, while a large majority of Romanians suffered from hunger and cold, and were subjected to surveillance by the dreaded Securitate secret police.

Ceausescu's rule ended in December 1989, when the dictator and his wife were executed after a hasty and controversial trial following a bloody popular uprising in which more than 1,000 people were killed.

With reporting by APPolice in Moscow have questioned an independent journalist who came under fire from the state last year over an article about a Russian man who joined Islamist militants in Syria.

Before taking Pavel Nikulin for questioning, police searched his apartment on January 31, saying that he was a witness in a case related to suspicions of terrorist training, a lawyer for the NGO Open Russia said.

Nikulin wrote on Telegram later that he had been released after questioning.

Lawyer Roman Klimov said police confiscated Nikulin's electronic devices, copies of Moloko Plus -- the magazine he edits -- and T-shirts with the magazine's logo.

Earlier, Nikulin wrote on Twitter that police came to his home to conduct a search in a case related to his article in The New Times magazine.

In June 2017, a Moscow court fined The New Times for publishing Nikulin's article about a young ethnic Russian man from the city of Kaluga, near Moscow, who converted to Islam and joined Islamist militants in Syria.

Before the court ruling, Russian media regulator Roskomnadzor warned The New Times that Nikulin's article contained elements of the "justification of terrorism."

The New Times' editor, Yevgenia Albats, called Roskomnadzor's warning "classic censorship" at the time, noting that President Vladimir Putin had publicly said many times that thousands of Russia citizens had joined Islamist militants in Syria.

Rights groups say Putin's government uses legislation that is ostensibly aimed at fighting extremism and terrorism to target Kremlin critics and silent dissent.

With reporting by MediazonaA Moscow math instructor accused of trying to spark riots with Internet posts including a Kanye West rap video has been released from house arrest but still faces charges.

Dmitry Bogatov, who teaches at the Moscow Financial and Judicial University, can leave his home but is now under court order to remain in the capital, lawyer Sarkis Darbinyan said.

He said the charges -- calling for terrorism and attempting to incite mass disorder -- remained in place.

Bogatov was arrested in April 2017 after the authorities blamed him for calls for rallies in downtown Moscow that circulated on the Internet in March.

Investigators claimed that Bogatov used software that made it impossible to trace the posts to him.

Bogatov spent first three months after his arrest in jail and was then placed under house arrest, which expired on January 31.

Bogatov has maintained his innocence and said he had an alibi.

On January 24, Darbinyan said that forensics tests had not confirmed that Bogatov's laptops and memory cards contained any illegal material or evidence linking him to the alleged crimes.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Russian Service, Rapsinews, Mediazona, and TASSRussian President Vladimir Putin has awarded Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic the Order of Friendship, a state medal he bestows upon several foreigners every year.

Dacic was honored for "achievements in strengthening friendship and cooperation between nations," according to the text of Putin's decree, which was posted on an official Russian government website on January 30.

A former prime minister, Dacic is considered one of the most pro-Russian politicians in Serbia.

The Balkan country is seeking to join the European Union but also to preserve warm ties with Moscow, which shares its Orthodox Christian heritage and has supported Belgrade in numerous disputes with the West.

The award comes weeks after Dacic and President Aleksandar Vucic visited Moscow, where they held talks with Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Days before the December visit, Vucic said Serbia was planning to buy Russian military-transport helicopters and air-defense systems. He said that Serbia had embarked on a pro-European course but it had no plans to join NATO.

Serbia's moves to heighten military ties with Moscow have worried the West and neighboring countries, including Bosnia-Herzegovina and NATO member Croatia.

With reporting by TASS and InterfaxON MY MIND

One of the most striking things about Russia's current election campaign is that most of the speculation, analysis, and punditry is focused on what will happen after Putin's inevitable re-coronation.

In a must-read piece featured below, Tatiana Stanovaya looks at the personnel changes that are in the works after the election and what they portend for the system.

In a piece featured in The Morning Vertical earlier this week, Ilya Rozhdestvensky looked at leaks suggesting that a major reorganization of the security services is back on the table, as is the long-discussed idea to establish a Ministry of State Security that would effectively revive the old Soviet-era KGB.

And in another piece featured this week, Oleg Kashin looked at how street protests have become an inexorable part of the Putin system and will likely be well into the future.

The system is clearly in flux and March 18 is increasingly appearing to be a watershed event -- even though the result of the so-called election is a foregone conclusion.

As Stanovaya and other have noted, Putin will need to make a big choice during his next term in the Kremlin: repeal the constitutional limit on more than two consecutive terms, leave the presidency but assure his continued rule by some as-yet-to-be-defined constitutional reform, or truly leave power and anoint a trusted successor.

Each of these options has risks, and the next six years will be a protracted negotiation between Putin and the elite about what shape the system will take.

And this negotiation will take place at a time when a critical mass of the society -- a critical mass that Aleksei Navalny has skillfully tapped into -- is becoming increasingly restive.

Russia's real election will take place in the backrooms and on the streets -- and it will happen after March 18.

IN THE NEWS

U.S. senators have criticized President Donald Trump for not imposing new sanctions on Russia after his administration released a list of 210 officials and billionaires from the country's ruling elite, exposing them to scrutiny and potential future punitive measures.

Trump has been overheard telling a Republican lawmaker that he was "100 percent" in favor of publicly releasing a classified intelligence memo on the investigation into Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections.

Police in Moscow have arrested two prominent associates of opposition politician Aleksei Navalny on charges of urging people to participate in an illegal public demonstration.

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Russia violated the rights of three men who were jailed in connection with a protest on the eve of President Vladimir Putin's inauguration to his current term.

Vladimir Putin has called the whistle-blower who has provided evidence of what investigators say was an elaborate state-sponsored doping program a "jerk" who should not be trusted.

A conference in Russia aimed at helping resolve Syria's seven-year civil war concluded on January 30 with a final statement that endorsed the country's territorial integrity and called for self-determination through "democratic" elections.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo has said Russia will target U.S. midterm elections in November as part of the Kremlin's efforts to influence domestic politics across the West.

Ukraine says one of its soldiers has been killed and two wounded in clashes that took place in the country's east.

Hungary is seeking the introduction of more exemptions to the European Union's arms embargo on Belarus, according to several sources familiar with the matter.

WHAT I'M READING

Reactions To The Kremlin List

In his column for Bloomberg, political commentator Leonid Bershidsky argues that the U.S. Treasury Department's list of the most influential Russian officials suggests that the White House is not serious about sanctions.

In her column for Republic.ru, political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya suggests that despite the criticisms of the list, it could still have a profound effect on the Russian elite.

Washington Post columnist Christian Caryl argues that the list "offers a graphic reminder that the Putin regime is founded on systemic corruption."

Anders Aslund of The Atlantic Council claims that the list that was ultimately released was not the original and ignored the advice of experts.

In an op-ed for The Moscow Times, Alina Ryzhonkova, a researcher at Control Risks, argues that the list provides little clarity for businesses in Russia.

The Guardian and Reuters each have pieces looking at reactions to the list among U.S. officials.

Cadre Rotations

In a piece for the Carnegie Russia website, Tatiana Stanovaya looks at personnel change in the Russian political system in advance of the March 18 presidential election.

Putin's Speeches

In advance of Putin's state-of-the-nation speech next week, opposition journalist Oleg Kashin looks at how the ritual of Putin's big public addresses is changing.

Monuments, Monuments, Everywhere

Novaya Gazeta has a piece looking at the proliferation of monuments being erected in Moscow.U.S. President Donald Trump has described China and Russia as rivals that must be confronted with "unmatched power," and has called on Congress to fix "fundamental flaws" in the landmark nuclear deal between world powers and Iran.

Trump made the remarks on January 30 in his first State of the Union address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress.

The speech dwelt overwhelmingly on domestic U.S. issues, like rebuilding the country's crumbling infrastructure, an opioid epidemic ravaging some regions, and reforming immigration policies.

But Trump also took time to focus on major foreign-policy challenges faced by the United States.

He referred to "rogue regimes, terrorist groups, and rivals like China and Russia that challenge our interests, our economy, and our values."

"In confronting these dangers, we know that weakness is the surest path to conflict, and unmatched power is the surest means of our defense," he said.

"For this reason, I am asking the Congress to end the dangerous defense sequester and fully fund our great military," he said, referring to a budget deal several years ago that sought to rein in defense spending.

He also referenced recent protests against Iran's ruling Islamic clerics that have swept that country.

"When the people of Iran rose up against the crimes of their corrupt dictatorship, I did not stay silent," he said. "America stands with the people of Iran in their courageous struggle for freedom."

He called on Congress to help pass legislation to fix the 2015 nuclear deal that lifted crippling Western economic sanctions against Tehran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.

Trump and many Republicans have routinely criticized the deal, which was negotiated by his predecessor, Barack Obama.

But Trump has stopped short of tearing up the deal altogether, a move some analysts feared could lead Iran to move more quickly to develop a nuclear weapon -- something Tehran says it has not done and does not plan to do.

"I am asking the Congress to address the fundamental flaws in the terrible Iran nuclear deal," Trump said.

Trump also said North Korea's "reckless pursuit" of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten the United States.

He said the United States was waging a campaign of "maximum pressure" against North Korea and its nuclear weapons ambitions, and he called Pyongyang a "cruel dictatorship."

Keeping Guantanamo Open

He also announced that he had signed an executive order to keep the high-security U.S. military detention center open at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds of dangerous terrorists, only to meet them again on the battlefield -- including the ISIS leader, al-Baghdadi," Trump said.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was captured in Iraq by U.S. forces and held in a prison near Baghdad. In 2004, however, he was handed over to Iraqi authorities, who released him some time later.

"I just signed an order directing [Defense] Secretary [Jim] Mattis to reexamine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay," Trump said.

The executive order reversed a decision by Obama to close the facility -- an order that was never fully implemented because of opposition from U.S. lawmakers.

The detention center was initially opened by President George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in order to hold and interrogate suspected enemy combatants.

At its peak in 2003, it held about 680 detainees. More than 500 were released during the Bush administration and 197 during Obama's eight years in office. It now holds 41 detainees.

A Reset For Year 2?

The speech caps a tumultuous first year in the White House for Trump.

Trump and Republican allies succeeded in passing a major tax overhaul, and the U.S. economy has been humming along at a strong clip, with unemployment continuing to drop and stock markets rising to new heights.

But since Trump's inauguration in January 2017, his presidency has been punctuated by an unusual number of high-ranking staff turnovers, interagency disputes, and backbiting conflicts.

His first year in office has also been dogged by criminal and congressional investigations into interactions between Trump associates and Russian officials.

Four associates have been either indicted on, or pleaded guilty to, various charges including lying to FBI investigators. That includes Trumps first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

Trumps approval ratings among Americans have also hovered at record lows for any president one year into a term.

Experts and political observers noted that Trump's speech echoes past State of the Union addresses in its call for unity and bipartisanship and extolling American virtues. But given Trump's penchant for inflammatory rhetoric, they say that spirit was unlikely to persist, particularly since congressional elections will be held in November.

"Every major address like this is an opportunity for reset, but that is unlikely in this case and even more unlikely still given that it's an election year," Lanhee Chen, a former adviser to former Republican Governor Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, told The New York Times.

"The real problem is that people just do not listen to his words and treat them with the seriousness that they afford other presidents," presidential historian Michael Beschloss was quoted by The Washington Post as saying. "He has been on so many sides of so many issues that even if it is a good speech, people will figure that it is not going to last long."

State of the Union speeches are typically followed by a rebuttal, or response, from the political party whose candidate is not in the White House.

In remarks that were also carried live by many networks, Democratic Representative Joe Kennedy criticized Trump for stoking anxiety and fear among many Americans.

"It would be easy to dismiss this past year as chaos. As partisanship. As politics. But it's far, far bigger than that. This administration isn't just targeting the laws that protect us -- they are targeting the very idea that we are all worthy of protection," he said.

Kennedy is the latest member of one of the most famous U.S. political dynasties to hold political office. He is the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, the former senator and U.S. attorney general, and grand-nephew of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy.Ukraine says one of its soldiers has been killed and two wounded in clashes that took place in the country's east.

The Defense Ministry said on January 31 that Russia-backed separatists violated a frequently breached cease-fire three times during the previous 24 hours, firing machine guns, grenade launchers, and mortars.

Meanwhile, the separatists claimed that Ukrainian government forces shelled the town of Dokushayevsk, which they control, damaging an apartment in a five-story building.

Since April 2014, more than 10,300 people have been killed by fighting between Kyiv's forces and the separatists who control parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Cease-fire deals announced as part of the Minsk accords -- September 2014 and February 2015 pacts aimed to resolve the conflict -- have failed to hold.

A new cease-fire agreement was reached in late 2017 and was meant to begin on December 23, but both sides have accused each other of cease-fire violations since then.

With reporting by Interfax and TASSThe Ukrainian government has fired tax and customs service chief Roman Nasirov, who was suspended from the post after his arrest on suspicion of embezzlement in March 2017.

Prime Minister Volodymyr Hroysman said on January 31 that the State Commission for Senior State Service Personnel had approved the government's recommendation that Nasirov be dismissed.

Nasirov is being investigated on suspicion of defrauding the state of 2 billion hryvnyas ($70 million).

He is one of the highest officials to face prosecution in Ukraine, whose pro-Western government is under pressure from the United States, the European Union, and donor organizations to tackle a deep-seated graft problem.

Nasirov was arrested after the National Anticorruption Bureau accused him of signing off on grace periods for a number of taxpayers, including companies linked to a former lawmaker who fled the country in 2016 while facing a corruption investigation.

Shortly after his arrest, he was released on bail but ordered to wear an electronic bracelet and barred from leaving Kyiv without investigators' permission.

Western officials say corruption hurts Ukraine's chances of throwing off the influence of Russia, which seized the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and backs separatists whose war with Kyiv has killed more than 10,300 people in eastern Ukraine.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service, UNIAN and 5 KanalU.S. President Donald Trump says he has signed an executive order to keep the high-security U.S. military detention center open at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Trump made the announcement during his State of the Union address to the U.S. Congress late on January 30.

"In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds of dangerous terrorists, only to meet them again on the battlefield -- including the ISIS leader, al-Baghdadi," Trump said in his address.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was captured in Iraq by U.S. forces and held in a prison near Baghdad. In 2004, however, he was handed over to Iraqi authorities, who released him some time later.

"I just signed an order directing [Defense] Secretary [Jim] Mattis to reexamine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay," Trump said.

The executive order reverses a decision by Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, to close the controversial facility -- preserving the detention center as a U.S. counterterrorism tool.

President George W. Bush opened Guantanamo after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States in order to hold and interrogate suspected enemy combatants.

At its peak in 2003, it held about 680 detainees. More than 500 were released during the Bush administration and 197 during Obama's eight years in office. It now holds 41 detainees.

Obama's 2009 executive order stated the detention center should be closed "as soon as practicable," but it remained open because of opposition to its closure from the U.S. Congress.

One of the most infamous detainees there is the alleged mastermind of the September 11 terrorist attacks against the United States, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad. He has been held at Guantanamo Bay since 2006.

During his 2016 election campaign for the U.S. presidency, Trump pledged to keep the facility open, saying, "We're gonna load it up with some bad dudes, believe me, we're gonna load it up."

With reporting by Mike Eckel in Washington, AP, Reuters, ABC-TV, and PoliticoWASHINGTON -- U.S. senators have criticized President Donald Trump for not imposing new sanctions on Russia after his administration released a list of 210 officials and billionaires from the country's ruling elite, exposing them to scrutiny and potential future punitive measures.

Meanwhile, a former top U.S. State Department official closely involved in sanctions policy, slammed the new measures, in particular the so-called "oligarchs list," calling its contents and its roll-out "somewhere between puzzling and inexplicable."

In the letter sent a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Senator Ben Cardin, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and 19 other Senate Democrats said the failure by the Trump administration to impose new sanctions was "unacceptable."

The letter came after the U.S. Treasury Department released early on January 30 a list of 114 senior Russian political figures and 96 "oligarchs" who U.S. authorities say have gained wealth or power through association with President Vladimir Putin, who is set to secure six more years in the Kremlin in a March 18 election.

The list of Russian political figures and tycoons is the result of a 2017 law intended to increase pressure on Russia in response to Moscow's alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, its military intervention in Ukraine, and other actions that have caused U.S. concern.

But it has been criticized in the United States and abroad, with observers saying the list appeared to have been put together with little care.

"It also appears to have been insufficiently vetted," Daniel Fried, who helped coordinate U.S. sanctions policies across two administrations, said on January 31. "This was somewhere between puzzling and inexplicable."

Trump's administration has notified Congress that it will not impose new sanctions on Russia at this time.

However, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on January 30 that "in the near future, you'll see additional sanctions." He added that such sanctions could come "in the next several months, maybe a month."

Trump reluctantly signed the Counter America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) law in August after it was passed by an overwhelming majority in both chambers of the U.S. legislature. The law followed the assessment released in January 2017 by the country's intelligence community that said that Putin ordered a campaign aimed at influence the U.S. election.

The published list is part of the unclassified version of the so-called Kremlin Report, which was submitted to Congress on January 29 -- just ahead of a deadline set by CAATSA.

A senior State Department official told a press briefing that January 29 "was not a deadline to impose sanctions; it was actually a start date. It was the start of the race. It was the day on or after which we could start imposing sanctions if we make the determination here at the State Department of activity that falls under the provision."

In their letter, the 20 senators accused the administration of failing to do everything possible to deter any future foreign election interference and expressed "concern" that its policies on Russia "do not fully reflect the clear congressional intent described in the legislation."

"This is unacceptable," they wrote. "By imposing no new sanctions under CAATSA mandates, the U.S. remains vulnerable to an emboldened Russian government in advance of this November's congressional elections."

Some Republicans also expressed doubts over the administration's sanctions decision, with Senator Susan Collins calling it "perplexing."

"The one thing we know for sure already, is the Russians did attempt to meddle in our elections and not only should there be a price to pay in terms of sanctions but also we need to put safeguards in place right now for the elections for this year," she told CNN.

Putin called the report "an unfriendly act" that would "complicate the already grave situation that Russian-American relations are in and inflict damage, no doubt, on international relations as a whole."

But he signaled that Moscow's response would be muted, saying that it would be "utter stupidity to drive our relations down to zero."

U.S. intelligence agencies' conclusion that Putin had ordered a concerted hacking-and-propaganda campaign found that the effort was aimed at undermining faith in the U.S. electoral process, denigrating Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton, and improving Trump's chances of winning.

That issue has cast a shadow over the Trump administrations first year, as have congressional and FBI investigations into the meddling as well as interactions between Trump associates and Russian officials.

Four associates have been either indicted on, or pleaded guilty to, various charges including lying to FBI investigators. That includes Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

Trump denies there was any collusion and Putin has denied that Russia interfered in the election, despite what U.S. officials say is substantial evidence.

That cloud has stoked suspicion about all aspects of the administrations policies toward Russia, even as it has largely continued a policy of pushing back against Moscow begun under Trumps predecessor, Barack Obama.

"I think this was a tactical mess-up, which reflects some problems within the administration and, I think, an inability to understand how this rushed job would be received, but it does not mean that the American will to resist Russian aggression has dissipated, Fried told the Atlantic Council.

"I think that the current, what I understand is a current sense of euphoria in the Kremlin may be misplaced, he said.

With reporting by ReutersPresident Donald Trump has been overheard telling a Republican lawmaker that he was "100 percent" in favor of publicly releasing a classified intelligence memo on the investigation into Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections.

Trump made the remark to Republican Representative Jeff Duncan on the floor of House of Representatives late on January 30 after giving his State of the Union speech.

A television camera from C-Span picked up the conversation as Duncan urged Trump to "release the memo."

"Oh yeah, don't worry," Trump told Duncan. "100 percent."

The White House had said before Trump's speech that it was still conducting a legal and national security review of the document.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters earlier on January 30 that Trump still had not been briefed on the contents of the memo.

The four-page memo was written by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, led by Representative Devin Nunes, a close ally of Trump who has become a critic of the FBI and Justice Department as they have been investigating alleged Russian meddling.

Republicans on the committee on January 29 rejected opposition from the Justice Department and voted to release the memo.

Republicans have said the memo shows the improper use of surveillance by the FBI and the Justice Department in the Russia investigation.

Democrats say the memo is a selectively edited set of Republican talking points aimed at distracting attention from the committee's own investigation on Russia activity during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

If Trump decides to release the memo, it could be made public as early as the afternoon of January 31.

Based on reporting by C-Span and APTASHKENT -- Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev has dismissed powerful longtime National Security Service (MXX) chief Rustam Inoyatov, removing an influential insider who had been seen as his rival, two senior government officials have told RFE/RL.

Mirziyoev told a meeting of the Prosecutor-General's Office and the MXX on January 31 that Inoyatov, who is 73 and led the MXX for almost 23 years, had been replaced by Ihtiyor Abdullaev, the officials said.

They said that Mirziyoev, who has reshuffled Uzbekistan's ruling elite since he came to power following the death of authoritarian President Islam Karimov in 2016, strongly criticized the way the security service had been run.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to make public statements about the matter.

Inoyatov, who holds the rank of colonel general, was one of a relatively small number of senior officials who had retained their posts since Karimov's death was announced in September 2016.

The MXX, the main successor of the Soviet-era KGB in Uzbekistan, is considered among the most closed and powerful agencies in the tightly controlled Central Asian country.

Inoyatov, who has avoided publicity and preferred to stay in the shadows, was one of the most influential officials in Uzbekistan for years.

When Karimov was dying after suffering a stroke following a quarter-century in power, many believed that Inoyatov would succeed him -- or more likely maneuver an ally into the presidency.

Speculation that Inoyatov was on his way out started circulating after Mirziyoev's December 22 speech to parliament, in which he harshly criticized the MXX and its leadership and called for immediate reforms in the agency.

Mirziyoev lambasted the security service, Interior Ministry, and Prosecutor-General's Office for what he called "systemic violations of ordinary people's rights," including the principle of presumed innocence.

Mirziyoev also stressed the importance of reforms in the address, saying that government actions must be based on democratic principles.

Uzbekistan's relations with Western countries and its neighbors were strained under Karimov, whose government was accused by human rights groups of severe and pervasive abuses.

In recent months, several public figures, journalists, and politicians jailed on what rights activists say were politically motivated charges have been released.

In October, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that Uzbek authorities had taken "some positive steps" during Mirziyoev's first year in office and called for "sustainable" improvements in human rights.

The rumors of Inoyatov's imminent ouster gained more traction this month when Mirziyoev demanded that MXX personnel be removed from Uzbek embassies abroad, saying ambassadors cannot be under surveillance as they are presidential envoys.

Abdullaev, 51, was the prosecutor-general until his appointment to replace Inoyatov.Another municipal police officer shot in Cancun

Cancun, Q.R.  A Cancun policeman who was shot outside his home Tuesday evening arriving from work, was rushed to hospital in serious condition.

The officer of the Cancun Municipal Police was shot and hit twice after completing his shift and returning home. The officer was shot at by individuals, witnesses say was on board a red car.

Upon hearing the gun fire, the policeman ran for cover, but not before receiving two bullet wounds to his arm.

The incident took place at approximately 6:30 p.m. in SM 251 of Cancun.

Nearby on-duty Municipal Police arrived at the scene and met with the injured man who quickly identified himself as an fellow officer.

Police did not wait for the ambulance, but instead, drove him to the General Hospital aboard a patrol unit.

The elements of the Ministerial Police arrived to interview the witnesses, while criminal experts were in charge of processing the scene.

The injured officer has been identified only as Lester, who was a member of the Tourist Police of the Cancun Hotel Zone as well as Municipal Officer of the city.

This was the third shooting against a Cancun police officer this month.Connection refused

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This means that we lost contact with the database server at localhost . This could mean your hosts database server is down.

Are you sure the database server is running?

Are you sure the database server is not under particularly heavy load?

If youre unsure what these terms mean you should probably contact your host. If you still need help you can always visit the WordPress Support Forums.Launched in July at Rs 25.3 lakh, Hyundai Kona has received good response from customers. Within 10 days of launch, Kona had received 120 confirmed bookings. This is quite good for a premium EV and shows that theres potential for electric passenger cars in the country.

Thanks to reduction in GST for EVs, price was reduced to Rs 23.71 lakhs. Hyundai has said that enquiries for Kona and footfall at dealerships have also increased. Kona is available at 15 dealerships across 11 cities.

Now that deliveries have commenced, Kona owners have shared their first impression of their new electric car. In one such first impression is shared by Akhil, who has posted his experience of using the Kona. Here is the first Hyundai Kona electric owner review of drive range and charging cost.

One of the biggest point of discussion about the Kona electric, was its drive range. Hyundai India has claimed that Kona can deliver a drive range of 452 kms on a full charge. Here is what Hyundai Kona electric owner, Akhil has to say about the same.

Akhil has focused on finding out the actual mileage of Kona, something that many people would like to know. Official ARAI rated mileage for Kona is 452 kms on single 100% charge, but as with all vehicles, drive range in real-life conditions is usually less. Akhil set out to find exactly that by running his Kona from full charge to almost empty.

During the test, Akhil drove his Kona in city traffic as well as on open roads in Eco mode. Around 90% of the entire journey was on city roads, while 10% was on open roads. Air conditioning was used during 50% of the journey.

When the battery status reached 4%, Akhil stopped the car and took readings from the instrument console. The trip meter showed 345.8 km, which is quite good even though it falls short of the rated mileage. The car could have run 18 km more, as can be seen in the distance to empty screen.

Akhil is confident that Kona can easily touch 425-450 km on highways and open roads. This specific test was conducted largely in city traffic, which is why mileage was around 100 km less than claimed.

Akhil also mentions actual running cost of Kona, wherein 40 units of electricity is consumed for a full charge. This is around Rs 250, as per existing power cost. However, this figure may vary, as electricity rates are different for most states. Considering Konas 350 km range in real-life conditions, per km cost is less than Rs 1 (71 paisa), which is better than even entry level hatchbacks such as Maruti Alto.A review of research on how information services based on mobile phone technology can improve the lives of farmers has found only patchy evidence of success.

The review, which looked at 23 studies of such services in Africa, Asia and Latin America, found that although users often reported improvements, these were perceived benefits not always borne out by tangible evidence, such as changing trading patterns and price gains.

Mobile phone services for farmers comprise text message services, helplines and apps that provide information on training or weather forecasts, as well as accessing markets, financing and inputs such as fertilisers.

It is hard to put a finger on what makes an app successful, Michael Kende

Developers of these services, funders and others believe these services hold promise for developing world farmers  to help them improve their yields, for example, or achieve stronger negotiation positions when taking goods to market.

But Heike Baumuller , a researcher at the Center for Development Research of the University of Bonn in Germany, who conducted the review, says that developers failure to look at the context in which farmers use these services means many are under-utilised. Some of the data shows usage rates dropping among women, for example, or recommendations not acted on due to logistics.

There are only a few studies looking at who is using these services and what the needs of users are, explains Baumuller. If developers dont understand how a service fits into farmers lives, it can easily happen that these services arent effective.

Pricing information for different markets is one example, she says: this would not help farmers if bad roads or lack of transport prevents them from accessing those markets.

The review, published in the January issue of the Journal of International Development, found that most studies of mobile services relied heavily on farmers perceptions, rather than independently verifiable data. In addition, studies rarely differentiated between men and women, even though in many countries there are stark gender differences in access to technology and money.

Some developers have recognised the problem of ensuring mobile services take context into account. James Legg, a Tanzania-based plant virologist at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, has spent two years working with field researchers and software developers to improve an app to diagnose cassava diseases.

The first factor for a successful application is obviously that farmers can access and use it, Legg tells SciDev.Net. So, you need something that is free and in their own language.

Baumuller says developers should also start developing apps and information sources that address wider community problems. Her review found that most services focus exclusively on farmers  but there is room for apps targeting transport providers and market brokers, she says, which would help farmers by enabling bigger companies to buy from them.

Mobile services can be useful elsewhere, and still a farmer would profit, says Baumuller. If you want to support smallholder farmers, you dont have to make their world so small.

The review suggests that future studies should include data collected by independent investigators. It also says more studies should assess different usage patterns and how these develop over time, rather than just counting users versus non-users at a specific point in time.

Michael Kende, a former chief economist of the advocacy organization the Internet Society group, agrees that there are knowledge gaps. Part of the problem, he says, is that mobile app stores and developers have no obligation to share usage data with researchers.

It is hard to put a finger on what makes an app successful, says Kende. But I think that it has to be designed and tested in the local context, using local networks to make sure it is relevant and that it works.[NAIROBI] Addressing data gaps and strengthening of health systems could help Sub-Saharan Africa reduce the rapidly rising burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), experts say.

This was said during the third anniversary of Healthy Heart Africa (HHA), an initiative that aims to tackle hypertension and cardiovascular disease in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The experts comprising research scientists, health professionals and policymakers from the health sector say that NCDs such as mental illness, hypertension, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases are on the rise globally but are not accorded the necessary attention to control them, especially in Africa.

We need data to attract the necessary funds needed to eradicate NCDs. Ephraim Maree, Ministry of Health, Kenya

According to the WHO, NCDs contributed to 38 million (68 per cent) of the 56 million deaths globally in 2012, with almost 28 million deaths from NCDs occurring in low- and middle-income countries, including those in Africa. By 2020, the increase in deaths from NCDs is expected to be 17 per cent globally whereas in Africa it is projected to be 27 per cent.

During the event held in Kenya this month (19 January), the experts called for supporting local health systems through increasing awareness of the symptoms and risks of NCDs and offering education, screening, reduced-cost treatment and control in Africa.

The initiative of the US-headquartered pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca also aims to train healthcare providers to implement community-based interventions and to help people get access to affordable medicines.

We launched this initiative in Kenya and Ethiopia to help reduce the rising burden of NCDs in Africa, said Ashling Mulvaney, senior director of HHA.

Mulvaney said that the initiative will be expanded to five countries this year to help reach their target of screening ten million people by 2025.

But we want to go beyond screening and link the patients treatment after diagnosis, Mulvaney told SciDev.Net, adding that HHA had screened almost three million people in Ethiopia and Kenya since its launch in 2014.

Jim Massey, vice-president for sustainability at AstraZeneca, said that public-private partnerships are key to controlling NCDs, the leading cause of death globally.

Partnerships with ministries of health, policymakers, scientists, and research organisations, he said, could help address the challenge holistically and foster sustainability. He added that disease awareness is important for prevention, noting that in Kenya, one in every four people may be hypertensive but they do not know.

Ephraim Maree, a research fellow from the NCDs division of Kenyas Ministry of Health, explain that NCDs are generally neglected because of data gaps. We need data to attract the necessary funds needed to eradicate NCDs, Maree said.

Maree added that Kenya has inadequate baseline data on NCDs, thus making it difficult to persuade the government to allocated money needed to combat the burden of NCDs.

Grace Mugambi, a community health worker from Kikuyu Health Centre in Kiambu county, Kenya, tells SciDev.Net that increased training of local health workers, who interact with patients daily, is important in fighting against NCDs.

Community health workers could help persuade more people to get screened and save lives, Mugambi adds.



This piece was produced by SciDev.Nets Sub-Saharan Africa English desk.This item is available in full to subscribers.

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Otherwise, click here to view your options for subscribing.Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus A.Dapkiunas meets the UNFPA Regional Director

31-01-2018

On January 30, 2018 during his visit to the UN Headquarters in New York, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, Andrei Dapkiunas, met with the Director of UNFPAs Regional Office for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Alanna Armitage.

During the meeting, the parties discussed preparations for the Regional Forum of National Coordinators for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Minsk, in which A.Armitage will also take part.

Background Information: Regional SDG Coordination Leaders Forum Building a Partnership to Underpin National Sustainable Development Solutions will be held in Minsk on February 21-22 this year. The forum is the first ever international event on exchange of SDGs implementation practice for joint search for optimal ways of sustainable growth and coordinated counteraction to global challenges and threats.

The Deputy Foreign Minister proposed more active cooperation with UNFPA on dissemination of positive Belarusian experience in demographic sphere.

A.Armitage, in her turn, noted a constructive level of cooperation between Belarus and UNFPA and suggested holding a joint international conference on family policy.

The parties agreed to continue active cooperation on topics that are in the sphere of the UNFPA responsibility.

   

print versionServing as San Franciscos mayor for the next few months will be the epilogue of Mark Farrells political career, as the former supervisor and venture capitalist pledged Wednesday to step away from elected office once his successor takes office in June.

This is it, Farrell told The Chronicles editorial board. Ask my wife.

After being elected to lead the city on a deeply controversial vote by the Board of Supervisors last week, Farrell said he now feels the luxury of being unshackled from political infighting and free to address some of San Franciscos most pressing problems, including homelessness, dirty streets and public safety.

I think that its a unique opportunity that not many people have in any office, and I do not want to do anything  and will not support anything  that would jeopardize that opportunity, he said.

Farrell said he would measure his success over the next few months by his capacity to keep the wheels of city government moving, so I can walk away knowing the city is going in the right direction, he said.

This is about making sure our government continues to function and that we move forward with everything thats been in place and putting our own stamp on it.

He also said he would not support any effort to build a write-in campaign for the upcoming mayoral election and that he did not intend to endorse any of the candidates in the race.

Now Playing: SF's Interim Mayor Mark Farrell sat down with Chronicle Opinion Editor John Diaz for a live interview to discuss his new position, city politics and the changing landscape of San Francisco. Video: San Francisco Chronicle

Farrell, who had been rumored as a candidate for mayor in 2019, decided not to run in the June election to fill the remainder of Mayor Ed Lees second full term after his death on Dec. 12. He cited a desire to spend time with his family and avoid the shotgun campaign cycle prompted by the compressed time span.

He said he was drawn into conversations about taking the interim mayors job amid mounting concern that London Breed was wielding too much authority since she was serving all at once as acting mayor, president of the Board of Supervisors and District Five supervisor.

Its about the structural issue we have as a city, and thats why I agreed that if this was going to happen, that I would serve in this capacity, Farrell said. For me, this wasnt about cutting a deal.

Unseating Breed, who is also running for mayor, was seen by many as a carefully orchestrated maneuver by the boards progressive bloc to prevent her from using the power of the incumbency to her advantage during the campaign. Supervisor Jane Kim and former Supervisor Angela Alioto are also running for mayor, as is former state Sen. Mark Leno.

Farrell characterized the weeks leading up to his being voted in by the board as freighted with an extraordinary amount of lobbying, but that he had no clarity that he would become mayor until the votes were cast last week.

Despite the fact that his nomination was spearheaded by the boards progressives, Farrell said he had made no political promises in return for their votes. He said he had conversations with probably over 100 people in the early weeks of January, all attempting to sway his opinion on who should be appointed mayor.

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.

One person he specifically declined to say whether he had spoken with was prominent tech investor and Breed supporter Ron Conway, who has been a major political donor in the city for years, including to Farrell.

Just before the vote at last weeks board meeting, Supervisor Hillary Ronen delivered an impassioned speech in which she took aim at tech moguls and real estate billionaires who had supported previous Mayors Gavin Newsom and Lee and who appeared to be coalescing behind Breed. Such undue influence over city politics, Ronen said, prompted her to support Farrells nomination for interim mayor.

It has been widely assumed she was referring to Conway.

I cant go through a laundry list and pluck out exactly whom I spoke to and whom I didnt, Farrell said, adding that he had not seen evidence of Conways fingerprints on the selection process.

I dont think any member of the Board of Supervisors or the mayor should be beholden to anybody, he said.

Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassaBelarusian-Austrian Intergovernmental Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation

30-01-2018

On January 30, 2018 Vienna hosted 14th meeting of the Belarusian-Austrian Intergovernmental Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation.

The Belarusian delegation was headed by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Oleg Kravchenko, the Austrian delegation was led by the Director General for Foreign Economic Relations with Central and Western Europe of the Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy, Franz Wessig.

During the meeting, the parties considered a wide range of issues, including cooperation in the field of trade in goods and services, environmental technologies, renewable energy and energy efficiency, tourism, agriculture, regional ties. Special attention was paid to the collaboration in the field of investment and finances.

The parties agreed on the implementation of a number of concrete steps and measures designed to give impetus to cooperation in the areas of mutual interest.

The agreements reached were reflected in the Protocol of the meeting of the Commission, which was signed by the Belarusian and Austrian Co-Chairs at the end of the event.

In addition, during the meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission, the Protocol of the 7th meeting of the Belarusian-Austrian working group Environmental Protection and Environmental Technologies was signed.

In the course of the visit to Austria, O.Kravchenko will meet with the Secretary General of the Federal Ministry for European Affairs, Integration and Foreign Affairs of Austria, Michael Linhart, as well as participate in events within the 3rd meeting of the Belarusian-Austrian Business Council.

   

print versionSo far, at least 12 Democrats in Congress say they'll boycott Trump's State of the Union. Others are finding different ways to make their opposition to the president known, with several Bay Area congresswomen leading the charge.

Rep. Jackie Speier, a vocal advocate for changing the way sexual harassment complaints are handled in Congress, has been driving the push for lawmakers to wear black in solidarity with victims of sexual assault and harassment, taking a cue from the Time's Up protests at the Golden Globes.

Many California Democrats, including Speier, are embracing the longstanding political tradition of sending a message through their choice of guest.

MORE: Misspelled tickets invite guests to 'State of the Uniom'

At least seven California Democrats have said they will bring Dreamers as their guests to the address, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Kamala Harris.

Harris will bring Denea Joseph, an undocumented immigrant from Belize who works at the UndocuBlack Network, an advocacy organization for undocumented black immigrants.

Speier invited Tarana Burke, a civil rights activist credited with launching the Me Too movement, but according to the final guest list, she will bring Fatima Goss Graves, CEO of the National Women's Law Center. Concord Rep. Mark DeSaulnier is bringing Army Master Sgt. Linda Ray, a sexual assault survivor who was allegedly attacked by a superior in her unit and was never told the outcome after taking her assailant to a military trial.

"When I was assaulted over thirty-five years ago, it was expected for women to keep their stories quiet," Ray said in a statement.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein plans to make less of a statement with her guest  her husband of 38 years, UC Regent and investment banker Richard C. Blum.

So far, three California Dems have said they will boycott the speech outright  Rep. Juan Vargas, who represents south San Diego, East Bay Rep. Barbara Lee, and Rep. Maxine Waters, whose district is in L.A. County.

ALSO: Pelosi tells Dems not to distract from 'slobbering' Trump speech

"@POTUS continues to disrespect women, insult people of color, and attack our immigrant communities. I will not be attending the State of the UnionI stand in solidarity with all the people he has and continues to disrespect," Vargas wrote on Twitter Monday.

Some California Democrats, like Rep. Zoe Lofgren, who represents San Jose, and Rep. Karen Bass, who represents Los Angeles, were still undecided on whether to attend on Tuesday.

"If I choose not to go it's really because I don't know whether or not I feel like subjecting myself to listen to the president lie, which I believe he will do, and also to insult everybody under the sun," Bass told CNN.

Others, like Rep. Ro Khanna of Fremont, said they'll attend because they see it as a duty of their office, but not because they agree with the president.

"I think that's part of the constitutional duty, and we should make it about vehement opposition to what he says," Khanna said in a statement.

Although the official rebuttal from the Democrats will be delivered by Rep. Joe Kennedy of Massachusetts  a choice that has drawn criticism from some on the left over Kennedy's stances on marijuana and Medicare for All, as well as the optics of picking a member from a wealthy political dynasty to deliver the rebuttal  Maxine Waters will also deliver her own rebuttal on BET.

Filipa Ioannou is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at fioannou@sfchronicle.com and follow her on TwitterISLAMABAD  The Islamic State and the Taliban are competing to take credit for a horrific spike in violence in Afghanistan over the past month, and analysts say both insurgent groups are growing in strength as security forces wither under their relentless attacks and a feuding government struggles to win over citizens.

Still, the two insurgent groups embrace different agendas and are at war with each other as well as the Afghan government, analysts say.

Recent large-scale attacks, which have included both suicide bombings and small arms fire, have left nearly 200 people dead and hundreds more wounded. Insurgents have targeted seemingly heavily secure areas in the heart of the Afghan capital, including an Afghan military academy on Monday and a hotel, owned by the government and frequented by foreigners, earlier this month. Using an ambulance to hide their deadly cargo, insurgents slipped passed checkpoints in Kabuls heavily fortified center on Saturday to kill more than 100 people. They also targeted an international aid organization in eastern Jalalabad and a Shiite cultural center in Kabul.

Afghan Security Forces seem powerless against the onslaught.

Insurgents share the same goal of delegitimizing the governments they are fighting against, said Andrew Wilder, vice president of Asia programs at the U.S. Institute of Peace. However, in Afghanistan the similarity between Islamic State and the Taliban ends there. Beyond toppling the Afghan government, the Islamic State affiliate and the Taliban have divergent goals, and where the Taliban are seen as possible negotiation partners in a search for peace, the Islamic State is not.

The two groups have occasionally clashed on the battlefield.

The Taliban and IS are clearly competitors in the Afghan arena, said Thomas Ruttig, whose Afghan Analysts network has deep knowledge of the country and has conducted nationwide studies into a myriad of issues confounding the country, including the Islamic State and Taliban.

The Taliban I see as national Islamists while the Islamic State is Internationalist, he said, dismissing reports of collaboration between the two insurgent groups.

Brian Glyn Williams, author of Counter Jihad: The American Military Experience in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, buttressed reports of the enmity that characterizes the Taliban/Islamic State relationship, saying, their relationship is more defined by open warfare.

While loosely constructed, the Taliban since the death of its supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar several years ago are mostly comprised of ethnic Pashtuns and Arab speaking nationals with ties to al Qaeda.

Meanwhile, the Islamic State affiliate known as Islamic State in Khorasan Province, named for the ancient region that once included Afghanistan, parts of Iran and Central Asia, is a toxic mix of disgruntled Taliban, Pakistani Taliban, and Uzbeks, mostly from the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan terror group.

Kathy Gannon is an Associated Press writer.Page Content

On Jan. 17, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf announced an initiative to "modernize" Pennsylvania's overtime rules.

Wolf has directed the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry to develop a plan to clarify the overtime regulations and increase the salary threshold for overtime exemptions over the course of four years.

Currently, the annual salary threshold for overtime exemptions is $23,600. The governor's plan would increase that threshold to $31,720 in 2020, $39,832 in 2021, and $47,892 in 2022. Wolf estimates that this will extend overtime eligibility to 460,000 additional employees by 2022. In addition, after 2022, Wolf's plan will automatically update the salary threshold every three years.

The new plan will also clarify the duties tests for the executive, administrative and professional exemptions. In conjunction with paying employees on a salary basis and meeting the salary threshold, these tests determine whether certain employees may be exempt from overtime requirements.

While Wolf's plan calls for a graduated increase in the salary threshold, it echoes the U.S. Department of Labor's proposed overtime regulations issued under the Obama administration in May of 2016. Those proposed regulations aimed to automatically increase the salary threshold to $47,476 on Dec. 1, 2016. Though the implementation of those rules was enjoined, the federal agency has recently solicited comment regarding the salary threshold, indicating that it may seek to implement a smaller increase.

The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry expects to release the updated rules for public comment in March 2018. The rules must then be approved by a five-member board appointed by the governor.

In anticipation of these changes, Pennsylvania employers may want to contemplate classification of currently exempt employees and consider whether such employees may need to be reclassified given the potential changes in the duties tests and increased salary thresholds.

Amanda D. Crawford and Jacqueline R. Barrett are attorneys with Ogletree Deakins in Philadelphia.  Ogletree Deakins. All rights reserved. Reposted with permission.To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.

We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.

A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!How businesses can protect their people in the new age of work?

Ensuring employee health and safety remains a key priority for organisations this year, especially as we see COVID-19 cases continue to rise in different areas of the world. As an ongoing challenge, COVID-19 has shifted the priorities of many organisations. In fact, improving health and safety for employees is the top strategic goal this year of manufacturing and logistics organisations in the U.S. and U.K., according to research conducted by Forrester on behalf of STANLEY Security. But as we think about reopening and as hybrid workforce models and workspace-on-demand approaches rise in popularity, leaders need to consider implementing the right technologies to help ensure a safe return to the office. This means investing in health, safety, and security solutions that can help leaders protect their people. The intersection of security technology and health and safety Theres no doubt that the scope of security has expanded in the wake of the global pandemic. What was once an area governed by a select few security or IT professionals within a business has now become a crucial company investment involving many key stakeholders. The role of security has expanded to encompass a broader range of health and safety challenges for businesses Additionally, the role of security has expanded to encompass a broader range of health and safety challenges for businesses. Fortunately, security technologies have made significant strides and many solutions, both existing and new, have been thrust forward to address todays biggest business challenges. Investment in security technology Its important to note that businesses are eager to adopt tech that can help them protect their people. Nearly half (46%) of organisations surveyed by Forrester report that theyre considering an increasing investment in technology solutions that ensure employee safety. Technologies like touchless access control, visitor management systems, occupancy monitoring, and installed/wearable proximity sensors are among some of the many security technologies these organisations have implemented or are planning to implement yet this year. Facilitating a safe return to work But what does the future look like? When it comes to the post-pandemic workplace, organisations are taking a hard look at their return-to-work strategy. Flexible or hybrid workforce models require a suite of security solutions to help ensure a safer, healthier environment More than half (53%) of organisations surveyed by Forrester are looking to introduce a flexible work schedule for their employees as they make decisions about returning to work and keeping employees safe post-pandemic. Such flexible  or hybrid  workforce models require a suite of security solutions to help ensure a safer, healthier environment for all who traverse a facility or work on-site. One of the central safety and security challenges raised by these hybrid models is tracking who is present in the building at any one time  and where or how they interact. Leveraging security technology With staggered schedules and what may seem like a steady stream of people passing through, it can be difficult to know whos an employee and whos a visitor. Access control will be key to monitoring and managing the flow of people on-site and preventing unauthorised access. When access control systems are properly integrated with visitor management solutions, businesses can unlock further benefits and efficiencies. For instance, integrated visitor management systems can allow for pre-registration of visitors and employees  granting mobile credentials before people arrive on-site  and automated health screening surveys can be sent out in advance to help mitigate risk. Once someone reaches the premises, these systems can also be used to detect the persons temperature and scan for a face mask, if needed. We will likely see these types of visitor management and advanced screening solutions continue to rise in popularity, as 47% of organisations surveyed by Forrester report that theyre considering requiring employee health screening post-pandemic. Defining the office of the future A modern, dynamic workforce model will require an agile approach to office management. Its imperative to strike the right balance between making people feel welcome and reassuring Businesses want to create an environment in which people feel comfortable and confident  a space where employees can collaborate and be creative. Its imperative to strike the right balance between making people feel welcome and reassuring them that the necessary security measures are in place to ensure not only their safety but also their health. In many cases, this balancing act has created an unintended consequence: Everyone now feels like a visitor to a building. Protocols and processes With employees required to undergo the same screening processes and protocols as a guest, weve seen a transformation in the on-site experience. This further underscores the need for seamless, automated, and tightly integrated security solutions that can improve the employee and visitor experience, while helping to ensure health and safety. Ultimately, the future of the office is not about what a space looks like, but how people feel in it. This means adopting a safety-always culture, underpinned by the right technology, to ensure people that their safety remains a business top priority.Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus V.Makei meets the Ambassador of Ecuador

31-01-2018

On January 31, 2018 the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, Vladimir Makei, met with the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Ecuador to the Republic of Belarus, Carlos Larrea Davila, on the occasion of completion of his diplomatic mission.

During the meeting, the sides noted a constructive tone of Belarus-Ecuador dialogue, shared opinions on the current state of bilateral interaction in political, trade and economic spheres, cooperation within international organizations, as well as discussed joint events planned for 2018.

   

print versionDeputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus A.Dapkiunas holds meetings at the UN Headquarters in New York

30-01-2018

On January 29, 2018 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York the 56th session of the UN Commission for Social Development (CSocD) started its work. Delegation of the Republic of Belarus headed by the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus, Andrei Dapkiunas, participates at the CSocD session.

Background Information: The UN Commission for Social Development deals with the issues of poverty and social inequality reduction, as well as promotion of international policy in social justice for the most vulnerable people (low-income population, women. Children, people with disabilities, youth and aging people). Belarus is elected to CSocD for the term 2016-2020. The 56th session of CSocD will continue its work until February 7, 2018.

During the visit to New York, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Belarus held a meeting with the UN Deputy Secretary-General, Amina J. Mohammed.

The meeting took place in the run-up of the visit of A.Mohammed to Belarus to participate in the Regional Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Coordination Forum to be held in Minsk on February 21-22, 2018.

The parties agreed that the upcoming forum will allow participants from Europe and CIS to better understand common problems in the implementation of SDGs and will make an important contribution to global efforts to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The UN Deputy Secretary-General commended the activities of Belarus in achieving the SDGs, noting particularly the involvement of all stakeholders in this work. A.Mohammed assured that the UN would actively support this process.

The sides also touched upon the issue of middle-income countries in the context of importance of these countries for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

A.Dapkiunas also held a meeting with the UN Under-Secretary-General for Counter-Terrorism, Vladimir Voronkov.

The sides exchanged views on the current situation and new challenges in the fight against terrorism.

The Belarusian diplomat informed V.Voronkov on Belarusian initiatives in combating terrorism within the framework of international organisations. A.Dapkiunas invited V.Voronkov to take part in the OSCE event on combating cyberterrorism slated for October 2018 in Belarus.

The Head of the UN Counter-Terrorism Office reported on the process of establishment of the OCT, as well as on the near-term plans, including the holding of the first in the history of the UN summit of heads of counter-terrorism agencies of the UN Member States in June 2018.

Background Information: The new Counter-Terrorism Office was established as part of the UN Secretariat in 2017, in what became one of the elements of the reform of the UN Secretariat initiated by UN Secretary-General A. Guterres. Under-Secretary-General V. Voronkov leads the OCT, and also serves as the Chair of the Counter-Terrorism Task Force and the Executive Director of the UN Counter-Terrorism Center.

V.Voronkov highly appreciated the efforts of Belarus in the field of combating terrorism and also expressed readiness for further cooperation, including convening joint events to combat terrorism in cyberspace.

   

print versionA S.C. Senate hearing room was packed Jan. 30 for a bill that would outlaw abortion in the state.Carie Lemack, CEO and cofounder of DreamUp. (Image credit: Greg Gibson)

Carie Lemack is co-founder and CEO of DreamUp, the first company to bring space into classrooms and classrooms into space. A former national security policy expert/advocate and producer of an Academy Award-nominated film, Lemack is a proud alumna of Space Camp and a supporter of all space cadets reaching for the stars. Lemack contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Satellite images of Earth can evoke both awe and complacency. We have a duty, therefore, to take a second look at any such photo that can be our greatest means of humility and our grandest moment of hope. We must take many looks at this "blue marble" and never take for granted the precarious state of nature and the power of science.

Only by viewing Earth can we repair damage to it, from the flooded plains and ashen mountains of southern California to the soaked streets and storm-ravaged suburbs of Houston.

Only by changing our perspective can we perceive  and embrace  a new reality in which space-based research and satellite images allow us to see beyond what our eyes alone can detect. By observing the world from afar, we can actualize a vision of our planet as one worldwide ecosystem whose balance depends on our ability to transcend our differences and come together because of our common humanity, to see not the boundaries of nations but boundless opportunities to unite for the good of the planet.

How else can we learn that there is, indeed, a ripple effect between what happens in the Pacific and its impact on the Atlantic? How else can we accept that what we don't see can  and does  have a global impact on oceans, as well as the land where we live and the air that we breathe? How else can we inspire students to respect the environment, unless they educate themselves about the Earth?

My company, DreamUp, in partnership with the online teaching resource CraftED Curriculum, has developed a free space-focused curriculum called Eyes in the Sky. With this program, we aim to transform otherwise purely academic courses into an awesome snapshot of Earth where science is sensational, technology is tangible, engineering is educative and mathematics is majestic.

This animation of the "blue marble" was created using data and imagery from the NASA/NOAA GOES-16 satellite. (Image credit: NOAA/NASA)

The goal of Eyes in the Sky is to use satellite images of Earth to give students a better understanding of how our planet is very much a living organism, where they can see for themselves how everything from climate change to local ecological changes can impact parts of the world thousands of miles away. Educators working with grade-school and high-school students can sign up for this free, customized program at dreamup.org/free-curriculum.

By teaching science, technology, engineering and math  and doing so through a different vantage point  we can promote a cleaner planet, too. By inviting students to open their eyes, to see for themselves what no other generation has seen before, we can inspire a sea change among students and teachers, and colleges and universities around the globe.

We cannot miss this chance to see for ourselves what we must do, not just for our own self-interest but the interests of the planet and the survival of all species that live here.

By opening our eyes, we will open our minds to new ideas and novel ways to address everything from climate change to school curricula concerning space and science. Students will be able to see how their efforts, through the power of science, can turn a dry lake bed into a resurgent source of life, or how protecting a forest can expand so many acres of greenery, for example  all of it visible from space.

The Eyes in the Sky will keep our eyes on the prize.

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.Explorer 1 Is Front-Page News

JPL-Caltech/NASA

Explorer 1 was front-page news across the U.S. The first successful U.S. satellite was often called a "moon" or a "man-made moon" then.

Walter Cronkite

CBS Photo Archive/Getty

American journalist and anchorman Walter Cronkite uses models to explain America's Explorer 1 mission to viewers on the CBS television network in 1958. Explorer 1 discovered the Van Allen radiation belts and eventually plummeted to Earth on March 31, 1970. The launch pre-dated the establishment of NASA by six months.

'Project Deal' Playing Cards

JPL-Caltech/NASA

Deedee Rechtin, widow of JPL systems engineer Eberhardt Rechtin, donated this deck of playing cards to the JPL Archives. "Deal" was the pet name for the satellite project that later became known as Explorer 1. According to University of Iowa graduate student George Ludwig, who worked with physicist James Van Allen on the satellite science, there were two possible origins for the nickname. One is based on the fact that JPL scientists tended to play gin rummy whenever they had down time. "One account," Ludwig wrote, "says that immediately after the first scheduled firing of the RTV [Re-entry Test Vehicle]-Jupiter-C in 1956, they were ready with their cards, and one of them called out, Deal!" The other, Ludwig said, came from project director Jack Froehlich  "a formidable poker player, he is claimed to have bestowed the name after the first Sputnik launch with the remark, When a big pot is won, the winner sits around and cracks bad jokes and the loser cries Deal!"

Inside Explorer 1

JPL-Caltech/NASA

Explorer 1, the first U.S. satellite, was a joint project of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) in Huntsville, Alabama, which built the Jupiter-C rocket; the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, which built the satellite; and the University of Iowa, where the science instruments were designed. The images below are drawn from the collections of NASA centers and the papers of Explorer 1 principal investigator James Van Allen, used here with permission of the University of Iowa Libraries.

Explorer 1 Model with Cutaway Showing Science Components

NASA

The International Geophysical Year  which ran from July 1, 1957 to Dec. 31, 1958  marked the beginning of the "Space Race." In 1957, the Soviet Union became the first nation to successfully put satellites in orbit  Sputnik 1 in October and Sputnik 2 in November. On Jan. 31, 1958, the United States joined the space age with the successful launch of Satellite 1958 Alpha, better known as Explorer 1, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Explorer 1 was the first satellite to carry out a successful science mission. Explorer 1s modified Geiger counter, designed by University of Iowa physicist James Van Allen, detected the radiation bands around Earth that were later renamed the Van Allen Belts. Wernher von Braun of the ABMA directed development of the Jupiter-C rocket that carried Explorer 1 into space. Explorer 1 was designed and built at JPL, under the direction of William Pickering.

Explorer1 Mated to Jupiter-C

NASA

Close-up view of Explorer 1 mated to its Jupiter-C rocket.

Jupiter-C and Explorer 1 Overview

NASA

This illustration shows the main characteristics of the Jupiter-C launch vehicle and its payload, the Explorer 1 satellite.

Explorer 1 Installation

JPL-Caltech/NASA

Technicians lower the Explorer 1 satellite payload onto the launch vehicle's fourth-stage motor. This photo was taken in the gantry at Launch Complex 26, Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, on Jan. 20, 1958. Explorer 1 was originally set to launch on Jan. 29, but was delayed two days due to high winds.

JPL Ground Antenna

JPL-Caltech/NASA

On March 22, 1956, preliminary satellite-tracking tests began in a field near JPL. This photo shows the antenna being assembled. The prototype Microlock ground receiving station included the antenna, instrumentation built into a 25-foot van, generators and other equipment. Less than two years later, the Microlock station helped tracked the successful orbit of Explorer 1.

In the Computer Room

John Bryson/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty

1958: William Hoover and J.E. Froelich in the JPL computer room during the flight of Explorer 1.

Examining a Model

Phil Burchman/Archive Photos/Getty

Key project officers at the ABMA in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, examine a prototype of the Explorer I satellite in 1958. From left to right, front: Eberhard Rees (1908-1998), Maj. Gen. John Medaris, German-born rocket scientist Wernher von Braun (1912-1977) and Ernst Stuhlinger. Back: Willi Mrazek (1911-1992) and Walter Haeussermann. The model is actual size.A photo posted by on

A new photo from SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shows the company's new Falcon Heavy rocket on the launchpad as well as its Falcon 9, which successfully launched the GovSat-1 satellite today (Jan. 31). The Falcon Heavy is slated to launch Tuesday (Feb. 6).

GovSat-1 is a joint venture of the Luxembourg government and the satellite-operating company SES, and it will provide secure communications services. SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket is launching from Cape Canaveral's Space Launch Complex 40, within easy viewing distance of Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A, where the Falcon Heavy will undergo its first test flight. Launch Complex 39A is a historic launchpad that was used for most Apollo missions as well as space shuttle missions before being leased and renovated for SpaceX's use.

Besides Pads 39A and 40, SpaceX also launches out of California's Vandenberg Air Force Base Space Launch Complex 4, and the company broke ground on a private spaceport in Texas in 2014.

SpaceX successfully test-fired the Falcon Heavy's 27 first-stage engines  divided among three Falcon 9 first stages  on Jan. 24, and on Tuesday, it is set to carry Musk's Tesla car into orbit around the sun. (This test will demonstrate that the rocket, which will be the most powerful in operation in the world, would be able to put payloads into an orbit intersecting Mars.)

Editor's note: This story, originally posted at 3:25 p.m. EST, has been updated to reflect the successful launch of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket carrying the GovSat-1 satellite at 4:25 p.m. EST.

Email Sarah Lewin at slewin@space.com or follow her @SarahExplains. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Jan 30, 2018 (SPS) - The final statment that closed the Thirtieth Summit of the African Union (AU), held on the 28th and 29th of January in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, specifically called for the resumption of direct negotiations between its two member states, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) and the Kingdom of Morocco.

According to the aforementioned communique, these direct negotiations, without prior conditions and sponsored by the AU and the UN, must lead to a solution to the conflict in Western Sahara, in accordance with the resolutions of the Organization of African Unity, the AU and the UN, regarding affair.

The African bloc maintained that it is willing to reactivate, if necessary, the Committee of African Heads of State and Government, at a time that demanded full collaboration with its envoy for Western Sahara, Joaquim Chissano, as well as with the UN envoy. , Horst Kohler.

In the same line, the AU, called Morocco as a member state, apart from allowing the creation of an independent mechanism to observe the situation of human rights, it is also urgent to allow the return to El Aaiun and Western Sahara in general, to the Mission of Observers of the UA. SPS

125/090/TRAO il giant Shell came a step closer to hitting its huge $30 billion (21 billion) sell-off target today, agreeing a cut-price $750 million deal in Thailand.

The companys huge disposal programme is coming on apace, with the sale of its 22.2% stake in the Bongkot gas field off the coast of Thailand to PTT Exploration & Production. PTTEP now owns the field with Frances Total.

The asset disposals are needed to help Shell reduce the debt it racked up as part of buying BG Group for $70 billion, back in 2015.

However, the same Thai gas field was going to be sold for $900 million to the Kuwait state oil company last October but the sale was cancelled because the negotiations could not be concluded in time.

Shell would not comment on the apparent drop in value of the field.R ocking a long sequined green dress, wig and kitten heels last week in Soho, a drag artist called Tiffany belted out Bohemian Rhapsody to a bar full of men and women from the property industry.

The flamboyant performance was at a LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) party hosted by retail landlords trade association Revo. It was refreshing given it was held shortly after depressingly a number of property tycoons came under the spotlight for attending the men-only Presidents Club dinner.

The Soho diversity bash seemed to show that estate agents and developers have come a long way to shed the stereotype of being loutish and sexist.

But the sector is not quite as gay-friendly as others, according to the annual report from equality charity Stonewall which thumped on my desk this week and names the most inclusive UK employers for LGBT people .

It shows just six firms from the real estate sector made its top 100 employers list for 2018. Pretty paltry for an industry (commercial real estate sector) that contributes over 94 billion to the UKs economy.

Property firms that did make the list largely comprised housing associations such as Gentoo or L&Q. Not one of the big property agencies or listed commercial real estate developers were included. No construction groups featured either.

Retail also posted a lacklustre showing on the list, which is calculated by a benchmarking tool used by employers to gauge their progress when it comes to LGBT equality in the workplace.

The Co-op was the only familiar name with retails big guns  from Tesco and Sainsburys to Next and Marks & Spencer  absent.

To me its quite a shock that no fashion retailers made the cut, given the clothing sector is famed for being diverse, with a large female workforce and some openly gay designers.

By contrast, big banking names featured in Stonewalls list, with Lloyds and Citi even making the top ten. The former was praised for supporting bisexual and transgender awareness days, with social media campaigns, and flying the bisexual flag and transgender flag at 35 of the groups offices.

London law firms were also present, as were auditing giants such as KPMG and PwC.

But, the number one spot went to the National Assembly for Wales, which has updated its systems to offer staff an Mx title or space to write their own gender title.

That it comes to a regional political body to show the way, should be of some surprise to the City, which leads the way in so many other disciplines.

It is simply not good enough that less than one fifth of the top 100 employers were London or New York listed companies.

Where are all the FTSE businesses that employ scores of Brits and help generate billions of pounds for the economy?

David Mann, the co-founder of the LGBT property networking forum Freehold, says a number of City firms are improving, including those in his industry. But, he says the issue is a bit like where sustainability and energy reduction was 20 years ago. Everyone agreed it was the right thing to do, but didnt enforce that until regulations changed, he tells me.

Perhaps the government needs to slap down some tougher demands to make sure the Square Mile has more diversity. How about tying some LGBT targets to executive pay, for example?O nce upon a time, universities existed for the good of the Church, religious scholarship and the glory of God. Back then, town and gown didnt mix well; scholars behaved badly and so did townies, charging too much for food and rent.

Not that much has changed, you might think, but the medieval religious scholars had one big advantage over todays undergraduates  the absolute support of mother Church and later, the Crown.

Today, the Almighty has been banished to the chapel  Mammon is installed at top table where he dines with the dons. Universities have become part of the modern economy; their purpose to educate and train young people to become efficient workers with a profitable sideline in conducting scientific research for businesses. The Crown (government) still supports the universities but the students must pay for their education. For most undergraduates, that means borrowing large sums over a very long term; a bit like taking out a mortgage on a home.

The sums borrowed (rising to more than 50,000 for an average graduate, according to the Institute of Fiscal Studies), the high rate of interest (6%), and the expectation that two-thirds will never fully repay their loan is fuelling a row. The Labour Party has promised to scrap tuition fees (a pledge that would cost the nation 60 billion, says the IFS) and the Government has promised to rethink.

The Prime Minister should talk to the New York Federal Reserve which last April published disturbing research that showed the impact which high levels of student debt is having on home ownership. Americas graduates owe $1.3 trillion (920 billion) for their education and many are getting into trouble with loan repayments.

Serious delinquency rates are more than 11%  higher than credit card debt  and William Dudley, the New York Fed president is worried, not about a sub-prime type debt disaster, but about the long-term social and economic cost in the linkage between higher education and high levels of personal debt.

The disturbing news is that the Feds research shows that graduates with high levels of student debt are less likely at any age to be homeowners than those who left university with no debt. Though the research shows that graduates leave university with higher earning potential, that advantage is being severely eroded by the burden of debt.

The Feds president fears that exclusion from home ownership could have serious social and political consequences. For a large share of households, housing equity is the principal form of wealth the way we finance post-secondary education could also have important implications for the distribution of wealth.

The late Lady Thatchers vision of Britain could be summed up as a nation of homeowners, the equity in grannys suburban semi providing the seed capital for the prosperity of future generations. But how does a young graduate without a home-owning granny pay a deposit on a home, when his very meagre savings are being sucked into student loan repayments at a rate of 9% (on income above 21,000)?

The cost of higher education may soon become a dead weight on the British economy even without a solvency crisis. We can reasonably assume that a home ownership gap exists between debt-free university graduates and those who are repaying loans.

More worrying still is the flawed message about the purpose of higher education. Even without the promise of Gods glory and the kingdom of heaven, university is now supposed to be about personal salvation, a covenant invented by Tony Blair in the election campaign for his second term.

In his 2001, education, education, education speech Mr Blair promised huge investment for a wider social and economic goal: to make responsible citizens who give something back to their community, to give them basic tools for life and work, part of a national purpose for rapid and radical improvement in our schools, colleges and universities.

Universities are now engines of social engineering. Any monks still poring over manuscripts in ivory towers had better find wealthy sponsors because their cells are needed to accommodate undergraduates prepared to pay 9300 per year.

Much fuss has been made of the greed of university vice-chancellors but rent-seeking behaviour is now part and parcel of a universitys raison detre. If students are on the hook for the cost of their education, the universities are reeling them in and the bait is that dream of upward mobility, that promise of a better life.T he Chinese value long-standing predictable relationships. So it is not ideal that Theresa May has arrived in Beijing with a flurry of speculation about her leadership and recycling Peter Mandelsons old line about not being a quitter.

There will also be eyebrows raised in Chinas capital about whether a Prime Minister who is seeking Chinese support for a post-Brexit trade deal should have allowed all the headlines over her visit to centre around her concerns over their trade dumping and the status of Presidents Xi One Belt One Road initiative.

Nonetheless, it is welcome that Mrs May has continued the practice established by her predecessor of bringing with her a large delegation of British firms eager to do more business with this economic superpower.

Never an enthusiast for a closer partnership with China when she was Home Secretary, she almost scuppered that partnership altogether within weeks of coming to Number 10 by threatening to abandon years of negotiations over Chinese investment in British nuclear power.

Thankfully, she backed down and the so-called golden age in relations between the two countries survived, if a little tarnished.

Since then, she has come to see the obvious merits in attracting more Chinese investment to Britain and the value of Britains early participation in the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank  both of which she highlighted in her press conference this morning with the Chinese Premier.

Her statement, in which she says she wants deepening co-operation with China on the key global and economic issues, is very welcome.

The real test is whether she can move the dialogue with the Chinese leadership beyond the purely transactional and into a deeper and more mature partnership.

On almost every big challenge we face  from tackling climate change and preserving the rules-based international order to dealing with modern slavery and ending the ivory trade  Chinas role is crucial.

As Mrs May is discovering, the best way to get things done is to try to work with people rather than against them.

Theresa May arrives in China to drum up trade and investment

Sorting out the House

Politicians know they are on to a loser when they ask for billions to be spent on rebuilding the Palace of Westminster.

Jokes about wood-panelled lifts, subsidised bars and luxury restaurants dont go down well when hard-working taxpayers find it tough to pay the rent.

Thats why a decision on sorting the place out has been put off for years  and may be delayed again when MPs vote this evening on whether to go ahead with a full rebuilding, or just to patch things up for a few years more.

The truth is that the job needs to be done despite the huge cost and the inevitable rows it will cause.

This isnt about blowing cash to keep MPs in feather-bedded comfort, it is about saving one of the most famous buildings in the world from decay and possible ruin.

As the Lord Speaker, Norman Fowler, says to the Evening Standard today, the Palace of Westminster is in a shocking state, riddled with lethal asbestos and at risk of an uncontrollable fire.

On top of that, everything from the heating systems to the wiring are decades  if not centuries  out of date.

The Palace is not just a national icon but the home of our democracy: ensuring it survives should be a basic duty.

In 1834, its predecessor, a rambling palace, went up in flames and the Victorians invested in the vast building, built in lavish Gothic style by the architect Charles Barry and designer Augustus Pugin, which stands in its place today. They created something remarkable.Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus O.Kravchenko participates in the meeting of the Belarusian-Austrian Business Council

31-01-2018

On January 31, 2018 the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, Oleg Kravchenko, participated in the third meeting of the Belarusian-Austrian Business Council.

More than 70 businessmen, representatives of state bodies and trade unions of the two countries took part in the forum. The Belarusian business delegation, which included representatives of more than 20 enterprises and organizations, was headed by the Chair of the Belarusian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

In his welcoming statement, O.Kravchenko presented the results of the work of the bilateral Intergovernmental Commission on Trade and Economic Cooperation. Special attention was paid to the existing potential of economic cooperation between Belarus and Austria taking into account the growth of the economies of the two countries, the current context of the relations between our country and the European Union, as well as the work carried out in Belarus to improve the framework conditions for doing business.

During the presentations of Belarusian representatives, Austrian businessmen were acquainted with the business conditions at the Industrial Park Great Stone, the Belarusian free economic zones (on the example of FEZ Mogilev), the export and investment potential of the Brest region. Attendees were presented with the tourism potential of the Republic of Belarus, as well as new opportunities for cooperation in the IT field and the field of innovation, taking into account the adoption in December 2017 of the Decree of the President of the Republic of Belarus No. 8 On the development of the digital economy.

Within the framework of his visit to Austria, O.Kravchenko also met with the Secretary General of the Federal Ministry for European Affairs, Integration and Foreign Affairs of Austria, Michael Linhart.

The sides discussed a wide range of issues on the bilateral agenda, as well as the development of the dialogue between Belarus and the European Union.

print versionA fter Labour lost another election in 2015 and Jeremy Corbyn won the leadership, its fair to say the party wasnt a happy, harmonious place. It was raw, divided and emotions were running high. Fed up with all the drama and aggression, a group of Labour women gathered for wine and a whine about the state of politics. We all had a fun sauvignon-fuelled moan-athon which produced many a cackle but we were all still a bit Kevin the teenager  apart from one person who reminded us that we couldnt afford to just sit back and complain; that Labour values still mattered; and that while we werent in power in Westminster, our councillors had a vital job to do.

Claire is one of those people you would want on your side: super-smart, hard-working, decent and deeply committed to delivering for her local constituents. Haringey has some of the countrys poorest communities and over the past 10 years she has helped transform the area, improving schools, childrens services and bringing in business, investment and opportunity.

But that clearly isnt enough anymore. Being leader of the Opposition is said to be the toughest gig in politics  but try being a Labour councillor.

Claire Kober revealed she will step down at the local elections in May / Jeremy Selwyn

Youre in an impossible position. Its lose-lose. Youre responsible for making the best of ever-diminishing budgets handed down from central government. You have to choose which cut to make, how deep and what services to let wither and die. Which library or youth centre should be sacrificed to continue funding child protection? This is not what any Labour councillor came into politics to do.

You have the additional pleasure of being labelled red Tory scum by those in your own party who decide that its better to come after you with the cross hairs than work with you. Actually, this is not a new thing  under Mrs Thatcher in the Eighties, Labour councillors were spat at by angry activists on the hard Left as they attended council meetings and were punished for facing the same choices.

To be clear, the proposed development in Haringey was divisive, and some locals were unhappy. There is a huge housing crisis in the area, with 9,000 families on waiting lists. The issue of private money being used to build genuinely affordable and social housing is a hot political issue, especially with the collapse of Carillion, the failure of private finance initiatives (PFI) and Jeremy Corbyn sending out a clear signal that those days are over.

I largely agree with that principle. But what happens when the ideology which shines bright and pure in a meeting at Labour HQ collides with the grim reality of being a councillor in Haringey, dealing with 3,000 families in temporary accommodation? In her parting shot, Kober said: Political issues are rarely binary; solutions are not simply good or bad. Leadership is about setting a vision and working to deliver on it using whatever tools are available.

Thats the unsexy, unsavoury reality of trying to make things work, and what team Corbyn has to look forward to if Labour wins. And to all those celebrating ousting Kober and chanting Ding Dong! The witch is dead, maybe just take some time out to think of those families on waiting lists.

Shekus rise is a lesson to us all

Eighteen-year-old Sheku Kanneh-Mason is classical musics new superstar. In 2016, the cellist became the first black winner of BBC Young Musician and hes just released his debut album, Inspiration, on Decca. Hes set to be the youngest classical artist to break into the Official Top 40 in almost a decade and his cover of Bob Marleys No Woman No Cry reached the top 10 in Spotifys global chart  no mean feat for a cellist. He began playing the cello at six in Nottingham and, three years later, had achieved grade eight. He comes from an incredible musical family. All six of his siblings are extraordinary musicians, yet none of his parents play.

His is a wonderful story of the power of music and why we should make it accessible to young people from all backgrounds. Talent is everywhere; opportunity is not. The greatest endorsement of his gift comes from the family of Jacqueline du Pre. Hes the first cellist since Jackie who has that natural and vibrant abandonment when playing. A sheer delight. Jackie would have loved to meet him. Doesnt get much better than that.

* Jacinda Ardern, New Zealands Prime Minister, will make history later this year when she becomes the first leader since Benazir Bhutto in 1990 to give birth while in office. But since 2010, 17 babies have been born to British MPs and Parliament needs to catch up!

Voting right after giving birth or adopting can be hard and new mums get a tough time. The Sun apologised for unfairly calling Labour MP Lucy Powell lazy because she was on maternity leave and missed votes.Remarkably fresh-faced Leomie Anderson is talking about a party in Paris hosted by Rihanna. I was on a table with the rapper Future and thats all you need to know, says the model. It was lit. There was no talking, just music and alcohol. I didnt sleep and then I got my Eurostar.

Anderson, 24, is part of a wave of switched-on models including Jourdan Dunn and Adwoa Aboah, who she proudly calls my girl. Theyre social media savvy and stick up for their rights.

Anderson recently used Instagram to share a heartfelt personal tribute to her oldest and dearest friend the model Harry Uzoka, who she dated as a teenager. Uzoka was stabbed and died earlier this month near his home in East Acton. He was 25. Three men have been charged with his murder. Anderson remembers how happy she was taking him to Paris for his 18th birthday, but now she is heartbroken and unable to talk more about it.

Being back home in Tooting with her family is a comfort, especially in the run up to New York Fashion Week. Shes modelled for everyone from Victorias Secret to Armani and has a YouTube channel to which she uploaded a video called Black Model Survival Kit after a make-up artist didnt have the right products for her skin. Anderson has said she feels that black models are being treated like second-class citizens.

Harry Uzoka (L) was killed by a model rival / Getty Images

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I was angry but my main aim was to make sure it didnt happen again, she says with composure. It isnt about blaming people, its a bigger issue, and people need to be educated so you can progress. When I was younger I didnt have a voice, which made me feel down. Now I feel I can speak up.

Anderson is cocooned in a chunky yellow jumper with a fluffy electric-blue clutch bag. Its by Charlotte Simone, which Anderson is the new face of. Represent, she jokes, jiggling her bag in the air. It contrasts nicely with my jumper, she holds it up to demonstrate. My mum calls it my fuzzy bag.

Her bag is faux, although there are real fur items in the collection. Faux is more 2018. I love that brands like Gucci are phasing out fur. Charlotte Simone is one of my favourite designers because of how fun, reactive and bold her designs are. Its been so nice having a team of women to work with. In 2018 a light is finally being shone on female designers.

Charlotte Simone

Change is afoot across the industry, with a black, male, gay editor at Vogue. Edward Enninful is an amazing step forward for fashion, says Anderson. And Adwoa was on the front of the first issue, she whoops. One thing fashion does need to do is keep up the diversity. I dont want it to just be a trend.

We have so many interesting conversations coming up. Fashion is art and life mimics art. So as long as we keep talking about things it will be reflected in fashion.

Its not just about the models; its consumers saying they want to be represented. With social media they have a platform. They create the hashtag, which applies pressure to brands to say these people

deserve to be seen if they are buying. Shes proud to be in Rihannas Fenty beauty campaign, with Halima [Aden] in her hijab and Slick Woods, a tomboy.

Anderson jokes that she didnt have a choice about going into modelling. She was spotted aged 14 in Tooting coming home from school. I thought: Stranger danger, Im not talking to you. The scout came back the next day, so I thought he was definitely weird. I wanted to go to uni. I was a nerdy kid. Then someone else from the same agency came and I thought I should give it a try. Her mother works in a bank and her father is a courier. She does an impression of him as a cockney geezer telling a colleague: Your daughters alright but my daughter is more beautiful because she i s actually paid to be beautiful. If my family are supportive no one elses opinion matters.

So many people said I should model but I thought it was like when you tell a tall boy he should do sport. I never thought Id be the face of anything. She made sure she had good enough grades for university, AAB, in sociology, media studies and English lit, if any unis want to give me a place. She laughs. No, I want to go and do talks, not be taught. One thing I wish I could teach every girl is that everybody has their own insecurities  you cant allow outside opinions to shape how you view yourself.

All she knew about modelling was from Americas Next Top Model, but its all beautiful lies. Walking in heels did not come naturally. My agency told me to get the highest shoes I could to practise, so me and my mum went to Camden and got hooker heels, patent, strappy. My ankles hurt. But I got there.

When she first went to New York, reality hit. Id never been to America before. We drew up to where we were staying and it didnt look like the glass penthouse I was expecting. There was a broken sofa, an old-school VCR, I was like: What is this? Tyra didnt prepare me for the hard graft of running around the city. But it made me a stronger person. You need to get it out of your head that modelling is a glamorous industry. You have to understand there will be rejection.

She is glad people are being more honest. There was a time when Cara Delevingne was everywhere and I thought she must be having a great life, so rich, so happy. Now shes said it wasnt fun.

This is only the beginning of conversations about abuse, with accounts of the sexually exploitative behaviour of photographers Mario Testino, Terry Richardson and Bruce Weber emerging. Women are not going to be pushed to the sidelines. Every industry has darker aspects and I love that people are speaking out. I love that the fashion industry is one place where women do get paid more than men. More industries need to learn that from fashion  it is one of the first places to celebrate women. We need to celebrate women in science and tech.

On Instagram, Anderson has 163,000 followers and she doesnt have a bad word to say about it. Some models find it hard because it is now required of us and is helpful getting jobs. It lets people see you as you, where in fashion you are always created in someone elses image. What about if she finds herself mindlessly scrolling? I keep scrolling. I like it.

Getty Images for Victoria's Secret

Shes even dabbled in journalism  interviewing Kim Kardashian. I feel sorry for her, shes so scrutinised and its good shes speaking up about how hard her pregnancies were, then using a surrogate. She has a proper amazing bod, bam.

Anderson is based in New York but comes back to Tooting as often as she can. Her mother came to every job with her when she started out. She appreciates how hard I work because she has seen it, from my first job where I had to pretend I liked this huge dog.

Her mother wanted to call her Ruby Valentine because she was born on Valentines Day. Then my auntie jumped in and suggested Leomie.

She welcomes Tootings other famous resident, its MP Mayor of London Sadiq Khan. Growing up I didnt see anybody like me in positions of power. Its enormous for people in London to see it getting more diverse.

New York is great but London has that raw charm, and the kebab rolls at her favourite restaurant, Lahore, in Tooting. I hope I can get to the point where I just go to New York for work but for now I have to be there. She didnt go on holiday last year because she is saving to buy a house.

How does she stay so zen? Roots. Its important to have those in an industry when you are uprooted often. Modelling is not a job, it is part of me.T he artist Bob and Roberta Smith says we must protect our capacity to design, following a BBC survey which found that a number of secondary schools were cutting back on creative arts subjects.

Nine out of 10 schools said they had cut back on lesson time, staff or facilities in at least one creative subject, in a survey responded to by 1,200 schools. The number of respondents make up over 40% of secondary schools in the UK.

The findings also showed that four in 10 of the school that responded were spending less money on facilities, 3 in 10 had reduced timetabled lessons, and one in 10 were increasingly relying on voluntary donations from parents in art and music.

Bob and Roberta Smith, the pseudonym used by Patrick Brill, said that survey was hardly surprising, but definitely upsetting.

Speaking to the Standard, he said the squeeze risked the loss of practical benefits as well as opportunities for expression. By diminishing the time dedicated to art in schools, the government are quite simply ruining our capacity to design - be it buildings, computer programmes or medical equipment. We will be raising children who are no longer able to design and create inspirational British products - children who can no longer be inventive or innovative, discursive or imaginative.

He continued: It is these qualities that make us robust against times of austerity or uncertainty; the ability to imagine and create new tools for a changing world - be it socially, scientifically or environmentally - has always been imperative to our ability to adapt to the future. Considering the current landscape, I feel we might need this now more than ever.

15 exhibitions to look forward to in 2018 1 /15 15 exhibitions to look forward to in 2018 Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up V&A Museum, June 16 - November 4; vam.ac.uk Aperture All Too Human: Bacon, Freud and a Century of Painting Life Tate Britain, February 28 - August 27; tate.org.uk The Estate of Francis Bacon Hope to Nope: Graphics and Politics 2008-2018 Design Museum, March 28 - August 12; designmuseum.org Bristol Street War Modern Couples: Art, Intimacy and the Avante-garde Barbican Centre, October 10 - January 27; barbican.org.uk John Kasnetsis RA Summer Exhibition Royal Academy, June 13 - August 20; royalacademy.org.uk John Bodkin Picasso 1932 - Love, Fame, Tragedy Tate Modern, March 8 - September 9; tate.org.uk Tate Aftermath: Art in the Wake of World War One Tate Britain, June 5 - September 16; tate.org.uk The estate of Winifred Knights Michael Jackson: On the Wall National Portrait Gallery, June 28 - October 21; npg.org.uk David LaChapelle Andreas Gursky Hayward Gallery, January 28 - April 22; designmuseum.org Andreas Gursky/DACS, 2017 Monet & Architecture National Gallery, April 9 - July 29; nationalgallery.org.uk President and Fellows of Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts Charles I: King and Collector January 27 - April 15, Royal Academy; royalacademy.org.uk Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017 Edward Bawden Dulwich Picture Gallery, May 23 - September 9; dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk Estate of Edward Bawden Joan Jonas Tate Modern, March 14 - August 5; tate.org.uk Joan Jonas / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS, London Artists at Work Courtauld Gallery, March 28 - August 12; courtauld.ac.uk/gallery Somewhere in Between Wellcome Collection, March 8 - August 26; wellcomecollection.org

Smith, who was awarded an OBE for services to the arts last year, is known for his political slogan paintings. He is currently installing his new exhibition The Whole World Is An Art School at Von Bartha in Basel, an immersive exhibition that transforms the gallery space into an art school.

The arts and democracy are intrinsically connected, he said. Self-expression is key to democracy and censorship often starts with the arts. It is for this reason I urge people to not take this lying down. It is our duty to pass the pursuit of ideas on to the generations we are raising; we must start with our schools.

A Department for Education spokeswoman told the BBC that spending on arts education will have increased to 400m between 2016 and 2020, and that since 2011 the proportion of state school students taking at least one arts subject had increased.

Smiths comments follow National Theatre boss Rufus Norriss recent call for an end to the myth that culture and creativity belong naturally to the elite, that they are not for everyone.A n evening under the stars will become a reality for many Londoners tonight as the second supermoon of 2020 reaches its zenith.

The phenomenon is one of the annual "worm moons"  named for the earthworms that emerge as the ground thaws with the beginning of spring.

The moon will be visible from after sunset at around 5.35pm, rising in the east and appearing 14 per cent bigger and 30 per cent brighter than a normal moon  so it can be seen without specialist equipment. In fact, it offers a fantastic opportunity for budding astronomers in the capital this evening.

Still, it's recommended to find somewhere with dark skies, a clear horizon and little light pollution, which means Londons parks are the top options. Do take care if visiting parks after dark, and be sure to check closing times for all of them before heading down  we've had a look but in our experience, parks can operate to their own strange schedule, which often isn't publicised. Times can sometimes vary depending on weather and time of year, but don't worry if you arrive to find the parks shut  if you're unable to access them, the streets surrounding them should offer decent views too.

Greenwich Park

Dominic Lipinski/PA

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The most famous observatory in the UK is found in the bounds of Greenwich Park, and its no surprise that the area has attracted countless stargazers down the years. The picturesque setting is the perfect place to pitch up your telescope, and the higher ground leading up to the observatory offer a fantastic view. Closing time is listed as 7pm.

The WaterWorks Nature Reserve

It might be a little way out from the centre of town, but this spot is easy enough to get up, being right by Lea Bridge station. While the reserve itself is shut from 4pm, the public rights of way are and it's worth tripping up here as it's one of London's three certified Dark Sky Discovery Sites (the others are Regents Park and Grove Park). With low levels of light pollution, you're all but guaranteed a clear view of the sky.

Hyde Park

Getty Images

Theres an enormous 350 acres for stargazers to discover in this historic park. There are plenty of great vantage spots to be found, just be sure to stay well clear of the Serpentine after dark. Its also home to all sorts of wildlife, with hundreds of species making their home across the parks sprawling grounds, so keep an eye out for them too. The park is listed as being open until midnight.

In pictures - London's Royal Parks 1 /40 In pictures - London's Royal Parks St James's Park PA Richmond Park PA Regent's Park PA Regent's Park PA Regent's Park PA Regent's Park PA Kensington Gardens PA Hyde Park PA Hyde Park PA Kensington Gardens PA Kensington Gardens PA Hyde Park PA Kensington Gardens Jeremy Selwyn Kensington Gardens Jeremy Selwyn Kensington Gardens Jeremy Selwyn Hyde Park PA Greenwich Park Getty Images Greenwich Park Daniel Lynch St James's Park PA St James's Park PA Richmond Park PA Richmond Park PA Richmond Park PA Bushy Park PA Bushy Park PA Richmond Park PA Regent's Park PA Regent's Park PA Regent's Park PA Richmond Park PA Hyde Park PA Hyde Park PA Hyde Park PA Greenwich Park PA Green Park PA Green Park PA Greenwich Park PA Green Park PA Green Park PA Green Park PA

Hampstead Heath

Hampstead Heath is already a popular spot for stargazers  there are reports of a lunar loving club who head to the pub for a top up before popping out to stare at the sky. The wood is probably your best bet for the least light pollution; though, of course, the trees might get in the way. Best of luck. The park is open 24 hours a day.

The Regent's Park

PA Archive/PA ImagesField Day

Field Day first came to Victoria Park ten years ago, and quickly developed a reputation for being a great celebration of alternative music in London. Electronica royalty Aphex Twin performed alongside King Gizzard & the Lizzard Wizard and Run The Jewels at the festival in 2017, and 2018 could prove to be the biggest year yet for the festival. However, the festival is moving to Brockwell Park this year, and the change of location has stirred up controversy. Guardians of Brockwell park have launched a petition to pull the plug on the festival, which could potentially prove a problem for festival organisers. However, Field Day has been a major London event for over a decade, and almost certainly will be a big player for years to come.Review at a glance









A n enoteca isnt just a wine bar. It is, the Greek etymology proclaims, a wine repository. Even, you might say, a wine library.

For a century or more theres been a famous one at the Palazzo Antinori in Florence, allowing wine-tasting by the glass. More recently theyve been a way for small winemakers in Italy, often working with growers or tourist organisations, to offer their products to visitors without having to run a tasting room themselves.

Now, slightly surprisingly, theres one on Kensington High Street. Enoteca Rosso occupies premises that used to be a bank and then for a while transformed into a spa, hoping to please the ladies of Holland Park - and there must be quite tight restrictions on what can be done to the space, because the enoteca has been slotted into the existing configuration, leaving its pillars, high coffered ceiling and sections of mosaic floor intact.

The conversion is by the Milanese architecture practice Defrancesco + Silva (Joao Silva being one of the co-owners) and it has taken the wine library concept literally. The design is dominated by great walls of stacked terracotta triangles, full of bottles, leaving no doubt as to what this place is about. The aesthetic is otherwise quite hard-edged and urban; grey walls, filament lights dangling from red cords, black suedette banquettes and not very comfortable Tolix-style steel chairs.

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Its a big and difficult space and we found the arrangement of the bare wood-topped tables awkward, not very feng shuied, definitely not the cosy Tuscan farmhouse promised. The new handles to the mighty original doors of the bank are in the form of two big red goblet wine glasses, startlingly naff.

Daniel Hambury/@stellapicsltd

The immense all-Italian wine list rightly begins with reds  and its an absolute treat, carefully researched from regions all over the country, with enticing bottles at all prices, from 25 or so, with dozens to explore for 30 or 40, before the heights are reached.

However, although all very accurately named, there are no helpful descriptions on the peculiarly shaped carte, so unless you really know your way around the extraordinary maze of growers and grape varieties (unleashed since the introduction in 1992 of the IGT certification  indicazione geografica tipica  loosened up the rigid rules of denominazione di origine controllata) youll be at a loss, unless youve nerdily taken a wine atlas along.

David Sexton's week in food A weekend In France, planting and cutting back. Reports of the memorial service for Paul Bocuse  who died, aged 91, in the same room above his restaurant near Lyon in which he was born  remind me to make again one of the simple, local dishes he liked: chicken in vinegar, using shallots and plenty of butter. Its so easy to eat well there. From the local Carrefour I love the whole Reflets de France line, 500 or so products guaranteed to be traditionally made and emblematic of the French culinary patrimony, as signed off by Joel Robuchon. Saucisse de Montbeliard IGP with lentils and lettuce: Fleuron de la charcuterie franc-comtoise, all right. Local Lot walnuts (pictured), bought from a vigneron in the Saturday market in Lauzerte, are nothing like the tasteless crop from China or California. Perfect with a glass of aged Maury, Roussillons answer to port. So pleasing to see Tom Hanks, in town last week to promote The Post, say that one of the things he likes best about London is Wagamama! Quite right. Shirodashi ramen for me. On good days. On bad days its the staff canteen here at Northcliffe House. A tepid, microwaved baked potato (1) and tiny plastic tub of brined tuna (75p) usually seem the safest choice. Inmates are probably better fed in prison. If not the zoo.

All the wines we tried by the 125ml glass were excellent, however, starting with the cheapest, Rosso IGT Umbria Le Lucrezie 2016, Tudernum, an enjoyable Sangiovese blend from Todi at 5.50. I discovered wines from grape varieties Ive never knowingly tasted before  a Ruche Di Castagnole Monferrato Pro Nobis 2016, from Cantine SantAgata in Piedmont (9), was memorably delicious. So theres good exploring all round Italy to be had from a seat in W8. Theres my sporty resolution for 2018: a new grape variety every day. Top doctors recommend it.

If the wine list covers the country, the food from head chef Flavio Militello, who has worked at Michelin-starred Felix Lo Basso in Milan, is distinctively north Italian, tending to the rich and the unctuous. Not for vegans, not for January dries, Enoteca Rosso.

There are tagliere, boards of cuts of salumi or cheeses, served with home-made focaccia. We tried the grandest, the Tagliere Rosso at 25, enough for four rather than two. Lardo has become a Hackney hipster fad and never seduced me in this form. Here the Lardo di Colonnata IGP (lard aged for six months in salt in marble basins in Carrarra), sliced thin, to be spread over bread, was indecently good, an essence of pig, aromatic and silken, ethereal even.

Likewise, the Culatello di Zibello DOP was the best Ive encountered, made by curing compressed meat for 12 months, in the city of Zibello near Parma, in the humid atmosphere created by the proximity of the Po, resulting in a kind of super-intensity of ham, far outdoing run-of-the-mill prosciutto  ham as concentrated as Marmite, pronounced Katie.

Fay Maschler's 50 favourite restaurants in London 1 /50 Fay Maschler's 50 favourite restaurants in London Andrew Edmunds Once through the battered door of the early C18th terrace house you can breathe a sigh of relief: Sohos soul remains untrammelled. Opened in 1986 by the eponymous print dealer whose shop trades next door, the venue was quickly embraced as Londons riposte to a Parisian bistro. As happens in such places, a clientele of regulars clubbily coalesced. But make a booking & membership is granted by your name scribbled on the white paper tablecloth  next to a candle in a bottle. Nothing much has changed in the past 30-odd years. Cooking keeps pace with the evolving way we like to eat but is never egregiously clever-clogs. The drinks list, plus extra bottles on the blackboard, continues to delight and demand exploration. There isnt a better description than that by Bruce Yardley in my Standard restaurant guide of 1996: a bizarre assortment which looks as if picked up at auction following the death of a rich crank, with surprisingly grand bottles available at bargain prices. Still true. A Wong I go to the opening of any Chinese restaurant I hear about, always searching for the Holy Grail (a speciality, I think, of Fujian). In the dreary January days of 2013 I noticed the launch of A Wong in the badlands of Victoria, went one evening and have been going ever since. Andrew Wong, whose late father ran Kyms at the same address, did a Chinese reverse ferret and went from university into the restaurant kitchen, having fervently and effectively studied the cooking traditions of his homeland. Time of day influences the experience, with lunch being the moment for imaginative, exquisite and often astonishing dim sum, sensibly served by the piece. Underpin them with knife-shaved noodles with garlic, soy, chilli, sesame and dried fish, and Xian city lamb burger with Xinjiang pomegranate salad. In the evenings, the 10-course Taste of China Menu and the Peking Duck Feast are truly memorable. Undisputedly, Andrew is the most audacious, forward-thinking Chinese chef in London. Barrafina Apparently inspired by Barcelonas Cal Pep, these tapas bars are the creation of Hart Brothers Sam & Eddie, in whose domain are also Quo Vadis & El Pastor. Bilbao-born chef Nieves Barragan Mohacho established the rigorously authentic style and introduced regional culinary tropes not seen before in London. Her departure to do her own thing  fair enough after 14 years with the Harts  will, I believe, not leave customers short-changed. I dont observe queues shortening outside the three outlets, my favourite being Drury Lane because the wait is often more merciful and it is perfect for before and after theatre, ballet and movies. The venues are slickly kitted out and the dance of service skilfully choreographed. Sparkling, pristine fish can be combined with gnarly offal and grills of the day and bedded down in the basics such as tortilla and pan con tomate, which are notably carefully constructed. The Harts import their own manzanilla, which is a good way to start as you mean to go on. Bellamy's My dutiful admiration for the Queen soared to a state approaching fandom when, in March 2016, I read that she had dined at Bellamys  and not for the first time. In her terms you might almost say shes a regular. Some restaurants are the person who owns them, and Bellamys is Gavin Rankin. Gavin worked for Mark Birley, original creator of Annabels and Marks Club, outstripping him, to my mind, in charm and subtlety. He is also a cracking mimic. French-Belgian brasseries inspire the look and the menu, which features the sort of simple things done well that posh people like, the dishes Arabella Boxer celebrated in her perspicacious Book of English Food. You might choose to start with iced lobster souffle but find milk chocolate Minstrels served with coffee. How well Gavin understands. A table dhote menu at lunch and dinner offers excellent value and French wines kick off very reasonably. Young customers are encouraged  as well as venerable royalty. Bentley's Oyster Bar & Grill My gaggle of companions for restaurant reviewing includes people working in the biz. They are curious, invariably generous in judgment  and they understand. Oisin Rogers, of The Guinea Grill, grasps the nettle fearlessly but sometimes he will say, lets just go somewhere good. Bentleys Oyster Bar is mooted because it is a serious enterprise devoted to prime ingredients treated with wit and brio, and because ebullient Richard Corrigan is a consummate chef and restaurateur  and of course an Irishman. The oyster bar is the place to sit, the end table on the left opposite the long marble bar my preference. Oyster-eaters (not me) say the best specimens are are here. Oystermen open them with a skill that could re-invent The Generation Game. Fish soup, fish and chips and a glorious fish pie are all present and correct, but dont ignore the inventive and sometimes globetrotting dishes of the day. The terrace outside is another asset. Black Axe Mangal One BAM review remarked prissily that you cant adjust the volume on your palate. It then occurred to me that the relentless heavy-metal that prohibits conversation actually works to balance the smack of roaring flavours and deafening colours. Forget talking, start drinking cocktails. Chef/patron Lee Tiernan, who fronts the black, wood-fired, iron-clad metal oven decorated with tributes to Kiss, worked for 10 years at St John, finishing as head chef at St John Bread & Wine in Spitalfields. He is well travelled, soaking up influences, stratagems and spices like a wily sponge. For what I describe generically as pimped-up lahmacun, one of the breads incorporating potato and spelt flour, is inspired by San Franciscos Tartine Bakery. If you get nervous around offal, cunning accoutrements with the meats and the clout of chilli will dispel that. More decorous assemblies are also offered. Consider squid ink flatbread topped with an egg yolk literally  and silently  glittering. Bocco di Lupo Chef Jacob Kenedy and manager Victor Hugo both worked at Moro. Inspired and instructed, in 2008 they opened their own venture in an unkempt Soho street in premises that once housed Charlie Chesters Casino. They were early into small plates  at the start of a meal a stack like gambling chips is placed on the table. The menu takes inspiration from the 20 regions of Italy and from the kitchens own ideas when the region is listed as BDL. Perfect radish, celeriac, pomegranate, pecorino salad with truffle dressing comes from there, ie, inside Jacobs head. Rome is the go-to for fried fancies such as anchovy-stuffed sage leaves and Mammole artichokes. Pastas from anywhere are sublime, and when choosing roasts and grills it is well worth remembering that sausages are one of the staples made in-house. No luck with a booking or a place at the counter? Try the offshoot Vico in Cambridge Circus, specialising in southern Italian cooking. And definitely an ice cream from Gelupo. Brasserie Zedel I luxuriate at The Wolseley. The Delaunay confers glamour. At Fischers the mittel-European cafe concept has found its ideal address. The peace, space and tartes flambees at Bellanger are a boon, and I wouldnt stay anywhere in London other than The Beaumont. But it is Brasserie Zedel, just off Piccadilly Circus and conceived by Corbin and King, that touches my heart. Here is the meat and drink of democracy inspired by Bouillon Chartier in Paris. Marble columns, brass rails, mirrors and gilt decorate a vast hall where tables have salmon-pink cloths and napkins. After five years of business, ridiculously reasonable prices hold. I choose the prix-fixe menu at 12.75 for three courses, not because I am a cheapskate but because I like carottes rapees, steak hache and gateau Opera. Dishes of the day make me hope its Monday for that quintessential French assembly, poulet au curry. An evening of cabaret at Crazy Coqs across the hall followed by dinner is one of Londons unbeatable treats. Brawn I got to know Keith McNally in 2013 when he came to recreate his New York landmark restaurant Balthazar in Covent Garden. He asked me where I most liked to eat and I took him here. He loved it, said it was absolutely his idea of an ideal restaurant and claimed that his mother was born in Columbia Road. Maybe she was. Ed Wilson, once head chef for the Terroirs coalition, now concentrates his energies here. Seasonal, local, foraged, organic, yadda, yadda, yadda... but here, in what was once a wood-turning workshop, those attributes obtain magnificently. The daily printed menu bristles with relevance, relish and temptation. The off-piste wine list comes with staff willing and able to explain, recommend and let you try. When I first reviewed Brawn, I gave it five stars. Enough said. Brunswick House If anywhere could redeem the urban blight of the developments in Vauxhall Cross, it is the Georgian house now fittingly occupied by architectural salvage company Lassco. It is where young blade Jackson Boxer runs his candelabra-lit, ground-floor restaurant and bar with access to some of the atmospheric rooms for private parties. Jackson, grandson of Arabella (see Bellamys) and the late Mark Boxer, has been fortunate in his culinary evolution here in having Andrew Clarke  soon to open duck-devoted Bastien  as chef-director and gifted Drew Snaith at his elbow. Their menus are fertile, nourishing, plugged into the markets and fashionable without being faddy. The old ways of a major ingredient bolstered by minor accompaniments has been abandoned to a new musicality where every element carries more or less equal weight. Vegetarians wont feel neglected; their options are never obvious. The romance of craftsmanship, apparent everywhere in the building, carries over into the cooking. Cambio de Tercio In compiling this list some choices needed a revisit to check that everything was as I thought. When I slipped in here on a weekday lunchtime I locked eyes  you will grasp the significance when you meet him  with Abel Lusa, owner since the restaurant opened in 1995. Over 20 years on, you might expect the boss to miss a quiet service, but Lusa was also meeting Spanish wine makers, the cellar being his pride and joy. Albero & Grana (now closed) where Lusa worked and Cambio de Tercio (both names inspired by bullfighting) brought to west London stirrings of how we now perceive Spanish cooking  as something revelatory. Jamon Iberica  here five-star Sanchez Romero Carvajal  is the way to begin any meal. Head chef Alberto Criado embraces the technique of low and slow whether that be for roasted tomatoes, heritage carrots, rabbit, oxtail or baked custard. Vivid and energising decor and enthusiastic service animates the diners  including Rafael Nadal when hes in town. Chez Bruce When there was a flurry of media surprise in the mid-Eighties at university graduates becoming restaurant chefs, Bruce Poole (Exeter  history) was among that number. After a couple of years working front-of-house, he began cooking with Simon Hopkinson at Bibendum. Pooles premises overlooking Wandsworth Common previously housed Marco Pierre White at Harveys. For many  me included  Chez Bruce is a restaurant ideal and often wins awards pointing to that fact. Classic technique from head chef Matt Christmas is let loose on a roll call of enticing ingredients exhibiting deep-seated understanding of the role and impact of each. Generosity of spirit conveyed by the dishes themselves plus canapes and friandises is reinforced by the warmth and capability of the staff with a strong female component including sommelier Sara Bachiorri in charge of a magnificent list. There is agreeably defiant plainness in the decor, all the better to frame tip-top eating and drinking. Ciao Bella Was it named when a world-weary Italian waiter approached a pretty girl with an oversized pepper mill in his hands? This familiar scenario that for many underpins the London restaurant experience is to my mind enshrined most satisfactorily at Ciao Bella. Always buzzing  electric heaters outside provide an all-weather terrace  with the basement often given over to parties, diners on the ground floor are squashed tight under stills from the heyday of Italian movies, with special attention paid to Fellini and La Dolce Vita. Those traditional Italian specialities salume affumicato and avocado e gamberetti share the menu with insalata tricolore, myriad pizzas, over two dozen pastas, vitello, fegato, pollo, scampi, cassata, torta della nonna, all reassuringly served in comforting quantity. A pianist plays, customers imbibe and often sing. Catching a movie at Curzon Bloomsbury followed by supper here is one approach of mine to the sweet life. Clarke's In a magazine article asking chefs what they would be cooking on Christmas Day, I remember Sally Clarke saying something like she might boil a few carrots. She is ascetic, our Sal and it has stood her in good stead. Young dude chefs nowadays get praised for their no-choice tasting menus, but more than 30 years ago Sally  inspired in part by Alice Waters at Chez Panisse  launched Clarkes with a fixed dinner menu (that rule has recently been relaxed). She was ahead of her time in other ways such as strict seasonality, devotion to the best produce, local if possible, an open kitchen, bread made in-house, simplicity, clarity, clean fingernail inspection and Californian wines. There is a serenity in the dining rooms that attracts a band of devoted followers. Lucian Freud was one, as art on the walls attests. For the best of British ingredients handled with an artistic yet practical sensibility, Clarkes is there to carry you to a safe harbour. The Clove Club From a supper club in a modest flat to Shoreditch Town Hall and a placing this year at No 26 in the Worlds 50 Best Restaurants, chef Isaac McHale and his partners front-of-house, Johnny Smith and Daniel Willis, have made an extraordinary culinary trajectory. Tasting menus pre-paid as if for a front-row seat at the opera are one way to go, but I prefer lunch Tuesday to Friday when dishes are offered a la carte. (As a mealtime I tend to like lunch best anyway, especially long lunch). The open kitchen and pared back scholastic dining room look most appealing when light floods through long windows. Dishes that are almost fixtures like buttermilk fried chicken & pine salt; meats cured in-house; raw Orkney scallop with hazelnut, clementine and truffle; game in season; Amalfi lemonade & Kampot pepper ice cream are on offer  as, please note, they might be on the a la carte bar menu. Genial interaction between staff, including chefs, and customers can be another lovable quality here. Club Gascon (Le Bar) Some chefs stay preternaturally young looking. My theory is that its the steam in the kitchen. Pascal Aussignac, son of Gascony, also possesses elfin charm. He nips between his main restaurant close to St-Bartholomew-the-Great church, Le Bar (formerly Cellar Gascon) next door, Comptoir Gascon on the other side of the old Smithfield meat market and Cigalon in Chancery Lane. I dare say his Fitbit is constantly vibrating. Restaurant-going in south-west France will not have readied you for his daring wit and ingenuity with ingredients. The menu salutes vegetable gardens, rivers and oceans, forests and pastures. Although taken to its heights in the main restaurant, I prefer eating in the more casual surroundings of Le Bar. French tapas delivers items such as duck doughnuts with spicy sauce, cod roe plancha with white asparagus and truffle, lentil veloute & eel madeleine, frosted After Eight, along with cocktails and wines chosen with real discernment, graciously served. The Dairy When it opened in 2013, The Dairy burst onto the restaurant scene like overnight spring blossom. And in Clapham! This laid-back light-hearted outfit offering an amazingly good value tasting menu was not the result of a whim on the part of Dublin-born Robin Gill. Hard graft had been put in under Marco Pierre White at The Oak Room and Raymond Blanc at Le Manoir aux QuatSaisons, sandwiching a time in Italy at Don Alfonso 1890 on the Amalfi coast where the importance of seasonality and local producers was brought home. With his wife Sarah, wanting to create a little farmhouse in the middle of London, he drew on inspiration from Scandinavia and stages at Noma and Frantzen. Sound husbandry, fermentation, bee keeping, bread and butter making, good drinking, staff nurturing all play a part. In the following four years, The Manor, also in Clapham, Paradise Garage in Bethnal Green and Counter Culture next to The Dairy have followed. Something else is in the pipeline. I cant wait. L'Escargot I discovered LEscargot (estd. 1927) when, in the late Sixties, I worked as a copywriter at J. Walter Thompson and was taken for lunches by one of the account directors, Robert Fearnley-Whittingstall (Hughs father as he became). What I remember best from those days are lampshades made from scorched white silk hankies weighed down by snail shells and the list of Alsace wines. As Soho changes for what likeable people think is the worse, LEscargot, now nurtured by genial owner Brian Clivaz, stands solid as proof of  and a link to  more sybaritic, velvety times. The menu devised by chef James Tyrell embraces French brasserie classics including snails (bien sur), onion soup, steak tartare, cassoulet, beef Bourguignon, steak-frites and Bearnaise, Grand Marnier souffle. There is the occasional trendy incursion that can be easily sidestepped. I like to sit in the ground floor front bar. I had my 70th birthday at LEscargot: It was one of the best parties I have ever been to. Elystan Street After working for 25 years at The Square  holding two Michelin stars for 17 of them  at the age of 50 when most chefs slip out of their whites into something more managerial, Phil Howard  in a striped pinny  goes on cooking. Last year, with his business partner Rebecca Mascarenhas, he opened Elystan Street in Chelsea revealing in studiedly casual no-tablecloth decor and sprightly, nourishing, salubrious menus that he has not been unaware of changes in customer preferences and their awareness of vigour and healthiness in restaurant meals. Howards culinary taste is almost pitch-perfect and the balance of earthiness and elegance in the dishes is ever delicate. Getting to work past Andreas greengrocer could provide inspiration. These ingredients and skills come at a cost (to us) but set-price lunch is a relative bargain and Phil Howard sprung free is a treat worth saving for. Consider warm salad of guinea fowl with cauliflower, shaved mushrooms, liver crumble and hazelnuts. Frenchie The name was given to Gregory Marchand by Jamie Oliver when he worked as head chef at Fifteen in Shoreditch. He parlayed it into a notably successful restaurant followed by wine bar and traiteur in Pariss 2nd arrondissement. Earlier experience in New York, Spain and Hong Kong meant that Frenchie opening in London wasnt the ill-starred relocation made by some of his compatriots. Unless particularly gifted hands in the patisserie section signify French to you, the menu, its execution and the surroundings are simply modern global chic  that last word a reference to dainty portions, which grate on some. Provenance of ingredients, the majority British, is name-checked. Their treatment is sharp-witted, often erudite in a revealing way about what flatters what. Fixed-price lunch is good value and a candid approach to what you want to spend on wine works well with the vivacious sommelier in charge of a list mined with natural wines. Dont miss maple-licked bacon scones with clotted cream. The Goring Londons last family-owned luxury hotel is the claim, and there is a stylish cosiness to The Goring that other grand establishments lack. When legendary New York food writer Mimi Sheraton last came to London she arranged that we have lunch at The Goring and, exigent critic that she is, pronounced herself very content. Proximity to Buckingham Palace isnt the only reason that the royals are customers. Eggs Drumkilbo (jellied lobster cocktail) on the dining room menu was a first course much favoured by the late Queen Mother. Another restaurant lure is Fillet of Beef Wellington for two to share  and of course roast sirloin on the trolley on Sundays  but chef Shay Cooper has a fertile mind resulting in assemblies like cured sea bream, pickled lemon, hazelnut oil, iced celery; and roast squab, Tokyo turnip, crispy squab leg parcel, fresh apple, cider vinegar sauce. For a drink or tea in the comfortable bar overlooking the pretty garden it is always wise to book. Great Queen Street Although part of a group that includes three of Londons outstanding gastropubs  Anchor & Hope, Canton Arms and Camberwell Arms are all well worth seeking out  Great Queen Street is a restaurant with the facility to book tables and a 5.30pm dinner kick-off in a location that makes it ideal for pre-theatre eating. Ten years ago when it opened with delightful Tom Norrington-Davies at the stoves, the stripped-back decor  to which nothing much seems to have been done since  was arguably more startling than the modern European cooking. Now dishes and sharing assemblies such as warm black pudding, Alsace bacon salad and a poached egg; pot roast beef shin and risotto Milanese for two; suckling pig shoulder, choucroute, Montbeliard sausage, apple and horseradish for three are harder to find in multidisciplinary Soho and Covent Garden. Opposite Freemasons Hall where the Observer Food Monthly Awards are usually held.,I find myself gravitating to GQS for reassuring dinner after. Hereford When I go for lunch at Hereford Road sandwiched between Bayswater and Notting Hill, as I do quite a lot, I often run into Tom Parker Bowles. We are both fans of Tom Pembertons approach to cooking  basically following the gospel according to St John  his sweet demeanour, ceaseless industry and the 13.50/15.50 two/three course set lunch with choice, a bargain that has been held at that price for years. Of course we might sometimes branch out and maybe choose crab, fennel and tomato salad in place of duck livers, green beans and tarragon or Blythburgh pork chop with chard and mustard rather than guinea fowl with pearl barley and chestnuts and finish with treacle tart not chilled rice pudding with marmalade (all taken from the menu on day of writing) but as you see there is no real need. In summer, tables outside and the skylight at the back come into their own. In winter sitting opposite the open kitchen is snug and rather romantic. Honey & Smoke The self-styled Honeys, Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich, met cooking in an Italian restaurant near Tel Aviv. Yotam Ottolenghi  for whom they have both worked in London  you could say laid the trail here, in terms of restaurants and magazine features, for their magic carpet ride Middle Eastern food. First came Honey & Co, roughly the size of a beehive, then books, then the deli Honey & Spice and now this recreation of a spartan, but spacious grill house (always their dream), made distinctive by a cobalt blue wall. A set price menu for all the innovative mezze followed by a grill, side and dessert works for four or more. On your own or with a pal, roam among the first dishes not omitting burnt celeriac, Urfa chilli butter, soured cream and chives and then share a main, something based on lamb or pigeon with sweet onions as done in the Philadelphia restaurant, East Jerusalem. The brisk, sometimes brusque service just reinforces my determination to visit Israel. Hoppers The JSK group is named after Jyotin, Karam and Sunaina Sethi, Indian siblings who seem preternaturally sure-footed when it comes to devising their own culinary businesses or backing others. I am letting Hoppers epitomise the usefully varied skills they bring to bear on other in-house ventures like Gymkhana and the talents they back, as at Bao; this list cant accommodate them all. Hoppers celebrates Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka not just in the eponymous crumpety rice and coconut bowl-shaped pancakes but the vivid singular spicing, relishes such as seeni sambol, crisp dosa pancakes, inclusion of pork, enthusiasm for butter, snacks rolled in breads, love for the soothing quality of coconut and of course the particular hit of arrack fermented and matured in vats made from teak or Hamilla trees. Hoppers is hot in every sense of the word and queues (no bookings taken) are well handled  they take a number & text. It keeps the prices staying as sweet as they are. Indian Zing There is a clue in the name about what makes this restaurant the favourite of so many. Dear old Michael Winner, whose judgment was by no means always batty, was a fan. Chef/patron Manoj Vasaikar has worked in London since the early 1990s  at the original Chutney Mary and also Veeraswamy. His knowledge of Indias regional cooking plus his understanding of what people want results in a delicate balance between tradition and derring-do. Zing go the strings of my heart for dishes like king prawn lonche, referring to the pickle that points up the aubergine and onion sauce, and chicken shatkora flavoured with the tang  subtly different from zing  of a knobbly green citrus fruit from north-east India. Vegetables assume almost the same importance that they do in the homeland, so vegetarians can make merry here. In a street stiff with curry houses, distinction lies in superior cooking of prime foodstuffs, handsome decor and unerringly charming staff. J Sheekey In 1893 Josef Sheekey was granted permission by Lord Salisbury to sell fish and shellfish in St Martins Court so long as he also undertook to provide dinners for the Lord and his friends after they had been to the theatre. It was only relatively recently that a prohibition on frying was lifted. Now J Sheekey is part of Richard Carings Caprice Holdings. So it goes as Kurt Vonnegut might have said. The Atlantic Bar with its own terrace is ideal for post-theatre eating in terms of location, hours kept and the composition of the menu, which can deliver delicacy and lightness if that is what is required, or fish pie. Oysters and/or a plateau de fruits de mer are another way of dealing with late eating, and there are on-trend items such as tuna poke and stone bass ceviche for those who dont want shellfish. It is a clever, useful and somehow quite louche concept. It would be equally handy pre-theatre but I have never been that organised. Kiln Its OK to say white boys cooking Thai food when they say it about themselves. Andy Oliver at Som Saa, Seb Holmes at Farang, Ali Borer at Smoking Goat are all candidates here, but as there is room for one it will be Ben Chapman (ex-Smoking Goat) at Kiln. With experience as a designer, self-taught cook Chapman, well-travelled in Northern Thailand on the borders of Burma and Laos, brings endearing serene obsession to the charcoal-fired cooking  clay-pot, barbecue and wok  behind a long steel counter. He has said that none of it is verbatim Thai cooking but part of that claim is the high quality of raw ingredient and his relationships with indigenous farmers and fishermen. Fish arrives daily. Whole animals are butchered in-house. Asian herbs and vegetables are grown specially. The result is some of the most exciting cooking in London  at wholly amenable prices. Start with aged lamb and cumin skewer, then set off into the jungle. Kitty Fisher's Naming a Shepherd Market restaurant after a famous 18th-century courtesan shows wit. Wood-fired cooking in premises that were once a 19th-century bakery with the ovens still on show brings a touch of gastronomic dignity to the peculiarly self-conscious area. Launch chef Tomos Parry has been replaced by George Barson who includes Heston Blumenthals Dinner and Nuno Mendes Viajante on his CV. Kitty, who allegedly once ate a 1,000 banknote on a slice of bread and butter, would feel at home in the cosy downstairs room with its button-back seating upholstered in old rose velvet  and might not swoon at the prices. Whipped cods roe on toast; silver darlings (baby herrings) with piccalilli; leeks with smoked Hollandaise, crispy chicken skin and hazelnuts are a fine start. In the main course Iberico pork and Galician beef respond delectably to the cooking medium. Good manners of the owners inform the thoughtful service. There is news of a rollout  inevitable but slightly sad-making. The Laughing Heart The name is taken from a Charles Bukowski poem. He would have liked this place  We are here to laugh at the odds and live so well that death will tremble to take us. Open evenings only from Wednesday then all day Sunday, lights staying on late (until 2am) attract flapping moths released from catering and other adrenaline-fuelled activities or anyone looking to keep the fun going. Burly, bearded, bucolic Charlie Mellor has taken on a restaurant, wine bar and off-licence devoted in part to natural and biodynamic wines. Let him be your guide. Chef Tom Anglesea  Rockpool in Oz, Per Se in New York  sends out beguiling dishes like creamed cods roe sprinkled with onomatopoeic Japanese furikake made from dried fish, sesame seeds and seaweed and unctuous chicken liver mousse contained in a stockade of slices of pear and batons of fried chicken skin. Late at night, soak up your troubles with special fried rice or char sui buns. Koya Bar My two favourite Mom & Pop Japanese restaurants  Sushi-Say and The Shiori that offered a kaiseki menu  have seen the chefs and their wives return to Japan. Junya Yamasaki whose BackBench at Koya (the original) was a gastronomic revelation has also gone back. Theres Umu and The Iraki that I cant afford, wondrous Sushi Tetsu where getting a booking is torment, and Dinings where Im waiting to see the effect of the new branch  so lovely Koya Bar. Fat udon noodles, the wheat dough kneaded by foot, wriggle at the centre of the operation. Whatever the weather they can be hot with hot broth, cold with hot broth or cold with dipping and pouring sauces plus garnishes. When alone or your date is on the phone, watching the chefs noodling behind the long counter can be agreeably meditative. Small plates of pickles, salads, and tempura and seasonal daily specials provide constant variety and diversion. Breakfast is great. Try kedgeree or rice porridge. The Ledbury Since it opened in 2005, many accolades  not least two Michelin stars  have been bestowed on Brett Grahams Notting Hill restaurant. The web guide All in London, which awarded Ultimate London Restaurant four years in a row, says it well. Experience in his homeland of Australia followed by several years working for Philip Howard at The Square brings a lightness of touch, a fleetness of foot, a visceral understanding of textures and flavours made for each other that is unsurpassed. Important to the achievement is the paradox in Grahams reference to the effort put in to make customers feel relaxed. In this he is fortunate in amiable general manager, Dublin-born Darren McHugh. Here are a first and main course that give a taste of the wizardry: clay-baked candy beetroot, English caviar, smoked and dried eel; jowl of pork, carrot & gooseberry juice, crackling and girolles. And most probably no one will interrupt to ask if you are enjoying them. Spendy, yes, but money well spent. London Shell Co The Prince Regent is moored at Paddington Basin. Skipper and ships cook are Harry and Leah Lobek, assisted in the galley by Stuart Kilpatrick. Heavy-heartedness attendant on the phrase dinner cruise is immediately dispelled as you step aboard and settle down in the twinkling interior for resting actor Harrys health and safety instructions that include the tip that if you fall overboard you can walk to the bank. Unbidden comes a sparkling aperitif based on Julian Temperleys Somerset Cider Brandy and then, as you start to head for Camden Lock via Little Venice and Primrose Hill, the first of the five courses in the well-executed fish-propelled menu arrives. Harry, who has also worked as a sommelier (at Pollen Street Social), is a nifty guide to the wine list, which he seems to know inside out. Seeing London from a whole new vantage point as well as peering into moored houseboats is kind of magical  with much better dining than you might have anticipated. A perfect date night. Lyle's Along with star ratings restaurant reviews might usefully indicate whether the place in question is better for lunch or dinner. In my judgment, Lyles comes with a big L for lunch. Dinner is four courses at a set price with no choice. Whats mine is thine; wheres the fun there? But at lunch, there are 15 choices to dice with and divvy up and because James Lowe is a gifted, responsive, companionable chef tightly plugged into seasonality and a believer in the St. John diktat that nature should write your menu  he was head chef at St John Bread & Wine  dishes will feature ingredients like dulse and nettles, herbs like sweet cicely and lovage, breeds like Speckled Face mutton and tingling treats like cedrat lemon sherbet & preserved lemon meringue. Daytime also suits the high-ceilinged strictly functional dining room better. Take note of The Guest Series whereby compelling chefs from other countries are invited to cook, admittedly in the evenings. Everyone benefits. Masala Zone Owned by the Panjabi-Mathrani family, whose standalone Indian restaurants are the estimable Chutney Mary, Veeraswamy and Amaya, their six-strong group (plus an outlet in Selfridges) to my mind achieves something more difficult. It is a definitely a group, not a chain, palpably apparent in different decor in each outlet celebrating India at play & at prayer and what must be very focused training to produce such informed and committed staff. As a frequent visitor to India  and having been born there  I can vouch for authenticity in the food, which naturally includes grills, tandoor and curries but also uplifting, diverting street food like pao bhaji, golgappa and dahi puri and thalis big or small, meat or vegetarian, the well-balanced healthy, almost ayurvedic way to approach a meal. At the Covent Garden branch beside the Opera House Rajasthani puppets bobbing across the ceiling are suitably theatrical  and merry company. The groups home delivery service is also unusually rewarding. Noble Rot Noble rot is the name given to the beneficial form of grey fungus on grapes known as botrytis cinerea. It is also a magazine and, since late 2015, a restaurant & wine bar in one of Londons most engaging streets. Mark Andrew and Dan Keeling, editors and owners, share a deep affection for wine and their publication and its catering arm demonstrate that joy can triumph over nerdiness in both. Consultant chef Stephen Harris from The Sportsman in Whitstable has installed his protege Paul Weaver behind the stoves sending out dishes like Lincolnshire smoked eel, Yorkshire rhubarb & soda bread (superb); gnocchi, chestnut mushroom, kale pesto & mascarpone; roast Anjou squab, peas and Puy lentils; peanut parfait & champagne jelly. There is a bar menu for the front half of the deep, dark green premises and an incredibly good value set lunch. I go to Noble Rot more often than I should. For me it offers all the human frame requires including graceful service and invaluable wine knowledge. Ognisko How could you not love a chap who opens a restaurant called Wodka? Jan Woroniecki, whose father Krzysztof was a soldier in the Polish forces who stayed in Britain after the Second World War, went on to open Baltic in Blackfriars Road. With Wodka now closed (sob) I suspect his heart is in Ognisko in the Polish Hearth Club, where he has stripped back what was a fusty room with musty food to reveal elegance in the lineaments of the space and a canopied terrace overlooking the lawn at the back. The menu exhibits the history, intricacy and dumpling comfort of a cuisine often written off as sausages. It is close to the South Kens Museum Quarter and also The Albert Hall, so I find many opportunities to visit Ognisko to order what I nearly always do  smoked eel with Salat Olivier, blinis or pierogi or pelmeni or placki (potato pancakes) with the great combo of chicken livers and dried cherries. Vodka obvs, but also careful study of the wine bin ends. Otto's My friend Simon Hopkinson, the best cook I know, spots Ottos in 2013. It is not just prestigious empty wine bottles in the window that catch his eye but a notice announcing, canard a la presse prepared to order. We make a plan to go  the duck from the same company in Challans that supplies La Tour dArgent in Paris must be ordered in advance. A silver-plated duck press made by Christofle in the early 1900s is in place and Otto embarks on the elaborate rich and redolent procedure that results in boozy brown velvet sauce for the breast meat followed by crisped legs served with salad. I dont suppose there will be pommes souffles, sighs Simon. There are. Otto is a maitre d who might be cast in a Wes Anderson movie. Now he has a lobster press and also offers the option of Mere Braziers Poularde de Bresse demi-deuil en vessie. It is old school; it is heaven  where kitsch meets a deeply serious kitchen. Peckham Bazaar That chef John Gionleka came to London from his native Albania to enter a Greek Orthodox seminary  but obviously got distracted  is a detail that seems significant when you observe his burning devotion to the charcoal grill. The restaurant presents the cooking style as eastern Mediterranean or, more stirringly, the area that once comprised the Ottoman Empire, but I think of it as the direction Greek food could go if only it tried a lot harder. A menu based on the markets changes every day. Here are some dishes to give the flavour, vigour and depth of understanding: caramelised onion pide, heritage tomatoes, Sicilian aubergine, anthotyro (Greek cheese); John Dory, freekah, monks beard, fennel, blood orange; marinated leg of Yorkshire lamb, coco beans, Charleston pepper, ktipiti (Greek red pepper/feta dip); venison, pork and prune adanas, cracked wheat, marinated peppers, adjika (spicy Georgian dip). There are interesting wines to match. Peckham beckons doesnt it? The Quality Chop House Co-owner is Will Lander, son of Jancis Robinson and Nick Lander, who has fulfilled what is maybe every parents dream and blended their talents (and added some of his own) to run not just this gem in Farringdon but also the admirable Portland and Clipstone in Marylebone. Obliged to pick my favourite, it is the revamp (insofar as English Heritage allows) of the Progressive Working Class Caterer established in 1869. I sit in the room next-door to the listed bum-numbing pews or, with enough chums, in the small private room upstairs to enjoy gifted chef Shaun Searleys singular take on what is happily now a fairly common cry of local, sustainable, independent, authentic etc. If they are on the daily-changing list, hard to resist are smoked cods roe with cured egg yolk and Hereford mince on dripping toast. And steaks on Tuesday nights and game in season. Always trust a restaurant with a butchers shop and deli attached. Great wine list. Ca va sans dire. The Ritz When I am asked for suggestions for a very special meal, I suggest The Ritz. The most beautiful dining room in London lends itself wholeheartedly and with gilded garlands to a sense of occasion, but more importantly executive chef John Williams commands an impeccable kitchen. There are many reasons to disparage the Michelin Guide but its withholding of stars from Williams at The Ritz is a strong one. Only this year did it bestow a measly one. Emphasising the classicism of the cooking is the menu section Arts de la Table that might offer Beef Wellington or Poulet Demi-Deuil served from a trolley. Everything from canapes to petits fours  here is one of the strongest pastry kitchens in town  is considered and commandeered. When I remarked to Williams that breakfast could be a bit more Downton Abbey he agreed and got rid of the Paltrow bowls of berries. It is expensive, but on Friday and Saturday nights you can dance Riva Riva is my favourite restaurant if you discount those owned by my sister or my son. I hesitate to say it because unless or until you get to know Andrea Riva and his exacting right-hand woman Dorothy it probably wont be yours. The restaurant is Andreas fiefdom. If he cant be there, he closes it. Of course all customers are made welcome but new ones will notice that towards the back of the strikingly plain room food and wine are being brought without orders being taken. For me this is high-definition luxury, especially since I know I am going to love the burrata, culatello, astringent salad, grilled langoustines, pasta, veal Milanese and so forth all predicated on the best ingredients handled with restraint. Riva is where I used to see the late Adrian Gill. Its where we went recently to celebrate Regs book deal with Jamie Byng of Canongate and saw Adrians widow Nicola Formby. Its a club where you get membership by turning up. River Cafe I am writing this entry the morning after having been there for dinner. I needed to make sure that it is as impressive as ever and fortuitously a perspicacious art dealer friend celebrating his birthday asked Reg and me to join him. Founder (with the late Rose Gray), Ruthie Rogers was ruling the roost, only she wasnt because thats not how it is done in what is more a cooperative or a community from which Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Jamie Oliver, Samantha and Samuel Clark, Stevie Parle and April Bloomfield, to name just some, have flown the nest. She was standing beside the nail polish pink-painted wood fired oven from which so much of the menu cooked fast or slow emanates. The room was packed with customers. The blindingly obvious secret is the very best ingredients used for Italian recipes that have stood the test of time but never miss a trick about what currently delights and delivers. I mean to go back when we can eat outside among the herbs and near the Thames. Rochelle Canteen A restaurant in the converted bike shed of a former school in the Boundary Estate in Shoreditch sounds so achingly here and now, but Margot Henderson and Melanie Arnolds spinoff from their outside catering company has been bowling along for more than 12 years. Permission has recently been granted for evening opening Thursday to Saturday. Heavens, the next thing you know theyll be getting a liquor licence but if so, it shouldnt stop you visiting the lovely, fastidious Leilas (shop) nearby. The way in  through a small blue door in the high brick wall  invokes The Secret Garden and when the weather is so inclined it is a lovely, peaceful green space in which to loll. Margot is married to Fergus Henderson of St. John (see right) and shares his direct, wholesome approach to cooking but augmented by the spirit apparent in her terrific cookbook, Youre All Invited. Here is one of Londons hidden treasures. Sardine Chef Stevie Parle put on a spurt of acceleration recently. After Dock Kitchen in North Kensington then Rotorino in Dalston, he did something ambitious and brilliant at Craft London in Greenwich Peninsula, opened Sardine on the fringe of Shoreditch not long after and Rome-inspired Palatino in Finsbury at the beginning of this year. Chef Alex Jackson is in charge of Sardines southern French cooking and I suspect that gentle marination in the works of Richard Olney, Elizabeth David and Paula Wolfert has informed his inviting, unusually cohesive menu at the heart of which is a wood-fired stove over which a leg of lamb can dangle a la ficelle or a duck be given the same treatment. Snacks  that canny new ammunition in restaurateurs hands  starters and desserts reveal the presence of someone with cool hands for pastry. It can be enjoyed equally in a slice of pissaladiere or a brown butter and apricot tart. Service, like the room, is sweet and pretty. The communal table can be skirted. Six Portland Road Wise heads wondered whether manager Oli Barker and chef Pascal Weidemann, both having worked in the Terroirs group with its headquarters in theatreland, could pull off a little bistro in Holland Park where, it is said, locals are away all the time. These days you must plan ahead for a reservation in the evening. It is the perfect little restaurant with the daily date on the menu and a wine list backed by Caves de Pyrene homing in on growers working with a gentle hand, which is another way of referencing natural wines. Oli is a natural, you could even say biodynamic host, which is harder to find, Pascal a chef who understands how unobtrusively to seduce. Since eating there I now only cook pink fir apple  or any new  potatoes by steaming, squashing and then roasting. Perfect. In my review in April last year, I mentioned the unaffected pleasure that some restaurants can bring. This one does, again and again. Smokestak From working front of house for Gordon Ramsay at Claridges to travelling to Houston Texas to buy a 4.5 ton meat smoker to becoming a main man in London street food is what these days might be termed a journey. It is a trip that has stood amiable David Carter in good stead. His permanent restaurant in Shoreditch is to BBQ what opera is to nursery rhymes. Were you wearying of singed meat? Was pulled pork starting to pall? Here Carters Barbadian heritage comes to the fore showing that smoking and grilling over coals is the natural approach to fixing food. His silky loose-knit brisket cooked long and slow, patiently basted, dutifully rested is not to be missed. Thick-cut pork rib with a side order of baked potato is another must. As is hot-smoked salmon with horseradish. Even desserts and cocktails play with the effect of charring but testosterone doesnt overwhelm and staff are softened by charm. St John If I had to nominate just one person responsible for the astonishing improvement in London restaurants over the past couple of decades I would give you Fergus Henderson. His influence is all over this list. Nose to tail eating is more than acknowledgement that every part of a pig except the squeal can be utilised for nourishment, it encapsulates an approach visible in this graphically converted smokehouse; food (and wine) is what really matters. Artists eat here but there is no art on the walls. Music is the hum of conversation. Staff eat what customers eat. Waste is deplored, an attitude only recently highlighted in the wider trade. Roasted bone marrow with parsley sauce is shorthand for the menu that promotes pleasure where it finds it, but for every wilder dish like kid faggots on the daily-changing, evolving list there is something familiar like roast veal. Desserts, eg ginger loaf with butterscotch sauce, are always a reward for a meal well eaten. The Wells I would go to The Wells in Hampstead even if it wasnt owned by my sister Beth Coventry. She has solved The Hampstead Conundrum, which is why in an area full of people equipped and anxious to eat out isnt there an excellent restaurant? Ham & High restaurant critic Joseph Connolly thinks she has too. New Zealander Greg Smith in charge of the kitchen ensures that the menu in the ground-floor pub and upstairs dining rooms of the Georgian building cajoles, flatters and diverts. I could, I suppose, get blase about eating here but decorousness and also my job means that I never do and when Beth suggests going, I am always thrilled. Pub food such as sausages and Scottish Angus burgers are carefully prepared and specials such as whole roast squab or Dutch calves liver with lentils invariably appeal. Chateaubriand with chips served for two is a best seller. And sometimes there are Beths famous fishcakes. Staff tend to stay for ages. The Wolseley As AA Gill said after his first visit in 2003: Its a restaurant that has been made from the front door in, not from the kitchen out. Whether you are seated in the central horseshoe of the resplendent space  he was, I sometimes am  actually matters not a jot as the emphasis on seamless service never alters. Running a restaurant open from 7am to midnight is as arduous as operating a hotel but without room revenue to cushion the effort. Chris Corbin and Jeremy King struggled at first but cracked it and brought to life the Hilaire Belloc observation that breakfast, dinner, lunch and tea is all the human frame requires. You go to The Wolseley for time out. You might be in the mood for mittel-European schnitzel or Anglo-Indian kedgeree, oysters or Alsace choucroute. It is all available and will be brought on stylish china and set on fine linen. Here too the restaurant breakfast habit was born.

We were less taken with truffled mortadella  also exemplary but still pink and with that rubbery texture that means that all of us raised, willy nilly, on Spam never quite fancy it, however highly they rate it in Lombardy  and the truffled salami from Tuscany, rich, fatty and moist, slightly going against the rusticity of less extravagant salami.

The pasta dishes are helpfully served in small (7), medium (12) or large (24) portions, the small ones being quite chunky, it turns out. Chestnut gnocchi, bland and floury, came with sweet pumpkin veloute, oil-based, flavoured with rosemary, a herb that kept reappearing here: nice stodge but no main dish. Black ravioli containing burrata and served with a light basil pesto, were interesting and unusual  dark pasta envelopes made with a commercial powder of blackened vegetables as well as flour, an intriguing half-green, half-ashy taste.

Fine homemade tagliatelle, flavoured with saffron visible in the form of tiny red embedded specks, were served with a lamb ragu, well de-fatted but still slick  this was an ultra-comfort food. From the short list of meat dishes (12, 24 and 42 for the different sizes), a wild boar stew was well braised, highly flavoured chunks, a little over-spiced with crunchy whole cloves and peppers included, served on a loose, salty polenta made from coarse grains.

Front of house is Claudio Gelmini, a giant of a man in a formal black waistcoat with flashes of scarlet, who also owns and runs Il Cinghiale Rosso in Milan. Hes interested in talking to his customers, meaning service can be quite erratic, even intermittently absent, quite unlike, say, at The Ivy further down the high street, where, although the food tends to the unadventurous, the service is so professionally assiduous that it has been rewarded with packed tables since the place opened.

Kensington, so rich, in these stretches at least, yet also so lacking in warmth, has never been well supplied with welcoming neighbourhood restaurants, let alone receptive wine bars. Now it has a challenging one, mysteriously transported from Milan.Review at a glance









A mbience 5/5

Food 5/5

I worry often that Hell, when I eventually get there, wont be the terrific debauched knees-up it has always sounded like, but instead a drab, up-itself celebrity chef-linked hotel restaurant.

I fret that punishment for all my lust, avarice and greed will be to spend eternity in an eerily silent Marco Pierre White steak house in a Hilton hotel back room. Laborious, old-school silver service will be carried out begrudgingly to a clientele of regional TripAdvisor Stasi noting the steak melts in your mouth bumptiously into WH Smith spiral pads.

For these reasons I reserved excitement about iconic Mexican chef Martha Ortiz taking over a space in the InterContinental Hotel Park Lane. Ortizs schtick is a breathless blend of Templo Mayor high drama, wild-hearted swagger and magic realism, and the InterContinental is a loveless carbuncle on a roundabout. I just couldnt see it. I also sense your pessimism that Ortiz tinkers with magic realism. But, for example, theres a pudding at Ella Canta called Maria la Mexicana llega a Londres (Maria from Mexico arrives in London). It is priced at 10, bears no description and if you enquire about it the staff inform you Maria may not be available and that she is a person not a pudding, before assessing her current whereabouts in the manner of grown-ups talking about Santa. This all made more sense to me after a large, stiff margarita with Patron Silver and guava marmalade. In fact, my whole life did.

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Suddenly, it felt logical to be perched in a Frida Kahlo cacti-strewn dreamscape, eating a bowl of nacionalista guacamole topped with a gold-embossed grasshopper. Here is a menu divided into Main Acts and Final Curtains peppered with semi-threats that Ortizs food is a response to colours, textures and stories and would offer a modernist expression of culinary cuisine.

Duly, Id set out to Ella Canta in fear of going without dinner and being held hostage to plates of fresh air and fairytale whimsy. This was not the case. A vampiro sea bass ceviche in a mango-sangrita sorbet was wonderful, zingy and welcomely non-stingy. Okay, I love this place, I said, giddily, as a plate of pickled salmon tostada with chilli chipotle arrived from the Overture section of the menu. The clientele is who youd expect to see at a Park Lane address where they serve duck with plantain puree at 28; ergo, moneyed tourists, business diners and groups of well-heeled, very-definitely grown-ups. Still, for a hotel restaurant  and by Christ the designers have done their damnedest to mask this fact  the atmosphere was decidedly bouncy. Especially whenever a dashing, bearded man in braces appeared carrying a tray of various tequlias, mezcals and salted orange segments. Im a huge fan of anything that transforms getting tipsy into some sort of noble act. See also: the Kagami Biraki sake ceremony and Burns Night.

They are all so adorable at Ella Canta it would have been like drop kicking a kitten to tell them Im from London, I dont have time for this s***

Mains, for us, were a sumptous slab of bacalao negro on a vivid puddle of ajillo guajillo, and an enticing take on Michoacan pork carnitas with a side of tortillas, which appeared in an odd, surely expensive, black kidney-shaped bowl. A nopal cactus salad, shouting with citrus, was highly decent. I was on my second margarita by this point and had my heart set on the corn and huitlacoche cake with a chamomile mystic sauce, plus a side of Ortizs take on churros with caramel and chocolate for requisite dipping. We even dared to question if Maria was available this evening. Sadly not. Due to the earthquake, we were told, Maria was too sad to come to dinner. This felt perfectly feasible. And besides, they are all so adorable at Ella Canta it would have been like drop kicking a kitten to tell them Im from London, I dont have time for this s*** and I dont believe in Maria. I dont know who I am any more and I blame Martha Ortiz.

Ella Canta

1 Guacamole 9

1 Ceviche 12

1 Tostada 10

1 Black cod 26

1 Michoacan pork carnitas 24

1 Nopal salad 5

1 Churros 8

1 Corn cakes 9

4 Margaritas 60M ale suicide is the single biggest killer of men under 45 in the UK. A big cause of this is the loneliness men can feel as they age.

Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) is a charity dedicated to preventing male suicide  and theyve just released a new video to support their #BestManProject campaign.

The video stars Humza Arshad, actor, comedian and Youtube Influencer who is joined by his friend and manager Dhanny Joshi as they share personal stories of how friendships can have positive effects on mens mental health and wellbeing.

#BestManProject was launched in November last year with the idea that being a best man at a wedding is a shining example of being a great mate. Through this project, CALM is asking: why save being a great friend for the wedding?

Mens social connections can wane over time and social isolation is a growing problem among men, especially those aged over 30. Research also shows that men are less likely to feel comfortable when a friend opens up to them than when female friends do  CALM is trying to change the stigma around this.

The #BestManProject has even been endorsed by Prince William who filmed a clip for CALM when he joined a panel of men to discuss the power of friendships.

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Simon Gunning, CEO of CALM, said: "We know friendships can have a hugely positive effect on mens wellbeing, so were delighted to have the support of Humza alongside The Duke of Cambridge in shining a light on the important issue of male mental health.

Further films including Rio Ferdinand, Loyle Carner and Roman Kemp will be released in coming weeks.

For now, you can follow the #BestManProject on social media and sign up to their newsletter. http://bit.ly/BestManProjectA senior prosecutor has warned that there will be no race to strip McMafia-style crime bosses of their wealth using a law that comes into force today.

David Green QC, director of the Serious Fraud Office, made his comments as campaigners said that new unexplained wealth orders could be used to target more than 4 billion of property, mostly in London, bought with illicit funds.

The orders, introduced under legislation that comes into effect today, could force people suspected of living off criminal profits to show they obtained the money legally or face losing their assets, shifting the burden of proof to the suspects.

Mr Green said the orders would be an extremely useful weapon, and that his investigators had already uncovered matters of interest that could lead to court action, but he dashed hopes of an immediate blitz against wealthy criminals by warning that there was no enormous pile of cases ready to go.

He added that the potentially large costs and legal difficulties that would be encountered in bringing cases meant there was still a high bar to using the new legislation.

Mr Greens comments, during an event at the Royal United Services Institute in London, came as the anti-corruption campaign group Transparency International said that it had identified more than 4 billion of property that could be targeted by unexplained wealth orders, including homes in Mayfair, Belgravia, Hampstead and Whitehall.

The Prime Ministers new anti-corruption champion, the MP John Penrose, called for a crackdown on criminals living in the capital in a speech this week.

But Mr Green suggested that progress was likely to be slow and that he was not going to bring it on until I get the right case.

He said: There is no race between agencies to get the first one. Although the burden of proof is less than in other circumstances it is still a high bar if you are going to initiate expensive civil proceedings in the circumstances of unexplained wealth orders.

The orders could make it easier to target foreigners who fund their lives in the UK with money plundered from their home countries.

At the moment, it can be hard for law enforcers to prove their wealth was obtained illicitly.T hree elderly siblings with a combined age of 260 told of their terror after armed thieves raided their home twice in just over a week.

Cruel thugs threatened Mary Dowling, 88, sister Alice, 81 and older brother George, 89, with a screwdriver before stealing money meant to their life savings, police said.

The siblings say they have barricaded themselves in their Shepherd's Bush home every night for two months after being left too scared to sleep by the attacks.

The trio were first targeted by conmen claiming to be fire inspectors who barged their way into the home in the search for cash in November last year.

The siblings described Camilla as "lovely". / Twitter/ Hammersmith and Fulham Police

Just days later, on November 14, three men forced their way into the home armed with screwdrivers.

Mary told the Standard that she, her brother and sister, were "very scared" when the men "pushed us out of the way and told us not to move".

She said: "Three guys rushed in, they didnt say anything to us, they just pushed us out of the waythey took everything, even my brothers pension."

One of the pensioners was treated by ambulance crews after being pushed by a suspect, police said.

Following the spate of attacks, Mary said the family have been left scared to be in their own home.

She added: "Every night we bolt the door and put boxes by it to stop it from happening again."

Kind police officers from Hammersmith and Fulham organised a surprise visit to Downing Street and Clarence House to cheer up the victims on January 29.

The siblings also paid a visit to Downing Street / Twitter/ Hammersmith and Fulham police

Sergeant Andy Le Geyt arranged a meeting with the Duchess of Cornwall as well as tea at Clarence house and visit to 10 Downing Street.

Mary said that the trip was a complete surprise and added: "I was so shocked, you dont ever dream of meeting someone like the Duchess."

She described Camilla as lovely and extremely down to earth and said she was disgusted by the thieves behaviour.

Prince Charles' wife told the siblings she was "sorry to hear about the break-ins".

Officers also raised 700 for the family.

Mary said she wanted to thank the police for their help and described their support as really amazing.

Police described the suspects in the first attack as a group of three men, all aged between 40 and 50 years old and of eastern European appearance.

The three men believed to have carried out the second burglary are described as white and aged around 30 years old. Two of the men are believed to be around 6ft tall.Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus O.Kravchenko participates in the conference in Rome

29-01-2018

On January 29, 2018 in Rome, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, Oleg Kravchenko, participated in the OSCE Conference on the Responsibility of States, Institutions and Individuals in the Fight against Anti-Semitism.

In his speech at the plenary session of the conference, O.Kravchenko confirmed a principled and consistent position of Belarus in the field of combating anti-Semitism in the context of the global efforts of the international community to combat racism, xenophobia, intolerance and discrimination in all forms and manifestations.

The participants of the conference were presented with the information about the Holocaust tragedy in Belarus. The Deputy Minister drew the attention of those present to the long tradition of peaceful life of representatives of different nationalities and religious confessions on the Belarusian land, the absence in our country of any conflicts on national, religious, cultural grounds.

The event was also attended by the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Italian Foreign Minister, Angelino Alfano, the OSCE Secretary General, Thomas Greminger, representatives of governmental structures from 20 countries, non-governmental organizations, national and religious communities.

On the margins of the conference, O.Kravchenko met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Italy, Angelino Alfano, heads of several delegations of the OSCE participating countries. The parties discussed issues on the bilateral agenda, cooperation between Belarus and the EU, as well as collaboration on the international arena.

As part of the event, the Heads of delegations were received by the Pope.

   

print versionS adiq Khan and Jeremy Corbyn have joined forces to call for a memorial in London commemorating the contribution of Sikh soldiers during the two world wars.

The London Mayor said the memorial should take pride of place in the capital as it was announced that 375,000 has been raised for the project so far.

Speaking at the parliamentary launch of a campaign for a National Sikh War Memorial in central London, he said: Britain and the world owe a huge debt to the Sikh service men and women who fought alongside British troops during the First and Second World Wars.

The heroic Sikh soldiers who laid down their lives for our country and the freedoms we enjoy today should get the recognition they deserve.

More than 80,000 turban-wearing Sikh soldiers are estimated to have died fighting for Britain during the two world wars, with 100,000 more injured.

The campaign for a memorial to their efforts to be built in London has won the support of more than 27,000 people in an online petition.

It also gained cross-party backing from the likes of Labour leader Mr Corbyn, Lib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable, and communities secretary Sajid Javid.

Labours Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, who last year became the first turban-wearing Sikh to enter Parliament as an MP hosted the campaign launch on Tuesday evening.

Memorials already exist in London for Soldiers from the Commonwealth, British India, Poland, African-Caribbean nations, and for the Gurkhas but none of a turbaned Sikh Soldier, he said.B estselling author Jilly Cooper, pictured, who writes a good romp, is firmly in the old school, with attitudes more similar to Catherine Deneuve than Rose McGowan when it comes to #MeToo. Speaking to The Londoner at the Oldie of the Year lunch at Simpsons in the Strand, the author despaired of the Presidents Club charity dinner outcry, as exposed by the FT. I thought it was absolutely ridiculous, Jilly said. It was just men having fun... behaving badly.

Turning to the Dorchester waitresses, Cooper couldnt sympathise. The girls knew what they were going in to, didnt they? The fuss they made about it with everything going on. Also, Great Ormond Street Hospital sending that money back was a shocking, shocking thing. Cooper, who is to receive her CBE from the Queen in March, laments the era in which she was a girl. Im old, darling. When I was young I loved men saying I was pretty and had a nice bottom.

Elsewhere at the lunch, another Oldie, Maureen Lipman, launched into a defence of Roman Polanski, convicted of statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl. He directed Lipman in the Oscar-winning movie The Pianist. This is now a crime but in the Sixties Roman Polanski could walk down any street in London and get any girl of any age. And what about the pop stars  was it consensual for 14-year-olds to be in the back of their vans on tour? What about Elvis Presley? Priscilla was only 14. The Londoner raised an eyebrow and ducked back to the bar.

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OH MY giddy aunt. Lord Lisvane, speaking during last nights EU Withdrawal Bill, queried the direction of travel. Indulge me for a moment, my Lords, he said. It is as though I have three elderly and extremely nervous aunts.

In his musings he offers them a treat day out and they plump, by democratic decision, to go to the cinema. I look in the local paper and discover that the only films on offer are Reservoir Dogs and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. What am I going to say to my nervous but much-loved aunts: You must stick with your democratic decision? Or do I say, Now you know whats on offer, what do you think?

BBC wongas on everyones agenda

Journos galore at the Costa Book of the Year awards last night and the gender pay gap at the BBC was the hot topic. I hope you havent taken a pay cut just to be here, we overheard Ian Hislop greeting the Today programmes Jim Naughtie.

Esther Rantzen said you had to look deeper than the headline figures. What they also need to look at are the people who pay themselves through production companies.

Meanwhile newsreader Alastair Stewart said the pay gap was a cultural problem. My father always said never ask someone how they vote or how much they get paid. I think for people of my generation this is a difficult topic to discuss.

Quote of the day

Vogue cover girl: Ruth Davidson (Photo credit should read LESLEY MARTIN/AFP/Getty Images) / AFP/Getty Images

My worry is that were about to head into a culture war where its a question of open versus closed. Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson, the pin-up in this months Vogue

Its the last straw for the late-night suppers

Punching: Sam Rollinson and Matt Richardson with Caroline Flack / Dave Benett/Getty Images for Tan

THE Londoner longed for a room of ones own last night as we headed to Dalloway Terrace at the Bloomsbury Hotel, which launched its new supper series The Tanqueray No. Ten Table.

Chef Gizzi Erskine hosted, inviting friends including TV presenter Caroline Flack, Lliana Bird, co-founder of Help Refugees and partner of Great British Bake Off host Noel Fielding. They dined on scallop ceviche and grapefruit meringue pie.

But there was a notable absence: plastic straws were firmly off the menu after Erskine championed the Evening Standards Last Straw campaign this week.

--

Primatologist Jane Goodall was at the Courthouse Hotel last night to promote National Geographics documentary Jane. Hosted by Porters Incredible Women series, actress Daisy Ridley was among the guests. Goodall recalled that her love of animals started with her taking worms to bed as a toddler, and she moved to Africa because of her love for Dr Doolittle and Tarzan. She ended the evening by imitating a chimpanzees call. Now thats a legend for you.

Showbiz for ugly people

NEWS in todays Times that attractive people have a tendency to be more Right-wing, according to scientific research, led The Londoner to wonder if MPs political persuasions were reflected in their mirror in the morning.

I wouldnt want to ask her, a wobbly researcher said of his boss Diane Abbott when The Londoner asked.

Im glad somebody thinks so, said the person who answered Matt Hancocks phone. Jacob Rees-Mogg was on hand, however, to suggest the report may be true: In which case I am the exception that proves the rule.

But what of those on the Labour benches slighted by this piece of research? Have [the researchers] seen Donald Trump or Mike Pence? Or forgotten Barack Obama? Wakefield MP Mary Creagh said, noting the Labour benches are stocked with talent. You only need to look at Luciana Berger, Chuka Umunna and Rosena Allin-Khan, pictured, to see beautiful progressives passionately committed to making peoples lives better. It is fake news!

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Brown-noser of the day: Anya Hindmarch once made a handbag for artist Grayson Perry in the shape of a poo, she reveals in Tatler. It never went into full production. Cant think why.

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Cathy plays the waiting game at the BeebT he Evening Standards special report on modern slavery, commissioned as part of this newspapers Slaves on Our Streets campaign, has been launched in Parliament.

The report, which lays out 11 recommendations for governments and business to implement to combat slavery, is to be distributed to political and business leaders across Britain. Pope Francis will also inspect its findings at a conference at the Vatican next Friday.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, who chaired the round table of experts behind the report, said it expresses the commitment of the people of London to carry on this long battle.

This newspapers three-month investigation exposed the scale of the crime in London, from sex trafficking to those forced to work in car washes and on building sites.

Leadership can change things: Lord Bernard Hogan Howe said action was vital to ending the scourge (Nigel Howard) / Evening Standard / eyevine

As part of the investigation, carried out jointly with The Independent, Cardinal Nichols convened a round table of experts from business, media, law, finance, philanthropy, law enforcement and victim support. Among them were Kevin Hyland, the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner who was our partner in the investigation; newsreader and TV presenter Julie Etchingham; Paul Gerrard of the Co-operative Group; Monique Villa, chief executive of the Thomson Reuters Foundation; Jean Baderschneider of the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery; Yasmin Waljee of law firm Hogan Lovells; Unilever chief executive Paul Polman; Sir Matt Baggott, former chief constable of Northern Ireland, and John Studzinski, vice-chairman of investment giant Blackstone.

Expert panel: Julie Etchingham with former Met chief Sir Bernard Hogan Howe (Nigel Howard) / Evening Standard / eyevine

Mr Hyland hailed the progress made since the start of the campaign, including a 160 per cent increase in reports of the crime to police.

Among the recommendations by the reports experts are giving longer-term support for survivors regardless of their immigration status, making trafficking a national policing priority, and encouraging companies to investigate slavery in their supply chains.O rganised crime gangs will be hit by Chinas ban on the ivory trade which was hailed by Boris Johnson today.

The Foreign Secretary said that Britain would this year lead efforts to stamp out the illegal wildlife trade, with a summit in London to push for global action.

Britains ambassadors around the world have been told to step up the battle against the slaughter of under-threat species by pushing for action in their host countries.

Mr Johnson told the Standard: The slow death of Africas elephants is a disaster that proceeds from other disasters. Poaching is but one tentacle of the octopus of corruption, trafficking and gun-running that suffocates states and holds back national economies across Africa and Asia.

Boris Johnson meets a humanoid robot in Tokyo 1 /4 Boris Johnson meets a humanoid robot in Tokyo Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson shakes hands with a humanoid robot Wabian2 at the Research Institute for Science and Engineering at Waseda University's Kikuicho Campus in Tokyo AFP/Getty Images Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson gestures as he looks at a humanoid robot at the Research Institute for Science and Engineering at Waseda University's Kikuicho Campus in Tokyo AFP/Getty Images Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson looks at a humanoid robot Wabian2 at the Research Institute for Science and Engineering at Waseda University's Kikuicho Campus in Tokyo AFP/Getty Images Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson looks at a humanoid robot Wabian2 at the Research Institute for Science and Engineering at Waseda University's Kikuicho Campus in Tokyo AFP/Getty Images

If China now deprives the ivory poachers of their biggest global market, then the whole edifice of transnational organised crime will be weakened.

Just weeks ago, a ban on all ivory trading and processing activities came into force in China.

Ministers have announced plans in Britain to impose a ban on domestic ivory sales which would cover items of all ages.

British soldiers have been deployed to train anti-poaching teams in several African countries.

The Foreign Secretary, who will host the illegal wildlife trade summit in London in October, added: Since the Seventies the world has lost almost 70 per cent of its African elephants, rhinos are under siege and we have fewer than 4,000 tigers left in the wild.T heresa May was plunged into a new row today after No 10 silenced a Government minister who questioned the case for leaving the European Union following Whitehall studies that predict economic damage.

Justice minister Phillip Lee was served with a warning by Chief Whip Julian Smith this morning after he said there was a serious question as to whether Brexit could legitimately go ahead.

However, former minister Anna Soubry expressed outrage at the action to silence Dr Lee.

She said No 10 should instead discipline Brexit minister Steve Baker, who yesterday dismissed civil service forecasts as always wrong and claimed there was a plot to undermine our exit from the European Union.

Theresa May seeks to strengthen UK-China relations

Mrs May, who is touring China, faced questions over Brexit and her leadership from reporters in Beijing.

She told a news conference with Premier Li Keqiang that Britain would gain the ability to strike new trade deals outside the EU and insisted: We believe thats in the best interests of the UK.

However, debates at Westminster were dominated by the Whitehall studies showing that every known deal for leaving the EU will make Britain worse off.

Dr Phillip Lee MP was slapped down by the chief whip for his remarks

On Twitter, ex-GP Dr Lee appeared to forcefully contradict Mrs Mays claim that the studies could be ignored as they were drafts that had not been signed off by ministers.

He wrote: The next phase of Brexit has to be all about the evidence. We cant just dismiss this and move on. If there is evidence to the contrary, we need to see and consider that too.

But if these figures turn out to be anywhere near right, there would be a serious question over whether a government could legitimately lead a country along a path that the evidence and rational consideration indicate would be damaging.

This shows the PMs challenge. The Bracknell MP added: Its time for evidence, not dogma, to show the way. We must act for our countrys best interests, not ideology & populism, or history will judge us harshly. Our country deserves no less.

Dr Lee was contacted by Mr Smith and warned not to comment about drafts in such terms. He was told it is best not to speculate about preliminary analyses on social media, said a No 10 source.

However, Ms Soubry said: I do hope the Chief Whip has not spoken to Minister Lee in those terms. I am assuming Minister Baker has in any event been admonished for his appalling comments at the Despatch Box.

Another ex-minister, Stephen Hammond, also said Mr Baker should be disciplined rather than Dr Lee.

One can only assume he spoke to Mr Baker for rubbishing a Government document that is being briefed as fact to the Cabinet, he said. A third ex-minister, Bob Neill, added: Its a good idea for ministers not to try and rubbish their own Governments documents.

Civil service leaders were furious about Mr Bakers unprecedented criticism of officials, which indicated deepening alarm among hard Brexiteers that they are losing ground.

Bob Kerslake, the former head of the civil service, told The Guardian: Civil servants need the support of that government. Tory MP Antoinette Sandbach said: Some people want to rubbish experts, but some of us rather value their opinions.

The leaked analyses suggested that growth would be down by five per cent after 15 years under a comprehensive trade deal and down by eight per cent on a hard Brexit with World Trade Organisation rules.

Labour used an Opposition Day debate today to pass a binding motion ordering the Government to hand over the full studies to MPs.

Tories were told to abstain. Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer said MPs could not make informed decisions without the full picture. Ministers cannot keep side-lining Parliament to hide the deep divisions within their own party, he said.

No 10 played down the analyses, saying they were preliminary studies which have not had ministerial sign-off.

They did not model for the bespoke deal the Government is looking to achieve.

Dr Lees intervention followed a scathing speech in the Lords by George Bridges, a former minister at the Department for Exiting the EU, who said Brexit now looked like a gangplank into thin air.

Theresa May in China, says leaked Brexit report 'was not signed off'

The ConservativeHome website today said a straw poll of its readers suggested a big increase in the number of Tory supporters who want her to quit immediately.

In a month, the proportion had jumped from seven per cent to 26 per cent. Some seven in 10 readers thought the Prime Minister should go either now or before the next general election, which is scheduled for 2022.

Mrs May told reporters on the plane she was not a quitter when asked if she would fight the next general election as party leader.

Asked by the Standard about Tory fears of damaging losses in the London borough elections in May, she said: We will fight these elections, we will fight them strong and hard.

She appeared to brush off rumours that enough letters calling for a confidence vote in her leadership could soon be handed to Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the Tory backbench 1922 Committee.

Lets talk about where we are now and what we are doing now, she said.

Here I am, taking a trade delegation to China, here I am going to China to enhance the British economy and enhance global Britain.

On the first day of her trip to China, Mrs May visited Wuhan University to meet students at a UK-China Spirit of Youth festival.S truggling burger chain Byron has announced plans to close as many as 20 restaurants as part of a rescue plan.

The plan, approved by lenders and landlords, will enable the company to close some of its stores and pay cheaper rent on others as part of a company voluntary arrangement (CVA).

Simon Cope, Byron chief executive, said it would do everything possible to redeploy staff to other sites and initiatives.

The accounting firm handling the restructure, KPMG, said that no restaurants were set to close immediately and staff would continue to be paid.

Protest outside of Holborn branch of Byron burger chain - London Live

The CVA, backed by 99 per cent of creditors, five Byron sites have their rents reduced by a third and a further 20 will have their rents reduced by 45 per cent for six months.

Mark Edwards, a partner at accountants BDO, told the BBC that Byron had hit difficulty because it had expanded too quickly.

"There is always a risk some of those sites will be marginal. However, the sector as a whole is struggling," he said.

"There are some operators that are more successful than others such as Honest Burger, which has a different take and is London-centric."

He also cited higher import costs, the National Living Wage, and the squeeze on consumer spending as factors adding pressure to the increasingly struggling restaurant business.T ransport for London is set to install more energy efficient measures across a number of its buildings in a 4.5 million refurbishment project.

Working with energy retrofitting company Engie, TFL will expand its solar power usage across bus stations, train crew accommodation, offices, train depots and manufacturing workshops.

TFL said that it hopes that the new measures will see its operations save around 480 tonnes of annual CO2 emissions per year.

The move comes under the Mayor Sadiq Khan's Energy for Londoners scheme which aims to make the city more energy efficient.

He said: "Im working on a number of ambitious projects to generate more local clean energy to power our homes, businesses and communities.

On Wednesday, Mr Khan announced plans to purchase energy from solar installations housing association Peabody Services, as well as a CHP plant owned by Scottish & Southern Energy, to help power two TfL depots in Northfields and Northumberland Park.

The depots currently service and maintain Tube trains round the clock.

Mr Khan also said that a trial solar purchase scheme will be put into motion this year which aims to reduce the cost of solar powers through bulk buying.

The council run programme would see houses interested in becoming solar powered teaming together under one tender on which suppliers will then bid.P rince William raised his glass and gave the Viking toast of "Skal!" at the end of the successful "soft power" royal visit to Sweden.

On their last evening in Stockholm, William - accompanied by his wife Kate - spoke of the close friendship between Britain and Sweden at the Fotografiska Gallery, which boasts glittering views over the city.

"In the past two days, Catherine and I have experienced some of the unique mix of factors that contribute to the Swedish way of life.

"The Swedish love of the outdoors  the way you embrace your climate and environment, and are committed to ensuring future generations can do the same.

The Duke of Cambridge makes a toast after speaking at a reception at the Fotografiska Galleries / PA

"The fact that you do so when it is so cold is really inspiring. One lesson that we will take home with us is that children are actively encouraged to spend time outdoors, whatever the weather.

"This is obviously very good for their physical health but, as we learned this morning at the remarkable Karolinska Institute, it has huge benefits for a childs mental health as well," he said.

Kate: The Duchess was glowing in her blue dress / PA

He went on: "In the past two days, Catherine and I have also explored some of the many scientific partnerships between the UK and Sweden that make our lives longer, healthier and more productive.

"It was a privilege to learn more about how the legacy of Alfred Nobel is used to celebrate the very best of humanity in science and the arts.

The Duchess of Cambridge (left) greets Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden / PA

"Our visit to the Karolinska Institute was a particular highlight  a world-class centre of learning, which has developed extraordinary insight into the science underpinning our mental health."

Speaking of close security links, William added, "Tomorrow, we are looking forward to meeting representatives of Swedens armed forces.

The Duchess of Cambridge's Scandinavian tour wardrobe 1 /14 The Duchess of Cambridge's Scandinavian tour wardrobe Day Four Kate stepped out on their final day in Norway sporting a military-inspired coat by Dolce & Gabbana Getty Images Day Three The Duchess was escorted into dinner in Oslo by King Harald wearing an Alexander McQueen gown Getty Images Day Three Kate accessorises her look with furry accessories as she visits the Princess Ingrid Alexandra Sculpture Park Chris Jackson/Getty Images Day Three Kate reveals a coordinating blue dress by maternity brand Seraphine AFP/Getty Images Day Three Kate arrives in Norway wearing a Catherine Walker coat Chris Jackson/Getty Images Day Two The Duchess was glowing in a blue velvet dress, once again by Erdem PA Day Two The Duke and Duchess attend a reception at the Fotografiska Galleries in Stockholm with Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel PA Day Two The Duchess also debuted a Alexander McQueen coat PA Day Two Kate stepped out wearing another Catherine Walker coat on her second day in Sweden Getty Images Day One For the evening, Kate donned an eye-catching Erdem gown Getty Images Day One Kate wraps up warm in a matching Catherine Walker coat Getty Images Day One The 36-year-old debuts a new Mulberry bag Getty Images Day One The Duchess arrives at ArkDes wearing a Catherine Walker shift dress Getty Images Day One Kate attends a bandy hockey game in a Burberry coat Getty Images

"There is a Swedish saying that I won't attempt to say in Swedish but which translates in English something like "It matters to you, too, when a neighbour's wall is on fire."

"Your security concerns are ours, and it is hugely important that we continue to work ever more closely together to reduce threats," he said.

The Duke and Duchess with Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel / PA

Pressing home the post Brexit soft power message he added, "Great things happen when we work together."

The event celebrated contemporary culture with guests representing the worlds of music, film, television, theatre, tech, dance, art and sport, with live music, drinks and canapes.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge high-five children during their visit to a Swedish school

The royal couple fly to Oslo, Norway, tomorrow for the second leg of their week-long tour as they deliver, the British Foreign Office hopes, a clear message: Britain may be leaving the EU, but we are still part of Europe and we are still friends.

The couples unspoken task - as with previous visits to Poland, Germany and France - is to woo Europe as the UK undertakes the process of leaving the EU and rebooting existing trade relations.

The Duchess arrives at the reception / PA

The Queen's direct heir The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall have also visited Romania, Italy and Austria, and Kate has undertaken a solo trip to the Netherlands.

Royal overseas visits are decided by the FCO, with schedules drawn up by the British ambassador to the host country, who accompanies the royal visitor throughout.

The Royals earlier spent time with the Swedish Prince and Princess at Haga Palace / PA

William went on, "We have encountered a wonderfully warm welcome. We are particularly grateful for the hospitality of Their Majesties The King and Queen, and of Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel.

"We have been very fortunate to have spent much of the past two days in their welcoming company, including at their home in Haga.

The Duke and Duchess with Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel and their children Princess Estelle and Prince Oscar / PA

"Thank you for making us feel so welcome. We very much hope we will have the opportunity to repay your generosity in the United Kingdom soon.T he Duke and Duchess of Cambridge took their mental health campaign to Sweden today to learn how the country is leading the way in treating young people.

After the fun of bandy hockey and the glamour of a black-tie dinner with actress Alicia Vikander yesterday, the royal couple today focused on a subject close to their hearts.

William and Kate, along with Prince Harry, have championed mental health awareness with their Heads Together campaign.

High five: The Duchess of Cambridge greets pupils at the Matteusskolan School in Stockholm / PA

Today the couple, joined by Swedens Crown Princess Victoria and her husband Prince Daniel, met academics at Karolinska Institute who explained Swedens pioneering work with young teenagers in schools.

The royals exchanged kisses as they met outside the centre.

Kate, who is expecting her third child, wore a red and white houndstooth Catherine Walker coat, an Alexander McQueen dress and earrings by Swedens In2 Design.

Princess Victoria was in a light blue trouser suit and pale pink coat while her husband wore a camel overcoat. William arrived in a jacket but later added a long navy coat for a walkabout.

Kate, who is expecting her third child, wore a red and white houndstooth Catherine Walker coat / PA

Kate and William talked to scientists who told them that one of the areas Swedens experts focus on is the impact of physical activity on mental health.

They were also told about the Youth Aware of Mental Health (Yam) programme for 14- to 16-year-olds. Yam promotes knowledge about mental health through dialogue and role-play. It operates internationally, including in the UK.

The royal foursome then headed to a comprehensive school in central Stockholm, where they joined children taking part in the Yam programme during a mental health activity session, and spoke to mentors who run the training.

This afternoon, the two royal couples were visiting a leading department store, Nordiska Kompaniet, to open an exhibition of British design, fashion and brands. Later the couples were due to have a private tea at the Prince and Princesss official residence, Haga Palace.

This evening, William and Kate were due to attend an event at the Fotografiska Gallery, which at night boasts glittering views over Stockholm.H ong Kong legislators have approved a government proposal banning local ivory trading in the Chinese territory by 2021.

Legislators voted in favour of amending the existing law to outlaw sales of ivory in Hong Kong, which researchers say is the world's biggest retail ivory market.

The proposal also includes significantly stiffer penalties for wildlife smuggling to deter black market sales.

Under the new law, the maximum sentence will increase to a 10 million Hong Kong dollar (920,000) fine or 10 years in prison, up from the current top penalty of two years.

Mr Johnson praised the move / Getty Images

Wildlife activists applauded the move, even as Hong Kong moves more slowly on the issue than Beijing.

China is the world's largest ivory importer. Hong Kong, a special administrative region, has lagged far behind the rest of the country.

The Chinese ivory trade has thrived since 1975, with environmental activists saying it has driven illegal poaching.

Such crimes have seen the global elephant population fall by 110,000 in just 10 years to 415,000, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Mainland China banned ivory sales at the start of the year after shutting all carving factories and shops last March.

British foreign secretary Boris Johnson hailed the move.

He told the Standard: If China now deprives the ivory poachers of their biggest global market, then the whole edifice of transnational organised crime will be weakened.

Ministers have announced plans in Britain to impose a ban on domestic ivory sales which would cover items of all ages.

British soldiers have been deployed to train anti-poaching teams in several African countries.Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus A.Dapkiunas participates in the 56th session of Commission for Social Development

31-01-2018

On January 30, 2018 the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, Andrei Dapkiunas, made a statement at the plenary discussion of the 56th session of the Commission for Social Development (CSocD), which opened On January 29, 2018 at the UN headquarters in New York.

Background Information: The UN Commission for Social Development deals with the issues of poverty and social inequality reduction, as well as promotion of international policy in social justice for the most vulnerable people (low-income population, women, children, people with disabilities, youth and aging people). Belarus is elected to CSocD for the term 2016-2020. The 56th session of CSocD will continue its work until February 7, 2018.

In his statement, the Deputy Minister presented the vision of Belarus on eradication of poverty, which is a priority theme of the current session of CSocD.

The Belarusian diplomat noted the impossibility of eradicating poverty and achieving prosperity for all without ensuring equality of opportunities at national and global levels. In this context A.Dapkiunas informed about the mechanisms for solving that problem in Belarus, including ensuring quality education, healthcare, effective state social policy, sustainable economic growth policies for full employment and decent work for all, stimulating private initiative and creating a public-private partnership for development.

The Deputy Minister noted that modern realities in the fight against poverty required prudent global approaches. A.Dapkiunas urged the international community to eliminate unilateral coercive economic measures and destructive sanctions driven by selfish political goals, which brought damage to the interests of countries that needed support for their development. The Belarusian diplomat stressed that such step would really promote greater global justice and implementation of the Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The Deputy Head of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry underlined the importance of promotion of a Belarusian initiative to forge an international partnership of national coordinators for sustainable development. In this context, A.Dapkiunas reiterated the invitation to the countries of the region and other interested stakeholders for Minsk Forum of national coordinators on implementation of SDGs, Building a partnership to underpin national sustainable development solutions, which would make a significant contribution to an architecture of a global partnership for development.

Background Information: Regional SDG Coordination Leaders Forum will be held in Minsk on February 21-22, 2018. This event, organized jointly with the UN, will be the first regional forum on this topic in the world. Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations Amina Mohammed, as well as high representatives of the World Bank, the EBRD, UN agencies, countries of Europe and the CIS will take part in it.

   

print versionB lack lawmakers staged a silent protest against Donald Trumps infamous s***hole comments by wearing African patterns to the US leaders first State of the Union speech.

Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) members wore brightly coloured Kente cloth and a variety of African patterns during the address as the row of Mr Trumps alleged comments continued.

It came after the President reportedly called nations in Africa sh**holes during a private meeting about immigration legislation with lawmakers. Mr Trump said the language he used was tough, but denied using the words reported.

The groups protest in the House of Representatives came as Mr Trump delivered his first state of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday night.

A cluster of about two dozen Democrats, including CBC members, withheld applause As Mr Trump entered the chamber and offered muted reactions throughout the speech.

More than 40 million television viewers reportedly tuned in to watch the State of the Union speech from Capitol Hill, which lasted for around an hour and 20 minutes.D onald Trump hailed a new American moment as he delivered his first State of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday night.

The US president offered an open hand to work with the Democrats and leave their differences aside before launching into a series of controversial plans.

He announced an order to keep Guantanamo Bay open, reversing a directive made by predecessor Barack Obama to close the controversial detention camp.

He also vowed to end the chain migration system which allows immigrants to bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives  a statement which was met by some boos.

The president received rapturous applause from the Republican section of the room / Getty Images

The president accused Russia and China of posing threats to American values, heralded the end of the mandate for Obamacare and defended his decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem.

But the most common theme of his speech, which was lauded at the end by fellow Republicans, was the economic success brought about in his first year in office.

There has never been a better time to start living the American dream, he said, touting the creation of 2.4 million new jobs.

He added: So to every citizen watching at home tonight, no matter where you've been or where you've come from, this is your time.

If you work hard, if you believe in yourself, if you believe in America, then you can dream anything, you can be anything, and together, we can achieve absolutely anything.

More than 40 million television viewers reportedly tuned in to watch the State of the Union address from Capitol Hill, which lasted for around an hour and 20 minutes.

Mr Trump condemned the depraved regime of North Korea in a section focussing on foreign policy. He said his administration is waging a "maximum pressure" campaign to prevent Kim Jong Uns "reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles" from threatening the US.

He also hailed the liberation of nearly 100 per cent of lands previously controlled by ISIS in the Middle East.

The only mention of Russia came alongside China when he referred to the two as rivals. Many had been eager to see whether the president would reference the on-going probe into his campaigns possible collusion with Russia in the 2016 election.

He brought the focus of his speech back to the future of the US at the end, calling for 1.5 trillion US dollars (1.06 trillion) in new infrastructure spending and partnerships with states and the private sector.

He also reiterated his recent pledge to offer a path to citizenship for 1.8 million young immigrants in exchange for funding for a border wall with Mexico, ending the nation's visa lottery method and revamping the current legal immigration system.

Trump announced plans to keep Guantanamo Bay open during his speech / Getty Images

At one point, he alluded to his public spat with professional athletes who led protests against racial injustice by kneeling during the national anthem, declaring that paying tribute to the flag is a "civic duty".

But he ended with another call for unity, saying: "The people dreamed this country, the people built this country and it's the people who are making America great again."

Republicans led multiple rounds of enthusiastic applause during the speech, and pushed past each other to shake their leader's hand at the end. However, members of the opposition party remained stony-faced throughout and departed quickly.

First lady Melania Trump, who has largely stayed out of the spotlight in recent months, arrived at the capitol ahead of her husband to attend a reception with guests of the White House.T hree lunar phenomena were being watched around world as they coincided for the first time in more than 150 years.

Astronomers in some parts of the world have enjoyed a rare celestial combination of a supermoon, a blue moon and a blood moon during a lunar eclipse, throughout much of Asia and the United States.

People in the UK, Europe and Africa missed out on seeing the blood moon, but were treated to an early glimpse of the supermoon.

The impressive show began in Britain on Tuesday, with the moon appearing 14 per cent bigger and brighter than usual overnight.

And it is set to continue its spectacular display on Wednesday, astronomers said.

Brits enjoyed first sightings of the supermoon on Tuesday / PA

The moon will rise at around 5pm and remain visible until 8am on Thursday.

It will peak overnight at around 1am, according to Royal Observatory Greenwich astronomer Dr Gregory Brown.

Stunning December Supermoon - In pictures 1 /15 Stunning December Supermoon - In pictures The Supermoon rises above Whitby Abbey in Yorkshire on Sunday evening. PA The Supermoon over Westminster Jeremy Selwyn The winter supermoon rises over the Lighthouse at South Shields, Tyne and Wear. PA The Marie Curie Memory powered Christmas tree and the Supermoon seen in London Jeremy Selwyn The supermoon' rises behind the US Capitol and the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC, viewed from Arlington, Virginia, USA EPA Behind the Uppatasanti Pagoda, as seen in Naypyitaw, Myanmar. AP A supermoon rises in front of a replica of the Statue of Liberty sitting atop the Liberty Building in downtown Buffalo, N.Y AP The moon sets over Huddersfield in Yorkshire on Sunday morning, ahead of its rise as a full supermoon in the evening. PA The phenomenon seen in Manila, in the Philippines. EPA Visitors enjoy the phenomenon from a gondola of a ferris wheel in Tokyo, Japan. EPA A fishing boat sails under the full moon in Larnaca in Cyprus. EPA The Supermoon rises above Whitby Abbey in Yorkshire. PA Over a building in Netanya, Israel. AP The supermoon rises over a highway near Yangon. AFP/Getty Images Naypyitaw, Myanmar. EPA

Keen stargazers should use binoculars and telescopes to catch the best view of the phenomenon at this time, Dr Brown said.

He said: "Avid moon watchers in London should try to find somewhere with a low horizon, such as a hill away from skyscrapers.

"With a pair of binoculars you should be able to see all the features on the moon, including craters from rock bombardments that occurred millions of years ago."

It is the second supermoon of the month and comes after stargazers shared stunning images of the years first full moon, called the Wolf Moon, on January 2.

A supermoon happens as a full moon aligns with the point closest to the earth in the moon's elliptical orbit.

During this time the moon appears bigger and brighter.

The second supermoon within one month is commonly referred to as a Blue Moon.

And the lunar spectacle was seen rising throughout the capital just after 6pm.

Elsewhere, the supermoon collided with a lunar eclipse visible for around three and a half hours a various points across the globe, according to NASA.

Chile: the stunning lunar display is occurring across the globe / REUTERS

The total eclipse, visible from the western US and Canada to most of Australia and China, will give the moon a reddish colour known as a blood moon.

NASA said: "While the Moon is in the Earth's shadow it will take on a reddish tint, known as a 'blood moon'.

"With the total eclipse, it'll be a royal spectacle indeed: a 'super blue blood' Moon."

New Year's Day supermoon 1 /14 New Year's Day supermoon The supermoon seen in Dalian, Liaoning province, China REUTERS The moon above the Shard PA A bronze statue of General George Washington by William Rudolf O'Donovan stands on top of the Trenton Battle Monument while silhouetted by a supermoon in Trenton, N.J. The monument commemorates the victory at the first Battle of Trenton, which occurred on Dec. 26, 1776 AP The moon over Scarborough, Yorkshire PA The moon seen from near Heathrow Airport REUTERS The moon seen above London REUTERS The moon seen above London The moon seen above London The moon seen above London The moon seen above London The moon seen above London The first supermoon of the new year rises above the Vegas Strip AP The first supermoon of the new year rises above Seoul EPA The moon seen from near Heathrow Airport AFP/Getty Images

But anyone in the UK hoping to see the tinted moon sadly missed out.

Dr Brown added: "Unfortunately we won't see the lunar eclipse from the UK.

"But in July there will be a lunar eclipse visible from the UK so people will have a chance to see the blood moon then."

Londoners will miss out on a total lunar eclipse seen in other parts of the world, but will enjoy a brighter, bigger moon / EPA

Wednesday's lunar phase fits the calendar definition of "blue" because there was another full moon on January 2.

The last Blue Moon occurred on July 31, 2015, and the next will be seen on March 31 this year.

By the modern definition, a Blue Moon is so-called when it is the second supermoon to occur in a calendar month.

To make things more complicated, a Blue Moon has traditionally been defined as the third of four full moons in one season, said Dr Brown.C hina's Premier Li Keqiang today raised hopes of cementing a golden era of Anglo-Chinese relations as he met Theresa May in Beijing.

The Prime Minister flew to the Chinese capital early this morning to hold talks with Mr Li and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Striking an upbeat note on trade ties, Mr Li said: Its now quite cold in northern China. But it is also the start of spring.

"I believe that a visit in the early spring will bring new fruits which will further raise the golden era in China Britain relations.

s May and her team, including Trade Secretary Liam Fox, were greeted by Mr Li and his delegation in the Great Hall of the People.

Mrs May said: As you say, this is an auspicious time of the year to be meeting in order to talk about the global strategic partnership that we have been working on between the UK and China.

The initiative was launched under David Cameron but it hit trouble under Mrs May with a delay to the official go-ahead for an 18 billion nuclear power station in Somerset, into which the Chinese are ploughing billions.

At the start of her three-day visit, Mrs May vowed to raise concerns over human rights and Hong Kong, where dozens of democracy activists have been detained.

She stopped short of giving full backing to Chinas Belt and Road infrastructure project, saying it needed to include transparency and international standards being adhered to.P resident Donald Trump proudly boasted about the incredible progress and extraordinary success of his first year in office and declared his achievements had created a new American moment in his maiden State of the Union address to US Congress.

Forsaking the confrontational rhetoric that fuelled his rise to the White House, Mr Trump urged lawmakers to work together and insisted: There has never been a better time to start living the American dream.

He claimed his administration was building a safe, strong and proud America.

There was none of the political attacks that fill the presidents Twitter feed. Instead, he said he was extending an open hand to Democrat lawmakers to work with him and his ruling Republicans to seek out our common ground and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people.

Trump announced plans to keep Guantanamo Bay open during his speech / Getty Images

Notwithstanding his record low public approval levels and a deeply divided nation, the president was determined to strike an optimistic note in his first address to the joint chamber of Congress.

To every citizen watching at home tonight, no matter where you have been, or where you come from, this is your time, he said. If you work hard, if you believe in yourself, if you believe in America, then you can dream anything, you can be anything, and together, we can achieve anything.

While his prime-time speech was received rapturously by Republicans in Congress, many no doubt concerned about the Commander-in-Chiefs unpopularity to their own fate in a mid-term election year, Democrat lawmakers showed little enthusiasm for the new, softer Trump.

Melania Trump wore a cream-colored Christian Dior suit to the State of the Union address / Getty Images

At one point during the 90-minute speech, there were hisses of disapproval from the Democrat benches at his proposal to restrict the number of relatives immigrants can bring into America.

Mr Trump didnt mention the probe into his campaigns alleged ties to Russia that he has labelled in the past as a Democratic witch hunt. But he didnt shy away from pushing his controversial immigration policies.

Donald Trump's first State of the Union address lasted an hour and 20 minutes / Getty Images

As well as his 20 billion border wall with Mexico, Mr Trump also wants to end international Green Card lotteries in favour of a more merit-based system.

In keeping with his message of inclusion, however, he added that he was extending an open hand to work with members of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to protect our citizens, of every background, colour, and creed.

He also redoubled his recent pledge to offer a path to citizenship for 1.8 million young illegal immigrants, dubbed Dreamers, who were brought to America as children by their parents and feared deportation after he ended an Obama-era programme protecting their right to be in the US.

There were more scowls from Democrats when Mr Trump announced that he planned to reverse Barack Obamas decision to shut down the Guantanamo Bay Cuban prison camp for terrorist captives.

He also claimed credit for repealing the core of the disastrous Obamacare even though the Republicans failure to replace the Obama administrations milestone healthcare reforms were seen as a major legislative defeat for Mr Trump.

Members of the congressional black caucus staged a silent protest and wore colourful items of traditional clothing to make a stand against the presidents alleged recent description of some African countries as s***holes.

In one of his few pugnacious moments, Mr Trump alluded to his public spat with professional athletes who led protests against racial injustice by kneeling during the American national anthem, declaring that paying tribute to the flag is a civic duty.

Rather than follow tradition by setting out his policies for the next 12 months, Mr Trump listed his successes of the previous year, citing the 2.4 million jobs created during that time, the record low levels of unemployment and the larger pay packets Americans would be taking home as a result of his tax cuts.

The era of economic surrender is totally over, he said, harking back to a campaign theme that America wasnt being bullish enough with its trading partners. He claimed his presidency had turned the page on unfair trade deals.

Wife Melania was in the chamber, as well as daughter Ivanka with her husband Jared Kushner and the presidents older sons Donald Jr. and Eric,

Mr Trump said: We have faced challenges we expected, and others we could never have imagined. We have shared in the heights of victory and the pains of hardship.

We have endured floods and fires and storms. But through it all, we have seen the beauty of Americas soul, and the steel in Americas spine.

He called on Congress to summon the unity to help rebuild the nations crumbling infrastructure, although he didnt detail how he planned to do it.

Joe Kennedy, a great-nephew of President John F Kennedy, delivered the Democratic rebuttal, describing the Trump presidency as chaos.G eorge Clooney has opened up about meeting his wife Amal on David Lettermans Netflix chat show, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.

The actor revealed he didnt even have to leave the house, as Amal was brought over for dinner by a friend.

He told Letterman: "I didnt leave the house. It was the wildest thing. A mutual friend of ours said I was stopping by and asked, 'Can I bring my friend?' I said, Of course.

I got a call from my agent who called me and said, I met this woman who is coming to your house who youre going to marry.

First date: George Clooney has revealed he first met wife Amal at his home / Netflix

He also explained that his parents were present for the meeting as they were visiting him at the time.

"The funniest thing was my mum and dad were visiting so my parents were there, and we just talked  we stayed up all night talking and I got her email address because she was going to send me some pictures of my parents.

George and Amal Clooney - In pictures 1 /25 George and Amal Clooney - In pictures Amal and George Clooney attend a screening of "Money Monster" at the annual 69th Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals on May 12, 2016 in Cannes Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images Amal and George Clooney attend Universal Pictures' "Hail, Caesar!" premiere at Regency Village Theatre on February 1, 2016 in Westwood, California Kevin Winter/Getty Images George Clooney and his wife Amal Alamuddin stand on a taxi boat on the Grand Canal on September 28, 2014 in Venice AFP/Getty Images George Clooney and Amal Clooney attend the 'Hail, Caesar!' premiere during the 66th Berlinale International Film Festival Berlin at Berlinale Palace on February 11, 2016 in Berlin, Germany. Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Lawyer Amal Clooney, actors George Clooney and Julia Roberts attend the "Money Monster" premiere during the 69th annual Cannes Film Festival at the Palais des Festivals on May 12, 2016 in Cannes, France. Getty Images/Pascal Le Segretain Lawyer Amal Clooney and actor George Clooney attend a screening of "Money Monster" at the annual 69th Cannes Film Festival at Palais des Festivals on May 12, 2016 in Cannes, France Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images George Clooney and wife British human rights barrister Amal Clooney (L) arrive for the screening of 'Money Monster' during the 69th annual Cannes Film Festival, in Cannes, France, 12 May 2016 Ian Langsdon/EPA George Clooney and his wife Amal Clooney attend the 'Money Monster' premiere during the 69th annual Cannes Film Festival at the Palais des Festivals on May 12, 2016 in Cannes, France Clemens Bilan/Getty Images George Clooney and wife British human rights barrister Amal Clooney (L) arrive for the screening of 'Money Monster' during the 69th annual Cannes Film Festival, in Cannes, France, 12 May 2016 Andreas Rentz/EPA Amal and George Clooney attend Universal Pictures' "Hail, Caesar!" premiere at Regency Village Theatre on February 1, 2016 in Westwood, California Rex George and Amal Clooney attend as Casamigos founders Rande Gerber, George Clooney and Mike Meldman host the official launch of Casamigos Tequila in Ibiza and Spain at Ushuaia Ibiza Beach Hotel on August 23, 2015 in Ibiza, Spain Dave Benett George & Amal Clooney Amal Clooney and George Clooney 'Our Brand Is Crisis' film premiere, Los Angeles, America - 26 Oct 2015 Rex US actor George Clooney and his wife Amal Alamuddin leave the Aman Hotel on September 28, 2014 in Venice. Hollywood heartthrob George Clooney and Lebanese-British lawyer Amal Alamuddin married in Venice on Saturday September 27, 2014 AFP/Getty Images US actor George Clooney (R) and his Lebanon-born British fiancee Amal Alamuddin take a taxiboat upon their arrival in Venice on September 26, 2014, on the eve of their wedding AFP/Getty Images A general view shows boats surrounding the taxi boat of US actor George Clooney and his wife Amal Alamuddin on September 28, 2014 on the Grand Canal in Venice. Hollywood heartthrob George Clooney and Lebanese-British lawyer Amal Alamuddin married in Venice on Saturday September 27, 2014 George Clooney waves from a boat with Ramzi Alamuddin, third from right front row, father of her fiancee Amal Alamuddin, his father Nick Clooney, fourth from right front row, and his mother Nina Bruce, second from right back row on their way to the Aman hotel ahead of his wedding in Venice, Italy, Saturday, Sept. 27, 2014 George Clooney and his wife Amal Alamuddin stand on a taxi boat on September 28, 2014 in Venice A close-up shows the wedding bands of US actor George Clooney and his wife Amal Alamuddin as they stand on a taxi boat on the Grand Canal on September 28, 2014 in Venice George Clooney is flanked by his wife Amal Alamuddin as they leave the Aman luxury Hotel in Venice, Italy, Sunday, Sept. 28, 2014 George Clooney with his wife Amal Alamuddin, arrives at the Cavalli Palace for the civil marriage ceremony in Venice, Italy, Monday, Sept. 29, 2014 AP George Clooney and his fiance, Lebanese-British lawyer Amal Alamuddin arrive in Venice, Italy, 26 September 2014 EPA George Clooney and his lawyer wife Amal Alamuddin stand on a taxi boat on the Grand Canal on September 28, 2014 in Venic AFP/Getty Images George Clooney with his wife Amal Alamuddin, arrives at the Cavalli Palace for a civil marriage ceremony in Venice, Italy, Monday, Sept. 29, 2014 AP George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin wave from a boat as they leave after a civil wedding ceremony at the town hall in Venice, Italy, Monday, Sept. 29, 2014 AP

"We started writing and I didnt know if she wanted to go out with me. I just thought we were buddies."

Letterman joked: Who would George? Lets be frank, who would really want to go out with you?.

As well as Clooney, the host has been joined by former President Barack Obama who discussed his childhood. Other guests set to appear on the series include Malala Yousafzai, Jay Z, Tina Fey and Howard Stern.H ollywood figures have defended Glee star Mark Salling and posted tributes to the actor after his suspected suicide weeks ahead of his sentencing for child pornography offences.

Sallings death was confirmed on Tuesday. He was 35. He was due to be sentenced by a judge on March 7 and faced between four and seven years after taking a plea deal in December.

Co-stars and fans of the actor, including actress Jane Lynch and voice coach Tim David, expressed their grief online upon hearing the news.

Glees former vocal coordinator described Mr Salling as a broken man".

"Broken man": Glee actor Mark Salling had been facing four to seven years in jail / Getty Images North America

Acknowledging Sallings crimes he wrote: Today we lost another Glee cast member.Yes, he committed crimes against children.Yes, it's horrific. But #MarkSalling was a broken man, no doubt an abuse victim himself.

Salling was arrested in 2015 after he was arrested for possession of child porn.

Investigators found 50,000 images and videos of child pornography on his computer, more than 4,000 on a thumb drive and tens of thousands more on an encrypted hard drive.

He continued in a further tweet: Having compassion for #MarkSalling in no way minimizes his crimes, nor does it minimize the pain and devastation of the victims of those crimes.

His post was retweeted by other members of the Glee cast.

Lynch who appeared on TMZ on Tuesday afternoon said she was broken hearted by Mr Sallings death.

Matthew Morrison, who co-starred in Glee with Mr Salling, posted a photo of the deceased actor alongside a photo of Cory Monteith who also starred in the show who passed away in 2013.

Glees director Paris Barclay shared a photo of Mr Monteith and Mr Salling together, he wrote: Its a painful loss, again. Two young actors, lost too soon. RIP.

Yes we know the whole story. We also worked with him before all this came to light.

Some fans of Mr Salling also took to Twitter to pay tribute to the actor.

Tessa Hill wrote: Of course what Mark Salling did was wrong but he was still a human being who took his own life because he felt like he couldn't handle what his future held. Rest in peace, Mark.

Samantha May said: lets not excuse what Mark Salling did by any degree, but lets also appreciate the devastation of suicide. Thoughts are with his family.

Mr Sallings family requested that their privacy be respected.

In a statement released on Tuesday, Mr Sallings lawyer said: I can confirm that Mark Salling passed away early this morning, it read.

Mark was a gentle and loving person, a person of great creativity, who was doing his best to atone for some serious mistakes and errors of judgment. He is survived by his mother and father, and his brother.

The Salling family appreciates the support they have been receiving and asks for their privacy to be respected.

Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter told the Mail Online that Salling was pronounced dead at the scene near the Starwood Riding Club, an equestrian facility located roughly six miles from his Sunland home in Los Angeles, California at 9am.J enna Coleman has debuted her new blonde look after undergoing a dramatic transformation for a BBC drama.

The Victoria actress is set to star in four-part psychological thriller The Cry, alongside Ewan Leslie.

Coleman shared a snap on Wednesday as she settled into her flight to Melbourne and stunned her 708k followers with a blonde head of hair.

Fans of the actress were immediately in awe of her beauty and commented on her post to praise her new look.

One wrote underneath the picture: So beautiful, you're blonde now? Looks great!

While another posted: I CANT BELIEVE YOU REALLY WENT BLONDE. IM LOVING IT.

Some were more reserved, with one fan claiming they preferred her as a brunette: Not sure about the blonde, but still beautiful!

ITV Releases First Look At Brand New Victoria

The critically-acclaimed actress first rose to fame in ITV soap opera Emmerdale, before landing roles in Waterloo Road and Doctor Who.K hloe Kardashian has shared an emotional tribute to her beloved dog Gabbana who has passed away.

The reality star described the 14-year-old pooch, affectionately nicknamed Goober, as her first child, companion and friend in the touching Instagram post.

The pregnant star wrote: Last night my sweet Gabbana passed away. She was more than a pet. She was my first child, my companion and my friend. She was incredible! She made sure I was never lonely even during lonely times.

The house will never be the same. I never thought I would be this devastated over loosing a dog but 14 years, is a long time together.

She filled a significant role in my life and I'm forever grateful. I love you Goober!! I'll remember you always! [sic], she captioned a series of snaps.

Kardashian cared for the family dog after 'momager' Kris Jenner split from Caitlyn Jenner, then Bruce, back in 2013.

Sister Kendall Jenner also paid tribute to Gabbana on her Instagram, posting adorable snaps of her and writing: Ill miss your kisses forever Gooby. I know youre up there swimming, little fishy.

Kardashian took to Twitter to thank her fans for their support, calling it a sad night and an even sadder day.

Meanwhile, both Kardashian and Jenner were flooded with well-wishes as they mourned their loss.

The 33-year-old is expecting a baby with Tristan Thompson later this year, after confirming her rumoured pregnancy at the end of 2017.

She recently took to social media to admit she was googling images of her pre-baby body and to tell others about her cravings.

Khloe Kardashian on possible baby names

Kardashian wrote: "Today for lunch I had a salad and THREE bowls of cereal. I had no control in the kitchen."S ir Ridley Scott is set to be honoured with this years prestigious BAFTA fellowship.

The Alien director will be awarded the Academys highest accolade in celebration of his prolific contribution to film.

The BAFTA fellowship is handed to an individual or organisation each year for their involvement in film, games or television at the ceremony in London.

Scott, 80, joins the likes of film legends Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg and Sean Connery.

Lonesome me: Matt Damon in Ridley Scotts film The Martian, based on the book by Andy Weir / TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX

A BAFTA: A Life in Pictures event will be held following the collection of the award where Scott will discuss his cinematic work.

His portfolio includes 2012 release Prometheus, 1982 Blade Runner and a 2010 reprisal of Robin Hood.

Speaking about the award Scott said: It is a privilege to have been able to make a career for myself in this industry.

BAFTA Nominations 2018 - In pictures 1 /17 BAFTA Nominations 2018 - In pictures Richard Jenkins and Sally Hawkins in 'The Shape of Water' Gary Oldman in 'Darkest Hour' Call me by Your Name Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Dunkirk The Death of Stalin Florence Pugh as Katherine in 'Lady Macbeth' Gods Own Country Denis Villeneuve's 'Balde Runner 2049' Alcon Entertainment Margot Robbie in 'I, Tonya Get Out Saoirse Ronan in 'Ladybird' Christopher Plummer is J. Paul Getty in 'All the Money in the World' Daniel Day-Lewis and Vicky Krieps in 'Phantom Thread' IMDB Annette Bening and Jamie Bell in 'Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool' Willem Dafoe in 'The Florida Project' Kristin Scott Thomas as Clementine with Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill in 'Darkest Hour' AP

To be honoured for my body of work is indeed very gratifying.

Amanda Berry, Chief Executive of BAFTA, said: Ridley Scott is a visionary director, one of the great British filmmakers whose work has made an indelible mark on the history of cinema.

His passion and unrelenting pursuit of excellence have provided cinema goers with a tantalising range of films, including Alien, Gladiator, Thelma and Louise and Blade Runner. 40 years since his directorial debut, his films continue to cross the boundaries of style and genre, engaging audiences and inspiring the next generation of film talent.

The news comes after the directors latest film All the Money in the World, which has been nominated for a BAFTA, faced controversy.

After Hurricane Irma, millions of Floridians were out of cable service for days.

But if you didnt want to pay for the service you didnt get, you had to call Comcast or AT&T and ask for a credit.

A bill in the Legislature would change that, so that cable, landline phone companies and trash collectors would automatically credit your account for service you dont receive.

The idea comes out of the aftermath of Irma, when Rep. Randy Fine, R-Palm Bay, said he saw an "outpouring of complaints" about the three businesses.

"I didn't see those same businesses having the incentive to respond like I did with the electric utilities," Fine said.

But it has a tough road to becoming law. Cable companies say they don't all have the technology to track individual outages. Cities and trash companies say tracking customers is a new and unfair burden.

It passed a House committee meeting Monday, but not before Fine was grilled by Democrats, including Rep. Sean Shaw, D-Tampa.

The law would prevent trash companies from charging customers if their trash isn't picked up within four days of the normally scheduled day.

Cable and wired telephone companies would not be allowed to charge customers for service that has been out for more than 24 hours, as long as the outage was not caused by the customer or by a power outage at the customer's home.

Companies would be fined if they don't credit the customer's account.

Fine said power companies are not included in the bill because they don't charge people when the power is out.

And that's one of the problems the cable industry has with the bill, said Brad Swanson, president and CEO of Florida Internet and Television, a trade group.

Cable companies are not metered services, and they don't always know when a customer's service is out.

"The system is way more complex than just a meter at the other end saying its 'on,'" Swanson said.

That's why cable companies rely on customers to notify them when service is out, and they give credits to customers who ask for it.

They publicized the offer of credits after Irma last year. Swanson didn't know how many customers requested and were given credits.

Still, cable companies do have some idea who suffers an outage. After the storm, more than 7.5 million people did not have internet or cable service, according to data the companies gave the FCC. The FCC releases such data in the wake of major disasters, such as hurricanes.

And a week after the storm made landfall, nearly 900,000 cable and internet customers in Florida were still without service, according to the FCC.

Swanson said the industry is unregulated, and if cable companies aren't providing satisfactory service, customers can choose another service.

Fine believes the companies should know when a customer isn't receiving a service.

"Real businesses do their own quality control," Fine said. "They don't rely on customers to do it. And that's all this bill requires them to do."C ontroversial YouTube star Logan Paul is more popular with children than rival Zoella, a new study has found.

The findings, uncovered by research group ChildWise, suggest children are now seeking "edgier" content.

The study monitored the viewing habits of 2,000 children in the UK aged between five and 16, with close to 100 per cent visiting YouTube regularly.

Mr Paul, 22, faced global backlash earlier this month after posting a clip online appearing to show a Japanese suicide victim.

Fellow YouTube star Zoella (PA Images) / PA Archive/PA Images

It showed him and his friends discover what was believed to be the body of a man in the Aokigahara Forest at the base of Mount Fuji, known to be a frequent site of suicides.

After the clip was removed from YouTube, he apologised, admitting it had been "misguided".

Last week Mr Paul returned to the platform with a video about suicide prevention and pledged to donate $1m (700,000) to prevention groups.

Simon Leggett, a research director at ChildWise, told the BBC: "Zoella losing her top YouTuber slot to Logan Paul shows that we could be moving into a new era with a change in the kind of vloggers that are popular with children.

"Children used to mainly follow wholesome, big-sister/brother types who offered chatty advice and company.

"However, children's favourite new vloggers are more edgy, with a style more akin to negative playground behaviour where the most popular vloggers are the ones that do the worst possible things they can get away with on YouTube."

Zoella apologised in November after old posts emerged from her Twitter account mocking gay men and "fat chavs".F irst Dates fans have praised the Irish version of the show after it broadcast an episode in which a couple communicated entirely in sign language.

Stephen, 25, explained to the camera that he grew up with such a severe speech impediment and became interested in other forms of communication.

On his quest for love, Stephen was matched up with 27-year-old John-Charles, who is deaf, and the two immediately hit it off as they started chatting away in sign language.

Viewers of the Irish show  which also has a very successful UK version  were quick to praise the cute date and praise the RTE programme for featuring a non-verbal date.

Taking to Twitter, one commented: Thank you so much #FirstDatesIRL @COCOtv for giving equal opportunities to Deaf dater with Irish Sign Language. Heres hoping to see more of this! #diversity #inclusion.

While another said: You know what the best thing about Irish Sign Language date on #FirstDatesIRL tonight was? The fact that @COCOtv didn't do a voiceover for the date. Such a small but powerful thing to do because it really made people pay attention to what a beautiful language ISL is! #YestoISL.

During the date, viewers learned a lot about the method of communication including how people often have sign names, to refer to a personal trait they have.

John-Charles also revealed the troubles he has had with dating, as people sometimes talk into his ear and talk loudly, which really doesnt make a difference, so he has taken to exchanging text messages with other guys or passing a phone back and forth.G reg Kinnear and Diane Lane have joined the cast of House of Cards as filming resumes after it was put on hold last year.

Production on upcoming episodes of the Netflix hit was temporarily canned after lead actor Kevin Spacey was accused of sexual misconduct.

But the streaming giant confirmed on Wednesday that filming for the sixth series has resumed with two new faces, Diane Lane and Greg Kinnear, although details about their roles are still scarce at this stage.

The final series of the political thriller will consist of eight episodes.

New recruit: Greg Kinnear has joined the cast / Yui Mok/PA Archive/PA Images

Kinnear, 54, is best known for his roles in Little Miss Sunshine and Green Zone, while Lane starred in Adrian Lyn film Unfaithful, earning her a multitude of award nominations of the highest honour.

Spacey was sacked from House of Cards amid allegations of sexual misconduct, and Netflix later severed all ties with him by also pulling the plug on a planned Gore Vidal biopic.

Earlier this month, the media giants announced a $39 million loss in the final quarter of 2017.

US publication Deadline claimed the 28 million write-down was linked to cutting Spaceys major projects, as well as scrapping a stand-up show with disgraced comedian Louis CK.

Spacey was also written out of wrapped film All The Money In The World after Ridley Scott took the decision to replace the Hollywood star with Christopher Plummer, who has now been nominated for an Oscar.Countries & Areas

Search for country or area A Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan B Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burma Burundi C Cabo Verde Cambodia Cameroon Canada Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Costa Rica Cote dIvoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czechia D Democratic Republic of the Congo Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic E Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia F Fiji Finland France G Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Grenada Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana H Haiti Holy See Honduras Hungary I Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy J Jamaica Japan Jordan K Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan L Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg M Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique N Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria North Korea North Macedonia Norway O Oman P Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territories Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Q Qatar R Republic of the Congo Romania Russia Rwanda S Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Sweden Switzerland Syria T Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Tuvalu U Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom Uruguay Uzbekistan V Vanuatu Venezuela Vietnam Y Yemen Z Zambia ZimbabweThe TV series, The Vietnam War, is absolutely riveting. The ten discs in the DVD set provide over 17 hours of viewing, and there is hardly a moment wasted. It is even-handed to the most admirable degree, and presents the points of view of war-supporters in the US and Vietnam as well as doubters, protestors and those who now bitterly regret the years of hellish slaughter. (To declare an interest: I served there in the Australian army in 1970-71 although, as a staff officer, did not see combat.) The producers and presenters of this masterpiece are to be congratulated, as are the US Public Broadcasting Service and those who contributed the 30 million dollars it took to make it.

Being balanced and admirably impartial, there is no leitmotif as such, no recurrent theme that might guide us to move to a particular stand, because, in the words of one reviewer, it carries with it a sense of trustworthiness; of a project undertaken with humility, but without an agenda beyond the truth.

Yet there is one particular feature of the war that does recur: the bombing. The ceaseless, pounding, massively destructive, relentlessly thundering bombing, rocketing and napalming in north and south Vietnam  and also in bordering Laos and Cambodia.

In Laos alone the US flew 580,344 bombing missions, dropping 2.5 million tons of munitions, or seven bombs for every man, woman and child in the country, a planeload of bombs being unloaded every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, for nine years. When President Obama visited Laos in 2016 he acknowledged it as the most heavily bombed nation in history and accepted that the United States has a moral obligation to help Laos heal. I doubt that Mr Trump will endorse such sentiments about Laos or any other country.

A 2016 analysis of the bombing of South Vietnam showed that the campaign not only failed to further US war aims but in many ways adversely affected them, and concluded that While US intervention aimed to build a strong non-communist state in South Vietnam, the study documents that bombing instead weakened local government and non-communist civic society. Further, villages targeted with bombing exhibited less trust of Americans and South Vietnamese authorities, and more trust of North Vietnamese soldiers and local insurgents. Such areas also suffered from greater economic problems, less civil society, and less effective local governance.

In a wonderful example of unintentional irony, the US Defence Secretary, General James Mattis, arrived in Vietnam for a two-day visit on January 24  the very day we were told that air strikes in Afghanistan are going to intensify. US Air Force Major General James Hecker, commander of 9th Air and Space Expeditionary Task Force-Afghanistan and NATO Air Command-Afghanistan said the Taliban still has not felt the full brunt of American and Afghan air power. With the arrival of new air assets and the growing capabilities of Afghan pilots, the Talban will have a constant eye towards the sky as an integrated unified fight is aimed directly to them. But the eyes of the Taliban are focused closer to the ground, where they conduct barbaric and most effective attacks.

General Heckers statement came four days after a terrorist assault on a luxury hotel in Afghanistans capital in which about forty people were killed. The US Embassy had warned that We are aware of reports that extremist groups may be planning an attack against hotels in Kabul but, as CNN observed, what we learn most clearly from this attack is that despite the clarity of the warning and the fact there are only a handful of major hotels in Kabul that could have been the target, the attack couldn't be prevented. It is open to question if any planned attacks will in future be prevented by General Heckers full brunt of air power.

On January 19, the day before the hotel carnage, as part of General Heckers war-winning air strike capability, a squadron of A-10 ground attack aircraft arrived in Afghanistan and the US-NATO media release noted that Commonly known as the Warthog, the A-10s return to Afghanistan supports the increased need for close air support and precision strike capacity . . . including the strategic air campaign targeting Taliban revenue sources and counter-terrorism operations that continue to take place. This strategic air campaign is intended to implement the US South Asia Policy under Operation Freedoms Sentinel.

Freedoms Sentinel is separate from the US-NATO Resolute Support mission, which provides further training, advice and assistance for Afghan security forces and institutions and has no combat role. On the other hand, Freedoms Sentinel has four or five or maybe six thousand special forces soldiers (the Pentagon does not know exactly how many of its troops are deployed around the world), whose Mission is to conduct counterterrorism operations against al Qaeda, its associates in Afghanistan, and the Islamic State

These special forces are supported by vast airpower including dozens of F-16s and seaborne F-18s as well as strategic B-52 bombers (as used to bomb Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia) of the 69th Expeditionary Bomber Squadron, in addition to F-22 Raptors, which are a leap in warfighting capabilities for the US Air Force and coalition forces . . . Each Raptor costs 250 million dollars and has technical capabilities that appear to be slightly more advanced than are required to combat an enemy of rag-tag insurgents who do not possess aircraft or radars and whose most advanced anti-aircraft weapon is a light machine gun.

Raptors were tasked to bomb Afghanistan because they supposedly aim their bombs more accurately than other aircraft, and that may be desired because of the number of civilian casualties caused by US airstrikes in 2017. The UN reported that in January-September at least 205 civilians were killed and 261 wounded in such attacks. More than two thirds of the victims were women and children.

Unsurprisingly a member of the Afghan parliament said that Using more bombs and bigger bombs also creates hatred as it causes more civilian deaths, which, as in Vietnam, sums up the effects of intensified bombing.

Six months ago President Trump announced his new strategy for the war in Afghanistan. He declared that in the end, we will win but didnt specify what winning entailed, although he said that on the way to that desirable outcome we are killing terrorists who need to know they have nowhere to hide, that no place is beyond the reach of American might and American arms. Retribution will be fast and powerful. But has it been fast and powerful? How do you administer retribution to a dead suicide bomber? Maybe you can blast the particular person who supplied the explosives, but there are lots more suppliers and bombers out there.

On January 27 terrorists struck yet again, killing 103 people and injuring another 230 when a suicide bombers vehicle, supposedly an ambulance, exploded in Kabul city centre.

In the first year of the Trump presidency, US airstrikes in Afghanistan reached the highest level since 2012.

Source: US Air Force Central Command, via the Washington Post

Concurrently, terrorist attacks in Kabul increased in numbers and savagery. In 2017 thirty people were killed in March in an attack on a hospital; in May a truck bomb killed 150; in June three bombs killed fifteen and in December a bomb at a cultural centre killed fifty. So far in 2018, in addition to the hotel slaughter and the ambulance suicide bombing, twenty were killed by a suicide bomber on January 6.

Do Mr Trump and his intellectual generals believe their bombing surge will improve the domestic security of Afghanistan? They should reflect on their airstrike of August 10 last year which this report described in harrowing detail:

As US warplanes flew above a cluster of villages where Islamic State militants were holed up in eastern Afghanistan, 11 people piled into a truck and drove off along an empty dirt track to escape what they feared was imminent bombing. They did not get far.

An explosion blasted the white Suzuki truck off the road, opening a large crater in the earth and flipping the vehicle on its side in a ditch. A teenage girl survived. The 10 dead included three children, one an infant in his mothers arms.

The lone survivor of the August 10 blast in Nangarhar province, and Afghan officials who visited the site, said the truck was hit by an American airstrike shortly before 5 pm. Relatives expressed horror that US ground forces and surveillance aircraft could have mistaken the passengers, who included women and children riding in the open truck bed  in daylight with no buildings or other vehicles around  for Islamic State fighters.

How could they not see there were women and children in the truck? said Zafar Khan, 23, who lost six family members, including his mother and three siblings, in the blast.

In a statement after the incident, the US military acknowledged carrying out a strike but said it killed militants who were observed loading weapons into a vehicle and there was zero chance of civilian casualties.

Let us reflect on the fact that by the time the last American combat troops left Vietnam in 1973, the US had dropped some 4.6 million tons of bombs, destroying a large percentage of the nations towns and villages and killing an estimated 2 million Vietnamese people. And the US lost the war. Bombing isnt going to win the war in Afghanistan, either, and it is deceitful and morally indefensible to claim that it will.

In March 2013 Trump tweeted we should leave Afghanistan immediately" and nine months later urged Americans not to allow our very stupid leaders to sign a deal that keeps us in Afghanistan through 2024  with all costs by U.S.A. MAKE AMERICA GREAT!

After the ambulance bombing a Kabul shopkeeper said How are we to live? Where should we go? We have no security: we dont have a proper government, what should we do?

Who is the stupid leader, now?On Dec. 27, Syrian militants fired three Grad rockets at the Hmeymim air base used by the Russian military forces deployed in Syria. Two of them were intercepted by Russias Pantsir airdefense (AD) system, while the third, which deviated from its trajectory, landed in the outskirts of the city of Jebla. Once again, the Pantsir AD system proved to be highly efficient under real combat conditions. It can first launch missiles, and if they miss, its artillery shells will finish the job. This was not the first time that this weapon had saved the lives of Russian servicemen. The Pantsir successfully intercepted three rockets targeting Hmeymim in late March. It is a truly formidable close-in weapon system (CIWS -sea-whiz), which few other last-ditch systems can measure up to.

Now the famous AD/gun system is going to sea. It was reported in late December 2017 that the seaborne Pantsir-ME version would be undergoing tests in 2018. "It will be tested beginning next year, first on the land-based stand and then it will be installed on one of the ships," stated the CEO of the Almaz Central Marine Design Bureau, Alexander Shlyakhtenko. He claims that the trials are scheduled to continue for one or two years.

Karakurt-class corvettes (project 22800) will be the first ships to be armed with the new weapon. The naval version is small enough to be installed on various platforms, including vessels displacing 300 tons and more. The Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier will be fitted with the Pantsir-ME, replacing its existing CIWS systems.

Equipped with radar and optical control systems, the Pantsir-ME can intercept missiles under any weather conditions, even during storms. The naval version of the Pantsir-S can successfully target sea-skimming missiles that have an unpredictable flight path.

Thanks to the 1RS2-1E multifunction phased-array radar system, the naval version of the Pantsir can engage four targets at once, flying at a speed of up to 2,240 mph. The reaction time is 3-5 seconds. Long-range early warning is provided by the vessel's radar.

Two GSh-6-30K/AO-18KD 30 mm (1.2 in), six-barrel rotary guns that can fire at a rate of 6,000 rounds per minute are another element of this armament suite. With this rate of fire the weapon can effectively counter missiles, aircraft, drones and small vessels. Some sources report the rate of fire could be close to 10,000 (160 projectiles per second) rounds a minute. Its operational range is 0.3-4 km at an altitude of 0-3 km.

The 57E6-E two-stage surface-to-air missile can hit targets from a range of 1.2 to 20 kilometers. Its altitude is 0.002-15 km and kill probability is 7095%. The weapon has a 15-year storage lifetime.

The system can operate independently, making it suitable for arming ships of various sizes from corvettes to cruisers. There are four tubes on each side of the turret. The tracking radars can operate as part of the ships combat system. The naval version of the Pantsir carries a total of 32 missiles.

The Pantsir-ME can fire the Hermes-K fire-and-forget missiles, which are especially useful for hitting small surface or shore targets. The semi-active laser of the surface-to-surface missile seeker makes it possible to strike over-the-horizon targets with great precision.

It would be next to impossible to penetrate the firepower wielded by the naval version of the Pantsir. Installing this weapon on a ship will greatly enhance that vessels survivability. Even if the missiles should fail, the cannons will take care of the target  a good example of the kitchen sink approach.

Taking the Pantsir CIWS to sea makes it possible to maintain credible sea-whiz defenses as Russia continues to build a more agile and technologically advanced navy. The UK-based Business Insider has included the family of Pantsir systems in its list of Russias ten most formidable weapons.

Russian sources have reported that the Pantsir-SM version is currently in development. Production might start as early as this year. That system boasts an operational range of 40 km with increased detection capability of up to 75 km. The Pantsir-SMs naval version will be first installed on the Project 21631 Buyan-M corvettes.

The Pantsir is not the only Russian land-based air-defense system to include a naval version. The Tor-M2 short-range AD missile system can be adapted for naval applications. No ship today can be called modern if it lacks the robust CIWS capability that Russian surface combatants will soon boast once these new, cutting-edge systems become operational.Patrick J. BUCHANAN

If Turkey is not bluffing, U.S. troops in Manbij, Syria, could be under fire by weeks end, and NATO engulfed in the worst crisis in its history.

Turkish President Erdogan said Friday his forces will cleanse Manbij of Kurdish fighters, alongside whom U.S. troops are embedded.

Erdogans foreign minister demanded concrete steps by the United States to end its support of the Kurds, who control the Syrian border with Turkey east of the Euphrates all the way to Iraq.

If the Turks attack Manbij, America will face a choice: stand by our Kurdish allies and resist the Turks, or abandon the Kurds.

Should the U.S. let the Turks drive the Kurds out of Manbij and the entire Syrian border area, as Erdogan threatens, American credibility would suffer a blow from which it would not soon recover.

But to stand with the Kurds and oppose Erdogans forces could mean a crackup of NATO and a loss of U.S. bases inside Turkey, including the air base at Incirlik.

Turkey also sits astride the Dardanelles entrance to the Black Sea. NATOs loss would thus be a triumph for Vladimir Putin, who gave Ankara the green light to cleanse the Kurds from Afrin.

Yet Syria is but one of many challenges facing U.S. foreign policy.

The Winter Olympics in South Korea may have taken the menace of a North Korean ICBM out of the news, but no one believes that threat is behind us.

Last week, China charged that the USS Hopper, a guided missile destroyer, sailed within 12 nautical miles of Scarborough Shoal, a reef in the South China Sea claimed by Beijing, though it is far closer to Luzon in the Philippines. The destroyer, says China, was chased off by one of her frigates. If we continue to contest Chinas territorial claims with our warships, a clash is inevitable.

In a similar incident Monday, a Russian military jet came within five feet of a U.S. Navy EP-3 Orion surveillance jet in international airspace over the Black Sea, forcing the Navy plane to end its mission.

U.S. relations with Cold War ally Pakistan are at rock bottom. In his first tweet of 2018, President Trump charged Pakistan with being a false friend.

The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools, Trump declared. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!

As for Americas longest war in Afghanistan, now in its 17th year, the end is nowhere on the horizon.

A week ago, the International Hotel in Kabul was attacked and held for 13 hours by Taliban gunmen who killed 40. Midweek, a Save the Children facility in Jalalabad was attacked by ISIS, creating panic among aid workers across the country.

Saturday, an ambulance exploded in Kabul, killing 103 people and wounding 235. Monday, Islamic State militants attacked Afghan soldiers guarding a military academy in Kabul. With the fighting season two months off, U.S. troops will not soon be departing.

If Pakistan is indeed providing sanctuary for the terrorists of the Haqqani network, how does this war end successfully for the United States?

Last week, in a friendly fire incident, the U.S.-led coalition killed 10 Iraqi soldiers. The Iraq war began 15 years ago.

Yet another war, where the humanitarian crisis rivals Syria, continues on the Arabian Peninsula. There, a Saudi air, sea, and land blockade that threatens the Yemeni people with starvation has failed to dislodge Houthi rebels who seized the capital Sanaa three years ago.

This weekend brought news that secessionist rebels, backed by the United Arab Emirates, seized power in Yemens southern port of Aden from the Saudi-backed Hadi regime fighting the Houthis.

These rebels seek to split the country, as it was before 1990.

Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE appear to be backing different horses in this tribal-civil-sectarian war into which America has been drawn.

There are other warsSomalia, Libya, Ukrainewhere the U.S. is taking sides, sending arms, training troops, flying missions.

Like the Romans, we have become an empire, committed to fighting for scores of nations, with troops on every continent and forces in combat operations of which the American people are only vaguely aware.

I didnt know there were 1,000 troops in Niger, said Senator Lindsey Graham when four Green Berets were killed there. We dont know exactly where were at in the world, militarily, and what were doing.

No, we dont, Senator.

As in all empires, power is passing to the generals.

And what causes the greatest angst today in the imperial city?

Fear that a four-page memo worked up in the House Judiciary Committee may discredit Robert Muellers investigation of Russia-gate.

theamericanconservative.comA flashpoint of disagreement is in higher education. Led by Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart, senators want to spend nearly $400 million more on state universities, but the House wants to slash their budgets by $216 million.Hue, Vietnam 1968, 3rd Marine DivisionHeavy Viet Cong automatic weapons fire rakes a team of First Regiment 106mm recoilless riflemen during savage fighting at point-blank range in Vietnam's embattled and historic city of Hue. Defense Dept. Photo

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CIA Director Mike Pompeo pegs Russia and China as America's two most powerful and worrisome adversaries. And the CIA Director is worried. Both Russia and China conduct covert influence operations targeting U.S. security efforts, important institutions and political processes, to include American elections.

In a recent interview with the BBC, Pompeo said he believes Russia will meddle in the 2018 U.S. midterm election. The Kremlin will also continue political subversion campaigns in Europe.

Yes, Russian political subversion in Europe. Does it sound like the Kremlin has revived the Cold War? Except Eastern Europeans, particularly Estonians, Ukrainians and Moldovans, will remind you that Russia never stopped waging subversive warfare against its neighbors.

Russia also employs overt warfare. Its 2014 invasion of Crimea and its ongoing dirty war in eastern Ukraine are immediate examples. Recall in one 2012 presidential debate President Barack Obama mocked Republican candidate Mitt Romney for arguing that Russia remained a threat. Obama dismissed Romney as a warmonger trapped in the past. Obama was wrong.

Russia, however, may be second fiddle. In his BBC interview, Pompeo said in terms of the ability to conduct covert influence operations "The Chinese have a much bigger footprint" than the Russians.

That means China presents a broader and more complex threat.

"We can watch very focused efforts (by China) to steal American information," Pompeo said, and "to infiltrate the United States with spies -- with people who are going to work on behalf of the Chinese government against America."

China has money. Russia is strapped for cash. China uses its money. Money can buy people.

A recent spy case may have been on Pompeo's mind. In mid-January, 2018, American authorities arrested Jerry Chun Shing Lee, a former CIA officer who sold out to China. Lee's treason led to the arrest or murder of an estimated 20 people who became U.S. intelligence sources in China.

There are many kinds of covert influence operations. Lee appears to be a classic case of a turncoat spy. Since the beginning of recorded history, sympathetic political agents have served as a plausibly deniable propagandists. During the Cold War, the Kremlin relied on "the useful idiots in the West" for support.

Twentieth century influence operations leveraged media, education and financial institutions. Today, Beijing and Moscow are exploiting pervasive 21st century digital communications networks and digital media platforms with the goals of damaging American security efforts and disrupting American institutions.

China is very adept at what were once called "industrial espionage" operations. The term referred to stealing commercial-sector secrets. Often the thief was a competing company or investment group. The Chinese government, however, targets American commercial enterprises. The stolen data, trade secrets and patents may further Beijing's political and military goals. However, Beijing also provides Chinese companies with many of the stolen commercial secrets. Unfair competitive advantage? You bet.

But Beijing's Communist leaders may regard commercial theft and covert influence operations of all types as key weapons in 21st century warfare.

In a recent MIT International Security review article examining Chinese military strategy, M. Taylor Fravel concluded that the Chinese Communist Party believes the condition of "informization" is central to 21st century warfare. To paraphrase Fravel, information ("broadly defined") plays "a "leading role" in war." Information combat includes cyber war but it also appears to include psychological operations.

The Chinese military has marching orders to win "informationized local wars." Maritime disputes, such as China's claim in the South China Sea, receive particular emphasis.

Military power provides the physical threat, but undermining the legitimate South China Sea territorial claims of Vietnam and the Philippines using propaganda campaigns to sow discord and seed doubt might be Beijing's decisive weapon. Corrupting Filipino officials with Chinese cash might also further Beijing's imperial designs.India had less terrorist violence in 2017 (11 percent fewer deaths) compared to 2016. The decline in 2017 would have been greater had not Pakistan (or, more precisely, the Pakistani military) used increased violence in Kashmir as a way to deal with growing calls for less corruption in the Pakistani military, fewer coups and meddling in elections and press freedom. Deaths in northwest India (Kashmir) were up 34 percent during 2017. Meanwhile rebel (communist and tribal) related deaths were down again in 2017. As in the past Islamic terrorism was not the major cause of the violence, accounting for 45 percent of the 2017 deaths even with the increased Pakistani aggressiveness. For the second year in a row Kashmir was the source of all the overall increase for India. During 2015 India suffered 722 deaths from terrorism and that was down 26 percent from 2014. In 2015 the biggest source (35 percent of deaths) was communist rebels in eastern India. Islamic terrorism accounted for only 24 percent of deaths in 2015, most of them in Kashmir. This violence had been declining for years while Islamic terrorism in Pakistan only began to shrink after the Pakistani army was forced (by public anger) to attack a notorious Islamic terrorist sanctuary in North Waziristan (on the Afghan border) and cracked down on Islamic terrorists in Karachi. But once the Pakistani military had reduced Islamic terrorism violence inside Pakistan they resumed instigating more such violence against India.

As a result Kashmir border violence by Pakistani troops was way up this year, as it was along the entire Indian/Pakistan border. This was in violation of earlier ceasefire agreements that the elected Pakistani officials wanted observed but they were overruled by their military commanders. Increasingly India threatens major military response to almost daily Pakistani attacks in Kashmir. There has been growing use of Indian commandos and talk of using non-nuclear ballistic and cruise missiles as well as airstrikes. Because of internal politics in Pakistan the Pakistani army controls the levels of border violence. This is all about the continuing battle between elected Pakistani politicians and the military over the threat from India. The Pakistani generals justify their large budget and numerous other privileges by the need to deal with this Indian threat. But there is no Indian threat. The Pakistani military refuses to accept that and the border erupts once more as the Pakistani generals try to justify their many privileges and powers. This is no longer seen as just a local issue. The Pakistani military is also under growing domestic (by elected Pakistani politicians) and international (especially American, Afghan and UN) pressure to cease all support for Islamic terrorism but the Pakistani generals have not shown any indication of changing. For example the new head of the Pakistani military, appointed at the end of 2016, spent much of his career working directly with forces (military and Islamic terrorist) causing violence on the Indian border and in Kashmir. This new leader was also expected, by his fellow generals, to deal with the increased threat (to Pakistani military privileges) by the elected politicians. This has led to more violence or threats of violence by the military against judges, journalists and politicians who are too active in their criticism of the military

Pakistan And Terrorism

Pakistan reduced Islamic terrorist activity inside Pakistan for the third year in a row. In 2017 terrorist related deaths were down 30 percent (to 1,260), another record low. They declined 51 percent (to 1,803) in 2016 and that was the lowest number for terrorist activity since 2006. Pakistan carried out all this counter-terrorism activity mainly in self-defense, to reduce Islamic terrorist activity directed at Pakistan. Such was not the case with Islamic terrorists in Pakistan who leave Pakistanis alone and concentrate their attacks in India, Afghanistan and other foreign targets designated by the Pakistani military. The 2014 campaign in North Waziristan has reduced Islamic terrorist activity by 77 percent since 2014. That campaign continues but was supposed to officially end in 2017. Yet Pakistani terrorism related death rates are still much higher than India, a nation with six times the population but nearly half the terrorism (most of it non-Moslem) deaths suffered by Pakistan. In other words, adjusted for population size there is still ten times as many terrorism deaths in Pakistan.

The Pakistani military, which tolerates or supports many Islamic terror groups, is under growing pressure to shut down all Islamic terrorists in the country. The military refuses to do that because they believe, for religious or economic reasons that some Islamic terrorists must still be protected (so they can attack India and Afghanistan.) It is getting harder and harder to defend that position. America, India and Afghanistan have lead a successful effort to publicize this scam and the Pakistani denials no longer work at all. By the end of 2017 American leaders made good on their threat to cut military aid and told the Pakistani leaders that unless all the Islamic terrorists were targeted there would be no resumption of American military aid. The U.S. has provided Pakistan with $33 billion in aid since 2001 and was fed up with Pakistani refusals to shut down Islamic terror groups that operate against Afghanistan and India but not Pakistan.

The official line in Pakistani media controlled (or intimidated) by the military is that Pakistan has suffered greatly from Islamic terrorism instigated by the West. Pakistan has suffered economic losses of over $100 billion from Islamic terrorists since 2002 and more than 50,000 Pakistanis died from that violence. The Pakistan military insists that India is behind most of the Islamic terrorist violence inside Pakistan and the United States has been stingy (only $14 billion in aid since 2002) in helping Pakistan cope. The Pakistani military has made matters worse by allowing Islamic terror groups it still supports (despite being considered international terrorists) to form political parties and exercise even more control over Pakistanis. This move is not popular inside Pakistan but the Pakistani military has, in effect, declared an unofficial war on any Pakistanis that oppose them.

Pakistan remains the primary source of Islamic terrorism in the region. It is becoming increasingly difficult to deny this as more and more evidence surfaces. This has led to open discussions about how to deal with the mess these lies have gotten Pakistan into. Some of these public discussions feature Pakistani officials saying that to move against all Islamic terrorists in Pakistan too aggressively would mean more Islamic terrorist attacks inside Pakistan. While that makes sense to many Pakistanis it simply angers Afghanistan and India (and now Bangladesh as well) because they have long suffered from Pakistan based Islamic terror groups that had (and still have) sanctuary in Pakistan and until recently any Pakistani openly admitting that would be called a traitor and risk prison or death. What changed Pakistani attitudes towards this official denial was the growing evidence that the Pakistani position was most definitely all a lie. This became embarrassing when Pakistani Islamic terrorists would get on the Internet and provide evidence that they, not India, carried out a particular attack. The Afghans and Americans also lost their patience with years of Pakistani promises that they were working on the problem when, in fact, that was all for show.

The American decision to cut military aid to Pakistan is a big deal because over the last decade that aid has accounted for nearly 20 percent of the Pakistani defense budget. The U.S. aid has declined since 2010 (when it was $2 billion) but is still significant because the current annual Pakistani defense budget is nearly $9 billion. So an extra billion or so from the Americans makes a difference. While Pakistan can turn to China or Russia for all its weapons needs it wont have access to the best nor will it get any gifts. China and Russia expect to be paid for military goods. Meanwhile the Pakistani army gets 47 percent of the defense budget, the air force 20 percent and the navy 11 percent. Pakistan talks about the Indian Threat and in terms of numbers there is one because India spends nearly $60 billion on defense, the fifth largest defense budget on the planet (behind the United States, China, Russia and Saudi Arabia). Pakistan barely makes the top 20. Indian spending is 3.3 percent of GDP while Pakistan is 2.7 percent. In 2016 Pakistan boosted defense spending 15 percent but was unable to sustain that growth rate. For the last five years Pakistan has, on average, increased its defense spending about 10 percent a year. Neighboring India spends more than five times as much. Chinas defense spending ($215 billion) is the largest in the region and second largest in the world. Defense spending in South Asia has risen nearly 50 percent since 2001. The large portion of Pakistani government spending going to the military is under growing criticism inside Pakistan, mainly because Pakistan lags way behind India and China when it comes to spending on education, infrastructure and public health. The Pakistani government tries to justify the high defense spending by pointing out that since 2011 Pakistan has suffered $57 billion in economic losses because of Islamic terrorism. That is tragic but the neighbors (and the United States) point out that those losses are largely because Pakistan has supported Islamic terrorists since the 1970s and continues to do so even though many Islamic terror groups have declared war on Pakistan.

The American suspension of military aid to Pakistan has not caused the Pakistani military to make any changes, other than increasing pressure on Pakistani journalists that report anything the military does not like. The Pakistani military continues to portray itself as a victim of American and Indian schemes. The U.S. and Pakistan have maintained diplomatic relations while both wait to see how the aid halt will work out.

Pakistan fears the United States and India will carry out more air strikes and commando operations in Pakistan against Islamic terrorist targets. Pakistan is particularly concerned with protecting the Haqqani Network, an Afghan led group that has prospered under Pakistani protection since the 1990s and is now believed to control the leadership of the Afghan Taliban, Pakistan has long denied any connection with Haqqani, much less control of the group, but there is much evidence that ISI (Pakistani Intelligence) works closely with Haqqani. Growing American (and international) pressure has forced Pakistan to say it is acting against Haqqani. There is little evidence of that. It is clear that the Pakistani military manages (successfully so far) to run the government without actually being the government. Power without responsibility plus generous retirement benefits, immunity from prosecution for most crimes and all those nifty uniforms and parades. No wonder a military career is so popular among the best families.

Since 2011 the Pakistani military has fewer secrets. Thats because of the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden in his Pakistani hideout and left with the bin Laden corpse and massive amounts of documents, many of them detailing how the Pakistani military had lied to the world about secret support for al Qaeda and many other Islamic terror groups. After 2011 the military made a few changes like going to war with Islamic terror groups that carried out unauthorized (by the military) attacks inside Pakistan. There is still Islamic terrorist violence inside Pakistan but most of it is done without permission from the military. What Islamic terrorism the military still used inside Pakistan had a specific purpose. Case in point is the growing use of blasphemy charges by Islamic religious parties against those who threaten military power. Most of these parties are either allies of the military or literally on the army payroll. This program includes the new Islamic political parties formed by Islamic terror groups that have long worked for the military to carry out attacks inside India. The Pakistani military wants to protect these Islamic terror groups and turning them into political parties is the latest ploy. The covert violence against foreign (Afghan and Indian targets) is against Pakistani and international law and the Pakistani military continues to claim that it is not involved.

The Tibetan Threat

Chinese troops still cause problems along the Indian border but the level of such activity has continued declining. They peaked in 2014 at about 500 incidents. That was double what it had been in 2010. But since then the incidents have declined. Most of these border violations have occurred on the border with the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. These incidents are not supposed to happen at all because of agreements China and India negotiated in 2013 and 2014. Because of that China claims recent incursions were accidents and point out that their troops leave as soon as India contacts China (per the border agreements) and China is able to contact the border troops involved. Despite fewer incursions since 2014 India continues to move more troops into the area and build facilities to support them. China still claims to own Arunachal Pradesh and has always maintained that the 3,500 kilometer long border between India and Chinese Tibet (1,126 of with Arunachal Pradesh) was only temporary. Since 2010 China has been more aggressive about changing it. In this part of northeast India there are few, if any, ethnic Chinese. The locals know that a Chinese takeover would mean drastic changes because the first thing China does in places like this is move in a lot of ethnic (Han) Chinese and marginalize the natives. This rarely ends well for the locals. While these Chinese claims have been on the books for decades since 2000 China has become more vocal, and physical, about it. That's one reason India has been rapidly increasing its defense spending. But since both nations have nuclear weapons, a major war over these border disputes is unlikely. Constant Chinese pressure is another matter. China is applying the same tactic in all its recently activated territorial claims. Constant pressure while avoiding anything that might trigger a war is seen by China as a slow but certain way to secure its claims. Meanwhile India recently announced it is creating fifteen new border guard battalions (of about a thousand men each). Nine will be for the Tibet border while the other six will mainly go to the Bangladesh border.

The Other Chinese communist Threat

Maoist rebels in eastern India continue to lose ground. In 2017, for the first time since 2008, there were fewer (about 800) than a thousand violent incidents caused by the communist rebels. Until 2008 Indias Maoist rebels were protected because most ruling government coalitions included Indian communists. But after 2008 that was no longer the case, largely because communism had been declining as a political force within India. This particular bit of parliamentary maneuvering was critical for the Maoists, because for decades the legitimate Indian Communist Party, and some leftist allies, had forced the government to use restraint in dealing with Maoist violence. This enabled the Maoists to spread, and become an even bigger threat. After 2008 the government went to war with the Maoist rebels and has been winning.

Bangladesh Breaks Bad

In what used to be the other half of Pakistan (Bangladesh) 2017 was a return to normal as Islamic terror related deaths dropped 45 percent. That was important because 2016 had been a bad year with Islamic terrorism related deaths doubling. There were 80 Islamic terror related deaths in 2017 and that is closer to normal for Bangladesh. Compared to Pakistan (with a ten percent larger population) Bangladesh still had only six percent as many terrorist deaths as Pakistan during 2017. The 2016 spike in Islamic terrorist activity for Bangladesh was traced back to external sources. The most obvious one was Pakistan and police concluded that the largest Islamic terrorist attack of 2016 (in July) was largely triggered by external events. Bangladesh blames Pakistan for supporting Islamic terrorism within Bangladesh. This goes back to a 1971 uprising in Bangladesh that led to a war between Pakistan and India. Many Pakistani military leaders see this 1971 loss as a major reason for continued Pakistani hostility towards India. Not only was the Pakistani army decisively defeated in 1971, but the country lost much territory (which actively sought to secede and became Bangladesh). The lower (and more normal) Islamic terrorist activity in 2017 shows that, unlike Pakistan (or India) Islamic terrorism has never really established itself in Bangladesh and when someone else tries to bring it in, it does not last.

January 29, 2018: In Afghanistan ISIL took credit for an attack on Afghan Military Academy in Kabul. Some of the attackers were using British night vision goggles used by the Pakistani military and not available to the public. Moreover other Islamic terror groups operating in Afghanistan have been caught with these night vision devices as have Pakistan based Islamic terror groups that carry out attacks in India and are known to work for the Pakistani military and enjoy sanctuary in Pakistan. It isnt just the night vision goggles. India and Afghanistan have been comparing notes and finding many similarities like that. Pakistan, as usual, denies any involvement.

January 26, 2018: Iran is calling for a military coalition with Iraq and Pakistan to oppose American expansion in the region. Iraq is not interested and Pakistan quietly pointed out that it is on very good terms with Saudi Arabia, an ally of the United States and now Israel as well.

January 25, 2018: The United States added six more Haqqani Network and Afghan Taliban officials to a list of international terrorists. Being on the list means the United States believes it has enough evidence to arrest and prosecute and being on the list makes it difficult for the accused to travel or use the international banking system.

January 24, 2018: In northwest Pakistan (Kurram) two missiles (apparently from a UAV) hit a house known to be used by the Haqqani Network and killed two Haqqani men. One of the dead was a Haqqani official who worked with the Afghan Taliban. He apparently died while taking a shower. The United States denied it was responsible. A similar attack earlier this month only wounded the man it was aimed at. A month ago a similar attack was made on Jamil ud Din, a Haqqani Network leader and several of his associates. They all died when their vehicle was hit by two missiles as it drove near the Afghan border (Paktia province). If this latest attack was an American UAV it would be the first inside Pakistan since October (when two attacks hit Haqqani targets). Pakistan threatens retaliation for such illegal attacks, which the U.S. will not comment on and Pakistan has not yet acted on.

January 23, 2018: Afghan officials accuse Pakistan of firing more shells and rockets into Nooristan and Kunar provinces. Pakistan has been firing into Kunar since 2010 in an effort to hit real or suspected Pakistani Taliban bases in Afghanistan. This sort of thing disrupted economic activity, especially farming. Pakistan often denies the attacks, even though the Afghans have plenty of evidence (in the form of fragments of Pakistani made rockets and shells). Some Afghans believed the Pakistanis were often firing their artillery to provide cover for Pakistan based terrorists to get into Afghanistan without being detected by Afghan security forces. The firing might also have been to provide cover for smugglers, especially drug smugglers. The fact is this has always been a strange place and the local tribes see the border (still disputed by both Afghanistan and Pakistan) as part of the problem. Most of the shells land in uninhabited areas and do not harm crops or herds. But the farms and domesticated animals are hit often enough to keep the locals angry at the Pakistani government. This latest round of firing destroyed one farm building, wounded one farmer and killed some cattle along with tearing up some farmland.

January 22, 2018: In Bangladesh the government cancelled a contract for a major Chinese company to build a road. The cause was corruption as officials from CHEC (China Harbor Engineering Company) sought to obtain the cooperation of a Bangladeshi official (for $60,000) to ignore illegal financial activities by CHEC as it did business in Bangladesh. CHEC is a major Chinese firm and has (and is still) worked on major overseas construction projects (like the Gwadar port in Pakistan).

January 19, 2018: The Pakistani military ordered that Radio Free Europe close its Pakistan office (in the capital, Islamabad). The official reason for this was because Radio Free Europe was reporting on things the military does not like (corruption in the military, using Islamic terrorists to carry out attack in Afghanistan and India). All media in Pakistan, be it local or foreign, are required (informally, not by law) to report only what the military approves of. Local journalists can be kidnapped or murdered for not complying. Since 2001 this custom has become more visible in Pakistan and most news organizations inside and outside Pakistan admit (openly or privately) that the situation exists.

January 17, 2018: The U.S. will continue providing some military aid for Pakistan. This is mainly about military education in which Pakistani officers attend American military schools. There they take the same courses as the American students and other foreign officers. This is seen as a good way to obtain mutual understanding, if not agreement. This type of training is a tiny (a fraction of one percent) part of the American military aid to Pakistan.

In Bangladesh a U.S. financed Coast Guard maintenance facility opened. This makes it easier and cheaper to maintain the 25 Defender and Defiant patrol boats the U.S. has donated to Bangladesh since 2009. These river and coastal patrol boats are popular worldwide and the U.S. Coast Guard is a major user.

January 16, 2018: In Pakistan nearly 2,000 Islamic clerics and scholars agreed with a fatwa (religious opinion) forbidding suicide bombing. This is not the first time such a fatwa has been issued in Pakistan but this one is more forceful in condemning suicide bombing. In 2007 a meeting of some 2,000 clerics in northwestern Pakistan agreed on a fatwa condemning suicide bombing. Clerics who support the Taliban and al Qaeda had been on the defensive lately, because their efforts have not succeeded, and have brought only violence and misery. There have been an increasing number of anti-terror demonstrations, and street battles between pro and anti-terror gangs. Eleven years later the Islamic terrorist violence is still around as are the suicide bombings.

India successfully tested an Agni V ballistic missile for the fifth time. The first test was in April 2012. Agni V is a solid fuel, three stage missile that had been in development since 2007 and was supposed to enter production in 2014 but has not yet been put into service. The fifty ton Agni V has a maximum range of at least 5,000 kilometers and a payload of 1.5 tons. This missile can hit targets in Russia, China, Europe (Italy and points east), Japan and Africa. Most Agni Vs will apparently be aimed at China. Because it is a solid fuel missile, Agni V can be fired on short notice and is compact enough to be moved around on a truck to avoid surprise attack. Regular service for Agni V means sitting in a silo for decades, tended by a small crew of technicians.

January 15, 2018: In Kabul, Afghanistan the Indian embassy compound was hit by a rocket, causing some damage to a building but no injuries. Several times a year Pakistan-backed groups attempt to attack embassies in Kabul, especially the Indian compound.

January 10, 2018: The Indian military reports that in 2017 they killed 138 Pakistani military personnel (and wounded another 155) along the LoC (Line of Control) in Kashmir, while losing 28 Indian troops killed and 70 wounded. These losses were on the LoC itself as Pakistan continued to violate the 2003 ceasefire and then accuse India of starting it when the Indian troops shoot back. This was the result of nearly 800 ceasefire violations in 2017, compared to 430 in 2014.

January 7, 2018: The United States appears to have informally warned Pakistan that senior Haqqani Network leaders, especially top leader Jalaluddin Haqqani (also the Afghan Taliban Minister for Tribal Affairs) and his son Sirajuddin, are believed to have hideouts in Pakistan and if the U.S. finds either of these men in one of those Pakistan locations action might be taken to kill or capture the Haqqani officials. This was no secret to the Haqqanis or the Pakistani military. The U.S. has stepped up its reward program for information on where senior Haqqani personnel are, offering large cash payments for such information, as well as other benefits (like help in getting the informant and immediate family out of the region). The Haqqanis have to be careful on either side of the Afghan-Pakistan border. While the Pakistani military and ISI (Pakistani CIA) can provide some protection in Pakistan the Haqqanis have many enemies on both sides of the border and since the Haqqani leaders now run the Afghan Taliban they have to spend more time in Afghanistan.

January 4, 2018: Pakistan denied reports that China was building a military base near the port of Gwadar. Chinese warships will have access to some of the new Chinese built port facilities in Gwadar.

January 1, 2018: The U.S. openly accused Pakistan of providing the U.S. with mostly lies and deceit, especially since Pakistan has been a major recipient of U.S. aid since 2002. The Americans said they would withhold $2 billion in aid until Pakistan shuts down the sanctuaries it provides for Haqqani Network and the Afghan Taliban. The Americans followed through on their threat to halt nearly all military aid. The new (since 2016) commander of the Pakistani military (Qamar Javed Bajwa) denied the accusations, as the Pakistanis always do and insisted there was nothing Pakistan could do. Bajwa is also seeking replacement aid from other sources (China, Iran, Qatar, Russia and Saudi Arabia) but none of these is willing to be as generous as the Americans have been. Within a week Pakistan had suspended all military and intelligence cooperation with the United States.

December 31, 2017: At the end of 2017 Pakistan reported it had completed 150 kilometers of its new security fence along the Afghan border during the first six months of construction. The fence consists of two three-meter (nine foot) high chain link fences running parallel, two meters apart, with three rolls of barbed wire in that two meter gap. Construction began in South Waziristan (which borders Afghanistans Paktika province and Pakistans Baluchistan, where the Afghan Taliban still maintain a sanctuary). The fence construction was announced in March 2017 and will eventually extend along the entire 2,600 kilometer border with Afghanistan. This is part of an effort to hinder the Pakistani Taliban, and other illegal groups (terrorists and smugglers) from easily moving back and forth. After the Paktika portion of the fence is completed construction will continue along the border with the Afghan provinces of Nangarhar and Kunar. These provinces are where there has always been a lot of lawless activity and these days it is full of Islamic terrorists hostile to either Pakistan or working for Pakistan (against Afghanistan). The new plan will continue giving priority to areas where there are the most problems but will not stop there and eventually (by about 2025) have a fence along the entire Afghan border.

December 30, 2017: Afghanistan revealed that in 2o17 over 8,800 shells and rockets have been fired from Pakistan into Afghanistan. This is part of a dispute between Pakistan and Afghanistan about where the border is and how it is supposed to be guarded.TICKERS: ABX; GOLD, RVG; RVLGF

Source: Streetwise Reports (1/30/18)

The U.S. dollar index is now at its lowest level since 2014, creating a tailwind for domestic gold producers.



A weaker U.S. dollar could mean a higher U.S. dollar gold price.

This is good news for gold producers in general, and in particularly for companies like Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX:TSX; ABX:NYSE), which generates 45% of its total output from U.S. mines.

Revival Gold Inc. (RVG:TSX.V), an Idaho-based exploration and development company, could benefit from the current upward gold price trend.

Revival has the right to acquire a 100% interest the former producing Beartrack Gold Project and the neighboring Arnett Creek Gold Project.

On January 18, 2018, Beacon Securities published its "Spec Buys for 2018."

"We are initiating coverage of six micro/small-cap mining stocks," stated the report, "which we believe can deliver newsflow this year that can lead to a material re-rating of shares."

Revival Gold was featured in the report, "as an attractive speculative play for exploration success for gold-silver mineralization in Idaho. The company has an option to acquire the past-producing Beartrack gold mine in east central Idaho, and holds an 100% interest in the adjacent Arnett Creek property. The Beartrack mine produced about 600,000 oz of gold via an open pit, heap leach operation in the 1990s. The site has been fully reclaimed by Kinross Gold, but has good infrastructure that we believe could facilitate a mine re-start with exploration success."

The same day Beacon issued the "Spec Buy" report, Revival released results from the final eight holes of the twelve-hole 2017 portion of the company's planned 11,000-meter core drilling program at Beartrack.

Highlights include:

1.73 g/t Au over 29.2 meters from 99.1 meters to 128.3 meters in BT17-200D

from 99.1 meters to 128.3 meters in BT17-200D 3.51 g/t Au over 67.5 meters from 98.6 meters to 166.1 meters in BT17-201D

from 98.6 meters to 166.1 meters in BT17-201D 1.99 g/t Au over 54.7 meters from 91.6 meters to 146.3 meters in BT17-203D

from 91.6 meters to 146.3 meters in BT17-203D 2.76 g/t Au over 51.9 meters from 53.6 meters to 105.5 meters in BT17-205D

The grades and widths in the January 18 results suggest the potential for an economic deposit. But Revival warns that "true width estimates are not yet known but are estimated to be approximately half of the drilled width."

Only when the drill bit hits the mineralised section at a perfect 90-degree angle, will the "True width" and "drill width" be the same. This concept is illustrated in the diagram below:

"All eight holes released intersected significant gold mineralization," stated Hugh Agro, Revial president & CEO. "Revival Gold will now initiate work on an updated resource estimate for Beartrack."

According to the January 18 press release, seven of the eight drill holes targeted near-surface oxide and mixed oxide-sulphide mineralization. These holes were designed to confirm historic drilling completed by Meridian Beartrack.

Revival Gold's near-surface drill results at both Ward's Gulch and the South Pit were generally better than the historical drilling completed by Meridian Beartrack. Revival geologists are currently preparing an updated geological and resource model using data from the drill programs completed in 2012, 2013 and 2017.

Summary assay results from near-surface holes are in the table below:

Gold mineralization at Beartrack occurs along five kilometers of the Panther Creek Fault and high grades have been encountered in a number of deep holes along strike.

After examining the modern drill data, Revival believes that "potential exists for additional high-grade along strike."

As well as surface drilling, Revival plans further deep drilling to testing for high-grade mineralization in the Ward's Gulch area "and in four other known mineralized areas at depth along the Panther Creek Fault."

Revival's 2018 exploration program is fully permitted and will include about 8,000 meters of core drilling. The map shows the location of 2017 drilled holes and the location of the planned holes at Beartrack in 2018.

In addition to its interests in Beartrack and Arnett Creek, Revival is pursuing other gold project opportunities. The company also own a 51% stake in the Diamond Mountain Phosphate Project in Utah.

PI Financial has a Buy rating on Revival Gold. It rates the project as a "quick restart with low capex."

"The actual spend for the build out of the project was only US$72M given the simplicity of the flowsheet," stated analyst Brian Szeto in the report, "Although most of the processing facilities have been sold off when the mine shut down, the ADR plant, core shack, power substation, and access roads all remain in good shape. As a result, we believe that this will positively contribute to a low initial capex number when a decision is made to restart the mine."

Want to read more Gold Report articles like this? Sign up for our free e-newsletter, and you'll learn when new articles have been published. To see a list of recent articles and interviews with industry analysts and commentators, visit our Streetwise Interviews page.

Disclosure:

1) Lukas Kane compiled this article for Streetwise Reports LLC and provides services to Streetwise reports as an independent contractor. He or members of his household own securities of the following companies mentioned in the article: None. He or members of his household are paid by the following companies mentioned in this article: None.

2) The following companies mentioned in this article are billboard sponsors of Streetwise Reports: Revival Gold. Streetwise Reports does not accept stock in exchange for its services. Click here for important disclosures about sponsor fees.

3) Comments and opinions expressed are those of the specific experts and not of Streetwise Reports or its officers. The information provided above is for informational purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security.

4) The article does not constitute investment advice. Each reader is encouraged to consult with his or her individual financial professional and any action a reader takes as a result of information presented here is his or her own responsibility. By opening this page, each reader accepts and agrees to Streetwise Reports' terms of use and full legal disclaimer. This article is not a solicitation for investment. Streetwise Reports does not render general or specific investment advice and the information on Streetwise Reports should not be considered a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Streetwise Reports does not endorse or recommend the business, products, services or securities of any company mentioned on Streetwise Reports.

5) From time to time, Streetwise Reports LLC and its directors, officers, employees or members of their families, as well as persons interviewed for articles and interviews on the site, may have a long or short position in securities mentioned. Directors, officers, employees or members of their immediate families are prohibited from making purchases and/or sales of those securities in the open market or otherwise from the time of the interview or the decision to write an article, until one week after the publication of the interview or article. As of the date of this article, officers and/or employees of Streetwise Reports LLC (including members of their household) own securities of Golden Arrow Resources, a company mentioned in this article. As of the date of this article, officers and/or employees of Streetwise Reports LLC (including members of their household) own securities of Revival Gold, a company mentioned in this article.

Additional disclosures

Disclosures from Beacon Securities Ltd., Spec Buys for 2018, Jan. 18, 2018

Analyst Certification

The Beacon Securities Analyst named on the report hereby certifies that the recommendations and/or opinions expressed herein accurately reflect such research analysts personal views about the company and securities that are the subject of the report; or any other companies mentioned in the report that are also covered by the named analyst. In addition, no part of the research analysts compensation is, or will be, directly or indirectly, related to the specific recommendations or views expressed by such research analyst in this report.

Disclosures from PI Financial, Revival Gold Inc., Nov. 6, 2017, Dec. 12, 2017 and Jan. 18, 2018

I, Brian Szeto, hereby certify that all of the views expressed in this report accurately reflect my personal views about the subject securities or issuers. I also certify that no part of my compensation was, is, or will be, directly or indirectly related to the specific recommendations or views expressed in this report. I am the research analyst primarily responsible for preparing this report.

Research Disclosures:

1) PI Financial Corp. and its affiliates holdings in the subject companys securities, in aggregate exceeds 1% of each companys issued and outstanding securities. No

2) The analyst(s) responsible for the report or recommendation on the subject company, a member of the research analysts household, and associate of the research analyst, or any individual directly involved in the preparation of this report, have a financial interest in, or exercises investment discretion or control over, securities issued by the following companies. No

3) PI Financial Corp. and/or its affiliates have received compensation for investment banking services for the subject company over the preceding 12-month period. Yes

4) PI Financial Corp. and/or its affiliates expect to receive or intend to seek compensation for investment banking services from the subject company. Yes

5) PI Financial Corp. and/or its affiliates have managed or co-managed a public offering of securities for the subject company in the past 12 months. Yes

6) The following director(s), officer(s) or employee(s) of PI Financial Corp. is a director of the subject company in which PI provides research coverage. No

7) A member of the research analysts household serves as an officer, director or advisory board member of the subject company. No

8) PI Financial Corp. and/or its affiliates make a market in the securities of the subject company. No

9) Company has partially funded previous analyst visits to its projects. Yes

10) Additional disclosure: No

Analysts are compensated through a combined base salary and bonus payout system. The bonus payout is amongst other factors determined by revenue generated directly or indirectly from various departments including Investment Banking. Evaluation is largely on an activity-based system that includes some of the following criteria: reports generated, timeliness, performance of recommendations, knowledge of industry, quality of research and investment guidance, and client feedback. Analysts and all other Research staff are not directly compensated for specific Investment Banking transactions.EU Firms Failing To Claim Trade Tax Savings: UN

by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels

31 January 2018

Those exporting goods from the European Union are overpaying trade tariffs by about EUR72bn, according to a new report from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and Sweden's National Board of Trade.

European exporters are overpaying by almost EUR72bn (USD89.2bn) because they are not taking full advantage of the reduced tariffs offered by the FTAs that the EU as a bloc has signed with a variety of both developed and developing countries, the report says.

The report uses the concept of utilization rates to analyze FTAs entered into by the EU in order to understand if businesses are fully using the agreements. UNCTAD has used utilization rate criteria since 1975 to monitor the use of trade preferences granted to developing countries under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP).

The report suggests that although companies in the EU do take advantage of FTAs with other countries, border-related aspects of their implementation and rules of origin are proving cumbersome. "Many companies report that they have difficulties taking advantage of the preferential tariffs in the FTAs, which often has to do with the fact that the rules on proving a product's origin - a requirement for reduced tariffs - are complex," said co-author Stefano Inama of UNCAD.

The evidence also shows that importers are making greater use of FTAs than exporters.

"The EU's exporters use the agreements for 67 percent of their exports to countries with which FTAs exist," said Inama. "But we can also note that the EU's importers use the free trade agreements to an even greater extent. In 90 percent of cases where tariff reductions can be used, they are," added co-author Jonas Kasteng of the National Board of Trade Sweden.

A large proportion of the under-utilization is in exports from the EU to major free trade partners such as Switzerland and South Korea, while the biggest share of unused tariff reductions to the EU concerns imports from Switzerland, Turkey, South Korea, and Mexico, who pay some EUR10.5bn (USD12.9bn) more in tax than necessary.

"In total - if all free trade agreements are considered - the EU's importers forfeit EUR600m (USD742m) in reduced tariffs every year. This ultimately means higher prices for the manufacturing industry and for consumers," said UNCTAD.Switzerland Seeks Conclusion Of US Bank Probe

by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels

31 January 2018

Switzerland is seeking a swift conclusion to the US Justice Department's investigation into Swiss Category 1 banks.

The Justice Department's Swiss Bank Program was signed in August 2013, with the aim of enabling Swiss banks to participate in the Department's investigations into the use of foreign bank accounts to evade US taxes. The Program divided Swiss financial institutions into four categories. Category 1 included Swiss banks already under investigation when the Program was announced and therefore not eligible to participate.

Delegations representing Switzerland and the US met during the WEF Annual Meeting in Davos.

According to a press release from the Swiss Federal Council, the Swiss delegation "explained that it would be beneficial for bilateral business activities if the proceedings against Swiss 'Group 1 banks' were to be concluded swiftly."

"This would provide greater legal certainty and open up fresh economic opportunities," the release said.Microsoft is looking to improve their relationship with game developers as evident by their recent acquisition of PlayFab. For the unaware, PlayFab is a "complete backend platform of services" designed to help developers create, launch and grow their cloud-connected games.

In practical terms, PlayFab is essentially a toolbox for developers that lets them learn more about their users via detailed analytics, thus allowing them to better monetize their titles. Furthermore, PlayFab provides developers with much needed server infrastructure and stability through the cloud with the aim of preventing server issues that tend to plague "service-based" games on or around launch day.

For players that don't care for the gaming industry's recent shift towards the "games-as-a-service" business model, this may not be the best news as it could mean more always-online titles and "connected games" (as Microsoft calls them) hitting the market.

However, for developers and players who don't mind modern microtransactions, Microsoft's acquisition of PlayFab could be a huge boon. The software giant will be able to combine their superior resources with PlayFab's deeper knowledge of cloud-based gaming technology to offer developers a better environment to work in, hopefully improving the play experience for gamers in the end.

"Incorporating PlayFab's experience, growing network of game developers and powerful gaming-as-a-service platform into our product offering is an important step forward for gaming at Microsoft."

"[PlayFab's] gaming platform powers some of the most prominent titles in the industry, such as 'Idle Miner Tycoon,' 'Angry Birds: Seasons' and 'Roller Coaster Tycoon Touch,'" Microsoft Corporate Vice President of Gaming Kareem Choudhry said in a blog post.

Cloud-based gaming is nothing new according to Microsoft. With over one billion individuals gaming across all platforms, the company says more service-based titles than ever are moving into the cloud to better manage the load and improve security.

Terms of the acquisition, including how much money has changed hands, have not been revealed at this time.@NewsbySmiley

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday night during his State of the Union speech that hed just signed an executive order revoking an Obama-era decision to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, reviving a dormant debate over the nations use of the worlds most expensive prison.

Before Obama ordered the closure of the prison, it was frequently the source of debate. Supporters say the prison is a useful tool in the war on terrorism and keeps the federal government from housing enemy combatants on U.S. soil. Detractors say the indefinite detention of alleged terrorists was inhumane, counter-productive and an abuse of power.

Currently, there are 41 detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Navy Base. Of those, 10 are charged with war crimes at a war court created by President George W. Bush. Congress thwarted Obamas closure aspiration by blocking the transfers of Guantanamo captives to the United States.

By proximity, no Congressional representatives are closer to the issue than those elected in South Florida. Click here to see how Miamis Congressional representatives reacted:Apple may be adding the option to turn off its controversial performance throttling feature through iOS 11.3, but the company is still facing investigations into its failure to disclose the firmware update, which prevents stability issues caused by aging batteries. Following similar probes in Italy and France, the US Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission are now looking into whether Apple violated securities laws through its actions.

According to Bloomberg, the government has requested information from the company, though the investigation is still in its early stages. No other details have been made available, but its likely that the agencies are trying to determine if Apple misled investors by not disclosing a risk factor, something that publicly traded companies are required to do.

Apple has confirmed the DOJ and SEC are looking into the situation. "We have received questions from some government agencies and we are responding to them, it said in statement to Axios.

Italys Autorita Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato recently opened an investigation into both Cupertino and Samsung over claims they put into practice a general commercial policy taking advantage of the lack of certain components to curb the performance times of their products and induce consumers to buy new versions. Samsung has since denied the claims.

The controversy began when Apple admitted to throttling performance in older iPhones after John Poole, founder of benchmarking application Geekbench, looked into the matter. The company subsequently made available battery replacements to owners of iPhone 6s handsets and newer for a discounted price of $29 instead of $79. But that offer, along with the promised iOS 11.3 ability to disable the Power Management plan and show the health of a phones battery, hasnt appeased angry owners, some of whom have launched lawsuits against Apple.House of Cards has been the subject of quite a bit of indirect controversy lately in the wake of numerous allegations of sexual misconduct leveled against lead actor Kevin Spacey. Naturally, Netflix was quick to distance itself from the actor, leaving the show's future hanging in the balance.

Sources close to Netflix later reportedly hinted at the possibility of the show returning to finish its final season, albeit shorter than initially planned and without Kevin Spacey's character, Frank Underwood.

While this information was merely a rumor at the time, Netflix has now confirmed it, in part. While production on House of Cards' sixth and final season has resumed as of today and the show will indeed be shifting its focus to Robin Wright, it's not clear what will happen to Spacey's character within the story, nor has Netflix confirmed a shorter-than-usual final season.

At any rate, Netflix also announced that Greg Kinnear and Diane Lane will be joining the show, though the company has not revealed what characters the pair will be playing. Netflix hasn't announced a release date for the final season just yet.@NewsbySmiley

U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio sent a letter Wednesday to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao urging her to quicken the pace of critical Everglades restoration work.

The Florida Republican requested that Chao's department work with the Florida Department of Transportation to move faster on a project that would raise portions of Tamiami Trail in order to facilitate a project intended to free the southern flow of water into Everglades National Park and ease flooding problems to the north.

Here's the full text of the letter:

As the Secretary of Transportation, you serve an important role as the U.S. Department of Transportations representative on the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Taskforce. The Taskforce serves to coordinate all of the federal governments multidisciplinary involvement in the restoration of Americas Everglades, the largest subtropical wilderness in North America and the main recharge source for drinking water drawn from South Floridas aquifers.

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has been a vital partner to Everglades restoration particularly with respect to the Tamiami Trail Modifications Next Steps Project. To date, this ongoing effort has focused on bridging portions of the Tamiami Trail (U.S. Highway 41) to allow the Department of the Interiors Modified Water Deliveries to Everglades National Park (ModWaters) project to deliver significantly greater water volumes in a more natural sheetflow pattern into Everglades National Park. ModWaters is designed to raise water levels in the L-29 Canal adjacent to Tamiami Trail by up to 25%. With sufficient Tamiami Trail bridging to meet water delivery goals almost complete, ModWaters could begin operations to provide its full intended benefits for Everglades restoration as soon as the remainder of the roadway is modified to account for road safety and integrity concerns associated with higher L-29 canal water levels.

As such, I respectfully request your assistance in having DOT, including the Federal Highway Administration, work in cooperation with the Florida Department of Transportation, to identify federal resources that can be leveraged to allow the remaining unbridged sections of the Tamiami Trail through the historic Everglades to be raised expeditiously. Such work could also include the installation of additional culverts to allow enhanced distribution of sheetflow under the roadway as desired. These efforts are not only important for the long term survival of Everglades National Parks natural wonders, but are also necessary to help prevent the kind of significant flooding event South Florida experienced after Hurricane Irma raised water levels north of the Tamiami Trail to historic highs.

Thank you for your attention to this request.Josh Hawley. Photo: John Sleezer/TNS via Getty Images

In the 1960s, the Sexual Revolution shifted Americans views about premarital sex, nudity, and contraception. And, according to Missouris attorney general Josh Hawley, its also to blame for sex trafficking.

Back in December, Hawley spoke at an event called Pastors and Pews in Kansas City. In audio obtained by the Kansas City Star, Hawley can be heard saying:

We have a human-trafficking crisis in our state and in this city and in our country because people are willing to purchase women, young women, and treat them like commodities. There is a market for it. Why is there? Because our culture has completely lost its way. The sexual revolution has led to exploitation of women on a scale that we would never have imagined, never have imagined.

When asked to clarify the attorney generals comments, Hawleys spokesperson, Kelli Ford, said in an email she was not sure what part was unclear, adding: We now have a sex-trafficking epidemic because too many men view women as objects for their own gratification and control. Hollywood and the media have promoted this attitude for decades, and it is wrong.

Hawley is currently running in Missouris GOP Senate primary to challenge incumbent Democratic senator Clare McCaskill. Amazingly, his statements have been some of the most tame from GOP candidates. Earlier this month, his opponent Courtland Sykes said he expects a home-cooked dinner every night at 6 and that feminists are career obsessed banshees.In celebration of New York Magazines 50th anniversary, this series, which will continue through October 2018, tells the stories behind key moments that shaped the citys culture.

In 2011, I moved to Brooklyn from Oakland, leaving behind a cheap apartment and a nice boyfriend who patiently agreed to enter into a long-distance relationship while I went off to forge a career in magazines. For this kindness, I  unable to withstand the emotional discomfort of cross-country love  tortured him by going to Union Pool every weekend and calling him to say things like, What are you doing this weekend? Im probably going to Union Pool. Or, worse, texting him, digitally slurring, Whatcha doin?. Im outside Union Pool and Im soooooogg drunk. LOL.LLLL. I LIVE HERE NOW.

This boyfriend had never lived in Brooklyn and only visited a handful of times  but even he knew what it meant to go to Union Pool. When he broke up with me, about a month later, he was surprised that I cried and resisted. Why did you keep going to the Union Pool if you actually wanted to be with me? he demanded. Everyone knows why you go there!

Ah, yes. In a few short years, the lore of Union Pool  premiere boyfriend store of post-hipster Brooklyn  had spread to fixed gear n beanie enclaves across the land. And in the immediate hours of my breakup devastation, I went back to Union Pool for the exact reason everyone knows to go to Union Pool. That night, I met a hot guy in a poncho and linen pants, and got thrown out of the bar for breaking Union Pools only real bylaw: Only one person in the bathroom at a time.

According to owner Zeb Stewart, back in 2000, when Union Pool opened under the BQE, nobody wanted to go beneath the underpass. But it was also one of the only bars around, and, as such, the grimy corner it occupied became a Williamsburg center at a time when Williamsburg was still very cool and hip and full of good-looking cool and hip people. The booze was cheap because it had to be. The bands were cool because bands were still cool then. Everyone knew that everyone else would go there, largely because there was nowhere much else to go. Thanks to early write-ups in local publications, word of mouth, stories of the famed Halloween parties, and a bar vibe that matched the general lawlessness of the area at the time, by 2005, UPs mythical status as a pickup bar was pretty much established. (This predated neighborhood favorites like the Woods and Home Sweet Home.) Stewart would go on to help found other Williamsburg mainstays, like Hotel Delmano and Cafe Colette; and bands that played small, pre-fame shows at Union Pool, like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, would go on to define a golden era in the neighborhoods cultural history. Union Pool remained a horny Neverland.

I personally have been going to Union Pool for the express purpose of getting laid without much effort since 2006. That was when, during my junior year of college, my much cooler, more culturally advanced friend Ada recognized a post-breakup funk and announced she was taking me to a place where I could meet boys. I put on some Cheap Mondays, rode the subway for an hour, and finally we stood at the bar and looked over the crowd. It was like Mufasa standing with Simba on Pride Rock and explaining that everything that the light touches would be his, except in this case Ada pointed to the Shadowland and said go forth. And it was grody and great and plentiful. Now, at 32, Ill still sometimes demand my friends take me to the boyfriend store. Only on weeknights, though. After a beer and some queso, Ill go home by myself by 12  but still, an itch is scratched.

I am not alone. Most people within a certain New York demographic  the demographic with Cheap Mondays and PBR in their past  also have a Union Pool story, and if they dont, then a friend, or a friend of a friend, or a co-worker, or a roommate does.

People report going there in times of sadness (he hit his Saturn Return, ended our ten-year relationship, and I went straight to Union Pool), in times of desperation (I needed a place to stay for the night because I was locked out of my apartment, so I went to Union Pool). Some people go to find lovers; some people bring dates; and some people start the night with one date and leave with another arrangement  like my new hero, Rachel Bell, a Brooklyn writer with a Drake tattoo. She recently went to Union Pool for the first time, on a Tinder date. Showed up, it was Tinder Guy, Tinder Guys Best Friend, and Female of Nebulous Relationship to Tinder Guy and Tinder Guys Best Friend, she explained in an email. So Im like, cool, a double date, okay. Female of Nebulous Relationship to Tinder Guy quickly leaves and I am now on a date with two men. Who proceed to try to convince me to have a threesome with them. And I was high-key interested, honestly.

Others report nights theyll never forget, nights that ended in various sorts of only in New York calamity. Like J  who wishes to remain unnamed, because his current girlfriend might be mad. He recalls, It was a running joke that Union Pool always had a lot of eyes meaning, he explains, that you could be there chilling and just catch eyes with somebody  what would happen next would be up to you. On one memorable night four years ago, he arrived with friends, and it was pretty standard fare: music blasting, cheap drinks flowing, and hotties running around in their early-mid-20s. So, we got in there and started our bullshit. They had a look around, ordered some Modelos, and wound up in the bars back room.

The Union Pool hookup is a young New York rite of passage.

They were playing some good music and I break it the fuck down on the dance floor, so I was into it. And then, he writes, There she was: this little long-haired brunette with an ass that almost made me cry tears of joy. I locked in, and started throwing some vibes around heavily. A familiar story: The two went home together. But on the way to her place, J left his phone in the cab, and hookup complete  he was obliged to spend about six hours the next day in the apartment of a stranger who no longer wanted him there, waiting for his cabdriver to come back from Queens and drop it off. The classic New York hookup story, J writes. Provided by Union Pool.

The morning after I went home with a young woman from Union Pool for the first time, [my roommate] said to me, Aw, youre a real, live New York boy now, remembers Eamon ONeill, 30. The Union Pool hookup is a young New York rite of passage.

In a city where it can be surprisingly hard to meet someone, even just for the ephemeral purposes of hooking up and never talking again, Union Pool has provided a consistent service to the fine people of Brooklyn for about 13 years now.

How, exactly, did this bar become the stuff of horny legends? And how has it remained the stuff of horny legends, well after Williamsburg basically turned into Manhattan? (Union Pools bathrooms may well prove to be the Chelsea Hotel of our generation, a Complex writer once argued, on a list of The Best Bathrooms in NYC to Have Sex In. They might actually qualify as a historical landmark at this point.)

Well, says Melanie Koch, 40, it was really the first bar to cater directly to the students and artists who were flooding in. It was a hookup bar from conception, wasnt it? Shes lived in Williamsburg since 2001, right around the corner from the bar.

Stewart, the founder, has a scientific theory for Union Pools success at bringing people together. You have the front door, then you have the backyard. And you have this zone thats kind of, like, private doors on the way out to the backyard  but basically you have to walk through that zone to go to the photo booth, to the bathrooms, to the pinball machine, to the taco trucks, you know, anywhere. And so, he explains, it creates all this natural movement where people are constantly, casually grazing by each other, holding the door open for each other, saying hello to each other, smiling at each other, and it mixes people up, makes them interact.

Hes aware of the bars reputation, he says. I have friends whove met at Union Pool and gotten married. Im sure weve also ruined some relationships. He attributes some of that chemistry to the vibe he reinforces at Union Pool. We have bartenders looking out for creeps people get blacklisted from the bar. I feel like women are kind of running the show. You know, we work hard to kinda create a warm environment where people feel comfortable. (Like, really comfortable.)

Over the years, Union Pool has sometimes been identified as a punk bar, sometimes as a rockabilly bar. (Oh, the rockabilly days, groans Stewart.) On the strength of good booking practices, its also a bar where you can say you saw famous bands before they were big  ever the favorite brag of former hipsters, and current music nerds. (In addition to the YYYs, Union Pool saw performances by Grizzly Bear, !!!, and practically every band that ever booked a CMJ showcase.) But throughout, it was always a bar where you could meet, mingle, make out. And while its reputation was swiftly established, its peak didnt arrive until perhaps 20042007  funnily enough, the years when it was still socially acceptable, maybe even cool, to shop at Urban Outfitters. Those were the best days, Koch says.

I have friends whove met at Union Pool and gotten married," says the owner. "Im sure weve also ruined some relationships.

In those halcyon days  before the Apps, before the one-person-in-the-bathroom-at-a-time policy, and back when that girl still sold tamales from a cooler  it felt like a club and a house party, reminisces Stewart: both environments conducive to free  interactions. In terms of hookup accoutrements, it offered a reliably good dance party (bodies on bodies), plus the romantic allure of a fire pit in the backyard. So many people reminisce about going home smelling like smoke, Stewart says. We could still get away with something totally illegal like a fire pit back then.

It was a dark bar with plentiful hidden corners: Oh, I think the dimly lit area and the labyrinth of rooms makes for a mystery, says Ilana Rubin, 28, a comedian and actor. You never know what corner youre going to turn and encounter two people very sneakily trying to finger each other. (Under the skirt and everything! she added, with a sense of wonder undimmed by the passage of time.)

A quick survey of the comments section on Brooklyn Vegan reviews of the mid-aughts shows at Union Pool reveals less conversation about the bands and more discussion of the threesome someone had in the bathroom. When New York wrote up the bar in 2005, the reviewer noted that weekends get crowded in a thirsty kind of way  which was either a reference to how long it took to get a drink, or else a stunningly prescient use of 2018 slang.

By 2008, Union Pools habitat was changing. High-rise condos were opening nearby; Kelloggs, the 24-hour diner down the street, had gotten a slick makeover; and American Apparel was at its peak, selling sexy hipster spandex in 200 stores worldwide. It was around this time that Union Pool made an appearance in an infamous piece of hateable-hipster lore: the tale of Kari Ferrell, a.k.a. the Hipster Grifter. Ferrell scammed her way from Utah (where she was wanted for fraud, theft, and writing $60,000 in bad checks) to Brooklyn, where she lied her way into a job at Vice, and proceeded  with the help of her I [Heart] Beards tattoo  to pick up men across the borough, only to lie to them, manipulate them, and eventually just steal from them. Ferrell is a legend, and naturally Union Pool featured in her tale. In 2009, the Observer described one of her would-be marks: A guy named Troy was at Union Pool, the Williamsburg bar, when the bartender passed him a note from another customer. It read, I want to give you a hand job with my mouth, and was signed Korean Abdul-Jabbar.

As Williamsburg emerged from the aughts and into the teens, Complex spent a couple years mocking the decline of Union Pool. In a 2012 listicle of the 25 Lamest Hipster Bars in NYC, the magazine wrote: Though previously a legitimately cool spot where you might see the Rapture perform unannounced, its now a poor simulacrum of what once was. Look no further than the pulsing heart of the bar: a taco truck  yes, a truck  permanently caged inside the yards walls like a hipster culture mausoleum. Its a faint assurance of the eventual decline of this culture, or perhaps this civilization. Decent tacos, though, all things considered. By 2013, perhaps reflecting the neighborhoods demographic tilt toward bro, Complex reclassified it among the douchiest. By 2014, Urban Outfitters had opened with a trendy restaurant and a liquor license over off the Bedford L stop.

But, even though a cluster of euro-bro EDM clubs and a Sweetgreen have all but wiped out the remnants of hipster civilization, somehow Union Pool endures. It still appears on Time Out New York lists for best bars to hook up in, as ye olde hook-up classic. If you Google Good bars, New York, or where to get laid in New York, Union Pool remains a top hit  much to the chagrin of Union Pool bartenders, says Kerry Lacy, whos worked there since 2012. To be honest, the meat market aspect of Union Pool is by far the least interesting thing about it. We all pretty much ignore it.

But meat market sounds dark, and instead theres something almost heartwarmingly optimistic, sort of democratic, about the reliability of Union Pool. At Union Pool, anyone can feel a little like Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused: You get older, and Union Pool stays the same. Maybe its the comfort of a placebo effect (of course thingsll work out tonight  youre at Union Pool!); maybe its just that people will always want places to dance, drink, and try to get laid. Or maybe its that there are just enough honest-to-god Union Pool success stories to give it a sweetly scuzzy, STD-laced sense of hope.

Take Connie Wang, 30. My future husband and I had met once before and didnt hit it off, she remembers. It wasnt until we found each other six months later, under the influence of Union Pool and all the booze, bad judgment, and bonfires that come with it, that we both saw each other in another (okay fine, hornier) light.

Classic Union Pool.

Order Highbrow, Lowbrow, Brilliant, Despicable: 50 Years of New York, a celebratory book chronicling the magazines history with powerful images and behind-the-scenes stories from staff and subjects.Raquel* was walking on 128th Street in East Harlem shortly before midnight on September 28, half-watching a YouTube video on her phone, when a man approached her on the sidewalk, startling her. Youre so beautiful, he said. And then: Are you working? Raquel gave him a quick no, then crossed the street to put some distance between herself and the stranger. He crossed the street, too, and propositioned her again: Youre too beautiful not to be working. Are you working?

The mans third overture came a few minutes later, near the corner of Third Avenue, a frequent gathering place for transgender women in the neighborhood, where Raquel had stopped to chat with friends en route to meet her sister. He pressed her to know what $20 could get him. Frustrated, she told the man to leave her alone and walked away. Next thing you know, Im in handcuffs, she recalled.

Raquel is a 23-year-old trans woman from the Bronx, who recently started studying for a bachelors degree in education at Borough of Manhattan Community College. That night, she says vice officers loaded her into an unmarked car. Raquel had never been arrested before, and it wasnt until she arrived at the 25th Precinct on 119th Street that she learned she was being charged with prostitution, along with four other trans women arrested that night. A police report states that she agreed to perform oral sex.

Me being trans, its like, I take pride in it, Raquel recently told the Cut. But its like, people always think of a trans woman: You have to sell sex. Thats your dominant job. And thats not what everybody does.

These arrests occurred against the backdrop of an NYPD push announced in February 2017 to arrest fewer people on prostitution charges and focus vice resources on arresting men who buy and traffic sex. To accomplish this, the vice squad got 25 new officers, doubling in size.

The announcement won praise from anti-trafficking advocates, who view sex work as invariably exploitative. (According to federal law, trafficking entails the use of force, fraud, or coercion to compel another person to work.) Sonia Ossorio, president of the New York City chapter of the National Organization for Women, called the tactic a big step toward combating this form of modern-day slavery.

People always think of a trans woman: You have to sell sex. Thats your dominant job. And thats not what everybody does.

One year later, by the numbers, the NYPD is making progress toward its stated goal. There were 528 arrests for prostitution and a related loitering charge from February to mid-November 2017, a 45 percent drop compared to the same period in 2016 and a 74 percent drop since 2012, according to New York State Division of Criminal Justice arrest data. Arrests for patronizing a prostitute increased 17 percent between February and November, to 898. Arrests for sex trafficking, a felony, increased 22 percent with 27 total arrests.

But the continuous arrests of trans women highlight one major shortcoming of a plan that empowers the vice squad, advocates for trans rights argue. Trans women are often assumed to be sex workers, yet police officers dont see them as victims worthy of protection; the stigma surrounding sex work is compounded by the stigma surrounding their gender identity. Efforts to protect and bolster trans rights have yet to affect the NYPD in any meaningful way.

Bianey Garcia, 27, is the LGBT Justice organizer for the immigrant-advocacy group Make the Road New York. Shes also a trans woman living and working in Jackson Heights, an immigrant neighborhood in Queens where trans activism has thrived alongside LGBTQ-owned businesses and queer-friendly clubs like Club Evolution and the Music Box. She advocates for dozens of trans women, primarily undocumented immigrants from Mexico between the ages of 20 and 40. Theres still a lot of transphobia around here, she told the Cut recently.

Walking down the street, Garcia said, police assume that just because of the simple reason that you are trans, you are doing sex work.

Officers with the New York Police Departments Vice Enforcement Division swept two areas where trans women of color live, work, and socialize last year, according to Legal Aid Society attorneys, who handle most of the citys prostitution cases: the intersection of Third Avenue and 128th Street near Harlem River Park, where Raquel was picked up, and Jackson Heights.

There were at least six such sweeps between June and November of last year, conducted primarily by vice, resulting in the arrests of at least 20 trans women on prostitution-related charges.

Jennifer,* a 27-year-old Latina trans woman from Queens, says she was picked up by an undercover officer while walking to a club around 3:30 a.m. on June 13. She was near the corner of 69th Street and 44th Avenue when a black car pulled up; thinking it was a livery cab, she got in. The driver then began asking her personal questions and offered money in exchange for oral sex, Jennifer told the Cut in Spanish through a translator. My response was, Are you sure? Are you sure thats what youre saying? Because I was just so surprised and confused.

The driver, an undercover vice officer, then hit the brakes and Jennifer heard a siren. He quickly handcuffed her and ushered her into another unmarked car, then into a van with four other trans women. I felt betrayed and I also felt like people were trying to make a fool out of me, she said.

At the 115th Precinct on Northern Boulevard, after all five women had been booked, officers led them into the precinct lobby, where an NYPD officer allegedly began taking pictures of them with his cell phone. He pushed us very roughly trying to take pictures of us and video of us, Jennifer recalled. And I think the most undignified thing is that there were other police officers there and the other police officers started to  laugh about what was going on.

The women hadnt yet been informed that theyd been charged with prostitution, according to their Legal Aid lawyer, Cate Carbonaro. The NYPD did not reply to multiple requests for comment on these allegations.

The percentage of New Yorkers charged with prostitution who are trans is impossible to know for sure. Attorneys with the Legal Aid Society say the NYPD often misgenders their trans clients, listing them as men. But the effects of these targeted sweeps go beyond the trans women arrested, reinforcing a gulf between police and community.

I felt betrayed and I also felt like people were trying to make a fool out of me.

And that gulf is wide. According to the Civilian Complaint Review Board, between 2010 and 2015, 856 complaints filed by LGBTQ New Yorkers included allegations that officers used slurs including faggot, queer, homo, and tranny. The NYPD revised its patrol guide in 2012 to explicitly prohibit disrespectful remarks about gender expression  but a November 2017 report by the Department of Investigation found that between 2012 and 2016, officers at just six of the citys 77 precincts received the mandatory training.

In 2016, journalist Melissa Gira Grant interviewed a trans woman from the Bronx named Tiffaney Grissom, who has been arrested numerous times for allegedly loitering for the purpose of prostitution. The Legal Aid Society recently filed a class-action lawsuit arguing that the charge is unconstitutional, since it gives police officers leeway to judge a person based on their clothing  a short skirt, say. Whether you are ho-ing or not ho-ing, even if you look like you might be trans, you are going to jail, Grissom said.

This winter, months after a man severely beat two trans women outside of a McDonalds less than a mile from the Jackson Heights Make the Road office, Garcia, of Make the Road, says many trans women dont trust the NYPD enough to report hate crimes  which are on the rise, in New York and nationwide.

When I go to a local precinct to make a report they  say, you know, stupid things. Like faggot, youre not a woman, things like that, Garcia told the Cut. Shes conducted her own sensitivity training at the 115th Precinct, and is prioritizing similar training at the 110th Precinct in 2018. Still, she said, some trans women dont call 911 because they are afraid of being deported.

The NYPD does not target transgender persons for arrest, NYPD spokeswoman Detective Kellyann Ort told the Cut in a statement. Arrests are made based on community complaints pertaining to allegations of prostitution.

The same anti-trafficking groups that applauded the NYPDs decision to bolster vice last year find this admission troubling. We called for forcewide training that would really make it clear that a paradigm shift is necessary, said Dorchen Leidholdt, director of the legal center at Sanctuary for Families. We dont think anybody should be arrested for prostitution.

Police declined to provide details on any specific community complaints for this story. However, Diane Collier, chair of Community Board 11 in East Harlem, told the Cut she is personally aware of prostitution complaints at the intersection where Raquel was arrested stretching back four years. Unfortunately it creates an image that isnt really East Harlem, she said. Its like the red-light district in San Francisco without the red lights.

In Jackson Heights, says Democratic state senator Jose Peralta, constituents often bring him videos of alleged prostitution activity and pictures of condoms on the street. Roosevelt Avenue has a prostitution issue, but its not a transgender prostitution issue, he said. While abuses of power are not unheard of, When it comes to the police officers doing their job and eliminating the prostitution, we respect that.

But pressure to get the arrest often motivates arrests without legal justification, according to Edwin Raymond, lead plaintiff in a 2015 lawsuit against City Hall and the NYPD. The suit argues that arrest quotas, which the NYPD denies exist, drive over-exuberant policing. Officers try to find shortcuts, he told the Cut. Even circumventing the Constitution if needed.

Leigh Latimer, a supervising attorney with the Legal Aid Society, argues that minority trans women are particularly vulnerable to this kind of policing  both trans women who engage in sex work, and those, like Raquel and Jennifer, who are profiled as doing so. In practice, she said, the NYPD is driving out people or activities that are unwanted by the broader community regardless of the First Amendment rights of the people being arrested.

Tara Lyons, a researcher with the Gender and Sexual Health Initiative at St. Pauls Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia, agrees that trans women who do engage in sex work are easy targets. The same factors that make it difficult for a trans woman to hold a service or office job  racism, transphobia  affect trans women who engage in sex work outdoors. Theres less freedom of movement, Lyons said.

The same goes for socializing, according to Kate Mogulescu, assistant professor of clinical law at Brooklyn Law School. Many [trans] women have explained to me that even if they are not involved in sex work but are looking for people to date casually, there are certain places they know they can go safely to do that, she said. The cruel irony, she added, is that its those places that are policed.

Raquel says she used to visit the East Harlem corner where she was arrested, for sisterhood: to commiserate with other trans women, and to pick up hair and makeup tips. Since her arrest, she told the Cut, Its very rare that I go.

For Jennifer, life in Jackson Heights has become claustrophobic. She spoke to the Cut a month after her June arrest. The area where I live  there are a lot of police cars, she said. And thats why I precisely feel afraid of leaving my home.

Last spring, the Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform suggested that prostitution shift to the civil code, along with turnstile jumping and low-level marijuana possession  part of a broader plan to decrease overall arrest rates, eliminate the collateral consequences of an arrest, and close Rikers Island over the next decade.

Im not there, is the honest truth, Mayor de Blasio told me during a December interview, shortly after his reelection. In the same conversation, he praised his administrations initiative to ramp up vice unit resources to combat human trafficking.

What I feel strongly from the different discussions Ive had with the NYPD, is they very much understand that the core of the matter now is, we have to disrupt trafficking, and we have to have a trust dynamic in order to do it, de Blasio said. Literally, we never should have been focused on the victims who were being trafficked, who were being exploited.

But while vice officers pursue this mandate, advocates point out, theyre also conducting targeted prostitution sweeps.

Mogulescu, of Brooklyn Law School, remains pessimistic. As we continue to chip away at [those] undeserving of arrest, she predicted, trans women will always fall in the criminalized and vilified category.

* Some names have been changed.

This story was supported by the journalism nonprofit the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.An ethnic Rohingya Muslim child in a camp set up outside the city of Sittwe, in Rakhine State, Burma, on May 21, 2015. Malaysia ordered search and rescue missions on May 22 for thousands of boat people stranded at sea, as Myanmar hosted talks with US and Southeast Asian envoys on the migrant exodus from its shores. (Ye Aung Thu/AFP/Getty Images)

Burmese Official in Charge of Troubled Rakhine Town Stabbed to Death

YANGONA Burmese official who was the administrator of a town in troubled Rakhine state when seven people died there in rioting earlier this month has been stabbed and killed, the government said on Wednesday.

Police were treating the death of Bo Bo Min Theik as a case of personal enmity and it was not related to the violence in the region, said Zaw Htay, a government spokesman.

His body was found in his car on the highway from Mrauk U to the provincial capital Sittwe on Tuesday, district officials said.

Bo Bo Min Theik was replaced as the administrator of Mrauk U and posted to the provincial government in Sittwe three days after police shot and killed seven demonstrators from the majority Buddhist community after a local gathering celebrating an ancient Buddhist Arakan kingdom turned violent.

The violence underscores the challenges facing Burmas leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a country where dozens of ethnic groups have been clamoring for autonomy since independence from Britain in 1947.

Tensions in Rakhine, previously called Arakan, surged again since a sweeping Burmese army operation in August inflamed communal tension and triggered an exodus of over 688,000 minority Rohingya Muslims to Bangladesh, according to the United Nations.

The military has set up over 30 militias in the areas of Rakhine where many Rohingya lived and has provided arms to three of them, Burmas parliament was told on Tuesday.

Deputy Minister for Home Affairs Major-General Aung Soe told a parliamentary session that the militias were set up in the Maungdaw district of Rakhine. The Burmese military launched a crackdown after insurgents with the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), better know locally as the Harakah al-Yaqin (faith movement in Arabic), attacked security posts in Maungdaw on Aug. 25, leading to the exodus.

By Thu Thu AungChinese soldiers ride in tanks as they pass in front of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City during a military parade in Beijing on Sept. 3, 2015. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

China Declares It Wants to Increase Nuclear Deterrence to Counter US, Russia

China wants to increase its nuclear capabilities in order to properly defend itself, announced the Chinese militarys mouthpiece newspaper, the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) Daily.

It published a commentary article on Jan. 30, seemingly in reaction to a U.S. Department of Defense document leaked to HuffPost earlier this month, which it cited.

The document was a draft of the DODs 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, where recommendations were made to increase low-yield nuclear weapons. The final draft is expected to be released in February.

This news appeared to have propelled the Chinese regime to act. The PLA Daily article detailed the latest American and Russian nuclear weapon technology and mentioned instances of military exercises in both countries. Those are the most direct, most effective ways to demonstrate their nuclear deterrence capabilities, the article read.

Chinas arsenal has accumulated steadily over the years, with the capability to deliver by land, sea, and air.

At the end, the article concluded that in the face of the two countries nuclear strategies, China also needed to increase and strengthen reliable nuclear deterrence and counter-strike capabilities, in order to support our countrys status as a great power and protect our national security.

According to ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons), China currently has 270 warheads in its nuclear arsenal, compared to 6,800 in the United States and 7,000 in Russia.

Chinas arsenal has accumulated steadily over the years, with the capability to deliver by land, sea, and air.

Judging from the PLAs latest announcement, the regime now appears eager to pump up its nuclear arsenal.

This news also comes amid increased tensions with China over unfair trade practices such as intellectual property theft, which President Donald Trump has expressed he plans to punish China for.

This is not the first time the Chinese military has flexed its muscles on the nuclear question. In 2005, PLA Major General Zhu Chenghu made a direct threat to the United States in front of journalists at a news conference. He said if the United States decided to help defend Taiwan, China would not be afraid to retaliate with a nuclear attack. Chinese people will be prepared to have the cities to the east of Xian be obliterated, but Americans will also have to prepare for hundreds of cities to be destroyed by us, he said.

The sentiment echoed former Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedongs speech in Moscow for an international meeting of Communist and Workers Party members in 1957. He had said even if a third of the worlds people were killed in a nuclear war, it would be worth it, as capitalism would be destroyed and socialism would win out.College Student Invents Napkin That Protects People From Date Rape Drugs

A college student in Washington, D.C. has developed a new method of detecting whether a drink has been tainted with date rape drugs.

No one should have to worry about having their drink laced, stated Danya Sherman, inventor of a napkin that detects these types of drugs.

According to Fox 5, Danya Sherman created a napkin that apparently can detect commonly-used date rape drugs by putting a drop of the liquid from the drink onto the napkin.

A change in color means the drink is drugged.

The KnoNap: George Washington University student creates napkin to detect date rape drugs in drinks https://t.co/wzOnGWe3Gu pic.twitter.com/WEZaJ8PA7t  FOX 29 (@FOX29philly) January 29, 2018

Sherman told she came up with the KnoNap napkin after someone she considered a friend allegedly drugged and assaulted her in 2016.

Seventy percent of sexual assaults occur between two people who know each other and with that in mind, we wanted to create a product that could be seamlessly incorporated into any social setting, Sherman told Fox 5.

The idea to use a napkin came from how commonplace and handy they are.

Napkins are always around alcohol. They are always in bars and clubs and were working to have them integrated into fraternities, social events and social organizations, Sherman said.

Using a napkin also means that a person who suspects theyre being targeted can test the liquid without drawing attention to themselves and respond to the threat on their own terms.

Theyre also easy to carry around in either a pocket or purse so theyre very portable and can be taken anywhere so if youre uncomfortable, youre able to take it out and use it at your own discretion, said Sherman.

The innovation stands alongside others that also aim to protect women from sexual predators.

The Epoch Times recently reported on an invention by a man in India, which uses a device concealed in a shoe to notify the police and stun an attacker with an electric charge strong enough to allow the would-be victim to escape.

Sherman hopes to make her solution available to women in 2018.

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Sumatras Mount Sinabung Spews Smoke and Ash in Biggest Eruption in 2017Coroner: Woman, 23, Died After Taking High Level of Anti-Diarrhea Medicine

A woman died after an overdose of a common household medicine, known to opioid addicts as poor mans methadone.

A coroner announced on Jan. 30 that the 23-year-old mother had taken a high level of the over-the-counter drug Immodium, reported the Liverpool Echo.

The inquest found that Brooklyn-Marie Barker had died of pneumonia and a bacterial infection following two seizures and a cardiac arrest at her home in Liverpool, England.

Deaths from Immodium overdoses have grown in recent years in the United States and in the UKalthough in Barkers case there were a number of other factors related to her death, which was officially recorded as accidental.

Immodium is known to chemists (pharmacists) by the name loperamide, the ingredient in many over-the-counter anti-diarrhea drugs.

What most people dont realizeexcept for many drug addicts and doctorsis that loperamide is technically an opiate, and when taken in massive doses is known to opioid addicts as the poor mans methadone.

Taken in large doses (hundreds of times above the recommended dose) it can also cause death by stopping the heart.

There is no one simple identifiable cause to Barkers death, however.

On Oct. 16, after she had two seizures (non-epileptic) her partner put her in the recovery position and went to sleep, reported the Echo.

But he woke to find Barker gargling, grey and unconscious the next morning at their home in Croxteth. Then he realized she was not breathing and phoned for an ambulance. Her heart had stopped.

Although Barker made some recovery at hospital, she died five days later of pneumonia and a bacterial infection.

Barkers mother alleged that her daughters boyfriend was supplying and administering her with prescription drugs and heroin, reported the Liverpool Echo.

However, the pathologist, Brian Rodgers said he found no class A drugs (a classification including heroin) in her system.

However, he said scarring around her groin area could have come from drug abuse.

Rodgers told the inquest, There was a very high level of Loperamide more commonly known as Imodium.

To complicate matters further, he said it could have combined with the anti-epileptic medication she was taking to trigger a cardiac arrest.

But he noted that Immodium is becoming an increasingly misused drug.

Unlike most opiates, loperamide cannot get into the brain to cause the addictive opiate high, except in massive doses, according to research.

Instead, its action is limited to slowing the bowels, where, like other opiates, it causes constipationor, in the case of diarrhea, slows gut function to normal levels.

Its growing use among opioid addicts was first picked up and researched in 2012.

U.S. addiction centers, researchers, and drug users have reported an increase in the last several years.

Firstly, they use it to manage the symptoms of withdrawal, which include diarrhea, neatly mimicking the effect of the opioid in the body but without the addictive high in the brain.

Secondly, addicts are increasingly using it simply to get high. To do so, however, they are sometimes taking over 100 times the maximum dose, and mixing with other drugs, breaking through the mechanism that normally stops it reaching the brain.

Drug users, opioid seekers, they are desperate, Nardine Nakhla, a lecturer at the Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto, told CBC. They need this medication to help with the withdrawal, or to achieve that euphoric state. So they disregard the warning and still use the drug if it means they get their fix.

Imodium carries a warning, Taking more than directed can cause serious heart problems or death. The directions state that adults should take no more than 4 (2mg) tablets a day. However, some people are taking hundreds of them a day, according to researchers and former addicts.

Its been likened to a poor mans methadone, Dr. David Juurlink, a drug safety researcher at Sunnybrook Hospital told CBC. At high doses, it will cause effects like methadone or oxycontin. The problem is the doses you need to achieve that is really, really dangerous.

In many cases, the cause of death from Immodium is clear: the persons heart simply stops beating.

In Barkers case coroner Andre Rebello said, If there was nothing else to find [in the toxicology results] I would have thought that she had died due to a seizure.

That conclusion is not possible to us because of the findings of the toxicology report, he said, according to the Echo.

He recorded Barkers death as an accidental death.

This was the most tragic accident, he said.

Make sure she is remembered for her dignity and humanity, he told her family.

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Toddler With Rare Heart Condition Gets to Go Home After 402 Days in the HospitalDemocratic National Committee CEO Resigns After Shakeup, Poor Fundraising

The CEO of the Democratic National Committee resigned on Monday, Jan. 29, joining a wave of officials who are leaving or being ousted from the organization as it struggles to raise funds and deals with a Senate investigation of its involvement with the discredited anti-Trump dossier.

Jess OConnell took the helm at the DNC less than a year ago in May, according to NBC. At the time, the organization was in disarray after a devastating loss to President Donald Trump, accusations of favoritism toward Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in the primaries, and the hacking of its servers, among other issues.

In November, the DNC fired its top fundraiser, Emily Mellencamp Smith, just five months into her position, Politico reported. In October, the DNC pushed aside four veteran operatives from the top ranks, according to NBC News.

The shakeup at the DNC follows a year of lackluster fundraising. The DNC was outpaced by the Republican National Committee by more than 2-to-1 from January to September last year. The DNC raised $51 million, while the RNC raised $104 during that period.

Rebuilding the party will take time. While it isnt an easy task, we developed a strategy, we implemented it, and we won races up and down the ballot in 2017, OConnell told NBC in a statement regarding her resignation.

While Ive made the decision to pass the baton, our work remains far from over and under Tom Perezs leadership and direction, our party will continue to build on the progress weve made in 2017, she added, referring to the DNCs elected chairman.

OConnell was in charge of investigating a sexual harassment complaint from a Hillary Clinton staffer against Burns Strider, New York Times reported. OConnell recommended that Strider be fired after the investigation, but Clinton chose to shield Strider.

The DNC is also one of the parties of interest in a Senate investigation. Earlier this week, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) demanded that the DNC answer a range of questions regarding its involvement with the discredited Fusion GPS anti-Trump dossier.

The Fusion GPS dossier explained. Click to see full resolution. (Epoch Times)

The dossier was used, at least in part, to apply for a surveillance warrant to spy on Trump associate Carter Page, New York Times reported. Clinton and the DNC paid Fusion GPS to create the dossier at the same time as Fusion GPS received money from the Russian government.

The dossier is reportedly part of a controversial House Intelligence Committee memo on politically charged government surveillance abuses by the Obama administration. The committee voted on Monday to make the report available to the public. The documents release is pending Trumps approval and is being reviewed at the White House today, Bloomberg reported.

Lawmakers who have viewed the contents of the House memo described it as worse than Watergate and likened it to a palace coup.

From NTD.tv

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President Donald Trump: Year 1Doctor Releases Photos of Shocking Injuries She Suffered From Her Tinder Boyfriend

A doctor who was almost murdered by a man she met on Tinder has released images of her injuries.

Dr. Angela Jay, 29, has revealed the extent of her wounds that were taken a few days after she was attacked by her ex-boyfriend, Paul Lambert, in a Facebook post.

The images show the huge bruises and stitches the doctor needed to place in her after she was stabbed 11 times and doused with petrol.

These photos were taken days after I was almost murdered. It is with courage I share them with youlooking at them still shakes me to the core and reminds me of the darkest time in my life, she wrote.



The 28-year-old shared the post as she prepares to hike the Kokoda Track in April to raise funds for White Ribbon, an organization that campaigns against violence against women and girls.

It will be (by far) my most physically challenging adventure yet Then I remember that my legs can do ANYTHING! she said.

She added, Despite 11 stab wounds and losing a huge amount of blood, they found the strength to lift me off the ground and RUN! They carried me to freedom they gave me my life they gave me a second chance.

The doctor is now committed to speaking out about her horrific injuries sustained during the November 2016 attack, to raise awareness and encourage others to speak out too.

The 28-year-old had arrived back from work to her home in Port Macquarie when she discovered that Lambert had broken into her home, the Daily Telegraph reported. She managed to run to a neighbours house and tell him what to do to stop the bleeding from her multiple stab wounds.

I put pressure on my leg using my hand, all the time thinking, I need to get out of here. He caught me again and started pouring petrol over me, there was terror now and that gave me extra strength to run, she told the newspaper following the horrific attack.

She was rushed to Port Macquarie Base Hospital in serious condition.

Police shot dead Lambert, 36, on the Pacific Highway following his brutal attack during a standoff.

I will walk for those that no longer can, and I will be the voice for those who have yet to find theirs, Jay wrote on her trek4respect page.

She will be trekking the nearly 60-mile trail in Papua New Guinea in the footsteps of Australias fallen World War II soldiers in April.

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How Doctors in China Turn into MurderersElderly Woman Found Dead in Cold Just Feet From Nursing Home: Report

A 76-year-old woman who lived at a nursing home in Ohio walked out of the building after telling employees that she was leaving.

Phyllis Campbell was gone for 8 hours until an employee found her dead in the courtyard, according to The Associated Press, which added that she had frozen to death.

The cause of death was hypothermia, according to AP. The temperatures at that time when she walked out of the Hilty Memorial Home, in Pandora, Ohio, were around zero degrees Fahrenheit.

The Ohio Department of Health released a report on her death last week.

The states report said that Campbell had a history of dementia and wandering off, AP reported. She had apparently told a nurses aide that she was going home.

The report also said that she was wearing a monitor, which should have set off alarms if she went outside the doors. She was found dead 30 feet away from the doors.

Staff members said that the monitoring device didnt always work. Officials also tested the device, but it didnt always go off when it passed sensors, Limaohio.com reported.

Two nurses aides told investigators said they didnt complete the scheduled 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. welfare checks, but they were marked as completed. The last check reportedly came at midnight.

Laura Voth, chief executive of Mennonite Home Communities of Ohio, said that in the wake of the incident, the nursing homes made changes.

Let me restate that we are deeply saddened by this loss. We are grieving for the family and extend our heart-felt sympathy to them, she said, according to AP.

From NTD.tv

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How Doctors in China Turn into MurderersA logo of Exxon Mobil is displayed on a monitor above the floor of the New York Stock Exchange shortly after the opening bell in New York, U.S., December 5, 2017. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson - RC17B6EE3C30

Exxon Plans Major US Investments Due to Tax Reform: CEO

HOUSTON  Exxon Mobil Corp plans to invest billions of dollars in the United States due in part to recently approved corporate tax rate cuts, the companys chief executive said on Monday.

Darren Woods, head of the worlds largest publicly traded oil producer, said in a blog post on the companys website that Exxon expects to spend $50 billion in U.S. projects over the next five years. The company also is actively evaluating projects now in planning stages as a result of new tax and regulatory changes, he wrote.

CEO Darren Woods on the positive and important business impact of the recent U.S. tax and regulatory reform. https://t.co/NbABPFApLb pic.twitter.com/rHtXeNp5Fq  ExxonMobil (@exxonmobil) January 29, 2018

More than $35 billion of that amount is for projects not previously announced, according to company spokesman Scott Silvestri.

Exxon previously pledged tens of billions of dollars for U.S. refining, petrochemical and shale exploration efforts. Last spring, it laid out a $20 billion investment in its U.S. Gulf Coast chemical and oil refining operations through 2022.

The company also is increasing investment in its West Texas and New Mexico shale operations, and moving ahead on a $10 billion petrochemical complex with Saudi Basic Industries Corp in Texas.

Due to @POTUS focus on energy dominance and tax cuts & reform, @ExxonMobil will invest $50B over next 5 years in U.S. Great for jobs and American workers!  Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) January 29, 2018

U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law a tax reform package last month that cut top corporate income rates to 21 percent from 35 percent and allowed for immediate expensing for capital costs of projects.

The recent changes to the U.S. corporate tax rate coupled with smarter regulation create an environment for future capital investments, Woods said, adding Exxon is reviewing the impact of the lower tax rate on the economics of several other projects currently in the planning stages.

Woods took over the top job in January 2017 after former chief Rex Tillerson resigned to become U.S. secretary of state.

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Year One: Thank You, Mr. PresidentFive-Year-Old Boy Dies After Accidentally Locking Himself Inside Washer Dryer

A five-year-old boy died after he accidentally locked himself inside a washer-dryer while his father was taking a nap, according to reports.

The boys father found his child unconscious in the drum of the machine on Saturday afternoon, Jan. 27 in Osaka, Japan, local media reported.

Police believe that the boy climbed into the machine, then the door shut behind him, automatically locking him in.

The machine was fitted with a child lock mechanism, but it was not activated.

The National Consumer Affairs Center of Japan states: There are many drum-type washing machine models whereby the door cannot be opened from the inside once it shuts, the Mainichi Shimbun reported.

This is awful: Five-year-old boy dies in Japan after getting trapped in washing machine while his father was taking a nap https://t.co/flCfVrJxIT pic.twitter.com/ZD7uJqpspk  Anna Fifield (@annafifield) January 29, 2018

It added that the website urges consumers to always use the child lock function on the washing machine so children are not able to open the door from the outside.

The machine the boy climbed into is thought to be about 3 feet high, 2 feet wide, and 2 feet deep.

The childs 32-year-old father was having a nap with his son in a second-floor room, but when he woke up, he couldnt find his son, according to The Ashahi Shimbun. The unnamed boys mother was out at the time.

The father found his son unconscious in the drum of the front-loading machine at about 3 p.m. on Saturday and called emergency services, the newspaper reported. The child was later declared dead in the hospital.

There was no water in the machine and it was not in use at the time, police told Japanese media. There were no obvious wounds on the surface of the boys body.

The boy likely suffocated in the airtight container. Sakai Police Station will conduct a post-mortem examination to determine the exact cause of death.

After a 7-year-old boy died in a similar accident in Ome, Tokyo, three years ago, there have been calls for manufacturers to make machines that do not automatically lock when shut.

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Boiling water turns to snowMan Accepts Guilty Plea for Having 21 Dead Dogs in His Home

A man who had the corpses of 21 pit bulls in his home in Hampton, Virginia, accepted a type of guilty plea on Jan. 30 and now faces decades in prison.

Vernon Silver, 58, was arrested on March 8, 2017, after Hampton police checking his home in the 200 block of Pochin Place, Hampton, found 21 dead pit bulls and one nearly starved to death on March 6, the Daily Press reported.

Silver was charged with 22 felony counts of animal cruelty; 22 counts of inadequate care of an animal by an owner, a misdemeanor; and 21 counts of disposal of dead companion animals, another misdemeanor.

Hampton police wanted to add a charge of dog-fighting, but according to WTKR, the prosecutor decided there was not enough evidence.

Silver accepted an Alford plea, WTKR reported. This means he did not admit to committing the crime but accepts that the state could prove its case with the evidence on hand. Silver will face between 22 and 110 years in prison when he is sentenced in March.

Gas company contractors working near the house reported a foul odor, prompting the police visit.

Police found six male pit bulls and ten females. Five were so decomposed sex could not be determined.

Silver is not the owner of the homethe dwelling is the property of a woman with a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, mailing address. It is not clear why the dogs were there.

History of Animal Abuse

Silver has a history of animal abuse complaints in Hampton. In 2007, the Daily Press reports, Silver was charged with multiple counts, some of which were dropped while he pleaded guilty to the rest, resulting in fines.

In 2014, court records show, he was charged with 16 counts of animal cruelty, 16 counts of failure to provide for a dog, and 14 counts of not having a city dog license.

In that instance, police raided Silvers home on Abbey Court in Hampton and found 16 dogs standing in a flooded yard filled with feces. Four more dogs were found in a shed confined in tiny crates, WTRK reported.

Silver was found guilty on four of those charges, the rest were dropped, and again he was assessed fines, this time totaling over $200.

The Daily Press reported that according to court records, that fine was never paid.

Neighbors Outraged

Neighbors of the canine charnel house are outraged that such a thing could take place.

Michelle Vandran left the neighborhood in October 2016. While she was there, she told WTKR, she saw Silver abusing dogs on the uninhabited property.

They were howling all hours of the night, she said. He would punch them, pick them up by their throats and throw them, to me thats abuse.

Vandran said Silver claimed to be breeding dogs there for a friend.

He put a brick on them and theyd pull it, she said. I guess to build up their hind legs muscles like they were doing fights.

Where did he get these dogs from, did he walk into the county shelter and adopt them? If so, how was he able to do that, asked animal rights activist Shocky Boyajian in an interview with WTKR.

We hope, in the rescue community, that the third time is the charm and he gets the punishment he deserves for what hes done, she said.

From NTD.tvTori, a 2-year-old male Siberian tiger, growls in its enclosure at a zoo in Tbilisi on Nov. 27, 2017. (Vano Shlamov/AFP/Getty Images)

Man Survives Siberian Tiger Attack by Jamming His Arm in the Beasts Jaws

A hunter told of fending off a vicious Siberian tiger attack by jamming his arm in the predators jaws to keep it from going for my neck.

Dmitry Korchevsky, 39, told the Siberian Times he wrestled with the wounded beast for 10 minutes before it finally gave upand died.

But the Russian is now reportedly the subject of an investigation into whether the attack took place while he was poaching the endangered cat.

The hunter said he came face-to-face with the tiger when he was checking traps he had set for sable.

It lay under a cedar, preparing to jump at me. I took two steps back and shot three times, he said from hospital, according to the Times.

He pounced on me, and tore my hand and head.

on Linker:

Hunter tells how he fought off a Siberian tiger https://t.co/FyUscyLww9 pic.twitter.com/B5WGtrGs4L  Linker (@LinkerMain) January 30, 2018

Korchevsky then gave a gruesome account of how the wild animal gnawed at him for 10 minutes and tried to get at his jugular.

Trying to protect myself, I stuffed his jaw with my armsso that he didnt get to my neck.

The man said his left arm was so severy mauled in the attack that he has lost the ability to move it. He said the cat bit his right arm, too and ripped my scalp off.

The hunter said that eventually the beast succumbed to his gunshot wounds.

Then he died on me. I climbed out from underneath him and saw him dead.

Korchevsky then allegedly walked through the bush for about 10 km (6 miles) before he could get reception on his cellphoneand he called for help.

I crawled away from him and for as long as I had strength in my legs, I walked toward my home.

He said hed lost a lot of blood and was anxious that he might not make it.

I didnt stop for a minute, even though I was in pain because of wounds. I was scared that if I was to stop even momentarily, Id freeze to death from blood loss. He almost ate away my left arm, its bitten all over now, I dont feel it and cant move it, Korchevsky said.

The man is in the hospital undergoing treatment for his wounds. But he now faces Russian hunting officials, who have launched a probe into whether the mans story checks outthere are reportedly suspicions he may have been trying to illegally hunt a Siberian tiger specimen.

Their skins and organs command big sums of money on the black market.

Siberian #tigers seen during rewilding training in Siberian Tiger Park in Harbin, capital of northeast Chinas Heilongjiang Province. pic.twitter.com/Qwtth0L1ud  China Plus News (@ChinaPlusNews) January 29, 2018

Wildlife official Dmitry Pankratov told the Times that an investigation should reveal what Korchevsky was doing there and whether he should face criminal charges for poaching.

Pankratov said these animals dont usually attack humans.

This is not a kind of an animal that just jumps on a man like this. Tigers are incredibly cautious, they have to be seriously provoked to attack, Pankratov said.

But cases of attacks against humans are a matter of record. A female keeper at the Kaliningrad Zoo suffered a Siberian tiger mauling last year.

Pictures captured the chilling moment when the woman, who had food for the tiger, was attacked.

Siberian tiger mauls female zookeeper Sunday inside enclosure in Kaliningrad, Russia, at feeding time. Zookeeper is expected to survive. pic.twitter.com/l5HjPUJeYG  World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) November 6, 2017

Onlookers helped save the zookeeper by shouting, the zoo said in a statement. They also threw stones and benches and tables from a cafe at the beast.

The zookeeper was then able to go hide in an inner room in the enclosure, the statement said.

Zookeeper screams in terror as Siberian tiger attacks her at feeding time https://t.co/BQZJPkGJwc  The Sun (@TheSun) November 5, 2017

The patient was delivered to the hospital with multiple wounds to the body and limbs, said a local Health Ministry spokesman, The Sun reported.

The zookeeper, who was not identified, was not critically injured. The zoo said her injuries are nonlife-threatening, and her condition stable.

Until today, he did not show aggression toward employees, the zoo said, adding it is the first tiger attack in the 120-year history of the Kaliningrad Zoo.

Siberian tigers are the largest of the big cats in the world. They can weight up to 800 pounds.

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Timelapse Video Captures Ocean of Clouds Over Vancouver, British ColumbiaMan Who Sold Ammo to Las Vegas Gunman Speaks Out

Douglas Haig of Mesa, Arizona, is a man who sold ammunition to Stephen Paddock, the alleged perpetrator of the Oct. 1 mass shooting in Las Vegas that left 58 dead.

Haigs name came to the forefront after two judges in Las Vegas ordered the release of warrant records and autopsy records related to the shooting.

It turned out Haig was marked as a person of interest in the investigation who may have conspired with Stephen Paddock to commit Murder with a Deadly Weapon, according to the Metropolitan Police Department document cited by Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The document was prepared in October. It is not clear whether investigators are still interested in Haig.

An Amazon box with Haigs address on it was found in the hotel room where Paddock was found dead after the shooting.

Haig said he met with Paddock a few weeks before the shooting and sold him 720 rounds of ammunition from his home gun business.

I couldnt detect anything wrong with this guy, he told CBS News. He told me exactly what he wanted. I handed him a box with the ammunition in it, and he paid me and he left.

Paddock was buying tracer rounds that light up when flying towards their target.

He said he was going to go put on a light show. And I cant remember whether he said for or with his friends, but thats what he did say, Haig said.

Haig acknowledged he spoke with the investigators.

I felt that they were hoping that they could find a connection between myself and Paddock, that would go back showing that I supplied him with most of his ammunition, possibly even some firearms, Haig said. Theyre not gonna find it. I talked to the guy three times.

A Linkedin profile under Haigs name shows he has been working at Specialized Military Ammunition, a company listed at his home address in Mesa, that sells tracer and incendiary rounds.

The profile also shows him working at Honeywell Aerospace, an aircraft engine and avionics manufacturer. Steve Brecken, spokesman for Honeywell Aerospace, confirmed to the Review-Journal on Tuesday, Jan. 30, that Haig works for the company.

Haigs prior jobs include an engineering post at Boeing (Aug. 2010  June 2013), where he worked on the (now canceled) A160 unmanned helicopter program, holding a top-secret clearance.

Before that, he worked at military contractor Northrop Grumman (Nov 2004  Aug. 2010) as a senior engineer responsible for the development of advanced air, land, and sea military platformsagain with a top-secret clearance.

He also worked as advanced materials development engineer at Boeing (March 1991  Sept. 2004), where he started shortly after getting a mechanical engineering Bachelors degree from California State University in Sacramento.

Haig said he closed his home business. He said he doesnt blame himself for the shooting, but thinks of his handling of the encounter with Paddock.

Im still racking my brain for what did I miss. Why didnt I pick this up? he said.

Haig is expected to hold a press conference on Friday.

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What is MS-13?Mom of Murdered Sons Attacks Accused Killer in Court

Tensions reached boiling point inside a Kentucky courtroom on Monday, Jan. 29, when the mother of two brutally slain teens confronted her sons alleged killer.

I just flipped out. I couldnt take it no more, Elizabeth Marie Wren told WLKY.

Wren had to be physically restrained and forcibly removed from the court room after lunging at Brice Rhodes, accused of fatally stabbing her two sons, Maurice Reece Gordon, 16, and Larry Ordway, 14, before setting their corpses on fire.

According to the station, Wren lost her composure after Rhodes turned towards her and laughed.

Lock me up. Lock me up. Why dont you let me get to him? Hes sick! Wren screamed as a deputy dragged her out of the courtroom.

This is not the first time the courtroom has been the scene of outbursts during the trial. According to the Courier-Journal, during an earlier hearing deputies placed Rhodes in a restraint chair and a spit mask during a hearing for his aggressive behavior, including repeatedly threatening to track down District Court Judge Amber Wolf and her family.

Three other men face charges in the 2016 slaying of the teen brothers.

Weeks earlier, Jacorey Taylor, 19, pleaded guilty to facilitation murder and tampering with evidence in exchange for 10 years behind bars or 20 years probation.

Its not fair, losing two children at the same time. And I dont feel like nobody understands unless they see their sons the way my sons were murdered, Wren told the Courier-Journal at the time of the trial.

Two other men have also accepted plea deals in connection with Gordon and Ordways murders.

According to the report by the Courier-Journal, investigators heard that on the day of the slaying, the two victims were hanging out with Rhodes in his apartment, along with several other teenagers.

An argument allegedly ensued between one of the victims and another teen, ending with Gordon and Orway both bound and gagged, with ski masks over their heads.

According to the report, Rhodes forced a crying Gordon to his knees to beg for forgiveness, before stabbing him repeatedly.

The same fate befell Ordway, but this time Rhodes allegedly forced the other teens to take part in the stabbing.

The bodies of the two murdered teens were later set on fire and dumped near an abandoned home.

Prosecutors are pushing for the death penalty for Rhodes, who has pleaded not guilty.

Were just fighting to get justice, for him to get the death penalty, or for life without parole, Wren told WLKY.

Aint nobody going to sit in court and hold their composure and have [someone] turn around and laugh about killing your kids, she added.

The brothers bodies were discovered about three weeks after their murders.

A medical examiner found Gordon had been stabbed more than a dozen times and Ordway more than 20 times.

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Timelapse Video Captures Ocean of Clouds Over Vancouver, British ColumbiaMother and Two Others Arrested, Face Charges in Her Sons Death

Three people have been arrested over the death of a teenage boy in New Mexico, including the boys mother.

Jeremiah Valencia, 13, was found dead late last year.

The Santa Fe County Sheriffs office said it has arrested his mother, Tracy Ann Pena, 35, along with Thomas Wayne Ferguson, 42, and Jordan Anthony Nunez, 19.

The trio was charged with child abuse resulting in death, conspiracy, and tampering with evidence, reported KOB4.

Detectives believe Ferguson and Pena abused the teen on Nov. 24, 2017, and eventually caused the boys death, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

Despite the boy needing medical care after the incident, neither adult provided him with any nor did they call law enforcement.

When the death occurred, the pair then took him to an undisclosed location to bury him.

A tip from an inmate led investigators to the trio, the affidavit said.

Pena had told the inmate that Ferguson was responsible for her sons death when she was in jail in November for a few days, reported the Santa Fe New Mexican.

When detectives interviewed Pena, Ferguson, and Nunoz, who is Fergusons son, they heard conflicting accounts of what happened.

Both Pena and Nunoz blamed Ferguson for them staying silent about what happened, for fear of what he would do to them.

Nunoz told investigators that Ferguson punched Valencia in the face and stomach then dragged him to the back of the residence. He played loud music for the rest of the night and it was unclear what else happened then.

Nunoz told investigators that Ferguson was an abusive father.

Ferguson told police that Valencia was injured while playing with Nunoz and he didnt call authorities because he didnt want to be accused of being involved in the death, reported KOAT7.

Fergusons extensive criminal record includes a rape and kidnapping charge which led to a plea deal, and an obstruction conviction.

From NTD.tv

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2017 Year in ReviewAn aerial view of the Pentagon building in Washington, June 15, 2005. REUTERS/Jason Reed/File Photo

Pentagon Warns US Forces After Fitness Trackers Reveal Locations

WASHINGTONU.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has ordered a review of security protocols, officials say, after fitness tracking devices broadcast patterns of movement at military facilities around the world, including in war zones.

Nathan Russer, a student at the Australian National University in Canberra, drew attention to data when he wrote on Twitter about the images after stumbling upon GPS tracking company Stravas Global Heatmap. It can be viewed here.

Once you look at Syria you can see a bunch of bright spots, Russer said.

Strava released their global heatmap. 13 trillion GPS points from their users (turning off data sharing is an option). https://t.co/hA6jcxfBQI  It looks very pretty, but not amazing for Op-Sec. US Bases are clearly identifiable and mappable pic.twitter.com/rBgGnOzasq  Nathan Ruser (@Nrg8000) January 27, 2018

Although many of the bases cited by Russer and others are well-known outposts that host U.S. and U.S.-backed personnel, there are clear risks that such tracking devices pose, potentially disclosing not just the broad locations where foreign troops operate but the routes they travel.

There is also the risk that Strava itself could become a target of nations trying to mine its data to discover identifiable information about who was wearing the devices.

Jim Lewis, a cyber expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said fitness trackers were just one way that all mobile wireless technology can undermine operational security and give adversaries an edge.

The Russians are pretty good at this and there are ways to combine the data from trackers with social media profiles, Lewis said.

Social networks are the bane of operational security.

Pentagon reviewing policy after fitness tracking data revealed locations of suspected US military bases https://t.co/m0Yw4lL8kb pic.twitter.com/wBXMW50mlD  The Hill (@thehill) January 29, 2018

The Department of Defense said it encourages all defense personnel, wherever they are, to limit their public presence on the internet. That guidance is even more strict when troops operate in sensitive locations.

But officials said Mattis was aware of the issue and had ordered a review.

DOD takes matters like these very seriously and is reviewing the situation to determine if any additional training or guidance is required, the Pentagon said in a statement, without directly confirming that U.S. troops had used the fitness trackers.

The Pentagon also said it was considering whether additional steps needed to be taken to ensure the continued safety of DOD personnel at home and abroad.

Pentagon spokesman Colonel Robert Manning told reporters at a news briefing he did not know of any instances in which U.S. base security had been compromised as a result of the mapping.

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President Donald Trump: Year 1Actor Mark Salling attends the Tinder Plus Launch Party featuring Jason Derulo and ZEDD at Hangar 8 Santa Monica at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California on June 17, 2015. (Photo by Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images for Tinder)

Report: Victims of Mark Salling May Not Get Restitution After Death

The victims of a crime committed by Glee actor Mark Salling, who was found dead earlier this week of an apparent suicide, could lose their restitution, it was reported.

Salling agreed to pay $50,000 to victims as part of a plea deal. He pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography in December 2017 and was facing four to seven years in prison.

Mark Salling's Victims Have to Fight For Restitution https://t.co/O4umMWb75r  TMZ (@TMZ) January 31, 2018

TMZ reported Wednesday, Jan. 31, that the judge must first sentence the defendant. Sallings sentencing was scheduled for March but since he hanged himself prior to the sentencing. It means that the plea deal wasnt complete, and the judge lost power to order the payment to the victims in the case.

However, the victims can still sue his estate.

Mark Salling, No Suicide Note, Body Discovered By Dumb Luck https://t.co/QEWyzomYjr  TMZ (@TMZ) January 31, 2018

On Tuesday, Salling apparently committed suicide, and his body was found near a riverbed area in the Tujunga neighborhood of Los Angeles after his family reported him missing, reported People magazine.

I can confirm that Mark Salling passed away early this morning. Mark was a gentle and loving person, a person of great creativity, who was doing his best to atone for some serious mistakes and errors of judgment, his attorney Michael Proctor told the publication. He is survived by his mother and father, and his brother. The Salling family appreciates the support they have been receiving and asks for their privacy to be respected.

He was found hanging from a tree in the area of the Los Angeles River in Sunland, Coroner Assistant Chief Ed Winter added. Salling was pronounced dead 9 a.m. Tuesday, and his body is at the coroners office.

Salling played Noah Puck Puckerman on the hit show Glee from 2009 to 2015.

Salling was arrested on Dec. 29, 2015, when investigators found thousands of files of child pornography on his laptop, a hard drive, and a thumb drive. A woman who he had dated told officials about the files.

If you or someone you know might be suicidal, consider contacting the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK, texting the Crisis Text Line at 741741.

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How Doctors in China Turn into MurderersSome Desperate Parents Are Forcing Their Kids to Drink Bleach to Cure Their Autism

Desperate parents are reportedly forcing their autistic children to drink bleach and other chemicals in an attempt to cure their children of the autism, according to a new report.

At least six police forces in the United Kingdom have been questioning families recently over the allegations, reported the Daily Mirror.

Some children were also given bleach enemas to purge parasites, the investigation from The Mirror found.

More than one in 100 people in the UK suffer from some form of autism, according to The National Autistic Society.

Experts are warning against parents trying extreme measures to rid their children of autism saying there is no known cure.

Autism is a neuro-developmental condition which is not amenable to any form of tablet treatment. Its developed in the womb or in the early stages of life. You just cant reverse it and anyone claiming that does not understand the condition, said Dr. Jeff Foster, reported The Mirror. When you have very extreme measures like this to cure a condition its just a roulette game. Eventually someone will die. Its only a matter of time.

The investigation led reporters to a closed Facebook group, where parents in Britain and the U.S. were using the so-called Miracle or Master Mineral Solution (MMS) to try to cure autism.

Scary stuff. More so that some parents will try anything. #Autism https://t.co/MB8keRF2ur  Simon Macdonald (@Simonbrons) January 28, 2018

The solution has been marketed as a cure for cancer, aids, influenza, and other hard-to-cure or incurable diseases, but is actually industrial bleach, reported the Guardian.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says said in a warning: The product instructs consumers to mix the 28 percent sodium chlorite solution with an acid such as citrus juice. This mixture produces chlorine dioxide, a potent bleach used for stripping textiles and industrial water treatment. High oral doses of this bleach, such as those recommended in the labeling, can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and symptoms of severe dehydration.

Parents in the unnamed closed Facebook group posted pictures of what they claimed were parasites that had been forced out of their childrens bodies when they used the controversial so-called treatment.

One woman wrote that children should be given 16 doses of the mixture every day for three months.

Another told the Mirror that she started using the solution in desperation and that her child seemed to be getting better.

She wrote, Some mean people said its bleach and harmful for kids. But its helped so many!

General practitioner Dr. Foster told the Mirror: Chlorine dioxide causes abdominal cramps, vomiting and diarrhea.

If you drink it on a long-term basis it causes inflammation of your gut lining, stomach, oesophagus, and intestines. At some stage something pops and then you can bleed to death.

Your gut will excrete whatever has just been shed from having this irritant, and thats likely what parents are seeing come out. They might make claims the doses are so small that its not like giving proper industrial bleach. But no dose is safe.

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How Doctors in China Turn into MurderersNow-FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on July 12, 2017. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Source: FBI Director Shocked to His Core by Contents of Worse Than Watergate Memo

FBI Director Christopher Wray was shocked to his core by the contents of a four-page report which reportedly details politically motivated abuses of government surveillance by the Obama administration, Fox News Sean Hannity reported, citing an unnamed source.

Wray viewed the secret document at the Capitol on Sunday, Jan. 28. On Monday morning, the FBIs second highest ranking official, Andrew McCabe, announced that he was stepping down.

Later on the same day, the House Intelligence Committee voted to make the report available to the public. President Donald Trump has to approve the memos release within five days. On Tuesday, a White House aide told Bloomberg that the president will review the document.

McCabe was planning to retire in March, so the change in timeline may mean that he was asked to leave, according to Sara Carter, an independent security reporter who often appears on Fox News.

This time they asked him to go right away. Youre not coming into the office, Carter told Fox News. Ive heard reports he didnt even come in for the morning meetingthat he didnt show up.

Several sources also told Carter that an upcoming DOJ inspector generals report shows that McCabe asked FBI agents to modify reports of their interviews with witnesses, which, if proven, would amount to obstruction of justice and lead to McCabes firing.

I heard they are considering firing him within the next few days if this turns out to be true, Carter said.

McCabe is currently on terminal leave and is set to retire when he is eligible for full benefits in March.

Republican House lawmakers have pushed for the public release of the four-page House Intelligence Committee memo since Jan. 18. House Republicans, 65 in total, sent a letter to the House Intelligence Committee asking for the memo to be released.

The secret memo was made available to members of Congress since Jan. 18. Those who have viewed the report have described it as worse than Watergate and sickening and likened it to a palace coup.

The report also shows that the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC funded an unsubstantiated Fusion GPS dossier, and used it to obtain a warrant for surveillance of Trump-associate Carter Page, New York Times reported.

The Fusion GPS dossier explained. Click to see full resolution. (Epoch Times)

The House memo on surveillance abuses is set to be released amid renewed scrutiny of two top FBI officials who exchanged anti-Trump text messages.

Among messages sent between top FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok and senior FBI lawyer Lisa Page was a discussion of an insurance policy in the event Trump is elected and a secret society within the FBI and DOJ.

An informant has since told lawmakers that the secret society held at least one secret offsite meeting and consisted of top-level officials in the FBI and DOJ.

I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andys officethat theres no way he gets electedbut Im afraid we cant take that risk, Strzok wrote in a message to Page on Aug. 15, 2016. Its like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before youre 40.

Some lawmakers believe that the Andy in the text messages is McCabe, Fox News reported.

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President Donald Trump: Year 1Swedish Woman Left Bloodied After Rejecting Man Who Groped Her at Nightclub

A 19-year-old Swedish woman was attacked with a bottle after she rejected a man who groped her at a nightclub.

Sophie Johansson was on the dance floor at Babel in Malmo, Sweden, on Jan. 27, when an unknown man pulled on her bag, she told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. After she turned away, she says felt his hands on her bottom and between her legs. She then hit him in an attempt to ward him off, but he responded with a punch to her face.

Johansson and her friend then decided to leave, hoping to avoid further trouble, but as they moved towards the exit she says the man smashed a glass bottle over her head.

Johansson says she did not register the injury until she realized she was bleeding.

I thought it was [liquid] from the bottle, but then my friend said it was running blood.

I ended up in shock, she said.

Shocking photos show bloodied Swedish woman, 19, attacked in a nightclub https://t.co/AmaiUYt6Q1  Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) January 30, 2018

Graphic photos provided to the media show a bloodied Johansson after the alleged attack.

Johansson was later brought to a hospital where she received several stitches.

Police have not yet identified the man, whom Sophie described as around 25 years-old, 5 feet 7 inches tall, and muscular. Authorities could not initiate an investigation because the man was unknown, but police are interested in hearing from anyone who witnessed the incident.

I am happy and grateful that it did not end worse. But Im a little upset about not finding the man, Johansson told the paper.

She added in the future she would go to a guard instead of trying to handle the situation herself.

The club, in a statement posted to Facebook, said it had cooperated with police and turned over all available material from that night. It urged patrons with information to contact authorities.

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Brazen Pickpockets Steal 1,000 From London PensionerTeacher of the Month Arrested for Dangling Student Over Balcony in California

A man who was named teacher of the month was arrested this week in San Francisco after allegedly dangling a student over a balcony.

The beloved teacher, Andres Tobar, 47, had been on paid administrative leave since mid-December after the incident, reported the SF Examiner.

Tobar turned himself into police after a warrant was issued, according to the San Francisco Police Department.

The bilingual teacher has worked at Marshall for more than two decades and is revered by students and parents alike for his dedication, according to the outlet. A local organization nominated him as Teacher of the Month in 2013.

Mr. Tobar has provided a nurturing and uplifting atmosphere in the classroom, he attends all after-school events and PTA meetings, leads morning assemblies, and brings treats in for staff members birthdays. His ardent dedication to both his students and school community is truly inspiring, according to 826 Valencia, the organization.

San Francisco Unified School District headquarters was the site of a protest recently as some 30 parents demanded answers as to why Tobar was still on leave.

The districts spokesperson Gentle Blythe told KTVU that Tobar was seen cradling a student and holding the student over the balcony on the second floor of Marshall Elementary School on Dec. 19.

Tobar has been charged with felony child endangerment/abuse, according to the police.



If you believe you may have been a victim or had any suspicious contact with the subject please contact the San Francisco Police Special Victims Unit (415) 558-5500, the police said.

Among those who know Tobar, many expressed shock over the arrest.

Its hard to see good people get punished, Lloyd Rath, a colleague of Tobars for 11 years, told the Examiner.

Rath said that more than 100 families signed a petition of support for the teacher after the incident became public.

He is a dearly loved teacher, and this will be a real challenge for the school to overcome, Rath said. I hope that Mr. Tobar is exonerated.

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First Lady Melania Trump Visits United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumTeenager Charged With Drowning Her 2-Year-Old Child in Bathtub

A 19-year-old has been charged after her baby was found dead. Officials suspect the Georgia teen drowned the 16-month-old boy in a bathtub.

Madison Lee Stewart was arrested and charged with murder in Warner Robins.

She was living in a safe house for battered women in the town.

Its just a tragic situation, Houston County Sheriff Cullen Talton told The Macon Telegraph. I tell you what, it makes me sick just to think somebody would do something like this.

Apparently, Stewart woke up early in the morning when the baby started crying and carried him into the bathroom.

She filled the bathtub and held the baby down.

She got up, the baby was crying and she went to the restroom; had the baby, and the baby quit crying and then, at some point while she was in the bathroom, she filled the tub with water and held the baby down until it drowned, Houston County sheriffs Capt. Randall Banks told the Telegraph.



Stewart then told a worker at the safe house that her baby had drowned.

Investigators said that Stewart told them she felt stressed and had some anger issues, reported Fox5.

The circumstances of the killing show an abandoned and malignant heart, the arrest warrant said.

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Melania Trumps First Year as First LadyTraffic on the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago on Nov. 21, 2017. Americas infrastructure is out of date and holding the economy back, according to the business community. (SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES)

Trump Calls for $1.5 Trillion Plan to Fix Americas Infrastructure

By leveraging federal dollars, Trump will spur investment by state and local governments, as well as the private sector

WASHINGTONPresident Donald Trump has asked Democrats and Republicans to work together on a bipartisan bill to modernize Americas crumbling infrastructure.

Together, we can reclaim our building heritage, he said in the annual State of the Union address on Jan. 30.

We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways across our land.

Trump called on the Congress to produce a bill that generates at least $1.5 trillion for the new infrastructure investment, a larger figure than he previously announced.

As for the funding of these expensive projects, he asked federal funds to be leveraged by partnering with state and local governments andwhere appropriatetapping into private sector investment.

There is an infrastructure gap everywhere but mostly so in the United States.  DOUG PETERSON CEO, S&P Global

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave a near-failing D-plus grade to U.S. infrastructure last year. The report card, which used a simple A to F school grade format, examined the nations 16 major infrastructure categories from roads to dams.

The D-plus grade is not surprising, according to Glenn Youngkin, co-CEO of the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm.

What was most interesting about that grade was that it extended across every state, it extended across every asset class in infrastructure, he said at Americas Infrastructure Summit hosted by U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Jan. 18.

Although the grade has not improved since last year, there is a silver lining to Americas infrastructure.

People have recognized theres a windfall that is going to come from Washington, Youngkin said.

We generally view the current tax bill as helpful to infrastructure, he said. Especially the lowering of the tax rate and the full expensing of investment upfront are positive for investment projects, he added.

According to S&P Global, Americas infrastructure gap is between $1.4 trillion and $1.5 trillion.

There is an infrastructure gap everywhere but mostly so in the United States, Doug Peterson, CEO of S&P Global said at the summit.

To fund this infrastructure deficit, business leaders support innovative financing strategies that include a mix of federal, state, local, and private funding. They are confident that enormous private capital could be mobilized for U.S. infrastructure investments.

We estimate that there are literally trillions of dollars of funds available around the globe from pension funds, from insurance companies, Peterson said.

Infrastructure projects are attractive asset classes for investors due to their long-term and predictable nature, he said.

Key Challenges

Any bill should also streamline the permitting and approval process, which is vital for the success of infrastructure projects, according to Trump and business leaders.

We built the empire state building in just one year, Trump said. Isnt it a disgrace that it can now take ten years just to get a minor permit approved for the building of a simple road?

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce supports the administrations One Federal Decision executive order and calls on Congress to codify the changes into law.

It shouldnt take longer to approve a project than to build it, Thomas Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said at the infrastructure summit.

On Aug. 15, Trump signed an executive order to speed up the environmental review and permitting process. The order aims to fix the fragmented approval system and establishes a two-year goal to process documents for major infrastructure projects.

We built the Empire State Building in just one year. Isnt it a disgrace that it can now take ten years just to get a minor permit approved for the building of a simple road?  President Donald Trump

The executive order also calls for one federal decision under which the lead agency will work with other relevant agencies to decide whether an infrastructure project goes forward.

The builders would no longer wait for 17 years to get approval or rejection, Trump said at a meeting with around 100 of the nations mayors on Jan. 24.

Youll let them know. If we dont want a highway, if we dont want something built, youre going to let them know quickly, he said.

There is a massive skills shortage in the construction industry, which is another major challenge. To modernize the nations infrastructure, the United States needs more skilled construction workers.

Nearly 80 percent of construction firms report that they are having a hard time finding qualified workers, said Donohue.

The administrations efforts to promote work-based learning, like apprenticeships, is an important step toward expanding the workforce, he added.

The skills shortage is a broad issue that cuts across many industries. However, it is becoming even more pressing for construction jobs, according to industry experts.

As tax cuts create new jobs, let us invest in workforce development and job training, Trump said in the State of the Union speech.

Let us open great vocational schools so our future workers can learn a craft and realize their full potential.

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Year One: Thank You, Mr. PresidentPresident Donald J. Trump waves to guests calling his name from the galleries following the State of the Union address in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, DC, Jan. 30, 2018. This is the first State of the Union address given by President Trump and his second address to a joint meeting of Congress. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Trump Recorded Saying He Is 100 Percent in Favor of Releasing Secret Memo

President Donald Trump was recorded assuring a lawmaker on Tuesday that he supports the public release of a secret memo which reportedly contains damning evidence of politically charged government surveillance abuses.

Mr. President, please release the memo, Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) said to Trump as the president exited the Capitol chamber after the State of the Union address.

Oh yeah, dont worry, 100 percent, Trump responded.

The classified memo was released to members of the House two weeks ago. Shortly afterward, 65 lawmakers sent a letter to the House Intelligence Committee to release the memo to the public. Since then, at least 190 lawmakers have viewed the document, according to Fox News.

The intelligence committee voted to make the memo public on Monday. The release is pending Trumps signature. The White House has been reviewing the document since Tuesday.

Lawmakers who have seen the memo describe its contents as worse than Watergate and compare it to a palace coup and the KGB. The memo details, in part, how an unverified anti-Trump dossier compiled by a British ex-spy was used to obtain a warrant to surveil a Trump associate.

Democrats have mounted a unified opposition to the memos release, though only a handful have actually viewed the document. According to the Washington Post, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein pleaded with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly to not make the document public. Kelly indicated that the document will be released soon.

According to the New York Times, Rosenstein is named in the four-page memo as the person who approved an application to spy on Trump associate Carter Page. At least part of the application used the anti-Trump dossier as the rationale for surveillance, which presents an issue because the contents have not been verified.

The dossier was paid for by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee. Fusion GPS, the dossiers purveyor, took money from the Russian government while Steele worked on compiling the document.

FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe stepped down hours before the House committee voted to release the memo to the public. McCabes boss, Christopher Wray, viewed the document the day before, on Sunday. A source told Fox News that Wray was shocked to his core by the content of the report.

House Speaker Paul Ryan publicly backed the release of the memo on Tuesday.

Let it all out, get it all out there. Cleanse the organization, Ryan (R-Wis.) told Fox News. I think we should disclose all this stuff. Its the best disinfectant. Accountability, transparencyfor the sake of the reputation of our institutions.

Covering up mischief would be worse, Ryan added.

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Year One: Thank You, Mr. PresidentPresident Donald Trump addresses the March for Life rally from the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington on Jan. 19, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Trump Reveals His Biggest Lesson in Year One

WASHINGTONPresident Donald Trump opened up about some of the challenges he faced, especially in transitioning from being a business person to president, during a lunch with several network anchors on Jan. 30.

Prior to his first State of the Union address, the president said he has learned a lot in his first year, and that pure business pragmatism and competitiveness doesnt quite work when leading a country.

When youre a businessperson, you dont have to worry about your heart, the heart. You really do whats best for you  for almost purely monetary reasons, Trump said.

In doing what Im doing now, a lot of it is heart, a lot of it is compassion, a lot of it is far beyond moneysuch as immigration, Trump said.

He said issues such as immigration would be easy to solve if looking at it from a purely economic standpoint.

But Im not. Im doing it because millions of people are affected. I put myself in their position, he said. So its much different, in that way, than I thought it would be.

He said having a business background is beneficial, but oftentimes you do things that you would never do in business because you have to also govern with heart.

You govern with all of the instincts of a business person, but you have to add much more heart and soul into your decisions, Trump said.

I think thats something that Ive learned maybe more than anything else.

Trump is expected to discuss immigration during his State of the Union address, especially the framework he released last week that would give amnesty and citizenship to at least 1.8 million illegal immigrants in exchange for border security and an end to chain migration and the diversity visa lottery.

Democrats have been pushing for an amnesty for the 700,000 recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) for years, but Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) rejected Trumps proposal outright, tweeting on Jan. 26 that it would tear apart our legal immigration system.

Trump responded on Twitter on Jan. 27, saying, I have offered DACA a wonderful deal, including a doubling in the number of recipients & a twelve year pathway to citizenship, for two reasons: (1) Because the Republicans want to fix a long time terrible problem. (2) To show that Democrats do not want to solve DACA, only use it!

I have offered DACA a wonderful deal, including a doubling in the number of recipients & a twelve year pathway to citizenship, for two reasons: (1) Because the Republicans want to fix a long time terrible problem. (2) To show that Democrats do not want to solve DACA, only use it!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 28, 2018

Some Democrats said they plan to bring illegal immigrants as their VIP guests to the State of the Union address.

Trump is bringing 15 guests to sit with the first lady, including the parents of two teenage girls who were murdered by a group of illegal immigrant MS-13 gang members on Long Island, New York.Logos of Deutsche Bank AG are seen in Tokyo July 16, 2014. (Reuters/Toru Hanai/File Photo)

US Authorities Charge Three Banks, Eight Individuals in Futures Spoofing Probe

WASHINGTONThe U.S. Justice Department and the countrys derivatives regulator said on Monday they had filed civil and criminal charges against three European banks, which paid $46.6 million to settle the cases, and eight individuals for alleged in U.S. futures and commodities market.

UBS, Deutsche Bank and HSBC and former traders at the banks, as well as individuals at other firms, were charged following a large-scale multi-agency probe including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) into spoofing in metals and equities futures.

The case marks the first time the Justice Department and the CFTC had worked together, along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to bring both criminal and civil charges against multiple companies and individuals, and underlined the authorities increasing focus on holding individuals accountable for corporate wrongdoing.

Spoofing, which is a criminal offense under the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law, involves placing bids to buy or offers to sell futures contracts with the intent to cancel them before execution. By creating an illusion of demand, spoofers can influence prices to benefit their market positions.

Deutsche Bank and UBS have agreed to pay $30 million and $15 million respectively to settle the civil charges in the case, while HSBC will pay $1.6 million, the CFTC said.

All three banks received reduced penalties from the CFTC for providing significant assistance in the investigations, which relate to activity that dates back as far as 2008. UBS self-reported the alleged misconduct by its traders to the regulator, the CFTC said.

The imminent arrests and charges were reported earlier by Reuters.

A spokesman for UBS did not immediately provide comment.

A spokesman for HSBC said the bank was pleased to have resolved the matter.

A Deutsche Bank spokesman said the bank has provided substantial and proactive cooperation with the governments investigation and has enhanced controls and surveillance to help ensure that the underlying conduct does not occur in the future.

Pernicious

The alleged activity saw manipulation of a range of precious metals contracts, including in gold, silver, platinum or palladium futures, as well as in S&P E-mini futures.

Spoofing is a particularly pernicious example of bad actors seeking to manipulate the market through the abuse of technology, James McDonald, the CFTCs head of enforcement, said in a statement on Monday.

These cases should send a strong signal that we at the CFTC are committed to identifying individuals responsible for unlawful activity and holding them accountable.

Several of the individuals charged were former employees of the three banks, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The Justice Department said it had charged James Vorley of the United Kingdom, Frances Cedric Chanu, Jiongsheng Zhao of Australia and New York resident Krishna Mohan with fraud and spoofing offenses.

Edward Bases and John Pacilio, both of whom are from Connecticut, have been charged with fraud in connection with an alleged scheme to engage in both solo and coordinated spoofing.

Andre Flotron, 53, a Swiss national living in New Jersey, has been charged with conspiracy to commit spoofing and fraud when he was a UBS AG precious metals trader in Switzerland.

Jitesh Thakkar of Illinois has been charged with developing a software program used by his co-conspirator to engage in spoofing, the Justice Department said.

Bases, Pacilio, Mohan and Thakkar were arrested by U.S. law enforcement on Monday, while Zhao was arrested by Australian authorities.

Vorley, Chanu, Zhao and Mohan could not be reached for comment, while Bases, Pacilio and Thakkar did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The cases against Mr. Flotron are misguided and have no merit. We will take the cases to trial and he will be exonerated, Flotrons legal counsel said in a statement.

Reuters first reported the multi-agency probe on Friday.

The bank investigations have been going on for more than a year, but the CFTC has pursued the charges against the traders as part of a more recent effort led by McDonald to hold individual employees accountable for corporate wrongdoing.

McDonald, a former prosecutor in the Southern District of New York who was appointed to the CFTC role in March, has said he aims to achieve that by encouraging companies and staff to report their own wrongdoing and cooperate with investigators, in return for more lenient penalties.

By Michelle Price

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Moms Hilarious Reaction to Raptor ScareThis photo taken on Nov. 29, 2017 and released on Nov. 30, 2017 by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) shows launching of the Hwasong-15 missile which is capable of reaching all parts of the US. (KCNA VIA KNS/AFP/Getty Images)

US General Claims North Korea Has Not Demonstrated All Components of a Nuclear Missile

North Koreas nuclear program has made some strides in recent months but the country has not yet demonstrated all the components of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), including a survivable re-entry vehicle, the vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Tuesday, Jan. 30.

Air Force General Paul Selvas remarks confirm an assessment by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis in December that North Koreas ICBM did not pose an imminent threat to the United States.

What he has not demonstrated yet are the fusing and targeting technologies and survivable re-entry vehicle, Selva said, referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

It is possible he has them, so we have to place the bet that he might have them, but he hasnt demonstrated them, Selva, the second highest-ranking U.S. military official, added.

In November, North Korea said it had successfully tested a new type of ICBM that could reach all of the U.S. mainland and South Korea and U.S.-based experts said data from the test appeared to support that.

Selva said that if conflict were to break out, it was unlikely the United States would be able to get an early indication of North Korean launches.

It is very unlikely that in a tactical situation, we would get any of the indications and warning that would precede a launch other than if we got lucky and saw the movement of the launch mechanism to the launch platform, Selva said.

CIA chief Mike Pompeo, however, said that the isolated, communist regime could have a nuclear weapon within a handful of months, CBS reported.

He praised President Donald Trumps message to North Korea, saying that Kim Jong Un understands the message from the United States like never before.

It is also our judgment that our partners who are also at risk from North Korea have now come to understand that it is Kim Jong Un that is presenting this risk, Pompeo said on Monday, according to CBS. I think that America has done an excellent joball of our senior leadersof communicating to the world the seriousness with which this threat needs to be undertaken.

On Jan. 24, it was reported that the U.S. imposed more sanctions on Pyongyang over its nuclear and missile programs.

Treasury continues to systematically target individuals and entities financing the Kim regime and its weapons programs, including officials complicit in North Korean sanctions evasion schemes, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement, as reported by CNBC.

Among the entities that have been punished are two China-based trading firms. The Treasury Department said they exported metals and materials used for North Koreas weapons programs. The sanctions also targeted people who serve as officials in the North Korean ruling party inside China, Russia, and Georgia.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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How Doctors in China Turn into MurderersA Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor is launched during a successful intercept test, in this undated handout photo provided by the U.S. Department of Defense, Missile Defense Agency. (U.S. Department of Defense, Missile Defense Agency/Handout via Reuters/File Photo)

US Military Tests Missile Defense In Hawaii

The U.S. military says it carried out a test to shoot down an incoming dummy missile from Hawaii on Wednesday, Jan. 31, and one unnamed official said that the test failed.

The Missile Defense Agency acknowledged the existence of the test, but it didnt say whether it failed.

The Missile Defense Agency and U.S. Navy sailors manning the Aegis Ashore Missile Defense Test Complex (AAMDTC) conducted a live-fire missile flight test using a Standard-Missile (SM)-3 Block IIA missile launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Kauai, Hawaii, Wednesday morning, Mark Wright, a spokesman for the agency, said in a statement to The Hill.

One U.S. official, speaking anonymously, told Reuters that a SM-3 Block IIA missile was fired from a test site in Hawaii. It failed to hit the dummy test missile that was launched from an aircraft. CNN also reported that the test failed.

Raytheon is developing the new missile, used to target intermediate-range missiles. Its being developed in Japan, Reuters reported.

In August 2017, the United States successfully intercepted a medium-range ballistic missile in Hawaii.

But DefenseNews.com reported that the latest failure is the second unsuccessful test in the past 12 months.

And on Jan. 13, a worker in Hawaii issued a false alarm for an incoming missile attack, prompting widespread panic for several minutes.

From NTD.tv

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How Doctors in China Turn into MurderersChina Makes Frightening Advances in Cloning

Research pushes ethical boundaries and national agenda, says expert

When embryos 78 and 79 survived they were given names to fit the occasionZhongzhong and Huahua.

Created in a Shanghai lab, these two identical long-tailed macaques are the worlds first cloned monkeys, revealed on Jan. 24 in the journal Cell.

Separately the monkeys names are just cute affectations. Put them together, however, and the propaganda, ambition, and power play that underpin Chinas state-sanctioned research are revealed.

Zhong and Hua mean Chinese nation.

China has been dubbed the Wild East of biomedical research for allowing research banned elsewhere.

Thats a powerful statement, said Karen Rommelfanger, director of the Center of Ethics at Emory University, referring to the names. Its a stake in the ground, a sign with flashing lights.

Chinas Power Play

Primate cloning has long been seen as a step in the progression toward human cloning, so Zhongzhong and Huahua have naturally stirred up concerns that human cloning is just around the corner.

Rommelfanger says the monkeys are a PR coup for Chinese authorities to ply their no-holds-barred research.

It is meant to showcase the kinds of high-stakes work that China is housing.

Rommelfanger is senior associate editor of the American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience. She convenes an annual global summit on neurobiology ethics, giving her insights into Chinas research agenda.

She says that this kind of research, pushing the boundaries ethics, is about pushing a national agenda.

Science, technology, and innovation are not just simply about creating goods to eliminate disease, they are parts of culturethey are parts of power.

She said that the Chinese are exploiting the fact that such research is relatively easier to carry out in China.

I think thats become increasingly culturally challenging to be doing this kind of work [in the United States], Rommelfanger said.

Step Toward Human Cloning?

The stated purpose of cloning the monkeys is to provide a supply of genetically identical animals for medical research.

The reason  we broke this barrier is to produce animal models that are useful for medicine, for human health, research supervisor Muming Poo, told Reuters.

The barrier hes referring to is being able to clone an animal so genetically similar to humans.

When Dolly the sheep was famously cloned in 1996, it spawned a flurry of clone development in other species and sparked concerns about human cloning.

However, it turned out that not all species are as easy to clone, each having its own challenges, with primates presenting the biggest challenge.

At the time, it was described as a natural obstacle that put the brakes on the rush toward human cloning, allowing the breathing space to patch together laws and guidance on human cloning.

Its almost like God in her wisdom said go ahead and clone cows and sheep, but if you clone a human Im going to paralyze the egg, said researcher Gerald Schatten back in 2003.

Cloning works by taking the DNA from one animal and putting it into an egg cell from another, using electricity to fool it into developing into an embryo. In primates, however, the egg never grew past the most basic phase.

The Shanghai lab realized that the cells genes that control its development into an embryo were switched off. So they added two new ingredients (messenger RNA and trichostatin A) to unlock them.

It took 127 eggs, 79 embryos, and 6 pregnancies to produce the two surviving monkeys.

This high rate of failure is why some scientists in the West say the same technique would never be used on humans.

It could be a step towards human cloning, but why would you do it? Peter Andrews, professor of biomedical science at the University of Sheffield, UK, told the New Scientist. In terms of human biology, its illegal to clone a human in Britain and many other countries, and I dont think anyone would rationally want to do it.

Another reason observers say the latest research wont lead to human cloning is that the technique only works on fetal cells.

Most animal cloning until now has created carbon copies of adults, sparking dystopian visions of a world of mini-mes should the technique ever be used on humans.

Zhongzhong and Huahua are not mini-mes, but researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Neuroscience in Shanghai are working hard on getting there.

Adult cells were already used to successfully produce two baby monkeys from 22 pregnancies, but they died shortly after birth.

Poo said they currently have female surrogates pregnant with fetuses cloned from adult body cells.

They seem to be developing well, so we are hoping we will produce babies soon, he said.

Poo said, There is no intention to apply this method to humans.

Elsewhere in China, that know-how may already exist. Xu Xiaochun, director of Boyalife Group, a leading Chinese animal cloning operationdubbed a cloning factorytold Agence France-Presse in 2015 that they have the technology to clone humans. But they have been self-restrained because of possible adverse public reaction.

Wild East of Biomedical Research

China has been dubbed the Wild East of biomedical research for allowing research banned elsewhere.

The most high-profile example is perhaps that of Italian researcher Sergio Canavero, whose research on head transplants was rejected on ethical grounds in the United States and Europe, but found a home in China.

On Nov. 22, 2017, Canavero published details of what he described as the first successful head transplantalbeit between two corpses. Canavero, who likens himself to Victor Frankenstein, says the experiment is the precursor to the next stage of transplanting between brain-dead subjects. The step after that is a full head transplant for a living person.

Rommelfanger has raised concerns about the lack of transparency about where the bodies came from.

Theres been no response from any of the Chinese collaborators about a very fundamental piece of this whole enterprisewhich is consenting individuals to participate.

The medical community has also long criticized Chinas use of death row prisoners as a source of transplantation organs. And over the last decade, the international medical community, Western governments, and human rights groups have raised alarm bells over Chinas use of prisoners of conscience as living organ banks, ready to be killed to order. Organ harvesting is a multibillion-dollar state-run business in China.

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3 New Market Leaders to Buy on Dips

Being able to identify market leaders as they emerge is one of the best skills for traders and investors to work on developing. Its a tactic that keeps you focused on only owning the best of the best in the market in order to maximize your gains and take advantage of institutional buying which drives prices higher.

Read ArticleInventor and Tesla chief executive Elon Musk claims hes sold thousands of flamethrowers in recent days, turning an online gag into a marketing ploy worth millions.

But a California assemblyman said he plans to introduce legislation to block the distribution of the devices before they end up in customers hands.

In an email to the Washington Post, Assemblymember Miguel Santiago, a Democrat from Los Angeles, said he thought the flamethrower idea was a joke when he first heard about it.

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When the zombie apocalypse happens: Elon Musk has already made millions selling a flame-thrower

Santiago  whose home parish was recently damaged by fire  was surprised anyone would hawk a flamethrower in a state in which devastating fires have recently displaced thousands, causing more than $1 billion (U.S.) in damage. Santiagos statement said he was in awe of Musks genius, but believes that the inventors gifts and successes mean he has unique responsibilities.

The State of California and the County and City of Los Angeles have entrusted Mr. Musk to help alleviate a real public policy problem here by executing a tunnel under the City to help alleviate traffic, the statement said. This deviation feels like a complete slap in the face.

The lawmaker said he cant imagine the problems a flamethrower would cause firefighters and police officers.

This subject matter, in the wake of the states deadliest wildfires in history, is incredibly insensitive, dangerous, and most definitely not funny, the statement continued. Absolutely no public good could come from the sale of this tool. Additionally, if this an elaborate prank, then I have some serious concerns about Mr. Musk and his company collecting sensitive financial information from the number of people who have preordered this product.

Over the weekend, Musk began selling flamethrowers at $500 a pop.

Guaranteed to liven up any party! the companys website mischievously proclaims. Worlds safest flamethrower!

In a little over 48 hours, according to Musks Twitter account, the Boring Company has cleared at least $7.5 million worth of flamethrowers, with 15,000 sold.

Musk noted last year that the company would begin hawking flamethrowers once it had sold 50,000 hats.

Nearly two months later, what seemed like a playful joke turned oddly real, with Musk noting that a flamethrower would come in handy during a zombie apocalypse.

Dont do this, Musk wrote on an Instagram video of him pretending to turn a flamethrower on a camera person. Also, I want to be clear that a flamethrower is a super terrible idea. Definitely dont buy one. Unless you like fun.

Musk claims his flamethrowers  which appear to expel a glowing, metre-long stream of sizzling terror  are good for roasting nuts.

Despite being phased out by the Defense Department decades ago, flamethrowers are unregulated in almost every state.

As the Washington Posts Jessica Contrera reported in 2015, flamethrowers face limited regulation because they arent considered a firearm, which  unlike a flamethrower  is defined by its ability to expel a projectile using an explosive.

For thousands of years, weapons able to harness the power of fire offered users a gruesome advantage during combat, Contrera noted:

 With flamethrowers, you had the ability to attack without being attacked, said Bruce Gudmundsson, a historian at the Marine Corps University in Quantico, Va. Flamethrowers, such as the ones used in world wars I and II, were created by the Germans, but the concept dates back to A.D. 672. Thats when Greek Fire was said to have been invented by a man named Kallinikos to defend the Byzantine Empires capital of Constantinople, or modern-day Istanbul. His fire siphon would squirt flames from one wooden boat to another.

The California Health and Safety Codes 12750 to 12761 ban owning or selling a flamethrower without a permit granted by a state fire marshal. But theres a catch, because the regulation bans unlicensed possession of any non-stationary and transportable device designed or intended to emit or propel a burning stream of combustible or flammable liquid a distance of at least 10 feet.

If the demonstrations on social media are any indication, Musks flamethrower doesnt emit a stream of flammable liquid, and its flame falls well short of the 10-foot (three-metre) ban.

The other state with laws regulating flamethrower use: Maryland.

Asked whether the Boring Companys new device was authentic or, in fact, some sort of early April Fools Day joke, a company spokesperson insisted that the device was no joke, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

It is real, he said. You can place an order on the website and we will start shipping in the spring.

Read more about:MONTREALThe president of Telus Quebec is apologizing to francophones after one of the telecom companys Twitter handles posted a series of tweets that were horrendously translated and widely ridiculed.

Francois Gratton released a statement today apologizing to Quebecers and saying the tweets should never have been posted.

On Tuesday, internet denizens began re-tweeting messages from the Telus Fund Twitter handle that were so badly translated they were barely legible.

One of the Tweets read: Take a deep breath, crush yourself, go kill him.

Gratton says the Telus Fund is an independent non-profit company funded by Telus and tasked with producing local content.

He says its Twitter handle was managed by an external agency that is no longer working for the telecom company.

Twitter users had fun with the messages, sharing them widely and ridiculing the company.

Gratton says the company didnt do its job to ensure all of the entities it works with published content that respects the French language.

Read more about:OTTAWAThe Liberals should toughen up proposed legislation aimed at boosting diversity on corporate boards at publicly traded companies if they want it to be effective, says a group of senators pushing for the change.

We want it to mean something, said Sen. Ratna Omidvar, who was named to the upper chamber in 2016 by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and represents Ontario as an independent.

Senators are expected this week to debate Bill C-25, which would, among other things, amend the Canadian Business Corporations Act to require publicly traded companies to disclose the number of women  and others from equity-seeking groups, such as visible minorities  on their corporate boards and in senior management, as well as their policies on diversity.

Failure to do so would require companies to explain themselves to their shareholders.

The Canadian Business Corporations Act affects nearly 270,000 companies, but the proposed changes would affect only those that also issue shares and report to a securities commission, which would include about 600 companies on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

The legislation would not specifically require targets for increasing diversity, although companies would be required to disclose whether they have them already.

That is something Omidvar is hoping to change.

She and five other senators are behind an amendment that would require the companies affected to set goals for the percentage for each designated group  women, visible minorities, Indigenous Peoples, and persons with disabilities  on boards of directors and senior management.

Companies would also need to set a deadline to achieve those non-binding targets.

There would also be an annual report, delivered to Parliament, on how well they are doing in the aggregate.

Omidvar said the targets would be voluntary, not quotas, and that businesses would be able to take industry-specific factors into account.

Its normal business practice to set targets on a whole bunch of indicators and benchmarks that businesses set themselves, she said.

The fact that the legislation currently lacks targets likely stems from a reluctance to impose too many regulations, said Omidvar, who added she does not think her idea goes too far.

We actually think this is a bit more of a deliberate nudge, but it is still a nudge. We are going to nudge corporate boards along, she said.

Without targets, we may see no improvement.

Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains said the decision to use a comply-and-explain model reflects what has worked well elsewhere, including in Australia and Britain, and that the governments approach has broad support from those affected.

This bill really reflects a lot of consensus, a lot of support from many in the business community, the not-for-profit organizations and people who want to see improvements to better outcomes in terms of diversity and gender representation at boards and senior management, Bains said in an interview.

We feel those address those issues.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made gender equality a top theme for his Liberal government and it is expected to be a major priority in the 2018 federal budget, building upon its initial efforts to provide a gender-based analysis of its proposals last year.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau said last month that the forthcoming budget will detail government efforts to boost the participation of women in the workforce.

Omidvar said the Liberals  and all feminists  should remember that women are not the only ones being left behind.

Gender equity is really important. After all, half our population is women, but unless we dig deeper into the intersectionality of race, ethnicity, ability, Indigenous status, we are not going to get at the core of exclusion, she said. How can we know were making progress if all theyre measuring is gender? We have to measure these other benchmarks as well.

Omidvar said she was glad to see the Liberal government agree to earlier changes that would involve including a clear definition of diversity  using the Employment Equity Act as a guide  in the regulations that will follow the legislation.

That said, Bill C-25 could still be stronger, she said.

I do want to give the government credit for when they listen, Omidvar said. I just want them to listen a little harder.TOKYOXerox Corp., a once-iconic American innovator that became synonymous with office copy machines, is ceding control to Japans Fujifilm Holdings Corp. in a deal that creates an $18-billion company and marks the end of the independence of the corporate giant.

Xerox, which has a market value of $8.3 billion, will first merge with a joint venture the company operates with Fujifilm in Asia, according to a statement Wednesday. Current Xerox shareholders will receive a cash dividend of $9.80 per share. Tokyo-based Fujifilm will ultimately end up owning 50.1 per cent of the combined entity, which expands the joint venture to encompass all of Xeroxs operations.

Activist investor Carl Icahn had pushed Xerox to explore strategic options, including shaking up its joint venture with Fujifilm and electing four new directors. Icahn, along with investor Darwin Deason, also called for Xerox to replace chief executive officer Jeff Jacobson. He will become CEO of the new combined company.

The deal will make for a more global company, according to Simon Chan, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. In the past, Fuji Xerox only operated in the Asia-Pacific region, and Xerox targets the Americas and Europe, Chan said. With the combined company, they can share cost on research, product development and potentially manufacturing capacity as well.

It also marks the end of independence for a U.S. company whose roots trace back to the start of the 20th century. Xerox became famous for its hardware  its copiers were so ubiquitous that the name Xerox became a verb  and it also invented an early graphic interface and mouse now so familiar with modern computers. But it has fallen on hard times as Canon Inc. and Asian competitors eroded its dominance while email and other forms of electronic communications took over. The new company will accelerate revenue growth through its global reach and pursue developments in inkjet, imaging and artificial intelligence, it said.

The joint venture will cut 10,000 jobs in Asia as part of the restructuring as the Japanese company struggles with an increasingly severe market environment, Fujifilm said Wednesday.

The proposed combination has compelling industrial logic and will unlock significant growth and productivity opportunities for the combined company, while delivering substantial value to Xerox shareholders, Jacobson said in the statement.

Xerox and Fujifilms 55-year-old joint venture in Asia is the subject of a recent accounting probe into its practices in New Zealand and Australia, which prompted Icahn to call for renegotiating or scrapping the agreement.

Fujifilm executives said in a press conference Wednesday in Tokyo they were confident all shareholders will approve the deal. The new combined company, Fuji Xerox, will trade on the New York Stock Exchange and have dual headquarters in Norwalk, Conn., and Tokyo.

Fujifilm Holdings, which lowered its forecast for operating income for the year ending March 31, will cut one-fifth of its global workforce at the joint venture. The company said it will incur a one-time expense of 72 billion yen ($662 million U.S.) over three years.

The Japanese company, which generates almost 60 per cent of sales from overseas, is pushing to offset waning demand at its printer and copier hardware business by shifting focus to managed-print services and medical imaging. Expansion into the health-care sector with products such as ultrasound and endoscope equipment should boost sales, but that segments thinner margins could offset gains in the imaging division, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.

Fujifilms stock plunged in the final minutes of trading in Tokyo on Wednesday before the deal was announced, dropping more than 8 per cent to the lowest level since August.

Read more about:An eon or two ago, Eastman Kodak was a bleeding-edge technology company. It hired the smartest engineers and put them to work racking up patents, pioneering new chemical processes and building a globe-spanning camera and film business that, at its peak, employed 145,000 people.

But the digital photo age passed Kodak by and, today, the Rochester, N.Y., company exists mostly in the past tense. Many of the patents have been sold, buildings have been rented out or demolished and the company has continued to shrink since it filed for bankruptcy in 2012.

Now, the 130-year-old company is trying an unlikely sort of comeback  one built by betting on cryptocurrency. Its a bold gamble that has excited some investors, perplexed others and raised questions about how closely Kodak vetted its cryptocurrency business partners, which now include a paparazzi photo agency, a penny-stock promoter and a company offering what has been called a magic money-making machine.

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Big names join mania as cryptocurrency frenzy reaches new phase

Long Island Iced Tea stock soars after company renames itself Long Blockchain amid cryptocurrency craze

This month, Kodak lent its name to a digital currency called KodakCoin, which is billed as a photo-centric cryptocurrency to empower photographers and agencies to take greater control in image rights management. The basic idea behind KodakCoin is to use the blockchain to help photographers manage their collections by creating permanent, immutable records of ownership. The company also struck a licensing deal for a Bitcoin-mining computer called the Kodak KashMiner, which allows users to generate their own cryptocurrency.

Kodaks stock rose more than 200 per cent after the announcements and has not fallen much since.

Thats partly because the blockchain  the mathematical ledger system that forms the basis of digital currencies  has a kind of talismanic effect in todays stock market. As investors seek to capitalize on the popularity of currencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, a number of struggling companies have reversed their fortunes, at least temporarily, simply by adding blockchain to their names or announcing a new cryptocurrency venture unrelated to their previous line of work. (The most notorious example is Long Island Iced Tea Corp., a beverage company that tripled its value overnight after it rebranded itself Long Blockchain Corp.)

These sudden, brazen moves have also attracted the attention of regulators. In a recent speech, Jay Clayton, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), said that the agency was looking closely at the disclosures of public companies that shift their business models to capitalize on the perceived promise of distributed ledger technology.

Kodak is the most prominent old-line company to enter the cryptocurrency game so far, and maybe the most controversial. Almost immediately, critics pounced on the companys plans, characterizing them as a desperate money grab.

It feels like a publicly traded company issuing a token to raise its stock price from the grave, said Kyle Samani, a partner at the cryptocurrency trading firm Multicoin Capital.

Jill Carlson, a blockchain consultant, said, I would not be sleeping very well if I was involved in this.

In an interview, Jeff Clarke, Kodaks chief executive, said the companys blockchain ambitions were genuine. He began looking into blockchain technology last summer, he said, and realized that it could solve a perennial problem for photographers  proving ownership of their images, tracking down copyright violators and getting paid.

This is not a dog food company thats creating a currency, Clarke said. This is a real solution around digital rights management that Kodak has been involved in for many years.

In theory, photographers will be able to upload their images to a platform called KodakOne, create a blockchain-based license for each image, and use web-crawling software to scour the internet looking for copyright violations. Instead of using dollars, photographers can have clients pay them in KodakCoins.

KodakCoins initial offering, scheduled for Wednesday, is expected to raise as much as $20 million (U.S.). (On Tuesday night, KodakCoins website said that it would delay the offering by several weeks to verify the credentials of potential investors.) But there are few details about what that money will be used for, or why a similar system could not be built without the blockchain. There is also a more obvious question: Why would photographers want to be paid in digital tokens, rather than cash?

In several calls with KodakCoin leaders, I couldnt get straight answers to these questions. And KodakCoins white paper, a technical document that details the plans for the currency, is a 40-page mishmash of marketing buzzwords and vague diagrams.

Make no mistake: Digital rights management is a real issue for photographers, and the blockchain does, in theory, offer a compelling solution. But the specific attributes of KodakCoin present some red flags.

First, despite the name, KodakCoin is not actually a Kodak project. The company behind the offering, WENN Digital, is a California-based affiliate of a British photo agency that specializes in paparazzi photo licensing. Under their licensing agreement, Kodak will not receive any direct revenue from the public offering. It will receive a minority stake in WENN Digital, 3 per cent of all KodakCoins issued and a royalty on future revenue.

Cameron Chell, a lead adviser to the KodakCoin project, told me that the initial offering represented a seminal moment for Kodak, and that the companys interest in blockchain technology was a savvy long-term investment.

The real story is that its about to be a renaissance, he said.

But Chell, a Canadian entrepreneur and motivational speaker who once opened for Tony Robbins, has a troubled track record. In 1998, Chell agreed to a five-year ban from the Alberta Stock Exchange in Canada and paid a $25,000 fine in connection with a violation of the exchanges rules. A previous company of his ended in ignominy after its chairman was charged with fraud.

Asked about these incidents, Chell said that he was young, inexperienced and was irresponsible in my actions, and that he had learned a lot since 1998 and work hard to conduct myself in a manner that does not reflect that poor judgment. A Kodak spokesman did not return a request for comment about Chell and whether it knew about the ban.

Chell has refashioned himself as a blockchain expert in recent years, and KodakCoin is his biggest project so far. He is the chairman of Appcoin Innovations, which was registered as a literary agency  Redstone Literary Agents  until last year, when it became a consulting firm that provides a turnkey set of services for companies to develop and integrate blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies, according to securities filings.

The company, which trades over-the-counter as a penny stock, earned no revenue in 2015 or 2016, according to SEC filings. Appcoin Innovations is slated to receive 20 per cent of all KodakCoins issued and a portion of the offering proceeds, a stake that could amount to millions if the offering is successful.

Once formally launched, Chell wrote to me in an email, the company will hopefully provide shareholders a traditional and transparent place to participate in the crypto space with projects that are regulatory compliant.

Now, about those coins. You might think that a digital currency that is trying to democratize photography and make licensing fair to artists, in Clarkes words, would be easily accessible. But because of regulatory requirements, KodakCoins will be available only to so-called accredited investors in the United States. An accredited investor is defined as a person with a net worth of $1 million or more, or an annual income above $200,000.

How many cryptocurrency-obsessed millionaire photographers do you know?

Even if photographers do meet the requirements to participate, they could have a hard time spending their KodakCoins, or redeeming them for cash.

The SEC has warned that securities sold in private offerings, such as KodakCoins, may be difficult to resell  and that investors may be required to hold on to them indefinitely. A KodakCoin representative told me that the company believes its tokens will eventually be freely traded, and that it may issue other types of tokens in the future that will not be subject to the same restrictions.

KodakCoins white paper says that token holders may receive other benefits, such as a share of KodakOnes revenue and access to a marketplace that will allow them to spend their KodakCoins on camera equipment, studios for photo shoots, and travel expenses. But these benefits could fail to materialize.

Cryptocurrency experts also do not seem impressed with the Kodak KashMiner, a Bitcoin-mining machine advertised at this years CES electronics trade show. According to the advertisement, users will pay $3,400 to rent the machine, a Kodak-branded computer that solves complex math equations to unlock new Bitcoin, for two years. Half the Bitcoins successfully mined with the Kashminer will go back to Spotlite, the company licensing Kodaks name, and the user will keep the other half.

Kodak hasnt shared many details about its KashMiner deal. But renting the machines could be a hard sell. In its CES advertisement, KashMiner estimates that each renter will earn $9,000 from mining Bitcoin over the two-year contract window. Experts told me that figure was most likely inflated, because Bitcoin mining gets harder over time. And they pointed out that the KashMiner itself appears to be simply a rebranded version of a popular Bitcoin-mining machine that can be purchased outright for less than the rental cost.

All of this  the origins of KodakCoin, the currency itself and the lofty claims about the KashMiners money-making potential  adds up to a big question mark, and points to the possibility that Kodak may be in over its head.

The best-case scenario is that they believe that the technology will eventually be able to deliver what theyve pitched, said Carlson, the blockchain consultant. The worst-case scenario is that they are just being very opportunistic.

Clarke, Kodaks chief executive, characterized the blockchain projects as a small part of the companys overall strategy, and said it was ironic that critics were faulting Kodak for embracing a young technology like cryptocurrency, given that its past problems were caused by a failure to innovate.

This isnt speculative, Clarke said. Were taking an emerging new technology in blockchain, and were using it to solve a real problem.

Read more about:Disc jockey David Mueller was fired from his job at Denver radio station KYGO in June 2013 after Swift said he slipped his hand underneath her dress and grabbed her bare buttocks while they posed together for a photograph.

Mueller denied the accusations, sued Swift for $3 million and lost. She countersued for a single dollar, signalling that the suit wasnt about money to her. She won.

Still, Larry Fuss, the chief executive of Delta Radio, believes him and not her. He hired Mueller as a DJ on country music station KIX in Greenwood, Mississippi, where on Monday Mueller began co-hosting a morning show called Jackson & Jonbob, according to the New York Daily News and Inside Radio. Mueller, who used the pseudonym Jackson in his last job, goes by the name Jackson at his new job as well.

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Taylor Swift says she felt blamed in sexual assault trial against Denver DJ, discusses importance of coming forward

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During the trial, Swift testified that when Mueller groped her, I remember being frantic, distressed, feeling violated in a way I had never experienced before. And her mother, Andrea Swift, testified that when she heard about the incident she wanted to vomit and cry at the same time.

I sat down with him face-to-face in Minneapolis before I offered him the job and talked to him about it, Fuss told the Daily News. Hes either the worlds best liar, or hes telling the truth. I tend to believe his version of the story and most people who have talked to him face-to-face do believe his version of the story.

Muellers hiring comes in the midst of the #MeToo movement, which has drawn attention to sexual harassment and assault, particularly in the workplace. Swift was one of the women featured on the Time magazines Person of the Year cover, which dubbed her a silence breaker for speaking out about the Mueller incident.

Many of Taylor Swifts fans took to Twitter to express their anger with Delta Radios decision to hire Mueller. Some posted Fuss phone number and email address, asking others to inundate him with angry calls and messages. Others simply wrote indignant notes.

One user tweeted, Larry Fuss, #TimesUp, adding, You might want to look into the hashtag. Because I can tell you right now, the backlash you are receiving right now for your hiring decisions goes way beyond just Taylor Swift fans. This is about women, respect for women, and we will no longer be silent.

Another user claimed she made a donation to Times Up legal fund on behalf of Larry Fuss. She said that abusers shouldnt get a second chance. I think they need to get over the fact that they are ostracized because of their actions.

Fuss dismissed the social media outcry.

Most of them need to get a life, he told the New York Daily News. Most of the response I have seen this morning  theres been quite a few on our Facebook page, and none of it is radio people, none of it is local people in Mississippi. Its all originating from some Taylor Swift fan group somewhere. Theyre telling people to go to this stations Web page and post negative comments.

Its just people who dont have a clue, or dont really have any knowledge of the facts he added.

Fuss said he hired Mueller because in the radio business, its all about what comes out of the speakers and Mueller sounds good. But he did admit that the decision was maybe a tiny bit about publicity.

Neither Fuss nor Mueller responded to requests for comment from The Washington Post.

Read more about:OTTAWAConservative Leader Andrew Scheer has ordered an independent review into how Rick Dykstra was allowed to run even though party officials reportedly knew he faced allegations of sexual assault.

The decision marks a reversal for Scheer who was non-committal about the prospect of an internal review earlier in the week.

But with concerns of harassment and abuse sweeping political circles, senior Conservative MPs had pressured Scheer to investigate how Dykstra remained a flag-bearer for the party in the 2015 federal election.

Dykstra stepped down as president of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives Sunday, hours before an explosive report in Macleans magazine detailed allegations he sexually assaulted a party staffer when he was a Conservative MP in 2014.

According to the report, Conservative party brass were made aware of allegations against Dykstra, but allowed him to run in the 2015 election anyway.

People (are) coming forward with their version of events. Some publicly, some put their name behind it and some anonymously. Its very difficult for someone to make a determination of finding of fact in that scenario, Scheer told reporters Wednesday afternoon.

I certainly take everyone at their word, and well see what an independent third party report produces.

As of Wednesday morning, when the Conservative MPs gathered for their weekly caucus meeting, the party had not committed to an internal review. Scheer had previously told the Canadian Press he couldnt speak for decisions made by the party before he became leader.

Maxime Bernier, who placed a close second behind Scheer in the partys 2017 leadership race, told reporters Wednesday morning that the party must answer questions about why Dykstra was allowed to run. The sentiment was echoed by another leadership rival, Brad Trost, who wrote there absolutely must be an investigation.

A few hours later, Scheer announced a strengthened code of conduct for staff and candidates, including mandatory training, and an independent review into the incident.

The key is to make sure if there were breakdowns, if there was a lack of a process, if any of these allegations are true, then we obviously have to make sure it doesnt happen again in the future, Scheer said.

I think we can all agree on that.

The allegations against Dykstra have not been tested in court. Dykstra denied the allegations, but did not specifically address Macleans reporting.

In that report, a young staffer filed a police complaint in 2014 alleging that after a night of drinking in Ottawa, Dykstra forced her to perform oral sex on him.

According to Macleans, the allegations were brought to party brass in the lead up to the 2015 election, but Dykstra was still allowed to run as a Conservative.

He lost and went on to become the president of the provincial party.

In the House of Commons Monday, Conservative MP Michelle Rempel said those responsible for approving Dykstras candidacy should be ashamed of themselves.

Is it possible for a drunk staffer to give consent for sex to a senior male in a workplace organization who aggressively propositions that staffer? Within any standard workplace code of conduct, the answer to that should be unequivocally no, Rempel said.

Today, there was a report that, at one crucial point within my party, this was a topic for debate, and that is disgusting. In that incident, media reports say that people sat around a very senior table and argued semantics around whether action in our workplace should be taken because criminal charges were not proceeded with.

Those people should be ashamed of themselves, and they should have no role or influence in this or any political party.

Repeated calls to Guy Giorno, the Conservatives 2015 campaign director, and Jenni Byrne, the 2015 campaign manager, were not returned Wednesday evening.

In a statement to the Globe and Mail, Giorno said he was not aware of the specifics of the allegation against Dykstra. He said he was only aware that police had investigated Dykstra for something and had closed the file. He said he did not know the police had closed the file at the request of the complainant.

Scheers decision to launch a review comes after a week that has shaken politics at both Queens Park and in Ottawa  with the leader of the provincial Progressive Conservatives, Patrick Brown, Dykstra, and federal Liberal sport minister Kent Hehr resign over allegations of sexual harassment or assault.

Asked if the sudden outpouring of revelations about sexual harassment on Parliament Hill had sparked any self-reflection about his own past actions or behaviour, Scheer said, no.

A good friend of mine, when I first got elected, said nothing good happens in Ottawa after 8 oclock, Scheer said.

Faced with a similar question, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said he believed we can all do better in our past.

I was talking a couple of days ago, about the idea of the presumption of innocence. And the presumption of innocence is a fundamental hallmark of our criminal justice system, he told reporters.

But if we want to change the culture of silence and the culture where women have seen their power stripped from them, where weve seen gender-based violence, then we need to do something different.

With a file from Alex Ballingall

Read more about:OTTAWAThe federal prison system is changing the way it treats transgender inmates, who will now be placed in a mens or womens facility based on how they self-identify.

Correctional staff must also address transgender inmates by their preferred name and pronoun and offenders will be allowed to shop for both mens or womens items from the correctional services approved catalogue, regardless of their anatomy or the gender on their identification documents.

These changes come after the federal government added gender identity and expression to the list of prohibited grounds for discrimination in the Canadian Human Rights Act last June.

We are overjoyed that (Correctional Service Canada) is making so many positive changes that recognize the human rights of trans people in the correctional system, said Jennifer Metcalfe, executive director of Prisoners Legal Services.

Read more:

Transgender inmate wins right to move to federal prison for women in B.C.

California murder convict becomes 1st U.S. inmate to have state-funded sex reassignment

These changes will improve the safety and dignity of transgender federal offenders in Canada, affecting every aspect of their daily lives.

Helen Kennedy, executive director of advocacy group Egale Canada, called the reforms a step in the right direction but warned that correctional staff are not properly equipped to accommodate transgender prisoners.

Unless its implemented with the training thats required for all of those front line workers, then we could potentially be putting people in harms way, she said.

Jeremy Dias of the Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity applauded the government for following through on its earlier commitments but he said he too would like to see more done to keep transgender prisoners safe.

This is only halfway there, he said. In 2018, we have to start thinking of trans and non-binary specific correctional facilities.

While more needs to be done, it is worth celebrating the progress made in advocating for the rights of transgender people in general in recent history, Dias said.

There was a time not so long ago where we didnt think that these sorts of policies and initiatives were even possible.

A joint statement from Prisoners Legal Services, the Correctional Service of Canada and the Canadian Human Rights Commission said the reforms are the result of years of collaboration.

The head of the human rights commission, Marie-Claude Landry, said the reforms are about respect and human dignity, which every person is entitled to, including those in the prison system.

The changes also emphasize the privacy and confidentiality of an inmates gender identity, which will be shared only if relevant and only with those directly involved in a prisoners care.

Individualized protocols will also be offered to transgender inmates, which include accommodations when accessing shower and toilet facilities and the choice of male or female officers to conduct frisk and strip searches, urine testing and camera surveillance.

CSC commissioner Don Head said the service is committed to building a safe, inclusive and respectful environment for everyone, including transgender staff, offenders, volunteers and visitors.SWAN RIVER, MAN.Officials in a Manitoba town in the midst of a water crisis say theres no timeline for when its wells will be fixed.

There were indications the problem in Swan River could be fixed by Thursday, but a release Wednesday morning said the situation is still critical.

Deputy mayor Lance Jacobson said the town, 500 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, is waiting for several parts to fix the wells.

He said they have to be flown in and its not clear when everything will be back to normal.

Read more: Northwest Manitoba town facing critical water shortage due to well problems

Swan River declared a state of emergency on Sunday after telling its 4,000 residents a total loss of water was imminent.

The towns release said everyone needs to continue drastically reducing water consumption.

While we are still able to produce small amounts of safe water, this can change at any time. While crews are making great progress there is no timeline for the completion of repairs and return to normal water usage, it said.

This means no baths, no showers, no washing clothes or running dishwashers. These activities are major water consumption activities that deplete our water reserves.

Jacobson said the problem stems from multiple mechanical issues with the towns three deep artesian wells. Two are out of order and one is functioning, but not at the normal rate.

Bottled water and bulk potable water remain available.

Jacobson said the town still has the resources to fight a fire and there is no boil-water advisory.

All schools remain closed except the high school where students are writing exams.

Read more about:Ontario doctors who have a moral or religious objection to treatments such as assisted dying, contraception or abortions must refer patients to another doctor who can provide the service, after a court found it is necessary to guarantee that vulnerable patients can access the care they need.

A group of five doctors and three professional organizations had launched a legal challenge against a policy issued by the provinces medical regulator, arguing it infringed on their right to freedom of religion and conscience under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The group  which includes the Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada, the Canadian Federation of Catholic Physicians Societies and Canadian Physicians for Life  said the requirement for a referral amounted to being forced to take part in the treatment.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, meanwhile, said its policy aims to balance the moral beliefs of individual physicians while nonetheless ensuring access to care, particularly for vulnerable patients.

Read more:

Health Canada sees rise in number of assisted deaths in first half of 2017

Most N.S. patients seeking medically assisted death didnt get it

In a ruling released Wednesday, the divisional court said that though the policy does limit doctors religious freedom, the breach is justified. The benefits to the public outweigh the cost to doctors, who can choose to practise a specialty where such moral dilemmas will not arise, the court said.

The goal of ensuring access to health care, in particular equitable access to health care, is pressing and substantial. The effective referral requirements of the policies are rationally connected to the goal, Justice Herman J. Wilton-Siegel wrote on behalf of a three-member panel.

The requirements impair the individual applicants right of religious freedom as little as reasonably possible in order to achieve the goal.

Whats more, the court found, the applicants do not have a common law right or a property right to practise medicine, much less a constitutionally protected right.

Those who enjoy the benefits of a licence to practise a regulated profession must expect to be subject to regulatory requirements that focus on the public interest, rather than the interests of the professionals themselves, Wilton-Siegel wrote.

The groups said they were disappointed with the ruling and would review their options in regards to an appeal.

We heard from our members and other doctors with conscientious objections over and over again that they felt referral made them complicit and that they wouldnt be able to live with themselves or stay in the profession if effective referral is still required, Larry Worthen, executive director of the Christian Medical and Dental Society of Canada, said in a statement.

The college and its supporters welcomed the decision, calling it a victory for patients.

We believe the effective referral policy strikes a fair, sensible balance between a physicians right to conscience or moral objection and a patients right to care. We are grateful that the judges decision puts patients first, said Shanaaz Gokool, CEO of the advocacy group Dying With Dignity, which was an intervener in the case.

But some observers said the court didnt go far enough to safeguard patients rights to receive care.

Udo Schuklenk, a bioethicist at Queens University in Kingston, Ont., called the ruling a classic Canadian compromise and said it failed to consider whether the accommodation was warranted.

Protections for conscientious objectors are valuable in situations such as military conscription, but have no place in a profession such as medicine, in which people participate voluntarily, he said. Some countries, such as Sweden and Finland, make no allowances for moral objections in medicine, he said.

If physicians are allowed to bypass treatments such as abortions or contraception  which patients have a legal right to obtain  by simply giving a referral, it paves the way for them to bow out of other services down the line, he said.

With future developments in medicine, we will never be able to predict what the latest thing is that somebody will object to do, he said.

The referral system can also put great strain on the health-care system, he said. If, for example, a patient seeks medically assisted death in a remote community and no one there will provide it, it falls on taxpayers to pay for another physician to travel there, he said.

The colleges policy was established in 2015 under the guidance of a working group and was subjected to external consultations. It said the referral doesnt have to be in writing and can de delegated to office staff.MONTREALThe parents of Alexandre Bissonnette, the man alleged to have killed six men last year at a Quebec City mosque, have broken their silence to commiserate with the victims of an attack that remains totally inexplicable.

Manon Marchand and Raymond Bissonnette say in a letter sent to Radio-Canada that the year since the Jan. 29, 2017 shooting that also injured five other men has been a nightmare.

The immense pain and suffering of the innocent victims and their families by this inexcusable act are still to this day, totally inexplicable. So many lives were destroyed in vain, the couple wrote.

They said that they have not made any public comments until now, but have expressed their condolences in letters sent directly to the victims and their families through the Centre Culturel Islamique de Quebec.

They too have been suffering in the year since the attack. A Radio-Canada reporter who spoke with Marchand said that she, her husband and Bissonnettes twin brother, Mathieu, have been in counseling to cope with the tragedy. They have also been targeted by threats for which the police have had to intervene.

Alexandre remains our son that we love and that will always be a part of our family. Like all parents, we had hoped to see him succeed and be happy in life, the parents wrote. In a sense, we have also lost a son.

Bissonnette is charged with six counts of first-degree murder and six counts of attempted murder for the shooting. His criminal trial is set to begin on March 26.

Read more:

Muslim group asks Trudeau to designate Jan. 29 day of remembrance for Quebec City mosque shooting

Who is Alexandre Bissonnette, the suspect at the centre of the Quebec shooting attack?

Quebec City mosque shooting suspect to go straight to trial, Crown saysUNITY, SASK.It was late evening when the pungent odour began entering peoples homes.

Overwhelming one resident called it. Disgusting, said another who inhaled the smell wafting through this western Saskatchewan town of 2,500 on Jan. 2.

It gave me a migraine and nausea and burning eyes and throat, one local wrote on the communitys Facebook page. Others quickly joined sharing similar symptoms.

By the next day, some residents were thinking about leaving town.

No one knows whats going on, one wrote. Im thinking of packing my children up and leaving before it gets any worse in my home!

Neither the towns emergency alert system nor the provincial alert system issued warnings to residents; no decision has been made on charges against the waste disposal facility that has acknowledged being the source of the emission; and the incident appears nowhere in the provinces tracking database, a joint investigation by the Toronto Star and Global News has found.

Nothing went off that night, says Unity resident Lindsey Ann Soderholm. There was nothing over the radio  Nobody called  There was nothing.

Nearly a month later, the cause of the smell remains a mystery in Unity, one of the hundreds of towns that dot the western Canadian landscape where the oil industrys economic benefits and its public health risks coexist in constant tension.

A day after the incident, operators of the Tervita waste disposal site, which sits two kilometres east of town, issued a statement confirming a malfunctioning pump had released an unpleasant smell that was not hazardous or dangerous.

Tervita declined interview requests for this story, sending a two-sentence email: The Saskatchewan Ministry of Economy is currently conducting an investigation and we are working with them. We have no additional information to provide at this time.

The province did not issue a statement for 10 days, confirming to residents on Jan. 12 that a strong odour had in some cases caused personal discomfort. The province dispatched inspectors to investigate the risk and the cause of the incident.

Provincial officials also declined interview requests but sent a statement confirming the province is investigating over the next several weeks with a full report prepared once it is completed. The investigation will also examine if the official response to the incident was appropriate.

Many in Unity believe the answer is no.

The critical question still has not been answered, says resident Morice Miller. What exactly was in that toxic emission and was there any danger to the health and well being of the citizens of Unity?

Read more:

Like saying cancer is not a disease: Ottawa considers declaring deadly oilpatch gas non-toxic

That rotten stench in the air? Its the smell of deadly gas and secrecy

Toxic gas nearly killed this oil worker. His employer never told the province

The provinces characterization of the incident as causing personal discomfort is, Miller says, more than a bit of an understatement.

The town was unprepared. Tervita was unprepared . The government of Saskatchewan, especially, was unprepared and that is unacceptable, says the 71-year-old. This cannot happen again. Period . What is more important, the jobs or the health of the citizens of Unity? For me, thats a no-brainer.

Alexandria Stubbs family dog refused to go outside on the day the smell came to town.

The smell was quite strong, says the mother of two small children. Within just the couple of minutes the door was open, it filled our living room  I went on Facebook to see if anyone else was bothered and saw the whole town was complaining. Thats when we started brainstorming a plan to pack up the kids and evacuate town.

There has been no attempt to debrief the people of this town as to what happened and the severity of it, or what to do if and when it happens again.

Soderholm, a 32-year-old mother of two, thought she had a gas leak in her house. She called the fire department and was told to leave, go outside into the frigid cold with her children, aged 5 and 13, and wait for someone to come.

After 25 minutes sitting in her car, Soderholm decided the smell was stronger outside so they went back inside, logged on computer and discovered others experiencing the same thing.

My daughter had a headache and the headache lasted until the next day, she says. I had a migraine and was feeling nauseous.

In the end, she says no one responded to her call.

Nobody came to test the air around my house, she says. We have no idea what it was  (The Town of Unity) completely brushed it under the rug . Once you start showing physical reactions to a chemical or a gas in the air, thats definitely cause for concern.

I would like them to be fully honest about what happened, what we were breathing, the concentration levels and what theyre planning to do so that it doesnt happen again, says Soderholm.

Residents fear that the emission could have contained hydrogen sulphide (H2S), a toxic, potentially deadly gas that killed one oilfield worker in Saskatchewan in 2014 and injured others.

The province told the Star and Global News that there is no H2S monitor in Unity.

In its statement, the government said ministry staff visited the town with air-monitoring equipment, including H2S monitors, on Jan. 3 and found no toxic emissions. But concerns remain about what was in the air the previous night.

On Jan. 2, Carey Baker, the towns director of economic development, picked up air-quality testing equipment that the province had left with him after a previous incident and took air samples along the main street.

Baker sent the results to the provinces ministry of environment on Jan. 4 where they forwarded them to Ottawa. Environment Canada officials in Ottawa confirmed they received the samples. Results are expected shortly and will be shared with the province.

Tervitas Unity facility is licensed to receive, store, treat and dispose of waste, including hazardous and hydrocarbon-contaminated wastes from the petrochemical industry, a provincial statement confirmed. Some residents believe the incident may be connected to a shipment of waste from a Shell Canada plant in Caroline, Alta. But theres no clarity on what was in that shipment. Shell declined to answer that question.

As one of Tervitas customers, we were made aware that there was an issue near their Unity Cavern facility on Jan. 2, 2018, reads a statement from Shell. We remain in touch with the company as well as local regulators to assist in any investigation being conducted as needed.

Brooke Ceslak, 23, is a former oil industry worker who, like many in Unity, doesnt support any response that would undermine the plants operations and the jobs it provides.

If its dangerous it needs to be told, she says. But being that they said it wasnt dangerous  I guess we just have to believe them. But it would be good to see all the proof.

I definitely dont want (the facility) shut down.

For many, the prospect of a similar incident re-occuring without a warning and a detailed explanation from authorities has left lingering implications.

If theres a risk of that happening again, Ill be moving, says Solderholm.

With files from Patti Sonntag and Patricia ElliottMembers of Torontos LGBTQ community are openly questioning whether bias played a role in how long it took for police to make an arrest in a series of missing persons cases that stretches back years.

Majeed Kayhan was named this week as one victim of alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur, who now faces five charges of first-degree murder.

Kayan was reported missing in 2012, but its not until Andrew Kinsman disappeared that police really took action, said Kerolos Saleib, who works with the Alliance for South Asian Aids Prevention (ASAAP).

All of a sudden this white guy goes missing, and then [police] start to put out warnings, and get more involved, said Andrew Stewart, who has lived in the village for the past six years.

Read more:

Police found man tied up in alleged serial killer Bruce McArthurs apartment

Alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur undoubtedly believed he had outsmarted everyone

Anguished family of man missing since 2010 watch news of murders from afar

Salieb believes race was a factor in how much attention police gave Kinsmans case when he disappeared in 2017, compared to the disappearances of Kayhan and two other men between 2010 and 2012.

I cant help but think that some lives could have been saved, he said.

The fear that a serial killer might have been targeting men in the village had been a rumour within the community since about 2012. Some village residents told the Star they didnt feel it was taken seriously.

There were whispers. Id go for my morning coffee and Id hear people talking about it, said resident Michael Reynes. When you have an entire community of people saying, Hey, we noticed this  and then police released a statement a few weeks ago saying what we reported at the time was true, its a little concerning.

In wake of the McArthur investigation, Mayor John Tory has pledged to speak to LGBTQ community members about policing concerns. I certainly want to address the broader issue of the community and its relationship with the police, Tory said.

Kayhans case was originally investigated along with the disappearances of Skandaraj Navaratnam and Abdulbasir Faizi in what police dubbed Project Houston.

At that time, said Toronto police spokesperson Meaghan Gray, investigators had a missing person and added two other missing cases because we felt there were similarities among the missing but nothing that connected the disappearances to one another.

In an emailed statement, Gray called allegations of racial bias absolutely not true, noting that Project Houston had dedicated resources and lasted more than a year.

We are always listening when a community feels they have not received an appropriate or respectful level of policing, Gray added.

I want to be clear that we do not dismiss those concerns.

Former village resident Rich Seviora thinks the arrest of a suspect is proof that police were listening to the gay community.

Without having listened to us, there would have been no investigation, Seviora wrote in an email.

Homicide Detective Sgt. Hank Idsinga updated the media on the case against Bruce McArthur on January 29. Toronto Police have charged McArthur with three additional counts of first-degree murder, bringing the total number of charges to five. Idsinga also said that McArthur is an "alleged serial killer." (Toronto Police Services/YouTube)

Enzo Yaksic, co-director of Northeastern Universitys Atypical Homicide Research Group, told the Star in an email that serial killers can target marginalized communities because they produce those that are willing to connect with anyone, regardless of the personal risk, and whose absence may be overlooked due to systemic biases.

Community service groups in the village are now offering services like ASAAPs safe program, intended for use by LGBTQ people who feel they cant share their whereabouts with friends or family, either because they are closeted or because it is unsafe for them to do so. ASAAP intends to launch the project in upcoming weeks.

Correction  February 1, 2018: This article was edited from a previous version that misspelled Michael Reynes surname.

With files from Tamar Harris and David RiderA new report suggests Toronto isnt living up to its motto that diversity is our strength  and 25 budding civic leaders were recruited Tuesday to help turn that around.

Theyre part of Civic Actions Diverse City Fellows program, which the non-profit has run in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area for almost a decade. Over the next year, the 25 civic-minded rising leaders will get a free crash course in leadership development with an eye to amplifying diverse voices  something they think the local decision-making table lacks, according to a recent survey of Civic Actions leaders.

This years cohort includes policy-makers, civic advocates, and movers and shakers from the public and private sectors, academia and labour. They were picked based on community involvement, professional experience and ability to collaborate.

Take Benjamin Bongolan, who helps newcomers and those from the LGBT community settle into their new homes as a program co-ordinator at The 519 community centre in Toronto. The Mississauga-by-way-of-the-Philippines resident said his own experience as a newcomer gives him insight into the unique challenges they face, and he hopes to glean more from fellow city-builders in the program.

Its a great honour, Bongolan said. Recognition isnt something that happens all the time in this profession.

Theres also Abi Jeyaratnam, a leadership academy architect at Centennial College, where she engages students on social justice issues. Jeyaratnam grew up in the Jane and Finch neighbourhood and her family came to Canada as refugees, which she said drives her to create a more inclusive city and tackle poverty and racism through accessible education.

My narrative has also been a part of their narrative, Jeyaratnam said.

Subagini Sivapatham wants to shake up the boardroom. She works at Futurpreneur Canada, a non-profit that funds and supports nascent entrepreneurs aged 18-39 by linking them up with experts. As a woman and person of colour, Sivapatham said she feels a great sense of responsibility to amplify diverse voices in the economy.

(The program) is much needed for . . . enhancing what I do, she said.

In the GTA, where nearly half of residents identify as a visible minority, shrinking the sidelines of the leadership playing field has never been more important, said Sevaun Palvetzian, Civic Actions CEO.

The corporate world doesnt measure up either, she said  visible minorities make up just 3.3 per cent of corporate boards in Toronto and women account for 23.6 per cent of positions, according to a 2017 Ryerson report.

So last fall almost 200 community advocates got together for Civic Actions annual city-building conference to draft their own playbook for an inclusive GTHA. That work, and an Environics poll gauging their personal experiences thus far, were released in a report last Thursday that shows we have a long way to go when it comes to diverse leadership, Palvetzian said.

Thats not least because nearly half  48 per cent  of the community advocates said they are often the only one in the room who looks like them. Almost as many, 45 per cent, said they directly encountered racism and/or discrimination in the past year and had to change something about their identity in order to fit in.

Palvetzian said that statistic was particularly jarring.

We are the most diverse region on the planet and yet our people are personally experiencing hardships because of that.

An overwhelming majority perceived that other voices are given clout over theirs  91 per cent said they believed the opinions of some groups are more likely to be listened to than others when decisions are made in the GTHA.

Affordable housing, economic opportunity and access to information topped their priority list.

Seventy per cent of attendees doubt theyll ever afford a home in their town. Women were even more worried  61 per cent of female respondents were extremely concerned about access to affordable housing, versus 36 per cent of men.

Women also thought their financial situation was a lot more precarious. About half, 49 per cent, felt confident they could sustain their quality of life if they lost their job, compared to 65 per cent of men. Overall, 46 per cent of community advocates said they could not make ends meet for more than three months if they found themselves out of work.

When it came to education, health care and housing, advocates also perceived a widening gap between those influencing the design and function of (those) systems and the individuals who are most directly impacted.

Most think journalists could cover their stories better, too  78 per cent believed the media perpetuates negative stereotypes, while a paltry 37 per cent thought local news media report accurately on their communities.

If were all going to increasingly fewer and fewer sources of legitimate news, but those legitimate news outlets arent legitimately representing the population, then we have a problem, Palvetzian said.

Now advocates are back in their hometowns to turn that around.

That includes doing things like developing social contracts with colleagues or conducting a survey about how to engage everyone in a workplace  such as designating a prayer room at the office.

Palvetzian also suggested emerging leaders take a stand against manels by pledging only to participate in panel discussions that reflect the room and women and racialized people in particular.

Questioning the status quo, volunteering on a board or association, and telling their stories are other ways to drive inclusion. According to the report, 68 per cent of attendees thought that people who discriminate do so out of ignorance.Workers making new claims for illnesses stemming from years of exposure to toxic substances at General Electric Peterborough will not receive support from the provincial network of occupational health clinics before submitting their cases to the compensation board.

A dispute over funding will impact new claimants who came forward following a Star investigation into hundreds of cases of cancer and other diseases faced by former workers exposed to dozens of known or suspected human carcinogens at the plant between 1960 and roughly 1980.

Advocates had hoped the Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario Workers, a Ministry of Labour-funded body that provides medical and scientific support to occupational disease victims, would receive additional resources to assist new GE Peterborough claimants assemble their cases.

Instead, workers files are expected to be sent straight to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board for evaluation.

OHCOW was the one agency that we had hoped could provide documentation and medical write-ups and proof. And theyve taken that away from us, said Sue James, whose father died of a tumour in his lung and four on his spine after three decades at GE Peterborough.

It will be devastating for people.

The most recent budget proposal submitted by OHCOW to the ministry seeks about $812,500 over 14 months to hire two occupational hygienists and a nurse to review the workers occupational history and medical file for work-relatedness in light of the new workplace exposure evidence related to GE.

The WSIB has already agreed to review some 250 previously denied compensation cases taking into account new evidence and scientific research, and has its own team of medical and industrial hygiene experts.

In an early January letter to OHCOW, Ministry of Labour prevention office official William Roy said the ministry was pleased with the progress that WSIB has made to date, noting around 60 per cent of previously denied claims had been overturned.

Those figures have now shifted; the board has finished reviewing 72 of the 250 previously rejected claims, and has overturned around half. Over the past year, OHCOW has received 77 new files from workers who have not yet filed cases with the compensation board.

In a statement to the Star, a ministry spokesperson said it would consider additional funding for the organization to help new claimants file appeals if they are not successful at the compensation board.

It is a priority of the Ministry of Labour to treat occupational diseases with the same seriousness and importance as physical injuries, the statement said. The ministry continues to review the current OHCOW funding submission for new cases in the context of the progress that WSIB is making with their review.

Bob DeMatteo, an occupational disease researcher who sits on OHCOWs board, said the organization plays a crucial role in providing an independent assessment of workers medical history and possible exposures on the job.

There are ethical questions to deny resources to a clinic like OHCOW where you get independent assessments of your claim, he said. OHCOW was created to do just that  to provide independent medical and industrial hygiene assessments to workers who really couldnt afford to get that kind of work done.

Following the Stars investigation, the ministry sponsored sessions in Peterborough to provide information on the compensation claim process for new potential claimants.

In a series of emails to ministry officials seen by the Star, OHCOW said it agreed to participate in the sessions on the promise of resources sufficient  to respond to workers on a timely basis.

We now find ourselves 10 months after the event, having received no additional resources and being directed by the ministers office to transfer our files directly to the WSIB.

We respectfully wanted to express our frustration at how workers from the Peterborough project are being treated and note that we are extremely displeased with the usurpation of our role as a labour-governed organization, which is now being handed over to the WSIB, one email says.

OHCOW ran intake clinics in Peterborough in 2004, which resulted in some 660 occupational disease claims being lodged at the compensation board. But OHCOW was unable to complete a comprehensive profile of exposure risks at the plant because of funding constraints, DeMatteo said.

More than half of the 660 cases were subsequently withdrawn, abandoned or rejected because of apparently insufficient evidence.

James, who worked at GE Peterborough for three decades like her father, says the long road to compensation has left many of her former colleagues without faith in the system.

While all of this plays out, the people sit here. And its been years and years and years, and theyre not hopeful, she added. They dont want to get their hopes up that something true and right should happen.The energy behind the ongoing investigation into alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur doesnt like the spotlight.

But Toronto police Det. Sgt. Hank Idsinga says his right-hand man on the sprawling case, Det. David Dickinson, nonetheless deserves it. The junior homicide cop played a central role in collecting key evidence against the 66-year-old landscaper who stands accused of being Torontos most prolific killer.

He really is my go-to guy, Idsinga said Tuesday of Dickinson.

The media-shy cop stood off to the side during a packed media conference Monday as Idsinga announced police had been laid more charges against McArthur, now facing five counts of first degree murder in the deaths of five men.

Dickinson, who has about four years on the homicide squad, has been working full-time on the case since August, when officers from 51 division probing the disappearances of Andrew Kinsman and Selim Esen reached out for assistance.

While he cant get into the specifics, citing the integrity of the case against McArthur, Idsinga said Dickinson worked full tilt from the first day. Dickinson ultimately drove the investigative techniques that helped establish, in November, that Kinsman had been murdered and that McArthur was a suspect, Idsinga said.

Idsinga stresses that at that time there was no evidence linking McArthur to any other deaths, and that in December police truly did not have evidence to suggest there was a serial killer. That evidence did not come until January, when investigators uncovered evidence linking McArthur to alleged victim Selim Esen.

Hes smart, hes young, hes energetic. And hes been balancing this investigation and a couple of very good court cases, Idsinga said of Dickinson.

Other high profile cases Dickinson has tackled include the investigation into the disappearance of Shawn Kapadia, the Mississauga man who Toronto police believe was killed in a west-end home and whose body is believed to be encased within a concrete block.

Read more:

Police made quick decision to arrest Bruce McArthur to protect life of young man: sources

Alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur undoubtedly believed he had outsmarted everyone

Opinion | Editorial: City needs answers on serial killer investigation

He also helped police make an arrest in the brutal death of Sylvia Consuelo, found dead in her Rexdale apartment in 2016. Najib Amin is charged with first-degree murder in that case, which is still before the courts.

McArthur is currently charged with five counts of first-degree murder. His alleged victims are Kinsman, 49; Esen, 44; Majeed Kayhan, 58; Dean Lisowick, 47; Soroush Mahmudi, 50.

A Toronto man is facing three more first-degree murder charges, after being charged in the presumed deaths of two men reported missing from the citys gay village. Police say its fair to call Bruce McArthur an alleged serial killer. (The Canadian Press)

Toronto police have identified 30 properties linked to McArthur through his landscaping business and believe more evidence  and potentially, the remains of more victims  may be hidden in those areas.

Investigators are encouraging anyone who hired McArthur as a landscaper to call investigators if they have not yet been contacted by police.Alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur was under police surveillance when officers were forced to make a quick decision to enter his home and arrest him, believing a life could be in danger, police sources confirm to the Star.

On the morning of January 18, police watching McArthur observed a young man entering the Thorncliffe Park building where there the 66-year-old landscaper rented an apartment. When he walked in the 19th floor unit, they knew they had to intervene, according to a police source with knowledge of the events.

When officers decided they had to take action, they entered McArthurs apartment and found a young man tied up but unharmed, according to the source.

None of the information about the circumstances of McArthurs arrest has been officially released by Toronto police.

Read more:

Anguished family of man missing since 2010 watch news of murders from afar

Meet the junior Toronto homicide detective thats the energy behind the Bruce McArthur investigation

Scott Mission was like home for alleged serial killer victim Dean Lisowick

Inside that same apartment over the weekend  10 days since the arrest  forensic investigators were still collecting trace evidence, gathering clues at just one of the more than two dozen addresses where McArthur may have left evidence of his alleged crimes.

McArthur, now accused of five counts of first-degree murder allegedly spanning from 2012 to last year, is now the subject of whats poised to become the most ambitious homicide investigation in the citys history.

This will end up being, including in terms of the potential scenes, the largest (investigation) Toronto has undertaken, said Mark Mendelson, a former Toronto police homicide detective, in an interview Tuesday.

Nearly two weeks after announcing McArthur was charged in the deaths of Selim Esen, 44, and Andrew Kinsman, 49, Toronto police Det. Sgt. Hank Idsinga announced Monday that three more first-degree murder charges had been laid against him.

Homicide Detective Sgt. Hank Idsinga updated the media on the case against Bruce McArthur on January 29. Toronto Police have charged McArthur with three additional counts of first-degree murder, bringing the total number of charges to five. Idsinga also said that McArthur is an "alleged serial killer." (Toronto Police Services/YouTube)

Investigators now believe that Majeed Kayhan, 58, Dean Lisowick, 47, and Soroush Mahmudi, 50, were killed by McArthur, who was known in Torontos Gay Village.

Police have not released any of the causes of death, though Idsinga has previously said they have a pretty good idea of how Kinsman and Esen died. Investigators have also said little about how McArthur came to know each of his alleged victims, though they have confirmed he and Kinsman were in a relationship.

Idsinga told reporters Monday that the ongoing probe  which includes 30 properties to which McArthur is linked through his landscaping work  is unprecedented. Police located the dismembered remains of three unidentified people inside large planters at a home in Leaside.

A team of dedicated investigators, forensic specialists and dozens of officers, including some from the K9 unit, have been scouring the properties, with the belief that yet more human remains could be found.

I have seen large scale investigations before with dozens and dozens of officers working on them. Weve never seen anything quite like this, Idsinga said.

The technicalities and complications in this case are mind-boggling, Mendelson said. Among the most challenging tasks will be the identification of human remains.

Mendelson said investigators may rely on dental records to trace remains back to an identity, though Idsinga said what has been found so far are skeletal remains.

Police may also try to track DNA through reverse paternities with family members, a technique that requires DNA from a mother and a father, Mendelson said. But that tactic relies upon having an idea of who is missing in the first place, something that is far from guaranteed in this case.

Lisowick, one of the three men who McArthur was charged with murdering Monday, was in fact never reported missing. Police have not revealed how they were able to obtain sufficient evidence in his death to charge McArthur.

Idsinga acknowledged Monday that a complication in the case is that its possible that there are more victims who not have been reported missing at all, or may have been reported missing in another place entirely.

If anyone comes into Toronto for an event such as Pride and then get reported missing back in their hometowns, the complainants not being aware that they were in Toronto  thats obviously something we have to look at.

As we sort out these remains and get them identified, we may find more people who were never reported missing, Idsinga said.

McArthur is due back in court February 14.

Wendy Gillis can be reached at wgillis@thestar.caAn altercation involving a group of men resulted in the death of a 25-year-old near Yonge and Wellesley Sts. on Monday night.

Toronto police said at around 8 p.m. they received reports of a man being chased by 10 other men followed by a stabbing. Suspects then fled the scene.

Simon Zerezghi was found suffering from a stab wound to the chest. He was rushed to hospital in critical condition, where he succumbed to his injuries around midnight.

The homicide unit has taken over the investigation, and they are asking anyone with information, to come forward and contact police at 416-808-5100 and Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477).

With files from Emma McIntoshA new legal clinic serving Black Ontarians expects to be up and running by August.

The Black Legal Action Centre came into existence following a decision last year by Legal Aid Ontario to defund the African Canadian Legal Clinic over allegations of financial mismanagement.

While that clinic still exists despite the loss of its legal aid funding, the new Black Legal Action Centre will be funded by Legal Aid Ontario. Members of its interim board of directors are currently busy searching for an office location, hiring an executive director and planning community consultations, which they hope to kick off early this year.

We had promised that we would keep the community informed all along, board chair Zanana Akande told the Star in an interview. We would certainly want to bring the clinic into existence in an atmosphere that was receptive and trusting, and we wanted to make sure that we healed any divisions because of the last clinic funding ending.

According to its new website, the Black Legal Action Centre, or BLAC, will work to combat individual and systemic anti-Black racism by providing legal representation; engaging in test case litigation, law reform, and community development; and delivering summary legal advice, brief services, and public legal education.

Akande said the board will focus on ensuring representation from all parts of the province, and that the Black community can feel as if they have a real role to play in the development of the new clinic.

She also said she doesnt envision any kind of competition with the African Canadian Legal Clinic.

If a test case was being covered by the ACLC, that would be sufficient, unless there was some reason to join in, or add our support, she said. There is no shortage of cases.

Another board member, Rinaldo Walcott, said its important that people know the new clinic will not just be focused on test cases  which can set legal precedents  but also the nitty-gritty work, such as helping an individual who cannot afford a lawyer.

We also believe that some of the important work we need to do is around legal education for members of our community, so youre going to see a clinic that has a much more integrated community profile, and a profile that is wide and broad, he said, mentioning as examples being a voice on behalf of Black women, and queer and trans Black people.

Were definitely willing to do the hard work for the test cases but also the nitty-gritty work, the kinds of legal services people need in every day life.

In a statement earlier this month, the CEO of Legal Aid Ontario, the provincial agency that provides funding to legal clinics and oversees the provinces legal aid plan, said the agency was proud to support the new clinic.

This work is directly in line with our mandate to ensure access to justice for members of disadvantaged communities, said CEO David Field. (Legal Aid Ontario) looks forward to supporting BLAC in achieving this important goal.The case of five men who Toronto police believe were murdered by the same person suggests a rare, brazen and organized killer, say homicide experts.

Bruce McArthur, a 66-year-old landscaper, has been charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Andrew Kinsmen, Selim Esen, Majeed Kayhan, Soroush Mahmudi and Dean Lisowick.

Police have found the dismembered, skeletal remains of three unidentified people in planters at a Leaside home. They have identified 30 properties linked to McArthur through his landscaping business.

Links between occupation and serial murder are very well established, said Michael Arntfield, a criminologist and professor at Western University.

Serial killers typically use the guise of their job to access locations where they can find victims, Arntfield said.

In this case, he noted, it appears that the killer may have used an occupation to dispose of them.

Instead of locating victims through the job, he locates his victims through other means, including online, and then he uses the pretext of his job to essentially conceal remains, Arntfield said.

Concealing remains in planter boxes essentially in plain sight also shows a level of brazenness, Arntfield said.

Read more:

Police found man tied up in alleged serial killer Bruce McArthurs apartment

LGBTQ community wonders why Bruce McArthurs arrest took so long

Scott Mission was like home for alleged serial killer victim Dean Lisowick

The question is, was he drawn to this occupation as a means of facilitating his crimes, or did this just occur to him after he already went down this road?

Enzo Yaksic, co-director of Northeastern University Atypical Homicide Research Group, said the risk involved in identifying victims, subsequently killing them and then concealing evidence of such actions probably provided (the killer) an unmatched level of excitement and morbid sense of achievement.

These accomplishments stymied police and confounded the public for so long that (he) undoubtedly believed he has outsmarted everyone, Yaksic wrote in an email.

Just four per cent of serial killers dismember their victims bodies and dispose of the remains, according to data compiled by the research group.

If (this killer) does indeed fit into (that) category, the alleged illicit knowledge that body parts belonging to missing persons are hidden in plain sight would be immensely alluring to him, Yaksic said.

This is a piece of information he holds over city officials and family members which grants him immeasurable power.

Gary Ridgway, one of the most prolific serial killers in American history, buried his victims in clusters so he could locate them when he wanted to visit the burial sites. This process allowed him to relive his crimes and was psychologically gratifying for him, Yaksic said.

A Toronto man is facing three more first-degree murder charges, after being charged in the presumed deaths of two men reported missing from the citys gay village. Police say its fair to call Bruce McArthur an alleged serial killer. (The Canadian Press)

Another rare aspect of the Toronto case is the arrest of a 66-year-old suspect. To begin killing in ones late middle age would be very unusual, statically speaking, said Arntfield.

American serial killer Albert Fish, who was known as the Gray Man, was believed to have started killing in his 50s. He was executed in New York at age 65.

For years, he was sort of held up as a rarity, Arntfield said of Fish. In the Toronto case, the killer would seem to have started actually even later than him. So the question is  is he that rare, that hes starting that late? Or has he started much earlier and just carried on?

Serial offenders also tend to wind down as they grow older, Arntfield said.

Theres a term actually in criminology called aging out, where as the offender becomes less agile, less virile. They begin dabbling in other forms of crime, he said.

They dont necessarily try their hand at killing.For a second day in row, commuters faced long delays Wednesday on the TTCs subway Line 1, this time due to a cracked rail.

Signal problems resulting from the cracked rail at Bloor station caused delays for those travelling northbound from King station, beginning at about 6:40 a.m. and causing four hours of delays.

By 7 a.m., feverishly working maintenance staff were able to make a temporary fix, but train speeds remained reduced in the area, said TTC spokesperson Brad Ross via Twitter.

Permanent repairs were expected to be made after the subway closed for the night around 1:30 a.m..

Subway riders saw travel times up to 10 minutes longer than usual northbound between King and Bloor stations, the TTC said. A security issue at Eglinton also led to trains bypassing the station, the TTC said via Twitter.

The snag came the morning after what Ross called abysmal service Tuesday  a plethora of issues that led to delays and overcrowding so severe, trains had to bypass the St. George and Bloor-Yonge stations.

Wednesdays incident was less severe than the day before, when riders were posting photos of overflowing train platforms across both Lines 1 and 2.

Tuesdays TTC chaos happened as Toronto transit advocates began a day of action to address overcrowded subway lines.

One of the two initiatives proposed for funding through this years budget process is to relieve overcrowding on buses during 25 rush hour service periods, and on the four most crowded routes during off-peak times.

The agency could add service on the bus routes in the fall, costing $1 million this year. To maintain the same service levels after that would cost $4 million annually.

Council will vote on the TTCs 2018 budget next month.

With files from Star staffThe Progressive Conservatives hope to elect a new leader next month, despite allegations of fraudulent memberships, a hacked computer database and overall disarray in the party.

In the wake of former leader Patrick Browns swift and stunning fall from grace after allegations of sexual impropriety, the Tories are scrambling to regroup for the June 7 election.

I want to make sure the trains run on time, interim leader Vic Fedeli said Wednesday at Queens Park.

His aides said he used that analogy to underscore that he will be like Switzerland in the weeks ahead  neutral and efficient.

Fedelis office is investigating the members list. Brown claimed there were 200,000 people in the party, but sources say the actual number is closer to 75,000.

The Tories are also determining the damage caused by Chinese hackers who accessed the partys internal database, the Constituent Information Management System (CIMS), last fall.

Against this tumultuous backdrop, the Conservatives will hold a one-member-one-vote election with the results announced March 10.

Voting through secure remote electronic balloting will be March 2-8 and candidates can spend up to $750,000. The entry fee will be $75,000 plus a $25,000 deposit to the party and an optional $25,000 membership list access fee.

So far, former Toronto mayoral runner-up Doug Ford is the only declared candidate, but lawyer Caroline Mulroney, the PC candidate in York-Simcoe, and business and civic leader Rod Phillips, who is running for the Tories in Ajax, are also expected to enter the race.

Progressive Conservative sources said former MPP Christine Elliott, who finished second to Brown in the May 2015 leadership race, has been giving more serious consideration to a leadership run in recent days, phoning and meeting with potential supporters.

While she accepted a $220,000-a-year patronage job from Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne as Ontarios first ombudsman for patients in the health sector, her backers said she is being pressured to come back to repair the party that Brown and his cronies left in chaos.

But Elliott faces challenges in any attempt to put a bid together because there is not much time before the leadership vote, and her 2015 team scattered after she went into seclusion following a bitter defeat that left her feeling bruised.

She quit her seat four months later and has not been active in the party since then and never spoke to Brown again.

Fedeli, who, after being unanimously elected by the Tory caucus last Friday, initially wanted to lead the party into the spring election, hoped the party would hold a respectful race.

I just know our party will rally behind the (new) leader come leadership election day, said the Nipissing MPP, who Tory staffers privately credit for keeping things on the rails this past week.

Were going to have a great leadership race, and itll be done on time, said Fedeli, who acknowledged the difficulties of coping with Browns resignation and the subsequent sexual abuse allegations levelled at former PC president Rick Dykstra.

Vic Fedeli has stated that he will not be running in the upcoming Ontario PC leadership race. Instead, Fedeli says he will work exclusively as the party's interim leader to work on significant problems within the PC party. "Our party structure is in much worse shape than we knew," Fedeli said.

I dont think anybody has seen anything like this. We really are having it come from all ways, said Fedeli.

Both Brown and Dykstra have denied any wrongdoing.

Fedelis office, meanwhile, is co-operating with Hamilton polices continuing probe into any criminal fraud and forgery potentially committed by PC party operatives.

On a campaign-style swing through Thunder Bay, Wynne declined to weigh in on the PC leadership race.

Of course, I am ready to take on the Tories, said the premier. Whatever happens on the other side of the floor is going to happen.

Meanwhile in Ottawa, in an unprompted statement outside the Commons, Barrie MP Alex Nuttall, who succeeded Brown in that federal seat, suggested the PC leadership was attempting to expel legitimate party members through the review.

Within 48 hours of (Browns ouster), we had 28 elites whose ridings represent less than 1 per cent of the 200,000 members of the PC Party of Ontario try to appoint the next premier of . . . Ontario, circumventing democracy, Nuttall, an ally of Brown, told reporters.

That was a reference to the elected MPPs choosing Fedeli as a chief and the interim leaders promise to clean up the membership list that many Tories fear is plagued with duplicate and false names.

Now, today, what weve seen is theyve doubled down, seeking to expel tens of thousands of paid memberships of the PC Party of Ontario.

Nuttall implied the partys review of allegedly fraudulent memberships was racially motivated.

Well, folks, I have a message for the Toronto elites, and it is this: that the conservative movement should never and can never define people by their race, by their faith, by the region of the world that they come from, by their first or last name, Nuttall said.

The Barrie MP said the PC leadership needs to start making decisions in the best interests of the people of Ontario and told reporters the party needs to stop turning on itself in public.

Also in Ottawa, there are moves afoot to draft Mulroney.

Conservative MP Lisa Raitt said former prime minister Brian Mulroneys daughter represents a generational change for our party, oriented to the future and filled with positivity.

I know she is ready to lead, offering a lifetime of business experience, charitable leadership and political talent. I know we can trust her, said Raitt. She brings empathy, understanding and solutions to the complex issues we face today.

With files from Alex Boutilier

Read more about:A California woman has sued Walmart, accusing the nationwide chain of racial discrimination because her local store keeps personal care products targeted at Black people locked up in a glass case.

The woman, Essie Grundy, said she felt humiliated and discriminated against when on three occasions this month she had to ask a store employee to unlock the beauty supplies, including a recent occasion during which she had planned to buy a 48-cent comb.

I was angry, I was sad, frustrated and humiliated all at the same time, Grundy said in a telephone interview Monday night.

Read more about Walmart

Grundy said that in early January she went to the Walmart in Perris, Calif., to buy a body lotion by Cantu. Thats when she noticed that all the products targeted at African-Americans were locked in a glass case, from the middle of the aisle to the end, she said.

Combs, brushes, wave caps  everything was grouped together and separated, she added.

Grundy said that the second time she visited this month she asked to speak to a supervisor about why these specific products were locked up. He informed her, she said, that the policy to add additional security came directly from corporate headquarters. Grundy said that it was a two-hour process to discuss the policy, but that no employees could do anything.

On her third visit, she wanted to buy a comb that was in a glass case. She had to ask for it to be unlocked, she said, and then a staff member said he would have to take the comb to the register so she could pay for it before taking it.

I felt that I was being treated as a person who might be a thief, Grundy said in a statement she issued Friday, the same day her lawyer, Gloria Allred, filed the lawsuit in California Superior Court in Riverside County.

Charles Crowson, a spokesman for Walmart, acknowledged that certain items are kept locked up for security reasons because they are more likely to be stolen. The items, he said, may differ from store to store.

You go into any of our stores  a good part of our items are behind additional security, Crowson said. Were sensitive to this situation and also understand, like other retailers, that some products such as electronics, automotive, cosmetics and other personal care products are subject to additional security. Those determinations are made on a store-by-store basis.

He said the specific allegations in the lawsuit would be addressed in court.

Grundy is asking that Walmart change its policy, pay her lawyer fees and deliver up to $4,000 in damages.

I would like for everything to go back to normal for what I am used to, Grundy said. I would like to shop just like everyone else at Walmart, not like my time is not valuable.

Read more about:WASHINGTONU.S. President Donald Trump emphasized what he said were the dangers posed by illegal immigrants in a State of the Union address that veered between a call for bipartisan unity and hard-line stands on immigration and national security.

Trump, using conciliatory language and a solemn tone, began by asking Republicans and Democrats to set aside their differences and summon the unity we need to deliver for the people. The country, he said, should see itself as one team, one people, and one American family.

His rare call for harmony, however, gave way to the kind of aggressive immigration rhetoric that has thrilled his base but made much of the country uneasy. As he did in campaign speeches, he called attention to crimes committed by Hispanic gang members  summoning an ovation for the parents of girls murdered by members of the MS-13 gang.

I want you to know that 320 million hearts are right now breaking for you, Trump said in one of the most emotional moments of the night. We love you, thank you. While we cannot imagine the depth of your sorrow, but we can make sure that other families never have to endure this pain.

Trump reiterated his bargaining position on the impasse over the fate of the DREAMers, immigrants brought to the U.S. without authorization when they were children. In exchange for granting permanent legal status to the DREAMers, Trump has asked Democrats to accept a $25-billion investment in his proposed wall on the Mexican border, plus steep cuts to legal immigration.

For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities. They have allowed millions of low-wage workers to compete for jobs and wages against the poorest Americans. Most tragically, they have caused the loss of many innocent lives, he said.

Trump has expressed sympathy for the DREAMers in the past. This time, in perhaps his most memorable line, he said: Americans are dreamers, too.

Democrats and DREAMers accused Trump of exploiting tragedy for political purposes.

Read more:

Boycotts, Melania, the rebuttal and an interview with a porn star. What to watch in Trumps State of the Union

Its easy for Trump to act presidential in his State of the Union. What counts is what he does after stepping over that low bar

Opinion | Emma Teitel: Trump needs to worry about the state of his own union

How disturbing it is that Trump would use the pain of these families to try to criminalize immigrants and drive his anti-immigrant agenda, DREAMer advocacy group United We Dream said on Twitter.

Trump also tossed red meat to his base on subjects other than immigration. He spoke pointedly of how we proudly stand for the national anthem, an unmistakable shot at NFL players protesting police brutality.

The only breaking news of the night was another right-wing stand. Trump announced that he had signed an executive order to ensure the Guantanamo Bay prison for accused terrorists  which his predecessor Barack Obama had failed to close  would remain open.

Trumps first official State of the Union  last years address, a month into his tenure, doesnt technically count  came with his poll numbers up slightly from past months but still historically low for a president just a year into his term. The run-up to the speech was dominated by news related to the ongoing investigation into his campaigns links to Russia and to his fraught relationships with his own Justice Department and FBI.

Though much of the substance of the speech was familiar, Trump couched it in the kind of flowery language and poignant human anecdotes he has often avoided. He told moving stories about survivors of North Korean brutality and the military battle against Daesh, also known as the Islamic State.

The question hovering over this lofty rhetoric, as always, was whether he would attempt to deploy it for more than a single prime-time hour.

Trump has enthusiastically attempted to exploit the countrys racial and political divides. The traditionally presidential persona of his scripted moments, including last years well-received first address to a joint session Congress, have always given way quickly to the angry and accusatorial behaviour that appears to come more naturally.

Trump devoted a lengthy section to his biggest legislative achievement, the tax cuts he signed into law in December, and to an economy and stock market experiencing strong growth. He noted that several major companies have given their employees bonuses they have attributed to the tax law and that others have announced major new investments.

U.S. President Donald Trump addresses trade deals in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night. Canada is currently re-negotiating NAFTA with the U.S. and Mexico.

There has never been a better time to start living the American Dream, Trump said. So to every citizen watching at home tonight: no matter where you have been, or where you come from, this is your time. If you work hard, if you believe in yourself, if you believe in America, then you can dream anything, you can be anything, and together, we can achieve anything.

Trump offered neither explicit reassurance nor obvious reason for alarm to observers concerned about the fate of the North American Free Trade Agreement. He discussed trade only briefly and vaguely, skipping the harsh criticism of NAFTA that used to punctuate his campaign speeches.

America has finally turned the page on decades of unfair trade deals that sacrificed our prosperity and shipped away our companies, our jobs, and our nations wealth, he said. The era of economic surrender is over. From now on, we expect trading relationships to be fair and to be reciprocal. We will work to fix bad trade deals and negotiate new ones. And theyll be good ones, but theyll be fair.

Trump said the country has entered a new American moment  a phrase used by Hillary Clinton, the Democrat he defeated in the election, in a 2010 speech as secretary of state.

Trump littered the speech with false claims about terrorists and the economy. And he offered few specifics on some of the major topics he discussed.

He promised again that the prices of prescription drugs will come down, for example, but he did not explain how. He vowed again to solve the opioid crisis, but again declined to issue any plan. And his long-delayed infrastructure proposal remained only a broad outline.

Trump avoided his most incendiary rhetoric on North Korea. He vowed, though, to take a hard line.

Representative Joe Kennedy of Massachusetts delivered the Democratic Response to U.S. President Trump's State of the Union. Kennedy said the Trump administration is dividing the country with false choices and targeting laws that protect people. (The Associated Press)

Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation. I will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got us into this dangerous position, he said.

The official Democratic response was to be delivered by Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy. Kennedy planned to paint Trump as a bully, according to excerpts of his speech.

It would be easy to dismiss the past year as chaos. Partisanship. Politics. But its far bigger than that. This administration isnt just targeting the laws that protect us, they are targeting the very idea that we are all worthy of protection, Kennedy said in the excerpts.

Read more about:He was legally dead but dead men dont breathe. Or follow you with their eyes. Or squeeze their wifes hands.

But for two hours and 40 minutes after Michael Cleveland was pronounced deceased at a hospital in suburban Buffalo, on Oct. 10, 2014, his grieving family members watched signs of life flicker over the 46-year-olds body, according to newly filed documents in the familys lawsuit. His tongue tried to push out the endotracheal tube snaked down his throat. His chest continued to rise with air. His knees bent and straightened on the gurney.

When Clevelands wife, Tammy, his 13-year-old son Ellis, and other family members pressed Gregory Perry, a young emergency room physician, to recheck the patient, the doctor said no, according to the suit. The mans chest was only moving because he had a lot of air to expel, he said. Cleveland, felled by a heart attack, continued to stir. Even the Niagara County coroner dispatched to the DeGraff Memorial Hospital to collect the body was unnerved by the mans state.

Dead people dont move, the coroner protested to the doctor and nurses at the hospital. He needs to go in there and check his pulse, he recounted in a deposition.

Finally, Tammy drew Perrys attention to a vein throbbing on her husbands neck, she said told the court. Look, thats a pulse.

Oh my God, the doctor relented. Hes alive.

No s---, Clevelands wife said. Ive been telling you that for hours.

Unfortunately, Cleveland would not make it, succumbing hours later after being transferred to a larger hospital, Buffalo General Medical Center.

As The Washington Post reported in October 2015, the death resulted in a negligence lawsuit against the doctors and medical providers involved. The defendants  including Perry and DeGraff Memorials operator Kaleida Health, among others  have since argued in court filings they acted by accepted medical care standards.

But Clevelands family says the bungled declaration of death seriously delayed treatment that could have saved the patient. They pronounced him and left him for dead in the ER, the familys attorney, Charles F. Burkwit, told The Washington Post this week. Meanwhile, the family is watching their loved one as hes abandoned, basically watching him die.

According to the Buffalo News, on Thursday a New York State Supreme Court judge will hear arguments on whether the case will move forward. Brian Sutter, the attorney representing Perry, did not immediately return an email for comment. Michael P. Hughes, a spokesman for hospital operator Kaleida, told the News this week the issue is currently in litigation, so we cannot discuss it at this time.

But in a motion for summary judgment, the defendants have argued that the delay in treatment did not impact Clevelands chance because an earlier intervention would have made no difference in saving Clevelands life: He was never in any kind of shape to have survived the heart attack in the first place, they argued.

Cleveland collapsed in the early evening of Oct. 10 while shopping with his son at a Tops supermarket. EMS arrived on the scene at 7:43 p.m., finding him unconscious and with agonal  or gasping  respiration. He was rushed to DeGraff Memorial, arriving at 8:04 p.m.

Perry, who had only completed his medical residency in June 2013, worked on Cleveland with hospital nurses until 8:29 p.m., when he was pronounced dead. Following the call, Cleveland was unhooked from the machines and sensors, and his family was allowed to come into the room.

Cleveland then continued to show signs of agonal breathing. Perry made at least five visits to the room, yet continued to brush off the familys worries, according to the complaint. In depositions, Clevelands relatives reported Perry seemed irritated by the requests.

He didnt take the time for me at all, Clevelands wife told The Post in October 2015. He just told me that my husband passed. He couldnt just come in there and show that he was dead. He couldnt take a second and put a stethoscope on him and prove to me that he wasnt breathing. I dont understand that. Why wouldnt you do that to appease a grieving widow at that time, instead of walking in there nonchalant and give me your two cents acting like I was crazy?

The Cleveland familys medical expert pointed out in a court filing the continued breaths should have been an obvious warning sign.

According to The Determination of Death by the New York state Task Force on Life and the Law ... the criteria for determination of cardiopulmonary death is An individual with irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions is dead. Cessation is recognized by an appropriate clinical examination. Clinical examination will disclose at least the absence of responsiveness, heartbeat, and respiratory effort, the expert wrote in a report. Based on the foregoing factors, Dr. Perry should not have pronounced Mr. Cleveland dead at 8:29 p.m. since he clearly did not meet New York state criteria and clearly did not have irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory function.

Once the mistake was recognized and Cleveland was transferred to Buffalo General, he received the right cardiac care for an artery that was 100 per cent blocked. But a crucial window of time had been missed, according to the family.

Theres a 90-minute window were cardiologists want to get the artery unblocked, attorney Burkwit told The Post this week. They missed that 90-minute window because he was pronounced and left for dead. Had they not pronounced him dead at around 8:30, he would have had a much better chance of surviving.WASHINGTONIn a remarkably public clash of wills with the White House, the FBI declared Wednesday it has grave concerns about the accuracy of a classified memo on the Russia election investigation that U.S. President Donald Trump wants released.

The FBIs short and sharp statement, its first on the issue, laid bare a Trump administration conflict that had previously played out mostly behind closed doors in meetings between top Justice Department and White House officials.

The FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it, Christopher Wray, the FBI director, said in a statement. As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memos accuracy.

Read more: Republicans vote to release memo that alleges improper FBI surveillance in Russia probe

Wray had strongly objected to the move to release the memo and was allowed to review it only on Sunday, after the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Devin Nunes of California, relented. FBI officials say privately that Trump, who wants to see the memo released, is prioritizing politics over national security and is putting the bureaus reputation at risk.

Wray made a last-ditch effort on Monday, when he went to the White House with the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, to try to persuade the White House to stop the release of the memo. They spoke to John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, but Kelly said on Wednesday that he expected the memo to be released pretty quick, while cautioning that White House lawyers were still reviewing it.

Republicans have said the memo reveals improper use of surveillance by the FBI and the Justice Department in the Russia investigation.

The agencys stance on the memo, conveyed in a two-paragraph statement, escalates the dispute and means that Trump would be openly defying his hand-picked FBI director by continuing to push for the memos disclosure. It also suggests a clear willingness by Wray, who in the early stretch of his tenure has been notably low-key, to challenge a president who just months ago fired his predecessor, James Comey.

The FBI statement came the day after Trump was overheard telling a congressman that he 100 per cent supported release of the four-page memo, which was drafted by Republicans on the House intelligence committee. The Republicans have said the memo reveals surveillance abuses by the FBI and the Justice Department in the early stages of the investigation into potential ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump presidential campaign.

Democrats have called the memo a cherry-picked list of GOP talking points that attempts to distract from the committees own investigation into Russian meddling in the election that sent Trump to the White House.

The drama comes as special counsel Robert Mueller also is investigating whether the Trump campaign improperly co-ordinated with Russia during the campaign and whether Trump sought to obstruct the inquiry by, among other actions, firing Comey.

Under the House committees rules, the president has five days to object to the memos release, which the panel voted to authorize on Monday. But Trump himself already has urged the release, and it could come sooner. By late Wednesday, it had not yet been settled whether the White House or the committee would handle the actual release.

House Speaker Paul Ryan is defending a vote by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee to release a classified memo on the Russia investigation.

But the president has been undeterred.

Television cameras captured Trump, on the House floor after the State of the Union address, telling South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan that he backed the release. When Duncan implored him to release the memo, Trump said: Oh yeah, dont worry. 100 per cent.

White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders told CNN Wednesday that a legal and national security review of the document was continuing. Trump had not read the memo as as of last night prior to and immediately after the State of the Union, she said.

Trump has been telling confidants in recent days that he believes the memo will validate his concerns that the FBI and Justice Department had conspired against him, according to one outside adviser familiar with those conversations but not authorized to speak publicly about private discussions.

The president also has told allies that he believes the memo bolsters his belief that accusations of collusion between his campaign and Russian officials are false and part of a conspiracy to discredit his election.

On Wednesday afternoon, Nunes, the House intelligence chairman and a close ally of the president, fired back at the law enforcement agencies, calling the FBI and Justice Department objections spurious.

Its clear that top officials used unverified information in a court document to fuel a counter-intelligence investigation during an American political campaign, Nunes said. Once the truth gets out, we can begin taking steps to ensure our intelligence agencies and courts are never misused like this again.

Nunes stepped aside from leading the committees investigation last April amid an ethics investigation into whether he had improperly disclosed classified information. He was later cleared and resumed his leadership role.

The White House counsels office has been in possession of the memo, officials say. The National Security Council is leading a review, which will also involve the White House legal team.

The vote to release the memo was unprecedented in the committees history. The panel usually goes out of its way to protect classified information in the interest of shielding intelligence sources and methods.

In the hours before the Monday vote, Rosenstein and Wray warned Kelly that releasing the memo could set a dangerous precedent, according to a person familiar with the conversation. Rosenstein also told Kelly the memo didnt accurately characterize the FBIs investigative practices, the person said.

The Justice Department had said in a letter last week that it would be extraordinarily reckless to release the memo without first giving the FBI and the department the chance to review it.

After those complaints, Wray reviewed the memo over the weekend. Rep. Trey Gowdy, who was with him when he reviewed the memo, said the FBI director did not raise any national security concerns. Gowdy said the memo doesnt reveal any intelligence methods but does reveal one source.

With files from the New York Times

Read more about:BERLINIn the latest in a string of dangerous encounters between Russian and NATO military jets, a U.S. navy plane came within 1.5 metres of a Russian Su-27 jet on Monday, according to the State Department. The incident occurred in international airspace above the Black Sea, raising renewed concerns over the risk of mid-air collisions in Europe.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said that the United States considers the incident to be of the highest level of concern, calling it only the latest example of Russian military activities disregarding international norms and agreements.

Provocative Russian behaviour, especially since 2014, has set off alarm bells across Europe over the last few years.

Read more:

U.S. took hostile step by publishing list of Russians as part of sanctions, Putin says

Putin announces partial pullout of forces from military airbase in Syria

Russians protests against Vladimir Putin not huge, but widespread

Last June, a Russian fighter jet similarly came within a few feet of a U.S. reconnaissance plane over the Baltic Sea. It then lingered by the side of the U.S. plane for minutes, U.S. military officials said at the time.

A report issued in 2014 by the European Leadership Network, a London-based think tank, documented almost 40 incidents that together add up to a highly disturbing picture of violations of national airspace, emergency scrambles, narrowly avoided mid-air collisions, close encounters at sea, simulated attack runs, and other dangerous actions happening on a regular basis over a very wide geographical area, according to the report. The report was only compiled for 2014 and not for the subsequent years.

At the time, the think tank reached the conclusion that Russia was not actively trying to provoke a full-blown conflict with NATO but that its actions nevertheless could prove catastrophic because of the risk of unintended escalation. Russian officials have rejected those accusations, with former Russian ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak saying that the unusual frequency in dangerous encounters was the result of an increase in military training flights.

But in the worst case, some of the documented incidents may have resulted in mass-casualty accidents. On March 3, 2014, the pilots of a Russian reconnaissance aircraft  which apparently had not transmitted its position  nearly collided with a passenger plane that had just taken off from Copenhagen, according to the European Leadership Network. The pilots of the civilian SAS 737 plane with 132 passengers aboard managed to avoid a collision, thanks to good visibility.

Unlike Mondays dangerous encounter above the Black Sea, most of 2014s reported incidents occurred around the Baltic Sea and the North Sea.

Whereas some of the documented incidents have involved U.S. planes, European aircraft still recorded the most encounters. In mid-January, British Air Force jets scrambled to intercept Russian bombers near the countrys airspace, amid growing concerns of Russian activity near Britain.

Over Christmas, British ships and a helicopter were also dispatched to track what officials said was an upsurge of Russian naval vessels passing near its waters.

Russian submarines have also stepped up activity around undersea data cables in the North Atlantic, according to my colleague Michael Birnbaum. The cables which NATO officials fear could be targeted by Russian submarines provide internet and other communications connections to Europe and North America, representing vital data lines.

The Russian submarine activity  unprecedented since the Cold War  has sparked NATO hunts, involving a number of U.S. navy tracking flights. If anything, the airspace above Europe only appears to be getting busier.

Read more about:The horrifying allegations against Bruce McArthur, who police say is the most prolific serial killer in Torontos history, have profoundly shaken a city mercifully unused to this sort of violence.

The grisly story police are now telling, of at least five murdered and quite likely more, has no doubt brought terrible grief to the victims families and friends and fear to the loved ones of other missing persons.

How disquieting, too, for the quiet neighbourhoods where McArthur earned his living as a landscaper and in particular for those residents on whose properties police say they have found, in planters, parts of an unknown number of bodies.

But the statement by Det. Sgt. Hank Idsinga on Monday that McArthur was indeed a serial killer, who had been murdering men for at least the better part of a decade, was met by many, particularly within the LGBTQ community, with not only sadness and some degree of fear, but also with anger.

The spate of disappearances from the Gay Village in recent years had led many to speculate that a serial killer might be at work. But police denied that there was any evidence to suggest that this was the case.

Why, some are now asking, were police so vehement in their denial, even months after they reportedly began investigating McArthur? And would their response have been swifter or more thorough had the victims not been, as they all were, gay or people of colour, homeless or addicted to drugs?

After all, we saw in the case of serial killer Robert Pickton, the pig farmer who was convicted in 2007 of preying on sex workers and other vulnerable people in Vancouvers Downtown Eastside, that police may be slower to act when victims come from marginalized communities.

The lead investigator in that case, Lorimer Shenher, has said systemic biases were partly to blame for his forces failure to find Pickton sooner. If [the victims] had been white UBC students, you wouldve seen the National Guard being called out, Shenher told VICE News.

In fact, according to University of Toronto criminologist Jooyoung Lee, serial killers often opportunistically select their targets from vulnerable groups, believing that police and media are more likely to ignore or dismiss their disappearances.

This is the fear that 519, a community centre in Torontos gay village, was getting at in its public statement on Monday. That a serial killer went undetected for years raises critical questions about vulnerabilities and the intersection of vulnerabilities that many members of our community experience, said a representative.

There is no evidence that Toronto police treated this investigation differently than they would have any other or that they could have found their suspect sooner. But the community centre is right that this case raises vital questions, which for both public safety and public trust police must answer.

The McArthur case and the criticisms of how police handled it have also underscored the necessity of the ongoing transformation of the Toronto Police Service. Among this initiatives chief aims is to embed officers in vulnerable communities as a way to rebuild increasingly fractious relationships between police and the marginalized groups they serve. Both the investigation into these murders and the communitys trust in it would no doubt have benefited from such an approach.

In the meantime, the concern and anger in the LGBTQ community and beyond requires a serious response from police. The community and the city as a whole deserve a full accounting of how this happened and transparency as the investigation continues.

These terrible murders have created a rare atmosphere of fear and outrage in Toronto. Whatever one thinks of how police have handled the case thus far, their job now could hardly be more important. They must ensure that everyone in our city feels protected.OTTAWAThis could be awkward.

Former prime minister Brian Mulroney is one of Justin Trudeaus most effective allies on the Canada/U.S. trade front. And preserving NAFTA or as much of it as possible is the most significant item on the federal governments mid-mandate plate.

Now Mulroneys daughter, Caroline, is exploring the possibility of running for the leadership of the Ontario Tories. And that bid, if successful, would see her take on Trudeaus closest provincial ally in the June provincial election. The web of politics is a tangled one.

On Tuesday, Mulroney was on Capitol Hill, offering a U.S. senate committee a spirited defence of the North American trade arrangements negotiated on his watch. The former Tory prime minister has a leading role in the lobbying offensive Trudeau has launched to mobilize support for NAFTA among American movers-and-shakers.

When it comes to Canada, the attention span of the American political elites has traditionally been short. Given all that has been happening in the White House, it has not always been easy for Canada to keep the eyes of its American allies on the NAFTA ball.

Second to Trudeau, Mulroney is a rare Canadian magnet for attention. His network of contacts on and off Capitol Hill extends beyond the reach of the prime minister. Over on this side of the border, his role in Trudeaus pro-NAFTA coalition has gone some way to co-opt the Conservative official opposition into aligning itself behind the Liberals.

If only to keep his fractious troops united, federal Conservative leader Andrew Scheer can ill afford to let a lot of light shine between his party and Mulroney on trade. In the current Canada/U.S. circumstances, the same is no less true of Trudeau.

Even as Mulroney was doing the Washington rounds, his daughter Caroline was lining up support for a very different cause.

Until ex-Ontario Tory leader Patrick Browns exit from the scene, she was a star candidate about to run for a GTA seat for the very first time. Now she is contemplating a bid for the provincial leadership and, subsequently, the premiers office.

Many Conservatives have only seen Caroline Mulroney in action at last years federal Conservative party leadership vote gathering and then only as co-master of ceremonies. It may have been a speaking role but it was not one that lent itself to the laying out of a political vision.

But those who are cheering her on note that the 43-year old mother of four was raised in a political environment, has career experience as a lawyer and is of the right gender for a party that has just lost a male leader and a male president to allegations of sexual misconduct.

She also enjoys instant name recognition, a feature that could be precious for a party facing an imminent post-leadership election campaign. This she has in common with Trudeau and there is no shortage of Conservatives pointing out that what worked magic for the federal Liberals, might well do the same for the Ontario Tories. (A notable difference is that Trudeau was twice elected MP before he became leader and then had a couple of years to fine-tune his first campaign.)

One could argue that the Mulroney name comes with more baggage than that of the prime minister. But over the past few months it has mostly been associated with NAFTA, and in Conservative circles the tripartite trade deal is a rare consensual legacy item of Mulroneys past governments.

In the larger picture, the Ontario chattering classes have come a long way since premier David Peterson fought the initial Canada/U.S. free-trade agreement in the late 80s. On the merits of NAFTA, Liberals and Conservatives are essentially on the same page.

As prime minister, Trudeau could almost certainly forge a productive relationship with an Ontario premier with strong roots on the progressive side of the conservative movement and some similar childhood experiences to boot. His father certainly got along famously with Tory premier William Davis.

But as federal Liberal leader he presides over a political family with strong ties to the provinces incumbent government. It is not by accident that some have dubbed Trudeaus federal government Queens Park on the Rideau.

Premier Kathleen Wynne has been a key ally of Trudeaus from the time he was considered a long shot to become prime minister. The polls show she will need all the help she can get to lead her Liberals to re-election in June. Trudeau would normally be only too willing to offer whatever assistance he can. But now that could be somewhat conditional on who ends up leading the Ontario Tories.

Chantal Hebert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Read more about:As cryptocurrencies traded mixed, regulation and access took center stage. Bitcoin prices traded in a narrow range near $10,000 -- here are the top stories in crypto news on Wednesday, Jan. 31.

South Korea on bans

South Korea has no plans to ban cryptocurrency trading exchanges in the country, said Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon, according to Reuters. South Korea will seek to regulate exchanges, but Kim specifically said, "There is no intention to ban or suppress cryptocurrency." The comments came after the ministry uncovered an illegal cryptocurrency foreign exchange trade worth $600 million Wednesday. Seoul had earlier suggested it would consider shutting down digital asset exchanges, a move that contributed to a broad selloff in cryptocurrencies the last two weeks.

Facebook bans ICO ads

Facebook Inc. (FB) - Get Facebook, Inc. Class A Report said late Tuesday it plans to ban advertisements for cryptocurrencies, initial coin offerings and binary options. The company described the policy as "intentionally broad while we work to better detect deceptive and misleading advertising practices, and enforcement will begin to ramp up across our platforms including Facebook, Audience Network and Instagram."

Kodak's coin delayed

Eastman Kodak Co. (KODK) - Get Eastman Kodak Company Reportannounced that the release of its KODAKCoin has been delayed several weeks due to an extended verification process for early investors. The ICO for KODAKCoin was set to take place Jan. 31 following a presale in which 8 million KODAKCoins were sold. "With over 40,000 potential investors expressing an interest in the ICO on www.KODAKCoin.com, we are now moving into the 'accredited investor' verification phase," Kodak said on its site.

Square expands Cash App bitcoin

Square Inc. (SQ) - Get Square, Inc. Class A Report will now allow most users of its Cash App to buy and sell bitcoin after initially testing the capability with a limited group in 2017. "We support bitcoin because we see it as a long-term path towards greater financial access for all. This is a small step," said square chief Jack Dorsey on Twitter Inc. (TWTR) - Get Twitter, Inc. Report , which he also runs. Bitcoin access on Cash App is still not available in Georgia, Hawaii, New York and Wyoming because of state regulation.

Facebook is a holding in Jim Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS Charitable Trust Portfolio. Want to be alerted before Cramer buys or sells FB? Learn more now.

More of What's Trending on TheStreet:Blackstone to acquire 55% interest in F&R with Thomson Reuters to retain 45% stake Values F&R business at ~$20 billion  Thomson Reuters to receive ~$17 billion in gross proceeds Partnership expected to strengthen F&Rs growth trajectory Reuters News remains part of Thomson Reuters: F&R to enter into 30-year agreement to secure access to news services provided by Reuters for a minimum of $325 million annually Thomson Reuters plans to use net proceeds to invest in its core Legal and Tax & Accounting units, pay down debt and repurchase shares



Full-year 2017 results expected to meet or exceed guidance (to be released on February 8) On an IFRS basis, full-year revenues expected to increase 1%; Operating profit expected to increase approximately 25%; Diluted earnings per share (EPS) expected to decrease approximately 50% (as the prior-year period included $2 billion gain on the sale of IP & Science) Full-year adjusted EBITDA margin expected to be between 30.1% and 30.4% and Full-year adjusted EPS expected to be between $2.48 and $2.51 vs. $1.79 for the prior year  on a non-IFRS basis Annual dividend maintained at $1.38



TORONTO, January 30, 2018  Thomson Reuters (TSX/NYSE: TRI) today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to enter into a strategic partnership with Blackstone. As part of the transaction, Thomson Reuters will sell a 55% majority stake in its F&R business to private equity funds managed by Blackstone. The transaction values the F&R business at approximately $20 billion. Thomson Reuters will receive approximately $17 billion in gross proceeds at closing (subject to purchase price adjustments) funded by $14 billion of debt and preferred equity to be incurred by the partnership and a $3 billion cash equity contribution by Blackstone. Thomson Reuters will retain a 45% interest in the F&R business. Thomson Reuters will also maintain full ownership of its Legal, Tax & Accounting and the Reuters News businesses. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) and GIC will invest alongside Blackstone for the transaction.

The F&R business provides a broad range of offerings to financial market professionals. Its global content sets include fundamentals, estimates and primary and secondary research. F&R also provides customers with tools, platforms, venues and services to enable fast, intelligent decision-making. The businesses that will comprise the new F&R partnership had 2017 revenues of approximately $6 billion.



This deal strengthens F&R and should accelerate its growth and benefit its customers across the sell-side, buy-side and trading venues. Blackstone's strong relationships in the financial services industry and long and successful history of corporate partnerships will help F&R provide new and innovative products and services, drive further efficiencies and navigate ongoing industry consolidation, said Jim Smith, president and chief executive officer of Thomson Reuters.



I am proud of the F&R organization and all of the hard work that has gone into turning around the business over the last six years. Todays announcement reflects the strength of the F&R business and its future potential. We believe F&R will be even stronger with Blackstone as a partner. The transaction will provide immediate value to Thomson Reuters shareholders and our ownership interest in F&R will enable Thomson Reuters to participate in the future upside of the business.



Martin Brand, a Senior Managing Director at Blackstone, said: We are excited to partner with Thomson Reuters  one of the most trusted companies in financial technology. The F&R division has tremendous assets, including a world-leading data business, essential risk and compliance solutions, OTC trading venues, wealth management software, and a strong desktop business. The partnership with Blackstone provides an opportunity to increase efficiency and accelerate revenue growth through innovation and focus on creating uniquely compelling products for F&Rs customers.

Joe Baratta, Blackstone's Global Head of Private Equity, said: We are delighted to partner with Thomson Reuters in continuing to grow the F&R business. This is a landmark transaction for Blackstone and our investment partners.



The new partnership will be managed by a 10 person board composed of five representatives from Blackstone and four from Thomson Reuters. The President and CEO of the new partnership will serve as a non-voting member of the board following the closing of the transaction.



At the closing of the proposed transaction, F&R and Reuters News will sign a 30-year agreement for Reuters to supply news and editorial content to the new partnership. Under the agreement, F&R will pay Reuters a minimum of $325 million annually. For the duration of the news contract, Thomson Reuters will grant F&R a license to permit F&R to brand its information feeds and products/services with the Reuters mark, subject to applicable limitations and restrictions set forth in a trademark license agreement.



Reuters News will maintain complete editorial freedom, and continue to operate under the Trust Principles. There has never been a more important time for providing trusted news, and that is what Reuters will continue to deliver on with accuracy and integrity, added Smith.



Thomson Reuters plans to use the estimated $17 billion of gross proceeds from the transaction as follows:

Pay down sufficient outstanding debt to allow the company to remain below its target net debt-to-EBITDA leverage ratio of 2.5x (debt repayment estimated at approximately $3 billion).

Pay cash taxes, transaction expenses and other costs required to establish F&R as a standalone company and minimize the resulting stranded costs at Thomson Reuters (estimated at $1.5 - $2.5 billion).

Pursue organic and inorganic opportunities in the key growth segments of the companys Legal and Tax & Accounting businesses (estimated at $1 - $3 billion).

Use the balance (estimated at $9 - $11 billion) to repurchase shares via a substantial issuer bid/tender offer made to all common shareholders following the closing of the transaction. The company expects its principal shareholder, Woodbridge, will participate in the issuer bid/tender offer. Woodbridge intends to maintain its ownership in the 50% to 60% range.



After closing of the transaction, Thomson Reuters will focus its efforts on expanding its market segment positions and accelerating growth in its Legal, Tax & Accounting and Regulatory businesses. Thomson Reuters will be well capitalized with significant capacity for organic and inorganic growth, with expected pro forma net debt-to-EBITDA of approximately 2.1 times (excluding the $1 - $3 billion of proceeds retained for reinvestment). Thomson Reuters is also expected to benefit from its 45% retained interest in F&R over time.

The sale is subject to specified regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions, including the expiration or termination of applicable waiting periods under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act. The sale of a majority stake in F&R to Blackstone is not subject to any financing condition. Blackstone has obtained debt and equity commitments for the transaction. Thomson Reuters and the Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company have agreed to make consequential modifications to the Trust Principles arrangements on closing to reflect the transaction. Thomson Reuters expects the transaction to close in the second half of 2018.



Guggenheim Securities, LLC (lead), TD Securities Inc., and Centerview Partners LLC are serving as advisors to Thomson Reuters. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz is serving as legal counsel to Thomson Reuters for the transaction, with Torys LLP serving as Canadian legal counsel. Norton Rose Fulbright is serving as legal counsel to the Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company. Canson Capital Partners, BofA Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, and J.P. Morgan are acting as financial advisors to Blackstone. Debt financing related to the transaction is being provided by J.P. Morgan, BofA Merrill Lynch, and Citigroup. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP is acting as legal counsel to Blackstone.



Thomson Reuters Reports Expectations for Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year 2017 Results



Thomson Reuters today also announced that it expects to meet its previously announced outlook for 2017, and reported its expectations for the fourth-quarter and full-year ended December 31, 2017.



Fourth-quarter 2017 / IFRS basis



The company expects to report revenues between $2.9 billion and $2.95 billion, up approximately 3% from the prior-year period (up approximately 1% on a constant currency basis).

Operating profit is expected to be between $440 million and $450 million, up approximately 50% primarily because the prior-year period included $212 million of severance charges.

Diluted EPS is projected to be down approximately 75% primarily due to a $2 billion gain realized in 2016 on the sale of the companys IP & Science business.

Fourth-quarter 2017 / non-IFRS basis

The company expects to report adjusted EBITDA between $870 million and $880 million and an adjusted EBITDA margin between 29.5% and 29.8%.

The company also expects to report adjusted EPS between $0.58 and $0.61.

Full-year 2017 / IFRS basis

The company expects to report revenues between $11.3 billion and $11.35 billion, up approximately 1% from the prior year (up approximately 2% on a constant currency basis).

Operating profit is expected between $1.74 billion and $1.76 billion, up approximately 25% from the prior year.

Diluted EPS is projected to be down approximately 50% from 2016, primarily due to a $2 billion gain realized in 2016 on the sale of the companys IP & Science business.

Full-year 2017 / non-IFRS basis



The company expects to report adjusted EBITDA between $3.4 billion and $3.45 billion and an adjusted EBITDA margin between 30.1% and 30.4%.

The company also expects to report adjusted EPS of between $2.48 and $2.51.

Full results for the fourth-quarter and full-year 2017 will be released on Thursday, February 8, 2018.

Dividend

On January 30, 2018, the Thomson Reuters board of directors approved maintaining the dividend at $1.38 per common share. A quarterly dividend of $0.345 per share is payable on March 15, 2018 to common shareholders of record as of February 22, 2018.

Thomson Reuters will hold a conference call to discuss additional details related to the proposed transaction today at 6:00 PM Eastern Time. A live webcast of the conference call will be available on the Investor Relations section of www.thomsonreuters.com.

Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters is the worlds leading source of news and information for professional markets. Our customers rely on us to deliver the intelligence, technology and expertise they need to find trusted answers. The business has operated in more than 100 countries for more than 100 years. Thomson Reuters shares are listed on the Toronto and New York Stock Exchanges (symbol: TRI). For more information, visit www.thomsonreuters.com.

Blackstone



Blackstone is one of the worlds leading investment firms. We seek to create positive economic impact and long-term value for our investors, the companies we invest in, and the communities in which we work. We do this by using extraordinary people and flexible capital to help companies solve problems. Our asset management businesses, with over $385 billion in assets under management, include investment vehicles focused on private equity, real estate, public debt and equity, non-investment grade credit, real assets and secondary funds, all on a global basis. Further information is available at www.blackstone.com. Follow Blackstone on Twitter @Blackstone.

NON-IFRS FINANCIAL MEASURES

Thomson Reuters prepares its financial statements in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).

This news release includes certain non-IFRS financial measures, such as adjusted EBITDA and the related margin, adjusted EPS and net debt. Thomson Reuters uses these non-IFRS financial measures as supplemental indicators of its operating performance and financial position. These measures do not have any standardized meanings prescribed by IFRS and therefore are unlikely to be comparable to the calculation of similar measures used by other companies, and should not be viewed as alternatives to measures of financial performance calculated in accordance with IFRS. You can find additional information about our use of non-IFRS financial measures in our most recent annual and quarterly reports which are available on www.thomsonreuters.com.

THOMSON REUTERS SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Certain statements in this news release are forward-looking, including Mr. Smiths remarks, the companys current expectations regarding the timing for closing of the transaction, its uses of proceeds and 2017 fourth-quarter and full-year financial results. These forward-looking statements are based on certain assumptions and reflect our companys current expectations. As a result, forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations, including the parties' ability to receive regulatory approvals and satisfy conditions to closing as well as other factors discussed in materials that Thomson Reuters from time to time files with, or furnishes to, the Canadian securities regulatory authorities and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. There is no assurance that a transaction involving all or part of the F&R business will be completed or that other events described in any forward-looking statement will materialize. Except as may be required by applicable law, Thomson Reuters disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements.

This news release does not constitute an offer to purchase, or a solicitation of an offer to sell, securities of the company, nor is it a substitute for any issuer bid, tender offer or other documents that may be filed by the company with the Canadian securities regulatory authorities or the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

CONTACT



MEDIA

David Crundwell

Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs

+1 416 649 9904

david.crundwell@tr.com



INVESTORS

Frank J. Golden

Senior Vice President, Investor Relations

+1 646 223 5288

frank.golden@tr.comAmeriprise Financial, Inc. operates as a holding company. The firm provides financial planning, asset management and insurance services to individuals, businesses and institutions. It operates through the following business segments: Advice & Wealth Management, Asset Management, Retirement & Protection Solutions, and Corporate & Other. The Advice & Wealth Management segment provides financial planning and advice, as well as full service brokerage and banking services, primarily to retail clients through the company's financial advisors. The Asset Management segment provides investment advice and investment products to retail and institutional clients. It also provides products and services on a global scale through two complementary asset management businesses: Columbia Management and Threadneedle. The Columbia Management business primarily provides U.S. domestic products and services and Threadneedle primarily provides international investment products and services. Its international retail products are primarily provided through third-party financial institutions. The segments retail products include mutual funds and variable product funds underlying insurance and annuity separat

Read MoreThe following companies are subsidiares of Air Products and Chemicals: 7001 Hamilton Properties LLC, ACP Europe SA, ACP Zolder Invest NV, AJWAA Gases LLC, AP Services South America SpA, APCI (U.K.) Inc., Air Products (Anshan) Gases Co. Ltd., Air Products (BR) Limited, Air Products (Cangzhou) Co. Ltd., Air Products (Changsha) Co. Ltd., Air Products (Chongqing) Chem-Materials Co. Ltd., Air Products (Dongguan) Gases Co. Ltd., Air Products (Guangzhou) Electronics Gases Co. Ltd., Air Products (Hangjin Qi) Co. Ltd., Air Products (Hefei) Electronics Gases Co. Ltd., Air Products (Hong Kong) Co. Ltd., Air Products (Huaibei) Gases Co. Ltd., Air Products (Jiangxi) Co. Ltd., Air Products (Jincheng) Co. Ltd., Air Products (Jinjiang) Electronics Gases Co. Ltd., Air Products (Kunshan) Gases Co. Ltd., Air Products (Linfen) Co. Ltd., Air Products (Middle East) FZE, Air Products (Nanjing) Electronics Gases Co. Ltd., Air Products (Ningbo) Hi-Tech Gases Co. Ltd., Air Products (Rozenburg) B.V., Air Products (Shenyang) Gases Co. Ltd., Air Products (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Air Products (Xi'an) Gases Co. Ltd, Air Products (Xiamen) Electronics Gases Co. Ltd., Air Products (Zhongshan) Gases Co. Ltd, Air Products (Zhumadian) Gases Co. Ltd., Air Products A/S, Air Products Advanced Materials LLC, Air Products Asia Inc., Air Products Asia Inc. Taiwan Branch, Air Products Bahrain W.L.L, Air Products Brasil Ltda., Air Products Canada Ltd./Prodair Canada Ltee, Air Products Caribbean Holdings Inc., Air Products Central Asia Group LLC, Air Products China Inc., Air Products Debang (Lianyungang) Co. Ltd., Air Products Ecuador S.A., Air Products Emirates Gases LLC, Air Products Equipment Limited, Air Products Gas O.O.O., Air Products Gases Holdings B.V., Air Products Gases S.A.E., Air Products Gesellschaft mbH, Air Products GmbH, Air Products Group Limited, Air Products Gulf Gas LLC, Air Products Helium Inc., Air Products Helium Inc. Qatar Branch, Air Products Holdings B.V., Air Products Holdings GmbH, Air Products Huadong (Longkou) Co. Ltd., Air Products Hydrogen Company Inc., Air Products Iberica S.L., Air Products Industrial Gas LLC, Air Products International LLC, Air Products Investments B.V., Air Products Investments Holdings LLC, Air Products Investments LLC, Air Products Ireland Limited, Air Products Italia S.r.l., Air Products Japan Inc., Air Products Japan K.K., Air Products Korea Inc., Air Products LLC, Air Products Leasing B.V., Air Products Llanwern Limited, Air Products LuAn (Changzhi) Co. Ltd., Air Products Maghreb S.A.R.L., Air Products Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Air Products Management S.A., Air Products Manufacturing Corporation, Air Products Manufacturing LLC, Air Products Middle East Industrial Gases LLC, Air Products Nederland B.V., Air Products Netherlands Gases B.V., Air Products O.O.O., Air Products PLC, Air Products PLC Branch, Air Products Peru S.A., Air Products Qudra (GICIS), Air Products Renewable Energy Limited, Air Products S.A., Air Products SAS, Air Products San Fu Co. Ltd., Air Products Services Europe S.A., Air Products Shared Services Sdn. Bhd, Air Products Singapore Industrial Gases Pte. Ltd., Air Products SinoHytec (Beijing) Hydrogen Energy Technology Co. Ltd., Air Products Slovakia s.r.o., Air Products Sp. Z o.o., Air Products Specialized Process Equipment SDN, Air Products Switzerland Sarl, Air Products Taiwan Holdings Co. Ltd., Air Products Ukraina LLC, Air Products West Coast Hydrogen LLC, Air Products Yanbu Limited, Air Products and Chemicals (Anhui) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Banan) Gases Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Beijing) Distribution Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Binzhou) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Chengdu) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (China) Investment Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Chongqing) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Dalian) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Guangzhou) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Guiyang) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Hefei) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Hohhot) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Jiyuan) Onsite Gases Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Lianyungang) Gases Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Nanjing) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Nanjing) Gases Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Pengzhou) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Putian) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Qingdao) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Shaanxi Pucheng) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Shaanxi) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Shanghai) Electronics Gases Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Shanghai) Gases Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Shanghai) Gases Production Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Shanghai) On-Site Gases Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Shanghai) Systems Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Shangluo) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Shenzhen) Gases Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Tangshan) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Tongxiang) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Weifang) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (WuXi) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (WuXi) Gases Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Xingtai) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Xinxiang) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Xian) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Yichun) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Yulin) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Zhangjiagang) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Zhejiang) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Zhuhai) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals (Zibo) Co. Ltd., Air Products and Chemicals Inc., Air Products and Chemicals Inc. of Utah (Utah), Air Products and Chemicals Tech Development (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Air Products spol s.r.o., Asia Industrial Gas Company Ltd., Beijing AP BAIF Gases Industry Co. Ltd., Blue Ocean Industrial Gases Co. Ltd., Carbolim B.V., Carburos Via Augusta Logistics S.L., Centro Tecnico Indura Limitada, Chengdu Air & Gas Products Ltd., Contse S.A.U., CryoService, CryoService Limited, Dixons of Westerhope, DuPont Air Products NanoMaterials, EPCO Carbon Dioxide Products, EPCO Carbon Dioxide Products Inc. (Illinois), East Coast Nitrogen Company LLC, East Coast Oxygen Co., Gardner Cryogenics (Pennsylvania), Gas Direct Limited, Gas Supply Services Ltd., Gas Technologies Ltd., Gases Industriales de Columbia S.A.  Cryogas, Gases Integrated Company Limited (GIC), Gasin II Unipessoal LDA, Gastel Limited, Goar Allison & Associates, Green BioFuel s.r.o., Harvest Energy Technologies (California), Harvest Energy Technology, Helap SAS, Indura, Indura Argentina S.A., Indura Holdings Colombia LLC, Indura Inversiones Limitada, Indura Peru S.A., Indura S.A., Indura S.A. (Peru), Indura Sociedad Comercial Limitada, Ingemedicas Santandar Ltda., Ingenieria en Redes de Gases S.A. - Gasproject S.A., Inversiones Air Products Holdings Limitada, Jazan Gas Projects Company, Jazan Integrated Gasification and Power Company (JIGPC), KRIG Holdings B.V., KRYVYI RIH Industrial Gas, Korea Industrial Gases Ltd., Kulim Industrial Gases Sdn Bhd, Lida SAS, Markaziy Osiyo Sanoat Gaz LLC, Matgas 2000 A.I.E., Napro S.A., Olin DNT Limited Partnership, Oxigeno Medicinal Domiciliario Limitada, Oxigeno de Sagunto S.L., Oxigenol S.A., Oxygen & Argon Works, Oxygen & Argon Works Ltd., Oxygen Center Ltd., Oxygen Warehouse Trade (1980) Ltd., PQ Ammonia, PT Air Products East Kalimantan, PT Air Products Indonesia, PT Air Products Indonesia Services, Permea China Ltd., Permea Inc., Procal (California), Prodair Air Products India Private Limited, Prodair Corporation, Prodair Escravos Limited, Prodair S.A.S., Prodair Services Limited, Prodair et Cie S.C.S., Quimica Basica S.A., ROVI Cosmetics International, S.I.Q. Beteiligungs, SAGA SAS, SCWC Corp., STP & DIN Chemicals Sp. Z.o.o., Servicios Indura Limitada, Sociedad Espanola de Carburos Metalicos S.A., Soprogaz SNC, Stravinsky Investments LLC, The Former SR Manufacturers Inc., Tyczka Industrie-Gase GmbH, Union Mobiliere Industrielle S.A.R.L., United Industrial Gases Company LLC, Vitalox Industrial S.L.U., WuXi Hi-Tech Gas Co. Ltd., Yangon Industrial Gas (Thilawa) Company Limited, Zibo Chuangcheng Engineering Design Co. Ltd., and ir Products Israel Ltd..InterXion Holding N.V. provides carrier and cloud-neutral colocation data center services in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. The company enables its customers to connect to a range of telecommunications carriers, cloud platforms, Internet service providers, and other customers. Its data centers acts as content, cloud, and connectivity hubs that facilitate the processing, storage, sharing, and distribution of data between its customers. The company offers colocation services, including space and power to deploy IT infrastructure in its data centers; a range of output voltages and currents; connectivity services that enable its customers to connect their IT infrastructure to exchange traffic and access cloud platforms; and systems monitoring, systems management, engineering support, and data backup and storage services, as well as installs and manages physical connections running from its customers' equipment to the equipment of its telecommunications carriers, Internet service providers, Internet exchange customers, and other customers. It provides its services to telecom operators, Internet service providers, and content delivery networks; content and cloud providers; and enterprises through direct sales forces, as well as through tradeshows, networking events, and industry seminars. As of December 31, 2018, it operated 51 carrier and cloud neutral colocation data centers in 13 metropolitan areas in 11 countries. The company is also involved in real estate management/holding businesses. InterXion Holding N.V. was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in Hoofddorp, the Netherlands.

Read MoreAndroid 8.0 Oreo brings a host of notable improvements to Googles mobile OS, from picture-in-picture multitasking to smarter notifications and speedier overall performance. But as is so often the case with major Android updates, not everyone has access to Oreo just yet.

Asus ZenFone 4 Max

As of March, the updated OS is still absent from the vast majority of new smartphones on the market today. Less than 1 percent of Android devices were running Oreo in January, by Googles estimation. That compares to a quarter of Android devices running Nougat and nearly 30 percent running Marshmallow.

Some good news, though: that figures to change in 2018. To find out how quickly, we got answers from top Android phone makers to find out when you can expect to see Oreo arrive and which phones will get the update.

Update Mar. 20: Samsung has finally pushed out the 8.0 update for the Galaxy S8 and S8+ on T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon, while Essential Phone owners are now receiving 8.1.



Asus

Asus has begun sending Oreo live for the ZenFone 4 series right before the new year. That includes the ZenFone 4, ZenFone 4 Max and ZenFone 4 Pro. The ZenFone AR and ZenFone 3 family are expected to follow suit as well, but we dont yet know when Asus intends to make those updates available.

According to Asus, the ZenUI 4.0 interface packaged with Android 8.0 is much faster and lighter than the outgoing software, with the number of pre-installed apps cut from 35 to 13.

Asus phones with 8.0

ZenFone 4 Pro

ZenFone 4 Max

ZenFone 4

Asus phones confirmed to get 8.0

ZenFone AR

ZenFone 3 Deluxe

ZenFone 3 Ultra

ZenFone 3 Laser

ZenFone 3 Max

ZenFone 3

Essential

Essentials only phone, the PH-1, is now one of just a handful of Android phones to run version 8.1 of Oreo. The update was pushed out in March after Essential canceled its 8.0 release in February. It puts the startup in exclusive company alongside Google, Nokia and Huawei as one of the few smartphone makers to adopt 8.1 while most companies are still lagging behind in getting their products on 8.0.



Google

Pixel 2 XL and Pixel

Googles phones are always the first to get new Android updates, so it should come as no surprise that the companys last three generations of flagships  the Huawei Nexus 6P, Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL  have all received Oreo.

Its been Googles policy over the years to support its smartphones with new system updates for two years. Thankfully, that window is getting a bit longer, starting with the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. Going forward, Google will deliver new Android versions to its devices for three years after release. This means the Pixel 2 duo will eventually see Android R in 2020. Meanwhile, first-gen Pixel owners can expect one more major update in fall 2018, while Nexus 6P customers have reached the end of their phones supported lifespan.

Google phones with 8.0

Pixel 2 XL

Pixel 2

Pixel XL

Pixel

Huawei Nexus 6P

HTC

HTC U11 Life

HTC has beaten many of its competitors to the punch in terms of issuing Oreo updates, having already delivered Android 8.0 to the U11 and even the budget U11 Life back in the fall. The update is rolling out for the HTC 10 as we speak, and the U Ultra is expected to follow suit. It should be easy to tell as the updates arrive, as HTC conveniently keeps a support page on its site with links to all the most recent firmware on a model-by-model basis.

We reached out to HTC about an ETA for other outstanding devices, though the company told us it has nothing to announce at this time.

HTC phones with 8.0

U11+



U11

U11 Life



HTC 10

HTC phones confirmed to get 8.0

U Ultra

Huawei and Honor

Huawei Mate 10 Pro

Huaweis latest flagship, the Mate 10 Pro, includes Android Oreo alongside the newest version of the companys EMUI interface. The same is true for the Honor View10, which is powered by the same Kirin 970 processor inside the Mate 10 Pro. However, the View10 goes a step further, in that it's launching with 8.1 in tow.

Huawei has confirmed to Toms Guide that a total of 12 Huawei and Honor devices will be updated to Oreo in the near future, with the rollout having reached the Mate 9 and P10 in January. The Mate 9 Pro and P10 Plus should also be a part of that group, as well as the Honor 7X, 6X and 8.



Huawei phones with 8.0

Huawei Mate 10 Pro

Huawei Mate 10

Honor View10

Huawei phones confirmed to get 8.0

Huawei Mate 9 Pro

Huawei Mate 9

Huawei P10 Plus

Huawei P10

Honor 8

Honor 7X

Honor 6X

LG

LG V30

If you live in Asia, you can already start enjoying Oreo on LGs most recent flagships, the V30 and G6. The V30s 8.0 update publicly released in Korea in December, while reports of a beta for the G6 have recently surfaced out of China.

As for the companys other phones, its anyones guess. Ordinarily, wed say V20 and G5 users can expect to get the same treatment, but LG has remained tight-lipped on its older models. The G5 in particular didnt sell very well, meaning it wouldnt be completely surprising to see it get passed over.

LG is reportedly working on a new phone, the G7, which is expected to debut at Mobile World Congress in February. Given that timing, wed be shocked if this rumored phone didnt ship with Oreo pre-installed.

Weve reached out to LG for more information, and will update this section when we hear back.

LG phones confirmed to get 8.0

V30

G6

Motorola

Moto X4 Android One

Motorola makes a lot of phones, mostly midrange and budget models. Typically those arent favorable conditions for updates, but the company has been one of the few Android partners to confirm a list of devices that will receive version 8.0. While many of its latest handsets are included, the low-end Moto E4 and E4 Plus evidently havent made the cut.

As for when users can expect Oreo updates, Motorola hasnt said. None have released yet  save for the Android One edition of the Moto X4  though we expect the range-topping Z2 Force and Z2 Play to lead the way. Weve reached out to Motorola for an ETA.

Motorola phones with 8.0

Moto X4 Android One

Motorola phones confirmed to get 8.0

Moto Z2 Force

Moto Z2 Play

Moto Z

Moto Z Play

Moto Z Force (Droid Edition)

Moto Z (Droid Edition)

Moto X4

Moto G5S Plus

Moto G5 Plus

Moto G5

Moto G4 Plus

OnePlus

OnePlus 5T

OnePlus has received flak in the past  rightfully so  for failing to come through on promises to update its products in a timely manner (or at all in the case of the OnePlus 2). Thankfully, it's been doing a solid job with Oreo. The OnePlus 3 and 3T received Android 8.0 alongside OxygenOS 5.0 beginning in November. However, reports of frequent app crashes, wonky network connectivity, and all around frustration forced the company to terminate the rollout for its newer phones.

OnePlus returned in the new year and published Oreo for the remaining two phones slated to get it. The OnePlus 5 received the public release on Jan. 9, followed by the OnePlus 5T on Jan. 31.



OnePlus phones with 8.0

OnePlus 5T



OnePlus 5

OnePlus 3T



OnePlus 3

Samsung

Galaxy Note 8

Samsung usually plays its cards close to its chest regarding Android updates, refusing to make any concrete announcements about when users can expect them. After a series of betas, version 8.0 has finally gone live for Galaxy S8 and S8+ devices purchased through Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint. Unlocked handsets and AT&T-locked models are still awaiting the update, as are all models of the Galaxy Note 8. The firmware is being pushed out in waves, so if you don't see it yet, be patient.



As far as older phones are concerned, we expect flagships like the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, as well as the two-year-old Note 5 to also see Android 8.0, but betas for those devices haven't surfaced yet. The same goes for the companys lower-cost Galaxy J, A, and C ranges. The just-released Galaxy S9 and S9+ launched with 8.0 onboard.

Samsung phones with 8.0

Galaxy S9+

Galaxy S9

Galaxy S8+ (T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon)

Galaxy S8 (T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon)

Samsung phones confirmed to get 8.0

Galaxy Note 8

Galaxy S8+ (AT&T, unlocked)

Galaxy S8 (AT&T, unlocked)

Sony

Xperia XZ1

Sony has been on a brilliant streak of keeping all its latest devices up-to-date. The company launched its flagships for 2017, the Xperia XZ1 and XZ1 Compact, with Oreo already onboard. Later in December, updates dropped for 2016s Xperia XZ line, as well as the X Performance. Sony even makes it incredibly easy to follow its rollout process, with release notes for each model available on the company's website.



As of Feb. 5, the latest to see 8.0 are the Xperia X and Xperia X Compact. With that, Sony has finished distributing Oreo to its 2016 flagships, and the only devices on the list that remain are the XA1 series.



In the interest of transparency, Sony recently clarified its Android update policy to Xperia Blog. The policy states that owners of "premium range devices" can expect software updates for two years after launch, while the company reserves the decision not to update "midrange or entry-level" handsets if testing fails to meet its standards.

Sony phones with 8.0

Xperia XZ1

Xperia XZ1 Compact

Xperia XZ Premium

Xperia XZ

Xperia XZs

Xperia X Performance

Xperia X

Xperia X Compact



Sony phones confirmed to get 8.0

Xperia XA1 Plus

Xperia XA1 Ultra

Xperia XA1

ZTE

ZTE Axon M

ZTE may have recently discontinued the Axon 7, but the company is still committed to supporting its popular midrange handset with an update to Oreo. In December, a representative made a surprise announcement that the company is currently working on the update for the Axon 7. The beta program for the device kicked off Feb. 14, and interested owners are encouraged to register on ZTE's Z-Community site.



A post on the same forum discovered by XDA Developers in January indicated the Axon 7 Oreo update will introduce a revised user experience that ZTE is calling Stock+. Unlike the MiFavor UI previously featured on the Axon 7 (as well as ZTE's other products), Stock+ aims to be much closer to the form and function of vanilla Oreo, with a few added features thrown in. ZTE later confirmed this when it announced the beta program, calling the new interface "near-stock Android."



The Axon 7 will eventually be joined by ZTEs dual screen Axon M flagship, which was confirmed to receive Oreo in the months following its November debut. We reached out to ZTE for clarification on its schedule, and heres how the company responded:

"ZTE is very open to bringing Android O to all of our devices. As we evaluate hardware capabilities and carrier requirements it will drive how quickly we would be able to commit to whether we can, and the actual timelines of seeing this update on a device."

ZTE phones confirmed to get 8.0

Axon M

Axon 7

Credits: Tom's GuideHow to watch the Apple event  live stream the iPhone 13 launch

Here's how to watch the Apple event and live stream the iPhone 13 launch. We could see the Apple Watch 7, AirPods 3 and iPad mini 6, too, so you won't want to miss the big show.Elon Musks latest venture, The Boring Company, is offering up presales on a new branded flamethrower, accumulating some 10,000 orders in just two days. Musk promises the device is legal and not eligible for regulation by the ATF, but one California politician doesnt want them in the Golden State.

The Full Story

Naturally, a few curious fans pondered the legality of buying a flamethrower. Musk replied on Twitter that the ATF did not regulate flamethrowers that produced flames less than 10-feet in length.

Back in December, Elon Musk declared that if his new venture, The Boring Company, managed to sell 50,000 branded hats, it would offer up a new product  The Boring Company flamethrower.

Welp, guess what  the company sold 50,000 hats, and now you can preorder The Boring Company flamethrower for $500 on its website here. Shipments are scheduled will kick off in the spring time.

On the same web page, you can also grab The Boring Company fire extinguisher for $30, a price that the company admits is overpriced. However, the extinguisher does come with a cool sticker, so theres that.

Apparently, the company will sell a maximum of 20,000 units of the branded flamethrower, half of which are already spoken for, netting The Boring Company a total of $5 million in presale cash.

Naturally, a few curious fans pondered the legality of buying a flamethrower. Musk replied on Twitter that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) did not regulate flamethrowers that produced flames less than 10 feet in length. Further social posts from Musk indicated that the device was designed to provide max fun for least danger and that hes way more scared of a steak knife.

That hasn't stopped some from voicing their concern. At the forefront is California Assemblyman Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles), who says he wants to introduce legislation that would ban sales of the flamethrower in California.

However, that hasnt stopped some from voicing their concern. At the forefront is California Assemblyman Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles), who says he wants to introduce legislation that would ban sales of the flamethrower in California. I honestly thought it was a joke when the article was read to me, Santiago said.

In a statement, Santiago condemned the latest Musk-backed product, saying, Like most Americans, I am in awe of Mr. Musks genius  the brains behind Tesla, PayPal, SolarCity, and Space X. But as President Truman and Stan Lee have taught us all, With great power comes great responsibility. There are many times in which technology and inventions benefit society, but are not made available to the public. We dont allow people to walk in off the street and purchase military-grade tanks or armor-piercing ammunition. I cannot even begin to imagine the problems a flamethrower would cause firefighters and police officers alike.

He added that he entrusted Mr. Musk to alleviate a real public policy problem here by executing a tunnel under the city to help alleviate traffic, but that This deviation feels like a real slap in the face.

All things considered, that's a pretty understandable reaction when you think about the number of extremely deadly and destructive fires that afflicted the state last year.

All things considered, thats a pretty understandable reaction when you think about the number of extremely deadly and destructive fires that afflicted the state last year. Still, The Boring Company flamethrower is more or a glorified Aimn Flame than a true weapon of any kind. Theres really nothing military-grade about it.

Of course, we here at TopSpeed are all for The Boring Company flamethrower, just so long as its used intelligently. Of course, in the end, this whole thing might just be a big hoax to draw extra attention to The Boring Company. You never really know with Musk  hes a bit wily, that one.

References

Read more about The Boring Company.

Check out everything weve got on Elon MuskThe new Santa Fe will likely debut at the 2018 Geneva Motor Show and arrive in showrooms for the 2019 model year. It will replace the current crossover, which has been on sale since the 2013 model year.

Hyundais next-generation Santa Fe crossover has just been officially teased. The automaker released two renderings showing the inspiration for the upcoming three-row crossover. Compared to the current Santa Fe, the design is far more aggressive and stylized, likely in a concerted effort to stand apart in the increasingly crowded crossover segment.

Looking into the Future

Hyundais renderings of the upcoming Santa Fe looks strikingly similar to the spy shots weve seen of Santa Fe test mules running about

Hyundais renderings of the upcoming Santa Fe looks strikingly similar to the spy shots weve seen of Santa Fe test mules running about. From the new grille to the LED taillights, the concept rendering looks extremely similar to what Hyundai has built and is testing.

Up front, its easy to see the new six-sided grille and hidden bold shapes under the headlights. Even the lower apron is shared between the rendering and test mule. Even the stacked auxiliary lights (fog lights, LED daytime running lights?) under the main headlights are present. The headlights can also be confirmed sharing a similar design to the rendering. They are very narrow and extend from the grille and into the front fender.

Even the character lines appear similar. The camo is heavier in places where the rendering shows bulging lines and sharp creases. That includes the hood, doors, and quarter panels. Heck, even the wheels share a very similar design, though the renderings wheels are much larger in diameter.

Around back, the squinty LED taillights are clearly shared between the rendering and test mule

Around back, the squinty LED taillights are clearly shared between the rendering and test mule. Overly exaggerated lighting has become a fashion statement on modern vehicles and it seems Hyundai is fully embracing the trend. The lower bumper apron also shares cues from the rendering, minus only the single exhaust tip protruding from the satin chrome skid plate along the bumpers lower edge.

Likewise, the roofline of the test mule is slanted; even the roof rails end with the same downward kink near the liftgate. The same is true for the chrome trim surrounding the side windows. Unfortunately, Hyundai has covered the rearmost window, so its impossible to see how designers finished off the BMW Bangle bend.

And while we were not able to see the 2019 Santa Fes interior, we expect it to be a vast improvement over the current model. While not a luxury model, the new version will likely come with upscale amenities and plenty of standard features.

We will know more once Hyundai officially pulls the covers off the next-generation Santa Fe, so stay tuned to TopSpeed.com for that. Our bet is on the 2018 Geneva Motor Show coming up on March 8.

References

Read our full speculative review on the 2019 Hyundai Santa Fe.

Read our full review on the 2017 Hyundai Santa Fe.

Read more Hyundai news.

Read more Geneva Motor Show news.Moreover, that means the Scramblers official debut is quickly approaching. The 2018 Chicago Auto Show is likely the next-best opportunity. The show is slated for February 8 and 9, so we dont have long to wait.

Jeep is scheduled to end production of the outgoing Wrangler JK on April 7, 2018. Both the JK and the all-new 2018 Wrangler JL have been built simultaneously since November, but on separate assembly lines on separate sides of the Jeep campus. However, the JKs end marks the beginning of the Wrangler JL-based pickup truck, the Scrambler.

Once re-tooled, the JKs assembly line will be used for the JL-based Scrambler pickup.

Fiat Chryslers game of musical chairs with its assembly lines started with killing off the Dodge Dart and Chrysler 200. The Jeep Cherokee was then moved to that assembly plant in Belvidere, Illinois, freeing up an assembly line on Jeeps Toledo, Ohio campus. Thats where the new JL is made, while the JK continues to roll off the same assembly line since the SUVs introduction for 2007. Once re-tooled, the JKs assembly line will be used for the JL-based Scrambler pickup. That means both the Wrangler and Scrambler will be assembled just a few hundred feet from each other.

Jeep is expanding JL production by 60,000 units and will soon reach 300,000 Wranglers annually. The Scrambler pickup is expected to have an annual production rate of 100,000 units. Both assembly lines will build both U.S.-spec and global-spec versions of the Wrangler and Scrambler.

The Scrambler pickup is expected to have an annual production rate of 100,000 units

Interestingly, Jeeps current location isnt where the brand got its start. That happened a few miles southwest on Interstate 75 on Jeep Parkway. Its there on that land where every Jeep vehicle from 1941 to 2001 was produced. Jeep moved up the road to its current location while mid-way through the lifecycle of the Jeep TJ.

Read more on Jeeps original home.

The original Jeep factory is sadly no more than dust these days, but the haloed ground along Jeep Parkway is being repurposed thanks to a few well-known parts suppliers. Dana just finished its new axle assembly plant on the property and Detroit Manufacturing Systems LLC is currently building a 102,000-spare foot facility dedicated to making automotive instrument clusters for various brands, including the Jeep Wrangler and Scrambler.

References

Read our full review on the 2018 Jeep Wrangler.

Read our full review on the JK-gen 2017 Jeep Wrangler

Read our full speculative review on the 2019 Jeep Scrambler.

Source: CarScoopsThe Porsche Mission E electric car is an important model for Porsche. Its so important, actually, that Porsche CEO Oliver Blume describes at as the companys make-or-break model. There might be some hyperbole attached to that statement, but the all-electric sedans importance to the automakers electrification effort cannot be understated. At worst, it could short-circuit Porsches dreams of an electrified future. At best, it could jolt that future to life.

he German automaker has invested more than $1 billion on these new technologies, and the Mission-E sits at the heart of that investment

The industry is trending towards an electrified future, and almost all automakers are getting on board with that shift. Porsche is in on it, too. The German automaker has invested more than $1 billion on these new technologies, and the Mission-E sits at the heart of that investment. Thats a lot of money tied to the potential of one model to live up to expectations.

The good news is that Porsche has a good track record of innovation. It was one of the first companies to really strike gold in the luxury SUV market. Its decision to build a four-door saloon  the Panamera  has opened plenty of doors, including the hybrid and plug-in hybrid markets. According to Porsche, the Panamera plug-in hybrid is now the best-selling variant of the sedan, accounting for around 60 percent of the Panameras sales volume. Countries like Norway and Belgium have even reported 90 percent sales of the plug-in hybrid, a staggering percentage even by todays standards.

The goal now is to put the electric sedan in the best possible position to succeed

The kind of success Porsche has had in the hybrid, and plug-in hybrid segments, is what the companys hoping to replicate with the Mission-E. Albrecht Reimold, member of the Executive Board for Production and Logistic, called the Mission E the companys most ambitious project. The resources Porsche put into developing the car, and the technology that comes with it adds weight to the statement.

The goal now is to put the electric sedan in the best possible position to succeed. Porsche is doing its part with the nine-figure investment. Of that sum, $870 million went to the production facilities near its headquarters in Zuffenhausen. Theres a new paint shop, a dedicated assembly area, and long conveyor bridge that will be used to transport the painted bodies and drive units to the final assembly area.

If the Mission E becomes a successful model, Porsches investments in electrification will spur the creation of a new line of pure electric models. If the Mission E is not a success, then Porsche will likely lose all the momentum it has generated in recent years.

No pressure, right?

References

Read our full speculative review on the 2020 Porsche Mission E.

Read our full speculative review on the 2020 Porsche Mission E GTS.

Read more Porsche news.Taking considerations of customer demands, the firm has decided to close its factory in Kansas City, Missouri, in 2019 and consolidate its production in York, Pennsylvania. This will cut around 800 American jobs from the production ranks in Kansas and add 450 positions to its York facility that had lost 118 jobs last year.

Recently, we were contemplating about Harleys upcoming new models, Bronx, 48X and Pan America, as part of their new strategy to add 100 new models in the coming decade. But it looks like the Milwaukee Bar & Shield brand is not able to register any success stories today due to its current downward trend in the market.

Harley-Davidson has become a worldwide brand now after aggressive expansion that took place in the past decade. It gave the brand new customer bases and everything went according to plan for Harley until 2017 where the brand registered a 6.7% downfall worldwide. In the US alone the numbers were down by 8.5% compared to the previous year.

Additionally, the motorcycle industry as a whole continues to suffer in terms of attracting new riders, with the only major growth markets occurring in protected territories, like South American and Asian countries. Harley also had to undertake issues from two trade unions last year where it reached solvency of their partnership agreements after reaching an impasse on labor issues.

Closing the Kansas plant will cost Harley close to $200 million through 2019 but will save $65 million to $75 million in annual cash after 2020. Talking politically, this is the brand our president praised last year as a "great example" of a business that creates jobs and builds plants in the USA. Things werent much different then, but have gotten worse now with the company projecting that their global sales will further drop by 4.9% in 2018.

Joe Capra, directing business agent for Local 778 of the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers told the local news They didnt even give us a call ahead of time, It is real devastation for these people who work here and work hard in the Kansas City area.

The $2.5 billion used bike market happens to be the biggest competitor for Harley as many new riders opt to buy a used bike before they move into a brand new one. The many baby boomers who were once upon a time Harleys rich base, are no longer active and are putting up their old Harleys up for sale. In May 2017, there was healthy sales growth of used Harley-Davidson bikes. 2.5 times more than brand new Harley sales.

To slow the downtrend, Harley has implemented new strategies including enhancing its riding academy to attract customers towards its products. New models like the Street rod and the upcoming Bronx and 48X are supposed to draw fresh breed of riders early in their riding stint. Hopefully, it can do wonders sending Harley back to its glory days.Their message was loud and clear: Africa requires partnership, not support.

African Heads of State insisted they have a clear mandate to work with both public and private enterprises, to ensure the business environment is favourable and attractive to the international business community.

The U.N. Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in partnership with Corporate Council on Africa (CCA), hosted Heads of State from five African countries, at the inaugural Africa Business and Investment Forum, held on January 30, 2018 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The event was opened by H.E. Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda, the ascending Chairman of the African Union, and was joined by fellow Heads of State including H.E. Hailemariam Desalegn, Prime Minister of Ethiopia, H.E. Yoweri Museveni, President of Uganda, H.E. Mahamadou Issoufou, President of Niger, H.E. Macky Sall, President of Senegal, H.E. Uhuru Kenyatta, President of Kenya, and H.E. Filipe Nyusi, President of Mozambique, who discussed diverse areas including Trade and Diversification, Energy, Agribusiness, and Health, in a series of roundtable discussions.

Vera Songwe, Executive Secretary of the U.N. Economic Commission on Africa, said: Todays Africa Business and Investment Forum demonstrated a real commitment by our African leaders that they are focussed on paving the way for private investors in the U.S. and the rest of the international community, to invest in Africa.

The Forum brought together over 240 African and U.S. public and private sector leaders on the margins of the African Union (AU) Summit to discuss specific benchmarks and measures that can be implemented to support public-private-sector-led growth in Africa.

Over 150 CEOs and senior executives of key U.S and African companies, both multinationals and SMEs, also participated in the Forum, contributing to the ongoing dialogue around Africa to increase opportunities for business partnerships, secure commitments to as well as track the adoption of business-friendly policies, and showcase countries and policies that are contributing to an enabling environment for enhanced African regional and global trade and investment.

Africa working tirelessly to create conducive environment for foreign investments

Africa is working tirelessly to get policy and legislative conditions right to ease the business environment and attract more foreign direct investment, Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said. As a result, foreign direct investment flows to the continent were growing with a number of African economies now showing resilience to various internal and external shocks.

Africa has been on the investment radar of many multinationals for decades now as witnessed by increased investment in infrastructure, agriculture, mining, manufacturing and tourism, to mention but a few. Still Africas market and resource potential remains untapped, he said, adding the business environment in Ethiopia had improved remarkably in recent years.

He said his government is seeking to employ policies and strategies for positioning the country as an attractive investment destination for productive investors.

The Prime Minister applauded the ECA and the CCA for organizing the Forum, which he said will contribute to the enrichment of policy issues regarding transforming Africa through public-private partnerships in various sectors.

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda also commended the CCA and ECA for, This effort to draw business leaders into this conversation about public-private sector investment in Africa.

This is long overdue and I trust that it will become a regular event during our Summits, he added. Mr. Kagame called for closer collaboration between the private sector and African governments to increase economic opportunity and entrepreneurship on the continent.

For his part, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said there was need for more private sector investment in power projects on the continent. He was speaking during a round table discussion on the need to increase power supply in Africa through cross border networks.

Africa has huge potential for renewable power generation that the private sector should invest in, he said, adding the continent was full of opportunities, not just challenges.

The leaders attended different roundtables which focused on African trade and diversification; increasing power supply; the business of agriculture, creating successful agribusiness; and advancing public private partnerships on non-communicable diseases.

Senegals Macky Sall urged African governments to work together with the private sector to ensure the continent can deliver low cost renewable energy that can be accessed by all.

Market

Ugandas Yoweri Museveni urged American companies to invest in Africa. He said the continent was ripe for investment, adding African governments have and continue to address investors concerns to make it easier for them to bring their money to the continent.

Africa, he said, is a ready market, especially with the growing purchasing power of its people.

President of Niger, Mahamadou Issoufou, said he was positive about the Continental Free Trade Areas success.

African Heads of State are fully committed and engaged in the CFTA process, said Mr. Issoufou, adding Africa was the future. It is the continent on which you can count, he said.

Mr. Issoufou said the business forum was a great opportunity for Africa to inform investors about the benefits of the CFTA and progress made thus far.

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi, who attended the roundtable on the business of agriculture, said bold and coordinated efforts were needed as Africa moves from the old way of doing agriculture to new ways of farming.

He said the continent should invest in new technologies, research and education to ensure agriculture becomes cool for the youth and in the process ensure food security.

Mr. Nyusi said political will and vision was crucial if Africa is to scale up agribusiness on the continent through enabling policies that can link agriculture and trade thereby achieving sustainable equitable growth on the continent.

African Union Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki hailed the ECA and the CCA for organizing the business forum, adding the continent was doing all it can to improve the ease of doing business for the benefit of its people.

U.S. Relationship

Millennium Challenge Corporation Acting Chief Executive Officer, Jonathan Nash, said the U.S. is committed to working with African nations to realize the promise of a more peaceful, more productive, more prosperous world.

From promoting trade and economic progress to countering violent extremism, U.S. and Africa share a number of common interests, he said, adding strategic investments in critical sectors can help the poorest people rise out of poverty  advancing security, stability and prosperity across Africa.

As we all know, the continent is home to some of the worlds fastest-growing economies and will be home to one quarter of the worlds consumers by 2030. U.S. companies and investors are increasingly aware of the continents economic potential, said Mr. Nash.

We value our partnership with countries across Africa, and we respect the people of Africa, he said.

Florie Liser, President and CEO Corporate Council on Africa [CCA], said, Today was a great opportunity for UN and AU leadership to hear the voice of international private enterprises and investors who want to do business with Africa, and ensure that business relations between the U.S. and the continent continue to grow. Our CCA members, and guests at the Forum, were hugely encouraged to hear from our continents leaders that Africa is an attractive destination for investment.

Opening remarks by President Paul Kagame at the Africa Business and Investment Forum

Addis Ababa, 30 January 2018

Good morning. I want to thank all of you for being here with us this morning and for the insights you will be providing going forward in our discussions.

Despite the diverse backgrounds, I hear consistent messages that the success of business in Africa is critically important to our future.

I therefore commend this effort led by the Economic Commission for Africa, and the partners UNECA brought into this, to draw business leaders into this conversation at the African Union, and beyond.

This is long overdue, and I trust that it will be a regular feature of our Summits and of continental initiatives more generally going forward because I also have heard from many country leaders wishing to have this kind of interaction. So our job will be simple: Encouraging those who are already willing to move forward.

You should be aware that the ongoing institutional reform of the African Union includes provisions for increased engagement with the private sector.

But the primary objective of the reform is an African Union that is financed sustainably from our own resources. Governments can meet that commitment if the business sector is flourishing and paying taxes. We need active support from the private sector in fact. Without your voice, something essential is missing.

Several of the African Unions most ambitious initiatives are designed to unshackle commercial activity and entrepreneurship, which is about providing a better quality of life to our citizens.

I am thinking about the Continental Free Trade Area, which we hope to conclude this year, as well as the free movement of people, adopted during this Summit, and the Single African Air Transport Market, which we inaugurated yesterday.

Let me say by the way, I remind Ali Mufuruki that he may wish to visit the Commission Headquarters for a different thing, and other business leaders here, I wish to remind you that you can go to the Commission for the African passport.

I hope I am not putting the African Union Commission Chair on the spot when they are not ready to provide them, but I know they have stockpiles of passports to give. Among those they want to give the passports to are country leaders, as well as business leaders, which will facilitate people to move across the continent without having to go through the hassles of visas.

These are very important measures for the competitiveness of African firms and their ability to expand to new markets and hire more employees, especially young people. And there are many other urgent frameworks for economic integration waiting to be finalised and applied.

I think it will happen more quickly if Africas business leaders keep advocating for Pan-African economic cooperation with policy-makers and the public, especially through the media.

I am happy to see that todays roundtables, the way I have seen they are arranged, will be specific and full of practical detail. This makes it more likely that new public-private partnerships can be forged.

We need the private sectors help in that regard.

Let me give the example of health. Inadequate medical care costs companies and the public sector a lot of money and lost productivity through illness and disability.

But the private sector is also part of the solution. A report from the International Finance Corporation a few years ago found that the majority of health services consumed in Africa are already supplied privately.

This doesnt necessarily mean we should privatise our healthcare systems, but rather find ways to improve quality and access to healthcare.

In Rwanda, for example, we have entered into a public-private arrangement with a Spanish-Angolan firm to manage our largest hospital. What is being done there is already showing good success.

We are also partnering with an American company, Zipline, to pioneer the use of drone aircraft to deliver blood and other medical supplies to rural areas.

There is much more we can do when we cooperate, and this conference may generate innovative ideas which we can take forward.

We can work through the African Union, and also work with external partners, some of whom we also see here with us today, and we thank you for being here.

But more collaboration is also needed between government and business. I hope you can help make government behave more like business in the sense of focusing on accountability and results.

At the end of the day, we share the same goal of raising the well-being and prosperity of our citizens. That is what we must keep working towards.

I thank you once again for arranging this meeting, UNECA and the partners you brought in, especially helping to bring African business to work together with other partners, especially today with American businesses.

I want you to know that you can count on our support to make gatherings like this a tradition, and also keep realising the results that we want from them.

I wish you a very productive conference and I thank you very much.South Africas trade surplus widens in December

South Africas trade surplus increased to R15.72 billion in December of 2017 from an upwardly revised R13.05 billion in the previous month, and above market expectations of a R10.05 billion surplus. It is the highest trade surplus since May of 2016.

Exports decreased 10.2 percent month-over-month to R104.3 billion in December of 2017, namely vehicles and transport equipment (-23 percent); machinery and electronics (-21 percent); base metals (-14 percent) and mineral products (-12 percent). In contrast, sales of vegetables jumped 31 percent. Main export partners were: China (11.6 percent of total exports); the US (7.1 percent); Germany (6.0 percent); India (5.4 percent) and the UK (4.3 percent).

Imports declined 14.1 percent month-over-month to R88.6 billion, mainly original equipment components (-58% of total imports); base metals (-30 percent); chemicals (-18 percent) and machinery and electronics (-15 percent). On the other hand, purchases of mineral products went up 23 percent. The most important import partners were: China (18.9 percent of total imports); Germany (7.9 percent); the US (6.4 percent); Oman (5.5 percent) and India (5.0 percent).

Considering the January to December period, exports went up 7.9 percent and imports rose a meager 0.7 percent, widening the countrys trade surplus to R80.55 billion surplus from a R1.05 billion in 2016.

The South African Revenue Service (SARS) today released trade statistics for December 2017 recording a trade balance surplus of R15.72 billion. These statistics include trade data with Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland (BLNS).

The year-to-date (01 January to 31 December 2017) trade balance surplus of R80.55 billion is an improvement on the surplus for the comparable period in 2016 of R1.05 billion. Exports for the year-to-date grew by 7.9% whilst imports for the same period showed an increase of 0.7%.

Including trade data with Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland (BLNS)

The R15.72 billion trade balance surplus for December 2017 is attributable to exports of R104.32 billion and imports of R88.60 billion. Exports decreased from November 2017 to December 2017 by R11.87 billion (10.2%) and imports decreased from November 2017 to December 2017 by R14.54 billion (14.1%).

Exports for the year-to-date (01 January to 31 December 2017) grew by 7.9% from R1 100.32 billion in 2016 to R1 187.45 billion in 2017. Imports for the year-to-date of R1 106.90 billion are 0.7% more than the imports recorded in January to December 2016 of R1 099.27 billion, leaving a cumulative trade balance surplus of R80.55 billion for 2017.

On a year-on-year basis, the R15.72 billion trade balance surplus for December 2017 is an improvement from the surplus recorded in December 2016 of R12.27 billion. Exports of R104.32 billion are 11.5% more than the exports recorded in December 2016 of R93.52 billion. Imports of R88.60 billion are 9.0% more than the imports recorded in December 2016 of R81.25 billion.

November 2017s trade balance surplus was revised upwards by R0.03 billion from the previous months preliminary surplus of R13.02 billion to a revised surplus of R13.05 billion as a result of ongoing Vouchers of Correction (VOCs).

Trade highlights by category

The main month-on-month export movements: R million Section: Including BLNS: Mineral Products -R3 655 -12% Vehicles & Transport Equipment -R3 272 -23% Machinery & Electronics -R2 083 -21% Base Metals -R1 953 -14% Prepared Foodstuff -R 854 -16% Vegetable Products +R 988 +31% Total -R10 829 91% Total Movement -R11 866 100%

The main month-on-month import movements: R million Section: Including BLNS: Original Equipment Components -R4 682 -58% Machinery & Electronics -R3 819 -15% Chemical Products -R2 172 -18% Base Metals -R1 535 -30% Textiles -R1 300 -33% Plastics & Rubber -R 665 -14% Vehicles & Transport Equipment -R 643 - 7% Precious Metals & Stones -R 598 -40% Animal & Vegetable Fats -R 596 -49% Mineral Products +R3 162 +23% Total -R12 848 88% Total Movement -R14 537 100%

Trade highlights by world zone

The world zone results from November 2017 (revised) to December 2017 are given below.

Africa:

Exports: R25 937 million  this is a decrease of R4 924 million from November 2017.

Imports: R8 307 million  this is a decrease of R1 852 million from November 2017.

Trade Balance surplus: R17 630 million  this is a deterioration of R3 072 million in comparison to the R20 702 million surplus recorded in November 2017.

America:

Exports: R9 170 million  this is a decrease of R3 420 million from November 2017.

Imports: R9 358 million  this is a decrease of R 140 million from November 2017.

Trade Balance deficit: R 188 million  this is a deterioration of R3 280 million in comparison to the R3 092 million surplus recorded in November 2017.

Asia:

Exports: R37 364 million  this is a decrease of R1 637 million from November 2017.

Imports: R42 082 million  this is a decrease of R4 396 million from November 2017.

Trade Balance deficit: R4 718 million  this is an improvement of R2 758 million in comparison to the R7 476 million deficit recorded in November 2017.

Europe:

Exports: R22 630 million  this is a decrease of R 715 million from November 2017.

Imports: R27 010 million  this is a decrease of R7 527 million from November 2017.

Trade Balance deficit: R4 380 million  this is an improvement of R6 813 million in comparison to the R11 193 million deficit recorded in November 2017.

Oceania:

Exports: R 776 million  this is a decrease of R 712 million from November 2017.

Imports: R1 568 million  this is a decrease of R 534 million from November 2017.

Trade Balance deficit: R 792 million  this is a deterioration of R 178 million in comparison to the R 614 million deficit recorded in November 2017.

Excluding trade data with Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland (BLNS)

The trade data excluding BLNS for December 2017 recorded a trade balance surplus of R7.51 billion. This was a result of exports of R93.40 billion and imports of R85.89 billion.

Exports decreased from November 2017 to December 2017 by R9.40 billion (9.1%) and imports decreased from November 2017 to December 2017 by R13.00 billion (13.1%).

The cumulative deficit for 2017 is R14.28 billion compared to R105.76 billion deficit in 2016.

Trade highlights by category

The main month-on-month export movements: R million Section: Excluding BLNS: Mineral Products -R3 520 -12% Vehicles & Transport Equipment -R3 008 -23% Base Metals -R1 686 -13% Machinery & Electronics -R1 563 -20% Vegetable Products +R1 018 +40% Total -R8 759 93% Total Movement -R9 402 100%

The main month-on-month import movements: R million Section: Excluding BLNS: Original Equipment Components -R4 682 -58% Machinery & Electronics -R3 613 -14% Chemical Products -R2 076 -19% Base Metals -R1 489 -30% Textiles -R 910 -29% Vehicles & Transport Equipment -R 655 - 7% Plastics & Rubber -R 639 -14% Animal & Vegetable Fats -R 595 -49% Mineral Products +R3 189 +23% Total -R11 470 88% Total Movement -R13 003 100%

Trade highlights by world zone

The world zone results for Africa excluding BLNS from November 2017 (Revised) to December 2017 are given below.

Africa:

Exports: R15 014 million  this is a decrease of R2 460 million from November 2017.

Imports: R5 599 million  this is a decrease of R 318 million from November 2017.

Trade Balance surplus: R9 415 million  this is a deterioration of R2 142 million in comparison to the R11 557 million surplus recorded in November 2017.

Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland (Only)

Trade statistics with the BLNS for December 2017 recorded a trade balance surplus of R8.22 billion. This was a result of exports of R10.92 billion and imports of R2.70 billion.

Exports decreased from November 2017 to December 2017 by R2.46 billion (18.4%) and imports decreased from November 2017 to December 2017 by R1.53 billion (36.2%).

The cumulative surplus for 2017 is R94.83 billion compared to R106.80 billion in 2016.

Trade Highlights by Category

The main month-on-month export movements: R million Section: BLNS: Machinery & Electronics -R 520 - 26% Chemical Products -R 293 - 23% Base Metals -R 267 - 29% Vehicles & Transport Equipment -R 263 - 22% Prepared Foodstuff -R 215 - 14% Textiles -R 212 - 30% Plastics & Rubber -R 145 - 24% Mineral Products -R 136 - 7% Miscellaneous Manufactured Articles -R 125 - 29% Precious Metals & Stones +R 47 + 8% Total -R 2 129 86% Total Movement -R 2 464 100%Feds Grant Texas $25 Billion Extension of Medicaid WaiverAUSTIN, Texas - Health care providers in Texas are getting a $25 billion shot in the arm with the five-year extension of a Medicaid program by the federal government. The plan, known as an 1115 Demonstration Waiver is considered a low-cost alternative to traditional Medicaid. It provides hospitals and other caregivers with incentives to improve care access and quality, and helps pay for uncompensated care. Stacy Wilson, president of Children's Hospital Association of Texas, says since Texas chose not to expand full Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act, the waiver extends coverage to many low-income patients who might otherwise go without. (contd.) Podcast and entire story available: http://www.newsservice.org/index.phpBrokering a Career in Travel

Wendy Plummer applies the skills she learned in the mortgage industry to her agency business.

Travel Agent Theresa NortonNicole Nash's campaign urges tour operators and coastal resorts to ban straws completely in an effort to reduce plastic pollution.

A young marine biologist from Queensland, Australia, is working hard to make plastic straws extinct on the Great Barrier Reef. Nicole Nash recently launched a campaign called The Last Straw on the Great Barrier Reef to get tour boat operators, cruise ships, and coastal resorts to ban plastic straws completely.

Banning plastic straws is an easy solution to a serious problem. They are an unnecessary accessory to people's drinks (except in the case of medical issues), but they have created an enormous problem. Australians use an estimated 10 million straws a day, and the U.S. statistics are even more horrifying -- 500 million straws a day, which is enough to wrap around the circumference of the Earth 2.5 times daily!

Needless to say, eliminating them would go a long way to reducing plastic trash along the Great Barrier Reef. Currently, as Nash explains in the short promotional video below, 75 to 95 percent of marine debris found in and around the reef is plastic. This is harmful to the creatures that depend on the reef for survival, not to mention ugly.

The Cairns Post reports:

"Whales and sea turtles, among other animals, mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, and sea birds are attracted to colourful plastic fragments that they may feed to their young. With a false feeling of fullness they starve to death or die from internal injuries or blockages. When the animal decomposes the plastic in the guts is released and can kill again."



The campaign has a straw-free pledge that business owners can sign. As of this past weekend, more than 30 tour operators had already signed up, which indicates that Nash's campaign is resonating with many people.

Alternatives do exist, such as glass, stainless steel, bamboo, and paper straws, but even these are unnecessary. Nash recommends sticking to the campaign motto: "Sip, don't suck."

Once people quit straws, then it will be easier to start talking about other forms of disposable plastic that can, and should, be eliminated from our lives. Nash says:

We want to start a conversation to get people thinking about what else they can do to reduce their single-use consumption.



Watch the campaign video below:They say that cities should compete on the basis of the underlying strength of their communities, not handouts.

When Amazon first announced its cattle call for cities to compete for the dubious honor of hosting its second headquarters, I wondered why everyone was so eager to throw money at the company.

Its almost abusive. After shipping all their retail dollars and after years of losing jobs, sales taxes and so much else to Amazon, cities are lining up to say hit me, hit me again!



 Amazon short-listed cities

And indeed, you could fill an Amazon Air 767 with all the buckets of bucks. Among the short-listed cities, Raleigh is offering $50 million in infrastructure and cancelling taxes for 25 years. Denver: $100 Million. Los Angeles: up to a billion in tax breaks over ten years. Atlanta: a billion in incentives. Columbus, Ohio: $2.3 billion. Newark, New Jersey: over SEVEN BILLION DOLLARS in incentives.

It's not just nuts, it's suicidal. As Joe Cortright wrote in City Observatory,

...while Amazon may turn out to be a winner, it may come at the cost of fiscally impoverishing the city that it chooses to locate in. The other losers will be all the businesses against which Amazon competes, who are too small to have the leverage to insist on a comparable level of public subsidy for their similar operations.



Richard Florida at launch of The New Urban Crisis, Rotman Centre, Toronto/ Lloyd Alter/CC BY 2.0

Urban thinker and author Richard Florida thinks it's crazy too, and is calling for a non-aggression pact for all the cities competing for HQ2. He has started a petition, supported by a broad range of urban thinkers, including TreeHugger heroes like Emily Talen, Kaid Benfield, Roger Martin, Charles Marohn, Jennifer Keesmaat, Joe Cortright, Ken Greenberg and Brent Toderian. There are even a few TreeHugger villains like Ed Glaeser and Joel Kotkin. I am a bit sniffy about not being asked, but hey, this is TreeHugger and those are serious people. Florida writes:

We share a concern about the level of incentives and the looming competition between cities over incentives for Amazons new headquarters.

Tax giveaways and business location incentives offered by local governments are often wasteful and counterproductive, according to a broad body of research. Such incentives do not alter business location decisions as much as is often claimed, and are less important than more fundamental location factors. Worse, they divert funds that could be put to better use underwriting public services such as schools, housing programs, job training, and transportation, which are more effective ways to spur economic development....

We urge you, the mayors, governors, and other elected officials, as well as economic developers and community leaders, of Amazon HQ2 finalist cities, to put an end to such an imprudent policy.

To do so, we call upon you to forge and sign a mutual non-aggression pact that rejects such egregious tax giveaways and direct monetary incentives for the Amazon headquarters.

States, cities, and metropolitan regions should compete on the underlying strength of their communitiesnot on public handouts to private business.



It will be interesting to see if any of the competing cities bite or if they would stick to it; non-aggression pacts have a habit of falling apart at crunch time.

Support the petition at Change.orgHi All,

My family and I are trying to plan a week trip to Costa Rica in June. We have never been and I am finding the task of planning this trip to be exciting but overwhelming! So, I'm looking for advice! Here's the important things to know about us to help plan:

1) Most important:We will be traveling with our 6 year old son and 18-month daughter so we need family-friendly and kid-safe activities. I can "wear" my daughter for hiking, but it still needs to be easy enough for all of us to hike.

2) I'm very interested in seeing the wildlife and at the same time I have this annoying huge fear of spiders. I'm determined to not let this keep me from enjoying this beautiful country, but please keep this in mind when making suggestions. The night tour with "The Bug Lady" would most likely leave me curled up in a corner and broken out in hives. :).

3) we will be meeting my husband's family in CR and we have the option for at least one of the days to do a day trip somewhere with just my husband and I. I really want to see some waterfalls. Would an ATV tour be a good option for a kid-free adventure? Other suggestions, instead?

We don't have anything booked yet so we are open to any and all suggestions!What should i do? Im feeling fatigue but have noget fever

What should i do? Im feeling fatigue but have noget fever

Hey there. I've been travelling around South east asia for almost 3 months now with my boy friend. (Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, arrived in Laos from Hanoi yesterday.)

Im 23 years old and in good shape. I have add and take 54mg concerta each morning but it does not affekt me like this at home, and om on the pregnancy pill too. Ived quited smoking 3 months ago and i havent been drinking alkohol for 3 weeks or something.

The last 4 days i have had a terrrible headache everytime i move like walking etc. I feel i could sleep all Day even though i sleep 7 or 8 hours at night.

Im not sleep-tired more like fatigue or something.

And sometimes i have a bit nursea when I stand op.

And my brain is so tired. I dont feel like doing anything just lay down and relax. Its like my brain is not funktion as good like it use to do.

I dont have Any feber, vomiting or diarrhea.

It makes me so irritabel and exhausted. I mean i dont want to lie here Anymore. I want to be fresh.

Has anyone expired something simiLar? I was wondering if i have some kind of vitamin loss? Any ideas? Can i do something? Any idea what could have caused it?

My boyfriend is totaly fine.

Thank you! 

AnneThere is nothing as disappointing as a power outage when your favorite game or soap opera is just about to kick off. For business owners, a blackout may mean lost money or closing shop early. Some of the common causes of power outages in Kenya include weather conditions, trees, vandalism, animals, accidents, planned interruptions, and faulty equipment. Strong winds may also affect your power supply as they lead to conductor fault resulting to lights going on and off within seconds. Trees that fall on the power line have a similar effect as the winds. Luckily, for these cases (trees and wind), the breaker protection may clear the fault in no time. In some cases, the KPLC equipment such as an overloaded transformer may disrupt power. At times, accidents may affect poles and cause a KPLC Kenya power outage.

By now, you should have noticed that any time there are heavy rains, the likelihood of a blackout increases. Well, this is because rain reduces insulation properties of the power line materials (porcelain bushings) that are essential for keeping the flow of electricity. So, when water penetrates the line, it causes shorting leading to a blackout. Also, Kenya Power lets you plan by providing a list of scheduled areas to have outages beforehand. If you want to know about any planned KPLC power outage today, you can visit the website www.kplc.co.ke or Facebook and Twitter (Kenya Power Alerts) or buy any of the dailies to read about gazette areas. Alternatively, you can register with Kenya Power Alerts to receive updates on scheduled blackouts. Anytime your region is set to have an outage you will receive a notification via direct message or email.

READ ALSO: Fire engine driver crashes truck on Mombasa road enroute to visit girlfriend

Reporting Power Outage to KPLC

But, there is hope. Kenya Power and Lighting Company hopes to avert this problem by providing you a platform to communicate when an outage happens. Below is a guide on KPLC power outage reporting.

SMS customer service

Alert customer care about power disruption in your area through KPLC power outage SMS line 95551. KPLC requires that you indicate your meter number/account number, and, the nature of your problem. An SMS may look like Stima#98765345# no power. But if you are reporting an outage due to faulty lines and equipment you may need to provide a detailed description. For example, you could write Stima# 875634231# no power due to a defective power line on Ronald Ngala near Naivas Supermarket. Include any landmarks such as roads, schools, churches or building that may help the team in solving the problem. Once KPLC receives the SMS, they will send you another message showing the reference number of your complaints and the steps they will take. The SMS will cost you five shillings above the standard rate.

Use Social Media

Kenya Power has one of the most active social media accounts among all the other public corporations. On Twitter and Facebook, you can reach out to KenyaPower_care for any queries or complaints. When reporting a power outage on Facebook or Twitter, Kenya Power requires that you provide your account number and nature of the problems. Immediately, you will receive feedback on your complaint and the way forward. Nevertheless, in some cases, you will need to provide additional information such as your mobile number and location. You can also follow up with Kenya Power through the accounts to know how far your case has reached. Among the three options, social media is the most effective.

Call Customer Support

You can reach customer support via 95551 any time of the day throughout the week. Also, you can call 0703070707 or 0732170170. Remember, to use this service you will need sufficient airtime.

READ ALSO: How to pay electricity bill via mPesa 2017-2018

Unlike in the past, you can find out why an outage is affecting your area.

Source: TukoKenya Power and Lighting Company is a company offering power supply solution to Kenyan citizens and east African market at large. Lately, the company has registered high outages and power interruption rates. Most of these outages last for up to hours or even a day depending on time and locality. Kenya power has however come out to defend this anomaly. There are several reasons for most of these KPLC power outages and interruptions as outlined by Kenya power. Some of the causes for these outages are as discussed below.

Environmental conditions

Severe weather is among the most common causes of power breakdowns .Kenya power has highlighted heavy rains, lightning, strong winds, and flooding as causative agents for power outages now being experienced in most parts of the country. For instance, poles are susceptible to lightening and vulnerable to damage during strong winds.in some cases tree branches break off and fall on power lines causing detrimental losses and even claiming lives

Trees

KPLC has hugely invested in preventive measures for minimizing cases of power interruption and damages. Most of these long-term measures are important in curbing possible damages caused by trees on transmission lines and equipment such as transformers and fuses. When trees grow around power lines, possible contact with power lines may cut off the supply which will last as long as the power crew have not scheduled the repair. Trees sometimes cause power surge which many damage consumer electric gadgets and machinery.

Animals

A good number of power service interruptions are mainly caused by animals such as birds, monkeys, and squirrels. These animals may at times shut down the power station leaving most Kenyans in a blackout.

Equipment

Some equipment used in supply lines may become faulty at times and result to an outage. This is often bound to happen when inferior products are mostly used or when safety measures are not adhered to. Regular maintenance, update, upgrade and phase balancing are helpful when handling consumer power circuit. Poorly maintained switches, connectors, transformers, and auto re-closures can trigger massive power interruptions that can last for minutes or even hours

When accidents occur near power supply stations of lines, power may become interrupted as a result of equipment damage.

Planned Interruptions

Power may at times be interrupted or even shut down for safety reasons when working on power lines. This is mostly the case when power crew are installing a new transformer or doing a refill. In such cases, KPLC power outage alerts are normally released along with KPLC outage schedule. Power schedule is purposely planned such that in causes minimal interruption to various local consumers. Areas likely to be interrupted are deliberately placed on gazette to allow for earlier preparation and adjustments, especially for manufacturers.

Vandalism

Statistically, this is among the most common causes of power interruption. Security of electrical equipment has lately become a major concern for the company. Vandalism is risky and costly for Kenya Power and other reliant companies such as emergence service providers in hospitals.

Extreme Weather

Rain and wind are popular causes of weather related power outages. Rain acidity destroys the insulation properties of most electrical equipment such as switches, porcelain bushings, pin insulators, and poles. When this happen, power transmission becomes less efficient and may gradually result to an outage or even a shutdown.

Lightning

Thunderstorm and lighting are bound to happen when experiencing extreme temperature variations. When struck by lightning, power lines and costly equipment get severely destroyed. Lightning arrester, surge protectors, fuses, auto re-closures, and effective earth techniques are particularly highlighted as solutions to this problem. Kenya power has several lightning arresters installed in strategic places to help manage critical voltages and switching. Lightning storms ranks high in Kenya Powers maintenance and repair cases.

What to Do During an Outage

Kenya power advises its consumers to report outages and power interruptions to their contact line 95551. In cases of a damaged line, be sure to stay away from the faulty equipment. The company recommend a safe distance of about 10 meters. Apart from personal safety, immediately turn off the main power supply switch in a home to safeguard all equipment that were in use before the outage. Activating an outage mode in a home is desirable for safety reasons.

Most power lines built by Kenya power are now self-managed through integrated automation appliances such as auto re-closures. As a result of these systems, blackout frequency in most towns has been successfully minimized. Most parts of the country are still experiencing enormous blackout frequencies causing alarm on the need to advance such power supply lines. Many Kenyans blame power supply monopoly as the main hindrance to a reliable cable connection. It is arguably true that Kenya power is overly committed to make sure outages are fully minimized and unnecessary interruptions done away with.

Kenya power today has reliable platforms such as Facebook and Twitter through which consumers can reliably access scheduled outage plans and make necessary preparations that include a power back up plan.

Source: Tuko- Jubilee legislators laughed off Raila's swearing in as an ODM rally instead of a NASA event

- Aden Duale said the swearing in plan was only meant to massage Raila's ego

- Other legislators thanked Kalonzo, Mudavadi and Wetangula for bailing on the swearing in event at the last minute

- Raila Odinga was the only NASA co-leader who made it to Uhuru Park on Tuesday, January 30

- He was sworn in by MP TJ Kajwang and Miguna Miguna, the self-appointed National Resistance Movement general

Aden Duale, the Garissa Town MP and Leader of Majority, led Jubilee Party legislators in discrediting Raila Odinga's being sworn in as the people's president of Kenya on Tuesday, January 30.

TUKO.co.ke reliably learnt that Duale wrote off the swearing in as an ODM event instead of a National Super Alliance event. Raila is the party leader of ODM.

Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens

READ ALSO: Taharuki Karen huku milio ya risasi ikisikika nyumbani kwake Kalonzo Musyoka

According to a report by the Standard on Wednesday, January 31, Duale said the swearing in was of no consequence because President Uhuru Kenyatta was legally in office.

Leader of Majority Aden Duale at a past presser. Photo: KASS TV

READ ALSO: Uhuru should now arrest and charge Raila Odinga -Mutahi Ngunyi

"That event was meant to massage the ego of Raila Odinga. That was purely an affair of the Orange Democratic Movement. It can be be described as an ODM rally because it is inconsequential since President Uhuru is legally in office," said Duale.

Other leaders who dismissed the swearing in was William Cheptumo, the National Assembly's Justice and Legal Affairs committee chairman. He said the swearing in had no legal or constitutional foundation.

"The process of how a president is sworn in is established in the Constitution. His installing can only arise from an election he was declared the winner by the chairman of the polling commission and the oath administered by the Chief Justice," said Cheptumo.

READ ALSO: It's now clear Kalonzo Musyoka cannot be trusted - Alfred Mutua

Raila Odinga took the oath of office while surrounded by ODM legislators. Photo: Courtesy.

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Kimilili MP Didimus Barasa and Kipkelion West MP Hillary Kosgey also thanked NASA co-principals Kalonzo Musyoka, Musalia Mudavadi and Moses Wetangula for keeping away from the "unconstitutional event".

According to prior TUKO.co.ke reports, Raila took the oath way past 2 pm, a deadline set in the constitution for an elected president to take the oath of office. He was also sworn in by Ruaraka MP TJ Kajwang and former Nairobi gubernatorial candidate Miguna Miguna.

There was no judge at the event to swear in Raila as the opposition claimed earlier and Kalonzo did not take his oath as Raila's deputy.

READ ALSO: Matiangi declares NRM a criminal gang hours after Raila's swearing-in

Raila's NASA co-leaders did not grace the highly anticipated event, citing unavoidable circumstances. Photo: Facebook/NASA Coalition.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Doubts emerge over Kalonzo's future in NASA,Joho likely to replace him

NASA planned on swearing in the two based on results from their parallel tallying center that showed the duo won the August 8 presidential election but their victory was stolen.

However, due to unavoidable circumstances, Kalonzo, Wetangula and Mudavadi did not make it to the event at Uhuru Park, leaving Raila to take the oath on his own.

Raila said the trio will later reveal why they were absent and that Kalonzo would take his oath at a later date.

Have something to add to this article? Send to news@tuko.co.ke

Source: Tuko Breaking News- Wiper Party Deputy Leader Farah Maalim has claimed that Raila is likely to supprot DP William Ruto

- Maalim alludes that Raila will not support Kalonzo and Mudavadi come 2022, and Ruto will be president

- Kalonzo, Wetangula and Mudavadi on Tuesday, January 30, failed to attend Raila's swearing-in at Uhuru Park

Deputy President William Ruto could be the reason Kalonzo Musyoka, Moses Wetangula and Musalia Mudavadi avoided the swearing-in ceremony of Raila Odinga as the people's president on Tuesday, January 30, at Uhuru Park.

This is if the latest comments by Wiper deputy party leader Farah Maalim are anything to go by.

Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens

READ ALSO: Huyu ndiye kiongozi wa kwanza Afrika kumpongeza Raila baada ya kuapishwa

Maalim has sensationally claimed that Ruto may have influenced Raila Odinga to withdraw his support for Kalonzo and rally behind him for president come 2022.

Raila was sworn in as people's president Photo: TUKO.co.ke

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Museveni's bitter rival welcomes Raila's swearing-in

In his tweet, the former national assembly speaker said Raila has indicated signs of betrayal for Kalonzo and Mudavadi, hence the reason they boycotted his swearing in.

This comes a week after Raila, while attending a funeral in Kericho, said Ruto needs him to become president in 2022 and would support him if he cooperated.

The sentiments may not have gone down well with the three NASA principals who feel Raila is betraying them after supporting him for president in 2013 and 2017.

READ ALSO: NASA leaders fearing for their lives - Moses Wetangula

Raila himself has indicated he will support Kalonzo for president in 2022 since he will not be on the ballot.

As reported by TUKO.co.ke, the former prime minister took oath in the absence of his deputy Kalonzo, and was forced to respond when the crowd demanded answers.

The three boycotted the swearing in Photo: Facebook/Anyamah wa Anyamah

Social media attacks forced the three to come out claiming they were detained by police during the coronation.

READ ALSO: Uhuru receives rare symbolic welcome from KDF to show he is in charge moments after Raila's swearing-in

But pundits argue they dug their own political grave by skipping the controversial coronation as Raila supporters will abandon them come 2022.

Raila Odinga sworn in as the people's president on TUKO TV

Source: Tuko KenyaAn appeal is going out to private citizens and entities, to help save the life of baby KaamiOn Wednesday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak arrived in the Federal Republic of Germany on an official visit.

This is reported on the official website of the Defense Ministry of Ukraine.

"Today, January 31, Defense Minister of Ukraine, General of the Army of Ukraine Stepan Poltorak arrived in the Federal Republic of Germany on an official visit to participate in the Seminar for Senior Representatives of State Governance Sector of Ukraine at George C. Marshall European Centre for Security Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen," the report says.

Poltorak will address the first session on defense reform in Ukraine.The effectiveness of reforms of the Defense Ministry of Ukraine is tested during combat operations in eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak said this during the seminar at George C. Marshall European Centre for Security Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, on January 31, the press service of the Defense Ministry of Ukraine reported.

I would like to underscore the coordinated work of all government bodies of Ukraine in issues related to the defence reform. I have support and understanding in issues related to the defence of Ukraine. Nothing would be achieved without this coordination. I am happy to state it today. Yes, we transform our Defence Ministry in the context of combat operations and its difficult and responsible. We test the effectiveness of reforms in eastern Ukraine and I mean planning, logistic, and manning tasks. We have successes and challenges, but much has been achieved, Poltorak said.

Gen. Poltorak delivered a speech at the first session on achievements and challenges of the defence reform in Ukraine.

ishIllegal armed groups violated the ceasefire regime in Donbas three times over the past day. As a result of the fighting, one Ukrainian soldier was killed and two were wounded.

Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Spokesperson Dmytro Hutsuliak said this at a press briefing on Wednesday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports. A total of three militants attacks on ATO troops were recorded over the past day. As a result of the shelling, one Ukrainian soldier was killed and another two were wounded, he said. ishUkraine and Italy start to prepare the technical and economic documentation for the launch of the high-speed railway lines in Ukraine.

This was agreed during the meeting of Infrastructure Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Omelian and Chairman of the Italferr company Riccardo Maria Monti as well as representatives of the Embassy of the Italian Republic in Ukraine, the press service of the Infrastructure Ministry reports.

"I am glad that we can start this process with the support of Italferr, which belongs to the State Railway Group and has more than 30 years experience of work in this sector. We engage Italferr in the development of a feasibility study for the Odesa-Kyiv-Lviv euro-rail. The company's achievements are significant infrastructure projects for the conventional and high-speed railway sectors in Italy and in other countries. It is very important that we begin to introduce changes in Ukraine with the support of the leading European company," Omelian said.

As the Ukrainian minister noted, the launch of high-speed railway lines in Ukraine is the infrastructure project of state significance, which will positively influence the economic development of the regions.

olItaly will allocate EUR 2 million in humanitarian assistance to the Ukrainian population affected by the armed conflict in Donbas, the press service of the Italian Foreign Ministry has reported.

"The stay in Ukraine gives Minister Alfano an opportunity to announce a package of humanitarian aid for the population affected by the humanitarian crisis in eastern Ukraine, worth a total of EUR 2 million," reads the statement.

In particular, EUR 500,000 will be allocated in favor of the World Food Program (WFP) for the delivery of food rations and the supply of basic necessities, EUR 500,000 to UNICEF for work in the field of mine risk education, and EUR 1 million will be transferred to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for interventions in the health care sector.

According to the report, Alfano said upon arrival in Mariupol that the Ukrainian crisis was a priority for the Italian OSCE chairmanship. At a meeting with Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission Ertugrul Apakan in Donbas, he expressed Italy's full support and stated that the mission's work in an area of increased danger was essential for the implementation of the Minsk agreements and the prevention of a dangerous escalation of the conflict.

The Italian Foreign Ministry also added that on January 31, Alfano would leave for Moscow, where he will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov early on February 1.

opUkrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin believes that a U.S. Treasury Department list of influential Russians is a warning to them about their personal and collective responsibility for Russia's actions.

He said this on Tuesday, January 30, at a joint press conference with Italian Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Angelino Alfano, who is on a visit to Ukraine, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"Today, the United States published a list of individuals who, I hope, have every chance of facing U.S. sanctions. This list means that the United States believes that, firstly, Russia violates the fundamental principles of international law and, secondly, that Russia attempts to systematically ignore the functioning of democratic institutions in a civilized world. The publication of this list also means that everyone on the list, not just abstractly Russia, bear personal and collectively responsible for violating the principles of international law and exert conscious systemic influence in order to undermine the work of democratic institutions in a civilized world," Klimkin said.

In addition, according to him, the "Kremlin list" means that Russia will definitely receive "systemic sanction responses."

At the same time, he said, the key point in this issue is undoubtedly the solidarity of the entire democratic world.

"I am confident that these issues will be discussed during the next international meetings, including the G7, which is now chaired by the Canadians," Klimkin said.

Klimkin thanked Alfano for his consistent position in supporting Ukraine in the fight against Russian aggression, supporting Ukraine's independence and territorial integrity, as well as imposing sanctions against Russia.

"Italy has repeatedly expressed this position both within the EU and within the G7," Klimkin said.

As reported by Ukrinform, on January 29, the U.S. Department of the Treasury presented the so-called "Kremlin list," which includes 114 high-ranking officials and 96 "oligarchs" from Russia. The list includes almost all officials of the Russian presidential administration, government officials, heads of state companies and major entrepreneurs.

opPresident of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko held a meeting with Foreign Minister of Italy and OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Angelino Alfano.

Poroshenko congratulated Italy on the beginning of the OSCE presidency and thanked for including the settlement of the situation in Donbas in the priorities of the OSCE, the press service of the Head of State reported.

During the meeting, special attention was paid to the deterioration of the human rights situation in the occupied Crimea

The President informed the Italian minister about the situation in Donbas and praised the decision of Angelino Alfano to visit this region affected by the Russian aggression on January 31, 2018.

The parties discussed the priorities of the bilateral interaction. The Italian foreign minister praised the intensification of the activities of the Italian business in Ukraine as a result of the improvement of the investment climate through the holding of successful reforms.

Poroshenko thanked the Italian representative for supporting Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity, particularly for co-authorship in respective UN GA resolutions and on the issues of European and Euro-Atlantic integration.The international platform "Friends of De-occupation of Crimea" has been recently presented in Canberra, the capital city of Australia.

"Today we launch an important mechanism of consultations among representatives of countries and international organizations that acted as the co-authors of the resolutions of the UN General Assembly on human rights situation in Crimea. Our task is to contribute to the implementation of the provisions of the above-mentioned resolutions, which in the end should contribute to the process of de-occupation of Crimea," Ukraines ambassador to Australia Mykola Kulinich said during the platforms presentation, and Ukrinform correspondent reports.

According to him, one of the key elements in ensuring the de-occupation process is the restoration of the rights of the indigenous population of Crimea  the Crimean Tatars.

The participants in the discussion, including Thomas Albrecht, UNCHR Regional Representative in Australia, representatives of the embassies of Estonia, Georgia, Slovenia, the Netherlands, Austria, Bulgaria, Portugal, supported the Ukrainian initiative and expressed their readiness to actively participate in the related events of the Ukrainian Embassy in Australia.

The international platform "Friends of De-occupation of Crimea" is an informal open association of the concerned countries, non-governmental organizations (international and Ukrainian, working in the field of human rights), influential political leaders, which aims to provide active support and promote Ukraine's efforts to restore the state sovereignty over the temporarily occupied Crimea.

olEstonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas has thanked Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko during a phone conversation for helping resolve the issue of excluding his country from the list of so-called tax havens, the presidential press service has reported.

"The president of Ukraine and the prime minister of Estonia discussed topical issues regarding the development of bilateral trade and economic cooperation. The head of the Estonian government recalled a conversation with the Ukrainian president in Davos and thanked Petro Poroshenko for personal assistance in the speedy resolution of the issue on Estonia's exclusion from the list of offshore zones," reads the statement.

The press service reported that the head of state had thanked Estonia for consistent support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and assistance in counteracting Russian aggression.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said at a government meeting on January 31 that the Cabinet of Ministers had excluded Estonia, Latvia, Georgia, Malta and Hungary from the list of "offshore" countries.

opAn increase in the number of Canadian military instructors in Ukraine is a very important step for strengthening the defense capabilities of Ukraine.

National President of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) Paul Grod stated this, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

The deployment of additional 48 members of the Canadian Armed Forces to Operation UNIFIER is an important step in the process of strengthening Ukraines defence capabilities. The UCC commends the Government of Canada for its continuing commitment to the Ukrainian people, he said.

Since 2014, Ukraines military has undergone profound transformation. Due in part to the training by Canada and allied nations, today the Ukrainian army is an effective and battle-ready fighting force. In turn, Canada and allied nations are learning valuable lessons from their Ukrainian counterparts, Paul Grod stated.

As reported, this week, Canada announced the temporary expansion of its military contingent in Ukraine to organize military exercises of the Armed Forces at the battalion level.

ishUkraine's Cabinet of Ministers has excluded Estonia, Latvia, Georgia, Malta and Hungary from the list of offshore countries.

Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said this at a government meeting on Wednesday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"We constantly monitor the tax systems of different countries and formulate lists of requirements for Ukrainian companies regarding work with these countries," Groysman said.

He recalled that in particular, Estonia, Latvia, and Georgia had been included in the list of offshore countries.

"Our partners were worried about this issue. Since this issue is sensitive, we will decide to cancel these requirements for Estonia, Latvia, and Georgia," Groysman added.

Finance Minister Oleksandr Danyliuk, in turn, added that Estonia, Latvia, Georgia, Hungary, and Malta would be excluded from this list.

opUkraine's top prosecutor says he is interested in joint efforts aimed at tackling corruption.

Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko during his Brussels visit admitted that bringing a dispute between the PGO and the National Anti-corruption Bureau into a public domain was "wrong".

Lutsenko has assured journalists he is interested in working together to achieve results in the fight against corruption, an UNIAN correspondent in Brussels reported.

Following his meetings with representatives of the European Commission and European Parliament, he spoke of the purpose of his visit to the EU institutions.

"One of the goals [of the visit] is to clarify the situation with the relations between the independent SAPO [Specialized Anti-corruption Prosecutor's Office], NABU, and PGO and our colleagues from the SBU [Security Service], SFS [State Fiscal Service], and National Police. Yes, indeed, in the past year, the information attack of these institutions on each other may have been interesting, but not useful either for [NABU Director Artem] Sytnik and I, or our agencies, or Ukraine. We have admitted this. I was not the one who started the discussion, but I take responsibility for this mistake, if only because I am more experienced and, perhaps, older. I let myself be dragged into this discussion. I think such a degree of publicity was wrong. It is this message that I brought here," Lutsenko said.

Read alsoNABU, PGO chief reconcile as Lutsenko admits public row "mistake"At the same time, the Prosecutor General expressed his conviction that it was "a necessary discussion because there are too many myths around the PGO and NABU, too many fake news are being made."

"I'm more than anyone else interested in NABUs effectiveness because I cannot explain to our citizens that the prosecutor general is deprived of the right to investigate cases of today's officials suspected of corruption. This is exclusively the monopoly of NABU. Therefore, I think that we must work together to achieve results, and add to those 1,692 verdicts against mid-level corrupt officials at least 10 against todays high-ranking officials. It will be a common victory, and no one will notice whether it was the PGO or NABU. Actually, people dont care. The better the final result, the fewer complaints that someone is hindering someone elses efforts. This is my conviction," said Lutsenko.

The Prosecutor General also stressed the need to resolve the "dispute with NABU exclusively through legal methods, namely, by changing the law."

"It's so easy to spell out: all NABU operatives except undercover agents are selected in an open competition. Is that so difficult? It's easy to do. Or, for example, NABUs independent wiretapping. Is this possible? Yes, it is possible. Can we do this now? Yes we can. We must calmly draft amendments to the law, and if my influence on Parliament is required, and I have a bit of that, I am ready to help," Lutsenko said.

Read alsoNABU searching home of recent sting operation target  mediaAlso, the Prosecutor General considers it important to put an end to the practice of provoking bribes.

"Yes, we have facts that indicate signs of provoking bribes. These practices must be stopped. Unfortunately, we must work in this direction, and this applies not only to NABU, but also to the police and SBU. And none of them should call any legitimate supervision action or suspicion notices a "war". Our European colleagues agreed with that," added Lutsenko.The ultimate goal of the sanctions is to stop important revenue from flowing into the Russian government.

A senior official of the U.S. Department of State has commented on the deadline for new sanctions against Russia, saying that January 29 was not a deadline but "a start date."

"The most important thing is to clarify that yesterday, January 29th, was not a deadline under Section 231. So, it was not a deadline to impose sanctions; it was actually a start date. It was the start of the race. It was the day on or after which we could start imposing sanctions if we make the determination here at the State Department of activity that falls under the provision," the official said at a special briefing via teleconference on January 30, 2018.

Read also"Kremlin Report" should make Russia agree to peacekeeping mission in Donbas  KlimkinAccording to the official, the ultimate goal is to stop important revenue from flowing into the Russian government, which concerns, above all, the defense and intelligence sectors.

"Our discussions, our diplomatic engagements, are sensitive and we don't talk about them publicly, but we did brief Congress yesterday because it's important, of course, to keep them updated. I can say publicly, though, that the results of our engagement and our demarches globally, we have been able to turn off potential deals that equal several billion dollars. And that is real success, it's real money, and it's real revenue that is not going to the Kremlin and is not going to Russia as part of the intent of this law and the intent of this administration, to remind Russia and remind the Russian government of the costs of its malign activity, specifically with regard to Ukraine," he said.

As UNIAN reported earlier, the U.S. Treasury released the so-called "Kremlin report," a list of Russian President Vladimir Putin's allies facing U.S. sanctions.

The list includes 210 individuals. Among them are all members of the Russian government, the staff of Putin's administration, other high-ranking politicians and 96 oligarchs whose total assets exceed $1 billion.

The list included, in particular, Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov, head of the presidential administration Anton Vayno, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.Arbuzov is suspected of complicity in the seizure of funds of state-owned gas producer JSC Chornomornaftogaz.

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko has said the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) of Ukraine put former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and former head of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Serhiy Arbuzov on the wanted list.

Read alsoPGO appeals court for permission to convict Azarov, Stavytskiy in absentiaAccording to Lutsenko, Azarov was indicted and was put on the wanted list on charges of complicity in a large-scale illegal seizure of liquefied gas produced by PJSC Ukrgazvydobuvannia and PJSC Ukrnafta, which caused damage to the state worth UAH 2.2 billion.

Arbuzov is suspected of complicity in the seizure of funds of state-owned JSC Chornomornaftogaz in the amount of UAH 3.2 billion through the purchase of 312 and 319 self-elevating drilling rigs.

"Nataliya Ihnatchenko [Head of Vernum Bank's supervisory board] and citizen O. Frolov have also been detained, they are suspected of laundering funds received by members of an organized criminal gang through controlled non-resident enterprises. Today, a preventive measure in the form of custody or a bail of UAH 1 billion is to be selected for them," Lutsenko wrote on Facebook.During discussions in commissions, senators rejected the amendment removing the notion of "crimes of Ukrainian nationalists".

Commissions of the Senate of Poland endorsed and remained unchanged the updated legislation on the Institute of national memory, which among other things introduces criminal liability for denying the crimes of Ukrainian nationalists.

The legislation was supported by the commissions on human rights, rule of law, and cultural issues, Europeiska Pravda reports.

Eleven senators voted for the adoption of the bill in its current form, while only five were against it with no abstentions.

Read alsoDuda promises to analyze Poland's ban on Ukrainian nationalist ideologyThe senators chose not to amend the provision according to which "those who publicly and contrary to facts ascribes to the Polish people or state responsibility for or complicity in the crimes of the Third Reich or other crimes against humanity, peace and war crimes" are liable to a fine or imprisonment for up to three years.

In addition, the senators rejected the amendment removing the notion of "crimes of Ukrainian nationalists".

Read alsoDangerous distortion of history: where could Polands scandalous law leadThey also refused to remove from the list of punishment the three-year imprisonment.

The amendments had been promoted by the senators of the oppositions "Civil Platform".

Read alsoUkrainian-Polish Commission on history to meet next month - AmbassadorThe Polish Sejm adopted amendments to the law on the Institute of national memory on January 26. The law will enter into force after its signing by the president.Russia's occupation forces used 82mm mortars, grenade launchers, heavy machine guns, and small arms.

Russia's hybrid military forces mounted three attacks on Ukrainian army positions in Donbas in the past 24 hours, with one Ukrainian soldier reported as killed in action (KIA) and another two as wounded in action (WIA).

Read alsoUkraine reports only one enemy attack in Donbas in last day"In the Donetsk sector, the enemy fired 82mm mortars and grenade launchers at our defenders stationed near the village of Pisky," the press center of the Anti-Terrorist Operation Headquarters reported on Facebook on Wednesday morning.

In the Mariupol sector, the militants used 82mm mortars near the village of Lebedynske, as well as heavy machine guns and small arms near the village of Vodiane.Ceasefire violations in Donetsk region were recorded near the Donetsk Filtration Station, as well as in the towns of Svitlodarsk, Horlivka, Debaltseve, and Yasynuvata.

Monitors of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine have reported about 264 explosions in Donetsk and Luhansk regions from 19:30 local time on January 28 to 19:30 on January 29.

"In Donetsk region, the SMM recorded more ceasefire violations, including about 260 explosions, compared with the previous 24 hours (about 130 explosions)," the OSCE SMM said in an update on January 30 based on information received as of 19:30 Kyiv time on January 29, 2017.

Read alsoOSCE monitors report about 235 explosions in Donbas over weekendIn particular, ceasefire violations in Donetsk region were recorded near the Donetsk Filtration Station, as well as in the towns of Svitlodarsk, Horlivka, Debaltseve, and Yasynuvata.

"In continuation of the sequence of ceasefire violations recorded in the early evening of January 28, on the evening and night of January 28-29, the SMM camera at the Donetsk Filtration Station (15km north of Donetsk) recorded 16 undetermined explosions, 139 projectiles in flight (42 from east to west, 92 from west to east, one from north to south, four from south to north) and a tracer round in flight from east to west, all 0.5-1.5km south," the monitors said.

"One of the projectiles recorded in flight from south to north struck the building on which the camera is installed (the impact did not affect the camera, which remained operational). During the early evening of January 29, the SMM recorded ten projectiles in flight from east to west 0.5-1.5km south," reads the report.

It is also reported that during the evening of January 28, while in government-controlled Svitlodarsk (57km north-east of Donetsk), the SMM heard 75 undetermined explosions and 310 bursts of heavy-machine-gun and small-arms fire, all 4-6km south-east.

In addition, during the evening of January 28, while in non-government-controlled Debaltseve (58km north-east of Donetsk), the SMM heard 65 undetermined explosions 6-10km at directions ranging from west to north-west.

"In Luhansk region, the SMM recorded fewer ceasefire violations, including four explosions, compared with the previous 24 hours (14 explosions)," the OSCE SMM said.The agreements allow Ukraine forces to improve tactical positions on certain sectors of the frontline.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine have taken control over the village of Novo-oleksandrivka in Luhansk region, the settlement located in the so-called "grey zone". The advance saw no violations of the Minsk agreements, the Ukrainian military say.

"[The retaking of Novo-oleksandrivka] took place a few days ago. Unfortunately, I cannot reveal details of the operation," press secretary of the ATO Headquarters, Vasyl Labai, told UNIAN.

"We are strengthening or re-building our defensive positions, while separate units can improve tactical positions in certain areas, but it is not about violating the Minsk agreements," Labai said.

Read alsoUkraine reports only one enemy attack in Donbas in last day"We continue to adhere to the peace plan of the president of Ukraine, and at the same time we are ready for any developments, to respond adequately to the aggressors moves," he stressed.

According to the ATO HQ spokesman, the settlement of Novo-oleksandrivka had belonged to the Ukraine-controlled territory, according to the very Minsk agreements anyway.The executive order authorized the U.S. military to add detainees and suggested the possibility that captured Islamic State militants could be sent there for the first time.

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an order on Tuesday to keep open the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay after his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, tried unsuccessfully to close the prison that has drawn international condemnation.

In his first State of the Union address to Congress, Trump made clear he was fulfilling a campaign promise to keep operating the prison for foreign terrorism suspects at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo, Cuba, as reported by Reuters.

"I just signed, prior to walking in, an order directing (Defense) Secretary (Jim) Mattis... to re-examine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay," Trump said.

Read alsoU.S. to release last Russian prisoner held at Guantanamo BayThe executive order authorized the U.S. military to add detainees and suggested the possibility that captured Islamic State militants could be sent there for the first time.

Obama signed an order on his first full day in office in 2009 ordering efforts to shutter Guantanamo within a year, but his plan was thwarted by mostly Republican opposition in Congress. Instead, his administration reduced the inmate population to 41 from 242 during his eight years in office.

The prison, which was opened by President George W. Bush to hold suspected militants captured overseas after the September 11, 2001, attacks, came to symbolize harsh detention practices that opened the United States to accusations of torture.

As a presidential candidate, Trump vowed "to load it up with some bad dudes." Since he became president a year ago, there is no indication any new prisoners have arrived.

"In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds and hundreds of dangerous terrorists, only to meet them again on the battlefield  including the ISIS leader, (Abu Bakr) al-Baghdadi, who we captured, who we had, who we released," Trump said in the speech, referring to the Islamic State militant group.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in July that Baghdadi had been killed. Americans captured him at the beginning of the war in Iraq, and released him a year later, thinking he was a civilian agitator rather than a military threat.

Civil liberties groups immediately denounced the executive order, and the Center for Constitutional Rights said it would file a legal challenge.

"In trying to give new life to a prison that symbolizes America's descent into torture and unlawful indefinite detention, Trump will not make this country any safer," said Hina Shamsi, a director at the American Civil Liberties Union.Sanctions against Russia are not the first and definitely not the last case when restrictive measures are applied in world history. And as the Kremlin is flaunting its alleged global influence, the sanctions simply do their job.

History has seen many instances when restrictive measures where applied to certain states. Today, dozens of countries remain sanctioned all across the world  from Myanmar to Venezuela, from Iran to North Korea and, of course, Russia.

"In general, wherever there are conflicts, there are sanctions," says Maksym Yali, a senior fellow at the Institute of World History of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. "The larger the state, the more serious consequences of sanctions."

Russian political elite has for a long time failed to take restrictive measures seriously, thinking they need to wait out a couple of years until the U.S. administration changes, EU migration problems worsen, and then sanctions are finally lifted. In fact, it turns out that sanctions dont go anywhere, only threatening to intensify and expand.

The U.S. Treasury recently published an impressive list of Russian oligarchs and high-ranking officials close to the Russian president (the open section of this dossier has over 200 names). The report also included Russian enterprises with a state share of more than 25% and revenues over $2 billion.

The "black list" was published and submitted to Congress as a result of the adoption last summer of the Combating American Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. It applies to Russia, North Korea, and Iran. In addition to expanding economic restrictions against these countries, the Act obliged the U.S. Treasury Secretary to submit to Congress a report on anti-Russian sanctions after consulting with the Director of National Intelligence and Secretary of State.

An important detail is that the reports publication does not mean that sanctions will automatically be imposed. However, the press secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov (who is also included in the report) has already stated that listed Russian politicians and businessmen are de facto "called enemies of the United States" and that the very fact of making this information public "can potentially damage the image and reputation of our entrepreneurs, politicians and leadership."

In fact, the Kremlin Report is a demonstration of Russian elites vulnerability and dependence on the West, where a significant share of their capital is stored, real estate located, and children studying and living. Therefore it is not surprising that Russian President Vladimir Putin, commenting on the report, said that the Kremlin was "set to take retaliatory steps, serious ones that would have rolled our relations back to zero", but so far Moscow would refrain from these steps.

While Russia is talking about the American "political paranoia" and attempts to intimidate Moscow, trying to calm the electorate, UNIAN polled a number of experts regarding the Kremlin Reports consequences, asking whether new sanctions will lead to increased pressure on Vladimir Putin personally and whether a "palace coup" is possible in Russia in current conditions.

"Burn Notice" for Russian elites

Co-director for foreign policy and international security programs at the Razumkov Center, Oleksiy Melnyk, notes that the main goal of potential new sanctions is to influence the Russian elite, which is widely responsible for actions traditionally attributed solely to the Russian president. Particularly painful may be the inclusion in the secret part of the Kremlin Report of family members of the main Russian actors. "When their children studying abroad, their wives, mistresses of the Kremlin top officials, used to having a good time in the West and go on shopping tours, fall under sanctions, this can have a certain effect on the unity of the Russian elite and, accordingly, one can expect that it will reduce the aggressive stance of Russian politics, since the calculation sees it that sabotage efforts will intensify on the part of the elites against Putin's endeavors," the expert suggests.

Of course, this is unlikely to somehow affect the "choice" of the Russian people in March this year. However, according to the political scientist and head of the board of the Penta Center for Applied Political Studies, Volodymyr Fesenko, the Kremlin Report in itself is a "burn notice", a warning that the people included in the list are potential targets of sanctions.

"The list includes almost the entire Kremlin tops and almost all Russian oligarchs from the Forbes list, even those who are not very close to the leadership. On the other hand, some were not included, for example, head of the Russian Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina, CEO of the state-owned Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies Anatoly Chubais, and head of the Center for Strategic Research, former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, although he is close enough to Putin," notes Fesenko.

It should be separately noted that the list includes people who are usually not targeted by such lists. In particular, its about Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. "As a rule, diplomats are not included in black lists," says Fesenko.

Price of intractability

But can the emergence of the Kremlin Report somehow influence the Donbas settlement? According to the Russian political scientist, PhD in History Lilia Shevtsova, no real progress should be expected: "The Kremlin's official position on the issue was recently voiced by Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov."

Its essence is that Moscow, despite all pressure, does not intend to change its course regarding the Donbas conflict and its understanding of the Minsk agreements. And it is unlikely that any list, even such a vast one, could alter the Kremlin's position and make it more compliant. "Ahead of the presidential elections, Putin cannot afford to go for concessions even if such intractability comes at a cost," the expert notes.

A Ukrainian diplomat, head of the board of the Maidan of Foreign Affairs Foundation, Bohdan Yaremenko, shares this view. According to him, the Kremlin list will definitely lead to negative consequences for the Russian political elite. Their corruption opportunities will be restricted while their style and way of life will be drastically limited. However, Putin uses this as a factor for consolidating his supporters around the idea of confronting "external pressure" and attempts to "put Russia on its knees."

Besides, Yaremenko believes that at the current stage, the expansion and update of sanctions is nothing more than a light stroke. "The current state of sanctions does not allow to drastically influence the political will of the Russian leadership and to stop aggression against Ukraine. Although it deals sensitive, unpleasant blows on Russia, very dangerous for its economy. But, nevertheless, they represent no existential threat to Russia," the diplomat argues.

Whether such a threat appears in the future will depend on exactly what methods of influence on Russia the U.S. Congress chooses (with an eye to the U.S. president who is looking for opportunities for dialogue with the Russian Federation). The current tactic of exerting pressure without putting Moscow in a desperate situation is frankly weak.

However, it is not worth expecting that the U.S. and EU will change this approach. "They will continue to pursue the same tactics - sanctions will be expanded, covering more names and companies, but not embracing new areas of the economy," Yaremenko said.

Incidentally, the Russian elites are also aware of that. And this (so far) has allowed the Kremlin to flaunt its non-existent influence. "We are perfectly aware that even if types of lists are drawn, there are no other contact persons with whom the U.S. authorities could communicate," said Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

According to him, the latest list should not be deemed too important since it will not affect Russia in any way.

Could there be a coup against Putin?

At the same time, Russian political analyst Lilia Shevtsova believes that the Kremlin Report, especially its classified part, makes the entire Russian establishment toxic and hinders the realization of its interests in the West. "If the power starts weakening and there is some social unrest, even a cowardly establishment will start looking around. But this moment has not come yet," she notes.

Now the Russian elites (all of its assets and rights) depend on the whims of the Russian president. And it is possible that many of those included in the Kremlin Report count on partial compensation for their losses at the expense of the state.

Moreover, there has already been such a precedent. Political scientist Vladimir Fesenko recalls that after the introduction of the first batch of anti-Russian sanctions, Vladimir Putin granted his newly sanctioned friends new large projects, major state orders, and tax breaks so that they could make money. "But the rumor has it that one of these oligarch friends was given a hint that Khodorkovskys prison bed has not cooled down yet and its vacant," the political scientist said.

However, if we consider that Russias entire security block is strongly anti-Western, it is hardly worth expecting any kind of coup there. "Undoubtedly, many people over here want this to happen, but this is a complete utopia and this does not reflect the actual situation in Russia," he notes.

Former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, now an expert with Brookings Insitutuion in Washington, Steven Pifer, also believes that additional sanctions may inflict more pressure on the Kremlin but could hardly provoke a coup.

According to him, the sanctions are not aimed at changing the regime but at changing its behavior. And in this sense, the goals are being achieved, albeit partially. He believes that even the very prospects of such lists emergence caused concern in Moscow.

Indeed, Putin and his team are now doing everything possible to demonstrate that such lists dont affect them in any way. On the other hand, the unprecedented activity of Russian politicians on this issue raises the question: why should they be focused so much on the topic? Americans dont watch Russian television and they can hardly be convinced of their "wrong" behavior. At the same time, ordinary Russians are not affected by the Kremlin Report

Sanctions are no panacea

By the way, the aim of any sanctions, no matter the will Ukrainians toward the aggressor state, is not the collapse of the sanctioned state as such but the damage to the ruling regime, individuals and companies close to this regime, the countrys economy or its individual branches. Modern anti-Russian sanctions are just about that.

"We need to understand that sanctions are not always effective. For example, it may happen so that the authoritarian regime, under the influence of sanctions, mobilizes the population and becomes even more cruel. This is the path Russia is walking today. Another example is Iran. It cannot be claimed that the sanctions imposed since 2009 did not work. They have affected the economy and set Iran back in economic, technological sense. But the Iranian regime is still there - we've all seen demonstrations in December and January, and we see that the regime is still functioning there," said Deputy Director of the Situations Modeling Agency, Oleksiy Holobutsky.

Sanctions against Southern Rhodesia, the country seeking independence, made a relatively democratic state, one of Africas richest, a what is known today as Zimbabwe (a 40-year period of "governance" of Putin's friend Robert Mugabe ended only last year, and it was only under the pressure of the countrys military who set up a coup). On the other hand, almost 30 years of sanctions against South Africa did yield an initially sought result  apartheid has been abolished.

Another example of only a partial success of sanctions is North Korea. The DPRK, who considers itself a nuclear power, has been targeted by restrictive measures since 2006. But this did not in the least prevent North Korea from carrying out more nuclear tests in 2009, 2013 and 2017. Throughout this period, sanctions against North Korea have been getting tougher. North Korean authorities, from time to time, go for some negotiations, bargain, manage to win some temporary easing, and then again start launching missiles again...

Often the application of restrictive measures is needed when no one wants to unleash a new world war, while diplomatic tools dont work. It is interesting though that the ultimate economic blockade is extremely rare nowadays, like the one imposed by the Entente Bloc on Soviet Russia at the beginning of the past century. However, it did not last long (they eventually had to recognize the Bolsheviks authority and cooperate with them). There were also the UN, EU and U.S. sanctions of 1991 against Yugoslavia. Those measures banned UN member states from trading with the sanctioned state, imposing a full trade embargo and freezing all bank accounts. Restrictions were lifted only 10 years later. By that time, hardly anything was left from the former Federal Republic. And in 2006 Yugoslavia officially ceased to exist.

Kostyantyn Honcharov, Iryna Shevchenko

If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+EnterThere has been no significant diminishing of Russian attempts to sow division around the world U.S., according to the statement.

Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, Co-Chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus and senior member of the Defense Appropriations Committee, and Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, Co-Chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus, released the joint statement regarding news that the Trump Administration would not implement strong sanctions called for by Congress bipartisan passage of sanctions legislation last year.

We are deeply disappointed with the Administrations decision to forgo sanctions on more Russian oligarchs and Putin courtiers, particularly those who threaten libertys most cherished freedoms, democratic institutions and security, both public and private, the statement reads.

The Administration claims that the mere threat of sanctions acts as a deterrent. We disagree, says the statement.

Read alsoPressure of sanctions: what awaits gang of "swindlers and thieves"The officials find it clear that Russian aggression continues across Europe, and senior members of the U.S. intelligence and defense community have stated repeatedly there has been no significant diminishing of Russian attempts to sow division around the world, and use cyber weapons to damage our nations institutions.

Read also"Kremlin Report" should make Russia agree to peacekeeping mission in Donbas  KlimkinWords alone are not enough. We urge our colleagues in Congress to recommit in holding Russia accountable and call on the Administration to sanction the Russian oligarchs, the statement concludes.

As UNIAN reported earlier, the U.S. Treasury released the so-called "Kremlin report", a list of persons close to Vladimir Putin, against whom sanctions can be imposed.

The list includes 210 people. Among them are all members of the Russian government, the staff of Putin's administration, other high-ranking political leaders, and oligarchs.

The list included, in particular, the press secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, head of presidential administration Anton Vayno, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.(@FahadShabbir)

The services of Bank of Azad Jammu and Kashmir were appreciated in its 31st board meeting held here on Wednesday and approved Business Plan and Budget for the year 2018

MUZAFFARABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) :The services of Bank of Azad Jammu and Kashmir were appreciated in its 31st board meeting held here on Wednesday and approved Business Plan and Budget for the year 2018.

The meeting was chaired by Dr. Ejaz Muneer, Chief Secretary Government of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, who is also the chairman of the bank's board of directors. Imran Smad, Managing Director of the Bank while initiating the proceedings of the meeting, highlighted important points regarding the performance of the Bank.

While presenting the Business Plan of the Bank and Budget for the year 2018, Board of Directors (BoDs) were informed that during 2018, all Branches of the Bank would be further strengthened so that customers could be provided modern Banking facilities.

After thorough scrutiny and consideration, the Board approved the Bank Business Plan and Budget for the year 2018.

The BoDs expressed their satisfaction and confidence over the Bank's performance for the year 2017 and appreciated the steps taken by the management for the promotion of the Banking business.

It was hoped that the Bank will achieve all its targets during the 2018. The Chairman Ejaz Munir appreciated the role played by the Bank for Socio-Economic development of the people of the State of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and assured all possible support and patronage of the Government to the Bank Those who were present in the meeting including all Directors, Senior Member Board of Revenue Fayyaz Ali Abbasi, Secretary Finance Farid Ahmad Tarar, Secretary Forests Syed Zahoor-ul-Hasan Gilani, Secretary Industries Raja Tariq Masood Khan, Chartered Accountant Ejaz Hussain Rathore, Senior Banker Raja Mumtaz Ali, Naveed Sadiq, Secretary Board Maazullah Khan and Chief Financial Officer Shahid Shahzad Mir.The Punjab Environment Department and Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry (LCCI) will jointly hold Green Award competition to encounter serious environmental issues

LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) :The Punjab Environment Department and Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry (LCCI) will jointly hold Green Award competition to encounter serious environmental issues.

Punjab Environment Minister Begum Zakia Shahnawaz and LCCI President Malik Tahir Javaid disclosed this in a joint press conference at Lahore Chamber on Wednesday. LCCI Senior Vice President Khawaja Khawar Rashid, Vice President Zeshan Khalil, Tehmina Saeed Chaudhry and DG Environment Protection Chaudhry Asif Iqbal also spoke on the occasion.

They said that at first stage, it would be held between Sunder Industrial Estate and Quaid-e-Azam Industrial Estate after that other sectors would be covered. Provincial Minister Zakia Shahnawaz said that shifting of entire responsibility to the industry for pollution was an injustice because various other factors were also playing havoc in this regard.

She added that issue of environment could be tackled through joint efforts as it was harming all segments of society. "Conservation and plantation of trees is our prime responsibility," she said and urged the industrial sector to avail the latest technologies for waste management, water treatment and to reduce gas omission.

She also called for separation of residential and industrial areas. LCCI President Malik Tahir Javaid said that Green Award was a pioneering plan to 'Clean and Green' the industrial areas of Lahore, and main focus of the campaign would be to motivate industrialists to take ownership and responsibility to clean the environment around their place of work by beautification/landscaping in and outside of their factories on available spaces and by removing solid/industrial waste around.

He explained that removal and safe disposal of solid waste, wastewater, and plantation of trees, flowers and plants and improvement of landscape would be main goals of the competition. He emphasized that beautification and landscaping which included planting trees in the industrial areas would be the first step towards providing a clean and safe environment.

"We, the industrialists and as citizens, play an important role and feel that it is every citizen's responsibility to take steps to improve and clean our environment and not just the governments.

Planting trees is Sadqa-i-Jariya." he opined. He added that it was a known fact that environment-friendly industries not only conserve environment but also promote their green image and enhance their profits.

He was of the view that the industries only were not responsible for environmental pollution, as various other factors including rising number of vehicles, deforestation, digging of roads at vast scales etc.

were playing horrific role in this regard. About forestation, he mentioned that Pakistan ranked 79 with around one per cent under-forest area while Russia and India stand first and 10th position with over 49 per cent and 23 percent respectively.

He said that deforestation in Pakistan was not only leaving adverse impact on the environment but also hitting the economy hard. He said that forests were safeguarding biodiversity and acting as a shield against climate changes as well as equally important for the economic safety of the country, asserting that wood production, processing and the pulp & paper industries accounted over one per cent of the global gross domestic product.

Malik said: "We have to recognize that forestry is an integral feature of sustainable economic development. It should be the focus policy corridors for generating new economic opportunities." On this occasion, Tehmina Saeed Chaudhry said that pollution in the environment was the presence of contaminants in the natural environment, which caused adverse changes and health hazards to human beings and nature.

She said that by developing forestry as a commercially viable sector, the country could make the agriculture sector stable and valuable for economy.Pakistan and European Union (EU) Wednesday agreed for cooperation in energy conservation and efficiency and the Power Division would send a high level delegation to EU to participate in a workshop with European expert and professional which would be comprised government officials and experts from private sector

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) :Pakistan and European Union (EU) Wednesday agreed for cooperation in energy conservation and efficiency and the Power Division would send a high level delegation to EU to participate in a workshop with European expert and professional which would be comprised government officials and experts from private sector.

The decision was made in a meeting between Federal Minister for Power Division, Sardar Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari and EU Ambassador Jean Fancois Cautain. It was further agreed that the European Investment Bank would be invited to the subject workshop to explore different option relating to financing the energy related projects in Pakistan.

Sardar Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari while thanking the EU ambassador for the hosting of workshop on promotion of energy efficiency and energy conservation said after having successfully bridging the demand and supply gape, now it was of utmost importance that the consumers should be educated on usage of electricity.

The education would not only save money of the consumers but also help in efficient utilization of the existing generation capacity as one megawatt saved was far better than one megawatt generated, he added.

He also invited the European Investment Bank and other EU potential assistance partners toward assisting in establishment of Pakistans First Renewable Energy Institute.

He said he was meeting the Higher Education Commission chairman for identification of suitable university in Pakistan for establishment of the institute.

The minister also proposed that both the Power Division and EU embassy to appoint focal persons to frequently interact on matters relating to the energy cooperation between the two sides. The EU ambassador also agreed to the proposal.

The federal minister also highlighted salient features of the government plan to solarize some 30,000 tube well in Balochistan and also invited the EU to take part in the process. Jean Fancois Cautain thanked the federal minister for the warm welcome accorded to him.

He said the European Investment Bank was keenly observing the fast expanding power sector in Pakistan. He said the bank would consider option of assisting in solarization of tube wells in Balochistan.

He said EU was already working closely with government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on a number of renewable energy projects most of which were hydel. The ambassador assured the minister that the EU would continue to provide assistance to Pakistan in the energy sector.(@rukhshanmir)

Pakistan and European Union have agreed for cooperation in Energy Conservation and Energy Efficiency and in this regard the Power Division will send a high level delegation comprising of Government officials and private sector expert to EU to participate in a workshop with European expert and professional in this regard

ISLAMABAD,(UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) Pakistan and European Union have agreed for cooperation in Energy Conservation and Energy Efficiency and in this regard the Power Division will send a high level delegation comprising of Government officials and private sector expert to EU to participate in a workshop with European expert and professional in this regard. The decision was made today in a meeting between Federal Minister for Power Division, Sardar Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari and EU Ambassador HE Mr.

Jean Fancois Cautain here today. It was further agreed that the European Investment Bank will be invited to the subject workshop to explore different option relating to financing the energy related projects in Pakistan. Sardar Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari while thanking the EU Ambassador for the hosting of workshop on promotion of energy efficiency and energy conservation said that after having successfully bridging the demand and supply gape, now it is of utmost importance that the consumers should be educated on usage of electricity.

The education will not only save money for the consumers but also help in efficient utilization of the existing generation capacity as one megawatt saved is far better than one megawatt generated, he added. The Federal Minister also invited the European Investment Bank and other EU potential assistance partners toward assisting in establishment of Pakistans First Renewable Energy Institute.

He said that he is meeting the Chairman Higher Education Commission today for identification of suitable university in Pakistan for establishment of the institute. Federal Minister for Power Division also proposed which was agreed to by the EU Ambassador that both the Power Division and EU Embassy to appoint focal persons to frequently interact on matters relating to the energy cooperation between the two sides. The Federal Minister also highlighted salient features of the Government plan to solarize some 30000 tube well in Balochistan and he also invited the EU to take part in the process. Mr.

Jean Fancois Cautain thanked the Federal Minister for the warm welcome accorded to him. He said that the European investment Bank is keenly observing the fast expanding power sector in Pakistan.

He said that the Bank will for sure be considering option of assisting in solarization of tube wells in Balochistan. He said that EU is already working closely with Government of KPK on a number of renewable energy projects most of which are hydel. The Ambassador assured the Minister that the EU will continue to provide assistance to Pakistan in the energy sector.Chairperson National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) Razina Alam Khan has said that educating some 57 million illiterate persons with their capacity building to overcome challenges being faced by the nation is main focus of the NCHD.

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018) : Chairperson National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) Razina Alam Khan has said that educating some 57 million illiterate persons with their capacity building to overcome challenges being faced by the nation is main focus of the NCHD. Addressing the Advisory Council meeting of NCHD here on Wednesday, the former Senator Razina Alam urged the stakeholders, including donors, provincial governments, local and international non-governmental organizations, to help the commission achieve its goals. She said after getting 40 percent of the illiterates educated, the NCHD was now paying attention to their capacity building and skill development, besides character building which was not possible without imparting religious education. The NCHDs efforts were aimed at empowerment of the uneducated persons, making them useful citizens of the country, she added. Speaking on the occasion, social worker Hina Salman said the available reading material should be collected and provided to experts for utilizing in character building of the learners. She said their aim was to develop a learning resource base for 350,000 children, for which Hina Salman along with other Advisory Council members Samina Qadir, Samia Raheel Qazi, Abid Gill and Dr Muhammad Ajmal of AIOU offered their services. Gen (R) Muhammad Tahir suggested that the assistance of National Education Foundation could be sought for the character building of the illiterate persons. Hina Salman said some 6,000 adult literacy centers were working across the country under the NCHDs Functional Literacy Programme, where 145,000 illiterate persons were attaining basic literacy skills.

Besides 5,949 community feeder schools in the remote areas, some 100 Madrasa feeder schools had been set up in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Gilgit-Baltistan and Islamabad Capital Territory under Mainstreaming of Madrasa Project, she added.

She said besides revising old manuals and booklets for skill development, experts at the National Training Institute had prepared new manuals on multi-grade teaching technique, functional literacy, and training manual for education professionals. Preparation of National Plan of Action for Literacy and Non-formal Education (2018-25), which would be launched, was another landmark achievement of the institute, which would be helpful for policymakers and planners working on education and literacy, she added. Rehan Malik opined the Advisory Council members concerned should be included in teams to monitor respective programmes. New PC-1 of NCHD was also discussed in the meeting.

The council members appreciated the strategy for addressing the 6.4 million children aged 10-16 years through non-formal schools along with 20,670 adult literacy centers and 3000 additional community feeder schools as planned in the PC-1.

They recommended that the new PC-1 should be for five years. Dr Samina Qadir, VC Fatima Jinnah Univeristy, proposed that non-formal education should be introduced in the university curriculum. Samia Raheel Qazi, Member Islamic Ideology Council, said the recommendations of Advisory Council be sent to all relevant government functionaries. The meeting was also attended by Senator Dr Nighat Agha, Haji Sanaullah (Secretary Retd), Dr Asma Hayder (Member Social Sector), Dr Ghulam Haider (ex-chief economist AJK), Dr.

Muhammad Ajmal (Chairman, DNFE AIOU), Ms Maryam Bibi (CEO Khawando Kor), Abid Gill (Project Coordinator JICA), and Ms. Samina Waqar (DG-NCHD) along with NCHD officials.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar has taken notice of allegations and threats to Ocean Welfare Organization, a non-governmental organization (NGO) running a makeshift school for around 2,000 street children under a flyover in Clifton near the Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine in Karachi

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) :Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar has taken notice of allegations and threats to Ocean Welfare Organization, a non-governmental organization (NGO) running a makeshift school for around 2,000 street children under a flyover in Clifton near the Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine in Karachi.

According to an SC press release issued here Wednesday, the CJP took notice on reports that the Sindh government had asked the NGO to either hand over the school with children to the Sindh education Foundation (SEF) or shut it down.

Allegedly, there were also threats to use police force if the NGO did not hand over the school to the Sindh Education Foundation. The chief justice called a report from the Sindh chief secretary within five days.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Wednesday said education was the key to a nation's progress and development and country cannot move ahead without a well educated and fully trained human resource

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) :Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Wednesday said education was the key to a nation's progress and development and country cannot move ahead without a well educated and fully trained human resource.

Addressing a ceremony here at the Benazir Income Support Program Headquarters for the expansion of Waseela-e-Taleem program, the Prime Minister said any child without education was a burden on the society and the nation and the parents need to play their critical role in ensuring that their children were not a drop out.

Under the Waseela-e-Taleem program each beneficiary child receives a cash transfer of Rs 750 a quarter, on conditional completion of 70 percent attendance in schools in 32 districts across the four provinces and Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan.

The program would be extended to 50 districts and add another one million children to the current enrollment of 1.9 million. The Prime Minister said the BISP program for the poorest of the poor, was totally non-political in nature and extended beyond the provincial boundaries.

He said it empowers the women and focuses on her critical role in sending her children to school and not to work. He asked the participants from 32 districts of the country, and particularly the women to ensure that there was no child in the neighbourhood also that was deprived of education.

Abbasi said it was the only government program, which he hoped would end, after enabling the poorest and the most vulnerable families stand on their feet. He said the government was committed to the provision of education for all as it believed that without any knowledge, the society would not be able to fight the ills of extremism and terrorism.

He was appreciative of the role of the BISP and its partners, the World Bank and the Department for International Development (DFID) of the UK for helping the country achieve its target of universal education for all commitments, under the Millennium Development Goals.

He said the government definitely needs to do more for education and said despite the fact that it was a provincial subject, still the Federal government was obligated to provide them the guidance and vision to ensure 100% enrollment, retention and graduation.

Abbasi was optimist that the target of adding another one million children to the already enrolled 1.9 million would be achieved. He however asked the BISP to ensure that quality education was imparted.

Chairperson BISP and Minister of State Marvi Memon lauded the vision of the PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif and said the program has gradually enhanced scope from Rs 40 billion annually to Rs 121 billion and would further expand in the days ahead.

She was appreciative of her team for their hard work and making the various initiatives undertaken, a success. Country head DFID Joanna Reid said the United Kingdom was partners with Pakistan in its progress and development over the past 70 years and committed to make it prosperous.

She noted the strong and sustainable social network initiated by the BISP and said the UK was particularly pleased to be part of a program, half of whom were female. She was also appreciative of the fact that now more women were registering as voters and would play their key role in strengthening democratic traditions in the country.

The World Bank Country Head Illango Patchamuthu termed Waseela-e-Taleem as a flagship safety net program and said it was amongst the top rated such programs in the world. He stressed continued good governance to ensure the success of the program and said the World Bank would continue to extend support to the BISP.

Secretary BISP Omar Hameed Khan said BISP was extending support to 504 million families and was spending Rs 111 billion per annum. He said the program was very transparent and ensured that only the eligible receive the payment after biometric verification. He hoped the conditional cash transfer would help add more children to the schools.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

The district health department set up a free medical camp at Bait Meer Hazaar and Belaywala to creat awareness among the masses about seasonal flue here on Wednesday

MUZAFFARGARH, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) :The district health department set up a free medical camp at Bait Meer Hazaar and Belaywala to creat awareness among the masses about seasonal flue here on Wednesday.

Talking to journalists here, CEO Health Dr Shahid Magsi said that medical camp was set up in line with special directions of Deputy Commissioner Muhammad Saif Anwar.

He said the DC had taken notice of the issue and formed a surveillance team led by District Health Officer (DHO) Dr Tariq Mehmood.More than a dozen homeopathic doctors examined hundreds of patients and provided them medicines in a Free Medical Camp at Shah Khalid colony, here on Wednesday

SUKKUR, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) :More than a dozen homeopathic doctors examined hundreds of patients and provided them medicines in a Free Medical Camp at Shah Khalid colony, here on Wednesday.

The camp was set up by Inter-Global Human Development Society (IGHDS) in collaboration with Fatima Foundation Sukkur, inaugurated by Deputy Mayor of Sukkur Tariq Chuhan.

The homeopathic doctors providing free services at the camp told APP that most of the patients suffer from stomach ailments, allergies, including asthma and skin diseases due to non-availability of clean drinking water and air pollution.

On the occasion, Deputy Mayor of Sukkur Tariq Chuhan said that the homeopathy needs more government support at provincial and Federal levels so that patients could benefit from this medical treatment, which has proved effective and becoming popular in the world.(@rukhshanmir)

The police have arrested an absconder from Yazman area of the district who had murdered his wife in 2014 on the pretext that why she got divorce from him

BAHAWALPUR, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) :The police have arrested an absconder from Yazman area of the district who had murdered his wife in 2014 on the pretext that why she got divorce from him.

A spokesman for Bahawalpur police said here on Wednesday that an absconder identified as Fida Hussain had murdered his wife after she got divorce from him due to dispute.

'Due to continuous dispute and exchange of harsh words at home, the wife of Fida Hussain got divorce from him which made him angry and furious and as a result, the accused murdered his wife,' the police spokesman added.

He further said that the suspect after killing his wife in 2014, managed to flee and the court declared him as absconder. 'Acting on a tip-off, the police conducted raid at a place in Yazman area of Bahawalupr district and arrested the absconder. He was shifted to police station. Further probe was underway.The police has arrested an absconder from Yazman area of the district who had murdered his wife in 2014 on the pretext that why she got divorce from him

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) :The police has arrested an absconder from Yazman area of the district who had murdered his wife in 2014 on the pretext that why she got divorce from him.

A spokesman for Bahawalpur police said here on Wednesday that an absconder identified as Fida Hussain had murdered his wife after she got divorce from him due to dispute.

'Due to continuous dispute and exchange of harsh words at home, the wife of Fida Hussain got divorce from him which made him angry and furious and as a result of anger, the accused murdered his wife,' the police mouthpiece said.

He further said that the suspect after killing his wife in 2014, managed to flee and the court declared him as absconder. 'Acting on a tip-off, the police conducted raid at a place in Yazman area of Bahawalupr district and arrested the absconder. He was shifted to police station. Further probe was underway.Lahore High Court was informed on Wednesday that the district administration did not allow Pakistan Awami Tehreek and other political parties to hold rally at Mall Road on January 17

LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) :Lahore High Court was informed on Wednesday that the district administration did not allow Pakistan Awami Tehreek and other political parties to hold rally at Mall Road on January 17.

The statement was made through a reply filed on behalf of the deputy commissioner before the bench headed by Justice Amin-ud-Din Khan, who was hearing petitions against the rally filed by Advocate Ghulam Yaseen Bhatti as well as traders' representatives Naeem Mir and Khawaja Sohail Mahmood.

In response to previous court orders of explaining his position for giving implied permission to hold the protest, the DC submitted that the applicant parties were directed not to hold rally on The Mall on January 17, in accordance with LHC orders in a writ petition and provisions of Civil Administration Act 2017.

A report on behalf of Capital City Police Officer was also submitted and it was stated that the police provided complete security to the rally and smooth traffic flow was also ensured. The bench was also told that the police registered 26 cases for holding protests at The Mall in violations of section 144 of CR.P.C.

during 2011-17 period. The bench was further informed that Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority ensured that no coverage of the rally should take place after 12.00 midnight in compliance with the court orders.

However, petitioner's counsel pointed out that the rallies affected the business of Mall Road traders and government had imposed a ban on rallies at The Mall after framing a policy, in compliance with orders of the court.

He said often rallies were staged at The Mall to get the media coverage and if the media coverage was barred then it would discourage the protestors from holding the rally at Mall Road. He said a representation had also been made to Chairman PEMRA seeking a ban on coverage of rallies at The Mall.

At this, the bench adjourning the matter till February 27 issued notices to the PEMRA and sought reply over issue of media coverage at The Mall. Meanwhile, the court also issued notices on another petition filed by Zeshan Akram seeking ban on airing footage of Model Town incident and holding of talk shows in this regard as it might affect case proceedings in the trial court.

The petitioners had assailed step of launching the rally by the respondent parties on January 17 in the background of Model Town incident. The trader representatives had sought directions for shifting the rally to Nasir Bagh as the government had imposed a ban on rallies at The Mall after framing a policy, in compliance with orders of the court.

Ghulam Yaseen Bhatti had submitted that the rally/sit-in was a clear violation of constitutional provisions. He contended that the action of respondents was in violation of Article 16, and 19 and requested the bench for issuance of restraining order.

It is pertinent to mention here that the bench conditionally allowed Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) and other political parties to hold rally at Mall Road till 12 midnight on January 17.Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan Dr Omar Zakhilwal on Wednesday denied an Afghan TV channels report claiming that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani reportedly refused to take a condolence phone call on late Tuesday night from Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi

KABUL,(UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan Dr Omar Zakhilwal on Wednesday denied an Afghan tv channels report claiming that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani reportedly refused to take a condolence phone call on late Tuesday night from Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. Not true  no phone call has taken place, he said on micro-blogging site Twitter. Following recent horrific terrorists attacks in Kabul PM Abassi conveyed a message to President Ghani to which it was responded to by high powered personal delegation by the President to meet the PM today. Foreign office spokesman Dr Mohammad Faisal in a tweet said Afghan government had requested that a high level delegation comprising Interior Minister and NDS chief would like to visit Pakistan with a message from Afghan President and for discussions about cooperation between the two countries.

Delegation is here and will have talks today.

The delegation, comprising of Afghanistan Interior Minister Wais Ahmad Barmak and National Directorate of Security [NDS] chief, has come with a message from Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, FO added. Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan Dr Omar Zakhilwal on Wednesday was astonished that Pakistan handed over 27 Taliban/Haqqani network suspects to Kabul in November last year. Pakistans Foreign Office on Tuesday announced that Pakistan handed over more than two dozen suspects belonging to the Taliban and their affiliated Haqqani network to Afghanistan last year. However, with Dr Omar Zakhilwal expressing surprise over the news, it seemed that even he was not aware of the move.

The Afghan ambassador took to the Twitter on Wednesday and said if this indeed happened, it would be a huge step forward in Pakistan and Afghanistan mutual bilateral relations.Anti Narcotics Force (ANF) has seized 1.116 Tons narcotics and arrested 27 persons including four ladies in drug smuggling

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) :Anti Narcotics Force (ANF) has seized 1.116 Tons narcotics and arrested 27 persons including four ladies in drug smuggling. The Force also impounded eight (08) vehicles while conducting 24 counter-narcotic strikes across the country.

The seized drugs comprised 748.6 Kg Opium, 348.9 Kg Hashish, 17.2 Kg Heroin and 1.2 Kg Amphetamine. As per details here on Wednesday, ANF Quetta recovered 25 Kg Opium from mountainous area of Toba Achakzai Tehsil Deobandi District Qilla Abdullah.

The drug was intended to be handed over to another narcotics gang. Yet in another operation, ANF Quetta recovered 703 Kg Opium and 58 Kg Hashish from general area Killi Dolangi Tehsil & District Qilla Abdullah.

As per initial reports, drug was intended to be handed over to another narcotic gang. In third operation, ANF Quetta recovered 5 Kg Hashish, which resulted in arrest of a drug peddler namely Noor Muhammad resident of Quetta.

ANF Rawalpindi arrested an accused identified as Afzal Ali, resident of Gujrat at Benazir Bhutto International Airport, Islamabad and recovered 1.1 Kg Amphetamine. He was destined to KSA by Flight No.

EY-234. In another operation, ANF Rawalpindi intercepted a Motorcycle near Sanjawal Chowk, GT Road, Attock and recovered 1.1 Kg Hashish from personal possession of accused. In third operation, ANF Rawalpindi recovered 2 Kg Opium from personal possession of a lady accused identified as Mrs.

Sabira, resident of Nowshera. She was arrested near Iqbal Shaheed Toll Plaza, GT Road, Attock. In fourth operation, ANF Rawalpindi recovered 5 Kg Hashish from personal possession of a lady accused namely Abida Parveen, resident of Faisalabad.

She was arrested near Iqbal Shaheed Toll Plaza, GT Road, Attock. In fifth operation, ANF Rawalpindi recovered 4 Kg Hashish from personal possession of a male and a female accused identified as Miss Yasmeen and Shakir, residents of Khyber Agency.

They were arrested near Gondal Bus Stop, Attock. In sixth operation, ANF Rawalpindi recovered 4 Kg Hashish from personal possession of the two accused identified as Imran Shah resident of Mardan and Miss Azra, resident of Peshawar.

They were arrested near Gondal Bus Stop, Attock. In Seventh operation, ANF Rawalpindi intercepted a Toyota Double Cabin at KFC, F-10 Markaz, Islamabad and recovered 6 Kg Heroin which was tactfully concealed under seats.

Two accused persons were arrested at the spot namely Muhammad Tufail and Mumraiz Khan, residents of Peshawar. ANF Lahore arrested a Nepali foreigner identified as Suk Bahadur at Allama Iqbal International Airport, Lahore destined to Colombo by Flight No.

UL-186 on suspicion of ingestion of narco filled capsules. He delivered 101 Heroin filled Capsules, weighing 990 grams. In another operation, ANF Lahore recovered 490 grams Heroin from a parcel being sent abroad through a courier service company near Khadim Road, Sialkot.

The seized Heroin was tactfully concealed in a Jacket. In third operation, ANF Lahore recovered 130 grams Heroin from personal possession of the accused, identified as Asif Rasheed resident of Lahore.

He was arrested near Haji Sardar Machli Saddar Goal, Lahore. In fourth operation, ANF Lahore intercepted a Toyota Corolla GLi car near Qaid-e-Azam Park, Sargodha Road, Chiniot and recovered 2 Kg Heroin along with a person namely Asif Ali, resident of Chaniot.

The seized drugs was tactfully concealed in secret cavities of the said car. In fifth operation, ANF Lahore intercepted a Suzuki Swift Car near Chak No. 5, GB Kamalpur, 51 South Motorway M-3 Faisalabad and recovered 10 Kg Opium and 40 Kg Hashish which was recovered from personal possession of the accused, identified as Twab Khan and resident of Peshawar.

In sixth operation, ANF Lahore recovered 500 grams Hashish from personal possession of accused identified as Sajjad Sarwar resident of Sialkot. He was apprehended near China Chowk Pasroor Road Sialkot.

In seventh operation, ANF Lahore intercepted a Truck near Jalla Chowk, Tandianwala Road, Faisalabad, recovering 211 Kg Hashish and 7 Kg Opium concealed in secret cavities of the Truck. Two persons on- board namely Arshad Ali and Muhammad Malik Cheema, residents of Sheikhupura were also apprehended during the operation.

ANF Peshawar recovered 1.2 Kg Hashish from personal possession of accused namely Muhammad Iqrar, resident of Khyber Agency. He was arrested near Motorway Toll Plaza, Peshawar. In another operation, ANF Peshawar intercepted a Suzuki Pickup near Mian Sahib Hotel Ring Road, Peshawar and recovered 3.6 Kg Heroin from personal possession of the arrested three accused identified as Amin Shah, Muhammad Abbas and Raees Khan, residents of Peshawar.

In third operation, ANF Peshawar recovered 800 grams Opium and 2.4 Kg Hashish from personal possession of the accused identified as Said Umeer, resident of Khyber Agency. He was arrested near Motorway Toll Plaza Peshawar.

In fourth operation, ANF Peshawar recovered 800 grams Opium and 3.5 Kg Hashish near Motorway Toll Plaza, Peshawar from Toyota Hiace and arrested an accused Muhammad Hamza, resident of Jhang. Drugs was concealed in audio speaker of the vehicle.

In fifth operation, ANF Peshawar recovered 1.2 Kg Hashish from personal possession of the accused namely Noor-Ud-Din, resident of Khyber Agency. He was arrested near main gate of the Educational Institute.

ANF Karachi arrested an accused near Memon Society, Karachi and recovered 4 Kg Heroin from personal possession of accused identified as Muhammad Asif, resident of Karachi. In another operation, ANF Karachi recovered 12 Kg Hashish from a drug den situated in Bismillah Colony near Landhi Railway Station, Karachi.

All cases have been registered at respective ANF Police Stations and further investigations are underway.(@rukhshanmir)

The son-in-law of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and MNA Captain retired Safdar lashed out at PTI government in KP and said Punjab government being installed power generation units, however PTI was only staging protest and even did not generate single watt of electricity.

PESHAWAR, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) : The son-in-law of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and MNA Captain retired Safdar lashed out at PTI government in KP and said Punjab government being installed power generation units, however PTI was only staging protest and even did not generate single watt of electricity. Talking to media persons jointly with PM adviser Ameer Muqam after visiting the venue of public rally, which will be held on Feb 04, and reviewing arrangements in Peshawar, ruling party leader said that formation of Panama Joint Investigation Team (JIT) was a conspiracy against Pakistan and now conspiracies being hatched against state not Nawaz Sharif. Nawaz Sharif has given Pakistan Atomic status and PML-N will win the next election, he claimed. Talking on the occasion PML-N provincial leader Ameer Muqam has said that the people of KP has seen the real face of the those, PTI, who were changed slogans of change and now people wanted to change in KP by bringing Nawaz Sharif in regime.

People of KP are desperately awaiting a glimpse of Nawaz Sharif as the Peshawar rally will be the historic one in Peshawar history, he claimed. On January 30, the informal consultative huddle of ruling party PML-N hasd decided to accelerate the momentum of the mass contact campaign by holding public rallies, which will be addressed by the former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. Meeting decided to speed up the mass contact campaign and Nawaz Sharif will visit Karachi, Peshawar, Muzaffarabad and Chitral in the first phase of the campaign. Nawaz Sharif will visit Peshawar on February 4, Muzaffarabad on Feb 5 and Chitral in second week of the month.(@FahadShabbir)

The educationists, writers and intellectuals addressing a seminar here on Wednesday underscored the significance of peace for the survival of humanity and the role which different stakeholders could play in achieving that objective

HYDERABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) :The educationists, writers and intellectuals addressing a seminar here on Wednesday underscored the significance of peace for the survival of humanity and the role which different stakeholders could play in achieving that objective.

The experts expressed their views over the issue at a three-day seminar titled 'Practical and Theoretical Review of Aspects of Peace and Conflict in Local and Global Perspectives' organized at University of Sindh, Jamshoro.

The event was organized by Office of Research, Innovation and Commercialization (OREC) of SU, Higher education Commission and Shamsul Ulema Mirza Kaleech Baig Chair. Speaking at the seminar's first session Prof Farhat Jokhio of Sindh University said the conflicts of different nature in the world were creating numerous problems and also providing breeding ground for terrorism.

"We all seem to have a role in some way in the spread of such strife," she observed. She said that in order to spread love and peace in the world the humans would first have to attain internal peace.

"When we are at peace within ourselves only then we can make the society peaceful," Farhat believed. The professor said although the human psyche disliked the situation of strife, circumstances compel the humans to become entangled in such situations.

"Humans can enjoy life only when there is peace and love in the society," she said. Expressing ambivalence over the role of the media for creation of both peace and conflict, Prof Farhat said the media highlighted positive and negative issues and situations which become reasons for promoting peace or conflict.

Speaking in the second session titled 'Peace and Trade', Focal Person of SU's Naushahro Feroze Campus Dr Hakim Mahesar explained how conflict and strife affected trade and how promotion of trade could lower the incidence of conflict.

He gave example of Pakistan, where he said China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project had contributed to establishing peace and curbing violence.

"Not only peace is restoring in Pakistan, the economic landscape of the country has also improved and will keep improving," he observed.

Dr Mahesar said peace and trade had a close relation because when the economy prospers and employment opportunities are created, the humans tend to dedicate their lives for work and their families.

"War and conflicts don't only affect the two sides who engage in fighting but their implications are far reaching which adversely affect the society as a whole," he noted. Dr Mehmoodul Hassan Mughal, who addressed the third session titled 'Peace and Hope for Humanity', elaborated that the objective of peace was to live and let others live.

"There are two types of people. There are those who perturb other people and those who get perturbed. While the latter somehow find a way out of perturbation, the former remain ensnared in that state," he observed.

Mughal stressed on the need of adopting positive approach by the humans as a panacea to end the strife and pave the way for peace in society. "The journey of thousands of miles starts with the first step," he said.

He advised the people to prefer identifying good qualities in the characters of other people and desist from pointing out only negative aspects. "Instinctively humans are peaceful but circumstances compel them to opt for wrong path in their lives.

If we want peace, we will have to promote the positive approach to life," he believed. Dr Mughal urged the people to develop closer relations with their family members and relatives and to learn to be helpful to them when they were in need.

The event concluded with performance of a tableau titled 'Need for Peace' while the notable musician Zulfiqar Ali Khan read a poem of late poet Mirza Kaleech Baig. The event's coordinator Sheeraz Shaikh informed that the seminar's concluding ceremony would be held on its third day on Thursday.The management of Government College Hyderabad has finally received the land ownership documents after hundred years of its establishment

HYDERABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) :The management of Government College Hyderabad has finally received the land ownership documents after hundred years of its establishment.

According to spokesman of the district administration, on the directives of the Commissioner Hyderabad, the Mukhtiarkar Hyderabad City prepared documents of land ownership of 22 acres land in the name of the Government College.

During the conclusion of century celebrations of the Government College in October , when the issue came into the notice of the Sindh Chief Minister, he directed the Commissioner Hyderabad to name the ownership of the land to the college, the spokesman informed.

The Commissioner Hyderabad Saeed Ahmed Mangnejo and Deputy Commissioner Hyderabad Tuesday visited the Government College Hyderabad and handed over the relevant documents to Principal Nasiruddin Shaikh.

It may be mentioned that Sindh Chief Minister had already announced the up-gradation of the Government College to the level of university and the required procedures in this direction are in progress.Munnu Bhai-Reference Glowing tributes paid to late Munnu Bhai The speakers including diplomats, writers and poets here at a reference paid glowing tributes to the renowned columnist, writer, social and political worker and poet for his services to the nation and Pakistan in the field of literature, journalism and democracy

LONDON, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) :Munnu Bhai-Reference Glowing tributes paid to late Munnu Bhai The speakers including diplomats, writers and poets here at a reference paid glowing tributes to the renowned columnist, writer, social and political worker and poet for his services to the nation and Pakistan in the field of literature, journalism and democracy.

The event to pay homage to the great literary figure, late Munnu Bai (Muneer Ahmad Qureshi) was organized by Pakistan High Commission London in collaboration with urdu Markaz , London here on Wednesday night which was largely attended by diplomats, writers, poets, journalists, friends of Munnu Bai and local Pakistani community.

Munnu Bhai died in Lahore (Pakistan) on January 19,2018 at the age of 84. Pakistan's Deputy High Commissioner to UK (London) Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri, Dr.Javed Sheikh of Urdu Markaz London, Former Pakistan's High Commissioner to London Wajid Shamsul Hassan, Muhammad Hissam Sham an artist, Mushataq Lashari, Poetess Shahida, Aqeel Danish, and Raza Ali Abidi a journalist/broadcaster spoke on the occasion.

After recitation from the Holy Quaran fatheha was offered for the departed soul of the renowned columnist, journalist, poet and writer Munnu Bhai. Speaking on the occasion Dr.Javed Sheikh thanked Pakistan High Commission and its staff for organizing this reference in memory of late Munnu Bai to highlight his contribution to the country and people of Pakistan.

Paying rich tributes to late renowned writer and journalist, Dr.Sheikh said that late Munnu Bhai never compromised on principles and never took any benefit from any quarter and always worked and fought for the people's rights, social justice in the society and upholding the supremacy of human values.Dr.Sheikh added that late Munnu Bhai received Pride of performance award which he deserved.

He called upon the young Pakistani generation to come forward and follow his footprints in this regard. Speaking on the occasion Mushtaq Lashari said that late Munnu Bai was not only a columnist, drama writer, and journalist but also was a political worker and always struggled and fought for the supremacy of law, people's rights and democracy.

He added that late Munnu Bhai was an honest and truthful person and was not a hypocrite. Mushtaq Lashari said that Munnu Bhai was also a social worker and worked for a charity. He recalled that Munnu Bai started practicing journalism in the 1950s and was associated with Newspaper Tameer.

He was also a reporter of daily newspaper Imroze and on the advice of Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, he started writing columns with the pen name of Munnu Bhai. He added that late Munnu Bhai highlighted the issues of the poor people through writing dramas like Dashat and Sona Chandi besides writing columns on public issues.

He, on the occasion announced that columns of late Munnu bai would be collected in a form of a book for further highlighting his contributions in the field of journalism, literature and public service.

Speaking on the occasion Pakistan's Deputy High Commissioner Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri paid rich tributes to late Munnu Bhai for his literary services to the country and people of Pakistan. He thanked the participants especially the writers, journalists, and poets for attending what he called "memorial reference" to pay homage to a renowned columnist, poet and writer of Pakistan.

He said that their presence in the reference was a manifestation of their love for Pakistan. Speaking on the occasion Wajid Shamsul Hassan also lauded the services of late Munnu Bhai for the promotion of literature and journalism in the country.

He said that late Munnu Bhai was a really a very nice person and called for promoting and carrying forward his work as a mission for the betterment of society in the country. The other speakers also paid tributes to late Munnu Bhai and termed him an upright and charismatic journalist who never compromised on principles.He always fought for the human and women rights and was a strong voice of the poor people.

They added that his services to the country and people of Pakistan would long be remembered. They also appreciated Pakistan High Commission London for organizing this event to acknowledge the services of the country's renowned literary figure late Munnu Bhai.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Chairperson/ Judge, Appellate Tribunal Local Councils Sindh Arjumand Aziz, is scheduled to hear appeals pertaining to local councils of the Local Government - Hyderabad division on February 7

KARACHI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) :Chairperson/ Judge, Appellate Tribunal Local Councils Sindh Arjumand Aziz, is scheduled to hear appeals pertaining to local councils of the Local Government - Hyderabad division on February 7. The hearing will be held at 9 am, in the District and Sessions Court Hyderabad, said a press release on Wednesday.The accountability court hearing the assets reference case against former finance minister Senator Ishaq Dar continued its proceedings on Wednesday. During the hearing, court directed Panama JIT head Wajid Zia to appear before on February 08.

ISLAMABAD. (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018) : The accountability court hearing the assets reference case against former finance minister Senator Ishaq Dar continued its proceedings on Wednesday.

During the hearing, court directed Panama JIT head Wajid Zia to appear before on February 08. Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) Joint Registrar Sidra Mansur submitted in court documents related to two of Dars companies. Moreover, SECP Deputy Registrar Salman Saeed requested Accountability Court-I Judge Mohammad Bashir for some time to present further details of Dars companies saying the record is on its way from Karachi. The court then briefly adjourned the hearing. Later, NAB requested for more time as Saeeds records were delayed, to which the judge responded that the prosecution better hurry up as owing to the electricity load-shedding, the court computer is running on a UPS and the battery may die soon. Former head of the Panama case Joint Investigation Team, Federal Investigation Agency Additional Director Wajid Zia, did not appear in court today despite being directed to by the NAB. He was summoned by the NAB as a prosecution witness. During todays hearing, the NAB pleaded the judge to issue a formal summons to Zia, to which the judge responded that he is the prosecution witness and should thus appear in court.

The judge observed that he will issue a summons if Zia fails to appear at the next hearing. The case was then adjourned until February 8, when the court expects to record the statements of Zia and NAB investigation officer Nadir Abbas.

The two are the last witnesses mentioned by the prosecution. Yesterday, the accountability court adjourned the corruption proceedings against former finance minister Senator Ishaq Dar till Wednesday. During the hearing, Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) Joint Registrar Sidra Mansur recorded her statement and presented details of Dars companies in court.

At an earlier hearing on Monday, the court had recorded statements of six witnesses: NAB officials Shakeel Anjum, Iqbal Hasan, Zavar Manzoor and Umar Draz Gondal, District Officer Punjab Industries Azhar Hussain and IRS Lahore Commissioner Ishtiaq Ahmed. Ahmed had informed the court that Dars wealth increased 91 times from Rs9.1 million in June 1993 to over Rs830 million by 2009. Following his indictment, Dar has been a no-show in the proceedings after he departed for London in October last year seeking medical treatment. Dar, a close aide of Pakistan Muslim League-N chief Nawaz Sharif, is accused of possessing assets disproportionate to his declared sources of income. A reference against him was filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in light of the Supreme Courts July 28 verdict in the Panama papers case. Dar, following his indictment, has been a no-show in the proceedings after he departed for London in October last year seeking medical treatment.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

President Pakistan Muslim League(N) Muhammad Nawaz Sharif will arrive on a two day visit to Karachi on Thursday morning, the party sources said

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) :President Pakistan Muslim League(N) Muhammad Nawaz Sharif will arrive on a two day visit to Karachi on Thursday morning, the party sources said.

During the visit, the former prime minister will meet the provincial leadership of the party and discuss the prevailing political situation.

He will also hold discussion on the upcoming Senate elections, general elections and the ongoing development projects in the Sindh province. The leaders and workers of party's Sindh chapter will welcome Nawaz Sharif at the airport.Advisor to Prime Minister on National History and Literary Heritage (NH&LH), Irfan Siddiqui Wednesday said Pakistan and China were enjoying strong relations based on mutual respect and friendship which could be termed as an example in the world

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) :Advisor to Prime Minister on National History and Literary Heritage (NH&LH), Irfan Siddiqui Wednesday said Pakistan and China were enjoying strong relations based on mutual respect and friendship which could be termed as an example in the world.

'This long standing friendship can be further strengthened through enhancing cooperation on cultural and literary fronts', Irfan Siddiqui said while speaking to the Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan, Mr.

Yao Jing who was called on at his office. Welcoming the newly appointed Chinese Ambassador on his arrival to Pakistan, Irfan Siddiqui hoped he would play an instrumental role in strengthening Pak-China relations and enhance cooperation in the fields of arts, culture and literature.

Advisor to Prime Minister, Irfan Siddiqui briefed the ambassador of the working of different departments under his division. He informed that urdu dictionary board has been working on compilation of a quality Urdu-Chinese Dictionary which will also be available online.

Irfan Siddiqui presented a set of books to the ambassador carrying Chinese stories published by National Book Foundation (NBF). NH&LH was also working on a project of translation of Chinese Literature into Urdu language which would help people of both the countries understand each other's culture, he added.

Irfan Siddiqui said the work on establishing a state-of-the-art museum at Federal capital was on cards and technical support from China in this regard would be highly appreciable. Speaking on the occasion, Chinese Ambassador, Mr.

Yao Jing said he was aware of the valuable role being played by NH&LH Division in promotion of arts, literature and culture. He expressed keen interest in the translation of Chinese stories and called for enhancing cooperation in this section.

Chinese Ambassador, Mr. Yao Jing assured all possible assistance and guidance for construction of museum facility at capital. Chinese Cultural Counsellor, Mr. You Yi and Joint Secretary, NH&LH Division, Syed Junaid Akhlaq were also present on the occasion.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

A suspect who was wanted to Swabi police was arrested by the Khawaja Ajmar Nagri Police here on Wednesday

KARACHI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) :A suspect who was wanted to Swabi police was arrested by the Khawaja Ajmar Nagri Police here on Wednesday. The police said that accused identified as Iqbal is nominated in a case of murder of his cousin in Swabi, said police sources. The Karachi police also informed the Swabi police about the arrest of the wanted accused.A woman was electrocuted in Bhagtanwala police limits here on Wednesday

SARGODHA, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) :A woman was electrocuted in Bhagtanwala police limits here on Wednesday. Police said Fatima Bibi of village Matella,Kotmomin, was washing clothes when she received a fatal electric shock from the machine. The body was handed over to the family after legal formalities. APP/mab/asm(@rukhshanmir)

The Algerian army has killed a senior official of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in an operation in the northeast of the country, officials said Wednesday

Algiers, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 01st Feb, 2018 ) :The Algerian army has killed a senior official of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in an operation in the northeast of the country, officials said Wednesday.

Adel Seghiri -- also known as Abu Ruwaha al-Qasantini -- was among those running the group's Al-Andalus media wing responsible for putting out videos and statements. The army said it killed "two dangerous terrorists" in the Jijel region, 400 kilometres (250 miles) east of the capital Algiers.

The defence ministry and security sources said the propaganda boss -- reportedly among the 40 most wanted "terrorists" in Algeria -- was one of those killed.

On Tuesday, death announcements for the "martyr Abu Ruwaha al-Qasantini" were posted on militant websites, US monitor SITE Intelligence Group said.

The propagandist was an active member of militant groups since Algeria's "black decade" of conflict between the government and Islamists in the 1990s. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb has staged kidnappings and attacks across Africa's Sahel and Maghreb regions.(@rukhshanmir)

Nearly three in ten young people between the ages of 15 and 19 living in conflict -- or disaster-affected countries are illiterate, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said Wednesday, calling for greater investments in education, particularly for the most disadvantaged children and youth

UNITED NATIONS, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) :Nearly three in ten young people between the ages of 15 and 19 living in conflict -- or disaster-affected countries are illiterate, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said Wednesday, calling for greater investments in education, particularly for the most disadvantaged children and youth.

The UN agency said the situation is particularly dire for girls and young women in that age group, with 33 per cent of them in emergency countries failing to learn even the basics, compared to 24 per cent of boys.

"These numbers are a stark reminder of the tragic impact that crises have on children's education, their futures, and the stability and growth of their economies and societies," Henrietta Fore, the Executive Director of UNICEF, said in a statement announcing the findings.

"An uneducated child who grows into an illiterate youth in a country ripped apart by conflict or destroyed by disasters may not have much of a chance." The findings, calculated using literacy data from the UN Educational, Science and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 27 emergency countries, also revealed that Niger, Chad, South Sudan and the Central African Republic, all with a long history of instability and high levels of poverty, recorded the highest illiteracy rates among those aged 15-24 with 76 per cent, 69 per cent, 68 per cent and 64 per cent, respectively, unable to read or write.

Globally, the number stands at 59 million, it said. Ensuring adequately funding for education programmes, particularly during humanitarian crises, is critical to improve these statistics.

At present, only 3.6 per cent of humanitarian funding goes toward providing education for children living in emergencies, making it one of the least funded sectors in humanitarian appeals.

UNICEF estimates that over the next four years, it will spend approximately $1 billion a year on education programmes. In its 2018 Humanitarian Action for Children appeal, launched on Tuesday, the UN agency called for $900 million for education in countries affected by conflicts and natural disasters.

Some of its key interventions include accelerated education and non-formal learning opportunities, training teachers, rehabilitating schools and distributing school furniture and supplies. At the same time, UNICEF also called on Governments and partners to provide young children with access to quality early education programmes to support their development and set them up to continue learning throughout their childhood; and offer illiterate young people the opportunity to learn to read and write and further their education through specially designed alternative and accelerated education programmes.

"Education can make or break a child's future," Ms. Fore said. "For all children to fully reap the benefits of learning, it is key that they get the best quality education possible, as early as possible," she stressed.

The UNICEF analysis has been released ahead of the Global Partnership for Education Replenishment Conference in Dakar, Senegal, (1-2 February) which aims to raise funding for education from partner countries, and current and new donors in order to ensure that all children and youth are in school and learning.A missing mayor in northern Mali was "kidnapped by armed men", his family and a security source said Wednesday, as the nation's most powerful militant group claimed a string of attacks last week

Bamako, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 01st Feb, 2018 ) :A missing mayor in northern Mali was "kidnapped by armed men", his family and a security source said Wednesday, as the nation's most powerful militant group claimed a string of attacks last week.

Baba Ould Cheikh, the mayor of Tarkint in the Gao region, was snatched by six armed men between January 21 and 23, a member of his family told AFP, underlining increasing insecurity months ahead of a presidential election.

Cheikh had negotiated the release of Europeans kidnapped by militants in the past, and is the latest victim of either criminal elements or militants who frequently organise such kidnappings. "There is no doubt he was taken away.

He didn't just disappear. Either the kidnapping was done by people he had a disagreement with, or Islamists who organised it," the security source said. The mayor was named in an enquiry into a drug smuggling operation in 2009 involving a Boeing 727 flown from Venezuela and burnt after unloading the cargo in the Gao region, according to the UN drugs agency.

He was arrested for cocaine trafficking in April 2013 but released months later due to lack of evidence. Meanwhile, the powerful Group for Support of islam and Muslims (JNIM in its Arabic acronym) claimed two attacks against the Malian army last week that left 18 soldiers dead.

The Mauritanian news agency Al-Akhbar, which regularly reports claims of responsibility from militants in the Sahel, published a statement from the Islamist militant coalition which stated it lost four men in the attacks.

Islamist extremists linked to Al-Qaeda took control of the desert north of the former French colony in early 2012, but were largely driven out in an ongoing French-led military operation launched in January 2013.

In June 2015, Mali's government signed a peace agreement with coalitions of non-militant armed groups. But Islamist insurgents remain active, and large tracts of the country are lawless.(@rukhshanmir)

The United Nations human rights office said Wednesday it had identified 206 companies -- mostly Israeli and American -- so far doing business linked to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and it urged them to avoid any complicity in pervasive violations against Palestinians

UNITED NATIONS, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 01st Feb, 2018 ) :The United Nations human rights office said Wednesday it had identified 206 companies -- mostly Israeli and American - so far doing business linked to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and it urged them to avoid any complicity in pervasive violations against Palestinians.

But in its long-awaited report, the rights office does not cite companies by name, saying it still has work to do. The report is politically sensitive because companies in the UN database could be targeted for boycotts or divestment aimed at stepping up pressure on Israel over its illegal settlements.

Officials said the companies Names were not mentioned under immense pressure exerted by both the United States and Israel, especially by American Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley and her Israeli counterpart Danny Danon.

"The majority of these companies are domiciled in Israel or the settlements (143), with the second largest group located in the United States (22). The remainder are domiciled in 19 other countries," the UN human rights office said in a statement.

Supporters of the move to blacklist such companies insist that they must be held accountable for their activities in the settlements, arguing that those actions can contribute to injustices against Palestinians.

Ultimately, the rights office's review could lead to a public naming and shaming of companies for their activities linked to the settlements and give an U.N. imprimatur to efforts championed by the "BDS" movement (boycott, divest and sanction), which has been primarily a grassroots campaign to pressure Israel through action against companies.

"The violations of human rights associated with the settlements are pervasive and devastating, reaching every facet of Palestinian life," the report said, citing the repressive restrictions on movement, freedom of religion, education and land ownership faced by Palestinians in east Jerusalem and the West Bank.

"Businesses play a central role in furthering the establishment, maintenance and expansion of Israeli settlements." "Business enterprises may need to consider whether it is possible to engage in such an environment in a manner that respects human rights," it said.

Some 115 other companies were eliminated after an initial review. Israel and the United States have been sharply critical of a resolution passed by the 47-member Human Rights Council in March 2016 that paved the way for the review  the first of its kind.

The resolution called on the rights office to create "database" of companies found to engage in any of 10 activities, either explicitly linked to the settlements or supportive of them. "I urge all sides to avoid misrepresenting the contents of this report, which has been produced in good faith on the basis of the mandate laid down by the Human Rights Council," Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, the U.N.

High Commissioner for Human Rights, said. He said he hopes the database "will assist states and businesses in complying with their obligations and responsibilities under international law." Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said an Israeli and U.S.

pressure campaign to block publication of the company names violates international law. "We call upon the secretary-general of the U.N. to publish the names of the companies that are doing business with the settlements," he said. "Settlements are illegal according to international law and thus companies doing business with it should be known because what they are doing is illegal."South Korea and Indonesia agreed Wednesday to strengthen bilateral military cooperation, especially in the fighter jet and submarine development sectors, as their defence chiefs held talks in Jakarta, Yonhap report said

SEOUL,(APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) :South Korea and Indonesia agreed Wednesday to strengthen bilateral military cooperation, especially in the fighter jet and submarine development sectors, as their defence chiefs held talks in Jakarta, Yonhap report said.

The two sides signed a deal in 2016 on an advanced warplane development programme, code-named KF-X/IF-X. It calls for Indonesia to pay 20 percent of the total cost, estimated at 8.1 trillion won (US $7.6 billion), to be eligible for technical data sharing and other benefits.

The South Korea-led project aims to develop 4.5th-generation fighter jets by the mid-2020s. There were news reports that the Indonesian government might be struggling to earmark the related budgets.

In meeting with his Indonesian counterpart Ryamizard Ryacudu, South Korea's Defence Minister Song Young-moo pointed out that the KF-X/IF-X programme is crucial to the Southeast Asian country's own technology development as well, according to Song's ministry.

"(They) agreed to cooperate more closely so that it can become a symbol of South Korea-Indonesia cooperation," it said.

"In addition, they agreed to explore ways to strengthen defense industry cooperation in various fields, including (Indonesia's) next submarine acquisition program." Indonesia has already ordered three naval submarines from South Korea, the first of which was produced in South Korea and delivered to Indonesia last year.

Song also visited the home port of the Indonesian Navy's Eastern Fleet, which operates the sub, in Surabaya. The minister described the submarine contract as a key "win-win" case for the two nations, which upgraded their ties to a "special, strategic partnership" during summit talks in November last year.

Song, meanwhile, paid a courtesy call on Indonesian President Joko Widodo. Widodo, widely known as Jokowi, said he will visit South Korea within this year to help further promote the two nation's ties, according to the ministry. Indonesia is the second leg of Song's three-nation regional tour, which also involves stops in Singapore and Thailand.Sri Lanka is to set up special courts to investigate charges of corruption amounting to billions of dollars under former president Mahinda Rajapakse, the government said on Wednesday

Colombo, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 31st Jan, 2018 ) :Sri Lanka is to set up special courts to investigate charges of corruption amounting to billions of Dollars under former president Mahinda Rajapakse, the government said on Wednesday.

The move, designed to accelerate the process of trying such cases, follows criticism over the slow pace of justice under the government elected three years ago. President Maithripala Sirisena came to power in 2015 promising to stamp out corruption and punish members of the former administration accused of stealing vast sums from Sri Lanka's coffers during Rajapakse's decade in power.

"There will be special three-judge high courts set up exclusively to hear bribery and corruption cases which are currently clogging the lower courts," the government said in a statement.

Sirisena has said as many as half of all public procurement contracts under the Rajapakse administration were corrupt and the new government has renegotiated several multi-billion Dollar projects.

Rajapakse's chief aide Lalith Weeratunga has already been convicted on a charge of misappropriating $4 million and sentenced to three years in prison. Two of the former president's three sons have been charged with money-laundering and other family members face allegations of corruption.

Rajapakse, who is not under investigation, denies any wrongdoing and says his successor is carrying out a witch hunt. Official sources said the new courts could start functioning by the middle of this year.

Wynn Resorts adds a new level of modern vigor to its world-class art collection with the acquisition of Smiling King Bear, a pop-surreal sculpture created by the famed Spanish contemporary artist Okuda San Miguel.

At a towering 16-feet tall and executed in the artists signature prismatic style, the sculpture is a multicolored geometric masterpiece featuring a whimsical bear with a spiked crown, holding an equally imposing smiling ball.

We are delighted to include Okudas Smiling King Bear in the Wynn Resorts Collection of Fine Art. It is an exuberant, sophisticated and original statement of joy, and a colorful reference to a cherished childhood toy or the memory of a fictional character of benevolent protection, said Roger Thomas, Executive Vice President of Design for Wynn Resorts. Steve Wynn established the first important art collection in Las Vegas, and has continued to add significant examples of 20th and 21st century art in each Wynn resort. The most delightful and rewarding aspect of designing our iconic destinations has been the selection and installation of these wonderful creations. Each work is selected for its beauty, joyous expression, and distinctive relevance to the art of its time.

Fashioned from fiberglass, aluminum, and highly pigmented synthetic enamel, Smiling King Bear originally arrived in the United States from Spain as part of an outdoor art exhibition in Downtown Las Vegas curated by global creative house, Justkids. After its acquisition, the sculpture was installed at Wynn Las Vegas during a meticulous multi-day process overseen by the artist, and is now on display in the Wynn Plaza rotunda as part of the resorts continued appreciation and commitment to public art.

It is great to be displayed in a prestigious Las Vegas resort like Wynn, and to continue the collaboration with Justkids in the United States. Wynn has a remarkable art collection and I am honored to be a part of it. The architectural elements of the hotel and its luminosity highlights the shapes and colors of my Smiling King Bear. This juxtaposition of classical and contemporary is very often part of my artistic concept, so the resort is a perfect fit for the sculpture, said Okuda.

Okuda is considered to be one of the most renowned artists among the contemporary art movement, celebrated for his unique geometric structures and patterns that have developed their own instantly recognizable iconographic language. Featured in hundreds of solo and group exhibitions, his works can be seen in streets and galleries around the world including India, Mali, Mozambique, United States, Japan, Chile, Brazil, Peru, South Africa, Mexico, many parts of Europe, and beyond. Highly sought after for large scale projects, Okuda is perhaps best known for his conversion of an abandoned Spanish church aptly named Kaos Temple, which has become a new icon of contemporary art.More than two months after their arrest for alleged espionage, the families of two former Radio Free Asia reporters, Yeang Sothearin and Uon Chhin, are appealing for their release.



Vann Chantha, the wife of Yeang Sothearin, told VOA recently that it was an injustice that her husband was arrested and charged with espionage.



I hope that the court helps seek justice [for my husband]. He did not do anything wrong, and its an injustice to detain him, said Vann Chantha, the mother of two children.



Yeang Sothearin and his colleague, Uon Chhin, another former RFA reporter, were arrested in November and charged with espionage under a vaguely worded provision in the penal code that criminalizes passing information to a foreign state that could damage national security. They could face up to 15 years in jail if found guilty.



Their arrest took place amid a sweeping government crackdown on the countrys main opposition party and independent voices across many sectors, including civil society and independent media.

As part of the crackdown, independent news outlets Radio Free Asia and The Cambodia Daily were accused of being tax delinquent. Both organizations subsequently shut down their newsrooms in Cambodia, although RFA Khmer, which is based in Washington, DC, continued to broadcast from abroad.

However, Yeang Sothearin and Uon Chhin were accused of continuing to covertly work for RFA, and were arrested at a hotel in Phnom Penh with computers and audio equipment. RFA has said the two were not reporting for RFA at the time of their arrests.



Vann Chantha reiterated that her husband had formally quit working for RFA Khmer. On the day of his arrest, she said, her husband was just checking on what happened to Uon Chhin and ended up getting caught up in the situation.



He did not do anything wrong, and he should be released. The situation has become very difficult for me, she said.



Kheng Sina, wife of Uon Chhin, also told VOA in a recent interview that she hoped the court would find justice for her husband.



Since he was arrested and detained, my family situation has become very dire. He is the breadwinner of the family. I would like to appeal to the court to seek justice for him so that he will be freed, she said.



Their petition for release is currently before the Supreme Court after bail requests filed by both journalists were denied by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court and the Court of Appeal.



Keo Vanny, the pairs defense lawyer, said that the charges against them were baseless. The charge claims [they did something] harmful to national security. Even now, I dont see what harm was allegedly committed by them, he said.

Australian filmmaker James Ricketson was also jailed under the same provision in June for flying a drone at an opposition rally, while two former Cambodia Daily reporters were charged with incitement in October over questions they asked while reporting in Ratanakkiri province during the lead-up to local elections in June.



Shawn Crispin, the senior Southeast Asia representative for the Committee to Project Journalists, said that arrests and threats against members of the press corps by the Cambodian government were a clear and present danger to press freedom.



By silencing the country's few independent voices, Hun Sen's regime has done a disservice to his people and their right to information, said Crispin.



Journalists should never be imprisoned for their reporting activities. We call for the release of all journalists currently held behind bars in Cambodia and end to all legal harassment and intimidation of the media, he added.



Sok Eysan, a spokesman for the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party, insisted that the case against the RFA journalists was based on the rule of law. He said the reporters families and other advocates for their freedom should leave the matter to the court.

The court is handling it, he said, adding that if they were innocent, they would eventually be released.

However, Soeng Sen Karuna, a senior investigator for rights group Adhoc, said if Cambodia continued to restrict press freedom, it would damage its international reputation.

It makes the country look bad because we are a democratic country, and its important that freedom of the press is open, based on democratic principles, he said.



A prosperous society needs independent journalists who have the freedom to do their job without any intimidation, he added.Shaka Ssali reviews and discusses the death of Ugandan refugee Alfred Olango, who was shot and killed by police in the U.S. state of California in September 2016. He also discusses police conduct with Paul Ndiho, VOA, Multi-Media Reporter, Kanya A. Bennett, Legislative Counsel, American Civil Liberties Union, and with Officer Scott Davis, Coordinator, Crisis Intervention Team with the Montgomery County Police Department.Top Afghan security officials have made a surprise visit to Pakistan, to discuss mutual cooperation with civilian and military leaders following a series of deadly Taliban and other militant attacks in Afghanistan.

The visit Wednesday took place hours after U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan urged Afghan leaders to engage in bilateral discussions with Pakistani counterparts.

Increased militant violence in Afghanistan has fueled Kabuls tensions with Islamabad amid accusations insurgents used sanctuaries in Pakistan to plot recent suicide bombings, with the help of the countrys spy agency, ISI.

Pakistani authorities condemned the terrorist attacks and rejected the Afghan charges as unfounded and emphasized the need for a credible investigation into the attacks.

The Pakistani Foreign Ministry said the Afghan delegation included Masoom Stanekzai, the head of the Afghan spy agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), and Interior Minister Wais Barmak.



The Afghan government had requested sending its high-level team with a message from Afghan President (Ashraf Ghani) and for discussions about cooperation between the two countries, the ministry added.



The visitors met with Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. The Pakistani interior minister, the ISI chief and other security officials assisted Abbasi in the talks. The delegation returned to Afghanistan in the evening.

While Pakistani officials did not release details of the meeting, the Afghan deputy ambassador in Islamabad, Zardasht Shams, said the delegation shared necessary information with their hosts about recent Taliban-claimed terrorist attacks in Afghanistan.

They [the Afghan side] demanded that required steps in this regard be taken. In turn, the Pakistani prime minister strongly condemned recent Taliban attacks and promised to take necessary action on the basis of information provided by the Afghan side, Shams said.



During Sullivan's visit Tuesday to Afghanistan he held extensive talks with President Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah.



Sullivan later talked to reporters at the U.S. Embassy, where his attention was drawn to Afghan allegations Pakistani security institutions were behind the spike in Taliban-led attacks after suspension of U.S. military aid to Islamabad. We will continue our dialogue with Pakistan. We also encourage the government of Afghanistan to continue its bilateral discussions with Pakistan. Pakistan needs to be part of the solution, Sullivan noted.



On Saturday, a Taliban bomber detonated an ambulance packed with explosives in central Kabul, killing more than 100 people and wounding nearly 250 others in one of the deadliest attacks in the war-torn country.



The bombing came a week after a group of heavily armed Taliban suicide bombers stormed the capital citys Intercontinental Hotel. The assailants battled Afghan forces for about 14 hours and killed 22 people, including four Americans.



The deputy secretary said the Trump administration, under its South Asia policy, has made things clear about U.S. expectations from Pakistan.



Its a regional policy. Its focused on improving the situation in Afghanistan. But its part of a broader regional approach that includes a relationship with Pakistan, India and other countries in the region, Sullivan noted.



Afghan security officials visited Islamabad a day after the Pakistani government revealed it recently extradited 27 insurgents to Afghanistan, including members of the Taliban-allied Haqqani Network. The Foreign Ministry said the move is part of efforts Pakistan is making to promote a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Afghanistan.



Trump announced his South Asia strategy last August that called for Pakistan to end alleged support to terrorists staging deadly attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Islamabad rejected the charges as an attempt to scapegoat Pakistan for American failure to secure the war-torn country.BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - U.N. refugee agency special envoy Angelina Jolie called on NATO on Wednesday to help stop the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, as the Hollywood star broadened her international efforts to protect women's rights.

Jolie, who earlier this week visited a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan, made her appeal to the U.S.-led alliance's top decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council, in Brussels, and later met NATO military commanders.

"Violence against women and children, particularly sexual violence, is an increasing feature of conflict," Jolie told a news conference at NATO headquarters alongside the alliance's Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

"This is rape used as a weapon to achieve military or political goals. It affects men and boys as well as women and girls," Jolie said.

NATO, which counts 29 members and has missions from Kosovo to Afghanistan, has agreed to help report on sexual violence in war to help bring perpetrators to justice and challenge the idea that rape is an unavoidable aspect of conflict.

Jolie, a mother of six who last year released her film "First They Killed My Father" about Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s, said she had met victims of sexual violence in conflict and was trying to be a voice for them.

Expressing frustration at the lack of assistance available to victims, Jolie said she hoped that NATO could help by raising standards in other militaries through its training programs abroad, as well as promoting the role of women in the military.

Jolie singled out the plight of Rohingya refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar and what she said was the inadequate response of many governments around the world.

"I'm very concerned about the Rohingya, I'm very angry at the response ... I'm very concerned about the stories of the 10-year old girls being raped," she said.

"We should all hang our head on how little we have been able to do," she added.

With some 65 million people forced from their homes by conflict as of the end of 2016, Jolie said the sheer scale of the refugee crisis worldwide felt overwhelming.Members of Congress reacted to U.S. President Donald Trump's State of the Union speech, with some praising its bipartisan tone and others wishing he had used the national address to more specifically discuss some of the issues facing the nation.

Republican Rep. Ryan Costello called it a positive speech that highlighted domestic priorities such as infrastructure and immigration, and said Congress needs to use the coming weeks and months to fill out Trump's broad proposals with more detail.

"He also, I think, was very clear in terms of what we need to do to provide leadership around the globe, to support our allies, to encourage those dissenting voices against autocratic regimes around the [world]. I thought it was very good," Costello said.

Members of President Donald Trump's Cabinet applau Members of President Donald Trump's Cabinet applaud him as he delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 30, 2018. Members of President Donald Trump's Cabinet applaud him as he delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 30, 2018.

Democratic Sen. Chris Coons said he was hoping Trump would present a bipartisan message with concrete details about improving infrastructure, advancing American interests across the world and confronting North Korea, and that in some cases he delivered while on others he made little reference.

"We have an opioid addiction crisis here in the United States that is taking tens of thousands of lives. I had hoped that would be something more concretely addressed earlier in the speech with measure about how we could work together, because it is truly unifying, there is no one in congress who doesn't need and want to address this together," Coons said.

Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick said he thought Trump did succeed in striking a bipartisan tone.

"He talked about paid medical leave, infrastructure, he talked about opioids. These are all bipartisan issues," Fitzpatrick said.

Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu told VOA's Russian service that Trump hit high points in his speech with proposals for paid family leave, prison reform and $1.5 trillion in infrastructure spending, while disappointing with an "un-American" call to limit family-based immigration.

"Im pleased his State of the Union speech was less dark than his inaugural speech," Lieu said. "Im pleased he has taken a different path than when he was first inaugurated. Hopefully he sticks to it."

First lady Melania Trump arrives before the State First lady Melania Trump arrives before the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 30, 2018. First lady Melania Trump arrives before the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 30, 2018.

US immigration laws

Immigration has been a major topic of late for lawmakers, with a failure to reach an agreement on undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children and a budget battle combining to bring a brief shutdown of the government.

Trump has advocated a much stricter system that includes boosting border security with a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border and restricting the overall number of people who are allowed into the country.

Democratic Rep. Lou Correa was among those unhappy with a four-point immigration reform plan Trump discussed in his speech along with a highlight on gang violence the president blamed on faulty existing immigration policy.

"For many of us, building a wall is a symbol of division, of negativity, and that's what he wants," Correa said. "I think what we're forgetting is this country is a country of immigrants. Whether you're documented or not, you work really hard to enrich this country. And somehow that message, I never heard it."

Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro also took exception to what he described as Trump's equation of immigrants with criminals.

"I think people understand that theres bad people in every batch, but they dont do it, because theyre immigrants. If somebody is a murderer, its not because theyre white or black or brown, its because that person is a bad person. And he has continued to make that link, which is unfortunate," Castro said.

Costello expressed support for Trump's four-part plan, which also includes a path to citizenship for the young undocumented immigrants and moving away from the visa lottery system to one that is more merit-based.

Several groups of lawmakers have put forth their own immigration reform plans that include some of the same priorities, but so far none has emerged with enough consensus to become law.

Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, speaks at a news con Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, speaks at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 19, 2018. Castro and others spoke in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA). Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, speaks at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 19, 2018. Castro and others spoke in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA).

?Fitzpatrick said a proposed measure he supports "strikes a right balance between border security and immigration reform."

Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi said Trump did not put forth a package that balances Republican and Democratic priorities on immigration.

"The harsh rhetoric combined with that particular proposal, I dont think its gonna move the ball," Krishnamoorthi said. "I think we gotta get to the bargaining table and actually work together hash out a compromise."

Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell said if Trump is serious about reaching out to both parties on immigration, "he should invite Democrats and Republicans to the White House tomorrow" to work on those policies.

Trump also used part of his speech to say he would not repeat mistakes of past administrations regarding North Korea and would keep up strong pressure on the country that has been making advances in ballistic missile technology.

Republican Rep. Steve Chabot said North Korea is a top foreign policy challenge facing the United States, and that it can not be ignored.

"Were at the times that we were warned about," Chabot said. "So I think that president, when he talked about North Korea tonight, set the right tone and its a serious, serious problem."CHICAGO - When U.S. President Ronald Reagan met Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev in Geneva, Switzerland, in November 1985, it was the start of a thaw in Cold War tensions that had dramatically escalated between the two nuclear-armed superpowers.

It was a real moment in Cold War history in that no general secretary after the invasion of Afghanistan had sat across the table from the president of the United States, explains playwright Rogelio Martinez.

U.S. President Reagan and Soviet General Secretary U.S. President Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev at their first Summit in Geneva, Switzerland, Nov. 19, 1985. U.S. President Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev at their first Summit in Geneva, Switzerland, Nov. 19, 1985.

The 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan led to a six-year freeze in relations with the United States. A subsequent increase in military spending on both sides, and a wider gap of understanding between the superpowers, led to increased anxiety  with the threat of nuclear annihilation hanging over the globe.

Its one of the underlying narratives that drove Martinez to dig deeper into an event he didnt fully understand at the time, when he was a 15-year-old student. His research grew into the stage play Blind Date.

Though the play has to do with Reagan and Gorbachev, its not. Its about me, ultimately, Rogelio explained to VOA. Its about the world I grew up in. Its an extremely personal play, but its also a historical play.

Martinez grew up in Cuba under the communist regime of Fidel Castro, and fled with family members to Florida during the 1980 Muriel boatlift.

Playwright Rogelio Martinez Playwright Rogelio Martinez Playwright Rogelio Martinez

What informs the dialogue and themes in Blind Date surrounding events during the historic Geneva summit comes partly from his own life experience  first under Soviet influence in Cuba, and later under American democracy, led by The Great Communicator.

I started to write the play, and I realized that Reagan himself was a bit of an enigma, says Martinez. He could pivot, which is a wonderful thing in politicians. He could change. He followed his own course and his own instincts."



This was not information Martinez gleaned from an official transcript of the 1985 summit  which he says doesnt exist  but comes from other sources: lengthy letters Gorbachev and Reagan exchanged before the meeting.

They didnt speak in soundbites. They actually found a great responsibility with every single word they put on that page.

It had to be thought out more thoughtfully, says actor William Dick who portrays Gorbachev in the production. Dialogue is crucial. There was a huge abyss between these two people and these two cultures that could have led to a nuclear disaster. But they had the courage to reach out in the dark blindly to each other to make an overture. They were both skeptical. They both thought it wouldnt work. And it was difficult, but they began to talk.

Rob Riley (Ronald Reagan) and William Dick (Mikha Rob Riley (Ronald Reagan) and William Dick (Mikhail Gorbachev) in Blind Date by Rogelio Martinez, directed by Robert Falls at Goodman Theatre Rob Riley (Ronald Reagan) and William Dick (Mikhail Gorbachev) in Blind Date by Rogelio Martinez, directed by Robert Falls at Goodman Theatre

Actor Rob Riley plays Reagan opposite Dicks Gorbachev, and says what unfolds onstage in Blind Date isnt just a serious examination  its also infused with some humor  but its a history lesson that has some relevance today.

Any play about international politics and leadership is going to have resonance with the present, he told VOA, something playwright Martinez hopes audiences can learn from.

There is incredible optimism in the play, something that is lacking in todays times, he says, which says problems can be solved. They have to be solved in a way that forces people to rethink their beliefs, and to re-examine why they believe the things they believe.

I think the overarching theme applies to today, says Dick. Its about dialogue. Its about talking. As Reagan says in the play, not talking at each other or about each other but talking to each other is the crucial thing. Daring to go on that 'blind date.'

Blind Date appears at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago through Feb. 25. Martinez hopes wider audiences will have the chance to see the production, and believes what makes for good theater might someday make for a good film.Democratic Congressman Joe Kennedy says President Donald Trump's administration "isnt just targeting the laws that protect us  they are targeting the very idea that we are all worthy of protection."

Delivering the minority party's traditional response to the president's State of the Union address Tuesday night, Kennedy said millions of Americans have been left "anxious, angry, afraid" during the first year of the Trump administration. He said the president has created a Justice Department that is "rolling back civil rights by the day" for people of color and the gay, lesbian and transgender community, and is pitting Americans from coast to coast as "bitter rivals" against each other.

The audience at the Diman Regional Technical School in Fall River, Massachusetts, gave him a standing ovation when he said the Trump administration has launched an assault on "the American Promise"... "the belief that we are all worthy, we are all equal and we all count."

U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-MA) takes the stage t U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-MA) takes the stage to deliver the Democratic rebuttal to U.S. President Donald Trump's State of the Union address in Fall River, Massachusetts, Jan. 30, 2018. U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-MA) takes the stage to deliver the Democratic rebuttal to U.S. President Donald Trump's State of the Union address in Fall River, Massachusetts, Jan. 30, 2018.

Highlighting his party's new slogan, "A Better Deal," the 37-year-old grandson of late Senator Robert F. Kennedy and great-nephew of the late President John F. Kennedy said Democrats will fight for better wages for workers as well as child care and educational opportunities that are affordable, as well as "a health care system that offers mercy, whether you suffer from cancer or depression or addiction." He also advocated for some of the same policies Trump highlighted in his own speech, including trade agreements "that are fair" and infrastructure improvements.

He received another standing ovation when he made a promise to the 1.8 million undocumented immigrants brought here by their parents at a young age known as "Dreamers": "You are part of our story, we will fight for you. We will not walk away."

Kennedy closed his speech with a call for Americans to "have faith...the State of the Union is hopeful, resilient, enduring."JOHANNESBURG - In a rare interview, Eritrea's president has expressed his displeasure with Israel's plan to deport tens of thousands of African migrants, saying they deserve far more than the $3,500 they were offered to leave.

President Isaias Afwerki's interview on a government website Wednesday said the migrants from his country and Sudan paid a "high price" to human traffickers to reach Israel and deserve more like $50,000.

"They need fair compensation to start a new life in their home country," Afwerki said in the interview with local reporters. He said all those who wish to return home "have every right to do so," and that Eritrea has offered to register all of its roughly 20,000 migrants but Israeli authorities had refused.

Many Eritreans leaving the east African nation claim they fled a restrictive regime under Afwerki, where men are often forced into a military service with slavery-like conditions. They say they cannot return.

In the interview, Afwerki claimed instead that the Eritrean migrants were enticed abroad to organize an armed opposition but that the "subversive schemes" failed and the migrants now have become a burden.

Israel's deportation plan has sparked protests by liberal Israelis who say the country should never turn away those in need. They note that of 15,000 African refugee status requests, only 11 have been approved.

On April 1, Israel plans to start expelling the African migrants, some of whom have been in the country for years. About 60,000 migrants crossed Israel's previously porous desert border with Egypt before a barrier was completed in 2012 along the 130-mile (220-kilometer) frontier.

Since then about 20,000 migrants have left either voluntarily, via a U.N. program, or with the encouragement of the Israeli government, which offers each about $3,500 and a plane ticket to leave. Others have been locked up in a massive detention center in the remote southern desert.

Israel's Cabinet recently voted to begin shipping out the remaining 40,000 migrants, even against their will, to an unnamed third African country with which it has reached a secret agreement.

Israeli authorities said the migrants would be deported to Rwanda and Uganda, Afwerki said.

"We are told they will be deported to any country that can accept them," he said. "These are human beings, not livestock. No country can claim legal responsibility to receive our citizens."WASHINGTON - The FBI said Wednesday that it had "grave concerns" about the accuracy of a classified memo crafted by Republican lawmakers that allegedly shows bias at the Justice Department against U.S. President Donald Trump.

A White House official said late Wednesday that the memo was likely to be released Thursday, Reuters reported.

However later Wednesday night, Representative Adam Schiff, the intelligence committees ranking Democrat, said he had discovered Nunes had sent a version of the Republican memo to the White House that was materially altered and thus was not what was approved for release by the committees vote.

A spokesman for Nunes did not immediately respond to a request for comment. And an aide to Schiff did not immediately respond when asked how Schiff had obtained that information.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said it had "a limited opportunity" to review the four-page memo before the Republican majority on the House intelligence committee voted this week to release it, pending a review by Trump.

In a conversation picked up by a television camera after his State of the Union address Tuesday night, Trump told a congressman that he was "100 percent" in favor of disclosing the memo.

Memo 'under review'

White House principal deputy press secretary Raj Shah told VOA Wednesday, "The memo is under review, and all thoughts about how we should act are being considered."

The memo concerns an application by U.S. law enforcement authorities to the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor contacts that Trump campaign adviser Carter Page may have had with Russian operatives leading up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Some Republicans say the surveillance request may have been mishandled and could undermine special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian meddling in the election.

State of Union President Donald Trump delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 30, 2018. President Donald Trump delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 30, 2018.

The FBI said in a statement that earlier this week it told the Intelligence panel, before it voted, that "we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo's accuracy."

Nunes fires back

Representative Devin Nunes of California, chairman of the House intelligence committee, who commissioned the memo, fired back Wednesday for what he called spurious objections to the release.

The FBI is intimately familiar with material omissions with respect to their presentations to both Congress and the courts, and they are welcome to make public, to the greatest extent possible, all the information they have on these abuses. Regardless, its clear that top officials used unverified information in a court document to fuel a counterintelligence investigation during an American political campaign. Once the truth gets out, we can begin taking steps to ensure our intelligence agencies and courts are never misused like this again, Nunes said in a statement.

Representative Schiff said in an op-ed article Wednesday in The Washington Post that the decision to release the document crossed a "dangerous line."

"Doing so without even allowing the Justice Department or the FBI to vet the information for accuracy, the impact of its release on sources and methods, and other concerns was, as the Justice Department attested, 'extraordinarily reckless,' " he wrote. "But it also increases the risk of a constitutional crisis by setting the stage for subsequent actions by the White House to fire Mueller or, as now seems more likely, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein  an act that would echo the 1973 Saturday Night Massacre."

Two Justice Department officials, Rosenstein and Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd, have both raised concerns about the memo's content.

FILE - Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein duri FILE - Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, Oct. 17, 2017. FILE - Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, Oct. 17, 2017.

Boyd, in a letter to Nunes, used the wording "extraordinarily reckless" to characterize the release of the memo. Rosenstein warned White House Chief of Staff John Kelly that releasing the memo would put classified information at risk, and he beseeched the president to withdraw his support for making it public. According to the Post, FBI Director Christopher Wray was with Rosenstein at the White House meeting earlier this week.

Rosenstein, who oversees Mueller's Russia probe, reportedly told the White House his department was not convinced the memo accurately describes how the FBI conducts investigations. He warned that making the document public could set a dangerous precedent.

CNN reported Wednesday that Rosenstein visited the White House in December seeking Trump's support in fighting off document demands from Nunes. But the president had other priorities ahead of a key appearance by Rosenstein on Capitol Hill, CNN reported, citing sources familiar with the meeting. Trump wanted to know where the special counsel's Russia investigation was heading, and he wanted to know whether Rosenstein was "on my team."

Ryan responds

On Tuesday, House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin defended release of the memo, saying, "There are legitimate questions about whether an American's civil liberties were violated" as authorities sought to monitor contacts Page may have had with the Russian operatives.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wis., joined at Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wis., joined at left by Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., answers questions at a news conference at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 30, 2018. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wis., joined at left by Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., answers questions at a news conference at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 30, 2018.

Ryan said the need for "transparency" dictated the need to release the memo. "There may have been malfeasance at the FBI by certain individuals," he said.

But even as he called for release of the memo, Ryan warned his Republican colleagues in the House to not oversell the information in the memo as a means to derail Mueller's investigation of Russian meddling in the election. Mueller is also probing whether Trump obstructed justice by firing James Comey, the former FBI director who was heading the agency's Russia investigation before Mueller, over Trump's objections, was appointed to take over the probe.

The memo has become a flash point in politically divided Washington, with some Republicans increasingly voicing complaints about Mueller's months-long investigation and claiming that some Justice Department officials have worked to undermine Trump's presidency.

Trump has repeatedly said there was "no collusion" between his campaign and Russia and last week said there also was "no obstruction" of the Russia investigation.

Potential fallout

Fallout from the memos publication could be severe. Any allegations of misconduct could give the president reason to demand the removal of senior FBI and Justice Department officials. Among potential casualties: Rosenstein and Mueller.

I think this is part of a campaign to try to fire the deputy attorney general, said Paul Rosenzweig, a senior fellow at the R Street Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington. Well see how it plays out, but I hope thats not the final result.

Bennett Gershman, a former prosecutor and a professor at Pace University's law school in White Plains, New York, said the memo could lead to Muellers dismissal.

Trump has said he has no intention of firing either official.

Some experts say the memos more lasting damage could be an erosion of public trust in the FBI and the Justice Department, institutions that closely guard their reputation as nonpartisan law enforcement agencies.

To just excoriate these people [at the FBI and Justice Department] and suggest that theyre all acting for political motives, to me, what it does is it undermines the publics confidence in law enforcement, Gershman said.SAN FRANCISCO - When a child feels sick, one of the first things a parent does is reach for a thermometer.

That common act intrigued Inder Singh, a long-time health policy expert.

What if the thermometer could be a communication device  connecting people with information about illnesses going around and gathering real time data on diseases as they spread?

Thats the idea behind Singhs firm Kinsa, a health data company based in San Francisco that sells smart thermometers.

Matilde Gonzalez, left, and Cesar Calles, hold the Matilde Gonzalez, left, and Cesar Calles, hold their son, Cesar Julian Calles, 10-months old, as Ana Martinez, a medical assistant at the Sea Mar Community Health Center, gives him a flu shot, Jan. 11, 2018 in Seattle. Matilde Gonzalez, left, and Cesar Calles, hold their son, Cesar Julian Calles, 10-months old, as Ana Martinez, a medical assistant at the Sea Mar Community Health Center, gives him a flu shot, Jan. 11, 2018 in Seattle.

Worst flu season in years

With the U.S. in the midst of its worst flu season in years, Kinsa has been on the forefront of tracking the spread and severity of flu-like symptoms by region.

The company says its data is a close match to flu data tracked by the U.S.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Whereas the CDC collects from state and regional reports, Kinsa can spot fever spikes in regions or even by cities, said Singh.

Fast and accurate information about how disease is spreading can make a difference during a health crisis.

If you knew when and where a disease was starting, you could target the people who needed the treatment and potentially prevent pandemics and epidemics from occurring, said Singh, founder and chief executive of Kinsa.

How it works

Kinsa thermometers, which range in price from $14.99 to $49.99, connect via Bluetooth to a smartphone app, which pose questions about a persons symptoms. The customers personal information is private, the firm said.

With its thermometers in 500,000 households, Kinsa receives 25,000 temperature readings per day.

The company cant diagnose illnesses or distinguish between different kinds of sicknesses. But from gathering information about individuals fevers and other symptoms, it can report where flu-like symptoms are peaking. In recent weeks, Missouri and Kansas have been the hardest hit, Kinsa said.

Nurses Tessa Sheffield, from left, Evelyn Fields a Nurses Tessa Sheffield, from left, Evelyn Fields and Greg Miller look over a mobile emergency room set up outside Grady Memorial Hospital to help handle the ever-growing number of flu cases in Atlanta, Jan. 29, 2018. Nurses Tessa Sheffield, from left, Evelyn Fields and Greg Miller look over a mobile emergency room set up outside Grady Memorial Hospital to help handle the ever-growing number of flu cases in Atlanta, Jan. 29, 2018.



Selling aggregated data

Beyond selling thermometers and advertising on its app, Kinsa makes money by selling data - stripped of any personally identifiable information - to companies that want to know where and how illness is spreading - cough and cold companies, disinfectant manufacturers, orange juice sellers. Sales of toothbrushes spike during flu season, Singh says.

Companies want to know when and where illness is striking on a general geolocation basis, he said. Firms stock shelves with products and change marketing plans if they know how an illness is progressing.

Kinsa has launched a program in schools, where it gives away thermometers, so parents can learn about illness trends locally. The company is also starting a new initiative with some U.S. firms, which buy Kinsa thermometers for their employees. When an employee shows a fever, Kinsa can inform the person about available company benefits.

At the moment, Kinsa thermometers are sold just in the U.S. But the company plans to go global.

Imagine a living breathing map where you can see where and when disease is spreading, Singh said. Thats what we want.BANJUL - Jobless, restless and frustrated, 24-year-old Saikou Jammeh persuaded his father to sell the family home and give up his life savings to pay for the journey from Gambia to Europe.

Jammeh saw no future for himself in Gambia, a tiny impoverished country on West Africa's coast, so he joined an exodus of young men willing to sacrifice everything to leave.

But after being robbed, beaten, and locked in a Libyan prison for several months, Jammeh found himself back where he started  in Gambia with no job prospects and empty pockets.

"I felt abandoned by the government," he said on a busy street in Churchill's Town, a suburb of the capital Banjul. "I was just sitting, wondering what to do."

Thousands of thwarted migrants like Jammeh are returning to Gambia, straining its fledgling government as officials scramble to get European-funded reintegration projects up and running.

President Adama Barrow took office a year ago, ending former leader Yahya Jammeh's 22 years of autocratic rule, and is under pressure to deliver on promises of sweeping economic reforms.

Nearly 2,500 Gambians were flown home by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) last year, most pulled out of prisons in Libya after reports emerged of Africans being sold in slave markets in the lawless country, the U.N. agency said.

The returnees are a noticeable presence in the nation of 2 million, posing a bigger threat to stability than in other West African countries wrestling with migration, experts said.

"We are not ready to receive all these people," said Bulli Dibba, permanent secretary of Gambia's interior ministry.

"We are very much concerned for domestic security," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

In November, a group of newly-returned migrants threw rocks at the IOM offices because they were unhappy with the support they had received, according to IOM spokeswoman Florence Kim.

"The government is already struggling to deal with unemployment," added Dibba, a veteran Gambian civil servant. "If we have more people coming in, what will we do with them?"

Out of reach

Gambians have accounted for about one in 20 migrants arriving in Italy in recent years, making it the country with the highest number of migrants per capita reaching Europe.

Trying to stem the flow, the European Union is funding job training and youth empowerment programs across the continent with its 3.2 billion euro ($4 billion) Trust Fund for Africa.

While the fund was created in 2015, most of the programs in Gambia only started last year, according to the IOM.

"Thank god my life has grown into a plan," said Saikou Jammeh, who did an EU-funded CCTV installation course after returning, and is now saving money for school.

But many young Gambians are missing out.

Of the 2,435 migrants who returned to Gambia in 2017, only 170 so far have received reintegration packages from the IOM, which consist of funding for education or business start-ups. The agency has received complaints, and is striving to avoid tensions and divisions within communities, said Kim of the IOM.

Give one former migrant more money than their peers and you create competition, she said. Offer returnees more support than their neighbors and it could spur others to leave for Europe.

Many of the returned migrants are traumatized, illiterate, or live in remote areas  making them difficult to assist.

"I know people who have ideas, but they don't have any help," said Donald Greywoode, 36, who quit his office job and set off for Europe on a route known locally as "the back way."



When Greywoode came back, he found himself collecting trash.

Without education, training or job opportunities, boredom and resentment could boil over into conflict, analysts said.

"The stakes are very, very high," said Franzisca Zanker, a researcher at Germany's University of Freiburg, who has studied migration governance in Gambia.

Undettered

Several returnees told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that they had not wanted to come home, but having been locked up, abused and starved in Libya, were left with no other choice.

"We don't see ourselves as voluntary returnees," said Mustapha Sallah, 26, who came back from Libya in April.

"They said if you don't want to go home, you die here," Sallah said. "Leaving was the only option."

Coupled with the lack of opportunity, such frustration could drive people to migrate once more, experts warned. Others said broader economic changes would be needed to keep youth at home.

"Even after training all these people in all these skills, if the industry is not there, they will still struggle," said Kebba Sillah, head of Sterling Consortium, a vocational training institute supported by the EU Trust Fund for Africa.

"I think the EU needs to encourage their businesses to come set up here, not just pump in money," Sillah added.

While many returnees said they would never again attempt the treacherous journey through Libya, some still dream of Europe.

Jerreh Cham, 22, has received EU funding to complete a satellite installation course and attend business management school since returning from Libya in August.

But it is not enough to keep him at home.

"My plan is to get my qualification before reaching Europe," said Cham, sitting in the yard outside his family's small home. "If I go with my qualification and everything, I don't think anybody will discount me. I think they will give me my respect."TORONTO - Climate change will be on the agenda for this year's Group of Seven summit in Quebec despite Canada's difference of opinion with the Trump administration.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's personal representative for the summit said in an interview Wednesday that implementation of the Paris climate accord will be discussed even though U.S. President Donald Trump has pulled the U.S. out of the agreement. Peter Boehm said if countries agreed on everything, there wouldn't be a reason to meet.



The June gathering of leaders from seven wealthy democracies will mark Trump's first trip to Canada.



Gender equality and women's empowerment will also be major themes.



Boehm is hosting a meeting with the representatives of each country in Waterloo, Ontario, and says Trump's representative is happy with Canada's focus.TAIPEI, TAIWAN - As new problems surface this month between Beijing and Hong Kong, a world financial center under Chinese rule for the past two decades, the nearby democratic island of Taiwan is expecting another wave of fearful immigrants.

The number of immigrants from Hong Kong to Taiwan often spikes when the Chinese territory faces a major political shift taking it closer to Beijing, government figures in Taipei show. As of December 2016, Taiwan had given residency to 71,263 former inhabitants of Hong Kong and Macau.

On New Year's Day, thousands of Hong Kong activists held anti-Beijing protests, meeting with a police barricade. Later in January, Hong Kong barred a pro-democracy candidate from running in local elections and a Hong Kong bookseller with Swedish citizenship was arrested in China.

The number of Hong Kong immigrants to Taiwan will continue to rise, said Raymond Wu, managing director of Taipei-based political risk consultancy e-telligence. The number has been on the increase for the past few years. Given that a lot of people have become disillusioned in Hong Kong, that trend will continue.

Hong Kong people, particularly younger activists, dispute Beijings role in local legislative elections. Some resent the influx of mainland Chinese people allowed to live, work and travel in the territory of 7.3 million.

Taiwan alternative

China took control over Hong Kong, a British colony of 150 years, in 1997. Some in the territory fear an erosion of freedom of expression over time. Taiwan has been self-ruled since the 1940s and democratized in the 1980s.

Beijing claims sovereignty over Taiwan as well and insists on eventual unification. But several generations of Taiwanese leaders, including todays President Tsai Ing-wen, have held China off and surveys show most Taiwanese prefer autonomy.

When theres uncertainty in Hong Kong, some will leave, said Chu Kang-ming, a retired Hong Kong-born professor who lives in Taiwan. The freedom of speech is stronger here.

Residency requires an investment in Taiwan of 6 million Taiwan dollars (US $205,000), attracting investors or self-employed business people. Some get rights to stay after marrying locals. Younger Hong Kong people come as university students.

Some will come over to study and check it out to see thats its freer here and more democratic, Hong Kong native Anita Li, secretary of the 100-member Hong Kong Club of Taipei.

Waves of immigration

When former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher failed to renegotiate her countrys lease for Hong Kong in 1983, a swell of people left the Asian territory and emigrated to nearby Taiwan.

Taiwan accepted another wave of Hong Kong immigrants shortly after June 4, 1989, when Chinese troops opened fire on anti-government protesters in Beijing. People in Hong Kong feared a spillover into their financial markets. And in the four years after 1997, Taiwan approved long-term resettlement for 5,130 people.

After 1997, some in Hong Kong worried that the Chinese government would cramp freedom of expression, Li said. I had a friend who told me to come over and look, said Li, who moved to Taiwan in 1990.



In a normal single year, fewer than 1,000 Hong Kong and Macau citizens get permission to immigrate.



In September and October 2015, after the Umbrella Movement of mass demonstrations against Beijings hand in the territorys local government, Taiwans immigration agency approved 3,930 residency applications from Hong Kong and Macau.



Democratically protected and left alone

John Chu, Hong Kong-born managing director of a magazine published in Taipei, was sent to Taiwan 29 years ago for work. As the 1989 and 1997 milestones passed, he decided to stay.

Lots of reasons to feel very uncertain about Hong Kong, so I decided to stay here and added to that my work, I was thinking I like it here, said Chu, 61. Those are the main reasons.

Some immigrants in Taiwan help inspire democracy activists who are still fighting for their cause in Hong Kong, said Liu Yih-jiun, public affairs professor at Fo Guang University in Taiwan. In January last year, a 20-year-old democracy activist and three legislators from Hong Kong received official protection in Taiwan during a visit protested by local pro-Beijing groups.

They have some commonality of course, since they have the same object -- that is, anti-China, said Wu Chung-li, a political science research fellow at Academia Sinica, a university in Taipei. They try to get some support for the anti-China sentiment.

Most of the immigrants see Taiwan as a chance to lead an ordinary persons life, Liu said.



Unlike Canada, home to 204,000 Hong Kong immigrants, Taiwan draws those who prefer to live in an ethnic Chinese, Chinese-language environment thats 90 minutes by air from their homeland. A flat in Taipei costs less than half the price of one in Hong Kong, and immigrants qualify for Taiwans nationalized healthcare.

Taiwan society does have a lot of attraction, said Lin Chong-pin, a retired strategic studies professor in Taiwan. Number two, Taiwan does offer very good medical care, and of course number three, its [politically] free.

Hong Kong people say they fit in with Taiwanese society except when they meet younger locals who favor Taiwans legal independence from China and wonder if Hong Kong people side with Beijing, Chu said.HONG KONG - Hong Kong's democracy supporters are riled after the government blocked a 21-year-old founding member of a young political party from an upcoming election, in what activists see as the latest effort to muzzle opposition in the Chinese territory.

In a letter to Agnes Chow, a prominent figure in several political causes, a city elections officer took issue with the platform of her party, Demosisto, to "promote self-determination" and democracy. As a party member, the letter says, she clearly does not intend to uphold the city's constitution.

Pro-democracy lawmakers and legal scholars said Chow's disqualification smacked of political screening, not a fair, legal or unbiased administrative decision.

About 2,000 people gathered on a chilly Sunday afternoon at the city's government center to decry the decision. "If we don't fight for our rights, they will seize every right from us, until we become bare, having nothing at all," former lawmaker Margaret Ng, a lawyer, told the spectators, who roared along. "We will fight in the courts, we will fight in Hong Kong, we will fight around the world!"

During the rally, Chow mentioned that her fellow party members have been physically beaten, stripped of their elective offices and imprisoned. "When the regime does this, the target is not just me, or democrats, but all Hong Kongers," she said. "This disqualification is to say to all Hong Kongers  we can only choose whom the regime accepts."

A leader of Chow's party said Monday that the party was seeking legal advice.

Government's defense

The government issued a statement late Monday defending the decision of the elections officer.

"The Returning Officers solely make independent decisions on whether a candidate complies with and meets the requirements as stipulated in the Ordinance, and whether legal advice shall be sought," the city's Electoral Affairs Commission said in a prepared statement. "The EAC will, as in the past, ensure that the Legislative Council by-election is conducted in an open, honest and fair manner."

Carrie Lam, chief executive of Hong Kong, is pictu Carrie Lam, chief executive of Hong Kong, is pictured at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 26, 2018. Carrie Lam, chief executive of Hong Kong, is pictured at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 26, 2018.

Carrie Lam, the city's new chief executive, said this weekend that "democratic self-determination, Hong Kong independence or regional autonomy do not comply with the requirement of the Basic Law and deviate from the policy of one country, two systems."

Pro-democracy activists said they were unnerved that another member of their movement, former lawmaker Edward Yiu, was grilled about his political beliefs. Yiu and three other members were disqualified by a judge last year after they altered their official oaths at their induction.

The court's ruling leaned heavily on a 2016 decree from Beijing's National People's Congress Standing Committee, which decided that oaths could not deviate from the official text.

A letter from a Hong Kong elections officer asked Yiu whether he was sincere, whether he accepted Beijing's interpretation, and what he meant when he commented about "more autonomy for Hong Kongers."

Several people who attended the rally Sunday said they were angry that Yiu was asked whether, by attending a conference last year in Taipei, he agreed with the views of the New Power Party of Taiwan, whose members favor independence from China. Advocating secession or separatism are serious crimes in China. Yiu replied to the elections official that he does not judge the platforms of other organizations when attending a conference and he has been allowed to run.

'Political censorship'

Eric Cheung, a law lecturer at the University of Hong Kong, said the government's screening methods smacked of "political censorship" and were being applied arbitrarily.

The Hong Kong government's justification comes straight from Beijing and the 2016 order. The city's constitution, called the Basic Law, demands that elected officials swear to uphold the document's provisions. Now candidates, as a precondition for running, are being judged by those standards as well, Cheung said. The person deciding on each candidate's suitability is a bureaucrat whose office provides no recourse for the decision, he said.

FILE - A Chinese national flag is lowered outside A Chinese national flag is lowered outside the Legislative Council, part of a daily ceremony in Hong Kong, Nov. 7, 2016. The day before, China's parliament passed an interpretation of Hong Kong's Basic Law saying lawmakers must swear allegiance to the city as part of China. A Chinese national flag is lowered outside the Legislative Council, part of a daily ceremony in Hong Kong, Nov. 7, 2016. The day before, China's parliament passed an interpretation of Hong Kong's Basic Law saying lawmakers must swear allegiance to the city as part of China.

In two years the government has shifted from criticizing young people who advocated independence to declaring that such talk is illegal and to insisting that promoting self-determination violates the constitution.

"You can see the chilling affect of government action," Cheung said. "In the end you don't know how far the government will draw the line."

Umbrella Revolution

Hong Kong's 20-year-old constitution promises "universal suffrage" in accordance with "democratic procedures." Yet China has delayed approving a system allowing for the direct election of the territory's chief executive.

Those delays have agitated a new generation that found its voice during the 2014 Umbrella Revolution. The 79-day sit-in for greater voting power failed to win over Beijing and unleashed more radical parties and actions, which drew harsh political and legal repercussions.

Chow's party, Demosisto, was founded in 2016 on the belief that Hong Kong people should choose their government in 2047, when the current governing agreement with Beijing ends.

In 2016, two young men who advocated independence, Andy Chan Ho-tin and Edward Leung, were blocked from running for the city's legislature. Even though Leung swore on a form, suddenly introduced then, to uphold the city's constitution, the city's election official said she "did not believe" him. Chan did not sign and was barred. He appealed to the courts and has awaited a ruling since May.MARRAKECH, MOROCCO - Middle Eastern countries should pursue fiscal policies to support growth and build broader tax bases to fund infrastructure projects and social spending, the head of the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday.

"A key priority is building broader and more equitable tax bases. All must pay their fair share, while the poor must be protected," IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde told an economic conference in Marrakech, organized by the Washington-based fund and the kingdom.

That would allow them to spend more on social safety nets, health and education services than the current 11 percent of gross domestic product in the region. "Fiscal policy can and must be redesigned to support inclusive growth in the region," Lagarde said.

More efforts are also needed to support the private sector, she said. The state, the dominant employer in many Arab countries with their young populations, can no longer hire newcomers to the labor market.

"This, too, can help make room for high-return social and infrastructure outlays," Largarde said, adding that better access to finance, a more favorable business environment and fewer barriers such as red tape were necessary.

"Protracted regional conflicts, low commodity prices, weak productivity and poor governance have held back the considerable potential of the region," the final statement issued by the IMF and two other international bodies said.

"Growth has not been strong enough to reduce unemployment significantly, and a staggering 25 percent of young people are jobless," it added.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday said Israel will retain security control over the Palestinians as part of any future peace deal, deepening Palestinian fears that Israel and the Trump administration are colluding on a proposal that will fall far short of their dreams of independence.

Netanyahu's statement exposed a deepening rift that has emerged between the U.S. and Israel on one hand, and the Palestinians and the Europeans on the other, ahead of an expected peace push by the Trump administration. Those disagreements could complicate things for the U.S. team.

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has distanced himself somewhat from the two-state solution  the outcome favored by the international community, including Trump's predecessors, for the past two decades.

FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu c FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem, Jan. 7, 2018. FILE - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem, Jan. 7, 2018.

Instead, he has said he would support Palestinian independence only if Israel agrees. The European Union, meanwhile, along with the rest of the international community, remains committed to the two-state solution.

These differences were evident at a meeting Wednesday between Netanyahu and the German foreign minister, Sigmar Gabriel.

In an awkward exchange, Gabriel said his country is "very much in favor" of the two-state solution.

"I was very thankful to hear that of course also the government of Israel wants to have two states, but [with secure] borders," he said.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel speaks duri German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel speaks during the 11th Annual International Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) Conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, Jan. 31, 2018. German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel speaks during the 11th Annual International Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) Conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, Jan. 31, 2018.

Netanyahu broke in with a clarification.

He said Israel's "first condition," would be to control security west of the Jordan River, an area that includes all of the West Bank, the heartland of the Palestinians' hoped-for state.

"Whether or not it is defined as a state when we have the military control is another matter," he said. "I'd rather not discuss labels, but substance."

Autonomy vs. independence

That suggests Israel would prefer something most observers would more likely define as autonomy than independence  an arrangement that would have few if any equivalents in the world.

The Palestinians claim all of the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, areas captured by Israel in 1967, for their state. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but it has settled over 600,000 people in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, making it increasingly difficult to partition the land.

Nabil Abu Rdeneh, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said the Palestinians would not accept the presence of "one Israeli soldier" on sovereign Palestinian lands.

"Either there will be full Palestinian sovereignty or there will be no security, no peace and no stability," he said.

Advocates of the two-state solution, including Israel's opposition parties, have long argued that the establishment of a Palestinian state is essential for Israel's own survival. Without a Palestinian state, they say that the number of Jews and Arabs under Israeli control will be roughly equal.

Israel would then have to choose between granting millions of Palestinians citizenship, threatening the country's status as a Jewish-majority democracy, or turning into an apartheid-like state where Jews and Palestinians have different sets of rights.

It is far from certain that Netanyahu's envisioned solution would ease international concerns over Israel's half-century occupation over the Palestinians.

Trump's influence

The Palestinians have long been suspicious of Trump's Mideast team, led by his son-in-law Jared Kushner, due to their deep connections to Israel and years of support to the West Bank settlement movement.

FILE - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas meets w FILE - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas meets with White House senior adviser Jared Kushner in the West Bank City of Ramallah, June 21, 2017. FILE - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas meets with White House senior adviser Jared Kushner in the West Bank City of Ramallah, June 21, 2017.

Those suspicions deepened after Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital last month. The Palestinians accused Trump of siding with Israel and said they would no longer accept the U.S. as a mediator.

Palestinian officials now claim that Trump's team is working with Israel on a plan that would give them a mini-state in roughly half of the West Bank, with Israel retaining overall security control, as well as control over Jerusalem and its holy sites. Final borders and the fate of Israel's dozens of settlements would be decided later. The officials say a third country with close ties to the U.S. recently presented details of the proposal.

When they tried to negotiate improvements, they say they were told it was a "take it or leave it" plan. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing a classified diplomatic issue.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Officials have said recently that the White House is still working on its proposal, and have refused to say when it might be unveiled.

On Wednesday, European officials urged the administration not to go it alone.

"Any framework for negotiations must be multilateral and must involve all players," EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said in Brussels. "Nothing without the United States, nothing with the United States alone."

At an academic conference in Tel Aviv, Gabriel, the German foreign minister, expressed grave concern for Israel's future, saying the government's ambivalence toward a Palestinian state showed a lack of direction and suggesting that Trump's unflinching support wasn't necessarily in Israel's best interest.

Gabriel said that in Europe "there is clearly growing frustration with Israel's actions," and asked Israelis: "How do you want Israel's future to look like? Are you prepared to pay the price of perpetual occupation?"TEL AVIV, ISRAEL - Israel's defense minister said Wednesday that Lebanon would pay the full price for Irans entrenchment in any future war, the latest in a series of Israeli warnings about Tehrans growing presence in neighboring Lebanon and Syria.

Avigdor Lieberman said Hezbollah guerrillas have sacrificed Lebanons national interests by subjugating the country to Iran. As a result, he said, all of Lebanon would be fair game in a future war.

Speaking to the Institute for National Security Studies annual conference, Lieberman said the Lebanese army will be targeted and if citizens of Tel Aviv are forced to sit in shelters, all of Beirut will too.

He also described as very provocative Lebanon's offshore oil and gas exploration tender on the countries maritime border and suggested that Lebanon had put out a tender to international groups for a gas field which is by all accounts ours.

FILE - Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri. Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri speaks during a regional banking conference, in Beirut, Lebanon, Nov. 23, 2017. Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri speaks during a regional banking conference, in Beirut, Lebanon, Nov. 23, 2017.

Hezbollah, Lebanese respond

His comments drew sharp condemnation from Hezbollah and Lebanese officials, including Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a Western ally, who described Liebermans comments as a blatant provocation that Lebanon rejects.

He said Lieberman's claim is invalid in form and substance and that the Lebanese government would follow this up with the competent international parties to assert its legitimate right to act in its territorial waters.

Lebanon last year approved the licenses for an international consortium led by France's Total, Italy's ENI and Russia's Novatek to move forward with offshore oil and gas development for two of five blocks in the Mediterranean Sea, including one known as Block 9 that is disputed in part with Israel.

Lebanese officials say the country will start exploratory offshore drilling in 2019 and say Lebanon wants to assert its resource rights along the length of its maritime territories.

Offshore drilling could lead to dispute

A major find in Lebanons southernmost waters could raise the possibility of a dispute with Israel, which is developing a number of offshore gas deposits, with one large field, Tamar, already producing gas, and the larger Leviathan field set to go online next year.

There are over 800 square kilometers (300 square miles) of waters claimed by the two countries, which are technically in a state of conflict. Israel and Hezbollah fought a monthlong war in 2006.

Hezbollah, in a statement, said Liebermans remarks offer new proof of Israels ambitions to steal Lebanons resources and said it would confront any aggression against Lebanons rights.

FILE - Lebanese President Michel Aoun is seen at t FILE - Lebanese President Michel Aoun is seen at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon, Nov. 7, 2017. FILE - Lebanese President Michel Aoun is seen at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon, Nov. 7, 2017.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun also weighed in on Wednesday, rejecting Liebermans statements.

Comments by Lieberman about Block 9 are a threat to Lebanon and its right to sovereignty over its territorial waters, he said in a statement released by his office.Israel has repeatedly warned of Irans increasing efforts to turn Lebanon into one giant missile site. Israels chief military spokesman this week said it was prepared for all the scenarios.

The Iranian-backed Hezbollah wields enormous political and military influence in Lebanon. Its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has said the Shiite militant group does not seek to provoke a war with Israel but would respond with crushing force should Israel attack Lebanon.BEIRUT - Lebanese President Michel Aoun called for forgiveness and stability on Tuesday after a political dispute involving his son-in-law triggered street protests and deepened a rift with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.



Berri supporters set tires ablaze and blocked roads on Monday in protest against comments by Aoun's son-in-law, Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil who had called him "a thug" in a video that circulated on social media.



"What happened on the ground is a big mistake based on a mistake," Aoun said in a statement. "I forgive all those who assaulted me and my family, and I look to those who insulted each other to forgive each other," he said.



The Free Patriotic Movement party, founded by Aoun, said Bassil had already expressed regret for the comments and it regarded the issue as over.



Berri supporters, who have been demanding a public apology from Bassil, protested again after the FPM statement, briefly setting fires in a main road in Beirut, security sources said.



Political tensions between Berri, a Shi'ite, and Aoun, a Maronite Christian, have been escalating since December when Aoun signed a decree promoting dozens of army officers without the signature of Shi'ite Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil, one of Berri's closest aides.



The row threatens to ignite sectarian tensions in the run-up to a parliamentary election in May, and risks paralyzing Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri's coalition government which groups nearly all of Lebanon's main parties.



In one incident on Monday, gunfire erupted near the offices of Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) east of Beirut. The FPM and the Amal movement led by Berri traded blame.



Bassil expressed regret for his remarks in an interview with the Lebanese al-Akhbar newspaper on Monday, saying he had departed from his moral standards in the closed meeting.



But this did little to ease fury in the Berri camp, which has said Bassil crossed "red lines."



The FPM, following a meeting of its leadership, said Bassil had "recalled" the leaked comments and expressed regret.



Berri and Aoun, both in their 80s, were civil war enemies.



The conflict ended in 1990 when the Syrian army forced Aoun, then head of one of two rival governments, from the presidential palace and into exile.



Berri says Aoun exceeded his constitutional powers with the army promotions. Aoun says he did not.



The standoff has also strained Aoun's political alliance with the Iran-backed Shi'ite group Hezbollah, which has longstanding ties to Amal and Berri.



MPs with Hariri's Future Movement expressed concern on "the level of political dialogue in the country, which reached unacceptable limits, including insulting presidencies and leaders on social media sites."



They also stressed the importance of upholding the constitution and the peace deal that ended the 1975-90 civil war.NAIROBI - In Kenya, independent local broadcasters say the government orchestrated a media blackout Tuesday to prevent live TV coverage of opposition leader Raila Odinga swearing himself in as the so-called peoples president.

Citizen TV was one of three major stations to go off the air in Kenya Tuesday. Citizen TV had announced that it would be broadcasting live from the site of the oppositions rival presidential inauguration.

In an interview with VOA, Wachira Waruru, the head of Royal Media Services, which owns Citizen TV and dozens of radio stations in Kenya, said the government was behind the shutdown.

Officials from Communication Authority accompanied by police officers went to our transmission station in Limuru, and they disabled our transmission. So we have been off air since.

Officials at the Communication Authority of Kenya declined to comment when reached by VOA.

Supporters of opposition leader Raila Odinga, one Supporters of opposition leader Raila Odinga, one wearing a mask, attend a mock "swearing-in" ceremony at Uhuru Park in downtown Nairobi, Kenya, Jan. 30, 2018. Supporters of opposition leader Raila Odinga, one wearing a mask, attend a mock "swearing-in" ceremony at Uhuru Park in downtown Nairobi, Kenya, Jan. 30, 2018.

Also taken off air Tuesday were Nation Television and Kenya Television Network. Both had planned live coverage of Odingas swearing-in event.

Waruru said they did not see this coming.

We were shocked and disappointed because we dont believe there is anything we have done to warrant a shutdown. So we are very shocked and disappointed that this can happen with no explanation of any kind, Waruru said.

Citizen TV and the others were able to live stream coverage Tuesday through the internet.

Speaking to the Kenya Television Network, Odinga condemned what he called an attack on the media.

This is very unfortunate. Indeed it basically confirms that we have descended to the level of Uganda where in the last general elections all TV stations were shut off including also the social media network. We did not expect this will come to our country. Its very unfortunate indeed, and it must be condemned by all civilized mankind, Odinga said.Many students who want to study in the U.S. say they have little chance of admission to an American college or university because of weak English skills.

But what if that barrier was removed from the application process?

It's called conditional admission, and could pave the way for foreign students seeking an American higher education, says Rob Hardin. Hardin is the senior assistant director for international student recruitment at the University of Oregon in Eugene.

Many schools understand that some of the best students in the world may not speak English well. Over the past decade, more schools are using conditional admissions to help these students.

"It adds significant value to have a student from Beijing, a student from Hanoi, a student from London in the classroom with the student from Portland, Oregon," Hardin told VOA. "We think that enhances the student from Portland, Oregon's experience."

The University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon during FILE - The University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon. FILE - The University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon.

At the University of Oregon, international students apply as any other student would, providing grades, extracurricular activities, Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) scores, and other information.

While many colleges and universities reject applicants with low TOEFL scores, other schools are willing to take a deeper look, Hardin says.

If the University of Oregon thinks an applicant has other attributes that make up for a lack of language skills, it will accept them into a special program, according to Hardin.

The conditional-admission program teaches in seven levels of progressive English. As the student's knowledge increases, their test scores improve.

Hardin says many international students prefer to study English in their native countries to save money and be closer to home, until they can test into a traditional degree program.

But schools like the University of Oregon that offer conditional admissions start students on their degree program once they complete the highest level of the language program.

These conditional admissions programs help students get used to the American college experience. Cultural differences in teaching styles between school back home and school in the U.S. can be addressed. Also, while living on an American college campus, surrounded by English speakers, students often improve their language skills faster.

"You're going to have to figure out how to go to the grocery store and buy apples," Hardin said. "You're going to take what you're learning in the classroom and you're going to be able to immediately apply it to your daily life."

Hardin notes that this newer path to admission is not just for students with weak English-language skills. Even strong applicants may not realize that they lack the English abilities to fully succeed at the college level.

For students who need additional support, some schools offer a bridge program. At the University of Oregon, students in the bridge program take as many as six additional English classes, often related to subjects the students are taking.

International students should not expect every college and university in the U.S. to offer such programs. At top schools, competition is fierce and students who are already strong in English have a better chance at acceptance.Calm has returned to the city of Saint-Louis in northern Senegal, following violent protests and the looting of shops belonging to Mauritanian nationals on Monday.

The violence erupted after the death of a Senegalese fisherman, shot by members of the Mauritanian coast guard. The Senegalese government condemned the killing but called on protesters to stay calm, promising to address the issue with Mauritanian officials.

Since the non-renewal of a fishing agreement between the two West African countries in 2016, incidents involving Senegalese fishermen and the Mauritanian coast guard have been frequent. Moustapha Dieng, the secretary-general of the Senegalese union of artisanal fishermen, said this is not an isolated incident.

This is the fourth incident in which fishermen have been shot dead. And there are others who have been injured and will never be able to fish again.

In a written statement, the Mauritanian military said that the unfortunate event occurred because of "the provocative behavior of the fishermen who ignored the orders of the coast guard." They said the coast guard members shot at the engine in an attempt to disable the canoe, but one of the nine fishermen was hit by a bullet. The statement added that coast guard vessels conducted 62 similar operations last year without incident.

In Mauritania, the issue is being discussed widely in both traditional and social media. Mohamed Diop, editor of the Alakhbar newspaper, said the issue is attracting a lot of attention.

The Mauritanian media are very interested in the issue because the two heads of state have been informed and discussed it on the sidelines of the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, he said. The Senegalese interior minister has said the two presidents decided to address the issue at the highest level to avoid a rift.

Moustapha Dieng said his union members feel that the Senegal government is not taking the issue seriously.

When [authorities] board a canoe involved in unlawful fishing, they are allowed by law to confiscate the material, but you have to let the fishermen go. We also want our government to send patrols to the border, just like Mauritania is doing.

In Mauritania, many residents have denounced the destruction and looting of shops belonging to Mauritanians in Saint-Louis, but most seem to strike a conciliatory tone.

There is a real attempt to appease the tension, and we can see it because today there was no looting reported in Senegal. And here, the media have been very conciliatory, except a few that are favoring the Mauritanian position in their coverage, Diop said.

The fishermens union in Senegal is hoping discussions between the two governments will resume soon on a new fishing agreement. That would allow its members to conduct their activities in both countries territorial waters without fear, in exchange for an annual fee.

The two nations are seeking to avoid an escalation in tensions as they discuss another hot-button issue. Dakar and Nouakchott are hoping to partner to exploit an underwater natural gas field recently discovered at their common maritime border. The two countries severed ties in 1989 following violent incidents and mass repatriation of each others citizens. Diplomatic relations have since been restored.KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA - Vietnam's capital, Hanoi, enjoyed little more than one month of clean air last year as pollution levels rose to match those of China's smog-prone capital, Beijing, preliminary findings of a new report showed.

Annual average air pollution in Hanoi in 2017 was also four times higher than the level deemed acceptable by the World Health Organization's air quality guidelines, according to a report by the Green Innovation and Development Center (GreenID).

And the situation is likely to get worse, according to the Hanoi-based nonprofit organization.

"A bit more than one month were days with good air quality," said Lars Blume, technical adviser at GreenID, which analyzed air monitoring data compiled at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi.

"It is out of people's control  they have to go out and work  and in many cases it is hard to really feel whether air is good or bad," Blume told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Air pollution in Hanoi is caused by a number of factors, including a rise in construction work, an increase in car and motorcycle use, and agricultural burning by farmers, Blume said.

But research in the report suggests that heavy industries, like steel works, cement factories and coal power plants in areas near the capital, are also significant contributors.

Hanoi's air pollution is now worse than that of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, the report showed, and things are unlikely to improve as Vietnam pushes ahead with plans to build more coal-fired power plants.

Exposure to high levels of air pollution, especially over the long term, can affect human respiratory and inflammatory systems, and can also lead to heart disease and cancer.

Acknowledging the problem, in mid-2016 the Vietnamese government launched a national action plan that sought to control and monitor emissions and improve air quality. Hanoi is planning to install 70 air monitoring stations.

The GreenID report criticized the lack of regulations on air quality, a lack of public awareness of the problem and a lack of effective measures to minimize the effects, such as home purifiers.

The Vietnamese government must install more air pollution monitoring stations across the country and make the data available to the public, Blume said.

Improved urban planning and investments in renewable energy and public transport systems are also needed, said the report, which is due to be published at the end of February.

Previous GreenID surveys showed a growing concern among the Vietnamese over the issue of air quality and a rise in respiratory problems among children, said Nguyen Thi Anh Thu, a researcher at the organization.U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson begins a six-day trip through Latin America Thursday in which he's expected to rally the region's governments in pressing democratic reforms in crisis-ridden Venezuela.

Tillerson's travels will take him to Mexico, Argentina, Peru and Colombia, with a final stop in Jamaica on February 7.

The United States will use "all its political, diplomatic and economic tools to address the situation in Venezuela," a senior State Department official said at a briefing this week on the trip.

Venezuela is in its fifth year of a worsening political and economic crisis. In January, the U.S. Treasury added four current or former Venezuelan senior military officials to its sanctions list, accusing them of corruption and repression that have contributed to critical shortages of food and medicine and the erosion of human rights. The European Union also has imposed sanctions, and the Organization of American States' secretary general, Luis Almagro, has championed democratic reforms for Venezuela.

Venezuela Crisis FILE - Anti-government demonstrators sit under a bridge that has graffiti written in Spanish that reads "Hunger," during a protest in Caracas, Venezuela, July 1, 2017. FILE - Anti-government demonstrators sit under a bridge that has graffiti written in Spanish that reads "Hunger," during a protest in Caracas, Venezuela, July 1, 2017.

President Nicolas Maduro, who accuses the United States of leading an international effort to topple his socialist administration, announced in January that he would seek a second six-year term and called for an election by April 30.

Tillerson's first stop will be at the University of Texas at Austin, where he'll speak on the Trump administration's policy priorities in the Western Hemisphere.

Later Thursday, Tillerson heads to Mexico City to meet with Mexican President Enrique Pena-Nieto and other senior officials. The United States and Mexico have had tense relations over President Donald Trump's proposals to curb illegal immigration and have Mexico pay for a reinforced border wall. This week, the United States, Mexico and Canada completed a sixth round of talks on renegotiating the NAFTA trade deal, which Trump often alleges has cost American jobs.

After visiting Buenos Aires and the Argentine mountain resort town of Bariloche, Tillerson is scheduled to head to Lima to meet with Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski on issues including the eighth annual Summit of the Americas. That's set for April 13 and 14 in Lima, Peru.

In Colombia, Tillerson plans to meet with officials including President Juan Manuel Santos, a fierce critic of the Maduro administration. They're expected to discuss not only Venezuela but also "the surge in coca cultivation and cocaine production, economic issues and the growing refugee population" from neighboring Venezuela, the State Department said in a statement.

At the Monday briefing on Tillerson's trip, a State Department official said "the pressure campaign is working" to aid Venezuela.

The Trump administration's objective, the representative said, "is to help the Venezuelan people to deal with this economic crisis, but also to restore the democratic order so that they can be in charge of their future again."LESHNICA, ALBANIA - Many old Albanian Orthodox churches and the art they contain lie in ruins due to decades of neglect but they could attract tourists if they are repaired, according to experts.

The government and the Orthodox church itself have started restoring some of the structures that date from the Byzantine period or later in the south of the country.

The churches are often in picturesque locations and their fortunes reflect the twists of Albanian politics over the last century.

Albania became a functioning state after World War One after domination under the Ottoman Empire. It became communist after World War Two but embraced democracy in 1990 and aspires to join the European Union.



The post-Byzantine Saint Athanasius church in Leshnica is one example. Its frescoes have stared at the stars since last May when the roof caved in and its southern wall fell down.

The church has plastic sheets over its walls for protection while debris with parts of frescoes is piled to one side.

Jorgo Sheka said it was taken care as a cultural shrine under late dictator Enver Hoxha, who was a hardline Stalinist, but has been neglected since then.

"No one else lifted a finger but Hoxha cared for it," he said, criticizing the leaders who followed Hoxha for neglect.

Hoxha banned religion in the 1960s and destroyed many churches and mosques but he kept some for their art. More than 60 percent of Albanians are nominally Muslim and the rest are Christians.

The Leshnica church is decorated with figures of saints in golden halos and biblical scenes in dark blue and red. Saint Athanasius dates to 1797 but frescoes underneath suggested it was older.

Its fame and location in a village helped the Church at Labova of the Cross get a facelift. Its cross of solid gold weighing 0.8 kilos and carved wood from the cross Christ died on was a gift of Emperor Justinian I, two scholars said.

The cross went missing in 1989 and has not been found.Nearly 200 civilians have reportedly been killed in Syrian government airstrikes launched in the past 37 days as part an offensive to retake territory in the northwest province of Idlib, the last province in the war-torn country remaining in the hands of insurgents battling to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based organization that relies on information gathered by on-the-ground spotters, say among the dead are 50 children and 36 women and that civilian facilities are clearly being targeted, including makeshift clinics and market places.

FILE - Smoke rises in a site hit by what activists Smoke rises in a site hit by what activists said were airstrikes carried out by the Russian air force in the town of Saraqeb, in Idlib province, Syria, Jan. 9, 2016. Smoke rises in a site hit by what activists said were airstrikes carried out by the Russian air force in the town of Saraqeb, in Idlib province, Syria, Jan. 9, 2016.

Political activists say they have recorded more than 96 air raids, some involving the dropping of crude, but powerful barrel bombs, in the southern and eastern countryside of Idlib.

Video posted online of the aftermath of one marketplace attack captures a picture of panic with White Helmet rescue workers frantically digging away rubble to free injured civilians. The White Helmets have accused Syrian warplanes of dropping banned cluster munitions on farmland to prevent families from farming.

Saraqeb, Syria Saraqeb, Syria Saraqeb, Syria

Government helicopters dropped barrel bombs Wednesday on the villages of Tell-es-Sultan and Barissa, say activists. And the local council in Saraqeb reported the town has suffered massive destruction resulting from the relentless bombing campaign by the Assad regime and Russian warplanes. The council said most of Saraqebs main civilian facilities, including medical centers and bakeries, have been destroyed.

The weeks-long government offensive has forced tens of thousands of civilians to flee towards the border with Turkey, according to humanitarian groups, but they are having to contend not only with harsh winter weather, but also to dodge fighting on an increasingly complex battlefield featuring forces loyal to the Assad regime, including foreign Shiite fighters, and a mixed bag of rebel militias, including al-Qaida-linked Tahrir al-Sham, working alongside Turkey.

FILE - A soldier waves a Turkish flag as Turkish t A soldier waves a Turkish flag as Turkish troops secure Bursayah hill, which separates the Kurdish-held enclave of Afrin from the Turkey-controlled town of Azaz, Syria, Jan. 28, 2018. A soldier waves a Turkish flag as Turkish troops secure Bursayah hill, which separates the Kurdish-held enclave of Afrin from the Turkey-controlled town of Azaz, Syria, Jan. 28, 2018.

To the north, a Turkish incursion launched more than a week ago, and backed by Syrian rebel militias, into the Kurdish enclave of Afrin, is complicating where refugees can go to seek safety. The Turkish intervention has prompted fierce fighting with much of the focus on a strategic hill near Azaz that has changed hands, reportedly, several times since January 22 between the Turkish military and Kurdish militiamen.

Turkish Army tanks are seen near the Turkish-Syria Turkish Army tanks are seen near the Turkish-Syrian border in Kilis province, Turkey Jan. 31, 2018. Turkish Army tanks are seen near the Turkish-Syrian border in Kilis province, Turkey Jan. 31, 2018.

To add to the complexity, Turkey sent a detachment of more than 40 armored vehicles into Idlib province Monday, apparently to re-enforce a de-escalation zone agreed to months ago by Turkey, Russia and Iran. Another Turkish convoy in Idlib was the target of a car bombing Tuesday that killed a Turkish civilian support worker, according to Turkeys General Staff.

It remains unclear who was responsible for the bomb. Initially Turkish officials blamed jihadists, but then later accused the Kurdish militia, the Peoples Protection Units (YPG), of being behind the blast.

On the face of it, the northwestern battlefield looks chaotic. But analysts, and Syrian rebel commanders, say theres increasingly a logic to it, one driven by Ankara and Moscow, who appear to be maneuvering for the south and east of Idlib to end up back in the hands of the Assad regime, while the northern part of the province, as well as northern Aleppo, coming under the control of the Turks.

The operation poses serious dilemmas for Turkey, says Gonul Tol, an analyst with the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based policy research organization. Turkish officials said the aim of the operation was to create a 19-mile [30 km.] deep zone inside Syria, which can be used as a safe area for civilians. The zone is likely to be secured and administered by Turkeys Syrian rebel allies, she argued.

But aside from the challenge the Turks face in defeating the Kurds in their enclave of Afrin, the question remains how rebel militiamen will react in the longer term.

A picture taken on January 26, 2018, shows a damag A picture taken on January 26, 2018, shows a damaged house in the Syrian town of Rajo in the Afrin District, Jan. 26, 2018. A picture taken on January 26, 2018, shows a damaged house in the Syrian town of Rajo in the Afrin District, Jan. 26, 2018.

Many rebels say they will continue to mount an underground insurgency that will likely turn to car bombings and urban terrorism, pushing militiamen further away from the original democratic aims of the revolution. The longer term aims of al- Qaida affiliate Tahrir al-Sham will also be key.

Syrian rebels have long said that if Assad wins on the battlefield, they will flip to guerrilla warfare and wage a campaign of bombings and assassinations, Arun Lund, an analyst with the Century Foundation, a New York-based policy research organization. So far, thats mostly talk, and areas retaken by the army have remained more or less stable.

He adds, In 2018, therefore, it is worth monitoring the frequency of car bombings, assassinations, and suicide attacks in government-held cities.WASHINGTON - Russias foreign spy chief, who is under U.S. sanctions, met last week outside Washington with U.S. intelligence officials, two U.S. sources said, confirming a disclosure that intensified political infighting over probes into Moscows alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

Sergey Naryshkin, head of the Russian service known by its acronym SVR, held talks with U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and other U.S. intelligence officials, the sources said. The sources did not reveal the topics discussed.

A Russian Embassy tweet disclosed Naryshkins visit. It cited a state-run ITAR-Tass news report that quoted Russias ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, as telling Rossiya-1 television that Naryshkin and his U.S. counterparts discussed the joint struggle against terrorism.

Antonov did not identify the U.S. intelligence officials with whom he met.

The Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment. Coats office said that while it does not discuss U.S. intelligence officials schedules, any interaction with foreign intelligence agencies would have been conducted in accordance with U.S. law and in consultation with appropriate departments and agencies.

News of Naryshkins secret visit poured fresh fuel on the battles pitting the Trump administration and its Republican defenders against Democrats over investigations into Moscows alleged 2016 election interference.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer demanded that the administration immediately come clean and answer questions  which U.S. officials did he meet with? Did any White House or National Security Council official meet with Naryshkin? What did they discuss?

The key question, Schumer told reporters, is whether Naryshkins visit accounted for the administrations decision on Monday not to slap new sanctions on Russia under a law passed last year to punish Moscows purported election meddling.

Russia hacked our elections, Schumer said. We sanctioned the head of their foreign intelligence and then the Trump administration invites him to waltz through our front door.

A January 2017 U.S. intelligence report concluded that Russia conducted an influence campaign of hacking and other measures aimed at swinging the 2016 presidential vote to Trump over his Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton.

Last week, the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant reported that the Netherlands intelligence concluded that some of the Russians running a hacking operation, known as "Cozy Bear," against Democratic organizations were SVR agents.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo told the BBC in an interview last weekend that he had not seen a significant decrease in Russian attempts at subversion in Europe and the United States, and he expects Moscow to meddle in Novembers U.S. mid-term elections.

Congressional panels and Special Counsel Robert Mueller are investigating Russias alleged interference and possible collusion between Moscow and Trumps election campaign. Russia denies it meddled and Trump dismissed the allegations of collusion as a political witch hunt.

Naryshkins visit coincided with other serious disputes in U.S.-Russian relations. They include Russias 2014 seizure of Crimea and its interference in Ukraine and Russias military intervention on the governments side in the Syrian civil war.

Washington and Moscow cooperate in some areas, including the fight against Islamic militant groups, officials said.

For example, a month ago the United States provided advance warning to Russia that allowed it to thwart a terrorist plot in St. Petersburg, the White House said.

Naryshkin, who was appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin to head the SVR in September 2016, was sanctioned by the Obama administration in March 2014 as part of the U.S. response to Russias annexation of Crimea. At the time, he was speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament.

He was banned from entering the United States, but sanctions experts said there are processes for providing people under sanction permission to enter for official business. Meetings between foreign intelligence chiefs, even from rival nations, mostly are kept secret but are not unusual.The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday renewed an arms embargo against the Central African Republic for another year and added criteria that could lead to new sanctions.

The French-sponsored resolution passed unanimously.

Along with extending the arms embargo, it condemns using religion or ethnicity to incite violence. It says anyone who carries out such crimes will face sanctions.

"Acts of incitement are a scourge for CAR and are at the root of violence that has resulted in too many victims among civilians and blue helmets [U.N. peacekeepers]," French Ambassador Francois Delattre told the Security Council. "There will be no lasting peace in CAR if these acts of incitement continue, and the council will shoulder its responsibilities."

Violence has plagued CAR since Muslim rebels overthrew the Christian president in 2013.

Christians retaliated, leading to the deaths of thousands on both sides and sending hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees fleeing for their lives to Cameroon and Chad.LONDON - Protests broke out in the city of Barcelona Tuesday after the Catalan parliament postponed a vote on who should be president of the semi-autonomous Spanish region.

Pro-independence parties, which form a majority in the parliament, had nominated only one candidate  exiled former leader Carles Puigdemont.

The decision to delay the vote brought protesters to the streets around the parliament building.The confidence vote session for Carles Puigdemont is still on, and it will take place as soon as we have guarantees to celebrate an effective confidence vote session, because that is the will expressed by the parliamentary groups, Torrent said.

We want our president to return home," said pro-independence supporter Asuncion Jimenez. "This is not a democracy. We have a dictatorship in Spain.

Puigdemont fled to Brussels after he was charged with sedition and rebellion in October 2017, following his declaration of independence from Spain after a disputed referendum. The government in Madrid said he would face arrest if he returned to Spain.

Fugitive Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont addresse Fugitive Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont addresses the media in Brussels, Belgium, Jan. 24, 2018. Fugitive Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont addresses the media in Brussels, Belgium, Jan. 24, 2018.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy dissolved the Catalan parliament and imposed direct rule under the constitution. Elections in December saw pro-independence parties regain their majority.

Puigdemont and his supporters suggested he could rule as president-in-exile via video link from Belgium. But last week, Catalonias constitutional court ruled that would be illegal. Now, there is growing competition within the pro-independence movement over who should be president, according to political analyst Luis Cornago.

There is a very interesting dynamic of competition within the independence movement, an interesting fight there, and I think its quite negative for an agreed result or an agreed negotiation. And they dont have a lot of incentives, either, on the pro-unionist side, Cornago said.

Cornago added that with both sides hardening their stance, the Madrid government is hoping the independence movement runs out of steam.

There was this feeling that this was just a temporary thing, that once the economic crisis was over and we restarted growing, macroeconomics is starting to be better, and all that, this whole movement that has some sort of anti-establishment side would disappear, would fade away. But I think there are roots in the movement that are probably going to stay with us for a while.

Its not clear when the Catalan parliament speaker plans to call a new vote. For now, the standoff between Barcelona and Madrid appears to have deepened.CAPITOL HILL - The Trump administrations delay in implementing congressionally mandated Russia sanctions provoked an outcry on Capitol Hill hours before President Donald Trumps first State of the Union address to lawmakers.

Congress last year overwhelmingly approved mandatory penalties against those who do business with Russias defense and intelligence sectors. This week, the Trump administration said the law already has had a chilling effect on those sectors even before sanctions take effect.

A chorus of Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, accused the administration of dragging its feet.

President Trump has failed time and time again to stand up to Vladimir Putin, despite the assault that he carried out on our democracy in the 2016 election, said Schumer.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin testifies before Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin testifies before the Senate Banking Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 30, 2018. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin testifies before the Senate Banking Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 30, 2018.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin told a Senate panel the administration is still looking at imposing sanctions based on a list of Kremlin-affiliated business moguls the Treasury Department published Monday.

So this should in no way be interpreted as were not putting sanctions on any of the people in that report, said Mnuchin.

In a statement, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Republican Bob Corker, said he is satisfied the Trump administration is working in good faith on Russia sanctions. Not so, according to the committee's top Democrat, Senator Ben Cardin.

Russia is engaged in activities against our country that require mandatory (U.S.) action thats what Congress agreed by an overwhelming majority, said Cardin. And to date, not one sanction has been imposed under that legislation by President Trump.

In his State of the Union address, Trump is expected to hail more robust U.S. economic expansion during his first year in office, something Republican lawmakers attribute to recent tax cuts and a reduction in federal regulations. Democrats say most of the credit for America's economic performance should go to former President Barack Obama.Suspected Russian airstrikes killed at least 15 people Tuesday in a crowded market in the rebel-held city of Ariha, south of Syria's rebel-held city of Idlib. It was the second such strike on a shopping area in area within 24 hours, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights watchdog group said.

The opposition-run civil defense service said another 20 people were wounded in the strike. Video released by local activists showed extensive damage.

A day earlier, dozens of people were killed in airstrikes by suspected Russian jets on a market in Saraqeb, 16 kilometers (10 miles) east of Idlib.

The strikes came as peace talks aimed at ending the Syrian conflict began in Russia.

Syria has been locked in a devastating civil war since March 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad government cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.

While U.N. officials say hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict, Syrian government officials say the death toll is closer to 10,000.ELLICOTT CITY, MARYLAND - When Syrian immigrant Khaldoun Alghatrif's daughter was nine months old, he searched for the right memento to mark her birth. He found it online, part of a poem on the side of a set of ceramic coffee cups. In flowing Arabic calligraphy, one of the cups said, "Her name is Shaam"  the Arabic name for the city of Damascus. Along with the other two cups, the set read: "She is beautiful." "I love her." "Her name is Shaam."

The poem was an ode to the city before Syria's devastating war.

Now three, Alghatrifs daughter's name is Shaam.

Alghatrif derived something else from those cups  inspiration to start a business promoting Syrian artisans, like the artist who created the cups, in an effort to get by in war-torn Syria.

Syrian immigrant Khaldoun Alghatrif celebrated the Syrian immigrant Khaldoun Alghatrif celebrated the birth of his daughter with the purchase of three Syrian-made ceramic coffee cups. Syrian immigrant Khaldoun Alghatrif celebrated the birth of his daughter with the purchase of three Syrian-made ceramic coffee cups.

"We wanted to start showing America the other face of Syria, the beautiful face of Syria, something they don't see in the news," Alghatrif said.

Today, Syriana Cafe and Gallery in Ellicott City, Md., features the cups and sells other Syrian heritage handicrafts  exotic mosaic works, mother of pearl inlays, Damask textiles and brocade silk.

"When I think of Syria today, I think of it as a war-torn country," said shopper Martin Viteri. "But when I come to a place like this, and I get to see all the beautiful culture, it is really cool."

The taste of Syria

Alghatrif immigrated to the U.S. in 2015, following his brother Majd, who had come to the U.S. a few years earlier. Together, they opened Syriana Gallery in December 2017 in an 18th-century building on an Ellicott City street lined with stone buildings dating back to the towns origins in 1772. The brothers say it resembles their hometown of As-Suwayda in Syria.

"This building is built from natural material around you and the great sense of community in this area. People made us feel this could be our home," Majd says.

Majd says the gallery has two missions  preserving Syrian heritage and supporting artisans by establishing a market for their products.

"Artisans work in the tourism industry mainly, and with a lack of tourism, there is no prospects for making the living," he said. "That was one of the main drives for people fleeing the country, besides being attacked by the war itself."

Syrian Coffee traditionally boiled in heated sands Syrian Coffee traditionally boiled in heated sands. Syrian Coffee traditionally boiled in heated sands.

Recently, the Alghatrifs have expanded their Syrian cultural experience by adding food. Syrian coffee traditionally boiled in heated sands is a specialty. Majds wife, Rasha Obaid, operates the cafe inside the gallery.

"All of our recipes are homemade and Syrian, very authentic," she said. "And all of our workers in the kitchen are Syrian refugee women. I am trying to train them to work in the business environment here."

Gayle Killen lives nearby. I love the rich ingredients. I love having authentic cuisine. And the artwork, the craftsmanship, is beautiful.

The Alghatrifs plan to further expand by sponsoring workshops in Syria and in the U.S. to help Syrian artisans and refugees.BARCELONA - Exiled separatist leader Carles Puigdemont has stunned Spain with private remarks picked up by TV news cameras in which he said Catalonia's independence bid is "finished."

The shock admission came after Spain's constitutional court ruled that Puigdemont could not be named president because he faced arrest and was not physically present to assume the presidency.

"The [independence] process is finished. I've been sacrificed," Puigdemont wrote in a text message to a close confidant after the speaker of the Catalan parliament, Roger Torrent, suspended a Tuesday session in which secessionists holding a majority of seats planned to nominate him.

Spain's vice president, Soraya Saenz de Santamaria, called on Torrent to look for another candidate to replace Puigdemont.

Spain Catalonia Roger Torrent, speaker of Catalan Parliament, arrives for a statement at the Catalonia Parliament in Barcelona, Spain, Jan. 30, 2018. Roger Torrent, speaker of Catalan Parliament, arrives for a statement at the Catalonia Parliament in Barcelona, Spain, Jan. 30, 2018.

"Mr. Torrent has to open a new round of contacts to save the situation generated by Puigdemont," she said.

A Telecinco news station reporter caught on camera Puigdemont's message, which had been sent to the cellphone of Toni Comin, a close aide also in exile. The station had been filming a Brussels meeting that Puigdemont had been scheduled to attend.

Puigdemont may have been excusing his absence to Comin, who organized the conference in which Puigdemont was expected to reaffirm his bid to continue as president, sources in the independence movement told VOA.

Former Catalan President Carler Puigdemont FILE - Fugitive Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont addresses the media in Brussels, Belgium, Jan. 24, 2018. FILE - Fugitive Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont addresses the media in Brussels, Belgium, Jan. 24, 2018.

In an earlier statement to reporters Tuesday, Puigdemont said he would continue to work to remain president. Puigdemont's first name, Carles, was clearly visible on the cellphone screenshots taken by Telecinco.

"La Moncloa's [Spain's presidential palace] plan has triumphed. I hope it's true and that it means everyone in prison will be released. Otherwise, it would be a historical farce," Puigdemont said. Some analysts say the comments could indicate some kind of plea-bargaining deal with the Spanish government.

'Broken' movement

When Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy imposed direct rule on Catalonia following the regional government's declaration of independence last November, most members of Puigdemont's Cabinet were arrested, while he fled to exile. Three of them, including his vice president Oriol Junqueras, remain in jail.

Spokesmen for Junqueras' independence group, the Catalan leftist Republican party, have said that Puigdemont could be sacrificed so a new government could be formed. Claims by Puigdemont and his supporters that he could lead "telematically" by Skype have been ridiculed throughout Spain's political spectrum.

"Puigdemont's farce is finished," tweeted Prime Minister Rajoy's ruling PP party.

Spain Catalonia FILE - Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy gestures as he talks to journalists during a news conference in Madrid, Dec. 29, 2017. FILE - Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy gestures as he talks to journalists during a news conference in Madrid, Dec. 29, 2017.

Puigdemont's center-right rival for Catalonia's presidency, Ines Arrimadas, said the independence movement was "broken."

"They have to face the truth," Arrimadas said. "If they name someone else who violates the law, the same thing is going to happen."

Comin said the "pro-government bloc should have no illusions about divisions among supporters of independence."

Violent protests

Four separatist lawmakers from the radical Catalan Unity Candidacy, or CUP, refused to leave the parliamentary chamber when Tuesday's session was suspended. About 500 violent protesters, organized by the party's Catalan republic defense committees, tried to storm the parliament building from a tent city erected in a nearby park. They overran police barricades and chased away officers who took refuge in the building.

Spain protests 20180130 FILE - Pro-independence demonstrators shout during a protest outside the regional parliament in Barcelona, Spain, Jan. 30, 2018. FILE - Pro-independence demonstrators shout during a protest outside the regional parliament in Barcelona, Spain, Jan. 30, 2018.

The crowd jeered and insulted members of the Catalan parliament as they emerged from the session, calling Torrent a "traitor." Twenty-seven Catalan police officers were injured in the clashes, according to press reports.

"We go back to seeing the last days of a Catalan republic," Puigdemont texted Comin in an apparent reference to a previous attempt to set up an independent Catalan state at the time of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.

While Puigdemont excused his comments as being the result of a momentary irritation, he did not seem to see many political prospects.

"My future is likely to be more judicial than political," he wrote Comin. "I will have to dedicate my life to my legal defense."British Prime Minister Theresa May arrived in China Wednesday on a visit aimed at boosting economic ties with the Asian giant ahead of her country's exit from the European Union next year.

May began her three-day trip in the central industrial city of Wuhan, before heading to Beijing for talks with Premier Li Keqiang. She is accompanied by a large delegation of 50 British business leaders eager to expand their business in the world's second largest economy.

The prime minister will meet with President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Thursday, before wrapping up her visit Friday in the financial hub of Shanghai.

The British leader says she is eager to use her trip to lay the groundwork for a so-called "golden era" between London and Beijing, a term which first surfaced in 2015 ahead of a state visit to Britain by President Xi. The Chinese leader is hoping Britain will endorse his flagship Belt and Road Initiative, a multi-billion dollar project aimed at reviving the ancient Silk Road trade routes between Asia and Europe.

But Prime Minister May has been cautious in the past about embracing Chinese investment. She angered Beijing in 2016 when she temporarily delayed approval of Chinese-funded nuclear power plant in southwest England.

She has also expressed caution over the Belt and Road Initiative, saying that while the project holds promise, it is important the project meets "international standards."

In addition to trade, May is expected to discuss the escalating political tensions in Britain's former colony, Hong Kong, which it ruled for more than 150 years before giving it back to China in 1997.

Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong, wrote May this week warning that the semi-autonomous territory is facing "increasing threats to the basic freedoms, human rights and autonomy" that China agreed to observe under the handover agreement.BEIJING, CHINA - In his first State of the Union address, U.S. President Donald Trump referred to China as a rival and declared an end to what he called an era of economic surrender.

The Trump administration has repeatedly accused China of trade abuses and more trade actions against Beijing are expected soon, but the president did not mention the worlds second largest economy directly when he pledged to protect intellectual property and fight for fair and reciprocal trade.

Some analysts said that could be for a number reasons that include expectations his administration may soon announce even more trade measures. The other possibility is that there are different views on China within the U.S. government and there is no clear path forward.

Julian Evans-Pritchard, an economist at Capital Economics in Singapore said the Trump administration appears to be taking a more cautious approach.

The risk, I guess, is that if you push too hard against China then they might retaliate in a manner that it causes more damage to the U.S. than the damage that China gets, he said, adding, It is clear that there are different views on China within the government."

Trump recently announced stiff tariffs on solar panels and washing machines and has said his administration is considering a big fine as part of a probe into Chinas alleged intellectual property theft.

Evans-Pritchard said there will probably be decisions soon on whether to impose a tax on steel and aluminum, as well as action on intellectual property rights infringements in China, but the administration does not appear to be pushing back as much as it can.

Will China change?

China is an exporting country, which may have more to lose in a trade war, but the difference in Chinas case is that the Chinese government has a lot more power to make life difficult for foreign firms, and in the U.S. the power to do so is much more limited by the restrictions on the powers of the government in the U.S., he said.

Christopher Balding, an associate professor of finance and economics at Peking University HSBC Business School said one reason China received less attention in the speech is perhaps a sign that President Trump is starting to learn how to be a little more self-disciplined and not always, in Balding's words, shoot off at the mouth.

"That could change tomorrow," but the president has already criticized China frequently and it doesnt need to be pounded into the ground, Balding said.

Analysts say it may also be due to a growing consensus that China does not care.

For years, many have hoped that China would integrate into the global world order and become a more market-based, liberal economy. But now the broader consensus among foreign policy experts and others is that such progress will not happen.

China has made it very clear that they are going to be an authoritarian projecting state and anyone who disagrees with them will be blocked to task, Balding said.

Paths ahead

Chinas Foreign Ministry flatly rejected Trumps assessment of Beijing as a rival, and urged Washington to put aside what it called a Cold War mentality and zero-sum game approach to relations.

Cooperation is the only correct choice for China and the United States, and a win-win approach is the only way to build a better future, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters at a briefing shortly after the speech.

Trumps speech was softer on Beijing than a recent strategy report from the U.S. Department of Defense, which said Russia and China are bigger threats to the United States than terrorism.

Around the world, we face rogue regimes, terrorist groups, and rivals like China and Russia that challenge our interests, our economy and our values, the U.S. president said his Tuesday night address.

In confronting these dangers we know that weakness is the surest path to conflict, and unmatched power is the surest means of defense, Trump said.SEOUL - Calling North Korea a depraved and cruel dictatorship, President Donald Trump, in his first State of the Union address, again promised to exert maximum pressure to prevent Pyongyang from developing nuclear missiles that can threaten the U.S. mainland.

Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation. I will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got us into this dangerous position, said President Trump.

However he was more restrained than at times in the past when he called North Korean leader Kim Jong Un little rocket man. He also did not mention the possible use of force, despite recent reports that the Trump administration is considering launching a limited military strike in response to a future provocation.

I dont know whether this is good news in terms of the Trump administration opting for more diplomatic engagement towards Pyongyang, or the Trump administration is getting more serious about taking different measures, including some kind of military options, said Bong Young-shik, a political analyst with Yonsei University's Institute for North Korean Studies in Seoul.

President Donald Trump arrives to deliver his Stat President Donald Trump arrives to deliver his State of the Union address to a joint session of U.S. Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 30, 2018. President Donald Trump arrives to deliver his State of the Union address to a joint session of U.S. Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 30, 2018.

In the last year, tensions between North Korea and the United States have escalated over Pyongyangs efforts to develop a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the United States. The Trump administration has led international efforts to impose harsh economic sanctions on North Korea, but has also emphasized that military force remains a viable option to deal with the growing threat to the U.S. mainland.

South Korea's leadership has been advocating increased engagement to reduce tensions, and recently negotiated at least a temporary pause in North Korean missile and nuclear tests by persuading Pyongyang to participate in the upcoming PyeongChang Winter Olympics. The United States also agreed to postpone joint military exercises with South Korea until after the Olympic Games to accommodate the Norths peaceful participation.

Depraved character

In his speech, Trump seemed to argue that there can be no compromise with the brutal and repressive Kim government.

We need only look at the depraved character of the North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose to America and our allies, said President Trump.

The president recounted the tragic experience of Otto Warmbier, who died last year soon after being released from North Korea while in a comatose state. The American student was visiting North Korea in 2016, and was arrested for allegedly attempting to steal a propaganda poster. He was sentenced to 15 years hard labor but soon fell into a coma from which he never awoke. Warmbier remained in prison for almost a year without adequate medical care as his condition continued to deteriorate.

Fred and Cindy Warmbier watch as their son Otto's Fred and Cindy Warmbier watch as their son Otto's casket is placed in a hearse after funeral services, in Wyoming, Ohio, June 22, 2017. Fred and Cindy Warmbier watch as their son Otto's casket is placed in a hearse after funeral services, in Wyoming, Ohio, June 22, 2017.

His parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, who were invited by the president to attend the State of the Union, broke into tears when Trump pointed them out in the gallery as powerful witnesses to a menace that threatens our world.

Trump also singled out another invited guest, North Korean defector Ji Seong-ho, as one more witness to the ominous nature of this regime. In 1996, Ji lost a hand and a foot when he fell from a moving train while stealing coal to barter for food, during a famine in which millions of North Koreans starved to death. He endured painful amputations and later torture before escaping North Korea on crutches.

Ji is now a human rights activist with the group Now Action And Unity for Human Rights, and is involved in radio broadcasts into North Korea, where the state tries to restrict access to the outside world.

Today he lives in Seoul, where he rescues other defectors, and broadcasts into North Korea what the regime fears the most, the truth, said Trump.

Victor Cha withdrawn

Also raising concerns that the United States may be preparing preventive military action to deal with the North Korean threat are reports that Victor Chas name was withdrawn as nominee for U.S. ambassador to South Korea. Cha is a Georgetown University professor and former National Security Council adviser on North Korean affairs during the administration of President George W. Bush.

Writing in the Washington Post on Tuesday, Cha said he shared his opposition to the preventive use of force against North Korea with White House officials while he was under consideration for a position.

Cha said he empathizes with the hope that a military strike would shock Pyongyang into appreciating U.S. strength but that hope must give in to logic.

Given North Koreas missile and artillery capability, Cha argues, President Trump would put at risk the lives of millions in South Korea and Japan, on the assumption that a crazy and undeterrable dictator will be rationally cowed by a demonstration of U.S. kinetic power.

Lee Yoon-jee in Seoul contributed to this report.CAPITOL HILL - President Donald Trump's blueprint for reforming Americas immigration system is drawing fire from advocacy groups at both ends of the ideological spectrum.

The Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, which favors restrictive immigration policies and has cheered many of Trumps stances on the topic, said Wednesday the presidents framework amounts to instant amnesty for 1.8 million undocumented youth brought to America as children.

CIS Director of Policy Studies Jessica Vaughan said Trumps plan to limit the ability of immigrants to bring family members to the United States, so-called chain migration, will take years to offset those who have been eligible for legal status under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a temporary program created by former president Barack Obama that expires in March.

In other words, there would be instant deportation relief for 1.8 million illegal aliens, but a very long wait for immigration relief for Americans, Vaughan said in a post on CIS website.

The presidents framework would provide a 10-12 year path to citizenship for DACA-eligible immigrants, give preference to immigrants with skills needed in the U.S. economy, end a visa lottery that gave people across the world a chance to come legally to the United States, and seek to boost border security by erecting a wall between the United States and Mexico.

Immigrant rights groups blasted the plan as well as Trumps promotion of it in Tuesdays State of the Union address to Congress.

A group of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals A group of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program recipients take a selfie as they wait for the start of a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 30, 2018, about legislation that will protect DACA recipients. A group of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program recipients take a selfie as they wait for the start of a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 30, 2018, about legislation that will protect DACA recipients.

Instead of lifting up the shared humanity of all those who aspire to be full and equal members of the American family, he (Trump) sneered that Americans are dreamers, too, a not-too-subtle swipe at young immigrants whose lives were plunged into crisis by his decision to end DACA, said Frank Sharry, executive director of Americas Voice, a non-governmental organization that advocates a direct path to U.S. citizenship for illegal immigrants.



The plan exploits the precarious status of Dreamers, a crisis he caused and cynically uses them to push for a radical restructuring of our legal immigration system that harkens back to the racist national origins policies of the 1920s, Sharry continued. Far from a compromise that can pass, it is a deeply partisan proposal that, fortunately, is dead on arrival.

Trump called his blueprint a down-the-middle compromise, but it remained a lightning rod in Congress, which has until Feb. 8 to arrive at a bipartisan agreement on immigration and federal funding or risk another partial shutdown of the U.S. government.

The president said it was his sacred duty ... to defend Americans  to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream. Because Americans are dreamers too.

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, speaks to reporters about Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, speaks to reporters about DACA and immigration legislation on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 6, 2017. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, speaks to reporters about DACA and immigration legislation on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 6, 2017.

Trumps speech drew scorn from Democrats and a tepid response from one immigration hardliner, conservative Republican Congressman Steve King of Iowa.

King said Trumps call to let the young, undocumented immigrants work toward citizenship over 12 years was not well received by Republican lawmakers, many of whom view such a policy as granting amnesty to lawbreakers.

You notice the Republicans were pretty flat on that? King observed.

Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said Trumps tone on immigration was of a divider-in-chief. It was a red-meat appeal to the anti-immigrant base of his party.

Trump said current immigration policies allowed Central American gang members into the country to commit violent crimes.

Many of these gang members took advantage of glaring loopholes in our laws to enter the country as unaccompanied alien minors, the president said.

FILE - U.S. President Donald Trump listens to U.S. FILE - U.S. President Donald Trump listens to U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill., during a meeting with legislators on immigration reform at the White House in Washington, Jan. 9, 2018. FILE - U.S. President Donald Trump listens to U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill., during a meeting with legislators on immigration reform at the White House in Washington, Jan. 9, 2018.

"Inflammatory is how Democratic Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois described Trumps remarks.

No one in the world defends them, Durbin said of violent gang members.

Lawmakers of both parties have noted that the vast majority of DACA-eligible immigrants have no criminal records and do not belong to gangs.

Ken Bredemeier contributed to this report.A new executive order, issued as U.S. President Donald Trump gave his State of the Union address, cancels a 2009 order in which President Barack Obama promised to close the Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba.

The White House made the announcement just before Tuesdays State of the Union address. And, the president spoke about it in his speech.

"I am keeping another promise. I just signed, prior to walking out, an order directing Secretary Mattis, who is doing a great job, to reexamine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay," he said. "I am asking the Congress to ensure that, in the fight against ISIS and al-Qaida, we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists -- wherever we chase them down, where ever we find them."

President Donald Trump delivers his first State of President Donald Trump delivers his first State of the Union address in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol to a joint session of Congress, Jan. 30, 2018 in Washington. President Donald Trump delivers his first State of the Union address in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol to a joint session of Congress, Jan. 30, 2018 in Washington.

Sixteen years after the first prisoner arrived, 41 detainees remain at Guantanamo. Of the more than 700 prisoners who have been held there since 2002, only a handful have been charged with a crime and even fewer tried.

Trump said during his campaign that he wanted to keep Guantanamo open and load it up with some bad dudes.

The order preserves military detention as a counterterrorism tool by keeping the prison open.

President George W. Bush opened Guantanamo after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to hold and interrogate suspected enemy combatants.WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump called for unity and touted what he sees as accomplishments on foreign policy and the economy, during his first State of the Union address on Tuesday.

"Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve," Trump said.

Democratic female members of Congress, wearing bla Democratic female members of Congress, wearing black to support the #MeToo movement and buttons referring to 1944 rape victim Recy Taylor, arrive on the House floor to watch U.S. President Donald Trump deliver his State of the Union address. Democratic female members of Congress, wearing black to support the #MeToo movement and buttons referring to 1944 rape victim Recy Taylor, arrive on the House floor to watch U.S. President Donald Trump deliver his State of the Union address.

During an 80-minute speech, Trump called for lawmakers to pass his proposal for overhauling the country's immigration system and revamping the country's infrastructure.

On foreign policy, Trump promised a tougher stance, saying he would work to address the "fundamental flaws" in the Iran nuclear deal and show "total American resolve" in dealing with North Korea.

"Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation. I will not repeat the mistakes of the past administrations that got us into this dangerous position," Trump said.

"He was trying to paint a picture of a successful first year," said Steven Pifer, a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings Institution. "He claimed a lot of credit for the good economic performance. Some of that credit, of course, goes to President Obama, his predecessor. And then, he laid out his agenda, although in very broad strokes."

The speech lacked the trademark personal attacks that Trump frequently directs at his critics. But many Democrats in the chamber appeared unimpressed, jeering at several points.

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers his State of U.S. President Donald Trump delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 30, 2018. U.S. President Donald Trump delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 30, 2018.

Outside the Capitol, at least 100 protesters gathered in subfreezing temperatures, shouting obscenities and waving a lighted sign reading "LIAR" as the presidential motorcade passed by.

After a year in office, Trump's approval rating stands at 39 percent, according to the respected FiveThirtyEight polling average. That is lower than any other modern president at this stage of their first term.

According to Pifer, the speech may have done well with his base but not the broader public. "There werent really developed ideas for how to move forward, it was sort of a laundry list of ideas but without specific substance. So people listening to that speech arent going to have a good clue as to what his priorities are, what hes going to push and how hes going to achieve some of the goals he set out."

WATCH: Trump's Softer Tone Wins Positive Reviews, but Democrats Skeptical

Immigration

The Democratic boos were particularly loud when Trump laid out his immigration plan, which involves eliminating family-based migration and the visa lottery in favor of what the White House calls a merit-based program.

"It is time to reform these outdated immigration rules, and finally bring our immigration system into the 21st century," Trump said. "These four pillars represent a down-the-middle compromise, and one that will create a safe, modern and lawful immigration system."

Trump pointed out that he supports a path to citizenship for 1.8 million undocumented immigrants, as part of a package that also includes funding for a border wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.

Angelica Magana, 34, a Dreamer, who was brought to Angelica Magana, 34, a Dreamer, who was brought to the United State at the age of eight, reacts to President Donald Trump as he lays out is immigration policy during a State of the Union watch party in Chicago, Jan. 30, 2018. Angelica Magana, 34, a Dreamer, who was brought to the United State at the age of eight, reacts to President Donald Trump as he lays out is immigration policy during a State of the Union watch party in Chicago, Jan. 30, 2018.

Congress is divided over legislation addressing the plight of undocumented immigrants brought to America as children. The Trump administration plans to end the program, known as DACA, or the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, in March.

Some Democratic lawmakers invited the young undocumented immigrants, known as Dreamers, to attend the speech. That prompted some Republicans to ask U.S. Capitol Police to conduct ID checks and arrest any illegal immigrants present. There is no indication Capitol Police followed through on the request.

Today, Congressman Paul Gosar contacted the U.S. Capitol Police, as well as Attorney General Jeff Sessions, asking they consider checking identification of all attending the State of the Union address and arresting any illegal aliens in attendance.  Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS (@RepGosar) January 30, 2018

Economic progress

Trump's speech touted the economic gains made during his first year in office.

"Since the election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs, including 200,000 new jobs in manufacturing alone," Trump said. "After years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages."

In laying out his 2018 agenda, Trump called on Congress to work with him to pass legislation to repair U.S. roads, bridges and airports.

Members of President Donald Trump's Cabinet applau Members of President Donald Trump's Cabinet applaud him as he delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 30, 2018. Members of President Donald Trump's Cabinet applaud him as he delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 30, 2018.

During the presidential campaign, Trump called for a "trillion-dollar" infrastructure program -- language that appealed to many Democrats who favor government spending on such projects.

But Trump made clear that his infrastructure plan would rely at least in part on public-private partnerships -- not solely government spending.

"Every federal dollar should be leveraged by partnering with state and local governments and, where appropriate, tapping into private sector investment," Trump said.

Foreign policy

While the bulk of Trump's comments focused on domestic concerns, a large part of his speech centered on North Korea.

North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile program "could very soon threaten our homeland," Trump warned. "We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from happening."

Among those present at the speech were the parents and siblings of Otto Warmbier, the U.S. college student who died last year after being convicted of crimes against the state in Pyongyang.

"Tonight, we pledge to honor Otto's memory with total American resolve," Trump told the family.

President Donald Trump pauses as delivers his firs President Donald Trump pauses as delivers his first State of the Union address in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol to a joint session of Congress, Jan. 30, 2018 in Washington. President Donald Trump pauses as delivers his first State of the Union address in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol to a joint session of Congress, Jan. 30, 2018 in Washington.

In total, Trump dedicated over 30 sentences of the speech to North Korea -- far more space than he gave any other foreign policy topic. By comparison, Iran, another foreign policy priority, got just three sentences.

"America stands with the people of Iran in their courageous struggle for freedom," Trump said of the recent anti-government protests in Iran.

Trump also noted that he is asking Congress to address the "fundamental flaws in the terrible Iran nuclear deal."

Earlier this month, Trump preserved the Iran nuclear deal, but said it was his last time to do so unless it was made tougher. Iran has said it will not renegotiate the agreement.

WATCH: Trump's address

?The president also announced the signing of an executive order that keeps open detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.

It is not unusual for State of the Union address to be more focused on domestic issues. But the President missed an opportunity to lay out a clear strategy on the North Korea and other foreign policy areas says Mark Simakovsky, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. "A lot of things that he said didn't match with some of his own policy pronouncements. For example on Russia which his Administration has labeled as a "threat" and he was only willing to call a "risk."

Democratic response

The official Democratic response to Trump's speech was delivered by Joe Kennedy, a Massachusetts congressman seen as a rising star within the party.

Rep. Joe Kennedy gives the Democratic response to Rep. Joe Kennedy gives the Democratic response to President Donald Trump's State of the Union address, Jan. 30, 2018. Rep. Joe Kennedy gives the Democratic response to President Donald Trump's State of the Union address, Jan. 30, 2018.

Kennedy took aim at Trump's proposals targeting Muslims, transgender people, and others, saying many Americans spent the past year "anxious, angry and afraid."

"We all feel the fault lines of a fractured country. We hear the voices of Americans who feel forgotten and forsaken," Kennedy said.U.S. President Donald Trump used a large chunk of his State of the Union address Tuesday to talk about the immigration reforms he wants to see.

He called his four-part plan one that would create a "safe, modern and lawful immigration system," while Democrats described the president's approach as "insulting" and "heartless."

The first part of Trump's proposal would create a path to citizenship for nearly 2 million immigrants who came to the country illegally when they were children.

Nearly 800,000 of that group were protected under an Obama-era program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals that allowed them to live and work legally. But Trump ordered an end to DACA last year, giving Congress until early March to come up with a permanent solution for those it covered, sometimes referred to as "Dreamers."

In explaining his desired reforms, Trump alluded to those immigrants while stating his desire to "focus on the best interests of American workers and American families."

"My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans -- to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream. Because Americans are dreamers too," Trump said.

That line drew immediate reaction from many critics of Trump's approach, including House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, who wrote on Twitter, "Dreamers are Americans too."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California t House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California talks with Senate Minority Chuck Schumer of New York before the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 30, 2018. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California talks with Senate Minority Chuck Schumer of New York before the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 30, 2018.

Democratic Congressman Joe Kennedy sent a further message of support to the young immigrants during the Democratic response to Trump's address.

"You are a part of our story. We will fight for you. We will not walk away," Kennedy said.

Trump said he is reaching out to both Democratic and Republican lawmakers in order to achieve his immigration goals.

Democratic Senator Mark Warner said he agrees there is a bipartisan deal to be found when it comes to the young undocumented immigrants and boosting funding for border security.

"But tonight President Trump showed that he is not willing to stop catering to the most heartless, extreme elements of his base who want to restrict nearly all forms of legal immigration," Warner said.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., speaks with Sen. Mark Warne Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., speaks with Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., as they walk to their offices Jan. 20, 2018, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., speaks with Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., as they walk to their offices Jan. 20, 2018, on Capitol Hill in Washington.

Since launching his campaign for president, Trump has championed building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, and in his immigration plan he wants to add to that an increase in the number of border security agents and to end what he calls "catch and release" policies for those caught trying to cross into the United States illegally. Trump says "deadly loopholes" have allowed gang members and other criminals into the country.

He is also calling for ending the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, or green card lottery, in favor of what he called a "more merit-based system" that would bring skilled workers who "contribute to our society and who will love and respect our country."

The program is the immigration route for those who do not have family in the United States or an employer to sponsor them, and who are not refugees. It requires a high school diploma and two years of work experience. Each year, up to 50,000 people are selected.

In the final part of his plan, Trump wants to limit family-based immigration to spouses and minor children.

The current system allows U.S. citizens and permanent residents to sponsor a wider range of family members, including parents, siblings, and adult children. For non-parent relatives, applications can include years of waiting and are subject to quotas for the number of immigrant visas that are granted.

Demonstrators rally in support of Deferred Action Demonstrators rally in support of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) outside the Capitol, in Washington, Jan 21, 2018. Demonstrators rally in support of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) outside the Capitol, in Washington, Jan 21, 2018.

A Democratic lawmaker from the state of Virginia, Delegate Elizabeth Guzman, rejected Trump's immigration vision, saying he threatens to bring the country back to a time in which people are judged by the color of their skin and religion instead of their character.

"Immigrant families  who have given new life to the American dream through their arduous work and trust in American values  are facing uncertainty, anxiety and terror under President Trump," she said, giving a response to Trump's speech in Spanish. "He has replaced equality with intolerance, replaced mutual respect with racism."

Guzman criticized Trump's executive orders banning travelers from Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, plus North Korea and Venezuela as a "hateful, immoral ban against our Muslim brothers and sisters."

The Trump administration says the ban is necessary to protect national security and has rejected those who say the policy, and another limiting refugee arrivals, target Muslims.

Guzman said Trump's immigration plan would "fundamentally change the character of our country" and go against the ideals of the nation's founders.

"We should not accept nor normalize the atrocious and insulting way in which this president characterizes our communities," she said.Nearly 60 million young people who live in countries affected by conflict or natural disaster are illiterate and more investment in education is needed to combat the crisis, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said Wednesday.

Nearly 30 percent of people between 15 and 19 years old who live in "emergency countries" are illiterate and the problem is more pronounced among girls and young women, according to UNICEF findings. Thirty-three percent of young females do not know even the basics, compared to 24 percent of boys, the agency said.

UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said the statistics "are a stark reminder of the tragic impact that crises have on children's education, their futures, and the stability and growth of their economies and societies."

The child advocacy agency calls for more funding for education programs, particularly during humanitarian crises. It said only 3.6 percent of humanitarian funding is allocated for the education of young people living in emergency situations, making it one of the least funded humanitarian sectors.

In its annual Humanitarian Action for Children appeal, which began Tuesday, UNICEF called for $900 million for countries devastated by man-made and natural disasters. The funding would be used on programs such as accelerated learning, teacher training, school rehabilitation and school furniture and supplies.

UNICEF also proposed that governments provide young children with early learning opportunities and illiterate young people with specially-designed alternative education programs.

"Education can make or break a child's future," Fore said.

The findings are based on U.N. Educational, Science and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) literacy data on 27 emergency countries.

The countries with the highest illiteracy rates among people between the ages of 15 and 24 are Niger (76 percent), Chad (69 percent), South Sudan (68 percent), and the Central African Republic (64 percent).

UNICEF released the data one day before the two-day Global Partnership for Education Replenishment Conference in Dakar, Senegal, which is designed to raise funds to ensure that all children and youth are learning.ARUA, UGANDA - The ratio of South Sudanese refugees to local residents in the Arua district is now 1 to 4, according to the U.N. refugee agency. That puts nearly a quarter-million refugees in that district alone.

At the vast Imvempi settlement, a refugee named Susan, 23, digs the foundation for her new home using her bare hands and a metal bar.

Susan, 23, digs to build a thatched house in the I Susan, 23, digs to build a thatched house in the Imvempi refugee settlement in Arua district, Uganda, Jan. 30, 2018. (H. Athumani/VOA) Susan, 23, digs to build a thatched house in the Imvempi refugee settlement in Arua district, Uganda, Jan. 30, 2018. (H. Athumani/VOA)

Her baby cries nearby. Susan has had to dig 16 holes, each 60 centimeters long, in which to insert the logs.

"But, problem of house, is problem for me," she says. "The stone is very more; this one I suffer, nobody to help me."



U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi visited the settlement Tuesday, talking to new arrivals like Susan. She told of how her brother had been killed by rebels, leaving her to care for his three children in addition to her own.

'Please make peace'

Grandi made this appeal to the warring factions in South Sudan:

"Please make peace. We can't subject these people once again to exile, to suffering. We can't always take for granted the generosity of the Ugandan people. Really, we must ensure that peace comes, because everybody told me this morning, as in the past, 'If there is peace I will go back, because this is where I belong. It's my country.' "

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Fillipo Grandi U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Fillipo Grandi talks with new South Sudan refugee arrivals at the Imvempi reception center in Arua, Uganda, Jan. 30, 2018. (H. Athumani/VOA) U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Fillipo Grandi talks with new South Sudan refugee arrivals at the Imvempi reception center in Arua, Uganda, Jan. 30, 2018. (H. Athumani/VOA)

Uganda is currently hosting 1.3 million refugees, nearly all of them from South Sudan.

The civil war started in 2013, and a 2015 peace deal quickly disintegrated. International monitors say a cease-fire signed in December was also violated in short order.

Serina Alex, 19, lives at Imvempi settlement. She has had no word on her seven family members since she fled her hometown of Yei.

FILE - Two South Sudanese brothers build a hut at Two South Sudanese brothers build a hut at the Imvempi settlement in Arua district, Uganda, Jan. 30, 2018. (H. Athumani/VOA) Two South Sudanese brothers build a hut at the Imvempi settlement in Arua district, Uganda, Jan. 30, 2018. (H. Athumani/VOA)

"So many people are losing life in South Sudan  brothers and sisters, mothers and our fathers," she said. "They are losing lives in South Sudan because of the war. But I request the president of South Sudan that they could cool down and bring peace to South Sudan."

Grandi's visit to Uganda came ahead of a fresh funding appeal to be announced Thursday to meet the needs of more than 2.2 million displaced South Sudanese in 2018. Many of the displaced are children.Vaccines. Popular sports drinks. Computers.

They share one quality: They were invented by researchers working at a college or university.

Victoria McGovern says research leads to greater discovery and better education.

McGovern is a senior program officer with the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, an organization that supports medical research in the United States and Canada.

"It's a very good idea to connect the discovery of new things to the teaching of new students," she told VOA, "because you don't want people who come out of their education thinking that the world around them is full of solved problems. You want people to come out of an education excited about solving problems themselves."

Research, however, costs money and most colleges have limited budgets, as well as competing goals and needs.

A large part of being a researcher at a college or university involves applying for grant money, McGovern says, such as to private companies and organizations like hers, or local and national governments.

The National Institutes of Health, or NIH, is an example. The NIH is the U.S. government agency that supports medical and public health research, distributing about $32 billion a year.

Increasingly complex process

The application process for grant money is highly competitive, McGovern says. It can be challenging for researchers who are less skilled at writing.

Kristine Kulage argues that it is more difficult than ever for university researchers to secure funding. Kulage is the director of research and scholarly development at Columbia University School of Nursing in New York City.

Kulage says that in the 20 years she has been working in university research, the grant application process has become longer and more complex.

"Researchers don't have time to conduct their research, write their grants and learn how to use all of these new systems through which they have to submit their grants, and all of the ways in which they have to be compliant with regulations," Kulage told VOA.

"There are so many rules now  it takes individuals who are now trained as research administrators to know what those rules are  and know whether or not the rules are being followed."

Investing in help

Kulage says schools must do more to support their researchers in gaining grant money. Last November, she published a study that looked at how the nursing school invested $127,000 to create a support system between 2012 and 2016. This system employed administrators to complete grant applications, freeing researchers to spend more time on their work.

Administrators and other researchers met with the grant writers to review the applications. The team was expected to defend its proposal.

Kulage says that over those five years, proposals that went through review were almost twice as likely to be accepted. That $127,000 investment led to Columbia's School of Nursing earning $3 million in outside funding.

McGovern and Kulage say applying for research funding is very difficult. Having one other person read a proposal and provide feedback is essential.

Large companies often conduct much research and development, but it is typically limited to their industries. University researchers have the freedom to take risks on less popular ideas.

And those risks can lead to important discoveries that colleges and universities have a responsibility to share with the world, she says.The head of UNRWA, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, is sharply criticizing severe funding cuts by the United States. He warns the action could lead to rising instability in Palestinian territories and the region.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krahenbuhl says the agency is facing the worst financial crisis in its history because of a U.S. decision to dramatically reduce its financial contributions.

Last year, the United States provided $360 million to UNRWA. This year, they have announced $60 million. That is the difference. So, $300 million difference. We spend $1.2 to $1.3 billion a year. So, that is a significant share of the income that we need, Krahenbuhl said.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced the cuts to UNRWAs budget after the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly voted to condemn his decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Employees of United Nations Relief and Works Agenc Employees of United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) take part in a protest against a U.S. decision to cut aid, in Gaza City, Jan. 29, 2018. Employees of United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) take part in a protest against a U.S. decision to cut aid, in Gaza City, Jan. 29, 2018.

Krahenbuhl told VOA that humanitarian funding should be related to the performance of an organization and not be linked with political considerations. He says the already explosive situation in Gaza will worsen if the funding shortfall remains and Palestinian needs go unmet.

It is clear that if that is not bridged, then there will be increased instabilityWith all of the other matters that the Middle East has to deal with in terms of insecurity, radicalization and other concerns, I think, on the contrary, an investment in the stability of UNRWAs situation and our capacity to deliver services should be foremost on everyones mind, Krahenbuhl said.

UNRWA has just launched an $800 million emergency appeal to assist Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank and Syria. The money will provide desperately needed food, cash, emergency medical supplies and support for mental health and gender-based violence programs.WASHINGTON - Less than a week after threatening to cut aid to the Palestinians if they fail to pursue peace with Israel, the United States is sanctioning the political leader of Hamas, the terrorist organization that controls the Gaza Strip.

The State Department Tuesday announced it has placed Ismail Haniyeh, president of the Hamas political bureau, on its terrorist list as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT).

The U.S. already lists Hamas as a terrorist organization, but the State Department said Haniyeh maintains close ties with the groups military wing and has reportedly been involved in attacks on Israeli citizens.

Also designated is Harakat al-Sabireen, an Iranian-backed group that operates mainly out of Gaza and the West Bank. Officials say Harakat al-Sabireen has planned and carried out attacks against Israel and has fired rockets at Israeli targets.

Two Egyptian groups, Liwa al-Thawra, and Harakat Sawad Misr, were also added to the terrorist list. Both had previously been associated with the Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Important step

These designations target key terrorist groups and leaders, including two sponsored and directed by Iran, who are threatening the stability of the Middle East, undermining the peace process, and attacking our allies Egypt and Israel, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement. Todays actions are an important step in denying them the resources they need to plan and carry out their terrorist activities.

The terrorist designations appear to support two of U.S. President Donald Trumps foreign policy priorities  support for Israel and countering Iranian influence across the Middle East.

During meetings at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week, Trump threatened to withhold as much as $85 million slated to go to the Palestinians through the United Nations.

We give them hundreds of millions of dollars in aid and support, tremendous numbers, numbers that nobody understands. That money is on the table, and that money is not going to them unless they sit down and negotiate peace, Trump said after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In his State of the Union address Tuesday, Trump reiterated he would seek to curtail aid to any country that failed to stand by the U.S., including those that voted against the U.S. in the United Nations General Assembly after he moved to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital.

American taxpayers generously send those same countries billions of dollars in aid every year, he said. I am asking Congress to pass legislation to help ensure American foreign assistance dollars always serve American interests and only go to Americas friends, not enemies.WASHINGTON - Stephen Adkins, chief of the Chickahominy Indian Tribe of Charles County, Virginia, could not be happier: Monday, President Donald Trump signed legislation granting federal recognition to the Chickahominy and five other Virginia tribes.

Ive been working for congressional recognition since 1999, and here we are, he said.

The Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act of 2017 recognizes the Chickahominy, Eastern Chickahominy, Upper Mattaponi, Rappahannock, Monacan and Nansemond tribes as sovereign nations, bringing to 573 the number of federally-recognized tribes in the U.S. In 2016, the Pamunkey Indians became the first Virginia tribe to be granted federal recognition.

As such, the tribes can now create their own laws, collect taxes and manage their lands.

This was clearly the right thing, acknowledging the sovereignty of these six Indian tribes whose history predates the arrival of the first English settlers at Jamestown, said Adkins, who can recite the history of the Chickahominy back hundreds of years.

Engraving shows Chickahominies swearing an oath to Engraving shows Chickahominies swearing an oath to Captain Samuel Argall and to the English Crown, by Johann Theodore de Bry after Georg Keller, 1619. Courtesy: John Carter Brown Library, Brown University. Engraving shows Chickahominies swearing an oath to Captain Samuel Argall and to the English Crown, by Johann Theodore de Bry after Georg Keller, 1619. Courtesy: John Carter Brown Library, Brown University.

Our history is similar to all the other Indians in Virginia at the time. We were part of the welcoming party [of about 30 tribes] that greeted the first English settlers in May 1607. We had the mental acumen, the efficacy of the bow and arrow, opposite the clumsy musket. We could have taken those settlers out on the first boatload, the second boatload, the third boatload.

But they didnt.

Instead, the Chickahominy ("The Coarse Ground Corn People") and other tribes of the paramount chiefdom ruled by Powhatan traded with settlers and taught them how to grow and preserve their own food. Later, the Chickahominy renounced their allegiance to Powhatan and allied themselves with the settlers.

Articles of Peace, signed May 1677 by Virginia and Articles of Peace, signed May 1677 by Virginia and several Indian groups. Pamunkey leader Cockacoeske signed not only for her community, but also for the Rappahannock and the Chickahominy. Courtesy: Va. Foundation for the Humanities Articles of Peace, signed May 1677 by Virginia and several Indian groups. Pamunkey leader Cockacoeske signed not only for her community, but also for the Rappahannock and the Chickahominy. Courtesy: Va. Foundation for the Humanities

We agreed to provide 350-500 bowmen to the settlers in the event of an attack by the Spanish, he said. In 1677, the Chickahominy and several other Virginia tribes signed a peace treaty, pledging fidelity to the British Crown in exchange for protection.

Later, when the United States was formed, there was no move to engage those treaties or enter new treaties. And we never took up arms with the United States, so consequently, we never signed a treaty with the United States.

Chickahominy tribe paying annual tribute of game a Chickahominy tribe paying annual tribute of game animals to Virginia governor, Dec. 10, 1919, a ceremony still observed today. Then-chief Ozias Westmore Adkins (third from left) served as chief from 1918 until his death in 1939. BAE 1-9 01787700, Nationa Chickahominy tribe paying annual tribute of game animals to Virginia governor, Dec. 10, 1919, a ceremony still observed today. Then-chief Ozias Westmore Adkins (third from left) served as chief from 1918 until his death in 1939. BAE 1-9 01787700, Nationa

Chickahominy Indian Preston Adkins preforms a ritu Chickahominy Indian Preston Adkins preforms a ritual dance for Va. Gov. Jim Gilmore, during the annual tax tribute at the Capitol in Richmond, Va., Wednesday Nov. 24, 1999. Virginia Indian tribes have been paying the annual tax tribute since the treaty of Chickahominy Indian Preston Adkins preforms a ritual dance for Va. Gov. Jim Gilmore, during the annual tax tribute at the Capitol in Richmond, Va., Wednesday Nov. 24, 1999. Virginia Indian tribes have been paying the annual tax tribute since the treaty of

A long time in coming

Normally, tribes wanting to be recognized must petition the Department of the Interiors (DOI) Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). But because Virginia tribes made peace deals with England more than a century before the U.S. was founded, they cant document government-to-government relationships, something the BIA demands.

The BIA also requires tribes to present genealogies of all members.

Many times, those documents just dont exist, said Arlinda F. Locklear, a Washington, D.C. lawyer who has represented tribes seeking recognition. She is a member of the Lumbee tribe from North Carolina, which is not recognized by the federal government.

For example, over the generations, one of the strategies of survival for a lot of tribal communities has been to hide away and make themselves invisible to the dominant society, in which case, there arent many records generated on them.

During the Civil War of the 1860s, she explained, many southern courthouses were burned, and records thus destroyed.

Then, in the 1920s, Virginia passed the Racial Integrity Act, requiring Native Americans to classify themselves as black, making it nearly impossible to prove their Indian ancestry.

Photo shows Stephen R. Adkins (center), chief, Chi Photo shows Stephen R. Adkins chief, Chickahominy Indian Tribe, in Senate Chamber just prior to Senate vote on the Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act of 2017, Jan. 11, 2017. Courtesy: Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va). Photo shows Stephen R. Adkins chief, Chickahominy Indian Tribe, in Senate Chamber just prior to Senate vote on the Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act of 2017, Jan. 11, 2017. Courtesy: Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va).

In 1999, the tribes turned to Virginia lawmakers for help.

In February 2017, Virginia Congressman Rob Wittman introduced the recognition bill to the House, where it passed in May. The Senate version, co-sponsored by Virginia Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, passed unanimously January 11.

Stamp of approval

The six tribes are now eligible for federal assistance in education, health care and housing, at a projected cost of about $67 million during the next four years, assuming Congress appropriates the funds.

The new law also calls for the DOI, if the tribes request it, to take their lands into trust for the benefit of the tribes, whose members collectively number about 4,400. It will not alter hunting, fishing, trapping, gathering or water rights of the tribes and their members. It also prohibits the tribes from conducting any gaming activities.

But more important than the benefits is recognition itself, said attorney Locklear. You cannot overstate the political and social importance of this, she said. These Indian communities have labored under the misapprehension that they were somehow not real because they have lacked federal recognition ... Now that theyve got that stamp of approval.

As for Adkins, he said over the years, he never gave up hope.

I have a strong faith in God and I have faith in the democratic process. I believe that ultimately that United States does the right thing, and this was clearly the right thing.Reacting to U.S. President Donald Trump's first State of the Union, Democratic Cong. Joe Kennedy III of Massachusetts vowed to fight for illegal immigrants facing deportation, particularly dreamers. Kennedy declared, "You are a part of our story. We will fight for you. We will not walk away."President Emmerson Mngangagwa returned to Zimbabwe on Tuesday, from the WEF in Davos, and AU Smmit in Ethiopia, where he said he was well-received. "Our next general elections will be due this year, 2nd term of this year and we are going to fulfill that constitutional requirement," Mnangagwa said.Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.Iceland is known for many things such as stunning scenery, environmental friendliness (the capital city of Reykjavik is run on geothermal power) and interesting food items such as fermented shark.

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Iceland is known for many things such as stunning scenery, environmental friendliness (the capital city of Reykjavik is run on geothermal power) and interesting food items such as fermented shark.

But what many dont know is the small island country  with a population of around 334,000  is also a booming arts and culture centre. Iceland publishes more books per capita than any other country on Earth and its inhabitants tend to fill their free time with any number of artistic activities, including writing, acting, filmmaking, designing, painting and, of course, making music.

This years Winnipeg New Music Festival has already featured works from a host of Icelandic artists, including symphonic arrangements of pieces by Bjork and the premiere of a choral work by Academy Award-nominated, Golden Globe-winning composer Johann Johannsson, who also wrote the score for the film Dawson City: Frozen Time that is premiering at a partner event of the festival on Saturday. In addition, Bjorks pianist and collaborator, Jonas Sen, was also in the city to perform a set of his own music, as well as perform with composer/pianist Philip Glass at his headlining event this past Saturday night.

And tonight, at one of the most anticipated performances of the festival, Icelandic composer Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson will present the world premiere of a major work for orchestra and choir titled Dark Matter, commissioned by the festival. Alongside the WSO, led by Alexander Mickelthwate, will be the Prairie Voices choir and soprano Jane Fingler.

"Hilmar is an interesting guy, hes done a number of big projects with (avant-garde rock band) Sigur Ros, and works closely with them, but hes a really quiet guy. Nobody really asked him, outside of Iceland, to do anything, but hes written what I believe is some of the most beautiful music ever written. Its just astoundingly beautiful," festival curator Matthew Patton says.

"Hes never been asked internationally, so this is kind of a big deal," he later adds.

In addition to being a composer, Hilmarsson is also the high chief of the pagan faith Asatru, an official religion in Iceland that is linked with nature and cosmology, Patton says, which are also themes present in Dark Matter.

"The piece in a nutshell... Hilmar is a guy with big, transcendent ideas about the universe and cosmology and all that. Its in seven sections, and it relates to the seven vowels  humans had seven vowels  and the original seven planets, and he relates it in a highly personal way to seven friends of his that arent around anymore, so its actually a highly personal and very interesting work," Patton says.

Patton has long been an advocate for Icelandic music, saying hes "obsessed" with it, and spends a lot of time in the country working and recording his own compositions. Thats where he met and developed a friendship with the members of Sigur Ros, as well as Hilmarsson and Johannsson, later asking (or being approached by) them all to be part of the festival.

This is the second time Patton has brought a crew of Icelandic musicians to Winnipeg for the festival since he began curating it in 2012, and Peter Johnson  president of Logberg-Heimskringla, a Winnipeg-based Icelandic newspaper whose publishing history goes back to 1886  says the Icelandic community in Manitoba is thrilled the Winnipeg New Music Festival has continued to embrace the sounds of their home country.

"Six years ago, Matthew brought five Icelandic composers here and our community was really excited about it and it turned out to be the most successful new music festival ever to that point," Johnson says. "Icelanders generally love music and I think its exciting for our community when theres a large Icelandic component."

Both Johnson and Patton agree Icelandic music has a certain uniqueness to it, likely due to the isolated nature of the country, which sits in the Atlantic Ocean more than 280 kilometres away from its nearest neighbour, Greenland.

"First of all, its creative scene, its artistic music scene is very isolated, so whats coming out of there is unrelated to anything thats going on in the world," Patton says.

"Its the kind of music that any person walking in off the street would say, Holy, thats beautiful. Its very simple, very melodic, very ethereal; its so accessible to human beings on an emotional level, its very emotional."

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"To me, whats really interesting about Iceland, most young people who want to get into music will kind of want to copy somebody else, but in Iceland, they work to create something new and something entirely different," Johnson adds.

This year is also the 100th anniversary of the Danish-Icelandic Act of Union  an agreement signed by Iceland and Denmark that recognized Iceland as a fully sovereign state  and while Patton says that wasnt the reason why he chose a lineup heavy with Icelandic artists, it certainly helps tie everything together.

"Its helpful and all that, but its my own personal obsession and my own personal relationships... I had been trying to do Hilmars piece for the past year or two, but when it was found out that 2018 was a centenary year, it kind of clicked in and made a little more sense."

Also on tonights program is the world premiere of #DryColdConversations by Winnipeg composer Karen Sunabacka and the Canadian premiere of Florida composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilichs Symphony No. 3.

erin.lebar@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @NireRabelTheres a new gravy train rolling into town. And if it hasnt yet oc-curd to you what were talking about, or if all this cheesy wordplay is frying your patience, we wont stall any longer: La Poutine Week is coming to Winnipeg.

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Theres a new gravy train rolling into town. And if it hasnt yet oc-curd to you what were talking about, or if all this cheesy wordplay is frying your patience, we wont stall any longer: La Poutine Week is coming to Winnipeg.

From the creators of the immensely popular Le Burger Week, La Poutine Week follows the same format  its a festival during which local restaurants put their signature spin on the French-Canadian classic, which is traditionally comprised of french fries, cheese curds and gravy.

The inaugural edition of the event starts Thursday and runs until Feb. 7, and includes more than 80 Winnipeg restaurants, surpassing any other participating city in Canada.

Offered at a special "poutine price," attendees are encouraged to try the creations and then vote for their favourites on lapoutineweek.com. At the end of the festival, each city will announce their respective winners in categories such as judges choice  for which a panel of expert judges will carefully determine which restaurants poutine they were most impressed with  most original poutine and best poutine, voted on by the eating public.

Co-founders Naeem Adam and Thierry Rassam say Winnipeg has always amazed them with its enthusiasm for events such as Le Burger Week, so it seemed only natural to also include the city for this years La Poutine Week, which debuted in Montreal in 2012.

"The local food culture is extremely strong, so we felt, why not bring La Poutine Week into the mix and see the amazing creations our participating restaurants come up with," stated Adam in a news release about the event.

In a later email to the Free Press, Adam says the pair have high hopes poutine week will be equally as successful as burger week.

"Winnipeg is such a cool city for adapting fun festivals like this with so much energy and openness. Its all about having fun, and if the chefs, owners and eaters are enjoying their experience  thats perfect!" he says.

Brett Howe Photo Poutine from Rudys Eat & Drink on Graham Avenue.

"I wouldnt say (the buzz is) the same, but it definitely carries the same energy," he adds, comparing the two festivals.

"When you say burger, people light up because they know what to do, what people like and how to present it. When you say poutine to someone outside of Quebec, you get a more curious or inquisitive reception where people start to imagine and push their ideas of what a poutine should be."

The idea of a specialty food week is one that has expanded beyond burgers and poutine  locally, a fried-chicken week just wrapped up and, in a similar vein, the long-running Dine About Winnipeg is also kicking off this week.

But Adam says they welcome adding other events in the mix, and that all of them are essentially working toward the same common goal.

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"Weve been doing this around Canada and beyond for over six years now. Weve developed a model that encourages local economies, gives back and allows for people to engage highly with each other and the restaurants," Adam says.

"Were very happy with what weve developed and understood that we need to evolve and think progressively to be relevant as the years come. The best way to do this aggressively is to welcome competition on the playing field.

"Our end goal is to encourage small businesses and help them continue to do what they love doing. If others want to join us in that mission, were excited to welcome them. We also encourage people to reach out to us with their ideas so that we can borrow our model to them. The Charcoal Collaborative team in Winnipeg is an example of this and we support them fully," he adds.

To get you prepped for your potential poutine feast, the Free Press arts department staff will be partaking in a poutine crawl to several different participating restaurants. Check winnipegfreepress.com on Friday, or the print edition on Monday, to read their thoughts on some of the creative creations.

erin.lebar@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @NireRabelShaw Communications is following in the footsteps of many large companies  especially technology and financial services companies  in attempting a dramatic reduction of its workforce through voluntary severance packages.

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This article was published 30/1/2018 (1319 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Shaw Communications is following in the footsteps of many large companies  especially technology and financial services companies  in attempting a dramatic reduction of its workforce through voluntary severance packages.

The company sent a memo on Monday to all 6,500 of its employees referring to the cutbacks as a total business transformation and voluntary-departure program. On Tuesday, company president Jay Mehr said the company expects about 10 per cent  or 650 workers  to take the offer.

Calgary-based Shaw operates the second-largest cable-TV and internet business and the fourth-largest wireless company, called Freedom Mobile (which was formed after Shaw acquired Wind Mobile in early 2016).

Shaw has a long-standing foothold in Manitoba as a cable television and internet service provider. Various estimates say the company has about 1,300 employees in Winnipeg, including close to 1,000 at a customer call centre that was located here after an earlier consolidation.

"We know that the success we have achieved has been built on the tremendous people who have made Shaw what it is today," Mehr said.

"Thats why we are being fully transparent with every member of our team as to what lies ahead and offering them the most generous and unprecedented measures to help them decide how best to respond to the changes we are all dealing with."

No details of the voluntary retirement package were disclosed.

Message-board chatter early Tuesday included comments suggesting it was generous.

Human resource professionals say that these sorts of broad, transparent efforts to reduce the workforce have been successful in the past.

Barbara Bowes, president of Legacy Bowes Group, a Winnipeg human resources consultancy, said of the process, "It is a popular strategy thats been used quite often. Usually, it works out well for everyone. Anyone I know who has taken that has looked at it as a positive experience."

The one thing Bowes said that sometimes backfires on a company is that they might lose people they wanted to retain. In a memo to employees, the company said "customer-facing employees in customer care, retail and sales and their direct leaders will not be eligible for the program".

But even if it does become a "positive" experience for employees who decide to take the package, it likely begins with anxiety and trepidation. And, in this case, that might be made even more acute because employees will be asked to make their decision in only two weeks.

For instance, in recent voluntary retirement efforts in Winnipeg at Bell MTS, Manitoba Hydro and Great-West Life, workers were given three times as much time to make the decision.

"Thats too quick," Bowes said. "Its hardly even enough time to meet with your financial planner. Two weeks for a major decision is really not fair."

Shaw said its job cuts are part of a multi-year initiative that will help it succeed amid technological changes both internally at the operational level and externally in a rapidly changing and intensely competitive marketplace.

Among other updates, Shaw plans to make more use of online and smartphone apps to provide customer service and provide more self-installed services, the company said Tuesday.

"Our agents in contact centres and our technicians will still be able to deal with more complex questions and situations, but we are committed to listening better to our customers and changing our operating model to better suit their preferences for service when they want and how they want it," Mehr said in a statement.

"We know our future success will require us to become a leaner, more integrated and more agile workforce, which will result in many internal changes taking place as we move towards becoming a digital-by-default organization."

According to Shaws annual report for the year that ended Aug. 31, the company had 14,000 employees.

Its 12-month profit from continuing operations was $557 million, or $851 million including discontinued operations.

For the three months that ended Nov. 30, net income from continuing operations was $120 million, or $114 million including discontinued operations.

The companys B shares rose a marginal 25 cents Tuesday to close at $26.98.

During the companys most recent quarterly conference call, Mehr told analysts that the arrival of Apple products for the first time at Freedom  which has been updating its network to handle the iPhone  has transformed Shaws wireless business.

"It does feel like a new business, starting in December," Mehr said on Jan. 11.

Shaw bought Freedom Mobile in 2016, transforming Shaw into the countrys fourth-largest wireless company and recently told employees of plans to close a unionized call centre in Windsor, Ont., resulting in the loss of about 130 jobs.

Since 2016, Shaw has concentrated on telecommunications.

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It sold the Global Television Network and some specialty TV channels to Corus Communications in return for cash and shares.

While Shaw now owns a 38 per cent stake in Toronto-based Corus, they remain separate publicly-traded companies  both controlled by the founding Shaw family through its class A shares.

Shaw  like several of Canadas major cable companies  is in the early stages of updating its home-video and internet offerings, which will be based on a technology pioneered by Comcast, a major U.S. cable company.

 with files from The Canadian Press

martin.cash@freepress.mb.caOTTAWA  The Supreme Court of Canada has tossed cold water on a long-running dispute between North Dakota border towns and their Manitoba neighbours over flood patterns. But the attorneys involved warn the conflict might not yet be water under the bridge.

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OTTAWA  The Supreme Court of Canada has tossed cold water on a long-running dispute between North Dakota border towns and their Manitoba neighbours over flood patterns. But the attorneys involved warn the conflict might not yet be water under the bridge.

The Pembina County Water Resource District, and the towns it includes, first filed a suit in April 2004, arguing a small Manitoba road straddling the United States border had effectively been acting as a dike. They claimed it had blocked the natural flow of water across the border into Manitoba since around 1940, leading to more flooding on American farms.

The embankments fall under the road allowance, which is the publicly owned land between a street and private properties.

The Pembina River generally flows southeast and straddles the 49th parallel. But it has small offshoots such as the Marais River, which pushes water north and, some years, causes spring flooding near the border.

"It sort of flared up from time to time over the years," said Dean Giles, a lawyer with Fillmore Riley, who represented the Municipality of Rhineland.

Colin MacArthur, a partner with MLT Aikins, represented the American plaintiffs. They believed the road was acting as a dike that needed to be removed. MacArthur said the Americans pegged the property loss at around US$3 million to US$5 million, though the court did not verify that estimate, and it is unknown how far back that damage spans.

On Rhinelands behalf, Giles argued the road and its embankment served a legitimate purpose by allowing access to farmland. He also argued American officials has altered the drainage patterns which caused the water to accumulate in certain areas, "and that they were largely author of their own misfortune," he said in an interview.

The Americans initially included other Manitoba municipalities, such as Emerson, Montcalm and Stanley in their suit, though they gradually dropped those towns as engineering studies showed water was flowing in the north into Canada in some of those spots.

Both parties honed in on the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty, which specifically bars interference with "waters in Canada," but at another point bans the blocking of "waters on either side of the boundary" without the other sides permission, especially if it damages health or property.

The 2004 case languished in Federal Court until a judge tossed it in 2016, siding with the Canadian defendants in saying the issue fell outside the treaty, and thus went beyond Federal Court jurisdiction. The Federal Court of Appeal agreed with that decision in May 2017.

The American plaintiffs argued the Supreme Court should take on the case, to clarify how the 1909 treaty should be interpreted. The justices only hear appeals on issues of national or public importance, and declined to do so for this case. As in most instances, they did not explain their reasoning to not hear the appeal.

The provincial government was also named as a defendant in the case. The Justice Department declined to make someone available for an interview.

"While there have been court decisions on this matter, there has yet to be a legal decision on the validity of the claim," wrote a department spokeswoman. "As a result, the longstanding issues of the dike and flooding remain, and this limits the provinces ability to comment any further on the issue."

Giles said the case is unusual in that the dispute even ended up in court, after attempts to keep it at bay.

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"Over the years theres been all sorts of committees and other bodies established to look at the issue, and hopefully arrive at a solution."

He said the plaintiffs might be able to file a suit in the provincial Court of Queens Bench, but that a six-year maximum to sue for most damages means theyd be able to claim a lot less.

Giles believes its possible the treatys International Joint Commission could resolve the dispute, but MacArthur said the panel mostly deals with emerging issues, and only puts out non-binding recommendations.

Instead, MacArthur said its possible the dispute could flow upstream, escalating to the federal governments. To him, "the most startling implication" would be American states or even the Trump administration retaliating, by blocking some of the hundreds of other rivers that straddle the border.

He noted Canada entered the 1909 treaty specifically to avoid Americas so-called Harmon Doctrine. That doctrine dictated that each country had absolutely sovereign rights over international waterways within its own borders, an idea that brought Mexico and the U.S. to the brink of full-out war.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.caThe union that represents support workers at Victoria General Hospital says patient health and safety has been placed at risk there by the provincial government's hospital reforms.

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The union that represents support workers at Victoria General Hospital says patient health and safety has been placed at risk there by the provincial government's hospital reforms.

Michelle Gawronsky, president of the Manitoba Government and General Employees' Union, said while the plan was to have Victoria care for patients that were less ill than those in acute care hospitals, it's still dealing with very sick patients.

Meanwhile, health-care aide staffing levels at the Winnipeg facility have been lowered to account for the fact it no longer has acute care beds, she said. Those beds were transferred to Grace Hospital.

Where at one time, a health-care aide at Victoria looked after 10 patients, they now care for 15, Gawronsky said.

But staff have regularly seen "supposedly sub-acute wards filled entirely with acute patients," she said in a letter Tuesday to Real Cloutier, interim president and chief executive officer of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.

"This ongoing situation poses a real health and safety risk for both patients and staff."

As part of the Manitoba government's and the WRHA's hospital reorganization plan, Victoria lost its emergency room in October. It was replaced by an urgent care centre, taking on less-ill patients.

Cloutier was unavailable for comment Tuesday.

WRHA spokeswoman Bronwyn Penner-Holigroski said patients receiving care in sub-acute units at Victoria "do meet the criteria for sub-acute care."

She said there are provisions to transfer patients whose conditions worsen to an acute care facility, if necessary.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Michelle Gawronsky, president of Manitoba Government and General Employees' Union (MGEU).

"We have processes in place to monitor the impact of these changes on patient care and safety and will continue to monitor the impact and address any potential concerns going forward," Penner-Holigroski said.

However, those who work at the hospital say patients are still arriving with acute medical needs. And, sometimes, acute care patients remain at the hospital because there are either insufficient acute care beds at other hospitals or there are delays in obtaining ambulances to transport them.

"I'm hearing that there are still acute care patients being admitted to the Victoria hospital. Part of it is because of the lack of acute beds elsewhere," said Sandi Mowat, president of the Manitoba Nurses Union, who has spoken members at the hospital about the issue.

"They're worried about being able to provide safe patient care just because of the increased acuity and the (lower) staffing levels."

Gawronsky raised several other concerns at the hospital in her letter to the WRHA.

She said unit clerical assistants who are cross-trained as health-care aides find themselves forced to manage two roles at once. They are caring for patients at the same time as fielding phone calls from doctors, laboratories and families and processing paperwork to facilitate admission, discharges and transfers.

Gawronsky said the clerical assistants are now equipped with ear pieces so they can take calls while attending to patients.

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"Does the (assistant) leave the patient sitting on a bed pan uncomfortably in pain while they run down the hall to be able to respond... (to a call)?" Gawronsky said in an interview Tuesday.

The MGEU leader said when Victoria lost its emergency room last October, many health-care aides and unit clerical assistants were transferred to "very different programs without any orientation or training" as to the patient care required in their new assignments.

"Staff have felt unsupported and, in many cases, ill-prepared to provide quality care," she said in her letter to Cloutier, which the WRHA received electronically Tuesday afternoon.

In an emailed statement, Penner-Holigroski said hospital administrators will "continue meeting with our local union representatives to discuss issues and identify opportunities to make improvements for staff and patients."

She added: "We recognize that (Victoria hospital) has experienced significant changes in the last number of months and both VGH and WRHA leadership encourage staff to come forward to their supervisors, or leadership, with any concerns they may have. Leadership across the region endeavours to be available to staff and offer support to all staff during this time."

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.caManitoba's infrastructure minister says the second phase of the long-awaited "Freedom Road"  connecting Shoal Lake 40 First Nation to the Trans-Canada Highway  could be completed late this year.

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Manitoba's infrastructure minister says the second phase of the long-awaited "Freedom Road"  connecting Shoal Lake 40 First Nation to the Trans-Canada Highway  could be completed late this year.

Ron Schuler said Tuesday the contract for 15 kilometres of new road embankment was awarded last week.

"We would like to see it done by this fall, but that is weather-dependent," he told reporters Tuesday.

The first phase of the project  all on reserve land  was completed ahead of schedule and under-budget, Schuler said. It was entirely funded by the federal government, although provincial staff designed the work and tendered it.

Altogether, the project will cost $30 million, with Ottawa covering 50 per cent of the cost and the province and City of Winnipeg each kicking in 25 per cent.

The last phase of the job connecting the community of 290 people, which straddles the Ontario-Manitoba border, to the all-weather road system is the construction of a bridge over the City of Winnipeg Aqueduct. It is currently out for tender.

Shoal Lake 40 Chief Erwin Redsky said he was "elated" by the latest announcement.

"Its just an unbelievable feeling right now to finally start on the second phase of Freedom Road and hopefully finish within the next 12 to 18 months," he said.

Currently, the community is only accessible by vehicle during the winter via ice road.

It was cutoff from the mainland in 1915, when a nearby channel was cut by in order to bring drinking water to Winnipeg.

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The First Nation has long-sought a permanent all-weather road to provide the community with secure and continuous access to essential services.

Redsky said its completion will vastly improve emergency medical services and opportunities for economic development.

"Its critical. Its a matter of survival for my community," he told the Free Press.

The road construction contract announced Tuesday is valued at approximately $12 million. It was awarded to Sigfusson Northern, which undertook the first phase of the project.

Schuler said as with Phase 1, there will be "significant involvement" from Shoal Lake 40 workers and companies in completing the new roadwork.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.caA University of Manitoba students union (UMSU) councillor motion to cancel funding for the Manitoban  in response to a critical column last week  wont be proceeding after all, according to an email source.

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This article was published 31/1/2018 (1319 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A University of Manitoba students union (UMSU) councillor motion to cancel funding for the Manitoban  in response to a critical column last week  wont be proceeding after all, according to an email source.

The U of Ms 104-year-old student newspaper published a column recently criticizing a non-binding referendum on UMSU withdrawing its membership from the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), an issue thats been contentious within the student union in the past.

KEN GIGLIOTTI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES In his motion, a student union councillor accused the newspaper of not being impartial.

The motion to cancel funding, introduced by UMSU councillor Cole Parsons on Jan. 28, stated the Manitoban has not been impartial and mentioned the recent column. The motion was to have been voted on by the UMSU council Thursday evening.

However, the Free Press obtained an internal email that said Parsons withdrew his motion Wednesday afternoon and it will not be up for consideration at the Thursday meeting.

In the 2013-14 school year, the student union tried to make an executive decision to withhold nearly $1 million in annual fees to CFS. UMSU ended up paying its debts to CFS in 2016.

The motion would have had students vote on the future of funding for the student newspaper  $12.18 per student annually  in the next general election.

"A recent editorial published by the Manitoban board has sought to influence the results of all UMSU members," the motion stated.

Thats inaccurate, said Garrett Williams, editor of the Manitoban.

He said the item was a bylined opinion piece written by Shawn Huberdeau, the newspapers opinion editor,.

It was not an editorial by the editorial board as a whole, he added.

"It would be hard to argue its anything but an attack," Williams said of the motion.

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The columns author agrees.

"The fact that I wrote an opinion piece on a particular issue doesnt mean that it is endorsed by the paper at large," Huberdeau said. "Anyone who disagrees with me  or any other writer published in the paper  is welcome to challenge the position. I would actually love to hear from people who disagree with me."

Noah Wilson, a UMSU councillor and director of finance for the U of Ms Aboriginal Students Association, said he was appalled when he learned about the motion Monday evening.

"Its a thinly veiled threat to freedom of the press at the university, aimed at a hundred-year-old outlet thats been holding UMSU accountable basically since it started," he said when reached by phone Tuesday evening.

Parsons could not be reached for comment, but in a statement said his intention was to start a dialogue on the topic of funding the Manitoban.

"I think its important for media to showcase both sides of a story when reporting the issues, and many students have found content in the student newspaper to be one-sided," Parsons said. "Ensuring the campus media is fair when reporting, and inclusive of all opinions, is exceptionally important."Each week, Dr. Yusra Ahmad, a psychiatrist and clinical lecturer at University of Toronto, meets six to eight women with a range of mental health disorders at a mosque in the citys west end. She leads them through a program that combines mindful meditation with concrete skills to manage negative thoughts and regulate emotions.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 31/1/2018 (1319 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

COLIN CORNEAU / BRANDON SUN FILES An approach to mental health that recognizes Canada's diversity should become an integral part of the conversation on mental health, experts say.

Each week, Dr. Yusra Ahmad, a psychiatrist and clinical lecturer at University of Toronto, meets six to eight women with a range of mental health disorders at a mosque in the citys west end. She leads them through a program that combines mindful meditation with concrete skills to manage negative thoughts and regulate emotions.

However, this is not your typical mindfulness therapy. Each session began with prayers from the Quran and incorporates teachings from Islamic scholars.

She also uses imagery familiar to the women. For example, when leading a session on mindful eating, instead of using the example of a raisin, as she does with other audiences, she focuses on a date. The reason: dates have an important role in Muslim traditions, enabling the women to relate to meditation techniques on a more personal level.

Dr. Ahmad is among a growing group of mental health experts who advocate a more culturally sensitive approach to treatment for disorders such as anxiety and depression than the conventional "one-size-fits-all" methods that currently apply.

An approach that recognizes Canadas diversity, these experts argue, should become an integral part of the conversation on mental health, including during events like Bell Canadas annual Lets Talk campaign.

Immigrant mental illness

The argument for more culturally nuanced treatments rests, at least partly, on the idea that many Canadians come from a background where mental disorders are stigmatized and associated with hospital treatment for severe disease such as psychosis.

This stigma not only harms the patient, but often the entire family is ostracized.

Take Saira (not her real name), a 31-year old Muslim African-Canadian human resource manager, who was diagnosed last year with an anxiety disorder. Saira recalls being brushed off by friends and family with words like: "What do you have to be worried about, theres nothing wrong with you." Or, "You need to pray more."

Such advice ended up worsening her feelings of isolation and her anxiety, to the point where she had to take health leave from her job.

Saira found Dr. Ahmads Mindfully Muslim program by chance on a Facebook group, after exhausting her options with conventional psychiatric treatment and medications. Dr. Ahmads six-week mindfulness program, with elements rooted in Muslim and African culture, gave her renewed hope, she says.

The latest data from Statistics Canada shows that in 2012, 16 per cent of Canadians met the criteria for a mental illness diagnosis.

But the Centre for Research on Inner City Health has found that although immigrants have similar rates of mental illness as people born in Canada, they make far less use of mental health services.

Managing difficult memories

Dr. Ahmad is not alone in her campaign to infuse cultural elements into mental health treatment of specific communities. Leysa Cerswell Kielburger, community program leader at the Centre for Mindfulness Studies in Toronto, has collaborated with Sistering, an organization for "at-risk" women in Toronto, to develop a drop-in mindfulness program for Syrian refugee women.

The program brings about 10 women together every week and facilitates a mindfulness program that centres on the trauma of being a refugee. A mindfulness-based cognitive therapy combines meditation with concrete skills to manage your thoughts, such as learning how to observe your thoughts and not to judge them.

The emphasis during the workshops is on managing difficult memories, taking care of the body and easing the stress of being a newcomer to Canada.

The women benefit from the program, Ms. Kielburger says, because they are in the company of others with the same refugee experience.

Whats more, they are able to talk about their experiences in their mother tongue and can access mental health services where they live, rather than in the more conventional but also more intimidating hospital setting.

Dr. Melinda Fowler, a Metis and MiKmaq primary care physician in Winnipeg, approaches mental health treatment with an emphasis on spirituality  which most Indigenous peoples regard as a core tenet for effective treatment of mental illness.

Thus, Dr. Fowler begins each session with a traditional smudging ceremony aimed at developing a connection with her patients, and at helping them connect to their spirituality.

"There is a legacy of trauma, and mistrust of institutions such as health care in the Indigenous community," says Dr. Fowler. She takes the view that by incorporating Indigenous customs in the management of mental disorders, patients are able to slowly regain a measure of trust in a system that has eradicated many traditional practices that used to be cornerstones of medical treatment in their communities.

Dr. Fowler is also taking her approach to indigenous mental health into the federal prison system. She has started a pilot program among inmates in the Prairie provinces that incorporates traditional ceremonies as well as Indigenous medicines such as weekay root, or wiikenh, a popular antidote for anxiety.

Spirituality in health

Arji Elmi, a social worker and PhD candidate at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, enrolled in Dr. Ahmads Mindfully Muslim program as a learning opportunity to improve her skills as a crisis social worker. She says the experience has been transformative in her work.

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She often found in the past that religion and spirituality were discouraged in the structured therapy programs offered in crisis centres  due to concerns that patients might feel they were having religion forced on them. Yet for for those Canadians whose spirituality embraces all aspects of their lives it must play an important part in their treatment.

Ignoring the key role of spirituality or religion in a persons health can deepen the isolation that often leads to mental breakdowns, Elmi says.

Diversity means that therapy must take different forms for different groups, whether it is women discussing their stresses as they farm the land, or of Indigenous ceremonies designed to achieve emotional balance, or Catholic churchgoers filing into the confessional box each week to share their struggles with a priest.

When mental health providers incorporate cultural nuances and engage in community-based treatment, they can go a long way toward improving the mental health of the most vulnerable Canadians.

Mojola Omole is a surgical oncologist and Munk Global Journalism fellow at the University of Toronto.

This article was first published at The Conversation Canada: theconversation.com/ca.One month after the death of auto parts worker Scott Teusink as a result of on-the-job injuries, many questions about the circumstances surrounding the accident remain unanswered. The incident took place at Challenge Manufacturing, in the city of Holland, in Western Michigan. Workers at Challenge stamp, weld and assemble various formed metal auto parts and components. The Holland plant is not unionized.

According to initial reports in the local press, Scott, age 56, was at work on Friday, December 22, 2017 when he was hit by a massive steel coil. Local police and firefighters responded to the scene. At 6:38 p.m. Scott was transported by private ambulance to Spectrum Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids, about 30 minutes away. Scott was reportedly conscious at this time.

At some point over the next week he was transported to the Meijer Heart Center, also in Grand Rapids, where he died on December 30, eight days after the accident at Challenge.

The Michigan Occupational Health and Safety Administration (MIOSHA) was informed of the incident on January 2, 201811 days after the accidentat which point an investigation was opened. To date, only a brief account of the incident has been posted on the MIOSHA website.

In its entirety the synopsis reads: On December 22nd, a 56-year-old coil handler was separating two coils of steel while the steel was standing up and when the banding was cut, one of the coils fell onto the coil handlers legs. The coil handler passed away after having surgery on his legs on December 30th.

The death of Scott Teusinkthe 38th workplace fatality in Michigan in 2017received only brief mention in the local press and is now being swept under the rug. Jeannine Vogel, public information officer for MIOSHA, told the Holland Sentinel that the complete investigation could take several weeks or months to complete.

The WSWS Autoworker Newsletter has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with MIOSHA, as well as the city of Holland police and fire departments, seeking all reports and witness statements on the accident.

We will publish material as it becomes available. However, comments from workers provide a glimpse into conditions on the shop floor at Challenge.

It is clear Challenge, which is not unionized, has a bad reputation for safety and working conditions. Commenting on the article in the Holland Sentinel, Suzie Ascencio said I am actually surprised that it took this long for the company to be investigated, there have always been safety issues.

Another worker, Sydney Gann, shared his personal experience at Challenge and memories of Scott. I started the same day as Scott. We were both temps that went in together. We actually became friends. This makes me soooo MAD at Challenge. I worked there for almost two years. There is piss poor training. The PPE [personal protective equipment] isnt really all that protective. There are safety hazards around every corner! Theres oil all over the floor. I was a transfer press operator and they had coils stacked all funky EVERYWHERE.

He continued, The coil chains never really got PMd [preventative maintenance] or any kind of stress test. The management was always on their phones. Scott always wore his PPE and Hardhat as a coil/ material handler. Challenge needs to be shut down...

He concluded, I will say Scott was a very cool employee. He got me a card, a gift card, and some beer as a congratulations for making it (through) the probationary period. The only employee to ever give me anything. That says a lot about who he was as a person. Challenge just needs to be SHUT DOWN! and undergo a face lift and new ownership. This is unacceptable and all of Holland and surrounding areas that know of Challenges bad rep knows that there shouldnt be a blind eye and this incident should be treated VERY SERIOUSLY and not go unpunished because if everything would have been in order this would have never happened and Scott would still be here today!

It was even suggested by another worker that Challenge had acted to conceal previous safety violations from investigators: When that lady hurt her leg they torched the table and threw it away before investigators got there, he wrote in reply to Sydney Ganns comment.

During a three-week strike in February 2017, workers at Challenges Kansas City plant reported, among other things, having to pay out of pocket for personal protective equipment. The United Auto Workers shut down the strike after just three weeks, leaving workers with substandard pay and benefits far lower than those at the auto assembly plants.

Comments and reports like these show the reality behind the claim that Challenge is an employee owned company. The phony Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) provides a PR cover for Challenge and the low wages paid to the supposed employee-owners. It does not provide workers with any meaningful voice in how the company is run or what they are paid, nor does it shield them from the volatility of the capitalist market, or protect them from layoffs, speed-ups or unsafe conditions.

In fighting for safe and decent working conditions workers can place no reliance on the corrupt, pro-company trade unions such as the United Auto Workers. Likewise, government agencies such as MIOSHA generally side with employers by imposing miniscule fines for gross violations that are often further reduced after company appeals.

The WSWS Autoworker Newsletter calls on workers at Challenge and other auto parts plants and industrial facilities to contact us regarding conditions in your workplace. We will provide workers with a platform, if necessary under conditions of anonymity, to guard against possible company/union retaliation.

This is part of a broader fight to mobilize the independent strength of the working class in defense of safe and decent conditions in the factories. We call for the building of independent rank-and-file factory committees in every workplace as new organs of working class struggle.

The author also recommends:

UAW shuts down strike at Kansas City auto parts supplier plant

[28 February, 2017]

US workplace fatalities rose 7 percent in 2016

[20 December 2017]Two developments on Monday, one day before Donald Trumps first State of the Union address, signaled a sharp intensification of the conflict within the US ruling class and state.

Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, whom Trump has repeatedly attacked as a stooge of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party, unexpectedly vacated his office some five weeks ahead of his expected retirement. Later in the day, the Republican majority on the House Intelligence Committee defied warnings from the Justice Department and voted to release to the public a classified memo drafted by the staff of Chairman Devin Nunes that charges the FBI with abusing surveillance laws to spy on Trump election campaign officials. The document reportedly accuses the top FBI leadership of being anti-Trump and working to undermine his administration.

The House Republicans defied warnings from the Justice Department that release of the memo would jeopardize US intelligence operations. Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd wrote to Congress last week declaring that making the memo public without giving the Justice Department and the FBI a chance to review it would be extraordinarily reckless.

Both of these developments signal an escalation of an increasingly ferocious drive by the White House and its closest Republican allies in Congress to discredit and derail the investigation by Special Counsel and former FBI Director Robert Mueller into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion and obstruction of justice by Trump and other administration officials.

The vote in the House Intelligence Committee was along strict party lines, with the Republican majority voting down a motion by the Democrats to simultaneously release a rebuttal memo drawn up by their staff. Trump has five days to review the memo and block its release, but that is highly unlikely. Trump, through his chief of staff, retired General John Kelly, warned the Justice Department that the president wanted to see the contested memo made public.

These developments follow reports last week that Mueller has already questioned James Comey, the FBI director heading up the Russia probe who was fired by Trump last May, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who recused himself from the Russia investigation last March after he was caught lying to Congress about his contacts with Russian officials. It was also reported that Mueller intended to interview fired White House adviser Stephen Bannon and Trump himself in the coming weeks, pointing in the direction of an obstruction of justice case against the president.

Throughout the increasingly bitter Russia investigationa concocted scandal based on completely unproven allegations of Russian meddlingthe Democrats have assumed the role of patriotic defenders of the intelligence and police agencies and of Mueller against criticisms by the White House and congressional Republicans. This is in line with the right-wing basis on which they have mounted their opposition to the fascistic president.

The Democrats prioritieswhich have nothing to do with the defense of the democratic rights and social conditions of working people, immigrant and native-born alikewere summed up this weekend when Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer announced he would demand that any budget resolution include a provision protecting Mueller from being fired by the White House. This followed by only days his agreement to negotiate a budget deal without any protection for immigrants in the DACA program threatened with deportation by Trumps termination of the program last September.

In this conflict between two right-wing camps of American imperialism, the Democrats are allied with the dominant sections of the military/intelligence complex, which oppose any softening of the aggressive military posture adopted by the Obama administration toward Russia. They are determined to maintain pressure on Trump to escalate the offensive against Moscow, or, if necessary, remove him from office.

The McCarthyite campaign against Russia also serves definite political purposes for the Democrats, who are seeking to channel popular opposition to Trump in a reactionary and militaristic direction. This is underscored by the efforts, led by the Democratic Party and its media allies such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, to use the anti-Russian campaign as justification for censoring the Internet to exclude oppositional and antiwar views under the fraudulent banner of combating foreign-inspired fake news.

In the wake of McCabes early retirement and the vote to release the Nunes memo, the Democrats have rushed to vouch for the integrity of the bureaucrats and professional killers who spy on the American people and the world population and organize countless conspiracies against the democratic rights of the population.

Following the House Intelligence Committee vote, Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the committee, announced that the Republican leadership, in addition to pushing through the release of the Nunes memo, had said for the first time that the committee was investigating the FBI and the Justice Department. Schiff denounced this as a wholesale broadside against two of our respected institutions.

Obama-era attorney general Eric Holder lashed out against bogus attacks on the FBI and DOJ (Department of Justice) to distract attention from a legitimate criminal inquiry.

In an interview with Politico, Democratic Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Mark Warner, a multimillionaire tech company CEO, said of White House threats to fire Mueller and other Justice Department officials, Thats extraordinarily dangerous, extraordinarily reckless, because Americans might lose faith in the integrity of our law enforcement agencies.

He linked the Nunes memo to supposed Russian subversion via social media, declaring, The biggest group supporting these phony theories are actually Russian bots: Russian-activated accounts who are trying to push these stories.

At a White House press briefing Monday, spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders denied that Trump played any role in McCabes early retirement. However, Trump and congressional Republicans have been targeting McCabe since the 2016 election campaign.

They have associated him with the decision of Comey not to charge Hillary Clinton in connection with the investigation of her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. They point to the fact that in 2015, McCabes wife ran for a Virginia State Senate seat as a Democrat and received nearly $500,000 in campaign funds from a political action committee controlled by then-Governor Terry McAuliffe, a close associate of the Clintons.

Last week, the Washington Post reported that after Trump fired Comey, he met privately with McCabe, who was then acting FBI director, and demanded to know for whom he had voted in the 2016 election.

CNN reported Monday that Attorney General Sessions told FBI Director Christopher Wray that he needed to appoint a new senior team at the agency and specifically suggested getting rid of McCabe and the bureaus top lawyer, James Baker. The latter was reassigned late last year. Wray subsequently told McCabe that he was bringing in his own team and McCabe would not be included.

It has also been reported that the Justice Departments inspector general will soon issue a report on the FBIs handling of the Clinton email probe that will criticize McCabe as well as other Justice Department officials.

The Nunes memo reportedly centers on allegations that the FBI misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court in applying for a warrant in the late summer or fall of 2016 to spy on Carter Page, a former Moscow-based investment banker who had served as a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign.

It is widely reported that the alleged abuse of the FISA court involves using information from the Trump dossier compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele to obtain the FISA warrant without informing the court that Steeles investigation had been funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

According to the New York Times, the memo specifically targets Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller as special counsel and is overseeing his investigation, citing the fact that Rosenstein applied for an extension of the FISA warrant to spy on Page. Trump has reportedly complained in recent days of Rosensteins role and pushed for his removal.

It appears that the Justice Department is itself internally split over the Nunes memo. In a speech Friday in Virginia, Attorney General Sessions seemed to diverge from the warning issued by Assistant Attorney General Boyd against releasing the memo. He said he would not condone a culture of defensiveness and added that his department would not conceal errors when they occur.Two major attacks on high school students by fellow teenagers occurred in Russia this month. In all, within one week, three schools witnessed attacks, and another school a stabbing. Dozens of children and several teachers were wounded.

The most widely covered attack occurred on January 15, at school No. 127 in Perm, an industrial city in the Urals. Two 16-year-olds, wearing masks, burst into a fourth-grade classroom and attacked the teacher and then the children with knives. Twelve youth, including the assailants, and the teacher were wounded.

The teacher, Natalia Schegulina, who was stabbed 17 times, and two children were listed in critical condition. One of the alleged assailants attended the 11th grade (the last year in Russian high schools) at the same school. He is the son of a relatively successful local designer, and, judging by media reports, had done fairly well in school.

The other alleged attacker had been suspended from school, reportedly at the request of his parents, because of mental health issues. According to Russia Today, he is the son of a successful local businessman, who owns numerous companies in the city. A widely discussed YouTube video shows the youth, who was in psychiatric treatment, rambling in an apparently intoxicated state. On social media, he expressed support for the campaign of right-winger Alexei Navalny, arguing that it didnt matter who would ruin the country, which he described as a country of slaves. He also participated in a closed group on Vkontakte (VK), the Russian equivalent of Facebook and one of the most popular websites in the world, which glorified the April 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado.

On January 17, a student at a school near Chelyabinsk stabbed a fellow student during a break.

Two days later, another major assault occurred at school No. 5 in the small military town of Sosnovyi Bor in Buryatia, located in the Siberian region. A 15-year-old student attacked a seventh-grade class at his school. He threw a Molotov cocktail into the classroom and then began attacking the students with an ax. Five children and the teacher were wounded.

The teacher, Irina Ramenskaya, a Russian language and literature instructor, recounted the horrific scene: I started to take the kids out. When I came out, I saw that a person was just chopping the kids with an ax. I brought them back in the classroom, where everything was burning. I was bleeding. Before my eyes stood Anton with an ax.

The teenager then reportedly stabbed himself in the chest and jumped out of a window in an apparent attempt to commit suicide, but survived. Earlier reports about two additional assailants have not been confirmed.

According to a report by RBC, which referred to the accounts of fellow students, the teenager had problems with alcohol and drugs and followed skinhead and pro-Nazi websites on Vkontakte. That same day, a student released teargas at his school in Vladivostok, a major city in Russias Far East, wounding four teenagers.

The limited discussion in the Russian media about the incidents has focused on the lack of security provisions at the schools in question, while politicians and the spokesperson of President Vladimir Putin have evaded making any clear statement on the rampages at all.

As is the case in the US whenever a new mass atrocity occurs, neither the Russian media nor the political establishment dares address the social context in which such disorientation and right-wing conceptions emerge among teenagers and take such violent forms.

Born after the restoration of capitalism in Russia, which has thrown tens of millions of Russian workers and professionals into poverty, these youth grew up in a climate of extreme social reaction and brutality. Since the destruction of the Soviet Union by the Stalinist bureaucracy, the country has been ruled by a criminal oligarchy that obtains its wealth at the expense of the living standards of the vast majority of the countrys population.

Under Putin, there has been a reshuffling of wealth and political control within layers of the ex-bureaucracy, the mafia and the oligarchs who have emerged as the chief beneficiaries of capitalist restoration. While some oligarchs, like Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who advanced positions on foreign policy that went counter to the interests of the Kremlin, were either put in prison or forced into exile, the vast majority of the oligarch-gangsters and criminal bosses of the 1990s have become the respected businessmen of the Putin era.

Tellingly, almost 40 percent of Russian GDP originates in the shadow economy that employs about a fifth of Russias workforce. The shadow economy involves business operations such as illegal financial deals, human and drug trafficking, prostitution, and the widespread practice of hiring workers in construction and other industries without formal contracts.

The working population has also largely borne the cost of the Kremlins stand-off with US imperialism. The Western economic sanctions and the steep decline in oil prices ushered in a deep economic crisis in 2014. While the oligarchs have feverishly shoveled their money abroad, increasing numbers of Russians suffer from extreme poverty, eking out an existence by growing their own food and renouncing essentials of civilization, including medication, running water and electricity. Wealth inequality in Russia is now the highest among the worlds major countries, with the top decile owning a stunning 89 percent of the countrys total wealth. (See: Russias presidential election campaign unfolds amid rising social discontent)

On television, there is a continuous promotion of nationalism and militarism. After the bloody and criminal Chechen wars of the 1990s, which killed about a tenth of the Chechen population and have led to an ongoing devastation and destabilization of the North Caucasus, Russia has directly intervened in Syria and indirectly in Ukraine in a proxy war with the US-backed Kiev regime.

Under these conditions, the interests of the working class find absolutely no expression in official politics. The current presidential campaign is dominated by the stand-off between Putin, who has been the godfather of the Russian oligarchy for almost two decades, and Navalny, a far-right politician who openly supports fascist forces and whose aim is to foster a regime change in Russia in the interests of US imperialism and a section of the Russian oligarchy and upper-middle class.

Politically disarmed by decades of Stalinism, which included the murder of entire generations of revolutionaries and socialist intellectuals, and endless lies about the Russian Revolution, the working class has been unable to fight successfully against this decade-long onslaught of social and political reaction.

It is hardly surprising that such a climate would produce serious disorientation among sections of young people. The reactionary conceptions and utter contempt for the lives of other human beings, including children, expressed by these teenagers are ultimately a reflection of the attitude of the ruling elite toward the general population that these youth have witnessed their entire lives. Their rampages point to the urgent need to provide a progressive, socialist way forward out of the blind alley into which Stalinism and capitalism have led.Harley-Davidson, the worlds largest maker of heavyweight motorcycles, announced plans Tuesday to close its Kansas City, Missouri assembly plant by the summer of 2019 and lay off 800 workers.

Euphemistically referring to the closure as part of a multi-year manufacturing optimization initiative, the Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based company attributed the move to a sharp fall in demand for its iconic bikes, particularly among young people. Harleys US retail sales fell 8.5 percent in 2017the fourth straight year of declineand its global sales are projected to fall a further 4.9 percent in 2018.

The job cuts are part of a growing wave of mass layoffs, contradicting President Donald Trumps boasts of US economic strength and the miraculous benefits supposed to accrue from the corporate handouts contained in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. In the past month alone, telecom giant AT&T, retailers Sams Club and Toys R Us, and paper products manufacturer Kimberly-Clark have revealed plans to slash thousands of jobs.

The layoffs at Harley-Davidson, announced the morning of Trumps first State of the Union address, come as a further blow to the presidents reactionary America First economic program, and are particularly embarrassing as Trump has lauded the company, inviting company executives and union officials to the White House in early 2017.

In a press release, Matt Levatich, Harley Davidsons president and chief executive officer, laid out the cold-blooded financial calculations behind the plant shutdown, saying, Our actions to address the current environment through disciplined supply and cost management, position us well as we drive to achieve our long-term objectives to build the next generation of Harley-Davidson riders globally.

In what will be little comfort to the workers who will imminently be deprived of their livelihood, Levatich added that in 2017, [W]e delivered another year of strong cash generation and cash returns to our shareholders.

As part of Harleys reorganization plans, production of the vehicles previously made in Kansas City will be moved to its York, Pennsylvania, plant, which the company claims will add 450 jobs. However, the 450if they in fact all appearwill reportedly include part-time and contract positions.

Along with the shutdown of the Kansas City factory, Harley announced the planned closure of a wheel plant in Adelaide, Australia, with a loss of a further 100 jobs.

The company made the announcement at the Kansas City plant at a 6 a.m. town hall meeting, after which it sent workers home for the day, no doubt fearing an outbreak of anger.

Dominique Alstrok, a worker at the plant, told a local Fox News affiliate, Where is my next job? What am I going to do benefits wise? I have three kids and a single mom.

The closure of the Kansas City plant is the culmination of a long series of betrayals by the trade unions, principally the International Association of Machinists (IAM) and the United Steelworkers (USW), which both bargain on behalf of workers at Harley-Davidson.

In 2010, the USW and IAM signed a deal at Harley-Davidsons plants in Menomonee Falls, near Milwaukee, and Tomahawk, Wisconsin, that included a seven-year wage freeze and strike ban, sharp increases in workers contributions to their health care coverage, and the creation of a sub-tier of seasonal or casual workers who will receive no benefits whatsoever and earn starting pay of $16.80, about half what current workers make.

The concessions contract, backed by the unions under the pretext that it was necessary to save jobs, in fact paved the way for hundreds of layoffs in subsequent years. The York, Pennsylvania plant saw its employment plummet from nearly 2,000 in 2009 to roughly 800 in 2017, while the plants in Wisconsin also lost hundreds of jobs.

Union officials feigned surprise and outrage at the current layoffs, while offering no plans to oppose the companys decision. Kevin Amos, president of IAM Local 176 in Kansas City, demonstrated the utter spinelessness of the union and its groveling efforts to please the company, telling FOX4 News, We have a good workforce, and we did as we were told. We were living in a seven-year concession contract. Workers were hurting, and yet we did everything we were supposed to do.

Bob Martinez, national president of the IAM, predictably sought to deflect blame onto foreign workers and incite reactionary nationalism, saying, Hundreds of working families are now wondering what their future holds because of this self-proclaimed American icons insistence on shipping our jobs to Asia and South America. Im sick of seeing our jobs disappear or turn into part-time work...This companys executive leadership team is letting Harley-Davidsons foundation crumble.

Instead of appealing to workers to mobilize against the plant closure, Martinez directed his pleas to the unions real constituency, namely Wall Street and the political establishment: We hope investors and policy-makers join our call to finally bring our jobs home.

Harley-Davidson workers must draw the necessary conclusions from the decades of wage cuts, job losses, and attacks on health care and pensions they have suffered under the IAM and USW, who seek to divide workers from their brothers and sisters in other countries in order to defend the profit interests of the corporations.

In order to conduct a real fight against plant closures and for good-paying jobs and all the other gains bargained away by the unions, it is necessary to break with these pro-company organizations and form independent rank-and-file committees, democratically elected and controlled by workers themselves. Such committees must appeal to the millions of workers facing similar attacks in the US, Mexico, Asia and internationally for a joint struggle for the social rights of the working class as a whole.Federal and Hawaii state officials investigating the January 13 alert of an impending nuclear missile attack are now asserting that the employee allegedly responsible sent out the message because he thought a real attack had been launched. This directly contradicts previous claims that the employee, who is still unnamed, sent the warning inadvertently.

The false alarm was sent to the cell phones of hundreds of thousands of Hawaiian residents and was also transmitted over television and radio. For 38 minutesthe time between the initial message and a second message rescinding itthe population of the entire state thought that a nuclear explosion was imminent.

The story was quickly buried by the media, which accepted uncritically the initial claim of state officials that the mass terror was the result of a single employee who apparently clicked a wrong button, and then confirmed this initial error. Officials attributed the 38 minutes before a correction was notified to the failure of the state to have adequate procedures to correct a false alarm.

Preliminary findings released on Tuesday by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) now assert that the employee deliberately sent the alarm.

The FCC report states that an unnamed midnight shift supervisor at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency (HI-EMA) initiated a no-notice ballistic missile defense drill during the shift change at around 8:00 a.m. on January 13. The drill involved the placement of a call to warn officers purportedly from US Pacific Command announcing an attack. The FCC report asserts that the call began and ended with the words exercise, exercise, exercise, but it also erroneously contains the text of an EAS [Emergency Alert System] message for a live ballistic missile alert.

Specifically, the call included the line, THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

The FCC report acknowledges that the recording does not follow the script contained in HI-EMAs standard operating procedure for this drill. Concluding from this language that the warning was real, the report states, the warning officer at the alert origination terminal responds, as trained for a real event, by transmitting a live incoming ballistic missile alert to the State of Hawaii.

The report exposes the media for parroting the initial, unbelievable story that a message broadcast to the entire state was produced by a single employee making two mistakes in accidentally sending out the message. The media clearly had no interest in probing the actual circumstances behind the event.

The new account also raises more questions than it answers. Why did the call that was reportedly sent by the shift manager contain language that deviated from the standard operating script? Why would a drill message contain the words, This is not a drill? Who is this shift manager and under whose authority was he operating?

The state of Hawaii has sought to focus blame on the individual who sent the warning. A separate report released by state officials on Tuesday confirmed that the employee (referred to only as Employee 1), has been fired. The employee had supposedly been a source of concern for more than a decade and was unable to comprehend the situation at hand and has confused real life event and drills on at least two separate occasions.

If this is true, why did this employee have the authority to send out a warning message of a live attack?

Perhaps most significantly, the new story does not shed more light on why it took 38 minutes before a cancellation could be issued. The period would certainly have been used by Pentagon and intelligence officials to monitor the reaction of the population to a nuclear missile alert, and to observe the responses of other countries to an announcement of a nuclear missile exchange.

In the weeks since the alert, the US government has taken measures indicating that it is preparing to launch strikes against North Korea, which could include a nuclear exchange. Earlier this month, the US military deployed nuclear-capable B-52H bombers to Guam.

In a speech last week, CIA Director Mike Pompeo announced that the agency was working with the Pentagon to prepare a series of options to make sure that we can deliver a range of things so the president will have the full suite of possibilities for an attack, and that he would leave it to others to address the capacity or the wisdom of a preemptive strike.Exchanges of cross-border fire by Indian and Pakistani forces manning the disputed Kashmir border have intensified since the beginning of the year.

While cross-border artillery barrages have been frequent, often occurring daily ever since India mounted surgical strikes inside Pakistan in September 2016, recent weeks indicate tensions are mounting, raising the prospect of a catastrophic war between South Asias nuclear-armed rivals.

At least five civilians and a soldier were killed on the Indian side on January 19, while two civilians were killed in Pakistan. During the preceding three days, six more Indian civilians and three soldiers and six Pakistani civilians had lost their lives. While there are discrepancies in the Indian and Pakistani casualty figures, it can be said with assurance that at least four Pakistani soldiers have been killed in cross-border exchanges since the beginning of 2018.

The customary exchange of mutual accusations of unprovoked firing across the Line of Control (LoC) that divides Indian- and Pakistani-held Kashmir cannot disguise the fact that the situation is on a knifes edge.

The India-Pakistan rivalry is rooted in the reactionary communal partition of the subcontinent implemented in 1947 by South Asias departing British imperial overlords in connivance with the colonial bourgeoisie. Independent India and Pakistan have fought four wars, the last in 1999, and numerous skirmishes.

However, it is US imperialisms accelerating drive to make India a frontline state in its military-strategic offensive against China that has overturned the balance of power in South Asia. With the US providing numerous strategic favours to Indian, including access to its most advanced weapon systems, Pakistan has moved to strengthen its longstanding strategic ties with China. Increasingly, the region has been polarized into rival Indo-US and Pakistani-China blocs, adding an explosive new element to both the India-Pakistan and US-China conflicts, and raising the danger that a war between India and Pakistan could draw in the worlds great powers.

A further consequence of Washingtons downgrading of relations with Pakistan, its principal regional ally during the Cold War, in favour of India, is that it has emboldened the Indian ruling elite in its dealings with Pakistan.

The India-Pakistan comprehensive peace dialogue has been in limbo since late 2008. But under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu supremacist BJP, India has frozen virtually all high-level contacts with Pakistan and vowed to continue doing so until Islamabad demonstrably ceases all logistical support for the anti-Indian insurgency in Kashmir.

The Indian governments provocative stance has been encouraged by Washington. The US endorsed Indias Sept. 2016 surgical strikes inside Pakistan. New Delhi, for its part, has welcomed the Trump administrations new Afghan war strategy, which calls for Washington to ratchet up pressure on Pakistan to eliminate Taliban safe-havens in its Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

On January 4, Washington suspended up to $2 billion in military-security assistance to Pakistan to back its demand that Islamabad break off all ties with the Haqqani Network, a Taliban-aligned group that was closely allied with the CIA in the 1980s, but which in recent years has carried out some of the most devastating attacks on US forces in Afghanistan.

Pakistans military-security apparatus has maintained ties to elements of the Taliban insurgency as a means of ensuring the Pakistani ruling elite has a significant say in any political settlement of the Afghan War, under conditions where Washington has increasingly sidelined Islamabad and encouraged India to expand its role in the impoverished Central Asian country.

Pakistan has long viewed Afghanistan as vital to giving it strategic depth in its rivalry with India.

At a press conference called to respond to Trumps charge that the US has foolishly given tens of billion in aid to Pakistan and gotten nothing but lies and deceit in return, Pakistan Army spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor warned that Washingtons promotion of India as a major player in Afghanistan is exacerbating tensions in the region. Pointing to Islamabads unresolved issues with India, Ghafoor said, It would be impossible to establish peace in the region without resolving them.

Washingtons reckless encouragement of India has helped expand the Indo-Pakistan strategic conflict onto Afghan soil. At the same time, Afghanistan, emboldened by the deepening tensions in US-Pakistan relations and Indias belligerence against Pakistan, has adopted an increasingly hostile and aggressive policy towards Islamabad. Islamabad frequently accuses Indian intelligence of working in tandem with Afghan intelligence to foment terrorist attacks inside Pakistani territory, including by supporting the separatist insurgency in Balochistan.

Indian Army chief, General Bipin Rawat, seized on the further deterioration in US-Pakistani relations at the beginning of the year to send a bellicose warning to Islamabad. On January 12, he said that Indias military stands ready to mount further military strikes inside Pakistan if the situation along the Line of Control in Kashmir continues to deteriorate. If a task is given to us, said Rawat, we cannot say we will not cross the border because they [Pakistan] have nuclear weapons. We have to call their bluff.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif responded the next day, with his own bellicose message. Rawats remarks, he said, Amount to (an) invitation for (a) nuclear encounter. If that is what they desire, they are welcome to test our resolve. The generals doubt would swiftly be removed, inshallah [God willing].

Apart from stockpiling strategic nuclear weapons, Pakistan has recently deployed tactical or battlefield nuclear weapons and repeatedly touted them as its first line of defence against any large-scale Indian invasion or impending invasion, the kind of operation that India is actively planning for under its Cold Start strategy.

The Pakistani government has justified its deployment of tactical nuclear weapons and expansion of its military-strategic ties with Beijing by pointing to Washingtons failure to heed its warnings against upsetting the balance of power in the region.

Bolstered by its burgeoning alliance with Washington, India has vowed to face down both Pakistan and China. Last summer, amid a 10-week military standoff with China over a remote Himalayan ridge, the Doklam Plateau, Rawat boasted that India is ready to fight a two-front wari.e., a simultaneous war against both China and Pakistan. He first raised this prospect when he was elevated to head the Indian army in January 2017.

India has taken exception to the $50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) infrastructure project, on the grounds that parts of the proposed highway and pipeline network would run through Indian territory, that is, parts of Pakistan-held Kashmir.

For the Pakistani ruling elite, the CPEC is a much needed economic shot in the arm. For Beijing, the CPEC is an important element in its broader One Belt One Road economic strategy, which is aimed at opening up new markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, but one with especially large strategic significance. The CPEC will link the Pakistani Arabian Sea port of Gwadar with western China, thus providing Beijing with a means of at least partially offsetting Washingtons plans to impose an economic blockade on China by seizing the Straits of Malacca and other maritime chokepoints.

These intractable conflicts, pitting US imperialism and its Indian partner against the rising economic power of China in alliance with Pakistan, underscore the potentially explosive ramifications of the bubbling border tensions between South Asias nuclear rivals.

Earlier this month, the Press Trust of India (PTI) cited a report from Indian intelligence sources that claimed 138 Pakistan military personnel were killed in the preceding year in tactical operations and retaliatory cross-border firings along the LoC. The same sources put the death toll of soldiers on the Indian side at 28. Both militaries are known for boasting of enemy fatalities, while downplaying casualties on their own side.

Indian intelligence sources also blamed Pakistan for violating the 2003 ceasefire agreement 860 times in 2017, i.e., more than twice per day. For its part, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry accused New Delhi January 20 of violating the ceasefire agreement 150 times already in 2018, and 1,900 times in 2017.

The PTI report shed some light on the nature of the tactical operations conducted by India. On December 25, 2017, a group of five Indian commandos crossed the LoC and killed three Pakistani soldiers, the report said. India employs a strategy called hot pursuit, under which it claims the right to cross into Pakistani-held territory, to disrupt the Pakistani militarys support for terrorist groups attacking India.

Given the combustible character of Indo-Pakistani relations, any such incursion runs the risk of triggering an all-out war or even a global conflict that would imperil the lives of tens, if not hundreds of millions of people.Kiribati President Taneti Maamau admitted on Monday that a passenger ferry that went missing in the central Pacific 11 days earlier was carrying as many as 100 people. Most of those are feared dead.

No correct accounting of the names or number of missing passengers has been provided. Previous reports stated that the privately-operated vessel, the MV Butiraoi, was carrying about 50 passengers when it left Nonouti Island for Kiribatis capital Tarawa on January 18. The 260-kilometre voyage should have taken no more than two days.

Survivors found drifting in a dinghy on Sunday said people on board escaped to two dinghies and a life raft after the Butiraoi, a 17.5-metre wooden catamaran, broke apart and sank. Wellington Rescue Coordination Centre coordinator Paul Craven told Radio New Zealand the vessel was some distance off the island, but still relatively close to it, when it sank. One of the emergency dinghies had subsequently capsized.

Speaking following a cabinet meeting on Monday, Maamau said the Butiraoi was not seaworthy. The vessel had recently undergone maintenance on its propeller after running aground. It had not yet been checked by the marine authorities and did not have permission to sail, but did anyway. The boat was reportedly not carrying any kind of emergency navigation beacon.

Kiribati authorities only notified New Zealand that the ferry was missing last Friday, six days after it was due in Tarawa. Amid questions as to why it took so long, Maamau claimed the government was not aware the ferry was missing until then. However, a Kiribati plane had earlier searched for the ferry but found nothing as it lacked sophisticated radar equipment.

Rikamati Naare, editor of Radio Kiribati, told Radio NZ the sinking was the countrys worst disaster and the public was deeply shocked by the incident and the presidents revelations. He said people were angry and, through social media posts, were calling for legal action against all those connected to the company that owns the ship. Other posts indicated that the ferry was overloaded with passengers and copra.

An NGO worker on Tarawa, Tana Aata, said people were growing frustrated with the lack of information. No update was provided on Tuesday, and Maamau is yet to respond to repeated requests for further comment. The Ministry for Transport, whose maritime division is responsible for the ferries, has remained silent. It is not even clear yet who owns the Butiraoi.

An international search began on the weekend with a NZ Air Force Orion locating the dinghy on Sunday. The six adults and an unconscious teenage girl were picked up by a fishing boat, hundreds of kilometres southeast of Nauru, after drifting for four days in the blazing sun without water or an engine.

The Orion has flown over 315,000 square kilometres of ocean without sighting the missing ferry. Wellington rescue co-ordinator Craven said finding more survivors is a bit of a needle in a haystack. While expressing concern about the heat and lack of water, food and supplies, he said there was still a possibility that the people in the life raft were alive.

Responsibility for such disasters in the Pacific, which are frequent, rests not only with private owners who flout basic safety requirements and government agencies that either operate ferries or oversee their operations. The poor quality of transport services in the region is bound up with a history of imperialist domination, exploitation and economic underdevelopment.

Kiribati, home to about 108,000 people, only became independent from Britain in 1979. It remains a remote, impoverished nation of 33 atolls spread out over 3.5 million square kilometres. Climate change and rising sea levels mean the country is at risk of disappearing into the sea within two decades because the average land elevation is less than two metres above sea level.

The latest disaster follows the loss in July 2009 of another ferry while en route between Tarawa and the outlying island of Maiana. Some 33 of the 55 passengers and crew perished. The double-hulled wooden catamaran capsized when the captain attempted to turn around to rescue a crew member who had been swept overboard in high seas.

A month later, the Tongan ferry MV Princess Ashika capsized while travelling from the Tongan capital Nukualofa. It sank in less than a minute, just moments after issuing a mayday call. Most of the 74 victims were women and children sleeping below the deck when the ferry overturned. It was the third major marine tragedy in Tonga involving significant loss of life.

The Princess Ashikas disaster provoked widespread anger in Tonga. Relatives of the victims camped for weeks outside the offices of the government-owned Shipping Corporation of Polynesia (SCP), which operated the ferry. In 2011, Tongas Supreme Court jailed SCPs chief executive and the ferrys captain and first mate after finding them guilty of manslaughter. None of the government ministers, who approved the purchase of the unseaworthy vessel and allowed it to sail, was brought to justice.

In February 2012, more than 100 people died after a ferry sank in large swells and strong winds off the northeast coast of Papua New Guinea (PNG).The MV Rabaul Queen was travelling from New Britain Island to Lae, the second largest city in PNG. Many of the passengers trapped in the sinking boat were children and students returning to begin the new school year.

Deliberate overcrowding also contributed to that tragedy. Local residents expressed longstanding concerns over the unsafe operation of the 22-year-old ferry, run by private operator Peter Sharp, brother of the chairman the PNG National Maritime Safety Authority. The vessel was licensed to carry 310 passengers but at least 350 were on board, plus 12 crew.

Geo-strategic considerations lie behind the search and rescue operations being conducted around Kiribati by Australia and New Zealand, in conjunction with Washington. An Australian maritime jet and a US Coast Guard C-130 Hercules were due to join the search on Tuesday.

The US and its allies regard the strategically-located South Pacific region as their own back yard. In March 2016, the Australian and New Zealand governments utilised the devastation of Fiji caused by Cyclone Winston to send ships, aircraft and hundreds of military personnel to that former British colony. The military intervention dovetailed with their role in Washingtons pivot to Asia to assert its domination over the Indo-Pacific region, especially against China.As Germanys ruling elite conspires to form a new government to slash workers wages, attack democratic rights and remilitarize the country, the working class is giving its response in the form of the countrys biggest strike movement in 15 years.

On Wednesday, more than 65,000 workers in Germanys metal and electrical industries will strike for 24 hours. On Thursday and Friday, hundreds of thousands more will follow. The IG Metall union has called 24-hour warning strikes nationwide in 250 companies, including Daimler, BMW and Volkswagen.

The extension of industrial action is taking place despite the efforts of the IG Metall leadership to contain the current contract struggle and reach a rotten compromise that betrays the workers demands. It is an expression of the growing anger and militancy of the workers after decades of social attacks by the government and employers.

The significance of this struggle goes far beyond the borders of Germany. Throughout Europe and around the world the ruling elites are engaged in a drive to dismantle labor protections and destroy workers wages and benefits in order to fund new and bigger wars and line their own pockets.

The strike wave in Germany is a confirmation of the World Socialist Web Sites prognosis at the New Year that The year 2018--the bicentenary of Marxs birthwill be characterized, above all, by an immense intensification of social tensions and an escalation of class conflict around the world.

The names of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the countrys former finance minister, Wolfgang Schauble, have for years been synonymous with brutal attacks on the European working class. The austerity diktats that upended the lives of millions of working-class families in Greece, Spain and Portugal were above all the work of the last grand coalition government in Berlin. The transformation of Eastern Europe into a vast pool of cheap labour for international corporations, which pay workers in the formerly Stalinist-run countries a fraction of Western European wages, is also the result of German ruling-class policy.

The German government could not have played this role if it had not simultaneously attacked the German working class and kept it under control, with the help of subservient unions. The Hartz Laws introducing labour and welfare reforms, passed in 2003 by a Social Democratic-Green Party government, created a huge low-wage sector. At the same time, an army of well-paid works council representatives and union officials ensured that wages stagnated and workers conditions steadily deteriorated.

The working class has gained nothing from Germanys economic success, which was achieved on its back. A small layer at the top of society has enriched itself without restraint, leaving Germany one of the most unequal countries in Europe, with 40 percent of all employees earning less than they did two decades ago.

The strike wave in the automotive, metal and electrical industries is a rebellion against these conditions. The IG Metall union has been forced to call the 24-hour strikes because it confronts a mood of anger and mistrust that goes far beyond the affected industries.

Militancy is growing in other European countries. In Serbia and Romania there have been spontaneous strikes against starvation wages in the auto industry. In Greece, the working class has struck and protested against the austerity diktats of the European Union and the Syriza government. In France, resistance to the labour market reforms of President Macron is growing. The UK has seen a series of rail strikes. The strike movement in Germany will embolden workers across Europe in their struggles.

The challenges facing the striking workers are above all political. While they are fighting for higher wages and shorter working hours, the Social Democratic Party and the conservative union parties (Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union), with full support from the unions, are getting ready to form a third edition of the grand coalition. Such a government will not only intensify the attacks on the working class in Germany and across Europe, it will expand the powers of the state and accelerate the program of military rearmament and war.

Such a government has no democratic legitimacy. The grand coalition was voted out of office four months ago. The votes for the Social Democrats, Christian Democrats and Christian Social Union fell by 14 percent in the general election. The attempt to bring back the same parties in the form of a new grand coalition is a political conspiracy whose real goals are being concealed from the people.

While those favouring the coalition bluster about the unity of Europe and friendship with France, their real goal, along with French President Macron, is to deepen the social counterrevolution and turn the European Union from an economic to a military alliance that enforces German and French imperialist interests against Russia, China and the United States.

The German ruling elite is plotting to increase military spending not only to the NATO-mandated target of two percent of GDP, which means doubling it to 60 billion euros, but even higher. This is possible only through massive cuts in social spending, which will rapidly wipe out any gains the metal workers might achieve through strike action.

The industrial action in the metal and electrical industries must be linked to the fight for new elections. Workers must not allow a cabal of conspirators to install the most right-wing government since the end of World War II.

New elections must be called to mobilize behind a socialist programme that combines the fight against social cuts, dictatorship and war with the overthrow of capitalism. The Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party) is the only party that puts forward such a programme. It rejects the European Union and advances the struggle for the United Socialist States of Europe.

This week marks 85 years since a clique around President Paul von Hindenburg, who had been elected with the support of the Social Democrats and the Centre Party, appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor, initiating the greatest human catastrophe in world history.

Contrary to the official narrative, Hitler was not brought to power by a wave of public support. The Nazis were in a deep crisis. In the Reichstag (parliamentary) elections of November 1932, they lost nearly two million votes. With 33 percent of the vote, they trailed the two major workers parties, the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Communist Party (KPD), which had a combined total of more than 37 percent. But the German ruling elite needed Hitler to crush the workers movement and prepare for the next war.

Nobody should imagine that such a catastrophe cannot be repeated. The world is moving rapidly toward a Third World War. This weeks edition of the British Economist magazine is headlined The Next War. Its lead editorial declares,Conflict on a scale and intensity not seen since the Second World War is once again plausible.

German ruling circles are preparing more and more openly for war and dictatorship. For the first time, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far-right party, is sitting in the Bundestag (parliament) and will be entrusted with the chairmanship of the Budget Committee. A Humboldt University professor, Jorg Baberowski, announces, Hitler was not vicious, and is defended by the university administration and the media against criticism from students. In its latest editorial, the weekly Der Spiegel, which published Baberowskis apologia for Hitler, boasts that windowpanes in Manchester and Rome, in Warsaw and Lyon are shaking as Germany, the 800 pound gorilla, rearms.

As in the first half of the twentieth century, the working class faces the alternative of socialism or barbarism. To prevent the ruling class from imposing its programme of social counterrevolution and plunging the world into a catastrophic war, the working class must seize the initiative and unite internationally to overthrow capitalism.

The strikes in the metal and electrical industries must be expanded. This requires a break with the IG Metall union, which is doing everything it can to stifle the strike. The union works closely with the employers associations, and most of its officials are members of the SPD and supporters of a new edition of the grand coalition.

In order to expand the strike, rank-and-file workers committees must be set up to take control of the dispute and establish contact with workers across Europe and around the world. This is inseparably bound up with the fight for fresh elections to prevent the installation of a new grand coalition and advance a socialist alternative.US President Donald Trumps first State of the Union address, delivered Tuesday night, was a festival of reaction and political filth. The speech dragged on for more than 80 minutes, interrupted by ovations from the assembled members of the Senate and House of Representatives. It was filled with paeans to the police and military (which won the particular support of Democrats), fascistic attacks on immigrants, and invocations of religion, patriotism and the American flag, culminating in howls of USA! USA! during the closing section of the address.

The annual State of the Union speech has long since decayed into a hollow ritual, whose essential emptiness is an expression of the crisis and decay of American democracy, weighed down by militarism and rampant economic inequality.

With Donald Trump, the real state of the union is revealed, not by the endless torrent of lies fashioned by his speechwriters, or the people they exploited as human props, but in the persona of the president himself: the first billionaire to occupy the White House, preening over the signal accomplishment of his first year in officetrillions of dollars in tax breaks for corporations and the super-rich.

In a speech that quickly received positive responses in the media, Trump cited the record-breaking rise in the stock market and the decision of major corporations to repatriate funds to the United Statessince they can now do so virtually tax-freeas though these would benefit American workers.

However, Trumps efforts to paint a portrait of a country on the rise, with living conditions improving, will not have fooled anyone. Only a few minutes after claiming that Americans have never had it so good, he noted that 64,000 people died of drug overdoses in America last year, a record number. This was one of his few concessions to social reality, which Trump used to demand increased police powers.

Trumps arrogant demeanor reflected something of the political conjuncture. The Democrats pretended to oppose the tax cut, but did nothing to stop it, because their most important social base, Wall Street, supported it enthusiastically. The Democrats pretended to fight for immigrant youth covered by the DACA program, but abandoned the effort after a two-day shutdown of the federal government. Trump has taken the measure of this toothless opposition and feels strengthened accordingly.

His State of the Union speech made no concessions whatsoever on immigration, with Trump elaborating on the plan released last week by the White House, which ties an onerous 12-year process of legalization for DACA-age immigrants to a raft of reactionary measures, including his wall along the US-Mexico border, a massive build-up of the Border Patrol and immigration police, and drastic cuts in legal immigration, limiting family reunification measures to spouses and minor children.

Trump appealed to anti-immigrant prejudice with a grotesquely false depiction of immigrants as a threat to the jobs and even the lives of American workers, using the Salvadoran M-13 ganga product of the Los Angeles slums and the US prison system, not El Salvadoras the replacement for ISIS in US government scaremongering.

Leading Democrats joined in the applause, especially when Trump praised the military, the police, the Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other repressive forces. This included a bipartisan standing ovation for Secretary of Defense James Mad Dog Mattis, who is preparing to execute Trumps orders for nuclear war with North Korea.

Only the intelligence agencies were left off the list, an omission that was the sole indication in Trumps speech of the struggle raging within the American state between the White House and sections of the military-intelligence apparatus, which has taken the form of the Russia investigation.

The Russia probe is the only issue on which the congressional Democrats have fought intransigently, voicing the demands of the CIA and Pentagon that there should be no change in the anti-Russian foreign policy stance adopted by the Obama administration during its second term.

Last week, the leading congressional Democrat, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, called for incorporating into the new budget resolution, which must be passed by February 8 to prevent another federal shutdown, a provision to block Trump from firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who heads the Russia investigation. This came only days after Schumer dropped demands that the budget resolution include protection for DACA recipients.

There is little point in attempting to provide a point-by-point rebuttal of the barefaced lies in Trumps speech. He was describing America as it is seen by the billionaires, for whom, as he said, this seems the best of times, with stock prices and profits soaring, income and corporate taxes slashed, government regulations on business either not enforced or scrapped outright.

On foreign policy, Trump said relatively little, but all of it was reactionary. He called for Congress to fully fund our great military, hailed US military operations in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, while announcing he had signed an executive order to keep open the US torture prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to house new prisoners seized in the war on terror. He insisted that alleged terrorists should be treated as enemy combatants, and made clear that the US would maintain and expand its network of detention and torture centers.

He threatened Cuba, Venezuela and Iran, as well as the more than 100 countries that voted in the UN General Assembly to condemn the US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. He cited North Korea as a nuclear threat to the United States and promised a further build-up of the US nuclear arsenal.

The truly foul character of the speech, the media coverage and the ceremony as a whole only testifies to the exclusion of any genuine opposition to the political and social agenda of corporate America. Official American politics consists of various gradations of right-wing politics, from the pro-corporate, pro-CIA agenda of the Democratic Party to the fascistic ravings of sections of the Republican Party who view even Trump as too soft on immigrants.

The official Democratic Party response, delivered by Massachusetts Representative Joseph Kennedy III, a grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, combined demagogic posturing, mostly along the lines of identity politics, but with some criticism of Wall Street profiteering thrown in, and scaremongering against Russia, which he described as knee-deep in our democracy.

Even at his most demagogic, however, Kennedy could make no reference to the working class or to any movement from below against the growth of economic inequality. That is because the Democratic Party is just as much an instrument of the corporate and financial aristocracy as the Republican Party. Whatever differences they have on secondary issues and matters of tactics are subordinated to a common defense of the profit system and the interests of Wall Street and American imperialism.

The State of the Union showed an extremely degraded and reactionary president and an impotent and bankrupt opposition. The real opposition, to both Trump and the Democratic Party, must come from below, from an independent movement of the working class in opposition to the capitalist profit system.Country

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Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of ZimbabweWhile Donald Trump reviewed his first year in office during his first State of the Union address on Tuesday, viewers, including celebrities, hilariously reviewed his politics on social media.

During the presidents nearly 80 minute speech, Hollywood stars tweeted their reactions with many calling out Trump for his policies on tax cuts and immigration, in addition to amplifying his own clapping with the microphone.

Tonight, I call upon on all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people. This is really the key. These are the people we were elected to serve, Trump told Congress.

I am asking both parties to come together to give us the safe, fast, reliable, and modern infrastructure our economy needs and our people deserve, he later added.

Actors and musicians, as well as politicians, pointed out what Trump and his speech were lacking on Twitter.

I tried. I listened but the amount of BS and stunts and questions raised that will never be answered made me throw my remote and now I am listening to Tom Petty and am a better American for it. #SOTU, actress Elizabeth Banks said, adding, PS not all immigrants are in murderous gangs, one did my hair color today  I dont really need to say this, right?

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Dreamers should not be used as a bargaining chip or held hostage in exchange for anti-immigrant policies, California Senator Kamala Harris tweeted.

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How ungrateful can a man be? In his long inauguration address Trump did not spend one minute to thank the people who helped him get elected, his dedicated Russian allies and their peerless leader, Vladimir Putin. I have just lost all respect for POTUS the Putz, comedian Carl Reiner shared.

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Meanwhile, host Andy Cohen and actress Amber Tamblyn turned footage of Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi into memes.

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In addition, some were fed up with Trumps round of applause for himself.

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And others boycotted the SOTU by encouraging their followers to skip the address.

Chrissy Teigen, Chance the Rapper and The Big Sicks Kumail Nanjiani were among those sharing their protest.

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In addition to Trumps highly anticipated speech, First Lady Melania Trump also made her first public appearance since allegations of her husbands affair with porn star Stormy Daniels.

Breaking tradition, Mrs. Trump arrived separately from the president, opting to ride with her guests invited to the first ladys box, according to CNN.

The appearance comes after the first lady abruptly canceled a planned trip to Davos, Switzerland, with President Trump last week amid allegations that he had an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels. The change of plans stirred further speculation about a possible rift between the first couple, especially after it was reported that the first lady traveled to West Palm Beach, Florida, on Friday instead of Davos.After months of silence, Harvey Weinstein has released a statement through his attorney, Ben Brafman, denying the accusations of sexual assault made against him by actress and activist Rose McGowan.

As a general matter, Harvey Weinstein and his attorneys have refrained from publicly criticizing any of the women who have made allegations of sexual assault against Mr. Weinstein despite a wealth of evidence that would demonstrate the patent falsity of these claims, the statement reads.

Watching the performance by Rose McGowan as she looks to promote her new book however, has made it impossible to remain quiet as she tries to smear Mr. Weinstein with a bold lie that is denied not only by Mr. Weinstein himself, but by at least two witnesses, including Ms. McGowans own Manager at the time who Ms. McGowan claims to have confided in the day after the alleged assault and an A-list actor Ben Affleck who Ms. McGowan claims to have also told about her encounter with Mr. Weinstein shortly after the incident she now describes as rape, but which in 1997 she described to her Manager as a consensual act of sex.

Also Read: Kate Winslet Has 'Bitter Regrets' About Working With 'Men of Power' (Video)

Weinsteins statement also includes quotes attributed to Ben Affleck, and to McGowans then-manager Jill Messick, that support his version of events. The statement does not disclose the circumstances under which Weinstein obtained these quotes, or when they were made, but a representative for Weinstein told TheWrap the quotes date from 2017.

Representatives for Affleck and Messick did not immediately respond to a request from TheWrap to confirm the veracity, origin, and timing of the quotes attributed to them.

McGowan said she was sexually assaulted by the disgraced mogul in his hotel room in Park City, Utah, during 1997s Sundance Film Festival. Earlier Tuesday, she appeared on Good Morning America to promote her new book Brave, during which time she described how she says she felt during the encounter.

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You float up above your body because youre trying to figure out  my brain was actually literally when he grabbed me I was thinking, Oh, I hope I still have lipstick on for the camera, so your brain is in another place and all of a sudden your body is like what, what, what and this is not what I expected at 10 in the morning, the actress told Robin Roberts.

Also Read: Rose McGowan Says She Floated Above Her Body During 1997 Harvey Weinstein Assault

Although she describes the incident in detail in the book, she never mentions Weinsteins name, which she said on GMA is because its an ugly name.

In October, McGowan wrote that Weinstein raped her on Twitter after she was named in an explosive New York Times story along with other women who alleged the movie mogul committed sexual assault. The New York Times later reported that Weinstein paid Gowan a $100,000 settlement to keep quiet about the 1997 allegations. Weinstein has denied all allegations of criminal wrongdoing.

Related stories from TheWrap:

Rose McGowan on Her Media Coverage: 'It's Been a Lie, It's Been Cruel'

How Rose McGowan Came to Endorse the #TIMESUP Movement, Even Though She Doesn't Support It

Rose McGowan Docu-Series Trailer: 'I Have Been Slut-Shamed Just Like You' (Video)

Robert Rodriguez Denies 'Mind Games' With Rose McGowan  Here's His Full StatementRoyals unite!

After an active morning on the ice, Prince William and Kate Middleton changed out of their pom-pom hats and snow boots for a glamorous luncheon with the Swedish royal family at the Royal Palace of Stockholm on day one of their four-day tour of Sweden and Norway.

Hosted by King Carl KVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia, the lunch was also attended by Crown Princess Victoria and her husband Prince Daniel.

All three couples gathered together for the ultimate royal photo op in one of the stunning palace drawing rooms.

Kate showed off her growing baby bump in a forest green Catherine Walker dress with black sheer stockings and pumps. And her signature blowout was as perfect as ever, proving that all the products and tools her private hairdresser, Amanda Cook Tucker, packed for the tour went to good use!

Victoria and Daniel have a lot in common with the British royals. In addition to being the future King and Queen, they are also parents to two young children: 5-year-old Princess Estelle and 1-year-old Prince Oscar.

Kate Middleton and Prince William

Following the luncheon, Will and Kate, accompanied by Victoria and Daniel, will walk through the picturesque cobbled streets of Stockholm from the royal palace to the Nobel Museum. From the Nobel Museum, they will travel to Ark Des, Swedens national center for architecture and design.

Later in the evening, they will attend a black tie dinner at the residence of the British ambassador, attended by members of the Swedish royal family, and representatives from government, and popular culture, including Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, and actors Stellan Skarsgard and Alicia Vikander.Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is skipping President Trumps first State of the Union address on Tuesday, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee felt the need to explain why in the form of a tasteless Twitter joke.

On Sunday, the Republican tweeted a photo of the infamous moment when Ginsburg nodded off during former President Barack Obamas State of the Union speech in 2015.

Its not fair that ppl are criticizing Justice Ginsberg for skipping SOTU! Security concerns wouldnt allow her to bring CPAP machine into House Chamber, Huckabee joked, referring to a device called a continuous positive airway pressure machine, which assists people with conditions like sleep apnea.

The 84-year-old Supreme Court justice has actually attributed her SOTU snooze to the fact that she wasnt 100 percent sober. I vowed this year just sparkling water  stay away from the wine  but the dinner was so delicious it needed wine, Ginsburg explained in 2015, speaking about a dinner party some justices attended ahead of the speech.

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Huckabees latest attempt at humor earned him an earful of criticism on Twitter, including from former White House ethics chief Walter Shaub  who asked simply: What is the matter with you?  and former Fox News host Greta Van Susteren  who called on Huckabee to apologize.

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And Bess Kalb, an Emmy-nominated writer for Jimmy Kimmel Live!, once again gave Huckabee notes on how his joke-writing is falling short.

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For the record, Ginsburg is skipping Trumps SOTU address on Tuesday evening to give a talk of her own in Rhode Island, as part of her nationwide tour during the Supreme Courts monthlong break, the Associated Press reported. Ginsberg has clashed with Trump in the past, however. After she slammed Trump as an egotistical faker last year, he retaliated with a tweet calling for Ginsburgs resignation and saying her mind is shot.

It is relatively common for Supreme Court justices to skip the State of the Union, according to TIME. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito did not attend President Barack Obamas 2015 address, nor did Justice Antonin Scalia, though he stopped attending the speeches altogether in 1997, calling the event a childish spectacle.Danielle Highley of Montana. (Photo: Courtesy of the Highley family)

With President Trumps State of the Union address aimed at trade and immigration, its likely that much of Tuesday nights media coverage will center on the two dozen so-called Dreamers in the audience.

But for parents of children who rely on the Childrens Health Insurance Program (CHIP), all eyes will be on Danielle Dani Highley. The 9-year-old from Montana was invited to attend the event by Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., who recently fought to keep the program afloat.

Ahead of the State of the Union address, here is what you need to know about Dani and CHIP itself.

Why is Daines bringing someone?

Historically each lawmaker is allowed to bring one guest to State of the Union address (the president is allowed 24 guests). Senators often choose someone symbolic of a cause or piece of legislation for which they have fought.

Why did he choose Highley?

Highley is one of 9 million children nationwide who rely on CHIP for health insurance. In her state alone, there are 24,000 kids who use the insurance. Daines is one of many senators who demanded the reauthorization of the program. Highley represents the reason why he did it.

Photo: Courtesy of the Highley family

What is CHIP?

The Childrens Health Insurance Program is a joint state-federal program that provides free or low-cost insurance to families who do not qualify for Medicaid. It was created in the mid-1990s by Sens. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. In 2009, President Barack Obama expanded the program by $35 billion, covering an additional 4 million children through 2015.

Why is everyone talking about it now?

CHIPs funding expired in October, causing states to run out of funding and parents who rely on it to panic about how theyll cover their childrens medical expenses without it. Last week, Republicans revived it  tacking a six-year CHIP extension onto their short-term spending program. The move was an overtly political one, aimed at encouraging Democrats not to shut down the government over something else they wanted the bill to include: protection against the deportation of Dreamers.

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Where does CHIP stand now?

After a three-day government shutdown, lawmakers agreed to pass the short-term spending bill on Jan. 22. The move both reopened the government and reauthorized CHIP for six more years.

What does CHIP actually do?

CHIP covers the health insurance of children, up to age 19, from low-income families who dont qualify for Medicaid. The program works by allotting a certain amount of federal funds to each state, based on enrollment, and allowing the states to structure their own plans. Of those covered, 90 percent are families earning at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty line (thats roughly $40,480 for a family of three).

How does Highley fit into this?

Daines told Highleys story on the Senate floor on Jan. 18, urging his colleagues to support CHIPs reauthorization. Highley was born with a rare form of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, which left her unable to walk at 18 months old. The autoimmune disease is fueled by inflammation, which causes stiffness in the joints, swelling, pain, and vision problems. The medicine to treat it is a bimonthly injection that costs upward of $6,000. Through CHIP, Highley was able to get access to the treatment and resume walking. Without it, she has to be carried around the house by her mom and is in too much pain to go to school.

How does Highley feel about attending the event?

In an interview with local TV news show Montana Right Now, Danielles mom says Daines called her personally to invite her daughter, and that both of them were thrilled. In a video of the two, a smiling Danielle expresses her excitement, saying shes planning to wear a blue dress with white stars all over it.

And what does Daines think?

In a statement sent to Yahoo Lifestyle, Daines expressed his commitment to the cause. It is great to be here with Dani for her first trip to Washington, D.C. Dani and the 24,000 Montana kids who depend on CHIP can now rest assured theyll continue to have access to critical health care, said Daines. These kids are worth fighting for.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

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Amy Duggar Offers Support to the 13 House of Horrors Children, Wishes She Could Adopt Them Amy Duggar Tweets About Wanting to Adopt House of Horrors Children

Amy Duggar King is willing to open her home for the 13 Turpin children who were allegedly held captive in their parents Perris, California, home  which has been dubbed the House of Horrors.

The cousin of the famed large reality show family the Duggars tweeted supportive sentiments toward the Turpins on Monday, writing, I just texted [my husband] Dillon and told him I wanted to adopt all 13 Turpin children.

The Turpin children range in ages from 2 to 29. Duggar is 31.

I would love to show them true love and have a beautiful life and provide a secure and stable home for them. #ifonly#houseofhorrors God can restore what the devil has stolen, Duggar continued.

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In a second tweet, she took aim at the parents of the children, David and Louise Turpin, who stand accused of torturing their own children.

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She tells PEOPLE that if she had the room and funds to do it, I would completely adopt them and get them counseling so they can begin to heal.

My heart was broken after hearing what all they have been through, she continues. They need a home full of love and stability. Im only 31 so it would be a huge undertaking for Dillon and I. But at least they would be safe and loved.

She adds, Dillon and I have a heart for hurting children. The Turpin children are in my prayers. It absolutely just breaks my heart.

Amy Duggar King

The crazy Duggar, as she calls herself on Instagram, knows what its like to come from a big family, as she is the niece of 19 Kids and Counting stars Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, and is a cousin to all 19 Duggar children.

The Turpins have pleaded not guilty to dozens of charges against them including torture, child abuse and false imprisonment.

Earlier this month, the couples 17-year-old daughter escaped the home and called 911, telling police she and her siblings had been bound with chains and padlocks.

A California hospital official told PEOPLE it will be a long road to recovery for the 13 siblings.

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They have undergone a horrible period in their life, said Mark Uffer, chief executive officer of Corona Regional Medical Center, where the seven adult Turpin children are now being treated.

The six minors taken from the home are being treated at a separate facility, Uffer said.

As I have talked to the nurses  some are the same ages as some of these people  I think every one of us has a sense of how fortunate we are in our lives that we never have had to endure what they have had to endure, Uffer explained. It is a very sobering experience to see.

Uffer told PEOPLE the adult children  five girls and two boys between the ages of 18 and 29  are actually pretty stable considering what they have been through. We are keeping them all together; we have tried to recreate a positive family environment for them so they are with their siblings, and they appear to be doing well in that environment, he said.

Duggar, who married Dillon King in September 2015, revealed her own childhood abuse while on Marriage Boot Camp in 2017, claiming her father once tried to run her over with a car.

She also described an instance in which her father picked her up by the throat.

My dad was like, Amy, did you brush your teeth? And I was like, Yeah daddy. And he was like, No you didnt. And he picked me up by my throat, all the way up to the ceiling. He was like, You will brush your teeth,  says King, who reveals that the man behind the attack was her father. And I was scared sless.During Kate Middleton and Prince Williams official tour of Sweden, another pair of royals has been constantly by their side: Crown Princess Victoria and her husband, Prince Daniel.

The two Swedish royals are acting as both tour guides and hosts, showing their British counterparts around the Stockholm streets, ushering them to and from appointments, dining by their side at a black tie gala, and hosting a private tea. Everywhere Kate and Will go, Victoria and Daniel go as well.

Theyve even adapted each others behaviors: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge dont traditionally pose for formal pictures at engagements, preferring candids instead. However, following the lead of their Swedish hosts, they've stopped for staged shots throughout their visit. They are a royal, stylish-coat-clad quartet.

Its not unusual for royalty to meet, greet, and show one another around. Take Queen Letizia and Prince Philips recent trip to the United Kingdom, where they spent time with Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip, Prince Charles, Camilla Parker-Bowles, Prince Harry, Prince William, and Kate Middleton. Theres no doubt, however, that these two couples are spending an extraordinary amount of time togetherseveral appearances worththat was even acknowledged in a Kensington Palace press release: The Duke and Duchess also look forward to spending time with Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel of Sweden . . . who will join Their Royal Highnesses on a number of their engagements throughout the visit. And, surely, not every important diplomatic visitor gets to meet the Crown Princesss young children.

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Its fitting: Both Victoria and William are heirs to their respective thrones. Both have young children, and both have spoken out on mental health issuesVictoria, especially, who recently opened up about her eating disorder. And, since William isnt Britains head of state yet, it makes more sense for someone who shares his title to be his de facto tour guide. The British royals too, will spend time (though, if the itinerary is any indication, not as much) with younger Finnish royals on their next tour stop.

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Yet theres also a symbolic meaning behind the union of William, Kate, Victoria, and Daniel: one of changing of the palace guard. Over the years, both heirs have slowly attained more responsibility and influence. Will and Kate are said to be the faces of the U.K.s Brexit charm offensive. Crown Princess Victoria is a symbol bigger than herself: Under old rules, her younger brother would have ascended to the throne, but Sweden was the first country to change its succession rights, in 1980, so a first-born female could assume the crown.

They dominate the news cycle, break royal rules, and, by and large, are representing their nations over their aging parents (and grandparents). At home and abroad, this power pairing is a symbol of the future, and the new, modern monarchies to come.Yahoo Life Videos

By Erin Donnelly On Monday, Sept. 13, after 16 months of pandemic-forced cancellations and postponements, the famed Met Gala will at last return, with throngs of A-listers descending upon New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art in their most inventive fashions. Though this year's long-awaited event  often referred to as fashion prom  is being billed as more intimate in scale this go-around, rumors are already running rampant about who might be on the star-studded guest list, notoriously vetted by Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. As the 2021 co-chairs, Timothee Chalamet, Billie Eilish, Amanda Gorman and Naomi Osaka alone are guaranteed to be gracing the most thrilling red carpet in the world, with this year's theme devoted to American fashion. But it's the legacy of a Brit that carries special significance, as this year marks the 25th anniversary of Princess Diana's visit to fashion's big night out. (In a stroke of symmetry, 2021 also marked what would have been the late royal's 60th birthday, on July 1, and 40 years since her July 29, 1981, wedding to Prince Charles.) Princess Diana's appearance on Dec. 9, 1996, remains noteworthy on several counts: her daring, lingerie-inspired dress, designed by a visionary young John Galliano in his first season at Dior; the rarity of a British royal attending the gala (although Wintour herself is a dame); and the moment's encapsulation of her transition, as Eloise Moran of Lady Di Revenge Looks puts it, "from royal to international celebrity." Moran, whose popular Instagram account chronicles Diana's "sassiest post-divorce looks" and will release The Lady Di Look Book: What Diana Was Trying to Tell Us Through Her Clothes in June 2022, says the then-35-year-old royal's attendance came as she was finding new footing among New York City's fashion crowd in the months since her scandalous split from Prince Charles. The former couple finalized their divorce on Aug. 28, 1996  a year and three days before Diana would die from injuries sustained in a Paris car crash, and just three months before the Met Gala. Was Diana's dress a "revenge" look? "One hundred percent," says Moran. For its theme that year, the gala  which started in 1948 as a more staid fundraising dinner for the Met's Costume Institute, until the legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland came on as a consultant in the early 1970s and transformed it into the splashy, starry spectacle it is now  had chosen the work of Christian Dior. Though the eponymous French designer died in 1957, his fashion house remains one of the leading luxury labels. In 1996, all eyes were on the young British-Gibraltarian man who had just taken over as head designer, John Galliano. In his first couture collection for Dior, Galliano included a slinky midnight-blue silk slip dress reminiscent of a negligee, black lace trim emphasizing the boudoir-chic effect. It's this dress that Diana chose to wear. The princess reportedly had her reservations about the provocative look, however. According to the royal biographer Katie Nicholl, author of 2010's William and Harry, Diana worried that the dress might embarrass her then-14-year-old son William, who was struggling with his parents' split. Ultimately, the urge to make a bold sartorial statement as a newly single woman won out. Diana paired the Dior dress with a matching navy silk robe-style cover up  perfect for fending off the December chill  but didn't shy from adding some ice in the form of her sapphire and diamond cluster drop earrings. The jewels perfectly complemented her sapphire engagement ring  which, along with the earrings, has since been passed down to her daughter-in-law Kate Middleton  and the pearl and sapphire choker necklace made famous for its appearance during her 1985 dance with John Travolta. Diana also carried her go-to quilted Dior handbag, a style now known as the Lady Dior in her honor. Dressed to the nines, the princess arrived in the company of her friend Liz Tilberis, then the editor of Harper's Bazaar and a co-chair for that year's gala. (In a rare absence since becoming chairwoman of the Costume Institute  now part of the Anna Wintour Costume Center  in 1995, Wintour did not co-chair the 1996 event, though another princess, Marie-Chantal of Greece, stepped in.) Tilberis, wearing a velvet turtleneck dress with matching opera-length gloves in the same shade of midnight blue as her royal pal, was at the time undergoing treatment for ovarian cancer, and would die from the disease in 1999. Galliano himself also stayed close to Diana's side throughout the evening, reportedly introducing the princess to fashion's own version of royalty. By all accounts the mother of two was the "belle of the ball," though Moran notes that her dress  now considered an iconic look that's been displayed at London's Victoria and Albert Museum  fell flat with some more conservative royal-watchers. "That was one of her most shocking dresses, and it got slated because they said it didn't suit her figure because she obviously had quite broad shoulders," Moran says. "But I thought she looked fabulous. She just looks so happy and confident." The dress's shock value may have been the appeal, Moran adds, noting that Diana was well aware of the reaction her outfits received. What better place to push the envelope than at the Met Gala? "I think she was embracing it and enjoying it," Moran says. "She knew she could never get rid of the attention and the spotlight on her, but I think she was positioning it in a different way, as a kind of international megastar, Marilyn Monroe-type icon rather than a member of the royal family. And I think the dress really reflected that." Read more from Yahoo Life: Dwyane Wade wears Princess Diana's famous 'I'm a Luxury' sweater Prince Harry says Meghan Markle was the reason he started therapy: 'She could tell that I was hurting' 10 years after Alexander McQueens death by suicide, a look at mental health in the fashion world Want lifestyle and wellness news delivered to your inbox? Sign up here for Yahoo Lifes newsletter.Photo credit: Hearst Communications, Inc. All rights reserved

From ELLE

Kate Middleton's private hairdresser, Amanda Cook Tucker, has revealed that she too struggles to pack for a trip away with the Duchess.



Ahead of Kate and Prince William's royal tour in Sweden this week, Middleton's hairdresser posted a picture to her private Instagram of what exactly she packs for a four-day trip with the royals.

"Think that's everything! #worktrip #packing," she captioned the post showcasing various products and tools spread out on a wooden table.

The post went viral on social media among royals style blogs, resulting in Tucker deleting her account.

So, what was in her packing essentials?

13 brushes

Six combs

Three hair irons

Two hairdryers

Seven hair products

People reports the majority of the hair products cost less than $12 and include Elnett's Supreme Hold Hairspray, Charles Worthington's Texturising Spray (similar here) and an Essential Maximum Hold Unperfumed Hairspray.

Prince William and Kate Middleton are currently spending four days visiting both Sweden and Norway this week, basing themselves in Stockholm and Oslo.

You Might Also LikeLast summer, amid a sea of buzz cuts and platinum dye jobs, Kate Middleton turned heads in slightly more cursive guise, exchanging her long brunette mane for an extended bob that brushed just past her shoulders. Now, it seems that the shift may have done more than simply elevate Duchess of Cambridge's royal beauty game. Middleton's glossy lengths were reportedly donated to the Little Princess Trust, a charity which makes wigs for children who have lost their own hair through illness including cancer.

The move is a benchmark one for the big chopHarry Styles's iconic mane is said to have been donated to a similar organizationa means of morphing a makeover into a force for good, and multiplying the number of new beginnings that accompany an aesthetic shift. Though Middleton is said to have gifted her mane anonymously, Little Princess was quick to acknowledge that the surprise is a welcome one. "Obviously we're all absolutely delighted that she donated her hair, and we're very grateful as well, just as we're grateful to everyone who chooses to support the charity in this way, and so many people do," said spokesperson Helen Creese. "It's such a selfless act anyway to donate your hair to help a sick child or young adult." Whether the impetus came mid-cut or crept into Kate's subconscious as she readied for the change, the lesson is clear: Even the most selfless acts tend to begin with a commitment to self-care.

See this weeks best beauty looks:

The 10 Best Beauty Looks: Week of January 22, 2018

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Photo: Getty ImagesPrince George and Princess Charlotte are essentially Kate Middleton and Prince William's adorable walking, talking mini-me's, but they aren't the only doppelgangers they have. In fact, Middleton has a particularly jarring lookalike in a different royal family.

Middleton bears a striking resemblance to Swedish royal Crown Princess Victoria, and it only became clearer when the two came face to face on Tuesday. The Swedish royal family greeted Middleton and Prince William on day one of their four-day tour of Sweden and Norway, and it was noticeable how much Middleton and Princess Victoria look alike.

For the important occasion, Middleton dressed her baby bump in a simple high-necked dark green Catherine Walker dress with black tights. Princess Victoria wore a beige dress with colorful floral prints and a sheer bow around her neck. During their visit, both royal families visited the palace and the Nobel Museum. In the evening, they will dine at a black-tie dinner, according to People.

RELATED: The Royal Family Has a Group Text Just for Themso When Will Meghan Markle Join It?

And these two families have even more in common than looks and regality. Just like the British royals, Princess Victoria and her husband Prince Daniel have a young boy and girl, 5-year-old Princess Estelle and 1-year-old Prince Oscar.

Once Prince William and Middleton grow their family with the birth of their third child this spring though, that will happily change.Melania Trump wore a white Christian Dior pantsuit to the presidents State of the Union address Tuesday night, and several media outlets rushed to attach political and social significance to her sartorial choice. Its true that white is a color weve recently come to associate with political fashion statements. In 2016, then presidential candidate Hillary Clinton wore a white pantsuit to vote as a way to honor the womens suffrage movement. Women in Congress also wore all white for Donald Trumps first speech last year as a way to raise awareness of the ongoing fight to attain equal rights for all women.

Despite this, we cant definitively state that Melania is making that same statement here. In fact, for this particular State of the Union address, Democratic congress members wore all black to support the Times Up movement in protest of sexual assault. Donald Trump was accused of sexual assault by 19 women and his remark condoning sexual assault (grab them by the p*ssy) is now infamous. While some theorized that Melanias pussybow blouse that she wore to one of the 2016 presidential debates was an indictment of her husbands lewd statement, her public comments on the matter tell another story. In an interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN, she defended Trump, dismissing the sexual assault allegations as lies and excusing his lewd comments as boy talk. Given her behavior then, it stands to reason that Melanias white suit is most likely a contrast to the black dress sexual assault movement rather than some subversive feminist statement.

And even if Melania is adding symbolic meaning to her outfits to support womens rights, clothing is simply not enough. Its analogous to the safety pin movement after the election, where many affixed pins to their clothing to perform allyship without taking actionable steps to support marginalized groups. If youre not taking action, what you wear doesnt matter. And for all intents and purposes, Melania is not taking action. At this point, its her second year as First Lady of the United States and Melania has yet to do anything worth noting towards her anti-bullying cause. Shes either remained completely silent or taken an apologist stance toward issues like sexual assault. It would be shocking and completely out of step with what weve seen her do thus far if she made the sartorial choice to wear white to stand against the resistance or honor the suffragette movement. Shes also not an innocent bystander as her husband pushes his divisive agenda: Melania openly supported Trumps racist birtherism campaign against then President Barack Obama in 2011, for example. She isnt a victim that needs to be #freed  she is very much complicit. We must resist the urge to find resistance and redemption through clothing in a woman who openly supports her husbands policies. A white designer pantsuit doesnt count as standing up to Donald Trumps bigotry, especially if all her actions say otherwise.

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Melania Trumps clothing will be talked about until she moves out of the White House. Its been the subject of countless think pieces over the last two years and it is important  to a degree. What you wear can carry symbolic meaning and spread awareness. As weve seen with the Democratic congresswomens suffragette-white protest and the all-black anti-sexual assault movement, fashion can get people talking. But it must be backed with action. Melanias complete lack of action on womens issues  and her blatant dismissal of Trumps comments condoning sexual assault  makes her outfit choices moot. Her behavior speaks louder than her wardrobe. Call us back when she can pair that designer pantsuit with actions that make this country more inclusive.

Related: Women in Congress Are Wearing Black to Trumps State of the Union to Fight Sexual Misconduct

Check this out:Elementary school counselor meets with students. (Getty Images)

In the United States, an estimated one in five children  ages 3 to 17  has a mental illness. That is more than the number of kids with diabetes, cancer, and AIDS combined. This figure, which translates into 15 million kids nationwide, might be a surprising one  but it shouldnt be. The scientific community has been sounding the alarm on mental illness in youth for decades, urging doctors, parents, and educators to dedicate time and resources to the issue.

Finally, New York legislators have listened. In July, the state will make history as the first to enact legislation requiring all elementary, middle, and high schools to incorporate mental health education into their curricula. Like physical education, mental health education will cover a wide range of areas, striving to reframe mental health as integral to overall health and giving students the tools to cope with a disorder in their own lives.

If successful, the program could act as a road map for other states looking to follow suit and usher in a sea change thats long overdue.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), half of all lifelong mental illnesses appear by the time a person turns 14, and 75 percent by the age of 24. Along with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, other common mental illnesses found in kids include depression, eating disorders, anxiety disorders (e.g., obsessive-compulsive disorder), and bipolar disorder.

The main group behind the New York legislation is the Mental Health Association in New York State (MHANYS), a nonprofit working to end the stigma attached to psychiatric disorders. Two advocates from the organization penned a 19-page document covering the landscape of mental illness in children, as well as outlining the bills specifics and vision for implementation.

Unrecognized, untreated, and late treated mental illness elevates the risk of mental health crises such as suicide and self-injury, diminishes prospects for recovery, and contributes to substance abuse and other damaging negative coping behaviors, the report reads. Many adults miss or dismiss early signs and symptoms, and young people are even less likely to recognize or understand what is happening to them.  The result is often as tragic as it is unnecessary.

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Indeed, if knowledge surrounding childrens mental health is lacking, treatment is even worse. A study from NIMH found that just 36 percent of youths with a lifelong mental illness will receive treatment  and those who do often face inadequate follow-up. A breakdown of the specific disorders paints a worse picture. According to the Child Mind Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to helping children with mental health and learning disorders, 80 percent of kids with anxiety disorders do not receive any treatment, nor do 60 percent of those with depression.

The results of these untreated conditions can be catastrophic. Children and young adults with mental illnesses have lower high school graduation rates, a higher risk of addiction, and are four times less likely to be employed. Of the 2 million children and young adults arrested each year, between 65 and 70 percent have a mental health disorder.

Beyond the obstacles that young adults with mental disorders face in the outside world are the injuries  sometimes fatal  that they inflict on themselves. Each year, more than 150,000 kids between 10 and 24 are treated for self-inflicted injuries in the ER, and one in 12 teens have attempted suicide. Of those who die from suicide, 90 percent experienced mental illness.

The reality of when most mental illnesses begin is obscured from our view because most of us dont recognize the signs and symptoms when they appear, ignore them, or mistakenly confuse them with other characteristics of adolescence such as changes associated with puberty, the authors of the legislation write. This is a tragedy.

The good news: There is proof that mental health literacy  educating students about mental health  can help stymie these issues. The concept of mental health literacy was pioneered by an Australian researcher named Anthony Jorm, who has been studying the idea for over a decade. In a 2012 report in the journal American Psychologist he found that those who were taught about mental health in an educational setting were more likely to seek help from professionals when faced with their own issues.

After suggesting options for the curriculum, the MHANYS advocates report closes by echoing Jorms findings and pointing out the potential impact of the legislation, which could turn the tide of the mental health epidemic in kids.

[This law] is a profound legislative achievement of which many future generations of students will be the fortunate beneficiaries, the reports authors write. They will be fortunate because they will understand that mental illness is not something to be ashamed of, kept secret, ostracized for or feared. They will be fortunate because the truth about mental health will cultivate stigma-breaking empathy for others. They will be fortunate because they will know that there is hope for recovery and meaningful, purposeful living in spite of mental health challenges.

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There Are Two Typos on the State of the Union Ticket, So Let's All Give Up Now

We still have 24 hours before the big show, but it appears things are already off to an iffy start for President Donald Trump's State of the Union Address.

On Monday, photos of this year's SOTU tickets began to surface on social media and showed they came with not one, but two embarrassing typos. Clear as day, on the blue and black tickets it invited guests to attend the "State of the Uniom" instead of Union.

"This will be the last year I go to a scalper for tickets to the 'State of the Uniom,'" Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi joked on Twitter.

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And while certainly funny, it sort of sucks to be working in the Office of the Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper, as they are the ones who print and provide the tickets for spouses and guests of members of Congress. Now they will have to reprint and reissue every ticket they gave out to ensure the right information is provided, according to CNN.

"Just received my ticket for the State of the Union. Looks like Betsy DeVos was in charge of spell checking," Rep. Raul M. Grijalva, a Democrat from Arizona wrote in a tweet.

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Even Republicans got in on the joke, with leaders like Sen. Marco Rubio tweeting about the error.

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Though "Uniom" wasn't the only error to be printed on the ticket. As Buzzfeed astutely pointed out, the ticket also refers to the "Visitor's Gallery." However, according to the Office of Art & Archives, it should read Visitors' Gallery.

According to a Sergeant at Arms spokesperson, this is likely the first time State of the Union tickets have had to be reissued.

"Sometimes the colors and little details change and obviously the dates," he told Buzzfeed. "But I don't recall [the need to reprint due to an error] happening before."

Related Content:

What to Expect from President Trump's First State of the Union Address

Maxine Waters Will Follow Trump's First State of the Union By Giving Her Own Speech

12 Things to Watch This Week (Including, Yes, the State of the Union Address)Even before Donald Trump started talking, it was clear to me that his State of the Union address on Tuesday night was shaping up to be a hostile environment for Latino immigrants. Several Democrats invited Dreamers, undocumented individuals brought to the U.S. as children, to attend the event and represent the experiences of young people hoping for immigration reform.

But Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) tweeted just hours before the speech that hed contacted U.S. Capitol police, urging them to check IDs and arrest any illegal aliens in attendance. I could see the lines were drawn: Dreamers, who come from Latin America and other parts of the world, were not welcome here.

From there, things got worse. I cant say I was optimistic about Trumps addressafter all, he has continually derided Latino and immigrant communities, like the one I grew up in, by painting us as criminals and leading "build the wall" chants at his rallies. But I wondered, hopefully, whether his recent nonpartisan bluster could at least initiate a productive conversation about the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which he ended last year.

Instead, Trump took the podium and launched into rhetoric that referenced criminals and members of the violent Central American gang MS-13, fixated on the dangers of chain migration, and refused to fully commit to DACA recipients, who have been waiting anxiously for permission to stay in the only country they know. It wasn't just bad, which I'd prepared for; it was a flaming dumpster fire of mistruths, and a massive letdown for immigrants and Latinos listening. And while it was par for the course for Trump, it still upset me to watch such a divisive reality unfold.

As hard-working members of society, we Latinos were largely invisible last night. The only time Trump mentioned us by name was when he patted himself on the back and boasted about the Hispanic unemployment rate reaching an all-time lowsomething thats has been happening incrementally since before he was elected. He spent more time evoking images of gang violence to justify his anti-immigrant agenda, describing how "open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities."

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Tonight, I am calling on the Congress to finally close the deadly loopholes that have allowed MS-13, and other criminals, to break into our country. We have proposed new legislation that will fix our immigration laws, and support our ICE and Border Patrol Agents, so that this cannot ever happen again, he said.

By continuing to discuss MS-13 in this context, Trump conflates immigrants and undocumented individuals with criminals and gang members. As a fact-check from the Guardian shows, several studies, including this one from the 2015 National Academy of Sciences, prove that immigrants are actually far less likely to commit crimes than native-born people. Plus, his claim that his administration has put thousands and thousands and thousands of MS-13 members behind bars is unverifiableand likely an overstatement. His narrative leaves out the millions of families who contribute to the economy and only want to provide a better life for their kidsmuch like my parents, who emigrated from Nicaragua in the middle of a fierce civil war.

Trump had a chance to frame Latinos in a new light after characterizing them as rapists and criminals in the past, but he didnt.

Trump also turned the attention on chain migration, saying that his immigration plan would protect the nuclear family and stop immigrants from bringing in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives. This, as Politico points out, is just not true, because a massive backlog for family visas keeps immigrants for bringing unlimited relatives to the U.S. Plus, the hypocrisy of complaining about chain migration has already come back to bite a few Trump officials, given how inextricably tied to U.S. history immigration is. Journalist Jennifer Mendelsohn recently found that relatives of Dan Scavino, an assistant to the president, came to New York from Italy and eventually brought more of their family to America. "Do you think that would count as chain migration? Mendelsohn asked him on Twitter.

And when it came to DACA, Trump was ambiguous. This was his chance to offer a real pledge. He said he had framework that "generously offers a path to citizenship" to immigrants brought to the U.S. as kids, but didn't elaborate on what that would look like. The dreamers who showed up crossing their fingers for a solution got a mere 65 words of a 5,000-word speech.

Trump had a chance to frame Latinos in a new light after characterizing them as rapists and criminals in the past, but he didnt. He said he had plans that would help struggling immigrant communities, but all he talked about was limitations. As a Latina watching last night, I could clearly see that Trump wasnt really talking to me at allhe was addressing an audience that doesnt want to see us as a multitudinous, patriotic community of entrepreneurs, politicians, and, of course, college-bound dreamers. For me, this was an address about division and discord, not union.

Julyssa Lopez is an America freelance writer and reporter living in Berlin.I think by looking at it you know that it's black and there's an important reason tonight why I'm wearing black. And I'm comfortable in my own skin and the dress is comfortable. That's why I'm wearing it. [MUSIC] I got on board pretty fast with Time's Up. Time's up on the silence that so many folks have felt they've had to be in for far too long. I'm wearing Rasario and they're very, very happy to be a part of this whole initiative. It feels like a turning point, it feels like this is a big shift. Being on The Real is very important for me To stand up for women. Mm hm. I was very honored to wear black, everyone looks good in it, number one, it's slimming, and it means a lot to everyone to stand in solidarity and to know that you're supported. I think it's really important to stand with woman in this industry, and the male survivors This industry as well. Especially in Rap people have been outspoken in that way to come together as a collective. You know, it's sympolic really. It's not the whole thing but it's sympolic of everything that's going on. It's just a show from a visual perspective like the solidarity and that everyone is together. On this and I think that's powerful. I had a option of why in black and obviously we're all in black for solidarity against sexual assualt. I've actually had my eye on this dress for months, like I was like, when can I wear that dress? And then we kind of felt like because of the big movement, we were like we're gonna do that one but it has a little bit of Golden Globe touch to it, so we were like, okay, it's good. Was not hard for me to wear a black dress. At all It's a pretty overwhelming and thrilling ceremony and to hear the extraordinary solidarity for gender equality both in Hollywood which has this really ospicious opportunity to lead and across all industries in our country it's been a very special night. I feel quite gitty

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When President Trump took the stage for Tuesday nights State of the Union address, he looked out on a sea of black. Men and women in Congress stuck to the dark dress code to stand in solidarity with survivors of sexual harassment, joining parts with Hollywoods Times Up movement, and the results were impressive.

Earlier this month California Democrat and U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier put out the call to action, asking representatives from both sides of the aisle to join together in black. This is a culture change that is sweeping the country, and Congress is embracing it, Speier told HuffPost.

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In 2017, the politician shared her own story of sexual harassment, saying that a staffer on Capitol Hill held my face, kissed me, and stuck his tongue in my mouth.

Its important to note that President Trump has been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women. He has denied all reports.

RELATED: Why the Grammys Attempt at #MeToo Fell Flat

On Tuesday night, members of the Senate and the House of Representatives showed their support for ending sexual harassment, dressing in black for the occasion. But there were a few noticeably absent from the audience.

Several Democratic lawmakers, plus Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, announced ahead of time that they would be boycotting Trumps first State of the Union after several comments made by the president, including his alleged remark about shithole nations.Last night President Trump delivered his first State of the Union address to the American people. In it, he leaned heavily on his "America First" policy and rhetoric, called on Congress to propose a sweeping infrastructure bill, and endorsed paid family leave. He also spent a lot of time applauding his first year successes. CNN clocked the speech at 80 percent looking back and patting himself on the back for a job well donein addition to nodding to the special guests he'd invited to the eventand 20 percent laying out his plans for the future.

The speech itself was not without some surrounding controversy. Democratic Congresswomen from across the nation attended the State of the Union dressed in black to stand in solidarity with the Time's Up and #metoo movements. The event was also Melania Trump's first public appearance since the reports broke alleging President Trump had conducted an affair. (The First Lady's all-white outfit sparked discussion around what kind of message she was trying to sendespecially considering that congresswomen dressed in black.) And despite the increased attention on women's issues like pay equality or sexual harassment over the past few months, the President remained mostly mum on women's issues broadly.

More than anything, it was clear that President Trump was addressing a nationand a Congressthat remains deeply divided, politically. Democrats made their opinions known in the official response, delivered by Representative Joe Kennedy, III, but what about conservative women? We spoke with a group of young women who comprise a portion of his base to see how they're feeling about last night, and Trump's response to the #metoo movement so far.

Vanessa Rivera, 23

Im in support of most of [Trump's] policies, not necessarily of his Twitter. But, overall, I think the State of the Union was very well executedand the President brought up some of the most important issues our country is facing. I am very excited about the agenda for the next year. I am so happy that he explained the four pillars of the immigration plan he would like to put forth. I think a lot of people get their information off Facebook or Twitter and 99.9 percent of the time its false or biased information. The VA Accountability Act has been one of the greatest studies made to help veterans, and I wish the President had explained his plans to further veteran care. The biggest agenda itemwhich I was shocked he said, but I am so relievedis the part [about] defunding nations which are not allies to the U.S. In high school I found out about the billions of dollars we give other nations for almost nothing in return. I was outraged and adopted [the saying], We are not the worlds babysitter; and if we must be a babysitter, we'd better be compensated." I think the biggest take from the speech is how patriotic his speech was. From the very beginning of his campaign and now one year into the role, the President has been very unwavering in his mission to put America first, and this is resonating with Americans of all ages and backgrounds.

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In regards to the congresswomen wearing blackit's almost irrelevant. These women are the most powerful women in the country. Unlike the Hollywood activists, Congresswomen can actually pass legislation and make a real change. So why haven't they? Wearing a certain color may show support but no action. The words and in this case the outfits of politicians mean nothing to me. It is action that I want to see from women in power.

"Unlike the Hollywood activists, Congresswomen can actually pass legislation, and make a real change.

So why haven't they? Wearing a certain color may show support but no action." Vanessa Rivera, 23

So far, the biggest action that we have seen has been the sentencing on Larry Nassar. In my book, the only woman who has actually done something great regarding this movement and putting an end to it is Judge Rosemarie Aquilina. Congresswomen need to push legislation which ends the backlog of rape kits, sentencing that won't allow rapists like Brock Turner to get a slap on the wrist. That's a good start and certainly not the end. They have introduced the Me Too Act, which aims to streamline the process through which staffers report incidents. But what about the rest of America? Trump is a man with daughters; I feel like there should be a conversation. If not from him, from Ivanka and Melania. These women are extremely influential and could start a movement within the legislative body.

LifeExposed: Photos By Lindsey

Anna Beavon Gravely, 29

I am a supporter of many of the actions Trump has taken with regards to policy like tax reform and the VA Accountability Act, but his personality rubs me the wrong way. I was extremely impressed with the State of the Union. I don't think it could have been better. He spent the first 45 minutes or so talking about all the things that have happened this year and what he has done. When he went into the "agenda setting" time, the reforms he called on Congress to support were refreshing, for the most part. I really liked the trade schools and prison reform. There were two lines that stood out to me from last night. One: "This is our new American moment"; and two: "Americans are dreamers too." Both of those were powerful.

The Times's Up and #MeToo movements have done so much to increase awareness of sexual assault and sexual harassment. For that, I am grateful, but ultimately, I am saddened that it took a movement of celebrities and now congresswomen wearing black for a signal to be sent to all humanity that women should be treated with dignity and respect. I think the congresswomen wearing black last night was a media stunt. It lacked authenticity due to its delay and the fact that the only congresswomen wearing black were Democrats.

I'd like to see the Time's Up and #MeToo movements reduce their partisan rhetoric, because treating women with dignity and respect is not a partisan issue. It impacts all of us. Anna Beavon Gravely

President Trump's response to these movement has left much to be desired. However, I don't know what kind of a response we, women, and the American people would find acceptable. In order for this movement to truly change culture, conversations need to be sustained, and all men should not be vilified. I'd like to see the Time's Up and #MeToo movements reduce their partisan rhetoric, because treating women with dignity and respect is not a partisan issue. It impacts all of us.

Bailey Chapman, 19

I currently support President Trump. Nothing that the President said [last night] bothered me, nor did I feel like the President skipped over any relevant issue. I am impressed with some of the items on the Presidents agenda. Others items, I think we all knew were going to be apart of his agenda, such as immigration, fixing the opioid crisis, ending the war on clean coal, and infrastructure. I am excited to see what his plans are for allowing inmates to have a second chance at life after serving their time. One item Im particularly excited about is giving terminal patients the ability to go and try experimental drugs here in the U.S. This can help researchers further advance and collect data about an illness, while also encouraging researchers to come up with different drug trials. Alongside that, his promise to help reduce the price of prescription drugs is a bipartisan issue all members of Congress can get behind.

The Times Up and #MeToo movement is a powerful one. Having been sexually assaulted twice, I feel this odd sense of pride when I see people take part in this movement. Im proud that they said something, because that feeling of standing up and sharing your story is uniquely empowering. It is also sickening and pathetic how many of us have had to deal with this. The Times Up movement is equally powerful. I was in an abusive relationship. You feel so helpless, especially when there isnt much you can do legally. The Times Up movement, for me, describes how I feel about all the people who have gotten away with abuse and assault. Your time is up. However, it is just a start. I am angered and heartbroken that the people who have the power to create legislation to protect and help the people this movement represents just sat there. These are the people we have elected to represent us. Ive heard too much we need to and we should. Show us the policy. Show us the legislation. Time is up and its time we actually do something.

Karin Agness Lips

This was a speech of optimism and less division than what we have seen in some other speeches from President Trump. The paragraph with this line: If theres an opportunity, we seize it, was especially powerful and resonated with me. The President mentioned tax reform. Getting extra money in a paycheck makes a big difference in how people view the President.

Instead of just bringing attention to an issue by dressing alike, it would be great if the Democratic congresswomen took action in their own partyfor example, with the Clintons. They could pledge not to have the Clintons campaign for them in 2018. The Womens March effort has left out the state of the economy and the impact of regulations from their agenda. It was nice to hear the President talk about the state of the economy. A good robust [economy] helps everyone, including women. An issue that all women should rally behind and join together on is the fight for policies the make it easier for all Americans, including women, to start businesses or be hired by businesses. (This really matters to recent college grads looking for their first job.) One way to do this is to cut down on costly regulations that dont help people. This is something President Trump has done and he mentioned that in his speech.The flu has claimed the lives of two more children in the U.S.  a 7-year-old boy in Virginia and 12-year-old boy in Las Vegas.

Kevin Baynes Jr., 7, of Virginia, died Sunday, just a day after he tested positive for the flu and strep throat. Baynes was reportedly sent home from school on Friday after throwing up and falling asleep in class.

At the emergency room on Saturday morning, he was diagnosed with the virus, reports said.

"He says, 'Mommy, mommy, I don't feel good,'" Samantha Baynes, his mother, told CBS6. "So I cuddled him."

He was unable to eat or sleep that day. On Sunday morning, his sister tried to wake him up, but he wasn't breathing. He was pronounced dead a short time later.

Carlo Occhipinti Jr., 12, of Las Vegas, Nev., fell ill with a sore throat on Dec. 28.

I figured, you know, it might be strep throat," his mother, Brenda Occhipinti, told WJLA. "I was like, 'Here's some Tylenol. We'll go see the doctor.'"

Two days later, the boy known to his family as "Junior" was diagnosed with the flu after it was revealed that he had a 103-degree fever. Twelve hours after the diagnosis, he was dead.

He goes, 'Mom, I feel dizzy.' He landed on me. I was screaming for my 18-year-old daughter and the only one who came to help was my 10-year-old. So, she saw everything, Occhipinti told the station. So, when he landed on me, he stopped breathing. His body was so lifeless."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 37 children have died from the flu so far, compared to just eight this time last year.

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Related Articles:Citizen Rose, actress and activist Rose McGowans new E! docuseries, starts simply but powerfully with an intimate close-up. My name is Rosa Ariana McGowan  Rose McGowan, she says in voiceover, her face looking ethereal but pained. Do I make you uncomfortable? Good.

Its the perfect tone to kick off the first episode of the five-part limited series, which follows McGowan as she pursues her art and works to create a new social narrative in the wake of the watershed #MeToo movement  and McGowans own phoenix rising experience after coming forward as one of Harvey Weinsteins accusers.

Here are six things we learned from watching the first episode of Citizen Rose.

1. MTV cameras had followed McGowan to the hotel where she was allegedly assaulted.

In a candid conversation with her friend Greg, McGowan speaks carefully about the day she says Weinstein assaulted her during the 1997 Sundance Film Festival. (Weinstein has continued to deny there was any nonconsensual sex with any of his accusers.) I had a 10 a.m. meeting in a restaurant, she recalls. Hes not quite ready yet they want you to go up to his office up there, hes still on a call. Affecting a chipper stance, she says brightly, OK!

From there, things take a darker turn. McGowan says two male assistants left Weinsteins hotel room just as she was arriving, and wouldnt make eye contact with her.

I have an MTV camera crew following me  it was supposed to be Rose McGowan: a day in the life,' she recalls. I turn to the cameras right as I was going into the hotel, and I said, I think my life is finally getting easier.'

Greg embraces her as she cries, saying, Its been a really lonely road, and everyone treated me like dirt while I get to turn on the TV and see Gwyneth Paltrow giving him humanitarian awards.

From here, throughout the series, Weinstein is either referred to as the Monster, or his name is scrambled.

2. Her #ROSEARMY initiative is more than just a social media movement.

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Rose McGowan speaks at the Womens Convention in Detroit on Oct. 27. (Photo: Aaron Thornton/Getty Images)

McGowan has been incredibly vocal on social media for years, but her message has intensified in the wake of the New York Times and New Yorker exposes on Weinstein. At one point in the show, McGowan makes her mission clear: I cannot tell you how enraged I am. Because its not just about me, its about anybody who has been disbelieved.

Cameras follow her participating in the East L.A. Womens March last October, after which she sits with victims of domestic violence and lets them know theyre not alone. Later, McGowan shares her message at the Womens March event in Washington, D.C. Rose Army isnt about me, she tells the cheering crowd. Its about being roses in our own lives because we have thorns, and our thorns carry justice.

But the scope of her goals becomes clearer when cameras follow her to a Rose Army retreat in Colorado, and shes overcome when someone present shares with her that a woman told her how grateful she is for what theyre doing.

3. Her family life is complicated.

McGowan speaks honestly about the challenges her family faced early on, when her father swept up her mother at age 18 and whisked her away to a cult, the Children of God, in Italy. When her friend Josh asks how her mother is, McGowan says sadly, My mother  she didnt text me for days. I know this has all been really triggering for her. And shes had so much trauma. McGowan goes on to admit her relationship with her mother is strained because I scare her.

Later, when she visits her mother for Thanksgiving, the two have a revealing exchange, in which her mom stops short of trying to minimize McGowans pain. I dont ask you a lot of things because you spent a lot of years talking s*** about me, and you didnt want to talk on the phone. I cant talk to someone that hates me, is how it felt, her mother says.

McGowan replies, I probably approached it like a sledgehammer because I was mad, but I had a lot to be mad about.

McGowan is also candid about her father. He called himself god with a little g, she says, all but rolling her eyes. I was like, b****, please. During her family visit, McGowan reveals that her father died on Thanksgiving (I really dont give a f*** about sweet potatoes, she tells the camera).

And although his undiagnosed manic depression made him vicious, as she says, a picture of him on her brothers bookshelf brings her to tears. Later, while visiting her Aunt Rory in Seattle, the two visit his gravesite, where McGowan has another emotional moment.

I couldnt come visit you last time, cause I was really mad at you, she says, crouching over his grave.

Its a small but revealing glimpse into the issues that plague her history.

4. Weinsteins alleged spies reportedly got their hands on McGowans book before it was published.

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Looking equal parts exhausted and on edge, McGowan has a conversation with New Yorker reporter Ronan Farrow about the complex network Weinstein allegedly set up to help discredit his accusers. (Weinstein has denied this.) McGowan shows how raw she still feels, on hearing the news that her paranoia about being followed was in fact a reality, particularly when Farrow mentions the name Diana Filip, one of the people enlisted by Weinsteins team to insinuate herself into McGowans life and pose as her friend and benefactor.

She inserted herself into my life as a womens rights activist, she tells Farrow, adding that Filip had promised to invest $5 million to $7 million in #ROSEARMY. McGowan also talks about how she and Filip walked the Venice, Calif., boardwalk for hours, talking and eating gelato.

You know, they were trying to get their hands on your book before it was published, and they actually did, Farrow says.

McGowan, clearly upset, gets off the couch and begins to pace. Please use all your investigative powers to figure this out, because I need help, she says, later adding, I cant tell you how violating it felt. It was like being back in that room with him again, except this time it was the inside of my mind, not my body.

5. Asia Argento says she blocked out Weinsteins alleged assault.

In the shadow of the New Yorker building, McGowan and actress/director Asia Argento  who has also accused Weinstein of assault  argue about the weight of the word victim, and whether they are victims.

McGowan tells Argento, I think part of me will always be a victim, because its frozen in that time. The rest of me is very victorious.

While discussing their assault experiences, Argento tells McGowan there are pockets of time she just cant access. I blocked everything, she says. I remember only the first I remember arriving and leaving. She says she does remember seeing the Monsters former assistant. The assistant later wrote Argento an e-mail, saying she was sorry. I never replied, Argento says defiantly.

But as McGowan applauds her for her bravery and honesty, Argentos voice breaks as she recounts the lasting impressions the assault left on her. I wish I was softer, she says quietly. It made me hard. It made me it didnt soften me, it made me worse as a person.

6. McGowan and Amber Tamblyn share a special bond.

From the moment the actress and director Amber Tamblyn shows up at McGowans New York outpost for dinner, the two become the girls you most want to hang out with. They start with girlfriend catch-up talk, with McGowan asking of Tamblyns daughter, Does she have the countenance of a saint?

She does! Tamblyn exclaims. Of course! She was built in the era of Trump!

When Tamblyn tells McGowan that the daughter she was expecting started kicking on the night of the election, McGowan says admiringly, Thats pretty punk, actually.

After the two discuss Hollywood and the need for change, they share a tender moment when McGowan offers Tamblyn a gift of some earrings. Then Tamblyn has to go.

No, I want you to stay, McGowan tells her, showing true vulnerability. I want you to sleep on the couch and I can keep babbling.

Tamblyn agrees. I want to consensually spoon you! she says.

McGowan tells her honestly that people are trying to kill her  a confession Tamblyn doesnt want to hear.

As McGowan hugs her goodbye, she cries. If I die, you have to keep my work to be studied. Its our purpose, McGowan says. Everything Im doing has a purpose.

Tamblyn just hugs her tighter.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:WASHINGTON  Still sore over international opposition to his recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital, President Trump pressed Congress in his first State of the Union on Tuesday to restrict foreign aid to friends of America.

Trumps remarks, which drew loud applause in the packed House of Representatives chamber from most Republicans and stone-faced silence from most Democrats, could put the United States at odds with key allies who criticized his decision.

The president tied his call to action back to a Dec. 22 U.N. General Assembly vote in which 128 countries voted in favor of a nonbinding resolution calling on Washington to reverse its recognition of Jerusalem. He said some of those nations had collectively received $20 billion in U.S. assistance in 2016.

That is why, tonight, I am asking the Congress to pass legislation to help ensure American foreign-assistance dollars always serve American interests, and only go to friends of America, not enemies of America, he said.

The international community rejected Trumps Jerusalem decision because the citys fate is considered one of the hardest final status issues in the Middle East peace process, to be decided by both parties. Israel has claimed the city as its capital, while the Palestinians see it as the capital of their hypothetical future state to be in East Jerusalem.

Enforcing Trumps aid threat that would put the United States at odds with some of the largest recipients of U.S. economic and military assistance, including Afghanistan, Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan, all of which voted in favor of the resolution. In the case of those countries, help from Washington is designed to advance U.S. interests, notably by ensuring the stability of their governments in the face of challenges from Islamist extremists. While Pakistan, for example, has driven several presidents to frustration and even anger, Washington has long been worried enough that the countrys nuclear arsenal could fall into extremist hands and has delivered assistance to the government in Islamabad.

Story continues

In January, the Trump administration said it was suspending an unspecified amount of security assistance to Pakistan  perhaps as much as $1.3 billion, the total package  until that ally takes decisive action against extremists on its territory. Some of those groups have carried out attacks in Afghanistan, including some blamed for the deaths of U.S. soldiers.

The announcement came days after Trump denounced Pakistan on Twitter. The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more! he said.

Trump also recently said his administration would cut aid to the Palestinians in retaliation for their decision to show their anger at his Jerusalem decision by snubbing Vice President Mike Pence during his recent trip to the Middle East.

They disrespected us a week ago by not allowing our great vice president to see them  and we give them hundreds of millions of dollars in aid and support  tremendous numbers; numbers that nobody understands, Trump said last week as he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That money is on the table, and that money is not going to them unless they sit down and negotiate peace.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced it was withholding $65 million of a $125 million aid package it had planned to send to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine. While the move seemed to be a response to the United Nations vote on Jerusalem, the State Department said the aid would remain frozen until the Palestinians enacted reforms. In response, 11 countries, including close U.S. ally Germany, pledged to step up to help fill the gap.

Related:



Read more from Yahoo News:Berlin (AFP) - German leaders are increasingly alarmed about a resurgence of anti-Semitism 73 years after the Holocaust, stemming from an emboldened far right and an influx of refugees from countries hostile to Israel.

Germany is marking the 1945 liberation of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz with solemn ceremonies, but also warnings of the need for stronger vigilance.

At a ceremony in the German parliament Wednesday, Holocaust survivor Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, 92, warned hatred of Jews and Holocaust denial were staging a dangerous comeback.

"Anti-Semitism is a 2,000-year-old virus that is apparently incurable," Lasker-Wallfisch, who was imprisoned at Auschwitz and later Bergen-Belsen, told the packed chamber.

"Denying something that is part of Germany's past is simply unacceptable."

It was the first time the Bundestag lower house had held its memorial ceremony since the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won seats in last September's general election.

On the anniversary itself on Saturday, Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned revisionist forces seeking to call into question the country's commitment to atoning for its Nazi past.

Merkel said fighting anti-Semitism and racism must be a "daily task".

"It is inconceivable and shameful that no Jewish institution can exist without police protection, whether it is a school, a kindergarten or a synagogue," she said.

Merkel, who a decade ago became the first German chancellor to address the Israeli Knesset, has committed to creating a new position of commissioner on anti-Semitism under the new government she hopes to form by March.

The move was prompted in part by demonstrations in Berlin in December against the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital which saw some protesters chant anti-Semitic slogans and torch Israeli flags.

The demonstrations heightened a sense of anxiety expressed by the Germany's Jewish community, now more than 200,000 strong, over the arrival since 2015 of more than one million predominantly Muslim asylum seekers.

Story continues

- 'More violent' -

A series of incidents have unsettled German authorities and the Jewish community.

In Berlin in November, 16 Stolpersteine (stumbling blocks) -- small brass memorial plaques outside the homes of Holocaust victims -- were dug out of the ground and stolen.

While perpetrators were never identified, the violation was unnerving, coming just days before commemorations of the Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht) pogroms on November 9, 1938.

"It was the first time that so many Stolpersteine were taken in just a few days," said Silvija Kavcic, the Berlin coordinator of the initiative that has laid more than 7,000 of the plaques in the German capital.

The head of the German chapter of Human Rights Watch, Wenzel Michalski, said that anti-Semitism in the country is growing "ever more virulent and more violent".

The head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, shared his concern, saying that taboos that had held for decades after the war seemed to be crumbling.

"People dare to say much more today that they always thought but never would have expressed," he told Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

Germany's post-war identity and acceptance in the community of nations has been built on its remembrance culture, including a full reckoning with the atrocities committed under Hitler.

But as the elderly survivors die off, fears are growing that the country's collective memory will erode.

The rise of the AfD, which came in third in Germany's general election with nearly 13 percent of the vote, has compounded tensions.

Key AfD members have challenged Germany's culture of atonement over World War II and the slaughter of six million Jews in the Holocaust.

Meanwhile, rights experts say pockets of the traditionally moderate three-million-strong community of Turkish origin are radicalising, due in part due to incendiary rhetoric by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"Everything Erdogan says is sacred to them," Michalski said.

- Obligatory concentration camp visits? -

A further concern is the growing prevalence of anti-Semitic sentiment in schools, particularly among many young Muslims.

In Berlin, teachers say that "Jew" has become a common insult.

Schuster said tensions had become more aggravated in the past two years with the influx of refugees "some of whom grew up with anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic rhetoric".

However, analysts note that without proper study of actual sentiment among the newcomers, some complaints may be wrapped up in more general angst about the influx amid heated political debate.

Criminal statistics also show no rise in anti-Semitic acts committed by refugees.

Amid calls to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive, some officials have called for obligatory visits to former concentration camps for both Germans and newcomers to the country.

The director of the Sachsenhausen memorial north of Berlin, Guenter Morsch, noted that "more than a person's geographical origin, the level of education determines" susceptibility to racism and anti-Semitism.WASHINGTON (AP) -- Boastful even within the traditional confines of a State of the Union speech, President Donald Trump inflated the impact of his tax cuts Tuesday night, declared an end to a "war" on energy that did not exist when he took office and displayed a faulty grasp of immigration policy.

A look at some of the statements in his speech and how they compare with the facts:

TRUMP: "We enacted the biggest tax cuts and reform in American history."

THE FACTS: No truer now than in the countless other times he has said the same. The December tax overhaul ranks behind Ronald Reagan's in the early 1980s, post-World War II tax cuts and at least several more.

An analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget in the fall put Trump's package as the eighth biggest since 1918. As a percentage of the total economy, Reagan's 1981 cut is the biggest followed by the 1945 rollback of taxes that financed World War II.

Valued at $1.5 trillion over 10 years, the plan is indeed large and expensive. But it's much smaller than originally intended. Back in the spring, it was shaping up as a $5.5 trillion package. Even then it would have only been the third largest since 1940 as a share of gross domestic product.

___

TRUMP: "After years and years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages."

THE FACTS: Actually, they are not rising any faster than they have before. Average hourly pay rose 2.5 percent in 2017, slightly slower than the 2.9 percent increase recorded in 2016 under President Barack Obama.

Most economists say that wages should increase at a faster rate as the unemployment rate drops. The unemployment rate stands at a 17-year low of 4.1 percent, but that has done little so far to spark rising wages.

The last time unemployment was this low, in the late 1990s, average hourly pay was rising at a 4 percent pace.

____

TRUMP: "The third pillar (of my immigration plan) ends the visa lottery  a program that randomly hands out green cards without any regard to skill, merit or the safety of our people."

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THE FACTS: That's a highly misleading characterization. The program is not nearly that random and it does address skills, merit and safety.

The diversity visa program awards up to 50,000 green cards a year to people from underrepresented countries, largely in Africa. It requires applicants to have completed a high school education or have at least two years of experience in the last five years in a selection of fields identified by the Labor Department.

Winners are then randomly selected by computer, from that pool of applicants who met the pre-conditions. Winners must submit to extensive background checks, just like any other immigrant.

____

TRUMP: "We have ended the war on American energy."

THE FACTS: Energy production was unleashed in past administrations, particularly Barack Obama's, making accusations of a war on energy hard to sustain. Advances in hydraulic fracturing before Trump became president made it economical to tap vast reserves of natural gas. Oil production also greatly increased, reducing imports.

Before the 2016 presidential election, the U.S. for the first time in decades was getting more energy domestically than it imports. Before Obama, George W. Bush was no adversary of the energy industry.

One of Trump's consequential actions as president on this front was to approve the Keystone XL pipeline  a source of foreign oil, from Canada.

___

TRUMP: "We are now very proudly an exporter of energy to the world."

THE FACTS: There's nothing new in that: The U.S. has long exported all sorts of energy, while importing even more. If Trump meant that the U.S. has become a net exporter of energy, he's rushing things along. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that the U.S. will become a net energy exporter in the next decade, primarily because of a boom in oil and gas production that began before Trump's presidency. The Trump White House has predicted that could happen sooner, by 2020. But that's not "now."

___

TRUMP: "For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities."

THE FACTS: The borders were far from open before his presidency, however imperfectly they may have been guarded.

The government under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama roughly doubled the ranks of the Border Patrol, and Bush extended fencing to cover nearly one-third of the border during his final years in office. The Obama administration deported more than 2 million immigrants during the eight years he was in office, more than in previous administrations.

Border arrests, a useful if imperfect gauge of illegal crossings, have dropped sharply over the last decade.

___

TRUMP: "We slashed the business tax rate from 35 percent all the way down to 21 percent, so American companies can compete and win against anyone else anywhere in the world. These changes alone are estimated to increase average family income by more than $4,000. A lot of money."

THE FACTS: Few economists think average incomes will jump by $4,000 simply because companies are paying less in taxes.

The figure cited by Trump comes from his chief economist, Kevin Hassett. Many mainstream economists poked wide holes into this claim, including the author of one of the research papers cited by Hassett. Economists generally say most of the savings from lower corporate taxes would flow to investors, rather than workers. The problem with the $4,000 claim is that Trump is essentially promising $500 billion in income gains across the entire economy from tax cuts that are a small fraction of that total on an annual basis.

___

TRUMP: "Since we passed tax cuts, roughly 3 million workers have already gotten tax cut bonuses  many of them thousands and thousands of dollars per worker."

THE FACTS: This appears to be true, but may not be as impressive as it sounds. According to a tally of public announcements by Americans for Tax Reform, a conservative group that supported the tax law, about 3 million workers have gotten bonuses, raises or larger payments to their retirement accounts since the tax law was signed.

That's about 2 percent of the more than 154 million Americans with jobs. The Labor Department said before the tax package was signed into law that 38 percent of workers would probably get some form of bonus in 2017.

Few companies have yet granted across-the-board pay raises, which Trump and GOP leaders promised would result from the cut in corporate tax rates included in the overhaul. Many, such as Walmart and BB&T Bank, said they will raise their minimum wages. Walmart made similar announcements in 2015 and 2016.

___

TRUMP: "Many car companies are now building and expanding plants in the United States, something we haven't seen for decades."

THE FACTS: He's wrong about recent decades. The auto industry has regularly been opening and expanding factories since before Trump became president. Toyota opened its Mississippi factory in 2011. Hyundai's plant in Alabama dates to 2005. In 2010, Tesla fully acquired and updated an old factory to produce its electric vehicles.

Trump also declared that "Chrysler is moving a major plant from Mexico to Michigan." That's not exactly the case, either. Chrysler announced it will move production of heavy-duty pickup trucks from Mexico to Michigan, but the plant is not closing in Mexico. It will start producing other vehicles for global sales and no change in its workforce is anticipated.

___

TRUMP: "We repealed the core of the disastrous Obamacare  the individual mandate is now gone."

THE FACTS: No, it's not gone. It's going, in 2019. People who go without insurance this year are still subject to fines.

Congress did repeal the unpopular requirement that most Americans carry insurance or risk a tax penalty, but that takes effect next year.

It's a far cry from what Trump and the GOP-led Congress set out to do last year, which was to scrap most of the sweeping Obama-era health law and replace it with a Republican alternative. The GOP blueprint would have left millions more Americans uninsured, making it even more unpopular than "Obamacare."

Other major parts of the overhaul remain in place, including its Medicaid expansion, protections for people with pre-existing conditions, guaranteed "essential" health benefits, and subsidized private health insurance for people with modest incomes.

___

TRUMP: "Our massive tax cuts provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small business."

THE FACTS: That depends on how you define tremendous. The biggest beneficiaries from the tax law are wealthy Americans and corporations.

Most Americans will pay less in taxes this year. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that about 80 percent of U.S. households will get a tax cut, with about 15 percent seeing little change and 5 percent paying more.

Middle-class households  defined as those making between roughly $49,000 and $86,000 a year  will see their tax bills drop by about $930, the Tax Policy Center calculates. That will lift their after-tax incomes by 1.6 percent.

The richest 1 percent, meanwhile, will save $51,140, lifting their after-tax incomes by 3.4 percent, or more than twice as much as the middle class.

___

TRUMP: "We have sent thousands and thousands and thousands of MS-13 horrible people out of this country or into our prisons."

THE FACTS: That's an exaggeration and goes beyond how even Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Trump administration's most aggressive anti-gang enforcer, characterizes the scope of the effort.

Sessions said in speeches this week that federal authorities had secured the convictions of nearly 500 human traffickers and 1,200 gang members, "and worked with our international allies to arrest or charge more than 4,000 MS-13 members." On other occasions, the attorney general has specifically said the 4,000 number reflects work done with "our partners in Central America."

That suggests that at least some of the MS-13 members Trump is referring to weren't actually in the U.S when they were arrested, and aren't now in U.S. prisons.

___

TRUMP: "We have ended the war on beautiful clean coal."

THE FACTS: Coal is not clean. According to the Energy Department, more than 83 percent of all major air pollutants  sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, toxic mercury and dangerous soot particles  from power plants are from coal, even though coal makes up only 43 percent of the power generation. Power plants are the No. 1 source of those pollutants.

Coal produces nearly twice as much heat-trapping carbon dioxide per energy created as natural gas, the department says.

In 2011, coal burning emitted more than 6 million tons of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides versus 430,000 tons from other energy sources combined.

___

TRUMP: "Last year, the Congress passed, and I signed, the landmark VA Accountability Act. Since its passage, my administration has already removed more than 1,500 VA employees who failed to give our veterans the care they deserve."

THE FACTS: This statement is inaccurate. It's true that more than 1,500 firings at the VA have occurred so far during the Trump administration. But more than 500 of those firings occurred from Jan. 20, when Trump took office, to late June, when the new accountability law began to take effect. That means roughly one-third of the 1,500 firings cannot be attributed to the new law.

Congress passed the legislation last June making it easier to fire VA employees and shortening the time employees have to appeal disciplinary actions. But the law's impact on improving accountability at the department remains unclear: More VA employees were fired in former President Barack Obama's last budget year, for instance, than in Trump's first.

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TRUMP: "Last year, I also pledged that we would work with our allies to extinguish ISIS from the face of the Earth. One year later, I am proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated very close to 100 percent of the territory just recently held by these killers in Iraq and in Syria and in other locations, as well. But there is much more work to be done. We will continue our fight until ISIS is defeated."

THE FACTS: Although it's true that the Islamic State group has lost nearly 100 percent of the territory it held in Syria and Iraq when the U.S. began airstrikes in both countries in 2014, Syria remains wracked by civil war, with much of that country controlled by the government of Russian ally Syrian President Bashar Assad and not by U.S.-allied groups. The Iraqi government has declared itself fully liberated from IS.

The progress cited by Trump did not start with his presidency. The U.S.-led coalition recaptured much land, including several key cities in Iraq, before he took office. And the assault on Mosul, which was the extremists' main stronghold in northern Iraq, was begun during the Obama administration. But in the past year the counter-ISIS campaign has accelerated, based largely on the approach Trump inherited.

He's right that more remains to be done to eliminate IS as an extremist threat, even after it has been defeated militarily. The group is still able to inspire attacks in the West based on its ideology, and it is trying to make inroads in places like Afghanistan and Libya.

___

Associated Press writers Josh Boak, Matthew Daly, Josh Lederman, Robert Burns, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Hope Yen, Eric Tucker, Seth Borenstein and Elliot Spagat contributed to this report.

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Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd

___

Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheckPresident Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will host a number of guests Tuesday night as the president delivers his first State of the Union address.

The guests, who will sit in the House of Representatives gallery besides Melania Trump as the President gives his speech, include an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, a wounded veteran, and a police officer who adopted a child whose parents suffered from opioid addiction, among others.

Heres everyone who will attend Trumps address as special guests, according to a list released Monday by the White House.

Corey Adams  Welder from Dayton, Ohio, who purchased his first home with his wife in 2017 and will invest money saved from Trumps tax plan into his daughters education fund, according to the White House.

Elizabeth Alvarado, Robert Mickens, Evelyn Rodriguez and Freddy Cuevas  Two couples whose daughters were killed by MS-13 gang members in 2016.

Matthew Bradford  Retired Marine Corps Corporal wounded in Iraq in 2007, resulting in his blinding and the amputation of both of his legs. He became the first blind double-amputee to re-enlist in the Marines.

Jon Bridgers  Founder of nonprofit group Cajun Navy, which provided aid to residents of Texas affected by Hurricane Harvey.

David Dahlberg  Fire prevention technician stationed in Santa Maria, Calif. who rescued 62 people from wildfires in July.

Ryan Holets  Police officer in Albuquerque, N.M., who adopted a baby from parents addicted to opioids.

Ashlee Leppert  Aviation electronics technician in the Coast Guard who rescued dozens of people during the historic hurricane season last year.

Celestino CJ Martinez  Supervisory special agent for ICEs Homeland Security Investigations unit, whose investigations have led to the arrest of more than 100 MS-13 gang members.

Justin Peck  Army staff sergeant who performed medical procedures on a wounded team member, saving his life.

Preston Sharp  Creator of the Flag and Flower Challenge, which helps organize the placement of American flags and carnations on the graves of deceased soldiers.

Steve Staub and Sandy Keplinger  Siblings who started Staub Manufacturing Solutions, a metal fabrication company in Dayton, Ohio, which has seen an uptick in sales, according to the White House, and was able to give larger-than-usual Christmas bonuses due to Trumps tax reform, the White House said.An Arizona preacher who has called for gay people to be killed has been banned from entering Jamaica.

Steven Anderson, from the Faithful World Baptist Church in Tempe, claimed that he was prevented from boarding a flight from Atlanta to Kingston Monday, the Jamaica Gleaner reported.

anti-gay-pastor-steven-anderson-straight-pride

screen grab YouTube

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He had planned to tour the country preaching with his 14-year-old son.

The decision was made by the chief immigration officer because the pastors statements are not conducive to the current climate, a spokesperson for the Ministry of National Security told news outlets.

Anderson has previously been banned by South Africa, the U.K. and Canada, and deported by Botswana.

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He told a radio station in Botswana that homosexuals should "stoned to death."

In 2016 he commented 50 less pedophiles, after 49 people were killed by an ISIS sympathiser at an Orlando gay club, and has also made an anti-Semitic film promoting Holocaust denial. The Faithful World Baptist Church has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

LGBT rights activists in Jamaica had launched a petition for Anderson to be banned, which 40,000 people signed.

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This is a huge win for our Jamaican sovereignty, our constitutional protections and the safety and security of all Jamaicans, Maurice Tomlinson, a Jamaican lawyer and gay rights activist who migrated to Canada after he received death threats, told The Guardian.

Jamaica has long faced criticism for failing to protect the rights of its LGBT community, with a 2014 Human Rights Watch report finding LGBT Jamaicans are vulnerable to both physical and sexual violence and many live in constant fear.

A report by the State Department in 2016 found homophobia widespread in Jamaica and said there had been 53 cases of physical or verbal assaults to June that year, though said most incidents involving the LGBTI population are not reported to police.

Story continues

Activists have called on the government to repeal "buggery" laws used to prosecute homosexuals, and reform the police, where homophobic prejudice is reportedly widespread.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekSYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia's domestic spy agency on Thursday took possession of thousands of classified documents that were left at a second-hand furniture shop as the government struggles to contain an embarrassing security lapse. The documents, which revealed top-secret details of five previous governments that under Australian law should remain secured for at least 20 years, were left inside a filing cabinet that was then sold at a store in Canberra that was stocked with ex-government furniture. The documents were then passed onto the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that ran a string of stories, embarrassing former prime ministers and several lawmakers who still occupy prominent positions inside Australia's center-right government. The ABC said the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation took the files after talks with the spy agency in recent days, though as part of negotiations the national broadcaster said it will still have access to the files. The documents showed: Australia's now treasurer Scott Morrison sought to slow down security checks on refugees in order to restrict their chances of resettlement; former Prime Minister Tony Abbott considered abolishing financial aid to unemployed young Australians; the country's police lost hundreds of sensitive files. Australia's Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said there had been a serious breach of security. "Obviously someone's had a shocker and the investigation will find out exactly how this happened," Joyce told ABC radio on Thursday. "In the process of running a country, there are things which go awry. This is one of them." Seeking to minimize the fallout of the security lapse, prominent conservative lawmakers have sought to focus attention on the decision of the ABC to publish details found within the top secret files. The ABC defended the publication, insisting it was in the national interest, though former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said on Twitter on Thursday that he had launched legal action against the national broadcaster. Rudd was this week left embarrassed after the ABC ran a story that said the former leader had ignored advice around the dangers of a home insulation package in 2008. Rudd was later cleared on any wrongdoing by an independent investigation with sweeping powers, which he said the ABC ignored in its reporting. "The report by the ABC alleging I ignored warnings on the risks to the safety of installers of home insulation is a lie," Rudd said in the statement. "Legal proceedings against the ABC has now commenced." (Reporting by Colin Packham in Sydney; Editing by James Dalgleish)Dubai (AFP) - Bahrain's criminal court on Wednesday sentenced two Shiites to death and 19 others to life imprisonment in a ruling against a cell convicted of terror attacks.

It also sentenced 17 members of the cell to 15 years in jail, nine others to 10 years, 11 to five years, and acquitted the last two defendants, Bahrain's BNA news agency reported.

The defendants were convicted of forming a "terror" cell that carried out a number of attacks, killing at least two policemen and wounding several others, and of smuggling weapons by boat.

It also convicted them of attacking a prison and helping some prisoners to flee, of travelling to Iraq and Iran for military training and engaging in a gunbattle with police.

All the convicts are from the Shiite majority in the small Sunni-ruled Gulf kingdom.

Large quantities of weapons including grenades and light machine-guns were seized from the group, according to the ruling.

The court revoked the citizenship of 47 of the convicts.

Thirty-six members, including the two condemned to death, are already in jail while the rest were sentenced in absentia, including 12 defendants living in Iran and Iraq and one in Germany, a judicial source told AFP.

The London-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) immediately condemned the ruling.

"Todays ruling is the latest episode in Bahrains travesty of justice, and likely one of the most cruel," said the director of BIRD, Sayed Ahmed al-Wadaei.

BIRD said two women were among those convicted while the fate of two other female defendants in the case was not immediately known.

Twenty-one Bahrainis are now on death row in "political cases", 14 of them convicted in 2017, it said.

Authorities have cracked down hard on dissent since mass street protests in 2011 that demanded an elected prime minister and constitutional monarchy in Bahrain.Lagos (AFP) - "Are there bookshops in Nigeria?" The question posed by a French journalist last week incensed acclaimed Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

At an event held in a ritzy Paris government building under crystal chandeliers, Adichie launched a blistering assault on perceived French arrogance.

"I think it reflects very poorly on French people that you have to ask me that question," said Adichie.

"My books are read in Nigeria. They are studied in schools. Not just Nigeria, across the continent in Africa."

The subsequent outrage on social media was perhaps predictable: insults hurled at the French journalist amid accusations of racism and colonial prejudices.

Adichie wasn't done yet. The novelist, who was born in Nigeria but now lives in the United States, followed up with a Facebook post the next day arguing that the bookstore question was "giving legitimacy to a deliberate, entitled, tiresome, sweeping base ignorance about Africa".

But not everyone wholeheartedly agrees. "You can't say there aren't any bookstores or libraries in Nigeria, that's ridiculous," Tabia Princewill, a columnist at local newspaper The Vanguard, told AFP.

"But they aren't pretty, and they are often religious books or educational books. In public libraries, there are almost no books," Princewill said.

"It's shameful and it is not being anti-Africa to admit it.

"The African elite don't want to face the reality."

- Polarising question -

The bookstore debate is so polarising because it isn't just about access to books, it's also about the country's troubled education system.

As the population of West Africa's biggest economy explodes, the government is struggling to educate its 190 million people.

Nigeria has a 60 percent literacy rate, one of the lowest among frontier markets, according to investment banking firm Renaissance Capital in a Tuesday note.

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There are vast regional discrepancies in the country, with the south boasting much higher literacy rates than the north, yet teacher quality and student attendance are perennial problems.

In her Facebook post, Adichie acknowledged the devastating effect of the Boko Haram jihadist insurgency on bookstores in the northeast.

She said her uncle had owned a store in Maiduguri, capital of northeast Borno State and birthplace of Boko Haram, but it had to close down when the city began to feel "too unsafe".

While the north struggles to counter the fundamentalist ideology of the jihadists, whose name translates to "Western education is forbidden", the south has its own issues.

Neighbourhood bookstores in Lagos, the country's commercial capital with 20 million inhabitants, have to contend with patchy electricity, subsequent mould, and a market flooded with pirated books.

- Pirated books -

Still, some find a way. Kayode Odumosu has always loved books and at age 11, he started working at his school library.

In 1993, Odumosu opened Lagos Book Club in Festac, a small middle class neighbourhood. His 3,000 second-hand books are stacked tightly next to one another on long metal shelves.

"I sell Shakespeare and all of Chimamanda's novels," he says with pride.

On a recent day in Jazzhole -- the bookshop Adichie describes as her "favourite in Lagos" -- the power is out and the air is muggy. There are biographies of Afrobeat king Fela Kuti next to books on Tehran and Venice.

Owner Kunle Tejuoso took over the family business in 1975. "Well before the birth of Chimamanda," he said with some amusement.

The bookstore controversy doesn't bother him much. "I'm used to it," he said pragmatically. "When Westerners come to my shop they always have a little shock."

For all Nigeria's problems, books are an integral part of its culture, he said.

"The literary scene is exploding in Nigeria, we have a lot of new writers who make young people want to read.

"Our greatest challenge is the internet. In the past, young people weren't so easily distracted," Tejuoso added, articulating a problem that affects bookstores both in France and Nigeria.By Andrea Shalal and Sabine Siebold BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's domestic intelligence chief wants the government to review laws restricting the surveillance of minors to guard against the children of Islamist fighters returning to the country as "sleeper agents" who could carry out attacks. Hans-Georg Maassen, head of the BfV agency, told Reuters that security officials were preparing for the return of Islamic State fighters to Germany along with potentially "brainwashed" children, although no big wave appeared imminent. Nearly 1,000 people are believed to have left Germany to join up with the Islamist militants. As the group's presence in the Middle East crumbles, some are returning with family members. Only a small number of the 290 toddlers and children who left Germany or were born in Syria and Iraq had returned thus far, Maassen said. Many were likely to still be in the region, or perhaps moving to areas such as Afghanistan, where Islamic State remains strong. He said Germany should review laws restricting surveillance of minors under the age of 14 to prepare for the increased risk of attacks by children as young as nine who grew up in Islamic State schools. "We see that children who grew up with Islamic State were brainwashed in the schools and the kindergartens of the IS," he said. "They were confronted early with the IS ideology ... learned to fight, and were in some cases forced to participate in the abuse of prisoners, or even the killing of prisoners." He said security officials believed such children could later carry out violent attacks in Germany. "We have to consider that these children could be living time bombs," he said. "There is a danger that these children come back brainwashed with a mission to carry out attacks." Maassen's comments were the first specific estimate of the number of children affected, following his initial warning in October that such children could pose a threat after being indoctrinated in battlefield areas. The radicalization of minors has been a big topic in Germany given that three of five Islamist attacks in Germany in 2016 were carried out by minors, and a 12-year-old boy was also detained after trying to bomb a Christmas market in Ludwigshafen. The German government says it has evidence that more than 960 people left Germany for Iraq and Syria through November 2017 to fight for the Islamic State jihadist group, of which about a third are believed to have returned to Germany. Another 150 likely died in combat, according to government data. Maassen said Islamic State also continued to target vulnerable youths in Germany through the Internet and social media, often providing slick advertising or age-appropriate propaganda to recruit them to join the jihadist group. "Islamic State uses headhunters who scour the Internet for children that can be approached and tries to radicalize these children, or recruit these children for terrorist attacks," he said. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Angus MacSwan)A chartered Amtrak train carrying several GOP lawmakers crashed into a trash truck that was on the tracks south of Crozet, Virginia, Wednesday morning, according to the Associated Press.

No lawmakers were injured, but at least one person in the truck was killed, the AP reported.

"The weather was sunny and clear at the time of the incident around 11:20 a.m," according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski. "The temperature was within a few degrees of freezing. There was no snow on the ground."

The train was taking the legislators to a Republican retreat in West Virginia at The Greenbrier Resort in the town of White Sulfur Springs. Crozet is about 15 miles to the west of Charlottesville.

Several representatives took to Twitter to announce that they were unharmed and offered prayers for those who sustained injuries. The train was left partially derailed, a GOP aide told the AP.

"The train carrying GOP members to our retreat had a collision, but Rebecca and I are both okay. Security and doctors on board are helping secure the scene and treat injuries," Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Ala. said on Twitter.



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"We're fine, but our train hit a garbage truck. Members with medical training are assisting the drivers of the truck," said Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore.



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Vice President Mike Pence said on Twitter that he was getting "regular updates" on the accident.



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White House Director of Social Media Dan Scavino, Jr. also offered condolences on behalf of the White House to those impacted.

ONITSHA, Nigeria (Reuters) - Cameroonian troops crossed into neighboring Nigeria in pursuit of separatist rebels, a Nigerian state defense spokesman and a former community leader said on Wednesday. Cameroon has been fighting Anglophone separatists who have taken up arms over the past year in an attempt to create a nation which they call Ambazonia. The insurgency represents the gravest challenge yet to the 35-year rule of Cameroon's President Paul Biya. More than 43,000 Cameroonians have fled as refugees to Nigeria to escape the government crackdown on the separatists, say local aid officials. The majority are in Nigeria's Cross River state, which borders southwest Cameroon. A spokesman for Nigeria's civil defense agency in Cross River state said Cameroonian gendarmes crossed into Danare, a border community in the Boki local government area of Cross River state, on Tuesday. He said they harassed Cameroonian refugees and their Nigerian hosts. "The gendarmes came in briefly, harassed the people and left immediately. They have been doing this since the crisis of agitation for independence forced these refugees to flee Cameroon and come into Nigeria," said Solomon Eremi, a spokesman for the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC). A former councillor in Boki, Douglas Ogar, also said Cameroonian gendarmes had entered the community. "The gendarmes are so emboldened as they have shown outright defiance to Nigeria's territorial sovereignty," he said. "The government does not comment on rumors," said Cameroon government spokesman Issa Tchiroma Bakary when asked about claims that gendarmes had entered Nigeria. It is not the first reported incursion by Cameroonian gendarmes. At least one such move was carried out by troops last month. Last week, a Cameroonian separatist leader arrested in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, was deported. The linguistic divide in Cameroon - a mostly Francophone country - harks back to the end of World War One when the German colony of Kamerun was carved up between allied French and British victors. The English-speaking regions joined the French-speaking Republic of Cameroon the year after its independence in 1960. French speakers have dominated the country's politics since. (Reporting by Anamesere Igboeroteonwu, Tife Owolabi in Yenagoa and Josiane Kouagheu in Douala; writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; editing by Janet Lawrence)Brenda Fitzgerald, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, resigned on Wednesday following a report that she had invested in tobacco stocks while overseeing an agency tasked with promoting public health.

The announcement came less than 24 hours after the disclosure of her investments by Politico. Fitzgerald had been under fire for months for not divesting some of her financial holdings.

The new Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who was sworn in earlier this week, announced the resignation in a brief statement.

The statement said that Fitzgerald owns certain complex financial interests that have imposed a broad recusal limiting her ability to complete all her duties as the CDC director.

It said that Fitzgerald could not divest from them in a definitive time period, due to the nature of the investments. After advising Azar of the problem, she offered her resignation and he accepted.

Fitzgerald, a longtime OB-GYN from Georgia, served as that states public health commissioner before being named head of the CDC.

According to Politico, after assuming her role at the CDC on July 7, Fitzgerald purchased between $1,001 and $15,000 of Japan Tobacco, one of the largest such companies in the world. Records obtained under the Stock Act, which requires disclosures of transactions over $1,000, showed Fitzgerald sold the shares of Japan Tobacco on Oct. 26 and all of her stock holdings above $1,000 by Nov. 21, more than four months after she became CDC director.On Tuesday, President Trump addressed the nation in his first State of the Union  and, boy, people got worked up.

From a celebrity standpoint, Trump could say nothing right from the moment he opened his mouth to speak. Many voiced their concerns on social media.

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There were, however, a few celebrities who agreed with the president.

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But celebrities, just like the rest of us, didnt have the pleasure of being in the Capitol Building with a front-row seat to the speech. The best reactions came from politicians in the crowd  and Twitter noticed a few funny faces.

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Viewers also noticed the face of Melania Trump. The first lady got everyone talking when she and the president arrived in separate cars, which broke White House tradition. Then she failed to stand during key moments of Trumps speech. People on Twitter pointed out the snubs.

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Overall, the presidents first State of the Union address was well received  depending on who you ask. CBS News reported that of the people who watched, 42 percent Republicans, 25 percent Democrats, and 33 percent independents, three-fourths approved of the speech. CNN, however, reported that Trump received the least positive reaction in 20 years.

No matter which side of the ratings you fall into, most will agree that the majority of Twitter failed to take the #SOTU seriously. Case in point:

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Watch: Lindsay Lohan starts savage feud with Kim Kardashian over Bo-Derek braids

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel went on the Today show Tuesday morning, along with his wife, and made a surprising revelation: Their young son suffers from a lifelong, incurable genetic condition.

Engels son Henry was diagnosed with a variation of Rett syndrome around his second birthday. Engel says he and his wife, Mary Forrest, understood that something wasnt right when close to the age of 2, Henry couldnt talk, walk, sit up straight, or clap his hands. After visiting several doctors, they finally got a diagnosis: Rett syndrome.

Children with Rett syndrome usually have normal development up to a certain point during their first year of life, until they begin to lose motor and cognitive skills. The genetic brain disorder almost always affects girls and does not have a treatment, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Its not just delay. It means lifelong, permanent, untreatable physical and intellectual impairment, Engel said. Unfortunately, the more we learned about it, the worse the news got.

Photo: Getty Images

Engel says doctors have told the couple that Henry will likely never walk, talk, or be able to dress himself, and hell probably have the mental capacity of a toddler for the rest of his life. He also may suffer from seizures and rigidity as he gets older.

Henry receives daily physiotherapy and visits the hospital twice a week for treatment to help stimulate his senses. Forrest left her job as television producer to care for her son and says shes constantly trying to work on his motor skills. Im basically his manager for that and cheerleader, she said. It gives me purpose, and its important. I see it helping him.

The couple also opened up about how difficult it is to have a special-needs child. Its not a story that anybody wants to tell. It is very difficult for us, but we wanted to raise awareness, to make other families with special-needs children, children who are challenging, know that theyre not alone, Engel said. It can feel very lonely, when you go down the street and you see other children behaving normally and knowing that his life and our life is never going to be exactly like that.

Story continues

Forrest said that while opening up about Henrys health has been painful and very personal, she and Engel hope they can help others by talking about it. Its lonely, so hopefully other people maybe will see this and feel a little less alone  and we will too, she said.

Its not uncommon for parents of a special-needs child to feel lonely  in fact, there are several websites and chat rooms online dedicated to the topic. Gail Saltz, MD, a psychiatrist and the author of The Power of Different: The Link Between Disorder and Genius, tells Yahoo Lifestyle that the loneliness is often due to a few different factors. Parents of a special-needs child may feel upset when they hear fellow parents talk about their childs normal development and pull away as a result; they may not feel comfortable being public about their childs disability, or other parents may not understand the childs disability and thus steer clear, she says.

It can also be hard to understand that there are actually others going through the same thing as you  especially if your child has a rare condition, licensed clinical psychologist John Mayer, PhD, author of Family Fit: Find Your Balance in Life, tells Yahoo Lifestyle. Our immediate reaction is to feel alone and that we are the only ones experiencing this suffering, he says.

Parents of a special-needs child also simply just dont have a lot of spare time to connect with others  their lives revolve around treatments, therapies, and medical care, which doesnt leave a lot of time for much else, Mayra Mendez, PhD, LMFT, a licensed psychotherapist and program coordinator for intellectual and developmental disabilities and mental health services at Providence Saint Johns Child and Family Development Center in Santa Monica, Calif., tells Yahoo Lifestyle.

Luckily, there are a few things that can be done. Mendez recommends joining an association or society thats specific to the childs condition. Many of these societies have parental support groups and offer ways for parents and patients to connect, she says. If the condition doesnt have a specific organization affiliated with it, Mendez recommends asking doctors if they know of support groups for families in similar situations. People working for and with these conditions usually know a lot of resources, she says.

And, as Forrest said, talking about it can help. The key to coping and soothing these feelings is sharing your story with others, Mayer says. Of course, everyone is different. Some people may benefit from starting a blog to update friends and family about the childs condition and progress while others will do best with just talking with a close friend or therapist, Mayer says.

Although Engel and Forrest admit that their life is harder than they anticipated, they said Henrys health struggles have brought them closer together. Were all weve got, Engel said. Were all hes got right now, so we need to be a team.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.DENVER (Reuters) - A 22-year-old man held without bond in the shooting death of a Colorado police officer last week was formally charged on Wednesday with first-degree murder, prosecutors said.

Appearing in Adams County District Court in suburban Denver, Dreion Martise Dearing was charged with four counts of murder in the slaying of Deputy Sheriff Heath Gumm, a spokeswoman for District Attorney Dave Young said in a statement.

Dearing, who was charged with premeditated murder of a policeman, premeditated murder, felony murder of a policeman and felony murder, also faces assault, weapons and burglary charges.

Young told reporters after the hearing it is too early in the case to decide whether he will seek capital punishment for Dearing. The murder of a police officer is a death-penalty-eligible crime in Colorado.

Dearing did not enter a plea at Wednesday's hearing, and his court-appointed attorneys declined to comment on the case.

Gumm, 31, was gunned down last Wednesday after he and other deputies responded to reports of an assault in progress near the city of Thornton, about 10 miles north of Denver.

Dearing fled from officers and was later cornered by police when he allegedly opened fire on them with a handgun, striking Gumm in the chest, investigators said.

Gumm was wearing a bullet-proof vest, Adams County Sheriff Mike McIntosh said last week.

Adams County District Judge Patrick Murphy ordered Dearing held without bond until at least a preliminary hearing scheduled for April. The judge also set a hearing for next month to hear several motions filed by defense lawyers.

Some 128 law enforcement officers died on the job in the United States in 2017, according to the nonprofit National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

(Reporting by Keith Coffman in Denver; Editing by Sharon Bernstein and James Dalgleish)A black man in Washingston State who was the victim of what his family and prosecutors called a hate crime attack was in intensive care as of Wednesday with a traumatic brain injury.

Authorities have charged an unidentified 18-year-old man for the assault on 26-year-old DaShawn Horne. The suspect faces charges for first-degree assault and malicious harassment, the states designation for hate crimes.

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The events that led to Hornes attack started on Jan. 19 when Horne went a local nightclub and met a woman and the two went back to her home in Auburn, according charging papers obtained by the Seattle Times.

The woman then ordered a Lyft ride to take Horne home in the morning on Jan. 20. As Horne was leaving, the womans brother, Julian Tuimauga, approached him.

Tuimauga asked the Lyft driver who he was picking up and the driver said the womans name. Tuimauga then walked away and the driver then heard Horne and the 18-year-old arguing.

The driver of the vehicle then heard a thump sound like a bat had struck something, the charging papers said.

Don't miss: 'Melania Trump' Addresses State of Her Union to President Trump After Stormy Daniels Affair: 'Donald, Time's Up'

The driver witnessed Tuimauga hit Horne in the back of the head with an aluminum bat twice before he fell to the ground.

With Horne on the ground, Tuimauga then said: This is what happens when you bring black people around here, according to his charging papers.

The driver then drove to a nearby house and called 911 around 10:30 a.m. But Tuimauga was not done.

Authorities say he then delivered three more blows to Hornes unconscious body before recording cell phone video of himself yelling racial slurs, including the n-word, at Horne.

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Story continues

A neighbor's surveillance camera captured some of the attack when Horne was already unconscious.

Following the attack, Tuimauga admitted to authorities that he struck Horne for having sex with Tuimauga's sister.

A GoFundMe page for Horne has raised about $22,000, which will go toward his loss of wages. On the page, Hornes family describes him as an amazing father, brother, son and friend.

He was an innocent victim of a heinous crime, they wrote. He is funny, loving, strong, hard-working clerk for the United States Postal Service. Dashawn loves to make people laugh and feel protected. His personality and presence lights up a room. His love and compassion has impacted many lives.

Doctors told Horne's family that he will now spend the next several months in the hospital and he has a long road ahead towards recovery," according to the GoFundMe page.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekAt least 11 Democratic lawmakers are boycotting the Capitol Tuesday night where President Donald Trump will give his first State of the Union address.

Thats fewer than the 60 lawmakers who boycotted President Trumps inauguration, but its not an insignificant number as the president makes a major address on his policy goals.

Many of the Democrats boycotting Trumps State of the Union address cited the presidents recent rhetoric about people of color and the perceived racism of his Administration as their reason for skipping the speech.

Illinois Rep. Bobby Rush said in a statement Monday that he refuses to participate in pomp and circumstance that normalizes Trumps egregious and hateful behavior. This is a presidency that has been built on racism, stupidity, and lies, which has already wasted enough of Americas time and I will not waste any more of mine, Rush said.

Two additional Illinois lawmakers will be boycotting Trumps speech today, including Reps. Jan Schakowsky and Danny Davis. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Davis will be in Chicago during the State of the Union address and will watch his colleague Rep. Joseph Kennedy III deliver the official Democratic response.

Other lawmakers boycotting Trumps State of the Union Tuesday night include:

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.)

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.)

Rep. Primila Jayapal (D-Wash.)

Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.)

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.)

Rep. Albio Sires (D-N.J.)

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.)

Rep. Frederica S. Wilson (D-Fla.)

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg also announced she will skip Trumps speech.

A number of the boycotting Democrats are members of the Congressional Black Caucus, a group that expressed outrage over the presidents alleged shithole countries remark about African nations and Haiti. (The Caucuss chairman, Louisiana Rep. Cedric Richmond, introduced a resolution to censure President Trump over the remarks earlier in January.) In the wake of those remarks, civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis was among the first Democratic lawmakers who said they would not be attending the State of the Union address.

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Jayapal followed suit saying with all the racism and hatred coming out of this White House, I will NOT be attending Donald Trumps State of the Union address over Martin Luther King Jr. weekend. Sires said it was disgusting that the President of the United States has no regard for American values or the immigrant experience when he announced his boycott of the address on Twitter.

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Waters has been an outspoken critic of President Trump throughout his administration and did not attend Trumps inauguration or his first address to a joint session of Congress last year. Why would I take my time to go and sit and listen to a liar, she said in an interview on MSNBC. What does he have to say that I would be interested in?

The California Democrat and card-carrying member of the so-called resistance will deliver her own response to Trumps address on the BET program, Angela Ryes State of the Union.Republican Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar said he has asked Capitol Police to arrest and deport any undocumented immigrants present at the State of the Union on Tuesday night, after more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers announced they were bringing Dreamers to the speech as their guests.

Democrats had invited Dreamers in an effort to urge President Trump and Republican lawmakers to find a solution for the undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. Members of Congress have struggled to agree on an immigration plan in the months since Trump announced he would end the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which protected those young immigrants from deportation.

Today, Congressman Paul Gosar contacted the U.S. Capitol Police, as well as Attorney General Jeff Sessions, asking they consider checking identification of all attending the State of the Union address and arresting any illegal aliens in attendance, read a tweet from Gosars official Twitter account Tuesday afternoon, hours before Trumps speech. Additionally, Congressman Gosar asked that they arrest those using fraudulent social security numbers and identification to pass through security.

A spokesperson for Capitol Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Of all the places where the Rule of Law needs to be enforced, it should be in the hallowed halls of Congress. Any illegal aliens attempting to go through security, under any pretext of invitation or otherwise, should be arrested and deported, Gosar said, according to the tweeted statement.

His threat quickly sparked criticism from Democrats and at least one Republican.

This is why we cant have nice things Republican Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, who is not seeking reelection in 2018, said in a tweet. This is why you got forced out of office, Gosar responded.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told Business Insider that Gosars comments were so outside the circle of respectable behavior for a member of Congress that its hard to comment on it.

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But a lot of our colleagues are people of faith and profess to believe that all of us have a spark of divinity in us  that were all children of God, she said. And for him to make such a statement really dishonors the God who made us.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer accused Gosar of planting seeds of division and fear.

Dreamers are not a threat; they represent the best of our country, and the majority of Americans and Congress stand behind them, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a tweet. Stop planting seeds of division and fear and instead get to work on finding a solution.

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This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.A new dinosaur of titanic proportions unearthed in the Egyptian desert could help scientists shed light on the history of dinosaurs in Africa.

The find, named Mansourasaurus shahinae and described in a paper published Monday in the journal Nature, is the most completely preserved land-living vertebrate from the end of the Cretaceous Period ever found on mainland Africa, the studys authors write. Researchers said that the sauropod, a long-necked herbivore, was 80 million years old, 33 feet long, and weighed as much as 5.5 tons, according to Reuters.

The remains, which included parts of the skull, jaw, shoulder, and forelimb, were discovered during an expedition from Egypts Mansoura University in 2013.

Scientists hailed the incredible discovery, with Matt Lamanna, one of the studys authors, calling it the Holy Grail.

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Dinosaur fossils from the end of the Cretaceous Period  9466 million years ago and considered the final age of the dinosaurs  are exceeding rare in Africa, Lamanna wrote in a blog post. The period also saw prehistoric continents begin to separate, leading some scientists, he said, to speculate that African dinosaurs began to evolve independently of their neighbors across the Mediterranean Sea.

But the researchers determined that Mansourasaurus likeness to dinosaurs from Europe and Asia suggest it was more closely related to these dinosaurs than those from South America or elsewhere in Africa. The discovery led them to suggest that land-based dinosaurs continued to migrate between Europe and northern Africa toward the end of their time on Earth, the BBC reports.

Africa remains a giant question mark in terms of land-dwelling animals at the end of the Age of Dinosaurs, said Eric Gorscak, another co-author of the study. Mansourasaurus helps us address longstanding questions about Africas fossil record and paleobiology.President Donald Trump faced boos from Democrats during his first State of the Union address, after criticising "chain migration"  a practice in which family members come to join immigrants who have settled in America.

Mr Trump has long bemoaned the practice as a means for terrorists and "truly evil people" to enter the country. He used his address to lay out his own immigration plan, which he claimed would "protect the nuclear family by ending chain migration".

"Under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives," Mr Trump claimed. "Under our plan, we focus on the immediate family by limiting sponsorships to spouses and minor children. This vital reform is necessary, not just for our economy, but for our security, and our future."

The comments earned grumbles and boos from Democrats in the audience, many of whom had brought immigrants with them as their guests to the event.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi even tweeted abut the comment, writing: "Reminder: when @realDonaldTrump says we need to end 'chain migration,' he means we need to stop making it a priority to keep families together."

Chain migration is the most common form of immigration to the US, making up 60 to 70 per cent of all legal immigration in the last decade. Democrats and advocates argue that the more accurate term is "family reunification," as the purpose of the policy is to bring families separated by immigration back together. More than 50,000 children of immigrants, and 85,000 parents, entered the US this way last year.

Mr Trump has attempted to tie chain migration to increased crime and terrorism in the US. In his speech on Tuesday, he pointed to the suspect in an attempted Times Square bombing, who entered the country on a visa for family members in 2011.

"In the age of terrorism, these programmes present risks we can no longer afford," Mr Trump said. "It is time to reform these outdated immigration rules, and finally bring our immigration system into the 21st century."

Story continues

Multiple studies have shown that immigrants are significantly less likely to commit crimes than people born in the United States.

Mr Trump rolled out his proposed immigration policy last week. The plan would make a massive cut to the number of family members allowed to immigrate to the US each year. It would also require $25b for a border wall with Mexico and other border security measures.

In exchange, it would create a path to citizenship for some 1.8m residents who arrived in the US illegally as children.

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Donald Trump branded North Korea depraved in his State of the Union address on Tuesday.

The President told Congress: We need only look at the depraved character of the North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose to America and our allies.

Mr Trump has been outspoken about North Korea throughout his presidency, engaging in an ongoing war of words with the regime via Twitter and dubbing Kim Jong-un rocket man during a speech at the United Nations.

Speech  some of the key words used by Donald Trump in his maiden State of the Union address (Picture: PA)

His maiden State of the Union address was attended by relatives of American university student Otto Warmbier, who was arrested while on a tour in North Korea in 2016.

Mr Trump said: After a shameful trial, the dictatorship sentenced Otto to 15 years of hard labour, before returning him to America last June  horribly injured and on the verge of death. He passed away just days after his return.

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He added: Tonight, we pledge to honour Ottos memory with American resolve.

The speech was also attended by defector Ji Seong-ho, whose story Mr Trump told to highlight the brutality of the North Korean regime.

Mr Trump paid tribute to American university student Otto Warmbier, who died after being imprisoned in North Korea (Picture: AP)

He described how as a starving boy in North Korea 22 years ago he had passed out on train tracks and lost his left leg and left hand when he was run over by a train, and was later tortured after a brief trip to China.

Seong-ho traveled thousands of miles on crutches across China and Southeast Asia to freedom, said Mr Trump.

Most of his family followed. His father was caught trying to escape, and was tortured to death.

Today he lives in Seoul, where he rescues other defectors, and broadcasts into North Korea what the regime fears the most  the truth.

(Top picture: AP)2009: Detainees talk together inside the open-air yard at the Camp 4 detention facility at Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in Cuba - REUTERS

Donald Trump has announced he will be keeping Guantanamo Bay open, hinting he may send new prisoners to the notorious US jail.

During his State of the Union address , the US president announced that he had just signed an executive order on "protecting America through the lawful detention of terrorists.

The executive order revokes former president Barack Obama's order to close the controversial detention facility and even opens the option of more suspected terrorists being held there.

The reversal was a long-standing campaign pledge by Mr Trump.

Mr Trump also vowed to use his powers to continue to detain any terrorists captured during armed conflict that the US deems to be a risk to the country.

"More than one hundred detainees released from the Guantanamo Bay facilities have reengaged in combat, and some have killed Coalition and American citizens," the order said.

Obama signed an order on his first full day in office in 2009 ordering efforts to shutter Guantanamo within a year, but his plan was thwarted by mostly Republican opposition in Congress. Instead, his administration reduced the inmate population to 41 from 242 during his eight years in office.

U.S. President Donald Trump applauds while delivering a State of the Union address Credit: Win McNamee/Getty

The prison, which was opened by President George W. Bush to hold suspected militants captured overseas after the Sept 11 attacks of 2001, came to symbolise harsh detention practices that opened the United States to accusations of torture.

As a presidential candidate, Trump vowed "to load it up with some bad dudes". Since he became president a year ago, there is no indication any new prisoners have arrived.

"In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds and hundreds of dangerous terrorists, only to meet them again on the battlefield - including the ISIS leader, (Abu Bakr) al-Baghdadi, who we captured, who we had, who we released," Trump said in the speech.

Donald Trump's State of the Union address

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The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in July that Baghdadi had been killed. Americans captured him in the beginning of the war in Iraq, and released him a year later, thinking he was a civilian agitator rather than a military threat.

Civil liberties groups immediately denounced the executive order, and the Center for Constitutional Rights said it would file a legal challenge.

"In trying to give new life to a prison that symbolizes America's descent into torture and unlawful indefinite detention, Trump will not make this country any safer," said Hina Shamsi, a director at the American Civil Liberties Union.The emergency worker responsible for sending a false missile alert to over 1 million people has been fired from the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, officials announced Tuesday.

The employee has been a source of concern for the same [State Warning Point] staff for over 10 years, according to a report released Tuesday. The report was written by Brig. Gen. Bruce E. Oliveira, who conducted an investigation into the matter on behalf of the agency.

He ... does not take initiative and he has to be directed before he takes action, Oliviera wrote. He is unable to comprehend the situation at hand and has confused real life events and drills on at least two separate occasions.

The employees co-workers told officials they were not comfortable with him as a supervisor, two-man team, or as part of the [State Warning Point] in general, according to the report.

There were statements from other co-workers that they didnt feel comfortable working with him, that they felt he was not capable of doing his job, Oliviera said during a press conference Tuesday.

When asked why the worker hadnt been terminated earlier given his performance issues, Maj. Gen. Joe Logan, director of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, said the workers supervisor felt he had taken appropriate action by counseling and mentoring him.

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Maj. Gen. Vern Miyagi resigned Tuesday from his position as administrator of the agency, Logan said during the press conference.

Maj. Gen. Miyagi  a respected military lead, an honorable man  has taken full responsibility for the incident of January 13 and the actions of all his employees, Logan said.

Another employee resigned before any disciplinary action was taken and one other employee faces suspension without pay, he said.

The states report corroborated many of the findings published Tuesday in the Federal Communications Commissions investigation into the matter. Both reports determined the employee actually believed there was an incoming ballistic missile.

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The worker, whose name has not been released by officials, sent the public safety alert after mishearing a recorded message that was part of an unscheduled drill, according to the reports.

As part of the drill, a night shift supervisor pretended to be U.S. Pacific Command and played a recorded message that warned emergency workers of an incoming attack. The recording included the phrase exercise, exercise, exercise. But it also stated, This is not a drill, which apparently prompted the worker to broadcast the ballistic missile alert.

The recording did not follow the script contained in the Hawaii Emergency Management Agencys standard operating procedure, according to the reports.

While other warning officers understand that this is a drill, the warning officer at the alert origination terminal claimed to believe, in a written statement provided to HIEMA, that this was a real emergency, not a drill, according to the FCC report.

State officials said initially that the worker triggered the false alarm by accidentally hitting the wrong option in a drop-down menu. But the new reports suggest this may not have been the case.

(Photo: ALISON TEAL via Getty Images)

The state worker who sent the alert has refused to cooperate with a federal investigation, Lisa Fowlkes, head of the FCCs Public Safety & Homeland Security Bureau, said last week during a Senate Commerce Committee hearing.

We are disappointed ... that one key employee, the person who transmitted the false alert, is refusing to cooperate with our investigation, Fowlkes said. We hope that person will reconsider.

A representative for the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency told HuffPost that the employee wasnt cooperating with the states investigation either.

An estimated 1.2 million people received the alert on their cellphones on Jan. 13. People in the state were sent into a frenzy, and many sought shelter.

Many officials knew the alert was a mistake immediately, but it took nearly 40 minutes for the states emergency agency to send out a second alert letting people know the original had been a false alarm.

The governor reportedly knew of the error two minutes after the alert was sent out, but it took him 15 minutes to tweet about the false alarm because he didnt know his Twitter password.

The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency responded to the incident by saying it would implement new actions to prevent such an error in the future, including requiring two people to sign off on alerts and installing a cancellation command that can be triggered within seconds.

Read the state and federal reports below:

Hawaii Emergency Management Agency Report On False Missile Alert by Hayley Miller on Scribd

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FCC's Preliminary Report On The Hawaii Emergency Management Agencys False Ballistic Missile Alert by Hayley Miller on Scribd

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.By Nelson Acosta HAVANA (Reuters) - The European Union has offered to advise Communist-run Cuba on consolidating its two currencies, drawing on its experience from introducing the euro, an EU official said on Wednesday during a visit to Havana. Cuba has had two currencies for more than a decade, the peso (CUP), in which most wages are paid and local goods are priced, and the convertible peso (CUC), used in tourism, foreign trade and some stores carrying imported goods. The government has vowed to unify the currencies and there have been rumors that it would finally do so this year since President Raul Castro said in December that reform could no longer be delayed. "We have offered technical assistance to the Cuban government to share our experience," said Stefano Manservisi, director general of International Cooperation and Development of the European Commission, said at a news conference. Manservisi said the EU had "perhaps the most significant experience worldwide in monetary transformation," derived from the conversion of a number of European currencies to the euro. Manservisi's visit along with a delegation from the European Investment Bank, underscores the bloc's commitment to strengthening engagement with Cuba even as U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration back off fragile detente resumed under his predecessor Barack Obama. Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, visited Cuba early in January to help strengthen member countries' economic and political ties with Cuba. As U.S.-Cuba rapprochement unfolded in 2015-2016 the EU dropped all sanctions and negotiated a political dialogue and cooperation agreement, the first between Cuba and the EU. Diplomats in Havana have said that the EU appears to sense an opportunity, with market-oriented reforms underway in Cuba and Castro expected to make way for a new president in April. "We are in the middle of the modernization and transformation of Cuba's economy," said Manservisi. Cuba has said the peso would remain and the CUC, valued for years at 24 pesos by state-run exchange offices, would become history. Economists have said the current monetary system and fixed exchange rates obscure inefficiencies in the state sector and make accounting difficult, and that unifying the currencies could be a disruptive market-oriented reform. The head of Cuba's reform commission, Marino Murillo, told the National Assembly last December that a group of 200 specialists was working intensely on the issue. (Reporting by Nelson Acosta; Writing by Sarah Marsh)Montreal (AFP) - Fatal opioid overdoses jumped in Canada last year, especially in British Columbia, where the potent sedative fentanyl was detected in eight of 10 overdose deaths, according to preliminary figures released Wednesday.

British Columbia is the epicenter of a national public health crisis in which 1,156 fentanyl overdose deaths were reported last year, up 73 percent from 2016, according to a coroner's report.

In all, just over 3,000 people in Canada died from opioid overdoses last year.

In British Columbia, most of the victims were men, and aged 30 to 39.

Public health services noted last fall that many of the fatal overdoses occurred within days of victims receiving a monthly government stipend, suggesting that Canada's poorest are being hardest hit.

In just six years, the proportion of overdose deaths in which fentanyl was detected in British Columbia rose from just four percent in 2012 to 81 percent in 2017, said the coroner's report.

Fentanyl, which has also soared in the United States, where overdose deaths are blamed for a dip in the average US life expectancy, killed 12 people in British Columbia in 2012, 152 in 2015 and 670 in 2016.

Carfentanyl, which is nearly 100 times more potent than fentanyl, is also responsible for about 50 fatal overdoses in British Columbia.

Nearly one year ago, Ottawa announced Can$75 million ($57.3 million) to try to curb the number of overdoses and to strengthen emergency responses.

Several provinces also distributed naloxone kits to treat overdoses.Andrew McCabe, the FBI deputy director - AP

Andrew McCabe, the FBI deputy director who Donald Trump has repeatedly criticised in public, has stepped down from the role.

Mr McCabe, who held the post since early 2016, will formally leave the FBI in mid-March when he becomes eligible for full retirement benefits.

The US president has effectively accused him of political bias in the past because Mr McCabes wife ran for a Virginia state senate seat as a Democrat.

The news comes a week after reports Mr Trump was urging his departure behind the scenes and once asked him how he voted.

Mr McCabe, the second most senior person in the FBI, was expected to leave the agency in March but the announcement he was leaving his post now came as a surprise.

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It marks another twist in the fractured relationship between Mr Trump and the intelligence agencies, with the president sacking James Comey, the FBI director, shortly after taking office.

Mr McCabe, briefly acting director after Mr Comeys departure, has become the target for Mr Trumps ire over the last year.

His wife received several hundred thousand dollars from a political fund linked to Hillary Clinton in her unsuccessful bid for a state senate seat in 2015.

Mr McCabe reportedly stepped back from any involvement in investigations into Virginian political figures or Ms Clinton.

Nonetheless Mr Trump has repeatedly voiced criticism over the link. In December he tweeted:

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After reports Mr McCabe was waiting to become eligible for his full pension before retiring, Mr Trump tweeted:

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It is unclear why his departure from the role came on Monday, given he was already expected to retire in March.

It came a week after reports that Mr Trump asked Mr McCabe how he voted in 2015  he said he did not vote  and that the FBI was coming under pressure to remove him.

Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, denied the White House was involved in the removal, saying: The president wasnt part of this decision-making process."Exclusive: memo written by former journalist Cody Shearer independently sets out some of the allegations made by ex-spy Christopher Steele

Trump and his supporters have been seeking to cast doubt on the credibility of Muellers investigation. Photograph: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

The FBI inquiry into alleged Russian collusion in the 2016 US presidential election has been given a second memo that independently set out some of the same allegations made in a dossier by Christopher Steele, the British former spy.

The second memo was written by Cody Shearer, a controversial political activist and former journalist who was close to the Clinton White House in the 1990s.

Unlike Steele, Shearer does not have a background in espionage, and his memo was initially viewed with scepticism, not least because he had shared it with select media organisations before the election.

However, the Guardian has been told the FBI investigation is still assessing details in the Shearer memo and is pursuing intriguing leads.

One source with knowledge of the inquiry said the fact the FBI was still working on it suggested investigators had taken an aspect of it seriously.

It raises the possibility that parts of the Steele dossier, which has been derided by Trumps supporters, may have been corroborated by Shearers research, or could still be.

The revelation comes at a moment when Donald Trump and some Republican lawmakers have been seeking to cast doubt on the credibility of the Mueller inquiry and the motivation of the FBI in examining Russian collusion, including unproven allegations that investigators had a bias in favour of Hillary Clinton when the investigation was initially launched before November.

Republicans on the House intelligence committee voted on Monday night to release a highly contentious memo, commissioned by the Republican chairman of the committee, Devin Nunes. The memo reportedly claims the FBI had an anti-Trump bias when it sought a warrant from the US foreign intelligence surveillance court to collect intelligence on Carter Page, an adviser to the Trump campaign. The Fisa court is a secret court that examines law enforcement requests to surveil Americans suspected of acting as foreign agents.

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The Republican memo reportedly alleges that the FBI relied on the Steele dossier, which was partly paid for using Democratic funds, in seeking the Carter Page warrant, according to the New York Times.

Democrats have said that the Republican allegations are misleading and based on selective use of classified materials. Justice department officials have said the release of the document, because of the classified elements, would be extraordinarily reckless.

Trump now has five days to decide whether the Nunes document should become public.

The Shearer memo was provided to the FBI in October 2016.

It was handed to them by Steele  who had been given it by an American contact  after the FBI requested the former MI6 agent provide any documents or evidence that could be useful in its investigation, according to multiple sources.

The Guardian was told Steele warned the FBI he could not vouch for the veracity of the Shearer memo, but that he was providing a copy because it corresponded with what he had separately heard from his own independent sources.

Robert Mueller, the former FBI director leading the investigation. Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters

Among other things, both documents allege Donald Trump was compromised during a 2013 trip to Moscow that involved lewd acts in a five-star hotel.

The Shearer memo cites an unnamed source within Russias FSB, the state security service. The Guardian cannot verify any of the claims.

Shearer is a controversial figure in Washington. Conservative outlets have accused him of being part of a hatchet man and member of a secret spy ring and within Clintons orbit. There is no evidence that the Clinton campaign was aware of the Shearer memo.

But other people who know Shearer say he is not just a Democratic party hack and there is no evidence that his memo was ever sought by Clinton campaign officials.

Sources say that while he lacks the precision and polish of a seasoned former spy like Steele, Shearer has also been described as having a large network of sources around the world and the independent financial means to pursue leads.

The White House has vigorously denied allegations that the US president was ever compromised and has rejected claims that campaign officials ever conspired with the Kremlin before the 2016 election.

Steeles dossier, his motives for writing it and his decision to share it remain controversial among Republicans.

He says he approached the FBI about concerns he had about links between Russia and the Trump campaign after he was commissioned to investigate the matter by a private investigative firm called Fusion GPS on behalf of the firms clients.

Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, told congressional investigators that Steele approached the FBI out of a sense of duty and concern for US national security.

Republican supporters of Trump have derided it as fake news. Chuck Grassley, a Republican senator from Iowa and ally of Trump, has called for an investigation into Steele amid unspecified allegations about the former spys conduct.

Democrats have said the campaign against Steele is part of an effort to seek to discredit him in order to shift attention away from allegations about Trump and Russia.

Spokespeople for the FBI and the US special counsel leading the criminal investigation into the Trump campaign declined to comment. Shearer did not return emails and calls for comment.

A federal criminal investigation into the Trump campaign has so far resulted in four indictments. Two former Trump campaign officials, including Michael Flynn, Trumps former national security adviser, have pleaded guilty to perjury and are cooperating with Robert Mueller, the special counsel who is leading the ongoing investigation.



WASHINGTON  A preliminary FCC report concludes that a combination of human error and inadequate safeguards led to the transmission of a false missile alert in Hawaii on Jan. 13, creating a harrowing scene for residents as it took 38 minutes for a second message to be sent confirming that the alarm was false.

The message, transmitted to wireless devices, read, BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. Hawaiis Emergency Management Agency posted a message on Twitter 12 minutes later that read, NO missile threat to Hawaii. But it took another 25 minutes for a false alarm message to be sent, informing residents that there was no missile threat.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai quickly launched an investigation, and Hawaiis Emergency Management Agency said that an employee selected the wrong template to send out the message during a test drill  as it went out live rather than to an internal system.

On Tuesday, the FCCs Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau unveiled the preliminary results of its investigation.

FCC attorney adviser James Wiley said that they found a number of faults with the state agency, including that the software template did not more clearly distinguish between a live and test environment, a lack of supervision, and a dearth of procedures for what to do when there were false alerts. The governor of Hawaii, David Ige, has said that there was a delay in his own ability to respond on Twitter because he could not find his password.

Wiley said that there were no procedures in place to prevent a single person from mistakenly sending a missile alert to the State of Hawaii.

While such an alert addressed a matter of the utmost gravity, there was no requirement in place for a warning officer to double check with a colleague or get signoff from a supervisor before sending such an alert, he said.

The FCC investigation traced the chain of events to miscommunication between the Hawaii EMAs midnight shift supervisor and the day shift supervisor so that the drill was run without proper supervision. Moreover, he said that the state EMA has been conducting no-notice drills, rather than giving advance notice, which is more common among emergency management agencies.

Story continues

The warning officer who sent the message declined to be interviewed by FCC officials, but did send a written statement to the Hawaii EMA. The warning officer claimed to believe that it was a real emergency, the FCC said. Wiley said that the warning officer apparently failed to recognize that this was an exercise even though the other warning officers on duty understood that this was not a real emergency.

Pai said that the only things that struck the island on Jan. 13 were panic, and then outrage. He said that the investigation had shown that Hawaii did not have reasonable safeguards in place to prevent human error and no plan for what to do if a false alert were transmitted.

Other commissioners also called for ensuring that something like the Hawaii alert doesnt happen again. Commissioner Michael ORielly said that it was astounding that no one was hurt in this incident.

We need real changes in place on an accelerated schedule, said Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel.

Wiley said that the Hawaii EMA has taken a number of corrective steps, including a requirement that two credentialed warning officers sign in and validate the transmission of every alert and test. It also has created a false alert correction template to correct a false alert.

(Pictured: David Ige)

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Subscribe to Variety Newsletters and Email Alerts!Niamey (AFP) - A Niger court has set the date of February 28 for announcing the outcome of a high-profile case involving former prime minister Hama Amadou, who has been sentenced to a year's jail for baby-trafficking.

"Proceedings were held on Wednesday at the Court of Cassation, which will issue a ruling on February 28," a judicial source said on Wednesday.

Amadou was prime minister from 1995-6 and 2000-2007, and president of the national assembly from 2011 to 2014. He stood against President Mahamadou Issoufou in elections in 2016 but flew to France before the second round of voting.

In a case that has poisoned the political climate for more than two years, Amadou is one of about 20 people accused of smuggling babies from Nigeria via Benin to wealthy couples in Niger.

They include a former minister, bankers, businessmen an army officer and their spouses.

He had initially been charged for "complicity" in the alleged trafficking, but the charge was changed on the judge's orders to that of "illicitly dealing in children". He was tried in absentia and convicted last March.

Amadou maintains the charges against him are politically motivated.

One of his wives, Hadiza Hama Amadou, who was handed a one-year sentence, was released in December after serving her term, her relatives said.

Nicknamed "the Phoenix" for his political comebacks, Amadou was arrested in November 2015 on a return from exile. His campaign for the presidency had to be conducted from behind bars.

He was released on medical grounds on March 16, 2016, four days before the second round of voting, and flew to France.

Issoufou went on to win with 92 percent of the run-off ballot in the 2016 vote. With the opposition boycotting the election, Amadou only got seven percent of the vote.By Prak Chan Thul PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Ten foreigners, charged in Cambodia with producing pornography related to indecent dancing at a party, have tested negative for drugs, police and their lawyer said on Wednesday. The 10 were arrested on Jan. 25 along with 77 other foreigners in a raid on the "Pub Crawl or Let's Get Wet" event in Siem Reap province, home to the ancient Angkor Wat ruins. A Cambodian police officer assigned to the case told Reuters, on condition of anonymity, that urine tests had not found any "addictive substance". Sourng Sophea, an attorney for the foreigners, who include five Britons, a Dutch citizen, two Canadians, a New Zealander and a Norwegian, said police had carried the drug tests at the prison where they are being held on Tuesday. "They found no addictive substance," Sourng Sophea said. Siem Reap Provincial Court has charged the ten foreigners with producing pornography for their role in organizing the party. The other 77 foreigners arrested were freed after being educated about their unacceptable behavior. They could face between one month and one year in prison if convicted. Sourng Sophea said that the accused wanted to go home, and called on the authorities to expel them rather than keep them in prison. "They want to go back to their home countries, they don't want to be here anymore," he said. Canada's Global Affairs Department said consular services had been provided to their detained citizens in Cambodia. (Reporting by Prak Chan Thul; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)Tourist Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala has landed in trouble with the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims(Supkem) over his recent remarks on the shisha ban.

According to Supkem, Balala is anti-Islamic for resisting the governments ban on shisha.

This comes a day after Balala criticised government agencies for frustrating investors with the ban on the importation, manufacture, sale, and use of shisha.

According to the CS, the ban which was implemented on December 28 was rash and could be detrimental to a section of the tourism industry.

You do your job, we will support; but you dont wake up overnight and ban shisha or start closing clubs. The whole world has Shisha! Why are you banning it in Kenya? Balala asked.

The Whole World Has Shisha, CS Balala Questions Ban

Supkem has demanded that Balala apologise and retract his statement or else they will organise demonstrations and advice all mosques to denounce him.

Supkems county chairman Ali Said accused Balala of promoting stripping in clubs in a sinful town. He said the cabinet secretary is definitely misleading the public.

You cant just say that because shisha fetches money, then it is good. No. We want him to apologise.

Even [Devolution PS Nelson] Marwa who is not a Muslim ordered a crackdown on shisha dens. He was expected to rally behind him and ensure strip clubs are shut.

Supkems Mombasa Secretary General Khalfan Ali said Balala has prioritised material wealth over health, moral, and Islamic teachings.

He said Balalas statement punctures their fight against drug abuse.

Smoking it encourages vigilante groups, drop-outs and crime.

Muslim community leaders and Coast natives are so saddened by his comment that shisha provides revenue. This unexpected of him, being a national leader with Muslim face.

The Council said it will continue its fight against clubs or hotels that sell shisha.WASHINGTON, DC  JANUARY 30: U.S. President Donald J. Trump (C) holds up his speech as U.S. Vice President Mike Pence (L) and Speaker of the House U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) (R) look on during the State of the Union address in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives January 30, 2018 in Washington, DC. This is the first State of the Union address given by U.S. President Donald Trump and his second joint-session address to Congress. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Read the full text of President Trumps first State of the Union address as it was prepared for delivery below.

[ Live coverage: Trumps 2018 State of the Union address ]

~~~

TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES:

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, the First Lady of the United States, and my fellow Americans:

Less than 1 year has passed since I first stood at this podium, in this majestic chamber, to speak on behalf of the American People  and to address their concerns, their hopes, and their dreams. That night, our new Administration had already taken swift action. A new tide of optimism was already sweeping across our land.

Each day since, we have gone forward with a clear vision and a righteous mission  to make America great again for all Americans.

Over the last year, we have made incredible progress and achieved extraordinary success. We have faced challenges we expected, and others we could never have imagined. We have shared in the heights of victory and the pains of hardship. We endured floods and fires and storms. But through it all, we have seen the beauty of Americas soul, and the steel in Americas spine.

Each test has forged new American heroes to remind us who we are, and show us what we can be.

We saw the volunteers of the Cajun Navy, racing to the rescue with their fishing boats to save people in the aftermath of a devastating hurricane.

We saw strangers shielding strangers from a hail of gunfire on the Las Vegas strip.

We heard tales of Americans like Coast Guard Petty Officer Ashlee Leppert, who is here tonight in the gallery with Melania. Ashlee was aboard one of the first helicopters on the scene in Houston during Hurricane Harvey. Through 18 hours of wind and rain, Ashlee braved live power lines and deep water, to help save more than 40 lives. Thank you, Ashlee.

We heard about Americans like firefighter David Dahlberg. He is here with us too. David faced down walls of flame to rescue almost 60 children trapped at a California summer camp threatened by wildfires.

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To everyone still recovering in Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, California, and everywhere else  we are with you, we love you, and we will pull through together.

Some trials over the past year touched this chamber very personally. With us tonight is one of the toughest people ever to serve in this House  a guy who took a bullet, almost died, and was back to work three and a half months later: the legend from Louisiana, Congressman Steve Scalise.

We are incredibly grateful for the heroic efforts of the Capitol Police Officers, the Alexandria Police, and the doctors, nurses, and paramedics who saved his life, and the lives of many others in this room.

In the aftermath of that terrible shooting, we came together, not as Republicans or Democrats, but as representatives of the people. But it is not enough to come together only in times of tragedy. Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve.

Over the last year, the world has seen what we always knew: that no people on Earth are so fearless, or daring, or determined as Americans. If there is a mountain, we climb it. If there is a frontier, we cross it. If there is a challenge, we tame it. If there is an opportunity, we seize it.

So let us begin tonight by recognizing that the state of our Union is strong because our people are strong.

And together, we are building a safe, strong, and proud America.

Since the election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs, including 200,000 new jobs in manufacturing alone. After years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages.

Unemployment claims have hit a 45-year low. African-American unemployment stands at the lowest rate ever recorded, and Hispanic American unemployment has also reached the lowest levels in history.

Small business confidence is at an all-time high. The stock market has smashed one record after another, gaining $8 trillion in value. That is great news for Americans 401k, retirement, pension, and college savings accounts.

And just as I promised the American people from this podium 11 months ago, we enacted the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history.

Our massive tax cuts provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small businesses.

To lower tax rates for hardworking Americans, we nearly doubled the standard deduction for everyone. Now, the first $24,000 earned by a married couple is completely tax-free. We also doubled the child tax credit.

A typical family of four making $75,000 will see their tax bill reduced by $2,000  slashing their tax bill in half.

This April will be the last time you ever file under the old broken system  and millions of Americans will have more take-home pay starting next month.

We eliminated an especially cruel tax that fell mostly on Americans making less than $50,000 a year  forcing them to pay tremendous penalties simply because they could not afford government-ordered health plans. We repealed the core of disastrous Obamacare  the individual mandate is now gone.

We slashed the business tax rate from 35 percent all the way down to 21 percent, so American companies can compete and win against anyone in the world. These changes alone are estimated to increase average family income by more than $4,000.

Small businesses have also received a massive tax cut, and can now deduct 20 percent of their business income.

Here tonight are Steve Staub and Sandy Keplinger of Staub Manufacturing  a small business in Ohio. They have just finished the best year in their 20-year history. Because of tax reform, they are handing out raises, hiring an additional 14 people, and expanding into the building next door.

One of Staubs employees, Corey Adams, is also with us tonight. Corey is an all-American worker. He supported himself through high school, lost his job during the 2008 recession, and was later hired by Staub, where he trained to become a welder. Like many hardworking Americans, Corey plans to invest his taxcut raise into his new home and his two daughters education. Please join me in congratulating Corey.

Since we passed tax cuts, roughly 3 million workers have already gotten tax cut bonuses  many of them thousands of dollars per worker. Apple has just announced it plans to invest a total of $350 billion in America, and hire another 20,000 workers.

This is our new American moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American Dream.

So to every citizen watching at home tonight  no matter where you have been, or where you come from, this is your time. If you work hard, if you believe in yourself, if you believe in America, then you can dream anything, you can be anything, and together, we can achieve anything.

Tonight, I want to talk about what kind of future we are going to have, and what kind of Nation we are going to be. All of us, together, as one team, one people, and one American family.

We all share the same home, the same heart, the same destiny, and the same great American flag.

Together, we are rediscovering the American way.

In America, we know that faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, are the center of the American life. Our motto is in God we trust.

And we celebrate our police, our military, and our amazing veterans as heroes who deserve our total and unwavering support.

Here tonight is Preston Sharp, a 12-year-old boy from Redding, California, who noticed that veterans graves were not marked with flags on Veterans Day. He decided to change that, and started a movement that has now placed 40,000 flags at the graves of our great heroes. Preston: a job well done.

Young patriots like Preston teach all of us about our civic duty as Americans. Prestons reverence for those who have served our Nation reminds us why we salute our flag, why we put our hands on our hearts for the pledge of allegiance, and why we proudly stand for the national anthem.

Americans love their country. And they deserve a Government that shows them the same love and loyalty in return.

For the last year we have sought to restore the bonds of trust between our citizens and their Government.

Working with the Senate, we are appointing judges who will interpret the Constitution as written, including a great new Supreme Court Justice, and more circuit court judges than any new administration in the history of our country.

We are defending our Second Amendment, and have taken historic actions to protect religious liberty.

And we are serving our brave veterans, including giving our veterans choice in their healthcare decisions. Last year, the Congress passed, and I signed, the landmark VA Accountability Act. Since its passage, my Administration has already removed more than 1,500 VA employees who failed to give our veterans the care they deserve  and we are hiring talented people who love our vets as much as we do.

I will not stop until our veterans are properly taken care of, which has been my promise to them from the very beginning of this great journey.

All Americans deserve accountability and respect  and that is what we are giving them. So tonight, I call on the Congress to empower every Cabinet Secretary with the authority to reward good workers  and to remove Federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.

In our drive to make Washington accountable, we have eliminated more regulations in our first year than any administration in history.

We have ended the war on American Energy  and we have ended the war on clean coal. We are now an exporter of energy to the world.

In Detroit, I halted Government mandates that crippled Americas autoworkers  so we can get the Motor City revving its engines once again.

Many car companies are now building and expanding plants in the United States  something we have not seen for decades. Chrysler is moving a major plant from Mexico to Michigan; Toyota and Mazda are opening up a plant in Alabama. Soon, plants will be opening up all over the country. This is all news Americans are unaccustomed to hearing  for many years, companies and jobs were only leaving us. But now they are coming back.

Exciting progress is happening every day.

To speed access to breakthrough cures and affordable generic drugs, last year the FDA approved more new and generic drugs and medical devices than ever before in our history.

We also believe that patients with terminal conditions should have access to experimental treatments that could potentially save their lives.

People who are terminally ill should not have to go from country to country to seek a cure  I want to give them a chance right here at home. It is time for the Congress to give these wonderful Americans the right to try.

One of my greatest priorities is to reduce the price of prescription drugs. In many other countries, these drugs cost far less than what we pay in the United States. That is why I have directed my Administration to make fixing the injustice of high drug prices one of our top priorities. Prices will come down.

America has also finally turned the page on decades of unfair trade deals that sacrificed our prosperity and shipped away our companies, our jobs, and our Nations wealth.

The era of economic surrender is over.

From now on, we expect trading relationships to be fair and to be reciprocal.

We will work to fix bad trade deals and negotiate new ones.

And we will protect American workers and American intellectual property, through strong enforcement of our trade rules.

As we rebuild our industries, it is also time to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure.

America is a nation of builders. We built the Empire State Building in just 1 year  is it not a disgrace that it can now take 10 years just to get a permit approved for a simple road?

I am asking both parties to come together to give us the safe, fast, reliable, and modern infrastructure our economy needs and our people deserve.

Tonight, I am calling on the Congress to produce a bill that generates at least $1.5 trillion for the new infrastructure investment we need.

Every Federal dollar should be leveraged by partnering with State and local governments and, where appropriate, tapping into private sector investment  to permanently fix the infrastructure deficit.

Any bill must also streamline the permitting and approval process  getting it down to no more than two years, and perhaps even one.

Together, we can reclaim our building heritage. We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways across our land. And we will do it with American heart, American hands, and American grit.

We want every American to know the dignity of a hard days work. We want every child to be safe in their home at night. And we want every citizen to be proud of this land that we love.

We can lift our citizens from welfare to work, from dependence to independence, and from poverty to prosperity.

As tax cuts create new jobs, let us invest in workforce development and job training. Let us open great vocational schools so our future workers can learn a craft and realize their full potential. And let us support working families by supporting paid family leave.

As America regains its strength, this opportunity must be extended to all citizens. That is why this year we will embark on reforming our prisons to help former inmates who have served their time get a second chance.

Struggling communities, especially immigrant communities, will also be helped by immigration policies that focus on the best interests of American workers and American families.

For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities. They have allowed millions of low-wage workers to compete for jobs and wages against the poorest Americans. Most tragically, they have caused the loss of many innocent lives.

Here tonight are two fathers and two mothers: Evelyn Rodriguez, Freddy Cuevas, Elizabeth Alvarado, and Robert Mickens. Their two teenage daughters  Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens  were close friends on Long Island. But in September 2016, on the eve of Nisas 16th Birthday, neither of them came home. These two precious girls were brutally murdered while walking together in their hometown. Six members of the savage gang MS-13 have been charged with Kayla and Nisas murders. Many of these gang members took advantage of glaring loopholes in our laws to enter the country as unaccompanied alien minors - and wound up in Kayla and Nisas high school.

Evelyn, Elizabeth, Freddy, and Robert: Tonight, everyone in this chamber is praying for you. Everyone in America is grieving for you. And 320 million hearts are breaking for you. We cannot imagine the depth of your sorrow, but we can make sure that other families never have to endure this pain.

Tonight, I am calling on the Congress to finally close the deadly loopholes that have allowed MS-13, and other criminals, to break into our country. We have proposed new legislation that will fix our immigration laws, and support our ICE and Border Patrol Agents, so that this cannot ever happen again.

The United States is a compassionate nation. We are proud that we do more than any other country to help the needy, the struggling, and the underprivileged all over the world. But as President of the United States, my highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, and my constant concern is for Americas children, Americas struggling workers, and Americas forgotten communities. I want our youth to grow up to achieve great things. I want our poor to have their chance to rise.

So tonight, I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties  Democrats and Republicans  to protect our citizens of every background, color, religion, and creed. My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans  to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream. Because Americans are dreamers too.

Here tonight is one leader in the effort to defend our country: Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Celestino Martinez  he goes by CJ. CJ served 15 years in the Air Force before becoming an ICE agent and spending the last 15 years fighting gang violence and getting dangerous criminals off our streets. At one point, MS-13 leaders ordered CJs murder. But he did not cave to threats or fear. Last May, he commanded an operation to track down gang members on Long Island. His team has arrested nearly 400, including more than 220 from MS-13.

CJ: Great work. Now let us get the Congress to send you some reinforcements.

Over the next few weeks, the House and Senate will be voting on an immigration reform package.

In recent months, my Administration has met extensively with both Democrats and Republicans to craft a bipartisan approach to immigration reform. Based on these discussions, we presented the Congress with a detailed proposal that should be supported by both parties as a fair compromise  one where nobody gets everything they want, but where our country gets the critical reforms it needs.

Here are the four pillars of our plan:

The first pillar of our framework generously offers a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants who were brought here by their parents at a young age  that covers almost three times more people than the previous administration. Under our plan, those who meet education and work requirements, and show good moral character, will be able to become full citizens of the United States.

The second pillar fully secures the border. That means building a wall on the Southern border, and it means hiring more heroes like CJ to keep our communities safe. Crucially, our plan closes the terrible loopholes exploited by criminals and terrorists to enter our country  and it finally ends the dangerous practice of catch and release.

The third pillar ends the visa lottery  a program that randomly hands out green cards without any regard for skill, merit, or the safety of our people. It is time to begin moving towards a merit-based immigration system  one that admits people who are skilled, who want to work, who will contribute to our society, and who will love and respect our country.

The fourth and final pillar protects the nuclear family by ending chain migration. Under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives. Under our plan, we focus on the immediate family by limiting sponsorships to spouses and minor children. This vital reform is necessary, not just for our economy, but for our security, and our future.

In recent weeks, two terrorist attacks in New York were made possible by the visa lottery and chain migration. In the age of terrorism, these programs present risks we can no longer afford.

It is time to reform these outdated immigration rules, and finally bring our immigration system into the 21st century.

These four pillars represent a down-the-middle compromise, and one that will create a safe, modern, and lawful immigration system.

For over 30 years, Washington has tried and failed to solve this problem. This Congress can be the one that finally makes it happen.

Most importantly, these four pillars will produce legislation that fulfills my ironclad pledge to only sign a bill that puts America first. So let us come together, set politics aside, and finally get the job done.

These reforms will also support our response to the terrible crisis of opioid and drug addiction.

In 2016, we lost 64,000 Americans to drug overdoses: 174 deaths per day. Seven per hour. We must get much tougher on drug dealers and pushers if we are going to succeed in stopping this scourge.

My Administration is committed to fighting the drug epidemic and helping get treatment for those in need. The struggle will be long and difficult  but, as Americans always do, we will prevail.

As we have seen tonight, the most difficult challenges bring out the best in America.

We see a vivid expression of this truth in the story of the Holets family of New Mexico. Ryan Holets is 27 years old, and an officer with the Albuquerque Police Department. He is here tonight with his wife Rebecca. Last year, Ryan was on duty when he saw a pregnant, homeless woman preparing to inject heroin. When Ryan told her she was going to harm her unborn child, she began to weep. She told him she did not know where to turn, but badly wanted a safe home for her baby.

In that moment, Ryan said he felt God speak to him: You will do it  because you can. He took out a picture of his wife and their four kids. Then, he went home to tell his wife Rebecca. In an instant, she agreed to adopt. The Holets named their new daughter Hope.

Ryan and Rebecca: You embody the goodness of our Nation. Thank you, and congratulations.

As we rebuild Americas strength and confidence at home, we are also restoring our strength and standing abroad.

Around the world, we face rogue regimes, terrorist groups, and rivals like China and Russia that challenge our interests, our economy, and our values. In confronting these dangers, we know that weakness is the surest path to conflict, and unmatched power is the surest means of our defense.

For this reason, I am asking the Congress to end the dangerous defense sequester and fully fund our great military.

As part of our defense, we must modernize and rebuild our nuclear arsenal, hopefully never having to use it, but making it so strong and powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression. Perhaps someday in the future there will be a magical moment when the countries of the world will get together to eliminate their nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, we are not there yet.

Last year, I also pledged that we would work with our allies to extinguish ISIS from the face of the Earth. One year later, I am proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated almost 100 percent of the territory once held by these killers in Iraq and Syria. But there is much more work to be done. We will continue our fight until ISIS is defeated.

Army Staff Sergeant Justin Peck is here tonight. Near Raqqa last November, Justin and his comrade, Chief Petty Officer Kenton Stacy, were on a mission to clear buildings that ISIS had rigged with explosives so that civilians could return to the city.

Clearing the second floor of a vital hospital, Kenton Stacy was severely wounded by an explosion. Immediately, Justin bounded into the booby-trapped building and found Kenton in bad shape. He applied pressure to the wound and inserted a tube to reopen an airway. He then performed CPR for 20 straight minutes during the ground transport and maintained artificial respiration through 2 hours of emergency surgery.

Kenton Stacy would have died if not for Justins selfless love for a fellow warrior. Tonight, Kenton is recovering in Texas. Raqqa is liberated. And Justin is wearing his new Bronze Star, with a V for Valor. Staff Sergeant Peck: All of America salutes you.

Terrorists who do things like place bombs in civilian hospitals are evil. When possible, we annihilate them. When necessary, we must be able to detain and question them. But we must be clear: Terrorists are not merely criminals. They are unlawful enemy combatants. And when captured overseas, they should be treated like the terrorists they are.

In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds of dangerous terrorists, only to meet them again on the battlefield  including the ISIS leader, al-Baghdadi.

So today, I am keeping another promise. I just signed an order directing Secretary Mattis to reexamine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay.

I am also asking the Congress to ensure that, in the fight against ISIS and al-Qaida, we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists  wherever we chase them down.

Our warriors in Afghanistan also have new rules of engagement. Along with their heroic Afghan partners, our military is no longer undermined by artificial timelines, and we no longer tell our enemies our plans.

Last month, I also took an action endorsed unanimously by the Senate just months before: I recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Shortly afterwards, dozens of countries voted in the United Nations General Assembly against Americas sovereign right to make this recognition. American taxpayers generously send those same countries billions of dollars in aid every year.

That is why, tonight, I am asking the Congress to pass legislation to help ensure American foreign-assistance dollars always serve American interests, and only go to Americas friends.

As we strengthen friendships around the world, we are also restoring clarity about our adversaries.

When the people of Iran rose up against the crimes of their corrupt dictatorship, I did not stay silent. America stands with the people of Iran in their courageous struggle for freedom.

I am asking the Congress to address the fundamental flaws in the terrible Iran nuclear deal.

My Administration has also imposed tough sanctions on the communist and socialist dictatorships in Cuba and Venezuela.

But no regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally or brutally than the cruel dictatorship in North Korea.

North Koreas reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland.

We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from happening.

Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation. I will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got us into this dangerous position.

We need only look at the depraved character of the North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose to America and our allies.

Otto Warmbier was a hardworking student at the University of Virginia. On his way to study abroad in Asia, Otto joined a tour to North Korea. At its conclusion, this wonderful young man was arrested and charged with crimes against the state. After a shameful trial, the dictatorship sentenced Otto to 15 years of hard labor, before returning him to America last June  horribly injured and on the verge of death. He passed away just days after his return.

Ottos Parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, are with us tonight  along with Ottos brother and sister, Austin and Greta. You are powerful witnesses to a menace that threatens our world, and your strength inspires us all. Tonight, we pledge to honor Ottos memory with American resolve.

Finally, we are joined by one more witness to the ominous nature of this regime. His name is Mr. Ji Seong-ho.

In 1996, Seong-ho was a starving boy in North Korea. One day, he tried to steal coal from a railroad car to barter for a few scraps of food. In the process, he passed out on the train tracks, exhausted from hunger. He woke up as a train ran over his limbs. He then endured multiple amputations without anything to dull the pain. His brother and sister gave what little food they had to help him recover and ate dirt themselves  permanently stunting their own growth. Later, he was tortured by North Korean authorities after returning from a brief visit to China. His tormentors wanted to know if he had met any Christians. He had  and he resolved to be free.

Seong-ho traveled thousands of miles on crutches across China and Southeast Asia to freedom. Most of his family followed. His father was caught trying to escape, and was tortured to death.

Today he lives in Seoul, where he rescues other defectors, and broadcasts into North Korea what the regime fears the most - the truth.

Today he has a new leg, but Seong-ho, I understand you still keep those crutches as a reminder of how far you have come. Your great sacrifice is an inspiration to us all.

Seong-hos story is a testament to the yearning of every human soul to live in freedom.

It was that same yearning for freedom that nearly 250 years ago gave birth to a special place called America. It was a small cluster of colonies caught between a great ocean and a vast wilderness. But it was home to an incredible people with a revolutionary idea: that they could rule themselves. That they could chart their own destiny. And that, together, they could light up the world.

That is what our country has always been about. That is what Americans have always stood for, always strived for, and always done.

Atop the dome of this Capitol stands the Statue of Freedom. She stands tall and dignified among the monuments to our ancestors who fought and lived and died to protect her.

Monuments to Washington and Jefferson  to Lincoln and King.

Memorials to the heroes of Yorktown and Saratoga  to young Americans who shed their blood on the shores of Normandy, and the fields beyond. And others, who went down in the waters of the Pacific and the skies over Asia.

And freedom stands tall over one more monument: this one. This Capitol. This living monument to the American people.

A people whose heroes live not only in the past, but all around us  defending hope, pride, and the American way.

They work in every trade. They sacrifice to raise a family. They care for our children at home. They defend our flag abroad. They are strong moms and brave kids. They are firefighters, police officers, border agents, medics, and Marines.

But above all else, they are Americans. And this Capitol, this city, and this Nation, belong to them.

Our task is to respect them, to listen to them, to serve them, to protect them, and to always be worthy of them.

Americans fill the world with art and music. They push the bounds of science and discovery. And they forever remind us of what we should never forget: The people dreamed this country. The people built this country. And it is the people who are making America great again.

As long as we are proud of who we are, and what we are fighting for, there is nothing we cannot achieve.

As long as we have confidence in our values, faith in our citizens, and trust in our God, we will not fail.

Our families will thrive.

Our people will prosper.

And our Nation will forever be safe and strong and proud and mighty and free.

Thank you, and God bless America.UNITED STATES - JANUARY 30: President Donald Trump takes a selfie with Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., in the House chamber after Trump's State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on January 30, 2018. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call) (Photo: Tom Williams via Getty Images)

A Republican lawmaker invited a notorious far-right troll who peddles absurd conspiracy theories to President Donald Trumps State of the Union address on Tuesday.

Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida gave a ticket to the speech to Chuck Johnson, a blogger who was permanently banned from Twitter after asking for help taking out a civil rights activist. A Gaetz spokeswoman on Wednesday confirmed the invite to HuffPost.

Gaetz told The Daily Beast Johnson showed up at his office the day of the speech asking for a ticket. Johnson said several members of Congress invited him, but he took Gaetzs ticket.

Johnson said he had a wild time at the speech.

I certainly did a bunch of jumping out of my chair, Johnson told The Daily Beast. Trump was straight-up gangster.

Johnsons website, GotNews, is known for a wide range of false and dangerous writing, and promotes itself with the tagline: President Trump reads us. You should too.

In 2014, he falsely accused a New York Times reporter of posing for Playgirl. That same year, he published the name and photo of a person he claimed had falsely reported a rape (The photo, taken off Pinterest, showed the wrong person). He maintains that former President Barack Obama is clearly gay, and described Eric Garner, the unarmed black man who died in a New York police chokehold, as a street thug. Johnson said he identifies with the alt-right.

Gaetz also has shown a fondness for conspiracy theories. On Monday, he went on Alex Jones InfoWars broadcast to claim Special Counsel Robert Mullers investigation into the Trump campaigns alleged ties with Russia is built on a rotten foundation, and will soon turn to Hillary Clinton.

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - A senior Hamas official has died in Gaza three weeks after shooting himself in the head in what officials described as an accident, the Palestinian Islamist group announced Tuesday.

Imad al-Alami, a former member of Hamas's highest political body and its ambassador to Iran, died overnight, a Hamas statement said.

His funeral will take place in Gaza on Tuesday, with large crowds expected.

Alami was wounded on January 9 while "inspecting his personal weapon in his home" in Gaza, Hamas said at the time.

There was no independent confirmation of the circumstances of the incident.

Alami had been a senior member of Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, for decades.

Israel had accused him of planning multiple attacks.

In 2003 while believed to be based in the Syrian capital Damascus, the United States labelled him a "specially designated global terrorist."

He lived in exile for more than 20 years but returned to Gaza in 2012.

His home in Gaza was bombed by Israel during the most recent war between the two sides in 2014.By David Shepardson and Steve Gorman

(Reuters) - The Hawaii civil defense employee who issued the false missile alarm that stirred panic across the state last month mistook an alert drill for an actual attack, confused by conflicting messages used in the simulation, investigators said on Tuesday.

The employee has since been fired, and the top two civilian officials at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency (HEMA), administrator Vern Miyagi and executive officer Toby Clairmont, resigned in a shakeup stemming from the scare, it was announced at a news conference in Honolulu.

There were also proceedings to suspend without pay a mid-level agency manager who played a major role in devising the procedures and checklists for HEMA's missile alerts and drills, said Bruce Oliveira, a retired National Guard general who led a review of the Jan. 13 mishap.

The investigation found the system for activating a missile alert and conducting emergency drills was deeply flawed, lacking sufficient clarity, fail-safe controls or even a pre-programmed way of issuing a false alarm notice to the public.

Those shortcomings came into play the day a supervisor decided to initiate a drill during a weekend shift change, leading a warning system officer to errantly transmit a live missile alert to mobile phones and broadcast stations statewide.

The message, issued amid heightened tension over North Korea's nuclear weapons program, stated: "EMERGENCY ALERT BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL."

It went uncorrected for 38 minutes and triggered hysteria and confusion across the Pacific island state.

Oliveira said the employee who activated the false alarm was a 10-year veteran of HEMA with a history of job performance issues, including twice confusing drills with real emergencies.

He acknowledged the employee, who had been "counseled and corrected" for past issues, had remained assigned to the warning system team despite misgivings by co-workers over the years.

Story continues

During December's failure, according to the employee's written account, he misunderstood a simulated missile notice recorded by a supervisor and played over a speaker phone to mimic an actual call from the U.S. military's Pacific Command.

Following procedures he thought were correct, he activated the state's missile launch alert from a "drop-down" computer menu and, believing an attack was imminent, clicked "yes" when a system software prompt asked, "Are you sure that you want to send this Alert?"

The simulated missile warning played over the phone included the words: "This is not a drill," and the repeated phrase, "Exercise, exercise, exercise."

Five others in the center said they heard the "exercise" phrase, which came at the start and end of the message, Oliveira said. The system officer at the terminal said he only heard "This is not a drill."

Moments later, realizing he had done the wrong thing, he "became confused, he froze, and other employees had to take over his responsibilities," Oliveira said.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which oversees all U.S. wireless alert systems, issued its own report on Tuesday, concluding the false alarm stemmed from human errors, confused wording in the drill and lack of adequate supervision.

Hawaii Governor David Ige, whose response to the incident was called into question, said changes had been implemented so there would be no repeat of the Jan. 13 incident.

(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington, D.C. and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by David Gregorio, Toni Reinhold)Reykjavik (AFP) - In a world first, Iceland has introduced a new law requiring employers to prove they are paying men and women the same wage for doing the same work, or face fines.

As of next January, companies in Iceland must prove, with proper documentation carried out regularly, that they are paying gender equal wages.

The country's biggest bank Landsbankinn, nationalised in 2008 during the country's financial collapse, has already begun complying with the law.

Elisabet Bjornsdottir, 34, who works in the bank's treasury department, says she's never experienced any discrimination vis-a-vis her male counterparts, in a country that is already among the world's best performers in terms of gender equality.

But "that's one of the fundamental reasons why we need this law, because it's not something that you can easily feel or see. You can maybe have a feeling ... but it's really hard to prove," she said.

While Iceland has had a law mandating equal pay for men and women since 1961, the new law puts the onus on the employer.

It's no longer up to an employee to prove that they are being discriminated against, but rather, the employer must prove -- in the event of a wage gap -- that gender has nothing to do with it.

Concretely, employers will have to evaluate, at regular intervals, the requirements for a job position and each employee's ability to fulfill them. The process must be documented, taking into account objective criteria, and carried out transparently.

The employee's seniority, education or training, experience, and the added value he or she brings to the job are among the factors assessed.

If the company is in line with the law, a professional certifier (such as private consultancies) will issue the company a certificate valid for three years.

- Hefty fines, public shaming -

Landsbankinn will spend 120,000 euros ($150,000) to bring itself into compliance. The bank's human resources chief is in favour of the new legislation.

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"If it were not written in the law, I think that in 10 years time we would still be doing the same things we are doing today, and the gap would not be closed. So I think it's a good step towards closing the gap," said Baldur Jonsson.

For the past nine years, Iceland has led the World Economic Forum's ranking of the most egalitarian countries.

And yet, even here, the overall wage gap between men and women remains significant, at 16.1 percent, according to national statistics. That puts Iceland in line with the European average, according to Eurostat's figures.

Around 1,180 companies and 147,000 employees are affected by the reform in Iceland, a country of 347,000 people.

Employers found to be in violation of the law will be reported to Iceland's Gender Equality Agency, and face fines of up to 400 euros per day. The information will also be made public, in the name of transparency.

Small companies have until December 31, 2021 to comply with the law.

But all government ministries, public administrations, and companies with more than 250 employees have to comply by December 31, 2018.

- Others trying too -

At a time when equality between the sexes is dominating the public debate, Iceland's initiative often elicits wide-eyed wonder abroad -- though several other European countries are taking similar, albeit less ambitious, steps.

Britain last year ordered firms of over 250 employees to publish details of their gender pay gap, with sanctions an option if companies refuse to comply.

And Germany recently introduced a new law that gives an employee the right to know how their salary compares with that of colleagues of the opposite sex doing similar work.

But in Iceland, the new law has been met with some scepticism -- with opponents arguing that gender-based wage discrimination has been illegal since 1961.

Thorsteinn Viglundsson, a former social affairs minister who initiated the new legislation, told AFP the old law just wasn't working.

"Sometimes it takes a legal initiative to really push through (a change), if you want to make reforms in this area," he said.

The anti-establishment Pirate Party has hailed the aim of the law, but considers the method costly and complicated.

"To me, this doesn't fix the problem," said Pirate MP Bjorn Gunnarsson who voted against it.

Paradoxically, he noted, companies will now have very specific criteria to make it possible to justify wage gaps.

Brynhildur Omarsdottir, the head of the Icelandic Association for Women's Rights, acknowledged that while the new law "doesn't solve the whole problem (of gender inequality), it solves a part of the problem -- a very crucial part."A missing Illinois teen found dead Saturday in a ditch off a rural roadway was murdered, PEOPLE confirms.

The body of 16-year-old Diamond Bradley was discovered Saturday just before 1 p.m. in a ditch on County Highway 850N in Granville Township, about 100 miles southwest of Chicago.

 For more compelling true crime coverage, follow our Crime magazine on Flipboard.

The Spring Valley teen had been missing for three days. An autopsy performed Sunday determined the teen died as a result of homicide. According to a press release obtained by PEOPLE, investigators are also awaiting toxicology results.

The Daily News-Tribune reported that Diamond died from multiple injuries.

Police say Diamond was last seen at her home about 10 p.m. Jan. 23 and was reported missing the following day.

Police have not commented on where they think Diamond died, and where she was during the time she was missing.

School Superintendent Jay K. McCracken said Diamond had last attended Hall High School on October 5.

It is very sad, McCracken tells PEOPLE. Our community is very saddened and shocked.

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McCracken says the 11th grade student had plenty of friends and will certainly be missed by many.

She had a very, very bright personality, Domonique Jolly, Diamonds cousin, told the Daily News-Tribune, adding: Im just at a loss for words. I just hope they find out who did that. She didnt deserve that, whatever happened.KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A woman accused of killing the North Korean leader's estranged half-brother was hired for a prank television show by a suspect wanted by the Malaysian police just over a month earlier, her lawyer told a court on Tuesday. Indonesian Siti Aisyah is accused with another woman, Doan Thi Huong from Vietnam, of killing Kim Jong Nam by smearing his face with VX, a banned chemical poison at Kuala Lumpur airport on Feb. 13 last year. Defence lawyers say the women thought they were playing pranks for a reality show and did not know they were poisoning Kim. They face the death penalty if convicted. On Jan. 5 last year, Siti Aisyah was approached at a nightclub by a Malaysian taxi driver, who asked her if she would participate in a Japanese video prank show, her lawyer, Gooi Soon Seng, told the court during his questioning of the lead police investigator in the case, Wan Azirul Nizam Che Wan Aziz. The following morning the taxi driver, Kamaruddin Masiod, also known as John, introduced Siti Aisyah to Ri Ji U, a North Korean posing as a Japanese man named James, at a shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur's city centre, Gooi added. After Siti Aisyah agreed to the offer, she watched pranks being played by an unidentified woman, before joining in. She played pranks on three people near a fountain outside the mall entrance and was paid 400 ringgit ($102.70) by Ri at the end of the day, Gooi said. Wan Azirul, the police witness, was unable to confirm the pranks took place. "I agree that Kamaruddin was the person who introduced the first accused (Siti Aisyah) to James, but the date and place, I'm not sure," Wan Azirul said. The meeting of Siti Aisyah, Ri and Kamaruddin was captured in a photograph taken at the shopping mall, Gooi said. The photo was released to reporters after Tuesday's hearing. Ri was named by Malaysian police as a suspect shortly after Kim Jong Nam's killing and his photo was released to the media. Defence lawyers have argued the killing was politically motivated, with many key suspects linked to the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, suggesting the two women were merely unwitting pawns in the attack. Pyongyang has denied accusations by South Korean and U.S. officials that North Korean leader Kim Jong Uns regime was behind the killing. The trial resumes on Feb. 8. ($1=3.8950 ringgit) (Reporting by Rozanna Latiff; Editing by Praveen Menon and Clarence Fernandez)Kenyas top female disc jockey Pierra Makena has finally addressed the ongoing social media storm over reports that she body-shamed Mishi Dora.

This after the outspoken and controversial socialite took to social media to hurl insults at DJ Pierra for allegedly body-shaming her in a WhatsApp group.

The Nairobi Diaries actress took to social media last week to tell off the media personality in a vile post.

It read: B****leave my fucking life alone Why you so bitter with me? Im I the one that your bby daddy left you for and got married to?? Abeg if Im sexy or not how is it your cup of tea?? Wewe nahiyo mwili yako sexy siuliachwa tu bado na mimba kama mimi?? Go fix your life before trying to fix others.

Responding to the attack, DJ Pierra has denied making such remarks saying they were made by a pseudo account under her name.

According to Pierra, her team has done investigations and established that the number used in the said WhatsApp group belongs to one, Beverlyne Michira.

Pierra adds that she reached out to Mishi Dora to explain that it was not her but the socialite still refused to apologize for her vile attack. She, however, agreed to pulled down the post.

In her statement, Pierra stated that she does not approve of body-shaming as she is very pro-women.

Read her full statement below.

I would like to address what has been going around on social media about me.

Early morning last week one of my clients alerted me that someone was claiming that I body shamed them in a WhatsApp group.

I looked it up and I met a vile Instagram post about me my child and the father of my baby. I searched for her number (I have the conversations) called her to find out what is going on. I explained to her

1. That was not my number and neither has it ever been

2.I do not know her..never met her

3.I am very pro women and I do not body shame.

I requested her to send me the conversations going on in the WhatsApp group and the number of the so called dj pierra.. which was very unfamiliar to me

I requested her to pull down the post and apologize which she refused but later pulled down the post but refused to apologize.. although I had made it clear that it was not me in Their WhatsApp group and she should investigate.

My team has done investigations and have found out the name of the owner of the number in their WhatsApp group who claims to be DJ pierra

I will post screenshots of the conversations..I will not post her picture and the rest of the conversations as the case is still with the police.

IF my accuser had done a little digging then she could have found out that I was not the owner of the number in their whatsapp group.This week has been interesting but I chose not to respond rudely to the vile/bodyshaming post..As a hard working mother..career woman and a

friend I do not approve of body shaming insulting and use of faul language to communicate. I have decided to clear the air.. though those who know me know that it was not me.I would like thank all my fans and friends and clients for your kind words and supportive messages.

Always remember when people are rude to you,They reveal who they Are,not who you are.dont take it personally cheers #BeYou.Tehran (AFP) - A prominent Iranian reformist under house arrest for the past seven years lashed out at the country's supreme leader Tuesday, urging him to bring major reforms "before it is too late".

Mehdi Karroubi, 80, lost his bid for the presidency in 2009 and helped lead mass protests against alleged election-rigging that eventually saw him confined to his home without trial.

In an open letter published on a blocked reformist website on Tuesday, Karroubi called on supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to "accept responsibility for your policies of the last three decades".

"I urge you, before it is too late, to open the way to structural reforms of the system," he wrote.

He said recent protests over economic conditions were inevitable given the depth of "injustice, corruption and discrimination".

At least 25 people were killed in the unrest that hit dozens of towns and cities over the new year.

Karroubi called on Khamenei to stop blaming foreign "enemies" for the unrest and release those arrested during the protests.

"The system is going downhill to such an extent that it feels endangered by a few thousand people demonstrating," he wrote.

"Instead of repeating accusations of links with the enemy and instead of harsh confrontation, listen to them."

Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said Tuesday that "fewer than 300" people were still in detention in relation to the unrest.

Karroubi also criticised the involvement of the Revolutionary Guards, a security force directly loyal to the leader, in political and economic affairs.

The "catastrophic outcome is clear to everyone today", he wrote.

"More than 50 percent of the country's wealth is in the hands of state bodies over which there is no supervision... Poverty and unemployment are plaguing the country."London (AFP) - Ireland wants to hold onto the "closest possible relationship" with Britain after its neighbour leaves the European Union, foreign minister Simon Coveney said Wednesday in London.

The only EU member to have a land border with the UK, Ireland took centre stage in the first round of Brexit negotiations last year.

But despite the tough talks, Coveney said Dublin wanted to maintain "the closest possible relationship with our closest neighbour and friend".

"I have said many times that Ireland would be Britain's closest friend in phase two of those negotiations -- even though we were responsible for a little bit of stress in the context of trying to move on to phase two," the foreign minister said at London's Chatham House think tank.

Dublin has sought assurances that Britain's departure from the EU will not see the imposition of a hard border with Northern Ireland, after a 1998 peace accord brought with it an open frontier between the two countries.

Along with citizens' rights and the Brexit bill, agreement on the border issue was reached between Britain and Brussels in December which will allow the two sides to move on to talks on a transitional period.

While in London, Coveney met his British counterpart Boris Johnson whose office said the pair discussed "the importance of maintaining our regular engagement through, and beyond, the UKas exit from the EU".

"The two ministers also expressed their mutual desire to reach a deal on the UK's exit from the EU that works for everyone, as well as a shared commitment to avoiding a hard border," the British foreign ministry said in a statement.

During his Chatham House speech Coveney warned the British government's decision to leave the European single market and customs union would have a negative impact.

"The British economy is integrated wholly into it, and gains from access to it to a degree that will be impossible to replicate from future UK-only trade deals with third countries," he said.

British Prime Minister Theresa May is currently on a visit to China, part of her government's broader strategy to seek deeper trade ties with countries beyond Europe's borders.By Lisa Barrington and Dan Williams BEIRUT/TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Israel described as "very provocative" on Wednesday a Lebanese offshore oil and gas exploration tender in disputed territory on the countries' maritime border, and said it was a mistake for international firms to participate. Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri, whose country considers Israel an enemy state, said the comments were one of several "threatening messages" from Israel in recent days. Lebanese political and military movement Hezbollah vowed to defend the country's "oil and gas rights" against Israeli threats. Lebanon is on the Levant Basin in the eastern Mediterranean where a number of big sub-sea gas fields have been discovered since 2009, including the Leviathan and Tamar fields located in Israeli waters near the disputed marine border with Lebanon. Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said: "When they issue a tender on a gas field, including Block 9, which by any standard is ours ... this is very, very challenging and provocative conduct here." "Respectable firms" bidding on the tender "are, to my mind, making a grave error - because this is contrary to all of the rules and all protocol in cases like this," he told an international security conference hosted by Tel Aviv University's INSS think-tank. Lebanon in December approved a bid by a consortium of France's Total, Italy's Eni and Russia's Novatek for two of the five blocks put up for tender in the country's much-delayed first oil and gas offshore licensing round. One of the awarded blocks, Block 9, borders Israeli waters. Lebanon has an unresolved maritime border dispute with Israel over a triangular area of sea of around 860 sq km (330 square miles) that extends along the edge of three of the blocks. Israel has not issued its own tenders for Block 9, with its officials saying they were focused on blocks that would not be disputed. "Lieberman's words about Block 9 are a threat to Lebanon and its right to sovereignty over its territorial waters," Lebanese President Michel Aoun said on his official Twitter account. Hariri said the country would take up the comments with the "relevant international bodies to affirm its right to act in its territorial waters". In a statement from his press office, the premier said Lieberman's words were "blatant provocation". Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil said he had sent a letter to the United Nations two weeks ago affirming Lebanon's right to defend itself and its economic interests. Hezbollah described the comments as "a new aggression" and said it would "decisively confront any assault on our oil and gas rights." Israel last went to war in Lebanon in 2006, against Iran-backed Shi'ite Hezbollah. The month-long war in 2006 killed around 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, most of them troops. With tensions rising anew, Lieberman, a far-rightist in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's conservative coalition government, said Lebanon would "pay the full price" for any new Hezbollah attacks on Israel. He said that the Lebanese army was indistinguishable from Hezbollah and both were fair game in any future war. But he said Israel sought no war, adding: "We try to conduct ourselves determinedly and responsibly." The offshore exploration and production contracts are expected to be officially signed on Feb. 9, Energy Minister Cesar Abi Khalil said, allowing exploration to begin. (Reporting by Lisa Barrington in Beirut and Dan Williams in Tel Aviv; Editing by Dale Hudson and Adrian Croft)Donald Trump used the harrowing story of a North Korean defector to highlight the brutality of Kim Jong-un's regime during his State of the Union address on Tuesday night.

Ji Seong-ho, who was among the guests of honour for the president's speech to Congress, was hailed as "an inspiration to us all" and received a standing ovation from the lawmakers.

The president described how Mr Ji was a "starving boy in North Korea" 22 years ago when he tried to steal coal from a train to barter for food.

"In the process, he passed out on the train tracks, exhausted from hunger. He woke up as a train ran over his limbs," Mr Trump said.

Mr Ji lost his left leg above the knee and his left hand at the wrist, enduring "amputations without anything to dull the pain".

North Korean defector Ji Seong-ho is acknowledged by U.S. President Trump as he delivers his State of the Union address in Washington Credit: Reuters

The president said Mr Ji was later tortured after returning from a brief trip to China. "His tormentors wanted to know if he had met any Christians. He had - and he resolved to be free," the president said.

In 2006, Mr Ji escaped North Korea via the Tumen River.

"I knew from that point, the next time I go to North Korea will be when reunification finally happens," he said in a 2012 interview, recalling the moment he pulled himself out of the water and onto the banks of the Chinese side.

Mr Trump described how "Seong-ho travelled thousands of miles on crutches across China and Southeast Asia to freedom. Most of his family followed. His father was caught trying to escape, and was tortured to death".

When he arrived in South Korea, the doctors were shocked at his condition. "They said that of all the North Koreans that make it here, someone with such disabilities was rare to see," Mr Ji said in the interview.

The 35-year-old now helps rescue other defectors from North Korea and "broadcasts into North Korea what the regime fears the most - the truth", Mr Trump said.

Story continues

"Seong-ho's story is a testament to the yearning of every human soul to live in freedom," the president said, as the defector held his old crutches aloft.

In numbers | North Korean defectors

Mr Ji has spoken of his ordeal in the past.

"I needed surgery (after the rail accident), but they didn't have anaestheic," he said in 2014. "I remember the doctor carrying me into the operating room and they had to hold me down while they operated. I could hear the saw going through my bones."

After the operation, he said hospital staff gave him cigarettes as painkillers before his leg became infected and required a second amputation, this time above the knee. He was sent home after just 15 days.

Discussing his detention after returning from China, he said: "They told me that because I was disabled, I had hurt the dignity of North Korea by going to China to beg and that I had humiliated Kim Jong-il. They told me the people in North Korea are happy so how dare I go there and be a beggar.

"They said people like me should just die," he added. "That really hurt."

FAQ | North Korean defection

Mr Ji described the harsh treatment of disabled people in North Korea when he addressed a British parliamentary inquiry in 2014.

"In North Korea, the handicapped are not divided in terms of their disability, but whether you are a child of the elite or not," he said.

"Only the children of the elite have good medical facilities and expensive wheelchairs, and only they get to go things like the Paralympics," he said, alluding to the 17-year-old North Korean swimmer Rim Ju Song at the London Paralympics in 2012.

Donald Trump's State of the Union address

He claims that babies with disabilities are taken away by hospital staff, never to be seen again, and that children with developmental difficulties are neglected until they die.

Mr Trump also used the address to acknowledge the parents of American college student Otto Warmbier, who died shortly after being released from detention in North Korea.

"You are powerful witnesses to a menace that threatens our world, and your strength inspires us all," the president said. "Tonight, we pledge to honor Otto's memory with American resolve."Nairobi (AFP) - Kenya's interior minister said Wednesday that opposition leader Raila Odinga's mock inauguration as "people's president" was an effort to overthrow the government and media outlets were shut down for their complicity in the event.

Odinga, 73, held a swearing-in ceremony in Nairobi on Tuesday in front of thousands of supporters in another challenge to President Uhuru Kenyatta's re-election last year.

The lawyer and MP who swore Odinga in -- TJ Kajwang -- was arrested on Wednesday afternoon and was being investigated for his role in the ceremony, according to a senior police officer speaking on condition of anonymity.

After initially vowing to block the gathering, police kept their distance, but a furore broke out after the Communication Authority shut down three of the country's main private television channels who were covering the ceremony.

"What was witnessed at Uhuru Park was a well-choreographed attempt to subvert or overthrow the legally-constituted government of the Republic of Kenya," Interior Minister Fred Matiangi said in a statement.

"Some elements in the media fraternity participated in furtherance of this illegal act," he charged.

Matiangi said the authorities had information that "criminal elements operating under the banner" of the National Super Alliance (NASA) opposition coalition had planned to "shed blood" at the event and "blame it on the police".

That was why police had withdrawn from the venue, he said.

Matiangi said the outlets -- among them NTV, Citizen TV and KTN -- would remain shut until an investigation was finished.

The Media Council of Kenya said in a statement it was "shocked at the recent turn of events."

"A political contest has turned into the greatest threat and assault on freedom of expression and media in Kenyas recent history," it said.

The shutdown came after media organisations were summoned to State House last week for a meeting.

Story continues

- 'Intimidation' of media -

During the meeting, Kenyatta, his deputy William Ruto and other senior officials warned editors against live coverage of the ceremony and threatened to revoke their licenses if they failed to comply, according to Linus Kaikai, chairman of the Kenya Editors' Guild.

Rights groups on Wednesday criticised the gagging of the media.

"Kenyan authorities have restricted media coverage at a critical moment, and violated the public's right to information about important events," said Otsieno Namwaya, Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW).

HRW said the shutdown "underlines a trend since 2013, when Kenyatta took office for the first time" of intimidation, harassment and threats aimed at the media.

"Kenya is on a very slippery trajectory in regard to human rights, and president Kenyatta urgently needs to reverse this trend," Namwaya said.

- 'Anarchy and mayhem' -

Matiangi said Odinga's swearing-in itself was also under investigation and that "appropriate legal action" would be taken.

Authorities had repeatedly warned that such an inauguration would be treasonous and that Odinga could face arrest.

However, as the wording of the oath was different to that in the constitution, the consequences of Odinga's act of political theatre remain unclear.

Three of Odinga's co-leaders of NASA failed to show up at the event, including Kalonzo Musyoka who was to be sworn in as his deputy, raising speculation of a rift in the opposition.

Kalonzo said they did not attend after their bodyguards were withdrawn.

Then, on Wednesday he said his home had been attacked in the early hours of the morning, with shots and a stun grenade fired at his house.

Police said they were investigating.

Odinga has refused to accept Kenyatta's victory, which came after last year's deeply-divisive election season in which rights activists say at least 92 people were killed.

First was an election on August 8 that was won by Kenyatta then annulled in a historic decision by the Supreme Court, which ordered a re-run on October 26.

Odinga boycotted the second vote and Kenyatta won with 98 percent.

Since boycotting the re-run poll, citing a lack of reform at the election commission, NASA's strategy has been to challenge Kenyatta's legitimacy by seeking to establish parallel government structures.

Matiangi on Tuesday denounced the opposition's National Resistance Movement wing, tasked with implementing a threatened programme of boycotts and civil disobedience, as an "organised criminal group".

"It is a group of individuals who are bent on causing anarchy and mayhem," he added on Wednesday.

"We will not accept subversion and criminal acts disguised as political activities. This will not be tolerated."Kim Jong-un inspects a ski resort on Masik Pass - AFP

A vital slush fund controlled by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has reportedly been drained by a series of missile and nuclear tests, and extravagant vanity projects.

Two Chinese sources with connections to North Korean government officials told Radio Free Asia that Kim has been exhausting his inheritance, a fund intended to run the country, since coming to power after the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, in 2011.

They alleged that the leaderships last-minute decision to take part in the South Korean Winter Olympics was part of a wider plan to boost the nations failing economy.

Due to Kim Jong-uns extravagant spending, the slush fund from his father, Kim Jong-il, is running out, said one source.

The source claimed to be well-acquainted with officials from Bureau 39, a secretive government body tasked with obtaining foreign currency for the North Korean elite through illicit activities.

I heard them worrying about insufficient funds in Office No. 39 a number of times, he said.

The exact amount in Kims slush fund is unknown. However, the young dictator has carried out four of North Koreas six nuclear tests, and so far tested more missiles than his father and grandfather combined, including 23 in 2017, and the countrys first intercontinental ballistic missile.

South Korean government analysts have estimated North Koreas nuclear spending to be $1.1  3.2billion.

Kim has also splashed out on showpieces like the high rises of the Ryomyong Street neighbourhood in the capital, Pyongyang, and the luxury Masikryong Ski Resort, which critics have claimed the cash-strapped country cannot afford and which has been allegedly serviced by child labour.

North Korea | Inside the dysfunctional Kim family

Meanwhile, the economy has been hit by the double whammy of toughening international sanctions.

A second Chinese source told RFA that North Korea had decided to join the Winter Games to improve relations and solicit charity from its rival southern neighbour.

Story continues

North Koreas warm gestures towards South Korea have underlying intentions: to use the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics... as a breakthrough for their financial difficulties, he said.

The precedent lies in South Koreas sunshine policy of the 1990s and early 2000s, when Seoul offered subsidies in exchange for warmer relations.

South Korean protestors burn a picture of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un during an anti-North Korea rally outside Seoul station Credit: AFP PHOTO / Dong-A Ilbo

It was the policy of former liberal President Roh Moo-hyun, whose chief-of-staff was the current President Moon Jae-in. Conservatives have blamed the decision for allowing the Norths weapons programme to flourish.

While the Norths move to open talks with the South in January was widely welcomed, analysts remain cautious about the potential for dialogue on security issues after the Olympics.

That hesitancy has been underscored by an order handed down by Kim Jong-un on January 19 for a new round of ideological training and combat preparation for the entire military, reported the Daily NK.

The leadership had stressed that the army must remain ready to hit the enemy with a devastating blow, said a source.Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian in September 2006. (Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic for Us Weekly magazine)

Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton have gone from being BFFs to rivals to frenemies, and it appears they really are back to being friends again. Paris stars in Kanye Wests new Yeezy Season 6 ad campaign dressed up as  well  Kim Kardashian. Oh, how things have changed.

Surely, Kardashian got a kick out of having her former boss dress as her. If you had to organize Pariss closets and get shaded on The Simple Life, wouldnt you exact sweet revenge the same way years later?

Let us never forget the glory days when Kim was Pariss employee. Although its been widely reported that the Keeping Up With the Kardashians star was the heiresss assistant, Kim has denied having that particular label.

I would work with Paris, and I would love to organize and clean out their closets and get rid of all their stuff and sell it on eBay and then shop for them, shop for her. That was my job. I loved it, Kim recalled to Andy Cohen in 2017. But people will say assistant. They always have it wrong.

Regardless, Kim was fine taking a back seat at events and in paparazzi pictures while Paris soaked up the spotlight in the mid-2000s. However, the power dynamic eventually shifted between the two after Kims sex tape with Ray J. Months after The Simple Life was axed by E! in 2007, Keeping Up With the Kardashians premiered on the same network. And the heiress wasnt exactly thrilled with Kims rise to fame.

Paris shops with Kim on Dec. 31, 2006, in Sydney, Australia. (Photo: PhotoNews International Inc./Getty Images)

The pair had a falling out in 2008 when Paris dissed Kims butt during a radio show interview. I would not want [Kims butt]  its gross! she exclaimed. It reminds me of cottage cheese inside a big trash bag.

Kim acknowledged that the comment created a rift in their friendship. I havent talked to her in a few years, she told Howard Stern in 2009. We were good friends It was just one time we didnt speak again. I did speak to her once when she went on a radio station and said that my ass looks like cellulite in a trash bag or something. She did call me to apologize.

Story continues

Still, Kim was complimentary of Paris, adding, I love her family. Shes a really smart girl She showed me so much. I traveled the world with her. She showed me a lot. Im thankful for everything I learned from her.

But actions speak louder than words. The feud was alive and well in 2010 when the two girls got catty in Las Vegas. Kim was reportedly pissed that Paris was hanging out with her on-off flame, Reggie Bush.

The two continued to drift apart, and Kim said in 2011 that they dont really talk. Speaking to Harpers Bazaar, she added, As I always say, everyone comes into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. And she was in my life for a long time  there comes a point in life where you just grow apart and you realize youre not as similar as you thought. And I never run into her anywhere. Isnt that so weird?

The glory days: Paris and Kim dance together in 2006. (Photo: Johnny Nunez/WireImage)

Oh, but the drama wasnt over! Despite staying in their separate Hollywood corners, Paris continued to throw shade. In 2014, she tweeted a link to an article titled Kim Kardashian Making It the Old-Fashioned Way; On Her Back.

Hilton attempted to backtrack, saying the tweet was an accident.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

However, tensions seemed to die down in 2015, when Paris complimented her frenemy: Weve known each other since we were little girls. Weve always been friends, Hilton exclaimed to Yahoo. Its nice to inspire people. Im really proud of her and what shes done. She also said Kim and Kanye were so cute together, adding, Theyre the perfect couple. Shes always wanted to have a family, so Im really happy for her.

Kim seemed to accept the olive branch, posting a throwback photo of the two of them on social media.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Over the past couple of years, its been somewhat smooth sailing for the reunited pals. Hilton continued to send Kim well wishes in the media. I love Kim, Hilton said last year. Basically, weve been friends since we were born. Im so proud of her, and everything shes achieved. Her family is beautiful, the little boy and girl, and Im really happy for her.

The two are so good, in fact, that earlier this month, Paris  who is engaged to Chris Zylka  said of course Kim will be invited to her wedding. Is it too much to hope that Kim will actually end up being a bridesmaid? Then well really see just how good these two are now, judging by what kind of dress Paris would put Kim in.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.Kim Kardashian This one just passed the censors! The Keeping Up With the Kardashians star had someone on her team do a little Photoshop magic on this particularly racy shot in which she wore a big overcoat, a small g-string, and  well, thats all, folks. (Photo: Kim Kardashian via Instagram)

One year ago, Kim Kardashian was still recovering from the Paris robbery. She had just returned to social media after a lengthy hiatus and was easing back into sharing (oversharing?) her life with the world again.

Lets just say she no longer has any issues with sharing her life. This year, shes posted pretty much nothing but racy photos on social media. While some of us are just there for Chicago Wests first photo (please post it soon!), weve been getting an eyeful of Kims ample assets  mostly in bed. Take a look.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

 Kanye is a very lucky man: Kim Kardashian Wests best beauty looks 2017

 This NYC bar will kick you out if you speak like a Kardashian

 Twitter Is Calling Kim Kardashian Out for Blackface

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.BEIRUT (Reuters) - Kurdish authorities in Syria's Afrin district called on Thursday for Bashar al-Assad's government to send troops to help defend them from a six-day-old Turkish assault, turning for help to the very government from which they have sought autonomy. The statement posted on the website of the Afrin authorities underscores the increasingly complex theater of war in northern Syria, where Turkey's fight against a Kurdish militia threatens to scramble alliances in a seven-year-old conflict. "We call on the Syrian state to carry out its sovereign obligations towards Afrin and protect its borders with Turkey from attacks of the Turkish occupier ... and deploy its Syrian armed forces to secure the borders of the Afrin area," the statement said. The Turkish air and ground offensive to crush Kurdish YPG fighters in the Afrin district of northern Syria has opened a new front in a civil war which has seen shifting alliances between factions on the ground and their foreign sponsors. The United States has relied on the YPG as a vital ground component of its war against Islamic State, and has backed the group in other Kurdish-run regions in northern Syria along the border with Turkey. U.S. special forces troops are on the ground in areas held by the YPG and its allies, although not in Afrin. U.S. support for the YPG has infuriated Washington's NATO ally Turkey, which sees the YPG as a terrorist group and has vowed to crush it. Kurdish efforts to build their own administration there have also alarmed Damascus, which rejects the idea of autonomy from the central state, and has threatened to crush what Assad called "traitors" to Syria. Turkey, long one of Assad's main opponents, has meanwhile suggested it agreed its assault on Afrin with Russia, the main foreign military backer of Assad. (Reporting By Angus McDowall; Editing by Peter Graff)The ruling political party Jubilee Party of Kenya has played down the swearing-in of NASA leader Raila Odinga yesterday.

After months of anticipation, the former Prime Minister was sworn in as the peoples president in a largely disappointing ceremony at Uhuru Park. Three Nasa co-principals, Kalonzo Musyoka, Musalia Mudavadi, and Moses Wetangula, inexplicably skipped the event citing circumstances beyond our comprehension and control.

Their conspicuous absence came as a big surprise and raised eyebrows among Nasa supporters, who demanded an explanation from Odinga during the oath-taking ceremony.

Kalonzo Musyoka is not here with us. But he is together with us in this. He will be sworn in later. You will hear more from us, Odinga explained.

The event also suffered a huge setback after the Communication Authority of Kenya shut down television and radio transmission of all media houses.

As all these went on, Uhurutos camp was definitely following the proceedings keenly and described the event as entertaining.

Well, that was entertaining, we had a good laugh.. now back to building the Nation on the Big Four pillars, posted Jubilee on Twitter.

How Twitter reacted:

Well, that was entertaining, we had a good laugh.. now back to building the Nation on the Big Four pillars.#KenyaMbele  JUBILEE PARTY (@JubileePartyK) January 30, 2018

It really was. Can you imagine leaving the country to be ran by that team. God trully loves Kenya. But Uhuruto can now lead the country transparently. 2022 isnt that far and we need to see results. No more talk. HE Ruto you have a lot at stake.  Patriot (@PATRIOTDAMU) January 30, 2018

Rao should try a stand up comedy.  MIKE MARSHALL PRINCE (@MikeMarshallKE) January 30, 2018

Nonsense, why did you switch off the TV and radio stations. Fools  Franc (@Omuyoma_Francis) January 30, 2018

Kalonzo is just a perfect example of Naenda ivi nakam ..???    (@LeeJimmy001) January 30, 2018

????  esther kariuki (@nakschick) January 30, 2018First Lady Melania Trump has arrived at Capitol Hill without Donald Trump for the Presidents first State of the Union address.

Breaking with tradition, Ms Trump opted to ride with the guests she invited to share her first ladys box during her husbands speech.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said the first lady arrived separately for no reason other than she can greet the guests and he can go straight in, according to CNN.

Barack and Michelle Obama, as well as George and Laura Bush, went to the State of the Union in the same limo for all of the eight years each held office.

For Mr Trumps first Joint Session of Congress last February, he and Ms Trump also shared a ride in the limo to Capitol Hill.

Ms Trumps lone motorcade ride is another in a series of independent movements from the First Lady.

Earlier this month, she backed out of joining Mr Trump at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. She also made an impromptu visit alone to the Holocaust Memorial Museum and flew to Mar-a-Lago, where she spent part of her short trip relaxing at the spa.

Ms Trumps independent travel comes amid speculation about her husbands fidelity.

The First Ladys spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, criticised a laundry list of salacious and flat-out false reporting  an apparent response to claims of an affair between the President and a porn star.

The first couple has not been publicly seen together since the news broke earlier this month of the alleged affair.By Gabriel Stargardter MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico is in talks with the United States on whether to allow U.S. federal air marshals to travel with Taser stun guns on cross-border flights with U.S. airlines, National Security Commissioner Renato Sales said in a TV interview on Tuesday. Sales' comments come the day after Reuters exclusively revealed that Mexico and the United States were looking into an agreement that could allow armed U.S. federal air marshals to be deployed on commercial cross-border flights. In his interview with broadcaster Televisa, Sales said no memorandum of understanding had been signed with the United States, adding that talks to allow U.S. federal marshals in Mexico stretch back years. "They would only be on commercial (U.S.) flights, on (U.S.) airlines, not on Mexican airlines," he said. "But it's still not finalized... we're still in talks." Mexico has been trying to prove itself a good ally to the United States in the hopes this will help its efforts to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in terms that are as favorable as possible. Quizzed by ruling party lawmakers on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray denied the air marshals were critical to the fraught trade talks. "I can assure you that we're not going to negotiate NAFTA in exchange for the air marshals," he said. Videgaray will visit Washington on Wednesday and is scheduled to meet with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Jared Kushner, a senior presidential adviser, the foreign ministry said in a statement late Tuesday. The meetings will focus on immigration, security and trade issues, the statement added. Reuters reported on Monday that the hardest part of the air marshals negotiations would center on allowing U.S. officials to carry arms, given that the use of weapons by foreigners in Mexico is sensitive and tightly regulated. An official document seen by Reuters that mentioned the plan to possibly deploy air marshals said the two countries also seek to negotiate a maritime drug seizures treaty as well as deepen efforts to eradicate opium and marijuana plantations. Sales said he understood that the U.S. federal air marshals would carry stun guns, not lethal weapons, and said they would be undercover, but did not give any further details. It was still not clear if the air marshals would fly on just U.S.-bound flights, Mexico-bound flights, or both. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) places sharp-shooters on certain domestic and international commercial flights to and from the United States to prevent militant attacks. The foreign ministry has pushed hard to defend NAFTA ahead of a July 2018 election in which the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) is currently polling third. Mexico, Canada and the United States are currently engaged in talks to reshape NAFTA, a lynchpin of the Mexican economy that Trump has threatened to abandon. (Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Additional reporting by Lizbeth Diaz; Editing by David Gregorio and Lisa Shumaker)By Valerie Volcovici WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trumps decision to withdraw federal protections from millions of acres of Utah wilderness will reopen much of the iconic terrain to gold, silver, copper, and uranium land claims under a Wild West-era mining law, according to federal officials. Starting at 6 a.m. on Feb. 2  the moment Trumps proclamation reducing the size of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments takes effect  private citizens and companies will be allowed to stake claims for hard rock mining in a process governed by the General Mining Law of 1872, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The process for staking a claim remains much as it did during the Gold Rush: A prospector hammers four poles into the ground corresponding to the four points of a parcel that can be as big as 20 acres, and attaches a written description of the claim onto one of them. A prospector then has 30 days to record the claim at the local BLM office. "We're working on getting information and new monument maps ready for people interested in claims," said Utah Bureau of Land Management spokesman Michael Richardson. The costs of claiming are low: a $212 filing fee, and an annual maintenance fee of $150. The claims provide prospectors mineral rights, with no requirement to pay the government royalties, but not ownership of the land. The law covers mining for uranium, gold, silver, copper and other precious metals, but excludes coal and petroleum. URANIUM RUSH? MAYBE NOT Conservation groups including the Southeastern Utah Wilderness Alliance are concerned that new prospecting in the area could cause environmental harm, but it's unclear whether the rare opportunity to stake mining claims will draw much interest. The Bears Ears area is known to have uranium deposits, but prices are currently in the dumps - at around $25 a pound compared with $130 a decade ago - due to weak domestic demand from nuclear reactors. Kyle Kimmerle, whose family owns more than 100 uranium mining claims in Utah, said he won't be rushing out for new land. "The current price of uranium is not likely to warrant any new claiming," he said. "It would take $60-$70 for me." U.S.-based uranium mining companies Energy Fuels and Ur-Energy - both of which are pressing the White House for limits on uranium imports - also said they were not currently planning to run out into the Utah wilderness with poles to stake claims. Energy Fuels wrote a letter in May asking the administration to adjust the monuments boundaries to accommodate its existing operations and said there were many other known uranium and vanadium deposits located within the [original boundaries] that could provide valuable energy and mineral resources in the future. A spokesman for Energy Fuels said Wednesday that the company has no intention of mining in any of the re-opened land and that its request to adjust boundaries would not have opened up new mining sites. When Trump announced his decision to shrink the monuments in December, he billed it as a victory for local governments against what he called abusive federal overreach on western lands. "Families and communities of Utah know and love this land the best, and you know the best how to take care of your land and how to conserve this land," he said at the time. The administration has denied that it intended to boost drilling or mining in the region, a policy it has pursued on other federally protected lands. The decision reduced the size of the 1.3-million-acre (0.5 million hectare) Bears Ears monument, created by President Barack Obama in 2016, by more than 80 percent. It slashed the 1.9-million-acre (768,900-hectare) Grand Staircase-Escalante monument, designated by President Bill Clinton in 1996, in half. Republican Congressman John Curtis of Utah has since proposed legislation to withdraw all of Bears Ears region from future mining claims. But any claim submitted under the General Mining law before the legislation passes would be honored, Curtis' spokeswoman Katie Thompson said. Democratic Congressman Raul Grijalva of Arizona has urged quicker action, pressing Republican colleagues to ask the Interior Department to block mining claims sooner. "If were serious about preventing mining and drilling in Bears Ears, the administration needs to take concrete action now, Grijalva said this week. Conservation groups and Democratic lawmakers, including Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico, have long criticized the General Mining law as out-of-date. (Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Brian Thevenot)Legazpi (Philippines) (AFP) - The threat of catastrophic mudflows is building on the slopes of an erupting Philippine volcano where nearly 90,000 residents have been moved out of harm's way, authorities said Tuesday.

Mount Mayon has spewed millions of tonnes of ash, rocks, lava and debris in less than three weeks, much of it loosely lodged on its burnt slopes and which experts warn could be dislodged by heavy rain.

Activity continued overnight with "energetic lava effusion", while previously extruded lava was also collapsing on the crater, only to be pushed out again as debris, the state volcanology office said in its latest bulletin.

Loud booming sounds, like that of thunder, accompanied the eruptions, an AFP photographer near the mountain said.

"The public is strongly advised to be vigilant and desist from entering the eight-kilometre (five-mile) -radius danger zone, and to be additionally vigilant against pyroclastic density currents, lahars, and sediment-laden stream flows," the bulletin said.

Pyroclastic currents are the superheated clouds of gas, ash and other volcanic debris that burn everything in their path as they speed down the slopes of the 2,460-metre (8,070-foot) mountain, located 330 kilometres southeast of Manila.

The institute said these materials are building blocks for "lahar" -- mammoth debris flows that could find their way into streams and rivers and mow down surrounding communities.

An earlier Mayon eruption passed without any casualties in 2006, but four months later a typhoon unleashed an avalanche of volcanic mud from its slopes, killing about 1,000 people.

On Saturday the volcanology institute issued its first "lahar" warning on Mayon this year due to incessant rain that is usual in the region at this time of year.

A day later the institute made a video recording of lahar flowing down a river near Daraga town south of the volcano, though it did not cause any damage or casualties.By Mark Hosenball and Karen Freifeld WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Special Counsel Robert Mueller plans to interview the former spokesman of President Donald Trump's legal team as part of an investigation into potential collusion between Russia and Trump's campaign to sway the 2016 U.S. presidential election, according to a source with knowledge of the matter. Mark Corallo had represented Trump's outside lawyers amid the federal and congressional Russia inquiries until he resigned last summer, after revelations about a June 2016 meeting between Trump's son Donald Jr and a group of Russians. The Mueller team contacted Corallo's lawyer, Victoria Toensing, and said they wanted to discuss the circumstances of his departure, the source said. The interview was expected within two weeks. Corallo's departure in July came amid a shakeup of Trump's legal team and media reports his lawyers were considering ways to limit Mueller's probe. One of the main reasons Corallo decided to leave was his refusal to criticize the integrity of Mueller, the person, who had direct knowledge of the matter, told Reuters. Corallo was also deeply disturbed by what he viewed as a false statement dictated by president from Air Force One about his son's Trump Tower meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya and her associates, the source said. The Russians had promised Trump Jr damaging information on Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton. U.S. intelligence agencies have determined that Moscow worked to sway last year's election towards Trump. Moscow has denied interference and Trump, a Republican, has said there was no collusion. Mueller's team is investigating whether there was any collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign, or attempts by members of the Trump team to obstruct the investigation. Corallo did not want to engage in or be associated with White House attacks on Mueller and top Justice Department officials, according to a person familiar with the matter. In a July 2017 interview with the New York Times, Trump lashed out at his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for recusing himself from overseeing the Russia investigation, which led to the appointment of a special counsel. He also attacked Mueller's investigators as having conflicts of interest, and expressed unhappiness with the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein. The federal investigation has resulted in guilty pleas from former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and former campaign aide George Papadopoulos. Former campaign manager Paul Manafort and aide Richard Gates have pleaded not guilty to charges that include money laundering. (Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Bernadette Baum)Washington (AFP) - Donald Trump's misspellings have become legendary -- "covfefe," anyone? -- but a glaring typo on tickets for the president's State of the Union speech Tuesday has some lawmakers crying for spell check.

Tickets to the prime-time speech before a joint session of Congress were printed inviting lawmakers and guests to the State of the "Uniom," lawmakers and officials said Monday.

"Just received my ticket for the State of the Union. Looks like @BetsyDeVosED was in charge of spell checking... #SOTUniom," tweeted House Democrat Raul Grijalva, referring to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who has advocated policies that critics say undermine the public education system.

Grijalva's tweet also included a photograph of the offending ticket.

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The White House is not responsible for the error. The printing is overseen by the Sergeant at Arms of the US House of Representatives, whose office on Monday acknowledged the snafu.

"There was a misprint on the ticket," a Sergeant at Arms spokesman told AFP.

"It was corrected immediately, and our office is redistributing the tickets."

But not before a few lawmakers got some ribbing in.

"Looking forward to tomorrow's State of the Uniom," tweeted Republican Senator Marco Rubio.

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On the spelling front, Trump has been a presidential trailblazer. He has routinely posted tweets containing errors, including one on the day after his January 20, 2017 inauguration, in which he wrote he was "honered to serve" as the nation's 45th president.

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Watch news, TV and more on Yahoo View.Why always Kalonzo?

The Wiper Party leader is once again the butt of all jokes on social media after pulling off another watermelon trick yesterday. The NASA co-principal was conspicuously missing from his own swearing-in party at Uhuru Park, with Kenyans on social media poking fun for the better part of yesterday.

While all NASA co-principals, except Raila Odinga, skipped the swearing-in ceremony, it is Kalonzo who continues to receive the most backlash.

The former Vice-President has not been spared by his political arch-enemies either, including controversial Gatundu South MP Moses Kuria and Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua.

The former tickled his followers on Facebook after revealing Kalonzo Musyokas whereabouts during the Nasa swearing-in ceremony.

While Governor Mutua, who never shies away from a chance to attack Kalonzo Musyoka, delivered a brutal assessment of the popular Kamba leader.

The Machakos boss also said the event at Uhuru Park yesterday was wrong and bound to fail.

The whole swearing in event was wrong and bound to fail because it was unconstitutional & based on the wrong premise. On the other hand, it is now CRYSTAL clear to ALL that Kalonzo Musyoka has over and over again proven he can NEVER be DEPENDED on. Trust him at your own peril, said Mutua on Facebook.By Asif Shahzad ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A Pakistani government ministry recommended on Wednesday that Afghan refugees be given a five-month extension of their stay, dispelling fears that a large-scale repatriation back to violence-plagued Afghanistan was imminent. Pakistan is home to the world's second-largest refugee population, with a total of 2.5 million Afghans, many of whom been living there since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. But relations between the neighbors have deteriorated in recent years and took another turn for the worse this week after bloody Taliban attacks in Kabul. Afghanistan and the United States say Taliban and other militants plot carnage in safe havens on the Pakistani side of the border and have repeatedly called on Pakistan to do more to rein them in. The tense relations led to concern that Pakistan might retaliate by pushing back Afghan refugees, particularly since official permission to stay was only extended for 30 days at the beginning of this month. But a spokesman for Pakistan's Ministry of States and Frontier Regions said it had decided that permission to stay should be extended for another five months. "The main reason for the extension is that it isn't possible humanly to ask over one million people to leave at once," the spokesman, Aqdas Shaukat, told Reuters. "Our understanding is that another five months will give the refugees a good time to leave gradually." The cabinet would decide on the recommendation next week, he said. Pakistan complains that the large number of refugees are a burden, and says that Islamist militants often hide among them, but humanitarian agencies say Afghanistan could not cope with an influx of repatriated refugees at this time. It is already struggling to help those refugees who have come back over recent years as well people displaced internally by fighting. In 2017, fighting forced 360,000 people from their homes, the United Nations said in a recent report, while more than 17,000 people were displaced over the past week, the U.N. Organisation for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Assistance said. On the outskirts of Kabul, refugees who have come back from Pakistan and internally displaced people eke out a living on a windswept, muddy plain and wait for help. "We returned from Pakistan and have nothing here," said one woman called Shazia, who came back three years ago. "Our children collect plastic and paper to keep us warm." Another returnee from Pakistan, Etibar Gul, also worried about his children. "There is no food or clothing," he said. "Our children have nothing to wear in this cold." (Additonal reporting by Reuters TV in KABUL; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Nick Macfie)Gigi and Bella Hadid are featured together in British Vogue for the first time. (Photo: Getty Images)

Gigi and Bella Hadid are British Vogues latest cover girls for the upcoming double cover March issue, and its leaving some people feeling confused and disturbed.

In a couple of photos posted to the publications Instagram, the supermodel sisters are seen posing in the same gold Versace dress on each of their individual covers. But the fashion industrys most in-demand sisters, according to British Vogue, also got together for the closest  and debatably most controversial  photo shoot that theyve done to date.

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The photo that sparked the controversy depicts the sisters unclothed and intertwined with each other. Despite the magazines nonchalant attitude about the editorial picture, people are turning to social media to take issue with the picture.

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From weird to vile and wrong, audiences have expressed their extreme opinions on Twitter. But why, exactly, is the photo so offensive to so many people?

Adolescent, child, and family psychologist Barbara Greenberg, PhD, tells Yahoo Lifestyle that the reaction has to do with incest taboos and that the particular imagery is associated with sexual relationships. Although Greenberg praises the expression of women who feel comfortable with their bodies, she understands the place where others feelings may be coming from.

Many, many people are clearly going to be uncomfortable because of what they see as a sister relationship being sexualized, and that brings up the hot-button topic of incest, she says. The visual brings up the topic of incest.

According to comments on British Vogues Instagram post, a sexualized relationship is exactly what people are grasping from the photo  with some going so far as to say that the publication is exploiting the Hadid sisters. But this is not the first time that people have reacted to familial affection in this manner.

A number of celebrities have faced scrutiny themselves for innocent expressions of affection that are confused with sexual actions. From David and Victoria Beckham to Hilary Duff, pictures of the stars kissing their kids on the lips have been criticized. Again, Greenberg says that the visuals tap into the incest taboo, which will trigger a strong response.

Story continues

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

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In September, entrepreneur Joshua Browders Do Not Pay chatbot website added a new skill: allowing people to sue Equifax for its monumental data breach that exposed the personal information of 145.5 million people, which included Social Security numbers.

A few months later, the results are coming in and people are winning judgements approaching $10,000.

Yahoo Finance spoke to a few consumers who have taken on Equifax in small claims courts, a process that they found surprisingly smooth, with no need for lawyers.

It was the easiest nine grand I ever made, said Darrow B. of San Francisco, who just won a judgment of $9,100.

The Do Not Pay chatbot, which started as a way to fight parking tickets, lets users more easily fill out the forms required for these simple lawsuits by automatically populating things such as Equifaxs address for each of the 50 states. Under the damages section, it simply says Equifax was negligent and the breach resulted in significant damages. The details get ironed out in court.

You go down to small claims court, you hand them the papers, they tell if everythings OK, then you choose a court date that works for you, she said. Then you show up and the judge basically says what happened. It took about an hour at the court.

According to F. Paul Bland, an attorney and executive director for Public Justice, suing in small claims court is fine even if theres a pending class action case, of which dozens have emerged against Equifax.

FILE  This July 21, 2012, file photo shows signage at the corporate headquarters of Equifax Inc. in Atlanta. Attacks launched by cybercriminals wreak havoc and cause disruption as more of everyday life moves online. The U.S. attorneys office in Atlanta has worked hand-in-hand with the local FBI office to prosecute a number of high-profile cybercrime cases. Theyre currently investigating the breach at Atlanta-based Equifax, which exposed the personal information of 145 million Americans. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File)

The luck of the draw

According to public records, about a dozen people in San Francisco have sued Equifax, many of whom used the app. But they havent always won  it depends on the judge.

One judge, who ruled in favor for a handful of plaintiffs against Equifax, including Darrow, seemed especially sympathetic. (With around one out of every two adults being affected, she was likely a victim of the breach as well.)

Darrow points to her ruling as a good blueprint to go from when arguing before the court. In it, the judge noted that Equifax had a duty to safeguard information, failed to heed warnings from the Department of Homeland Security, and willfully violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act and state regulations.

Story continues

To some judges at least, demonstrating Equifax was negligent in its duty is enough for a positive judgment. The credit monitoring company was slow to disclose the breach (not everyone affected even got an email notifying them of what happened); it also pointed consumers to a useless website to see if they were affected, and then pushed them to sign up for a monitoring product that both could strip consumers of the right to sue the company and provide it with potential future revenue.

Damages can be tricky to show, but one victor, Jason Wittig, who won a $7,900 ruling in San Francisco Superior Court, said that he pointed to all the credit monitoring he would have to do to make sure his data was safe. One woman, he said, showed that she had to hire credit reporting services. In Wittigs ruling, as in Darrows, the judge added up the cost of monitoring for 10 years and time spent dealing with unauthorized access events.

According to Wittig, this isnt just an abstract concern. His personal information, including his phone number, seems to have been out in the open, leading to copious spam calls and emails. (In fact, he thought Yahoo Finance was a spammer and requested to be removed from your calling list.)

Equifax is appealing  and theres a twist thats in its favor

So far, no one has actually received a check from Equifax, according to the records Yahoo Finance was able to locate. The cases of Wittig, Darrow, and all the others Yahoo Finance found are all being appealed by Equifax. (An Equifax spokesperson told Yahoo Finance it would not comment on ongoing litigation.)

The appeal by Equifax could be a successful one. Some of the cases never got that far because the plaintiffs did not adequately show damages to the judge.

The evidence does not support that any act of omission or breach of duty was a cause of any monetary loss, damage or tangible harm to the Plaintiff, wrote one small claims judge in response to a Do Not Pay-created lawsuit.

At a glance, this looks like this plaintiff did a poor job explaining how Equifax caused them damages; small claims courts often require careful and specific documentation of alleged damages. But the one-sentence ruling could easily be about a far more ominous truth that reflects an ongoing cybersecurity dilemma: causality.

With more and more breaches and personal information available on the dark web, establishing the direct connection between the two is increasingly difficult  if not impossible. If your identity gets stolen, how can you possibly know whether the data came from an Equifax breach or another party altogether. For companies, the more breaches, the better.



Ethan Wolff-Mann is a writer at Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @ewolffmann. Confidential tip line: FinanceTips[at]oath[.com].

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How to stop people tracking whether youve opened their emailWASHINGTON  New York Republican Rep. Peter King says a secret memo shows serious improper behavior at high levels of the Justice Departments investigation of President Trumps campaign. The document is currently at the center of a partisan dispute.

I dont want to oversell it, but what youre going to see is that its going to show serious  serious improper behavior at high levels as far as the FBI and the Justice Department, King said during a conversation with Yahoo News at Trumps Washington hotel Tuesday evening.

King, who is a member of the GOP-led House Intelligence Committee, filed a motion Monday to release the memo. The memo was compiled by the committees chairman, Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, and his staff. It reportedly details misconduct by the FBI and the Department of Justice in the investigation into alleged collusion between the Russian government and Trumps campaign during the 2016 election. The committee approved Kings motion over the objections of Democratic members, who argued that the memo is partisan and aimed at protecting Trump, and in the face of strenuous opposition by the Justice Department, which warned that it would be reckless to release information that could compromise U.S. intelligence and law enforcement.

Following the intelligence committees vote, Trump has five days to approve the memos release. Sources told CNN that the president hoped to see the document made public shortly after his State of the Union speech Tuesday evening. The Republican-led committee blocked the release of a competing memo compiled by its Democratic members.

Amid the controversy over the memo, speculation has swirled over whether it focused on FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. McCabe, who on Monday announced plans to retire, has been accused by Republicans and by Trump of being biased against the president, because his wife ran for office as a Democrat and received donations from allies of Trumps election opponent, Hillary Clinton.

Story continues

Yahoo News asked King if Nuness memo focused on McCabe.

I cant get into any names, King said.

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:Local and federal cops should arrest and deport undocumented immigrants who are attending Tuesday night's State of the Union address in Washington, D.C., an Arizona Republican is demanding.



Representative Paul Gosar tweeted on Tuesday a statement saying that he "contacted the U.S. Capitol Police, as well as Attorney General Jeff Sessions, asking they consider checking identification of all attending the State of the Union address and arresting any illegal aliens in attendance."

Gosar also wants officers to arrest anyone "using fraudulent Social Security numbers and identification to pass through security."

"Of all the places where the rule of law needs to be enforced, it should be in the hallowed halls of Congress. Any illegal aliens attempting to go through security, under any pretext of invitation or otherwise, should be arrested and deported," Gosar warned.



Capitol Police and the Justice Department did not return Newsweek's requests for comment.

Trending: Republican Candidate Who Appears on White Supremacist Podcasts Publishes List of 'Jews' in the Media

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Gosar, a Republican, opposes providing a path to citizenship for the so-called Dreamersyoung immigrants previously protected from deportation under the Obama-era Deferred Action from Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

President Donald Trump announced the end of program in September. Earlier this month, a U.S. District judge ruled that the Trump administration cannot end the DACA program until various legal challenges have been fully litigated.

On Monday, Gosar posted misleading statistics on his official Facebook page that purportedly showed how "DACA-aged illegals" commit a disproportionate number of kidnappings, manslaughters and other crimes.

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At last count, 24 DACA recipients will attend Trump's State of the Union as the guests of senators and representatives.



It is unclear whether Gosar's warning was directed at the Dreamers, who are registered with the government. Gosar's office did not return Newsweek's request for comment.

Story continues

A spokesperson for House Speaker Paul Ryan said the Wisconsin Republican "does not agree" with Gosar's demands," according to CNN White House reporter Jim Acosta.

Gosar's comments sparked immediate unrest among the immigrant community and its advocates.

Cristina Jimenez, executive director and co-founder of United We Dream, an immigrant advocacy group, wrote on Twitter that Congress needs to legalize Dreamers soon "so immigrant youth are permanently protected from men like Paul Gosar."





Most popular: What Is the State of the Union? A Brief History

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"What's wrong with you?" Representative Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) tweeted at Gosar.

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The American Civil Liberties Union, which advocates for immigrant rights, also denounced Gosar's comments. "Yet another attempt to silence Dreamers who are speaking out. Capitol police should denounce this, strongly," the ALCU tweeted.

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In addition to being a member of Congress, first elected in 2010, Gosar is a dentist. Gosar touts having perfect "ratings" from several right-wing think tanks and advocacy groups, such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform and the Christian Coalition of America.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekA Republican said police should screen State of the Union attendees for immigration status and deport violators, taking aim at Democrats who plan to host young undocumented people.

Today, Congressman Paul Gosar contacted the U.S. Capitol Police, as well as Attorney General Jeff Sessions, asking they consider checking identification of all attending the State of the Union address and arresting any illegal aliens in attendance, a tweet from the Arizona Republicans account said.

Choosing whom to bring as a guest to the annual presidential address offers members of Congress a chance to make high-profile political statements, and multiple Democrats are planning to bring so-called Dreamers  young immigrants who are in the country illegally after being brought there as children.

Congress has been consumed by a battle over their fate after Donald Trump rescinded a program offering deportation relief to nearly 800,000 people. Supporters of providing relief to the Dreamers  including, intermittently, Mr Trump himself  argue that they are effectively Americans who know no other country and arrived here without a say in the decision.

By suggesting that authorities identify and deport Dreamers who are in Washington under the auspices of elected officials, Mr Gosar took a hardline position at odds with that stance  and drew rebukes from fellow Republicans.

Of all the places where the Rule of Law needs to be enforced, it should be in the hallowed halls of Congress, Mr Gosar said in a statement.

Any illegal aliens attempting to go through security, under any pretext of invitation or otherwise, should be arrested and deported.

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Republicans rejected the hardline rhetoric. Asked about Mr Gosars proposal, a spokeswoman for Speaker of the House Paul Ryan told CNN that he clearly does not agree.

This is so drastic and cruel, Florida Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said on Twitter. Her rebuke was echoed by Republicans like Arizona senator Jeff Flake, who like Ms Ros-Lehtinenis retiring.

Story continues

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Democrats also assailed the tweet, with Rep Barbara Lee of California warning The American people will not forget this.

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Mr Gosars inflammatory comments have spurred outrage before. Last year, his siblings publicly called for him to apologise over comments disparaging financier and philanthropist George Soros and suggesting Mr Soros was behind a neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.This article first appeared on RobertReich.org.

Fresh off passing massive tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, Trump and congressional Republicans want to use the deficit theyve created to justify huge cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

As House Speaker Paul Ryan says Were going to have to get at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit.

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Dont let them get away with it.

Social Security and Medicare are critical safety-nets for working and middle-class families.

Before they existed, Americans faced grim prospects. In 1935, the year Social Security was enacted, roughly half of Americas seniors lived in poverty. By the 1960s poverty among seniors had dropped significantly, but medical costs were still a major financial burden and only half of Americans aged 65 and over had health insurance. Medicare fixed that, guaranteeing health care for older Americans.

Today less than 10 percent of seniors live in poverty and almost all have access to health care. According to an analysis of census data, Social Security payments keep an estimated 22 million Americans from slipping into poverty.

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Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty

Medicaid is also a vital lifeline for Americas elderly and the poor. Yet the Trump administration has already started whittling it away by encouraging states to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients.

Republicans like to call these programs entitlements, as if theyre some kind of giveaway. But Americans pay into Social Security and Medicare throughout their entire working lives. Its Americans own money theyre getting back through these programs.

These vital safety nets should be strengthened, not weakened. How?

Story continues

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1. Lift the ceiling on income subject to the Social Security tax

Currently, top earners only pay Social Security taxes on the first $120,000 of their yearly income. So the rich end up, in effect, paying a lower Social Security tax rate than everyone else. Lifting the ceiling on what wealthy Americans contribute would help pay for the Baby Boomers retirements and leave Social Security in good shape for Millennials.

2. Allow Medicare to negotiate with drug companies for lower prescription drug prices

As the nations largest insurer, Medicare has tremendous bargaining power. Why should Americans pay far more for drugs than people in any other country?

3. Finally, reduce overall health costs and create a stronger workforce by making Medicare available to all

Theres no excuse for the richest nation in the world to have 28 million Americans still uninsured.

We need to not just secure, but revitalize Social Security and these other programs for our children, and for our childrens children. Millennials just overtook Baby Boomers as our nations largest demographic.

For them  for all of us  we need to say loud and clear to all of our members of congress: Hands off Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Expand and improve these programs: dont cut them.

Robert Reich is the chancellors professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, and Time magazine named him one of the 10 most effective Cabinet secretaries of the 20th century. He has written 14 books, including the best-sellers Aftershock, The Work of Nations and Beyond Outrage and, most recently, Saving Capitalism. He is also a founding editor of The American Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and co-creator of the award-winning documentary Inequality for All.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekBy Kinda Makieh

SOCHI, Russia, Jan 30 (Reuters) - A Syrian peace conference in Russia got off to a rocky start on Tuesday after some delegates opposed to President Bashar al-Assad refused to leave the airport on arrival, saying they were offended by the presence of the Syrian state's flag and emblem.

Russia, a staunch Assad ally, is hosting what it has called a Syrian Congress of National Dialogue in the Black Sea resort of Sochi that it hopes will launch negotiations on drafting a new constitution for Syria after almost seven years of war.

But in a blow to Moscow, which has cast itself as a Middle East peace broker, the event has been boycotted by the leadership of the Syrian opposition, while powers such as the United States, Britain and France are not there because of what they say is the Syrian government's refusal to properly engage.

The conference, which was originally billed as a two-day event got underway as a one-day event on Tuesday. Reuters reporters said most of the delegates they had spoken to had come from Damascus and did not oppose Assad.

One group of delegates who had flown in from Turkey and were opposed to Assad refused to leave Sochi airport until Syrian government flags and emblems were refused.

"We will go back to Turkey," Ahmad al-Burri, who has taken part in Syrian peace talks in Kazakhstan, told Reuters by phone.

"Whatever happens we will not enter Sochi. We informed them (the Russians) of our conditions that they should remove all the logos and flags representing the Syrian government."

Mohammed Adnan, a journalist and member of the Syrian opposition based in Turkey, said there were about 70 people in the group at the airport and that they were waiting for a plane to take them back to Ankara.

Russian officials have complained of attempts to sabotage the conference, but the Kremlin said on Monday it was unfazed by a Syrian opposition decision to boycott the event.

(Additional reporting by Maria Tsvetkova in Sochi; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Christian Lowe)Do I make you uncomfortable? Rose McGowan asks in voiceover, as we are met with an extreme close-up on her face while she rubs what looks like powder onto her high cheekbones. Good.

This question and answer comes within the first 30 seconds of McGowans five-part series, Citizen Rose, which premieres Tuesday night on E!. Making her audience uncomfortable is clearly important to McGowan, who instantly seeks to dispel the version of her you likely know  the version that was sold to you, she calls it. Shes here to set the record straight  the record being the story that she has long hinted at, and finally publicly told in 2017, of being raped by Harvey Weinstein. The monster as she calls him in the series, never once saying his name.

Rose McGowan speaks onstage on Jan. 9 in Pasadena, Calif. (Getty Images)

McGowan is a divisive figure, and always has been. She was sold to the American public as a bad girl, a sex symbol, all big eyes and pouty lips. But that version is not who she is. Its been really hard having the mind of an artist but being in a town that sells you as just a commodity, she says. In Citizen Rose, we are again given a constructed version of McGowan, but its a construction of her own making; and in that, particularly in this moment and in this narrative, there is extreme power.

Rose McGowan attends the 29th Annual American Music Awards at the Shrine Auditorium on Jan. 9, 2002, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Vince Bucci/Getty Images)

Since coming forward with her Weinstein rape allegations, McGowan has been combination powder keg and necessary rocket fuel for the #MeToo movement, garnering supporters as much as she repels them. She has championed womens empowerment and simultaneously called out resistance efforts like the black dresses worn at the Golden Globes, as well as feuding with Meryl Streep. She is not here to make people feel comfortable or good; she is here to tell the truth  her truth. Let me tell you how enraged I am, she says in Citizen Rose, Not just for me, but for anyone whos been disbelieved.

For 20 years, McGowan says, she was disbelieved. McGowan alleges that in 1997 Weinstein raped her in a hotel room at the Sundance Film Festival. Weinstein denies this, but McGowan says her silence was bought with $100,000 in settlement money. She is being quiet no longer, and her series is part indie movie, part video diary, part glossy E! production, all exploring McGowans journey into this newfound role of truth-teller, advocate, activist.

Story continues

Actress Rose McGowan speaks on stage at the Womens Convention at Cobo Center on Oct. 27, 2017, in Detroit. (Photo by Aaron Thornton/Getty Images)

The series is complex and confounding, just like McGowan. At times, it makes you angry, and at times makes you cry, and at times make you wonder if perhaps McGowan is crazy, only to realize she is wholly sane  its just that shes just lived through something entirely out of the realm of comprehension.

One of these moments comes when McGowan is speaking to her friend, the actress Amber Tamblyn, about her fear of being killed. If I die, she whispers to Tamblyn, you have to keep all of my work, to be studied. Dont say that, Tamblyn responds. To which McGowan replies, Its our purpose. Everything Im doing has a purpose. In isolation, this moment seems paranoid, but then you remember a previous scene in which McGowan and Ronan Farrow, who continuously credits McGowans bravery as an early Weinstein accuser, are discussing the spies Weinstein definitely hired to keep McGowan silent. Anything is possible, and it is terrifying.

In her social justice crusade, McGowan uses a hashtag on social media #RoseArmy. She argues that the Rose in that hashtag isnt about her, Rose, but rather a secret code of: You think differently. She says in the series, Rose Army isnt about my name at all. I saw these roses once growing through sidewalk cracks, and I just thought, hell, so many disenfranchised people have to grow through these cracks, and the thorns they carry weight.

Rose Army is a good example of the paradox that is the Rose McGowan we see in Citizen Rose: almost unknowingly egotistical, but using her self-involvement for good. She uses herself, her story, her name even, to speak, to demand, to question, to heal  and constantly invites others to join her in order to process their own trauma and pain.

McGowans friend, the writer and actor Joshua John Miller, describes the Rose he met decades earlier as, sometimes intimidating, sometimes arrogant, and sometimes incredibly beautiful and inspiring. He is speaking of the young Rose McGowan but his adjectives also apply perfectly to Citizen Rose. Both Rose and Citizen Rose are complex, powerful, egotistic, human.

How McGowan journeyed from starlet in films like Scream and Jawbreaker to the woman we see on screen here buzzing her already short hair even shorter, is a dark story. I got really interrupted, you have to understand, she says to her mother in a powerful moment of vulnerability. I didnt get to be me for 17 years.

With McGowan as the series star, narrator, and executive producer, we can feel assured that the Rose we meet in this series is finally the Rose she wants the world to see, the one she was long unable to express.

Rose, its wonderful to meet you.

Citizen Rose premieres Tuesday night at 8 p.m. ET on E!.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.NASA co-principal Kalonzo Musyoka has explained his conspicuous absence from an oath-taking ceremony at Uhuru Park yesterday.

The Wiper leader and fellow co-principals Musalia Mudavadi and Moses Wetangula failed to turn-up for the highly publicised event, leaving NASA supporters in a state of confusion.

With most people believing that the three had betrayed Raila Odinga, Kalonzo has allayed those fears and blamed his absence on the withdrawal of his security detail.

In an interview on local Kamba radio station, Mbaitu FM, Kalonzo said he was ready for the event until the government withdrew his security detail abruptly.

I was at my house in Karen when a police lorry came very early and took all my bodyguards, there is no way I could have made it to Uhuru Park, I wish Kenyans could understand what we are going through,  Kalonzo said.

The former Vice President reassured Nasa supporters that his absence should not be interpreted to mean he has betrayed them. He said NASA principals will meet before the end of this week to plan on the way forward and set a new date for his swearing in.

We talked with my colleagues Musalia Mudavadi and Moses Wetangula and when it was clear we wont make it we asked Raila to proceed, we are very united. Jubilee remains illegitimate government and we will do everything possible to get electoral justice, he said.

In an earlier joint statement, the three co-principals said the NASA coalition is still united despite their absence at Uhuru Park.

We met on Monday and agreed to meet again this morning(Tuesday). However, due to circumstances beyond our comprehension and control, the four of us did not assemble as planned. Nonetheless, the NASA Summit remains strong and united. The Summit will meet within two days, to address the immense challenges facing this country.White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Tuesday dismissed the celebrities whod gathered the night before to offer an alternative to President Donald Trumps upcoming State of the Union address.

Their message is one of negativity, and frankly, I think, a little bit of delusion, Sanders told Fox & Friends. Look, weve had an incredible first year. The economy is booming, ISIS is on the run, were remaking the judiciary. This has been a historic year by any way you look at it.

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Sanders was responding to the Peoples State of the Union, an event held Monday in New York City that saw actors, comedians, activists and more coming together to offer a message of resistance to the Trump administration. The event, which featured the likes of Cynthia Nixon, Michael Moore, John Leguizamo, Rosie Perez and Mark Ruffalo, included speeches that called for unity, womens rights and equal protections for immigrants, the LGBTQ community and people of color.

This is the United States of America, not the divided states of America, Leguizamo said during his speech. Make America great again. Really great. Not just for the white and the wealthy and the male and for a stupid slogan on a hat. But for all of us.

Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade asked Sanders if it bothers Trump that these celebrities, some of whom hes been friends with in the past, are speaking out against him.

Look, I think if Americans cared what celebrities thought, then Hillary Clinton would be president, Sanders said. But they clearly dont.

She went on to lambaste Clinton for bringing every A-list, B-list, C-list celebrity she could find to help her build crowds, saying it didnt matter because Americans wanted someone who would shake up Washington.

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Sanders also said she found celebrities in Hollywood to be out of touch.

Frankly, I feel sorry for these people, she said. Theyre so focused on hating this president that theyre missing all the great things that are happening in this country... They look small and its impacting them in a much more negative way than certainly it is impacting the president.

Story continues

Also on HuffPost

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Miley Cyrus attends the women's march in Los Angeles.

Vanessa Hudgens attends the women's march in Los Angeles, California.

Kerry Washington speaks onstage at the women's march in Los Angeles, California.

Demi Lovato and U2s The Edge attends the Womens March LA, California.

Jane Fonda and James Franco attend the women's march in Los Angeles, California.

Willow Smith attending the LA Womens March

Natalie Portman speaks onstage at the women's march in Los Angeles, California.

Emma Watson attends the rally at the Women's March on Washington, DC.

Emily Ratajkowski walking during the Women's March.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus speaks onstage at the women's march in Los Angeles, California.

Madonna performs onstage during the Women's March on Washington, DC.

Candice King and her daughter marching with the Women's March Denver.

Tracee Ellis Ross attends the Women's March Los Angeles, California.

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 21: Janelle Monae speaks onstage during the rally at the Women's March on Washington on January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/WireImage)

Alicia Keys and Janelle Monae attend the rally at the Women's March on Washington, DC.

Alicia Keys speaks at Women's March on Washington, DC.

Jamie Lee Curtis attends the Women's March Los Angeles, California.

Kristen Stewart attends The March On Main hosted by Chelsea Handler in Park City, Utah.

Mandy Moore and Jane Fonda at the Women's March in Los Angeles, California.

Laverne Cox speaks onstage at the women's march in Los Angeles, California.

America Ferrara and Chrissy Teigen pose for a photo at the Women's March on Washington, DC.

America Ferrera speaks onstage at the Women's March on Washington, DC.

Jason Sudeikis attends the rally at the Women's March on Washington, DC.

Zendaya posing during the Women's March on Washington, DC.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt participating during the Women's March on Washington in Los Angeles.

Debi Mazar and Ashley Judd attend the rally at the Women's March on Washington, DC.

Ashley Judd attends the Women's March on Washington, DC.

Amber Tamblyn, Amy Schumer and guests attend the rally at the Women's March on Washington, DC.

Connie Britton attending the Women's March in Park City Utah.

Fran Drescher attends the rally at the Women's March on Washington, DC.

Cory Booker and Katy Perry attend the rally at the Women's March on Washington, DC.

Melissa Benoist participating in Women's March on Washington, DC.

John Legend attends the Women's March in Park City, Utah.

Brie Larson protesting during the Women's March on Washington, DC.

Jessica Chastain and Chloe Grace Moretz attend the Women's March on Washington, DC.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.A second person of interest related to last years mass shooting at a Las Vegas music festival was identified as an ammunition dealer who sold to gunman Stephen Paddock, according to newly unsealed court documents.

The dealer, Douglas Haig, was named alongside Paddocks wife, Marilou Danley, as a possible conspirer in the October massacre that left 58 people dead and hundreds more injured, The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. Haig, who is also an engineer, admitted to selling the ammunition, but denied knowing who Paddock was or that he planned anything nefarious.

The documents, unsealed by a judge on Tuesday, were prepared by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department in October. They state that both Haig and Danley remain persons of interest until the investigation can rule otherwise.

Douglas Haig has admitted to selling Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock rounds of ammunition but denies having known him. (Photo: ABC 15)

Its not clear whether Haig remains under investigation. Danley, who was in the Philippines at the time of the attack, is not expected to be charged, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said this month.

According to CBS News, authorities contacted Haig after investigators found an Amazon box in Paddocks Las Vegas hotel room that had Haigs address on it.

Haig has told media that he met with Paddock a few weeks before the shooting but that it was only to sell him ammo  720 rounds of tracer ammunition, to be exact.

I couldnt detect anything wrong with this guy, Haig told CBS News. He told me exactly what he wanted, I handed him a box with the ammunition in it, he paid me and he left.

Broken windows are seen from outside the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas, where Stephen Paddock carried out the mass shooting in October. (Photo: Mike Blake / Reuters)

Haig said Paddock, who authorities said died of an apparent self-inflicted wound after the shooting, told him that he planned to put on a light show with the tracer ammunition, which leaves behind a visible trail when fired.

Records show that Haig owns the store, Specialized Military Ammunition LLC, The Associated Press reported. The stores website, which lists it as closed indefinitely, boasts a variety of projectiles.

Haigs LinkedIn profile also lists him as a senior engineer for Honeywell Aerospace in Arizona. The company confirmed his position there to the Review-Journal.

Story continues

Haig, speaking to reporters on Tuesday outside his Mesa, Arizona, home, said he planned to hold a press conference on Friday.

Paddock, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, allegedly said that he planned to put on a "light show" with the ammo he bought from Haig. (Photo: LVMPD)

This isnt the first time that Haig has denied having known Paddock.

In October, he gave an interview with Newsweek, during which he said federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives interviewed him shortly after the Oct. 1 shooting. That interview was published on Tuesday for the first time.

After about 20 minutes they left. Havent heard from them since, he said. I have to think that if it was really, really serious or there was something that they thought I did that was wrong, (the agents) would have been kicking my door down.

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Related...

Here's What We Know About Stephen Paddock, The Las Vegas Shooting Suspect

What We Know And Don't Know About Stephen Paddock And The Las Vegas Massacre

Las Vegas Casino Workers Recognize Stephen Paddock: 'I Wish I Had Never Seen His Face'

Also on HuffPost

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov delivers a speech during the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Sochi - Anadolu

A Russian-organised peace conference aimed at ending the war in Syria had a shambolic start on Tuesday, after dozens of opposition delegates refused to leave the airport in Sochi and others backed out at the last minute.

Moscow, a staunch Assad ally, is hosting what it has called a Syrian Congress of National Dialogue in the Black Sea resort that it hopes will launch negotiations on drafting a new constitution for Syria after almost seven years of war.

But the conference, which is running in parallel to the United Nations-negotiated talks, looked in jeopardy after more than 70 rebel delegates refused to leave the airport until all logos and emblems representing the government were removed.

A rebel source told the Telegraph Russia had promised to change or remove the symbol of the congress, which read Peace to the People of Syria but only featured the regime flag, only to be greeted by them at the arrivals gate.

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The Syrian Negotiation Commission (SNC), the country's main opposition group, meanwhile said following two days of UN-led talks in Vienna last week that it would not attend the Sochi congress.

Turkey, which backs the opposition and is co-sponsoring the talks with Iran, which supports Bashar al-Assads government, said it would represent the rebels.

Lt. Col. Ahmad al-Saud of Idlib's Free Syrian Army claimed the opposition delegation was mistreated by Russian authorities at the airport, where he was detained for several hours Credit: Twitter/CombatChris1

Sergei Lavrov, Russias foreign minister, was heckled during his opening statement, with several delegates accusing Moscow of killing civilians in Syria with its air strikes.

In Russia, it's polite to say please first, Mr Lavrov responded, saying they would have a chance to speak later.

The conference was initially billed as a two-day event but was cut down to one. Observers noted that much of Tuesdays programme was taken up with a long lunch and dinner, leaving little time for discussion.

Attendees shout slogans prior to a plenary session at the Congress of Syrian National Dialogue in Sochi Credit: AFP

Britain, the US and France did not send any official delegates because of what they say is the government's refusal to properly engage.

Western powers support the UN process, which is now in its ninth round but has so far failed to make any major headway.

Story continues

The conference was also also boycotted by Kurdish delegates over Turkeys offensive on the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) militia in Afrin, a northern Syrian enclave on the border with Turkey.

A few Kurdish officials attended in a personal capacity and reportedly met in private with Russian counterparts on the sidelines of the conference.

The main aim of the Sochi talks is to establish a committee to create a post-war constitution for Syria with UN backing, according to a draft statement. However, any deal agreed without he Kurds, which control some 25 per cent of territory in Syria, will unlikely succeed.

The poor start is a blow to Russia, which has been positioning itself a Middle East peace broker and trying to consolidate influence in the region as the US increasingly takes a step back from the Syrian crisis under President Donald Trump.

"The whole point of the congress was to have a serious negotiation with the Kurds, or at least the Higher Negotiating Committee (the most relevant opposition body)," Neil Hauer, s security analyst focused on Russia-Syria relations, told the Telegraph from Sochi.

"Neither of them are here, and as such there's not much that can be discussed. Nor will anything announced here have much legitimacy. It will be very difficult for the Russians to spin this as a win."

The opposition has accused Russia of not being an honest broker after failing to uphold a deal made in previous round of talks in Kazakhstan.

Both sides agreed to so-called de-escalation zones across Syria, which government forces have since violated.

Hours before the the congress got underway, nearly a dozen civilians were killed in a pro-government air strike on the largest market in rebel-held Idlib province.

The government is now focused on the northwestern province of Idlib, which is dominated by al-Qaeda-linked militants and home to more than 2.6 million people, nearly half of whom have fled from other areas.

It appears to have stepped up its bombing campaign in Idlib in recent days. The Observatory reported 90 airstrikes in Idlib on Monday alone.Photo: Getty Images

Starting next week there will be an influx of mosquitos in South Miami, Fla. But unlike the mosquitos spreading Zika, these new guys wont bite. Bred by a Kentucky biotechnology company called MosquitoMate, these male mosquitoes (male mosquitos dont bite, in general) will carry a secret weapon: a chemical that stops the females they mate with from producing live offspring, which will in turn stop the proliferation of Zika.

Before releasing the modified mosquitoes, MosquitoMate will deliver traps to residents in South Miami, who will be instructed to place them in their yards. The traps will be used to monitor the size of the mosquito population before and after the experiment. Once the traps are in place, the team will release the modified male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes into the air and wait. The hope is that this will reduce the mosquito population significantly  thereby decreasing, or even eliminating, the risk of acquiring Zika in South Miami.

Despite recent waning national interest in the mosquito-borne illness, Zika hasnt gone away. The illness, which is spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito and sexual contact, is itself relatively mild. Most people infected dont show symptoms, and those who do generally have a cold-like sensation that goes away on its own.

The concerning aspect of the disease is its potential for causing birth defects in the babies of women infected while pregnant.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has yet to issue a report on 2018 cases, but in 2017 it reported 418 domestic cases, and 637 in U.S. territories, of Zika-infected Americans. While the vast majority of cases are from traveling abroad, there were at least four recorded cases of locally transmitted Zika in the U.S. last year, two in Texas and two in Florida.

Thats where MosquitoMate comes in  or, more specifically, the modified mosquitoes. In partnership with the University of Kentucky, the biotech company discovered how to breed male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that carry a naturally occurring compound called wolbachia. While technically a chemical, wolbachia is demonstrably benign. Its present in 60 percent of insect species (including butterflies), environmentally friendly, non-infectious, and incapable of being passed to humans.

Story continues

MosquitoMates reasoning is pretty simple: When a male Aedes aegypti mosquito with wolbachia mates with a female Aedes aegypti mosquito without it, the offspring are nonviable. Considering that a female generally lays a minimum of 100 eggs and that her average life cycle is no more than 10 days, this is huge. In a short amount of time, the wolbachia-carrying mosquitoes could theoretically wipe out their own species in whatever region theyre released into  thereby lowering the risk of Zika.

In a post announcing the programs launch, the Miami-Dade County Mosquito Control and Habitat Management Division posted a video explaining the plans to residents. Considering that the disease has been locally spread in Florida, and that there remains no vaccine or cure, its likely to be welcome news. Specifically, to those carrying babies.

The specific birth defect that those infected with Zika have shown is microcephaly  a potentially life-threatening and extremely rare neurological condition in which a baby is born with a significantly smaller head than normal. Caused by an underdevelopment of the brain, the condition often results in intellectual disabilities from the brains inability to expand. Babies born with microcephaly are also at risk for a host of other complications, including speech and movement delays, seizures, facial distortions, and dwarfism.

Its important to note that not all pregnant women who are infected with Zika have babies with birth defects. Between 2015 and 2018 in the U.S., according to the CDC, 2,191 women infected with Zika gave birth, resulting in 106 infants with birth defects and nine babies lost to Zika-associated birth defects. In the U.S. territories, where the outbreak is wider-spread, 3,915 pregnancies of Zika-infected women resulted in 141 babies born with birth defects and eight infant casualties.

Still, if MosquitoMate is successful in reducing the population of Zika-carrying mosquitoes in Florida, it will be one less thing for pregnant women there to worry about. Given the natural disasters that pummeled the state last year alone, it stands to reason that residents have enough on their plate.

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Madrid (AFP) - Spain risks being downgraded from a "full democracy" to a "flawed" one over its handling of Catalonia's secession crisis, a research group that compiles an influential annual democracy ranking warned Wednesday.

The country's score dropped from 8.30 to 8.08 in the Economist Intelligence Unit's (EIU) 2017 Democracy Index due to "its attempt to stop by force Catalonia's illegal referendum on independence on October 1 and its repressive treatment of pro-independence politicians."

That same ranking for 2016 was cited by King Felipe VI last week to defend Spain's democratic credentials.

The country's score remains just above the threshold of 8.01 for full democracies but Joan Hoey, editor of the index, warned it could further deteriorate depending on what happens this year.

Catalonia's secession crisis captured the world's attention when a banned independence referendum was met with a massive police crackdown in October.

The central government argued that the vote had been ruled illegal by the Constitutional Court, justifying the use of police to try and stop it.

It has always insisted it is on the side of the law in its handling of the crisis.

But Hoey said the use of "heavy-handed legalism to deal with what is essentially a democratic question or to deny a democratic vote" was "not really the sign of a government that cherishes democracy and wants to expand it."

The ranking also pointed to the charges of rebellion, which carries up to 30 years in jail, and sedition brought against Catalan leaders over their failed bid for independence.

"In this day and age, in a modern democracy, to see elected politicians being charged with what seem quite archaic charges... doesn't seem to sit well with Spain's ranking as a full democracy, of which there are only 19 in the world," said Hoey.

The index is based on five categories including the functioning of government and the electoral process.

Story continues

Based on its score, each country is then classified as a "full democracy," "flawed" one, "hybrid regime" or "authoritarian" one.

The ranking classified Norway as the top democracy while North Korea came last.

The Gambia was upgraded from an "authoritarian regime" to a "hybrid" one after it witnessed its first ever democratic transfer of power.

Venezuela, by contrast, moved the other way to an "authoritarian regime."

"The latter change reflects Venezuela's continued slide towards dictatorship," the ranking said.WASHINGTON  Each year, Capitol Hill lawmakers can bring guests to the presidents State of the Union address, often selecting people who represent a political message. Ahead of Donald Trumps first State of the Union on Tuesday, a handful of Democrats, including civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), have chosen to boycott it over the presidents recent racist comments deriding Haiti and African nations as shithole countries.

Pointing to Trumps decision to end protections for so-called Dreamers under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), who will skip the speech, announced that Dreamer Aldo Solano will attend in his place.

Many of the Democratic senators and representatives who will be in attendance have also chosen guests who will serve as a rebuke to Trump and draw attention to issues such as immigration, hurricane relief in Puerto Rico, sexual assault and the #MeToo movement, and Trumps attempt to ban transgender members of the military.

Immigration

Immigration policy will undoubtedly take center stage Tuesday night as Trump and congressional leaders scramble to find a legislative solution to protect the Dreamers program initiated under President Barack Obama. HuffPost counted nearly 30 Democratic lawmakers who are bringing Dreamers as their guests.

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Several other lawmakers have invited family members of undocumented immigrants who have been deported under Trump, such as Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), whose guest will be Cindy Garcia. Garcias husband, Jorge, was recently deported to Mexico after living in the U.S. for nearly 30 years.

In addition to DACA, Trump administration officials have also announced plans to eliminate temporary protected status (TPS) for thousands of immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and Nicaragua, and have created uncertainty for immigrants from other countries included in TPS  underscored by Reps. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) and Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), who have all invited immigrants who fall under TPS protections.

Story continues

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) invited Jean Bradley Derenoncourt, a city council member in Brockton, Massachusetts, who is originally from Haiti, one of the countries Trump reportedly referred to as a shithole in a meeting about immigration issues.

His story embodies American values of hard work, service, and persistence, Warren said in a statement.

Sexual misconduct

The #MeToo and #TimesUp movements will also be represented on Tuesday night. Many Democratic women plan to wear black to show solidarity with survivors of sexual misconduct, inspired by the Golden Globe Awards earlier this month.

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), who has been outspoken about the issue of sexual misconduct in Congress, is bringing Travis Moore, a former congressional aide who helped organize a petition that led lawmakers to begin re-evaluating the byzantine process for reporting misconduct on Capitol Hill.

Speier had previously invited #MeToo founder Tarana Burke, but Burke said that she declined the invitation in favor of participating in a counter-event Tuesday evening with fellow activists.

Multiple lawmakers have invited sexual abuse survivors who have become activists in their states.

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Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) invited Rose Gunter, niece of Recy Taylor, a black woman in Alabama who was raped by six white men in Alabama in 1944, an event that helped catalyze the civil rights movement. Taylor, who died in December, has now become a symbol of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, and was recently honored by Oprah Winfrey in a stirring speech at the Golden Globes.

Danielle McGuire, a historian whose 2010 book about Taylor brought renewed public attention to her story, will also attend Tuesdays speech as a guest of Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.).

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus will wear red pins in Taylors memory.

Hurricane recovery in Puerto Rico

Several representatives from New York and Florida, states with significant Puerto Rican populations, have invited guests who were displaced from Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria last year, or who have helped the islands residents with relief efforts.

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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) invited San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz (D). Not coincidentally, Trump has attacked both women, two of his strongest critics, on Twitter.

Transgender military ban

Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.), who will give the Democratic response to Trumps address Tuesday night, announced that he invited Staff Sgt. Patricia King, a transgender soldier who said that she was the first service member to have the military pay for her gender reassignment surgery.

The Trump administration last year announced that it would ban transgender military service members, a decision that has been temporarily blocked by a federal court.

I want her to be there as a real person, and the face of an inhumane policy, Kennedy told The Boston Globe.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) is also bringing a transgender military service member, Lynda Bengtsson-Davis, a Marine Corps veteran, as his guest.

As President Trump delivers his first State of the Union address, my message to him, to my constituents, and to America as a whole is going to be: love trumps hate, Huffman said in a statement. When our President tries to take us backward by turning Americans against each other and stoking culture wars, he must be confronted.

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U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to his first speech to a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 28, 2017.

U.S. President Donald Trump stands in the doorway of the House chamber while being introduced to speak before a joint session of Congress on February 28, 2017 in Washington, DC.

WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 28: (AFP OUT) U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to deliver an address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on February 28, 2017 in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. Trump's first address to Congress is expected to focus on national security, tax and regulatory reform, the economy, and healthcare. (Photo by Jim Lo Scalzo - Pool/Getty Images)

U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to deliver an address to a joint session of the U.S. Congress on February 28, 2017 in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a joint session of Congress.

President Trump addresses the U.S. Congress.

U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to addresses a joint session of the U.S. Congress on February 28, 2017 in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC.

WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 28: U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to addresses a joint session of the U.S. Congress on February 28, 2017 in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. Trump's first address to Congress is expected to focus on national security, tax and regulatory reform, the economy, and healthcare. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

US Vice President Mike Pence (L) and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R) applaud as US President Donald J. Trump (C) arrives to deliver his first address to a joint session of Congress from the floor of the House of Representatives in Washington, DC, USA, 28 February 2017. / AFP / POOL / JIM LO SCALZO (Photo credit should read JIM LO SCALZO/AFP/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 28: U.S. President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of the U.S. Congress as Vice President Mike Pence (L) and House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan (R) (R-WI) look on on February 28, 2017 in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. Trump's first address to Congress focused on national security, tax and regulatory reform, the economy, and healthcare. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan look on as U.S. President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of the U.S. Congress on February 28, 2017 in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC.

Carryn Owens (C), widow of Senior Chief Petty Officer William "Ryan" Owens, sits with Ivanka Trump (R), daughter of U.S. President Donald Trump.

US Vice President Mike Pence (L) confers wirh Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R) prior to US President Donald Trump's address before a joint session of the US Congress on February 28, 2017 at the Capitol in Washington, DC.

WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 28: Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) arrives to a joint session of the U.S. Congress with U.S. President Donald Trump on February 28, 2017 in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. Trump's first address to Congress is expected to focus on national security, tax and regulatory reform, the economy, and healthcare. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Vice President Mike Pence,left, and House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) arrive to a joint session of the U.S. Congress with U.S. President Donald Trump on February 28, 2017 in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) arrive to a joint session of the U.S. Congress with U.S. President Donald Trump on February 28, 2017 in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC.

WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 28: U.S. Rep Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) arrive to a joint session of the U.S. Congress with U.S. President Donald Trump on February 28, 2017 in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. Trump's first address to Congress is expected to focus on national security, tax and regulatory reform, the economy, and healthcare. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

First lady Melania Trump arrives to a joint session of the U.S. Congress with U.S. President Donald Trump on February 28, 2017 in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC.

U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to addresses a joint session of the U.S. Congress on February 28, 2017 in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC.

U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to addresses a joint session of the U.S. Congress on February 28, 2017 in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC.

U.S. President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of the U.S. Congress on February 28, 2017 in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.The Constitution has had an Elections Clause since it first went into effect in 1789, but the Supreme Court has rarely given an interpretation of its meaning. But what the Supreme Court has said creates a dilemma for the Justices as they decide soon what to do about the claim that Pennsylvanias state legislature engaged in partisan gerrymandering when it drew up election districts for choosing the states 18 members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Republican legislative leaders in the state have asked the Justices to put on hold, and then review, a decision earlier this month by the state Supreme Court that the 2011 congressional map was a partisan-driven effort and that it violates the state constitution. The voters and political organizations that won the case in the states highest court have been told to file by Friday a reply to the request for a postponement of the ruling at issue.

The state GOP leaders first hurdle will be to persuade five of the nine Justices to grant a postponement. But an even bigger hurdle is to persuade the Justices that the Supreme Court should get involved in second-guessing the state courts interpretation of its own constitution.

Ordinarily, a states own courts have the last word on the meaning of their states basic document, and ordinarily the Supreme Court will respect that. But when the federal Constitutions Elections Clause enters into the discussion, that ordinary deference may not cause the Justices to hold back. And that creates a constitutional dilemma for the Justices.

On the one hand, the Supreme Court has said previously that writing the state laws that control elections  including elections of members of Congress  is a task for the state legislature, specifically handed to those lawmakers by the Constitution as a delegation of the power that otherwise would be exercised by Congress. On the other hand, it has recognized  but not fully clarified -- that state courts have power over what the legislature does about rules for those elections.

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The Pennsylvania GOP lawmakers actually do not see any dilemma. They have argued in state courts and now are arguing in the Supreme Court that the Elections Clause gives the line-drawing power over election districts to the body that makes state laws  the legislature  and since the state Supreme Court does not make laws, it has no role to play in drawing maps.

But in order for the Justices to rule that way, they would have to tell the state Supreme Court that it cannot enforce its state constitution against the legislatures election maps no matter how seriously they contradict rights guaranteed by the state constitution.

This very likely is a dilemma of the Justices own making, simply because they have not said enough about what the Elections Clause means.

The Elections Clause is actually a misnomer; there are two provisions of Article I  the article that defines Congress and its powers  that define the power to elect members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Section 2 says that the House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states. That section also limits who may vote for congressional candidates: the citizens who are allowed to vote for the lower house of the state legislature, the one with the most members. (Challengers who claim a districting map is a partisan gerrymander argue that such a map interferes with the Section 2 right of the people, rather than a dominant political party, to control election outcomes. That is one of the issues in the Pennsylvania congressional districting case, as in any case involving a claim of partisan gerrymander that violates the Elections Clause.)

Section 4, which is often mistakenly thought of as the only Elections Clause, hands to the states and, in particular, to their state legislatures the task of prescribing the times, places and manner of holding elections for the House of Representatives. It adds  and this was something the Founders insisted upon  that Congress may at any time by law make or alter the rules written by the state legislatures for House elections. (A clear example of Congress choice to override state election rules is the Voting Rights Act of 1965, protecting minority voters from being denied equality at the polls.)

The Supreme Court has ruled plainly that the task assigned to state legislatures by Section 4 is not a power the states have as sovereign entities, but a task handed down to them to act in place of Congress, subject to congressional veto or alteration.

And the Supreme Court also has ruled just as plainly that the powers handed to the state legislatures are only to cover the procedures of elections: where the polling places will be, what times the polling places will be open, how to draw up the ballots, and  of course  how to draw the election district boundaries (a task that each legislature confronts every ten years after a new federal census shows whether and how populations of states have grown or declined, or shifted).

But, while the Supreme Court has said that the task given to legislatures to draw election district maps is a legislative one, it has also specified that what it meant by that is how the states own constitution sorts out the lawmaking power, and  presumably -- its limits.

This is the way the Justices put it in the 1932 decision in Smiley v. Holm: We find no suggestion in the [Elections Clause] of an attempt to endow the legislature of the state with power to enact laws in any manner other than that in which the constitution of the state had provided that laws shall be enacted.

While that comment may seem like an embrace of the idea that only the legislature is to be involved in drawing congressional district boundaries, its reference to the constitution of the state raises the distinct possibility that, if the states basic document curbs legislative power, the legislature must obey such a limit.

And in other cases where the Justices have ruled on disputes under the Elections Clause, it has also said  without a great deal of specificity  that the state courts do have a role to play in the election process, and it has also said that the people of the state can even take the task of drawing election districts away from the legislature and hand it to an independent, non-partisan commission, as a few states have done.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in its ruling striking down the 2011 map drawn for the states 18 House seats as a partisan gerrymander, apparently relied on the protections the states constitution gives to the voters of the state in elections in general. Used in three elections since 2011, the map each time led to victories for the Republican candidates for 13 seats to five for the Democrats, even though the statewide vote for the House races as a whole was about evenly split.)

The majority (in the 5-2 decision) decided that the map clearly, plainly and palpably violates the state constitution. However, it struck down the map without saying just what the constitutional violation was. It has promised an opinion later that would explain.

It may not matter to the Justices just what the constitutional rationale was for striking down the 2011 map, if the Justices believe that the state court undoubtedly had the authority to apply any limitation within the state constitution to the legislatures plan. They do not need to know the specific violation that occurred, in order to decide whether the state court was free  under the Elections Clause  to block the use of the map, so long as they did so in using the power of judicial review given to it by the state constitution.

At the same time, the Justices are almost always troubled when a lower court, including a state court, changes the rules of an election contest when an election is imminent. In Pennsylvania, deadlines are already arriving for candidates to run for the House in the scheduled May 18 primary.

If the Justices were persuaded that the Elections Clause  Section 4, that is  protects the prerogative of the legislature to draw the congressional map without second-guessing by the state court, they no doubt would not only put the state court decision on hold but also grant review of the state court decision, using the Elections Clause as the guide.

Could the Justices find a way to rule for the legislature without sacrificing judicial review at the state level in Pennsylvania? The few past precedents issued by the Supreme Court on the scope of Section 4 do not appear to suggest such a way, making the dilemma the Justices now face even more perplexing.

Legendary journalist Lyle Denniston has written for us as a contributor since June 2011 and has covered the Supreme Court since 1958. His work also appears on lyldenlawnews.com.A 16-year-old schoolgirl and her family have spoken out against the culture of bullying after a fellow student ripped her wig off while others laughed and filmed the incident.

Lauren Williams, who attends Franklin High School in Tennessee, suffers from eczema and psoriasis, which has affected her hair growth, The Tennessean reports.

Williams began wearing a wig to school to help with her self-confidence after years of bullying. After the latest incident was recorded on video and posted to Snapchat, her family decided to take a stand.

Lauren Williams with her mother, Myckelle. (Photo: The Tennessean)

They posted the video and pictures of Williamss damaged scalp after the bullies tore off the wig, which was held to her head by clips and glue.

The Williams family received overwhelming support from other families from as far as Belgium and Nigeria, many of whom had similar experiences of school bullying.

By doing this, theyve helped me reach out to other girls who are dealing with the same things, the teenager told the newspaper.

Williamss mother Myckelle Williams said she had spoken to school administration officials about bullying in the past but felt they had not taken her concerns seriously.

Once she got to the school, immediately girls started attacking her, she said. I was going to the school constantly. These were seniors, girls who are 17, 18. My daughters 14 at the time, and shes enduring this.

Myckelle Williams said her daughter had become so frustrated by the constant bullying that she posted a message on social media saying she wished she had a gun.

Franklin High School officials said they began investigating the incident as soon as it was reported.

This type of behavior can never be tolerated at school, a Williamson County Schools spokesperson told The Tennessean. In addition to school discipline, WCS prosecutes delinquent behavior to the fullest extent of the law.

Lauren Williams used to wear a wig to cover up her eczema and psoriasis. (Photo: The Tennessean)

Since the horrific incident, Lauren Williams has shaved her head in a note of defiance against her bullies.

Story continues

Your beauty isnt defined by the number of strands on your head, she said. Ever since I shaved it, I feel free. Im not held down by my hair. Im not defined by it  Im defining myself.

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Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.By Jon Herskovitz

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - A Dallas man who was convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend in 1999 while he was out on parole was executed on Tuesday after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a last-minute appeal, prison officials said.

William Rayford, 64, was pronounced dead at 8:48 p.m. central time (9:48 p.m. eastern), said Texas prison spokesman Jason Clark. He was sentenced to death for beating and strangling former girlfriend Carol Hall, 44.

Rayford apologized to the victim's family and asked for them to forgive him in his final words, according to Clark.

"Im sorry, it has been bothering me for a long time. So I now pray and I will keep you all in my prayers. I hope you find it in your heart to forgive me. Im sorry," Rayford said, according to Clark.

Rayford had served eight years of a 23-year sentence for killing his wife in 1986 when he was released on parole in 1994, prison records showed.

His appellate attorneys had launched a late appeal with the Supreme Court, saying the lawyers who represented him at the punishment phase introduced prejudicial racial elements and failed to provide adequate counsel. Rayford is black.

"Mr. Rayford ... received a death sentence after his trial attorney elicited evidence that a person's race is a factor in their likelihood of committing assaults while in prison," they wrote in their appeal, adding that a link between race and prison assaults did not exist.

Lawyers for Texas contend that Rayford did not complain until one week before his scheduled execution that his trial counsel was ineffective.

They said blood taken from Rayford's lip, head and neck at the time of the killing matched Hall's DNA.

Prosecutors said Rayford had a key to Hall's home and entered on the day of the murder. He then got into an argument with his former girlfriend.

When Hall's then 12-year-old son came to see what was happening, Rayford stabbed the boy in the back and Hall fled for safety, prosecutors said.

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The boy, who survived, went to a neighbor's house and the neighbor called police, they said.

Rayford caught Hall and then beat her to death, dumping her body in a drainage pipe, prosecutors said. Rayford was captured in Hall's backyard about an hour after police arrived. He was wet and had bloodstains on his clothes, they said.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin; Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Peter Cooney and Paul Tait)Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has ordered additional law enforcement to investigate allegations of sexual assault at Walker Countys Karolyi Ranch, the former training facility for USA Gymnastics athletes.

Abbotts Tuesday request asks that the Texas Rangers, a statewide law enforcement agency, join the Walker County Sheriffs Office in its ongoing investigation.

The public statements made by athletes who previously trained at the Karolyi Ranch are gut-wrenching, Abbott said in a statement. Those athletes, as well as all Texans, deserve to know that no stone is left unturned to ensure that the allegations are thoroughly vetted and the perpetrators and enablers of any such misconduct are brought to justice. The people of Texas demand, and the victims deserve, nothing less.

USA Gymnastics, which had used Karolyi Ranch as its national team training center since 2001, cut ties with the Huntsville facility earlier this month after more than 140 women came forward with allegations that former team doctor Larry Nassar had sexually abused them, many while at the facility, under the guise of medical treatment.

More than 160 women and family members delivered impact statements during Nassars weeklong sentencing hearing. Nassar, who was already serving 60 years in prison on child pornography charges, was given a 40- to 175-year prison sentence on seven counts of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree and now awaits additional sentencing on three more counts of the same charge.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.Apparently, Nairobi is so unsafe that one can get mugged in broad daylight, get stabbed in the process, and end up at Kenyatta National Hospital where they would be raped at night.

It is just not safe anymore and Nairobians have in the last couple of weeks been expressing their concerns over the rising cases of muggings in the city centre.

Nairobi police and Sonkos administration have since responded to our cries by forming an anti-mugging squad comprising officers drawn from the County, Regular and Administration Police units.

While the move has allayed some of Nairobians fears, doubts still remain about the squads efficiency owing to the citys congestion.

As city dwellers continue to share their views on the issue through social sites, a Facebook user has hilariously depicted just how dire the insecurity situation is with a cleverly captioned picture.

Apparently, it is so bad that one can get mugged as Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiangi and the Inspector General of Police, Joseph Boinnet, watch.

Heres the proof.Chicago (AFP) - The US state of Texas executed an inmate Tuesday for the brutal killing of his girlfriend while he was on parole for the murder of his wife.

William Rayford lost his final appeals just hours prior to his evening execution, including at the US Supreme Court. The appeals delayed the process for a few hours, but the lethal injection was ultimately carried out and Rayford pronounced dead at 8:48 pm (0248 GMT).

The 64-year-old was convicted of killing his girlfriend Carol Lynn Thomas Hall in 1999, after an argument the two had in her home. At the time, Rayford was on parole, having served eight years of a 23-year sentence for the 1986 murder of his estranged wife Gail Ann Rayford.

His last statement included a request for forgiveness from the family of his second victim, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

"Please find it in your hearts to forgive me," Rayford said. "By no means am I happy for what I've done. I have asked the Lord to forgive me."

Both of Rayford's murders were brutal attacks that occurred in front of the women's children. Hall's body was found beaten, strangled and stabbed.

Hall's then 11-year-old son was also beaten and stabbed when he tried to stop the attack. He survived and was a witness in Rayford's trial.

Rayford's attorneys had asked the US Supreme Court to halt the execution, alleging the convict, who was black, had insufficient representation and that his initial sentencing may have been marred by race-based prejudice.

In another appeal, they claimed recent tests showed Rayford suffered decades-long brain damage caused by lead poisoning from bullets and bullet fragments lodged in his body, and from contaminated water.

None of the appeals panned out, as judges rejected them all.

The number of executions in the US declined to a near-historic low of 23 last year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.Mr. Rogers is a supreme American hero. Mr. Rogers was the sweetest man. I hope Tom Hanks does him justice. The news that Tom Hanks will play beloved TV personality Fred Rogers in an upcoming biopic has triggered some sweet nostalgia on Newsroom. Readers are loving the casting news and the throwback vibes to the widely beloved childrens series Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, which ran from 1968 to 2001. Academy Award-winning actor and national treasure Tom Hanks has signed on to star as Mr. Rogers in You Are My Friend. The perfect fit? Thats what many fans feel: One reader writes the actor is so spot-on he doesnt even need makeup or wardrobe for the role. Rogers, who died in 2003 at age 74 of stomach cancer, is idolized for his beloved PBS series as well as his impact on educational programming. He famously testified before the Senate advocating for government funding for childrens programs. And, as the Newsroom comments prove, hes remembered for a lot more than that. Heres hoping Hanks starts appreciating a colorful cardigan and perfecting the art of changing shoes while singing, Wont you be my neighbor? What do you think of Tom Hanks stepping into the role? Join the conversation in Newsroom.Emergency personnel work at the scene of a train crash involving a garbage truck in Crozet, Va., on Wednesday. (Zack Wajsgrasu/The Daily Progress via AP)

A train carrying dozens of Republican members of Congress to an annual retreat hit a garbage truck in Virginia on Wednesday, killing one person who was in the vehicle, officials said.

The Amtrak train, which was en route to West Virginia from Washington, D.C., collided with the truck west of Crozet, Va., at approximately 11:20 a.m. ET, an Amtrak official told Yahoo News.

Two Amtrak crew members and three passengers were transported to a local hospital with minor injuries, the Amtrak spokesperson said. Local law enforcement is investigating the incident and crews are inspecting equipment for damage.

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., one of the GOP lawmakers who was on the train, told CNN that one person in the truck was killed and two others were injured. One of the injured was airlifted from the scene, Flake said, and he and other lawmakers and emergency personnel carried the other to an ambulance.

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Flake said some members may have suffered minor injuries, but none appeared to be serious.

An aide for Rep. Jason Lewis told ABC News that the Minnesota Republican was taken to the hospital and examined for possible concussion following train collision.

The train carrying GOP members to our retreat had a collision, but Rebecca and I are both okay, Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Ala., wrote on Twitter. Security and doctors on board are helping secure the scene and treat injuries.

On social media, several lawmakers and local news outlets shared photos of the wreckage at the scene.

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At the White House, press secretary Sarah Sanders said President Trump had been fully briefed on the situation in Virginia.

There is one confirmed fatality and one serious injury, Sanders said in a statement. There are no serious injuries among members of Congress or their staff. Senior administration officials are in regular contact with Amtrak and state and local authorities. Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone that has been affected by this incident.

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Sanders added that the president spoke to House Speaker Paul Ryan, who was on the train, and that all members of Congress and congressional staff escaped serious injury.

I just spoke with Speaker Ryan, Trump told reporters later Wednesday afternoon. Theyre doing pretty good. The train accident was a tough one  a tremendous jolt.

It was a pretty rough hit, thats what they all tell me, the president added.

Trump is scheduled to attend the three-day retreat at the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., on Thursday. Vice President Mike Pence, who was scheduled to speak there later Wednesday, said he still intends to do so.

Read more from Yahoo News:By Amanda Becker

CROZET, Va. (Reuters) - An Amtrak passenger train carrying Republican members of the U.S. Congress from Washington to a retreat in West Virginia slammed into a garbage truck on Wednesday at a rural Virginia road crossing, killing one person on the truck, authorities said.

No serious injuries were reported among the lawmakers or their staff on the train, the U.S. Department of Transportation said. There was one death and one serious injury among those on the truck, it added.

Amtrak said two crew members and three train passengers were hospitalized with minor injuries after the crash in Crozet, Virginia. One of those, Representative Jason Lewis of Minnesota, was examined for a possible concussion.

"I'm fine compared to, tragically, the truck drivers, and thankful for the prompt action of our doctors and first responders. My thoughts are with the family of the driver who passed away," Lewis told Reuters.

The train was taking lawmakers to an annual retreat being held this year in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, just west of the Virginia state line. Amtrak said the collision occurred at 11:20 a.m. in Crozet, a tiny town between the college town of Charlottesville, Virginia, and White Sulphur Springs.

U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, a doctor, said he and other lawmakers who are physicians tended to the injured until emergency personnel arrived.

The truck was on the tracks at a crossing when the crash occurred, Amtrak said. Video from the scene showed the battered truck afterward, with trash strewn around it.

"We were going along the Virginia countryside at pretty good speed," Senator Jeff Flake said in comments released by his office. "All of a sudden, we felt an impact and obviously heard a pretty loud noise. Most of us were thrown a bit in our seats and those of us who were standing were really thrown."

Spouses and children of some lawmakers were aboard, lawmakers said. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan was on the train, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was not, lawmakers said.

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'GONE TERRIBLY WRONG'

"It was clear upon impact that something had gone terribly wrong and I am very grateful that the train was able to stop without severely derailing," U.S. Representative Lee Zeldin said in a statement.

Immediately after the crash, a law enforcement team surrounded the train with weapons drawn and searched the area for possible attackers as first responders treated the injured, said a local emergency worker, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"They surrounded the train on both sides and set up a perimeter with their automatic weapons pointing out and then searched the woods around the train," the worker said. "At least five members of Congress helped firefighters and EMTs (emergency medical technicians) treat the three injured people who had been in the truck."

The Republican retreat, an opportunity for lawmakers to discuss legislation and politics in the run-up to November's congressional elections, was scheduled to run until midday Friday. President Donald Trump was due to attend on Thursday. Vice President Mike Pence went as scheduled on Wednesday.

Trump told reporters at the White House he had spoken to Ryan and others, and that the accident had been "a pretty rough hit."

"We don't have full understanding yet as to what happened," Trump said.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team to investigate.

The Virginia Department of Transportation said the intersection where the crash occurred had flashing signals and gates to prevent motorists from getting on the tracks when trains were approaching.

It was the second tragedy to hit congressional Republicans in the past year.

Last June, a gunman opened fire at a baseball field in Alexandria, Virginia, where Republican lawmakers were practicing for an annual charity game against Democratic colleagues. Representative Steve Scalise, the No. 3 House Republican, was severely wounded but has recovered and returned to work. He was not on the train.

While it was not immediately clear who was at fault in the Virginia collision, Amtrak's safety record has come under scrutiny after a series of recent incidents including a derailment of a passenger train south of Seattle in December that killed three. In that crash, an engineer misread a signal and failed to slow the train, investigators said.

(Additional reporting by David Shepardson, Richard Cowan, Ian Simpson, Katanga Johnson, Makini Brice, Susan Cornwell, Roberta Rampton and Mohammad Zargham; Writing by John Whitesides; Editing by Will Dunham)Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) announced Wednesday that he will not seek re-election this year.

Instead I will be returning to the justice system, Gowdy, who previously worked as an attorney and prosecutor, said in a statement. Whatever skills I may have are better utilized in a courtroom than in Congress, and I enjoy our justice system more than our political system.

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Gowdy was first elected to Congress in 2010. He has served as the chair of the House Oversight Committee since June, and chaired the House Benghazi Committee from 2014 to 2016, investigating the 2012 attack on the American diplomatic compound in Libya that left a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans dead. During that probe, Gowdy faced criticism for focusing the investigation on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was running for president at the time.

Gowdy is one of several high-profile Republican House members to announce their retirement ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. According to Cook Political Report, there are currently 32 open Republican seats in the House and 13 open Democratic seats.

On Monday, 12-term Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) said he wouldnt run again, setting up a battle to take over his chairmanship of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Other significant GOP retirements include Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (Va.), Financial Services Committee Chair Jeb Hensarling (Texas) and Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Ed Royce (Calif.).

On the Senate side, Tennessees Bob Corker, Arizonas Jeff Flake and Utahs Orrin Hatch have said they will step down after this term.

(Photo: Tom Williams via Getty Images)

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.Game hunter Pero Jelinic killed by stray bullet while aiming at lion

A Croatian trophy hunter who boasted that he had shot everything that could be hunted in Europe has died while hunting lions in South Africa.

Pero Jelinic, 75, was hit by a stray bullet during the hunt at a remote farm, where he had already killed one lion and was stalking another.

Jelinic was hunting at a remote farm where lions are raised in captivity purely to be hunted.

Police say they do not know who fired the fatal shot.

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The hotel owners friend Slavko Pernar told Croatias Jutarnji List newspaper, Pero was a passionate hunter of big and small game, and in search of that he travelled most of the world.

Hunters travel to farms to kill lions which have been raised for hunting

For the past year he had leased his hotel to dedicated himself to the things he planned to accomplish and enjoyed a deserved retirement.

He, unfortunately, received the ugliest end  he died in South Africa doing what he loved. His office, a hunting hall, was full of trophies, deer and bear specimens and everything that could be hunted in Croatia and Europe.Donald Trump has signed an executive order to reverse Barack Obamas attempt to close the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.

One of the first thing Mr Obama did when he entered the White House in 2009 was to sign an executive order undertaking to close the controversial prison, located on a US military base on the tip of Cuba.

While Mr Obama was able to reduce the number of prisoners at the camp  today, just 41 remain  he was unable to make good with his vow, largely because of opposition from Congress.

Just as Mr Trump started his address, the White House announced that he had signed his own executive order that reversed Mr Obamas plan, a step he too had said he would take during the presidential election campaign. The announcement marks a formal reversal of his predecessors policy.

Mr Trump later said: In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds of dangerous terrorists, only to meet them again on the battlefield - including the Isis leader, al-Baghdadi.

I just signed, prior to walking in, an order directing Secretary Mattis.to re-examine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay.

President George W Bush opened Guantanamo in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11 to hold and interrogate suspected enemy combatants, gathered from the battlegrounds in Afghanistan.

It was subsequently used to handle prisoners that were seized as part of his so-called war on terror. Many were held for years without trial. At its peak in 2003, it held up to 800 detainees.

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The new order says the US maintains the option to detain additional enemy combatants at the detention centre when necessary.

It requires the Defence Secretary to recommend criteria for determining the fate of individuals captured by the United States in armed conflict, including sending them to Guantanamo Bay.

The executive order preserves a vital tool to protect the United States and its citizens from continuing significant threats, the White House said.

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The detention of enemies captured in an armed conflict is a lawful and necessary tool of war-fighting that must continue to be available to the United States.

Reports said Mr Trump has the backing of a vocal group of prominent Republicans, including senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain, both of whom believe terror suspects should be tried through the military commission process rather than in civil court.

The Trump administration has initiated criminal prosecution for several suspected ISIS fighters since taking office in 2017, according to The Hill.Former Defense Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on Wednesday warned President Donald Trump against pursuing a pre-emptive strike on North Korea, saying the commander in chief's "nonsense and bravado" could cost millions of lives.

In an interview with Military Times, Hagel said a "bloody nose" strikea limited attack aimed at sending a message to Kim Jong Un without starting a full-blown conflictwould be a major "gamble," and a deadly one.

"Lets be smarter," Hagel said. "If you want to bet that if you are going to attack North Korea, however you [are] going to do that, and think that Kim Jong Un and the North Koreans are not going to retaliateits a pretty big gamble. I wouldnt want to take that gamble."

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If war with North Korea broke out, "there would be literally millions of people dead in South Korea, tens of thousands of Americans dead, Hagel added. "We have 30,000 troops along the [demilitarized zone], plus other Americans there as well. Probably Japan doesnt come out of this without some catastrophe."

01_31_Hagel_North_Korea

Mandel Ngan/Getty Images

The Trump administration has reportedly been mulling a "bloody nose" strike for some time. Its desire to potentially pursue this option could be the reason Victor Cha, who was poised to become Trump's ambassador to South Korea, is no longer expected to be nominated, according to multiple reports on Tuesday. Cha voiced his opposition to this type of strike in an op-ed for The Washington Post, writing, "While our population in Japan might be protected by U.S. missile defenses, the U.S. population in South Korea, let alone millions of South Koreans, has no similar active defenses against a barrage of North Korean artillery (aside from counterfire artillery)."

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"To be clear: The president would be putting at risk an American population the size of a medium-size U.S. cityPittsburgh, say, or Cincinnation the assumption that a crazy and undeterrable dictator will be rationally cowed by a demonstration of U.S. kinetic power," Cha added.

A November 2017 report from the Congressional Research Service, which estimated as many as 300,000 people would die in the first few days of a conflict between the U.S. and North Korea (even without the use of nukes), reinforces Cha's concerns.

In addition to opposing a "bloody nose" strike, Hagel was also highly critical of the president's general demeanor toward Pyongyang, especially in relation to Trump's tweets. Hagel said Trump has made the situation worse with tweets such as when he boasted he has a bigger "nuclear button" than Kim. The former defense secretary called on Trump to "cut the tension, lets cut the nonsense and bravado" and follow South Korea's example by embracing diplomacy.

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North and South Korea re-established dialogue for the first time in roughly two years in early January. As a product of the somewhat rekindled relations, North Korea is set to participate in February's Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. This is a major development for the two Koreas, which have been bitterly divided since the Korean War (1950-53).

Hagel seems encouraged by Seoul and Pyongyang's efforts to talk, rather than continue to threaten each other, and hopes Trump will follow suit. "Engagement is not surrender or appeasement. Great powers engage. Great powers talk to people. Great powers take responsibility. And thats what we should be doing with North Korea," Hagel said.

The Trump administration has maintained it will not tolerate a nuclear North Korea and is generally uninterested in sitting down with Kim's regime until it agrees to halt its nuclear program.

During his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Trump decried the North Korean regime and warned its nuclear weapons could "soon threaten" the U.S. mainland. "No regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally or brutally than the cruel dictatorship in North Korea," the president said. "North Korea's reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland. We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from happening."

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekHillary Clinton and Donald Trump. (Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: AP (2), Jonathan Newton/Washington Post via Getty Images.

President Trump borrowed a term from a 2010 Hillary Clinton speech in his State of the Union address.

This in fact is our new American moment, there has never been a better time to start living our American dream, Trump said Tuesday evening.

New American moment was a phrase used in a 2010 speech delivered by then Secretary of State Clinton, as the Washington Post noted in a Sept. 8, 2010, story:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton declared Wednesday that a new American moment has arrived in international relations, a moment when our global leadership is essential, even if we must often lead in new ways.

Clinton delivered her remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations, discussing President Obamas foreign policy plan.

Trump has continued to reference his former presidential rival, as he did two weeks ago during a Pennsylvania speech, but early excerpts of the State of the Union address did not mention her by name.

At the 2016 Republican National Convention, Melania Trump was criticized for lifting quotes from a 2008 Michelle Obama speech.

Read more from Yahoo News:Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko has countered Jaguars case against the boda-boda ban in the city centre by asking the court to dismiss the application.

The governor, in grounds of opposition filed in court on Tuesday, said issues being advanced by the Starehe MP were litigated and conclusively determined by the court.

Thus, Sonko argues, Jaguars case is incompetent and fatally defective.

The governor noted that in October 2016, High Court judge Joseph Onguto conclusively heard and determined the matter. In his judgement, Onguto held that riders have no right to operate within the CBD.

The operators had sued the county government after they were stopped from operating within the city by then-governor Evans Kidero in November 2015.

The suit, which had been filed by City Riders Sacco, was first dismissed by Judge Onguto in February 2016.

Sonko notes that bringing similar issues before the court when they have already been resolved is an abuse of the court process.

The governor says Jaguar has also not demonstrated that he has an arguable case which warrants any issuance of orders.

This application is abstract, vague and fails to illustrate the legal and facture threshold for grant of the orders sought, Sonko says in court papers.

The County Boss says the section 118 (a) of the Traffic Act 403 of 2014 grants him the power to make laws and regulate taxicabs and by extension boda-bodas.

Thus he argues, Jaguars suit is contrary to overriding objective of the court and a waste of judicial time.

Jaguar moved to court to fight for the boda-boda operators arguing that the ban was reached without any consultation.

He was, however, singing from a different tune on Monday after meeting with members of the Boda Boda Safety association.

Jaguar said the riders are willing to abide by the county government set rules and regulations.

Besides agreeing to have designated collection and drop off points, they will enroll in Saccos as a start to identify and distinguish genuine Boda Boda riders, Jaguar said.

I offer my commitment to work with them as we collectively put together a more organized transportation system.By Matt Spetalnick and David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Branding North Koreas leadership depraved, President Donald Trump told Americans on Tuesday that Pyongyangs pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland and vowed a continued campaign to prevent that. In his first State of the Union speech to the U.S. Congress, Trumps tough rhetoric underscored persistent tensions despite recent talks between North and South Korea that led to Pyongyangs agreement to participate in next months Winter Olympic games hosted by the South. North Korea's reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland, Trump said. We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from ever happening. We need only look at the depraved character of the North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose to America and to our allies, he said. Trump offered no new prescription or specifics on how he intended to rein in North Korea. Hours before the speech, news broke that Victor Cha, who had expressed concerns about the possibility of a limited U.S. "bloody nose" strike on North Korea, was not longer being considered as the next U.S. ambassador to South Korea. While Trump's administration says it prefers a diplomatic solution to the crisis over North Korea's development of weapons capable of hitting the United States, it says all options are on the table, including military ones. Trump has exchanged insults and threats with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and officials say he and his advisers have discussed a preventative strike against North Korea, alarming experts who warn that this could trigger catastrophic retaliation, especially on South Korea. Attending the State of the Union address as Trumps guests were the parents of Otto Warmbier, an American college student who died in June shortly after he was released from North Korea in a coma. Tonight, we pledge to honor Otto's memory with total American resolve, Trump said, as the tearful parents looked on. Another in the audience was North Korean defector Ji Seong-ho, who also shed tears as Trump described his escape from North Korea, where he had been run over by a train while trying to steal coal to barter for food. Trump called Ji, who suffered torture and starvation and lost a hand and a foot, a witness to the ominous nature of North Korea's government. Ji now heads a group that rescues and resettles North Korean refugees. AMBASSADOR DROPPED Earlier on Tuesday, U.S. officials said that Cha, a former White House official who for months had been in line to be the next U.S. ambassador to South Korea, was no longer being considered for the job. The Washington Post quoted people familiar with the matter as saying Cha, a Korean-American, had raised concerns with White House officials about the consequences of a bloody nose strike and the administrations threats to tear up a trade deal with South Korea, a U.S. treaty ally. In an article in the Washington Post on Tuesday, Cha said a preventative military strike was not the way to deal with the crisis as it carried a huge risk of escalating into a war that could kill hundreds of thousands of Americans. U.S. officials have said the debate on military action has lost some momentum as a result of the North-South talks. The vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Tuesday that North Korea's nuclear program had made strides in recent months but had not yet demonstrated all the components of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), including a survivable re-entry vehicle that can deliver a nuclear weapon. Air Force General Paul Selva also said he was confident that if required the United States would be able to destroy "most" of North Korea's nuclear missile infrastructure. North Korea tested a new ICBM last November which it said could reach all of the United States. U.S.-based experts said data from the test appeared to support that. Trump refrained in his speech from referring to Kim as Rocket Man, a disparaging nickname he has used before. But he said no regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally or brutally than the cruel dictatorship in North Korea. Trump had recently held back on harsher language after having threatened last year to unleash "fire and fury on North Korea, which has threatened to target U.S. Pacific territory of Guam. Despite the recent North-South diplomacy, Kim has shown no sign of willingness to give in to U.S. demands and negotiate away a weapons program he sees as vital to his survival. (Reporting By Matt Spetalnick and David Brunnstrom; Editing by Alistair Bell)President Donald Trumps remarks on North Korea in his State of the Union speech Tuesday night might have seemed uncharacteristically restrained.

Trump didnt call North Korean leader Kim Jong Un Rocket Man or threaten to totally destroy North Korea, as he did when he addressed the United Nations in September.

But in some ways his milder language suggested the gravity of a threat. North Korea is just a handful of months away from being able to launch a nuclear attack on the mainland U.S., according to CIA Director Mike Pompeo.

Trumps State of the Union sought to build the moral case for a U.S. preventive war to liberate North Koreans, says Christine Ahn, founder of Women Cross DMZ, a group that mobilizes women for Korean peace. The speech, she says, was highly reminiscent of George W. Bushs Axis of Evil speech in 2002 before the U.S. went to war with Iraq.

Addressing the looming North Korean threat, Trump went as far as to call the North Korean regime depraved.

North Koreas reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland, Trump said. We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from happening.

Trump also said the U.S. must modernize and rebuild our nuclear arsenal to deter any acts of aggression.

Perhaps someday in the future there will be a magical moment when the countries of the world will get together to eliminate their nuclear weapons, Trump said. Unfortunately, we are not there yet.

Trumps focus on North Korea marked a change from his first address to a Joint Session of Congress last year, when he did not mention North Korea or nuclear weapons. We want harmony and stability, not war and conflict, the President said then. We want peace, wherever peace can be found.

On Tuesday night, Trump sought to build support for his approach by drawing attention to two men who suffered at the hands of the North Korean regime.

Trump first spoke of Otto Warmbier, the Ohio college student who died last summer after he was detained for alleged anti-state acts during a visit to North Korea. North Korea released Warmbier in a coma. His parents described his treatment by the North Korean regime as torture. Tonight, we pledge to honor Ottos memory with total American resolve, Trump said. Warmbiers parents and siblings were in attendance near the First Lady.

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Trump also told the story of Ji Seong-ho, a North Korean defector who was tortured by state authorities and later escaped. His tormentors wanted to know if he had met any Christians, Trump said. He had. Ji too was in the balcony.

The moment with the North Korean defector was very powerful, says Michael Green, senior vice president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. It was also a very different tone from the one set when Trump said as a candidate he would have a hamburger with Kim Jong-un to work things out.

Trump also did not reference the so-called bloody nose option of using military force to push North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles program. Such a strike, experts believe, would almost certainly endanger hundreds of thousands of people and possibly lead to a nuclear conflict. Trumps decision not to raise the option during the speech will reassure nervous allies, Green says.

As Trump did in his speech in South Korea in November, Trump connected Kims atrocities at home to his aggression abroad, says American Enterprise Institutes Dan Blumenthal, director of Asian Studies. The challenge is to up the maximum pressure campaign, and keep South Korea on board, even as time is running out before Kim can put a nuclear weapon on an ICBM, Blumenthal says.One of the longest standing ovations during President Trumps first State of the Union address came when he introduced the parents of two teenage victims of gang violence.

Evelyn Rodriguez, Freddy Cuevas, Elizabeth Alvarado and Robert Mickens were invited by the White House to attend Tuesdays speech. Their daughters  Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens respectively  were killed by members of the MS-13 gang on Long Island in September 2016, on the eve of Nisas 16th birthday. Federal authorities later arrested 13 gang members in connection with their deaths. Ten of those arrested had entered the country illegally.

Trump used their killings to highlight what he views as Americas open borders that have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities.

These two precious girls were brutally murdered while walking together in their hometown, Trump said. Six members of the savage gang MS-13 have been charged with Kayla and Nisas murders. Many of these gang members took advantage of glaring loopholes in our laws to enter the country as unaccompanied alien minors  and wound up in Kayla and Nisas high school.

President Trump introduces parents of MS-13 victims during his State of the Union address on Tuesday. (Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

The president turned to their parents, who were seated next to first lady Melania Trump.

Evelyn, Elizabeth, Freddy, and Robert: Tonight, everyone in this chamber is praying for you, Trump said. Everyone in America is grieving for you. And 320 million hearts are breaking for you. We cannot imagine the depth of your sorrow, but we can make sure that other families never have to endure this pain.

The parents then received a long standing ovation as they wiped away tears.

Trump called on Congress to finally close the deadly loopholes that have allowed MS-13 and other criminals to break into our country.

We have proposed new legislation that will fix our immigration laws and support our ICE and Border Patrol agents, so that this cannot ever happen again, he continued. So tonight, I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties  Democrats and Republicans  to protect our citizens of every background, color, religion and creed. My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans  to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream. Because Americans are dreamers too.

Read more from Yahoo News:During his first State of the Union address, President Donald Trump on Tuesday night highlighted the work of 12-year-old Preston Sharp of Redding, Calif., who started an effort to place American flags at veterans graves on Veterans Day. Sharps patriotism, Trump said, is a reminder of why we salute our flag, why we put our hands on our hearts for the Pledge of Allegiance and why we proudly stand for the national anthem.

Though a feeling of patriotism may well inspire todays Americans as they put their hands on their hearts for the pledge, there used to be a different way to properly address the flag  and theres a specific reason why it changed to the hand-over-heart gesture.

The Pledge of Allegiance was written amidst a flag-planting movement, too: one to put a flag in every American school classroom in the 1880s and 1890s. The young patriot named in the State of the Union even coincidentally shares a name with the man who started the movement in the late 19th century, Daniel Sharp Ford, the publisher of The Youths Companion magazine.

The magazine is thought to have sold flags to about 26,000 schools by 1892. Motivated not only by patriotism but also by a desire to sell subscriptions, the magazine came up with the idea for a salute to the flag, something that would promote national loyalty but also encourage the purchase of both flags and magazines. That salute would form the basis of the Pledge of Allegiance. Theres long been a debate about who exactly wrote it, but its author is believed to be Francis Bellamy, 37-year-old Baptist minister and vice president of Bostons Society of Christian Socialists. According to Mark G. Toulouses God in Public: Four Ways American Christianity and Public Life Relate, one of the magazines marketing staffers, James B. Uptham, was a nephew of President Benjamin Harrison, and the group was able to get National Education Association support for their campaign.

The timing was ripe for an idea like theirs. Not only was Harrisons administration looking for ways to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus landing in America, but the nation was in the grips of a wave of turmoil about patriotism and the meaning of the United States, particularly the question of who got to be American. That debate would fuel extreme policies in Washington and elsewhere, and it also played out in classrooms. These anxieties about immigration and the perceived need to imbue immigrants with loyalty to the United States fueled the early-20th-century drive to require flags and pledges in the public schools; repeatedly pledging allegiance would somehow Americanize the young and inoculate them against the disease of radicalism, writes historian Alexander Keyssar.

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The version of this Pledge of the Allegiance published in the Sep. 8, 1892, issue of the magazine was I pledge allegiance to my flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

And heres how Bellamy described how pupils should deliver it in the official programme of the National Columbian Public School Celebration, which took place on Oct. 21, 1892:

At a signal from the Principal the pupils, in ordered ranks, hands to the side, face the Flag. Another signal is given; every pupil gives the flag the military saluteright hand lifted, palm downward, to a line with the forehead and close to it. Standing thus, all repeat together, slowly, I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands; one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all. At the words, to my Flag, the right hand is extended gracefully, palm upward, toward the Flag, and remains in this gesture till the end of the affirmation; whereupon all hands immediately drop to the side. Then, still standing, as the instruments strike a chord, all will sing AMERICAMy Country, tis of Thee.

This proper delivery is, notably, not with a hand over the heart.

The reason for the change, and why todays posture is seen as the proper way to deliver the pledge, is simple if surprising: By the 50th anniversary of the Pledge, this so-called Bellamy salute had gotten a bad rap because it looked a lot like the salute that Nazis were using.

Just six months after Congress added the Pledge to the federal flag code, it would change the salute to the right-hand-over-heart posture.President Donald Trump should not submit to an interview with Special Counsel Robert Mueller over alleged collusion with Russia, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Tuesday, claiming there is a lack of evidence of any wrongdoing or credible allegations.

I dont think theres been any credible allegations against the president of the United States, Christie, once a top surrogate for the Trump campaign, told ABC's Good Morning America. And I dont think the president of the United States  unless there are credible allegations, which I dont believe there are  should be sitting across from a special counsel.

GettyImages-866761794 (1)

AFP via Getty Images/Jim Watson

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Christie characterized Mueller as someone not to be trifled with while the presidents lawyers reportedly work out how, if at all, Trump would sit down with the special counsels team.

Mueller is "not someone who takes lightly the words of anybody who hes looking at, Christie said.

Trump could heed Christie's expert advice since he is a former federal prosecutor. Christie famously put Charles Kushner, father to Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, in jail for tax evasion and other charges in the earlier 2000s.

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Christie, who earlier this month ended his tumultuous tenure as New Jerseys leader, backed up the presidents long-held assertion of no collusion between his campaign and Russia.

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Christie also said he had not seen evidence of a possible obstruction of justice charge against Trump, which Mueller has reportedly focused on as part of the probe.

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The fact is that thats a very high standard to meet. We've all gone through this before, Christie said, and I dont think weve met that high standard yet as to President Trump. But weve got to continue to watch it.

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Christies public legal advice to the president follows more reports of Muellers growing witness list. The special counsels team spoke with some of the highest ranking members of the U.S. intelligence community, like CIA Director Mike Pompeo and National Security Agency Director Admiral Mike Rogers, last year over whether Trump had asked them to lean on Comey, Reuters reported last week.

Trump himself told reporters last week he was looking forward to an interview with Mueller and that he would do so under oath," though his legal team has downplayed his apparent commitment to talks.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekBy Lesley Wroughton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump vowed on Tuesday to protect American intellectual property, but made little mention of China, which his administration has accused of trade abuses, in his first State of the Union speech to Congress. Trump had been expected to deliver strong warnings to countries about unfair trade practices, including stealing intellectual property and providing state aid to their industries. Instead, his comments on trade during the speech were restricted to several sentences that omitted China in which he repeated that "fair and reciprocal" trade was necessary. "We will work to fix bad trade deals and negotiate new ones," Trump said, adding: "We will protect American workers and American intellectual property, through strong enforcement of our trade rules." Trump has threatened to walk away from trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, and the U.S-South Korean Free Trade Agreement, unless they bolster U.S. manufacturing and American jobs. Last week, he imposed tariffs on imported washing machines and solar panels in his first major trade actions since withdrawing the United States from the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement within weeks of taking office last year. Trump is considering broad tariffs or quotas on steel and aluminum following investigations by the U.S. Department of Commerce into whether rising steel and aluminum imports represent a threat to national security. In his speech, Trump briefly referred to China as among "rivals" that challenge U.S. interests, values and the economy, prompting China's Foreign Ministry to say that the United States should "abandon its Cold War mentality and outdated zero-sum game ideas." "China and the United States have broad and important joint interests," ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a news briefing in Beijing on Wednesday when asked about Trump's remarks, adding that those interests were bigger than the two countries' differences. The Alliance for American Manufacturing, a group representing steel and other basic industries, welcomed Trump's remarks on trade in his speech but called for actions to combat Chinese imports. "This speech wont change China's behavior and defend American jobs. Only action will," said AAM President Scott Paul, "It's time for the president's policies and actions to match his talk." (Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Additional reporting by Michael Martina in Beijing; Editing by Peter Cooney and Nick Macfie)The Trump administration dropped its pick for U.S. ambassador to South Korea after the would-be diplomat objected to talk of a pre-emptive strike against North Korea, he suggested in an opinion piece this week.

Victor Cha, an Asia expert who served on the National Security Council under President George W. Bush, wrote his Washington Post editorial on Tuesday after he was told he wouldnt get the joband strongly implied that his anti-attack position left him out in the cold.

"When I was under consideration for a position in this administration, I shared some of these views," he wrote.

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One view in particularwhich reportedly upset White House officialsopposes the so-called Bloody Nose approach that calls for a limited pre-emptive strike against North Korea as a deterrent. Critics like Cha are concerned that any "bloody nose" strike on a few targets in North Korea would lead to retaliation by North Korean tyrant Kim Jong Un, and that could quickly spiral into all-out war on the Korean Peninsula.

If we believe that Kim is undeterrable without such a strike, how can we also believe that a strike will deter him from responding in kind? Cha wrote. And if Kim is unpredictable, impulsive and bordering on irrational, how can we control the escalation ladder, which is premised on an adversarys rational understanding of signals and deterrence?

GettyImages-905786346

AFP PHOTO/KCNA VIA KNS

South Korean officials had been hopeful after Chas name leaked as the likely nominee in late December, although he was never officially nominated. His elimination from contention, however, caused a new round of concerns over whether the U.S. might be rushing toward military conflict against North Korea.

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Cha is far from the only national security expert who disputes the efficacy of the Bloody Nose strategy. Former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel told Defense News that he considered the idea a gamble that he wouldnt want to take.

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Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth, a Trump administration critic, called the decision not to nominate Cha another reason for every American to worry.

We have reached a point where opposing war as the first resort seems to be a disqualifier from serving as ambassador, she said in a statement. The Trump administration's rejection of Mr. Chas warning that a pre-emptive military strike risks nuclear war and their failure to nominate an ambassador to South Korea after more than a year in office sends a terrible message to our allies and endangers the lives of State Department officials and service members currently serving in Korea.

GettyImages-905021380

South Korean Unification Ministry via Getty Images

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Trump has not nominated an ambassador. The responsibilities of the job are being carried out by others at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, but experts say the lack of a top diplomatic official is a problem.

Thats something that is very critical. We need an ambassador over there, said retired General James Thurman, who served as the U.S. commander in South Korea, told Newsweek in December. The linkage that the commander has with that ambassador is absolutely essential. When something happened over there, the first guy Id call was the ambassador.

Thurman warned that any war with North Korea would be very bloody and said he was concerned some were taking a cavalier approach to the prospect of warfare.

Secretary of Defense James Mattis has testified before Congress that if war began with North Korea, it could be comparable to the Korean War of the 1950s, which cost about 3 million lives.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Cha's editorial.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekOncupinar (Turkey) (AFP) - Turkey is drawing up contingency plans to cope with any movement of Syrian civilians towards the north of the country to flee Ankara's air and ground offensive against a Kurdish militia.

The campaign unleashed January 20 targets the US-backed People's Protection Units (YPG), considered a terrorist outfit by Ankara based in the border enclave of Afrin.

The Turkish army and authorities say the utmost care is taken not to harm civilians in the operation dubbed "Olive Branch".

But the country's humanitarian agencies are scouting for camp areas around Azaz as well as Idlib if large numbers of civilians head for the border seeking safety from the bombardment.

"We are ready to provide shelter for a maximum number of 50,000 civilians both in Azaz and in Idlib," Kerem Kinik, head of the Turkish Red Crescent, told AFP.

Turkey, which hosts over three million refugees from the nearly seven-year Syria conflict, has increasingly helped the displaced in camps on the other side of the border.

The Syrian town of Azaz was liberated from the Islamic State (IS) group in the early stages of Turkey's "Euphrates Shield" operation between August 2016 and March 2017.

And Idlib was declared one of Syria's de-escalation zones after a ceasefire deal brokered by opposition backer Turkey and regime supporter Russia.

Turkey's AFAD emergencies agency head Mehmet Gulluoglu said they were working on a "worst-case scenario".

"It is hard to make a precise prediction of how many civilians would come because there's an ongoing operation," he said at Oncupinar border crossing near Azaz, where his agency carried out field work for potential camp sites last week.

- 'Aid from Turkey on hold'-

There is growing concern that a sustained military campaign could spark a "humanitarian tragedy" for civilians living in the Afrin region.

Over the past week, villages and towns around Afrin on the Syrian-Turkish border have come under intense bombardment.

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According to the United Nations, Afrin has an estimated population of 324,000 people, with around 5,000 already displaced by the offensive.

The United Nations warned last week that the clashes as well as a decision by Kurdish authorities to close exit points between Afrin and regime-held areas of Aleppo province were restricting civilian freedom of movement.

Turkey has reported that seven soldiers were killed since the start of the offensive, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group says at least 67 civilians have been killed, a figure Turkey strongly rejects.

At least 85 YPG militiamen have died, the Observatory says, as have 81 fighters from the rebel groups fighting with Turkish backing.

Kinik said his agency was working to provide humanitarian aid but added: "YPG forces blocked roads to Azaz and Aleppo barring civilians from leaving Afrin".

"There is no exit from Afrin right now," he added.

Kinik said Turkey could expand its camps in Azaz and Idlib in case of mass displacement.

"We have already spotted three campsites in the east of Azaz," he said.

The Turkish operation has forced a pause in cross-border UN humanitarian deliveries inside Syria, a UN official told AFP.

The bulk of assistance into Idlib passes through the crossings from Turkey to aid tens of thousands of newly displaced people.

"The UN will resume cross border shipments as soon as the security situation allows," the official said.

- 'Ankara rhetoric not helping'-

Analysts say that as long as the fighting rages, civilians -- mainly those who are not ethnic Kurds -- will seek safety elsewhere.

"I suspect only the non-Kurdish parts of the population will flee," Heiko Wimmen, International Crisis Group project director for Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, told AFP, noting that many Kurds would not feel safe in areas controlled by Turkey and its allies.

"They won't believe that Turkey will make a difference between the YPG and the local population."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Olive Branch sought to hand Afrin back to "its rightful owners", while Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said it aimed to replace terror with peace in the region.

"The rhetoric of the leadership does not help," Wimmen said.

"Saying that Afrin will be returned to its rightful owners will leave many people wondering if they can return after the fighting is over."

The Red Crescent's Kinik however said civilians would feel safe at Turkish camps on the Syrian side.

"Azaz is a region of Euphrates Shield and Idlib is a de-escalation zone. The region is under Turkish security," he said.Michelle Knight, one of three women imprisoned and tortured for more than a decade by Ariel Castro in Cleveland, has some words of wisdom for the 13 California children held captive by their parents.

The hardest thing they face, she told Dr. Phil McGraw in an interview airing Monday, is "just being able to live in society and be a normal person. It's going to be a lot of hard work and they are going to need a lot of support."

David and Louise Turpin are accused of abusing and torturing their children, ranging in age from 2 to 29. The parents were arrested on Jan. 14 after their 17-year-old daughter climbed out a window and summoned police.

The children were malnourished and had been choked, beaten and chained inside the family's home in Perris, Calif., authorities said. Both pleaded not guilty in a Riverside County court. They are being held in lieu of $12 million bail and have been ordered to have no contact with their children for the next three years.

"It's going to take a lot of work," Knight said of the children's recovery. "I know they're definitely going to have a difficult time separating away from the parents because that's all they know."

Knight was kidnapped, along with Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus, between 2002 and 2004 and held captive in Castro's Cleveland house. Berry escaped with her 6-year-old daughter in 2013 and contacted police.

Knight and DeJesus were rescued by responding officers. Castro pleaded guilty to kidnapping and rape and was sentenced to life plus 1,000 years in prison without the possibility of parole.

But one month into his sentence, Castro committed suicide in prison by hanging himself.

"They're scared," Knight said of the Turpin children. "They're alone."

The six minor children were reportedly split between two foster homes and the seven adults were reportedly transferred to an assisted living facility.

Of the teenager who escaped and ran for help, Knight said, "I know she was scared. I know she didn't know what was going to happen once she walked out that door. I know her heart fell to the floor."

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Related Articles:Tuesday was quite the dramatic day. Many Kenyans expected running battles in Nairobi between Nasa supporters and police, but this never came to happen. Instead, Kenyans were treated to in-house comedy by Nasa, as Raila Odinga took the hyped oath alone.

Most of the trending images are on that.By Warren Strobel and Amanda Becker WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Members of the U.S. Congress, who passed new sanctions on Russia nearly unanimously last summer, criticized President Donald Trump on Tuesday for not imposing them, accusing him of being soft on his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. The Trump administration said on Monday it would not announce sanctions for now under the new law, intended to punish Moscow for meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Russia denies interfering in the campaign. Democrats blasted the decision, accusing Trump of failing to do everything possible to deter any future foreign election interference. Trump, who wanted warmer ties with Moscow, opposed the legislation as it worked its way through Congress and signed it reluctantly in August. Twenty Senate Democrats sent a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday saying the failure to impose sanctions was "unacceptable." Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said there was "real concern" about possible Russian meddling in 2018 U.S. congressional and state elections, adding: "The president of the United States is not taking action to defend this nation." Some Republicans also expressed doubts. Senator Susan Collins called the sanctions decision "perplexing." "The one thing we know for sure already, is the Russians did attempt to meddle in our elections and not only should there be a price to pay in terms of sanctions but also we need to put safeguards in place right now for the elections for this year," she said on CNN. Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he believed the Trump administration was working in good faith, but added he was "committed" to applying any pressure needed to ensure further implementation of the sanctions law. As required by the law, the administration issued a public list of Russian oligarchs close to the Kremlin who could be sanctioned, as well as a classified annex sent only to Congress. Moscow dismissed the public document as little more than a "telephone directory" of the rich.. A U.S. Treasury Department spokesman acknowledged on Tuesday it was drawn from public sources, including Forbes magazine. Putin called the oligarchs list "an unfriendly act" that would harm Russian-American relations but that Moscow did not currently plan to retaliate. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Tuesday: "There will be sanctions that come out of this (oligarch) report." 'ASSAULT' ON DEMOCRACY Democrats said the sanctions should have come immediately. "Throughout his term in office, President Trump has failed time and time again to stand up to Vladimir Putin, despite the assault that he carried out on our democracy in the 2016 election," Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said. Separately, two U.S. sources said Russia's foreign spy chief, Sergey Naryshkin, met last week with U.S. intelligence officials, confirming a disclosure that has intensified political infighting over U.S. relations with Russia. CIA Director Mike Pompeo said in an interview with the BBC that aired on Tuesday that he expected Russia would target U.S. congressional elections in November. Under the sanctions law, the administration faced a Monday deadline to impose sanctions on anyone who determined to have conducted significant business with the Russian defense and intelligence sectors. State Department officials said they had used the law to engage in a quiet effort to deter other countries from buying arms from Russian entities. "I assure you that the Russians know when a deal that they thought was moving forward is all of a sudden falling apart and not moving forward," a senior State Department official said. Daniel Fried, formerly the State Department's top sanctions policy official, said: "I think the administration missed an opportunity to extend the use of sanctions" to deter Russia. Fried, now at the Atlantic Council think tank, expressed puzzlement at the list of Russian oligarchs, which he said "seemed to be close to a cut-and-paste job." He said he understood that experts within the U.S. government had done their own extensive research on the oligarchs closest to Putin. That information, he acknowledged, could be in the classified version of the list. Corker said he was heartened by a classified Senate briefing that the State Department gave on Monday. "I am encouraged by the diplomatic steps Secretary Tillerson has taken in recent months to compel other governments to comply with CAATSA," Corker said, using an acronym for the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. (Additional reporting by Pete Schroeder, Patricia Zengerle, Joel Schectman, Jonathan Landay, Mark Hosenball and Mohammad Zargham.; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Peter Cooney)By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration said on Monday it would not immediately impose additional sanctions on Russia, despite a new law designed to punish Moscow's alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, insisting the measure was already hitting Russian companies.

"Today, we have informed Congress that this legislation and its implementation are deterring Russian defense sales," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement. "Since the enactment of the ... legislation, we estimate that foreign governments have abandoned planned or announced purchases of several billion dollars in Russian defense acquisitions."

Seeking to press President Donald Trump to clamp down on Russia, the U.S. Congress voted nearly unanimously last year to pass a law setting sweeping new sanctions on Moscow.

Trump, who wanted warmer ties with Moscow and had opposed the legislation as it worked its way through Congress, signed it reluctantly in August, just six months into his presidency.

Under the measure, the administration faced a deadline on Monday to impose sanctions on anyone determined to conduct significant business with Russian defence and intelligence sectors, already sanctioned for their alleged role in the election.

But citing long time frames associated with major defence deals, Nauert said it was better to wait to impose those sanctions.

"From that perspective, if the law is working, sanctions on specific entities or individuals will not need to be imposed because the legislation is, in fact, serving as a deterrent," she said in a statement.

The measure, known as the "Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act," or CAATSA, required the administration to list "oligarchs" close to President Vladimir Putin's government and issue a report detailing possible consequences of penalizing Russia's sovereign debt.

WOULD TRUMP CLAMP DOWN ON RUSSIA?

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Monday's deadline to release those reports was seen as a test of Trump's willingness to clamp down on Russia. Critics blasted him for failing to announce any sanctions.

"The State Department claims that the mere threat of sanctions will deter Russias aggressive behaviour. How do you deter an attack that happened two years ago, and another thats already underway? It just doesnt make sense," said Representative Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.

"Im fed up waiting for this Administration to protect our country and our elections," he said in a statement.

Members of Congress, including Democrats and some of Trump's fellow Republicans, have been clamouring for his administration to use sanctions to punish Moscow for past election interference and prevent future meddling in U.S. polls.

Shortly before midnight (0500 GMT) on Monday, the Treasury Department released an unclassified "oligarchs" list, including 114 senior Russian political figures and 96 business people.

Those named on the list will not immediately face any immediate penalties like asset freezes or visa bans. But the law mandated that the U.S. Treasury and State Departments, and intelligence agencies, compile a list of political figures and business people close to Putin's government and network, for potential future sanctions.

Several U.S. congressional committees, as well as Special Counsel Robert Mueller, are investigating whether Russia tried to tilt last November's election in Trump's favour, using means such as hacking into the emails of senior Democrats and promoting divisive social and political messages online. Trump and the Kremlin have separately denied any collusion.

Senator Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, one of the main congressional architects of the sanctions law, said he was not concerned that the administration did not announce sanctions by Monday's deadline.

"This is when sanctions season begins, and so they'll be rolling them out," he told reporters.

"We feel pretty good about the process," Corker said. "They're rushing the information over to us today, and by the close of business, they're going to have two of the three, as I understand it. So they're taking it very seriously."

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Additional reporting by Makini Brice and Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Mary Milliken, Peter Cooney & SImon Cameron-Moore)London (AFP) - Two British human rights lawyers are to ask Wednesday for Saudi Arabia to be suspended from the UN Human Rights Council over 61 people "arbitrarily detained or disappeared" by the country's authorities.

Ken Macdonald and Rodney Dixon are due to submit their report to the Council in Geneva, claiming that the 61 arrests were "in breach of both Saudi and international law", according to a press statement.

The report will accuse the authorities of "targeting human rights activists, political dissidents and others merely exercising their right to free speech", the statement said.

It will also allege that the arrests carried out in September 2017 are "part of an ongoing, established and long-running pattern of abuse" by Saudi Arabia, according to the statement.

It will say that the wave of arrests started on September 10 when prominent clerics including Salman al-Awdah and Awad al-Qarni were detained in an apparent crackdown on dissent, according to a briefing note sent to AFP.

"There are credible reports of mistreatment and torture during their detention," the note says.

It adds that the report will recommend that the UN General Assembly "must urgently consider" suspending Saudi Arabia's membership of the Human Rights Council under a resolution that excludes members who commit "gross and systematic violations of human rights".

- 'Uphold highest standards' -

In Geneva, Human Rights Council spokesman Rolando Gomez said any move to suspend a member would ultimately need to be taken by the General Assembly in a two-thirds majority of members present and voting.

The Human Rights Council's founding resolution calls on members to "uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights".

The only time a council member was suspended was in March 2011 when the General Assembly decided to suspend Libya's membership following late dictator Moamer Kadhafi's violent crackdown on anti-government protesters.

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Despite Saudi claims of reform, Amnesty International has said the human rights situation has "deteriorated markedly" since Mohammed bin Salman took over as crown prince and heir to the throne in June 2017.

The human rights group said earlier this month that Awdah had been hospitalised after almost five months in solitary confinement.

He was arrested shortly after posting a tweet welcoming reports of a possible reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and neighbouring Qatar.

Dozens of Saudi citizens have been convicted on charges linked to dissent and under the country's sweeping cyber crime law, particularly linked to posts on Twitter.

Saudi Arabia and its allies cut off all diplomatic and economic ties with Qatar in June last year accusing it of links to Islamic extremists, a charge the emirate has categorically denied.

Saudi Arabia has also come under fire, including in Britain, over the war in Yemen, which the United Nations says has sparked the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

dt-burs/rjm/jahGeneva (AFP) - The head of the UN agency for Palestinians criticised Tuesday the "political dimension" of a US decision to dramatically slash funding to the organisation, warning this could lead to rising instability.

Pierre Krahenbuhl said the US decision to reduce funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) this year by $300 million (240 million euros) "has a political dimension that I think should be avoided".

He made these comments while issuing an emergency appeal for more than $800 million in funds to provide additional assistance to Palestinian refugees in Syria, Gaza and the West Bank.

The United States, which for years has by far been UNRWA's largest donor, announced this month it will be contributing just $60 million to the organisation's 2018 budget, down from $360 million last year.

"It is very clear the decision by US was not related to our performance," Krahenbuhl said, pointing out that he had a "positive" meeting with US President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner last November and had been left with the impression Washington would maintain its funding levels.

Krahenbuhl said the cuts were clearly linked to the Palestinian leadership's decision this month to freeze ties with Trump's administration after its controversial recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

The Palestinians, who see east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, have said Washington could no longer be the main mediator in talks with Israel after the move.

Krahenbuhl stressed the "imperative to preserve and ensure that humanitarian funding is preserved from politicisation".

- Worst financial crisis ever -

"The whole point of supporting communities in very difficult conflict environments is that one doesn't have to agree with anyone's leadership. One is concerned with the well-being ... of communities."

He underlined that UNRWA provides essential services to some 5.3 million Palestinian refugees across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank and the Gaza Strip, including running 700 schools and 140 health clinics.

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"It is not the first time in our long and proud history that we face challenges of this nature, but it is in financial terms the most serious financial crisis ever in the history of this agency," he said.

Cuts to these and other services for populations often already in dire need and lacking any possibilities to move or to improve their situations could be a recipe for disaster, he warned.

"There is no doubt that if no solution is found to the shortfall... then there will be increased instability," Krahenbuhl said.

"Cutting and reducing funding to UNRWA is not good for regional stability."

Following the US move, UNRWA last week launched a global fundraising campaign, titled "Dignity is Priceless", to help fill the gaps.

And Krahenbuhl said other donor countries were rushing to provide their donations early to ensure services could continue while the organisation works to bring in more cash.

Denmark, Finland, Germany Norway, Russia, Sweden and Switzerland had already provided their annual donations in full, while Belgium, Kuwait, Netherlands and Ireland had vowed to do so "very soon", he said.Mr Ryan also called for the public release of the Republican Russian memo: AP

House Speaker Paul Ryan has reportedly called for a cleansing of the FBI  a day after its deputy director resigned after being criticised by Donald Trump.

Mr Ryan told Republicans he also supported the public release of a memo drawn up by members of the House Intelligence Committee that Democrats have claimed is an attempt to undermine Robert Muellers Trump-Russia probe.

Let it all out, get it all out there. Cleanse the organisation, Mr Ryan said, according to Fox News. Let it all out, get it all out there. Cleanse the organisation.

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He spoke a day after Andrew McCabe suddenly stepped down as the bureaus deputy director following months of criticism from both Republicans and President Trump.

Reports said he had told friends he felt under pressure to leave.

Republicans had for several months questioned Mr McCabes ties to the Democratic Party, pointing out his wife ran as a Democrat for a Virginia Senate seat in 2015 and got financial help from a group tied to Clinton family ally Terry McAuliffe.

Mr Trump himself tweeted in December: How can FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the man in charge, along with leakin James Comey, of the Phony Hillary Clinton investigation (including her 33,000 illegally deleted emails) be given $700,000 for wifes campaign by Clinton Puppets during investigation?

Mr Ryan reportedly made his comments at a breakfast meeting with television anchors and reporters ahead of Mr Trumps State of the Union address. Much of the event was said to have been off the record.

On Monday evening, Republicans voted along party lines to release a memo created by staff members of the intelligence committee. Democrats on the committee have said the memo cherry picks information in what they claim is an attempt to undermine the FBI and Mr Muellers investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russias alleged attempt to interfere with the 2016 US election.

California congressman Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the committee, called it a very sad day, I think, in the history of this committee.

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Asked about House Intelligence Democrats complaining about their Republican counterparts, Mr Ryan claimed Democrats had sprung their memo last night, a reference to the Democrats version which has not been released at this stage.

The Republican-authored memo has not yet been released either, but is expected to be made public after the White House has had the chance to review it.

Last week, a top Justice Department official urged House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes not to release the memo, saying it would be extraordinarily reckless and could harm national security and ongoing investigations.

On Sunday, FBI Director Christopher Wray went to the Capitol to view the four-page memo.

Republicans have said memo addresses whether the FBI relied at least in part on the unverified anti-Trump dossier  paid for partially by Democrats and the Clinton campaign during the 2016 presidential election  to apply for a surveillance warrant, purportedly focused on then-Trump adviser Carter Page. This would have been under the leadership of James Comey.The Vatican has chastised a Hong Kong cardinal who accused the Holy See of "selling out" to Beijing for reportedly promoting bishops endorsed by the Chinese government.

Although Beijing and the Vatican have improved relations in recent years as China's Catholic population has grown, they remain at odds over which side has the authority to ordain bishops.

Cardinal Joseph Zen, bishop emeritus of semi-autonomous Hong Kong, confirmed an AsiaNews website report that a Vatican diplomat asked two underground Chinese bishops recognised by the Vatican to resign in favour of state-sanctioned prelates.

China's roughly 12 million Catholics are divided between a government-run association, whose clergy are chosen by the Communist Party, and an unofficial church which swears allegiance to the Vatican.

China and the Vatican severed diplomatic relations in 1951, but Pope Francis has sought to improve ties since becoming head of the Holy See in 2013.

"Do I think that the Vatican is selling out the Catholic Church in China? Yes, definitely," Zen said in an open letter on Monday, adding that the Communist government had introduced "harsher regulations limiting religious freedom".

Zen said he appealed to the pope in a private meeting in Rome earlier this month, where he delivered a letter from one of the bishops who was asked to step aside, Zhuang Jianjian.

The cardinal suggested in his statement that the pope was not kept informed of actions he does not approve, a charge denied Tuesday by Vatican spokesman Greg Burke.

"The pope is in constant contact with his collaborators, in particular in the Secretariat of State, on Chinese issues," Burke said in a statement, adding that Francis was informed "faithfully and in detail".

"It is therefore surprising and regrettable that the contrary is affirmed by people in the Church, thus fostering confusion and controversy," he said.

The Holy See spokesman, however, did not comment on the alleged Vatican requests to the underground bishops.

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A spokesman for the Diocese of Hong Kong on Wednesday told AFP it was "not involved in any of the dialogues between the Holy See and China," but added "the Catholic Church has always been accommodating" and "(accepts) different voices".

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she was not aware of the cardinal's letter.

"It's not diplomatic affairs," Hua said. "We will uphold the relevant principles to maintain constructive dialogue with the Vatican to advance our relations."President Donald Trump will deliver his first State of the Union address on Jan. 30, speaking before a joint session of Congress.

The President is expected to tout the economic progress the U.S. has seen since he took office last year, including the Republican tax overhaul that was signed into law in December. Despite being repeatedly accused of sowing divisions, the President will reportedly call for bipartisanship during his Tuesday night address. And issues like immigration reform and infrastructure are expected to take center stage.

The president is going to talk about how Americas back, said White House legislative director Marc Short, according to the Associated Press. The president is also going to make an appeal to Democrats  to say we need to rebuild our country. And to make an appeal that to do infrastructure, we need to do it in a bipartisan way.

Trump will likely outline what he wants to see in an immigration deal that would protect recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program his administration began rolling back in September. The future of the program has become a major sticking point in Congress, where lawmakers on both sides of the aisle say they want a deal but they have yet to agree on compromise legislation.

Per tradition, First Lady Melania Trump will be hosting a number of guests during the Presidents address. The guests including business owners who have benefitted as a result of the tax plan, rescue workers who helped out during the 2017 hurricanes, law enforcement officers and the parents of two girls who were killed by MS-13 gang members.

Several Democratic lawmakers have said they will boycott the presidents address in part because of comments he reportedly made during a meeting with senators on the issue of immigration. Others will bring so-called Dreamers as guests.

Watch the President deliver his remarks live at 9 p.m. EST above.TAIPEI (Reuters) - The wife of Taiwan activist Li Ming-che, sentenced to five years in prison by Chinese authorities for subverting state power, was stopped from flying from Taiwan to China on Tuesday to visit him in prison, rights groups said.

Li Ming-che, a community college lecturer and an activist at a human rights non-governmental organisation in Taiwan, had gone missing while on a trip to China in March. Chinese authorities later charged him with subverting state power.

His wife, Li Ching-yu, refused to recognise the court's authority during the first hearing.

She bought a plane ticket on Xiamen Airlines on Tuesday, with plans to see her husband in prison, according to a statement by several human rights group who are assisting her.

However, because she had travel documents that were deemed invalid to enter China, she was not permitted to board the plane in Taipei, the statement said.

Taiwanese need special travel documents issued by China, akin to a passport, to travel to China. The documents can be invalidated unilaterally by the Chinese government.

The rights groups' statement said Li had received a notice from the Chinese government on Monday notifying her that her husband was transferred to a Hunan province prison on Dec. 28. It said family members were entitled to visit once a month.

Asked about the incident, China's Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Ma Xiaoguang told a regular briefing on Wednesday Hunan had not received detailed information required for a visit from Li Ming-che's family.

"As per the rules, the jail will handle applications for a visit in accordance with law after they are processed," Ma said without elaborating.

Li was also denied entry into China in April despite having valid credentials, the associations said. She was told at the time by the airlines that her travel credentials were cancelled.

"From past years until now, the Chinese government's refusal today to let family members visit relatives in prison in China demonstrates that they do not empathise to any degree, from the point of view of humanity," the rights associations said.

Story continues

The Straits Exchange Foundation, a semi-official body that oversees relations between Taiwan and China, echoed the statement, calling on Chinese authorities to approve credentials for Li to travel to China and arrange for a prison visit.

Li could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Jess Macy Yu in TAIPEI; Additional reporting by Christian Shepherd in BEIJING; Editing by Michael Perry)Zaras $90 version of the $4 lungi. (Photo: Zara)

Somewhere, Urban Outfitters is saying Welcome to the club to Zara, now the latest retailer to commit the crime of cultural appropriation. The Spanish brand is selling a check mini skirt that looks a lot like a traditional skirt called a lungi, worn mainly by men in South and Southeast Asia, East Africa, and some Arab countries. The only difference is that Zaras version costs $90, while you can get an authentic lungi for under $5. Oh, and Zaras is dry-clean only.

The flowing skirt from Zara is brown with a draped detail and slip in the front  identical to the lungis cut, so designed because it is cooler and more comfortable for men to wear in the warmer months. And tourists, drawn to its length and modest look, usually end up purchasing one to wear into temples.

A man wears a lungi in Bengal, India. (Photo: Getty Images)

When the Twitterverse discovered the skirt, it began tearing the brand apart for stealing from another culture and jacking up the price in the process.

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One user pointed out that if Zara had any black, Asian, or ethnic-minority folks in the right department, this never would have happened.

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Zara did not immediately respond to Yahoo Lifestyles request for comment.

After all the brands that have been called out for similar crimes in the last few years, Zara should have probably seen this one coming. In fact, earlier this week, Zuhair Murad was accused of cultural appropriation for naming its recent Native American-inspired runway show Indian Summer. People found it offensive that models walking in the spring/summer 2018 couture show were styled with feathers in their hair, as the feather is a sacred symbol to Native Americans.

Marc Jacobs has made runway mistakes many times when it comes to hair  first with dreadlocks and then with head wraps.

Kendall and Kylie Jenner were attacked a few months ago when they released the Lee Leather Clutch, which looked like a Chinese takeout box. The handbag is also emblazoned with a red tiger and the words KK Express Los Angeles.

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People then got mad at Chanel for selling a boomerang  and not just because it cost more than $1,000, but because the brand was making money off of a tool once used by indigenous Australian communities, some of which are still struggling to survive.

If you really do like the lungi look, we suggest supporting an Indian retailer while saving money and enjoying all the color and pattern options that Zara doesnt offer  for as little as $4 a piece at Lungi Wala.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.Work a vintage in Portugal.

8. If you could change one thing about your business/industry, what would it be?

Develop a much more transparent way to find the ultimate end-user buying our brands. With this information, we could develop a more personal rapport with our consumers and promote and protect the identity and personality of our wines and stories.

9. Whats something people might be surprised to know about you?

I once won a car in a hand-a-thon.

That was in Corpus Christi in 1985. It was a radio station contest. Twenty of us started with our hands on the car  a little red Toyota. The last person on the car wins it.

I think I went three and a half days. You get a five-minute break every hour. We were just staring at each other in complete delirium.

It was a crazy experience.

I had the car for six months and then I gave it to my girlfriend. I broke up with her and moved to California because I got a job with Gallo and had a company car.

10. If you could be anywhere right now, where would you be?

In a little seaside village in Greece.

Sweeney can be reached at 707-738-4942. For more information visit winecountrychannel.com.

The business news you need Get the latest local business news delivered FREE to your inbox weekly. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.For many years, we got used to hearing about the Jewish lobbys mythical power in US foreign relations. The Jewish lobby was described by many as a dominant, aggressive power in American politics, and was linked to strength and conspiracies around the world, including in the Arab and Islamic world.

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



The lobbys critics in America accused the Jews of selling out the values of democracy and liberalism for the sake of an aggressive and occupying Israel. Others argued that the Jews loyalty to Zion came at the expense of their American patriotism and was harming US interests in the Middle East and in other international arenas.

Trump addresses AIPAC in 2016 (Photo: AFP)

So how is it possible that while most Jews are hostile towards President Donald Trumps administration, relations between Washington and Jerusalem are thriving? Why is an administration which most Jews are opposed to, and which doesnt even listen to Jewish lobbyists, embracing Jerusalem this way and being embraced in return by the Israeli government in a way we have never seen before?

In President Barack Obamas era, criticism against the Jewish lobby reached new heights, with claims that the lobby had gotten America entangled in Iraq and was damaging its image in the Arab world. The lobby was accused of preventing a solution to the Middle East conflict and an acceptance of Iran.

When Washington conveyed real hostility towards the Netanyahu government, it was often backed by the alternative Jewish body (J Street), which aimed to balance the destructive Jewish power of AIPAC, which allegedly supports Israel automatically against American interests.

During the days of Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, AIPAC was forced to defend itself concerning the lobbys strength, and when presidential hopeful Donald Trump addressed AIPAC in 2016, its leaders apologized when members of the audience stood up to applaud the controversial candidate.

Trump was elected, as we know, with minimal Jewish support. In the past year J Street has been shoved to the sidelines, and when the United States recognized Jerusalem as Israels capital, the organization sounded more like a Palestinian victim than like a pro-Israel organization. Even AIPAC itself seems like a restrained and toothless organization compared to Trump and Vice President Mike Pences enthusiasm towards Israel and its policy.

The reason for the decline in the Jewish lobbys standing as a key player is the tectonic shifts that have taken place in the Middle East and in Israel in recent years. The Arab Spring failure, the Islamic State terror, the civil war in Syria, and of course the rise of the Trump administration, whose entire essence is to reverse Obamas policy, have all changed the balance of power in America. The Israeli government no longer sees the lobby as a key asset in its national strategy either.

Pence at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, last week (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)

The lobbys failure in the vote on Iran and AIPACs inability to restrain the Obama administration in the hostile Security Council vote served as proof to Jerusalem that the real alliance in America is with Christian conservative forces, which are perceived by the Israeli Right as more loyal and reliable than the Jewish force. Vice President Pence whispered as he mentioned the option of two states for two people, but when he said Shehecheyanu, we all felt the passion in the blessing stemming from real devoutness.

The conservatives and evangelicals in America realized long ago that they can count on right-wing Israel as an ideological and messianic ally, and they loathe the universal hostility of liberal Jews, who condemn not only the Israeli occupation but also American right-wing groups.

The decline of the traditional Jewish lobby reinforced the Jewish Orthodox forces in the US. Ambassador David Friedman and special envoy Jason Greenblatt represent the religious American Jewry, which is no longer apologizing for its unliberal Jewishness and isnt afraid of an alliance with evangelical religious forces and with other conservative elements, which are sometimes identified by the liberals as anti-Semitic forces.

The dramatic changes taking place in Israel and the internal metamorphosis in America, both among the Jews and among the conservative and fundamentalist streams, are putting the alliance with Israel in a different place, which is weakening the traditional lobbys role at this time.The series of public messages conveyed by Israel in the past few days, particularly to the Lebanese government, and Mondays meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, leave no room for doubt: Israel is moving quickly towards a war by choice or, in other words, an initiated war in Lebanon.

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On Sunday, the IDF spokesperson published an op-ed in Lebanese opposition websites, threatening that if Lebanon allows Iran to build missile factories on its territory, we will attack them accurately. On Monday, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman made Israels determination clear, and determination in such cases means use of force.

Meanwhile Monday, the Russians released an image showing Israels Military Intelligence director, the prime ministers military secretary and the military attache in Moscow briefing Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu before entering Putins bureau.

Defense Minister Lieberman. Aware of the slippery slope (Photo: AFP)

None of this is coincidental. Everything is calculated. Israel is exerting intensive pressure in an effort to deter the Iranians from building precision-guided missile factories in Syria and in Lebanon. So the IDF spokesperson is turning to Lebanons residents, Lieberman is preparing Israeli public opinion and Netanyahu is appealing to the Russians to use their influence.

In the previous round, it worked. Last year, Israel estimated that the Iranians had made a real effort to build a factory for assembling precision-guided missiles in Lebanon. The goal was to bypass the Israeli ability to target missile shipments from Syria to Lebanon. According to foreign reports, the factory was dug underground, and Israel apparently located it.

The Israeli display of force and diplomatic messages likely led to the projects termination while it was still in its infancy, although its reasonable to assume from Mondays reports that the Iranians didnt give it up and simply moved it somewhere else in Lebanon.

On September 7, according to foreign reports, the IDF attacked a precision-guided missile factory built by the Iranians in Masyaf, Syria, near the city of Hama. Israel was under the impression that Iran had taken the hint and lowered its profile in terms of the construction of underground factories, mainly in Lebanon. Well, apparently not.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah are suffering from hubris, taking pride in what they see as a clear victory in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Not only have they defined the IDF spokespersons threat as nonsense, they have also produced a threat to Israel in light of the fortification work being conducted on the Lebanon border. Moreover, threats Israel is directing at Lebanon, Syria and Iran concerning the rocket factory issue belong to a very slippery field in the deterrence doctrine.

Prime Minister Netanyahu with Russian President Putin. Moscow is prepared to listen to Israel (Photo: AFP)

Israel is climbing up a high tree, knowing that it will either slip off with its tail between its legs without achieving a thing or will be compelled to use force. A strike in Lebanon will most likely lead to war, as the chance to deter the enemy is quite small. Classic deterrence is when you threaten an enemy not to target you on your own territory.

In this case, Israel is demanding that the enemy refrain from acting on its own territory or risk being targeted. In terms of international legitimization and from a historical perspective, the chance that such a threat will be accepted by the international community and make the enemy stop acting on its own territory is very small.

The defense minister is aware of this slippery slope. When asked on Monday why Israel wasnt striking in Lebanon and destroying the missile factories, he replied that there were other ways of acting apart from bombs, that there were other leverages. The last thing I want is to enter a third Lebanon war, he said.

Lieberman has something to count on. Moscow is prepared to listen to Israel today. The Russians understand that Netanyahu is the last leader in the world who has a good relationship both with Putin and with US President Donald Trump. As far as theyre concerned, he is a vital tool vis-a-vis the Americans. Furthermore, his threats can be used to minimize Iranian influence in the region.

It all sounds good in theory. In practice, if the Iranians keep digging missile factories, Israel will get stuck on the tree it climbed and will be forced to make a decision: Are two or three missile factories in Lebanon a casus belli for an initiated war or not? This is the dilemma the government should present to the public: A war by choice or living under a growing threat of precision-guided missiles.He survived the Holocaust as a child almost on his own, was held captive in Jordan for nearly a year, and went on to become a leading Israeli industrialist. Now, at the age of 88, Pesach Anderman is sharing the story of his life and the horrors of the Holocaust, both with Germans and with IDF soldiers.

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Anderman was a nine-year-old boy in the town of Buchach in Galicia (today in Ukraine) when World War Two began. His father passed away before the war and his mother died of typhus fever. All his relatives were murdered by the Ukrainians, who collaborated with their Nazi occupiers. During the war, he says, he hid in forests and barns, constantly moving around at night in search of food.

A young Pesach Anderman

It was a winter of minus 35 degrees, Anderman recalls. None of the Ukrainian peasants knew I was hiding in their barn under the chaff. All I could think about was how to survive and how to escape the danger. I was caught by the Ukrainians five times and always managed to flee at the very last moment.

In a conversation with Ynet, he talks about the horrors he experienced almost 80 years ago, horrors which he also describes in lectures he gives in Germany.

Before launching the battle for Gush Etzion

The Ukrainians had a game. They took an iron wire which had a bullet attached to its end. They put the bullet near my forehead and hit the cap. The bullet exploded, a fragment hit me in the forehead and I passed out. The Ukrainians thought I was dead, and thats how I saved myself. Somehow, little Pesach managed to reach the nearby river and remove the fragment on his own in the freezing water.

At the end of the war, young Pesach realized he had no reason to stay in Ukraine. All his relatives had been murdered, and he decided to immigrate to the Land of Israel. In Bucharest, he teamed up with a group of Jewish children, some of whom had legal immigration certificates. When the children boarded the immigrants ship as a group, Pesach snuck in secretly.

After returning from captivity in Jordan

Anderman still remembers the first moment he saw the Land of Israel. At dawn, we saw the lights of the Carmel. I couldnt believe I had made it, he says excitedly. He studied agriculture in the Mikveh Israel school and then went up with his settlement group to Kibbutz Masuot in Gush Etzion.

We celebrated the State of Israel on November 29, and the next day the war broke out, he recalls. The Arabs started firing from all directions on the four kibbutzim of Gush Etzion: Revadim, Tzurim, Masuot and Kfar Etzion. I was sent to the center of the bloc with my squad. My commander gave me an order: Pesach, take the lead! I wasnt afraid of anything. I decided to fight all the way.

Pesach Anderman and his family

But the battle for Gush Etzion ended in defeat with the death of 242 Israelis, both fighters and kibbutz members. Due to the grave situation of the forces and following the Kfar Etzion massacre, the leadership instructed the fighters to surrender.

We didnt believe they wanted us to surrender, because I got the dismembered bodies of the Convoy of 35. I saw what they had done. I said it was out of the question. Anderman was taken captive by the Jordanians and was released only 11 months later, as part of a prisoner swap deal.

In the following years, Anderman became a successful industrialist. For years, he refused to share the events of the Holocaust with his family. Only in recent years did he start giving lectures on the issue in many places, including the IDF and Germany, and he has an important message for the young generation of the state he helped found.

We didnt get the state on a silver platter. A lot of blood was shed, he says from his home in Tel Aviv. We expect the next generations to protect the homeland we founded from scratch. We worked because we knew we were doing something historicbuilding a homeland for the Jewish people. For me, the IDF is the holiest thing there is, because without security we have nothing.The plan to expel illegal migrants from Sudan and Eritrea from Israel has been the center of much controversy in recent weeks. Especially since much of the pertinent data that is being tossed around is confusing and often contradictory.

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According to the Interior Ministry, 34,187 Sudanese and Eritreans have illegally crossed the border from Egypt to Israel. As of now, anyone that has not yet been approved for asylum is set to be expelled by April 1 or face imprisonment.

Protesting the expulsion

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Of the 12,136 asylum requests submitted, only 11 were approved, ten from Eritrea and one from Sudan. In contrast, in other western countries, 90% of asylum requests submitted in 2017 by Eritreans were approved, and 57% of those submitted by migrants from Sudan were approved.

Israeli immigration authorities explain the contrast by asserting that many European countries have widened their criteria for asylum beyond the definition of the UN Convention on Refugees that Israel is a signatory to.

African migrants protest expulsion (Photo: AFP)



Those facing expulsion currently have two options: Willingly departing to Rwanda in return for $3,500 and a plane ticket or face indefinite jail time at Saharonim detention facility in the Negev. In addition, the monetary sum given to those who leave on their own accord will decrease gradually after April 1.

During the initial phase of the expulsion, only working-age single males will be deported since they most commonly fit the profile of economic migrants. At later stages, women and children may also be forced to leave.

Until recently, Israel's policy was that of temporary non-expulsions. Due to the security and human rights situation in Sudan and Eritrea, migrants from those countries were given the option to leave voluntarily to either Rwanda or Uganda, countries with whom Israel signed an agreement to absorb those who left.

Since that policy was implemented in 2014, 9,695 Eritreans and 5,335 Sudanese left the country.

But the voluntary departures were not enough to satisfy some Israelis, prompting the government to announce the signing of an agreement that would allow for the forced deportation of migrants to a neutral country. The agreement is classified but that country is believed to be Rwanda. For each asylum seeker sent there, the destination country is to receive $5,000.

Rwanda denies agreement

Despite the rumors, Rwanda has denied the existence of any such agreement. Testimony from asylum seekers who already left to Rwanda indicates that the country is not interested in absorbing the migrants and does not offer them any official status. Many are forced back into the cycle of refugees and wander throughout African countries or try their luck at reaching Europe on a treacherous journey on an unsafe boat across the Mediterranean Sea.

The Refugees Hotline and other refugee aid associations claim that "Recently, public servants have been heard lying to the Israeli public on behalf of the government. The fact is that Israel is sending internationally recognized refugees to foreign countries in what is nothing but a sham, where they will have neither rights nor a decent chance to acclimatize.

"Those who claim that they are not refugees are hiding the fact that only 11 refugees have been recognized by Israel  Women and children are also on track for expulsion. We must not allow that Israel's 70th year be marked by the act of expelling refugees who are seeking our protection," they said.

Amnesty International criticizes Israel

Amnesty International has called for the removal of Israel's signature from the UN Convention on Refugees. "In contrast to what government representatives and ministers are saying, Israel is not standing by its commitment to the refugee's agreement, on the contrary" said the organization.

The group called on the Israeli government to stop the expulsion campaign and allow the migrants to submit their refugee requests according to international standards. They assert that Israel does not currently have any asylum system in place.

Prof Shlomo Mor-Yosef

Director of the Immigration Administration Prof. Shlomo Mor-Yosef commented on the criticism saying: "The plan was approved by all relevant parties including the government and five High Court justices who ruled that voluntary departure is reasonable and respectful."

Mor-Yosef added that the claim the migrants are being sent to their deaths is out of touch with reality.A federal judge has temporarily blocked a Kansas law barring state contractors from participating in boycotts against Israel, saying the state law violates their free speech rights.

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US District Judge Daniel Crabtree ruled Tuesday that the US Supreme Court has held that the "First Amendment protects the right to participate in a boycott like the one punished by the Kansas law."

US demonstration for Israel

Crabtree granted the request from the American Civil Liberties Union to block enforcement of the law while the case proceeds. The judge found it is "highly likely" that the Kansas law is invalid and blocking it protects a constitutional right.

The law that took effect in July prohibits the state from entering into contracts with individuals or companies participating in a boycott of Israel.

Twenty-four states have such policies.

Last week, the New Orleans City Council unanimously rescinded a human rights resolution, two weeks after approval of the seemingly benign measure sparked accusations that members had unwittingly played into the hands of international anti-Israel extremists and anti-Semites.A Tommy Bahama retail store will open at the First Street Napa complex this spring, said a company representative.

The store will be located inside the complex, under the Archer Napa hotel, next to Charlie Palmer Steak Napa and near a cork oak tree that remains on the property from its days as the former Napa Town Center.

Tommy Bahama is always exploring new locations to better serve its guests, said a company news release. First Street Napa provides an exceptional shopping environment in the heart of downtown Napa.

Upon opening this spring, Tommy Bahama looks forward to welcoming locals and tourists alike to the stores colorful assortment of mens and womens sportswear, swimwear, accessories and home decor.

There are more than 160 Tommy Bahama stores globally, including 16 stores throughout California, the company said.

The First Street Napa Tommy Bahama store will be approximately 2,800 square feet.

Other First Street Napa tenants that have been announced include: Brown Estate, Charlie Palmer Steak Napa, Compline wine bar, restaurant and shop, Eikos, Napa Valley Jewelers, Overland Sheepskin Co., Lush, Napastak and State & First by Maris Collective.US President Donald Trump called upon Congress Tuesday night to pass legislation that would ensure that American financial aid is withheld from enemies, including countries who voted in the United Nations last month against the US decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital.

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Last month I also took an action endorsed unanimously by the US Senate just months before. I recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Trump said in his first State of the Union speech.

Shortly afterwards dozens of countries voted in the United Nations General Assembly against Americas sovereign right to make this decision.

President Trump delivers Stae of the Union speech

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In 2016 American taxpayers generously sent those same countries more than $20 billion in aid. That is why tonight I am asking Congress to pass legislation to help ensure American foreign assistance dollars always serve American interests and only go to friends of America, not enemies of America, the president said, receiving one of many standing ovations throughout his over an hour-long speech.

On domestic matters, Trump urged lawmakers to work toward bipartisan compromises, but pushed a hard line on immigration, insisting on a border wall and other concessions from Democrats as part of any deal to protect the children of illegal immigrants.

Trump gave no ground on the contentious issue of whether to shield young immigrants known as "Dreamers" from deportation.

Aiming to keep conservative supporters happy as he looks to November congressional elections, Trump stood by a set of principles opposed by Democrats, including the border wall with Mexico and new restrictions on how many family members that legal immigrants can bring into the United States.

"Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve," Trump said in his address.

Trump used the hour-and-20-minute speech, given annually by presidents to Congress, to try to overcome doubts about his presidency at a time when he is battling a probe into his campaign's alleged ties with Russia and suffering low job approval ratings.

Trump made no mention of the federal probe into whether his campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 presidential election, a controversy that is dogging his presidency. Trump has denied collusion and has called the probe a "witch hunt."

The speech was short on details about Trump's policy proposals.

But his sober, measured approach was welcomed by the public. A CNN/SSRS snap poll said 48 percent of those surveyed had a "very positive" response to the speech and 22 percent "somewhat positive."

Denounces North Korea Korean leadership, Iran nuclear deal

Turning to foreign policy late in the speech, Trump said that his adminstration was seeking to strengthen friendships around the world, but would always stand with people attempting to overthrow repressive regimes such as Iran.

President Trump gives first State of the Union speech (Photo: Douliery Olivier/ABACA)

"As we strengthen friendships all around the world, we are also restoring clarity about our adversaries. When the people of Iran rose up against the crimes of their corrupt dictatorship, I did not stay silent. America stands with the people of Iran in their courageous struggle for freedom," Trump said, before briefly touching upon the nuclear deal signed by Barack Obama.

'I am asking Congress to address the fundamental flaws in the terrible Iran nuclear deal. My administration has also imposed tough sanctions on the communist and socialist dictatorships in Cuba and Venezuela," he added.

Trump also denounced the "depraved character" of North Korea's leadership and said Pyongyang's "reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland."

"We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from happening," he said. In a surprise moment, he singled out a North Korea defector in the crowd, Ji Seong-ho, as an example of what he called the reclusive country's brutal nature.

Trump also said he had signed an order to keep open the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for foreign terrorism suspects. Former Democratic President Barack Obama had vowed to close the prison, which has been condemned by human rights groups, but was unable to shut it down completely.President Reuven Rivlin laid the cornerstone for a new Holocaust museum at on site of old train station in Thessaloniki, Greece on Tuesday, noting as he did that the Holocaust "is not only a Jewish issue."

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The Holocaust, he said, "is an international issue that touches every nation and people. Here too, in Greece, it is a national issue."

"The Museum to the Holocaust to be built here will be a museum of remembrance and testimony. The Museum must express the rich history, the diversity and uniqueness of the Jewish community in Greece in general and in Thessaloniki in particular. It must give expression to the terrible moments in which this unique community was destroyed. It must show our duty to forge a world committed to swearing, Never Again," Rivlin continued.

President Rivlin speaking at the cornerstone ceremony in Thessaloniki (Photo: AP)

Thessaloniki, the president said in his speech, was known as "Jerusalem of the Balkans" and had "a magnificent Jewish community, the largest in Greece before World War II. Jews were an integral part of the citizens of the Hellenic Republic."

The president spoke about the fate of the Jews of Greece. "Exactly 75 years ago, on March 15, the first transport left for Auschwitz-Birkenau. In total, 90 percent of the Jews of Greece were wiped out in the extermination camps. No other operation to exterminate such a large community was carried out so quickly by the Nazi extermination machine," he said.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras also spoke at the ceremony, saying "We have not forgotten about the perpetrators and we have not forgotten about the victims  We are not going to turn a blind eye to the shadows."

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and President Rivlin (Photo: Haim Tzah/GPO)

"Unfortunately, there are shadows appearing in Europe, racism is trying again to make impact and monuments are unfortunately again being vandalized. The Museum is part of our commitment to the rights of the people in the whole world to live in the absence of fear," he added.

The ceremony was held on the site of the future museum, in the area of the old railway station from which the Jews of Thessaloniki were sent to the extermination camps.

Visitors at Auschwitz on International Holocaust Remembrance Day ()

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Also speaking at the cornerstone ceremony were the Mayor of Thessaloniki, Yiannis Boutaris, and David Saltiel, WJC Vice-President for Greece, and President of the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece.

At the end of the ceremony, the president and the Greek prime minister planted a tree in memory of 60,000 Greek Jews who perished during the Holocaust.

Later, the president placed a wreath at the foot of the monument to the Jews of Thessaloniki who perished in the Holocaust.

The monument, located in the center of the city, was desecrated about a week before the President's visit with anti-Semitic graffiti and the emblem of the extreme right-wing movement Golden Dawn.

Rivlin will continue his state visit to Greece in Athens on Wednesday. He's scheduled to visit the Salamis Naval Base, accompanied by Israeli Naval Commander General Eli Sharvit, and Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos, and Chief of Staff Evangelos Apostolakis.

In the evening, Rivlin will be awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Piraeus. He will then head back home to Israel.A Polish TV host has suggested that World War II death camps in Poland be referred to as Jewish death camps instead of Polish or German, while a journalist intimated on his program that Jews played a part in the Nazi Final Solution.

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The comments have fanned the flames that have already mildly burned relations between Warsaw and Jerusalem after the Polish parliament recently moved to pass legislation that Israel has argued is an attempt to downplay Polands role in Nazi atrocities.

The guest of the program aired by TVP2 also slammed Israel for its vociferous opposition to the bill, which prescribes prison time for defaming the Polish nation by using phrases such as "Polish death camps" to refer to the killing sites Nazi Germany operated in occupied Poland during World War II.

(Photo: Getty Images)

This narrative is built out of contempt for the facts, argued Marcin Jerzy Wolski who hosts the Polish public mainstream TV channel operated by TVP.

Discussing an experiment carried out in Germany in which exhaust fumes were pumped into rooms containing monkeys and humans, Wloski and the conservative commentator and author Rafal Aleksander Ziemkiewicz digressed into a conversation about Jews in the Holocaust, gas chambers and how the Nazis improvised as they searched for more efficient methods to murder European Jewry.

The two then segued into an attack of Israeli criticism against the new bill and the claims that Poles participated in the Holocaust. Ziemkiewicz also slammed the notion of blaming nations for the actions of individuals.

Dont be surprised if someone teaches that the Jewish people crucified Jesus or participated in the Holocaust, he said. If we look at the percentage of involvement of countries that took part, Jews also were part of their own destruction.

Wolski responded by saying: Using this terminology, linguistically, we could say these were not German or Polish camps, but were Jewish camps. After all, who dealt with the crematoria?

Taking the theory further, Ziemkiewicz asked: And who died in them? Jews. History has been forgotten. Instead of history there is a narrative that serves political and other interests. This narrative is built out of contempt for facts.

A few hours before the program, Ziemkiewicz published on Twitter an anti-Semitic post before deleting it shortly after.

For many years I have convinced my people that we must support Israel. Today, because of a few scabby or greedy people, I feel like an idiot, he wrote in his tweet, evoking a term often used in anti-Semitic slurs in Poland.

During and after the Holocaust, Poles frequently referred to Jews as scabby as a derogatory expression.

A statement released by the Israeli Foreign Ministry expressed deep concern about the discussion.

We are anxiously following the statements of an anti-Semitic nature made on Polish media and are considering discussing the subject with the embassy in Warsaw, the statement read.

The interview was not the only public expression in the Polish media against Israeli furor. One radio presenter suggested that Poles who support the Israeli positions should consider forfeiting their Polish citizenship.

If theres someone who behaves like a spokesperson for Israeli interests, maybe its worth it for him to consider giving up his Polish citizenship and getting Israeli citizenship, Piotr Nisztor said in statements that were published on the radio stations twitter account.

It is not only the Israeli political establishment that has expressed outrage over the Polish initiative, however.

An Israeli historian of Jewish-Israeli heritage who was awarded in 2012 the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic from the then Polish president for his contribution to promoting the memoryand increasing awareness ofthe Polish Righteous Among the Nations, has returned his award in protest against the demonic legislation.Retired Supreme Court Justice Salim Joubran, the first Arab Israeli judge in the High Court, said he cannot sing the Israeli national anthem "Hatikvah."

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"Right now, I cannot sing an anthem that includes the words 'Beats true a Jewish heart,'" Joubran told the Israel Bar Association's journal in a retirement interview. "If the state expects all of its citizens, including the Arab ones, to respect its national anthem, it needs to respect them and their rights."

Joubran said that in official events, he stands up when the national anthem is played, but he does not sing along.

Retired Supreme Court Justice Salim Joubran (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)

"No one has ever made an issue of it," he said. "If one day the words of the national anthem are changed, I think I won't have any problem singing it. I definitely think words should be added to be approrpriate for the Arab citizen in Israel as well."

Joubran said he was happy his appointment opened the door to other Arab judges to sit on the bench of the Supreme Court. He was followed by George Karra, a Christian Arab.

"I hope that soon we will be told of the appointment of the honorable judge Khaled Kabub to the Supreme Court," Joubran said. "If there would indeed be two Arab judges serving in the Supreme Court, it would bring a lot of respect to the State of Israel, and it will also increase the Arab population's trust in the justice system in Israel."

He expressed concern of politicians' attacks against the Supreme Court, saying, "It's not healthy, it must stop. The Supreme Court is not the enemy of the people. It's important to understand that hurting the Supreme Court is hurting democracy, and hurting democracy means hurting disadvantaged populations."

He also criticized a legislation proposal that seeks to bypass the Supreme Court's authority . "I think there needs to be a majority of 80 MKs (to re-legislate laws struck down by the court), and not merely 61. Such a minuscule majority hurts the democratic foundations of the State of Israel," Joubran asserted.The Knesset's Ethics Committee decided Wednesday to suspend Likud MK Oren Hazan from the Knesset for six months after five complaints have been submitted to the Ethics Committee against him by MKs from different parties.

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The committee also deducted a week's pay from Hazan's salary.

While Hazan would still be able to vote at the Knesset, he will not be allowed to speak at the podium, submit parliamentary questions or propose bills.

MK Oren Hazan (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)

Unrepentant, Hazan claimed to Ynet that he was being punished because he lashed out against Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein.

He further asserted he would not have been suspended from the Knesset "if I hadn't interrupted and exposed the true face of Edelstein, the supporter of terrorism."

The public spat between Hazan and Edelstein, both members of the ruling Likud party, began earlier this week, after Edelstein was heard in recordings published by Israel Radio criticizing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and even claiming the prime minister has gone mad.

Hazan took to the podium on Monday, while Edelstein was presiding over the meeting, and criticized the Knesset speaker, demanding he apologized to Netanyahu.

(Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)

On Wednesday, Hazan again lashed out against Edelstein and was removed from the plenum during a special meeting to mark 69 years to the Knesset's establishment.

When Edelstein invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to speak, Hazan interrupted by shouting "Maybe you should take advantage of this opportunity to apologize to the prime minister."

One of the complaints against Hazan was submitted following comments he made to MK Jamal Zahalka (Joint List) in the halls of the Knesset.

(Photo: Yoav Dudkevitch)

Another complaint was filed by MK Michal Biran (Zionist Union) after Hazan implied she was a prostitute during a Knesset Finance Committee meeting.

A third complaint was filed over an incident in which Hazan clucked like a chicken towards MK Ahmad Tibi (Joint List), who was presiding over the Knesset meeting.

A fourth complaint was filed after Hazan clashed with MK Abd Al Hakeem Haj Yahya (Joint List) during a discussion on a bill proposal allowing to delay the return of terrorists' bodies, where he called Haj Yahya "sewage."

"Edelstein and his marionettes in the Ethics Committee chose terrorism, this is the only meaning of this punishment," Hazan asserted in an interview with Ynet. "Edelstein, instead of suspending Ahmad Tibi, who associates with the worst among our enemies, who incites against IDF soldiers, who stands at the Damascus Gate and declares 'in blood and fire, we will redeem you Al-Aqsa' and sends criminals and terrorists to attack soldiers."

Hazan clashes with Zoabi in the Knesset (Photo: Amit Shabi)

The Likud MK further lamented the fact that "just a week ago we saw the members of the Joint Hamasesque List going wild all over the plenum, embarrassing the State of Israel and its foreign policy while the American vice president is speaking at the Knesset. Where is their punishment? Where is the plenum meeting about them?

"But the one who stands up to and banishes from the Knesset the Marmara terrorist (Hanin) Zoabi, fights against the convicted terrorist Zahalka, and silences Tibi and the rest of his terrorist friends in the Knessethe is being silenced."

He vowed to "continue preventing (Arab MKs) from disgracing us in front of the whole world and in front of the cameras. I will continue harassing them until they realize they don't belong in Israel's Knesset."

Hazan further asserted that "my mission in the Knesset is to silence those who want to hurt all of us. No one really thinks I'll shut my mouth."

He claimed to have received "numerous calls and messages of support, hugs online," adding, "Forget about the love inside the plenum. (People outside the Knesset) can't stop thanking me, and that thank you says something, people believe in this way."

Hazan also had a message to the Knesset speaker, "To the supporters of terrorism and the one who allows them to behave like this, Edelstein, be careful, because I will not be silenced."

Biran: 'I refused to apologize to Hazan'

MK Michal Biran (Zionist Union) who received a week's suspension from the Knesset on Tuesday, said she has "never seen him remain on topic in a Knesset discussion. I've never seen Oren Hazan in a discussion that didn't look like a reality TV show."

MK Michal Biran

"I heard him clearly say that the Ethics Committee's makeup is radical leftist," Biran added. "Assuming the committee I faced was the same one that also sanctioned him, it was made up of committee chair (Yitzhak) Vaknin from Shas, Rachel Azaria from Kulanu, Shuli Mualem from Bayit Yehudi, and Maj. Gen. (res.) Eyal Ben-Reuven from the Zionist Union. Can you call such a makeup radical leftist?"

Biran explained she refused to apologize to Hazan for calling him a "pimp" because "when I call MK Oren Hazan a 'pimp,' it is not a derogatory term. The Ethics Committee disagreed, and I humbly accept that and understand how they see it. But as a public representative, my job is to stand by women who have been taken advantage of, whoever they may be."

She also noted she has been a member of Knesset for five years, and this was the first time a fellow MK filed a complaint against her.A FedEx cargo plane preparing for landing in Israel early Tuesday morning from Athens to Ben Gurion International Airport narrowly avoided a crash with an executive plane carrying UN workers after successfully conducting an emergency maneuver.

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The incident took place after the plane carrying the UN workers took off from the Sde Dov Airport in Tel Aviv and followed a flight route that was not approved by the flight operations tower. The Ministry of Transport launched an investigation into the incident.

Emergency maneuver

X

The two aircraft were travelling toward each other at 700 kph a mere few meters from one another, according to data at the Ben Gurion Airport control tower.

The close collision occurred at 6:30am on Tuesday approximately two kilometers from the Tel Aviv coast at an altitude of 3000 feet.

Archive photo

According to information obtained by Ynet, the cargo plane received permission to perform a standard landing at Ben Gurion Airport and prepared to do so in accordance with standard procedures.

The UN plane however, deviated from the guidelines and flight route approved by the control tower before it took off.

Archive photo of Beechcraft King Air plane (Photo: Shutterstock)

After departing from Sde Dov Airport, the UN aircraft was supposed to turn north and only in Herzlyia to swing south and continue along the Sharm El Sheikh route.

The pilot failed to heed the instructions and broke south immediately after the takeoff, placing the incoming plane in peril. Operators in the control tower immediately reported the most serious incident to investigators from the Transportation Ministry.German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Wednesday after talks were canceled last year when the diplomat met with an Israeli whistleblower group critical of the military.

Standing alongside Netanyahu, Gabriel said: "Israel always can count on Germany as a fair partner to defend the security of Israel."

Netanyahu abruptly canceled a meeting in April with Gabriel over his meeting with Breaking the Silence, a group of Israeli army veterans critical of the country's military actions in the West Bank and Gaza.

The incident sparked a rare diplomatic feud with Germany, one of Israel's closest and most important allies.Iran's foreign minister said Wednesday US President Donald Trump has confirmed his "ignorance" in remarks on Iran in his State of the Union address.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif reacted just hours after Trump warned of the dangers of "rogue regimes" like Iran and North Korea, in his address to lawmakers in Washington.

Zarif tweeted: "Trump again confirms his ignorance of Iran & region. Everyone knows where he stands; and it's certainly not with Iranians."

In his address, Trump called the Islamic Republic a "corrupt dictatorship" and said, "America stands with the people of Iran in their courageous struggle for freedom."TEHRAN - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says the people of Iran will continue supporting the Islamic Republic despite foreign pressure.

His comments came Wednesday, just hours after President Donald Trump said the US stands with the people of Iran against the country's ruling establishment. Rouhani spoke during a visit to the mausoleum of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic.

Rouhani said in remarks broadcast by state TV: "The Iranian nation will never give up Imam Khomeini's legacy; Islamism and Republicanism. Return is impossible."

During his State of the Union address, Trump called the Islamic Republic a "corrupt dictatorship" and said "America stands with the people of Iran in their courageous struggle for freedom."Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman declared Wednesday that farmers in communities on the Gaza border will receive compensation if they had to stop working because of the security situation.

During a special tree planting ceremony for Tu B'Shvat, Lieberman also announced the Defense Ministry's decision to recognize a new pre-army school in Sufa, which will be named after Lt. Hadar Goldin.A healthcare executive says he saw an eagle snatch his sister's little white dog _ and a motorist found the pet some four miles away. Felipe Rodriguez says he was visiting his sister in Pennsylvania when the eagle took the 8-pound bichon frise from her yard and disappeared over the trees. An expert says with food scarce and waterways freezing up, raptors will look more widely for prey.Iliya Romanov, an Israeli citizen, has been arrested in the island Antigua in the Caribbean on suspicion of attempted murder after he was attacked by four locals and injured one of them while trying to defend himself.

Israel's Foreign Ministry said the consulate in Santo Domingo was handling the case and working with the authorities in Antigua to ensure the Israeli is given legal representation.An IDF force thwarted a stabbing attack Wednesday near the settlement Negohot in the southern Hebron Hills on the West Bank.

The troops arrested a Palestinian who was wearing a military coat and was found to be carrying a knife and a map of the settlement on his person.

The suspect was taken in for questioning.BRUSSELS - The European Union's top diplomat urged the US on Wednesday to not go it alone in any effort to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians and said that doing so would end in failure.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said at a launch of an emergency meeting of an international committee coordinating Palestinian development aid that "nothing without the United States, nothing with the United States alone."

The meeting is the first of its kind since President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, breaking with an international consensus that the holy city's status should be resolved in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Mogherini said "this is a difficult moment" for the region. Wednesday's meeting will focus on ways to promote a two-state solution to the conflict.Israeli lawmakers proposed Wednesday an amendment to existing legislation against Holocaust denial that would make it a criminal offense to minimize the involvement of Nazi collaborators in the murder of 6 million Jews during World War II.

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MKs and party leaders across the political spectrum rallied behind the proposal to augment the Holocaust denial law ratified in 1986, which is intended to serve as a response to Polish lawmakers recent decision to push ahead with legislation that Israel has argued is an attempt to downplay Poles's role in Nazi atrocities.

Auschwitz death camp (Photo: AP)

The amendment proposal came following an initiative sponsored by Itzik Shmuli (Zionist Union), Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid), Robert Ilatov (Yisrael Beytenu), Nurit Koren (Likud) and Bezalel Smotrich (Bayit Yehudi) and signed by 61 Knesset members.

Israel has lashed out at the Polish bill, which prescribes prison time for defaming the Polish nation by using phrases such as "Polish death camps" to refer to the killing sites Nazi Germany operated in occupied Poland during World War II.

Israel's existing law against Holocaust denial stipulates that anyone who publishes material denying or minimizing the Holocaust, or identifying with criminals who acted against the Jewish people, come face up to five years in prison.

In what is an attempt to counter the potential punitive measures for violating the prospective Polish law, the proposed Israeli amendment also offers full legal protection to Holocaust survivors in the event that legal proceedings are pursued against them in foreign countries for recounting horrors they endured in the Holocaust at the hands of Polish collaborators.

The amendment will also define Holocaust denial and diminishing the responsibility of collaborators of the Nazis (including civilians from Poland and other European nations) as criminal acts.

The full legal protection afforded to the Holocaust survivors sharing their testimony will be extended to educators and guides for tours to Poland on Holocaust-related trips in the event that cases are filed against them.

The legal backing is part of an attempt to ensure that such educators and Holocaust survivors are not deterred from disseminating historical facts about the wide-scale Polish collaboration in Nazi atrocities.

MKs spearheading the legislative amendment have raised concerns that other Parliaments may emulate the Poles and promote similar laws.

Let the Poles and others who may follow in their footsteps know that the historical truth of the Jewish nation is not up for sale, MK Shmuli said.

Many Poles and others heard about, knew about and assisted the Nazi death camps. The Polish attempt to deny history and to shut the mouths of Holocaust survivors is a farce, disgusting and shocking. Collaborators cannot be allowed to hide behind the Nazis and to shirk their historic responsibility.

Echoing Shmulis comments, Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid also scolded the Poles over what he said was an attempt to absolve themselves of responsibility for the death of millions of Jews in the Holocaust.

The latest actions, he added, only emphasize the need to act with greater rigor against these kinds of voices. We must to act with a heavy hand with all means, as well as in the Knesset against Holocaust denial.

We cannot forget. Not the Nazis or those who collaborated with them. That is our obligation to the memory of millions of dead people. The world must know. Jews are no longer prepared to be silent and are no longer frightened.A Warsaw governor has taken steps to prevent a planned far-right protest outside the Israeli Embassy by banning traffic in the area, citing security concerns.

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Right-wing groups have called the protest for late Wednesday amid a spat between Poland and Israel over pending Polish legislation that would outlaw blaming Poland for Holocaust crimes committed by Nazi Germany.

National-Radical Camp, march in Warsaw (Photo: AP)

Israel has vehemently protested the law saying its unclear wording would stifle historic research and truth.

Warsaw regional governor Zdzislaw Sipera said Wednesday that for security reasons he is banning traffic around the embassy until February 5, except for residents and city services, to prevent protesters from gathering.

He said the embassy has expressed security concerns ahead of the protest.BRUSSELS - The European Union on Wednesday urged the US to not go it alone in any effort to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians and warned that doing so would end in failure.

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"Any framework for negotiations must be multilateral and must involve all playersall partnersthat are essential to this process. A process without one or the other would simply not work, would simply not be realistic," EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said.

"Nothing without the United States, nothing with the United States alone," Mogherini told reporters in Brussels.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, right, welcomes Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah (Photo: Reuters)

The meeting is the first of its kind since US President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital , breaking with an international consensus that the holy city's status should be resolved in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Mogherini said "this is a difficult moment" for the region. She said the meeting will focus on ways to promote a two-state solution to the conflict and expressed hope that it "could be an element of facilitation for restoring some trust and a level of confidence."

As the talks began, the EU announced a new funding package of 42.5 million euros to help the Palestinians build their new state. It includes substantial support in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope to make their future capital.

Israeli Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi attends meeting (Photo: Reuters)

The meeting will also look at ways to support the UN agency working with Palestinian refugees, UNRWA

The US has been the largest donor, giving one-third of the total budget. But the Trump administration withheld half of the first installment of payments this year, demanding reforms as a condition for future aid.

UNRWA says the move has sparked its biggest ever financial crisis. It's called on donors to speed up their funding, and Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Russia, Belgium, Kuwait, the Netherlands and Ireland have taken steps to do so.

UNRWA said it is seeking $800 million for emergency operations in Syria, the West Bank and Gaza Strip this year.

In Slovenia, meanwhile, officials have delayed a decision on whether to recognize the Palestinian territories as a separate state after pressure from Israel and the United States.

Slovenia's Parliament Foreign Policy Committee suspended its session on Wednesday pending official government position. The native country of US first lady Melania Trump could become only the second EU state to recognize a Palestinian state after Sweden.TEL AVIV/BEIRUT - Israel described as "very provocative" on Wednesday a Lebanese offshore oil and gas exploration tender in disputed territory on the countries' maritime border, and urged international firms not to bid.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun, whose country considers Israel an enemy state, described the comments as "a threat to Lebanon".

"When they issue a tender on a gas field, including Block 9, which by any standard is ours ... this is very, very challenging and provocative conduct here," Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said.

"Respectable firms" bidding on the tender "are, to my mind, making a grave error - because this is contrary to all of the rules and all protocol in cases like this," he told an international security conference hosted by Tel Aviv University's INSS think-tank.

Lebanon in December approved a bid by a consortium of France's Total, Italy's Eni and Russia's Novatek for two of the five blocks put up for tender in the country's much-delayed first oil and gas offshore licensing round.

One of the awarded blocks, Block 9, borders Israeli waters. Lebanon has an unresolved maritime border dispute with Israel over a triangular area of sea of around 860 sq km (330 square miles) that extends along the edge of three of the blocks.ISTANBUL- A Turkish court sentenced three people to multiple life sentences on Wednesday in connection with a bombing that killed 12 German tourists in Istanbul two years ago.

A suicide bomber, Saudi-born Syrian Nabil Fadli, killed the tourists when he blew himself up in Sultanahmet, Istanbul's historic heart, on Jan. 12, 2016. Turkish authorities blamed Islamic State for the attack.

Two Syrians, Atala el-Hasan el-Mayyup and Fevzi Muhammed Ali, and a Turkish man, Halil Dervis, were found guilty of aiding murder, trying to overthrow the government and constitution, membership of a terrorist organisation and committing crimes in the name of an armed terrorist organisation.

They were each given 12 aggravated life sentences, 12 terms of 16 years and 16 eight-year terms for the injuries caused. They were also given nine years for transporting explosives from Syria, for a total of 329 years each on top of the multiple life sentences.The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) published its long-delayed blacklist report Wednesday of companies doing business linked to Israeli settlements in the West Bank. However, due to immense efforts exerted by both the United States and Israel, the published report included only the number of companies from each country, rather than naming them.

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The UNHRC said it had identified 206 companies so far doing business linked to Israeli settlements, where it said violations against Palestinians are "pervasive and devastating."

"The majority of these companies are domiciled in Israel or the settlements (143), with the second largest group located in the United States (22). The remainder are domiciled in 19 other countries," the UN human rights office said in a statement.

The UNHRC published its report of companies active in the settlements, but withheld their names (Photo: AFP)

"Businesses play a central role in furthering the establishment, maintenance and expansion of Israeli settlements," the report continued. "In doing so, they are contributing to Israel's confiscation of land, facilitate the transfer of its population into the Occupied Palestinian Territory and are involved in the exploitation of Palestine's natural resources," it said.

The report said that the work in producing the UN database "does not purport to constitute a judicial process of any kind".

But businesses operating in the West Bank have a corporate responsibility to carry out due diligence and consider "whether it is possible to engage in such an environment in a manner that respects human rights", it said.

The report is politically sensitive because companies in the UN database could be targeted for boycotts or divestment aimed at stepping up pressure on Israel over its settlements.

Nevertheless, the US and Israel pushed to prevent the reportoriginally set to be published a month agofrom being made public. Towards that end, both Israel's Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon and his American counterpart Nikki Haley worked in tandem in the organization's New York headquarters.

Haley said in a statement on Wednesday that while the report "wisely refrained from listing individual companies, the fact that the report was issued at all is yet another reminder of the Council's anti-Israel obsession."

Despite the initial success, the fight to keep the information from being divulged has not been won, and is expected to continue in the coming months, on the backdrop of the American threat to withdraw from the UN group over its " anti-Israel bias ."

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights al-Hussein cautioned companies of their impending inclusion in his group's blacklist (Photo: AFP)

In October 2017, 130 Israeli companies and 60 international corporations operating in Israel received warning letters from United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid bin Ra'ad al-Hussein cautioning them of their impending inclusion in a "blacklist" of companies active beyond the Green Line in "violation of international law and UN resolutions."

The list, which was to be published in December of that year, cited 25 well-known Israeli companies. The companies operate in different sectorssome in food manufacturing, others in services, pharmaceuticals and even high-techbut have one thing in common: all operate in settlements, east Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley.

The Barkan industrial zone is on the UN's crosshairs (Photo: Rafi Avital, TPS)

Among the companies in the commissioner's sights are Ahava, Dor Alon, Amisragas, Angel Bakeries, Arison Investments, Ashdar, Clal Industries, Cafe Cafe, Cellcom, Danya Cebus, Electra, HP, Hot, the Israel Aerospace Industries, Matrix Systems, Motorola, Nesher, Partner, Paz, Rami Levy, Remax, Housing & Construction (Shikun Binui), Shufersal, Sonol and Trima.

The above companies are joined by the 12 companies already published on Channel 2 News including Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, Bezeq and Bezeq International, Coca Cola, Africa Israel, Teva, IDB, Egged, Mekorot, Netafim and Elbit Systems.

In an effort to scuttle the move, the pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobby has been working in the US on promoting rapid legislation in Congress determining any company divesting its business dealings from Israel will be considered to have "capitulated" to the Arab boycott, and would thus be in violation of American law.

Israel's Ambassador to the UN in Geneva Raz Shechter (Photo: Foreign Ministry)

Israel's ambassador to the UN in Geneva Aviva Raz Shechter said her government was still studying the report, launched by a resolution of the UN Human Rights Council in March 2016, but rejected the concept as "fundamentally illegitimate".

"It is outside the competence and the authority of the Human Rights Council to deal with blacklisting ... This is part of the bias to try to delegitimise Israel," Raz Shechter told journalists.

Israel did not want to see the UN human rights office at the "forefront of a BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanction)" movement, she said.

Raz Shechter declined to discuss any of the Israeli companies or say whether some were state-owned, adding: "Companies are not engaged in any unlawful activities."

Israel's UN Ambassador Danon said the report was a 'black mark on the UN's history' (Photo: AP)

Ambassador Danon commented on the publication of the UNHRC's report, saying, "Precisely on the day the United Nations has chosen to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Council has chosen to disclose companies operating in Israel.

"This is a black mark on the UN's history that cannot be expunged and a disgrace for all eternity. We will continue operating using all means at our disposal, along with our allies around the world, to prevent the publication of this shameful list."Security Cabinet member Naftali Bennett stressed Wednesday that direct action against Iran, and not just Hezbollah, was necessary in the next conflagration of hostilities in the north. Bennett also directed veiled criticism at Israel's conduct vis-a-vis Iran, which he dubbed the octopus's head.

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Speaking at the Institute for National Security Studies' (INSS) 11th Annual International Conference, Bennett, who's also the education minister, said, "Our tactics have improved, but we remain hemmed in by a narrow strategy that says we should only shoot the messenger, who's shooting at us."

The Bayit Yehudi chief then called to change track in the manner Iran and its proxies are tackled, as well as to shift strategy in the eventuality of another northern conflict.





(Photo: Motti Kimchi)

Outlining his position, Bennett said the fight needed to be taken directly to Iran, rather than delimiting it to just Hezbollah. "The head of the octopus resides in Tehran and stretches its armsone is Hezbollah in Lebanon, the other Hamas in Gaza. Now it tries to send a third arm into Syria. We won't allow that," he stated.

"We have thus far only dealt with the messengerHezbollahand kept off of the sender, which is Iran," he continued.

Bennett then reminded listeners that he had promoted a strategy dubbed "Hezbollah equals Lebanon" four years ago, revolving around laying blame for conflict at the host country's feet. "However," Bennett said, "to this day that strategy has never been formally approved. We will not limit ourselves to only going after Hezbollah next time."

The education minister also sent a veiled barb at Israel's conduct regarding Iran. "So long as the octopus in invulnerable, it will carry on andin the long runwill have the upper hand," he cautioned.

Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei. Bennett said the head of the octopus cannot remain invulnerable (Photo: Reuters)

"We need to undertake a deep, transformative change in our perception, which will be brought to bear by political actions leading to building our military might, creating regional alliances and of course changing our policy on channeling our strength," he added.

Following Bennett's comments, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman sat down to converse with the head of the INSS, Maj.-Gen. (ret.) Amos Yadlin. On the next round of hostilities, Lieberman said, "As far as the enemy is concerned, its main goal is the civilian home front. My message to the public is not to get too worked up. We're done with a 'one step forward, two steps back' kind of war.

"You have to go in at full power right from the get go. You can't have photos like ones seen during the Second Lebanon War showing the people of Beirut sunning at the beach while the people of Tel Aviv are in shelters. That won't happen. If people in Tel Aviv will be in shelters, all of Beirut will be in shelters," Lieberman vowed.

The defense minister also addressed finding a replacement for IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, who's expected to step down in the near future.

(Photo: Motti Kimchi)

"We'll have to make a decision by Rosh Hashanah, by my reckoning, but my job is merely to propose and it's the government's job to pick. We have gotten into hot water in the past over the chief of staff's nomination, so we're better off without it. There are several candidates and it's quite the deliberation. Luckily, there are several qualified candidates," Lieberman said.

Earlier Wednesday, Acting Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs David Satterfield voiced US support on Israel's warning against Iranian missile factories in Lebanon

"We're concerned by Iran's desire to disseminate balance-breaking missile technologies to its proxies in the regionthe armed militias," Satterfield said, also touching on the recent escalation in the Yemen conflict and the firing of precise missiles from the war-torn country at the Saudi capital of Riyadh

"We're disinterested in seeing further dissemination of this advanced systems technology anywhere elsenot to Yemen and certainly not to Hezbollah. It's very worrying and both the US and our allies are highly proactive on the issue.

"We're now sending a clear message to Iran, that this cannot go on and that there will be no impunity for such behavior."State law requires builders working in quake-prone areas to have geological studies done to keep new homes and structures away from faults or areas where faults can rupture the surface. The practice stems from the Alquist-Priolo Earthquake Fault Zoning Act, which California lawmakers passed a year after the 1971 Sylmar earthquake killed more than 60 people and caused extensive damage in the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles.

Early reviews of the revised Napa seismic charts, which show the West Napa Fault in greater detail than before, have not revealed any new ruptures on the Napa Oaks property or any immediate need to reduce the number of homes, according to Allen. An existing fault zone runs from north to south through the western portion of the site, and homes are to be kept at least 25 feet away from that corridor.

A call Tuesday morning to Steve Abbs, Davidons vice president for land acquisition and development, was not returned.The United States on Wednesday put the head of the Hamas terrorist organization Ismail Haniyeh on its terror blacklist and slapped him with sanctions.

Responding to the decision, Hamas said it was "a failed attempt to pressure the resistance. This decision will not deter us from continuing the resistance option to expel the occupation."

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"Ismail Haniyeh is the leader and President of the Political Bureau of Hamas, which was designated in 1997 as a Foreign Terrorist Organization," said the State Department's announcement on the matter. The decision came during especially tense times, after Washington recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Hamas chief Haniyeh was placed on the United States' terror blacklist

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that Haniyeh has "close links with Hamas' military wing and has been a proponent of armed struggle, including against civilians. He has reportedly been involved in terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens. Hamas has been responsible for an estimated 17 American lives killed in terrorist attacks."

The terrorist group's leader was threatening "the stability of the Middle East, undermining the peace process, and attacking our allies Egypt and Israel," Secretary of State Tillerson added. "Today's actions are an important step in denying the resources required to plan and carry out terrorist activities."

Haniyeh is now on the US Treasury sanctions blacklist, which freezes any US-based assets he may have and bans any US person or company from doing business with him.

Haniyeh (L) and Gaza Prime Minister Yahya Sinwar (Photo: AP)

The head of Hamas's political wing participated in a demonstration in Gaza last month against President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. "Anyone thinking we will be satisfied with mere protests is dreaming," Haniyeh said at the protest, shortly before a rocket was launched from Gaza at the Israeli communities around it.

The announcement of Haniyeh's inclusion in the terrorist blacklist was delivered by US Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator for Counterterrorism Nathan Sales at a conference organized by the Institute for National Security Studies.BEIRUT - Lebanon's Hezbollah pledged on Wednesday to confront any threats to the country's "oil and gas rights" after Israeli comments urging firms not to bid on a Lebanese offshore energy tender.

"We confirm again our firm and honest position to decisively confront any assault on our oil and gas rights, and protect (Lebanon's) wealth," the Iran-backed Shi'ite political and military movement said in a statement.

Israel described as "very provocative" a Lebanese offshore oil and gas exploration tender in disputed territory on the countries' maritime border. Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri said the comments were one of several "threatening messages" from Israel in recent days.TEL AVIV - German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel warned Israel on Wednesday that it faced growing frustration in Europe amid concern for the future of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Gabriel adopted a markedly different tone to that of US Vice President Mike Pence, who on a visit to Israel last week embraced President Donald Trump's Dec. 6 announcement that his administration recognises Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and that it will move the US Embassy to the city.

"With regard to the Palestinians and the Iran question the Americans are taking your side more clearly than ever before. But is this really only a good thing?" Gabriel said in Tel Aviv.

Citing past successes of US diplomacy in the region, he asked: "Can the Americans still play such a role if they take sides so openly? Will others try to step into their shoes?"

In a thinly veiled threat about cutting off aid, he said some members of Israel's cabinet were "explicitly against the two-state solution" but that such a solution "has always been the foundation of our engagement for Israeli-Palestinian peace and for the large amount of funding" from Germany and Europe.

Gabriel spoke after meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Earlier in the day Netanyahu corrected the record during a joint news conference held with his German visitor after Gabriel said he was encouraged that Netanyahu's government supported a two-state solution "with secure Israeli borders".

"That we will control security west of the Jordan (river). That is the first condition," Netanyahu objected, cutting Gabriel off and adding, "Whether it is defined as a state when we have the military control is another matter. I'd rather not discuss labels, but substance."Safed Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu said Wednesday a "war was brewing" on the issue of women's enlistment in the IDF. Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman previously announced Eliyahu was barred from IDF events after he called on Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot to resign. Speaking at a conference on Jewish law, Eliyahu once again went after his quarry.

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"The chief of staff is pulling the rope is far as it can go with us, and needs to realize that if you pull a rope too much it will eventually tear," Rabbi Eliyahu threatened. "You all heard the IDF spokesman, how he lied and distorted data strictly to market his own agenda.

"There's a war brewing here. We canand shouldwin this war. At the end of the day, you have to realize our students are in our hands, not theirs. Even female students receive an education instructing them to make the necessary sacrifices at our institutions."

Safed Rabbi Eliyahu said there was a 'war brewing' on the issue of women's enlistment in the IDF (Photo: Eli Mendelbaum)

The Safed rabbi then impugned soldiers' conduct in a Jerusalem terrorist attack last year, as well as during the incident involving Palestinian teen provocateur Ahed Tamimi . "If soldiers in East Talpiot are running away from an attack, that's a warning sign. If they're scared when a girl slaps them , that's a warning sign."

"There are only two countries with mandatory army conscription laws for women on the books," Eliyahu further maintained. "They are Israel and North Korea. We don't have to be like North Korea."

Dozens of rabbis in public positions, including heads of pre-army preparatory programs, heads of hesder yeshivas and military rabbis, sent a letter to Defense Minister Lieberman protesting his decision to bar Eliyahu and two other rabbis from IDF events over their controversial positions, it was revealed during the conference.

"The rabbis are stating the position of Halakha (religious Jewish lawed). We stand behind them as one," the letter said. "We therefore strongly protest your words against Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, Rabbi Shlomo Aviner and Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu."

"Rabbis have a duty to speak up and issue decrees in accordance with Halakha at least as much as any other public official has the right to speak their mind. The rabbis' duty to speak up and issue Halakha-based rulings are at the very heart of Judaism," the letter continued.

Dozens of rabbis holding public positions wrote Defense Minister Lieberman to say they fully supported the blacklisted rabbis (Photo: Hadas Parush/Flash90)

"We have been chosen to communicate the Halakha's positions to the public. Anyone not doing so is shirking their duty. We stand as one behind the rabbis who spoke their mind, and will not allow anyone to harm them," the letter concluded.

Eliyahu also personally targeted Defense Minister Lieberman in his diatribe. "Right now the IDF's ideal is full gender equality and that train is hurtling forward full speed ahead. Does the army belong to Lieberman's father? Where does he get the nerve? Are you going to gag us? We'll face that runaway train head-on," Eliyahu vowed.

The rabbi then addressed his audience, and asked them to "pick up the phone and call all of the Bayit Yehudi MKs. (Bayit Yehudi Chairman Naftali) Bennett called me impudent a second after I spoke up against female conscription. Call Bennett, (MK Eli) Ben-Dahan, (MK Moti) Yogev and everyone else. They won't be able to take it. It's war, and it won't end until Eisenkot leaves."

Rabbi Eliyahu called on the conference's attendees to inundate Bayit Yehudi chief Bennett, who criticized him, with phone calls (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)

The conference's organizer Rabbi Rachamim Nisimi said, "The conference was not intended to give strength to Rabbi Eliyahu, but Rabbi Eliyahu came here and gave us strength. The people are with us and the media had better realize that."

Israeli women's NGO Na'amat Chairperson Galia Wolloch commented on Eliyahu's statements, and said, "There is indeed a war brewingover the IDF and the State of Israel's values. A popular army will be one in which men serve alongside women, and those going against the public are those hard-line rabbis.

"Women's contribution to both the IDF and Israel much surpasses their own, and their contemptible words won't derail the continued integration of women into the IDF and Israeli society. Women can command a flight squadron , they can touch the sky and anything in between. There are and will continue to be female combat soldiers in the air, sea and on land."WASHINGTON - The US military carried out an unsuccessful test to shoot down an incoming dummy missile from Hawaii on Wednesday, a US official said, amid heightened concerns about North Korea's developing missile and nuclear program.

The official, speaking on the condition, said a SM-3 Block IIA missile was launched from an Aegis Ashore test site in Hawaii, but failed to hit another missile launched from an aircraft.

The missile, which is being developed by Raytheon Co , is used to target intermediate range missiles and is being developed with Japan.

The Missile Defense Agency did not comment on the outcome of the test, but confirmed that one had taken place.

"The Missile Defense Agency and US Navy sailors manning the Aegis Ashore Missile Defense Test Complex (AAMDTC) conducted a live-fire missile flight test using a Standard-Missile (SM)-3 Block IIA missile launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Kauai, Hawaii, Wednesday morning," Mark Wright, a spokesman for the agency, said.

An intercept test for the missile last June also failed, but there was a successful test in early 2017.The new year has signalled a new beginning for the Perth property market, with agents reporting a surge in demand for rental properties and increased buyer confidence.

As a result, Shane Kempton, CEO of Professionals Real Estate Group, is advising Perth renters to lock in rents now due to a significant tightening of the market. He added that the number of vacant rental properties has dropped by almost 3,000 over the past two years.

In particular, he said, we are finding very strong demand for established family homes that have easy access to the city centre  and these homes are being leased within 7 to 14 days when they become vacant.

Over 2018, we expect this wave of rental demand to spread across the overall Perth rental market as demand for rental properties starts to outstrip supply.

According to Gavin Hegney, company director of Gavin Hegney Property, while the Perth property market began 2017 in the doldrums, this year opened with better prospects for the Western Australian capital.

He forecasted that trade-up buyers would continue to be active this year, one of the first signs of market recovery.

The next area to watch for is the rental market, which will assist in the broader market, and we are already seeing the velocity of properties turning over quickly and the number of properties available for rent dropping, he told the Domain Group. So there are already signs there that the rental market is starting to correct.





Related Stories:

Housing Affordability Surges In WA

Perths Rental Market Has Begun To Rebound



The University Of Cape Coast is one of the Ghanaian reputable institutions of higher learning offering quality education. Ucc has subsidiary campuses located at Winneba and Kumasi. It has incorporated learning with modern technologies so that they are able to bring forth liberal, professional and comprehensive programs that stir up innovation, creativity with a final outcome of a fully fledged ethical professional.

With the emphasized need for education either through regular student programs or professional seeking further advancement, the UCC distance education came into place. In addition to these categories, there is also a program for Full-Time Regular students, Ghanaian Fee Paying students and foreign students. This piece puts on emphasis on the UCC distance education Ghana. The following is the approved fees schedule for UCCs fresh, continuing and final year students as per their respective courses.

UCC Distance Education Fees

Although, distance learning students do not attend classes as the regular ones do. There are fees applicable which includes the Tuition, preparatory classes fees, examination fees among others. It is also worthwhile noting that the UCC distance education fees do not include the accommodation fees. Below is the fee tied to diploma, post-diploma and graduate courses:

Programme Fresh student Continuing students Final Year students

Diploma- Basic Education & 2,110 ghs 1,179 ghs 1,720 ghs

Early Childhood Education

Diploma Business Administration 2,451ghs 1,697ghs 2,057ghs

Post-Diploma (B.Ed) 2,153 ghs 1,762 ghs N/A

Post-Diploma Business Administration 3,034 ghs 2,609 ghs N/A

Post Diploma B.SC in VOTECH 1,726 ghs 1,457 ghs 1,890 ghs

Post-graduate diploma Mentoring 2,773ghs N/A 2,217ghs

BBA/BSc in Business Administration 2,436ghs 2,046ghs 2,490ghs

BSc. in IT 2,436 ghs 2,046 ghs 2,490 ghs

MEd in Maths, Science and English 3,463ghs N/A 3,109ghs

MA in Mentorship by Distance 3,463ghs N/A 3,109ghs

This fee is not the comprehensive charge for offering the above courses. Students may have to incur other charges such as accommodation, UEW Endowment Trust Fund and for the final year students a congregation fee. This is the UCC distance education programmes schedule at the www.ucc.edu.gh. The UCC Distance Education fees should be paid the UCC account either at Ghana Commercial Bank, Agric. Development Bank, National Investment Bank, Zenith Bank, Unibank Ghana or Prudential Bank.

READ ALSO: University of Ghana Legon fees

,

There are many courses offered at the University of Cape coast in their different schools, faculties and departments. In the faculty of education, there are specialties such as in humanities, humanities  VOTEC, Science, and Science - VOTEC. The science department has various studies such as nursing, physical science, psychology, agriculture, forensic science, biomedical sciences, biochemistry, entomology, medical lab technology among many others. School of business has business administration. In the faculty of Arts are courses on social sciences, music & dance, theater studies, communication studies, tourism & hospitality Mgt, Population & health, African studies just to mention but a few courses.

These courses are offered in an academic year which comprises of two semesters. It is then designed to be suitable for holiday, evening and distance learning students. The UCC Distance Education is clearly a value package and has helped extend expertise through passing on of knowledge.

READ ALSO: University of Ghana's notable alumni

Source: Yen.com.gh-Chief Dauda Bawumia has denied reports that he has been abandoned by his brother, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia

-Chief Bawumia has said Dr Bawumia has been very supportive since he fell sick

-The elder Bawumia, a former Ambassador to Burkina Faso, has been ill for about a year now

Click here for the latest news in Ghana

Ghanas former Ambassador to Burkina Faso, Chief Dauda Mandiaya Bawumia, has denied reports making rounds that he has been abandoned by his brother, Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, since he fell sick.

Dr Mahamudu Bawumia

READ ALSO: Top 3 bad decisions veteran actor Psalm Adjetefio 'TT' has taken in life which made him cry during interview with Delay

According to Chief Bawumia, who is an elder brother to Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, his younger brother has been very supportive in his upkeep ever since he took ill.

Chief Bawumia is reported to have fallen ill about a year ago. Reports of the him surfaced after former President John Mahama visited him at his Lapaz residence in Accra and donated an undisclosed amount for his upkeep.

Chief Bawumia with former President Mahama

According to a report by Mynewsgh.com, the former Ambassador in an interview, said the claims that he had been abandoned were coming from propagandists who wanted to make political capital out of the situation.

READ ALSO: Photo of me visiting Bawumia in London is false - Ibn Chambas

I am an adult above 60 years, how can I be talking about somebody abandoning me? All my brothers and sisters including the Vice President have been very supportive so it is not true that anybody has abandoned me. All of them have been here to see me including Mahamudu and Baba. Even when he is outside the country, he makes contacts to find out how I am faring. There is difference between politics and the familyafter politics the family is still intact, Chief Bawumia said.

Wondering why people will try to force divisions in his family, he insisted that the family is still going to remain very united.

I want to use this medium to tell the whole world that I have not been abandoned and such claims must immediately be treated with the contempt it deserves, he added.

READ ALSO: 'Osofo Maame' who mistakenly sent birthday suit videos to church Whatsapp group attempts to take her life

Vice President Dr Bawumia is currently in London on medical leave, after falling sick on January 19. Latest information suggests he will returning to Ghana on Friday.

Your stories and photos are always welcome.

Send us a message via our official Facebook and/or Instagram page to get it published on YEN.com.gh

Source: Yen.com.gh- The young man was arrested while in military uniform

- He has been handed over to the police for further investigations

Yen.com.gh brings to you the latest news in Ghana

Some senior officers of the Ghana Armed Forces have arrested a 27-year-old young man believed to be a fake soldier.

According to a GhanaWeb.com report, Prince Ferguson Essel was arrested at Ntoaso in the Eastern Region for parading himself as a soldier and also extorting, abusing people in the area.

The report says Essel was arrested by two senior military officers from 37 Military Hospital and Burma Camp during their visit to the area following a tip-off.

READ ALSO: Ghanaian actress on a 'war' path with 'lazy' bloggers

The suspect has been handed over to the Nsawam Police Command for further questioning after a search at his residence revealed some items including three military uniforms, a kit bag, a water pack, a baret with a military crown.

READ ALSO: Gitmo 2 running business in Ghana - Government speaks

Some desert boots and military belts all which is said to be aiding him play out his fake military role was also discovered from his room.

In a video circulating across social media platforms, the military officers were seen subjecting the suspect to severe beatings, to apparently get him confess his sins.

Meanwhile, police investigators are yet to find out details of his operations.

READ ALSO: Parliament hiring Invisible, Delta Forces  Apaak blows alarm

YEN.com.gh is building a platform where Ghanaians can share local news and own experiences with each other. Witnessing an incident? Want to tell about a local problem? Know someone who is extremely talented and needs recognition? Your stories and photos are always welcome. Message us on Facebook now

Source: Yen- Kennedy Agyapong believes Bawumia collapsed at the Flagstaff House

- The vice president is expected to be in Ghana by end of the week

- Click here for the latest stories in Ghana

Maverick politician and member of parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong claims to have been told that the vice president, Mahamudu Bawumia, collapsed thus leading to his medical leave abroad.

READ ALSO: 4 signs she is dating two guys at a time

Kennedy Agyapong says he was told by the CEO of the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), Yoofi Grant, that the Vice president had collapsed at the Flagstaff House compelling government to fly him to London for emergency treatment.

Kennedy Agyapong states that Yoofi Grant had told him how the vice president had collapsed while working from his officer at the seat of the presidency.

I didnt even know number two [Dr. Bawumia] was sick. I was at Landmark Hotel and decided to step down for my breakfast. Then I saw someone wave at me. It was Yofi Grant. He was the only one seated so I went and sat beside him. Then he said there was something wrong with number two so I asked what it was. He told me he had collapsed, Kennedy Agyapong stated.

So far, the cause of Bawumia's illness remains unknown by the public as the government insists he is doing very well. The news of Dr Bawumias ill health was disclosed in a press release by the Chief of Staff, Frema Opare, who stated that he left the country in the company of his wife, Samira Bawumia, on the advice of his doctors. A lot has been said since his departure to London to seek medical care, with reports from certain quarters suggesting he is suffering from a stroke.

READ ALSO: 4 signs she is dating two guys at a time

These claims have been advanced on social media by some Ghanaians, who are perceived to be sympathizers of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) leader. Meanwhile YEN.com.gh is learning that the vice president will be touching down in Ghana by Friday, February 2nd.

YEN.com.gh is building a platform where Ghanaians can share local news and own experiences with each other. Witnessing an incident? Want to tell about a local problem? Know someone who is extremely talented and needs recognition? Your stories and photos are always welcome. Message us on Facebook now.

Source: Yen NewspaperThe scene on a Napa theater stage was as spare as could be  just a teenage girl on a bare stage, illuminating verses and stanzas as a spotlight cast light on her face.

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole 

The lines of William Ernest Hensleys Invictus flowed from the lips of Kristie Chau, gaining punch and momentum seemingly beyond the bounds of the high school freshmans slim frame. The verbal drama surged in and back out again in little more than a minute, before the 14-year-old American Canyon student serenely sounded out the final words:

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.

Chau and five other local teens were the stars of Napas Poetry Out Loud recital competition, an annual event organized by Arts Council Napa Valley. For two fortunate performers  those favored by a panel of five judges in the front row  the Monday night contest at the Lucky Penny Productions theater would be a springboard to a statewide contest and, perhaps, to a national final in Washington, D.C.

Poetry Out Loud is a joint effort of the California Arts Council, Poetry Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts to promote verse and recitation among high school students. In Napa County, local high schools sent the winners of classroom contests to the Monday event, according to organizers.

The point is to, while bringing the poem to life, also respect the intention of the author, said Bethany Crown, an Arts Council program coordinator and the organizer of Poetry Out Loud.

Each reciter selected two pieces from the Poetry Foundations online registry of hundreds of works, both classic and modern. The contrasts between one poem and the other were often jarring  and for Olivia Boles, the first to take the stage, that was entirely intentional.

While Boles chose George Herberts Love (III) because I felt I should have something thats lovey-dovey, the 16-year-old Justin-Siena junior also added the acid-tongued Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Rezervation, with which she opened the contest.

It had a striking name, and some lines that mean a lot to me. I really like the challenge it makes to society; its hard-hitting, she said of the Natalie Diaz composition, an attack on the conquest of indigenous North American peoples that includes lines like Everyone knows angels are white.

While the judges  four poets and an actor  scored performances for phrasing, physical presence and understanding, a sixth judge sat at the same table keeping track of any dropped or extraneous words; all poems are required to be recited from memory.

Sabrina Leipziger had set an especially high bar for her memory; her second piece, Mina Loys Lunar Baedeker, opens with the kaleidoscopic lines:

A silver Lucifer

serves

cocaine in cornucopia

To some somnambulists

of adolescent thighs

draped

in satirical draperies 

During her rehearsals, said the 15-year-old New Technology High School sophomore, I would write it out, three or four times from memory, and then Id compare it to the poem and ask myself, Did I miss anything?

An hour later, the judges results came in; Boles was named the winner and would be entered into Californias Poetry Out Loud event March 18-19 in Sacramento. Joining her would be her Justin-Siena schoolmate Mary Cate Hyde, whose reading of Dorothy Parkers Love Song had drawn the audiences laughs with the over-the-top outbursts of the poems jilted lover: My own dear love, he is all my heart and I wish somebodyd shoot him!

Chau, meanwhile, appeared gratified simply to have reached the finish line of a path that led her from the stoicism of Invictus to the warm-hearted spirit of Jimmy Santiago Bacas I Am Offering This Poem, in which she wrapped her arms around herself to punctuate the narrators hopes for a beloved to keep the verses like a warm coat when winter comes to cover you.

Relieved, she answered afterward with a nervous exhale and laugh. Very relieved.

Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.Ghanaian Dancehall stalwart, Shatta Wale is set to be unveiled as the latest artiste of Zylofon Media.

In a marriage of arguably, the biggest artiste in Ghana and the biggest creative arts outfit in the country, Shatta Wale will reportedly receive a mouthwatering package for his signage.

Apart from a reported signing on fee of $1.5 million, Shatta is expected to receive a house at a yet to be disclosed location and a GHC4 million Rolls Royce.

READ ALSO: Isaac Dogboe will kill you - Joshua Clottey warns Emmanuel Tagoe

Commanding a lot of support through his Shatta Movement, fans thronged the offices of Zylofon Media to support their 'King', Shatta Wale.

Amidst drumming and dancing the fans waited excitedly for Shattas arrival.

Some other artistes and celebrities signed onto the Zylofon Media label have already arrived for the ceremony

Shatta Wale himself, YEN.com.gh understands was in a convoy heading for the offices of Zylofon Media at the time of this report.

Your stories and photos are always welcome.

Send us a message via our official Facebook and/or Instagram page to get it published on YEN.com.gh.

Source: Yen GhanaA train carrying members of Congress -- including House Speaker Paul Ryan -- to their legislative retreat in West Virginia hit a truck Wednesday, multiple sources told CNN.

An aide confirmed Ryan was on the train and is fine.

Separately, a congressman on the train told CNN most of the staff and members on the train are OK.

Here's a look at everyone who was on the train (list of members will be updated):

House Speaker Paul Ryan Rep. French Hilll, R-Arkansas Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Washington Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Michigan Rep. Rick Allen, R-Georgia Rep. Susan Brooks, R-Indiana Rep. Ron Estes, R-Kansas Rep. Steve Womack, R-Arkansas Sen. Mike Rounds, R-South Dakota Rep. Keith Rothfus, R-Pennsylvania Rep. Alex Mooney, R-West Virginia Rep. Martha McSally, R-Arizona Rep. Don Bacon, R-Nebraska Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas Rep. Steve Daines, R-Montana Rep. Drew Ferguson, R-Georgia

CNN's Dana Bash, Phil Mattingly and Liz Landers contributed to this report.Two women went to jail Monday night, found with copper pipes and wiring from a firefighter's Mark West Springs Road property burned in the October Tubbs fire, according to the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office.

The local firefighter helped catch the two women after being alerted by a neighbor that someone was on his property, Sheriff's Sgt. Travis Koeppel said Tuesday.

The firefighter, who wasn't identified, headed for the address in the 2500 block and found the two women on his land with a pickup bed full of burned pipes and wiring. He called deputies about 5:30 p.m. and used his vehicle to block the women from driving away.

An investigation found the women had taken the damaged copper and deputies arrested Allyn Sullivan, 57, of Forestville and Verda Roser, 47, of San Francisco on suspicion of grand theft and conspiracy, Koeppel said.

They were booked into the Sonoma County Jail but released early Tuesday after posting bail.

Mark West Springs Road was the path taken by the massive Tubbs fire Oct. 9 and 10, as it burned from Calistoga into Santa Rosa, devouring thousands of homes."Andy McCabe dedicated his life to serving his country, leading countless investigations protecting American lives," former FBI agent Clint Watts said Monday on Twitter. "In return he's been bullied by politicians & battered by parts of the American public -- a travesty."

It's not just any politician who has bullied McCabe, though. It's the president himself. Since last July, Trump has tweeted at McCabe at least five times. It must have been super-fun to be on the receiving end of hostile, leave-your-FBI-job-now tweets from someone who seems to be obstructing justice to evade an obstruction of justice investigation -- and have that guy also be the president. Super-fun.

McCabe is prominent roadkill No. 2 at the FBI. Trump famously fired one of McCabe's mentors at the bureau, James Comey, who at the time was spearheading the Russia investigation. The FBI's inspector general is now conducting an internal probe -- requested by Republicans -- of how Comey handled the investigation of Hillary Clinton's email servers. The IG is also examining the circumstances surrounding $500,000 in contributions that a Clinton ally gave to McCabe's wife when she ran for state political office in 2015. (McCabe didn't become the FBI's deputy director until early 2016, months after his wife lost her race.)The Clif Family Winery will be sponsoring a "Sip & Support" event from 4:30 to 7 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 31 at the Clif Family Tasting Room at 709 Main St. in St. Helena.

Twenty percent of proceeds will go to the St. Helena Firefighter's bid to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and the society's "Scott Safety Climb for Leukemia" in Seattle, Wash. on March 11. The Clif Family Bruschetta Truck will be at the Sip & Support event as well.Because of tax cuts, Disney recently announced a $1,000 bonus for more than 125,000 employees. The company also plans to invest $50 million into a new employee education program.

And Disneys not alone. To date, more than 200 U.S. employers have announced pay hikes, 401(k) increases, and bonuses because of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Over 2 million working Americans are reaping the benefits.

Its not only a massive win for President Trump and Congress, but also free-market economic theory. For years, conservatives have argued that a lower tax burden empowers employers by allowing them to keep more of their hard-earned money and distribute it as they deem fit. Employees and job-seekers ultimately benefit because job creators, when they see tax savings, invest in new hiring, wage increases, and other payouts.

As Disney recently proved, its not just a theory. Tax cuts work in practice.

Michael Clark

Reemelin Chair in Economics

Hillsdale CollegeWith a nod to the past, present and future, Founders Week kicks off Feb. 6 with a Distinguished Faculty Lecture presented by acclaimed Emory historian Carol Anderson, who received the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism for her book "White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide. Emory Photo/Video

Editor's note: The Distinguished Faculty Lecture scheduled for Feb. 6 has been canceled because the main speaker, Carol Anderson, is ill. A new date will be announced as soon as possible.

Emory historian Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor and chair of African American Studies at Emory, will present this years John F. Morgan Sr. Distinguished Faculty Lecture, a traditional highlight of Emory Founders Week.

White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide will be the focus of her lecture, to be delivered Tuesday, Feb. 6, from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Cox Hall Ballroom. The presentation, which will be immediately followed by a reception, is free and open to the public.

A nationally acclaimed historian, Anderson drew critical praise and fed national dialogue in 2016 when she published her book White Rage, which examines how racism and racial prejudice have long been infused into public policy in the United States.

A New York Times bestseller, White Rage went on to receive multiple literary honors, including the National Book Critics Circle Award. In announcing the award, the NBCC described her book as a searing critique of white Americas systemic resistance to African American advancement.

At Emory, Andersons research and teaching focus has been public policy, particularly the ways that domestic and international policies intersect through issues of race, justice and equality in the United States.

Her research has garnered numerous national grants and awards, and she has also served on working groups addressing issues of race, minority rights, and criminal justice. She has also been the recipient of many teaching awards.

In addition to Anderson's lecture, the afternoon will also include the presentation of the Albert E. Levy Scientific Research Award in the junior faculty division to Muralidhar Padala, assistant professor of cardiothoracic surgery in the School of Medicine. The honor is given annually by the Office of the Provost's university research committee to recognize Emory faculty contributions to the advancement of scientific knowledge.

The Feb. 6 event formally launch activities for Emory Founders Week, an annual celebration that commemorates the first meeting of the Emory Board of Trustees on Feb. 6, 1837, following the founding of Emory College.

Students welcomed as new alumni

A new addition to Founders Week this year will be the Student Alumni Associations (SAA) Induction Celebration. Formerly called the Sophomore Pinning Ceremony, this event marks a rite of passage for Emory students on their journey toward becoming full alumni.

The tradition of recognizing Emory students as alumni after two semesters draws upon the lore of Atlanta business leader and philanthropist Robert W. Woodruff, who completed one semester at Emory before leaving to begin his storied career as a titan of business, notes Gary Hauk, university historian and senior adviser to the president.

This was in an era when the college degree was less critical to success in a wide range of careers, and most non-finishers were included in the Emory alumni directory of 1926, explains Hauk, adding that Woodruff is remembered as Emorys most generous benefactor.

Second-year students who will be receiving their pins already have gone two semesters beyond Mr. Woodruffs accomplishment at Emory, he says. Who knows what extraordinary achievements await them?

This year, about 1,400 second-year students have been invited to participate in the SAA celebration. In recognition of Woodruff, everyone who has completed two semesters at Emorys Atlanta and Oxford campuses is considered a student alumnus, according to the Emory Alumni Association.

This years celebration will be Wednesday, Feb. 7, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the Cox Hall Ballroom.

For the pinning ceremony, students are invited to bring a guest from the Emory community who has been influential during their academic journey  be it an older student, alumnus, faculty or staff member  to pin them.

The celebration is planned to coincide with Emorys All in a Day annual day of giving, a concentrated 24-hour fundraising campaign launched last year during the inauguration of Emory President Claire E. Sterk to invite donors to help write the next chapter in the universitys story.

A celebration of authors

Founders Week will also feature A Feast of Words, a celebration of Emory faculty authors or editors of books published in 2017. The popular event will be held Monday, Feb. 12, from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Jones Room of the Woodruff Library. Wine and hors doeuvres will be served.

Sponsored by the AJC-Decatur Book Festival and hosted by Emorys Center for Faculty Development and Excellence, Emory Libraries and Information Technology, and Barnes and Noble, this years reception will open with a toast and remarks by Emory President Claire E. Sterk and Provost Dwight McBride.

Those interested in attending should RSVP here.Emorys Conversations with America came to campus for a robust town hall bringing together a panel of experts and the public to discuss many facets of the U.S. opioid crisis.

If there was ever any doubt that the United States is grappling with a far-reaching opioid crisis, it was answered Jan. 24 at an Emory town hall discussion with one simple question.

Forty-four percent of Americans say yes, they have known someone who has been addicted to prescription painkillers. How many here know a close friend or relative? asked Peter D. Hart, the NBC and Wall Street Journal pollster leading a series of discussions launched by Emory to foster a deeper understanding of Americas views on critical issues.

Throughout the crowded presentation room in Emorys Oxford Road building, hands from roughly half the audience shot up.

If you look around, this is no longer just somebody thats down the road. Its right in your own family, your acquaintance, your best friend, Hart said. Its no longer relegated to a small group of people  everyone is there.

The town hall meeting on the opioid crisis was part of Emorys Conversations with America, a series conducted in collaboration with Hart that is convening focus groups across the country to help advance civil discourse on difficult issues. The series kicked off Aug. 29 in Pittsburgh with a focus on immigration issues.

Throughout the Emory event, Hart showed video clips from the second focus group in the series, which was conducted in Wilmington, North Carolina. Held Nov. 15, that conversation featured a diverse cross-section of local residents discussing their opinions about the opioid epidemic.

Using recent survey data, Hart showed the packed Emory audience a series of slides illustrating how the rate of opioid use has spiked dramatically in the U.S. over the last five years, cutting across all demographics.

Who is responsible? How do we look at it? Hart asked. Do we look at it, indeed, as an illness or a weakness? How do we handle it? Where do we go? Prosecute? Provide treatment?

Addiction: Everyones problem

For Emory President Claire E. Sterk, who opened last weeks town hall, the issue of addiction is especially relevant. As a social scientist and public health expert, Sterk has spent decades working on major public health issues that have included HIV/AIDS and addiction.

I come from a culture that strongly believes in the philosophy that if somebody has a problem with opioids, the last thing we should do is blame them and turn him or her into a criminal, said Sterk, who is also Charles Howard Candler Professor of Public Health.

Because at the end of the day, addiction is a societal problem  its a problem for all of us. Its a sign that something is wrong in the world in which we live.

That means we collectively are responsible for not stigmatizing people, for thinking about solutions and for having the kind of conversations we are going to have today, Sterk added, thanking those present for their commitment to be part of the conversation, to learn from each other.

The dialogue opened with remarks by three panelists who shared expertise on facets of the opioid crisis. Here are some of the highlights:

John Jack Killorin, director of the Atlanta-Carolinas High Intensity Drug Trafficking program

A Navy veteran who served in Vietnam, Killorin noted that some 58,000 American lives were lost in the conflict. Last year, we lost 63,000 Americans to opioid overdose, he said. We live in a country that has 6 percent of the worlds population; we consume 96 percent of the opioid medications produced in the world.

Opioid addiction feeds ancillary criminal issues. But there is a role for law enforcement in the crisis beyond arresting substance abusers. We do not want to lock you up. What we want to do is administer Naloxone and save your life on the scene. We want to build systems with our partners in the community  if you are suffering from abuse disorder, we want to get you into a treatment program. And we believe in you and your chances to make it back and have a rich life.

The crisis does have a criminal component. Transnational gangsters now make about $26 billion a year feeding our national hunger for painkillers. Thats where law enforcement does and should have a role, he said.

Debra Houry, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions National Center for Injury Prevention and Control and a former associate professor in Emorys Department of Emergency Medicine

As an emergency room doctor at Grady Hospital for 15 years, Hourys views on the opioid epidemic have evolved. Some say We never saw it coming. I will say, I kind of saw it coming, she said. Over the years, Houry saw a rise in patients arriving for opioid abuse, addiction issues, substance abuse disorders and referrals for pain management.

There are now about 230 million prescriptions for opioids administered in the U.S. on an annual basis. Thats enough for every single adult to have a bottle of pills around the clock for three weeks, Houry said. Thats too much.

About three years ago, Houry took on a CDC project to outline Opioid Prescribing Guidelines for Chronic Pain, which has helped decrease opioid prescriptions over the last two years. While the guidelines advocate prescribing non-opioid medications for chronic pain first, were still at three times (opioid prescriptions) what we were at in 1999, she said. My concern is we primed the pump, so a lot of people became addicted to prescription pills and have then gone on to misuse heroin and now fentanyl, which we know is just killing people due to its potency.

The CDC is now funding prevention programs across the country that work with health systems to employ syndromic surveillance to help identify non-fatal overdoses in emergency departments. The data are then used to issue health advisories and activate agencies to a quest to prevent fatalities. My goal is to prevent people from getting addicted in the first place, she said.

David Laws, founding member of Georgia Overdose Prevention, a grassroots organization of parents, health care professionals, advocates and friends formed to advocate for the passage of the Georgia 911 Medical Amnesty Law

In 2013, Laws lost his daughter, Laura Hope, to an accidental overdose. A high school senior and varsity goalie, she had been prescribed a powerful opiate painkiller for injuries sustained from being kicked in the face during a soccer match.

There are statistics that say if you are exposed to an opioid by 21, you have an 80 percent chance of developing a substance abuse disorder, he said. I didnt know the repercussions of an opiate being prescribed to a young person of 15, what it does to the brain, how they like it so fast.

Laws helped lobby for passage of the Georgia 911 Medical Amnesty Law, which provides protection for those seeking assistance for someone experiencing a drug overdose. Under the bill, signed in 2014 by Gov. Nathan Deal, neither a caller nor a victim can be arrested, charged or prosecuted for small amounts of drugs, alcohol or drug paraphernalia as a result of seeking medical assistance.

The law also increases access to the opioid overdose antidote Naloxone, also called Narcan, which physicians may prescribe to assist those at risk of opioid overdose and to first responders, pain management clinics and harm reduction organizations.

Since then, there have been 1,100 overdose reversals that we know of and 174 law enforcement agencies throughout the state that now have access to Naloxone because of the law we passed and helped facilitate, Laws said.

The Emory presentation concluded with about 45 minutes of audience discussion, touching on topics that included the impact of drug dependency on families, the role that stigma plays in addressing addiction, what drives Americans to seek comfort in prescription pills, what college campuses can do to help, and how physicians can moderate prescription practices.

If the question is who has the magic wand, you are the magic wand, Killorin said. The answers will be slow for a long time. (The opioid crisis) was 10 years coming and it will be 10 years out. We can already see the next wave.

To view past Conversations with America events, visit here.The Medical Council of India, also known as MCI, has barred students pursuing or have completed their 10+2 certificate examination through open or distance mode, from appearing for common medical entrance through NEET 2018.

The National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) falls under the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry. This decision has been criticized by many saying that this would deprive thousands of students of the opportunity to pursue a medical education.

According to an official, HRD minister Prakash Javadekar and Union health minister JP Nadda will further discuss this proposition over the course of a few meetings. The final decision will be revealed in January itself.

With the current decision in play, there will be a decrease in the number of students for the screening process. Every year, more than 2 lakh students register with NIOS. In 2017, nearly 3,000 NIOS students registered for NEET. An official with NIOS was quoted saying, Across India, the number would be higher. Out of 3,000 NIOS students [in 2017], 864 qualified the test too. So it is unfair to bar them.

In an official letter to NIOS, the Medical Council of India said that they examined the proposal to allow students of open board and distance education to take the examination. However, concluded that NIOS students would not be on the same level as those from regular mode. A line from the official letter issued by MCI in 2017, read they would be ineligible for National Eligibility cum Entrance Test on an equitable basis.

NIOS officials have challenged this decision, claiming that the MCI board of governors had earlier said that if the required criteria of graduate medical education is fulfilled by students appearing in 10+2 certificate exams conducted by NIOS, then these students will be eligible for MBBS admission.

NIOS officials pointed out that the syllabus for open board exams is rigorous and students are examined on the syllabus for class XI and XII making them eligible for NEET. While other boards examine learners have to go through class XII syllabus only.

However, MCI official said We cant equate regular students with those who complete class 12th from correspondence as the latter dont get practical lessons, This decision has caused quite a stir in the medical community, with people either supporting or opposing it. While there are a few supporters of this bill, there are many who oppose it. The final decision on the matter is still pending.People across Japan enjoyed the first total lunar eclipse in nearly 3 years on Wednesday night.

The phenomenon occurs when the sun, earth, and full moon line up, and the moon is covered by the earth's shadow.

The moon began to wane at around 8:48 PM.

The full eclipse started at around 9:51 PM and lasted about 1 hour and 17 minutes. The moon glowed dark red during that time.

The eclipse ended at around 0:11 AM.

The last total lunar eclipse visible in Japan took place in April 2015.

The next total eclipse that can be seen across the country from beginning to end will occur on November 8th, 2022.We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription.Morocco and the European Union have initialed in Brussels this Wednesday (January 31) a document strengthening their partnership under the farm agreement binding the two parties.

The signing of this document is part of the strengthening of the Morocco-European agricultural partnership on the basis of the farm agreement between the two parties, said Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita.

Bourita, in a statement to MAP, described the document signing as an important step in a process that will continue in the coming weeks.

This is an important step in a process that will continue in the coming weeks to strengthen this important pillar of the relationship between Morocco and the European Union, he said.

Minister of Agriculture, Maritime Fisheries, Rural Development and Waters and Forests, Aziz Akhannouch, who attended the signing ceremony, had held on January 23 talks with European Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Karmenu Vella.

Talks had focused on the strategic cooperation between Morocco and the European Union, in particular in the field of fisheries.A crisis is brewing between the two West African neighbors, Mauritania and Senegal. It all started after Mauritanian coast guards shot dead two Senegalese fishermen.

The incident has propelled Senegal to deploy a warship in its sea borders with Mauritania.

Senegalese voiced their outrage at the killing of the two fishermen with hundred protesters taking to the streets of the northwest coastal city of Saint-Louis.

The protests turned violent attacking shops owned by Mauritanians and overturning cars, setting them ablaze, before police moved in with tear gas to disperse them.

Mauritanian news sources said that the coast guard opened fire after the Senegalese fishing boat with nine members on board were found operating in Mauritanias territorial waters near the border between the West African neighbors.

This is not the first time the Mauritanian coastguard has clashed with Senegalese fishermen operating along their waters. Last year, more than 20 Senegalese fishermen were arrested by Mauritanian authorities for fishing illegally inside their territory. Some were wounded.Washington, DC (1/30/18) -- President Donald Trump is scheduled to address a joint session of Congress with his first State of the Union address tonight. Among his invited guests will be two U.S. military veterans: Corporal Matthew Bradford, the first blind, double amputee to re-enlist in the Marine Corps after suffering injuries from an IED explosion, and Staff Sergeant Justin Peck whose heroic actions saved a fellow soldier's life following an IED explosion in Syria. The President's guests were announced publicly on Monday.

President Trump's State of the Union address is scheduled to begin around 9pm tonight in the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, DC.

Courtesy of PRNewsNow former CDC head Brenda Fitzgerald. Photo: Branden Camp/AP

Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald resigned Wednesday morning as the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention less than a full day after Politico reported that she purchased stock in a tobacco company shortly after assuming the post in July.

During her time at the CDC, Fitzgeralds investments were a consistent issue, often forcing her to recuse herself from testimony because of potential conflicts of interest. Senators from both parties criticized her apparent unwillingness to divest, leading Fitzgerald earlier this month to promise to work on getting rid of the financial holdings.

But Politicos revelation that she invested in a tobacco company after assuming a role in which she is supposed to fight smoking has apparently sunk Fitzgerald. A statement from the Department of Health and Human Services made no mention of Fitzgeralds investment in Japan Tobacco, which sells several brands of cigarettes in the U.S., including Winston and Camel.

Dr. Fitzgerald owns certain complex financial interests that have imposed a broad recusal limiting her ability to complete all of her duties as the CDC Director. Due to the nature of these financial interests, Dr. Fitzgerald could not divest from them in a definitive time period. After advising Secretary Azar of both the status of the financial interests and the scope of her recusal, Dr. Fitzgerald tendered, and the Secretary accepted, her resignation, an HHS spokesperson said in a statement.

A former Georgia Department of Public Health commissioner, Fitzgerald came to the CDC under former HHS director Tom Price, a fellow Georgian. Now she leaves the federal government much as Price did, under a cloud of scandal.Release the memo? No Wray! Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Congressional Republicans say that they have a memo that proves the entire investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government is a baseless sham. The White House wants the memo released to the public.

The director of the FBI, longtime Republican Christopher Wray, does not. According to Bloomberg, Wray believes that said memo is full of inaccuracies, and paints a false narrative of the Bureaus activities. And on Wednesday, the FBI released an official statement saying that it has grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memos accuracy.

This would make sense. After all, it is already a well-established fact that Robert Muellers investigation isnt baseless: The probe has already produced multiple indictments and criminal confessions from Trump campaign members, including one from George Papadopoulos, who admitted that he sought thousands of stolen Clinton emails from a woman he believed to be Vladimir Putins niece.

So, any document that purports to demonstrate that the investigation is a witch hunt is mendacious propaganda, almost by definition. And then theres the track record of the memos author, House Intelligence chairman Devin Nunes. Last year, days after thenFBI director James Comey confirmed the existence of an investigation into the Trump campaign, Nunes announced that the Obama administration had inappropriately unmasked the names of Trump transition officials in intelligence reports. Shortly thereafter, we learned that Nuness source for this information was the White House, and that there was no evidence whatsoever for the claim that Obama administration officials had acted inappropriately. The whole saga turned out to be precisely what it had looked like on first glance  a transparent attempt to distract media attention away from the investigation into Trump.

This happened less than 12 months ago. And now, as the House Speaker openly calls for cleansing the FBI  and the president argues, explicitly and incessantly, that the Justice Departments first responsibility is to protect him (and his friends) from legal accountability  we are supposed to pretend that this memo is not a propagandistic pretense for killing the Mueller investigation and packing the FBI with lackeys for the president.

On Wednesday, White House chief of staff John Kelly endorsed Trumps demand that a memo drafted by an demonstrably untrustworthy source  and contested by the FBI and Justice Department  be released.

This president, John Kelly told Fox News Radio, he wants everything out so the American people can make up their own minds, and if people need to be held accountable, so be it.

Earlier this week, the House Intelligence Committee voted to prohibit the release of an alternative memo on the same subject matter, compiled by the committees Democratic members.The New Jersey Democrat outlasted his tormenters, it seems. Photo: Peter Foley/Bloomberg via Getty Images

In a big personal victory for Senator Robert Menendez  and, indirectly, for Democratic hopes of a successful 2018 midterm election  the Department of Justice has formally filed a court motion to drop its corruption case against the embattled New Jersey lawmaker. This action reversed a decision by prosecutors earlier this month to pursue a retrial of Menendez following the declaration of a hung-jury mistrial in November.

The development that seems to have unraveled the case was a federal judges dismissal of seven of the 18 counts against the senator and his co-defendant, ophthalmologist Salomon Melgen, who was accused of making large campaign contributions and providing extensive perks in exchange for help in a Medicare-fraud case.

Given the impact of the courts Jan. 24 order on the charges and the evidence admissible in a retrial, the United States has determined that it will not retry the defendants on the remaining charges, said a Department of Justice spokeswoman.

The possibility of a retrial had threatened to disrupt Menendezs 2018 reelection campaign. His approval ratings have already tanked after the extensive media coverage of the original trial, and though most of the experts still rated him as a favorite for reelection (his race was listed as Likely Democratic by the Cook Political Report) in his heavily pro-Democratic state, he attracted a primary opponent just a few days ago. The wolf wasnt at the door, but it was in the neighborhood.

Now, Menendez will have some time to repair his standing among voters, while Republicans decide whether its worth the trouble to find a viable challenger and launch an expensive effort to oust him in a bad year and a bad state for them. Odds are theyll look elsewhere for Senate wins.The aftermath of an Amtrak train crashing into a garbage truck. Photo: Zack Wajsgrasu/The Daily Progress via AP

A train carrying Republican lawmakers and staffers to a retreat in West Virginia collided with a trash truck Wednesday morning, killing at least one of the trucks passengers.

Several members of Congress with medical backgrounds helped treat those on the truck, Representative Greg Walden of Oregon tweeted. Senator Jeff Flake told a reporter that he helped emergency crews when they arrived on the scene and said one person aboard the truck had died. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders confirmed the death in a statement.

The president has been fully briefed on the situation in Virginia and is receiving regular updates. There is one confirmed fatality and one serious injury, she said.

There are no serious injuries among members of Congress or their staff. Senior Administration officials are in regular contact with Amtrak and state and local authorities. Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone that has been affected by this incident.

Here's some footage from the scene of the crash https://t.co/zgurwjs4R2  Meg Wagner (@megwagner) January 31, 2018

There was a feeling of an impact and you could feel we had hit something. It took us maybe a quarter-mile to stop, Senator Mike Lee told Ed OKeefe of the Washington Post. He added that some people on the train were roughed up. Most of us hit a knee or a head on the seat in front of us but nothing too serious onboard.

.@maryaliceparks Front of the train heading to the Greenbrier pic.twitter.com/QGUxUbo8m7  Jeff Denham (@RepJeffDenham) January 31, 2018

Lawmakers were on their way to the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, which is owned by West Virginia governor Jim Justice. The retreat will go on as planned with lawmakers making their way via bus.All he is saying is give a war a chance. Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Donald Trump has provided no shortage of ominous signals about his intentions for the Korean peninsula. The president has vowed to meet any gesture of aggression from Pyongyang with a devastating nuclear attack like the world has never seen; boasted that his nuclear button is bigger and more powerful than Kim Jong-uns; and said, while posing for a group photograph with his highest-ranking military advisers, You guys know what this represents? Maybe its the calm before the storm.

Still, as unnerving as these remarks were, it wasnt hard to dismiss them as the weightless provocations of a reality star-in-chief. The president shouldnt issue belligerent threats that have no relation to his administrations actual foreign policy. But he does so all the time. Thus, so long as the signs of imminent war were coming from Trumps Twitter feed  and not from his administrations concrete actions  it was possible to believe that the White House understood that dropping a few missiles on Pyongyang would accomplish nothing beyond the deaths of thousands of innocents.

But the administrations rejection of Victor Cha is a different story. For months, Cha had been preparing to become Americas next ambassador to South Korea. A former director of Asia policy in the George W. Bush administration, Cha is widely respected in Seoul, and widely regarded as a hawk on foreign-policy questions in Washington. In December, the White House formally notified the South Korean government that Trump would ask the Senate to confirm Cha to the ambassadorship.

Less than two months later, Cha is no longer under consideration for the post. The White House has leaked word that the reversal was caused by a red flag in Chas background. But this explanation is difficult to reconcile with the timing of the move: When the administration informed Seoul that Cha was its man, the White House had already been vetting the ambassador for months.

Chas close associates tell a simpler  and scarier  story: The Korea expert told the administration that its plan to launch a limited, bloody nose strike against the Kim Jong-un regime was strategically incoherent, and likely to get tens of thousands of people killed  and the White House promptly lost interest in having him around. As the Washington Post reports:

Two people who know Cha suggested Trump aides had second thoughts on his nomination over policy disagreements with him concerning how to respond to North Koreas nuclear and ballistic missile testing. Cha had forwarded articles to the NSC about the risks of a preemptive U.S. strike, and his colleagues at CSIS, including another former Bush administration official, Michael Green, had published their own analyses warning against such a strategy.

Cha appeared to tacitly confirm this account Tuesday night, when he took the unusual step of publishing a Washington Post op-ed imploring the administration to reconsider its approach to North Korea. In that column, Cha made quick work of the logical contortions the White House must perform to reach the conclusion that the way to stop nuclear proliferation on the Korean peninsula is to drop a couple missiles on Pyongyang:

I empathize with the hope, espoused by some Trump officials, that a military strike would shock Pyongyang into appreciating U.S. strength, after years of inaction, and force the regime to the denuclearization negotiating tablethe rationale is that a strike that demonstrates U.S. resolve to pursue all options is necessary to give the mercurial Kim a bloody nose. Otherwise he will remain undeterred in his nuclear ambitions.

Yet, there is a point at which hope must give in to logic. If we believe that Kim is undeterrable without such a strike, how can we also believe that a strike will deter him from responding in kind? And if Kim is unpredictable, impulsive and bordering on irrational, how can we control the escalation ladder, which is premised on an adversarys rational understanding of signals and deterrence?

Cha then turns his fire on the morally odious argument that the risks are still worth taking because its better that people die over there than over here  and notes that this reasoning makes no sense, even if one stipulates that only American lives have value.

On any given day, there are 230,000 Americans in South Korea and 90,000 or so in Japan. Given that an evacuation of so many citizens would be virtually impossible under a rain of North Korean artillery and missiles (potentially laced with biochemical weapons), these Americans would most likely have to hunker down until the war was overTo be clear: The president would be putting at risk an American population the size of a medium-size U.S. city  Pittsburgh, say, or Cincinnati  on the assumption that a crazy and undeterrable dictator will be rationally cowed by a demonstration of U.S. kinetic power.

Chas column makes it abundantly clear that the only problem a limited strike against North Korea could conceivably solve is a domestic political one: Trump needs to perform his toughness on North Korea without starting a nuclear war (and its far from clear that a bloody nose attack would satisfy the latter criterion).

Its possible that the administration isnt cynical. National security adviser  and alleged adult in the room  H.R. McMaster has repeatedly sounded belligerent notes about North Korea. But its hardly more comforting to imagine that our leaders are earnestly delusional in their war planning, rather than ruthlessly nihilistic.

In his State of the Union address last night, Trump said of North Korea, Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation. I will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got us into this dangerous position.

If Trump believes that his predecessors primary foreign-policy error was a reluctance to wage preemptive war, then he will surely repeat the mistakes of past administrations.

Update: The Washington Posts Josh Rogin reports that the Trump administrations policy on North Korea remains to exert maximum pressure with the aim of creating the conditions for negotiations; that multiple NSC officials share many of the concerns Cha expressed in his op-ed; and that a bloody nose attack on North Korea is not happening any time soon.

Rogins piece does not provide an alternative explanation for Chas dismissal. But it does establish that, at the very least, the White House has no interest in making a public case for a limited strike on the North Korean regime.Why do you think the memo exists?

Following a weeks-long effort to whip Republicans into a frenzy over a classified four-page memo penned by House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes, on Monday the Republicans on that committee voted to make the document public. That gave the White House five days to consider arguments from Democrats and Justice Department officials who say the memo is misleading and could jeopardize intelligence sources.

It always seemed highly unlikely that President Trump would opt to keep the memo classified, as it seems designed to undermine special counsel Robert Muellers investigation of the Trump campaigns Russia ties, and possibly even provide justification for firing the man overseeing that probe, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The memo seemed so aligned with Trumps efforts that, during Mondays closed-door committee meeting, a Democrat asked Nunes if he was coordinating with the White House, according to the Daily Beast. (Nunes refused to answer the question.)

Yet on Tuesday afternoon, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders claimed Trump has not seen or been briefed on the memo or reviewed its contents, and there are no current plans to release it.

Hours later, cameras caught Trump contradicting her while schmoozing his way off the House floor after delivering his State of the Union address. Lets release the memo, South Carolina representative Jeff Duncan said as he shook the presidents hand. Oh, dont worry, 100 percent, Trump said, adding, Can you imagine that?

CNN reports that Trump has told aides he wants the memo released as quickly as possible, but decided against doing so before the State of the Union address to avoid obscuring what the White House hoped would be a unifying message. You have to give Americans a day or two to bask in faux bipartisanship before sparking a new war over the Russia probe.

Just before Mondays vote, Justice Department officials  including Rosenstein and FBI director Christopher Wray  made a last-ditch appeal to White House chief of staff John Kelly, according to the Washington Post. They argued that the memo  which is said to overstate the role the Steele dossier played in obtaining a surveillance warrant for Trump campaign adviser Carter Page  does not accurately describe the investigative process, and could set a dangerous precedent. (The committee blocked the release of a Democratic memo challenging these claims.)

Kelly didnt seem convinced, but he may not have the final say:

In response, Kelly told Rosenstein and Wray that the president was still inclined to release the memo but the White House would go through a review led by the National Security Council and the White House Counsels Office, a senior administration official said. That review is expected to take at least several days, a senior White House official said.

White House counsel Don McGahn reportedly blocked Trumps previous order to fire Mueller. Will he use his apparent power over the president to stop the release of a document that could lead to another attempted firing?Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Until very recently  as in, yesterday  a plausible argument could be made that Donald Trumps authoritarianism was entirely aspirational. However deeply he yearned to rule with an iron fist, he was too bumbling, too lazy, too distractible and childlike to actually carry out his plans. Weve learned over the last year that Trump is probably even more haphazard and incompetent than some of the people most fearful about his presidency believed, which makes it much more difficult for him to undermine the system, argued Yascha Mounk, who has expressed alarm about the threat posed by Trump. Ross Douthat has made the same case previously.

The events of the last 24 hours made the case for complacency look weaker, and the case for concern stronger.

A week ago, Douthat insisted that Trumps position that he has the right to replace the FBI director for any reason is the declared position of Sean Hannity and other Fox personalities and a clutch of noisy House Republicans, but so long as the Mueller investigation is proceeding apace, I think its more a norm in the balance. Mueller still has his job intact. But the FBI pushed out its deputy director after Trump had subjected him and his wife to verbal abuse in public and private, and demanded his ouster. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives voted to publicize a Republican-authored memo designed to discredit the FBI, while not allowing the publication of a Democratic response.

House Speaker Paul Ryan today took to Fox News and said of the FBI, Cleanse the organization. This is the language Fox News personalities have been using for months to demand the FBI be purged of officials deemed insufficiently loyal to the president.

Ryan is not, at the moment, endorsing any move to fire Mueller. But its not clear this is Trumps plan, anyway. Trump is talking to friends about the possibility of asking Attorney General Jeff Sessions to consider prosecuting Mueller and his team, reports Howard Fineman. Heres how it would work: Were sorry, Mr. Mueller, you wont be able to run the federal grand jury today because he has to go testify to another federal grand jury, a Trump adviser says.

If this sounds absurd or far-fetched, you may not have followed the House Republicans strategy of using a secret memo to discredit Mueller, Comey, and any officials who pose a threat to Trump and his inner circle. The Republican memo pieces together a series of preposterous assumptions: It assumes the FBI relied entirely on the famous Steele dossier in order to authorize a wiretap on Carter Page, and that judges somehow acceded to this in violation of numerous judicial safeguards that would prevent it. Asha Rangappa has a thorough explanation of just how unlikely the Republican argument against the FBI is. Its purpose is to confound Mueller, Rod Rosenstein, James Comey, and others with spurious legal accusations that would paralyze their ability to investigate the president.

Ryan has already refused requests by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to restrain his attack dog, Devin Nunes. His endorsement of the plan to cleanse the Bureau indicates a willingness to follow the strategy through to its conclusion.

The partys cooperation must also be understood within the context of the authoritarian sentiment that has become the norm in conservative discourse. Kellyanne Conway today rebutted charges that Russia interfered with the election by accusing the mainstream media of interfering with the election. Everybody who said Donald Trump couldnt win  she insisted, every anchor, every pundit who said, This is over, its a joke, he cant win, he cant govern tried to interfere in the election. In Conways estimation, political punditry hostile to Trump is no more legitimate than Russian intelligence agents stealing Democratic files. After Sean Spicer told Fox & Friends yesterday that the news media would fail to give Trumps inevitably positive State of the Union speech enough attention, host Ainsley Earhardt replied, Its just so anti-American. I mean  wheres the unity?

The fight over Trumps determination to purge law enforcement will mostly disappear into inscrutable legalistic disputes. It will be all too easy for Republican partisans to bury themselves in the details: Were procedures violated? Perhaps they have been violated before. Are Trumps opponents complaining? They didnt complain about things conservatives opposed in the past. And so on.

Here is a small example. National Review writer Dan McLaughlin mocks the idea that Trumps FBI purge poses any kind of threat to democracy:

It seems almost unsporting to note that America had a democracy long before it had an FBI. https://t.co/Z0Zrmh9Acz  Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) January 30, 2018

Its true  democracy did exist before the FBI. On the other hand, the establishment of a national police force was a powerful weapon in the hands of an unscrupulous president. Without strong restraint, it could be turned into a weapon to smear the presidents opponents with overblown charges of criminality, and to protect the president and his allies from legal accountability. Analyzing Trumps behavior outside the context of his well-established desire to do exactly this is precisely the kind of lawyerly mental contortions that has allowed his allies to avoid facing the broader question head-on. The pinned tweet on McLaughlins Twitter feed, written in April 2016, reads, 20 years from now  maybe 2 years from now  everyone in the GOP will want to say they were against Trump now. It is now almost two years later, and McLaughlin himself cant even honestly say that anymore.

Where Trumps purge will end is hard to say. What cannot be denied is that he has brought his party very far along a dark path.Lets compromise! Do it my way! Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

In the run-up to the 2018 State of the Union address, we were told that the president wanted to set aside partisan disagreements and reach across party lines, appealing to the need for national unity. He did mention that aspiration more than once in his long, long speech Tuesday night  but it was entirely disconnected from the substance of the speech, one of the most partisan SOTU addresses ever.

The first part of the speech was a chest-thumping paean to the claimed accomplishments of his administration and its congressional allies, including a wildly exaggerated boast that he had all but destroyed the Affordable Care Act. The forward-leaning portions of the speech were mostly appeals to support for the presidents most divisive policies, especially about immigration (which, of course, he described as a bipartisan compromise, even though it contains sharp reductions in legal immigration that many Republicans dont even support). Despite the upbeat connotations of his New American Moment theme, Trump painted as dark and dystopian a picture of the country as he did in his famously grim inaugural address. We are, it seems, a nation besieged by the evil forces massing overseas, which were unleashed by Trumps predecessors and political enemies.

Apparently, we must fully fund our great military  a chief point of contention in the ongoing budget negotiations. We cant possibly tolerate the family-unification policies that have undergirded immigration policy since the 1960s. America just has to reverse foreign-aid policies dating back to World War II, because our traditional allies dont agree with Trumps decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Yes: There were, scattered throughout the speech, a series of one-sentence, placeholding references to issues that might command some bipartisan support  job training, paid family leave, prison reform, and the Incredible Shrinking Infrastructure Initiative. But they were overmatched by the red meat tossed to the braying conservatives in the chamber: Trumps gloating over keeping Guantanamo Bay open, the saber-rattling at North Korea and Iran, and  seemingly out of nowhere  an attack on civil-service protections.

But its hard to look at the speech as a whole and see any point of departure that would improve the prospects of progress in Congress on any legislation. Perhaps the federal government wont shut down again this year, but if it does, Trumps braggadocio tonight will have contributed to the bitterness. Now, lets return to the regularly scheduled Republican efforts to destroy further inquiry into the connections between Russia and Trumps campaign. Anyone uplifted by this speech will face a grim hangover tomorrow.Photo: Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images

Ive had plenty of photographers tell me that the best digital camera is the one you have on hand, and for most of us, thats our iPhone. And though you can take some high-quality photos in Portrait Mode, if you really want to get serious about photography (even if your own photos are just going on Instagram), its probably worthwhile to invest in a digital camera. But finding the best digital camera for you thatll take the types of photos, or videos, you want can be tricky if youre just starting out, especially since there are so many different types of digital cameras on the market with a lot of confusing letters and numbers.

So to give you a solid starting point to find your next camera, I talked with nine professional bloggers, vloggers, Instagrammers, and photographers about the cameras they use regularly or would recommend, based on their experience  because you dont get hundreds of thousands of likes on Instagram without knowing how to take a good photo. Below, their most-loved cameras, organized by price, from just under $1,000 to total splurges.

Just Under $1,000

Canon EOS 70D Digital SLR Camera With 18-55mm STM Lens From $1,449 My go-to camera is the Canon 70D with an EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM lens. [Editors note: Theres an updated version of this camera that our tech writer Steven John loves, too.] This camera and lens combo are very versatile for video and different types of photography. I mainly shoot food for my social-media page, but I like to have the option of using the equipment for landscape and street photography. This setup allows me to capture close-up food shots and wide-angle landscape shots without having to carry extra equipment  I decided I wanted a DSLR camera, as opposed to a mirrorless camera, even though they tend to be heavier, because you have a wider range of lenses at your disposal. The viewfinder that pops out is extremely helpful to me because I am five feet tall, and it allows me to hoist and maneuver the camera above my head while still seeing what I am capturing. Rayna Greenberg, food, travel, and lifestyle blogger, One Hungry Jew From $1,449 at Amazon Buy From $1,449 at Amazon Buy

Fashion blogger Kellie Brown also recommends the Canon 70D.

I love the Canon 70D. Im about to actually buy a new camera for my video, and that one is what Ive been recommended. So thats the one thats kind of on my wish list right now, because when Im shooting myself, I dont need something as powerful as the Mark IV, and I also dont know how to work it. The 70D is just a little bit more user-friendly, and Ill be able to do some of my beauty shots with that and product shots with that a little bit better. Kellie Brown, fashion blogger, And I Get Dressed

Sony a5100 16-50mm Mirrorless Digital Camera With 3-Inch Flip Up LCD (Black) $746 My vlog camera for my YouTube channel is the Sony a5100. I love that one because its mirrorless, and its really, really great quality for a tiny point-and-shoot. I can throw that one in my pockets and small purses, and people will often ask me, Wow, what camera are you using? And when I show them, theyre like, Really? Because the quality is so great. And it takes pretty decent photos, too. I think the photos are good enough for Instagram, but theyre a little less magazine-quality than I would like for my actual blog. [But its good] when I need better than my iPhone camera quality. It also has great Wi-Fi capabilities. Brown $746 at Amazon Buy $746 at Amazon Buy

Between $1,000 and $2,500

Fujifilm X100T 16 MP Digital Camera (Black) $1,099 Our go-to cameras are the iPhone and Fuji X100T. We have been shooting with the X100 for about six months now and couldnt be happier with the images. We knew we wanted to go light and compact since we travel, without sacrificing image quality. We were deciding between the X100 and the XT1 because the XT1 has interchangeable lenses [and the X100 doesnt], but we loved the idea of challenging ourselves with only one focal length and creating with minimal gear. (The camera on the iPhone has the ability to be super discrete, and it always comes in handy when youre shooting food from an overhead angle.) Rel Dade + Marcus Lloyd, travel and lifestyle bloggers, the Place I Was Telling You About $1,099 at Amazon Buy $1,099 at Amazon Buy

Fujifilm X-T10 Silver Mirrorless Digital Camera Kit With XF18-55mm F2.8-4.0 R LM OIS Lens $1,100 As a travel blogger whos always on the go, there are quite a few reasons I have and love my Fujifilm X-T10. Its extremely small and lightweight. I can easily throw it in my purse before exploring and dont have to worry about lugging an extra camera bag around. The interval-timer setting was also an absolute must for me. Essentially, I can set up my camera on a tripod, and it shoots in intervals (per second) for any number of frames. I use this all the time when Im traveling solo, and nobodys the wiser! I love the remote-control access, an app that connects to your phone, so you can see exactly whats in the frame while shooting on a tripod. It has saved me countless hours to just connect to my phone and see, Oh, Im not even standing in the frame. To download all the images, I simply switch on the cameras internal Wi-Fi, connect using the app on my phone, and download only the images I liked right to my camera roll. The dream! Jordyn Kraemer, travel and lifestyle blogger, the Blonde Vagabond $1,100 at Amazon Buy $1,100 at Amazon Buy

Canon EOS 5D Mark III 22.3 MP Full Frame CMOS $2,999 For photos, the majority of stuff were shooting is either on the iPhone or the 5D. The 5D is pretty much on me at all times. Its just in my bag with me, wherever I go. Its just my favorite camera, basically. Because its a bit older, it doesnt have the Wi-Fi built-in, so I use it with a Wi-Fi card, and what I do is a little bit different. I actually use both card slots. I have a Wi-Fi card that records JPEGs in there. And then I have a CF [memory] card that I record raw files to, so it simultaneously does both. I find it to be really helpful, because if I just want to dump stuff to my phone immediately and do a quick edit when Im out at an event, I can do that. Or if I take a more staged shot, I have the raw file to take back to my computer later and really mess with it if I need to. Graham Burns, co-founder, the Brothers Buoy $2,999 at Amazon Buy $2,999 at Amazon Buy

Over $2,500

Canon EOS 5D Mark IV Full Frame Digital SLR Camera Body $3,299 Everything I shoot, I shoot with the 5D Mark IV. From the beginning, I knew I wanted something that took good photos, and video as well. I went to Canon because when I shot TV shows, we shot with a Canon, not with anything else. I basically asked everyone who knew about cameras, [and] I got the 5D almost a year ago. A lot of it had to do with resolution. Going to the full-frame sensor and jumping to 4K [video], Im able to shoot in slow-mo and just take everything up to the next level. With the full-frame sensor, its going to be a better photo anyway. Ill shoot everything with the 5D  I cant run round with two cameras, I already have too much on my back. Jeremy Jacobowitz, food and lifestyle blogger, Brunch Boys $3,299 at Amazon Buy $3,299 at Amazon Buy

Sony a9 Full Frame Mirrorless Interchangeable-Lens Camera (Body Only) $4,000 now 25% off $2,998 I used to use a Fuji XT2, but I wanted a full-frame camera and something faster. So I got a Sony a9 in August 2017 and have been using it since. I love it! Its really sharp and super fast and helps me capture the moment. The Sony a9 is pretty much the fastest camera out there right now, shooting at 20 frames per second. I also got it because I wanted to start shooting more food events and weddings. I dont think theres a feature that I use more than what was expected because I knew what this camera was capable of. And thats pretty much why I bought it. Ben Hon, StuffBenEats $2,998 at Amazon Buy $2,998 at Amazon Buy

Sony a7S II ILCE7SM2/B 12.2 MP E-mount Camera With Full-Frame Sensor, Black $2,398 now 17% off $1,998 I mainly use this camera for video because it does really good 4K internally, and you can get some pretty good stuff with that. The nice thing about the a7S is that its so portable and really small and compact, and the image quality is good. I dont think the Sony lenses are as good as Canons, but theyre getting better, and you just cant really beat the specs of the Sony camera [for video]. Burns $1,998 at Amazon Buy $1,998 at Amazon Buy

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Gen Mugisha Muntu

Accused recently of undermining party structures, Maj. Gen. Mugisha Muntu, the former president of the Forum for Democratic Change, explained to Baker Batte Lule why he doesnt need to seek clearance or write to his party leadership about his countrywide consultations. Read on:-

What is this consultation all about?

In 2012 when I became party president, two tendencies emerged in the party. One was to focus on defiance. That party activities should be done once the dictatorship is out of the way.

Another tendency was that we needed to concentrate on party activities; going down to build branch networks right from the village, parish, and district. Engage in branding of the party, recruiting members and leaders that would run for office at different levels.

There is a third group that thinks that both are legitimate, both can work but need to be coordinated well. Unfortunately, this group is small. For the five years I was in leadership, I made sure that I harmonise those views. There was contention for a long time until we went into elections. We had two platforms; one of Hon [Patrick Amuriat] Oboi saying that defiance was the only platform we would pursue.

I stood on a platform that both can work; defiance and party development. The leaders of the party elected Hon Oboi and by extension I believe they chose that strategy of defiance. I have no objection with the election itself and I have clearly indicated that. I congratulated Oboi for his victory.

Before I went outside the country around December 6, I met and indicated to him that I was open to share information. I told him I will go for consultations when I come back.

Whom are you consulting?

It is actually broad. Im not going as a party leader. Im Muntu, a political actor much as Im from FDC. Where we have had consultations so far, we have had civil society, religious leaders, businesspeople and members of FDC, and leaders and members of other parties who are pro-change.

We have even had members of the Movement who are pro-change. One FDC leader said: how can Muntu consult NRM members? But 29 NRM MPs voted against the lifting of presidential age limits.

How can a serious political actor not recognise that? Nineteen independent NRM-leaning members also voted against [the removal of] age limits. Why dont you discuss the way forward with them now that the constitution was changed against their will?

FDC insists you must write to them first before you consult their members using their structures.

That means that I have to write to churches to allow their leaders to come, I have to write to Kacita to allow businesspeople to come, I have to write to other parties to allow their members to come. That would be a complex process and I wouldnt know why I would do that because at the end of the day its voluntary. Those we invite can choose to or not to come.

Under my leadership, there were people sent out for [quiet] consultations. The only difference between me and them is that they were not doing it in the open. I never bothered about that because I know people have their legitimate right to do as they please.

Just seven months to the elections, a number of youths held a press conference and announced they were going to collect signatures to have me impeached. The press rang me to ask for my comment. Nobody had informed me.

I told NEC that nobody should hamper the youth.

There were youths who believed in my leadership who tried to disrupt them. I told them you cant do that because that would tarnish the image of the party. I said let them gather the signatures and then come back to the party and it is at that point that we would deal with the issue. Unfortunately, they didnt come back.

Why didnt I react the way some people in the party are doing yet my consultations are in the open? I informed the party president; not seeking permission but informing him. That is my style.

Amuriat wonders why you would consult as an independent actor yet you still profess to be FDC.

Whats the problem with that? Whatever we are doing has one purpose; to ensure that we remove the dictatorship and manage power well.

Im a key actor in one of the tendencies. I cannot put my head in the sand and assume there are no tendencies in the party. Its in the best interest of the party to ensure that we harmonise our positions rather than keep on quarrelling.

Instead of focusing on defeating the dictatorship, we become paralysed.

In the meeting I had with Oboi, I told him I dont want him to go through what I went through. I want to find out whether we can deal with this situation once and for all.

That is what I would desire but if it cant happen, I wouldnt want to behave like my colleagues behaved during my leadership. You keep fighting so that the leader fails and in the next round of elections you defeat him because of the paralysis. We are either able to resolve these contradictions or we are not.

You say you dont want Amuriat to go through what you went through but your actions seem to suggest otherwise

Hon Oboi is just two months into his term and we have already talked. It took more than a year to resolve the contradictions we had when I won in 2012. Im saying, lets see whether we can create harmony or we separate. The earlier, the better.

Some of the people who supported your candidature have since withdrawn from party activities

I dont think they have withdrawn; its just one month. Like Oboi said and I agree with him, even when I was in leadership, you wouldnt have more than 50 percent of the people attending meetings.

The only problem is that we have people who want to see faults all the time; quarrelling instead of discussing.

But some people within your camp say Oboi and his group laid the bed, let them sleep in it.

Thats not what I want. When I was in leadership, there were those who said I was hanging at the top, but that they were in charge of the party. So, you will not avoid such people who express such sentiments on both sides.

We have heard of a third force between the two extremes in government and the opposition represented by FDC

You must recognise the fact that there are some people out there who are neither with the opposition nor the Movement. In my five years, I tried to minimize internal contradictions and fights in the public.

My hope and intention was that we brand FDC such that it becomes attractive to that group. People cannot join an organisation if they think its on fire all the time. Unfortunately, we never attracted them.

Can we attract that group; because its a huge chunk of people? You can imagine there are 58 independents in parliament, more than FDC. The question is why are they not joining opposition political parties yet many of them are pro-change?

People who promoted the candidacy of Amama Mbabazi spoke about fence-sitters who were uncomfortable with both the NRM and FDC candidates. Do they exist?

The objective conditions on the ground must be ripe for them to be able to spring up. FDC is also a formation of break-aways. Most of us broke away from NRM, DP, UPC and then we formed FDC.

Why would anyone think that the dynamics ended then? If we reach a point and say that is the way to go, that is the point at which to say it was true or not. Is there a risk; of course yes. If you are involved in a change process and you are risk-averse, you never move.

The problem with African people is that we marginalise central issues and centralise marginal issues. Here is a country where just a month ago Gen Museveni rammed an amendment down the throats of MPs. The country is right now hanging in balance. There is going to be change but how do we manage this change?

Why not direct your energies towards uprooting Musevenis regime?

The moment you have the capabilities of how to manage the change, then you have the capabilities of removing the regime.

From my experience in the five years that we fought, as we were fighting, we were also training the political circles to take power. When we finally took power in 1986, you could walk in 10 different offices, ask one question and get similar answers because of the preparation.

By the time we took over, key people had the same objective. Were there mistakes; yes, they were many, but the fundamental mistake was to lose track of the key objective we fought for.

It doesnt matter how long it takes to have change; when it finally happens, we must be able to manage it. We dont want to be like Egypt where the forces of change ousted Hosni Mubarak only to get [Abdel Fatah] el-Sisi who is worse than Mubarak.

bakerbatte@observer.ugBuyende district police commander Muhammad Kirumira says he has resigned from the force because of witch-hunt

Police has warned Buyende district police commander Muhammad Kirumira against resigning through the media.

Today, Wednesday, Kirumira took to social media to announce that he was resigning from the force following a police tribunal charging him of both criminal and disciplinary charges. Kirumira says he is resigning from his post because the crime beneficiaries within police are after tarnishing his image.

"As a senior officer who has laboured to to wipe out crime without any special facilitation, I have realised that my image before the administration shall never change, and given the fact that I am still a young man, I have resigned from the force to enable the police court fulfil their motives", he wrote on Facebook.

"I now await an official message replacing me such that I can hand over office to whoever is deemed fit...Eventually when the court makes its verdict, I will put in my official retirement application to earn my discharge letter. I want to leave the police since its clean and I'm branded dirty. I will not accept to hold office meanwhile am being tried. I would love to keep my reputation as a freedom fighter. This is my decision which I shall not change permanently. For those who are hurt I'm sorry indeed", he added.

Earlier, in a message sent to The Observer on Sunday, Kirumira who is facing charges of assault, corruption, extortion, torture accuses police of witch-hunt saying "these are same old charges which lack merit, I challenged them in 2014 and they were dropped".



"Some of the witnesses were killed by police like Kato Pius who was killed in 2012 August and I had been charged for assaulting him, he was a notorious robber with [police] protection.

When I arrested him on grounds of possession of counterfeit money both shilling and pounds, I was charged for assault, I won, I was [cleared] by court later on Kato is killed at Bweyogerere fuel station, now after 7 years it's one of the cases I'm answering again in police tribunal. That is just one example. Think critically and examine the reason for this", he wrote to The Observer.

"Secondly, if I'm charged with corruption, bribery and extortion, why [am I] not taken to Kololo Anti-Corruption court which gives punishment and fine than police courts. It's also doubtful, then if I'm charged with torture who are the victims and how will they benefit from police court?

Anyway why don't they call for justice in criminal court than [an] internal court? It raises queries...Seven years no evidence so it's seen today when I'm wanted to clean the city?! Wow", he added.



Police spokesperson Emilian Kayima in a statement released this evening says the police officer's actions are scandalous and cannot be tolerated in the force.



"When the full wrath of the law weighs on you, it will be you alone to tell the story and you will need no sympathy," Kayima warned Kirumira in the statement.



The Police Act provides guidelines for an officer to resign which include writing to the permanent secretary of ministry of Internal Affairs, which request is discussed and cleared in the police administration chaired by the Minister of Internal Affairs.



Kayima says instead of following the laid down procedures, Kirumira has contravened the code of conduct of any serving police officer.



"He has even gone ahead to grant interviews to some media houses which is an act of indiscipline and totally contravenes the code of conduct of serving police officers," Kayima says.



Kirumira, however, says if he has committed any crime by making media statements, it should be added on the charge sheet.



"If anyone feels that by me saying this I have committed a crime, let them add it on the other ones. I want to leave the force a clean man," Kirumira said.

Kirumira was a week ago charged in the police tribunal for crimes allegedly committed in 2013 and 2014 when he was in charge of Nansana police station and Old Kampala police station respectively.



Kirumira pleaded not guilty to the charges ranging from torture, extortion, corruption, bribery, unlawful arrests and excessive use of authority.



He also faces charges of neglect of duty and corruption practices contrary to Section 44(1) Code 23(a) and discreditable or irregular conduct contrary to Section 44(1) Code 12 of the Police Act.



The cases of extortion and torture being prefered against Kirumira have been under investigations by the Professional Standards Unit (PSU) for years.



In fact, Kirumira who has grown through the ranks from a police constable in the last eight years was in 2014 suspended for allegedly torturing a suspect and cutting off his finger.



The suspect was months later shot dead while robbing a mobile money shop in Bweyogerere prompting the late AIGP Andrew Felix Kaweesi to re-instated Kirumira before closing off his case.



Kaweesi was looked at as Kirumira's godfather in the force before he was shot dead in March last year. Despite the cases, Kirumira has been recognised within the force and by residents as having been pertinent in fighting crimes in Nansana and Kisaasi, Wakiso district.Rwandas President Paul Kagame assumed leadership of the African Union during its 30th summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, last week.

But what captured the imagination of many Africans was not his selection per se but, rather, his acceptance speech. Most of the African elite are hardly interested in the African Union because they dont expect anything of substance to come out of it.

The union has long been seen as a club of mostly corrupt, inept and power-hungry men with nothing to offer Africa other than presiding over the collapse of their economies.

With that context in mind, it was refreshing that an African leader managed to capture the African peoples imagination with an electrifying speech at the African Union.

The gist of Kagames speech was that African countries must come together and integrate their economies if they dont want to be left further behind by the rest of the world.

The Rwandan leader, who previously led a reform process of the African Union, used this occasion to announce the launch of the Single African Air Transport Market, which, if duly implemented, should lower the cost of air transport in Africa. He also expressed hope that the Continental Free Trade Area could be adopted this year.

By committing to break these barriers, we will send a tremendous signal in Africa and beyond that it is no longer business as usual, Kagame said.

Kagame also addressed the controversial issue of funding. For instance, its a shame that more than 50 years after independence, the African Union needs a donation from China to build its own headquarters.

According to Kagame, a levy on eligible imports coming into member countries has been approved by finance ministers and is being implemented. The proceeds will enable the African Union to fund its own activities and programmes.

Kagames speech brings hope of restoring the pride of Africans, particularly in light of US president Donald Trumps characterisation of African countries as shitholes.

Its up to Africans to transform our countries so that this dear continent stops being the laughing stock of the world. With leaders like Kagame, the African Union can play a constructive role in this direction.The candour with which deputy speaker of parliament Jacob Oulanyah recently faulted his colleagues was startling but enlightening.

Oulanyah told Ugandans that their legislators had recently wasted valuable time politicking rather than discussing matters concerning development. Being one of the superintendents of parliament, we cannot doubt Oulanyahs assessment.

Oulanyah was addressing members of the civil society during the parliamentary week recently. The Omolo representative has been quite consistent on this matter and once advised members to start watching debates in United Kingdoms House of Commons (parliament) to learn how they present questions to the prime minister.

Oulanyahs veiled barb against some members was triggered by pitiable presentation skills of some of them. And Oulanyah is spot on.

When it comes to debating some bills, a bigger part of that role, especially for the majority National Resistance Movement (NRM) members, is left to the caucus to decide. In the end, the NRM caucus has used its numerical strengths to rubber-stamp all government-sponsored bills.

The scattered voices of the opposition cannot be heard in the deafening din of the majority. At times, when shove comes to push, the opposition has walked out and left the matter to be decided by majority NRM.

And the NRM are never embarrassed by this exodus. Instead, they aye the bill with all the glee they can muster. In a way, parliament has been passing NRM caucus decrees disguised as national bills.

And since they have done this job so well, wouldnt it be better if we suspended the House and reassigned the duty of making laws to the NRM caucus? The NRM chief whip, Ruth Nankabirwa, put it more succinctly during the clamour to remove presidential age limits.

Do you expect me to whip members into legislating ourselves out of power? she asked. What beats such honesty? Put it the other way, it would be foolhardy to amputate the hand that feeds you.

Some MPs have proudly said they were sent to parliament as representatives, not delegates. Apparently, in the wisdom of MPs, a representative can choose either to present what their constituents think about a certain matter or represent their own standpoint. However, a delegate has no choice but to support what the voters want.

Therefore, whenever there is a disagreement between the interests of the MPs and their constituents, the former prevails.

This is what happened during the acrimonious debate, which saw the bill about the removal of presidential age limits passed.

Even when a sizeable number of Ugandans preferred maintaining the Constitution, the MPs interests, rented with some silver coins, prevailed. The question then is: do we need the 400 or more MPs to make such foregone decisions? If the matter had been decided by 150 MPs, would it have made a difference? Never!

Again, another question: what would Uganda miss if we didnt have youth representatives, women representatives, army representatives or workers representatives?

Every constituency in this country has persons with disability, youths, women, workers and the army is a national professional institution.

The interesting part is that, by their admission, members of the armed forces present in parliament are in the House as listening posts. But when it comes to voting, they chose the NRM side. What value have all these interest groups added to the lives of Ugandans?

The lives of women and youths have definitely not improved as a result of being represented in parliament. The Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Bill (now Act) was fervently sponsored by Dr Chris Baryomunsi as a private members bill. Naturally, this would have been sponsored by the feminists in the House. What happened?

Baryomunsis efforts in the broader sense indicate that one does not need to be a woman to sponsor a law intended to insulate women against intrusion of their bodily integrity.

Further, one does not need to be below 35 years to know the problems afflicting the youth. Parliament legislates for the country, and the problems of special interest groups such as women in a given constituency are not so different.

On the face of it, parliament seems fractious but one thing appears to unite all: the beckon and rustle of silver coins and minted paper. This parliament has become a rubber stamp for all manner of supplementary budgets especially those from State House.

They have abdicated their role of oversight of the executive and become fellow travellers. We need to rethink whether it isnt high time that we amended the Constitution and reassigned the work of legislators to district councils or another well-suited NRM organ.

The author is the business development director at The Observer Media Limited.Two weeks ago, this column called out the American President Donald Trump on the despicable comments he allegedly made about Africa.

Sections of The Observer readers were not impressed. I could understand why. But many of them missed the point, with some taking it a notch higher with personal attacks and effortless yet needless ad hominem charges.

There is nothing as priceless to any group of people, be it a race, nation or an ethnicity, as the pride they have in their heritage and history, their cultural values and social mores.

To be proud of ones society, culture, and to appreciate the many endowments in ones surrounding is by no means to be oblivious of undesirable conditions and intractable problems.

To the contrary, in fact the key to overcoming adverse conditions and breaking through the shackles of poverty and deprivation is self-belief and pride, ownership of problems and innovating solutions.

To lie down and allow others define who you are as a people and what you need is not only untenable in the short run, it also breeds deeper long-term problems. Africa has been at this for long.

It is most regrettable that with our clearly charted checkered history, many Africans still look at outsiders, especially the West, as our saviors who should have the right to insult us and treat us with unfettered paternalism. It has been more than 200 years of trying to save Africa, going back to evangelism contemporaneous with the horrors of slave trade.

I do not know of any society that has been transformed by the fiat of outside saviors. Development, or whatever one might want to call it, is fundamentally the function of internal social and political dynamics.

In fact, its arguable that left to their own devices, African peoples would have charted their own development trajectories, for bad or worse. No one knows!

The mindset that applauds outside insults and sees credence in cheap caricatures of Africa fails to appreciate some important issues. I will comment on only a few here.

First, the tendency to paint a one-sided negative picture of Africa derives from seeing Africa through the lens of the West.

Somehow, we are supposed to reach broad-brush and dismissive conclusions of Africa because it doesnt measure up to the standards of Western modernity. And many of us do this often lacking a full grasp of the myriad problems other societies, whether in the West or elsewhere, face and grapple with interminably.

The practice of constructing other societies and positing them in negative terms is precisely the art of seeing strict opposites in what outsiders see compared to their own ways and standards. This, unfortunately, draws in sections of the African intelligentsia and government officials who see outside caricatures of Africa as accurate descriptions.

But Africa can never be like the West, whether we are talking about systems of public management of problems or social institutions that govern social relations.

I am not suggesting that African countries have to operate under their own sub-optimal standards or that we shouldnt subject ourselves to the highest, rigorous criteria of duty, responsibility, and probity. Of course we have to.

But we cannot do so using templates from elsewhere, templates and standards adjudged as being superior and modern.

The Chinese have their own templates, so do Indians and Koreans. Africa has to imagine its own ways of solving problems, and this cannot happen by welcoming outside ridicule. It just wont work.

The second issue that many of us fail to appreciate is the need to draw a distinction between the everyday struggles of ordinary people and the shenanigans of those in power. There is more to poor African societies than the misdeeds of rulers and the dysfunctions of governments.

I was born to parents of very humble means. My father received very limited formal schooling. But he had the tenacity for hard work and the determination to make a difference in very modest ways without throwing his pride to the wind because of his limited material capabilities. There are millions of Africans like my father.

So, the reckless and rather misguided insults thrown at African peoples and societies fail to appreciate the heroic struggles of millions out there who start from scratch and make huge differences in communities.

Many among Mr Musevenis critics must have found themselves on rather unfamiliar terrain: the man agrees with them that Africa deserves to be insulted! Strange!

But here is the grandstander and the chief of deception who has spent a great part of his political and military life haranguing the West for supposed crimes against Africa.

The subtext here is that joining the chorus of our ostensibly deserved insult helps Mr Museveni hide his own culpability as easily the leading agent of outside (mostly Western) interests in Africa.

moses.khisa@gmail.com

The author is an assistant professor of political science at North Carolina State University.On January 24, 2018, Uganda Martyrs University held its Annual Research Conference.

Prof John Opuda-Asibo, the executive director of the National Council for Higher Education, was the guest speaker. He talked at length about research ideals, but also, in his characteristic frankness, threw in one inconvenient truth after another: about lecturer, student, and management flaws in our universities.

His presentation sent me into reflection about the different kinds of teachers I passed through, those I have worked with, and my own practice.

Certainly, we cannot characterise all our teachers in one particular way. There are differences at nursery, primary, secondary, and tertiary levels  even within each level.

Nevertheless, by and large, there are elements about the teacher that seem to feature in most of our schools. Back in my primary school days, if you asked any pupil to draw a teacher, it had to be someone carrying a stick. This school-based terrorism has since reduced, but in many schools the teacher counterproductively continues to be a fear figure.

Indeed, teachers need to command authority to be able to nurture, guide and instruct those in their charge. But we tend to mistake being feared for being respected.

Thus the school space turns into some sort of prison or barracks with power relations that make mutual engagement and learning difficult.

There are many reasons why some teachers create an environment of fear around them. For some, it is out of personal insecurities and a feeling of inadequacy. Be wary of the teacher who is not sure about what they are teaching, they tend to be very angry, paranoid, and hostile.

Even an innocent question asked in attempt to understand is interpreted as a challenge to their knowledge and authority.

In class, they create a tense atmosphere where students would fear asking questions  or else they face his/her wrath.

They could create this atmosphere by always wearing a mean look or denigrating/ridiculing those who dare ask, especially hard questions.

Unfortunately, these battles in bizarre defence of the teachers misconstrued authority are sometimes taken to the marking front, where those perceived to be challengers are tamed or gotten back at by being under-marked. We thus create an awkward system where teachers cannot be challenged  even when they are blatantly wrong.

At university, it is not uncommon to find students that read ahead of the teacher  and quite common where some teachers hardly read.

I have heard cases where students complain about lazy lecturers that will mainly rely on Wikipedia and they come to class to dictate lousy notes gathered from the site. No student is expected to speak to the teacher against this injustice, except if they are ready to fail!

Thus, the captive class sits in to painfully watch the teacher waste their time. Discussion is thwarted, debate is foiled, and the culture of questioning is killed. This is how we end up rolling out products that cant think independently, cant question things, and fearful of working on their own.

This phenomenon is not helped by the widely-prevalent tendency in most of our cultures to conflate respect with fear. Many of our children are raised in fear.

Their innocent questions are answered with barking or being silenced. Questioning an elders view, even in politeness, is taken for disrespect. In some cultures, it is restrictively referred to as looking an elder in the mouth. So, it is fear at home, fear at school  no discussion, only being told what to do!

In their critical book titled Teaching As ASubversive Activity, Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner note that there can be no significant innovation in education that does not have at its centre the attitudes of teachers, and it is an illusion to think otherwise.

The beliefs, feelings, and assumptions of teachers are the air of a learning environment; they determine the quality of life within it. When the air is polluted, the student is poisoned, unless, of course, he [she] holds his [her] breath.

In a facade akin to what Paulo Freire (in Pedagogy of the Oppressed) called the Banking concept of education, the classroom is mistakenly perceived by many of our teachers to be a space where they are supposed to prove their knowledge of everything while the students role is to take in. Thus, even where they are ignorant, some teachers would rather tell a lie than admit that they dont know!

In this mistaken approach, as Freire observes, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable [teachers] upon those whom they consider to know nothing [students].

Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry. The teacher presents himself to his students as their necessary opposite; by considering their ignorance absolute, he justifies his own existence.

Moreover, whether the teacher is talking sense or not, it is not the students business. Like in any other dictatorship, the omniscient teacher reserves the exclusive right to determine how the class is run.

Little wonder then that a lecturer can shamelessly spend half of the lecture telling the helpless class about his/her achievements! Im a professor. Do you know what it takes to become a professor?

I have visited twenty countries attending workshops and conferences. I am a rich man. I own a farm in Nakaseke. My son is at St Henrys College Kitovu. Stuff totally unrelated to the course, not even for illustration or student motivation!

Sometimes the students who quietly sit through this abuse of classroom space have even achieved much more in life than what the lecturer finds important to parade before them.

jsssentongo@gmail.com

The author heads the Centre for African Studies at Uganda Martyrs University, Nkozi.Uganda has finally repossessed Uganda Railways after Rift Valley Railways (RVR) ran it down for 12 years.

The 120-year-old railway line was concessioned out in 2006 to what the revolutionary NRM government told us was a rich and experienced South African government railway company.

But like the case has been with many transactions under this government, the investors procured for the railway business were just a bunch of fortune-hunters who simply sniffed at an opportunity.

In the concession, Rift Valley Railways was supposed to rehabilitate wagons, procure new locomotives and rehabilitate existing ones.

It was also supposed to repair the track between Jinja and Kampala. It was supposed to increase freight volumes up to 217.3 million tonnes as a baseline and to reach a level of 275 million tonnes within a period of two years after the signing of the concession (2006).

As a country, we were also entitled to 11.1 per cent of revenue of the railway business. How this figure was worked out, I dont know!

I had an opportunity to chair the parliamentary committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (Cosase) for two and a half years (from December 2014 to May 2016) and Uganda Railways Corporation (URC) was one of the companies that appeared before us.

The managers of URC, which was supposed to oversee the concession, told us (Cosase) that RVR breached the terms of agreement right from the start and was incapable of managing a business of this magnitude.

The country must know that two things happened immediately after RVR took over our railways. The investors took away all the brand new vehicles (4WD) to Kenya, where they had also entered into a concession to manage Kenya Railways.

As the investors were feasting on new vehicles and other assets, the revolutionary government was feasting on prime land. Most of Uganda Railways land was categorized as non-core assets and, therefore, not handed over to RVR.

The scavengers in government descended on it and by the time sale of Uganda Railways land was halted, the corporation had been stripped of all its residential houses in Kololo near the airstrip, in Nsambya and Kabuusu on Masaka road.

And this has happened to all corporations. Land belonging to Uganda Broadcasting Corporation (UBC) in Kololo, Bugolobi and in Industrial Area was robbed in broad daylight by the revolutionaries or their agents. Remember what happened to National Social Security Fund (NSSF) houses in Muyenga and elsewhere? What about the cotton houses in Nakasero?

Most of the buildings in Nakasero, Kololo, Bugolobi and part of Kamwokya belonged to the public. I fear to use the word government because Mr Museveni thinks government is his private company. These fellows have looted this country!

Therefore, what was supposed to be sold in the second phase was railway land in Jinja, Tororo, Gulu and Masindi. Phase one was for Kampala.

This is the condition under which Uganda Railways is being repossessed. And you didnt have to be an engineer to know that RVR was a circus. First, even as a parliamentary committee chairman, I failed to know who these RVR fellows were.

In truth, they were not the South African government company that we had been promised. Maybe one of the original concession owners was a South African and, I think, another a British. Something like that!

Eventually, these ones sold their stake to a Cairo-based company called Qalaa Holdings, or something like that...

After failing to reap big in the railway business, the concessionaires, I am told, wanted to sell the line to the Chinese before running away.

That is how they rushed to evict poor people who had settled around the non-functional rail line. The intention was to sell the line to Chinese companies that want to construct the standard gauge railway. This didnt work out, hence halting the eviction. That was the last business opportunity that RVR wanted to exploit before running away with their bounty.

If you want to know how poor and unprepared RVR was, even the $64 million they wanted to use to revitalize the business was borrowed from International Finance Corporation (World Bank) and German Development Bank (KfW). These fellows came in without money or, if they had, they never wanted to invest it.

And I think that is what the Umeme concession is all about. The investors came in with very little and are collecting billions which they repatriate and just reinvest a small portion of it. It is the reason parliament recommended termination of this concession as well.

One of our biggest problems in the electricity sector today is generation of excess power. We are generating about 685MW and consuming 550MW, according to Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA). And to pay off the excess power generated, we are spending Shs 68 billion on thermo generators and about Shs 11.57 billion on what is called deemed energy purchases.

The concessionaire (Umeme) has no obligation to expand the transmission lines. That is why only about 20 per cent of Ugandans are using electricity, which explains the excess. We should never have sold this business because it is capable of growing by itself if only managed properly by nationals (patriots).

That is where we are. Wait when these agreements with Chinese companies begin to run.

semugs@yahoo.com

The author is Kira Municipality MP and opposition chief whip in parliament.10 million: That's the number of jobs that Narendra Modi had promised us annually in his election campaign four years ago. Given that India is home to over 18 million unemployed people, this electoral promise played a big role in getting him into the Prime Minister's Office in May 2014. But only about 823,000 jobs had been created in the country till October last year and, according to the International Labour Organization, most of it classified as vulnerable employment.

Here's the final bit of bad news-India needs to create over 1.3 million jobs per month for the next 15 years so as not to have its much-lauded demographic dividend turn into a nightmare and we are a long way away from meeting this target.

With time running out for the Modi government-general elections are just a year away-can Finance Minister Arun Jaitley work a miracle in Budget 2018 and bring good news on the employment front? According to experts, if Jaitley delivers on the following wishlist in his Budget tomorrow, India's youth are sure to be a happier lot.

Announce the National Employment Policy

The first step towards employment generation could be introducing the country's first National Employment Policy (NEP) in the coming Budget. The multi-pronged policy is expected to outline a comprehensive road map for creation of quality jobs across sectors through economic, social and labour policy interventions. India's organised sector created a little over 1,100 jobs a day in 2016-17 and though the rate of job creation was 2% higher than 2015-16, the NEP could catalyse things further. Significantly, it will reportedly also introduce reforms to attract enterprises and help medium and small scale industries, which are major job providers.

Focus on skill development

At an event organised by NITI Aayog earlier this month, which brought together over 40 economists, employment was one of the key subjects discussed. The think-tank's Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar said it was pointed out that educated unemployment among India's youth may be as high as 20%. In a similar vein, according to the World Bank, 30.8% of India's population aged between 15 and 29 years are NEETs (Not in education, employment or training). Making matters worse, less than half the candidates trained by the National Skill Development Corporation-under the government's flagship scheme 'Skill India'-over the last two fiscals have reportedly landed jobs.

No wonder a majority of Indians want Budget 2018 to focus on skill development aimed at employment. In a recent survey by LocalCircles, which received 1.25 lakh votes from more than 200 cities, nearly 56% of respondents wanted the Budget to allocate sizeable funds for this purpose. Furthermore, according to a recent NITI Aayog policy paper, skill development has been divorced from the Apprentices Act, 1961. "These need to be merged. We have only few lakhs of apprentices whereas there should be a few million," said the think tank.

Boosting employment-intrinsic sectors

In his Independence Day speech Modi had said "We are nurturing our youngsters to be job creators and not job-seekers." But that can only come about if the small and medium enterprises and micro, small and medium enterprises (SMEs and MSMEs) are incentivised to successfully create more jobs. According to a report released by the SKOCH Group last September, the Modi government's Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana, which provides access to institutional finance to small business units and entrepreneurs, has led to 5.5 crore jobs in just over two years. With more incentives, the government can make more headway.

According to the Business Standard, tax rate cuts and sops are also expected for employment driven sectors like manufacturing and ecommerce in the Budget 2018. An August 2017 report by UBS Securities India had pointed out that FDI inflows not only posted a compound annual growth rate of 11% under the Modi government-versus a dip of 6% seen over the previous five years-but more of it was flowing into the manufacturing sector.

Historically such investments have been more towards the service sector. The Make in India initiative of the government certainly helped on that score. The report added that this trend boded well "for creating a productive spill-over impact on other sectors of the economy; for instance, boosting exports and creating jobs".

But to keep investments coming in at a time when countries like US, UK and Japan and lowering business taxes, India needs to follow suit. Reducing the corporate tax rate in the coming Budget will also fuel job creation. But while the industry is hoping for the tax rate to be cut to 25%, sources in the finance ministry say that the concessions in the offing might be limited to smaller businesses and the smaller taxpayers. Firms with an annual turnover of Rs 500 million or less are already charged 25% corporate tax instead of the standard 30% but there is a proposal to move businesses with greater turnover into the lower tax band too.

Changes in labour laws

According to the NITI Aayog's policy paper, the bulk of India's economic growth comes from non-employment intensive sectors such as finance, real estate. On the other hand, maximum employment is in low wage employment intensive sector. "84% of jobs in firms employing 50 or fewer people, 10.5% employ 200+ employees. Only 5.5% in the all-important middle. This missing middle has to grow if incomes are to grow along with productivity. India needs changes in labour laws, help in finance and infrastructure," it noted.

2017 was a tough year as far as pink slips are concerned, which makes it all the more pressing for the Budget to offer good news on the job front. Not only have top IT firms, such as Wipro, Tech Mahindra and Cognizant, made huge job cuts, plenty of jobs are also being lost in telecom as it goes through a phase of consolidation. Some consultants say the sector lost around 40,000 people in 2017 and the trend is likely to continue. Moreover, India is set to see a further 30-40% reduction of jobs in manufacturing in 2017-18 compared with the previous year, according to recruitment firm TeamLease Services. In such tough times, India hopes Jaitley is up to the challenge.

With PTI inputs

Accountability court rejected objections raised by Nawaz Sharif

ISLAMABAD: The accountability court on Tuesday rejected the objections raised by ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif over a supplementary reference filed against him by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in Avenfield properties case being heard against him. During the hearing conducted by judge Muhammad Bashir, Nawaz Sharif, his daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law Captain (r) Safdar were present in the court.



When the hearing commenced, Khawaja Haris, senior counsel for Nawaz Sharif, raised objections over filing of a supplementary reference by NAB in the Avenfield case, arguing that there was nothing new in the supplementary reference and instead carried malafide intentions.



He contended that since the supplementary reference had nothing new in it, hence it should not be entertained. He said NAB did not find any new information through mutual legal assistance, thus it should have pointed out what was new in the supplementary reference. He contended that only the previous allegations were repeated in the supplementary reference.



The NAB prosecutor, however, argued that the supplementary reference had new evidence and it was filed in accordance with the Supreme Courts July 28, 2017, orders in the Panama Papers case. He stated that investigation was still underway against Nawaz Sharif and his family members and it will continue until the court announces its verdict. He said if any new evidence emerges during the NABs ongoing investigation, the court will be requested to make it part of the case record.



After hearing both the sides, the court reserved its verdict and later rejected the objections raised by Nawaz Sharifs counsel and accepted the supplementary reference that would be made part of the record of Avenfield case. The court observed that the supplementary reference would be considered to be an additional evidence.



The court issued notices to five more prosecution witnesses to appear before it on the next hearing and record their statements. The NAB prosecutor requested the court to allow the UK-based witnesses to record their statements via video link, however the court did not rule over the request and adjourned the hearing till February 2.



In the hearing of Al-Azizia Steel Mills reference, Afaq Ahmad, an official of the Foreign Office, recorded his statement which was later cross-examined by Khawaja Haris.



During the hearing, Amjad Pervez, counsel for Maryam and Safdar, also raised objections over the supplementary reference, arguing that a completely different story was narrated in the supplementary reference. He said the newly filed reference was not a supplementary reference, but a different reference in the eyes of the law.



He said at first, it was stated that the Avenfield property was being owned by the members of Nawaz Sharif family, whereas now the supplementary reference focused only on Nawaz Sharif. He stated that the supplementary reference did not say anything about Maryam Nawaz being the beneficial owner of the Avenfield properties.



The Islamabad district administration and police had made strict security arrangements in and around the accountability court ahead of the appearance of Nawaz Sharif and his family members.Trump announced one team,one people,and one American family 31 January, 2018



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Hand Wash and Toiletries in Pakistan And the Role of DUPAS in Reshaping the Industry

Woke Bingo President Donald Trump made a pitch for national unity and strong borders in his maiden State of the Union address on Tuesday, calling for "one team, one people, and one American family" after a year plagued by acrimony, division and scandal.



He also announced that he would keep Guantanamo Bay open, breaking from his predecessor Barack Obama's lengthy and ultimately failed efforts to shutter the maligned detention facility.



"I just signed an order directing Secretary Mattis to reexamine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay," Trump said, in his address to Congress, in keeping with a campaign promise.



On the campaign trail, Trump had famously vowed he would load Guantanamo with "bad dudes" and said it would be "fine" if US terror suspects were sent there for trial.



Though Obama could not closed Guantanamo, the population had dropped from 242 to 41 under his watch.



Delivering his biggest speech of the year, this most polarizing of presidents sought to put the spotlight on the economic achievements of his first year in office and called on a packed joint session of Congress to enact hardline curbs on immigration.



"Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve," he said.



"Tonight, I want to talk about what kind of future we are going to have, and what kind of Nation we are going to be. All of us, together, as one team, one people, and one American family."



Trump's tone was uncharacteristically conciliatory, although it bridged no compromise on his drive to reduce immigration, which he painted as responsible for a plethora of social ills.



Looking on, were dozens of Democratic lawmakers, some decked in black to honour the victims of sexual harassment and still others wearing butterfly stickers in support of immigrants  two social issues that more than any others have roiled America in the age of Trump.

US First Lady Melania Trump arrived in Congress to warm applause ahead of President Donald Trump's State of the Union address.AFP



Also in the audience were members of Trump's own family including the first lady, Melania, who recently cancelled a joint trip to Davos, Switzerland and has not been seen with her husband in public since reports alleged he paid porn actress Stormy Daniels hush money over an affair, which the White House denies.



Breaking with tradition, the first couple arrived separately to the Capitol, because, according to the first lady's spokesperson Stephanie Grisham, she was accompanying guests.



Over the years the State of the Union address, a set piece of the American political calendar, has lost some of its impact and pizzazz.



But the primetime address, watched by as many as 40 million Americans, was still a once-in-a-year opportunity for Trump to speak to the nation and mend his sunken approval ratings, languishing around 40 percent.



Seeking to enliven his own base, Trump spoke at length on the need for immigration reform, equating immigrants with criminals and economic tension.



For decades, he lamented, "open borders" had allowed "drugs and gangs to pour into" the United States. He again called for the construction of a border wall that remains unfunded in Congress.



"They have allowed millions of low-wage workers to compete for jobs and wages against the poorest Americans. Most tragically, they have caused the loss of many innocent lives."



Two couples whose daughters were murdered by MS-13, a Salvadoran gang, were among those joining the First Lady to watch the address.



"The United States is a compassionate nation" he said, "but as president of the United States, my highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, and my constant concern is for America's children, America's struggling workers, and America's forgotten communities."

Wall Street Don



The 71-year-old real estate mogul and reality TV star touted a long bull run on Wall Street and improving growth rates, something the White House has dubbed a "Trump bump."



"The stock market has smashed one record after another, gaining $8 trillion in value," he said, even though that narrative suffered a setback when stocks suffered their biggest drop in eight months on Tuesday amid fears of a bubble.



"Since the election, we have created 2.4m new jobs, including 200,000 new jobs in manufacturing alone. After years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages."



"Just as I promised the American People from this podium 11 months ago, we enacted the biggest tax cuts and reform in American history," Trump said.



Trump also lifted his gaze beyond the United States, calling for "fair" trade and declaring that "the era of economic surrender is over."

US security



He also focused on what Washington sees as Iran's troublesome activities across the Middle East, as well as North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs.



"America stands with the people of Iran in their courageous struggle for freedom," he said, while warning that "North Korea's reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland."



In a nod to his recent National Security Strategy which eyed geopolitical adversaries as a greater threat than terrorism, he also said that China and Russia "challenge our interests, our economy, and our values".



Still there was a focus on terror, which had been a central message of his campaign.Trump announced USA no longer want to talk with Taliban

ISLAMABAD: Hours after President Donlad Trump announced the United States would no longer talk with the Taliban following two recent attacks in capital Kabul, the Taliban said on Tuesday that they would also fight back and increase the human and financial losses of US troops manifold.



Trump was talking to members of the UN Security Council on Monday in his apparent reaction to the Taliban two deadly attacks in a week that killed 125 people and injured nearly 300 others.



Innocent people are being killed left and right. Bombing, in the middle of children, in the middle of families, bombing, killing all over Afghanistan, Trump said. So we dont want to talk with the Taliban. There may be a time but it is going to be a long time, Trump said.



On January 27, Taliban attacked the police force in a Kabuls red zone while using an ambulance. Interior Minister Wais Ahmad Barmak on Sunday confirmed 103 people were killed while 235 were wounded in the assault.



On January 20, a group of Taliban suicide bombers stormed the heavily guarded building of Kabuls Intercontinental Hotel in a highly secured part of the city and killed at least 22 people, including 14 foreigners. At least four Americans were among the dead.



The Wall Street Journal reported a spokesman for an indicted Trump campaign official was among the four Americans killed in attack at the hotel. Glenn Selig, CEO of The Publicity Agency and Selig Multimedia Inc of Tampa, was at the Kabuls hotel when armed militants stormed the building.



The Taliban, who have refused to talk to the Kabul administration and insist on direct talks with the US, threatened more violence in angry reaction to Trumps refusal of peace talks with them.



Since Trump and his allies rejected peace, all responsibility of war and bloodletting will also befall upon them because they have not only lit the fire of the ongoing war with their invasion, but have spurned any possibility of peace and understanding, the Taliban said in response to what they called anti-peace expressions by US President Trump.



Donald Trump and his war-mongering supporters must understand that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If you insist upon war, our Mujahid nation will not welcome you with roses, a Taliban statement said.



Although there is currently nothing on ground on political front, Trumps refusal to shift focus away from military option, has killed chances of peace process at least for now.



Trumps approach could also be seen a setback for Pakistans latest efforts to encourage the Taliban to join the peace negotiations. The Taliban political office confirmed last week that its representatives visited Pakistan after Pakistani government recently expressed its desire to help in the political solution to the Afghan problem and exchange views.



Whatever the Taliban political office says, the Taliban leadership must take responsibility for destroying chances of any political process with their attacks in public places. It is better that both the US-led Resolute Support Mission and the Taliban fighters test their muscles in battle fields, in mountains and away from civil population and cities.



Nearly 14,000 American forces now live in heavily-guarded nine bases. The Taliban and Daesh carry out attacks in cities and crowded areas.



Trumps public refusal to talk to the Taliban is surprising for many, but his approach is not new as his Afghan strategy announced in August was also mainly focused on military option with little space for peace process.



America will continue its support for the Afghan government and the Afghan military as they confront the Taliban in the field, Trump had stated in his Afghan strategy. The US president believes after an effective military effort, perhaps it will be possible to have a political settlement that includes elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan, but nobody knows if or when that will ever happen.



As Trump and the Taliban stick to guns, Foreign Office spokesman said Tuesday that the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG), involving Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and the United States, was the most appropriate forum to help take the Afghan owned and Afghan peace process forward.



Dr Muhammad Faisal said in Radio Pakistans Current Affairs programme that Pakistan supported all peace initiatives to resolve Afghan problem.



The US had hosted diplomats from the QCG member states in Muscat, Oman last year. They marked the revival of the process after the death in a US drone strike of Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour in May 2016. No date was fixed for the next QCG meeting in Muscat. Trumps latest rhetoric could also slowdown the QCG process.Colombia Hoy



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LULA y su Pueblo



Bye Bye



Homenaje al genial Quino



Fueron ellos



Una imagen que resume



Tan bajo ha caido que se deja tocar el trasero?



Porky y el Nene (archiconocido narcotraficante)



Ladrones al poder



Asi mira el perrito a su amo



Crazy



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La nueva inquisicion



Bolivia



Chile Hoy



Eso es todo amigos!



Piensalo!



Pinerachet



No More Trump



Adios Macri, hasta nunca



La Marioneta se desinfla



Asi o mas cinico



Almugre



Mexico en 1794



Mas arrastrado imposible



Hasta cuando!



La pura verdad



Solidaridad con Palestina



Serie Capitalismo



Espejismos de la clase trabajadora



Asi es!



Comerciantes o delincuentes



No pasaran!



Asi es la vida



USA HOY



01/01/1959



La avaricia no tiene limites



AYUDA HUMANITARIA?



Chile Hoy



Asi son las cosas



Mapa Electoral de Venezuela



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Un aniversario mas del mayor genocidio de la Humanidad



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El Chulo de Madrid



Cuando la policia se roba la democracia



Una imagen dice mas que mil palabras



La purita verdad



Asi gobierna la maldita burguesia



Mi pobre clase media



Como Chavez nadie



Comparte La Colmena via twitter Twittear

Programa de la MUD



Asi o mas clarito



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Hace 15 anos Por que la OEA no se pronuncio?



Una verguenza nacional



La luz que nos guia



La Union Europea Premio Nobel de la Paz?



Feudalismo ayer y hoy



Obama, el mentiroso



Curiosa coincidencia



Un mundo de cerdos



No es extrano?



La Marioneta



Los ricos protestan, los pobres celebran



MARICORI Y OBAMA



Cuantas muertes este ano?



USA TODAY



USA HOY 6



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USA HOY 2



USA HOY (1)



Insaciable



Cronologia de un agresor



Guarimbear en USA



Mexico hoy



Bolivar y Chavez



Primero Amargado



Dios los cria y ellos se juntan



USA hoy (III)



USA hoy (II)



USA hoy



Mexico hoy



Mexico hoy



Mexico hoy



Obama



La verdad sea dicha



Los ricos



Que no nos vea Obama



Pobre Obama



SOS PALESTINA



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Algun dia Colombia volvera a la ideologia de Bolivar







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LOS REVOLUCIONARIOS NO TOMAN CACA-COLA No se trata solamente de un capricho, sino de una sana actitud en todos los sentidos. Desde la solidaridad con el pueblo colombiano donde la empresa Caca-Cola ha cometido los mas grandes abusos contra sus trabajadores incluyendo el presunto secuestro y asesinato de los dirigentes del sindicato, hasta la proteccion de la salud de nuestros hijos, enviciados por ese jarabe de cola y azucar, que les produce obesidad prematura. Pensemos tambien los revolucionarios, que ese dinero que gastamos en los refrescos es utilizado por esas empresas para financiar el terrorismo en nuestro pais. Es cierto, no se trata solo de la Caca-Cola, sino tambien de la cerveza, de los cigarrillos y todos esos articulos innecesarios y mas que eso, daninos para nuestra salud. Podriamos incluso pensar en un dia de parada para cada uno de ellos. Es cuestion de irnos organizando. Pero para empezar, que tal si dejamos de comprar Caca-Cola y sus similares?



























Cuando lo extraordinario se vuelve cotidiano...



Discurso del Acto de Grado en Barinas en 12 de Febrero del 2005 Queridos Graduandos:



Mas que un discurso, quiero dirigirles algunas palabras que escribi anoche, despues de visitar en las clinicas, a los estudiantes heridos, a consecuencia de los enfrentamientos con la policia de hace apenas dos dias.



Me ha tocado por razones del destino, ser la persona que les otorgue el titulo que bien merecieron con sus estudios. Y me siento sumamente orgulloso de serlo. Me consta que la Universidad de Los Llanos Occidentales Ezequiel Zamora, a pesar de lo dicho por los enemigos de esta universidad, es una universidad de primera.



No tendremos la mejor planta fisica, en los salones hace calor. En el comedor hace calor. Pero no es en lo material que las cosas deben valorarse. El mayor capital es el ser humano. Y en eso, nuestra UNELLEZ, lo digo con conocimiento de causa, esta sobrada. Los llaneros venezolanos son nobles, valientes, de coraje.



En la UNELLEZ hacen vida, en este momento, aproximadamente 67000 personas. El 97% de ellas son estudiantes. Jovenes que, como Ustedes hasta el dia de hoy, buscan ese titulo, que constata los anos de dedicacion y de estudio.



Los jovenes son el rio de la vida, ustedes graduados deben ser los capitanes de esos barcos que naveguen por el rio de la vida.



Nuestra Patria atraviesa momentos muy dificiles porque decidio dejar de ser esa matrona de edad vetusta y complaciente, para ser joven, rebelde y altanera. Nuestra imagen ya no es la de una acaudalada ricachona mayamera. En nuestro rostro brilla ahora la sonrisa del Che Guevara, con su diente delantero torcido, su pelo largo y su boina con la estrella.



Entender esto, a mi me ha tomado practicamente toda la vida. Tengo 53 anos, y ya perdi mi oportunidad de derramar sangre joven a causa de un ideal.



Ustedes son jovenes, estan en la flor de la vida. No cometan por favor el error de renunciar a su instinto de rebelion. El Che Guevara fue Ministro de a Economia en Cuba. Los billetes y las monedas se adornaban con su rostro. Nada de eso le importo. Primero fue a Angola donde paso un penoso ano de combate. Despues se fue a Bolivia, donde encontro la muerte. El Che era el ultimo que comia, el que cargaba la mochila mas pesada. Siempre se sacrificaba por los demas en un estoicismo que mas parecia fervor religioso que ideologia marxista.



Si quieren un modelo de vida. Ahi lo tienen.



Dije hace unos momentos que el 97% de la poblacion de la UNELLEZ es estudiante. Se imaginan Ustedes la Universidad que podriamos tener si todos los estudiantes tuvieran la abnegacion, la combatividad del Che?



Los momentos que se avecinan van a requerir de una gran unidad del pueblo venezolano. La alternativa de continuar siendo libres o regresar a la pobreza se nos planteara en los proximos dias de forma enmascarada, o quizas peor, desenmascarada, vestida con uniforme de soldado del Imperio.



Por nuestra parte podemos esperar lo mejor. La macroeconomia no podria ir mejor, la justicia social ha mejorado notablemente. Las misiones ocupan un papel muy importante en el pago de dicha justicia social. Aqui en Barinas ya hemos cumplido con dos de las misiones, la mision Robinson y la mision Sucre. No hay analfabetismo y no hay exclusion en la educacion superior, en estas tierras de Zamora.



Pero ay malhaya! Son precisamente estos exitos los que nos hacen mas antipaticos al Imperio. Para ellos, somos inclusive un mal ejemplo que se esta contagiando al resto del continente y cuidado sino al resto del mundo.



Nunca venceremos al Imperio. Estara siempre ahi, acechando. Por lo menos hasta que el mismo no se autodestruya. Porque, sepanlo senores, el neoliberalismo es canibal. Cuando le ataque el hambre, se devorara a si mismo.



Ustedes, queridos graduandos, a partir de hoy pasan a conformar la elite profesional que debe sostener este pais en los proximos cuarenta o cincuenta anos. Anos decisivos para el logro de nuestra libertad y del rescate de nuestra Soberania.



No se dejen comprar. No se dejen corromper. No se dejen gritar. No se dejen pisar. Que nadie les diga que comer, o que vestirse, o que leer. Sean siempre autenticos, rebeldes, contestatarios. Pero eso si, profundamente patriotas, dignos de ser hijos de Bolivar.



Muchas gracias y que Dios los bendiga.





Alguna duda?



Medio siglo de Holocausto Palestino



Oscar Zanartu Nacio en Caracas en 1960. Ha realizado exposiciones individuales en las galerias Minotauro, Clave y San Francisco, y en salas de Coro, estado Falcon, y Puerto Ordaz, estado Bolivar. En Paris su obra ha sido exhibida en el Centro Cultural Tanagra, en la Exposicion Cite Internationale des Arts, en las galerias De Mars y Arver Space, al igual que en la Galeria Municipal Levallois, en Levallois Perret (Francia). En muestras colectivas, su obra se ha expuesto en Belgica, Francia, Estados Unidos y Venezuela; en Caracas intervino en la exposicion "Del genesis a la memoria", 1995, organizada por la Fundacion La Previsora. En 1982 obtuvo el Premio Nacional Critven y en 1990 la Mencion de Honor Jose Antonio Paez, en la Embajada de Venezuela en Paris. En 1991 se le concedio el primer premio de Pintura Itinerante, en Levallois Perret, Francia.



OZ1



OZ2



OZ3



OZ4



Homenaje a Jason Galarraga



La Victoria de Samotracia



Odalisca



Mas fotos de la nevada del pasado agosto 2008



























La Sierra Nevada de Merida



Nuestro precioso Churum Meru



Homenaje a Picasso



Autoretrato



Sabes lo que bebes en una Coca-Cola?

La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.

Mi profesion?

Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.

Sal en la Coca Cola?

A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.

De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:

Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gusto

Acido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)

azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)

Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantas

Mucha Cafeina

Conservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o Potasio

Dioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebe

Sal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracion

El uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.

Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.

Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.

En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).

Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.

La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.

Bebidas Light?

Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el

Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.



Publicado por loretahur



En realidad, la formula secreta de la Coca-Cola se puede detallar en 18 segundos en cualquier espectrometro optico, y basicamente la conocen hasta los perros. Lo que ocurre es que no se puede fabricar igual, a no ser que uno disponga de unos cuantos millones de dolares para ganarle la demanda que te metera la Coca-Cola ante la justicia (ellos no perderian).La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gustoAcido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantasMucha CafeinaConservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o PotasioDioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebeSal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracionEl uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el aspartamo , despues de tres semanas mojado, pasa a tener gusto de trapo viejo sucio.Para evitar eso, se agregan una infinidad de otros productos quimicos, uno para alargar la vida del aspartamo, otro para neutralizar el color, otro para mantener el tercer quimico en suspension porque sino el fondo de la gaseosa quedaria oscuro, otro para evitar la cristalizacion del aspartamo, otro para realzar el sabor, dar mas intensidad al acido citrico o fosforito que perderia su sabor por el efecto de los cuatro productos quimicos iniciales... y asi sucesivamente.Un consejo final !!Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.Publicado por loretahur

MARGARINA o MANTEQUILLA La margarina fue producida originalmente para engordar a los pavos; cuandolo que hizo en realidad fue matarlos.Las personas que habian puesto el dinero para la investigacion quisieronrecobrarlo asi que empezaron a pensar en una forma de hacerlo.Tenian una sustancia blanca, que no tenia ningun atractivo como comestible,asi que le anadieron el color amarillo, para venderselo a lagente en lugar de la mantequilla.Que tal esa?... Ahora han sacado algunos nuevos sabores para vender mas alos incautos como usted y yo.CONOCE USTED la diferencia entre la margarina y la mantequilla?Siga leyendo hasta el final... porque se pone bastante interesante!Comparacion entre mantequilla y margarina:

1.- Ambas tienen la misma cantidad de calorias.

2.- La mantequilla es ligeramente mas alta en grasas saturadas: 8 gramos,comparada con los 5 gramos que tiene la margarina.

3.- Comer margarina en vez de mantequilla puede aumentar en 53% el riesgo deenfermedades coronarias en las mujeres, de acuerdo con un estudiomedico reciente de la Universidad de Harvard.

4.- Comer mantequilla aumenta la absorcion de gran cantidad de nutrientesque se encuentran en otros alimentos.

5.- La mantequilla provee beneficios nutricionales propios mientras lamargarina tiene solo los que le hayan sido anadidos al fabricarla.

6.- La mantequilla sabe mucho mejor que la margarina y mejora el sabor deotros alimentos.7.- La mantequilla ha existido durante siglos mientras que la margarinatiene menos de 100 anos.

Ahora... sobre la margarina:

1.- Es muy alta en acidos grasos trans. (Si, esos que recien ahora loscientificos descubrieron que son malisimos y los gobiernoscomenzaron a prohibirlos) .

2.- Triple riesgo de enfermedades coronarias.

3.- Aumenta el colesterol total y el LDL (el colesterol malo) y disminuye elHDL (el colesterol bueno).

4.- Aumenta en cinco veces el riesgo de cancer.

5.- Disminuye la calidad de la leche materna.

6.- Disminuye la reaccion inmunologica del organismo.

7.- Disminuye la reaccion a la insulina.

Y he aqui el factor mas inquietante (AQUI ESTA LA PARTE MAS INTERESANTE! ):A la margarina le falta UNA MOLECULA para ser PLASTICO...!!Solo este hecho es suficiente para evitar el uso de la margarina de porvida, y de cualquier otra cosa que sea hidrogenada (esto significaque se le anade hidrogeno, lo cual cambia la estructura molecular de lassubstancias).Usted puede ensayar lo siguiente:Compre un poco de margarina y dejela en el garaje o en un sitio sombreado.Dentro de unos dias notara dos cosas:

* No habra moscas; ni siquiera esos molestos bichos se le acercaran (esto yale debe decir a usted algo).

* No se pudre ni huele mal o diferente porque no tiene valor nutritivo; nadacrece en ella. Ni siquiera los diminutos microorganismos puedencrecer en ella.Por que? Porque es casi plastico!!



No a la guerra, Si a la Paz



Misterios de la ciencia...



Los costos de la guerra



medicos y capitalismo...



Capitalismo...



medicos (2)



Quien educa a nuestros hijos?



Los Medios...



Sin Palabras...



Chistes feministas

- Cual es el problema, Eva?

- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz...

- Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.

- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...

- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.

- Que es un hombre?

- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.

- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.

- Cual es el truco?.

- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.

- Cual?

- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.





Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas?  Porque todos son unos cerdos

Un dia, en el Paraiso, Eva llamo a Dios: Tengo un problema.- Cual es el problema, Eva?- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz... - Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.- Que es un hombre?- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.- Cual es el truco?.- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.- Cual?- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas?  Porque todos son unos cerdos

Ellas...



Ellas (2)...



Tres venganzas femeninas VENGANZA NUMERO 1

Hoy mi hija cumple 21 anos y estoy muy contento porque es el ultimo pago de pension alimenticia que le doy, asi que llame a mi hijita para que viniera a mi casa y cuando llego le dije:

-Hijita, quiero que lleves este cheque a casa de tu mama y que le digas que: Este es el ultimo maldito cheque que va recibir de mi en todo lo que le queda de su puta vida!!! Quiero que me digas la expresion que pone en su rostro.

Asi que mi hija fue a entregar el cheque. Yo estaba ansioso por saber lo que la bruja tenia que decir y que cara pondria.

Cuando mi hijita entro, le pregunte inmediatamente: -Que fue lo que te dijo tu madre?

-Me dijo que justamente estaba esperando este dia para decirte que no eres mi papa!



VENGANZA NUMERO 2

Un hombre que siempre molestaba a su mujer, paso un dia por la casa de unos amigos para que lo acompanaran al aeropuerto a dejar a su esposa que viajaba a Paris.

A la salida de inmigracion, frente a todo el mundo, el le desea buen viaje y en tono burlon le grita:

- Amor, no te olvides de traerme una hermosa francesita Ja ja ja!!

Ella bajo la cabeza y se embarco muy molesta.

La mujer paso quince dias en Francia.

El marido otra vez pidio a sus amigos que lo acompanasen al aeropuerto a recibirla.

Al verla llegar, lo primero que le grita a toda voz es:

- Y amor me trajiste mi francesita??

- Hice todo lo posible, - contesta ella - ahora solo tenemos que rezar para que nazca nina.



VENGANZA NUMERO 3

El marido, en su lecho de muerte, llama a su mujer. Con voz ronca y ya debil, le dice: - Muy bien, llego mi hora, pero antes quiero hacerte una confesion.

- No, no, tranquilo, tu no debes hacer ningun esfuerzo.

- Pero, mujer, es preciso - insiste el marido - Es preciso morir en paz.

Te quiero confesar algo.

- Esta bien, esta bien. Habla!

- He tenido relaciones con tu hermana, tu mama y tu mejor amiga.

- Lo se, lo se Por eso te envenene, hijo de puta!!!



machismo y cibernetica



Chiste machista La NASA ha enviado al espacio una mision experimental tripulada por dos monos y una mujer.Apenas abandona la atmosfera, se establece comunicacion con Houston.

-Atencion, simio 1, verifique sistemas hidraulicos, controle adecuada presion de los propulsores de arranque. A 60.000 pies disminuya un 25% la velocidad.

El simio hace la sena de OK.

-Atencion, simio 2, nivele al cruzar la estratosfera y active sistemas anticongelantes. No olvide monitorear sistemas de comunicacion e indicadores de presion. Comprendido?.

El simio hace la sena de OK.

-Atencion, Houston llamando a mujer: no se olvide.

-Mujer: Si, si, ya se! -interrumpe enojada- que no me olvide darles de comer a estos monos de mierda y que no se me vaya a ocurrir tocar nada!.



.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti.

Un abogado mantiene un romance con su secretaria.Al poco tiempo, esta queda embarazada y el abogado, que no quiere que su esposa se entere, le da a la secretaria una buena suma de dinero y le pide que se vaya a parir a Italia.Esta pregunta: Y como voy a hacerte saber cuando nazca el bebe ? El abogado responde: Para que mi mujer no se entere, tan solo enviame una postal y escribe por detras: Spaghetti. Y no te preocupes mas, que yo me encargare de todos los gastos.

Pasan los meses y una manana la esposa del abogado lo llama al bufete, algo exaltada: Querido, acabo de recibir el correo y hay una postal muy extrana viene desde Italia. La verdad, no entiendo que significa.El abogado, tratando de ocultar sus nervios, contesta:Espera a que llegue a casa, a ver si yo entiendoCuando el hombre llega a casa y lee la postal, cae al suelo fulminado por un infarto.Llega una ambulancia y se lo lleva. Ya en el hospital, el jefe de cardiologia se queda consolando a la esposa y le pregunta cual ha sido el evento que precipito tan masivo ataque cardiaco.

Entonces la esposa saca la postal y se la muestra diciendole: No me explico, doctor; el solamente leyo esta postal. Vea usted mismo lo que trae escrito.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti."Tres con salchicha y albondigas y dos con almejas



Gol !!!!



Chistes de Borrachos Entra un borracho a su casa todo manchado con lapiz labial por todos lados hecho un desastre, y la mujer le pregunta:-Hombre que te paso?Y el borracho le responde:-No me vas a creer, me pelee con un payaso!



Este es un borracho que entra en un bar y le dice al camarero:-Me da cinco copas de whisky?Al rato:-Me da cuatro?Al rato:-Me da tres copas?Despues:-Me da dos copas?Luego le dice:-Me da una copa?Y le dice al camarero:-Ves? Cuanto menos bebo, mas borracho estoy!

About Me Scott Because prophetic scriptures are found throughout the bible, it is obvious that a comprehensive, systematic approach would be useful, if not necessary, for the understanding of prophecy. Past prophecies have been fulfilled in a literal manner, as confirmed by the dating of these writings and historical records of confirmation. These past prophecies also serve as a model of how to interpret future prophecies. A literal view of prophecy clearly indicates a certain sequence of events will occur within a single generation, concluding with the Tribulation and Second Advent and these events will be obvious. The prophetic signs appear to be present in this generation and we believe these signs are revealed in the news from around the world. View my complete profile



BARCELONA, Jan 30: Catalonias parliament speaker on Tuesday postponed a session intended to re-elect the regions fugitive ex-president, saying the planned meeting would not take place until there were guarantees Spanish authorities wont interfere.





The decision comes after Spains top court ruled Saturday that Carles Puigdemont, who has fled to Belgium and faces arrest if he returns, could only be re-elected if physically present in the parliament in Barcelona. The court also ordered that he must obtain permission to appear at parliament from the judge investigating him over Catalonias independence bid.





Puigdemont is one of more than a dozen Catalan political figures facing possible rebellion and sedition charges following the previous parliaments illegal and unsuccessful declaration of independence in October, which brought Spains worst political crisis in decades to a head.





The decision leaves the future government of the prosperous region in something of a limbo.





Spain seized control of the region by firing Puigdemont and his government and dissolving parliament following the independence declaration. It says it will keep control until a new government takes office following elections held Dec. 21. The parliament was initially scheduled to have a first investiture vote by Wednesday.





Puigdemonts party has appealed to the top court to annul Saturdays ruling, arguing that their leader, as an elected lawmaker, has political immunity and is entitled to become regional president. The court was expected to rule later Tuesday.





Earlier, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy urged the Catalan parliament to drop Puigdemonts candidacy and opt for a lawmaker not entangled in legal proceedings.





Rajoy said the most sensible thing for the parliament speaker would be to propose a clean candidate who is willing to obey the law and work for the return of normality in Catalonia, a region of 7.5 million inhabitants and which represents a fifth of Spains GDP.





I am not going to propose a candidate other than Puigdemont, Catalan parliament speaker Roger Torrent said Tuesday. President Puigdemont has all the right to be elected.





The Spanish government and the Constitutional court aim to violate the rights of millions of Catalans and this we will not accept, he added.





Nonetheless, Torrent said the session to hold the vote would be postponed.



Kathmandu, Nepal: Senior Advocate Dr. Surendra Bhandari has on Wednesday filed a report at the Kathmandu District Administration Office (DAO) claiming that he has received death threats from Supreme Court Chief Justice Gopal Prasad Parajuli.





Senior advocate Bhandari, who had defended Dr. Govinda KC in the recent contempt of court case, has also asked for security claiming that the Chief Justice (CJ) has issued repeated death threats to him via cell phone. With the report, he has also attached the cell phone number from which he had received the life threat.



No need to say that Algerian leaders and diplomats are doing their best to weaken the position of their Moroccan neighbor in the Sahara issue through vain and malicious attempts to confuse the issue and muddy the waters in the African Union.

The latest attempt was made by the Algerian troublemaker, Commissioner for Peace and Security, Smail Chergui who submitted last Sunday to the 30th Summit of African Heads of State and Government a report in which he intentionally inserted paragraphs in total contradiction with the official position of the UN on the Western Sahara status.

The Moroccan diplomacy denounced this maneuver and immediately required the amendment of paragraphs 117 and 118 of the report. In the said paragraphs, the Algerian commissioner asks African heads of state to urge Morocco to accept the return to Laayoune, capital of the Moroccan Sahara, of the AU mission for Western Sahara whose leadership had been entrusted, at the instigation of Algeria, to Mozambican Joakim Albert Chissani. Morocco has never recognized the merits of this mission.

In his report, Smail Chergui also calls for the establishment of a human rights monitoring mechanism in the southern provinces of Morocco. He had seemingly forgotten that a similar request was made by the United States representation in the United Nations in 2013, but was rejected by the Security Council.

The Algerian Commissioner also asks the Swiss Crans Montana Foundation to stop organizing its annual forum in Dakhla and calls the AU Member States, civil society and all African actors to boycott this event.

Smail Cherguis non-binding report is not subjected to a vote. According to the AU Statutes, African Heads of State are not obliged to comply with this report, which is a mere compilation of notes, about which member countries can make comments. By the way, about twenty countries have expressed the same reservations as Morocco.

However, whatever the manoeuvers of Algerian leaders and diplomats, for Morocco the handling of the Western Sahara issue falls under the exclusive responsibility of the United Nations and its Security Council. Furthermore, the former Organization of the African Unity had lost its neutrality in this dispute when it accepted the admission of the Sahrawi entity SADR, which does not have any criteria of a sovereign State and is not recognized by any international organization, including the UN.Intro

Greetings! I am a political scientist , specializing in International Relations , my research and teaching focus on ethnic conflict and civil-military relations . I watch way too much TV, and I like movies as well so I tend to write about both and find IR stuff in pop culture. I rant alot about American politics and sometimes about Canadian politics. I like to take ideas I once learned a long time ago and apply them to whatever strikes my fancy.

Education Reporter

Mathew Burciaga is a Santa Maria Times reporter who covers education, agriculture and public safety. Prior to joining the Times, Mathew ran a 114-year-old community newspaper in Wyoming. He owns more than 40 pairs of crazy socks from across the globe. Applying strict scrutiny, Louisiana Supreme Court upholds facial constitutionality of criminalizing gun possession with illegal drug possession | Main | "Drugs and Violence" 

May 9, 2014

Is it fair to read the Constitution as evidence the Framers were not fans of finality?

As explained here, I am "celebrating" the official publication of my new article titled "Re-Balancing Fitness, Fairness, and Finality for Sentences" (which is available in full via this SSRN link) through a series of posts exploring sentence finality doctrines and practice. As explained in this prior post, one of the central themes of my piece is that different conceptual, policy, and practical considerations are implicated when a defendant seeks only review and reconsideration of his final sentence and does not challenge his underlying conviction. But, before I dig too deeply into distinguishing conviction and sentence finality, my article starts by pondering briefly what might have been the Framing Era perspective on finality considerations more generally. In so doing, I have this to say about some key provisions in each Article of the US Constitution:

The Constitutions text can be read to suggest the Framers were decidedly eager to provide or preserve opportunities for defendants to seek review and reconsideration of their treatment by government authorities. Article I, Section 9 instructs Congress that the Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, Article II, Section 2 provides that the President shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, and Article III, Section 2 provides that the Supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction. These provisions codify in our nations charter all the traditional mechanisms long used by individuals to challenge or seek modification of the exercise of government power through criminal justice systems. These provisions alone may not support a strong originalist claim that the Framers disfavored treating criminal judgments as final. Nevertheless, by precluding Congress from suspending habeas review, by empowering the President to grant clemency, and by authorizing the Supreme Court to hear appeals, the Constitution ensured that criminal defendants in a new America would have various means to seek review and reconsideration of the application of governmental power even after an initial criminal conviction and sentencing. More broadly, given the checks and balances built into our constitutional structure and the significant individual rights and criminal procedure protections enshrined in the Bill of Rights, one might readily conclude that the Framers were likely far more concerned with the fitness and fairness of criminal justice outcomes than with their finality.

Because I am neither a constitutional historian nor a hard-core originalist jurisprude, I do not devote much more time to these matters in my article. Still, as I suggest in a footnote, given "the significant attention now paid to various theories of originalism in modern constitutional litigation and jurisprudence in recent years, modern criminal justice advocates and scholars might unearth interesting and consequential findings if they were now to engage in an in-depth historical exploration of criminal justice finality concerns and issues through U.S. legal history." Ergo the question in this post is an effort to encourage engagement with these historical ideas (and also to solicit views on whether folks think further historical inquiry here might be important for modern jurisprudential developments).

Prior posts in this series:

May 9, 2014 at 01:44 PM | Permalink

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// the Constitution ensured that criminal defendants in a new America would have various means to seek review and reconsideration

of the application of governmental power even after an initial criminal conviction and sentencing." //

Yet they still speedily effected executions, the first federal one in less than one year after apprehension;

[now that's "finality"]

the 10-20 years of todays procedure is ridiculous.

1. "The first federal execution was on June 25, 1790," {RI had been the last state to ratify the Constitution on May 29, 1790;}

2. The "First US Congress Establishes Federal Death Penalty" on April 30, 1790, {In 1787 the 5th and 14th Amendments recognizing it with due process}.

~~Pbs.org, Gwu.org, Procon.org, ExecutedToday.com



Posted by: Adamakis | May 9, 2014 3:00:55 PM

The openness of the Founders to deviations from finality in criminal justice need to be understood, I think, against the prevailing system in place at the time.

* Appeals of right, other than habeas corpus petitions (which the government could defeat simply by establishing the fact of a conviction by a court with competent jurisdiction without inquiry into the guts of the proceeding particularly in the early days), are not available in the federal criminal justice system until a century after the constitution was adopted. Commutations and pardons, by virtue of the absence of other alternatives, which do a negligible share of appellate review work today and rarely interrupt finality of sentences today, played a part that at least rivaled habeas corpus review and appellate review at the time. Indeed, it was arguably the only forum in which the kinds of issues raised in modern criminal appeals had any plausible shot at having an impact. Independence from Britain also enhanced the finality of criminal judgments in the U.S. by eliminating the right to appeal to a Privy Council in London weeks away across the Atlantic Ocean in certain circumstances that had existed in the Colonial era.

* The use of the death penalty for non-homicide offenses (pretty much all of the most serious felonies and some merely moderately serious felonies) was common in 18th century America and in 18th century Britain from which it derived its legal culture. Executions followed days or months, not years or decades, after the sentence was pronounced. Even into the 1960s, before the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily suspended the death penalty in the United States, judicial review of capital verdicts was not all that much longer or more onerous than judicial review of other criminal convictions for felonies. In the time of the Founders, summary execution by ship's captain tribunals for piracy on the high seas without any ordinary judicial process or judicial review was also routine (and at that time, the vast majority of the U.S. population lived on the Atlantic coast and travel by sea was the predominant form of interstate commerce). And, of course, the discipline of slaves, indentured servants, wives and children by a head of household was almost completely outside the judicial process. Within a household whose head was virtually sovereign in his own home.

* Corporal punishment short of death was also a not infrequently used sentencing option and again, was imposed promptly (and less often with any attempt at collateral review).

* Long sentences of incarceration were extremely rare (in part because society couldn't afford to run the prisons and remove so many able bodies men from the work force while feeding, sheltering and clothing them), so any process for reviewing convictions resulting in sentences to periods of incarceration would often be rendered moot unless it was very speedy.

* We normally don't think about the duration of the trial itself as a key parameter in the criminal justice system, but while we have many very short criminal trials today, just as we did back then, very long criminal trials were profoundly less common then than they are today. Also, preserving an appellate record at trial in order to set up an appeal was far more difficult.



Posted by: ohwilleke | May 9, 2014 8:39:36 PM

Not bad.

For a taste of a relevant Founding Father's legal

positions, try John Jay @ oll.libertyfund.org/titles/jay-the-correspondence-and-public-papers-of-john-jay-vol-4-1794-1826&

www.wallbuilders.com/libissuesarticles.asp?id=64

{The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay} www.nycourts.gov/history/legal-history-new-york/luminaries-supreme-court/jay-john.html

Posted by: Adamakis | May 9, 2014 11:30:44 PM

I was reading a few books and articles on the Nuremberg Trials last year. One thing struck me. The Russians were voicing the idea that each side round up the bad Nazis and simply shoot them without trial. One problem with that would have been that the World would not have seen the allegations and evidence which was presented and history would perhaps judged the Nazis and German people less harshly. In America, part of the process of trials and appeals has a similar positive aspect. The public gets to hear the allegations and evidence against alleged criminals and can learn from the mistakes. The issues of mistakes and intentional false charges against innocent people reveals an ugly side of America.

Posted by: Liberty1st | May 10, 2014 1:37:10 AM

The Founding Fathers are dead. We are not going to read the minds of people from 250 years ago.

We should be fans of accuracy. To promote it,

1) Allow the smartest and most experienced person in the tribunal to investigate the facts. The judge. Today, the hierarchy will destroy a judge who drives through the intersection of the accident. They impeached such a judge. Crush the vile cult criminals. Stop wasting the legal assets of he judge. Naturally, the judge should be liable in torts for a performance below judge standards of due care.

2) Appeals of a verdict should go to seasoned investigators for any missed factual innocence. If they are satisfied, both verdict and sentence should be final if the sentence is within guidelines.

3) If finality has value, make all appellate panels have an even number of judges. If the vote is tied, the decision of the lower court stands.

Posted by: Supremacy Claus | May 10, 2014 6:30:18 AM

The opening for review was there -- a historian of American law, e.g., cited various "technicalities" that overturned sentences in the 19th Century ("framers" of the 14A would be of this time period) -- and even if they were applied in a different way, the Constitution left the opening there for developments, including as the penal system looked much different than it did in 1790.

An earlier comment stacks the deck a bit there. For instance, damage awards being possible would not make things "moot" even if the person was whipped or something. Criminals also served in various ways outside of prison. Blacks, who did have some rights contra Taney, might have had to serve a period of servitude. Whites could be banished. Some probably served on work gangs or the like. And, "almost" is not "none." This is not meant to be a full reply either.

Posted by: Joe | May 10, 2014 12:07:12 PM

Lib: How do you like the outcome of those fancy trials? Immediate mass hangings of those not committing suicide. Same as what the Russians proposed.

The Russian were just mediocre Commies compared to the American lawyer. They did not see that lengthy trials would generate a massive lawyer bill, and government make work jobs for the lawyer profession. Then hide the real intent with lying lawyer propaganda about their false hypocritical piety.

Posted by: Supremacy Claus | May 11, 2014 10:25:26 AM

"2) Appeals of a verdict should go to seasoned investigators for any missed factual innocence. If they are satisfied, both verdict and sentence should be final if the sentence is within guidelines."

France has something a bit like this system. A certain percentage of cases are automatically appealed despite a lack of a request to appeal by either party as part of the auditing function to make sure that trial judges are doing their jobs.

Posted by: ohwilleke | May 13, 2014 2:46:54 PM

Post a comment "Expansion of the Federal Safety Valve for Mandatory Minimum Sentences" | Main | Texas carries out its second execution of 2018 

January 30, 2018

A SCOTUS amicus opportunity to reiterate some of my views on sentence finality

The Supreme Court has three(!) upcoming arguments concerning the proper application of the federal prison term modification rules that Congress set out in 18 U.S.C.  3582(c)(2): Hughes v. United States and Koons v. United States are due to be argued March 27, and Chavez-Meza v. United States will likely be argued in late April. The fact that the SCOTUS has decided to take up three cases dealing with  3582(c)(2) highlights the range of intricate issues that sentence modification motions can present. And the first of these cases, Hughes, deals with the initial issue of who is even eligible for sentence modification and presents further questions about how to deal with the 4-1-4 divide among the Justices in the leading prior ruling of Freeman v. United States, 564 U.S. 522 (2011).

As readers know, I have written up some of my perspectives on "sentence finality" in an law review article, "Re-Balancing Fitness, Fairness, and Finality for Sentences", and in a number of prior posts (some of which are reprinted below). I was encouraged recently to channel some of these ideas into an amicus brief in Hughes, and a terrific set of lawyers at Sidley Austin LLP played the leading and central role in making this amicus brief a reality. Here is the "Summary of Argument" from this just-filed brief:

The standard presumption in favor of finality for criminal judgments need not and should not be elevated over other critical criminal justice interests when a defendant seeks only to modify an ongoing prison sentence based on new legal developments. See Douglas A. Berman, Re-Balancing Fitness, Fairness, and Finality for Sentences, 4 Wake Forest J.L. & Poly 151, 17475 (2014). Through sentence-modification provisions like the one at issue in this case, see 18 U.S.C.  3582(c)(2), Congress has expressed its concerns for those other criminal justice interests by creating a significant sentencing exception to the usual presumption in favor of finality. Appreciating the importance of getting sentences right while an offender is still serving a prison term, Congress has astutely elevated substantive sentencing goals like accuracy, fairness, and uniformity over concerns about finality in this context. Section 3582(c)(2) serves well the purposes of fitness and fairness: its sentence-modification provisions eliminate unwarranted disparities in federal sentencing, promote the governments legitimate substantive penological interests, foster societal respect for the criminal justice system, and save long-term costs associated with excessive terms of incarceration. The question of statutory interpretation presented in this case, i.e., what does the term based on mean, should be resolved in favor of clear congressional policy and purpose. Defendants who commit crimes of similar severity under similar conditions should receive similar sentences. When it is functionally apparent that a particular amended guideline was applicable in a defendants case, it ought not matter whether that defendants plea agreement contained calculations applying the since-reduced guideline. A contrary interpretation, one that unnecessarily narrows eligibility for relief under  3582(c)(2), would turn congressional policy on its head, wrongly elevate finality interests over those Congress sought to champion, and lead to systemic injustice. The Court should take this opportunity to embrace a broad interpretation of based on that comports with overriding congressional policy. Accordingly, petitioner should be eligible for relief under  3582(c)(2) because his sentence was based on a Guidelines range that has been subsequently lowered.

Some (of many) prior posts on sentencing finality:

January 30, 2018 at 04:53 PM | Permalink

Comments

"Defendants who commit crimes of similar severity under similar conditions should receive similar sentences."

Because all persons commit thousands of crimes, sentencing should be based on the person, and not on the crime. Because utility is the best standard of decision making, individualized sentences are needed. So, a serial killer drug kingpin shoplifts a bottle of pop, he may get the death penalty. As with all remedies individual host properties need to be assessed, and the size of the remedy needs to be fitted.

I also urge a measurement of the pulse and blood pressure around age 18. Low ones predict recidivism, according to a meta-analysis of 40 studies, and the verification of this effect in a huge database.

Posted by: David Behar | Jan 30, 2018 5:53:56 PM

Post a comment Texas carries out its second execution of 2018 | Main | Mass molester Larry Nassar in state court for his third and final sentencing 

January 30, 2018

Prez Trump, in his first State of the Union address, mentions "reforming our prisons" and need to "get much tougher on drug dealers"

As had been predicted (see this prior post), President Donald Trump in his very first State of the Union address said that prior reform was on his agenda for the coming year. But later in this speech, he suggested that he supported an even tougher criminal justice response to our nation's drug problem. These were both very small parts of a very long speech, and here is the context with key sentences highlighted from this official text:

As America regains its strength, this opportunity must be extended to all citizens. That is why this year we will embark on reforming our prisons to help former inmates who have served their time get a second chance.... In 2016, we lost 64,000 Americans to drug overdoses: 174 deaths per day. Seven per hour. We must get much tougher on drug dealers and pushers if we are going to succeed in stopping this scourge. My Administration is committed to fighting the drug epidemic and helping get treatment for those in need. The struggle will be long and difficult  but, as Americans always do, we will prevail.

With these sentences and sentiments, I believe Prez Trump has defined the terms of what is truly possible on the federal criminal justice reform front in 2018. It would seem "back-end" prison reforms to facilitate earlier release from prison for all federal offenders and enhanced reentry efforts are quite possible and may truly be a priority for the Trump Administration; it would also seem that "front-end" sentencing reforms to reduce mandatory minimum terms for drug trafficking offenses many not be possible and may be actively opposed by the Trump Administration. Interesting times.

A few prior recent related posts:

January 30, 2018 at 11:21 PM | Permalink

Comments

As I have said several times, NYC liberal. Lots of worthless, quack, make work jobs for registered Democrats, working for government.

Posted by: David Behar | Jan 31, 2018 8:56:12 AM

Clearly, Trump already is more impressive than Obama after eight year. /snark

Posted by: Joe | Jan 31, 2018 10:47:17 AM

Its obvious that Trump and Sessions arent aware of the current penalties fir drug dealing.

But they could make a huge contribution on Opioids if they would shutdown, McKesson and other drug compsnies from shipping the drugs nation wide to be pedaled on the streets. So far both are sadly i formed on the issue. Step 2 is to educate or threThen Drs from dishing out opioid prescrptions like its Valentines day for trivial pains at best.

Step 3, get the Feds to put prosecutotial teeth in fines against these drug companies. Thats what sessions could/should be doing, not going the same make work worthless direction kf imprisoning drug addicts. Thats my story and Im stucking to it.

Posted by: MidWestGuy | Jan 31, 2018 3:07:17 PM

Post a comment Mass molester Larry Nassar in state court for his third and final sentencing | Main | Spotlighting prisoners still stuck in federal prison because of absence of retroactive application of Fair Sentencing Act 

January 31, 2018

"Top Trends in State Criminal Justice Reform, 2017"

The title of this post is the title of this short "Policy Brief" from The Sentencing Project. Here is how it gets started:

The United States is a world leader in incarceration rates and keeps nearly 7 million persons under criminal justice supervision. More than 2.2 million are in prison or jail, while 4.6 million are monitored in the community on probation or parole. Changes in sentencing law and policy, not changes in crime rates, have produced the nations high rate of incarceration. Scaling back incarceration will require changing policy and practice to reduce prison populations, address racial disparity, and eliminate barriers to reentry. In recent years a number of states have enacted reforms designed to reduce the scale of incarceration and impact of the collateral consequences of a felony conviction. This briefing paper describes key reforms undertaken in 2017. SENTENCING REFORMS Lawmakers in several states enacted reforms to reduce the number of persons in prison and improve fairness in the criminal justice system. Most notably, Louisiana authorized legislation, Senate Bill 139, which expanded probation eligibility to people convicted of third-time nonviolent offenses and first-time low-level violent offenses. The bill also expanded eligibility for treatment alternatives and drug courts. The state amended parole practices, including lowering time served requirements before parole consideration, and authorized parole consideration for those sentenced to life at a time when their offense-type qualified for parole. Other states  Arkansas, Hawaii, Michigan, and Montana  adopted a range of reforms, including expanding probation eligibility, reclassifying low-level felonies to misdemeanors, streamlining parole review mechanisms, and limiting prison admissions for technical violations.

January 31, 2018 at 10:56 AM | Permalink

Comments

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

Article 15

1 . No one shall be held guilty of any criminal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a criminal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time when the criminal offence was committed. If, subsequent to the commission of the offence, provision is made by law for the imposition of the lighter penalty, the offender shall benefit thereby.



Posted by: Claudio Giusti | Jan 31, 2018 4:48:39 PM

Claudio. Decarceration 3%. Surge in murders 15%, mostly of young black males.

Racist, genocidal maniac, pro-criminal advocates like you are 100% responsible for the preventable murders of thousands of additional fine young black males.

Posted by: David Behar | Feb 1, 2018 4:13:58 AM

Post a commentForeign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying's Regular Press Conference on January 31, 2018

2018/01/31

Q: According to reports, yesterday, some people from the British side said that the Belt and Road Initiative, if well implemented, could contribute to global growth, and it is vital that the Belt and Road initiative meets international standards. What is your response?

A: The Belt and Road Initiative, as a platform for international cooperation, functions in a mutually beneficial, open, inclusive and transparent way. When we advance the Belt and Road Initiative, we follow the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, and comply with the law of the market and international rules, because we want the Belt and Road Initiative to produce high-quality and sustainable results. Just think about it. If the Belt and Road Initiative did not deliver on what we have just talked about, then how could this initiative achieve so much progress with flying colors.

You all remember that last May, China successfully held the first Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, which was attended by the senior representatives from more than 140 countries and heads of over 80 international organizations. That forum led to more than 270 outcomes as well as the international consensus on jointly advancing the Belt and Road Initiative. It has not been long since China put forward the Belt and Road Initiative, but this initiative has already been echoed and endorsed by more than 100 countries worldwide. Now it has become the largest and most welcomed platform for international cooperation in the world. These facts and numbers do mean something.

It is fair to say that the Belt and Road Initiative corresponds with the trend of the times, conforms to the law of development, and serves the interests of all, and its future boasts vast potential and bright prospects. Going forward, we will continue with our efforts to further advance the Belt and Road Initiative along with other parties so as to create more opportunities for and make greater contributions to the development of all countries and the global economic growth.

Q: The US Treasury on January 30 published a "Kremlin report" which includes a listing of almost all Russian leaders and famous businessmen, to a total number of more than 200 people. The report makes it clear that the US might impose economic sanctions on those countries cooperating with Russia. In light of the close military cooperation between China and Russia, how will this report affect relevant Russia-China cooperation?

A: China consistently opposes the willful use or threat of use of unilateral sanctions in international relations. We also note that the so-called report issued by the US Treasury says that it is not a sanctions list and it does not mean restriction of dealings with listed persons by either US or other persons.

I want to stress that both Russia and the US are major countries and UN Security Council permanent members, commanding great influence and shouldering important responsibility for world peace and security. We hope that on the basis of equality and mutual respect, the two sides could properly resolve their differences through friendly consultations.

China-Russia relations are mature and steady, immune to the volatile external landscape. We believe that with concerted efforts, China-Russia relations will maintain growth at a high standard, and bilateral practical cooperation in various fields, including the military field, will proceed as usual. We would like to work with Russia to realize the development and rejuvenation of our respective countries and contribute to regional and global peace and stability.

Q: In US President Trump's State of the Union address delivered a few hours ago, he said that rivals like China and Russia are challenging our interests, economy, and values. What is your comment?

A: China and the United States share a wide range of common interests, and they are important ones. We do have our differences, but our common interests far outweigh our differences. The past and present has shown that cooperation is the only right choice for China and the US and a better future can only be realized by promoting win-win relations. We hope that the US can cast away such outdated notions as the Cold-War mentality and zero-sum game and view China and China-US relations in a correct way. It is important for the two sides to work on the basis of mutual respect, focus on cooperation and manage differences so as to ensure the sound and steady development of China-US relations.

Follow-up: In his address, President Trump talked about the threat posed by the DPRK and imposing sanctions on the dictatorships in Cuba and other countries. He also said that the US must rebuild its nuclear arsenal, hopefully never having to use it, but making it so strong and powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression. What is your response to all that?

A: China's position on the relevant issues mentioned by you is consistent and clear-cut. As regards the Korean Peninsula issue, we have noted that now the situation on the Korean Peninsula has shown some signs of abatement, which is a hard-won result thanks to the concerted efforts of all relevant parties and shall be cherished even more. We hope that all relevant parties can exercise restraint and whatever they say or do shall contribute to continuously easing the situation on the Peninsula.

Regarding the issue of sanctions, I have just said that China always opposes the imposition of unilateral sanctions by any country on others in accordance with its own domestic laws. We hope that relevant issues could be properly resolved through equal-footed dialogue on the basis of mutual respect.

You also mentioned the issue about the US aspiring to rebuild its nuclear arsenal. We believe in and advocate complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons. The country with the largest nuclear arsenal has a special responsibility when it comes to nuclear disarmament and shall lead by example in that regard and create conditions for the realization of complete and thorough nuclear disarmament.

Q: The Australian reported that one of the most disastrously-implemented aid projects in Vanuatu is being delivered by the Australian government, with the project far behind schedule, over-budget spending and poor quality. What is your comment?

A: I have noted the report you mentioned.

The people and government of the recipient country is in the best position to say which countries provide the most effective assistance. The international community has an eye for it. I want to stress that regardless of how other countries' assistance programs may unfold, we will always offer assistance to the Pacific Islands countries to the best of our capacity and with no political strings attached and sincerely help them realize economic and social development, on the basis of fully respecting the will of the governments and peoples of the Pacific Islands countries and taking into full consideration their development needs.

Q: It is reported that the catalogs distributed at a Japanese-brand Muji store in China's Chongqing Municipality contain faulty maps. The National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation of China already addressed this matter. The Japanese side made protests this morning. Do you have a comment?

A: I have no idea what the protests are, since I haven't seen relevant information. I did note that the National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation of China already issued a notice, ordering the company involved to seal and scrap the faulty maps and take appropriate measures to prevent similar practices.

I want to stress that China welcomes foreign businesses' investment and operation in China, but all of them shall respect China's sovereignty and territorial integrity and abide by China's laws.

Q: British Prime Minister Theresa May kicks off her visit to China today and she will hold talks with Premier Li Keqiang. What are China's expectations for the talks? When will President Xi Jinping meet with Prime Minister Theresa May?

A: I have already talked about the relevant arrangements and China's expectations for the visit.

With regard to Prime Minister Theresa May's schedule, you are correct in saying that she will hold talks with Premier Li Keqiang. In fact, this afternoon, Premier Li Keqiang will hold a welcoming ceremony for Prime Minister Theresa May and then hold talks with her, followed by a joint meeting with the press. After that, they will together meet the representatives of the China-UK Entrepreneurs Committee. During Prime Minister Theresa May's stay in China, President Xi Jinping will meet with her, and so will Chairman Zhang Dejiang of the NPC Standing Committee.

As for China's expectations for this visit, we have said before that the Chinese side attaches great importance to China-UK relations as well as to Prime Minister Theresa May's visit this time. As the UK is committed to advancing the "Golden Era" for China-UK relations, we hope that through Prime Minister Theresa May's visit and an in-depth exchange of views, China and the UK could further enhance mutual trust, expand pragmatic cooperation in various areas, strengthen communication and coordination on major international and regional issues and promote the steady development of the "Golden Era" for China-UK relations in the new era.

Q: India's former ambassador to China Vijay Keshav Gokhale took charge as India's Foreign Secretary, succeeding S. Jaishankar. Reports say that Mr. Gokhale, as a Chinese expert, will help China-India relations overcome disputes and strengthen cooperation. What is your comment on his appointment?

A: We have noted relevant reports. We congratulate Mr. Gokhale on officially assuming the office as Foreign Secretary of India. Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the two sides have been making active efforts to advance bilateral ties in accordance with the consensus reached between the two leaders. We hope that such sound and cooperative relations could be sustained and reinforced.

Following the guidance of the five principles of peaceful co-existence which are jointly championed by the two sides, China stands ready to work with India to enhance political mutual trust, promote mutually beneficial cooperation, properly manage differences, and move forward China-India relations along the right track.Sara Grossman used to party with her friend Drew Leinonen at Pulse nightclub. She graduated from the University of Central Florida in 2007  where she met Drew  and moved to New York City, but would visit relatives and friends, including Drew and Pulse, when she came back down.

I dont know how I did it going out until 2 a.m., she said. With him it was easy. He had endless energy.

She saw him two weeks before he died in the Pulse nightclub shooting in June, 2016. She had met Drews boyfriend, Juan, who also died in the attack.

Grossman was completely changed after her friend died. After graduating from UCF and moving to New York, she had gotten her MFA in nonfiction creative writing. It had led to work in marketing and branding and for nearly five years, thats what she did. But she wanted a change. She decided to move to Denver and became a consultant. After Drew died, she started The Dru Project  she said it was his screen name, before branding was even a thing.

A lot of his friends would be like whats the dru project? It sounds like a nonprofit for boys, she said. He branded himself before ever needing it.

The Dru Project is an LGBTQ+ nonprofit advocacy group that promotes a gay straight alliance. Grossman says Drew started the GSA at Seminole High School when he attended. He also won the Anne Frank humanitarian award. The Dru Project, once an online handle, is now an organization dedicated to providing curriculum for GSAs in high schools all over the country.

After Drews death, Grossman grieved hard for a month. She had The Dru Project and had left marketing, but it wasnt enough. She had just started her consulting business four months before Drew died. After his funeral, she nullified all her contracts.

Your company is great but what do you do? she would ask herself about her clients. I decided to work in advocacy.

She went to a Colorado nonprofit job board and found an opening for the Matthew Shepard Foundation. She didnt leave the Executive Director alone until he gave her an interview. Four months after the Pulse shooting, she got a job there.

Our executive director was friends with Matthew Shepard, she said. So we had a conversation about Pulse and Drew.

Three weeks after she started her new job, Grossman got a call from Barbara Poma, the executive director for the onePULSE Foundation, hoping to work together on a project.

Shortly after [Pulse] tragedy, I reached out to them, Poma said. I knew our foundations had similar missions.

Fueled by Tragedy, Powered by Pain

Barbara Poma was running Pulse and other businesses with her husband before tragedy struck. After the nightclub shooting, onePULSE was immediately born. Poma wanted to meet others who had been doing the work she now wanted to do, including Matthew Shephards parents.

Judy and Dennis had been fighting the fight against hate crimes for 19 years and I felt like connecting with them would be crucial, Poma said. She met Sara, and they connected instantly through Drew.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Matthew Shepards murder, and the Foundation will be working on a multitude of events and projects. Grossman and Poma are working on an event in Orlando for June.

We decided to do a celebrity fundraiser to raise money for both organizations, Grossman said. Bringing these two organizations together will be powerful. It makes sense.

Every year, The Matthew Shepard Foundation has a gala, but this year it will be much bigger, Grossman said. There have been requests from all over the country, from The Laramie Project, to art shows, and countless other events where people have felt compelled to do something.

So many people call and email us to tell us they created something in honor of Matthew Shepard, Grossman said. Were going to try to collect them to put them in a gallery here in Denver.

But its the partnership with onePULSE that Grossman is excited about. While dates and events havent been finalized yet, there are plans to include not only a celebrity fundraiser, but also a showing of The Laramie Project  a play about reactions to the murder of Shepard. It draws on the reactions of hundreds of people that were interviewed in the town of Laramie, Wy. Its one of the top 5 most popular plays in the country, Grossman said. And this project is one of a bunch of moving pieces.

So far, Grossman says the month-long event will start with Gay Days on June 2 in Orlando. Proceeds will be split among both organizations, with a gala or a celebrity reading of The Laramie Project  or both.

Were raising awareness of how these two organizations and foundations were born out of tragedy, Grossman said. [Were] creating good by moving anguish into action.We can't seem to find the page you are looking for.

You may have typed the address incorrectly or you may have used an outdated link.Last week, media outlets in Ontario reported on allegations at two of the province's racetracks. The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, the Lakeshore Horse Racing Association, and Dresden Raceway, have each commented on the allegations, and the investigation.

"AGCO Investigators in London received a call from a member of the public with concerns about racing at Leamington and Dresden," the AGCO has said in a statement. "The AGCO review of this allegation is not complete. AGCO Racing Investigators continue to gather information.

"The fairness and integrity of horse racing is of paramount concern to the AGCO. Anyone with information is encouraged to contact us. Call 519-668-7558 or toll free 1-800-522-2876."

Because the investigation is ongoing, the AGCO will not be commenting on further details of the story at this time. Once the investigation is complete, the AGCO will respond further.

Wayne Martinuik, the general manager and treasurer of the Lakeshore Horse Racing Association, which operates live racing at Leamington Raceway, said the following in a statement:

"Through the media, Lakeshore Horse Racing Association (LHRA) was made aware of an active investigation by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) regarding racing at Leamington and Dresden Raceway.

"We have subsequently been provided with a copy of the written complaint and have held discussions with the individuals named in the allegation. Based on our discussions with the accused and our previous history with the accuser, LHRA is satisfied the allegations have no merit. Furthermore, we are of the opinion that the allegations were made to the AGCO with malicious intent."

Dresden Raceway spokesman Gary Patterson has also commented on the allegations and has stated that, according to him, there is no basis for the accusations.

A driver has a split second to make a choice on the track, Patterson said, referring to how drivers dont even have time during a race to fix outcomes. It all has to come together perfectly to form the horse race, and I would be very, very surprised if any of these allegations are even close to being true.

As reported in the Windsor Star on Tuesday, The Dresden trainer at the centre of the investigation, who did not want his name used until the investigation is complete, said two AGCO investigators interviewed him a few weeks ago.

I want to clear the raceways, the trainer told The Star. Theyre trying to get patrons, you cant say someone is cheating. This is strictly against me, but I have too good a name for that.

The trainer told The Star that investigators questioned him about a pair of races in which his horse finished sixth and seventh, respectively, and then, a few weeks later, the same horse won a race at The Raceway at Western Fair District.

The speed of my horse was the same for all the races, that happens, the trainer explained. When you get lucky, you win.

Mark Williams, the president of the Lakeshore Horse Racing Association and the local representative to the Ontario Harness Horse Association, was also interviewed by The Star.

You might as well be naming the Pope, Williams told The Star. Hes the most honest guy who has ever taken a breath."

Trot Insider will continue to follow the story as it develops.Winners Circle shots, mares and foals, driver photos and funny poses in the barn were all a part of the I Love Canadian Harness Racing Fan Clubs Memories Photo Contest this year. We received a ton of touching stories and photos, showcasing many of your 2017 harness racing memories.

After much deliberation the judges selected Dawn Moore from Westchester, Nova Scotia for her story and photo about her mare, Bettim Vicky and foal UBettimWatching.

Here is Dawns story and photo:

I own part of a mare named Bettim Vicky who sustained an injury during a training incident at two. We tried training her down again at three and her injury resurfaced so the decision was made to breed her to world champion Hes Watching. After being successfully bred she was moved to Double J Farms later in the year. In early April, 2017, we woke up to a text saying Vicky had a colt! As exhilarating as it was organizing for the mare to be bred and meeting the newborn foal, it was no comparison to when we turned him out in the round pen the first time. He was so full of life. He would pace a few strides, then gallop, rear up, and trot, all with his tail straight up in the air. I had seen newborn foals happily playing in the pasture before, but I never saw one with so much fire. UBettimWatching or Jett is now a healthy, energetic yearling and his dam is now a race winner at the Charlottetown Driving Park. I'll never forget my first colt's excitement to being turned out for the first time.

Dawn is a Registered Nurse in Nova Scotia and became involved with racing while attending the University of Prince Edward Island. Her love for equines started with Quarter Horses, until trainer Jeff Lilley taught her all about the Standardbred world. She quickly fell in love with some of his barn's personalities and some of her favourites include: Mattadors Rose, Kendal Python, and the then-weanling Bettim Vicky. After falling for the breed, she became part owner with Mattadors Rose, Bettim Vicky and her foal UBettimWatching. On her days off she likes to go to the island and take in the races and help out with daily chores.

The photo that comes with Dawns story was taken at Jamie MacKinley's Double J Farms where Bettim Vicky foaled. Since then the two were reunited at Dawns farm.

We brought them [Bettim Vicky and Ubettimwatching] home around the beginning of June to meet the rest of the herd. When we brought them home, Vicky was so excited that she took off without "Jett" (UBettimWatching), so I walked him up the hill to get to the other horses. He was pacing the whole way up the hill, and his patience and manners were impeccable. When Vicky saw him at the top of the hill, she came over, reclaimed him, and they took off in the field together explained Dawn.

For winning, Moore will take home a Fan Club prize package and a $50 gift card to Red Shores Racetrack.



Current photo of UBettimWatching (Jett) and Dawn Current photo of UBettimWatching (Jett) and Dawn

The Fan Club would like to thank Dawn and all of the other entrants who shared their most memorable moments and photos of 2017 with us. We would also like to wish all of our Fan Club members the best of luck with racing on and off track in 2018!It has been announced that provisions on entries have been put in place in Ohio in light of the EHV-1 situation which has unfolded at the Meadows in Pennsylvania.

The Ohio Harness Horsemen's Association has announced that, in light of the unfortunate recent EHV-1 positives at the Meadows, Miami Valley Raceway will not be accepting entries on any horse that has raced or stabled at the western Pennsylvania track since January 10, until further notice.

Additionally, any horse that raced at the Meadows between January 1 and January 9, plus any horse stabled in the state of Pennsylvania (farms or fair tracks) since January 1, will be required to submit a health certificate dated within 48 hours of the horses first start at Miami Valley, in addition to a negative laboratory result from a nasal swab test.

As a result of the situation, live racing at the Meadows has been cancelled until at least Tuesday, February 6.

EHV-1 is a highly contagious virus that commonly circulates in horse populations. Depending on the specific strain of the virus, the equine herpes virus can cause a variety of clinical signs in infected horses, including respiratory disease or abortion in pregnant mares. The EHM form of the disease can cause horses to suffer varying degrees of paralysis and ataxia; in severe cases, the infected horse may be euthanized. While EHV-1 can cause illness in horses, other equine animals and camelids (llamas and alpacas), it does not pose a health threat to people or other animals.

Unless a new case is detected, all horses can be cleared after 28 days without symptoms, or after 21 days with confirmation of negative test results for both blood samples and nasal swab tests.

Experts note that many horses carry a latent form of the herpes virus, and symptoms may not appear unless the animal is stressed. Although horses are vaccinated for other strains of the equine herpes virus, there is no existing vaccine for the EHV-1 strain of the virus.

The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario has advises that Ontario horsepeople need to be vigilant to prevent infectious disease.

The racing industry is very mobile and participants need to use caution and take appropriate biosecurity measures, such as not sharing equipment between horses and being alert for signs of neurological symptoms and fevers.

Monitoring rectal temperatures twice daily is recommended. If suspicions arise, they should immediately call their veterinarian.

(With files from the Ohio Harness Horsemen's Association)Pioneers and BibleMesh Introduce Online Theological Training for Missionary Candidates, Marking New Ways to Prepare for Service

Contact: Douglas Baker, BibleMesh , 405-443-1157, douglas.baker@biblemesh.com HAMILTON, Bermuda, Jan. 31, 2018 / Standard Newswire / -- Today, BibleMesh and Pioneers-USA launched a new online theological resource providing theological training for incoming missionary candidates. The BibleMesh Institute (BMI) will serve as the preferred online option for theological training with whom new team members can complete a six-course certificate designed by Pioneers."Pioneers is keenly aware of the need to equip workers well for the challenging task of church planting among unreached people groups," stated Ken Mauger, Vice-President of Pre-Field Ministries for Pioneers-USA. "Accordingly all of our missionaries must have trusted theological training that will serve as an unshakeable foundation for ministry in the often-difficult contexts to which they are called.""We are honored by this new opportunity to come alongside these emerging missionary candidates - who come from all walks of life - and provide for them access to trusted theological education that will equip them for service around the world," said Dr. Benjamin Quinn, Director of the BibleMesh Institute.About PioneersFor more than 35 years, Pioneers' passion has been to see God glorified among those who are physically and spiritually isolated from the gospel of Jesus Christ. Today, 2.9 billion people live among languages and cultures with no church. In response, Pioneers sends church-planting teams to serve among these 7,000-plus people groups. Today we have 3,248 international members serving on 324 teams in 104 countries among 202 unreached people groups. Additionally, Pioneers partners with more than 2,000 churches to send these missionaries to least-reached peoples.About BibleMeshBibleMesh works with churches, ministries, and institutions to provide affordable global trusted theological education. Accredited degree pathways and certificate tracks are available through the BibleMesh Institute. BibleMesh incorporates advanced technology to enhance student assessment, memory and learning.Related Links:The state Senate, which in June unanimously approved a bill to allow LA County to give back land to the descendants of the original Black property owners, must vote one more time this week before sending it to Newsom's desk.McIlhenny Co. Tabasco Brand Pepper Sauce, usually known just as Tabasco sauce, has dominated the American hot sauce market for over 100 years.

The basic recipe has remained unchanged since Edmund McIlhenny starting filling discarded cologne bottles with the concoction in the 1860s: tabasco peppers, vinegar, and salt. It works out then that the companys base of operation since the beginning has been Avery Island, a salt dome amidst swampland in Iberia Parish, Louisiana. Originally, the family grew peppers here as well, but these days they send local seeds to growers in Central and South America in order to meet demand. They still count on the Avery Island salt mine, however, which is one of the largest in the U.S.

However, this ideal spot 163 feet above sea level is in serious danger of disappearing thanks to climate change, and that could mean massive changes for how and where Tabasco sauce is made. Per The Times-Picayune, Avery Island is now disappearing at a rapid pace thanks to rising water levels.

The marsh protecting the island is losing about 30 feet per year. Saltwater is seeping into the marshes, killing freshwater plants and causing soil to loosen and dissolve. Nearby ship canals grow busier and wider, hastening erosion. Storms are more frequent and hit with more force. The land is sinking as well. Subsidence drops the Louisiana coast by nearly an inch per year. Combine that with the global phenomenon of rising sea levels, and it wont be long before Avery is a true island surrounded by an increasingly turbulent sea.

There may come a day very soon when the McIlhenny family and their 200-employee business have to start making Tabasco sauce someplace else. Because the product doesnt require many ingredients, it doesnt sound like a hard thing to change, but its about something bigger than that. What has persisted as a local business even as its gone international would lose the roots that have kept it in place for over a century. Not to mention figuring out how to replace their production facility, corporate headquarters, and salt source.

Theyre not going without a fight. The McIlhenny family has invested around $1 million into the construction of a dam mean to restore the regions grassy marshes and help re-engineer the flow of water. Theyve also formed a restoration partnership with two other private property owners on Vermilion Bay and the National Audubon Society as a way to pool resources in their efforts to maintain the local ecology and habitats. It may or may not be a losing battle but the history and traditions of this simple pepper sauce are worth saving for this family.

[NOLA]First-ever Hadley Homestead Harvest Day on Sept. 25 HADLEY TWP.  The small hamlet of Hadley will be the site of a festival celebrating harvest time and the heritage of the area on...

Local one-dose COVID vaccine stock to expire LAPEER TWP.  The Lapeer County Health Dept. (LCHD) and the chief medical officer at McLaren Lapeer Region urge area residents to get vaccinated against...BNP leader Gayeshwar, Omit `detained`

Detectives reportedly detained BNP standing committee member Gayeshwar Chandra Roy and it's executive committee member Onindo Islam Omit in the city on Tuesday night ahead of the court verdicts to be delivered on February 8 in a graft case of the party chairperson Khaleda Zia.



BNP chairperson's media wing member Shamsuddin Didar told UNB that a team of Detective Branch (DB) of police picked up from Goyessor in front of Police Plaza Concord Shopping Mall in the city's Gulshan area.



He said Gayeshwar was returning from the BNP chief's Gulshan office.



Didar said, another team of DB police arrested Omit, son of BNP standing committee member Toriqul Islam, from his Shantinagar residence at midnight.



Meanwhile, BNP's Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi alleged that Gayeshwar was arrested as part of government's "dangerous and evil design".



Speaking at an emergency press briefing at BNP Nayapaltan Central Office, he said, "Gayeshwar Chandra Roy has been arrested at a time when people are taking preparation resist the government conspiracy against our leader Khaleda Zia. He has been arrested as part of a dangerous and evil design of the government."



The BNP leader said the government has started arresting their party leaders as a last resort to stay in power but it will not work, "People will foil your evil designs."



Rizvi also warned that the government will not be able to spread panic among BNP leaders and activists across the country by arresting Gayeshwar and other leaders. "Rather, it will make people agreed further and encourage them to come up with strong resistance if anything unjust is done to Khaleda Zia on February 8."



The BNP leader also alleged that they have got information that police started raiding the house of Swechchhasebak Dal president Shafiul Bari Babu at midnight.



Rizvi strongly condemned and protested the arrest of Gayeshwar and raid on Babu's house.



The BNP leader demanded the government immediately release Gayeshwar and stop arresting and harassing BNP leaders.



Earlier in the day, police detained 69 leaders and activists of BNP as they allegedly attacked law enforcers and snatched two of their peers vandalising a prison van in front of the High Court in the afternoon.



They also broke two rifle butts of police when law enforcers tried to resist the demonstrators, police said.



On Sunday, Gayeshwar threatened that their party would go for an outright oust-government movement if Khaleda Zia is 'unlawfully' convicted in the Zia Orphanage Trust graft case.



Speaking at a discussion at the Jatiya Press Club, he had said, "Do you (govt) think we'll only shed tears if you send Khaleda Zia to jail? We won't cry. Rather, we'll ensure your fall before her release." -- UNB, Dhaka.





Mayor Khokon warns BNP

Staff Reporter :

Dhaka South City Corporation Mayor Mohammad Sayeed Khokon on Wednesday warned the BNP not to unleash anarchy on February 8 over the judgment of a graft case filed against BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia.

"If Khaleda Zia is convicted, she can go to higher court. But if the party men create any anarchy and disorder, we must protect our citizens, preventing the mischief-makers by taking necessary measures," Mayor Khokon said.

He said this while addressing a 'meet the people programme (Janotar Mukhomukhi)' at Shiddheswary Boys High School.

Munshi Kamruzzaman Kajal, the Councilor of Ward-19, organised and presided over the programme.

The DSCC Chief Executive Officer Khan Mohammad Bilal, Chief Estate Officer Kamrul Islam Chowdhury, Chief Health Officer Sheikh Salahuddin and others were present in the programme.

The Mayor heard the citizens' problems with patience and ordered officers to solve those problems soon.



BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia appeared before a special court at Bakshibazar in the city in Zia Charitable Trust graft case yesterday.No plan to raise further age bar for entry into govt service

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina wearing rank badge to the newly-appointed IGP Dr Mohammad Javed Patwari at Gono Bhaban in the city yesterday. Photo : BSS



Leader of the House and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday said her government has no plan right now to raise further the age bar for entering into government service.

"The more we'll raise the age bar, the scope for entering government jobs will be declined further. So, we don't want to reduce that scope," she said replying to a supplementary question from Jatiya Party lawmaker M Fakhrul Imam (Mymensingh-8) during her scheduled question-answer session in the house.

She, however, said that her government may consider the matter in future.

Sheikh Hasina said it was the Awami League government which first raised the age limit for retirement from the government service to 59 years from the pervious 57 years while the age of retirement for the freedom fighters was further raised to 60 years.

She said due to such increase of retirement age, a problem was created as many public servants could not get due promotions for which many of them had to leave their jobs.

"If we raise the retirement age all on a sudden, then the scope for promotion in the lower tier will decline. Secondly, Bangladesh is a country of over 16 crore people and we'll have to expand the scope of jobs for them," she added.

The Leader of the House said it was the Awami League government which first introduced semester system in academic activities of various public universities and colleges for which there is now no session jam. "We've also ensured improvement in the academic activities side by side expanding the scopes of education,"

Replying to another supplementary question from treasury bench lawmaker Shamsul Haque Chowdhury (Chittagong-12), Hasina said there is no obstruction or problem for the investors to make investment in the country saying that some 100 special economic zones are being set up across the country where the local and foreign investors could make investment easily.

She mentioned that all the necessary facilities are there for the local investors to make investment in the country while certain system is also there to check siphoning of money abroad.

In this connection, Hasina said her government had brought back the money from Singapore which was earlier laundered by Arafat Rahman Koko, the youngest son of BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia.Rohingya deal needs urgent implementation

Prof. Zahurul Alam :

Long before the aggravation of current Rohingya problem by the Myanmar regime, yet in 2012 Aung San Suu Kyi opined that she was not sure whether or not the Muslims of Rakhain province should be considered as the citizens of Myanmar. This, apparently very simple statement indeed clarified her and Myanmar government's attitude towards the Rohingyas. This also implies that Suu Kyi and her government's repression on that marginalized section of Myanmar society happens to be a planned activity rather than a sudden response to the activities of ARSA or any other such group. It would be naive to believe that this matter is simply a reflection of Buddhist civilian dissatisfaction or an army action provoked simply by a third force. The issue, in real sense is a matter of ethnic cleansing of a group of people of a country, the government of which has undertaken such repressive measure as their policy and Aung San Suu Kyi remains at the centre of that decision and those actions.

It is a matter of great shame a regret for a state when the government of that state whose responsibility is to ensure equity, justice, basic needs and most importantly security for all of its citizens irrespective of their caste, creed, color, religion, size of population or any other natural phenomena, fails to do that. More shameful is the matter of outflow of the people of that country to any other destination to save their lives. When such incident occurs as a matter of policy of that state, it is simply an indication of a failed state that lacks equity and justice for all, rule of law, citizen security and other ingredients of good governance. Such act also demonstrates inability of that state to ensure security for the citizens and reveals the fact that the state has taken a policy of inciting state power, armed and security forces against a segment of its own population and thereby violating human rights and committing crimes against humanity that can be tried in the international tribunals. During our Liberation War ten million people of our land were forced to migrate to India, three million were brutally killed and four hundred thousand women were raped by the Pakistani army, para military forces and local collaborators. That was demonstrative of a simple fact that Pakistan was ever since its emergence a failed state and that continues to be so even after seventy years of its existence. The vested quarters of a state makes a state become failed state with their avidity to remain in power, accumulate wealth of the nation in their hands at the expense of the interests of the people and for that purpose they refuse to accept any endeavor aimed at national unity and prosperity. These forces use religion, nationalism, ethnicity or any other instrument to let loose terrorism of one segment of citizen over the others of proceed with direct use of the state machinery against its own people. That was the policy of Germany under Hitler: killing, marginalizing and annihilation of the Jews. More than six million Jews were killed in the name of the German nation's superiority over those innocent people. The killers and repressors of Germany were tried in the Nuremberg Tribunal. The Rajakars are being tried in Bangladesh. All crimes against humanity are tried as soon as they are identified. That happened also in the case of Rwanda and Kosovo. What fate the Myanmar killers and annihilators are going to face for whatever they have done against humanity in Rakhain remains a valid question. The best way for Suu Kyi regime would perhaps be to accept the crime and apologize for that before any legal actions are taken. The universal truth is that the repressors never learn lessons from the history. That is why repression of the people by the repressors continues to remain as a never-ending process since the inception of human society.

Rohingyas are considered as one of the most severely repressed and marginalized people of the world. These people reside in Rakhain for more than ten centuries. Isn't that enough for claiming that they are the owners of that land? How much time is needed for a nation to reside in a country to become legitimate citizens of that land? The Rohingyas have their own language, culture, religion and land. That is why they must have their rights installed and re-installed on their own land. A state comprises diverse sections of people. There is no monolithic society in the world. The diversities are natural phenomena of a society, country, community or a group. The duty of the state is to respect originalities of each of the distinct elements of that state and thus build a union of the people. In the case of the expelled and repressed Rohingyas, Myanmar has not only failed to respect the diversities pertaining to those people, it has refused to accept them as its own citizens and compelled them to leave their own land.

Since 25 August 2017 more than six hundred thousand Rohingyas have fled to Bangladesh. Five hundred thousand more came to this country over last forty five years. Since 1982, Myanmar governments excluded Rohingyas from the '135 officially enlisted ethnicities'. And thus they became worst victims of repressions and deprivation - a group of people deprived of all citizen rights. The Rohingyas became one of the stateless nations of the world like the Palestinians for decades. None of the consecutive Myanmar governments made any provision for these people to enjoy any basic rights, including rights to food, health, shelter and education. As mentioned earlier, historically the Rohingyas, those who are being expelled from their own country, repressed and killed for long years, had been the residents of that land for many centuries. They have started settling there since 12th century. In Bangladesh also the the small ethnic minorities have emerged in the same manner. We the Bangalis and the people from other ethnicities are the citizens of this country. The Rohingyas are the citizens of Myanmar exactly in the same manner.

The process of the formation of Rohigya nation in Rakhain was not even throughout the history. Although some of the massive settlements began a thousand years ago, before that also there were settlers in that land who came from outside. The Bengali Muslim intellectuals of Arakan started using the term Rohingya as their own identification. The British captured Burma in 1824 and ruled the country as part of British India for 124 years. During British rule workers and businessmen migrated from India, including Bengal to different parts of Burma. Likewise many Burmese people migrated to hill districts of Bengal. These migrations were called internal displacement of people of British India. However, after independence in 1948, the consecutive Burmese governments, unlike those of Bengal or any other province of India, declared such settlement illegal and annulled the citizenship of the migrated people. As a result, even with a settlement history of one thousand years or more the Rohingyas became foreigners in their own country. The Buddhists of that region started calling them Bengalis. Suu Kyi as well never used the term 'Rohingya' in relation to the Rohingya Muslims. This embargo on actual identity of Rogingyas imposed by the highest policy maker(s) and the majority Buddhists carry special importance since the whole Rohingya expulsion and repression issue is based on the lack of intention to accept that population as the people of Rakhain and thereby refusing to accept them as the citizens of Myanmar. However, we must remember and acknowledge that any respectable and safe for the Rohingyas solution to the current impasse depends on the acceptance by the Myanmar government and the constitution of that state the rights of the Rohingyas as citizens of that country. This is the most fundamental question and any diversion from this principle would reinstigate the existing problem of repression, expulsion and the process of marginalization of this segment of Myanmar population in future.

The Rohingya issue has been created by Myanmar making the people of Bangladesh worst victims of that action. The Rohingya intrusion and settlement issue concerns not only economy, but politics and security of Bangladesh at the end of the day. The international mafia, smugglers and terrorists are on their way to use this most vulnerable people at their own interests, which will harm peace and stability of South and South-east Asia in the long run. The major powers of the region, including China and India eager to expand sphere of their area of influence, and the countries of Europe and America (mainly Russia and USA) should refrain from instigating politics of instability in this region relying on Rohingya issue. China the most trusted friend of Myanmar must acknowledge that accelerating their investment in Myanmar by using the natural resources and geographical location of Arakan and creating a corridor to the Indian Ocean through the ports of Rakhain may not bring as good a result for them as they postulate, if the issue of Rohingyas are not resolved appropriately. It is also a matter of serious consideration that many other strategic calculations of other forces are involved in this whole gamut of problem. The benefit the Chinese or any other power might have foreseen theoretically may not be materialized at the end and may cause severe damage to the national interests of even powerful countries.

For Bangladesh the Rohingya issue as such is not new. The new dimension that the problem has gained recently is massive expulsion of the Rohingyas due to enhanced repressive measures undertaken not only by the Myanmar armed forces, but also by a considerable section of local Buddhist extremists supported actively by the administration and the army. During Zia regime in 1978, a considerable number of Rohingyas were expelled from Myanmar who fled to Bangladesh. Zia kept the issue secret with a view to consolidate his power and position by engaging a good number of members of armed forces and BDR in CHT and thus neutralizing the balance of power in the army. However, the Rohingya intrusion in Bangladesh now has reached a level that the UN has identified it as the most dangerous refugee problem in the world.

The Union Citizen Act of 1948 formulated and implemented by the Burmese government, immediately after independence from the British colonial regime was in fact the major institutional deprivation of the Rohingyas. Under this Act, all ethnic minorities except the Rohingyas were provided the right to become citizens of Burma. However, the Act allowed provision of identity cards to those who resided in Burma for at least two generations. Initially, the Rohingyas were given such identity cards. Even at that time they (the Rohingyas) had their representation in the Burmese Parliament. Given above, it is unauthentic and illegal to call these people foreigners or outsiders.

The 1962 military coup d'etat in Burma created yet another new problem for the Rohingyas, since all Burmese citizens obtained national identification cards except the Rohingyas. Later were given foreigners' ID card. This led to widespread discrimination of the Rohingyas. They were exempted from all citizen benefits, especially in employment and income generation, education, health and other services. This act was a clear violation of human rights. The action at that time undertaken by the military regime isolated the Rohigyas from mainstream socio-economic activities and marginalized them to the extent that they were compelled to abandon their homeland repeatedly.

(To be continued)Need is balanced diplomatic relations

A VISITING senior US diplomat on Tuesday said Bangladesh needs to maintain balanced foreign relations while dealing with other countries. When it comes to diplomacy, at least one fact is clear - for the past decade or so our diplomatic relations with almost all the major powers have evidently been either determined by a third party or decided by a political leadership that has been naive in understanding astute diplomacy. It's an open secret of the government and its diplomats that instead of striking a balance in the region it is heavily tilted on one side.



Bangladesh needs balanced international relations, in which the major powers should be considered through a same set of rules. It's not about choosing and giving priority to one country over another but it's about the importance of national sovereignty with the right kind of balance in maintaining external relations. Particularly, it is crucial to have full control over the numerable foreign backed development projects and to exercise strict monitoring over construction, and ultimately maintain sovereignty over these key pieces of public infrastructure. For instance - implementing mega projects by taking huge foreign loans have many times forced the borrower to compromise national sovereignty. Given the billions of dollars of loans the government is accessing from India, China, Japan and other countries - it must ensure that there are no unforeseeable expenses and also that a potentially transformative project not become a drain on public finances. Also the people in power need to judiciously and diplomatically calculate the actual reasons why a major power intends to give credit, loan or grants.



The US diplomat pointedly mentioned - Bangladesh must seriously focus on increasing trade in South Asia while maintain greater regional connectivity, both in terms of soft and hard infrastructure. Sadly less than three per cent of Bangladesh's exports go to India and other countries in South Asia. The decision makers on our foreign policy and maintaining international trade must address these issues.



Except North America, Europe and a few major Asian powers our international relations are quite negligible despite having embassies in many countries.Mass arrests of BNP activists across the country ahead of the verdict of Begum Khaleda Zia\'s graft cases on February 8. This photo was taken from Shahbagh area on Wednesday.900 BNP men sued in 3 cases

Gayeshwar, 100 others arrested

Law enforcers picked up around 70 BNP leaders, activists including a female leader who gathered near High Court\'s Mazar Road area in connection with the appearance of Begum Khaleda Zia before the court on Wednesday.

Staff Reporter :

Police filed three separate lawsuits against several hundred BNP men, including its senior leader Goyeshwar Chandra Roy, over Tuesday's attack on cops and snatching of two of their activists from prison van near the High Court.

Two cases were filed with Shahbagh and Ramna Police Station accusing about 700-800 activists and leaders of the BNP including its Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi.

Abul Hossain, Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Shahbagh Police Station, confirmed filing of the lawsuits to The New Nation saying BNP men have been accused under several sections of law including obstructing performance of official duty, attacking police, destroying state property, disrupting law and order situation.

Ramna Police Station's OC Kazi Moinul Hossian told The New Nation that the lawsuit was filed under Special Powers Act against more than a hundred BNP men including its Standing Committee member Goyeshwar Chandra Roy.

Hundreds of BNP workers swooped on police and snatched two of their fellows who were detained. Three policemen were also injured and a prison van vandalized in the attack.

The incident took place around 3:00pm when the motorcade of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia was crossing the area on her way to Gulshan residence from a court at Bakshibazar.

Gayeshwar was arrested at 9:30pm from in front of Police Plaza on charges of "plotting" an attack on policemen near the Supreme Court for snatching two party activists from a prison van, said Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia told media.

BNP activists also snatched firearms from two policemen and dismantled them during the attack that left seven cops wounded.

"We arrested Gayeshwar after getting specific evidence that he gave instructions for attacking policemen," said the DMP chief.

Abdus Salam Azad, BNP's Assistant Organising Secretary, said, a police van intercepted Goyeshwar's microbus when he was returning home from party chief Khaleda Zia's Gulshan office.

In an instant media briefing at the party's Nayapaltan office, BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi condemned Goyeshwar's arrest and demanded his immediate release.

Plainclothes policemen also picked up BNP's Assistant Organising Secretary Aninda Islam Amit from his Shantinagar house around midnight, said Shamsuddin Didar, an official of BNP's press wing.

Amit's father Tariqul Islam is a BNP Standing Committee member.

Police also raided houses of BNP Vice-Chairman Abdul Mannan, Nitai Roy Chowdhury, Joint Secretary General Habib Un Nabi Khan Sohel, Shafiul Bari Babu, president of BNP's Swecchasebak Dal, Dhaka Metropolitan BNP unit's Ahsan Ullah Hasan and Juba Dal (Jinjira) President Mamun on Tuesday.

Earlier on Monday night, RAB picked up Anisur Rahman Talukder Khokon, Mass Education Affairs Assistant Secretary of BNP's Executive Committee, from Ramna area.

RAB admitted arresting him yesterday on charges of plotting subversive activities but did not say from where he was arrested.Trump offers money to buy slavery for Palestinians

Recent media report said US President Donald Trump has suspended $65 million aid to Palestinian humanitarian aid agency telling the leaders the money is on the table; come to talk with USA on peace treaty with Israel and get the money. In reply Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said if Jerusalem is on table we talk, if not the US is not on the table.



In our view Muslim countries should learn how to help the Palestinians from Israel-US domination. They can reject unnecessary US help that enslave the people. They should pull courage to tell the USA that relations should be based on fair play. Bullying will not work as Mr Abbas has recently said to the US President.



But saying is easy, where is the strength?



Palestinian National Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi more candidly rejected the US bid saying: "We will not be blackmailed." She spoke for the beleaguered Palestinian people in the occupied land who feel totally betrayed by the deceit of Donald Trump who broke with the long US policy openly taking side with Israel.

Palestinian leaders recently rightly distanced them from US Vice President Mike Pence as he was travelling Israel and Jordan and looking for an opportunity to meet Palestinian leaders to shore up the lost US position as peace mediator after recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Trump slammed the 'audacity' of the Palestinian leaders saying they have 'disrespected' the USA by not meeting Pence. But Trump must learn to be decent and respectful. His own people call him vulgar. Trump deserves no respect from Muslims as long as he behaves like a puddle of Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu.



Trump was openly expressing his anger saying the US pays millions of dollars a year to Palestinians and get no appreciation or respect. But Trump cannot declare Jerusalem as capital of Israel denying Palestinians right to the city. How can he expect Palestinians to show respect to him when he is out to destroy the Palestinian statehood.



Trump's action on Palestinians has come heavily on the stateless people, particularly the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital has come as a big blow. The USA under Trump is no longer a peace broker.



Trump is a Muslim hater and the Muslim countries must stop expecting anything good from him. The Muslims must decide noncooperation with Trump.



It is nothing for the Muslim world to meet the financial and military needs of Palestinians. Pakistan showed how a Muslim country can face the US hegemony. Islamabad in a sharp rebuttal to a recent US threat to cut $900 million aid said it may also stop US military supply line to Afghan war front through Pakistan. Turkey is defiantly fighting the US backed Kurdish forces in Syria on its border.



Muslim countries must have strong solidarity to answer Trump's audacity against the Palestinians by stopping US aid. Trump forgets how many billions he spends on Israel against Palestinians. Muslim countries together are enough to protect the Palestinian people. Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran, Turkey and such other Muslim countries must get united against Trump. They must look for new friend. American sends Trump is no hope for the Palestinians. The problem in Muslim world is that wealthy rulers are wasting billions of dollars in buying weapons and in Western casinos. They fear their own people. Let the Muslim countries show their guts and sense of dignity.RMG workers, BGMEA employees clash: 3 hurt

Ashiana RMG factory workers vandalizing cars, assaulting BGMEA official (inset) during their demonstration, demanding arrears in front of BGMEA Bhaban in city\'s Rampura office on Wednesday.

Staff Reporter :

At least three persons were injured in a clash between garment workers and employees of Bangladesh Garments Manufacturing Export Association (BGMEA) in Karwan Bazar on Wednesday.

About 300 garment workers of Mirpur's Ashiana factory gathered in front of the BGMEA Bhaban and vandalised a car there demanding their arrears, eye witnesses said.

They also vandalised several machines and

furniture and window panes of the building throwing brick chunks around 12:30pm.

The clash took place when BGMEA employees tried to stop the demonstrators, leaving two BGMEA employees and a RMG worker injured.Police attackers are infiltrators, not BNP men: Fakhrul

bdnews24.com :

The BNP has claimed that those who swooped on police outside the High Court on Tuesday were infiltrators, not its activists.

Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir made the claim during a media briefing at the BNP headquarters in Dhaka on Wednesday.

"The incident made headlines but to be very frank, we do not recognise these people. They are infiltrators we fear."

Fakhrul alleged that the government staged the scene. "The government deliberately did this to taint our peaceful protests."

Police arrested 69 people on Tuesday during a clash with agitating BNP activists who took away weapons and other protective gears from law-enforcers.

The incident coincided with BNP chief Khaleda Zia's court appearance as part of the Zia Charitable Trust graft case hearing in Old Dhaka.

BNP activists attacked a prison van near the High Court and snatched two

detainees in the presence of Khaleda as she was returning from the court hearing, Deputy Police Commissioner Maruf Hossain Sardar said.

Three cases have been started against a few hundred people over the incident. The government was trying to create tension prior to Feb 8, the day set for the verdict in a graft case against Khaleda, Fakhrul said.

Khaleda, a former prime minister, faces up to life in prison if found guilty of the charges, which means she will be disqualified for running in the parliamentary polls.

"The government aims to stir up disorder and tension on the political scene and for that, they have cooked up this case against Khaleda Zia and set a date for the verdict," said Fakhrul.

Police arrested BNP leader Gayeshwar Chandra Roy in Dhaka's Gulshan hours after Tuesday's attacks.

Gayeshwar, a member of BNP's policymaking body National Standing Committee, had threatened to topple the government to free Khaleda in case she was convicted.

"They are not allowing anyone to meet Gayeshwar Chandra Roy. He is aged and ill. He needs to take medicines every day. They did not even allow him to carry along the medicines," Fakhrul said.

Police were yet to admit that they picked up BNP Joint Organising Secretary Aninda Islam Amit, son of Standing Committee member Tariqul Islam, from his Shantinagar residence on Tuesday night, he added.

"They raided the Uttara residence of our standing committee mel mber Zamir Uddin Sircar, arrested Juba Dal Joint Secretary Gazi Habib Hasan and placed Swechhasebak Dal Organising Secretary Yasin Ali on remand."

"This is how oppression is going on."

Police raided houses of BNP Vice-Chairman Abdul Mannan, Nitai Roy Chowdhury, Joint Secretary General Habib Un Nabi Khan Sohel, Shafiul Bari Babu, president of BNP's Swecchasebak Dal, Dhaka Metropolitan BNP unit's Ahsan Ullah Hasan and Juba Dal (Jinjira) President Mamun on Tuesday, Fakhrul said.56 BNP men on remand,

Gayeshwar sent to jail :

Court Correspondent adds: The Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court of Dhaka yesterday sent BNP Standing Committee Member Gayeshwar Chandra Roy and party leader Farid Ahmed Jewel to the jail in a case filed on the charges of attacking policemen and vandalising vehicles in Dhaka city on Wednesday. Magistrate Mahmudul Hasan of the court passed the order rejecting their bail prayers and also remand petitions against them in the case filed with

Ramna Model Police Station.

Gayeshwar was arrested from in front of Police Plaza on Tuesday night, while other BNP leaders from different parts of the city. The court also placed Anindya Islam Anik, son of BNP leader Tariqul Islam, on a three-day remand and 35 others out of the 38 accused on a two-day remand in the same case. The same court put 18 other BNP leaders on two-day remand in two cases filed with Shahbagh Police Station of the city.

Three cases have been lodged against several hundred BNP men, including Goyeshwar Chandra Roy, over Tuesday's incident near the High Court. Two cases were filed with Shahbagh Police Station on Tuesday night for attacking a prison van near the High Court, while another case was filed with Ramna Model Police Station for beating policemen and vandalising vehicles.

Abul Hossain, Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Shahbagh Police Station said it implicate about 700-800 activists and leaders of the BNP.

Ramna Police Station OC Kazi Moinul Hossian told newsmen that the case was filed under the Special Powers Act against over a hundred BNP men including Goyeshwar.

According to primary statement, all the cases alleged obstructing on duty police, attacking police, destruction of state property and disrupting law and order situation.



55pc medicos stay absent

Anisul Islam Noor :

More than 55 percent of doctors, nurses, officers and other employees working in the district-upazila hospitals and medical offices do not attend the workplace regularly.

Based on 28 days observation of electronic time attendance system the Directorate of Health found that majority of those registered in the digital attendance system do not remain present at their duty place.

The Health Division is working with 27 percent shortage of manpower. In such a situation absence of so many person from workplace, shows the bad side of health sector, experts said.

To ensure proper attendance at workplace of the health workers, the Health Divison opened an electronic time attendance system in 479 hospitals of district and upazila level in 2011-2012 fiscal year.

Around 28351employees were registered in electronic attendance system out of 55000 employees in the country.

Director General of Health Division Professor Dr. Abul Kalam Azad told The New Nation that action will be taken against irregular employees after.

The doctors, nurses and other employees are showing less interest in electronic attendance though they have registered themselves for it, he said.

Electronic Time Attendance System was installed in Narail Sadar Hospital like many other hospitals in the country. On January 27, it was found that two of the 13 doctors were on leave. Seven were present in the workplace but four are absent without any notice.

A similar situation is noticable in most government district and upazila hospitals in the country.

On January 27, country's 366 health care centres sent electronic attendance report to Health Division out of 476 health care centre.

Data shows 39.7 per cent employees registered in the digital attendance, are present in the service stations.

That means 60 percent of the registered workers in the electronic attendance system did not go to work. The highest 73 percent absence was shown in Mymensingh, in Rajshahi Division is 68 percent, Rangpur 64 per cent, Chittagong 62 per cent and Dhaka Division 61 per cent was absent. But most of the presence is reported in Khulna division. The attendance rate in this division was 56.8 percent on January 27, sources of Health Division said.

Dohar Upazila Health Officer Jasim Uddin said that his hospital has 62 manpower including doctors, nurses, officers and employees. All of them are registered in electronic attendance system. But doctors often have to work elsewhere in deputations. As a result, there is less presence in digital attendance.

A doctor of Faridpur Sadar Hospital said asking anonymity that although many physician are working in the Hospital, some of them remain absent in the workplace. They do not even see any patients.

Former Regional Adviser of the World Health Organization (WHO) Professor Mojaharul Haque said, the absence work place increases due to lack of stick supervision of health Division.

He said, to ensure the universal health care, all attendance of all involved in the service will be ensured. At the same time, the people will get the desired services, it will also have to be monitored.

But many people are getting evading departmental punishment despite absence from the workplace without logical reason. It increases the tendency of absence from the workplace, he said.



Robbery at Narsingdi

Gold, cash worth Tk 70 lakh looted from expatriate: 7 including 2 SIs held

Staff Reporter :

Detective Branch (DB) of Police on Wednesday arrested seven people, including two Sub-Inspector and two constable of Raipura Police Staion for snatching gold and cash from an expatriate in Narsingdi worth taka 70 lakh.

They were arrested during raids in different parts of the district

The arrestees are: Raipura Police Station's SI Sakhawat Hossain and Azharul Islam and constable Mainul Islam and Saidul

Islam, Nuruzzaman Mollah, Sadek Mia and Nur Mohammad.

DB police also seized gold, cash and a private car from their possession

Shahjahan, a relative of the expatriate, earlier filed a written complaint with Narsingdi Superintendent of Police over the incident.

According to the complaint, Sohel Miah, was returning home with his relatives in a rented car from the Hazrat Shahjajal International Airport on Friday evening.

When they reached Saheypratab area in Narsingdi Sadar upazila, the driver stopped the car at a CNG station for refueling.

In the meantime, a group of unidentified people introducing themselves as DB men came to the spot in a car and picked up Sohel Miah and his relatives.

Later they looted two gold bars, mobile sets and cash from the expatriate Sohel, a resident of Haimara village of Raipura upazila of Narsingdi.

The looters released them in the Puranpara Bridge area with threat that they will be arrested again if anybody is aware of the incident.

Based on the complaint, Officer in-Charge of District DB Saidur Rahman, SI Abdul Gaffar and Rupam Sarker launched an investigation into the robbery incident.

They later captured CCTV footage from the CNG station and found evidence of the incident.

They identified Roypura Police Station's SI Sakhawat Hossain and Azharul Islam and Constable Mainul Islam, Saidul Islam and three others after analyzing the footage and thereby conducted raids.

Sakhawat was arrested first and six others were arrested based on his information.

Confirming the arrest DB OC Saidur Rahman said, they confirmed their identity after watching the footage of CC TV. " They were involved in the robbery.



Yes, the decision belongs on the local level

No, no one should be able to dictate whether people wear masks

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View ResultsThe best bang for your buck! This option enables you to purchase online 24/7 access and receive the Sunday, Tuesday & Thursday print edition at no additional cost * Print edition only available in our carrier delivery area. Allow up to 72 hours for delivery of your print edition to begin. Print edition not available for Day Pass option.Dubai Startup Hub, an initiative of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, has announced the signing of several deals between four leading UAE-based corporates and organisations, a report said.



The entities included Dubai Chamber, flydubai, Emirates NBD, and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and the three winning start-ups of the MarketAccess programme, reported state-run news agency Wam.



Memoranda of understanding (MoUs) were unveiled today during a deal signing ceremony held at Dubai Chambers premises, which covered a wide range of industries, business projects and objectives, with the agreements remaining valid for one year.



Dubai Chamber signed an MoU with online marketing agency Digital Falcon, that will see the two entities work together to boost Dubai Startup Hubs digital presence. flydubai unveiled a strategic agreement with cyber security company VUL9 to deliver security staff monitoring and related services to the airlines offices across the UAE.



Emirates NBD signed an MoU with VUL9, which will work with the banks cybersecurity team on key projects and initiatives. In addition, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced a deal with LoadMe, an online marketplace for freight exchange, to develop a solution that will drive the companys commercial vehicle sales in the Middle East.



Hisham Abdullah Al Shirawi, second vice chairman of Dubai Chamber, said that the response to the first cycle of the MarketAccess programme was overwhelming with more than 130 SMEs and start-ups submitting business ideas and solutions, adding that the quality of the submissions exceeded the chambers expectations.



Market Access is a first-of-its-kind programme which aims to enhance cooperation and facilitate deals between innovative start-ups and SMEs from around the world, and leading companies and government entities in Dubai. In the first cycle of the programme, start-ups and SMEs were invited to submit innovative ideas and solutions that solve key challenges faced by prominent organisations in Dubai.



Dubai Chamber launched Dubai Startup Hub in 2016 as an online platform to connect start-ups, entrepreneurs, developers, venture capitalists and students, enabling them to learn about new opportunities and create new partnerships that stimulate economic growth.The Arab world and other countries in the region hold enormous promise, including a young and talented population, a rich culture and history, and resource-abundant economies, said a statement by The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (AFESD), and the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF).



The statement was made yesterday (January 30) in Marrakesh at the end of the conference on Opportunity for All: Promoting Growth, Jobs, and Inclusiveness in the Arab World, which was co-hosted by the Government of Morocco, IMF, AFESD, and AMF.



 Yet the region continues to face formidable challenges. Protracted regional conflicts, low commodity prices, weak productivity and poor governance have held back the considerable potential of the region. Growth has not been strong enough to reduce unemployment significantly and a staggering 25 per cent of young people are jobless. The region has an opportunity to harness the talent of its youth and women and take advantage of the global upswing to accelerate reforms and spur growth and job creation, the statement said.



The Marrakesh conference provided an opportunity for policymakers and representatives of the private sector and civil society to discuss the ongoing challenges and opportunities in the region. Building on the Amman conference in 2014which helped define strategies to boost jobs, growth and fairness in the Arab worldthe Marrakesh conference focused on the specific policies needed by identifying new sources of growth and measures to overcome obstacles to implementation and make growth more inclusive. These priorities can be summarized in the following Marrakesh Call for Action which calls on governments to ACT NOWto pursue a set of actions or reforms that promote:



Accountability: increase transparency and strengthen institutions to improve governance, tackle corruption and ensure responsibility for inclusive policies.



Competition: foster a more vibrant private sector through improved access to finance and a better business environment with fewer barriers and less red tape.



Technology & Trade: leverage technology and nurture trade to generate new sources of growth, create jobs, and foster prosperity.



No one left behind: build strong safety nets and strengthen legal rights to empower disadvantaged groups, including youth, women, rural populations, and refugees.



Opportunity: increase and improve the quality social and investment spending and pursue fairer taxation to support growth, lift-up citizens and share the burden of reform more equitably.



Workers: invest in people and reform education to equip workers for the new economy.



Conference participants noted that while some progress had been made toward achieving these priorities in the past several years, much remains to be done. The Marrakesh Call for Action will guide the IMF, AFESD, and AMF as we engage with policymakers and other stakeholders in the region. They will form the basis for a set of recommended policy actions for governments together with the private sector, civil society and international financial institutions, to raise growth and living standards in the region and generate a more prosperous future.



More external financing, preferably as grants, will also be needed to support the region, particularly to help post-conflict countries and those displaced by war. As was recognized at the conference, more robust and inclusive growth is a shared responsibility and vitally important not only for the region, but also for the rest of the world.



The IMF, AFESD and AMF appreciate the opportunity to listen and exchange views with all participants at the conference as part of our ongoing partnership with the region. We would like to express our appreciation to the Kingdom of Morocco, the King, the government and the people of Morocco for their generosity and great hospitality. We would also like to thank Prime Minister Saad Eddine El Otmani and Finance Minister Mohamed Boussaid and his dedicated team for the organization of the conference and to all the participants for making the conference a success as well as their commitment to advance the inclusive growth agenda.  TradeArabia News ServiceNBK Capital Partners, an alternative investments firm that advises on providing flexible capital to mid-sized companies in the Mena region, has successfully exited its inaugural $157 million private debt vehicle.



Returning a 17 per cent gross Internal Rate of Return (IRR) on investments in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Turkey, NBK Capital Mezzanine Fund I ranks among the top performing private debt funds in its vintage year.



Raised in 2009, the regions first mezzanine fund  a hybrid of debt and equity financing  was a pioneer for flexible long-term direct lending launched in the wake of the global financial crisis to meet the financing needs of mid-sized firms unable to secure attractive terms with banks constrained by regulatory and structural changes.



The closure of NBK Capital Mezzanine Fund I represents the successful exit of eight investments in the portfolio for NBK Capital Partners, the alternative investments arm of NBK Capital.



Yaser Moustafa, senior managing director at NBK Capital Partners, said: I am delighted with this milestone, which demonstrates the superior returns that we continue to generate for investors and validates the tremendous opportunity for private debt strategies in the region. It builds on our track record that now totals 17 realizations from 29 investments, the highest number of profitable exits by an alternative investments firm in the region over the past decade. We remain focused on maintaining this level of success for investors across our private equity, private debt and real estate interests.



Headquartered in the Dubai International Financial Centre, UAE - with a presence in Bahrain, Kuwait and Turkey - NBK Capital Partners secured funding from prominent regional endowments, pension funds, family offices, HNWIs and affiliates of NBK Capital for the NBK Capital Mezzanine Fund I.  TradeArabia News ServiceThe Saudi government will build and operate a total of 1,600 schools across the kingdom under a special project in partnership with the private sector enterprises.



In the first phase, a total of 60 schools will come up in Makkah and Jeddah in all the general educational levels, reported The Saudi Gazette.



The largest project of its kind for the construction of school buildings, it will see a mix of kindergartens and primary, intermediate and secondary schools for both boys and girls being built in these cities, stated the report.



It has been approved by Saudi King Salman, the Council of Economic Affairs and Development and the Ministry of Finance and will be supervised by the ministers of finance and economy and planning, the report said, citing the education minister.



Ahmed Al Issa was speaking at a major conference on the investment opportunities available in the partnership with the ministry to construct school buildings.



"We hope that the project will lure the investors and businessmen to participate with us not only in this project but also in all the other projects which will soon be announced," said Al Issa.



"We are aiming at supplementing the direct government support for the school buildings by the partnership with the private sector in the construction and operation of the schools," he added.Royal Philips, a global leader in health technology, has signed a multi-year partnership agreement with VPS Healthcare, one of the Middle Easts largest healthcare groups, to install its Tasy EMR in all its hospitals and clinics throughout the UAE, Oman and India.



Tasy EMR is Philips next generation Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and care management solution, which addresses the shortcomings of conventional EMRs.



Royal Philips CEO Frans van Houten said: "The agreement with VPS Healthcare underlines the fact that we have a very strong portfolio of health informatics solutions to support the needs of clinicians and health systems in improving patient care while also optimizing processes and the use of resources throughout their organizations."



I am convinced that Tasy EMR will help VPS Healthcare to improve both the quality of care and the patient and staff experience at lower cost, he added.



Dr Shamsheer Vayalil, the chairman and managing director of VPS Healthcare, said: "With Philips Tasy EMR, we will move from multiple IT platforms to a single integrated solution that allows us to manage all clinical and logistical processes."



We need our data to be available wherever and whenever its needed. Tasy EMRs ability to move patient and administrative data around throughout the entire VPS network is critical to the high quality seamless care that VPS Healthcare wants to deliver in the region, he stated.



Conventional EMRs typically contain standard medical and clinical data about a patient, and were originally designed to use this information primarily for administrative tasks such as billing. Philips Tasy EMR takes a different approach and is developed to streamline workflows and optimize patient care, said the statement from Royal Philips.



It offers a single integrated platform and database to enable centralized management of medical, organizational and administrative processes, it stated.



These range from patient care to inventory and supply management, revenue cycle management and financial reporting, it added.-TradeArabia News ServiceBrazil's total poultry exports, including raw and processed items, rose 5.7 per cent from $6.848 billion in 2016 to $7.236 billion in 2017, according to data released by the Brazilian Animal Protein Association (ABPA).



Of this total, 33.51 per cent was exported to the Middle East, which accounted for $2.4 billion, up 2.1 per cent, said a statement.



Total export volume was at 4.32 million tonnes in 2017, it said.



The biggest buyers of Brazilian poultry products in the Arab world were Saudi Arabia ($1 billion), the UAE ($517 million), Iraq ($192 million) and Kuwait ($190 million), it added.



Oman and Jordan also imported poultry from Brazil. Among the key factors driving Brazils strong performance are the fact that the country is safe from avian flu, good diplomatic ties with the international markets, and the superior quality of its poultry products, said a statement.



Dr Michel Alaby, secretary general and CEO of ABCC, said: The latest figures released by the Brazilian Animal Protein Association reflect continued efforts by both parties to nurture trade relations between Brazil and the Middle East.



The recent hike in Brazilian poultry exports to the region indicates growing demand for raw and processed poultry items from Brazil, he said.



I am confident that this trend will continue to rise, given the superior quality of our products and stronger ties between Brazil and the Arab World, he added.



In December 2017 alone, Brazil recorded $523.8 million worth of total poultry export revenue. Total shipped volume reached approximately 321,500 tonnes, it stated.  TradeArabia News ServiceSenaat, a top industrial investment holding company in the UAE, will offer over 150 immediate job placements to qualified applicants at Tawdheef, the regions leading recruitment event taking place in Abu Dhabi.



Tawdheef is running from January 29 to 31at Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre.



For the sixth consecutive year, as an Industrial Partner, Senaat will offer jobs on the group level and at its portfolio companies including Emirates Steel, National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC), Ducab, Arkan, Talex and Al Foah and Taweelah Aluminium Extrusion Company (Talex).



The job vacancies represent a wide range of disciplines, including finance, supply chain, human resources, administration and project management, sales and marketing, engineering and information technology for both entry-level and experienced candidates.



In line with its ambitious Emiratisation strategy, specifically in the industrial sector, Senaat continues to make great progress in creating opportunities for Emiratis. All senior leadership positions are now held by the UAE Nationals, with an outstanding Emiratisation rate of 64percentachieved at the holding company level.



Tawdheef has been instrumental in enabling Senaat to successfully place 123 Emirati employees throughout the group during the past year, as the total number of the Emirati employees now in the company has reached to around 1350 employees. By 2020, Senaat aims to increase the number of Emirati employees to more than 2000 employees in Senaat and its subsidiaries, comprising 32 per cent of its workforce.



Ahmad Suhail Al Muhairi, acting senior vice president of Business Support for Senaat, said: Senaats long-standing collaboration with Tawdheef is a true testament to our commitment to providing Emiratis with the opportunity to have a fulfilling career in a rapidly developing industry.



The UAEs industrial sector holds immense potential for Emirati Nationals in various fields, mainly including science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). At Senaat, we seek to inspire more people to step out of their comfort zone, ignite a passion to build their skills and competencies through STEM education and be equipped to compete, contribute and thrive in the future while building a dynamic career, he added.  TradeArabia News ServiceNew business opportunities emerging in the wake of Latin Americas economic rebound and Dubais role in supporting the regions ambitions are among key topics that government and business leaders will address on the 2nd Global Business Forum (GBF) on Latin America in Dubai, said a report.



Themed "Connect  Collaborate  Grow", the forum will feature interactive sessions offering insights on major economic trends, events and issues impacting Latin American markets, particularly those pertaining to trade and investment opportunities, which offer potential for companies and investors in the UAE and GCC, reported state news agency Wam.



The high-profile forum, organised by the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, will be held next month on February 27 and 28, at Dubais Atlantis Hotel, under the patronage of the Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.



Hamad Buamim, president and CEO of Dubai Chamber, highlighted the importance of GBF Latin America and described the premier event as the largest event of its kind to be held in the Middle East.



Buamim said that there is plenty of scope to expand economic cooperation between Latin American businesses and their Dubai counterparts, especially within the areas of agriculture, energy, tourism and finance.



He added that GBF Latin America is the ideal platform to host constructive conversations about such matters and explore new avenues of cooperation between business communities in Latin America, the UAE and GCC.Huawei, a leading global ICT and network energy solutions provider, recently launched its Cairo OpenLab during the Cairo ICT 2017 conference.



Huawei, together with industry alliance and partners in Northern Africa, aims to build ICT ecosystem in Northern Africa in response to industry digital transformation, said a statement.



Cairo OpenLab represents the 8th OpenLab targeting enterprise customers, is located in Egypt to serve and influence all of Northern Africa.



This OpenLab, situated in the Smart Village office of Cairo, has been operating as a research and development facility for about a year and now is officially open to customers and partners. Currently, the OpenLab is approximately 400 sq m and is estimated to expand to over 1,000 sq m in the next two years.



Cairo OpenLab focuses on the innovative areas of public safety, smart grid, smart city, smart government and smart education. The business operates through four functional centres: Partner development centre, solution joint innovation centre, talent training and certification centre, and industry experience centre.



Ni Zheng, president of Huawei Enterprise Business Group, Northern Africa Region, said: We established the OpenLab in Cairo so that we can make full use of the advantages of Egypt and serve all of Northern Africa.



First, the ICT industry market in Cairo is relatively mature and its marketing capabilities influence surrounding countries, he said.



Second, Egypt recognises the significance of industrial digital transformation, and the local industry chain ecosystem supports this transition for a number of industry enterprises. In addition, the education industry in Egypt is relatively well developed, with more than half of the top 15 African universities of UK QS Ranking located in Egypt, also contributing to the advancement of the region, he added.



Xu Guoyu, vice president of Industry Marketing and Solutions, Huawei Enterprise Business Group, said: Cairo OpenLab is an important part of our global OpenLab plan as we serve local regions through our global expertise, talents, technologies, and customer business successes. As a result, we contribute to industry ICT ecosystem development locally.



Compared to traditional technology-centric labs, Huawei OpenLab is market-oriented, and aims to develop hardware and software services as well as solutions with industry alliances and partners based on customers requirements during their digital transformation.



Zheng continued: For business success in the digital transformation of enterprises, the Huawei OpenLab platform and ecosystem strategy provides distinct advantages for R&D, human resources, and joint marketing.



Until now, Huawei has established 7 OpenLabs targeting enterprise customers globally, including Suzhou (China), Munich (Germany), Mexico City (Mexico), Singapore, Dubai (UAE), Johannesburg (South Africa), and Bangkok (Thailand).



OpenLabs have become the centres for joint innovation, development, verification, and expertise for customers and partners, including collaborative development with more than 400 solution partners, it stated.  TradeArabia News ServiceCanon Middle East, a leader in imaging solutions, showcased its market-leading range of print solutions at the recent Saudi Print and Pack, which took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.



Demonstrating a continued commitment to investment and innovation in Saudi Arabia, Canon will present high quality technologies that meet the evolving expectations of commercial printers and corporate print departments of every size and type, said a statement.



Visitors to the event will witness demonstrations of the new 64-inch roll-to-roll Oce Colorado 1640 printer built on Canons ground-breaking UVgel technology. The company will also present its digital production presses, the imagePRESS C10000VP, the ImagePRESS c850 and the ImageRunner advance 8505, the new Oce VarioPrint 6000 Titan series of digital monochrome production presses and the recently launched varioPrint 140 series of production printers.



These innovations are designed to enable print service providers (PSPs) and corporate companies produce high quality at increased speeds.



Ayman Ali, senior marketing manager  B2B, Canon Middle East, said: As our company continues to expand in the kingdom, we are committed to adding value to customer businesses with the provision of integrated end to end solutions built around innovative technologies.



The new and established products we are bringing to Saudi Print and Pack 2017 are designed to enable print service providers maximise productivity and inspire them to explore new opportunities, he added.



With seamless workflow automation becoming increasingly business-critical in todays fast-turnaround environment, Canon will also bring to life its portfolio of workflow automation solutions and supporting software.



Ayman added: A corporate printroom or a commercial print environment requires business ready printing solutions which are simple to install and integrate into existing workflows. Visitors will see live demonstrations of how our technologies integrate into workflows to create highly productive customer environments.



With a view to strengthen presence and relevance across the kingdom, Canon recently announced a strategic partnership with Alkhorayef Printing Solutions (APS), a part of the Alkhorayef Group and an eminent brand in the Saudi printing market.



About the partnership, Shadi Bakhour, business unit director, B2B, Canon Middle East, said: The strategic partnership with Alkhorayef Printing Solutions extends the reach of our brand, products, solutions, and services in the kingdom.



Accessing the strength of APS vast experience in the industry, Canon is able streamline the delivery of our innovative, technology-led solutions for customers in the country, to meet their printing and imaging requirements now and in the future, he added.



At the event, other Canon technologies on display included the large-format printers imagePrograf TX-4000, image Prograf iPF770 and the image Prograf Pro-2000. In addition to these are monochrome large format device Oce PlotWave 365 and the Oce ColorWave 700 which cater to businesses requiring a higher print volume, it stated.  TradeArabia News ServiceEmirates Motor Company (EMC), the authorised distributor of Mercedes-Benz in Abu Dhabi and flagship company of Alfahim, will be the official car sponsor for the inaugural edition of Abu Dhabi International Boat Show (ADIBS 2018).



Organised in association with British Marine, ADIBS is set to take place from October 17 to 20 at Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centres on-site show marina.



Humaid Matar Al Dhaheri, group chief executive officer of event organiser Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company (Adnec) said: Adnec welcomes EMC as the official car sponsor of ADIBS 2018. In EMC, we find a partner that adds value to the show and is aligned with the ethos and direction we are heading in. Together, we look forward to delivering the successful inaugural edition of ADIBS that will help us promote Abu Dhabi as a global leisure marine industry hub.



Frank Bernthaler, CEO of Alfahim Automotive, said: We are honoured to support Adnec on such a high profile event as it caters to our client base at EMC as well. EMC will be giving visitors and delegates the chance to explore the new era of intelligent driving in our Mercedes-Benz range.



Expected to draw the participation of 150 exhibitors and 30,000 visitors over four days, the event caters to marine industry professionals, boating enthusiasts and families that enjoy a great day out on the water. It will feature 75 boats berthed at the on-site show marina with newly extended capacity to meet the demand.



As part of its support, EMC will deploy latest luxury Mercedes-Benz models to cater to the transportation requirements of ADIBS 2018.



The event is set to attract top marine and leisure suppliers and distributors seeking investment opportunities in the UAEs booming yachting industry.



Some of the top industry players from around the world have already signed up to participate. These include Al Suwaidi Marine, ART Marine, Azimut, Bayliner, Belize, Beneteau, Benetti, Bertram, Boston Whaler, Cantieri di Pisa, CRN, Custom Line, Delma Marine, Ferretti Yachts, Greenline Yacht Interiors, Hanse Yachts, Hatteras, IMG Boats, Integrity Boats, Itama, Jeanneau, Lagoon, Mercury, Mochi Craft, Monte Carlo Yachts, Monterey, Pershing, Prestige Yachts, Riva, Riviera, Savage Lighting, Sea Ray, Sunseeker, Willliams Jet Tenders, and The World of Yachts and Boats.



Among the sponsors of ADIBS 2018 are Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism, Al Suwaidi Marine, Mercedes-Benz through EMC, Abu Dhabi Health Services Company (SEHA), Delma Marine, Marine Concept, Emirates Palace, and Greenline Yacht Interiors.  TradeArabia News ServiceFord saw its market share in almost every automotive segment in the Middle East rise in 2017, most significantly in the mid-size crossover utility and full-size sedan segments, at a time when the overall industry continued to decline.



The company registered increased demand for the Ford Edge as well as Taurus, among other models, despite their respective segments shrinking overall, said a statement from the company.



Fords positive performance also saw a four-percentage point growth in retail sales, which, combined with the growth across the more profitable truck and utility segments, meant the brand made robust gains in the region, despite a weakened industry, it said.



These strong performance indicators were mainly driven by having the right products at the right time, continued improvement of the distributor network and retail experience, as well as offering the right solutions for fleet customers, according to Ford Middle Easts managing director, Thierry Sabbagh.



Sabbagh said: Our focus on the business remained laser-sharp. We worked with our dealers to provide them the tools to help them succeed whether on the product mix, the value for money equation, or even the sales and after sales experience. We finished the year on a strong note giving us an excellent base to start from for 2018.



This year, Sabbagh is confident that the industry will stabilise and grow, and he says Ford and its distributor network are ready. In 2017, Ford dealers continued to invest in a stronger distribution network with new sales and service points opening in the region. The company also appointed a new distributor for both Ford and Lincoln brands in Kuwait, Alghanim Auto, and recently assigned the Iraqi territory to its new distributor, Al Kasid Group.



Fords popular lineup of products, especially crossovers and utilities, continued building on their success in 2017, with Fords mid-size crossover Edge registering an increase of 27 per cent while the industry segment was estimated to have decreased by about 30 per cent. Similar trends were seen for the full-size Taurus, which remains Fords best-seller in Saudi Arabia.



Sabbagh is positive that with the arrival of the new generation Expedition, Fords robust SUV lineup will become the youngest lineup available in a highly competitive scene for 2018. Ford expects demand for its refreshed models, from the very compact EcoSport to the full-size, fully capable, Expedition, to be highly enthusiastic.



That strong momentum doesnt stop at Fords legendary SUV lineup. With over 100 years of Built Ford Tough truck heritage, F-Series just registered an unmatched 41 straight years as Americas best-selling pickup. And the F-150 performance in the Middle East is seeing that boost thanks to the legendary Raptor that continues to take the region by storm.



With fuel economy and efficiency gaining prominence on the list of consumer demands in the Middle East, Fords multi-award winning turbo-charged engine technology continues to receive more and more demand, especially as consumers realise the unique benefits the EcoBoost range offers in terms of fuel economy without sacrificing performance.



EcoBoost engines power a vast range of models in the current Ford line-up in the Middle East, including the nimble Focus, the larger Taurus, utility vehicles like the Ford Kuga, Edge, Explorer, Expedition and even the mighty beast, the F-150 Raptor pickup. EcoBoost technology also lies behind the success of the Le Mans class-winning racer, the Ford GT supercar.



Fords Commercial Vehicles team made a significant contribution to the business in 2017 by developing unique fleet solutions and securing key tenders in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The globally best-selling Ford Transit  a byword for versatility and dependability in markets across the globe  has made major inroads into a range of commercial applications last year; one of which is the Dubai Corporation for Ambulance Services (DCAS) new ambulance of the future, on show this week as part of the stand at the Arab Health Exhibition and Congress in Dubai.



Additionally, more and more SMEs also continue to look to Transit and its derivatives as the perfect partner that delivered exactly what these businesses needed in terms of capability, fuel efficiency and safety features. And just recently, large businesses such as Souq.com and DHL have adopted the Ford Transit as part of their growing fleets.



The Lincoln luxury brand is looking for a bright year in 2018, following a successful 2017. The brand remains committed to the Middle East and continues to grow its presence throughout the region thanks to dealers investing in stand-alone facilities and network expansions in the UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.



The newly-announced all-new Lincoln Navigator has received an outstanding welcome to the region, with demand outstripping initial supply. The ultra-exclusive Presidential range of trim options has also been greeted with enthusiasm from customers who are keen to push the limits of luxury even further.



One area that Ford has been relentlessly working with its dealer partners is customer satisfaction. According to Fords own customer satisfaction survey, more and more customers are satisfied with the level of sales and after-sales services they are receiving from Ford dealers.



Sabbagh said: This is a great success story that we should all be proud of and we commend both our dedicated teams and our dealer partners as they demonstrate their true commitment to the business.



As we continue to offer our latest product range, from our various dealership outlets, customer satisfaction is critical to our continued and sustained success, he concluded.  TradeArabia News ServiceRenault-Nissan-Mitsubishi, a leading automotive Alliance, has announced that its member companies sold a combined total of 10,608,366 units in 2017.



Growing demand for SUVs, light commercial vehicles and a rising number of zero-emission pure electric vehicles helped lift unit sales by 6.5 per cent in 2017, the first full-year of Mitsubishi Motors membership of the Alliance, said a statement.



Carlos Ghosn, chairman and CEO of Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi, said: With more than 10.6 million passenger cars and light commercial vehicles sold in 2017, Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi has become the number-one automotive group worldwide.



This evolution reflects the breadth and depth of our model range, our global market presence and the customer appeal of our vehicle technologies, he said.



In 2017, the Alliance member companies sold vehicles in nearly 200 countries under 10 brands (Renault, Nissan, Mitsubishi Motors, Dacia, Renault Samsung Motors, Alpine, Lada, Infiniti, Venucia and Datsun), it said.



Groupe Renaults sales were up 8.5 per cent to 3,761,634 units in 2017. It was a record year for the company, the worlds leading French brand and number-two brand in Europe, and also for Dacia. Renault is seeking continued growth in 2018, buoyed by the development of its international activities and its renewed range, in line with its Drive The Future plan.



Nissan Motor Co sold 5,816,278 vehicles worldwide, up 4.6 per cent, and shared details of Nissan M.O.V.E. to 2022, the companys six-year strategic plan. In the US and China in 2017, the company achieved sales growth of 1.9 per cent and 12.2 per cent respectively. Infiniti sold 246,492 vehicles in 2017, an increase of 7 per cent from the previous year.



Mitsubishi Motors Corporation sold 1,030,454 vehicles in 2017, up 10 per cent from 2016.

The increase in volume was led by China, a key market for Mitsubishi Motors Drive For Growth plan. Annual sales rose by 56 per cent, to 129,160 units. China became Mitsubishi Motors largest market thanks to strong demand for the locally produced Outlander.



Performance in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region was also strong with an increase of 17 per cent to 242,224 units, thanks to the launch of Xpander a compact multi-purpose vehicle - in Indonesia.



In Japan, sales increased by 7 per cent as the marketing of kei-cars resumed.



Since 2010, when the Nissan Leaf was first introduced, Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi has sold 540,623 electric vehicles worldwide through its different brands. Cumulatively, the Alliance continues as the global leader for 100 per cent electric passenger cars and light commercial electric vehicles.



The Nissan Leaf, the first mainstream, mass-marketed electric vehicle, remains the worlds best-selling EV with more than 300,000 vehicles sold since its launch in December 2010.



During 2017, the new Nissan LEAF was unveiled and offers customers greater range, advanced technologies and a dynamic new design. It went on sale in Japan last year, and will be rolled out in other major markets during 2018. The new Nissan LEAF received over 40,000 orders globally including 13,000 orders in Japan; 13,000 reservations in the United States; and over 12,000 orders in Europe.

In addition to the Leaf, Nissans e-NV200, a light commercial vehicle sold mainly in Europe and Japan, has also recently been upgraded with an additional 100km of driving range in Europe.



In 2017 Renault remained, for the third consecutive year, the leader in Europes electric-vehicle segment with a market share of 23.8 per cent and sales volumes increased by 38 per cent. Renault ZOE was the best-selling EV in Europe, with sales increase by 44 per cent.



Since 2011, Renault has sold more than 150,000 electric vehicles worldwide, including Renault ZOE, Renault Kangoo ZE, Fluence ZE and Renault Samsung Motors SM3 ZE.



In 2017, Renault unveiled Master ZE thus announcing a range of zero-emission light commercial vehicles unique in the world (Twizy Cargo, company-car version of ZOE, Kangoo ZE and Master ZE).

In 2017, Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi sold 91,000 EVs, up more than 11 percent from 2016.



As part of Alliance 2022 strategic plan, Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi is forecasting that annual synergies will exceed 10 billion ($12.45 billion) by the end of 2022. In addition, 12 new zero-emission electric vehicles and 40 vehicles with autonomous drive technology will be launched.



The introduction of new models and new technologies should lift the combined annual sales of Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi to more than 14 million units, generating revenues expected at $240 billion by the end of 2022, it stated.  TradeArabia News ServiceThe UAE consumer goods industry, which includes FMCG, home appliances, textiles, leather and jewellery grew by 37 per cent in Q4 2017, compared to the same period last year, as residents prepared for the implementation of VAT.



The UAE consumer goods industry, which includes FMCG, home appliances, textiles, leather and jewellery grew by 37 per cent in Q4 2017, compared to the same period last year, as residents prepared for the implementation of VAT, a report said.



December also marked the beginning of the Dubai Shopping Festival, which launched on December 26, also coinciding with the holiday season, which always generates an increase in consumer spending, according to the latest Monster Employment Index (MEI).



Sanjay Modi, managing director, Monster.com, APAC & Middle East, said: We are pleased to have launched the latest edition of Monsters MEI, although I cannot say that this quarters results are all that surprising.



Consumer brands across the UAE were anticipating an influx in purchases in December 2017, as consumers across the UAE rushed to make their purchases before VAT was implemented. This, combined with the holiday season and launch of Dubais Shopping Festival, gave the UAEs consumer goods industry a boost to finish off the year strong.



According to some of the UAEs leading shopping destinations, including Dubai Festival City and Wafi Mall, there was a remarkable increase in footfall to the shopping malls, as well as increased spending. Euromonitor International also noted that consumers were stocking up on not only their everyday items, such as groceries and household hygiene, but also the more expensive products. This includes electronics, as well as jewellery.



Looking at the electronics sector, most retailers saw a surge in sales. This was especially evident with electronic devices, sales of gadgets, and electronic accessories. The gold and jewellery sector also witnessed a significant increase in sales throughout the last week of December 2017, with some retailers reporting up to five times sales volume compared to the same period last year.



It will be interesting to see how this trend progresses as we move into 2018. In fact, we have already seen a slight slowdown in spending in the first few weeks of in January, compared to the record-breaking figures in December. Of course, this is expected, as consumers across the UAE and GCC are reacting to the newly increased costs of everyday consumer items. In the longer term, we look forward to seeing how positively VAT impacts markets across the region, cutting across the industry sectors, said Modi.



According to the latest MEI, the chemical industry (including rubbers, paints and fertilizer) witnessed a 23 per cent increase from the same time last year. In under-performing industries, education and IT (including telecom) both recorded a decline of 13 per cent.



The only UAE occupation to register any growth from Q4 2016 is software (including hardware), benefiting from a 24 per cent increase. HR (including admin) experienced the steepest decline, suffering from a significant 57 per cent decrease from the same period last year, followed by sales (including businesses development) and finance (including accounting) registering declines of 34 per cent and 25 per cent respectively. - TradeArabia News ServiceThe Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority (SCTDA) is showcasing the emirates best tourist spots, popular leisure activities, and unique culture and traditions at a major travel trade show in New Delhi, India.

The 4th South Asia Travel and Tourism Exchange (SATTE), South Asias leading travel trade show, is taking place from January 31 to February 2, 2018 at the Pragati Maidan and is expected to draw 12,000 visitors.

During the three-day event, SCTDA will focus on Sharjahs key factors of family-friendliness as well as its exclusiveness which make it one of the top places to visit for tourists looking for adventure and a distinctive travel experience.

Khalid Jasim Al Midfa, Chairman of the SCTDA, said: India is undisputedly one of the largest key markets for the tourism and travel industry around the world. In fact, 138,000 Indian guests stayed in Sharjah hotel establishments during 2017. As the South Asian nation is one of our priority markets, this years SATTE is an opportunity to encourage more Indian tourists to explore Sharjahs beauty and discover its culture. We also hope to utilise SATTEs popularity to enhance the emirates brand and profile in major markets and cities worldwide as well as achieve growth in terms of the number of international tourist arrivals in 2018 and in the coming years.

Over the last two decades, SATTE has become the launch platform for many countries and tourism products from across the globe to conduct business in and with India.

By taking part in this years event, SCTDA is confident that it will be able to broaden its reach to international visitors and embrace new partnerships.

SCTDA is leading a delegation of important tourism and travel partners, including Sheraton, Ramada Hotel, Air Arabia, Sharjah Airport Travel Agency (SATA), Al Bait Hotel, Centro Sharjah, and Golden Tulip. - TradeArabia News ServiceBy Mirza Mosaraf Hossain, TwoCircles.net

In an extremely controversial step, the Mumbai Police arrested six Bengali people from West Bengals East Burdwan district for being illegal Bangladeshis working and living in Mumbai.

The six people, some of whom have been working for two decades in Mumbai, were arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department of Crawford Market, Mumbai, for the suspicion of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. However, the Police refused to check their Indian identity cards despite their repeated pleas of showing them to the police. Among the arrested persons, one was a student and two other minors. What is even more shocking is that the two minors are kept in two separate Juvenile Homes and their mother in another jail.

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On January 25, the C.I.D picked up Suman Mollah, a student of the Byculla Municipal Secondary School, his paternal cousin, Asgar Ali Mollah, Asgars brother Nurul Haque Mollah, Nuruls wife, Rina Bibi and her 11 years son and 8 years daughter from their Darukhana residence under Sewri Police station. The C.I.D refused to check their Voter Cards and Adhaar cards when they tried to approach to show it and asked them to produce it in their office. They faced the same fate of in the Crime branch office when they tried to prove that they were Indians, and instead were directed to produce them in Court.

They are now in four different jails and Children Home. The male adults are in Akhtar Road Jail, the woman is at the Carter Road jail and the two minors at Chembur Childrens Home in Mankhurd and Dongri Childrens Home.

The six arrested persons are originally from Kalinagar Village of Dhatrigram locality in East Burdwans Kalna Sub-Division. The flood of 2000 in West Bengal forced many villagers of Burdwan, Birbhum, Hooghly and other districts to migrate to the other Indian states for livelihood. This Mollah family was one of them. They migrated to Mumbai after the mishaps they suffered by the flood and since then, they have been living there working as snail suppliers to the nearby markets. Even some of the children of the family, who were brought to Mumbai at a young age, received primary and upper primary education there in their Sewri residence locality.

Ali Akbar Mollah, the father of Suman Mollah, now 42 years old, managed to hire an Advocate after his return from his village on January 27, where he had gone on January 17 to clarify some documents to ensure a house that he got under Indira Gandhi Awas Yojana. Asgar and Nurul used to work under him. According to him, police did not allow him to see his nephews wife and her children even after many pledges, citing there is no blood relation with them and they will only allow those who have blood relations with them. He also revealed that other four Bengalis including his nephew, Safikul Sarkar, are in jail for the last two months arrested by the Thane Police Station in Maharashtra Thane district for the same reason of being branded illegal Bangladeshis.

In a conversation with TwoCircles.Net, he said, For the last 16 years we are living here, working as suppliers of snails to the nearby markets like Crawford Market, Dadar Market and Manish Market that comes through trains from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and other states. In the past, C.I.D has arrested us on charges of being Bangladeshis after they would hear us speaking in Bengali and living our Bengali lifestyle. But they would release us after we showed our Indian Voter ID and Aadhaar cards. But for the last two months, they are arresting many of us as Bangladeshis and refusing to check our Indian Identity Cards. He added, Where will we go if things like this happen frequently? Are we not Indians? Are we not Bengalis who have been living there from generation to generation? Are our Indian Identity Cards not sufficient to prove our Indian Citizenship? If not, then what else? Please specify that we will do every possible way to prove our Indianness and Citizenship.

Aniket Gawand, the Advocate for the case, said, I have applied for the remand as well as the certified F.I.R copies. I am looking forward to getting these within two days. I am looking to seeing the case as early as possible because there are two minors too who have been arrested.

The incident has stirred the ethos of the Bengali community in West Bengal and it has turned to be a hot topic in social media. Samirul Islam, the President of Bangla Sanskriti Mancha, and his team are trying to get these workers released as early as possible. We have started all the legal proceeding in this case and will fight till the end against this injustice. Our organisation Bengal Sanskriti Mancha is always with the families of the victims. We appeal to all the people of West Bengal to come forward and protest against the series of attacks on migrant Bengalis, he said.By Raqib Hameed Naik, TwoCircles.net

New Delhi: Two Kashmiri students from Jamia Millia Islamia have alleged that Jamia authorities have canceled their hostel allotment after they complained about the food served in the hostel mess.

The two students were served with a notice of cancellation on January 24, 2017, after they had submitted their reply to the show-cause notice issued by the Jamia authorities. The show-cause notices were issued in the month of December to three students out of which one was let off with a warning.

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According to one of the Kashmiri student who has been expelled from the hostel, on November 26, 2017, an application addressed to Vice Chancellor signed by more than 50 students was submitted after students were fed up with deteriorating quality of food served.

They used to serve us uncooked food. Sometimes, the food had traces of blood in it..so we decided to write a letter to Vice Chancellor. On November 27, 2017, the provost office called only three Kashmiris despite the fact there were 50 signatures on it. A week before we had complained to the warden as well, but no action was initiated, said Samir Hussain, an MA Political Science student who has been ousted from the hostel.

According to show cause notice issued by Provost, JMI, Eqbal Hussain, who despite taking note of the quality of food served, alleged Samir of putting somebodys else telephone number which created lots of problems in finding  and alleged him of instigating students against filing the complaint.

Shrugging off the allegations, Samir says, That was my J&K number and was blocked by the company a few days back and I had applied for another number. Besides, the number mentioned there was my friend who lived with me in the same room and no student was instigated. Everyone was fed up with the food served in the Khawaja hostel, he added.

Another Kashmiri student studying BA (Honors) History in the university has also been blamed by the authorities of forging the signature of students, which he has vehemently denied.

The students have also alleged that Jamia authorities while seeking an explanation from them have used objectionable language like, You Kashmiris deserve what is happening with you.

When TwoCircles.net contacted Saima Saeed, Media coordinator, Jamia Millia Islamia, she claimed ignorance about the cancellation of the hostel of Kashmiri students.

The move comes months after Jamia authorities had ousted Ph.D. Scholar Dhrupadi Ghosh, a student activist who has been vocal about issues related to payment of dues to workers, implementing labour laws in the university, attack on female students by male university guards and police entering the campus without permission.Paris is overrun by rats attracted by the abundant food thrown away by the human population. A video shown by 'Le Parisien' from the banks of the Seine shows a multitude of rats in a city dumpster. The rats are shown falling out and fighting over food and the usual detritus humans no longer need.

Rats are becoming a common sight in the French capital to both residents and tourists. Garbage workers report being attacked by rats but no one as yet has been bitten. The animals are seen all over the city now and it now seems the authorities are finally realising what a rat problem they have.

One may ask is this nuisance having an impact on the tourist trade? Of course, not every tourist visiting the city will be aware of the problem. But by the end of their stay or tour of the city, they may have noticed the little blighters going about their daily lives.

Rats not to blame?

Paris has been singled out in the press for its rat population. Every city, town, village and hamlet will host some population of rats in the world.

Rats must be one of the most hated creatures on the planet. Even that lover of animals Sir David Attenborough has admitted he has a phobia of the highly intelligent Rodents. It goes without saying, women, and some men cannot stand the sight of them. They are associated with decay and it is easy to see why we humans see them like that.

The fact they live in sewers does their image no good either.

Try seeing things from the rat's point of view though. They need to make a living, they need easy access to food and a place to live and bring up their young ones. By coming into our domain this is where the trouble starts between our species and theirs.

Rats were always blamed for many diseases and suffering particularly in the Middle Ages.

The latest theory, however, is that the rats did not cause the bubonic plague. It was, in fact, humans who spread infection and disease because hygiene was not as well understood.

The wonderful world of pet rats

Rats can and do make wonderful pets. Speaking from experience they are highly entertaining and companionable creatures to befriend.

They do need exercise but not like in the case of a dog who needs regular walks. As long as they have a sizeable cage, fresh bedding, food and water they are happy.

The thought of even keeping one as a pet will seem horrific to some. If you hold that view, fine, however, again speaking from experience this is certainly not the case for me as explained above. Pet rats, unfortunately, can be prone to cancer as they are descended from lab rats.

So finally while admitting wild rats can bring problems pet rats in the main are delightful creatures to have.War heroes were among the many distinguished guests invited to attend President Trump's State of Union Address.

The event took place on Tuesday, January 30th, 2018 at 9pm in the chamber of the United States House of Representatives.

Corporal (Ret.) Matthew Bradford was among many of the veterans invited to attend the President's State of Union Address. He is the first blind, double amputee to re-enlist in the Marine Corps.

"He has inspired Kentucky and he will inspire the nation"

Representative Andy Barr, Kentucky, tweeted: "Very proud that my National Security Fellow, Corporal (Ret.) Matthew Bradford, @bionikmatt5, will attend the #SOTU as a special guest of @realDonaldTrump & @FLOTUS.

He has inspired Kentucky and he will inspire the nation #NolegsNoVisionNoProblem."

Corporal Bradford joined the United States Marine Corps after leaving high school in 2006 to serve in Iraq.

In 2007, he stepped on an improvised explosive device (IED), which shot into both of his eyes and blinded him. The explosion also removed both of his legs.

He rejoined the Marine Corps after numerous surgeries and therapy.

Elizabeth Alvarado, Robert Mickens, Evelyn Rodriguez, and Freddy Cuevas also attended the President's State of Union Address. Ms Rodriguez and Mr. Cuevas were the parents of Kayla Cuevas. Ms Alvarado and Mr. Mickens were the parents of Kayla's friend, Nisa Mickens.

Kayla and Nisa had been close friends since elementary school, but in September 2016, they were murdered whilst being chased down.

Their deaths were among a string of seventeen Long Island slayings that have been attributed to Mara Salvatrucha, commonly referred to as MS-13.

Cajun Navy 2016 founder Jon Bridgers also attended Trump's State of Union Address. He established Cajun Navy 2016 as a non-profit rescue and recovery organisation to respond to flooding in Louisiana.

Last year, it provided aid to those affected by Hurricane Harvey. Cajun Navy helped thousands of people across the South. To this day, they continue to collect resources and donations for those who lost their homes.

David Dahlberg, a fire prevention technician in southern California, was another guest invited to watch Donald Trump's speech.

In July 2017, he saved sixty-two children and staff members from a wildfire that encircled their camp near Pine Canyon Fire Station in the Santa Lucia Ranger District, where he was based.

One notable guest included Staff Sergeant Justin Peck. His colleague, Chief Petty Officer Stacy, was struck by an IED on the second floor of a hospital building and severely wounded.

Staff Sergeant Peck applied a tourniquet, placed an endotracheal tube, and performed artificial respirations and CPR, which helped save Officer Stacy's life.

Two beneficiaries of the President's tax reform bill were also present. President Steve Staub and Vice President Sandy Kepingler of Staub Manufacturing Solutions, a contract manufacturing company specialising in metal fabrication founded in 1998, have seen a rise in sales and employment since the bill was passed.

They have expanded their team from twenty-three to thirty-seven employees over the last year and acquired a new building. They gave their employees larger than expected Christmas bonuses due to Donald Trump's tax cuts.

The founder of the Flag and Flower Challenge, Preston Sharp, watched the President's speech. Mr. Sharp has organised the placement of more than forty thousand American flags and red carnations on soldiers' graves.

His scheme is designed to respect veterans in all fifty states and to challenge others to join the Flag and Flower Challenge, after being inspired by a lack of flags and flowers on veterans' graves when visiting his grandfather's grave in 2015.

"AG Landry praises the President for recognizing these special Louisianans."

Louisiana Department of Justice's Attorney General, Jeff Landry, tweeted: "Local heroes chosen by @POTUS as Special Guests of the President and @FLOTUS at the State of Union; AG Landry praises the President for recognizing These Special Louisianans."Continental is a popular bar, located in the East Village of New York City. It usually displays a Sign offering patrons six shots of anything for only $12. However, recently this more welcome sign was underscored by a sign banning patrons from using the word literally on the premises.

What the sign warned was if anyone was overheard using the word literally inside the bar, they would have five minutes to finish their drink and would then have to leave. Even worse, if they were heard to start a sentence with the words I literally, they would need to immediately leave  put down that drink and go.

Literally get thrown out of a bar for saying literally?

According to the sign on Continentals window, the word literally is the most annoying and overused word in the English language and the bar management were prepared to tolerate it no longer. The sign was spotted by Eden Brower, a musician with the East River Street Band, who immediately took to Twitter to post a photo of the sign, saying she literally couldn't believe it.

However, matters got worse when the sign was later updated to take a jab at the Kardashian clan, by adding the words, Stop Kardashianism now!

Attention! The sign at the Continental Bar has been updated and now includes a nod to @KimKardashian pic.twitter.com/P5TYXxcFcH  EdenBrower (@edenbrower) January 22, 2018

The tweets of the sign soon went viral on Twitter, with many people taking the whole thing seriously.

Some pointed to sexism by stating this sign was an example of how womens speech is continually policed, especially after the Kardashian mention appeared.

People like this don't give a shit about language. They're just self-important, generally misogynistic blow hards who get off on feeling superior to (mostly) young women. Anyway, good morning all! https://t.co/gr5A21hcJ2  Allegra Hobbs (@AllegraEHobbs) January 24, 2018

Art Silverman, producer of NPRs show All Things Considered, suggested the public literally test the waters by visiting Continental and saying the banned word, just to see if they do, indeed, get thrown out.

NPR invites folks literally test the waters @The Continental in St Marks Place -- record your experience at Voice memo and see if Trigger Smith ejects you. https://t.co/TyFdzgmW64  Art Silverman (@asilverman) January 25, 2018

Sign was placed as a joke and a bit of publicity

However, as reported by Timeout New York, the whole thing was merely a joke.

Trigger Smith, the owner of the bar, said if he did enforce that rule, his bar would soon empty out. He asked how he could possibly mean that and be serious and that he literally feels sorry for anyone who took the sign seriously.

It turns out the sign was not only a joke, but also a piece of publicity, as after 27 years in business, Continental will be closing its doors by around June 30. It seems they need to relocate and cant afford to do so. Smith posted on their website to say that if they are busy for the remainder of their time in business, they might have the funds to relocate. One thing is for sure, if you aggressively tell people not to do a certain thing, they are likely to do just that, making it a challenge to get the public into the bar.FBI Deputy Director, Andrew McCabe, steps down from his position today, and there are many speculations as to why he is leaving the FBI. Outside sources state that he was told to leave while internal sources state it was his choice. Currently, it is unclear why the director has decided to leave a few months before his retirement in March.

As he has 20 years in the service, McCabe is able to retire when he turns 50 years old on March 18 of this year, and this still allows him to receive his pension. Although he announced his decision at a staff meeting earlier today (Jan.

29), he will still receive benefits until his 50th birthday. On the other hand, he will be relieved of his duties until then.

What caused McCabes sudden departure?

According to CBS News, the deputy director has received backlash from the Republican party as he replaced former Director James Comey. President Trump fired Comey earlier this year, as the investigations into the Russians altering the election results continued. McCabe has been accused of being close with his former boss, thus causing the assumption he must be taking his former bosss side.

Once McCabe took over the position, the president asked him who he voted for in the 2016 election. Last week, the Washington Post reported Trumps anger toward McCabes wifes ties to the Clinton family.

It is also speculated that Attorney General Jeff Sessions pressured FBI Director Christopher Wray to fire McCabe. President Trump denies this accusation.

Republicans have long been skeptical of McCabe since the Clinton email scandal. According to Wall Street Journal, in 2015, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe gave McCabes wife $500,000 in donations, and along with other Democrats, encouraged McCabe to run for a seat in the Senate.

Governor McAuliffe is a close ally of the Clintons. This act was also alarming to the Republicans, as McCabe had been leading the investigation into Hillary Clintons e-mails.

Who will take McCabes position?

It is rumored that David Bowdich will take McCabes place. Bowdich is well known for his involvement in the 2015 mass shooting in San Bernardino.

A former agent, Frank Montoya Jr., describes Bowdich as fair and objective, according to an article published by Newsweek earlier today.

Republicans are fighting to remove officials from the bureau who served alongside former Director James Comey. This may not become a reality, as Newsweek reports Bowdich as being a witness regarding Trumps request for the FBI to stop investigating former national security advisor, Michael Flynn. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein of the Department of Justice will most likely be making the final decision on Bowdich taking on the role of Deputy Director.On January 13, Hawaii was shocked by a ballistic missile threat warning, broadcast via cellphones, TV and radio, with residents panic continuing for a full 38 minutes before it was announced that it was a false alarm. An investigation by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has now revealed the cause of the erroneous emergency alert.

Hawaii state emergency manager resigns over false alert

Vern Miyagi, the state emergency manager in Hawaii, resigned on Tuesday after the results of the investigation showed an employee did not click on the wrong button on a confusing menu, but rather had mistaken the alert as the real deal due to miscommunication by officials.

According to a report by the FCC, it turns out an unplanned emergency drill was being run at the time and the employee in question  who reportedly has a history of various mishaps  did not get the part of the message that said it was merely a test.

However, the unidentified employee is not totally to blame. The investigation showed the employee to have insufficient supervision. The false alarm has now been attributed to a mix of inadequate safeguards and human error after FCC officials found top emergency management officials had miscommunicated with others about plans to hold a drill.

Reportedly a night-shift supervisor was the one who chose to hold a missile drill during a shift change, to test how the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency would respond in such a situation. That supervisor played a recording of a phone call to employees, pretending to be an official with the U.S. Pacific Command, the agency normally tasked with such warnings.

Employee mistook drill for a real missile alert

According to James Wiley, an FCC advisor, the recording started with the words, exercise, exercise, exercise, which is consistent with the start of the drill script. However, the script that followed did not follow the agencys standard operating procedures. Instead, it included language intended to be used in an Emergency Alert System message about a real ballistic missile alert, hence the words this is not a drill were included.

It turned out the employee in question did not hear the words exercise, exercise, and only caught the this is not a drill statement, leading to them believing it was the real deal.

A Hawaii official resigns in wake of findings on false missile alert. A new FCC report says the worker who sent the alert thought the threat was real. https://t.co/UM9QlYkfGC pic.twitter.com/nd1ni36iLo  CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) January 30, 2018

It was at that time that the employee issued the alert to the Hawaii public using the agencys alert software. According to the report, while local and federal officials confirmed this was a false alarm within minutes, it took 38 minutes to get the news across to the panicking Hawaii public.

No procedures in place to stop the employee sending the alert

The Los Angeles Times quotes Wiley as saying there were, at that stage, no procedures in place to stop an individual from erroneously sending out a missile alert in the state. While the alert was over a matter of utmost gravity, no requirement was in place for the employee involved to double check with a supervisor before sending out the erroneous message.

Miyagi, the official who has resigned, has been in charge of Hawaiis efforts over the last year to prepare the alert system after North Korea performed missile tests which suggested they could attack the U.S.With a constant stream of rumors hovering over the head of her marriage, First Lady Melania Trump broke from tradition and arrived at the State of the Union without Donald Trump. Once the news broke, the story went viral on social media.

Melania ditches Donald

In recent weeks, one of the biggest stories has revolved around the reported infidelity of Donald Trump dating back over a decade. The Wall Street Journal were the first to report that Trump reportedly paid hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about an alleged affair the two had back in 2006 when Melania Trump was pregnant with her son Barron.

Since then, Melania has backed out of accompanying the president to a foreign trip to Davos, Switzerland, with both failing to publicly acknowledge their 13th wedding anniversary. With the scandals only expanding by the day, the Washington Examiner reported on January 30 that the first lady decided to arrive at her husband's State of the Union address by herself.

JUST IN: Melania Trump rides in separate motorcade from Trump's for State of the Union https://t.co/EOQDeWjRuv pic.twitter.com/m5Lmyi3w1Z  Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) January 31, 2018

According to Melania Trump's spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham, the first lady decided to break from the longstanding tradition of arriving with the president and instead drove to the event with her guests.

"In addition to holding a White House reception and photo opportunity for them, along with their friends and family, she is accompanying them to the Capitol," Grisham said.

First lady Melania Trump receives standing ovation as she enters ahead of Pres. Trump's State of the Union address. https://t.co/5Zl2rgg6Pl #SOTU pic.twitter.com/ib4tJi8zuT  ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) January 31, 2018

Twitter goes viral

Once the news broke, Twitter users wasted no time firing back.

"Wouldnt it be great if Melania Trump showed up at the #StateOfTheUnion holding hands with Robert Mueller?" one Twitter user wrote.

One day Melania Trump will write a book. I think it will be popular.  Judd Apatow (@JuddApatow) January 30, 2018

Video footage of Melania Trump, when offered the opportunity to go to the #SOTU without Donald: pic.twitter.com/rsaOi0BhNk  TrumpsTaxes (@TrumpsTaxes) January 31, 2018

Dear Melania Trump,

The Secret Service can get you away from that monster.

You will be protected, and you will always be rich.

Get out while you can ! pic.twitter.com/B8prs7jLEP  Jason Bourne (@TheOriginalWTH) January 31, 2018

"If Melania doesnt want to be in the car with Trump for a 5-minute drive, why do the rest of us have to be subjected to him for an hour-long speech?" Keith Boykin wrote.

"Dear Melania Trump, The Secret Service can get you away from that monster. You will be protected, and you will always be rich. Get out while you can!" a follow-up tweet added.

And because Trump banged a porn star right after Melania Trump gave birth to their son then paid $130K hush money ONLY to keep his voters from finding out  and NOT because he gave a rat's ass whether she knew or not. Amirite Sarah? Yeah. I'm right.#StateOfOurUnion #SOTU #Maddow https://t.co/U6urtcw2J1  Polly Sigh (@dcpoll) January 31, 2018

If Melania doesnt want to be in the car with Trump for a 5-minute drive, why do the rest of us have to be subjected to him for an hour-long speech?https://t.co/bDskOGDdgI  Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) January 31, 2018

Wouldnt it be great if Melania Trump showed up at the #StateOfTheUnion holding hands with Robert Mueller? #sotu  Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) January 31, 2018

"And because Trump banged a p*rn star right after Melania Trump gave birth to their son then paid $130K hush money ONLY to keep his voters from finding out  and NOT because he gave a rat's a** whether she knew or not.

Amirite Sarah? Yeah. I'm right," yet another tweet stated. "One day Melania Trump will write a book. I think it will be popular," director Judd Apatow went on to post. The mockery continued on social media as questions remain about the relationship status of Donald Trump and Melania Trump.Bill Nye, the so-called science guy, is not a stranger to controversy. On one occasion he called for the jailing of so-called climate change deniers, the 21st Century version of religious heretics. Some off-putting skits on Nyes Netflix series have also raised some eyebrows.

However, an act of statesmanship has gotten Bill Nye into considerable trouble with erstwhile allies. A shadowy group calling itself 500 Women Scientists has published an anonymous hit piece in Scientific America that declares, Bill Nye Does Not Speak for Us, and He Does Not Speak for Science. Nyes sin is agreeing to be the guest at the State of the Union Address of Rep.

Jim Bridenstine, R-Oklahoma, the nominee to become NASA administrator.

Bill Nye is guilty of associating with the Boogieman

The trials and travails of Jim Bridenstine in his quest to lead the space agency have been well documented. Essentially, the gentleman from Oklahoma is being accused of climate change denial and of taking stands as a conservative Republican that are an affront to the far left. He has become a kind of right-wing Boogieman, remarkable for a man who is soft-spoken, self-effacing, and is a combat veteran and former Navy Top Gun.

Bill Nye is being accused of tacitly endorsing all of Bridenstines sins, even though he has taken pains to claim that he is not doing so. As the head of the Planetary Society, Nye believed that it would be to his advantage to reach out to the future administrator of NASA.

Social justice invades science

The article by the shadowy, anonymous 500 Women Scientists claims that the pursuit of truth and knowledge that characterizes science cannot be separated from the various social justice issues that have roiled American politics. In other words, scientists have to be on the politically correct side of these issues, or they must be cast aside into the outer darkness.

Bill Nye is a nerdy white man in a lab coat

The unkindest cut of all from the shadowy, secretive group of 500 Women Scientists is to accuse Bill Nye of, having perpetuated the harmful stereotype that scientists are nerdy, combative white men in lab coatsa stereotype that does not comport with our lived experience as women in STEM. In other words, Nye is to be condemned for being the wrong gender.

He must feel that he is back in middle school being taunted by all the girls.

Bill Nye was even condemned for debating enemies of science, perceived or real, in public forums. On one occasion he jousted with a creationist named Ken Ham, which the authors of the piece claim Ham used to fundraise off of. On another occasion, Nye debated Tucker Carlson on his Fox News show, an event that admirably did not turn out well for the alleged science guy.

Bill Nye has been the target of jokes and condemnation from those who believe that science should be free of politics. However, by rousing the ire of a group of radicals who write anonymous hit pieces, Nye has achieved the unlikely feat of becoming a sympathetic figure.The civil unrest in Syria has been going on for the last eight years and millions of people have fled to neighboring countries where they are forced to live in refugee camps. Angelina Jolie had visited the desert camp of Zaatari in Jordan recently and the condition has moved her. She is not just an actor of Hollywood but is engaged in humanitarian work as a part of the UNHCR

Sky News reports that she is a special envoy for the UN refugee agency and this was her fifth visit to Jordan. She was heartbroken to see the hardship and trauma that these refugees are forced to face due to the civil war.

The pathetic conditions

Jordan, Lebanon, and other neighboring countries have accommodated more than 5 million refugees of Syria who have been displaced by the civil war raging between the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and the rebels. The number of registered refugees in Jordan is believed to be more than 650,000 with nearly 78,000 in Zaatari. The war had taken ugly turns with allegations of the use of chemical weapons, and the tension continues.

In the course of her visit to the camp, located near the Syrian border, Angelina Jolie met a section of the refugee families. She was all praises for countries that had opened their doors to accept the additional burden of displaced persons. There are hurdles of funds because the agency had received only a portion of the requested funding last year, and hardly anything this year.

In her opinion, humanitarian aid is not a long-term solution. What is needed is a political settlement between the warring factions.

UNHCR adds that the war has taken a huge toll on these refugees most of whom have exhausted whatever savings they had. They are right now living below the poverty line, without any basic amenities like proper food, medical facilities, and shelter.

They are educated and capable persons but circumstances have reduced them to be dependent on the handout of others.

Civil war in Syria

According to BBC, the pro-democracy protests erupted in Syria in March 2011 in the southern city of Deraa following the arrest and torture of some teenagers that led to deaths. That resulted in nationwide protests demanding the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad, and the unrest kept spreading.

Those opposed to the regime took up arms that finally led to the civil war.

In 2013, chemical attacks targeted Damascus, the capital, killing hundreds. The death toll in Syria, as per activists and the UN, kept mounting from 90,000 in 2013 to 250,000 in 2015 and people fled to neighboring countries as refugees.

The visit of Angelina Jolie to the refugee camp is an eye-opener. It has highlighted the pathetic state of affairs in the country even after nearly eight years, and the leaders must try to end the unrest and bring back normalcy.Nicole Eggert went on live television yesterday morning (Jan. 30) to detail her Sexual Molestation allegations against former co-star Scott Baio. Eggert, who is now 46 years old, claims that Baio, now 57, began molesting her when she was 14 and they were filming "Charles in Charge" together. According to Eggert, the abuse went on for years. Most of the information in this article comes from reports by the Los Angeles Times and Variety.

Eggert opens up to Kelly with attorney present

Along with her attorney, Lisa Bloom, Eggert appeared on NBC's "Megyn Kelly Today" on Tuesday morning to add to the sexual molestation charges that she hinted at on Twitter over the weekend.

At that time, Eggert posted a comment that Baio should be asked about what happened to her in his garage when she was just 14. Baio soon went to Facebook Live to defend himself, not arguing that the incident never happened, but saying that she had seduced him.

On Tuesday, Eggert spoke in detail to Kelly about her claims that Baio began sexually abusing her when "Charles in Charge" began in 1986, at which time she was 14 years old and he was more than a decade older. She alleges that Baio penetrated her with his finger as they were sitting in his car in his garage, while he was declaring his love for her and hopes of marriage in the future. Eggert adds that Baio would often slink her onto his lap and fondle her in front of other cast members during the years of abuse.

Eggert recalls being very young and quite emotional at the time. She adds that she felt threatened to keep quiet about what was going on, as Baio was her boss on the show and was in a position of power over her. Witnesses to these alleged incidents on the set of "Charles in Charge" include actors Adam Carl and Alexander Polinski, who support Eggert's claims that Baio often acted inappropriately towards her on the set.

Lost her virginity at age 17

Eggert claims that Baio continued to sexually abuse her multiple times per week until she was 17, at which time, she says, she lost her virginity to him. In the state of California, she was considered a minor at the time.Although she agrees that she was a willing participant at the time, she said that it was upsetting and not a good experience.

After their sexual experience, Eggert claims, Baio began treating her poorly, being "mean."

Baio has yet to respond to Eggert's television interview and accusations. Eggert and Bloom told Kelly that Eggert is considering filing a police report against Baio and is exploring other legal options as well.Spoiler alerts say that Ashley and Victoria are going to square off on Tuesday on "The Young and the Restless." Because of Victor's manipulations, the two women will now both be working at Newman. Vicky had believed she was second in charge behind her father and has been in her ice queen mode since Newman bailed out Brash and Sassy. According to Soaps She Knows, Vicky will blow a gasket when she finds out that Ashley has left Jabot and will be overseeing what goes on at the company that Vicky built from the ground up. Things are going to get pretty tense and both women are going to lay it all on the line.

Victor sets up Ashley and Victoria

Last week the arbitrator named Jack as the CEO of Jabot, so Ashley quit in order to start her own company. As she was meeting with Devon hoping he would become an investor, her lawyer was telling Victor he might want to get in on the action. The Newman patriarch then solicited Nikki to help him seal the deal and they pitched their offer to Ms. Abbot over a meal. It's clear Victor is taking advantage of the situation in order to stick it to Jack and Ashley is playing right along.He has set these two women up and now will sit back and watch the fireworks.

Spoilers say on Tuesday everything hits the fan when Victoria and her former sister in law have a heated discussion.

Ashley will enjoy believing that she has one-upped the self-proclaimed heir apparent to the Newman throne. She will bring up her expertise in running her family business and Vicky will fume because she believes only a Newman should have such a high ranking sing position in the company. She also will not like having to answer to someone else when "Brash and Sassy" is her baby.

Vicky is outraged at her father and Ashley

Soaps She Knows indicates that Victor will emphasize to his daughter what an asset Ashey is but Victoria will be outraged. She also will not appreciate finding Jack's sister in her office. Ashley will apologize but Vicky will not want to deal with any of it and spoilers say she will decide to work from home.

So now Victoria has gone from running her own company to being bought out by her father, to working at home.

All this upheaval could be a preview of bigger changes coming to "The Young and the Restless" during February sweeps, so stay tuned. Y&R airs weekday afternoons at 12:30 PM on CBS. Longtime fans realize that this new partnership between Victor and Ashey probably will not last long so continue to watch each episode and find out.Rescue crews from Australia and the United States have come together in the rescue search for any remaining survivors from the Kiribati ferry tragedy, when the ferry overturned in the Pacific Ocean nearly two weeks ago, the Guardian reported. Previous reports stated that the Kiribati ferry had approximately fifty passengers but Kiribatis President Mamau believes that twice that many may have been on-board on that ill-fated day.

Kiribatis president makes statement and rescue efforts

Mamau announced that he had set aside some time for prayer with the possibility that many more of the ferrys passengers would be found alive as rescue efforts were increased with aircraft from both Australia and the United States Coast Guard after the fragile ferry did not arrive at its destination and ended up sinking sometime on January 18, 2018.

On Monday, rescue efforts from the maritime authority in Australia had begun an exploration on the west side of Kiribati and the United States Coast Guard has dispatched a C-130 that is expected to arrive on-site sometime on Tuesday. Fiji is leading the search and rescue through New Zealands rescue management facility.

The lead administrator from New Zealands rescue management facility stated that New Zealand had launched their P-3 Orions for the search and had searched all day on Monday, spanning some 148,649 square miles, and that since the area being search is so secluded, they have experienced several challenges concerning their rescue efforts.

Kiribati survivors and ferry accident

On Sunday, a marine patrol rescue vessel, along with medical staff, was on their way to a fishing vessel which had found and rescued the 7 survivors.

Those survivors' health status on the Kiribati ferry were said to be in pretty good shape after having to spend well over a week floating around in the ocean and deprived of any water and other essentials for life. Those survivors include three men and four women, and the youngest is a female that's only 14-years-old.

After the seven passengers were spotted many miles from land, a New Zealand Air Force P-3 lowered much-needed supplies of water and food from their aircraft during the day on Sunday.

The Kiribati ferry, which had undergone maintenance and some repairs, left for a two day trip to the Southern part of Tarawa but unfortunately did not arrive on the 20th of January. The Guardian also reported that the Kiribati vessel had previous propeller problems which may have caused the vessel to experience navigation problems, although the weather was not bad and the ocean only had some moderate swells.Sabir Chopuroglu's artistic career began at age seven, when his parents brought home a small bottle of petroleum. One day, when he was seven years old, Sabir Chopuroglu's parents brought home a small bottle of petroleum from Naftalan, the Soviet sanatorium famed for its medical treatments involving bathing in oil. Instead of the medical potential, however, Chopuroglu saw creative possibilities. Eurasianet reports in its article Azerbaijan: Painting With Oil  No, Not that Oil that attracted by the strange smell he poured it on the floor, and using his hands, drew horses and trees on the white walls of his house. His parents, naturally, weren't pleased. But it proved to be the beginning of a unique artistic career. Now 62, Chopuroglu has made a successful career out of this particular style of oil painting.

He moved from his family's village in Dmanisi to go to art school in Tbilisi and then Baku, where he worked on developing his childhood technique. I knew Baku as an oil city, and that inspired me, he said. He still paints with the kind of oil usually processed into fuel, though these days he mixes it with acrylic, tempera or oil paints. The result is a sepia tone, unmistakable as crude oil. He says he has sold over 500 paintings, with foreigners his best clients. He's even patented the unique paint mixture in Azerbaijan.

Oil is not only the medium for Chopuroglu's paintings, but often the theme, as well. Derricks, oil workers, and the petroleum-rich Caspian Sea figure often in his paintings, along with other Azerbaijani cultural motifs like Baku's medieval Maiden Tower, Silk Road caravans, carpets, and traditional musical instruments.

Chopuroglu is far from the first Azerbaijani artist to have been inspired by oil. Since the 19th century, when Baku was the world's first oil boom town, Azerbaijani arts have been tightly connected to oil. Poets and writers like Mirza Alakbar Sabir, Abdulla Shaig, Suleyman Sani Akhundov, and Mir Jalal Pashayev have explored the wealth brought to Azerbaijan by oil, as well as the social injustices it has wrought.

The first-ever film shown in Baku, in 1898, began with a short, Fire at the Oil Gusher in Bibi-Heybat. The first full-length feature film of Azerbaijan by Boris Svetlov, one of Baku's most significant early filmmakers, was the 1915 In the Realm of Oil and Millions, was funded by some of the city's oil barons and depicted the story of a poor man who becomes rich from oil and then tragically loses it all.

Oil was our main source of wealth and our main cause of problems, wrote cultural critic Rahman Badalov. Therefore, it's only natural that Azerbaijani cinema would start with an episode about an oil gusher. The subject was particularly rich for art created during the period of Soviet socialist realism. The 1933 Symphony of Oil, documented a gushing oil well and workers' efforts to get it under control, with the score synchronized to the pulsing of the oil and the exertions of the workers.

The prominent Soviet Azerbaijani composer and student of Dmitri Shostakovich, Gara Garayev, wrote the score for a 1958 documentary, A Story About the Oil Workers of the Caspian Sea. Many prominent Soviet Azerbaijani painters took up residence at Neft Daslar (Oil Rocks), the world's first offshore oil platform, in the Caspian Sea, and heroically depicted the everyday lives of the oil workers there. Since gaining independence, Azerbaijan has experienced a second oil boom. But this time, it's had relatively little effect on art, said Elmir Mirzoyev, a cultural critic and composer. It is impossible to speak of radical developments in the art and cinema of Azerbaijan, despite the fact that over the last 15 years the country has received a fair amount of money, Mirzoyev told Eurasianet. That some young writers have made some innovations is not because of the oil wealth, but in spite of it.

Still, oil has seeped its way into the country's contemporary art. Painter Tora Aghabayova presented a solo exhibition, titled Oil and Dreams, in 2011 at London's Royal Opera House Arcade, depicting oil's influence in wry, ironic ways, such as a classical nude in a hard hat painted against a background of petroleum processing plants.

Meanwhile, multimedia artist Teymur Daimi caused a minor scandal in Berlin after the Azerbaijani authorities reportedly blocked his oil-themed short film, The Black Paradise, from being shown because of its critical portrayal of Azerbaijan. In conceptual artist Orkhan Huseynov's video piece Oil Drinking, two men in bright orange jumpsuits apparently drink oil as if it were tea. In another work, Splash, he shows a stylized, raised fist grabbing oil that squirts away. Oil has existed in our art for more than 100 years, it's part of our culture, Huseynov noted in a 2011 interview. In Splash, he addresses the ephemerality of oil. Keeping something liquid, it's impossible, it just leaks or explodes. You can't possess it.The Russia Today press center held a panel entitled "Modernization in Kazakh style: priorities of 2018" in Moscow, at which experts discussed key provisions of President Nursultan Nazarbayev's recent address to the people of Kazakhstan entitled "New development opportunities in the conditions of the fourth industrial revolution".

According to the director of the Institute of International Studies of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Andrey Kazantsev, terrorist threats, threats related to the conflicts between the regional powers, the Middle East conflict, the situation in Afghanistan has a negative impact on the Central Asian region. "Kazakhstan's foreign policy aimed at creating peace, developing mutually beneficial economic cooperation between all the states of the post-Soviet space, Central Asia, the whole of Eurasia and the world as a whole, has become an important factor that promotes stability in the region surrounding Kazakhstan. Now we should discuss Kazakhstan's further economic development plans."

According to Andrei Kazantsev, foreign policy successes are reflected in the economy, in particular in the field of investment: "Kazakhstan's good relations with the whole world, its ability to build foreign policy, promoting the idea of peace and economic cooperation in both our region and throughout the world, led to the fact that Kazakhstan has become the leader of the post-Soviet space in investment per capita. This effective investment model allows us to look optimistically at many of the plans put forward by the President. Because fitting into the global economy taking into account the processes of globalization, which are now being modified, is impossible without an effective investment model."

Adviser to the President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, Georgy Petrov, drew attention to the fact that the Kazakh President's address preceded the address of the Russian President: "Many provisions that can be extracted from Nursultan Abishevich's address are in tune with Russia, in particular industrialization. The global economy trend showed that postindustrial society is beginning to get rid of itself. It caused even more challenges and contradictions, increased the gap between the poor and the rich, created bifurcation points that can become serious conflicts. If we look at the figures, Kazakhstan overcame the negative global economic tendencies, and the structures of our economies are very similar. "

The expert also drew attention to the fact that the agenda of the Davos forum,held two weeks after Nazarbayev's address, was largely identical to the formulation of the tasks set by President Nazarbayev for his people.

Georgy Petrov also saw a positive in the address for further strengthening of cooperation between Russia and Kazakhstan in a multilateral format, first of all the Eurasian Economic Union, as well as in the bilateral one, in the development of trade and investment. "I do not know of any other country (except Kazakhstan) from the near or far abroad, with more than 8000 Russian enterprises and enterprises with Russian participation. And when the positive changes have started both in Kazakhstan's economy and in Russia's economy, the number of these enterprises increased by almost 1500. This is a record number. We managed to overcome the negative trend in the development of bilateral trade. The record year was 2012, when the trade turnover reached $25 billion. Then there was a gradual decrease in mutual trade due to domestic economic causes and other things. And in 2017, we see an increase. In the 11 months of last year, mutual trade reached the level of 15 billion. There were 13 billion for the whole 2016. It can be expected that after summing up the results of 2017 there will be 17-18 billion. We are optimistic about the coming year, as the new Customs Code of the Eurasian Economic Union comes into force, and it is appropriate to recall here that the president of Kazakhstan was the father of the Eurasian economic integration."

The vice-rector of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) Andrey Margolin recalled how Nazarbayev defended his doctoral dissertation in 1992: "Many things that concern resource saving, ecology, investing in human capital development were reflected in the doctoral dissertation of the president. This work has not lost its urgency".

Andrei Margolin, as a representative of the education sector, focused on the development of human capital: "If we take a section on the development of the agro-industrial complex, the president says that smart irrigation technology systems are needed, intelligent fertilizer systems, agrarian universities should be improved. A section about information technologies, says that new approaches to the training of personnel are needed. People who own the future should be aware of what is called the industrial revolution 4.0, the block chain, they must understand what a virtual and augmented reality is. "

Margolin stressed that Nazarbayev devotes a lot of time to the development of integration processes: "Our academy recently signed a cooperation agreement at the Gaidar Forum with the regional hub of the civil service in Astana. We work very closely with the Academy of Management under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, we communicate at various venues - both in Moscow and Astana, and recently in Tashkent, That is, our cooperation is informal, has a result of joint publications, conferences. We are close to the implementation of joint educational programs."Director of the Atlantic Council's Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center with headquarters in Washington, the former US ambassador to Uzbekistan and Ukraine, John Herbst, told 1 TV about his vision of Russian-US relations and their impact on the South Caucasus republics. Vestnik Kavkaza publishes the part of the interview that concerns Transcaucasia, with the proviso that many of Mr. Herbst's thoughts do not coincide with the opinion of the editorial board.

Editorial note: Unfortunately, a view of Russia's destructive policy in the region in general and in the foreign policy of Armenia and Azerbaijan in particular has become more evident recently in the statements of Western experts on the South Caucasus. The point is that Moscow allegedly shows great loyalty to the side of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which shows loyalty to Russia in a particular period of time. Obviously, Moscow needs to maintain partnership relations with both countries and influence in the region, which is in the interests of the state. But it would be an oversimplification to present this position as "a desire to preserve the Karabakh conflict". Russia's political establishment is heterogeneous and sometimes adheres to diametrically opposed positions. Indeed, there are Moscow supporters of maintaining the status quo in the Karabakh conflict, but there are also those who believe that the preservation of this problem sooner or later will cause a bombshell, which is extremely undesirable for Moscow. Unlike the United States, Russia has borders with the conflicting countries, and part of the population living in the North Caucasus, for example, Avars and Lezgins, lives in Azerbaijan as well. Moscow cannot ignore such family ties. In addition, Russia is a multiethnic country with a federal structure, which is why they are very cautious about any manifestations of separatism here, and therefore advocate the return of all internally displaced persons to Karabakh and the preservation of this territory within Azerbaijan, where the authorities will guarantee the observance of all rights of their citizens regardless of their nationality and religion. Otherwise, the policy of encouraging separatism can lead to a chain reaction in the region.

- Will anti-Russian sanctions affect Russia's allies and partners, including Armenia?

- We have imposed rather serious sanctions against the Kremlin for its aggression against Ukraine, but we try to use these sanctions wisely, limiting their influence so that they do not harm other countries.

- Speaking with the Voice of America, you talked about the impact of the sanctions imposed against Russian military industrial enterprises on Russia's military cooperation with other countries. Do you think that these sanctions are really able to limit Russia's arms sales to the Kremlin's partners, in particular Armenia and Azerbaijan?

- I doubt that US sanctions will have an impact on Russia's arms sales to Armenia. I think that they will not affect Russia's arms sales to Azerbaijan either.

- But do you think that the problem of limiting Russia's arms sales and the militarization of the region, is strategically viewed by Washington in terms of putting an end to the conflict and intensifying the peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan? I mean this is a serious problem, because Moscow uses arms sales as one of the levers of its main influence on Armenia and Azerbaijan.

- The essence of Moscow's policy in the South Caucasus is to make Russia a vital and irreplaceable country for Yerevan and Baku. It makes itself a vital country for Armenia, supplying weapons and acting as a guarantor of security, for example, in case of a possible attack by Turkey. Russia is trying to become vital for Azerbaijan, allowing Armenia to violate the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh and at the same time selling arms to Azerbaijan. I believe that the Kremlin's policy is very cynical. It is not interested in establishing peace in Nagorno-Karabakh. They use tension in the conflict zone (tension, not war) to maximize their influence in the South Caucasus.

- But does the US contribute to Russia's diplomatic efforts within the framework of the Minsk Group? How do you explain this approach?

- I think that the United States has never paid enough attention to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and if it does not make active efforts to solve the problem, it is not surprising that the United States recognizes the wider role of Russia in this issue, since Russia is the only country that has an impact on the conflicting parties. And the Kremlin, in turn, wants to manage the situation. Russia admits tension there, but does not want a war.

- How can we prevent a possible new war and make progress in the peaceful settlement of the conflict?

- It seems to me that Moscow prefers the problem not to be solved, but have it without wars.

- Should we wait for the active steps of the Trump administration in this matter?

- No, I do not think so, because it cannot succeed in this matter. When I dealt with such issues at the State Department 20 years ago, Armenia was led by a very serious statesman Ter-Petrosyan, and I think he really wanted to reach a peace agreement, but the radical forces in Yerevan and the radical forces of the Armenian diaspora did not allow him to make a deal with Azerbaijan and forced him to resign. I think it is very sad.

I know that Armenians are very gifted and talented people. Armenia was one of the most active and prosperous countries of the Soviet Union. Armenians are also very successful in the US, but they are limited themselves with a very unpleasant present and future due to their radical position on the Karabakh issue.

- How does the Armenian diaspora in the US, the lobbying organizations affect the White House policy or even the Congress decision to support Armenia in foreign and security issues?

- I think they have some sort of influence, but in my opinion, the Armenian diaspora (I'm not talking about everyone, but about the active elements of the diaspora) spent too much time on condemning the terrible events in the Ottoman Empire, achieving international recognition and protecting the rights of Armenians, of course, I understand them, but they did not spend enough time and resources to understand how Armenia can develop and prosper as a state, being a full-fledged member of the international community, and not just as a satellite of Moscow. It is very sad. American Armenians live well, because they are very talented, and they have prospered in the United States. It would be great if they applied their great potential for Armenian prosperity in Armenia as well.Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov will meet with the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, Federica Mogherini, in Brussels, the press service of the Council of the European Union said.

Mammadyarov and Mogherini will chair the 15th meeting of the EU - Azerbaijan Cooperation Council scheduled for February 9.

The 14th meeting of the EU - Azerbaijan Cooperation Council was held in 2013.Reporters from the Iranian Press TV broadcaster came under fire from Turkish forces in Syria's Afrin district on the Turkish-Syrian border, the broadcaster wrote on Twitter.

"Press TV crew comes under Turkish military attack in Rajo near Turkey-Syria border," the report says.

They added that the crew was "slightly injured." No other details have been provided so far.

On January 20, the Turkish Armed Forces launched a joint operation with the Free Syrian Army opposition forces against Kurdish militants in Afrin.A major terrorist attack was prevented in the eastern Turkish province of Bingol during a special operation conducted by local law enforcement, the local police said.

According to the message, 600 kilograms of explosives were found during the operation, which was buried near one of the main roads.

Meanwhile, two members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorist organization were detained as part of the operation.Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed the results of the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Sochi in a phone conversation and stressed the importance of fulfilling the agreements.

"The heads of state welcomed the outcome of the January 30 Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Sochi. They stressed the importance of implementing the agreements reached, which are aimed at the effective progress of the Syrian political settlement based on the UN Security Councils Resolution 2254," the Kremlins press service said.

The Presidents also discussed further coordination of Russian-Turkish efforts on ensuring sustained operation of Syria's de-escalation zones and also cooperation in the "Astana format," the press service said.

During the conversation, they also exchanged views on vital issues of the successfully developing bilateral trade and economic cooperation.The Syrian National Dialogue Congress was held in Russias Sochi yesterday.

The congress concluded after nine hours of negotiations possible amendments to the constitution and post-war reconstruction. The main result of the congress was the decision to establish a constitutional committee.

According to the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, a decision was made during the congress to form a constitutional committee, comprising delegates elected during the congress, and also to include representatives of groups who were absent for various reasons.

The minister added that the establishment of the constitutional commission will be forwarded to the UN, in line with resolution 2254, the work of this new structure will be organized in Geneva.

A statement laying down basic principles of the future Syrian state and government was also passed in Sochi: respecting sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of Syria; protecting the rights of all ethnic and religious groups; and ensuring that the political process does not leave anyone out and allows Syrians to determine their future on their own, without any interference from abroad.

According to organizers, the Syrian congress has brought together 1,392 delegates representing all strata of Syrian society.

The Russian presidents special envoy for Syria, Alexander Lavrentyev, said that a total of 11 members of the Syrian oppositions Riyadh group took part in the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Sochi on special invitations. He said that organizers of the Sochi congress had no plans of excluding anyone from the dialogue.

Lavrentyev noted that the Constitution Commission will comprise 150 members and the full list will be forwarded to the UN following the settling of some minor issues.

UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said the constitutional committee agreed in Sochi "will become a reality in Geneva". De Mistura also said he would decide the criteria for committee members and select about 50 people - from government, opposition and independent groups.

"A Constitutional Committee should at the very least comprise the government, opposition representatives in the intra-Syrian talks in Geneva, Syrian experts, civil society, independents, tribal leaders and women. You have also concluded that care would be taken to ensure adequate representation of Syrias ethnical and religious leaders - and we have seen many here today, de Mistura said after the congress, according to a statement," he said.

Representatives from various countries and international organizations were also invited as observers of the congress. Russia, Iran and Turkey, guarantors of a Syrian cease-fire regime, were organizers of the congress.

A senior research fellow of the Institute for Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladimir Sazhin, speaking with the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that the Syrian National Dialogue Congress held in Sochi was an important forum giving an opportunity to the people which haven't met before to hold consultations. "Unlike Geneva, where serious work is underway, but which is attended by a small number of participants, Sochi provides an opportunity to hold a multifaceted and large-scale dialogue. It is a positive thing, because the parties can get to know each other better," the expert noted.

At the same time, he complained that many people opposed to the Bashar Assad regime did not arrive in Sochi.

In addition, Sazhin expressed doubts that the Sochi forum could solve very complex problems. "In order to make some positive decision on resolving very important issues such as the constitution, it should be attended by all the players of this terrible war in Syria. If a radical minority of the opposition - not terrorists - does not agree with many Sochi or Geneva conclusions, it may continue to pursue its policy and, perhaps, by military means. Therefore, the unity of all them is necessary to solve Syria's main problem. It is extremely difficult to achieve, and so far it is impossible. Therefore, the Sochi event is positive, but at the same time it does not solve all the Syrian problems," the expert said.

The head of the political research of the Center for Modern Turkish Studies, Yuri Mavashev, said that holding the Syrian National Dialogue Congress in Sochi was the most successful international initiative on the Syrian issue. "We managed to achieve our goals: try to glue together the Syrian society in a political sense, unite different ethno-confessional groups and try to correlate their interests with the future of Syria. I believe that Russia-Turkey-Iran work in Sochi can be considered successful out of all the initiatives previously undertaken by the international community. During the congress, statements were regularly made for a united Syria and for the peace, there were no anti-Assad or anti-government statements. Nothing like that happened in Geneva," he said.

"It is clear that all the problems cannot be solved immediately, but the work itself has begun. It is important that not only Russia is the guarantor of peace in Syria, but also regional centers of power, since the chances for a full completion of the Syrian crisis are increasing. But a lot of things depend on whether the Syrian society will find a compromise in itself - and we for our part have done everything possible so that they could do it," Yuri Mavashev pointed out.One person was killed and two more were injured in a roadside bomb attack on a Turkish military convoy in Syrias Idlib yesterday, the Turkish army said in a statement .

According to the army, the attack, carried out by Kurdish militants as the convoy was in transit in northern Idlib, left one civilian worker dead and injured a soldier and another civilian, Reuters reported.

The convoy was dispatched to Idlib as part of Turkeys effort to help create a de-escalation zone there, under a deal brokered by Russia in August.

Turkey last week launched an air and ground offensive elsewhere in northwest Syria, targeting the Kurdish YPG militia in the Afrin region.New US sanctions will follow the publication of a list of Russian billionaires and top Russian officials, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said.

Mnuchin said the 'oligarchs list' wasnt delayed by the Trump administration after it was published late Monday, just as a congressionally-mandated deadline was set to expire.

"There will be sanctions that come out of this report," Mnuchin said in testimony before the Senate Banking Committee.

"We will take the basis of that report and look at, as we do in the normal course, where its appropriate to put sanctions. This should in no way be interpreted as were not putting sanctions on any of the people in that report. I dont think in anyway we are slow-walking the report delivered last night and we look forward to discussing with you in a classified setting," Bloomberg cited Mnuchin as saying.

The US Department of the Treasury on Monday released an open version of the so-called Kremlin List that includes all members of the Russian government, heads of some state corporations and state banks, as well as businessmen which have, according to American sources, no less than $1 bln. The list in total includes 210 people.HA NOI  PetroVietnam Gas Corporation (PV Gas) may sell 30 per cent of its total shares to a strategic investor in 2020, the firms chairman, Le Nhu Linh, said yesterday.

The chairman said a potential investor was among the companys current three foreign partners - the British firm Royal Dutch Shell PLC, the French company Total SA and the Japanese business Tokyo Gas Co Ltd.

The deal aims at raising additional income for the State Budget and helping PV Gas retain modern technologies and assistance from the strategic partner to improve business efficiency and transparency.

PV Gas is a State-run oil and gas firm. The Government holds 95 per cent of the charter capital, while foreign ownership in PV Gas is only 3.31 per cent.

The Government in August 2017 announced it would offload part of its shares in PV Gas to reduce the States ownership in oil and gas firm to 65 per cent by 2020.

At the moment, PV Gas is studying the previous Governments stake sales in dairy producer Vinamilk and brewer Sabeco to develop its own divestment plan.

The State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC), which represents the Vietnamese Government in managing the States capital in State-run companies, sold total 8.7 per cent of stake or 126.7 million shares in Vinamilk after two deals in December 2016 and November 2017, earning a total VN20.3 trillion (US$901.15 million).

The Ministry of Industry and Trade in December 2017 sold its entire 343.6 million shares - or a 53.6 per cent stake - in brewer Sabeco to receive about VN110 trillion or $5 billion.

PV Gas reported its net revenue for 2017 rose 9.3 per cent year on year to VN64.57 trillion and exceeded the firms full-year forecast by 25.4 per cent.

The performance was attributed to the sharp rise of oil prices on global markets. US crude West Texas Intermediate has increased by 22.4 per cent since the end of 2016 to $65.77 a barrel on Monday, data on Bloomberg shows.

In 2017, the company posted VN9.8 trillion in net profit, an increase of 37 per cent from 2016.

PV Gas shares, listed on the HCM Stock Exchange with code GAS, have made a sharp increase of 112 per cent due to the all-time high of VN116,400 per share on Friday.

GAS fell 0.4 per cent yesterday to VN115,900 per share.

PV Gas at a recent meeting also revealed it had spent total $3.5 billion on new projects related to gas exploitation, pipeline construction, oil storage and equipment imports.

PV Gas has been operating in four oil and gas fields, which are Cuu Long, Nam Con Son, PM3 and Thai Binh. The total capacity of the four fields is more than nine cubic metres of gas, more than one million tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and more than 70,000 tonnes of gas condensate.

As the gas fields are running out of reserves, PV Gas increased the import of oil and gas products from overseas suppliers to meet domestic demand for electricity consumption, which is expected to rise 8-10 per cent each year by 2020.

The overseas supply of oil and gas products is forecast to outweigh the firms production in the next five to 10 years. At the moment, more than 80 per cent of the companys gas production is transported to Vietnamese factories and more than 30 per cent of its LPG volume is exported to Cambodia.  VNSHA NOI  Viet Nams pepper farmers are on pins and needles as pepper prices continue to decline. The industry, once known for its high profit margins, is in crisis due to unsustainable development, lack of strict control over production and unforeseeable speculation.

According to Le Van uc, deputy director general of the Crop Production Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), as world market demand for pepper began to rise at the beginning of the decade, pepper production in Viet Nam started growing at an alarming rate. He now predicts that "the bubble is about to burst".

The total production area has increased threefold between 2010 and 2017. Viet Nam is now the world leader in pepper production. It exports to 109 countries and territories, mainly to Europe, Asia and America.

However, production in Viet Nam is showing signs of deterioration due to diseases, lack of quality control, poor production links and poor value-chain development.

uc told Vietnam News Agency the situation called for the pepper industry to restructure the sector.

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Nguyen Xuan Cuong, said that if the shortcomings were not corrected, they would affect sustainable pepper development.

According to MARD data, by the end of 2017, the total pepper farming area exceeded the 2020 plan by more than 100,000 hectares, mainly concentrated in the Central Highlands.

uc said the danger was that although global pepper production had increased by 7 per cent year-on-year in 2017, overall demand only increased by 2.4 per cent. Considering current supply and demand, the pepper bubble would soon burst.

Nguyen Nam Hai, chairman of the Vietnam Pepper Association (VPA), said that as global consumption did not increase in tandem with supply, world pepper prices had fallen to their lowest levels in recent years. The increase in pepper acreage in Viet Nam had also significantly contributed to the decrease in pepper price.

Vietnamese pepper prices are moving in a downward spiral, threatening the whole industrys survival. The domestic price is only about VN65,000 (US$2.90) per kilo, equivalent to an export price of $3,000 per tonne.

This was lower than prices between 2013 and early 2017, when global average prices were around $7,000 to $8,000 per tonne, according to the International Pepper Community (IPC).

At a conference on sustainable pepper production held in HCM City in January, the consensus was that hasty development of the industry in recent years had caused many irreversible impacts, such as pests and diseases which have led to a reduction in quality, especially in food safety in some growing areas.

Kpui HBle, Vice-Chairman of the Peoples Committee of Chu Se District in Gia Lai, Province, one of the countrys largest pepper producing regions, said pepper accounted for 36 per cent of total production value from cultivation in her district.

She said that when pepper prices were low, almost everyone was affected.

According to HBle, recent sharp increases in pepper prices have led to over-intensive production. In particular, new plantations, inexperienced farmers with a lack of knowledge on sustainable farming, meant pepper bushes were easily infected.

Huynh Quoc Thich, Deputy Director of ak Lak Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said many pepper farmers grew their crops on soil with unsuitable mechanical components and slow drainage during the rainy season.

This led to mass mortality risks during flooding and the fast spread of blight - and lack of compliance with technical and health safety in many localities, said Thich.

Agricultural Minister Cuong suggested that localities focus on reducing production areas not suitable for pepper farming, while explaining to farmers about world pepper production exceeding demand.

Hai said that the only solution was to stop expanding production, stabilising it at 100,000 hectares across the country, with an yearly average output of 180,000 to 200,000 tonnes.

Hoang Phuoc Binh, deputy chairman of Chu Se Pepper Association in Gia Lai Province, said that with the current market trend, farmers must repress any urge to speculate.

Pepper is a long-term industrial plant, therefore, farmers should leave a gap of four to five years before planting new crops and instead focus on the ones, minimising the use of chemical pest controls to ensure top product quality, said Binh.

According to the VPA, pepper product quality and safety is often demanded by importers such as the United States and the European Union.

Nguyen Ngoc Luan, Director of Lam San Agricultural Co-operative in southern ong Nai Province, said that since its establishment in 2014, his co-operatives had been oriented towards clean pepper production for export to the EU. If farmers cultivated clean pepper according to the co-operatives procedures, they were guaranteed selling prices 10 per cent higher than the market, while higher quality organic product was sold 30 to 50 per cent higher.

VPA Chairman Hai agreed that the restructuring of the pepper industry must focus on quality and sustainability.  VNSHA NOI  Viet Nam ran a trade deficit of US$300 million in January due to soaring imports.

The deficit was attributed to Tet (Lunar New Year) being around the corner, pushing up demand, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).

The trade deficit in January ended the string of trade surpluses in the last three consecutive months of 2017.

The country imported $19.3 billion worth of goods in the first month of 2018, a whopping rise of 47.4 per cent over the same period last year.

However, compared to the previous month, the import value dropped by 3 per cent.

Import of the domestic sector was worth $7.8 billion and $11.5 was of the foreign direct investment (FDI) sector.

The export value also increased significantly in January, by 33.1 per cent over the same month last year, to reach $19 billion. This figure, however, was 3.3 per cent lower than the export turnover of December 2017.

The domestic sector ran a trade deficit of $2.4 billion, while the FDI sector posed a trade surplus of $2.1 billion.

GSO said that January saw a strong increase in imports and exports, compared to the same month last year, as the 2017 Tet holiday was in January.

This year, the Tet holiday is in February, thus, the imports and exports in February were expected to see significant changes, compared to February 2017, GSO said.

Exports of major products increased in January, such as phones and components (worth 4.2 billion, up by 80.7 per cent), garments and textiles (worth $2.3 billion, up 7.6 per cent), electronics, computers and components (worth $2.2 billion, up 37.9 per cent), and footwear products (worth $1.3 billion, up 11.5 per cent).

China surpassed the US to become the largest export market of Viet Nam with revenue of $4.5 billion in January, 2.5 times higher than the same month in 2017.

Exports to the US totalled $3.5 billion, up by 17 per cent; EU markets $3 billion, up by 6.6 per cent; ASEAN markets $1.7 billion, up by 15.7 per cent; Japan $1.5 billion, up by 18.6 per cent, and South Korea $1.3 billion, up by 28 per cent.

Viet Nam mainly imported phones and parts worth $1.8 billion, up by 115 per cent; electronics, computers and parts worth $3.75 billion, up by 72.3 per cent; and machinery and equipment worth $2.8 billion, up by 25.4 per cent.

Notably, the import of automobiles dropped significantly in January, with a revenue of $304 million, a decrease by 17.9 per cent.

Agro-forestry-fishery exports up by 26 per cent

Statistics of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development revealed that agro-forestry-fishery exports in January touched $3.09 billion, representing a rise of 25.9 per cent over the same period last year.

Exports of agricultural products were estimated to increase by 34.1 per cent to $1.68 billion, fishery products by 15.6 per cent to $560 million and forestry products by 18.5 per cent to $745 million.

Rice exports saw a whopping rise in both volume and value in January with 524,000 tonnes shipped, worth $249 million, increasing by 56.5 per cent and 74.2 per cent, respectively.

Fruits and vegetables saw positive growth in export with a revenue of $321 million in January, up by nearly 37 per cent.

Pepper, despite a rise in export volume by 59 per cent to 13,000 tonnes, saw a decline in value by 9 per cent to $56 million.

The ministry said Viet Nam imported $2.78 billion worth of agro-forestry-fishery products in January, up by 48.1 per cent against January 2017.  VNSHCM CITY  Nineteen European food and beverage (F&B) companies are visiting Viet Nam to explore partnerships with local importers and distributors.

The EU-Viet Nam Business Network yesterday organised the 4th edition of the Food & Beverage Trade Mission to Viet Nam, which will be held in HCM City and Ha Noi until February 2.

This years trade mission includes companies from Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Portugal and the United Kingdom.

Topics to be discussed at the information seminar will be the growth potential of Viet Nams food and beverage industry, financial benefits that will derive from the soon-to-be-implemented EU-Viet Nam Free Trade Agreement and imports of European products to Viet Nam.

More than 230 B2B meetings with Vietnamese distributors and importers based in Ha Noi and HCM City, as well as business visits to supermarkets and shopping malls, will follow the four-day event.

The business network is co-funded by the European Union, which aims to strengthen European business activities in Viet Nam, with a special focus on small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) seeking co-operation opportunities in Viet Nam.

Since 2015, the last three editions of the networks Food & Beverage Trade Mission have welcomed 62 European companies.

The network aims to improve the investment and trade environment, support exports and expand investment markets from Europe to Viet Nam and ASEAN.

Target groups are European companies, especially SMEs, interested in Viet Nam and ASEAN.

While the project is based in Viet Nam, the business network also works with an ASEAN network of business associations, to provide even more business opportunities to European companies.  VNSHCM City  The southern province of Bac Lieu should focus on super intensive, high-tech shrimp farming to become the nations shrimp hub, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc told an investment conference in Bac Lieu City yesterday.

The shrimp industry would be the answer for the development of several provinces in the Mekong Delta, including Bac Lieu.

Fishing, aquaculture, seafood processing, renewable energy like wind and solar, and tourism are the strengths of the province and need to be promoted.

Agriculture accounts for nearly half the provinces GDP and local authorities should focus on production of high-quality rice, he said.

However, a proper zoning plan is very crucial because if relevant authorities choose the right locations, it would help harness all the potential.

He said the province should focus on improving the business environment and establish close links with the rest of the Mekong Delta, especially with neighbouring provinces like Ca Mau, Kien Giang, and Soc Trang, and with HCM City with respect to both production and consumption.

It should apply the climate change model in shrimp farming to take advantage of the weather and market demand, he said.

To achieve the goal, the province must sustain clean production with high-quality products and new technology.

He reminded local authorities to improve infrastructure and logistics to create favourable conditions for shrimp farming and processing.

They should focus on developing human resources and addressing long-term weaknesses like transparency and lack of support for enterprises and dynamism, he said.

Bac Lieu is strongly impacted by climate change and rising sea levels, limiting the business environment and competitiveness.

The province needs immediate solutions to ensure economic development and social welfare.

The Government will keep the economy stable and create a better business environment for investors coming to Bac Lieu.

At the conference province leaders issued licences for 10 projects.

The event was attended by foreign and local investors, policy makers and experts.

The Prime Minister also took part in the opening ceremony of the Bac Lieu Agricultural High-tech Application to Develop Shrimp Centre and inauguration of a shrimp farm by the Viet Uc Group.

The province has 1,290sq.km, or 50 per cent of its land, suitable for aquaculture, and produces 210,000 tonnes of various products a year. The shrimp output alone is around 116,000 tonnes while exports fetch $527 million or 13.7 per cent of the countrys total.

Bac Lieu also has great potential in renewable energy with flat lands, few storms and floods annually, and wind and sunshine most of the year.

Last year its economy grew at 6.5 per cent, and its per capita income is around VN37.5 million ($1,700).  VNSTIEN GIANG  The southern province of Tien Giang has proposed that the management overseeing the quality of star apples exported to the United States (US) be enhanced. This will help protect the fruits brand, as well as the prestige of Vietnamese agricultural products.

After getting a green light from the US Department of Agricultures Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) for the export of star apples to the US in October, Tien Giang shipped dozens of tonnes of this fruit to this country, and received good responses from the US consumers initially. The first shipment arrived at the US in late December.

Still, the management overseeing the plantation and quality of star apples must be improved to protect the fruit brand, according to the province.

Thus, Tien Giang Province proposed to the ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Industry and Trade to enhance the market study and quality control of star apples exported to the US to provide market updates and orientation to exporting firms.

The province said, as of mid-January, four companies registered a code for exporting star apples to the US.

Tien Giang has the largest area of some 3,100ha to grow star apples in Viet Nam.

Viet Nam has some 5,000ha of star apples with an annual output of more than 60,000 tonnes.

This type of fruit was mainly sold in the domestic market and exported to China and the ASEAN markets.

Exporting to the US marked a breakthrough, as this is a strict market with high quality requirements.

Besides star apples, Viet Nam has exported dragon fruit, rambutan, lychee and longhan to the US.  VNSHA NOI  Viet Nam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Techcombank) reported a pre-tax profit of more than VN8 trillion (US$352 million) in 2017.

Techcombank took the fifth position in terms of highest profit in the banking sector.

This has been the third consecutive year in which Techcombanks pre-tax profit doubled that of the previous year in the 2015-17 period. Each employee at the bank created VN1 billion of profit last year.

The bank on Tuesday announced that it totally resolved its bad debts sold to Viet Nam Asset Management Company (VAMC) in 2013. Its return on equity (ROE) in 2017 surged by 30.7 per cent from the previous year, while return on asset (ROA) also continued to increase by 2.69 per cent.

The capital adequacy ratio (CAR) last year was at 12.68 per cent, which was much higher than the stipulated 9 per cent level of the central bank.

The banks total outstanding loans by the end of last year were VN181 trillion, posting a 15.9 per cent year-on-year increase.

Ngo Hoang Ha, deputy director of the Techcombanks financial department, said with the results, the market has recognised the bank with the highest profitability index.

The indices have not only been high in comparison with the avarage level of Vietnamese banking system, but also with other regional countries level," Ha said.

Le Thi Bich Phuong, director of the banks retail department, said 2017 was a successful year for Techcombank. The bank disbursed some VN26 trillion in the primary real estate market, accounting for 20 per cent of the total market.

She said Techcombank is focused on a customer-centred strategy. The bank officials also said they would collect opinions from shareholders for listing on the stock exchange in 2018.

Last year, it was voted by The Asian Banker as the top two banks in Viet Nam with long-term profitability. It was also ranked by Standard & Poor as one of the leading private banks in Viet Nam.

Techcombank has striven to become one of the leading banks in Viet Nam in 2020.  VNSHA NOI  The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) on January 25 conducted preliminary determinations on dumping and subsidising with respect to certain copper pipe fittings, originating in or exported from Viet Nam.

The dumping and subsidy duties are 159 per cent and 4.7 per cent, respectively, for Hailiang (Vietnam) Metal Products Co Ltd while for all other exporters in Viet Nam the rates are 159 per cent and 42.4 per cent, the agency announced on its website.

By March 19, 2018, the CBSA will receive case arguments due from all parties.

A copy of the Statement of Reasons, which provides more details about these investigations, will be available on the CBSAs website, www.cbsa.gc.ca/sima-lmsi, within 15 days.

In October 2017, CBSA announced that it was launching an investigation into certain copper pipe fittings originating in or exported from Viet Nam.

The agency investigated whether these are being sold at unfair prices in Canada and whether subsidies are being applied to certain copper pipe fittings originating in or exported from Viet Nam.

The CBSA said that the investigations are the result of a complaint filed by Cello Products Inc (Cello) of Cambridge, Ontario. The complainant alleges that as a result of price undercutting from Viet Nam, Cello faced loss in sales and market share, resulting in negative financial results, reduced production and employment.

Viet Nams copper pipe fittings under investigation were coded 7412.10.00.11, 7412.10.00.19, 7412.10.00.90 and 7412.20.00.11, as well as 7412.20.00.12, 7412.20.00.19 and 7412.20.00.90. The investigation period was from January 1, 2016, to August 31, 2017. - VNSHCM City  HCM City will spend VN29 trillion (US$1.3 billion) for anti-flooding and canal dredging, works and cleaning up its highly polluted canal network.

The money will come from the first quarter public investment plan, which was recently announced by the authorities.

The Peoples Committee instructs all related authorities, including departments and district Peoples Committees, to fully focus on this task to mitigate the severe pollution in the citys canal system, Tran Vinh Tuyen, deputy chairman of the Peoples Committee, told Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberated Sai Gon) newspaper.

Most canals are covered in rubbish and their water is often black and foul, making them look like sewers rather than canals.

Locals have been living amidst this for years, suffering from diseases and facing a lot of other difficulties.

Tuyen has set a deadline on July 31.

All related authorities and investors must sign a commitment that by the end of July at least 50 per cent of the [earmarked amount] must be disbursed and if any office does not achieve the goal, the leader will be penalised, he has said.

He also warned that district peoples committees, departments and agencies managing public works should not tell contractors to begin the work until all the pre-work procedures are completed to avoid debts.

The Peoples Committee has also ordered the city Steering Centre of The urban Flood Control Programme, which will manage the programme, to cement the bottoms and banks of major canals such as the Trung Uong canal in Hoc Mon and Binh Chanh districts, improve the water quality in the Tan Hoa  Lo Gom Canal, renovate the sewerage system in Ba Van Street, widen the Lang The Canal in Cu Chi District, and strengthen the dyke along the Sai Gon River in districts 12, Hoc Mon, and Go Vap.

According to the latest tests by the Department of Natural Resource and Environment, the water in the citys canals is severely polluted will all pollution figures far above permitted levels.

Dealing with this kind of pollution is one of the key tasks of the city to ensure a healthy life for its millions of citizes.  VNSHA NOI - Wildlife protection has become stricter under policies outlined in amendments to the Penal Code that took effect on January 1, said Lieutenant General, Associate Professor Tran Van o, former deputy Chief Justice of the Supreme Peoples Court and Chief Justice of the Central Military Court.

Protected wildlife under criminal law has been extended from rare, precious and endangered animals to all types of wildlife, he said yesterday at a seminar Viet Nam and law enforcement efforts to protect wildlife organised by CHANGE and WildAid (CHANGE, Centre of Hands On Action and Networking for Growth and Envionment).

Under amended Penal Code 2015, hunting, catching, killing, rearing, caging, transporting and trading wild animals is criminalised. This extends to possession of dead animals, body parts and products of rare, precious and endangered wild animals.

The maximum jail term for crimes related to wildlife management has increased to 15 years.

According to amended Penal Code 2015, violations in protecting rare, precious and endangered wildlife are considered very serious offence instead of serious offence as stated in the previous code, he said.

Since 1994, when Viet Nam joined the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the country has contributed to the protection of rare and precious wildlife. Viet Nam has legalised the treaty in a full manner, he said.

However, experts at the seminar said that difficulties remained in enforcing wildlife law.

Pham Quy Ty, former deputy minister of the Justice Ministry, former Chief Justice of Ha Nois Peoples Court and former deputy head of National Assemblys Judicial Committee, said that violations against wildlife were common, but only a few people had been punished, mostly through administrative procedures. The number of criminal penalties remained low due to difficulties in law enforcement.

I know a province which uncovered 35 violations in a year, but 34 of them were administratively punished. Only one was accusedc of a criminal offence.

Ty said that difficulties arose during examination of evidence. He said Viet Nam did not have a rare, precious and endangered wildlife examination agency. Four agencies currently in charge of the examination are not judicial examination agencies.

Carrying animals over a long distance, for example from central Quang Binh and Quang Tri provinces to Ha Noi, can kill animals. How to take care of and preserve the seized wild animals while waiting for examination is another problem, he said.

Nguyen Khanh Quang, deputy head of the General Department of Customs Anti-smuggling Department said that last year, Customs found 47 wildlife trafficking cases, prosecuted 15, including trafficking ivory, rhino horns, pangolin scales by road, sea and air.

In most of the cases, the seized exhibits were unclaimed. The owners were not identified as they hired other people to transport the animals, he said.

Experts agreed on the need for close co-ordination among law enforcement agencies and support of non-governmental organisations, scientists and the public in wildlife protection.

CHANGE and WildAid will support law enforcement in wildlife protection this year through communication campaigns, training workshops to improve capacity of law enforcement officers and students majoring in law enforcement, said Hoang Thi Minh Hong, CHANGE director. - VNSQUANG BINH  Residents in the central province of Quang Binh are worried the construction of a woodchip plant, located in the upper area of two reservoirs, will pollute their supply of water.

Meanwhile, local authorities affirmed that they have postponed the construction due to failure in the environmental impact assessment of the project.

Residents in Ha Trach Commune in the provinces Bo Trach District opposed the woodchip plant invested in by Thuan uc, a local company, saying its waste discharged could pollute water in the reservoirs of Vuc Sanh and Cua Nghe.

The two reservoirs supply water for daily use and production of some 5,000 households in the commune and neighbouring My Trach Commune.

We are worried the plant will soon revamp the reservoir area and pollute its water, affecting our water supply, said Nguyen Xuan Truong, a resident of Ha Trach Commune.

Truong told a local newspaper that local authorities had requested postponing the construction but locals found out it has now resumed.

Luu Van Tac, chairman of Ha Trach Commune, affirmed the postponement request, saying that public consultation on the construction showed that 100 per cent of residents are opposed to the work.

Tac said the provincial Peoples Committee had thus stopped the construction.

The Division of Natural Resources and Environment in Bo Trach District said they would allocate staff for checks on the ongoing construction, as reported by local residents.

o Manh Tai, the divisions head, said the investor, Thuan uc Company, had petitioned the changing of the function of the project, but no approval had been made yet.

No approval means no construction, and the violation must be stopped, Tai said.

Residents who live nearby, however, reported that the companys deputy director told them at a public meeting that local authorities had given the company the green light for the construction.  VNSPresident Tran ai Quang visit to the Coast Guard Zone 3 High Command in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau on January 30. VNA/VNS Photo Nhan Sang

BA RIA - VUNG TAU  President Tran ai Quang praised the role played by the coast guard force in protecting national sovereignty over sea and islands during a pre-Tet visit to the Coast Guard Zone 3 High Command in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau on January 30.

Talking with the officers and soldiers, the President said the marine police force had performed well its tasks in helping the Central Military Commission and the Defence Ministry propose to the Party and the State timely and accurate policies and solutions to handling complicated incidents at sea, contributing to maintaining a peaceful and stable environment for national development.



The President also lauded the forces good work in monitoring the operation of foreign vessels and protecting maritime economic activities, as well as in the fight against smuggling and trade fraud, and rescue operations at sea.



He asked the marine police force and the Coast Guard Zone 3 to continue monitoring the situation in close coordination with the navy, border guard, coastal military zones, and all-level Party Committees and authorities, especially in supervising foreign ships and uncovering plots and activities of hostile forces and criminals.



President Quang also asked the marine police force to step up international cooperation, exchange information about violations of Vietnams waters with their counterparts through hotlines, and keep close monitoring of the operation of Vietnamese ships abroad. He told the force to prevent ships in the blacklist of the UN Security Council anchoring at Vietnams seaports.



In 2017, the Coast Guard Zone 3 received 934 Vietnamese fishermen from Indonesia who had been captured for illegal fishing in the countrys waters.



In November, the unit also rescued 52 people stranded on islands and offshore fishing farms during typhoon Damrey.



On this occasion, President Quang visited and presented gifts to families of social welfare policies in Ba Ria - Vung Tau.--VNSHA NOI  The so-called Provisional National Government of Viet Nam was a terrorist organisation under Vietnamese and international law, the Ministry of Public Security of Viet Nam said yesterday.

The ministrys announcement was posted on its portal.

According to the announcement, the Chinh phu quoc gia Viet Nam lam thoi (Provisional National Government of Viet Nam) was previously known as the Tan Dan Chu (New Democracy) organisation.

It said the organisation was headquartered at 2807 Anaheim, California 92814, in the United States - and even gave its office phone number and websites.

The Viet Nam News Agency (VNA) said the organisation was led by ao Minh Quan (ao Van), a US national in Santa Ana, California, the US. It added that he was born on July 27, 1952, in the central province of Thua Thien-Hue and had proclaimed himself the prime minister of the Provisional National Government of Viet Nam.

The agency said other organisers included Quach The Hung, born on April 1, 1948, and residing at 5386 Somerset St, Los Angeles, California 90032; Kelly Trieu (Trieu Thanh Hoa), a US national born in 1968; and Pham Lisa (Pham Anh ao) born in 1979 and residing at 614 Progressive Way, Denmark, South California.

"The so-called Provisional National Government of Viet Nam was established in the US in 1991 by ao Minh Quan, a former lieutenant in the Sai Gon puppet army, and other puppet forces," it added.

"After the establishment, Quan and other heads of the organisation visited Vietnamese refugee camps in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia to recruit forces. The recruited refugees were later repatriated in order to conduct terror and sabotage activities in Viet Nam.

"In 2015, the heads of the organisation instructed underground units in Viet Nam to develop forces and establish volunteer delegations, seek venues to set up bases, and purchase weapons to prepare for spontaneous terror acts."

However, VNA said their plots were promptly uncovered by Vietnamese security agencies, with Ha Ngoc Han, Mai Xuan Nghia, Luong Tuan Vinh, and Nguyen Van Hoi arrested. Mai Xuan Nghia fled to Laos and then infiltrated back into Viet Nam together with ao Quang Thuc. The duo made a plan to buy weapons for terror attacks, but they were uncovered and arrested by Vietnamese agencies.

In 2017, the heads of the Provisional National Government" living outside Viet Nam stepped up efforts to expand forces and formed such groups as Phuong Hoang, Mang Xa, Biet ong quan and ai Viet aiming to terrorise, sabotage and assassinate officials.

VNA said they sent Phan Angel (Phan Thi ao, a US national born in 1956) and Nguyen James Han (Nguyen Thanh Han, a US national born in 1967) to Viet Nam to provide finance and directly instruct sabotage activities.

Under the instruction of the heads of the organisation, members living in Viet Nam used a petrol-bomb to destroy 320 vehicles violating traffic laws that were being stored in a warehouse in Bien Hoa City in the southern province of ong Nai on April 8, 2017.

They also planted petrol bombs at a parking lot and entrance gate of the international terminal of Tan Son Nhat International Airport in HCM City on April 22, 2017. They planned to carry out other plots to cause explosions at headquarters of several public agencies and a number of factories. However, their plans were stopped by competent Vietnamese agencies.

In April, 2017, competent Vietnamese agencies launched legal proceedings and detained 15 people on charges of conducting terrorism against the peoples administration in line with Article 84 of Viet Nams 1999 Penal Code.

In December, 2017, the HCM City Peoples Court tried and sentenced those involved from four to16 years in prison.

According to yesterdays announcement, the Provisional National Government of Viet Nam is a terrorist organisation, therefore, anyone, who participates in propagandising and inciting others to join, sponsor, and receive sponsorship from the organisation, take part in the organisations training courses, and follow instructions from the organisation, has committed terrorism or is a terrorist sponsor and will be treated according to Viet Nam law. VNSPrime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc will attend and co-chair the 40th meeting of the Viet Nam-Laos Inter-Governmental Committee in Laos on February 4-5.  VNA/VNS Photo Thong Nhat

HA NOI  Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc will attend and co-chair the 40th meeting of the Viet Nam-Laos Inter-Governmental Committee in Laos on February 4-5, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He will be accompanied by a high-ranking Government delegation, as guests of Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith, added the ministry.

Viet Nam and Laos enjoy a close traditional friendship, special solidarity and comprehensive co-operation. Trade between Laos and Viet Nam topped US$900 million in 2017, a year-on-year increase of over 10 per cent. The two countries have set a target of $4 billion in trade by 2020.

Vietnamese companies have invested $5 billion in 276 projects in Laos, mainly in energy, services, infrastructure, mining, agriculture and forestry.  VNSPresident Tran ai Quang yesterday visited the High Command of Army Corps 4 or Cuu Long Corps in Di An Town in southern Binh Duong Province, ahead of the traditional New Year (Tet) festival.  VNA/VNS Photo Nhan Sang

BINH DUONG  President Tran ai Quang yesterday visited the High Command of Army Corps 4 or Cuu Long Corps in Di An Town in southern Binh Duong Province , ahead of the traditional New Year (Tet) festival.

The Army Corps 4 was formed in July 1974 during the resistance war against the US . Only five months after its establishment, the corps recorded its first victory in the Phuoc Long Road 14 battle, liberating Phuoc Long Province (now Phuoc Long Town of Binh Phuoc Province).

In spring 1975, it joined hands with other armed units to liberate the south and reunite the country. The unit also fought to safeguard the southwestern border of the country and completed its international mission.

President Quang lauded Army Corps 4 for its close co-ordination with the local Party Committee and government in building community-based defence.

Noting that the quality and strength of the unit have been improved, he hailed the corps for its effective measures to improve the leading and combat capacity of Party committees, and its active engagement in building the political system as well as socio-economic development, poverty reduction and new-style rural area buildings in the area.

As the major force of the Defence Ministry in the southern strategic area, the corps should focus on raising its leading capacity and combat strength, while co-operating with local authorities and other armed units to build defensive areas and design plans to deal with complicated events to ensure independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country.

He asked the unit to pay attention to Party building and developing a comprehensively strong unit, as well as studying and following President Ho Chi Minhs moral example.  VNSDeputy Foreign Minister Ha Kim Ngoc and the USs Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Tina Kaidanow co-chaired the ninth Viet Nam-US Political, Security and Defence Dialogue in Ha Noi yesterday.  Photo vietnamvathegioi.vn

HA NOI  Deputy Foreign Minister Ha Kim Ngoc and the USs Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Tina Kaidanow co-chaired the ninth Viet Nam-US Political, Security and Defence Dialogue in Ha Noi yesterday.

Both Ngoc and Kaidanow recognised positive developments in bilateral ties since Viet Nam and the US set up their comprehensive partnership in 2013.

Ngoc affirmed that Viet Nam highly values and hopes to intensify the relationship with the US in a stable, extensive and effective manner on the basis of respecting each others independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political regime, thus contributing to maintaining peace, stability, co-operation and development in the Asia-Pacific region and the world.

He suggested that the two countries focus on efficiently implementing agreements reached by their senior leaders in 2017, aiming to continue boosting ties in a practical and effective manner, while maintaining regular meetings and dialogues, and promoting the growth of bilateral cooperation in economy, trade and investment.

Ngoc also showed satisfaction in regards to the security-defence relationship, including the successful visit to Viet Nam by US Secretary of Defence James Mattis in early 2018.

He proposed that the two sides strengthen co-operation in humanitarian activities and overcoming the aftermath of war, focusing on the remediation project in Bien Hoa airport, UXO clearance, assistance to war victims and search for Vietnamese soldiers missing during the war.

Kaidanow agreed that the two sides should maintain their growth trend and deepen bilateral ties through the exchange of delegations, especially high-ranking ones, while promoting the efficiency of existing collaboration mechanisms and considering the economic, trade and investment partnership as a key pillar and motivation in forging stronger cooperation in the future.

She said that the two sides should continue bolstering security and defence ties. While affirming that dealing with war consequences is a priority of the US in security-defence co-operation, she pledged that the US would continue working with Viet Nam in the field. Kaidanow also pointed to high potential in bilateral co-ordination in humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, search and rescue, maritime security, and defence trade.

At the dialogue, the two sides also discussed measures to enhance co-operation in regional and international issues of shared concern. They concurred to support the central role of ASEAN in matters related to peace, stability, co-operation and development in the region, promoting coordination in nuclear weapon nonproliferation, anti-terrorism, cyber security, international crimes, and peacekeeping activities at the United Nations.

They exchanged viewpoints on the East Sea issue, reaffirming the significance of ensuring that maritime and aviation security, safety, freedom and trade are not hindered in the East Sea. They highlighted the need to not use or threaten to use force, as well as the settlement of maritime disputes through peaceful measures in compliance with international law, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 (UNCLOS), the full respect of diplomatic and legal processes, the effective implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), and the soon signing of a Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC).

Both sides agreed to hold the 10th dialogue in Washington DC.  VNSNguyen Thi Kim Ngan.  VNA/VNS Photo Trong uc

Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, Chairwoman of the National Assembly, speaks to Vietnam News Agency about the important tasks for Vietnamese law makers in 2018

Tell us about some of the outstanding achievements by the National Assembly in its second year of the fourteenth legislature?

Looking at the overall picture of the country in 2017, Im very happy to say that all the 13 socio-economic targets set by the National Assembly have been either achieved or surpassed. In 2017, our GDP growth was 6.81 per cent, surpassing the target and the highest since 2011. These achievements are the solid foundation for the nation to enter the year 2018 and following years.

In 2017, the National Assembly adopted 18 laws and gave opinions on drafting 15 others. The two Question and Answer sessions were of high quality and the questions and answers close to life.

Last year was the first time the NA conducted high-level supervision on the implementation of the countrys policies and laws toward the reforms of the State administrative apparatus. Through this, we were able to come up with specific barriers that have hindered our administrative reform. At the same time, we also came up with synchronous measures to reform the mechanism to make it work better.

Based on the supervision results, the NA adopted a resolution on the continuation of the reform of the state apparatus to make it work more efficiently.

In addition, many supervision topics conducted in 2017 by the NA or the NA National Assembly Standing Committee were highly appreciated by voters nation-wide. For example, the supervision on the implementation of legal documents on food safety in the period 2011-2016 or the implementation of policies and legal documents relating to Buy Operate Transfer (BOT) projects.

In 2017, NA deputies approved many decisions, including important policies that could have extremely important impacts on the countrys socio-economic development, including the approval of the construction of some portions of the North-South express highway in the East in 2017-2020, a pilot mechanism and special policy for Ho Chi Minh City to develop - and others.

The people are the motivation for the National Assembly to work more efficiently. They are the foundation for the NA to continue to improve the quality and efficiency of its legislative missions as well as supervising important issues of the nation.

What were some of the key missions of the NA in 2018?

Well continue to implement the Resolution of the twelfth National Party Congress and the overall program laid down for the fourteenth NA Legislature.

Acting on the spirit of renewal, creativity and actions for the interest of the people and the nation, the NA has and will continue to do its best to accomplish all the tasks, missions and targets set for 2018. To achieve them, each NA deputy and office should enhance their wisdom and intelligence and listen to voters opinions before casting their votes on national issues. This is the right, but also responsibility of each law maker.

In reality, Q and A Sessions have captured special attention from voters. Many voters have expressed high appreciation for the topic because many "hot" issues were raised at these sessions. NA deputies standing in the docks provided satisfaction with their answers. In my opinion, these sessions have won the hearts and minds of many voters. This is an effective way to consolidate peoples confidence in the Party and Government.

What will be some of the external activities of the National Assembly in 2018?

To continue with successes that the NA had achieved in 2017, from January18-21, 2018 we successfully organised the twenty sixth Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum (APPF), which won the heart and minds of all who participated.

This is the third year of the fourteenth legislature. Together with all offices in the State mechanism, the NA vows to continue to carry out the countrys renewal process, to improve the quality of its activities and to try to build a NA of solidarity, creativity and action for the interest of the Vietnamese people. _VNSHCM CITY Financial autonomy has improved the quality of many public hospitals in HCM City, but some of them still do not have sufficient funds to upgrade facilities.

Only three of 54 public hospitals in the city now receive money from the city, after the autonomy policy took effect last October, according to the citys Department of Health.

Thu uc District Hospital, one of the first in the city to carry out financial autonomy, has bought advanced machines, hired experts and sent doctors abroad for training, and now has many departments with the same quality as city or central-level hospitals.

More than 6,000 patients visit the hospital every day, according to Nguyen Minh Quan, the head of the hospital.

Dr Nguyen uc Minh, head of the HCM City Hospital of Odonto-Stomatology, said the hospital has advanced machines for its high-tech departments thanks to financial autonomy.

Last year, the hospital attracted a total 92,795 patients, up from 87,574 patients in 2016. Its revenue was VN227 billion (approximately US$10 million) last year, compared to VN173 billion in 2016.

At a meeting between the citys Peoples Council and hospitals held this month, Dr Nhan To Tai, head of District 12 Hospital, said the hospital faced problems related to autonomy.

With 1,000 to 2,000 patients a day, the hospital does not have sufficient funds or facilities for its operation, according to Tai.

Dr Vo uc Chien, director of Nguyen Tri Phuong Hospital, said its finances were limited and the new equipment was needed.

"Specialised hospitals find it easier to implement financial autonomy," Chien said.

Dr Phan Van Bau, head of Peoples Hospital 115, said the hospital spent money on advanced machines and techniques, but could not charge higher fees because the current fees were already high for severely ill patients.

Representatives of the citys outlying district-level hospitals also complain that they face problems in autonomy because of the low number of patients. They are concerned that staff including doctors may leave.

Can Gio District Hospital has received assistance from the Department of Health, which sent doctors from central and city level hospitals to train its doctors. But the hospital has only 18 doctors, the lowest number of district-level hospitals in the city.

A hospital representative said it was difficult to recruit doctors and suggested that the city Peoples Committee devise preferential policies to help attract doctors at certain hospitals.  VNSMany hospitals in HCM City face chronic overcrowding as they provide service for local patients as well as those from other provinces.  Photo thanhnien.vn

HCM CITY  Many hospitals in HCM City face chronic overcrowding as they provide service for local patients as well as those from other provinces. Patients from outside the city now account for some 60 per cent, according to HCM City s Health Department.

Statistics from the department showed that hospitals across the city have received 41.9 million people for check-ups and treatment in 2017, accounting for 25.8 per cent of the total number of patients nation-wide.

Such specialised facilities as cardiovascular, oncology, obstetrics and paediatrics treatment attract the majority of patients.

The department attributed the high number of clients to the fact that the citys hospitals have mastered advanced techniques and worked to improve the quality of health care service. A new regulation which allows insurance card holders to go to any clinic or hospital also explains the high number of patients, it said.

Doctors in big cities like HCM City often have to work under stressful conditions and wages are relatively low given the demands of the job, experts said.

The Ministry of Health will soon issue a circular focused on reducing the doctors patient load to 50 people maximum per day, compared with the hundreds of patients who seek check-ups now.

To mitigate overcrowding of hospitals, the department would give priority to investment in the development of outpatient departments to ensure that facilities and human resources can meet patients demand, said a representative from the citys health department.

It planned to build more hospitals and strengthen co-ordination with private health clinics as well as enhance the quality of health care centres at grassroots level.

Apart from expanding the family doctor model, the department will continue to develop more satellite hospitals as a way to help the city effectively solve overcrowding at citys hospitals, he said.

In related news, the patient satisfaction at hospitals in HCM City has increased considerably over the past eight months, the health department said.

Specifically, only 6,166 patients felt discontent with services in hospitals in December while the number was 15,466 in May last year.

The department implemented a system to evaluate patients satisfaction at 53 public hospitals in May last year.

Under the system, patients will be able to access an e-survey which covers questions on 15 kinds of services in hospitals, such as registration for health checks, registration to use health insurance, payment of hospital fees, treatment of caregivers, attitude and communication of hospital staff, quality of toilets and quality of vehicle parking service.

Based on e-survey results, hospitals would take steps to improve their shortcomings and pay more attention to patient satisfaction, enhancing health care service quality.  VNSHA NOI Last year, Ha Noi and HCM City had more than 200 days when the air quality was polluted beyond the health standards set by the World Health Organisation, according to a report released yesterday.

The annual report on Viet Nams air quality, conducted by a non-Government organisation, GreenID, is one of the few to shed light on how dirty the air is in the two most populated cities. Many say the Government has not yet paid enough attention to the situation.

The report mainly analysed the real-time air quality index (AQI) collected by the United States embassy and consulate in the two cities.

Ha Noi was reported to have a yearly average AQI of 103  meaning that the air quality is acceptable for most, but considered unhealthy for sensitive groups, including children, the elderly and people with lung or heart diseases.

However, the heavy concentration of the dangerous, particulate matter PM2.5 in the air has raised real health alarms in most city people.

PM2.5 refers to the tiny dust particles that are two and one half microns or less in width, or about 30 times smaller than that of a human hair. Those particles, which can remain longer and spread farther in the air than normal dust, are able to travel deep into the lungs and eventually into the blood.

The average PM2.5 level of the capital last year reached 42.6, far exceeding the national standard of 25, let alone the level recommended by the WHO at 10 to sustain safe air for the people, according to the report.

On a daily basis, Ha Noi had 99 days in 2017 breaking the national red line and 257 days beyond the international bar.

We, however, still saw a positive improvement regarding air quality in Ha Noi. The average percentage of good and moderate hourly AQI in 2017 reached more than 50 per cent, while that in 2016 was only about 36 per cent, said a GreenID researcher Nguyen Thi Anh Thu.

Air quality in HCM City was slightly better than Ha Noi, with the average AQI reaching 87  a moderate quality  but the yearly particle concentration at 29.6 still exceeded both the national and the WHO standards.

The southern hub was reported to have 14 days that violated national regulations and up to 222 days that broke WHO guidelines.

Viet Nam was not the only country where the US embassy measured the PM2.5 concentration. Ha Nois level was found to be far behind that of New Delhi and Mumbai, which emerged as the new global air pollution hotspots, but was approaching the notorious Beijing.

Beijings average particle concentration in 2017 reached 45.9, just three points higher than Ha Nois.

It might not be a coincidence that most of the polluted airflow which brought the particle pollutants to Ha Noi passed through Quang Ninh Province, the region famous for its coal industry and seven thermal power plants, according to the report.

Dr Le Viet Phu from Fulbright University Viet Nam argued that there were two prices that had to be adjusted to tackle air pollution - for fossil-fuel power and petrol.

While Viet Nam is increasingly relying on thermal power to provide electricity, electricity prices are remarkably low compared to many other countries, Phu said.

It is at around seven US cents per kW. With that low price (of thermal power), Viet Nam will not be able to develop alternative clean energy like solar or wind power, he said.

He also suggested a tax ranging between VN3-8,000 (1-3 US cents) on petrol to make up for the air pollution caused by the vehicles, as long as the Government is transparent about the spending of the money.

Air pollution is the silent killer which caused the death of more than 40,000 Vietnamese in 2013 and might climb to 100,000 by 2030, Phu said.

But the question is: are the people ready to pay money for air pollution?  VNSHA NOI  The Ministry of Health launched the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement in the country at a ceremony on Wednesday in Ha Noi.

The movement follows Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phucs directive on strengthening multi-sectoral collaboration on nutrition across the country.

The nutritional status of Vietnamese people is improving. Viet Nam is recognised by the international community as a spotlight in the achievement of Millennium Development Goals, especially for the continuous and sustainable reduction in the prevalence of underweight children less than five years old, from 31.9 per cent in 2001 to 13.8 per cent in 2016, said Minister of Health Nguyen Thi Kim Tien at the ceremony.

Tien said Viet Nam still faced many difficulties and challenges, such as high stunting rate among children under five at 24.3 per cent in 2016, as well as large disparity among regions and ethnic groups.

She said overweight, obesity, metabolic disorders and nutrition-related non-communicable diseases were increasing rapidly in both children and adults, especially in urban areas. This situation is the result of limited awareness of nutritions role, lack of investment and effective interdisciplinary coordination, she said.

Micronutrient deficiencies have not been improved as expected. In children under five, the prevalence of sub-clinical vitamin A, iron deficiency leading to anaemia and zinc deficiency is 13 per cent, 27.8 per cent and 69.4 per cent, respectively. According to the health ministry, the rate of anaemia and zinc deficiency in pregnant women is 32.8 and 80.3 per cent, respectively,

To promote nutritional status of Vietnamese people and raising the stature, physical strength and intelligence, Tien said, the health sector will focus its activities on studying and developing policies and legal documents related to nutrition and promoting administrative reforms to produce and trade nutritious food products.

Priorities will be given to develop and implement programmes, plans and projects to address nutritional issues in the new situation, prioritising nutritional care for the first 1,000 days of life, adoption of good practices and effective interventions for improving nutrition that have been undertaken by the international community, Tien said.

At the event, Wivina Belmonte, deputy director of UNICEF for the Asia Pacific Region, emphasised the importance of nutrition in the first 1,000 days of life and the role of nutrition in the well-rounded development of children throughout different stages. She expressed her confidence in the Governments strong determination to invest in nutrition and pledged to continue supporting Viet Nam in this area.

We, as UNICEF, are committed to supporting the Government in this strengthening of multi-sectoral coordination, which will bring a strong stakeholdership into the implementation of the SUN principles. We are committed to bringing UNICEF global experiences in combating nutrition to support the Government, Belmonte said.

With the National Plan of Action for Nutrition 2017-20, there is now a key opportunity to put nutrition at the heart of sector policies and catalyse the funds needed to deliver a multi-sectoral approach to nutrition. Indeed, Viet Nam will be a leader in Asia and beyond if it takes this comprehensive approach, Gerda Verburg, UN Assistant Secretary General and Global Coordinator of the SUN Movement, said at the ceremony.

Viet Nam has demonstrated a strong commitment to promoting nutrition. In January 2014, Viet Nam officially joined SUN, a global movement linking governments, United Nations organisations, social services, businesses and donors to eradicate all forms of malnutrition in the world.  VNSWASHINGTON  President Donald Trump made a pitch for national unity and strong borders in his maiden State of the Union address on Tuesday, calling for "one team, one people, and one American family" after a year plagued by acrimony, division, and scandal.

Delivering his biggest speech of the year, this most polarising of presidents sought to put the spotlight on the economic achievements of his first year in office and called on a packed joint session of Congress to enact hardline curbs on immigration.

"Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve," he said.

"Tonight, I want to talk about what kind of future we are going to have, and what kind of Nation we are going to be. All of us, together, as one team, one people, and one American family."

Trumps tone was uncharacteristically conciliatory, although it bridged no compromise on his drive to reduce immigration, which he painted as responsible for a plethora of social ills.

Looking on, were dozens of Democratic lawmakers, some decked in black to honor the victims of sexual harassment and still others wearing butterfly stickers in support of immigrants -- two social issues that more than any others have roiled America in the age of Trump.

Also in the audience were members of Trumps own family including the first lady, Melania, who recently cancelled a joint trip to Davos, Switzerland and has not been seen with her husband in public since reports alleged he paid porn actress Stormy Daniels hush money over an affair, which the White House denies.

Breaking with tradition, the first couple arrived separately to the Capitol, because, according to the first ladys spokesperson Stephanie Grisham, she was accompanying guests.

Over the years the State of the Union address, a set piece of the American political calendar, has lost some of its impact and pizzazz.

But the primetime address, watched by as many as 40 million Americans, was still a once-in-a-year opportunity for Trump to speak to the nation and mend his sunken approval ratings, languishing around 40 percent.

Seeking to enliven his own base, Trump spoke at length on the need for immigration reform, equating immigrants with criminals and economic tension.

For decades, he lamented, "open borders" had allowed "drugs and gangs to pour into" the United States. He again called for the construction of a border wall that remains unfunded in Congress.

"They have allowed millions of low-wage workers to compete for jobs and wages against the poorest Americans. Most tragically, they have caused the loss of many innocent lives."

Two couples whose daughters were murdered by MS-13, a Salvadoran gang, were among those joining the First Lady to watch the address.

"The United States is a compassionate nation" he said, "but as president of the United States, my highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, and my constant concern is for Americas children, Americas struggling workers, and Americas forgotten communities."

Wall Street Don

The 71-year-old real estate mogul and reality TV star touted a long bull run on Wall Street and improving growth rates, something the White House has dubbed a "Trump bump".

"The stock market has smashed one record after another, gaining $8 trillion in value," he said, even though that narrative suffered a setback when stocks suffered their biggest drop in eight months on Tuesday amid fears of a bubble.

"Since the election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs, including 200,000 new jobs in manufacturing alone. After years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages."

"Just as I promised the American People from this podium 11 months ago, we enacted the biggest tax cuts and reform in American history," Trump said.

Trump also lifted his gaze beyond the United States, calling for "fair" trade and declaring that "the era of economic surrender is over."

He also focused on what Washington sees as Irans troublesome activities across the Middle East, as well as North Koreas nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

In a nod to his recent National Security Strategy which eyed geopolitical adversaries, he also said that China and Russia "challenge our interests, our economy, and our values."

Still there was a focus on terror, which had been a central message of his campaign.

He vowed to keep the Guantanamo Bay prison open and said America and her allies have liberated "almost 100 per cent of the territory" once held by the Islamic State group, admitting "there is much more work to be done."  AFPOne of the aerial stars from last years Oscar-nominated, block-buster movie Dunkirk will be performing at the world famous Warbirds Over Wanaka International Airshow in Wanaka, New Zealand between March 30th and April 1st this year.

The Hispano HA-1112 Buchon C.4K-102 belonging to Historic Flying is normally based at Duxford in England. The Spanish-built fighter masqueraded as its older cousin, the Messerschmitt Bf 109, during the aerial combat sequences with the British Supermarine Spitfires over Dunkirk during the eponymous film, and it will once again do battle with a Spitfire in the skies above Wanaka.

The Buchon will replace the Polikarpov I-16 in the air show schedule. The charismatic Russian WWII fighter aircraft, once a regular sight over Wanaka, was due to visit from its base in Germany, but had to withdraw at the last minute due to mechanical problems.

Warbirds Over Wanakas General Manager, Ed Taylor, expressed his teams disappointment that the Polikarpov cannot attend, but added that they are thrilled to welcome the Buchon back after its huge success at the show two years ago. Taylor noted that, The crowd loved seeing both the aircraft itself, plus witnessing the top flying skills of owner and pilot John Romain  one of the UKs best warbird pilots.

This particular Buchon, is something of a movie star. Including Christopher Nolans 2017 film Dunkirk, the Buchons movie credits include the 1968 epic Battle of Britain as well as the 2008 Tom Cruise film Valkyrie. When the aircraft was at Wanaka in 2016, it sported the identical Yellow 10 color scheme it wore during the film Battle of Britain. This time it will be decked out in its Dunkirk color scheme.

Meanwhile, Ed Taylor noted that the owners of the Polikarpov I-16 in Germany are understandably upset that their aircraft will not be coming to the air show this year, as is its pilot, Jurgis Kairys. The owners had been very generous in making their aircraft available. However, during flight testing late last year, a problem was detected with the engine. The engine could not be fixed so a replacement engine was brought in from Russia. Unfortunately, that engine has problems as well, and the owners were not able to get it repaired in time to ship the aircraft to New Zealand. Ed Taylor continued, While its a major disappointment, we are sure that all warbird enthusiasts will understand that every effort was made to get the Polikarpov here, and that from time-to-time these antique aircraft experience problems. Jurgis and the owners are adamant they want to have the Polikarpov back here and have already started the planning for 2020.

For the Warbirds Over Wanaka 30th Anniversary, information and tickets are available from www.warbirdsoverwanaka.comThe Honorable Judge Jeffery C. Cramer held criminal court in Wetzel County on Thursday, Jan. 25 for arraignment of individuals indicted by the January 2018 session of the Wetzel County Grand Jury.

Appearing before Judge Cramer, alongside her court-appointed attorney Brett Ferro, was Crystal Lynn Aston, 35, of 664 Maple Avenue, New Martinsville. Aston is accused in a one-count indictment of the felony offense of malicious assault, alleged to have occurred on or about March 31, 2017. She pleaded not guilty to the charge and was ordered to return to court for a pre-trial on March 12, at 10 a.m. A trial date has been set for March 21. Bond was allowed to continue.

Billy Joe Barnette, 44, of 163 Burlington Road, P.O. Box 601, New Martinsville, was in court alongside his attorney, Ferro, to answer to the charge of the felony offense failure to register as a sex offender, allegedly occurring between May 1 and June 16 of 2017. The indictment charges him with failing to report a cell phone to the West Virginia State Police detachment in Wetzel County.

Barnette was arraigned on the charges and entered a plea of not guilty. He was ordered to return to court on Feb. 20, for a pre-trial at 10 a.m. A trial date of Feb. 27 has been set in the matter. His bond was allowed to continue with no objection.

Stephen Anthony Blatt, 31, of 606 North Fifth Avenue, Paden City, was scheduled to appear in court before Judge Cramer on Jan. 25 to answer to a one-count felony indictment. Blatt had his case reset for Jan. 31, 10 a.m. He is presently incarcerated, and his case is set for a plea. The indictment against Blatt charges him with possession of a controlled substance (methamphetamine) with intent to deliver. The offense is alleged to have occurred on or about Nov. 6.

Lindsay Nicole Burley, P.O. Box 301, Hundred, was in court alongside her attorney, Shane Mallett, to give an answer to a two-count felony indictment. Burley is charged with grand larceny and conspiracy. Burley is accused of stealing goods in excess of $1,000. She is also accused of conspiring with Kelly Lee Tustin to steal a UTV. Both offenses allegedly occurred between Aug. 10 and Aug. 14, 2017.

Burley entered a not guilty plea to all charges against her. She was ordered to return to court on March 12 for a pre-trial hearing, and a trial date was set for March 13. Her bond was allowed to continue; however on a request from Prosecutor Tim Haught, she was placed on pre-trial supervision by the probation office.

Kayla Dawn Cecil, 26, of 162 Furbee Road, Reader, appeared in court before Judge Cramer to plead not guilty to a one-count felony indictment, charging her with delivery of a controlled substance (methamphetamine). The offense allegedly occurred around Dec. 8.

Judge Cramer set a pre-trial hearing in the case for Feb. 26, at 10 a.m. He also set a trial date for March 1. Cecil, who was on a $20,000 cash-only bond, had it reduced to a cash/surety bond on a motion from her attorney, Ferro. As a condition of the bond reduction, she will be placed on pre-trial supervision by the probation office if she makes bond. She was remanded to jail.

Michael Lee Erb, 31, of 911 Pioneer Community Road, St. Marys, appeared in court alongside his attorney Patricia Kurelac, to give an answer to a one-count felony indictment, charging him with the felony offense of receiving stolen goods. He is accused of stealing a Jeep Patriot belonging to another person, valued at more than $1,000. The offense is alleged to have occurred on or about July 25, 2017.

Erb entered a not guilty plea to his indictment. A pre-trial hearing was set for March 12 with a trial date of March 13. Erb was ordered to return on March 12 if he isnt extradited to Ohio, where he is currently facing charges.

James A. Haught, 23, of 717 Sixth Street, New Martinsville, was charged in a three-count indictment with the felony offenses of failure to register or provide notice of registration changes, to have allegedly occurred between July 31 and Nov. 27, 2017. He appeared before Judge Cramer on Thursday. Judge Cramer was informed by James Haughts attorney, Ferro, that a plea agreement in the case had been reached with the state, whereby the new indictment would be dismissed with James Haught admitting to four supervised parole violations. A disposition hearing in the case will be held on Jan. 31 at 11 a.m. James Haught was remanded to jail

Amanda Lenn Higginbotham, 36, of Morgan Run Road, Smithfield, pleaded not guilty to charges in her four-count indictment.

She is charged with felony, uttering, and two counts of conspiracy, alleged to have occurred on or about May 20, 2016. Judge Cramer ordered Higginbotham to return to court on March 12 at 10 a.m. A pre-trial hearing and a trial date of April 11 was set. Her bond was allowed to continue with no objection.

Benjamin Ray Highley, 47, of HC 60 Box 47B, Glen Easton, appeared in court alongside Ferro to answer to a two-count indictment.  possession of a motor vehicle without vehicle identification mark, and altering a vehicle identification number, with fraudulent intent. The indictment charges that Highley knowingly and feloniously did buy, sell or possess a motor vehicle with an altered manufacturer serial number. The offenses are alleged to have occurred between the dates of March 11 and April 22, 2017.

Highley was ordered to return to court on Jan. 31, at 10:30 a.m. for arraignment. Bond was set at $5,000 cash/surety. Judge Cramer gave Highley until 4:30 on Jan. 26 to meet bond or self-report to jail. Highley would also be under pre-trial supervision by the probation office if bond is met.

Kevin Joseph Hubbard, 27, of RR 1 Box 43 C, Reader, pleaded not guilty to his three-count felony indictment. Hubbards offenses are to have allegedly occurred on or about April 27, 2017. He is charged with malicious assault, strangulation (causing the victim bodily injury or loss of consciousness), and third-offense domestic battery. Hubbard was convicted of domestic battery in Marshall County Circuit Court on Nov. 4, 2014. He was convicted of domestic battery on Sept. 27, 2012 in Marshall County Magistrate Court.

Hubbard will return to court March 12, 10 a.m. A trial date is set for April 9. Hubbards bond was allowed to continue.

Thomas James Hull, 25, of 32 Ross Street, New Martinsville, pleaded not guilty to a three-count drug related indictment. Hull is charged with possession of a controlled substance (heroin), with intent to deliver; delivery of a controlled substance, and conspiracy. All three offenses allegedly occurred on Aug. 14-15, 2017.

A pre-trial hearing is slated for March 12, while a trial date is set for March 13. Hulls bond was allowed to continue.

Ashley Nichole Iseli, 30, of 1704 Ritchie Avenue, Fairmont, pleaded not guilty to a four-count indictment. Iseli is charged with forgery,uttering, and two counts of conspiracy. All offenses allegedly occurred around May 20, 2017. Iseli will return to court March 12. A trial date of March 13 was set, and bond was allowed to continue.

Stacy Nichole Jones, 34, of 186 Scaffold Road, Spencer, failed to appear in court to answer to a one-count felony indictment, charging her with grand larceny. The offense allegedly occurred on or about Nov. 21, 2016.

On a recommendation from the state, a capias warrant was issued for her arrest. Judge Cramer ordered his office to be notified when she is picked up.

Alexander Cleveland King, 32, of 148, South Main Street, New Martinsville, pleaded not guilty to a one-count indictment, charging him with uttering a false bill. King is accused of an attempt to employ, as true, a false $100 bill. The offense allegedly occurred on or about May 7, 2017.

King is to return to court Feb. 12 for a pre-trial hearing. A trial date of March 19 was set by Cramer, and Kings bond was allowed to continue.

Jason Anthony Litton, 38, of 133 South First Avenue, Paden City, appeared in court alongside Ferro, to answer two separate three-count indictments handed down by the grand jury. Each indictment charges him with three felony offenses. The first indictment charges Litton with daytime burglary, grand larceny, and conspiracy. All three events allegedly occurred between July 24 and July 31, 2017 when Litton is accused of entering a residence and stealing goods with a value of more than $1,000. Litton is alleged to conspire with Ashley B. Willhoite to steal.

Littons second indictment contains three felony counts of third-offense shoplifting. All offenses allegedly occurred at New Martinsvilles Walmart. The offenses allegedly occurred on July 1, Aug. 21, and Aug. 31, all in 2017. Litton had two previous shoplifting convictions, one in Wetzel County Magistrate Court in March 2012 and one in Moundsvilles municipal court in January 2013.

Litton pleaded not guilty to the charges. He was ordered to return to court on March 12 for a pre-trial hearing. A trial date was set by Judge Cramer for March 15. Littons bond was allowed to continue in the case; however, Prosecutor Tim Haught asked the court to order pre-trial supervision by the probation office due to there being a series of cascading events in the case. The court agreed and bond continues under that condition.

Ashley Brooke Willhoite, 37, also of 133 South First Avenue, Paden City, also appeared before Judge Cramer to answer to a three-count indictment. Willhoite is charged with daytime burglary, grand larceny, and conspiracy. Willhoite is accused of entering without breaking a dwelling with intent to commit a crime. She then is accused of allegedly stealing goods valued at $1,000. Both counts are alleged to have occurred between July 24 and July 31, 2017. Cont three, conspiracy, accuses Willhoite of conspiring with Jason Litton to steal the goods between July 24 and July 31, 2017.

Willhoite was without an attorney and was ordered by Judge Cramer to fill out financial eligibility papers for a court-appointed attorney. Cramer tentatively appointed Kevin Neiswonger to represent Willhoite. She was placed on a $5,000 cash/ surety bond on the recommendation of Prosecutor Tim Haught. Judge Cramer gave Willhoite until 4:30, Jan. 26 to post the bond, or she was to self report to the Northern Regional Jail by 5 p.m. If she was able to post bond, Willhoite was to be placed under supervised release by the probation office. She was ordered to return to court for arraignment on Jan. 31.

Zachary Jeremiah Ferrebee, 28, also of 133 South First Avenue, Paden City, appeared in court alongside Ferro to face a felony one-count indictment, charging him with the felony offense of breaking and entering, with the intent to commit a crime. The offense is alleged to have occurred on or about Oct. 26 or 27, 2017, in Paden City.

Ferrebees attorney informed the court he had reached a plea agreement with the state in the case, and they were ready to proceed with it. Judge Cramer said that time today wouldnt allow for it and he ordered a return date of Jan. 31 for the plea. Ferrebee was remanded to jail.

Dustine Michael Moore, 24, of 6 Witscheys Addition Street, New Martinsville, appeared alongside Attorney Patricia Kurelac, to pled not guilty to a four-count felony indictment.

Moore is charged with delivery of a controlled substance (methamphetamine), possession of a controlled substance (buprenorphine), and two counts of conspiracy.

The offenses are alleged to have occurred on May 30, 2017.

Judge Cramer ordered Moore to return to court on March 12 for a pre-trial hearing; a trial date of April 11 was set, and Moore was remanded to jail, bond pending.

Gregory Dalton Morgan, 23, of 404 Virginia Street, New Martinsville, or 3377 Furbee Ridge Road, Reader, pleaded not guilty to a three-count indictment.

Morgan is charged with grand larceny, misdemeanor breaking and entering, and misdemeanor destruction of property. All offenses are alleged to have occurred on or about April 2, 2017. Morgan is accused of stealing goods, valuing more than $1,000. He is also accused of breaking and entering an automobile with intent to commit a larceny.

Morgan will return to court on March 12 for a pre-trial hearing. A trial date was set for March 21. His bond was allowed to continue.

William Paul Morgan, 37, of 318 South Wells Street, Sistersville, failed to appear in court before Judge Cramer to answer a one-count felony indictment, charging him with failure to register or provide notice of registration changes. The felony offense of failure to register as a sex offender is alleged to have happened between Sept. 1-29, 2017 in Wetzel County.

A capias was issued for Morgans arrest.

Justin Alan Richeson, 35, of Rt. 20, P.O. Box 19, Reader, failed to appear in court to answer a one-count felony indictment. Richeson is charged with nighttime burglary. He is accused of entering a dwelling in New Martinsville, with intent to commit a crime. The offense allegedly occurred on or about April 20, 2017. On a request from the state, a capias warrant was ordered. Judge Cramer is to be notified when Richeson is apprehended.

Leslie Wayne Rial, 69, of 20 Urban Street, New Martinsville, was expected to answer a one-count indictment charging him with retaliation against a public official. The offense allegedly occurred on or about Aug. 27, 2016.

Rial is presently incarcerated at Sharps Hospital. The case was continued generally until his status is released.

Ryan Nicklaus Richmond, 24, of 639 Wise Acres Road, New Martinsville, was in court to answer a one-count felony indictment ,charging him with possession of a controlled substance (heroin), with intent to deliver. The offense allegedly occurred on or about Dec. 5 in Wetzel County. A plea agreement has been reached in the case, and Richmond was ordered to return to court on Jan. 31 to enter the plea or be arraigned. He was remanded to jail.

Charles L. Roberts, 59, of 292 Bear Run Road, Littleton, pleaded not guilty to a six-count felony indictment, charging him with six separate counts of failure to update sex offender registry information.

Roberts was ordered to return to court for a pre-trial hearing on Feb. 26, 10 a.m. A trial date of March 1 was set, and bond was allowed to continue.

Robert Jack Six, 33, of HC 62 Box MM, Burton, pleaded not guilty to third-offense driving under the influence of alcohol.

He was also charged in a separate two-count felony indictment with nighttime burglary and conspiracy, to have occurred on or about Sept. 16.

Six will return to court March 12 for a pre-trial hearing. A trial was set for March 21.

Tanya M. Southern, 40, of 781 Third Street, New Martinsville, failed to appear in court to answer to her five-count indictment, containing four misdemeanor offenses and one felony offense. She is charged with unlawful shooting at another in street, alley, or public resort, domestic battery, brandishing a deadly weapon, wanton endangerment involving a firearm (felony), and shooting across a road or near a building or crowd. All offenses allegedly occurred Oct. 1.

A capias warrant was issued for Southerns arrest.

Clarence Franklin Thayer, 35, of 917 Ashcamp Run Road, Metz, was indicted, charged on four felony counts of failure to register as a sex offender. Thayer pleaded not guilty.

Thayer was ordered to return to court for a pre-trial hearing on Feb. 20, at 10 a.m. A trial date was also set for Feb. 24. His bond was allowed to continue with no objections.

Joshua Elijah Toothman, 31, of 714 North Fourth Avenue, Paden City, is charged in two separate indictments of one-count felony offense retaliation against a witness, and a two-count felony offense attempted nighttime burglary and felony conspiracy. Toothman pleaded not guilty to all three charges and was ordered to return to court on March 12 for a pre-trial hearing. A trial date of April 9 was also set. He is presently serving another sentence; however, bond of $5,000 cash/surety was set for the present charges. He was remanded to jail.

Kelly Lee Tustin, 54, of P.O. Box 402, Hundred, pleaded not guilty to the charges in her two-count indictment. Tustin was charged by the grand jury with the felony offenses of grand larceny and conspiracy, alleged to have occurred between Aug. 10 and Aug. 14, 2017.

Tustin will return to court March 12 for a pre-trial hearing. A trial date of March 13 was set.

Tustins bond will continue; however, she was ordered to have a pre-trial supervised bond, on request by Prosecutor Haught.

A capias was issued for the arrest of Franklin Dale Welch, 27, of 46590 East Captina Highway, Alledonia, Ohio. Welch was charged with the felony offense of nighttime burglary. Welch failed to appear in court, however. Judge Cramer is to be notified when Welch is picked up.

There was the full slate of defendants who appeared on Jan. 25 to give an answer to the charges brought against them, while there were also several older cases before Judge Cramer.

Benjamin Dale Francis, 38, of 803 Ironton Street, New Martinsville, appeared in court for a status hearing. He was remanded pending more information on his evaluation from Sharps Hospital. He will return at a later date.

Paul Campbell Jr., 33, of Salem will appear in court on Feb. 14 for motions and a pre-trial hearing. He is charged with daytime burglary and petit larceny.

Tille Doris Freeland, 53, of New Martinsville, was in court for a status hearing. The defendant and the state have reached a possible resolution in the case, and it will be heard on Feb. 20.

She is charged with the felony offense of welfare fraud.

Jordan Tyler Kerns, 26, of Paden City, is charged with battery on a law enforcement officer. He will return to court for sentencing on Feb. 7.

Capias warrants continued for the following individuals:

Robert Jason Work, 41, presently incarcerated in Ohio, had his capias continued.

Asia Nicole Thomas, 21, of New Martinsville, had her capias warrant continued.

Logan John Lynn Miller, 31, of Waynesburg, Pa. had his capias warrant continued.

Mohamed Abdihamis Mohamed, 25, of Ohio, had his capias warrant continued.Howard Lee Wells, age 48, of Cameron, West Virginia was recently sentenced by Judge Jeffrey Cramer, in Wetzel County Circuit Court, to an effective sentence of not less than 20 nor more than 40 years in the West Virginia Division of Corrections for two counts of Sexual Assault by a Custodian. This is the statutory maximum.

Wells was remanded to prison to serve his sentence. If he completes his sentence, he will be required to serve 50 years of supervised release and register as a sex offender for life.

The case was prosecuted by Wetzel County Assistant Prosecutor Carl Worthy Paul before his retirement, and sentencing was argued by Wetzel County Assistant Prosecutor Justin Craft.

The Wetzel County Prosecuting Attorneys office expressed gratitude to Detective D.W. Harris of the New Martinsville Police Department for his work on this case, as well as the assistance of First Sergeant W.C. Kush of the West Virginia State Police.Yesterday was a rough day:

Boza had issues and I felt like someone beat me with a two by four and kept beating me just for fun all day. Today though, both Boza and I are doing better. The weather has a bunch to do with how Boza and I are doing and it has been snowing and snowing. Getting deep out there in the arctic wonderland

Want to talk about Linux:

We have found that there is nothing that we need Windows OS for. Now granted we are not big game players and thus, we have no games to worry about to make work and that seems to be the issue that most people have. Therefore, when I talk about no problems, I talk about no issues with normal usable software. Such as Microsoft Word, Adobe and many other Windows programs. I even have installed Microsoft Office and find it very usable if needed. But.not needed for there are many programs that do the same job and even better

Everyday we work with Linux Mint and it keeps itself updated. The updates do not take but a few minutes and they keep everything running smoothly. I reboot about once a week just to start a fresh version of the OS and clear any issues up. I did find that sometimes the Firefox browser needs to be refreshed and keep it from jamming up

Linux Mint: https://linuxmint.com/

Try it and you will like it. It is very stable and has a graphical front end that makes using Linux a breeze. The learning curve is small and you will find it is adaptable to almost anything you use for a Windows interface. Maybe tablets and phones are not usable and truly Linux Mint does not care to become usable on those items

Any drive used by Windows, will be usable by Linux Mint. This makes it a great dual boot OS and will save your data as you struggle with Windows OS. Svetochka has adapted wonderfully to Linux and I breath a sigh of relief, for that has always been my drawback to deal with. Windows with all its issues, is still easier for non-Linux users to deal with. Linux has terminology that scares Windows users and a word like compiling makes for jitters to many

It really is time for people to take back control of there lives and something simple and easy to do is to get rid of Windows OS off your current computer. People need to help themselves before they get help in a better life. Linux gives control of what you do on your computer and phoning home a hundred times a day to spy on you is something that you need to deal with. Windows OS is history and we need to send it to the dustbin

Russia has their own OS right now

They have accomplished this feat and it is based on Linux. I really like the new OS and will one day even switch to it. I have talk several times about the system and used it for a while in the Tiny Russian Village. It had bugs back then, but from what I understand it has been made available and is rolling out now to all aspects of the government and schools in Russia. This will make Russia much safer from back door attacks by the USA, due to Windows usage in the past

The bottom line truth is, Windows has been used to infiltrate other countries and governments have finally woke up to that fact.then again, Windows is used to spy on the people in the US and you should switch OSs to get away from that issue

Now I am not stupid and realize that Russia will do the same to her people. Thus, I use a world available OS like Linux Mint

By the people for the people

Joe Biden is all that is wrong with America Quote from the arse below

I use to feel like throwing up when I would see Obama and Biden together. One of them was bad enough, but the both of them was beyond acceptance to see. All that is wrong and all that is still wrong with America. Trump and Pence have followed in the same footsteps as these two guys

Trump has only one choice, clean the swamp at all costs or get out. I voted to clean the swamp in DC and expect it to happen. Trump needs to take the bullets coming his way and do his job. Many of us voted for him to do just that. And if something happens to him while he is cleaning the swamp? That is when we will see a Civil War in America

I am waiting to see Hillary and gang in prison. I hope in my lifetime to see Obama in jail for all he did and that my friend is what is wrong. To many people let bygones be bygones in politics.Any president and admin still alive that still condones what all we have done in the past? Have to go.Bushes included

It is not a Republican/Democrat issue: It is a very bad sickness that we allow to fester and it is called The Federal Government. Small is fine, gargantuan is just plain wrong. Yes, USA administration that is you.the USA needs to go back to almost all power at state level and nothing but coordination of national defense should be at the National Level

States need to control themselves and the people will talk by where they live. If you live in a state that does not suit you then go where it does suit you. Believe you me, a Texas loving person will not be in Illinois. Believe it or not

Sounds like it is time to get rid of the position of presidency in the USA

I voted for Trump to get it done and will back him 100% if he does it.all the way to internal war if necessary and I am not alone..it can be done nicely though. Lets do it

We gotta wake up.lets get our house in order, before we try to get other homes in order

Not going to happen though Fear and being scared at the top of the list

Biden is a perfect example of what is wrong with America

America politics is nothing but graft, corruption and lies, sounds like much of the world politics

When dealing with American politics, you try to follow the money, and thats where it leads you. It doesnt take you to the electoral college or to Princeton. It takes you down the darker alleys of American life.  Roger Morris

Yes and that road is always the low road in 99% of the worlds cultures

Talk about taking a low road

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-28/fbi-releases-docs-claiming-rt-founder-beat-himself-death-his-hotel-room

The FBI just released the results of their investigation claiming that the media mogul and founder of RT killed himself by repeatedly smashing his head and upper body into the ground.

Are we accepting this at face value? I dont.I am looking down as you try to make us believe itI am trying to stay on that highroad and see what is happening, but the slope is steep and slippery.sometimes we have to start climbing and sometimes we have to repeat that climb up the same mountain many times.but we must do it

Now you know why DC attacks me all the time. I do not agree with what we as a country has become. I dont agree with what many countries do to their people, but the land of the free and home of the brave should be doing a better job at presenting itself to the world. When you spout that you are the highroad? Then you must walk the highroad.otherwise

Im interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos, especially activity that appears to have no meaning. It seems to me to be the road toward freedom.  Jim Morrison

The highroad is not the easiest road to follow

WtRAnderson was slammed for his comment, "50 less pedophiles in the world" after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando in June 2016.

An anti-gay U.S. preacher known to deny the Holocaust and his call for stoning gay people to death has been denied entry to Jamaica.

Steven Anderson, from the Faithful World Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona, was about to board a flight to Kingston, Jamaica when he was told he wasn't allowed to enter the Caribbean island. Anderson was traveling to Jamaica to speak at the University of the West Indies which later rescinded his invitation.

The decision was made by the chief immigration officer because the pastors statements are not conducive to the current climate," the spokesperson for the Ministry of National Security said, the Guardian reported.

Jay John, an activist, launched an online petition urging the Jamaican government to bar Anderson. The online appeal garnered over 39,000 signatures.

"This is a positive outcome in which I am very pleased," John said, according to the Guardian. "I am glad that leadership was shown in protecting LGBTQ Jamaicans, women and other minority groups which Steven Anderson has attacked over the past."

"Im pretty surprised," Anderson said in a video posted on YouTube, "because Ive seen a lot of stuff online that said that Jamaica is the most homophobic country in the world.'

"So, its pretty weird that I would be banned from Jamaica because of my views on homosexuality."

Anderson was slammed for his comment, "50 less pedophiles in the world" after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando in June 2016.Critics of the U.S. policy say mounting sanctions are the main reason behind the economic hardships in both countries.

In his first State of the Union address to U.S. Congress, President Donald Trump took aim at the governments of Cuba and Venezuela calling them dictatorships as he ramps up his countrys long standing interventionist and regime-change policy towards left-wing governments in Latin America.

"My government has imposed harsh sanctions on the communist and socialist dictatorships of Cuba and Venezuela, Trump told lawmakers at Congress Tuesday night as part of the foreign policy section of his address.

The president did not make any mention of other Latin American countries and focused on the two countries that he sees as his administration's main antagonists in the region over what he calls human rights violations.

According to the U.S. State Department, the United States has applied "more than 50 economic sanctions" on Venezuelan individuals and the country's financial system since Trump came to power a year ago.

The socialist government of President Nicolas Maduro and critics of the U.S. policy say that such sanctions are damaging the Venezuelan economy and contributing to the depletion of food and medical supplies as they prohibit U.S. companies from doing business with Venezuelan-state institutions.

The Trump administration has also said it wont recognize the upcoming presidential elections in Venezuela scheduled for the end of April despite ongoing dialogue between the Venezuelan government and several factions of the right-wing opposition in the Dominican Republic.

Meanwhile, since coming to office Trump has been reversing the diplomatic breakthrough that his predecessor Barack Obama initiated with Cuba by restricting travel and trade with the Carribean island.

In 2014 and after decades of hostility, Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro agreed to open embassies, restore commercial flights and negotiate agreements on issues including the environment, enforcement and compliance with the law, postal service and communications.

However last june the Trump administration downgraded the diplomatic presence in Havana and expelled Cuban diplomats from Washington over alleged sonic attacks against the U.S. embassy in Havana last year, which were later dismissed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.Jan 30, 2018 | By David

3D printing with ceramics is one particularly interesting and fruitful growth area, as these materials have a variety of different applications in a broad range of fields. Their high heat-resistance means that they are regularly used in aerospace or other high-performance industrial components, while their durability and surface qualities also makes them ideal for dental implants as well as pottery and other household items. German manufacturer Grohe is one of the leading figures in the bathroom fittings industry, and it has recently adopted 3D printing in its processes to produce a new line of advanced sanitary appliances.

Grohe announced its intentions to implement 3D printing technology, at this years ISH trade show in Frankfurt am Main, following up on its strong showing from 2017. ISH is the world's leading trade fair for bathroom, heating and air-conditioning technology, and Grohes products are always a highlight for the devoted attendees, due to the companys reputation for innovation in the sector.

Digitization of the manufacturing process, in order to improve efficiency and develop a more integrated workflow, is something that Grohe is strongly focused on. The company has received over 300 awards over the last 10 years for its design and innovation, particularly relating to sustainability. On January 31st, Grohe CEO Michael Rauterkus is set to address an audience of industry leaders with a speech on the topic Water as a resource in times of digitalization, during the World Market Leaders Summit in Schwabisch Hall, Germany.

One of Grohes most impressive product releases of recent years was the groundbreaking Sense and Sense guard systems, which debuted in 2017. Drawing on breakthroughs with smart technology and advanced, compact sensors, these intelligent water control systems are pointing the way forward to the smart homes of the future. They are integrated into bathroom fittings in order to gather information about water and moisture levels, and can detect and give early warnings about potential water damage.

This Sense guard system is disruptive as a new introduction to the industry for a number of reasons. Not only is there the additional safety functionality that it provides, it will also enable a standard product to significantly extend its life-cycle, contributing to less waste in manufacturing and a more sustainable industry. It also suggests serious potential to other household appliance manufacturers, providing smart kitchens and more.

Last year Grohe launched Bau Ceramic, which is the companys first full-service ceramics range for bathrooms. Providing an entire bathroom fitting was a major step forward for the company and should see a more widespread adoption of its various innovations. This years ISH show also saw the release of the Sensia Arena, Grohes new shower-toilet fitting. No other shower-toilet on the market has as many awards as this shower-toilet- a total of 14 to date.

The companys first tests with 3D printing are due to be carried out in the next few months, with its new line of ceramic products scheduled to be released in March.

Posted in 3D Printing Application

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Ferenc Laczo at Eurozine:

While any encompassing history of the perpetrators ought to prioritize Germans and Austrians without making them the exclusive focus, any inclusive and adequate history of the victims would have to begin with Poland and eastern Europe at large before arriving at the European level. Surprisingly, while there has been consensus on the former point ever since the war, the latter is far from established practice even today. Many of the finest historians of the Holocaust who devote attention to the Jewish experience of the Nazi era tend to focus almost exclusively on Jews in Nazi Germany prior to 1939  to take an eminent example, Saul Friedlaenders justly praised The Years of Persecution. Such books thereby largely neglect Jews from elsewhere in the same years  people who came to account for some 98% of the victims.

What is more, the crime of the Holocaust was committed primarily on the pre-war territory of Poland and the Soviet Union. The main extermination camps of Operation Reinhard, most infamously Bezec, Sobibor and Treblinka, where the majority of Polish Jews were murdered during the main phase of the Holocaust in 1942-43 and which in fact were little more than killing facilities, are all located in what is now Poland; the main sites of the Holocaust where victims were killed by bullets, a method that started and reached its peak in 1941, such as Mikolaev or the Babi Jar ravine just outside Kiev, are in Ukraine; even the Reich-territory that Auschwitz constituted during World War II  a surprisingly little known fact in Germany today  belonged to Poland both before and after the war.

more here.January 31, 2018  Though the fight was long and hard, Ricardo Bernal has proudly announced the release of his all new tell all book, Think of Thinking. This book teaches how to give yourself, your family, and your friends anything your heart or theirs desires, Bernal said. Ricardo Bernal is a California prisoner who despite having a checkered past, has been fighting to make amends by releasing his book and donating one hundred percent of his profits to the Special Olympics. Being a prisoner makes it difficult to get a book deal, unless youre Charles Manson or someone like that. My book is important because it teaches people that they dont have to depend on anyone for the things they want or need, and it is my way to make amends for what I have done. Dozens of publishers refused to take my manuscript, much less publish it, said Bernal while talking about the books purpose.

Hopeful Media Solutions, a publishing company that specializes in books by prisoners, was inspired by Ricardo Bernals story, and felt compelled to publish his book. It was clear to us that Ricardos story, and the secret revealed in his book, would guarantee him a leadership role for many years to come, said Julie Vega, Hopeful Media Solutions Vice President of Consumer Relations. She went on to say, We should be taking our cues from this man. He is locked in a concrete box but he is happy, healthy, and has everything a man in his position could ever want or need. Nothing brings him down and nothing stops him from helping others. He is a paragon of his community, and even ours. Despite his incarceration, Ricardo Bernal is quickly making a name for himself in the new thought movement, as a leader, disrupter, and motivational GURU.

Think of Thinking is a MUST READ because it reveals the secret to health, wealth, happiness, and success that only a small group of elites know about until now. It provides a logical, interesting, and simple approach to obtaining anything you ever could dream of wanting. This is a tried and true method, according to the author, based on personal experiences and empirical knowledge. No longer will this secret lie in the hands of a small group of people. Everybody deserves to have anything they wish. And they will. Ill travel the world to show all how it works. This is my promise, Bernal said.

The author didnt always have this secret or passion. Though he learned the secret from various sources and his own experiences, he credits his family for much of his drive. I came from a very good, very loving family. I screwed up, they didnt. My parents were always there. They would go above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that my siblings and I had everything we needed. In prison you have plenty of time to reflect on such things. My brother, Christobal, was born with Down Syndrome. He was frequent patient in the hospital, but my mother would never leave his side, which is awesome. No matter if it was one day or one year, you couldnt pry her away from my brothers side. All the while my father is at home holding down the fort. These people are my inspiration. These people, especially my brother, gave me the purpose and drive to find a better way and I did! Oddly enough, I am thankful for coming to prison to have the opportunity to learn what a very small group of people know. These are very successful people. Moreover, I am thankful that Ill leave a much better man, with all the tools Ill ever need in my head. Though I am in prison right now I am making amends for what I have done and giving back by committing ALL of my profits for the first year of this books sales to the new Everlasting Sunshine Foundation, a non-profit charitable organization, which supports the Special Olympics, and other similar organizations. This shall be but the beginning of my life mission of making amends, and to guide every last person in my path to a life of happiness, health, wealth, friendship, success, and or any other desires they may have. Again, this is my promise, Bernal said.

As Ricardo Bernal has grown older and more mature, his ambitions and achievements have only grown with him. Today he stands out as a pillar of his community, consulting with his peers, writing for his peers and studying on how best to deliver his message. He is always looking to spread his base by helping new people. Currently residing in Ione, California, the author is welcoming everyone to read his new book upon its launch on February 1st and learn how you can have anything you want or need out of life.

For more information about the book and for bookings, please visit the Website: http://www.hopefulmediasolutions.com or buy it today, available exclusively at Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079FJDV3L

MEDIA CONTACT

Company Name: Everlasting Sunshine Foundation

Contact Person: RICARDO BERNAL #AC.9401

URL: www.Hopefulmediasolutions.com

Phone: (209) 273-7463 (Publisher)

Address: 4001 Highway 104, Suite D.16.D202 IONE, CALIFORNIA 95642

Media Contact

Company Name: Hopeful Media Solutions

Contact Person: Rebecca Ibarra

Email: mdwhite2020@gmail.com

Phone: (209) 273-7463

Country: United States

Website: hopefulmediasolutions.com

Quarterly Report and Activities Statement

Sydney, Jan 31, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Australian Bauxite Ltd ( ASX:ABX ) provides the Company's Quarterly Report and Activities Statement for the period ending 31 December, 2017.Corporate- Current group available cash at the end of the quarter was $1.94 million.- ABx has lines of credit for working capital, if required, and has no current plans for capital raisings.Sales & Operations- ABx loaded and shipped a combined 35,000 tonnes of cement-grade bauxite from the Bell Bay export port in Tasmania, 3 weeks ahead of schedule in October 2017.- Fertiliser grade bauxite sales are growing steadily to satisfy growing agricultural demand at modest but valuable prices in Australian dollars. The outlook for regular fertiliser sales during 2018 is positive.- Once sales despatches were completed, operations at the Bald Hill bauxite project at Campbell Town in northern Tasmania finalised the rehabilitation of pit areas MB6 and MB5. The rehabilitated land has been returned to sheep grazing in accordance with company policy to leave the land better than we found it.Bauxite Refining Technology- This technology is for producing Aluminium Fluoride (AlF3) used as an electrolyte for aluminium smelters & lithium ion batteries and a co-production of Corethane which is an ultra-pure hydrocarbon that can substitute for natural gas for electricity and heating of the ALCORE plant and for sale into the national grids if needed. Corethane also has markets for metallurgical use and brickmaking.- ABx executed a Heads of Agreement with technology provider, Refined Ore Industries Limited (ROIL) for the global exclusive rights to apply the technology to beneficiate and refine bauxite into high-value products. ABx worked with ROIL to complete the technology development and to make the patent application in June 2017.- ALCORE's business plan is to develop the first of several ALCORE bauxite refinery projects in Tasmania and/or northern QLD. ABx's uniquely clean bauxite is ideal for ALCORE because it is totally free of deleterious elements.- ABx has commissioned Turnkey Innovative Engineering Pty Ltd (Turnkey) to help in the engineering, design and costing of the 1st stage of the ALCORE project to generate bulk samples of products for market-testing by ALCORE's prospective customers. ABx plans to report to shareholders about Stage 1 in March 2018.- Financing plans are scheduled to be finalised in mid-2018. ABx has been approached by a party involved in the Aluminium Fluoride industry to discuss Stage 1 financing and, if successful, other participants in the Aluminium Fluoride industry have expressed interest in providing some finance for the construction of the 50,000 tonne per year production plant, subject to offtake agreements. Demand for AlF3 is clearly strengthening.- A third party is also seeking access to the Stage 1 Plant for the purification of graphite on terms that may supply one third of the cost of the Stage 1 Plant during its 12 to 18 months of testwork.- Discussions are continuing with Federal and State Government ministries and with a government authority and these discussions will continue in 2018.- ABx has been approached by two major companies seeking negotiations for access of two of the co-products from the ALCORE production plant, namely Corethane and Silica Fume.Review of Binjour project- ABx and its Indian marketing partner, Rawmin Mining and Industries (Rawmin) have applied for a Regional Jobs and Investment grant for the commencement of the Binjour Bauxite project in the Wide Bay Burnett region of central Queensland, shipping from the Port of Bundaberg.- Resource modelling is in progress. Binjour Bauxite project resources are currently estimated as totalling 28 million tonnes from Binjour exploration licences (See Resource Statement) and granted mining lease at Toondoon south of Mundubbera. (See Resource Statement)- Bulk samples were collected ahead of schedule in late December to expedite negotiations with customers for the execution of offtake sale-purchase agreements for the project.TasTech Process Technology- ABx completed a bulk-scale mining and processing project to confirm the effectiveness of ABx's TasTech technology at Fingal Rail project area, using freshly quarried Fingal Rail ore and stockpiled Bald Hill ore.Bauxite Refining TechnologyALCORE's bauxite refining technology produces Aluminium Fluoride (AIF3) and other co-products including the gas-substitute Corethane to power the plant and Silica Fume for the cement industry which ABx already services with its supplies of cement-grade bauxite.ABx has been in negotiations with potential customers about technical specifications for its AIF3 product and it is considered likely that there is sufficient demand for a 50,000 tonnes per year AIF3 production plant.ABx will control all marketing of ALCORE products and is pleased to supply customers in the bauxite-aluminaaluminium industry to become more cost-efficient at the smelting stage, not just at the bauxite stage. Currently all AIF3 used in Australia is imported at prices higher than those paid by overseas competitors.SummaryALCORE's bauxite refining converts Tasmanian bauxite valued at approximately US$50 per tonne into a suite of products worth in excess of US$800 per tonne of bauxite representing a more than 10-times increase in the value per tonne of bauxite.Competitive AdvantageALCORE also exploits ABx's main strength - its uniquely clean chemical composition, totally free of any deleterious elements that would inhibit ALCORE's bauxite refining efficiency. Few, if any other Australian bauxite is so suited to ALCORE's bauxite refining technology.TimetableABx has published a timeline for this project as follows:1. Complete assessment and costing of the Stage 1 "EV Plant" stage: 28 February 20182. ABx Board to review and agree to proceed or otherwise: Early March 20183. ABx to announce its development plans, costs and financing: Mid March 2018Binjour Project Commencing Financial StudiesThis project area is located inland from Bundaberg, central Queensland, comprising the main project area located at Binjour, 115kms SW of Bundaberg between Gayndah and Mundubbera with a granted Mining Lease at Toondoon 25kms south of Mundubbera and an exploration project at Brovinia further to the south.ABx and its Indian marketing partner, Rawmin Mining and Industries (Rawmin) have applied for a Regional Jobs and Investment grant for the commencement of the Binjour Bauxite project in the Wide Bay Burnett region of central Queensland, shipping from the Port of Bundaberg.Resource modelling is in progress. Binjour Bauxite project resources are currently estimated as totalling 28 million tonnes from Binjour exploration licences (See Resource Statement) and granted mining lease at Toondoon (See Resource Statement) south of Mundubbera. (See Resource Statement)Bulk samples were collected ahead of schedule in late December to expedite negotiations with customers for the execution of offtake sale-purchase agreements for the project. Discussions with prospective customers have commenced.Once results from the resource re-estimation and the analyses of the bulk samples by multiple laboratories is completed, ABx will make a public statement of those results in the form of an ASX release.To view the release with tables and figures, please visit:About Australian Bauxite Ltd

Australian Bauxite Limited (ABx) (ASX:ABX) has its first bauxite mine in Tasmania & controls the Eastern Australian Bauxite Province. ABx's 11 bauxite tenements in Queensland, New South Wales & Tasmania totalling 662 km2 are all 100% owned, unencumbered & free of third-party royalties. ABx's bauxite is gibbsite trihydrate (THA) bauxite that can be processed into alumina at low temperature.

ABx has committed a large proportion of its expenditure into Research and Development to find ways to capitalise on the main strengths of its bauxite type which is very clean, free of all deleterious elements and partitioned into layers, nodules, particles and grains of different qualities that can be separated into different product streams using physical, chemical and geophysical methods.

ABx has declared large Mineral Resources in northern NSW, southern NSW, Binjour in central QLD & in northern Tasmania.

ABx's first mine commenced at Bald Hill near Campbell Town, Tasmania in December 2014 - the first new Australian bauxite mine for more than 35 years.

ABx aspires to identify large bauxite resources in the Eastern Australian Bauxite Province and has created significant bauxite development projects in 3 states, Queensland, New South Wales and Tasmania. Its bauxite deposits are favourably located for direct shipping of bauxite to both local and export customers.

ABx endorses best practices on agricultural land, strives to leave land and environment better than we find it. We only operate where welcomed.

Quarterly Update

Sydney, Jan 31, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - EnviroSuite Limited ( ASX:EVS ) provides the Company's second quarter update FY18 for the period ending 31 December, 2017.Quarter highlights- New sales in Australia, Europe and USA- Significant growth in near-term pipeline- Increase in sales team in Nov-Dec 2017- Acquisition of Odotech Inc and its subsidiary in Chile- Implementation of strategic marketing systemCEO OverviewMy first six months back in the CEO role have been fast moving as we position the company as a global technology business. In the first few months of this financial year we reviewed our strategy following the successful completion of the sale of the group's foundational consulting business. This review included a formal strategic sales and marketing overhaul, review of the management structure and the identification of key global sales priorities.The key actions arising from the review were:- Rapidly expand our direct sales force in North America and EuropeWe still believe that in the medium-long term the growth through partners will be critical to our business, however we are determined to refine our marketing and partner support before further growing our existing network of leading industry partners.- Repackage our offering to make it more targeted around market sectorWe now emphasise market solutions rather than technical capabilities in the module basis approach we have taken to market in the past. We are successfully moving from a technical sale targeting environmental teams, to a commercial sale aimed at the operations teams within our target markets.- Implement a new strategic marketing system to align our messaging and allow for greater automation of the lead generation processesIn September and October, we set about implementing these actions which were completed by the end of the December quarter. We had 3 sales people in October 2017 and by the end of December 2017 we had appointed a further six highly experienced and qualified sales people to join the organisation across Europe, UK and USA. As well as this a highly experienced Channels Manager has been hired in Australia to further expedite the partner program. We have repackaged our offering into seven distinct offerings targeting the main sectors of Mining, Waste Water, Regulatory, Ports, and Oil and Gas. We have also started implementing a new marketing system to direct leads into our CRM.Complementing this effort, a fortuitous opportunity arose to cheaply acquire a competitor in the odour management space. Odotech Inc has been known to us for some time as a well-established supplier to the waste water industry. This acquisition has enabled us to expand our global foot print and hire key specialists in the waste water field. Odotech Inc has over 80 clients worldwide as well as existing contracts, intellectual property and other assets. During 2018 we will be working to migrate all clients to the Envirosuite platform.We now have a team of 65 people across 7 countries, with offices in Brisbane, Madrid, San Francisco, Montreal and Santiago (Chile). Our sales team has increased from 3 to 13 during November and December and with this additional capacity comes increased opportunity. This has also increased the cost base however we are funded well into the 2019 financial year and we have made these moves to optimise our positioning to achieve accelerated growth.Although we have added new clients during the quarter, the landed sales for the six months to 31 December 2017 have not been as high as hoped. This reflects the transition to a new CEO, corporate transformation (selling Pacific Environment Consulting and acquisition of Odotech) and the inevitable lag in the sales cycle for the newly recruited team. However, particularly with the new sales team, an unprecedented pipeline and new Odotech clients, we expect to see the number of licence wins increase significantly from hereon.The near-term pipeline includes opportunities from both the established Envirosuite and the "new" Odotech businesses including:- Thames Water, UK (third site)- Middle East Government Waste Water- Regulatory Management District - USA- Multiple Municipal Authorities - Canada and USA- Mining - South America- Wastewater - New Zealand- Ports - AustraliaOur focus remains on winning corporation-wide multi-site licences once a significant number of sites have been converted with any one company or authority. Traditionally, we have offered the Envirosuite platform on a site basis, and multi-site licences offer the prospect of subscriptions in the hundreds of thousand dollars. For all clients, we continue to sell the Envirosuite platform on a recurring SaaS licence basis.As indicated previously we are targeting a minimum of 100% growth in annuity revenues year on year for the 2018 and 2019 financial years.To view the full release, please visit:About EnviroSuite Limited

EnviroSuite Limited (ASX:EVS) (FRA:57P) is an environmental management technology company that has developed a leading Software-as-Service platform which translates data into action in real-time.

Using proprietary algorithms built on more than 30 years of environmental consulting experience, Envirosuite's platform provides a range of environmental monitoring, management and investigative capabilities.

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Quarterly Activities and Cashflow Report

Melbourne, Jan 31, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Australian Internet of Things (IoT) technology company, Xped Limited ( ASX:XPE ) ("Xped" or "the Company") is pleased to provide this market update regarding recent progress and developments.Highlights- Vital Xense government grant- Lenze iPark shipments begin- Telink developments- Smart buildings products progress- Smart home products progress- Investment in Marketplace Services Pty Ltd to grow Xerts- Cost savings and Board restructure- Areas of key focusVital Xense government grantVital Xense and its partners announced recently that they have won a grant from the Singapore Government worth over SG $2M. The grant is to fund research into optimizing the energy usage of data centres.As part of this trial, a major data centre in Singapore will be fitted out with hundreds of sensors to monitor the temperature, humidity and air pressure.This information will be gathered and analyzed to determine how to optimally control the chiller plant to maintain the data centre's service level agreement with its customers while minimizing energy usage.Xped is expecting Vital Xense (a Singapore company 35% owned by Xped) to place an order for its Discover Bus range of wired and wireless sensors in the next few weeks.Lenze iPark shipments beginXped is pleased to announce that after a trial batch was tested in the field - which resulted in approximately 16,000 downloads of the iPark App - production shipments commenced in December and to date there have been approximately 29,000 downloads of the iPark app.In November, Lenze won a new customer and the iPark app was rebranded as iCarPark.There was a delay putting this new app on the Apple App Store due to Apple requesting samples of the hardware for verification. Apple's verification went smoothly and authorisation to release the app to the App Store was granted on 15 December 2017.Telink developmentsXped has developed a BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) based infrared blaster based on the Telink 8267 chip.The blaster also includes a chip from UEI, which is one of the market leaders in infrared technology.The UEI chip comes with a database containing the control codes for most of the popular appliances available. The product is currently being integrated into the Xped app and can be used without an Xped IoT gateway.Once this work has been completed, a preproduction run will be scheduled and samples will be made available for beta testing and for business development purposes.The "BLE Tap" technology is now integrated into the Telink 8261 chip which operates as a standalone subsystem. This chip can be used by device manufacturers to facilitate the pairing of a device using a tap gesture with phones that do not have NFC.This makes it possible for iPhones to tap on devices that incorporate this chip. Xped will be working closely with Telink to promote this technology to its existing client base.Smart building productsThe first order for these products is expected to come from Vital Xense for its data centre project. Manufacturing of Xped's smart buildings products is expected to commence on receipt of a purchase order.These products based on patented ADRC technologies, are quick and easy to install and provide superior functionality as well as ultra-low power operation, enabling them to run on a coin cell battery for up to 10 years.The range of smart building products can now be viewed on the company website (effective December 2017).Smart home productsXped is in the final stages completing the development of its first offering of products intended for the smart home market.These products are targeted at home security, which independent research shows is the area of greatest demand by consumers. The range of devices includes: motion sensors, door/window sensors, panic button, light switches, LED RGBW lights, glass break sensors, indoor and outdoor sirens, and indoor and outdoor IP cameras.The selected devices which come from a range of popular vendors, use Wi-Fi and Z-wave communication technologies and are controlled by an Xped developed IoT gateway.The Xped app is able to control and monitor these devices as well as providing 'scenes', 'rules automation' and 'notification' functionality.Scenes provide a convenient way to set a number of devices into a desired state. For example, a 'scene' called 'Watch TV' can be created by a user to turn on the TV, set the input to HDMI1, turn on the surround sound system and turn on the Apple TV - all with the touch of a single button.Rules automation is a very powerful feature that allows things to be controlled based on events generated by sensors or based on the time of day or on a particular date and time. For example, a 'rule' can be created by a user to turn on a siren when a window breaks or to turn on a light at 6am Monday to Friday.Notifications enable the user to receive a notification on their mobile phone when something happens in the home. Notifications are sent using the push notification feature of iOS and Android and will be received whether the Xped DeB app is running or not. For example, a user can enable a notification to be sent when the front door is opened.This advanced system that works across multiple different IoT protocols and vendors, including Xped's own ADRC protocol was demonstrated to a major Asian telco (during January), who have subsequently invited Xped to install the system in the demonstration centre at its corporate headquarters.Voice control of these products will be possible in Q3 after integration of the Amazon Alexa service has been completed.Investment in Marketplace Services Pty Ltd to grow XertsXped invested in Marketplace Services Pty Ltd (MPS) in December in the form of 25 million ordinary shares while providing a loan facility of $350,000 in the form of a convertible note repayable in 24 months.This relationship allows Xped to focus on the commercialisation of its core ADRC technologies whilst Marketplace Services Pty Ltd undertakes business development of Xped's patented digital coupon technology known as Xerts for the Australian market.Cost savings and Board restructureWell-respected South Australian businessman, Mr Peter Hunt, was appointed as Xped's Non- Executive Chairperson in September last year as part of the Company's overall strategy to prioritise its development resources on opportunities with the highest likelihood of revenue return.Following Mr Hunt's appointment, the Board commenced an organisational restructure spanning the entire business. As a result, the Board was reduced from five directors to three with Dr Wenjun Sheng and Martin Despain resigning from their roles as Directors and moving into retainer-based consultancy agreements to continue their business development efforts with Xped, with further remuneration being aligned to revenue-based performance.Mr John Schultz also resigned from the Board allowing Mr Hunt to join the Board while keeping the Xped Board to three. Mr Schultz continues in his role as the Head of Projects for Xped.His resignation from the Board has increased his capacity to manage internal engineering teams, which has seen development pace increase within Xped's hardware and devices team. Other cost savings included a review of professional services providers and consultants, as well as a review of human resources expenditure performed by TBH Consulting.Areas of key focusKey areas of focus for Xped currently are the commercialisation of its ADRC technology with telecommunication carriers, data centre operators and property developers being priority target markets.During the quarter, Xped's 100% owned subsidiary, JCT Healthcare, continued to generate revenue and is in the delivery phase of several of the previously announced contract wins with these projects to be delivered this financial year.JCT Healthcare continues to pursue further sales opportunities and continues to support channel partners and resellers in sales and project delivery activities.Another priority for the company has been to transition JCT Healthcare to a stand-alone business. This has included moving all staff and other parts of the business into one location.About XPED Ltd

XPED Ltd (ASX:XPE) is an Australian Internet of Things (IoT) technology business. Xped has developed revolutionary and patent-protected technology that allows any consumer, regardless of their technical capability, to connect, monitor and control devices and appliances found in our everyday environment. Xped provides technology solutions for Smart Home, Smart Building, and Healthcare.

At Xped, were Making Technology Easy Again(TM)The Nevada Gaming Control Board is investigating allegations of sexual misconduct against casino mogul Steve Wynn.

The board governs Nevada's massive gaming industry. It announced its probe on Tuesday, just days after a Wall Street Journal report detailed a series of sexual misconduct allegations made against Wynn by dozens of current and former employees of Wynn Resorts.

Becky Harris, chairwoman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, said it was unclear how long the investigation will last.

Wynn, 76, has denied the allegations, calling them "preposterous."

Other regulatory organizations -- both domestic and foreign -- are also investigating allegations against Wynn. Earlier Tuesday, officials in the Chinese gambling hub Macau expressed concern about reports of Wynn's "inappropriate behavior" during a meeting with Wynn Macau's leadership. The Macau officials said they asked the company for more information.

Related: Steve Wynn allegations: Here's his response

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission said Sunday it was reviewing a license it issued to Wynn Resorts for a resort casino.

"The Commission is now aware of and is taking very seriously the troubling allegations detailed in the Wall Street Journal article," said Elaine Driscoll, director of communications for the Massachusetts Gaming Commission.

Related: Macau gambling officials want answers from Steve Wynn

Leaders within Wynn's own organization also want answers. On Friday, Wynn Resorts' board of directors announced that it formed a special committee to investigate the company's founder and CEO. The company had previously issued a statement criticizing the Journal report.As Israel's ambassador to Washington and, later, as a member of its government, I held many conversations with Arab diplomats, ministers, journalists and businessmen from Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf States. All candidly offered their views on the Middle East and, without exception, all believed that America was secretly allied with Iran.

These leaders had a long list of evidence. Fighting Iran's enemies such as Saddam Hussein, ISIS and the Taliban, while refusing to stop Iranian conquests in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq, was presented as proof of Washington's collusion with Tehran.

Further confirmation was seen in America's failure to support the June 2009 Green Revolution in Iran, to meaningfully punish the ayatollahs for supporting terror (beyond sanctions) and to prevent them from developing intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the West. From leading mass chants of "Death to America" to killing many hundreds of US soldiers, Iranian aggression -- so my Arab interlocutors held -- would never elicit a strong American response.

Yet no evidence was more damning than the Iranian nuclear deal. Instead of presenting Iran's regime with the choice between retaining the nuclear infrastructure unnecessary for a civilian energy program and survival, international negotiators, led by the United States, guaranteed both. By lifting sanctions and reopening Iran to international business, the deal enabled the regime to overcome financial crises and more brutally suppress its domestic opponents.

And rather than dismantling Iran's nuclear infrastructure, the deal preserved it intact and even permitted research and development of far more advanced centrifuges. Under the deal's "sunset clauses," the restrictions on enrichment will expire in eight to 10 years, at which time Iran will be able to produce enough uranium for dozens of nuclear weapons in a very short time.

Hearing this same viewpoint from so many influential Arabs, I couldn't help but find it compelling. There was certainly a strong case for accusing the Obama administration of pivoting toward Iran. Still, as an Israeli familiar with American policymaking, I did not believe that the United States had pursued a grand strategy of abandoning the Sunni world in favor of the Islamic Republic. Rather, I believed that American leaders made decisions in the Middle East that, even if inadvertently, benefited Iran. Yet as an Israeli, I cannot afford to ignore widespread perceptions in the Arab world. And neither should Americans.

There is much discussion over the international impact of nullifying or amending the Iranian nuclear deal. Advocates of the deal warn that canceling it will cost America credibility abroad and alienate important allies. But it is the deal itself that has created a credibility deficit for the United States in the Middle East, weakening America's ability to overcome threats and mediate peace. Destabilizing actors, first among them Iran, have exploited the perceived decline in America's regional prestige. Now, after 50 years of US dominance in the Middle East -- the so-called Pax Americana -- Russia has returned as a regional power.

Fortunately, the process of restoring America's stature in the Middle East has begun. President Donald Trump's recent decision to decertify the nuclear deal and submit it for congressional revision was broadly hailed in both the Arab states and Israel. So, too, was the 120-day deadline he set for Europe to amend the deal.

Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, similarly gained credit for focusing UN attention on the serial violations of the Security Council bans of Iran's ballistic missile tests and its bankrolling of terror. The support that the White House gave to many thousands of Iranians who recently demonstrated against the ayatollahs' repressive regime was also greeted throughout our region as a sign of revived moral clarity.

But more remains to be done. The international community, led by the United States, could mount a campaign to roll back Iranian conquests and combat Iranian-backed terror such as the reported 2011 plan -- thankfully thwarted -- to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States and blow up a popular restaurant in Washington. The production and testing of ICBMs by Iran must also instantly and completely stop.

Most crucially, efforts must be made either to cancel the nuclear deal or link it to Iranian behavior. A regime complicit in the massacre of a half-million Syrians cannot, for example, possess the means to make nuclear bombs. The dangers of the "sunset clause" must be addressed by assuring that the deal's restrictions will never expire as long as Iran is ruled by a terror-sponsoring regime. Meanwhile, international inspectors must have access to all of Iran's nuclear-related facilities, including the military sites currently exempted by the deal.

Standing firmly with its Arab and Israeli allies against Iran will contribute immensely to restoring America's credibility in the Middle East. It will have a material and positive effect on nonproliferation efforts elsewhere in the world. Reinstating the Pax Americana will help Arabs and Israelis meet in an atmosphere of renewed confidence in the United States and its paramount role in our region.Redding Police Department is investigating a social media scare directed at Enterprise High School.

According to school officials, an unidentified student took to popular social media outlet Snapchat and posted a message of himself with a gun and the caption dont come to school tmr.

School officials promptly called Redding Police officers who went to the students home. The school reiterated that the student was not on campus and will face disciplinary action for the threatening message.

Classes at Enterprise High School were unaffected by the threat. The incident remains under investigation.An Oroville driver who killed two young men on Highway 70 last November was in Butte County Superior Court today where he plead as charged to Vehicular Manslaughter While Intoxicated with two prior DUI convictions. Additionally, he admitted a special allegation of causing death to multiple victims and now faces a prison term of 16 years to life.

District Attorney Mike Ramsey said 44-year-old Marc Edward Andrews had been speeding west on Palermo Road approximately 5:30 p.m. on November 19, 2017, when he failed to stop at the stop sign located at Palermo Road and Highway 70.

Andrews vehicle collided with a Toyota Echo traveling southbound on Highway 70 killing the driver, 20-year-old Mason Oakes, and 18-year-old Ryan Jensen, both of Yuba City.

Ramsey said a black box reader in Andrews car was downloaded and showed he had been traveling 101mph just 5 seconds prior to impact. At the moment of impact, Andrews vehicle was shown to be traveling at 55mph. Ramsey said Andrews blood alcohol level .31% -- almost four times the legal limit of .08 percent. Andrews only suffered a dislocated ankle and a small abrasion on his forehead in the crash.

Ramsey said Andrews had suffered two prior DUI convictions in 2014 and 2016 and was on active DUI probation at the time of this offense. Under the California law known as Courtneys Law, Andrews faces life imprisonment because he was a repeat intoxicated driver.

Jensen and Oakes were cousins and had been traveling back to the Yuba City area after visiting a friend. Jensen had recently graduated from high school and was scheduled to begin college at BYU, Idaho in January 2018. His cousin, Oakes, had just returned from a two-year service mission for his church in Argentina.

Andrews will be sentenced on March 9, 2018 at 8:30 a.m. and he remains in custody without bail.British Prime Minister Theresa May began a visit to China on Wednesday as she tries to strengthen her countrys global trade links before its contentious divorce with the European Union.

May arrived in the central industrial city of Wuhan and will be in the country until Friday in what the Chinese foreign ministry has called a historic visit.

She was heading to Beijing later Wednesday to meet Premier Li Keqiang.

My visit will intensify the Golden Era in UK-China relations. The depth of our relationship means we can have frank discussions on all issues, she said earlier this week.

May is battling criticism of her Brexit strategy back home. The House of Lords is scrutinising a key piece of legislation on quitting the EU as a leaked government report shows only economic downsides to leaving the bloc.

Britains ties with China have grown in importance as London contemplates its economic future after it officially leaves the EU in March 2019.

China is delivering a new source of capital that with the appropriate safeguards in place  can help us to invest in the future of our country, she wrote in a column in the Financial Times.

Together, that means a stronger British economy and more and better jobs for British workers.

May is accompanied by her husband Philip and a delegation of 50 business leaders and organisation representatives, which her office said was the largest Britain has ever taken overseas.

May will also take the opportunity to discuss a wide range of other issues, including climate change and North Korea, but she was also under pressure to address the political situation in former colony Hong Kong and human rights abuses in mainland China.

China also has high expectations that London will endorse its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a massive infrastructure project aimed at reviving ancient Silk Road trade routes between the East and West and creating greater market access for Chinese companies.

Its natural that Belt and Road cooperation is an opportunity for the two sides to tap into our cooperation for win-win results, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Tuesday.

The British government, however, has been less sanguine about the project, with Mays spokesman saying that while the idea holds promise, it is vital that BRI projects meet international standards.

She will hold talks with President Xi Jinping on Thursday and finish her visit Friday in the eastern business hub of Shanghai.Actor Emily Blunt has joined Dwayne Johnson in Disneys Jungle Cruise.

The feature is based on the classic Disneyland ride, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Directed by The Shallows helmer Jaume Collet-Serra, the film will begin production in May.

Michael Green has penned the most recent draft of the screenplay, originally written by JD Payne and Patrick McKay.

Johnson will also produce the project with Dany Garcia, the co-CEO of the duos Seven Bucks Productions banner.The moon will stage a rare triple show on Wednesday when a blue super moon combines with a total lunar eclipse that will be visible from western North America to eastern Asia, U.S. astronomers say.

The overlap of a blue moon  the second full moon in a calendar month  with a lunar eclipse while the moon is at its closest approach to the earth is the first such celestial trifecta since 1982, said Noah Petro, a research scientist at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center outside Washington.

Just having these three things simultaneously occur is unusual, Petro said in a telephone interview. A blue moon is not extremely rare but its a nice coincidence that it happens in conjunction with these other two.

A blue moon normally occurs about once every 2-1/2 years. This months first full moon was on Jan. 1.

The blue moon also will be a super moon, which occurs when it is at or near its closest point to the earth, or perigee. A super moon is about 14 percent brighter than usual, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said.

The total lunar eclipse, which can be seen from everywhere in India, begins at 5.20 pm with what is called the partial shadow or penumbra of the earths shadow striking the moon.

The main eclipse will start around 6.25 pm after sunset and this can be seen in the eastern sky as the moon would have just risen by then.

Wednesdays moon will be the second closest of 2018 after the one on Jan. 1.

In India, the eclipse will start around 05:18 pm IST. It will be total at 06:21 pm and remain fullest till 07:37 pm.

Then after, the total eclipse will end and the Moon will slowly come out of the shadow of the Earth, the partial eclipse ending around 08:41 hrs. The totality of the eclipse will last for about 1 hour and 16 minutes.

In Asia, the last Blue Moon and total lunar eclipse happened on December 30, 1982.Pakistans spy agency ISI trained a terrorist involved in the attack on Kabuls iconic Intercontinental Hotel in which over 20 people were killed, a top Afghanistan envoy has alleged.

Afghanistans Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Mahmoud Saikal, made the serious allegation against the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in a tweet on Tuesday.

Abdul Qahar, father of one of the terrorists involved in last week attack on #Kabul Intercontinental Hotel, concedes his son was trained in Chaman of #Balochistan Province of #Pakistan by the Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan. Qahar is currently in custody of Afg authorities, Saikal tweeted.

On January 20, Taliban men armed with Kalashnikovs and suicide vests attacked the landmark Intercontinental Hotel and killed around 25 people, going from room to room searching for foreigners during the more than 12-hour ordeal.

A mid-level diplomat at the Afghan Embassy in the US has alleged that the attack was planned by Pakistan.

A clear proof that the attack on Kabuls Inter (Con) Hotel was planned in a madrasa, on Pakistans soil. Abdul Qahar, the father of one of the suicide attackers is an eyewitness of the story, tweeted Majeed Qarar, Cultural Attache at the Embassy of Afghanistan.

The night vision goggles found with Taliban attackers in maiwands ANA base were military grade goggles (not sold to public) procured by Pak army from a British company & supplied 2 Lashkar-e-Tayyeba in Kashmir & Taliban in Afghanistan. Lashkar-e-Tayyeba is an intl terrorist org, he said in another tweet.

The Afghan Ambassador to the US, Hamidullah Mohib, did not respond to questions on the tweet by one of his cultural attaches.

The hotel attack was followed by a Taliban-claimed ambulance bombing on January 27 in the Afghan capital that claimed over 100 lives.

The continued attacks in Afghanistan by the Taliban prompted severe condemnation from the US as well as the UN Security Council, which have sought to bring to justice the perpetrators of the attack.The prime accused in the murder case of Chandan Gupta during Kasganj violence has been arrested on Wednesday.

The Uttar Pradesh Police arrested the main accused Salim from Kasganj on Wednesday for the murder of Chandan Gupta who died on January 26.

On Tuesday, Inspector General (IG) Sanjeev Gupta said that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) has been constituted to probe the violence that erupted in Uttar Pradeshs Kasganj last week.

He also said that a magisterial inquiry has been ordered to probe the violence.

The clash broke out after an unauthorised bike rally was taken out by RSS-affiliated students group Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) in the city to commemorate the Republic Day and allegedly stones were pelted at them during the roadshow.Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Wednesday denounced a demand to have a separate state for Muslims, in an apparent reference to a top clerics suggestion made on Tuesday.

J&K was neither a party to the partition of our country nor did we support division on religious lines. We as a state opted for the opposite, but unfortunately are still paying the price.

I strongly condemn any statement made asking for Muslims in India to demand a separate state, the Chief Minister posted on Twitter, though she did not name anyone.

On Tuesday, the deputy grand mufti of Jammu and Kashmir, Nasir-ul-Islam, had alleged that Muslims in the country were living a pathetic life and they should demand a separate state within India.

Muslims are being harassed under various pretexts such as love jihad and cow vigilantism They are being targeted.

If it continues like this, then they should demand a separate country within India, the cleric had told reporters.The Supreme Court on Wednesday sent back Karti Chidambarams plea that challenged the Look Out Circular issued against him by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to the Madras High Court.

Chidambaram, who is an accused in an alleged INX Media money laundering case, appealed to the apex court seeking its approval to allow him to travel abroad.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing Karti, urged the three-judge bench of the apex court to allow his client to travel abroad for business purpose.

However, earlier the apex court had allowed Karti to travel abroad from December 1 to 10, 2017, for his daughters admission in the UK, on certain terms and conditions.

It has been alleged that Karti illegally took service charges for getting the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to the INX Media for receiving funds from abroad worth Rs 305 crore in 2007 when P Chidambaram was the finance minister in the Congress-led UPA Government.

A lookout notice issued by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on July 18 prevented Karti from travelling abroad without the investigating agencys permission.Being born in a very orthodox Brahmin family, my religious conditioning has lots of influences on me. Since childhood, the Sun, the Moon and the demon Rahu was daily check; as I grew older things changed a bit but still these planets scare me at times. India is home to some of the oldest religions in the world and our daily lives are virtually built around their ethnicities. With customs have come some beliefs, some of them really unwise, that we have adhered to, like we were stuck to them with glue, because there is fear of getting punished by God, stars, planet and other elements.

Where there is fear there is vulnerability, while coming to office I received many messages on WhatsApp about do and donts in the Lunar Eclipse timings. The information was not limited to this but also there was prediction, which zodiac moon sign has worst time ahead. I first checked my zodiac sign and then moved further to read others but few predictions were so worst, that person could have died of heart attack. I called some of those rumourmonger Pandits, however one of them was very aggressive alleging me of making fun of religion. Though my intention was just to tell him not to scare the people with predictions for the sake of business, but guide them selflessly as they are the self-declared custodians of my religion.

The story of eclipses in Hindu mythology dates back to the Samudra Manthan, as described in both Bhagavata Purana and Vishnu Purana. After the Amrit or elixir of immortality was churned out of the ocean, the Devas used the Apsara Mohini to trick the Asuras out of its share. One of the Asuras, Svarbhanu, disguised himself as a Deva, and sat between the Sun and the Moon for a drink of the elixir.

When Vishnu came closer, the Sun and the Moon revealed that Svarbhanu was a demon. By this time, however, Svarbhanu had already sipped on the drink. Vishnu immediately cut off his head, but since the demon had already swallowed a bit of the nectar, his head became immortal. The head, known as a separate entity called Rahu (the detached body came to be known as Ketu), and then swore vengeance against the Sun and the Moon for depriving him of the elixir. So, from time to time, Rahu catches up with the Sun and the Moon, and swallows them. The incident doesnt last long because Rahu has no hands to grab onto these two celestial gods.

In fact, science can take a hike as far as were concerned. We add a rupee to a gift sum because its auspicious, and believe snakes drink milk. If snakes knew theres something called Naga Panchami, theyd probably run for their lives or slide. Whatsoever, for the believers the Lunar Eclipse came up with so many instructions and fallacy.

As I mentioned above, Rahu kaal is definitely considered to be highly inauspicious. Misconceptions surrounding the eclipses state that harmful agents are at play during these periods, and so, every action should be guided by utmost caution during eclipses. The absence of the Suns rays can increase the amount of bacteria and germs in the atmosphere, thereby polluting people. In the same manner absence of Moon rays, there would be darkness in lives. Scientifically, there may not be strong grounds to justify few claims but our religion has many reservations.

So coming back to a morning message that mentioned worshipping or touching gods is strictly prohibited during this period. Even temple doors usually stay closed during eclipses. After the eclipse ends, the idols are supposed to be washed with Ganga water to purify them. Meditation, chanting hymns or mantras and singing devotional songs during an eclipse are supposed to protect one from the evil effects. The rules dictate that no food should be cooked during the eclipse. Leftovers are finished off before the period of the eclipse. Some people in India leave tulsi or Indian basil leaves on cooked food items, and cover them to keep them safe. Sleeping, urination, defecation, sexual intercourse and makeup are also prohibited during the eclipse. Pregnant women are considered to be especially susceptible to the evil forces during eclipses. Not only are they supposed to abstain from activities like cutting vegetables and stitching clothes, but also in some parts of India, theyre not even supposed to sit with their legs crossed.

After the eclipse is over, people are directed to take a bath, and change into fresh and clean clothes. Sprinkling of Ganga water or taking a dip in the Ganga is also supposed to wash away the evil done by the eclipse. While natural phenomenon like science and scientists in details have explained solar and lunar eclipses; even the Indian mathematician Aryabhata gave the perfect scientific explanation for it in the fifth century  religion lies in the domain of faith. You may or may not believe in these superstitions around the total solar eclipse, but they manage to comfort those who believe in mythical celestial events find comfort in them. Thanks to modern science, the reason for an eclipse and its pathway are common knowledge and towns in the eclipses path viewed the event. However, this is a far cry from prior superstitions and myths that kept people indoors and cowering in fear as the Sun or moon disappeared or changed colour. There are many reasons that cultures responded to an eclipse with fright rather than with celebration. Time has shown that this panic was groundless, but myths continue be part of the folklore. It might be hard to picture panic ensuing during an eclipse in modern day India, but according to Live Science, ancient peoples sought to explain an eclipse the best way they could. Our cultures believed gods and demons were involved, while others cited dragons.

It is unclear where this tale originates, but it persists. In the cultures, this myth is believed strongly. When people feel the world is out of their control, they look for external sources of control  superstitions are really a reaction to feeling out of control. People like to put a sense of control around chaos or uncertainty. But still, there are many myths one unknowingly follows and for some that following becomes business.

(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on [email protected])Indian Navy has carried out hydrographic surveys of many island nations in the Indian Ocean region and will continue to do so, its chief Admiral Sunil Lanba said on Wednesday. His comments came in the backdrop of a revised agreement between India and the Seychelles for the development of infrastructure facilities on Assomption Island, which lies southwest of Mahe, the largest island of that country. We have carried out hydrographic surveys for (a) number of island nations in the Indian Ocean region, and we will continue to do that, Lanba told reporters after the launch of Karanj, the third state-of-the-art Scorpene-class submarine here.

The two countries had signed an agreement to develop infrastructure on Assomption Island during Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to the Seychelles in 2015. We are not going to acquire Assomption Island, but (the Indian) government is going to make some facilities there, he said. On Sri Lanka formally handing over the strategic southern port of Hambantota to China on a 99-year-lease, in a a USD 1.1 billion deal, the Navy chief said, Hambantota is a commercial harbour and Sri Lankans have assured us that it will be used as commercial harbour only. Last year, the Indian Navy had carried out a joint hydrographic survey of Sri Lankas Weligama Bay and southern coast, in a reflection of the growing cooperation between navies of the two countries. Hydrographic survey data for more than 7,000 nautical miles was collected during a two-month-long exercise.Dutch shippers and forwarders have urged the countrys transport minister to expedite the implementation of a local rule designed to mitigate a freighter slot shortage at Schiphol following a meeting in parliament last week.

Industry groups evofenedex, TLN and Air Cargo Netherlands (ACN) said that during the recent meeting with the Parliaments Aviation Commission, the Transport Minister Cora van Nieuwenhuizen acknowledged the need for a local rule for all-cargo carriers at Amsterdam Schiphol, but she didnt indicate the date of effectiveness.

Without the rule being effective, the air cargo industry and its customers fear that the reduction of all-cargo flights at Schiphol will continue, the groups said.

This will impact employment in the air cargo industry and may damage the position of Dutch exporters and importers.

In the current IATA winter season, which started at the end of October, there has been a decrease of around 12% of the number of full freighters calling the main Dutch airport.

The discussions come as the airport last year almost breached its 500,000 annual aircraft movement cap.

The local rule proposal will see freighter operators receive priority for up to 25% of any unused pre-allocated slots that are returned for re-allocation.

Approval and implementation of the local rule has been delayed due to technical discussion within the Coordination Committee Netherlands (CCN) last December.

But the issue was discussed during a local rule working group meeting mid January.

A second meeting is planned on this topic to draft a final text and subsequently, it will be presented to the CCN for voting in an extraordinary meeting around on February 14.

CCNs advice will be sent to the Ministry of Transport in order for them to check, confirm and communicate to the European Commission.

The proposed rule should not affect the independent status of the coordinator, must comply with Community law and has to improve the efficient use of airport capacity, ACN said.

Moreover, the airport slot co-ordinator of the Netherlands, Airport Coordination Netherlands has to prepare for a swift implementation, hopefully before the IATA summer seasons gets underway (March 25)."

Cargo carriers have suffered disproportionately due to the lack of slots because, under existing IATA rules, any airline that uses more than 80% of its allocated slots acquires a historic right to them and will automatically be allowed to operate its flights next season. But those that use fewer than 80% of their allocated slots automatically lose them.

All-cargo carriers, with their less regular schedules, often find it difficult to comply with the 80% rule. However, a local rule would override this and allow slots to be re-allocated back to cargo airlines.

Schiphol airport has now confirmed that it saw an increase of 5.4% on yearly tonnage in 2017 with strong demand in the Far East for European goods boosting total figures to 1,752,498 tonnes.

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Advocates for poultry workers are hailing a U.S. Department of Agriculture decision this week not to waive all line speed limits in poultry plants.

On Monday, the department rejected a request from the National Chicken Council that would have eliminated line speeds, allowing companies to set their own limits.

The National Chicken Council proposed that plants be allowed to operate at any line speed at which they can maintain process control. A waiver would have allowed them to develop quality control and corrective actions.

The USDA said it was not necessary "to establish a separate system to provide line speed waivers." The council said it is "encouraged that there will be a viable path forward" for plants to responsibly increase line speeds.

Carmen Rottenberg, acting deputy under office of food safety, said the USDA received more than 100,000 comments on the issue.

The move was opposed by labor, civil rights and consumer protection groups. The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, for example, sent 25,000 members door-to-door lobbying against the issue. Union President Stuart Applebaum said the union would work against any similar proposal.

"I am proud of how effective the councils of the RWDSU were in the face of grave odds," he said. "They defeated a proposal that would have put not just their own lives at risk, but the lives of every American that eats chicken."

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which also opposed the waiver, has long contended that the current limit of 140 birds per minute is already too high and puts worker safety and food safety at risk. SPLC says workers are more susceptible to repetitive motion injuries and less able to take bathroom breaks.

"We will continue to fight to ensure that this administration keeps the health and safety of our nation's poultry workers in mind as they consider case-by-case exceptions to the agency's current line speed guidelines," the center said in a statement.

Alabama workers kill and harvest a billion chickens annually and the industry has a $15 billion annual economic impact in the state.Attorneys for the state of Alabama and for a death row inmate appeared in federal court Wednesday morning for a hearing regarding motions in the inmate's case.

The hearing was set in U.S. Chief District Judge Karon O Bowdre's courtroom to hear arguments regarding the state and Alabama Department of Corrections' motion to dismiss Doyle Lee Hamm's claim that he is too sick to be executed by lethal injection.

Hamm, 60, has been on death row since 1987 after being convicted of killing a Cullman motel clerk. His execution date is set for Feb. 22.

His attorney, who is also a professor of law and political science at Columbia, Bernard Harcourt has argued that Hamm has lymphatic cancer and intravenous injection of the lethal drugs will cause significant pain and suffering. He states Hamm's only accessible vein is not large enough for the procedure.

Alabama's lethal injection procedure requires three drugs to be injected into the inmate, with the first being the sedative midazolam.

Assistant Alabama Attorney Generals Thomas Govan and Beth Jackson Hughes argued that there is no evidence to support Harcourt's argument that Hamm's condition has worsened to the extent that he cannot be executed.

Hamm was present for the hearing Wednesday, but it was unclear if he will testify. His case, filed in the Northern District of Alabama, focuses on an issue regarding a federal court decision that requires an inmate to suggest an alternative method of execution. Harcourt states Hamm should be killed via oral injection-- which midazolam cannot be used for.

In opening statements, Govan said the court should dismiss the case because Hamm has waited an unreasonable amount of time to file his claim. He said that, assuming Hamm's longstanding medical conditions could cause an issue with intravenous access, evidence doesn't show that deterioration happened recently enough to warrant the delay. Govan also said the statue of limitations has expired on Hamm's claim, as Alabama adopted its current method of execution in 2002.

In his opening statement, Harcourt said the case is not specifically about lethal injection or the procedure used in executions, but about Hamm's venous access and particular medical condition. He said that Hamm's cancer and other medical issues culminated with his previous intravenous drug use have made it virtually impossible to find a vein large enough to insert a catheter for the execution drugs. He referenced affidavits of DOC nurses, who claimed they tried to draw blood multiple times from a single vein on Hamm's hand, and often had to "stick him" several times before being successful.

According to information revealed in court and through records, Hamm was diagnosed with cancer in 2014 and underwent treatment. The DOC said Hamm's cancer went into remission in March 2016, and no scans from an oncologist have been performed since. In the spring of 2017, Hamm complained of having lumps on his chest and abdomen area. An X-ray was preformed, but no PET scans or biopsies were completed. Earlier this month, doctors said there was no evidence of cancer in his clavicle, but did not have a definitive answer about the other lumps.

"I do think there is a lot of questions about Mr. Hamm's current medical condition," Bowdre said.

Govan argued that even if the lumps in Hamm's chest and abdomen are cancerous, they would not affect the veins needed to insert an IV for his execution, which could be done in the arms or legs. He said there is no definite evidence his veins are significantly different than they were years ago.

He also argued that if Hamm thought his cancer had come back last spring, he shouldn't have waited nine months to file his case. He said Hamm's sentence needs to be carried out for the victim's family, and the period where the case was not filed can delay the case for years.

"If I allow this case to go forward... [there] will be a prompt resolution," Bowdre said. "It will be my highest priority."

The ADOC has never publicly revealed its execution protocol, so the exact procedure or placement of an IV is unknown.

The hearing will continue Wednesday afternoon.The teen charged in the 2016 rape and robbery of a University of Alabama student was identified as a suspect through DNA.

Tuscaloosa authorities on Tuesday night announced the arrest of 19-year-old Colby Dewayne Daniel Lewis. He is charged with first-degree burglary, first-degree rape and first-degree sodomy in the Nov. 27, 2016 attack on the then-19-year-old student in her town home.

DNA taken from that attack matched Lewis' DNA that was obtained when he was arrested last month on a burglary charge in his hometown of Demopolis, said Tuscaloosa County Metro Homicide Unit Capt. Kip Hart. It was a welcomed break in a case that has been intensely worked for the past 14 months.

"We've been working very hard, following several leads,'' Hart said Wednesday.

The attack happened in the early-morning hours of that Sunday - about 12:45 a.m. - during the 2016 Iron Bowl weekend. The student lived in a town home in the 1200 block of Convent Street, which is several blocks southwest of the campus and an area popular among students for off-campus housing.

Investigators at the time said the victim had left The Strip and walked home alone. She went inside her two-story town home, and was upstairs in her bedroom getting ready for bed when she heard someone coming up the stairs and went to investigate. She came face-to-face with the man, who pointed a gun at her and then forcibly robbed and raped her. At least one shot was fired inside the town home.

Authorities withheld some details of the crime - including what items were stolen - for investigative reasons. They did, however, view footage from somewhere in the area that indicated there were still quite a few people out after Saturday's Iron Bowl that may have seen the suspect and thought him to be suspicious.

The suspect left after the attack, and the victim then called her family and went to a friend's home. Her roommate wasn't home at the time. From there, authorities were called, and the victim was taken to DCH Regional Medical Center for treatment.

Authorities said there was nothing to indicate that the victim and suspect knew each other, and they don't know whether she was specifically targeted or whether it was just a crime of opportunity. All they know is that he did follow her, but they weren't sure where or when he started to follow her.

Investigators at the time labeled the suspect as a "sexual predator" and described the crime as "brazen" considering the crowds still in the area following the Iron Bowl.

The suspect at the time was described as a black male in his early to mid-20s, at least 6-feet tall with a heavy build, was wearing a dark-colored hoodie and dark-colored pants. A composite sketch of him was released based on victim's description, yet that failed to lead to his arrest.

DNA taken from the attack was submitted to the Combined DNA Index System, better known as CODIS. The CODIS system stores and tracks DNA information to allow law enforcement investigators to cross-reference the specimens. All 50 states are part of the CODIS database, which Alabama joined in 1995. DNA is collected from all felony arrestees and sent to ADFS. In 2017 alone, the department matched more than 700 offenders to unsolved cases.

On Monday, Hart said, Tuscaloosa investigators received word from the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences that they had a "hit" on the DNA submitted from the rape.

That DNA belonged to Lewis and was collected as part of his Dec. 3 arrest in Demopolis. According to court records, Lewis was charged with third-degree burglary amid accusations he kicked in the door of an apartment and took a television.

That burglary case in Demopolis, however, was dismissed on Jan. 24, at the recommendation of prosecutors, records show.

Hart said once they received the notification from ADFS, they looked at Lewis based on that DNA and other evidence. They obtained the warrants and took him into custody Tuesday in Demopolis.

Hart said Lewis has a relative in Tuscaloosa, and reportedly takes classes at Shelton State Community College. "We are looking at him in other crimes in our jurisdiction and elsewhere,'' he said. "We're going to track his movements during that time frame."

Lewis remains in the Tuscaloosa County jail with bonds totaling $120,000.The gunman believed to have raped a then-19-year-old University of Alabama student in her townhome on the weekend of the 2016 Iron Bowl has now been identified and is in custody.

Colby Dewayne Daniel Lewis, 19, was taken into custody in Demopolis where he lives, said Tuscaloosa County Metro Homicide Unit Capt. Kip Hart.

Over the past two days, Hart said, investigators have followed new information which led to the warrants against Lewis. He is now charged with first-degree burglary, first-degree rape and first degree sodomy. His bonds total $120,000.

The attack happened in the early-morning hours of Sunday, Nov. 27, 2016. The assault happened about 12:45 a.m. inside the victim's townhome in the 1200 block of Convent Street, which is several blocks southwest of the campus and an area popular among students for off-campus housing.

Investigators at the time said the victim had left The Strip and walked home alone. She went inside her two-story townhome, and was upstairs in her bedroom getting ready for bed when she heard someone coming up the stairs and went to investigate. She came face-to-face with the man, who pointed a gun at her and then forcibly robbed and raped her.

Authorities withheld some details of the crime - including what items were stolen - for investigative reasons. They did, however, view footage from somewhere in the area that indicated there were still quite a few people out after Saturday's Iron Bowl that may have seen the suspect and thought him to be suspicious.

The suspect left after the attack, and the victim then called her family and went to a friend's home. Her roommate wasn't home at the time. From there, authorities were called and the victim was taken to DCH Regional Medical Center for treatment.

Authorities said there was nothing to indicate that the victim and suspect knew each other, and they don't know whether she was specifically targeted or whether it was just a crime of opportunity. All they know is that he did follow her, but they weren't sure where or when he started to follow her.

Investigators at the time labeled the suspect as a "sexual predator" and described the crime as "brazen" considering the crowds still in the area following the Iron Bowl.

The suspect at the time was described as a black male in his early to mid-20s, at least 6-feet tall with a heavy build, was wearing a dark-colored hoodie and dark-colored pants. A composite sketch of him was released based on victim's description, yet that failed to lead to his arrest.

Lewis was arrested on a third-degree felony burglary charge in Marengo County just last month but court records show that charge was dismissed five days ago.

Hart said additional information may be released on Wednesday.As America marks the 60th anniversary of the Explorer 1 satellite launch today, Dr. Joyce Neighbors will be remembering the start of America's space program in her home on a quiet Huntsville hillside.

Neighbors isn't as famous as Explorer launch leader Wernher von Braun or chief scientist James Van Allen. But maybe she should be.

Neighbors was the first woman to join von Braun's team in a technical role. A mathematician, she led her own team to calculate Explorer's trajectory - or path - so the team would know the highest point of its flight arc. That's when the upper-stage engines would be ignited.

It wasn't easy. No two rocket engines in those days were identical, no two fuel mixtures were exactly the same, and you couldn't put the fully assembled rocket on a scale to weigh it.

Her team did it, however, and her work on Explorer was important enough that Neighbors was asked to sign a now-historic mission chart along with von Braun, Ernst Stuhlinger and other giants of space exploration. But her boss asked Neighbors to use only her initials and her last name, because she was a woman. "They didn't think it would be as authentic if I signed with a woman's name," she said.

Just like NASA's now-famous "Hidden Figures" computer programmers, Neighbors wasn't welcomed in space world. "I was tolerated," she said. "And sometimes I was not treated very well."

Overcoming obstacles

But Neighbors had been overcoming obstacles for a lifetime starting on "a little rocky farm of 80 acres" in Randolph County. "My mother was extremely bright," she said, "and I think her frustration with her life, because there were eight of us, was one of sheer labor. I mean manual labor. I think she programmed all of us toward education. We were all expected to go to school. We never stayed out to work on the farm. We came home and changed clothes and worked on the farm. We were pretty poverty-ridden."

"I was always different," Neighbors said. "One time in the fifth grade, I was in a class - of course the teacher taught all the classes at that time - and she couldn't work a math problem and I could. I knew then for sure that I was gifted, and it was a gift."

Although she finished high school in 1948, Neighbors didn't start Auburn University until 1950. She needed to earn money to pay for her education, and she would work through her time there.

"They had plenty of women in the Math Department," she remembers. "The women at that time were pretty much characterized. If they wanted to have a career, they were either nurses, secretaries or teachers. Of course, they had to have math teachers."

Auburn discouraged women from engineering, she said, but its Physics Department "was quite inclusive." She would finish with a degree in mathematics and a double minor in physics. A year of graduate work in physics followed while her future husband, Bill Neighbors, finished Auburn after serving in the Korean War. "That was a very good marriage," she said. "We had a very successful partnership, much different I think than the average for that age and time."

'Nothing in Nashville'

The Neighbors came to Huntsville after Joyce couldn't get a job in Nashville, where Bill was working. She had been an engineering aide at the Arnold Air Force Base in Tullahoma, Tenn., but, "There was nothing for me in Nashville. Just absolutely nothing. I was told, 'We don't hire women.' I was just really discouraged."

But Huntsville was different. Bill would become a key player in America's shadowy Cold War intelligence struggle with Russia. Joyce would get a job with the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and join von Braun. That's where she was when the Army decided to lengthen a Redstone missile, do some fine-tuning on its engines, and be ready in case America wanted to launch a satellite for the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58.

"They were working with CalTech. JPL (the Jet Propulsion Laboratory) is the organization there," Neighbors remembers. "They were doing the upper stages. We were going to get them up out of the sensible atmosphere - or as far as we could."

Some of the rocket building happened at Chrysler in Huntsville, and some was done at Redstone. But the Army lost the honor of launching the first satellite to the Navy. "There was still a slight amount of hostility to the Germans," Neighbors said. "There were people in the system that were powerful enough to voice fairly prejudiced opinions. So, (President Dwight) Eisenhower said they would let the Navy launch the first satellite.

'But we went ahead'

"But we went ahead," Neighbors said. "The Army had built two missiles - the 27 C and the 29 C. And we launched the 27 in August of '57. I believe the Defense Department sent someone down to make sure we were not putting something in orbit. We justified it as testing and certifying the nose cone for re-entry."

Russia launched its Sputnik satellite on Oct. 4, 1957, and America was stunned and scared. Both countries had said they would launch satellites for the International Geophysical Year. But no one thought Russia would be first.

America's first try to duplicate the feat ended in disaster when the Navy's Vanguard missile exploded on the launch pad Dec. 6, 1957. Eisenhower gave the Army a chance, and the ABMA in Huntsville was ready with its second rocket, a modified Jupiter-C.

The rocket's first stage arrived at Cape Canaveral on Jan. 16, 1958. The upper stages followed Jan. 24. On the night of Jan. 31, the Jupiter C lifted off. Von Braun wasn't there to see it. He was in Washington with Dr. William Pickering, director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and chief scientist Van Allen, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Iowa.

"It was very successful," Neighbors remembers. "We went into a higher orbit that we expected, but they did (monitor), when they passed over the stations, bits and pieces of the magnetic field."

Van Allen had predicted the existence of a radiation field around Earth, and searching for it was the mission's chief scientific goal. There are actually two belts, now called the Van Allen Belts.

Back in Huntsville

Back in Huntsville, Neighbors eventually worked on Skylab and the Saturn rockets that would lift astronauts into space. She held a prestigious management position for an aersopace company in Denver. And along the way, she repeatedly faced the sexism of an time when a working woman was thought either a "quota" hire or taking a job a man could use to feed a family.

"Sometimes, I was not treated very well," she remembered. "But I always tried to make a joke of it. We were at lunch one day, and I said something about how in Huntsville you can tell where people live, because 536 were the only first three (telephone) numbers when we came here and shortly thereafter 539 was added, so that would be the periphery of Huntsville. I made a comment that you can tell where people live by their number.

"One guy said to the other guys, 'Isn't that just like a woman?'", Neighbors recalled. "I said, 'Well a man could have thought of that, too.' I never got into an argument. I knew I couldn't take on City Hall. I knew I couldn't win. But I wasn't going to lose."

After the moon landings, Neighbors' own job was threatened in a broad NASA cutback. "You don't really need your job," her boss said, citing her husband's good salary.

'He thought I would go'

"I had put this facade on," she said. "He didn't know what he was dealing with. He thought I would go quietly."

"I don't accept that," she said of the decision to separate her.

"There's nothing you can do about it," the boss replied.

"You may be surprised," Neighbors said.

"I turned into a tiger," she said. "I turned into my real self. I never covered who I am again. I was never pushy, I never stepped on anybody. But nobody was going to step on me."

Nobody stepped on her, and Neighbors stayed at NASA. She mastered project budgeting, advised center directors and worked hands-on with space hardware. At age 87, she still can't resist "a new gadget."

If any of that is surprising, you're still not getting Dr. Joyce Neighbors. Take a minute and look up from your device at a sky filled with satellites that make that device possible. And remember the men - and women - who helped put the first one up there.At least five Republican members of Alabama's congressional delegation were unharmed Wednesday after a chartered train they were riding in collided with a garbage truck in Virginia. The members and other congressional Republicans were en route to a retreat in West Virginia, the Associated Press reported.

Reps. Martha Roby, R-Montgomery, Bradley Byrne, R-Fairhope, Robert Aderholt, R-Haleyville, Gary Palmer, R-Hoover, and Mike Rogers, R-Saks tweeted that they were on the train but did not suffer injuries in the incident. Their spouses, who traveled with them, were also unharmed.

Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Huntsville, and Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., were not on the train.

In a phone interview with AL.com, Rogers said the chartered train had just passed Charlottesville, Virginia, when "there was a very severe bump that just jarred the whole train."

"It was kind of like if you were in a car and you ran over something kind of big," he said of the impact with the garbage truck.

"Before impact we were having a very uneventful train trip," Byrne said in a phone interview with AL.com. "And then there was this very abrupt jolt, and you could tell something was wrong with the train and it slowed and it stopped."

Rogers said the train continued moving about 200 yards before it came to a stop. The congressman said he then saw the wreckage, which included a trailer disengaged from the trash truck. Rogers said the train did not derail in the incident but the engine and locomotive fell to the ground after impact.

Two Capitol attending physicians were on the train with the congressmen, and five members of the House and Senate who are doctors were also on board. They began helping the victims on the ground, Rogers said.

"The [truck] driver was holding his head in a daze," the congressman said. "There was a victim on the ground clearly dead. Another victim was airlifted to the hospital. We were told it was likely they wouldn't make it."

I just wanted to send a quick note to let everyone know Caroline and I are fine. We were on the train headed to a Republican planning conference when the train collided with a truck. Im told one person in the truck has died. Our prayers to that persons family & any others hurt.  Rep. Robert Aderholt (@Robert_Aderholt) January 31, 2018

The train carrying GOP members to our retreat had a collision, but Rebecca and I are both okay. Security and doctors on board are helping secure the scene and treat injuries.  Rep. Bradley Byrne (@RepByrne) January 31, 2018

UPDATE: Mike and Beth are on the train, but are both OK. https://t.co/6MUWh2MvYd  Mike Rogers (@RepMikeRogersAL) January 31, 2018

We are okay. Please pray for all involved in this accident. https://t.co/Z2sCRaLw8x  Rep. Martha Roby (@RepMarthaRoby) January 31, 2018

It is believed that no one on the train suffered injuries, according to the AP.Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall announced Tuesday he has partnered with the National Attorneys General Training and Research Institute (NAGTRI) to provide specialized training for law enforcement and prosecutors on how to best handle cases involving deaths caused by overdoses of heroin and fentanyl.

Marshall's office said about 100 representatives from Alabama prosecutors' offices attended a seminar Tuesday.

Overdose deaths in Alabama and across the country have reached "crisis" proportions, with reports showing most of the overdose deaths are due to the use of opioids and heroin, Marshall said in a statement.

About 750 people in Alabama died from overdoses in 2016.

"Drug abuse is more dangerous than ever, with certain opioids such as fentanyl being fatal in very small amounts but being sold indiscriminately by dealers," Marshall said. "This can be tantamount to murder, with victims having no way of knowing they were taking something so powerful and deadly. It is important that we recognize this as something more than a tragic accident, and that these death scenes be evaluated with possible homicide in mind. Those involved in the sale of these opioids are profiting without care or regard for the lives destroyed by their lethal wares, and they should be held to account."

Steven T. Marshall

Tuesday's training session included presentations about changing the mindset at overdose death scenes and promoting agencies to cooperate to hold accountable those who dispense, manufacture or supply drugs that kill. It also included presentations about better understanding the components of an overdose death investigation, legal issues surrounding overdose deaths and the role of medical examiners in overdose death investigations.

NAGTRI is the training and research branch of the National Association of Attorneys General. The group provides training to state and territory attorney general offices.Alabama moved closer to setting up statewide regulations for ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft with a bill that passed the House of Representatives today.

The House voted 97-3 in favor of the bill after about three hours of debate, mostly over efforts to add specific prohibitions against discrimination.

The Senate passed a similar bill last week by a vote of 28-0.

About 15 Alabama cities have regulations for transportation network companies.

Advocates for a statewide law say it would help make ride services available statewide and create job opportunities for those who want to be drivers.

The bill by Rep. David Faulkner, R-Mountain Brook, would have ride-sharing companies collect a 1 percent fee on each fare. The money would go to the Public Service Commission, which would issue permits and regulate the companies.

The PSC could keep up to 50 percent of the fee revenue to cover the cost of regulation and would distribute the rest to cities and counties where rides originate.

Uber and Lyft support legislation setting up statewide regulations.

Faulkner said it's important to bring ride-sharing to areas that don't have it, including rural areas.

"It's about jobs, thousands of jobs all across the state," Faulkner said. "It's also about affordable, convenient transportation."

Faulkner said he expects either his bill or the Senate bill, sponsored by Sen. Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, to get final passage and go to Gov. Kay Ivey, who has endorsed the legislation.The government shutdown was over, and Varina Mead finally felt a little at ease. The single mother, 38, of Prattville smiled as she watched her two children put down their backpacks, curl up under on the red couch and watch "Surf's Up" while she prepared dinner in the kitchen.

No longer was she considering selling the Mazda to help pay for her children's prescriptions. No longer did she consider downsizing her home to afford a trip to the doctor.

For months, as Congress held off on reauthorizing the Children's Health Insurance Program, Mead fretted about how she'd manage if she had to buy private insurance through her nonprofit employer. She received a reprieve when President Donald Trump signed a bill to keep the program running for another six years, part of a deal to end the government shutdown.

"I live a pretty humble lifestyle and spend my days trying to better my community," she said. "I had no line items to cut."

The saga came with a cost. Even though no child in the country lost health-care coverage during the monthslong CHIP stalemate, the political brinkmanship left a heap of bureaucratic and psychological debris.

Its effect portends what could happen with other government programs if Congress continues without a long-term budget plan, passing temporary fix after temporary fix, while social programs continue to hang in the distance.

"There was harm and foul in this limbo period," said Jim Carnes, policy director of Alabama Arise, a local advocacy organization. "Those who contend that there wasn't do not appreciate the burden it put on working parents with children with health-care needs. They don't understand how unfair the process was to say, 'We're going to toy around with your children's health insurance for a while and see what comes out of it.' "

In Oregon, Democratic Gov. Kate Brown authorized tapping into the state's reserve funds to keep the program going. Other states, such as Colorado and Virginia, told parents to seek other insurance options. Agencies created expensive computer programs they will never use and delayed hiring new staff they say they were really needed. And an untold number of parents bought insurance policies they couldn't afford to help keep their children healthy.

Mead's oldest child, Ava, is 10 years old and has asthma. Her mother began to wonder how far in advance she could stock up on inhalers when prescription costs are low. She worried about Gavin, 8, who was so jumpy he could hardly concentrate to get ready for school.

When Mead heard that CHIP funding could run out, she took a day off work to make as many appointments as she could with doctors to check on him.

"It was a mad dash against time," she said.

In December, doctors diagnosed Gavin with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and prescribed medication.

"It's not medicine for something bad; it is good medicine," the boy recalled his doctor saying.

Mead was grateful for the diagnosis. And then she agonized over how she could possibly pay. The enrollment period had ended to get insurance for her children on a federal marketplace created through the Affordable Care Act. With CHIP, she paid $13 dollars per doctor's visit. With private insurance, each visit would cost $40.

With CHIP, she insured her two children for $104 a year. Without it, her premium would rise to $500 each month.

For Mead, one word would describe the impact: "Devastating."

Varina Mead, 38, helps her 10-year-old daughter, Ava, pick out a dress for a school dance.

When Congress first authorized CHIP legislation in 1997, about one in five children in Alabama were uninsured, according to Cathy Caldwell, the state's CHIP director. Alabama was the first state to sign on, and since then, the number of uninsured children dropped from about 20 percent to 2 percent.

CHIP subsidizes coverage for about 160,000 children in the state. About half of those children are among the state's poorest and on Medicaid through CHIP. And 85,000 of them are in families whose income amounts to 312 percent over the poverty level at most - a salary of about $65,000 for a family of three. They make too much for Medicaid, but not enough to afford private insurance or coverage on the federal marketplace.

Because the program called for working families to pay for the insurance on a sliding scale, it was easier for conservative lawmakers in Alabama to support it than, say, food stamps or welfare, Caldwell said.

Still, local lawmakers who had lined up behind the program began worrying about its future after Republicans' strong showing nationally in the 2016 elections, said state Rep. Steve Clouse, a Republican and chairman of the state legislature's budget committee.

The federal government was projected to disburse more than $280 million to Alabama to fund CHIP this year, according to a nonpartisan research agency that advises Congress on the program. But attitudes in Washington were changing about fully funding programs, and state lawmakers concluded they needed to be prepared in case Congress began to ask states to contribute more, Clouse said.

So last budget season, the legislature kept $93 million in the state's coffers to potentially soften the blow, Clouse said. If Congress had authorized CHIP funding earlier, the state would have hired more state troopers and mental-health professionals and better addressed the overcrowding of prisons, he said.

Despite persistent disagreements in Washington about how to keep funding CHIP, Clouse said he continued to receive assurances from Capitol Hill that the program would be reauthorized before it expired Sept. 30.

"Then we were told it was going to be fully funded by Thanksgiving, then it was going to be funded Christmas, then by Jan. 1," he said. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

By winter, Caldwell in the health department issued a statement that CHIP funding was in danger of running out by December. The state planned on freezing enrollment in January and cutting 80,000 children from the program in February. Staff who had helped enroll families were reassigned to answering phone calls from concerned parents, and Caldwell delayed hiring for 10 "critical" positions, including computer analysts and a nursing coordinator.

Her department printed and stuffed about 50,000 envelopes with letters telling parents they had to find insurance for their children some other way - missives they'd eventually have to shred, wasting thousands of dollars.

"We wasted so much time," Caldwell said. "It was the most stressful time in my entire career."

Nine million children use the CHIP program nationally, and many of their families across the country were scrambling in the uncertainty. In Alabama, Marsha Raulerson, a pediatrician in Brewton, heard from many parents wondering how or what they could do to cope.

"They are already working long hours, doing the best they can," she said.

Some parents contemplated working more hours to afford higher health-care costs. Others discussed quitting their jobs. This way, they could lower their income enough to qualify for Medicaid. If they couldn't afford insurance, what was the point of working?

Congress adjourned for the holidays without extending the program long-term. Finally, Republicans attached funding for the program to a resolution to pass a budget in January.

In the wake of the debacle, advocates plan to push for making the program permanent, as opposed to one that needs periodic reauthorization.

"It's a shame when you have to test Congress to see how low [they] can go, but they went pretty low this time," Carnes said. "If you flirt with danger, you might even go even lower the next time."

- - -

The national anxiety seized Mead. Losing insurance for her children seemed like an unfair setback after she worked diligently to rebuild her life.

She started her career more than a decade ago, drafting a curriculum for low-income households to understand the expectations that come with receiving welfare. She left that job to raise Ava and Gavin. After her husband became addicted to opioids and stole from her, she said, she found herself broke and alone.

Her neighbors and church groups pitched in to help pay her electricity bills and put a security deposit on a new house. Suddenly, she said, she found herself in a class for receiving welfare benefits using the curriculum that she wrote. She took a job cleaning houses and began her climb out of poverty.

She now rents a ranch home atop a small hill, where Gavin and Ava like to run in the forest where there's a swing that hovers over a small ditch, and they can play with their neighbor's dogs.

The home is about a half-hour away from her office on a gravelly highway at Easter Seals Central Alabama, which sits inside a threadbare warehouse without hot water. The organization focuses on services for the elderly and the disabled. One in five of its clients uses CHIP - just like Mead, the organization's marketing director.

"They are trying to make this political, but it is not a political issue," said Edie Malone, director of finance and business at Easter Seals. Her son's two infant children use CHIP. "Everyone in Alabama knows someone who is on CHIP."

She and Mead don't see eye-to-eye politically. Malone is a Republican; Mead, a Democrat. They found themselves split during the heated Senate campaign between Republican Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones, but both felt good when Jones announced during his victory speech that restoring funding for CHIP would be one of his top priorities as a legislator.

When Ava and Gavin's health insurance became attached to the Republicans' budget proposal, most Democrats refused to sign on to the bill unless it also had protections for undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children. Both women were pleased that Jones sided with Republicans.

"He promised us he'd do it, so I'm glad he focused on his own people rather than people who aren't here legally," Malone said.

"I wish he could have gotten both," Mead said. "But this need was more pressing."

Still, they were unimpressed when the government ended up shutting down and lawmakers complained about something so frivolous as the lack of clean towels in the Capitol's weight room.

"They treated my kids' health insurance like it was a game," Mead said.

Malone feared what other programs might hang in the balance. Their organization, for example, runs a job placement program for residents who are 55 and older that typically receives $1 million in federal money. That funding remains up in the air.

Varina Mead, 38, at CVS in Prattville, Alabama, with her children. MUST CREDIT: Kevin D. Liles photo for The Washington Post

"People need these programs in their lives, for security," Malone said. "But politicians have forgotten that."

That evening, Mead picked up her children after school and came home. Ava and Gavin chased one another around the red couch, and Mead set up for dinner.

As the scent of chicken casserole wafted through the house, Gavin began talking about his school day. It was a little stressful. He and his friends were playing a game in which they imagined a hole was filled with snakes, but he got into a fight with one of his friends because he wasn't following the rules. Their friendship, Gavin said, was over.

"Maybe you could talk it over with him tomorrow," Mead suggested.

"It's no good talking to him when he's upset," Gavin told her. "He just doesn't listen."

"Sometimes, it's hard to get along with people," she said. "But you still have to try."

It was a motherly counsel she hoped could be heard in Washington.On Thursday morning, Alabamians will find out what letter grade their local school and district received under a new system, conceived in 2012, but not implemented until now.

Those letter grades are based in large part on how students scored on the ACT Aspire for the 2016-2017 school year.

And last week's "failing" public schools list was based entirely on ACT Aspire results, labeling schools as failing when their schoolwide test scores fell into the bottom 6 percent statewide.

Prior to this year, test results were shared grade-by-grade and also by subject. Instead of sharing those results the same way for 2017, state education officials went live with a dashboard at the end of last year, aggregating scores for all students across grades.

[Access the state's dashboard here.]

Students statewide no longer take the ACT Aspire because the state board of education ended the contract last June. Board members said they were concerned about whether the ACT Aspire aligned with what was being taught in each grade level, and it turned out that state officials never completed the independent alignment study required by the federal department of education.

Rather than spend money on that independent confirmation, then-state superintendent Michael Sentance recommended the state end the contract and pursue either a state-created test or another test already in use somewhere else.

Interim state superintendent Ed Richardson has convened a committee to decide which path to take, and that work remains in progress.

Students who are required to be tested will take the Scantron, formerly GlobalScholar, series of tests this spring as a temporary replacement.

Before saying goodbye to the ACT Aspire, AL.com took a closer look at those 2017 scores, breaking them down grade-by-grade and also by subject level, to see what kind of progress, if any, districts and schools made over the four-year period the ACT Aspire was used.

Overall, at the district level, the trend shows scores improved for all tested grades. The ACT Aspire measured how students in grades 3 through 8, and also in 10th grade, perform in math and reading. Students in grades 5, 7 and 10 also took a science exam.

Results are reported at four levels: in need of support, close, ready, and exceeding. Students in the ready and exceeding categories are counted as proficient.

Below is a visualization showing the distribution of scores across all 137 school districts, by grade and by subject, and by subgroup, over that four-year period. Subgroups, or subpopulations, are broken down by race/ethnicity, gender, disability status, English learner status, and poverty status.

Each dot represents a school district. The dot's color reflects the percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price meals.

If you are unable to see the chart, click here to open in a new window.

Historically in Alabama, scores have generally reflected the level of poverty in a school: the higher the percentage of students in poverty, the lower the percentage of students who are proficient. But that isn't always the case, and a visualization like this helps find those outliers: either those districts with low poverty whose students didn't perform as expected or districts with high poverty whose students performed in the range of those with low poverty.

Proficiency levels of 10th graders remain lower than those at other grade levels, and that's likely the reason why so many of the newest "failing" schools are high schools. But even at the 10th grade level, progress was being made.

There are a lot of ways to look at test results, but here's one that shows a lot of variation based on poverty and the area of Alabama in which students live.

Each dot represents a school. The color of the dot reflects the proficiency level of students in that grade, subject, and subgroup, with the scale indicated below the map. The size of the dot represents the percentage of students in poverty at the school. The larger the dot, the higher the percentage of students in poverty.

These maps are tough to see on mobile phones. If you are unable to see the map, click here.

Large numbers of students in poverty within a school and/or district present additional challenges for teachers, but some districts in Alabama are making real strides improving student achievement for students in poverty.

Here's a look at a district in rural Alabama, Pike County schools, that is working very systematically to close achievement gaps and improve outcomes for all students.

Finally, because readers like rankings, here's a look at each school in Alabama and the percentage of students who showed proficiency on the ACT Aspire over the past four years. Click the top of each column to sort by either high to low, low to high, or sort by school in alphabetical order.

There are a lot of ways to view this visualization, too, including by area of the state, by subgroup, and also by individual system. This shows the progress over time at the same grade level, so it doesn't track students as they advance from grade to grade.

If you are unable to see the visualization, click here to open it in a new window.

State education officials haven't shared any official talking points about the 2017 results, posting them online quietly in early January.Residents of Fruithurst in Cleburne County have been urged to avoid drinking well water after Auburn University scientists found elevated levels of radon in water samples taken from wells in the area.

Ming-Kuo Lee, a hydrology professor from Auburn, told a crowd of about 150 area residents Tuesday night that four of 13 groundwater wells sampled in that area showed levels of radon in excess of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommendations for drinking water.

The EPA says that radon exposure can cause cancers to develop in the lungs if inhaled or internal organs if consumed in drinking water.

The meeting -- held at Fruithurst Elementary School -- was organized after local concerns about the number of cancer cases spurred residents to seek help from researchers in determining if environmental contamination might be to blame.

Lee said the municipal water tested within EPA safety thresholds for heavy metals, trace elements, volatile organic compounds and other substances of concern.

"The good news is the municipal water is safe," Lee said. "The recommendation we made is that, if financially possible, [Fruithurst residents] should switch to the safe, city municipal water as soon as possible."

Radon is usually a gas, but can be present in drinking water taken directly from underground sources, according to an EPA fact sheet.

The EPA says that breathing radon gas can cause lung cancer and the Centers for Disease Control estimates that 20,000 deaths per year in the United States are caused by breathing in radon.

Ingesting radon through drinking water can also cause internal cancers, particularly stomach cancer, though it is much less common. The EPA says consuming radon via drinking water causes about 168 cancer deaths per year, nationwide.

Other published studies have linked radon exposure to leukemia, though those results were not mentioned on the EPA fact sheet.

Radon occurs naturally in underground rock formations and can enter groundwater in underground aquifers. In most municipal water treatment systems, the radon would evaporate into the air before it reaches homes. However, in well systems, the water might be pumped directly from the ground to the faucet, without coming in contact with the air first.

Other substances found

In addition to the radon, researchers found a number of other chemicals of concern in groundwater and soil samples from the area, including heavy metals and volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds. These substances have their own associated health risks and some were detected in Fruithurst at levels higher than the EPA recommendations.

Water or soil samples showed detectable levels of arsenic, lead, barium, cadmium, nickel, chloroform, chromium, selenium, mercury, and a substance called bis(2-ethylhexylphthlate) or DEHP.

DEHP is a common industrial chemical used in the production of plastics or rubber.

A ProBlend rubber production facility operated in Fruithurst from 1987 until 2015.

There are also multiple illegal dump sites in the area with large numbers of discarded tires, which could be contributing to the area's contamination issues.

Testing continues

Christy Hiett, principal of Fruithurst Elementary School, said she began organizing the testing after four boys under the age of 18 were diagnosed with leukemia in the span of two years. Hiett said four adult females were also diagnosed with leukemia or lymphoma, another blood cancer, in the following years, making eight blood cancer cases diagnosed between 2013 and 2017, in a community with a population of around 280 people.

Hiett said she began contacting authorities with the Alabama Department of Public Health and Alabama Department of Environmental Management in 2016, and finally arranged for scientists at Auburn and the University of Alabama to conduct the water testing last year.

She created a group called Cleburne Cancer Concerns, which applied for grants and used crowd-funding to raise money and applied for grants to pay for the testing. The group has also purchased reverse-osmosis water filtration systems for households that are unable to connect to the municipal water system.

Hiett ran the program Tuesday night with presentation from Lee. Hiett said there is an ongoing survey among residents of the surrounding areas to determine whether other cancers or ailments are occurring at elevated levels.

"The next steps that we discussed last night for remediation is to get more people connected to the municipal water," Hiett said. "Purchasing reverse osmosis filtration systems for people, to do the surveys in our census block to determine the extent of other cancers that can be related to the radon [or other substances found in the water]."

Researchers also hope to conduct additional soil and water testing to get a better picture of the situation regarding Fruithurst's groundwater, especially how it may relate to the old rubber plant or the tire dumps.

"We don't have enough data yet to show how far the contaminants would travel away from these sites," Lee said. "We need to get more soil samples near the facility to find the level of distribution for both heavy metals and some organic compounds."

Fruithurst is located east of Anniston, near the Georgia border along U.S. Highway 78.A man was found shot to death on Lee Road in Smiths Station around noon Tuesday, according to the Lee County Sheriff's Office.

Robert Lee Woods Jr. was found unresponsive and suffering from a gunshot wound in the 200 block of Lee Road 229, Lee County Coroner Bill Harris said. He was 23 years old.

Harris said it appears Woods and another family member got into a domestic dispute and Woods was shot.

Woods' body was sent to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences medical examiner's office in Montgomery.

The investigation is ongoing. No further details were immediately available.Female Democratic lawmakers wore red pins with the word "Recy" at Tuesday night's State of the Union address in honor of the Alabama woman whose stand against sexual assault made her a civil rights hero.

Recy Taylor, an African-American from Abbeville, was raped by six white men in 1944. Her attackers were never brought to justice but Taylor became an outspoken advocate for victims of sexual assault.

Taylor died in December but her story has received renewed attention after Oprah Winfrey honored her at the Golden Globes earlier this month.

Taylor's niece, Mary Joyce Owens, attended the State of the Union as the guest of Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham.

Images of the pins were shared on social media:

CBC members getting ready for the State of the Union! This is OUR House!!! #Resist pic.twitter.com/nDJIQ0kxgI  Rep. Terri A. Sewell (@RepTerriSewell) January 31, 2018

#TimesUp at #SOTU tonight. It is inspiring to see so many members coming together to honor the memory of Recy Taylor. The #MeToo movement cannot neglect to highlight the voices of the marginalized women who have spoken out and been ignored. pic.twitter.com/4fZvd1qH0u  Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (@RepBonnie) January 30, 2018A vote on a measure that would have led to a ban on abortions after 20 weeks split Alabama's Senators along party lines.

The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act would have made it a federal crime to perform an abortion after 20 weeks of gestation. Violators would have faced a fine, up to five years in prison, or both but there were exceptions for procedures deemed necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman or if the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest.

A similar bill had already passed the House.

The procedural vote to bring the bill to the floor fell short of the 60 votes it needed to progress, failing 51-46. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-AL, one of the bill's 46 co-sponsors, voted in favor of the bill; Sen. Doug Jones, D-AL, voted against it.

Jones' vote drew the ire of Alabama's Republican leaders.

"After today's vote, we now see Sen. Doug Jones' true colors," said Alabama GOP Chair Terry Lathan. "It is disgraceful that Sen. Jones, who claims to want to 'give voice to the challenges that face so many of our most vulnerable Americans' would refuse to be a voice for the most vulnerable of them all: innocent lives in the womb."

Jones defended his vote in a statement to AL.com news partner WHNT.

"As I've said many times before, I believe this is a deeply personal choice for any woman to make. A woman's freedom to choose was recognized by the Supreme Court 45 years ago. I do not support any efforts that would undermine that ruling," Jones said.

Jones, who defeated Republican Roy Moore in an upset win on Dec. 12, said during the campaign he supports current abortion laws, adding the decision was an "intensely, intensely personal (one) that only she, in consultation with her god, her doctor, her partner or family."An Athens man who has been wanted since December for allegedly shooting a man at an apartment complex was arrested Tuesday, according to the Athens Police Department.

Patrick Lawon Johnson, 23, was arrested and charged with first-degree assault Tuesday afternoon, police said.

Detectives obtained a warrant for his arrest after he was identified as the man who shot Ricky Williams in the parking lot of Willowbrook Apartments on Henry Drive in Athens in the early morning hours of Dec. 30.

Williams sustained serious injuries in the shooting, crashed his car into a utility pole on Jefferson Street while driving himself to the hospital after the shooting, police said.

Athens-Limestone Ambulance Service treated the man initially, and Med-Flight later flew him to Huntsville Hospital.

Police said Johnson lived at Willowbrook Apartments. He was apprehended in Tennessee and was transported to Alabama Tuesday and formerly charged in the shooting.

He was being held in Limestone County Jail with no bail set.By midday Thursday of this week, every Alabama public K-12 school will know what grade it earned on the state's first report card to give letter grades since 2001. It is a report card six years in the making. Statewide, schools earned a 'C,' but individual school grades have not yet been released.

The Foundation for Excellence in Education, also called ExcelInEd, champions the use of letter grades to report student outcomes because of the ease with which parents and communities can understand what the letter grade communicates.

"When you use a clearer label, you get more public engagement," the organization's Chief Executive Officer Patricia Levesque said in an interview with AL.com.

Opponents say education is too complex to reduce performance to a single letter grade.

Regardless of which side you're on, school grades will surely start conversations across Alabama.

Levesque said it is those conversations and dialogue that come after the grades are reported that drive improvement in schools that earn low grades.

Levesque's organization is closely identified with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who championed Florida's law to grade schools in 1999 and created ExcelInEd in 2007. During the 2016 Presidential primary, Gov. Bush stepped away from ExcelInEd, but resumed his chairman's position after dropping out of that race.

ExcelInEd, she said, helps states craft and implement policies designed to improve education. Levesque said report cards are one way to do that by providing communities with a look at how their schools are doing. They have worked with many states on A through F grading policy, she said.

Levesque said A through F grading is "sharp, like a two-edged sword."

"It is very powerful in bringing parents and the general public into very quick understanding of where the state thinks a school is," she said, "because parents and the public automatically know that an 'A' and 'B' mean these schools are meeting the majority the benchmarks, whatever they are."

"The 'D' and 'F' send a very clear message these schools are underperforming in what the state believes is important," Levesque said. "And 'C' sends a signal there's room for improvement here. So that's very powerful."

The other side of that sword, when you're sending a clear signal, she said, is that "you get more scrutiny and push back on the calculation."

That calculation is exactly what some school officials have a problem with.

Alabama's grading system is primarily based on student achievement as measured by test scores from the spring 2017 administration of the ACT Aspire in the 3rd through 8th and 10th grades.

For schools without a 12th grade, test results count for 90 percent of the grade. Fifty percent comes from a measure incorporating improvement from one year to the next, and 40 percent comes from how many students come close to or reach proficiency. The other 10 percent comes from the percentage of students who miss 15 or more school days, regardless of whether the absences are excused or unexcused.

For districts and for schools with a 12th grade, improvement counts for 20 percent and how many students reach proficiency counts for 30 percent. Graduation rates count for 30 percent, college and career readiness indicators and chronic student absences each account for 10 percent of the overall grade.

The ACT Aspire will no longer be used, however, because the state board of education ended their contract for the test last June due to concerns over whether the test was aligned with what teachers are teaching and the cost to perform an independent alignment study that federal education officials said is required.

A permanent replacement test has not been named, and students will take the Scantron, formerly GlobalScholar, tests this spring.

Some school officials have questioned whether using the results from a test the state chose to no longer use is fair, but state officials have shown no signs of backing off from Thursday's release.

Alabama's law requiring letter grades for schools was first passed in 2012 but is only now being implemented after an extended period of development due in part to a change to the ACT Aspire in 2013.

The change in tests necessitated a change in how growth would be measured, ultimately delaying the release of the state report card.

Report card grades currently are not tied to any sanctions or punishments, but there is a system of monetary rewards for schools who improve their performance from year to year.

Fourteen states, including Alabama, currently use A through F grading systems.

While state education leaders, including Gov. Kay Ivey and interim state Superintendent Ed Richardson have shown strong support for report card grades for schools, pushback from some local educators continues.

Some district officials are already sharing information beyond the measures the grade is based on, ahead of Thursday's release, to help their communities understand they are "more than a score."

What to expect when grades are released

When asked what typically happens in communities when report cards are first released, Levesque said two things are to be expected: shock and celebration.

For those schools whose grades come in higher than expected, a celebration usually occurs.

"Expect to see those grades posted on school marquees," she said.

However, when a grade is lower than expected, she said, shock is typical. "You'll hear a lot of 'it's not fair.'"

Levesque said that some education officials will argue about the measurements themselves instead of school board members and superintendents having a conversation about what type of plan they will put in place to help every child reach their full potential.

Those measures are important, she said, but school officials' best efforts should be focused on how they will improve learning for students which will ultimately improve their grade.

Grades should start a dialogue between the community, the school board, the superintendent and the principal, Levesque said. Letter grades really focus the conversation, she said, giving school officials the opportunity to work with their communities to craft a plan for improvement.

And, she said, "Communities should take really hard look at 'what are we doing to support our schools?'"

Communities around schools can become a part of a school's support system, she said, and grades are often the lever to start that process.

Teachers and principals need to be prepared to communicate with parents and community members about the school's grade when it is released, she said.

Alabama school officials have had preliminary grades since Jan. 11.

The state department published a communications toolkit for schools to use and held a webinar for school personnel last week to help them explain grades to their communities. Some school districts have announced press conferences ahead of the release.

The Jefferson County School District is #redefiningready! Follow along this week and learn how we are preparing our students to be college ready, career ready, and life ready! #morethanascore #lovepubliceducation pic.twitter.com/7Z6F5V01zT  JEFCOED (@JEFCOED) January 29, 2018

The next step, improving schools, is hard work, she said. "You don't turn around a school that's been persistently failing in one year. It just doesn't happen."

It takes time, it often takes money, and patience is needed, she said. State education officials don't always have the answers, either.

Too few states, she said, have identified everything necessary to turn a school around and provide the needed support to schools.

Levesque said much of the responsibility for improvement ends up with a school's principal. "Principals are going to show what they're made of," she said. "Do they cry and get upset," she asked, or do they focus on how to meaningfully improve achievement at their school?

There are measurable benefits beyond grade improvement from year to year, she said. "States that have [graded schools] for a long time outperform the national average on the [National Assessment of Educational Progress]," she said.

Alabama's lawmakers and state education officials have increasingly focused on the state's poor performance on the NAEP, as it is the only measure of achievement that has been standardized among states across the country.

Refining measures

Levesque said most states refine how they calculate grades after the initial release but cautioned Alabama not to have a "knee-jerk reaction" if grades aren't what people expect.

Major overhaul of measures isn't necessary, she said, and drastically changing the measures can result in "ping-ponging" for local schools, and that lack of stability in which measures matter can be harmful at the local level.

"Where we've seen [changing measures] work," she said, "is where officials are thoughtful in refining the grading system."

Levesque said states should stick with report cards for a long period of time, refining measurements as needed, and listening to and providing what it is that districts and schools need to help them turn around underperforming schools.

Keeping the public informed about how their schools are doing and making student learning and achievement a priority is a must for states who want to improve education, she said.

"The states that have achieved a lot of success, and seen improvements, [is] where they say their students' future is a priority for the state," Levesque said.

2:30 p.m. - Updated to clarify that schools have previously been given an overall letter grade, but not since 2001.Sky watchers are readying for tomorrow morning's Super Blue Blood Moon - the first lunar trifecta in more than 25 years.

But for some people, the blood moon isn't just a spectacular scene, it's a prophecy and omen of the end of times.

The first time many heard of the blood moon prophecy was in 2015, when pastor and author John Hagee attracted widespread attention for saying the Sept. 27 full moon - a supermoon which took a reddish hue from a lunar eclipse - was a sign of the apocalypse or Armageddon.

Hagee, a Christian minister from Texas, said four upcoming blood moon eclipses (April 15, 2014, Oct. 8, 2014, April 4, 2015 and Sept. 28, 2015) pointed to "world-shaking event that will happen between April 2014 and October 2015."

Hagee, according to ibtimes.com, cited a passage from Joel 2:31 in the King James Bible that he claimed predicted the end of days with the arrival of a blood moon. 'The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord comes."

Another often-cited verse was Revelations 6:12, which says "And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood".

NASA was quick to dismiss the claim, saying there was no "scientific basis - not one shred of evidence" that the blood moon was the sign of imminent doom - which didn't occur.

Fast forward three years to another blood moon - this one a Super Blue Blood Moon. The old Blood Moon prophecy is showing up online again, with proponents saying it could represent the final sign to usher in the end-of-time.

NASA, of course, said the event, while interesting, has a more scientific explanation:

"The Jan. 31 full moon is special for three reasons: it's the third in a series of "supermoons," when the moon is closer to Earth in its orbit -- known as perigee -- and about 14 percent brighter than usual. It's also the second full moon of the month, commonly known as a "blue moon." The super blue moon will pass through Earth's shadow to give viewers in the right location a total lunar eclipse. While the moon is in the Earth's shadow it will take on a reddish tint, known as a "blood moon," the U.S. space agency said.

Whatever your thoughts, you can go here to see the best times to catch the Super Blue Blood Moon where you live.A group of Tuscaloosa activists are providing financial support for those seeking abortion care in Alabama.

The Yellowhammer Fund has been accepting donations for about a year and has aided 15 individuals since it started providing assistance on Jan. 1 of this year. Co-founder Amanda Reyes said she and her colleagues created the fund to ensure patients have access to clinics. Although the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973 affirmed a woman's right to have an abortion under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, Reyes said there are legislative and social barriers in place that limits access.

"Legality without access is meaningless," Reyes said. "Legislators have made abortion inaccessible practically and financially to the point that Roe v. Wade doesn't matter."

Reyes said she saw the barriers herself while studying reproductive justice at the University of Alabama in a pro-life state.

In 2001, Alabama used to be the home of 12 clinics. But seven have closed over the past 16 years. The remaining five clinics are located in some of the state's largest cities: Birmingham, Huntsville, Montgomery, Mobile and Tuscaloosa.

The West Alabama Women's Clinic in Tuscaloosa and the Alabama Women's Center in Huntsville were at risk of closing after state legislators passed a law in 2016 prohibiting the license renewal of an abortion clinic within 2,000 feet of a K-8 public school. At the same time, state lawmakers also passed legislation banning abortion through dilation and evacuation, which is the most commonly used second-trimester procedure. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson declared both laws unconstitutional in October 2017.

Alabama Republican Party Chairman Terry Lathan criticized Sen. Doug Jones on Monday after he voted against a national bill that would have banned abortions after 20 weeks.

"It is disgraceful that Senator Jones, who claims to want to 'give voice to the challenges that face so many of our most vulnerable Americans' would refuse to be a voice for the most vulnerable of them all: innocent lives in the womb," Lathan said in a statement. "As one of the strongest pro-life states in the nation, Alabamians will hold Senator Jones accountable for this vote and every move he makes in the future regarding legislation that supports life at all stages."

Reyes started to see the need for a fund in 2015 after creating the West Alabama Clinic Defenders, an organization that provides volunteers who escort clients as they walk into the Tuscaloosa clinic. Reyes said the escorts not only provided security from people who protest at the clinic, but also console clients from protestors' statements.

"That is a huge barrier," Reyes said. "I've seen people too scared to get out of their cars and kind of circle around the parking lot several times to try to avoid the protestors."

Due to the Hyde Amendment, a federal law that came into effect four years after Roe v. Wade, federal funds cannot be used for abortions unless the pregnancy is a result of rape, incest, or endangers the woman's health. Only 17 states allow state funds for abortions for reasons not stated in the Hyde Amendment, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation. Alabama is not one of the states.

Reyes said the majority of the clients who are on Medicaid struggled to pay for a medical procedure that could cost between $450 to more than $1,400 depending on the length of pregnancy. That amount doesn't include lodging and travel expenses. Reyes said she's met patients who are from Mississippi, which only has one abortion clinic, and the Florida panhandle.

That's one of the reasons why the Yellowhammer Fund doesn't limit who receives the funds as long as they are receiving services at the state's three independently owned clinics: Reproductive Health Services in Montgomery and the clinics located in Tuscaloosa and Huntsville. Reyes said they plan to expand to the other two Planned Parenthood clinics in Birmingham and Mobile in the future.

"We do that because we realize that many people live very far away from a majority of the clinics where they can have a procedure done," Reyes said. "For some folks, one of the Alabama clinics might be their closest option."

Rev. James Henderson, a north Alabama pro-life activist who pushed for the bill concerning abortion clinics near schools, believes the fund will not receive a lot of donations. The number of abortions have tumbled from 9,523 in 2011 to 6,642 last year. Henderson said many of the clinics shut down due to low cash flow and the strong stance against abortions.

"We would like for (the Yellowhammer Fund) to know that it's very clear that abortion is the killing of a human being and it is not acceptable," Henderson said. "We will do things by any Christian, legal, peaceful means possible to shut them down and we have been very successful at shutting people down."

The Yellowhammer Fund is currently giving out $350 in financial assistance weekly. That amount could increase depending on donations.

When a potential patient calls the fund's number and leaves a message, a volunteer caseworker calls the client back to determine how much they can contribute to the procedure and how far along they are in their pregnancy. That information determines how much financial support a client will receive. The most they have given a patient so far this year is $250.

Since the fund can only pay a portion of what the client cannot, it will then connect the patient to other organizations throughout the U.S. that provide the same service. The Yellowhammer Fund is a member of the National Network of Abortion Funds, which is a coalition of about 70 organizations.

Reyes said she cried when they gave money to their first client a few weeks ago.

"It was amazing to see how the support of several donors throughout Alabama came together to make these resources available to those in need," Reyes said.

Providing financial support isn't the only way the fund tries to break down barriers, Reyes said. Fund officials plan to launch a series of open conversations about abortion throughout February to combat what they say are misconceptions about the procedure. During the special election for U.S. Senate last year, "late-term abortions", or abortions occurring after 20 weeks of pregnancy, became an integral of then-Republican candidate Roy Moore's campaign after Jones made a statement supporting a woman's right to choose.

The state law prohibits abortions after 20 weeks unless the pregnancy endangers the health of the mother. According to the Alabama Department of Public Health, three out of 6,642 abortions performed in the state in 2016 occurred after the 20-week cutoff and all of those were performed in hospitals. Most of Alabama's abortions took place during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, the department reported.

Reyes said health endangerment is one of the reasons why clients in their second-trimester seek an abortion. Other reasons include situations out of their control, such as car accidents or loss of a job, she said.

"Everything could have been fine the first-trimester. But then they lose a job and they don't have a way to provide for the baby," Reyes said. "To punish people for things that are out of their control is nonsensical. It only creates a situation where people who were already in a difficult place desperate. When people are desperate, they do things that may compromise their health, like going to someone who isn't the best healthcare provider."

Although Thompson ruled the two abortion laws unconstitutional last year, another anti-abortion measure will be on the ballot during the general election in November. House Bill 98 recognizes the right to life of the unborn and that nothing in the state Constitution provides the right to abortion. It will not have a direct impact unless Roe v. Wade is overturned.

But Reyes said a Supreme Court reversal could send the country back to the days of the Jane Collective, the nickname given to the secret, medical underground in Chicago comprised of mostly self-taught abortionists.

"The people with the wealth privilege will have the best access to even these underground places," Reyes said. "That is not ideal because people who are the most vulnerable will slip through the cracks, and that will create a healthcare crisis in the U.S."

Henderson believes the Roe v. Wade decision will be overturned eventually. As the current supreme court justices begin to retire, Henderson is confident President Donald Trump's replacement will be more conservative. When that happens, he said pro-life activists next stop will be the police departments for warrants on those running the abortion clinics since Alabama never repealed its law that made abortion a criminal act.

"Roe v. Wade is a bunch of nonsense and it's going to evaporate within the next year or two," Henderson said. "We are going to be ready the next day and make sure that the abortion clinics are closed and that the medical professionals are arrested and they will serve a year in jail."

A Pew Research Center survey shows the majority of adult Alabamians believe abortion should be illegal in most or all cases. But when Reyes' group started fundraising in January 2017, they collected about $20,000 in five months. She remembers the surge of support on social media and comments from those who thought the fund's name was confusing because it's similar to the name of the conservative media website, Yellowhammer News.

Reyes said she doesn't mind the comparison in titles.

"I kind of like it because we are taking it back," she said. "People have a very bad view of Alabama. We saw this during the last (senate) election. By aligning ourselves with the state bird, we are saying we are Alabamians, too. We don't support the regressive policies. We don't support anti-abortion laws. These aren't the only people who live in Alabama."Prescription Medication

Veterans should have easier access to their prescriptions.

By BG (Ret.) Gary M. Profit, a retired U.S. Army Brigadier General and now serves as Senior Director of Military Programs for Walmart.

For most Americans, refilling a regular prescription is simple -- picking up their medicine at their local pharmacy on the way home from work or while doing weekly grocery shopping.

BG (Ret.) Gary Profit

Current DoD policy requires patients to obtain maintenance medications either by mail or often inconveniently by driving to one of just three military treatment facilities in Alabama. Our veterans and the families of our active duty military deserve easier access to health care services.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, one in two American adults live with a chronic health condition. Additionally, one in five households have a child with a chronic ailment. For the millions of adults and children insured through TRICARE who depend on maintenance medications to manage any one of a hundred common chronic health conditions, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, asthma, and epilepsy, for example, access to maintenance medications should be as simple as it is for the rest of us.

In addition to more convenient access to maintenance medications, TRICARE patients should also have the benefit of consulting directly with a pharmacist they know and trust about their medications rather than having to call an 800 number. As a licensed health care professional, their local pharmacist can discuss treatment and monitor for potentially harmful drug interactions, resulting in better, more consistent quality of care.

Change is possible. In 2016, Congress authorized the DoD to create a pilot pharmacy program that would allow TRICARE patients to conveniently fill maintenance medications at any pharmacy and to consult directly with their local pharmacist. Unfortunately, the pharmacy pilot was never launched, and millions of TRICARE patients continue to face limited local access to maintenance medications, direct consultation, and consistency of care.

In addition to the TRICARE authorization, Congress has taken other steps to increase access for veterans to healthcare facilities and treatments. For example, Sens. John McCain and Jerry Moran recently proposed a bill that would make it easier for veterans to access telehealth services. Here in Alabama, Rep. Bradley Byrne recently broke ground on a new VA outpatient clinic, which he had long fought for in Washington.

And while increased access to doctor's visits and other health services is important, these proposals will have little benefit for TRICARE members if they can't easily access the maintenance medications that their doctors prescribe.

With the ball in its court, the Department of Defense should act quickly to make this pharmacy pilot a reality, and make the lives of Alabama's heroes and their families a little bit easier.Jude Ratnam was five years old when he fled the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, with his family.

In 1983, tensions between Sri Lankas majority-Sinhalese government and minority Tamils erupted in a 26-year civil war that ended in 2009. The bloody conflict claimed about 100,000 lives, displaced hundreds of thousands of people and left indelible scars on the nation.

In 2006, Ratnam enrolled to study cinema and filmmaking. Upon graduating, he embarked on what would be a decade-long exercise in filming and documenting his experience of a civil war that tore his country apart.

In his film Demons in Paradise, Ratnam ventured beyond the violence of the conflict, exploring questions surrounding the very idea of Tamil identity.

Al Jazeera spoke to Ratnam about the legacy of the Sri Lankan civil war and the possibility of true reconciliation.

Al Jazeera: Why did you choose to make a film about Sri Lankas civil war?

Jude Ratnam: I definitely didnt know how I was going to tell the story, but the impulse to make a documentary about the conflict came to me when the activist in me grew disillusioned.

Before I got into filmmaking, I was an NGO worker. But at the NGO, I felt a growing sense of uneasiness  being awarded a big pay, driving a four-wheel and preaching reconciliation to people.

You look around the world today and it appears that identity politics permeates our day-to-day reality. It was in the name of identity politics that I saw all this brutality towards my own, Tamil identity. I wanted to look beyond the conflict to examine the perceived and experienced nature of our persecuted identity.

In that sense, Demons of Paradise asks questions that are rooted in existentialism. It prompts you to think about the human condition, especially when it comes to perpetrating and enduring acts of violence.

Al Jazeera: The civil war resulted in the deaths and displacement of thousands of people. Was there any reluctance in people to talk about this painful period?

Ratnam: Of course there was this fear of the government at that time we were making the film. During the Rajapaksa regime [2009-2015] a kind of national amnesia was encouraged and nobody really wanted to talk about the past. And especially for a Tamil to talk about the past was completely taboo, so there was this general sense of fear across the country.

To the authorities, we had to keep lying about the nature of the film we were making. We said we were filming a love story set around the railways. When we met the characters we told them what we were really up to and fortunately, they were courageous enough to talk about the past.

I think I was just there with the idea of the film and a rolling camera  at the right time.

Al Jazeera: Why was it important to tell this story from a Tamil perspective?

Ratnam: In a 30-year war, its very difficult to look at just one side as being the victims and the other side as the perpetrators, because the lines are always blurred in a long-drawn-out war, or in any war, for that matter.

When those lines are blurred, you dont want to face up to the truth of what happened, and if you dont face up to the truth then you risk transmitting a distorted view of reality to the next generation. When my son was born, I felt an overwhelming need to understand, capture and address what I felt were the truths of the war.

It was important to tell the story from a Tamil perspective because the film brings into question the very idea of a Tamil identity. Fundamentally, it also brings forth the question of what it means to be human. It asks, how do we choose to deal with all the representations of identity, of nation, of community, of family?

Al Jazeera: How would you describe the political climate in Sri Lanka today? Is there still a sense of division?

Ratnam: Yes, pretty much. While there has been a change of government after the end of the civil war, the fundamentals of the ruling class political ideology  to divide and rule  remain unchanged. There is an absence of political will to look back and at the past with a view to facilitate reconciliation between people. Its just not a priority.

The government just wants to put people on the bandwagon of progress and development, which is frankly little more than a rat race. When the past emerges, both sides  whether they be the state or the Tamil ideologues  seem more inclined to add fuel to the fire in an attempt to flare up more and more hatred towards each other. So the ruling conditions have not changed at all.

What disappoints me most is the lack of political will by the government, even though they came into power by saying they would be looking into the past. In fact, reconciliation was one of their key buzzwords, which they used for their election campaign  alas, it has all been forgotten.As US president delivers first State of the Union address, analysts say his achievements have so far been limited.

Washington, DC, United States  In his first State of the Union address, President Donald Trump offered a combative world view, claimed success in the war on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), boasted about recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and outlined a nakedly nationalistic American economic and foreign policy.

As we strengthen friendships around the world, we are also restoring clarity about our adversaries, Trump said, naming Iran a corrupt dictatorship and attacking North Korea, which he characterised as a cruel dictatorship in reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles.





The speech displayed an American president clearly comfortable with raising tensions around the world with allies and adversaries alike in pursuit of an America First agenda.

Trump also jabbed Democrats on immigration, healthcare, and his dismantling of the legacy of the former President Barack Obama.

Around the world, we face rogue regimes, terrorist groups, and rivals like China and Russia that challenge our interest, our economy and our values, Trump said.

Trump targeted North Korea, even as Pyongyang is negotiating with South Korea ahead of next months Winter Olympics, with wrenchingly emotional criticism, resurrecting the story of Otto Warmbier, the American college student who died in a coma after detention in North Korea last year.

Trump acknowledged Warmbiers parents sitting in the gallery, saying the US would remember their sons death with resolve. The president told the story of Ji Seong-ho, a North Korean defector also sitting in the House gallery.

How Trump rates countries

The president decried the December 22 vote at the United Nations, condemning his Jerusalem move, and promised again there would be retribution for the 128 nations who voted against the US.

I am asking Congress to pass legislation to help ensure American foreign assistance dollars always serve Americas interests and only go to Americas friends, Trump said.

Trump is a curious personality who clearly equates countries treating him well with countries treating the United States well, Daniel W Drezner, professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law, Tufts University, told Al Jazeera.

So, if Saudi Arabia pulls out all the stops with the glowing orb or China dazzles with the Forbidden City, he is going to be impressed by that, and it is going to have an effect on his opinion of that country, Drezner added.

In Afghanistan, the president said US forces are unshackled by new rules of engagement and would work with heroic Afghan partners unconstrained by a withdrawal timeline.

Separately, Defense Department officials said yesterday the US was sending 4,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, bringing the US force there to about 15,000 US service members.

Trump announced an intent to resurrect the detentions of enemy combatants begun by former President George W Bush after the September 11, 2001, attacks and said he would keep open the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, which Obama had attempted to close, but failed.

What do Trumps words mean for foreign policy?

Trump reiterated his criticism of the terrible Iran nuclear deal, reached by Obama through diplomacy, and said, when the people of Iran rose up against the crimes of their corrupt dictatorship, I did not stay silent.

America stands with the people of Iran in their courageous struggle for freedom.





Kim Wallace, Eurasia Group managing director and a former Obama Treasury Department official, said: There is a global diaspora trying to understand what Trumps words mean for foreign policy.

Trumps bark is much worse than his bite when it comes to foreign policy, [including] both geostrategic and geopolitical and trade policy.

While Trump refrained from inflammatory language on international trade, his evocation of patriotic American themes, reminiscent of his red-white-and-blue campaign appearances, sparked a chant of USA, USA, USA! from enthusiastic Republicans.

Democrats, many of whom were largely unresponsive during the speech, left the chamber as soon as Trump finished speaking, turning their backs on the president while he was still on the podium.

There is no question that at the level of global public opinion, across the board, with very few exceptions there has been a negative response to the president of the United States, said Shibley Telhami, a pollster and the Anwar Sadat professor of peace and development at the University of Maryland.

America is divided

Within the US, domestic public opinion is increasingly polarised.

Trumps speech clearly appealed to his political base of right-wing and conservative Republicans who are sticking with him in the face of the FBIs investigation of his campaigns Russia contacts, Telhami said.

Not only is America divided based on party but they are divided even on their core identities. There is a deep divide in America, Telhami said.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers diverged sharply on their assessments of Trumps foreign policy in his first year.

I think on foreign policy, hes got the best national security team around that I have seen in 20 years, Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, told Al Jazeera.

Hes taking the fight to the Islamic State, leading from the front. We are building our military. The Iran agreement is a bad agreement.

Secretary of State Tillerson is doing a good job. Our economy is humming. That helps the world. When America does well, the world does well.

Meanwhile, Senator Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat and former vice-presidential running mate of Hillary Clinton, told Al Jazeera: Trump is undercutting diplomacy, walking away from deals, defunding the State Department, not appointing ambassadors, tweeting out ridiculous things even against his own diplomats. He is undercutting diplomacy at every step.

Despite Trumps claims, the reality is he has few international successes so far, analysts say.

The America First theme, what does it mean? The bottom line is that it has been America Last, said Aaron David Miller, a vice president and director of the Middle East programme at the Wilson Center, a Washington-based think-tank.

This is a management game. It is an effort to try to produce outcomes  not solutions, there are none  outcomes that favour American interests. Frankly, I dont think in many cases around the world, that thats where we are right now.A fortnight ago, the crew of the Dutch NGO boat, Sea Watch 3, saved 165 people on board a rubber vessel north of Libya.

The refugees, who had fled Libya and were trying to reach European shores, included eight children and 28 women, three of whom were pregnant.

Libyas coast is a staging post for tens of thousands of people from Africa and the Middle East trying to make the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.

By the end of its mission, Sea Watch 3 had saved more than 400 people from possible death by drowning or cold.

Sea Watch arrived at the Port of Messina in Italy after several days at sea, where Italian authorities took charge of the refugees and migrants.

The day after the Sea Watch 3 rescue on January 17, a Spanish rescue boat saved 265 people, also in the Mediterranean.

A total of 2,583 migrants and refugees have reached Europe by sea so far in 2018, according to the UNs International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

It said 199 people died attempting to cross the Mediterranean between January 1 and January 17.

Less than half the arrivals, or 1,093 people, were registered in Italy, 847 in Greece and 653 in Spain.[They] all have AIDS  US President Donald Trump grumbled in June 2017. According to a report by the New York Times, this is how the president reacted when he learned that around 15,000 Haitians received visas to enter the United States in 2017.

After this remark, and President Trumps more recent shithole comments about immigration from African and black-majority nations, there has been a great deal of commentary about the US racist and white supremacist immigration history.

Glaringly absent from these analyses, however, has been a robust understanding of the co-foundational framework for immigration exclusion in the US  ableism. Namely, discourses and structures that have created a process and system by which people have been banned based on real and perceived mental and physical disabilities, as well as for prevailing notions of inferiority, deviancy, threat and unproductivity.

Immigration policy in the US currently consists of Muslim bans, a DACA rescission , severe restrictions on refugee resettlement, calls for extreme or enhanced vetting, and ongoing threats to Temporary Protected Statuses, the Diversity Visa programme, and family-based immigration.

In the not-so-distant past, let us remember, US immigration policy included the war on terror screening programme National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (2002  2016), HIV+ and AIDS travel and immigration bans (1987  2009), the Asiatic Barred Zone (1917  1952), a ban on Chinese nationality (1882  1943), and bans on the idiot, the imbecile, the feeble-minded and the pervert (19th  20th century). And, of course, this countrys horrific proto-immigration laws  the colonisation and genocide of Native people and exterminationist policies of Indian removal (1492  present); and the enslavement and forced migration of African people and their descendants into lifelong chattel slavery (15th  19th century).

The Immigration Act of 1882 prohibited entry to any 'lunatic, idiot, or any person unable to take care of himself or herself without becoming a public charge.'

Underpinning many of these immigration and proto-immigration laws has been a formulation by which value and therefore worth are ascribed to people based solely on their ability to accelerate economic growth for the state. But lets take that one step further. The notion that some people produce more (or less) for the economy and are, therefore, more (or less) valuable  is ableism.

Disability justice activist and educator Lydia X Z Brown defines ableism as oppression, prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination against disabled people on the basis of actual or presumed disability. Furthermore, Brown argues, ableism is the belief that people are superior or inferior, have better quality of life, or have lives more valuable or worth living on the basis of actual or perceived disability.

https://twitter.com/BroderickGreer/status/951899518982701056?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Unsurprisingly, undergirding many US immigration laws, for instance, are theories of scientific racism and eugenics  namely, on ideas of racial superiority/inferiority, gendered, sexual and psychopathic deviancy, and prevailing notions of common sense racism. Such arguments construct a knowledge system that ties the worth of people to their productivity and proximity to normative constructions of whiteness.

White supremacy and immigration

To be sure, then, ableism is part and parcel of white supremacy. According to critical race theorist Frances Lee Ansley, white supremacy is a political, economic and cultural system in which whites overwhelmingly control power and material resources. Furthermore, according to Robin DiAngelo, a scholar of Whiteness Studies, white supremacy defines white people as the norm or standard for human, and people of colour as an inherent deviation from that norm.

Prior to the rescission of DACA by the Trump administration in September 2017, some proponents of the policy argued against its repeal by framing the issue as one of economics. Myriad studies were cited to demonstrate that DACA recipients benefit the economy (or, conversely, that deportation would be costly).

Others argued that this framing is dehumanising. For instance, in a New York Times op-ed , Masha Gessen discussed how the DACA programme and even the Muslim bans were qualified through a cost/benefit analysis to the economy:  When the president threw his support behind a reform plan that would drastically reduce immigration to this country, editorial writers argued against it by pointing out that immigrants benefit the economy.

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Gessen makes an important point. And yet, some may wonder: Whats so wrong with keeping out immigrants who wont benefit the economy? Lets again return to Gessen: If immigration is debated only in terms of whether it benefits the economy, she argues, politicians begin to divide people into two categories: valuable and illegal.' Furthermore, as DACA recipient Joel Sati explained in a Washington Post op-ed, immigration policies that illegalise human beings require immigrants to grovel for a humanity that ought to be presupposed.

In other words, immigration policy that links admissibility to worth and productivity, and inadmissibility to illegality and threat, is an inherently dehumanising (and ableist) process that prioritises economic profitability over human dignity.

In addition to the Muslim bans and the rescission of DACA, Republican Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue in February 2017 proposed legislation, the Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment (RAISE) Act , to drastically cut immigration and refugee resettlement. In remarks in support of the proposed legislation, President Trump declared that the RAISE Act will favour applications who can speak English, financially support themselves and their families, and demonstrate skills that will contribute to our economy.

Like discussions around DACA, the RAISE Act ties immigration to the economy and regulates it with ableist discourse. The proposed legislation does so by purporting to maximise economic profitability by drastically restricting immigration. Should this legislation be enacted, the RAISE Act would join a long history of immigration law that has, to various degrees, regulated immigration by weighing its costs or contributions against the financial well being of the economy-state. For immigrants deemed unproductive, undesirable and/or dangerous, admission was denied.

A long history of ableist exclusion

From 1882 to 1917, various legislation codified into law numerous categories of perceived deviancy and divergence. These ableist classifications, along with bans by nationality and geographic origin, have shaped the legal basis for US immigration exclusion.

For instance: The Immigration Act of 1882 prohibited entry to any lunatic, idiot, or any person unable to take care of himself or herself without becoming a public charge. The Alien Immigration Act (1903) addedfor exclusion insane persons, epileptics, and persons who have been insane within five years previous; persons who have had two or more attacks of insanity at any time previously, among other categories.

Immigration officials medically examine Chinese boys detained at Angel Island in San Francisco Bay [FoundSF/National Archive]

The Immigration Act of 1907 added imbeciles and feeble-minded persons, people suffering from tuberculosis, and people certified by an immigration official as being mentally or physically defective, among other categories. The Immigration Act of 1917 added people who experienced just one attack of insanity (down from two in 1903), and people with chronic alcoholism and constitutional psychopathic inferiority, such as moral imbeciles, pathological liars, many of the vagrants and cranks, and persons with abnormal sex instincts.

Also known as the Asiatic Barred Zone Act or the Literacy Test Act, this legislation barred immigration from much of the continent of Asia (excluding Japan, eastern China and the Philippines), and islands off the coasts of the continent. It also implemented a literacy test for the first time.

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This long history of excluding immigrants on the basis of perceived or real disabilities set the stage for another form of immigration exclusion: immigration quotas on the basis of national origin. Enacted for the first time in the Immigration Act of 1924, these quotas had the effect of severely limiting immigration from southern and Eastern Europe. Notably, southern and Eastern Europeans did not fit the US racial formation of whiteness at the time.

Moreover, ethnic groups from the region, such as Italians (dwarfish), Jews (very poor in physique  the polar opposite of our pioneer breed), Portuguese, Greeks and Syrians (undersized), and Slavs (slow-witted), were barred entry on the basis of their supposed pathologies and their characterisation as defective races.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1990, which established Temporary Protection Status and the Diversity Visa programmes, also finally lifted the ban on sexual deviants, which targeted LGBTQIA+ people. In 2009, the ban on US immigration for HIV+ individuals was finally lifted, after being in place for 22 years.

This discriminatory law disproportionately targeted LGBTQIA+ immigrants and stifled research into HIV and AIDS treatment. Let us here recall President Trumps comments that Haitians all have AIDS, which, incidentally, was reported on just a few weeks after the administrations decision to terminate TPS protections for Haitians.

Ableism policies

Numerous immigration laws to this day continue to target and violate the rights of disabled persons by subjecting them to invasive mental and physical examinations. Whether assessed as likely to become a public charge (therefore tying their value to their ability to produce), or a threat to persons and property (potentially a burden of the state through carceral institutions), disabled people who apply for immigration to the US face numerous obstacles to admission.

Furthermore, these discriminatory policies do not simply end at the border. Undocumented immigrants in the US who are mentally disabled make up about 15 percent of those in immigration detention. Abuse is rampant and unjust deportations occur often, as the immigration system does not guarantee an individuals right to due process protections that are afforded to criminal defendants.

The history of immigration to the US has ensured the fundamental quality of the country as a white supremacist-capitalist state, protected from an influx of disabled and deviant people designated as either threats or burdens.

The states economic power rests on the perpetual existence of a large labour force that can produce at low costs. This is a process that renders disabled individuals, and particularly black, native, brown, Asian, Muslim, queer and other multiply marginalised disabled individuals, as inherently disposable. It is a system that justifies, even celebrates, the banning of people deemed unable to produce, add value or who might threaten the economy-state as a result of perceived inferiorities, deficits and deviancies.

So, the next time arguments surrounding immigration policy are couched within a cost/benefit economic analysis, remember that these are ableist arguments made in order to determine who can produce and therefore whose lives are worthwhile.

Furthermore, bear in mind that analyses of immigration history that address policies solely through a framework of racism are incomplete. Indeed, ableism is a foundational framework, along with white supremacy, that has shaped, and continues to inform, US immigration policy.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.The Kremlin, the Russian opposition and the US Congress are all unhappy about the Trump administrations Russia report.

Over the past week, the main topic discussed on Russian TV talk shows has been the looming US sanctions that may or may not come. Grimly cheerful talk show hosts and equally emotional guests have been insisting day after day that they really dont care about sanctions.

When the White House finally published a list of Russians tapped for possible sanctions  dubbed the Kremlin report  the document dumbfounded everyone. This was not a list of key politicians and businessmen from Russian President Putins inner circle; instead, the report detailed 210 names selected, it seems, in rather random fashion.

Instead of listing only the oligarchs closest to Vladimir Putin, the report basically contains a roster of Russias richest people, much like the one in Forbes magazine (a Treasury Department official admitted they used Forbes to put together the report).

Along with people close to the Kremlin, the report contains businessmen like Mikhail Prokhorov (who funds independent media outlets), Arkady Volozh (founder of the Yandex search engine), Dmitry Kamenshchik (owner of Moscow Domodedovo Airport, currently under threat of confiscation by Russian authorities because of an ongoing criminal court case), Sergey Galitsky (owner of Russias largest retailer) and others. At the same time, people who are alleged to be keepers of Putins purse, such as Sergei Roldugin and Petr Kolbin, were not on that list.

The list of bureaucrats in the report was equally haphazard: it comprised the names of the members of the presidential administration and cabinet. There are no governors or heads of federal republics on this roster, even though undoubtedly someone like Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov is much more influential within the system than Minister of Development of the Far East Alexander Galushka (I admit with shame that I only learned of his existence from the Kremlin report).

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But, more importantly, the report will not lead to any formal action against the people it names. US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin said that appropriate action would be taken based on a more detailed classified version of the report, but he did not elaborate.

At the same time, the Treasury Department website says clearly: [T]he inclusion of individuals or entities in this report, its appendices, or its classified annex does not, in and of itself, imply, give rise to, or create any restrictions, prohibitions, or limitations on dealings with such persons by either US or foreign persons. So, who should we believe?

The release of the report produced equal amounts of indignation in the Kremlin and within the opposition. Funnily enough, both sides criticised the report over the same issues: lack of clarity over the criteria for inclusion and consequences for people on the list. The report itself looks as if, on the morning of January 29, Trump suddenly remembered: Oh sh**, the deadline for the report is today. Where do we get a list of Russian billionaires from?

A number of theories explaining the bizarreness of the report have emerged since its release. The least conspiratorial one (which is worthy of a chapter in the book Fire and Fury) suggests that Trump and his political circle werent interested in putting together the report that Congress had demanded. They did not have the expertise to delve into the intricacies of the Russian autocracy, so they handed in a report that satisfied the minimum requirements but did not provide much substance.

The second theory (put forward by some pro-Putin and some opposition conspiracy theorists) concludes that the report indicates Trumps reluctance to damage relations with Putin. If so, the goal has been achieved: Russian state media continues to avoid criticising the US president. Since no one in Putins closest circle is under direct threat, the only diplomatic consequence of the report was the refusal of State Duma deputies to attend the National Prayer Breakfast organised by the White House (their demonstrative refusal didnt really register in the US).

The third theory  and indeed the most conspiratorial one  claims that Trump and the US Congress are in fact playing good cop, bad cop. Trump allegedly made the unclassified part of the report relatively innocent-looking so that he could preserve relations with Putin; but, in the classified part, he fulfilled the demands of Congress. Meanwhile, the Democrats chastised him for it publicly, playing the bad cop role.

So now Congress will be responsible for imposing sanctions, which is good for everyone: Trump (who doesnt have to get his hands dirty), the congressmen (who will take all the credit in front of the American public) and even Putin (who has something to show his Russian electorate as proof that he retains some influence over the US president).

In the end, its not that important which theory is closer to the truth because in any case, Congress will be the one making the decision. Lobbyists for the Russian oligarchs and bureaucrats knew this all along, so theyve been going about their work for some time now.

But the Russian file could be a tricky one to handle  all lobbyists have to report their activities, and if they hide them, they could face the same problems that political consultant and former Trump campaign manager, Paul Manafort, is facing. Congressmen also surely understand that any perception of cooperation with Russian lobbyists could invite investigations into collusion.

The task Congress has, to put together another set of sanctions, is not a simple one. We know very little about the true effect of sanctions on authoritarian regimes. No one knows, for example, what would happen if all 210 names mentioned in the report end up on the sanctions list and their assets are frozen. It might signal to Russian businessmen that keeping a distance from the Russian president is not enough and that they should undertake steps to change the system. Or it might push them to be even more loyal to Putin, forced to end their relations with the West.

What would happen if sanctions destroy the Russian economy: Would this trigger a revolution or the opposite  authoritarianism would grow, turning Russia into another Turkmenistan or North Korea?

How would the Russian population perceive these sanctions: would they undermine Putins reputation or improve it?

At this time, only one thing seems clear: Our knowledge of social dynamics is not enough to predict the reaction to changing circumstances of the complex organism that is Russian society. The only thing we can do is wait and observe.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.Somalia: More than 1,500 children orphaned after twin blasts

The twin bombings that occurred in Mogadishu three months ago killed more than 500 Somali civilians, making it the deadliest incident in Somalias modern history.Top US and Qatari officials express concern about the harmful security, economic and human impacts of the Gulf crisis.

Senior US officials have said Washington was ready to deter and confront external threats to Qatars territorial integrity at a meeting between leading representatives from the two countries.

Officials including US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis met their Qatari counterparts Foreign Minister Mohammed Al Thani and Defence Minister Khalid al-Attiyah in Washington on Tuesday.





The meeting was the first session of the United States-Qatar Strategic Dialogue, which is aimed at strengthening security ties between the two.

A joint statement published by the US Department of State and Qatars Foreign Ministry said the countries were committed to promoting peace and stability and countering the scourge of terrorism.

The United States expressed its readiness to work jointly with Qatar to deter and confront an external threat to Qatars territorial integrity that is inconsistent with the United Nations Charter, the statement continued.

Qatar and the United States discussed the Gulf crisis and expressed the need for an immediate resolution which respects Qatars sovereignty.

The two governments expressed concern about the harmful security, economic and human impacts of the crisis.

Officials also signed a Memorandum of Understanding on boosting cooperation in different areas, including combatting human trafficking and forced labour.

In June last year, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt broke off diplomatic ties with Qatar and imposed a land, sea, and air blockade of the Gulf state.

The quartet accused Qatar of supporting what they describe as terrorist groups and cosying up to their regional rival, Iran.

Doha vehemently denies the accusations and has rejected demands made by the states, such as shutting down media outlets, closing a Turkish military base in Qatar, paying reparations, and subjecting itself to monthly audits to ensure it is not violating any of the control measures imposed by the four states.

The meeting between Qatari and US officials comes just a few days after Qatar announced an expansion of a US airbase in its capital, Doha.

Al Udeid base is currently home to around 10,000 US troops and serves as the headquarters of the US Air Force Central Command.

Qatar is also one of the largest purchasers of US military equipment and a military sales agreement between the two countries is worth $24.7bn.UN says it has been unable to distribute aid to refugees since southern separatists overran most of the coastal city.

The United Nations has expressed concern for more than 40,000 displaced Yemenis who had sought refuge in Aden, saying it had been unable to distribute aid since southern separatists overran most of the city at the weekend.

We are extremely concerned by the violence we have seen over the last couple of days, especially the armed clashes between the so-called Southern Transitional Council (STC) and government forces, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York.

Weve seen reports of a large number of dead, injured, he said.

We call on all parties to abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law  and its paramount that civilians are protected and that the wounded are afforded safe medical care and that all sides facilitate life-saving access.

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Fighters from the Southern Resistance Forces (SRF), the armed wing of a political movement demanding secession for southern Yemen, seized most of Aden earlier this week, with the help of the United Arab Emirates.

The separatists had fought alongside the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi against Houthi rebels who control large parts of the north, but rebelled on Sunday after Hadi refused to sack his prime minister.

The separatists accused Prime Minister Ahmed bin Daghr and his cabinet of rampant corruption resulting in a deteriorating economic, security and social situation never before witnessed in the history of the south.

But by Tuesday evening, in an interview with France 24 Arabic, they affirmed their support for Hadis legitimate government and the Saudi-led coalition at war in Yemen, but also reaffirmed their commitment for a southern state free of any northern forces.

Army bases relinquished

By Wednesday afternoon, residents told Al Jazeera that a semblance of normality had returned to the city, with banks and businesses reopening after the three days of intense fighting.





A military source told Al Jazeera that the SRF handed back two military bases to forces loyal to Hadi, but were still deployed around a-Mashaiq Palace where the prime minister and government reside.

The source said the group gave back the al-Sawlaban military base in Adens Khormaksar district and a base belonging to the Fourth Brigade in Dar Saad that was bombed by the UAE on Tuesday.

However, it was unclear whether the SRF had returned tanks, armoured vehicles and other heavy weaponry they had seized from the facilities.

As of Wednesday, the fighting had killed at least 38 people and wounded more than 200, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Deep divisions

Events in Aden have exposed deep divisions between Hadis government and the UAE.

The UAE entered Yemens war in March 2015 as part of a Saudi-led coalition seeking to roll back advances made by Houthi rebels after they overran much of the country, including the capital Sanaa, in 2014.

Nearly three years on, the coalition has failed to achieve its stated aim of restoring the legitimate government of Hadi.

Saudi Arabia has said it wants out of the costly exercise, but the UAE has become more involved in the conflict, indicating a divide in the two countries agendas.

The UAE has financed and trained armed groups in the south who answer to it, and set up prisons and created a security establishment parallel to Hadis government, according to Human Rights Watch.Officials of semi-autonomous territory say female Muslim flight attendants, when flying into Aceh, must wear headscarf.

The government in the Indonesian semi-autonomous territory of Aceh said Muslim female flight attendants, when flying into Aceh, must wear a hijab in accordance with the regions laws.

The regional government has sent a letter to national carrier Garuda Indonesia and budget carriers, such as Malaysias AirAsia and Firefly, regarding the headscarf worn by women who feel it is part of their religion.

All female stewardesses must wear jilbab, a Muslim fashion in accordance with the rules of sharia, the authorities said in the letter.

In Acehnese culture jilbab is a loose style of headscarf that covers a females hair and chest, allowing only the face to be seen, whereas in Arabic, where the word jilbab originates, it means a loose garment that covers a persons body from the shoulder to the feet.

The international airport in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, services dozens of domestic flights every week, and international routes to neighbouring Malaysia and Saudi Arabia.

Non-Muslim flights attendants were not required to wear a jilbab, but Muslim staff would be asked to wear them on flights in and out of Aceh, said Mawardi Ali, chief of the Aceh Besar region where the airport is located.

Garuda Indonesia and its budget arm, Citilink, support the suggestions and will comply, said airline spokesman Ikhsan Rosan.

Firefly in Malaysia declined to comment, citing the sensitivity of the matter.

In 2015 Malaysia launched its first domestic sharia-compliant airline, Rayani Air. The airline does not allow alcohol to be consumed on its flights and serves only halal food.

It is compulsory for our Muslim women cabin crew to wear hijab and for non-Muslims to wear a decent uniform, said Jaafar Zamhari, Rayanis managing director.

Under a 2001 peace deal with the central government, Aceh enjoys greater autonomy where its legal system is based on Islamic law.

However, most of the rest of Indonesia is run by a civil law system intermixed with customary law, which includes aspects of Islamic law, and the Roman-Dutch law.Appeals come after US slashed funding for UNRWA by half following Jerusalem embassy vote.

The United Nations has launched an urgent financial appeal for its emergency programmes in Syria and the occupied Palestinian territories.

UNs Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said on Tuesday it needs $800m to provide life-saving aid including food, water, shelter and medical assistance.

Pierre Krahenbuhl, UNRWAs commissioner-general, said the funds were needed to enable the agency to continue delivering desperately needed relief to those affected by deepening emergency situations.

However, the agencys critical financial crisis following the reduction in the US funds threatens our ability to deliver these vital services, he said.

Washington slashed its funding for the agency after the UN rejected President Donald Trumps recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital.

The United States said this month that it was withholding half of the $125m it had planned to give to the agency.

UNRWA received $360m from the US in 2017, but this year, Washington has only cleared $60m.

Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Meanwhile, more than 10 countries have said they will advance their donations to finance the agency, which runs schools and clinics for more than five million Palestinians across the Middle East, in the coming weeks.

Denmark, Finland, Germany, Norway, Russia, Sweden and Switzerland have already have transferred early funds while Belgium, Ireland, Kuwait and the Netherlands have pledged to do so soon, Krahenbuhl said.

Jerusalems status is an extremely sensitive aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel claims the city as its capital, following the occupation of East Jerusalem in the 1967 War, and considers Jerusalem to be a united city. The western half of the city had been captured in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

Israels occupation of East Jerusalem effectively put the entire city under de facto Israeli control. Israeli jurisdiction and ownership of Jerusalem, however, is not recognised by the international community, including the US.

Palestinians have long seen East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. They say that a US move to relocate the embassy would prejudge one of the most sensitive issues in the conflict  the status of Jerusalem  and undermine Washingtons status as an honest mediator.

No country currently has its embassy in Jerusalem.Government due to make announcement on whether to extend registration cards for more than a million refugees.

Islamabad, Pakistan  A deadline on the validity of legal refugee status for many Afghan residents in Pakistan is due to expire, throwing into doubt the futures of more than a million refugees, many of whom have lived in the country for decades.

The deadline is due to expire on Wednesday, with Pakistans federal cabinet expected to discuss the matter during a weekly meeting.

Separately, Afghan Interior Minister Wais Ahmad Barmak and intelligence chief Mohamed Masoom Stanekzai also arrived in the Pakistani capital Islamabad for talks on Wednesday.

Pakistan has extended the validity of Afghan refugees Proof of Registration (PoR) cards at least six times in the past, but the last extension  granted on January 3, days after the refugees status expired  was for only a month, the shortest ever awarded.

Pakistans economy has carried the burden of hosting Afghan refugees since long and in the present circumstances cannot sustain it further, read a government statement released after that extension.

The refugees have become a bone of contention in the increasing souring diplomatic relations between Pakistan and the United States, with the South Asian country accusing them of being a security risk.

On Thursday, following a US drone strike in the northwestern Pakistani district of Kurram, Pakistans military said that the target had been hiding in an Afghan refugee camp.

This validates Pakistans stance that left over terrorists easily morph into Afghan refugees camps/complexes, the military said in a statement.

Thus their early and dignified return to Afghanistan is essential.

Refugee push factors

Pakistan is home to at least 1.38 million registered Afghan refugees, according to the UNHCR. There are at least another million refugees estimated to be outside the formal refugee registration system.

Last year, more than 150,000 refugees left Pakistan to return to their native Afghanistan [Muhammad Sajjad/The Associated Press]

The 2.3 million refugees in Pakistan, it is impossible for all of them to go back immediately, says Baryali Miankhel, the president of an Afghan refugee welfare organisation in the northwestern province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, where most reside. We have told the Pakistani government this.

Last year, more than 150,000 refugees left Pakistan to return to their native Afghanistan. Of those, more than 59,000 were registered refugees assisted by the UNHCR, while the rest either spontaneously returned or were deported by Pakistan.

UNHCR says it is concerned at the increasingly shorter durations of extensions being offered to Afghan refugees regarding their legal status in the country.

In terms of the length of time for the PoR extensions, the deadlines that are created for those registered Afghan refugees do create some uncertainty for refugees, Dan McNorton, the UNHCR spokesperson in Pakistan, told Al Jazeera. That is certainly something that UNHCR has been concerned about in the past, and [] that remains the case.

Refugees themselves testify that the shorter extensions have been leading some to choose to leave the country, despite an uncertain security situation in their home country.

Refugees are leaving because of the shorter extensions from the government of Pakistan, that is one of the reasons, said Miankhel. Because there is no peace in Afghanistan, there are no opportunities for employment or even a place to live.

Deteriorating security situation

The security situation in Afghanistan, where US-led coalition forces and the Afghan army continue to battle the Afghan Taliban for control of areas of the country, has been deteriorating in recent weeks.

On Sunday, at least 103 people were killed in a suicide attack in the heart of the capital Kabul.

A day later, at least 11 soldiers were killed when gunmen attacked a military academy, also in Kabul.

Afghanistan and the United States have regularly blamed Pakistan for allegedly providing safe havens to elements of the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani Network armed groups. Pakistan denies the charge, alleging that it is Afghan forces that offer sanctuary to elements of the Pakistani Taliban.

In a rare development, Pakistans foreign ministry on Tuesday announced that it had handed over 27 individuals suspected of having links to the Haqqani Network and the Afghan Taliban in November.

Pakistan continues to push any suspected [Afghan Taliban] and [Haqqani Network] elements to prevent them from using our soil for any terrorist activity in Afghanistan, said Muhammad Faisal, the foreign ministry spokesperson.

Asad Hashim is Al Jazeeras Web Correspondent in Pakistan. He tweets @AsadHashimSisi is widely expected to win the March presidential election, with the only other candidate being one of his backers.

A coalition of Egyptian opposition groups have called for an election boycott, calling the vote an absurdity bordering on madness after all serious candidates were either arrested or subjected to a campaign of intimidation.

In a joint statement, eight Egyptian opposition parties and 150 pro-democracy public figures urged Egyptians to stay away from the March polls in protest, accusing the government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of preventing any fair competition.

It is not right for us to surrender to what has become an absurdity bordering on madness, said Abdel-Geleel Mustafa, a veteran opposition figure, at a news conference in Cairo.

Hamdeen Sabahi, Sisis only rival in the 2014 presidential elections, launched the campaign under the slogan, Stay at home.

He called on political parties to unite against what he called Sisis brutal tyranny of power.

Sisi, a former general who came to power in a 2013 coup against his democratically elected predecessor, Mohamed Morsi, is all but certain to win the March election in a landslide.





Several potential candidates have either been arrested or faced threats, intimidation and physical violence, forcing them to drop out.

Sami Anan, a former general, had planned to run against Sisi but was arrested at gunpoint on Tuesday by Egyptian security services.

His vice-presidential candidate, Hisham Genena, was attacked and seriously injured in a busy Cairo street on Saturday.

Earlier this month, Ahmed Shafik, former prime minister, backtracked on his intention to run, claiming he would not be the ideal person to lead the state.

The New York Times quoted one of Shafiks lawyers as saying that the Egyptian government had forced him to withdraw by threatening to investigate previous charges of corruption against him.

In December 2017, Ahmed Konsowa, an army colonel, was sentenced to six years in prison after announcing his candidacy, while human rights lawyer Khaled Ali withdrew after receiving a three-month prison sentence.

Government supporter

Sisis only challenger is Mousa Mostafa Mousa, a government supporter who entered the race at the 11th hour, amid fears that a widespread boycott could lead to embarrassingly few votes being cast.

Mousa, who formally submitted his candidacy 15 minutes before the deadline despite not publicly declaring his intention to run until the day before, denied allegations he was cooperating with the government, saying, We are not puppets in this race.

However the 66-year-old has repeatedly endorsed Sisi, and last year formed a campaign called Supporters of President el-Sisis nomination for a second term.

Egyptians took to social media and used the hashtag Al-Kombares, which loosely translates to someone playing the role of an extra, to mock Mousas candidacy and the upcoming poll.

   pic.twitter.com/nPZ7Tfoj5b  hossam bahgat (@hossambahgat) January 28, 2018

There will be stiff competition, joked one Twitter user.

 #__            ^^     (@kimoukun) January 28, 2018

Is Mousa Mostafa Mousa a real person or a mash-up of Mustafa Bakri (A controversial MP) and Ahmed Moussa (a pro-Sisi TV host)? said another user.

      #__    #    47                     # #    (@HOSSAMSHORBAGY) January 29, 2018

An innocent question: How was the extra Mousa Mostafa Mousa able to get more than 47,000 signatures in 10 days, as he said, without appearing on the candidates database? asked journalist Hossam Elshorbagy.

To be eligible, a candidate must have collected 25,000 signatures from constituents across 15 governorates, or the signatures of 20 members of parliament.

Egypt has been beset with problems since the 2013 coup against Morsi, the countrys first democratically elected president.

While it has also received generous economic aid packages from several Gulf countries, economic and security conditions for most Egyptians have deteriorated.

Under Sisi, human rights in Egypt have worsened, with organisations reporting that at least 60,000 people have been imprisoned since the general came to power.

There have also been reports of forced disappearances and a clampdown on press freedom.The EU urged the US not to go it alone in any effort to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

The European Union has announced a new funding package of 42.5 million euros (nearly $53m) to help the Palestinians build their new state.

The announcement on Wednesday came as Brussels urged the US to not go it alone in any effort to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

The EU warned that doing so would end in failure.

Any framework for negotiations must be multilateral and must involve all players  all partners  that are essential to this process. A process without one or the other would simply not work, would simply not be realistic, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said.

Nothing without the United States, nothing with the United States alone, Mogherini told reporters in Brussels.

Her comments came at an emergency meeting of an international committee coordinating Palestinian development aid. Government ministers from Israel and Egypt, as well as the Palestinian prime minister and a US senior official, attended the talks.

The meeting was the first of its kind since US President Donald Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israels capital, breaking with an international consensus that the holy citys status should be resolved in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Mogherini said this is a difficult moment for the region. She said that Wednesdays meeting would focus on ways to promote a two-state solution to the conflict and expressed hope that it could be an element of facilitation for restoring some trust and a level of confidence.

As the talks began, the EU announced the funding package, including substantial support in East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope to make their future capital.

The meeting was also set to look at ways to support the UN agency working with Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.

The US has been the largest donor, giving one-third of the total budget. But the Trump administration withheld half of the first instalment of payments this year, demanding reforms as a condition for future aid.

UNRWA says the move has sparked its biggest ever financial crisis. Its called on donors to speed up their funding, and Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Russia, Belgium, Kuwait, the Netherlands and Ireland have taken steps to do so.

UNRWA said it is seeking $800m for emergency operations in Syria, the West Bank and Gaza Strip this year.Gaza faces unprecedented humanitarian crisis

Gaza Palestinian economic experts are warning that even if international help is given immediately to the besieged area, a humanitarian disaster might be unavoidable.Hamas rejects US decision to place the groups political chief Ismail Haniya on global terror list.

Hamas has rejected a United States decision to place the groups political chief, Ismail Haniya, on its global terror list, calling the move a dangerous development.

In a statement released on Wednesday, Hamas said the US State Departments decision is a violation of international law, which has given the Palestinian people a right to defend themselves against [Israeli] occupation, and to choose their leaders.

This decision demonstrates the full American bias in favour of the Israeli occupation, and provides an official cover for Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people, the statement added.

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Hamas, the Palestinian political movement that governs the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip, said it calls on the US administration to reverse this decision and to stop its hostile policies.

This will not deter us from carrying out our duties towards our people and defending them, and liberating our lands and holy sites.

The response from Hamas comes shortly after the US designated Haniya a global terrorist on Wednesday.

The US State Department issued a press release saying that Haniya has close links with Hamas military wing and has been a proponent of armed struggle, including against civilians.

Haniyas placement on the terror list means that there will be a travel ban on him, and that any US-based financial assets he may have will be frozen.

There will also be a ban on any US citizen or company from doing business with him.

The US State Department accused Hamas of being involved in attacks that resulted in the killing of 17 Americans since the groups founding in 1987.

Al Jazeeras Rosiland Jordan, reporting from Washington, DC, said this designation raises the possibility of the US placing Haniya on trial.

This possibly makes it easier for the US Justice Department to try to bring him to trial for his alleged role in the deaths of these 17 Americans.

In the State Department press release, the US also designated three other armed groups as being terrorist groups: Harakat al-Sabireen  a Gaza-based armed group, as well as two Egypt-based groups  Liwaa al-Thawra, and Harakat Sawad Misr.

Icon of resistance

Haniya, 55, was elected to be the groups political chief in May 2017, replacing Khaled Meshaal. Born in a refugee camp in Gaza, the leader has long been seen as pragmatic and flexible in his attitudes towards Israel, and support for a Palestinian state alongside the Israeli one.

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Speaking to Al Jazeera from the Gaza Strip, senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad said the US decision is part of a wider campaign against Palestinians since President Donald Trump came into office in January 2017- one year ago.

It is obvious that this animosity from the US administration towards the Palestinians is unprecedented  with its unconditional support of Israel and its decision surrounding Jerusalem, and cutting its funding to the UN refugee agency [UNRWA], said Hamad.

I think Donald Trump is mentally ill. Since he became president  the US administration has been trying to impose its misguided policies on the Middle East.

Hamad added that Haniya is an icon of resistance and that is something he and we are all proud of.

Trump has made a series of decisions in recent months that have increased tensions in the region.

In a major break with decades of US policy, Trump announced on December 6 that the US formally recognises Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and will begin the process of moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The move unleashed protests across the occupied Palestinian territories and in major cities around the world.

And, on January 17, the US government decided to cut more than half of its planned funding to the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees  an institution that has been the lifeline to more than five million registered Palestinian refugees for over 70 years.The ban will be implemented in steps, with all domestic sales prohibited from 2021 onwards, officials say.

Hong Kong politicians decided on Wednesday to ban the sale of ivory, a move that is seen as an important step to protect elephants.

The ban will be implemented in steps, with all sales prohibited from 2021 onwards.

Were thrilled that Hong Kong, another major ivory market, will close its doors to legal ivory trade by 2021, joining China in showing great commitment in safeguarding a future for elephants, Margaret Kinnaird, leader of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Wildlife Practice said in a statement.

However, to ensure these legislative bans are not undermined, itll be critical for China and Hong Kong to boost enforcement and awareness efforts as well as tackle the rife black market, she added.

The decision comes after a similar ban on domestic sales went into effect in China on 1 January 2018.

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International ivory sales were banned from 1989 onwards, when the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) took effect.

China, however, continued to allow ivory sales domestically.

The country has been one of the worlds biggest markets for African ivory. Pressure by the international community and NGOs eventually lead to the country voting for a full ban on the sales of ivory.

Now that both China and Hong Kong have banned the sale, there is still the risk of affluent Chinese going abroad to buy ivory from other parts of Asia  in countries like Laos and Vietnam, where laws are less strict.

Once the trade becomes illegal in one place, it pops up somewhere, but its always in smaller quantities, Peter Knights, chief executive officer of WildAid, a group working towards completely rooting out illegal wildlife trade, told Al Jazeera early January.

Jan Vertefeuille, senior director for advocacy for WWF, said now that the three of the worlds largest ivory markets  US, China and Hong Kong  have committed to ending ivory sales, other countries should follow.

Other governments must urgently follow suit and ensure ivory traffickers have nowhere left to sell their ill-gotten wares.David Duke and Richard Spencer, among others thanked the US president for his address.

US President Donald Trumps State of the Union address has garnered praise among white supremacists, neo-Nazis, conspiracy theorists and other far-right social media users.

On Tuesday, Trump delivered his first State of the Union, the annual speech the president presents to a joint session of the United States Congress.

In the speech, Trump vowed to protect US citizens because Americans are dreamers, too, referring to the name for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigration policy.

Under that policy, undocumented immigrants who arrived as children are allowed to remain in the country for a certain period. DACA was introduced in 2012 by Trumps predecessor, former President Barack Obama. Trump announced he was ending the programme last year, giving Congress until March to come up with a permanent way to protect nearly 800,000 DACA recipients.

White supremacists quickly took to social media to comment on the presidents comments, with many of them praising the characterisation of Americans as dreamers.

In a Twitter post, David Duke, former leader of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), a racist organisation popular in the southern US for over a century after slavery ended in the 1860s, thanked the president.

https://twitter.com/DrDavidDuke/status/958534057159249921?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

https://twitter.com/DrDavidDuke/status/958528016690401280?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

During Trumps electoral campaign in 2016, he came under fire for hesitancy to disavow Duke, who had pledged his support for the then-Republican candidate.

In an interview with CNN, Trump had said of Duke and other white supremacists who endorsed him: You wouldnt want me to condemn a group that I know nothing about.

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Following widespread condemnation, he said: I dont need his endorsement; I certainly wouldnt want his endorsement.

We actually elected this man

White supremacist Richard Spencer, who did offer some critiques of the presidents speech, also celebrated Trumps comments on migration.

Trump said that he wants to maintain the nuclear family by ending chain migration. Basically, hes implying the superiority of the Prostestent wife and kids over the South American and African extended family. Interesting rhetoric. #SOTU  Richard  Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) January 31, 2018

Spencer is a leading figure in the alt-right, a loosely knit coalition of white supremacists, white nationalists and neo-Nazis.

Although there have been cracks in the alt-rights support for Trump, the movement rallied around his electoral campaign and have supported his attempts to curb immigration.

At the same time, Spencer dismissed Trumps calls for unity. We all share the same home, the same heart, the same destiny, and the same great American flag, Trump declared.

Spencer responded on Twitter saying: Do we really?

Do we all share the same heart and the same destiny? Do we really? #SOTU  Richard  Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) January 31, 2018

Andrew Anglin, who runs the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer, bragged that the far right helped get Trump into office on GAB, another social media network that has become popular with far-right users who have been kicked off Twitter and Facebook for violating hate speech guidelines.

Anytime one of these official events happens, Im always jarred by the fact that we actually elected this man President of the United States of America, Anglin wrote.

Neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin bragged of his movements role in electing Trump [Screenshot]

Anglins Daily Stormer has struggled to maintain a site host provider since the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12, 2017.

That rally saw white supremacist James Alex Fields allegedly plough his car into a march and kill 32-year-old anti-fascist protester Heather Heyer, injuring dozens more.

Following the deadly incident, Anglins website was forced to relocate from GoDaddy, a web hosting service, after an article described Heyer as a fat skank.

Paul Joseph Watson, an editor at the InfoWars conspiracy theory website, also joined the chorus of far-right commentators applauding Trump online.

Trump's not doing too bad over an hour into his speech given his dementia and crippling ill-health.  #SOTU  Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) January 31, 2018

Mike Cernovich, a conspiracy theorist and far-right commentator, described Tuesday as a good day for the good guys in response to Trumps address.

Cernovich is affiliated with the alt-light, a far-right, pro-Trump movement that avoids the open white supremacy of the alt-right and advocates civic nationalism.

https://twitter.com/Cernovich/status/958567851325120518?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

https://twitter.com/Cernovich/status/958538670251757568?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

White supremacist killings double

Since he took office, many of Trumps policies  attempting to ban visitors from Muslim-majority countries and limiting immigration, among others  have enjoyed widespread support among members of the far right.

While the president has repeatedly taken to Twitter to rail against violence allegedly committed by Muslims or immigrants, he has been less vocal about deadly incidents carried out by the far-right.

This hesitancy has led to widespread criticism over failure to speak out against far-right violence on several occasions.

After the violence in Charlottesville, critics decried the presidents assertion that there were very fine people on both the far-right and anti-fascist sides, which erupted in violent clashes during that demonstration.

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Earlier this month, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released a report that found that the number of people killed by white supremacists had doubled in 2017 when compared to the previous year.

Of the 34 people killed by domestic extremists last year, at least 18 were killed by white supremacists, the ADLs report noted.Israeli use of excessive force unlikely to decline in months ahead, a Ramallah-based rights organisation says.

At least six people have been killed in the occupied Palestinian territories since the beginning of the year 2018, according to a rights organisation.

On Tuesday, 16-year-old Laith Abu Naim succumbed to his wounds hours after being shot by Israeli forces in his village, on the outskirts of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

Laith is among five other youths who were killed as a result of the Israeli armys use of force, Maha Abdullah, a legal researcher at Al-Haq, a human rights NGO based in Ramallah, told Al Jazeera.

The others who lost their lives were: Firas Al-Tamimi, 16, Amir Abd Al-Hamid Abu Musaed, 15, Ali Omar Qino, 17, Ahmad Abd Al-Jaber Salim, 28, Ahmad Ismail Jarrar, 31.





Musaed was shot with live ammunition near Israels border in the besieged Gaza Strip, while protesting US President Donald Trumps decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israels capital.

Over the past two months, Israels excessive use of force has included the use of live ammunition [in some cases from a close distance] against protesters, rubber-coated metal bullets, firing tear gas canisters, and the launching of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, among others, said Abdullah.

For almost two months, Palestinians have protested on a semi-daily basis to condemn Trumps declaration of moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

At least 2,900 Palestinians have been injured since Trumps announcement was made on December 6, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society. More than 500 people have also been arrested by Israeli forces across the occupied Palestinian territories.

But, in other instances, the excessive use of force employed by Israeli forces came in the context of military raids, she noted.

This is exemplified in the case of Al-Dheisha Camp near Bethlehem on January 4, where Israeli forces raided the camp and indiscriminately and disproportionally used fire, injuring random passersby, she said.

Israeli forces regularly carry out raids on homes across the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem. The procedural raids usually happen based on secret evidence, but Palestinians insist they are used to intimidate and punish their communities for resisting Israeli occupation.

Many are taken into administrative detention during raids  a legal procedure that allows Israel to imprison Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip without charge or trial, for renewable periods of up to six months.





Beatings, forced arrests, and shootings occur during Israeli home demolition orders as well. The process has displaced thousands of Palestinians.

It is unclear whether the use of excessive force will wind down over the next few months, especially with the lack of accountability, Abdullah said.

This year, Palestinians will commemorate 70 years of the Nakba, the day of catastrophe, in which Israel was officially declared a state, following the forced removal of more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and the destruction of over 500 villages and towns.

According to Abdullah, protests and demonstrations are anticipated with such events, and the excessive use of force strategy is not expected to wind down.

This will highly likely translate to more killings and injuries on the ground, she said.Two women have accused the prominent Islamic scholar of sexual assault and rape.

French police have questioned prominent Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan over allegations over rape and sexual assault.

Two women filed complaints against Ramadan for an alleged rape in 2009 and an alleged sexual assault in 2012.

Ramadan, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Oxford, has denied the allegations.

One of the women claims she was abused by the scholar in a hotel in 2012. The woman, Henda Ayari, said she described parts of the assault in a book published in 2016. Back then, she did not reveal the identity of her assailant, but in the wake of the #MeToo movement, Ayari said the encounter involved Ramadan.

Ayari then filed a formal complaint with police in Rouen.

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Shorlty after, a second woman came forward who said she had gone through a similar experience with Ramadan in 2009.

Following the allegations, French police started a preliminary investigation.

After the accusations became public, Ramadan filed a complaint against Ayari for slander.

He also took a leave of absence from the University of Oxford.

A joint statement from Ramadan and the university said the leave would allow him to face the extremely serious allegations made against him.

The University has consistently acknowledged the gravity of the allegations against Professor Ramadan, while emphasising the importance of fairness and the principles of justice and due process, the statement said.

Ramadan, a Swiss national, is seen as one of the most influential Muslim scholars around the world.

He is the grandson of Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, and author of several books.Remembering Vietnam Wars Tet Offensive through photos

John Olson, a former combat photographer, speaks to Al Jazeera about his featured exhibit at the Newseum in Washington, DC titled, The Marines and Tet: The Battle That Changed the Vietnam War.Sam Sokha, who faces prosecution in Cambodia for throwing a shoe at Prime Minister Hun Sens image, arrested in Bangkok.

A woman who fled Cambodia to avoid prosecution for throwing a shoe at a billboard of Prime Minister Hun Sen has been arrested in Thailand and is at imminent risk of deportation, according to a lawyer and human rights groups.

A Thai court found Sam Sokha, a Cambodian labour rights activist, guilty of overstaying her visa in early January, despite the UN refugee agencys (UNHCR) recognition of her status as a refugee, her lawyer Koreeyor Manuchae told Al Jazeera on Wednesday.

Sokha was handed a suspended sentence and a fine, but was being held at an immigration dentention centre in the Thai capital, Bangkok, Manuchae said, where the 38-year-old activist reported receiving a visit from Cambodian officials who pressured her to return.

But deporting her to Cambodia is like sending her to her death, Manuchae said, adding that Sokha was very worried.

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Sokhas detention is the latest in Thailands long and chequered record of violating the human rights of refugees, said Olof Blomqvist, a spokesman for Amnesty International.

Thailand, which hosts more than 100,000 refugees, is not party to the international convention on refugees, he said, and treats any refugee living outside of designated camps on the Thai border with Myanmar as an undocumented immigrant.

Without legal status, refugees living in urban areas in and around Bangkok are often subject to arrest and deportation, according to rights groups.

Crackdown in Cambodia

Sokha has been living in Bangkok since April last year.

She fled Cambodia after the police there launched an investigation into a video clip on Facebook, which shows her throwing a shoe at the image of Hun Sen on a billboard of the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP). She throws a second shoe at the picture of Hun Sens party colleague, National Assembly President Heng Samrin.

This person, when will he stop destroying the nation? she is heard saying in the video, which was widely shared on social media. In an interview with the Phnom Penh Post newspaper at the time, Sokha said she posted the video because she was hurt by Hun Sens leadership.

My aunts land was grabbed. And they arrested and jailed my brother and he even could not find an attorney.

Shortly afterwards, prosecutors pressed charges of insulting a public official and incitement against her. The offences carry a three year jail term.

The move against Sokha came amid a sweeping crackdown on dissent in Cambodia. Opposition leader Kem Sokha was arrested and charged with treason and espionage later in September.

That same month, nearly a dozen radio stations were forced off the air, and the Cambodia Daily newspaper also stopped publishing over allegations of tax evasion. Weeks later, in November, the countrys Supreme Court dissolvedKem Sokhas Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), leaving the ruling party unopposed in parliament and ahead of general elections later this year.





The crackdown has forced several CNRP members of parliament into exile, with many seeking refuge in Thailand.

In a statement last week, Amnesty said the dissidents, as well as other asylum seekers and refugees have reported increased surveillance, harassment and intimidation by Thai police officers and Cambodian agents.

Sokhas arrest has prompted widespread fear in Bangkoks refugee community, activists said.

A Vietnamese dissident, A Ga, who fled political and religious persecution in his country, was also arrested and sentenced along his wife and 10-year-old-son earlier this month, and is being held at the same facility as Sokha.

Failure to protect people in need

Human rights groups said Thailand, in recent years, has forcibly returned more than a hundred refugees and asylum seekers based on the requests of foreign governments.

These include the repatriation of M. Furkan Sokmen, a Turkish national alleged to have links to an exiled cleric that Turkey accuses of being behind a failed coup attempt in July 2016, and the return of 109 people of the persecuted Uighur Muslim minority to China in 2015, according to Human Rights Watch.

Blomqvist, the Amnesty spokesman, said Thailand has often completely ignored the principle of non-refoulement, an absolute prohibition in international law on sending refugees back to territories where they could face human rights violations.

Whether by denying safe harbour to boats carrying desperate Rohingya refugees, or sending activists back to countries like Bahrain and China, where they could face torture, Thai authorities routinely failed to protect people in need.

A Thai immigration official meanwhile confirmed that Cambodian authorities were interested in Sokhas case, but dismissed the claim that Cambodian officials had paid a visit to the activist at Bangkoks Suan Phlu Immigration Detention Facility.

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There were requests from the country of origin, the official, who did not want to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media, told Al Jazeera.

He declined to reveal the nature of the request, and said: If we find they [asylum seekers] violate our laws, we have to follow our process, whether there is a request or not.

He added: We havent got any date or confirmation of when Sokha will be deported or if we will deport them at all.

The Cambodian government could not be reached for comment.

A spokesman for the Cambodian foreign ministry, however, told the Phnom Penh Post that he was not aware of any extradition requests.

Papitchaya Boonngok contributed reporting from Bangkok, ThailandAfter more than a week of soaring temperatures, the searing heatwave across New Zealand is about to come to an end. This is likely to be the countrys hottest month on record.

Over the past 10 days, some areas of the country have seen the mercury exceed 30 degrees Celsius.

The hot winds have blown in from southeastern Australia where highs have reached the low 40s Celsius at times. Temperatures in Adelaide and Melbourne are now nearer the low 20s.

The extreme temperatures in New Zealand have been at their highest on the eastern side of the country due to a process known as the Foehn effect.

Air cools with height and conversely warms up on descent. The Foehn effect is where air dries out and warms up as it passes onto the sheltered downslope of a mountain range.

Wednesday was the last hot day of the spell and also one of the hottest days of the year. Temperatures along the east coast of the South Island again passed 30C with inland areas nudging 40C.

Waiau Hamner in the Canterbury region reached 36.4C by 1400 local time on Wednesday.

This followed a high of 36.6C in Cromwell on Tuesday, equalling its hottest ever January temperature since records began.

We still have some way to go to reach the hottest day on record. That was February 7, 1973, when northern and eastern regions of the South Island experienced a high of 42.4C in Rangiora. Nine out 10 of the countrys highest temperatures were recorded that day.

The next few days will see a dramatic change in conditions with the remnants of Tropical Cyclone Fehi barreling towards the country. At the same time, a weather front is sliding across the Tasman Sea towards the South Island.

The two systems are expected to merge and could cause widespread flooding. Authorities are concerned that they might even bring a repeat of the severe floods of 1984.

Tropical Cyclone Fehi formed near New Caledonia at the start of the week and has been steadily drifting south. It will have weakened significantly by the time it crosses New Zealand.

Nevertheless, the countrys Met Service has issued severe weather warnings for heavy rain and strong to gale force winds for much of the South Island and lower parts of the North Island.

The heaviest downpours are expected on Thursday with western parts of the South Island getting 200 to 400mm of rain. East of the Southern Alps can expect 50 to 100mm. Damaging winds are also likely, Gusts of 129 to 130 kilometres per hour could also add to the dangerous conditions.

Quieter weather is forecast by the weekend as the rain clears through and winds ease down. It will feel much fresher, and indeed more comfortable by then, with temperatures nearer the high teens or low 20s Celsius. There might even be a dusting of snow on the hills.

President went off script during State of the Union speech to say those against his decision are enemies of the US.

US President Donald Trump used his first State of the Union address on Tuesday to describe countries which voted against his move to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel as enemies of America.

Trumps announcement on December 6, which included a decision to move the US embassy to the Holy City from Tel Aviv, was internationally condemned.

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Shortly after, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) voted the declaration as null and void.

According to a copy of Trumps planned address on Tuesday, the US president was expected to say: Dozens of countries voted in the United Nations General Assembly against Americas sovereign right to make this recognition.

American taxpayers generously send those same countries billions of dollars in aid every year. That is why, tonight, I am asking the Congress to pass legislation to help ensure American foreign-assistance dollars always serve American interests, and only go to Americas friends.

When the moment came, however, Trump added: Not enemies of America.

The seemingly impromptu remark essentially labelled 128 countries as enemies.

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The US typically limits its definition of an enemy or adversary to state sponsors of terror. The State Department lists countries including Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria as enemies.

I am not going to characterise the presidents words, a State Department spokesperson told Al Jazeera. The UNGA vote is a non-binding resolution that does nothing to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or advance the cause of peace.

While 128 countries voted for the resolution, 35 member states abstained, and seven voted against.

The Trump administration has held receptions in Washington, DC, celebrating those seven countries, including Palau, Nauru and Israel.

The United Kingdom, most of the European Union and Washingtons military partners such as Iraq and Afghanistan, were among those who voted in favour of the resolution.

The EUs High Representative Federica Mogherini said the bloc expressed serious concern about the move and said Europe remained committed to a two-state solution.

Trumps decision to recognise Jerusalem as the Israeli capital has also sparked protests across the world.

Unrest over the issue continues in the occupied Palestinian territories today.

The EU and Norway convened on Wednesday an extraordinary session of the International Donor Group for Palestine to discuss measures to speed up efforts that can underpin a negotiated solution.

No country currently has its embassy in Jerusalem.In first State of the Union, Trump boasts about US economy amid protests over immigration and sex abuse.

US President Donald Trump boasted about the economy, job growth and his America first policy during his first State of the Union address, which was met by protests inside and outside of Congress.

This, in fact, is our new American moment, Trump said on Tuesday evening as he laid out his top priorities for the year ahead.

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There has never been a better time to start living the American dream.

The president addressed issues from job growth and tax reform to infrastructure, immigration reform and national security.

Trump highlighted that since the election, we have created more than 2.4 million new jobs and unemployment claims have hit a 45-year low.

While the job market and economy have seen growth, analysts have pointed out that the upward trend began before Trump took office.

The US president also congratulated himself and Congress on passing a massive tax overhaul, which has been criticised by Democrats and rights groups for unfairly benefiting wealthy Americans, while raising taxes for middle-class families. It will also add nearly $1.5 trillion to the federal deficit over the next 10 years.

Immigration reform

Trump again called on Congress to pass immigration reform package that includes: creating a path to citizenship for 1.8 million undocumented people who were brought to the US as children; fully securing the border by building a wall on the US-Mexico border and ending the diversity visa lottery programme.

He also bid to stop immigration based on family ties  which Trump often refers to as chain migration  a phrase rights groups and Democrats call unhelpful and racist.

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Immigration reform has been high on the agenda for Democrats, who are seeking a permanent way to protect recipients of the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme, which was ended last year by the Trump administration.

Earlier this month, the government shut down for three days after Democrats and Republicans failed to reach an agreement on DACA, which the Democrats tied to government spending measure.

A temporary spending bill was passed, however, after Democrats accepted a promise by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to debate immigration on a level playing field.

Guantanamo to remain open

On foreign policy, Trump said he was proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated very close to 100 percent of the territory recently held by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

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Earlier this month, Paul E Funk II, the commanding general of the US operation against ISIL in Syria and Iraq, said that while more than 98 percent of the land once claimed by the terrorist group has been returned to the people, the armed groups repressive ideology continues and conditions remain for the armed group to return.

The president announced he was directing the defence department to keep open the controversial prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.

Trumps predecessor, Barack Obama, signed an executive order in 2009 to close the facility, but it has remained open.

The US president also called for the modernisation of the US nuclear arsenal, warning that: North Koreas reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland.

Trump named China and Russia as rivals.

Immigrants in audience

More than a dozen Democratic Congress members did not attend the speech, which local media reported could have marked the biggest boycott of its kind for a State of the Union address.

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Several Democrats brought undocumented immigrants and recipients of the DACA programme, also known as Dreamers, as their guests to the speech.

I will be bringing Denea, one of Californias 220,000 DACA recipients, Senator Kamala Harris said on Twitter before the address. Denea, a UCLA alumnus, is actively involved in empowering black immigrant communities through advocacy work.

At tomorrows State of the Union Address, I will be bringing Denea, one of Californias 220,000 DACA recipients. Denea, a UCLA alumnus, is actively involved in empowering black immigrant communities through advocacy work.https://t.co/snk9WQITku  Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) January 30, 2018

Others brought sex abuse survivors as guests. This year, allegations of sexual abuse in the film industry, politics and other workplaces have rocked the US, prompting the #MeToo and Times Up movements.

Several women in the audience wore black in solidarity with those who have been affected by sexual abuse and harassment.

Trump himself is facing more than 20 sexual misconduct allegations, according to the Washington Post.

Outside the Capitol building, hundreds of anti-Trump protesters chanted lock him up as Trumps motorcade arrived for the address, according to US media.

On Monday, activists and celebrities gathered in New York City for a Peoples State of the Union to highlight some of the greatest achievements of the resistance movement against Trump.

Al Jazeera recently examined the State of America Under Trump in a series. Read:

Trumps America: A shrinking space for protests

Trumps America: Dreamers must make deal with devil

Trumps America: An attack on climate change fight

Trumps America: War of attrition on journalists

Trumps America: A war on police, or their detractors?

Trumps America: An assault on womens healthTurkey-Qatar deal signed in 2014 enables deployment of Turkish air, naval forces in the Gulf state, Turkish envoy says.

Turkey plans to deploy air and naval forces to Qatar in addition to ground troops that are already stationed in the country, a Turkish diplomat said on Wednesday.

Fikret Ozer, Turkish ambassador to Qatar, however, declined to state a timeline for the move.

According to the agreement signed between Qatar and Turkey in 2014 ground, air, and naval forces will be deployed to Qatar, he told reporters at a press conference in Doha on Turkeys recent so-called Olive Branch military operation in northwestern Syria.

Ankara and Doha would determine the timeline of the construction of the necessary infrastructure and when these forces will be deployed through talks, he said.

The planned deployment is part of an agreement that also saw Turkey set up a military camp in Qatar.

The first batch of Turkish troops arrived at the Tariq Bin Ziyad military base in 2015.

The camp, located south of Doha, is Turkeys first such installation in the Middle East and can accommodate up to 5,000 soldiers.

Ozer also declined to disclose the number of Turkish forces currently stationed in Qatar.

That information would be disclosed if our Qatari brothers agree to share that, he said. We are guests here; they are the host.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been a major supporter of Doha since Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt severed diplomatic and trade relations with Qatar on June 5.

The four Arab countries accused Doha of supporting terrorism and fostering ties with their regional rival, Iran. Qatar denies the accusations.

Shortly after the diplomatic crisis erupted, Turkeys parliament fast-tracked a bill for troop deployment to the Turkish base in Qatar and another on military training cooperation with the Gulf Arab state.

Ankara has also been trying to mediate between the opposing sides to find a solution to the crisis.Turkeys Afrin offensive enters second week

The Turkish offensive in the Kurdish-held border town of Afrin has entered its second week.Taner Kilic was imprisoned over alleged connections to the Gulen movement, accused by Ankara of an attempted coup.

A Turkish court has ordered the release of Taner Kilic, chair of the Turkish chapter of Amnesty International.

Kilic had been in prison since June 2017, when he was arrested for allegedly having links to a group accused of being behind the 2016 attempted coup.

Its a great victory for the human rights movement in Turkey and its gonna give us more strength to go on and campaign for the acquittal of everyone in this case, Andrew Gardner, senior adviser on Turkey for Amnesty International told Al Jazeera.

Were all incredibly happy. This is what we campaigned for, for the last eight months.

Family members and colleagues were on the way to Izmir, the city where Kilic was being held.

Authorities say Kilic was using ByLock, an encrypted communication software which the government says is used by members of a group led by Fethullah Gulen, a US-based, self-exiled religious leader who the government blames for last years coup attempt.

Both Kilic and Amnesty Turkey have strongly denied the allegations.

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Its a completely baseless case that was brought against them because they are human rights defenders, Gardner told Al Jazeera.

Despite Kilics release, the case against him will continue in June this year. Pending this hearing, Kilic has been given a travel ban, prohibiting him from leaving Turkey.

Kilics arrest was part of a purge by the Turkish government in the wake of a failed coup attempt in July 2016. Tens of thousands of people were imprisoned and dismissed from their jobs.

Local and international rights groups have accused the government of using the coup attempt as a pretext to silence opposition in the country.

The government has said that the purges and detentions are aimed at removing supporters of Gulen from state institutions and other parts of society.

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Gardner said despite Kilics release on Wednesday, Amnesty would continue fighting for both him and many others in the country.

The fact is that over 100,000 officials have been dismissed from their jobs without due process, and there are more journalists in prison in Turkey than anywhere in the world, he said.

Our work for them will go on and our work for everyone who has been unfairly imprisoned in Turkey will continue, Gardner added.

But tonight well take some time off to celebrate Taners release.British lawyers accuse kingdom of arbitrary arrests and the disappearances of dozens of political activists.

British lawyers have called for Saudi Arabia to be removed from the United Nations Human Rights Council, stating that the kingdom detains political and free speech activists without charge.

In a report released on Wednesday in London, Rodney Dixon QC and Lord Kenneth Donald John Macdonald said more than 60 individuals were detained in September last year, many of whom are believed to be human rights defenders or political activists.

Our main recommendation is that steps should be taken by the General Assembly to suspend the government of Saudi Arabia from the [UN] Human Rights Council, Dixon told Al Jazeera.

It is completely contradictory and ironic for a government with systemic patterns of abuse  as we have highlighted in the report  to be sitting on the council, and in fact previously to have chaired the council.

That suspension will act as a major lever for the government to clean up their act and make a proper new start.

The report, titled Shrouded in secrecy: the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia following arrests in September 2017, was commissioned by the relatives of detainees and will be forwarded to Saudi authorities.

Muslim leader held in solitary, hospitalised

Dixon urged Saudi Arabia to release all political detainees.

Those detained have not been charged with any offence, and the information about the reasons for their arrests and circumstances of their imprisonment are very limited, the report said.

There is cause for serious concern about the treatment of many of those detained, including Mr Salman Al-Awda who has recently been hospitalised and others who are, effectively, disappeared.

Awda is one of Saudis most popular Muslim leaders with almost 150 million followers on Twitter. He was recently hospitalised after five months of solitary confinement. It remains unclear why he was arrested.

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Al Jazeeras Sonia Gallego, reporting from London, said: While there may have been quite a lot of drama created by the very high-profile arrests at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, which was targeting mainly princes, politicians and businessmen, less has been said about these arrests which have caused a lot of concern.

According to the report, there are 30 arbitrarily detained and another 31 who have simply disappeared.

Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman led the detentions of dozens of high-profile Saudis accused of corruption late last year. The group was held for months in Riyadhs Ritz-Carlton Hotel. The kingdom announced on Tuesday that it had seized more than $100bn as part of its anti-corruption purge.

Saudi Arabias membership in the United Nations Human Rights Council expires in 2019.

The suspension of membership rights is not simply a hypothetical possibility, the report said.

In February 2011, the council called for Libya to be suspended as the government of Muammar Gaddafi was being accused of human rights violations against civilians during the uprising. A month later, the General Assembly voted for the suspension of Libyas membership  marking the first time it has used its power to revoke a countrys membership.

Human rights groups have previously called for Saudis membership to be taken away, citing the kingdoms involvement in the bloody war in Yemen, which has killed tens of thousands of people.Vietnam marks 50th anniversary of Tet Offensive

A ceremony has been held in Ho Chi Minh City to remember the 1968 Tet Offensive, which significantly altered the course of the war in Vietnam.About the show

A weekly programme that examines and dissects the worlds media, how they operate and the stories they cover. Watch The Listening Post every Saturday at 0830GMTRalph Chamberlain has seen a disease sweep over his citrus grove like a cancer.

As a farmer and as a business manager of a citrus business, we are actually dying a slow death, he said.

Like many other Florida citrus growers, Chamberlain, the general manager of Edentown Co. in Charlotte County, is heavily affected by citrus greening. The disease is spread by insects that carry a bacteria, which causes trees to die and their fruit to taste abnormal, said Zhonglin Mou, a UF associate professor of microbiology and cell science.

To find a solution, three UF researchers, including Mou, received $10.52 million in federal grants to research ways to reduce greening, said UFs Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences spokesperson Brad Buck.

Since greening was first reported in Florida in 2005, the disease has decreased Floridas citrus production by more than 50 percent, IFAS research has found, Buck said. Its one of the states largest industries at about $8.6 billion per year.

Mou will receive $2.95 million to develop tolerant citrus trees by changing the genes that affect the trees immune system, he said.

Arnold Schumann, an IFAS soil and water sciences professor, said every variety of citrus grown in Florida is susceptible to greening.

What makes it so devastating is the fact that its incurable, Schumann said.

Schumann received $3.5 million on Jan. 1 from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

He plans to further his research that he began in 2014 on a screening system that protects citrus from an insect species that spreads the bacteria causing greening, called the Asian citrus psyllid.

The system he uses, called Citrus Under Protective Screen, consists of a fine mesh screen that goes around the trees to block out the insect, he said. It can serve as a cost-efficient way to protect the plants.

Its important for researchers to try to find a solution or resistance to greening, Schumann said.

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It employs not just people working in the citrus industry, but also all the satellite companies and supplies, Schumann said. Its kind of an iconic symbol of the state.

The third researcher, Nian Wang, an IFAS associate professor of microbiology and cell science, said he received about $3.6 million on Jan. 15 to make an orange tree that is resistant to the disease by using a technology that modifies genes.

For Chamberlain and his farm, he can only hope for a change.

At this point, were just grabbing for anything, he said.

Alligator Contributing Writer Wyatt Schreiber contributed to this report.

Citrus greening is a disease that reduces the production of citrus, with symptoms including yellowing of the leaves, dying of the trees or branches, abnormally tasting fruit and no fruiting. This 1-acre Citrus Under Protective Screen, a mesh screening, protects these 2.5-year-old mandarin trees by blocking out the Asian citrus psyllid, an insect that carries the bacteria that causes greening.In todays editorial, were going to ask you to remember your high school days.

Were not asking you to relive the awkward times, exactly, but just the feeling you got from the administration. They were adults, and you were still trying to grasp algebra. They knew best, of course.

But did you know you had rights?

The case Tinker v. Des Moines may sound familiar to some. For those unfamiliar, its one of the first landmark cases about students First Amendment rights. Mary Beth Tinker donned a black armband to protest the Vietnam War when she went to school. She was a 13-year-old junior high school student with a voice. But school administrators suspended her, and her voice reached the Supreme Court.

When they enter the school gates, the Court held, students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."

But Jan. 13, 1988, the Supreme Court made a decision that restricted those rights for students. The issue at hand? A story about divorce and another about teen pregnancy was set to be published in Hazelwood East High Schools paper, The Spectrum. But the principal, who felt the topics were inappropriate, prohibited the publication to run the stories. The students First Amendment rights were violated, they argued. Despite a lower court agreeing with the students, the Supreme Court sided with the principal and said the students rights were not violated. Because the paper was sponsored by the school, and because it was not a public forum in which everyone could share their views, the principal had the right to make the call, the Supreme Court decided.

What this means today is students are being censored by their own administration. We live in a time when news outlets are strained for resources and student journalists are becoming the watchdogs of their community.

We can point to instances where student reporters have broken news that professional papers were catching up on. Heres one example: a high school newspaper wrote about their new principals credentials. She later resigned. But just last week, a Utah high school principal deleted an article the student newspaper published on a beloved teacher being fired for misconduct. In 2015, a principal in Virginia pulled an article about a new drug technique from a print version of the high school paper. He told the student reporter he feared that the article would expose pupils "to a new and dangerous drug without adult guidance," according to The Washington Post.

The point is: Student journalists deserve our support in protecting their rights. New Voices legislation, started by the Student Press Law Center, is trying to give student journalists, both at the high-school and college level, protection from censorship. Only 13 states have passed the legislation, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. (Spoiler alert: Florida is not on this list, although theres a campaign to get it passed.) In six of these states, protections are limited to high-school students only.

This lack of protection has real impacts. Within these incidents of censorship are moments of defiance. The students in Utah have started a new publication outside of school control. The paper in Virginia ran the article online anyway.

But these are battles that shouldnt have to be fought. If an 18-year-old college freshman can report on their college, why cant an 18-year-old high school senior report on their public school?

Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox Subscribe NowGainesville residents can expect a night filled with a fusion of Caribbean-inspired reggae-rock Thursday when popular Ocala band Propaganjah performs at the High Dive alongside Ellameno Beat and Burn Every Thing.

Richard Larson, a 23-year-old UF forest resources and conservation senior, said he plans on attending the concert, not only because he was a fan of Propaganjah but also because of his desire to support up-and-coming reggae artists.

I think in this time of unrest, it would be positive for more people to listen and support reggae in order to help spread the love and realize that we are all one, said Larson.

Ever since its debut in Jamaica during the 60s, reggae has been a music genre known for spreading messages of love, hope and resistance. In a world so divided, Larson mourns the lack of Gainesville reggae bands, saying that the lyrics of reggae bands tend to be more peaceful and send a unifying message.

Taylor Col, a 23-year-old UF chemical engineering senior and lead vocalist and saxophone player for opening band Burn Every Thing, agrees with Larsons description on the lack of Gainesville reggae scene. He said that while there are a lot of reggae shows in town, there arent many local reggae bands.

Gainesville loves reggae music, but it would be awesome if there were more reggae bands from here, Col said.

Col personally appreciates the support for local reggae bands, not only because hes a fan of the genre but because of his role in Burn Every Thing.

Reggae is all about taking it easy and enjoying life. Listening to reggae can take your mind off your stressors and help you appreciate what you have, said Col. Local reggae is important because as Floridians, we have a unique perspective on life since we are all close to the coast and we can use reggae to communicate it to the world.

Col listed Bob Marley and Shabba Ranks as two of his musical inspirations, saying that his love of the genre is partially due to the childhood nostalgia the music brings him, as well as its message of positivity.

Whenever Im at the beach or just enjoying a beautiful day outside, I always play reggae music, said Col. As a style of music that came from the Caribbean, it resonates with me because the environment here is so similar.

Col, who described his bands sound as a fusion of reggae and hip-hop, said Burn Every Thing just finished putting together their set and is planning on rehearsing a few times before the show.

Fans can expect positive vibes and positive people, said Col. The song Im most excited to perform is definitely Ask Not. Its a banger for sure.

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Col said hes looking forward to seeing Propaganjah live. Col said hes seen the band live before and recommends fans to come experience the band for themselves.

They have a very engaging stage presence. They all have huge smiles on their faces the whole show, said Col. The one dude on skin drum jumps around and even got down into the crowd at one point. Some reggae bands like to keep it chill but they get the hype.

The 18-and-over show will start at 8 p.m. The tickets are $8 in advance at www.ticketfly.com and $10 at the door. A $3 under-21 fee is charged at the door.

Roots of a Rebellion was originally on this lineup, but due to unforeseen circumstances the band was forced to drop out on Tuesday.No Breaks for Israel

Israels red lines in Syrias civil war have included returning fire against any entity that fires into Israel (whether Syrian, rebel, Hizballah, or Iranian); not permitting Iran or Hizballah or any of their Shiite proxies in Syria to establish permanent bases within a specific distance of the Israeli Golan border; and not permitting weapons beyond a certain level of lethality and sophistication to move from Syria to Hizballah. To enforce those lines, the Israeli Air Defense Force is suspected of carrying out attacks on a scientific research center, artillery positions, a munitions factory, and more. The Israeli government rarely confirms such strikes, but acknowledges that the Russians are informed of Israeli activity when necessary in an agreed-upon effort to limit the damage and not engage Russian forces themselves. This has morphed into one of the most quietly effective relationships in the Middle East. Not an alliance, certainly, but the pragmatic leaders of both countries have concluded that each benefits by coordinating with the other.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a full agenda this week, as he went to Moscow for a five-hour meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin after their meeting in Davos. High on the list was Israels growing concern about the expansion of Hizballah missiles and missile production facilities in Lebanon  facilitated by Iran. "It's no longer a transfer of arms, funds or consultation. Iran has de-facto opened a new branch, the 'Lebanon branch.' Iran is here, wrote IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis. In Lebanon, Hezbollah does not conceal its attempt to take control of the state. But on this and other issues, Russia, Syrias longtime ally, is looking to reduce its exposure. As the shape of the Syrian war changes, Israel may find its working relations with Russia undermined by Moscows desire to exercise influence in Syria generally from afar, and by its shifting relations with Iran. Since the start of the civil war in 2011, Moscow has enhanced its political position in Damascus and across the region. It has also strengthened its security position by upgrading its naval bases at Tartus and Latakia, while acquiring an airbase at Hmeimim. Russia is leery of committing troops to the war (Afghanistan looms large here), and there are, in fact, very few Russian soldiers on the ground. Now, as fighting on some fronts wanes, the Russians want to pull even those back. Visiting Syria last month, Putin said he would withdraw most of the troops while maintaining the bases. According to Israels Haaretz newspaper, Putin told assembled Russian troops, Friends, the homeland awaits you. He had earlier said the military operation in Syria is indeed in its final stages," and the political process will begin to take precedence. But while Russia makes plans to reduce its military presence in Syria, Iran is making plans to expand its influence -- not in restricted air bases or naval bases on the coast, but in the Sunni heartland. For Iran, Syria is part of the Shiite Crescent, the land bridge from Iran through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon to the Mediterranean Sea. Not only is it crucial in terms of controlling and supplying Shiite revolution across the region, it serves as a lid stretching across the northern borders of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel -- providing a means of harassing all three through proxies. But Syria is an awkward partner in the Crescent, being only 15-20% Shiite -- and on top of that, Alawite, a heterodox branch of Shiism. In order to control Syria for the long term, Iran has to be on the ground in force. As early as 2016, as the Syrian Armed Forces disintegrated, U.S. sources said there were more than 80,000 militia fighters controlled by Iran. Confirming the number last week, Israels ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said there were 3,000 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), 9,000 members of Hizballah, and 10,000 "violent Shia militias recruited from across the Mideast, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan." The rest are Syrian. As for Lebanon, Mohammad Raad, a Hizballah leader poured gasoline on that fire, claiming Hizballah has capabilities that can destroy the Israeli army, and warning Israel against doing something foolish that will be destructive." He called Israel regionally and internationally isolated. Other Hizballah leaders, seeking to cool the situation, denied Maneliss assertion of Iranian control. Israel is far from regionally isolated. In fact, Irans greatest concern at the moment is the burgeoning rapprochement between Israel and the Sunni Gulf States -- especially Saudi Arabia. Israel is further bolstered by Vice President Mike Pences assertion that the U.S. wont let Iran dominate the region. But movement by Russia out of Syria, leaving the ground game to Iran, could change the shape of Israels immediate neighborhood -- to its detriment.A Brief History of the Fake News Media

For far too long, I was convinced that the media were, on the whole, reliable purveyors of the news. For nearly three years I freelanced happily at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Music and Public Affairs, never suspecting that the Mothercorp was a hive of Liberal propaganda and an artesian fount of scandalously disingenuous broadcasting. It took 9/11 and the generally extenuating media reports over time, faulting the U.S. and exempting Islam, to shake up my thinking and turn me into a sceptical fact-finder. The media are especially adept at creating villains out of whole cloth for public consumption to advance a particular and often dubious purpose. How else explain the transformation of significant political figures into synonyms for perfidy and opprobrium. Im thinking in particular of Joe McCarthy, Barry Goldwater and Enoch Powell, all of whom considered themselves patriots and enunciated unpopular or anti-establishment truths, costing them their reputations both in their lifetimes and for posterity.

As Diana West writes of McCarthy, after more than 60 years of McCarthyismthe perpetual slander of Joseph McCarthy as a witch-hunter, as opposed to an honest accounting of this fearless investigator of deep and widespread infiltration of the US government by Stalin's secret agentsAmericans have been conditioned tohate, loathe and revile McCarthy...The slander of McCarthyism,has had the dire effect of bludgeoning our abilities to detect or even acknowledge the existence of any constitutional enemies, especially domestic.  Favorable commentators will admit that McCarthy may have been guilty of exaggerations and errors, but as the Venona transcripts have verified, he was right overall. He may have manifested as vindictive, yet he was remorseless in his campaign to isolate Communist sympathizers in government circles who worked to subvert the country. This, of course, made him anathema to a treasonous press and a political establishment that had much to hide, whether their complicity or their negligence. Barry Goldwater has fared no better. When asked in a July 9, 1964 interview in Der Spiegel about his advocating the use of nuclear weapons to defoliate the jungles in Vietnam, Goldwater replied About a monthanda half ago on a television show I was asked a technical question, how could you get at the trails through the rain forests of North Vietnam. Well, I served in the rain forests of Burma and I know that the only practical way to get at them is defoliation so an answer to a technical question like thisone possible way of doing it even though I made clear this would never be done, would be the use of lowyield nuclear devices (emphasis mine). As the Daily Mail History section pointed out, Democrats painted Goldwater as a warmonger who was overly eager to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam. And, of course, with few exceptions like the Daily Mail, the MSM was all over it, painting Goldwater as a nuclear warhawk, a kind of Dr. Strangelove. (The film appeared on January 29, 1964, 10 months before the Johnson-Goldwater election. The writing was already on the wall.) I was young and shallow at the time and a knee-jerk leftist, so I took it as media gospel that Goldwater was about to launch a nuclear firestorm. Shortly afterward, I was all for LBJs Great Societya socialist term coined by Fabian Society stalwart Graham Wallassince the press assured me it was a good thing. How could a War on Poverty go wrong? It was only much later, when I developed some common sense, shook off the political amblyopia which afflicted me, and actually studied the issue, that I realized the Great Society was at best and only in part a qualified success, but ultimately and in many respects a dismal failure: grossly unaffordable, unleashing a pro-Third World immigration nightmare from which we are suffering today, and furnishing an incentive to welfare parasitism. As Ronald Reagan famously remarked, In the 60s we waged a war on poverty, and poverty won. But Johnson was elected by a landslide and Goldwater, who in my estimation would have made a much better president, relegated to the halls of infamy. Then there was the infamous newspaper-generated case of Enoch Powell. As I wrote in a previous article, Powell warned in his 1968, so-called rivers of blood speech of the imminent and future perils of unchecked immigration. Powell was worried mainly about immigration from the West Indies, which was transforming traditional neighborhoods into violent ghettoes, whose first and second generation inhabitants were not interested in cultural integration. Powells river of blood was an allusion to a passage from Book VI of Virgils Aeneid in which the Sibyl prophesizes that the Tiber would flow with blood as a metaphor for civil discord. As we observe the relentless Islamization of the U.K., can we say he was wrong? Naturally, Powell would today have received the same or worse misuse from the media, which would have tattooed him as a white supremacist, a bigot and an Islamophobe. Indeed, similar, if somewhat less virulent, treatment has been meted out to London barrister Gavin Boby of mosque buster fame. Boby has been the target of media calumny for assisting British homeowners in preparing and filing legal actions to preserve their neighborhoods from the erection of mosques, which collapse property values and render local life increasingly distressing and in many case untenable. Boby has told me stories about severed cables and wires, broken windows, commandeered driveways, residential streets clogged with traffic, harassment of dog owners, pedestrian bullying, forced sales of depressed properties and more, which have driven longtime residents to despair. Boby works pro bono and is strikingly successful, a fact which makes him non grata to the media and the power elites. Thus, when I think back, Im appalled at my own naivete. McCarthy was the devils spawn. Goldwater would initiate a nuclear firestorm. Powell was an irremediable racist. And Islam, of course, is a noble and magnanimous faith. 9/11 changed everything for me and compelled me to embark on a scrupulous five-year program of what I call the indispensable three Rs, Reading, Research and Reflection, which cured me of my media fantasy and culminated in the publication of The Big Lie in 2007/8 and The Boxthorn Tree in 2012. The media lie has now acquired epic dimensions. Gary Demar puts it succinctly in an article for Godfather Politics: Obviously, much if not most of what we read in articles and screeds written by liberals is designed to distort the truth. Some are willing to lie for what they perceive to be their idea of the greater good. Others just put the worst spin on out-of-context statements to elevate the blood pressure of their targeted ultra-liberal audience. The Fake News Syndrome, as Ive stressed, is nothing new. Its been approximately the case for as long as we can remember. The only discrimination between the MSM and the FNM is that the latter has become effectively coterminous with the former. Previously there were a few, if not many, reasonably impartial news venues; today these are practically non-existent. Eventually, I realized that the Western media were even more insidious than the Soviet controlled news outfits. Many Russians knew that Pravda and Izvestia were propaganda arms of the Politburo and discounted their stories as rubbish; many Westerners, on the other hand, are readily deceived, believing the press is free from bias and generally principled and reliable. I know now, however belatedly, that our media constitute one of the gravest threats to our democratic traditions and wonder how I could ever have been so gullible.Iran -- What Will Come Next?

After three weeks of unrest in most parts of Iran, the situation now seems to be calm, although some protests still continue. Does this mean that the revolt has lost steam and that the government has managed, at least for a period of time, to postpone the final confrontation? Certainly not. Despite the slump in demonstrations and attacks on state buildings, the motives for the uprising still remain. The regime of the Ayatollahs has no cure for the bankrupt economy that ignited the protests. The wealth of Iran has been plundered by the government and spent for terrorist activities and meddling in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen. Above all, grave violations of human rights inside Iran are still continuing.

To judge what the Ayatollahs have done to Irans economy, it may be sufficient to notice the price of dollar which was less than 100 rials in 1978, when Ayatollah Khomeini grasped power, comparing to that of today, which is over 40,000 rials. Officials in Tehran are worried. Salimi, a member of Irans parliament, said, One of the problems in our country today is the increasing number of graduates who cant find a job. We are facing with an army of the unemployed. Another member of Iranian parliament said, Many of our banks have gone bankrupt, government is facing a budget deficit of 50,000 billion rials. A review of the debates in Irans last presidential election sheds light on some of the miseries that the mullahs have inflicted on Iranian people. In the debate before Irans May 19 presidential election, all six candidates said that the countrys economy was in ruins. Vice President Ecehagh Jahangiri revealed that one reason for Irans poor economy was the existence of a smuggling market valued at $12 billion annually. Ebrahim Raisi, another presidential candidate and a member of the death committee of the 1988 massacre, said the value of the smuggling market is $18 billion annually. Another asserted that Smuggled goods are imported via 114 official piers. This situation would not be understandable anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, a huge number of workers, who are forced to work under medieval laws, have not received their salaries for months. Workers demonstrating in Tehran and other Iranian cities, demanding their unpaid salaries, are often arrested and jailed by the armed forces. A country that exports almost 4 million barrels of oil every day and has giant resources of gas has a rate of unemployment from 12.5 to even 60 per cent in some areas. Ebrahim Razaghi, an economist, told the pro-government news agency Tasnim, 60 to 70 per cent of Irans producers are bankrupt or out of business. 20 to 30 million people are in need of food, while some of the officials receive salaries over 100 hundred million rials. Meanwhile, a close ally of Supreme Leader Khamenei confessed that 40 million Iranians live under the poverty line, 11 million do not have a proper house and live on the outskirts. The Ministry for Labor and Social Welfare in Rouhanis government has announced that 12 million Iranians cannot afford proper food. Transparency International has placed Iran among the most corrupt states. A report by this organization says that groups inside the government, which control the economy, normally act on their own and do not respond to any authority. In related news, in 2013, Reuters revealed an entity worth over $95 billion belonging to Supreme Leader Khamenei. Fox news also reported that Iran is spending billions of dollars on its weapons programs and supporting terrorism around the globe while it ignores the basic needs of its people. The report is titled Primary Causes of Poverty and Popular Uprisings in Iran. issued by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). It asserts that the annual minimum cost to Iranians of keeping the clerical regime in power is about $55 billion. In an attempt to suppress the revolt, both factions inside the regime pretend that the uprising is extinct and everything is now back to normal, but the root cause of unrest -- the dire economic situation of millions of poor people  remains. For a regime with a record of 63 condemnations in the U.N. General Assembly for its flagrant violations of human rights, the gap between the people and the government is so deep that it will only be healed by the collapse of mullahs government.Subverting the Electoral Process

In his Gettysburg Address, Lincoln reminded Americans that they were uniquely privileged to have a new birth of freedom that was contingent on government of the people, by the people, and for the people. That was then. What about now? Every week brings new revelations and details about a cabal in the federal government whose actions border on conspiracy. The evidence suggests that specific high-level officials in the Justice Department and the FBI colluded together to violate the law in unprecedented ways for the singular purpose of subverting the will of the people both before and after the 2016 election.

The United States is now at a defining moment. Will there be a restoration of the rule of law, or will Washingtons elite continue to give cover and a pass to fellow members of the Ruling Class (in the sense used by Angelo Codevilla)? The question: Is there sufficient decency and courage in the midst of Washingtons swamp to compel the pursuit of justice wherever in the Ruling Class it leads and then to prosecute the lawbreakers -- whoever they are? First, its vital to understand that when you give a pass -- or worse, you give multiple successive passes -- to lawbreakers, you not only protect those who violated the law, but you empower and encourage would-be lawbreakers to do the same or worse. Second, when laws are not enforced, they cease to have meaning. And thats when your nation finds itself on a slippery slope of arbitrary and subjective rule and cronyism, which ends in ruin... such as no borders, the hollowing out of protections in the Bill of Rights, and the politicization of government agencies, to name a few. The importance of the rule of law for civil society can be traced back to Moses in the 13th Century B.C. and later the ancient philosopher Aristotle and the Roman political theorist Cicero. In the Middle Ages, the Magna Carta was drafted in England in 1215 A.D. to force the king and all future sovereigns and magistrates to live and rule under the law. Those foundational roots would be carried into the U.S. Constitution, which was given shape by the Bible and the greatest philosophic minds -- both political and legal. In 1644 Samuel Rutherford published the The Law and the Prince. Refuting the theory of the Divine Right of Kings, Rutherford argued that if the king violated the law of nature, he should be deposed and punished as a criminal. John Lockes father was a close acquaintance of Rutherford and was a member of the Puritan forces that fought against King Charles I. The impression and inspiration provided by Rutherford no doubt influenced young John Locke, who would later write The Second Treatise of Government in 1690. While Locke is generally considered to be the chief source in the drafting of the U.S. Constitution, the Founders actually cited Oxford legal scholar, William Blackstone, twice as often as they cited Locke. In fact, Blackstones four-volume Commentaries on the Laws of England, published in 1765, became more of a sensation in the American colonies than in England, ironically giving justification for the American colonists to revolt against King George. Prior to the Revolutionary War, more copies of Blackstones Commentaries were sold in America than in England, which had three times as many inhabitants. Americas Founders were also deeply influenced by French political philosopher Baron Charles de Montesquieu, whose De l'esprit des lois (The Spirit of the Laws) made the unique contribution of the doctrine of separation of powers -- which explained that liberty is best protected when government distributes executive, legislative, and judicial power among three branches of government so no one branch can exercise too much power and control of the other branches and so that corruption and abuse of power is checked. The fact that the U.S. Constitution (less the Bill of Rights) was drafted in less than four months by 42 delegates to the Constitutional Convention in the heat of a Philadelphia summer in 1787 is a miracle in and of itself -- a testimony to the hand of Providence on the debate between disparate contributors from 12 of the 13 original states and on guiding the drafting of the most profound blueprint for successful democracy the world has ever known. The U.S. is unique in human history being the only nation founded solely on moral ideas and principles and a noble vision of mans potential for good, but also a recognition of his sinful propensities for selfishness and abuse of power. America was founded in revolution against oppression, and then tested, forged, and reaffirmed by bloody sacrifice in civil war and successive foreign wars right up to the present -- fought to uphold the cause of freedom and its attendant rights and duties inexorably tied to natural and civil law. If we give a pass to a cabal of lawbreakers in todays Ruling Class, we betray our heritage, our ideals and vision, and the blood of so many patriots. This kind of lawbreaking -- the attempt to subvert the will of the American people in the 2016 election and its aftermath -- is the highest crime and misdemeanor, akin to treason. So what to do? Boldness is needed and there is simply no more important or cathartic action to take to restore faith in our system, equality before the law and to rein in cronyism and double standards, than the indictment and prosecution of high crime and misdemeanor lawbreakers irrespective of position or party affiliation -- from the previous administration or in government today. Its time to indict and prosecute key figures in the Clinton political crime syndicate and their protectors, which would include those involved in weaponizing U.S. Government agencies to conduct unmasking and surveillance operations against American citizens in violation of their sacred 4th Amendment right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects Failing to hold Ruling Class lawbreakers accountable is not an option, for the next stage of ruin on that slippery slope weve been on looks more like a police state than a country club. Scott Powell is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute in Seattle. Reach him at scottp@discovery.orgThe Shabby, Sophomoric Behavior of Democrats at the SOTU

It is difficult to imagine a more galling demonstration of incivility than the Democrats in the room for Trump's SOTU speech. They scowled, frowned, and sat on their hands throughout the speech. They could hardly be bothered to acknowledge the heroes in the audience when they were introduced. While the Dems brought illegal immigrants, Trump invited actual paragons of American character and the families of victims of illegal immigrant crimes, as well as a victim of North Korea. It was embarrassing, like watching the anti-Semites in the UN stomp out of the room when Benjamin Netanyahu speaks. How is it any different? Our Democrats behave exactly like the most racist, intolerant people on the planet, and in their own Capitol. The Democrats loathe the tax reform that has kick-started the American economy. They abhor the return of American manufacturing and the bonuses so many companies have doled out to their employees. It was not so long ago that Obama essentially swore that "those jobs are never coming back." "Crumbs," billionaire Pelosi called their bonuses. The left today hates our military. They hate the notion of national security. Like Obama, they cannot abide the unfair advantage, as they see it, of American might, American success, and American freedom which they are always trying to impede, to restrict, to regulate and tax. The left has been doing its best to turn the United States into Venezuela for two generations. Progressivism is socialism. Venezuela is how it ends.

How and why have the leftists among us become so anti-American, so contemptuous of the Constitution, the Founders, and American heroism? When did they get to be so rude? They hate Trump so much they have regressed to being playground bullies, a gang of horrid little toddlers. They seem to have one issue and one issue only, the prioritization of illegal immigrants. That's all they've got and for some reason they think it is a winning issue, that it will drive their base to take back the House and maybe even the Senate this year. They are so blinded by the light of their own self-regard they think that is a turnout cause for most Americans who are suffering under the onslaught of illegals in their communities. Congressman Tim Ryan, a Democrat from Ohio, kept an empty seat to honor a deported illegal from his district, a district in which many thousands have died from opioid overdose. Tucker Carlson asked him why he would want to make his defense of illegals a cause and not the deaths of so many Americans. He did not have a satisfactory answer. But this much is clear: the Democratic Party is today the party of illegal immigrants. That is their core constituency, that is who they represent over and above Americans. It was truly shocking for all to see how disrespectful were the Democrats in attendance. Do they think their bad manners will endear them to the American people, most of whom have been taught basic manners and probably agree with nearly every word Trump spoke tonight? Do they think that refusing to stand for the heroes and victims Trump profiled will win over new voters? The parents of two African-American girls killed by MS-13 gang thugs were present and Trump recognized them. The Democrats would not even stand for them! The members of the Black Caucus in attendance did not even stand when Trump touted the "lowest black unemployment ever recorded." They cannot even celebrate good news for their own people who suffered terribly under Obama. These elected representatives lack the basics of common sense if they think this kind of scorn will win over voters. High taxes, redistribution of wealth, open borders, the erasure of gender, the primacy of skin color, the dumbing-down of education across the board: these are the policies the Democrats promote. This is why they are desperate for illegal immigration, amnesty for millions, and chain migration. They cannot remain in power if they do not massively increase the dependent class they themselves created by design. It goes without saying that many of these immigrants are hardworking, fine people who are assets to our civil society, but many thousands of them are not. The criminal element among them is too much to bear. That is why legal immigration and immigration laws exist! The fact that the Democrats in Congress loathe Trump more than they love their country or the American people is a tragedy. They have become a group of chattering nabobs who have nothing but disdain for the President and anyone who voted for him, those of us who wisely chose a political novice over a known criminal and liar. Given the many successes of Trump's first year (too many to list here) that would make Trump supporters the really smart people. It follows then that the Democrats are not only ill-mannered and out of touch with the constituents they represent, they are not very bright. Generally speaking, enmity and rancor do not win over voters. Optimism and success for all does. Love of country does. Trump loves the country and all of its people. That was the message of the night, loud and clear.Democrats, along with the left more broadly, responded with hysterical denunciations of Trump. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi described the proposal as, part of the Trump administrations unmistakable campaign to make America white again.

Last Thursday, Trump released his proposed framework for a compromise on DACA. The framework offers DACA-eligible illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship, in exchange for border security and a number of changes to U.S immigration law.

New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez called the bill, "compromise between the far right and the alt-right.

Senate Minority leader Charles Schumer dismissed the proposal in more diplomatic terms, tweeting, While @realDonaldTrump finally acknowledged that the Dreamers should be allowed to stay here and become citizens, he uses them as a tool to tear apart our legal immigration system and adopt the wish list that anti-immigration hardliners have advocated for for years.

Trumps framework contains four pillars. The first pillar increases spending on border security and immigration enforcement. The second pillar grants illegal immigrants who arrived as minors a limited amnesty and a pathway to citizenship. The third pillar eliminates the visa lottery, which awards 50,000 green cards at random to a pool of applicants from around the world. Finally, the fourth pillar phases out family preference visas.

It was Trumps last two pillars that provoked the most outrage, particularly his last pillar. The bulk of legal immigrants to the United States arrive as relatives of U.S. citizens. U.S. law divides these immigrants into two groups, immediate relatives and family preferences. Immediate relatives includes the spouses and under-21 children of U.S. citizens, along with the parents of under-21 U.S. citizens. Family preferences includes siblings of U.S. citizens, over-21 children of U.S. citizens, and parents of over-21 U.S. citizens.

While U.S. law allows for an unlimited number of immediate relative visas each year, it sets strict numeric caps on the various family preference visas. Because of these limits, those applying for family preference visas often spend decades waiting on line, arriving as middle-aged adults.

Trump proposed that the U.S. phase out family preference visas, processing the existing applications but not accepting new ones. Because of this, the effect on legal immigration would not be felt for years. Currently, the expected wait time for the sibling of a Filipino immigrant is nineteen years.

Trumps third pillar, elimination of the visa lottery, also sparked controversy. The Congressional Black Caucus wants to keep the lottery because 44% of lottery visas go to immigrants from African countries.

The core truth of American Immigration policy is that far more people want to come here than politicians in either party want to allow in. Numbers matter, and the American people have a definite limit on how many immigrants they will accept.

Given that upward limit, immigration really is a zero-sum game. The more family preference visas we issue, the fewer employment visas we issue (for example). Trumps policy zeroes in on the immigrants who have the strongest claim to be here and devotes our resources to helping them. Specifically, those who came here illegally as children, and those who have waited patiently for family preference visas.

Opposition to Trumps plan arises because his critics fail to realize that the American public has a limited appetite for immigration. Given this reality, aiding the DACA kids means cutting immigration elsewhere. Trumps compromise accomplishes this in the most painless and fair way possible, avoiding draconian cuts later on.

Far from being a hardline restrictionist plan, Trumps framework represents the best hope for a compromise on this issue. A hardline plan would be Ann Coulters total immigration moratorium. To impose a total ban on immigration we would have to eliminate the largest category of immigrants; spouses and children of U.S. citizens. Further, it would mean mass deportations of illegal immigrants.

Immigration is the most explosive political issue of the twenty-first century; opposition to immigration brought Trump to power and took the UK out of the EU. If Democrats and pro-immigration Republicans miss this opportunity for compromise, they may find themselves pining for the days of Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, and Tom Cotton.Oh it's a disgusting story! Howie Kurtz reported it in his new book on the tumultuous early days of Trump White House called: Media Madness: Donald Trump, The Press and the War Over the Truth , which sounds like one worth reading.

It's easy to think of swamp things as just the Washington establishment, good people who are simply set in their ways, obsessed with protocol and tradition. But then there's FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who shows what a real swamp thing is with his sleazy, deceptive, leak-trap set up for newly minted White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus. McCabe took advantage of Reince's open, honest, honorable nature ... and screwed him over for having it.

McCabe is suspected of leaking damaging information about Trump and Russia to the press, not because there was anything there, but because there wasn't. He just wanted to inflict pain.

According to Kurtz, he walked up to White House Chief of Staff Priebus and out of the blue, told him privately there was nothing there to a New York Times story claiming that Trump administration's officials had had repeated contact with the Russians. We want you to know that everything in this New York Times story is bull--, Kurtz reported him saying.

Being an honorable sort of person, Priebus asked McCabe if it would be all right if the FBI could say that in public. He was under great pressure from the press frenzy trying to fill out the New York Times' story. McCabe demurred to his boss, then-FBI Director James Comey, and Comey, of course, refused. As a bone, he offered to testify to that in Congress, but obviously, that was a long time off.

So here Priebus was, with information exonerating the Trump administration, and he wanted to honor McCabe's request, as if the truth itself out there was McCabe's personal possession, safer in McCabe's hands. O.K., that was a bit weak, but it was understandable. Priebus's real problem was that he didn't know he was dealing with a snake.

After all, get a load of McCabe's visage.

Look at him! Imagine you are Reince Priebus and this guy is telling you he knows your team is innocent. Look at the earnestness, the boyishness, the big green eyes, the retro glasses, all suggestive of 1960s Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. FBI values.

Nope, he was a snake.

Because as Priebus and other White House staff were mauled in the press feeding frenzy, a new story came out, one that Kurtz suspects McCabe could have been the only possible leaker for, unless it was Comey.

Kurtz writes:

Now, a week later, CNN was airing a breaking news story naming Priebus. According to multiple U.S. officials, the network said, the FBI rejected a White House request to publicly knock down media reports about communications between Donald Trumps associates and Russians known to U.S. intelligence. Priebus was stunned by the implication that he was pressuring law enforcement. Had he been set up? Why was the FBI leaking this information when one of its top officials had initiated the conversation? Comey assured Priebus that afternoon that he hadnt done anything wrong, but the story reverberated for days. Is Reince Priebus Lying About the FBI? Slate asked. Reince Priebus Should Resign, a Boston Globe columnist demanded. The damage was done.

What kind of a person does that to someone trying to protect him and keep open lines of communication? What kind of a sleazy operative or power player? Priebus was dealing with a swamp thing, not just of manners, but morals. And this is the guy James Comey claimed 'stood tall' against all the "small people" who got wise to his games and got rid of him.

Does the FBI need a good hosing out or what? These are dangerous, underhanded people who play unfathomably lowdown, dirty games.



With a very few exceptions, under our Selective Service laws all males in the United States between the ages of 18-25 are required to register with the Selective Service. At the Selective Service System website there is a chart that lists those who must register; on that list is Undocumented immigrants.

Amidst the calls/demands for amnesty and citizenship for the illegal aliens referred to as DACA recipients/Dreamers, there is one fundamental issue that has not been discussed.

Some time back I came across a Selective Service brochure at our post office. The brochure included the following information:

Who Must Register? Male U.S. citizens and immigrants, documented and undocumented, residing in the U.S. and its territories must register if they are age 18 through 25. Men are required to register within 30 days of their 18th birthday. Once men reach their 26th birthday, they can no longer register What Happens If I Dont Register? Not registering is a felony. Young men prosecuted and convicted of failure to register may be fined up to $250,000, imprisoned for up to five years, or both. Failure to register also may cause men to permanently lose eligibility for financial aid and U.S. citizenship for male immigrants.

This means that any male Dreamer age 18-25 who has not registered with Selective Service has committed a felony, as have those who are over age 25 but never registered with Selective Service.

So keep this information in mind when you hear about how these folks were brought into the United States through no cause of their own and are innocent victims of our immigration system. It is safe to say that tens of thousands of them have personally committed a felony, one of the possible penalties for which prohibits them from being given U.S. citizenship.

Should Congress and President Trump ignore this matter and grant amnesty and citizenship to these particular male Dreamers, they will be creating a new class of citizens who have been rewarded for committing a felony. This is not a good situation for a nation that is based on the idea of equality in the eyes of the law.

Stephen M. Kirby PhD, is the author of five books, and numerous articles and brochures about Islam. His website is IslamSeries.org.Democrats refused to enact any of Republican Governor Bruce Rauner's reforms, which included pension reform, tax cuts for the middle class, and property tax reform. Rauner, looking to change the "pay to play" culture in Springfield, stood firm for his reforms. But Democrats refused to vote a state budget for two years. In the end, Democrats got their way and passed a budget with a hefty increase in taxes.

The state of Illinois is in the worst financial mess of any state in the union. The state owes billions in unpaid bills to vendors - most of them small businesses. The pension system is underfunded and is a ticking time bomb getting ready to explode. The state income tax is among the highest in the nation, the recently "reformed" school funding formula heavily favors the Chicago public schools while shortchanging suburban and rural schools, and the state legislature proceeds as if nothing was wrong.

In short, the state is broke. But you'd never know it by listening to the front runners for the Democratic nomination for governor.

To a candidate, they are pushing spending schemes that are not only unrealistic, they are delusional considering the state's financial condition. Universally, they would pay for the massive increase in spending by "taxing the rich." If only. With 10,000 residents leaving the state every month, and businesses fleeing the state for friendlier climes, it's an open question whether anyone rich enough to pay the tax increase will be left.

A recent debate among the candidates highlighted this disconnect from reality.

Chicago Tribune:

All of the candidates except Marshall favor replacing the states current 4.95 percent personal income-tax rate, which Democratic and Republican lawmakers raised last summer, with a graduated tax that would place a higher levy on higher incomes akin to the federal system. The change, which would require a voter-approved constitutional amendment, couldnt be considered for at least two years. Pritzker, Biss and Kennedy declined to specify the highest tax rate they would support on those making the most money, but Pritzker and Kennedy each said Illinois should adopt changes to the states tax code to grant additional tax credits to help the middle class until a graduated tax could be considered. Among the top candidates, Biss is the only supporter of a financial transaction tax, known as the LaSalle Street tax, on individual transactions in Chicagos financial and commodity exchanges. Such a tax, he said, could generate up to $8 billion. But the transactions tax, long supported by the Chicago Teachers Union, is viewed as unlikely in an era of digitized trading in which exchanges could leave Chicago. The comment prompted a rebuke from Kennedy, who suggested Biss was trying to promise something we cant deliver. The major contenders also voiced wariness over state incentives and tax breaks to lure such companies as Amazon in its search for a second headquarters, though they didnt offer specifics. It has become a race to the bottom, unfortunately, around the nation where municipalities and states are offering huge tax benefits to bring companies to their state, Pritzker said. Talent is what companies are looking for. Weve got to invest in that. Biss said the incentive issue is central to what kind of economy were trying to build and that large corporations that are famous enough to get a headline in the newspaper, that are big enough to hire the right lobbyists in Springfield, put their hands out. They get what they want. Said Kennedy: I think bringing companies, buying them into the states is a terrible economic development philosophy.

Chris Kennedy is the son of Robert Kennedy and is considered a long shot. This isn't Massachusetts and Illinois Democrats are not Kennedy worshippers.

But Kennedy is right. Granting individual corporations massive tax breaks to lure them to the state is a terrible idea. Why not cut business taxes and create an investment friendly business environment. You might not get the Amazon headquarters. But you might get 100 smaller entities that will create far more jobs.

But Democrats won't cut business taxes and it's doubtful they could cut taxes for the middle class or raise them on the rich. Most Illinois residents know that state government hasn't even tried to cut the budget, or reform the pension system that will cost taxpayers billions in the coming years. There won't be an attempt to get a constitutional amendment changing the tax rate on the ballot - certainly not in 2018 or 2020, and it's extremely doubtful such an effort would succeed anyway.

You would think that reality, along with the state's financial woes, would restrain Democrats from making wild promises about health care, education, and infrastructure. Wrong. They are proceeding as if the state's coffers were full and penny pinching Rauner won't spend money because he's an evil white rich guy.

Rauner has his own political problems with a challenge from the right. State senator Jean Ives may not be a household name in the state - yet. But she is cashing in on Republican disillusionment with Rauner and anger that he gave in to Democrats on the budget. Put simply, Rauner has not delivered and many GOP voters in the state want to make him pay.

Rauner has, at least, a good chance of leaving office without going to jail - something that 4 of the last 7 Illinois governors failed to do. But the Democrats controlling the legislature know they have the upper hand and even if the governor is re-elected, it's likely that his second term wouldn't be any different from the first.Wray strongly suggested in a letter to FBI employees that McCabe left the bureau because of what's in the forthcoming Department of Justice Inspector General report on how the bureau handled the investigation into the Clinton email case.

That internal investigation has been underway since January, 2017 and may include evidence of McCabe leaking information to the press, as well as other, more serious violations of procedure and perhaps even obstruction of justice.

There was much speculation yesterday on the right that McCabe was fired by Wray after the director read the FISA memo that Republicans want released to the public as soon as possible. But it is believed that McCabe met with Wray and resigned before the director met with Rep. Nunes on Sunday at the White House to read the contents of the FISA memo. He may very well be named in the FISA document, but the immediate cause of his firing was apparently the director's alarm after reading reports from the inspector general on his probe.

NBC News:

"It would be inappropriate for me to comment on specific aspects of the IG's review right now," Wray said in the message. "But I can assure you that I remain staunchly committed to doing this job, in every respect, 'by the book.' I will not be swayed by political or other pressure in my decision making." In the next paragraph, Wray explained that McCabe had submitted his intention to retire, suggesting a connection between the findings of the IG report and McCabe's decision. Several sources familiar with McCabe's move said he made his decision as a result of a meeting with Wray in which the inspector general's investigation was discussed. News that McCabe would leave seven weeks before he was expected to retire triggered speculation on Monday that he was being forced out under political pressure from President Donald Trump. But several FBI insiders said that was not the case.

It's very possible that McCabe is prominenty mentioned in the IG report, which will be released in March or April.The IG is looking a several issues surrounding the Clinton email investigation.

Atlantic:

In January 2017, the inspector general launched an inquiry into several areas: whether Comey ignored DOJ guidelines in making public pronouncements about the investigation into Hillary Clintons email server; whether McCabe should have been recused from the Clinton investigation; whether another DOJ employee should have been recused or gave information to the Clinton campaign; whether DOJ employees leaked information; and whether tweets containing documents about the Clintons shortly before the campaign were improper. The IGs investigation has not yet become public.

The IG is also looking at whether it can be proved that partisan political considerations were a part of the investigation. Since McCabe was a point man in the Clinton probe while his wife was running for state senate in Virginia and receiving donations from Clinton crony Terry McAuliffe, the IG may judge that highly improper and possibly criminal.

The exoneration of Clinton by Comey will also be under a microscope. Was there pressure from AG Lynch to refuse to indict Clinton? Did Comey act improperly in reopening the investigation so close to the election?

There is apparently evidence that shows McCabe sitting on Anthony Weiner's laptop for weeks prior to the election, despite the fact that there were hundreds of copies of Clinton emails on the laptop's hard drive, some of them classified.

And the IG will also be looking at charges by anonymous sources at the bureau that McCabe pressured agents to change their reports on several interviews with principles in the investigation.

PJ Media:

Investigative journalist Sara Carter reported on Fox News last night that outgoing FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe may be in serious trouble if the information she had received from FBI sources proves to be true. "I have been told tonight by a number of sources ... that McCabe may have asked FBI agents to actually change their 302s," Carter told host Sean Hannity. The 302 form contains information from the notes an FBI agent takes during an interview of a subject. It is used by FBI agents to "report or summarize the interviews that they conduct." "So basically every time an FBI agent interviews a witness, they have to go back and file a report," Carter explained. Hannity pointed out that, if true, it would constitute a case of obstruction of justice, and Carter agreed. She said the matter was being investigated by FBI Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

In short, there is plenty of dirt for the IG to investigate and McCabe appears to figure prominently in the wrong doing.

While it may not be entirely clear why McCabe resigned/was fired/ retired, what does seem clear is that his troubles are far from over and that several of his cronies could join him in the docket after the IG report comes out.President Trumps State of the Union was a home run speech in many ways, but contrasted with the expectations of many, especially Democrat Representative John Clyburn of South Carolina who compared Trumps America to Germany in 1934 under Adolf Hitler, Monday night on CNN.

Well, film clips of Hitler speeches at rallies from that era simply do not resemble Trump rallies. The congressman is an especially silly man, for the history teacher he purports to have been. Clyburn notes that all the churches in Germany had swastika banners in 1934, but none have yet appeared in the church I attend in northern Virginia or the Hill country of Texas.Trump is no Reagan

And before my fellow Trump supporters have a conniption, this is a good thing. I miss Ronald Reagan. He was a virtuous man, loved his family, his country, and his fellow Americans. He was soft-spoken, had a keen sense of humor and was beloved by both his supporters, as well as his detractors.

Ronald Reagan though lived in an era when one could reason with the electorate, having the merit of an idea be enough to rally our countrys people to common cause. Whether it be opposition to Communism, or the benefits of supply-side economics. In this vein, Mitt Romney struck me as Reagan-like. As [seemingly] virtuous a man to walk the earth since Christ. The lesson learned by all, except seemingly Mitt Romney, is the nature of the era. If the 1980s were deemed a time of reason and ideas, our current time can be viewed as guerilla warfare. A street fight, as Barack Obama asserted in 2008 -- If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun. Mitt Romney had some great messaging in 2012, and wiped the floor with then President Barack Obama in the first of three debates. Barack Obama was woefully unprepared, but more importantly the moderator, Jim Lehrer of PBS, lost control. He erred by permitting the candidates to go toe-to-toe, on the premise of their ideas. From that moment on, Barack Obama, the DNC, a myriad of (Soros-sponsored) activist groups, and the mainstream media made certain that the battle for the presidency would be a no-holds-barred street fight. Romney was demonized as someone who; abused his dog, kept a binder full of women, maintained 1980s (Russia threat) foreign policy ideals, and killed a man through his heartless business practices. Donald Trump is no Ronald Reagan, and he is surely no Mitt Romney, praise God. While we may question President Trumps methods as being uncouth, what we must come to understand is this -- he is a product of our time. The Left hates Donald Trump, not only because he maintains a different ideological bent, but because he is wholly prepared to enter the fight of the Lefts making. Hes prepared to go toe-to-toe with the ugly Left, and if need be, squishy Republicans, who have talked about our values for decades, only to cower at the first sign of adversity.



What we need to also understand is that, while the Left wishes to make elections about the personality of the candidates (see Oprah), or emotional appeals to disparate grievance groups, the presidency is still really about the ideas. The Lefts ideas were weighed and measured, and found wanting. The redistribution of wealth -- failed.

Leading from behind -- failed.

Evolving on social issues -- failed.

Race relations -- failed.

ObamaCare -- failed What we see in President Trump is, many of Ronald Reagans ideas (peace thru strength, supply-side economics, appointment of conservative Judges, enhanced border protections, appeals to working men and women in middle America) being advanced, as only someone like Donald Trump could in todays street fight era. While we may long for a more civil era, let us stand shoulder to shoulder with our commander-in-chief in this current battle. Our ideas are bearing fruit. The American people are being exposed to the advance of conservative principles. I would encourage the President to do what were being told hes planning to do in the State of the Union Address -- talk about the ideas, talk about the fruit of the implementation of said ideas, and talk, as Mr. Reagan would have, about Americas future, as the shining city on the hill. Leave the left to fight amongst themselves.Unlike Obama, Trump nailed it on GDP growth

While most of the mainstream media attention has been focused on turmoil in Washington, or else President Trump's State of the Union address, if not tabloidy speculation on the state of Trump's marriage, out in the real America, what matters is very different: We have an economy again. This stands in stark contrast to the constantly overpromising and underdelivering record of the Obama administration. During the eight years of Obama's administration, Obama constantly promised that prosperity was just around the corner as the mainstream media said nothing. But here's the reality, according to John Merline at Investor's Business Daily:

Trump Just Did Something Obama Never Could  Deliver On Promised GDP Growth It's a breath of fresh air and real news, even if the swamp things of the Washington Post do their miserable best to pooh-pooh it. Let's scroll back to the Obama era for perspective. At the start of each year, Obamas economists would forecast growth for that year of 2.7%, or 3% or 2.2%. But no matter what number they picked, GDP came in lower than that. And each year, Obama would blame some headwinds  but never his own policies  for the failure. It was the Japanese tsunami, or intransigent Republicans, or a cold winter. So here comes President Trump, who has spent the last year determined to reverse all of Obamas economic policies. He stopped multiple costly regulations in their tracks and ended others. He cut taxes on the  gasp  rich and on corporations. Hes been aggressively pro-business. He at least tried to repeal ObamaCare. And guess what, GDP growth for his first year in office was 2.3%. Thats not stellar, but it is exactly what Trump predicted it would be at the start of the year, and its likely to go up as more data come in on Q4 of last year. So lets not hear any more of this Trump is being wildly optimistic about the economy nonsense. Trump nailed it on GDP growth. That's what matters to normal people out here.Posted on: January 31, 2018 2:26 PM

The Assistant Bishop of Melbourne has produced a television commercial urging people to give South Sudanese exiles a safe start to the school year. Within the Australian state of Victoria, there has been recent high profile political and media commentary about gangs of young Africans, and this has resulted in discrimination towards and fear of the community. The video says that many South Sudanese children in the state are frightened, and urges people to give them a wave and a smile and make them feel welcome.

Voiced by Helen Kapalos, the chairperson of the Victorian Multicultural Commission, the video says that: Hundreds of these Australian families have survived a dreadful war and seen millions killed. But theyre just as frightened now. Why? Because some people in our community are spreading hate and fear, and it is these innocent kids who are copping it.

Yes, some people have fallen through the police are dealing with it. But dont hate the majority of good people because a few have strayed. Thats not the Aussie way.

These are beautiful people. So when you see one of these kids come to school, look out for them. Give them a wave and a smile. Lets make the start of the school year a good one, for everyone.

The advert has been produced by Melbourne assistant bishop Philip Huggins and film-maker Richard Keddie. On the video-hosting website Vimeo, Keddie says: Every child in Victoria should feel safe going back to school this week. For South Sudanese communities, its been a particularly tough time. Some people blame the majority because of the actions of a few  which is not the Aussie way.

First Day of School from Richard Keddie on Vimeo.

Every parent wants their kid to get the best start in life, and school is where it begins. So parents, teachers, students and others - please look out for South Sudanese kids at school this week. They deserve to feel safe at school too, so give them a wave and a smile and make them feel welcome.

In a statement issued ahead of a press launch of the video at the Citadel Hotel in Melbourne earlier today, Huggins and Keddie said: We support the police in their efforts to bring any person, regardless of background, who has committed a crime to justice. We also acknowledge and support the efforts that the community is making to guide and engage young people to reach their potential.

They say that recent media coverage may have let a few shape our perceptions of a whole community and that they want to ask Victorians to look out for these young students and acknowledge the contribution that they are and will continue to make to our state.

Victorians have more common sense and compassion than to punish everyone for the actions of a few. We hope to send a message of peace and goodwill to all kids, families, teachers and schools. We hope that our community will look after each other so that every kid has a great start to the school year.

Our message is simple, but powerful and true. Going to school and having an opportunity to learn is something that every Victorian child should experience and enjoy.Posted on: January 31, 2018 2:20 PM

Anglicans in the Gambella district of Ethiopia have expressed a desire that their next bishop be local. Within the Anglican Communion, Ethiopia is part of the Diocese of Egypt with North Africa and the Horn of Africa in the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East.

The Church in the Gambella region is possibly the fastest-growing part of the Anglican Communion, much of it sparked by the arrival of refugees from South Sudan. The first Area Bishop for the Horn of Africa was Andrew Proud, who served from 2007 before being appointed Area Bishop of Reading in the Church of Englands Diocese of Oxford. His successor, Bishop Grant Grant LeMarquand, an American, served the area with his wife Wendy, a medical doctor. He retired last year to support his wife, who had been advised to stay in the US for medical reasons.

The Bishop of Egypt, Mouneer Anis, visited Gambella last week and met with clergy who discussed the qualities they wanted in the next area bishop, who  in addition to Ethiopia, will also be responsible for Eritrea, Djibouti, Somaliland and Somalia.

They began with worship and time of prayer, the Diocese of Egypt said. Then the clergy shared the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the region. Bishop Mouneer was impressed by their clear thinking and their vision for the future.

The clergy also discussed their hopes and dreams, and provided a detailed description of the qualifications for and qualities of the new bishop.

We want a bishop, not a visitor, they said. The members of the clergy have a strong desire for a local bishop, not someone from Egypt or the West.

Bishop Mouneer and the diocese are currently evaluating the best course of action for the future in an area where there has been incredible growth. They ask that people continue to pray for the Horn of Africa region during this time of selecting a new area bishop.(ANSA) - Moscow, January 31 - Italy and Russia have signed an agreement for the creation of the first Russian state center for musical instrument restoration. The partnership has been initiated during a year in which Italy is hosting the Russian Seasons festival and will be the guest of honor at the Saint Petersburg Cultural Forum. The center will be set up with the help of the Stradivari Fund and the Museum del Violino in Cremona. The cooperation project is "unique" ,said Mikhail Bryzgalov, director of Russia's National Music Museum. "The school of Italian restoration," Bryzgalov told ANSA in an interview, "has no equal in the world, especially as concerns the one in Cremona. Russia has one of the most valuable state-owned collections (in the world), with 286 instruments including ones from such Italian legends as Stradivari, Amati and Guarneri. The collection, however, needs care and, unfortunately, restoration skills were lost in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. We can now say that we want to rebuild this legacy of knowledge and we want to do it in cooperation with our Italian partners." The aim is urgent since, as Bryzgalov noted, the state-owned collection is not only in glass classes to be shown to museum visitors; the instruments are still used by important musicians of Russia's main theaters, such as the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky. A special relationship has been established between Moscow and Cremona in part because of the exhibition 'The Myth of Stradivari', which will be at Russia's National Museum of Music until April 23.

"For the first time, noted Bryzgalov, who is taking part in these days in a working group for culture and tourism of the Russian-Italian Council for Bilateral Cooperation in the Italian capital, "15 instruments created by Italian geniuses can be found in a single place: 10 from our collection and 5 from the Museo del Violino." A trial run for the restoration project was work on the Santo Serafin violin and Pietro Guarneri's violoncello - both from the 18th century - done by experts in Cremona. "It is nice to see how culture always manages to go beyond political and economic issues," Bryzgalov said. "This year over 255 events in 44 Italian cities are planned as part of the Russian Seasons festival." He added that "it is extraordinary to see how the Italian public has welcomed Russian culture."PORT SAID (EGYPT) - Egyptian president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi vowed Wednesday to continue looking for the killers of Italian Cambridge researcher Giulio Regeni in order to "hand them over to the judiciary".



Regeni went missing in the Egyptian capital on January 25, 2016, on the heavily policed fifth anniversary of the uprising that ousted former strongman and president Hosni Mubarak.



His severely tortured, mutilated body was found on February 3 in a ditch on the city's outskirts. Sisi spoke about the case in a ceremony marking the beginning of production at the large Zohr gas field - which was discovered by Italy's ENI - in Port Said. He added that the crime had been committed "to ruin relations with Italy". The young Friuli-born researcher was killed "to damage Egypt", the Egyptian president went on to say, adding that "we will never stop" looking for "the criminals who did this". The search, he said in expressing his condolences, is being conducted in part "for his family". There seem to have been signs of Egyptian cooperation on Regeni's death thanks to the work of Rome prosecutors but there is absolutely no evidence of true cooperation from Egyptian authorities, Regeni's parents had said last year.



Regeni, 28, had been researching a politically sensitive topic, Egyptian street-seller unions.



His contact, the head of the Cairo street sellers, told police he was a spy.

Interpol suspects 50 ISIS fighters landed in Italy - report Guardian says list sent to interior minister in Rome

(ANSAmed) - London, January 31 - Interpol has sent a list of 50 Tunisians who are suspected ISIS fighters and are thought to have landed in Italy via boat to the interior ministry in Rome, the Guardian reported on Wednesday. The British newspaper said it has seen the list, reporting that it was sent to the interior ministry on 29 November and subsequently distributed to national anti-terrorism agencies across Europe.



Some of the suspects were identified by officials when they landed in Italy, the Guardian said, adding that the document shows their first names, surnames and dates of births.



The suspects may be attempting to reach other European countries, it reported.



Erdogan in Rome on Monday to meet pope, president and PM 'Green zone' set up to prevent protests nearby

(ANSAmed) - ROME, JANUARY 31 - Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be visiting the Italian capital for 24 hours on Monday.



He will be meeting with Pope Francis, President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni. Rome is on high alert for the visit due to a risk of protests, especially from social center networks that might join with the Kurdish community to protest the president's visit. A "green zone" will be created in which protests will be prohibited on Sunday and Monday, according to a security plan.



(ANSAmed).



PARIS - French President Emmanuel Macron told French daily Le Figaro he has expressed concern over the risk of a Turkish "invasion" in the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in Syria, with regards to Turkey's recently launched military offensive in the area.



Macron said it could be "a real problem" if "Syrian sovreignty is not respected".



"I immediately called for calm and caution, and I expressed our concern from the beginning," Macron said.

French President Emmanuel Macron, in an interview with French daily Le Figaro, expressed his concern regarding the possibility of a Turkish "invasion" in the Kurdish enclave of Afrin, in Syria, as part of Turkey's recently launched military campaign there.

"If this operation happens to take another turn with respect to the action against a potential terrorist threatening the Turkish border, revealing itself as an invasion operation, at that point, it poses us a real problem," Macron said.

Macron said Turkey's decisions regarding northwest Syria require "discussions and decisions both between Europeans as well as more in general between allies, because it changes the nature of this Turkish incursion, and that's why in coming days I will speak with Erdogan again," he said.

The Turkish offensive against the Kurdish-Syrian enclave began on January 20.

"We can't build security on the ground without respect for Syrian sovreignty against an enemy (the Kurds) that is no longer ISIS," Macron said.

Thus far, more than a hundred have died on both sides in the offensive, including civilian victims of Turkish airstrikes, which Ankara denies.

Macron made his comments on Tuesday evening following a dinner with the Armenian community in Paris.

A few hours prior, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian spoke before MPs of the National Assembly, warning of the risk that the Turkish operation turn into an "occupation" in northern Syria.Putin and Erdogan 'happy' with Syria congress in Sochi 'Accords for progress towards political solution' of conflict

(ANSAmed) - MOSCOW, JANUARY 31 - Russian president Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a telephone call on Wednesday that they were happy with the results of the Russian-sponsored National Congress of Syrian Dialogue held in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi.



They underscored the importance of complying with the agreements. The heads of state, a joint statement said, are pleased with the results of the Congress and underscored the importance of the implementation of the agreements reached, which aim for progress towards a political solution for the Syrian conflict on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 2254. The Sochi Congress ended on Tuesday with a framework agreement to form a commission tasked with "drafting a plan for constitutional reform".



The new body is expected to meet in Geneva and work under the UN. Only later will the foundations be laid for "democratic elections". But leaving aside official statements, the deep divide between the various factions in conflict in the Middle Eastern country were clear at the congress. First there was a boycott of the talks by the main opposition groups and the Kurds, with the representatives of the Syrian High Negotiations Commission - which brings together some of the most important groups of the Syrian opposition - and the Kurds.



The Kurds accused Moscow of giving its approval to the Turkish offensive against YPG fighters in the Afrin region of Syria. UN Special Envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, was present.



(ANSAmed).



Tajani in Belgrade says EU backs Serbian integration 'A great European country, I hope accession will happen soon'

(ANSA) - BELGRADE, JANUARY 31 - European Parliament President Antonio Tajani began his visit to Belgrade on Wednesday, reaffirming EU institutions' full support for a rapid European integration of Serbia.



"My visit today represents a very important message to Serbia and its European aspirations," Tajani said following a meeting with Serbian Parliament Speaker Maja Gojkovic.



"It's a country that we're paying close attention to," he said.



"Serbia is a great European country, and I hope that its accession to the European Union can happen in the fastest time possible," he said.



Tajani said Belgrade has a very important role in the Balkans, including as a bridge to other countries.



He said that with the Bulgarian presidency of the Council of the EU, "we must work against things such as terrorism and illegal immigration that could create problems for all of us".



Tajani said he spoke with Gojkovic about the situation in Kosovo, about which he said, "We hope dialogue can continue with a general drop in tension".



Gojkovic said EU accession remains Serbia's main objective and Belgrade expects the Bulgarian presidency of the Council of the EU can give an impetus to the enlargement process.(ANSAmed).



Emirates has announced its plan to launch a new, five times a week, service from Dubai to Santiago International Airport (SCL), via the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo, starting on July 5, 2018.

The new service will see Emirates fly an additional five times a week to Sao Paulo, complementing the airlines existing daily A380 flight between Dubai and Sao Paulo. In total, Emirates will now fly 12 times a week to Sao Paulo. Emirates' Santiago flight will be a linked service with Sao Paulo, meaning that customers in South America can now travel between the two cities in unprecedented style and comfort. Citizens from both Brazil and Chile only need ID cards to travel to either country.

The new route will be operated with a two-class configured Boeing 777-200LR which offers 38 Business Class seats in a 2-2-2 configuration and 264 seats in Economy Class. The new 777 flight will also offer up to 14 tonnes of capacity for cargo, opening up access to more global markets for Chilean exports such as fish, seafood, cherries, flowers and general perishable goods.

Commenting on the new Emirates route, Sir Tim Clark, President Emirates Airline, said The start of our operations to Chile underlines our commitment to South America with our fourth destination on the continent and another five flights to Sao Paulo. We are pleased to add a destination that has been in strong demand from our customers and look forward to working with stakeholders in Chile to provide our unique product and award-winning service to passengers there.

Flight details and connections to Emirates global network of over 155 destinations

Flight EK263 will depart Dubai on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturday and Sundays at 09:05hrs local time, arriving in Sao Paulo at 17:00, before departing again at 18:30 and arriving into Santiago at 21:40 on the same day. The return flight EK264 will depart Santiago on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturday and Sundays at 01:10 local time, arriving in Sao Paulo at 05:55. EK264 will depart once again from Sao Paulo at 07:45 bound for Dubai where it will arrive at 05:15 the next day.

Timings of the new service are scheduled to allow for seamless connections to many Asian and Middle East routes, via a convenient stopover in Dubai. Passengers travelling from Sao Paulo will now benefit from a morning departure in Sao Paulo and morning arrival in Dubai, making connecting to new destinations Southeast Asia, China and Middle East more convenient.

Chile is a popular destination for business and leisure travellers around the world, in particular from Asian destinations such as China, South Korea, Japan, Thailand and India. Chile is also home to large Chinese and Middle East communities that can now take advantage of the new service.

Flying Emirates to Chile

Santiago, the first destination in Chile to be served by Emirates, is the largest city of Chile accounting for nearly half of the nations GDP. Chiles capital is developing its reputation for being an incubator for major universities, large global companies and budding start-ups thanks to a growing population of well-educated young professionals. Strengthening its position towards a more productive, technology-intensive economy many global companies and conglomerates have their headquarters or regional offices in the city centre. Chile is also the worlds largest producer of copper.

Chile is one of the most stable and prosperous nations in South America filled with stunning landscapes, historic beauty, local charm and delectable foods. Tourism in Chile has seen a sustained growth over the last few years with 5.6 million international visitors visiting the country in 2016 compared to 4.43 million in 2015. Chile has many different adventures to offer tourists: stargazing in the driest desert in the world, millennial glaciers in the southernmost part of the planet, enchanted forests, and lakes located at the foot of massive volcanoes. Chile is also one of the top producers and exporters of wine in the world.Etihad Airways has introduced a new baggage policy tailored to varying customer requirements in the international markets it serves.

The changes allow for a simpler baggage structure as the allowance for all markets, excluding the US and Canada, is now based on total weight rather than the number of bags checked in.



Etihad Airways Executive Vice President Commercial, Mohammad Al Bulooki, said: In line with global best practice and market trends, Etihad Airways has developed a baggage policy that best caters to the differing needs of our guests around the world. The switch to a policy based on weight rather than the number of bags simplifies our allowance system and provides greater convenience and customer benefit while enhancing the travel experience.



With the switch to a weight-based baggage policy, the majority of markets will be entitled to 23kg of checked baggage on Economy Deal fares, 30kg on Economy Saver and Classic fares, and 35kg on Economy Flex fares. Customers in all Business Class fare categories are entitled to 40kg, and First Class customers enjoy a 50kg allowance. Guests in The Residence onboard Etihad Airways flagship Airbus A380 fleet are provided with an allowance of four bags at 32kg each. Exceptions apply to select markets.

Etihad Guest Silver, Gold and Platinum members will continue to receive a complimentary excess baggage allowance of 32kg on US and Canada routes, and 20kg for Platinum members, 15kg for Gold members and 10kg for Silver members on all other routes.Etihad Airways has introduced special fares for its Abu Dhabi  Dublin flights to celebrate the lifting of visa requirements for UAE nationals travelling to Ireland, which comes into effect today.

The special fares start from AED 2,885 in Economy Class and AED 15,215 in Business Class (including applicable taxes and surcharges).



Mohammad Al Bulooki, Etihad Airways Executive Vice President Commercial, said: Etihad Airways has witnessed considerable demand for its Abu Dhabi  Dublin route during recent years and the removal of visa requirements is great news for UAE Nationals looking to visit Ireland for a holiday or business.



The national airline is delighted to celebrate this landmark moment with the introduction of special fares for UAE-based air travellers, which we hope will encourage more UAE Nationals to visit the Emerald Isle.



Over the coming months, Etihad Airways will continue to work closely with its partner, Tourism Ireland, to promote the visa requirements change and introduce special campaigns to highlight Ireland as an attractive tourist destination.Royal Jordanian and the General Union for Air Transport signed on January 29 a collective agreement giving RJ staff the choice to obtain a voluntary release from the job between the period Feb. 1 and March 31, 2018 subject to the airlines approval.

RJ President/CEO Stefan Pichler and the head of the General Union for Air Transport and Tourism Yousef Qannab signed the agreement.

As per the agreement, employees have the option to submit a request to be released from service, and, subject to Royal Jordanians approval, the employees are given a half-month salary for each year of service.

Stefan Pichler said this agreement comes in line with the turnaround plan RJ is currently implementing to achieve sustainable profitability and one of the main pillars of the plan requires that RJ reduces the manpower.

Pichler underlined RJ's and the union's keenness to ensure the sustainable profitability of the national carrier and its role in serving Jordan, and achieving the airlines strategic goals.

Yousef Qannab stressed the keenness of the union to protect all employees rights, by ensuring that they receive compensation that supports them and their families after the end of their service.

Qannab also expressed the Unions appreciation for the great effort employees in all departments have exerted to provide the best service to travelers, and for their hard work and professionalism, which helped enhance the role the national carrier plays in serving Jordan strategically, economically and socially.A deal for between four and six P-8A maritime patrol aircraft was reportedly signed during a visit to Saudi Arabia by US President, Donald Trump, and his Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson. Jon Lake reports.

The Saudi P-8A procurement  Boeing declined to give details of numbers or contract value  forms just one part of a massive naval fleet replacement programme that the kingdom has been pursuing since 2008.

Requirements for the Royal Saudi Naval Forces Eastern Fleet replacement programme were detailed in February 2015. They included three maritime patrol aircraft for coastal surveillance and 30-50 unmanned air vehicles, as well as four 3,500-tonne frigate-like warships that would be able to operate Sikorsky MH-60R helicopters and be capable of anti-air warfare, armed with an 8-16 cell vertical launch system (VLS) for Standard SM-2 missiles; six 2,500-tonne warships (also able to operate MH-60R helicopters) and with combat systems compatible with the frigates.

King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif Al Saud, and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud, signed agreements or letters of intent during President Trumps visit to purchase a wide range of military and naval equipment, which together formed the biggest arms sales deal in US history, worth $350 billion, including contracts worth $110 billion that took immediate effect.

The deal is understood to include a $6 billion agreement for the purchase of four Lockheed Martin Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ships (LCS). The Littoral Combat Ship is particularly well suited to the Gulfs shallow waters and will provide a useful deterrent against Iran.

Saudi Arabia first expressed interest in buying six Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft in April 2010, at an estimated cost of $1.3 billion. The aircraft were to have formed part of the wider naval modernisation programme, and were to have been delivered alongside Sikorsky MH-60R Seahawk helicopters, and Northrop Grumman Fire Scout unmanned helicopters.

It is believed that a Boeing P-8A Poseidon order was agreed in 2015, although it was not finally signed and announced until this year.

The P-8A Poseidon is a maritime patrol and anti-submarine warfare aircraft derived from the Boeing 737-800 airliner, optimised for hunting submarines from high altitude, using an innovative, if unproven, multistatic active sonobuoy system and an equally unproven high-altitude concept of operations (CONOPS).

Saudi Arabia will be the sixth customer for the P-8A, joining the United States, India, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Norway. It is not known whether Saudi Arabia will order the US Navy standard P-8A, or specify an aircraft with additional capabilities, as India did.

Saudi Arabia has not previously operated a long-range maritime patrol aircraft (MPA), but has opted for what is widely believed to be the most capable, most advanced and most expensive MPA available. It is an aircraft with much greater range and endurance than the Saudi requirement would seem to demand.

The order may lead other Gulf nations to seek to acquire their own anti-submarine warfare aircraft, or to recapitalise their ASW aircraft fleets, but whether it will lead to more P-8A orders in the region remains uncertain.

It has not been revealed whether the Saudi P-8As will be operated by the Royal Saudi Naval Forces or by the Royal Saudi Air Force, and no delivery schedule has been released, though it is unlikely that any Saudi P-8A would enter service much before 2021-2022 at the earliest.

The latest arms deal also included up to 150 Sikorsky S-70 Blackhawk and 48 Boeing CH-47F Chinook helicopters, terminal high-altitude air defense (THAAD) integrated air and missile defence systems, radar systems, surveillance systems, and tactical aircraft.

Lockheed Martin and Taqnia will form a joint venture to support the final assembly of an estimated 150 S-70 Black Hawk utility helicopters for the Saudi Government, while Alsalam Aerospace Industries, Saudi Aerospace Engineering Industries and Boeing are forming a Saudi Rotorcraft Support Center joint venture.

It has been reported that the majority of the deals signed by President Trump were actually finalised during the Obama administration, but have only now come into effect.

Turkey's indigenous trainer Hurkus-B has successfully performed its first test flight at Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) facility.



Following the completion of successful test flight tests as engine, avionics, stability and flight test execution excellence will be carried out.

After 90 flight hours of planned sorties it will take its part in the inventory of the Turkish Armed Forces.

President and CEO of Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) Temel Kotil said that after Hurkus -A, which was built for civilian use, the B-model was been designed for the Turkish Armed Forces. Kotil said: "HURKUS-B is 100kg lighter, faster, more modern and stronger than Hurkus-A. This version has a more stable and comprehensive design".

TAI sees the new military variant as an ideal jet trainer with cockpit and all systems such as ejection seat, oxygen support, and landing gears weight resistance designed as a jet cockpit.

The UAE Space Agency showcased industry opportunities and strategic vision for the space sector at the annual BETT Educational Training and Technology Show held in London, United Kingdom from the 24-27 January.

The Agency's participation in the education and technology oriented show was aimed at shedding light on the UAE space sectors achievements and future developments, as well as highlighting the ongoing educational initiatives launched in collaboration with various local and international educational organisations.

The Agency's pavilion proved to be a compelling stop and witnessed a number of distinguished visitors including His Excellency Hussain Ibrahim Al Hammadi, UAE Minister of Education; His Excellency Sulaiman Al Mazroui, UAE Ambassador to the UK and His Excellency Major General Ahmed Naser Al Raisi, General Inspector at the Ministry of Interior.

The Agency's stand welcomed a number of delegations from several countries, including a delegation from the Saudi Ministry of Education and a delegation from Kuwait, further boosting partnerships within the MENA space sector.

Space enthusiasts at the stand were taken on an educational journey around the pavilion, engaging visitors with the Agencys ongoing and future projects, such as the Hope Probe and the UAE Astronaut Program. They were also briefed on the UAEs space policy, regulations and laws of the national space sector, in addition to the various educational and technological programmes currently under the Agencys wing.

Dr. Mohammed Nasser Al Ahbabi, Director General of the UAE Space Agency, said: BETT is an exceptional educational and technologically-driven show, which provided us with a platform to educate the world about our national space programme, its achievements, future projects and our ambitions in scientific exploration.

The Agencys participation in this show affirms its support for the education sector in the UAE and its efforts in enhancing and enabling human capital through educational programmes. It has been a tremendous opportunity for us to highlight the Agencys educational initiatives and the role they play in further developing a well-educated generation with high affinity towards space science, innovation, and technology.[contextly_auto_sidebar]

LIKE a lot of listeners, Ive long considered Joe Henry to be a smart and vaguely literary songwriter  smart, more-or-less sensitive, good with words. But I was pleasantly surprised when Joe came out of the closet about his love of poetry, and since it coincided with the release of the powerful, understated record Thrum, I made sure to corner him for an interview in my series on musicians literary interests.

Joe is, of course, a musician, songwriter and bandleader who falls somewhere between the blues, Americana or alt-country, and acoustic Dylan. While he made a record (and triumphant tour) about train songs with the very English musician Billy Bragg, Joe always signifies heavily American. (Born in North Carolina, Joe has always had a touch of old US folklore to him, and a few years ago I wrote about his record, Blues From Stars, which came heavily out of the Delta blues of Robert Johnson, Skip James, and Son House.)

So I was startled to hear how deeply he was into several foreign language poets, including the German Rainer Maria Rilke (an obsession of me during collegiate trips through Europe.)

But many of his passions were in fact American. After talking about his youthful passion for William Carlos Williams, for example, we pivoted to one of my very favorites (pictured):

Right there in tandem with Williams  and both came courtesy of my older brother David, who has been my lifelong mentor  was Wallace Stevens. And with Stevens the lesson I learned, and took very much to heart, is that I dont think Stevens was taking pre-formed thought and trying to translate it into the music of language  he was listening to language as music, and following it, to hear what it had to say. Just like Joyce, he was listening to the music of language, to hear what it meant. Language is leading him to thought. Its the way I live as a songwriter and poet. The act of writing is listening and learning  its how I find out.

In any case, HERE is our conversation, which may be my favorite of this series so far. (A new one drops this Friday, by the way.)Reliable sources close to the developments regarding the release of Padmaavat insist that the ban in Gujarat and Haryana is to end soon.

Deepika Padukone recently feasted on a scrumptious Marwari thali in Mumbai to mark the success of her latest outing. Although it was a sign of peace diplomacy vis-a-vis the Rajasthan government, the strategy may have been ill-advised by her marketing team. After all, the fact remains that the film is likely to remain banned in Rajasthan, at least for a while now.

However, there is heartening news from another quarter. The film opened to a roaring reception in Patna and rest of Bihar on Monday, four days after it was released in other parts of the country. An unnamed manager from a theatre in Patna says, We would have opened on Wednesday night (January 24), like other parts of the country. But after promising us security bandobast to protect us against threats from the Karni Sena, the local administration backed out. It was only after repeated reminders that security was provided from Monday morning, and we are running to full houses peacefully. We also got an assurance from the Karni Sena that it was safe to run the film.

Reliable sources close to the developments regarding the release of Padmaavat insist that the ban in Gujarat and Haryana is to end soon. The source says, The team has been relentlessly processing the modalities for a release in Gujarat and Haryana. A solution is on the way. The film may release in these two states by the end of this week. But Rajasthan is another ballgame altogether  there, the release may take time.The firing incident evoked anger throughout the Kashmir Valley where a shutdown was observed on Sunday to mourn and protest the killings.

The Army has also submitted photographs of the vehicles damaged in the stone pelting by the unruly mob. (Representational Image)

Srinagar: The Army on Wednesday filed a counter First Information Report (FIR) against unknown stone-pelters who it said forced its men to open fire resulting in the death of three youth and injuries to some others on January 27.

The Army has not identified the people who, it alleged, attacked its convoy with stones in Ganowpora village of Jammu and Kashmirs southern Shopian district that afternoon. It said that it was the job of the police to ascertain who the assailants were and book them under the relevant provision of the law. The FIR has been lodged at the Shopian police station.

This comes days after the Jammu and Kashmir police filed an FIR against Major Aditya of the Armys 10 Garhwal unit and his associates, invoking Section 302 (murder), Section 307 (attempt to murder) and Section 336 (endangering life) of the Ranbir Penal Code in connection with the firing incident.

The Army had termed it as a pre-mature act on part of the police and the BJP had, in the state Assembly, been critical of naming the Army Major in the FIR. Javed Ahmed Bhat, 20, and Suhail Javed Lone, 24, were killed and few other civilians injured when the Army opened fire on a stone-pelting mob in Ganowpora village on last Saturday.

Rayees Ahmed Gania, 19, who was critically injured in the shooting died in a Srinagar hospital early Wednesday, triggering fresh protests in Shopian and neighbouring Pulwama district.

The firing incident evoked anger throughout the Kashmir Valley where a shutdown was observed on Sunday to mourn and protest the killings. Shopian and Pulwama remained shut on the seventh consecutive day on Wednesday.

The Army claimed that its men had opened fire in self-defence and only after a 250-strong mob tried to lynch a Junior Commissioned Office (JCO) and snatch his service weapon. It also said that seven soldiers were injured and 11 vehicles damages in the mob attack. The state government has ordered a magisterial inquiry into the firing incident.

Following the FIR, charging an Army Major and his men with murder, the ruling Peoples Democratic Party and its alliance partner Bharatiya Janata Party locked horns in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly on Monday. After a BJP member, R.S. Pathania, demanded that the FIR be withdrawn and a fresh, without naming anybody, be reregistered, chief minister Mehbooba Mufti snubbed her coalition partner, pledging that investigations into the shooting incident would be taken to their logical conclusion. The Army would not be demoralised by registration of single FIR. There can be black sheep in Army also, she said in the House, currently in its budget session in Jammu.

The chief minister had also said that within moments of learning about the incident she rang up defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman. She told me that I should take action if any carelessness or anything wrong has happened, the chief minister said, implying that Section 302, 307 and 336 were invoked in the police FIR after consulting the defence minister.

The Army, however, has reiterated that its men did not commit any wrong. It claims that a convoy of around 30 vehicles was moving through Gonawpora when it came under stone-pelting by a 200-250 strong mob. It said that a few vehicles got separated and were trapped by protesters. It also said that the stone-pelting was unprovoked and intense, causing extensive damage to four Army vehicles and a JCO accompanying the convoy was hit on the head and fell unconscious. The mob tried to lynch him and snatch his weapon, it said, adding, Considering the extreme gravity of the situation, the Army was constrained to open fire in self defence.

The Army has said that it will not constitute any Court of Inquiry (CoI) against Major Aditya as he did not violate the Standard Operating Procedure (SoP).

Northern Army commander Lt. Gen. Anbu, has, however, said that the Army has conducted its own inquiry into the firing and found that the soldiers were provoked to the ultimate and had acted in self-defence and to protect government property.

The locals had earlier said that soldiers from the Armys 14 Rashtriya Rifles had come to the village on Saturday morning to tear down posters carrying tribute to a local Hizb-ul-Mujahedin militant Firdous Ahmed Lone who was among those killed in an encounter with the security forces in neighbouring Chaigund village a few days ago.

They had said that around 3 pm on January 27, a convoy of the Armys 10 Garhwal passed through Ganowpora and some local youth hurled stones at it following which the Armymen on board opened fire at them.Salims brothers, Wasim and Nasim, who have also been named in the murder case, are absconding, said a police official.

Salim, a cloth merchang and main accused in the killing of Chandan Gupta, was arrested in Kasganj for allegedly ope-ned fire at a Tiranga rally, organised by the VHP and ABVP.

Lucknow: The prime accused in the killing of a man that sparked clashes in Kasganj on January 26 was arrested on Wednesday, the police said.

Some pockets in the strife-torn western Uttar Pradesh town remained tense on a day when the state government submitted a report to the Centre on violence and a Congress delegation was stopped from marching to Kasganj.

Salim, a cloth merchang and main accused in the killing of Chandan Gupta, was arrested in Kasganj for allegedly opened fire at a Tiranga ra-lly, organised by the VHP and ABVP. Chandans death had led to communal clashes, police said.

Inspector general (Aligarh) Sanjeev Gupta said that Salim, who was hiding in Kasganj since the incident, has admitted that he had opened fire at Chandan from the terrace of a building.

Salims brothers, Wasim and Nasim, who have also been named in the murder case, are absconding, said a police official.

In the seven substantive cases registered in Kasganj, 39 accused have been arrested. In addition, a lot of preventive arrests have been made, said the police official.

On Wednesday, some pockets in Kasganj remained tense though no fresh incident of violence was reported in the past 24 hours. Police said normalcy was slowly returning and security personnel had intensified patrolling.

In its report to the Centre, sources said, the Yogi Adityanath government gave details of the circumstances that led to Chandans murder and steps taken to control violence and arrests.

The state government has conveyed that the police is investigating if the violence was pre-planned, they said.

Politics over the violence peaked on Wednesday when a Congress delegation, attempting to visit the violence-hit area, was stopped by district authorities in Mirhachi area in Etah on the border of Kasganj district.

District magistrate, Kasganj, R.P. Singh said that permission was denied to the Congress delegation since it was felt that their visit to the troubled areas might create problems.

An announcemnt by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) that it will soon take out Tiranga Yatras across Uttar Pradesh has left the police worried. It was a Tiranga Rally on Republic Day that triggered the violence in Kasganj.

VHP vice-president Sunil Parashar began a yatra from Shaheed Smarak in Agra on Wednesday but it was terminated quickly.

At least three shops, two buses and a car were torched after Chandan was killed in clashes between two communities that broke out when VHP and ABVP volunteers, carrying the tricolour and saffron flag, insisted that Muslims, who had gathered for flag hoisting in the Muslim-dominated locality of Baddu Nagar, give them way for their motorcycle rally.

Uttar Pradesh governor Ram Naik had termed the violence in Kasganj as a shameful blot on the state.The BJP leader said the court was about to dismiss the matter on at least 3 instances because of Sibal's 'unwarranted' interference'.

Advocate Ajay Agrawal, who contested the 2014 Lok Sabha election from Rae Bareli against then Congress president Sonia Gandhi, alleged that the chief justice was 'prejudiced' and 'bent upon'. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: A BJP leader, pursuing the politically sensitive Bofors pay-off case, filed a plea in the Supreme Court seeking recusal of the Chief Justice of

India Dipak Misra on Wednesday.

Advocate Ajay Agrawal, who contested the 2014 Lok Sabha election from Rae Bareli against then Congress president Sonia Gandhi, alleged that the chief justice was "prejudiced" and "bent upon" dismissing the case relating to Rs 64 crore pay-off matter without going into the merits.

He referred to the January 16 hearing to draw an inference that the bench headed by CJI would, in all likelihood, dismiss the appeal filed by him against the May 31, 2005 judgement of the Delhi High Court discharging all the accused in the case.

At the last hearing, he said, senior advocate Kapil Sibal was allowed to speak even after he objected to it.

He said the CJI did not stop Sibal from interfering in the matter.

Also read: SC asks BJP leader to explain locus over filing appeal in Bofors case

The lawyer said there were at least three occasions during the hearing when the court was about to dismiss the matter because of Sibal's "unwarranted" interference.

"When the matter was called upon Sibal, who was already sitting in the front row on the left side, hops on the advocate's addressing dais and started addressing this Court and said that matter is 31 years old and the appellant has no locus standi.

"Applicant immediately came forward and asked whom Mr Sibal represents. He was silent. The applicant requested the CJI to ask from Sibal that for whom he is appearing...But the Chief Justice did not stop him from interfering in the matter," Agrawal said in his application.

He claimed the court was about to dismiss the Criminal Appeal without going into the merits when it came up for hearing 12 years after it was admitted.

Agrawal claimed due to Sibal's intervention, the bench observed that the matter was quite old and was about to dismiss the case and, "in fact, had dropped the file in a gesture of dismissal".

At this juncture, the top court also questioned the locus standi of the applicant because Sibal had so suggested, he alleged.

On the court's query, Agrawal told the bench that there was no time limit in a criminal matter and that there were innumerable judgements which allowed a third party to appeal in criminal proceedings where the prosecuting agency had failed to file an appeal.Addressing a gathering at poll-bound Meghalaya, Congress president invited women of the state to join the party.

The Congress president (L) said one of the most important things to be done in the Congress is to balance the number of men and women fielded in the election. (Photo: Twitter | @INCMeghalaya)

Shillong: Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said Congress will change the structure of the GST (goods and services tax) if it is voted to power in the Centre.

Addressing an event in poll-bound Meghalaya, the Congress president said, "We are fighting RSS ideology across the nation. Idea is that one form of thinking is imposed on the country. What BJP and RSS are doing in all over India and particularly in North-east is attempting to undermine your culture, language and way of life."

Rahul said, RSS idea is aimed at disempowering women. He said, "Does anyone know many leadership positions are with women in RSS? Zero. If you see pictures of Mahatma Gandhi you'll find women on this side (right), this side (left) but if you see pictures of Mohan Bhagwat, he'll be alone or surrounded by men."

The Congress president said one of the most important things to be done in the Congress is to balance the number of men and women fielded in the election.

Inviting women to join the Congress in Meghalaya, Rahul said, "I would like to invite women to join the party in Meghalaya so that we have more and more women to choose from."Large stocks of ammunition have been found degraded and created problems when used.

Large quantities of ammunition present a problem of storage. Considering the threats to India, modernisation of its three defence services, dependency of central armed police and paramilitary forces, etc, for ammunition also from the ordnance factories, future requirements of ammunition can only be expected to increase.

As one of the most operationally-committed armies of the world, Indian Army has been functioning with a long pending requirement of new assault rifles and a critical shortage of ammunition.

The Indian Army fought its first two wars (1947-48 India-Pak and 1962 Sino-Indian) with the ancient Lee Enfield, 303 bolt-action rifle. By the 1965 India-Pak war it had the then new 7.62 self-loading rifle. Since the mid-1990s till date, it has been equipped with the lighter, smaller calibre Indian Small Arms System (INSAS) 5.56 mm rifle which has been prone to jamming in cold conditions and its plastic magazine cracking.

In 2010, the Army issued the initial tender for 44,600 close quarter carbines. Weapons from two vendors, Israel Weapon Industries and Italian Beretta, were selected for field trials. Berettas ARX160 model was rejected by directorate general of quality assurance because a safety measure on its laser sight was found unsuitable. While 28 companies had shown interest in the tender in the first stage, the Israeli firm was the only vendor left in the final phase. The defence ministry, when necessary, allows single vendor cases to be pursued, but it usually prefers multi-vendor tenders at the final stage to benefit from competition.

In 2016, the Army reportedly rejected Defence Research and Development Organisations 5.56 mm Excalibur rifle. In June 2017, it was reported that the Army for the second time rejected a 7.62x51 mm rifle designed by the Ordnance Factory Board for poor quality and ineffective firepower, following extended user trials and would issue a global tender to meet its long-pending requirement for 185,000 rifles.

The Indian bureaucracys stranglehold, which used to cause inordinate delays in materialisation of urgently needed weapons and equipment for the three services, will hopefully be loosened with the Defence Acquisition Council (chaired by defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman) meeting on January 16 and simplifying the Make II procedure, which prescribes guidelines to be followed to develop and manufacture defence equipment through Indian industry. The DAC also cleared procurement of 72,400 assault rifles and 93,895 carbines on fast-track basis for Rs 3,547 crores to enable the Indian defence forces to meet their immediate requirement for the troops deployed on borders.

To encourage participation of private sector in defence design and production and to give a boost to Make in India programme, the council has introduced significant changes in the Make II category of the Defence Procurement Procedure. Considering that no government funding is involved in Make II project, the DAC simplified the procedure to make it industry-friendly, with minimal government control. The salient aspects of the revised procedure will now allow ministry of defence to accept suo motu proposals from the industry and also allows start-ups to develop equipment for Indian Armed Forces. The minimum qualification criteria to participate in Make II projects has also been relaxed by removing conditions related to credit rating and reducing financial net worth criteria.

As per the earlier Make II procedure, only two vendors were shortlisted to develop prototype equipment. Now, all vendors meeting the relaxed eligibility criteria will be allowed to participate in the prototype development process. The vendor will not be required to submit Detailed Project Report. After approval of the Make II project by the council, all clearances will be accorded at Service HQs (SHQ) level.

To hand-hold industry and start-ups, SHQs will now setup project facilitation teams to act as the primary interface between the SHQ and the industry during the design and development stage. These teams would provide technical inputs, trial infrastructure and other facilities as required by the vendor. Even if a single individual or firm offers innovative solutions, the SHQ will now have the option to accept and process the vendors development initiative. SHQs will be allowed to hire domain experts/consultants from private sector to increase outreach and enhance awareness among the industry. Most importantly, once sanctioned, there will be no foreclosure of project, except on default by the vendor, to ensure that the successful vendor has assured orders.

To overcome the shortage of ammunition, the government recently announced its approval of manufacturing of eight selected ammunitions for the Indian Army by Indian Industry. As the indigenous manufacturer will be required to set up a new establishment for manufacture of ammunition, the defence minister has approved a long-term contract of 10 years with the selected ammunition manufacturer to facilitate a viable commercial model. This marks another step in the direction of Make in India in defence sector and to facilitate development of indigenous capacity, reduce dependence on import and with the long-term objective of building capacity within the industry as a robust alternative source of ammunition.

As per Indian Companies Act 2013, individual Indian companies, with foreign equity not exceeding 49 per cent, owned and controlled by resident Indian citizens, consortiums consisting of only Indian companies and wholly owned subsidiary company, are eligible to participate. The selection of manufacturer will be through an Open Tender Enquiry under two bid system. Companies can bid for any number of ammunition types, but will be awarded maximum three contracts. Prospective manufacturers will be free to select their technology partners, negotiate and obtain transfer of technology (ToT). The technology partners could be indigenous or foreign manufacturer, as per the discretion of participating entities.

Considering the ammunition requirement for Indias multifarious security commitments, even without a war on, this announcement has come better late than never.

In 2015, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) stated that the Indian Army had no more than 20 days ammunition for war. In July 2017, the CAG report, stated that there was not enough ammunition to last more than 10 days of war. For any Army facing two inimical neighbours and terrorists, this is indeed a worrisome situation.

It may be recalled that in 1999 when Pakistan precipitated the situation in Jammu and Kashmirs Kargil sector, the artillery, after pounding the enemy for two months, had begun to feel the pinch of shortage of ammunition.

Red-flagging the 2015 report on availability of ammunition for only 20 days of war, the CAG had alarmingly added that some types of ammunition would not last even 10 days.

While the CAG blamed the functioning of the Ordnance Factory Board for the shortage of supplies to the Indian Armed Forces, there are a number of factors contributing towards shortfall of ammunition to the Army.

In its 2015 report, the CAG had said that the Army needed more budgetary support to reach 50 per cent of the target capacity of the War Wastage Reserve (WWR), meaning various military materials held in reserve in case of war. These include ammunition of all types and calibres, equipment, weapons and fuel. Ideally, the WWR should last for 40 days of intense war giving enough time to the ordnance factories for ramping up production of required ammunition and supply the same to the military. The CAG report meant that if adequate budgetary support was given, the shortfall in ammunition could be overcome by 2019 and in any case not before that.

CAGs 2017 report mentions that despite the red-flagged warning and high-level report on defence preparedness in 2015, no improvement was seen in the working of the ordnance factories and that the production and supply of ammunition remains inferior in quality and quantity so far.

Large quantities of ammunition present a problem of storage. Considering the threats to India, modernisation of its three defence services, dependency of central armed police and paramilitary forces, etc, for ammunition also from the ordnance factories, future requirements of ammunition can only be expected to increase. There are problems in storage quality too. Properly stored, bullets and shells can last for decades. But large stocks of ammunition have been found degraded and created problems when used. Ammunition management methods must be improved with innovativeness and best use of technology.

Further, red tapism and archaic bureaucratic practices have hampered defence forces over the years. According to one report, only 20 per cent of the targeted amount of ammunition was imported between 2008 and 2013 as bureaucracy kept creating hurdles.

Fighting to the last man and last bullet sounds great and the Indian Army did so during the Sino-Indian war in 1962. But it is disastrous for any nation and reflects poorly on it to allow its Army to reach a stage of becoming short of ammunition.

The writer, a retired Army officer, is a defence and security analyst based in New DelhiCentre asked the Supreme Court not to intervene in the executive decision on deportation of Rohingya Muslims to Myanmar.

Counsel Prashant Bhushan had filed a fresh application for a direction to permit the remaining Rohingya refugees to cross over the border and enter India as the Border Security Force (BSF) is thwarting their entry. (Representational Image)

New Delhi: Making it clear that India cannot be allowed to become the refugee capital of the world, the Centre on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court not to intervene in the executive decision on deportation of Rohingya Muslims to Myanmar.

Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Tushar Mehta made this submission before a three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Kanwilkar and DY Chandrachud while hearing a batch of petitions seeking to restrain India from deporting 40,000 Rohingyas to Myanmar.

Counsel Prashant Bhushan had filed a fresh application for a direction to permit the remaining Rohingya refugees to cross over the border and enter India as the Border Security Force (BSF) is thwarting their entry. The court asked the Centre to file its response on this application.

At the outset the ASG said, We do not want India to become the refugee capital of the world. If we allow people from every other country will flood our country. The government is in diplomatic talks and it must be allowed to take a decision. There was no contingency as of now and this was not a matter for the court to intervene. This is not a matter in which we can show any leniency.

Prashant Bhushan told the court that the remaining 20 per cent of the Rohingya refugees too should be allowed to enter India. He complained that the BSF was preventing them from crossing over the border by sprinkling chilli powder.

Senior counsel Gopal Subramanium, appearing for the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), told the court that he agreed with what the ASG was saying.

However, he said that the NHRC was only concerned with the Rohingyas present in the country and had no instructions regarding others.

Bhushan pointed out that Rohingya refugees in camps in India live in abject poverty and squalor.

"The conditions are inhuman. There is no access to either schools or hospitals," he said.

Justice Chandrachud observed that the court did acknowledge the humanitarian aspects in Bhushan's submissions, but asked if judicial standards of India, which applied to refugees already living on Indian soil, also apply to those attempting to enter the country"

The Judge said, If somebody comes to your border and says 'I am a refugee, it has to be determined whether he is a refugee or not. He cannot be blindly pushed back, then what is the commitment of India to refugee determination. Several high courts have upheld the right to refugee determination. Let the government deal with it diplomatically, but this court should also decide on its own.

The bench will further hear the case on March 7.Aged below 30, Saleem, and his two brothers Naseem and Waseem were accused of killing 22-year-old college student Chandan Gupta.

'Saleem has admitted that he had opened fire at Chandan,' Inspector General Sanjeev Gupta claimed.

Lucknow: The prime accused in the murder of Chandan Gupta in western Uttar Pradesh's strife torn Kasganj town was arrested on Wednesday, police claimed.

"Saleem, the main accused, has been nabbed," IG, Aligarh range, Sanjeev Gupta said. Aged below 30, Saleem, and his two brothers Naseem and Waseem were accused of killing 22-year-old college student Chandan Gupta, police officials said.

The killing had led to further violence last week.

Also read: Kasganj violence: 112 arrested following clashes over Republic day celebrations

At least three shops, two buses and a car were torched after Gupta died of gunshot wounds. Communal clashes occurred in the town last week following stone-pelting by a mob on a motorcycle rally taken out to celebrate Republic Day.

Over 150 arrests have been made in connection with the Kasganj violence, the officials said.

"Saleem has admitted that he had opened fire at Chandan," IG Sanjeev Gupta claimed.

Also read: Kasganj violence: Adityanath promises 'strict action' against involved

While Saleem was hiding in Kasganj, his two accused brothers were yet to be traced, police officials said.

Kasganj SP Piyush Srivastava said notices pertaining to attachment of properties of the accused were pasted outside their houses.

Also read: Rahul Upadhyay, whose death intensified Kasganj clashes, alive: UP Police

District authorities, meanwhile, stopped a Congress delegation in Mirhachi area of Etah, close to Kasganj border.

The delegation was denied permission due to law and order issues, officials said.

District Magistrate, Kasganj, RP Singh refused permission to the Congress delegation apprehending that their visit to the troubled areas might create more problems.Congress President Rahul Gandhi Gandhi urged the youth to love and respect each other to make the country strong.

Shillong: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday took a potshot at Congress president Rahul Gandhi after he was seen wearing a black jacket, costing nearly Rs 70,000.

The BJP wasted no time and its Meghalaya unit highlighted the point on its Twitter handle with a photo of Gandhi donning the jacket at a music event in Shillong on Tuesday.

"So @OfficeOfRG, soot(pun intended!)-boot ki sarkar with 'black' money fleeced from Meghalayan State exchequer by rampant corruption? Instead of singing away our woes, you could have given a report card of your inefficient govt in Meghalaya! Your indifference mocks us!" wrote Meghalaya BJP below the picture which was paired with the jacket's original photo and price.

So @OfficeOfRG , soot(pun intended!)-boot ki sarkar with black money fleeced from Meghalayan State exchequer by rampant corruption? Instead of singing away our woes, you could have given a report card of your inefficient govt in Meghalaya! Your indifference mocks us! pic.twitter.com/sRvj5eoyRb  BJP Meghalaya (@BJP4Meghalaya) January 30, 2018

The jacket is a two-in-one down puffer jacket from Burberry, which is a British luxury fashion brand. On the Bloomingdales website, the cost of the jacket was listed as Rs 68,145.

Evidently, BJP's tweet was in retaliation to Rahul Gandhi's "suit boot" jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who worn a monogrammed suit during a meeting with US President Barack Obama in 2015.

The base price of the suit at an auction was Rs 11 lakh, and it was sold for Rs 4.31 crore.

Congress leader Renuka Chowdhury reacted to BJP's allegation and said, I can show you the same jacket for Rs 700.

The Congress president was in Shillong to kick off the election campaign of the party in poll-bound Meghalaya.

The polling for the 60-member state Assembly will take place on February 27 along with Nagaland. The results will be declared on March 3.The 28-year-old was arrested and has confessed to raping the baby on Sunday under the influence of alcohol.

The 8-month-old victim has undergone a surgery on Monday and her condition is stable. (Photo: DC/Representational)

New Delhi: An eight-month-old baby, who was raped by her 28-year-old cousin in northwest Delhis Netaji Subhash Place, needed a three-hour-long surgery for her injuries, after which she is in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Doctors said she is stable.

The baby was rushed to a local hospital on Sunday evening with severe wounds and bleeding. The surgery took place on Monday.

The baby was assaulted when both her parents were out for work, according to the police.

"I left for duty and later my wife also had to leave for about an hour," said the baby's father, a labourer. The child was left with her aunt who stays in the same building.

Since it was a Sunday, the son of the relative was at home.

When the accused saw that his mother was not around, he allegedly forced himself on the baby, police said.

When the girls mother, who works as a domestic help, returned home at around 12:30 pm, she found the baby crying on a bed that was covered in blood. She immediately informed her husband.

The baby was rushed to a hospital, where it was confirmed that she was sexually assaulted, police said.

The family told the police that they suspected the child's cousin -- also a father of a boy -- who was missing.

The victim was arrested on Monday evening. According to police, the 28-year-old also confessed to raping the baby under the influence of alcohol, said a senior police officer.

According to reports, he had allegedly taken away the baby saying he wanted to play with her.

"This man puts humanity to shame. Despite being a father he did this," Delhi Commission for Women, Swati Maliwal said.

She also tweeted:

The worst has happened. An 8 month old baby has been brutally raped in the Capital and is battling for her life in a Hospital. Going to the hospital to meet her. Am totally numb. Terrified to face her! Please please pray for her.  Swati Jai Hind (@SwatiJaiHind) January 29, 2018

Attacking the police in a series of tweets, she raged: "This is not the rape of an eight -month-old child but the rape of the Delhi Women's Commission."

The accused man has been charged with offences for which he could face life term.

Laws on rape were made stringent after a young medical student was gangraped on a moving bus in the national capital in December 2012.There will be 10 conciliation benches set up in Mumbai and five in Pune. The benches are expected to start functioning from March 2018.

Mumbai: MahaReRA has launched a new reconciliation forum to address complaints of both consumers and developers. Citizens can file an application for reconciliation online, post which hearings will be held after payment of Rs 1,000. The forum has members from the Mumbai Grahak Panchayat (MGP); CREDAI (Council of Real Estate Development Association of India); MCHI (Maharashtra Chamber of Housing Industry), an umbrella body of promoters; and NAREDCO (National Real Estate Development Council). The forum will be operational from February 1.

Home buyers can create accounts on the MahaReRA website and make an application for reconciliation. The other party will be informed about this reconciliation and will be given a time span of seven days to respond. If the matter gets resolved, an agreement will be made by taking signatures of both parties. If consumers are not happy with the decision of theforum, they can then approach MahaReRa, said Vasant Prabhu, secretary, MahaReRa.

The Asian Age was the first to report about such a forum that would act as a means of alternate dispute resolution (ADR). Shirish Deshpande, chairman, MGP, said, "It is the first time in the country that an alternate channel has been formed to resolve disputes in an amicable way. If this succeeds, it will be a win-win situation for consumers."

There will be 10 conciliation benches set up in Mumbai and five in Pune. The benches are expected to start functioning from March 2018.

We will have to prove ourselves. The conciliators should be able to gain trust and confidence among consumers. Only then will we be able to address and resolve more complaints. Our objective is that the projects should be completed, said Niranjan Hiranandani, NAREDCO.United Nations has reviewed the idea of creating a 'sunshade' using sun-dimming chemicals.

A halt after several years could lead to a jump in temperatures because greenhouse gases would continue to build up in the atmosphere.

The idea of spraying a haze of sun-dimming chemicals high above the Earth as a quick way to slow global warming faces so many obstacles that it may not be feasible, a leaked draft UN report says. The UN review of a planetary sunshade, mimicking how a big volcanic eruption can cool the planet with a veil of debris, is part of a broad study of climate technologies ordered by almost 200 nations in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Proposals by some scientists to spray chemicals such as sulphur high in the atmosphere from aeroplanes have won more attention since Paris as a relatively cheap fix, costing perhaps $1 billion to $10 billion a year. But such geoengineering may be economically, socially and institutionally infeasible, according to a draft obtained by Reuters covering hundreds of pages on risks of droughts, floods, heat waves and more powerful storms.

The draft, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) about ways to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, is due for publication in October. It could still change substantially, the IPCC said. Problems involved with solar radiation management include testing and working out rules for a technology that could be deployed by a single nation, or even a company, and might disrupt global weather patterns.

And it would result in an addiction problem; once started, its hard to stop, the draft says. A halt after several years could lead to a jump in temperatures because greenhouse gases would continue to build up in the atmosphere. David Keith, faculty director of Harvard Universitys Solar Geoengineering Research Program which is working for a tiny outdoor experiment to dim sunshine, said there was a misguided taboo against examining the technology.

We need a serious research effort to understand its risks and potential benefits. Then we will be able to write informed assessments, he wrote in an e-mail.

But many scientists are sceptical. To deploy it safely would take many decades, said Myles Allen, a professor of geosystem science at Oxford University. He said it was completely misleading to suggest it could be an easy short-cut to slow warming. Given the long time needed for research, it would be better to focus on ways to limit greenhouse emissions, he said. Allen said he was giving his personal views, not of the IPCC draft of which he is an author.

The draft also says rising temperatures could breach 1.5C by mid-century unless governments take unprecedented action. The Paris Agreement has been weakened by US President Donald Trumps plan to withdraw.The reformist leader had been under restrictive measures without a trial since 2011 after leading a protest against Ahmadinejads sham re-election. Rouhani, who succeeded the latter, said he wants to put an end to the restrictive measures.

Tehran (AsiaNews/Agencies)  Iranian authorities have eased restrictions on Hussein Mousavi, the reformist candidate who run in the 2009 presidential elections, two media outlets close to the reform movement have reported.

Mr Mousavi has been under house arrest since 2011. On Monday, reformist-linked ILNA news agency said some restrictions on visits to Mousavi and his wife Rahnavard "have been lifted . . . over the past week".

This means that the "daughters, the grandchildren and the two sons-in-law of Mr Mousavi and Mrs Rahnavard can visit them normally, the agency reported citing Ghasem Mirzaie Nikou, a member of a parliamentary committee that has been lobbying for the release of Mousavi, his wife, and another reformist leader, Mehdi Karoubi.

Nikou also told the outlet he hoped other family members would also be granted access.

The semi-official ISNA agency cited Gholamreza Heidari, another member of the same committee, as saying there had been "an opening" in the couple's case. The authorities "have come to the conclusion that maintaining (their) house arrest does not go in the direction of the national interest or that of the system," he said.

Heidari told ISNA he hoped the couple would soon be released but added that "of course we will have to be patient". Thus, Mousavi and his wife would get the same visiting rights as Karoubi, 80, following his hospitalisation.

After the announcement of their defeat in the 2009 presidential elections, Mousavi, who is now 75, and Karoubi led a protest against the sham re-election of the right-wing populist Ahmadinejad.

The protest movement was harshly repressed, and both political leaders were placed under house arrest without trial in 2011.

Hassan Rouhani, who succeeded Ahmadinejad as president, said he wanted to do everything possible to end the restrictive measures.by Santosh Digal

Gay sex is responsible for 83 per cent of new HIV cases. Two out of three new HIV infections occur among men aged 15 to 24 years. The Bishops Conference (CBCP) urges people to act and behave responsibly. For Fr James McTavish, the true solution to the epidemic is not the distribution of condoms, but the humanisation of sexuality.

Manila (AsiaNews)  The rise in the rate of new HIV cases in the country worries the Filipino Church and health experts.

In the past few years, the Philippines has recorded the fastest rise in HIV/AIDS cases in Asia-Pacific region with a 140 per cent increase, the Philippines Department of Health reported.

Citing data from the United Nations Program for AIDS/HIV (UNAIDS), Health Secretary Paulyn Ubial noted that at the end of 2016, 10,500 Filipinos had been infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, up from 4,300 in 2010.

In May 2017 alone, there were 1,098 new cases, the highest number recorded since 1984, when the infection was reported for the first time.

Between January and November of last year, 428 people died of AIDS d in the Philippines, one of seven nations in the world where infections are increasing.

Eamonn Murphy, director of the UNAIDS Regional Support Team for Asia and the Pacific, said that 83 per cent of new HIV cases are among sexually active gay men and transgender women who have sex with men.

Two out of three new HIV infections affect males aged 15 to 24 because of poor understanding of HIV transmission, symptoms, and treatment.

The Health Commission of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has called on people to adopt responsible practices and behaviours.

Mgr Gilbert Armea Garcera, archbishop of Lipa and former president of the Commission, noted that awareness about how the disease is acquired and transmitted are the priorities of the Catholic Church.

The Filipino Church is making an effort to present HIV/AIDS statistics, look at causes, modes of transmission and effects.

"This information is vital for priests and religious, because the Church is called to serve brothers and sisters who live with HIV and AIDS," said Fr James McTavish, a strong proponent of the Church's prevention programme.

Originally from Scotland, the missionary is a member of the Verbum Dei community based in Quezon City (diocese of Cubao).

Before becoming a priest, Fr McTavish was a surgeon and now teaches Moral Theology and Bioethics at the Jesuit-run Loyola School of Theology and also gives courses at the Dominican University of Santo Tomas, Manila.

In addition to gay men, Other high-risk groups are overseas foreign workers, injecting drug addicts, and prostitutes. All of this has implications for the content and form of our catechesis, homilies and preaching.

For the clergyman, "Some helpful catechetical points will be given relating to our message on human sexuality, including a discussion on why the true solution to the epidemic is not the distribution of condoms, but the humanisation of sexuality".by Mathias Hariyadi

More than 80 children have died with another 800 affected by malnutrition-related illnesses. The diocese has provided humanitarian relief to the most affected districts. The peculiar characteristics of the remote territory make the work of volunteers difficult and dangerous.

Jakarta (AsiaNews)  Agats, a remote area in Indonesias Papua province, has been struck by a serious humanitarian crisis that has left more than 80 children dead with another 800 afflicted by malnutrition-related illnesses.

Speaking to AsiaNews, Mgr Aloysius Murwito (picture 2), bishop of Agats, expressed the solidarity and closeness of Indonesias Catholics to the local population. This, despite the ongoing tragedy, is a blessing.

For the past two weeks, the health emergency has been in the limelight, covered by national and international media, but Mgr Murwito had recognised it for some time.

During Christmas festivities, the bishop had gone to Kapi, one of the dioceses isolated parish in Sawaerma District, to celebrate the Vigil Mass. There he saw that many Asmat women who attended the service showed severe signs of malnutrition.

"During that Mass, I was deeply moved by such a serious humanitarian crisis. I mentioned it in various homilies during the Christmas and New Year celebrations, in Asmat," Mgr Murwito noted.

His sermon on 5 January echoed on social media, arousing media interest first in Papua, then across the country.

AsiaNews met the bishop in Jakarta (picture 3), where he was involved in several interviews with national media to draw even more public attention to the emergency in the eight districts of his diocese.

Asked about the unfolding of the crisis, the prelate said that the diocese, working with local authorities, had carried out relief operations in the most affected areas. Two teams were sent some days ago to help against diseases like rubella and measles, and hand out basic necessities.

"We decided to work in two districts, about 20 villages," the bishop explained. However, the volunteers from the diocese and health workers face many difficulties on the ground.

To begin with, they have to contend with the nomadic lifestyle of the indigenous population and the peculiar characteristics of their settlements. "Unlike other indigenous peoples of Indonesia, the Asmat actually practice nomadism. They usually go into the forests for days, before returning to their villages."

In addition to this, technical issues also make it difficult to fight the spread of diseases. Reaching the settlements in fact involves long and costly trips on small motorboats (picture 4), in waters infested with crocodiles.

The coming months will be crucial to reducing the suffering of the local population. The next step will be to increase awareness among the natives about health. "However, spreading the message is very difficult, due to the absence of an adequate communication system".

Since the region is not served by an electricity network, there is no mobile connection. Nevertheless, the bishop is deeply grateful for the quick response of Indonesian Catholics, as well as non-Catholics, to the request for help from the local Church.

"The emotions stirred up in the hearts of people across the country has led to donations and excellent initiatives in favour of the diocese of Agats, so that it can carry forward its humanitarian mission," Mgr Murwito explained.Kabul is immersed in a climate of fear. Once it was a destination for those who left their hometown in search of security. Isis and the Taliban are competing for power. The Taliban are more rooted. "One thing is clear: the inability of the Afghan security forces, intelligence agencies and the government"

Kabul (AsiaNews) - "Military operations will not solve the problem of Afghanistan states Obaid Ali, political researcher at Afghanistan Analysts Network (Ann) a non-profit research group, following the recent spate of bloody attacks that have claimed more than 100 victims in the capital.

"There is a climate of fear in the city," says Obaid. "People prefer to stay in their homes, they don't want to go out, most of the shops in the city center are shut down, and government offices are closed".

"In Kabul, at the moment, the population has increased, and for this reason if there is an attack in the city, like a suicide attack, the number of civilian casualties is very high. Many have fled their hometowns to go to Kabul, which they considered a safe place. But if we look at the series of attacks that have taken place there, it means that not even Kabul is safe."

In Afghanistan, the Taliban and Daesh "represent a serious threat, and both seek to present themselves as the strongest group in the country".

There are fundamental differences between the two groups, moreover "there is no solid evidence to show a collaboration" - rather they have clashed over the past two years, with Taliban attacks against Isis in the East and by self-pro-clamed Isis commander in the northeast part of the country.

The Taliban, which are the strongest group, are changing tactics: The Us forces increase in the number of air strikes and targeted killing of prominent Taliban figures has prevented the Taliban to carry large-scale offenses. So, for this reason, the Taliban now try to coordinate the attacks against the Afghan government in big cities. That is why we've seen regular attacks in Kabul".

Isis has a strong base in the eastern part of the country, and has also claimed several attacks in Kabul. The last, the attack on the checkpoint near the military academy of Marsha Fahim, in which 11 Afghan soldiers died.

"One thing is clear: the inability of the Afghan security forces, the intelligence agencies and the government", comments Obaid. "What we have seen in recent months is that the Afghan government has failed to protect its citizens even in the capital. This has a strong psychological impact, not only on the government, but also on ordinary people ".

Asked about the new strategy announced by US President Donald Trump to increase the number of forces in the country, Obaid says: "In the past decade, we have seen a number of international armies here in Afghanistan. But to date, we have also seen that they are not effective. The strategy of increased military operations in the territory will not solve the problem, it would lead to a new season of clashes in the country, to more civilian victims".

The analyst says the hope is that of a political resolution, but the possibilities are few. "Unfortunately," he comments. "2017 saw a failure to reach a peaceful conclusion with the Taliban, despite the fact that there were several initiatives launched by different channels. We have not yet seen any valid results, because there is a lack of trust between the two parties involved".

"We need greater efforts and initiative in peace negotiations," concludes Obaid. "If the war continues there will be more civilian victims, killings, more and more people will be forced to flee their homes.Francis dedicates the general audience to the liturgy of the Word. One listens to what God has done and still intends to do for us. "We need to listen to it! It is indeed a matter of life ". It demands our attention, no to chatter and no to "subjective choices", no to substituting the Word with irreverent texts.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - The word of God that is pronounced during the Mass cannot be replaced by "other things", it must be listened to carefully, in silence, without chatter and must not "stay in the ears; it must go to the heart, and from the heart it passes to the hands, to good works.". The liturgy of the Word was the theme of Pope Francis continuing the cycle of catechesis dedicated to Mass at todays general audience.

In his address to the 10 thousand people present in St Peter's Square, Francis stressed in particular that in the liturgy of the Word it is "God who speaks, here and now". ". It demands our attention, no to chatter - no to '"have you seen that ladys hat? - and no to "subjective choices", to the substitution of the Word with irreverent texts. And readers must be "carefully selected", "must be prepared, by doing the tests".

One listens to what God has done and still intends to do for us. "We need to listen to Him! It is, in fact, a question of life, as the incisive expression well reminds that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4)  the life that the Word of God gives us. In this connection, we speak of the Liturgy of the Word as the table that the Lord prepares to feed our spiritual life".

The Responsorial Psalm, continued Francis, has the function of encouraging the meditation of what is heard in the reading that precedes it. For this reason "it is good that the Psalm be enhanced with song, at least f the refrain". The liturgical proclamation of the same readings, he added, expresses and fosters ecclesial communion, accompanying the journey of each and every one of us. "One understands, therefore, why subjective choices, such as the omission of Readings or their substitution with non-biblical texts, are prohibited. Ive heard that some, if there is news, read the newspaper, because its the news of the day. No! The Word of God is the Word of God! We can read the newspaper later, but there, the Word of God is read. Its the Lord who speaks to us. "Replacing that Word with other things, impoverishes and compromises the dialogue between God and His people in prayer".

"We know - he said - that the word of the Lord is an indispensable help not to lose ourselves". " How can we face our earthly pilgrimage, with its toils and trials, without being regularly fed and illumined by the Word of God that resounds in the Liturgy? Its certainly not enough to listen with the ears, without receiving in the heart the seed of the divine Word, enabling it to bear fruit. Let us remember the parable of the sower and the different results according to the different types of soil. The action of the Spirit, which renders the response effective, is in need of hearts that allow themselves to be worked and cultivated, so that what is heard at Mass passes in daily life, in keeping with the Apostle James admonition: Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. The Word of God makes a path within us. We hear it with the ears and it passes to the heart. It doesnt stay in the ears; it must go to the heart, and from the heart it passes to the hands, to good works. This is the course that the Word of God follows: from the ears to the heart to the hands. Let us learn these things."According to a WFP and FAO investigation, food shortages and food insecurity deteriorate in areas affected by conflict. The most critical situation is recorded in Yemen, plagued by wars and epidemics. Syria and Lebanon also of concern. WFP expert: The price of violence is "getting higher".

Beirut (AsiaNews) - Food insecurity and famine in conflict-affected countries, especially in the Middle East, continue to worsen in the face of growing problems in the delivery and distribution of aid to the population. This is what emerges from a recent survey presented by WFP and FAO experts (respectively the World Food Program and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization) to the UN Security Council.

The latest report prepared by the UN agencies focuses on food insecurity in 16 countries in the world: Afghanistan, Burundi, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Iraq, Lebanon (Syrian refugees), Liberia, Mali, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen, in addition to the Lake Chad Basin.

The joint FAP-WFP survey shows that in over half of these nations, a quarter or more of the population live in crisis situations or in levels of emergency regarding hunger.

The most critical context is in Yemen, the scene of a civil war that has caused thousands of victims and some of the worst epidemics in the world, such as cholera which has been added to the chronic lack of food and water. In the Arab country 60% of the population, equal to 17 million individuals, suffers from acute malnutrition.

Following are South Sudan (45%) of the population affected, while in third place in this ranking we find Syria, with 33% of the inhabitants affected by malnutrition, for a total of 6.5 million people. The Syrian conflict ends up having repercussions on neighboring Lebanon, in fourth place, with 33% of the population and 1.9 million people affected by the hunger emergency. Of these, most are Syrian refugees.

According to the experts of the UN humanitarian agencies, in all 16 countries involved in the investigation the risk factor for food safety is common: war. The intensification of conflicts is the main reason for the rising hunger levels in the world, after decades of constant decline.

The number of people suffering from hunger in the planet rose to 815 million in 2016, compared to 777 million in the previous year. Of these, the majority (489 million people) live in nations affected by wars. Hence the renewed call for the cessation of conflicts and the growth of investments in the food security sector, as a key element in achieving lasting peace in all areas of greatest risk.

Francis Mwanza, head of the WFP office in London, said: For the World Food Programme, the price of conflict is becoming too high. Eighty per cent of WFP expenditure occurs in conflict zones. The fear is if we continue having no access in a number of countries, including Yemen, we may have famine conditions in some areas. If we want to reach zero hunger, ending conflict is a major step in reaching that goal.Geneva (AsiaNews / Agencies) - At least 60,000 North Korean children are likely to suffer from severe malnutrition "that can lead to death". The alarm was launched by UNICEF, the UN agency for children, underlining that international sanctions on North Korea exacerbate the humanitarian situation by slowing down the delivery of aid.

Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF, Omar Abdi, reports that humanitarian aid is exempt from the embargo, "but what happens is that banks and companies that supply or ship goods are very careful. They do not want to run any risk of being considered guilty of violating sanctions. " As a result, transporting materials and aid becomes increasingly difficult and time is stretched, especially when it comes to bringing money into the country. Moreover, due to the punitive measures, the price of petrol rose by 160%.

Director of UNICEF emergency programs, Manuel Fontaine, says that it is a "malnutrition that can lead to death. There is talk of protein and calorie deficiency ... The trend is worrying, it is not improving in any way ".

UNICEF is one of the few international bodies to have access to the isolated country, where a serious famine has killed about 3 million people since the mid-1990s. Even the Eugene Bell Foundation, a foundation in support of around 1,000 tuberculosis patients in the country, recently launched an appeal for the humanitarian situation in the countryThe pastor of a politically influential, wealthy and secretive Christian church in the Philippines

With global links has been granted refugee status in Canada after he claimed that he was targeted for murder.

The Immigration and Refugee Board found that the church "is motivated by a vendetta" against the dissident pastor, Lowell Menorca II, who sought refugee status in B.C., has "both the means and the motivation to seriously harm or kill" him.

He's "a person in need of protection from a risk of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment and a risk to his life," the ruling said, according to a statement obtained by the CBC.

"I was ecstatic. I was overcome with joy," Menorca told CBC of the IRB's findings.

"I cried and I cried, and thanked God that finally this was the vindication I was praying for."

The Filipino Post reported in 2016 that Menorca had sought refugee status in Vancouver claiming he is being targeted for murder.

Menorca II, who was expelled from the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) said via a letter released to the media that he was in Vancouver pleading his case before Canadas Immigration Refugee Board.

The application for special entry lists himself, his then pregnant wife Jinky, 2-year-old daughter Yuri Keiko, sister-in-law Jungko Otsuka, brother Anthony Menorca and his wife Shayne, and their house help Abegail Yanson.

The family fled Manila about two years ago, staying in Vietnam for two weeks before moving on to another country, citing threats to their lives.

We confirmed reports the people who were responsible for our kidnapping and illegal detention are out of the country and actively searching for my family to use them against me, Menorca said in a six-page letter.

They have mobilized local resources in Vietnam, Thailand, Vancouver and even Southern California to look for me and my family, he said.

He attached to his letter screengrabs of supposed Facebook posts by INC members taunting the family with their photos at airports in Vietnam and Thailand to prove they were being tailed.

Menorcas plea for refugee status came after the Court of Appeals in Manila threw out the familys bid for court protection, as the case was rendered moot by the familys departure from the Philippines.

The Menorca family initiated court proceedings against their former church after the INC allegedly detained them for three months at its Central Office in Quezon City.

Menorca was among 10 INC workers and ministers abducted after being suspected of being behind online exposes of corruption in the upper echelons of the politically influential sect. Some members of the sects founding familythe Manaloswere also isolated.

After Menorca filed abduction charges and sought protection against the INC, he was slapped with several counter cases, including three libel suits and an adultery complaintcharges Menorca said were part of the INCs efforts to harass him.

In his letter, Menorca detailed his familys ordeal, appealing to the Canadian government to grant him and his loved ones a new beginning.

I am just one man standing for the truth and what is right against a very, very powerful institution which uses the church as a facade for its illegal activities and human rights abuses. I am no match for them, said Menorca.

He described the INC as an institution that has a stranglehold on the Philippine government, saying authorities have been unable to do anything against the churchs wishes.

We are all being targeted to be silenced by the INC and by extension, our own government, which INC is able to manipulate, said Menorca.

This is why we are begging your good government to grant us refuge. We are in dire need of protection from a government such as yours which cannot be bribed or influenced by INC, whose law enforcement is faithful to its duty to protect and serve its citizens and not be used as an instrument to oppress and suppress by the influential and corrupt, he told the Canadians.

Before he fled the country, Menorca issued a statement in Filipino saying he feared for his life, having received death threats, even one against his youngest child, from suspected members of the INC.

He retold how he was abducted by armed menincluding some he identified as Quezon City policemenfrom his small church in Butag, Sorsogon, on July 16, 2015, jailed in Dasmarinas, Cavite, on trumped up charges, allegedly with the help of a city prosecutor in that town. He said he was released after nine days in the Dasmarinas jail and turned over by the police chief to INC leaders, who then detained them at the local churchs Quezon City compound for three months, before he was rescued by the National Bureau of Investigation. However, his nightmare has not ended as he faces threats of arrest for various cases filed by the powerful group.

The Iglesia ni Cristo (INC or Church of Christ), with congregations across Canada and billions in assets worldwide is known for its unity and its members voting in a block.

The Philippine-based church was founded in 1914 by Felix Manalo. Born out of his dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church. Manalo is viewed by his followers as Gods last messenger. They believe there is no salvation outside the INC. Within a century, the church has grown to three million members worldwide who support the church through generous donations. The largest congregation outside of the Philippines is in the United States. In Canada, the church has congregations from British Columbia to Quebec.

The INC wields much influence within its overseas congregations as well in its homeland, where Philippine politicians seek its endorsement during elections. The INC gets its power not from sheer numbers but from the legendary unity of its flock. The faithful gather for religious services twice a week and pay regular tithes across 101 Philippine ecclesiastical districts, each with 15 to 70 locales, and 27 more districts across the United States, Canada, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia.Guest Commentary

By Muhammad Ali

New Canadian Media

Im the child of Indian immigrants and, for my family, Indian Standard Time is a term used to determine that even when we are running late, we are arriving with the party in full-swing. In the case of trade negotiations between Canada and India, we have reached Indian Standard Time.

Our two countries have long had a complex bilateral relationship. While the previous Canadian government was able to successfully end a long-simmering nuclear dispute, allowing for the sale of Canadian uranium to India, it was unable to complete the free trade negotiations started back in 2010. Several cabinet ministers have visited India over the past two years, in addition to visits by various provincial premiers and big-city mayors to encourage more bilateral trade and investment between their respected jurisdictions.

But progress remains slow on a formal trade agreement.

Part of the reason for this slow progress is the lack of high-level discussions between Prime Minister Trudeau and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. With Trudeau visiting China twice and hosting President Xi Jinping in Canada, Indian officials may wonder how high of a priority trade with India is for the Canadian government. China and India are regional rivals economically, militarily and politically. They want assurances Canada cares and understands India.

Trudeau experiences a high degree of popularity amongst Indias population and within the Indo-Canadian community, an important political force in Canadian politics. To appease his key voter base and the interests of Canadian businesses, Trudeau will need to maximize his impact during his trip to India.

The purpose of this trip will be threefold: First, to quell any concerns Prime Minister Modi may have with the priority Canada has assigned to its relationship with China; second, to address any issues arising from the differences between the Indian and Indo-Canadian diasporas; and lastly, on issues impacting trade negotiations.

It will be part of Trudeaus task to get Modis focus on the urgency and benefits of stronger trade ties with a trade agreement and use his popularity and charisma to show Modi that his commitment to improving our bilateral relationship is real and not calculated to only shore up domestic support.

South Asians in Canada hold tremendous political influence reflected by the appointment of four Sikh-Canadian ministers in important portfolios, and nearly two dozen MPs and Senators currently serving our country. Indo-Canadians have become engaged citizens who are shaping industry, culture and policy for Canadians. Addressing the delicate relationship between the Indian and Indo-Canadian diasporas will aide Trudeau to move negotiations forward.

Finally, Trudeau will be looking to address core economic issues such as agricultural exports to India, access to natural resources and migrant skilled workers coming to Canada. At the moment, India has raised tariffs on pulse seed imports, the majority of which comes from Saskatchewan. Canada produces a third of the worlds pulse crops (ex. lentils, peas, chickpeas) and this will have a ripple effect throughout the Canadian agricultural industry.

India and Canada can benefit from greater mobility of technology-trained workers, such as software engineers, between both countries. With the Waterloo-Toronto corridor and Bangalore-Hyderabad tech-centres hosting a thriving technology sector, a trade agreement would be able to enhance a bilateral ecosystem for companies to further develop.

Of most importance for Trudeau will be securing environmental and labour standards that have become core negotiating principles for this government. Canadas leverage to securing these standards is giving India its first free-trade access to a Western market, including Canadian businesses that have access to North America, the EU, several countries in South America and potentially 10 Pacific-coast nations. Amidst the populist rhetoric to protectionism and anti-trade, Trudeau is positioning Canada as a beacon of economic opportunity that India would benefit from tremendously.

This trip to India, if successful, may cement Trudeaus ability to deliver on his promise to diversify Canadian market access and reduce our dependence on the Americans, who continue to play Russian roulette with NAFTA discussions. Given the NAFTA risks, Canada needs this trade deal more than India does  to which Trudeau must move quickly before he loses any leverage in these talks.By Matthew Morawski,

Special to The Post

Do not give up on your goal of immigrating to Canada just because you do not score enough points to obtain an Invitation to Apply (ITA) under the Express Entry program. There are still many options available to successfully immigrate to Canada. One great option is to move to Canadas Atlantic coast by accessing the Atlantic Immigration Pilot Program (AIPP).

The AIPP is a 3-year program designed to bring new immigrants to Canadas four Maritime Provinces: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, or Newfoundland and Labrador. There is a great deal of opportunity with the AIPP as Canada wants to add 7,000 Canadian permanent residents to Atlantic Canada through this program between 2017-2020. To ensure the success for such growth, the AIPP includes many advantages as compared to Canadas Express Entry program.

Advantage #1: AIPP allows lower skilled jobs

Express Entry requires previous work experience or a job offer in highly skilled work for managers, professionals requiring a university degree, or technical jobs that usually require a college diploma or apprenticeship. Many newcomers do not qualify under Express Entry because their work experience or job offer does not meet this high skilled work standard.

The first advantage of the AIPP program is that it allows for a job offer from a designated employer to be from a lower skill level and which usually calls for high school and/or job-specific training only (eg. butcher, long-haul truck driver, food and beverage server). The AIPP program opens up immigration opportunities to newcomers working in lower skilled jobs who were previously not qualified for Canadian immigration.

Advantage #2: AIPP does not require work experience for Atlantic graduates

The need for previous work experience is a large barrier for international graduates looking to obtain permanent residency. This is because many international students looking for their first job struggle to secure relevant work experience in a management, professional, or technical job.

The AIPP provides a big advantage for students who finish a 2-year school program in a publicly funded institution in Atlantic Canada as they do not need any work experience to qualify under AIPPs international graduate program for permanent residency.

Advantage #3: AIPP has a lower language requirement

The Express Entry language requirements are often difficult for newcomers to achieve:

 the Federal Skilled Worker Program requires a minimum of Canadian Language Benchmark (CLB) 7 for all four language abilities;

 the Canadian Experience Class requires a minimum of CLB 5 for all four language abilities for technical jobs; and

 the Federal Skilled Trades Program requires a CLB 5 for speaking and listening.

The AIPP opens up permanent residency to prospective newcomers who are still learning Canadas official languages as it requires only basic language requirements of CLB 4 for all of the language abilities of speaking, listening, reading, and writing.

Advantage #4: AIPP helps newcomers settle in Atlantic Canada

Finally, the AIPP helps newcomers succeed in Atlantic Canada by creating a unique plan for each of them. In the AIPP, the employer connects the candidate with a designated settlement provider organization to complete a needs assessment for the applicant. The employer helps the newcomer and their family to create and achieve their settlement plan. This plan helps newcomers settle and adjust to a new life in Canada. The plan usually includes:

 referrals to community resources;

 assistance with finding housing;

 assistance with transportation;

 assistance with obtaining essential public services such as health cards, child tax benefits, and obtaining social insurance numbers;

 assistance in registering in schools for children;

 language training;

 information and orientation to life in Atlantic Canada;

 connecting newcomers to their community.

This feature symbolizes AIPPs focus on each newcomer to successfully settle and stay permanently in Atlantic Canada.

If you would like to become a permanent resident in Canada but lack the points to get an ITA through Express Entry it is worth looking to the AIPP. Securing a job or attending school in Atlantic Canada may be the best strategy to achieve your goal in becoming a Canadian permanent resident.

Matthew Morawski is an immigration lawyer passionate about helping people immigrate to Canada. If you would like to learn more about becoming a Canadian permanent resident (including the favourable Atlantic Immigration Pilot Program) please email Matthew at matthew@sasanding.com or call him at 604-689-5444.Hi My partner is here from Cambodia on a Partner Provisional 309 Visa

I am having trouble with the IMMI interface to apply for her Second stage permanent Visa.

We are well over the qualifying time and meet all requirements.

I would like to apply on printed version but have not been able to find it can anyone link me to the PDF or other printable media. ThanksHi there! I am from the UK and applied for my 801/820 from within Australia (I'm still here), a few months ago (August). I have now had a request for further information, which has come way sooner than I was expecting, but the request has also come from the Australian Embassy in Indonesia (Jakarta). Is this unusual?Photo of Waymo's Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid courtesy of FCA.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will supply thousands of 2018 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans to Google's Waymo to support the launch of a driverless ride-hailing service, the automaker announced.

The order is the latest acquisition of minivans by Waymo from FCA, which delivered 500 in 2017 and 100 in the second half of 2016.

Waymo is set to open its autonomous ride-hailing service to the public in Phoenix later this year. The additional Pacifica Hybrid minivans will support the expansion of the service to more cities. Waymo has tested its technology in 25 cities, including Atlanta, San Francisco, Detroit, Phoenix, and Kirkland, Wash.

The self-driving Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans have been equipped with Waymo's autonomous hardware and software that have been tested over more than 4 million miles on public roads.The city of San Francisco is suing Turo for continuing to operate at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) without a permit, a requirement for all entities conducting commercial business at the airport.



Car rental companies are required to pick up and drop off customers at SFOs rental car center, as well pass a fee of $18 per contract onto rental car customers for use of the AirTrain, the people mover that connects to the rental car center, and pay 10% of gross receipts above a certain threshold for SFO rental car transactions. Additionally, car rental companies occupying the rental car center must pay rent.

Photo courtesy of Turo.

Turo, which defines itself as a peer-to-peer carsharing company, has been picking up and dropping off customers at terminal curbside without paying those fees. The company claims it does not to fall under the same definition of car rental, and should therefore be exempt from the same requirements.



The lawsuit cites Turos website references to car rentals at SFO Airport and curbside pickup and drop off. By continuing to operate at SFO and access renters directly at the terminals, the lawsuit claims that Turo adds to airport traffic and compromises funding for facilities maintenance, while having an unfair advantage over the car rental companies that comply with the airports permitting requirements.



Turo disagrees. Michelle Fang, Turos general counsel, notes that Turo does not itself own a fleet of cars, but rather enables peer-to-peer carsharing through an internet platform in the same way that eBay brokers auctions of third-party goods.



Since 2010, California has a law in place that defines peer-to-peer carsharing, and we fall squarely within that, says Fang. Rental car laws are totally distinct from carsharing laws.



Fang references AB 1851, which when enacted amended California insurance code to ensure that owners of private vehicles in personal vehicle sharing programs would not have their personal auto insurance invalidated as a result. The language of the legislation specifies that to be protected under the statute, revenue received by the vehicles owner from a personal sharing program should not exceed the annual expenses of owning and operating that vehicle.



Fang, who had previously litigated for eBay, also references federal law that excises internet platforms such as eBay from responsibility for the conduct of its users. Federal law is clear that its not Turo conducting that activity, Turo is providing a platform for other entities to conduct that activity, she says. Were in a very good and strong position via state law and federal law. Its very clear we are not a rental car company.



Along with the San Francisco city attorney and SFO, the American Car Rental Association contends that Turo is operating as a car rental company. Greg Scott, ACRAs lobbyist, says that for-profit Turo facilitates daily car rental transactions for compensation and should therefore abide by the federal, state, and local laws governing car rental companies.



Scott points out that the California law was designed to rectify a specific issue with personal vehicle sharing programs and personal insurance  and says nothing about taxes and fees. This law does not give Turo the right to avoid taxes at SFO or elsewhere, he says.



As of 2016, Turo allows car rental companies to list vehicles on its platform, and in so doing allows rental companies to use their commercial insurance policies instead of Turos. Fang agrees that car rental companies using Turos platform should abide by the rules governing car rental companies at an airport.



Is there a workable real-world model in which rental company-provided vehicles on Turos platform can be charged appropriately per trip? Fang suggests that entities using Turos owner-provided insurance tool could be blocked online from airport transactions, for instance.



The lines are blurred further, however, in the evolving definition of vehicle owner for the purposes of peer-to-peer programs. A growing number of independent entrepreneurs are buying multiple vehicles and putting them on Turos platform with the intent to generate revenue  contrary to the revenue threshold requirements in the 2010 law.



Fang says Turo has continually tried to work with the airport on the permit issue. She says Turo has asked SFO to create a permit specific to carsharing, in which Turo would pay an airport trip fee similar to those paid by ride-hailing networks such as Uber and Lyft, but that has gone nowhere. Fang believes the major car rental companies are trying to litigate this new type of competition to death.



Scott says either Turo, the vehicle owner, or the Turo renter must take responsibility for paying airport fees  and abide by other consumer and safety protections that car rental companies must follow. If there is a level playing field, we welcome Turo come on into the market and join ACRA, he says.

Originally posted on Business FleetSan Francisco International Airport sees about 53 million travelers every year. Photo via GPS/Flickr

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera filed a lawsuit against peer-to-peer rental company Turo for operating at the San Francisco International Airport (SFO) without proper permits.

Turo relinquished its airport permit effective Aug. 10, 2017, and represented that it would cease operations at the city-owned airport. However, since then, Turo has continued to operate at SFO without the requisite permits despite repeated warnings from city officials, according to a press statement from the San Francisco City Attorney's office.

SFOs permit system helps control traffic congestion, enhances safety for travelers, and maintains airport facilities, the statement says.

As a condition of its permits, SFO requires all rental car companies to pick up or drop off customers at the Rental Car Center. Customers can travel from the terminals to the Rental Car Center via the AirTrain  a free light-rail system that connects SFOs terminals, parking garages, Rental Car Center, and BART station.

There are two types of rental car companies that operate at SFO, on-airport rental car companies that lease physical space at SFOs Rental Car Center through a competitive bidding process, and off-airport rental car companies, that maintain headquarters outside SFO property but target SFO travelers and use airport roadways to collect and drop off their customers.

Just like on-airport rental car companies, off-airport rental car companies must pick up their customers at the Rental Car Center instead of the terminal curbside.

Both on-airport and off-airport rental car companies are required to pay an AirTrain fee of $18 per rental contract, which is passed through to customers, as well as 10 percent of gross receipts above a certain threshold for SFO rental car transactions. On-airport rental car companies additionally pay rent to SFO to occupy space at the Rental Car Center.

The City is seeking a court order prohibiting Turo from engaging in rental car transactions at SFO; making reference to SFO on its website, mobile application, or other promotional materials; and encouraging or facilitating SFO transactions in any other manner until Turo fully complies with SFOs permit and fee requirements. The lawsuit also seeks civil penalties of up to $2,500 per violation, reimbursement for costs from the lawsuit, and other relief.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the People of the State of California under California Business and Professions Code section 17200.Photo via Lucthe/Pixabay Nine men, who stole luxury rental cars and sold them abroad using forged documents back in 2016, have been sentenced to jail, according to the Khaleej Times.

The men were caught in 2016 after police received complaints from rental car companies in Abu Dhabi and Dubai that the cars were never returned.

Police investigations discovered that the men rented the cars, forged customs documents with altered vehicle serial numbers, and sold the vehicles as new.

Prosecutors charged the men with theft and forging official documents. Three men received a sentence of 10 years, five received 3 years, and one received 1 year.Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in your country. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to your market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism.Even though National Mentoring Month is wrapping up, Tampa Bay-area school leaders hope volunteers continue to step up for students in need of guidance.

Lunch Pals is a Pinellas County Schools program

Program brings mentors, kids together during lunch

950 Pinellas students benefit from Lunch Pals



Melrose Elementary School in St. Petersburg is just one of many participating in Lunch Pals, a Pinellas County Schools districtwide program that pairs students with mentors during their lunch period.

Fourth-grader Jamari Rembert meets with his mentor, Dzuy Nguyn, every Tuesday.

Say it's Sunday. I'll be counting the days down until he comes, Jamari said. Then yesterday, when I woke up, I was so happy he was going to come because he inspires me."

Its exactly why Nguyn got involved in the program. As CTO of local marketing company Big Sea, the 36-year-old stays busy.

But more recently, Nguyn said finding a way to give back to the community became a priority.

This fall, Nguyn began mentoring with the Lunch Pals program, and his friendship with Rembert has blossomed.

"I don't want him to not tell me he got in trouble for fear of judgment or anything. Because this is kind of a judgment-free zone, Nguyn said of their lunches.

Hes my friend, Jamari said. I like him because hes funny.

Not to mention the good advice Nguyn has ready whenever its needed.

"Like what should I do if someone keeps messing with me? Jamari asked. Should I fight them or not?

The answer is a simple no. But because its said over lunch with a pal, Nguyn said the advice seems to resonate more with the young student.

Altogether, 950 students throughout Pinellas are mentored through the program. Organizers said they are still looking for more volunteers. If you would like to donate your time, visit lunchpals.org.Central Oregon Coast's Antique Week: Star Wars Comes to Lincoln City

Published 01/31/2018 at 1:25 PM PDT - Updated 01/31/2018 at 1:35 PM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff





(Lincoln City, Oregon)  The central Oregon coast is about to get immersed in all things old timey again  but this time with a nod towards space travel. The nine-day antique store extravaganza of Antique & Collectibles Week is coming February 10 -18, where you can shop for unique items from days gone by while creating new memories to share. This years theme is From the Old West to the Stars Beyond, a mixture of old and contemporary collectibles that are sure to please antique rummagers.

The event is a huge tradition now for the central Oregon coast, but it's branched out, according to Lori Arnold, Event Coordinator.

For over 25 years its been Antique Week, but now weve opened it up to antiques and collectibles, she said. We are mixing the old with the new this year. The retailers are excited for everyone to get in touch with their nostalgic side. Participating antique retailers will have deals and discounts that you will not want to miss! Bring a little history into your home with these artifacts; each shop holds a wide variety of items that you can add to your home decor.

There is more than one way to have fun at this event. Antique & Collectibles Week will host a City-Wide Scavenger Hunt for anyone who wishes to participate. Take the challenge and hunt through participating antique stores and retailers to be entered to win one of 50 gift bags worth over $100 each. One lucky scavenger hunter will win a weekend getaway to Lincoln City!

Have any cherished collectibles that you want appraised? You can find out how much your collectibles are worth. Drop into the Lincoln City Cultural Center on February 13 to get your items appraised by experienced volunteers. They have been appraising family heirlooms for years, and they can help you too.

For outdoor treasure seekers, be sure to check out these beaches for little surprises. During Antique & Collectibles Week, Lincoln City's Float Fairy volunteers will be busy at work hiding 300 antique-style Japanese glass floats on our seven miles of beautiful beach. They will be carefully hidden during daylight hours between the high tide line and the embankment.

If you find it, you keep it.

This year brings an interstellar treat for Star Wars fans. The Lincoln City Cultural Center will be hosting a Mini Comicon on February 17 -18. This event is highly anticipated, since it will be joined by none other than your favorite Star Wars characters. They will be available for photos. Then, warp to light speed over to the Eventuary for a spaghetti dinner and an epic space adventure movie night.

For more information about Antique & Collectibles Week, visit the Antique Week website or call 541-996-1274. Where to stay in this area - Where to eat - Maps and Virtual Tours









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All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright BeachConnection.net Unauthorized use or publication is not permittedComical and the Sad on Oregon Coast: Silly Sea Lion, Rescued Turtle Dies

Published 01/30/2018 at 3:25 PM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff





(Oregon Coast)  Those working with the Marine Mammal Stranding Network along the Oregon coast had a busy weekend, with crews from the Oregon Coast Aquarium and the Seaside Aquarium attending to a variety of situations. A turtle rescued from the north coast wound up passing away two days later, while a rambunctious and rogue sea lion made a major splash on social media by wandering the streets of Astoria. (All photos courtesy Seaside Aquarium).

On Saturday came the first encounter, where Seaside Aquarium responded to reports of a stranded Olive Ridley sea turtle just north of Gearhart, at Sunset Beach. The 35-pound female was quickly transported to the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport where it died on Monday morning.

A friend of aquarium manager Keith Chandler discovered the turtle and called about 11:50 a.m.

Seaside Aquarium's Tiffany Boothe was among those responding. She said the turtle was one of the most active they've ever had, so they had high hopes initially.

He stayed with the turtle, which was really helpful because it's hard to find them sometimes, Boothe said. He had a blanket, put the blanket over the turtle, kept it out of the weather 'till we could get there.

The turtle had an injured flipper and quite a few red abrasions on its underside, probably from being on the sand awhile and knocked around during recent storm events.

There's been some really bad surf lately, and he was out in that, Boothe said. He didn't just come up, he'd probably been out there for two weeks. He'd already endured a lot.





Boothe said they met Oregon Coast Aquarium staff in the town of Beaver within two hours, thus the turtle made it there faster than most.

Once in Newport, specialist Evonne Mochon-Collura took its body temperature, administered fluids, and cleaned the wound.

The turtle appeared extremely emaciated, dehydrated, and had sunken eyes, Mochon-Collura said. There was a dime-sized hole in the front left flipper that contained necrotic tissue inside, so it must have been an older injury.

Oregon State University will conduct a necropsy.

On the more comical side, a juvenile sea lion decided to go for a stroll along the streets of the Astoria, getting captured on camera as he went marauding near the McDonald's in town.

Boothe was in Astoria and only two blocks away when she got the call from Oregon State Police that the critter was well up 8th Ave.

He was super cooperative and we were able to walk side by side a couple blocks until we were able to find a good place for him to enter the river, Boothe said. He took cues quickly. He did it all on his own, without barricades.

Why did the young sea lion go wandering? Boothe said they simply do that sometimes. Sea lions will haul out on all kinds of available areas. But he didn't necessarily like what he found.

When people started getting around, he knew he was in an area he didn't want to be in, Boothe said. Sea lions can be pretty aggressive, but they can also be pretty docile. It's never recommended you get near a live sea lion because they can get moving really fast. Oregon Coast Hotels in these areas - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours















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All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright BeachConnection.net Unauthorized use or publication is not permittedValentine's Week Highlights on Oregon Coast

Published 01/31/2018 at 2:55 PM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff





(Oregon Coast)  Oh, the romance of it all. Sure, it's corny: but the Oregon coast is the place for those long, hand-holding walks on the beach the singles ads wax on about.

It's more than just that, however, on these beaches. The Oregon coastline is chock full of gushy stuff to do at night as well. With this Valentine's Day falling on the slightly awkward middle of the week (much less convenient for balancing work and romance than the weekend), the weekend just before the big day seems to be the hot ticket for romance-inducing events.

Time to clear your social calendar and set your sails for the beaches with these happenings of the heart.

Note: since the holiday is during the week, look here for Oregon coast lodgings that will be offering tempting romance packages and off-season prices.

The Astoria Valentine's Day Ball (previously the Father Daughters Dance) happens on February 10. The Astoria Parks and Recreation Department and the Astoria Downtown Historic District Association (ADHDA) host this evening of music, dancing, refreshments, crafts, photo opportunities, special treats, and more. This night is fun for the whole family. 5:30 p.m. The cost is $5 per person. Tickets at the door will cost $10. Elks Lodge 453 11th St, Astoria, Oregon. (503) 325-7275.

Also on the north Oregon coast, Pacific City features A Celebration of Art, Wine and Chocolate on February 10. Look for delicious food and desserts as well as complimentary wine, beer and non-alcoholic beverages. Adding to the festivities of the evening will be music, sale of professional artwork, silent auction, raffle and student artwork display and sale. It's all for a good cause too: a benefit for Community Arts Project Art Literacy programs in Tillamook County schools. Advance tickets $30/ $35 at the door. 6:30 p.m. Kiawanda Community Center. 34600 Cape Kiwanda Drive. Pacific City, Oregon. 503-550-9655. Secure online ticket purchase at www.communityartsproject.net.

If searching the beaches together for glass floats sounds romantic, then Lincoln City is your ticket that whole week. On February 9  19, there's a Special Glass Float Drop for Antique Week. 300 antique Japanese glass floats will be hidden along the 7-1/2 miles of public beach in Lincoln City, from the Roads End area to Siletz Bay, as part of the annual Antiques & Collectibles Week. Throughout Lincoln City, Oregon. 541-996-1274.



February 14 brings the Beachcombing Clinic to the central Oregon coast town. Unearth treasures from the sand and sea. Learn how to hunt for agates, gemstones, fossils, jasper and petrified wood from a local expert. The clinics are free. Meet at 1 p.m. at the SW 33rd Street Beach Access in Lincoln City, Oregon. 541-996-1274.

The Sweetheart Dance with the Lincoln Pops happens in Lincoln City on February 10. Three sets of quintessential Big Band Music: swing, standards, Latin and other stellar fare, served up by the 25-member Lincoln Pops Orchestra. Flowers for all the ladies. 7 p.m. Tickets are $14 each or $26 for two, for sale online at lincolncity-culturalcenter.org. LCCC members get $2 off. No-host bar with beer, wine, sodas and sweet treats inside. Lincoln City Cultural Center. Hwy 101, Lincoln City, Oregon. 541-994-9994.

The Lincoln County Historical Societys Annual Crab Krack will take place at 4 p.m., Sunday, February 11 at the Best Western Agate Beach Inn in Newport. Just in time for Valentine's Day, treat your date to a luscious fresh local Dungeness crab dinner and live jazz.

This whole crab dinner event includes various side dishes, an array of desserts, no-host bar, live music by the Bringetto Jazz Duo, and both a silent and oral auction. Event proceeds will be used to complete lower floor renovations at the Pacific Maritime Heritage Center in Newport.

The Agate Beach Inn is offering a special rate for guests attending the festivities, and reservations can be made by calling 541-265-9411, or 800-547-3310 and mentioning Crab Krack to get the special rate.

Tickets for the Crab Krack are available for purchase at the Burrows House and Pacific Maritime Heritage Museums. Cost for members is $45 per person, for non-members, $55. Memberships start as low as $20 a year. For more information, to purchase tickets, or reserve your table for 8, call the Historical Society at 541-265-7509.

One of the most romantic events of the entire Oregon coastline is coming up in Yachats on Valentine's Day: the Vows Renewal Ceremony at the Little Log Church. It's an opportunity for couples to renew their vows in a group setting  with both married and unmarried committed couples invited to attend.

The ceremony starts at 5:30 p.m. The Vows Renewal Ceremony, held annually on February 14, has become a popular fundraiser for The Little Log Church & Museum. Since space is limited, reservations are required. A donation to the museum of $10 per couple is suggested. For reservations couples should call Mary Crook, Events Coordinator, at 541-547-4547.

February 10 brings the Little Sweethearts Valentine's Dance to Yachats. Yachats Youth & Family Activities Program is hosting their 4th annual child/adult family dance for little Valentines. Mother/Son, Father/Daughter or any couple combination of friends and family young and old. Refreshments, photos and lots of Valentine fun to be had by all. 7 p.m. Yachats Commons, Hwy 101 & W 4th. 541-547-4599. Oregon Coast Hotels for these events - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours

















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All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright BeachConnection.net Unauthorized use or publication is not permittedA Q&A with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Photo credit: Barrie Karp

We were absolutely thrilled to hear the news that Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz was awarded the 2017 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize! With this prize, the Lannan Foundation has honored her activism with global indigenous peoples movement for national sovereignty, international recognition, environmental rights, social movements for womens equality, and the rights of oppressed nations in Central America. Its been a privilege for us to publish her American Book Award-winning An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States as well as All the Real Indians Died Off And 20 Other Myths About Native Americans, co-authored with journalist and scholar Dina Gilio-Whitaker. We caught up with Dunbar-Ortiz to ask about the prize and what it means to her.

Christian Coleman: Congratulations on winning the prize! Tell us what winning the prize means to you.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz: The Lannan Lifetime Achievement Prize for Cultural Freedom is a prestigious award that I never imagined being bestowed upon me. Only eight other individuals have received it since it was initiated in 1999 to honor the great Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano. Subsequently, Arundnati Roy and Cornel West were among the awardees. I personally know and know of dozens of cultural freedom warriors whom I feel are more deserving than I am, so I am humbled as well as overjoyed.

CC: How did you find out youd won?

RDO: I had been invited to speak in the Navajo/Dine nation at Dine College and was being driven there from the Flagstaff airport when the call came, Patrick Lannan himself on the line. When I woke the next morning, I didnt believe it had happened.

CC: The Lannan Foundation awarded you the prize for your lifetime of tireless commitment to national and international social justice issues. What are some highlights from your work you can tell us about?

RDO: I was involved in the 1960s movements against the Vietnam War and US imperialism and was one of the founders of the Womens Liberation Movement in the late 1960s. After receiving the doctorate in history, I devoted by teaching career to the development of Ethnic Studies as an activist/academic field. In the wake of the Lakota resistance at Wounded Knee in 1973, I began working with the American Indian Movement in defense of those wrongly charged with crimes; this led to my bringing the testimonies in the trials together in an oral history of the Great Sioux Nation treaty and struggle for sovereignty, and these testimonies were collected in the first published book of its kind in 1977. While continuing teaching Native American Studies, I researched and worked for Indigenous land and resource rights and political self-determination, and helped build the international Indigenous movement. During the 1980s, I was also involved with refugee rights issues related to the US interventions in Central America, monitoring refugee camps in Honduras in cooperation with the UN High Commission on Refugees and filing reports and complaints to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

CC: The Lannan Foundation also recognizes how youve helped to develop and explain the theory of settler-colonialism, perhaps more than any other scholar. Its a prominent theme in An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States. Why is it important for us to understand the effects of settler-colonialism in our current troubled times?

RDO: I think its more important than ever to understand the effects of settler-colonialism now, with the current backlash of white nationalism. As well, its necessary to understand settler-colonialism to comprehend the US settler descendants resentment of immigrants, criminalization of Black men, and a renewed surge to privatize public lands, which means eradicate the remaining Native American nations land bases. In the original thirteen British colonies and inscribed in the original US constitution, only Europeans were allowed to enter, and only white men who owned property (land or enslaved Africans) could be citizens of the United States. White nationalists are originalists, as is the majority of the justices of the Supreme Courtthat is, advocating the original provisions and meaning of the Constitution as legitimate. White nationalism is original settler nationalism. But, the fact is that the content of US consensus nationalism that is woven into the fabric of the culture and institutions is based in celebrating the triumph of settler-colonialism, so the issue is far more serious than the current vocal domination of white nationalism.

CC: Now that youve won the prize, what comes next? You also have a new book out on the racist origins of the second amendment. Do you have any other books or projects planned that you can tell us about?

RDO: Yes, my book Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment was published in January 2018 by City Lights Books Open Media Series and is being well received. Im presently working on another book for Beacon Press on the question of the United States being a nation of immigrants. In this work, I again focus on the nature of settler-colonialism in relation to immigration with special attention to the instable Mexican border and the human rights of Mexicans entering the United States, given that the US invaded, occupied, and annexed half of Mexico.

About Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz grew up in rural Oklahoma, the daughter of a tenant farmer and part-Indian mother. She has been active in the international Indigenous movement for more than four decades and is known for her lifelong commitment to national and international social justice issues. After receiving her PhD in history at the University of California at Los Angeles, she taught in the newly established Native American Studies Program at California State University, Hayward, and helped found the Departments of Ethnic Studies and Womens Studies. Her 1977 book The Great Sioux Nation was the fundamental document at the first international conference on Indigenous peoples of the Americas, held at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva. Dunbar-Ortiz is the author or editor of seven other books, including Roots of Resistance: A History of Land Tenure in New Mexico. She lives in San Francisco. Follow her on Twitter at @rdunbaro and visit her website.A 20-year-old accused of punching a Beaumont cop in the eye while high on drugs was indicted Wednesday on a charge of assault on a public servant.

Jacob D. Ernst was arrested at a Major Drive home on May 7, 2017, according to a probable cause affidavit filed in the case.Ruby Robinson is ready to come home.

For three months after Harvey, she carried the denial letter from her insurance company everywhere she went, hoping she would run into someone who could help while she waited to hear from Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Robinson is scheduled to return to her house in Nome this week.

"I'm so glad, if I could jump I would," she said Tuesday, joking that she would happily sleep in a tent in the yard for the next two nights until repairs are complete.

WATCH: Radar shows Harvey's entire path of destruction in less than 30 seconds

In December, when she heard representatives from FEMA and the Texas General Land Office were visiting her friends' home to promote their short-term housing programs, she waited in the living room, hoping a face-to-face meeting would result in some aid after she was previously denied by the federal and state agencies.

"I call, they say I'll hear from them next week, every week," she said last month.

During the December tour, while GLO Commissioner George P. Bush praised state and federal response as a "model" for future flooding, Robinson spoke with Senior Deputy Director Pete Phillips, who snapped a picture of her denial letter.

On Saturday, a month after her conversation, contractors arrived to work on her home, repairing it through a program that provides up to $60,000 of work for flooded houses.

"They called me, I said, 'What the hell now?'" Robinson said, referring to months of unsuccessful efforts to get help. "But they came through."

NWS: Harvey was deadliest TX storm since 1919, dropped record rain in SETX

By the end of this week, her Nome house should be ready. Robinson is ready to leave her sister's house in China, where she has spent the past five months.

"I'm ready to get off her couch," she said. "My ass is tired. I'm going to pack my stuff up tonight."

Through the Direct Assistance for Limited Home Repair program, Robinson is getting a working bathroom, electrical outlets, new cabinets, laminate floors and walls. Other repairs will be up to her to finish on her own, including a second bathroom and cosmetic repairs.

"All the hard things will be taken care of," said Steve Maturo, owner of DSW Homes, the company repairing Robinson's house.

Phillips said on Tuesday that Robinson was denied automatically when she applied for FEMA assistance in 2017 because she has insurance on the home, even though her insurance didn't cover flood damage.

ICYMI: Hurricane Harvey movie to begin filming next month

After that "error in the computer system" was addressed, he said, she and more than 2,000 others became eligible for assistance.

According to FEMA, direct housing assistance has been provided to 1,587 households, as of Friday, with another 2,792 projects in progress. So far, 4,379 households statewide have been declared eligible for the direct assistance program. That includes more than 1,500 homes that have received basic repairs through another program, PREPS, for homeowners with less than $17,000 in damage.

The goal of the Partial Repair and Essential Power for Sheltering program is to get families back inside their homes quickly, without waiting for permanent repairs.

About 4,000 houses are under construction or ready to begin through PREPS, Phillips said.

The General Land Office, which is operating FEMA's short-term housing program, is expecting to receive information about the long-term housing funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development soon, spokeswoman Brittany Eck said.

The $5 billion appropriated for that "will hopefully be hitting the streets by this summer," Phillips said.

Because the GLO is involved in both the long- and short-term housing programs, Bush is hopeful that it will be more efficient because applicants will already be in their system, he said on Tuesday.

LTeitz@BeaumontEnterprise.com

Twitter.com/LizTeitzChristians are facing the threat of murder, rape and torture around the world, with new areas around the world emerging as the next hotbed for persecution. While Christianity is by far the worlds largest religion, it is the most persecuted religious group in the world. There are still many places where Christians are not only persecuted, but also dispossessed and even killed for their faith. This commonly occurs as part of governmental or religious policy, and often these stories and incidences are under-reported.

A 2018 report by Open Doors USA, identified the top 50 countries where its most dangerous to follow Jesus. If you follow this list from year to year, some of the countries on the report have changed as they have become increasingly more dangerous for Christians. Countries are ranked by the severity of persecution plus the pressure experienced in the five spheres of life. Here are ten of the worst countries for Christians.

1. North Korea

North Korea is ranked as the most oppressive place in the world for Christians, number 1 on the World Watch List with Kim Jung-uns hermit state topping Open Doors 2018 Watch List. Being a Christian in North Korea is considered one of the worst crimes possible. In this totalitarian communist state, Christians are forced to hide their faith completely at all times. Worship of the ruling Kim Family is mandated for all citizens so any disruption of this can place your life and your familys life in jeopardy. It is extremely dangerous for parents to teach their faith to their children until their kids are old enough to understand the dangers. Owning a Bible in North Korea is grounds for execution or deportment to a harsh labor camp, where unknown numbers die each year from torture, beatings, overexertion and starvation.

2. Afghanistan

It is especially dangerous to be a Christian in Afghanistan. Followers of Christ in this country face extreme persecution. Because of this, Christians never meet together publically. Many who convert from Islam to Christianity are murdered once their extended families learn of their new faith. In 2010, the deputy secretary of Parliament called for the execution of Christian converts, after seeing baptisms of Afghan Christians on Afghan television. As a result of this, many Christians have gone into hiding.

3. Somalia

Since 1991, Somalia has been without an effective central government. Its dangerous for anyone to live there, but particularly dangerous for Christians. Christians have absolutely no voice in society. Because of Somalias tribal system, the country is very resistant to modern government models, including democracy. Since the downfall of Ziad Barre in 1991, Somalia has become a safe haven for Islamic militants. Christian coverts from Islam in the country face particular persecution and martyrdom is very common. A mere suspicion of someone renouncing Islam leads to a rushed public execution.

4. Sudan

In Sudan, converting from Islam to another religion is punishable by death. Sudan also has blasphemy laws under which many Christians have been imprisoned. Under the authoritarian rule of al-Bashir and his party, there is not true rule of law in Sudan; freedom of expression has been almost entirely curtailed. There are reports that the government has attacked Christians with targeted bombings, and turned a blind eye to the killings of Christians by others.

5. Pakistan

Christians in Pakistan are often treated as second-class citizens. Christian women and children can be the targets of sexual abuse; blasphemy laws are abused to attack followers and churches are monitored and sometimes attacked. While historical Christian communities exist openly and have to put up with stringent rules and constant monitoring, Christian converts from Islam suffer the most persecution from both radical Islamic groups and families and neighbors.

6. Eritrea

In Eritrea, Christians are considered a threat to the ruling Peoples Front for Democracy and Justice. The Eritrean regime is authoritarian and intolerant towards any form of association, dissent and free expression. Many Christians in Eritrea have had their houses attacked or been tortured, beaten and imprisoned. There are reports that some have been held in shipping containers in scorching conditions, and have died as a result.

7. Libya

Christians in Libya are a small minority. Libya is a state of anarchy and civil war which results in impunity for Islamic militants and organized criminal groups to engage in the persecution of Christians, making it increasingly more dangerous. Believers of Christ in Libya who are from Muslim backgrounds face not only intense, but also violent persecution and are constantly pressured by their families and communities to renounce their faith. If they decide to express their faith publicly, they are at risk to be arrested and violently attacked.

8. Iraq

Many Christians fled Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein as persecution escalated. As Islamic State has taken control of large parts of the country, Christians and other minorities have been forced to covert, pay a punitive tax or be killed. An estimated 100,000 people fled their homes in Mosul, a city in a largely Christian region in northern Iraq, as Isis advanced on the region in late 2014. In Iraq, there have been public execution-style killings of Christians by Isis, some of them recorded and broadcast for propaganda purposes.

9. Yemen

Christians in Yemen are forced to keep their faith a secret. Tribal leaders in the country often punish people who wish to eave Islam, and al-Qaida, which is active in the country, has been known to kidnap and kill Yemini Christians. Despite major persecution, reports show that more Muslims are turning to Christ in Yemen than ever before.

10. Iran

Islam is the official religion, and any ethnic Persian who converts to Christianity is considered apostate. Converts to Christianity from Islam make up the largest group of Christians and experience the most persecution. Other Protestant Christian communities who evangelize Muslims are the second most persecuted group. Armenians and Assyrians living in Iran are allowed to practice Christianity, but are often treated as second-class citizens. Churches are monitored and raided by the government.

The persecution of Christians continues to increase around the world. Claiming Christ in parts of the world can lead to violence and death. Lets pray for Christians around the world who are persecuted, imprisoned or harmed for their faith. We ask that believers in these countries would be able to fix their eyes fully on Jesus as they undergo persecution for following Him. Also pray that we as believers will stand in unity with our persecuted family around the world.The shocking tests on monkeys were never supposed to come to light. The final report on the German car manufacturers disgraceful exhaust fume tests with monkeys was not published. BILD is in possession of the 58-page secret lab report (study number: FY15-050).

The report shows how the monkeys were made to suffer  and, most of all, how the report was supposed to be rewritten, because the results were too devastating for the car industry.

Deutsche Version Das sollte geheim bleiben Der geheime Labor-Bericht uber die Abgas-Affen Der Abschlussbericht zu den widerlichen Abgas-Versuchen der deutschen Autohersteller an Affen wurde nicht veroffentlicht.

The exact procedure: ten macaques were put in glass cages at Lovelace Laboratory, Albuquerque (US), on 4 May 2015 at 6:34 am. For four hours, they were made to inhale diesel fumes on behalf of EUGT  a research association of Volkswagen, BMW, and Daimler. Exhaust fumes from a Ford pickup (build year 1997) and a VW Beetle (2013) were then fed into the monkeys cages. Meanwhile, the animals were shown cartoons to calm them down. At 11:20 am, 1:40 pm, and 3:10 pm, blood was taken from the animals. A special endoscope was then inserted into their windpipes and bronchia through their noses or mouths. The researchers noted that the animals were stressed due to the frequent and violent examinations.

BILD showed the secret report to Professor Hans-Peter Hutter, medical specialist at the Department for Environmental Health at the Medical University of Vienna. This is an unbelievable trial that would probably never have been permitted by an ethics committee in Europe, the physician states.

Auch Interessant



The results: shocking. The study was originally meant to show that the fumes from the VW Beetle  i.e., the newer vehicle  are much cleaner and healthier than those from the Ford. This was not what the results showed at all, however  even though the Beetle was running a cheating software (defeat device) that ensured emissions on the dynamometer with up to 40 times less nitric oxide than on the street.

Professor Hutter: The animals that were made to inhale the new diesel showed more signs of inflammation than the monkeys that inhaled the old diesel. This is the exact opposite of what the car manufacturers wanted the study to show. According to Professor Hutter, the only possible alternative explanation is that the organs were injured during the pre-examinations.

The cover-up: The car industry had already transferred 649,000 dollars for the study and now wanted a useful final report. The report was scheduled to be published on 31 December 2015. These are not the results they expected, research director Jacob McDonald noted in an email to his staff. On 25 November 2015, one of his colleagues wrote to him: I was trying to soften the blow from the results of the study. This, however, did not work for a long time.

The car manufacturers response was to say: no report  no money. We are missing 71,857 dollars, the labs accounts department noticed. The researchers repeatedly asked for the money. However, EUGT executive director Michael Spallek did not give in.

On 12 January 2016, research director McDonald wrote to his team again: The findings are obviously not what was expected. And I dont know how they want to proceed. The researchers idea was to simply leave out the values for the Beetle. That made no sense to the car manufacturers, however. Hence the discussion continued.

The final report wasnt completed until 30 June 2017. Research director McDonald sent it to EUGT executive director Michael Spallek and Stuart Johnson (from Volkswagens US Environmental Office).

The response to the report was not positive for the researchers: EUGT was now in liquidation. To this day, the report has not been published. The final amount has never been paid.

PS: Sind Sie bei Facebook? Werden Sie Fan von BILD.de-Politik!For Immediate Release, January 31, 2018 Contacts: Randi Spivak, Center for Biological Diversity, (310) 779-4894, rspivak@biologicaldiversity.org

Katie Strong, Trustees for Alaska, (907) 433-2008, kstrong@trustees.org Lawsuit Targets Trump Administration Plan to Bulldoze Alaska's Izembek National Wildlife Refuge ANCHORAGE, Alaska Conservation groups sued the Trump administration today to prevent a land swap that would allow construction of a road through the heart of Alaskas Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. Izembek is one of Americas most ecologically significant wildlife refuges, home to world-class wetlands that support millions of migrating birds, as well as bears, caribou and salmon. The lawsuit aims to stop the administration from trading up to 500 acres of this globally important wildlife refuge for lands owned by Alaskas King Cove Corporation. Trustees for Alaska, a nonprofit law firm, is representing the conservation groups. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke approved the land swap during a signing ceremony Jan. 22; the swap is the latest example of the Trump administrations unprecedented attack on public lands. Izembek is one of the most important wildlife refuges on the planet. A road would do irreparable damage that no land swap could begin to heal, said Randi Spivak, public lands program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. Unleashing the bulldozers on this incredible place would destroy vital feeding grounds for millions of migrating birds from three continents. Impartial experts have repeatedly rejected this destructive project, for good reason. Todays suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Anchorage, charges that the land exchange violates the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act by failing to protect this important wildlife area. Building a road through the refuge would do the opposite of what the act intended because the project would harm wildlife and destroy congressionally designated wilderness. In addition to the Center, Trustees for Alaska is representing Wilderness Watch, Defenders of Wildlife, National Wildlife Refuge Association, Alaska Wilderness League and Sierra Club.



Under past administrations the Department of the Interior and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service repeatedly concluded that building a road through the Izembek refuge would cause significant, irreparable damage to the areas extensive fish and wildlife habitats. Izembek contains one of the largest eelgrass beds in the world, providing vital feeding grounds for migratory birds from multiple continents. Past administrations have also determined the road through the refuge was not in the public interest. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) have championed the land swap, claiming the road is needed for medical transport. However, driving across the refuge on the proposed road from King Cove to Cold Bay would take significantly longer than taking a boat or plane. During the frequent severe weather and violent storms, the road would be impassable and dangerous. An Army Corps of Engineers assessment concluded that marine transport via ferry is the most dependable mode of transportation, reliable more than 99 percent of the time. Every president since Eisenhower has protected Izembek, until the Trump administration, said Spivak. There are other, safer options to address King Coves needs. Trump and Zinke have repeatedly ignored these options in favor of narrow political interests. Its another example of their relentless attack on public lands. The Interior Department determined that birds in the refuge would be particularly vulnerable to impacts from road construction and traffic on the narrow isthmus. A road across the isthmus would also harm brown bears and caribou by opening the area to motor vehicles and more people. Earlier reasons for building a road through Izembek included transporting commercial seafood. The land swap agreement will allow small seafood operations to use the road. Polls show Americans want public lands protected, but instead the Trump administration has declared war on public lands. Trump has proposed the largest rollback of public lands protections in history by gutting two national monuments, and has worked to open millions of acres of pristine public lands and oceans to oil and gas drilling.For Immediate Release, January 31, 2018 Contact: Abel Valdivia, (510) 844-7103, avaldivia@biologicaldiversity.org Analysis: Trump Offshore Plan Could Cause More Than 5,000 Oil Spills More Than 34 Million Gallons Could Be Dumped Along America's Coasts WASHINGTON The Trump administrations proposal to dramatically ramp up offshore drilling could lead to 5,571 oil spills dumping 34.4 million gallons of oil into ocean waters off Alaska, the West Coast, East Coast and Gulf of Mexico, according to a new Center for Biological Diversity analysis. The estimated number of oil spills over the leases lifespan could be more than 10 times what was expected in the worst-case scenario from the offshore leasing plan approved by the Obama administration, which only included leases in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaskas Cook Inlet. Trumps plan will be a long, oil-soaked nightmare for our coasts and wildlife, said Abel Valdivia, the Center ocean scientist who conducted the analysis. No president has ever pushed a drilling plan that would do so much damage along so many American coastlines. Its really astonishing. The Centers spill analysis of Trumps draft 2019-2024 leasing plan is based on historical data and federal records. It assumes average spill rates for platforms and pipelines based on 1974-2015 data, but it doesnt include catastrophic events like the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, which released more than 210 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The Trump administrations efforts to roll back drilling safety regulations and expand drilling into treacherous Arctic waters could also drive those estimates even higher. According to the Centers analysis: About 53 percent of the spills would likely occur in the Gulf of Mexico (mostly in the Central and Western Gulf);

About 28 percent would happen in northern Alaska (mostly in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas);

About 12 percent of spills would be along the West Coast (mostly in Southern California);

About 7 percent would be off the East Coast, mostly in the north and mid- Atlantic;

Catastrophic events like the Deepwater Horizon spill could dramatically increase the total oil spilled, given the Trump administrations proposed rollback of safety rules. Oil spills do long-lasting damage to marine ecosystems and wildlife, from the smallest plankton to sea turtles and dolphins, Valdivia said. Marine organisms are already under significant stress from overfishing, pollution and climate change, and toxic oil spills are the last thing they need. An oil spill in the Arctic would be impossible to clean up, threatening endangered polar bears, walruses and whales. The Chukchi Sea is very remote, with no infrastructure, and the nearest oil-spill response Coast Guard station is more than 1,000 miles away. President Obama extended protections to the Arctic Ocean to prevent such a disaster. On the West Coast alone, carrying out Trumps plan is expected to cause 657 spills, dumping more than 4 million gallons of oil into coastal waters of the Pacific. The plan will be the subject of large protests in six California coastal cities on Feb. 3 and official public hearings on Feb. 5 in Tacoma, Wash.; Feb. 6 in Salem, Ore.; and Feb. 8 in Sacramento, Calif., each preceded by protests. Details are at www.endangeredoceans.org. Background

The Trump administration has yet to release any of its own estimates on how many oil spills could result from its five-year plan. The Centers analysis is conservative. It was broken into large spills (over 1,000 barrels, or 42,000 gallons), with assumed volumes based on historic median oil-spill size, and the average volumes and frequency for spills of under 1,000 barrels. Spill estimates were based on undiscovered, economically recoverable oil in the planning areas and could rise or fall depending on the anticipated productivity of offshore wells and factors such as the price of oil.



Under Obamas 2017-2022 leasing plan, the federal government estimated a maximum of 546 spills containing about 4 million gallons of oil. Trumps new proposal will replace that plan and significantly increase the threat of oil spills. Both plans offered leases that can last for decades, with oil production usually peaking within 20 years of the lease sale. The Centers oil spill calculations and estimates for each planning area are available here.Mainly Jem's Birding & Ringing Exploits in the Eastern Province & Ringing Trips to BahrainPOINTE NOIRE, Congo - The actions of the United Nations on the continent of Africa was the subject of an exclusive television interview with UN chief Antonio Guterres at Africanews this week.

UN chief Antonio Guterres being interviewed by Africanews this week.

AFRICANEWS: The relevance of peacekeeping operations?

AFRICANEWS: The role of African States to help the United Nations in these missions?

AFRICANEWS: The repression on the citizens in Democratic Republic of Congo and Togo?

The United Nations chief gave an interview to Irene Herman Houngbo, the Africanews correspondent in New York. Guterres discussed peace and security in Africa as part of the fight against terrorism. He also talked about the actions of the United Nations on the African continent.Africanews highlighted some of the excerpts below, quoting Guterres:According to the situation, peacekeeping operations are necessary. This has been the case in Liberia and Ivory Coast where we have just successfully concluded two major operations, following the conflicts. And when appropriate like in Somalia, we need to have peace enforcement and anti-terrorism operations.The African States are absolutely key. The cooperation between the African Union and the United Nations is an exemplary cooperation. The African countries have demonstrated in the framework of the maintenance of peace, a generosity and an effectiveness of several situations which are truly remarkable.In the Congo where we have a mission, it should be at any price that the timing of the elections is respected. And overall, when there are demonstrations, we request that the protests are not violent and also that the police forces respect human rights, avoid excessive violence and respect religious sites.To watch the full interview, click hereNAIROBI, Kenya - Authorities in Kenya should immediately allow four privately owned television stations to resume broadcasting, the Committee to Protect Journalists said yesterday.

Alexandr Kovalenko via 123RF

Officials from the broadcast regulator the Communications Authority, accompanied by police, switched off transmitters today while the stations were broadcasting live coverage of an opposition party event in the capital, Nairobi, according to news reports.The order affects four national stations: Citizen TV and Inooro TV, owned by the Royal Media Services; Nation Media Group's NTV, and the Standard Group's KTN News, according to reports and three senior managers from the stations who spoke with CPJ. All stations were still unable to broadcast as of late Tuesday.The order came after President Uhuru Kenyatta and other senior government officials summoned media managers and editors on January 26 and threatened to shut their stations down and revoke their licenses if they broadcast live an event in which Kenya's opposition leader, Raila Odinga, took an oath as the "people's president" in protest of the disputed elections last year, according to a statement from the Kenya Editors Guild.Kenya's attorney general said that the swearing in ceremony could be " treasonous " and may lead to criminal charges against Odinga, according to reports.Joseph Odindo, editorial director of the Standard Group, told CPJ the government gave no indication of how long the order would remain in effect. After the shutdown, the stations continued streaming their content online, according to Odindo, Wachira Waruru, managing director of Royal Media Services, and Linus Kaikai, who heads the Nation Media broadcast division."Kenya should be a beacon on the continent for media freedom and the public's right to access information, yet government censorship continues to erode Kenya's status as a leader on African press freedom," said CPJ Africa program coordinator, Angela Quintal, from New York. "Kenyans deserve diverse media and these stations should be allowed back on air immediately."A letter from the state media regulator, the Communications Authority of Kenya, sent to Lancia Digital Broadcast, which owns the signal distribution platform used by KTN News, cited the station's "defiance" of a government "ban on live coverage of the events" related to the opposition "swearing in," as reason for the cut in transmission, according to a report by privately owned newspaper The Star . The letter was sent an hour after KTN News was shut down, according to the report.The Communications Authority's acting director general, Christopher Kemei, confirmed to CPJ the authenticity of the letter and that it had been sent after Lancia asked for an explanation for the shutdown. Kemei said that it had not been the state regulator's decision to shut down the stations and referred CPJ to the "government" for further comment.The spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior, Mwenda Njoka, said that the stations' transmissions were cut due to "security concerns," which he said, the government was not obliged to explain. "There is no responsible government that would allow media to broadcast anything, more so live, which might incite people to violence. It would become an unmanageable situation," said Njoka, adding that freedom of the press was not absolute.The government in November last year warned the media not to provide live coverage of events by Odinga's National Super Alliance (NASA) political group, according to media reports Odinga challenged the results of Kenya's presidential elections in August 2017 elections. His political coalition boycotted a repeat election, ordered by Kenya's courts, in October 2017, and instead said it would establish a "people's assembly" to carry out protests and boycotts while seeking changes to the constitution , according to reports.Kenya has experienced unrest and violence in previous elections. Violence after a disputed result in 2007 left about 1,400 people dead, according to news reportsBLANTYRE, Malawi - Climate change has been pointed out as one of the challenges affecting cotton production in the country. One of the farmers who grow cotton on a larger scale from Traditional Authority Chanthunya in Balaka, Dymex Funsani, told Malawi News Agency that the crop has now been heavily hit by the dry spell, affecting their investments in turn.

bobbycrim via pixabay

Change in methods, hybrid seeds needed

"I normally plan on how much I am going to invest into cotton each and every season from seed, pesticides, fertiliser as well as labour for people who weed the field as cotton needs frequent weeding," she explained. Funsani pointed out that, "Over the past five years, I have not been able to yield according to what I anticipated because of the change in rainfall patterns. As am talking to you, three weeks have passed without a drop of rain."If the trend continues, it will result in our cotton wilting which at the same time affects how much we harvest at the end," she observed.Another farmer from Mitole Extension Planning Area (EPA) in Chikwawa, Asaf Bewu added that as much as cotton crop endures harsh weather conditions, the crop is heavily affected. "If you compare the perseverance of cotton and maize, cotton endures a lot than maize but still what we realise is slowly going down because of the change," he echoed.Agriculture Extension District Officer for Balaka, Godfrey Magowera said they are currently teaching farmers to adopt other methods that maintain moisture in the soil. "Climate change is a big problem as it is affecting all angles of agriculture. So we are encouraging farmers to change methods of farming like vegetative cover."We are also encouraging farmers to plant trees in their respective areas because it is the only long-term solution to the issue of climate change. If there are trees, we will be able to reverse these effects," he said.Project Officer for Cotton Platform at the Africa Institute for Corporate Citizenship (AICC), Isaac Tembo, said there is need to bring in resilient cotton crops like hybrid seeds that could be able to resist the effects of climate change. "The issue of climate change is indeed a big concern to the sector and we need to act fast by providing our farmers with resilient seeds that will be able to persevere the effects of climate change."We need to make our farmers resilient to mitigate any other challenges that come with climate change. There is a gap in our climate change framework such that our farmers are not resilient enough to withstand this," he explained.FRANKFURT, Germany - German carmakers came under fire Monday following revelations they helped finance experiments that saw humans and monkeys exposed to diesel fumes that have been linked to asthma, lung diseases and heart attacks.

 Andriy Popov via 123RF

Measuring the effects of inhaling nitrogen oxide gases

"Damaged trust in the auto industry"

Study approved by university hospital's ethics commission

The disclosures sparked widespread outrage, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel who strongly condemned the latest controversy to engulf the nation's powerful but scandal-tainted auto industry."These tests on monkeys or even humans are in no way ethically justified," said Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert."The indignation felt by many people is completely understandable."Earlier Monday the Sueddeutsche and Stuttgarter Zeitung dailies reported that a research group funded by Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW had ordered a study in Germany measuring the effects of inhaling nitrogen oxide gases on 25 healthy human beings.The revelation came just days after thewrote that the same organisation carried out tests on monkeys in the United States in 2014.According to the NYT article, the researchers locked 10 monkeys into airtight chambers and made them breathe in diesel exhausts from a VW Beetle while watching cartoons.Volkswagen apologised for the animal testing at the weekend, saying the group "distances itself clearly from all forms of animal abuse".The German government has called a special meeting with the affected car companies to ask them to explain themselves, said acting transport minister Christian Schmidt."This has once again damaged trust in the auto industry," he said.It was VW's admission in 2015 that it had manipulated 11 million diesel cars with cheating software to make them seems less polluting than they were that brought close scrutiny to the industry, which had long touted diesels as better for the environment than gasoline-powered engines.All three German carmakers scrambled to distance themselves from the research body in question - the now defunct European Research Group on Environment and Health in the Transport Sector (EUGT) - and promised to launch internal investigations."We are appalled by the extent of the studies and their implementation," a Daimler spokesman told AFP."The BMW Group did not participate in the mentioned studies," the luxury carmaker said in a statement, while VW said the EUGT was set up to be an "independent" research body.Although it was the EUGT that commissioned both tests, the organisation itself was financed by the trio of car giants hoping its research would defend diesel's green reputation -- and the valuable tax breaks that go with it.The car companies decided in late 2016 to dissolve the EUGT, which shut its doors last year.The tests involving 25 human volunteers were carried out at a university hospital in the German city of Aachen in 2013 and 2014.As part of the study, the participants were exposed for several hours to different levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) -- the most toxic form of nitrogen oxide and commonly found in diesel exhausts.The researchers detected "no significant effects", according to a summary of the study.But Thomas Kraus, the head of the relevant department at the university hospital in Aachen, told German media the findings were limited as they weren't representative of the wider population and didn't take into account general air pollution.The institute separately released a statement stressing the study had been approved by the university hospital's ethics commission and was not linked to any diesel emissions testing.The study was about improving "workplace safety" for people like truck drivers, mechanics or welders, it said, adding that the levels of NO2 inhaled by the test subjects were "well below those found in many workplaces in Germany".The World Health Organization says on its website there is "growing evidence" that nitrogen dioxide exposure "can increase symptoms of bronchitis and asthma, as well as lead to respiratory infections and reduced lung function and growth."Exposure is "linked to premature mortality... from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases," it states.The premier of Lower Saxony, whose state is home to VW's Wolfsburg headquarters and is one of the group's biggest shareholders, echoed Berlin's repudiation of the tests.The experiments are "absurd and disgusting" said Stephan Weil, whose state holds two seats on VW's supervisory board.He reminded the VW group that it "must meet all ethical requirements".The latest scandal "will have a lasting impact on the public's trust in the auto industry," predicted analyst Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer of the Center for Automotive Research.Aspen Pharmacare is conducting a review of its global nutritionals business, with a view to entering into a strategic partnership or possibly a sale.

Aspen Nutritionals manufactures and markets infant milk and has a presence in Latin America, Africa and the Asia Pacific. It has a growing business in the Middle East and Asia.Aspen said in mid-January that its infant milk formula brand Alula had been registered by China's Food and Drug Administration, an important development that paves the way for it to be sold in the world's biggest infant milk market.The company received an unsolicited approach from a suitor in 2017 and was investigating a number of options, including a strategic partnership to leverage another company's distribution platform or a sale, said Aspen's head of investor relations, Zihle Mgcokoca. She declined to name the suitor or discuss Aspen's valuation."Asia is the greenfields opportunity," she said.Aspen Nutritionals has manufacturing sites in New Zealand, SA and Mexico and generated R3.2bn in revenue in the year to June 30 2017.Group revenue for the period came in at R41.2bn.Aspen has previously been in talks to expand its infant nutritional businesses, but they failed to yield fruit.Despite its relatively modest contribution to the group the business is strategically important because it offers a buffer against the margin squeeze confronting its pharmaceutical business, as regulators around the world put pressure on prices. The South African Department of Health, for example, has permitted pharmaceutical companies to hike their private sector prices by no more than 1.6% in 2018.Infant nutrition products are not subject to price regulation and Aspen CEO Stephen Saad has toldthat China's milk prices are among the world's highest.Vestact portfolio manager Byron Lotter speculated that the potential suitor could be a large global brand such as Nestl. A strategic partner with a large, established distribution network could be very attractive to Aspen, he said.Alternatively, if the company sold a stake, it would get a "nice cash injection" it could set into its debt level, Lotter said."I think it is positive news, and maybe the brand [Alula] approval in China sparked that interest [from a suitor]," he said.Precious Angels, the most deadly nongovernmental organisation (NGO) in the Life Esidimeni saga, received R1m from the Gauteng department of health.

Barbara Creecy, Gauteng finance MEC. Photo: Brenda Masilela/Africa News

In total, 18 patients died in two homes called Precious Angels, run by owner Ethel Ncube.The figures were released by Gauteng MEC for finance Barbara Creecy, who was testifying at the Life Esidimeni hearings.The hearings aim to find out why 1,700 patients were moved from three Esidimeni psychiatric homes into ill-equipped NGOs, leading to the deaths of 143 patients.Creecy disclosed that R47m was spent on NGOs in place of the Life Esidimeni contract. Life Esidimeni homes provided care to chronically ill psychiatric patients at a cost of about R260m a year.The health department said it ended the contract to save money.Families testified that at Precious Angels, patients shared spoons when there was not enough cutlery. Up to eight adults were housed in a single room. The patients also did not see doctors when medicine was prescribed for them, it emerged at the hearings.The health ombud said he suspected that at Precious Angels, it was likely that patients died from cold, hunger and dehydration.Ncube testified at the hearings that the Gauteng department of health did not pay her for patients for three months."We did not get paid for three months. Most of the patients were in diapers. We would [use] seven bags of diapers in a day or two."She said she relied on donations from family and used savings from her stokvel groups as well as her mother's savings to feed patients.She did not pay rent and was evicted. "I suffered," she said, also disclosing that her car was repossessed. She paid caregivers R1,700 a month.However, it emerged on Tuesday that Ncube eventually was paid R1m, even though Precious Angels was one of the first NGOs to be shut down due to the poor care it offered.What also emerged in Creecy's testimony is that when former Gauteng health head of department Barney Selebano and MEC Qedani Mahlangu said they wanted to end the Esidimeni contract, they made no mention of using NGOs to care for patients. Instead, they suggested that patients be moved into state institutions.In 2014, Mahlangu admitted there were not adequate facilities in the state for such chronic patients. However, the move went ahead in 2016 and many ill-equipped NGOs were used for patients.Creecy also testified that the health department was told when cost cutting that "the level of service must not deteriorate".The winners of the South Africa Media Innovation Program's (SAMIP) first Innovation Challenge has been announced. The nine winners are; Children's Radio Foundation, Mosele, Digest, Hashtag Our Stories, Media Factory, The New Era, Pocket Reporter, Not Yet Uhuru Radio and Volume News.

Accelerating digital media innovation

Improving the quality of journalism

Volume and standard of applications

Diversity in applications

Childrens Radio Foundation

Collective Media Primary Cooperative Limited

Digest

Hashtag Our Stories

Pocket Reporter

Not Yet Uhuru Radio

Volume News

Media Factory

The New Era

Bilal Randeree, the programme manager for SAMIP, said that the winners will share a pool of grant money to help them meet specific goals that will advance their projects. This is just the beginning for SAMIP  we are excited to help these organisations financially so that they can grow and focus on their products and audiences, Randeree said.In addition to the grant funding, the organisations will have access to expert mentoring and expertise for the next three years, to help them become financially sustainable. We were overwhelmed by the energy and excitement around the SAMIP Innovation Challenge  we were expecting about 100 entries, but ended up receiving more than 200, said Mohamed Nanabhay, deputy CEO of MDIF, who chairs the SAMIP Advisory Committee.MDIF, a not-for-profit investment fund for independent news organisations in countries where access to independent media is under threat, manages SAMIP. The Open Society Foundation of South Africa and Omidyar Network initiated SAMIP, supporting it with $4m over the next three years to accelerate digital media innovation among independent media outlets and encourage new entrants.The Innovation Challenge was announced at SAMIPs launch event on 31 August 2017. The Advisory Committee, that helped select the nine winners, includes political commentator Justice Malala, Omidyar network investment principal Khuram Hussain, Mail & Guardian journalist Pontsho Pilane, media consultant and lecturer Dinesh Balliah and M&C Saatchi Creative Spark CEO, Matthew Buckland.I am very hopeful with where independent media is going, says Pilane. Working in this industry with print sales going down and large-scale layoffs, the SAMIP applications have made me very hopeful. Pilane highlighted Media Factory, a startup that has been incubated at the Wits JamLab in Braamfontein, that she sees as the Tinder of journalism.Founded and led by Nelisa Ngqulana, Media Factory aims to create a virtual newsroom staffed by freelancers in rural and out-of-reach areas that can be accessed by large media houses looking for local reporting. Balliah picked out Digest, a financial literacy newsletter aimed at Millennials, as a good example of the type of innovation required in the local media space.Financial literacy is critical in the current economic climate and in South Africa, and ordinarily this knowledge is steeped in jargon that only a few will understand. The newsletter in itself and the languages it aims to deliver its content in is very transformative, says Balliah.Buckland believes that the Pocket Reporter app will help improve the quality of journalism  the app guides rookie journalists in the storytelling process while still in the field.OpenUp has partnered with the Association of Independent Publishers (AIP) in rolling out the app to dozens of community newspapers across the country and translating it into all the official languages of South Africa. There is a need for a tool like this, and its delivered in a practical and accessible manner as a mobile companion. I can see journalists using this and benefiting from it, Buckland added. Besides creating hyperlocal content and assisting journalists in storytelling, other projects also targeted women, which Pilane believes is an important issue.Pilane notes that women have been excluded from the conversation and, in a country like South Africa that experiences high rates of violence against women, it was refreshing to see that some of the finalists were not only female-led but also created content aimed at those voices that have been silenced.Hussain said that he was impressed by the volume and standard of applications. It is incredibly encouraging to see the nine Innovation Challenge finalists representing both the geographic breadth as well as the depth of media innovation in South Africa. With the winning submissions ranging from new approaches to integrating existing tech platforms into core operations through to experimentation with new digital tools to reach a broader audience, it will be exciting to see these innovations implemented and the delivery a broad spectrum of positive impacts.The diversity in the applications and the finalists are commendable considering how the transformation in the local media landscape is important for the future of the industry, said Justice Malala.More than 200 applications from all corners of the country were received since the call to action was made. There was an equal distribution of nonprofits, startups and private organisations all looking to secure funding, either to get their ideas off the ground or to expand what they have developed.In the upcoming months, SAMIP will be accepting applications for general entry into the program. Media owners, practitioners and entrepreneurs are advised to visit the SAMIP website to sign up for more details.Below is more information on the finalists and their projects:Childrens Radio Foundation (CRF) is a Cape Town based radio station that uses radio to create opportunities for information sharing, dialogue, leadership, advocacy and community building among youth. CRF seeks to extend the capacity, reach and impact of their community radio partners through the integration of WhatsApp into their reporting, broadcast, and outreach platforms. In addition to integrating WhatsApp into reporting and broadcast, partner radio stations CRF seeks to distribute weekly WhatsApp-driven newsletters for youth, showcasing jobs and educational opportunities, profiling local youth, and discussing news and community concerns.Collective Media Cooperative is a new venture based in Johannesburg. Collective Media Cooperative seeks to make media work for audiences and media workers who have been structurally excluded from ownership, education and training, and representation in South African media. Their project, Mosele, is a digital platform that on the frontend aims to be the Uber for journalists and media professionals, and on the back-end, a resource planning and project management tool.Digest is a newsletter that seeks to increase financial awareness in South Africa by providing financial news in a quirky and millennial-friendly format. Digest seeks to develop an app that will simulate a WhatsApp conversation and provide financial news in multiple languages. The languages they seek to focus on are Zulu, Xhosa and Afrikaans. They currently have over 700 subscribers in the 4 months since launch, with a 38% open rate.Hashtag Our Stories is a Durban based company that creates citizen journalism shows, with mobile phones and for mobile audiences, in every language. Their project seeks to train and create a network of citizen journalists in all nine provinces, who will contribute stories to community Facebook groups.Pocket Reporter is a project created by Open Up, formerly Code 4 South Africa, and is co-managed with the Association of Independent Newspapers (AIP). OpenUp is a Cape Town based NGO that uses civic technology to inform, empower and activate citizens. The AIP is a national organisation that advances the interests of local independent media outlets in South Africa.Pocket Reporter is a mobile digital toolkit that assists journalists at community newspapers to report more effectively. This project seeks to present an innovative approach, supporting journalists to dig beyond basic details and to access datasets containing information about demographics, municipal finances, crime, and others.The Soul City Institute for Social Justice is a national social justice NGO that caters for Young Women and Girls (YWGs) and the communities they live in. Soul Citys feminist radio station, Not Yet Uhuru Radio, will cater for YWGs and the communities they live in. Not Yet Uhuru will be a mix of talk radio and music. The radio station seeks to serve as a platform for engagement with and between women, to challenge patriarchy and build a feminist consciousness in South Africa.Volume News is a Johannesburg based new venture that seeks to bring local news back to community radio stations. Volume News seeks to make use of technology tools to ensure that every community in the country can produce and distribute Volume News via their community radio station. For the station, Volume News provides the capacity to recruit local reporters to produce news stories and tools to support newsgathering, content ingesting, broadcasting and monitoring. In addition, Volume News seeks to build a devoted team of partner-reporters in every district of South Africa, that will generate local news in 11 official languages.Media Factory is a mobile content agency for citizen journalists across South Africa. Their project seeks to create a virtual newsroom that will connect news editors to reliable and verified freelancer journalists and connect freelance journalists, working outside the main media centres in SA to news editors who require their experience in covering breaking news.The New Era is an initiative aimed at digitising 8 community newspapers in Mpumalanga province. The New Era will be focused on digitising community media organisations. Their project also seeks to develop a cross-platform interactive mobile App for the Mpumalanga community print sector.Internet giant Amazon on Monday, 29 January, opened its plant-packed The Spheres buildings in its home city of Seattle. The Spheres are the newest addition to Amazon's "urban campus" in Seattle, and are billed as a workplace "more like a tropical rainforest in the clouds than an office".

The Spheres, by Ron Cogswell, Flickr , CC BY 2.0

The structures, which look like giant glass and steel balls, house more than 40,000 plants and include features such as treehouse meeting rooms, a river and waterfalls."Our goal with The Spheres was to create a unique gathering place where employees could collaborate and innovate together, and where the Seattle community could gather to experience biodiversity in the centre of the city," John Schoettler, Amazon's vice president of global real estate and facilities, said in a statement."We are thrilled to officially open the doors."The Spheres were designed to provide a link to nature typically lacking in urban offices, and one which studies suggest inspires creativity and might even enhance brain functioning, according to Amazon.A visitor centre called The Understory will be open to the public and provide insight into the science, engineering and plants at the facility."These unique buildings are so much more than a beautiful creative space for Amazon employees," Washington State governor Jay Inslee said in a statement."They will help conserve a number of rare plant species from around the world and provide countless educational opportunities for local students."The largest of the three joined spheres is over 27 metres tall and 39 metres in diameter. There are no closed office spaces, with collaboration taking place along paths or in tree houses."Plants, trees, sunlight, soil, and water take centre stage - the sound of running water and the scent of flowering plants create an instant botanical immersion that takes visitors far away from the urban landscape," Amazon said.Amazon's quest for a second North American headquarters has thrust 20 cities into a cutthroat "Hunger Games" style contest.The technology and lifestyle powerhouse this month narrowed its list of candidates from 238 applications for the prize, which could provide an estimated $5bn in investments and 50,000 new jobs. Amazon expects to announce a decision later this year on "HQ2", which will be equal to its Seattle headquarters, and is asking the finalists to refine their pitches.Image credit: Financial Mail/Jeremy Glyn

Two-tier versus one-tier structure

Flaws in the Steinhoff structure

Audit and risk committee

Conclusion

Observers are calling for harsh punishment , including jail, for the culprits.Early reports suggest that Steinhoff was involved in massive accounting fraud , including the overstatement of the companys financial position.The company is listed on both the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in South Africa as well as the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in Germany. With a primary listing in Frankfurt and an Amsterdam corporate address, Steinhoff follows the Dutch corporate governance code.Consistent with this code, Steinhoff has a two-tier board structure . This is made up of a management board (comprised of four top executives) and a supervisory board (comprised of nine non-executive directors).The point of the two-tier board structure is to ensure that the supervisory board is independent from the executives who sit on the management board. The management board accounts to the supervisory board, which accounts to the shareholders or to the company.The two-tier board structure is favoured in western Europe. The US and UK prefer the one-tier  or unitary board  structure, as does South Africa for historical reasons.It appears that Steinhoffs decision to opt for the two-tier board structure may have contributed to its undoing. Natural holes in the structure, the biggest one being the fact that the management board doesnt always keep the supervisory board in the loop, combined with Steinhoffs corporate culture which was anchored by a dominant personality , appear to have created accountability holes.There are pros and cons to both systems.One of the good things about the one-tier board system is that executive directors and non-executives directors sit together on a single board. Traditionally there would be two or three executive directors (the CEO, chief financial officer and the chief operating officer) sitting alongside a majority of non-executive directors.This means that theres a seamless flow of information between executives and non-executives. The executives can be asked questions with the entire board present. This closes any information asymmetry. In addition, it can also facilitate quicker decisions.On the downside, the unitary board structure has been criticised for its propensity to compromise the independence of the non-executive directors. This dilutes their oversight role.For its part the two-tier system seems to have more checks and balances built into it given that the management board is subject to oversight by the supervisory board, and the supervisory board has to answer to shareholders.But the two-tier structure is often criticised for information asymmetry between the management board and the supervisory board. In other words management knows a great deal more about the business than the supervisory board. This can lead to operational challenges developing without the board noticing until its too late.Steinhoffs board structure followed the two-tier system. In 2016 its management board comprised three members, Jooste (CEO), Ben La Grange (Chief Financial Officer) and Danie van der Merwe (Chief Operating Officer and now acting CEO). As is normal under the two-tier system, none of the three members of the management board sat on the supervisory board.Some analysis of the Volkswagen emissions scandal apportioned blame to the two-tier system combined with a corporate culture that was anchored by dominant personalities.A similar case can be made for the Steinhoff saga.Did the two-tier structure give the CEO too much leeway to take decisions that in the end led to the near collapse of the company?This may indeed have been the case. Take, for example, the fact that some believe the company grew too quickly The danger of companies expanding too rapidly was highlighted decades ago by author and corporate strategy guru John Argenti who came up with a model that considered factors leading to corporate failure. Two of the higher scored factors were expanding too fast (referred to as overtrading) and high levels of loan borrowing.Steinhoff seems to have suffered from both. And yet the supervisory board appears to have failed to raise the red flag when it comes to large transactions. An example of it failing to fulfil its oversight role was when it decided to not make public Steinhoffs USD$1 billion transaction with a related company. Even if the supervisory board didnt legally have to make this public knowledge, ethically it should have made the disclosure.The functioning of the audit and risk committee didnt help the situation either.Steinhoff had three standing committees of the supervisory board  audit and risk, human resources and remuneration and the nominations committee. The committee structure had two weaknesses.The first was that too few of its non-executives actually served on the committees  only 5 of the 11 supervisory board members. And given that the then chairman Wiese and Claas Daun only sat on one, it begs the question how only three members of the supervisory board could have been expected to carry the real responsibility of the standing committees.The second flaw was that audit and risk were wrapped up in one committee. This is the norm under a two-tier governance structure.South Africas corporate governance structures might have helped to address both these problems. King IV stipulates that the risk governance committee should be made up of a mixture of non-executives and executives (the majority being non-executives). And the governance guidelines warn against audit and risk being under one committee. Its advice is that a company should only combine them if its able to devote enough time to dealing with risk related issues.For a company of Steinhoffs complexity, it seems inconceivable that the audit and risk committee could have devoted the necessary time to undertake its responsibility.The Steinhoff case highlights weaknesses in the governance structure the company had chosen to operate under. That said, the rules have worked perfectly well for thousands of other companies. The lesson, therefore, is be alert to the warning signs such as dominant directors who dont heed the rules. They can pose a grave risk to any company.Corporates in SA are coming under fire with Capitec Bank as the most recent in the spotlight. The bank will no doubt respond vigorously to the allegations made by Viceroy, but in the meantime, according to BDLive its shares have taken a hit. Any negative report from a company with a reputation as influential as that enjoyed by Viceroy would make waves in the market and we've seen the pressure of public opinion end careers and corporations. All of which is played out in the public eye and under intense media scrutiny.

Considering the current state of affairs, Ive taken a look at the top five risks that could impact reputation and which I believe should be the top priority for corporate South Africa:The public at large are sick of corruption, from both the public and private sectors, and are not afraid to voice their opinion. Social media provides the public platforms from which everyone can get on their soapbox and be heard. Trial by public opinion has become increasingly apparent, not only in SA, but globally, and the pressure will be on corporate SA to make sure their house is clean inside and out. Important, in this situation, will be to understand fully all risks the business may have through direct or indirect association (sometimes as far removed as simply being part of an industry that is under attack), and what to do to mitigate these risks.On the increase, this threat is very real. In 2017 we saw hackers hitting dozens of countries at once, severely impacting health, logistics and security systems. This threat is often ignored by corporates who are loath to admit that their IT infrastructure and employee policies could ever let them down, and many dont have a mitigation plan in place for the eventuality that should they be a victim, how the crisis would be approached from a communication perspective.Civil action in the country has never before been as prevalent, and will not decrease in the lead up to the 2019 elections. Further compounding this complex issue is the uncertainty surrounding the recently gazetted National Minimum Wage Bill. Many industries will be facing tough times as belts tighten and unions continue to remain vocal, and companies should be investing in their internal and external stakeholder relations to deal with the issues that will arise.A struggling economy, investor insecurity, and a trend in many industries towards consolidation of offices in different regions are putting companies under increasing pressure and restructuring or retrenchments could become a reality down the line in 2018. A decision not taken lightly, it is emotive and if not handled correctly from a communication point of view (in addition to the legal aspects) it can have a long-term detrimental impact to the company reputation.Corporates worldwide are known to lobby for their preferred policies. In South Africa events in 2017, for example, the industry lobbying against the then proposed sugar tax, highlighted concerns that although lobbying is not illegal, it needs to be done in a transparent manner. Companies should, of course, be responsible and refrain from crossing the line from lobbying into bribery or paying backhanders. The results can be detrimental in the extreme as many major corporations found out last year.Assessing the companys reputational risk should be part and parcel of due diligence processes, and with a changing world, the question is whether your reputation is prepared to deal with it?Arrowhead Properties, which has forecast that its dividend will shrink in the year to September, is facing criticism over its remuneration policy. Nearly a quarter of the shareholders at its annual general meeting on Tuesday, 30 January, voted against the diversified real estate group's remuneration policy.

As much as 22.51% voted against and 5.4% abstained. Of the 662,539,212 shares voted for, 513,407,880 (77.49%) voted in favour of the remuneration policy.Robert Lewenson, head of environmental, social and governance engagement at Old Mutual Investment Group, said the group had voted against the remuneration policy after a detailed engagement about the practices prior to the meeting.We acknowledged that they are a company in transition since the unfortunate passing of former CEO Gerald Leissner and offered to assist them in ensuring their remuneration policy is better linked to value creation and the board welcomed our approach and openness to discuss, he said.We will hopefully be able to provide further input into their remuneration philosophy in due course. However, the group was unable to support a vote in favour of their remuneration policy, Lewenson said. Old Mutual Investment Group published the rationale for the vote against the remuneration policy on its website.A vote against these items is warranted. Executive directors received large increases in fixed remuneration, 32%, and no sufficient explanation has been provided. Although the CEO was promoted during the year, this is not addressed in the remuneration report, and it is unclear why the CFO [chief financial officer] has received a similar increase, it read.The variable incentive framework is highly geared and reliant on the provision of loans to executive directors on preferential terms. Moreover, for the long-term incentive scheme, the vesting of these shares does not appear to be subject to performance conditions, it read.In November 2017, Arrowhead forecast that its dividend would shrink 6.5% for the financial year to September.CEO Mark Kaplan said subsidiaries Gemgrow Properties and Indluplace Properties were both set to enhance the income of Arrowhead.The conversations at WEF in Davos last week were varied and wide-ranging, but all centred on a key question: How can we work towards a common, mutually beneficial future in an extremely diverse world fragmented by difference? Multinational companies are well-acquainted with this problem, as they confront it daily through the communication conundrums between their regional offices.

So much technology, so little connection

Creating a common organisational culture

Respecting peoples real needs, with consideration for their current context;



Understanding how people learn and grow;



Practising simplicity, clarity and transparency to foster trust, relatedness and growth.

Three ways to help bridge the distance in multinational organisations

Build capacity to interpret disruption and incorporate change into existing frameworks. Achieve this by creating a shared vision using simple, clear, consistent messaging. Keep the vision alive by living it in how people talk, write, act, respect and are included. The idea behind this is not new, but hard science has actually proven that this is non-negotiable for leaders who want to work with committed high performers. Limit the number of key messages to four, and consistently link to existing themes.

Motivate, energise and inspire people through an inclusive sense of purpose they relate to, consider ethical and meaningful, and want to be part of. Your organisation needs to stand for something beyond just making money, and to be seen to practise purpose.

Accept that all humans are biased. Then mitigate bias to take better decisions, manage complexity and build a change-accepting cultures. When change is aligned to purpose and core values, the threat is decreased. You can begin to mitigate bias by making it public and naming it. Then involve others  diversity combined with collaboration allows for multiple perspectives. Finally, build new habits by applying specific practices regularly. Neuroplasticity is not about changing habits, but about building new habits that encourage relevant behaviours.

Although every organisation strives for strong teamwork and optimal performance from all of its regional offices, achieving this is much more difficult. Teams dispersed across regions do not share traditional face time in a space called office, where rituals, artefacts, and observation set the parameters for inclusion, acceptance and belonging. Tsedal Neeley, an associate professor from Harvard Business School who has studied team dynamics for more than 15 years, has noted one basic difference between global teams that work and those that dont  the degree of emotional connection among team members. She calls this social distance. Co-workers who are geographically separated cannot easily connect and align, often lack trust and do not feel close and congenial.So how do you get employees from different countries to all sing from the same hymn sheet? And how do you create an organisational culture that gets everyones buy-in, especially when you are dealing with dozens of different nationalities, languages, and belief systems? Neuroscience, which focuses on how our brains work, may well have the answer.The fractured world Davos focused on last week does not just apply to the divisions created by groups, but within the individual too. From a neuroscience perspective, each person needs to feel a sense of belonging, both personally and professionally. Social needs are actually a key aspect of human survival, and are as important as our physiological needs and need for safety.This is especially true as we head towards the third decade of the new millennium, where the only constant is change. As the pace of life accelerates, and the noise around us reaches a fever pitch, we become more and more uncertain of where we fit in society, and our need for belonging increases.In a multinational company, this translates to employees feeling unsure of their place in the organisation they work for. They feel threatened by the constant change, and so are even more inclined to reject what they are unfamiliar with, and congregate around what they know. Research shows us that our brain scans the environment for potential threats five times a second. There is safety in numbers, which is why we are social beings who thrive as part of teams. We are wired to avoid what we intuitively experience as foreign and uncertain  in this case our company offices in different countries  and to intuitively select what we know, ie. our own office.In addition, neuroscience tells us that feelings of isolation and exclusion can actually trigger the same part of our brain that registers physical pain. This social pain is just as intense as physical pain and the brain cannot distinguish between them. People will, of course, do everything they can to avoid this pain, and so, as employees, they can often disengage and no longer feel motivated.Management may try to remedy this lack of human connection between regions by introducing better technology to their offices around the globe  but enabling clear communication and meaningful connections between different regions entails much more than simply providing superior videoconferencing facilities.Neuroscience tells us that, as well as needing to feel a sense of belonging in their company, employees also want to be part of something bigger that can give their lives purpose. This is a difficult ask for a diverse, globally scattered organisation.Considering these realities, can multiregional offices succeed at all? The good news is that, yes, they can. Because the brain is able to grow infinitely and develop new habits  what we call neuroplasticity  interregional offices can indeed work well together. To create a unified culture, management needs to enable employees to move away from feeling isolated and distinctly separate and move towards a feeling of emotional belonging and connection with the individuals they work with across the globe. There are, however, three critical success factors to maximise cooperation and connection:For more information, go to: http://neuroleadershipinstitute.org/Crime, cartels, corruption, fraud, defaults, divorce... There's no shortage of work for South African courts. Here are a few cases that may pique the public interest this year...

Anything and everything to do with state capture, Zuma or the Guptas

Oscar, again

Stellenbosch family axe murders

On the Rohde to murder or suicide?

Captain KGB

Lack of Life Esidimeni

Where do we even start? From dairy farms to Eskom, the Guptas seem to be involved in it all. And once Zuma officially steps away from the protection the Presidency has offered him all these years, the Supreme Court of Appeal has ruled that prosecutors will be allowed bring back 783 counts of corruption against him relating to a 1999 arms deal. Although we may not see any of these faces actually appear in a courtroom on charges this year, inquiries and investigations into Zuma and the Guptas will definitely be on the legal watchlist in 2018 and beyond.The court proceedings against former Paralympian Oscar Pistorius for the murder of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, captured such vast attention in 2014 that the trial got its own TV channel. Originally charged with culpable homicide, Pistorius received five years and was release on house arrest after just 10 months. The State appealed the judgement and the Supreme Court of Appeal responded with a murder conviction and a six year sentence. Another State petition later, challenging what it called a "lenient sentence", and the SCA upped Pistorius' time from six to 13 years. In December last year, Pistorius filed with the Constitutional Court, appealing the new sentence. All eyes on the ConCourt for their say.23-year-old, Henri van Breda stands accused of the murder of his parents and brother, and attempted murder of his sister in their home in 2015. Van Breda has testified that an unknown assailant wearing gloves and a balaclava is responsible for the deadly attack on his family. During the 63-day trial , the court heard the accused's recorded call to emergency services (which came hours after the attack), state prosecutor Susan Galloway threw a spotlight on contradictions between his testimony and the evidence, there was a trial-within-a-trial as the defence complained that Van Breda had been treated as nothing but a suspect from the start, and Van Breda received a diagnosis of juvenile myoclonic epilepsy. Following the conclusion of the defence's case on 29 November last year, presiding Judge Siraj Desai postponed the case, stating that closing arguments will be heard on 12 February 2018.Jason Rohde, now the former CEO of Lew Geffen Sotheby's International Realty in South Africa, is on trial for the murder of his wife, Susan, who was found dead in their hotel room while on a company conference held at Stellenbosch's Spier Wine Estate in July 2016. During the court hearings, it emerged that Jason had been having an affair with a colleague who was attending the conference. Susan was painted by the defence as jealous and volatile, having insisted on attending the weekend-long event to keep an eye on her husband. They'd been seen arguing just a few hours before her body was found in the bathroom with an electrical cord from a hair styling tool around her neck and door hanger. The defence claims she was emotionally unstable and she commited suicide. The prosecution, however, believes the scene was staged, and that she died from manual strangulation at the hands of husband. The case was postponed on 5 December and will continue on 5 February.Captain Morris KGB Tshabalala, a crime intelligence officer, was arrested while checking in with his parole officer in Pretoria central earlier this month. He's been charged with theft and defrauding the police service of more than R500,000. Tshabalala joined the police force in 2002, despite having been convicted of armed robbery in 1996. He served only two of his 10 year sentence before being released on parole. He's been denied bail and the case postponed to 22 March. SAPS officially dismissed him from their employ yesterday, 29 January.Around 144 psychiatric patients reportedly died from starvation and neglect after they were removed from the Life Esidimeni homes, following the Gauteng Health Department's cancellation of its contract with the company, and placed in the care of ill-equipped NGOs. The hearing is currently underway.Eligible airlines will be allowed to transact their business in the region unfettered, or so the latest pan-African agreement says. Africans hope it gets off the ground this time.

The single African air market solution

High fares, low air traffic growth, poor safety

The quest for Africa's single air market

Everyone protects their domestic markets

More jobs expected in airline industry

Air travellers on the African continent often tell of agonising journeys. Flying the 1,130 km route between Freetown, Sierra Leone, and Banjul, Gambia, takes up to three days, instead of an hour, a BBC journalist found.By Umaru Fofana's estimation, it was far quicker - but costlier - to first fly to Belgium.To solve this, African countries are again attempting to open up the continent to the free movement of people and goods with the unveiling of a single African air market. Under a single market, airlines from the region would be allowed to connect any two African cities, without having to go through their home hub first. South African Airways could, for example, fly Johannesburg-Nairobi-Cairo on the same trip and Ethiopian Airlines could go to Nairobi and Johannesburg in a single trip.African Union officials reportedly expect benefits to be apparent in the next few months, with fares falling by as much as 30%. (Note: Africa Check asked regional airlines for comment and will update this piece should they respond.)African leaders gave their backing to the plan in 2015, committing "solemnly" to immediately implement what is known as the two Yamoussoukro agreement. Named for the Ivorian city in which they were agreed on in 1988 and 1999, the later Yamoussoukro Decision is the more expansive. The agreements were meant to open up African skies to competition and reduce aviation red tape.But those deals have stalled, with states continuing to restrict their air markets to the advantage of domestic carriers. This has led to high fares and low air traffic growth, in addition to hurting the region's safety record, a comprehensive 2010 World Bank study found.The newly-launched single air market starts formal operations with 23-member countries: Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Republic of Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia and Gabon. The others are Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Swaziland, Togo and Zimbabwe. Another 21 are still weighing up membership, the bloc said. (Note: To be part, a state is required to write to the AU informing the bloc that it will fully implement the single market.)The single air market is a flagship AU project - one that has high potential to change the face of the region - under its Agenda 2063 blueprint for the continent's economic growth. But its focus on liberalisation has only come with the Yamoussoukro Decision of 1999. Pre-independence and in the early 1960s, African countries largely focused on flying routes to former colonial masters to subsidise expensive domestic routes.In the 1970s, the 'old AU' (Organisation of African Unity) started focussing on intra-African trade as the threat from dominant international airlines began to grow. The Lagos Plan of Action of 1980 aimed at increasing trade between African countries through transport.The 1984 UN-backed Mbabane Declaration sought to expand air services, an effort that led to the 1988 Yamoussoukro Declaration. This was focused on the gradual elimination of barriers, however. Until 1991 nearly all African carriers were state-owned. Studies note that despite the 1999 Yamoussoukro deal being legally binding from 2002, it has struggled for traction."The reasons for not applying the Yamoussoukro Decision range from non-implementation of certain elements of the decision, for example, establishing competition rules, a dispute settlement mechanism and an operational monitoring body, to simply ignoring it by continuing to agree to traditional restrictive bilaterals, a World Bank study noted.The resulting changes to how the continent flies could be far-reaching, Jane Karonga, the economic affairs officer at the Economic Commission for Africa, told Africa Check. "The single most visible change will be increased air connectivity as new carriers enter the market," said Karonga. The single market will also allow airlines to be more efficient, growing intra-African traffic. The region currently has only a 2.2% share of global passenger traffic, according to the International Air Transport Association.Supporting industries such as tourism and shipping will also benefit immensely, Karonga said, helping the push for a continental free-trade area. But to get there, the remaining member states need to opt in. The single market was initially set to be launched in June 2017 but has been hampered in part by the slow sign-up by members.Dismantling decades-old practices of protectionism are unlikely to happen overnight, analysts said.The norm is that everyone protects their domestic markets. So much so, that even the Open Skies agreements [of liberalisation] don't touch domestic markets," Heinrich Bofinger, a senior transport economist with the World Bank, told Africa Check. Member states must overcome the "national pride phenomenon over flag carriers", Bofinger said. This includes reviewing the economic viability of airlines and avoiding white-elephant projects such as gleaming new but under-used airports, he said.Protectionism has taken many forms, Karonga said. These include restrictions on frequencies and capacity, type of aircraft operated, the volume of traffic to be carried and routes to be served.Non-local airlines also tend to be charged prohibitive royalties, while smaller African carriers fear anti-competitive behaviour such as price dumping - selling seats below market price from larger, established airlines."Protectionism is often motivated by fear that the national flag carrier will be unable to compete with the continent's larger carriers, as well as intercontinentally. For example, in 2013, it took the collapse of Air Malawi for Kenya Airways to be allowed to operate between Malawi and other countries, said Karonga.With the expected boom in airlines and connectivity, more professionals in the airline industry will also be needed, Nilesh Somaia, a director at Nairobi-based regional airline Aircraft Leasing Services, told Africa Check. He cited the difficulty in getting work permits and "pilot drain" as key issues, further pinning this to state restrictions. "Africa must ensure that it retains or attracts the professionals that it requires to support the growth of the aviation industry. There are no major benefits to protectionism," said Somaia.With liberalisation, investors can exploit opportunities in the secondary markets, such as tourism and cargo, the AU's transport and tourism chief, David Kajange told the UK's Financial Times at the launch. "The cost-benefit analysis of protecting a few jobs compared with the total economic benefits of opening up is just not there."FRANKFURT, Germany - German high-end carmaker BMW has bought partner Sixt's share in car-sharing platform DriveNow, stoking speculation a merger with a competing service from Daimler may lie ahead.

The Munich-based group will pay Sixt some 209m ($259m) for its 50% stake in DriveNow.



Regulators are expected to approve or reject the deal by June.



"With DriveNow as a wholly-owned subsidiary, we have all options for continued strategic development of our services," BMW board member Peter Schwarzenbauer said in a statement.



Sixt's stake in the service had long been seen as the main hurdle to merging it with Mercedes-Benz maker Daimler's rival Car2Go platform.



Launched in 2011, DriveNow offers a fleet of around 6,000 BMW and Mini vehicles in 13 European cities, with more than one million customers on its books.



Meanwhile, Car2Go's 14,000-strong fleet - mostly made up of Daimler's ultra-compact Smart cars - serves 2.6 million users in 25 cities spread across three continents.





Source: AFPThe newest Airbus Widebody, the A350-1000, is currently on a three-week demonstration tour to the Middle-East and Asia-Pacific region.

Airbus A350-1000 test aircraft taking off at Toulouse Blagnac airport, France

On static display at Singapore Airshow 2018

The demonstration tour follows the completion of a successful flight test campaign, which lasted less than one year and culminated in joint EASA and FAA type certification, demonstrating the aircrafts excellent design, performance and maturity. The A350-1000 tour comes ahead of the first customer delivery to Qatar Airways in the coming weeks.During the tour, the A350-1000 flight test aircraft (MSN065) will visit 12 destinations to demonstrate the aircrafts exclusive features to airlines. The itinerary will see it travel over 30,000 nautical miles / 55,500 kilometres, with stops in Doha, Muscat, Hong Kong, Seoul, Taipei, Hanoi, Singapore, Bangkok, Sydney, Auckland, Tokyo and Manila.The aircraft will stop for several days in Singapore, where it will be on static display from 6-8 February at the Singapore Airshow 2018.MSN065 is one of the three Airbus A350-1000 test aircraft and is equipped with a fully functional cabin (40 business class, 36 economy plus class and 219 comfort economy class seats). The demonstration flights will be operated by Airbus flight test crews.The A350-1000 is the latest member of the A350 XWB family, showing a high level of commonality with the A350-900 with 95% common systems part numbers and Same Type Rating. As well as having a longer fuselage to accommodate 40 more passengers than the A350-900 (in a typical 3-class configuration), the A350-1000 also features a modified wing trailing-edge, new six-wheel main landing gears and more powerful Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-97 engines.Follow the A350-1000 tour live on Twitter: @airbus and #A350XWBtourAfter such a successful event in October 2017, another Open Streets Day is planned for Cape Town along Main Road on Sunday, 25 February 2018.

 Bruce Sutherland

Looking for partners

The aim will be to incorporate feedback and lessons learned the first time around, to further test the feasibility of a regular network of longer road closures. Share your feedback on the plans here The idea of car-free streets has been tested in Cape Town as far back as 2003  starting with a car-free festival on Klipfontein Road organised by the City of Cape Town and Western Cape Government  and in the past five years, Open Streets Days have become a fixture in the minds and hearts of Capetonians. The aim is to make it a fixed occurrence on the citys calendar.Next year, the Open Streets programme takes a leap into a new chapter to explore the long-term potential of the programme for Cape Town. Having tested the concept successfully in Langa, Mitchells Plain, the city centre, Observatory and Bellville, it is in discussions with city officials about ways to amplify the impact of this programme.Thus far, discussions have focused on the impact the programme can have on existing plans by the Transport and Urban Development Authority (TDA) to encourage non-motorised transport use and transit-oriented development, and it expects to engage with other departments to explore synergies with other city policies too.Accordingly, in the next six months, the organisation will be refining the model of a 5km closure, which was tested successfully at Open Streets Main Road on 1 October 2017. The Open Streets Main Road on 25 February 2018, will be along the same route, with a couple of tweaks to incorporate feedback and learnings from the first one, as well as a longer closure on Eisleben Road for Open Streets Mitchells Plain on 25 March 2018. Together, these build towards a network of regular car-free routes that enable and encourage people to change the way they use, perceive, and experience our citys streets.As for the smaller Open Streets Days (eg. on Bree Street, or King Langalibalele Drive in Langa), the organisation is looking for partners to help it fund them in the long term. In the next 12 months, it will be focusing on the extension of an Open Streets network while others come on board to help it continue growing the Open Streets programme at a more local level. The organisation is inviting people to reach out if they would like to sponsor an Open Streets Day in their neighbourhood.Says the organisation in a statement: "We have learnt a lot in the past five years. In addition to the logistics and challenges of closing down a road, we have realised that for an Open Streets programme to succeed, we must celebrate and encourage a culture of public and street life. Of course, this doesnt happen overnight and many parties must play their role. The most important part of growing Open Streets will be public support and collaboration."Cape Town has developed a very thorough NMT strategy that acknowledges the importance of giving pedestrians, the majority of our population at any given time or space, priority in how they move and the options they have. The policies are there and through Open Streets we are testing an idea that might prompt action and active engagement from residents."Whether or not Open Streets can help transform how we move around the city is still to be determined, but one thing is clear: people like engaging with each other in shared public spaces, and strengthening these connections is a vital step in building a more resilient city that takes on challenges around transport, social development, climate change and more."The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has officially announced that Chris Maroleng has been appointed as the new chief operations officer of the public broadcaster.

His appointment is effective from 1 February."I accept the position at the SABC with deep humility, and appreciate the confidence that the Board has shown in me. I look forward to playing a role, as part of an executive team, in transforming the SABC into a world-class public broadcaster that is responsive to the needs of all South Africans." Maroleng, a former MTN group executive, said.The SABC said it was pleased with its decision as it "followed all legal and governance requirements".Maroleng has a great deal of experience in media practise, something SABC board chairperson Bongumusa Makhathini is certain will set him apart."Maroleng has demonstrated considerable management and financial acumen and he is familiar with the cutting-edge Fourth Industrial Revolution issues that the SABC needs to embrace going forward.He understands South Africa's legislative and regulatory environment and his knowledge of broadcasting on the continent is invaluable as the SABC develops its coverage of, and in Africa," said Makhathini.Maroleng holds BA(Hons) and MA degrees from the University of Cape Town and has received several post-graduate scholarships and awards.He is an accomplished South African with successful careers at senior management level in television, telecommunications and corporate affairs, Makhathini said in a statement. Maroleng was set to be appointed earlier this month pending screening by the State Security Agency.He replaces the controversial Hlaudi Motsoeneng who was ousted last year.At the time his appointment was opposed by Communications Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane who argued that she was not consulted.A court order in December stated that the board would make any permanent or interim appointment of any executive member "only after consultation with the minister of communications".Kubayi-Ngubane required the board to follow procedures in filling the top position.Meanwhile, some top positions at the parastatal are still vacant.The adverts for a group CEO and CFO have been placed, and the deadline for applications has been extended to 14 February 2018, the broadcaster said.Africa Data Centres, part of pan-African telecoms group Liquid Telecom, has opened newly expanded carrier-grade facilities in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

 neyro2008 via 123RF

South Africa Data Centre (SADC) Johannesburg and SADC Cape Town will support rising demand for cloud-based services in Southern AfricaThe state-of-the-art, carrier-neutral SADC Johannesburg and SADC Cape Town will provide leading cloud service providers, carriers and enterprises with additional rack space and colocation services to meet the rising demand for cloud-based services in Southern Africa.Africa Data Centres has more than doubled the size of its existing South Africa-based facilities, which are built to Tier III standards and were acquired as part of Liquid Telecoms R6.55bn deal for Neotel in February 2017.Following completion of the first phase of expansion, SADC Johannesburg now offers over 3000 square metres of secured space for data servers served through a total power capacity of 7MW, while SADC Cape Town provides 1800 square metres of secured rack space with 5.5MW of power.As moving to cloud-based solutions becomes more commonplace, businesses across Africa require more carrier-neutral, open-access data centre space for their business-critical data and applications, said Nic Rudnick, Group CEO, Liquid Telecom. Through continuous investment in Africa Data Centres, we are providing the foundations for leading enterprises and cloud providers to come and build their digital future in Africa.Connected by the fibre routes of many major carriers, the facilities also host internet exchanges independently operated by INX-ZA. Through a partnership with INX-ZA, the Johannesburg Internet Exchange (JINX) has been expanded to SADC Johannesburg, while the Cape Town Internet Exchange (CINX) has been extended to SADC Cape Town, enabling connected members in any site to peer quickly and cost-effectively with members in other data centres.These data centres, along with partner locations East Africa Data Centre (EADC), Nairobi, and Central Africa Data Centre (CADC) are Africas largest and most diverse set of carrier-grade, highly interconnected purpose-built data centre facilities.They are interconnected by multiple networks including Liquid Telecoms award-winning fibre network, which provides regional and international reach for customers. This allows businesses hosting data and cloud in Africa to have control and flexibility of where to host and back-up their data with geographic diversity.The winners of the 2021 SA Olive Awards have been announced. The annual SA Olive Awards, a premier fixture on the South African olive industry calendar, acknowledges the commitment and the strive for excellence that characterises the country's local olive oil industry.Photo: U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Mullin, II, Combined Joint Task Forces - Horn of Africa, marches with soldiers from the Uganda People's Defence Force for a graduation ceremony in Folkasenyi, Uganda May 16, 2008. The Ugandan service members had just completed a 16-week counterterrorism course where they practiced basic infantry skills and counterterrorism techniques. (Photo by Technical Sergeant Kati Garcia, U.S. Air Force)

A Book Review

Helen Epsteins new book Another Fine Mess: America, Uganda, and the War on Terror is dense with detailed and fascinating accounts of events in Ugandan history and politics and those of neighboring nations. Im familiar with much of it, but theres also much I hadnt known, some I disagree with, and elaborations or different interpretations of what Ive previously read or been told. For instance, Epstein writes that Ugandas widely publicized hostility to homosexuality dates back to the embattled bisexual Kabaka (King) Mwanga of Buganda. Mwanga came to power in 1884, at the age of 18, just as Christian missionaries began converting his subjects in advance of the British officer Captain Frederick Lugard, who arrived in 1890, armed the converted Protestants, planted the British flag, and exiled Kabaka Mwanga to the Seychelles.

Between 1885 and 1887, Mwanga had 45 Christian pages roasted alive, some for spying for the colonialists and others for refusing to engage in sodomy with him after being taught that sodomy was a sin.

Fear of homosexuals remains widespread in the country," Epstein writes, where there has been little modern sex education and where the idea of homosexuality evokes historical memories of a mad young king at the dawn of modern times, whose territory swirled with rumors of approaching armies.

In 2011, a Ugandan woman then running for a seat in the countrys Parliament told me the same story as evidence that homosexuality had been practiced without punishment in Uganda prior to colonization by the puritanical British. She didnt mention memories of the brutal young Kabaka as a cause of the countrys contemporary homophobia, but she did inspire me to read a bit more and learn that 75 countries still criminalize homosexuality and 42 of them are former British colonies.

All the details of history and politics in Epsteins book might at first intimidate readers who havent turned much attention to Uganda before, but theres a helpful timeline of events in Uganda, Rwanda, Zaire/Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and Somalia at the beginning.

One significant disagreement

I have one significant disagreement with Epstein. In a section called Further Reading, she says that, "Barrie Collinss book Rwanda 1994: The Myth of the Akazu Genocide Conspiracy and Its Consequences mistakenly equates the revenge killings of Hutus with the attempted extermination of the Tutsis, which he argues was not a planned genocide. I agree with Collins about this and with other scholars and journalists including Peter Erlinder, Robin Philpot, Phil Taylor, David Peterson, and the late Edward S. Herman. And I dont believe that the Tutsi armys massacres of Hutus were simply revenge killings.

However, I greatly appreciate Epsteins carefully researched account of Ugandan and US complicity in Ugandan Tutsi soldiers 1990 invasion of Rwanda from Uganda at a time when Hutu/Tutsi tensions inside Rwanda were actually at an all-time low. And I agree with her conclusion that the Tutsi army abandoning negotiations before theyd even begun in favor of war probably cost hundreds of thousands of Rwandan lives.

US-backed dictators and catastrophic invasions

The books overarching themes are that: 1) The United States supported brutal dictators in Africa throughout the Cold War, so long as they advanced US interests and did not ally with the Soviet Union. 2) After the Cold War ended, the US supported brutal dictators who advanced US interests and served as military partners and proxies against the Islamists, who had become the USs new bogeymen. 3) Ugandas President Yoweri Museveni is among the most brutal and corrupt of these dictators, and the US has enabled if not designed his invasions and destabilizations of Ugandas neighbors, most of all Rwanda, Zaire/Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and South Sudan.

Her primary focus is the post-Cold War period when Ugandans helped the US fight its so-called War on Terror in Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, elsewhere on the African continent, and even in Afghanistan. One of the books grimmest passages regards President Musevenis refusal to promote family planning:

The official told me that Museveni had forbidden the ministry from carrying out family planning programs, even if paid for by donors. Family planning NGOs reached a tiny fraction of the women who wanted contraception; condoms were available at many roadside kiosks, but he acknowledged that few men used them.

Whats Musevenis beef with family planning? I wondered. We were sitting at an outdoor cafe, and he looked stealthily around before answering. Please dont write my name, he whispered, but the truth is, its the army. The president wants a big army. Now I understood. Museveni had turned his beautiful country into a poorly maintained breeding colony for soldiers, whom he deployed in monstrous and unnecessary wars, often at the behest of American generals and politicians who rattled their sabers at Afro-Islamic terrorists, but wouldnt dream of sending Americanslet alone their own childrento fight them.

In the May 2016 article  Ugandas Top Military Export: Mercenaries , Bloomberg Businessweek reported that Uganda makes more money on military contractors than on coffee, its second largest export. And, as Epstein points out, Uganda was the first nation to join President George Bush's "Coalition of the Willing" to fight the Iraq War.

Epstein has done medical and public health research in Uganda and the wider region for 20 years, and no passage of her book sticks in my mind more than this one in her introduction:

Ive been a public health consultant for over 20 years. In Rwanda, I carried out field research among villagers too frightened to speak to me for fear that government spies would report them if they complained about ethnic discrimination. In Ethiopia, I met listless, starving children in villages denied sufficient food aid because of suspected anti-government sentiment. In Uganda, I interviewed mothers whose children had died of malaria because the presidents cronies looted foreign aid programs meant to pay for medicine and bed nets. Most of the humanitarian programs I worked on were supported by U.S. tax dollars, but they were no match for the U.S.-backed tyrants who caused the problems in the first place.

Helen Epstein is a Bard College professor and author of Another Fine Mess: America, Uganda, and the War on Terror. She has spent decades doing medical and public health research in the African Great Lakes Region. She can be reached at hepstein@bard.edu.What one Dreamer wanted to hear from President Trump

DACA recipient Elias Rosenfeld '20 wants the President and Congress to finally find a way to protect hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought here as children

In this piece, Elias Rosenfeld '20 (left) imagines what he'd like to hear the President say to Dreamers in the State of the Union address. U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III will give the response from the Democrats.

Elias Rosenfeld '20 immigrated legally from Venezuela to the U.S. with his mom and little sister when he was six. Then he lost his mom to cancer when he was in the 6th grade. What he didn't know at the time was that her passing meant he and his sister would also lose their legal status in this country.



Rosenfeld is a participant in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA program. Like all DACA recipients, he faces an uncertain future unless Congress and the President can reach a compromise to provide them with permanent legal status. Unlike many DACA recipients who fear going public about their status, Rosenfeld is a member of many advocacy groups, has interned with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and has been the subject of national media reports, including this recent story in the Boston Globe as well as in recent interviews and speeches with Warren and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.



BrandeisNOW asked Rosenfeld what he would most like to hear the president say in the State of the Union address Tuesday night:

As a Jewish Dreamer and student at Brandeis University, this is what I would urge our President to say in regard to the recent immigration legislation negotiations in Congress that will impact the future of nearly 800,000 young individuals in this nation:

This beautiful nation, from its founding, has had a deep connection to and appreciation for its immigrants. Yet for far too long, our nation's immigration system has been broken, harming and dividing families who are seeking only to contribute to their communities and their nation. This broken system is also harming our economy and ability to attract talent and compete on a global scale.

Our nation is at a moral crossroads. In a couple of weeks, Congress must take firm action to protect the 800,000 so-called Dreamers so their future is no longer uncertain and unclear in the only nation they know as home. For 16 years, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, Congress and the executive branch have failed these individuals because Congress refuses to take permanent action to protect this talented group of young people. They represent the merit we should seek in all immigrants.

Tonight, I implore this Congress to find a compromise and solution immediately, so I may sign legislation, that once and for all protects these children, brought to the United States through no fault of their own. Dreamers are students, service members, teachers, doctors, nurses and business owners. They contribute financially to our nation, risk their lives in the military, and abide by the law. Dreamers are American in every way, except on paper. It is time Congress does its job to protect these constituents.

Our lawmakers must come together and pass a bipartisan compromise that would allow Dreamers to continue contributing and serving their communities in the United States. Congress must remember that any immigration bill it passes will take months to take effect, so it's critical to pass legislation without delay.

More than 15,000 Dreamers have lost their work authorization and deportation protections since September 5, 2016, due to Congressional inaction. Every single day, 122 Dreamers lose their status - and this trend will continue until Congress takes action to affirmatively protect them from deportation. In March, that number will rise to 1,200 Dreamers losing protections every single day. I urge you all to count from 1 to 1,200 in your head to understand the dramatic impact this will have on our workforce and economy, and on American families every single day.

Protecting Dreamers is also a religious issue, particularly for me as the father and grandfather of members of the Jewish community. In the Torah - the first five books of the Hebrew Bible - the Jewish people are called 36 times to welcome the stranger. In Leviticus 19:34, God commands the Israelites: "The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love them as yourself." We are called to welcome the stranger. But with DACA participants, our task is easier. They are not strangers. Dreamers are already firmly established within the American community.

There is strong bipartisan support in Congress to allow Dreamers to stay here, and 80 percent of Americans would like to see this issue resolved. I urge all members of Congress to follow their constituents and pass a legislative solution for Dreamers rooted in compromise, the fundamental basis of our nation and the U.S constitution.

As the union budget, 2018 is going to be announced by our Finance minister Arjun Jaitely in the hope of some betterment. The financial budget is all set to be announced on Feb 1, so before you get the inside detail of the upcoming budget here we bring to you the possibilities of what you will get.

Needless to say, the budget will always hold importance in the life of middle class and lower class people the most. So keeping them as our target audience lets take a look at few important aspect of people's life which will be affected by the upcoming budget. Having earlier said that by our ...India's largest telecoms operator, Bharti Airtel does not see much value in buying debt-laden Nigerian rival 9mobile and withdrew from submitting a firm bid before the deadline, two industry sources with knowledge of the deal told Reuters. Barclays Africa is examining takeover bids from prospective buyers for 9mobile. However, a deal may take a few months as it will involve restructuring 9mobile's debt after a default last year. Airtel had expressed an interest to acquire the Nigerian firm as part of plans to consolidate its position in Africa's biggest telecoms ...Global coal prices have been on a steady rise in the last few months, increasing cost pressure for thermal power producers in the country. This is happening as they struggle with lower offtake for the power they generate.

The price of 4,200 kcal/kg grade coal, which is a very popular grade bought by both India and China, has surged 33% to $49.25 per tonne as of Friday, compared with the start of 2017 when it was assessed at $37 per tonne, Platts data shows. Thermal power producers in India who are dependent on imported coal now face the tough situation of higher cost of ...Dear Reader,

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Digital EditorUS retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc is in advanced talks to buy a minority stake in Indian e-commerce firm Flipkart, Indian financial daily the Economic Times reported on Tuesday.

Walmart could buy a 15 percent to 20 percent stake in Amazon.com Inc's main competitor in India, the newspaper said, citing two anonymous sources.

A deal could be finalised as early as March and may involve primary and secondary sales by longstanding Flipkart investors, the paper added.

"We don't comment on rumours and speculation," Walmart spokesman Randy Hargrove told Reuters via email.

Bengaluru-based Flipkart was not immediately available for comment outside regular business hours.

The comes nearly two years after Reuters reported that Walmart was looking to invest between $750 million and $1 billion in Flipkart.Delhi and several parts of northern India experienced tremors on Wednesday following an earthquake on the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border.

According to the India Meteorological Department, the earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter Scale struck at a depth of 190 km in the Hindu Kush region.

The tremors, lasting a few seconds, were also felt in Delhi and the adjoining region, forcing people to run out of their homes and offices. Delhi Metro immediately halted operations - briefly.

No damage was reported in Delhi and the Capital Region.



Watch this space for more details.The much awaited "Supermoon" became visible in India a little later than expected on Wednesday but when it did, millions of stargazers across the country relished the rare celestial triple delight with a sense of awe.

The January 31 sighting of a "Blue Moon" and a total lunar eclipse occurred in India for the first time after 1982.

While the Moon was in the Earth's shadow, it took on a reddish tint known as a "blood Moon".

During the eclipse, the Moon was just a day past perigee which is the closest point to Earth in its orbit -- making it appear very large and bright (about 14 per cent) -- and so a "Supermoon".

Lastly, it is also the second full moon of the month, commonly known as a "blue moon". The last full Moon of the month was on January 2.

Many organisations across the country stepped in to enhance the show which was also visible to the naked eye.

SPACE India, a start-up focused on astronomy education and astro-tourism services, organised several events at various locations across the country to observe the phenomenon from 6 p.m.-9.30 p.m.

Lunar Eclipse as seen in the sky from Patna on Wednesday evening Photo: PTI

At India Gate, SPACE India used the Dobsonian telescope which gave a very clear and crisp view of the "Supermoon".

The instrument allowed skywatchers to view the Moon 20 times bigger than it appears to the naked eye.

"Apart from Delhi, Space India organised the event in five other cities -- Chennai, Bengaluru, Surat, Dehradun and Meerut - and also at DAV school in Gurgaon. Over 500 people gathered at India Gate to watch this phenomenon," Dr. Mila Mitra, Scientific Officer, Head, Research and Publications, told IANS.

Yashwe, a 7th class student from St. Thomas School at Mandir Marg, said: "It's a rare opportunity and being a member of an astronomy club, I feel delighted after watching the eclipse live."

In Bengaluru, thousands of stargazers gathered at the Nehru Planetarium in the city and other open spaces to catch a glimpse of the celestial spectacle.

"This lunar eclipse is special because a (when Moon appears larger than usual when its closest to Earth), blue Moon (second full Moon of each month) and blood Moon (Moon appears red during eclipse) will all coincide at once," its Director Pramod G Galgali told IANS.

The planetarium in the city centre had hundreds of children, students and adults queuing up to view the once in a Blue Moon event clearly through telescopes and binoculars.

The eclipsing blood moon appears in the sky, in Coimbatore on Wednesday. The rare spectacle today has been coined as 'Super Blue Blood Moon' by NASA on the lunar eclipse. Photo: PTI

The Indian Institute of Astrophysics in Bengaluru had also set up few telescopes in open spaces for public viewing of the eclipse.

Not just a visual treat, but the celestial spectacle was an opportunity for astronomers to study Earth's natural satellite, the Moon.

"The lunar eclipse would give scientists a special opportunity to study the Moon using the astronomer's equivalent of a heat-sensing, or thermal camera," NASA said in a statement earlier.

The Moon, which goes around the Earth in an elliptical orbit, gets closest to the Earth at one point -- known as perigee.

Lunar Eclipse as seen from Kolkata on Wednesday evening. Photo: PTI

Several Hindu temples were shut across the state on Wednesday, with many devout Hindus staying away from eating till the end of lunar eclipse, as it is feared to be inauspicious.

Renowned Hindu worship places in Karnataka like Manjunatheshwara Temple in Dharmasthala, 300 km from Bengaluru and Krishna Mutt in Udupi, about 400 km from Bengaluru, were shut till the end of the eclipse at about 9.30 p.m.During the early hours of Jan. 31, there will be a full moon, a total lunar eclipse, a blue moon and a supermoon  all at the same time. None of these things is really all that unusual by itself. What is rare is that theyre happening all together on one day.

What makes the moon look full? Like the Earth, half the moon is illuminated by the sun at any one time. The moon orbits around the Earth and as a result we see different amounts of the lit-up side. A full moon is when we see its entire lit-up side. This occurs every 29.5 days, when the moon is directly opposite ...The Delhi High Court today asked the Centre and the RBI to examine the new currency notes and coins, saying the visually-impaired were facing hardship in identifying and using them.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar told the Centre and the RBI that they should examine the new currency notes of Rs 200 and Rs 50 denominations as the visually-impaired people were finding it difficult to use them due to their size and the tactile marks.

"This issue is something which needs to be resolved among yourselves. You (government, RBI and the petitioner here) sit together and sort it out," the bench said, adding that it is difficult for the visually-impaired to identify them, also due to the change of size of these notes.

The bench observed that the authorities should have consulted some visually impaired experts and others who have worked in this field.

It asked Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Sanjay Jain, who was representing the Centre, why cannot they make the size of the currency as it used to be earlier.

The ASG told the court that they had designed the currency after considering every aspect.

The court asked the Centre to place its view before it on the next date of hearing on February 16.

The court had earlier refused to stay the printing and circulation of the new Rs 50 notes, issued on August 18, 2017.

The court was hearing PILs filed by three advocates, a company secretary and NGO, All India Confederation of Blind, who had sought a change in the new currency notes to make them easily identifiable and differentiable for the visually impaired.

The PIL by advocate Rohit Dandriyal sought directions to the authorities to withdraw the Rs 50 notes which do not have any identification marks and stop printing them.

He said that, according to the RBI, a special feature has been introduced on the left of the watermark window on all notes, except the Rs 10 denomination ones.

"This feature is in different shapes for various denominations. For example, a vertical rectangle denotes a Rs 20 note, a square means Rs 50 (in older notes), triangle and circle for Rs 100, a diamond denoted the Rs 1,000 currency which is not a legal tender now," the advocate's PIL said.

The petition by the NGO said the visually impaired people were facing hardship in identification, usage and transaction of the new currency notes of Rs 2,000, Rs 500, Rs 200 and Rs 50 denominations.

Maintaining that the size of old and new notes was different, the NGO also sought replacement of coins of Rs 10, Rs 5, Rs 2 and Re 1 saying these were of a similar structure.Indian authorities have urged the European Union (EU) neither to ban nor blacklist any seafood exporter immediately if they have found problems with just one consignment as this 'extreme' step would work against the interests of all the stakeholders in the industry. "EU should issue a warning to the exporter, and give them reasonable time to remove the inadequacies before de-listing the company," said Chairman of Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) A Jayathilak.

Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

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Digital EditorECIs National Elections Quiz 2018 Inter-School Competition witnesses participation by 13.6 lakh students





Delhi Public School, Ranchi team were declared winners of the National Elections Quiz 2018 organised by the Election Commission of India. DPS Ranchi teamcomprising Madhur Jain and Aditya Kumar, were handed over the NEQ 2018 Trophy by the Honble President of India during the National Voters Day function held at New Delhi.

Team from DPS Ranchi being handed over the Trophy by the Honble Presdent in presence of Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Law & Justice and Shri O P Rawat, Chief Election Commissioner

Clocking participation of 13.63 lakh students from 38,000 schools, the National Elections Quiz 2018, organised by the Election Commission of India andspanning over two and a half months, culminated in a thrilling finale between the six School teams from Delhi, Goa, Jharkhand, Jammu & Kashmir, Manipur and Puducherry.

Securing 105 points, the team from Delhi Public School, Ranchi comprising Madhur Jain and Aditya Kumar, were crowned the Champions in the NEQ 2018. St. Patric Matric Higher Secondary School from Puducherry, comprising V. Vishnu Priya and R. Mithun Krishna sealed the second place while Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Senapati, Manipur comprising Ashmaan Mainali and Shangker Singh Laishram secured the third place. Besides the Trophy, the First Prize carries a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh, first runners up - Rs 80 thousand, and the Second runners up Rs 60 thousand. The remaining three teams in the Grand Finale were rewarded Rs. 50 thousand each. Half the amount of the Prize money goes to the School and the rest to the two students comprising the team.

The National Elections Quiz is organized as part of ECIs initiative of Empowering Young and Future Electors which was also the theme for the 7th National Voters Day (2017). Extending from the Intra-School followed by the District and State Level right up to the National Rounds, NEQ involved students from across the country laying claim to being the Worlds Largest Inter-School Quiz Contest on Elections.

The 36 teams from all the States and Union Territories comprised of 72 students from Class 9-12th, falling in the category of future voters, which are one of the target audience for ECIs Systematic Voters Education and Electoral Participation programme (SVEEP). As a part of their visit to Delhi, the participants were taken on a guided, educational city tour to the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Qutub Complex, Elections Museum, Red Fort, Gandhi Smriti, Humayuns Tomb and the Birla Mandir.

The 6 Zonal-Finals and the Grand Finale were conducted in collaboration with the Rajya Sabha TV. The North-East Zonal, also the first episode, was telecast on RSTV on the 8th National Voters Day and the remaining 5 zonals and the Grand Finale is being telecast in the coming six weeks, every Sunday and also available on YouTube. The Grand Finale will be aired on RSTV on 11th March 2018 and also live-streamed on Facebook India page.

SBSLetters of Intent Under Adopt a Heritage Project Handed over to 17 Agencies for 62 Monuments at Closing Ceremony of Bharat Parv Today



6 Days Cultural Extrtavagenza Bharat Parv" Concludes





Bharat Parv concluded at the Red Fort (Lal Quila), Delhi today in the presence of Shri K.J. Alphons, Minister of State (I/C) for Tourism and Dr. Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State (I/C) for Culture. The Parv was organized by the Ministry of Tourism, Government of India at the Red Fort, Delhi from 26th to 31st January, 2018.

During the closing ceremony, under Adopt a Heritage: Apni Dharohar, Apni Pehchaan" project, Letters of Intent for 40 monuments to 9 agencies of Phase-II and Letters of Intent for 22 monuments to 8 agencies of Phase-III were handed over by the Minister of Culture and the Minister of Tourism.Ministry of Tourism in collaboration with Ministry of Culture and Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), State/UTs Governments and Local bodies launched Adopt a Heritage: Apni Dharohar, Apni Pehchaan" project to preserve the rich cultural and natural heritage and to promote tourism across the length and breadth of our country.

In addition, the MOUs were signed with Adventure Tour Operators Association of India (ATAOI) and State of Jammu & Kashmir for 2 natural sites: (1) Mt Stok Kangri trek route, Laddakh, J&K; and (2) Gangotri Temple Area & Trail to Gaumukh, Uttarakhand.

Addressing on the occasion, Shri K.J. Alphons said that the Adopt a Heritage" project plans to entrust heritage sites to the private sector companies, public sector companies and individuals for the development of tourist amenities. The basic and advanced amenities in the tourist destinations would be provided by them. He called upon people to actively take part in the Swachhta Abhiyan for cleanliness in our tourist destinations.

Dr. Mahesh Sharma in his address said that the Adopt a Heritage" project began with select ASI ticketed monuments and has now expanded to other natural and cultural sites across the country.

People in large number visited the Bharat Parv daily to celebrate the diverse and fascinating culture, cuisine and handicrafts. Today on the last day, the Army, Air Force and Navy presented Static Band and Army also displayed Dynamic Band. The artists from Karnataka presented Veeragase, Jagaligea etc, the artists from Punjab presented Bhangra; the artists from Assam presented Bihu, Bhor Tal Nritya; and the artists from Andhra Pradesh presented Garagalu; The Tableau artists who participated in the Republic Day parade-2018 also performed. At last, the artists of North Zone Cultural Centre (NZCC) presented a Choreographed performance on Pan India Basis.

The Ministry of Tourism was designated as the nodal Ministry for the event, the highlights of which included Display of Republic Day Parade Tableaux, Performances by the Armed Forces Bands (Static as well as dynamic), a Multi-Cuisine Food Court, Crafts Mela, Cultural Performances from different regions of the country and a Photo Exhibition on the theme Naya Bharat Hum Karke Rahenge" by the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP). A live Cookery Demonstration Area was set up in the food court to promote cuisines of different States of India. The Food Court had stalls set up by the States/ UTs, National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI) showcasing street food from different regions as well as by the Institutes of Hotel Managements and ITDC.

The Crafts Mela with 50 stalls showcased the diverse handicrafts of the country, arranged by the State Governments and Ministry of Textiles through the office of the Development Commissioner of Handicrafts. There wereTheme State Pavilions where each State was showcasingits strength along with its tourism products.MoS Dr Jitendra Singh conferred Honorary Doctorate





The Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh was conferred the degree of Honorary Doctorate by Amity University in recognition of his lifetime achievements in the field of academics, research and public life, in Noida today. He was awarded the Degree of Doctorate of Science (D.Sc.) by the University.

The citation read out for Dr Jitendra Singh, during the ceremony, described him as a versatile personality, simultaneously known as an outstanding academician, researcher, medical teacher, author and brilliant orator. The various awards received by him in the past include "Gold Medal for Oration" from Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education & Research (JIPMER) Puducherry and coveted Jamna Devi Gian Devi Award" for journalism.

The citation described Dr Jitendra Singh as an author of eight books and three monograms on various aspects of Diabetes. He has written chapters on Diabetes in leading text books of Medicine and before becoming a Minister, he consecutively wrote a chapter on Diabetes in twelve successive editions of the prestigious "API Textbook of Medicine" published by the Association of Physicians of India.

Among the Diabetes awareness books written by Dr Jitendra Singh, one of the books titled "Diabetes Made Easy" was included in the Best-seller section of the World Book Fare held at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi.

Dr Jitendra Singhs pioneering work on "Stress Diabetes in Kashmiri Migrants" was hailed by the World Health Organization (WHO). He was also a member of the DIPSY Group of researchers who finalized the "Guidelines for Management of Diabetes in Pregnancy" and the same Guidelines were then approved for referral by the WHO. As a teacher of Medicine and Diabetes, Dr Jitendra Singh has been a guide for thesis to nearly two dozen scholars.

The citation also referred to Dr Jitendra Singhs contribution as a Parliamentarian and a Minister in the Government of India, and lauded his brilliant interventions and presentations in the Parliament. It also commended Dr Jitendra Singhs impressive handling of a number of Departments and Ministries under his charge in the Government of India. His hard work, focused approach and down-to-earth attitude had endeared to all cross sections of society, said the citation. The citation also described Dr Jitendra Singh as someone highly revered for his unassuming nature, practical and human approach, both in words and deeds, which makes him a "true son" of India.

In his acceptance speech, Dr Jitendra Singh acknowledged the recognition offered by Amity University, which is the first-of-its-kind International University originating from India. He said, from the emphasis on enhancing availability of education at the time of independence, today the focus is on quality education and to this objective, the Amity has distinguished itself with its alumni spread across the globe and earning laurels in different areas of work. Dr Jitendra Singh said that the present generation of students is fortunate because it has the opportunity to be a part of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi's "New India" mission and they have all the advantages on their side to contribute to the ascent of India as a global power.The industry awoke to the news Tuesday that Amazon.com Inc was joining with Berkshire Hathaway Inc and JPMorgan Chase & Co to form a new health-care business, in an attempt by three of the worlds best-known companies to contain the spiraling cost of keeping their US workers healthy. Other groups of big employers have tried to improve worker health care in the past, but none have dethroned the pharmacy-benefit managers who drug companies and some lawmakers claim arent transparent about the ...

Dear Reader,

Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.

We, however, have a request.



As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.



Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.



Digital EditorBritain's economy will be worse off after Brexit whether it leaves the EU with a free trade deal, single market access, or with no deal at all, according to leaked analysis that fed the view that the government is badly prepared. The "EU Exit Analysis - Cross Whitehall Briefing", dated January 2018, is another blow for Prime Minister Theresa May, under fire for lacking leadership and a clear Brexit strategy as she negotiates Britain's departure from the bloc. A spokesman for the prime minister said the paper leaked to BuzzFeed News was only an initial assessment ...North Korea has denounced US President Donald Trump's administration as a "gross violator of human rights", its state media reported on Wednesday.

The official Korean Central News Agency released its English-language report on Pyongyang's annual white paper on US human rights violations as Trump began his State of the Union speech, in which he condemned the North.

North Korea's rights record is heavily criticised by both the United States and the United Nations, and it is estimated to have up to 120,000 political prisoners in its sprawling gulag system.

Washington issues an annual human rights report which consistently ranks the North among the world's worst offenders, but Pyongyang's document focuses exclusively on the US.

"The US, 'guardian of democracy' and 'human rights champion', is kicking up the human rights racket but it can never camouflage its true identity as the gross violator of human rights," KCNA cited the white paper as saying.

"Racial discrimination and misanthropy are serious maladies inherent to the social system of the US, and they have been aggravated since Trump took office," it said, referencing the violent demonstrations in Charlottesville last year.

Working-class Americans were "hovering in the abyss of a nightmare", it added, deprived of homes and jobs, and facing soaring medical fees.

But several of Trump's top officials are "billionaires from conglomerates", it said, with senior public servants' total assets worth $14 billion.

"The anti-popular policies the Trump administration pursued openly in one year were, without exception, for the interests of a handful of the rich circles," it said.

A UN commission published a searing report in 2014, which concluded North Korea was committing human rights violations "without parallel in the contemporary world".

The report, based on the testimony of hundreds of North Korean exiles, has shored up efforts to pressure Pyongyang for its human rights violations.

Pyongyang has described the report as a work of fiction authored by the United States and its allies.Which Dreamers will be given legal recourse to stay in the U. S., and which ones will be left out? This is the central question surrounding current debate in Washington over a group of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.

S. as children. The scramble for a solution has taken on greater urgency since the Trump administration announced that DACA would be phased out and ended in March 2018. That deadline is currently on hold due to a federal court ruling  but a battle in Congress over the Dreamers fate closed the federal government for 69 hours ...Delhi's Patiala House Court on Wednesday adjourned the hearing against gangster Abu Salem in 2002 Delhi Extortion for February 21.

On January 16, Salem claimed that the prosecution did not have enough evidence against him in the 2002 Delhi Extortion case.

Through his lawyer, the gangster also claimed in Patiala House court that he was being tried in the case, in violation of an order by which he was extradited to India from Portugal in 2005.

Earlier on January 11, the apex court upheld the writ petition filed by the gangster to be 'infructuous'. In the petition, Salem had sought that direction be given to the Centre to send him back to Portugal as it had allegedly flouted rules while seeking his deportation.

Salem is facing trial for allegedly demanding Rs 5 crore as protection money from Delhi businessman Ashok Gupta in 2002.

He has already been granted bail regarding the case; however, he continues to be in jail on various other cases, including the 1993 Mumbai blasts case.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Sixth Pay Commission of has recommended a 30 percent hike in the salaries of the state government employees.

The Sixth State Pay Commission, appointed by the Government in June 2017, on Wednesday recommended the hike by submitting the first volume of its report to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.

The state commission, headed by former IAS officer M R Srinivasa Murthy, submitted the report to the Chief Minister.

More than five lakh employees of the government will get a 30 per cent salary hike if the Congress-ruled state approves the recommendation.

(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 Supreme Court on Wednesday directed that two doctors from All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) would supervise the case of the eight-month-old baby, who was raped by her cousin, and thereafter take a decision.

The apex court said, it is "very much concerned" about the 8-month-old infant, allegedly raped by her cousin and orders Delhi Legal Services Authority to assist in the case.

The apex court fixed the matter for further hearing on February 1.

During the hearing, The three-judge bench of the Apex Court, headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra and also comprising Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud, directed that two competent doctors from AIIMS would supervise the entire case and thereafter take a decision to whether to shift her to AIIMS or what could be the best possible step, for the Child.

Lawyer and Petitioner of the case demanded death penalty as punishment for people who are found guilty in rape of children aged between 0-12 years under POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act) Act 2012.

"As of now, Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act only provide maximum punishment of life imprisonment. So I have said that rape cases in which there is victim of 0-12 years of age, max punishment should be death penalty," Alakh Alok Srivastava, lawyer and petitioner told ANI.

The Supreme Court was hearing plea in the alleged rape of eight-month-old infant girl by her 27-year-old cousin in in northwest Delhi's Shakurbasti.

The incident came to light on Monday, when the infant was admitted to a local hospital.

The brutal crime took place when the girl's parents, both working, had left her at their relatives' house.

The victim is now battling for her life after undergoing a three-hour-long operation in Kalawati Saran Hospital while the accused cousin brother has been arrested from his house only. (ANI)

The petition also sought directions for authorities to shift the infant to a better hospital and ensure a compensation of Rs 10 Lakh for the family.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Feb. 1 (ANI)

The yesterday's meeting comes hours after U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan urged Afghanistan to initiate talks with Pakistan.

In the meeting, the delegation, comprising Afghan Interior Minister Wais Ahmad Barmak and head of intelligence agency National Directorate of Security Masoom Stanikzai, handed over the evidence to their Pakistani counterparts.

After attacks on Kabul's Intercontinental Hotel, an NGO's office in Jalalabad and suicide car bombing, wherein over 100 people have died, has increased tensions between the two countries.

The attacks led Afghanistan to accuse Pakistan of being involved in the terrorist attacks.

In response, Pakistani authorities outrightly dismissed the charges and called for "a credible investigation" into the attacks.

The two-member delegation is also scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and military officials.

Afghanistan's ambassador to Pakistan Omar Zakhilwal, according to Voice of America, has confirmed that Barmak and Stanikzai would hold talks with Pakistani PM and Inter Service Intelligence agency's leadership.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE) has issued an avalanche warning in several districts of Jammu and Kashmir for next 24 hours.

The SASE has issued a medium-danger avalanche warning of level-3 in higher reaches of Baramulla district and low danger warning of level-2 in Kupwara, Bandipore, Shopian and Kargil districts.

The agency has also issued a low-danger warning of level-1 in Poonch, Rajouri, Reasi, Ramban, Doda, Kishtwar, Udhampur, Anantnag, Kulgam, Budgam, Ganderbal and Leh districts.

It has asked people in the higher reaches of these districts to avoid movement in the avalanche-prone areas for the next 24 hours.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Bombay High Court Judge, Justice B. R. Gavai on Wednesday recused himself from hearing anticipatory bail application of Milind Ekbote, one of the prime accused in the Bhima Koregaon violence case.

Ekbote's lawyer will mention the matter again before some other bench later today.

Ekbote's plea was mentioned before the bench, led by Justice Gavai on Monday after a sessions court refused to grant him any interim protection from arrest last week.

Last week, a special court in Pune had rejected a plea for anticipatory bail filed by Ekbote, facing charges of inciting violence at Bhima Koregaon.

Two FIRs were registered against Ekbote alleging his role in the violence at Bhima Koregaon at a time when Dalits in huge numbers had gathered in Perne village to mark 200th year of the Battle of Bhima Koregaon.

Ekbote is facing charges for inciting violence, attempt to murder and atrocities against Dalits.

On January 1, the violence left at Bhima Koregaon left one dead and injured several others, including 10 policemen.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)With the presentation of this year's Union Budget slated for Thursday, consumer durable majors are looking forward with hope to government initiatives such as 'Make in India' to improve India's Ease of Doing

In addition to this, the segment is also looking forward to a much-needed reduction in corporate tax.

Here are some of the key expectations of this sector:

SYSKA Group

"Make-in-India initiative of the Government would be very helpful in reducing the fiscal deficit and generating employment in India. Further, the emphasis of the government to move towards LED under the energy conservation policy promises immense savings of electricity. Also, the recent move to increase import duty on LEDs would support energy conservation under 'Make-in-India' to a great extent", said Rajesh Uttamchandani, Director, SYSKA Group.

Hero Cycles

"There is need to promote Research & Development (R&D) in electric vehicles to make them more efficient and have higher throughput. I'm looking forward that the government will announce incentives for private companies to invest more in R&D in these fields in Budget 2018. Higher efficiency and power in these vehicles will make it easy for them to become popular. I expect the government will move even forward in its commitment on 'Ease Of Doing Business' and bring in even more measures for promoting and industry and revisit Corporate Tax rates in the country which are among the highest in the world," said Pankaj Munjal, CMD, Hero Cycles.

Akai India

"The consumer durable market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 13 per cent from FY05 to FY20 which reflects the huge potential of this sector which is yet to be unleashed. Currently the government has placed refrigerators, washing machines and other electronics of daily use in the 28 percent slab rate under the goods and services tax. We expect the 2018 budget to east the slab rate and place the appliances under the 18 percent slab. After all, the consumer durables electronics and appliances industry is no more a luxury but a necessity for consumers at large," said Anurag Sharma Director of Akai India.

Kairali Ayurvedic Group

"With the 2018 Budget we at Kairali would like the support of the Government to propagate Ayurveda across the globe and similar to yoga. Market the same as a proprietary science of India. This will create an added level of authenticity and mark India as the main place to get treatments done via this alternative medicine. This will enhance medical tourist visiting India. We also would like the Government to allocate more funds to improve infrastructure to various destinations across India with a focus on tourism," said Abhilash K Ramesh, Executive Director, Kairali Ayurvedic Group.

Voylla Fashions Pvt. Ltd.

One of the biggest roadblocks to growth for e-commerce companies has been the cash on delivery (COD) format. It has been established that indirect cost of COD services are much higher than direct costs due to large share of COD transactions (as high as 60 percent by some estimates). This is hurting small and medium companies especially. Incentivising digital payments may help drive digital transactions. The government could also consider granting industry status to the retail sector, so that it can attract more investments and be able to deal with volatile market situations, with an eye on profitability and sustainability," said Prashant Sharma- CFO, Voylla Fashions Pvt. Ltd.

Cox & Kings Ltd.

"The tourism industry is one of the key drivers in terms of employment generation and inclusive growth. According to the tourism ministry, the tourism sector contributes 6.88 percent to the country's total GDP, besides 12.36 percent of the total employment in terms of jobs and it is imperative that the government takes important steps to nurture this industry. In order to boost domestic and inbound tourism, the government should reduce the Goods and Services Tax (GST), which is 18 percent for hotel room rates in the Rs 2,500-7,500 category. This is very high compared to our competing destinations and hence it's important to rationalise this rate to stay competitive," said Peter Kerkar, Group CEO, Cox & Kings Ltd.

Bigbasket

"The implementation of GST has helped us in effectively selling unique products of one state at same price across the nation. For most of the products, prices have come down. If the rates are lowered further, it would be great. The customers will benefit more. But beyond GST, I am not expecting any major reforms in this year's budget from the side. I feel that the budget should focus on the following two sectors: skill development and job creation; and infrastructure. Though there has been a lot of work going on in these sectors, a further fillip to these in the upcoming budget would be a positive step," said Hari Menon, Co-Founder and CEO, bigbasket.

Dwarikesh Sugar Industries Ltd

"It is suggested that planned reduction in corporate tax rates may be accompanied with at least 1 percent rate cut each year may also be extended for all domestic companies effective from FY 2018-19 to boost the confidence among taxpaying industry. It would be appropriate to remove the levy of surcharge and education cess on corporate and non-corporate taxpayers. Also, consistent with the reduction of rates of tax, the rate of DDT may also be reduced suitably so as to be competitive in terms of the comprehensive tax burden. Similarly, the income tax rates for unincorporated bodies i.e. Firm, Limited Liability Partnership (LLPs), should also be reduced to 25 from the current 30 percent," said B. J. Maheshwari, Wholetime director and CS cum CCO, Dwarikesh Sugar Industries Ltd.

On a related note, the Budget will be presented on Thursday by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

This will be the last full-fledged budget of the Narendra Modi-led government and the first post the rollout of the GST.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri on Wednesday said that the Centre was planning to amend the Master Plan 2021 for Delhi to provide a relief to traders from the ongoing sealing drive in the capital.

Addressing the media here, the Union Minister said, "We are actually going to address the Master Plan and we are in the process of amending the Master plan. We have appealed the Delhi administration to address some problems".

A Supreme Court-appointed Monitoring Committee is carrying out the sealing drive in the capital against business establishments using residential properties for commercial purposes.

He further said that they will meet the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) with following proposals - "to provide uniform Floor area ratio (FAR) in shop cum residence plots, complexes, operating and commercial streets, residential areas, commercial centres, local shopping centres and to raise the exact amount."

The Centre is also mulling to allow commercial activities in basements in all commercial street areas, subject to payment of requisite charges and to reduce penalty charges in case of non-registration of shop cum residence.

"We are also preparing policies for godown clusters existing in non-conforming areas and agricultural land for the regularisation", he added.

Expressing disappointment over Delhi's condition, he said, "Delhi which I see now pains me. It is becoming congested. So I think with this we are starting a new process and we can count on everyone."

.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Delhi government on Wednesday approved the creation of posts of Hospital Managers in government hospitals.

The decision has been taken to allow doctors to concentrate more on clinical service.

Last year in September, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had asked the Lieutenant Governor (L-G) Anil Baijal to draw his attention to the 'ailing' health infrastructure in the hospitals.

In a letter, Kejriwal informed Baijal about the shortage of staff in Delhi government hospitals and asked him to take immediate measures to fill vacant posts.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Four people sustained burn injuries on Tuesday after a fire broke out at a flour mill in Thane district's Dongri city.

Reportedly, the mill, located in Dongri's Mohommadi Manzil, caught fire in the afternoon after which a fire tender was called to douse it.

A probe has been initiated to determine the cause of the incident.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) on Wednesday urged Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to grant martyr status to Chandan Gupta, the man who died in the recent violence in Kasganj.

The VHP urged Adityanath to acknowledge the loss and deliver justice to Gupta's kin.

Demanding a government job for a member of Gupta's family, the VHP also requested Adityanath to give a compensation of Rs.50 lakh and a house to the kin of the deceased.

The VHP further asked Adityanath to give orders to free all Hindu youth who have been arrested by the police following the Kasganj violence.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Tech giant Google has announced the closure of a USD 1.1 billion deal with smartphone maker HTC, following which the former is set to acquire the latter's design talent.

"I'm delighted that we've officially closed our deal with HTC, and are welcoming an incredibly talented team to work on even better and more innovative products in the years to come. These new colleagues bring decades of experience achieving a series of "firsts" particularly in the smartphone industry-including bringing to market the first 3G smartphone in 2005, the first touch-centric phone in 2007, and the first all-metal unibody phone in 2013. This is also the same team we've been working closely with on the development of the Pixel and Pixel 2," Google's Senior VP- Hardware, Rick Osterloh, wrote in a blog post.

In a journey undertaken towards the expansion of Google's hardware division, Osterloh reiterated the company's commitment to building and investing for the long run.

"It's been a busy few months since we introduced our second-generation family of Made by Google products. We've heard from so many of you that our new products have been helpful in your everyday lives-whether you're taking stunning portrait mode photos with the new Pixel 2, getting hands-free help around the house with the Google Home Mini, or using real-time translation in 40 languages with Google Pixel Buds. But even with all the great things these products can do, building hardware is hard, and there's still a long journey ahead," he wrote.

As per the blog, the closure of the deal symbolises Google's expansion of footprint in the Asia Pacific region, with Taiwan as a key innovation and engineering hub for the company.

As per the deal, more than 2,000 HTC engineers, including a large majority of the company's smartphone R&D team are reportedly moving to Google, and will remain in Taiwan, reports The Verge.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Tuesday ordered a criminal investigation into claims that former doctor Larry Nassar abused some of his victims at a Texas ranch that was the training ground for U.S. women's gymnastics.

Several gymnasts have said that Nassar abused them at the ranch. Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison last week. More than 150 women and girls have said he had molested them under the pretext of medical treatment.

Abbott called the allegations "gut-wrenching" and ordered the state investigation, as the claims involve multiple jurisdictions and states.

"Those athletes, as well as all Texans, deserve to know that no stone is left unturned to ensure that the allegations are thoroughly vetted and the perpetrators and enablers of any such misconduct are brought to justice. The people of Texas demand and the victims deserve, nothing less," Fox News quoted Abbott as saying.

The ranch is owned by former national team coordinators Bela and Martha Karolyi. USA Gymnastics cut ties with the ranch earlier this month, a few days after Olympic champion Simone Biles and said she dreaded the thought of having to return there to train. Other gymnasts have also said they were abused at the ranch.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The head of Hawaii's emergency management agency has resigned and a state employee who sent out a false alarm of an incoming ballistic missile has been fired, officials said on Tuesday, after the mistake caused statewide panic earlier this month.

The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, according to the Washington Post, issued the threat alarm at 8:07 a.m. on January 13 and two minutes later the alert was sent across the state, to which Hawaiian Governor David Ige was told that it was a false one.

Ige later admitted that there was a delay in notifying the public about the false missile alert earlier this month as he did not know the password of his Twitter account.

On January 13, Hawaiian citizens received an emergency alert on their phones that read, "BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL."

Approximately 38 minutes following the alert, the Hawaii authority took to Twitter to inform that there was, "NO missile threat" to the state.

The White House issued a statement on the false alarm, noting that United States President Donald Trump had been briefed on the incident.Ahead of the presentation of the Union Budget 2018-19, the healthcare industry is one that has been anticipated to gain significant importance in the Budget allocation.

In the past few weeks, reports on infrastructure for healthcare, greater attention to curbing malnutrition and the establishment of better medical facilities have been doing rounds.

Apart from this, here are some key expectations from the sector:

"We sincerely hope healthcare industry would be given some leeway in terms of GST implementation. This will ensure better services to patients by healthcare providers. This will also result in greater accessibility of care and services by the common man. The government must also come out with clear roadmap to make medical insurance more popular. It must also exclude the medical insurance premium exempt from the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Given the acute shortage of manpower, there is need to industry representation in central universities and even medical colleges so that healthcare industry can source talent appropriately," said Dr Dharminder Nagar MD, Paras Healthcare.

"We look to forward to government's support to address 3A's of Affordability, Accessibility and Accountability to make healthcare ecosystem accessible to all. The GST cost could be exempted by the government as it is passed to the patients making a rise in the cost of healthcare. The government also needs to work towards manufacturing medical devices in India to reduce the cost and increase availability for all patients. We also request the government to work towards increasing accessibility by supporting PPP models, providing subsidies, investment to private players and welcome opportunities for start-ups. We are hoping the government to encourage private healthcare providers by lessening the pressure and intervention in private investment. In addition to this, the government should also focus on CGHS hospitals and better usage of the amount provided to them to make services available to masses," said Ravi Virmani, CEO and Founder, Credihealth.

"Critical care equipments like Ventilator, Oxygen Concentrator, BIPAP, and CPAP are under 12 percent GST and 7.5 percent Customs Duty. Since these are life saving equipments, these should be made tax free. Mobility Assist equipments like wheel chair / Walking stick / Crunches are under 5-7.5 percent GST. Under VAT they were tax free. The mobility assist equipments should be made tax free. Spare parts for all medical equipment are being taxed at 28 percent GST. This is too high and should be taxed at a lower rate as the original equipment," said ?Meena Ganesh, MD and CEO, Portea Medical.

On a related note, the Budget will be presented on Thursday by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

This will be the last full-fledged budget of the Narendra Modi-led government and the first post the rollout of the GST.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A masked man looted money from a couple while holding their child at gunpoint in an ATM of Punjab Bank in Indore.

The incident that took place at around 8:30 pm on December 24, 2017 was captured on a CCTV camera installed inside the ATM.

The CCTV footage shows a couple with their child inside the ATM while a masked man is standing behind the father of the child.

The robber can be seen scaring the couple by pointing his gun at their child.

The father withdraws money from the ATM and hands over the cash to the robber.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)United States President Donald Trump has forcefully talked about the challenges that "rivals like China and Russia" pose to his country in his first official State of the Union speech.

"As we rebuild America's strength and confidence at home we are also restoring our strength and standing abroad," Trump added, "around the we face rogue regimes, terror groups and rivals like China and Russia that challenge our interests, economy and values."

According to the administration's new National Defense Strategy revealed this month, the Pentagon singles out China and Russia as the "central challenge" faced by the US armed forces.

"In confronting these dangers, we know that weakness is the surest path to conflict, and unmatched power is the surest means of our defense," the US President added.

In addition to this, Trump asked the US Congress for more money for defense spending to rebuild the military.

"As part of our defense, we must modernize and rebuild our nuclear arsenal, hopefully never having to use it, but making it so strong and powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression," Trump underscored.

Trump dwelled upon Islamic State (IS) and terrorism.

"We will continue our fight until ISIS is defeated," Trump added, "Terrorists are not merely criminals. They are unlawful enemy combatants. And when captured overseas, they should be treated like the terrorists they are."

Trump, earlier in his speech, announced that he has signed an executive order to keep the detention to keep the detention facility at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay open.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the Centre to file a response on the plea that alleged that the Border Security Force (BSF) is stopping Rohingya refugees from entering India.

The three judge apex court, comprising of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A M Khanwilkar and Justice D Y Chandrachud sought a response from Centre.

Counsel Prashant Bhushan, who is appearing for one of the petitioners, Mohammed Sallimullah, apprised the apex court that the Rohingyas who want to come to India should not be pushed back by the BSF.

Bhushan said that the BSF are allegedly using chilli powder to push them. And that this kind of act is gross violation of the international conventions on refugees.

Meanwhile, appearing for the Centre, Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta requested the court to not meddle in as the "constitutionally empowered executive was seized of the matter and the diplomatic process is on to deal with the situation".

The Rohingya immigrants, who fled to India after violence in the Western Rakhine state of Myanmar, have settled in Jammu, Hyderabad, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi-NCR and Rajasthan.

More than 600,000 Rohingya are languishing in Bangladeshi refugee camps after fleeing a brutal Myanmar army campaign launched in late August.

Meanwhile, the UN has said the scorched-earth operation, which has left hundreds of villages burned to ash in northern Rakhine state, amounts to ethnic cleansing.

Noted lawyer and senior Supreme Court advocate, Prashant Bhushan, appearing for one of the petitioners, Mohammed Sallimullah, submitted to the Apex Court that those Rohingyas who want to come to India should not be pushed back by the BSF. The force is allegedly using chilli powder to push them. He said this kind of alleged act is gross violation of the international conventions on refugees.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)In new breakthrough digital initiatives and firsts by any Sector Skill Council in India, Rubber Skill Development Council (RSDC) has launched simulated e-learning content and mobile app to provide the ease in connecting with the target segment by introducing the courses online and benefitting the students and those looking for up skilling in rubber.

RSDC has been set up by All India Rubber Industries Association (AIRIA) and Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association (ATMA) in collaboration with National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC).

"Both e-learning content and mobile app have been launched to widen the reach of skill training to many more aspirants in the country. In its own way the e-learning and mobile content furthers the Skill India Mission of the government of India to provide vocational training to millions," said CEO, RSDC, Meghna Mishra.

Apart from domain specific qualification packs, the content also plans to offer courses on soft skills, languages and digital literacy so as to improve the job prospects of those seeking training.

"The e-learning platform will ensure ease of skill training for all so that they could transcend environmental and circumstantial challenges and get trained at their pace and place," added Mishra.

For those looking for trained manpower in rubber sector, the skilled manpower is now just a download away.

The employers will not just be able to get skilled manpower but will also be able to ensure a robust skilling environment at the work places by re-skilling existing workforce and creating their own training centres.

Those looking for skills updation will be able to know more about certificate courses of RSDC and also locate the nearest training centres.

RSDC is hopeful that all the stakeholders will help in promoting the usage of online contents so that many more benefit from the program, that has been painstakingly put together.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)August 28, 2021, Saturday

The US Intelligence Community assesses that the origins of the novel coronavirus disease may never be definitively identified ...Lawyers representing former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday sought more time from the Supreme Court to prepare themselves well for a case pertaining to the time period required for disqualifying lawmakers.

According to the Geo TV, Nawaz's counsel Azam Tarar made this request to an apex court bench headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar.

The hearing is underway to determine the duration of disqualification of elected officials on the violation of Article 62(1)(f) and other related laws.

Justice Nisar accepted the plea and directed Tarar to come prepared next week.

The Pakistan Supreme Court had, on July 28, disqualified Sharif from holding the office of the prime minister and asked the National Accountability Bureau to file references against the Sharif family in connection with corruption cases against them.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A slum dweller family has imbibed the 'Atithi Devo Bhava' in full spirit as it proposed an idea of slum homestay in Mumbai.

This opportunity would be especially for foreign tourists, who want to gain a closer perspective of the slum life of the city.

Ravi Tonia Sansi, along with his family of 16 members, has made this arrangement in their small house of 12*6 feet at Golibar area of Santacruz.

In order to accommodate the guests, they have built another room adjacent to their house. Apart from this, they have also re-furbished the room on the first floor. This room has been equipped with a mattress, a big flat screen TV and a window air-conditioner.

The hosts aim to provide a real feeling to the tourists of living in a Mumbai slum. The idea has been proposed by David Bijil, a native of Netherlands who supervises the NGO where Ravi Tonia works. He himself got a chance to experience the hospitality of the 'Tonia' family and being impressed upon, he decided to use it to help the family to eke out a living.

Speaking on the same, David said, "This initiative can help them financially. It is also help to create a connection between two groups of people- poor and high class. This is not about idealising slums. Living in slums is difficult. t is valuable to show how people live here."

Initially, the family used to sell maps to the tourists at Mumbai streets which got negatively affected due to the development of GPS navigation system.

Ravi Tonia initially refused to charge any money saying that he doesn't need any money; they don't have surplus money but whatever they have is enough for basic subsistence.

Though, on the insistence of David Bijli, the family agreed to charge Rs. 2000 per day to allow the tourists to stay at their home in lieu of the facilities.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Sreejith who has been protesting for last 800 days demanding CBI inquiry into custodial death of his brother Sreejeev, ended his protest on Wednesday after the probe agency recorded his statement.

Sreejith had been protesting outside the Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram.

The CBI earlier this month had agreed to probe the alleged death of Sreejeev in police custody.

The state government had in July last year written to the Centre for a CBI investigation as some police personnel were accused in the case registered in Parassala police station.

However, the plea was rejected by CBI stating they had an overload of cases and this particular incident did not come under the rarest of rare cases.

Sreejeev, died at a Thiruvananthapuram hospital on March 21, 2014, allegedly due to police torture. He was taken into custody in an alleged case of theft.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A Delhi Court on Wednesday dismissed the bail plea of separatist leader Shabir Shah in terror funding case.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on September 23 had, told the court that Shah admitted to receiving funds from Pakistan's terror outfits to spread terror in Jammu and Kashmir and others parts of the country.

The chargesheet filed by the ED stated that the separatist had admitted of talking to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) founder Hafiz Saeed on phone on the issue of Kashmir and had last spoke to him in January this year.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Indian Navy on Wednesday launched indigenously built third Scorpene-class submarine INS Karanj at Mazagon dock in Mumbai.

INS Karanj will now undergo rigorous trials and tests, both in harbour and at sea before it is commissioned into the Indian Navy.

The submarine was launched by President of Navy Wives Welfare Association Reena Lanba.

Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Sunil Lanba was the chief guest on the occasion and several senior officers and dignitaries from the defence and the civil administration were present on the occasion.

Admiral Sunil Lanba underscored that the old Karanj had served the nation for 34 years from 1969 to 2003 including participation in 1971 war.

The contract for the construction and Transfer-of-Technology for six Scorpene submarines in series has M/s Naval Group (formerly DCNS) of France as 'Collaborator' and are being built by MDL.

The state-of-the-art technology utilised for construction of the Scorpene class submarines has ensured superior stealth features such as advanced acoustic silencing techniques, low radiated noise levels, hydro-dynamically optimised shape and the ability to launch a crippling attack on the enemy using precision-guided weapons.

The attack can be launched with both torpedoes and tube launched anti-ship missiles, whilst underwater or on the surface.

Scorpene submarines can undertake multifarious types of missions i.e Anti-Surface warfare, Anti-Submarine warfare, intelligence gathering, mine laying, area surveillance etc.

The submarine is designed to operate in all theatres, with means provided to ensure interoperability with other components of a Naval Task Force. It is a potent platform, marking a generational shift in submarine operations.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)United States President Donald Trump has taken a swipe on North Korea in his first official State of the Union speech and has underscored the "cruel dictatorship" in the reclusive country.

"No regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally and more brutally than the cruel dictatorship in North Korea," Trump said.

The US President also used the occasion to highlight how North Korea's "reckless pursuit" of nuclear missiles could threaten the former's country soon.

" Its [North Korea's] reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland. We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from ever happening," Trump added.

Last year, North Korea test launched at least three intercontinental ballistic missiles, including a Hwasong-15 in late November, that raised concerns in the U.S. defense community.

Attacking the past administrations Trump said,"Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation," adding, "I will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got us into this dangerous position."

Trump narrated the story of Otto Warmbier, the 22-year-old American student tortured in North Korea who died shortly after he returned to the US last year.

Warmbier's parents were in the chamber along with his brother and sister.

"You are powerful witnesses to a menace that threatens our world, and your strength truly inspires us all," the President said after introducing the family. "Tonight, we pledge to honour Otto's memory with total American resolve."

The US and North Korea have long been engaged in back-and-forth barbs over the latter's threat of a nuclear attack.

Trump threatened to rain "fire and fury" on North Korea and also called Kim Jong-un as "Little Rocket Man", while North Korea denounced Trump as a "mentally deranged U.S. dotard.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Two Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leaders were arrested on Wednesday for plotting an attack on policemen and snatching two party activists from a prison van in Dhaka.

The Daily Star quoted Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner Asaduzzaman Mia as saying that BNP Standing Committee Member Gayeshwar Chandra Roy was arrested from in front of Police Plaza, while BNP's Assistant Organising Secretary Aninda Islam Amit was picked up from his Shantinagar house.

"We arrested him [Gayeshwar] after getting specific evidence that he gave instructions for attacking policemen," the said DMP chief.

BNP Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi condemned the arrest of two party leaders and demanded his immediate release.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Moody's Japan K. K. says that aging populations in Asia Pacific's advanced economies pose some risks in the long term for structured finance transactions, by potentially driving up the average age of underlying borrowers, which can lead to increased risks of delinquencies and defaults, and weighing on the broader economic environment.

"However, any future impact on transactions will likely be minimal due to several mitigating factors, such as the tight eligibility criteria used in deals and the underwriting criteria applied by the originators of the underlying assets," says Naomi Fujiwara, a Moody's Assistant Vice President and Analyst.

"Aging populations can weigh on economic growth and households savings rates. In the absence of offsetting productivity gains, a shrinking labor force, which generally occurs when the population ages, implies a slowdown in real GDP growth," says Christian de Guzman, a Moody's Vice President and Senior Credit Officer.

The largest collateral exposure of the structured finance transactions Moody's rates in Asia Pacific is to Japan and Australia. Korea has one of the largest structured finance markets in Asia Pacific and the country's population is aging rapidly.

"The United Nations expects the proportion of the Japanese population aged 65 and older to climb to 30% by 2030 from 17% in 2000 making Japan the oldest country in the world.

Korea's population is aging even more rapidly, while the corresponding rate for Australia is much slower," says de Guzman.

Moody's notes several risks related to older borrowers. They carry higher mortality-related risks -- the risk that people will die before paying off their loans and that a loss will be incurred on the loan as a result.

Older borrowers are also generally less resilient to income shocks than younger employed people. The drop in income in Japan, Korea and Australia becomes pronounced as income earners move into the 60 and above age group. However, in Japan, the drop is smaller in magnitude compared to Korea and Australia, because more elderly people in Japan stay in the workforce and continue to earn wages.

Despite the risks associated with aging populations for structured deals, Moody's report highlights that the performance of Japanese auto loan and installment sales loan asset-backed securities (ABS) has not deteriorated, even though the age of underlying borrowers at closing has been increasing in line with the aging population.

In Korea -- where the proportion of card holders aged 50 and above in credit card ABS that we rate has increased from less than 20% in 2011 to more than 25% in 2017 -- there has been no negative effect on performance, with eligibility criteria preventing less credit-worthy borrowers from being included in securitized pools.

And, in Australia, mortgage lending to older people and retirees is common, but the exposure to retirees in RMBS is very low.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PHDCCI) and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce (Phil) Inc. on Friday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) as per which the two organizations have agreed to promote development of bilateral economic relations with specific focus on MSMEs among others by providing a platform for business meet, discussions and exploration of business opportunities in trade, investments, technology transfer, services and other sectors.

The MoU also provides for aggressively working with Governments of India and that of Philippines to also enhance people to people interaction which would develop into a mutually beneficial friendship between the two countries.

The MoU has been signed respectively by Presidents of PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce (Phil) Inc. (FICCI) Mr. Anil Khaitan and Mr. Rex Daryanani.

The Principal Director of the PHD Chamber, Dr. Ranjeet Mehta was also present on the occasion among others.

As per other stipulations of the MoU, the two Chambers have also agreed to develop strong institutional, trade and business relations in order to establish a sustainable mechanism of dialogue and platform for discussions as also concurred to exchange information on general economic status, taxation investment opportunities, trade policies and legislative changes of their respective countries in a bid to strengthen trade technological and industrial collaboration between India and Philippines.

It also provides for to regularly exchange information publications and material concerning economic development, foreign trade and investment policies of their respective countries. In addition, it has also been agreed to establish effective and systematic consultation and cooperation particularly on the trade and investment policies of India and Philippines including specific policy developments in Members Countries.

Besides, it was also agreed between the two Chambers to co-operate on all program of trade promotion and commercialization between India, Philippines and other ASEAN Countries and assist each other in development of Pilot Projects in MSME sector in designated area in India, Philippines and ASEAN coordinated by both PHD Chamber and FICCI.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Government of India today signed a $250 million loan to finance the construction of 6,254 kilometres all-weather rural roads in the States of Assam, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal under the Prime Minister's Rural Roads Program (PMGSY).

The First Tranche Loan is part of the $500 million Second Rural Connectivity Investment Program for India approved by the ADB Board in December 2017. The program is aimed at improving rural connectivity, facilitating safer and more efficient access to livelihood and socio-economic opportunities for rural communities through improvements to about 12,000 kilometres Rural Roads across the 5 States.

Mr. Sameer Kumar, Khare, Joint Secretary (Multilateral Institutions), Department of Economic Affairs in the Government's Ministry of Financesigned the loan agreement on behalf of Government of India. Speaking on the occasion, Mr Khare said that the ADB-funded investment program will provide continued assistance to the PMGSY and support the Government's long-term goal for rural development.

He said that the programme is likely to have a transformative impact in terms of rural economy and would also bring in greater efficiency in terms of access and connectivity for the rural people in the five States. Under the project, about 2,000 technical personnel would be imparted training on road safety and maintenance.

Mr. Kenichi Yokoyama, Country Director of ADB's India Resident Mission who signed the agreement for ADB, said that the investment program will support the Government's drive for innovative approaches to reduce costs, conserve non-renewable natural resources, and promote the use of waste materials in rural road construction. He said that road maintenance will be ensured through the provision of a 5-year post-construction maintenance in each civil works contract.

The investment program builds on the $800 million ADB-financed first Rural Connectivity Investment Program in 2012 that added about 9,000 kilometres of all-weather rural roads in the same States.

In view of increased rainfall and storm surges in the project States, the road designs will take into account these climate risks with measures such as greater elevation of road embankments, slope protection, and better drainage in flood-prone areas. Women were extensively consulted during the project design and will gain some key benefits, including improved access to healthcare, livelihoods, and schooling.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)At least three people were killed and two others injured when a helicopter crashed on Tuesday into a house in California, US.

"Five persons involved, 4 in helicopter and one bystander on the ground. Confirmed 3 fatalities," Newport Beach Police tweeted. "Nobody was inside the home where the chopper went down."

The four-seat Robinson 44 helicopter, which was owned by Revolution Aviation, crashed on Shearwater Place near Bristol Street and Bayview Place, Xinhua reported.

A witness who spoke to CBS Los Angeles said he saw the chopper "drop like a rock."

According to the company's website, Revolution Aviation has been operating since the 1960s, offering pilot training and sightseeing trips. It also boasts a 100-per cent safety record.

--IANS

qd/

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Wednesday refused to take a call from Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi but discussed the "need for an end to terrorist sanctuaries" with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Prime Minsiter Modi called me to offer condolences on the recent senseless killings of civilians by the enemies of humanity," Ghani tweeted. But the media reports said Ghani refused to speak to Abbasi when the latter telephoned to offer condolences.

The Afghan President said he discussed the need for an end to terrorist sanctuaries in "our neighbourhood", an apparent reference to Pakistan, and said India had always been a "good friend of Afghans, sharing our pain and grief".

TOLO News said Abbasi telephoned Ghani "in connection with the spate of recent attacks in Afghanistan".

Ghani had sent a delegation to Islamabad "to hand over evidence related to recent attacks in Kabul" to be shared with the Pakistan Army.

Kabul accuses Islamabad of backing terrorist groups which have killed hundreds in Afghanistan.

--IANS

ahm/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)China on Wednesday urged Washington to work together to resolve their differences and maintain stable development in bilateral relations following US President Donald Trump's State of the Union address in which he called Beijing a "rival".

Trump in his Tuesday night speech said "Russia and China were challenging American values and interests".

"We hope that the US abandons the outdated Cold War mentality to work with China to properly manage our differences and uphold the steady and healthy development of China-US relations," China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said in a press conference.

"China and US share broad and common interests while we also have some divergences and differences. The facts and history have showed that win-win cooperation is the only viable choice for us," she said.

Asked about diplomatic tensions between the US and Russia, the spokesperson said Beijing-Moscow relations would not be affected by external factors.

--IANS

soni/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Indian Army has filed a counter FIR in the firing incident in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir, informed sources said on Wednesday.

The counter FIR was filed on January 28 in response to an FIR lodged by the Jammu and Kashmir Police over the killing of civilians that mentions soldiers from 10 Garhwal Rifles as the accused.

Three youths were killed in Ganowpora village of Shopian district in south Kashmir on January 27, when security forces opened fire after an army convoy came under a stone pelting attack.

Two youths, identified as Javaid Ahmad and Suhail Ahmad, died of bullet injuries the same day, while another, 19-year-old Rayees Ahmad Ganai, who was admitted in the hospital on Saturday, succumbed to his injuries on Wednesday morning.

In a statement, the Indian Army said the administrative convoy was passing through Ganaupura chowk when it came under "unprovoked and intense stone pelting" by a group of 100-120 people.

The army said the crowd surrounded an isolated portion of the convoy consisting of four vehicles. A Junior Commissioned Officer accompanying the convoy got hit on the head and fell unconscious suffering serious injury.

Considering the "extreme gravity of the situation, the army was constrained to open fire in self defence", it said.

The state Bharatiya Janata Party has demanded withdrawal of the FIR, while Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said the investigation into the killings of the civilians would be taken to its logical conclusion.

A magisterial probe has also been ordered by the state government into the firing incident.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Automobile manufacturer Hyundai Motor India (HMIL) on Wednesday said that it will showcase "15 exciting cars" and technologies at the upcoming Auto Expo 2018.

"Hyundai is celebrating 20 years of its production and sales in India. This year our theme for Auto Expo 2018 is 'Experience Hyundai' showcasing eco-friendly, mobility and connected technologies along with 15 trendsetter products," Y.K. KOO, MD and CEO Hyundai Motor India was quoted in a statement.

The company will showcase "IONIQ" which it said is the world's first car to offer all three electrified versions "hybrid; plug-in and all electric".

"It is a benchmark for alternative fuel vehicles with attractive design and engaging driving experience," the statement said.

--IANS

rv/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Abul Bajandar, better known as Bangladesh's "tree man" for large bark-like warts on his body, remained in hospital on Wednesday, with doctors saying he might need fresh surgeries in coming days.

Bajandar, 27, has been living in a twin-bed room in the Dhaka Medical College Hospital for the last two years and has undergone 19 surgeries to remove the warts on his body that were the result of a rare genetic disorder that is incurable.

"He could need one or two operations more but we are not going to release him soon. We are planning to give him adequate work in our new unit so we can keep him here and monitor his condition," Samanta Lal Sen from the hospital's Burn and Plastic Surgery Unit told Efe news.

Bajandar's daughter -- who has not been to school for two years as there are no public schools around and the family cannot afford the fees of a private school -- lives in the room with him, occupying the second bed.

According to doctors, Bajandar suffers from epidermodysplasia verruciformis, a disease that is not contagious but incurable and surgeries only provide temporary relief.

"We carried out an operation on Bajandar last week. We had removed all the warts earlier, but later we discovered new warts had developed," said a doctor.

Bajandar's dream of resuming normal life after the first spate of surgeries have now turned into a nightmare as the warts keep growing back.

"I was feeling well after what I believed was my last operation six months ago. At least I could eat by myself using a spoon," Bajandar told Efe from his hospital bed.

"But now I again feel pain. I cannot bend my fingers so I need the help of my wife or my mother, who visit sometimes, to eat. I don't know if I will ever be cured and will return home or to work," he rued.

The prolonged treatment and the decision by the doctors to keep him in the hospital is also taking an emotional toll on Bajandar's family.

"We don't have to pay for anything here, but still we are suffering from the long stay," Bajandar's wife Halima Akter said.

The doctors are unsure of how the disease will progress, however, Dr Sen is hopeful that the warts could stop growing someday considering the new warts developed after a significant gap.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said the state is planning to develop a "Silicon Valley Asia", on patterns of the original in California which is home to the world's largest high-tech corporations, to create "spontaneous employment".

"We want to see Information Technology (IT) Department as an active department. The state is planning to develop Silicon Valley Asia at Rajarhat (here) to facilitate spontaneous employment generation. We are trying to develop this like an Asian hub of what the US has. We are in search of land," she said.

Banerjee said the state has a huge potential for IT industry including electronics and digitisation as it has skilled manpower.

"Many industries are interested and proposals are coming in. The government along with other industrial partners will do that. This will be a gateway of Asia," she said.

--IANS

bdc/vd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Brazilian Supreme Court of Justice has rejected a motion by the defence team of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to avoid his arrest for a graft conviction that was upheld last week.

Justice Humberto Martins denied the request filed on Tuesday in a statement published on the court's website, saying such petitions are only applicable when there is a "concrete threat of imminent imprisonment".

Judges said the former President should be arrested as soon as the court explains details of the ruling to the defence, a process that usually takes a month, Xinhua news agency reported.

Lula, who was Brazil's President from 2003 to 2011, was found guilty of corruption and money laundering last year.

Earlier, a three-judge panel of a Brazilian appeals court voted unanimously to ratify his conviction and to extend his original sentence from nine and a half years in prison to 12 years.

Under the country's law, a convict can be put into jail following verdicts from the second trial, even if he still has the right to appeal for a final judgement.

According to Lula's defence team, imprisoning the former President before the final judgment is a violation to the presumption of innocence.

Moreover, given that Lula is the frontrunner for this year's October presidential election, the early imprisonment would damage the democratic process in the country, they claimed.

A federal judge on Monday ordered the public auction of a beachfront apartment allegedly used to bribe the former President in exchange for his help with engineering company OAS to get contracts from state oil company Petrobras.

However, Lula's team argued there was no evidence that linked him to the promise of receiving the apartment where he never lived and visited only once.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Britain is eyeing closer cooperation with China on the Belt and Road Initiative, the UK envoy to China has said, refuting reports that her country had an "ambiguous" attitude towards the initiative.

Barbara Woodward told the media that Britain was especially keen to work on the initiative in three particular ways, Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.

First, she said, British companies were keen to foster partnerships with Chinese companies and take them to third countries along the Belt and Road.

Second, Britain would like to bring some of London's financing experience to help create a solid financial and legal footing for the big projects of the initiative.

Third, Britain would like to share its experience of international engagement and multilateral organisations as the Belt and Road spreads out, so as to maintain high operational standards.

Woodward also said Britain and China were proposing a bilateral investment fund with a first round of $1.3 billion to create jobs, promote trade and support the initiative.

A British special envoy for the initiative will be named and a council of senior business leaders has been set up in Britain to help realise the fund, the ambassador added.

Philip Hammond, British Chancellor of the Exchequer, described Britain as "a natural partner" in the initiative while attending the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing last year.

The Belt and Road Initiative, proposed by China in 2013, aims to achieve infrastructure, trade, financial and people-to-people connectivity along and beyond the ancient Silk Road trade routes.

--IANS

nks/soni/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The British government's decision not to implement a health recommendation - to fortify flour with folic acid - that led to death of or birth defects in thousands of babies, was based on a "flawed" analysis and "competely avoidable tragedy", claims a new study.

The current intake of folate -- 1 mg per day -- led to vitamin deficiency which caused neural tube defects of the brain, spine, or spinal cord among 1 in every 500-1,000 pregnancies in the country.

The study, appearing in the journal Public Health Reviews, showed there is no need for an upper limit of intake of folic acid.

"Failing to fortify flour with folic acid to prevent neural tube defects is like having a polio vaccine and not using it. Every day in the UK, on average two women have a termination of pregnancy because of a neural tube defect and every week, two women give birth to an affected child," said lead author Sir Nicholas Wald, Professor at the Queen Mary University of London (QMUL).

In 1991, a Medical Research Council randomised trial showed that increasing folic acid intake immediately before and early in pregnancy prevented most cases of neural tube defects.

As a result, 81 countries, including the US since 1998, have introduced mandatory folic acid fortification of cereals, which has been found to reduce the prevalence of neural tube defects, without any evidence of harm.

In these, the number of neural tube defects has decreased by up to a half.

However, despite successive recommendations, Britain did not introduce mandatory fortification, partly on the basis of a study by the US Institute of Medicine, which claimed that higher doses of folic acid may lead to neurological damage.

If it had adopted the same level of fortification as in the US, that began in 1998, an estimated 3,000 neural tube defects could have been prevented, the researchers said.

"It's a completely avoidable tragedy," said co-author Joan Morris, Professor at the QMUL.

The new study finds no relationship between dose of folic acid and the development of neurological damage, the researchers said.

"With the upper limit removed there is no scientific or medical reason for delaying the introduction of mandatory folic acid fortification in the UK and other countries that have not yet adopted this proven public health intervention," Wald said.

--IANS

rt/vd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The CBI has arrested a BSF commandant in Kerala's Alappuzha with Rs 45 lakh in cash allegedly collected from smugglers on the India-Bangladesh border, an official said on Wednesday.

Jibu D. Mathew, in charge of Border Security Force's (BSF) 83rd Battalion at the south Bengal frontier, was arrested on a tip-off just after he got off the Shalimar Express train at Alappuzha.

Mathew regularly took bribes from smugglers for facilitating their illegal activities across the border, said the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) official.

The 4,096 km India-Bangladesh border manned by BSF sees large-scale smuggling of cattle, drugs, and counterfeit Indian currency notes as well as human trafficking.

--IANS

rak/vd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Chief Election Commissioner Om Prakash Rawat met representatives of political parties on Wednesday during his two-day visit to Karnataka to review readiness for the coming assembly polls.

"The CEC held a closed-door meeting with representatives of political parties from the state and later met the nodal officers and Income Tax officials in the city to check their preparedness ahead of the elections," a senior official from the state poll panel told IANS here.

Rawat will be meeting the Deputy Commissioners from all 30 districts of the southern state as well as the Superintendents and Commissioners of Police on Thursday, the official said.

The visit is said to be a "routine" procedure held two-three months ahead of the elections in any poll-bound state.

Assembly elections in the state are due in late April-early May.

--IANS

bha/vd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)An absconding scamster from Chhattisgarh wanted in connection with fake lottery schemes and floating bogus companies to cheat people in the state of over Rs 1,000 crore, has been nabbed by Maharashtra Police here, an official said.

The accused - a gold medal-winning medico, Prithipal Ramsinh Sethi, 65 - was absconding from the clutches of police in Chhattisgarh's Mahasamund since 2015, said Crime Branch Senior Inspector Nitin Thakare.

"He used to set up bogus private limited companies, claim to install plant and machinery, amd issue advertisements luring investors with high returns. After the gullible investors put in their money, he would simply shut down the offices and disappear to another location," Thakare told IANS about Sethi's modus operandi.

Among the companies Sethi had floated was Togo Retail Marketing Ltd, which had figured in the list of 193 companies blacklisted by the Securities & Exchange Board of India in 2015.

Following many complaints by cheated investors, police in Mahasumand had registered an FIR against Sethi and his associates on December 21, 2015, invoking various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Prize Chits & Money Circulation Scheme Banking Act, 1978, he said.

Acting on a reliable tip-off, a team of Crime Branch sleuths from Thane lay in wait for Sethi at a bus station near the Bhiwandi Bypass Road on Monday evening and nabbed him.

Investigations revealed that since fleeing from Chhattisgarh, Sethi had been staying under an assumed identity in a posh locality of Ram Mandir Road suburb in north-west Mumbai.

Sethi was produced before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Thane, who sent him to judicial custody till February 6.

"Two years ago, a team of Chhattisgarh Police had come here for assistance to track him down, but he was untraceable. Now, we shall make arrangements to transfer the accused to that state for further action," Thakare said.

From the preliminary investigations made by Crime Branch, Sethi's racket was flourishing in several other states in India virtually undetected by various official statutory bodies and watchdog organisations since several years.

--IANS

qn/vd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Trump administration let a top Russian spy official visit the US last week for meetings with the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) even though there are sanctions against the Russian that prohibit such visits.

The meeting between CIA's Mike Pompeo and his Russian counterpart Sergey Naryshkin did take place, CBS News reported on Tuesday.

Talks between top US and Russian intelligence officials occurred just days before Pompeo again warned that Russia will attempt to meddle in the 2018 US mid-term elections, a CNN report said.

Naryshkin was sanctioned in 2014 by the Obama administration in response to Russia's actions in Ukraine. His meeting with Pompeo came just days before he was named in a report released by the US Treasury Department dubbed the "Putin list".

The meeting took place in part to discuss the "joint struggle against terrorism", Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov told Russian state television.

" is politics, work is work. There are political proclamations, there is real work," Antonov said.

"You probably remember that Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin) called Donald Trump and thanked him for help, for the information that was received through the line with the CIA, and thanks to that (we) were able to prevent a horrible act of terrorism in St. Petersburg.

"I think this conversation was necessary and very useful. I am sure of it. Sergey Evgenyevich (Naryshkin) was here. He came. He held consultations with his colleagues," Antonov said.

Both US and Russian officials indicated that the discussions centred on cooperative efforts to combat terrorism but Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer demanded to know the details.

"The Trump administration must immediately come clean and answer questions," the New York Democrat said about Naryshkin's visit.

"Which US officials did he meet with? Did any White House or National Security Council official meet with Naryshkin? What did they discuss?"

Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, released a new report this month concluding that the US will not be prepared to defend against possible Russian meddling unless it takes immediate action.

--IANS

soni/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Congress on Wednesday demanded a court-monitored investigation by an independent Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the death of judge B H Loya, saying there seems to be a "cover-up" attempt.

Addressing a press conference here, Congress leader Kapil Sibal said the matter should be referred to an independent SIT and there should be no Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or Investigation Agency (NIA) officer in it.

"It seems to be a cover-up. If it is a cover-up, it has to be investigated," said Sibal, who was accompanied by some other party leaders and activists.

Elaborating on the circumstances of judge Loya's death, Sibal said the party would go to every village of the country if an independent investigation was not ordered.

"Injustice is being done, something is being shown, some people are being protected... This has never happened in the history of India," he said.

The Congress leader was referring to the controversy surrounding the death of Special CBI Court judge Loya in November 2014. Loya was holding the trial into the alleged staged shootout deaths of Sohrabuddin Sheikh and two others.

"This issue of democracy being in danger was also raised by the four judges of the Supreme Court," Sibal said referring to the four senior-most judges' allegation that the Supreme Court administration was not in order.

Answering a query later, the former Law Minister said: "Yes, it should be a Supreme Court-monitored probe."A controversy erupted on Wednesday after Meghalaya unit of BJP returned "suit-boot ki sarkar" jibe at Congress President Rahul Gandhi accusing him of wearing a Burberry jacket worth $995, or Rs 63,000 allegedly fleeced from the state exchequer.

"So @OfficeOfRG, soot (pun intended!)-boot ki sarkar with 'black' money fleeced from Meghalayan state exchequer by rampant corruption? Instead of singing away our woes, you could have given a report card of your inefficient govt in Meghalaya! Your indifference mocks us!," the BJP said in a tweet.

The saffron party also tweeted an image of a jacket similar to the one Gandhi wore with a price tag of $995. Gandhi wore the jacket on Tuesday when he attended a concert in Shillong.

Five musical bands, including Shillong-based Soulmates, performed at the concert entitled "Celebrate Peace and Way of Life", a celebration of Meghalaya's music, culture and way of life.

RSS leader and BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav also hit out at Gandhi, saying the Congress left the Northeast states poor while their leaders roam around in costly jackets.

"Congress doesn't understand popular sentiment in the Northeast today. The four states have rejected Congress already and Meghalaya is ready to do the same now. Congress not even in reckoning in Tripura and Nagaland. Congress left Northeast poor and underdeveloped while their leaders roam around in 70K jackets," Madhav said.

However, the Congress rebutted the BJP's claim, saying it can get same jacket for Rs 700.

"I don't know whether to laugh or to cry at the desperation of the BJP. You mean to say they have not other work and are searching online for the rates of the jackets. I can get the same jacket for Rs 700. If the Prime Minister wants it than I can make it and send it for him.

"He has a 56 inch chest.. I don't have any other measurement ... This (allegation) is coming from a suit boot sarkar. The suit in which name was woven in each and every thread that he had wore when the US president had come...," Congress leader Renuka Chaudhary said.

--IANS

bns-rup/sar/vd/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Karnataka's former BJP lawmaker B. S. Anand Singh on Wednesday joined the Congress in the poll-bound state, said a party official.

The party's state unit president G. Parameshwara admitted Singh into the party in the presence of state Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee working presidents Dinesh Gundu Rao and S.R. Patil at the party's office here.

"I have joined the Congress for its principles and credentials to lead the country into bright future. Quarrels and bickering in the BJP forced me to quit the opposition party in the state," Singh told reporters here later.

Hoping to secure a ticket to contest in the ensuring assembly poll and retain the seat, Singh said he would strive hard to make the Congress win all the nine constituencies in the northern district.

A leading businessman in the district with interests in mining, trade and hospitality sectors, Singh was the state tourism minister in the erstwhile BJP government, which ruled the state from 2008-13.

--IANS

fb/qd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Four people burned to death inside a vehicle and at least three others were wounded in a series of shootouts in Mexico, police said on Tuesday.

State police found the four bodies in the community of Rincon de la Via after receiving a call from a local police precinct chief about a shootout, Efe quoted state security spokesman Roberto Alvarez as saying.

Antonio de Dios Navarrete, the 32-year-old commander of the UPOEG community self-defense group, died in the shootout.

UPOEG, whose members are armed, was created in January 2013 in the cities of Ayutla de los Libres, Teconoapa and San Marcos to protect residents.

The self-defense group controls access to communities and polices them to fight drug traffickers and other criminals.

Investigators found numerous 7.62-mm and .223-caliber bullet casings in the community, as well as the vehicle, which was riddled with bullet holes.

About 70 Rincon de la Via residents set up checkpoints to force the UPOEG to leave the community, and they demanded the release of several people kidnapped on Sunday, the state security spokesman said.

Residents of the communities of Buena Vista de la Salud and Ocotito, meanwhile, said three people were wounded in an attack and taken to the General Hospital in Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero.

Residents said members of the Los Ardillos gang killed the four men found in Rincon de la Via and shot the three people in the other communities, Alvarez said.

The UPOEG and FUSTEG vigilante groups, which are battling each other, as well as gangs, such as Los Ardillos, operate in this part of Guerrero, the state security spokesman said.

--IANS

qd/

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Actor Gerard Butler had fun shooting "Den of Thieves" with 50 Cent, and says the rapper-actor is funny and sweet.

"50 Cent (given name Curtis Jackson) is a very bubbly kind of a person. He's such a funny and a sweet guy and is always smiling," Butler said in a statement.

50 Cent will be seen as Enson in the crime saga, set in Los Angeles, by Christian Gudegast. "Den of Thieves" follows the intersecting and connected lives of an elite unit of the LA County Sheriff's department and the state's most successful bank robbery crew.

On 50 Cent's role, Butler said: "With his character Enson, he takes the gravitas that he has and lets it shine and when he speaks, it's crazy. During the read through, he barely raised his voice but when he was talking, you don't listen to anyone in the room more than you listen to him.

"When he said something, he meant something and that's who he is. He's a powerful and a quiet person so when he says he will back you up, he means it."

The movie, being brought to India by PVR Pictures, will release on Friday.

Butler also praised Gudegast, saying he is a master.

He said: "Christian is like a master, it's like he's been doing this his whole life. He has no egos and is so great to work with. He has such an understanding of films, film history and film making. And the way he puts scenes and shots together and the pacing of it is something that really surprised me and made me happy.

"Also, his manner on sets -- allowing you to experiment, have fun and to go for it, being incredibly encouraging and being sensitive to your needs that's something you don't often get with a first time director. Another thing about Christian is that he's a strong, masculine guy. He's all about his martial arts, he's one of the toughest guys I've ever met but at the same time he's incredibly soulful and one of the most sensitive individuals I have ever met."

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A Goa Police team has gone to Mumbai to record a US tourist's statement regarding molestation by a motorcycle-taxi operator, who has since been arrested, a police officer said on Wednesday.

Superintendent of Police (North Goa) Chandan Choudhury told reporters that the woman had filed a complaint via email, which led to the arrest of Isidore Fernandes, 44, a resident of Anjuna village in North Goa, nearly 25 km from Panaji.

"Our team has gone to Mumbai to record her statement," Choudhury said.

Fernandes is expected to be presented before a local magistrate for remand later on Wednesday.

Choudhury late on Tuesday told reporters that Fernandes had been booked under Sections 354 (use of assault, criminal force against a woman) and 354-A (sexual harassment) of the Indian Penal Code.

The New York-based tourist in her Facebook post uploaded late Monday night had narrated her harrowing experience during the Republic Day weekend, when she hired Fernandes' motorcycle-taxi for a ride from Arpora village in North Goa to Morjim beach village, nearly 40 km from Panaji.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Hundreds on Wednesday joined the funeral procession of Rayees Ahmad Ganai, who died in a hospital here after suffering a gunshot injury in Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian district on Saturday.

Hundreds of mourners gathered at Narpora, the ancestral village of Rayees where he was buried amid pro-Islam and pro-Azadi slogans.

As mourners kept pouring into the village from different parts of south Kashmir, where Shopian district is located, four rounds of funeral prayers were offered for the youth.

Security forces kept away from the funeral march.

Sources in the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) here said that Rayees, a 19-year-old who had been admitted on Saturday, succumbed to gunshot injuries on Wednesday morning.

His body was handed over to the family.

With his death, the number of civilians who died in firing by security forces in Ganowpora village of Shopian district has risen to three.

Javaid Ahmad and Suhail Ahmad were killed in Army firing when a stone-pelting mob attacked an administrative convoy of 10 Garhwal unit on Saturday.

The police have registered an FIR against the soldiers of the unit, charging them with murder.

In response, on Sunday, the Army filed a counter FIR against unknown persons, stating that it opened fire in self-defence and that the police should identify the stone-pelters.

The Army has maintaining that its personnel had fired after a junior officer fell unconscious following the mob attack.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has demanded the withdrawal of the FIR against the Army while Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said the investigation into the killings of the civilians would be taken to its logical conclusion.

A magisterial probe has also been ordered by the state government.

The separatist conglomerate, the Joint Resistance Leadership headed by Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik, has called for a protest march to Shopian on Friday to express solidarity with the families of the three killed youths.

Malik made this announcement on Wednesday in old city Nowhatta area of Srinagar while leading a protest march against the civilian deaths.

Geelani and Mirwaiz have been placed under house arrest in Srinagar.

--IANS

sq/nir/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)An Indian Air Force officer, posted at the Air HQs here, has been taken into custody on charge of spying, sources said on Wednesday.

According to a source, during a routine counter intelligence surveillance carried out by the IAF's Central Security and Investigation Team, the officer, who is a group captain, was found indulging in "unwanted activities through unauthorised electronic devices".

The case, said the source, was of "honey trapping" after the officer is said to have befriended a woman on Facebook.

The source added that the officer has been taken into custody for further questioning.

The services have a strict code on engaging on social media, which restricts soldiers from sharing their identity, rank, posting and other professional details. The restrictions include posting pictures in uniform.

In December, 2015, a dismissed IAF official was arrested by the Delhi Police for allegedly passing on information to intelligence operatives suspected to be backed by Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).

--IANS

ao/vd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and American pharmaceutical firm Pfizer have announced a partnership to set up a centre aimed at combating growing Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) in India.

The project, under an MoU signed recently, will help implement a series of comprehensive interventions, ranging from AMR stewardship programmes for nursing homes to scale up of the ongoing AMR surveillance network, said a joint statement, adding that Pfizer has provided an initial grant of Rs 6.97 crore with a provision to scale it up further as the programme expands.

Union Health Research Secretary K. Vijay Raghavan, who is also the ICMR Director General, said that the government "recognises the need for urgent action and hence is developing a national response mechanism to adeptly deal with the growing challenge of antimicrobial resistance".

"It is important to channel all necessary resources in developing, implementing and monitoring antibiotic resistance to minimise its adverse impact, which is posing a huge threat to both health and food security," he said.

Currently, infections such as pneumonia, and tuberculosis among others are becoming difficult to treat due to decreased effectiveness arising out of irrational usage of antibiotics, he said, adding the ICMR is "engaging with relevant stakeholders to draw in diverse perspectives and support".

"We are happy to announce this association through which we could bring about a change positively in the way antibiotics are prescribed and used. Behaviour change will need to be a key component of this strategy," said Raghvan.

Pfizer Ltd Managing Director S. Sridhar meanwhile called on the pharmaceutical industry to "respond in full force to support the government's ambitious plan to combat antimicrobial resistance".

Noting his company has been leading the anti-infective effort since mass producing penicillin in the 1940s, he said that Pfizer recognises that it plays an important role in a collective effort to address AMR - one of the greatest public health challenges of the time.

With AMR viewed as a key priority, the government had in April 2017 finalised a National Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance (NAP-AMR), which spells out six strategic priorities including improving awareness through communication, education and training, strengthening surveillance and promoting investments for AMR initiatives.

The centre will help in three basic things -- expanding ICMR's Antimicrobial Stewardship Programme across the country in a phased manner with the focus on smaller in-patient centres and enhancing its existing AMR Surveillance Programme by training specialists to run an expanded network.

It will also focus on awareness and advocacy programme using media and non-media platforms to disseminate information on antibiotic resistance and promote rational use of antibiotics.

--IANS

rup/nks/vd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Rabat, Jan 31 (IANS/MAP) The Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has hailed the reforms implemented by Morocco, particularly in economic areas.

Following talks with Moroccan leadership on Tuesday, Christine Lagarde lauded the progress made by the Kingdom in several areas including economy, energy and monetary policy.

"The IMF supports Morocco in its reforms, given the friendly relations and the partnership between the two parties," Lagarde said.

Morocco's Minister of Economy and Finance Mohamed Boussaid and central bank Governor Abdellatif Jouahri participated in the talks.

--IANS/MAP

soni/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)In a speech brimming with patriotism and the America First concept, President Donald Trump has reiterated the US commitment to strengthen its military, protect its borders and reset its trading relationships while calling for "merit-based" immigration system.

"This is our new American moment," Trump declared in his first State of the Union address on Tuesday night in Washington as he took a victory lap for the economic achievements of the first year of his presidency and laid out an agenda for the rest of it.

In his 80-minute speech in the House chamber of the Capitol, Trump renewed his campaign call "to make America great again for all Americans" by working "all of us, together, as one team, one people, and one American family."

Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker Paul Ryan were at the event.

The speech, mostly devoted to domestic issues, was punctuated with spectacles for television with Trump calling out at appropriate points in his speech to crime victims, business people, beneficiaries of his economic programmes, soldiers, a crippled North Korean refugee and others seated in the audience with anecdotes about them.

In his speech, Trump took credit for the massive tax reforms, the 2.4 million jobs created in the last year, the lowest unemployment for African Americans, stock markets setting records adding $8 trillion in value and investments and manufacturing returning to the US.

Immigration issue figured prominently in Trump's speech as he appealed for a "fair compromise".

"It is time to begin moving towards a merit-based immigration system -- one that admits people who are skilled, who want to work, who will contribute to our society and who will love and respect our country," he said.

Currently, Indian professionals have a 11-year wait to get their permanent resident status with green cards because of national quota restrictions. A purely merit-based system like those in Canada and Australia, which the administration has proposed, has the potential to help an estimated 500,000 Indian professionals in the queue get their green cards sooner.

Sunayana Dumala, the widow of Indian techie Srinivas Kuchibhotla who was killed in a hate crime last year in Kansas, was a Congressional guest. She called the speech "welcoming and positive" on reforming immigration.

Trump offered to legalize those who were brought into the country illegally as children and ultimately give them citizenship, a move that could benefit over 5,500 Indians.

At the same time, he said "chain migration" of brothers, sisters and parents of immigrants should end. Limiting immigration to only spouses and children of immigrants would affect other aspiring immigrants from India.

Preventing illegal immigration would require building a wall on the southern border with Mexico and hiring more immigration and border security personnel, Trump said.

He called for a crackdown on criminal immigrants, particularly the members of gangs like the MS-13, which include many young people who entered the country under a programme of the administration of Barack Obama and are responsible for several murders.

In a manoeuvre that mirrors the dynastic bent of the Congress party in India, the Democratic Party brought out Joe Kennedy, the grandson of the late Robert Kennedy and grandnephew of John F. Kennedy, to deliver the party's response to Trump.

The 37-year-old Congressman discounted every achievement that Trump claimed and attacked his agenda, delivering a part of his speech in Spanish.

On international matters, Trump focused on trade, military might and terrorism.

"The era of economic surrender is over," he declared. "We will work to fix bad trade deals and negotiate new ones."

In outlining his strategic perspective, Trump lumped China and Russia with rogue regimes and terrorist groups that "challenge our interests, our economy and our values".

He included the nuclear arsenal in discussing his defence agenda.

"We must modernize and rebuild our nuclear arsenal... making it so strong and powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression," he said.

In fighting terrorism, Trump recalled his pledge "to extinguish the Islamic State from the face of the earth" and said the US and its allies have "liberated almost 100 per cent of the territory once held by these killers in Iraq and Syria".

"Our warriors in Afghanistan also have new rules of engagement," Trump said, repeating a dig at Obama's administration, saying, "along with their heroic Afghan partners, our military is no longer undermined by artificial timelines and we no longer tell our enemies our plans".

Trump announced that he has signed an executive order to keep Guantanamo Bay military prison open in Cuba.

He also asked the Congress to enact laws to ensure that "American foreign-assistance dollars always serve American interests and only go to America's friends".

Iran and North Korea came in for special attention. Trump criticized the nuclear deal made by the US, the other permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany, with Iran to end its nuclear proliferation and also accused it of "destabilizing the region".

"North Korea's reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland," Trump said. "We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from happening."

In another criticism of his predecessors, Trump said: "Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation. I will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got us into this dangerous position."

Domestically, the centrepiece of his address was a $1.5 trillion programme he wanted from the Congress to rebuild and add to the nation's crumbling infrastructure.

"We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways across our land," he said. "And we will do it with American heart, American hands, and American grit."

(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)

--IANS

al/soni/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, on Wednesday said he was in perfect health, though feeling fatigued owing to old age.

"I'm in excellent health. Of course, I am an 82-year-old person. So, year by year, the feeling of tiredness is increasing. This time, I have been out for almost a month and half. I felt it was too long," he told reporters on his return to his abode in this Himachal Pradesh town.

The spiritual leader returned from Bodh Gaya in Bihar via New Delhi where he stopped for his routine medical check-up.

"Just yesterday (Tuesday), I went for medical check-up at Max Hospital (in New Delhi)."

Responding to a media query on a bomb scare in Bodh Gaya, the Tibetan monk said: "The police in Bodh Gaya took all steps to ensure security for the public and we shouldn't sensationalise the matter too much, as the media is prone to do at times."

According to the Central Tibetan Administration website, the Dalai Lama gave a series of sermons in Bodh Gaya, and presided over the initiation ceremony of over 50,000 devotees from more than 13 countries.

India is home to around 100,000 Tibetans.

--IANS

vg/tsb/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Actress Jamie Lee Curtis has confirmed that filming has begun for the upcoming "Halloween" movie. She also said that the clapper board from the original film has been used.

In a post on Twitter, Curtis wrote: "First shot! First day. Same slate. Same Laurie. David Gordon Green directing from his script. Happy Halloween 2018 everyone. See you 10/19/18 'Halloween' movie."

Curtis will once again portray Laurie Strode and will have to try and survive the murderous clutches of Myers, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

The 59-year-old actress has reprised her famous role three times since John Carpenter's original in 1981's "Halloween II", 1998's "Halloween H20: 20 Years Later" and 2002's "Halloween: Resurrection", but the new film from Blumhouse Productions and Universal Pictures will be the final "Halloween".

Curtis shared the news on her Twitter account, uploading a photograph of herself in character, standing outside the infamous house in Haddonfield, Illinois, where many of the horrific events of the first film took place with Myers's white masked face looming behind her in the shadows.

The movie is being created by director David Gordon Green.

--IANS

dc/ks/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)With Chief Justice Dipak Misra understood to have written to President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for removing Allahabad High Court's Justice Narayan Shukla, he would be the fourth judge to face impeachment proceedings in the last 25 years with none succeeding so far.

Other judges against whom impeachment proceedings were initiated were top court judge V. Ramaswami in 1993 and Justices P.D. Dinakaran and Soumitra Sen in 2011.

Justice Misra is reported to have written to the President and the Prime Minister after three judges inquiry committee adversely commented on the conduct of Justice Shukla in a medical college scam.

The panel comprised Chief Justice of the Madras High Court Justice Indira Banerjee, Sikkim High Court Chief Justice S.K. Agnihotri and Justice P.K. Jaiswal of the Madhya Pradesh High Court.

After the probe panel held Justice Shukla of committing gross judicial misconduct, the only course available is either he quit on his own or the government initiates impeachment proceedings against him under the Judges (Inquiry) Act 1986.

The entire exercise of probe by the three judges and the CJI writing to the President and the Prime Minister is under the "in house procedure".

Under the procedure if the panel holds the delinquent judge guilty of misconduct, the CJI will advise the judge concerned to resign or seek voluntary retirement.

In case the judge expresses his unwillingness to resign or seek voluntary retirement, the chief justice of the concerned High Court is advised not to allocate any judicial work to the judge concerned.

It is understood that Justice Shukla has refused to step down voluntarily and judicial work withdrawn from him from January 23.

The case is related to a Lucknow-based private medical college being probed by the CBI. The agency on September 20 arrested retired Orissa High Court judge Ishrat Masroor Quddusi and five others, including the chairman of the college, on the charge of corruption to get a favourable order to admit students.

The college was barred from admitting students for two years - 2017-2018 and 2018-2019. At that time matter was pending before the top court.

The entire controversy triggered a storm after the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms (CJAR) moved the top court seeking probe by a special investigation team into allegations of corruption which its counsel Prashant Bhushan said could cast its shadows on the top judiciary.

The matter was mentioned before the bench of Justice J. Chelameswar and Justice S. Abdul Nazeer.

Justice Chelameswar ordered the constitution of five senior-most judges of the top court to hear the matter. However, later in the day, Chief Justice Misra constituted a five-judge bench that over-turned the order passed of Justice Chelameswar.

The petition by CJAR was also dismissed with the court imposing an exemplary cost of Rs 25 lakh.

The CJAR has already moved the court seeking the review of its order.

--IANS

pk/sar/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh on Wednesday said a fast-track court will be set up by March to try increasing drugs-related cases in the state.

"Drugs-related cases are increasing and many of them pending in courts. If a fast-track court is set up in Manipur, most of them could be disposed in record time. We had earlier set up a fast-track court for crime against women and it has started giving exemplary punishments to convicts," he said.

Manipur had become a conduit for drug trafficking in the northeast since border trade with Myanmar was legalised in 1995.

Officials are concerned over increasing smugglings of gold, precious stones, narcotics drugs and chemicals used in manufacturing drugs.

--IANS

il/tsb/vd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday paid homage to 15th century saint Ravidas on his birth anniversary who he said challenged social discrimination.

"I bow to Guru Ravidasji on his Jayanti... He stood for a society that is equal, just and compassionate. His teachings are eternal and relevant for people of all sections of society," Modi tweeted.

Modi said the same spirit was behind the government motto 'Sabka Haath, Sabka Vikas'.

--IANS

vn/in/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Rome, Feb 1 (IANS/AKI) Italy's Interior Ministry on Wednesday rejected a report that 50 Tunisian fighters from the Islamic State jihadist group may have entered Italy aboard migrant ships, saying there was "no evidence" for such claims.

"There is no evidence that 50 ISIS fighters have come to Italy on board migrant ships as reported by Interpol," the ministry's Public Security Department said in a statement.

"Constant and deep" collaboration between Italy and Tunisia had enabled Italian police to identify "a tiny number of people" flagged by Tunis authorities, and they had already been deported, the statement said.

The department stated that Italy pays "maximum attention towards all those who arrive illegally on national territory".

"The immediate expulsion of certain suspects provides incontrovertible proof of this," it added. A total 243 alleged extremists have been expelled from Italy since 2015, according to the Interior Ministry.

The Tunisians on the Interpol list are believed to have arrived in Sicily between July and October last year on fishing boats or small vessels that were then abandoned on the beach, Britain's Guardian newspaper quoted a European counterterrorism officer as saying.

The migrants reportedly disappear into the countryside, a few miles from the coast, avoiding the Italian Coast Guard and police controls. Around 3,000 Tunisians are believed to have secretly landed in southern Sicily since last July of whom only 400 were stopped and identified by police, the Guardian said.

Many Tunisians who arrive in Italy are categorised as economic migrants and are issued with orders to leave the country within seven days, but often authorities lose track of them.

The Interpol list was sent on November 29 to the Italy's interior ministry which distributed it to national anti-terrorism agencies across Europe, according to the Guardian report.

Interpol believes the suspects may be attempting to reach other European countries, the Guardian said.

Around 5,500 Tunisians were believed to have travelled to IS territory in Syria and Iraq to fight for the terror group, according to UN estimates.

--IANS/AKI

vd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Superstar Shah Rukh Khan, known for his chivalrous attitude, says nobody has dared to misbehave with a woman on his film sets.

The actor, who was feted with a Crystal Award at the World Economic Forum summit in Davos along with Hollywood celebrities Cate Blanchett and Elton John, spoke to BBC World News at length on gender equality in Bollywood and the cultural differences in India.

In the midst of the raging debate over sexual misconduct allegations against powerful men in Hollywood, Shah Rukh was asked if he has witnessed sexual misconduct in the Hindi film industry and done anything about it.

"At a level when I'm making films or working in films, we are very clear about the attitude to women. Even the smallest aspects, of the names coming first in title, which is not going to do anything, but the kind of respectability," Shah Rukh said on the "HARDtalk on BBC World News" show.

"Even this small thing needs to be done just to bring about the equality... Just see what we've reduced ourselves to. You know, to put a girl's name in front just to show what little guys we are, thinking of them as equals. And that is sad and that is strangely dichotomous when you're talking about creativity, and you have boys and girls working together.

"I have never personally, first hand and nobody, if I may say, nobody dared misbehave with a woman on my set, I am very clear on that," he added. A transcript of the interview was provided to IANS by BBC.

On inter-communal tensions and divisions that the world has been observing in modern-day India, the actor said: "There will be dissent for everything and I think, like you would also believe and we all believe, there has to be a discussion on it."

Shah Rukh believes there cannot be a radical standoff when there is dissent.

"I think you can have a discussion and then you can talk about it in our country - we are the biggest democracy - and if you are the biggest democracy, dissent is a part and parcel of that and as much is discussion.

"So, when you have a story and you know when you go out sometimes, there's dissent, but as a filmmaker, as a citizen of a country and the world, you know when there's dissent, can we just have a little bit of discussion about it and sort it out instead of you know taking standoff positions... So it is possible," he added.

Questioned if there is a kind of Hindu nationalism that is not fostering good inter-communal ties, Shah Rukh said: "Because of social media, whenever a certain thing, when small factions or fractions of things happen now, they seem a little bigger. But the beauty of all this is that within all this trolling and anger and people expressing themselves, they're all also connecting.

"I just see it on social media. I don't see it live anywhere and I would be wrong to comment on it that way, but I think if you have this kind of dissent or whatever if people claim it, I think just a bit of discussion especially, finally, if it's not going to be inclusive, everybody will suffer. But I think we're not at that stage at all in our country," he added.

The episode will air on Wednesday night.

--IANS

ks/rb/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)As the situation in violence-hit Kasganj district was "normal" on Wednesday, Uttar Pradesh Police said a key accused had been arrested while the state government told the Centre it was probing if the violence was pre-planned.

Inspector General of Police (Aligarh Range) Sanjeev Gupta said main accused Salim Javed had been arrested for the arson reported on the Republic Day.

Based on leads provided by Salim, the police said, it was looking for his accused brothers Naseem and Waseem, reportedly close to the opposition Samajwadi Party.

Police claimed an illegal firearm had been seized from Salim's house and that he had admitted to shooting at 22-year-old Chandan Gupta, who died later, leading to a spate of arson and mob violence in Kasganj.

Kasganj Superintendent of Police Piyush Srivastava said notices for attachment of properties of the accused arrested earlier for the violence have been pasted on their houses.

The stringent National Security Act would be slapped on the accused, the police said. It said investigators are trying to find other linkages through pictures of certain persons found in an album seized from Salim's house.

The police have arrested a few leaders and workers of the Rashtriya Lok Dal, after they were trying to enter the strife-torn areas to meet people affected by the violence.

As many as 145 persons have been arrested in connection with the violence so far.

A tense calm prevails in the town with residents on the edge due to apprehensions of more trouble.

Security deployment continues in the district, with extensive police patrolling going on. Besides police, units of anti-riot Rapid Action Force were deployed in sensitive locations in the district to check untoward incidents.

The Uttar Pradesh government sent a detailed report to the Home Ministry, saying "all facts are being ascertained to know if violence was pre-planned or not" in Kasganj.

A day earlier, the Ministry had sought a report on the violence and the current situation in the state, including on measures taken to ensure peace in the district.

In the report, the Uttar Pradesh Police said it "swung into action after the violence was reported and quickly brought it under control," according to Ministry officials.

It mentioned the arrests made and the circumstances leading to one death.

Following the young man's killing, three shops, two buses, and a car were burnt by a violent mob. The district administration said it had taken a slew of measures to contain lingering tension, with the state government removing the Superintendent of Police.

--IANS

rak/tsb/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Odisha has bagged 'Geospatial World Excellence Award-2018' for successful IT application for tracking of mineral production, dispatch and value accrued on real-time basis through its i3MS web-based software.

The award was presented by Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Y.S. Chowdary in the Geospatial World Forum Meeting held at Hyderabad recently, said a government release on Wednesday.

The event was attended by more than 3,000 geospatial experts from 90 different countries.

Dr Pradipta Mishra, Senior Scientist - Odisha Space Application Center (ORSAC), received the award on behalf of the Odisha government.

The GPS-linked web-based software named i3MS has been designed by the scientists of ORSAC, Bhubaneswar, under the guidance of Steel and Mines Secretary Raj Kumar Sharma, ORSAC CEO Sandeep Tripathy and Mines Director Deepak Mohanty.

Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi has congratulated the ORSAC scientists, along with officers of Steel and Mines Department, for successfully designing, applying and using this IT model.

Currently, the Steel and Mines Department is watching the live movement of 43,000 vehicles carrying minerals from production point to ports, railway sidings and end-user industrial units.

The union government also applauded the outcomes of this IT intervention by Odisha and has recommended the model to be followed in other states. All the stakeholders like lessees, dealers and government departments have been brought on to this portal.

It has also been integrated with the Regional Transport Office (RTO), Indian Railways, Commercial Tax Department, ports and treasury. The daily production and dispatch are being recorded on real-time basis through this software.

All the mineral transporting trucks have been put under GPS surveillance and the roads as well as mines have been geo-referenced.

Geospatial scientist Mishra said: "This is for the first time in India that GPS devices have been fixed on a large number of moving objects in the mining sector."

Director of Mines Deepak Mohanty said: "Till now, 392 electronic weighbridges in 136 mines and 699 weighbridges in 325 end-user industries have been integrated with the system. All e-permits and dealer licences are being issued online through this software and issuing of manual licences has been abolished."

--IANS

cd/nir

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Afghan government on Wednesday rejected reports that Pakistan handed over 27 Taliban and Haqqani network prisoners to Afghanistan last year.

"Pakistan has not handed over any members of these groups," an official source was quoted as saying by TOLO News.

This comes after a spokesman for Pakistan's Foreign Office Mohammad Faisal claimed on Tuesday that Pakistan handed over 27 individuals suspected of having ties to Taliban and Haqqani network to Afghan officials last year.

Faisal said Pakistan continues to push any suspected Afghan Taliban and Haqqani elements with a view to "prevent them from using our soil for any terrorist activity in Afghanistan."

The suspected insurgents were handed over to Afghanistan in November 2017, he said.

--IANS

ahm/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)In a speech bubbling with patriotism and economic policy of America First, President Donald Trump has reiterated the US' commitment to strengthen its military, protect its borders and reset its trading relationships and appealed to a divided Congress for support.

"The era of economic surrender is over," Trump declared in his first State of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday night in Washington and said, "We will work to fix bad trade deals and negotiate new ones."

"We will protect American workers and American intellectual property, through strong enforcement of our trade rules," he said.

Trump spoke for an hour and 20 minutes in the House chamber of Congress against the backdrop of a large American flag, with Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker Paul Ryan seated behind him.

The Republicans and their supporters repeatedly cheered Trump, while the Democrats, who did not boycott the speech, sat stoically.

The speech, mostly devoted to domestic issues, was punctuated with spectacles for television with Trump calling out to crime victims, business people, beneficiaries of his economic programmes, soldiers, a crippled North Korean refugee and others seated in the audience with anecdotes about them as the cameras zoomed on them amid audience applause.

In a manouevre that mirrors the Congress Party in India, the Democratic Party brought out Representative Joe Kennedy, who is the grandson of the late Robert Kennedy and grandnephew of John F. Kennedy, to deliver the party's response to Trump.

In outlining his strategic perspective, Trump lumped China and Russia with rogue regimes and terrorist groups that "challenge our interests, our economy, and our values".

"In confronting these dangers, we know that weakness is the surest path to conflict, and unmatched power is the surest means of our defence," Trump said, calling on the Congress to fully fund the military.

He included the nuclear arsenal in discussing his defence agenda.

"We must modernise and rebuild our nuclear arsenal, hopefully never having to use it, but making it so strong and powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression," he said.

In fighting terrorism, Trump recalled his pledge "to extinguish IS from the face of the Earth" and said that the US and its allies have "liberated almost 100 per cent of the territory once held by these killers in Iraq and Syria".

To combat the Islamic State and the Al Qaeda, Trump asked Congress to ensure "we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists -- wherever we chase them down".

"Our warriors in Afghanistan also have new rules of engagement," Trump said, repeating a dig at former President Barack Obama's administration, saying, "Along with their heroic Afghan partners, our military is no longer undermined by artificial timelines, and we no longer tell our enemies our plans."

Trump recalled the UN General Assembly resolution criticising Washington's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move its embassy there.

He used it to push another aspect of his America First policy, Trump asked the Congress to enact laws to ensure that "American foreign-assistance dollars always serve American interests, and only go to America's friends".

Iran and North Korea came in for special attention. He criticised the nuclear deal made by the US, the other permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany with Iran to end its nuclear proliferation and also accused it of destabilising the region.

"North Korea's reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland," Trump acknowledged. "We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from happening."

In another criticism of his predecessors, Trump said, "Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation.

"I will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got us into this dangerous position."

(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)

--IANS

al/in

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel on Wednesday said Lt Governor Anil Baijal had "violated Indian culture" by not giving him time for a meeting despite two requests.

Goel told the media here that he had written two letters to the Lt Governor, on January 4 and 10, asking for an appointment to extend New Year greetings but Baijal did not give an appointment.

"Even the President gives time to meet me," the Speaker said and added that former Lt Governor Najeeb Jung had never declined to meet him (Goel).

Although he was not given an appointment, Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs were given time to meet the Lt Governor whenever they requested, Goel said.

Goel wrote another letter to the Governor on Wednesday in which he said that he has been observing the developments in the capital "with a sense of deep anguish".

Goel said Baijal's conduct "does not add to the dignity" of his position.

He complained that a majority of Delhi legislators also struggled to get time from the LG's office.

Goel alleged that the four BJP MLAs had "unhindered access" to the LG's office and that the opposition party holds its legislature party meetings there.

He wrote that had the LG spared time for AAP MLAs, the current crisis due to ongoing sealing drive would not have arisen.

The Aam Aadmi Party, the BJP and the Congress have opposed the sealing drive but there hasn't been any solution so far to the problem.

Goel said that public interest can only be protected if Baijal "breaks free from narrow-minded clique which at all costs wants to harass the people of Delhi".

--IANS

nkh-mg/tsb/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Supreme Court on Wednesday reserved its order seeking a probe into alleged irregularities in the purchase of AgustaWestland helicopter for VIPs in 2006-07 and the foreign bank accounts purportedly linked to the son of Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh.

A division bench of Justice A.K. Goel and Justice U.U. Lalit reserved the order after hearing arguments from the Chhattisgarh government and petitioners NGO Swaraj Abhiyan and T.S. Singhdeo, the Leader of Opposition in the Chhattisgarh Assembly.

The court said it was concerned whether any "fraud" was committed while purchasing a VIP AgustaWestland helicopter.

"What is the interest of Abhishek Singh, who also happens to be the son of the Chief Minister, in this? You have to satisfy us on that," the bench said.

The court also told the state that: "We are not saying why did you purchase this helicopter and not (any) other. But if there is a doubt about any financial fraud that you have to explain."

Senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani, appearing Chhattisgarh state, denied the allegations, calling them "reckless".

He added that it was a "politically motivated petition" and filed to maligned the reputation as elections were due in Chhattisgarh.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the NGO, told the bench that a bank account in the name of Abhishak Singh was opened in July 2008 in British Virgin Islands, and on August 1, 2008, one of the firms which was purportedly involved in the deal was wound up.

He alleged that there was a strong possibility that the money paid as commission in this deal has ultimately reached the foreign bank account.

Bhushan added that a proposal of the state in December 2006 said that there should be open bid to purchase helicopter and helicopter firms should be invited but no company was called and a tender was issued only for a AgustaWestland chopper.

An extra amount of $1.324 million was paid to a firm, Sharp Ocean, over and above the cost of the helicopter which was $5.246 million, said Bhushan.

While Chhattisgarh paid $6.57 million for the purchase of the helicopter, Jharkhand paid $5.591 million for the chopper bought at the same time.

He also told the court that the documents received under the RTI show that although the Bell helicopter was denied a bid, the government was still hiring it on rent.

The Chhattisgarh government, however, told the court that there was nothing wrong in the bid and that at present 24 AgustaWestland helicopters were flying in the country.

The state said it needed night fly chopper with four persons sitting capacity and low maintenance cost, and Agusta helicopter was best option at the time.

--IANS

gt/him/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought the central government's response on a plea that the BSF was stopping Rohingya refugees from entering India and on access to education and other facilities to Rohingya children already residing here.

Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud sought the response, by four weeks, as counsel Prashant Bhushan complained that the Border Security Force (BSF) was preventing them from crossing from Bangladesh and Myanmar borders by "sprinkling chilli powder".

The application said that pushback was not only occurring on border with Bangladesh but also in the states that share a border with Myanmar, and cited BSF chief K.K.Sharma's statement saying that it was their policy to push back the Rohingya refugees seeking to enter India instead of arresting them.

Bhushan, appearing for Rohingya petitioner Mohammad Salimullah, said that pushing back Rohingya refugees, who are fleeing their country to save their lives, was in breach of the international conventions on refugees.

Appearing for the Centre, Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta urged the court that it should not interfere in the matter as the "constitutionally empowered executive was seized of the matter and the diplomatic process is on to deal with the situation".

"We don't want India to be the refugee capital of the world," he retorted as Bhushan told the bench that BSF was using chilli powder and stun grenades to push back the refugees who are fleeing for their lives.

As Bhushan referred to a policy under which Hindu, Sikhs and people belonging to other religious denominations are welcome but not Muslims, Mehta objected to the word "welcome" saying that there was no welcome.

At this, the court said that the word "welcome" may be an exaggeration but there is a policy decision to that effect.

Appearing for the National Human Rights Commission, senior counsel Gopal Subramanium initially told the court that he was in agreement with what Mehta was saying to let the government take its course and address the issue through diplomatic channels but then said that the NHRC was only concerned with the Rohingyas present in India.

He said that Rohingyas refugees have right to education, health care and security and for securing them, they could knock the doors of the top court.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The man who rammed a stolen truck into a crowd in Stockholm in April last year, killing five and injuring 14, was charged on Tuesday with terrorism, attempts to carry out an act of terror, and putting others in danger.

Rakhmat Akilov, a 39-year-old Uzbek national, has already confessed but wants to avoid a life sentence or deportation, his attorney said at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon after the preliminary investigation was made public for the first time.

"My aim is that Akilov should never again be allowed to move freely in our society," Xinhua quoted prosecutor Hans Ihrman asa saying.

In previous hearings, Akilov has said that he wanted to put a stop to Sweden's support for the global fight against the terrorist group IS. His defense attorney, Johan Eriksson, confirmed that was his client's motive.

According to the preliminary investigation, Akilov had, in online conversations starting mid-January 2017, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and expressed wishes to carry out an attack on Stockholm. He wanted to "run over infidels", according to the prosecutor. It was unclear whether IS had responded to Akilov's messages or supported his actions.

Akilov had also gathered information about possible targets and, prosecutors said on Tuesday, he likely decided to carry out the attack on a Friday afternoon because downtown Stockholm is at its busiest then.

He had looked for information online about how to make a bomb and the day before the attack googled the phrases "jumping out of the car" and "out of the car if you don't want to die".

A few hours before hijacking a truck, he recorded a video on his mobile phone with a statement saying "it is time to kill". He then drove, at high speed, down the pedestrian shopping street Drottninggatan. He finally crashed into a department store and then fled the scene after the cab of the truck caught fire.

The preliminary investigation claims that he also tried, but failed, to detonate a bomb and that he was in contact with another person while driving the truck. A British man, a Belgian woman and three Swedes were killed, including an 11-year-old girl.

In connection with Akilov's arrest, just hours after the attack, police confiscated several items, including a knife and a memory card with execution videos that may be linked to IS.

However, asked if Akilov had acted with support from IS, prosecutor Ihrman said: "I don't want to get into that. He simply is an IS supporter." Akilov acted alone on the day of the attack, said Ihrman and nearly all the individuals he was in touch with before that day, including in online conversations, are abroad.

Swedish secret service Sapo has, during the 10-month investigation, tried to find information about potential assistants and to assess the risk of new attacks in Sweden.

Eriksson, Akilov's defense lawyer, said his client has been cooperative during the investigation and has been detained under "harsh but fair" conditions, not having had contact with any friends or family members during his detention.

Ihrman said he would demand that Akilov gets a life sentence and that, in the event of an early release, he should be extradited from Sweden.

Akilov, a construction worker who was 39 at the time of the attack, was hiding from the authorities after failing to adhere to a deportation order when his asylum application was rejected. He was ordered to leave Sweden in December 2016. Some commentators in Sweden say the attack could have been avoided has Sweden been tougher on immigration.

The trial is scheduled to start on February 13 and last until May 9.

--IANS

qd/

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Sochi, Jan 31 (IANS/AKI) A number of Syrian opposition groups shunned the peace conference at the Black Sea resort of Sochi claiming that only the Syrian government's flag was flying at the Russian-hosted event, according to Turkish officials.

Turkey will instead represent the opposition groups at the conference sponsored by Russia, Iran and Turkey, Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency reported, citing unnamed sources.

Turkey was also said to be bringing representatives of some Syrian armed groups.

Russia, a key ally of Syrian president Bashar Assad, says it invited 1,600 representatives to the Syrian Congress of National Dialogue but so far only the government and opposition representatives tolerated by it have shown up.

The main Syrian opposition body - the High Negotiation Committee - has boycotted the conference following two days of UN-led peace talks in Vienna last week.

Ankara also blocked the participation of the main Kurdish group, which itself said it would not attend in protest against the unrelenting Turkish offensive launched against the enclave of Afrin in northwest Syria.

Organisers of the Sochi congress intended to bring together Syrians of all stripes to hammer out a new post-war constitution.

More than three dozen other Syrian rebel groups, including influential Islamists, had previously said they would not take part in the Sochi talks.

The UN says over 340,000 people have died and 10 million more have been displaced since the Syrian war began in 2011 as Assad crushed anti-government protests.

--IANS/AKI

mr/

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Supporters of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and other Hindutva organisations on Wednesday took out a procession and two-wheeler rally in Agra in Uttar Pradesh despite restrictions imposed on the assembly of four or more persons in the town.

Though the district administration had deployed additional security at road crossings and localities inhabited by members of a particular community and also imposed Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (banning assembly of four or more persons), no efforts were made to stop the processionists riding two-wheelers through the town's main streets.

A few of the processionists raised provocative slogans also.

Holding Tricolours, the rallyists marched from the Shaheed Smarak to the Collectorate headquarters to present a memorandum to the District Magistrate to demand Rs 50 lakh compensation for the family of Chandan Gupta, who was killed in the Kasganj violence.

They also demanded a government job for one member of the bereaved family, a plot of land and action against anti-national elements in Kasganj.

Communal clashes were reported in Kasganj on Republic Day on January 26, in which one youth was killed following a 'Tiranga Yatra' by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and the Vishva Hindu Parishad.

Unidentified miscreants had pelted the motorcycle rally with stones. Chandan was killed, several persons injured and dozens of vehicles damaged in the ensuing clashes.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Tremors across north India on Wednesday, following an earthquake in the Hindu Kush region, created panic among people but its high depth averted any damage, said Met Department officials.

The earthquake, measuring 6.2 on the Richter Scale or "moderate", which is strong enough to cause considerable damage, occurred at the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border at 12.36 p.m. and lasted for a few seconds.

According to the Centre for Seismology of the India Meteorological Department, tremors were felt in Jammu and Kashmir, northern Rajasthan, Harayana, Punjab, Delhi, western Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, but damage of life and property was averted due to high depth of the origin.

"Since depth of the origin of quake was 190 km, which is too high, the damage was minimised. People felt the tremors but they were not strong enough to cause damage here," Centre for Seismology Director V.K Gehlot told IANS.

He added that with high depth, the shock waves and energy decay by the time they reach the surface, however the depth also increases the 'felt area' or the areas feeling tremors.

"Deeper the depth, higher is the felt area... this is the reason that tremors were widespread, however the span of tremors were also dampened and so was the intensity as waves travelled from the point of origin.

"Luckily the origin of earthquake was area with low population density, due to which damage was minimum there too," he added.

In India, the tremors forced people to run out of their homes and offices. Delhi Metro immediately halted operations - briefly.

Panic also gripped the people in Kashmir valley, as traffic stopped at many places in Srinagar city and other places. Some vehicles seemed to wobble for a while.

In Srinagar, some reports said a flyover being built suffered damage.

In Rajashtan, people in Jaipur, Jodhpur, Alwar, Udaipur, Bharatpur and many other cities experienced the tremors and came out of their houses and offices.

Though India was saved from damage due to proximity from the origin, Balochistan province in Pakistan however suffered damage, with at least one child reported dead and nine others injured after a couple of mud houses and a school building collapsed in the Bela town of Lasbela district.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The result of Tripura's February 18 assembly polls would boost "anti-BJP" national politics, Communist Party of India-Marxist General Secretary Sitaram Yechury said on Wednesday.

"The outcome of the assembly elections in Tripura would further push the anti-BJP national ahead of the next year's general elections," he said at a public meeting at Kalyanpur in western Tripura, adding that the countdown for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led central government has begun and it would be ousted in 2019.

"Depriving poor, farmers, unemployed people, the BJP government at the centre is directly helping the millionaires to loot the country's wealth. One per cent of Indians are holding country's 90 per cent assets," he said.

Terming Prime Minister Narendra Modi as pro-corporate and anti-farmer, Yechury said that he had made huge number of tall promises but did not execute one of them in four years' rule so far.

"What about his declaration on unearthing black money and bringing back huge amounts of money stashed abroad by big industrialists?" he asked.

The CPI-M leader said that during 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Modi and other BJP leaders had promised that their government would give two crore jobs every year to the unemployed, but in reality lakhs of youths are losing jobs due to the government's wrong policies.

"The Narendra Modi-led BJP government by its deliberate policies is making the wealthy people richer and poor people poorer. Unless this government is removed from the Centre in the next election, the country will be in a dire state," he maintained.

Yechury also deliberated the problems of unemployment, farmers' suicides and oppression of Dalits in the country and expressed grave concern over efforts to divide people along religious lines.

"BJP leaders and ministers, both at the centre and different states, are dictating how people would lead their life, what they would eat, what they will speak and what would be their lifestyle. This is very dangerous."

He said that Tripura is a number one state in India in achieving development in every sphere and sectors. "In providing title deeds to the tribals under the Forest Rights Act, 2006, Tripura's success is 98 per cent - highest in the country."

Yechury also expressed confidence that in February's election, the people of Tripura "would give a befitting reply to BJP, RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), Modi and (BJP President) Amit Shah. Their defeat would start from Tripura."

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)US President Donald Trump has called on the Congress to come together to enact sweeping immigration reforms that introduce a merit-based system while ending the inflow of extended family members and building a wall to safeguard the borders.

In his first State of the Union address to the Congress on Tuesday night in Washington, Trump offered to legalise those who were brought into the country illegally as children and ultimately give them citizenship, while cracking down on criminal gangs as part of his reform package to "bring our immigration system into the 21st century".

Trump did not directly touch on the temporary H1-B visas that are given to professionals, which has become a contentious issue with India. His administration is tightening the scrutiny of the issuance of the visas and he has in the past criticised the system saying it affected American workers.

There was only a passing mention of protecting American workers and of immigration policies that focus on the best interests of American workers and American families in the speech.

"It is time to begin moving towards a merit-based immigration system -- one that admits people who are skilled, who want to work, who will contribute to our society and who will love and respect our country," he said to cheers and applause from Republicans and their supporters, while Democrats sat quietly.

Currently, Indian professionals have a 11-year wait to get their permanent resident status with green cards because of national quota restrictions. A purely merit-based system like those in Canada and Australia, which the administration has proposed, has the potential to help Indians get them sooner.

Trump said that the focus would be on the nuclear family and "chain migration" of brothers, sisters and parents of immigrants would be ended. Limiting immigration to only spouses and children of immigrants would affect other aspiring immigrants from India.

The Democrats have made legalising those brought illegally into the US as children -- referred to as "Dreamers" -- as a condition for cooperating with the Trump administration.

The President offered in his speech a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million "Dreamers", which he said is three times more than the numbers offered by previous administrations. "Those who meet education and work requirements and show good moral character will be able to become full citizens of the US," he said.

It is estimated that over 5,500 Indian "Dreamers" in danger of deportation when the current programme ends in March could benefit if they are given a permanent reprieve with the possibility of gaining citizenship.

Preventing illegal immigration would require building a wall on the southern border with Mexico and hiring more immigration and border security personnel, Trump said.

In the audience with his family were the parents of two girls who were murdered by members of a notorious Central American gang known as MS-13. He called out to the tearful parents, who received a standing ovation, as he spoke of cracking down on the gang made up of many who came in as unaccompanied minors when Barack Obama was President under a liberal programme he put in place.

"Crucially, our plan closes the terrible loopholes exploited by criminals and terrorists to enter our country -- and it finally ends the dangerous practice of 'catch and release' under which those who are apprehended by law enforcement are freed," he said.

(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Two men were arrested and a teenager kidnapped from east Delhi for a ransom of Rs 1 crore rescued from their confinement, police said on Wednesday.

One of the kidnappers claimed a family member was involved in the crime as well.

The abduction was executed on Monday evening when the boy, aged 12, a resident of Kardampuri in West Jyoti Nagar, was returning home after tution. His father filed a police complaint on Tuesday after getting the ransom call.

"Accused Tarif, 21, works in the boy's father's factory, while his accomplice Danish, 22, is a former employee but presently works in a factory in Vishwas Nagar. They took the teenager to Panipat in Haryana and kept him there for one night. They brought him back to Delhi after making many ransom calls to his father from there," Joint Commissioner of Police Ravinder Yadav said.

The two were arrested from their hideout in east Delhi with the help of surveillance and the boy rescued.

"Tarif told police that Mohsen, a cousin brother of the victim, was the mastermind of the crime committed for easy money. He is absconding," Yadav said.

--IANS

sp/tsb

(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.)British Prime Minister Theresa May began her official trip to China on Wednesday with a visit to Wuhan University, where she announced bilateral education initiatives with a value of 500 million pounds.

May addressed an audience of some 200 Chinese and British university students at the campus in central Hubei province.

The Conservative leader said education served as a way to strengthen friendly relations between the UK and China heading into the future.

She said that a clutch of initiatives signed by the two nations was worth over half a billion pounds and would unlock over 800 job posts in the UK.

Such investments included the launch of English is Great, which seeks to promote the study of English in China, as well as a 75 million pounds investment in the British company Busy Bees, with the aim of opening up to 20 daycare centres in China.

May was later expected to visit an environmental project on the Yangtze River before travelling to Beijing for a meeting with her counterpart Li Keqiang.

The British Premier said she expected China to play a "huge role" in the economic development of the world, adding: "I want that future to work for Britain, which is why, during my visit, I'll be deepening co-operation with China on key global and economic issues that are critical to our businesses, to our people, and to what the UK stands for."

She acknowledged that her agenda "will not be delivered in one visit: it must be our shared objective over the coming years".

In a statement, a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman said Beijing saw May's trip as "an opportunity to achieve new development of the China-UK global comprehensive strategic partnership".

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Uttar Pradesh government in its report to the Union Home Ministry on Wednesday said it was in the process of ascertaining if the violence and arson were pre-planned in Kasganj where communal riots broke out after a youth was killed on Republic Day.

In the report, the Uttar Pradesh Police said it "swung into action after the violence was reported and brought it under control quickly", according to Home Ministry officials.

It mentioned about the arrests made by the police and the circumstances leading to the death of 22-year-old Chandan Gupta.

"All facts are being ascertained to know if violence was pre-planned or not," said the report.

The Uttar Pradesh government's move comes a day after the Home Ministry sought a detailed report on the incident and the current situation in the state, including on measures taken to ensure peace in the district.

Meanwhile, Inspector General (Aligarh range) Sanjeev Gupta said the Uttar Pradesh Police has arrested the main accused in the Kasganj arson. He was identified as Salim.

Kasganj S.P. Piyush Srivastava said that notices pertaining to attachment of properties of the accused earlier arrested in connection with the violence have been pasted on their houses.

Following the killing of the youth, three shops, two buses, and a car were burnt by a violent mob. The district administration said it had taken a slew of measures to contain lingering tension, with the state government removing the Superintendent of Police.

As many as 118 persons have been arrested in connection with the violence, according to inputs with the Home Ministry's Control Room.

Besides police, units of the anti-riot Rapid Action Force have been deployed in sensitive locations in the district to check untoward incidents, a senior Home Ministry official said.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)I refer to Firms brace for Europes new rules (January 30). Tech giants and some others positioned themselves as catalysts for a better world. But their systems and tools have also been used to undermine privacy and thus the basic right of the citizens in a democracy.

Essentially, the search engine giants create a personality profile based on what we have been up to  and use this to send specific adverts. The information so gathered is used forever. Given that personal data constitutes the lifeline of governments and internet companies such as Google and Facebook ...The regime is due for a change and here are the reasons why  the extant law is complex, unwieldy, and far from simple. The rates of tax vary for various classes of taxpayers  residents, non-residents, and foreign portfolio investors (FPI)  and differing rates are prescribed based on options to claim indexation benefits. The holding period for characterising short and long terms varies  12 months for listed securities, 24 months for unlisted and real estate, and 36 months for other classes of assets. Focusing on the regime for securities (listed and unlisted) transactions, in the last 26 Budgets/Finance Acts since economic reforms of 1991, barring nine of them, all have seen amendments to the regime.

In December 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi hinted at change in the tax regime.  those who profit from financial markets must make a fair contribution to nation-building through taxes ... To some extent, the low contribution of taxes may also be due to the structure of our tax laws  We should consider methods for increasing it in a fair, efficient and transparent way...

The extant law has six rates of tax (nil, 10, 15, 20, 30, and 40) without factoring in rates that are derived due to indexation benefits coupled with the securities transaction tax (STT) levy for listed securities traded on the floor of the exchange.

Though the principle of horizontal equity should guide the policymakers in taxing passive income (such as capital gains on asset class, in general) and active income (such as salaries and business profits) at comparable rates, most nations, depending on economic considerations, either exempt them or tax them at concessional rates. India follows the latter except exempting gains from listed securities.





The regime needs to address simplicity, stability and predictability for the following reasons:

1. Indias thirst for capital will grow and a stable regime will attract an incremental dosage of capital to markets and business enterprises. Domestic, listed enterprises with proven business models and credible governance will continue to attract FPI.

2. A material part of corporate and domestic savings will find its way into investments in entrepreneurial businesses and capital markets. India has witnessed a visible rise in the post-demonetisation period in assets under management of domestic mutual funds and FPI investments. Despite fears of the US interest regime, the global outlook towards emerging economies is indicative of confidence in Indias capital markets.



3. Any form of tax (levied on transactions or on gains) is a pass-through cost for FPIs and domestic mutual funds as investors eventually bear the cost of such levy. For fund managers, the capital gains tax does become a matter of competitive choice, as one of the factors is ex-ante calculation of post-tax returns. Though other competitive factors such as the growth of the economy, the performance of the financial markets, rule of law, stable and predictable government policies do play an equally important role, tax certainty, particularly in the context of India, is an important factor.

4. FPIs and domestic mutual funds are expected to determine their net asset value on a daily basis. Hence, it is of paramount importance to ascertain its tax obligations (for the investors) with precision.

5. Changes in the 2017 Budget address tax-evasion concerns of the government on the circulation of unaccounted income through misuse of capital gains exemption for listed securities through the trading of penny stocks.

A case in point is the controversy on levying the minimum alternate tax (MAT) on FPIs as a result of actions of the tax administration in 2015. Its only at the intervention of the senior-most political leadership that the Justice AP Shah Panel was constituted, and it led to an amendment in the 2016 Budget, calming the market nerves. In summary, for fund managers (and indirectly all forms of investors, institutional and non-institutional) a predictable tax regime is essential. Bold domestic tax and treaty policy steps in 2016 and 2017 have created a level playing field, a point made by PM Modi.

Therefore, any rejig in the regime will require a degree of consistency in holding period (across a class of assets or specified class of assets), stable and low tax rate with clarity on withdrawal/reduction of STT.

In conclusion, simplicity should guide the lawmakers to have:

One rate or an exemption for all forms of taxpayers.

Let the holding period stabilise at 24 months for all forms of assets.

Levy tax at moderate rate and reduce the slabs to three  exempt, 5 and 10 per cent, with a corresponding reduction or withdrawal of the STT.

Any upward revision of the tax rate, or the holding period, should be suitably grandfathered.

The author is founder, BMR legal and views are personal

Twitter @mukeshbutaniA day after President Ram Nath Kovind pitched for simultaneous Lok Sabha and state Assembly elections, Congress leader P Chidambaram termed it as another "election jumla" (gimmick), saying it cannot be done under the current constitutional provisions.

Speaking at a panel discussion after the release of his book 'Speaking Truth to Power', Chidambaram said the Constitution of India does not give a fixed term to any government and unless it is amended, one cannot have simultaneous elections.

"In a parliamentary democracy, especially when we have 30 states, under the present Constitution you cannot have simultaneous election.

"This is another of these election jumla. One nation, one tax was a jumla. Now one nation, one election is a jumla," he said in reply to a question.

The former Union minister, whose book was released by ex-president Pranab Mukherjee, said one can artificially construct the appearance of a simultaneous election by advancing some elections and postponing some, and one could hold parliamentary election and elections to five or six states, but not in all the 30 states.

"What if a government falls tomorrow? Will you put it under President's rule for four years? It can't be done," he said.

President Kovind had, in his maiden address to the joint sitting of the two houses of Parliament yesterday, made a strong pitch for simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies, and called for a consensus among political parties on the issue.

He said frequent polls posed a "huge burden" on resources and impeded the development process.

Prime Minister Modi has been pitching for this for some time now and urged political parties to arrive at a consensus after debating the issue.Over 1,200 graduates from premier institutions like IITs and NITs have been selected to teach in 53 state-run engineering colleges in backward areas across 11 states and Union Territories for three years, Union minister Prakash Javadekar said today.

"This is the first time such a measure has been taken to improve the quality of in backward areas. With the initiative, more than one lakh engineering students in the most backward areas would be benefited with better quality education," he told reporters here.

Each of the faculty will be paid Rs 70,000 per month with the government spending about Rs 375 crore for the move.

The HRD minister said up to 60 per cent of faculty strength was lying vacant in these colleges, which failed to attract qualified teachers.

"A public appeal was given to M Tech and PhD students from the premier institutions to work in the backward areas and serve the nation. There was an overwhelming response to the call and more than 5,000 highly-qualified persons applied," the ministersaid.

The initiative is part of the Technical Quality Improvement Project (TEQIP-III) for improving the quality of engineering graduates at a cost of Rs 2,300 crore, to be implemented during the three-year period till 2020.

Javadekar said 86 per cent of 1,225teachers were selected from premier institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), National Institutes of Technology (NITs), Indian Institutes of Science and Research (IISERs), and Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs), with 24 per cent of them holding PhDs.

As many as 301 teachers will head to 11 institutes in Rajasthan, 210 to seven institutes in Bihar, 194 to seven institutes in Madhya Pradesh and 191 to six institutes in Jharkhand.

Other institutes for which the faculty has been selected include Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Odisha, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the minister added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)At least two persons - a police official and an under-trial murder suspect - were killed today when an armed man opened fire on them on the premises of the sessions court in Lahore, the capital of Pakistan's Punjab.

Superintendent of Police (city) Ali Raza told PTI that murder suspect Amjad was brought hand-cuffed to the sessions court from the camp jail for hearing when an armed man (later identified as Tauqeer) posing as lawyer (to skip security check) entered the court premises and opened fire on Amjad.

"Amjad died on the spot. When the policemen present there rushed to catch him he opened fire on them leaving two of them injured," Raza said.

The injured policemen were shifted to a nearby hospital where one of them, Asif, succumbed to his injuries while the condition of the other is stated to be critical.

Raza further said Amjad allegedly had killed the father of Tauqeer in 2015.

"Apparently, Tauqeer shot dead Amjad to avenge the killing of his father," he said, adding that Taqueer managed to flee from the scene.

"Police teams have been constituted to arrest the suspect. We are also investigating as how the suspect managed to bring a weapon in court," he said.

Additional Sessions Judge Imran Shafi who was to hold the hearing of the case has ordered inquiry into the matter.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)In a bonanza, the sixth Karnataka pay commission has recommended 30 per cent hike in the salaries of state government employees and pensioners, effective July 1, 2017.

The move will benefit 5.2 lakh government employees, 5.73 lakh pensioners and also about 73,000 employees of government-aided educational institutions, local bodies and non-teaching staff of colleges and universities of the state.

The commission has recommended that the revision of pay and pension is to be notionally effected from July 1, 2017 with the resulting financial benefit being paid from April 1, 2018.

If implemented, the revision of pay, allowances and pension is set to cost the state exchequer an estimated Rs 10,508 crore annually, the commission said.

The commission headed by retired IAS officer M R Srinivas Murthy submitted the first volume of the report to chief minister Siddaramaiah today.

The minimum pay as per the revised pay scales will be Rs 17,000 and the maximum pay Rs 1,50,600 plus allowances.

After revision, the minimum revised pension will be Rs 8,500 with the maximum pension fixed at Rs 75,300 per month plus dearness allowance.

The family pension will have an upper limit of Rs 45,180 per month with dearness allowance.

The commission said the method it proposed to effect the revision of salaries and pension was increasing the basic pay of each employee as on July 1, 2017 by 30 per cent and then adding the dearness allowance of 45.25 per cent payable from that date.

While the commission agreed to retain the maximum age for retiring at 60 years, it, however, recommended that the minimum qualifying service for voluntary retirement be reduced from the present 15 years to 10 years and the eligibility for receiving full pension be reduced from 33 years to 30.

The rates of house rent allowance are recommended to be revised to 24 per cent, 16 per cent, and 8 per cent of the revised basic pay replacing the present rates of 30 per cent, 20 per cent and 10 per cent respectively, of the existing basic pay.

The maximum limit of death-cum-retirement gratuity is proposed to be increased to Rs 20 lakh from the present Rs 10 lakh.

The commission has also recommended payment of additional pension to all pensioners aged above 80 years.

The rates of additional pension will be 20 per cent for those between 80 years and 85 years, 30 per cent for 85 and 90 years, 40 per cent for 90 and 95 years, 50 per cent for 95 to 100 years and 100 per cent for those aged above 100.

It has also recommended medical reimbursement benefit to retired employees and cashless treatment for family pensioners in empanelled hospitals as in the case of 'Jyothi Sanjeevini' scheme.

These benefits will cost the state government Rs 500 crore.

The substantial increase in various allowances and subsidies in vehicles for the differently-abled employees have also been recommended.

These recommendations will not be applicable to All India Services and judicial officers drawing NJPC pay scale and teaching staff getting UGC/AICTE pay scales.

On the occasion, Siddaramaiah said the second volume of the recommendations will be submitted three months later.

"We have three months to think of the second volume of the report. We will come back to power after three months and it is only we who will implement the second set of recommendations," Siddaramaiah said.

He conceded the recommendation will have an additional burden on the state government, which will be discussed at the next cabinet meeting.Four major rivers, including Jehlum and Chenab, in Jammu and Kashmir have been declared "national waterways" by the Union government, paving the way for inland navigation on them to boost water transport and tourism, the state government has said.

"The Union government has declared four rivers namely Chenab, Indus, Jhelum and Ravi as national waterways, which would be developed in a phased manner," Minister for Public Health Engineering, Irrigation and Flood Control, Sham Lal Choudhary said.

He said the state government was examining the feasibility-cum-detailed project report of Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) prepared for inland navigation and construction of horizontal and vertical terminals across these waterways.

"The development of these national waterways will boost the Inland Water Transport, besides, exploit the tourism potential on the national waterways of the state and improve the socio-economic profile of people of these areas," he said.

Choudhary, speaking on a discussion on the demand for grants of PHE, I&FC departments in the Legislative Assembly last night, said under the Rs 399.29 crore Comprehensive Flood Management Plan for river Jehlum, Phase-I, an amount of Rs 177.20 crore has been utilised against the released amount of Rs 196.12 crore.

He said a dispute with the Punjab government in connection with the construction of Shahpur Kandi Barrage has been resolved and a fresh agreement has been ratified by both the governments.

"To take the project forward, formulation of DPRs of Comprehensive Flood Management Plan of river Jehlum Phase-II worth Rs 1684.60 crore under PMDP has been entrusted to WAPCOS, an empanelled agency of Union Ministry of Water Resources and it has been directed to complete it within three months," the minister stressed.

To meet future flood challenges in the Jammu region, the Flood Protection to River Chenab project at a cost of Rs 2,314 crore has been conceptualised and the DPR has been submitted to the Union government, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Over 400 experts are expected to brainstorm on energy transition across the globe in view of technology and digital disruptions at 7th India Energy Congress, scheduled to begin tomorrow here.

More than 400 experts will meet here on February 1 and 2 to discuss and debate the energy transition being witnessed, Energy 4.0 - the fourth energy revolution and draw map for 2030, in view of technological and digital disruptions already underway and those visible across the horizon, an official statement said.

The 7th India Energy Congress will also deliberate upon how these are driving energy transition in various parts of the world.

The India Energy Congress is the flagship event of World Energy Council India (WEC India) and joint event of ministries of power, coal, new & renewable energy, petroleum & natural gas, external affairs and Department of Atomic Energy.

The WEC India functions under the power ministry. Secretary (Power) is the chairman of the WEC India. NTPC Chairman Gurdeep Singh is the member secretary of the WEC India.

The theme of the 7th edition of India Energy Congress is 'Energy 4.0: Energy Transition Towards 2030'. The Congress is structured in five cross-cutting sub-themes: Policy and Energy 2030; Energy Investments in an Uncertain World; Sustainable Mobility; Variable Renewable Energy Integration; and Reaching the Last Mile.

Power and New & Renewable Energy Minister R K Singh, who is Patron WEC India, will address the inaugural session of the two-day congress.

Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, Dharmendra Pradhan; Vice Chairman, Niti Aayog, Rajiv Kumar and Minister of Coal and Railways, Piyush Goyal will address the Congress at Ministerial sessions.

Minister of Road Transport & Highways and Shipping Nitin Gadkari has been also invited.

Secretary (Power Division), Bangladesh Dr Ahmad Kaikaus will also address the Congress at the inaugural session.

Other speakers will include secretaries, chief executive officers, heads of financial institutions, senior officials of multilaterals, global team leaders of leading consultants, representatives of energy research organisations like World Energy Council and International Energy Agency.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A high-level Afghan delegation comprising the interior minister and the intelligence chief today arrived in Pakistan to handover evidence relating to the recent deadly attacks in Kabul and a message from President Ashraf Ghani, media reports said.

Foreign Office spokesperson Muhammad Faisal said the Afghan team, comprising Interior Minister Wais Ahmad Barmak and National Directorate of Security chief Masoom Stanekzai, visits Islamabad with a message from President Ashraf Ghani and will hold discussions about cooperation, Dawn reported.

However, Afghanistan's Tolo reported, citing an Afghan presidential palace source, that the delegation is to handover evidence to Pakistan regarding the recent attacks in Kabul. The evidence will be shared with the Pakistan Army, the source claimed, without providing further details.

It said Pakistan's Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi called Ghani last night to pass on his condolences but Ghani refused to take his call. Instead Ghani sent a delegation including the interior minister and the intelligence chief to Pakistan to handover evidence relating to the recent attacks.

Afghanistan's capital Kabul was hit by a spate of deadly attacks in the past 10 days - which killed about 150 people and wounded hundreds.

Islamic State militants on Monday attacked Afghan soldiers guarding a military academy in Kabul killing at least 11 troops and wounding 16.

On January 20, Taliban men armed with Kalashnikovs and suicide vests attacked the landmark Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul and killed around 25 people, going from room to room searching for foreigners during the more than 12-hour ordeal.

The hotel attack was followed by a Taliban-claimed ambulance bombing on January 27 in the Afghan capital that claimed over 100 lives mostly civilians.

The Afghan government blamed the attack on the dreaded Haqqani Network.

The Haqqani network, blamed for several deadly attacks against Indian interests in Afghanistan including the 2008 bombing of the Indian mission in Kabul that killed 58 people, has carried out a number of kidnappings and attacks against US interests in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan's Permanent Representative to the UN Mahmoud Saikal on Monday accused Pakistan's spy agency the Inter- Services Intelligence (ISI) of training a terrorist involved in the attack on Kabul's Intercontinental Hotel.

"Abdul Qahar, father of one of the terrorists involved in last week attack on #Kabul Intercontinental Hotel, concedes his son was trained in Chaman of #Balochistan Province of #Pakistan by the Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan. Qahar is currently in custody of Afg authorities," he tweeted.

A mid-level diplomat at the Afghan Embassy in the US also alleged that the attack was planned by Pakistan.

"The night vision goggles found with Taliban attackers in maiwand's ANA base were military grade goggles (not sold to public) procured by Pak army from a British company & supplied 2 Lashkar-e-Tayyeba in Kashmir & Taliban in Afghanistan. Lashkar-e-Tayyeba is an int'l terrorist org," tweeted Majeed Qarar, Cultural Attache at the Embassy of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan accuses Pakistan of providing support for the Taliban militants who carry out attacks in the war-torn country, a charge Islamabad denies.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Bharti Airtel today said it has not made a firm bid for buying Nigerian telco 9mobile, due to absence of key information and data that is otherwise made available in such processes.

The comment comes amid reports that Airtel had expressed an interest to acquire the debt-laden Nigerian rival in a bid to bolster its position in Africa's major telecom market, but shied away from placing a financial bid.

"In the absence of key information / key contracts and other requested data, all of which is ordinarily made available during bids of this kind, we have been unable to participate in this process," an Airtel Africa spokesperson said responding to an email query by PTI.

The company did not provide any further details on the matter.

Reports suggested that takeover bids from interested buyers for 9mobile are being examined by Barclays Africa but that a deal may still be a few months away since it will entail a restructuring 9mobile's debt.

For the third quarter ended December 31, 2017, Bharti Airtel's overall Africa revenues were up 5.3 per cent year- on-year in constant currency terms. The Africa Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) margin at 35.5 per cent, was up 10.8 per cent compared to year ago period, the company had said in during its quarterly earnings announcement.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Well-known South Indian actor Amala Paul today filed a complaint of sexual harassment, reportedly against a city based businessman.

The actor told reporters that the man used vulgar language against her while she was rehearsing for an upcoming event in Malaysia, at a dance studio here.

"I was shocked and (felt) humiliated. Therefore I approached police," she said, adding she felt 'extremely unsafe' after the episode.

A probe is on in the matter, police said.

Amala Paul has acted in a number of Tamil and Malayalam movies, pairing among others, popular Tamil star Vijay.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)President Donald Trump's fiery comments on North Korea reflected confidence that his campaign of pressure and sanctions on the country is working, South Korean analysts said today.

The experts said it also means Washington will continue to deny Pyongyang meaningful dialogue unless it's willing to discuss serious changes to its nuclear weapons program and human rights conditions.

In his first State of the Union address, Trump warned that North Korea would "very soon" threaten the United States with nuclear-tipped missiles.

He also warned of the dangers from other "rogue regimes," like Iran, terrorist groups, like the Islamic State, and "rivals" like China and Russia "that challenge our interests, our economy and our values."



Calling on Congress to lift budgetary caps and boost spending on the military, Trump said that "unmatched power is the surest means of our defense."



Du Hyeogn Cha, a visiting scholar at Seoul's Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said that for North Korea, it has to hurt that Trump declared the country as a regime that cannot co-exist with the founding values of the United States.

"He made it clear that his 'maximum pressure and engagement' policy will continue to be the only way going forward," he said. "It was probably the worst message he could deliver to the North without issuing a direct military threat."



Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University and a security adviser to South Korea's presidential office, says Trump likely saw North Korea's outreach over the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics as a clear sign that pressure and sanctions are working.

of the speech was not immediately broadcast in North Korea on Wednesday, which is not unusual. It often takes a day or more before the North responds officially and few North Koreans were likely even aware that Trump was to make a major address before the nation and the world.

The North's state-run media has, however, amped up its anti-U.S. rhetoric lately, accusing Washington of trying to create tensions ahead of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

Pyongyang has also stepped up its warnings that the U.S. is preparing for a possible war by sending aircraft carrier battle groups and advanced stealth bombers and fighters to the region.

In Beijing, China called on the U.S. to drop what it terms a "Cold War mentality and zero-sum ideology."



Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chuying said that common interests outweigh differences between the sides and the U.S. should view the relationship "correctly."



China's $275 billion trade surplus with the US has been a constant source of tension, alongside their growing rivalry for military supremacy in Asia and accusations of intellectual property theft.

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that Trump has confirmed his "ignorance" in remarks on Iran in his address.

Zarif tweeted: "Trump again confirms his ignorance of Iran & region. Everyone knows where he stands; and it's certainly not with Iranians."



Earlier, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the people of Iran will continue supporting the Islamic Republic despite foreign pressure.

Rouhani said in remarks broadcast by state TV: "The Iranian nation will never give up Imam Khomeini's legacy; Islamism and Republicanism. Return is impossible."



In the Philippines, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told The Associated Press that it did not really matter that Trump failed to mention US policy on the South China Sea disputes involving China, the Philippines and four other governments, but that Manila would lend its support to fighting terrorism whenever the efforts of the two nations coincide.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)German leaders are increasingly alarmed about a resurgence of anti-Semitism 73 years after the Holocaust, stemming from an emboldened far right and an influx of refugees from countries hostile to Israel.

Germany is marking the 1945 liberation of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz with solemn ceremonies, but also warnings of the need for stronger vigilance.

On the anniversary on Saturday, Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned revisionist forces seeking to call into question the country's commitment to atoning for its Nazi past.

She said fighting anti-Semitism and racism must be a "daily task".

"It is inconceivable and shameful that no Jewish institution can exist without police protection, whether it is a school, a kindergarten or a synagogue," she said.

Merkel, who a decade ago became the first German chancellor to address the Israeli Knesset, has committed to creating a new position of commissioner on anti-Semitism under the new government she hopes to form by March.

The move was prompted in part by demonstrations in Berlin in December against the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital which saw some protesters chant anti-Semitic slogans and torch Israeli flags.

Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said at the time that although Berlin opposed the move by US President Donald Trump, it strongly condemned the aggressive rallies in German cities.

"One has to be ashamed when hatred of Jews is put on display so openly on the streets of German cities," he said.

The demonstrations heightened a sense of anxiety expressed by the Germany's Jewish community, now more than 200,000 strong, over the arrival since 2015 of more than one million predominantly Muslim asylum seekers.

The former head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Holocaust survivor Charlotte Knobloch, spoke of a dramatic rise in anti-Semitic acts on German soil and said that Jews could no longer hold events "in public places without police protection".

A series of incidents have unsettled German authorities and the Jewish community.

In Berlin in November, 16 Stolpersteine (stumbling blocks) -- small brass memorial plaques outside the homes of Holocaust victims -- were dug out of the ground and stolen.

While perpetrators were never identified, the violation was unnerving, coming just days before commemorations of the Night of Broken Glass pogroms on November 9, 1938.

"It was the first time that so many Stolpersteine were taken in just a few days," said Silvija Kavcic, the Berlin coordinator of the initiative that has laid more than 7,000 of the plaques in the German capital.

The head of the German chapter of Human Rights Watch, Wenzel Michalski, said that anti-Semitism in the country is growing "ever more virulent and more violent".

The current director of the Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, shared his concern, saying that taboos that had held for decades after the war seemed to be crumbling.

"People dare to say much more today that they always thought but never would have expressed," he told Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

Germany's post-war identity and acceptance in the community of nations has been built on its remembrance culture, including a full reckoning with the atrocities committed under Hitler.

But as the elderly survivors die off, fears are growing that the country's collective memory will erode.

The rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which came in third in Germany's general elections in September with nearly 13 per cent of the vote, has compounded tensions.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Eggs were hurled at Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at a programme here, but they flew past him and hit some other people before falling near the podium, police said.

Two persons, including the wife of a BJP activist, have been detained in this regard, they said.

The attack took place during the inauguration of Talsari beach festival under Bhograi block in Balasore district. None was injured, police said.

Local MLA and Higher Education Minister Anant Das, Tourism and Culture Minister Ashok Chandra Panda and Korei MLA Akash Das Nayak were also present at the event.

"This is an unfortunate incident. We have detained two persons including a woman," Niti Sekhar, Balasore Superintendent of Police told reporters.

"The woman brought the eggs in her bag and threw them from the barricade. She is being interrogated," the officer said.

The woman, identified as the wife of a BJP activist, threw the eggs targeting Patnaik in protest against the detention of her husband ahead of the chief minister's arrival in the district.

The ruling BJD, of which Patnaik is the president, condemned the incident.

"The act is condemnable. The opposition party (BJP) is intolerant of the success of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and is resorting to such hooliganism. There are many instances of opposition parties being intolerant," said Jeevan Pradip Das, BJD MLA from the district.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)This is one jacket over which both the BJP and the Congress are finding it hard to keep their shirts on.

The political arch rivals tore into each other after the Meghalaya unit of the BJP, in an apparent bid to get even with Rahul Gandhi over his "suit-boot" jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, claimed the Congress chief wore a jacket worth Rs 63,000 to a concert in Shillong yesterday.

"So @OfficeOfRG, soot(pun intended!)-boot ki sarkar with black money fleeced from Meghalayan State exchequer by rampant corruption? Instead of singing away our woes, you could have given a report card of your inefficient govt in Meghalaya! Your indifference mocks us!," the BJP's Meghalaya unit tweeted.

The party's state unit also tweeted an image of a Burberry jacket, similar to the one that Gandhi wore, having a price tag of USD 995 (little over Rs 63,000).

In another tweet, the BJP alleged the Congress government in Meghalaya was mired in corruption. It said instead of attending a musical event, Gandhi should have given a report card of the state government.

Out on the hustings in the hill state, an unfazed Gandhi fired his "suit-boot ki sarkar" salvo at Modi afresh, saying he was always found in the company of people attired in suits and not those that are poor.

"You will not see him (Modi) hug a poor person, talk to a poor person or even engage with a poor person. You will see him with others. There is a particular distance he maintains with the poor people which he does not with Mr Obama or others," he told journalists in Shillong.

"The fact of the matter is that he (Modi) is still a suit-boot person. He has not done anything....," Gandhi said.

The tweet suggesting that the jacket worn by Gandhi was bought with black money, drew a sharp reaction from Congress leader Renuka Chowdhury, who alleged the BJP was leading a "suit-boot ki sarkar" at the Centre, and had no moral authority to question Gandhi.

She said the saffron party was "frustrated" due to Gandhi's "rising popularity".

Chowdhury accused the Modi government of being "idle", and said it should rather focus on issues such as the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, and rising prices of fuel and vegetables.

"Their frustration is directly proportionate to the rising popularity of Rahul Gandhi. Rahul Gandhi connects with the young. So, this idle and suit-boot ki sarkar has no right to talk about it," she said.

Gandhi had attended the concert in Shillong, apparently to reach out to the young voters.

Dressed in blue denim trousers and a black jacket, he had urged the youth to love and respect each other to make the country strong.

Attacking Modi, Chowdhury said,"Those who wove (their) own name on suit, do they have any morale authority to question Rahul Gandhi's jacket? How do they know rate of the jacket? I will show the jacket can be bought at Rs 700. What will they say then?" she asked.

Gandhi had mocked Modi with his "suit-boot ki sarkar" jibe after he wore a suit with his name finely embroidered on the stripes for a meeting with the then US president Barack Obama. The suit was later auctioned and bought for over 4.3 crore by a Surat businessman.

The BJP, which intends to give a tough fight to the ruling Congress in the Meghalaya Assembly elections, also accused the Congress of distracting voters by organising a soiree.

"Rock concert distraction tactics by the @OfficeOfRG to take away focus of Meghalayan voters from real issues on ground! A prince can fuss over 'fuddy-duddy chopper' rides & cancel his Tura trip, but ever wondered how people in Meghalaya travel," the BJP tweeted.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A BJP leader, pursuing the politically sensitive Bofors pay-off case, today filed a plea in the Supreme Court seeking recusal of the Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra.

Advocate Ajay Agrawal, who contested the 2014 Lok Sabha election from Rae Bareli against then Congress president Sonia Gandhi, alleged that the chief justice was "prejudiced" and "bent upon" dismissing the case relating to Rs 64 crore pay- off off matter without going into the merits.

He referred to the January 16 hearing to draw an inference that the bench headed by CJI would, in all likelihood, dismiss the appeal filed by him against the May 31, 2005 judgement of the Delhi High Court discharging all the accused in the case.

At the last hearing, he said, senior advocate Kapil Sibal was allowed to speak even after he objected to it. He said the CJI did not stop Sibal from interfering in the matter.

The lawyer said there were at least three occasions during the hearing when the court was about to dismiss the matter because of Sibal's "unwarranted" interference.

"When the matter was called upon Sibal, who was already sitting in the front row on the left side, hops on the advocate's addressing dais and started addressing this Court and said that matter is 31 years old and the appellant has no locus standi.

"Applicant immediately came forward and asked whom Mr Sibal represents. He was silent. The applicant requested the CJI to ask from Sibal that for whom he is appearing...But the Chief Justice did not stop him from interfering in the matter," Agrawal said in his application.

He claimed the court was about to dismiss the Criminal Appeal without going into the merits when it came up for hearing 12 years after it was admitted.

Agrawal claimed due to Sibal's intervention, the bench observed that the matter was quite old and was about to dismiss the case and, "in fact, had dropped the file in a gesture of dismissal".

At this juncture, the top court also questioned the locus standi of the applicant because Sibal had so suggested, he alleged.

On the court's query, Agrawal told the bench that there was no time limit in a criminal matter and that there were innumerable judgements which allowed a third party to appeal in criminal proceedings where the prosecuting agency had failed to file an appeal.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Three persons got a new lease of life after the kidneys and liver of a brain dead worker were harvested and transplanted on them at Centrally-sponsored JIPMER here.

The organs of one K Vijayakanth of Tiruvannamalai in neighbouring Tamil Nadu were transplanted to three persons after he was declared brain dead by doctors at JIPMER following a mishap on January 25, a press release said today.

While the kidneys were transplanted on two patients, the liver was transplanted on the third patient.

JIPMER Director S C Parija said that "all the three patients are recovering well in the Intensive Care Unit."



Vijayakanth was riding a two-wheeler with his cousin when the mishap occurred near Perungalathur in Chennai.

He sustained serious head injuries and was referred to JIPMER by the local hospital where he was initially treated, Nodal Officer of National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation in JIPMER Sreejith Parameswaran said in a release.

The man underwent emergency surgery in JIPMER for blood clots in the brain, the release said adding he was declared brain dead by the doctors in JIPMER.

The hospital authorities informed Vijayakanth's family, who came forward to donate his organs, it added.

All the medico legal formalities were completed facilitating harvesting of both the kidneys and liver of the worker after getting consent of his relatives, the release said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A Brazilian judge today rejected a motion by lawyers for former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to order him safe from jail while he fights a corruption conviction threatening his political comeback hopes.

The defence team applied to the Superior Court of Justice with a habeas corpus request. This would have meant Lula, who ruled from 2003-2010, remained free for now, despite last week's upholding by an appeal's court of his conviction.

Judge Humberto Martins wrote that he did not think the leftist leader risked any "illegal procedure" or "immediate imprisonment" and therefore was rejecting the motion.

This further reduces Lula's options for staying out of jail or avoiding being barred from running in the October presidential election. Opinion polls show him as frontrunner in the race. His case could still reach the Supreme Court.

Last week, the appeals court sentenced Lula to more than 12 years in prison after confirming a lower court conviction for corruption and money laundering.

Lula's lawyers filed papers with the United Nations human rights body in Geneva on Tuesday, accusing the court case against Lula of violating his rights to a fair trial.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Prime Minister Theresa May touted today a "golden era" of Sino-British relations with deeper trade ties after Britain leaves the European Union, but her visit to Beijing was dogged by a Brexit row at home.

As she embarked on a three-day visit to the Asian giant, May batted away critics of her leadership on Brexit and domestic issues, including within her Conservative party.

"First and foremost, I'm serving my country and my party. I'm not a quitter and there's a long-term job to be done," she told reporters travelling with her.

The House of Lords is scrutinising a key piece of legislation on quitting the EU as a leaked government report shows only economic downsides to leaving the bloc.

May discussed Brexit with Premier Li Keqiang when they met at the imposing Great Hall of the People, where both leaders boasted about their "golden era" of relations and the potential for trade ties.

"We are determined to deepen our trading relationship even further and we are ambitious for what our future trade relationship will be," May said.

The British leader said more than nine billion pounds ($12.7 billion) in business deals will be signed during her visit.

The two countries also launched a joint trade and investment review to "identify priorities" on goods, services and investment, she said.

The two sides also agreed new measures to improve access to the Chinese market and remove trade barriers, including making progress on allowing British beef exports.

In a nod to her hosts, May said "we welcome the opportunities" provided by China's cherished Belt and Road initiative, a massive infrastructure project aimed at reviving ancient Silk Road trade routes between the East and West and creating greater market access for Chinese companies.

But she threw in a caveat, saying the two countries would continue to work together on how to ensure that the endeavour "meets international standards".

Touting that Sino-British relations "don't have winter, only spring", Li said their ties would not be affected by Brexit.

"Brexit is a situation that both our countries face," he said. "Our bilateral relationship will not change with the changes of UK relations. We will have assessment and discussion on our trade relationship to make our economic and trade relationship move forward."



May, who will hold talks with President Xi Jinping on Thursday and finish her visit Friday in the eastern business hub of Shanghai, was under pressure to address thorny issues with China.

Before her trip, the former British governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, urged May to address concerns about the political situation in the semi-autonomous city, which London handed back to Beijing in 1997.

In a letter to May's Downing Street office, Patten said Hong Kong was facing "increasing threats to the basic freedoms, human rights and autonomy" which its people were promised after the handover.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Britain's Prince Edward, the youngest son of Queen Elizabeth II, today arrived in Colombo to attend Sri Lanka's 70th Independence Day celebrations.

Prince Edward accompanied by Princess Sophie will participate in the celebrations on February 4 as the chief guest, representing the Royal family of Britain, the Lankan foreign ministry said.

This is the first time that Queen Elizabeth's son other than Prince Charles has visited Sri Lanka. Charles was the chief guest at the 50th Independence Day celebrations in 1998 and later made two separate trips to the island nation.

Edward and his wife are scheduled to engage in several social welfare activities during their stay in Sri Lanka and will also tour the central town of Kandy tomorrow.

His five-day visit assumes significance as it has come ahead of the Commonwealth Summit to be held in London this summer, officials said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Supreme Court today asked the Centre to respond to a fresh plea by two Rohingya refugees, alleging that the BSF was using "chilli and stun grenades" to stop the refugees from entering India.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra granted four weeks to the Centre to file its response to the interim application by the two Rohingya refugees, alleging that Border Security Force (BSF) was forcefully restraining fresh refugees, including children, disabled persons and pregnant women, from entering the Indian side.

The two refugees had earlier approached the top court against the government's decision to deport Rohingya Muslims to Myanmar.

The bench, which also comprised Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud, said "an interlocutory application has been filed by counsel for the petitioners in Writ Petition ... A copy of the said application has been served on the assisting counsel to Tushar Mehta, ASG appearing today for Union of India. The ASG shall file a response to the said application within four weeks. List the matters on March 7."



During the brief hearing, lawyer Prashant Bhushan, appearing for Mohammad Salimullah and Mohammad Shaqir, alleged that the BSF was pushing back hapless refugees through "inhumane and degrading treatment" and in clear violation of "the non refoulement principle of customary international law".

He said the Indian government must be prevented from stopping more Rohingyas from entering India because of the persecution faced by them in Myanmar.

"India can't be the refugee capital of the world. We will take action when the contingency arises. These matters are best left to the government to decide. How can we allow everyone to cross the border," the ASG said.

He opposed Bhushan's submission saying it was not part of the pleadings of the main case and, moreover, the central government and its forces were performing their sovereign functions.

He said it was not the complaint of petitioners that the refugees were being sent back and the government was taking diplomatic steps to solve the problem. The court should permit it to discharge constitutional functions.

Bhushan alleged that the government had a policy to welcome Hindu and others community members, barring Muslims.

Senior advocate Gopal Subramanium, appearing for National Human Rights Commission, said Rohingyas have a right to approach the court for enforcement of elementary rights like education, security and health care.

The two refugees, in their fresh plea, have sought protection and welfare of Rohingyas in India against the August 8, 2017 proposal of the MHA directing all states and UTs to expeditiously initiate deportation process against illegal immigrants from Rakhine.

"There is no government intervention to provide shelter and other basic amenities. By dismissing Rohingyas as illegal immigrants, the government has washed its hands off the problem," the plea said.

It also said that the right to adequate standard of living has been recognised in 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and it must be secured for Rohingyas.

It sought a direction to the BSF to file a compliance report directly through MHA regarding their strict adherence to not push back policy for Rohingya refugees.

Meanwhile, the court ordered tagging a separate plea, filed by BJP leader Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, favouring the Centre's stand to identify and deport to Mayanmar around 40,000 illegal Rohingya Muslims staying here.

Salimullah and Shaqir had approached the apex court opposing the Centre's decision to deport over 40,000 refugees who came to India after escaping from Myanmar due to widespread discrimination, violence and bloodshed against the community there.

Various other pleas, including those by ex-RSS ideologue and Rashtriya Swabhiman Andolan leader K N Govindacharya, the CPI(M) youth wing Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) and the West Bengal child rights body have been filed in the apex court on the matter.

The court had suggested to the Centre not to deport these refugees, but the Centre had urged that it should not be written in the order as anything coming on record would have international ramifications.

The Rohingyas, who fled to India after violence in the Western Rakhine State of Myanmar, were settled in Jammu, Hyderabad, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi-NCR and Rajasthan.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Maharashtra government has given an in-principle approval to convert 2,140 hectares of the Navi Mumbai Special Economic Zone (NMSEZ) into an 'integrated industrial area'.

The decision to this effect was taken yesterday at the state cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

With this, the NMSEZ can apply for denotification of its special economic zone status.

The Centre had already started the denotification process of the SEZ. However, the state government had requested the Centre to put the process on hold, a release from the Chief Minister's Office said.

The cabinet decision will help the promoters use 15 per cent of the total leased land - around 1,842 hectares - for residential uses, while the rest will have to be utilised for industrial purposes, the release said.

The Navi Mumbai SEZ has been proposed to be developed in three phases on 2,140 hectares of land in Dronagiri, Ulwe and Kalamboli areas of the township.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Calcutta High Court today directed a court in Alipore to commence trial in the death of model Sonika Chauhan, who was killed in an accident while being driven in a car allegedly by actor Bikram Chatterjee.

Justice D P Dey directed the Chief Judicial Magistrate at Alipore to commit the case to the sessions court at Alipore within a month following which trial in the case would commence.

Sonika's father Vijay Singh Chauhan moved a petition before the high court seeking expeditious trial in the case.

Chauhan submitted in the petition that though the FIR was lodged in April, 2017 and charge sheet was filed in July, neither the case has been committed nor the trial has commenced.

Appearing for Chauhan, counsel Sandipan Ganguly alleged that Bikram, who has been accused of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and rash driving, has been adopting dilatory tactics to delay proceedings in the case before the lower court.

Public prosecutor Saswata Mukherjee submitted a report before the court on action taken by the prosecution and submitted that the state has completed all formalities with regard to the case.

Sonika died in a city hospital hours after being grievously injured in the wee hours of April 29, 2017 when the car she was riding hit at high speed into a pillar on the pavement of Rash Behari Avenue.

The car was allegedly being driven by Bengali film and television actor Bikram with Sonika seated in the front passenger seat.

The actor was arrested by Kolkata Police from near his home at Kasba in the city on July 6. He was granted bail by Alipore district court on July 26.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The CBI has arrested a BSF commandant in Kerala's Alappuzha for allegedly carrying Rs 47 lakh in cash.

Jibu D Mathew, Commandant of the BSF's 83rd battalion, deployed on Indo-Bangla border in West Bengal, was nabbed when deboarded the Shalimar Express train at Alappuzha, CBI sources said.

They said the arrest was following a tip off about an alleged corruption case.

The sources, however, remained tight lipped about the case as the investigation is still going on.

They said the agency is looking into the source of cash.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Centre has sanctioned Rs 1,500 crore for three years to promote organic farming in Uttarakhand.

The amount was sanctioned by Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh when Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat met him in New Delhi yesterday, an official release here said.

This is in keeping with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of developing Uttarakhand as an organic state which he spelt out during his visit to Kedarnath last year, it said.

The Union minister also cleared a proposal worth Rs 2,600 crore for the co-operative sector in the state. Of which, Rs 200 crore is meant for the reorganisation of sugar mills.

The co-operation extended by the Centre would strengthen the co-operative sector in the state in a major way, the chief minister said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)One person has been arrested near the Indo-Nepal border in East Champaran district with more than four kilogrammes of charas worth over Rs 80 lakh, officials said here today.

Acting on a tip-off, a team of Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) personnel arrested Intezar Alam, a resident of Raxaul police station area in the district, and recovered nine packets of charas from his possession yesterday night, SSB Deputy Commandant Amit Kumar said.

He said Alam, who supplied drugs in the area, had obtained the contraband from Nepal and was travelling in an autorickshaw with the nine packets, containing 4.35 kg of charas, when he was nabbed.

The narcotic substance recovered from his possession is worth about Rs 87 lakh in the international market, the Deputy Commandant said adding that Alam has been handed over to the Narcotics Control Bureau at Patna after preliminary interrogation.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Chinese Foreign Ministry today congratulated Vijay Gokhale for taking over as the new foreign secretary, saying it will work with its Indian counterpart in enhancing political trust and advance the bilateral ties in the "right track".

Gokhale, regarded as China specialist, was Ambassador to China when the Dokalam crisis took place last year after which the relations between the two countries nosedived to a new low.

He took over from S Jaishankar as Foreign Secretary on January 28.

"We have noted this. We congratulate Gokhale for his taking over Foreign Secretary," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said replying to a question on Gokhale taking as India's top diplomat in a media briefing here.

She said the two diplomatic departments have "followed our leadership's consensus to advance our bilateral relations and we hope to carry the sound cooperation."



"We will work with the Indian side to follow the five principles of coexistence, enhance our political trust, move forward our relations in right track," she added.

Gokhale conducted the key negotiations with the Chinese government to defuse the tense situation over Dokalam.

He is said to have worked an understanding under which China agreed to halt building of the road objected to by India and withdrawal of troops from the standoff area.

The 73-day standoff took place when Chinese troops began building the road in the area claimed by Bhutan in June and it finally ended on August 28.

Gokhale later moved to the Ministry of External Affairs, where he took over as Secretary (EconomicRelations) before being appointed as Foreign Secretary.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra has decided to recommend the removal of Allahabad High Court judge Justice S N Shukla as part of an in-house procedure after he was found guilty of misconduct by an internal probe into a medical college admission scam.

According to court sources today, the CJI is expected to write to the President and the Prime Minister soon about his recommendation that is required under the in-house procedure to remove a sitting high court judge.

A three-judge in-house committee, comprising Madras High Court Chief Justice Indira Banerjee, Sikkim High Court Chief Justice S K Agnihotri and Madhya Pradesh High Court judge Justice P K Jaiswal, had concluded there was sufficient substance in the allegations contained in the complaint against Justice Shukla and that the aberrations were serious enough to call for initiation of proceedings for his removal.

Following the committee's report, the CJI, in accordance with the relevant in-house procedure, advised Justice Shukla to either resign or seek voluntary retirement forthwith.

Sources said after he refused to do so, the CJI had asked the Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court to withdraw judicial work from him with immediate effect which was done yesterday. Justice Shukla has reportedly gone on long leave.

"In case the judge expresses unwillingness to resign or seek voluntary retirement, the chief justice of the concerned high court should be advised by the CJI not to allocate any judicial work to the judge concerned and the President of India and the Prime Minister shall be intimated that this had been done because allegations against the judge had been found by the committee to be so serious as to warrant the initiation of proceedings for removal..." reads the in-house procedure dealing with the process of removal of high court judges in such cases.

Since Justice Shukla has not resigned as yet, as per the in-house mechanism, the CJI is bound to write to the President and the Prime Minister for initiation of proceedings to remove the judge by way of an impeachment motion, sources said.

When the CJI writes to the President and Prime Minister for removal of a high court judge, the Rajya Sabha chairperson appoints a three-judge inquiry committee in consultation with the CJI under the provisions of the Judges (Enquiry) Act, 1968 to look into the allegations.

The commiitee appointed by the Rajya Sabha Chairperson would examine the evidence and records and would then opine if the same formed the basis for whether or not removal motion be debated in the Upper House.

Justice Shukla, who was heading a division bench in the high court, had allegedly defied the categorical restraint orders passed by a CJI-led bench of the apex court last year to permit private colleges to admit students for the 2017-18 academic session.

Two complaints, including one from the advocate general of the state, was received by the CJI on September 1 last year and the then CJI had constituted an in-house committee.

According to the inquiry committee report, Justice Shukla had "disgraced the values of judicial life, acted in a manner unbecoming of a judge", lowered the "majesty, dignity and credibility of his office" and acted in breach of his oath of office.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today issued a direction to include the "suicide" of the minor girl from Koraput district in the term and reference of the judicial commission already probing into alleged gang rape of the victim.

While asking the Home department to expand the term of reference of the judicial panel, Patnaik said: "The circumstances leading to alleged suicide by the minor girl be added to the existing term of reference for the judicial probe."



Earlier, the Home department on December 26, 2017, had issued a notice on the formation of a judicial panel headed by the district judge of Koraput district.

The one man commission was mandated to probe into the alleged gang rape of the 14-year-old allegedly by four persons in uniform. The alleged incident took place while she was returning home from Kunduli market on October 10, 2017.

Patnaik had ordered judicial probe into the matter after Odisha Police opined that the girl was not raped at all even as the victim continued to claim that she was raped by four persons in uniform.

Meanwhile, the CID of Odisha Police has sent the exhibits of the Koraput rape case to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), Kolkata, for re-examination.

As a dispute had surfaced questioning the findings of the report of the State Forensic Science Laboratory here, Director General of Police R P Sharma had on January 27 directed the CID to get the exhibits re-examined from the CFSL for a second opinion to clear the air and put an end to all speculation, the CID said in a statement.

The CID is investigating the alleged gang rape of a school girl at Kunduli in Koraput and the DGP's direction to it followed media reports that the scientific examination report on it was changed while making the final report.

"The investigating officer of the CID yesterday sent the available exhibits of the Kunduli alleged rape case to CFSL, Kolkata, for detailed examination," Prashant Kumar Jena, superintendent of police, CID, said in a statement.

Before sending the exhibits to the CFSL, the CID investigating officer (IO) had to take the court's permission for re-examination.

The girl had on January 22 committed suicide by hanging herself allegedly for not getting justice. A case was registered in Pottangi police station in Koraput district under the POCSO Act and IPC sections 376(D) (gang rape) and 377 (unnatural offences) which was later handed over to the CID.

The CID had seized the exhibits in the case and sent them to the State Forensic Science Laboratory here for scientific examination and opinion. The exhibits were examined at SFSL by experts of different divisions after which the final report was submitted by its director to the court of Jeypore sub divisional judicial magistrate on October 23, 2017.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Jammu and Kashmir Congress chief G A Mir today demanded that Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti should helm the proposed all-party meet ahead of the panchayat polls, two days after the state government decided to hold such a meet.

"If the government is sincere about the discussion regarding holding of panchayat elections, we propose that the all-party meeting should be chaired by the chief minister, as she is also having the charge of home ministry as well as the election department," Mir said, while addressing a rally in Poonch district.

On Monday, the government had said Abdul Haq Khan, the state rural development minister, would hold an all-party meeting to take all political parties into confidence before taking a final call on the panchayat elections.

Mufti had earlier announced holding the elections from February 15.

Welcoming over a dozen persons, including six sarpanches, into the party at the rally, the Congress leader hit out at the Modi government's approach towards Pakistan and Kashmir.

"During the United Progressive Alliance regime, headed by Manmohan Singh, there was comparative calm on the Line of Control (LoC) because of experienced and mature leadership.

"However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had exploited the countrymen describing the UPA government as weak, but now, the situation on the border has worsened, as also in Kashmir," the state Congress president alleged.

The Pakistani firing has become a routine affair and the people and jawans along the borders are paying the price, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Congress today raised more questions over the death of judge B H Loya and demanded a Supreme Court-monitored probe by a special investigation team (SIT) into the case.

The Congress said the SIT should not have officers from the CBI and the NIA and added that if there is no proper probe into the matter, the party will go to "each village of the country".

Speaking to reporters here, senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal alleged that "democracy is in danger" and judges, lawyers and even media personnel were not safe these days. He also questioned why the Bombay High Court did not lodge an FIR following Loya's death.

The Congress also made a presentation levelling allegations, but it did not provide any documentary evidence to substantiate these.

Special CBI judge Loya, who was handling the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case, died of a heart attack in November 2014 in Nagpur. Later, political parties, including the Congress, alleged that he died in mysterious circumstance and demanded an investigation into it.

Sibal also introduced a lawyer from Nagpur, who he claimed was privy to "pressure" Loya was under due to the high-profile case, and other related developments.

The documents relating to Loya's post mortem were also "manipulated", Sibal claimed.

"We can't talk about how he (Loya) died... but the circumstances are telling some story," he said.

"Our demand is that this matter must be referred to an independent SIT where there is no CBI officer, where there is no NIA officer. This independent SIT must be chosen, if this investigation is to go on," Sibal said, adding allegations made by Loya's sister must also be probed.

Senior party leaders Salman Khurshid was also present at the press conference.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Any "illegal aliens" who attend today's State of the Union address as guests of Democrats should be arrested and deported, a Republican congressman from Arizona said.

More than 20 Democratic lawmakers have invited "Dreamers," young immigrants who were brought to the US as children and are living here illegally, to President Donald Trump's first State of the Union address.

Congress has been unable to come up with a legislative solution for their legal status, which was at the centre of the recent government shutdown.

"Of all the places where the rule of law needs to be enforced, it should be in the hallowed halls of Congress," Rep. Paul Gosar tweeted. "Any illegal aliens attempting to go through security, under any pretext of invitation or otherwise, should be arrested and deported."



A spokeswoman for Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said, "The speaker clearly does not agree." The US Capitol Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Among the high-profile Democrats who have invited Dreamers to the speech are House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and potential 2020 presidential candidates New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and California Senator Kamala Harris.

Trump has announced plans to end Obama-era protections for such immigrants. He now says he wants to grant them a path to citizenship, but Congress has not been able to agree to a deal.

Dreamers are set to lose protection from deportation in March.

Gosar's suggestion drew a quick rejoinder from Senator Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who tweeted back: "This is why we can't have nice things...

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)India's second-largest phosphate fertiliser maker Coromandel International today posted 54 per cent jump in its consolidated net profit at Rs 172.13 crore during the third quarter of the 2017-18 fiscal.

Net profit had stood at Rs 111.81 crore in the year-ago priod, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Total income increased to Rs 2707.33 crore in the October-December period of the current fiscal from Rs 2,282.61 crore in the same period last year.

Expenses rose to Rs 2,443.50 crore from Rs 2,112.12 crore in the said period.

Commenting on the performance, Coromandel International Managing Director Sameer Goel said that the farm sector remained positive in its key operating markets, augmenting the overall input consumption.

"With government's focus on agriculture, moderated channel inventories and early prediction of a normal monsoon in our addressable market, we expect positive agrarian sentiment to continue over the next season as well," he observed.

In the filing, the company said the Board has approved the acquisition of the Bio Pesticides Business of EID Parry on a going concern basis and by way of a slump sale for a lump sum consideration of Rs 302.61 crores subject to adjustment for working capital as on the closing date.

The Board has also approved acquisition of shares held by EID Parry in the US-based Parry America for Rs 35.40 crores with effect from April 1, 2018 or such other date as may be agreed to by the Board.

"Approval of the shareholders is being sought for these transactions through postal ballot/e-yoting," the company added.

The Board has elected M M Murugappan as new chairman. He will replace the incumbent A Vellayan after retirement. Vellayan will assist the company as an advisor.

The shares of the company, which is into crop protection, nutrient and other allied business, rose by 4.57 per cent to settle at Rs 552.50 on the BSE today.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Congress leader Shashi Tharoor today said party president Rahul Gandhi is an "interesting" person with a tremendous intellectual curiosity, but the country "sadly" has not seen enough of him.

He was replying to questions from students of the Delhi University's Hindu College at the 'Mushaira Literature Festival' after delivering a lecture in a jam-packed auditorium.

Asked about his opinion about the new party chief, Tharoor said, "Gandhi has grown up with ideas, perspectives, anxieties, and a degree of knowledge and vocabulary base that many of the youths will find congenial."



Gandhi has "thought very deeply about religion and matters of faith. He is a Shiv bhakt and seriously practices Buddhist Vipassana and can talk about differences between various schools of it and Hindu philosophy", he said.

Citing an anecdote, Tharoor said when all the political chatter was happening at the time of his elevation as the party's vice president in Jaipur in January 2013, "Gandhi was seen explaining a new book released by inventor of 'black swan theory' Nassim Nicholas Taleb".

Tharoor said Gandhi "is an extremely interesting guy with a tremendous intellectual curiosity and is extraordinarily well-read. I say this because for a couple of years between my two ministerships, I sat directly behind him in Parliament.

"Everyday we would chat and invariably the subjects he raised were about the books he was reading. That is the kind of the person he is and the rest of the country sadly has not seen it enough," he added.

Tharoor, a Lok Sabha member, said India was facing a choice between two different styles of leadership.

"On the one hand we have a one-man-show. We have a hero on a white stallion cantering down to the appraisal saying he has all the answers to all the questions.

"On the other hand, you got a guy who says I don't know all the answers but I will come to you and listen and bring a group of experienced people to work together," he said.

Tharoor also hit out at the right-wing in the country and said traditionally the idea of the Right and Left emerged due to economic reasons, but today the right-wing was about "cultural nationalism".

Cultural nationalism, he said, was about people saying "we are more anchored in our religion and authentic national identity and, therefore, we are the real people of the country".

He said, "Because of such conviction, they make a dangerous mistake of identifying their party with the government and in turn with the nation. Therefore, those opposing will become anti-national."



The event was organised by the university's student newspaper DU Beat and students' representative body Hindu College Parliament.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A couple has been arrested for forging documents and duping banks and people, police said today.

Monu Kumar Gupta (45) and his wife Neelam (43) were on the run for more than five years.

They had forged documents, including Aadhaar and voter ID cards, and were living under fake identities.

In 2012, a few people approached police, complaining that they had been duped by the couple.

The complainants had bought a property from the duo in Kotla Mubarakpur for Rs 20 lakh.

A few days later, officials from the Union Bank of India, Darya Ganj, told them the couple had taken a loan of Rs 30 lakh and had mortgaged the property, said Romil Baaniya, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South).

An inquiry found the duo had taken a loan of Rs 18 lakh from Central Bank of India on the property.

The police during a raid on the rented accomodation of the Guptas in Devli Extension came to know that they had moved out.

The couple was declared proclaimed offenders by a city court on June 1, 2016.

Police learnt that the duo were staying in southwest Delhis Bindapur under fake identities.

They were nabbed from South Extension part III two days ago.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A Delhi court today rejected the bail plea of Kashmiri separatist leader Shabir Shah in a 2007 money laundering case related to alleged terror financing.

Additional Sessions Judge Sidharth Sharma, who had in August last year denied the relief to Shah citing the ongoing probe, dismissed his fresh bail plea.

In his bail application filed through advocate M S Khan, the accused had told the court that investigation into the case was complete as the agency has filed its charge sheet and there was no chance for Shah to hamper the probe.

The court had on August 22 last year rejected Shah's earlier bail plea after the ED said it was probing whether he had received money from countries such as Pakistan to promote terrorism in India.

On November 15, the court had framed money laundering charges against Shah and alleged hawala dealer Mohammad Aslam Wani in the case. Both the accused have pleaded not guilty and claimed trial.

The central probe agency, in its charge sheet filed under sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), had furnished Shah's statements where he had allegedly told the investigators that he had "no source of income of his own" and that had "not filed any Income Tax Return (ITR)."



The probe agency had recorded the statement of 36-year- old Wani where he allegedly said that he came to Delhi from Srinagar "at the directions of Shah" sometime in April, 2003 and that was the first time he had met him. Wani was arrested by the ED on August 6 from Srinagar.

The ED alleged that Wani was asked by Shah to "work for him (on a commission basis) in collecting hawala money from Delhi and deliver to him at Srinagar".

The case dates back to August 2005 in which the Delhi Police's Special Cell had earlier arrested Wani.

Wani had then claimed that he had given Rs 2.25 crore to Shah, following which the ED had registered a case under PMLA against the duo in 2007. He was arrested with Rs 63 lakh, allegedly received through 'hawala' channels from the Middle East, and a cache of ammunition, on August 26, 2005.

In 2010, a Delhi court had cleared Wani of terror funding charges in the 2005 case but convicted him under the Arms Act.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Float dancer Bruno Azaredo has been selected as King Momo, the mythical king, for this year's Goa Carnival beginning next month.

The erstwhile Portuguese colony is getting ready for the annual event, to be held from February 10-13, which is marked by the parade of floats in various cities.

King Momo is considered the king of Carnivals in numerous Latin American festivities.

During the Carnival, King Momo is symbolically given the key of Goa during the festivities that are marked by gaiety and extravaganza.

Azaredo (57), a cosmetic developer, has been performing on floats that are taken out during the Carnival parade since 1979.

As the King Momo, he will declare the decree of "Eat, Drink and make Merry" for the coastal state which marks the beginning of the Carnival.

The mythological figure symbolically rules Goa for the four days during Carnival festivities and also heads the float parades in all the cities, beginning from Panaji.

Unable to control his excitement, Azaredo said, "I have been in this industry for long time. If you see the pictures of the carnival for the years 2011 and 2012, you will find me dancing with troupes on the King Momo float".

The state Tourism department last evening picked Azaredo from a number of entries received for the title of King Momo for the Carnival 2018.

"I don't think you can dance with such a huge dress on the float after being King Momo, but certainly I would not be able to stop myself and will dance to the rhythm of music," he quipped.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Delhi Cabinet today approved the health department's proposal for appointment of 92 managers at its hospitals, a move that would relieve doctors of administrative works and so that they can focus on medical services only.

The proposal for creation of the post of hospital managers was approved in the meeting of the Delhi Cabinet, chaired by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

According to a Delhi government statement, the hospital managers (superintendents) would be appointed on fixed consolidated remuneration initially for a one year, on contract basis.

Currently, 24 Delhi government hospitals (excluding autonomous institutions) are providing secondary, tertiary and specialised healthcare to people.

"These health facilities need to be run efficiently to cater to clinical service delivery as well as ancillary operations of hospital management for providing quality healthcare services to the citizen of Delhi," the statement said.

Till now, apart from clinical service delivery, medical directors, superintendents, doctors, nurses, paramedics and pharmacists were engaged in ancillary operations of hospital management as well.

According to the statement, multifarious services ranging from housekeeping, sanitation, kitchen services to specialised medical requirements and equipment handling among others are required to be efficiently managed in hospitals.

"Involvement of doctors in administrative work not only leads to reduction in their clinical (service) output, but also puts an additional load of hospital management on them," it said.

States such as Punjab, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar have under the National Health Mission also created posts of hospital managers to employ professional manpower having managerial competence, the Delhi government said in the statement.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Deliberations to resolve the issues that were raised at the January 12 presser by four seniormost Supreme Court judges continued today with Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra meeting other judges over lunch.

However, Justice J Chelameswar, who had led the four judges in the unprecedented press conference, was not present during the discussions as he was on leave today.

Sources said that the apex court judges met over lunch hosted by Justice A K Goel and some discussions took place among them.

The outcome of the deliberations was not known.

Justices Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, M B Lokur and Kurian Joseph had on January 12 raised a litany of problems, including assigning of cases in the apex court, and said there were certain issues afflicting the country's highest court.

The CJI and justices Lokur and Joseph had yesterday attended a function at the apex court lawns and were even seen shaking hands with each other.

The CJI and several other judges of the top court had been meeting each other to discuss the issues which had come up at the presser.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A cyclothon event aimed at making people aware of the need to conserve oil and gas is scheduled to be held here on February 4.

Being organised under the banner of "Saksham Cyclothon" Bhubaneswar, the event is slated to be flagged off by Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan here.

"Saksham Cyclothon" Bhubaneswar event will be held in three categories - 33 kilometre Elite race (men category), 22 km Elite race (women category) and 11 km green ride rally.

This was announced at a press meet held here today by by Pritish Bharat, State Level Coordinator Oil Industry, in presence of Debasish Ranasingh, Assistant Director of Petroleum Conservation Research Association (PCRA) and senior officials fro oil sector.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Different teacher evaluation tools and processes are being followed across India, but there is lack of consistency around the quality of their implementation, a British Council publication said.

The research involved an analysis of current policies and tools, drawing on the experience and knowledge of representatives from over 20 organisations and government agencies, all involved in teacher projects and programmes in India, a British Council statement said today.

Four focus groups with teachers in Delhi, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra were formed, ensuring that their concerns were represented in the summary report.

"The report concludes that there are a variety of different evaluation tools and processes being followed across the India, but there is a lack of consistency around the quality of their implementation," the statement said.

Elaborating, the report said there was limited use of clear criteria to assess teaching quality and called for identifying these criteria as a first step to have a shared understanding of what good teaching meant.

The report 'Exploring teacher evaluation practices in India A case study' was launched by Member Secretary National Council of Teacher Sanjay Awasthi along with representatives from the British Council, the National University of Educational Planning and Administration and other education-focused organisations.

The tools and processes used for evaluating teachers needed to be agreed with the teachers themselves and those who conduct evaluations must be carefully trained to ensure fairness, transparency and useful feedback, the report said.

The results of teacher evaluations needed to be linked to professional development opportunities to ensure longer term development of the quality of teaching.

The report further said using learner outcomes as a measurement of teaching quality is logical but was fraught with problems, "given that many factors can influence test scores."



Director, British Council India, Alan Gemmell OBE (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) said, "By supporting teachers to reflect on current practices and continue learning and improving, we can ensure better learning outcomes from young people across the country, leading to prosperity and development for all.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Dinesh Srivastava today took over as the Chief Executive of the city-based Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC).

In this capacity, he will also be the Chairman of the NFC Board, a release from the NFC said.

Prior to this, he held the position of Deputy Chief Executive, NFC.

Srivastava worked at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai for three decades, and is a senior professor at the Homi Bhabha National Institute.

A metallurgical engineer from the University of Roorkee, he has contributed exclusively in the development of advanced structural materials of extreme strategic value for India's nuclear energy programme, the release said.

"Target of his work has been self-reliant development of critical nuclear components for the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE)," it added.

NFC is a unit of the Department of Atomic Energy. As per the NFC website, it is responsible for the supply of nuclear fuel bundles and reactor core components for all the nuclear power reactors operating in India.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Bollywood lyricist-writer Manoj Muntashir says the dubbed versions of films of some well-known southern stars did not meet with much success in the north Indian markets as the translations looked fake.

Muntashir has been responsible for dubbing in Hindi both the installments of "Baahubali".

The writer believes the film worked in Hindi because he just didn't "loosely translate" the script, that was originally in Tamil and Telugu. He says he made sure the Hindi dialogues find resonance with viewers.

"Since a long time, films from the south have been dubbed in Hindi and released in the Hindi circuits, but they all failed miserably. And these were films of biggies like Rajinikanth sir, Mamooty, Chiranjeevi...

"It's fake because when you are watching a high intensity drama of Rajinikanth in a theatre, neither is the lip-sync matching, nor the sentiment, it just doesn't connect," Muntashir told PTI in an interview.

He is now geared up for the release of the Hindi version of American superhero film "Black Panther", for which he did the writing in the Indian language.

Muntashir says he found the story quite Indian at heart and that is why he decided to work on its Hindi form.

"I attended the screening of 'Black Panther' and realised it was a Bollywood film, set in some imaginary land. It is like the tales we have heard in our childhood, about battles, kingdoms, it's like Mahabharata of the 21st century."



He says it becomes problematic when writers merely translate dialogues from one language to another without understanding the context and reference point.

"Before 'Baahubali', people used to take just two- three days to translate. They didn't keep the film in front of them while translating. They just had the script and loosely translated it."



The writer, who hails from Uttar Pradesh, says he understands the pulse of audience very well in the northern belt of India.

"People (in north) relate more with the language of flamboyance and that was the key to pen dialogues for 'Baahubali'. I caught their pulse and blurred the line between Tamil, Telugu and Hindi dialogues.".

"Black Panther" is scheduled to be released on February 16.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Opposition parties and figures in Egypt called for a boycott of the March presidential election in which incumbent Abdel Fattah al-Sisi looks set to romp to victory.

Branding the poll a "charade", the coalition of eight parties and 150 public figures yesterday announced a campaign under the slogan "Stay at home" ahead of voting on March 26- 28.

"No to participation in this charade," said Hamdeen Sabbahi, a presidential candidate in 2012 and 2014.

At a conference by the coalition, founded in December and describing itself as a democratic civic movement, Sabbahi asked: "How can we speak of an election when there is no guarantee of a free vote?"



Sabbahi accused President Sisi's regime of having "led the country into a deadlock because of his arrogance and his desire to suppress any contrary opinion".

Before becoming president in 2013, Sisi led the military in ousting the North African country's first freely elected leader, the Islamist Mohamed Morsi.

The next year Sisi stormed to victory in the presidential election after security forces crushed all his Islamist and liberal opponents and sent hundreds of them to prison.

Sisi silenced all forms of political opposition during his first four-year term.

Ahead of the March election, all potential presidential contenders have either been hobbled or have thrown in the towel, claiming the entire process was rigged.

Only one candidate has come forward -- the head of Egypt's liberal Ghad party, Mussa Mustapha Mussa, who backs Sisi.

Egypt's National Election Authority announced last evening that it has validated the candidacy of Sisi and Mussa after they "met the legal requirements".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A Japanese educational institution, Eduwork Japan Centre of Excellence (EJCOE) today opened its centre here, first such centre in North-East, to provide Japanese education, skill development and career in partnership with a local institute.

The Agora Institute, which runs various educational programmes in Gangtok and Namchi will partner the EJCOE in running various activities like promoting Japanese education, skilling and careers in Japan for the youths and students of Sikkim at its centre here.

The centre will also provide free Japanese language training to local youths/students after enrolling them in its Study and Work programmes in Japan.

The Sikkimese students will be given scholarships to go to Japan for further studies and work, Raju Monga, the managing director and CEO of EJCOE said at function after launch of the novel educational centre here.

Sikkim Chief Minister Pawan Kumar Chamling, who graced the occasion, expressed delight at the setting up of first such centre in the Himalayan state and said that it has thrown open a great opportunity for local students to gain knowledge from world class system of Japan and enhance skill development and career prospects in a country like Japan.

"The concept of EJCOE includes skill development, vocational education, scholarships and career opportunities for our youths in Japan, besides opportunities in various other fields," he said and hoped that the Sikkimese youths will lap up a wonderful opportunity to attain success in career of fields of their respective choices.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A 45-year-old factory worker, who was missing since Monday, was found dead on the Phagwara- Dosanjh-Mukandpur road, police said today.

The deceased, identified as Ram Sunder of local Gobindpura mohalla, was found lying near the fields near Virk village last night, they said.

They said that the victim appeared to have been allegedly strangulated with a string.

Sunder's family told the police that he had lent some money to a few acquaintances, the police said.

The family claimed that one borrower had recently called him to give back the money. But Sunder went missing mysteriously, they said.

A missing complaintwas lodged at local Satnampura police station, they said.

A case under section 302 (punishment for murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) was registered against unknown persons, the police said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Hyderabad police have arrested two men for allegedly duping a businessman of Rs 1.20 crore by selling him a fake diamond.

Mohd Ather Siddique (52) and Mohd Salam Khan (39), who are in the pearls and gems business, were arrested from Abids area based on a complaint filed by the businessman, city police commissioner V V Srinivas Rao said today.

Siddique and Khan allegedly offered him a "25-carat diamond piece", according to the complainant.

"Believing them, the complainant purchased the diamond paying them Rs 1.20 crore on January 18. When he got it tested, it was found to be fake," Rao said.

The cheap material resembling the diamond was used for making buttons, he said.

As per the investigation, Siddique and Khan had suffered losses in their business and needed money, so they hatched the plan to pass off a fake diamond as a real one.

They purchased a fake diamond for Rs 3,500 from the Sunday market at Charminar and sold it to the complainant.

Police also recovered Rs 1.15 crore from the duo. Further probe is on, commissioner Rao said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Representatives of churches and tribal leaders in Christian-dominated Meghalaya today told Congress president Rahul Gandhi that a "deep sense of insecurity" has gripped them following reports of attacks on minority institutions across the country.

Gandhi is on a two-day visit to the state to campaign for the 60-member Meghalaya Assembly elections on February 27.

In a meeting, church representatives and leaders of the indigenous Seng Khasi and other minority groups told the Congress chief that they were particularly worried about "intolerance" towards one's food habits, language and culture.

"We expressed our concern with the kind of ideology that is being imposed, which is a danger. We have to grow together and respect everybody," Bishop Michael of the Church of North India told PTI after the meeting.

Unitarian Church leader Derrick P Pariat said his group had an interactive meeting with the Gandhi scion in which they "agreed to disagree" on a lot of issues.

"Rahul talked about unity in diversity and that the Congress party cannot change the principle of inclusiveness in the country while safeguarding national and local interests," he said.

The church leader also raised concerns about religious insecurity prevailing in the country.

Presbyterian Church of India leader Rev G S Lyttan said, "We expressed our feelings of insecurity as minority religious groups in this country under the current dispensation".

Following reports of sporadic attacks on churches, church workers and minorities at large across the country, he said, "We feel we need political protection in the Centre and states".

According to 2011 census, Christians constitute almost 75 per cent of the three million plus population in the north eastern state.

The Congress chief met a cross section of people, including those from NGOs and self help groups besides college teachers and heads of tribal institutions.

He also interacted with women groups at the St Edmund's College, a senior state party unit leader said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Police today arrested a 29-year-old man for allegedly operating a prostitution racket in the coastal belt of Calangute and rescued three girls.

The girls, hailing from Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi, were rescued after the Calangute Police raided a guest house with the help of an NGO.

"A decoy customer was sent to the rooms of the pimp. On confirmation od his identity, the police detained him," a police official said.

The accused, who hails from Mumbai, has been identified as Sayed Tanzil.

The rescued girls were sent to a state-run protective home.

The guest house has been sealed.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Former Navy chief Admiral (retd) L Ramdas has filed a plea in the Supreme Court seeking an independent inquiry by a panel of retired apex court judges and former police officers into the alleged mysterious death of special CBI judge B H Loya.

Loya, who was hearing the sensitive Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, had died of cardiac arrest in Nagpur on December 1, 2014, when he had gone to attend the wedding of a colleague's daughter. Some members of Loya's family had alleged foul play in his death.

BJP chief Amit Shah was one of the accused in the Sheikh encounter case in which he was later discharged.

The application, filed by Ramdas, has also sought a direction to the Centre to cooperate with the inquiry committee and provide the necessary documents.

He has sought an independent probe, saying the statements made by Loya's family members "have led to allegations of foul play coming to the surface" regarding the events that had transpired on the night he died.

"It is therefore just and necessary that an independent probe be directed to be made," the plea said.

It further said that "the silence of individuals who were present during the final hours of Loya's life coupled with institutional inaction to probe the circumstances of his death when it occurred in 2014 threatens these cherished ideals of independence of judiciary and the rule of law."



The plea said "a judicial probe" was needed in the case in order to uphold the image of judiciary and deliver justice to Loya's family.

It claimed that the death of a sitting judge hearing a sensitive case in an "unnatural manner" raises questions about the rule of law and requires to be properly probed by an independent agency.

The petition also sought permission that anyone who had evidence to establish the circumstances of Loya's death be allowed to appear before the multi-member panel and provide relevant information.

The plea has also raked up the issue of transfer of CBI Judge J T Utpat, who was hearing the Sohrabuddin Sheikh case before Loya was transferred to that court.

It has sought direction to the committee to probe into the reasons for the the "arbitrary transfer" of Utpat and submit a report to the court.

The issue of Loya's death had come under the spotlight in November last year after media reports quoting his sister had fuelled suspicion about the circumstances surrounding it. But Loya's son had on January 14 this year said in Mumbai that his father died of natural causes.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra is hearing the petitions which have sought probe into Loya's death.

The apex court had on January 22 restrained other high courts from entertaining any petition relating to Loya's death and transferred to itself the petitions pending before the Bombay High Court.

The matter is scheduled to come up for hearing in the Supreme Court on February 2.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Former Karnataka minister B S Anand Singh, who recently quit BJP and tendered his resignation from the state Legislative Assembly, today joined the Congress ahead of assembly polls this year.

Singh along with his supporters joined the party at the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee office here in the presence of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, party state President G Parameshwara, campaign committee chief and Minister D K Shivakumar.

After quitting BJP, Singh had said he was fed up with the "squabbling and bickering" in the party.

Speaking to reporters, Singh said he has joined the Congress accepting its principles, and that the party represents the country's future.

"In the coming days, I will work towards winning all the nine seats in the district for Congress," he said.

Siddaramaiah said Singh has left BJP and joined the Congress as there was "no place for secular principles there."



Singh represented Vijayanagara assembly constituency in Ballari district.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Union Minister Nitin Gadkari and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today inspected the flex- engine bike manufactured by Bajaj Auto.

The development comes barely days after Road, Transport, Highways and Shipping Minister Gadkari had said that two major bike makers are expected to come up with flex engine motorcycles by the month-end.

A flex-fuel or dual fuel vehicle is capable of operating on both petrol and ethanol.

"Gadkari and Kumar inspected the flex-engine bike along with auto rickshaws on ethanol and electric. The bike is still to be launched in the market," an official said.

Keen to promote electric vehicles fleet as well as vehicles on alternative fuel like ethanol, Gadkari has also been emphasising the need to enhance ethanol output in a bid to move towards ethanol-based transportation.

"By the end of this month, two two-wheeler manufactures have promised to come up with electric as well as flex-engine motorcycles which can run both on petrol and ethanol," Gadkari had said last week.

He also said both bikes are expected to hit the market soon.

"These can be run on 100 per cent petrol and 100 per cent ethanol," the minister said.

Gadkari has also emphasised the need to diversify agriculture towards power and energy by producing ethanol.

The country incurs a huge Rs 7 lakh crore on import bills of crude and if "we save even Rs 2 lakh crore out of this by indigenous ethanol, it will turn around the agriculture economy," the minister had said.

Gadkari said the government is working towards policies to encourage ethanol, which can be easily produced from wheat straw, rice straw, bamboo and other produce.

"One tonne of rice straw can produce 280 litres of ethanol and give rise to new industries. It is not only import substitute but cost effective, pollution free and clean fuel," he asserted.

There is a need to change the crop pattern if there is surplus crop towards ethanol production, the minister said, adding when America, Brazil and Canada can run vehicles like Mercedes, BMW, Ford or Toyota on flex engine, why can't automobile players do the same here.

He said one litre of ethanol would cost about half the petrol price and urged the need for massive bamboo plantation in the north-east for ethanol.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Stuttgart Mayor Fritz Kuhn today called on his Mumbai counterpart Vishwanath Mahadeshwar and BMC commissioner Ajoy Mehta to explore the mutual cooperation possibilities between the two cities.

Kuhn's visit was a part of the bid to celebrate the golden jubilee of the "Sister City Relationship" between Mumbai and the German city.

He was accompanied by a 130-member delegation.

Kuhn and the visiting members inspected the disaster management unit in the civic headquarter in south Mumbai.

They are expected to meet several eminent personalities from the fields of politics, education and research, and business, during their week-long stay in the country's financial capital.

Addressing a joint press conference with Mehta, both the mayors vowed to work together in various fields like urban mobility, infrastructure, technology, start-ups etc.

"It is a great moment that we are now celebrating the golden jubilee of the relationship between the two cities. There is an immense scope of mutual operation for both the cities through which our people can understand one another in a better way and can work together to fulfil mutual aspirations," Mahadeshwar said.

Kuhn invited the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) group leaders to visit Stuttgart city.

Kuhn, accompanied by his wife Waltraud Ulshofer, said both the cities share an old bond to cherish and have an immense potential for investment.

"We want to discuss specific issues like energy system, water pollution, and different aspects of the smart city.

"Stuttgart is the economic powerhouse of Germany and so is the Mumbai of India. We are very strong in the fields of technology, engineering, research and development, besides in the area of social service," he said.

Terming 50-years of the sister city relationship as "very successful", Kuhn said, "In these years, we have exchanged in different areas like school and university education, urban development, architecture as well as in the cultural fields. Like startups in India, we too have startups in Stuttgart and we invite young people to come there and set up their venture."



He also said that several German companies want to invest in Mumbai and Maharashtra.

Mehta said there are several fields where we can borrow from Stuttgart.

"However, we are looking forward for their cooperation in the fields like clean air, clean water and sewerage treatment plants," the civic chief said.

Arul Klutt, then Mayor of Stuttgart--the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Wrttemberg--had visited Mumbai in 1968, which paved the way to have the sister city relationship between the two cities.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel, in a strongly-worded letter to the Lt Governor, claimed that his request for an appointment went unanswered, even as BJP legislators were given time to meet Anil Baijal whenever they requested.

Asking the L-G to "uphold the Constitution", Goel accused him of giving appointments to BJP legislators and ignoring the requests of ruling AAP MLAs.

The speaker said earlier this month, when his office sought time from the L-G - both over telephone and in writing - to wish him on the new year, there was "silence" from Raj Niwas.

"Finally, when I wrote to you on January 10 conveying my greetings to you, you were kind enough to reciprocate on January 23 in writing... I was certain that I would receive a word of regret in your reply for not being able to accommodate me for a few minutes in your busy schedule," Goel wrote in the letter.

Earlier in the day, Goel met President Ram Nath Kovind, which he termed as a courtesy call.

At a press conference later, the Delhi Assembly Speaker circulated the letter among mediapersons and said not giving an appointment to a person, who is holding the constitutional post, is "violation of Indian culture".

"Your Excellency (L-G) is busier than the President of India who was gracious in permitting me to pay my respects today (Wednesday) at Rastrapati Bhawan," he said.

Goel maintained that although he was not given an appointment, BJP's four MLAs were given time to meet the L-G whenever they requested.

He also alleged that BJP leaders were "getting guidance from a seasoned bureaucrat (Baijal)".

"Reports of MLAs, ministers and even the chief minister not being granted audience by Your Excellency are becoming more frequent. This is certainly not a sign of healthy democracy.

"Instead of allowing the petty-mindedness to prevail in Raj Niwas, if Your Excellency spares time for elected (AAP) MLAs and hear them out as and when requested, the current crises due to sealing being undertaken by MCDs would not have arisen," Goel said in letter.

He said the L-G was given the responsibility of upholding the Constitution and the Rule of Law, and not the interests of "a select few individuals" at whose behest he might have been chosen for this assignment.

"It is never too late for Your Excellency to realise the importance of the Constitution and rise above the thought of pleasing the masters and securing one more post-retirement assignment. For the holder of the Constitutional Office, the only way to command respect is to uphold the Constitution," Goel said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A passenger has been arrested at Mangaluru International Airport here for trying to smuggle gold worth Rs 39 lakh from Dubai, Revenue intelligence officials said today.

The passenger, who has been identified as Ahamed Nabeel Gaffoor (21), a resident of Kasaragod in Kerala, was arrested on arrival from Dubai by SpiceJet flight SG-60 atsix pmyesterday, a DRI release here said.

Acting on credible intelligence, he was intercepted right at the aircraft door and was escorted to customs arrival area and subjected to thorough checking, it said.

It was revealed that he was carrying a mobile-like item in his front trouser pocket.

The mobile pouch was found to be heavier than usual and it was sealed from all sides. On interrogation, Gaffoor admitted that he had concealed 11 gold tola bars of foreign origin inside the pouch, the release said.

DRI sleuths found seven tola bars of gold of foreign origin (intact) and four tola bars of gold of foreign origin cut into eight pieces (total 15 pieces) concealed inside the pouch using black and silver adhesive tape to avoid detection.

The gold pieces were found to be of 24 carat purity and their current market value was placed at around Rs 39 lakh, it said.

The contraband gold was later seized by DRI under provisions of the Customs Act, 1962.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur today said that the BJP government in the state was open to suggestions of the people and that it did not believe in "vendetta"



The chief minister during an event in Shivnagar in Kangra district also announced several projects for the area, including those related to education and agriculture.

"I am open to the suggestions in the interest of the people and for their welfare as I am the chief minister of the common man and I am from a common background," he said.

The people of Kangra and Mandi played a pivotal role in the formation of the BJP government in Himachal Pradesh, and "I assure that we will come up to their expectations", Thakur said.

Speaking about his dispensation's recent decisions, he said, "My government took a strong decision of terminating the services of the retired and tired who were enjoying undue privileges under the previous Congress government."



"My government will not resort to vendetta politics, however those who do not adhere to the work culture or ignore their duties will be dealt with accordingly," the chief minister said.

On the Rs 10 cr sanctioned by the Centre for the Border Area Development Programme (BADP), he said that BADP would meet the special development needs of the people living in remote and inaccessible areas near the International Border.

The chief minister announced Rs 5 cr for thedegree college at Shivnagar and starting of science classes at GSSS, Kotlu Tehsil, Jaisinghpur, from the next academic session.

He also announced an additional sum of Rs 8.5 cr for the Lift Irrigation Water Supply Scheme for Alampur and Lambagaon.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Border Security Force (BSF), which guards the country's volatile border with Pakistan, will raise six new battalions comprising around 7,000 personnel, official sources said today.

The Ministry of Home Affairs also sanctioned an amount of Rs 2,090.94 crore to the force. The new battalions will also be deployed along the smuggling and infiltration prone India-Bangladesh border.

The troops will be recruited fresh by the force, to be deployed as part of the six battalions. They will be on the ground in over an year's time, the sources said.

Each BSF battalion has over 1,000 jawans and officers.

The home ministry, the sources said, had on January 19 approved the proposal of the force to raise these fresh battalions and asked the BSF headquarters here to quickly initiate the process of operationalising them.

Four battalions, as per the order, will be raised as part of the forces' task of guarding eight Integrated Check Posts (ICPs) along Pakistan and Bangladesh, while the rest two will supplement the working units on the ground and help in the replacement of the tired troops.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A fire broke out in a warehouse near Gondal town in the district, gutting a huge stock of groundnut kept there, an official said today.

The blaze erupted last evening in the warehouse and nearly a dozen fire tenders were still engaged in hectic efforts to douse the flames, Rajkot rural superintendent of police Antrip Sood said.

The district administration has ordered an inquiry to ascertain the exact cause of the fire, he said.

A team from the forensic science laboratory in Rajkot has also reached the spot.

The warehouse owner claimed that nearly two lakh sacks of groundnut, each containing 35 kgs of seeds, were kept in the store.

He said they were able to shift out some sacks after the mishap.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Iran has sentenced an Iranian-American art dealer and his wife to prison for being Zoroastrians, a New York-based rights group said today, marking the latest case of Tehran imprisoning dual nationals.

Art dealer Karan Vafadari was sentenced to 27 years in prison, while his Iranian wife, Afarin Neyssar, who has permanent residency in the US, received a 16-year sentence, the Centre for Human Rights in Iran said.

The sentences have yet to be reported in Iran. Iran's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The two were reportedly arrested by Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in July 2016. Little information has come out about their case since then.

Early today, the Centre for Human Rights in Iran said it had received a letter dated January 21 that Vafadari wrote to it from Tehran's Evin prison.

In it, Vafadari said he was sentenced "last week" to prison by Judge Abolghassem Salavati of Tehran's hard-line Revolutionary Court. Salavati is known for his tough sentences and has heard other politically charged cases, including one in which he sentenced Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian to prison.

Vafadari said he and his wife were sentenced under a law allowing for properties of dual nationals to be seized and sold at auction. He said his work in the art world "raised the suspicions" of the Guard's intelligence unit.

"Fortunately, the initial, baseless security accusations that led to our arrest were dropped, but our gallery, office, warehouses and home remained locked and our cars, computers and documents were confiscated, followed by accusations and interrogations that indicated a deeper plot," he wrote.

He added that the sentences mean "my wife and me, and every one of you dual national Zoroastrians who returned to your country to invest in the homeland you love, are always going to be in danger of losing your assets and forced to leave the country."



Zoroastrianism is a pre-Islamic ancient religion in Iran that is in theory protected under the Iranian constitution. However, its adherents can face discrimination in Iran, whose government is overseen by Shiite clerics.

Analysts and family members of dual nationals and others detained in Iran have suggested that hard-liners in the Islamic Republic's security agencies use the prisoners as bargaining chips for money or influence. A UN panel in September described "an emerging pattern involving the arbitrary deprivation of liberty of dual nationals" in Iran, which Tehran denies.

The US State Department said in a statement it was aware of reports of Vafadari's sentencing.

"The safety and security of US citizens remains a top priority," it said. "We call for the immediate release of all US citizens unjustly detained and missing in Iran."



Iran does not recognise dual nationalities, so those detainees cannot receive consular assistance. In most cases, dual nationals have faced secret charges in closed-door hearings before Iran's Revolutionary Court, which handles cases involving alleged attempts to overthrow the government.

Others with ties to the West detained in Iran include Chinese-American graduate student Xiyue Wang, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for allegedly "infiltrating" the country while doing doctoral research on Iran's Qajar dynasty.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Madras High Court today said the rules framed by special committee of Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, prescribing 10 years of practice as minimum eligibility to contest in the council elections, might not be wrong.

The first bench comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Abdul Quddhose made the observation while hearing a plea moved by advocates G Murugendran and Selvakumar, assailing the rules.

The issue to be decided is whether the special committee has powers to frame such rules, the bench said and adjourned the hearing of the PIL for tomorrow.

On January 24, the special committee of the council had passed a resolution prescribing certain rules to govern the election, scheduled for March 28.

As per the rules, only advocates continuously practising for 10 years would be entitled to contest the election. Apart from this, lawyers punished for contempt of court and those holding official position in any political party or founder of a party, and those facing disciplinary proceedings before the state bar council, are not entitled to contest.

The petitioners submitted that the elections to the council are governed by the Bar Council of India rules and that the special committee does not have powers to amend them.

Therefore, the resolution passed by the committee incorporating new rules is in violation of statutory provisions, they said.

Denying the averments, counsel for the committee submitted that as on date, 600 complaints were pending against lawyers with the council.

It was only in an attempt to prevent entry of such lawyers into the council that such stringent rules were brought in, and were sent to the Bar Council of India for its approval, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Delhi High Court today expressed displeasure over defacement of court complexes in the national capital by putting up posters in connection with elections to the Bar Council of Delhi and other lawyers' bodies.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar said it was "high time for preservation of public property" and called for the active assistance from all the lawyers' bodies in Delhi, saying they should act as role models for the society.

It asked all the bar associations of the courts in the city to coordinate with each other and come up with an action plan to address the issue of defacement during bar elections.

With the direction, the bench listed the matter for further hearing on February 16.

The court was hearing a PIL by an advocate, Birender Sangwan, who has sought directions prohibiting lawyers, participating in the polls, from pasting their posters, banners, stickers, pamphlets and other publicity material on the court complex walls.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Delhi High Court today upheld an international arbitral award of Rs 3,500 crore passed in favour of Japanese pharma major Daiichi Sankyo, which has alleged that the former promoters of India's Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd had concealed information about proceedings against them by American food and drug department.

A tribunal in Singapore had passed the award in favour of Daiichi holding that the former Ranbaxy promoters and brothers, Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh, had concealed information that the Indian company was facing probe by the US Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Justice, while selling its shares.

The high court paved the way for enforcement of the 2016 arbitral award passed by the Singapore tribunal against the Singh brothers who had sold their shares in Ranbaxy to Daiichi in 2008 for Rs 9,576.1 crore. Sun Pharmaceuticals Ltd later acquired the company from Daiichi.

Justice Jayant Nath, however, said the award is not enforceable against five minors, who were also shareholders in Ranbaxy, saying they cannot be held guilty of having perpetuated a fraud either themselves or through any agent.

The court said the award against the minors was "shockingly disproportionate" as they were acting through their natural guardians, the Singh brothers, and had received a total sale consideration of only Rs 14 lakh.

"At best on account of the fraud played by the guardian/ agent, the estate of the minor gained Rs 4-5 lakh. For this act, they have been saddled with a liability of Rs 3,500 crore approximately. If any fraud was committed by their natural guardian/agent the petitioners (Daiichi) were free to commence proceedings against him," the court said.

Regarding the award amount, the court said it was clearly within the domain of the arbitral tribunal to assess damages.

"The respondents (Singh brothers) received Rs 9,576.1 crore for sale of their shares. Damages have been assessed at Rs 2,562 crores plus interest and costs. The plea of the respondents cannot be accepted.

"It is not possible to come to a conclusion that the computation done by the arbitral tribunal is in complete breach of statutory provisions or is contrary to fundamental policy of Indian Law inasmuch as the said computation suffers from patent illegality, going to the root of the matter," the court said.

Reacting to the verdict, the spokesperson of RHC Holding Pvt Ltd, which is owned by the Singh brothers, said, "Today's judgment by the Delhi High Court has given partial success to some of the sellers of shares of erstwhile Ranbaxy (respondents).

"The court has held the award to be unenforceable against the minors. However we are disappointed with the ruling against the rest of the sellers. After studying the order in detail, the respondents will decide on further course of action."



Daiichi had approached the high court in 2016 to seek the enforcement of a Rs 2,562 crore Singapore arbitral award passed in April 2016, along with an additional claim of interest and lawyers' fees incurred in connection with the proceedings.

The tribunal's award had come after the Japanese company invoked arbitration clause against Singhs alleging that they concealed important information while selling Ranbaxy in 2008.

Daiichi had entered into a settlement agreement with the US Department of Justice, agreeing to pay USD 500 million penalty to resolve potential, civil and criminal liability.

The company had then sold its stake in Ranbaxy to Sun Pharmaceuticals for Rs 22,679 crore in 2015.

Singh brothers' counsel had argued the award granted consequential damages which were beyond the jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal and the award cannot be enforced under the provision of the Arbitration Act.

They had also raised the aspects of violation of fundamental public policy of India and time barred under the limitation act. They had alleged that Daiichi was fully aware of all facts and still chose to retain the Ranbaxy shares, instead of terminating the agreement and returning them.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Suspected reprisal attacks between herdsmen and farmers killed at least 14 people in central Nigeria, police said today, the latest violence of an escalating conflict.

Amnesty International said yesterday that 168 people have been killed in communal violence this year alone, warning it is "spiralling" out of control and heaping pressure on President Muhammadu Buhari to act.

In central Nigeria's Nasarawa state, gunmen suspected of being cattle herders killed at least seven farmers.

Nasarawa police spokesman Idrisu Kennedy said armed men stormed the farming village of Kadarko in the Keana district of the state yesterday and opened fire on residents.

"We received report of an attack on (an ethnic) Tiv neighbourhood in Kadarko by unknown gunmen who opened fire, killing seven people," he said.

The attack was believed to be a reprisal against Fulani herders after suspected Tiv gunmen on Sunday killed 73 cows in the same village and two herders went missing.

Kennedy refused to comment on the identities of those behind the two attacks.

Kadarko lies on the border with Benue state, which has been gripped in a cycle of violence between Tiv farming communities and Fulani herders.

Yesterday morning, suspected Tiv youths murdered seven suspected herders in Gboko, Benue state, in what police described as another possible reprisal attack.

"After these seven persons were brutally murdered, their remains were also burnt," said Benue state commissioner of police Fatai Owoseni.

Gboko has been placed under a "dawn to dusk" curfew, Owoseni said, warning that more reprisal attacks could take place in the coming days.

Herders are alleged to have killed at least 80 farmers three weeks ago in attacks that sparked outrage locally and ignited a fierce debate in the country about the long-running conflict.

Thousands of people have been killed in recent decades in a dispute fundamentally over land and grazing rights that has become increasingly politicised and exacerbated by religious and ethnic rivalries.

The Tiv are predominantly Christian while the Fulani are mainly Muslim.

The violence has intensified as herders from the arid north move southwards in search of greener pastures for their livestock as a result of desertification.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)British Prime Minister Theresa May began a visit to China today as she tries to strengthen her country's global trade links before its contentious divorce with the European Union.

May arrived in the central industrial city of Wuhan and will be in the country until Friday in what the Chinese foreign ministry has called a "historic visit".

She was heading to Beijing later Wednesday to meet Premier Li Keqiang.

"My visit will intensify the 'Golden Era' in UK-China relations. The depth of our relationship means we can have frank discussions on all issues," she said earlier this week.

May is battling criticism of her Brexit strategy back home. The House of Lords is scrutinising a key piece of legislation on quitting the EU as a leaked government report shows only economic downsides to leaving the bloc.

Britain's ties with China have grown in importance as London contemplates its economic future after it officially leaves the EU in March 2019.

China "is delivering a new source of capital that --with the appropriate safeguards in place -- can help us to invest in the future of our country," she wrote in a column in the Financial Times.

"Together, that means a stronger British economy and more and better jobs for British workers."



May is accompanied by her husband Philip and a delegation of 50 business leaders and organisation representatives, which her office said was "the largest" Britain has ever taken overseas.

May will also take the opportunity to discuss a wide range of other issues, including climate change and North Korea, but she was also under pressure to address the political situation in former colony Hong Kong and human rights abuses in mainland China.

China also has high expectations that London will endorse its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a massive infrastructure project aimed at reviving ancient Silk Road trade routes between the East and West and creating greater market access for Chinese companies.

"It's natural that Belt and Road cooperation is an opportunity for the two sides to tap into our cooperation for win-win results," Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Tuesday.

The British government, however, has been less sanguine about the project, with May's spokesman saying that while the idea holds promise, it is "vital that BRI projects meet international standards".

She will hold talks with President Xi Jinping on Thursday and finish her visit Friday in the eastern business hub of Shanghai.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV) today said income tax department has levied a penalty of Rs 436.80 crore on the company for assessment year 2009-10.

The company today received an order under section 271 (1) (C) of Income Tax Act from the Income Tax Department levying penalty of Rs 436.80 crore for the assessment year 2009-10, NDTV said in BSE filing.

The company said it is currently examining the order and legal option available to it. It will take necessary action accordingly.

Section 271(1)(c) provides for levying penalty in case an assessee has concealed income particulars or furnished inaccurate details.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Independent MLA, Halady Srinivas Shetty, who resigned from the Karnataka Legislative Assembly, today said he would join BJP onFebruary 2at the party office in Bengaluru.

Shetty, who represents Kundapur segment in Udupi district, told reporters at his residence that he had met assembly Speaker K B Koliwad yesterday at Ranebennur and tendered his resignation from the assembly.

The Speaker has accepted it and the technicalities for joining BJP have been resolved, he said.

To a question on his role in the BJP in future, Shetty said he would fulfill whatever responsibility was given to him by the party.

On the reported opposition to his entry into the party from some BJP local leaders, he said the state leaders would find a solution to the problems within the party in Kundapur.

Denying the Congress charge that there was 'zero development' in Kundapur when he was MLA, Shetty said he had brought several development works to the constituency.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)India should leave its bilateral disputes with China aside and join the Beijing-backed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a Chinese scholar has said.

"We will keep the door open on India's participation in the BRI. China has repeatedly extended invitations to India to be part of the BRI," said Associate Professor Huang Yunsong, Associate Dean, Sichuan University School of International Studies.

"But India is not interested in BRI at this stage," he told PTI after addressing a BRI symposium in Singapore on Monday.

He pointed out the number of disputes between China and India, but stressed these should not be used against the BRI.

Touted as Chinese President Xi Jinping's ambitious project, the One Belt One Road initiative focuses on improving connectivity and cooperation among Asian countries, Africa, China and Europe.

The BRI also included the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which India opposed as it goes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

"There are a lot of issues between India-China since 1947, such as the China Pakistan relationship," he said. Among others issues, there were growing trade imbalance between the two countries, Dokalam border situation, Tibet and Dalai Lama, he pointed out.

"China has an agreement with Pakistan that it will not back any side in their (disputed) claims on Kashmir. It is between Pakistan and India," stressed Huang who is well versed on China-South Asia issues.

But he also noted the positive points, for India and China having agreed to work on border disputes at its own pace while taking a more cooperative approach in pursuing economic activities between the two countries.

He called on India to offer more favourable terms for Chinese investments as a way forward to manage the trade deficit.

According to figures, India's trade deficit with China was USD 51.08 billion in 2016-17.

Huang also called for removal of tax-based restriction on exports of Indian iron ore and cotton to China.

"India should remove restrictions on Iron ore and cotton for export to China. China may allow pharmaceutical imports," said Huang, who is also the Coordinator, Centre for South Asian Studies at Sichuan University of China.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A former Indian American CEO of an IT company based in the US city of Detroit has been indicted for his alleged role in orchestrating a scheme to bribe a city official to obtain benefits, the Department of Justice said today.

According to the 11-count indictment filed in the Eastern District of Michigan, Parimal D Mehta, 54, made multiple cash payments to Charles Dodd, former Director of Detroit's Office of Departmental Technology Services between 2009 to 2016.

This included two cash bribes hand-delivered by Mehta to Dodd in the restrooms of Detroit-area restaurants in 2016, the DOJ alleged.

Mehta is also alleged to have employed Dodd's family members at FutureNet and its subsidiaries. Dodd previously pleaded guilty to bribery on September 27, 2016.

The indictment alleges that Mehta paid these bribes to Dodd in exchange for preferential treatment for his company, FutureNet, which received approximately $7.5 million from Detroit in 2015 and 2016.

According to the indictment, Mehta and FutureNet benefitted from Dodd's influence over the administration of city contracts, expenditures under those contracts, and the hiring and selection of contract personnel.

Mehta obtained confidential information about Detroit's internal budgets for specific technology projects, the indictment alleges.Sunayana Dumala, the widow of an Indian engineer who was shot dead in a hate crime shooting in the US last year, today attended President Donald Trump's first State of the Union Address.

Sunayana, 32, was invited as a guest by Congressman Kevin Yoder to attend the event.

Her husband Srinivas Kuchibhotla was shot dead while his colleague, also an Indian, sustained bullet injuries after an American navy veteran opened fire in a crowded suburban bar in Olathe city in February last year.

The shooter, thought they were Middle Easterners and was heard telling them to "get out of my country" at the time of the shooting.

Earlier in the day, Sunayana, met a number of Congressional leaders including House Speaker Paul Ryan.

The speaker said he knows Sunayana's story and remembers her.

Yoder said that he had asked Sunayana to be his guest as a recognition for her tireless efforts to promote peace, and as a message to the Indian community that the US is a nation of immigrants and they are welcome here.

"Each year, I have the privilege of inviting one guest to attend the president's State of the Union address. This year, I invited Sunayana Dumala, widow of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, the Indian immigrant who was tragically killed in the hate crime shooting last year at in Olathe," Yoder had said.

The Indian-American community welcomed the move.

Brijpal Singh, the chairman of the India Association of Kansas City, said this step will not only assure the Indian community but also send a strong message about the unstinted support from the elected representatives and administration towards the Indian community.

"This further strengthens our belief and confidence in the American system and its Constitution where everyone is respected, loved and is welcome," Singh said in a letter to Yoder.

The State of the Union Address is a traditional annual speech of the US president to a joint session of the Congress where he gives an account of the situation in the country.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)State-run IREDA and Rewa Ultra Mega Solar (RUMSL) today signed a Rs 216 crore sub-loan agreement for Rewa and Mandsaur solar projects in Madhya Pradesh.

Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) CMD K S Popli and RUMSL Chairperson Manu Srivastava have signed the agreement.

"We have signed a loan agreement for Rs 216 crore or about USD 35 million) for Rewa and Mandsaur projects. This is the first project to get loan from IREDA out of USD 100 million funding by (the) World Bank," Srivastava told reporter after the agreement was signed.

He further informed that the money will be used for development of transmission and evacuation infrastructure for Rewa (750 MW) and Mandsaur (250 MW) projects.

Popli expressed hope that the IREDA will be able to disburse Rs 8,000 crore loan and sanction finance of up to Rs 12,000 crore in the current fiscal.

He said that the company is aiming to increase loan disbursements to Rs 10,000 crore and sanction Rs 14,000 crore in 2018-19.

On this occasion, Director General International Solar Alliance Upendra Tripathy said that during Solar Summit on March 11, 2018, as many as 121 solar project agreements, to be implemented across the globe, will be signed.

He also that French President Emmanuel Macron will also visit India during the summit.

Besides, he said that in a bid to boost investment in clean energy RE-INVEST Summit will be organised on April 19- 21, 2018.

The World Bank is providing a loan of USD 100 million through IREDA for financing infrastructure of Solar Parks in India, this includes USD 75 million loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and USD 23 million loan from the Clean Technology Fund (CTF), as also an interest-free CTF grant of USD 2 million.

IREDA is the nodal project implementation unit for the loan.

The First two solar parks to be supported under the World Bank Funding Scheme are the Rewa Ultra-Mega Solar Park and Mandsaur Solar Park in Madhya Pradesh.

These two solar parks are being implemented by the RUMSL, a joint venture between Madhya Pradesh Urja Vikas Nigam and Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI).

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel today, publicly correcting him over Israel's stance on a two- state solution to its conflict with the Palestinians.

Netanyahu had snubbed Gabriel in April when the visiting diplomat declined to call off meetings with rights groups critical of Israel's government.

In statements after Wednesday's meeting, the two were cordial, but Netanyahu interrupted Gabriel when he talked about a two-state solution to the conflict.

Gabriel said he was "very thankful to hear that, of course, also the government of Israel wants to have two states" with secure Israeli borders.

Netanyahu, who heads what is seen as the most right- wing government in Israel's history, interjected to reiterate his position that his country would have to maintain security control in the Palestinian territories under any peace arrangement.

"No, that we will control security west of the Jordan (river)... that is I think the first condition," Netanyahu said.

"Whether or not it's defined as a state when we have the military control is another matter, but I'd rather not discuss labels, but substance."



A two-state solution has long been the ultimate goal of international efforts to mediate a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

US President Donald Trump has however declined to commit to a two-state solution, instead saying he can support it if both sides agree.

He has also recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital, breaking with decades of international consensus that the disputed city's status must be negotiated.

Prominent members of Israel's government openly oppose the creation of a Palestinian state, while some call for much of the West Bank, occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War, to be annexed.

Netanyahu says he wants the Palestinians to govern themselves, but in recent months has declined to specify whether that would mean an independent Palestinian state or some diluted form of autonomy.

Speaking later in Tel Aviv, Gabriel questioned Israel's approach to the conflict.

"These, at best, mixed signals do not go unnoticed in Europe, where there is clearly growing frustration with Israel's actions," Gabriel said in a speech at a conference of the Institute for National Security Studies think-tank.

"Also in Germany, and frankly inside my own party, young people, the young generation, feel increasingly less inclined to accept what they deem unfair treatment of the Palestinians.

"And it's increasingly difficult for people like me to explain to them the reasons why our support for Israel must persist. As a friend and close ally, we need to know if Israel is not supporting a negotiated solution to this conflict anymore."



Gabriel also met Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the West Bank town of Ramallah on Wednesday.

European nations have repeatedly warned that chances are diminishing for a two-state solution and called on Israel to halt settlement building in the West Bank.

Such criticism has led to tensions between some European officials and Netanyahu, who accuses them of overlooking Palestinian attacks and what he calls Palestinian incitement against Israel.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The prosecution today began final arguments in the journalist Jyotirmoy Dey murder case.

Special public prosecutor Pradeep Gharat today told the court how the killing took place, and took the court through the evidence on record. He will continue his arguments tomorrow.

Dey, who wrote under the byline 'J Dey', was shot dead in Powai area of Mumbai on June 11, 2011. The court had, on August 31, 2017, framed charges against Rajan.

According to the CBI's charge sheet, Rajan had the veteran crime reporter killed because he was miffed with some articles written by Dey, and also because a planned book of Dey's portrayed Rajan as a 'chindi' (petty) criminal.

Rajan was arrested at the Bali airport in Indonesia on October 25, 2015, and deported to India.

In his statement before the court on January 29, Rajan denied the allegations, and claimed that police, politicians and his friend-turned-foe and fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim were behind the spate of 'false cases' registered against him.

Besides Rajan, there are 11 accused in the case.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Joint Coordination Committee and Nagaland Tribes Action Committee today remembered the two Naga youths who were killed during protest against the state government's decision to hold election to urban local bodies (ULB) with 33 per cent women reservation last year.

The two youths - Khriesavizo Metha and Bendangnungsang Longkumer - were killed and several others injured as crowd gathered protesting the governments decision on ULB elections near the private residence of Chief Minister T R Zeliang in Dimapur and the police tried to stop them on this date last year.

The Joint Coordination Committee and Nagaland Tribes Action Committee, constituted under emergent situation that time, today organized a programme to dedicate the memorial monolith conducted just above Old MLA hostel junction here.

"The monument erected in their memory cannot repay the ..., but it can only be a symbol of our utmost gratitude," said chairman of the programme Dr P Ngully in his opening remarks.

Angami Public Organisation, Advisor, Vilhusa Seleyi said Naga youths need to follow their sacrifices and trustworthiness.

JCC Co-convener Luolao Usuo and NTAC Convenor K T Vilie Theunuo also attended the gathering.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Country's largest container port JNPT today said it has auctioned six plots in its special economic zone (SEZ) to small exporters and continues to be in discussions with MNC majors like Foxconn to setup base in the ambitious project.

The six companies who have won the auctions for the plots collectively admeasuring 5 hectares will be investing Rs 2,150 crore, its chairman-in-charge Neeraj Bansal told reporters here.

When asked about the speculation of Taiwanese phone maker Foxconn also moving in, Bansal said the port continues to be in negotiations with many multinational companies to move in.

He said the total investment, employment generation and pace of setting up the facilities are the priority areas being looked-at by the Shipping ministry.

It can be noted that a host of companies, including Tesla, Apple and Foxconn were rumoured to have been approached for setting up presence in the SEZ. Union Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari has confirmed that Tesla is not interested, while Foxconn is.

Bansal said as against a reserve price of Rs 4,800 per square metre for a 60-year lease period on upfront payment, the bids received by the port were at Rs 5,500 per square metre. The six companies, which include Devi Marine Food, Simosis International, Kader Exports, Attar Mohd Saeed Dawood and Brothers, Krish Food Industry and Oil Field Warehouse and Services, will start operations from the SEZ by mid-2019.

Bansal said the six companies will invest Rs 150 crore and create 2,150 direct jobs and added that the SEZ will create up to 30,000 jobs once complete.

It can be noted that the government is targeting to create 1.25 lakh jobs from the SEZ once it is complete.

He said the port had put out a larger number of plots for bidding but did not receive more than one bid for many, which has forced it to conduct a re-bid by end of February.

When asked if the government decision to de-notify a nearby SEZ promoted by Jai Corp, Mukesh Ambani and Cidco, and turn it into a industrial-cum-residential township will have an impact on JNPT's SEZ, Bansal replied in the negative.

He said there are inherent strengths possesed by the port like close proximity shipping which will attract exporters.

JNPT is planning to add Nashik and Sangli to the list of dry ports from where goods can move directly into the port, Bansal said, adding that land under the ownership of the state government has been identified at both the new locations.

It has also been mandated by the shipping ministry to "diversify" and will be looking for port assets in the immediate vicinity and some like Vijaydurg in Konkan, to serve the needs of the planned world's largest refinery, he said.

For the benefit of the people in its immediate vicinity, the port is planning a Rs 129 crore investment along with other state-run undertakings in the locality, he said.

It will also be taking 50 per cent of the tab for building a Rs 150 crore jetty at the village Karanja, for local fisherfolk, he said, adding the rest of the contribution will come from Maharashtra government.

It is also finalising a proper policy to cater to the project affected people (PAP) which includes coming out with a list of such people who need to benefit through employment and categorise them in such a way that the most needy can be hired at the earliest.

Looking at developments including the fourth terminal, the SEZ, development of the Naina city and the new airport, JNPT is creating a skill development centre at Belapur along with Cidco under a central government scheme, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Yug Pathak, the co-owner of one of the two pubs in Kamala Mills compound here where a massive fire claimed 14 lives last month, has approached the sessions court seeking bail.

Last week, a magistrate's court had rejected the bail applications of the owners of the '1 Above' pub, Kripesh Sanghvi, Jigar Sanghvi and Abhijeet Mankar, and owners of the adjoining 'Mojo's Bistro', Yug Pathak and Yug Tulli.

"The matter is likely to be heard on February 3," said special public prosecutor Prakash Shetty.

Pathak, the son of retired director general of police and former Pune police commissioner K K Pathak, was arrested earlier this month.

On 29 December, a massive fire swept through the two roof-top pubs, 'Mojo's Bistro' and '1 Above', located in Kamala Mills compound, resulting in the death of 14 persons.

Police registered a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder against the accused.

It was alleged that flying embers from hookah, served illegally at 'Mojo's Bistro', started the blaze, and illegal alterations at both the pubs aggravated the tragedy.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Engineering major Larsen & Toubro and its non-executive chairman A M Naik as well as director Shailendra Roy



have settled with markets regulator Sebi a probe into late compliance with insider trading norms by paying over Rs 10 lakh.

However, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) did not disclose details of the case.

The regulator agreed to settle proposed adjudication proceedings in the case, pertaining to the delayed compliance of insider trading norms after it was approached by these entities with a plea under the settlement regulations "without admitting or denying the findings of fact and conclusion of law".

"The proposed adjudication proceedings for the alleged defaults...are settled," Sebi said in a settlement order passed yesterday adding it would not initiate any enforcement action for the alleged defaults.

The company and its two officials had allegedly made "delayed compliance of Sebi (Prohibition of Insider Trading) regulations".

Pending adjudication proceedings, these entities had approached Sebi in 2015 to settle the case on payment settlement charges. The authorised representatives of the entities had meeting with the regulator's internal committee in April 2017, wherein the settlement terms were deliberated.

Thereafter, Sebi's High Powered Advisory Committee recommended the case for settlement on the payment of amount totalling Rs 10.27 lakh. This included Rs 2 lakh by Larsen & Toubro, Naik (over Rs 4.72 lakh) and Roy (over Rs 3.54 lakh). This was also approved by Sebis panel of whole-time members, following which they remitted the amount.

Accordingly, the regulator has disposed of the adjudication proceedings initiated against them. It further said that enforcement actions, including commencing or reopening of the proceedings, could be initiated if any representation made by them is found to be untrue.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Pro Kannada outfits today said they would call off their proposed 'Bengaluru bandh' on February 4, if Prime Minister Narendra Modi intervenes to solve the Mahadayi river water sharing issue with neighbouring Goa, as demanded by them.

However, they would go ahead with it Modi did not intervene to find a solution, Vatal Nagaraj,who heads 'Kannada Okkoota', an umbrella organisation of Kannada bodies, said.

"We will observe a Bengaluru Bandh on February 4 if the Prime Minister fails to give us any relief. If he makes any announcement prior to that, then we will call it off," he told PTI.

Modi will be in the city on February 4 to participate in the concluding ceremony of Karnataka BJPs Parivarthana Yatra, a state-wide programme against the Congress government.

A state-wide bandh was observed by the outfits on the issue on January 25.

Nagaraj said the outfit held discussions today with farmers from Nargund, Navalgund and drought affected regions of North Karnataka.

"BJP national president Amit Shah too has not spoken a word on the Mahadayi water issue," he said.

Meanwhile, BJP MP Prahlad Joshi, addressing a public meeting in Koppal,flayed the remarks of Nagaraj,saying "he has no idea about the problems faced by the state on the issue."



Karnataka, which has locked horns with Goa on sharing Mahadayi River water, is seeking release of 7.56 tmcft water for the Kalasa-Banduri Nala project.

The project is being undertaken to improve drinking water supply to the twin cities of Hubballi-Dharwad and districts of Belagavi and Gadag.

Attempts have been made by Karnataka to amicably solve the issue pending before the Mahadayi Water Disputes Tribunal through discussion have failed to bear fruit.

Repeated efforts by the state seeking Prime Minister's intervention to solve the issue, has also not been successful.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Rajasthan Lokayukta Justice S S Kothari today submitted its 757-page probe report to Governor Kalyan Singh on 1,828 cases that were pending with the Mathur Commission.

The Justice N N Mathur Commission was constituted in 2009 to probe cases pertaining to land use conversion, land allotment, corruption and irregularities by public servants during 2004-2008, the lokayukta said in a release.

The constitution of the commission was challenged through a PIL in the Rajasthan High Court, it said.

The high court had then directed the lokayukta to conduct a fresh probe into the cases pending with the Mathur Commission, the release said.

Twenty-eight of the 199 land conversion cases were cancelled, and rules and regulations were not followed in 38 cases, in which action was taken, it said.

In land allotment cases, irregularities were found in 36 cases, following which 10 allotments were cancelled and in eight cases penalty was recovered.

Rs 20.37 crore was recoveredin 88 cases of development charges, lease charges, regularisation and stamp charges, the release said.

Prosecution and police action was launched in 27 cases. Disciplinary action was taken against 25 public servants in 13 cases, it said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The four-day mega tribal festival, 'Sammakka Saralamma Maha Jathara' or 'Medaram Jathara', started in Jayashankar Bhupalpally district of Telangana today.

The state government's website describes the festival, held every two years at Medaram village in Tadvai mandal, deep inside forests, as the largest tribal religious gathering in the world.

In-charge District Collector R V Karnan told PTI that the opening day has already seen a footfall of over 10 lakh, and some 15 lakh people are expected to visit through the day.

"Over 1 crore devotees are expected to visit the festival this year. Over the past one week over 50 lakh people have already visited," he said.

During the Jathara, declared a state festival by the Telangana government, tribal devotees offer obeisance to goddesses Sammakka and her daughter Saralamma.

As per the folklore, the festival commemorates the fight of Sammakka and Saralamma against the oppression of Kakatiya rulers.

On the first day, arrival of Saralamma on the 'Medaram Gaddhe' (platform) is celebrated. The second day marks the arrival of Sammakka.

Over 10,000 policemen have been deployed for security, collector Karnan said.

Tribal devotees from Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and parts of Jharkhand, among other states, attend the festival.

White jaggery is the traditional offering made to the two deities. Devotees often offer their own weight in jaggery to Sammakka and Saralamma.

They also take a holy bath in Jampanna Vagu (stream).

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao would visit Medaram and offer prayers to the deities on February 2.

A temporary folk museum and amphitheatre has been put up by the government at the festival site for display of folk arts.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Meghalaya Human Rights Commission (MHRC) Chairperson Justice (retd) Dr Aftab Hussain Saikia has advised people to gift the Constitution, instead of religious books, on social occasions so that people are able to know their rights and duties.

Even learned people in the country were seen to be violating human rights, he said adding that one should read the Constitution to know of his rights and duties.

"One should make it a point to gift the Constitution to as many people as possible, rather than gifting religious books during social occasions," the MHRC Chairperson said at a programme here yesterday.

In view of the innumerable cases of human rights violation in India, there is an urgent need to set up Human Rights Courts in every district of the country, said the former Chief Justice of Jammu & Kashmir and Sikkim High Courts.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Congress president on Wednesday fired his "suit-boot ki sarkar" salvo at Prime Minister Narendra Modi afresh, saying he was always found in the company of people attired in suits and not those that are poor.

Unruffled after being attacked by the Meghalaya unit of the BJP over the price of the black jacket he wore on Tuesday at a concert here, Gandhi said, "You will not see him (PM) hug a poor person, talk to a poor person or even engage with a poor person. You will see him with others.

"There is a particular distance he maintains with the poor people which he does not with Mr Obama or others," he told journalists.

"The fact of the matter is that he (Modi) is still a suit-boot person. He has not done anything....," Gandhi said.

The Congress president said the prime minister had promised to create 2 crore jobs a year but failed to achieve the target.

In an apparent retort to Rahul Gandhi's suit-boot ki sarkar jibe, the BJP had claimed the Congress President wore a jacket worth $995 at a concert oragnised by his party in the poll-bound state yesterday.

"So @OfficeOfRG, soot(pun intended!)-boot ki sarkar with black money fleeced from Meghalayan State exchequer by rampant corruption? Instead of singing away our woes, you could have given a report card of your inefficient govt in Meghalaya! Your indifference mocks us!," the BJP's Meghalaya unit tweeted.

The party's state unit also tweeted an image of a jacket similar to the one Gandhi wore having a price tag of $995 (little over Rs 63,000).

The BJP, which intends to give a tough fight to the ruling Congress in the Meghalaya Assembly elections, also accused the Congress of distracting voters by organising a soiree.

"Rock concert distraction tactics by the @OfficeOfRG to take away focus of Meghalayan voters from real issues on the ground! A prince can fuss over 'fuddy-duddy chopper' rides & cancel his Tura trip, but ever wondered how people in Meghalaya travel," the BJP tweeted.

Gandhi met Church representatives earlier today in the Christian dominated state where elections to the 60-member Assembly would be held on February 27.

Two Churches in Meghalaya recently turned down Rs 700 million assistance announced by the Centre.

There are many different visions, missions and ideas in the country and all of them should have a voice, Gandhi said.

"There is tremendous anger and discomfort among a lot of people and they believe that this country is made up of a million perspectives, and to force only one perspective is not right," Gandhi said.An MoU was signed today between Rewa Ultra Mega Solar Limited (RUMSL) and the World Bank, which will provide a loan of USD 30 million (around Rs 210 crore) to develop the "world's largest" 750 MW solar power plant in Rewa and another one in Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh.

The MoU was signed in the national capital, a senior official said.

"World Bank's arm - Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA)- and Rewa Ultra Mega Solar Limited (RUMSL), a joint venture of the state and the Centre, signed an agreement in New Delhi today," Principal Secretary of Madhya Pradesh's New & Renewable Energy Department, Manu Srivastava, told PTI over phone.

"The signing of the loan agreement at India Habitat Centre is a major step towards fulfilling Prime Minister Narendra Modi's mission of 100 GW solar power generation in India by 2022," he added.

WB is providing a loan of USD 100 million through IREDA for financing infrastructure of solar parks in India," Srivastava said.

"IREDA is the nodal project implementation for the loan," he added.

RUMSL, a joint venture of MP Urja Vikas Nigam and Solar Energy Company of India (SECI) is developing the world's largest solar power plant in Rewa district and 250 MW solar power plant in Mandsaur.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Faction-ridden Madhya Pradesh Congress put up a united show today when party candidates filed their nomination papers for February 24 assembly bypolls for Mungaoli and Kolaras seats.

Brajendra Singh Yadav filed his papers for Mungaoli seat in Ashoknagar district and Mahendra Singh Yadav for Kolaras constituency in Shivpuri district.

Senior leaders Jyotiraditya Scindia, the Congress chief whip in Lok Sabha, Kamal Nath, MP from Chhindwara, and Suresh Pachouri, former Union minister, represent various factions in the state party unit.

Leaders loyal to Scindia, Nath, and Pachouri were seen along with both the candidates today.

Former Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh could not make it to the Congress' show of strength as he is away for the Narmada river "parikrama" (circumambulation).

However, some loyalists of the Raghogarh royal were spotted in the rallies taken out at Mungaoli and Kolaras.

Besides Scindia, Nath, and Pachouri, Kantilal Bhuria also participated in the rallies.

Leader of Opposition Ajay Singh and AICC general secretary in charge for Madhya Pradesh Deepak Babaria were also present.

These factions had earlier come together ahead of the last assembly polls but failed to defeat the BJP.

Madhya Pradesh is going to polls later this year.

The BJP picked Bai Sahab Yadav and Devendra Jain to contest Mungaoli and Kolaras seats, respectively, but their candidature is awaiting final approval from the BJP Parliamentary Board, a senior leader said today.

Filing of the nominations closes on February 6 while February 9 is the last date for withdrawal of candidature. The counting of votes will take place on February 28.

The bypolls were necessitated due to demise of Congress MLAs Mahendra Singh Kalukheda (Mungaoli) and Ram Singh Yadav (Kolaras).

The Congress and the BJP have already started campaigning for the bypolls, the outcome of which would be keenly watched ahead of Assembly polls slated at the year-end.

While the Congress is aiming to retain both the seats, the saffron party is trying hard to wrest them.

Both the assembly segments fall under Guna Lok Sabha constituency, the pocket-borough of Scindia.

Scindia is being projected as the chief ministerial face by a section in the Congress, which has been out of power since 2003.

Aware of the high stakes involved, the 47-year-old royal has been extensively touring the two seats to ward off the saffron challenge.

The BJP has wheeled out state Cabinet ministers at the hustings.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan recently announced a slew of measures for the people of the region.

These included financial assistance for tackling malnutrition among the members of the Saharia tribe which forms a major chunk of voters in Kolaras and Mungaoli.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)In an election year, the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh has cleared a proposal allowing construction of a "Bharat Mata" temple near the state capital.

A Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan today approved the proposal moved by the Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) seeking land to build the temple of the "Mother India", which will come up in Singarcholi area near Airport Road.

"The Cabinet cleared the land proposal for building the Bharat Mata Parisar in Bhopal," state minister and government spokesman Narottam Mishra told reporters.

The government has sanctioned the allocation of 5.046 hectares of land to the BMC for the construction of the Bharat Mata Mandir Parisar (temple complex) at Singarcholi, a close aide of Mishra told PTI.

The development came nearly a month after RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat unveiled a 16-feet tall statue of Bharat Mata in MP's Ujjain district.

"While worshipping the 'motherland', we have to consider the entire society as ours. We should be free from barriers of 'ours versus theirs' and 'big versus small'. Where there are cordial ties, there is no ego," Bhagwat had said.

The Sangh chief also said that the undivided image of Mother India should be worshipped.

Clearance of the proposal may give rise to the temple in the poll-bound state.

According to sources in the Congress, party president Rahul Gandhi might visit temples during run-up to elections like he did in Gujarat last year.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Stoking a potential controversy, senior BJP leader K S Eshwarappa has alleged that Muslims who are with the Congress "are killers", while those linked with his party are "good Muslims".

"Muslims who have killed 22 RSS and BJP activists are with the Congress and those who are good Muslims are with the BJP. Muslims who are killers are with the Congress," he told reporters at Tumkuru yesterday.

The BJP has been accusing the Congress of encouraging the Popular Front of India (PFI) and its political arm, the Social Democratic Party of India, of targeting activists of the Sangh Parivar in Karnataka.

Eshwarappa asked Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy to release documents to prove their charges that the BJP had an understanding with AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi.

Reddy had on Monday claimed that if not directly, the BJP may indirectly enter a secret understanding with Owaisi.

He said the chief minister and the home minister should resign if they failed to furnish proof.

The BJP leader alleged the Congress was resorting to divisive as it did not have anything to talk about development in Karnataka.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)An official in a Myanmar town hit by deadly riots about a fortnight ago has been murdered, the government said today, as tensions remain high in restive Rakhine state.

Bobo Min Hteik, 37, was the administrator of Mrauk U township, where police shot dead seven ethnic Rakhine Buddhists on January 16 in a heavy-handed attempt to control a mob angry at the cancellation of a ceremony.

He was found dead on the side of the road on Tuesday evening next to a car, with stab wounds to the chest and shoulder, according to a statement from the Ministry of Home Affairs.

It is unclear whether the killing was linked to the riots, which erupted after authorities blocked a local event commemorating Mrauk U's history as the former capital of an ancient Rakhine Buddhist kingdom.

The protesters briefly seized a government office and hoisted the Rakhine state flag before police shot into the crowd.

It has not been established who gave the order for police to use live ammunition.

Three days after the incident, however, authorities announced that Bobo Min Hteik would be transferred to the state capital Sittwe.

There are now "significant" tensions between locals and authorities in the wake of the Mrauk U violence, said political analyst Richard Horsey.

"Sentiments are very much inflamed after the shooting, for which local authorities are being blamed. But whether that was why he (Bobo Min Hteik) was killed remains to be established," he told AFP.

Ethnic and religious hatred divides Rakhine state, which forms Myanmar's western border with Bangladesh.

Mrauk U, which is home to a complex of ancient Buddhist temples, has been left largely unscathed by unrest further north in Rakhine, where the military unleashed a brutal assault that has driven nearly 700,000 Rohingya Muslims over the border into Bangladesh since August.

Rakhine Buddhist mobs have been accused of helping the military torch hundreds of Rohingya villages. They revile the community as illegal "Bengali" immigrants bent on taking over the state.

But many ethnic Rakhine also have a longstanding enmity with Myanmar authorities dating back to the demise of the Rakhine or Arakan kingdom and a general lack of economic opportunity.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Myanmarese nationals who took refuge in Mizoram's Lawngtlai district following clashes between Arakan militants and the Army there in November last year have refused to return to their country, a senior district official said today.

Around 1,555 Myanmarese people who took refuge in Lawngtlai district have refused to return to their country. They have also expressed apprehensions that landmines are planted along the Mizoram-Myanmar border where the Myanmar Army and the Arakan militants clashed, the official said.

The Assam Rifles authorities had made efforts to repatriate the Myanmarese refugees in December last year but they had refused to return, the official said.

One woman was killed by a concealed landmine and a man was maimed by another landmine blast this month near the border with Myanmar.

The refugees who had earlier taken shelter in four villages are now grouped into two villages to ensure their safety and also to ensure that all of them return to Myanmar, the official said.

The refugees came to Mizoram from Paletwa and surrounding villages in Myanmar after the Myanmar Army launched massive operation to flush out the Arakan insurgents hiding in Chin State from November 25 last.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha today said his ministry will try to enhance the capacity of the congested Mumbai airport in medium-term, as the one being built in Navi Mumbai could take "four to five years" to become operational.

The implementing agency City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) has been claiming that the first phase of Navi Mumbai airport with 10-million per annum capacity would be operational by 2021.

The private partner for the Navi Mumbai International Airport is the GVK Group which also runs the current airport in the city.

Addressing the second day of the annual CAPA (Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation) summit through a video link, Sinha said, "Mumbai remains the most bottlenecked single-runway airport due to which aviation growth is a concern. There is no quick way to add capacity until the Navi Mumbai airport comes up in the next four to five years".

He said in the meanwhile the ministry will try to enhance the capacity at the Mumbai airport. But he did not offer any details.

The Mumbai airport has already crossed its installed capacity of 40 million passengers. Last year, it handled over 45 million passengers.

The city airport is the busiest single runway airport in the world, handling around 970 flights a day or close to one aircraft movement per 65 seconds.

Speaking on the efforts made by the government to boost aviation, Sinha said six to eight helicopters will also be flying under regional connectivity scheme to link smaller cities soon.

"Growth of the sector depends on two factors -- the number of aircraft added by the airlines, and slots available in major airports," he said.

On CAPA's complaint that bilateral pacts with other nations were hampering the domestic airlines' international growth plans, the MoS said the government was not constraining international air traffic growth.

"Slots are issued not so much as bilaterals. More important than slots are low-cost direct international flights and one way to achieve that is to use wide-body planes," the minister noted.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Indian Navy today launched INS Karanj, the third made-in-India Scorpene class submarine, as Naval chief Sunil Lanba called for "resolute efforts" to rev up the construction and delivery of the remaining state-of- the-art subs in the project started 12 years ago.

Admiral Lanba's wife Reena Lanba launched the submarine with superior stealth features, constructed by shipbuilder Mazagon Dock Limited (MDL) here.

The submarine will undergo rigorous tests for one year before it is commissioned, Admiral Lanba said.

The Naval chief also called for introspection in the ship building business to overcome the delay in the construction and commissioning of submarines.

"I also believe some introspection is called for at this stage. The project (submarine construction at MDL) began 12 years ago. Notwithstanding the associated complexities, we need to make resolute efforts to increase the speed of construction and ensure timely delivery of the remaining submarines," he said.

The role of the MDL was critical in this endeavour, he added.

"To keep the induction plan of the Navy on track with a focused approach, this premier yard (MDL) will be able to deliver the platforms on schedule," he said.

A contract with French company Naval Group was signed in 2005 for the supply of six submarines. The first submarine INS Kalvari was commissioned in December last year.

In January last year, Khanderi, the second Scorpene class submarine, was launched.

Lanba also announced that henceforth certification works would be completed at the MDL.

"The launch of Karanj also marks a significant departure from the manning and training philosophy that we adopted for the first two submarines. From this third submarine onwards, you (MDL) would be fully self-reliant as far as training and certification processes are concerned," he said.

"Today all our 34 naval platforms and the ones under construction are being built by Indian shipyards. This sort of impetus also harbours well for the downstream industrial ecosystem," he said.

Talking to reporters after the launch, the Navy chief said, "The Kalvari class is miles ahead in stealth and technology compared to (that in) the neighbouring country. Every submarine at least takes a 12-month time for various tests before commissioning."



The first three submarines of Scorpene class are named Kalvari, Khanderi and Karanj. The remaining three (to be launched in the future) will be called Vela, Vagir and Vagsheer, a Navy spokesperson said.

"Every nine months, we will have a launch of a submarine from the MDL," he said.

INS Karanj, loaded with advanced acoustic silencing techniques, can attack with precision and is expected to boost India's ageing sea fleet.

Asked about the future of the decommissioned aircraft carrier 'Viraat', Lanba said they have received a proposal from the Andhra Pradesh government which wants to convert the vessel into a maritime museum.

"They are looking at a site near Visakhapatnam. They have appointed a company to make a detailed project report, which is being done. Once we have a concrete proposal, we can take it forward for Viraat," he said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month commissioned the first of the six Scorpene class submarines, the Kalvari, into the Navy and said its induction was a big step in India's defence preparedness.

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had then said submarine building was a sophisticated and exacting craft which very few countries possessed in their industrial capacity.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Claiming that the budgetary process in India was not transparent enough, an NGO today urged the government to place more information related to the budget in the public domain.

As Finance Minister Arun Jaitley gears up to present the Union Budget 2018-19 tomorrow, the NGO, Transparency International India, said on parameters of international standards on budget transparency, the Indian budget was considered "less transparent" as it put only "limited" information in the public domain.

"Budgetary process in India is still non-transparent, non-participative with poor accessibility by citizenry," it said in a press release here.

While the government "boasts its intentions of transparency", India ranks low on indicators representing budget transparency, it said, demanding greater openness in the budgetary process.

"India is not one of the most transparent countries. India scored 48 on 100 in the open budget survey of 2017. It is interesting to see that all the major powers of the world do have better transparency in their budget processes as compared to other countries," it said.

This meant that for a nation to emerge as a promising democracy, "transparency in the system" would be a key factor, it said.

"India amongst its neighbouring countries fares better than all, but Bangladesh. Economically not as sound as India, Bangladesh has better transparency than India in its system," the statement said.

Despite its utmost importance, the state budget in India remains "one of the most intractable of documents, incomprehensible for ordinary citizens, specialists and non- specialists alike", it said.

This makes it difficult for the people to participate in shaping public policy, the NGO said.

"The lack of budget transparency cannot simply be treated only as a serious violation of democratic rules and good governance. It leads to severe economic and financial problems related to the spread of corruption and waste...," it said.

Knowledge of the state budget should not be limited to experts and specialists, the release said.

"It's high time now for a citizen's budget for easy understanding of the total budgetary revenue and expenditure statements, the mid-year review pre-budget statement and the audit report to be published on time, not published online or produced only for government use," it said.

The budget in India was "still more or less the exclusive domain of the civil servant due to quite a complex system and procedure", it said.

Transparency International India describes itself as a "non-political, independent, non-governmental anti-corruption organisation".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A 25-year-old Nigerian man was arrested here with cocaine worth Rs 20 lakh, police said today.

On the basis of a tip-off, Chidi Ibekwe was nabbed from near the Cremation Ground, Sector-18, Dwarka. He was arrested after a chase on January 17, they said.

The police have recovered 110 grams of cocaine from him and the accused also could not produce a valid visa.

Ibekwe came to India about two years ago on a work visa and started residing in Uttam Nagar.

He began a business of importing Nigerian fish and after some time, came in contact with a Ugandan lady and married her, the police said.

Later, he came in contact with another Nigeria national who lured him into drug trafficking.

Ibekwe started supplying cocaine in various parts of Delhi and Gurugram on the instructions of one John alias William, said Bhisham Singh, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime).

On January 17, he had come to supply cocaine to one of his contacts in Dwarka, where he was arrested.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today said he did not see any "immediate possibility" of holding the Lok Sabha and assembly polls simultaneously as meeting constitutional requirements for it to happen would take a lot of time.

The JD(U) president, who had switched allegiance to the BJP-led NDA from the Congress-led opposition alliance last year, said he was in principle supporting Prime Minister Narendra Modi's push for simultaneous elections, according to a statement.

President Ram Nath Kovind in his address to the joint sitting of Parliament on Monday had advocated for simultaneous polls, and Modi too had strongly supported it.

Kumar said that simultaneous polls will bring down the cost of holding elections and also give elected governments more time for development.

However, he added, "Constitutional requirements will have to be met for this and it will take a lot of time. There seems to be no immediate possibility of holding the Lok Sabha and assembly polls simultaneously".

He also met Water Resources and River Development Minister Nitin Gadkari to seek the Centre's support in completing irrigation projects in Bihar on time.

Kumar also highlighted the harm done to the state by almost annual floods, mostly caused by discharge of water from neighbouring Nepal, and sought the Centre's help in finding a quick solution to the problem.

Last year, the state government had spent over Rs 4,600 crore in relief work and anywhere between Rs 4,000-5,000 crore is spent every year to help the flood-affected people, he said.

The chief minister said it was imperative to remove huge amounts of silt deposited in rivers to reduce the impact of floods caused in Bihar and in the adjacent state of Uttar Pradesh, the statement said.

He asked Gadkari to get Nepal's help to address the issue.

Gadkari, it said, assured Kumar of immediate action and said his views are not different from the chief minister.

He will also help the state get loans from the World Bank, Gadkari said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Allahabad High Court today declined to order an NIA probe into the Kasganj communal clashes.

A Lucknow bench also refused to issue any direction to the state government to award Rs 50 lakh compensation to the family of the deceased and grant status of martyr to him.

The bench of justices Vikram Nath and Abdul Moin was disposing of a PIL filed by Dileep Kumar Srivastava and others in the matter.

Appearing for the petitioners, advocate Hari Shanker Jain questioned the alleged double standards in granting compensation to riot victims of different communities.

Opposing the PIL, state lawyer said that the Uttar Pradesh government had already granted compensation to the deceased and that the state police was conducting investigation into the incidents and as such there was no need of probe by the NIA.

Chandan Gupta (22) died of gunshot wounds in clashes following stone-pelting by a mob on a motorcycle rally taken out in the western Uttar Pradesh town to celebrate Republic Day. At least three shops, two buses and a car were torched in the clashes.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Days after a BJP MLA said the portrait of Tipu Sultan would not be allowed at the Delhi Assembly, Speaker Ram Niwas Goel today said there is no question of removing it and alleged that it was the BJP's habit of creating controversy over every issue.

Goel said if someone removes the portrait of Tipu Sultan from the Martyrs Memorial Gallery of the Assembly, he would take strict action.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had on Republic Day unveiled portraits of 70 eminent personalities, including that of Tipu Sultan, at the Delhi Assembly.

Goel told newspersons that all the portraits were put on display for two weeks before their formal unveiling and wondered why the BJP did not raise the objection then.

"I never shared the list of 70 portraits, neither with the ruling party MLAs nor with the Opposition members. Also, I never received objection from the Opposition about the portrait of Tipu Sultan," he said.

Goel said the General Purpose Committee of the Assembly, headed by the Speaker, had taken a decision to install portraits of 70 individuals, comprising freedom fighters, revolutionaries and heroes of the country.

"There is no question of removing the portrait of Tipu Sultan. It is the habit of BJP to create controversy on every issue.

"The Constitution of India also carries a picture of Tipu Sultan on the page number 144 of Chapter 16. So either the people, who had written the constitution, were wrong or they (BJP) are," the Assembly speaker said.

According to Assembly Secretary Prasanna Kumar Suryadevara the General Purpose Committee looks after general issues like amendment in rules and augmenting of facilities.

On Sunday, BJP MLA Manjinder Singh Sirsa had said the portrait of Tipu Sultan would not be allowed to put on display at the Delhi Assembly, alleging the Mysuru ruler was a "tyrant" who "forced" four lakh Hindus and Christians to embrace Islam.

Leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta had rued the AAP government did not consult him before installing the portraits.

He had said Karnataka witnessed a major clash in 2015 over celebration of Tipu Sultan Jayanti in the state.

"After protests in Karnataka, such a controversy should not have been repeated. The Delhi government should have avoided the misdeed," Gupta had said, adding, "The Delhi government wants to keep the controversy alive.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)NSG 'black cats' will now perform yoga as part of their daily physical training and undergo graded psychological tests under a new regimen to prepare them for counter-terror and hijack operations.

According to a blueprint prepared by the National Security Guard, the force has, for the first time, decided to introduce yoga exercises in the "routine" physical training curriculum of its commandos.

It has also decided on a regular process to tabulate the "psychological attributes" of each of its combat commandos, also known as black cats, in order to enhance their overall personality development.

The new steps are being taken as the NSG's mandate to counter terrorist and hijack bids, apart from protecting high threat perception VIPs, is very specific and requires "physically and mentally fit personnel", who are trained to be the best commandos of the country, states the blueprint.

A Psychological Screening Test (PST) is conducted at present when personnel from various uniformed forces join it on deputation. But the NSG now wants a "regular process" of measuring the psychological attributes of a commando in the ranks.

The force will soon hire a psychologist as it has a "pressing requirement" of a qualified expert for not only choosing commandos at the entry level, but also for psychological counselling of trainees.

Similarly, it has sought the full-time services of an experienced yoga mentor.

Yoga, official sources said, is now mandatory for commandos but only specific capsules are being conducted in the NSG by experts from outside. Now, there will be a full- time instructor on the rolls.

The gradings by the yoga instructor and the psychologist will henceforth be reflected in the official performance records of the commandos, who are under continuous training when not out on an operation, they said.

The blueprint, accessed by PTI, states: "Yoga consisting of asans, pranayams, prayer and yoga-nidra practice will have great effects on autonomic equilibrium between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems of the commandos."



It adds that yoga increases physical fitness, disciplines the mind and makes a person more focused and confident, increasing agility and body flexibility. It also helps in achieving a calm and relaxed state of mind, which is important for a commando.

The blueprint says the yoga expert and the psychologist will be based at NSG's main garrison in Manesar, Gurgaon, near the national capital and will work as part of the counter- terror training wing.

The 'black cat' commandos of the NSG are segregated into two major units -- SAG (Special Action Group) manned by officers and jawans from the army and the SRG (Special Rangers Group) comprising personnel from the paramilitary forces.

The force was raised under an act of Parliament in 1984 as a federal contingency combat unit.

It has undertaken numerous operations till now. These include flushing out terrorists during the 26/11 Mumbai siege in 2008 and the recent operation when they were deployed to kill terrorists who attacked the forward Indian Air Force (IAF) base in Pathankot.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Odisha government is preparing to fast-track development works in Kotiya panchayat of Koraput district where a dispute has cropped up with neighbouring Andhra Pradesh over ownership of several villages.

Odisha and Andhra Pradesh have been engaged in a tug of war since 1968 over the ownership of 21 out of the 28 villages under Kotiya panchayat in the district.

"Development activities is being expedited and the existing infrastructure in Kotiya panchayat will be strengthened with creation of new capital assets," said District Collector K Sudarshan Chakravarthy, who recently visited the area.

"Drinking water facilities will be provided and electrification of villages done on a priority basis. The work has already begun," the Collector said, adding, field staff have been instructed to ensure that all social security programmes are implemented in the area and not a single person is left out.

Chakravarthy, who recently joined office, reviewed the development activities during his visit to Kotiya on Sunday, close on the heels of Andhra Pradesh officials launching their flagship programme 'Janmabhoomi' at Tolo Ganjeipadar village in the panchayat.

Along with block officials and elected representatives, the Collector visited the only residential school under the panchayat, primary health centre, panchayat office and several primary schools located in Pottangi block, officials said.

Chakravarthy visited Ganjaipadar, Uppersembi, Dhulipadar and Arjuvalsa villages and held discussions with residents regarding their problems and opinions on academic activity and healthcare facilities available in the area.

"Field staff never stay at Kotiya and most of the time schools remain closed. If the Collector keeps visiting the area on a regular basis then things might improve. We don't remember when was the last time a collector visited the area," said Ajay Pangi, a Kotiya resident.

Around 10 days back, bus services were introduced in Kotiya panchayat. The service is part of the administration's exercise to strenghten infrastructure in the panchayat situated in Pottangi block on the Deomali hill range, said an official.

"Apart from providing better transportation to the locals, the service will boost tribal economy," he said.

Officials said the bus service will help over 4,000 villagers of the panchayat. The bus will cover around 250 kilometres every day.

The administration has intensified development works in the panchayat. While old and defunct transformers are being replaced, road works are being executed on a war footing, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Odisha has bagged Geospatial World Excellence Award-2018 for successful IT application on tracking of mineral production, dispatch and value accrued on real time basis through its i3MS website based software.

The Award was given by Union Minister of State for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences and Technology, YS Chowdray in the Geospatial World Forum Meeting held at Hyderabad recently.

The meet was and attended by more than 3000 geospatial experts from 90 different countries of the World. Pradipta Mishra, Senior Scientist of Odisha Space Application Center (ORSAC) received the Award on behalf of Odisha government.

The GPS linked web based software named i3MS (Integrated Mines and Mineral Management System) has been designed by the scientists of ORSAC, Bhubaneswar.

Chief Secretary and Chairman Odisha Space Application Center A P Padhi has congratulated scientists of ORSAC along with officers of Steel and Mines department for successful designing, application and use of this IT model.

The daily production and dispatch is being recorded on real time basis through this software. All the mineral transporting trucks have been put under GPS surveillance and the roads as well as mines have been geo-referenced.

Geospatial Scientist Pradipta Mishra Mishra said: "This is for the first time in India that GPS devices have been fixed on a large volume of moving objects in mining sector".

"Till now, 392 electronic weigh bridges in 136 mines, 699 weigh bridges and 325 end user industries have been integrated with the system. All e-permits and dealer licenses are being issued online through this software and issue of manual license has been abolished," said Deepak Mishra, the director of mines.

Mohanty further added "this GPS based IT application has helped curtailing illegal mining activities in the state".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)On the silver jubilee of the National Commission for Women (NCW), Union minister Maneka Gandhi today faced some tough questions on the political patronage extended to the panel.

For over 12 years, NCW chairpersons, like Girija Vyas, Mamata Sharma and Lalitha Kumaramangalam, were those with direct links with the ruling party at the Centre.

Critical of the political links of NCW chairpersons over the years, Mohini V Giri, a former chief of panel, told Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi, "Let me be frank today, I would not like to have any political patronage on any NCW chairperson."



Giri, a Padma Bhushan awardee, was the second chairperson of the NCW between 1995 and 1998.

"Let us follow the NHRC system and see that the chairperson who comes will be a mother or sister to everyone. It should be a platform that can be approached by people desperate for help," she said.

The concerns are being raised at a time the NCW is without a chairperson after Lalitha Kumaramangalam's three- year term expired in September last year.

Kumaramangalam was the member of the BJP national executive when she was appointed to the post in 2014.

Before her, Mamata Sharma was at the helm between 2011 and 2014.

According to the NCW website, she has been the general secretary of the Rajasthan Congress and had also contested the state elections from Bundi seat in 2002.

Sharma's predecessor, Girija Vyas, who served two terms as the chairperson between 2005 and 2011, was a Congress leader and a three-time Lok Sabha MP from Udaipur. She had also briefly served as the deputy minister (Information and Broadcasting) in the P V Narasimha Rao government.

At an event held to mark the 25th anniversary of the NCW, Giri also pressed for giving more powers to the commission.

"You (Maneka Gandhi) have yourself said that it needs to be strengthened, so my first suggestion is that let us call a meeting of people and see how we can strengthen this commission so that it performs the role it was made for," she told Gandhi, who remained silent.

Giri claimed that although the NCW is an autonomous body, it is functioning as if it is under the ministry of women and child development.

"What is then the need for NCW? Are we safeguarding women's interests? Every day there is a Nirbhaya, everyday there is rape, children are not safe in this country, there is not one window for people to complain," the former NCW chairperson lamented.

Soon after being appointed as the Union minister, Maneka Gandhi had mooted more teeth to the NCW by giving it the status of a civil court with rights like that of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).

Her ministry had also proposed issuing arrest warrants if summons from NCW were ignored.

However, these proposals are yet to see the light of the day.

Mohini Giri also questioned why the NCW was carrying out new surveys on the condition of women in jails and mental hospitals without referring to the recommendations made by previous commissions "which are gathering dust".

Constituted in 1992 under the NCW Act, the women's panel comprises five members and a chairperson, appointed by the government. The NCW chief has to be a person committed to the cause of women.

The members have to be nominated from among people of ability, integrity and those who have had experience in law, trade union, women's voluntary organisations, administration, economic development, health, education or social welfare.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) on Wednesday said it has bought government's entire 51.11 per cent stake in oil refiner HPCL for Rs 369 billion.

In a regulatory filing, ONGC said it bought 778.8 million shares in Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) for Rs 473.97 per share.

The acquisition was done in an off-market deal, it said.

"The transaction is in furtherance of the Government's objective to combine the various central public enterprises to give them capacity to bear higher risks, avail economies of scale, take higher investment decisions and create more value for the stakeholders and create an oil major which is able to match the performance of international and domestic private oil and gas companies," it said.

The price paid is higher than Rs 396.50 closing price of HPCL on the BSE.

The transaction will help the government cross its annual sell-off (disinvestment) target for the first ever time.

ONGC has borrowed money from a clutch of banks to fund the deal.

Through this acquisition, ONGC will become India's first vertically integrated 'oil major' company, having presence across the entire value chain. The integrated entity will have advantage of having enhanced capacity to bear higher risks and take higher investment decisions etc.

In this process, ONGC has acquired significant mid-stream and downstream capacity and will attain economies of scale at various levels of operations.

With a turnover of Rs 2134.89 billion and profit of Rs 65.2 billion during 2016-17, HPCL ranks at 384th in Fortune Global 500 and 48th in Platts 250 Global Energy Companies.

HPCL markets around 35.2 million tonnes of petroleum products with a market share of about 21 per cent and is number one lube marketer in the country. It has refineries in Mumbai and Visakhapatnam and a joint venture refinery at Bhatinda.

It owns the biggest Lube refinery in India and the second largest cross country product pipeline network of about 3,500 km. HPCL has a vast marketing network spread across the length and breadth of the country with terminals, depots, LPG bottling plants, lube blending plants, aviation fuel stations and around 15,000 petrol pumps.

ONGC is the largest producer of crude oil and natural gas in India, contributing around 70 per cent of domestic production.The producers of "Padmaavat" have moved the Gujarat High Court seeking a direction to the state government to provide police protection to theatres so that the film can be released.

Though the Sanjay Leela Bhansali-directed film released across the country on January 25, theatre owners in Gujarat have not screened it, fearing violence.

The petition by Viacom 18 Motion Pictures is likely to come up for urgent hearing tomorrow.

Viacom 18 Motion Pictures said it needs the court's direction to the government to provide police protection to cinema halls, in view of the widespread violence that erupted ahead of its release last week.

Karni Sena and some other Rajput organisations had launched protests against the film for alleged distortion of history.

There were violent protests outside three multiplexes in Ahmedabad a day ahead of the release, following which the Gujarat Multiplex Owners Association announced that no theatre, be it a multiplex or a single-screen cinema house, would screen "Padmaavat".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Pakistan has handed over 27 suspected militants associated with the Taliban and the Haqqani Network, to Afghanistan in November last year, a senior official has said.

In a series of tweets, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Dr Mohammad Faisal said Pakistan "continued to push any suspected TTA (Tehreek-e-Taliban Afghanistan) and HN (Haqqnai Network) elements to prevent them from using our soil for any terrorist activity in Afghanistan."



"In this context, 27 individuals suspected of belonging to TTA & HN have been handed over to Afghanistan in November 2017," he tweeted.

In his new South Asia Policy in last August, US President Donald Trump had called for tougher measure against Pakistan if it fails to cooperate with the US in its fight against terrorism.

In his first tweets this year, Trump had accused Pakistan of playing a "double game" on fighting terrorism and asked Islamabad to take decisive action against militants operating from its soil to "earn" the US aid.

Attacking Pakistan, he also said they have given America "nothing but lies and deceit" despite having received more than USD 33 billion in last 15 years.

The United States later suspended its USD 255 million military aid to Pakistan.

The FO spokesman also said that "Pakistan has sacrificed 75,000 civilians & 6000 soldiers to the scourge of terrorism".

He said that Pakistan has one of the highest officer-to- soldier casualty rate globally, as traditionally officers lead the fight.

About economic losses in the war on terror, Faisal said that Pakistan "suffered economic losses worth USD 123 billion".

Meanwhile, a high-level Afghan delegation, comprising the country's Interior Minister Wais Ahmad Barmak and the chief of its intelligence agency the National Directorate of Security (NDS), Masoom Stanekzai have arrived in Islamabad to discuss "possible cooperation to tackle cross border militancy".

Announcing this on social media, Faisal said that had also brought a message from Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani.

The visit by Afghan delegation comes after a recent wave of deadly attacks in Kabul, including ambulance bombing that killed around 100 people for which the Taliban and the Daesh took responsibility.

"Afghan government had requested that a high-level delegation comprising Interior Minister and NDS chief would like to visit Pakistan with a message from Afghan President and for discussions about cooperation between the two countries. Delegation is here and will have talks today," he tweeted.

Official sources said that the two sides would discuss possible cooperation to tackle cross border militancy as both countries are victims of such attacks.

The two sides often allege each other for failing to stop militants using their soils for lethal attacks.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Pakistan's Supreme Court today sacked the chairman of the Evacuee Trust Property Board which manages the historic Katas Raj temple and other shrines of Hindus and Sikhs who had migrated to India following the partition.

A bench, headed by Chief Justice Saqib Nisar, dismissed ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz veteran Siddiqul Farooq from his chairmanship of the board on the grounds that he had exceeded his three-year tenure, Dawn reported.

The bench made the decision while hearing a suo motu case based on media reports that the Katas Raj pond, considered by the followers of Hindu religion a sacred place, is drying out due to water consumption by nearby cement factories.

The sacred pond in the historic Katas Raj temple complex in Chakwal district of Punjab is receding as the underground aquifer feeding it is under stress due to industrial activity.

Chief justice Nisar last year ordered a probe into the matter and after finding out that the statues of Lord Ram and Hanuman are missing from the temple, he questioned the ETPB if these statues are with the institution or had been sold.

He yesterday questioned why Farooq continued to hold the position of ETPB chairman when his term had ended. He had previously expressed serious reservations with the way Farooq had administered his responsibilities.

The court yesterday imposed a token Rs 1,000 fine on the Punjab province over its failure to implement its directives to probe reasons behind drying up of the sacred pond.

Today, following a brief courtroom dialogue with the additional attorney general, the chief justice had relieved Farooq of his duties.

Upon being told by the additional attorney general that the tenure of an ETPB chairman is three years, Justice Nisar said: "If that's the case, then Siddiqul Farooq's tenure has ended. Why don't we remove him from his position."



The court proceeded with the dismissal, directing the government to "appoint a new chairman according to the law."



The EPTB is a statutory board that manages religious properties and shrines of Hindus and Sikhs who had migrated to India following the partition.

The name 'Katas' is derived from Kataksha, a Sanskrit word meaning 'tearful eyes'. According to legend, the pond was formed after Lord Shiva wept upon the death of his wife Satti



BJP leader L K Advani during his trip to Pakistan in 2005 also visited Katas Raj and inaugurated conservation work being carried out by the government of Pakistan.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Police today arrested two persons in connection with rape of a minor girl in Khurda district, who had allegedly committed suicide over alleged police inaction.

The rape victim, a Class 10 student from Suanpadia village, had committed suicide on January 24 over alleged police inaction and not getting justice.

Two persons were arrested from near Kunjuri, police said adding that the arrested persons have been identified as Nimai Palei (22), the prime accused in the case, and his brother Kedar Palei.

The villagers had staged road blockade by placing the girls body in front of Banapur Police Station on January 25.

According to the FIR lodged by the victim's family on January 2, the minor girl was allegedly raped by Nimai Palei of the same village, while she was on her way to attend natures call on December 31 last year.

The incident created a statewide uproar as it happened just two days after the suicide of another minor girl who was allegedly gang raped by a group of men in uniform in Kunduli area of Koraput district on October 10 last year.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A police complaint authority to look into complaints against erring policemen in the national capital has been set up, the Centre told the Delhi High Court today.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar was also informed that the Lieutenant Governor (LG) has constituted the authority on the Centre's direction.

Senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, appearing for the LG and the Delhi police, said the Police Complaint Authority (PCA) will be headed by a Chairman with three members, including a woman.

"One of the three members must be a woman. The Chairman will be either a retired high court judge, a person of repute and stature from civil society, a retired civil servant or a retired police officer," the senior counsel said.

Central government standing counsel Anurag Ahluwalia said a notification in this regard was issued on January 29, which also explains the appointment, removal and terms and condition of the appointment.

He said the order also deliberates upon the role and functions and the powers of the PCA.

As per the notification, the authority shall enquire into allegations of serious misconduct against police personnel, either on its own or on a complaint received from a victim, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), LG, Chief Secretary or Principal Secretary (Home) of the Delhi government.

The authorities were responding to a PIL filed by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, which took exception to the Delhi government's decision taken on February 27, 2012, designating the Public Grievances Commission here as a PCA for the National Capital Territory.

The petition had sought quashing of the decision.

The notification stated that the PCA may not entertain those cases which are under consideration of any court or the NHRC or any other statutory body.

"Cases of complaints regarding the Delhi police will be looked into by PCA and not by Public Grievances Commission. Accordingly, the cases relating to Delhi Police pending with Public Grievances Commission shall be transferred to PCA," the government notification states.

The court noted that the issue raised in the petition was satisfied, so it should be disposed of.

The petitioner, however, sought time to examine the order and file his stand on next date of hearing on February 6.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Jammu and Kashmir government has ordered a probe into non-availability of ambulances at a district hospital in Udhampur, resulting in the death of a new born.

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Abdul Rehman Veeri said an inquiry has been ordered into the non-availability of ambulance for shifting a pregnant woman from Chenani by authorities at the District Hospital Udhampur.

Veeri was speaking in the state assembly yesterday during discussion on grants.

Earlier, Deputy Speaker, Nazir Ahmad Gurezi had asked the government to initiate disciplinary action against the Medical Superintendent, District Hospital Udhampur for his alleged failure to provide ambulance to the woman from Chenani area due to which her baby died.

The instruction was given by the Deputy Speaker after the issue was raised by MLA Chenani Dina Nath Bhagat in the assembly here yesterday.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Radisson, which debuted in Jodhpur (Rajasthan) today, has nine projects in the pipeline that will take about 3-4 years to become operational, a senior company executive said.

"Every year we are opening 8-9 properties under all our brands. At this pace, we have targeted 100 properties by the end of this year. Currently, we have 89 operational properties and 51 are in pipeline," Carlson Rezidor Hotel group chief executive officer, South Asia, Raj Rana told PTI.

Under the Radisson brand 17 properties are operational and nine are in the pipeline, which is expected to be ready in three to four years, he added.

Most of these Radisson projects in the pipeline are in tier II, III cities and state capitals, he said.

Out of all Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group brands, Rana said, Park Inn and Country Inn are the fastest growing followed by Radisson.

After the Jodhpur property, Radisson will soon open one hotel in Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, Rana said.

Meanwhile, talking about Radisson Jodhpur, Rana said, the property is spread over around 70,000 square feet constituting 96 rooms along with meeting space, three banquet halls, a multi-cuisine all-day- dining restaurant, fitness centre and a spa service.

Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group is one of the world's largest hotel companies and includes 1,440 hotels in operation and under development with more than 2,30,000 rooms in 115 countries and territories.

The Carlson Rezidor portfolio includes global brands, including Quorvus Collection, Radisson Blu, Radisson, Radisson RED, Park Plaza, Park Inn by Radisson and Country Inn.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Laying emphasis on building infrastructure along the Indo-Pak and Sino-India borders, the government has sanctioned nearly Rs 3.7 billion to the BSF and the ITBP for construction of bunkers and special climate-controlled huts in forward areas, an official said today.

The amount will be spent for construction of bunkers, fortifying border outposts of the BSF along the Indo-Pak border, construction of climate-controlled huts, procurement of snow scooter for the ITBP besides other necessary works of the two forces.

The BSF guards the 2,526.86-km-long Indo-Pak border, including 237.2 km of the Line of Control, and 4096.7 km of the Indo-Bangladesh border.

The Indo-Pak border has been witnessing massive ceasefire violation from across the border since the beginning of 2017. At least four BSF personnel were killed in firing by Pakistan this month.

ITBP guards the 3,488-km-long Sino-India border that runs through Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. The force is specially trained to operate in high altitude mountainous terrain.

ITBP border outposts are of the height up to 18,750 feet where the temperature dips down minus 40 degree Celsius.Country's largest lender State Bank of India today said it has received board approval to divest 4.40 per cent stake in Clearing Corporation of India.

"The Executive Committee of Central Board (ECCB) in its meeting held today has accorded its approval for divestment of 22 lakh equity shares, constituting 4.40 per cent of our stake, in Clearing Corporation of India (CCIL)," the bank said in a regulatory filing.

The proposed sale is subject to necessary regularoty approvals and approval of CCIL Board, it said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Supreme Court today remanded back to the Madras High Court the pleas relating to issuance of two Look Out Circulars (LOC) against Karti Chidambaram, son of former union minister P Chidambaram, and others in a corruption case.

The top court, which had stayed the High Court's order of August 10 last year keeping at abeyance the LOCs issued on June 16 and July 28 last year against Karti and others in the case, however made it clear that its interim order "shall continue till the matter is finally disposed of".

"The (four) writ petitions ..., challenging the Look Out Circulars of June 16, 2017 and July 18, 2017, be decided by the Division Bench presided over by the Chief Justice of the High Court of Madras.

"The High Court is requested to dispose of these writ petitions within two months," a bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud said.

The top court also said it has not expressed any opinion on the merits of the case and asked the high court to deal with them independently.

The bench considered the submissions of Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the CBI, that the argument of the probe agency with regard to the fact that the Madras High Court has no territorial jurisdiction to deal with the LOC cases, shall be kept open for adjudication.

"All the issues raised in these writ petitions, including the issue of territorial jurisdiction, are kept open and shall be addressed by the High Court," it said.

The bench also said the high court will deal with the application, if any, of the accused seeking permission to go abroad on merits. "If any application for travelling abroad is filed before the High Court, the same shall be appositely addressed," it said.

Earlier, a single judge bench of the Madras High Court had stayed the LOC issued against Karti and others in a graft case relating to grant of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to INX Media for receiving overseas funds to the tune of Rs 305 crore in 2007 when Karti's father was the Union Finance Minister.

Later, the apex court considered the appeal of CBI and stayed the operation of the High Court order staying the LOC.

The Supreme Court, however, has kept to itself another batch of petitions pertaining to registration of FIR in the corruption case.

The apex court had earlier permitted Mohanan Rajesh, who is under the scanner over the INX media deal along with Karti, to travel abroad from January 27 to February 5.

It had then fixed for hearing today the pleas which pertained to the issuance of LOCs against Karti and others and whether the matters can be remanded back to the Madras High Court for disposal on merits.

The Centre had opposed the move saying the high court had no territorial jurisdiction to stay and decide the matter arising out of the issuance LoC against Karti and others, as the FIR in the case was registered in Delhi.

The CBI FIR, lodged on May 15 last year, had alleged irregularities in the FIPB clearance to INX Media for receiving overseas funds to the tune of Rs 305 crore in 2007.

The top court was hearing pleas including the CBI's appeal challenging the Madras High Court order staying LOC against Karti Chidambaram. The CBI had on September 1 last year said there were "good, cogent" reasons for issuing the LOC.

The apex court had also said that Karti would not be allowed to leave India without subjecting himself to probe in the case. The court had then stayed the high court order putting on hold the LOC against Karti.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Supreme Court today expressed grave concern over the rape of an eight-month-old girl allegedly by her 28-year-old cousin and directed two doctors of AIIMS to visit the victim in the hospital and assess her condition.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwikar and D Y Chandrachud asked two doctors to go to the hospital with a special ambulance, assess the medical condition of the victim and shift her to All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) if the situation so warranted. It sought a report from the doctors by Thursday.

The baby was raped allegedly by her 28-year-old cousin on January 28 in a locality near Netaji Subhash Place in north- west Delhi.

"We are more concerned about the health of the infant," the bench said, after which the Centre assured it that the child will get the best medical care.

The court also asked a member of Delhi Legal Services Authority (DLSA) to accompany the doctors during their visit to the hospital where the baby victim is admitted.

The plea, filed by lawyer Alakh Alok Srivastava, said the external and internal injuries of the child were very severe and the infant had to undergo a three-hour long surgery.

"Presently, she is admitted in a local Delhi hospital in an extremely critical and painful condition, battling for life. The said victim baby girl belongs to an extremely poor family. Her father works as a labourer and her mother works as a domestic help," the plea said.

The plea sought a compensation of Rs 10 lakh for the vicrtim's parents and framing of guidelines that investigation and trial of the cases involving rape of children below the age of 12 years, under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POSCO) Act, should be completed within six months from the date of registration of the FIR.

The police had said the accused, who has been arrested, had confessed to raping the baby under the influence of liquor.

The girl's parents used to go out for work leaving their daughter in the custody of their sister-in-law. Since it was a Sunday, their sister-in-law's son was at home, police had said, adding that when the accused saw that his mother was not around, he allegedly forced himself on the baby.

When the girl's mother, who works as a maid, returned home at around 12.30 pm, she saw blood stains on the victim's clothes and informed her husband, they said, adding she was rushed to a hospital where it was found that she had been sexually assaulted.

Subsequently, the police were informed and a case was registered. The baby underwent a surgery and her condition was stated to be stable, police had said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Supreme Court today termed as "open cheating" a prayer by Interim Resolution Professional in the insolvency proceedings of the Amrapali real estate group case, demanding additional money from flat buyers.

The IRP, in its plea, justified raising the demand for more money from the flat buyers, saying it needed funds for installing fire and electrical safety equippments in 21 towers of the Silicon City project of the company, where over 1000 families are currently residing.

The IRP has taken over charge of managing the affairs of Amrapali after National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) admitted the insolvency proceedings against the firm on September 4 last year.

Once the NCLT admits insolvency proceedings against a company or individual, it appoints an IRP to perform a number of tasks including taking over of the management of the debtor, public announcement, invitation, collation and verification of claims and preparation of list of creditors.

"You (IRP) want to cheat them. This is open cheating. You cannot ask for more money from flat buyers. Your prayer is obnoxious. You can't raise the demand for money as all of them have already given their hard-earned money to the promoters," a bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Amitava Roy said.

Observing that the homebuyers cannot be allowed to lose from both ends, it even questioned the IRP, asking whether it was in collusion with the company.

Senior advocate Gaurab Banerji, appearing for IRP, said they needed Rs 21 crore for installing the fire safety equipments, saying "if anything goes wrong, we will be blamed."



"Recently, a fire incident had taken place in one of the 21 towers of the project in which families are residing. When we visited recently, we were subjected to abuses and threats by home buyers. It will become untenable for us to work if there is no money. Or someone else can take over the control of management of the company," Banerji told the court.

He said fire safety equipments needed to be deployed, as out of 43 towers of the Silicon City project of the Amrapali group, 21 towers are occupied.

Banerji said that Amrapali group has a total debt of Rs 2200 crore, while they had only Rs 1.5 crore in their bank account due to which it is impossible to manage the affairs.

"Without money in the account, we cannot even install basic facilities for the people residing in 21 of 43 towers of the project. If we are not given money, then someone else should be allowed to take over the control," he said.

The bench said it will be "inconsistent" with the law that flat buyers are asked to pay more amount by IRP, even when they have paid the full amount to the promoters.

Some flat buyers have even not got possession of their flats, despite having paid the full amount to the promoters, it said.

The top court directed the real estate firm to install fire and electrical safety equipments at all the residential towers within four weeks and asked the IRP not to obstruct the company from doing such work.

Senior advocate C U Singh, appearing for home buyers of the Silicon City, said the demand notice raised by IRP should be quashed as flat buyers have already paid Rs 2000 crore to the real estate firm for their homes.

He said one member each from three Residents Welfare Association (RWA) should be allowed to attend the meetings of company to represent the home buyers.

The bench said that fire safety equipments shall be installed and made functional as early as possible in phase-1 of Silicon City project of Amrapali group, situated in sector 76 of Noida by the promoter group.

The top court is hearing a batch of pleas filed by flat buyers who have sought quashing of the September 4 last year's NCLT order and said the moratorium imposed under the provisions of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016, is violative of Article 14 (equality before law) of the Constitution.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Sebi today imposed a penalty of Rs 25 lakh on Midfield Industries' CMD Madhu Mohan Reddy for failing to provide the regulator information pertaining to the firm's IPO.

An investigating authority (IA) appointed by Sebi had sought information about investor category wise number of shares allotted in the initial public offer (IPO), details of fixed assets purchased, loans taken by company from its promoters, loans extended by the company and details on trading of promoters, among others, from the company several times by addressing summons and letters to Reddy.

According to the regulator, two summons dated October 6 and October 26, 2015 were also delivered on the address of the Chairman and Managing Director (CMD). However, Reddy did not provide the information pertaining to the IPO of Midfield Industries.

In an order, Sebi said it is to be concluded that Reddy had failed to provide information sought by various letters and summonses.

"By not providing the information as alleged it is to be held that noticee (Madhu Mohan Reddy) has consequently hampered the investigations and thereby violated... Sebi Act, 1992," the regulator added.

For the violation, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has imposed a penalty of Rs 25 lakh on Reddy.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Sebi today imposed a total fine of Rs 50 lakh on Jubilant Life Sciences, its three promoter entities and a director for violation of norms pertaining to price sensitive information.

While a fine of Rs 10 lakh has been slapped on the company, the four other entities have been penalised to the tune of Rs 10 lakh each.

The company was found to have made delayed disclosure to the exchanges regarding price sensitive information.

Promoter entities -- Jubilant Stock Holding, Shyam Sunder Bhartia and Hari Shankar Bhartia -- as well as Amit Arora, the firm's senior vice president, FP&A (Financial planning and analysis) have been fined. The watchdog found that they traded in the shares "when in possession" of unpublished price sensitive information.

Shyam Bhartia is the non-executive chairman and director of the firm, while Hari Bhartia is co-chairman and managing director. They are also directors of Jubilant Stock Holding.

During an inspection, Sebi found that Jubilant Life Sciences had violated the listing agreement, while the other four entities had contravened PIT (Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations.

The violations pertain to instances during 2013 and 2014.

The drug firm had announced that one of its manufacturing facility in Quebec, Canada had been issued a warning letter dated February 20, 2013 by the USFDA. The letter was received by Jean Francois Hebert, vice president-operations, JHS, Canada, on February 22 and the same was informed to Shyam Bhartia, Hari Bhartia and Arora.

However, the company made a delayed announcement about it only on February 27, according to Sebi.

In another instance, the USFDA served a warning letter -- dated November 27, 2013 -- to a manufacturing facility in Spokane, Washington. It was received by Marcelo Morales, CEO of the business at Spokane on December 1 and the three individuals were informed about the same.

An announcement about the warning letter was made to the exchanges only on December 5, 2013, as per Sebi.

Sebi also noted on May 28, 2013, China's commerce ministry announced imposing provisional duties on JHS, as well as on other Indian producers and Japanese producers.

While the Chinese ministry's decision was expected to have an impact on the JHS' business, the company made an announcement about the same only on July 25, 2013 with a delay of around two months, the regulator noted.

Separately, the drug firm had also received communication on February 25, 2014 from the USFDA, classifying its pharmaceutical manufacturing facility at Montreal, Canada as 'Acceptable'. However, an announcement in this regard was made only on February 27.

"It is amply established that the event/ information (viz the warning letter/ acceptable report/ imposition of duties etc) were the PSI/ material and were required to have been disclosed to the stock exchange by the noticee no 1 (Jubilant Life Sciences)," under listing agreement, Sebi said.

Further, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) noted that JHS had made delayed disclosures to the stock exchange regarding price sensitive information.

While noting that available records neither reveals specify disproportionate gains or unfair advantage made by the the entities, Sebi's Adjudicating Officer Rachna Anand in the 70-page order said the gravity of violations are in the nature of causing detriment to the investors.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)For the first time in nearly 30 years, the Senate has confirmed a judicial nominee without a seal of approval from a home state senator.

The 56-42 vote today to confirm David Stras of Minnesota demonstrates anew Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's resolve in getting President Donald Trump's judicial nominees confirmed.

The Republican-led Senate went ahead with a committee hearing and a vote for Stras despite one of his home state senators, former Democratic Senator Al Franken, declining to return what is referred to as a "blue slip." Franken's replacement, Senator Tina Smith, also opposed his confirmation to the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

Franken had said he feared Stras would steer the already conservative court further right. Minnesota's other senator, Democrat Amy Klobuchar, voted to confirm Stras.

The blue slip is a 100-year tradition designed to foster consultation between a president and senators about judicial nominees from their home state.

Over the years, senators could derail a vote by not returning their blue slip. The last time a judge was confirmed without two blue slips was 1989.

"This is a major step back, another way that the majority is slowly and inexorably gnawing away at the way this body works and making it more and more and more like the House of Representatives," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. "It is not a legacy, if I were the leader or a member of that party, that I would be proud of."



Republicans have made it a top priority to confirm the president's nominees, particularly those who will serve on federal appeals courts. With Democrats slow-walking many of Trump's nominees, McConnell said last October that the blue slip process should not be used to "blackball" nominees.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R- Iowa, has said the blue slip was not supposed to serve as a unilateral veto of a nominee. He said presidents should consult with home-state senators, but he would not let senators "abuse" the blue slip to block qualified nominees.

He said he was following the custom set by most of the chairmen of the Senate Judiciary Committee over the years.

But Democrats counter that Republicans used the blue slip to block about 18 nominations from President Barack Obama. The hard-and-firm denial of a hearing for a nominee without two blue slips was fine with Republicans then. They said the policy shouldn't change just because the person who sits in the White House is different.

Stras has served on the Minnesota Supreme Court since 2010 and is on the president's short list of potential Supreme Court nominees.

McConnell noted that three of his former colleagues, now retired, praised Stras for his considerable experience and academic record. He said their statements confirmed the judge's "well-known reputation for thoughtfulness, fairness, and intellectual excellence.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Punjab Cabinet ministerNavjot Singh Sidhu today launched a 'cleanliness campaign' of the holy city from the surroundings of the Golden Temple.

The minister was accompanied by Amritsar Mayor Karamjit Singh Rintu, Senior Deputy MayorRaman Bakshi, Deputy Mayor Younis Kumar, Commissioner Municipal Corporation Amritsar Sonali Giri, Joint Commissioner Municipal Corporation Saurabh Arora.

Sidhu said that this campaign was a mission to make people aware of keeping the 'Guru Ki Nagri' clean as we do at our homes.

He said that a five-member committee under the councillors would be constituted in every ward for ensuring clean and hygienic conditions and their contact numbers would also be displayed on the Internet to enable people to lodge their grievances.

The minister further said that he would keep a watch on the initiative and wherever any lacunae was found the responsibility of the concerned officer would be fixed.

He also divulged that the 'safai sewaks' would be provided with masks, life jackets, uniform and gloves.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The UK government has agreed to support and fund a national memorial to honour the sacrifices and contribution of Sikh soldiers who fought for Britain and its allies during the two World Wars.

More than 83,000 turbaned Sikh soldiers gave their lives and more than 100,000 were injured during the wars.

"We are indebted to all those servicemen who volunteered to serve and fought to defend the freedoms we enjoy today," said UK communities secretary Sajid Javid yesterday as he announced government backing for the new memorial in London.

"A Sikh war memorial in our nation's capital will honour their sacrifice and ensure that this part of our shared history is never forgotten. So, I'm delighted to get behind this campaign and ensure its success," he said.

The campaign for a new Sikh war memorial was led by Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, Britain's first turbaned Sikh MP, who now has the support of the UK's Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to help set up a Working Group to find a suitable location.

Once an appropriate site has been identified and detailed plans agreed, the ministry has agreed to provide funding towards the project.

"The part played by Sikh servicemen really stands out a contribution that is all the more remarkable when you consider that these brave men travelled thousands of miles to fight for a country that wasnt their own," said Javid.

Over 27,000 people had signed an online petition by Dhesi, the Labour party MP for Slough who also submitted an Early Day Motion (EDM) in the House of Commons on the issue, which attracted cross-party support from over 260 MPs.

"Given that the Sikh community, which is very proud of its military traditions, there has been a demand for more than a decade for a Sikh memorial in a prime central location in London," Dhesi said.

"Britain owes a huge debt to the Sikh service men and women who fought alongside British troops in the First and Second World Wars. I look forward to supporting the work of the new National Sikh War Memorial Trust in lobbying for proper recognition of these courageous individuals," added London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

According to official records, despite making up only 2 per cent of the Indian population when the First World War broke out, Sikhs accounted for more than 20 per cent of the Indian Army's manpower.

Sikh soldiers from Punjab and surrounding states saw action in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, most notably on the Western Front and at Gallipoli.

On the Western Front Sikhs fought and died alongside their British, Indian and Commonwealth counterparts. Their contribution was essential to the war effort and of the 22 Military Crosses awarded to Indian soldiers, 14 went to Sikhs.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A man believed to be the British military's top agent in the Irish Republican Army (IRA) codenamed "Stakeknife" has been arrested for suspected murders and kidnappings, British media reported today.

The man has been named in media reports as 72-year-old Freddie Scappaticci and the Belfast Telegraph said his arrest would make his former paramilitary comrades and British intelligence agents "distinctly uneasy".

Scappaticci has vehemently denied being Stakeknife.

Officers leading the probe into the activities of Stakeknife during the conflict in Northern Ireland told AFP on Wednesday that the man's arrest was their first in the investigation.

The investigation will look at "murders, attempted murders or unlawful imprisonments attributed to the Provisional IRA" and examine any evidence of crimes being carried out by British security agents.

Three decades of largely sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland in which some 3,500 people were killed ended with the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

Police said the man was being held in an undisclosed location and declined to say where he was arrested.

Stakeknife headed up an internal security unit within the IRA that brutally interrogated and murdered suspected spies, according to media reports.

Scappaticci has admitted being a member of the IRA until 1990 but denied working for British agents.

"He knows (the IRA) leadership's darkest secrets. If he is charged, a lot of people on both sides of the Irish Sea will be very nervous," Belfast Telegraph political editor Suzanne Breen wrote.

"Senior figures in the intelligence world, and the political masters in London to whom they reported, will be distinctly uneasy," she said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)To give a major boost to the tourism sector of Jammu and Kashmir, the Travel Agents Association of India (TAAI)has decided to hold its 64th annual conventionhere in March for the first time in three decades, an official said today.

He said thiswas announcedby the president of TAAI, Sunil Kumar, at a press meet in New Delhi.

"To give a major boost to the tourism sector of Jammu and Kashmir, the TAAI is going to organise its 64th annual convention from March 27 to 30 this year in Srinagar," an official of the tourism department said.

Around 500 travel agents from across India are expected to participate in the annual convention which is seen as a major boost to tourism of Jammu and Kashmir, the official said.

Kumar said Jammu and Kashmir is one of the prime destinations in India where travellers can enjoy any tourism products.

He said the TAAI convention will help leadingtravel agents get familiar with beauty and hospitality of the state.

Secretary Tourism Sarmad Hafeez, who was also present, said the state government wants to show the state's tourism beauty to the country by organising the annual convention.

He said the state tourism department is organising many festivals and cultural activities in the state to entertain the tourists visiting the state.

Director Tourism Kashmir Mahmood A Shah said the TAAI convention is like a homecoming for travel agents.

"It is after 30 years that the TAAI convention is happening in Kashmir. It will be homecoming for you to visit Kashmir and see by yourself the beautiful landscape, culture, art and craft, sumptuous food, and above all the hospitable people of JK state," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Days after he was allegedly questioned by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad in a Naxal-related case, a school teacher committed 'suicide' here last week.

Prabhakar Narayan Machha (64) was found to have hanged himself at his house in Pratikshanagar area of Sion in central Mumbai on January 23, police said.

He was taken to the Sion hospital for treatment but was declared dead before admission, said an official of the Wadala TT police station.

Police sources said that Machha had been questioned by ATS sleuths following the arrest of a person from neighbouring Kalyan town for suspected Naxal links on January 12.

Machha's name had allegedly surfaced in his interrogation.

Machha was questioned and some documents were seized from his house, but he was allowed to go, sources said.

Subsequently, the ATS arrested six more persons from eastern suburbs of Mumbai.

The arrested men were working for the 'Golden Corridor Committee' of Maoists whose task was to spread the rebels' ideology in the industrial belts of Maharashtra and Gujarat, according to the ATS.

Wadala TT police said the exact reason for the suicide was yet to be ascertained, however, Machha was reportedly under depression after the death of his second wife.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)'Thai Poosam,' a key event in the Tamil Shaivite calendar signifying triumph of good over evil was today celebrated in temples across Tamil Nadu.

Devotees lined up in huge numbers at the temples of Lord Muruga across the state, including the Vadapalani Sri Murugan temple here, since early morning and offered prayers.

Special arrangements were made by authorities to facilitate hassle free darshan for devotees at the six 'Padai veedu' (sacred six abodes of Muruga) temples.

The temples include the hill shrines of Palani, Tiruttani and the seashore temple of Tiruchendur, all of which attracted a large number of devotees.

Thai Poosam is celebrated in the Tamil month of 'Thai,' and on the day of star 'Poosam,' which also happens to be a full moon day.

According to spiritual texts, the festival is held to celebrate the victory of Lord Muruga, also known as Karthikeya and Subramanya, over demon Tharakasura.

The day has other spiritual significance as well.

As per Tamil spiritual literature, Lord Muruga hailed as the Tamil war god was given "Vel" (spear) to conquer the demon by his mother Goddess Parvathi on Thai Poosam day.

Devotees fulfilled their spiritual vows by carrying milk pots and piercing their cheeks with spears.

They also carried 'kavadi' (a semi-cicular wooden frame supported by wooden poles and held on the shoulders by devotees) and went on a procession making their offernings at the temples.

Followers of 19th century Hindu spiritual reformist and saint Vallalar too celebrated Thai Poosam in a grand manner.

A 'jyothi' darshan was held at the Vadalur Sathiya Gnana Sabai temple in Cuddalore District which was set up by the revered spiritual leader.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar will share his views on 'Vision Goa 2022' during the upcoming Goa Biz Fest 2018, a three-day-long event to be held near Panaji from February 8 onwards, the organisers said today.

The event, organised by BNI-Goa region, Goa Entrepreneurs Mentoring Services Trust (GEMS) and the state government along with NRB group of companies, will be held at Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Stadium near Panaji.

"During the second day of the event, the chief minister would share his views on the topic: 'Goa Vision 2022' at 4 pm on February 9," Rajkumar Kamat, Executive Director, BNI Goa Region told reporters yesterday.

The event is arguably the largest business convention being held in Goa.

State Information Technology and Labour minister, Rohan Khaunte will inaugurate the event on February 8.

Padma Bhushan Ajai Chowdhry, co-founder, HCL company and chairman of the board, IIT-Patna, Norm Dominguez, vice chairman emeritus, BNI Global, Shubhvilas Das, popular author and motivational speaker, Ajay Thakur, president, BSE-SME Exchange, Srinivas Dempo, chairman, Dempo Group, Narayan Bandekar, chairman, NRB Group will be some of the prominent speakers, Kamat said.

M Anand, principal counsellor, Indian Green Building Council, Gautam Goradia, chairman, ComSur, Gaurav Singhvi, executive director, BNI-Surat, G C Mishra, chief of fire services, Delhi, leading industrialists and bureaucrats from Goa will also speak at the event.

"The key objective of the GBF 2018 is to come together and work towards creating employment and employability in the state of Goa," he said.

Manoj Patil, president, GEMS Trust, said the three-day business convention was split into several interesting verticals, which include knowledge summits, the start-up conclave, career and job fair and biz expo with its 100-plus trade stalls, Kamat said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Naga tribal organisations have asked the BJP's state unit, which backed out of a joint declaration for not contesting the Assembly polls, to come clean on whether it was committed to find a solution to the vexed Naga political issue.

The core committee of the Naga Tribal Hoho and Civil Organisations said the BJP should clarify its stand after the party backed out of the joint declaration as it has created confusion in the state.

Representatives of 11 political parties, including the Naga People's Front, the BJP and the Congress, had decided on Monday to not contest the February 27 elections, agreeing to the demand of tribal bodies and civil society groups to resolve the Naga political problem first.

State BJP president Visasolie Lhoungu had said that the party's central leadership will take a call on the matter.

The BJP has suspended its state executive council member Kheto Semaparty, who had signed the joint declaration.

"The BJP cannot speak with forked tongue when even after signing the joint declaration, it has put in place a game plan to scuttle the voice of solution to Naga problem before the ensuing election", core committee convener Theja Therieh and co-convener David Sangtam said in a statement here last night.

They said: "The party suspended its member for signing the historic declaration when he was authorised by none other than the state BJP president to sign on behalf of the party," and added, "This treacherous act will not go unchallenged".

The state BJP chief had stated that he had asked Kheto to attend the meeting but had not authorised him to sign the joint declaration.

"We had authorised two party leaders to attend the meeting but had also said that if there is anything regarding the elections, the party's national leaders should be consulted," he said.

Accusing the BJP of "playing a dirty game" to grab political power at the expense of Naga aspirations, they said it was exemplified by their slogan "Election for Solution".

The core committee also wondered whether the state BJP members were Nagas first or their allegiance was to the party high command, rather than finding a solution to the Naga problem.

"The core committee representing all the apex tribal hohos (organisations) and mass based civil societies would like to question whether the State BJP is committed to finding solution to the seven-decade old Naga political issue", the statement said.

The core committee also demanded that the state BJP should revoke the suspension of their state executive member Kheto Sema who had signed the joint declaration.

The statement said that unless the state BJP accedes to this demand, the core committee as per its January 29 resolution shall take necessary steps and the state BJP would be solely responsible for any aggravation of the situation in the state.

Stating that since the Nagaland Assembly had taken a stand on 'Solution before Election' according to a resolution passed on December 15, the core committee reminded the MLAs that it was now the time to resign from the Assembly and the need of the hour was to act rather than paying mere lip service.

"Such an act of collective sacrifice will definitely send a strong message to the central government that the Nagas desire a solution at the earliest," the core committee said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)President Donald Trump today warned that "rivals" like China and Russia were challenging America's interests, economy and values, as he tried to sell his 'America First' agenda and key immigration reforms in his first State of the Union address to a deeply divided nation.

In his 80-minute prime time address, Trump laid out a four-pillar immigration plan, one of the major debates that loomed over his first year in office, and sought the backing of the Congress for a merit-based immigration system that admits skilled people, a proposal that could benefit technology professionals from countries like India.

He also outlined a plan that would allow up to 1.8 million undocumented immigrants to remain in the country while funding a border wall with Mexico, ending the visa lottery system and reforming family immigration rules.

In one of the longest-running State of the Union speeches in US history, the 71-year-old businessman-turned politician heralded the economic successes of his administration, including a soaring stock market and low unemployment.

While keeping mum on the ongoing investigations into his his election campaign's ties to Russia, Trump appealed to the Democrats and Republicans to look past deep national divisions in order to do good by the American people.

He warned that "rivals" like China and Russia were challenging America's interests, economy and values.

"As we rebuild America's strength and confidence at home, we are also restoring our strength and standing abroad. Around the world, we face rogue regimes, terrorist groups, and rivals like China and Russia that challenge our interests, our economy, and our values," he said.

"In confronting these dangers, we know that weakness is the surest path to conflict, and unmatched power is the surest means of our defense," Trump, also the commander-in-chief of the US armed forces, said.

The US must modernise and rebuild its nuclear arsenal, he said, hoping that he would never having to use it. But the America's defence should be made "so strong and powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression," he said.

In his speech, laced with American stories of triumph and tragedy, Trump said it was not enough to come together only in times of tragedy.

"Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve.

"I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties Democrats and Republicans to protect our citizens of every background, colour, religion, and creed," Trump said as US First Lady Melania Trump and other dignitaries watched.

Unlike his apocalyptic "American carnage" inaugural speech of just a year ago, Trump said his administration is "building a safe, strong and proud America".

"This is our new American moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American Dream," he said.

Democrats, many of whom brought 'Dreamers' as guests to the president's speech, booed and hissed when the president mentioned his plans to slash the number of people who immigrate to the US through family connections a practice Trump has decried as "chain migration".

Trump said that his proposal should be supported by both parties (Republican and Democratic) as a fair compromise -- one "where nobody gets everything they want, but where the country gets the critical reforms it needs".

"Under our plan, those who meet education and work requirements, and show good moral character, will be able to become full citizens of the United States," Trump said, proposing a pathway to the 'Dreamers'.

These four pillars represent a "down-the-middle compromise, and one that will create a safe, modern, and lawful immigration system", he said.

"Most importantly, these four pillars will produce legislation that fulfills my ironclad pledge to only sign a bill that puts America first. So let us come together, set aside, and finally get the job done," he said.

In his address, Trump said unemployment claims have hit a 45-year low while small business confidence is at an all-time high. The stock market has smashed one record after another, gaining USD 8 trillion in value, Trump, who is facing historically low approval ratings, said.

Trump's overall job approval number nationwide was never over 50 per cent in Gallup polling at any point in 2017, CNN reported.

In his speech, Trump called on lawmakers to approve a USD 1.5 trillion infrastructure package.

He said his administration has slashed the business tax rate from 35 per cent to 21 per cent, so American companies can compete and win against anyone in the world.

President Trump warned that North Korea's "reckless pursuit" of nuclear missile could threaten American cities, and asserted that he will not "repeat the mistakes" of past administrations that got the US into "dangerous position".

He said no regime has oppressed its own citizens more brutally than the cruel dictatorship of Kim Jong-un.

"North Korea's reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland. We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from happening," he said.

Trump said last year he pledged that he would work with US allies to extinguish the Islamic State terror group from the face of the Earth.

"One year later, I am proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated almost 100 per cent of the territory once held by these killers in Iraq and Syria. But there is much more work to be done. We will continue our fight until ISIS is defeated," he said.

On Afghanistan, he said the American forces in the war- torn country have new rules of engagement.

"Along with their heroic Afghan partners, our military is no longer undermined by artificial time-lines, and we no longer tell our enemies our plans," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)President Donald Trump today signed an executive order to keep open the controversial US prison at Guantanamo Bay, paving the way to transfer new terror detainees to the infamous facility in Cuba.

Trump announced the move during his first State of the Union address, reversing his predecessor Barack Obama's decision to close the controversial site "as soon as practicable".

The prison on the American military base at Guantanamo Bay has been used for years to detain high-profile terror suspects and enemy combatants. The facility has been criticised for its grim conditions.

"Terrorists who do things like place bombs in civilian hospitals are evil. When possible, we annihilate them. When necessary, we must be able to detain and question them," Trump said.

"But one must be clear:Terrorists are not merely criminals. They are unlawful enemy combatants. And when captured overseas, they should be treated like the terrorists they are," he said.

Trump rued that in the past the US has "foolishly" released hundreds of dangerous terrorists, only to meet them again on the battlefield -- including the ISIS leader al- Baghdadi.

"So today, I am keeping another promise. I just signed an order directing (Defence) Secretary (James) Mattis to reexamine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay," Trump said.

The facility has been used since the 9/11 attacks to detain what Washington calls "enemy combatants", but only 41 prisoners remain there.

"I am also asking the Congress to ensure that, in the fight against ISIS and al-Qaeda, we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists -- wherever we chase them down," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Hitting out at Iran, President Donald Trump today called on Congress to fix the "fundamental flaws" in the "terrible" nuclear deal with Tehran and vowed the US' support for street protests against the government in the oil-rich country.

Trump compared himself favourably to his predecessor Barack Obama, suggesting that it had been a mistake not to back the failed 2009 Green Revolution in Iran.

"When the people of Iran rose up against the crimes of their corrupt dictatorship, I did not stay silent," he said.

"America stands with the people of Iran in their courageous struggle for freedom," he declared.

At least 25 Iranians were killed during anti-government demonstrations that began on December 28.

He asked Congress to address the flaws in the nuclear landmark nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 (the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council) in 2015.

"I am asking the Congress to address the fundamental flaws in the terrible Iran nuclear deal," he added.

The Iran deal was brokered under the Obama administration, and sought to curb Iran's nuclear programme in exchange for billions of dollars in sanctions relief.

But President Trump has blasted the agreement as an ineffective capitulation to Iran that has failed to halt Iranian aggression in the Middle East and elsewhere. In October, Trump asked Congress to determine whether to reimpose sanctions lifted under the agreement.

Earlier this month, Trump moved to extend sanctions relief for Iran, but threatened to "terminate" the deal unless Congress and European allies agreed to fix what the administration has described as flaws in it.

Tehran has rejected the notion of renegotiating the agreement, and has accused the US of reversing on its commitments.

Iran insists that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Ahead of his first State of the Union address, US President Donald Trump today said he wants to bring the country back from a 'tremendous divisiveness'.

"Let me just say this: I want to see our country united. I want to bring our country back from a tremendous divisiveness, which has taken -- not just over one year, over many years -- including the Bush years, not just Obama. You go back to the Bush years. You go back to the Clinton years," Trump said during a luncheon with a group of channel anchors.

Trump interacted with a group of channel anchors ahead of his maiden State of the Union Address later today.

"You take a look at that impeachment of Bill Clinton. I actually asked a long-time senator -- happened to be a Democrat -- 'Is this the worst you've ever seen?' He said, 'Absolutely not. During the impeachment of Bill Clinton was much worse than this.' So many of you are too young to remember that. I feel too young to remember it, but I guess I'm not," Trump said amidst laughter.

He noted that 'uniting' the country was not an easy thing to do due to the presence of divergent views.

"But then -- this has been -- there's been tremendous divisiveness. Not in the last year, there's been tremendous divisiveness for many years. I would consider it a great achievement if we could make our country united. If I could unite the country. That's not an easy thing to do because the views are so divergent," he said.

Trump said he would like to bring the country together, without a major event.

"There's a question whether or not -- can you bring that together or do you just win every four years. Somebody wins one way or the other and they have (won)-- but just to say, I would love, I would love to be able to bring back our country into a great form of unity," he said.

"Without a major event where people pull together, that's hard to do. But I'd like to do it without that major event, because usually that major event is not a good thing. I would love to do it," the US President said.

The luncheon meeting was closed for the press. The White House released transcripts of some parts of the question and answer session of the luncheon.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Three men, including an Uber driver, have been arrested for allegedly abducting and robbing a passenger, police said today.

"Rehan Khan (23) is an Uber driver. The two other accused, Ranjan Singh (21) and Ravi Shankar Sharma (18), work at an apparel firm in Noida," said Chinmoy Biswal, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southeast).

The incident occurred on January 19.

Kaushal Kumar Sharma, an accountant at an event production company in Jonapur, told police the three men offered him a ride in their car and later robbed him at knifepoint.

He said he was waiting for an auto-rickshaw at Okhla Phase-1 when the cab pulled up to him.

The accountant accepted the offer for ride.

He alleged the trio then robbed him of his laptop, mobile, ATM card and Rs 4,500 at knifepoint and took him towards Malviya Nagar, police said.

They also tried to withdraw cash using his ATM card.

The trio assaulted Sharma before dropping him at G-Block, Saket.

During probe, it was found that the car belonged to Naveen Jha and was registered with Uber though it did not have a sticker of the company on it.

Jha had hired Khan on January 1 to drive the cab.

Police nabbed Khan from Okhla Mandi and the two others form Jaitpur.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Two British human rights lawyers are to ask today for Saudi Arabia to be suspended from the UN Human Rights Council over 61 people "arbitrarily detained or disappeared" by the country's authorities.

Ken Macdonald and Rodney Dixon are due to submit their report to the Council in Geneva, claiming that the 61 arrests were "in breach of both Saudi and international law", according to a press statement.

The report will accuse the authorities of "targeting human rights activists, political dissidents and others merely exercising their right to free speech", the statement said.

It will also allege that the arrests carried out in September 2017 are "part of an ongoing, established and long- running pattern of abuse" by Saudi Arabia, according to the statement.

It will say that the wave of arrests started on September 10 when prominent clerics including Salman al-Awdah and Awad al-Qarni were detained in an apparent crackdown on dissent, according to a briefing note sent to AFP.

"There are credible reports of mistreatment and torture during their detention," the note says.

It adds that the report will recommend that the UN General Assembly "must urgently consider" suspending Saudi Arabia's membership of the Human Rights Council under a resolution that excludes members who commit "gross and systematic violations of human rights".

In Geneva, Human Rights Council spokesman Rolando Gomez said any move to suspend a member would ultimately need to be taken by the General Assembly in a two-thirds majority of members present and voting.

The Human Rights Council's founding resolution calls on members to "uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights".

The only time a council member was suspended was in March 2011 when the General Assembly decided to suspend Libya's membership following late dictator Moamer Kadhafi's violent crackdown on anti-government protesters.

Despite Saudi claims of reform, Amnesty International has said the human rights situation has "deteriorated markedly" since Mohammed bin Salman took over as crown prince and heir to the throne in June 2017.

The human rights group said earlier this month that Awdah had been hospitalised after almost five months in solitary confinement.

He was arrested shortly after posting a tweet welcoming reports of a possible reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and neighbouring Qatar.

Dozens of Saudi citizens have been convicted on charges linked to dissent and under the country's sweeping cyber crime law, particularly linked to posts on Twitter.

Saudi Arabia and its allies cut off all diplomatic and economic ties with Qatar in June last year accusing it of links to Islamic extremists, a charge the emirate has categorically denied.

Saudi Arabia has also come under fire, including in Britain, over the war in Yemen, which the United Nations says has sparked the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)British Prime Minister Theresa May today fought back amid a rebellion within her Conservative party ranks, refusing to quit while Brexit negotiations are ongoing after a leaked report warned of dire consequences in the wake of the country leaving the EU.

"I am not a quitter and there's a long-term job to be done. I am doing what I believe is important for the sake of the country," she told reporters at the start of her three-day visit to China.

May has been under mounting pressure from all sides, with some of her party MPs questioning her leadership and the Opposition demanding more details of a leaked economic study which warns of disastrous consequences in the wake of Britain's exit from the European Union (EU).

"We are in government. The next general election is not until 2022. What we're doing now is doing the job that the British people asked the government to do, which is to deliver on Brexit," May said, adding that Britain's vote in favour of Brexit in the June 2016 referendum meant that things will have to change.

She sought to play down the leaked impact assessments drafted by UK civil servants, showing a hit to the UK economy in all end-state scenarios with the EU post-Brexit.

She said, "It would be wrong to describe this as 'the Brexit impact assessment'. There is analysis being done. This is very preliminary.

"What has been seen so far is a selective interpretation of a very preliminary analysis, which ministers have not signed off, have not approved, and which doesn't actually even look at the sort of deal that we want to deliver in terms of the future relationship with the European Union."



The leaked study, published by the 'Buzzfeed' website on Monday, suggested that in three different scenarios the UK economy would grow more slowly than it would if it stayed in the European Union.

The Labour party had called for the report to be fully released since its existence is now public knowledge and several MPs of the ruling Conservatives also joined ranks with the Opposition demanding that the material be made public.

The issue continued to play out in the House of Commons today, with Downing Street saying the UK government would not "contest the vote" being held by the Opposition Labour party over the issue.

"If the House decides it wants to see the provisional analysis then we will abide by the will of the House," a Downing Street spokesperson said.

Labour's shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, hailed the move as a "significant win for democracy".

UK Brexit minister Robin Walker told MPs a copy of the report would be given to Hilary Benn, the Labour chairman of the Commons Brexit Committee, and a confidential reading room will be provided for other MPs and peers to view the material on a "confidential basis".

This approach also came under attack by some MPs, who said it was a "farce" for the document to be released confidentially for only a few hundred people to see when it was likely to end up all over the Internet.

Meanwhile, May announced new education links with China during her visit to boost post-Brexit trade and investment.

She is leading a 50-strong trade delegation of UK-based companies, including Tata Motors-owned Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), and is expected to raise concerns from UK industry about the over-production of steel by China.

The British premier has also refused to endorse China's Belt and Road Initiative, over concerns that the infrastructure projects under the initiative lack financial transparency and rely heavily on Chinese contractors.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has referred a more than century-old border dispute between Guyana and Venezuela to the International Court of Justice after a year of talks failed to make progress.

Venezuela has been pressing a historic claim to Guyana's Essequibo region, which encompasses two thirds of the former British colony, since US oil giant Exxon Mobil discovered oil in disputed waters off its coast in 2015.

Former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon had appointed Dag Halvor Nylander of Norway to help broker a settlement by the end of 2017 with a strengthened mandate of mediation.

"The Secretary-General has carefully analysed developments in 2017 in the good offices process and has concluded that significant progress has not been made toward arriving at a full agreement for the solution of the controversy," Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for Guterres, said in a statement.

"Accordingly, the Secretary-General has fulfilled the responsibility that has fallen to him within the framework set by his predecessor in December 2016, and has chosen the International Court of Justice as the means to be used for the solution of the controversy."



Guyana maintains that valid land borders were set in 1899 by an arbitration court decision, a decision Venezuela has never recognised.

The announcement in May 2015 of a significant discovery of high-quality oil in an offshore concession 190 kilometres off Guyana set off a round of recriminations between Venezuela and its eastern neighbour.

Later that year, Guyana announced it would contact Google to remove certain street names from the disputed region that were given Spanish names that seemed to suggest they were part of Venezuela.

Streets have English names in Guyana, as opposed to those in neighbouring Spanish-speaking Venezuela.

Guyana is pressing ahead with plans to drill for oil in the disputed waters, with production expected to begin in mid-2020.

Guyana's foreign ministry said it welcomed the decision, adding the ICJ is the "appropriate forum for the peaceful and definitive settlement of the controversy, and is pleased that that view has prevailed under the process.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A Vellayan, Executive Chairman ofthe Murugappa group, has been appointed as the Chairmanof the Society and Board of Governors of IIM, Kozhikode.

He is an alumnus of well known educational institutions such as Doon School, Sriram College of Commerce, Aston University, U.K. and University of Warwick Business School, U.K., a release from the IIM-K said.

Vellaiyan has been honoured with Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) by Tamil Nadu Agricultural Universityand Aston University, UK.

Vellaiyan, the Chairman of Coromandal International Ltd, EID Parry (India) and Murugappa Holdings, is also associated with various organisations, including Ambadi Investments (P) Ltd., Kanoria Chemicals an Industries and Foskor Pty.Ltd, South Africa.

He has held positions of President in various industry and trade organizations in the past and was also the Director of EXIM Bank and Indian Overseas Bank, the release said.

"On behalf of the entire IIM Kozhikode community, I am delighted to welcome Shri Vellayan as the new Chairmanof the Institute.I am sure that under his guidance, IIM-Kozhikode shall attain greater heights", the release quoted Prof. Kulbhushan Balooni, Director (Incharge) of IIM-K, as saying.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Vietnam declared a California-based exile group a terrorist organisation today a month after 15 local members were convicted in a failed bombing of the country's largest airport.

The attempted attack at the Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City in April caused a scare but no casualties.

The communist government linked it to the Provisional Central Government of Vietnam, or PCGV, an exile group established in 1991 and little known locally but tied to the defeated US-backed South Vietnamese republic.

A court in Ho Chi Minh City in December convicted the group's local members of terrorism and sentenced them up to 16 years in jail.

Police have also issued arrest warrants for Dao Minh Quan, the self-claimed prime minister of PCGV and Lisa Pham, a senior member of the group, for their roles in the case. Both are said to be in the United States.

The Ministry of Public Security said in a statement today the group is a terrorist organisation and those associated with it including joining, instigating others to join, sponsoring or receiving assistance from the group, attending the group's training courses will constitute terrorist offense and will be dealt with in accordance with law.

Another group, the California-based Vietnam Reform Party or Viet Tan, was declared a terrorist organisation in 2016 and was accused of sending arms and planning attacks.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Union minister Vijay Goel today led a march against the ongoing sealing drive and attacked the AAP government, alleging it wanted the exercise to continue for "political" reasons.

The former Delhi BJP chief, accompanied by a large number of traders, took out the march in the Sadar Bazar.

If Arvind Kejriwal "feels he has no power or he isn't being allowed to govern Delhi, then there's no point for him to continue as chief minister", Goel said.

The minister said "lack of coordination" among the civic agencies had led to "confusion and chaos" and batted for a "Mega Plan" by the Centre for "all-round development" of the city.

The Delhi BJP also extended support to the traders who will go on two-day strike from tomorrow.

A delegation of traders today met Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari in this regard.

Tiwari said the Delhi BJP was in touch with the Centre and the woes of the traders will end soon.

Municipal corporations in Delhi have undertaken the sealing drive initiated by a Supreme Court-appointed monitoring committee. Commercial premises have been sealed for failing to deposit conversion charges according to provisions in Master Plan 2021.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein is using an email allegedly written by Hollywood star Ben Affleck to rebuff Rose McGowan's claim that the producer sexually assaulted her in 1997.

According to a statement from Weinstein's attorney Ben Brafman, two people whom McGowan claims to have informed about her alleged assault at the time - her then-manager and Affleck - have denied that the actor reported the attack to them, reported People magazine.

"She never told me nor did I ever infer that she was attacked by anyone. Any accounts to the contrary are false. I have no knowledge about anything Rose did or claimed to have done," Affleck allegedly wrote in an email to Weinstein, according to Brafman.

McGowan has previously claimed in a series of tweets that Affleck knew about the alleged assault.

Brafman said that McGowan's claims that the film producer sexually assaulted her is "a bold lie".

"Watching the 'performance' by Rose McGowan as she looks to promote her new book however, has made it impossible to remain quiet as she tries to smear Mr. Weinstein with a bold lie that is denied not only by Mr. Weinstein himself, but by at least two witnesses," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)West Bengal's budget for 2018-19, presented in the assembly today, announced a number of relief measures targeting the agriculture sector.

Finance Minister Amit Mitra, in his budget speech, announced relief in payment of stamp duty fees for the rural sector, exemption of agriculture tax and cess on green tea leaves, mutation fees exemption for farmers, farmers' pension, and creation of corpus for assisting them.

The panchayat polls in the state are due in the next three-four months.

The budget also announced various measures for women like increase of 'Kanyashri' scholarship and introduction of marriage assistance under the 'Rupashree' scheme with an initial outlay of Rs 1,500 crore.

The government also announced measures to help the physically challenged by increasing their pension amount from Rs 750 to Rs 1,000 per month that will benefit 2 lakh people.

The outlay for this scheme, named 'Manabik', has been pegged at Rs 250 crore.

Stamp duty payment in the rural areas for properties between Rs 40 lakh and Rs 1 crore had been reduced from 6 to 5 per cent.

For the urban sector too, the stamp duty has been reduced from 7 to 6 per cent.

The government also proposed to create an assistance corpus of Rs 100 crore for the farmers to be given out when in distress, and increase in farmers' pension from Rs 750 to Rs 1,000 per month to cover 1 lakh beneficiaries.

The size of the budget for the year 2018-19 is Rs 2,14,958 crore, Mitra said, adding the state has been able to create employment for 8.92 lakh persons despite the adverse impact of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and demonetisation.

The budget also proposed an additional resource mobilisation under tax revenue of Rs 1,870 crore during the year.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Representatives of the 'big six' countries of the WHO South-East Asia Regional Office, including India, today shared their immunisation challenges and experiences, for accelerating efforts to eliminate measles and control rubella by 2020.

Nearly 4.8 million children miss measles vaccination every year in the south-east Asia region, including in the 'big six' countries -- Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal and Thailand, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.

"Eliminating measles would avert half a million deaths, while controlling rubella and Congenital Rubella Syndrome would promote health of pregnant woman and infants," said Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, regional director of WHO (south-east Asia).

With a majority of children who missed immunisation being accounted for by the 'big six' countries, immunisation programme managers of these nations, along with their partners including WHO, are deliberating ways to eliminate measles and control rubella, the world health body stated.

While Bhutan and Maldives eliminated measles last year, the other countries in the region are carrying out large-scale immunisation drives to achieve it.

Nearly 38 million children are born in the region every year, of whom approximately 87 per cent receive the first dose of measles-containing vaccine.

"It means around 4.8 million children are deprived of the most basic protection against measles each year," WHO said.

Measles elimination and rubella control strategies include ensuring over 95 per cent coverage with two doses of the respective vaccines in each district through routine and supplementary immunisation activities, and developing and sustaining sensitive measles surveillance, it said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Indian Navy has carried out hydrographic surveys of many island nations in the Indian Ocean region and will continue to do so, its chief Admiral Sunil Lanba said today.

His comments came in the backdrop of a revised agreement between India and the Seychelles for the development of infrastructure facilities on Assomption Island, which lies southwest of Mahe, the largest island of that country.

"We have carried out hydrographic surveys for (a) number of island nations in the Indian Ocean region, and we will continue to do that," Lanba told reporters after the launch of Karanj, the third state-of-the-art Scorpene-class submarine here.

The two countries had signed an agreement to develop infrastructure on Assomption Island during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the Seychelles in 2015.

"We are not going to acquire Assomption Island, but (the Indian) government is going to make some facilities there," he said.

On Sri Lanka formally handing over the strategic southern port of Hambantota to China on a 99-year-lease, in a a USD 1.1 billion deal, the Navy chief said, "Hambantota is a commercial harbour and Sri Lankans have assured us that it will be used as commercial harbour only."



Last year, the Indian Navy had carried out a joint hydrographic survey of Sri Lanka's Weligama Bay and southern coast, in a reflection of the growing cooperation between navies of the two countries.

Hydrographic survey data for more than 7,000 nautical miles was collected during a two-month-long exercise.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu will call a meeting of a working group soon to develop a detailed roadmap for increasing the size of Indian economy to USD 5 trillion in the coming years.

This was discussed today during a review meeting of different initiatives with the officers of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion.

Prabhu has recently stated that India is expected to become a USD 5 trillion economy in the next 89 years with the manufacturing sector contributing 20 per cent to that.

He called a meeting of the core working group to "develop a detailed roadmap for USD 5 trillion economy".

In a series of tweets, the ministry said he also reviewed the progress of new industrial policy, which is under preparation.

The minister said the policy should include provisions for encouraging self help groups and promote district level industrialisation.

Prabhu also said the policy should also indicate broad framework on sectors of future on which detailed action plans needs to be developed in collaboration with line ministries.

Further Prabhu called for a detailed strategy to promote GI (Geographical Indications) products for each state.

Besides, he instructed the officers to identify next set of interventions at a strategic level for startup India programme.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)By Jemima Kelly and Tommy WilkesLONDON (Reuters) - Hackers who stole around $530 million worth of cryptocurrency from the Coincheck exchange last week -- one of the biggest such heists ever -- are trying to move the stolen "XEM" coins, the foundation behind the digital currency said on Tuesday.NEM Foundation, creators of the XEM cryptocurrency, have traced the stolen coins to an unidentified account, and the account owner had begun trying to move the coins onto six exchanges where they could then be sold, Jeff McDonald said. Hackers made off with roughly 58 billion Japanese yen ($533 million) ...By Bill Berkrot and Divya Grover(Reuters) - Pfizer Inc said on Tuesday it expected to pay tax at an adjusted rate of about 17 percent this year, higher than some investors had expected, sending its shares down more than 3 percent.Shares of the largest U.S. drugmaker jumped last Friday after rival AbbVie Inc projected a new adjusted tax rate of just 9 percent and rose to their highest level since 2002 on Monday on hopes that Pfizer might benefit to a similar extent. Drugmaker stocks were also broadly lower on Tuesday after Amazon.com Inc, Berkshire Hathaway Inc and JPMorgan Chase & Co said ...By Vishal Sridhar(Reuters) - The Sensex and Nifty edged lower for a second straight session on Wednesday, tracking Asian peers, as caution crept into the markets ahead of the federal budget, due on Thursday.Asian stocks were also down as the recent rise in global bond yields weighed on equities, with MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan edging 0.2 percent lower. "It's difficult for investors to take a call before the budget. After touching record levels, I see some correction happening, even after the budget," said Kunj Bansal, executive director & CIO - equity, Centrum ...By Sankalp PhartiyalMUMBAI (Reuters) - U.S. retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc is in advanced talks to buy a minority stake in India's leading homegrown e-commerce firm Flipkart, the Economic Times newspaper said on Tuesday.Walmart could acquire a stake of 15 percent to 20 percent in Bengaluru-headquartered Flipkart, the main challenger to U.S. tech giant Amazon.com Inc's India ambitions, the daily said, citing two anonymous sources.Walmart has held intermittent talks with Flipkart over the past two years, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, asking not to be identified as the talks ...The corresponding ratio in countries like China, Korea and others, with which India has to compete in the global market, is over sixty per cent. The workforce is therefore woefully unproductive due mainly to the abysmal state of Indias education system, which churns out millions of adults equipped only for menial work. Its graduates go on to toil in ...

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Digital EditorFortis Healthcare promoters Malvinder Mohan Singh and Shivinder Mohan Singh, also called Singh Brothers, on Thursday resigned as directors from the company's board days after the Delhi High Court order upheld the Rs 3,500 crore arbitral award in favour of Daiichi Sankyo.

Earlier, it was reported that Daiichi had been allowed by the court to enforce the award. However, the court said the company can't enforce the Rs 3,500-crore award against the children of the Singhs. In a petition filed at the Delhi HC, Daiichi had sought to enforce collection of Rs 3,500 crore arbitration award it won at a Singapore tribunal in 2016 against the Singhs' former company, Ranbaxy Laboratories.

In 2013, Daiichi had pleaded guilty in a US court after it was accused of selling adulterated medicines. Daiichi later settled the case for $500 million with the US government, but accused the Singhs of hiding information about manufacturing and selling adulterated drugs in the United States and producing false data, during the sale of the company in 2008.

Appealing against the award in India as well as in Singapore's Court of Appeal, the Singh brothers had argued the award money was not enforceable under the laws of India.

Besides, New York-based investor Siguler Guff & Co, which owns six per cent stake in Singhs' Religare Finvest, had also alleged a few days ago that the Singhs indulged in "diversion and siphoning" of funds to clear their personal debts of at least $1.3 billion. According to an RBI inquiry over Religare's fiscal books of 2016, the Singhs reportedly gave 21 loans worth millions to independent companies that rerouted at least $300 million to private firms linked to the brothers on the same day. Denying allegations, Religare, however, had said the company and its promoters were considering taking appropriate action against relevant persons for disparaging their reputation as "all the allegations made are completely baseless and have been responded to by Religare in the High Court of Delhi."It is a board meeting with a difference - weather beaten farmers, seated in the village square in Aurangabad village in Uttar Pradesh's Sitapur district, sipping cups of tea. These are members of the local Farmer Producer Organisation (FPO), one of 800 in the country, set up under the auspices of the Small Farmers Agri-business Consortium (SFAC), promoted by the Ministry of Agriculture and registered under the Companies Act. FPOs are a cross between cooperative societies and private limited companies, in which farmers come together to increase their bargaining power in the market.

The Aurangabad FPO's primary focus currently is honey - collecting it from members within a 20 km radius, analysing, processing and selling it. A nearby shed houses the FPO's office, a small laboratory, a processing unit (still in the making) and an assembly line. "Earlier when we sold our honey individually, we would get around Rs 95 per kg in a good season," says Mirza Baig, the FPO's Chairman. "But now, by working together, we are getting offers of Rs 150 per kg."

Symptoms of rural distress are clearly visible in India, most recently showing up in the Gujarat assembly election in December last year, where but for the support it garnered in urban centres, the BJP - ruling for 22 years - would have been pushed out of power. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had famously promised to more than double farmers' annual incomes in seven years - from Rs 96,703 in 2015/16 to Rs 219,724 in 2022/23; but it seems doubtful given the rate of progress. There have been no dearth of schemes and concessions for farmers, but they have literally so far borne little fruit.

Farmers get concessional electricity, and cooking gas connections under the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana have been delivered to them on a war footing. Five states have waived farm loans in the past year, but is this kind of support sustainable? The farm loans' waiver has already cost the country Rs 107,000 crore - or 0.65 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP). Last year, the Budget allocated a whopping Rs 187,223 crore to agriculture, a 24 per cent jump over 2015/16, but it does not seem to have had sufficient impact. Urbanites make up only 35 per cent of the population, yet urban contribution to GDP has been increasing from 45 per cent in 1990 to 63 per cent in 2014 to 72 per cent last year, while the rural share has correspondingly declined. The reason is that farm incomes are simply not increasing, with agricultural growth hovering around an average of two per cent.

A major reason for the slow growth is the waste of perishables, mainly due to shortcomings of infrastructure in delivering from farm to fork. The Central Institute of Post-Harvest Engineering and Technology - under the Indian Council for Agricultural Research - has estimated the annual loss at various stages of harvest and post-harvest at `92,651 crore. "The bulk of it is in perishables," says Tajamul Haque, former Chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices. "This primarily hits the farmer."

Allowing foreign investment into multi-brand retail would indeed give a big boost to the food processing market, considering that 76 per cent of all business in multi-brand retail comprises food items, direct and processed, as investors would pour funds into building infrastructure such as warehouses and cold chains. But fear of the impact of this step on mom-and-pop stores keeps staying the government's hand.

Long Way to Go

It will be one of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's primary tasks in the coming Budget to try and alleviate rural distress; encouraging FPOs in a big way could well be a major part of the solution. For the 120 million farmers in India, so far there are only 800 FPOs. Madhya Pradesh has the largest number of FPOs at 150, followed by 120 in Karnataka and another 100 in Maharashtra. Even the ones that exist have serious constraints - lack of access to cheap capital, absence of tax breaks and opportunities for acquiring the skills required to run an FPO, and lack of entrepreneurial spirit among farmers.

"FPOs attract 30 per cent corporate tax from the first year like any other company, which is also a big disincentive for farmers," says Nasir Quereshi, volunteer from the Bhopal-based NGO, Centre for Advance Research and Development (CARD). He, at the request of local off-grid operator Smart Power Ltd, has been camping in Aurangabad for the last six months to acquaint the farmers with - and link them to - various schemes of the state and central governments, showing them how funds can be procured, getting them regulatory approvals and training them to market their produce effectively.

Even when facilities are available, it is sometimes difficult for farmers to avail them. Under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojna, kaushal kendras (skilling centres) have been set up in many district headquarters, but most farmers are not in a position to camp there for extended periods leaving their fields untended. Not surprisingly, enthusiasm for FPOs is lukewarm.

"Other farmers have not been as lucky as those in Aurangabad to get the services of an organisation like CARD," says Vishwanath Rao, a farmer leader in Maharashtra. Navjot Singh, a farmer from Sirsa, Haryana, has been working with fellow farmers to produce fruit pulp. "Capital is a big issue," he says. "After the loan waivers, banks are just not interested in giving more subsidised loans under the subvention scheme."

There is always the fear that the loan taken to invest in technology could turn into a debt trap for all members of the FPO if the produce does not fetch the price expected. Surjit Singh, a progressive farmer from Sonepat, Haryana, had the idea of joining hands with his neighbours to market tomato puree. "In a good season, tomatoes can be sold at `15 a kg, but in bad ones the price falls so steeply that taking them to the local mandi becomes unviable," he says. "Yet the price of tomato puree is constant in seasons good and bad." But the idea came to nothing. "I tried to convince people to start an FPO to process tomatoes and market the puree, but they were afraid of incurring debt and it didn't work out," he adds.

Forthcoming Proposals

The forthcoming Budget may well include a proposal to include FPOs under the Start-up India Mission, which would allow them a tax holiday for the first three years as well as access to cheaper funds. More funds could also be made available through the SFAC. "We want 10 per cent of small farmers to become part of FPOs in the next four years," says an expert closely associated with the Budget drafting. The government could also announce taking kaushal kendras to the block level. Incentives for public private partnerships to promote agribusiness, such as construction of warehouses, setting up of cold chains and food parks, may also be on the cards.

The Budget could open up market yards, set up under the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee Act, to private players. A boost is expected for irrigation as well, with greater allocations, and more projects brought under the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sichai Yojana. At present 99 projects have been taken up, of which 11 have been commissioned.

Haryana and Madhya Pradesh have begun assuring a floor price for cash crops. Haryana offers a minimum price for four crops - tomato, potato, onion and cauliflower. "We want to see how things work before scaling up," says Om Prakash Dhankar, Agriculture Minister, Haryana. But this alone will not be enough to raise farm incomes substantially. "This scheme can run in parallel with the minimum support price regime for the basic kharif and rabi crops. But India needs to put in place a multi-dimensional policy," says Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog."

Will these moves make a difference? It will depend on their implementation.

@anileshmahajanMore risk often brings more profit, but blind risk always leads into a blind alley. The losses associated with Bitcoin are more certain than earnings because it is highly unpredictable, volatile and esoteric. Even seasoned investors and hardcore supporters of Bitcoin don't deny that trade in cryptocurrency is an extremely risky affair but greed has made them addicted to this digital gamble. That's why Bitcoin and other alternative cryptocurrencies are banned in various countries around the world and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has many times warned the people about the repercussions of Bitcoin.

Let's find out that how this digital currency came into existence and what are those factors that make it an investment option despite a whopping growth in Bitcoin prices in the last couple of years. Bitcoin is a type of digital currency which is generated by using encryption techniques. Bitcoins were invented in the year 2009 by an unknown programmer under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. The value of one Bitcoin in 2009 was Rs 0.0048 whereas in December 2017 the value of one Bitcoin was around Rs 9 lakh. No certified body or authority monitors the Bitcoin and it works on the peer-to-peer network; where all transactions get recorded in a distributed ledger known as blockchain. Moreover, Bitcoin allows users to make anonymous transactions and remain anonymous. Due to the absence of any central authority, the transactions involving bitcoins are highly anonymous. This element of anonymity associated with bitcoin makes it a highly favorable mode of exchange for covert and illegal transactions.



A Dark History



The history of bitcoin is full of upheavals; rise of bitcoin exchanges, unexpected appreciation, hacking, and then a loss of millions and billions of dollars through Mt. Gox hacking, Bitfinex fiasco, NiceHash, and the global tragedy WannaCry that happened a few months ago. Studies on Bitcoin convey that nearly one-third of its exchanges/trading platforms have been hacked, and almost 50 percent were shut down in the last seven years. Bitcoin neither qualifies for a currency status nor meets the criteria of a commodity. The highly volatile nature, issues of legality, an absence of a governing body, and its illicit use by grey marketers make Bitcoin a quite untrustworthy investment option.

Though a number of factors are involved here that jeopardise the money of Bitcoin holders, the worst thing about these investments is zero depositor's insurance to cover up the loss. This is the reason that investment tycoon Warren Buffet calls it a mere bubble and according to James Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, "It's little more than a "fraud".



Looming Security Threats

Bitcoins are synonymous with looming cyber threats as the absence of any central authority means that in case of a technical error or an encounter with a deceitful dealer, there would be no one to be contacted. Even the password of Bitcoin wallet is irrecoverable. Once lost or forgotten, it is impossible to recover the password which would make the balance of your Bitcoin wallet futile. Similarly, the balance transfers of Bitcoins are also irreversible. Hence, Bitcoins once stolen or diverted to some other account by hackers would be impossible to recover.



Beware of Blind Temptation

People assume that Bitcoin is legalised in India although its status is quite ambiguous and the RBI had also warned people about the consequences of making investments in Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. Very recently, Corporate Affairs Minister Arun Jaitley has also clearly stated that none of the cryptocurrency is so far legal in India. He said, "Bitcoin does not have a legal tender in India. However, it has presence in both in the public domain and in the unorganised markets." Jaitley also admonished the investors about risks involved in cryptocurrencies.

"Virtual currencies (VCs) including Bitcoins do not have any underlying assets and their price is entirely speculative, which can expose the investors to heightened risk," said Jaitley. Now, as no legal status is granted to virtual currencies in India, there are no set rules and guidelines available to the judiciary for resolving disputes related to investments in cryptocurrencies. So, in case of any fraud/dispute, an investor can't seek legal help and has to bear the brunt of losses solely.



The writer is CEO of Finway Capital Private LimitedTop telecom companies Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio have committed to pump in over Rs 74,000 crore into upgrading infrastructure to fix the problem of call drops plaguing the sector, telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan said on Tuesday. A stressed telecom sector has been pulled up for the deteriorating quality of calls, despite the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (TRAI) new service quality rules implemented in October.

The country's largest telecom firm Bharti Airtel said it will invest Rs 24,000 crore on infrastructure, Sundararajan said after a meeting with the top management of the company. She said the Sunil Mittal-led firm has already invested Rs 16,000 crore to improve its infrastructure. "Reliance Jio has said that they will invest Rs 50,000 crore in installing 1 lakh towers in the coming financial year." Idea Cellular and Vodafone have also committed to increasing mobile towers in their network, she said.

The lack of space to install mobile towers was among the many issues that the firms have flagged, Sundararajan disclosed. Based on their analysis of call drops, the firms have highlighted that nearly 400 callers use a mobile tower at a time in India, while in countries like China the average figure is 200-300, she said. "They are now discussing with equipment makers to handle this kind of issue." Their analysis showed that the number of call drops has stabilised, but problems like fading of voice call have increased due to various issues, including some mobile phones not complying with required certification norms, she said.

Leading telecom operators pointed out that call drop problems are more in mobile phones without a 'Global Conformity Framework' certificate compared to certified devices, she said. They also said illegal repeaters installed in networks are creating interference and affecting the call quality. "We will look into enforcing rules more stringently," Sundararajan said. The vigilance arm of the Department of Telecom (DoT) will look into issues of non-compliance raised by mobile service providers.

Sundararajan said telecom operators pointed out that data usage has grown 6-7 times and continues to grow 20-25 per cent every month but they were surprised to see two-times growth in voice traffic which has increase the load on networks. Telecom operators said they are scaling up investment in infrastructure to cater to growth in the traffic, she said.

The issue of service quality has been plaguing the telecom sector over the past few years, with the latest TRAI rules levying a penalty of up to Rs 10 lakh for call drops. Under the new Quality of Service (QoS) formula, which came into effect on October 1, call drops will be measured at the mobile-tower level instead of telecom-circle level. December quarter will see the first instance of reporting under it. The rule was framed after an attempt by the regulator in 2016 to get operators to compensate users Rs 1 for every call drop. However, the Supreme Court struck it down. Over the past few quarters, the telecom department held a series of meetings with telecom firms, asking them to take steps at once such as setting up more mobile towers across the country to improve call quality.

This also comes amid a debilitating financial period for the telecom sector as the firms have been forced to join a tariff war as new entrant Reliance Jio has disrupted the space with free voice and dirt-cheap data offers. Further, TRAI had decided to cut Interconnect Usage Charge (IUC) starting October 1, 2017 from 14 paise to 6 paise. The charge, paid by a telecom operator that generates a call to the network that receives it, is a revenue generator for that company. A reduction would lead to loss in that net revenue.

The financial pressure on these firms is set to mount with the regulator deciding to slash international incoming call termination rate to 30 paise from 53 paise from February 1. Telecom firms levy termination charge on operators from whose networks calls have been made, for transmitting them to the subscriber.

Trai's decision will mean that the margin from incoming international calls for these telecom operators will drop from next month. Incumbent telecom players have either seen a sharp decline in quarterly net profits or seen the losses widen after the fierce price war launched by Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio.Reliance Jio is planning to launch an all new smartphone in partnership with MediaTek and Google. As per statements from MediaTek, various smartphones, equipped with Android Oreo (Go edition) operating system, will be launched in different markets in the world during the first quarter of 2018.

As a counter to JioPhone, most competitors from other major telcos have launched cheap 4G devices. These devices are usually bundled with offers from the respective telcos and are mostly smartphones. Reliance Jio is planning to take back the lead by launching a dirt-cheap smartphone that will run on the latest Android Oreo with the Go Edition.

MediaTek, during their Curtain Raiser event claimed that they will partner with Reliance Jio to launch one of the first ultra-cheap Android Oreo smartphones. The company plans to launch a series of chipsets, namely, MT6739 and MT6580 which are its latest SoCs that are built to support the Android Go platform.

Google launched the Android Oreo Go edition in December last year. This was launched as part of a new project called Next Billion Users initiative. It aims at facilitating Android's latest operating system on a budget phone with entry-level specifications. This will not only enable the search giant's reach in a country like India but also increase the market share of the service provider.

It is to be seen if Reliance Jio will go with an aggressive pricing with the help of cashbacks or charge a fixed amount with bundled plans. The JioPhone was launched at an effective price of Rs 0 but the buyer was expected to wait for three years to get the entire refund for the amount they pay initially.

So far, budget phones from all major telecom companies have failed to leave their mark in the Indian smartphone market. With Reliance Jio, one can expect disruption in the form of aggressive prices that can give the product segment a much needed push.If the first time you opened the Income Tax website to file your taxes did not leave you flabbergasted at its complexity, you are probably one in a million. Literally. According to official data, of the 1.3 billion people in India, only 1.7 per cent people filed taxes in AY2015-16. Now, one of the reasons - and while there are many, this appears to be a key one - of tax evasion is the amount of paperwork. According to reports, experts believe that one of the reasons why many middle-income groups evade paying taxes is the amount of tedious and cumbersome paperwork.



Will Finance Minister Arun Jaitley perhaps bring about the necessary changes to simplify the process during this Budget?

"The income tax department has received a lot of request on this and there has been quite a few rounds of discussions as to why one needs every individual to submit their details in a technologically advanced era when information about a taxpayer is available at the click of a mouse," a senior official said, as mentioned in a report by News18. The official also mentioned that the final decision would, however, be taken by the finance minister.

The tax filing process is an intricate one, at best, that begins from picking the correct form as per one's income. Individuals who earn less than Rs 2.5 lakh are exempted from paying taxes, but it is suggested that they should also file the returns. However, it is mandatory for individuals with more than Rs 5 lakh income to file taxes.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) also said that instead of ITR 1, ITR 2, ITR 2A, Form 3, Form 4 and Form 4A, there could perhaps be one form, which would also help in simplifying the process.

On top of that, there are speculations about the FM revising the income tax slabs. A recent survey conducted across 200 cities by LocalCircles found out that 31 per cent of respondents want the tax exemption limit to be increased to Rs 3 lakh. Thirty seven per cent respondents want tax slabs to be raised to lower the tax burden on people.

As of now, no tax is levied on income of upto Rs 2.5 lakh annually, while 5 per cent is applied on the bracket of Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 5 lakh, 20 per cent on Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh and 30 per cent on income from Rs 10 lakh onwards. These slabs could be revised to increase the non-taxable income bracket upto Rs 3 lakh, while 5 per cent could be applied on Rs 3 lakh to Rs 7 lakh, 20 per cent on Rs 7 lakh to Rs 12 lakh and 30 per cent on Rs 12 lakh and above.

Will the Finance Minister fulfil the wishes of the citizens in the last regular budget of the NDA will be best answered on February 1.This year's Budget could bring happiness for domestic electronics companies but it might not be good news for the consumers of foreign electronic products, which are manufactured outside India. While there's a strong speculation that the government, in light of its Make in India agenda, could announce a big change in the tax structure, experts say the centre could also announce higher custom duty on consumer electronics items, thereby making these mobile phones and laptops costly.

Experts stress that ever since the Modi government came to power it has focused on promoting companies that manufacture in the country. If the government goes ahead with increasing the custom duty, the prices of electronic items are bound to increase as companies would transfer the increased burden on to consumers. The government has already taken steps in this direction. On July 1, 2017, the centre government imposed 10 per cent custom duty on mobile phone but increased it to 15 per cent in December.

ACE industry wants GST cut

Around 25 per cent of the ACE (Appliances and Consumer Electronics) industry products are still made outside of India; tapping it could provide a much-needed fillip to the sector and the Modi government's 'Make in India' initiative. In addition to announcing initiatives to boost domestic manufacturing, the companies that manufacture in India also expect FM Jaitley to lower taxes. Since this is the NDA government's last Budget before the Lok Sabha elections in 2019, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) relief on appliances and consumer electronics could boost their demand, which could play well in the government's favour.

Companies like Godrej Appliances, Panasonic, Philips Lighting and Intex, which holds a major share of the ACE industry in India, feel if the government lowers taxes and increases custom duty on the import of products, there's a great chance a large part of the population that still can't afford basic consumer appliances like refrigerators and washing machines, etc could be covered under the segment.

'Ease pressure on mobile phone makers'



"GST rates on some products used in manufacturing of mobile phones are on a higher side. Battery, shield cover attract 28 per cent, while the GST on the mobile phone is 12 per cent. They should be categorized in the same GST rate bucket of 12 per cent. The higher GST rates for these subparts increases the cost of mobile phones. Reduction in rate would ease pressure on mobile phone manufacturers and also support the Prime Minister's Make in India campaign," says Rajiv Jain, CFO, Intex Technologies.

Rajiv said the government has signed free trade agreements with production-based economies like Singapore, Thailand, which lead to increased imports and huge deficit in forex reserves. "It also adversely impacts manufacturing units, whose cost of producing becomes more than cost of imported products." He added that the government should sign the FTA agreement with consumption-based economies like the United States, which might help India companies in increasing export.Language at the End of the World The undecipherable rongorongo script of Easter Island Jacob Mikanowski

A crescent-shaped, wooden neck ornament from Easter Island made some time in the first half of the nineteenth century. The artifact, decorated with two bearded male heads on either end, contains a line of rongorongo glyphs along its bottom edge. Courtesy British Museum.

Of all the literatures in the world, the smallest and most enigmatic belongs without question to the people of Easter Island. It is written in a scriptrongorongothat no one can decipher. Experts cannot even agree whether it is an alphabet, a syllabary, a mnemonic, or a rebus. Its entire corpus consists of two dozen texts. The longest, consisting of a few thousand signs, winds its way around a magnificent ceremonial staff. The shortest textsif they can even be called thatconsist of barely more than a single sign. One took the form of a tattoo on a mans back. Another was carved onto a human skull.

Where did the rongorongo script come from? What do its texts communicate? No one knows for sure. The last Easter Islanders (or Rapanui) familiar with rongorongo died in the nineteenth century. They didnt live long enough to pass on the secret of their writing system, but they did leave a few tantalizing clues. The islands spoken language, also called Rapanui, lives on, but today it is written in a Latin script and its relationship to rongorongo is unclear. So far at least, no one has successfully connected one with the other. To this day, rongorongo remains a puzzle, an enigma, and a mirror for the folly of those who try to solve it.

Rongorongo is the only script native to the Pacific. Like so much else, it makes Easter Island unique. It is the most isolated inhabited place in the world; an old name for it, Te Pito o te Henua, means either navel of the world or end of the world.1 It is over a thousand miles from the nearest speck of land. The prevailing winds could make a sea voyage to central Polynesia a journey of over ten thousand miles. Only sixty-three square miles, the tiny island is a triangle with a base of fourteen miles and a height of eight. It can be circumambulated in a day. To the people of Easter Island, the universe was an ocean, and the earth a speck of land on top of it. From somewhere to the west came the canoes of the ancestors. From the north and south came great flocks of migrating birds.

The stillness of this isolation was shattered on Easter Day, 1722, when the island was spotted by the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen. He and his crew came ashore for one day, traded their cloth for chickens, and shot a dozen islanders, including the emissary who had arrived on their ship to welcome them the day before. After five days, they set sail. No other Europeans visited for the next forty-eight years, when a Spanish ship under the command of the viceroy of Peru made a reconnaissance. The Spanish named the island San Carlos, and claimed it in the name of their king, Carlos III. To make the transfer official, the Spanish commander, Felipe Gonzalez de Haedo, asked the island chiefs to put their mark on a document of cession. The Spaniards surrounded the event with great pomp: drums, fifes, flags. The Rapanui chiefs signed the document as best they could, with sketches of vulvas and frigate birds, signs familiar from the islands abundant rock art.

Then the Spanish left. Their claim, and the name San Carlos, were both swiftly forgotten. But their short stay left a profound impression on the Rapanui. After the visits of the Europeans, they began to construct earth ships, mounds the size and shape of a boat, surrounded by a ditch that, when filled with water, gave the impression of a ship floating at sea. Katherine Routledge, a pioneering ethnographer of Easter Island life, was told by her informants that the Rapanui would use these earth ships to gather and act the part of a European crew, one taking the lead and giving orders to the other.2 In this way, they communed with the men who came from far away who had pink cheeks and said they were gods.3

The earth ships appear to have been an attempt by the Easter Islanders to duplicate foreign technology in the form of magic. Something similar may have happened with rongorongo. The Rapanui seem to have intuited the concept of writing, and the power of literacy that came with it, and then set about creating a system of their own. When they did so, they began entirely afresh, building it from first principles and local materials. As a consequence, it resembles no other writing system on Earth. The signs they chose come largely from items familiar to the island. Some come from animal life: fish, squid, sea turtles, crayfish, frigate birds, caterpillars. A few seem to represent plants or human figures, sitting and eating. Others are simple geometric forms: a circle, a cross, stacks of lozenges.

The glyphs of rongorongo are unique. So is the manner in which it was written and read. In fact, it was not written, but carved. Its scribes used sharks teeth to inscribe its symbols on wooden tablets. Wood is scarce on Easter Island, and most of these inscriptions were made on pieces of driftwood. One decorated an oar. A second, a beam. A third, a statue of a bird. However, most of the surviving examples of rongorongo decorate square tablets. These appear to have been written from bottom to top, and were read following a pattern called the reverse boustrophedon. Boustrophedon is a Greek word meaning in the manner of an ox, and scripts written in it move like an ox plowing a field, reversing direction with each line.

How did the Rapanui go from signing their names to a bogus document of annexation with simple drawings to creating a complex writing system incorporating hundreds of signs? We will most likely never know. First contact with Europeans was a trauma, one to which the Rapanui responded with incredible creativity and cultural ferment. But peering into the history of how this happened is unfortunately almost impossible, for it means looking through the scrim drawn by a holocaust.

The trouble began in 1861, when a Dubliner named Joseph Charles Byrne arrived in Peru with a proposal to cure that countrys labor shortage. He suggested that instead of searching the world for willing immigrants, they trade in indentures, and use the vast pool of humanity on their doorstep. What this really meant was the wholesale enslavement of Pacific islanders. In 1862, the first of the large-scale slave raids arrived. Within the span of a few years, most of the islands population was deported and enslaved. Some of the surviving Rapanui ended up on Tahiti, where they succumbed to disease and starvation. By 1871, approximately 94 percent of Easter Islands population had been forced to move elsewhere or had died. Only a little over a hundred people remained, the majority of whom had been forced to work on sheep farms. It was, in the words of one historian, one of the greatest human losses registered anywhere in the Pacific at this time.4

Buzzards came to feast on what remained. In the 1870s, a French rancher, Jean-Baptiste Doutrou-Bornier, attempted to purchase the entire island. A megalomaniac and a sadist, he nearly succeeded. He drove off Catholic missionaries with fire, surrounded himself with kidnapped consorts, and declared himself a king. After a few years, he owned 80 percent of the islands land and over four thousand sheep. A year later, he was killed in an ambush. Other pirates came to take his place. Easter Island became a prison, a work camp for the few people who hadnt been kidnapped or driven away. The old ways, and especially the arts of literacy, held by a narrow elite, all vanished. However small as a speck of land, the island had been home to a full-fledged civilization, with its own architecture, myths, rulers, and rites. Now all was in ruins.

It was in the midst of this disaster that the world became aware of rongorongo. In 1864, Joseph-Eugene Eyraud, a member of the Catholic mission on the island, noticed in all the houses tablets and staffs inscribed in an unknown script. He did not succeed in learning what it expressed. Curiously, no previous visitor to the island had ever observed them, perhaps because of a taboo. Four years later, the bishop of Tahiti, Florentin-Etienne Jaussen, received a piece of polished rosewood, wrapped in human hair, from one of his parishioners, a Rapanui convert. He was amazed to discover that it was covered in an unknown form of hieroglyphs. He immediately wrote to the Catholic mission on the island, asking them to search for more examples of the unknown script. They were only able to turn up a few. One man questioned by the bishop confessed that there was nobody left on the island who knew how to read the characters since the Peruvians had brought about the deaths of all the wise men.5 The tablets had thus lost all their potency. In the absence of literacy, the tablets, once objects of sacred power, became simply pieces of wood. They were burned for heat and used as reels for fishing lines. According to rumor, one Rapanui man even cobbled together a canoe out of them.

A tablet with rongorongo inscription. The British Museum, which owns the object, dates it to the eighteenth or early nineteenth century. Courtesy British Museum.

For the next two decades, little more was learned about rongorongo script. One potential breakthrough came in 1886, when Ure Vae Iko, a steward of the last paramount chief of Easter Island, read one of the tablets for a visiting American naval officer, William Judah Thompson. Ure took some convincing. Now Christian, and not wanting to do something forbidden by the priests, he initially refused payment and fled to the hills. Eventually, though, he was made to comply.

It isnt clear whether Ure was reading from the tablet, or whether he even knew the rongorongo script. It seems he may have known it at one point, but had forgotten it by the time he met with Thompson. One of the chants he delivered, a procreation chant, details a series of paradoxical and, indeed, baffling couplings: Itchiness copulated with Badness: There issued forth the kape taro; Parental God copulated with the Slimy Vagina of God: There issued forth the deep sea; God Parent copulated with Compacted Sand: There issued forth the tree; The fish Rat-Tail copulated with Maggoty Hina: There issued forth the whale.6

Ures words appear to be unconnected to any specific tablet. Instead, they are the words of a traditional chant, the first thing students in rongorongo schools memorized before they proceeded to master the script. Still, it gives some sense of the flavor of what the tablets might contain. (Indeed, according to the leading modern scholar of rongorongo, it is the key to deciphering them all). But in the 130 years since Ure delivered his recitation, very little progress has been made in decoding rongorongo. Undeciphered scripts work like Rorschach blots. Lacking a defined meaning, their inscrutability allows their would-be interpreters to project all their fantasies, wishes, and desires onto the blank space they hope to fill in. This was the case with Egyptian hieroglyphics before Champollion, and with Mayan glyphs before Knorozov. It remains the case with rongorongo.

The process of fantastical translation began early, with one Dr. Allen Carroll, a Sydney physician who may have been the illegitimate son of the Duke of Norfolk and who believed the tablets to be the work of pre-Inca South Americans. Carrolls translations take the form of fulsome paeans to unnamed gods, and sound a bit like bowdlerized versions of the rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: To those who are our Guardians, oh give ear to us in your temple. You are our protectors.  Ye gods.7

Carroll was the father of the so-called rongorongo fringe. Many more followed in his footsteps. Most share a single, driving idea: the conviction that the Rapanui could not have invented their script on their own. The islanders writing was necessarily the mark of an older, greater civilization, they believed. All agreed it must have come from somewhere else. Where exactly it came from was the only thing left to debate.

Erich von Hornbostel saw connections with the pictographs of the Panamanian Cuna and the unintelligible signs of the Yu Pei.8 Guillaume de Hevesy, a Hungarian engineer resident in Paris, sparked an uproar in the 1930s when he discerned a genetic link between rongorongo and the equally undecipherable Indus script found at Mohenjo Daro. An industrious, though confused, Argentine professor tried to fit it into a graphic system spanning the entire Indo-Pacific. A German paleontologist found traces of rongorongo glyphs in the patterns of Sumatran ship fabrics. Peter Lanyon-Orgill, a polyglot and possibly insane Cornishman, found hints of them everywhere from Lands End to Zimbabwe, and created his own journal to publicize his findings. One Swiss scholar believed they represented the remains of a Pacific empire that had sunk into the sea. A psychologist at Bard was convinced it arrived in Easter Island from Egypt, via the Asiatic Script Bridge. The Polish folklorist Henryka Romanska discerned in one of the tablets a hymn to the sun god Ra. In her rendering, it sounds strangely like a pastoral composed by an Edwardian author with repetition compulsion: The bird gladly with the flower flies / The bird gladly with the fruit flies.9

The members of this group, with their errant but earnest efforts to link rongorongo to real events in human antiquity, seem positively levelheaded compared with what came next: fifty years of speculation about aliens, giant tidal waves, shipwrecked Spaniards, and the lost continent of Mu. But while the fantasists were at work, a body of rongorongo-related scholarship more grounded in reality arose as well.

In the 1940s, Alfred Metraux proved conclusively that the Easter Island script had no connection to the civilizations of the Indus. A querulous, foul-tempered Frenchman, he stepped in to lead a scientific expedition to the island when its original leader died of pneumonia off Cape Horn. Some twenty years later, his body was found near the Chateau de la Madeleine in the Vallee de Chevreuse. In his journal, he wrote that he died like Socrates.10 The true culprit appears to have been a love affair gone awry.

The most sustained effort to decipher rongorongo rooted in professional linguistics took place in St. Petersburg. The dogged work of the Russian school helped to sort the script into a clear inventory of signs. Through the use of internal analysis and statistical comparison, its members hoped to place the study of the script on a firm scientific basis. But their careful analysis yields results that nonetheless sound insanein Irina Fedorovas translation, one text ends: yam, yam, taro, taro, he cut a tuber of yam, he took a tuber of taro, a tuber, a tuber, he dug up, he cut, he cut, taro, turi sugar-cane.11

For all the effort that has gone into them, none of the translations done so far provides a reliable guide to what the rongorongo tablets actually contained. Ure Vae Ikos recitation to Thompson offers a possible thread, but it may say more about the Rapanui oral tradition than the written one. We do know that the oral tradition was vast, and varied. Most of it was sung. According to one early commentator, Rapanui songs expressed the surprise of being alive and also the sadness of life.12 Whether the tablets do the same remains to be seem. Our best indication of what the rongorongo script was used for comes, however, not from songs or attempts at deciphering, but from ethnographic data, especially that gathered by Katherine Routledge in 1914 from some of the few Rapanui elders who survived the holocaust of the 1860s.

Page of diagrams of various motifs and glyphs observed by Katherine and Scoresby Routledge on their 19131915 Mana Expedition to Easter Island, during which they also visited Chile and the Juan Fernandez Islands. The bottom two rows depict sixteen glyphs from rongorongo boards. The page is signed by Henry Balfour, an archaeologist who accompanied them on their voyage; it is believed that the drawings are his. Courtesy British Museum.

Routledge was a remarkable woman, who has been unjustly forgotten. She was the daughter of a wealthy Quaker family, which made a fortune manufacturing brick in northern England. She showed an independent streak early on, graduating from Oxford with a degree in modern history and traveling to South Africa as part of an investigative committee after the Second Boer War. In 1906, she married an Australian adventurer named William Scoresby Routledge. Together, they settled in Kenya, where Katherine studied the customs of the Kikuyu and Scoresby quarreled with everyone he met. In 1910, they decided to head to Easter Island to learn what they could about its monumental statues. They had a yacht specially built for this purpose, and hired a crew of eager young Englishmen, most of whom quit during the year it took to sail to Easter Island. They arrived in 1914, in the midst of a diplomatic crisis caused by the outbreak of World War I. While German cruisers rendezvoused offshore, Katherine immersed herself in the culture of the island. Together with her husband, she explored caves and documented fallen statues. Her most valuable work, though, came from speaking with the few old people who remembered life on the island before the arrival of the Peruvian slavers. Her best informants were two elders, Kirimuti and Tomenika, confined to a leper colony in the north of the island.

Their memories reached back to the 1850s, when the island was still ruled by Ngaara, an ariki mau, or paramount chief. King Ngaara, as he is sometimes called, reigned from sometime in the mid-1830s to the time of his death in 1859. During this time, he elevated literacy to almost the status of a religion. He seems to have considered the teaching and learning of rongorongo as one of his most important tasks. He spent his days traveling around the island, visiting the various rongorongo schools and interrogating their pupils about their progress in the script. He would hold a tablet up and make a student read it. If they did well, he would clap loudly and give rongorongo artifacts to their teacher. If they did poorly, he would blame the teacher and confiscate their tablets.

The cult of literacy culminated every year at the annual Anakena festival. Held on a sacred beach, said to be the first place the original migrants to the island put to shore, the festival drew hundreds of people in a celebration of reading and recitation. All day, rongorongo experts would read their tablets in front of a crowd waiting to applaud their successes and jeer their failures. At the end of the day, the king would mount a platform held aloft by eight men and lecture the bards on their duty to perform well. Then he would give each man a chicken.

Later in life, Katherine Routledge went mad. Her family blamed the malign influence of a Rapanui prophetess named Angata, with whom she was close. More likely, she succumbed to the paranoid schizophrenia that afflicted her brother. She spent her last days in an asylum, and her notes were left in the archive of the Royal Geographic Society, where they were mostly forgotten.13 Combined with testimonies gathered by a few other researchers, they allow us to piece together a rough inventory of the various uses to which rongorongo tablets were put. Some were hymns in praise of chiefs. Some listed the names of people killed in battle. A great many of the inscriptions were charms. The written word was a conduit of magical power, which could be harnessed for various ends. Some tablets could save people from danger. Others dealt with vengeance: a timo tablet had the power to kill a murderer. A pure tablet could enhance fertility. Songs incised on artifacts could increase the harvest or the size of a catch. This may explain why they went unseen before Joseph-Eugene Eyrauds arrival in 1864. The most significant piece of information, though, from Routledges informants might be the detail about the schools. It took pupils only a few months to master rongorongo. As Steven Fischer, the current leading student of the script writes, If the little Rapanui children could learn it, then so can we.14

Prof. Spears! Look at this inscription! Rongorongo makes an appearance in The Stone Sentinels of Giant Island, which initially appeared in April 1959 in the House of Mystery series published by DC Comics. In the comic, seen here in its 1971 reissue, Spears solves the riddle of rongorongo and saves the day.

Fischer thinks he has the rongorongo problem scotched. In his reading, the various tablets are all procreation textsendless series of begats and begettings, tying living Easter Islanders to their mythical ancestors. As is usual in the tiny, querulous world of rongorongo studies, his opponents disagree, accusing him of misreadings, false assumptions, and other methodological inadequacies. Fischer remains convinced that he is right, but one thing does give the self-proclaimed glyphbreaker (the title of his autobiography) pause. As he notes in his vast scholarly tome on the script, one of Routledges informants told her that her husband used to stay up at night reading his cache of rongorongo tablets. She used to hear him reading, and when he did so, he would periodically stop in the middle and chuckle.15

What was he laughing at? It seems unlikely to have been a ritual formula. Whatever the rongorongo texts really say, they upend all our expectations of the nature of literacy. It was created in a place without cities, or even, really, commerce. Its inscriptions had the force of magic, but their meanings were not in themselves sacred. It is an unbreakable cipher, yet it could be mastered by children. Best of all, by refusing to be decoded, rongorongo mocks the primacy of Western reason. May it forever remain a riddle we cant parse, a joke whose punchline is forever slipping from our grasp.

Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo, The Statues That Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island (New York: Free Press, 2011), p. 4. Ibid., p. 154. Ibid., p. 155. Steven Roger Fischer, Island at the End of the World (London: Reaktion Books, 2005), p. 86. Stephen-Chauvet, Lile de Paques et ses mysteres (Paris: Editions Tel, 1935), p. 381. Steven Roger Fischer, Rongorongo: The Easter Island Script (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), pp. 9799. Ibid., p. 111. Ibid., p. 144. Ibid., p. 241. Ibid., p. 171. Cited in Igor Pozdniakov and Konstantin Pozdniakov, Rapanui Writing and the Rapanui Language: Preliminary Results of a Statistical Analysis, Forum for Anthropology and Culture, no. 3 (2006), p. 96. A PDF of this article, albeit with different pagination, is available at pozdniakov.free.fr/publications/2007_Rapanui_Writing_and_the_Rapanui_Language.pdf. In this document, the quotation appears on page 10. Steven Roger Fischer, Rongorongo, p. 303. Most of the information in this paragraph and the one above is derived from Jo Anne Van Tilburg, Among Stone Giants: The Life of Katherine Routledge and Her Remarkable Expedition to Easter Island (New York: Scribner, 2003). Steven Roger Fischer, Rongorongo, p. 347. Ibid., p. 282.

Jacob Mikanowski is a writer and critic based in Berkeley, California. His work has appeared in publications including Aeon, the Atlantic, the Guardian, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the New York Times, and Slate. Previously, he studied and taught European history and anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.COTE D'IVOIRE :: Fighting wildlife crime, a Vietnamese kingpin arrested in Ivory Coast :: COTE D'IVOIRE

On January 18, 2018, a Vietnamese man was arrested in Abidjan along with five other members of a criminal network that had been operating for several years in at least seven different countries. The EAGLE network and the Ivorian government began coordinating the operation "Ivory Stops in Ivory Coast", that targets this international network of ivory trafficking. The leader of the gang, a Vietnamese, was arrested along with five other members of his network and arrests led to the confiscation of 578 kg of ivory, more than half a ton of pangolin scales, some of which had already been packaged and ready for export, four illegal handguns, leopard skins and other contraband. The head of the criminal organization in Cote d'Ivoire is directly linked to two other operations that took place in Vietnam and Cambodia, in which 619 kg and 941 kg of ivory were seized by the authorities in the respective countries. The network is believed to be behind the killing of tens of thousands of elephants; killed for their ivory

These arrests were carried out by the Ivorian law enforcement unit in charge of cross border crime known by its French acronym UCT and the Ivorian Ministry of Water and Forests, with the assistance of EAGLE Network, an international wildlife law enforcement NGO. The American government carried out a thorough investigation of the international traffic network and these arrests were the result of close collaboration between the American and Ivorian law enforcement agencies.

The gang's modus consisted of carving hollow spaces out of timber logs, hiding ivory inside them, and filling the remaining space with wax. The logs were then reclosed with glue, mixed with normal wood, and exported in containers to Asia. The same method has been observed in additional seizures, in Kenya and Mozambique where more than two tons of ivory have been seized. At least four African countries (Kenya, Mozambique, Uganda, Cote dIvoire ) and two Asian ones (Cambodia, Vietnam) are implicated, making this criminal syndicate an extremely important one in wildlife trafficking.

Phone analysis showed calls from those arrested to three known tax haven countries: Switzerland, Turks and Caicos, and Saint Kits & Nevis. The extent of the money laundering hints at the level of organization in the syndicate's operations.

One of those arrested during the operation, a Chinese national, was found in possession of pages listing the identities of young Ivorian women, their pictures, height and weight, and whether they had a female genital mutilation. This has initiated an investigation on traffic in persons for prostitution in China using fake passports.

According the the EAGLE Network Founding Director, Ofir Drori: Ivory trafficking rings operate internationally and the effective response to it is international cooperation. The head of the network that is specialized in wildlife law enforcement said: the Government of Ivory Coast and the USA Government showcase that international cooperation can get kingpins behind bars. He added that Unfortunately, most large ivory seizures are not followed by any arrests. But with a hands-on approach and international cooperation, as we had here between Ivory Coast and the United States, we can get the kingpins behind bars where they belong.

It should be noted that EAGLE Cote d'Ivoire is one of nine projects grouped under the EAGLE network. These projects use the law enforcement model developed in Cameroon as part of the LAGA - MINFOF collaboration| BY Ricki Green |

Goodoil has announced the signing of celebrated comedy director Dave Wood for representation in Australia and New Zealand.

Wood has a particular appetite for comedic storytelling and loves getting his hands on a strong premise.

Says Wood: Theres nothing better than a funny idea  it informs everything that comes after it. A well-handled character or moment should always serve the premise to make the idea funnier and more memorable.

I like work thats a little more subtle, where a hint of reality and plausibility are maintained and all elements cleverly work hand in hand Breaking stuff is fun too.

Says Sam Long, executive producer, Goodoil: Comedy directors of Daves ability only come along once in a very long while. Daves Bo spot for Rexona and Geoffrey for Battersea are great examples of a director knowing their craft and how to get the most out of an idea. To say were excited about Dave joining the roster would be an understatement.

Having spent time working abroad in London and now happily residing back in Australia, Wood has won shiny metal things at AWARD, AXIS, LIA, New York Festivals, British Arrows and is a keen Lion hunter.

Woods producer Lee Thomson will join him at Goodoil.| BY Ricki Green |

Carlton & United Breweries (CUB) and Clemenger BBDO Melbourne have launched its new campaign Unexpected Ginger in support of the new addition to the Yak family, the Rusty Yak Gingery Ale

Based on the idea that the red-haired gene can come from surprising places, the brand will be hiding a limited number of its gingery ale bottles in six-packs from across the Yak range, including Wild Yak, Fat Yak and Lazy Yak. The mystery bottles are appearing at random  much like the ginger gene itself.

The Unexpected Ginger creative plays on the idea that gingers are known to pop up unexpectedly and have been surprising families for years, with the campaign rolling out via social film, radio, OOH and PR.

The winners who are fortunate to find one of the few Rusty Yak bottles in their six-pack will win a $500 prize, in addition to being able to enjoy one of the delicious Gingery Ales.

Says Brian Phan, brand director at Carlton & United Breweries: Were excited to introduce Australia to the newest member of the Yak herd  the Gingery Ale, Rusty Yak. Ginger is the third largest and consistently growing style in the craft beer category, and we are proud of our new red-headed creation.

Says Stephen de Wolf, executive creative director, Clemenger BBDO Melbourne: Its not every day we get to announce a new addition to the Yak family especially a ginger one. We wanted sampling to be at the heart of the idea, bringing it to life in a light-hearted way that only Rusty Yak can.

Client: Carlton & United Breweries, Yak Ales

Brand Director: Brian Phan

Brand Manager: Laura Mescher

Assistant Brand Manager: Jess Walker

Agency: Clemenger BBDO Melbourne

Creative Chairman: James McGrath

Executive Creative Director: Stephen de Wolf

Executive Creative Director: Evan Roberts

Senior Art Director: Adam Barnes

Senior Art Director: Russel Fox

Senior Copywriter: Jonty Bell

Senior Producer: Lisa Moro

Senior Producer: Michael Travers

General Manager: Jonny Berger

Project Director: Katya Urlwin

Project Manager: Kenyon MaraisCalgary Horticultural Society: Time to wrap up the garden

As this summer has shown us, gardening in the chinook zone is challenging, and summer seems to be over far too quickly. To make the most of our short growing season, taking time in the fall to prepare the garden for our variable winter weather is worth the effort. Besides, its nice to be outside on beautiful fall days and there is plenty to do.news, latest-news

A collapsed Canberra property developer owes more than $40 million, with apartment buyers and subcontractors unlikely to recover millions in losses. Deloitte - appointed as the administrator of the M and A Group - said investigations revealed the developer of the Esque apartment complex in Gungahlin owed about $22 million in secured debts and about another $20 million to unsecured creditors. Deloitte said M and A Group's collapse had been due to bad investment in Halcyon Rise Pty Ltd, a related entity involved in a failed Sydney property deal. Joint voluntary administrator and Deloitte restructuring services partner David Mansfield said secured creditors were not expected to receive a full return, which meant unsecured creditors were unlikely to recover money owed. Deloitte said two secured creditors - who are owed almost $22 million - had appointed receivers to represent their interest. The receivers had taken control of the settlement and sale of the remaining Esque units. In December, Fairfax reported that as many as 15 subcontractors had not been paid after working on the 90-unit apartment building in Franklin. The Gungahlin project had been plagued by a number of issues in 2017, including wrong colour schemes in some apartments and incorrectly sized whitegoods. In June, residents were shocked when they were told to pay $563 for an electricity meter prior to moving into their units. The developer changed tack a week later, offering to pay for the meters to compensate for the bungled colour schemes. In November, a small number of residents complained after they were supplied with washing machines that they claimed did not fit in the laundry and fridges that were smaller than advertised. Australian Securities and Investment Commission documents show Deloitte had been appointed as administrator on December 22. Mr Mansfield the matter was complex and investigations were ongoing. "Our investigations to date indicate that funds to be recovered from the Esque units will not be sufficient to meet the outstanding secured debts, and as a result, a dividend return to unsecured creditors unfortunately appears unlikely," he said. "We are in the process of convening a meeting of creditors, where we will be recommending that the company be placed in liquidation." Mr Mansfield said liability for property defects and emergency claims are also currently being probed "In the event that the company is liable for these claims, the claims will rank as unsecured claims against the company, with a return to unsecured creditors unlikely. "We have urged purchasers to seek their own legal advice regarding this matter."

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Imagine the brownie points you'd score at your child's next birthday party if a cute little caravan was parked in the backyard serving hot coffee to the parents. That dream, is now a reality people. And Nellie's Cafe and Bar is also turning up at weddings, high teas, parties and corporate events around Canberra. On Wednesday, the custom-made caravan was at Marist College where the school provided unlimited tea and coffee for the teachers as they made their way back to work after the long summer holidays. The cafe and bar on wheels is the creation of young Tuggeranong couple Lisa Hudson and Michael Hammond. Nellie's has been making its debut over the last two weeks. "It's been a dream of mine for the last five years," Lisa said. "We're actually taking bookings for as far ahead as March next year. It's very exciting." At only 22, Lisa is taking on her own business as well as studying nursing part-time at the University of Canberra. She also works for her parents Peter and Wendy, at their business, Swimart Erindale. Michael also works at Westfield. "I'm entrepreneurial like my mum. I've had businesses since I was 12," Lisa said, with a laugh. "Mum's friends would come over and I'd give them a massage for $2. I also started a candle business when I was 12 and I've still got that (Candles by Lisa.) The caravan pops up at random locations to sell coffee and tea and some baked goods. But Lisa and Michael want to specialise in the events area. So the caravan can serve up alcohol and lawn games at a wedding. High tea to a group of girlfriends. Coffee to parents at a children's birthday. . "We want it to be a talking point," Lisa said.

/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/c791d82f-579d-4aa7-9e9b-d0a99b5025a2/r0_141_2000_1271_w1200_h678_fmax.jpgnews, latest-news

A Queanbeyan-based weapons manufacturer has ramped up production in Hume, after winning a contract to supply its new R-400S-Mk2 remote weapons system. Electro Optic Systems' Hume facility is manufacturing software and hardware to control 30mm cannons. Company chief executive Dr Ben Greene said about 110 staff were employed in Hume now, with numbers expected to reach nearly 200 by the end of the year. The company would retain its presence in Queanbeyan for other projects. Electro Optic Systems doesn't build the cannons, but makes the hardware and software to control them - including identifying a target and automatically aiming the cannon. Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne officially opened the new facility on Tuesday. The company started production of its remote weapons system in 2017 after seven years of development and four years of testing in different environments around the world. Dr Greene said the company had a $410 million contract to supply significant quantities, bringing sales to $600 million in the first 12 months. The new contract strengthens its partnership with Orbital ATK, the American manufacturer of the 30mm cannons used by Electro Optic Systems. Dr Greene said the two companies had spent more than a decade collaborating to reduce weight and improve accuracy in the cannons. "This innovative technology for the first time allows 30 mm cannon systems to be deployed with unprecedented accuracy on light vehicles, significantly enhancing lethality and protection without compromising mobility, and at a low cost," he said. The systems would be delivered in monthly shipments between 2018 and 2022, Dr Greene said. He expected follow-on work for repairs and additional equipment. Only allies of the US and Australia can buy the technology. A large percentage of the Australian Army in Afghanistan has been upgraded with the company's technology, which Dr Greene says gives the Australian forces an important operational advantage which other countries are only now beginning to receive. "It is especially pleasing that the Australian Army is equipped with several hundred EOS systems which enhanced our soldiers' protection and lethality in Afghanistan," he said. Dr Greene said the support of the Commonwealth had helped organise complex licensing issues with the US counterparts. The announcement of the $410 million contract comes only days after the federal government announced an extra $20 million a year from 2018-19 to boost Australia's defence exports.

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Murrumbateman mother Roslyn Pengilly read on Facebook that she would no longer have a say in which Canberra public school her son could attend. Timothy will start year 2 at Maribyrnong Primary next week, and his family had hoped he would follow in the footsteps of his sisters in attending UC Kaleen High in his teenage years. But the ACT government's decision to offer NSW children placement at only a handful of Canberra schools from this year onwards would eventually send the seven-year-old to Melba Copland Secondary School. Attending a larger school with students in year 7 to 12 is a scary proposition for Timothy, who has sensory processing disorder and will be assessed for autism spectrum disorder next week. The Pengillys were not told of the ACT government's decision as only families applying for placement in a Canberra school were notified. "I'm kind of holding my breath at the moment to see how things are going to turn out," Mrs Pengilly said. "Because it's only been two days since this news hit me I haven't really had time to go right, well what is our plan and what are we going to do - but he won't be going to Melba Copland, let me say that much." The changes to cross-border enrolments mean students from NSW can now only attend certain public schools in Belconnen and Tuggeranong, billed as pathway schools. Families in Yass, Bywong, Collector, Goulburn, Harden and Murrumbateman are among those who can now send their children only to Evatt, Florey and Charnwood-Dunlop primary schools, Melba Copland Secondary School, UC Kaleen High and Lake Ginninderra College. Each school sets a student on a particular pathway, meaning children like Timothy already enrolled in a Canberra government school can only attend Melba Copland through high school and college. Children in southern NSW, such as Braidwood, Bungendore, Jerrabomberra, Michelago and Queanbeyan, can attend Gilmore, Calwell and Richardson primary schools, Wanniassa School, Caroline Chisholm School, Lake Tuggeranong College or Erindale College, and again must follow a prescribed course depending on where they first enrolled. The changes were billed by the ACT Education Directorate as "providing certainty" to NSW families, who in previous years were forced to wait until applications from Canberra children were considered and filled before being notified of their placement. A NSW Education Department spokesman said the department was working with the ACT government, the Queanbeyan-Palerang Council and the Yass Valley Council to find long-term solutions for education services in the region. "This includes considerations of whether a school will be built in Murrumbateman," he said. Murrumbateman families have been pushing for a local school for years. Mrs Pengilly said her children attended Canberra schools as that's where the family once lived and where her husband, Geoff, worked. She said parents were forced to choose between twice-daily 40-minute round trips to Yass or dropping their kids at a Canberra school near their workplace, an option no longer on the table. "If parents have got to take their child to Melba Copland and they actually work in Gungahlin, that's just going to be crazy," she said. About 4500 ACT students live in NSW, about 1800 of whom attend public schools. The figure is expected to grow due to large residential developments close to the border.

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I'm actually scared about sharing my opinions on this incendiary topic. Scared that the wrath of thousands of Kmart mums will descend upon me. That I will not be tarred and feathered so much, as dipped in Kmart signature rose gold and rolled in sequins and made to parade through the streets singing, You Make Me Wanna Shout. Because I have a confession: I both love and loathe Kmart. I am inspired and deeply unsettled by it. I am both entertained and extremely depressed by Facebook groups like Kmart Mums Australia!!!, of which I am a member (maybe not after this?). The standard of the spelling and grammar displayed on them is just the start. I am troubled that there is a whole army of mums out there ready to breathlessly inform you when the Jojo Siwa dolls have landed at Kmart. Or that the pastel-coloured ukuleles have sold out at Caloundra Kmart. LIKE. OUR. VERY. LIFE. DEPENDED. ON. IT. And I am disturbed when a blogger from Adelaide makes over her pantry with pastel-coloured containers from Kmart (and, yes, Ikea), and that becomes NEWS, people. That something will go viral on Kmart Hacks and inevitably end up on A Current Affair or The Daily Mail. Kmart - feeding the beast of the 24-hour news cycle. But, hey, I do enjoy a good hack. And give me storage ideas any day. Oh, so that's how you store your daughter's Beanie Boos? Clever. Gonna try it. That Lego table you hacked? That was real good. It's no news that Kmart homewares have become a cultural phenomenon. Really. That its cheap and often very attractive range gives a lot of people quick access to affordable style. And that you can then go online to the Facebook groups devoted to Kmart and and ask for total strangers' opinions about A. How to Decorate Your Home with Kmart or B. What They Think of Your Home Now Decorated with Kmart. Too bad if you don't get enough "likes". I think I'm just weirded-out by the goddamn uniformity of it all, as we kid ourselves that we're really being individuals. It's like that scene out of Fight Club in which Tyler Durden has a nihilistic ramble about being "slave to the Ikea nesting instinct" and fantasises about his apartment being fully furnished by the Swedish chain. ("I'd flip through catalogues and think, 'What kind of dining set defines me as a person?") Because I do worry about a nation of homes decorated by Kmart. Thousand of lounge rooms with Scandi white and timber side tables, house plants in gold wire stands, blush occasional chairs. Cannisters with herringbone designs artfully arranged on kitchen benches. Rose gold everything. And pineapples. Lots of pineapples. I don't know why it worries me. I guess it comes down to, "Are we wasting our lives on this stuff?". At the same time, I feel a deep sense of peace when my house is ordered and is aesthetically pleasing, at least to me. Is Kmart just helping me find that inner-peace. Kumbaya Kmart? But then along came the hacked Kmart cubby houses. And they just really annoyed me. Is this what a childhood in Australia has become? Kids serving up lattes from a shabby chic beach huts complete with party lighting? Conducting secret club meetings in made-over cottages in muted greys and Liberty print that look more at home in the Hamptons than in a backyard full of bindies? Would any child actually be allowed to make mud pies in these pristine mini-kitchens, with their "marble" benchtops and subway-tile splashbacks? Would they be permitted to pour tea for teddy and their dolls and risk the possibility of - quelle horreur- upsetting the Instagram-ready, just-so styling? But, like most people who want to thrust their opinion upon you, I am a hypocrite. I do like going to Kmart for a hit of sumpin sumpin. It makes me feel good when I find a cute notebook. In rose gold. Or a rustic basket. Or a funky bath mat that's going to lift my dated decor. Or a black matte jug for $5 that looks great with a bit of greenery stuck in it. Or the 150th Jo Jo Bow for my daughter. It's a quick hit of retail therapy that makes everything seem all right. Until a few months, or even weeks, later, when you realise that basket or vase or jug actually doesn't work and it ends up at Vinnies. Or worse, landfill. And then you go back to the shops. I think what really upsets me about the cult of Kmart is what really upsets me about myself. That I can't stop mindlessly consuming. That the desire for the next hit can't be satisfied. I do not even class myself as a massive shopper. Most of the time I can't bear to face the shops. And there seemed to be no let-up over Christmas. Three days after Christmas, people were posting on Facebook about buying presents for next Christmas. How does that even happen? Who has that stamina? And it also depresses me that even the greatest Kmart devotee knows they aren't paying for quality or craftsmanship or longevity. That the built-in obsolescence of so many products is really months or even days, no longer years. Post-Christmas Facebook rants mentioned troubles with Kmart products. Remote-controlled helicopters that ran "fine for two days and now it won't fly up". The $39 battery-operated quad bike that runs for five minutes after being charged for eight hours. The Hatchimal that cost nearly $100 and which the child lost interest in after two days. The occasional chair that collapsed when someone SAT ON IT. People laughed that Kmart was crap but they'd still be going back for more. And with every Kmart bargain, you know someone is missing out. Someone, somewhere can't be being paid appropriately when the chain can sell a t-shirt for $2.50; a pedestal fan for $12. And that the true craftsman - the one who actually makes the black jugs and makes them to last - is not getting a customer. The bespoke, the artisan is left behind. I know Kmart is not the sole culprit. I know it is not the only driver of excess consumption. Ultimately, my buying habits are entirely down to me. It's my choice where I spend my money. Then, damn you Kmart, you had me in knots, like those new velvet cushions everyone wants, with the post on Kmart Mums Australia!!! from the single mum who was starting a new life with her kids. She only had one mattress on a floor for them all to sleep on. But new bed linen from Kmart made her feel better about it all. More optimistic about life. Tears. Real tears. So Kmart does infuriate me but probably not enough yet to make me do anything about it. Which is a little sad. So will I keep shopping in Kmart? Yes. I still love it. Will I try to do less of it in 2018? I hope so. Boom, boom, boom.

/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/6aa9ad44-0a00-4b9a-a28c-a36c802aa1e9/r2_0_728_410_w1200_h678_fmax.jpgnews, federal-politics

Tax cuts for middle-income earners and big business will be at the heart of Malcolm Turnbull's bid to win back voter support. The Prime Minister today will deliver his first major speech of the year in the regional city of Toowoomba in the key battleground state of Queensland in a clear sign that he has one eye on the next federal election, which is expected in a little more than 12 months. Mr Turnbull will say that his government will again attempt to cut taxes for businesses with a turnover of more than $50 million to 25 per cent while highlighting the US move to cut company taxes to 21 per cent. And a Coalition push for personal tax cuts will follow soon afterwards. "We won't compromise our return to surplus in 2020-21 but our next tax priority is further tax relief for middle-income earners ... the Treasurer and I have been working over the Christmas break on how we can provide more tax relief for hard-working, middle-income Australian families," he will say. Rather than making a major policy announcement, Mr Turnbull is expected to highlight policies already implemented by his government  including changes designed to make childcare cheaper and reduce energy prices, needs-based funding for schools and a tax cut for small and medium-sized business  in a direct pitch to voters. He will also highlight growing consumer and business confidence and record jobs growth and emphasise his economic leadership  a key reason he challenged Tony Abbott in 2015  and the importance of staying the course with his government's economic program. "2016 and 2017 were the years of reform; this is the year we really start to see the rewards of that hard work," he will say. "We are starting to see what happens when government policies are all pulling in the same direction  to build a strong and resilient economy that gives every Australian the opportunity to pursue their dreams." Mr Turnbull has consistently trailed Opposition Leader Bill Shorten in the polls since the July 2016 election and has a razor-thin one-seat majority. Support for the Coalition in regional cities and towns such as Toowoomba  where One Nation candidates picked up about 15 per cent of the vote in the Queensland state election late last year  will play a crucial role in deciding whether Mr Turnbull can hang on to government.

/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/9f34523f-f47d-41a5-b026-aed8ba6530a0/r0_106_2000_1236_w1200_h678_fmax.jpgI would like to think that when I visit a Doctor or other health care professional, that they are indeed Professional and look professional. For example wear a white smock or whatever it's called and save their casual look for non-office hours.

Not long ago I visited a medical specialist office but before seeing the Specialist, a woman in street cloths and a clipboard came into the room and began asking me all kinds of health related questions. Feeling a little uncomfortable, I finally asked her when will the specialist will be seeing me, she replied I am the specialist.

Well excuse me, but how is a patient supposed to know? No introduction, no name tag, just personal questions.

I mean, how would you feel if you saw your airplane pilots wearing jeans and t-shirt? Not very confidence inspiring and certainly not professional.

How are people supposed to feel about health care professionals returning to wearing the more professional white office coat in-order to look professional and thus return a feeling of confidence to us needing help.

Don DonnellyPhoto: The Canadian Press

A judge has ruled that police do not have to turn over records seized during an investigation into a fatal ammonia leak at the Fernie ice rink.

The City of Fernie asked the provincial court of B.C. to force RCMP to give it copies of two log books taken from the arena after three people died at the ice rink in October.

The city argued municipal officials need access to the records to determine what went wrong, in part because two city employees who died were the most knowledgeable about the operation and maintenance of the arena.

The court heard that RCMP took possession of the log books from the arena after the deaths and say that sharing the records could jeopardize the criminal investigation.

Mounties claimed during the hearing in December that the city could be a possible suspect in the criminal investigation because it owns and operates the arena, though no changes have been laid.

Justice Lynal Doerksen has ruled that police do not have to copy the log books because it would not be in the public interest to jeopardize the investigation.Photo: CTV

UPDATE: 4 p.m.

Heavy machinery is expected to arrive Wednesday to clean up a landslide in a residential White Rock neighbourhood.

City crews began clean up and emergency repairs Tuesday, following the slide Monday afternoon.

"It's actually quite surreal  because you're looking at it and all this stuff is coming toward you," Simon Bergen-Henengouwen, strata president of Victoria Terrace Apartments, told CTV.

Residents of the complex were temporarily evacuated, but have been allowed to return to their homes.

City engineers have yet to determine the cause of the mudslide.

ORIGINAL: 2:40 p.m.

A landslide in White Rock has damaged one home and forced the evacuation of at least two others.

The slide happened Monday afternoon near Victoria Avenue and Martin Street. It brought down fences, trees and retaining walls.

A geotechnical assessment is being conducted before residents are allowed to return.

No one was hurt in the slide, which left earth and debris scattered across the neighbourhood.

 with files from CTV VancouverPhoto: Contributed

A sharp-eyed traffic cop made a significant bust in the Lower Mainland.

Surrey RCMP Cpl. Scotty Schumann said on Jan. 23 at 7:45 p.m., a member of Surrey RCMPs Traffic Enforcement Services spotted a suspected stolen car.

The officer pulled the car over and took the alleged driver, believed to be intoxicated, into custody. As a result of the arrest a loaded semi-automatic pistol, suspected illicit drugs and a large sum of cash were seized, said Schumann.

John Schoch, 31, of Surrey is facing charges of Possession of a Loaded Firearm Without Registration or License; Possession of a Firearm Without Registration or License; Possession of a Firearm While Prohibited; Possession of Stolen Property and Impaired Operation of a Vehicle.

The investigation is ongoing and more charges are possible against Schoch who remains in custody.

Thanks to a sharp eye and quick thinking by this traffic officer, another gun is off the streets, said Schumann. In police work, a seemingly routine event can quickly evolve into a significant investigation.Photo: VPD

Vancouver Police are turning to an old tactic to improve safety in the Downtown Eastside.

The VPD is expanding foot patrols.

In recent months, there has been a significant increase in street disorder, including violent altercations, which has led to heightened concerns from the elderly, people with mobility issues, and businesses, says Sgt. Jason Robillard. We are working with the community to try to make the neighborhood safe for everyone.

Police have noticed a spike in crime in recent months and that vulnerable people are being taken advantage of by others coming in from outside the neighbourhood to deal drugs and sell stolen goods.

Numerous complaints have been received that people feel the sidewalks are unsafe.

Since Sunday, the foot patrols have already resulted in 10 arrests and the seizure of $4,500 in drugs and $3,000 worth of stolen property.

VPDs homeless outreach co-ordinator is also working with patrol members and partner organizations to help connect people without homes, or with mental illness and addictions, with appropriate resources.Photo: The Canadian Press

Prominent B.C. business leader Nick Geer has been killed in a car crash in California.

A statement from his family says Geer and his wife Penny were on the way to their home in Loreto Bay, Mexico, when they were involved in a car accident on Jan. 22 near Sacramento.

Geer was 75 years old.

The family statement says his wife was seriously injured.

Geer was the CEO of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia and is credited with turning a $250 million loss in 2001 into a profit of $389 million by 2004.

A chartered professional accountant, Geer was vice-president and managing director of the Jim Pattison Group of Companies from 1980 to 1999.

Geer was born in London, England, and his family says he "made his way to Vancouver" in 1967.

He served on the boards of the Vancouver Foundation, the Canadian Tax Foundation and Collingwood School, which he and Penny Geer helped found in North Vancouver.

"Starting a new school was true to our father's philosophy," his three children, Samantha Geer, Jill Tiffin and Noel Geer, said in the statement.

He started the Scholarship Foundation for Collingwood to give those who could not afford it a chance at a private education.

"Dad always said the easiest way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. He approached a problem not as a problem but as an opportunity and giving us the best education was an opportunity he would not miss. In everything he did, he strove to create a legacy through his work, his community and love for his country, family and friends."

In 2003, he was awarded a Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal for his work in the community.

He is survived by his wife of 49 years, his three children and their spouses, and four grandchildren.Photo: Contributed

A special meeting of School District 23's General Affairs Committee will be held Thursday evening at Mount Boucherie secondary.

At issue, grade reconfiguration across the entire district, specifically for schools on the Westside.

The goal of the district is to reconfigure the entire Central Okanagan school system, where elementary schools would house students from kindergarten to Grade 5, middle schools Grades 6 to 8, and secondary schools Grades 9 to 12.

Reconfiguration was completed in Rutland in 2015.

In a report for the meeting, district Supt. Kevin Kaardal says the Westside presents a "unique challenge and opportunity, given the enrolment patterns and distribution, which show overloading in many elementary schools, but available space in Glenrosa Middle and Mount Boucherie Secondary schools."

He says immediate action on reconfiguration is needed to accommodate growth projections.

Kardaal said reconfiguring all schools on the Westside would require eight to 12 additional portables at Mount Boucherie until either a new middle or high school is built.

Since 2011, the area has seen a growth rate averaging 2.6 per cent each year. It's expected over the next 10 years, approximately 350 residential units will be built each year.

With that in mind, the district has submitted a capital plan to the province for a new middle school on the site with George Pringle elementary, and renovate Glenrosa middle to a secondary school.

Kaardal has presented three scenarios, status quo, a full reconfiguration and a staged reconfiguration.

Parents in West Kelowna are urged to attend the meeting, which begins at 6 p.m.Photo: Andy Schwab

Residents of Penticton can expect to see and hear a lot more about the Fintry Queen this summer.

The owner of the historic passenger vessel currently moored near Vernon is trying to create a new home for the ship in Penticton.

Andy Schwab is working to resurrect a plan approved by the City of Penticton in 2014 that would see the ship moored near the Kiwanis Walking Pier, offering trips to Naramata and Summerland.

It could be great for the city the KVR Railway in Summerland does quite well, and I think we could do even better, he said.

Schwab said the 2014 plan fell apart after his business partner died and financing collapsed. This time, he is dealing with apprehension within city hall in the wake of the Skaha Lake waterslide debacle.

The city told me, really not to bother until they had their parks plan complete, he said.

The second draft of the City of Pentictons parks master plan was published nine months ago, frustrating Schwab, who wants to get the process started.

Under the draft parks plan, Schwab said he will need to present his plan to a committee, seek public feedback, and have council ultimately sign off on everything. So far, it appears the city isnt interested in even getting the ball rolling until the plan is finalized later this year.

The waterfront is like everyones backyard, he said. We are very conscious that we are a private business using public land, so Im looking at changing how the business is structured.

Schwab said they are in talks with lawyers to see if he can transition the business to a society, and allow people to buy a share of the boat for riding privileges.

At the same time, Schwab says he will be hitting the streets of Penticton to drum up support for the Fintry Queen. Hes starting by speaking at Penticton-Okanagan Rotary's meeting next week.

We are going to make a couple runs down there this summer and show it off, set up at the farmers markets, and really show the city we have the support.

He said getting the boat to the South Okanagan, so Penticton residents can see the historic ship with their own eyes, is a part of winning over the city.

Schwab has applied for a temporary moorage location off of Kickininee Provincial Park, south of Summerland, which would also be used when the ship would have to be moved away from Penticton for special events. Talks are underway with BC Parks, who are also apprehensive about the plan, but Schwab is pushing onwards.

The Fintry Queen has been homeless since Sept. 2016 when the City of Kelowna kicked it out of Sutherland Bay.Photo: Colton Davies

Board of directors nominations for the Penticton Chamber of Commerce is now open, ahead of this year's annual election.

Board members are elected to two-year terms, and the election will be to fill openings as several board members finish their terms.

Last year, 10 new board members were voted in and five members were returnees.

"Imagine being able to use your talents while developing new skills in a leadership role. Volunteering for a board can be a responsibility but it has enormous benefits," the Chamber said in a news release.

President Neil Wyper said serving on the board is a great way for Chamber members to be directly involved in operations.

The Chamber's election and annual general meeting will take place on Mar. 8 at the Shatford Centre, located at 760 Main Street.

The deadline for nomination packages is noon on Feb. 16.Photo: RCMP Police have arrested a man following a vandalism spree in Coquitlam.

RCMP in Coquitlam have put an end to a one-man vandalism spree that included spray painted buildings, vehicles getting scratched with keys and vehicles getting their tires slashed.

We are very sympathetic to the tremendous amount of hassle and expense this has been for the victims, said Cpl. Michael McLaughlin. We really appreciate the co-operation and patience weve had from the community as we identified a suspect.

Most of the damage to vehicles and buildings occurred over a three-day period between Jan. 24, and when the suspect was arrested on Jan. 26.

The 37-year-old suspect is facing five counts of mischief under $5000 and 15 counts of fail to comply with recognizance.

Coquitlam RCMP is actively investigating potential links between this recent vandalism and similar crimes that stretch back to December, 2017 when more than 100 vehicles or buildings were damaged.

Anyone who has not yet spoken to police and believes that they have been victimized is encouraged to call the Coquitlam RCMP non-emergency number at 604-945-1550.Photo: The Canadian Press

Private charges filed by a woman relating to the 2014 collapse of the tailings dam at the Mount Polley mine have been stayed.

British Columbia's public prosecution service says it has carefully reviewed the information and materials provided by counsel for Bev Sellers and found the evidence failed to meet standards to approve charges.

Sellers filed court documents last August alleging that Mount Polley Mining Corp. polluted the environment when a tailings dam burst, sending 24 million cubic metres of mine waste into waterways in B.C.'s Cariboo region.

Imperial Metals Corp., the parent company of Mount Polley Mining, did not immediately provide reaction to the decision or the allegations when reached for comment.

The prosecution service says in a news release that it does not generally permit a private prosecution to proceed.

The provincial government said last year it would not file charges against the mining company, which Sellers has said prompted her to take action.

The prosecution service says a formal investigation into the incident is ongoing.Photo: The Canadian Press

Facing scores of his fellow Republicans publicly pleading with him not to cancel NAFTA, U.S. President Donald Trump refrained from his oft-stated threat to scrap the continental pact while promising to fix trade deals during his prime-time address Tuesday.

In his first State of the Union, the president did not even mention NAFTA.

He simply vowed to improve old agreements.

"We will work to fix bad trade deals and negotiate new ones," Trump told lawmakers gathered in the House of Representatives for the annual address.

"America has finally turned the page on decades of unfair trade deals that sacrificed our prosperity and shipped away our companies, our jobs, and our wealth. The era of economic surrender is totally over.

"From now on we expect trading relationships to be fair and  very importantly  reciprocal."

It was the same message in a fact sheet on the speech issued by the White House. The White House release spoke of how Trump was renegotiating and modernizing NAFTA, in what it called the first renegotiation of a major trade agreement in U.S. history.

In recent weeks, the president has sounded somewhat positive about the state of negotiations, telling the Wall Street Journal for instance that they were achieving progress.

The speech came several hours after a strong show of support for NAFTA from his own party.

A clear majority of Republicans in the Senate released a letter urging him to remain in the agreement. It was signed by 36 members, which represents about 70 per cent of the 51-seat Republican contingent in the Senate.

"NAFTA supports 14 million jobs, representing thousands of jobs in each of the 50 states," said the letter from Republican senators.

"Mr. President, your leadership has jump-started our economy. The recent tax reform bill is already leading to economic success across all industries and the stock market is at record highs. The next step to advance the economy requires that we keep NAFTA in place, but modernize it to better reflect our 21st century economy."

The letter and speech came after a week-long NAFTA round where the U.S. trade czar saluted minor progress, but stressed that he wants to see more. The Trump administration faces a decision about what to do after the current schedule for talks ends in March.

That trade uncertainty, so far, hasn't done much damage to the overall the U.S. economy.

In fact, Trump's speech celebrated that in the current climate, stoked by new corporate tax cuts, unemployment is at a long-term low and manufacturing has seen an uptick. He noted the car companies building plants in the United States: "Something we haven't seen for decades," Trump said.

"Now they're roaring back, they're coming back, they want to be where the action is. They want to be in the United States of America."Photo: The Canadian Press President Donald Trump's first State of the Union is the most-tweeted joint address to Congress ever.

President Donald Trump's first State of the Union is the most-tweeted joint address to Congress ever, according to Twitter.

The social network says 4.5 million tweets were sent around the annual event, surpassing last year's record of 3 million for Trump's first address to Congress  which wasn't technically a State of the Union.

According to the platform, the most tweeted moment of the speech came as Trump waded into the culture wars over racial injustice protests and the national anthem. That was followed by his discussion of his immigration reform proposal and his condemnation of the international criminal gang MS-13.Photo: The Canadian Press President Donald Trump summoned the country to a "new American moment" of unity in his first State of the Union address.

Addressing a deeply divided nation, President Donald Trump summoned the country to a "new American moment" of unity in his first State of the Union address, challenging Congress to make good on long-standing promises to fix a fractured immigration system and warning darkly of evil forces seeking to undermine America's way of life.

Trump's address Tuesday night blended self-congratulation and calls for optimism amid a growing economy with ominous warnings about deadly gangs, the scourge of drugs and violent immigrants living in the United States illegally. He cast the debate over immigration  an issue that has long animated his most ardent supporters  as a battle between heroes and villains, leaning heavily on the personal stories of White House guests in the crowd. He praised a law enforcement agent who arrested more than 100 gang members, and he recognized the families of two alleged gang victims.

He also spoke forebodingly of catastrophic dangers from abroad, warning that North Korea would "very soon" threaten the United States with nuclear-tipped missiles.

"The United States is a compassionate nation. We are proud that we do more than any other country to help the needy, the struggling and the underprivileged all over the world," Trump said. "But as president of the United States, my highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, and my constant concern is for America's children, America's struggling workers and America's forgotten communities."

Trump addressed the nation with tensions running high on Capitol Hill. An impasse over immigration prompted a three-day government shutdown earlier this year, and lawmakers appear no closer to resolving the status of the "Dreamers"  young people living in the U.S. illegally ahead of a new Feb. 8 deadline for funding operations. The parties have also clashed this week over the plans of Republicans on the House intelligence committee to release a classified memo on the Russia investigation involving Trump's presidential campaign  a decision the White House backs but the Justice Department is fighting.

The controversies that have dogged Trump  and the ones he has created have overshadowed strong economic gains during his first year in office. His approval ratings have hovered in the 30s for much of his presidency, and just 3 in 10 Americans said the United States was heading in the right direction, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. In the same survey, 67 per cent of Americans said the country was more divided because of Trump.

At times, Trump's address appeared to be aimed more at validating his first year in office than setting the course for his second. He devoted significant time to touting the tax overhaul he signed at the end of last year, promising the plan will "provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small businesses." He also highlighted the decision made early in his first year to withdraw the U.S. from a sweeping Asia-Pacific trade pact, declaring: "The era of economic surrender is totally over."

He spoke about potential agenda items for 2018 in broad terms, including a call for $1.5 trillion in new infrastructure spending and partnerships with states and the private sector. He touched only briefly on issues like health care that have been at the centre of the Republican Party's policy agenda for years.

Tackling the sensitive immigration debate that has roiled Washington, Trump redoubled his recent pledge to offer a path to citizenship for 1.8 million young immigrants  but only as part of a package that would also require increased funding for border security, including a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, ending the nation's visa lottery method and revamping the current legal immigration system. Some Republicans are wary of the hardline elements of Trump's plan and it's unclear whether his blueprint could pass Congress.

"Americans are dreamers too," Trump said, in an apparent effort to reclaim the term used to describe the young immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

A former New York Democrat, the president also played to the culture wars that have long illuminated American politics, alluding to his public spat with professional athletes who led protests against racial injustice by kneeling during the national anthem, declaring that paying tribute to the flag is a "civic duty."

Republicans led multiple rounds of enthusiastic applause during the speech, but for the opposition party it was a more sombre affair. Democrats provided a short spurt of polite applause for Trump as he entered the chamber, but offered muted reactions throughout the speech. A cluster of about two dozen Democrats, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus, remained planted firmly in their seats, staring sternly at the president and withholding applause.

After devastating defeats in 2016, Democrats are hopeful that Trump's sagging popularity can help the party rebound in November's midterm elections. In a post-speech rebuttal, Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy, the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, was seeking to undercut Trump's optimistic tone and remind voters of the personal insults and attacks often levelled by the president.Photo: The Canadian Press

British Columbia's Liberals will elect a new leader Saturday with an assignment to ignite and guide the party from an unfamiliar position in Opposition after 16 years in power.

An estimated 60,000 party members are eligible to vote online and by phone starting Thursday to replace Christy Clark, who resigned last summer after the New Democrats formed a minority government with the support of the Green party.

The field of six candidates includes three veterans with deep cabinet experience, two former big city mayors and a first-time member of the legislature from Metro Vancouver.

Mike de Jong, Andrew Wilkinson and Todd Stone were longtime members of Clark's cabinet, joined late her in government by Sam Sullivan, who is also a former Vancouver mayor. The field of candidates also includes Michael Lee, a Vancouver lawyer who was elected to the legislature last spring, and Dianne Watts, a former Conservative MP and former mayor of Surrey.

The results of the last May's election, which led to the Liberals eventual downfall in a confidence vote, has figured largely in the contest.

In debates, candidates have pointed fingers over the party's fall from power despite heading into the election boasting five consecutive balanced budgets and the strongest economy in Canada.

While candidates acknowledged the government's record of economic success, failures to address transportation, housing and social policy issues have been blamed by some for the loss of pivotal seats in Metro Vancouver, a longtime Liberal stronghold.

Only de Jong, the former finance minister, steadfastly celebrated the Liberal record, saying B.C.'s healthy bottom line and record on job creation were the envy of Canada.

"A lot of the campaign was about how much were they going to distance themselves from 16 years," said Prof. Michael Prince, a social policy expert at University of Victoria. "Mike de Jong was probably the only one who exemplified that dilemma the most, having been the finance minister and presiding over arguably one of the great successes of the Christy Clark era."

De Jong ended up being the target of the other candidates who said they would not have been as tight fisted with the province's purse strings.

"By the end of the last debate he was being picked on as: 'You hid some money on us,' " said Prince.

He said the race produced few new ideas and focused more on mistakes of the past than regeneration.

"There's perhaps an opportunity lost to really reconnect and say, 'What is our direction?' " Prince said.

Sullivan talked about privatizing health care, considering Charter schools and introducing a new version of the harmonized sales tax that was defeated in 2011 by voters in a referendum.

"A campaign like this should invite some bold thinking and Sam Sullivan sort of took the party at its word," Prince said. "But he's largely viewed as someone coming up with ideas beyond the pale."

David Black, a political communications expert at Victoria's Royal Roads University, said the Liberals missed a chance to ask themselves about the heart and soul of the party.

"What I didn't see was the quality of introspection that really ought to follow a party after losing after 16 years," he said. "The most introspective candidates are the ones who are less embedded in the B.C. Liberal organization. They are Watts and Lee."Photo: CTV

A former government communications director has been given a nine-month conditional sentence for using his public job to woo ethnic votes for the BC Liberal Party.

Provincial court Judge David St. Pierre told Brian Bonney he made "certain choices" that landed him in court.

Bonney's lawyer told a sentencing hearing earlier this month that his client was an instrument of others in the scandal, including senior officials in former premier Christy Clark's office.

The conditional sentence will be served in the community, and Bonney will live under a 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew. He must also do 60 hours of community service work.

Bonney pleaded guilty to breach of trust last October in the so-called quick wins scandal for the partisan use of taxpayer money in an attempt to attract support from minority groups.

Special prosecutor David Butcher presented a series of emails during the sentencing hearing showing Bonney used a private account to communicate with liaison workers who were tasked with gaining support from various ethnic organizations before the 2013 election.

Bonney's lawyer, Ian Donaldson, had asked for a suspended sentence, saying his client crossed a line but was directed to do so.

Clark appointed her deputy minister, John Dyble, to conduct a review and it concluded public officials misused government resources. It said Bonney was among those who spent a considerable amount of time during his workday on party activities and used private emails.

Clark apologized and the Liberals returned $70,000 of taxpayers' money.Photo: CTV

VicPD are investigating after the body of a kayaker washed up on shore on a popular Victoria beach.

Police tweeted they had discovered the body around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday afternoon at Gonzales Park.

The Joint Rescue Coordination Centre later confirmed a kayaker was found dead on the beach.

The identity of the deceased and cause of death have not been released.

Officials are trying to determine if the kayaker was alone.

-with files from CTV Vancouver Island



Addie Arnold and Deborah Williams have been chosen as Hamilton Countys winners of the 2017 Governors Volunteer Stars Awards. They will be honored along with winners from other Tennessee Counties at the Annual Governors Volunteer Stars Awards Program in Franklin, Tn.According to state generated statistics, 1.3 million Tennessee volunteers give more than 149 million hours of service, contributing the equivalent of $3.4 billion to Tennessees economy.Youth Winner: Addie Arnold, Northside Neighborhood House"Addie is an outstanding volunteer because she desires to share her passion for the arts with other children at the Northside Neighborhood House.While most 13 year olds are focused on having fun, Addie has a desire to share what she loves with others. Addie teaches K-3 students. She began working a couple of Fridays each month in August of 2017. Addie plans and collects supplies to bring when she shares lessons, planting a seed of exposure and enrichment for her groups. She is passionate about exploring different forms of art from dance to drawing, and many more. When Addie serves, she serves with enthusiasm. She works very hard on her lesson plans and ensures the students are learning while having fun," officials said.Adult Winner: Deborah Williams, the Tennessee Aquarium"Deb first became an education docent with the Tennessee Aquarium about 10 years ago, and has accrued almost 2,500 hours of service. She interprets exhibits around the galleries, staffs the touch tanks and engages the visitors, using good customer service skills with everything from recommending restaurants downtown to knowing the names of all the penguins. She became a Backstage Pass Tour Leader several years ago and takes groups of 15 guests behind the scenes for an up close and personal view of exhibits and tanks, then ends with a live animal encounter. On the fourth day of the week, Deb works as a volunteer chef cutting up pounds of seafood for the live animal collections in ocean journey. Deb is a serious animal lover," officials said.Mayor Jim Coppinger stated, These generous citizens embody the spirit of giving, selflessly helping fulfill needs that would otherwise go unmet. I am grateful they live in our community.Nuclear fusion, for the controlled and regular generation of electric power by converting hydrogen into helium and reproducing on a small scale what happens in our Sun (as well as other stars), is one of the foremost technological promises for the decades ahead.

Designed to reach parameters beyond the ones previously obtained in laboratory experiments, the reactor prototype called ITER - "the way" in Latin - is presently under construction in southern France. Its design capacity is for 500 megawatts, and the plan is to go live in 2025. The members of the ITER consortium are China, the European Union, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States. The cost of the megaproject is expected to surpass 20 billion.

ITER will is not intended to provide electricity to the grid, but it will be the first tokamak to produce net energy, i.e., more energy is released from fusion reactions than the amount of energy injected to heat the plasma. It will enable scientists to learn more about handling the multiple technical complexities of nuclear fusion, paving the way for machines that do indeed use it to supply electricity to the grid. The term tokamak comes from the Russian acronym for a toroidal chamber with magnetic coils.

For this plan to succeed, however, it will be crucial to ensure that the nuclear fusion process can become self-sustaining and to prevent losses of energy via electromagnetic radiation and of alpha particles - the atomic nuclei of helium made up of two protons and two neutrons -as these losses would allow the reactor to cool. Experimental results observed during the past 20 years have shown that the way in which fast ions (including alpha particles) are ejected from the plasma varies greatly from one tokamak to another. Until recently, no one understood which experimental conditions determined this behavior.

The problem has now been elucidated by Vinicius Njaim Duarte, a young Brazilian researcher who recently earned his PhD with support from the Sao Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP in the form of a doctoral scholarship and a research internship abroad. Duarte is currently engaged in postdoctoral research at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) in the US.

Duarte's research drew so much attention that at the largest US tokamak, DIII-D, developed and operated by General Atomics in San Diego, California, dedicated experiments were conducted to test the model he proposed. The results confirmed the model's predictions.

"Electromagnetic waves excited by fast particles in tokamaks can display sudden variations in frequency, known as chirping in the jargon. No one understood why this happened on some machines and not in others. Using complex numerical modeling and experimental data, Duarte showed that whether chirping occurs or not - and hence the nature of particle and energy losses - depends on the level of turbulence in the plasma confined in the tokamak, where nuclear fusion reactions take place. Chirping occurs if it isn't highly turbulent. With severe turbulence, there's no chirping," said physicist Ricardo Magnus Osorio Galvao, now director of Brazil's National Space Research Institute (INPE) and former Duarte's PhD supervisor at the University of Sao Paulo's Physics Institute (IF-USP).

To make the import of this discovery comprehensible, a number of points must be explained.

First, it bears recalling that the process in question is nuclear fusion - not nuclear fission, the process used in the world's existing nuclear power plants. In fission, the atomic nuclei of heavy elements, such as uranium 235, for example, split into nuclei of lighter elements - krypton and barium in this case. This fission releases energy, electromagnetic radiation, and neutrons that in turn split in a chain reaction that keeps the process going.

Nuclear fusion works differently. In this process, the atomic nuclei of lighter elements, such as the hydrogen isotopes deuterium (one proton and one neutron) and tritium (one proton and two neutrons), fuse to form nuclei of heavier elements - in this case, helium (two protons and two neutrons) - and release energy.

"For nuclear fusion to be possible, it's necessary to overcome the electrostatic repulsion between positive ions," Galvao explained. "This only happens if the ionized gas [plasma] formed by the nuclei of the light elements is heated to extremely high temperatures, of the order of tens to hundreds of millions of degrees Celsius."

In ITER, for example, 840 cubic meters of plasma will be heated to 150 million degrees Celsius, over ten times the temperature of the Sun's core. "At that kind of temperature, you reach energy breakeven: the energy released by the fusion reactions is sufficient to equal the energy required to heat the plasma," Galvao said.

The process takes place inside the toroidal chamber of a tokamak, a device invented in the 1950s by Soviet physicists Igor Yevgenyevich Tamm and Andrei Sakharov, who were inspired by an original idea of their colleague Oleg Lavrentiev. A torus is shaped like a doughnut or an inner tube. The solid contained by the surface is known as a toroid.

The nuclear fusion process develops as follows. A vacuum is produced in the chamber, which is then filled with gas. An electric discharge ionizes the gas, which is heated by high-frequency radio waves.

An electrical field induced in the toroidal chamber subjects the gas to an extremely intense current of order of 1 million amperes in the case of DIII-D, which heats the gas even further via the Joule effect. Still more energy is injected by electromagnetic waves until the temperature required to trigger nuclear fusion is reached. Even a small tokamak, such as the one installed at the University of Sao Paulo, reaches temperatures on the order of millions degrees.

"At these extremely high temperatures, the ions vibrate so strongly that they collide and overcome electrostatic repulsion," Galvao said. "A powerful magnetic field confines the plasma flow and keeps it away from the vessel's walls. The highly energized alpha particles [helium nuclei] collide with other particles in the plasma, keeping it hot and sustaining the fusion reactions."

An analogy suggested by Galvao would be a bonfire made with damp wood, which will not catch fire easily at first but which flares up eventually after a certain temperature is reached, and the steadily more stable combustion produces enough energy to overcome the humidity. In the case of a plasma, it is said to reach the ignition point when alpha particles begin consistently feeding back into the process.

Control of turbulence

Among fusion's many advantages over fission is the fact that fusion involves a self-control mechanism: once the ignition point is reached, if this temperature level is significantly exceeded - in other words, if the plasma overheats - the reaction automatically slows down. Thus reactor meltdown, one of the most dangerous complications of accidents in power plants that use nuclear fission, could not happen in a nuclear fusion plant.

The problem - and we now return to Duarte's research - is that resonant interaction between alpha particles and waves present in the plasma can excite electromagnetic oscillations or even lead to the ejection of alpha particles. This can cause energy loss, plasma cooling and possible interruption of nuclear fusion. Understanding the causes of this problem and the factors that can prevent it is fundamental to ensuring the sustainability of the process and the use of nuclear fusion as a viable source of electricity.

"What Duarte found is that this outcome happens in a self-organized manner, with the production of chirping, if the plasma is not very turbulent. If turbulence is high, however, it doesn't," Galvao said [see below for an interview with Vinicius Njaim Duarte].

The crux of the problem is that in a highly turbulent fluid, there is no preferential direction, Galvao explained, offering another analogy to help illustrate his meaning.

"When you heat water slowly, you create a convection cell in the container. Hot water rises, and cold water sinks. This continues until all the water reaches boiling point," he said. "The medium then becomes turbulent, the convection cell is destroyed, and the energy spreads indiscriminately in all directions. This also happens in a magnetically confined plasma. Its occurrence prevents the creation of a self-organized system that sustains an undesirable associated electromagnetic wave. There isn't enough coherence for waves to be generated. So the loss of energy that would end the fusion process doesn't occur."

"Duarte had already published a paper on this model during his PhD research, but no one had performed an experiment to control the level of turbulence and see if the model applied or not. This has now been done by General Atomics on DIII-D, specifically in order to test the model, which was proven by the result."

Experimental physicists already knew empirically how to induce higher or lower turbulence, but they did not know this would affect the spectral nature of waves associated with the structures of particles. Duarte's contribution consisted of identifying the key control mechanism and explaining why. In terms of technological applications, this helps establish optimal turbulence - enough to prevent self-organized particle and energy loss but not enough to have other undesirable effects on overall plasma confinement.

Until now, tokamaks have been used on the laboratory scale. ITER will be the first prototype of a tokamak capable of generating electricity efficiently by nuclear fusion. The use of controlled nuclear fusion is not uncontroversial, but according to its advocates, it is safe, can produce a practically unlimited amount of power, and does not create radioactive waste, as do fission reactors.Chesterfield Police make arrest in Labor Day shooting Chesterfield Police have arrested one suspect and are seeking two others in relation to a shooting that occurred in a North Chesterfield apartment complex on Labor Day. Officers responded to...Guest Commentary Local coalition aspires to achieve smokefree air for all More than 1 in 5 Indiana adults smoke cigarettes (21.5%), one of the highest rates in the nation, while the number of youths using vaping products remains a concern for anti-smoking advocates. Secondhand smoke is estimated...

Voice of the People Well so much for the Tribune allowing only letters focusing on local issues. Tuesdays letter giving Biden a pass on his totally irrational screw-up of the Afghanistan withdrawal, ends if under the circumstances  if they could do better. The answer is  absolutely. The...

Voice of the People Recently four members of Porter County Board of Zoning Appeals approved to give an Iowa company special exceptions and variances to build a THIRD gas station at U.S. 6 and Indiana 149, on the northwest corner adjacent to Liberty Township. In this growing age of...

Voice of the People We havent betrayed the Afghan people; they betrayed us. Monday morning quarterbacks criticizing our government and military are nothing more than cheap shot malcontents. Id like to see or at least hear how, under these same circumstances, they could do better. Joel Sutlin Chesterton September...In a regulatory filing Monday, Bon-Ton disclosed details of its turnaround plan without revealing locations of the expected store closings. The plan described a group of 45 stores with weak financial performance or locations in dying malls. In that Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the company also said it was considering opening new stores in cities other retailers are leaving behind and throwing more weight behind its Carsons chain.The port authority of the Atlantic beach town of Capbreton said the search was launched after Agnes' empty boat was found washed up Tuesday in nearby Hossegor. In a statement, Boardriders said that 54-year-old Agnes had gone fishing on his beloved boat, as he often did in the mornings, and that he had not been heard from since.A woman who tried to board a United Airlines flight from Newark, N.J., recently was turned away after showing up at the airport with her emotional support peacock in tow, reported Live and Let Fly. She had offered to buy a second ticket for the bird, but the airline declined.Were going to be moving in, Lisek said of the eight-bedroom stone mansion. We sold our home on Bellevue (Place), and I really didnt want to leave the city but my kids and husband really wanted to have some yard (space), so we found that house and fell in love with the outside and the area, and were just gutting it and its going to take awhile because it was just a complete gut (rehab).1. DRINKS: From innovative cocktails and traditional offerings to regional and house specialties, we evaluated each bar's drink menu according to 1) selection; 2) presentation; and 3) fidelity to tradition and/or innovative excellence.

2. MIXOLOGY: The quality of 1) drink preparation and "pour"; 2) presentation; and 3) adherence to hand-crafted excellence.

3. BARTENDER: 1) Professionalism; 2) skills; and 3) personality and style of the bar staff and how they contribute to the drink preparation and the bar's ambiance.

4. DECOR/EXPERIENCE: From the bar's interior to the ambiance to the service of all staff, we evaluated the bar for the overall experience it provides. (For very casual places, where ambiance and service are beside the point, panelists judged how appropriate the surroundings were for the drinks being served.)

5. CUISINE: While not a requirement to make the list, The Daily Meal wishes to recognize bars that offer an exceptional food menu in addition to drink menu. From innovative menu options and traditional regional cooking to modern international fare to plating/presentation to quality and taste, panelists evaluated the bar's cuisine according to 1) freshness; 2) flavor; 3) presentation; and 4) either fidelity to tradition or innovative excellence.

6. ESSENTIALS: Panelists voted for the bars considered "don't miss" establishments, definitive of their city or region. (Think in these terms: You can't leave [given city/region] without drinking at...)Nikka Coffey Gin hails from an elite Japanese whiskey distillery in Sendai on the island of Honshu. The Miyagikyo distillery, established in 1969, is the second of the Nikka distilleries. Equipped with three types of stills, the artisans distill the spirit in three parts and then blend them later, an elaborate process that helps get the most flavor and aroma out of all the ingredients. Corn and malt are distilled in Coffey stills, continuous column stills imported from Scotland, while a mix of Japanese citrus and apples goes through a hand-fed coal pot still. More traditional gin botanicals like juniper and coriander, plus the native sansho pepper, are extracted in a vacuum still.Joining other hunters in the vicinity of Hamburg Township, north of Ann Arbor and west of Detroit, Ward was one of the first to find some rocks. Chicagos Field Museum has a picture of him in a parka, on a frozen lake, pointing at the squash-ball-sized chunk of black that might as well be outlined in neon against the snow. This was two days after the mother rock broke apart upon entering Earths atmosphere."Most of them need to get a life," he told the New York Daily News. "Most of the response I have seen this morning -- there's been quite a few on our Facebook page, and none of it is radio people, none of it is local people in Mississippi. It's all originating from some Taylor Swift fan group somewhere. They're telling people to go to this station's Web page and post negative comments."Ms. Daniels, you probably recall, is the woman who reportedly received $130,000 in hush money from Trump just before the 2016 election to keep her from talking about the affair she allegedly had with him, a liaison that she had already talked about years earlier in an interview with In Touch that was not quashed.The Hula Dog, a Hawaiian spin on an all-American favorite, is a handful, heavy on meat and condiments. At a food truck by the same name, we asked to have ours prepared the way locals like it. We were handed a mild Polish sausage inserted lengthwise into a purple-ish bacon-taro bun, dressed with roasted garlic-lemon-habanero sauce, mango relish and passion-fruit mustard. Though the spicy flavors of the condiments work well with Polish sausage, you might want to request that the server go easy on the passion-fruit mustard, which skews a little too sweet for the sausage.The company has suggested it could solve the problem in Vermilion County by capping the waste pits to prevent rain and snowmelt from washing coal ash into the water. But in November, Dynegy sent state regulators a report that estimated the normal flow of the Middle Fork is eroding the river banks by up to 3 feet a year, making it more likely the toxic slurry will be exposed below the proposed caps.City Pads purchased the 246-unit building in July and plans to turn it into 80 to 90 larger apartments. About 20 to 30 percent of the renovated units  16 to 27  will be considered affordable housing and could be available to current tenants, according to City Pads. Monthly rent is expected to range from $800 to $1,300. In November, City Pads told the Tribune the building would close in late spring or early summer, with construction expected to start in the fall.Montelongo graduated from New Mexico State University, where he was a triple major in biology, microbiology and Spanish, with two minors in chemistry and biochemistry. He earned a masters degree in biology, with a minor in molecular biology and was the first DACA student enrolled in the M.D.-Ph.D. program at Loyola University.In this June 13, 2012 photo, Asian carp jolted by an electric current from a research boat jump from the Illinois River near Havana, Ill. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said Jan. 31, 2018, an interstate partnership is being established to help strengthen defenses against invasive Asian carp in a Chicago-area waterway. (John Flesher / AP)Perez and his supporters are also preparing, if necessary, to file an appeal to the full panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit and have asked Gov. Bruce Rauner to grant a pardon to Perez for his criminal conviction, supporters said. If Rauner grants the pardon, its not clear how that might affect the deportation case.I do not believe she belongs in the criminal justice system, but here we are, Roe-Taylor said. What I know is that the traditional way weve handled this case hasnt been the most successful, so perhaps we need to look at it differently.Hayes disappeared after meeting with Coulter, of the 14800 block of Kenwood in Dolton, at the Starlight Hotel in South Holland, where he rented a room in January 2010, prosecutors said at the time he was charged. Hayes met with Coulter willingly, but sometime Jan. 24 or 25, he beat and strangled her and slashed her throat, prosecutors said.Lately theres been this idea that all free speech is good speech and that every side should be heard equally, but then were lending false equivalency to what could be very dangerous ideas, said Marijke M. Stoll, who earned two degrees from U. of C. in 2005 and 2006. This isnt a matter of disagreement over economic policy. We know which side is wrong; we know which side is morally and ethically repugnant.Rauner signed the bill into law last year after vetoing previous versions, and he has touted it as his No. 1 accomplishment. He also rewrote follow-up legislation, creating some uncertainty about school funding at least for a little while. Rauner's office has since declared having reached a "compromise" that "paved the way" for more schools to access a tax credit program.The governors heaping of praise on the state was aimed, at least in part, at critics who say hes been too publicly hard on Illinois and has jeopardized the states bid for Amazons second headquarters. Where the governor typically talks up the states political dysfunction and corruption, his tone Wednesday was more optimistic as he tried to square his record over the past three years with where Illinois stands today.Pritzker, who has put more than $42 million of his own money into his campaign, also contended Biss was a creature of special interests during his time in Springfield. Biss shot back that his campaign was being funded by low-dollar donations and said he would happily accept a contribution from you the day after the primary.He doesn't want to be judged on what he said he was going to get done and what he failed to get done, Ives said Monday after the joint appearance. He's had three years to lead and to get something done, and he doesn't want to be reminded of his record.CIA Director Mike Pompeo listens to a question during and event on intelligence issues at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 23, 2018. (Susan Walsh / AP)Cha, an academic who served in the George W. Bush administration, also told NSC officials he objected to the administration's threats to tear up a bilateral trade deal with Seoul that Trump has called unfair to American companies. The administration last week imposed new tariffs on imports of washing machines and solar energy panels, a move criticized by the South Korean government.The act of writing checks, however  it is if not exactly soothing then grounding in a very active sense. Partly, this has to do with the familiarity of the gesture; I have been paying bills in just this fashion for nearly 40 years now, since the first time I ever lived on my own.In his address, Trump spoke of signing a major tax reform package into law and cutting the regulatory burdens on business to spur growth and job gains. Hes also made diplomatic efforts to contain North Korea that are urgent and pragmatic. He talked tough on Iran but did not abrogate the nuclear deal. On immigration hes sent confused signals about whether hed support a deal to allow the young immigrants known as the Dreamers to stay in the country. During his speech he reiterated interest in a four-pillar agreement: a path to citizenship for 1.8 million immigrants; border security, a wall included; an emphasis on merit in migration policy; and restrictions on admission for extended family members. We disagree with some of those elements, but we do want the president and Congress to strike a deal. We dont know whether Trump is up to the challenge.Turkeys position is clear and remains unchanged. The Syrian Kurdish political group PYD and its armed wing, YPG, are, in fact, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and they do not represent the Syrian Kurds. We know it, and the U.S. knows it. PKK is an outlawed terrorist organization in the eyes of Turkey, the U.S. and the EU. It is so heartbreaking and disappointing to see Turkeys NATO ally rebrand these terrorist groups so that it could provide them weapons."The design commission was told by (Ward) that they could not consider the building's variances or if the design was compatible with the neighborhood, but that they had to make a decision by looking at the architecture of this building in a bubble," said resident Keith Allen, who is among the many residents opposed to the project.Between Jan. 27, 2011, and May 31, 2014, Dominquez sexually assaulted the victim, whom he knew, according to a press release from the Kane County State's Attorney's Office. The victim was younger than 17 years old.Meyers began as an officer with the department in 1985 and was promoted to sergeant in 1988. He served as detective sergeant from 1999 to 2006. In 2006, he was promoted to the newly-created position of deputy chief, which was designed to provide an additional high-level supervisory position within the department.On the evening of the shooting, at about 6:15 p.m., Steve Spurling  who was a St. Charles District 303 School Board member at the time  and his wife were out for a walk with their dog. Suddenly, there was a banging noise. They looked to their right and saw a garage door starting to open. A woman tumbled out, somewhat rolling or crawling, as they described it. They could see blood on her face.In the aftermath of the planes falling from the sky, America and the world were introduced to an array of personalities. Some we had known well, but came to see in different ways. Others were thrown into public consciousness by unhappy happenstance. Some, like Osama bin Laden and Mullah Mohammad Omar, are dead. But others have gone on to lead lives that are postscripts to Sept. 11, 2001. Here are a few of the boldface names of that tumultuous time  what they were then, and what has happened to them since.In a recent lawsuit that initially was filed in Lake County, attorneys representing Barrington said the village is suing Xan Systems and Stanislaw Kacki, who operated the semitrailer, seeking to recoup costs to replace firefighting gear and equipment that was "rendered unusable and without value" because of the material that spilled from the semitrailer.Superintendent Kerry Foderaro declined to answer questions about the new system or the process to introduce it. No information is listed about new report cards on the district's website or in general newsletters for the past two years. The only mention of it in school board minutes is when Cameli raised his concerns at a Dec. 16 meeting.About 11:30 p.m., police responded to a call of multiple gunshots near 26th Street and Clarence Avenue. When officers arrived, they found a 25-year-old man and a 24-year-old woman, both of Chicago, inside a vehicle. The woman was shot once in the mouth, and the man was shot multiple times, police said.She wrote that since the assault, which took place the morning of July 25, 2016, in the bedroom of her Harvard home, she can barely sleep at night, is afraid to be alone and trusts no one.The driver of a semitractor-trailer was killed Tuesday after his 2013 Peterbilt truck rolled over a concrete barrier on the right shoulder of the ramp at Interstate 355 that leads to eastbound Interstate 80 in New Lenox , according to Illinois State Police.In December, the board passed a resolution supporting the removal of Carr as board president, citing 12 administrative charges of "misconduct and performance deficiencies," that had been investigated and sustained by Petrungaro. She was officially stripped of the board presidency by a 4-3 vote at the Jan. 11 meeting, and filed suit challenging the legality of the board's action two weeks later.The board initially planned to expand and improve the Jackson Branch plant a few years ago, and in September 2015 it increased the sewer rates to finance that, according to board meeting minutes. Those improvements were not done but the rates to cover sewer debt increased from $7 to $11.19 per month, and the sewer rate, based on volume of water used, went up from $5.01 to $7.87 per 1,000 gallons."Very quickly in my career, I had to make a crucial decision  to remain a pilot or to move into business and leadership," Horton said in the news release. "Both were passions, but I saw that there is an immense opportunity in the business."A referendum question filed by state Rep. Allen Skillicorn, R-East Dundee, ask voters whether the village should "cease to be a home rule unit." If successful, all home rule powers the village currently has will be eliminated.In the IRS scams, the caller claims the person contacted must immediately pay an amount of money or risk going to jail. They might ask for a cashier's check to be mailed or money wired. The caller also frequently asks for gift cards. Aschenbrenner assured her audience that the IRS would not call, or even email, but make initial contact by mail, and never ask for money to be paid right away, much less for gift cards.The panelists agreed that often a person's first exposure to opioids is at home after dental or other types of surgery. Senglaub recommends keeping drugs locked up while they're being used and then disposing of them immediately after the patient recovers. This prevents them from being abused later by someone else, she said.Board member Lori Linkimer said she was not ready to make a decision on whether one school or two would be shuttered in the fall. That said, "we have too many seats that do not have children in them. We are going to have to do something. We cannot go on like this year after year after year.""We are certainly concerned about any eviction where occupants are in any way vulnerable and will not conduct enforcement until our social services staff are assured that those occupants' needs are addressed to the best of our ability," said Ansari."We have never owned as a country the damage done not only to people who were enslaved, but to future generations in which they were treated," Cupich said in an interview after his speech. "I think that has damaged the future of many African-American people. Some have risen above it quite nobly, but it has impacted generations and we have to be able to own that as part of the past."Yet it's apparent they don't have the bodies to fill those vacancies. Gov. Scott Walker's crew in Madison must be panicking figuring out where the state is going to come up with 13,000 workers when the Foxconn Technology Group's flat-screen facility opens in Mt. Pleasant, about 20 miles north of Wadsworth. That's a heavy quota to make unless the governor and his minions look south to Lake County and Chicago."What we do is a total immersion in the Mojo experience," he said. "The audience is the biggest part of the show. If your readers go online and look at the concert video we shot at McAninch in 2012, which was our last visit there, they will see the sheer pandemonium and excitement and adventure in the Mojo and the Bayou Gypsies experience. When people look at the stage, it's very difficult for them to figure out who the musicians are and who the audience is because everybody is in the show from the first note to the last note.""In Oak Park, there's no end to the draw of architecture and historical sights. We wanted to highlight another draw for tourists and residents alike," said Kevin Kilbride, marketing and social media manager for Visit Oak Park, which is producing the event. "We're trying to make a push for people to take advantage of the wide range of things that are going around here without the price tag."Employers looking to recruit prospective interns or employees are invited to the Purdue University Northwest (PNW) Spring Career Expo, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Feb. 16 in the James B. Dworkin Student Services and Activities Complex on the Westville Campus, 1401 South US 421. Admission is free to individuals looking for full-time and part-time employment opportunities, as well as internships. Limited spaces are available for businesses. Registration is open until Friday at www.pnw.edu/career-center/careerexpoemployer. PNW alumni and students are encouraged to attend and register for VIP entry to the event at www.HirePNWPride.com. PNW students should bring their university ID. Business professional attire is recommended. Individuals also should bring multiple copies of their resume. More information and registration is at www.pnw.edu/career-center/careerexpo or at 219-989-2600."We want what's right for the kids and at the end of the day, that's here," he said. "It has to be more than a matter of convenience," he said of the relocation. Jackson said there needs to be a well-thought out plan.Thanks to the Palomas Mensajeras program, which coordinates tourist visas for elderly family members from Michoacan to see family in Chicago, the abuelitos arrived to embrace and kiss Juan, 37, and two of his brothers and meet their grandchildren for the first time after more than 20 years apart.By Paul Dwyer, Director, Head of International Tax and Transfer Pricing

On December 29, 2017, the Inland Revenue (Amendment) (No. 7) Bill 2017 (Profits Tax Bill) was gazetted in Hong Kong, thereby introducing a two-tiered profits tax rate regime to the city.

The key objectives of the Profits Tax Bill are to maintain a competitive taxation system to promote economic development, while maintaining a simple and low tax regime.

The introduction of the two-tiered profits tax regime will reduce the overall tax burden on enterprises, especially for small and medium enterprises, and boost Hong Kongs status as a preferred investment jurisdiction in Asia.

RELATED: Hong Kong BEPs Bill: New Transfer Pricing Regime to Regulate Documentation

Overview of the Profits Tax Bill

The Profits Tax Bill introduces a two-tiered profits tax regime to Hong Kong, which will apply to both corporations and unincorporated businesses commencing from the year of assessment 2018/19 (i.e., on or after April 1, 2018).

Before the Profits Tax Bill, profits earned by a corporation were taxed at a standard rate of 16.5 percent, while profits earned by unincorporated businesses were taxed at a standard rate of 15 percent.

With the introduction of the Profits Tax Bill, the first HK$2 million (US$256,000) of profits earned by a corporation will be taxed at 8.25 percent  half the current tax rate. The remaining profits will continue to be taxed at the existing 16.5 percent tax rate.

For unincorporated businesses, the first HK$2 million of profits earned will be taxed at 7.5 percent  also half the current tax rate. The remaining profits thereafter will be taxed at the existing 15 percent tax rate.

In order to avoid double benefits, enterprises that already benefit from preferential tax regimes such as the corporate treasury center regime, aircraft leasing regime, etc. shall be excluded from the two-tiered profits tax regime.

Additionally, the assessable profits for sums received by or accrued to holders of qualifying debt instruments as interest, gains, or profits shall be excluded, as these should already be taxed at half the rate (8.25 percent or 7.5 percent, as the case may be).

There will be a specific measure to prevent corporate activities from being divided amongst a large number of group companies who could benefit from the lower tax rate. Each corporate group will need to select one group company to benefit from the preferential profits tax rate.

Tax Compliance Services from Dezan Shira & Associates

A competitive tax environment

According to the Hong Kong government, the two-tiered profits tax system will save corporations up to HK$165,000 per year (US$21,100), and unincorporated business up to HK$150,000 (US$19,180) per year. Given the current commercial and practical difficulties of doing business in Hong Kong, such as opening a corporate bank account, and in light of alternative low-tax jurisdictions like Singapore, the proposed two-tiered profits tax system is a much-needed step to ensure that Hong Kong remains an attractive and competitive investment destination.

From 2006 to 2017, the average corporate tax rate in Asia fell from 29 percent to 21 percent, thereby reducing Hong Kongs comparative tax advantages. Meanwhile, economic development and liberalizations in mainland China and the rise of ASEAN as an investment destination have also affected Hong Kongs relative strengths.

The Profits Tax Bill, together with other recently finalized measures such as the ASEAN-Hong Kong Free Trade Agreement and Hong Kong-India Double Tax Avoidance Agreement, reinforce Hong Kongs reputation as a competitive tax environment and management hub, and should offer a jolt to the citys economy.



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Dezan Shira & Associates is a pan-Asia, multi-disciplinary professional services firm, providing legal, tax and operational advisory to international corporate investors. Operational throughout China, ASEAN and India, our mission is to guide foreign companies through Asias complex regulatory environment and assist them with all aspects of establishing, maintaining and growing their business operations in the region. This brochure provides an overview of the services and expertise Dezan Shira & Associates can provide.

An Introduction to Doing Business in China 2017

This Dezan Shira & Associates 2017 China guide provides a comprehensive background and details of all aspects of setting up and operating an American business in China, including due diligence and compliance issues, IP protection, corporate establishment options, calculating tax liabilities, as well as discussing on-going operational issues such as managing bookkeeping, accounts, banking, HR, Payroll, annual license renewals, audit, FCPA compliance and consolidation with US standards and Head Office reporting.

China Industries Outlook 2018

In this issue of China Briefing magazine, we analyze macro-level foreign investment trends into China, and how the high-tech sector stands out above others. We then shift our focus to Chinas healthcare sector in the context of policy reforms and demographic changes. We also examine how to invest in Chinas education industry and how Chinas war on pollution introduces new opportunities for foreign investors.

Dezan Shira & AssociatesXu Beihong (1895-1953)'s paintings best indicate his personality: patriotic, righteous, diligent and humanistic. The painter who hailed from rural Yixing, Jiangsu province, started from scratch and worked hard to carve a niche in the art world.

He learned the basics of classic Chinese ink painting from his father, Xu Dazhang, a private school teacher who was adept at painting, calligraphy and writing. After his father died, Xu mostly taught himself the oil painting, while he taught at primary schools in hometown.

He left his teaching job for Shanghai in 1915, and made a living drawing illustrations and commercial ads. His artistic talent was later recognized by established artists and social figures, including Kang Youwei and Cai Yuanpei.

He won a scholarship to study at the prestigious National High School of Fine Arts in Paris in 1919. He studied and traveled in Europe for almost a decade. He was greatly nurtured by the classic traditions of European art and culture, incorporating these elements into his renovation of traditional Chinese ink painting.

Xu lived most of his life during a chaotic time when his motherland experienced wars and his fellow Chinese suffered poverty, illness and social instability. In his paintings, he depicted the pains of his nation and people while encouraging others to stand against these difficulties and never give up.

The ongoing exhibition at the National Art Museum of China, Nation and Era, shows more than 100 representative works in Xu's oeuvre, on loan from the Xu Beihong Memorial Hall in Beijing.

It's a rare opportunity to see Xu's major paintings on display together, including the following five, which are considered iconic works of modern Chinese art:

The theme is drawn from Shiji, or Records of the Grand Historian. Tian Heng is a nobleman of the Kingdom of Qi who cut his own throat to save his followers from being slaughtered by Liu Bang, the founder of the Han Dynasty. Hearing his death, Tian's followers committed mass suicide out of loyalty. It took Xu three years to complete the four-meter-long painting, in which he hailed integrity and an unyielding spirit.China has asked the European Union to reconsider proposed supervision rules that require non-EU financial institutions with assets of 30 billion euros or above to set up parent holding companies, a central bank statement said Tuesday.





The European Commission, the executive of the EU, proposed in November 2016 that certain non-EU financial institutions above the threshold consolidate their EU activities under holding structures called intermediate parent undertakings (IPUs), which would mirror similar regulatory moves in the United States.





In a joint letter issued by the People's Bank of China and China Banking Regulatory Commission in response to the latest suggestions by the Council of the EU in November with regards to IPUs, China reminded the EU authorities that Chinese authorities have not set up IPU requirements in this respect yet.





The 30 billion euro threshold was too low, in contrast to the U.S. threshold of 50 billion U.S. dollars and also excluded banks in a statistical range, the joint letter said, noting that the high cost in meeting the requirements may outweigh supervision results.





The letter asked the European authorities not to include the total assets of branches at non-EU financial institutions in their calculations on the setting-up of an IPU and not to include subsidiary banks into the IPU framework, since the moves were considered unnecessary for the time being.





"China has signed multiple memorandum of understanding on cooperation with many EU countries and held joint meetings to strengthen supervision cooperation with these countries and to ensured sound and stable run of branches of Chinese banks within EU jurisdiction," the statement said.



Xi Jinping was elected deputy to the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) by a unanimous vote at the first session of the 13th regional people's congress of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Tuesday.

Xi was nominated by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) as a candidate for deputy to the 13th NPC, which was put to a vote at the regional congress.

The announcement of Xi's unanimous election won thunderous applause at the session.

Xi was among 58 deputies elected to the new NPC at the regional congress on Tuesday afternoon.

The unanimous vote for Xi by more than 500 deputies to the regional people's congress represents the heartfelt aspiration of more than 25 million residents in Inner Mongolia, the deputies said.

It is also a vivid demonstration of the loyalty to the core of the CPC and support of the people's leader by more than 1.3 billion Chinese from various ethnic groups, according to the deputies.

The 13th NPC will open its first annual session in Beijing on March 5.

Inner Mongolia

Spanning across northern China, Inner Mongolia connects eight provincial regions, borders Russia and Mongolia, and is home to 55 ethnic groups.

Deputies said Xi's election in an ethnic minority border region showed a new ethos of the CPC Central Committee: maintaining a close tie with the people, advancing poverty alleviation, pushing for the Belt and Road Initiative and other key state programs.

"It [Xi's election] is a great honor for people in Inner Mongolia," a deputy said. "The Party Central Committee places great trust on us and cares so much about border and ethnic regions. We are motivated."

Some deputies recalled Xi's interaction with Inner Mongolia over the past few years.

In January 2014, Xi came for a work inspection.

"Braving severe cold on the prairie, he visited herders and poor families. I feel Xi has always been with us -- the ordinary people," said Hongyu, an ethnic Mongolian herder in Hulunbuir.

"I am extremely excited that Xi was unanimously elected here," said Sun Ming, a village Party chief. "Xi has asked us to build Inner Mongolia into an ecological safety barrier in northern China and so we should work -- preserving our forests to leave our children a beautiful homeland."

Tuya, a theatrical performer from the city of Ulanqab, recalled another episode of interaction with Xi.

Last November Xi wrote a letter to a troupe of Ulan Muqir (Red Bud Troupe), calling on them to promote literary and artistic innovation and continue producing excellent works.

Ulan Muqir is the Mongolian name for a traveling troupe that goes from one grazing site to another, performing for the herdsmen in some of the most remote areas.

"Xi urged the troupe to be a 'red literal cavalry' on the prairie. We are inspired and will work hard to send the Party's voices and care to the people," Tuya said.

New dawn

Inner Mongolia has made great strides since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012.

The industrial structure is no longer over-reliant on coal, and is supported by various industries. Tourism witnessed a boom. The urbanization rate has surpassed 60 percent.

As of August 2017, 1.41 million people had been lifted out of poverty over the past five years, and basic medical insurance covered 98 percent of people from both urban and rural areas.

Deputies said that at the dawn of a new era, Inner Mongolia had embarked on a new development journey of poverty-reduction, economic transformation and green development.

They said it was "high time to march on under the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and work hard to realize the great Chinese dream and build a shiny Inner Mongolia."The 13th National People's Congress (NPC) will hold its first annual session in Beijing on March 5 to discuss the Constitution revision, according to a decision made by the 12th NPC Standing Committee Tuesday.





The NPC deputies will also elect state leaders and confirm nomination of state leaders, according to the decision adopted via a vote at an NPC Standing Committee session held on Monday and Tuesday.





The agenda of the session includes reviewing the government work report, examining reports on the implementation of the annual plan on national economic and social development in 2017 and the draft plan on national economic and social development in 2018, and examining reports on the implementation of the central and local budgets in 2017 and the draft central and local budgets in 2018.





NPC deputies will deliberate a draft revision to the Constitution, a draft law on supervision, and the work reports of the NPC Standing Committee, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate, according to the decision.





The motion to review a draft revision to the Constitution and the draft itself were passed unanimously by the NPC Standing Committee via a vote, said Zhang Dejiang, chairman of the 12th NPC Standing Committee, at the closing meeting of the NPC Standing Committee session.





"The draft revision has incorporated major theoretical achievements, principles and policies adopted at the 19th Communist Party of China National Congress, particularly Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era," Zhang said.





He urged the NPC Standing Committee to fulfill duties bestowed by the Constitution and law, work for a better socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics and enhance supervision on the implementation of the Constitution and law.





The priorities of the 12th NPC Standing Committee next month will be examining qualification of the 13th NPC deputies, assisting them to perform their legal duties, stepping up preparation for the annual session and preparing for a smooth transition to the 13th NPC Standing Committee, which will be elected at the annual session in March.





The NPC Standing Committee also appointed five officials and dismissed one.





Before the closing meeting, Zhang also presided over a meeting of the chairman and vice chairpersons.





The NPC is the highest institution through which the Chinese people exercise their state power. Elected for a term of five years, it normally meets at an annual session and is convened by its Standing Committee.





The first NPC was convened in 1954, marking the establishment of the people's congress system in China.



China's first X-ray astronomical satellite was formally put into service on Tuesday, according to the China National Space Administration.

The Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT), dubbed "Insight," is designed to help scientists better understand the evolution of black holes and the strong magnetic fields and interiors of pulsars.

Through the 2.5-tonne telescope, scientists will also study how to use pulsars for spacecraft navigation, as well as search for gamma-ray bursts corresponding to gravitational waves.

A scientific committee has been established to facilitate international cooperation through the use of Insight. Data from the satellite is said to be open to scientists from around the world.

Insight was sent into orbit in June, 2017.

During its testing, the satellite made an important contribution to gravitational wave astronomy, by setting a strict upper limit on electromagnetic radiation produced during the discovery of the gravitational wave event GW170817, which was announced on October 16, 2017 by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the European Gravitational Observatory Virgo.

The event drew world attention as it was thought to have been created by the merging of two neutron stars, compared with four previous gravitational wave events caused by the merging of black holes, according to a report released by Chinese Academy of Sciences.Chinese research vessel, Ocean No. 6, on Tuesday finished a 219-day deep sea scientific exploration in the western Pacific Ocean and returned to the city of Dongguan in Guangdong Province.

He Gaowen, chief scientist on board the ship, said the researchers sailed nearly 53,000 km and used a comprehensive geological and geophysical survey method to collect geological sampling from 269 survey stations and environmental sampling from 111 survey stations.

The researchers have obtained 10,143 km of geophysical line data from four research areas within a 200,000 square kilometers sea area in the western Pacific Ocean, which has helped lay the foundation for future resource evaluation, He said.

Wang Yan, deputy director of China Geological Survey Bureau, said the research undertaken by Ocean No. 6 has accumulated valuable experience in conducting comprehensive geological, geophysical, and environmental survey operations in the deep ocean.The risk of the ongoing plague being transmitted from Madagascar to China will rise as large numbers of Chinese workers return from the African country for the Spring Festival holiday, which this year falls in mid-February, authorities said on Tuesday.

China's port authorities have been closely monitoring the plague in Madagascar and have taken measures to prevent the disease from entering the country. So far, no case has been reported in China, according to the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

However, the authority warned that the risks could be rising since the plague is continuing to spread in the Indian Ocean nation.

A plague, mainly pneumonic, broke out in Madagascar in August, and 2,603 cases were reported as of Jan 7, according to data shared by the administration and the World Health Organization. A total of 225 fatalities have been reported.

The WHO predicted that the plague will continue until April.

"About 100,000 Chinese laborers and other overseas Chinese are in Madagascar, and many of them will come back for Chinese New Year next month, which will make the risk much higher," the administration said. "The authority has called on experts to evaluate the situation and has taken multiple measures to fight the plague."

The authority ordered exit-entry inspection and quarantine authorities across the nation to join efforts on disease prevention and control.

Port authorities have intensified health inspections on people and cargo from areas affected by the plague, taking steps such as measuring body temperature and sterilizing containers and parcels from these areas, the administration said.

Between Oct 9 and Jan 22, the authorities examined 4,203 people who entered the country from Madagascar, 3,763 of whom arrived via direct flights. Three were found with fevers that proved to be pernicious malaria after lab tests.

Cases of the plague have been reported in big cities in Madagascar and the highly communicable disease may spread globally. The WHO has specified nine countries and regions, including South Africa, Mozambique and Kenya, as having high risks of getting infected, the administration said.China's ban on the sale and processing of ivory, which came into force on Dec 31, has already begun to have an effect on businesses in the sector.

At the end of last year, the Guangzhou Daxin Ivory Carving Factory in Guangdong province employed 30 ivory carvers, but 18 were made redundant earlier this month, leaving just 12 full-time employees.

The factory is one of about 150 ivory processing and retailing facilities in the Chinese mainland that were ordered to cease operations by the end of last year.

The remaining members of staff have no work to do, but they will stay on the payroll, earning a fraction of their previous wage, until other jobs can be found for them.

The international community has hailed the ban as a move that could help to eradicate poaching and reverse the decline in the number of African elephants in the wild, estimated to be between 450,000 and 700,000. The tusks of African elephants are longer and more workable than those of their Asian counterparts, and therefore more valuable.

However, despite the ban, problems and challenges still exist.

Family death knell

Weng Zhanxuan, a sixth-generation ivory carver in Guangzhou, is one of the few remaining "employees" at the Guangzhou Daxin Ivory Carving Factory, but he is no longer allowed to use his skills.

Weng's family has been making ivory balls for about 200 years.

The balls, which feature several rotatable internal layers, are carved from a single piece of ivory, and both Weng's father and grandfather are revered as national arts and crafts masters.

The family regards the ivory ban as a personal death sentence.

"For a long time, my family has earned a humble living by carving ivory balls. We strongly believe in passing on our skills, but now we can only see the end of the line," Weng said.

"We don't know what will happen in the future, and no work can be done at the factory. Having nothing to do makes us feel even worse. The factory pays us 1,600 yuan ($250) a month, which is barely a living wage in Guangzhou."

As a result, the 25-year-old plans to make a new start in Hong Kong, just an hour by bus from his home.

In July, Hong Kong's Legislative Council announced a bill that would ban the ivory trade in 2021, but a final decision has yet to be made. That means the trade will continue in the city for at least three more years.

Inactive sector

However, while Weng believes Hong Kong will provide a period of grace for craftsmen from the mainland, many experts and market researchers are less optimistic.

The Hong Kong Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department conducted a survey of the city's ivory trade between February and April 2016.

The results revealed that the local ivory trade is effectively inactive because approximately 90 percent of the city's reserves were purchased before 1990 and the last ivory transaction happened in 2011.

In 2016, the Hong Kong government announced that it would reduce the sale and processing of ivory, aiming to end the trade completely within five years.

Since then, the price of tusks has fallen from tens of thousands of Hong Kong dollars per kilogram to less than HK$10,000 ($1,279), according to Pong Tat-lei, a local trader.

"The mainland ban is hitting Hong Kong's ivory traders hard because most of our clients come from the other side of the border," he said.

"If the government maintains this approach and refuses to compensate legitimate retailers, it may boost the illegal cross-border trade because sellers will have to dispose of their stockpiles."

According to Li Xiaojia, a senior communications officer for the Beijing office of TRAFFIC, an NGO that monitors the trade in wildlife, the possible ban in Hong Kong and heightened awareness of elephant protection programs have resulted in the city's ivory market shrinking.

A report published in 2015 by the NGO Save the Elephants indicated that more than 30,000 products were registered in Hong Kong's ivory market, making the city the biggest trading center in the world.

Moreover, a report published by the World Wide Fund for Nature showed that the Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department impounded 33 metric tons of illicit ivory between 2000 and 2013.

"Hong Kong is a center for both ivory consumption and trading, but its role as a transition port for the international trade is overwhelming compared with its own scale of consumption," Li said.

"I think the time difference between the bans is unlikely to result in significant growth of the legitimate trade in ivory. However, we really need to keep an eye out for a possible rise in illegal trading from the mainland to Hong Kong."

Potential sales increase

Recent research commissioned by WWF and TRAFFIC found that 25 percent of regular mainland visitors to Hong Kong would still buy ivory even if the trade is banned in 2021.

"Ivory is no longer readily available in the mainland, and that has the potential to increase sales across Asia, including in Hong Kong, which is the place Chinese people visit most and a favorite destination to buy luxury goods," said Gavin Edwards, conservation director of WWF's Hong Kong bureau.

He added that until a complete ban is in place, it is imperative that the Hong Kong government and ivory traders inform visitors from the mainland that it is illegal to transport ivory across the border without a permit. However, many traders ignore that fact and mislead customers who want to take ivory back to the mainland.

"Moreover, they also offer customers smuggling tips. Stronger enforcement is needed by the government to ensure that ivory traders operate within the law," he said.

According to a survey conducted by WWF and TRAFFIC in 2015-16, about 60 percent of ivory retailers in Hong Kong did not have the requisite certificates issued by the government, while 36 percent admitted misleading customers about the legality of transporting ivory to the mainland or overseas.

Rising trade online

"In addition to the possible illegal trade in store, we must pay greater attention to a new trend - the rise in the illegal trade in wildlife on social media and other internet platforms," said Li, from TRAFFIC.

In July, TRAFFIC published a report about cybercrime and wildlife in China.

By monitoring 58 social media accounts, the NGO discovered that the country's e-commerce platforms have become major channels for the sale of illegal wildlife products, with more than half of the trade related to ivory.

In November, several internet giants banded together to form the country's first alliance dedicated to combating the illegal trade online.

Started by Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, the alliance quickly attracted other members, including platforms such as Zhuanzhuan and 58.com, which specialize in secondhand items, and others that focus on antiques, such as Cang.com and Wenwantianxia.

The members have signed a commitment to detect and remove advertisements for illegal wildlife products on their platforms, along with warning the organizations concerned and preventing them from releasing more information.

They use advanced technologies, such as big data analysis and artificial intelligence, to detect illegal trading.

"We are training our employees to identify illegal wildlife products, and also raising their awareness of wildlife cybercrime," said Qin Qi, deputy director of Tecent's security management department.

"We also actively assist the law enforcement agencies in investigations and prosecutions, and support other industries, particularly the logistics industry, to combat the illegal trade and raise operating costs to reduce the number of cases."

Other consequences

In addition to unintended consequences such as a potential rise in illegal trading, the ivory ban has brought hardship to some employees in the sector.

During its heyday, between the 1960s and '80s, the Beijing Ivory Carving Factory, one of the country's largest ivory processors, employed more than 800 people.

Now, the senior artisans have retired, and there are only 10 craftsmen left, all age 40 or younger. They have each spent a decade honing their skills.

Zhang Shulan, director of the sales department, said the company has not yet been informed whether the government will provide compensation for the business lost as a result of the ban.

She noted that the State Forestry Administration, which oversees the ivory trade, has encouraged craftsmen to work animal bones and other materials, but said their skills are not transferrable because of differences in carving techniques.

The company had planned to open an ivory museum and encourage its master carvers to pass on their skills by working on pieces designed for exhibitions, not sale.

However, the ban, which covers all forms of ivory processing, meant the project had to be abandoned, along with a planned purchase of mammoth tusks for the young carvers to work on.

"The price of mammoth tusks has soared dramatically in recent months as a result of the ivory ban. This is the hardest time for the ivory sector, and we are all waiting for supportive solutions from the government," Zhang said.Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, has called for the development of a modernized economy to push the country's economic development to a new level.

Xi made the remarks while presiding over the third group study of the Political Bureau of the 19th CPC Central Committee Tuesday.

"The whole Party must have a deep understanding of the importance and difficulty of developing a modernized economy and a good grasp of the goals and priorities of this task," Xi said.

He demanded Party members work to bring out new vitality of and elevate the country's economic development to a new level.

The general secretary called developing a modernized economy "a key subject in theory and practice, a strategic goal for the country's development, and an imperative for the shift of the development mode, economic structure, and growth momentum."

Only with a modernized economy can China better adapt to the trend of modernization, take initiative in international competition, and provide support for the modernization of other fields, Xi said.

The work to develop a modernized economy should be accelerated to ensure that China's goal of building a great modern socialist country is realized on schedule, he said.

Developing a modernized economy has become a catchphrase for China after Xi spoke of the goal at the 19th CPC National Congress in October last year.

The drive is part of a grand blueprint to build China into a great socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious and beautiful by the middle of the century.

Xi said the modernized economy should integrate all social and economic activities that are interrelated.

He outlined major systems that needed to be developed in an integrated manner.

An industrial system should be built with innovation playing a leading role and featuring coordinated development between the real economy, technological innovation, modern finance and human resources, Xi said.

A market system that is unified, open, competitive and well-ordered is needed, he said.

An efficient and fair income distribution system and a green development system that conserves resources and is environmentally friendly are also essential for a modernized economy, according to Xi.

Meanwhile, he demanded a system of coordinated urban-rural and regional development to help local regions develop their own strengths.

To develop an open economy of higher standards, Xi called for a diverse, balanced, secure and efficient system for opening up on all fronts.

He went on to stress giving full play to market forces and enhancing the role of the government so that the economy has more effective market mechanisms, dynamic micro-entities, and sound macro-regulation.

"The modernized economy we develop should draw on the useful practices of developed countries, but it should be more in line with China's own national conditions and feature Chinese characteristics," the general secretary said.

Xi singled out several fields that need to be worked on, including the development of the real economy, which he said provided a "solid foundation" for the modernized economy.

China should deepen its structural supply-side reform, develop advanced manufacturing industries, and make the real economy fully integrate with the internet, big data and artificial intelligence technology, according to Xi.

The real economy should be provided with more resources and favorable policies, he said.

Xi also demanded measures to accelerate innovation-driven development, which he described as a "strategic support" for the modernized economy.

He called for efforts to better implement regional development strategies and deepen institutional reform.

On developing an open economy, Xi said global resources and markets should be better utilized, noting that international cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative should be promoted.British Prime Minister Teresa May's first official visit to China from January 31 to February 2 could not have come at a better time. Her government is trying to re-orient its position and place after Brexit and hardly any country is better poised than China to offer U.K. an opportunity to bounce back with its true potential.





If bilateral trade volume offers any tangible idea to gauge the depth of ties and future prospects of relations, then Sino-U.K. relations are on the right track. The trade between the two in 2017 was recorded at $79 billion, 6.2 percent more than 2016. The good news for May is that U.K.'s exports to China went up by 19.4 percent.





The improvement came after President Xi Jinping visited Britain in 2015 and the two sides proclaimed the start of a "Golden Era" in their relations. It means more economic cooperation in line with Xi's principle of "win-win" solutions to all issues.





The increases in trade proves that the idea of a Golden Era is working to the benefit of both countries. Chinese Ambassador to Britain Liu Xiaoming said in a recent interview that more companies from China are looking towards Britain for business. He said over 500 Chinese enterprises set up offices in Britain and made investments of $21.8 billion in different projects.





Chinese investment is not just in traditional sectors but also in the nuclear field. Already Hinkley Point nuclear project is under construction with a third of its investment coming from China. It is a major undertaking and shows the extent of the increasing involvement by mainland companies in business activities in Britain.





The Golden Era is model of cooperation for other Western nations. May's trip will not only speed up economic activities but also inject new energy into the system. It will also help Britain to explore opportunities for extensive strategic and diplomatic cooperation.





The British government has come up with the idea of a "Global Britain" to overcome the gloom in the wake of Brexit. The decision by the British voters in favor of quitting the EU came as surprise for many, including the government with Prime Minister David Cameron resigning. Theresa May, as his successor, was tasked to negotiate the divorce and also set the country on a new course of development.





She has been facing bumps and hurdles as not only the major EU powers are making the divorce process painful and expensive, Britain has also experienced strains in its ties with U.S.  the traditional ally and supporter  after Donald Trump took office.





May met Trump on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos to materialize his working visit. The visit may create more trouble for the government of Theresa May than solving any of the problems, as there are strong sentiments in the country against Trump.





The unclear nature of business ties with the EU in post-Brexit years and uneasy political relations with Donald Trump has increased the strategic importance of May's visit to Beijing.





The British leader will also travel to Shanghai and Wuhan and also co-host the first bilateral annual prime ministerial meeting with her Chinese counterpart. Though May has already visited China to attend the G20 Summit held in Hangzhou in September 2016, it was quite different from the first official visit.





The two sides support the rule-based system of trade and also share a passion for globalization to strengthen the international arrangements for better and create more trade opportunities across the globe.





It brings President Xi's project of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which aims to link up Asia with Europe and Africa through commercial and economic bonds for a shared and prosperous future. Britain has already indicated support for the project, which would revive the old Silk Route and benefit millions of people.





British Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond last year attended the Belt and Road Forum and announced that Britain was a natural partner in the historic initiative. Ambassador Liu said in the interview that China and Britain are proposing a bilateral investment fund with the first round of $1 billion to support the BRI.





The ambassador also said that the British government recently pledged up to $33.3 billion worth of financial support for companies participating in the Belt and Road projects in Asia.





It shows the right atmosphere for the visit of the PM May who can contribute her share to broadening the existing cooperation between the two countries. She has an opportunity to strengthen not only the Golden Era but also the brand of Global Britain.





Sajjad Malik is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:





http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/SajjadMalik.htm





Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.Under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, China is advocating a new type of international relationship and endeavors to cultivating a "win-win" attitude to replace the old "zero sum" concept in world affairs.





Xi started to publicly elaborate on his vision from September 2015, when he gave an important speech at the UN General Assembly on the occasion of its 70th session. Focusing on the need for international cooperation, he presented a new objective: the building of a "community with a shared future for humanity."





In the view of the Chinese president, seven presuppositions are necessary for the achievement of this goal. The first is the establishment of partnerships in which countries treat each other as equals, engage in mutual consultation and show mutual understanding.





The second is the commitment to multilateralism on the basis of dialogue rather than confrontation. The third is a security framework featuring fairness, justice, joint contribution and shared benefits.





The fourth is the abandonment of a Cold War mentality and the fostering of a new vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security where the UN role will be central.





The fifth is the promotion of an open, innovative and inclusive development that benefits all.





The sixth is increased inter-civilization exchanges to promote harmony, inclusiveness and respect for differences. And the seventh is the building of an ecosystem giving priority to nature and green development.





In the aftermath of his landmark 2015 UN speech, Xi had the opportunity to further develop his vision in various public fora. In mid-January 2017 he was the keynote speaker at the Davos World Economic Forum and explained that the community of shared future should be a natural result in a world where countries have extensive converging interests and are mutually dependent.





Speaking at the U.N. Office in Geneva a few days later, he reiterated China's proposal of building a human community of a shared future respecting the principles of equality and sovereignty.





Last October, Xi also emphasized the importance of collaboration between China and other nations in promoting peace and development for all while presenting the new CPC central leadership to the press and laying down a roadmap until 2022.





At the beginning of December, he also passed on this message to numerous participants at the opening ceremony of CPC's Dialogue with world political parties in Beijing.





There are two main reasons why the resonance of Xi's global vision has proved so powerful. The first is its ambitious, but realistic content that can unite people of different cultural and religious backgrounds to seek a common target. And the second is its ongoing contradiction with the "America First" policy of President Donald Trump.





Trump attempted to persuade the world community meeting in Davos the other day that "America First does not mean America alone," but several questions remain unanswered and skepticism has not faded away.





In contrast, China again managed as the center of international attention during the 2018 World Economic Forum. One year after Xi's historic presence in the Swiss resort, Liu He drew a full house to his presentation. According to CNBS the impact of Xi's 2017 speech championing globalization still lingered.





Subsequently, the New York Times published a story entitled: "At Davos, the real star may have been China, not Trump." In so doing, the American newspaper concentrated on how leaders of other countries welcomed the Belt and Road Initiative and Chinese investment in general. Forbes magazine followed a similar approach in covering the Davos forum.





In a nutshell, China is gradually acquiring more supporters and followers as long as Xi is envisioning a shared future for humanity. It is perhaps not a coincidence that the theme of the 2018 Davos Forum was: "Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World."





The insistence on peace, prosperity, multilateralism and openness cannot but work in China's favor by inspiring the younger generation across the globe.





George N. Tzogopoulos is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/GeorgeNTzogopoulos.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn. Flash

Russia is still ready to mend ties with the United Statesdespite the prospect of new sanctions brought by Washington's newly released "Kremlin list," Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday.

The U.S. Treasury Department late Monday published a list of 114 Russian political figures and 96 business leaders widely seen as potential targets for new sanctions, although the document specifies that it should not be interpreted as a sanctions list.

"It is definitely an unfriendly act. It complicates Russia-U.S. relations, which are in a difficult situation even without this, and it also causes damage to the international relations in general," Putin said at a meeting with the trustees of his presidential campaign.

While underscoring that Russia cannot "surrender positions endlessly," the president said that Moscow is not interested in severing ties with Washington.

Instead, it wanted to develop stable relations with Washington based on international law and the two major nuclear powers are expected by their peoples to "build up their ties in a modern way with respect to each other," he said.

"We are not going to pick a fight and to aggravate the situation. We want and will be building relations patiently, as far as the other side is ready, the American side in this case," Putin said.

He said Moscow had expected the publication of the list and was ready to take steps in response, which "could drive our relations towards an absolute zero."

However, Russia would refrain from such steps for the time being and would attentively monitor the development of the situation, Putin said.

According to the Treasury, each figure in the "Kremlin report" has an estimated net worth of 1 billion U.S. dollars.

The document also has classified annexes, which include individuals with a lower official position or with a net worth below 1 billion dollars, as well as companies with state ownership of at least 25 percent and with 2016 revenues of 2 billion dollars or more. Flash

China and the African Union have dismissed a report in French newspaper Le Monde that alleged China was spying on the AU headquarters.

The French newspaper Le Monde said China had bugged the building it had built and gifted to the AU in 2012 and had been downloading data from servers in the building.

Former Deputy Chairperson of the African Union Commission Erastus Mwencha has denounced the report, saying the report is untrue for various reasons.

Chinese ambassador to Ethiopia Tan Jian says the timing of the article was suspicious.

"China and African countries are happy with their relationship but some people are not happy. Some people are not used to it. So they want to create some problems. As I said, the timing of the article was very interesting. It was published just one day before the summit. So I think that the story was intended for the African countries here and to attract the attention but I think they would not succeed."

African leaders, including Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn have also dismissed the French media report.

"There is nothing to be spied because China-Africa relationship is very strong and it is strategic, it is comprehensive, so there is nothing to spy and I don't believe that."

Kuang Weilin, head of the Chinese Mission to the African Union, calls the report sensational and preposterous.

"The tide of the times of a closer corporation between China and the African Union cannot be stopped and will not be stopped by this single sensational story by someone, by one newspaper. Things will move on and I am very confident that our relationship with the African Union will only be further enhanced."

According to Kuang, the AU headquarters is an important project donated by China to support the pan-African bloc.Editor's Note: This year marks the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening-up policy.

The credit card industry is emerging after a slow start since the Bank of China issued the first credit card in the country in 1985.

As of September, banks in China issued about 552 million credit cards, up 11 percent year-on-year, according to the People's Bank of China. It means an average of 0.36 per person - far below the 3.1 per head in the United States.General secretary unanimously selected as deputy

The People's Congress of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region elected Xi Jinping a deputy to the 13th National People's Congress with a unanimous vote on Tuesday.

Xi, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, was among the 58 deputies to the NPC elected by the 13th Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region's People's Congress. The NPC, China's top legislature, will convene on March 5 for its annual session.Govt and policies

Central bank wants EU to revise IPU threshold

China's central bank said on Tuesday it hoped European Union authorities would reconsider proposed rules on a threshold of 30 billion euros ($37.3 billion) needed to set up an Intermediate Parent Undertaking. It also asked the EU Council to reconsider its rules and not to include the total assets of branches at non-EU financial institutions in their calculations on the setting-up of an IPU. The joint letter, issued by the People's Bank of China and China Banking Regulatory Commission, was in response to suggestions from the EU Council in November.China-UK interests should be prime focus of May visit Updated: 2018-02-01 06:49 (HK Edition)

Chan Tak-leung hopes the UK's prime minister does not muddy waters between her and Xi with reference to non-existent erosion of freedoms within Hong Kong

The United Kingdom's Prime Minister Theresa May is on a three-day visit to China, along with business delegates from many sectors including financial, technology, automotive, food and drink, energy and infrastructure. With Brexit on the horizon and May seeking free trade deals with trading partners around the globe, one only hopes the visit will bring fruitful and positive benefits to both sides when she and the delegates meet Chinese political and business leaders during the trip.

The Chinese mainland is currently the world's second-largest economy and Britain is in sixth place. Strengthening bilateral trade with the mainland by narrowing Britain's current trade deficit will certainly boost the prime minister's position and her Brexit team's bargaining power when they negotiate trade deals with Britain's European Union counterparts in the months ahead. The last thing the prime minister and all Britons want to see is a bad deal from the EU as it will have a direct impact on her continuing premiership and the economic future of the nation.

A favorable outcome from this visit, however, will certainly boost her negotiating power with the EU and relieve pressure key nations such as Germany and France may put on her as they try their utmost to squeeze more from Britain in the impending divorce.

While in China May should also not turn herself into a hostage to fortune by heeding the advice of commentators on Hong Kong such as former governor Chris Patten or Paddy Ashdown and, for that matter, Benedict Rogers of the so-called Hong Kong Watch by raising issues surrounding the city. One would only hope her Foreign Office advisers and ambassador in China will give her insightful briefings on this occasion.

The current visit is the PM's first working visit to China but she was in the country for the G20 summit last year. The UK and China ushered in the "golden era" in 2015 after President Xi Jinping's state visit to Britain. One hopes both sides pick up speed from this visit - politically and economically - instead of wasting precious time, energy and worse still goodwill on what one can only describe as a misconstrued and misleading issue - Hong Kong.

As someone from Hong Kong and returned only recently from a visit to the special administrative region, one can assert with confidence that all is well with the SAR. It was business as usual unless of course you are someone who wants to advocate self-determination or independence at the expense of the "one country, two systems" principle and Basic Law which governs the SAR.

May speaking up over Hong Kong without any shred of evidence that freedom, democracy and rule of law have been eroded would create a major distraction from the visit's goals and could precipitate a diplomatic disaster for the PM, for she will walk into the minefield of challenging China's sovereignty over Hong Kong.

The likes of Patten and Ashdown might want to continue to play the role of patron saints to those who advocate self-rule and independence for Hong Kong under the guise of more democracy or more freedom for the SAR. Patten and Ashdown argued that Britain has an obligation to monitor "the protection of Hong Kong's freedom at least until 2047". Rogers claimed "it is vital to live up to its promise to the people of Hong Kong". He also cited the disqualification of Agnes Chow Ting as a Legislative Council candidate and the express rail terminus co-location issue as manifestations of the erosion of freedom and democracy in Hong Kong.

They are not illiterates so must be familiar with the governance arrangements for the SAR since 1997, yet have continued to challenge China's sovereignty under the "one country, two systems" policy and Basic Law. Why?

The Sino-British Joint Declaration was the document they believe would give them the continued tenuous link to meddle in the SAR's affairs. It was, however, explicitly clear in the document that "the government of the People's Republic of China declares to resume the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong with effect from the 1st of July 1997". It went on to state that the government of the UK will "restore" Hong Kong to the PRC on the same date. Furthermore Hong Kong was set up as an SAR under Article 31 of the Constitution of the PRC.

Both nations signed up to further memoranda relating to this historical declaration. Britain's one was related to the status of British Dependent Territories Citizens while China's was the Basic Law and all it entails. The Joint Declaration was made long ago and there were no clauses which stipulate Britain's responsibilities or monitoring role on Hong Kong after the handover.

Imagination? Hallucination? Or simply excuses to deploy the historical Joint Declaration as a tool to stir up anti-China sentiment, one can only guess. It is plain for all to see that Chow's Demosisto party adopted "self-determination" as its rallying call hence disqualification was justifiable. As for co-location, one believes that if the co-located partner is any other but the Chinese mainland, Rogers would gladly accept the proposed arrangements.

(HK Edition 02/01/2018 page8)U.S. Housing and Urban Development secretary Ben Carson has hit back at two atheist organizations that have sued him and his department over their participation in a Bible study in the White House held by members of President Donald Trump's Cabinet.

The lawsuit was filed by atheist groups Freedom From Religion Foundation and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington after HUD refused to waive the fees charged to them for their Freedom of Information Act requests. The two organizations wanted to know if the weekly Bible study in the White House used government resources and if any of the participants had been obligated into taking part in the gatherings, The Blaze detailed.

Aside from Carson, the other officials who joined the Bible studies are Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and Agriculture Secretary Sunny Perdue.

In response to FFRF and CREW's allegations, Carson posted a statement on Facebook denying the use of any taxpayer funds in the Bible study. He also defiantly declared that he would not be pressured by "anti-religious groups" that were allegedly pushing him to reject his religious beliefs.

"I will not stop being a Christian while in service to this country, in fact, it is my faith that helps me serve the nation even better," Carson's Facebook post said in part. "The relentless attacks on the spirituality of our nation must be resisted. We are not like everyone else, which is precisely the reason that we rose so rapidly from obscurity to become the most powerful and free nation in history."

Meanwhile, First Baptist Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress criticized the attacks on the Bible study in the White House. In a statement, he said these groups found the idea of having members of Trump's cabinet who believe and trust in God hard to accept, The Christian Post detailed.

Moreover, Dr. Jeffress asserted that government officials were not obligated to give up their right to the free exercise of religion. He said attacks such as the FFRF lawsuit were only attempts to silence their practice of their faith.home World Christian students in Kenya attacked with machetes for refusing to convert to Islam

Christian students at a high school in Nairobi, Kenya were allegedly attacked by Muslim students wielding knives and machetes after they refused to convert to Islam.

According to Morning Star News, the attack took place on Jan. 23 at Jamhuri High School, where tensions had been growing for weeks, with some Muslim students complaining of discrimination.

The boarding school had decided to designate separate bathrooms and library sections for Christians and Muslims due to the increasing hostilities, but violence erupted one night when Muslim students reportedly tried forcing Christians to recite the Islamic creed for conversion and take part in Muslim cleansing rituals.

"Some Muslim students forcefully tried to induct Christian students into their Islam faith, and those who refused were knifed, while others were physically beaten. The knives and machetes used are alleged to have come from outside the school," an unnamed source told Morning Star News.

At least 35 students were injured in the incident after the Christian students tried to defend themselves. The source noted that some Christian students were sent to the hospital for stab wounds and dislocated bones, and some of the Muslim students were also injured.

The school's principal, Fred Awuor, also received treatment at a hospital for injuries he sustained during the brawl. The school has been closed indefinitely as the authorities investigate the cause of the attack.

According to Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, some students complained of segregation based on religious beliefs and demanded equal treatment when it comes to religion, sharing of school facilities such as dining hall, library, and washrooms.

The school administration, however, refuted the claims and vowed to carry out thorough investigations into the violent clashes.

As of Wednesday, classes at the school has not resumed and security guards have reportedly received instructions not to let anyone enter the compound.

Kenyan Christians have suffered several attacks from radical Muslims in the past few years. In 2015, at least 148 people were killed at Garissa University when al-Shabaab militants specifically hunted down Christian students.

In July 2017, seven Christians were killed when the same group went on a door-to-door raid in villages in Kenya.

In one incident last May, a Muslim teacher reportedly tried to protect Christians from an attack by members of al-Shabaab.

One Christian teacher had already been killed when the group attacked Fafi Primary School in Fafi, but a Muslim teacher saved another Christian teacher by telling the militants that he was ready to die with his colleague.

"The al-Shabaab got angry, and told the teacher, 'We are going to teach you a lesson for protecting the infidels,' and immediately the two were carried away to an unknown destination," a source told Morning Star News at the time.home World Christians in Central African Republic continue to flee as violence heats up

Christians in the Central African Republic (CAR) are still fleeing to neighboring countries amid surging violence and political instability in the landlocked nation.

According to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the displacement of people are now at its highest level since the violence erupted in CAR In 2013.

"Data as of the end of December shows that 688,700 people were displaced internally a 60 per cent more than just a year ago," Adrian Edwards, UNHCR spokesperson, told reporters at a briefing in Geneva last week.

As many as 542,380 CAR refugees have fled to neighboring countries, a 12 percent increase from the previous year.

"For a country whose population is estimated at around 4.6 million, these two figures combined represent an astonishing level of suffering and people in need," Edwards added.

Yazinon Florence was one of many Christians who have fled to a camp for internally displaced people near Bangui M'Poko International Airport amid the conflict as she believed the French peacekeepers would protect her there.

"What alerted me were detonations and rocket launchers. I saw Muslim women slaughtering Christian women and their babies with sharp knives like animals. They even killed a pregnant woman in front of me," Florence told The Washington Times.

Florence's hope of being kept safe in the camp was dashed when the French peacekeepers left in 2016 and handed over their duties to the 13,700-strong "stabilization" mission, known as MINUSCA.

"Now we are abandoned in this neighborhood without any security and exposed to attacks from Muslims," said Kongbe Simone, who lost three of his 10 children during an attack on his Bangui neighborhood a few years ago.

The conflict began when the mainly Muslim SAlAka rebel coalition clashed with the predominately Christian anti-Balaka militia after then-president Francois Bozize was overthrown in 2013.

After President Faustin-Archange assumed power in 2016 during a lull in the fighting, his government offered $91 to displaced people at the airport camp and other IDP facilities to go home or find other housing.

Florence used the money to rent a small two-room house, but she said she cannot keep up with rent payments. She and her family are relying on food rations from aid workers and the vegetables that she grows on a vacant land.

"We also have to eat. It's really difficult. ... In the neighborhood where we used to live, the Fulani currently occupy our house," she recounted.

The Fulani, a Muslim ethnic group who have occupied homes evacuated by Christians, often clash with homeowners who have returned to reclaim their property.

Albert Kongbe, 18, said that one of his neighbors was attacked by the Fulani in August while attempting to reclaim his home in Yambassa, a district of Bangui.

A MINUSCA soldier from Cameroon who asked to remain anonymous noted that Kongbe's experience was quite common, noting that the situation in CAR is still "tense" and people are still "thirsty for revenge."

The UNHCR reported that more than 17,000 Central Africans have fled to Chad since the end of December due to the recent surge in violence. The latest figure was 10 times more than the number of Central Africans displaced during the whole of 2017, making it the biggest refugee influx since 2014.home World Italian Catholic Church follows France in changing wording of Lord's Prayer

The Italian bishops' conference has decided to change the wording of the Lord's Prayer in the translation of the Roman Missal, following the example of French Catholics who decided to make the change in early December.

The French Catholic Church had decided to change the line, "Lead us not into temptation," to the equivalent of "do not let us enter into temptation."

The issue garnered attention after Pope Francis discussed the Italian and English translations of the line with Fr. Marco Pozza, a Catholic prison chaplain, on Dec. 6 as part of a television series on the Lord's Prayer.

The pope expressed concern that the Italian and English translations may give believers the wrong impression that God leads people into temptation.

"I'm the one who falls. But it's not (God) who pushes me into temptation to see how I fall. No, a father does not do this. A father helps us up immediately," the pope told Pozza. "The one who leads us into temptation is Satan. That's Satan's job," he added.

When the Italian bishops' conference adopted a new Bible translation in 2008, they decided to use "do not abandon us in temptation," for the Lord's Prayer found in Matthew 6 and Luke 11. The change was also adopted in the Lectionary with the approval of the Vatican.

According to Catholic News Service, the conference has called for a meeting on Nov. 12a14 to discuss and approve the missal, which would use the new translation of the Lord's Prayer for Mass and other liturgical rites.

Cardinal Giuseppe Betori of Florence, a noted biblicist, said that the problem with the current version stems from the Italian verb "indurre," which he says "is not equivalent to the Latin 'inducere' or the Greek."

He noted that the Latin and Greek terms suggest a form of concession, while the Italian verb "is coercive, with English equivalents such as "induce," "inspire" or "persuade."

Meanwhile, Catholic bishops in Germany have decided to use the traditional wording of the prayer, following an in-depth study of the issue.

On Jan. 25, the German bishops' conference announced that it would keep using "And lead us not into temptation," saying there were strong "philosophical, exegetical, liturgical and, not least, ecumenical" reasons to leave the present wording unchanged.

The bishops' committee noted that the line in the prayer is not about persuading God to not tempt the faithful, but rather a recognition of one's own weakness and one's trust in God's guidance a that he does not lead people to make wrong decisions.

The Vatican had previously centralized the process of translating liturgical texts under Popes Jonh Paul II and Benedict XVI, but Francis recently allowed individual bishops' conferences greater leeway, making it appear unlikely that the German bishops' will be forced by Rome to adopt the changes to the prayer.A mistake costs. It costs confidence, pride, reputation and opportunity. There are consequences for the people involved, for those around them, and for the situation at hand.

Everyone makes mistakes; an impulsive word, a delayed diagnosis, a broken relationship. The Bible is full of those who made mistakes; decisions which led to lies, adultery, even murder.

Working in the medical field, I have made my own mistakes, and have also seen the aftermath of some big mistakes that I never want to make myself. Reading through the coroners reports, I often wonder how the people involved are coping. Do they blame themselves? Are they able to continue working, and living with the same confidence as before?

As I reflect on all this, I find my own perception of mistakes and their impact has changed a little. Here are some thoughts.

1. Redefining our mistakes

Sometimes in life, things just happen.

We could do everything as per protocol, and a patient might still die. Decisions need to be made all the time, and every decision has a consequence. Sometimes we know we have made the wrong decision, sometimes it is the right decision despite a tragic outcome, and sometimes we just dont know if our decision was right or wrong.

Ultimately, it is God who knows what is right and what is wrong, God who knows our heart, and God who will judge us at the end of time.

When we make a mistake, we might think we have failed, done something wrong, made someone unhappy. Yet, the Holy Spirit transforms our thinking in the revelation of God's grace. His grace in our mistakes means we can step above regret, tragedy, brokenness, and sin; we can draw closer to God even despite these things.

When we make a mistake, we are likely to feel down. However, our mistakes and our sin do not define us. They are not our identity. God redefines our mistakes when He shows us our identity; we are loved and redeemed by Him. With this knowledge, the negativity of a mistake becomes overshadowed by the peace of Gods loving-kindness:

" but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans chapter 5, verse 8).

2. When Gods grace meets our mistakes

When I first started working, I reviewed my decisions often. I felt my work was a necessary testimony and, if I was not a good doctor, how could I effectively share the gospel with others?

It is important to have a testimony of excellence and integrity in our lives, but at the same time, God can work through our mistakes. He is God in our failures, just as He is God in our victories. He is God in our weaknesses, even as He is God in our strengths; sometimes we build a testimony in the way we respond to our mistakes.

King David, when rebuked by the prophet Nathan for adultery and murder, acknowledged his sin saying, "I have sinned against the Lord." (2 Samuel chapter 12, verse 13). The consequence of this sin was the death of David and Bathshebas son. Despite the pain of this consequence, David resolved to worship God. He knew both Gods grace and His authority.

We see David become a man after God's own heart, and we see it written that God loved David. King David's response to his mistake was to acknowledge it, confess it, repent and seek God. In his story, we see how God can work even despite our mistakes. He is a merciful God and when we turn to Him, we find the hope in His grace.

3. Grace on the mistakes around us

It is not just our own mistakes that can cause our soul to become downcast; the mistakes of others can also affect us. A discouraging word perhaps, a stolen birthright, a betrayal of friendship; the Bible shows us stories of people sold into slavery (Joseph), sent into exile (Ishmael) and killed in battle (Uriah) because of the mistakes of others.

When someone makes a mistake that affects us, we can become angry and judgemental. It can be hard to have grace on that mistake. Joseph gives us an example of forgiveness when he speaks to the brothers who sold him into slavery. He says,

 Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God? But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good (Genesis 50:19-20).

Knowing that God is in control, and that His purposes are good, helps us to forgive. Recognising that God forgives us time and time again when we sin against Him, also helps us to forgive others. When we forgive, we allow our heart to heal. If we refuse to forgive, the grudge and resentment that grows within us can destroy us.

Our mistakes are not our identity, but an opportunity to see a transformation of character, of heart, and of hope in God. They are an opportunity to grow, an opportunity to forgive and an opportunity for testimony. So in our weaknesses, let us turn to God and hope in Him.

Why are you cast down, O my soul?

And why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him

For the help of His countenance.

(Psalm chapter 42, verse 5)

Kristen is a family doctor, and author of the e-book An Internship with Jesus. She lives with her husband in Adelaide and writes a weekly blog (lostnowfoundk) on life with God. Her second blog, Lily of the Valleys, aims to share her love for Jesus through music and art.For those of us who didn't know her prior, she is an amazing, powerful woman of God who struggled with heroin addiction for years and the only thing that broke her away from her sin and her addiction was coming to know the Lord as her Saviour in a Christ-centred drug rehabilitation place in Esperance, WA.

She shared her incredible testimony and journey of redemption, hope, grace, and forgiveness. In between being a busy mother to three young children, together with her husband who is a pastor, she spends her time building safer communities and stronger families, providing support to families struggling with drug addiction, and presenting drug prevention programs in schools, the community as well as intervention seminars. She also visits the women's prison, bringing hope to women in jail through her love for Christ. Her dream is to see a nation drug free and to see young Australians take a stand against drugs, crime and violence.

The entire day of the conference, I had nothing short but overwhelming senses of emotion come over me. I was not only refreshed and renewed in my love for Christ, but my own sins that I have struggled to come up front with, started to plague my mind. I watched how confident she was in sharing her testimony and making it her story, one that no one could take her down with or judge her with. It was full of passion, vigour and had one simple goal: to get the message of Jesus out. She shared pictures of how she looked "high" on heroin, and shared stories of how she ended up being with an abusive drug-addicted partner during her heroin days and how she messed up her family, even influencing her one and only sister to also turn to heroin.

My own Sin

I felt amazed and enthralled by God and what Christ can do for us if we are truly repentant and God's amazing grace and redemption, but at the same time, I couldn't stop wondering to myself: "Is there a sin too terrible for God to forgive?"

The reason why I kept asking myself that, is for four years since I became a Christian, I struggled with my past sin, the mistakes I made when I was a teenager, way before I met Christ. I have shared my story to maybe 1 or 2 people and have always felt that the mistakes I did in my past was too big for God to forgive. I thought to myself, "How could God ever forgive me for what I have done?"

But on that day itself, on this particular women's conference, I truly saw right there and then what it meant to be free of your sin, and to be redeemed. Jade Lewis was 1) unashamed of her story, 2) accepted her mistakes and sins, 3) brought her mistakes and sin to God and 4) experienced the full extent of grace and redemption of forgiveness and freedom of sin. I saw that I never once did all the four steps above.

That is why I never could forgive myself, because God hasn't forgiven me yet, since I have always been ashamed of my past, I have never accepted my mistakes and most importantly, I have never truly confessed my sin to God and asked God for forgiveness.

God's Forgiveness of Sin

In 1 John chapter 1, verse 9: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from ALL righteousness." God also said in Titus chapter 2, verse 14: "Who gave Himself for us to redeem us from EVERY lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds." And lastly in Isaiah chapter 1, verse 18: "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

There is therefore NO sin too big or too terrible for God to forgive. The magnitude of our sin isn't what determines God's forgiveness. This is all due to God's grace and how big that grace is, that in human terms, I see my sin as too big to forgive but in Gods' terms, there is His grace, which is big enough to extend to ANYONE who is ready to confess, repent and ask God for forgiveness. This applies to even the worst of us; rapists, murderers, child molesters, and prostitutes.

God's Redeeming Power and Grace

But this is the exact reason why I feel the Christian faith is so different from other beliefs. We have a God who forgives us no matter what we do, and no matter how little we deserve to be forgiven. We do not need to "redeem" ourselves through good works and animal offerings, for God gave His one and only begotten Son to save us all from the grip of sin and the weight of guilt sin has over us.

He has made us all white as snow and with the power of God's forgiveness; we are all made one with Christ, a new creation in Him. This is a paradox, because even though this is the Good News and the Gospel and the Truth, people struggle with the concept because they feel underserving of God's forgiveness and thus sadly do not really accept what God can do in their lives. But in Christ, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. (Ephesians chapter 1, verse 7).

I am a New Creation  Forget my Past and my Sins

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit  Romans chapter 8 verse 1. Jesus did not come here to condemn me, but to save me! As a child of God, I am a new creation, my past has been wiped away and I have a fresh start. "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things have become new." - 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17. Not only does God forgive us, He forgets our sins! "Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more" - Hebrews chapter 10, verse 17.

Hence, on that faithful day of 7 September 2013, I finally accepted the truth in my heart. That despite of all I have done, the mistakes and terrible sins I have committed, I gave my heart up to Christ once again, fully accepting my sin but instead of internally absorbing it and letting the guilt and unworthiness have a hold on me, I gave it up to our Lord and He took it away from me. I walked up on stage that day, in front of 80 women and told them my sin, the very sin that kept me from truly turning to God for over ten years.

I felt this immense weight being lifted off me and that very day, I felt God come into my heart and forgive me for everything. I am now a brand new creation; a new work of Christ and I now have a deeper sense of new found understanding of God, His grace, forgiveness and redemption. May God use me now for His own glory and purpose.

And now my statement in my life is that of Luke chapter 7, verse 47: "Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgivena"as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little." In other words, those who have been forgiven much, loves much.

Clarissa Yates is from Singapore but moved to live in Perth, Western Australia in 2008. Clarissa completed a BSc. in Molecular Biology at the University of Western Australia and is now working as a Graduate Research Assistant at the University of Western Australia, where she is part of a research team studying therapies for lung cancer.

Clarissa Yates previous articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/clarissa-yates.html5 minutes with Francis Bacons Three Studies for a Portrait

Francis Outred, Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art in London, discusses the 1976 triptych that signalled the end of a long period of mourning for the artist. It is offered in the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction on 6 March

Francis Bacon (1909-1992), Three Studies for a Portrait, 1976. Each: 14 x 12 in (35.5 x 30.5 cm). Sold for 10,008,750 on 6 March 2018 at Christies in London

The work is also an ode to the renowned film Hiroshima Mon Amour, notes Outred. In the 1959 film by Alain Resnais the lead actress, Emmanuelle Riva, is captured in one shot of the movie with a lock of hair hanging across her face. Bacon uses the hair as a compositional device to splice the face and pivot its two sides, the specialist explains. It is fitting that Bacon turned to Resnais film for inspiration, Outred says, as Hiroshima Mon Amour was about love, loss, despair and memory. When Bacon executed this work, the artist was still mourning the loss of George Dyer, the great love of his life, who had committed suicide in Paris on the eve of Bacons 1971 retrospective at the Grand Palais. In the years following his death, Bacon made a series of landmark black, large-scale triptychs in Dyers memory. He even moved to Paris in 1974, becoming fiercely Francophile and fully assimilating into French life. So, Outred continues, you have two mirrored stories of loss and memory coming together in this one painting. Bacon famously did not prime the front of his canvases. Instead, he primed the back, causing the paint to seep into the fabric. In Three Studies theres a sort of a chalky aspect to the paint, and the black is really dense, Outred points out. Bacon even dipped a part of his corduroy sleeve in paint and dabbed it on the canvas. Together, these techniques give the figure an almost sculptural feel. Theres a tribal aspect to it, says Outred, a rawness to the image. The texture of the paint really adds to that.

Francis Outred examines the reverse of the triptych, proudly signed, titled and dated on the reverse of each panel by Bacon in 1976Live like a Rockefeller  Edouard Manets Lilas et roses

Jessica Fertig, Senior Vice President for Impressionist and Modern Art at Christies in New York, looks at a late still life by the father of modern art which brought great joy to two generations of the Rockefeller family

In April 1938, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller and John D. Rockefeller, Jr. bought a luminous flower painting by Edouard Manet (1832-1883) from New York gallery M. Knoedler & Co. It had arrived at the gallery from Paris via London, and went on to hang in Abbys private sitting room in their new triplex at 740 Park Avenue. Here it remained until 1958, 10 years after Abbys death, when the redistribution of her furnishings took place. Abbys youngest son David and his wife Peggy drew lots for two paintings of which they were especially fond  a Redon flower painting and a small Manet of lilacs in a glass vase. The 13 x 10-inch Manet  two velvety roses amid delicate sprays of lilac  is beautifully rendered and elegant. But, as Christies Senior Vice President Jessica Fertig explains, it was more than a demonstration of the painters craft. Manet often gave still life paintings of fruit or flowers to friends, and Lilas et roses is one of a series he painted during the final six months of his life. This particular painting was a gift to Ginevra Hureau de Villeneuve, the daughter of his doctor.

On 3 November 1882, Ginevra sent the artist a letter of thanks. I love flowers, and white lilac and roses above all, she wrote. In sending me some which will never fade, you have given me the most lively pleasure. I am proud to think that a great artist has taken up his brushes again for me and has gone back to work. I hope he will not stop there and that at the next exhibition we shall see appear some of his highly original and seductive works. As Fertig explains, Manet was visited by his friends in his Paris apartment, and would often paint the bouquets they brought. Each one relates to the person who gave it, thus becoming an illustration of their relationship and in some sense immortalises the giver.

It was quite rare for a collector to have a Manet. The fact that the Rockefellers had more than one was highly impressive

Manet, still only 51, died the following April, but the flowers in Lilas et roses are not seen as a memento mori. On the contrary, they are viewed as life-affirming: an eloquent testimony to the delights of the material world, as Fertig puts it. For Manet, flowers were an exemplary motif  13 years earlier he had said, A painter can say everything he wants with fruits or flowers, or even clouds. He paid great attention to them, both in his still lifes and the paintings that caused a stir at the Paris Salon. Manet is well known for his portraits and works that reflect changes in society, says Fertig, but flowers weave their way through these scenes, too. His depictions of them are very charged. In Olympia (1865), they have an illicit meaning: they announce the arrival, or even perhaps stand in for, the courtesans client. And in A Bar at the Folies Bergere (1882), painted around the same time as Lilas et roses, a vase of flowers very similar to the one Manet gave to Ginevra stands front and centre as a symbol of Manets artistic performance.

The painting (left) hanging in Abby Aldrich Rockefellers private sitting room in the triplex she and her husband moved to at 740 Park Avenue. Photograph by Samuel H. Gottscho, courtesy of the Rockfeller Archive Center David and Peggy hung the painting in the front hall of their primary residence at 146 East 65th Street, New York.  ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2018Classical Chinese furniture  20 years of great collections

Christies has been offering the finest collections of Classical Chinese furniture for more than 20 years. Here, we look at five sales that have helped to create todays thriving market

1

19 September 1996 Formerly the Museum of Classical Chinese Furniture Collection

In this landmark sale  arguably the most important collection of Chinese furniture to appear at auction in the 20th century  Christies New York offered more than 100 works from the Museum of Classical Chinese furniture in Renaissance, California. The museum no longer exists, but the sale of its treasures  with some items fetching 10 times the pre-sale estimates  helped to establish classical Chinese furniture as a mature international collecting category.

A large rare marble huanghuali and tielimu standing screen, zuopingfeng, 17th century. Sold for $1,102,500 on 19 September 1996 at Christie's in New York

Leading the sale was a seven-foot-high 17th-century floor screen made of elaborately carved, pierced and fretworked huanghuali and tielimu wood, with a slab of dali marble  the veining of which resembles a moutain range  at its centre. Now at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the screen achieved $1.1 million, then the highest price realised at auction for any piece of Chinese furniture. A further highlight, a 17th-century huanghuali yokeback armchair (below), sold for $140,000  four times its high estimate.

A large huanghuali yokeback armchair, Guanmaoyi, 17th century. Sold for $140,000 on 19 September 1996 at Christie's in New York

Every one of the 107 Ming- and Qing-dynasty pieces of furniture offered from the Museum of Classical Chinese Furniture found a buyer, with the sale achieving a total of $11.2 million. Ten years from now, people will be saying, God, that stuff from Renaissance was just given away, the collector Robert Hatfield Ellsworth told New York magazine in March 1997. Some 18 years later, Christies would also sell Ellsworths own collection (see below).

2

18 September 1997 The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Piccus

One year later, on 18 September 1997, Christies sale of some 100 lots from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Piccus achieved $2,371,885, confirming the strength of the international market for classical Chinese furniture. Amassed over a 30-year period, the collection was made possible by the opening up of China and the flow of fine and rare examples of Chinese furniture into Hong Kong in the early 1980s. Acquisitions were carefully considered: in each case, the couple was drawn to the beauty of the materials used, the quality of grain and colour, the elegance of its design, and the ingenuity of its joinery.

A rare and important pair of huanghuali folding stools, jiaoyi, late 17th- early 18th century. Sold for $321,500 on 18 September 1997 at Christie's in New York

The sales top lot, a pair of huanghuali folding stools from the late 17th to the early 18th century (one of the pair shown above), sold for almost double the high estimate, realising $321,500.

A huanghuali three-shelf bookcase, jiage, 17th century. Sold for $244,500 on 18 September 1997 at Christie's in New York

The 17th-century huanghuali three-shelf bookcase pictured above sold for $244,500, double the high estimate.

3

17 March 2015 The Collection of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth

Over five continuous days in March 2015, Christies offered The Collection of Robert Hatfield Ellsworth, the pre-eminent New York dealer of Asian Art and author of one of the first Western texts on the subject, Chinese Furniture: Hardwood Examples from the Ming and Ching Dynasties. Few individuals have made such an invaluable contribution to the study and appreciation of Asian art in the West as Ellsworth, whose collection embraced ancient bronzes and Ming furniture, fine jade, modern Chinese painting, and Himalayan, Indian and Southeast Asian works of art. More than 2,000 objects were offered in the sale, making it the largest collection of Asian Art ever to appear at auction. The Chinese furniture and scholars objects alone comprised more than 300 lots.

The top lot of the sale, an extremely rare set of four huanghuali horseshoe-back armchairs, realised $9,685,000, the highest price ever achieved for a piece of huanghuali furniture at auction. Several factors set these chairs apart from other horseshoe-back examples: the elegant curve of their crest rails, their exceptionally well-carved hook handles, the three-part backsplat with finely carved openwork panels, and their beautifully figured wood panels suggestive of a landscape. Also in that sale, a massive and very rare huanghuali recessed-leg painting table (below) realised $3,525,000.

The multi-day sale totalled $134.1 million, making it the most valuable private collection of Asian art ever offered at Christies. To date, it remains among the top 10 most valuable collections ever sold at Christies in any category.

4

16 March 2017 The Marie Theresa L. Virata Collection of Asian Art

The Marie Theresa L. Virata Collection of Asian Art, one of the finest collections of classical Chinese furniture in private hands, was assembled over the course of three generations and also included fine Chinese ceramics and carpets. Over the decades, Marie Theresa Virata developed a close friendship with Robert Ellsworth, who offered advice and guidance on her collecting. The 186-lot New York sale, which realised a stunning total of $25,352,750, included exceptional examples in huanghuali and zitan, the hardwoods most coveted by collectors of Chinese furniture.

Sale highlights included a very rare huanghuali circular incense stand, which sold for $5,847,500, and an 18th-century zitan luohan bed, which achieved $3,607,500. Incense stands in lacquer and hardwood were produced in the 17th century in a variety of forms, including round, square, hexagonal and octagonal, and were constructed with three, four or five legs. Round lacquer incense stands appear to be the most common examples, and can be seen in Ming-dynasty woodblock prints. In the 18th century, the luohanchuang, or couch bed, was found in the private chambers of women and the studio of literati gentlemen.

5

Various sale dates The collection of Raymond Hung and Mimi Wong

Together Raymond Hung and Mimi Wong amassed one of the most comprehensive collections of Chinese furniture in Asia. Guided by Robert Ellsworth, the couple made acquisitions primarily in the mid-1980s in Hong Kong, as important examples were emerging from China. In 1998, highlights from the collection were exhibited at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.



Texas securities regulators suspended a Beaumont investment adviser for charging unreasonable fees to clients.

Jason N. Anderson, a former adviser for LPL Financial, was suspended for 90 days for recommending an inappropriate and expensive active-trading strategy to clients, according to the Texas State Securities Board. Anderson pitched the investments to clients who preferred growth with a moderate amount of risk.

The active-trading program would have had to generate extraordinary returns to offset the trading costs and commissions, according to the board. Anderson worked for LPL Financial between 2007 and 2016, according to the board's disciplinary order.

Anderson could not be immediately reached for comment.

RELATED: Texas security regulators target another cryptocurrency operator

The board also approved Anderson's application to join Financial Management Services of America as an adviser.The University of Houston will be hosting a free screening of "The House on Coco Road," the film based on the life of director Damani Baker, on Tuesday as part of its Black History Month programming. Baker and his family moved from California to Grenada in the early '80s only to find themselves caught up in the U.S. invasion of the Caribbean island.

Baker is attending the screening and will be part of a Q&A after the film which is being distributed by Array, a company founded by filmmaker Ava DuVernay who directed "Selma" and the upcoming "A Wrinkle in Time."As Christian Kidd walks around the area east of downtown where he and his band The Hates used to rehearse, his murmured voice is drowned time and again by the honks of car horns. Each time he turns his head, capped by a bright-red mohawk, the punk rocker smiles and waves.

"One time we were crossing a street in San Francisco," says his wife, Alexis Kidd. "Even there, somebody honked their horn and yelled, 'Christian! The Hates!' "

In the four-plus decades since punk rock first sneered irreverent verse through a curled upper lip, the once underground genre has been swept into the cultural mainstream as commodified rebellion. Ripped shirts held together by clothes pins are sold in fashion stores. Rebellion-loving bands that previously toured the nation in rusty vans now sell out arenas.

Kidd and The Hates haven't enjoyed the successes of other similar bands. But for 40 years the band has wielded its own permutation of punk, which is an accomplishment in itself. If Kidd lacks the ubiquity of a million-album-selling punk rocker who has reached his august years, well, he nevertheless remains a highly identifiable part of Houston's music scene, where he's been hashing out his songs for as long as anybody can remember.

"I always tell people, when I started doing this, I figured it would last about two years," he says.

On Saturday, Kidd and The Hates will perform at Rudyard's. Once was the time a Hates show was a regular occurrence. This show is special, though, the first in over a year. The first since a shoulder surgery revealed a health concern far more serious.

The diagnosis

More Information The Hates When: 9 p.m. Saturday Where: Rudyard's, 2010 Waugh Details: $8; 713-521-0521, rudyardspub.com "Legendary Love" When: 5 p.m. Feb. 10 Where: The Church of St. John the Divine, 2450 River Oaks Blvd. Details: $15-$35; roco.org A Hates introduction: The best way to meet The Hates is the 2008 anthology "30 Years of Hate: 1978-2008," which offers a 20-song sampling that covers the years mentioned in the title. Here are five personal Hates favorites: "Gonna Get Pissed Tonight" Zippy tune with a sing-songy titular chorus and the response it creates ("oy oy oy"). "Panic in the City" Christian's vocal seems like it won't keep up with the beat on this one, the band moving like a runaway train. "City on Ice" An almost grunge-inspired riff drives this tune that speaks to a wheel-spinning inability to move. The song was used prominently in the TV show "Halt & Catch Fire." "Big Brother" Simple and relentless condemnation of the title subject, which is "spying on you day and night." Also "it isn't right." "Armageddon" It moves slower than most Hates songs, Christian's guitar riding a gurgling bass line, at least at the outset. Then it revs into a speed-punk chant. At over four minutes, it's epic by Hates' standards. See More Collapse

A year ago, Christian Kidd was repeatedly awakened by sharp pain in his shoulder. An MRI revealed torn ligaments, a piece of tendon that had been damaged and was dangling from the joint, bone spurs and a tear in the rotator cuff. These are the injuries of a punk rocker without a road crew, who hoisted and dragged amplifiers from gig to gig, night after night, year after year for decades.

The Kidds planned to live off credit cards during his three-month recovery. But post-op, Christian's throat swelled. Antibiotics did nothing. An ear, nose and throat doctor referred him to an oncologist, who did a biopsy on a mass at the base of his tongue and discovered a tumor - stage 3 squamous cell carcinoma.

Without the surgery, it likely would've continued to grow undetected.

So began Christian's cancer year, full of radiation treatment and chemo and days where he didn't feel well enough to leave his house.

"I've always had obstacles to get over and around," he says. "But this was the hardest. Laying in bed at night not able to get up, feeling dizzy, month to month without feeling better."

While Christian was undergoing treatment, a larger community rushed to support his family, from bandmates and friends to people who simply knew him as one of the most identifiable figures in Montrose: the guy with the mohawk smiling on the Vespa.

But also fans, because a band that sticks around 40 years - even without bottling lightning and scoring a hit - will connect to music fans in a community.

The Hates are such a band.

Forming hate

The story of the city's most beloved punk band begins nearly 3,000 miles away in Panama City, Panama, where Christian Valentine Arnheiter III was born. His father was military, and his Panamanian mother was attending junior college when he was born. She'd visit the PX and came home with what he calls "my musical education" - records by Fats Domino and Elvis Presley.

His parents moved to the states, and then split up. Christian's mother relocated with him to Houston in 1968, when he was in junior high. By then, Christian had his first guitar and took lessons at H&H Music Company downtown, playing jazz standards like "On a Clear Day" and "The Girl From Ipanema."

His mother would let him slip out at night to see bands at the Sam Houston Coliseum. He started with what would become quintessential classic rock: bands like Deep Purple, later falling in with prog rock and glam.

"Then punk came along," he says. "People said everything had been done. But I felt like punk was this opportunity to do something that hadn't been done before.

"I started looking for people to play with in punk bands. I wasn't going to be out there doing covers."

He played in a few bands: Guyana Youth Choir and Christian Oppression before starting Zyklon B. The groups took gigs where he could find them: gay bars and country and western bars. They once played a private function, opening for zydeco king Clifton Chenier.

They were rarely picky. Rarely. "One bar gave us the gig, but they asked if we could play a set of the Eagles," he says. "No way."

Around 1978, he went a different direction with a name iconic in its combative efficiency: The Hates.

The band was part of a storied punk-rock scene that began to take shape, sharing bills with the likes of Really Red and Mydolls.

The Hates' sound was wiry and frenetic, befitting their chosen style. Some songs, like "Big Brother" and "Dirty Politics," had heavy subjects on the mind. Others were simpler, like "Gonna Get Pissed Tonight."

David Ensminger, who has drummed with The Hates for about six years, calls them "a people's band. People don't realize The Hates are the longest continuous punk band in Houston. They didn't just make the soundtrack for one generation, but multiple generations. It's a singalong band, anthemic and catchy and all about audience participation."

There were peaks and valleys of interest over the years. Christian refers to the '80s as "a dark period," but while music danced around from phase to phase, The Hates remained a constant.

The band's most pronounced impression was made in Houston, but fans of '70s punk reveled in the regional variety the form offered.

One such fan is Dan Visconti, a classical composer who recently composed "Legendary Love," a piece of music inspired by Christian and The Hates that the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra will premiere later this month.

"To me, they're a seminal American punk band," Visconti says. "Like many people, I listened to the British groups, and then what was coming out of California. But then I started learning more about these regional scenes.

"As a composer, I'm fascinated by what makes a particular artist different. Christian used his guitar in different ways, and The Hates found a unique quality of sound. They had a particular energy and rawness."

Ensminger points to Christian's inclusive and creative guitar playing, which at times would swipe from jazz or metal.

Says Alexis Kidd: "What I love most about his music is it's not defined by anything other than what they do. That's the way punk music was supposed to be. Who do they sound like? The Hates."

'All about love'

Christian and Alexis Kidd met about a dozen years ago when a friend dragged her to a Hates show at Dan Electro's Guitar Bar. Alexis didn't know the band.

During a guitar solo, Christian left the stage and plopped into her lap.

"I'm an introvert, so it was very uncomfortable," she says. "I was sweating and blushing, and he was just beaming.

"My first Hates show."

They started dating and have been together since, getting married seven years ago, at which he took her name and became Christian Kidd. Shortly before their union, Alexis was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a form of cancer often affecting the lungs.

She says she's "officially considered cancer-free, but as mesothelioma has no real cure, we are always on the watch for recurrence."

Most of the year, the couple can be seen riding around Montrose on their Vespas. But Alexis says treatment has left her more sensitive to the cold. So last fall, Christian bought her a car.

When the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra commissioned Visconti to write about Christian, the composer's attention was caught by the couple's connection. He focused on love poems Christian wrote to Alexis that she posted on Facebook.

"I love playing with assumptions," Visconti says. "And there are plenty of misconceptions about punk rock. Music is all about love - the intensity in the ways we feel about one another and communicate it. It would've been easy to write a piece of music about the expressions of rage in punk rock. But he's already made that music. I wanted to draw from something else."

Of life and death

Late last year, Christian's cancer was determined to be in remission. But he still requires scans every six months. Such cancer sometimes reappears in the lungs.

Alexis was worried Christian would come back too soon. He still looks well younger than his 62 years, but his energy was down and she worried the radiation treatment would affect his voice.

"She said, 'Just practice, don't worry about shows,' " Christian says.

She adds, "Nothing makes him happier than playing. It doesn't matter how many people show up."

The day after Thanksgiving, this past November, a sign appeared at the intersection of Farnham and the Southwest Freeway feeder road. In black Sharpie on roughly cut cardboard it read, "Hates @ Rudz Feb. 3."

"This show is a landmark for his recovery," Alexis says, "and getting back to his life."

The show finds The Hates joined by Room 101 from New Orleans, Lizzie Boredom from Dallas and Houston's $50 Goat.

Adds Ensminger, "We wanted a big, interesting concert. We wanted his comeback to be as public as possible because his sickness was so public on Facebook. A lot of people go off the grid and disappear. He didn't. And we rehearsed and buzzed right through a set. He's ready. This is not us going out and looking and sounding feeble. He's picking up where he left off."

And then two weeks later, this punk rock survivor will be honored at a classical music performance.

"People think this show is out of left field," Alexis says of the classical music composition. "But it's who we are. We like going to the symphony. People think he's just this punk-rock guy, but he's a well-rounded music listener."

She says the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra show - like the fundraisers played by local bands to help the couple pay for food and rent last year, like the garage sales organized by friends from the music community - reminds her "how much love and sensitivity there is in this city."

Christian's gear speaks to the whole experience. On a recent Tuesday, his black-and-white leather jacket is designed to look like the skeletal structure of a thorax and arms. His pants bear an interplanetary motif of space and stars and other bright things from the great beyond. Together the ensemble - representing the boundless and the finite, the cosmic and the gristle of human life- speaks to life and death.

And The Hates.

And love.Rep. Briscoe Cain, whose fall speech at Texas Southern University was canceled abruptly amid student protest, said in a blog post Tuesday that time is up for colleges that stifle free speech.

The Baytown-area Republican, in a post shortly before state lawmakers would discuss campus speech policies, named specifically as stifling so-called free speech zones, campus spaces where students can protest. (Critics of those policies say every place on campus  particularly at public institutions  should be available for free expression and assembly.)

He wrote the post on the website of Empower Texans, a nonprofit that has bolstered the states conservatives. Wednesday's state affairs committee hearing will take place at Texas State University at 10 a.m..

Your animus towards free and open debate not only leads to the prolonged adolescence of students, you injure the reputation of your institutions, Cain wrote. Is there any wonder why society is increasingly questioning the value of your college degrees? The college campus is not a daycare.

Cain has previously asked lawmakers to look at the budgets of colleges that stifle free speech. Cain authored a bill last session that would have required universities to extend freedom of assembly and expression provisions to all common outdoor areas of campus and to both recognized and unrecognized student groups.

He was scheduled to speak in October at Texas Southern Universitys law school at an event promoted as a review of the state Legislatures special session.

As students protested, the university called off the event. Later, officials said the event was not scheduled in accordance with school policy.

The free-speech scuffle was one of several in 2017 hitting Texas colleges.

Earlier in the year at TSU, administrators canceled a scheduled commencement address by U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, the second ranking Republican in the Senate, after a student petition.

Texas A&M University canceled a White Lives Matter rally planned for Sept. 11 by an outside organizer days after deadly violence rattled Charlottesville near the University of Virginias campus.

Wednesdays hearing will bring together the Texas Senates state affairs committee to evaluate any restrictions on Freedom of Speech rights that Texas students face in expressing their views on campus along with freedoms of the press, religion, and assembly" and "recommend policy changes that protect First Amendment rights and enhance the free speech environment on campus."

Campus free speech was named by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities as one of the years top 10 higher education issues to watch.

Lindsay Ellis writes about higher education for the Chronicle. You can follow her on Twitter and send her tips at lindsay.ellis@chron.com.A Texas father of three died Wednesday after a sand dune collapsed on him on a Florida beach Sunday.

According to a GoFundMe page, Lee Goggin, 35, of Irving was building a tunnel in the sand during a family vacation on a Saint Augustine beach in Florida when it collapsed on him Sunday. Goggin's sister, Rachel Burt wrote of the accident on the page:

Our family was just starting off on vacation when we stopped at the beach in St. Augustine, FL to let the kids burn some energy. Lee was building a tunnel in the sand when it collapsed on him.

His sister added that her brother had a heartbeat after the collapse, but wasn't breathing on his own. By Wednesday, Burt wrote on Facebook that her brother had died and she asked for prayers for Goggin's wife and children, who range in age from 8 months to 4 years old.

BUSTED: HPD arrested 39 on felony DWI charges in December

"My precious, big brother is with Jesus," Burt wrote late Tuesday on Facebook. "Our hearts are shattered, but we don't grieve without hope."

News station CBS DFW reports Goggin had a heart attack when the sand tunnel collapsed on him. Friends told the news station that Goggin's brain was swelling and went into a medically-induced coma before he died.

Police told CBS NFW that Goggin was digging in an area marked "Do Not Enter."

The GoFundMe page for Goggin's family has raised $34,676 in two days, far more than its intended goal of $5,000.

Scroll through the gallery above to see some of the notable deaths so far in 2018.

Will Axford is a digital reporter for Chron.com. Read more of his stories here and follow him on Twitter.Saudi Arabia has collected more than $100 billion from prominent citizens who were detained in what the government has called a widespread crackdown on corruption, the kingdom said Tuesday.

Sheikh Saud al-Mojeb, the attorney general, said in a statement that 381 people had been summoned as part of the investigation. Many were brought in as witnesses, while others were accused of corruption and released only after handing over significant assets to the government, the statement said.

The release of many of the detainees appeared to signal the wrapping up of the 2-month campaign, in which some of the kingdom's richest and most powerful men were locked in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, where the authorities pressed them to hand over assets said to have been stolen from the state.

The detainees included businessmen, current and former government ministers, and at least 11 princes, including Alwaleed bin Talal, the kingdom's most famous investor, who was released Saturday.

The government has framed the campaign as an attempt to reclaim ill-gotten gains while sending a message that the endemic corruption that has long plagued the Saudi economy is coming to an end.

Cleaning up bad business practices, the government said, was a major part of efforts by Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom's 32-year-old crown prince, to reform the kingdom.

But the opacity of the process has led others to call it a shakedown.

Citing privacy laws, the government has not identified the detainees, detailed the charges against them or stated what they handed over in order to secure their release.

But the statement released Tuesday said the government had claimed about 400 billion Saudi riyals, or $106.6 billion, so far. That sum included real estate, commercial entities, cash and other assets, the statement said.

It remained unclear when the government's campaign would actually end. Prince Mohammed is expected to travel to Washington in late February or early March, and many suspect that he wants to finish the process before then so as not to face questions about the detentions.

The Riyadh Ritz-Carlton, which has effectively served as the world's most luxurious jail, has resumed taking reservations as of Feb. 14.Oil slipped for a third day in New York, continuing its retreat from a three-year high, on estimates that U.S. crude stockpiles increased last week.

West Texas Intermediate futures fell 0.5 percent, bringing their monthly advance to 6.3 percent. Data from the U.S. Energy Department is forecast to show that inventories probably rose by 900,000 barrels to 412.5 million, according to a Bloomberg survey.

"Strong U.S. crude supply growth and deteriorating inventory dynamics" could "trigger a sentiment shift and unsettle the record speculative length in the oil market," said Giovanni Staunovo, an analyst at UBS Group AG in Zurich.

Ten consecutive weekly declines in American stockpiles had helped crude breach $66 a barrel for the first time since December 2014. Oil's fifth consecutive monthly gain has also been driven by a weaker dollar amid conflicting remarks on the currency from President Donald Trump and his top officials.

West Texas Intermediate for March lost as much as 83 cents to $63.67 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and was at $64.19 at 1:44 p.m. in London. The U.S. benchmark crude fell 1.6 percent to close at $64.50 on Tuesday, the biggest decline since Dec. 6. Total volume traded was about 22 percent below the 100-day average.

Brent for March settlement, which expires Wednesday, was at $68.72 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange, down 30 cents. Prices slipped 0.6 percent to $69.02 on Tuesday. The more-active April contract dropped 24 cents to $68.28. Front-month futures have risen about 2.8 percent in January. The global benchmark crude traded at a premium of $4.54 to WTI.

U.S. crude stockpiles climbed by 3.23 million barrels last week, the American Petroleum Institute was said to report, before Energy Information Administration data on Wednesday. Meanwhile, American oil production climbed to 9.88 million barrels a day in the week ended Jan. 19, the highest level in weekly EIA data since 1983.

Gasoline inventories rose by 2.69 million barrels last week, while distillates fell, according to the API report. Front-month gasoline futures on the Nymex are set for a 4.7 percent gain in January, a second monthly increase, while diesel futures are headed for a 0.4 percent drop to $2.0683 a gallon this month, ending a sixth consecutive monthly advance.

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index, a gauge of the currency against 10 major peers, has declined about 3.6 percent this month, while the Bloomberg Commodity Index that measures returns on 22 basic resources from crude to copper climbed 2 percent in January.

Oil-market news:

Oil exports from Qatar, one of OPEC's smaller crude producers, to Japan last year slumped by almost a quarter to their lowest level since 1990, while shipments from giant supplier Saudi Arabia grew 8.1 percent, boosting its market share in the Asian nation to a record. In his first State of the Union address, President Trump said the U.S. has ended the " war" on energy, and that it's an "exporter of energy to the world." Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro said the country is pushing ahead with plans for the first sale of its cryptocurrency next month, and developing plans for its use with a national ID card held by at least 15 million Venezuelans.The Montrose Management District can go back to operating as usual, but a judge late Tuesday ordered it to do a more thorough review of a petition seeking its dissolution.

The district earlier had rejected the petition by declaring more than a quarter of the signatures invalid. But state District Judge Daryl Moore, calling the district's refusal to undertake a more extensive analysis "arbitrary and unreasonable," gave the district 45 days to conduct the additional review.

"He's telling them, 'Do your job,'" Andy Taylor, the attorney for property owners suing the Montrose Management District to recover millions of dollars they paid in assessments over the years and seeking the group's dissolution, said after the six-page order was released.

The judge also denied a request by the property owners to essentially shut down the district until a trial could be held, saying such an injunction was premature. A trial is set for June.

Moore's order allows the district to operate and spend money on items such as the colorful lights on a series of bridges spanning U.S. 59.

MORE: Management district sets up crowdfunding campaign for lights on Montrose bridges

"I am so relieved that we can honor the district's financial commitments, including paying our overdue power bill to ensure the bridge lights stay on and pay for the services that were faithfully delivered several months ago," executive director Ben Brewer said in a statement. "As we work with our legal counsel to more fully understand Judge Moore's ruling, we will issue further comments."

The district's legal troubles began in 2012 when a property owner challenged the legality of the management district.

In October, a judge ruled that the district illegally collected nearly $6.6 million in assessments and that it must reimburse the money to property owners. That case is now on appeal.

Opponents of the district say its programs don't benefit them and that the group's assessments amount to taxation without representation.

Houston landlord The Finger Cos., which is subject to the district's assessments, weighed in Tuesday in support of the commercial property owners.

In a friend-of-the-court brief, the Houston-based company, which owns hundreds of apartments in the Montrose neighborhood, said the process by which the district evaluated a petition attempting to dissolve the group was flawed.

Consultants of the district evaluated the petition by comparing the signatures with Harris County Appraisal District and Secretary of State records.

Property owner and plaintiff Bob Rose testified in court Friday that he was able to confirm the authority of petition signers by reviewing additional publicly available sources.

The Finger Cos. filing said the district did not have the authority to use specific criteria to validate the signatures.

"Such a process is a classic case of the 'fox guarding the henhouse' bias - why would the District 'favor' a process or standards that would compel its own dissolution?" the brief states. "The District's process made a trial out of each petition, with the District serving as the judge and jury."

The management district countered that the district had previously invited the plaintiff to submit any additional documentation that would aid the board in reviewing the petition but that it did not.

Since Dec. 11, when a judge signed a temporary restraining order that has now been lifted, the management district has been unable to pay its bills, provide services or keep the U.S. 59 bridge lights on.

The lights, however, were turned back on Saturday night after the district set up a fund to collect donations to pay the light bills.

The nonprofit Montrose Boulevard Conservancy continues to accept contributions for the bridge lights until the court order is lifted, the district said in a press release Tuesday.

"We hope this is a temporary situation, and it is my sincerest hope that we can get back to delivering the services that ensures Montrose remains a safe, clean and attractive place to live and do business," district director Ben Brewer said in the statement.

David Houston, a Montrose resident and real estate broker, was one of the first contributors to the fund.

"I'm not trying to make a political statement. I just feel strongly about those lights and what they mean for our city," Houston said in the statement. "My wife and I think they are so iconic and important for this part of town, and I know a lot of people who share our view."

The district said last month it didn't have enough money in its coffers to pay for all its services. Brewer noted that more than $350,000 in property assessments that were due at the end of January were still unpaid.

A bank statement provided to the Chronicle by the district show the account had $60,029.37 in its account at the end of 2017. A money market account contained $652.14.BROWNSVILLE - SpaceX is seeking up to $5 million more in new state funding to build a commercial spaceport in Texas, a project that's behind schedule after breaking ground in 2014.

SpaceX is seeking the money to help build infrastructure related to the launch facility at Boca Chica beach outside Brownsville, the Austin American-Statesman reported

The Cameron County Spaceport Development Corp. recently applied for the $5 million at the request of SpaceX, according to county Judge Eddie Trevino Jr. The new money for the project would come from the Spaceport Trust Fund, a state economic development fund.

The application was due last month. Gov. Greg Abbott's economic development and tourism division is currently considering the application, said a spokeswoman for the governor.

About $15.3 million in state funding has already been set aside for the planned spaceport, but less than $3 million has been used so far. SpaceX has also returned a small portion of the funds pledged from the state's jobs-focused Texas Enterprise Fund because the company fell short of hiring goals as the project couldn't keep pace with its original timetable.

The California-based company was founded by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk with the goal of reducing the cost of space travel and eventually facilitating the colonization of Mars.

Musk initially said that SpaceX will invest $100 million at the site, predicting it could send up rockets by late 2016, however that date has since been pushed to at least late 2018.Sheriff's officials identified the man shot and killed by a deputy outside a Cy-Fair ISD school Monday afternoon.

Mark Renee Flores, 46, was at the center of a violent carjacking investigation when Harris County sheriff's detectives say he pulled a knife on a deputy, who in turn opened fire. Flores died on scene.

The carjacking investigation began Sunday night when Flores and a 28-year-old man were riding in a car together in the 9600 block of Maple Leaf in northwest Harris County. At some point in the ride, the two began arguing, detectives said, and Flores allegedly pulled a knife and stabbed the 28-year-old man several times in the upper torso.

MORE OFFICERS: Houston's police union pushing for 500 new positions

Flores kicked the man out of the car and drove off alone. Paramedics rushed to the scene and took the 28-year-old to the hospital in serious condition. The victim is expected to survive, according to HCSO spokesperson Jason Spencer.

At some point Monday afternoon, wrecker driver recognized the stolen car parked near the intersection of Tanner Road and Beltway 8, just south of U.S. 290.

DEADLY CRASH: Tomball man on trial for killing 3 in drunken driving crash

Detectives said Flores was asleep in the driver's seat but woke up as deputies approached the car, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told reporters Monday. He allegedly pulled a knife on the deputies as they initially approached the car and drove off.

A deputy later spotted the suspect and the vehicle shortly before 2 p.m. in the 6600 block of Addicks Satsuma Road, near Truitt Middle School and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church. The deputy again approached the car, when Flores again allegedly pulled a knife, Gonzalez said.

The deputy, who was waiting on backup from a DPS trooper, pulled out his gun and opened fire, fatally wounding Flores.

Joel Weckerly, director of communications for CFISD, said the school was briefly placed on "secure the building mode," but it was lifted after about 10 minutes.

Officials were unable to release Flores's name Tuesday, because his family members had not yet been notified.

HCSO's Internal Affairs will investigate the shooting alongside the Texas Attorney General's Office.

Jay R. Jordan is a breaking news reporter at Chron.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan.The Greater Cleveland Chamber of Commerce welcomed a new business on Jan. 27 called Health Essentials Wellness Center.

Health Essentials Wellness Center is a store that sells natural products such as vitamins, essential oils, immunity builders, quality protein shakes and other natural products.

The business was originally owned by Lynn Tolberson but it is now under the ownership of Alice Currie Smithers.

Smithers prides herself on being able to find a healthier solution to improve the health of her customers, citing the advantages of going a natural route as opposed to a conventional one.

"There's no side effects," she said. "When you do natural, you're working on the root cause. When you do medicine, it's a band aid."

Smithers bought the store at the end of November. Health Essentials Wellness Center joined the Chamber one month later and has continued to help provide a new way for people to be healthy.

"I love what I do," she said. "I have a passion for people."

The Health Essentials Wellness Center has what Smithers describes as a lighthouse motif, which ties into her strong religious belief in God.

"God said this place is a lighthouse of love," she said.

Smithers hopes to continue Tolberson's work before letting the next generation take over and continue running Health Essentials Wellness Center.

"This is a legacy I'm going to leave to my son," she said.

The Health Essentials Wellness Center is located at 1503 E Houston St., Suite B, Cleveland, Texas 77327. For more information, call 281-592-1271.It takes some chutzpah to announce your goal is to make the best bagels in Houston. But that's what owners of Golden Bagels & Coffee proclaimed before they opened their new bagel cafe in the Heights.

If the lines at Golden, which opened mid-January, are any indication, owners Avi Katz and Gregg Goldstein have tapped an intense appreciation and hunger for an honest, chewy bagel that Houston can call its own.

Katz, owner of the well-regarded Katz Coffee, and Houston attorney Goldstein said that Houston  and the Heights, in particular  is underserved when it comes to good bagels.

"The Heights has always lacked bagels," Goldstein said. "There's never been a bagel shop here."

The partners corrected that by opening their store at 3121 White Oak, dispensing freshly-made in-house bagels accompanied by a serious coffee and espresso program courtesy of Katz.

"Basically, there's always been a void" when it comes to home-grown bagels, Katz said, pointing to Hot Bagel Shop on Shepherd and New York Bagel Shop on Hillcroft as two local bakers waving the bagel flag.

The market, it seems, was ripe for bagel competition.

Golden's bagels, the owners said, are the result of a labor-instensive, three-day process that begins with creating a starter dough that is mixed with flour, malt and water. The bagels are then formed and rest overnight to retard yeast development and develop flavor. They are then boiled in malted water, hand-seeded and baked in a custom bagel oven.

There are currently six to 10 bagel varieties (as well as bialy) offered daily including the classic plain, poppy seed, sesame and everything. The store also makes more than a dozen cream cheese spreads as well as house-made lox (cured salmon) and nova (cured and cold smoked salmon). There are also bagel sandwiches on the menu, which eventually will offer other items such as tuna salad, egg salad, corned beef and pastrami.

Goldstein said the bagels have been well received. Bagel aficionados typically proclaim "I'm from New York or I'm from New Jersey and these are good if not better," Goldstein said quoting some of his best reviews.

Katz and Goldstein said they did a lot of research on the type of bagel they wanted to achieve as well as a lot of baking. "We have destroyed some bagel recipes and crashed and burned," Katz said, adding that his team, which includes baker Eliu Palacios, spent a full two months in the kitchen perfecting the recipes.

Currently, Golden is pumping out about 1,400 bagels on a good day. Bagels are $1.25 each with spreads an additional $1.50.

So does Golden Bagels have the best bagels in town? You'll have to judge yourself.

But Goldstein says that his new venture might have the golden touch: "We definitely raised the bar on bagels."

Golden Bagels & Coffee, 3121 White Oak, 346-240-3780; goldenhouston.comThe more things change, the more the smize stays the same.

IT'S BRENDI K and Liz are still in their feelings about last week's blow up, in which Liz said she has to yell at IT'S BRENDI K "like all your f***ing crazy ass family had to yell at you to, like, get you to shut the f*** up."

Liz apologizes, and it seems sincere. IT'S BRENDI K doesn't accept it. Khrystyana still looks like she wants to cry.

VH1

Hey, let's channel all that emotion into an acting challenge! Director Anthony Hemingway will guide the ladies through a "screen test" alongside actor Kevin Phillips. Activate swoon mode.

To be fair, that's the same reaction models have when Tyra Banks walks in the room.

But more importantly Stacey McKenzie is back! Now I'm swooning.

Tyra, please just make her a permanent judge already. Stacey. Is. Everything. All of it.

A lot of the girls struggle, mostly because this is a terrible, terrible script about a Brazilian blowout and tequila and turning into Sofia Vergara and, um, calling Kevin "papi." Let's leave that word to JLo, OK?

But, let's be clear. No acting challenge will top Whitney's Italian CoverGirl commercial during Cycle 10. NOTHING. This is Anna Nicole Smith-level amazing.

Shanice switches up the script and does a great job by finally being herself. Do you, girl.

But Khrystyana takes the win for giving an Eskimo kiss (OK and a natural performance). But is it me or does she suddenly have an accent?

Liz is told to TURN YOUR REACTIONS DOWN 90-PERCENT during the acting challenge. But she's just being Miley Liz, y'all. Which, yes, is a LOT.

VH1

Back at the house, Liz is freaking out again ... because ... she's too much? Irony, y'all. And later because she can't take a shower before the other girls even though she got up late? And even later she rightfully gets mad when she can't sleep because the girls are up and loud at 1 a.m. Liz decides to leave the house and stay in a hotel, which is what I would have done, too.

Tyra shows up in a bathrobe and fierce eyeshadow, just before judging, to talk to Liz.

VH1

I woke up like this, but make it fashion.

Liz decides to go home, which seems like the right choice. There seems to be more going on than just "ANTM" stress. (Points for Liz quoting John Waters during her exit.)

I'm so happy for Shanice and Khrystyana, who earn high marks for the horror-inspired photo shoot. Christina, whose highlighter hair is finally styled in a way that works, also manages a strong image.

Rhiyan and Coura, who are both struggling with self image, land in the bottom. Rhiyan, who was once much heavier, still sees herself that way, which affects her confidence. Coura, an early favorite, is in over her head. She doesn't seem to understand the challenges or the photo shoots.

But to be honest, they weren't given much direction.

Coura's potential keeps her in the competition, which means Rhiyan, along with Liz, are headed home. And if my calculations are correct, that means we'll have a future week with no eliminations. Or -- gasp -- a surprise return.

'America's Next Top Model' airs at 7 p.m. Tuesdays on VH1. And Joey Guerra will be recapping episodes, while smizing, every week.Hoping for leads in the murder of a 21-year-old Houston woman, authorities in Fort Bend County are offering an increased $15,000 reward for information leading to her killer.

Fort Bend County sheriff's deputies found Lorraine Diaz's body inside a burning 2016 Nissan Altima in a field along the 9400 block of FM 762 in Richmond in the early morning hours of January 2017. From the beginning, detectives said her death was a result of foul play  a theory confirmed by the Galveston County Medical Examiner's Office after it ruled the manner of her death a homicide.Both the Crosby ISD and Huffman ISD school boards recently passed resolutions asking the Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to allocate funds to dredge and remove sand and other debris from the San Jacinto and Lake Houston.

When Hurricane Harvey hit the Houston area in August, it flooded the Lake Houston area with more than 40 inches of rain.

According to the resolutions, the Lake Houston area suffered minor flooding until the San Jacinto River Authority released 79,100 cubic feet of water per second from the Lake Conroe Dam without warning to the Lake Houston communities.

Because of this, many homes and businesses were flooded, causing hundreds of millions in damages, lost revenues and lost wages, according to the resolutions.

The school boards are asking Abbott to not only allocate funds to dredge the San Jacinto River and Lake Houston but for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to provide stricter regulations on legal and illegal sand mining operations.

Since members of the San Jacinto River Authority board are appointed by the governor, the districts are also asking to add three interim board members who represent the communities impacted by the flooding in the Lake Houston area.

Another request from Crosby to the governor is to decrease to the pooling level of Lake Conroe from 201 feet to 198 feet to reduce the possibility of future flooding.

Huffman ISD Chief Financial Officer Tim Brittain said all the repairs from Harvey damages are complete and the district waiting to hear back from FEMA on reimbursements.

The resolutions approved by both districts mirror the requests outlined by the Lake Houston Chamber of Commerce in it's "Plea For 3" campaign launched late last year.

"If we pull together as one voice, we are more likely to get the attention of state lawmakers," Brittain said. "It's imperative that our lawmakers take measures to prevent future weather-related damage to our districts such as the catastrophic damage our area saw from Harvey."This week in 1991, the rest of the world learned just how high stakes the world of cheerleading really can get in Texas.

Channelview mother Wanda Holloway, then just 37, was accused of attempting to hire a hit man to kill the mother of her daughter's school cheerleading rival.

RELATED: What did Houston look like in 1997?

Holloway had desperately wanted her daughter Shanna to make the cheerleading squad and hoped that if her rival pom-pom waver Amber Heath's mother Verna was killed, that she would be too distracted and distraught to try out for the squad at Alice Johnson Jr. High School.

It was a salacious and strange tale that quite frankly, could have only come out of Texas.

See footage from the Sept. 1991 of the first verdict in the Holloway case and other clips from the era below:

Holloway tried to enlist her former brother-in-law Terry Harper to rub out Verna, but he went to the sheriff's department instead. A recorded sting was soon planned in Pasadena and Holloway was arrested for solicitation of capital murder.

A Texas Monthly feature in May 1991 told the story in full, lurid detail. "Don't Mess With Channelview" soon became a joke tagline. Residents in Channelview became garish caricatures with Texas drawls.

The world came to Houston to cover the case that even the British tabloids digested with great glee.

After one circus-like trial ended with Holloway getting a 15-year sentence, it was overturned. She would later plead no contest as the second one started in 1996.

She was sentenced to a decade in prison, but only served six months on "hoe detail" before being released on probation.

FLASHBACK: Witness's death recalls 'cheerleader mom' case (2005)

The story would enrapture the national media and lead to a 1993 HBO TV movie titled "The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom" starring Holly Hunter as Holloway and Beau Bridges as Terry the would-be killer.

ABC's own 1992 flick "Willing to Kill" was a little more straight with the storytelling and not as darkly comedic.

Later in 2012, Wanda's daughter Shanna Widner would tell PEOPLE magazine that she didn't even want to be a cheerleader and that the whole ordeal made her endure years of depression.

It appears that these days Wanda is a typical Texas grandma doting on her grandkids.

Craig Hlavaty is a reporter for Chron.com and HoustonChronicle.com. He's an intolerable native Texan with too much ink in his skin and too much brisket stuck in his teeth.Months after record rainfall during Hurricane Harvey caused some communities to experience historic flooding, the Lake Conroe Association's response to calls for a permanent 3-foot reduction in the lake's level was a resounding "no."

"As residents and businesses in the Lake Conroe area, we support a comprehensive, independent flood control study covering the area from northern Montgomery County to Galveston Bay," Lake Conroe Association President Mike Bleier said.

"We have the utmost sympathy for those affected by the flooding. We want to work cooperatively with representatives from the Lake Houston community that have called for action such as lowering the water levels of Lake Conroe. We want to assist through studies to determine what we can do in the future to help with flooding issues."

The Lake Conroe Association started a letter-writing campaign last week to send elected officials such as Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick that express their concerns for resolutions proposed by the Lake Houston and Kingwood communities to potentially prevent future flooding.

"The Lake Houston community began their letter-writing campaign around November and we've heard they have received thousands of letters expressing the need to lower the levels of Lake Conroe by three feet," Bleier said. "We decided to launch our letter writing campaign because we need to have our voices heard. As a consensus, the Lake Conroe Association finds that lowering the lake by three feet is not in our best interest and there are no studies that demonstrate lowering the level of the lake or a 'pre-release' of what would be beneficial; we need to look into these options more before proceeding."

Normal pool for Lake Conroe is 201 feet above mean sea level.

According to information from the San Jacinto River Authority, water flowing into Lake Conroe during the storm reached a peak rate of 130,000 cubic feet per second, well above the record release rate of 79,000 cubic feet per second, which occurred a few days into the storm. Rainfall totals reported in the region varied from around 30 inches to up to 50 inches.

"Water released from Lake Conroe by SJRA during Hurricane Harvey is estimated at only 10-15 percent of the inflows into Lake Houston; so based on the information from SJRA, a 'pre-release' on the levels of the lake would not have made a difference," Bleier said.

In response to the flooding at the end of August 2017, the Lake Houston Area Chamber of Commerce launched the Lake Houston Area Long Term Recovery Task Force in November 2017 to form a plan to help rebuild the community and prevent future catastrophic flooding.

"We formed the task force to find out what happened with the flooding and find ways for us to rebuild since there was damage to approximately 16,000 homes and 3,300 businesses," Lake Houston Area Chamber of Commerce President Jenna Armstrong said. "A majority of the flooding in the city of Humble and Kingwood was because of the West Fork of the San Jacinto so that is our main point of focus when it comes to remediation."

To aid these efforts, they launched the "Plea for 3" calling for remediation, which includes dredging the San Jacinto River and Lake Houston and stricter regulation enforcement of legal and illegal sand mining operations along the river; reduction of the pooling level of Lake Conroe from 201 feet above sea level to 198; and representation on the San Jacinto River Authority Board  three governor-appointed interim board members representing downstream communities to serve until legislation is passed to address the issue.

WINDFALL? Hurricane Harvey could produce economic boost for Texas

Armstrong and Bleier talk frequently to find a middle ground in regard to both the Lake Conroe and Lake Houston communities.

"We both understand that we are trying to protect the interests of our respective communities," Armstrong said. "There are a few who feel as if our initiative is retribution when it is not. We understand economic development and we want to help everyone in that regard. We just want to discover what happened with the flooding and what we can do to prevent this from happening again."

Bleier echoed Armstrong's sentiments by adding, "They are learning about Lake Conroe as we are learning about Lake Houston. It is important for us to talk because we are neighbors and need to look at alternatives to prevent flooding. We have a lack of information on the effectiveness of lowering the lake levels and a 'pre-release.'"

The Lake Conroe Association fully supports the Lake Houston and Kingwood communities' call for remediation of the San Jacinto River, but not the main body of Lake Houston unless it is coupled with a reduction of water. According to information from the Lake Conroe Association, increasing the capacity by dredging would not impact flood control if the lake level is unchanged after remediation.

The association also supports the Lake Houston Area Long Term Recovery Task Force's request for representation on the SJRA board with one member who would be able to provide their community with information on specific operations of the SJRA and have a voice in the decision-making process.

However, the Lake Conroe Assocation does not support any kind of reduction of the water levels on Lake Conroe  whether it is permanent or temporary.

"Structures have been built and local economies developed based on the state-mandated level on Lake Conroe of 201 feet," the Lake Conroe Association stated. "Several Lake Houston residents have also called for the reduction of water levels before a storm to which the association did not agree with as well unless a study proves otherwise.

"Consideration could be given to supporting a 'pre-release strategy' if a study is completed by an independent third party that evaluates the effectiveness and risks of 'pre-release' to those on Lake Conroe and downstream," the association stated in their letters. "Specific protocols would need to be developed and adhered to which direct SJRA in a decision to 'pre-release.'"

The Lake Conroe Association continues to stress the need for studies to determine what would be the best plan for all parties involved.

"There are a few possible options such as a joint program between the Harris County Flood Control District and the Montgomery County Flood Control District for flood control and other programs that include retention ponds; it will just take time to find a viable option for flooding issues," Bleier said.

For more information or to mail a letter to an elected official on behalf of the Lake Conroe Association, visit www.lakeconroeassociation.com.Houston's own Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale represented Houston and Texas during the State of the Uni0n address on Jan. 30, 2018.

The beloved Bayou City icon was Kevin Brady's guest of honor for the event after the U.S. Representative invited McIngvale as his plus one for the nationally-televised event.

HOUSTON ICON: Throwback videos show Mattress Mack through the years

McIngvale shared a photo on his Twitter with the caption, "Honored and humbled to be at the State of the Union tonight with @RepKevinBrady - representing all of Texas and America! God bless!"

The founder of Gallery Furniture was among many of the honorees including Bill Nye a.k.a "The Science Guy," and Jon Bridgers, founder of the Cajun Navy, which rushed to help Houstonians during Hurricane Harvey.

Fans of the furniture mogul were the first to express their pride that McIngvale would be representing the city in Washington.

One person said, "So very proud of @MattressMack ... a true American, a true Texan and Mr. Houstonian!"

"Mattress Mac- a True American Patriot who Acts rather than Speaks for the good of this country! Houston would not be the same without him," said another fan.

One thing is for sure, the motto #HoustonStrong was well represented at the event.

Take a look through the gallery above to see things you didn't know about Mattress Mack.

Daniela Sternitzky-Di Napoli is a digital producer at Chron.com. You can read more of her stories here and follow her on twitter at @Dani_DiNapoli.A Dallas man who was already on parole for the murder of his estranged wife when he stabbed and strangled his ex-girlfriend in 1999 begged for forgiveness and thanked God with his final breaths before his Tuesday night execution.

"I've asked God to forgive me. Please find it in your hearts to forgive me," William Earl Rayford said before he died by lethal injection at 8:48 p.m.

The 64-year-old asked his victim's family for forgiveness and promised to keep them in his prayers, according to a Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman.

"By no means am I happy for what I've done. I have asked the Lord to forgive me," he said. "Tell my kids I'm sorry for being a disappointment. Thank you. God bless. I'm ready warden."

The execution, which took 13 minutes to carry out, was delayed more than two hours in light of a pair of pending Supreme Court appeals, including claims that racially biased testimony tainted his sentencing.

With another execution on the calendar for Thursday, this week could be the first time in five years the Lone Star State has seen back-to-back executions so close together. The next death date on the calendar is for John David Battaglia, who was convicted of killing his two daughters in 2001 while narrating the slayings to his estranged wife on the other end of the phone.

NEXT EXECUTION: Dallas man who killed 2 daughters set to become 3rd execution this year

The scheduled execution comes two weeks after Texas carried out the nation's first execution of 2018 with the lethal injection of Houston-area serial killer Anthony Shore.

Rayford was first sent to death row 17 years ago, following the gruesome slaying of Carol Hall. The crime eerily echoed a 1986 killing that netted him a 23-year prison sentence.

In the earlier killing, the former glass cutter had stabbed his ex-wife Gail Rayford 16 times, just after she won a temporary restraining order against him. Their four children were at home and witnessed the killing - then watched the Dallas man leap out a second-story window, according to court records.

Rayford spent eight years behind bars for the crime, but was released early on mandatory supervision under a law that has since changed.

But in 1999, history would repeat itself.

In November of that year, Rayford slipped into the home of his ex-girlfriend, Carol Hall, according to court records. He started a fight and stabbed Hall's 12-year-old son, then chased the terrified mother down the street, according to court records.

Her body was later found in a culvert. She'd been strangled, beaten and stabbed.

In the years since his arrival on death row, Rayford, who is black, has launched appeals centering on claims of bad lawyering, brain damage and a suicide attempt that his lawyers argued showed remorse and hinted that he may not be a future danger.

This week, in a flurry of last-minute filings in the Supreme Court - including one late Tuesday - Rayford's lawyers argued that racially charged testimony during the punishment phase of trial "irreparably stained" the case.

"The punishment phase of Mr. Rayford's trial was tainted when defense counsel made the egregious and prejudicial error of soliciting testimony - later determined to be false - linking race to future dangerousness," his lawyers wrote. "William Earl Rayford is on the brink of being executed, at least in part based on his race."

Defense counsel also argued that Rayford had been wrongly denied funding to hire experts in his case.

NUMBERS: 71 percent of scheduled executions not carried out in 2017

But late Tuesday - after the execution had been delayed for more than two hours - the court rejected both of Rayford's bids for reprieve.

Meanwhile, with two days to go till the next date, Battaglia's lawyers are arguing for a reprieve based on questions of competency and mental illness. Three out of four experts who evaluated the Dallas man said he suffers delusions that render him incompetent to be executed, according to Supreme Court filings. The fourth, his lawyers wrote, used the wrong standard to determine his level of competency.

The former accountant has been on death row since the early 2000s, when he was convicted of killing his daughters, 9-year-old Mary Faith and 6-year-old Liberty.

At the time, Battaglia was already on probation for beating his estranged wife, Mary Jean Pearl.

But when Pearl complained of continued bad behavior - which could have sparked a probation revocation - Battaglia retaliated by killing his daughters during a scheduled visit.

Pearl listened on the phone as her girls pleaded for their lives, and tried running.

"Merry f****ng Christmas," her ex shouted as he fired the fatal shots.

Afterward, he drove to a tattoo parlor before he was arrested.

Last year, Texas led the nation in executions with seven condemned men put to death. The Lone Star State is the only state to execute a prisoner so far this year. Rayford's execution was the second nationwide this year.A group, some armed with pistols, burst through the front door of a hotel near the George Bush Intercontinental Airport hotel Wednesday morning then stole an unsecured ATM from the lobby, Houston police said.

Between six and eight men broke the front door of the Holiday Inn on Kenswick Drive, just east of the airport, around 3:30 a.m., and pointed guns at a clerk before hauling off the cash machine in a white panel van, police said.8:45 p.m. UPDATE:

The fire in Central Texas that continues to threaten 200 homes is 60 percent contained, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service.

The fire was originally reported to be about 750 acres, although the service now states it is 500 acres. No homes have been damaged, although the service still lists 200 as "threatened."

ORIGINAL STORY:

Fire crews are battling a growing grass fire that sparked in Central Texas Tuesday afternoon, forcing the evacuation of several residents as flames threaten nearly 200 homes.

The fire started shortly before 3 p.m. at the intersection of FM 2325 and Valley Springs Road in Hays County, which is southwest of Austin. The fire is in a heavily wooded area with few to no access roads for firefighters to get to the flames. This is making it difficult for them to get ahead of the fireline to contain the fire.

FIERY CRASH: Galveston man dies after driving truck off seawall

Crews with the Texas A&M Forest Service are helping local firefighters. An air tanker, which will dump roughly 3,000 gallons of fire retardant on the fire, is also being utilized to fight the flames.

The blaze is estimated at 750 acres, authorities said.

Hays County Director of Emergency Services Kharley Smith urged drivers to stay away from the area as crews work. The fire was zero percent contained as of 6 p.m.

Hays County is currently under a burn ban. The area is not expected to receive any rain until at least Friday night, according to the National Weather Service.

Jay R. Jordan is a breaking news reporter at Chron.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan.Four dogs have been stolen in Baytown since early November, and on Jan. 30, one of those dogs headed home to its family, thanks to the work of four detectives.

A Shih Tzu named Bella was stolen on Jan. 14 from a car that was parked at the Cracker Barrel on Interstate 10, Baytown Police Lt. Steve Dorris said.

HARVEY DOG: Puppy bowl to feature Houston canine

Bella's unnamed owners were traveling from North Carolina to San Antonio with their daughter and son-in-law, who were moving to San Antonio.

When they stopped to eat at the Baytown Cracker Barrel, Bella was stolen from their car, along with a laptop and iPhone.

A social media post by the family asking for help in finding the dog was shared more than 5,000 times, and police received a tip on a person seen in online photos posing with Bella, Dorris said.

On Jan. 30, detectives went to the home of the man in the photos, who said he had purchased the dog from another on the north side of Houston a week prior.

The man who bought Bella gave the dog to police, who took Bella to Columbus, Texas to be reunited with her family, Dorris said.

He said there have been no arrests in the case, although the investigation is ongoing. Detectives Rodrick Edwards, Joshua Cuccio, Felipe Gallegos and Shane Darsee participated in the investigation.

Three other dog thefts have occurred in Baytown since November. None of the other dogs have been recovered.

Nov. 9 - A white French bulldog valued at $5,000 was stolen from a garage in the 300 block of Bright Avenue.

Nov. 9 - A terrier-type mixed breed was stolen from the cab of a truck parked at the Wells Fargo Bank in the 4900 block of Garth.

Nov. 11 - A black pit bull was taken from a backyard in the 3400 block of Michigan, sometime between 6 a.m. and 3 p.m. The dog had been wearing a sweater and a collar with tags, both of which were removed and left behind. The gate to the backyard was left open.

Dorris said the dog thefts are probably not related as they appear to be crimes of opportunity.

Nearby in Chambers County, a family's German shepherd was stolen from their yard while they were away from home.

The Malmstrom family has made numerous pleas online for the return of Sheba, and a reward of $1,000 is being offered for information leading to the dog's location.Several Pasadena City Council members have raised concerns over a now-dead proposal from Mayor Jeff Wagner to contract a former Houston police officer to conduct private investigation services.

The item, which was listed on the council's Jan. 16 agenda, was deferred by Wagner during the pre-council meeting before the regular session. The item proposed approving an agreement for the services with former Houston police officer David P. McCoy.

"It really, really concerned me," City Councilman Cody Ray Wheeler said.

Wagner's chief of staff, James Rodriguez, said Monday that the proposal is not going forward and that "it didn't work out." Attempts to contact him for further information were unsuccessful, as were attempts to reach Wagner.

McCoy declined to comment.

Wheeler said no explanation was given for the proposal or why it was later taken off the agenda.

He and fellow council member Sammy Casados said they found the language worrisome in the contract that had been proposed between the city and McCoy.

According to the proposed agreement, "The responsibilities of David P. McCoy will, as directed by the Mayor, include review and investigation of facts and circumstances involving allegations of City, non-classified personnel, and agents misconduct related to duties and transactions with the City and non-criminal violation of law or policies."

"The private investigator was solely under his (Wagner's) discretion," Casados said of the proposal. "If anybody was going to be investigated, it was completely up to the mayor."

Wheeler said he had not received any notice or background information about the proposal. City Councilman Thomas Schoenbein said he, too, had been in the dark about the plan.

"The first time I heard about it was when it was placed on the Jan. 16 meeting agenda," Schoenbein said. "We did not have any opportunity to ask any questions. It was automatically deferred."Wheeler said he could think of no reason to hire an outside private investigator when existing law enforcement avenues are available and posses more investigative authority. McCoy's services would have cost the city $100 per hour with a four-hour minimum requirement written into the contract.

A resume attached to agenda documents indicated that McCoy was with the Houston Police Department from 1985 to 2014.

A recent local example of a city's internal investigation was when the city of Houston's Office of Inspector General checked into alleged misconduct by Darian Ward, who stepped down as press secretary to Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner after claims that she used city resources for a private side business and tried to block release public records. Harris County District Attorney's office has requested evidence from the city in that case.

Wheeler said he was concerned about potential for abuse that could occur through contracting of private investigation services.

"Hopefully, he got a sense that it's an overstep of power," Wheeler said of the mayor.

Schoenbein noted that the mayor and McCoy had both worked for the Houston Police Department, saying, "And I think that would have been one of the questions: What ties to the Houston Police Department and current administration would have been in place?"

Wagner was a longtime Houston police officer before his election as mayor in 2016.No charges have been filed in any of the three recent cases in the Houston and Fort Worth areas in which young children died after finding guns in their respective homes.

On Jan. 24, 3-year old Jonnie Colon found a gun in the bedroom at his home in northeast Fort Worth and accidentally shot himself in the head with family and other children also in the house, authorities said. Investigators are still trying to determine if the shooting was accidental.

On Saturday Jan. 27, a 4-year old boy in Texas City who was in the care of his grandmother found a small-caliber handgun in a bedroom and shot himself, police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Cpl. Mel Villareal, a spokesman for the Texas City Police Department, declined to provide details this week on who owned the gun or whether it was safely secured in the house.

And on Sunday Jan. 28, a 6-year old boy staying with his family at an older sister's apartment in north Houston found a handgun in a bedroom while his relatives were sleeping and accidentally shot himself, authorities said. The boy was transported to Texas Children's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead that night.

Kese Smith, a spokesman for the Houston Police Department, said that investigators were treating the incident like an accidental shooting, and declined to release details on whether the gun was safely secured.

Texas is one of 27 states with a Child Access Prevention law, which states that if a child under 17 gains access to a readily dischargeable firearm (i.e., loaded with ammunition, whether or not a round is in the chamber), a person is criminally liable but only if he or she failed to secure the firearm or left the firearm in a place where the person knew or should have known the child would gain access "with criminal negligence."

However, if the negligent person is a member of the family of the child who discharged the firearm, and the child was killed or seriously injured, an arrest cannot be made until seven days after the offense was committed.WASHINGTON  From immigration and border security to infrastructure and disaster response, President Donald Trump's first State of the Union address hit a host of hot-button issues that were felt deep in the heart of Texas.

Even as Trump called for unity, the symbolic centerpiece of his speech was the renewed call for a "great wall" along the Mexican border, the central barrier to deal on immigration and "Dreamers"  the children of illegal immigrants who the president acknowledges find themselves in the country through no fault of their own.

"The first pillar of our framework generously offers a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants who were brought here by their parents at a young age," Trump said. "Those who meet education and work requirements, and show good moral character, will be able to become full citizens of the United States."

But Trump's second pillar, he said, "means building a great wall on the Southern border." Rounding out the four pillars of Trump's immigration program are new restrictions on legal immigration  another flashpoint in the in the political battle that threatens to shut down the government again next week.

The rancor surrounding the issue was on display in the hours leading up to the speech, as Dreamers from all over the country, including Texas, converged on the U.S. Capitol to demonstrate their plight.

Among them was Houston Dreamer Cesar Espinosa, founder of an immigrants' rights organization named FIEL, who arrived as a guest of U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee. San Antonio Democrat Joaquin Castro also hosted a Dreamer, though he declined to give her name to protect her identify.

With the number of Dreamers in the chamber multiplying, one Republican lawmaker, Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, called on the U.S. Capitol Police to check IDs and arrest any "illegal aliens in attendance."

No arrests were reported. But there were hard feelings.

"The Amnesty Lobby and their millions (were) out in full force," said Maria Espinoza of the Remembrance Project, a Houston-based organization that highlights crimes committed by people living in the U.S. illegally.

But for Julian Castro, the former San Antonio mayor and housing secretary under President Obama, Trump's speech was a marker. "One year into the most divisive administration in recent memory, we are at a defining moment for Latino political engagement," he said at a Capitol Hill rally for Dreamers.

Meanwhile, Houston U.S. Rep. Al Green joined about a half dozen other members of the Congressional Black Caucus in boycotting the speech, calling it a matter of "principle."

Immigration deal

But the speech was welcomed by Texas Republicans, including Texas U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, one of the chief negotiators on an immigration pact that Congress hopes to reach by a March 5 deadline set by the president for ending the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Despite the mounting tensions, which have already led to one government shutdown, Cornyn listed Trump-backed initiatives on infrastructure, criminal justice reform and immigration as potential areas of bipartisan cooperation.

"The president has laid out a framework that is exceedingly generous to the DACA recipients, something that has surprised a lot of people in its generosity," Cornyn said. "But he's also said we need to make sure this doesn't happen again, and that's why the border security and the enforcement piece is an important part of the puzzle. It's going to take everybody giving something."

Trump, who has called for "heart" in dealing with the Dreamers, laid out the case for what he sees as a compromise on immigration, one that would provide immediate relief to some 124,000 Dreamers in Texas.

But the price, $25 billion for border security, including walls and fences, is more than many immigrant activists and Democrats want to pay.

"I am bewildered by the oversight of the negative impact that a border wall has on the 15 million people who call the southern border region their home," said U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela of Brownsville. "The apparent acceptance of the border wall and disregard of the impact on border communities demonstrates a fundamental lack of thought, logic, and empathy."

Christian Ramirez, director of the Southern Borders Communities Coalition, rejected Trump's proposal outright. "We should not be using border communities and the lives of Dreamers as bargaining chips to score cheap political points," he said.

But Trump's plan has garnered support from at least one Hispanic civil rights group, the Corpus Christi-based League of United Latin American Citizens. Cornyn cited their support as a sign of hope for Trump's plan, which would create a path to citizenship for as many as 1.8 million Dreamers.

Cornyn said the offer should entice Democrats, whose leader, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, recently rescinded his previous offer to go along with Trump's wall. "My guess is if they're serious about coming up with a solution for . young adults who would benefit from the president's proposal, they'll come back to the table," he said.

Trump also made the case for new limits on legal migration, a central plank of his nativist "America First" agenda.

"Struggling communities, especially immigrant communities, will also be helped by immigration policies that focus on the best interests of American Workers and American Families," Trump said. "So tonight, I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to protect our citizens, of every background, color, and creed. My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans - to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream.

"Because Americans are dreamers too."

Trump's proposed immigration limits already have run afoul of Democrats in Congress. But the White House plan mirrors provisions in a House bill co-sponsored by Houston-area Republican Michael McCaul that restricts family migration and ends a visa lottery system for nations that are underrepresented in the U.S. immigration system.

"We need to close the legal loopholes," McCaul said in a Fox News interview Tuesday.

A more narrowly-drawn bill backed by San Antonio Republican Will Hurd, who represents a heavily Latino border district in West Texas, calls for enhancing border security technology and surveillance, as opposed to a physical barrier. Unlike McCaul's bill, it also provides a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers.

Infrastructure plan

In a venue that is traditionally thematic and light on details, Trump laid out an ambitious $1.5 trillion federal infrastructure plan, also tapping into state, local and private funds. "We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways across our land," Trump said. "And we will do it with American heart, American hands, and American grit."

He also sought to strike a unifying tone of optimism with allusions to the heroes of Hurricane Harvey and other national traumas.

"Tonight, I want to talk about what kind of future we are going to have, and what kind of nation we are going to be," Trump said. "All of us, together, as one team, one people, and one American family."

One of his invited guests in the First Lady's box was Jon Bridgers, who founded the Cajun Navy that responded to flooding after Harvey hit Texas and Louisiana last summer.

Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, also brought another Harvey hero into the chamber: Businessman Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale, who opened his Gallery Furniture to shelter Houstonians displaced by Harvey.

Stephen Willeford, one of the heroes of last November's shooting rampage at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, also arrived as an invited guest of U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Laredo Democrat, and Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican.

Trump also gave a friendly nod to an energy sector that has long fueled Texas' economy. "We have ended the war on American Energy," he said. "We have ended the war on clean coal. We are now very proudly an exporter of energy to the world."

Bill Lambrecht contributed to this reportTwo Houston historical treasures damaged by Harvey are among the recipients of emergency Texas Historical Commission preservation grants announced Wednesday.

The John Biggers mural on a wall at the Blue Triangle community center in Third Ward was imperiled by Harvey rains that seeped through an already compromised roof and left mold on the painting. The association received a $30,000 grant.

Three archaeological collections owned by The Heritage Society at Sam Houston Park also were impacted by the storm. One set dates back to the Civil War and another is possibly old enough to coincide with Houston's founding in 1836. The society received a $15,000 grant.

The money comes from the Texas Preservation Trust Fund, which usually has an annual funding cycle. This set of additional grants is the first to solely allocate funds to places affected by a natural disaster. Six projects were selected.

In all, $165,000 in storm-related funding was added to the usual fiscal year funding cycle. Unlike the regular preservation awards announced in December, this emergency funding does not have to be matched, commission spokeswoman Leah Brown said.

"It's a reimbursement grant once they complete their project," she said.

Harvey swept through southeast Texas in August. The storm drenched cardboard boxes of archaeology that were stored at a historic home in Sam Houston Park. The house had been raised 14 feet after 2001's Hurricane Allison to avoid future flooding and still took on nine inches of water, according to Ginger Bernie, the society's curator of collections.

The Biggers mural has been threatened by a leaky roof inside the Blue Triangle Multi-Cultural Association's headquarters for several years. Caretakers pleaded for contributions in January 2016 for a patch job or a $200,000 complete restoration, but that help never came.

The 1953 Biggers mural, "Contribution of Negro Women to American Life and Education," depicts the strength of black women and now has hundreds of bursts of black mold growing amid its vibrant colors. The work featuring Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth and Phillis Wheatley was painted when the building operated as the Blue Triangle YWCA.

Biggers, who died in 2001 at 76, founded the art department at Texas Southern University. He is considered one of the foremost artists who captured the black experience of the 20th century and mentored several generations of Houston artists.

Four other sites each received a $30,000 emergency preservation grant: the Mary Christian Burleson Homestead in Elgin; the Recreation Hall at Goose Island State Park in Rockport; the Lee County Courthouse in Giddings; and the Refugio County Courthouse in Refugio.

The Texas Preservation Trust Fund was created by the Texas Legislature in 1989 to award grants.A Houston Forensic Science Center analyst was fired last week after it was discovered she shredded original case notes from a homicide, the agency said Wednesday.

A Houston Police Department spokesman said no evidence was lost in the investigation of that Jan. 12 shooting at 9000 Beechnut Street.

The unnamed employee worked at the center for nearly two years, during which she handled more than 100 cases, the agency said in a statement.

The agency said the violation "only pertains to one case," but that it will audit all of the former employee's work. The agency also said it will redo the forensic analysis in the homicide case "to ensure law enforcement and prosecutors have accurate, reliable information."

"HFSC will not tolerate the potential of professional misconduct and takes seriously any mishaps that may impact a criminal investigation," said Dr. Peter Stout, the agency's CEO and president.

"For this reason, we have strong quality systems in place and we are satisfied they worked as intended in this incident," Stout said. "Should the audit findings indicate we need to further strengthen those systems we will do so to ensure similar mistakes are not made going forward."

It is not clear if the analyst could face criminal charges for the incident. An agency spokeswoman referred any such questions to the Harris County District Attorney's office, a spokesman for which said the office "won't speculate on what charges could be filed in this or any matter."

"We review all matters sent to our office, and we can discuss those matters publicly when and if criminal charges are filed," DA spokesman Dane Schiller said in an email.

Stout, meanwhile, said in a phone interview that the violation did not appear to be "malicious."

But, he added, analysts are "very clearly instructed on how to retain their original notes."

"That's longstanding policy," he said.

The violation followed a standard, technical review that uncovered "several administrative errors" in the analyst's case notes from the homicide scene, the forensic science center said.

"To correct the errors, the analyst returned to the scene a few days after the incident," the agency said. "The analyst was instructed to correct the errors and retain the original case notes taken on the day of the homicide."

Instead, the analyst shredded the case notes, the agency said.

The violation will be disclosed to the Texas Forensic Science Commission, the center said. The Houston Police Department and district attorney's office have also been notified.

While it didn't affect an ongoing investigation, the incident is among the latest involving the mishandling of evidence at the agency since the crime lab opened in 2014 in response to, among other things, mismanagement at the Houston Police Department lab.

Last April, it was reported that 65 criminal cases were jeopardized because of errors by Houston crime-scene investigators, including 26 homicides, five officer-involved shootings and six child deaths.

"Any deficiencies in the collection of evidence at a crime scene are extremely disturbing and important," David Mitcham, the trial bureau chief of the DA's office, said at the time "It's not minor. It can create problems of proof later in a court of law."

In March 2016, Houston's Office of Inspector General recommended the center revise its quality-control policy procedures after an investigation into three incidents the year earlier found that analysts had mistakenly contaminated evidence. That inquiry began at the request of the center after an anonymous complaint was filed with the Texas Forensic Science Commission regarding the repeated misuse of new lab equipment, leading to tainted blood specimens.Fire crews successfully saved nearly 200 homes from a Central Texas grass fire that grew to 500 acres Tuesday.

Firefighters were called out to the intersection of FM 2325 and Valley Springs Road in Hays County, just southwest of Austin, around 3 p.m. Tuesday and were met with a growing fire that threatened nearby communities. Hays County authorities evacuated several residents as the fire progressed.

A few hours after firefighters were dispatched, they had it about 60 percent contained.

AUTO-PED: Man killed trying to cross Katy Freeway feeder

Crews with the Texas A&M Forest Service helped local firefighters. An air tanker, which dumped roughly 3,000 gallons of fire retardant on the blaze, was also utilized to fight the flames.

By Wednesday morning, the fire was 100 percent contained, according to the forest service, and no homes were destroyed.

The Hays County fire made up only one-fifth of the wildfires crews battled across the state from Monday until now. Close to 2,500 acres have been charred, according to the forest service.

Jay R. Jordan is a breaking news reporter at Chron.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan.Last month, Houston investor and Democratic candidate for Texas governor Andrew White launched his campaign by, among other things, railing against the state's inadequate education.

During his campaign kickoff, White cited a 2015 study that ranked Texas' education at number 43 in the nation. As Politifact points out, the study is a bit dated; In 2016, Texas actually inched upward to 42, according to the same and most recent annual study by Education Week.President Donald Trump delivered his first State of the Union Address Tuesday evening, speaking to Congress and the American people about unity, the economy and patriotism.

As Trump delivered his talking points, Twitter exploded with conversation -- the reactions ranging from praise to condemnationHouston City Council agreed to forgive enormous water bills thousands of households faced after Hurricane Harvey, voting unanimously to approve a one-time suspension of its bill collection rules amid widespread anomalies.

Houston Public Works found 6,362 homeowners' accounts doubled - or more - during or immediately after Harvey; 10 commercial or industrial accounts saw similar spikes.

After the storm, Public Works prevented those accounts from being disconnected or penalized for lack of payment while it investigated the issue, and set up a hotline for residents to call.

About 30 percent of the affected owners filed FEMA claims before the end of November, and will have their bills automatically reduced to their average monthly usage.

AT CITY HALL: Houston authorizes FEMA trailers on private property for Harvey victims

Others who filed a FEMA claim after Nov. 30, filed a private insurance claim related to Harvey, or can show other proof of Harvey damage should apply to Public Works for the special adjustment within 90 days and present the relevant documents.

The rule suspension also will partly reimburse homeowners who had to empty and refill their flooded pools; those residents will be billed only for the water used, rather than paying wastewater charges on the same volume, as typically would be the case.

"We're finally getting common sense back into city government," said Councilman Jack Christie shortly before the vote.

Mayor Sylvester Turner praised the work of Public Works officials, calling the move a "workable, pragmatic solution."

Public Works communications director Alanna Reed said the department's testing showed the accuracy of the city's water meters was not to blame, noting that high bill complaints affect less than 1 percent of all accounts.

Still, though the vast majority of high Harvey bills came from residents whose homes flooded, she said 82 percent of the identified cases have no precise explanation.

Among officials' theories: The refrigerator, floating away in the floodwaters, cracked the icemaker water line and created a leak. Or a vehicle driving through high water hit a buried water pipe.

WATER FIGHT: Campaign launched to protect Lake Conroe water levels

Public Works estimates it will forego $650,000 on the nearly one-third of Harvey-affected accounts whose owners promptly filed FEMA claims, and up to another $17,000 in pool refill credits.

The change council approved is basically an adjustment to one of the three ways existing city rules let homeowners fix erroneous water bills.

If one month's bill spikes to more than double a homeowner's monthly average and neither the owner nor the city can determine why - a scenario that covers most of the accounts affected by Harvey - the owner can pay 1.5 times his monthly average and have the rest forgiven.

The rule suspension council approved Wednesday, in essence, would drop that 1.5 ratio down to 1.Jon Shapley/Houston Chronicle

Houston City Council on Wednesday will consider a plan to forgive abnormally high water bills left behind by Hurricane Harvey's flood waters.

Houston Public Works identified more than 6,300 homeowners whose water bills doubled during or immediately after Harvey dumped more than 50 inches of rain on the area.WASHINGTON  From immigration and border security to infrastructure and disaster response, President Donald Trump's first State of the Union address hit a host of hot-button issues that were felt deep in the heart of Texas.

Even as Trump called for unity, the symbolic centerpiece of his speech was the renewed call for a "great wall" along the Mexican border, the central barrier to deal on immigration and "Dreamers"  the children of illegal immigrants who the president acknowledges find themselves in the country through no fault of their own.

"The first pillar of our framework generously offers a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants who were brought here by their parents at a young age," Trump said. "Those who meet education and work requirements, and show good moral character, will be able to become full citizens of the United States."

EXPLAINER: Why can't immigrants here illegally just apply for citizenship?

But Trump's second pillar, he said, "means building a great wall on the Southern border." Rounding out the four pillars of Trump's immigration program are new restrictions on legal immigration  another flashpoint in the in the political battle that threatens to shut down the government again next week.

The rancor surrounding the issue was on display in the hours leading up to the speech, as Dreamers from all over the country, including Texas, converged on the U.S. Capitol to demonstrate their plight.

Among them was Houston Dreamer Cesar Espinosa, founder of an immigrants' rights organization named FIEL, who arrived as a guest of U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee. San Antonio Democrat Joaquin Castro also hosted a Dreamer, though he declined to give her name to protect her identify.

With the number of Dreamers in the chamber multiplying, one Republican lawmaker, Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, called on the U.S. Capitol Police to check IDs and arrest any "illegal aliens in attendance."

No arrests were reported. But there were hard feelings.

"The Amnesty Lobby and their millions (were) out in full force," said Maria Espinoza of the Remembrance Project, a Houston-based organization that highlights crimes committed by people living in the U.S. illegally.

But for Julian Castro, the former San Antonio mayor and housing secretary under President Obama, Trump's speech was a marker. "One year into the most divisive administration in recent memory, we are at a defining moment for Latino political engagement," he said at a Capitol Hill rally for Dreamers.

Meanwhile, Houston U.S. Rep. Al Green joined about a half dozen other members of the Congressional Black Caucus in boycotting the speech, calling it a matter of "principle."

THE SPEECH: Trump warns of immigration peril, touts economy in address

Immigration deal

But the speech was welcomed by Texas Republicans, including Texas U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, one of the chief negotiators on an immigration pact that Congress hopes to reach by a March 5 deadline set by the president for ending the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Despite the mounting tensions, which have already led to one government shutdown, Cornyn listed Trump-backed initiatives on infrastructure, criminal justice reform and immigration as potential areas of bipartisan cooperation.

"The president has laid out a framework that is exceedingly generous to the DACA recipients, something that has surprised a lot of people in its generosity," Cornyn said. "But he's also said we need to make sure this doesn't happen again, and that's why the border security and the enforcement piece is an important part of the puzzle. It's going to take everybody giving something."

Trump, who has called for "heart" in dealing with the Dreamers, laid out the case for what he sees as a compromise on immigration, one that would provide immediate relief to some 124,000 Dreamers in Texas.

But the price, $25 billion for border security, including walls and fences, is more than many immigrant activists and Democrats want to pay.

"I am bewildered by the oversight of the negative impact that a border wall has on the 15 million people who call the southern border region their home," said U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela of Brownsville. "The apparent acceptance of the border wall and disregard of the impact on border communities demonstrates a fundamental lack of thought, logic, and empathy."

Christian Ramirez, director of the Southern Borders Communities Coalition, rejected Trump's proposal outright. "We should not be using border communities and the lives of Dreamers as bargaining chips to score cheap political points," he said.

But Trump's plan has garnered support from at least one Hispanic civil rights group, the Corpus Christi-based League of United Latin American Citizens. Cornyn cited their support as a sign of hope for Trump's plan, which would create a path to citizenship for as many as 1.8 million Dreamers.

Cornyn said the offer should entice Democrats, whose leader, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, recently rescinded his previous offer to go along with Trump's wall. "My guess is if they're serious about coming up with a solution for .... young adults who would benefit from the president's proposal, they'll come back to the table," he said.

Trump also made the case for new limits on legal migration, a central plank of his nativist "America First" agenda.

"Struggling communities, especially immigrant communities, will also be helped by immigration policies that focus on the best interests of American Workers and American Families," Trump said.

"So tonight, I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to protect our citizens, of every background, color, and creed. My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans -- to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream.

"Because Americans are dreamers too."

Trump's proposed immigration limits already have run afoul of Democrats in Congress. But the White House plan mirrors provisions in a House bill co-sponsored by Houston-area Republican Michael McCaul that restricts family migration and ends a visa lottery system for nations that are underrepresented in the U.S. immigration system.

"We need to close the legal loopholes," McCaul said in a Fox News interview Tuesday. "The bottom line is ... we want to deal with this in a holistic way with security and DACA, and not have to deal with another DACA five, ten years down the road."

A more narrowly-drawn bill backed by San Antonio Republican Will Hurd, who represents a heavily Latino border district in West Texas, calls for enhancing border security technology and surveillance, as opposed to a physical barrier. Unlike McCaul's bill, it also provides a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers.

Infrastructure plan

In a venue that is traditionally thematic and light on details, Trump laid out an ambitious $1.5 trillion federal infrastructure plan, also tapping into state, local and private funds. "We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways across our land," Trump said.

"And we will do it with American heart, American hands, and American grit."

He also sought to strike a unifying tone of optimism with allusions to the heroes of Hurricane Harvey and other national traumas.

"Tonight, I want to talk about what kind of future we are going to have, and what kind of nation we are going to be," Trump said. "All of us, together, as one team, one people, and one American family."

One of his invited guests in the First Lady's box was Jon Bridgers, who founded the Cajun Navy that responded to flooding after Harvey hit Texas and Louisiana last summer.

Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, also brought another Harvey hero into the chamber: Businessman Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale, who opened his Gallery Furniture to shelter Houstonians displaced by Harvey.

Stephen Willeford, one of the heroes of last November's shooting rampage at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, also arrived as an invited guest of U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Laredo Democrat, and Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican.

Trump also gave a friendly nod to an energy sector that has long fueled Texas' economy. "We have ended the war on American Energy," he said. "We have ended the war on clean coal. We are now very proudly an exporter of energy to the world."

Bill Lambrecht contributed to this report.AUSTIN  Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick may act like he's not worried by his Republican primary challenger, but he is spending more than $1 million on TV ads in the Houston area between now and the March 6 election.

Some 975 ads are booked to run during the Olympics, morning shows, afternoon programming, and prime-time evening news hours, according to television station public inspection records filed with the Federal Communications Commission.

"The Lt. Governor is very proud of what he has accomplished in his first term," said Allen Blakemore, Patrick's chief campaign strategist. "He is using this advertising opportunity to introduce himself to new voters and remind those who elected him that he has presided over the most conservative and productive Senate in Texas history."

Patrick's campaign is spending $1,049,640 on the TV ad spots in the Houston area, according to a review of FCC records. CBS affiliate KHOU-Channel 11 will run the most ads before the primary election, agreeing to air nearly 300 spots that will run 30 seconds each.

Other stations airing the TV spots include NBC affiliate KPRC-Channel 2, ABC affiliate KTRK-Channel 13, and FOX affiliate KIRV-Channel 26.

The ads were scheduled to slowly begin appearing this week, but will increase frequency in mid-February, popping in during commercial breaks for shows like The Good Doctor during prime time slots. The ads will run even more often right before the Mar. 6 election day.

The Houston-area media buy is one piece of a larger TV strategy for Patrick. He has booked the 30-second spots to run in Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio and Austin. In Dallas, Patrick is spending at least $840,000 on TV spots, according to a review of the records.

Patrick, a Houston Republican and social conservative, last reported having more than $17 million in his political war chest to fund his re-election campaign.

The lieutenant governor is elected statewide and assumes gubernatorial duties when the governor is out of the state. But most people know Patrick for his role running the Texas Senate. The powerful Republican sets the chamber's agenda, controlling which bills are assigned to committees and are taken up on the floor.

Patrick last year championed several conservative ideas that failed to become law, such as requiring transgender students to use the bathroom that correlates with the sex on their birth certificate. He has also pushed for property tax reform and wants parents to be able to send their children to private schools with state financial help.

Patrick is running statewide for a second term. He is running in the GOP primary against former Rockwall Councilman Scott Milder. The winner will face off against the winner of the Democratic primary election, which includes retired Kingwood accountant Mike Collier and Fort Worth auto sales manager Michael Cooper.

Andrea Zelinski covers politics for the Houston Chronicle. As the election heats up, follow her on Twitter and Facebook. Send her tips at andrea.zelinski@chron.com.Members of Congress from Texas were on board the train from Washington, D.C., to West Virginia that was involved in a fatal accident Wednesday morning, with no major injuries reported among them.

Some of the congressmen were banged up, though.

DEVELOPING STORY: Coverage from the train derailment

Sen. Ted Cruz took to Twitter moments after the accident.

"Thanks to all who have showed concern, I am just fine," Cruz tweeted. "Please keep in your prayers any others involved in the collision who have been injured."

Cruz was not the only Texan on the train that was heading for a Republican retreat. U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Dallas, also posted that he and those traveling with him on the train were OK.

"Karen, my staff members, and I are all on the train to the GOP conference and we are all safe," Sessions wrote.

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler, was also on the train and checked in, retweeting a message saying he was safe.

"Re: #TrainCrash: We have heard from @replouiegohmert, and he is okay. We have no other firsthand information at this time. - Kimberly Willingham," The Tweet Gohmert retweeted stated.

Gohmert, saying he was okay, gave an account to KETK television in East Texas.

"We were rolling down the track and we have a train that almost all of the Republicans in the house and numerous Republican senators were on going to the annual retreat," Gohmert said.

"The way it looks, the guard arm is down, so the garbage truck must have been weaving through the warning devices and they nearly got through. It appears we caught the tail end of the garbage truck."

Gohmert reported that while no lawmakers appeared to be seriously hurt, he believes some may have suffered bruises and even concussions.

"We have a number of doctors in Congress who were doing all they could," Gohmert continued. "The priest that was with us gave him (the deceased) his last rights."

One of the doctors on board was a Texan -- Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Pilot Point, who helped administer aid to victims.

Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, also was on the train but reported to be fine.

A spokeswoman for Houston-area Congressman Pete Olson said he was slightly injured in the crash.

"He banged up his knee a little bit, but he's OK," said Melissa Kelly, an aide to the Sugar Land Republican, a former Navy pilot. "He was a little shaken up."

He did not require hospitalization and continued on the journey to the GOP retreat, she said.

Congressman John Culberson, a Houston Republican, also sustained minor injuries in the accident, according to Jamie Robinette, his chief of staff.

"He complained about his neck, but I think he's going to be OK," she said.

Also on the train was Houston region Republican Michael McCaul.

Several Texans heading for the same conference were not on the train. U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold said he was driving to the event, and fellow Republican Ted Poe likewise was not on the train, according to a staff member.

Jeremy Wallace writes about state politics and government for the Chronicle. Follow him on Twitter at @JeremySWallace.Four-time Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles said Monday she was pleased by the lengthy sentence imposed on disgraced USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar and has yet to hear from the U.S. Olympic Committee since disclosing that she was among gymnasts abused by Nassar.

Biles, 20, of Spring, appeared on NBC's "Today" and "Megyn Kelly Today" in New York City to promote a made-for-television movie about her life to disclose that she has enrolled as a student at an online college.

She discussed with show host Hoda Kotb the 40- to 175-year sentence imposed on Nassar by Michigan state Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina and the difficulty of coming to grips with her public acknowledgement of Nassar's abuse.

"I think it's very hard for someone to go through what I've gone through recently, and it's very hard to talk about," Biles said. "But other than that, I think the judge is my hero just because she gave it to (Nassar) straight and didn't let him get any power over any of the girls and letting the girls go and speak was very powerful."

Asked her opinion of the sentence, Biles added, "I was very happy. I wish she would have just given him like a crazy number like 3000 years or something, but other than that she was a boss and she was absolutely amazing."

In her conversation with Kelly, Biles said she resisted telling her parents that she had been abused by Nassar under the guise of medical treatment.

"I would be angry and I didn't want to talk about it and say 'No, it couldn't happen to me. There's just no way,," Biles said. "And then you come to realize that it has happened and that's when I broke down about it," Biles said.

"Nobody wants their daughter or any individual to have that happen to them. It feels like (Nassar) took a part of me that I can't get back, so I'm still working on that part."

Biles: Larry Nassar's behavior 'unacceptable and disgusting'

Biles, who has resumed training at the family-owned World Champions Centre in Montgomery County with an eye on competing at the 2020 Olympics, said she has met with Kerry Perry, the new president of embattled USA Gymnastics, but has yet to hear from USOC officials regarding the Nassar case.

"I'm one of their top athletes advocating for not only gymnastics and for the Olympics," she said. "I feel like it's kind of crazy, but hopefully they'll reach out."

Biles also said she has enrolled at University of the People, an online school based in Pasadena, Calif., and will serve as an unpaid "global ambassador" for the school, which features her photo on its website. The school said also has launched a scholarship fund at the school to benefit foster children.

Biles also will be portrayed in a movie that airs Saturday on Lifetime titled "The Simone Biles Story: Courage to Soar."We attempted to send a notification to your email address but we were unable to verify that you provided a valid email address. Please click here to update your email address if you wish to receive notifications. Otherwise, you may click here to disable notifications and hide this message.AKRON, Ohio -- Tuesday Musical will host its next Decompression Chamber concert at the Summit County Court House Wednesday, Feb. 14.

Tuesday Musical's Quartet-in-Residence, Escher String Quartet, will perform the free, hour-long concert.

The performance will take place from noon-1 p.m. in the court house's first floor atrium. Summit County Court House is located at 209 S. High St. in downtown Akron.

Decompression Chamber concerts are intended to bring live classical music to high-pressure work sites, including government offices, hospitals, factories and social service agencies.

"We hope that bringing art to the community, and to an unusual place like the Court House, allows employees and visitors a mental break," Summit County Probate Court Judge Elinore Marsh said in a news release. "Music gives even a casual listener an escape and a chance to recharge."

Escher String Quartet will perform for employees working in the courts, people attending trials or residents filing for marriage licenses on Valentine's Day.

Tuesday Musical will host additional Main Stage and Fuze! Concerts at E.J. Thomas Hall this spring. Visit tuesdaymusical.org for more information.

Want more Akron news? Sign up for cleveland.com's Rubber City Daily, an email newsletter delivered at 5:30 a.m. Monday through Friday.CLEVELAND, Ohio - Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish wants to be able to offer signing bonuses, performance pay and relocation expenses to lure top talent to county jobs, according to proposed changes to the county's employee handbook.

The Budish administration also wants to continue the controversial practice of paying overtime to salaried employees who work extra hours.

The provisions for attracting talent appear in a section on "executive and special compensation" that is included in a draft of the new county handbook. The new handbook, if approved by County Council, will replace the current Personnel Policies and Procedures Manual, last updated in 2013.

The draft handbook will be subject to revisions before council votes, spokeswoman Mary Louise Madigan has said.

The Budish administration has been working on a new handbook after the county's internal auditor told the executive that he did not have the discretion under the current handbook to set policies for administrative hires.

See the draft below or click here if on a mobile device:

Budish drew up executive and special compensation guidelines last October, saying he had administrative authority in the current policy manual that says:

"Unless restricted by law, the County reserves all rights to manage its workforce. The policies and procedures contained in this Manual do not reflect or represent every conceivable factual situation, but those most often encountered. Situations may differ and will be handled as warranted by the circumstances and at the discretion of the County."

County Council, concerned about the proposed executive compensation and overtime that had been paid to salaried employees, introduced a resolution in November to repeal that section of the policy. That is pending while the new handbook is being developed.

Currently the county can only offer high salaries to entice top candidates to take jobs.

"A lot of things cannot happen unless the county ups its game and gets the right people and right systems in place," Budish's chief of staff, Sharon Sobol-Jordan, said in a recent meeting with cleveland.com. "Those things cost money. We learned that pretty quickly when we tried to fill our team."

Here is what the proposed section has to say about executive and special compensation":

The Director of Human Resources determines which employees are eligible for, and may receive executive and special compensation, which is in addition to salary and benefits.

Eligibility: Senior level positions (e.g., chiefs, department directors, deputy directors). Hard-to-fill positions (e.g., highly technical roles within Information Technology or other departments)

Lump-sum Signing Pay: A one or two-time payment to a new or re-hired employee for accepting the county's job offer. Total expenditure of a lump-sum signing pay shall not exceed 10 percent of the employee's annualized base salary.

Performance Pay: Additional compensation for achieving specific job performance goals or hitting predetermined targets.

Premium Pay: Compensation paid to an employee as a percentage of the employee's annual rate for work which requires substantial amounts of irregular or additional time worked.

Advanced Exchange Time: A lump-sum amount of paid leave credited to an employee's exchange time balance, on a one time or reoccurring basis, that has not been accrued through the county's regular earned-exchange time policy and procedures. Total advanced exchange time that can be offered shall not exceed 120 hours within a calendar year.

Executive Physical: Comprehensive wellness evaluations.

Relocation Reimbursement Assistance: While not intended to cover all costs related to the relocation of a new employee, the assistance may be available for employees who qualify either as new hires, or, in certain cases, are re-hired.

Relocation assistance: If the commuting distance is 50 or more miles. The county may pay for up to a maximum of two house hunting and family visitation trips for the new employee and up to three qualified family members. Such trips will be limited to a maximum of eight nights and nine days per trip. The County may pay for temporary living expenses, normally not to exceed three months.

Following are proposed incentives for employees:

Retention payments: Retention payments may be offered as an incentive to retain a key employee during a crucial time, such as implementation of critical projects, mass retirements or disruptive periods of organizational change.

Premium Pay: Premium pay may be offered in exchange for obtaining and maintaining a job-related professional license/certification or formal demonstration of the employee's mastery of skills, knowledge, and/or competencies, beyond what is required.

Equity Adjustment An equity adjustment is a mechanism for addressing salary inequities arising from external pressures in high demand fields and/or internal salary comparisons. Reasons for equity adjustments may include, but are not limited to:

a substantial increase in ongoing responsibilities that are not sufficient enough to warrant a reclassification or reassignment

an unacceptable salary inequity between positions that are of comparable worth in a department or throughout the organization, an unacceptable salary inequity between an employee's salary and the average salary of similar positions in the market

the need to retain a key employee whose experience or special skills are uniquely critical

Equity adjustments may be made when approved by the County Executive, as the County's budget permits.

The proposed handbook also includes overtime pay for salaried workers.

Employees in overtime-exempt positions may receive straight time on an hour-for-hour basis for time worked beyond forty-five (45) hours in a work week, provided the following:

There is a critical, extraordinary operational need (e.g., impact on the health and safety of County residents, or to avoid the loss of federal, state or grant funding). Staying to finish up normal assignments does not qualify.

There is a "meeting of the minds" between the exempt employee and the supervisor - the employee must either be required to work over or be granted prior authorization by their supervisor to work the additional hours. Supervisors must work with Human Resources and receive prior approval.

The county's internal auditor and the county prosecutor's office have both concluded that the Budish administration has been violating the employee handbook and county's governig charter by making the payments to salaried employees.

The issue of compensation arose following a report last fall by the internal auditor's department which determined the county had improperly granted $1.7 million in extra pay to salaried employees.

On Dec. 1 Budish apologized for how he handled the issues and accepted the Sept. 29 audit findings. He also said his administration would move more quickly to work with council to update the county's employee-compensation policies to address the issue.

But the county sought to continue to pay overtime to salaried employees who work beyond 40 hours while it developed the new employee handbook.CLEVELAND, Ohio - A beer trail in Cuyahoga County is close to becoming a reality in the next few months.

What is determined about the trail is that "it will launch in coming months, probably beginning of the second quarter," said Emily Lauer of Destination Cleveland.

But the specifics are still in the works, including which breweries would be included and whether a passport-like program will be implemented, and whether it will target Cleveland only or cover all of Cuyahoga County.

"It went from exploration in the fall to dotting the I's and crossing the T's at this point," Lauer said.

The trail could be a boon for both residents and visitors, she said.

"When friends and family want to visit and say 'What are we going to do in Cleveland?' They can say 'We've got this new beer trail' "

The Columbus Ale Trail has been around for a few years with more than three dozen breweries. Summit County started its Summit Brew Path almost a year ago through the Akron-Summit Convention & Visitors Bureau.

The Summit trail was an overnight success, with breweries reporting lines of beer tourists hoping to get their passports stamped. While larger ones like Thirsty Dog Brewing Co. and Hoppin' Frog Brewery are well known among craft-beer fans, it brought attention especially to smaller breweries.

More than 2,600 people completed the Summit Brew Path last year, and this year's version launches in 2018. More than a dozen breweries are part of the program.

"I'm totally for it," said Wally Weiss, a brewer at Sibling Revelry Brewery in Westlake and an Ohio Craft Breweries Association board member. "We (OCBA) do have the Ohio On Tap app for people to gather the breweries, check in, and reward themselves." Weiss was one of several hundred brewers and others who are attending the organization's annual convention, which is in Cleveland. It runs through Wednesday, Jan. 31.

Unlike Summit Brew Path, the OCBA's passport is paperless. Beer lovers visit a brewery and check in with the app, receiving a virtual stamp. More brewery trips means more stamps, and more stamps means more swag. Weiss even said "two to four people have visited every brewery in Ohio."

For perspective: There are 399 member breweries in the non-profit organization's domain. Last year there were 292, he said.

The app, which Weiss said has been downloaded 11,000 times, "gives people an opportunity to explore our breweries."

That exploration can directly affect breweries, who look for ways to distinguish themselves in a marketplace that is growing more competitive by the day. Local breweries pop up regularly, and Ohio is included in the distribution ranks from a majority of the country's largest 25 craft breweries.

"

I definitely think it could be a way to market ourselves," said Mike Pelechaty, brewer at Masthead Brewing Co. "Anything we can do to separate ourselves and market ourselves is important."CLEVELAND, Ohio - Howard Stern is attempting to endear himself to Clevelanders leading up to the radio host inducting Bon Jovi into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in April. Okay, not really.

As previously reported, Jon Bon Jovi asked Stern to induct Bon Jovi into the Rock Hall during the ceremony held in Cleveland on April 14. Stern accepted, but he doesn't appear happy about coming to Cleveland.

"For some reason, they must have some [strange] deal that every once in a while they'll actually shoot the celebration in Cleveland...But it's the stupidest f****** thing," Stern said on his SiriusXM show Wednesday morning. "It's already been explained to me, through the grapevine, that a lot of rock and roll people aren't going to be in the audience, because it's in Cleveland."

Stern went on to insist he loves the people of Cleveland and he wasn't trying to disrespect the city. Yet, his words suggested otherwise.

"[Rock stars] are not in Cleveland," Stern said. "They don't care about getting on a jet and going to Cleveland. They just don't."

"I just want to shake the people, whoever the people are of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. It's so stupidly put together. I'm going to lay it all out in my State of the Union. Someone's gotta educate people."

Of course, Stern might want to educate himself. The Rock Hall Ceremony held in Cleveland in 2015 featured top acts like Green Day, Joan Jett and Ringo Starr, among others. It also featured guests like Miley Cyrus, Fall Out Boy, Yoko Ono, Dave Grohl, John Mayer and Paul McCartney. But Stern clearly hasn't done his homework.

"Paul [McCartney] ain't gonna be in Cleveland," Stern said, clearly not aware of the 2015 ceremony. "So dumb. People are so dumb. You want to make good television. Do it where there are interesting people to look at."

Stern continued to rub it in, before admitting he's the "wrong guy" to do a Rock Hall Induction speech.

"I know why [Bon Jovi] finally got in," Stern joked. "No one else wanted to go to Cleveland. They said, 'Who's willing to go to Cleveland? Jon raised his hand."

Stern also joked that the Rock Hall Ceremony should be held in New York and cut to Cleveland briefly, where they can have Nina Simone's casket or her family present.

Stern is the only presenter that has been confirmed by the Rock Hall for the April 14 ceremony, which will honor Bon Jovi, Simone, The Moody Blues, Dire Straits, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and The Cars.

We have reached out to the Rock Hall for a response to Sterns' comments.ROOTSTOWN, Ohio -- A 50-ish widow with diabetes tells her doctor that she has been reaching for the wine bottle more often, and her kids worry that she's an alcoholic.

Will her doctor give her a condescending lecture, or gently persuade her to cut her alcohol intake?

Video cameras mounted around the exam room capture how the doctor chose to handle this delicate conversation.

The doctor was actually a medical student, the office visit was staged and the widow was a volunteer standardized patient, or someone who has been trained to portray, in a consistent manner, a patient in a medical situation.

This session recently took place in Northeast Ohio Medical University's (NEOMED) Wasson Center for Clinical Skills Training, Assessment and Scholarship. The simulation facility, located on the NEOMED campus in Rootstown, allows NEOMED students and other health care professionals from across Northeast Ohio to practice clinical skills, and bedside manner.

Adrienne Ford, a 58-year-old retired teacher living in Portage County, portrayed the widow. Ford was happy that the student pointed out how increased alcohol consumption adversely affects health, without sounding judgmental.

"I'm impressed that this program exists for young physicians," Ford said. "For them to be able to practice is huge."

Wasson Center volunteers portray many types of patients -- a man with dementia, a teenager with anorexia or parents with a child who is dying - to give medical and pharmacy students experience in handling a wide variety of clinical situations, said Kristine Wagner, standardized patient educator at the Wasson Center.

Medical students know that the office visit is a simulation, and patient scripts are written by instructors, Wagner said. Sessions are recorded for evaluation; volunteer patients also give students feedback and suggestions.

In their final year of med school, NEOMED students must undergo a 4 1/2-hour exam involving seven standardized patients representing ob-gyn, pediatric, psychiatric, surgery and other cases, Wagner said.

Daniel Giorgio, a third-year NEOMED medical student from Wadsworth, thinks that doing simulated office visits with standardized patients has made him better at thinking on his feet. He's learned ways to get a chatty patient back on the topic, and how to project empathy when taking patient histories.

"It can be scary," Giorgio, 24, said about the evaluations. "I get nervous when I know I'm being recorded and watched."

There are 523 volunteers in NEOMED's standardized patient program, ranging in age from 5 to 87, Wagner said. Volunteers are recruited by word of mouth and are paid $12 an hour for their time, which includes memorizing scripts.

"Our (standardized) patients are amazing in their commitment to us," Wagner said.

Volunteer Tyson Sebree, 40, sees this work as an extension of his local theater career. "It's a blast," said Sebree, who lives in Akron and has been a standardized patient for three years.

In his first simulation, Sebree portrayed a frustrated patient confronting his pharmacist because his prescribed medication tested as crystal meth in a work-related drug test.

"I was angry and looking for answers," Sebree recalled. The student pharmacist had to calm the patient and figure out why the medication was flagged as a street drug.

Sebree feels he's helping to train young doctors to see patients not as statistics, but as people affected by family, friends and other things in their lives.

"When they connect with that, it's amazing," he said. "I'm so very grateful I was able to be a part of this. I feel like I've really accomplished something."Welfare check, Thornbury Road: At 1:05 a.m. Jan. 24, New York City police called Lyndhurst police asking if a certain address existed in Lyndhurst.

A man had called the NYPD stating he was on the phone with his girlfriend, a Lyndhurst resident, and that she had acted strangely during their conversation.The woman threatened to harm herself, then hung up.

The man wanted police to check on the woman, but was unsure of the address.

The address given did not exist in Lyndhurst, nor did another that was tried. By tracking the woman's cell phone, police thought they had the address, but found after knocking on the door of another resident that it was incorrect.

Eventually, the proper address was found. The woman, 28, answered and told officers that she was fine. She said she hung up with her boyfriend because they had gotten into an argument.

Domestic violence, Ford Road: At 5:20 p.m. Jan. 28, a woman called 911 about violence taking place at her home. Screaming could be heard in the background, but the call was disconnected before the dispatcher could take down an address.

Police were eventually able to locate the home. There was an altercation between a father, 54, and his son, 26. The caller was the son's mother.

Police checked on the situation, but no arrests were made.

Assist person, Edgefield Road: At 9:45 a.m. Jan. 27, a man notified police that his homeless aunt, 71, was in a parked car in his driveway. The woman, who had fallen asleep, had her pets with her.

Without the man's permission, she had placed a cat in his garage. In the car were two dogs.

The man told police he would allow his aunt to stay in his house, but not her pets. Police notified the city's animal control officer, who took away the animals for eventual placement at Geauga County's Rescue Village.

Suspicion, Eastover Road: Just before midnight Jan. 25, an officer spotted a car being driven that had been reported stolen from a Cleveland woman.

The officer conducted a traffic stop. Two men who had been in the car got out once the auto stopped. The men ran. One, 25, was taken into custody; the other was not apprehended.

Subsequent investigation revealed that the car had not been stolen. The woman had allowed her boyfriend to use the vehicle. It is not known why the men ran from the car.

The suspect was released. Charges are pending for the 22-year-old man not apprehended.

Unwanted guest, Spencer Road: At 1:55 p.m. Jan. 25, a woman called police asking officers to remove her ex-boyfriend from her home, as the man refused to leave.

When police arrived, the man agreed to leave and return to Wooster.

Theft, Cedar Road: At 5:10 a.m. Jan. 24, a woman reported that someone stole her belongings from inside a locker at L.A. Fitness, 25145 Cedar Road.

Theft from auto, Richmond Road: At 6:40 a.m. Jan. 23, a woman reported that someone broke into her car and stole several items. The car was parked in the lot of the Colony House Apartments, 1424 Richmond Road.

If you would like to discuss the police blotter, please visit our crime and courts comments page.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The boyfriend of the Cleveland mother accused of killing her 5-year-old son and burying his body in her backyard has also been charged with murder.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O'Malley also said a grand jury has handed up charges against a social services worker accused of buying thousands of dollars in food stamps off of the mother, Larissa Rodriguez, in a years-long scheme.

Christopher Rodriguez is charged with murder in the death of Jordan Rodriguez, and Nancy Caraballo, a contract parent educator with the Bright Beginnings agency, is charged alongside Larissa Rodriguez with illegal trafficking in food stamps and bribery, O'Malley announced.

Bright Beginnings is a publicly funded nonprofit organization under the Cuyahoga County Educational Services Department.

Caraballo was employed by Catholic Charities, to which Bright Beginnings contracted some of its social services, and was assigned to visit the Rodriguez home once a month since at least 2014 to teach the children, O'Malley said. She had a mandatory requirement to report abuse or neglect, O'Malley said.

But O'Malley said Caraballo filed false reports to cover up the fact that she skipped at least 11 visits, including one the month before investigators found the boy's body, O'Malley said.

Investigators found the home infested with bed bugs and cockroaches, but Caraballo did not report the family, O'Malley said.

Larissa Rodriguez got $1,000 a month in food stamps to help feed her children. She developed a personal relationship with Caraballo, and the two hatched a scheme where Caraballo would buy a certain amount of stamps off the mother each month at half-price, O'Malley said.

Investigators obtained surveillance camera video showing Caraballo using Rodriguez's food stamps card, prosecutors said.

"This food stamp transaction is a bribe," O'Malley said. "[Caraballo] was being bribed to look the other way."

Caraballo also visited the home on Dec. 10, nine days before the boy's body was discovered, O'Malley said.

O'Malley said investigators do not have information to show whether Caraballo knew of the boy's disappearance or death, but said his office would consider levying additional charges if the county's medical examiner's office determines that malnourishment played a role in how Jordan died.

Bright Beginnings director Karen Mintzner said she was "deeply disturbed to hear about the allegations" and said the agency, a political subdivision of the Cuyahoga County Educational Service Center, was cooperating with the investigation.

"From what we've heard from the investigators, this is an isolated incident," Mintzner told cleveland.com.

Catholic Charities said in a statement that they fired Caraballo after they learned of the allegations and are also cooperating with investigators.

"We are shocked and disappointed that this former employee violated our policies and failed to adhere to the standards required of all employees at Catholic Charities," the statement said.

Larissa Rodriguez, 34, is being held in the county jail on $1 million bond on murder, felonious assault, child endangering and gross abuse of a corpse charges. She faces up to life in prison if convicted.

The new charges handed up Wednesday could put her in jail for up to another 50 years if she is convicted on all counts.

She pleaded not guilty to the murder charges. John Stanard, an assistant Cuyahoga County public defender representing Larissa Rodriguez, declined to comment on her behalf.

The remains of Jordan Rodriguez, were unearthed Dec. 19, one day after the brother of Rodriguez's boyfriend called Cleveland police from Pakistan and reported that he helped the mother bury her son in the backyard of her home on West 80th Street.

The call prompted authorities to dig up the backyard, where they found Jordan's body which showed multiple signs of abuse, including broken ribs, court records say.

Investigators now believe that Christopher Rodriguez played a role in both the boy's death and the disposal of his body, O'Malley said.

Christopher Rodriguez is currently in the Medina County Jail.

Jordan was last seen alive in September, and investigators believe he died sometime around Sept. 22.

Rodriguez is a mother to nine children and is pregnant with her 10th. County social workers said in court documents that her home was in "deplorable and unsanitary conditions." It was also infested with rats and cockroaches, and social workers found one child eating a cockroach-filled sandwich when they arrived at the house, records say.

The four children who lived at the home have been taken into emergency custody by the county, which has opened 13 abuse or neglect investigations into Rodriguez since 1999.

To comment on this story, please visit Wednesday's crime and courts comments page.

Clarification: A previous version of this story used Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael O'Malley's description of Caraballo as "social worker." Caraballo is not licensed by the Ohio Counselor and Social Worker Board, according to online records.WOOSTER, Ohio - The College of Wooster will commit more money to combating all forms of discrimination on campus, the school announced Wednesday in an email to alumni.

In the email, President Sarah Bolton also pledged to seek more student input about how the school should discourage discrimination.

Bolton's announcement follows a sit-in Jan. 24 by about 300 students concerned about issues related to diversity, inclusion and the student experience.

The students, who represented about 15 percent of the 2,000 enrolled at the private college, remained in the administration building for 10 hours while meeting with Bolton and top administrators.

The sit-in was sparked by racist memes posted in a private Facebook group by a senior, who was a member of the former Wooster Right Wingers, a conservative political club. Students said the senior also indicated he liked alt-right YouTube videos.

The student has been removed from campus while school administrators review his conduct

,

a college spokesman said.

Students, staff and faculty met Jan. 14 to discuss what occurred and that resulted in meetings among leaders of student organizations, who developed a wide list of demands.

The students walked out of class and held the sit-in to publicize the demands.

"We discussed their experiences and concerns, and the changes that could best address them," Bolton wrote in Wednesday's email. "Everyone present shared one goal: taking concrete and effective action to make Wooster a better, more welcoming, and more equitable place."

Several of the initiatives proposed in the students' demands also were part of the college's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Strategic Plan, which was developed with students, staff, faculty, and the board of trustees last year, Bolton wrote.

But some concerns raised by the students were not addressed in that plan, she wrote.

Following is Bolton's summary of the college's response.

Resources: The college committed $20,000 to the Center for Diversity and Inclusion, and will review resource needs for next year's budget. Campus Council and the Student Government Association are also are reviewing their budgets.

Education and training: Training for students, staff, and faculty to create a more equitable and inclusive campus is underway. Student leaders will meet with the professionals who are creating those programs to be sure that their concerns are addressed.

Education in cultural competency, including sexuality and gender inclusion, will be provided for all students as part of orientation and other required first-year activities.

Reporting of, and response to, discrimination and bias-related harassment: Changes will be made to address current barriers to reporting and ensure that reporting is easily accessible and easy to use. Materials will be created for responding to all forms of discrimination.

Storage and translation: The college will work on ways for parents and families who don't read English to access crucial information on the Wooster website, and to provide affordable summer storage for international students and others who need it, including low-income students with homes far from the area.

Transparency and monitoring progress: The college will add reports of bias and discrimination, as well as reports of drug and alcohol incidents, to the existing monthly campus-climate report, which currently relays Title IX issues.

Campus-climate surveys will be conducted every two years and training programs on cultural competency and diversity will be assessed.LORAIN, Ohio -- A Lorain toddler was hospitalized after he suffered "suspicious injuries" over the weekend, police said.

The 3-year-old boy was taken to Mercy Hospital Sunday by his mother who found him unresponsive, Lorain police said in a Tuesday news release.

The child's mother said he was pushed over a diaper box by his 1-year-old brother.

Hospital officials said the injuries didn't match the explanation given by the boy's mother, so they called police who determined that someone assaulted the child.

The child was taken to MetroHealth for treatment, where he was listed in critical condition, police said.

Investigators said arrests are expected in this case.

To comment on this story, visit Tuesday's crime and courts comments section.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- My found kitten story is about Darla. I already had two cats and a dog when my dog, as we were coming home from a walk, spotted something in my neighbor's yard. Unsure of what it was, I put the dog into the house and went to my neighbor's.

I found a little kitten eating bread that had been left for the birds.

Darla Von Bon Bon came into our lives that day - one year to the day of my adoption of Jasper, who was a bit of a naughty cat. This changed all of our lives, especially Jasper's; from that point on, he became a good cat!

Darla was a beautiful, small Maine Coon mix. Her father -- the stud of the neighborhood -- lived across the street, and her mother was a small tabby stray.

Darla lived with us from 2001 to 2015, when she passed away from lung cancer. She really was the queen of the house, accepting changes in our pet population while remaining chief female.

I've had many, many rescue pets, and still do - but Darla was the only one I actually found myself.

Stacie Hrvatin

Cleveland

Do you share your life with an animal that is near and dear to you? Tell us something about your pet - all species are welcome - and send along a photo of the two of you. Be sure to tell us which Greater Cleveland community you live in. Send everything to Ann Norman at anorman@cleveland.com.DUBLIN, Ohio -- A man accused of exposing himself to children was convicted Tuesday on three charges, but his lawyer says his client actually was just scratching because of a case of jock itch, reports say.

John Michael Hammel, 52, pleaded guilty in Franklin County Common Pleas Court and was found guilty of two counts of public indecency in what appears to be a sex act and one count of public indecency-exposure, according to 10tv.com.

Hammel was arrested in August after he was accused of exposing himself to juvenile females at Half Price Books, COSI and Petland in Columbus, WCMH Channel 4 reports.

Court records say Hammel was seen fondling himself under his clothing and also exposed his genitals. His actions reportedly were seen on surveillance videos.

Hammel's lawyer, Will Nesbitt, tells 10tv it's a case of misunderstanding, even though the videos appear to show Hammel committing a sex act. Nesbitt says he has notes from doctors outlining Hammel's condition.

"Unfortunately in Ohio it's illegal to itch yourself in public if it appears as though it could be a sex act," lawyer Will Nesbitt says. "And unfortunately in Mr. Hammel's case, he developed a severe case of basically jock itch."

A father of one of the victims, a 5-year-old girl, was incensed by the excuse, according to 10tv.com.

"He's scum. And he doesn't need to be in the vicinity of children, period," the father says.

If you'd like to comment on this story, visit Tuesday's crime and courts comments section.WASHINGTON - Ohio Republicans in Congress this week honored the 175th anniversary of President William McKinley's birth by reminding the current White House occupant of his campaign pledge to restore the assassinated president's name to North America's highest mountain peak.

President Obama wants to change the name of Mt. McKinley to Denali after more than 100 years. Great insult to Ohio. I will change back!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 1, 2015

The Alaskan mountain bore McKinley's name from 1896 until 2015, when President Barack Obama ordered restoration of its traditional Native American name, Denali, which means "The Great One."

Obama's order followed years of requests by people in Alaska who said Denali was its rightful name. A statement released by the White House at the time observed that although McKinley was tragically assassinated in 1901, "he never set foot in Alaska - and for centuries, the mountain that rises some 20,000 feet above sea level, the tallest on the North American continent, had been known by another name - Denali."

But the change upset Ohio admirers of McKinley, a former Ohio congressman and governor who served as the nation's 25th president.

While campaigning for president, Trump called the decision a "great insult" to Ohio, and promised to reverse it. Although Trump has overturned scores of Obama administration policies since winning the White House, he's done nothing about the promised name change.

His Interior Secretary - Ryan Zinke - last year told media in Alaska that the peak should keep the name Denali. And Trump himself told the state's U.S. senators he won't make the change after the senators said they prefer Denali, according to a separate Alaskan media report.

Apparently, neither has delivered that message to Ohio's congressional delegation.

On Monday, Holmes County Republican Rep. Bob Gibbs and 10 other Republican members of Congress from Ohio sent Trump a reminder letter that called Obama's change "disrespectful to Ohioans and President McKinley's memory.

"President William McKinley's legacy should not be compromised by a political stunt," the letter continued. "Mr. President, we appreciate your comments opposing the Obama administration's actions and stand ready to work with you to preserve William McKinley's legacy by restoring President William McKinley's name to the Alaska mountain."

A White House spokeswoman referred inquiries about the pledge to an Interior Department spokeswoman, who did not respond to repeated questions about it.COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio Supreme Court Justice Maureen O'Connor this week urged judges to remain committed to fair treatment when it comes to setting fines and fees, and to not let their courts become "automatic teller machines" for governments.

O'Connor expressed her views in a Jan. 29 letter (see below) that comes about five weeks after the U.S. Department of Justice rescinded a guidance document (see below) that it had issued during the Obama administration regarding fines, fees and bail.

"I am aware that the U.S. Department of Justice recently rescinded its March 14, 2016, guidance to state court leaders concerning fine, fee and bail practices," O'Connor writes. "That guidance reminded state court leaders of our obligation to follow the constitutional standards articulated in [the U.S. Supreme Court case Bearden v. Georgia.]"

O'Connor went on to state that the constitutional requirements cited in the Bearden case "remain unaltered."

The Bearden decision is important because it declares that suspects can't be jailed simply because they can't afford to pay fines and fees imposed by courts, said Mike Brickner, senior policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio.

Brickner, whose agency advocates for reforms of Ohio's bail system, praised O'Connor for addressing the Department of Justice's recent action.

The guidance document issued by the Department of Justice under then-U.S.Attorney Loretta Lynch is several pages and was issued by the Office for Access to Justice of the Civil Rights Division.

"Recent years have seen increased attention on the illegal enforcement of fines and fees in certain jurisdictions around the country - often with respect to individuals accused of misdemeanors, quasi-criminal ordinance violations, or civil infractions," the guidance document states.

The document goes on to detail several "constitutional principles relevant to the enforcement of fines and fees" such as not jailing someone for inability to pay fines and fees.

However, the Justice Department under current U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded that guidance document and others late last year, calling them "improper or unnecessary."

In doing so, Sessions stated the he had "ended the longstanding abuse of issuing rules by simply publishing a letter or posting a web page."

O'Connor's Jan. 29 letter makes reference to Sessions' decision.

"Notwithstanding the rescission of the Department of Justice's guidance letter of March 14, 2016, our role as state judges does not change," O'Connor stated in the letter, using italics as emphasis. "Practices that penalize the poor simply because of their economic state; that impose unreasonable fines, fees, or bail requirements upon our citizens to raise money or cave to local funding pressure; or that create barriers to access to justice are simply wrong. No rescission of guidance by the Department changes that."

O'Connor has advocated for greater fairness when it comes to imposing fines, fees and bail and heads a national task force reviewing practices across the country.

"Here in Ohio I have spoken out unequivocally that courts are centers of justice, not automatic teller machines whose purpose is to generate revenue for governments, including themselves," O'Connor states in her letter to the judges.

Among her efforts, she writes, is to have cards sent to judges "containing the legal guidelines for appropriate fine and cost collection methods."

Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer have been advocating for bail reform through its ongoing Justice for All series.CLEVELAND, Ohio - Chants of "Free Amer!" rose in the chill night over Market Square Tuesday night as nearly 100 people braved a 16-degree chill to protest the deportation of Youngstown businessman Amer Othman Adi.

Adi was deported to Jordan Monday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), after spending 40 years in the U.S., building a business and raising four children with his wife, Fidaa.

ICE has said Adi used a ruse to obtain a green card to stay in this country in a prior 1979 marriage with an American woman, and that the courts have determined that he does not have a legal basis to remain in the U.S.

The rally, "Stop Deporting Democracy," featured speakers from several local social action groups, and people bearing such signs as "Migrants R Us," "No Human Being Is Illegal" and "Dignity Is Not Optional."

The mock jetliner with "Ground ICE" written on its wings became part of protest performance art, circling through the crowd to chants of "Cleveland loves refugees" and "Not one more deportation."

Members of Adi's family attended the rally including his wife, who talked about his recent imprisonment while awaiting deportation, and his sudden, unannounced departure without a chance to say goodbye in person.

"I'm devastated because this is not the American way," she said. "This is a very cruel and inhumane way. He has been living here for 40 years without a criminal record and no violations, a law-abiding man, and to be treated the way he was treated, it's mind-blowing, it's insane."

Her husband telephoned family members and friends from Jordan during the rally, and his daughter, Lina, said, "He's OK. He's doing good. He's back safe at home, and I'm just happy that he's out of prison and with his family."

She said her father was touched by the rally, and "I think its beautiful that people are getting together, standing together, for something that we all believe in.

But she also noted, "It's sad that we have to stand out here in 2018 to protest human rights, basic human rights, that everyone should have."

Their case had the support of Jaclyn Kurtz, of Cuyahoga Falls, who said at the rally that "this country was built on immigrants, and I feel that to not allow good peace-keeping people to live here, regardless of their status, is turning our backs on the values that founded this country."

Ithica Brown, 47, of Youngstown, worked for Adi and drove more than an hour to the rally to show her support.

"I think what they're doing is unjust for all families," she said. "Separating families, not letting the family know what's going on, is heartbreaking."

To Marc Alvarado, 40, of Cleveland, even if the rally had no immediate effect on the Adi case, "if nothing else we are building community. Look at these people standing here in solidarity."

When Lina Adi addressed the crowd, wearing a shirt emblazoned with the words "Free Amer Now,"she asked, "Where are the basic human rights for immigrants, and why are they treated worse than criminals?"

She closed her remarks by stating, "I just want everyone to know that I'm sure this isn't the first time or the last time that this is going to happen.

"But if we don't use our voices and stand up, we're going to have more serious problems," she added. "So we need to figure out how we're going to fix this immigration system, and we need to bring my dad back."Richard M. Perloff is a professor of communications, political science and psychology at Cleveland State University.

CLEVELAND -- It is early morning, Jan. 31, 1968, and fireworks have shattered the ordinarily placid American military command post in Hue, South Vietnam.

Frank Doezema, guarding the compound, sensed it immediately, recognizing the piercing sound of a North Vietnamese AK-47, watching as hundreds of North Vietnamese troops massed in the streets, dashing out, letting loose a burst of fire from the northwest tower, until suddenly a rocket blasted the roof, and he was badly hit, bleeding profusely, his leg nearly sundered, as his friend, the lanky Capt. Jim Coolican, draped him over his shoulder, trying desperately to carry him to safety.

Doezema was a member of a military unit that felt the first ravages of the North Vietnamese onslaught on Vietnamese cities 50 years ago on Tet, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year.

His story is chronicled in Mark Bowden's "Hue 1968," one of the most recent of a multitude of books, articles and videos that have been produced over the years, all trying to come to terms with a pivotal series of battles that produced heavy casualties, devastated Vietnamese cities and changed the course of the Vietnam War.

Ever since the late reporter Peter Braestrup wrote his classic book about Tet in 1977, it has become popular to assume that news media coverage of Tet was a major reason why the United States lost the war, the news dispiriting the public and causing Americans to think all was hopeless. There is a kernel of truth in this view. The news played up North Vietnam's onslaught of South Vietnamese cities, suggesting that the United States and South Vietnam had been defeated when, as historians have documented, American forces beat back the attacks, resulting in a major military defeat for Hanoi.

But the media got a lot right. Their front-line journalism conveyed the horrible realities America troops faced. The North Vietnamese offensive - and ability to break through Allied defenses - was a big deal, totally contradicting the optimistic, light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel reports from President Lyndon B. Johnson and Gen. William Westmoreland. The public took notice, deciding the price of casualties was not worth the amorphous victory that a half million troops might bring.

Tet had a pivotal impact on the Vietnam War. After public opinion soured on the war, the debate about Vietnam no longer focused on how to win, but how to honorably extricate ourselves from the mess we had created. The credibility gap between what presidents did and said was sown forever.

The news media did not lose the Vietnam War. Instead, our loss was attributable to the White House's arrogant failure long before Tet to call appropriately on advice from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as H.R. McMaster, now National Security Adviser, wrote in a 1997 book, and to the American public's refusal to endure an endless war in Southeast Asia with no moral or political justification.

But to those of us who lived through Tet and remember the searing news reports and casualties -- deaths (including Frank Doezema, who was killed on the first day of Tet, and a high school classmate of mine, Dennis Cripe) that never seemed to stop in 1968 -- debate about what the news did or didn't do remains an interesting question, but peripheral to the losses we experienced and still feel. Extracting something meaningful, let alone positive, is a daunting challenge.

Young American soldiers served their country valorously and selflessly, only to face recriminations when they returned. In a similar fashion, Viet Cong activists longed for liberation of their country and fought valiantly for its independence, as Bowden relates. In the absence of an overarching moral or national security justification for Tet and the larger war, perhaps the meaning must come from reconciling these opposites.

This is the resolution that scores of U.S. veterans have sought, making pilgrimages to the land where they once fought - even to rice paddies where brutal battles took place - connecting with North Vietnamese soldiers, in one case finding that a building demolished during Tet is now someone's home containing an obelisk with an inscription in Vietnamese: "In honor of the Vietnamese and American soldiers who died here on February 18, 1968."

Magnanimity like this -- consecrating a place of death where a U.S. soldier killed men from their country -- has moved and liberated American GIs.

Tet will always conjure anger and sadness to those who were there and remember it. But forgiveness offers a redemptive, transformative path for coming to terms not just with Tet, but the entire Vietnam experience, which, some 50 years later, remains a polarizing, fractious part of American public life.

Richard M. Perloff is a professor of communication, political science and psychology at Cleveland State University.

************

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They built tables out of old light poles and the 60 foot bar from a tree.Kollmeyer hopes his creation will be appreciated by the customers."It's a wonderful addition for the city of Nocona," said Kollmeyer. Every daughter's worst nightmare realised This one makes us want to throw our phone away.

People who have this condition can be very abusive and manipulative. "I've always been a Colonel, and playing in the alumni game there is a rivalry there as well, but I think coming together as one, we can get more accomplished and compete against any team that's out there.".

Rosie Bareis Campus, 1010 NW 14th St.. For younger children this also can be a great way to introduce mechanics to them as they figure out how and when to make Thomas stop and go.. He a good player and it nice to play against good players. He says to forget about sit ups alone because spot reducing doesn't work.

NCLB is simply a Republican attack on public schools. Dalton . They warned about 30 layoffs were imminent with more likely in coming months if the Molloy's order stands. Last year's recipients include everyone from elementary school kids who code to high school students who cooked up a storm for their community..

NO ONE KNOWS.. Project Space gallery will be open, exhibiting the "Dirty Filthy Painting Group Show" (Sept 9 20), featuring the work of some of the best abstract painters in the country such as Miles Hall, Terri Brooks, Julie Fragar and 2014 Archibald winner Fiona Lowry, as well as some international artists who have never shown in Australia, including David Quinn, Helen O'Leary and Robert Dunne..

There was a marked dip in the number of eco docs in 2013, with the best of those not making the Top 10 being Lucien Castaing Taylor and Verena Paravel's visually striking whaling study, Leviathan. Not only are you essentially giving in to the bullies and agreeing that the feature they are picking on is ugly (big ears, big nose, ect.), but you are teaching children that unless they are beautiful and perfect, life will be difficult.

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Welcome to visit your fashion designer & stylish Kids clothing shop on https://www.jollyhers.com/women-dresses now!We are analyzing the site. Please wait a few seconds..Not every movie has some deep subtext. Air Bud: World Pup probably isn't about neocolonial economics in the Caribbean basin, no matter what Slavoj Zizek says. But some unexpected films actually do contain interesting commentary on the world around us. Sometimes that subtext is benign, like when X2 taught us that we should treat gay people as equals, lest they blast us with their mighty flamethrower hands. Other times, it is rather ... unfortunate.

5 In Logan, Technological Advancement Ruins Everything

Logan follows an aging Wolverine and a geriatric Professor Xavier as they try to keep a young female clone of Logan away from the evil company that created her. But that's not what it's really about. Logan is a Western lamenting the loss of classic America to the deadliest of plagues: science.

In the movie, Logan and Professor X are trying to live low-key, mundane lives, but are beset by the forces of technological advancement, represented by cyborgs chasing them with super guns.

20th Century Fox The most hated villain in the Marvel Universe: subtlety.

Pretty much every interaction Logan and the professor have with technology leads to terrible things. Their journey is interrupted when a self-driving truck pushes a family and their (good, wholesome) horses off the road. Logan and Xavier are invited to stay with the family, which has been having a tough time due to a biotech company trying to buy their land in order to harvest it with giant, ominous-looking machines. Naturally, this leads to the entire family getting whacked.

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It then turns out that the same biotech company not only cloned Logan and others for sinister purposes, but has also been genetically modifying food in order to suppress natural mutations in people. And it worked. Yes, GMOs killed the X-Men, like your crazy aunt always said they would! In the end, it wasn't Magneto that did them in, but Monsanto.

Throughout all this, Logan and the Professor are portrayed as relics of the past, before America became lazy and complacent. Ah yes, a simpler time, when mutants flew around in futuristic super jets and lived in hi-tech mansions.

20th Century Fox When every working citizen could afford a two-Cerebro garage.Xerox has unveiled a handful of significant updates to its global partner program in hopes of enticing more IT providers to sell its print solutions and services to existing SMB clients.

Executives at the print giant said these latest changes include the creation of an entry-level member tier meant to streamline the process by which prospective channel partners can join the program. The new classification carries no minimum revenue requirements and grants partners immediate access to Xerox marketing toolkits and financial kickbacks that other partners enjoy.

Amy Belcher, vice president of global channel enablement at Xerox, said partners need only sign a "terms and conditions" agreement to become entry-level members of the Norwalk, Conn.-based company's program, and they can maintain that status indefinitely. Xerox is also in the process of building a "print 101" online training program for solution providers looking to learn the space, which Belcher said will launch shortly.

[Related: Security A Key Opportunity For Xerox Partners Amid Push Toward Managed Print Services]

"It gives them access to the partner portal, so they can use the tools and enjoy some of the financial benefits without a lot of the requirements," Belcher told CRN.

Xerox sees solution providers as a critical route to untapped segments of the SMB print market in light of last year's expansive ConnectKey product launch, which enables partners to develop their own apps through an open API software platform. Pete Peterson, senior vice president of global channel strategy, said ConnectKey makes partners with networking, managed services, software and cloud, and skills appealing additions to the Xerox ecosystem.

"At the end of the day, they reach a piece of the market we don't touch," Peterson told CRN. "We do not have the capability and the resources ever to be able to sell into the true SMB space. They are our partner of choice to reach into the SMB space."

Xerox has existing relationships with a large number of dealers and agents, some of which have spent decades selling print solutions and developing expertise in the space. At least a portion of those print partners do sell to SMB clients; others collaborate with managed IT companies, which in some cases refer them to existing clients with print needs.

As such, Xerox's latest channel push could put IT solution providers in competition with a segment of its existing print partners, according to partners who spoke with CRN on the condition of anonymity, although the percentage of existing partners that might affect is unclear.

Peterson said that many Xerox print dealers rely much more on A3 and light production business coming from midmarket and enterprise companies than they focus on SMBs, which primarily consume A4 devices. Some Xerox partners also voiced that sentiment.

"There's always going to be a potential conflict, but we think we're addressing and focused on two different markets here," Peterson said.

Dan Dominguez, president at Sausalito, Calif.-based print dealer Sentinelinc, noted the degree of difficulty involved in learning the print space and, more specifically, developing a recurring revenue-driven managed services practice. Many solution providers already have expertise in providing and selling managed services, which is one reason Peterson said they make attractive Xerox partners.

"It's a lot more sophisticated than I thought. Copiers were a lot harder than we thought. (Managed print services), that was fun to figure that out," Dominguez said.

Other changes made to the Xerox channel program include the unveiling of an improved sales rebate structure designed to get checks into partners' hands more quickly. The vendor has also devised a simplified partner tier structure that now relies upon a single yearly revenue number, as opposed to the previous model, which used multiple revenue calculations.

Whenever partners do hit their revenue targets for a new tier  be it Silver, Gold or Platinum  Belcher said they would be able to enjoy the attached benefits as soon as the following quarter thanks to an expedited auditing process. The revenue minimum to reach Silver status was raised, while the requirement to reach the Platinum tier was reduced by half, she said.

Dominguez said Xerox's updated rebate structure has allowed his company to work sales incentives directly into client deal pricing, which in turn has enabled him to price more aggressively. The system better lends itself to companies that have meaningfully invested into their managed print practices, he added, because checks are sent out on a rolling basis rather than quarterly.

"The program needed to be streamlined so there would be more of an incentive," Dominguez said. "I'm pleased they made it easier to understand. Now I can incorporate more when putting a deal together."

Ellen Allen, president at Acton, Mass.-based Printer Support Corporation, echoed Dominguez's praise of the sales rebate streamlining. She added that the communication partners are receiving from Xerox's channel team is more "crisp, clean and to the point" than it has been in the past.

"It makes it much easier to get the information and not have to dig for it," she said.Fujifilm Holdings Corporation has entered into a deal that combines Xerox with Fuji Xerox, creating an $18 billion industry juggernaut that has the potential to shift the balance of power in the intensely competitive printer market.

Under the definitive agreement, Xerox will cede a 50.1 percent stake in the U.S. printer and copier giant to the Japanese document solutions powerhouse, the companies said Wednesday.

[Related: Partners: Potential Xerox Deal With Fujifilm Could Be A Competitive Boon To Both Sides]

The deal, which has been approved by the boards of directors at Xerox and Fujifilm, combines Xerox with Fuji Xerox, a longstanding joint venture agreement between the two. Xerox CEO Jeff Jacobson has been tapped to lead the newly formed entity, which will also be named Fuji Xerox.

Fuji Xerox will continue to be traded on the New York Stock Exchange, with dual headquarters in Norwalk, Conn., and Tokyo. The new board of directors will feature seven Fujifilm appointees and five Xerox-appointed independent directors. Fujifilm Chairman and CEO Shigetaka Komori will serve as chairman of the board.

"The proposed combination has compelling industrial logic and will unlock significant growth and productivity opportunities for the combined company, while delivering substantial value to Xerox shareholders," Jacobson said in a prepared statement. "The new Fuji Xerox will be better positioned to compete in todays environment with truly global scale, increased presence in fast-growing markets, and innovation capabilities to effectively meet our customers rapidly evolving demands."

Reuters is reporting that as a result of combining Xerox with legacy Fuji Xerox, Fujifilm is planning to cut 10,000 jobs at the Asia Pacific-focused joint venture entity amid a "tough market environment." The Tokyo-based company will book restructuring costs of $450.95 million, according to the report.

The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2018 pending the approval of Xerox shareholders, who will receive a $2.5 billion cash dividend ($9.80 per share) as part of the agreement. Xerox was trading up $0.83 (2.54%) to $33.51 per share before markets opened Wednesday.

Major Xerox investors Carl Icahn and Darwin Deason have already publicly voiced their displeasure with the proposed agreement after the two sides were reportedly engaged in talks earlier this month.

Icahn supporter Jonathan Christodoro resigned from the Xerox board of directors, citing disagreement with other board members over Xerox's strategic direction. Icahn, who owns more than 9 percent of the company, followed that by teaming up with Deason  Xerox's third-largest shareholder  and calling for Jacobson's removal as CEO.

Icahn has previously said that Jacobson, chairman Bob Keegan and other "old guard" members of the Xerox board have failed to recognize that further change is needed.

Xerox partners who spoke with CRN earlier this month believed the agreement, if reached, would tighten an already longstanding relationship between the two companies. Troy Tafoya, president of Fort Collins, Colo.-based Professional Document Solutions, said the combination of Xerox's ConnectKey software with Fuji's strong A3 and A4 device lines could help Xerox from a competitive perspective.

"If they're more tied at the hip, they're going to have more control over them not putting devices in competitors' hands," Tafoya said. "I think it's a good thing. Xerox is going in the right direction. I like the products they have, and a lot of those products are from Fuji."

Patrick Leone, founder and CEO of Bloomington, Ind.-based MidAmerica Technology and developer of the SignMe app, said he thinks the addition of Fuji or another potential buyer would be an exciting component in Xerox's go-to-market model.

"I would hope the innovative thinking of the partners is valuable to Fuji," Leone said. "It's going to be a big year for apps and partners building on Xerox's app platform. I would think that would be a big positive for Fuji."

Martin Wolf, president of martinwolf M&A Advisors, said earlier this month that a Fujifilm-Xerox deal makes sense following the Conduent spin-off, which split Xerox with its business services division. By doing that, he said Xerox and Conduent have better positioned themselves for such a deal.

"In the areas they're in, scale matters a lot. It wouldn't surprise me," Wolf said of Xerox. "They haven't been managed for a long time to optimize shareholders. Over the last period, their results have been very mixed at best. That's why you see [Icahn] in there. He has a history of identifying underperforming assets and agitating for change and getting results."Fujifilm's purchase of a 50.1 percent stake in Xerox will give the print giant and its channel partners access to a growing region and enhanced technical development capabilities, Xerox CEO Jeff Jacobson told Wall Street analysts Wednesday.

The $6.1 billion agreement combines Xerox with joint venture subsidiary Fuji Xerox to create an $18 billion industry powerhouse with at least $1.7 billion in cost savings delivered by 2022. Roughly $1.2 billion of those synergies are derived from the transaction, while another $450 million will come from a cost reduction program that is reportedly slashing 10,000 jobs at the existing Fuji Xerox entity.

By tightening its relationship with Fujifilm, which has owned 75 percent of Fuji Xerox since its creation in 1962, Jacobson said Xerox can now tap into a $36 billion Asia-Pacific market. Innovation will be another key element of the partnership, he added.

[Related: Fujifilm Buys Controlling Stake In Xerox, Creating An $18 Billion Printer Industry Behemoth ]

"We tended to have duplicative R&D. Now we can divide and conquer," Jacobson said. "We'll be able to take 6,500 engineers at this combined company, that have produced more than 1,500 patents a year, and accelerate innovation in the areas of industrial print, which is a $100 billion market that is untapped by us today."

Jacobson mentioned the analog packaging market, printing on objects, virtual reality, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, machine learning and voice activation for multifunction devices as areas of potential advancement that could give Xerox and its partners access to growing revenue.

The legacy Fuji Xerox currently employs around 46,000 workers, meaning the upcoming restructuring would eliminate more than 20 percent of its current staff. The business restructured its Australian and New Zealand subsidiaries last year in the wake of accounting issues that resulted in overstated revenue of $450 million over five years.

The Fuji Xerox accounting issue was previously raised by Darwin Deason, Xerox's third-largest individual shareholder. Deason and activist investor Carl Icahn, who together own more than 15 percent of Xerox, have publicly denounced the company's strategic direction under Jacobson in recent weeks and called for a change in leadership.

Jacobson said he has not spoken with top investors about the Fujifilm deal, but did address the matter on the fiscal fourth-quarter earnings call. "This transaction has been in the works for many months. We have not spoken on this issue. We don't know. We only know what we read at this point," he said.

The Fujifilm deal is expected to close in the second half of 2018, pending regulatory and shareholder approval. Up until that time, Jacobson said the two sides can "only do a lot of planning" with regard to their go-to-market strategies. However, he downplayed the potential complexity of the integration, pointing to the many years both sides have spent collaborating via Fuji Xerox.

"Hopefully, we'll hit the ground running upon the close," he said.

Xerox's stock was trading up more than 4 percent Wednesday morning, while Fujifilm's stock price tumbled roughly 8 percent on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

The print giant reported an equipment sales increase of 4.3 percent to $682 million, which Jacobson said was Xerox's first instance of growth in that category since the second quarter of 2013. He cited strong customer reception to the vendor's new line of ConnectKey software-enabled devices and the addition of 65 dealers to the Xerox channel footprint.

CRN spoke with one partner who cheered the chance to sell more of the company's apps into the Asia-Pacific market.

Josh Justice, president of La Plata, Md.-based JustTech, said he was excited by the prospect of working with Fuji Xerox in Asia. JustTech is a two-time Xerox App Developer of the Year award winner with more than 26,000 apps installed on devices in the U.S, Canada and Europe.

"[We're] now partnered with an $18 billion company that has committed to future growth investments and the elimination of costs, which will make Xerox products even more competitive in this marketplace," Justice said. "Xerox and Xerox channel partners had a great 2017, and it's clear that Fujifilm sees an opportunity to grow even more together with Xerox and their partners."

Jacobson said he expects Xerox's multi-brand reseller expansion strategy to continue as part of Fuji Xerox, which itself hasn't traditionally focused on the multi-brand dealer space.

"That's an area they're going to explore, too. Which is part of the beauty or bringing these two companies together, comparing best practices," Jacobson said.

Xerox reported revenue of $2.75 billion for the fourth fiscal quarter ended Dec. 31, 2017, up 0.5 percent from last year's fourth-quarter mark of $2.73 billion. That beat Seeking Alpha's projections by $100 million. North American revenue declined 1.6 percent to $1.6 billion, while international revenue increased 4.8 percent to $1 billion.

Xerox saw a loss of $190 million for the quarter, or a diluted loss of 76 cents per share, compared with the year-ago quarter's $843 million loss performance, or a diluted loss of $3.30 per share. On a non-GAAP basis, Xerox reported net income of $274 million, or $1.04 per diluted share, which beat Seeking Alpha's projections by 8 cents.

For full-year fiscal 2017, Xerox saw revenue of $10.3 billion, down 4.7 percent year over year but in line with the company's guidance. Announced adjusted earnings per share of $3.48 beat Xerox's guidance range of $3.28 to $3.44.

Looking ahead to 2018, Xerox projects a revenue decline of 2 percent to 4 percent on a constant-currency basis, with anticipated margin expansion in the range of 13 percent to 14 percent.The troubles for Apple may be continuing over the company's performance throttling on older iPhones.

Bloomberg reported Tuesday that two federal agencies, the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission, are investigating whether Apple broke any securities laws in its handling of the performance throttling issue.

[Related: Apple CEO's iPhone Throttling Response 'Unacceptable']

In mid-January, Apple CEO Tim Cook acknowledged that his company lacked transparency when communicating about a performance-reducing update to iOS. "Maybe we should've been clearer" about the implications of the update, Cook told ABC News.

Cook was referring to measures that were initially delivered in January 2017 as part of iOS 10.2.1. It wasn't until December 2017 that Apple acknowledged that the measures meant slowing the operations of older iPhone models to help reduce the impact on batteries as they age.

According to Bloomberg, the DOJ and SEC have now asked Apple to provide information related to the issue, amid concerns that Apple could have misled its investors.

The report indicates that the investigation is early-stage, but noted that the probe may include Apple's public statements on the iPhone throttling issue.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The iOS update measures were targeted in part at reducing unexpected shutdowns on models such as the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S.

While acknowledging twice in the ABC News interview that Apple "should've been clearer" about what the company was up to, Cook also took a defensive posture during part of the interview.

"When we did put [the iOS update] out, we did say what it was," Cook told ABC News. "But I don't think a lot of people were paying attention."

However, Cook's statement that Apple "did say" that the updates would hurt performance is not accurate, according to several media reports.

For instance, Apple's original release notes for the January 2017 iOS update reportedly did not mention performance throttling in any way. A disclosure about "power management during peak workloads" was reportedly only added later on, after the initial publication of the release notes.

At Troy Mobility, an enterprise mobility solution provider based in Peabody, Mass., Chief Customer Officer Paul Troisi previously told CRN that Apple's handling of the throttling issue has amounted to an "unacceptable response."

Most users do not read release notes, but users wouldn't have known about the performance-reducing changes "even if [they] did read the release notes," Troisi said.

In response to the disclosure of the throttling issue, Apple has announced that out-of-warranty iPhone battery replacements will be available this year for $29, down from the normal price of $79.

Apple also plans to let users toggle off the feature that slows performance in favor of preserving battery life, as part of the forthcoming iOS 11.3 update.

Bloomberg reported that along with facing lawsuits from consumer advocacy organizations over the issue, Apple is also facing scrutiny from officials including U.S. Senator John Thune of South Dakota, who reportedly penned a letter to Cook contending that "there should have been better transparency with respect to these practices."Chinese tech giant Huawei may have run up against yet another wall in the United States. Telecom heavyweight Verizon, under political pressure from the government, has backed out of its plans to sell mobile phones manufactured by Huawei, according to a report published by Bloomberg.

Renewed fears from U.S. government agencies and lawmakers around Huawei's suspected ties to Chinese espionage efforts, an issue that has plagued the company for nearly 15 years, is to blame for the Verizon deal falling apart, according to the Bloomberg report published on Tuesday, which cited anonymous sources familiar with the matter.

The report stated that Verizon has decided not to include Huawei's Mate 10 Pro, a smartphone that is being positioned as a rival to Apple's iPhone and Samsung mobile devices, in its product portfolio. The move comes on the heels of reports earlier this month that carrier competitor AT&T also backed out of a deal to sell the Mate 10 Pro to its customers.

[Related: Huawei Loses U.S. Carrier Support, But Partners Can Still Resell The Latest Huawei Smartphone]

A spokesperson for Verizon said the carrier "does not comment on speculation" when reached by CRN for comment.

While privately-held Huawei can sell its own devices in the U.S., the company has been trying to make deals with wireless carriers and third-party companies in order to better expand into the U.S. market and reach more customers.

Huawei was expected to unveil partnerships with AT&T and Verizon at CES 2018 this month, but the announcements never came. Instead, Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei's consumer business group, announced the launch of the Mate 10 in the U.S., but said the smartphones would be sold through retailers, including Best Buy, Amazon, and Microsoft.

During his keynote, Yu specifically called out its failed AT&T deal, calling the thwarted partnership "a big loss" for consumers.

Huawei, for its part, has denied any accusations that the company is controlled by the Chinese government as alleged by some U.S. government agencies, and said it has cooperated with investigations from the U.S. government.

One Verizon partner that asked not to be named said that Huawei's difficult history in the U.S. is influencing the U.S.-based carriers' decisions on whether or not to carry Huawei's products.

At the same time, the channel is starting to get more involved with selling devices as more customers look to solution providers for support, the executive said.

"The [device options for partners] have really been dominated by Apple products, because Apple products have been carrier-agnostic and easy for partners to get," the executive said.Danbury native Jennifer Tomassi lived out a longtime dream Friday night when she hosted a Jeopardy! watch-party with friends at her home in Los Angeles.

But she and her husband didnt shout their answers at the television. as they usually do.

Instead, they listened attentively as Tomassi herself buzzed in over and over again during the episode she taped and won  at the Jeopardy! studio in early November.

We had a party, she said with a laugh. Some of my friends started trash-talking at the TV, it was like a sporting event.

I thought, Oh, this is real now, its going to be on TV, everyone I know now is going to see this, she continued. "At the end of the day, if I looked funny or sounded funny, who cares? I was on Jeopardy!

Tomassi snagged $20,401 in her winning performance Friday night, earning her a spot as the returning champion in the episode that aired Monday. The run ended there, however, with a third-place finish  and another $1,000 for playing again, she said.

Tomassi, now a freelance advertising copywriter in Los Angeles, graduated from Danbury High School in 1996. She went on to graduate from the University of Dayton in Ohio and to work in New York City and London.

Her parents, Michael and Paula Tomassi, still in live in Danbury and the much of the family is still scattered across the state. That's why Jennifer Tomassi was still at work in her time zone when messages of congratulations started pouring in from Connecticut, she said.

Im still at work and my episode is already on the East Coast, so at 4 p.m. my phone just starts exploding," she said. Ive got two younger brothers and they were of course the first ones out of the gate to tease and congratulate me all in one text.

Though short-lived, the chance to appear on the show completed a life-long dream for the trivia buff.

It was kind of a life goal of mine but it almost seems like it came so early, Im not even 40 and Ive already accomplished my goal? she said with a laugh. Ive got a lot of years left to have another go at it. They definitely do have people back, so who knows.HARTFORD  HARTFORD  Puerto Ricans forced from their homes by Hurricane Maria and now living here will be the focus of a new effort aimed at getting them to register as Connecticut voters.

Secretary of the State Denise W. Merrill on Wednesday joined leading lawmakers during a State Capitol news conference to announce the effort.MILFORD  Police arrested a woman accused of fraudulently using a business credit card for $106,000 in personal expenses.

Mary Thornton, 27, was taken into custody on Tuesday after her former employer alerted police in May 2017 of her alleged improper use of a business credit card, according to a statement from police.

Thornton was the office manager at S.H. Acoustics on Higgins Drive in Milford for about a year and was given an American Express credit card to use for business and opened up a second card, which she reportedly abused, according to Officer Mike DeVito. The company specializes in audio design of buildings such as museums and recording studios.

She was fired after her former employer received an alert for possible fraudulent use and looked into it. The employer went to Milford Police in May and police conducted an audit over several months before taking Thornton into custody on Tuesday.

Thornton, whose lives in Lebanon, New Hampshire according to police documents, is suspected of spending $106,000 on personal expenses including airfare, hotels and gifts, DeVito said. She faces first degree larceny charges.DERBY  Police are looking to identify a man they said stole two wallets from employees at a thrift store in the city Monday.

Wednesday, police released photos of the suspect.

Surveillance footage showed the suspect around 1:50 p.m. Monday at the Saint Vincent DePaul thrift store at 237 Roosevelt Drive. The footage showed the man go behind the register counter and reach into the employees unattended purses, police said.

The suspect left the scene in a silver Chevrolet with Pennsylvania registration plates, police said.

Anyone with information can contact Derby Police Department at 203-735-7811. All calls can remain confidential.SHELTON  Michael Yu insists his English isnt that good but the high school sophomore had no problem begging off a doughnut  or wowing his hosts with a couple of numbers on a piano.

I really cant play well, he insisted, before proceeding to pound rapid fire across on the keyboard.

Students around him whipped out cell phones to capture the moment on video.

Shelton High School Headmaster Beth Smith followed suit.

It was the type of experience she was hoping for as 30 students and two teachers from Jianping High School in Shanghai spent Wednesday embedded in what is becoming their sister high school.

Very exciting, Smith said.

Over April break, Smith, Schools Superintendent Chris Clouet and James Hill, Sheltons social studies curriculum leader, plan to travel to China to attend a conference and finalize the sister school partnership with Jianping, an urban high school located in one of the most densely populated cities in the world. School officials say funding for the trip is coming from China.

The match was arranged by Garrick Yau, co-owner of EPE Group, a Westchester County, N.Y., company that facilitates sister school arrangements between China and the U.S. This is the groups first time working with a Connecticut School.

If it works out, a group of Shelton students may visit Shanghai in the next school year.

We are happy you are here, Clouet told the visitors after a greeting of Ni hao.

It is the only Mandarin he knows.

Luckily, there was Christina Tang, a Shelton High senior who was born in Shanghai and moved to the U.S. at age 10. She is fluent in Madarin and participated in the meet and greet.

Even better, most of the guests spoke English.

But I almost failed my English test, Yu said.

You speak it very well, Kathleen Yolish, a Shelton School Board member assured him.

During a gift exchange, the Chinese students got robotics team water bottles and rally towels, while the Sheltonites were presented with a scroll with Jianpings motto Openness and Excellence hand painted in Chinese. Then students were paired off to tour the school, attend classes, have lunch and even experience a fire alarm-induced school evacuation.

There amazement at things we take for granted is cool, Tiana Boccuzzi, a Shelton senior admitted.

Both schools, the students learned, have a lot of stairs and some similar programs.

Both have shop, only in Shelton, its called a STEM lab with a 3-D printer, flight simulator and a Computer Numerical Control, or CNC machine.

Does it have lasers? STEM teacher Doug Williams was asked.

No, he said, but it can make perfect circles.

On a tour of Sheltons TV studio, where morning announcements are recorded daily and video production classes are held, Harry Chi, 15, noted at our school too.

At Jianping, classes run from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., five days a week. Students go home to five hours of homework.

Yu said people told him the United States would be dangerous.

I dont believe it, Yu said. "I just wanted to see the difference between the two cultures. Both of our governments really do not tell us the truth. Its not fair. We should know what the truth is. And make our choice and not ask them to tell us what to do.

He declared China pretty safe too.

During lunch, the Chinese students seemed as possessed by their cell phones as their American counterparts as they picked at salads.

In China, they cannot get Facebook. There is a Google-like app  but searches produce much less information, the students said.

From Shelton, the students are off to Boston, then will swing back to Connecticut to stop at Yale University before going to New York City and a workshop at Columbia University. They return to China on Feb. 9.Vinnie's Pizzeria | Twitter

Tide Pods are not food. They clean clothes. They should never go in your mouth.

But, that hasn't stopped kids and young adults from ingesting them anyway, all in a bid for some quick internet fame.GREENBELT, Md. - Some 110 million years ago, in the swamp that would become the Washington suburbs, a hulking, armored nodosaur trudged along a riverbank, leaving a telltale print in the mud. Offspring scrambled after it, while nearby, a long-necked sauropod squelched through the muck. Other dinosaurs crowded the setting. Several theropods - smaller cousins of the fearsome T-rex - may have been in pursuit of small, rodent-like creatures hopping about.

Within days, a flood covered the many footprints with rock, preserving them. Millennia passed, an asteroid struck, the continents shifted, sea levels fell, mammals rose, humans climbed down from trees and launched toward the stars. Finally, on a summer day in 2012, a self-taught fossil hunter named Ray Stanford noticed the unmistakable shape of the nodosaur's track as he drove out of a parking lot at what is now NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt.

Years of excavation and analysis revealed the contours of that fossil print and dozens more on a single 10-foot-long slab of sandstone, Stanford and his colleagues announced Wednesday. It is the largest and most diverse assemblage from the dinosaur age found in the Mid-Atlantic region - and it ranks among the best fossil trackways in the world.

"I like to call it the Rosetta Stone," said Martin Lockley, a dinosaur track expert at the University of Colorado at Denver who participated in the research. The evidence on that slab surface preserves animals as they lived rather than as they died - revealing the ecology of their age in exquisite detail, he said.

And because no prints overlap, Lockley thinks the tracks were laid down and preserved in a "geologic instant" - no longer than a few days, but more likely during just a few hours. In such a contained setting, herbivore and carnivore, reptile and mammal, predator and prey all intersected and potentially interacted.

"One could literally make a movie about everything going on in this slab," said Stanford.

The retiree had no idea of the scale of his discovery when he stumbled upon the nodosaur footprint six years ago. He had come to Goddard to eat lunch with his wife, a NASA information specialist. He was heading home when he decided to take another look at an interesting bit of exposed sandstone stained brilliant red by large amounts of oxidized iron. Such rocks are ideal for preserving footprints, Stanford knew.

The scalloped impression of a nodosaur's four-toed foot validated his hunch, and a paleontologist from Johns Hopkins University confirmed the find.

But NASA was about to start construction on a new building in precisely that spot. Eager to get the fossil out of the way, the agency asked Compton Tucker - a climate scientist with experience using ground-penetrating radar - to survey the area and determine the extent of the sandstone. Then, over two chilly winter weekends, a cadre of volunteers from Goddard unearthed the whole hunk of rock.

At one point during the excavation, a NASA employee sheepishly confided that he walked past the outcrop every day without noticing what was embedded in it. "Look, you're an astrophysicist," Stanford recalls telling him. "Your mind is out there," he said, pointing to the sky. "I'm a dinosaur hunter. My mind is down here."

Stanford's keen attention to the ground beneath his feet is legend in the paleontology community. In a quarter-century of searching, he has tripled the number of dinosaurs and winged reptiles identified in Maryland. He discovered a nodosaur hatchling that is now on display at the Smithsonian and has filled his living room with so many fossils that his insurance company demanded he install extra supports to keep the house from collapsing beneath their weight.

But none of that, the 79-year-old Stanford maintains, can compare to his Goddard find: "It is more than I ever expected."

The excavated slab weighed more than four tons, so the space flight center arranged to have paleontologist Stephen Godfrey make a fiberglass cast that would be easier to study. The model was installed in Stanford's basement in fall 2015, where he would meticulously brush fine silt grains into the mold's dips and divots to reveal the prints. Then came hours of staring at the slab and attempting to divine what happened 110 million years ago from the faint impressions on its surface.

"I could not sleep," he recounted this week. "It was a time of total amazing discovery."

"Every time you came down and looked at it and turned the light at a different angle, you'd see something new," added his wife, Sheila, who often joined him in surveying the slab. Like her husband, she has no formal paleontology training. But she spotted some of the slab's more interesting features, including the impression of a winged pterosaur dipping its pointed jaw into the earth in search of food, then pushing off from the ground to take flight.

In all, the slab contains some 70 footprints from at least eight types of animal, the Stanfords and their colleagues report in an article published Wednesday in the journal Scientific Reports. Just one other discovery from the Mesozoic era (the 200 million-year span during which dinosaurs roamed the Earth) bears as many mammal prints.

The report highlights additional oddities: a dark, bulbous lump called a "coprolite," otherwise known as fossilized dinosaur poop, and a tubular structure that was probably the body of some prehistoric worm.

Two days before the find was to be announced, Stanford paid a visit to the fiberglass model, which Goddard installed on a wall in its Earth Science building. (The actual sandstone slab sits in a warehouse in Maryland.) Running his hand along its rugged surface, he pointed to a set of mammal prints.

"Our ancestors," he said. And then, "look how close his steps are." That proximity suggests the mammal was sitting on his haunches to search for food, much the way a squirrel might pose upright while nibbling a nut.

"They're foraging," Stanford said. He floated his hand over to the footprints of carnivorous theropods that appear nearby. "But someone else is foraging on them."

Looking with him, Tucker pointed out how the size, shape and spacing of the theropod tracks looked almost synchronized. "We think they could be hunting the mammals as a group," he said. "That shows some kind of social behavior."

Though the question of pack hunting among dinosaurs is still debated in the paleontology community, recent discoveries in Utah and China lend credibility to the theory.

The fiberglass cast will remain on display at Goddard for the foreseeable future. Its reception by NASA scientists depends on their background. Tucker, a climate researcher, looks at the fossils and considers whether the planet is headed toward a repeat of the Mesozoic, when high-atmospheric carbon dioxide levels heated the Earth. His colleague Melissa Trainer, who studies the environments on other planets, imagines a day when scientists uncover traces of life on alien worlds.

As for Stanford, he finds poetry in the fact that dinosaurs once walked the same landscape as astronomers and rocket scientists. Even in the Space Age, he said, the Earth "still has surprises."Most of us hadnt even had time to violate our New Years resolutions when, three days into 2018, the bombshell news broke of a major security flaw found inside Intel processors, affecting millions of computers. As CEO of a software solutions company supplying corporations and government agencies alike with on-premises and cloud-based solutions, I took notice.

Related: Heres How Taking Cybersecurity Very Seriously Enhances Your Brand

Four independent research organizations had just revealed that 100 percent of my clients faced a new security risk. This is the new normal for every one of us.

On one hand, this story demonstrates the benefits of cloud computing. Our cloud-service provider was already aware of the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities -- the two actual flaws in Intel processors that led to the story breaking. Having proactively prepared the patch for their servers, the CSP was able to handle the issue quickly and without further trouble.

The implementation of that fix, throughout our four cloud instances serving thousands of customers worldwide, was completed within 48 hours, and with no down time.

Protecting this many individual customers so quickly and completely would have been impossible had the servers been on site.

But the Meltdown and Spectre flaws remind us that security threats can emerge from unexpected places and that they can have far-reaching impact. Hackers and data thieves are adept at finding creative entry points within the expanded attack surface that our digital world creates. So, while special training, data encryption, multifactor authentication and strong passwords have become a priority these days, risks persist.

And organizations may still be overlooking key weak points in their network. The reality, then, is that there are two types of companies: those that have discovered security breaches and those that don't yet know theyve been breached.

Why protecting your data is so critical

A data breach can cause you to lose your customers trust. According to a study by Gemalto, 66 percent of consumers surveyed said they wouldnt do business with a company that had had sensitive information exposed due to a data breach. After all, the costs of such a breach can be extraordinary, as the recent Equifax cyberheist demonstrsated. But thats not the only risk.

The other problem is that, just as they are finding unique ways to steal data, hackers are also finding ways to use it against business owners. If your competitors get their hands on your stolen data, or if hackers hold it for ransom, you can lose valuable proprietary information. This was demonstrated by the Sony Pictures attack in 2014 and the more recent WannaCry ransomware virus. So, there is a strong business case for improving every aspect of network security.

Of course, the threat isn't limited to large enterprises. Entrepreneurs and business owners can learn a lesson in security from patent trolls. Medium-sized businesses are the ideal target: Theyre big enough to be worth the effort, yet small enough to lack the resources to protect their patents and to fight flimsy but effective infringement lawsuits. Security follows the same pattern.

Three attack targets that are often overlooked

Some aspects of network and data security receive more attention than others, such as mobile and internet of things devices, making it easier for hackers to gain access through lesser-known avenues.

Here are three attack vectors you probably haven't considered, along with ways to mitigate the risks they pose.

1. Monitor your companys social media accounts.

Every organization should be vigilant about protecting its brands social media presence. A study by Proofpoint revealed that social media phishing scams increased by 150 percent in 2016, making them the fastest-growing active threat to social media accounts.

In one high-profile example, Russian hackers breached the computer of a Pentagon official through a tweet about a vacation package from a robot account. Hackers use social media because employees, while often trained to watch for suspicious emails, arent as cautious about social media activity.

Related: The Dos and Donts of Cyber Security Measures to Help You Protect Your Business and Assets

That's why you should always be on the lookout for fake accounts; and why, if you find one, you should report it immediately. Consider writing a post or tweet to alert customers and contacts. This will help establish your business as a trustworthy company that prioritizes security. Also, limit the number of people with publishing rights on your official social media channels, just as you do with server admin rights.

2. Secure your printers, the forgotten entry point.

Data-loss prevention solutions put a digital wrapper around a business, but paper can sometimes escape that wrapper. Office printers are not only potential sources of data loss and confidentiality issues, but attack vectors that hackers can exploit.

Last year, for example, a hacker called Weev accessed every publicly accessible printer in North America, including those on several college campuses, and printed anti-Semitic and racist fliers, the New York Times reported. The exploit was possible because many printers ship ready to plug and play; this makes them easy to integrate into a network, but theyre not secure. Modern printers are essentially advanced, specialized network hosts, and as such, they should be given the same level of security attention as traditional computers.

Lock down all network printers by using firewalls, changing their default passwords and disabling any unnecessary protocols. Also, be sure to keep up with firmware updates when manufacturers discover and report security flaws. Check back regularly to ensure that any hard resets haven't reintroduced open ports and default passwords.

Finally, implement secure pull-printing technology. In a secure pull-printing environment, employees print to a secure queue and then use their ID card or log-in credentials to release (or pull) their documents at any network printer. The old way is to send print jobs directly to a specific printer for immediate output,but that introduces risk.

How many confidential documents have you seen left unattended near a shared printer at work? Theres too much at stake to allow documents to be printed and then forgotten. Dont let sensitive information fall into the wrong hands: Secure your printing workflows.

3. Educate your employees -- continually.

Protecting against data breaches isnt just your IT departments concern. Employees pose both the biggest risk and the best defense. Train all employees about security risks and best practices, and empower security staff to make decisions to improve your IT infrastructure. Educating employees about the massive damage a data breach can inflict should convince them to take their role in company-wide security efforts seriously.

Related: Dont Put Your Profits at Risk by Ignoring This Crucial Protection for Your Business

You can also work with security services to test employees with fake phishing attempts. Verizons 2017 Data Breach Investigations report showed that employees studied opened approximately 30 percent of phishing emails, even after they had been warned about them. Showing how many employees opened even a fake phishing attempt can prove that the company is susceptible to an attack if employees arent vigilant.

Training should entail more than bulletins or informational emails. Make every department aware that security is a top priority, and make sure everyone understands the companys security policies. As the world continues to progress toward an even more digital society, choosing not to prioritize security in all its many facets is risky business. You dont want to lose your customers trust or let valuable information fall into the wrong hands.

Related:

Why Your Innocent Office Printer May Be a Major Security-Attack Target For Your Company

Making Your Data Unreadable to Whoever Steals It Might Be the Only Way to Keep It Safe

5 Things to Research Before Working With a Startup



Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com

30 Ocak 2018 Sal, 14:19

Arrest orders were passed as part of an investigation launched by Ankara Republic Chief Prosecution into eleven Central Council administrators of the Medical Association of Turkey (TTB), which had been targeted by AKP General Chair and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for having published an announcement with the heading, War is a popular health issue. Following the arrest order, an operation was launched by Counterterrorism Branch teams and the TTB members homes were raided by the police at around 6.30 in the morning. Administrators including TTB Chair Rasit Tukel were arrested in the operation launched in eight provinces centred on Ankara. Tukel was taken to the Cap Medical Faculty following his arrest. The police also conducted a search of Tukels office here. Prof. Dr. Rasit Tukel and Prof. Dr. Taner Goren were then taken to Haseki Training and Research Hospital for health checks. It has been learnt that Tukel and Goren, who were taken to Istanbul Police Directorate, will be sent to Ankara where the investigation is in progress.



TTB Central Council member Hande Arpat was taken to TTB Headquarters following her arrest in a raid on her home to accompany a search that was to be made.



Administrators and members of health labour and professional organisations who had heard the news congregated in front of the headquarters building. Health workers greeted Hande Arpats departure following the search with applause.



DR. BULEN NAZIM YILMAZ ARRESTED



Dr. Bulent Nazm Ylmaz was arrested in the morning hours at his home in Eskisehir by Police Counterterrorism Branch teams within the operation. Dr. Ylmaz, who works as a practicing doctor in the city, was taken to the Counterterrorism Branch following the search conducted at his home. It was stated that Bulent Nazm Ylmaz will be sent to Ankara following procedures here.



According to a report by Ilerihaber, police raids were also staged on the homes of TTB Central Council member Seyhmus Gokalp and all headquarters administrators and on TTB Headquarters.



GOKALP: WE WILL NEVER ABANDON THE DEFENCE OF LIFE!



Gokalp, noting that he had been waiting at home, said that TTB Central Council Chair Prof. Dr. Rasit Tukel along with Yasar Ulutas, Nazm Ylmaz and Funda Obuz had been arrested. Gokalp said, We have done nothing incorrect. We did a correct thing. Gokalp concluded with the message, We will never abandon the defence of life.



STATEMENT BY CHIEF PROSECUTION



The following comment was included in the statement made by Ankara Republic Chief Prosecution about the arrests:



An arrest order was passed against eleven administrators as part of the investigation being conducted pursuant to Law number 3713 by this Chief Prosecution into Medical Association of Turkey officials, and statutory procedures were initiated as of this morning by Ankara Police Directorate Counterterrorism Branch officers. Arrest, search and seizure procedures are continuing in eight provinces centred on Ankara.



The following are the member doctors of the TTB Central Council whose homes were raided and searched and are the subject of arrest orders:



TTB Chair Rasit Tukel



Central Council members



Sezai Berber



Sinan Adyaman



Selma Gungor



Seyhmus Gokalp



Hande Arpat



Ayfer Horasan



Taner Goren



Funda Obuz



Yasar Ulutas



Nazm Ylmaz



CHP PARLIAMENTARIANS IN FRONT OF TTB HEADQUARTERS



CHP MPs Ali Seker, Orhan Sarbal and Niyazi Nefi Kara along with Party Assembly member Selin Sayek Boke also appeared in front of TTB Headquarters.



GRAB THAT DAME, GRAB HER



The police wished to dispel those who had assembled in support in front of TTB Headquarters. In the ensuing scuffle, a police officer who was arresting supporters was heard to say, Grab that dame, grab her.



FIRST REACTION CAME FROM CHP



The first reaction to the arrests came from the CHP. CHP MP Ali Seker posted a message of support for the TTB members in a social media post he made:



We will not bow to the tyrannical regime that arrests TTB Chair Rasit Tukel and executive board members.

37 years have passed since 12 September 1980 and fascism is once more targeting this country. Humanity will vanquish and peace will vanquish oppression.



FIRST REACTION FROM HDP: LET EVERYONE NOW SEEK A PRO-WAR DOCTOR



A reaction to the arrests at the TTB also came from the HDP. The HDPs Ayhan Bilgen included the comment, Let everyone now seek a pro-war doctor in the post he made on social media.



Bilgens post read:



TTB administrators are being arrested at their homes. The price for defending peace! Let everyone now seek a pro-war doctor! Or, let religious affairs staff be authorised to write prescriptions.To most people, the Oscar-nominated films Dunkirk and Darkest Hour are a stirring reminder of the sacrifices that, in the summer of 1940, so many young men made for our freedom.

But the German ambassador, Dr Peter Ammon, is clearly not a fan. Reflecting on what he called the tale of how Britain stood alone in the war, how it stood against dominating Germany, he told the Guardian newspaper yesterday that it might be a nice story, but does not solve any problem of today.

Dr Ammons grasp of current affairs is clearly questionable, since he also described the perception that Germany dominates the EU (which it patently does) as a horrible story.

German ambassador, Dr Peter Ammon, said the story of how Britain stood alone in the war might be a nice story, but does not solve any problem of today.

Yet he is far from alone in his apparent belief that Britains supposedly unhealthy obsession with World War II led, inevitably, to Brexit.

Britain has built a national myth on winning the Second World War, but its distorting our politics, read a headline in the Left-wing New Statesman a few months ago.

Dunkirk and Darkest Hour fuel Brexit fantasies, howled the Guardian.

That Dr Ammon is sensitive about the war is understandable enough. But for British commentators to carry on as if our history should be a source of embarrassment strikes me as pretty disgraceful.

Indeed, I sometimes wonder whether they would prefer us to have been defeated and occupied. Perhaps they think that would have been a price worth paying, if it meant unquestioning enthusiasm for the European project.

You might assume all this began with the vote to leave the EU, which provoked a colossal and apparently interminable tantrum from the ultra-Remainers.

Yet as long as ago as 2002, a certain Nick Clegg  who, as you may recall, briefly pursued a career in politics  claimed that Britain had been permanently disfigured by winning World War II.

At the time, Mr Clegg, a member of the European Parliament, was deeply displeased that Britain had refused to embrace the euro. And his view perfectly captures the more hysterical Remainers current attitude to their own countrys history.

All nations have a cross to bear, and none more so than Germany with its memories of Nazism, he wrote. But the British cross is more insidious still.

A misplaced sense of superiority, sustained by delusions of grandeur and a tenacious obsession with the last war, is much harder to shake off. We need to be put back in our place.

As anyone who listens to the Euro-enthusiasts will know, this is a very familiar argument. But I doubt I am alone in finding it not merely offensive but fantastically foolish.

To begin with, the plain fact is that just as we are all the sum of our memories, so all nations are the products of their histories. Indeed, there is surely a case that what really defines a nation is a shared story about its past.

Whether the German ambassador and Mr Clegg like it or not, Britains story is different from those of our neighbours.

No other country in Europe fought both world wars without suffering defeat or occupation.

Indeed, no other major European country went through the 20th century without experiencing occupation, revolution or civil war.

That fact alone surely explains why Britain was never wholly converted to the cause of European union, and why millions voted to leave.

Arch-Remainers find this immensely infuriating. Since they cannot rewrite our history, they would prefer people to forget about it. And whenever you mention it, they fume with indignation and mutter darkly about Britains supposed obsession with D-Day and Dunkirk.

Yet in our relationship with our history, we in Britain are no different from anybody else in Europe.

Do the French not tell stories about Joan of Arc, Napoleon and the Resistance? Do the Irish not celebrate the Easter Rising? Do German schoolchildren not learn about their nations past?

Ah, say the self-styled citizens of the world, but the Germans regard their own history with sorrow and humility. By contrast, we are puffed up  as Mr Clegg put it  with delusions of grandeur.

This, too, strikes me as utter rubbish. How many British teachers today fill their pupils with swaggering dreams of imperial glory? The answer, I suspect, is none at all

As for films such as Dunkirk and Darkest Hour, only somebody who watched them wearing a blindfold and earplugs could imagine they promote delusions of grandeur.

The German ambassador is 'clearly not a fan' of films such as the Oscar-nominated films Dunkirk (picture) and Darkest Hour which are a reminder of the sacrifices that so many young men made for our freedom.

Dunkirk, for example, is a film about a defeat, not a victory. Indeed, its director, Christopher Nolan, has adamantly denied any links with Brexit. As he put it: Interpreting the events of 1940 through a modern lens is frankly disrespectful to the people who lived through the real-life events . . . Brexit happened while we were shooting and was as much a surprise to us as to everybody else.

And as for the director of Darkest Hour, Joe Wright, he is about as far from being a passionate Leaver as you could imagine, since he described Brexit as dreadful.

It is true that stories about the world wars continue to fascinate audiences. Once again, though, it is simply not the case that we in Britain are unusually obsessed with the conflicts of the last century.

It was the Americans, not us, who made Saving Private Ryan and Band Of Brothers. The hugely acclaimed Downfall, about the last days inside Hitlers bunker, was a German, Italian and Austrian co-production. And the international best-seller Suite Francaise, about the Nazi occupation of France, was first published in Paris.

In any case, why wouldnt we care about the world wars?

They were, after all, the most apocalyptic, searing and influential events of modern times, not just here in Britain, but in every corner of the earth.

There are more than 70,000 war memorials across our islands, carrying the names of the men who fought for our freedom. There are still hundreds of elderly men who remember running ashore on the Normandy beaches, streaking through the sky in the Battle of Britain or ploughing through the seas on a battleship. And there are still countless men and women who lost parents or grandparents in the struggles against Kaiser Wilhelm II and then Adolf Hitler.

The irony is if there is one nation that has an exemplary record of remembering the war, it is Germany, which has vowed never to repeat it.

After Britain refused to join the Euro Nick Clegg claimed that Britain had been permanently disfigured by winning World War II.

Indeed, there is surely a case that it is the power-houses of the EU, not Britain, that really betray an obsession with the world wars.

The entire European project was designed in the early Fifties to prevent France and Germany from ever going to war again.

As the German ambassador surely knows, the opening paragraphs of its founding document, the Schuman Declaration of 1950, specifically cite the war, promising the elimination of the age-old opposition of France and Germany.

Given what the French and Germans had been through a decade earlier, it is hardly surprising that the EUs architects were obsessed with the war. The remarkable thing, though, is just how long that obsession has endured.

When, four years ago, Angela Merkel addressed the Houses of Parliament, she described the EU as a peace mission, designed to end the recurring rounds of horrendous bloodshed.

And during the Greek bailout crisis, she even told Germanys parliamentarians that saving the euro was the only way to ensure another half century of peace in Europe  the implication being that without it, we would find ourselves back in 1939.

It would be absurd to expect the Germans to forget the history of the 20th century.

But it would be equally ridiculous, and indeed insulting, to expect us in Britain to forget it either.

And if we have drawn different lessons from Mrs Merkel  well, is that really so surprising? The war was the foundational moment of our modern experience. It shaped our politics, our economy, our moral outlook and our shared national identity.

Never in human history has any event reached such extremes of heroism and courage, suffering and sacrifice.

Dont mention the war, they say. But why on earth not?If standing in long bar lines to get a drink is tiresome, then why not let the bar come to you.

The Royal Hotel, based in Sydney's inner-city suburb Leichhardt, has revived a classic drinks service to allow its diners to order cocktails off a passing cart.

The dining touch, one that harks back to another era, is on offer on Friday and Saturday nights, and according to licencee Mark Chapman, it's a hit.

Scroll down for video

The Royal Hotel, Leichhardt, offers table-side service to its diners wanting to enjoy a cocktail

'People love it. They haven't seen it before so it's a great experience,' he told FEMAIL.

Mr Chapman said he was inspired to offer the service after he'd seen it in action at other restaurants and bars during his travels.

'Cocktails aren't something that naturally comes to mind when people are thinking about ordering drinks,' he explained.

The pub has revived a classic dining service which, according to licencee Mark Chapman, is a hit

Those wanting a cocktail table-side can order from a range of gin, vodka or espresso martinis

He said the unique service was launched after the bar was able to acquire a customised cart through one of its partners.

The cocktail cart menu currently offers espresso, gin or vodka martinis, priced between $14 and $20.

'On the whole people love cocktails, and the passing cart helps remind them,' he said.

Mr Chapman said he'd been inspired to offer the service after he had seen it action at bars and restaurants overseas

The bar staff are all trained in the art of making the perfect cocktail, under the guidance of the pub's bar and restaurant manager Tanguy Chiron.

While the range is limited to a martini selection at this point, there are plans in place to extend the menu.

Mr Chapman said the cocktail cart can also be used for those holding a function at the bar, who want to add retro-themed touch.

Video courtesy of Sydney entertainment guide Where To TonightA young girl celebrating her seventh birthday watched as her beloved unicorn cake went up in flames after she attempted to blow out the candles.

Mother-of-two Bec King, from Brisbane, decorated a sponge cake with a unicorn topper she had purchased from Kmart for little Luella.

Standing around the kitchen bench on Monday night, the family sang 'Happy Birthday' as the little girl cheered with excitement.

But the celebrations quickly ended when the decoration caught fire after Luella tried to blow out the candles, prompting screams from the family.

Footage shows little Luella King (pictured) attempting to blow out her unicorn birthday cake before the decoration went up in flames

'We all went out for dinner and decided to have a birthday cake before bedtime,' Ms King told Daily Mail Australia.

'We're not a big fan of cake but we wanted to get her something for the sake of having a cake so she can blow the candles for her birthday.

'I found the cute little Kmart unicorn cake topper, but didn't think too much about the candle placement.'

When Ms King presented her daughter the cake, she said Luella 'loved it'.

'She thought it was a really pretty cake,' Ms King said.

Taking to Facebook, the 34-year-old mother shared the hilarious footage of the family-of-four celebrating the birthday before screaming.

Before and after: Mother Bec King decorated the sponge cake with a unicorn topper from Kmart, only to be caught in flames when her daughter attempted to blow out the candles

Her husband Phil quickly jumped into action as he scrapped the burning decoration off the cake over the sink.

'It's exactly what I thought might happen,' Ms King can be heard saying in the video.

'That's okay, it's all good.'

The family dog appeared terrified in the video as one of the daughters screamed: 'The house is going to go on fire, Dad!'

The mother (pictured with Luella) shared the hilarious footage to Facebook after the cake fail was caught on camera when they celebrated Luella's birthday on Monday

The family of four were singing 'Happy Birthday' to Luella when the fire took place (Pictured husband Phil, mother Bec and daughters Luella and nine-year-old Amahlia)

Seeing the funny side to the incident, the family started laughing.

And despite the cake fail, Ms King said the family were able to enjoy the birthday cake because it was still in one piece.

'The cake was good,' she added.

'We were all just laughing. I decided to put in on Facebook because my daughter thought it was funny. It was all just for a bit of laugh. Everyone enjoyed it.'It is widely thought that men are more confident than women when it comes to their appearance.

But new research reveals that more than 80 per cent of men feel insecure about the way they look.

Indeed seven in 10 men said they feel so self-conscious they refuse to let their partner see them naked.

Feeling too fat, too short or having a receding hairline were the three biggest body hang-ups, according to the survey of more than 3,000 men.

Feeling too fat was the biggest body hang-up, according a the survey of more than 3,000 men

One fashion industry professional suggested this lack of confidence might be the result of seemingly 'playful' teasing by male friends over one and other's appearance.

The study of men aged between 18 and 30 found just 17 per cent of respondents described themselves as 'body confident'.

The remaining 83 per cent said they were self-conscious about at least one aspect of their appearance.

Balding or having a receding hairline was the third biggest body hang-up for men. Stock image

Biggest body hang-ups

The negative body statements respondents most identified with were:

'Im carrying extra weight around my middle'  38 per cent of respondents 'My hairline is receding/balding'  33 per cent of respondents 'I am too short'  27 p er cent of respondents 'I have excessive body hair'  21 per cent of respondents 'I have unattractive facial features' - 16 per cent of respondents

This insecurity also impacts romantic relationships, the results show.

Almost one in 10 revealed their body confidence issues had led to a breakdown in a relationship.

Meanwhile 13 per cent said they had not let their partner see them fully nude with the lights on because they were so self-conscious.

Are friendships to blame?

Darrell Freeman, MD and Founder of Big Dude Clothing, which commissioned the study, explained that men are often sidelined when it comes to support for confidence issues.

'All too often we are bombarded with stories in the media showcasing the effects of low self-esteem and body dysmorphia amongst young women, but with little emphasis placed on how modern day pressures and the idea to look 'perfect' can affect young men in similar positions', he said.

'Whilst a group of young women would never dream of singling out a friend and taunting them based on their weight, body type or appearance; men have to learn to deal with cruel nicknames focused on the way they look from a young age, and this can have damaging consequences to personal lives and relationships later in life, as our research shows.'The world's tallest man met the world's shortest woman in Egypt for a photo shoot in front of the pyramids this week.

Sultan Kosen, a 35-year-old from Turkey, stands at 8ft 3in, making him the tallest man on the planet, while 24-year-old Jyoti Amge from India is the shortest woman in the world at just over 2ft tall.

The two Guinness Wold Record holders met in Cairo last Friday as part of a new campaign aiming to revive the country's struggling tourism industry.

Scroll down for video

Breaking records: The world's tallest man, Sultan Kosen, met the world's shortest woman, Jyoti Amge, in Egypt last Friday

Over 6ft between them: Kosen, 35, from Turkey, stands at 8ft 3in, while Amge, 24, from India measures just over 2ft tall

What a difference: Kosen towers over Amge even when he is sitting down next to her

Attention-grabbing: The two Guinness Wold Record holders met in Cairo as part of a new campaign aiming to revive the country's struggling tourism industry

With more than 6ft between them, Kosen and Amge made a striking pair while they posed for photos in front of the Giza Pyramids.

In one snapshot, Kosen and Amge are standing next to each other while waving at the awe-struck tourists who came to see them.

Another photo shows Kosen sitting down next to a standing Amge, and despite his significant decrease in height, he is still towering over her.

It was both Kosen and Amge's first trip to Egypt after being invited to the North African country by the Egyptian Tourism Promotion Board.

Boosting tourism: Kosen and Amge posed for photos together in front of the Giza Pyramids

Growth: Kosen's massive size is the result of a condition known as 'pituitary gigantism,' which is caused by an over-production of growth hormone

The two are expected to visit other well-known Egyptian sites during their stay.

According to the Guinness World Records, Kosen is the first person in more than a decade to measure over 8ft and is one of only 10 confirmed cases in history.

While he is the tallest man in the world, his family members are all average size. Kosen was also normal height up until his growth spurt when he was 10 years old.

His massive size is the result of a condition known as 'pituitary gigantism,' which is caused by an over-production of growth hormone.

Kosen, who was unable to complete school because of his size, worked as a farmer to support his family.

Condition: Amge's restricted height is due to a form of drawfism called achondroplasia

Meet and greet: Kosen and Amge are expected to visit other well-known Egyptian sites during their stay

Big break: Kosen flew to Hollywood in 2016 (pictured) ahead of his first movie role in the film Achieving the Impossible

Acting role: Amge is an actress who played Ma Petit (pictured) in American Horror Story: Freak Show in 2014

Guinness World Records: Amge was officially declared the world's smallest woman after her 18th birthday.

In 2016, he traveled to Hollywood for his starring role in the film Achieving the Impossible.

It was also revealed at the time that he accepted an offer to work on a second movie that was shooting in Australia.

Meanwhile, Amge's restricted height is due to a form of drawfism called achondroplasia. The average female who has the same growth anomaly typically grows to 48 inches tall.

As a teen, she weighed just 11lbs, and she was officially declared the world's smallest woman in 2011 after her 18th birthday.

Amge is an actress and she worked with Jessica Lange and other A-list stars when he stook on the role of Ma Petit in American Horror Story: Freak Show, which aired in 2014.Elyce Fulford, 31, and her partner Justin, from Melbourne, had been together for 16 years but had never been able to afford the wedding of their dreams.

With three children under seven and a single income, the couple had shifted a wedding to the bottom of the priority list.

But when Mrs Fulford's father, Hugh, 71, suffered an almost fatal infection in December due to cancer complications, Mr Fulford insisted they marry as soon as possible so Hugh could walk his daughter down the aisle.

And thanks to the help of a generous community and one very kind business owner, Mrs Fulford was walking down the aisle on the arm of her proud father within just six weeks.

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This is the moment a father with terminal cancer was able to walk his daughter down the aisle after a wedding was pulled together within just six weeks

Elyce Fulford, 31, and her partner Justin, from Melbourne, had been together for 16 years but had never been able to afford the wedding of their dreams (pictured with their three children)

'My dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2012 and was given a five year timeframe so at the moment we are just taking things day by day,' Mrs Fulford told FEMAIL.

'In December an infection of the bladder nearly killed him and after that Justin came home and said "We are getting married".

'We had never had enough money to do anything like that so I was shocked but Justin wanted to see Dad walk me down the aisle and for me to have that moment. He said we would pull it off no matter what it took.'

The pair started planning that night and within a matter of hours, they had a celebrant and a date.

'My dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2012 and was given a five year time frame so at the moment we are just taking things day by day,' Mrs Fulford told FEMAIL

'In December an infection of the bladder nearly killed him and after that Justin came home and said "We are getting married",' she said

While a March wedding was the plan, the pair decided to move it forward given Hugh's condition.

Dad was absolutely gobsmacked when he saw me in my dress.

Mrs Fulford then went on Facebook and posted in the Healthy Mummy support group - a support page related to a weight loss program she had been following for 17 months.

'I had lost 22 kilograms with the program and the support page was really amazing so I posted asking if any of the women had any recommendations for cheap wedding dresses as I only could budget around $300,' she said.

'Immediately I was flooded with messages from women offering to loan or give their dresses to me - the support from them is just one in a million.

'We had never had enough money to do anything like that but Justin wanted to see Dad walk me down the aisle and for me to have that moment,' Mrs Fulford said

Founder of Healthy Mummy, Rhian, surprised Mrs Fulford with a bunch of flowers and offered to buy her wedding dress after she spotted a post from her asking for cheap dress suggestions

'I couldn't stop crying - I never ask for anything and I didn't know how to handle it. It was just so wonderful and generous,' she said

'I did want a new dress though because you only get married once.'

The next morning, Mrs Fulford discovered a message in her inbox from one of the Healthy Mummy team members asking for her address as they wanted to send her something.

A day later, she returned home after school pickup to find a large bunch of flowers and a note from the owner, Rhian Allen.

'She said congratulations on our upcoming wedding and said she wanted to buy me a dress,' Mrs Fulford said.

Mrs Fulford said she attended fittings soon afterwards and when she tried on a third dress, she knew it was 'the one' and said she felt absolutely beautiful

When the couple surprised Hugh with the news of their fast tracked wedding, he was absolutely blown away and couldn't wait to be there by their sides

'I couldn't stop crying - I never ask for anything and I didn't know how to handle it. It was just so wonderful and generous.'

Mrs Fulford said she attended fittings soon afterwards and when she tried on a third dress, she knew it was 'the one'.

'I just had that feeling, I felt so beautiful and I just knew immediately that this was the dress for me. It was thousands of dollars and it was beyond anything I could have ever afforded,' she said.

On January 19, Mr and Mrs Fulford said 'I do' in a beautiful outdoor ceremony in the western suburbs of Melbourne in front of 40 guests

'Dad was so chuffed we were able to do it and he was absolutely gobsmacked when he saw me in my dress,' she said

When the couple surprised Hugh with the news of their fast tracked wedding, he was absolutely blown away and couldn't wait to be there by their sides.

On January 19, Mr and Mrs Fulford said 'I do' in a beautiful outdoor ceremony in the western suburbs of Melbourne in front of 40 guests.

'Dad was so chuffed we were able to do it and he was absolutely gobsmacked when he saw me in my dress. He is a man of few words but he said he was proud and you could tell he was really happy to be there with me,' Mrs Fulford said.

'He is a man of few words but he said he was proud and you could tell he was really happy to be there with me,' Mrs Fulford said

'Mum said he was thrilled and spoke about how awesome it was that night and how happy he was that Justin and I finally got married.'

'The whole community really came together for me and I just can't express how thankful I am. Without Rhian and my amazing friends and family and Dad who chipped in once he knew the wedding was happening, there's no way we could have done this.

'It was truly wonderful and it just shows the difference an act of kindness can make.'The State of the Union is set to be a big night for the president - and it seems his family are keen to make the most of the special occasion, with Ivanka Trump hosting a cozy family dinner for her siblings at her D.C. home before the group headed off to support Donald Trump at the Capitol.

Ivanka, 36, shared a short and sweet video clip from the family gathering, showing the group sitting around the large wooden dining table at her home, beaming happily at the camera while the first daughter addressed her followers.

'A little family dinner before the State of the Union!' she says, while perching one-year-old son Theodore on her lap, with the whole group laughing uproariously as the young boy tried to knock over a glass with a large toy car.

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All together! Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner hosted a family dinner at their D.C. home ahead of the State of the Union on Tuesday night

Gathering: Ivanka's sister Tiffany, and her brother Eric and his wife Lara were in attendance, as well as Jared, and their children Arabella and Theodore, however Donald Jr. did not attend

Naughty! At one point Theodore, who was perched on his mother's lap, tried to knock over a glass with a toy car, but he was stopped in his tracks by his aunt Tiffany

Luckily Eric spotted the youngster's plan and interrupted Ivanka's speech to point out that a glass was about to go flying, as Theodore charged the large toy towards it.

Foiled by his aunt Tiffany, 24, who grabbed the car before it could cause any damage, Theo seemed blissfully unaware of the ceremonious occasion taking place around him as he played happily.

And while the youngster happily butted into his mother's speech, Arabella could be seen sitting in front of Ivanka, looking happily at the camera while wearing a sweet sweater with a star on the front of it.

The video appears to have wrapped up by the time the video was filmed, with most of the places clear, and only six-year-old Arabella sitting in front of any remaining food.

But it seems that the importance of the night didn't stop the family from celebrating with a toast or two, and there are several bottles of wine on the table, as well as candles and a bouquet of flowers.

Hostess with the mostest: Ivanka and Jared left their home together, with the mother-of-three looking incredibly well put together in her $2,690 Oscar de la Renta dress

Off she goes: Despite the freezing weather, Ivanka chose to go without a coat, and appeared to have bare legs

Ready for a night out! Georgetown Law student Tiffany wore a very corporate look, opting for a white low-cut shirt which she tucked into a black belted skirt; she also carried a Gucci clutch

Glamorous: Eric and his wife Lara left their baby boy Luke at home for the evening, with the new mother looking very chic, but a little tired, in her green dress and camel coat

Ready to go! The group left together, making their way down the steps from the main entrance of Jared and Ivanka's home, and into waiting SUVs

Shortly after the clip was shared, the entire group was seen departing Ivanka's lavish Kalorama home, with both she and Tiffany daring to brave the bitter D.C. weather without coats, instead showing off their rather glamorous ensembles as they made their way into SUVs that were waiting to whisk them towards the Capitol Building - and Trump's State of the Union.

Ivanka appeared to have glammed herself up from earlier in the day, when she was seen leaving her house with almost no make-up on, and her hair pulled back from her face; this time around, she was seen wearing a chic $2,690 plaid short-sleeved dress by Oscar de la Renta, pairing the red, black, and white design with some simple black heels.

Her hair was styled in a sleek straight style around her face, and she chose to go for a more glamorous evening-appropriate beauty look, wearing visible highlighter and bronzer on her cheekbones, and adding subtle smokey shadow to her eyes.

Tiffany, meanwhile, chose a simpler, more corporate look in the form of a low-cut white shirt, which she tucked into belted black bodycon-style skirt.

She accessorized with chunky circular earrings and a pale pink quilted $790 Gucci clutch, wearing her long blonde hair in a wavy ponytail, and modeling dark eyeliner.

Excited! After arriving at the White House, Ivanka posted another video, this time showing herself urging people to tune in at 9pm

There he is! Despite not attending Ivanka's dinner, Donald Jr did find time to join his sister's video at the White House, popping up at the last minute to tell people what time to watch

Cheesy: The brother-sister duo seemed more than happy to ham it up for the cameras

Supportive: The group then sat together upon arrival at the Capitol, with Ivanka and Jared taking the front seats, while Lara and Eric sat behind them, following by Tiffany and Don Jr

Keeping busy: The family was seen chatting quietly together ahead of the event

New mother Lara, meanwhile, put on a chic show in a forest-green dress, pairing her look with a camel-colored coat - a very sensible move given the sub-zero temperatures.

She also wore a pair of strappy black heels, and left her hair in loose waves around her shoulders.

Both men in the party looked dapper in suits, with Eric wearing a dark grey, while Jared stuck with his trademark navy.

After arriving at the White House, Ivanka then recorded another video for her Instagram Story in which she urged people to tune into the event - with her brother Donald Jr, who did not attend her dinner, popping up in a rather cheesy way to tell people what time to watch.

Earlier in the day, Ivanka put on a much more demure show as she left her home a little before 9 this morning, with her hair pulled back in a discreet low do, wearing minimal - if any - make-up, and opting for a low-key ensemble that was a world away from the bedazzled dress she rocked over the weekend.

Showing affection: Ivanka and Jared clasped hands as they stood waiting for President Trump to make his entrance

Loving look: The married couple shared a sweet look while waiting for the State of the Union to officially begin

Thoughtful: The family all looked much more somber after entering the Capitol than they had during their joking social media videos

Quick chat: Donald Jr kept a very straight face, having apparently missed out on the family fun at Ivanka's dinner

Catching up: Eric and Lara happily chatted with fellow attendees, while Jared and Ivanka were seen sharing a few quiet words together

Something funny? Eric and Lara, and Jared and Ivanka all appeared to enjoy a laugh at something at one point during the evening

She kept out the cold D.C. weather in a long, black coat and matching knee-high boots, finishing off her minimalist look with classic pearl earrings.

Ivanka, who wore red under her coat, went for a nude lip and shunned heavy eye make-up in favor of a fresh-faced appearance, which also included bare nails.

She smiled as she walked from her home to the parked Secret Service vehicle waiting for her at the start of her work day.

Her husband and fellow White House adviser Jared Kushner, 37, was also pictured leaving the house this morning a little after 7, sticking to his classics in a black suit and white shirt.

Jared flashed a smile as he stepped out to hop into his own car on his way to work.

Still glowing: Ivanka was later seen returning to her home, after leaving the House chamber with her husband following the end of Trump's address

Bright-eyed: Despite the late hour, the mother-of-three looked happy as she flashed a small smile at the cameras

Hello! Jared also waved to the waiting people as he made his way into his home

The White House is currently gearing up for President Donald Trump's State Of The Union address, which he is scheduled to deliver tonight.

Yesterday evening, Ivanka took to Instagram to share a throwback photo of her glamorous weekend outing with Jared, in stark contrast with this morning's simple look.

She can be seen in the photo, which was taken on Saturday, donning an elegant black dress with a shawl-like attachment, with her hair swept up in an elegant up-do.

Ivanka completed her outfit with a dark smoky eye and a bright red lip, giving the ensemble a distinct formal touch.

Jared, meanwhile, opted for a simple black tuxedo and bow tie. His wife captioned the photo 'With my love' and indicated it was taken by their four-year-old son Joseph.

Tiffany was also dressed to impress on Saturday night in a formal white and gold floor-length dress. The Georgetown Law's students gown featured cut-out shoulder sleeves and cut-out in the midriff.

Bare-faced: Earlier in the day on Tuesday, Ivanka cut a demure silhouette as she headed out to work with barely-there make-up and a simple outfit, with only minimal accessories

Greeting the day: She was seen leaving her family home a little before 9 this morning, with her hair pulled back in a discreet low do

Warm: Ivanka fended off the cold D.C. weather in a long, black coat and matching boots

Light: The former model shunned heavy eye make-up in favor of a fresh-faced appearance

Duo: Her husband and fellow White House adviser Jared Kushner, 37, was also pictured leaving the house this morning a little after 7, sticking to his classics in a black suit and white shirt

Her hair was also in an upsweep with curls framing her face. She posted a video of herself and a friend walking down the hallway of the Trump International Hotel in their evening wear.

Earlier last week, Ivanka remained in the nation's capital while her husband and fellow White House adviser, Jared, 37, accompanied her father to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Instead, she headed to Greenville, South Carolina, with Republican Senator Tim Scott to talk about the tax reform passed by the Trump administration last month, and how it affects families.

Ivanka's visit to South Carolina came as Jared was heading back to the US along with the rest of the US delegation in Davos.

Jared and White House communications director Hope Hicks were seen together on the tarmac on Friday, getting ready to leave Switzerland at the close after Trump's address.

Trump's son-in-law has appeared in high spirits throughout the visit, and was seen smiling widely among the crowd, including before a meeting between President Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May.

Throwback: On Monday evening, Ivanka took to Instagram to share a photo of her glamorous weekend outing with Jared, in stark contrast with this morning's simple look

Sister: Tiffany was also dressed to impress in a formal white and gold floor-length dress

Duties: While her husband was in Davos last week, Ivanka remained at home in Washington, DC and was seen leaving her home in a blazer and black pants on Friday morning (left and right)

Return: White House communications director Hope Hicks was seen preparing to leave Switzerland alongside Jared, who seemed in high spirits on Friday

Meanwhile Tiffany's last big public outing was at the Playboy Mansion's New Year's Eve party, held at the Culver Hotel in Los Angeles, where fellow party-goer Candace Jordan snapped some pics of the A-list attendee, showing the blonde smiling happily while posing with other guests.

Tiffany was the guest of honor at the Playboy event, which was hosted by Cooper Hefner and his fiancee, former Harry Potter star Scarlett Byrne.

It marked the first New Year's Eve party since the death of the magazine's founder and Cooper's dad, Hugh Hefner, who back in 1990 had been hoping to get Tiffany's mom Marla Maples as one of his bare-all bunnies.

Tiffany managed to steal the show in the room packed full of bodacious beauties thanks to her high-hemmed and low-cut sequin mini dress, which fit her like a second skin and showed off her enviable figure.

Following her stay in Los Angeles, Tiffany then embarked on a wild weekend in Las Vegas, where she celebrated the birthday of her close friend Andrew Warren, and also served as a flower girl at the surprise wedding of two of her close friends, NYC Prep reality star Peter Carey Peterson and Hamptons royalty Quentin Esme Brown.Wedding speeches can, and should be, some of the most memorable moments of a couple's special event.

One that's too bawdy can make the bride and groom, as well as attending guests feel uncomfortable, as can a speech that's too long-winded or worse, dull and cliched.

Sydney etiquette expert Anna Musson of Good Manners knows only too well that wedding speeches are fraught territory.

'It's not an opportunity to disrespect the happy couple by providing insights into any potentially damaging prior behaviour - no matter how tempting!' she told FEMAIL.

Etiquette expert Anna Musson (pictured) said avoid the temptation to make questionable jokes at the expense of the bride and groom

Whether you are a bride, groom or best man, FEMAIL's manual to wedding speech manners, in order of who speaks first, is your ultimate guide.

SPEECH ETIQUETTE FOR THE FATHER OF THE BRIDE

While wedding speeches aren't necessarily the most interesting part of the event, they should be treated with reverence.

The etiquette expert said those making a speech need to make sure they always speak well of the bridal party, groom and bride.

'While is can seem hilariously funny to make jokes about old girlfriends or questionable past behaviour, it's important to keep it clean.'

If tradition is being followed, the father-of-the-bride will generally begin his speech by greeting the reception.

Ms Musson said it's also appropriate for the father-of-the-bride to relate a few amusing, but not 'too embarrassing' stories from the bride's youth.

Wedding speeches add an important sense of occasion to the event and should be treated with reverence (stock image)

Additionally, he can touch on meeting the groom for the first time, however this should be done in a light-hearted way.

She advised saying something along the lines of 'When we first met Trevor we thought "Who is this larrikin? But we soon learnt to love him".'

SPEECH ETIQUETTE FOR THE GROOM

Ms Musson outlined that the groom should start with a thank you to the parents, bridesmaids, and guests who've made the extra effort to attend.

Of course, the centre-piece of the speech should focus on the bride, and the groom's heartfelt joy at marrying her.

This is a beautiful opportunity to celebrate the woman you are marrying in front of your family and friends, said Ms Musson.

'Jokes at the expense of the bride are particularly distasteful.'

The best man can add a humourous touch to his speech but he should steer away from making jokes about the bride or recounting stories of laddish behaviour (stock image)

SPEECH ETIQUETTE FOR THE BRIDE

Similarly, the bride's speech should also thank parents and guests, however, Ms Musson noted there needs to be some discussion prior as to whom is thanking who.

Likewise, the heart of the bride's speech should be focused on the groom; while the message should be touching, there's no need to gush.

Ms Musson's best recommendation is to prepare ahead, and add a touch of humour to keep things light.

SPEECH ETIQUETTE FOR THE BEST MAN

The expert said of all the wedding speeches, this one is one where things can go the most wrong.

Ms Musson advised to best men to steer well clear of the temptation to make jokes about the bride, or to regale those assembled with tales of wild nights.

'Remember there are now two families to consider when bringing up old jokes and stories of laddish behaviour,' she concluded.A polyamorous couple who have two children together plan to 'marry' the long-term girlfriend who shares their bed.

Matthew and Michelle Catano, from Huntington Beach, California, met Courtney on a dating website seven years after they married, and decided to ask her to be their girlfriend.

Courtney, 27, moved into their family home shortly after they met, with the trio now planning to commit to each other in a ceremony - despite three-way marriages not being legally recognised.

The couple's girlfriend, who has already changed her last name to Catano, hopes to legally adopt the couple's children, Dario, eight, and Anthony, three, who already call her 'mommy'.

Matthew, 32, insists that he loves both women equally, and says that they are not in an open relationship as many people believe.

Matthew and Michelle Catano (left), from Huntington Beach, California, plan to marry long-term girlfriend Courtney (right)

The polyamorous couple, who share sons Dario, eight, and Anthony, three, (pictured together) met Courtney (far right) on a dating website

Mortgage adviser Michelle, 31, said: 'When Matthew and I first met, we had absolutely no idea that either one of us would be open to a polyamorous relationship.

'We never considered adding someone to the mix until we were married. Our relationship has always been incredibly strong, but we thought that by adding someone else in to the mix it would be a fun new element.

'I was searching on a dating website and came across Courtney's profile, and Matthew and I couldn't believe how attractive she was.

'We got talking and we soon met up, and we both fell in love with her straight away.'

Courtney moved into the couple's home shortly after they met, with the trio all sharing the same bed

She now plans to legally adopt Matthew and Michelle's sons (pictured together), who already call her 'mommy'

Courtney moved into Matthew and Michelle's home seven months after they met oin 2015, and the trio's relationship has gone from strength to strength ever since.

Courtney even quit her job to become a full-time mom to Dario and Anthony - with both referring to her as 'mommy' as well.

Despite the unique situation, the trio claim that they all live harmoniously together, and that their children are happy and aware of the situation.

Courtney said: 'It wasn't weird joining Matthew and Michelle's marriage, and I felt completely at ease with both of them straight away.

Matthew (pictured with wife Michelle) insists that he loves Michelle and Courtney equally

The trio now plan to commit to each other in a ceremony in front of friends and family, despite three-way marriages not being legally recognised

Matthew, Michelle and Courtney insist that there is no jealousy in their relationship at all

'There's absolutely no jealousy whatsoever between us all, and we make sure to spend our one on one time together as well as individually.

'We'll explain to the children fully when they're older why they have two moms, but for now they just think they're the luckiest kids in the world to have three parents!'

Next year the trio claim that they plan to 'marry' one another in a commitment ceremony with friends, family, and other polyamorous couples in attendance.

Courtney also plans on officially adopting the two boys as a co-parent, so the boys can officially have two mothers.

Courtney (pictured) said they ensure to spend one-on-one time with each other, as well as spending time all together

The trio say that both Dario, eight, and Anthony, three, are aware that they have two moms

In fact, Courtney (centre) has given up her job so she can be a full-time mother to the children

What are the rules on marriage and adoption for three-way couples? Multiple partner relationships are not currently legal in most western countries. However, a court case in the Netherlands recently permitted the legal cohabitation of three partners. When it comes to adoption, laws in some US states - including California and Maine - allow a child to officially have three parents. A number of courts in other states across the US have also recognised a third parent in recent years. Advertisement

Matthew, who works in the mortgage industry, said: 'Even though people are quite skeptical of polyamorous relationships, they run a lot more smoothly than others would think.

'People always assume we're in an open relationship so we sleep with anyone and everyone, but that's truly just not the case.

'We've made friends with a few like-minded polyamorous couples as well, as they can understand our relationship completely - we even go on triple dates!

'Even though a polyamorous relationship wouldn't work for everyone, it certainly works for us.'

Matthew and Michelle said neither of them thought the other would be open to a polyamorous relationship when they first met

However, that changed seven years after they got married, when they met Courtney (centre)First Dates fans were left in tears after watching an unlucky in love deaf student hit it off with a man who knows sign language.

John, 27, from Edenderry, a design student, was matched with Stephen, 24 - who learned sign language as a child because he was struggling with a stammer - on the Irish version of the hit show.

Communicating in sign language, a relieved John opened up about the difficulties he'd faced on the singles scene as a deaf man, revealing that he'd even resorted to conversing over text message on dates.

Emotional viewers said watching their chat was 'so lovely', with one declaring it the 'best thing on TV this week' on Twitter.

John and Stephen had the first ever date conducted entirely in sign language on First Dates Ireland last night

John, a design student, said it can be 'frustrating' to date a person who doesn't understand sign language, as they often struggle to grasp that he can't hear anything at all.

He explained: 'It's really frustrating when people talk into my ear. I have to say ''I'm deaf'' - and then they just talk louder.

'I try explaining that talking louder makes no difference, and it's easier just to text.'

The date left viewers feeling emotional, as it was the first time the RTE series has featured a date conducted through sign language.

Viewers were emotional while watching the date, with deaf person thanking the show for airing it

One tweeted: 'It's so good that First Dates have included a deaf person and is showing a date through sign language.'

'I'm not crying, you are!!!! So lovely to see a date through sign language,' another posted.

Another tweeted: 'S*** I'm crying at First Dates.'

HR professional Stephen isn't deaf but struggled with a speech impediment as a child, so learned sign language to help him communicate. He then went on to get a degree in deaf studies.

John said he'd struggled to date as a deaf person and had to communicate with his dates over text

Stephen learned sign language as a way to communicate with a speech impediment

John admitted that he hasn't been very lucky in love and doesn't often go on second dates.

He continued: 'I've had plenty of experience with dating but it never goes anywhere after the first dates. That's always been the way. Not sure why, it's pretty crap.'

John and Stephen appeared to have chemistry, and Stephen, the reigning Mr Gay Ireland, kept John amused with his tales of dating other deaf men.

He described meeting deaf men in clubs who wanted to dance as close to the speakers as possible.

The pair decided to remain friends as Stephen was moving from Dublin to London

He said: 'If I meet a deaf person in a club they always want to stand by the speakers so they can feel the vibrations, but I'm signing and I'm hearing the noise and I find it really overwhelming.

'I'm trying to think in a different language with this booming in my ear, trying to sign at the same time! So we both have our problems.'

Despite their successful date, the show revealed John and Stephen had gone on to decide to remain friends, because Stephen was relocating to London.A mother was branded 'sexist' after she called for car parks to introduce wider spaces just for women drivers.

Rae Martin appeared on ITV's This Morning to discuss a scheme already in place in China, where women drivers can choose to park in bigger spaces denoted by pink lines and a figure of a woman, or a stiletto.

Mother-of-four Ms Martin, who described herself as a 'rubbish driver', backed similar spaces in Britain, arguing women are worse behind the wheel because they are 'distracted by their children'.

The stance was widely criticised by viewers who branded it 'sexist' and 'outdated'. One wrote: 'Female parking spaces?? How sexist! Not all women are bad at parking and need extra room.'

Rae Martin said on This Morning that she welcomed female-only spaces because she struggles to park

'Female spaces' in a Hangzhou car park in China have been painted pink and made wider. They were recently introduced in service stations in the city, prompting widespread debate

The stance was widely criticised by viewers who branded it 'sexist' and 'outdated'

China's women-only parking spaces are bigger than the standard size and are bright pink with an image of a high heel to distinguish them from other spaces.

They have been available in some shopping centres for years and recently made headlines when they were introduced at service stations in the city of Hangzhou.

While the spaces have caused controversy worldwide, Martin said she welcomed them as they would make it easier for drivers who struggle to park, saying: 'I'm rubbish, I cant park to save my life. Absolutely rubbish.'

As cars have gotten bigger over the years, Martin argued they have become more difficult to maneuver into tight spaces.

She then claimed that because she is often having to intervene in fights between her children in the backseat she can lose her focus on parking her car.

Viewers were shocked by the debate, with many slamming Martin's 'ridiculous' arguments

She added: 'I just think ''Thank you for giving me a bigger parking space it's going to keep my insurance premium down.'''

Viewers were shocked at the debate with many taking to Twitter to criticise Martin's views.

One tweeted: 'Female only parking spaces has literally made my skin crawl, if you cant park in a parking space you need more practise, not a bigger space. And its not just women who cant park!'

'That woman needs a bubble to live in not a bigger car parking space,' another wrote.

Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield probed Martin about her beliefs, suggesting the spaces could be seen as 'sexist'

Motoring journalist Jess Shanahan said the spaces could reinforce the believe that women are worse drivers than men

A third agreed: 'I think Rae needs to pipe down and practice her parking.'

This Morning presenters Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield seemed to disagree with her opinions.

Holly said that mothers already have mother and child parking spaces, while Phil said female-only spaces could be seen as sexist.

Martin faced motoring journalist Jess Shanahan in the debate, who said the spaces reinforced the idea that women are worse drivers than men.

She said: 'I do think it's sexist. There are people out there who can park well and people who can't. The stereotype that women can't park well will be furthered with these spaces.'The Duchess of Cambridge made a serious style statement when she stepped out a houndstooth coat for her second day of engagements in Stockholm this morning.

The red-and-white coat, custom-made by royal favourite Catherine Walker, is another bold choice for Kate, 36, who has so-far eschewed her typically safer styles in favour of standout looks for the high-profile Scandinavian tour.

It is also a subtle nod to William's mother, Princess Diana, who wore a strikingly similar look to Sandringham nearly three decades ago.

The coat marks the second time in less than 24 hours that Kate has paid tribute to her late mother-in-law with her outfit. Last night she arrived for a black tie dinner wearing a pearl bracelet and a pair of pearl earrings that belonged to the princess.

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The Duchess of Cambridge made a statement in a bold Catherine Walker coat in Stockholm today. The 36-year-old was joined by husband Prince William on a school visit, pictured

The bold red and white look is strikingly like one worn by Princess Diana, pictured with a young Prince William, when she attended Princess Eugenie's Christening at Sandringham in 1990

Last night Kate donned a pair of Princess Diana's pearl earrings and her pearl bracelet (both left) as she joined Prince William and Swedish royals for a dinner at the home of the British Ambassador in Stockholm. Right, Diana wearing the earrings at a state banquet in Paris in 1988

Princess Diana also wore this delicate three-strand pearl bracelet, worn by Diana in 1989

Diana turned heads in her houndstooth jacket by luxury fashion house Moschino as she joined senior royals for Princess Eugenie's Christening in December 1990.

She layered her jacket over a high-neck black blouse and paired it with a black and white skirt in the same houndstooth pattern. The ensemble was finished with low black and red pumps and a red wide-brimmed hat trimmed with a black satin ribbon.

One style expert notes that why the looks are very alike, Princess Diana's styling of the print is more daring than the Duchess', who teamed her coat with a quilted maroon bag and fringed leather pumps from Italian label Tod's.

Hannah Eichler, Senior Brand Stylist at Oasis, explained: 'From polkadots to red coats and floaty pastel gowns, Kate Middletons wardrobe choices have long drawn inspiration from Princess Diana.

Kate kept her outfit tonal, teaming the red and white coat with a burgundy Chanel bag and matching shoes by Tod's. Pictured, Kate and William with Prince Daniel and Princess Victoria

Diana added more punch to her look by boldly pairing the coat with a black and white houndstooth skirt. She finished the ensemble with black and red shoes and hat

'Her latest outing in Norway has proved The Duchess Of Cambridges looks continue to be synced with her late mother in law in the sartorial department.

'Choosing a punchy red houndstooth coat which she teamed with matchy matchy burgundy accessories, it appears The Duchess isnt the only one who was a fan of the iconic print  Princess Diana sported a similar look back in 1990.

'Whilst Princess Diana might have opted for more fashion forward styling by mixing colours instead of going tonal like Kate, it certainly proves that real style never goes out of fashion. From 1990 to 2018, houndstooth prints are a fashion mainstay.'

Last night Kate donned a pair of Princess Diana's pearl earrings as she joined Prince William and Swedish royals for a dinner at the home of the British Ambassador in Stockholm.

The simplicity of her jewels perfectly her 1,945 saffron yellow gown. To show off the pearls, which Diana wore to a Paris state banquet in 1988, Kate wore her brunette tied back in a low chignon. She also wore a slender pearl bracelet beloved of Diana.

Royal reception: After this morning's visit to the Karolinska Institutet, the two couples travelled on to Matteusskolan, a comprehensive school in the heart of the city centre (pictured), ahead of a scheduled visit to a Swedish department store

Earlier on Wednesday, kicking off the second day of their high-profile visit to Sweden, William and Kate joined forces with Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel (pictured) to meet with experts and discuss the country's approach to mental health

The beaming Duchess poses for a photo with William and Victoria (left), whose stylish blouse with a pie crust collar could be seen peeking out from beneath her belted suit. She wore her hair in a sleek ponytail and wore a pearl bracelet

On the second day of their high-profile visit to Sweden, William and Kate, who is six months pregnant with the couple's third child, were given a riotous reception at Matteusskolan school.

While dozens of pupils waved hand-drawn flags and bunches of flowers, one lucky youngster managed to get a high-five from the Duchess as she greeted the crowds.

Outside the couple spent about ten minutes shaking hands with the schoolchildren, with William repeatedly telling them 'you've got cold hands' and complimenting them on the flags they were waving.

The youngsters looked delighted to catch a glimpse of the royals as many waved their hand-drawn notes and pictures. One pupil had brought a colourful bouquet of yellow and purple blooms to present to the royals (centre)Queen Letizia of Spain has kicked off 2018 with a busy month of social engagements.

The stylish Spanish royal, 45, looked elegant in a black-and-white ensemble as she attended the Diplomatic Corps Reception in Madrid's Zarzuela Palace.

Sporting a dazzling white jacket and elegant black lace floor-length skirt, the mother-of-two was joined by husband King Felipe VI.

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Queen Letizia of Spain, 45, continued a busy month of social engagements on Wednesday as she attended the Diplomatic Corps Reception in Madrid

Wearing her highlighted hair loose and smoothed behind her ears, Letizia's look showed perfect winter chic, with her crisp white blazer embellished with delicate buttons.

The former journalist turned royal teamed the jacket with a floor-length black skirt which featured delicate lace embroidery, and a pair of classic pumps.

Letizia looked slender alongside Felipe, who stood tall in a tailcoat and pinstripe trousers as the pair greeted their guests, members of the Spanish Diplomatic Corps.

The event usually takes place in the Throne Room of the Palace, where the King gives his annual speech before attendees enjoy lunch in the Hall of Columns.

She put on an elegant display in an understated jacket and skirt ensemble, and was joined by husband King Felipe VI of Spain, 49, in Madrid's Zarzuela Palace

Making the most of her slender proportions, Letizia slipped into a crisp white blazer embellished with delicate black buttons

The royal teamed it with a floor-length black skirt which featured a delicate lace embroidery, and a pair of classic pumps

The smart couple greeted an array of foreign diplomats, who put on colourful displays in their array of exquisite uniforms.

Stood against the sumptuous backdrop of Zarzuela Palace's lavish interior, the VIP gathering certainly made a picturesque group.

Letizia started the year by attending the Victims of Terrorism Foundation Awards to hand out trophies for those affected by the Barcelona terror attacks in August 2017.

Letizia was still dwarfed by Felipe, who stood tall in a tailcoat and pinstripe trousers as they greeted their guests

Stood against the sumptuous backdrop of Zarzuela Palace's lavish interior, the VIP gathering made a picturesque group

The smart couple greeted an array of foreign diplomats, who put on colourful displays in their array of exquisite uniforms

On the morning of August 17, Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22, drove a van into the busy La Rambla in the Spanish city killing 14 people and injuring 130 others.

Hours later, a car attack in the seaside town of Cambrils killed another person early Friday

Just hours after the attack Letizia and Felipe travelled to the city where lead tributes to the victims as well as visiting survivors in hospital.

Former journalist Letizia shares children Leonor, 12, and Sofia, 10, with King Felipe VI, 49, who she married in 2004.

Letizia started the year by attending the Victims of Terrorism Foundation Awards

The photogenic couple beamed as they posed for pictures at the coveted event

Letizia showed off caramel highlighted locks and understated make-up as she arrived

The couple mirrored each other as they posed for pictures, folding their hands together

Queen Letizia bowed as she shook hands with the Archbishop Carlos of Madrid

King Felipe appeared in high spirits as he shook hands with the attendeesA new app that finds doppelgangers has revealed some rather amusing, not to mention fitting lookalikes for the royal family, including Harry's striking resemblance to a Spanish King.

And even his big brother Prince William got in on the act - closely resembling a 400-year-old painting of Prince Philip William of Orange by Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt.

The new Google Arts and Culture app, which matches selfies to fine art, has taken the internet by storm - with celebrity users including Kate Hudson, Sarah Silverman and Zach Braff.

Newest Royals Kate and Camilla and Royal-to-be Meghan Markle were all compared to far more modern works of art.

Meghan Markle was compared to a 2013 painting called Mimicry -Mitsuwana-, by Japanese artist Juuri Robertson.

The piece is allegedly based on a Japanese folklore tale, of a forked-tailed cat called Nekomata who can shape-shift into a human.

Kate's look-a-like is Joaquin Sorollas eldest daughter Maria, in his oil painting Walk on the Beach, painted in 1909

The Duchess of Cambridge was deemed similar to artist Joaquin Sorollas eldest daughter Maria, in his oil painting Walk on the Beach, painted in 1909.

But the Royal Familys more bizarre list of lookalikes includes Prince Philip, who has a 73 per cent match with shrewd-looking Dutch grain trader Isaac Abrahamszoon Massa in Seif Wanlys Portrait of a Couple.

The Queens lookalike was Cornelia van Schuylenburgh, the wife of Dutch 19th Century Baron Diederik van Bleyswijk, by Conrad Kuster.

Prince Charles bares a spooky resemblance to Jan van Lennep the Elder, an Amsterdam merchant in silk, gold and silver cloth and an art collector, painted by an anonymous artist.

Meghan Markle has been compared to a slightly more modern painting, created in 2013 by Japanese artist Juuri Robertson

For Harry, his roots are royal, as he is compared to a Spanish King - although the facial hair is a little off

Prince William has also been likened to royalty, with the app deciding that he looks like this 400-year-old painting of Prince Philip William of Orange by Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt

Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, was surprisingly a 60 per cent match to a piece of street art depicting Susana Trimarco - a brave Argentinian mother who survived two murder attempts, death threats and having her house burnt down.

The piece, by No Touching Ground, was painted in downtown Buenos Aires in 2013 after Susana led a 10-year search to find her missing daughter Marita, who was kidnapped and forced into prostitution.

Despite the app being available for over a year, only US residents can currently access the matching service.

Other features of the app include the ability to recognise works of art and virtual tours of famous museums.

The Queen was noted for her resemblance to Cornelia van Schuylenburgh, the wife of Dutch 19th Century Baron Diederik van Bleyswijk, by Conrad Kuster

For Prince Philip, he lives a rather different life to that of the shrewd-looking Dutch grain traders, Isaac Abrahamszoon Massa in Seif Wanly's Portrait of a Couple

Camilla's artistic twin is slightly more abstract, as she has been compared to a piece of street art of a Argentinean womanAdvertisement

Prince Charles was left red-faced and giggling after he had to wrestle a microphone from the jaws of This Morning dog Digby today.

The Prince of Wales, 69, and the Duchess of Cornwall, 70, found themselves in the midst of canine chaos at the show's London ITV studios, as the royals helped presenters Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield celebrate the programme's 30th year on air.

On a whistle-stop tour of the studios, Charles and Camilla, dressed in a stylish deep emerald skirt suit, met the shining lights of ITV's daytime schedule including Good Morning Britain's Piers Morgan and Susannah Reid and This Morning's Friday presenters Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford.

There was even time to chow down on a mutton hot pot as the royals sampled the delights of the This Morning kitchen with Phil Vickery and Gino D'Acampo at the culinary helm.

The broadcaster released a series of images and footage ahead of the interview being shown on the programme tomorrow.

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The sofa's looking very regal this morning! A suited-and-booted Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby welcomed Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall onto the sofa that has seen hundreds of famous faces interviewed on it

Prince Charles points a finger at Phillip as the quartet sit down to chat about life working on one of the country's leading daytime shows. Camilla, elegant in a emerald green skirt suit, laughed before the royals admired the show's recent win at the National Television Awards

Never work with children and animals! Prince Charles is left red in the face - and laughing - as he wrestles a microphone from Digby the This Morning dog's mouth during the royal visit to the ITV set this morning

Camilla scribes inside a special anniversary visitors' book set up to mark 30 years of the show being on air; the popular daytime television programme celebrates its official birthday in October

A feast to behold: While Prince Charles is deep in conversation with Phillip, Camilla enjoys a taste of mutton hot pot and honeyed parsnips, cooked up by resident chef Phil Vickery and using the official This Morning honey

It's delicious! Camilla, opting for a smart suit in emerald green and four strings of pearls with matching earrings, looked to be enjoying the opportunity for some midday snacking

The show's stars, Phil and Holly, looked delighted to be hosting the VIPs, with a normally casual Phillip donning a whistle and flute for the occasion as they prepared to meet the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall

This October marks 30 years since the show aired for the first time - and with Charles preparing to mark his 70th birthday in November, there was clearly a celebratory feeling in the air.

Holly and Phil looked delighted to kick off the year-long party by giving the VIPs a tour of the sets they use every day.

The royals appeared in jocular mood too throughout their tour, as they got a glimpse behind the scenes of one of the UK's most successful studios and met some of the broadcaster's major talents.

However, it was arguably Digby the guide dog in-training who raised the biggest smile from the Prince - after the little scamp refused to let go of a piece of sound equipment he had clamped in his mouth.

When Charles and Camilla arrived fresh from the kitchen to meet a trio of assistant dogs, Digby, Clover and Luna, the pooches seemed determined to show Charles that you should never work with children or animals - especially when the television cameras are rolling.

Wearing a smart suit with matching tie and pocket square, the Prince appeared a little red in the face under the warm studio lights. Right: Charles and Digby's handler discuss his assistant-dotg training programme with the Prince

It was all going so well! After a tour of This Morning's kitchen - and a chat with chef Phil Vickery - Prince Charles' next meet was with a trio of guide dogs

Hand it over! The determined dog refuses to let go of the equipment...until Prince Charles steps in and wins the battle

From Trump to Charles! Earlier in the day, the royals headed to the Good Morning Britain set, where presenter Piers Morgan, who co-hosts Good Morning Britain with Susannah Reid, is seen shaking the Prince of Wales' hand

Susannah Reid clasps the hand of Camilla while Piers and the Prince exchange pleasantaries. Far left: GMB presenters Kate Garraway and Charlotte Hawkins look on

The good-natured encounter saw the Prince crumbling with laughter as he tried to retrieve the microphone. Eventually, Charles proved successful, even if he did look a little hot under the collar afterwards.

The morning began with a tour first of the Lorraine set and then a chance to press the flesh with some of the Good Morning Britain stars including hosts Piers Morgan, Susannah Reid and co-presenters Charlotte Hawkins and Kate Garraway.

Next it was on to the This Morning studios, with Holly and Phil dressed to impress; Phil donned a particularly sharp-looking suit and tie, a move away from his usually more relaxed attire.

Elsewhere, there was even some time for nibbles as the show's resident chefs Phil Vickery and Gino D'Acampo impressing Charles and Camilla with their cooking wizardry. Honeyed parsnips featured in the chefs dishes used honey produced by bees housed on the roof of Studio 8.

This Morning chef Phil Vickery talks Prince Charles and Camilla through a range of recipes as the couple try cheeses - and honey produced by the show's own bees

Tuck in! Holly and a smartly dressed Phillip help the Duchess of Cornwall sample some of the fruits of the This Morning kitchen including British wines from the Bolney Wine Estate in West Sussex

Buongiorno! Camilla spent time chatting to the show's other resident Italian chef Gino D'Acampo

Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford hold forth with the Prince of Wales as the royal couple meet the show's Friday presenters

The royals congratulated the presenters and staff who work on the show for keeping it at the top of daytime ratings for almost three decades...and Camilla offered a well done to Ruth for her recent appearance on Strictly Come Dancing

Alongside Digby, Charles also appeared to enjoy chatting to jovial This Morning presenter Alison Hammond, whose trademark laugh seemed to leave the Prince in stitches as they shared joke.

After the Prince and Camilla had perched on the famous sofa, shortly after the presenting duo had come off air for the day, Phillip revealed some of the things the group had chatted about.

The royals and the presenting duo discussed working so close to the Thames and Holly gifted them a jar of This Morning's very own honey.

Phillip said: 'As a patron to charities headed by both The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, I'm really thrilled to welcome them to the This Morning studio. It's a fantastic way for us to celebrate our 30th anniversary.

While Charles, looking dapper in a smart blue suit, braved the rain, Camilla chose to protect her hair with a substantial umbrella which kept the deluge away

Camilla's well coiffured hair caught the breeze on the banks of the Thames as she left the studio early this afternoon

The Prince, who turns 70 in November this year, offered to give the This Morning crew a jar of honey from his own royal estates after he was gifted one by Holly

Jovial This Morning rogue presenter Alison Hammond manages to raise a laugh from the Prince

The pair dissolve into fits of giggles as Charles and Camilla meet the This Morning team

Holly added: 'It's been wonderful to welcome Their Royal Highnesses to This Morning. It's an exciting year for us here, and it's lovely to share with them some of our highlights.'

Later the social media-loving star posted about her meeting with the royals, saying on Instagram: 'Well that was quite a morning! By royal appointment...thank you to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall for popping in...'

Charles and Camilla also found time to meet Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford, who are the show's regular Friday presenters.

A self-proclaimed fan of Strictly Come Dancing, Camilla congratulated Ruth Langsford on her recent appearance on the entertainment show, while Eamonn offered his thanks for a letter penned to him by the Duchess following his OBE.

The show's editor Martin Frizell revealed that the royals had also signed a visitor's book during their brief tour.

He said: 'We also asked them to sign our first ever Visitors Book, which is going to be filled with pictures and messages from all our guests as we enter our 30th year.

'Were going to take photos on a polaroid camera and give the book away to one lucky winner to mark the shows 30th birthday in October.'

Highlights of the royals' daytime television tour, including their chat with Holly and Phil on the sofa, will air on This Morning tomorrow.It appears that a new generation of Democrats now has a Kennedy to swoon over.

Following Joe Kennedy III's rebuttal to the State of the Union on Tuesday night, Twitter lit up with thoughts on the 'handsome,' 'charismatic' congressman, who represents Massachusetts' fourth congressional district.

Both male and female viewers fired of fawning tweets about the 37-year-old from Boston, proclaiming their new crushes and calling him 'dreamy'.

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In lurve: People are copping to crushes on Joe Kennedy Jr. on social media

Face: The 37-year-old delivered the rebuttal to Trump's State of the Union on Tuesday

Approve: During and after the speech, fans took to social media to express their appreciation

In the genes: Many noted how he inherited the Kennedy good looks

Feel-good: Some joked that Kennedy served as a superficial distraction from more serious feelings

All the single ladies: They professed to being 'fangirls'

Got a crush: Many called him 'handsome' and 'dreamy'

Easy: A few said they couldn't help but fall for the Democrat from Massachusetts

'I'm admittedly turning into such a JKIII fangirl!' wrote on. Another added plainly: 'Joe Kennedy III is incredible handsome. Sorry, I can only see what I see.''

One called him 'a damn dreamy ginger Kennedy,' while another remarked on his red hair favorably by writing: 'Wow totally crushing on Joe Kennedy III I love me a handsome ginger.'

And it's not just younger women who didn't grow up with JFK, RFK, or JFK Jr.,to crush on.

'My mom and I have been talking about how handsome Joe Kennedy is all morning,' wrote one fan.

Some were particular taken with the way the young Democrat spoke Spanish during his speech, appealing to a growing US Latino population which reached 58 million people in 2016.

'Joe Kennedy speaking Spanish, swoon level 100000,' one tweeted. 'A Spanish-speaking Kennedy. *swoon*' quipped another.

Surreal: This woman suggested that a 'young and handsome Kennedy' rising up the ranks feels like a page out of fanfiction written about the US

How you doin', Joe? Several shared flirty memes and GIFs

It's our density: The hearts-in-eyes emoji was a favorite of new Kennedy fans

Bonding over a crush: Fans spanned across multiple generations

Te amo! Quite a few were also impressed that the Democrat spoke Spanish

Y muy guapo, tambien! They found the bilingual congressman swoon-worthy

Sorry, ladies - he's taken! Kennedy is married to Lauren Anne Birchfield, whom he met in Elizabeth Warren's class at Harvard Law

Family man: Together, they have two young children

The son of Joseph P. Kennedy II and his ex-wife Sheila Rauch, Joe Kennedy III is the latest in a long line of Kennedy heartthrobs  a family many have called the closest think America has to royalty, thanks to both their star appeal and dynastic quality.

Through his father, he is the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy, and the great-nephew of President John F. Kennedy. Both RFK and JFK were also known to make women swoon, as was JFK Jr.

Like those who came before him, this Kennedy has caught the public's attention thanks to a combination of good looks, fortune, liberal politics, charisma, abd brains.

He graduated from Stanford in 2003 and then Harvard Law School in 2009, where he met his wife Lauren Anne Birchfield. The two were both in a class taught by now-Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Together they have two children, a daughter named Eleanor and a son named James  a bit of bad luck for the Twitter users who have professed that they'd like to bear his children.

Some Twitter users found that they were still head-over-heels for Joe despite the odd wet patch near his mouth, which caught many viewers' attention.

Hard: Still, some fans are holding out hope that they can have his children

Ginger love: Several men and women remarked favorably on his red hair

People on Twitter also noticed the odd wet spot at the corner of the congressman's mouth

All good: However, the weird patch didn't stop them from crushing

This woman his worried about the wet spots but still has a crush

Twins! Quite a few also noted that Kennedy looks a lot like late night TV host Conan O'Brien

Superman: Some said he looks like a preppier version of Conan, or one mashed up with Christopher Reeve

Lookalikes: The two certainly bare a resemblance to one another

'I think I have a crush on Joe Kennedy but Im also very worried about his mouth corners,' wrote one.

'Do I have a man crush on Joe Kennedy? Yes. Am I wondering what that slime is in the corner of his mouth? Also, yes,' wrote another.

Finally, quite a few couldn't help but notice that the congressman bares a resemblance to a certain late night TV host.

'Joe Kennedy looks like Conan O' Brien if he rowed crew,' wrote one.

'#Conan O'Brien and Joe Kennedy III twins separated at birth,' tweeted yet another.Donatella Versace has paid a touching tribute to her late brother Gianni, after her family slammed the new American Crime Story documentary chronicling the story of his murder 20 years ago.

The Versace artistic director, 62, answered questions about her older brother during an interview for Vogue's 73 Questions, conducted in Gianni's former apartment in Milan.

Gianni was murdered in July 1997 in Miami Beach, Florida, after the serial killer Andrew Cunanan, then 27, shot him on the steps of his mansion.

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Sibling: Donatella Versace has paid a touching tribute to her late brother Gianni during an interview for Vogue's 73 Questions, conducted in Gianni's former apartment in Milan

Touched: The Versace artistic director, 62, was clearly moved during the interview. When the interviewer asked her how Gianni has inspired her, she replied: 'His life inspired me'

Brother: Gianni (pictured with his sister in the 1990s) was murdered in July 1997 in Miami Beach, Florida, after serial killer Andrew Cunanan shot him on the steps of his mansion

Two decades after her brother's death, Donatella said that what she misses the most about Gianni is his laugh.

She also recounted the best advice he ever gave her as, 'Be true to yourself.'

During the bittersweet interview, Donatella, clearly moved, smiled after the interviewer asked her what Gianni would think of her work as the artistic director of their brand.

'Not good enough,' she said.

Donatella also shared that her favorite memory of her brother is being backstage with him at the last Paris Fashion show before his death.

When the interviewer asked her in which ways Gianni has inspired her, she replied: 'His life inspired me.'

And when he asked her to describe the best gift she's ever received, Donatella, visibly emotional, told her it was a yellow diamond given to her by her brother.

In September last year, Versace unveiled a tribute collection made in honor of Gianni.

Supermodels Cindy Crawford, Helena Christensen, Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer, and Carla Bruni all walked on the catwalk together as part of the iconic moment.

'It was too painful to think about it before,' Donatella told Vogue about the tribute. 'Twenty years went by and I was ready.'

Looking back: Donatella also shared that her favorite memory of her brother is being backstage with him at the last Paris Fashion show before his death

Tough feedback: During the bittersweet interview, Donatella, clearly moved, smiled after the interviewer asked her what Gianni would think of her work and said: 'Not good enough'

Starring turn: Donatella, pictured in September on the runway with the world's most famous 90s supermodels, showed her first collection for Versace a year after the death of her brother

The fashion designer, along with other members of the Versace family, previously spoke out against FX's American Crime Story series about Gianni's murder, The Assasssination Of Gianni Versace, which premiered earlier this month.

Now artistic director and vice-president of the Milan-based Versace fashion group, Donatella said in an interview published by Italian daily la Repubblica earlier this month that the series and a book it draws on contain gossip and contradictions.

'I haven't seen (the series) nor will I see it, because after all this time it still hurts to see Gianni represented untruthfully,' Donatella told the paper.

Earlier in the week the Versace family distanced itself from the TV series about.

In a statement, the family said it has neither authorized nor been involved in the series - but the network has stood by it.

The family statement continued that because no one in the family authorized the book from which the series if partly drawn, or participated in the writing of the screenplay, the series should be considered 'a work of fiction'.

FX released a response to Versace's family, defending the show by way of stadning by the author who wrote the book on which it is based: 'Like the original American Crime Story series The People vs. OJ Simpson, which was based on Jeffrey Toobin's nonfiction bestseller The Run of His Life, FX's follow-up The Assassination Of Gianni Versace is based on Maureen Orth's heavily researched and authenticated nonfiction best-seller Vulgar Favors, which examined the true life crime spree of Andrew Cunanan.

'We stand by the meticulous reporting of Ms. Orth.'

Comments: The Versace family has distanced itself from the new FX TV series chronicling Gianny's 1997 murder. Pictured is Gianni's character, portrayed by Edgar Ramirez, in the series

Dissent: 'I haven't seen (the series) nor will I see it, because after all this time it still hurts to see Gianni represented untruthfully,' Donatella (pictured left with Gianni) has said

Gianni was a victim of serial killer Cunanan, a 27-year-old gay man who had murdered at least four others in a three-month killing spree before turning up at the fashion designer's home.

Cunanan was found dead in a Miami houseboat eight days later, apparently shooting himself with the same gun that killed Versace.

Twenty years on, it is not known whether the murder was planned or carried out at random, leading to much gossip and speculation, including a rumor that Versace may have been murdered by the mafia due to debts he owed to the criminal organisation.

There was also speculation that Versace may have met his killer years earlier, though family members and the designer's then-boyfriend Antonio D'Amico deny that.

This wasn't the first time the family has expressed doubts about the American Crime Story, but it was the first time it has released an official statement.

Producer Ryan Murphy said Donatella Versace came to him last summer with concerns about the nine-part series.

She was particularly concerned about how her children Allegra and Daniel will be depicted, according to W Magazine. They were both very young when her designer brother was murdered.

Penelope Cruz will play Donatella, and said before filming that she met with her to 'try to capture the essence of who she is.'

'I didn't want to do an imitation of Donatella, or a caricature,' she told Interview.

'I really hope that when she sees the show, she's going to be happy. I'm sure there are going to be scenes that are hard for her to watch, because it's a lot about the loss of her brother, which, of course, I have so much respect for.

Family: Producer Ryan Murphy previously said Donatella Versace came to him last summer with concerns about the nine-part series. Penelope Cruz is pictured with Edgar Ramirez, portraying Gianni and Donatella in the series

Work: Penelope Cruz (left) plays Donatella (right) in the series, and said before filming that she met with her to 'try to capture the essence of who she is'

Disagreement: Gianni's partner Antonio D'Amico, who is portrayed by Ricky Martin, has also criticized the series, saying in an interview in June that it won't 'have a trace of reality'

'I did it with all my love. From that place of devastation, she had to keep this company going in his honor. I don't know if she ever said this, but it was a way of keeping him alive.'

In November Donatella confirmed that she'd spoken with Cruz, but said she has no intention to watch the show.

Inspiration: The Assassination of Gianni Versace is based in part on Maureen Orth's book Vulgar Favors

'She is a friend, she said she will treat me with respect - yes but I don't know what will be from a book that says incredible falsehoods,' she said, speaking about the book which the series was partially based on.

D'Amico, who will be portrayed by Ricky Martin, has also criticized the series, saying in an interview in June that it won't 'have a trace of reality.'

'There has been so much written and said about the murder, and thousands of suppositions, but not a trace of reality,' D'Amico told the Observer.

After seeing images of the scene showing the moment Versace, 50, was gunned down, the Brindisi-born D'Amico decided to speak out about its apparent 'poetic license'.

'The picture of Ricky Martin holding the body in his arms is ridiculous,' he said, adding that it was like looking at a mimic of Michelangelo's Pieta, which depicts the body of Jesus in the arms of his mother after the crucifixion. 'Maybe it's the director's poetic licence, but that is not how I reacted.'

Instead, D'Amico says he was barely able to look at Versace's bloodied body after he was shot.

'I felt as if my blood had turned to ice,' he said. He and Versace's butler went outside to investigate.

'The house had stained glass windows so we couldn't see what had happened from inside, so we had to open the gate. I saw Gianni lying on the steps, with blood around him. At that point, everything went dark. I was pulled away, I didn't see any more.'A hamster and his tiny bed have gone viral on Twitter because people think it's the cutest thing on the internet.

Amberly Dzimira, a high school student from Illinois, shared the photos of her pet hamster, Chip, in the new miniature bed she bought for him which is so tiny, she's able to put him in the bed and take him everywhere she goes.

Since posting the photos with the caption, 'I bought my hamster a little bed and now we do everything together,' on January 29, it has since racked up almost 105,000 retweets and over 350,000 likes.

Viral: A hamster and his tiny bed have gone viral on Twitter because people think it's the cutest thing on the internet and the tweet already has 105,000 retweets and over 350,000 likes

Hamster: Amberly Dzimira shared the photos of her pet hamster, Chip (pictured), in the new miniature bed she bought for him which is so small, she takes him everywhere she goes

Traveling: Chip is a male teddy bear hamster who Amberly, from Illinois, bought at Petco, and he does everything from watch TV to eat at the dinner table

Amberly carries around Chip in his bed and brings him wherever she goes. He sat in the corner of her desk and watched her do homework and also sat on top of her bed and watched Netflix from her laptop.

He even sat in his bed at the table with her as they faced each other and shared a plate of fresh carrots.

Since posting the photos of the baby hamster, people can't get over how cute he is and are taking to Twitter to share their love for this little pet and his bed.

Meanwhile, other people shared their disappointment that their own hamsters don't sit still like sweet little Chip.

One girl wrote, 'I didn't know what was missing in my life until now,' while another person shared, 'This has genuinely put me to ease and I feel like nothing can upset me ever again.'

Obsessed: People are loving Chip and his tiny bed and can't stop sharing how cute they think he is

Hilarious: One user got really specific about how much she loves the hamster in this hysterical tweet

Tame: One user asked how he manages to stay put and Amberly replied, 'I honestly have no idea, he just really likes his bed'

Famous: When the likes and retweets really started rolling in by the thousands, Amberly (pictured) joked that her hamster was famous, writing, 'Chip loves his fans'

Some of the other comments from people were even funnier, with one guy writing, 'I would die for your hamster.'

Other shared that their emotions just couldn't handle Chip as two people wrote comments, 'I'm actually in tears omfg,' and 'I'm crying dude.'

One user asked, 'How does he just stay put?' to which Amberly replied, 'I honestly have no idea, he just really likes his bed.'

When the likes and retweets really started rolling in by the thousands, Amberly joked that her hamster was famous, writing, 'Chip loves his fans.'

Aside from people writing things like 'this is the cutest thing ever,' and 'I'm obsessed,' some people got really specific in their hysterical comments.

Hysterical: Some people went a little overboard expressing their feelings towards chip like this one user who joked that he would die for him

Fame: In response to all of the publicity her tweet was getting, Amberly wrote, 'This guy is trending and I'm speechless. Glad everyone loves him as much as I do'

Jealous: While some people gushed about Chip, others were disappointed that their own hamsters never sit this still

Annoyed: Other people who own hamsters were so jealous of Chip's calm personality and wish theirs would act this way

Love: People love Chip and his new abode which is a tiny little fleece-lined bed that his owner bought him at PetSmart

'Quick question: What is Chip's Twitter handle and can I Venmo him money for brightening my life?,' a user wrote.

'Why is this the loveliest thing in the world,' someone shared about their thoughts.

One girl went so far to say, 'I've been thinking I want human contact and intimacy all this time when I could have just made friends with a hamster in a little miniature bed and be living my best life.'

In response to all of the publicity her tweet was getting, Amberly wrote, 'This guy is trending and I'm speechless. Glad everyone loves him as much as I do.'

Chip is a male teddy bear hamster who Amberly bought at Petco, and she describes him as, 'chill asf,' chill as f**k, and he sits in his tiny bed, which is the size of a coffee cup, all day long.

His new abode is a tiny little fleece-lined bed that his owner bought him at PetSmart, and it features a gray and turquoise pattern on the outside of it.Even the stars and the planets will be aligned for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's royal wedding, which will take place during a significant planetary movement and two retrogrades.

The 33-year-old royal and the 36-year-old Suits star will say 'I do' at St. Georges Chapel at Windsor Castle on May 19, 2018 and the date couldn't be more perfect, astrologically speaking. On their wedding day, Venus  the planet of love  will move into Cancer, the zodiac sign representing home and family.

Janet Booth, a Connecticut-based astrologist who helps couples pick their wedding dates, told Bustle that the movement of Venus into Cancer is a great astrological merger for a couple who wants to focus on family.

Save the date! Prince Harry, 33, and Meghan Markle, 36, will say 'I do' at St. Georges Chapel at Windsor Castle on May 19, 2018

When Venus and Cancer get together, 'it creates the potential for greater intimacy,' according to Tarot.com. It also brings out an appreciation for family and a connection to your roots.

The timing couldn't be better, as it has been been reported that Meghan is planning to break tradition and deliver her own speech at their wedding reception - where the bride usually refrains from speaking.

Timing: Venus, the planet of love, will move into Cancer, the zodiac sign representing home and family, on their wedding day

It is said that she will be paying tribute to her new husband, Prince Harry, while thanking their friends and family for their support.

In addition to the planetary movement, Saturn and Pluto will both be in retrograde at the time of the royal wedding.

Retrograde is an astrological phenomenon that occurs when the planet's orbit intersects with Earth's and it appears to be moving backwards in the sky.

Identical twin sisters Ophira and Tali Edut, who are known as the AstroTwins, explain on their site Astrostyle.com that astrology followers can attest to feeling the effects of retrograde planets, even if it is just an illusion.

'The areas that a retrograde planet rules can become weak, challenging or troublesome during this cycle,' they explain.

Saturn goes in to retrograde on April 17, while Pluto's retrograde starts on April 22. Both of them will stay in retrograde until September.

Coming together: When Venus and Cancer get together it brings out an appreciation for family and a connection to your roots

Planets in motion: In addition to the planetary movement, Saturn and Pluto will both be in retrograde at the time of the royal wedding

According to AstroTwins, Saturn in retrograde is a time to rethink your goals and career path, something that Meghan has undoubtedly already started doing.

Next step: Saturn in retrograde is a time to rethink your goals and career path. Meghan (pictured on Suits) revealed she was retiring from acting following her engagement

In November, following her engagement, it was revealed that she was leaving the hit legal drama Suits after the show's seventh season. She also confirmed that she would be retiring from acting to focus on her royal duties.

'I don't see it as giving anything up. I just see it as a change,' she said during her first joint engagement interview with Prince Harry.

Saturn in retrograde is also a time to 'work through father issues', which may be of benefit to Meghan on her wedding day.

Her father Thomas Markle is reportedly determined to walk her down the aisle, and while it is clear she has lots of love for him, their relationship has been fraught over the years.

Indeed, Meghan and her father have effectively been estranged for a number of years, with her sister Samantha Grant speaking out earlier this year to reveal that she believes the rift was caused by Meghan's mother Doria.

Samantha also insisted during an interview earlier this month that Meghan should provide financial support to Thomas, who has been suffering from a leg injury in recent months.

Meanwhile, Pluto in retrograde is a time for Meghan and Harry to explore past fears, limited beliefs, and unconscious patterns.

Recognizing these parts of themselves will undoubtedly help them navigate their first year of marriage.A new mom has told of her terror after she woke up one morning while pregnant and discovered that her face was partially paralyzed.

Jocelyn York, 29, of Guilford, Vermont, began having trouble chewing food when she was two weeks from her due date and initially brushed it off as tiredness.

But the following morning the social worker 'freaked out' when she woke up and looked in the mirror to discover that the right side of her face was frozen.

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Morning shock: Jocelyn York, 29, a social worker living in Guilford, Vermont, was two weeks from giving birth when she woke up to find the right side of her face paralyzed

Before: Jocelyn was 38 weeks pregnant when she began to feel a strange sensation in her face

Damper on the day: Jocelyn, pictured with her wife Meg York, 34, was heartbroken over not being able to smile at her daughter after welcoming Ida in August 2017

Terrified Jocelyn thought she had suffered a stroke because she could no longer smile or close her right eyelid, but doctors diagnosed her with Bell's Palsy.

The condition is a form of facial paralysis that occurs when the cranial nerve is swollen, compressed or inflamed, and in her case it's thought to have been caused by shingles.

It meant Jocelyn was unable to grin at her newborn baby, Ida York, for five months after she was born last August.

Jocelyn, who lives with her wife, lawyer Meg York, 34, said giving birth was the 'happiest day' of her life - but it was tainted because she couldn't smile.

The mom-of-one said: 'The night before it happened to me I had this strange sensation in my face.

Sussing it out: Doctors told Jocelyn that she had Bell's Palsy, and that it may have been caused by a dormant shingles virus

Mom and baby: Jocelyn and her wife welcomed their baby Ida with the help of a sperm donor

Out and about: Jocelyn, pictured with Meg and her father, was also unable to close her eye

'My partner and I were eating dinner and I found it really hard to chew.

'It was weird but I didn't think that much of it. I just went to bed, thinking I was just exhausted because I was 38 weeks pregnant.

'I woke up the next morning and my face felt so strange.

'I got out of bed and walked to the mirror and I realized I couldn't move the right side of my face.

'I was scared, I immediately thought I was having a stroke. It was like one side of my face was frozen.'

Jocelyn, who conceived baby Ida using a sperm donor, added: 'I felt like I was in a prison. I couldn't express emotion.

Healing up: Jocelyn was forced to wear an eye patch in the months after her diagnosis

Happy baby: Jocelyn worried that her baby Ida would never know her smile

Support system: Jocelyn felt embarrassed while walking outside, worried that friends might think she was being rude for not being able to smile back

'I was worried that my baby wouldn't know what a smile from me even looked like.'

Jocelyn's paralysis is thought to have been caused by shingles, an infection caused by the reactivation of the varicella zoster virus, part of a group of viruses called herpes viruses.

The illness - which Jocelyn had aged nine - lies dormant after recovery and can become reactivated in certain scenarios, such as with a weakened immune system.

Herpes viruses can also cause Bell's Palsy and women who are pregnant are three times more likely to suffer from it. In Jocelyn's case, it was difficult to determine the exact cause.

Soon after she developed symptoms on July 29, 2017, doctors warned her that she might live with a permanent inability to control her facial muscles.

To treat the condition, she was placed on a course of anti-virals and prednisone, a drug which is designed to bring down inflammation.

Jocelyn, originally from San Jose, California, also had to wear an eye patch for three months and said her emotionless face caused problems for her in public.

Active couple: Doctors warned Jocelyn that she may have permanent paralysis in her face

Loving mom: Doctors put her on a course of anti-virals and prednisone to treat the condition

All together: Jocelyn also started getting acupuncture two times every week, which she believes helped her improvement

'I live in a small place and I worried that people thought I was being rude in the street, when I couldn't smile back at them,' she said.

The mom, who welcomed baby Ida York on August 14, 2017, added that although the day was the happiest of her life, it was tainted because she could not smile in photos.

She said: 'Ida came out perfectly fine and healthy, it was the happiest day, but it was hard because my face wasn't working.

'Meg loves to take a lot of pictures but I was just really uncomfortable being in them. I couldn't smile at all.

'We ended up taking a lot of Ida's photos from strategic angles so that I felt more comfortable.'

Much to Jocelyn's relief, she started seeing small improvements in October 2017 as the swelling around the cranial nerve began to go down.

Familiar face: After a number of months, Jocelyn finally felt herself regaining control over the facial muscles

Real smiles: Five months after that fateful morning, Jocelyn can finally smile at her baby

The mom began attending acupuncture twice a week, which she feels aided her recovery.

Now, five months after it happened, Jocelyn is finally able to crack a smile - so long as her mouth is closed.

She said: 'Three months after it first happened, I began to get so itchy, behind my ears and all over my face, which is a sign that your muscles are regaining control.

'I was so excited when I started seeing those tiny improvements, it meant so much to me because I thought I would have to come to terms with being paralyzed forever.

'I've worked up to a point now, five months after it first happened I can finally smile with my mouth closed.

'It was such a frightening experience at the time but I'm glad to have started to come out the other side of it and to be able to smile back at my beautiful baby.'She rarely puts a foot wrong when it comes to fashion, but this evening the Duchess of Cambridge failed to impress royal fans as she stepped out in a blue Erdem dress in Stockholm.

The pregnant Duchess, 36, opted for a floral patterned velvet dress with bell sleeves and a ruffle around the hem, a departure from her usual choice of shift dresses with clean lines and minimal patterns.

Perhaps not used to seeing her in anything so fussy, surprised fans weren't sure what to make of the new look with some declaring the Erdem dress she wore to a reception at the Fotografiska Gallery 'old and frumpy'.

Kate was sporting the British-based designer for a second night running, and many placed the blame on the label rather than the Duchess herself.

'I think the Duchess of Cambridge looks really frumpy in both Erdem dresses, what happened to her sense of style?' one fan said, while another rather unkindly compared it to curtain fabric.

Another declared Erdem dresses 'horrible' while one tweeted: ' Ugh. Is it possible to take out a restraining order on Erdem on behalf of Kate?'.

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Kate Middleton stepped out looking stunning in a blue floral velvet Erdem dress in Sweden on Wednesday, but her garnered a mixed reaction on Twitter.

One royal watcher rather unkindly compared Kate's dress to curtain fabric

Others compared her dress to 'soft furnishings', with one tweeter joking: 'Kate picks Erdem again! Slightly better than last night's mustard number... still a little reminiscent of home furnishings though!'.

And some admitted they thought Kate should be taking take tips from her soon-to-be sister-in-law Meghan.

However others had more kind words to say, writing: 'Even though it wasn't everyone's favourite dress, only she could pull it off'.

'One more reception, a beautiful velvet dress very appropriate for pregnancy, but short, some elegant shoes. The hair always well composed, very beautiful', another complimented.

While some followers questioned the Duchess' sense of style, others even branded the look 'frumpy' and advised the 36-year-old to take tips from Prince Harry's fiance Meghan Markle

'I think the Duchess of Cambridge looks really frumpy in both Erdem dresses, what happened to her sense of style?' one fan questioned

Not sparing her words, one Royal fan wrote: 'Compared to last night anything is an improvement but I still don't like this.'

'Hideous dress, makes her look old and frumpy. She needs a few tips from Meghan', one rather harsh follower ranted

On Tuesday the Duchess wore a 1,945 saffron yellow gown by Erdem which won her much praise due to its uncharacteristically daring nature for the usually safe Royal.

Kate, who is six months pregnant, is on a four day tour, visiting the Norwegian and Sweden's Royal families with Prince William, 35.

After spending the past two days in Stockholm with Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel, the Cambridges will depart for Oslo tomorrow where they will be greeted by Crown Prince Haakon and his wife, Mette-Marit.

However others had more kind words to say, writing: 'Even though it wasn't everyone's favourite dress, only she could pull it off'

On Tuesday the Duchess wore a 1,945 saffron yellow gown by Erdem which won her much praise due to its uncharacteristically daring nature for the usually safe RoyalEverybody thought we had the perfect marriage. And on the surface, we did. My husband was a good, solid family man and we had happily raised two wonderful children together.

But as we made polite conversation in the hotel restaurant overlooking Lake Garda in Italy, where we had come for a weekend break, I realised we had grown miles apart.

I watched spellbound as, at the next table, a woman my age had an intense conversation with her partner. She was pouring her heart out to him, while he listened to her intently.

Suddenly, dramatically, she broke down in tears. Her partner didnt say a word. Instead, he picked up his chair and moved it around to be next to her, and just held her, silently, until her sobs subsided.

That was my light bulb moment, the moment when I realised what I was yearning for  and wasnt getting: that deep intimacy, without words, as natural as breathing. I was in my late 40s and I still had dreams and passions and wanted a deep emotional connection with a man who shared them. I was lonely and unsatisfied. It was to prove the catalyst for the beginning of the end of my 22-year marriage.

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox (pictured) shared why she believes having relationships with different people at different times of your life will become increasingly common

Today, a decade on, I am 56 and married to Tim, who is my late love  my soulmate and the man with whom I will hopefully grow old. I have never been happier.

Many other women are experiencing this flowering of late love, too. While life is long, and getting longer, relationships dont always last the distance. We are always growing and changing, and our relationships need to grow and change too, or they will fail. Some couples manage to achieve this together, but it takes effort and will from both partners.

Many couples, like my first husband and I, cant make it work. Thats why I believe that in the future, having different partners for different parts of your life is likely to become increasingly common.

The anthropologist Margaret Mead said that there are three different loves in ones life: the first, with whom you discover passion and sex; the second, with whom you settle down and parent children; and the third, who is your soulmate for your mature years. If you are very lucky, you may find all these three loves in the same person, although most of us experience at least the first two.

I had always thought it was just a good theory  until it actually happened to me. I realised Mead had described my life before Id lived it!

Ive come to realise that being a mature woman does not mean you need to put up with being unhappy, or that you must give up on love. We are all living so much longer than in the past  we dont die shortly after retirement any more  and women are more financially empowered. So we can walk away if we choose to.

And many women do. While both marriage and divorce rates are falling in general, especially among graduates, there is a peak of divorces and remarriages in the second half of life, as people yearn for something better before its too late. And in the UK and U.S., in two-thirds of cases it is the woman who files for divorce.

Some people will always paint the leaver as a villain, whatever the circumstances. But given that many people are now living to almost 100, wouldnt it be a good idea if we could make love contracts that were renewable, perhaps every 20 years or so?

I believe strongly in commitment, co-parenting and responsibility. But once the children have grown up, perhaps its time to re-evaluate, to recommit and to redesign our relationships.

Avivah decided to leave her marriage of 22 years after she began drifting apart from her husband. She claims she wanted to set an example of being in a loving relationship

After all, we accept the idea of lifelong learning, new careers and transformation in the workplace. We accept that nobody has a job for life any more. Perhaps its time to accept it at home as well.

We shouldnt take it for granted that our relationship will stay the same, or that our partner will stay with us without having to pay too much attention to them. A renewal clause might keep people on their toes and make marriages more fulfilling.

Everyone accepts their first, youthful love may not be the best match when it comes to having children. So why cant we accept that the father of your children may not be the kindred spirit with whom you dream of spending the next 30 (or more) years once the children move on? Why does moving from your second to your third love have to be so traumatic?

For me, it was the hardest and most frightening thing Ive ever done. My ex-husband couldnt understand or accept my decision, and it was a very painful time for everyone. He had just assumed we would carry on for ever as we were, even though I had told him countless times that I was unhappy.

How many women marry over 65 ? The marriage rate for women over 65 rose 56 per cent between 2009 and 2014  with 3,932 women in this group marrying in 2014 Advertisement

I lost some friends, too, who couldnt accept that the picture-perfect relationship theyd perceived didnt really exist.

But the security of a long marriage doesnt work for everyone. Its a bit like academic tenure: for some it gives the freedom to be daring and express themselves; for others, it gives them an excuse to avoid, to coast, to be complacent.

We need to find a new narrative for what is normal in a lifetime when it comes to relationships. For some, till death do us part works; for many it doesnt. For me, it is instead a matter of grow or go. If your relationship is not giving you what you need, why should you just accept it?

There have only been three men in my life, each of them perfect for the experiences we shared. I met my first love, a Frenchman, in Paris while I was studying there. Archetypally tall, dark and handsome, he was also charming, kind and creative, and everything a first love should be: passionate, a good dancer, a tender lover. I was madly in love with him.

But after two years of dating, I was offered a job in Brussels and he didnt want to come with me. Seven years older than me, he was ready to settle down and have children, and I, at 24, wasnt. So our relationship came to a natural end.

Avivah Wittenberg-Coxs Late Love will be published on February 14

Next came my first husband, the father of my children, and a marriage that was very loving and peaceful for 22 years. I met him in Brussels when we both worked there, and we eventually moved to Paris together. He was a very good man and we had a lot in common, similar interests and family values.

When I met him I was ready to settle down and I could sense that he would be a devoted husband and father. I was right. We had a very contented marriage and raised two adorable children together.

But, over the years, we started to grow apart. I felt we risked turning into his uncommunicative parents and, while he didnt seem to mind, I just really wanted to have more depth to my relationship.

After our weekend away in Lake Garda, I remained unhappy for several years before doing anything about it.

Then there was another light bulb moment, when we were sitting having brunch one day, and I was trying to talk about something deeper than we usually did.

I noticed he was barely listening, even though what I was saying was important to me. Then, to my amazement, he just got up from the table and walked off. That hurt so much, it made me realise I couldnt do it any more.

A few days later, a friend called me to say he was having a party to celebrate his 30th wedding anniversary. I said, Wow! Congratulations. How did you do it? And he answered, cynically: Lack of courage. I was adamant I didnt want to be like my friend, unhappy in another ten years, just because I was too scared to walk away.

I knew then that I had to make the leap, but it wasnt simple. How would I tell my husband and the two children, one of whom was still at home and at school? Where would I go?

I felt that as a mother, it was one of my prime responsibilities to be a good role model on how to live lovingly and truthfully.

Avivah turned to her friend Tim of 25 years after leaving her first husband. They married two years ago

In particular, I wanted to teach them that if they are in relationships where love has died, they can leave well, act responsibly and find happiness again. And also, yes, to understand that once the children are grown up, parents are allowed to revisit whether their relationship still nourishes the two humans left.

Its not putting yourself first, its realising that you will contribute your best to the world, and to everyone you care about, if you are loved and loving.

What of the men left behind? They are not discarded. I am still very friendly with my ex, and had dinner with him recently. One of the reasons I left was that I did not think I was particularly good for him, nor did I make him happy. I truly hope that he finds someone who loves him better than I could, and that we will be good friends and co-parents for the rest of our lives.

I finally took the decision to end my 22-year marriage in January 2011, the year I turned 50. The first person I told, in a long email message, was my friend Tim, whom I had known for 25 years.

Over the New Year weekend, he had stayed at our home with some other friends. He had showed us photos of sculptures hed carved, of women and abstracts. Then he showed us pictures of the home hed renovated and of his great passion, his old steamboat.

As I heard him talk about his life, something clicked inside me. l had never before thought of him as anything other than a good friend, but now I realised that he was everything I wanted in a man. Tim had never married, and I had often tried to set him up with girlfriends, but the relationships hadnt worked out.

I had absolutely no idea if he felt the same way about me, but I had to take the chance.

In my letter, I told him that my New Year resolution was to become more vulnerable. I told him I was leaving my husband. Then I admitted that I had feelings for him.

Listen, I said, Im cringing at every line that Im writing, and Im going to do it anyway; so, Im throwing myself on your mercy. All I want is a yes or no. I have no idea where this is going to go, but if you would like to have dinner, Im in London next month.

I fully expected never to hear from him again. A few hours later, he replied saying that he was shellshocked, but the heart is not untouched and that he would get back to me when hed had some time to think.

After that, I moved into a separate bedroom from my husband, and started the process of ending my marriage. Tim and I began an email correspondence, getting to know each other more deeply.

We did meet up for dinner when I went to London. And when I finally moved out of the marital home, a few months later, we began a proper relationship. Eventually, I moved to London to live with him. Seven years on, we couldnt be happier.

I may not have had relationships with many men, but I have been blessed with relationships with the right men, at the right time. I am deeply grateful to all of them.

Tim and I got married two years ago. My son gave a toast to my new husband at the wedding and it was one of the most touching moments of my life. I learned children are happy when they see their parents happy, and it was a crucial lesson for them, too.

As for Tim and me, we are still blissfully content. I love everything about him, even his weaknesses. He makes me feel like I can be myself for the first time, that I can be totally honest without ever walking on eggshells.

Our relationship has been a meeting of minds, hearts and bodies. Recently, we started rock n roll dancing together. I like to joke that weve found a joint passion were both really bad at! And we celebrate January 3, the day I sent him that email, every year. It was the email that led me to my third love.

Avivah Wittenberg-Coxs Late Love will be published by Motivational Press on February 14.

Interview by Hilary Freeman

Did you leave a long marriage for a last romance? Do you wish youd stayed? Email femailreaders@dailymail.co.ukWith International Nutella Day just a week away, one Australian dessert bar is celebrating with a new drink never before seen in the world.

Tella Balls Dessert Bar has launched the Tella Frozee, a limited edition slurpee that has been infused with the beloved hazelnut spread.

And with five locations in New South Wales and Queensland, many can get their hands on the icy $6 drink in time for International Nutella Day on February 5.

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Tella Balls Dessert Bar has launched the Tella Frozee (pictured), a limited edition Slurpee that has been infused with the hazelnut spread for International Nutella Day

Tella Bars is behind a whole menu full of Nutella-inspired items, from burgers to pancakes (pictured) and even dessert lasagna

For those who'd rather eat their Nutella than slurp it down, Tella Balls has a whole menu full of treats that incorporate the Italian treat.

Co-owned by Simon Kappatos and Aki Daikos, the restaurateurs decided to introduce a fresh take on the typical dessert bar by crossing much-loved European dishes with confectionery flavours.

At Tella Bars you can get Nutella-infused burgers, pancakes, or even the dessert lasagna.

The latter is served with layers of decadent mousse and fresh cream on a chocolate biscuit base and topped with lashings of Nutella served with vanilla bean gelato.

The bar's signature dish is the Tella Ball Slider, brioche-style balls which come in flavours including Nutella, Ferrero Rocher, Oreo, and more

And if you're really feeling bold, you can get a Tella Ball on the bar's signature Tella Ball Shake

Tella Balls Dessert Bar has four locations in New South Wales and Queensland and will soon open one up in Melbourne

'Fettuccine' tossed in Belgian white and milk chocolate (pictured) is just one of the house favourites at the bar

Kappatos and Daikos even make their own version of fish and chips made from fried house-made vanilla bean gelato coated in Panko crumb, served with donut chips.

But the crowning glory found on Tella Balls' menu is actually the dessert kebab, which is made from a chocolate rotisserie.

Instead of rotating kebab meat, solid chocolate is shaved off and sprinkled inside a fresh donut pita and the dessert bar's sweet fettuccine.

And of course there is the bar's signature dish, the Tella Ball Slider.

If you want to share your Nutella obsession, also on offer for World Nutella Day is Cake Mail's over-the-top 'I'm Nutelling You' cake (pictured)

These brioche-style balls, which kick-started Tella Balls Dessert Bar three years ago, come in flavours including Nutella, Ferrero Rocher, Oreo, and more.

If you want to share your Nutella obsession, also on offer for International Nutella Day is Cake Mail's over-the-top 'I'm Nutelling You' cake.

The next-day cake delivery service, based in Sydney, has whipped up a $45 chocolate mud cake made with a Nutella batter and iced in Salted Nutella Buttercream.

It is drizzled in Belgian Chocolate Ganache Drip and topped with two Nutella jars, Nutella popcorn, Nutella chocolate bars, and edible 24-karat gold leaf.The Turkish butcher known as Salt Bae who shot to fame for ostentatiously seasoning slabs of meat has been photographed performing his signature salt-sprinkling move wearing gloves following food safety fears.

Nusret Gokce, 35 - the man behind the incredibly popular meme - was snapped wearing black gloves twice this week at the newly opened New York City branch of his pricey Nusr-Et steakhouse chain.

It comes after online magazine Eater revealed that Gokce may have violated New York City's health code, which states that chefs cannot touch 'ready to eat' food with bare hands before it is served to customers.

PR guru Ronn Torossian snapped this picture of Salt Bae Nusret Gokce wearing gloves to perform his signature salt-sprinkling move after an article claimed he may be violating New York City's food safety code

PR guru Ronn Torossian, the CEO of 5WPR, told FEMAIL Food&Drink he spied Gokce wearing what he described as 'Michael Jackson-style gloves' during a visit to the restaurant this week.

Article 81 of New York City's health code states that touching 'ready to eat' food with bare hands is prohibited.

Gokce has been filmed and photographed hundreds of times performing his signature salt-sprinkling move over cooked steaks at the table for customers, with the salt clearly running down his bare arm and onto the food.

He has also been filmed and photographed cutting up and touching cooked steak with his bare hands.

Brooklyn native Key Brento snapped a selfie with Salt Bae wearing black gloves on Tuesday evening

Salt Bae shot to fame for elaborately seasoning slabs of meat in a series of viral videos

The New York City branch of Nusr-Et Steakhouse opened on January 18

Visitors to Salt Bae's restaurant in New York will see the man himself whip up cocktails and cut up steaks

FEMAIL has asked Gokce's representatives for comment.

Gokce's uniform of a white T-shirt and black trousers passes the New York City health code regulations, but a gold watch he wears on his right wrist may not be compliant.

The code states: 'Except for medical alert bracelets or a ring that is smooth and without crevices, such as a wedding band, food workers may not wear jewelry on their arms or hands.'

However in new footage of Gokce handling cooked meat wearing gloves, he still wears the watch.

Gokce's has failed to impress some critics and diners with the food at his New York City branch, some of whom have blasted the restaurant's 'obscene' prices and underwhelming dishes.

The restaurant charges between $70 and $275 for a steak, and some diners have been left with bills of more than $1,000.

Gokce, a butcher who was born in Turkey, where he has found much success as a restaurateur, worked with designers at Glen and Co. Architecture to create the perfect space, which is located in Midtown in the space previously occupied by China Grill, in the Black Rock CBS building at 60 West 53rd St.

This week, he announced that the London branch of his steakhouse chain is set to open in the upmarket district of Knightsbridge, near Harrods, very shortly, though a launch date is being kept under wraps for now.

FEMAIL has asked the New York City's Department of Health for comment.Chopping vegetables before eating them boosts their nutrients, making leafy greens that much healthier for you.

While blending and pureeing can destroy the fiber in fruits and vegetables, chopping them releases healthy enzymes that support digestion.

A New York-based nutritionist told Daily Mail Online that by slicing veggies you're improving the process that's already done by your teeth when you chew.

She broke down the benefits of cutting into veggies before you eat them and warns not to let them sit too long before you do.

Chopping vegetables releases healthy enzymes that are good for digestion, a New York-based nutritionist told Daily Mail Online

New York nutritionist and owner of Head to Health, Carly Feigan, told Daily Mail Online that chopping vegetables releases nutrients faster.

'It's always good to have the vegetables broken down because that's what our teeth do,' Feigan said.

'We can start that process sooner before they hit our tongue and get the enzymes going,' she added.

Not only do vegetables contain nutrients such as vitamin C and potassium, but they also include polyphenols.

Polyphenols are compounds that give plants color, give veggies a bitter taste and produce antioxidants.

Antioxidants protect the body from damage caused by harmful molecules and support the body's defense system.

A study found that chopping specific vegetables, such as carrots, can boost antioxidant levels by nearly 200 percent.

However, the enzymes that are produced when vegetables are chopped are the same ones that turn apples and avocados brown once they are exposed to the air.

This process is known as enzymatic browning.

While keeping fruits and vegetables refrigerated after cutting into them can reduce them from browning, Feigan warns that leaving them uneaten for too long depletes their nutrients.

HOW 'HEALTHY' JUICES ARE NOT SO GOOD FOR YOU Studies have shown juicing comes with many health advantages, like a lower risk of heart disease, obesity and an increased intake of healthy antioxidants. However, experts explained to Daily Mail Online how the risks of juicing outweigh the benefits. Juices containing beets, carrots and apples could contain more than 30 grams of sugar. The high sugar content in juices can have adverse health effects for diabetics and pre-diabetics Juicing extracts the skin and most of the fiber from fruits and vegetables, significantly reducing their nutrients. As a result, the juice itself has a different nutritive value and doesn't offer the same health benefits as whole fruits and vegetables. Since juices don't contain fiber and have less an effect on satiety compared to solid foods it can lead to overeating and weight gain. Advertisement

'If you eat the chopped vegetables immediately you get the benefit of having those nutrients abundantly available,' she said.

Slicing through cell walls of veggies stops the movement of nutrients carried by water, such as vitamin C and folate.

Therefore, the longer the veggies go sliced and uneaten the more the nutrients decompose.

A study from the University of California shows that vegetables can lose 15 to 55 percent of vitamin C within a week and spinach can lose up to 90 percent within the first 24 hours after harvest.

Feigan said the same goes for blending fruits and vegetables.

'If you leave a smoothie around for three hours you're not going to get the benefit from it,' Feigan said.

'The nutrients in freshly squeezed orange juice evaporate after 30 seconds,' she added.

This is especially important to keep in mind when buying pre-cut fruits and vegetables.

Feigan said that our teeth will naturally take care of the chopping process to release all the enzymes, however slicing them beforehand can only help.

'If you don't chop them first and chew them really well you can still get the same benefits,' she said.

'But if the vegetables aren't being broken down fully with our teeth, the chopping process could actually get those nutrients out of the food for you,' she added.Eight years after a botched surgery left Lisa-Maria Carter without her hands, feet or abdominal muscles and sections of her digestive organs, a court has finally ruled that the University of South Florida must pay her $109 million for her suffering.

During an operation to remove a benign ovarian cyst in 2010, a surgeon allegedly sliced through Carter's small bowel, releasing flesh-eating bacteria that pose no danger inside the bowels, but which destroyed her abdominal tissue.

The incision ripped, Carter, now 53, lost huge quantities blood and had to be given a medication that constricts blood flow from the extremities to preserve the vital organs.

Taking the medication saved her life, but the lack of blood to her hands and feet caused the tissue to die.

Carter's lawyer, Ken Dandar, told Daily Mail Online that what is left of her intestines sits outside her body in a skin sack, and she has to use an ostomy bag.

With the money awarded to her from the trial, Carter hopes to have an operation to replace her organs in her body, but first the Florida legislature will have to pass a bill to allow her to collect her full award.

Lisa-Maria Carter, 53, can only move around with the help of a motorized scooter because a botched operation in 2010 cost her her hands, feet and abdominal muscles

In 2010, Carter was an ambitious, 45-year-old intelligence contractor for the US military. She applied and got a job in Iraq, but was pulled out of line as she was about to board her plane out of the US, Dandar says.

She was told she hadn't passed the medical exam. Her health was pristine, except for a benign ovarian cyst.

Carter immediately booked a simple, minimally invasive procedure at Tampa General Hospital (TGH) to have it removed, and told her girlfriend to pick her up four hours after she arrived for surgery on November 1, 2010.

But shortly after Dr Larry Glazerman, a University of South Florida (USF) gynecologist with surgical privileges at TGH completed the operation, the incision site ripped open, and 'copious' amounts of bloody fluid poured out of her abdomen, where there should have been none at all.

Carter, of Florida, was about to fly to Iraq to work as an intelligence contractor in 2010 when she was told she had to stay in the US because she had a benign ovarian cyst, thereby failing her medical

Carter's blood pressure plummeted dangerously. To save her life, the emergency medical team gave Carter vasopressors, life-saving drugs that ensured that blood kept flowing to her brain and vital organs by constricting its flow from reaching extremities.

When she was finally stable, a CT scan revealed that something had gone 'awry,' in the surgery, according to testimony from the trial that took place two years later.

Another surgeon, Dr Christopher Hults, found dead tissue 'consistent with necrotizing fasciitis' in the abdomen and cut it away, the suit said.

'All of her abdominal muscles had been eaten by flesh-eating bacteria,' Dandar said. The suit alleged that the opening in Carter's bowel was 'the exact measurement of when [Dr] Glazerman made that first incision,' Dandar claimed.

Worse yet, Dr Glazerman allegedly used a solution inside Carter's abdominal cavity to keep the tissues there from sticking together, and the sugar-based compound 'acts as a 'power bar' for bacteria, making it multiply very fast,' Dandar says an expert witness testified.

When Carter woke from a medically induced coma after surgery - two days after Christmas - she looked down at her hands and thought she was wearing her favorite black leather driving gloves.

But the solid black color was the dead tissue of her hands. Her feet were just as bad, and all four extremities had to be amputated.

Eight years after the life-altering surgeries, Carter can walk with a walker, but because necrotizing fasciitis destroyed her abdominal muscles, she cannot stand up on her own

When she was well enough, Carter hired Dandar to help her sue for negligence.

Dr Glazerman, whose surgical practices were the alleged root of all of her problems, however, was legally immune under Florida's sovereign immunity laws.

Because he was employed by the USF, a public university, he was technically a state employee, giving him the immune status.

Dr Larry Glazerman performed the allegedly botched operation, but because he was employed by the publicly-funded University of South Florida, he was not liable for Carter's horrific injuries

Dr Glazerman is still licensed and ostensibly practicing at a Planned Parenthood in Wilmington, Delaware.

Tampa General Hospital was not liable for negligence either, because, like all patients, Carter signed their required waiver, Dandar says.

But after three trials against the USF, two of which ended with hung juries, a Florida judge finally ruled in Carter's favor yesterday, awarding her more than $109,000,000.

'I'm very, very happy,' Carter told FOX 13 News after the verdict. 'I am so thankful to God for blessing me at this point.'

Since the 2010 surgeries that took so much from Carter, she has been fitted with prosthetic, but the arms - costing more than $100,000 each - malfunction so much that she cannot use them, Dandar says.

Her lower prostheses are functional, and with a walker at the occupational therapy Carter attends three times a week, she can walk, but without abdominal muscles, Carter can't stand on her own.

The bacteria also destroyed much of her intestines, so 'the intestines she does have sit outside her body in a skin sack made by taking skin off her back and her legs,' Dandar says.

NECROTIZING FASCIITIS: THE VICIOUS FLESH-EATING BACTERIA The above stock photo shows a leg infected with necrotizing fasciitis Necrotizing fasciitis, more commonly known as 'flesh-eating disease', is a rare but extremely vicious bacterial infection. 'Necrotizing' refers to something that causes body tissue to die, and the infection can destroy skin, muscles and fat. The disease develops when the bacteria enters the body, often through a minor cut or scrape. As the bacteria multiply, they release toxins that kill tissue and cut off blood flow to the area. Because it is so virulent, the bacteria spreads rapidly throughout the body. Symptoms include small, red lumps or bumps on the skin, rapidly-spreading bruising, sweating, chills, fever and nausea. Organ failure and shock are also common complications. Sufferers must be treated immediately to prevent death, and are usually given powerful antibiotics and surgery to remove dead tissue. Amputation can become necessary if the disease spreads through an arm or leg. Patients may undergo skin grafts after the infection has cleared up, to help the healing process or for aesthetic reasons. There are 500 to 1,500 cases reported a year, but 20 to 25 percent of victims die. Necrosis is the irreversible process by which body tissue dies as a result of too little blood flow Advertisement

She also has to have an ostomy bag. 'You can actually see her digesting food through her intestines,' Dandar says.

Carter, who was once fit and active, is now largely confined to a motorized scooter and requires around the clock care, Dandar says.

Since the surgeries, she got her master's in psychology, but cannot physically complete her residency and practice. Instead, she plans to pursue her PhD in forensic psychology and work with veterans and those suffering PTSD (like herself), especially 'maimed soldiers,' according to her attorney.

Dr Derek Angus, a University of Pennsylvania specialist in sepsis has also asked Carter to travel the country with him, delivering lectures and educating audiences on the danger of the dangerous bacteria those that destroyed so much of Carter's body.

But her physical condition complicates Carter's ever-ambitious plans. 'She will forever no matter what need 24/7 help with everything you can imagine: putting on lipstick, doing her hair, taking a shower or bath,' Dandar says.

With the money she won in the lawsuit, Carter 'has all the desire to have surgery at Cleveland Clinic to take off the skin sack, put her intestines back into her body and pull her body together over her abdomen,' Dandar told Daily Mail Online.

Carter has to win one more battle for that to be possible.

The same sovereign immunity law that protected Dr Glazerman from being sued caps the amount of damages the USF is liable for paying out to victims of negligence like Carter at $100,000.

Even if USF does not apeal yesterday's verdict, in order to get the full sum awarded to her, Carter will have to fight for a claim bill to be passed through the state legislature, raising the limit.

Passing the bill could take years, but Dandar is optimistic.

'Hopefully, the legislature will see my client, look at her background protecting the country as an expert on hostile intelligence with top secret clearance and that she did nothing to cause this catastrophe,' he says.It is good news for middleaged men worried their medications may be causing problems in the bedroom.

A study has found that despite previous warnings, statins and blood pressure tablets do not cause impotence.

Many people believe taking medication for cholesterol or blood pressure comes with the side effect of erectile dysfunction. Statins, for example, have been warned to lower testosterone, raising fears about sexual performance.

A study has found that despite previous warnings, statins and blood pressure tablets do not cause impotence

But researchers from McMaster University in Canada found no link between the drugs and impotence after monitoring more than 2,100 men.

Those men convinced it is their medication to blame may find their problems in the bedroom are psychological or a side effect of their clogged arteries instead.

The findings are hoped to encourage more men to take statins, following claims that tens of thousands of people die every year after refusing to take the drugs because of their perceived side effects.

The studys lead author, Dr Philip Joseph, from the Population Health Research Institute at McMaster University in Ontario, said: Men who develop erectile dysfunction while on medications commonly attribute their symptoms to the medications.

Our findings suggest that these two medications do not negatively impact erectile function, which should be reassuring to men who are taking them.

Blood pressure medication has long been warned to have the side effect of reduced sexual desire and erectile dysfunction.

Impotence is listed as a side effect of statins along with muscle pain and sleep problems. Last year Professor Peter Sever, from Imperial College London, warned tens of thousands of people are dying every year about fears over statins side effects, calling for information about them to be removed from the pills packaging.

Many people believe taking medication for cholesterol or blood pressure comes with the side effect of erectile dysfunction

The Canadian study tested the effect of a statin and blood pressure drug on 2,153 men with an average age of 61, who were followed up for more than five and a half years. They found no difference in these mens level of impotence, recorded using a questionnaire on sexual problems.

It follows a 2016 study presented at the European Society of Cardiology which suggested statins may even help to beat impotence and give men a boost in their sexual function.

Explaining why men believe the drugs will make them impotent, the Canadian researchers state: The onset of erectile dysfunction often occurs with the development of cardiovascular risk factors, and because medications to reduce blood pressure or cholesterol are concurrently prescribed as treatment, a large proportion of men may attribute their erectile dysfunction symptoms to these medications.

In other words, the problems causing men to take statins and blood pressure drugs are likely causes of impotence in themselves.

High cholesterol which is treated with statins can clog arteries, causing blood flow to slow, which may lead to problems getting and maintaining an erection. High blood pressure also damages arteries in the genitals, which has the same effect.

A previous study has also found people given medication where they are told impotence is a side effects are twice as likely to develop that problem  suggesting part of the issue may be psychological.

The latest findings are published in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology.A mother-of-one who fell 20-feet down a bank in a motorbike crash, lost her right leg after a flesh-eating bacteria attacked her 'minor cut'.

Honey Hufstedler, 49, who believes the infection, known as necrotising fasciitis, entered her wound through dirty gravel at the crash scene, was put into a coma for nearly a month.

Doctors thought she had no hope of surviving and told her family to expect the worst, however, Ms Hufstedler claims she saw 'an angel' willing her to carry on.

When she eventually woke, Ms Hufstedler, from Conway, Arkansas, was forced to adapt to life without her right limb and chose to shun physiotherapy in favor of at-home rehabilitation.

Ms Hufstedler, a former construction worker, said: 'I was septic. My leg was rotten. It was dead. It had to go.'

'I felt like my life was over, but knew I had to carry on and stay alive.'

Now coming up to five years since the June 2013 crash, Ms Hufstedler can walk with a frame and even ride a bicycle.

Scroll down for video

Honey Hufstedler (pictured her son Zac, 24), who fell 20-feet down a bank in a motorbike crash, lost her right leg after a flesh-eating bacteria attacked her 'minor cut'

Ms Hufstedler's limb was amputated from the hip, forcing her to walk with a frame

Doctors thought she had no hope of surviving and told her family to expect the worst

NECROTIZING FASCIITIS: THE VICIOUS FLESH-EATING BACTERIA The above stock photo shows a leg infected with necrotizing fasciitis Necrotizing fasciitis, more commonly known as 'flesh-eating disease', is a rare but extremely vicious bacterial infection. 'Necrotizing' refers to something that causes body tissue to die, and the infection can destroy skin, muscles and fat. The disease develops when the bacteria enters the body, often through a minor cut or scrape. As the bacteria multiply, they release toxins that kill tissue and cut off blood flow to the area. Because it is so virulent, the bacteria spreads rapidly throughout the body. Symptoms include small, red lumps or bumps on the skin, rapidly-spreading bruising, sweating, chills, fever and nausea. Organ failure and shock are also common complications. Sufferers must be treated immediately to prevent death, and are usually given powerful antibiotics and surgery to remove dead tissue. Amputation can become necessary if the disease spreads through an arm or leg. Patients may undergo skin grafts after the infection has cleared up, to help the healing process or for aesthetic reasons. There are 500 to 1,500 cases reported a year, but 20 to 25 percent of victims die. Necrosis is the irreversible process by which body tissue dies as a result of too little blood flow Advertisement

'I felt like my life was over'

Four days after arriving in hospital, Ms Hufstedler's leg was gradually sliced away, as doctors fought to reduce the spread of the infection.

Medics eventually realized they needed to remove the entire limb from the hip in order to save her.

Ms Hufstedler said: 'I was septic. My leg was rotten. It was dead. It had to go.'

Spending the next three weeks in a coma, she woke to find her entire life had changed.

Ms Hufstedler said: 'It was devastating to fall asleep one day and wake up, nearly a month later, to find I was legless.

'I felt like my life was over, but knew I had to carry on and stay alive.

'Whatever would happen, whatever had happened, I was alive.'

'It's been tough. But I'm tougher'

A month later, Ms Hufstedler was released from hospital and sent to a rehabilitation clinic for physiotherapy.

Yet, on the first night, she checked herself out and decided to tackle her recovery alone.

Ms Hufstedler said: 'I decided I could do it alone and with friends. But it was tougher than I first realised. I didn't know how to get around.

'But my friends and son, who are amazing, all pulled together and showed me I could do it.

'It's been tough. But I'm tougher.'

Her son's girlfriend, Shelby Gilmore, 25, (pictured) found Ms Hufstedler unconscious at home

Although expected to not make it, Ms Hufstedler claims 'an angel' willed her to keep going

Ms Hufstedler was surprised not to break any bones during the dramatic crash

'I woke up in a ditch'

Ms Hufstedler was enjoying a Sunday ride on her Honda motorcycle when she stumbled off course and tumbled down an embankment.

She said: 'I was on a back road only about 20 minutes from home, when I skidded on and woke up in a ditch.

'I thought I'd broken my leg or something. I had a full helmet and biking gear on, which probably helped.'

In shock, Ms Hufstedler called her son Zac, 24, over the emergency services.

She said: 'I shouldn't have done it. I should have, of course, called the emergency services, but I was very rattled. I think I had concussion.'

At a walk-in clinic near her home, she was given four stitches and antibiotics.

Yet, a few days later, she was at home when her injured leg started to swell.

It also began turning black, which Ms Hufstedler did not initially notice.

She said: 'I was wearing socks. If I had taken them off, I would have realised.'

'I was delirious'

The next morning her son's girlfriend, Shelby Gilmore, 25, came to the house and found her unconscious.

Ms Hufstedler said: 'She immediately realised there was something wrong.

'I'd passed out carrying popcorn and there was a trail of it across the house. I'm such a clean freak, when she saw the popcorn, she realised something was up.'

Finding Ms Hufstedler out cold, Ms Gilmore called Zac, who managed to briefly rouse her, before she collapsed again in his arms.

Ms Hufstedler said: 'When Zac got to the door, I passed out and he caught me.

'He called the 911 emergency number and the medical team pretty much said I would not make it. I knew the doctor on call and he explained that I was already past the point of saving, but he was still going to do everything he could.'

Rushed to Conway Regional Hospital, a sample from her blackened foot was taken and her diagnosis confirmed.

She was then taken to the larger University of Arkansas Medical Sciences Hospital in Little Rock, where her family were told she would probably die.

Ms Hufstedler said: 'It must have been terrifying for them. I was delirious, slipping in and out of consciousness, and I would wake occasionally to see Zac weeping.'They raised a glass of fizz to toast their friend on her 40th birthday as they tucked into a picnic.

But nursery worker Sarah Glover, a mother-of-two, never reached the landmark date her friends had chosen to celebrate.

She died from cervical cancer when she was 36 having never had a single smear test because she was too afraid or embarrassed.

Around 3,000 cases of the disease are diagnosed each year in the UK and the simple 10-minute test could have saved Ms Glover's life.

Now her best friend, college lecturer Louise Turnbull, 36, has revealed how she and three of Ms Glover's drank prosecco at her grave, saying: 'Had she been alive we'd probably have gone out and had drinks on her 40th, getting a bit tipsy.

'Of course, she is not here, so, instead, we remembered her at her gravestone.'

Ms Turnbull is speaking out to raise awareness of the importance of having regular smear tests.

Sarah Glover, from Darwen, Lancashire, first fell ill with pain in 2013 and was diagnosed with cervical cancer

Louise Turnbull, Rachel Bowker, Phillipa Kelly and Leanne Baxter, marked what would have been their friend's 40th birthday

Devastating news

Mrs Glover, from Darwen, Lancashire, first fell ill in 2013.

Mrs Turnbull said: 'That May, after suffering with pain, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer, but was very private about it. I do know she had never been for a smear test.

'I don't know why, perhaps it was because she felt she was too busy, or maybe she was embarrassed.'

After her diagnosis, she had radiotherapy and appeared to have gone into remission.

But, after experiencing pain in her back and neck, she returned to her oncologist at Royal Blackburn Hospital and, following further scans, received the devastating news the cancer was back  and had spread.

The nursery worker died aged just 36, leaving her two children without a mother. Here she is pictured cuddling her friend Mrs Turnbull's son Bradley

Mrs Turnbull, left, and Mrs Glover, would have marked 18 years of friendship this year

By this point stage four, it had spread to her lungs, neck and ribs, and was terminal.

Given palliative chemotherapy, she was given the heart-breaking news that she would not live to see her children grow up.

'After finding out, we all got drunk,' recalled Mrs Turnbull, who met Mrs Glover, in 2000, when she joined the nursery in Darwen, where Sarah already worked.

'It was, of course, devastating news. That new year, 2013 to 2014, was very quiet. By that point she was very weak and tired.'

As 2014 dawned, Mrs Glover's condition deteriorated and that February she entered Blackburn's East Lancashire Hospice.

On Friday, February 7 Mrs Turnbull went to see her, although by that point she was no longer conscious.

Then, a few days later, on the Monday, she died with her mother, Shirley Speakman, at her bedside.

Bittersweet celebration

Mrs Turnbull, along with Rachel Bowker, Phillipa Kelly and Leanne Baxter  marked their friend's birthday on May 14.

Remembering the bittersweet celebration, Mrs Turnbull said: 'It was a lovely sunny afternoon and we managed more than one bottle of prosecco. There was a picnic blanket and we all gossiped about life, work, our families.

'It was a party for Sarah  but one where she was sadly missing, although I believe she was there in spirit.'

The get together in Darwen Cemetery in Lancashire was not the first time the four women have gathered at their dearly departed friend's grave for a 'party'.

Mrs Turnbull is reminding people a simple 10-minute check can save your life

Some Christmases, wrapped up warm, they have headed there with flasks of mulled wine and mince pies

But, knowing the big 4-0 was a significant occasion  the first major birthday since Sarah died  they made a big deal of it.

'It was wonderful,' said Mrs Turnbull, who has  with Mrs Glover's other friends and family  raised 14,000 for the hospice that cared for her.

Her death was avoidable

'Afterwards, I realised, that her death was avoidable,' said Mrs Turnbull. 'She could have been diagnosed sooner had she had regular smear tests.

'I am ashamed to admit that, until the birth of my son Bradley, who is now six, I had not had a smear. I don't know why.

'I probably thought, "Oh, cancer won't happen to me. Oh, it only happens to other people. To other people's friends." Well, guess what? It doesn't.

'Now I am so passionate about discussing smears.'

Mrs Turnbull admits her friend would have cringed, had she known her name was being used to promote the examinations, though.

'Sarah would have hated this,' she laughed. 'She'd have been so embarrassed about her face being made public.

'But her mum and I think if any good can come from her death, then so be it.

'She was a fun-loving, genuine and kind woman. She lived for her children, who are now motherless.

'We don't want this to happen to other people.'The number of women taking up breast screening has fallen to the lowest level in a decade, official new figures reveal.

Just 71.1 per cent of women in England aged 50 to 70 took up invitations for routine screening in 2016/17 - down 1 per cent on the previous year.

It is the lowest in 10 years - in 2007, 73.6 per cent of women attended, according to NHS Digital data.

Charities have been left 'extremely concerned' at the statistics and have pushed for the worrying trend to be urgently reversed.

The number of women attending their routine screening, offered on the NHS, has been on the decline in recent years.

Just 71.1 per cent of women in England aged 50 to 70 took up invitations for routine screening in 2016/17 - down 1 per cent on the previous year

Around one in eight women in the UK are diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in their lifetime.

Screening aims to find cancer when it is too small to see or feel and is performed with a mammogram X-ray.

While there are some risks associated with this type of screening, it is routinely offered to all women aged 50 to 70 every three years.

Commenting on the new figures, Baroness Delyth Morgan, chief executive at Breast Cancer Now, said: 'Its extremely concerning to see breast screening uptake fall to the lowest rate in a decade.

'We urgently need to understand better the reasons for this decline and much more needs to be done to ensure that women are able to attend screening.

'We encourage all women to attend screening where possible.'

Samia al Qadhi, chief executive of Breast Cancer Care, said: 'Its worrying to see screening uptake in England at its lowest level in ten years.

'Our concern is women may not be empowered to get the support and information they need to make a decision thats right for them.

PERCENTAGE UPTAKE OF NHS BREAST SCREENING INVITATIONS FOR WOMEN AGED BETWEEN 50 AND 70 Reporting region 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 England 73.6 73.2 73.6 73.2 73.4 73.1 72.2 72.1 71.3 72.1 71.1 North East 77.5 75.9 76.2 77.2 75.7 76.8 76.2 74.9 74.7 75.4 73.9 Yorkshire and the Humber 77.3 74.5 75.0 75.0 74.1 73.7 72.7 71.5 70.9 72.4 72.1 North West 73.0 72.3 73.2 73.0 72.0 71.5 70.0 69.3 69.9 70.1 68.8 East Midlands 77.6 78.6 78.4 77.8 78.6 77.1 76.1 78.6 75.9 75.9 75.2 West Midlands 75.0 74.3 74.0 73.4 74.3 74.4 72.1 73.0 72.0 72.1 71.2 East of England 75.9 76.8 76.5 76.0 76.5 75.1 74.4 74.6 72.3 73.5 73.3 London 60.3 60.6 60.6 61.5 63.6 63.1 63.3 62.9 62.6 64.9 64.0 South 75.6 75.0 75.8 75.1 75.1 74.9 74.3 74.5 73.5 73.8 72.8 South East 75.7 74.6 75.3 74.9 74.3 74.3 73.5 73.7 73.1 73.2 72.2 South West 75.5 75.6 76.5 75.3 76.4 75.7 75.6 75.8 74.1 74.8 73.7

'Mammograms remain the most effective tool at our disposal for detecting breast cancer at the earliest possible stage.

'However, its crucial to be aware of whats normal for you and get anything unusual checked out  remember its not just a lump to look out for.'

The new data shows that the number of women invited for screening has increased by more than half a million in the last decade.

Nearly 2.6 million women were invited for a mammogram last year. Of these, 1.84 million attended the screening.

The figures show that uptake was highest in the East Midlands where three quarters of women attended screening.

It was lowest in London where 64 per cent attended, but it was highest in the East Midlands where 75.2 per cent of women turned up.

The report on breast screening uptake in England shows that 18,402 cancers were detected in 2016/17.

Two fifths of these women had invasive but small cancers which are less than 15mm in diameter and are usually too small to detect by hand.

The news follows a national review five years ago that concluded women should be properly warned screening could end in potentially risky surgery.

Members of the Independent Breast Cancer Screening Review found NHS leaflets used to inform women of the programme focus too much on the fact it saves lives.

The report revealed that for every life saved by screening, three women will end up having unneccessary surgery.

And expert reports have casted serious doubts over the value of the NHS breast screening service, describing it a waste of time and money.It may seem appealing, piling as much food onto your plate from the buffet as you can while on an all-inclusive holiday.

But a new survey of British holidaymakers suggests you should avoid queuing up for exotic dishes that have been reheated.

One in six people who've been on an all-inclusive holiday in the last three years have fallen ill, the poll revealed.

And two thirds - 77 per cent - suspect their sickness was directly attributable to the hotel they were staying in.

Holiday sickness compensation firms say most claims come from lavish resorts where food is left out for long periods of time on buffets, and then reheated.

One in six people who've been on an all-inclusive holiday in the last three years have fallen ill

The survey of 1,000 British holidays, commissioned by Sick Holiday, comes amid campaigns to halt 'fraudulent' claims for compensation.

The Association of British Travel Agents reported earlier this year that claims for holiday sickness compensation had risen six-fold since 2013.

This is despite sickness reports in resorts remaining stable and travellers from other countries not experiencing the same issues.

But the new survey suggests that more of the holiday illness claims are genuine than given credit for.

Richard Conroy, founder of Sick Holiday, said: 'Certain resorts, due to a lack of hygiene, are making scores of people unwell every year.

'These new stats shed new light on that fact. Its the same hotels, year after year, who crop up in our files.

'Theres a lack of responsibility from British tour companies, who are failing to address the real problem.

HOW MANY PEOPLE CLAIM FOR HOLIDAY SICKNESS EACH YEAR? Figures from Abta, which represents travel agents and tour operators, show that around 5.4 million Britons take an all-inclusive holiday each year. The Claims Management Regulator and the Ministry of Justice say there are around 35,000 claims for holiday sickness per year. Abta claims one in five Britons has been approached about making a compensation claim for holiday sickness by cold callers. The research was published six months after the Government announced plans to reduce the incentives of making such claims. A major barrier to tackling the issue is that legal fees are not controlled, so costs for tour operators who fight cases can be out of proportion to the damages claimed. Under Government proposals, travel firms would pay a prescribed sum depending on the value of the claim, making the cost of defending cases predictable. Abta wants the measures to be in place by April so they are effective for the summer season. It released figures earlier this month that showed 70 per cent of adults are unaware that making a false claim could result in a prison sentence. In October 2017, Deborah Briton and partner Paul Roberts, from Merseyside, were jailed at Liverpool Crown Court for making fraudulent claims. Ms Briton was sentenced to nine months in prison and Mr Roberts was handed a 15-month jail term. Advertisement

'They appear to show no compassion for their clients, and they are making people severely ill.'

Mr Conroy added: 'Many of our claims come from all-inclusive resorts where food is left out for long periods of time on buffets, and then reheated.

'Lukewarm food is a prime growing temperature for food poisoning. If its supposed to be cold, it should feel like a glass of water from the fridge.

'If its supposed to be hot, it should feel hot enough for you not to want to leave your finger in it.

'If your dish is neither of those two things - its a lovely lukewarm place where your finger feels "just right" - then you could end up with Salmonella or Campylobacter poisoning.'

The survey revealed 16 per cent of the respondents experienced sickness while abroad.

Of those, a third said they had been 'unwell' for at least two weeks.

Europe was highlighted as the number one destination for those falling poorly, with 57 per cent having been struck down on holiday there.

And 77 per cent of those struck down believe their illness was caught in the hotel, with food or drink taking the brunt of the blame.

Just 6 per cent thought their illness stemmed from 'something they had eaten or drunk outside of the hotel', the poll showed.

Mr Conroy added: 'Theres a crass lack of responsibility from British tour companies.

'Take a look at resorts like Dubai - there has never been severe food poisoning there, purely because they have very high standards of hygiene.

'If this industry was entirely fraudulent, wed see lots of cases coming from places like Dubai, a destination popular with British tourists but we dont as it is simply not happening.

'And the only reason there has been growth in this sector at all is because theres greater awareness that holidaymakers can claim when theyve been made poorly.

'The reality is gross negligence, putting people into hotels which are serving unhygienic food unfit for human consumption.'During the rise of the current rare super blue blood moon, people took to social media to document their strange symptoms, including actress Busy Philipps, who spent last night sharing sleepless tweets and Instagram posts.

Scientists have shown time and time again that the phase of the lunar cycle on a given night affects how much we sleep, what kind of sleep we get and our moods the next day.

Why exactly this is the case is still as much a mystery to the experts as it is to the rest of us.

The super blue blood moon started putting on a show for much of the world last night, including parts of the US, where it was visible early this morning.

University of California, Berkeley professor and 'sleep diplomat' Dr Matt Walker explains what the insane super blue moon did to your dreams last night, your mood today, and how its effects are different for men and women.

The super blue blood moon rose over San Francisco, California early this morning, keeping many up into the wee hours, and disrupting moods

Busy Philipps was kept up late last night, posting on her Instagram that she was feeling 'sensitive' during the super blue blood moon and didn't know why

On January 31, the lunar eclipse, blue moon and the super moon phases coincided.

The visual result - visible to the West Coast of the US in the early hours of this morning, and to people in Australia at moonrise - was a big, brilliant, burnt-red moon.

But the result for your rest may not have been so stellar.

'Have you ever thought about what the term lunatic actually means? it comes from the notion that something happens, physiologically and mentally, to human beings during the full moon,' says Dr Walker.

Our sleep patterns mirror the moon's phases

On the night of a full moon, we get an average of 30 minutes less deep, dreamless sleep, while our best sleep tends to happen on the night of a half moon.

THE SUPER BLUE BLOOD MOON IS AN OVERLAP OF THREE MOON PHASES ON ONE NIGHT Every 27.3 days, the moon makes an orbit around the Earth, creating a 29.3 day lunar cycle. As it travels around the planet, its appearance to us looks a little different each night, depending on our location on Earth, the moon's distance from us, and its position relative to both the Earth and Sun. Each month, the moon moves through eight phases, beginning with a the new moon - when it is too relatively close to the sun in our night sky for any of the moon to be visible to us - and ending with the full moon, when the sun and the moon are on opposite sides of the earth, so the sun is brightly illuminating the moon's entire face. Lunar eclipses happen when the moon passes through the shadow of the earth, blocking it from reflecting the sun's light, and sometimes giving it a reddish color that earns this moon the name 'blood moon.' Supermoons occur when the moon is closest to the earth in its orbit, making it look bigger. Blue moons happen once every 2.5 years, when there is a second full moon in a calendar month, or a fourth in the season (so the third moon of a month that has four would be the 'blue' moon), though the color does not usually appear perceptively different. Advertisement

'Think about the shape of an "M," but with the left and right sides a little shorter, and a big deep dip in the middle' Dr Walker says.

Our sleep traces that pattern as we move from the new moon phase to the full moon phase.

'We go from no moon - where sleep time is a little lower - to half moon - when our sleep time is at its peak - to then full moon, when deep sleep gets to its lowest point, then back to half moon,' when we once again rest well, Dr Walker explains. The last super blue blood moon was in 1866, so there simply isn't enough data to say how it might affect us differently, but Dr Walker speculates it is not too different from a full moon.

However, within a night's rest, we go through several stages of sleep, and the moon has almost exactly opposite effects on these stages for men and women.

'When you look at different types of sleep, it's more complex,' Dr Walker says.

Women get less sleep and more mood swings during full moons - and men have more dreams

During a full moon, everyone gets less deep, dreamless sleep, but the drop is much more dramatic for women.

But while women also see a drop in REM - rapid eye movement sleep, during which we dream - sleep, there is a spike of REM sleep for men during a full moon.

On average, there is an increase from 70 to 90 minutes of REM sleep, Dr Walker says, which 'as a percent, is actually remarkable.'

Men especially 'end up having a lot more REM sleep, which has been associated with mood and emotion regulation, and comes back to that term 'lunatic,' Dr Walker explains.

'But there's a wrinkle in that story...women [go] in the opposite direction,' he says.

Women simply get less sleep overall when there is a full moon: less deep sleep, less REM sleep, just more light, unrefreshing sleep.

Sleep deprivation in general has a negative impact on mood, Dr Walker says. 'When we're tired, our emotions fluctuate more. Sleep resets the magnetic north of our consciousness,' so for women, last night's poor rest may be at fault for today's unsteady emotional states.

Men, like women get less deep sleep, but their cumulative sleep times go up when the moon is at its peak size.

Hormonal changes during the full moon make us hungry

The full moon can knock our appetites out of whack, too.

During deep sleep, we produce more of a hormone called leptin, which helps us to feel full and satisfied. Meanwhile, grelin, which has the opposite, hunger-inducing effect, goes down.

'When you lose deep sleep...you lose that satiety signal and gain the hungry signal,' says Dr Walker.

There is little more you can do to control the lunar cycle's effects on your body than there is you can do to control the moon. Since melatonin is the best candidate for causing they physical chaos, taking on tonight might help to set you straight in spite of the super blue blood moon.

So why does it happen?

The moon's powerful effects on our sleep patterns still stump scientists

'We have absolutely no idea. Isn't that bloody fascinating?' Dr Walker says. Data on the phenomenon 'is really robust and replicable,' but the mechanism has not been worked out.

The best working theories relate to the hormone melatonin, which is released in the brain to help us sleep.

'We do know that something changes within the brain around the full moon, where melatonin drops down significantly, by about 50 percent,' Dr Walker says.

Melatonin is released at night, and darkness is an important trigger to 'release the brakes' on melatonin.

Dr Walker says that an over-inundation of light - and deprivation of darkness - is in part to blame for our societal sleeplessness.

'The full moon is light, so maybe is an evolutionary imprint of the lightness of the full moon to put the brakes on melatonin [and] fool the brain into thinking it's still day,' leading to our sleepless nights and mood swings, he speculates.Demand for fizzy drinks helped Hertfordshire-based soft drinks firm Britvic boost first quarter global sales by 3.3 per cent.

The group, which is behind a string of well-known brands including Tango, Pepsi MAX and Robinsons juice, saw sales in the UK rise by 1 per cent in the quarter, largely due to a 4.9 per cent increase in revenue from carbonated drinks.

Soft drinks companies up and down the country are rushing to reduce sugar across their product ranges ahead of the introduction of the 'sugar tax' in April.

Tasty treat: Demand for fizzy drinks helped Hertfordshire-based soft drinks firm Britvic boost first quarter global sales by 3.3 per cent

The levy will have two thresholds. Manufacturers will have to pay 18p per litre on soft drinks with more than 5 grams of sugar per 100ml and 24p per litre on those with more than 8 grams per 100ml.

While Britvic performed well in the UK during the last quarter, internationally, revenues fell by 8.1 per cent, compared to a 19.8 per cent increase over the same period a year ago. In France, revenues fell by 5 per cent.

By contrast, in Brazil, revenues rocketed by 22.6 per cent and in Ireland they increased by 16.5 per cent. In total, the group's quarterly revenue climbed to 337.2million.

The company said it had absorbed a number of one-off costs from Palmer and Harvey, one of its wholesalers that was placed in administration recently.

Britvic is ploughing ahead with the closure of its Norwich factory in 2019, claiming 'every effort will be made to support affected employees to find new roles or alternative employment.'

Simon Litherland, Britvic's chief executive, said: 'We have delivered a solid start to the new financial year, with group revenue growing 3.3% ahead of a strong first quarter last year.

'As we said at our preliminary results, the introduction of a soft drinks industry levy in the UK and Ireland brings a level of uncertainty, but we are well placed to navigate this given the strength and breadth of our brand portfolio and exciting marketing and innovation plans.

'In addition, our continued focus on revenue and cost management and the delivery of the final phase of our business capability programme means we remain confident of making further progress in 2018.'

Britvic's share price is down 2.55 per cent to 764p.

Global sales: In Brazil, Britvic's revenues rocketed by 22.6 per cent and in Ireland they increased by 16.5 per cent

Tax: Soft drinks companies are gearing up for the introduction of the 'sugar tax' in April

Last month, it was reported that Britvic's boss, Simon Litherland, was paid 2.1million in the last year, despite the fact his company's annual profits had fallen by 9 per cent.

Mr Litherland received a 19 per cent pay boost after blaming the group's profits slump on falling sales of Fruit Shoot and Robinsons juice.Shares in outsourcing firm Capita plunged more than 40 per cent today after it warned that profits for 2018 would be much lower than expected and that drastic measures were need to turn the business around.

New chief executive Jonathan Lewis, who took up the role on December 1, said 'significant change' was needed at Capita and announced a wide-ranging overhaul of the business after launching a transformation programme two months ago.

Plans include a cash-call to investors, cost cutting and a sell off of unprofitable business. Dividend payouts to shareholders will also be suspended.

The bombshell comes two weeks after fellow contracting giant Carillion went into liquidation after a string of profit warnings, leaving 57 construction and engineering contracts - many of which were for public sector, government or infrastructure - in limbo.

Capita is suspending dividend payouts to shareholders as it pulls together a transformation plan for the struggling business

CEO Jonathan Lewis (pictured) began a root and branch turnaround of Capita when he joined the firm in December 2017

Today's news sparked more concerns about the safety of government and public sector contracts, which account for half of Capita's annual turnover.

Its contract work ranges from administering the teachers pension scheme to providing tech services to the NHS, electronic monitoring services and running the Gas Safe register for the Health and Safety Executive.

It has 70,000 UK employees, and a net debt of 1.6billion compared with its market value of 2.8billion.

Boss Lewis said an 'immediate priority' was to strengthen the group's balance sheet, with plans for a rights issue due this year, as well as cost actions after finding 'significant scope for cost efficiencies'.

'We are now too widely spread across multiple markets and services, making it more challenging to maintain a competitive advantage in every business and to deliver world class services to our clients every time,' he said.

'Capita has underinvested in the business and there has been too much emphasis on acquisitions to drive growth. As our markets have evolved, the Group has not responded consistently to new customer demands.

A second Carillion?: Half of Capita's 4.9bn annual turnover comes from central and local government work such as running London's congestion charge zone

'Since December, we have continued to experience delays in decision making and weakness in new sales.'

Capita warned full-year profits for 2018 would be between 270million and 300million as cost actions taken so far would not be enough to offset lost contracts and wider woes in the business.

Previous estimates put profits for the year at between 417million.

Helal Miah, investment research analyst at The Share Centre, said investors should be wary of the company.

'This could become another hot political issue as Capita is heavily reliant on outsourcing for others, including the government.

'The government have already placed other companies on watch after the Carillion fiasco; no doubt some will say that Capita should be on that list too.

'The sector in general hasnt had a great few years and this has been exacerbated by Brexit where contract awards have been delayed due to uncertainty.'Ever since This is Money and successful entrepreneur and angel investor Andy Yates announced the Great British Entrepreneur Challenge last October, we have been on a mission to find business stars from all walks of life and corners of the country.

They were competing for the chance of an investment and mentoring from Andy, with This is Money following their stories. At the end of last year, we revealed the finalists. Now the results are in and we are proud to announce the winners.

At the very real risk of expounding a judging cliche - it is true to say it was incredibly tough to pick the winners, as the whole shortlist (and many of the other entrepreneurs who applied) really deserve help and support.

Celebrating success: We're proud to announce the winners of the This is Money Great British Entrepreneurs Challenge

We can only wish all of them every success for the future and to congratulate them on already going further than so many others - by taking a risk and doing something about their passion - not just talking about it.

But today we announce the winners. They have all got there on merit, passion and hard work. It has already been an exciting journey - now it gets really interesting.

The hard work begins now to turn entrepreneurial dreams into reality. There is no guarantee of success, but we can guarantee the journey will continue to be exciting.

And This is Money readers will get to see every step of the way during 2018.

RATESWITCH

Website: www.rateswitch.uk

Winner of 50,000 investment from Andy Yates - plus ongoing mentoring and support

How much could you save? RateSwitch can help you cut your mortgage costs easily

The mortgage market is broken and RateSwitch is trying to fix it.

Millions of mortgage customers are paying thousands of pounds a year more than they should. At the same time, switching mortgages remains a hassle.

RateSwitch's free service takes advantage of the fact that you can easily switch to a deal from the same lender and allows homeowners to switch the same day and start saving money.

Rate Switch's Lee Flavin wants to save you money on your mortgage

RateSwitch's expert and independent team finds the best rate on offer for you from your current mortgage provider (which is often not published on the lender's own website).

As part of their service they will also let you know about the best rates across the market - so you don't miss out on a potentially even bigger saving.

Then, if you decide to simply shift to a better deal from your existing lender, they can sort out a quick and easy switch to save you money straight away - and that will be fee-free for you.

If there is a better deal elsewhere you decide to pursue then they can help you jump ship.

The key difference between this and other mortgage services is that it focusses on helping you get the best deal from your existing lender, meaning that you don't need to worry about being fully reassessed financially, as you would if you moved elsewhere.

This is a huge help not just to those who want to save money quickly and easily, but also to those whose circumstances may have changed, such as having seen equity in their property fall - or have become self-employed since their last mortgage

Millions of homeowners dont realize they can get a better mortgage rate even if their personal circumstances or jobs have changed.

Andy Yates' investment will be put to good use on RateSwitch's technology and team - to help RateSwitch customers save money more quickly and easily than ever before.

Andy Yates' verdict: Having met and spoken to Lee Flavin, the Welsh entrepreneur behind RateSwitch, he has a real passion to help home owners. The words that come to my mind about Lee and the team are honest, open, hard-working, approachable, passionate and dedicated.

In other words, I would not hesitate to use RateSwitch myself, and therefore I figured many other people will want to as well.

I am passionate about helping Lee change the mortgage market for the better and make it so much easier for anyone to switch and save money. I am proud to back and help Lee and RateSwitch.

RateSwitch's Lee Flavin: 'Thank you This is Money and Andy Yates. This is a great competition and we're delighted to have won.

'I originally entered for the chance to meet Andy because of what he had achieved with his own tech company and how he's helped so many other start-ups.

'The money will now help us fund our technology and scale the business to reach as many homeowners as possible.

'I really enjoyed the pitching process and it was great to talk to people who really understood my business and what I want to achieve.'

Simon Lambert of This is Money: My first reaction to being told about a service that helped you switch mortgages with your own bank or building society, was why would you need that? After all, you could just contact the lender yourself.

However, when Lee explained the concept, I realised why this works. RateSwitch's mortgage advisers are much better set up to help you than the person on the end of the phone at the bank. They can track you down the best deal and get your mortgaged switched to save money quickly and easily.

Lee has in-depth industry knowledge and displayed a real interest in his customers and building a long-term relationship with them

RateSwitch 50 This is Money offer As part of the Great British Entrepreneur Challenge, founder Lee Flavin, is very happy to offer the first thousand readers who use RateSwitch to switch and save money on their mortgage an extra 50. All you need to do is click here to find out how much you can save. There is no obligation to use the service. You can then quote 'This is Money' if the RateSwitch team arrange a switch for you to get your 50.

SEARCH SMARTLY

Website: https://searchsmartly.launchrock.com/

Andy Yates and award-winning investor club Startup Funding Club are working together to finalise a 40,000 co-investment into Search Smartly as part of their SFC Go programme to support early stage businesses.

Taha Dar's Search Smartly cool could help estate agents be more efficient

As the housing market cools and competition hots up, estate agents need to stand out from the crowd and provide a great added-value service to their clients.

This is where Search Smartly comes in. The business works with estate agents to provide a smart property search.

It uses clever technology to match lifestyle preferences  from gyms to nightlife, from amenities to commuter distances - to quickly find the ideal rental property for each customer.

Andy Yates' verdict: The entrepreneurs behind Search Smartly are certainly very smart.

Taha Dar (pictured right, has previously developed machine learning technology to optimise the performance of Formula One cars) and Gil Razafinarivo (who has worked with Microsoft, Cisco and Salesforce) came up with the idea while studying at London Business School - and are both very talented entrepreneurs.

Personalising property search, and making it simple to find the right place to live in an instant, is a very exciting goal and opportunity.

Taha said: 'We're very pleased to have won and got the attention of Andy and Startup Funding Club. Andy has a long track record of mentoring and helping early-stage companies and that's exactly why we entered the competition.

'The investment will enable us to start testing out product and recruit a software engineer to start building our product ahead of running a pilot scheme with several clients over the summer. It's a very exciting time for us.'

Winners of Mentoring and Support

ANDY YATES Andy Yates is a successful entrepreneur and angel investor. He co-founded, grew and exited his own major fintech business, Digital Look, before going on to invest in, advise, support, mentor and grow a portfolio of exciting start-ups. Andy Yates He has backed entrepreneurs across a whole range of sectors - from food and drink to events to technology to social impact businesses. These start-ups have already seen their value grow by more than 100m. Now he is passionate about helping more entrepreneurs to grow and flourish.

'The whole mission of the Great British Entrepreneur Challenge was to help as many entrepreneurs as possible,' says Andy.

'I plan to do my best to provide mentorship and support to the entrepreneurs below during 2018. This will include using my experience as an entrepreneur, and from helping start-ups, to try to guide them over the undoubted bumps in the road ahead so that they can reach the fast lane.

'In some cases, this may also involve fuelling them up with some angel investment and I am already in discussions with several of them.

'Whatever happens, I will keep This is Money readers informed as the journey unfolds. I am proud to support Great British talent and to help Great British companies grow, employ more people and expand nationally and internationally.'

Breathe Easy

The brainchild of Paul Thomas, serial entrepreneur and Royal College of Art product designer, Breathe Easy uses plants to clean the air of toxins created by materials in your home or office, based on NASA research.

Cheap Boiler Parts

Website: www.ebay.co.uk/usr/centralboilerparts

Boiler repairs are expensive. 19 year old Scottish entrepreneur Joshua Naismith, purchases boilers from scrap merchants, heating engineers and demolition companies, reconditions and tests them and sells them at affordable prices.

Freezabird

Website: www.freezabird.com

Cheaper and more affordable car insurance policies for 17- to 24-year-olds. It combines black box telematics, that tracks driver quality and performance, with provisional and full licences to drive a parents car.

Breathe Easy's Paul Thomas has invented a planter come fan system to clean your air

Hot Cakes

Website: https://hotcakes.ltd

Hotcakes connects buyers and sellers of independent British food and drink products. It helps everybody - from small delis and shops to larger retailers - discover and easily buy thousands of exciting and innovative new products from small producers up and down the country.

It is run by independent food and drink expert Tara Mei, the first of two female entrepreneurs I am proud to support.

Tara Mei is hoping her Hotcakes site could become the Amazon of artisan food and drink

KwickScreen

Website: www.kwickscreen.com

KwickScreen has invented portable patent-protected screens, used across the NHS to provide privacy, improve hygiene, create extra spaces for patients and generate significant cost savings.

Now the plan is to export the product around the world for use in places such as hospitals, public spaces, offices and gyms.

Nixey bags are made by hand in Scotland

Nixey

Website: www.nixeyonline.com

Celebrating the Celtic spirit, Laura-Marie Nixey has created a collection of Scottish-made leather bags, inspired by the classic sporran, for the fashion-conscious.

They are already stocked in Balmoral and Edinburgh Castle as well as Notonthehighstreet.

Silver Linings

Website: www.silverliningslondon.co.uk

23 year-old Harry Cotgroves mission is to provide healthier fresher bedding that uses a pioneering blend of pure silver and the softest bamboo fibres - helping reduce the spread of bacteria, common colds, diseases and acne as well as providing a luxurious sleep.

Andy Yates says: 'It just remains for us to congratulate the winners - they are brilliant and an inspiration, each and every one of them - and we are proud to help them.'A Chinese father whose son was killed in a gas leak has found a stranger to pretend to be his dead child in front of his ill wife for five years out of love, according to Chinese media.

Xia Zhanhai's wife suffers from amnesia, which was caused by the same gas accident 15 years ago, and she doesn't know that her eldest son had died.

Mr Xia couldn't bear to break the truth to his wife, Liang Qiaoying, who would often ask to see her son.

Xia Zhanhai (pictured) said in a Pear Video that he had asked a stranger to pretend to be his son out of his love for his wife. The man couldn't bear to tell his partner their child had died

Mr Xia first saw Mr Jiang (right) by chance on TV in 2010 and was surprised by how similar he looked to his late son (left). The man had wanted to ask Mr Jiang to meet his wife since then

Jiang Jingwei (pictured), a police officer in Shanghai, agreed to call Mr Xia's wife 'mum' to help relief the grief of the elderly woman who had lost her son as well as her memory in an accident

Mr Xia and Ms Liang's eldest son was killed in a gas leak in 2003, but Ms Liang doesn't know it. She believes Mr Jiang is her son and would tell the others that her son works in Shanghai

Mr Xia's pretend son, Jiang Jingwei, is a police officer living nearly 1,000 miles away from the couple's home city Lvliang in Shanxi Province, reported Shanghai-based newspaper Xinmin Evening News.

Mr Xia first saw Shanghai-native Mr Jiang on TV in 2010 by chance. He marvelled at how Mr Jiang looked just like his late son.

Mr Xia dreamt of finding the man, so he could ask him to meet his wife and make her happy. However, he didn't know Mr Jiang's name at the time and couldn't find him.

In the next three years, Mr Xia spent all his energy looking after his wife. The gas leak had knocked Ms Liang into a coma. Under Mr Xia's meticulous care, Ms Liang woke up from the coma, but was left paralysed.

The gas leak has caused serious brain damage to his wife. She has amnesia, couldn't move her limbs and suffers from learning disability.

Mr Xia has been looking after his wife wholeheartedly since the gas leak in 2003, and the accident caused Ms Liang to suffer from amnesia and learning disability. She is also paralysed

Mr Jiang (pictured) has treated Mr Xia and Ms Jiang like his real parents in the past five years

In 2013, a reality TV programme in China learnt about Mr Xia's story.

They got in touch with the man and offered to help him find Mr Jiang. They also arranged Mr Xia and Ms Liang to meet Mr Jiang in the programme.

The producers helped Mr Xia keep the truth from Ms Liang, letting her believe that she was indeed meeting her eldest son.

Footage from the programme showed that Ms Liang broke down in tears as she heard the 'son' she had missed every day call her 'mama'.

Since then, Mr Jiang has kept in touch with the couple and treated them as if they were his own parents.

He would often video-call them, reminding them to look after themselves and they would send him food specialties from Shanxi.

Mr Jiang met Mr Xia and Ms Liang on the stage of a reality TV show as he called Ms Liang 'mum'

In an interview with Pear Video, Mr Jiang, a father of two, said he had concerns when he was contacted by the programme. He said that his own mother wasn't sure about the idea of him calling someone else mum on stage.

Mr Jiang said his father made the decision for the family and supported him to go.

He said when he saw Ms Liang on stage for the first time, 'I could really feel how much she had missed her son'.

Mr Xia said to Pear that since his wife saw 'their son' five years ago, her health has improved dramatically. He said she had only been able to sleep three to four hours a night, but now she could sleep seven to eight hours.

Mr Jiang invited Mr Xia and Ms Liang to visit Shanghai in May, 2017, and the three of them had a good time touring around the city.

Speaking to Xinmin Evening News, Mr Jiang said: 'Although we are not bound by blood, fate has brought us together.

'We will carry on enjoying each other's company in life and carry on being an important part of each other's life.'The cousin of the Canadian billionaire found hanging in his exclusive home alongside his wife in December, has rejected cops' findings that the couple were targeted victims of a double-homicide.

Instead, in an explosive interview with DailyMailTV on Wednesday, Kerry Winter has disclosed his belief that Barry Sherman, 75, murdered his wife Honey, 70, then took his own life - a view rejected by police.

And he told how Barry Sherman had twice asked him to arrange for his wife's murder saying: 'I want you to whack my wife.'

Winter, 56, told DailyMailTV: 'My gut tells me he killed her.

'That's my feeling [and] I don't believe somebody out there is going to be found because Barry did the deed.

Winter's own immediate reaction on learning of their deaths, he said was: 'F***ing hell he finally did it. Barry finally killed the b****.'

Billionaire Barry Sherman, 75, and his wife Honey, 70, (pictured together) were found hanged beside their pool at their Toronto mansion on December 14. Officials originally said they believed their death was a murder-suicide but have since said it was a double homicide

But Sherman's cousin Kerry Winter, 56 (pictured), has other ideas. He told DailyMailTV in an exclusive interview: 'Sherman had twice asked him to arrange for his wife's murder saying: 'I want you to whack my wife"'

Barry and Honey Sherman were found hanging from the railings of their indoor pool (pictured)

Winter's account conflicts directly with the belief of the couple's four children, the private detectives they hired, and police in Toronto - although it does chime with initial reports of the view being formed by detectives immediately after the bodies were found dead at their home in one of Toronto's most exclusive suburbs on December 14.

Toronto police initially treated the Shermans' 'suspicious' deaths as murder-suicide after autopsies returned the cause of death as 'ligature neck compression' - strangulation caused by a cord or rope.

Then private investigators hired by the Shermans' children concluded that the couple were murdered by multiple killers two days before the 75-year-old and his wife were found hanging from their poolside railings in a 'semi-seated' position. They had been strung up by belts.

Sherman was honored in death by Justin Trudeau, who publicly mourned him at a memorial service and tweeted a tribute to the couple's 'vision and spirit'.

Last Friday, after six weeks of investigation during which 127 witnesses had been interviewed, thousands of hours of surveillance camera footage recovered, 150 items removed from the couple's 12,000 square foot home and even sewers searched in a bid to recover evidence, cops announced that they too were viewing the deaths as double-homicide.

Winter and his relatives are bitterly estranged after a long court battle between Winter and his siblings and their cousin Barry, who they accused of shutting them out of their rightful ownership of the family pharmaceutical company.

Winter says that Sherman had 'many enemies' and that over the years people may have wanted him dead - but says the simplest explanation and the one he believes is that he did it himself.

'Is it plausible that somebody out there had an ax to grind and arranged for them to be targeted?' he told DailyMailTV. 'Absolutely, because of the manner in which he did business and the many enemies he had.'

But he said: 'There is no doubt, sitting in front of you here, that Barry killed her. I'm not surprised. Actually I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.'

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made an apperance at the Sherman's memorial service in Toronto in late December. Trudeau had offered public condolences and commended their 'vision and spirit,' after their death

Police initially believed the incident was a murder-suicide, but now have reason to believe the pair were murdered after the couple's children issued a statement denying that their parents would do such a thing. Pictured: The couple's 12,000 square foot home

Sherman, whose estimated fortune of $3 billion saw him ranked the 12th richest man in Canada, was, Winter said 'ruthless and cunning.' He noted: 'Ethics and morals really didn't have much of a place in the way he did business.

'You can go through life and not harm people, or you can go through life and leave carnage in your wake and you look behind my cousin, there were just bodies littered.'

Sherman himself once publicly noted, 'For a thousand dollars I'm surprised somebody hasn't taken me out.'

But for all the enemies which, Winter estimated, must run to the hundreds he still believes that Sherman killed Honey before killing himself.

It is a point of view that sees Winter at odds with the Shermans' children - Lauren, 42, Jonathan, 34, Alexandra, 31 and Kaelen, 28 - who have always rejected talk of a murder-suicide.

In reality this family has been bitterly divided for years. Winter, a site manager, has been locked in a legal dispute with Sherman and his generic drug manufacturer company Apotex Inc, for more than a decade as he fights for a portion of the fortune he claims Sherman stole from his family.

Winter admitted the feud might make some eye him as a prime suspect in his cousin's murder: 'I remember the day it happened and saying to some of my closest friends, "They're going to haul me in."

'Not to make me the fall guy but I have an ax to grind and I've been involved in this lawsuit and maybe I decided to take matters into my own hands.'

But after six weeks officers have yet to question Winter, a fact that he finds 'remarkable' if they are truly searching for suspects.

Sherman and Honey were renowned philanthropists who gifted $50 million to the United Jewish Appeal alone.

Yet Sherman was aggressively fighting a Federal investigation into breach of lobbying laws and the shadow of a tax evasion investigation loomed with rumors that his name was contained in the Panama Papers.

Sherman had an estimated fortune of $3 billion and was, Winter said, 'ruthless and cunning'. The cousin claims that Sherman despised his wife (pictured together in 2010), claiming Sherman told him: 'You know sometimes I want to kill that b***'

Winter (pictured) said he is surprised that he hasn't been questioned by police yet, seeing that he and Sherman were embroiled in a bitter legal feud over Winter's inheritance

Winter insisted this is legal feud with Sherman has no bearing on his conviction that his cousin killed first his wife and then himself or his decision to speak out now.

'It's not so much I'm saying negative things,' he said. 'I'm saying truthful things.'

And in reality, Winter said, the man mourned by Trudeau was a 'pathological liar' who was obsessed with accumulating wealth and held his wife in 'disdain'.

Winter said: 'He couldn't stomach to be around her. He used to say to me, 'There's love and hate in every marriage. But there's just so much hate in mine.'

'And all these people who sit back and say, "Barry would NEVER have harmed herhe adored her,"' Winter shook his head, 'Barry wasn't capable of love.'

Instead, Winter claimed, Sherman came to him wanting him to put a hit on Honey in the late nineties.

He said: 'The first time I remember he had gone on a trip with her and he hated it. He said, 'You know sometimes I want to kill that b***.You probably know some people don't you?'

Winter, a recovering drug addict who has been clean and sober for six years admitted, 'I was messed up and I knew some messed up people at the time. I said, ''Barry you're talking about killing the mother of your children.''

'He said, ''I know what I'm talking about. I want you to find somebody to kill my wife."'

Winter reached out to a local 'quasi gangster' he knew. Winter said: 'I remember going back to Barry and I said, ''If we push this button there's no turning back.''

But Sherman had changed his mind and it was several months before he raised the subject again.

This time Sherman called Winter to his office: 'He didn't do small talk. He asked me to close the door.

'I sat down and he said, "I want you to do it. I want you to whack my wife."'

Winter admitted, 'I was shocked. I felt almost panicked. I was going to get involved in this murder and I couldn't' say no.'

But, he admitted, 'There was part of me that didn't like her either. She was rude to me. I was not okay in my life at that time and I was organizing this thing for this billionaire and we'd share this dark secret. It would bind us together forever.'

Winter's parents, Louis and Beverly Winter (pictured in undated photo), acted as a surrogate father for Sherman when his father died. When both Louis and Beverly died in 1965, Sherman managed to take control of Louis' profitable generic drug manufacturing company

Winter's father Louis (pictured in undated photo), was a biochemist and the founder of generic drug manufacturer, Empire Laboratories. Winter recalled: 'We were enrolled in a posh private school. He drove a Rolls Royce. He had two yachts. He was a self-made millionaire'

In 1972 Sherman sold Empire (pictured). Before he did so he had merged with a drugstore chain and relinquished 51 percent of the business. In doing so he triggered an expiration clause in the option providing for Winter and his siblings, which was dependent him having control of the company

In truth, Winter and Sherman were already 'bound together' by a dark secret. He just didn't know it at the time.

When it came to light it destroyed their relationship and sparked the decade long-legal battle being waged to this day.

The seeds of the feud were sown back in 1951 when Sherman's father, Herbert, died from a heart attack age 46.

Sherman was nine and Winter's father, Louis Winter, stepped into the role as a surrogate father, partly because he and his wife, Beverley, didn't think they could have children of their own.

In 1958 they adopted a son, Tim. Then, two years later, Beverly fell pregnant with Jeffery. In 1961 Kerry was born and in 1962 brother, Dana, followed.

Winter's father Louis, a biochemist, was the founder of generic drug manufacturer, Empire Laboratories.

Winter recalled: 'We lived in a mansion overlooking the Humber River. We were enrolled in a posh private school. He drove a Rolls Royce. He had two yachts. He was a self-made millionaire.'

Pictures of the family at the time show an enviable existence. But those golden days were short lived.

Beverly Winter was diagnosed with leukemia and in 1965, with her sons age between four and seven, the family braced itself for her death. Instead it was her husband who died first and suddenly from a heart attack that November, aged just 41.

Seventeen days later Beverly died. She was 31.

Winter said: 'Barry had worked for my father at Empire Labs for a number of summers and he knew it was a cash cow.'

Three days after Beverly's death, Sherman made a bid for the company and gave estate executors, the Royal Trust, just 24-hours to decide. The Trust declined.

A couple of years later Sherman and his then business partner, former high school friend, Joel Ulster, made another run for Empire.

This time he was successful - in large part because trustees were swayed by an option written into the purchase agreement that offered the four Winter orphans the opportunity to work for their father's company at the age of 21 and to acquire five percent of the company two years later should they want it.

But in 1972 Sherman sold Empire. Before he did so he had merged with a drugstore chain and relinquished 51 percent of the business.

In doing so he triggered an expiration clause in the option providing for the orphans, which was dependent him having control of the company.

After his parents' death, Winter's childhood would prove abusive and damaging and though he has reconciled with his adoptive family, neither he nor his siblings (pictured in undated family photo) emerged unscathed

Winter and his brothers reconnected with Sherman (pictured in undated photo) in 1989. The wealthy businessman signed lines of credit contingent on them handing over the remainder of the inheritance left to them by their parents

Sherman maintained that the loss of control absolved him of any 'fiduciary duty' to them. He disappeared out of their lives and two years later parlayed the profits of Empire's sale into founding Apotex.

Today, Winter said, his older cousin 'never had any intention of honoring that option.'

Certainly he never told Martin and Carole Barkin, the couple who adopted the Winter orphans, that it existed.

Winter's childhood would prove abusive and damaging and though he has reconciled with his adoptive family, neither he nor his siblings emerged unscathed.

Eldest brother Tim is an alcoholic, Jeffery has been diagnosed bi-polar, Winter is open about his struggles with addiction to heroin and crack and Dana, died of a heroin overdose at 33.

It was a chance encounter with a friend of their mother which saw Winter and his brothers reconnect with Sherman in 1989.

By then Sherman was an extremely wealthy businessman and he gave every appearance of wanting to help the cousins he'd lost touch with all those years before.

He bankrolled three of the brothers in business ventures. He paid visa cards, allowances, bought them homes, cottages, cars and speedboats. Only, in a detail they would later come to rue, Sherman didn't actually 'give' them any of these things.

He signed lines of credit contingent on them handing over the remainder of the inheritance left to them by their parents.

At the time, twice-married Winter, was developing houses and losing himself to the drug addiction which very nearly killed him.

Sherman co-signed to millions of dollars of credit, mortgages and loans supposedly to help Winter expand his business and he provided him with $20, 000 - $30,000 a month.

Then, older brother Jeffery started asking questions about the sale of their father's business and everything changed.

The siblings sued Royal Trust in 2001 for access to documents relating to the sale. In 2002 they discovered the option that Sherman had buried.

Winter reflected: 'Either way he had a terrible end. He either killed his wife and hung himself or he was targeted and Honey was punched out in front of him and his last moments must have been horrific.' Pictured: One of the Shermans' bodies being removed from their home

Sherman was an atheist who only donated to largely Jewish causes because Honey chose to and it was a tax write off, and Winter said was an atheist who 'couldn't give a s*** about the State of Israel'. Pictured: The Shermans' memorial service

On one document, Winter said, a handwritten note from a trustee who visited Beverly shortly before her death noted she was 'visibly upset' and, 'worried that Barry is trying to steal the company from the children.'

The Winter siblings sued Sherman in 2006 for $500 million and again in 2007 for $1 billion. Only Kerry and younger brother Dana's widow, Julia, continue the fight.

Today, Winter has conflicting feelings about Sherman. He admitted: 'I looked at him as this wonderful man. When I met Barry I was messed up. He encouraged me to get clean.'

Winter developed such a close bond, he said, that he could swan through security at Apotex and sit in Sherman's office where he would sit, 'mesmerized' as he listened to the older man doing business.

He said, 'I felt at that time he would never lie to me.'

But, for all that, he recognized Sherman as a 'kook' with 'a bolt missing,' who seemed to have everything but took pleasure in nothing.

Sherman was an atheist who only donated to largely Jewish causes because Honey chose to and it was a tax write off, and Winter said was an atheist who 'couldn't give a s*** about the State of Israel'.

Winter said: 'He couldn't enjoy life. I asked him if there was anything in life he enjoyed. He said "making f***ing money."'

Yet he couldn't bear to spend it. His favorite restaurants were McDonald's and budget chain, Swiss Chalet - where he always ordered the special.

He drove a clapped-out old car, refused to buy a new television when his old one barely worked, bought cheap shoes and clothes and would sneak back into the theater when he went so that he could see a second movie for free.

In stark contrast, Winter said, Honey was rumored to have one of the world's largest diamond collections.

The last time Winter spoke to Sherman other than in a lawyer's office was a telephone call he made on learning about the existence of the option some 15 years ago.

Winter said: 'It was a short phone call and I was emotional. I remember crying and I remember saying, "Barry you lied to me."

'He said, "I know." I said, "Why did you lie so much to me?" And it broke my heart.'

Winter said of Sherman: 'He couldn't enjoy life. I asked him if there was anything in life he enjoyed. He said "making f***ing money"'. Pictured: Bouquets of flowers left outside the dead couple's mansion

Police have said they believe the couple were 'targeted'. Pictured: The couple's home where they were found dead by their realtor

Winter's case against Sherman and Apotex was thrown out in September. But he is appealing that decision and has transferred the claim to Sherman and Honey's estate.

There was a time when Winter thought he could forgive Sherman if only he made a donation in his late parents' names and somehow commemorated Beverley and Louis Winter, on whose fortune Sherman built his own.

It is hard to believe that that alone could ever assuage the sense of injustice seared on Winter's heart, but he admitted: 'Sometimes I regret that I sued him. Sometimes I wish it never happened.

'Even in this moment, sitting here talking to you, there's love and there's hate.

'There's missing this man I loved and respected and admired. But Barry abandoned me. I didn't even know I had the opportunity to work for my father's company. Maybe I would have stayed off drugs, maybe I would have had a different life.'

Such 'what-ifs' could drive a man crazy and perhaps, with Winter, they very nearly did.

But for all the unknowns he has no doubt about one thing: Sherman was capable of murder and wasn't bound to his own life by anything that brought him joy.

Winter said: 'If Barry Sherman hadn't been an entrepreneur and a CEO he would have been a serial killer.'

He reflected: 'Either way he had a terrible end. He either killed his wife and hung himself or he was targeted and Honey was punched out in front of him and his last moments must have been horrific.

'My cousin did a terrible thing to me and my brothers. I often make a joke that Barry screwed a lot of people in his life and I was the first.

'And it sounds harsh, it sounds callous but Barry Sherman got what he deserved.

'This is a man who went through life decimating people.

'But my feeling is he killed her. Barry did this. And all the tea in China doesn't change that fact.'The Pope is sending the Vatican's top sex crimes expert to Chile to investigate a bishop accused by victims of covering up for the country's most notorious paedophile priest.

Maltese Bishop Charles Scicluna would travel to Chile 'to listen to those who have expressed the desire to provide elements' about the case of Bishop Juan Barros, the Vatican said.

The Barros controversy dominated Francis' recent trip to Chile.

Even one of his closest advisers, Cardinal Sean O'Malley, publicly rebuked the Pope for his treatment of victims.

The Pope (pictured) has apologised over his previous comments regarding Bishop Juan Barros

Bishop Barros was a protege of the Rev Fernando Karadima, a charismatic and politically powerful priest who was sanctioned by the Vatican for sexually abusing minors in 2011.

His victims testified to Chilean prosecutors that Bishop Barros and other priests in the El Bosque community saw Karadima kissing youngsters and were aware of his perversions, but did nothing about them.

After Karadima was sanctioned, Chile's bishops were so intent on trying to stem the fallout from the scandal that they persuaded the Vatican to have Barros and two other Karadima-trained bishops resign and take a year-long sabbatical, according to a 2015 letter obtained by The Associated Press.

Francis stepped in and put a stop to the plan, arguing that there was no proof against them.

The Vatican said Maltese Bishop Charles Scicluna (pictured) would travel to Chile 'to listen to those who have expressed the desire to provide elements' about the case of Bishop Barros

Bishop Juan Barros (centre) was a protege of the Rev Fernando Karadima, a politically powerful priest who was sanctioned by the Vatican for sexually abusing minors in 2011

He overruled the local bishops' objections and in January 2015 appointed Bishop Barros to head the diocese of Osorno.

Bishop Barros' presence there has badly split the dioceses ever since, with both laity and priests rejecting him and protesting against his appointment.

The issue haunted Francis after he told a Chilean journalist during his visit that the accusations against Bishop Barros were 'slander' and that he would only speak out if he had 'proof' of wrongdoing.

Francis later apologised for having demanded proof of victims, but stood by his belief that the accusations against the bishop were 'calumny'.

The Pope told a Chilean journalist during his visit that the accusations against Bishop Barros (pictured) were 'slander'

Francis seemed unaware that Karadima's victims had placed Barros at the scene, and were the source of the accusations.

Bishop Scicluna was the Vatican's long-time sex crimes prosecutor in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and was instrumental in finally bringing to justice Latin America's most notorious paedophile, the Rev Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legion of Christ.

The bishop was tasked with gathering testimony from Maciel's victims, who for years had been discredited by senior Vatican and Legion officials and accused of slander.

Bishop Scicluna, currently archbishop of Valletta, is now something of a hero to survivors of sex abuse for having finally understood the dynamic of the clerical abuse scandal and vigorously prosecuted priests who raped and molested children.The FBI is examining a second document with sensational allegations about Donald Trump  this one also provided by dossier author ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.

Like the controversial Steele dossier, the second memo, references unverified allegations about Donald Trump's alleged conduct in a Moscow hotel room.

This document was authored by journalist and activist Cody Shearer, who has longstanding ties to the Clintons, for whom he unearthed information in the past.

The Guardian reported that the FBI is still assessing the so-called 'Shearer memo.' Steele turned it over to the bureau during the 2016 campaign. A source told the paper the FBI was still assessing the information contained in the memo.

Journalist and activist Cody Shearer authored a memo about Donald Trump that is being examined by the FBI

The FBI got the document in October 2016  weeks before the election, according to the report.

Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson testified that Steele went to the FBI because he believed he had a duty to report what he considered a potential crime.

'Chris said he was very concerned about whether this represented a national security threat and said he wanted to -- he said he thought we were obligated to tell someone in government, in our government about this information," Simpson told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"He thought from his perspective there was an issue -- a security issue about whether a presidential candidate was being blackmailed,' Simpson said.

Like the dossier, the Shearer memo contains salacious allegations about Trump's supposed conduct in a Moscow hotel room during the 2013 Miss Universe pageant.

Christopher Steele, the former MI6 agent, turned over his own memos and the Shearer memo to the FBI, according to a report

Both memos describe unverified salacious allegations about Donald Trump's supposed conduct in a Moscow hotel room. Stephen Colbert visited the Moscow Ritz Carlton for a sketch

The Shearer memo cites as its source an unnamed Russian FSB agent. The claim is unverified.

Daniel Hoffman, a former CIA station chief, laid out a theory in the Wall Street Journal that the Steele dossier could be a 'Russian espionage disinformation plot' meant to sprinkle fabricated information along with real facts.

Shearer is considered a controversial figure who is despised by conservatives for shadowy efforts to dig up information on behalf of Hillary Clinton. In the 1990s, he turned up in Europe to negotiate with associates of Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, the National Review reported.

He told therealnews.com during the 2008 primary campaign between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama: 'This is being viewed as an insurgent campaign, the Obama operation. A lot of questions are raised. And the Republicans have a lot of very high paid consultants and you hire detectives in these campaigns and they investigate respective candidates.'The case against Connor Fitzgerald collapsed when prosecutors found the messages sent by the woman accusing him of rape

A teenager suspected of rape spent three months in custody because police did not disclose text messages that proved his innocence, he has claimed.

BT engineer Connor Fitzgerald, 19, was arrested last year after a complaint was made against him.

But charges were dropped only last week when it emerged that the complainant, who is entitled to lifelong anonymity, had sent texts threatening to destroy him.

One of the messages apparently read: 'I'm not just going to mess up his life, I'm going to ruin it lol [laugh out loud].'

The case is the latest in a string of investigations or trials that have collapsed after police failed to disclose vital evidence to defence lawyers.

Mr Fitzgerald, from South Norwood, south London, told The Sun: 'It's been heartbreaking. It felt like I was guilty until proven innocent. My life has been ruined. I'm scared to even leave the house because everyone thinks I'm a rapist.'

It comes after Scotland Yard apologised to Liam Allan for failing to provide vital text messages during the 22-year-old's rape trial, in which he was found not guilty.

Charges were dropped only last week when it emerged that the complainant (in grey), who is entitled to lifelong anonymity, had sent texts threatening to destroy Mr Fitzgerald (in blue)

Mr Fitzgerald was arrested in front of his mother and sister in November when police officers raided the family home. It followed a complaint that a woman made in June.

She alleged Mr Fitzgerald raped her after a drunken night out.

After the arrest he was denied bail and was instead held on remand at HMP High Down, which is a category B prison in Banstead, Surrey.

He was reprieved after Mr Fitzgerald's brother found some of the text messages from the woman on his iCloud account and informed the authorities.

The case comes after Scotland Yard apologised to Liam Allan (pictured yesterday) for failing to provide vital text messages during the 22-year-old's rape trial, in which he was found not guilty

The missing texts also showed the woman saying that she had enjoyed the sex.

How failure to disclose evidence has led to a series of collapsed sex offence cases The issue of disclosure of evidence has been at the centre of a series of sex offence trials which have collapsed in recent months. The CPS offered no evidence against Oliver Mears It emerged last week that more than 900 criminal cases were dropped last year due to a failure by police or prosecutors to disclose evidence. The series of failures led former Lord Chief Justice, Igor Judge, to warn that juries may start to think they have not been shown all the evidence, and victims to not come forward. In December, Isaac Itiary was released from prison after it emerged his alleged victim posed as a 19-year-old woman and lied about her age. Police officers had texts which showed the girl was lying about her age but only released them after he had spent four months in custody awaiting his trial. Isaac Itiary's alleged victim posed as a 19-year-old woman Earlier this month, the case against Samson Makele, 28, was halted after his defence team unearthed vital photographs from his mobile phone which had not been made available. Mr Makele was accused of raping a woman after they met at Notting Hill Carnival in 2016 but he always claimed the sex was consensual. His case, which was due to begin next month, was thrown out after more than a dozen photographs were found which showed the pair naked and cuddling in bed. Also this month, Oxford student Oliver Mears, 19, spent two years on bail accused of raping and indecently assaulting a woman in July 2015. But the CPS decided to offer no evidence against him on the basis of fresh evidence, including a diary that supported his case, which was passed to the CPS just a week earlier. Advertisement

The case was formally dropped at Croydon Crown Court in South London - the same court where Mr Allan stood trial - last week when the Crown Prosecution Service offered no evidence.

Mr Fitzgerald has since said that he plans to sue the police and CPS. 'If my brother hadn't found the texts, I'd have ended up in prison for 12 years or more,' he said.

A CPS spokesman told MailOnline: 'This case was charged in accordance with the Threshold Test, which is applied in serious cases where further evidence is expected to become available within a reasonable period.

'A decision to charge under the Threshold Test must be kept under review, and prosecutors are required to take account of any change in circumstances as a case develops.

'In January 2018, police provided more material in this case. Upon review of that material, it was decided that there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.

'We therefore decided to offer no evidence at a hearing at Croydon Crown Court on January 22.'

And a Metropolitan Police spokesman told MailOnline: 'We are content with the investigation and our disclosure work, which was conducted in liaison with the CPS.

'During the course of the hearing there was no adverse comment from the Judge about the police investigation.'

It comes after the litany of blunders that led to Mr Allan being wrongly accused of rape was revealed, as police admitted no one will be disciplined over the botched prosecution.

A review of his case found a 'lack of knowledge' by police and prosecutors was to blame for the 22-year-old spending two years with the charges hanging over him - ahead of a trial which was halted at Croydon Crown Court.

A detective was criticised for his handling of 57,000 messages found on the alleged victim's phone, some of which fatally undermined the case.

DC Mark Azariah did not record how he searched the digital trove of messages which revealed that the woman pestered Mr Allan for 'casual sex'.

A senior Scotland Yard officer said Mr Azariah's supervisors and prosecutors missed several opportunities to spot his error.

Neither Mr Azariah, who has since asked to be assigned to different duties, nor any other officer will face misconduct proceedings.

The joint review by police and prosecutors found no evidence that the information was 'deliberately' withheld.

Instead, it blamed the mistakes on 'a combination of error, lack of challenge, and lack of knowledge'.

It felt like I was guilty until proven innocent. My life has been ruined Connor Fitzgerald

Mr Allan, a criminology student at Greenwich University in London, spent two years on bail accused of rape and sexual assault.

His case collapsed in December, sparking a national row over the failures by the authorities to disclose relevant information to defendants.

Thousands of rape prosecutions are being re-examined to check whether they have been affected by similar errors.

In London alone, 600 rape cases in the final stages before trial are being reassessed.A murder trial into the death of high school student Long Xiang 'Jeremy' Hu is underway in Melbourne.

A fight and bashing on April 15 2016 left the 19-year-old student with a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain.

On Wednesday the jury will visit the La Trobe Place laneway where the fight between four students took place.

Long Xiang 'Jeremy' Hu, 19, (pictured) was bashed in a fight and left in a hotel room for 10 hours before being taken to hospital where he died

The prosecutors want Shengliang Wan 24 to be convicted of murder, but his defence is urging the jury to maintain an open mind.

Wan has admitted to manslaughter and his lawyer argues the intent to kill was not present.

But prosecutors say he had intent to murder on the night he kicked and stomped on Mr Hu.

The jury on Tuesday watched CCTV footage of the violent fight that allegedly took place over a girlfriend.

The Yarra Valley Grammar School student sat with his friends in the laneway before being taken to a nearby hotel room and left for 10 HOURS.

The Laneway in Melbourne (pictured) where Long Xiang 'Jeremy' Hu was bashed and later died from bleeding to the brain after a fight over a girlfriend

He was not taken to hospital until the next morning where his life support was turned off and he was pronounced dead.

The jury will return to court to hear from witnesses after visiting the Chinaway laneway on Wednesday morning.

The majority of the fight was captured on a nearby CCTV camera according to police.Advertisement

A German-made tank, which Berlin once dubbed one of the best in the world, has had its shortcomings embarrassingly exposed on the battlefield in Syria.

Photos from the Turkish military operation dubbed 'Euphrates Shield', which began in August 2016, show the charred remains of one of the Leopard 2 tanks which was reportedly blown up with mines.

The images - taken from an ISIS video published in January 2017 - show the tank with its turret completely blown off.

Other pictures from the same conflict show Leopard 2s standing idle in ditches and snow after being severely damaged.

The 1970s-built armoured vehicles have been shown to be vulnerable in combat after being deployed to fight Kurdish soldiers backed by Britain and the US.

ISIS claimed it destroyed 10 of the Leopard 2 tanks, dubbed invincible in some quarters, and while the terror group's estimates are regularly exaggerated, analysis of fighting around al-Bab in Syria puts the figure at 'at least eight'. Pictured: The remnants of one of the German-built tanks as shown in a January 20, 2017 Isis video recorded near al-Bab. It was reportedly blown up by a mine. In the background is a destroyed Kobra armoured personnel carrier

Photos from the Turkish military operation dubbed 'Euphrates Shield', which began in August 2016, show the charred remains of one of the Leopard 2 tanks which was reportedly blown up with a mine. The images - taken from an ISIS video published in January 2017 - show the tank with its turret completely blown off

Turkish German-made Leopard 2 battle tanks are stationed in a field near the Syrian border at Hassa. Operation Olive Branch aims to oust the People's Protection Units (YPG) militia, which Turkey considers to be a terror group, from its enclave of Afrin. So far close to 200 Turkish and Kurdish fighters have been killed during the mission, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

This picture shows what is claimed to be a Leopard 2 tank that was completely obliterated in northern Syria during Operation Euphrates Shield. Its turret can be seen on the slope at the side of the dirt track. It was reportedly destroyed by a mine during fighting near al-Bab. It was first shown in an ISIS video released in January 20, 2017, and was still visible in the same spot in satellite images from February 7, 2017. Pictured inset is the registration plate of the tank - identifying it as a Leopard 2

Pictures and videos from the conflict in Syria show that, in spite of its 4million price tag, V12 twin-turbo engine, shell made from hardened steel and tungsten and top speed of 42mph, the Leopard 2 is not faring particularly well on the battlefield. Pictured: A seriously damaged Leopard in Syria during Operation Euphrates Shield

A soldier examines the destroyed Leopard 2 with its broken turret as it sits stationary in the snow in northern Syria, surrounded by debris. It is believed to have been destroyed during Euphrates Shield

The German-made tank (pictured during Operation Euphrates Shield), which Berlin once dubbed one of the best in the world, has had its shortcomings embarrassingly exposed on the battlefield in Syria

This Leopard 2 tank was shown wrecked in an ISIS video from December 22, 2016, purportedly recorded in the al-Bab area of Syria during Operation Euphrates Shield. Its number plate has been highlighted as part of efforts by observers to track the German-built tanks in Syria

In late 2016, the tanks were sent into Syria to support Turkey's intervention against ISIS. As the terror group was flushed out, the Turkish Army turned its attentions to the Kurdish fighters, though the Leopard did not stand up to the test of battle. Pictured: One of the apparently damaged tanks shown in a 2016 ISIS video

While the tank's design dealt capably with conditions during the Cold War against Soviet fighters, the Leopard 2 has proved to be a feeble force in the battle in the Middle East, practically disintegrating under intense fire.

Given that the tanks are widely operated by NATO members - including Canada, the Netherlands, Denmark, Greece and Norway - it is particularly embarrassing to see them so easily destroyed by Syrian terrorists when they are expected to match the Russian Army.

Meanwhile Angela Merkel's government has come under domestic pressure after images showed Turkey deploying its 4million Leopard 2 tanks during the current offensive in northern Syria, codenamed Operation Olive Branch.

Olive Branch is Turkey's first major operation in Syria since Euphrates Shield, targeting Kurdish forces including those from the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria - also known as Rojava. The cause of Rojava has attracted many foreign fighters - including Britons.

Olive Branch is Turkey's first major operation in Syria since Euphrates Shield, targeting Kurdish forces including those from the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria - also known as Rojava. The cause of Rojava has attracted many foreign fighters - including Britons. Pictured: Where fighting is currently ongoing

So far close to 200 Turkish and Kurdish fighters have been killed during the mission, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

At the turn of the century, when the political relationship between Turkey and Germany was less fraught, Berlin sold 354 of its retired Leopard 2 tanks to Ankara, according to The National Interest.

It is understood the sale was agreed under a number of conditions - one of which being they would not be used by Turkey against the Kurds.

While it's not clear whether the terms were ever officially agreed, until 2016, it appears the tanks were steered clear of any Kurdish conflict.

Britain 'turned down offer of Leopard 2s two years ago' - but a deal for the tanks could still be on the table The Ministry of Defence reportedly rejected an offer from manufacturer Krauss-Maffei Wegmannr to buy between 100 and 400 secondhand Leopard 2 tanks in 2015. It had been made as Britain began the 700 million search to upgrade its fleet of Challenger 2 main battle tanks. 'They made that offer to us and we should have taken it but there was an arrogance: we invented the tank, we have to have a British tank,' a defence industry source explained. Britain operates 227 Challenger 2 tanks, supported by thousands of armoured vehicles. Pictured: One of the tanks during a training exercise in Kuwait Speaking to The Times, the source went on: 'There was a worry about negative press headlines.' The MoD was also reportedly concerned about moving away from the Challenger 2, for which an entire support network exists. But the deal - which has not been completely killed - would mean Britain would have a fleet of Leopard 2s at a time when the tank is receiving bad press for its performance against terrorists in Syria. The source added that Britain will not necessarily buy new tanks - could still take up the Leopard 2 offer. 'If it turns out that buying second-hand would work out cheaper overall then finance is king,' the source explained. 'If it is cheaper they will go that way.' The MoD could still buy as many as 200 of the tanks for 2 million each. Britain operates 227 Challenger 2 tanks, supported by thousands of armoured vehicles. A spokesman for the MoD said the government is committed to extending the lifetime of its Challenger 2 fleet. Advertisement

But in late 2016, it was sent into Syria to support Turkey's intervention against ISIS.

As the terror group was flushed out, the Turkish Army turned its attentions to the Kurdish fighters, though the Leopard did not stand up to the test of battle.

This is in spite of its 4million price tag, V12 twin-turbo engine, shell made from hardened steel and tungsten and top speed of 42mph.

The 1970s-built armoured vehicles have been shown up to be vulnerable in combat after having been deployed to kill Kurdish fighters, who are backed by Britain and the US. They are pictured here with Turkish soldiers standing on them stationed in a field near the Syrian border at Hassa, in Hatay province on January 25, 2018, as part of the operation 'Olive Branch', launched on January 20

On January 24, there was outrage over the use of the Leopard 2 (pictured) which were sent in to attack Kurdish soldiers in the Syrian cities of Afrin and Manbij

One of its manufacturers, the now-defunct Maschinenbau Kiel, was the successor to Deutsche Werke, a firm which built U-boats and trains for the Wehrmacht during the Second World War.

When compared to the most famous tanks from that era, the Leopard 2 stands up very well.

The Tiger I tank, of which 1,347 were built by Germany during the war, could manage only a 28.2mph maximum speed compared to the Leopard's 42mph. The Tiger tank also had an operational range of just 121 miles compared to the Leopard's 340.

History of a weapon that changed warfare forever: How the tank went from an idea to a winner of battles The idea of an armoured vehicle to be used in battle goes back to at least the Renaissance. Florentine polymath Leonardo Da Vinci is often credited with the first viable plan for a tank. And in the 15th century, a Czech general named Jan Zizka reportedly employed armoured wagons containing cannons during battles. But the weapon as we know it was first put onto the battlefield in 1916 during the Battle of the Somme - and was designed as a means of breaking through fortified trenches. The weapon as we know it was first put onto the battlefield in 1916 during the Battle of the Somme. Pictured: The Mark I tank Named the Mark I, the tank was extremely simple compared to modern designs. Just 32 of the new vehicles were deployed during the Somme and they achieved only minor successes. A year later, at the Battle of Cambrai, tanks made their first major impact in warfare. The British deployed 476 of the armoured vehicles against the Germans to great effect, but failed to exploit the victory. During the Second World War, however, the tank became crucial to warfare. The main Soviet tank during the Battle of Kursk was the T-34 (pictured), which was first produced in 1940. It had a 76.2mm gun and could travel at 33mph The most famous of the Allies' tanks was the M4 Sherman (pictured), a medium tank produced by the United States One of the Allies' adversaries was the legendary Tiger I tank (pictured), which had an 88mm main gun and top speed of 28.2mph The Nazi Blitzkrieg - or 'lightning war' - strategy depended on heavy armour penetrating deep into enemy territory with support from the air as a means of encircling opposing forces. The conflict saw the engagement of perhaps the most famous tanks in history - including American Sherman, Russian T-34 and German Tigers. In 1943, during the Battle of Kursk, over 8,000 Nazi and Soviet tanks went head to head in the biggest tank battle in history. The main Soviet tank was the T-34, which was first produced in 1940. It had a 76.2mm gun and could travel at 33mph. One of its adversaries was the legendary Tiger I tank, which had an 88mm main gun and top speed of 28.2mph. The Nazis also produced the Tiger II heavy tank, of which only 492 were made. Its armour was up to 185mm thick alongside an 88mm gun and it wreaked havoc when first deployed against the Allies at Normandy in 1944. The Abrams is a third generation tank - with the first and second generations broadly corresponding to the Second World War and earlier Cold War - and comes with hull armour as tick as 700mm The most famous of the Allies' tanks was the M4 Sherman, a medium tank produced by the United States. It had up to 178mm of armour and a 75mm M3 gun, making it one of the most popular tanks of the time (49,234 were built in total). After the Second World War, the Cold War spurred continued development of the tank - which became heavier, larger and much better armoured. Guns also grew bigger and were given more sophisticated targeting technology. Tanks were also given new kinds of weapons - like the US M551 Sheridan (first built in 1969), which was equipped with MGM-51 Shillelagh anti-tank guided missiles. One of the tanks considered to represent a significant development in technology, however, is the Russian T-14 Armata (pictured) As the Cold War progressed - in 1979 - the US produced the M1 Abrams main battle tank, which remains in use to this day. The Abrams M1 is a third generation tank - with the first and second generations broadly corresponding to the Second World War and earlier Cold War - and comes with hull armour as thick as 700mm. The earliest models feature a 105mm main gun and are capable of travelling at about 45mph. Later models - including the M1A1 and M1A2 - come with 120mm guns. The future of tanks - the fourth generation - is currently uncertain. One of the tanks considered to represent a significant development in technology, however, is the Russian T-14 Armata. A main battle tank, the T-14 was first produced in 2015. It has 900mm of armour and a 125mm gun while being able to travel at up to 56mph. Advertisement

In December 2016, Islamic State claimed it destroyed 10 of the Leopard 2 tanks (pictured in Germany), dubbed invincible in some quarters, and while the terror group's estimates are regularly exaggerated, Bellingcat's analysis of the clash had the figure at 'at least eight'

The Tiger's weaponry, meanwhile, was weak in comparison - an 88 millimeter main gun compared to the Leopard's 120mm cannon.

A 62-tonne German tank encased in a shell of hardened steel and tungsten, powered by a V12 twin-turbo engine and with a top speed of 42mph... but it's being blown to pieces in Syria Designer: Krauss-Maffei Cost: 4million Production: 1979present Units built: 3,480 Specifications Weight: 62.3 tonnes Length: 10m Width: 3.75m (148inches) Height: 3m Crew: Four Armour: Composite including hardened steel and tungsten Weapons: 120 mm Rheinmetall L/55 smoothbore and MG3A1 Engine: V12 twin-turbo diesel Fuel capacity: 200 litres Operational range: 340 miles (550km) Top speed: 42 mph (68km/h) Advertisement

On January 24, there was outrage over the use of the Leopard 2, which were sent in to attack Kurdish soldiers in the Syrian cities of Afrin and Manbij.

But previously the tank had spectacularly flopped in December 2016 when pictures emerged of it being blown to pieces in the then ISIS-held city of al-Bab.

Islamic State claimed it destroyed 10 of the Leopard 2 tanks, dubbed invincible in some quarters, and while the terror group's estimates are regularly exaggerated, Bellingcat's analysis of the clash had the figure at 'at least eight'.

The tanks were shown with their turrets blown clean off and destroyed by bombs, mines or mortar fire.

While during the Cold War they were deployed in numbers, they appear to be being picked off as they are sent in to battle alone.

Berlin-Ankara ties have only recently started to recover from a deep crisis after Germany criticised the human rights situation in Turkey, particularly amid a mass wave of arrests following a 2016 failed coup.

Germany has been particularly angered by Turkey's arrest of several of its citizens, including dual-nationality Die Welt daily journalist Deniz Yucel, who has been held for 11 months.

News weekly Der Spiegel reported that Turkey wanted Berlin to allow German arms maker Rheinmetall to overhaul its fleet of Leopard 2 battle tanks with better armour and defence systems, after several were destroyed by Islamic State group jihadists in 2016.

Germany had hoped that this would aid efforts to free Yucel, wrote Der Spiegel, although the government has denied any link.

Industrial powerhouse Germany is a major global weapons exporter, a sensitive issue for many voters who believe that profiting from military conflicts is unethical.

The far-left Die Linke and Greens opposition parties have demanded a halt to all military cooperation with Turkey.President Donald Trump met this afternoon with the everyday Americans he and his wife invited to attend his State of the Union address and sit with the first lady in her box in the gallery of the House of Representatives.

Among them were Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent CJ Martinez, a 15-year veteran of the Homeland Security Investigations unit. Martinez aided in the arrests of 100 MS-13 gang members.

The President and First Lady are also welcoming Elizabeth Alvarado, Robert Mickens, Evelyn Rodriguez, and Freddy Cuevas - the parents of two young girls, Nisa Mickens and Kayla Cuevas, who were murdered by MS-13.

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Among them were Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent CJ Martinez, a 15-year veteran of the Homeland Security Investigations unit. Martinez aided in the arrests of 100 MS-13 gang members

The president and first lady are also welcoming Elizabeth Alvarado (center left), Robert Mickens (left), Evelyn Rodriguez (center right), and Freddy Cuevas (right)- the parents of two young girls, Nisa Mickens and Kayla Cuevas, who were murdered by MS-13

Trump's youngest guest, 12-year-old Preston Sharp, is responsible for the placement of more than 40,000 American flags and red carnations on veterans' graves, like his late grandfather.

Representing the armed services is Cpl Matthew Bradford, a veteran who lost both of his legs after stepping on an IED in Iraq. Shrapnel entered his eyes and blinded him, but Bradford re-enlisted, making him the first double blind amputee to serve.

All of Trump's children, with the exception or Barron, his youngest, will be present for the speech and so will the first lady.

The list of presidential guests sitting alongside Melania Trump in her box include first responders, service members and small business owners and employees who have benefited from the president's tax cut.

Kellyanne Conway, senior counselor to the president, told Fox News on Tuesday, 'The first lady's put together a wonderful group of guests tonight.'

'Some of these individuals' stories are heroic, some are patriotic, others are tragic,' White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said at her Monday briefing. 'But all of them represent the unbreakable American spirit, and will inspire our nation to continue growing stronger, prouder, and more prosperous.'

Trump's youngest guest, 12-year-old Preston Sharp, is responsible for the placement of more than 40,000 American flags and red carnations on veterans' graves, like his late grandfather

Corey Adams (pictured center), a blue-collar worker, and his wife, bought their first home in 2017. The White House said Tuesday that the family would put their savings into their two daughters education funds

Trump has beneficiaries of his tax cut plan coming in a nod to his priorities.

Corey Adams, a blue-collar worker, and his wife, bought their first home in 2017. The White House said Tuesday that the family would put their savings into their two daughters education funds.

Adams works at Staub Manufacturing Solutions in Ohio. Sibling owners Steve Staub and Sandy Keplinger are also attending tonight's address.

The small business grew from 23 to 37 employees since Trump took office, the White House said, and all of them received larger than usual Christmas bonuses because of the GOP's tax reform legislation.

Ryan Holets, a police officer, and his wife are being honored by the president for their contribution to the battle against opioid addiction. They adopted a child, Hope, from opioid addicts

Another guest, Jon Bridgers, is the founder of the Cajun Navy 2016, a non-profit organization that conducts search and rescue missions. The group helped thousands of victims of Hurricane Harvey.

Fire prevention technician David Dahlberg is also being recognized for saving lives in 2017. He helped 62 children and adults escape a wildfire that encircled a camp in California last summer.

United States Coast Guard aviation electronics technician Ashlee Leppert is likewise being thanked by the president and first family for her heroics last year during hurricane season. Leppert is credited with lifting a woman and four children to safety in a basket.

Ryan Holets, a police officer, and his wife are being honored by the president for their contribution to the battle against opioid addiction. They adopted a child from opioid addicts.Two men have been arrested for allegedly stealing a 17th-century gold bar from a Florida museum eight years after the $550,000 treasure disappeared.

Jarred Alexander Goldman, 32, and Richard Steven Johnson, 41, made initial court appearances on Tuesday, a day after their arrests, Annette Lima, a Justice Department spokeswoman in the Southern District of Florida, said in an email.

Federal authorities said the pair drove on August 18, 2010, from West Palm Beach to Key West's Mel Fisher Maritime Museum, where Goldman stood guard while Johnson plucked the oblong bar from its perch.

Jarred Goldman, 32, and Richard Steven Johnson, 41, have been arrested for allegedly stealing a 17th-century gold bar from a Florida museum nearly eight years after the $550,000 treasure disappeared

The relic had been aboard the Santa Margarita, a Spanish galleon that sank in the Florida Straits in 1622 with more than 9,000 ounces of gold plundered from the Americas. The stolen bar (file image) has not been located

'We were devastated,' museum Chief Executive Melissa Kendrick said of the theft in a telephone interview on Tuesday.

'This was a piece of a history that people could touch, and many people considered it their own gold bar.'

Lawyers for the men could not be immediately reached for comment.

The relic had been aboard the Santa Margarita, a Spanish galleon that sank in the Florida Straits in 1622 with more than 9,000 ounces of gold plundered from the Americas.

Treasure hunter Mel Fisher, for whom the museum is named, discovered part of the Santa Margarita wreck in 1980 while scouring the sea floor for ships which were once in a fleet sailing treasures back to Spain.

The stolen bar has not been located. The museum's insurance company had offered as much as $25,000 for information leading to its return.

Treasure hunter Mel Fisher, for whom the museum is named, discovered part of the Santa Margarita wreck in 1980 while scouring the sea floor for ships which were once in a fleet sailing treasures back to Spain. Pictured is the Key West's Mel Fisher Maritime Museum

Authorities did not reveal how they determined Goldman and Johnson to be suspects in the case.

Goldman was arrested in South Florida on Monday, and authorities nabbed Johnson in Sacramento, California, court records said.

Both face charges of conspiring to commit an offense against the US and theft of major art work, and could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

A judge in the Florida Keys granted Goldman bail on Tuesday, while a judge in California decided Johnson was a flight risk and ordered his detention pending a trial.Four men in a black BMW then chase the Astra through M5 tunnel last October

Video taken just moments after gang of armed men attacked Holden Astra

CCTV footage of a horrifying car chase through a busy Sydney tunnel, which ended in a hit-and-run crash, has been released.

Police have released a video of the chase in an attempt to find a gang of men who violently attacked a car in Mascot on October 15, before chasing the driver through the M5 tunnel.

An 18-year-old driver of a Holden Astra hatchback stopped his vehicle, carrying two passengers aged 18 and 16, near the intersection of Qantas Drive at Mascot around 8.45pm.

CCTV footage of a horrifying car chase through a busy Sydney tunnel by a black BMW and a Holden Astra (pictured in far left lane) has been released

CCTV footage from the tunnel shows the vehicles entering at high speed, weaving between other cars as fellow drivers slam on their brakes

A Black BMW X5, with four men on board, stopped alongside the car before one of the men jumped out armed with a crowbar.

The man, who is described as being of Caucasian appearance, approximately 20-years-old, with blonde or brown hair, and wearing a black jumper and black shorts, attacked the Astra with the weapon before the car sped off.

A short time later both cars pulled over and three men exited the BMW, armed with a crowbar, a wrench, and other weapons, before the Astra again drove away.

The men jumped back into the BMW and allegedly rammed the back of the Astra, before chasing the car into the M5 tunnel eastbound at Arncliffe.

The cars can be seen travelling at incredibly high speed as the BMW drives dangerously close and uses intimidating tactics

The Holden Astra can be seen stopped in front of oncoming traffic after being chased through the tunnel

CCTV footage from the tunnel shows the vehicles entering at high speed, weaving between other cars as fellow drivers slam on their brakes.

The Astra attempts to merge into traffic as the black BMW sits right on his tail, causing other drivers to slow down to avoid a crash.

The cars can be seen travelling at incredibly high speed as the BMW drives dangerously close and uses intimidating tactics, eventually forcing the Astra to ram into the tunnel wall.

Traffic comes to a standstill after the black BMW flees the scene, leaving the driver and passengers of the Holden Astra to stop in front of traffic

The young driver and passengers of the Astra exit their car as traffic comes to a standstill

The hatchback can be seen bouncing from the wall before pulling into a breakdown lane and swerving in front of oncoming traffic.

A sea of red brake lights can be seen as the car is forced to a sideways stop, while the BMW is spotted fleeing the scene.

The young driver and passengers of the Astra exit their car as traffic comes to a standstill.

Police are urging anyone with information in relation to this incident to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.A 23-year-old ice addict was offered $25,000 to severely injure a 46-year-old man during a home invasion, a NSW court heard this week.

Jessica Honey Fallon, a former prostitute who worked at a brothel in Tweed Heads, is on trial for the attempted murder of Michael Anthony Martin, who was stabbed and brutally beaten at his Murwillumbah home in April 7, 2014, according to The Daily Telegraph.

Ms Fallon is also accused of causing reckless grievous bodily harm to Mr Martin's roommate Edmund Manning.

Jessica Honey Fallon (pictured), a 23-year-old ice addict, said she was offered $25,000 to bash Michael Anthony Martin, 46, during a home invasion in April 7, 2014, a NSW court heard on Tuesday

Martin survived the April 7 attack but was murdered by his son Michael Phillip Martin (pictured) after he was released from the hospital months later

A recorded three-hour police interview with Ms Fallon, who has pleaded not guilty to both charges, was played for the Lismore District Court on Tuesday.

In the video footage, Ms Fallon tells police she was on a methamphetamine bender when she was offered $25,000 to 'beat [Martin] up [to] give him a warning' by a man named 'Blue'.

She said she thought 'Blue' had been joking, the court heard.

Ms Fallon allegedly collected knives and guns from her Brisbane home before driving to Martin's home with 'Blue' and second man 'White'.

The 23-year-old told police she stabbed Martin in the eye and neck when he opened the door and described hearing 'bones snapping' and 'popping noises' during the attack.

A recorded three-hour police interview with Ms Fallon (pictured), who has pleaded not guilty to both charges, was played for the Lismore District Court on Tuesday

The 23-year-old (pictured) told police she stabbed Martin in the eye and neck when he opened the door and described hearing 'bones snapping' and 'popping noises' during the attack

Martin Jr (pictured) had taken out three life insurance policies on his father online worth $2.5 million

Martin survived the April 7 attack but was murdered by his son Michael Phillip Martin after he was released from the hospital months later.

Martin Jr was convicted in October of his father's murder and the April 7 attack and will be sentenced next week.

Police discovered Martin Jr had taken out three life insurance policies on his father worth $2.5 million.A TV ad has been released in Melbourne urging school students to be 'kind' to Sudanese children in the wake of African gang attacks in the city.

The Victorian Multicultural Commission released the 60 second ad to convince people that most Sudanese children were not members of the gangs involved in armed home invasions and violent carjackings.

'These kids start school this week and their parents are really scared for them,' the ad began.

The TV ad was released in Melbourne urging school students to be 'kind' to Sudanese children in the wake of African gang attacks in the city

'Hundreds of these Australian families have survived a dreadful war and seen millions killed, but they're just as scared now, why?

'Because some people in our community are spreading hate and fear, and it's these innocent kids who are copping it.'

The narrator of the ad went on to say 'yes, some kids have fallen through the cracks, and the police are dealing with that, but don't hate the majority of good people because a few have strayed'.

'That's not the Aussie way,' they said.

The Victorian Multicultural Commission urged people to look out for Sudanese children and give them a wave at school.

The Victorian Multicultural Commission urged people to look out for Sudanese children and give them a wave at school

'Let's make the start of the school year a good one for everyone,' it said.

Filmmaker Richard Keddie said the ad was prompted by Deputy Police Commissioner Andrew Crisp.

'He feared these kids were going to be persecuted,' Mr Keddie told 3AW.

'These kids are amazing, considering what they've been through, they love Australia, they want to be great Aussies.

'We just think, give them a fair go because that's what Aussies are best at.'

'These kids are amazing, considering what they've been through, they love Australia, they want to be great Aussies,' filmmaker Richard Keddie said

Response to the ad has been mixed online.

'This is how the left biased media see the Sudanese gang problem,' one person said.

One Twitter user posed the question: How about being nice to everyone?

Just be nice to everyone, its not that hard, they said, to which someone replied, and can we get one where South Sudanese teenagers can be nice to us, meaning no crime?Two Georgia police officers killed a pet dog and then allegedly forced the owner to saw off the animal's head with a knife or risk being arrested, a new lawsuit claims.

Joe Goodwin and his girlfriend Tosha Dacon filed a lawsuit last week after their two-year-old pitbull cross Big Boy was shot dead outside their home in Crawford County two months ago.

The couple claim Crawford County sheriff's deputy Wesley Andrew Neesmith killed their beloved pooch after going to their home on December 1 to investigate reports the dog had bitten a neighbor.

The lawsuit claims fellow deputy James Hollis then ordered a distraught Goodwin to behead the dog with a knife.

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Joe Goodwin has filed a lawsuit claiming two Georgia police officers killed his dog Big Boy and then forced him saw off the animal's head with a knife or risk being arrested

'Under extreme emotional duress and distress, and under threat of incarceration and physical harm, Plaintiff Goodwin was forced to decapitate the dog with a knife,' the lawsuit reads.

After he was forced to decapitate Big Boy, the two officers allegedly ordered Goodwin to take the animal's head to the Crawford County Health Department.

The lawsuit says that Goodwin was too 'emotionally and mentally distraught to comply' so his partner Dacon had to do it.

Goodwin, who had filmed part of the confrontation and posted it on Facebook at the time, claimed that the officers told him the dog had been shot after it lunged at a deputy.

He said the officers claimed that the dog's head had to be removed to be tested for rabies - even though Big Boy was fully vaccinated against the deadly disease.

Testing for rabies can only be done via a brain autopsy.

Goodwin claims Crawford County sheriff's deputy Wesley Andrew Neesmith shot dead his dog (pictured above) after going to his home to investigate reports the pet had bitten a neighbor

Goodwin and his girlfriend Tosha Dacon (above) claim that another sheriff's deputy, James Hollis, then ordered a distraught Goodwin to behead the dog with a knife

Goodwin claims that when he initially refused to remove his dog's head, the officers threatened to have him arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.

They allegedly would not let him leave to retrieve the dog's vaccination paperwork.

At one point while he was filming, Hollis can be heard saying: 'We asked you to remove the dog's head. And you're refusing, right?'

Goodwin, who still appeared to be in shock, replied: 'I ain't got a... knife to cut the head off'.

He claims the officers gave him the option to call a vet and pay for the head to be removed, but he said he couldn't afford to do that procedure.

Goodwin said he complied because he feared he would be shot otherwise.

Goodwin, who had filmed part of the confrontation and posted it on Facebook at the time, claimed that Hollis (above) had threatened to arrest him if he didn't comply

Goodwin said the officers claimed that the Big Boy's head had to be removed to be tested for rabies - even though Big Boy was fully vaccinated against the deadly disease

Once he finally reluctantly agreed, his girlfriend had to go and retrieve a kitchen knife to carry out the horrific task.

Goodwin was then allegedly forced to saw and hack away at his pet's neck with the small knife until he could remove his head.

The lawsuit claims he and his girlfriend continue to endure 'great physical and mental pain and suffering' and it has required counseling.

Goodwin claims he lost his job as a result of the stress caused by the incident.

Hollis was placed on paid administrative leave while an investigation was carried out. Neesmith resigned from his position in mid-January.

In addition to Hollis and Neesmith, the lawsuit also names Sheriff Lewis Walker.

The couple are suing them for $75,000 as compensation for their pain and suffering.A seaplane that crashed near Sydney on New Year's Eve killing a British family of five dramatically veered off course before plunging into a river, investigators say.

The de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver collided with water in Jerusalem Bay, 25 miles north of Sydney city centre, in a 'near-vertical position', according to witnesses.

Richard Cousins, the 58-year-old chief executive of FTSE 100 company Compass Group, died alongside his sons, Will and Edward, aged 25 and 23, his fiancee, Emma Bowden, 48, and her 11-year-old daughter Heather.

The experienced pilot, Canadian Gareth Morgan, 44, was also killed, with investigators probing whether he may have become disoriented or incapacitated, according to the Daily Telegraph Australia.

The wreckage of the seaplane is pictured as it is pulled from the water. The plane hit an area of water away from the expected flight path, a report has said

A preliminary report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said the aircraft operated by Sydney Seaplanes left Cottage Point bound for Rose Bay at 3.01pm on January 31.

The report said: 'The operator reported that the aircraft's expected and standard flight path after departing Cottage Point was to climb initially to the north then turn right along Cowan Creek toward the main body of the Hawkesbury River, until sufficient altitude was gained to fly above terrain and return to Rose Bay.

'While the exact take-off path from Cottage Point has yet to be established, the aircraft was observed by witnesses to enter Jerusalem Bay around 0.6miles off course.

Richard Cousins (right), the 58-year-old chief executive of FTSE 100 company Compass Group, died in the plane piloted by Canadian Gareth Morgan, 44

Emma Bowden, 48, with her 11-year-old daughter Heather in Sydney, days before the pair died in the crash

Mr Cousins' sons Edward, 23 (left) and William, 25 (right) were also killed when their seaplane plunged into the Hawkesbury River

'The aircraft was observed to enter the bay at an altitude below the height of the surrounding terrain.

'Several witnesses also reported hearing the aircraft's engine and stated that the sound was constant and appeared normal.

'Shortly after entering Jerusalem Bay, numerous witnesses reported seeing the aircraft suddenly enter a steep right turn and the aircraft's nose suddenly drop before the aircraft collided with the water in a near vertical position.'

The wreckage was lifted from 15m of water in Jerusalem Bay on January 4 in an operation by police divers and the ATSB.

The seaplane did not have a cockpit voice or flight data recorder, although aircraft of its size are not required to have one fitted, the report said.

There was no evidence of the aircraft hitting a bird or an object prior to takeoff in flight. There was also no evidence that the plane had broken up in flight.

Investigators spent the month poring over the wreckage of the Beaver, which was previously involved in another fatal incident in November 1996.

The seaplane is pictured in Sydney just hours before the tragic accident that killed six people

Victims Emma Bowden, 48, and her 11-year-old daughter Heather in front of Sydney Opera House days before the plane plunged into the Hawksbury River

This is believed to be the last photograph taken of the Canadian pilot, 44-year-old Gareth Morgan, who was killed in the crash

Investigators have spent the month poring over the wreckage of the Beaver, which was previously involved in another fatal incident in November 1996

A periodic inspection was carried out on the seaplane on November 6, 2017, and a new maintenance certificate was issued, the ATSB said

Mr Cousins' brothers arrived in Sydney earlier this month to begin the process of returning the bodies back to the UK.

Mr Morgan's parents flew to Australia ahead of a memorial service for the devout Christian pilot earlier this month.

Aaron Shaw, chief executive of Sydney Seaplanes, said: 'The preliminary report reflects the excellent flying conditions on the day and suggests no evidence of airframe, fuel or engine issues.

'The report also highlights that Gareth Morgan was a highly skilled, experienced and trained pilot who was flying to a location he had flown to hundreds of times before.

'The key question arising from the report is why the plane crashed approximately half way down Jerusalem Bay, which is surrounded by steep terrain and has no exit. It is not a route we authorise in our landing and take-off area register and the plane simply should not have been where it was.

'Further, the aircraft is then reported to have entered in to an 80-90 degree bank angle turn. A turn of this nature at low altitude by a pilot with Gareth's skills, experience and intimate knowledge of the location is totally inexplicable.'

It emerged in the wake of the crash that the seaplane had been involved in a fatal accident while being used as a crop duster in northern New South Wales in 1996.

It emerged in the wake of the crash that the seaplane had been involved in a fatal accident while being used as a crop duster in northern New South Wales in 1996

Emma Bowden, 48, and her daughter Heather, 11, died in the horror seaplane crash in the Hawkesbury River

The chief executive of Sydney Seaplanes said it was 'totally inexplicable' how the plane could have turned at low altitude with such an experienced pilot

A report at the time said the aircraft, which was built in 1963 and first registered in Australia in 1964, had been 'destroyed'.

The ATSB confirmed the aircraft had subsequently been repaired.

A periodic inspection was carried out on the seaplane on November 6, 2017, and a new maintenance certificate was issued, the ATSB said.

The ATSB is expected to release a final report in about 11 months, and a representative from the UK's Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) has been appointed as an expert to the investigation team.

The ATSB said it would continue to consider a series of factors, including engine, propeller and aircraft components, flight and engine control positions, aircraft maintenance history, pilot qualifications, experience and medical information and witness testimony.

The sequence of how the seaplane hit the water, any environmental factors and stall warning systems will also be considered.

The ATSB said it would also consider similar incidents in Australia and other countries.Navy chiefs were forced to deploy a minehunter to intercept two submarines and a Russian support ship sailing close to Britain because the fleet was so overstretched.

The mission, carried out last year, was kept secret amid fears it would expose Britains vulnerabilities and lack of ships, it can be revealed.

Normally a frigate armed with a 4.5in gun and a weapons system that can destroy missiles travelling at supersonic speeds is dispatched to escort Vladimir Putins warships.

Navy chiefs were forced to deploy minehunter HMS Cattistock (pictured) to intercept two submarines and a Russian support ship sailing close to Britain because the fleet was so overstretched

If the frigate is tied up, on rarer occasions one of two patrol ships tasked with safeguarding the UKs fish stocks are used to escort the Russians.

But in August last year, HMS Cattistock was secretly sent to shadow a Sliva-class support tug and two Kilo-class submarines as they passed through the English Channel.

Defence sources said it was the first time the navy had been forced to rely upon a minehunter  a lightly-armed vessel with a plastic hull that is normally used to find and destroy naval mines.

Navy sources downplayed the deployment and stressed they were on delivery voyages and were not operational at the time.

But plans to publicise the mission were blocked within the Ministry of Defence amid fears it risked highlighting the lack of ships in the naval fleet.

The department would normally publish details of Royal Navy ships escorting the Russians near the UK.

HMS Westminster, the frigate on short notice to react, was said to be on another task at the time, as were the patrol vessels. It is not known what the task was.

Details of the secret mission came amid growing fury over the state of Britains Armed Forces after years of drastic cuts.

Last week, the head of the Army, General Sir Nick Carter, gave a speech at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) warning Britain risked being outmatched by Russias military might.

HMS Cattistock was secretly sent to shadow a Sliva-class support tug and two Kilo-class submarines (file photo) as they passed through the English Channel.

The Chief of the General Staff said the Kremlin was a clear and present danger and warned of Russias eye-watering military capabilities.

In the last few years, as part of cuts to the Armed Forces, the role of the Fleet Ready Escort and Towed Array Patrol Ship was merged into one.

Now just one frigate  out of a total of 13 - is on task at any point at short notice to react to any maritime threat to the UK including terrorism and smuggling of arms or narcotics.

This means there is only one warship left to patrol British waters and keep an eye on both submarines and warships.

The Russian submarines and support ship were first watched by Nato units as they passed through the North Sea in August.

Then HMS Cattistock took over the responsibility of escorting them through the English Channel because there were no other ships available.She was said to be in the area at the time.

A defence source said of the deployment: We were so short on ships we had to send a mine-hunter.

Last night Admiral Lord West, former head of the navy said: The Russians could easily outrun something like this.

This hardly shows we have the capability to counter what we could have against us.

He said the Russians would assume Britain is in a right state, adding: It is quite worrying and shows just how short we are of assets.

It follows an increase in Russian activity around Britains coastline in recent months.

General Sir Nick Carter, the Chief of the General Staff, said the Kremlin was a clear and present danger and warned of Russias eye-watering military capabilities, during a speech last week

The number of Russian submarines close to British waters is at its highest since the Cold War.

Earlier this month Britain deployed a warship to the English Channel to escort four Russian naval vessels through the Strait of Dover.

The Portsmouth-based frigate HMS Westminster was sent out to shadow the Russian ships RFS Soobraziltenyy and RFS Boikiy and two support vessels off the south coast.

The Russian vessels were thought to be returning to the Baltic after operations in the Middle East.

On Christmas Day, the frigate HMS St Albans was dispatched to track the Russian vessel Admiral Gorshkov as it made its way through the North Sea close to Britain.

A navy source said of the deployment: 'It was the right unit, in the right place to escort the Russians through the waters.

A Royal Navy Spokesperson said: HMS Cattistock was the most appropriate vessel for this particular task at that time.

There is always one Royal Navy ship that is designated as the Fleet Ready Escort (FRE), although there are always a number of Royal Navy units available in UK waters that could conduct this role depending on the tasking.The vast majority of Conservative voters want Theresa May to stay on as PM, a poll revealed last night.

Nearly 70 per cent of those who backed the Tories at last years election say Mrs May should carry on. Less than one in five said she should stand down.

The poll is a major boost to Mrs May after a week of sniping from disaffected backbench MPs and swirling leadership speculation in Westminster.

Nearly 70 per cent of those who backed the Tories at last years election say Mrs May should carry on

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith weighed in behind the PM yesterday, urging MPs to calm down.

He also said Tory unity would be improved if cabinet ministers  said a little bit less and speculated a little bit less  an apparent swipe at Philip Hammond.

Last week the Chancellor enraged Brexiteer MPs  and sparked calls for his sacking - when he said Brexit would mean the economies of Britain and the EU moving very modestly apart.

Mr Duncan Smith said: I have a very simple message to my colleagues generally, people should just calm down.

The reality was this was always going to be bumpy, we dont have a massive majority and anyway we are in the middle of a negotiation.

He told BBC Radio 4s Today programme there would be fewer rows if Cabinet ministers stuck to what Theresa May said instead of veering off-message.

The YouGov poll showed 69 per cent of Tory voters think Mrs May should stay in No10. Just 18 percent said she should stand down and let someone else take over.

Among voters from all parties, 41 per cent backed her staying in power, compared to 34 per cent who said she should go.

Those figures are almost identical to a similar poll conducted in November last year  showing Mrs Mays popularity has barely changed.

The poll was commissioned by political consultancy WPI Strategy.

Its director, Nick Faith, said: The results of this poll clearly show that, on the whole, the public  and certainly those who voted for the Conservative at the last election  would rather see Theresa May remain as Prime Minister for the moment.

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith weighed in behind the PM yesterday, urging MPs to calm down

However difficult it may be for an incumbent government to offer an agenda of renewal both domestically and on the international stage, that is the challenge facing the Prime Minister and her colleagues.

Offered a choice between Boris Johnson, Amber Rudd, David Davis or Ruth Davidson to replace Mrs May, none of the alternatives were as popular.

Defence Secretary Liam Fox told The Sun that Tory Eurosceptics must live with disappointment.

But he dismissed fears of a Brino  Brexit in Name Only  declaring we will be out of the single market and the customs union after the transition period.

It doesnt help us as we dont have a working majority, other than with the support port of the Democratic Union-Unionists. I know there are always disappointed individuals but theyre going to have to live with disappointment.Secondary schools are facing a crisis after teacher numbers fell by 5 per cent in the last six years due to workload and stress, MPs have warned.

A new report by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has found the number of teachers in secondaries decreased by 10,800 to 208,200 between 2010 and 2016.

It has meant that although pupil numbers have fallen in these schools, the pupil teacher ratio increased, from 14.9:1 to 15.6:1.

The PAC said many teachers have been leaving the profession because of increased workload and mediocre pay coupled with rising costs of living.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) revealed there is a shortage of teachers for secondary schools. The number of teachers fell 5 per cent in the last six years (stock photo)

In addition, a recent baby boom which has been fuelled by migration means pupil numbers in secondary schools are set to rise.

The government has previously stated that a high birth rate among foreign-born mothers has put pressure on primary school places.

That bulge in the population is now set to transfer to secondaries, with 540,000 more pupils expected by 2025  a rise of 19 per cent.

The PAC, which is made up of MPs from all parties, warned the two elements would combine to create a teacher shortage unless the government takes drastic action.

Meg Hillier, PAC chairman, said the Government needs to 'get a grip' on teacher retention if it wants to prevent the shortage from increasing in coming years

It said class sizes were likely to continue to rise unless ministers make the profession more attractive and stem the tide of teachers leaving their posts.

Meg Hillier, PAC chairman, said: A crisis is brewing in English classrooms but government action to address it has been sluggish and incoherent.

It should have been clear to senior civil servants that growing demand for school places, combined with a drive for schools to make efficiency savings, would only build pressure in the system.

Instead they seem to have watched on, scratching their heads, as more and more teachers quit the profession.

Government must get a grip on teacher retention.

There is a real danger that, without meaningful intervention from government, these challenges will become an intractable threat to childrens education.

It comes after Nick Gibb, the schools minister, wrote to teacher training providers earlier this week to encourage them to take on more entrants.

He said the criteria for taking people on should be changed so that recruiters assess peoples potential to meet standards at the end of their training  rather than at the beginning.

A total of 50,000 teacher training applications rejected last year, he said.

The letter stated: It is right to reject candidates who are not suitable.

Nick Gibb (right), the schools minister, urged teacher training providers to take more entrants to help the shortage. But James Noble-Rogers (right), executive director of the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers said his program would not lower the bar

However, it is also crucial to support and develop those who have the desire and talent to teach. The emphasis must be on assessing applicants based on their suitability to train to teach, rather than whether they are ready to teach at the point of entry.

He said the department would ask questions of training providers with particularly high rejection rates in priority subjects.

However, James Noble-Rogers, executive director of the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers, told the Times Educational Supplement: We wont countenance any lowering of the bar.

That would have a detrimental effect on schools down the line and it would not be fair on candidates either.

DfE figures show that there were 16,010 applicants for teacher training courses by 15 January 2018, a decrease compared with the 22,650 applicants last year.

The DfE has been contacted for comment.Environment Secretary Michael Gove (pictured) will be expected to present solutions to the EU

Ministers have been told by Brussels they must draw up plans to reduce air pollution within days or face legal action.

The EU rebuked Britain yesterday for failing to improve air quality in cities and warned that more deaths will occur without urgent action.

After years of falling short of safety standards, the UK was given a final chance along with eight other countries.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove will be expected to present solutions to the EU by February 5.

Brussels said a case would be sent to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) if the response is deemed weak, potentially leading to a large fine.

Nitrous dioxide fumes, predominantly from diesel vehicles, are linked to an estimated 40,000 premature deaths a year in the UK as well as health problems such as heart disease.

The Government was ordered by a court to publish an action plan last July as it was revealed eight million children breathe in illegal levels of air pollution.

Mr Goves strategy so far however has received harsh criticism and is currently the subject of a judicial review action by environmental campaigners.

The European Commission yesterday called for the UK to address this life-threatening problem with the urgency it deserves. At a meeting in Brussels, junior minister Therese Coffey was told the UK should take all possible measures without delay.

The warning was also given to France, Germany, Spain, Hungary, Italy, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania.

The EUs environment commissioner Karmenu Vella said: The only thing that can keep the Commission from going to court is if the action taken is sufficient to reach the targets without any delay.

He added: In our meeting there were positive suggestions but these were not enough to change the bigger picture.

Brussels said a case would be sent to the European Court of Justice (pictured) if the response is deemed weak

The UK was given a final warning by the Commission in February last year after tests revealed safety limits had been broken in 16 cities, including London, Leeds and Glasgow.

Mr Vella said: The deadlines for meeting the legal obligations have long elapsed. Some say we have waited already too long.

Steps needed include creating incentives for the transport, energy and agricultural sectors to reduce pollution, he added.

Any referral to the ECJ could prove embarrassing for the Government as it seeks to negotiate a divorce agreement with Brussels. The UK is also likely to have to meet the EU obligations during a Brexit transition period and as a requirement under an eventual trade deal.

A fine would be determined according to how long the rules have been broken, with the UK having fallen foul of Brussels standards since 2010.

The Environment Department said: Air pollution has improved significantly since 2010, but we recognise there is more to do which is why we have put in place a 3.5billion plan to improve air quality and reduce harmful emissions.Junior doctors are refusing to report mistakes after one of their colleagues was struck off over the death of a child.

Jack Adcock was six when he died from sepsis while under the care of Hazida Bawa-Garba, a trainee paediatrician.

Last week, Bawa-Garba was struck off for a catalogue of errors, including misdiagnosing the child with a tummy bug when he had sepsis and failing to act on abnormal blood results.

Bawa-Garba was struck off for a catalogue of errors, including misdiagnosing the child with a tummy bug when he had sepsis and failing to act on abnormal blood results

At one point she tried to stop other staff from resuscitating him after his heart had stopped because she mistakenly thought he was under a do not resuscitate order.

But thousands of junior doctors believe she has been scapegoated for wider failings at her understaffed hospital, the Leicester Royal Infirmary, and across the NHS as a whole.

And last night an influential group of doctors accused the GMC of treating ethnic minorities differently and harshly. The British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin wrote a letter to the watchdog accusing them of inherent bias.

Emails seen by the Mail show how dozens of junior doctors are instructing each other not to report their own mistakes, in case they suffer the same fate.

They are backed by the British Medical Associations Junior Doctors Committee, which says they must not admit to any errors in writing. The fallout from the case threatens to undermine a Government drive to improve safety across the NHS by encouraging staff to be more honest.

Jack who also had Downs syndrome and a heart condition, died 11 hours after he was admitted to hospital

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt intervened in the row earlier this week by saying it was vital that doctors were helped to be open and transparent.

Bawa-Garba, 40, made a series of catastrophic mistakes in the run-up to Jacks death in February 2011. The mother of two was on her first hospital shift after returning from maternity leave and initially diagnosed him with gastroenteritis, a tummy bug, when in fact he had sepsis.

She later failed to act on blood tests that showed he had a kidney infection and failed to tell staff not to prescribe a medication that made the condition worse.

Banned medic: I'll appeal

Hazida Bawa-Garba will hire a top team of lawyers to fight the decision to strike her off.

She sent a statement to junior doctors over the weekend thanking them for their huge outpouring of support. She said she was overwhelmed with gratitude and truly humbled by the 200,000 they had raised for her legal fees.

In light of this huge outpouring of support, I plan to use your generous funds to change to a top, independent legal team to potentially challenge the GMC (General Medical Council) and have an independent review of the original conviction.

Bawa-Garbas defence is that she was working under intense pressure due to systemic failings at the Leicester Royal Infirmary.

She was on her first shift after returning from maternity leave, was covering the roles of two doctors after a colleague had not shown up and was hampered by a computer failure.

But on that shift she was performing the roles of two doctors and covering two wards after her colleague failed to show up for work.

Experts also point out that due to a computer failure in the hospital, she was told the blood test results over the phone rather than seeing them on the screen. This made them much more difficult to read  abnormal numbers would have flashed red on the screen  and they arrived later than normal.

In fact Bawa-Garbas consultant, Dr Stephen ORiordan, also overlooked the abnormal blood test results and chose not to have another look at Jack.

The boy  who also had Downs syndrome and a heart condition  died on February 18, 11 hours after he was admitted to hospital. Bawa-Garba was convicted of manslaughter by gross negligence at Nottingham Crown Court and given a suspended two-year sentence.

Thousands of junior doctors believe she has been scapegoated for wider failings at her understaffed hospital

But more than 8,000 doctors have signed an open letter warning of deep-seated concerns of the implications surrounding the case of the trainee, who plans to challenge the General Medical Councils decision to strike her off.

At the same time members of the BMAs Junior Doctors Committee are instructing doctors not to report mistakes.

A source said: We have received advice to no longer record, document or share any mistakes we make in our practice for fear of litigation and loss of medical license.

The culture of openness with emphasis on learning from our mistakes has  in one judgment  been set back a decade to an era of secrecy.

Other junior doctors have taken to social media websites to warn of the consequences of being honest.

Dr Kaanthan Jawahar, a junior doctor specialising in old-age psychiatry in Nottingham, wrote on Twitter: Your employer will scapegoat you for systemic failures. Your seniors will throw you under the bus.

Jack's mum Nicola (pictured right) said she was glad the doctor has been struck off

Mr Hunt wrote on Twitter this week: Reflective practice is at the heart of improving patient safety so it is vital doctors, nurses and midwives are supported to be open and transparent about things that may have gone wrong.

Jacks mother Nicola, 44, from Leicester, said: This is not my fight any more. I got justice for my little boy. Im never going to get him back.

As far as Im concerned Im glad shes been struck off.

The GMC said yesterday it would not be reversing its decision to strike Bawa-Garba off.

Chief executive CharlieMassey said: This was a tragic case for the family of Jack Adcock, and for the doctor.

I recognise a lot of the concerns that are out there, but it is really important that we differentiate between this case where the doctor was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter, and from the everyday mistakes that can happen.Lord Mandelson thought Brexit was vandalistic and said everyone in Davos last week  my dears  had been appalled by it

Who was that vaguely familiar figure on the Labour front bench at the start of the two-day House of Lords debate on Brexit ? Good grief, it was Lord Goldsmith, the lawyer who let Tony Blair march us off to the Iraq War. Goldsmith! How does he fit into the Corbyn era?

Goldsmith! How does he fit into the Corbyn era?

We were told he had been readmitted to the Labour Lords front bench only for the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill. But could Labour really not find someone with a stronger record of advice on foreign policy?

Welcome to the House of Has-Beens, the world of walking ghosts, busybody ancients who under our daft arrangements retain an oar in our public affairs even though they long ago left the elected legislature.

One quivering old fool called for the Brexit referendum (biggest vote in our countrys history) to be ignored by the immensely more sophisticated denizens of the Palace of Westminster.

This peer was Terry Higgins, once a middle-ranking Tory MP, now the Rt Hon Lord Higgins KBE DL. I always wondered how such a Private Godfrey made it into the Lords.

Now the reason was clear: He was a pro-Brussels zealot. Referenda were not the right approach, he quavered like a Reform Club bore complaining to the steward about an iffy baked egg.

We as a Parliament have to reassert our position, he continued  and that meant telling Johnny Voter to bog off and leave politics to the grown-ups. Hear hear harrumphed his neighbour, Lord Cormack.

Lord Higgins had spent a lot of his time in Holland, he added, and they were thinking of a new law banning referenda. British parliamentarians should follow suit, he believed.

The day had begun with a prosaic precis of the Bill from the Leader of the House, Lady Evans. She has all the panache of an under-manageress at Freeman Hardy Willis but she is at least reasonably crisp.

The Chamber was initially packed, some peers being forced to stand by the doors and sit under the Throne. Lord Palumbo (Con) was there.

He hasnt spoken in the Lords since a blurted few words in 2013. Ex-judge Lord Hoffmann was on the Crossbenches. Last time he contributed to proceedings was 2010.

On the Labour benches we had infamous expenses fiddler Lady Uddin, former Blairite hard-man Lord (John) Reid and Lord Davies of Stamford, almost unrecognisable now that he has let his inky black hair go grey.

Was that architect Lord (Richard) Rogers? Jeepers. As rare a visitor as the snow leopard.

Remainer Lord Adonis (Lab), putting an amendment, quoted a minister who had said peers seemed to think their view is much more important than that of common oiks. This won a ripple of agreement. Yes, they really were saying they were more important than hoi polloi!

The debate was not all Remoaners. One of the most punchy speeches came from former Brexit minister Lord Bridges

The Lib Dem benches were bursting with their 100 peers. They included former panto dame Ronnie Fearn, Israel-basher Jenny Tonge, sometime Heseltine Tory Hugh Dykes (he seemed to be asleep) and an obscure ex-MP called Brian Cotter who is grey as a squirrel.

A complete and utter Brian. In all the years he was in the Commons, I dont think I took a single note of anything he said.

Lord Wallace of Saltaire (Lib Dem) took a swipe at unelected Daily Mail journalists. Aaargh! Nurse, Ive been hit! But Lord Wallace, who was given Frances Legion dHonneur for puffing the EU, has himself not been elected and unlike him, darn it, I cannot charge the taxpayer big wonga for my eructations.

Lord Pearson (Ukip) tried boldly to stick it up the EU but was laughed at by Labour and Lib Dems.

Pro-EU Lord Rooker (Lab) gave what sounded like a hint that he might leave his party if it does not become more Europhile.

Former Foreign Office pooh-bah Lord Hannay looked down his half-moon spectacles with buttery satisfaction as the likes of Peter Mandelson and Lib Dems leader Lord Newby predicted national disaster from Brexit.

They were trying to sow doubt that we will ever leave. Yet the Labour leader, Lady Smith, said she was not interested in a second referendum.

Lord Mandelson thought Brexit was vandalistic and said everyone in Davos last week  my dears  had been appalled by it.

He was talking about that World Economic Forum fandango in the Swiss Alps attended by billionaires, failed world leaders, lobbyists, lawyers and Sir Elton John. Peters friends.

Indian beer tycoon Lord Bilimoria also wailed that the Davos crowd felt Brexit had damaged our national standing.

Bilimoria is a name-dropper. He told the House (polish of fingernails) that he was an alumnus of Harvard Business School, that he had been standing next to the prime minister of India the other day, and that a friend of his who is a world expert had compared wretched Brexit to the events leading up to the First World War.

It is not too late to stop Brexit, he cried.

Meanwhile, Lord Krebs (Crossbencher) offered an emotive tale of a German aunt of his who had spoken of Brexit as something akin to the state of Nazi Germany in 1945.

Krebs is a scientist. Lets hope he looks at his test tubes with greater objectivity. The Bishop of Leeds, in classic vicarish voice, denounced the demonisation and the denigration and vilification that had entered politics since the Leave vote. He blamed the media.

But might that anger not flow from the country seeing its parliamentarians trying to block their express instruction to get us out of the EU?

The debate was not all Remoaners. One of the most punchy speeches came from former Brexit minister Lord Bridges, who firmly told Theresa May to stop dithering and get on with things one way or another.

Brexit-supporting peer Viscount Ridley (Con) flashed the bat wonderfully, calling the Lords this gilded, crimson echo-chamber of Remain, this neo-Jacobite hold-out for the Euro-king across the water. If peers tried to muck about with Brexit, the publics reaction would be severe. Lord Cormack grumbled at that.

Former Tory Cabinet minister Lord (Ian) Lang said that although he had voted Remain, he now looked forward to the term law of the land actually meaning something (ie, once we make those laws here rather than being given them by Brussels).

And House Of Cards writer Lord Dobbs (Con) said that if peers persisted in trying to block the peoples Brexit, it would not be long before the tumbrils rolled.Britain's former chief scientist has accused German car-makers of causing thousands of Britons' deaths after rigging diesel exhaust tests.

Sir David King said Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler have 'blood on their hands' over the experiments they undertook on monkeys and claimed that their decision to manipulate data on exhaust emissions had caused the deaths of large numbers of people in the UK.

In 2015 Volkswagen admitted to fitting cheat devices to 11 million cars worldwide that made their engines appear less polluting.

Sir David King said Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler have 'blood on their hands'

Sir David, who held the government position until 2007, said their behaviour was 'simply astonishing'.

Sir David told The Daily Telegraph: 'The number of early fatalities in Britain is really very, very large due to NOx (nitrogen oxide) air, with Governments across Europe encouraging diesel on the basis that the catalyst traps worked.

'These companies have blood on their hands - I say that without any doubt.'

His intervention comes as Thomas Steg, one of Volkswagen's most senior lobbyists, was suspended after taking 'full responsibility' for Volkswagen's involvement in the furore.

It comes after Steg was shown to have known about tests in which 10 java monkeys were locked in small cages and forced to breathe in diesel fumes from a VW Beetle for up to two hours while they watched cartoons.

The tests, carried out in 2014, were supposed to show that newer diesel technology filtered out more harmful particles than in the past.

Volkswagen has suspended its chief lobbyist Thomas Steg (pictured) amid mounting outrage over its diesel exhaust experiments on monkeys and humans

Separately, it emerged that a research group funded by VW, Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler and BMW had ordered a study in Germany measuring the effects of inhaling nitrogen dioxide on 25 human volunteers.

CEO Matthias Mueller on Monday labelled the animal testing 'wrong ... unethical and repulsive', reported Spiegel Online.

Steg had vowed in the top-selling Bild daily that 'what happened should never have happened, I regret it very much'.

He admitted that he had been informed in advance of the US monkey experiment but insisted he prevented a plan to carry these tests out on humans.

The German government has called a special meeting with the affected car companies to ask them to explain themselves.

Thomas Steg, chief lobbyist for Volkswagen, has been suspended after internal documents showed he knew about diesel exhaust tests on monkeys and let them go ahead

In Brussels, European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said the EU was 'shocked' and took note of Berlin's vow to investigate the matter, adding that 'we hope that they will'.

Greenpeace slammed 'a fraudulent auto industry and an idle German government' behind the scandal and called Steg a 'scapegoat'. The NGO said nitrogen dioxide emitted by diesel vehicles led to 10,000 premature deaths in Germany each year.

The EU Commission has summoned Germany and eight other EU countries to explain how they plan to lower toxic emissions to meet the bloc's air quality standards if they want to avoid action before the European Court of Justice.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has strongly condemned the latest controversy to engulf the nation's powerful auto industry.

Mr Steg (pictured), who is also the head of external relations and government affairs at the VW, has taken 'full responsibility' for the tests, the firm said

'These tests on monkeys or even humans are in no way ethically justified,' said Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert on Monday.

'The indignation felt by many people is completely understandable.'

All three German carmakers have scrambled to distance themselves from the research body in question - the now defunct European Research Group on Environment and Health in the Transport Sector (EUGT) - and promised to launch internal investigations.

Mueller said that 'we are in the process of scrutinising the work of the EUGT, which was dissolved in 2017, and drawing all the necessary conclusions from it.

'Mr. Steg has declared he was taking full responsibility. I respect that,' he said.

Steg had, in his comments to Bild, also addressed the German tests conducted in an institute in Aachen in 2013 and 2014, stressing that the volunteers had been exposed to 'much lower levels than those found in many workplaces' and that no-one suffered any harm.

Although it was the EUGT that commissioned both tests, the organisation itself was financed by the trio of car giants hoping its research would defend diesel's green reputation.

The car companies decided in late 2016 to dissolve the EUGT, which shut its doors last year.

Amid the controversy, Berlin's Tageszeitung daily said that 'while these experiments are doubtless scandalous, the bigger scandal is the experiment the car industry has been conducting on the wider population for decades'.

'While the monkeys and human volunteers only had to inhale exhaust fumes for a few hours, people with the misfortune to walk along arterial roads have been breathing in levels of nitrogen oxide far higher than EU limits for years.'A record one in 10 families given council or housing association homes last year were foreign nationals, according to new figures yesterday.

The numbers showed that of just under 200,000 heavily subsidised family homes in England allocated to new tenants, 19,197 went to a household headed by a non-British citizen.

The share of social housing going to foreign families has been rising since the mid-2000s, when foreign nationals took up around six in 100 new lettings, and Labour MPs in some cities began to register concern over discontent among long-established local voters.

Of just under 200,000 heavily subsidised family homes in England allocated to new tenants, 19,197 went to a household headed by a non-British citizen (stock image)

The figures led to fresh criticism yesterday of the impact of high immigration on housing and the chances for families of getting council homes.

The breakdown of social housing lettings published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government showed the one in 10 rate of homes going to foreign nationals was reached for the first time in the financial year than ended last March. The previous year, nine per cent of social homes that were newly let went to families headed by a non-UK national.

Among people moving into social housing for the first time  as opposed to those moving from another council or housing association home  12 per cent were foreign families.

The increase in social allocations to foreign nationals comes at a time of high housing costs and widespread complaints about shortages of homes. There were 1,155,285 families on waiting lists for social housing in England last year, according to official figures.

A growing share of social housing has been going to non-UK citizens despite efforts by David Camerons government to give long-term local residents a greater chance of getting a home. Mr Cameron said in March 2013 that foreigners should pay to use the NHS and the same should apply to social housing.

We cannot have a culture of something for nothing, the then Prime Minister said. New migrants should not expect to be given a home on arrival.

The rules brought in by Mr Camerons Coalition said that people should live in a neighbourhood for at least two years before they could be considered for a council house. The rules also tried to make social housing more likely to go to forces veterans or people looking for work.

However allocation systems operated by councils continue to favour people who are accepted as homeless or who are considered to be living in overcrowded or insanitary accommodation.

Yesterdays figures showed that 199,518 general needs social homes intended for ordinary families became available last year. Of these, 7,372 went to families headed by Eastern European citizens; 3,123 to families from other European Economic Area countries; and 8,702 to families headed by nationals of countries outside Europe.

The rules brought in by David Camerons Coalition said that people should live in a neighbourhood for at least two years before they could be considered for a council house

The Housing Ministry report said: The vast majority of lettings were made to UK nationals, adding that the levels of lettings to foreign nationals were broadly similar to the previous year. It said that tenants moving into general needs social rent lettings from another social housing property were slightly more likely to be UK nationals  93 per cent  than tenants new to social housing  88 per cent.

The report said that a typical social rent was 98 a week for a three-bedroom property, rising to 131 a week for a three-bedroom home in London.

The annual cost to the taxpayer for each social home is slightly over 3,500.

Kathy Gyngell, co-editor of the Conservative Woman website, said: This is so irresponsible of our politicians. The high number of migrants able to get social housing is the elephant in the room with housing.

It has a major impact on many people and a key reason why people voted for Brexit.

How many MPs live in social housing? Very few. It is questionable that most of them have any idea of the impact this has on people.The 31-year-old was arrested last week for allegedly staging Lidcombe car crash

He denied throwing the cabbie's iPhone and hitting him with an Eftpos machine

Former Auburn deputy mayor Salim Mehajer's defence team may abandon his case after he was accused of assaulting and robbing a taxi driver.

The controversial NSW businessman denies stealing the cabbie's iPhone, throwing it out of the taxi and hitting the driver with an Eftpos machine outside Sydney's Star Casino last April.

The 31-year-old appeared dressed in a suit at the Downing Centre Local Court on Wednesday, but solicitor Brett Galloway indicated he may withdraw as Mehajers lawyer from the case.

Salim Mehajer has spent a week in prison  a stark contrast to his lavish lifestyle

He denied throwing the cabbie's iPhone and hitting him with an Eftpos machine

'I've been asked to take a position which is untenable,' he told magistrate Vivien Swain.

The property developer has pleaded not guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm, larceny to a value of less than $2000, destroying or damaging property and common assault.

Mehajer has suffered a sharp fall from grace since his days as deputy mayor and his infamous wedding to Aysha Learmonth which shut down a south western Sydney street in 2015.

He was arrested on January 23 for allegedly staging a car crash and has spent seven days behind bars.

New South Wales detectives arrested Salim Mehajer (centre) on January 23 at an apartment in Vaucluse where he was living

Police claim Mehajer (pictured at the scene) staged the crash in Lidcombe in October last year in order to avoid facing court over an alleged assault on a taxi driver

Police claim Mehajer staged the crash in Lidcombe in October last year in order to avoid facing court over an alleged assault on a taxi driver.

After extensive inquires, investigators arrested Mr Mehajer at the Vaucluse home he moved into last year after splitting with his ex-wife Aysha and leasing his Lidcombe mansion for $2,950 a week.

Mr Mehajer has been charged with perverting the course of justice and conspiring to cheat and defraud, which carry maximum prison sentences of 14 years and 10 years, respectively.Tamantha Johnson, 48, is accused of posing as her husband's girlfriend and posting the advertisement on Craigslist in July last year

A Houston woman has been charged after she trolled her husband's mistress by posting an ad on Craigslist in her name that said she was seeking sex from married men.

Tamantha Johnson, 48, is accused of posing as her husband's girlfriend and posting the advertisement online in July last year.

It read that she was requesting 'married men come over and service her on a regular basis' and also included her name, age and photo.

The woman allegedly received more than 100 calls and messages from people in response to the ad.

She also was sent unwanted nude photos from some men, according to court documents.

Johnson initially denied having anything to do with the Craigslist ad, but investigators allegedly linked her to the posting.

Authorities said the ad was traced back to a computer where Johnson worked.

She allegedly later admitted that she was trying to get the woman to admit to having an affair with Johnson's husband.

Johnson and her husband, who works as a divorce attorney, filed for divorce in April last year.

The victim had been represented by Johnson's husband in her own divorce.

Johnson has been charged with online harassment and impersonation.

She is also facing other charges of harassment for a separate incident in which she threatened the same woman via text message back in August.Sunny summer days seem to be behind us for now as the country is battered with snow, cyclones and floods.

Australia is showing no signs of typical January weather as Tasmania is covered in a sprinkling of snow.

Parts of The Great Lakes received a white dusting of snow on Wednesday where Liawenee, about 147 kilometres north of Hobart, was expected to reach 11C.

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Sunny summer days seem to be behind us as parts of the country is battered with snow (pictured)

Tasmania is covered in a sprinkling of snow which Great Lake Hotel captured on camera

Parts of The Central Highlands received a white dusting of snow on Wednesday (pictured) about 147 kilometres north of Hobart

The Great Lake Hotel, in the Central Highlands - centre of Tasmania, was covered by the snow shower Wednesday morning in 'light flurries' (pictured)

Incredible photos of the summer snow were shared online as the flakes turned 4WDs and hotels white.

The Great Lake Hotel, in the Central Highlands - centre of Tasmania, was covered by the snow shower Wednesday morning in 'light flurries'.

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Meterology (BoM) issued a cyclone warning to Queensland.

There is a chance a tropical cyclone could hit just off the Queensland coast, northwest of the Coral Sea.

BoM warned the chance of a cyclone hitting offshore was moderate on Thursday and high on Friday, however it is expected to stay 'away from the Queensland coast'.

The top end of Australia has also been battered with heavy floods, contributing to the country's wild summer.

Meanwhile, the top end of Australia has also been battered with heavy floods (pictured)

Parts of Northern Territory and Western Australia were smashed with a superstorm, flooding many towns Tuesday morning (pictured)

The Bureau of Meterology has issued cyclone warnings to Queensland as a cyclone is expected to hit offshore 'away from the coast' Thursday and Friday (pictured)

Parts of Northern Territory and Western Australia were smashed with a superstorm, flooding many towns Tuesday morning.

Broome, in Western Australia, was cut off from the rest of the Kimberly region after being hit with 449mm of rain in 24 hours.

The Northern Territory was drowned with 500mm of rain over three days where 280 people had to be flown by helicopter to an evacuation centre in Darwin.

BoM issued a major flood warning for the Daly River as it continues to rise and minor flood warnings for the Katherine River and McArthur River in the Northern Territory.

The wild weather come as Sydney cools off from enduring the most humid week in 15 years.The middle-class backgrounds of the hard-Left student mob who stormed a Churchill-themed cafe can be revealed today.

A junior doctor, the son of a headmistress with an OBE and the daughter of an academic were among the 14 activists who protested on Saturday.

Staff  who include Jewish and Muslim workers  say they were terrified when the demonstrators burst in to the Blighty UK cafe shouting Marxist slogans and denouncing Britains wartime leader as a racist.

The students, who were led by members of Londons School of African Studies (SOAS), were later accused of behaving like fascist thugs themselves for their heavy-handed behaviour.

Halimo Hussein (left) seemed to be leading the chants and kept repeating 'we have nothing to lose but our chains'

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson condemned their actions on Saturday and said that Jeremy Corbyn should 'denounce' the group

They were branded puerile and ignorant for denouncing the man who saved Britain from fascism.

But their students union simply issued a statement of solidarity with Halimo Hussein, who led the protest in Finsbury Park, North London.

The widely mocked statement posted on the unions Facebook page even branded Churchill a war criminal.

It said: The protest involved reading out sections of Heathcote Williams poem Great Britains Greatest Beast followed by chanting Churchill was a racist.

The cafe exercises a concerted historical amnesia of British colonialism, which is offensive to those who continue to experience institutional racism.

The protest was targeted at the owner, calling for them to change the decorations and imagery of the cafes  and to the customer to boycott until the owner takes these actions.

The statement also denounced reports in the Press  including the Daily Mail  about the demonstration.

The group read from scripts as they urged customers inside the packed cafe to boycott the Blighty UK

It added: The SOAS students union continues to fight against colonialism and all manifestations of it.

'We echo the protesters in their statement on Saturday, You will never make colonialism palatable.

The union also said one of its educational priorities this year was to decolonise the education and the institution.

Protester Nisha Phillips, who shared the statement on Facebook, is an officer in the student union.

Her mother Sango Mahanty is listed as an associate professor of the Australian National University in Canberra.

A giant mural of Winston Churchill was daubed with graffiti which branded the prime minister 'scum'

Halimo Hussein (centre) led the chants inside the packed cafe on Saturday and repeatedly shouted: 'We have nothing to lose but our chains'

Earlier this month, the academic praised her daughters passion for justice on Facebook.

Also taking part were Hamish Anderson, who grew up in a 700,000 home in Northumberland.

His mother, a headmistress, was awarded the OBE. Activist Timesh Pillay, 28, is a junior doctor who works at a hospital in West London.

After the protest, police attended the cafe, which boasts a life-size Churchill figure, Union Flags, model Spitfires and a World War II air raid shelter, and viewed a video of the demonstration.

She also uploaded this photograph of Jeremy Corbyn and wrote online: 'The moment we found out Jeremy was elected. The look on the rest of their faces has made my day

HOW NAZIS CRUSHED UNIVERSITIES If Britain had lost the war, university students would most likely be forced to parrot Nazi propaganda or face arrest  and even death. Undergraduates would have to be fully-fledged members of the Hitler Youth, or be kicked off campus. Thanks to victory under Churchill, they are now free to express their opinions. History shows how freedom of thought was crushed under Nazi rule. Respected German universities were reduced to little more than Hitler fan clubs with curriculums and textbooks re-written to include Nazi political and racial ideas. Any lecturers who were Jewish, known liberals or Social Democrats were sacked. When Hitler came to power in 1933, there were 127,820 students. By 1939 it had fallen to 58,325. University rectors gained total power if they followed Nazi ideology. Those professors who didnt toe the party line were sacked. History was taught as a subject simply to glorify Germany and there was a concentration on physical fitness. Girls were taught cookery, boys did science and maths  and the Hitler Youth was compulsory. The achievements of Jewish figures were either ignored or derided. A resistance group called the White Rose movement formed  but the Gestapo arrested them all in 1943 and many were sentenced to death or jail following show trials. Advertisement

Cafe owner Chris Evans said yesterday: Behind the counter we have Jewish English girls, a Muslim Turk and an Australian... When they walk in and scare them, its real people they are scaring.

They should email with their concerns, not jump on the bandwagon.

'The strange thing about the ringleader is she used to be a customer.

Mr Evans said he was trying to contact the people leading the protests, adding: I want to talk to them about what it means to live in modern day Blighty and how can we celebrate our history and be respectful to the multicultural society. Theyre students, they should be able to debate.

The cafe's signature dish is 'The Winston' - a traditional full English breakfast with Cumberland sausage and Yorkshire black pudding

Nine protesters stormed the cafe in north London on the weekend and were heard chanting 'Churchill was a racist'

Boris Johnson (pictured) said that the group launched a 'disgraceful attack on our finest ever wartime leader' and described them as a 'hard-left mob'

He has already scrapped a giant mural of Churchill after it was repeatedly daubed with graffiti branding the wartime prime minister scum, a warmonger and imperialist in apparently unrelated protests.

Cafe manager Kamuran Tekin, 36, who is from Turkey, added: No one has complained before. I knew [Churchill] was a war hero. We celebrate the Commonwealth.

The student union statement was ridiculed online. Tim Rigby said: Do you morons realise youd have no right to protest without Churchill?

A group of protesters stormed the cafe and sang it is our duty to fight for our freedom

One of the diners said that Churchill fought for the UK's freedom which resulted in the group chanting: 'Churchill was a racist'

Ms Hussein (pictured with Russell Brand in 2017) is a student at the School of Oriental and African Studies University of London

Ms Hussein (right) left a scathing online review of the cafe which read: 'Bland breakfasts and awful watery tasting coffee'

Joseph Rutter accused the protesters of behaving like fascist thugs themselves.

Ironically Jeremy Corbyn has himself been a customer at the cafe, and even been pictured beside its owner.

Yesterday Tory MP Jack Lopresti treated two of his assistants to the cafes Winston full English breakfast in a show of solidarity with staff.

He told MailOnline: I wanted to support [the cafe] and sample what they have.

'I think the place is great. Sir Winston Churchill is a hero of mine  he deserves our respect and gratitude.

Junior doctor and school head's son in rabble's ranks

1. Dimitri Cautain

Dimitri Cautain (far left) is an officer for welfare and campaigns in the student union, and uses the alias Tain Caut on his Facebook page and posts rambling, pretentious poems on his blog

The social anthropology and politics student at the School of Oriental and African Studies University (SOAS) boasts online that he is passionate about social justice.

In one image he is seen pushing a police van and once said in union hustings material that he could be found playing volleyball, crocheting, painting, marching and pushing cops off campus!

In a previous manifesto he wrote: I passionately oppose any injustice, power hierarchies, oppression and exclusion perpetuated by the status quo.

The undergraduate, an officer for welfare and campaigns in the student union, uses the alias Tain Caut on his Facebook page and posts rambling, pretentious poems on his blog.

2. Halimo Hussein

A group of protesters stormed the cafe and sang it is our duty to fight for our freedom

A leader of the cafe protest, the politics student believes taxpayers should fund her disruptive lifestyle.

The 24-year-old has vowed to live and embody the spirit of the #RobThisEngland anarchist group, which tries to avoid paying back loans for tuition fees or TV licences. Miss Hussein, whose family was given refuge in Britain from war-torn Somalia, was born in Ealing, west London, in 1993.

She is understood to live at the family home with her twin brother and mother.

She studied at William Morris Sixth Form in Hammersmith, west London, and is now a third-year politics student at SOAS.

An avid fan of Jeremy Corbyn and millionaire comic Russell Brand, she claimed David Camerons 2015 general election victory meant another five years of austerity, snaking the poor, students, migrants etc. She was elected co-president of equality and liberation by her fellow students and declared, I f***ing won! when the news was announced. Her Facebook page declares, No Tories on my profile, and she passionately campaigns for decolonialisation of her university.

In one contorted argument, she says universities and prisons both sort society into the desirables and undesirables. Elsewhere, she calls the Governments Prevent strategy  which aims to stop students being drawn into terrorism  a hostile policy which has no place on our campus.

Miss Hussein tried to add insult to injury after the cafe protest by leaving it a scathing online review which read: Bland breakfasts and awful watery tasting coffee, toilets filthy.

3. Hamish Anderson

Since moving to London to study music and history at SOAS, Hamish Anderson has been an active member of the student union and a keen Labour supporter.

Describing himself as an active and angry voice, the student grew up in a 720,000 home in rural Northumberland, where his mother Maggie is the headmistress of a junior school and has been awarded the OBE.

Since moving to London to study music and history at SOAS he has been an active member of the student union and a keen Labour supporter.

He has been pictured alongside the capitals Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan. During his canvassing for the position of campaigns officer, he wrote: I have been involved with many forms of activism and campaigns both before and since being at SOAS.

Notably Ive been involved in occupations, protests, petitions, negotiations, unions and co-ops from environmental issues to social injustice issues.

4. Timesh Pillay

Timesh Pillay (left) is a 28-year-old junior doctor working in a west London hospital who studied medicine at University College London (UCL)

The 28-year-old is a junior doctor working in a west London hospital who studied medicine at University College London (UCL). Dr Pillay, who lives in South London, has researched epidemiology at the faculty of medical services at UCL and has published several papers. He went to the countrys leading selective grammar, The Latymer School in Edmonton, North London, and now lives in a house worth 700,000. The junior doctor is a member of Docs Not Cops, which campaigns against the introduction of passport checks across patients in the NHS.

He has actively protested against the policy and written on the subject in Prospect Magazine and the British Medical Journal.

5. Nisha Phillips

Pictured: Nisha Phillips

The undergraduate grew up in a middle class suburb of the Australian capital, Canberra  where her mother, Sango Mahanty, is an associate professor in human geography at the Australian National University.

Earlier this month, the academic gushed on Facebook about her 22-year daughters energy for life and passion for justice.

Since moving to Britain to study at SOAS, Miss Phillips has been pictured on social media with Jeremy Corbyn at a demonstration against the Governments policy on refugees.

A frequent protester, she is also pictured online holding a placard reading: For those whove come from the seas weve boundless plains to share.

She is the SOAS student union officer for democracy and education.Ministers are under growing pressure to disclose how many British jihadis who have returned from Syria have been prosecuted amid fears hundreds are roaming free on UK streets.

The Home Office has repeatedly refused to publish its latest figures showing how many returnees have faced UK courts, claiming it does not hold the data.

This is despite the fact that in 2016, the department was able to reveal how one in eight jihadists who had travelled to Syria and Iraq had been prosecuted on their return to the UK.

Last night politicians urged the Government to come clean on the numbers ahead of a debate on the issue of returnees in the Commons today (Weds).

Labour MP John Woodcock, who called for the debate, said the Governments failure to disclose the figures heightened fears only a fraction have been prosecuted.

Labour MP John Woodcock, who called for the debate, said the Governments failure to disclose the figures on how many British jihadis had been prosecuted on their return heightened fears only a fraction have been prosecuted

He said: The Governments refusal is heightening fears that it has only been possible to amass sufficient admissible evidence against a fraction, despite there being no other credible explanation for their visit.

Instead of hiding behind tough talk, the Government should come clean over the number of terror suspects who are being allowed to go free when they return to the UK because there isnt enough hard evidence to prosecute.

Some 850 UK citizens are believed to have travelled from the UK to warzones in Syria and Iraq. Around 400 of those have come back to Britain.

In May 2016 the Home Office responded to a parliamentary question about the number of prosecutions of returning jihadists.

The Home Office, led by Home Secretary Amber Rudd, (pictured in Downing Street) has repeatedly refused to publish its latest figures showing how many returnees have faced UK courts, claiming it does not hold the data

Lord Keen of Elie revealed that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had only successfully prosecuted 35 cases involving 54 such defendants.

He said 13 prosecutions involving 30 defendants were ongoing, and that the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland was also dealing with one case.

But since those figures were published, the Home Office has refused requests by the Daily Mail to reveal the updated figure.

Responding to Lib Dem Sir Ed Davey in October last year, security minister Ben Wallace said: The Home Office Statistical Bulletin publishes data about convictions quarterly but does not distinguish those which relate to Syria and Daesh. He said official figures do not show how many were Syria or Daesh related.

It is understood many of the returnees have not been prosecuted because there is not enough evidence, or in some cases because it is claimed they were women and children forced to travel to the war zone. Those who return are monitored by the security services to some degree.

Mr Woodcock thinks the Government should create an Australian style law making it an offence to travel to war zones without a good excuse.

He added: It is time to turn the tables on the terrorists by considering making it an offence to travel to designated terror hot spots without a verifiable excuse.

Under Australias declared areas offence, Australian citizens have faced a ten year jail term if they go to Iraq or Syria during the conflict with Daesh.

Thats exactly the approach the government should examine to strengthen our weak laws if it is serious about doing whatever is necessary to keep the public safe.Under-fire Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson didn't warn his office fling he was going public with their affair, according to the woman's mother.

The Tory minister admitted the liaison 14 years ago with a former colleague and said he left his job as a manager at Elgin and Hall in Yorkshire in 2004 after the incident.

Last week Williamson, 41, talked publicly about the tryst, but the woman - a mother-of-one - was never made aware of his decision to tell the world.

It has left her 'shocked and upset, her mother said.

Gavin Williamson, pictured with his wife Joanne, said last week he amicably left his job at a fireplace company but new claims have put him under renewed pressure

Williamson was above his fling in the pecking order at the Yorkshire company, and her mother told The Sun her daughter was 'a grown woman' and was 'dealing with it'.

On Monday, Theresa May backed her Defence Secretary, saying it was a private matter for him and his family to deal with and that she had 'full confidence' in him.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: 'This pre-dates the period when the Defence Secretary was either an MP or a minister, so it is a private matter.

'I don't have anything further to add in relation to this.'

While Williamson said he walked away from the company at which he worked with his former lover, his allies have hit back at claims he was sacked.

They are insisting he was offered another post at the company but chose to leave for the sake of his family.

Theresa May (pictured in Downing Street) on Monday backed her under-fire Defence Secretary after he admitted having an affair with a former colleague - saying it is a private matter

Gavin Williamson (pictured heading to a Brexit war Cabinet at No10 this morning) left his job at the Yorkshire-based fireplace firm in 2004 after having an affair with a younger colleague. He has denied he was sacked - with allies briefing that he was offered another job of equal rank but decided to turn it down

Mr Williamson, a married father of two, has come under pressure since news of the affair first broke last week.

He reportedly bombarded the woman with flowers as he tried to pursue the romance and she was seen in tears when she told bosses about it.

And he was accused of leaking confidential information to distract from the bad headlines after he gave an interview warning of Russia's ability to disrupt Britain's power supply would cause 'thousands and thousands of deaths'.

But the married father-of-two has mounted a fightback against his critics - insisting he was not sacked over the fling.

A friend of Mr Williamson hit back at rumours he was axed from the job and insisted the Yorkshire-based firm offered him another job of equal rank - but decided to turn it down.

The scandal has dealt what might be a mortal blow to the married father-of-two's hopes of being Theresa May's successor and inheriting the Tory leadership.

A friend told The Times rumours that Mr Williamson had been kicked out of the Yorkshire-based fireplace company - a subsidiary of Aga - were plain wrong.

They said: 'They ended it on a Friday and both said it couldn't go on. On the Monday Gavin decided he didn't want to stay at the company.

'He was offered the job of operations director to stay. There was no disciplinary process.'

Mr Williamson told The Mail last week how he had betrayed his wife by having an office romance with the junior employee in 2004 and left his job as managing director of Elgin and Hall 'almost immediately' and on 'amicable terms'.

The issue came to a head in the summer of 2004 when the woman told her direct line manager about her working relationship with Mr Williamson, according to The Guardian.

Mr Williamson insisted the romance never went beyond sharing a couple of kisses - despite reports he 'bombarded' her with flowers as he tried to pursue the relationship.

A meeting was held to discuss the problem with senior executives from parent company Aga Foodservice Group and Mr Williamson then left the company, it was claimed.

In his account, Mr Williamson had given the impression he made the decision to leave himself.

He said after confessing the office fling to his wife Joanne, 'going back to work afterwards it could never feel the same as every day would remind me that I had let down the person I love more than anything.'

The fresh claims raise questions about Mr Williamson's version of events and senior Tories are warning he will be 'toast' if his story unravels.

An ex-employee said: ''He had the hots for this woman and regularly sent her flowers. He had a big Jaguar which he got other people to drive while he sat there waxing lyrical about the Tory party.'

Mr Williamson, a firm ally of Theresa May (pictured), has always said that the affair was a mistake and stopped as 'suddenly as it started' but critics believe it has dealt a mortal blow to his chances of being the next Tory leader

Another claimed the woman was seen in tears having reported an 'incident' to her manager and there were questions as to whether he faced disciplinary procedures before leaving the firm.

A former manager, who also spoke anonymously, recalled: 'I came to work one day and saw the woman going into the operation manager's office.

'She was very upset and her colleagues were comforting her. She was very tearful and was in there a long time.

'It was obvious something very stressful was going on.'

The scandal comes as Mrs May is facing a fresh battle to cling on as leader amid growing signs of discontent in her party ranks.

Grant Shapps, a Tory MP and former party chairman, has demanded the PM set a date for her departure, while Tory MP Robert Halfon likened the Government to a 'tortoise' and urged Mrs May to be bolder.When my grandfather set off for World War II, he was a handsome young officer in his prime, the spitting image of Gregory Peck.

He returned a very different person, haunted by what hed seen. Like countless others who fought to safeguard the freedom of this country, he never truly found peace again. He survived the bullets only to drink himself to death.

Were he alive today I wonder what he would make of his legacy  todays generation of young people for whom he sacrificed his health, happiness and, ultimately, his sanity. Part of me is very glad hes not. Because I fear he would think his efforts wasted.

A group of sneering students took it upon themselves to intimidate staff and customers at a Winston Churchill themed cafe (pictured) in north London

Certainly if young people like Andy Cuff are anything to go by.

Cuff, 22, took to social media in support of a group of sneering students who this weekend took it upon themselves to intimidate staff and customers at a Winston Churchill themed cafe in Finsbury Park, North London, describing anyone who supports the wartime Prime Minister as narcissistic, self-conceited [a new phrase on me!], uneducated fascist scum.

It is our duty to fight for freedom, they chanted. Ah, freedom. You already have freedom, dears. Otherwise you wouldnt be there, with your stupid Citizen Smith berets and silly hashtags.

Weve nothing to lose but our chains, bleated a fellow protester, Halimo Hussein, a student at the School of Oriental and African Studies University of London. She more than anyone should have recognised the absurdity of this statement: her family are Somali refugees.

The group read from scripts as they urged customers inside the packed cafe to boycott it

Halimo Hussein (left) kept repeating 'we have nothing to lose but our chains'

Thanks to what she terms Britains colonialist oppression, they were able to flee a country torn apart by civil war and ruled by Islamic militants who kill and torture their own people with impunity.

Of course, no one remotely expects people like Halimo to spend their lives saying thank you. But it might be nice if she hadnt actively decided to dedicate her life to trashing the history of her adoptive country.

But this attitude is typical of so many young people now. People who see the world from a uniquely privileged perspective and who, instead of counting themselves as the luckiest generation in history, join the ranks of the perpetually peeved, seeking offence where it simply does not exist.

Protester Dimitri Cautain (far left) is an officer for welfare and campaigns in the student union

You see it everywhere, from gender politics to animal welfare. Take the poor trainee farmer from Northumberland who spoke out on the BBCs Victoria Derbyshire Show about the abuse and death threats she has received from militant vegans.

Aside from the irony of people who profess to cherish all living things threatening to kill fellow humans, its a pattern of behaviour becoming all too familiar. Young people getting themselves in a terrible lather about things that dont matter at all  while ignoring the things that really do.

Because lets face it, mounting a protest against a Churchill-themed cafe or trolling some poor farmer is not exactly the stuff folk heroes are made of, is it? Were not protesting against the Vietnam War here, or nuclear disarmament, pit closures or the poll tax.

Nine protesters stormed the cafe in London and were heard chanting 'Churchill was a racist'

Not THAT there arent plenty of worthwhile causes to espouse. To the protesters who took to the streets in Tehran recently, for example, or those who dare challenge the likes of Putin, this behaviour would seem laughable if it werent so tragic. And insulting.

But then what do you expect from a generation that has never had to want for anything? Whose idea of injustice is a slow broadband speed, or an unripe avocado on their toast.

They really dont know theyre born. Like the spoilt second or third- generation children of self-made men, they have no idea of the gargantuan efforts it took their ancestors to get here. Of the sacrifices made in order to give them a brighter future.

All they know how to do is squander the legacy and, through their ignorance and arrogance, insult the memory of far better men and women.

My secret wish for Beyonce's girl

I must confess I feel some sympathy for Blue Ivy, six-year-old daughter of rapper Jay-Z and Beyonce, caught on camera telling her parents to shush at the Grammy Awards on Sunday night.

Its bad enough to have been saddled with such a ridiculous name, but she also has to bear the ignominy of her mother leaving home wearing only half a dress.

Wouldnt it be delicious if, instead of turning into just another car-crash celebrity brat, little Blue Ivy ended up becoming an accountant and voting Republican?

Sarah Vine confesses she feels some sympathy for Beyonce's daughter Blue Ivy who was caught on camera telling her parents to shush at the Grammy Awards on Sunday

So Kate's not so perfect after all

Those of us waking pasty-faced and frizzy-haired on the last day of the longest January in living memory (well, since last year) will take heart at the notion that it doesnt all come naturally to the Duchess of Cambridge either, after her stylist Amanda Cook Tucker revealed the tools of her trade on social media.

Given 13 brushes, seven combs and three sets of curling tongs, not to mention the services of the redoubtable Cook Tucker, most women could look half-decent in the mornings, too.

As Britain's first feminist Princess-in-waiting, it follows that Meghan Markle should be planning to give a speech at her wedding. Personally, I cannot think of anything worse. Its stressful enough getting married without adding another cause for worry  and besides, when it comes to making a complete fool of oneself in front of a room of important people, surely that is a task only a man can adequately perform?

As the next round of Brexit talks looms, the civil service Twitter feed releases this nugget: Cabinet Office to draw up policies to support staff with caring responsibilities. So glad to see them getting their priorities right.

Beyonce, Rihanna and Kim Kardashian wave their breasts in everyones faces and its considered to be empowering.

Ordinary girls making a living from holding up signs in swimsuits at darts matches is demeaning  or at least thats what some TV broadcasters have decided in the wake of the Presidents Club scandal. People, make up your mind: feminism is not a supermarket pick n mix.

Ordinary girls making a living from holding up signs in swimsuits at darts matches is demeaning  or at least thats what some TV broadcasters have decided in the wake of the Presidents Club scandal

Yasmin, you're a real role model

Just a few years ago, the idea that a woman like model Yasmin Le Bon, 53, would have even owned up to going through the menopause, let alone speak openly about how it has affected her physically and mentally would have seemed impossible.

The fact that she can share her experiences without fear of being mocked or sidelined speaks volumes about how older women are now accepted. And that is a message so much more powerful than any vapid hashtag or virtue-signalling awards speech.

Spare our MPs this humiliation

If, as reported at the weekend, MPs are forced to attend compulsory sexual consent classes, I shall be urging my husband to hang up his hat rather than submit to such treatment.

I cannot imagine anything more insulting for the vast majority of MPs who are perfectly capable of behaving themselves in the company of the opposite sex than being subjected to some sort of thought re-education process.

And all for what? To calm the shrill hysterics of a minority of women who, quite frankly, are becoming an embarrassment to their sex.

I agree with equal pay for women. But sometimes just winning the argument is enough. In the case of the BBC women  already earning higher than normal salaries  surely it would be better to draw a line under past mistakes and move on rather than cripple the Corporation with lawsuits and claims for backdated salaries?The sister of an Australian man facing 10 years in Bali's notorious Kerobokan prison has said her brother is mentally ill.

Joshua James Baker, 33, from Mount Isa in Queensland, was caught with 28 grams of marijuana mixed with tobacco and 37 Diazepam pills in October 2017.

Mr Baker was arrested at Nghurah Rai airport and is on trial charged with importing the drugs into Indonesia.

The sister of an Australian man (pictured) facing 10 years in Bali's notorious Kerobokan prison has said her brother is mentally ill

Joshua James Baker (pictured), 33, from Mount Isa in Queensland, was caught with 28 grams of marijuana mixed with tobacco and 37 Diazepam pills in October 2017

Mr Baker (pictured) was arrested at Nghurah Rai airport and is on trial charged with importing the drugs into Indonesia

His sister, who declined to be named, said Mr Baker had the drugs to treat a mental illness he has had since he was eight years, ABC News reported.

'We hope the judges and the prosecutor can see and acknowledge the severity of Joshua's disease,' she said.

'His case is just unique and unprecedented and there has not been any cases like this. He's such an insane person.'

Mr Baker's lawyer Maya Arsanthi has said her client is not fit to stand trial, and demanded he be released to a mental hospital.

His sister, who declined to be named, said Mr Baker (pictured) had the drugs to treat a mental illness he has had since he was eight years

Mr Baker's lawyer Maya Arsanthi has said her client is not fit to stand trial, and demanded he be released to a mental hospital (pictured is marijuana allegedly possessed by Mr Baker)

Mr Baker is dependent on the Diazepam (pictured), an anti-anxiety drug, as he has severe depression and is bipolar, his lawyer said

Mr Baker is dependent on the Diazepam, an anti-anxiety drug, as he has severe depression and is bipolar, she said.

If convicted Mr Baker could face ten to 12 years inside a Bali jail, but a sentence of one or two years is more likely.

The Mount Isa man evaded Balinese police for 10 hours by allegedly escaping through a toilet window while they watched television after he was detained.

He then took a taxi to a fake home address to throw off Indonesian authorities but was tracked down by police and has been in Kerobokan jail since then.Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, the First Lady of the United States, and my fellow Americans:

Less than 1 year has passed since I first stood at this podium, in this majestic chamber, to speak on behalf of the American People -- and to address their concerns, their hopes, and their dreams. That night, our new Administration had already taken swift action. A new tide of optimism was already sweeping across our land.

Each day since, we have gone forward with a clear vision and a righteous mission -- to make America great again for all Americans.

Over the last year, we have made incredible progress and achieved extraordinary success. We have faced challenges we expected, and others we could never have imagined. We have shared in the heights of victory and the pains of hardship. We endured floods and fires and storms. But through it all, we have seen the beauty of America's soul, and the steel in America's spine.

Each test has forged new American heroes to remind us who we are, and show us what we can be.

We saw the volunteers of the "Cajun Navy," racing to the rescue with their fishing boats to save people in the aftermath of a devastating hurricane.

We saw strangers shielding strangers from a hail of gunfire on the Las Vegas strip.

We heard tales of Americans like Coast Guard Petty Officer Ashlee Leppert, who is here tonight in the gallery with Melania. Ashlee was aboard one of the first helicopters on the scene in Houston during Hurricane Harvey. Through 18 hours of wind and rain, Ashlee braved live power lines and deep water, to help save more than 40 lives. Thank you, Ashlee.

We heard about Americans like firefighter David Dahlberg. He is here with us too. David faced down walls of flame to rescue almost 60 children trapped at a California summer camp threatened by wildfires.

To everyone still recovering in Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, California, and everywhere else -- we are with you, we love you, and we will pull through together.

Some trials over the past year touched this chamber very personally. With us tonight is one of the toughest people ever to serve in this House -- a guy who took a bullet, almost died, and was back to work three and a half months later: the legend from Louisiana, Congressman Steve Scalise.

We are incredibly grateful for the heroic efforts of the Capitol Police Officers, the Alexandria Police, and the doctors, nurses, and paramedics who saved his life, and the lives of many others in this room.

In the aftermath of that terrible shooting, we came together, not as Republicans or Democrats, but as representatives of the people. But it is not enough to come together only in times of tragedy. Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve.

Over the last year, the world has seen what we always knew: that no people on Earth are so fearless, or daring, or determined as Americans. If there is a mountain, we climb it. If there is a frontier, we cross it. If there is a challenge, we tame it. If there is an opportunity, we seize it.

So let us begin tonight by recognizing that the state of our Union is strong because our people are strong.

And together, we are building a safe, strong, and proud America.

Since the election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs, including 200,000 new jobs in manufacturing alone. After years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages.

Unemployment claims have hit a 45-year low. African-American unemployment stands at the lowest rate ever recorded, and Hispanic American unemployment has also reached the lowest levels in history.

Small business confidence is at an all-time high. The stock market has smashed one record after another, gaining $8 trillion in value. That is great news for Americans' 401k, retirement, pension, and college savings accounts.

And just as I promised the American people from this podium 11 months ago, we enacted the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history.

Our massive tax cuts provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small businesses.

To lower tax rates for hardworking Americans, we nearly doubled the standard deduction for everyone. Now, the first $24,000 earned by a married couple is completely tax-free. We also doubled the child tax credit.

A typical family of four making $75,000 will see their tax bill reduced by $2,000 -- slashing their tax bill in half.

This April will be the last time you ever file under the old broken system -- and millions of Americans will have more take-home pay starting next month.

We eliminated an especially cruel tax that fell mostly on Americans making less than $50,000 a year -- forcing them to pay tremendous penalties simply because they could not afford government-ordered health plans. We repealed the core of disastrous Obamacare -- the individual mandate is now gone.

We slashed the business tax rate from 35 percent all the way down to 21 percent, so American companies can compete and win against anyone in the world. These changes alone are estimated to increase average family income by more than $4,000.

Small businesses have also received a massive tax cut, and can now deduct 20 percent of their business income.

Here tonight are Steve Staub and Sandy Keplinger of Staub Manufacturing -- a small business in Ohio. They have just finished the best year in their 20-year history. Because of tax reform, they are handing out raises, hiring an additional 14 people, and expanding into the building next door.

One of Staub's employees, Corey Adams, is also with us tonight. Corey is an all-American worker. He supported himself through high school, lost his job during the 2008 recession, and was later hired by Staub, where he trained to become a welder. Like many hardworking Americans, Corey plans to invest his taxcut raise into his new home and his two daughters' education. Please join me in congratulating Corey.

Since we passed tax cuts, roughly 3 million workers have already gotten tax cut bonuses -- many of them thousands of dollars per worker. Apple has just announced it plans to invest a total of $350 billion in America, and hire another 20,000 workers.

This is our new American moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American Dream.

So to every citizen watching at home tonight -- no matter where you have been, or where you come from, this is your time. If you work hard, if you believe in yourself, if you believe in America, then you can dream anything, you can be anything, and together, we can achieve anything.

Tonight, I want to talk about what kind of future we are going to have, and what kind of Nation we are going to be. All of us, together, as one team, one people, and one American family.

We all share the same home, the same heart, the same destiny, and the same great American flag.

Together, we are rediscovering the American way.

In America, we know that faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, are the center of the American life. Our motto is "in God we trust."

And we celebrate our police, our military, and our amazing veterans as heroes who deserve our total and unwavering support.

Here tonight is Preston Sharp, a 12-year-old boy from Redding, California, who noticed that veterans' graves were not marked with flags on Veterans Day. He decided to change that, and started a movement that has now placed 40,000 flags at the graves of our great heroes. Preston: a job well done.

Young patriots like Preston teach all of us about our civic duty as Americans. Preston's reverence for those who have served our Nation reminds us why we salute our flag, why we put our hands on our hearts for the pledge of allegiance, and why we proudly stand for the national anthem.

Americans love their country. And they deserve a Government that shows them the same love and loyalty in return.

For the last year we have sought to restore the bonds of trust between our citizens and their Government.

Working with the Senate, we are appointing judges who will interpret the Constitution as written, including a great new Supreme Court Justice, and more circuit court judges than any new administration in the history of our country.

We are defending our Second Amendment, and have taken historic actions to protect religious liberty.

And we are serving our brave veterans, including giving our veterans choice in their healthcare decisions. Last year, the Congress passed, and I signed, the landmark VA Accountability Act. Since its passage, my Administration has already removed more than 1,500 VA employees who failed to give our veterans the care they deserve -- and we are hiring talented people who love our vets as much as we do.

I will not stop until our veterans are properly taken care of, which has been my promise to them from the very beginning of this great journey.

All Americans deserve accountability and respect -- and that is what we are giving them. So tonight, I call on the Congress to empower every Cabinet Secretary with the authority to reward good workers -- and to remove Federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.

In our drive to make Washington accountable, we have eliminated more regulations in our first year than any administration in history.

We have ended the war on American Energy -- and we have ended the war on clean coal. We are now an exporter of energy to the world.

In Detroit, I halted Government mandates that crippled America's autoworkers -- so we can get the Motor City revving its engines once again.

Many car companies are now building and expanding plants in the United States -- something we have not seen for decades. Chrysler is moving a major plant from Mexico to Michigan; Toyota and Mazda are opening up a plant in Alabama. Soon, plants will be opening up all over the country. This is all news Americans are unaccustomed to hearing -- for many years, companies and jobs were only leaving us. But now they are coming back.

Exciting progress is happening every day.

To speed access to breakthrough cures and affordable generic drugs, last year the FDA approved more new and generic drugs and medical devices than ever before in our history.

We also believe that patients with terminal conditions should have access to experimental treatments that could potentially save their lives.

People who are terminally ill should not have to go from country to country to seek a cure -- I want to give them a chance right here at home. It is time for the Congress to give these wonderful Americans the "right to try."

One of my greatest priorities is to reduce the price of prescription drugs. In many other countries, these drugs cost far less than what we pay in the United States. That is why I have directed my Administration to make fixing the injustice of high drug prices one of our top priorities. Prices will come down.

America has also finally turned the page on decades of unfair trade deals that sacrificed our prosperity and shipped away our companies, our jobs, and our Nation's wealth.

The era of economic surrender is over.

From now on, we expect trading relationships to be fair and to be reciprocal.

We will work to fix bad trade deals and negotiate new ones.

And we will protect American workers and American intellectual property, through strong enforcement of our trade rules.

As we rebuild our industries, it is also time to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure.

America is a nation of builders. We built the Empire State Building in just 1 year -- is it not a disgrace that it can now take 10 years just to get a permit approved for a simple road?

I am asking both parties to come together to give us the safe, fast, reliable, and modern infrastructure our economy needs and our people deserve.

Tonight, I am calling on the Congress to produce a bill that generates at least $1.5 trillion for the new infrastructure investment we need.

Every Federal dollar should be leveraged by partnering with State and local governments and, where appropriate, tapping into private sector investment -- to permanently fix the infrastructure deficit.

Any bill must also streamline the permitting and approval process -- getting it down to no more than two years, and perhaps even one.

Together, we can reclaim our building heritage. We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways across our land. And we will do it with American heart, American hands, and American grit.

We want every American to know the dignity of a hard day's work. We want every child to be safe in their home at night. And we want every citizen to be proud of this land that we love.

We can lift our citizens from welfare to work, from dependence to independence, and from poverty to prosperity.

As tax cuts create new jobs, let us invest in workforce development and job training. Let us open great vocational schools so our future workers can learn a craft and realize their full potential. And let us support working families by supporting paid family leave.

As America regains its strength, this opportunity must be extended to all citizens. That is why this year we will embark on reforming our prisons to help former inmates who have served their time get a second chance.

Struggling communities, especially immigrant communities, will also be helped by immigration policies that focus on the best interests of American workers and American families.

For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities. They have allowed millions of low-wage workers to compete for jobs and wages against the poorest Americans. Most tragically, they have caused the loss of many innocent lives.

Here tonight are two fathers and two mothers: Evelyn Rodriguez, Freddy Cuevas, Elizabeth Alvarado, and Robert Mickens. Their two teenage daughters -- Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens -- were close friends on Long Island. But in September 2016, on the eve of Nisa's 16th Birthday, neither of them came home. These two precious girls were brutally murdered while walking together in their hometown. Six members of the savage gang MS-13 have been charged with Kayla and Nisa's murders. Many of these gang members took advantage of glaring loopholes in our laws to enter the country as unaccompanied alien minors - and wound up in Kayla and Nisa's high school.

Evelyn, Elizabeth, Freddy, and Robert: Tonight, everyone in this chamber is praying for you. Everyone in America is grieving for you. And 320 million hearts are breaking for you. We cannot imagine the depth of your sorrow, but we can make sure that other families never have to endure this pain.

Tonight, I am calling on the Congress to finally close the deadly loopholes that have allowed MS-13, and other criminals, to break into our country. We have proposed new legislation that will fix our immigration laws, and support our ICE and Border Patrol Agents, so that this cannot ever happen again.

The United States is a compassionate nation. We are proud that we do more than any other country to help the needy, the struggling, and the underprivileged all over the world. But as President of the United States, my highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, and my constant concern is for America's children, America's struggling workers, and America's forgotten communities. I want our youth to grow up to achieve great things. I want our poor to have their chance to rise.

So tonight, I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties -- Democrats and Republicans -- to protect our citizens of every background, color, religion, and creed. My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans -- to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream. Because Americans are dreamers too.

Here tonight is one leader in the effort to defend our country: Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Celestino Martinez -- he goes by CJ. CJ served 15 years in the Air Force before becoming an ICE agent and spending the last 15 years fighting gang violence and getting dangerous criminals off our streets. At one point, MS-13 leaders ordered CJ's murder. But he did not cave to threats or fear. Last May, he commanded an operation to track down gang members on Long Island. His team has arrested nearly 400, including more than 220 from MS-13.

CJ: Great work. Now let us get the Congress to send you some reinforcements.

Over the next few weeks, the House and Senate will be voting on an immigration reform package.

In recent months, my Administration has met extensively with both Democrats and Republicans to craft a bipartisan approach to immigration reform. Based on these discussions, we presented the Congress with a detailed proposal that should be supported by both parties as a fair compromise -- one where nobody gets everything they want, but where our country gets the critical reforms it needs.

Here are the four pillars of our plan:

The first pillar of our framework generously offers a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants who were brought here by their parents at a young age -- that covers almost three times more people than the previous administration. Under our plan, those who meet education and work requirements, and show good moral character, will be able to become full citizens of the United States.

The second pillar fully secures the border. That means building a wall on the Southern border, and it means hiring more heroes like CJ to keep our communities safe. Crucially, our plan closes the terrible loopholes exploited by criminals and terrorists to enter our country -- and it finally ends the dangerous practice of "catch and release."

The third pillar ends the visa lottery -- a program that randomly hands out green cards without any regard for skill, merit, or the safety of our people. It is time to begin moving towards a merit-based immigration system -- one that admits people who are skilled, who want to work, who will contribute to our society, and who will love and respect our country.

The fourth and final pillar protects the nuclear family by ending chain migration. Under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives. Under our plan, we focus on the immediate family by limiting sponsorships to spouses and minor children. This vital reform is necessary, not just for our economy, but for our security, and our future.

In recent weeks, two terrorist attacks in New York were made possible by the visa lottery and chain migration. In the age of terrorism, these programs present risks we can no longer afford.

It is time to reform these outdated immigration rules, and finally bring our immigration system into the 21st century.

These four pillars represent a down-the-middle compromise, and one that will create a safe, modern, and lawful immigration system.

For over 30 years, Washington has tried and failed to solve this problem. This Congress can be the one that finally makes it happen.

Most importantly, these four pillars will produce legislation that fulfills my ironclad pledge to only sign a bill that puts America first. So let us come together, set politics aside, and finally get the job done.

These reforms will also support our response to the terrible crisis of opioid and drug addiction.

In 2016, we lost 64,000 Americans to drug overdoses: 174 deaths per day. Seven per hour. We must get much tougher on drug dealers and pushers if we are going to succeed in stopping this scourge.

My Administration is committed to fighting the drug epidemic and helping get treatment for those in need. The struggle will be long and difficult -- but, as Americans always do, we will prevail.

As we have seen tonight, the most difficult challenges bring out the best in America.

We see a vivid expression of this truth in the story of the Holets family of New Mexico. Ryan Holets is 27 years old, and an officer with the Albuquerque Police Department. He is here tonight with his wife Rebecca. Last year, Ryan was on duty when he saw a pregnant, homeless woman preparing to inject heroin. When Ryan told her she was going to harm her unborn child, she began to weep. She told him she did not know where to turn, but badly wanted a safe home for her baby.

In that moment, Ryan said he felt God speak to him: "You will do it -- because you can." He took out a picture of his wife and their four kids. Then, he went home to tell his wife Rebecca. In an instant, she agreed to adopt. The Holets named their new daughter Hope.

Ryan and Rebecca: You embody the goodness of our Nation. Thank you, and congratulations.

As we rebuild America's strength and confidence at home, we are also restoring our strength and standing abroad.

Around the world, we face rogue regimes, terrorist groups, and rivals like China and Russia that challenge our interests, our economy, and our values. In confronting these dangers, we know that weakness is the surest path to conflict, and unmatched power is the surest means of our defense.

For this reason, I am asking the Congress to end the dangerous defense sequester and fully fund our great military.

As part of our defense, we must modernize and rebuild our nuclear arsenal, hopefully never having to use it, but making it so strong and powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression. Perhaps someday in the future there will be a magical moment when the countries of the world will get together to eliminate their nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, we are not there yet.

Last year, I also pledged that we would work with our allies to extinguish ISIS from the face of the Earth. One year later, I am proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated almost 100 percent of the territory once held by these killers in Iraq and Syria. But there is much more work to be done. We will continue our fight until ISIS is defeated.

Army Staff Sergeant Justin Peck is here tonight. Near Raqqa last November, Justin and his comrade, Chief Petty Officer Kenton Stacy, were on a mission to clear buildings that ISIS had rigged with explosives so that civilians could return to the city.

Clearing the second floor of a vital hospital, Kenton Stacy was severely wounded by an explosion. Immediately, Justin bounded into the booby-trapped building and found Kenton in bad shape. He applied pressure to the wound and inserted a tube to reopen an airway. He then performed CPR for 20 straight minutes during the ground transport and maintained artificial respiration through 2 hours of emergency surgery.

Kenton Stacy would have died if not for Justin's selfless love for a fellow warrior. Tonight, Kenton is recovering in Texas. Raqqa is liberated. And Justin is wearing his new Bronze Star, with a "V" for "Valor." Staff Sergeant Peck: All of America salutes you.

Terrorists who do things like place bombs in civilian hospitals are evil. When possible, we annihilate them. When necessary, we must be able to detain and question them. But we must be clear: Terrorists are not merely criminals. They are unlawful enemy combatants. And when captured overseas, they should be treated like the terrorists they are.

In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds of dangerous terrorists, only to meet them again on the battlefield -- including the ISIS leader, al-Baghdadi.

So today, I am keeping another promise. I just signed an order directing Secretary Mattis to reexamine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay.

I am also asking the Congress to ensure that, in the fight against ISIS and al-Qa'ida, we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists -- wherever we chase them down.

Our warriors in Afghanistan also have new rules of engagement. Along with their heroic Afghan partners, our military is no longer undermined by artificial timelines, and we no longer tell our enemies our plans.

Last month, I also took an action endorsed unanimously by the Senate just months before: I recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Shortly afterwards, dozens of countries voted in the United Nations General Assembly against America's sovereign right to make this recognition. American taxpayers generously send those same countries billions of dollars in aid every year.

That is why, tonight, I am asking the Congress to pass legislation to help ensure American foreign-assistance dollars always serve American interests, and only go to America's friends.

As we strengthen friendships around the world, we are also restoring clarity about our adversaries.

When the people of Iran rose up against the crimes of their corrupt dictatorship, I did not stay silent. America stands with the people of Iran in their courageous struggle for freedom.

I am asking the Congress to address the fundamental flaws in the terrible Iran nuclear deal.

My Administration has also imposed tough sanctions on the communist and socialist dictatorships in Cuba and Venezuela.

But no regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally or brutally than the cruel dictatorship in North Korea.

North Korea's reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland.

We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from happening.

Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation. I will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got us into this dangerous position.

We need only look at the depraved character of the North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose to America and our allies.

Otto Warmbier was a hardworking student at the University of Virginia. On his way to study abroad in Asia, Otto joined a tour to North Korea. At its conclusion, this wonderful young man was arrested and charged with crimes against the state. After a shameful trial, the dictatorship sentenced Otto to 15 years of hard labor, before returning him to America last June -- horribly injured and on the verge of death. He passed away just days after his return.

Otto's Parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, are with us tonight -- along with Otto's brother and sister, Austin and Greta. You are powerful witnesses to a menace that threatens our world, and your strength inspires us all. Tonight, we pledge to honor Otto's memory with American resolve.

Finally, we are joined by one more witness to the ominous nature of this regime. His name is Mr. Ji Seong-ho.

In 1996, Seong-ho was a starving boy in North Korea. One day, he tried to steal coal from a railroad car to barter for a few scraps of food. In the process, he passed out on the train tracks, exhausted from hunger. He woke up as a train ran over his limbs. He then endured multiple amputations without anything to dull the pain. His brother and sister gave what little food they had to help him recover and ate dirt themselves -- permanently stunting their own growth. Later, he was tortured by North Korean authorities after returning from a brief visit to China. His tormentors wanted to know if he had met any Christians. He had -- and he resolved to be free.

Seong-ho traveled thousands of miles on crutches across China and Southeast Asia to freedom. Most of his family followed. His father was caught trying to escape, and was tortured to death.

Today he lives in Seoul, where he rescues other defectors, and broadcasts into North Korea what the regime fears the most - the truth.

Today he has a new leg, but Seong-ho, I understand you still keep those crutches as a reminder of how far you have come. Your great sacrifice is an inspiration to us all.

Seong-ho's story is a testament to the yearning of every human soul to live in freedom.

It was that same yearning for freedom that nearly 250 years ago gave birth to a special place called America. It was a small cluster of colonies caught between a great ocean and a vast wilderness. But it was home to an incredible people with a revolutionary idea: that they could rule themselves. That they could chart their own destiny. And that, together, they could light up the world.

That is what our country has always been about. That is what Americans have always stood for, always strived for, and always done.

Atop the dome of this Capitol stands the Statue of Freedom. She stands tall and dignified among the monuments to our ancestors who fought and lived and died to protect her.

Monuments to Washington and Jefferson -- to Lincoln and King.

Memorials to the heroes of Yorktown and Saratoga -- to young Americans who shed their blood on the shores of Normandy, and the fields beyond. And others, who went down in the waters of the Pacific and the skies over Asia.

And freedom stands tall over one more monument: this one. This Capitol. This living monument to the American people.

A people whose heroes live not only in the past, but all around us -- defending hope, pride, and the American way.

They work in every trade. They sacrifice to raise a family. They care for our children at home. They defend our flag abroad. They are strong moms and brave kids. They are firefighters, police officers, border agents, medics, and Marines.

But above all else, they are Americans. And this Capitol, this city, and this Nation, belong to them.

Our task is to respect them, to listen to them, to serve them, to protect them, and to always be worthy of them.

Americans fill the world with art and music. They push the bounds of science and discovery. And they forever remind us of what we should never forget: The people dreamed this country. The people built this country. And it is the people who are making America great again.

As long as we are proud of who we are, and what we are fighting for, there is nothing we cannot achieve.

As long as we have confidence in our values, faith in our citizens, and trust in our God, we will not fail.

Our families will thrive.

Our people will prosper.

And our Nation will forever be safe and strong and proud and mighty and free.

Thank you, and God bless America.

Text as released by the White HouseThe world's earliest radio astronomy observatory has been nominated for World Heritage status.

Jodrell Bank Observatory, part of the University of Manchester, has been put forward as the UK's nomination for designation as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2019, Heritage Minister Michael Ellis said.

The observatory in Cheshire, founded in 1945, is home to the Grade I listed Lovell Telescope and pioneered the exploration of the universe using radio waves.

It has played a central role in transforming human understanding of the universe, and is a site of global importance, Mr Ellis said.

Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire is nominated for Unesco World Heritage status. The structure is part of the University of Manchester

It was built in 1945 and houses the Grade I listed Lovell Telescope. Jodrell Bank was also the first radio astronomy observatory in the world

If designated, Jodrell Bank would join the likes of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, the Great Wall of China and the Grand Canyon in the US as sites with outstanding value to the world.

The UK already has 31 cultural and natural sites on the World Heritage List, ranging from the Tower of London and Blenheim Palace to the Giant's Causeway and Stonehenge.

Last year, the Lake District was added to the list.

Jodrell Bank is the only site worldwide that includes evidence of every stage of the post-1945 development of radio astronomy.

Alongside the Lovell Telescope, it also includes the Grade I listed Mark II Telescope and the Park Royal building, which was the control room for the Transit Telescope that detected radio waves from the Andromeda galaxy, confirming the universe extends beyond our own galaxy.

Mr Ellis said: 'Jodrell Bank played a central role in transforming our understanding of the Universe and is therefore a site of global importance.

Jodrell Bank would join sites such as The Grand Canyon, located in Arizona, US, if it earned Unesco World Heritage status

The Great Barrier Reef in Australia also has Unesco World Heritage status. The UK currently has 31 cultural and natural sites on the list including Stonehenge and the Tower of London

Another prominent structure on the list is the Great Wall of China. Last year, the Lake District was added to the list

'The nomination process for Unesco is rightly thorough but I believe Jodrell Bank deserves to be recognised.

'The diverse heritage of the UK is world renowned and the observatory would be a worthy addition to our list of World Heritage Sites.'

Professor Tim O'Brien, associate director of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, said: 'Jodrell Bank really is an iconic site and institution, not just here in the northwest of England but to people around the world.

'It is the one remaining site, worldwide which has been a working observatory from the very first days of radio astronomy to the present day.

'It's important that we protect its rich heritage as we celebrate its current and future work.'

The nomination will be formally assessed by the International Council of Sites and Monuments before the World Heritage Committee decides whether to designate it.A few days ago, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders, received a letter of complaint from the former Lib Dem MP John Hemming.

It concerned the Crown Prosecution Services investigation of alleged child sex abuse by Westminster politicians, a subject which has progressed in recent times from being a legal hot potato to resembling an unpinned hand grenade.

The Mail has seen a copy of Mr Hemmings letter, which refers to a woman named Esther Baker, who made extraordinary allegations against him and another politician.

Ms Baker, 35, claims that Mr Hemming, along with one of the most revered figures in post-war politics (whom the Mail chooses not to name), repeatedly raped her in a Staffordshire forest when she was aged between six and 11 years.

The Mail has seen a copy of Mr Hemmings letter, which refers to a woman named Esther Baker (pictured), who made extraordinary allegations against him and another politician

The rapes took place, Ms Baker said, while police officers guarded the scene.

The co-accused political grandee was dead before these claims were made and so could not defend his reputation. Mr Hemming, who was MP for Birmingham Yardley, was not.

His letter begins: I am writing to express concern about the slow handling of allegations about me made by Esther Baker that are currently being considered by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

The co-accused political grandee was dead before these claims were made and so could not defend his reputation. Mr Hemming (pictured), who was MP for Birmingham Yardley, was not

The CPS should also consider my counter complaint that Ms Baker deliberately lied, and therefore committed the offence of perverting the course of justice.

Mr Hemming, 57, continued: The main objective of this letter is to highlight the impact the public campaign against me, based upon her false allegations, has had on my family and myself.

I have five children. The four older children are all literate and have access to the internet.

There has been a public campaign against me identifying me (not always by name) since May 2015 . . . [My children have] been upset on a number of occasions.

Additionally, I have been subjected to threats of violence including death threats. He awaits an answer from Mrs Saunders.

This unsavoury row between the former MP and his accuser might have remained an obscure legal wrangle but for one particularly extraordinary fact.

Mr Hemming wrote that letter after he discovered that Esther Baker had been awarded what is called core participant status at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.

This is the sprawling probe set up four years ago into historic sex abuses, which is set to become one of the biggest and most expensive statutory public inquiries in British legal history.

(The inquiry was set up by Theresa May when she was Home Secretary, following revelations of historic paedophile abuse by the late BBC presenter Jimmy Savile.)

Core participants are individuals or organisations who are granted a formal interest in the work of the inquiry and given special legal powers and privileges to help shape proceedings.

(The inquiry was set up by Theresa May when she was Home Secretary, following revelations of historic paedophile abuse by the late BBC presenter Jimmy Savile)

The granting of this status to Ms Baker suggested a recognition by the inquiry of the credibility of her claims against John Hemming  which is what has particularly angered the former MP.

Such is the vast scope of the inquiry that it was supposed to encompass no less than 13 separate investigations into different institutions  such as churches, schools, councils, Westminster politicians and others  each of which would surely warrant a stand-alone inquiry.

This week, however, it is the turn of the most controversial of those elements: possible abuses by political figures at Westminster.

Preliminary hearings will begin in London today. While this segment of the inquiry will no doubt be the focus of intense public and media scrutiny, it is fair to say that so far this enormous investigation has not exactly covered itself in glory.

In fact, it has suffered three-and-a-half years of scandal and setbacks.

Professor Alexis Jay, a career social worker, is the fourth person to hold the chairmanship of a clattering gravy train.

In the last financial year it cost the taxpayer 21 million. According to the latest quarterly figures, it is on course to cost more than 24 million this year.

The first two chairs stepped down within the year over possible conflicts of interest.

New Zealand judge Dame Lowell Goddard, was awarded a salary of 360,000 and a number of other financial perks

The third, New Zealand judge Dame Lowell Goddard, was awarded a salary of 360,000 and a number of other financial perks. In the summer of 2016, amid accusations of incompetence, racism and bullying, she returned home, refusing to return to explain her resignation.

Her replacement, Professor Jay, was described by a recent Guardian interviewer thus: I dont think I have ever met anyone so fluent in the carefully dry register of judicial process.

She talks like a transcript of a court document and seldom deviates from the approved vocabulary of statutory services.

'For example, when I ask about the Muslim men of Pakistani origin in Rotherham who were involved in child sex grooming, she refers to them as the minority ethnic grouping identified by many victims as part of the exploitation network. 

Whether or not she is a politically correct automaton, Prof Jays inquiry has reeled from one blow to the next.

In the autumn of 2016, the senior counsel to the inquiry, Ben Emmerson QC  who was paid 1,700 a day by the taxpayer  resigned after being suspended over concerns about his leadership of his team

In the autumn of 2016, the senior counsel to the inquiry, Ben Emmerson QC  who was paid 1,700 a day by the taxpayer resigned after being suspended over concerns about his leadership of his team.

He was later cleared of separate allegations of sexual assault and sexual harassment involving a female colleague on the inquiry.

More recently, however, it emerged that an inquiry at Mr Emmersons Matrix Chambers into the sexual assault claim had found as fact that Emmerson had attempted to either put his hand between his colleagues legs or down her trousers, and that she had pushed him away.

It had described this conduct as unwanted and of a sexual nature, but concluded that Emmerson (who has always protested his innocence) was not guilty of either harassment or assault, partly because he honestly believed the women would consent.

The lurid case of Mr Emmerson aside, a number of other lawyers for the inquiry have quietly stepped down along the way.

Now, many people will be wondering  after the high-profile police shambles of recent times  why the child sex abuse inquiry should have a Westminster element at all.

Operation Midland, a 2 million police investigation into alleged VIP sex abuse at Westminster, has been exposed as a disaster.

Along the way, the lives and reputations of public figures such as the former Tory minister Leon Brittan and Lord Bramall  a D-Day war hero  and former MP Harvey Proctor were tarnished by unfounded claims from a witness called Nick that a VIP ring of paedophile politicians had abused and murdered boys.

The police investigation was closed in March 2016 and later heavily criticised in a report by a retired judge.

Lord Brittans widow and Lord Bramall have each received around 100,000 in compensation from the Metropolitan police. Mr Proctor is pursuing a 500,000 civil action.

As Daniel Janner argues: The Westminster strand of the inquiry is not only unfair, but it is designed to trash the reputations of politicians like my father, Ted Heath (pictured)

The Director of Public Prosecutions now has to decide whether Nick is charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice and fraud.

Despite all that, the Westminster element of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse will be launched by Professor Jay today  relying in part on Nicks discredited allegations.

One of the first hurdles will be an ambush by Daniel Janner QC, son of the late Labour grandee Lord Janner of Braunstone.

He will hold a press conference outside the inquiry at 9am today to denounce the proceedings.

The weight of evidence against his father has persuaded many that there was substance to claims that Janner Snr was a paedophile and abuser.

Mr Janner said the a inquiry is also designed to trash the reputations of people like Leon Brittan (pictured)

But Mr Janner, a criminal barrister, argues that his father was never convicted, and a civil claim by some of his alleged victims came to nought at the High Court last year.

Daniel Janner has applied for core participant status of the kind already granted to John Hemmings accuser Esther Baker, and is scathing of Prof Jays handling of the inquiry over the past 17 months.

Mr Janner says: They think they are getting a clear run and I am not having it. It has already been proved that there was no VIP paedophile ring.

'From everything I have seen and heard of her, Alexis Jay is totally out of her depth.

She is not a trained lawyer, and I sympathise with her on that, but she is now trying to keep the Titanic afloat.

'It is veering between a bloated, expensive irrelevance, and a vindictive witch-hunt which will be condemned by history.

Certainly, the inquiry soon became impossibly unwieldy. Because of its sheer scale, when it began, 155 staff were employed in dedicated offices around the country, and dozens of lawyers  each costing hundreds of pounds an hour  were engaged, while hundreds of new allegations arrived each month.

At one point, the counsel to the inquiry, Ben Emmerson, revealed: There are 100,000 items in the archive, which mostly comprises individual childrens files, and some 26,000 boxes of material held in locations around the country.

Such vast amounts of information seem to make the chances of discovering what is true, and what is not, less rather than more likely.

As Daniel Janner argues: The Westminster strand of the inquiry is not only unfair, but it is designed to trash the reputations of politicians like my father, Ted Heath and Leon Brittan, who have given a lifetime of service to this country.

Many of them are dead and cannot answer back. This is an invitation for fantasists, fraudsters and nutters to play out their fantasies and lies in public and to do so under the cloak of anonymity in many cases, mollycoddled by the inquiry.

My late father cannot answer back from his grave. This element [of the inquiry] continues on the assumption of guilt rather than the presumption of innocence. It is a stain on British justice.

Ms Baker has been supported in her campaign against Mr Hemming by the vociferous Labour MP Jess Phillips (pictured), who won Mr Hemmings Birmingham Yardley seat in the 2015 general election

Whatever you might feel about his father, Mr Janner has a point.

Prof Jay told the Guardian: I dont know yet about the scale of false allegations. When we are due to address that, we will look in much more detail . . . nevertheless, the secrecy that has surrounded children and their experiences of abuse is overwhelming. So I start from that point.

None of which is likely to offer much comfort to former MP John Hemming, whose accuser Esther Baker  whos waived her legal right to anonymity  has been granted such a close involvement in the child sex abuse inquiry.

After she made allegations of rape against him, he volunteered to be interviewed under caution, and told detectives that the first he knew of Ms Baker was in January 2015 when she emailed him to complain that she had been abused as a child by a faith-related paedophile ring.

He advised her to go to the police, he says. She did so, but then made a similar abuse complaint against him. Mr Hemming alleges that prior to accusing him, she tweeted that she had never met an MP.

Yet only a few weeks later, Hemming said, Baker claimed to have met two politicians  one [of whom was] myself . . . whom she claimed to have identified as the man who both raped and sexually assaulted her.

Ms Baker has been supported in her campaign against Mr Hemming by the vociferous Labour MP Jess Phillips, who won Mr Hemmings Birmingham Yardley seat in the 2015 general election.

During that year, she tweeted a number of messages of support to Ms Baker, describing her as an amazingly brave woman.

In the month of the election, Ms Phillips declared in a tweet to Ms Baker: It is my pleasure to stand shoulder to shoulder with those who are so brave.

Yet in September last year, the Crown Prosecution Service decided that there was insufficient evidence to pursue any kind of case against Mr Hemming over Ms Bakers allegations.

Despite this, she stands by her story, and vehemently denies claims she has lied. She pointed out to the Mail: Consider the motives of those questioning the legitimacy of my status as a core participant and of my evidence.

Ms Baker has appealed against the decision not to charge him, and the CPS has afforded her what is called a Victims Right to Review  which is an official reassessment of a CPS decision not to bring charges.

Nevertheless, the CPS ruling has left her vulnerable to accusations  not least by Mr Hemming himself  that she is a fantasist who jumped on the VIP abuse bandwagon and, backed by Ms Phillips and a host of vicious internet trolls, set out to maliciously ruin innocent lives and reputations.

Regarding the Baker/Hemming affair, a Staffordshire Police spokeswoman said: Any outstanding complaints or inquiries are pending the outcome of a file currently with the CPS.

A Crown Prosecution Service spokesman confirmed the initial decision on Esther Bakers file had been to take no further action.

However, since she enforced her Victims Right to Review, the matter is now being considered by an independent prosecutor.

Last week, Mr Hemming wrote to the inquirys chair Professor Jay demanding that she reverse her decision on Ms Bakers core participation in the inquiry.

He then made this observation: There will always be lunatics making allegations of cults or aliens to police.

The problem is those respectable bodies that give them credence.

He is presumably referring to Professor Jays inquiry which, you might be interested to learn, is spending 1 million of public money on an advertising campaign . . . to find more alleged victims.White flour and bread should be fortified with folic acid to protect babies from devastating medical conditions, a major study concludes today.

It clears the way to add the vitamin to food to ensure babies do not develop illnesses such as spina bifida in the womb.

The research also puts pressure on the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt to tackle what are described as avoidable tragedies.

An average of two women a day have abortions after discovering their developing baby has a neural tube defect.

Supporters of adding folic acid to flour suggest it would save between 165 and 500 lives a year, depending on how much is used

And every week two children are born with the condition, which can lead to a lifetime of pain, paralysis and ill health.

Supporters of adding folic acid to flour suggest it would save between 165 and 500 lives a year, depending on how much is used.

The governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, together with official UK medical and scientific advisers, support the move.

However, progress has been held up by politicians in Westminster, who apparently fear being accused of operating a nanny state.

Yet white flour is already fortified with synthetic iron, calcium and vitamins as a public health measure.

Most women of child bearing age in Britain are deficient in folic acid, which is vital to the healthy development of a baby

Experts say folic acid should be included in the vitamin mix as is the case in 81 other countries, including the United States.

Sir Nicholas Wald led the latest research at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine at Queen Mary University of London.

The professor said: There is no scientific or medical reason for delaying the introduction of mandatory folic acid fortification in the UK and other countries that have not yet adopted this proven public health intervention.

'Failing to fortify flour with folic acid to prevent neural tube defects is like having a polio vaccine and not using it.

Most women of child bearing age in Britain are deficient in folic acid, which is vital to the healthy development of a baby.

Mothers-to-be are told to take folic acid supplements but in most cases this comes too late to help the crucial early stages of the babys development.

The governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, together with official UK medical and scientific advisers, support the move

A lack of the vitamin was linked to neural tube defects in British research conducted as far back as 1991. Since then, countries  other than in Europe  have decided it should be added to white flour and therefore white bread, pasta and other foods.

Spina bifida is the best known neural tube defect and occurs when the spine does not develop properly, leaving a gap, generally leading to paralysis and a host of complications.

A second condition called anencephaly occurs when the brain does not form properly and is fatal.

Opponents of fortifying flour have relied on an American study dating back to 1998 which said there was a danger in consuming too much folic acid.

It was suggested over-consumption could mask problems that cause neurological damage.

However, the experts from Queen Mary and the School of Advanced Study at the University of London, have discovered the conclusions of the US study were based on error.

The charity Shine, which supports families where a baby is born with spina bifida, said: We do feel mandatory fortification is necessary. It would mean that these babies are born and they are healthier.A cyclist has exposed himself and attempted to grab a young woman in Sydney.

Just after 5.30pm on Friday 29 December, a 21-year-old woman who had finished work, was standing on Old Prospect Road in Wentworthville in Sydney's west when she was approached by a man riding a bike.

The man exposed himself to her and attempted to grab the woman as she tried to run away.

A cyclist has exposed himself and attempted to grab a young woman in Sydney

Police were alerted and officers from Cumberland Police Area Command commenced inquiries.

Police have a description of a person they believe can assist with inquiries.

He is shown is described as Caucasian in appearance, aged in his late 40s to early 50s, of medium build with light brown hair.

He is depicted wearing sunglasses, a blue short-sleeve top with beige shorts.

Investigations are continuing and police are urging anyone with any information that could assist to contact Crime Stoppers.Members of the Congressional Black Caucus staged a silent protest to President Trump's infamous 's***hole' comments by sporting African patterns to his first State of the Union speech.

Democrats were already wearing black as a nod to the '#MeToo' movement. But when Black Caucus members took to their seats in the House chamber before Trump's speech, most if not all of them were sporting brightly colored kente cloth and varied African patterns.

Democratic Rep. James C. Clyburn of South Carolina, a leading CBC members and member of leadership, sported a kente cloth tie. Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas opted for a wide piece of fabric that went over her shoulder.

'I hope it was a pointed statement to those that will see this as a symbol of respect,' said Jackson Lee.

She said she believes her kente cloth was from Ghana. 'It was recently brought back for me,' she told DailyMail.com.

FASHION PUSHBACK: Members of the Congressional Black Caucus sported accessories with kente cloth and other African-based patterns, following Trump's controversial 's***hole' comments

'I'm wearing this to show my solidarity with the continent of Africa, and especially with those countries that the president demeaned, defamed, by indicating they were s-hole or s-house countries,' said Democratic Rep. Al Green of Texas.

'I'm wearing it to show that solidarity, and to let the president know that I disapprove of his statements and his behavior.'

Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia wore both a tie and a scarf with a brightly-colored orange pattern.

The patterns, which originally hail from Ghana, are associated with black pride and civil rights movements.

The lawmakers mostly opted for seats in the bank of seats in the center of the left side of the chamber, grouping themselves closely together and insuring their silent protest would be visible on television. Most congregated in five adjacent rows.

When Trump made a grand entrance into the chamber, some CBC members stood, along with every Republican and many Democrats.

But Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver of Missouri, Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, and others opted to sit during the extended applause for Trump.

Likewise, they didn't stand when Trump hailed African American unemployment being at a 'record low.' The lawmakers have countered that the drop began under President Obama.

The lawmakers, along with other Democrats, bristled after the Washington Post reported that Trump had railed against immigration from 's***hole countries' in Africa and Haiti.

Trump denied making the comment. His homeland security chief, Kirstjen Nielsen, testified that she couldn't remember him making the comment, saying only that he'd used 'tough language.'

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee says her kente cloth was brought to her from Ghana

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton of Washington, D.C. also sported a kente cloth on the House floor during Trump's speech

Trump wants to end 'diversity visas' which award immigration status via lottery that he has compared to a televised lottery with ping pong balls.

He has urged more immigration from Norway, a country Nielsen said he praised for its 'hardworking' population. Democrats blasted the comment as racist.

Hours before the State of the Union address, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi gathered together her fellow Democratic women  and some men too  for a photo-op, as they showed off their black outfits for tonight.

The lawmakers were taking a page from the women of Hollywood, who sported black gowns to the Golden Globes to pay homage to the 'Me Too' and 'Time's Up' movements.

The Democrats followed the lead of Oprah Winfrey too, who had brought up the rape and subsequent activism of the late Recy Taylor.

For the State of the Union, the lawmakers sported pink 'RECY' pins too.

The African-American Taylor, who died last month at the age of 97, was gang-raped in Alabama as a young wife and mother by six white men.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic women decided to wear black to President Trump's first State of the Union in honor of the 'Me Too' movement

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (right) reportedly thought the wardrobe revolt sent enough of a message to President Trump, urging her Democratic colleagues not to walk out of tonight's speech

'Let the attention be on his slobbering self,' Nancy Pelosi reportedly told her colleagues, urging them not to cause a commotion in the chamber during President Trump's first State of the Union

Rep. Lisa Blunt, a Democrat from Delaware, straightens her 'RECY' pin in advance of Tuesday night's State of the Union. The pins pay homage to the late Recy Taylor, a rape victim turned activist that talk show queen Oprah Winfrey paid homage to in her Golden Globes speech

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Democrat from Connecticut, adjusts her 'Time Up' pin as she joins other House members for a photo-op showing many women lawmakers, and some men too, dressed in black for Tuesday night's State of the Union speech

Democratic lawmakers, and some men too, show off their ensembles for tonight's State of the Union speech as they show their support for the 'Me Too' movement. President Trump was previously accused of sexual assault

Democratic lawmakers, dressed in all black to show support for the 'Me Too' and 'Time's Up' movements throw up a fist bump during a photo-op Tuesday before President Trump's State of the Union address

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi stands up among her peers as Democratic women show off their black attire, which they'll be wearing at tonight's State of the Union address

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (left), an Illinois Democrat who is among the lawmakers boycotting tonight's speech, sat for the photo with the other women in black. She was seated beside Rep. Susan Davis (right), a Democrat from California

Democratic lawmakers are wearing 'RECY' pins to the State of the Union tonight, after Recy Taylor, who was gang-raped in Alabama in 1944 by six white men who were never charged.

Recy Taylor, photographed in 2010 at the age of 91, died last month at the age of 97. Talk show queen Oprah Winfrey paid tribute to Taylor during the Golden Globes and Democratic lawmakers will also honor her tonight

She took her case to the NAACP, where she was helped out by Rosa Parks, then just a young investigator.

'But justice wasn't an option in the era of Jim Crow. The men who tried to destroy her were never persecuted,' Winfrey said in her Golden Globes speech. 'I just hope that Recy Taylor died knowing that her truth, like the truth of so many other women who were tormented in those years, and even now tormented, goes marching on,' the media mogul added.

While an all-white male jury refused to indict her attackers, Taylor's 1944 rape case helped inspire the civil rights movement.

Beyond the pins and black clothes Pelosi, according to Politico, thought the wardrobe revolt was enough of a message, as she also instructed her members not to walk out of the speech or make a commotion.

'Let the attention be on his slobbering self,' Pelosi said of President Trump, who delivers his first official State of the Union tonight. 'If you walk out, don't come in.'

A handful of Democratic members opted to do the latter with Rep. Frederica Wilson kicking off State of the Union eve yesterday by explaining why she wouldn't attend the affair.

'I'm not going because to do would be to honor the president, and I don't think he deserves to be honored at this time,' the Florida Democrat said on CNN. 'After being so hateful toward black people and then black countries, Haiti and the whole continent of Africa, it hurts, it hurts, and he has brought the White House to the lowest, and I don't think he needs to be honored with my presence,' she went on.

Wilson is not alone in making tomorrow night's State of the Union speech, Trump's first, into a political point.

Earlier this months, on the heels of reports that said Trump referred to Haiti, El Salvador and the whole of Africa as 's***hole' countries, during a closed-door immigration meeting, Rep. John Lewis, a civil rights pioneer, announced that he would not go.

'In good conscience, I can not and will not sit there and listen at him as he gives the State of the Union Address,' Lewis said then.

THE DEMOCRATS BOYCOTTING TRUMP'S 2018 STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS From left: Rep. Danny Davis - 7th district, Illinois Rep. Earl Blumenauer - 3rd district, Oregon Rep. Frederica Wilson - 24th district, Florida Rep. Rep. Jan Schakowsky - 9th district, Illinois Rep. John Lewis - 5th district, Georgia Rep. Maxine Waters - 43rd district, California Rep. Steve Cohen - 9th district, Tennessee Rep. Gregory Meeks - 5th district, New York Rep. Pramila Jayapal - 7th district, Washington Rep. Bobby Rush - 1st district, Illinois Rep. Barbara Lee - 13th district, California Rep. Juan Vargas - 51st district, California Rep. Albio Sires - 8th district, New Jersey Advertisement

That's when Wilson originally announced she would sit out, as did Democratic Reps. Maxine Waters, of California, and Pramila Jayapal, of Washington state.

On Friday, they were joined by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat, who said in a statement she was boycotting the address 'because I refuse to normalize President Donald Trump and his loathsome language and actions.'

'With every day that passes, a new tweet, breaking news story, or leaked quote sheds new light on President Trumps twisted and prejudiced mind,' she added.

The congresswoman took particular offense to his 's***hole countries' comment, his reaction to the racial violence in Charlottesville, Virginia last summer, in which he said there were good people on 'both sides' of a clash between neo-Nazis, KKK members and white supremacists and counter-protesters, and for the roll-out of his 'Muslim ban' last year, which Schakowsky pointed out happened on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

On Sunday, Rep. Gregory Meeks, a Democrat from New York, told MSNBC he would not be there. '

'I cannot give this man, who does not respect me, the respect to be in that audience,' Meeks said. 'I will not be there.'

Meeks was joined by two other black House members, both from Illinois, on Monday as Reps Danny Davis and Bobby Rush, announced they would not attend.

Rush called Trump's first year in office 'the most chaotic, divisive, and incompetent' and said he would not 'watch as Trump pretends that he's off to a successful start.'

'He's not,' Rush said in a statement put out by his office.

Late Monday, Rep. Juan Vargas, a Democrat from California, indicated that he would not attend.

'President Trump continues to disrespect women, insult people of color, and attack our immigrant communities. I will not be attending the State of the UnionI stand in solidarity with all the people he has and continues to disrespect,' the congressman tweeted.

While a majority of Democratic members boycotting were minorities, the first lawmaker to announce he would be playing hooky was a white guy, Rep. Earl Blumenauer from Oregon.

Blumenauer later said he would be sending in his stead, a 'dreamer' to the speech, as Congress continues to debate what happens next with DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, an Obama-era order that allowed undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children to gain legal status.

Trump has since announced he was scrapping the program and tossed the problem to Congress.

Other Democrats, too, are using their guests as mini-protests.

Rep. Ruben J. Kihuen, a Nevada Democrat, is bringing well-known 'Dreamer' Astrid Silva as his guest.

Rep. Joe Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat whose great-uncle was the late President John F. Kennedy, is bringing a transgender soldier  Staff Sgt. Patricia King  to the State of the Union, to protest the president's proposed transgender troops ban.

The congressman's guest was first reported in the Boston Globe.

Kennedy will also be giving the Democrats' official rebuttal after Trump leaves the dais.Brexiteer ministers have accused Britain's top civil servant, Sir Jeremy Heywood, of colluding with the Treasury to produce an unathorised and 'flawed' report emphasising the risks of cutting economic ties with the EU.

Brexit minister Steve Baker claimed the papers required 'significant further work' and were 'not anywhere near being approved' when they were leaked to a news website.

Government sources accused Sir Jeremy of being responsible for the document, which was commissioned by the Cabinet Office and had not been seen by ministers from the Department for Exiting the European Union.

Brexit minister Steve Baker told the House of Commons today that he had not seen the draft paper before this morning, and it was incomplete

And last night it emerged he had organised briefings for ministers in the PMs Brexit war cabinet to present the pessimistic forecasts.

A Cabinet source told the Mail: This is Jeremy Heywood working with the Treasury in an operation designed to bounce ministers into a softer Brexit.

The analysis was produced by officials across several departments, including the Treasury.

In the forecasts, leaked on Monday night to the BuzzFeed news website, civil servants claimed growth in Britains economy would be hindered by any of three main Brexit scenarios.

But they said the worst effect would come from a clean break from Brussels.

The report said UK economic growth would be 8 per cent lower than current forecasts in 15 years if the country left the bloc with no deal and reverted to World Trade Organisation rules.

Government sources accused Sir Jeremy Heywood, Britain's top civil servant, (pic in March 2016) of being responsible for the document

It predicted growth would be 5 per cent lower if Britain negotiated a free trade deal, and 2 per cent lower even if the UK were to continue to adhere to the rules of the single market.

But Mr Baker told MPs the analysis proved that the only purpose of economic forecasts is to make astrology look respectable.

The Brexit minister said he had only been shown the assessment yesterday morning, while Brexit Secretary David Davis had only read it the previous evening.

Mr Baker denounced Civil Service forecasts as always wrong, as he compared the work to reports prepared by the Treasury during the referendum campaign that warned about the risks of voting Leave.

He said: The scenarios in this analysis continue to suffer from the flaws we have seen in previous analyses of this type. Such analyses have been proved to be wrong in the wake of the referendum.

'The public deserve to see the national interest protected in these negotiations and to have a House of Commons of representatives who exhibit a healthy scepticism about economic forecasting.

He confirmed that a leak inquiry had begun, adding: It is an attempt to undermine our exit from the EU.

Theresa May told ministers that the paper represented initial work by officials which had not been signed off.

Theresa May held a Cabinet meeting this morning, with Michael Gove (left) and Liam Fox (right) among those attending

Boris Johnson, one of the Cabinet's leading Brexiteers, has yet to respond to the leak

She pointed out that the document had not looked at the impact on the economy if the Government achieves the sort of bespoke trading agreement with the EU it is seeking.

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said: Almost every forecast coming from Government, and most of the international organisations, has been completely wrong.

The extraordinary leak of the confidential document, to Buzzfeed News, sparked an immediate hunt for the culprit.

A study drawn up for the Brexit Department headed by David Davis (pictured at a Lords committee hearing yesterday) shows growth would be lower under a range of scenarios

The material was meant to be shown to senior ministers in private, with strict rules in place to prevent them taking the paperwork out of the room.

But within hours of the briefings getting under way it had been passed to journalists.

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith branded the timing of the claims - with Brexit negotiations at a critical stage - 'suspicious'.

The Prime Minister is now facing renewed demands to publish the Government's full impact assessments.

As Mrs May prepared to fly out on a three-day trade mission to China, opposition MPs said the public were entitled to know the true cost of leaving the EU.

The PM leaves behind her a Conservative Party in turmoil, amid deepening unrest among MPs over the direction of the talks with Brussels.

Mr Duncan Smith told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'I think the timing in this is highly suspicious in the sense that suddenly in the midst of all this conversation about the European Union we have a leaked document.

'But, I would observe that almost every single forecast coming from Government, and most of the international organisations, has been completely wrong.

'I think we should take this with a pinch of salt.'

Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at Downing Street in London for a Brexit meeting yesterday

Speaking about the report's findings, Jacob Rees-Mogg, chairman of the pro-Brexit European Research Group (ERG) of Tory MPs, said they were 'highly speculative'.

He said similar modelling by the Treasury before the Brexit referendum - predicting large scale job losses following a Leave vote - had been 'comprehensively wrong'.

What the report shows The economic impact assessment claims growth would be lower under a range of potential scenarios: If UK can negotiate a comprehensive free trade agreement: Growth will be down 5% over the next 15 years.

over the next 15 years. If UK has no deal and must fall back on World Trade Organisation rules: Growth will be down 8%

If UK can retain access to the single market through European Economic Area: Growth will be down 2%. Advertisement

But Labour MP Chris Leslie, a member of the Open Britain group which campaigns against a 'hard' Brexit, said ministers must now release the findings in full.

'No one voted to make themselves or their families worse off,' he said.

'The Government must now publish their analysis in full, so that MPs and the public can see for themselves the impact that Brexit will have and judge for themselves whether it is the right thing for our country.'

In response to the leak a Government source said officials from across Whitehall were undertaking 'a wide range of ongoing analysis'.

'An early draft of this next stage of analysis has looked at different off-the-shelf arrangements that currently exist as well as other external estimates,' the source said.

'It does not, however, set out or measure the details of our desired outcome - a new deep and special partnership with the EU - or predict the conclusions of the negotiations.

Jacob Rees-Mogg (pictured), chairman of the pro-Brexit European Research Group (ERG) of Tory MPs, said the report's findings were 'highly speculative'

Pro-EU campaigners protest outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster yesterday

'It also contains a significant number of caveats and is hugely dependant on a wide range of assumptions which demonstrate that significantly more work needs to be carried out to make use of this analysis and draw out conclusions.'

Brexit bill begins its passage through the House of Lords today The Government's flagship Brexit bill is set to begin its passage through the House of Lords today. More than 190 peers are listed to speak in a marathon two-day second reading debate on the EU (Withdrawal) Bill. While the legislation cleared the Commons last month relatively unscathed - with only one Government defeat - it is likely to face a far rougher ride in the upper chamber which is overwhelmingly opposed to Brexit. The main battles will come in the weeks ahead when it reaches the committee stage when peers are likely to try to push through a series of major amendments. Advertisement

The disclosure comes amid anger among pro-Brexit Tories at the latest negotiating guidelines from Brussels which said the UK would remain subject to EU law - including any changes passed after it leaves in March 2019 - during a proposed 21-month post Brexit transition.

Amid fears among some Brexiteers that the Government is heading for a 'soft' break, retaining many of the current elements of Britain's relationship with the EU, Mr Rees-Mogg said the Prime Minister needed to spell out what sort of deal she was looking for.

'We would take for the first time since 1066, laws imposed on us by a foreign power without having a say over it ourselves. That may be acceptable if we have a clear idea what the end point is,' he told BBC2's Newsnight.

The Times quoted one source close to the ERG as saying Mrs May's chances of survival were no better than '50:50' with pleading from Cabinet ministers said to be the main reason she was still in place.

The paper said that reports were circulating among pro-Brexit MPs of a revolt at a recent dinner for Conservative donors with around a quarter arguing she should go.

Mr Rees-Mogg insisted that said he knew nothing about the reports, saying: 'That is nothing to do with me.'A treasure trove of secret and highly sensitive cabinet documents has been discovered in two second-hand filing cabinets bought at a Canberra auction.

Cabinet papers are usually not publicly released until 20 years after their production.

But the ABC has uncovered thousands of documents, some classified 'top secret', covering five governments over a decade.

The documents show ASIO was told to delay security checks to asylum seekers would miss deadlines and be unable to receive permanent protection visas.

They also reveal the National Security Committee under the Howard Government considered removing the right to remain silent under police questioning.

A treasure trove of secret and highly sensitive cabinet documents has been discovered in two second-hand filing cabinets bought at a Canberra auction (pictured is a stock image of Parliament House in Canberra)

One document points to an audit showing the Australian Federal Police lost almost 400 national security files over five years.

The loss of the documents, which had been through the national security committee of cabinet between 2008 and 2013, was uncovered in an audit by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

In one paper, it was revealed former prime minister Tony Abbott (pictured) ignored legal advice when he handed over cabinet documents to the insulation royal commission

The papers also included a document that stated 195 top-secret codeword-protected and sensitive documents had been left in the office of former Labor government minister Penny Wong when Labor lost the 2013 election.

The documents which were left in the office - but not included in the old filing cabinets - included Middle East defence plans.

They also included national security briefs, Afghan war updates, intelligence on Australia's neighbours and details of counter-terrorism operations.

In another paper, it was revealed former prime minister Tony Abbott ignored legal advice when he handed over cabinet documents to the insulation royal commission.

'We think it would be highly undesirable (and legally confounding) if the Commonwealth were to simply produce cabinet-related documents to the royal commission on the basis of a purported waiver of public interest immunity,' read the advice from Tom Howe QC, chief counsel at the Australian Government Solicitor.A baby wallaby has had a lucky break, after being rescued from flood waters in the Northern Territory by a passing zookeeper.

Kathleen Nettleford, from Virginia, about 31 kilometres south of Darwin, was driving to Adelaide River Bridge to check on the rising waters on Monday when she spotted the trapped animal.

Ms Nettleford, a zookeeper at a crocodile park, said the baby male wallaby barely 'had his head above water' when she pulled over to help.

In a video taken by friends, Ms Nettleford can be seen slowly approaching the tired animal, who does not put up much of a fight

'It's like  he'd gone into the water, got stuck, and didn't have the energy to jump out,' Ms Nettleford told NT News.

There were around 15 other wallabies nearby watching their young pal being rescued, the zookeeper said.

'It made me think maybe the young ones don't know where to go when it rains,' she said.

In a video taken by friends, Ms Nettleford can be seen slowly approaching the tired animal, who does not put up much of a fight.

The zookeeper then lifts the baby wallaby from the water by by the tail and behind the neck before the animal struggles slightly.

Ms Nettleford, who said she has cared for joey's before, quickly had help from a partner and wrapped a towel around the animal, which then calmed down.

'I wrapped him up with a towel and took him into the Ark Animal Vet because he was in a fair bit of shock,' she said.

The little wallaby was treated for hypothermia and is recovering in the veterinary.

The zookeeper then lifts the baby wallaby from the water by by the tail and behind the neck before the animal struggles slightlyAliyana Caplin (pictured), a two-year-old who was found lying face down and unconscious in a pool at her family's home in Brisbane on Wednesday, died from her injuries on Monday night

A two-year-old girl has died after she was found lying face down and unconscious in a pool at her family's home in Brisbane.

Aliyana Caplin's mother, Amber, 33, made the horrifying discovery on Wednesday afternoon and rushed her lifeless body to Lady Cilento Children's hospital.

The toddler remained in the intensive care unit on life support until she died on Monday night.

Her father, Christopher Caplin, told Daily Mail Australia the pool gate had been open at the time Aliyana was noticed missing amid a chaotic afternoon.

The 30-year-old said their three older children had just arrived home and one of the familys' dogs had opened the back door, allowing Aliyana to 'slip out unnoticed'.

'A few minutes later her mum noticed her missing and went looking for her and found her face down in the pool,' Mr Caplin said.

'Not really knowing how to do CPR she tried her best and the policeman across the road came over after hearing her scream and helped until the ambulance got there.

Aliyana's mother, Amber, 33, made the horrifying discovery on Wednesday afternoon and rushed her lifeless body to Lady Cilento Children's hospital (Left to right: Mia, 11, Alex, 9, Seth, 8, and Aliyana, 2, being held by her mother, Amber)

The toddler remained in the intensive care unit on life support until she died on Monday night

Her father, Christopher Caplin, told Daily Mail Australia the pool gate had been open at the time Aliyana was noticed missing amid a chaotic afternoon

'The doctors have said not to get our hopes up as Ali was without oxygen for quite some time.'

Mr Caplin explained the pool gate was open to allow their dogs to cool off during the warm weather.

Aliyana, who has tuberous sclerosis, has already been through three brain surgeries to prevent the seizures it causes.

Tuberous Sclerosis is a rare genetic disorder that causes benign tumors to grow in the brain and on other vital organs.

Aliyana's parents and siblings, Mia, 11, Alex, 9, and Seth, 8, say they are grateful to the Lady Cilento Children's hospital staff and Ronald McDonald house for 'allowing us to stay close to our little girl through this'.

This week, I took a very difficult decision  one that I would have found unthinkable only a few years ago.

With a lot of sadness, I resigned from the Labour Party, an organisation to which I had devoted much of my adult life.

This wasnt because my politics have changed.

On the contrary, I remain utterly committed to the values that inspired me to join Labour, especially the drive to improve the lives of people who face challenges and live in hardship.

With a lot of sadness, I resigned from the Labour Party, an organisation to which I had devoted much of my adult life

But the party of which I was a member for almost two decades no longer exists. Instead  and I am truly sorry to say this  since the advent of Jeremy Corbyns leadership, the Labour Party I knew has been ruthlessly supplanted by the hard-Left through Momentum.

In the wake of this internal revolution, I can no longer pretend this is my party. The pragmatic socialism that I feel in my bones has been replaced by doctrinaire  often highly intolerant, political zealotry.

Dogmatism has sadly triumphed over compassion.

It would be dishonest of me to campaign for Labour now. After years of knocking on doors on behalf of the party cause, I could not, hand on heart, urge anyone to vote Labour.

It pains me to write those words  I have believed in Labour all of my life.

Since the advent of Jeremy Corbyns leadership, the Labour Party I knew has been ruthlessly supplanted by the hard-Left through Momentum

I was born into the Labour movement. I became a party activist as a teenager and was chairman of the Labour Club at Bristol University.

I was a member of Labours National Policy Forum and worked for five years as the senior caseworker to the Labour MP in my home constituency of Tottenham.

I stood as a Labour candidate at municipal elections in my home borough of Haringey, the very place where Jeremy Corbyn began his political career in the 1970s.

I never thought the day would come where I would feel I had to walk away, but it has, and I have.

I have watched with dismay how Labour has so radically changed in the past couple of years.

The truth is that the party has been the target of a wholesale takeover by the far Left, spearheaded by the now notorious Corbynite pressure group Momentum.

What I have witnessed is entryism on an epic scale, bringing with it intimidation, vendettas and authoritarianism.

Members of militant fringe organisations, long in the political wilderness, have been encouraged to switch their allegiance to Labour without any alteration in their politics.

At the same time, Momentum has taken control of much of the partys machinery, from local constituency parties to the ruling National Executive Committee. Pictured: Jon Lansman at a Momentum rally in support of Jeremy Corbyn

At the same time, Momentum has taken control of much of the partys machinery, from local constituency parties to the ruling National Executive Committee.

Everything from the selection of local council candidates to the enforcement of party discipline is now sliding into the hands of people with both extreme politics and a willingness to throw anything they can at people who stand in their way.

In Haringey, 17 moderate councillors have been deselected or have withdrawn themselves from standing in Mays local election  all replaced as candidates backed by Momentum.

As a result, after May, the borough will almost certainly become the first in Britain to have a majority of Momentum members, also making it the first Momentum-run council in the country.

Corbyn supporters often talk of a kinder, gentler politics but for far too many of the hard core among them, their practices are the opposite.

Long-standing members aged in their sixties, seventies and eighties  often having given a lifetime of service to the party  suddenly find themselves the subjects of spurious complaints and allegations of bringing the party into disrepute from people who just a few years ago were damning the Labour Party to hell.

In this atmosphere, Labours central management has been unable to stand up to Momentum. They have simply got too much power at every level of the party.

Similarly, the tragedy of the rise of anti-semitism within Labour and the broader Left has been something that the party has been unable to keep out.

One Jewish Labour councillor in Haringey, who is standing down at the next election, was told by a Momentum-backed candidate: Well, now youll have more time to count your money. Its a disgrace, its not even subtle, and it is desperately sad.

It may sound parochial, but a major issue currently being discussed in Haringey encapsulates the dogmatic nihilism of the hard Left.

This is their wilful destruction of the so-called Haringey regeneration programme.

Tony Blair, the most successful of all Labour election winners, strove to make the partys appeal as wide as possible

Under the pragmatic Claire Kober, the Labour leader of the council, Haringey has drawn up plans for a bold partnership with the private sector  entitled the Haringey Development Vehicle.

The aim is to renovate housing estates, create 6,400 new homes, build schools and libraries, generate thousands of jobs and bring 250million of investment into the borough.

Crucially, under this scheme, every council tenant in an affected block would be guaranteed the right to a new home on a rebuilt estate, while families living in overcrowded accommodation would be housed in a property of a suitable size.

This is just the sort of humane, practical improvement that previous generations of Labour leaders would have welcomed.

Sadly, not today.

The very concept of private sector involvement is anathema to them, and they feel so strongly that they are prepared to leave another generation of people languishing in poverty.

A long, vicious campaign was waged by Momentum and its allies against the plan.

Long-serving council leader Miss Kober, who was awarded the OBE for her services to local government, was subjected to extraordinary vilification

Long-serving council leader Miss Kober, who was awarded the OBE for her services to local government, was subjected to extraordinary vilification.

Campaigners unleashed a barrage of politically-motivated scare stories on tenants, telling them they would be thrown out of their homes by developers, moved hundreds of miles away, and never be allowed back.

None of this was true, yet combined with highly-organised efforts to orchestrate the mass deselection of moderate Labour councillors, Momentum has killed off the regeneration project.

Yesterday, Miss Kober announced that she is to step down as Haringey council leader, blaming sexism, bullying and undemocratic behaviour.

The great tragedy of this is that it is the poorest people of the borough who will suffer, as the regeneration of the local economy and social housing stock will not now happen.

In Haringey, Momentum activists have revealed their willingness to play politics with peoples lives.

Largely middle-class graduates, it seems they are willing to exploit poverty for political ends rather than finding solutions to peoples needs. In doing so, they have exposed their rhetoric about fighting inequality to be empty.

Above all, I believe that they want to perpetuate deprivation because they believe in class war politics, and they know this can only be fuelled by anger and dispossession.

That kind of cynicism is now prevalent throughout Labour.

During the recent protests against the theocratic regime in Iran, the partys leadership could not with full voice give a statement in support of the protesters.

Labour is now so dominated by anti-Western, anti-American hostility that even with ordinary Iranians taking to the streets to protest against a regime which regularly stones people to death, they couldnt really tell who the good guys were.

Great Labour figures in the past, such as Clement Attlee or John Smith, fought to bring the country together. Tony Blair, the most successful of all Labour election winners, strove to make the partys appeal as wide as possible.

Wonderful Labour women such as Barbara Castle (right) and Harriet Harman (left)  people I admire greatly  battled for the rights of all women, children, and families

Wonderful Labour women such as Barbara Castle and Harriet Harman  people I admire greatly  battled for the rights of all women, children, and families. They tried to find practical approaches to the problems they faced in their lives.

In grim contrast, Momentum-dominated Labour thrives on the politics of discord and division. Its message is one of conflict and blame, not progress and healing. Its policies, aimed at empowering people, will, in reality infantilise them.

I can no longer support a party in which they have taken control.

Neil Kinnock, in his attack on Militant during his heroic party conference speech of 1985, spoke of the grotesque chaos that invariably ensued from a rigid dogma.

His prediction is coming true today.A woman accused of deliberately driving off a cliff in Hawaii and killing her identical twin had dressed up in her dead sister's clothes and flirted with her boyfriend shortly after the fatal crash, a court has heard.

Alexandria Duval, 39, is currently standing trial in a Maui court over the 2016 death of her sister Anastasia.

She is accused of driving her SUV off a cliff and killing Anastasia moments after witnesses saw them arguing as they drove along a winding highway. Alexandria survived the 200-feet plunge.

Anastasia Duval's boyfriend Federico Bailey testified in court on Tuesday on the second day of the murder trial, revealing details of Alexandria's behavior in the days after the crash.

Alexandria Duval and her defense attorney Birney Bervar listen to testimony for her murder trial on Monday in Hawaii. She has pleaded not guilty to killing her twin Anastasia in 2016

'She began cuddling up on me, it seemed like she was flirting with me... she sat down beside me really close and lay her head on my shoulder,' Bailey said, according to the New York Post.

'She put on Anastasia's clothes. I started talking to her about what happened, she avoided answering any of my questions.

'When I saw her in Anastasia's dress it was disturbing. Anastasia had just worn that dress a few nights earlier.'

Bailey, who had been living with the twins, told the court he was on a camping trip with the sisters at the time.

He said the twins started arguing after Alexandria showed up unexpectedly on their trip.

Bailey told the court the two sisters drove off, still fighting, while he was in the bathroom.

Alexandria (right) is charged with second-degree murder and has pleaded not guilty to killing her twin Anastasia (left) in 2016

Alexandria and Anastasia Duval were seen arguing on the narrow, winding Hana Highway on the island of Maui before their SUV plunged 200 feet over a cliff in 2016

Witnesses also described seeing the women fighting and pulling each other's hair as they drove on the highway in the lead up to the crash.

Joseph Toleafoa, 17, said he saw the SUV stopped in the middle of the road with its hazard lights on.

'First they were arguing. It escalated,' he said, according to the Maui News.

He said he saw 'a lot of gestures, like they were going at it' and 'hair-pulling and punching'.

Toleafoa told the court that he heard the engine of the SUV rev before it 'sped up and then it jerked to the left' before plunging over the cliff.

Maui resident Chad Smith testified on Monday that while the women were passing him on the highway he could see them arguing.

Smith, who was headed to a church, said he couldn't hear anything but the women looked angry. He said he had to swerve out of their way.

Alexandria, pictured in court in 2016, has opted to have a judge instead of a jury decide the murder case

The sisters, born Alison and Ann Dadow in Utica, New York operated popular yoga studios in Florida before they changed their names and moved to Hawaii in 2015

Alexandria was arrested following the crash, but a judge later ordered her released after finding no probable cause for a murder charge.

She traveled to upstate New York and was arrested again months later in Albany after a grand jury indicted her.

Alexandria has opted to have a judge instead of a jury decide the case. The judge is expected to reach a verdict this week.

The sisters, born Alison and Ann Dadow in Utica, New York operated popular yoga studios in Florida before they changed their names.

They moved to Hawaii in 2015 from Utah.An Arizona man named in court documents as a 'person of interest' during the investigation of the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history said Tuesday he had met the shooter one time and sold ammunition to him.

Speaking at his suburban home in Mesa to the Associated Press, Douglas Haig claims he had no idea what Paddock was planning.

'I am the guy who sold ammunition to Stephen Paddock,' the 55-year-old said.

He said he plans to hold a news conference on Friday to answer questions about his name surfacing in the investigation.

Haig went into further detail about his connection to Paddock in an interview with CBS LA and ABC 15.

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The man named as a 'person of interest' in the Las Vegas shooting is Douglas Haig, who says he sold ammunition to gunman Stephen Paddock

Haig said he met Paddock just once, at a gun show in Phoenix a few weeks before the shooting.

Paddock had tried to connect with Haig at a previous gun show, in Las Vegas, but Haig says the man never ended up coming by his stand.

Haig said a 'young man' pointed Paddock out to him and said 'he wanted to put a deal together'. Haig decided to stay by his stand and let Paddock come to him, but he never did.

'I said, "well, when he wants to, hell come over." Well, he never did come over,' Haig said.

Haig says he only met Paddock once, and sold him tracer ammunition. Tracer ammunition makes gunfire light up and is commonly used by hunters at night

Several weeks later, the two finally connected at another gun show in Phoenix.

Haig says that Paddock was looking for tracer ammunition - ammunition that lights up when you fire it and is commonly used by hunters shooting at night.

Haig didn't have any on him at the show, but he had some back at his home in Mesa, so Paddock met him there.

'He showed up. He told me exactly what he wanted. I handed him a box with the ammunition in it. He paid me and he left,' he said.

A law enforcement official told the AP in October that Paddock bought 1,000 rounds of tracer ammunition from a private seller he met at a Phoenix gun show. The official spoke anonymously because they weren't authorized to disclose case information. It was not immediately clear if that person was Haig.

Haig was one of about a handful of gun dealers who sold ammo to Paddock.

Paddock killed 59 people and injured hundreds more when he opened fire at a music festival, from a sniper's nest in the Mandalay Bay hotel on October 1. He killed himself as a SWAT team gathered outside his door

Investigators first sought to question Haig because the Amazon box he recycled to package Paddock's purchase had his name and address on it and was found in the hotel room Paddock used to carry out the attack.

Haig says there was nothing in Paddock's behavior that would have hinted at what he was planning.

'I couldnt detect anything wrong with this guy. Usually folks that have bad intentor they say something wrong, or just imply theyre going to do something illegal or against the law, I refuse service.' he said.

While nothing tipped Haig off to what Paddock was planning, he says he felt so guilty over selling ammunition to the shooter that he closed his side business, Specialized Military Ammunition LLC. The company's website says it sold tracer and incendiary ammunition but is now 'closed indefinitely.' Haig's main job is at the aerospace firm Honeywell.

Haig also spoke to Newsweek back in October, shortly after he was interviewed by investigators.

'They asked me a bunch of questions,' he told the magazine on October 4, 'and after about 20 minutes they left. Havent heard from them since.'

At the time, Haig claimed not to have known Paddock.

'I have to think that if it was really, really serious or there was something that they thought I did that was wrong, [the agents] would have been kicking my door down,' Haig said then. At the time, he said he had 'no link' to Paddock.

'I didnt even know who this guy was,' he said.

In October, Haig told Newsweek he used to sell ammunition reloading components but hadn't 'for a long time'.

Above, a look at some of the hundreds of spent shells in Paddock's hotel room

Haig says investigators first spoke to him because they found an Amazon box with his name and address on it in Paddock's hotel room. He says he recycled the box to package from tracer ammunition he sold to Paddock in the weeks before the shooting

More than a dozen firearms were found in Paddock's hotel room after the shooting

He speculated that Paddock may have had his business card.

'It could have been a business card from a year ago, two years ago, who knows?' he said. 'He might have had one of my cards and wrote something on the back of it that they found in his house.'

Haig appeared worried for his family after the shooting.

'I have a family to take care of and feed,' he said, adding: 'Ive been interviewed, and thats as far as it went. They were following up on a lead, and obviously it went nowhere.'

Haig's name emerged by mistake Tuesday when court documents were released nearly four months after the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

The documents did not disclose why authorities considered Haig a person of interest in the shooting.

Police officials did not respond to telephone, text and email messages about Haig from AP. FBI and U.S. attorney's office spokeswomen in Las Vegas declined to comment.

The documents show that early in the investigation, police believed Paddock must have had help.

Above, a look at the Las Vegas Village where Paddock rained down bullets on October 1

Bodies are removed from the concert venue en masse the day after the shooting

'Given the magnitude of the incident, it is reasonable to believe multiple suspects and months of planning were involved in this premeditated massacre,' said one search warrant request submitted to a judge nine days after the shooting stopped.

However, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo released a preliminary report on January 19 saying police and the FBI believe Paddock acted alone before he killed himself as police closed in.

It did not answer the key question: What made Paddock stockpile a cache of assault-style weapons and fire for about 10 minutes out the windows of the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino into a crowd of 22,000 people.

Haig's name was blacked out in the more than 270 pages of search warrant records released by a Nevada judge to The Associated Press, but remained on one page of documents provided to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The newspaper published the name online. Clark County District Court Judge Elissa Cadish later ordered the full document not be published without redactions, but she acknowledged she couldn't order the newspaper to retract the name.

Authorities previously said an unnamed person could face unspecified federal charges in shooting that also injured more than 800 other people.

The warrants show that investigators found 23 rifles and a handgun in Paddock's 32nd-floor hotel suite and an adjoining room. Police also found five suitcases, five rifle cases, binoculars, a spotter scope, portable solar generator and 1,050 empty bullet casings.

Police reported finding just $273 in cash in the room of the 64-year-old retired accountant who amassed a millionaire's fortune, owned homes in Reno and Mesquite, Nevada, and earned casino perks wagering thousands of dollars on high-stakes video poker.

Authorities previously characterized Paddock as a gambler on a losing streak who was obsessed with cleanliness, may have been bipolar and was having difficulties with his live-in girlfriend.

The name of Paddock's girlfriend, Marilou Danley, was not redacted from documents released Tuesday in response to a public records lawsuit filed by media companies including AP and the Review-Journal.

Danley was in the Philippines at the time of the attack and is cooperating with investigators.

She was initially considered a person of interest but authrorities later said she is not likely to face criminal charges.

Separately, Clark County District Court Judge Timothy Williams ruled Tuesday that the coroner in Las Vegas should release autopsy records of Paddock and the people killed by gunfire, with victims' names blacked out. Those documents were not immediately made public.

County Coroner John Fudenberg later released a statement later promising victims' autopsy reports 'as soon as possible.' But Paddock's autopsy report was not final and would not be released until it is, the coroner said.

Fudenberg maintains the records are confidential, and restricts release to families and to police investigating deaths. The coroner and county attorneys didn't immediately say whether they would appeal Williams' ruling to the Nevada Supreme Court.

Margaret McLetchie, an attorney representing AP and the Review-Journal in the autopsies case, noted in court that Nevada state public records law does not directly address autopsies and that a deceased person has no legal right to privacy.

In Nevada, records are public unless the law says otherwise, she said.Larry Nassar will be back in a Michigan court on Wednesday, with the disgraced doctor set to be sentenced in his third and final trial.

First, he will have to sit through three days of victim impact statements, with 57 people currently scheduled to speak according to Beryl Frenger, an administrator for the Eaton County Court.

Nassar has already entered a guilty plea to charges relating to the molestation of three minors who he treated while working at Twistars, the gym owned by his good friend John Geddart.

The convicted pedophile has been sentenced to 60 years in federal prison for possession of child pornography and an additional 40 to 175 years in prison after pleading guilty to 10 counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in nearby Ingham County.

At that second trial, which ended last week, 156 women delivered statements.The lunar trifecta event of a lifetime many Australians have been eagerly anticipating may be left disappointed.

The rare super blue blood moon, which hasn't been seen in some parts of the world for 150 years, is when a lunar eclipse, super moon and blue moon all happen at the same time.

Keen star gazers have been holding out for the incredible spectacle which will take place Wednesday night, January 31.

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A rare 'super blue blood moon' is set to appear in the skies over Australia on Wednesday night

Keen star gazers have been holding out for the incredible spectacle but clouds may block the view for people across Sydney (stock image)

A lunar eclipse, super moon and blue moon are all expected to occur at once in rare event

However, the thick cloud cover may affect viewing from some locations across the country.

Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Jordan Notara told Daily Mail Australia if the current cloud conditions in Sydney don't change, it would make it difficult to see the moon.

'It doesn't look like it will be optimal viewing because of the cloud cover,' Mr Notara said.

'If you were trying to view anything at the moment you wouldn't see anything but the conditions now aren't reflective of what we'll see tonight.'

Mr Notara said it was possible the clouds could move, depending on where people are.

If cloud conditions remain the same, Cronulla and the southern coast of Sydney would have the 'less obstructive views'.

Southern Cross University geographer Professor Bill Boyd previously told Daily Mail Australia many of us are likely to not see a lunar trifecta in our lives again.

'It's truly spectacular and worth staying up for,' Mr Boyd said.

'If there's patchy clouds it may look more dramatic.'

While the spectacle is a global event, Australia is one of the places lucky enough to get the best view.

Brisbane, Hobart and Perth are set to enjoy clear skies for the super blue blood moon, Nine News reported.

The lunar eclipse is expected to begin at 10.48pm AEDT as a dark shadow on the moon.

Sydney Observatory's Brenan Dew said the moon will 'glow a red colour' once it is fully immersed.

The red colour is shown by the light of the sun being cast onto the surface of the moon.

The lunar eclipse is expected to begin at 10.48pm AEDT as a dark shadow on the moon

The red colour is shown by the light of the sun being cast onto the surface of the moon

From the moon the Earth will appear as a black circle with a copper-coloured glowing ring around it.

The moon will be as close as it can be to Earth during Wednesday's super blue blood moon.

It will be five per cent larger than usual.

'The average person would not notice it, so it's not going to be significantly larger,' Mr Dew said.

'A lunar eclipse can also be called a syzygy, so tonight would be a syzygy perigree.'

A blue moon happens when a full moon occurs twice in one calendar month.

The super blue blood moon will start at 10.48pm AEDT and run until 1.07am on Thursday morning, while in South Australia it will start and finish 30 minutes earlier.

The super blue blood moon will start at 10.48pm AEDT and run until 1.07am on Thursday morning in Sydney

In Queensland it starts at 9.48pm and finishes at 1.11am (Brisbane pictured)

In Western Australia, the eclipse begins at 7.48pm and finishes at 11.11pm (Perth pictured)

The moon will be as close as it can be to Earth during Wednesday's super blue blood moon

In Queensland it starts at 9.48pm and finishes at 1.11am, while in the Northern Territory it will begin at 9.18pm.

In Western Australia, the eclipse begins at 7.48pm and finishes at 11.11pm.

Southern Cross University geographer Professor Bill Boyd said the super blue blood moon is an 'extremely unusual occurance'.

'It will be unlikely for all three celestial events to converge again until the next century.'President Donald Trump went after the 'depraved' North Korea's regime in his State of the Union Tuesday, and brought family members of Otto Warmbier, who died after a cruel captivity there.

Trump's rhetoric was actually a notch down from his United Nations speech, where he famously mocked North Korean President Kim Jong-un as 'rocket man.'

'We need only look at the depraved character of the North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose to America and our allies,' Trump told lawmakers of both parties in his State of the Union speech.

Near the end of his speech, he mentioned Otto Warmbier, a University of Virginia student from Cincinnati, Ohio, who was taken captive when he took a tour there.

Applauded: Fred and Cindy Warmbier were praised by president Trump as 'special people' after he spoke of the loss of their son and his captivity in Kim Jong-Un's regime

In tears: Otto Warmbier's parents got to their feet after Trump's tributes to their son

Resolve: Trump's lengthy condemnation of the North Korean regime will be watched closely around the world

U.S. university student Otto Warmbier is taken to North Korea's top court in Pyongyang on March 16, 2016. The court sentenced Warmbier to hard labor for 15 years. He died days after his release

Victim: Ji Seong-ho lost a leg as, starving he tried to steal coal from a railroad car. Now a defector, he held up the crutches which he had used until he got a new leg in South Korea

'At its conclusion, this wonderful man was arrested and charged with crimes against the state,' Trump said.

'After a shameful trial, the dictatorship sentenced Otto to 15 years of hard labor, before returning him to America last June  horribly injured and on the verge of death. He passed away just days after his return,' Trump said.

They were charged with 'hostile acts against the DPRK.'

Seated in the audience were his parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, who became known for their appeals for their son's release. His brother Austin and sister Greta were also there, Trump said.

'You are powerful witnesses to a menace that threatens our world, and your strength inspires us all.

'Tonight, we pledge to honor Otto's memory with American resolve,' he said, and then, departing from his text, added as the Warmbiers stood up to a lengthy ovation: 'Special people.'

Then he turned to another guest, who had not been announced in advance - Ji Seong-ho, a defector from Kim Jong-Un's regime.

'Finally, we are joined by one more witness to the ominous nature of this regime. His name is Mr. Ji Seong-ho,' he said.

'In 1996, Seong-ho was a starving boy in North Korea. One day, he tried to steal coal from a railroad car to barter for a few scraps of food.

'In the process, he passed out on the train tracks, exhausted from hunger. He woke up as a train ran over his limbs.

In the crosshairs: Trump made a focus on the 'menace' of Kim Jong-Un a key focus of his speech

'He then endured multiple amputations without anything to dull the pain. His brother and sister gave what little food they had to help him recover and ate dirt themselves - permanently stunting their own growth.

'Later, he was tortured by North Korean authorities after returning from a brief visit to China. His tormentors wanted to know if he had met any Christians. He had - and he resolved to be free.

'Seong-ho traveled thousands of miles on crutches across China and Southeast Asia to freedom. Most of his family followed. His father was caught trying to escape, and was tortured to death.

'Today he lives in Seoul, where he rescues other defectors, and broadcasts into North Korea what the regime fears the most - the truth.

'Today he has a new leg, but Seong-ho, I understand you still keep those crutches as a reminder of how far you have come. Your great sacrifice is an inspiration to us all.

'Seong-ho's story is a testament to the yearning of every human soul to live in freedom.'Australia's new fighter jets might not be war-ready after a damning report claimed the planes can't shoot straight.

Initial development reports have highlighted issues with the joint strike fighter F-35 Lightning II's, from its bomb-aiming mechanisms to its software.

The Australian Government has purchased 100 of the F-35A Lightning II's from US manufacturer Lockheed Martin, at a total cost of $17 billion, with two of the aircraft due to be ferried across later this year, The Australian reports.

Initial development reports have highlighted issues with the joint strike fighter F-35 Lightning II's (pictured), claiming the jets can't shoot straight

The Australian Government has purchased 100 of the F-35A Lightning II's from US manufacturer Lockheed Martin, at a total cost of $17 billion (pictured: Malcolm Turnbull inspecting the fighter jets at an air show in 2017)

The issues were first highlighted in an annual report by the US Department of Defence's Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, released earlier this month.

The report warns testing of the aircraft, which is critical for the jet to be war-ready, could be delayed.

While the jets have passed tests for structure and durability, the OT&E report assessed the results of tests ranging from operational suitability and software systems to weapons integration and ballistic vulnerability.

The report warned the F-35's still had 213 unresolved deficiencies.

'These deficiencies must either be corrected or have service-approved operationally acceptable work abounds,' it said.

'These deficiencies affect target kill chains, weapons integration, combat survivability, shipboard operations, maintenance/operational documentation, mission planning, ALIS functionality, operational test instrumentation and cyber security.'

The US Department of Defence's Director of Operational Test and Evaluation report warned the F-35's still had 213 unresolved deficiencies

Deficiencies with weapons systems also included errors in the target ranges used by pilots, no confirmation of bomb-aiming co-ordinates and problems with the electro-optical targeting system.

Integration, helmet alignment and line-of-sight problems were discovered in the first F-35A tests in February last year, which delayed further testing.

'Once allowed to proceed, accuracy testing of the F-35A gun showed it consistently had long and to-the-right aiming bias, a deficiency that the JPO and Lockheed Martin are investigating,' the report read.

Adding risk to the testing schedule are ongoing delays with the remaining gun testing and correcting gun-related deficiencies.

The report also found problems relating to engaging moving targets, as pilots were forced to use 'simple rules of thumb', which may not be effective, or even permitted, during combat.

Deficiencies with weapons systems also included errors in the target ranges used by pilots, no confirmation of bomb-aiming co-ordinates and problems with the electro-optical targeting system

Pilots were also unable to confirm coordinates, which saw two weapons pointed at the wrong target during demonstration events.

Safety during pilot ejection was yet another issue under highlighted in the report, and pilots under a certain weight were banned for fear the heavy helmet could cause fatal injury upon ejection.

A spokesman for the Australian Defence Force said it was aware of the report, but were confident the F-35A's would be operational in time.

'The first two Australian F-35A aircraft will be permanently based in Australia from December 2018,' the spokesman told The Australian.

The planes are expected to be fully operational by 2023, with the first two aircraft coming off the production line in in 2014.The grandson of Robert F. Kennedy slammed Donald Trump's administration in the Democratic response to the State of the Union, smacking his shiny lips together and blaming the president for turning the country into a 'zero-sum game.'

Rep. Joe Kennedy III, who was overzealous with his lip gloss application Tuesday night  much to the delight of the internet  spoke from Fall River, Massachusetts, and addressed Americans' concerns that Trump's heated rhetoric has turned the country into us-versus-them.

'Where in order for one to win, another must lose,' Kennedy said. 'As if the mechanic in Pittsburgh and the teacher in Tulsa and the daycare worker in Birmingham are somehow bitter rivals, rather than mutual casualties of a system forcefully rigged for those at the top.'

Rep. Joe Kennedy, a congressman from Massachusetts and the grand son of the late Robert F. Kennedy delivered the Democratic response to President Trump's State of the Union address

While Rep. Joe Kennedy hit the right notes to appease the Democratic base, the internet couldn't let go of his overzealous application of lip gloss

He told audience members, and the greater public, that the Democratic Party chose 'both' - for both the parent of a transgender student and a parent of an opioid addict

Rep. Joe Kennedy talked about how he believed the administration had turned the country into a zero-sum game, meaning that for one American to win, another had to lose

'As if the parent who lies awake terrified that their transgender son will be beaten and bullied at school is any more or less legitimate than the parent whose heart is shattered by a daughter in the grips of opioid addiction,' Kennedy said.

While President Trump spent part of the State of the Union telling Americans they can 'achieve absolutely anything' while touting the strong economy, Kennedy said he's seen Americans, over the past year, feeling 'anxious, angry, afraid.'

'We see an economy that makes stocks soar, investor portfolios bulge and corporate profits climb but fails to give workers their fair share of the reward,' the 37-year-old congressman added.

The young Democrat condemned Russia being 'knee-deep in our democracy' and 'hatred and supremacy proudly marching in our streets,' a reference to what happened in Charlottesville in August 2017, when a counter-protester was run down by a Nazi sympathizer and President Trump referenced good people on 'both sides.'

'Bullets tearing through our classrooms, concerts and congregations. Targeting our safest, sacred places,' Kennedy continued. 'And that nagging, sinking, feeling, no matter your political beliefs: this is not right. This is not who we are.'

Rep. Joe Kennedy III claps as he takes the stage to give the Democrats' official rebuttal to President Trump's State of the Union speech

While the content of the speech, hit on many issues Democrats care about, the internet seemed fixated on Rep. Joe Kennedy III's well-greased lips

Rep. Joe Kennedy III (right) greets an audience member after he delivered the State of the Union's Democratic rebuttal

Rep. Joe Kennedy III hugs an audience member after delivering an address in Massachusetts Tuesday night following President Trump's State of the Union speech

Rep. Joe Kennedy is photographed leaving the stage after giving the Democrats' official response to the State of the Union

The 37-year-old congressman is the grand son of Robert F. Kennedy. A millennial in his own right, he joined Snapchat this week so people could follow him online

The congressman said it would be easy to blame partisanship and politics or dismiss the last year as 'chaos.'

'But it's far bigger than that,' he warned. 'This administration isn't just targeting the laws that protect us  they are targeting the very idea that we are all worthy of protections.'

'For them, dignity isn't something you're born with but something you measure: By your net worth, your celebrity, your headlines, your crowd size,' he said. 'Not to mention the gender of your spouse, the country of your birth, the color of your skin, the God of your prayers.'

Kennedy railed that that was against the American ideal, in which people are equal and worthy.

'But today that promise is being broken,' he said. 'By an administration that callously appraises our worthiness and decides who makes the cut and who can be bargained away.'

Democrats, he pledged, wouldn't choose one American over the other.

'We choose both. We fight for both,' he said. 'Because the strongest, richest, greatest nation in the world shouldnt leave any one behind.'

Kennedy ended on an additional uplifting note.

'Bullies may land a punch. They might leave a mark. But they have never, not once, in the history of our United States, managed to match the strength and spirit of a people united in defense of their future,' he said.

In its choice of Kennedy, the Democratic Party, looked back to its past and toward the future.

A millennial in his own right, the congressman joined Snapchat this week to detail his preparation for the speech.

But older Democrats likely appreciated that Kennedy is living up to his family name, as he's the grand son of Robert F. Kennedy, which would make President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Ted Kennedy, the congressman's late great uncles.

Republicans welcomed the pick with glee, suggesting he's just another limousine liberal like Hillary Clinton, as the young Kennedy is a multi-millionaire.

'Democrats using the multi-millionaire scion of a political dynasty as the face of their party shows they've learned absolutley,' Matt Gorman, a spokesman for the House Republicans' political arm, giddily told ABC News.

Instead of holding the speech in the autoshop at Diman Regional Technical School, Gorman said it should have been filmed 'live from the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis.'

The speech is one of the most tricky to handle in politics, as it's sometimes predicted future success  though has also produced some unshakable meme-worthy moments.

Both Speakers Nancy Pelosi and Paul Ryan delivered a State of the Union rebuttals before gaining the speaker's gavel.

In 2016, President Obama's last year in office, the Republicans put out then South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

She's since gone on to become the country's ambassador to the United Nations.

Sure, Sen. Marco Rubio rose in prominence after he delivered the Republicans' counter-argument in 2013, but he still gets picked on over how he awkwardly sipped water mid-address.

And Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Louisiana Republican, is barely on the political radar these days, after flubbing his 2009 response to President Obama's first joint address before Congress.

Jindal's lasting impression on pop culture-savvy Americans was his strong resemblance to the 30 Rock character Kenneth the Page.

Kennedy's very might well be his shiny lips.

'I bet Marco Rubio wished he could salivate as well as Joe Kennedy,' one Twitter user said, including side-by-side comparisons of Rubio sucking at a water bottle and Kennedy's gooey lips, in a tweet.

'Who's going to create the Joe Kennedy's Drool Twitter account first....???' another user mused.

A clear Trump supporter suggested Kennedy's motto should be 'Make America Drool Again,' adding that it was a 'trainwreck response.'

Yet another individual tweeted the contents of Kennedy's State of the Union 'preparation starter kit,' which included the triple threat of Carmex, ChapStick and Vaseline.

Kennedy had to pre-write a response, before actually hearing President Trump's State of the Union, which is why he couldn't directly attack certain lines.

The Democrats tapped Virginia Del. Elizabeth Guzman to deliver the party's official rebuttal in Spanish Tuesday night

Rep. Maxine Waters will appear Wednesday night on BET, a full 24 hours after President Trump's speech, to give yet another Democratic counterpoint

Sen. Bernie Sanders, in a livestreamed response, knocked President Trump for not bringing up items like the Russia investigation and climate change, while relishing in the fact that Trump has been a deeply unpopular president

For the first three minutes of former Democratic Rep. Donna Edwards' State of the Union response, the livestream broadcast her sideways

Four other Democrats gave or will be giving responses.

The Democrats officially sanctioned Virginia Del. Elizabeth Guzman to give the Spanish version of the party's rebuttal speech.

But Sen. Bernie Sanders, taking the opportunity for a second year in a row, barked his own response to the left-wing of the party, reacting to Trump's speech in real time.

Sanders named a number of things that he was appalled Trump didn't talk about, which were all things Trump would never have talked about from the dais.

'Now I don't understand how a president of the United States can give a State of the Union speech and not mention climate change?' Sanders asked.

He had that same thought about college affordability, the Citizens United Supreme Court case, funding for Social Security and the Russia probe.

'How do you not talk about that, unless, perhaps, you have a very special relationship with Mr. Putin?' the Vermont independent mused.

Sanders also relished Trump's chronically low poll numbers.

'The simple truth is that according to virtually every poll, Donald Trump is the least popular president after one year in office of any president in modern American history and the reason for that is pretty clear,' Sanders began.

'The American people do not want a president who is compulsively dishonest, who is a bully, who actively represents the interests of the billionaire class, who is anti-science,' he continued.

'And who is trying to divide us up based on the color of our skin, our nation of origin, our religion, our gender or our sexual orientation,' Sanders concluded.

Rep. Maxine Waters, who has become famous among millennials as of late, is to deliver a response to Trump too, doing it from a perch at BET Wednesday night, a whole 24 hours after the president's speech.

Waters will join CNN pundit Angela Rye for a State of the Union special.

And finally former Maryland Rep. Donna Edwards, whose bid for the Senate in 2016 was quashed by fellow Democrat Chris Van Hollen, had her own rebuttal.

Edwards, delivering the Working Families Party's response, was plagued by technical difficulties for the first three minutes of her address, as the image of the ex-lawmaker was livestreamed sideways.

Once righted, Edwards' critical message of Trump was less distracting, as she called the Republican tax bill 'a heist' and implored liberals to 'stand boldly against Trump and Trumpism.'

'It's not enough just to be anti-Trump, but that's important,' she added, noting the future candidates needed to be ready to fight against the scourge of income inequality, racism and sexism.

'Let's just get this done,' she encouraged.William Rayford, 64, was put to death by lethal injection on Tuesday night in Huntsville, Texas for the 1999 slaying of his ex-girlfriend Carol Lynn Thomas Hall

A Dallas man has been executed for the 1999 slaying of his ex-girlfriend while he was on parole for killing his estranged wife.

William Rayford, 64, was put to death by lethal injection on Tuesday night in Huntsville, Texas.

Rayford was convicted in the beating, stabbing and strangling death of 44-year-old Carol Lynn Thomas Hall.

Her body was found about 300 feet inside a drainage pipe behind her home in South Dallas' Oak Cliff area. Hall's 11-year-old son, Benjamin, was also stabbed in the attack but survived. He testified against Rayford.

Asked by the warden at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Huntsville Unit if he had a final statement, Rayford apologized repeatedly to his victim's four children who watched through a window a few feet from him.

'Carol didn't deserve what I done,' he said. 'Please try to find it in your heart to forgive me. I am sorry. It has bothered me for a long time what I have done.'

He said he has made mistakes and asked God to forgive him.

'If this gives you closure and makes you feel better, I have no problem with this taking place,' Rayford said.

As the lethal dose of pentobarbital began taking effect, he lifted his head from the pillow on the death chamber gurney, repeated that he was sorry and then said he was 'going home.'

He began to snore and within seconds all movement stopped. He was pronounced dead at 8.48pm - 13 minutes after the drugs began to flow.

Rayford (pictured right in a 2010 mugshot) was convicted in the beating, stabbing and strangling death of 44-year-old Carol Lynn Thomas Hall in 1999 (left)

Asked by the warden at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Huntsville Unit if he had a final statement, Rayford apologized to his victim's four children who watched through a window a few feet from him. Above is a death chamber gurney at the Huntsville prison

Among the four witnesses present was the victim's son who was also hurt in the attack. He and three siblings showed no emotion as they watched Rayford die.

WILLIAM RAYFORD'S FINAL STATEMENT: First I would like to praise my Lord Jesus Christ. I ask for forgiveness to the Thomas family for my past choices I made. Carol did not deserve what I done. I've asked God to forgive me. Please find it in your hearts to forgive me. I'm sorry it has been bothering me for a long time. So I now pray and I will keep you all in my prayers. I hope you find it in your heart to forgive me. I'm sorry. To my supporters - Daniel, brother Charlie, Steve and all who stood by me - thank you. By no means am I happy for what I've done. I have asked the Lord to forgive me. Please tell everyone I'm certain I left off some names. Tell my kids I'm sorry for being a disappointment. Thank you. God bless. I'm ready warden. Advertisement

Hall, who knew Rayford since they both grew up in a Dallas housing project, had broken up with him two months earlier, according to evidence in the case. Rayford entered her home on November 16, 1999, using a key she didn't know he had.

They argued and it turned violent.

Hall's son, Benjamin, testified at Rayford's trial that he suffered a punctured lung from the stab wound, was hit on the head when he tried to protect his mother, and watched her run from the home with Rayford pursuing her.

He said he saw Rayford carry his mother toward the drainage pipe where her body eventually was found.

Police responding to a call about the attack arrested Rayford at the scene.

Hall's blood was on his face and clothing. He told an officer Hall could be found 'in the hole... up in the sewer, in the water.'

Rayford had been previously convicted of murder in 1986 for fatally stabbing his estranged wife, Gail Rayford, in front of their four children.

She had obtained a court order four days earlier to keep him away.

He was sentenced to 23 years in prison for her slaying but was paroled after eight years under a former Texas law that allowed some prisoners to be released as the state struggled with prison crowding.

Rayford had been on parole for five years when Hall was killed.

Rayford was executed at the Huntsville prison in Texas late on Tuesday night

Relatives said she was aware of his previous murder conviction when they became a couple and believed it was her Christian duty to give people second chances.

Rayford's execution was delayed while the US Supreme Court considered - and later rejected - last-day appeals from Rayford's lawyers.

The attorneys argued his death sentence was tainted because his trial attorney in 2000 improperly introduced the subject of race as a factor in prison violence while questioning a prison expert during the punishment phase.

Nadia Wood, a Dallas-based federal public defender, told the high court that in bringing it up, the trial lawyer implied 'that people like Mr Rayford - a black man - are the cause of the violence.'

An assistant Texas attorney general, Jefferson Clendenin, disputed the argument, telling the justices the witness never testified as an expert in rates of violence because he wasn't qualified to do so and that none of the witness' trial testimony 'even implied that African-Americans are more likely than others to be violent or that Rayford himself was a future danger.'

Rayford's lawyers argued in another appeal that a federal judge improperly denied money to hire an expert for his appeals to look into his claims that his trial lawyers were deficient for not investigating whether Hall's slaying may not have qualified for a capital murder charge.

They also argued Rayford suffered from brain damage from lead poisoning because he grew up near a toxic site and carried lead residue from old gunshot wounds.

Evidence 'more than established' Rayford kidnapped Hall while trying to kill her, supporting the capital murder charge, and arguments about lead poisoning were based on a 'vague, general and nebulous conclusion' by a defense expert, Clendenin indicated in his response.

Another Texas prisoner is set to die this week. John David Battaglia, 62, of Dallas, is to be executed for the May 2001 shooting deaths of his daughters, ages 6 and 9.A twisted mother left her teenage daughter in a motel room where she was raped by a man who told her he wanted to have sex 'with a younger version of herself'.

The woman, 47, called her daughter 'a f***ing bitch' in an Ipswich courtroom on Wednesday as she was sentenced to four years' jail, Sunshine Coast Daily reported.

Years earlier, the deranged mother took the girl by bus to a motel in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, feeding her Vodka Cruisers and promising a 'girl's trip'.

The woman then left her daughter in the room and waited outside while she was raped by a man named 'Thommo', who had unprotected sex with the girl.

A twisted mother left her teenage daughter in a motel room where see was raped by a stranger (stock image)

The now adult victim broke down in court and said she would never forgive her mother, who claimed she feared the man would break up with her if she didn't oblige.

'I've felt nothing but pain, anger mentally numb as to how a mother can do this to a child,' she said to her mother in court, the paper reported.

'Words cannot express my loss of a childhood by your actions, your lack of compassion. Your actions will not, cannot be forgiven'.

The 47-year-old pleaded guilty to procuring a young person (daughter) for carnal knowledge, according to the paper.

The woman, 47, called her daughter 'a f***ing bitch' in an Ipswich courtroom on Wednesday

The woman's defence barrister said his client pleaded guilty on the basis that she did not believe the girl would be raped.

Her four-year jail term will be suspended after she serves 12 months behind bars.

'What occurred was your daughter was raped. You procured her and you stood by while all that happened,' Judge Dennis Lynch said.

Police are yet to arrest 'Thommo'.Democrats assembled in Washington to hear Donald Trump's State of the Union speech Tuesday night audibly booed, groaned and hissed at the president as he ran through his list of immigration priorities.

The president's opponents sat on their hands as he demanded an expensive border wall between America and Mexico in exchange for a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as minors.

But when he insisted on an end to extended-family chain migration and a controversial 'diversity' visa lottery, it was too much for some in the House chamber.

Tuesday's audible discontent marked the second time in two years that Democrats have booed Trump as he outlined his immigration philosophy before a Joint Session of Congress.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

WORK WITH ME: Donald Trump outlined his four-prong immigration plan in Tuesday's State of the Union speech, but heard boos when he talked about ending extended-family chain migration and the diversity visa lottery

SOUR FACES: Democrats alternatively sat on their hands or booed the president, particularly on the chain migration plank of his reform plan

Protest 3,000 miles away: DACA recipients and their supporters turned their backs on President Trump (on screen) as he talked about unity

In 2017 it was the president's announcement of a new Department of Homeland Security agency to provide services to victims of violent crimes committed by illegal immigrants.

The mention of 'VOICE,' short for Victims Of Immigration Crime Engagement, drew scattered boos as Trump described it as a needed program for 'those who have been ignored by our media and silenced by special interests.'

On Tuesday it was Trump's contention that chain migration  what immigration advocates call 'family reunification'  permits a single green card holder to 'bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives.'

Some Democrats shouted 'No!' and others groaned or booed. A few barked: 'Lies!'

The White House said in December that family visa sponsorships accounted for about 70 per cent of all legal immigration to the U.S. between 2005 and 2015.

The U.S. permanently resettled about 9.3 million new immigrants on the basis of their family connections, according to statistics from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Mexico topped the list in that category with 1.7 million family-based admissions during that 11-year stretch.

At least 600,000 can each from India and the Philippines. Another 80,000 came from Iran.

The White House said last year that between 2005 and 2015, 70 per cent of the legal immigrants coming to the U.S.  9.3 million in all  were admitted on the basis of their family ties with existing immigrants

Glares and stares: Democrats were in no mood to applaud Trump's immigration positions

Trump tried to strike a tone of unity in some of his speech but rammed home his immigration policy in no uncertain terms on Tuesday

After Tuesday's speech, Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin told DailyMail.com that he wasn't among the loud dissenters.

'I didn't hiss,' he insisted.

Trump's plan for reforming chain migration calls for limiting sponsorships 'to spouses and minor children,' the president said.

The diversity lottery, a decades-old program, was intended to beef up U.S. immigration numbers from historically underrepresented parts of the world.

But the Trump administration sees it as a counterproductive randomization of who can live inside America's borders  at a time when the nation needs new residents with specialized skills and education.

'It's time to begin moving towards a merit-based immigration system,' Trump said Tuesday, 'one that admits people who are skilled, who want to work, who will contribute to our society and who will love and respect our country.'

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Washington state Democratic Sen. Patty Murray scowled while Republican cheered

Trump pointed to a pair of recent terror attacks that he said 'were made possible by the visa lottery and chain migration.'

'In the age of terrorism, these programs present risks we can just no longer afford,' he said.

Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, a Republican who has crossed swords with Trump but plans to reture in 11 months, told DailyMail.com after the speech that he wished Trump had focused on the warmest component of his plan  the so-called DREAMers who stand to gain permanent status as Americans.

'I would have liked a little more positive,' he said.

'That was kind of an "American carnage" kind of moment,' Flake added, referring to a dour line in the president's 2017 Inaugural Address.

'Have a DREAMer,' he urged.

Two dozen members of Congress brought as their guests Tuesday night beneficiaries of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, the young people who stand to benefit from Trump's promise.

The president's guests included the parents of children slain by MS-13 gang members, but no DREAMers.

Trump described his four-prong program  saving DACA, strengthening the borders, ending the visa lottery and limiting chain migration  as a 'down-the-middle compromise.'

His promised border wall, which would represent the enduring fulfillment of a key campaign promise, was a mere blip on Tuesday's radar.

In addition to erecting the physical barrier, he pledged to hire more border patrol officers, and to end 'the horrible and dangerous practice of "catch and release".'

Illinois Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez said after Trump's speech that a citizenship path for DREAMers isn't enough to attract liberals to Trump's banner.

'The White House agenda is to gut legal immigration in exchange for allowing some of the Dreamers to live here. For those of us who support legal immigration, and thats most Democrats and many Republicans, it wont fly,' he said.

'And the Dreamers themselves have said they do not want legal status if it comes at the expense of others who will suffer more as part of the bargain.'

Gutierrez left the House chamber before the end of Trump's speech, as the audience chanted 'USA! USA!'

His spokesman, Douglas Rivlin, told DailyMail.com that he was in a hurry to get to a TV broadcast position in Statuary Hall.

'He was trying to make it to Univision. He watched the last 90 seconds on TV. It was not a protest or anything,' Rivlin said.

'He was just trying to get ahead of the crowd.'A congressional committee investigating the rising opioid epidemic discovered that two out-of-state drug companies shipped more than 20 million oxycodone and hydrocodone pills to a small West Virginian town over the past decade.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee sent letters to two drug wholesalers questioning the companies on why they didn't see the pharmacies increased demand for painkillers as suspicious. The committee also asked why the companies complied with the requests.

According to the Charleston Gazette-Mail, between 2006 and 2016 Miami-Luken and HD Smith shipped 10.2 million hydrocodone pills and 10.6 million oxycodone pills to Tug Valley Pharmacy and Hurley Drug.

Both pharmacies are located four blocks apart in Williamson, a town in Mingo County with only 2,900 residents. That means that over a 10-year period, the companies would have provided each resident in Williamson with roughly 7,172 prescription pills.

A congressional committee investigating the rising opioid epidemic discovered that two out-of-state drug companies shipped more than 20 million oxycodone and hydrocodone pills to a small West Virginian town over the past decade

10.2 million hydrocodone pills and 10.6 million oxycodone pills were shipped to Tug Valley Pharmacy and Hurley Drug in Williamson, West Virginia, a town with only 2,900 residents, the House Energy and Commerce Committee announced

'These numbers are outrageous, and we will get to the bottom of how this destruction was able to be unleashed across West Virginia,' the House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore. and ranking member Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J. said in a joint statement.

The committee stated that from 2008 to 2015 the Ohio-based Miami-Luken shipped 6.4 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to Tug Valley. The wholesaler also supplied a large quantity of painkillers to the now-closed Sav-Rite Pharmacy in Kermit, a town in Mingo County with 400 people.

Miami-Luken was also questioned about shipments from 2005 to 2011 to Sav-Rite #2. According to the committee, the pharmacy received 5.7 million pills over a six year period.

'The committee's bipartisan investigation continues to identify systematic issues with the inordinate number of opioids distributed to small town pharmacies. The volume appears to be far in excess of the number of opioids that a pharmacy in that local area would be expected to receive,' the committee said.

The committee's letter also raised concerns about Miami-Luken increasing its shipment of painkillers to Westside Pharmacy in Oceana, Wyoming County.

The committee said, according to the Gazette-Mail, that an employee at Miami-Luken reported a Virginia doctor who was sending his patients two hours away to fill their pain prescriptions at Westside.

In 2015, more than 40 per cent of the oxycodone prescriptions filled at the pharmacy were coming from the Virginia doctor.

The doctor's license was suspended by the Virginia Board of Medicine the following year after an investigation determined his practice posed a 'substantial danger to public health and safety'.

The committee also questioned Miami-Luken on why the company shipped 16,000 oxycodone pills over a five day period in 2015 to Colony Drug in Berkley.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is questioning Miami-Luken and HD Smith on why the companies didn't think the demand for more painkillers was suspicious

'In several instances, Colony Drug placed multiple orders for what appears to be excessive amounts of pills on consecutive days,' the committee stated.

HD Smith, based in Illinois, also received a letter. According to the House Committee, Smith shipped 3,000 hydrocodone pills a day to Family Discount Pharmacy in Logan County in 2008. Within that year, the pharmacy received more than one million hydrocodone pills.

Smith was also a distributor to Tug Valley Pharmacy, Sav-Rite, Hurley Drug and Westside Pharmacy, which all requested more painkillers over the past few years.

'We will continue to investigate these distributors' shipments of large quantities of powerful opioids across West Virginia, including what seems to be a shocking lack of oversight over their distribution practices,' Walden and Pallone said.

Both companies have until February 9 to respond to the committee's questions and provide relevant documentation detailing what measures, if any, they took to end the flood of painkillers in West Virginia, which saw 800 fatal overdoses in 2016.

Smith said in a statement on Monday that it was reviewing the committee's questions.

'HD Smith works with its upstream manufacturing and downstream pharmacy partners to guard the integrity of the supply chain, and to improve patient outcomes,' the company said.

Miami-Luken has not released a statement regarding the committee's letter, and did not respond to the Daily Mail's request for comment.

Both Miami-Luken and HD Smith recently settled lawsuits with West Virginia over allegations of flooding the state with pain pills. Smith agreed to pay the state $3.5 million while Miami-Luken paid $2.5 million, according to the Gazette-Mail.A tip-off from the United States has helped police arrest an Australia man who was allegedly grooming a young girl online.

Officers in the US recently contacted Western Australia Police with information a 29-year-old was attempting to coerce a 14-year-old into sexual activity, Perth Now reported.

He has been charged with child exploitation, showing offensive material to a child with intent to commit a crime and encouraging a child to do an indecent act.

WA Police raided a house in the Great Southern region of the state and obtained a number of electronic devices.

He is due to appear in Albany Magistrates Court on Wednesday afternoon.

More to come.1980 - Jessica Leeds

Jessica Leeds, a 75-year-old former businesswoman who lives in Manhattan, told the New York Times last year that she was 'assaulted' by Trump on a flight when she was 38.

Leeds explained how she was sat beside Trump in first class on a flight, when the Republican nominee lifted the arm-rest between then and allegedly began touching her.

'He was like an octopus,' she told the Times. 'His hands were everywhere.'

1989 - Ivana Trump

The Donald's first wife claimed she was 'violated' by him after a violent attack, documents filed as part of the couple's divorce claimed, according to the Daily Beast.

Ivana distanced herself from the claims last year when Trump started his campaign.

Early 1990s - Kristin Anderson

Kristin Anderson was out with friends, chatting up a storm at a Manhattan nightspot, when she felt fingers creep up her miniskirt, slide up her inner thigh and then touch her vagina through her panties.

Anderson, now 47, told the Washington Post that it was Donald Trump who touched her at the nightclub.

She said the incident took place in the early 1990s, when she was in her early twenties and an aspiring model.

1993 - Jill Harth

Jill Harth, a makeup artist, accused Trump of 'attempted rape' stemming from an incident in 1993.

Harth told the Guardian the incident in question took place during a visit to Trump's Mar-a-Lago mansion in January of that year.

'He pushed me up against the wall, and had his hands all over me and tried to get up my dress again,' she told the newspaper. 'I had to physically say: 'What are you doing? Stop it.''

1993 - Vendela Kirsebom

Former supermodel Vendela Kirsebom exclusively told DailyMail.com that Donald Trump's 'vulgar' and 'sexist' remarks about the size of women's breasts forced her to switch tables at a White House dinner party.

The sports Illustrated cover model claims her night at a 1993 Vanity Fair event was ruined because she was sat next to the billionaire.

Recalling the 'excruciating' night, Kirsebom, 50, said: 'Everything he said was so vulgar.

'I couldn't listen to his nonsense for an entire night so I asked if I could be moved.'

1996 - Lisa Boyne

Lisa Boyne, CEO of a health food company, claims that in the summer of 1996 she saw Trump make a series of women walk up and down a restaurant table so that he could announce whether they were wearing underwear.

'It was the most offensive scene I've ever been a part of,' she told The Huffington Post last year. 'I wanted to get the heck out of there.'

According to Boyne, she and friend Sonja Tremont - better known today as Sonja Morgan of 'Real Housewives of New York' - had been invited to dinner in Manhattan with Trump and late modelling agent John Casablancas.

1997 - Four Miss Teen USA contestants

Mariah Billado and three other contestants claimed to Buzzfeed that Trump walked into dressing rooms prior to the pageant while competitors were naked.

'I remember putting on my dress really quick because I was like, "Oh my god, there's a man in here",' she told Buzzfeed

Bilado told the website that Trump then said something like: 'Don't worry, ladies, I've seen it all before'.

1997 - Miss USA contestant Temple Taggart

Temple Taggart, a former Miss Utah, told the New York Times last year that Trump kissed her on the lips during the pageant.

'I thought, "Oh my God, gross"... I think there were a few other girls that he kissed on the mouth. I was like "Wow, that's inappropriate",' she told the newspaper.

Taggart has also sat down for an interview with NBC News.

'When I first heard the leaked tape, it's very unsettling... you don't want to hear anyone talking about women like that,' she said in a promotion clip for the interview.

1997 - Cathy Heller

Cathy Heller, now 64, claims the billionaire kissed her on the mouth without her consent in 1997 while she attended a Mother's Day luncheon with her family at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.

She told The Guardian last year: 'He took my hand, and grabbed me, and went for the lips,' she said.

She claimed she held back but he persevered. 'And he said, "Oh, come on". He was strong. He grabbed me and went for my mouth and went for my lips.'

Trump denied the accusation, claiming she was motivated by a personal vendetta to have her family's membership fees reimbursed.

2000 - Miss USA contestant Bridget Sullivan

Bridget Sullivan told Buzzfeed last year that the then-owner of the pageant walked through the backstage area to wish contestants good luck, despite the fact many of them were naked at the time.

'The time that he walked through the dressing rooms was really shocking. We were all naked,' Sullivan said.

She went on to describe Trump as a 'creepy uncle', saying he would 'hug you just a little low on your back.'

Buzzfeed spoke with four other contestants from that year - none whom remembered Trump walking through the dressing room when contestants were naked.

2001 - Miss USA contestant Tasha Dixon

Tasha Dixon told CBS News last year walked into the changing rooms at the pageant without warning, meaning many of the competitors were naked or not fully dressed.

'Our first introduction to him was when we were at the dress rehearsal and half naked changing into our bikinis,' Dixon said in an interview. 'He just came strolling right in.

'There was no second to put a robe on or any sort of clothing or anything. Some girls were topless. Other girls were naked.'

2003 - Mindy McGillivray

Mindy McGillivray, 36, told the Palm Beach Post that Trump grabbed her backside after she helped a photographer who was covering a concert at Trump's Mar-a-Lago mansion.

McGillivray, who was 23 at the time, said she was with Ken Davidoff at the Mar-a-Lago on January 24, 2003.

'All of a sudden I felt a grab, a little nudge. I think it's Ken's camera bag, that was my first instinct,' she told the newspaper.

'I turn around and there's Donald. He sort of looked away quickly.'

2004 - Trump discussed what he thought it would be like to have sex with a teenage Lindsay Lohan on the Howard Stern Show

'She's probably deeply troubled and therefore great in bed,' Trump told Stern when asked by the shock jock if he could imagine bedding 'troubled teen' Lindsay Lohan.

Trump went on to say: 'How come the deeply troubled women, you know, deeply, deeply troubled, they're always the best in bed?'

At the time of the interview, Lohan was just 18 years old. Trump was 58.

The conversation continued with Trump speaking about a friend he described as 'a great Playboy' and who he said only wants to date 'crazy' women.

2005 - Rachel Crooks

Rachel Crooks was a 22-year-old working as a receptionist at Bayrock Group, a real estate company based in Trump Tower in Manhattan, when she says Trump kissed her on the mouth without permission while in an elevator in 2005.

'It was so inappropriate,' Ms. Crooks told the New York Times. 'I was so upset that he thought I was so insignificant that he could do that.'

Crooks told the newspaper the incident took place after she shook hands with Trump in an elevator and he allegedly refused to let go.

She says he then began kissing her on the cheeks, before then kissing her lips.

2005 - Donald Trump admits he would 'inspect' pageant contestants backstage

Donald Trump bragged about the extra power he had during an interview with Howard Stern in April 2005, the tapes of which have been released by CNN.

'I'll tell you the funniest is that I'll go backstage before a show and everyone's getting dressed,' Trump said about the pageant.

'No men are anywhere, and I'm allowed to go in, because I'm the owner of the pageant and therefore I'm inspecting it. "Is everyone OK?" You know, they're standing there with no clothes. "Is everybody OK?"

'And you see these incredible looking women, and so I sort of get away with things like that.'

2005 - Trump brags about being able to grope women without consent to Billy Bush on the set of Access Hollywood

'You know I'm automatically attracted to beautiful - I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait,' he was heard saying to Billy Bush on the set of Access Hollywood in 2005 in a recording published by the Washington Post last year.

'And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the p****. You can do anything.'

2005 - Natasha Stoynoff

Natasha Stoynoff recounted how she had traveled to Mar-a-Largo to interview Trump and his wife, Melania, in December 2005.

She said Donald took her into a room he really wanted to see, before forcing himself on her.

'We walked into that room alone, and Trump shut the door behind us. I turned around, and within seconds, he was pushing me against the wall, and forcing his tongue down my throat,' she wrote for People.

Stoynoff went on to say how she was rescued when a butler walked in, however when the two were alone again shortly after Trump told her they were 'going to have an affair'.

2006 - Samantha Holvey

Samantha Holvey claims that as a 20-year-old representing North Carolina in the 2006 Miss USA pageant, Trump would inspect her and other contestants before the competition.

She has said she was 'disgusted' by the now-president's repeated behavior.

It was 'the dirtiest I felt in my entire life,' she told CNN last year. 'He would step in front of each girl and look you over from head to toe like we were just meat, we were just sexual objects, that we were not people.'

2007 - Summer Zervos - contestant on The Apprentice

Summer Zervos, who was a contestant on the fifth season of The Apprentice, said Trump groped and kissed her in his room at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2007.

She claims that she reached out to Trump a year after she left the show to speak about possible business opportunities, and when she met with him he kissed her 'open mouthed' multiple times, and at one point placed his hand on her breast.

She claims he then had her lie in bed with him she said telling her he wanted to watch 'telly telly', but soon after began 'thrusting his genitals' at her despite her pleas asking him to stop.

Zervos said during a press conference about her accusations: 'You do not have the right to treat women as sexual objects just because you are a star.'

2009 - Called Khloe Kardashian 'a fat piglet'

Trump made rude and offensive comments about Khloe Kardashian's physical appearance and weight while she filmed Celebrity Apprentice back in 2009, according to multiple people who worked on the set.

'He said: "Why don't we fire Khloe? She is a fat piglet. Why did we get the ugly Kardashian?"' a source told Huffington Post.

2010 - Friend of CNN anchor Erin Burnett

Erin Burnett detailed an encounter that a friend had with Trump in March 2010 in the boardroom at Trump Tower, when he allegedly tried to kiss her without permission.

The woman told Burnett, according to CNN: 'Trump took Tic Tacs, suggested I take them also. He then leaned in, catching me off guard, and kissed me almost on lips. I was really freaked out.

'After (the meeting), Trump asked me to come into his office alone. Was really unsure what to do. ... Figured I could handle myself.

'Anyway, once in his office he kept telling me how special I am and gave me his cell, asked me to call him. I ran the hell out of there.'

2013 - Miss USA contestant Cassandra Searles

Searles, who won Miss Washington in 2013, said Trump tried to seduce her, groped her, and treated the women in the pageant 'like cattle', according to Yahoo News.

'Do y'all remember that one time we had to do our onstage introductions, but this one guy treated us like cattle and made us do it again because we didn't look him in the eyes?' she wrote last year.

'Do you also remember when he then proceeded to have us lined up so he could get a closer look at his property?

'Oh I forgot to mention that guy will be in the running to become the next President of the United States.'

She then added: 'He probably doesn't want me telling the story about that time he continually grabbed my a** and invited me to his hotel room.'People have slammed an advert which pleaded with Victorians to be 'kind' to Sudanese children.

The Victorian Multicultural Commission, a government department, released the 60 second ad to convince people that most Sudanese children were not members of the African gangs involved in armed home invasions and violent carjackings.

Victorians flocked to social media on Wednesday to comment on the ad which claimed innocent Sudanese children were victimised by 'people in our community spreading hate and fear'.

'Do they really think we are as stupid and gullible as they are? We aren't that retarded to paint all of them with the same brush,' one critic said on Wednesday.

Another critic of the ad, which said the majority of Sudanese in Australia were good people, referred to Australia's multiculturalism as a 'failed experiment'.

She also questioned the Victorian Multicultural Commission's agenda.

'Are we assimilating people into this multicultural failed experiment or are they assimilating us?' she said.

'Kids are generally colour blind but some kids are ar******s regardless of colour. They pick on fat kids or red heads or kids with glasses they just need to learn to be nice. Simple.'

'Where's the ad telling Sudanese not to belt people with machetes and break into homes?' one man said on Wednesday.

'Where's the ad telling Sudanese not to belt people with machetes and break into homes?' one man said on Wednesday

The TV ad was released in Melbourne urging school students to be 'kind' to Sudanese children in the wake of African gang attacks in the city

'Do they really think we are as stupid and gullible as they are? We aren't that retarded to paint all of them with the same brush,' another critic said on Twitter

The Victorian Multicultural Commission defended its stance saying 'instead of blaming kids, we need to give them an opportunity to be part of their communities'.

'It's cheaper to provide help to people before they commit crimes, rather than after,' it said.

The Victorian Multicultural Commission Chairperson Helen Kapalos said the young African people committing crimes were still Australians, 'many born and raised here'.

'Each young man or woman is one of us. They are not 'them'. Each has their own set of circumstances,' she wrote on the government website.

'By entering this debate we are being invited to take sides in race politics and a race divide, based on colour and stereotypes.

The Victorian Multicultural Commission urged people to look out for Sudanese children and give them a wave at school

'Are we assimilating people into this multicultural failed experiment or are they assimilating us?' she said

'The story we witness on the ground is that so many young people of African background are seeking to attain a sense of belonging in a place where they feel they are not always welcome.'

The ad, released this week, features Sudanese families sending their children off to school, with a voice-over pleading with people to be 'kind'.

'These kids start school this week and their parents are really scared for them,' the ad began.

'Hundreds of these Australian families have survived a dreadful war and seen millions killed, but they're just as scared now, why?

'Because some people in our community are spreading hate and fear, and it's these innocent kids who are copping it.'

'Instead of blaming kids, we need to give them an opportunity to be part of their communities,' Multiculture Victoria Tweeted

'It's cheaper to provide help to people before they commit crimes, rather than after,' Multiculture Victoria Tweeted

The narrator of the ad, Helen Kapalos, went on to say 'yes, some kids have fallen through the cracks, and the police are dealing with that, but don't hate the majority of good people because a few have strayed'.

'That's not the Aussie way,' they said.

The Victorian Multicultural Commission urged people to look out for Sudanese children and give them a wave at school.

'Let's make the start of the school year a good one for everyone,' it said.

Filmmaker Richard Keddie said the ad was prompted by Deputy Police Commissioner Andrew Crisp.

'He feared these kids were going to be persecuted,' Mr Keddie told 3AW.

'These kids are amazing, considering what they've been through, they love Australia, they want to be great Aussies.

'We just think, give them a fair go because that's what Aussies are best at.'Democratic congressman Luis Gutierrez walked out of Donald Trump's State of the Union address when Republicans started chanting 'USA, USA'.

The representative from Illinois was caught ducking out the chamber at the end of the president's speech while others around him applauded.

He then issued a scathing response in which he sarcastically said: 'Whoever translated it for him from Russian did a good job.'

A spokesperson for Gutierrez, 64, however, insisted that his walk out was not a political gesture and was based more on scheduling.

'He was trying to make it to Univision', his spokesman said. 'He watched the last 90 seconds on TV. It was not a protest or anything. He was just trying to get ahead of the crowd.'

In his scathing statement, Gutierrez said he was 'hopeful', but added he doesn't see Congress and the President coming to an agreement that prevents the deportation of dreamers.

He also slammed Trump for failing to mention the plight of Puerto Ricans after Hurricane Maria.

Luis Gutierrez, 64, walked out of Donald Trump's State of the Union Address as Republican congressmen began chanting 'USA, USA'. A spokesperson insisted he left so he could make a television appearance on Univision

The Chicago native began: 'Even though I disagreed with almost everything he said, for Trump, the speech was clear and well-delivered. Whoever translated it for him from Russian did a good job.

The Illinois congressman later released a statement criticizing Trump's speech. 'I was hoping to get through my life without having to witness an outwardly, explicitly racist American President, but my luck ran out,' he said

Gutierrez, who is of Puerto Rican descent, continued: 'I am still hopeful, but I dont see this Congress and this President coming to an agreement that prevents the deportation of the Dreamers.

'The White House agenda is to gut legal immigration in exchange for allowing some of the Dreamers to live here. For those of us who support legal immigration, and thats most Democrats and many Republicans, it wont fly.

'And the Dreamers themselves have said they do not want legal status if it comes at the expense of others who will suffer more as part of the bargain. The speech did nothing to bring the pro- and anti-immigrant sides closer together.

'I was hoping for some sort of apology on Puerto Rico, but I heard nothing.

'Puerto Rico is a metaphor for how this President sees all Latinos and people of color: he does not see us as his equals and he does not see us as fellow human beings.

Gutierrez, pictured at a January 19 rally, said: 'Even though I disagreed with almost everything he said, for Trump, the speech was clear and well-delivered. Whoever translated it for him from Russian did a good job'

President Donald Trump celebrated the 'incredible progress' and 'extraordinary success' that his administration has made in the year since he took office as he began his State of the Union address on Tuesday

'If you look at how the President has treated Puerto Rico, you have to conclude that he just doesnt care and probably thinks of Puerto Rico as just another s***hole country.

'I was born in 1953 in the U.S. when separate but equal was the law of the land. I am proud of the progress the United States has made as a nation on issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities, and many other areas where we have advanced.

'I was hoping to get through my life without having to witness an outwardly, explicitly racist American President, but my luck ran out.'

Gutierrez, who is outspoken in his championing of Progressive causes, announced late last year that he will not seek reelection.

Trump celebrated the 'incredible progress' and 'extraordinary success' that his administration has made in the year since he took office in a strident State of the Union address on Tuesday night.Lizz Clarke said her young daughter is not allowed to wear trousers to school, instead is forced to wear skirts or dresses

A furious mother says she was left 'shocked and horrified' after her eight-year-old daughter was told she had to wear skirts or dresses instead of shorts to her private school.

Lizz Clarke said many private schools in Western Australia did not give girls the option to wear shorts and trousers because it could ruin the school's public perception.

'[Schools have said] not offering shorts and pants is tradition, they like the idea of girls wearing skirts and dresses,' Ms Clarke told Daily Mail Australia.

'That's how they present themselves to the world, it's part of the school identity.'

Ms Clarke, one of WA's representatives of Girl's Uniform Agenda, said while state schools have to offer students a choice, they want the same opportunity for private schools.

'The majority do not offer shorts and trousers [in WA],' she said.

Many private schools in Western Australia don't give girls the option to wear shorts and trousers because it could ruin the school's public perception.

'It has to change, it's a clear disadvantage to girls if they're not offered trousers.'

The mother, who has an eight-year-old girl and 13-year-old boy, said emphasis was being place on what the young girls look like, making them 'responsible for a school's identity' rather than 'putting comfort and learning achievements first'.

'I think in 2018, the fact we're telling girls they must wear skirts and dresses without a good reason is quite concerning,' Ms Clarke said.

More than 40 per cent of Perth's northern suburbs surveyed schools did not offer female students an option besides a skirt or dress, according to WA Today.

The push comes after a Brisbane high school offered to buy a student school shoes after the student came to school wearing a pair that were on the banned list

Ms Clarke told Daily Mail Australia up to 80 per cent of girls at Brisbane schools said they would wear shorts if they had the choice.

The push comes after a Brisbane high school offered to buy a student school shoes after the student came to school wearing a pair that were on the banned list.

The Year 11 student was originally given detention for wearing the wrong shoes, but when her mother confronted the school the punishment was lifted.

Store is the largest individual investment for the supermarket giant since 2015

The new store boasts a hydroponic 'living lettuce' section and $14 roast chickens

Woolworths has opened new flagship store in Marrickville, Sydney's inner-west

Woolworths has unveiled its new flagship store in Sydney's inner-west, complete with ready-to-go meals and a hydroponic 'living lettuce' fresh food section.

The new Marrickville Metro store also has a dedicated pick-up area for online orders and an overhauled deli, seafood, butcher and bakery area.

The supermarket giant said the latest store is the largest individual investment since 2015.

Woolworths has unveiled its new flagship store in Marrickville Metro, in Sydney's inner-west

Woolworths has also introduced 'Ready to Create' meal kit bags, similar to those from fresh food brands Hello Fresh and Youfoodz

'Jets of mist' spray the fresh produce until it ends up in customers' trolley's in the 'Living Lettuce' hydroponic growing set up

Woolworths managing director Claire Peters told News Limited the new store has been in planning over the last 11 months.

'We set out three objectives nearly 11 months ago,' Ms Peters said.

'Customers told us that they wanted a more convenient offer that was good for them and easy to shop, we wanted to put fresh food and health at the heart of the store, and the third was how can we bring neighbourhood greengrocers and local products into the store.'

The Marrickville store showcases local brands and products and has a fresh food section which mists produce with water.

Woolworths managing director Claire, who is the first female supermarket boss in Australia, spent a few days interviewing customers in the store

The huge store, described as a 'rustic yet future-proof design with a real community spirit', had to hire an extra 62 staff, bringing the total to 278

The Marrickville store showcases local brands and products and has a fresh food section which mists produce with water

'Jets of mist' spray the produce until it ends up in customers' trolley's in the 'Living Lettuce' hydroponic growing set up.

Even the humble roast chicken has had a makeover, with the new chickens 'flame roasted' and marinated in breadcrumbs, herbs and lemon juice.

While the standard roast chickens retail for $7.90, their more flavoursome counterparts have nearly doubled in price, selling for $14.

Woolworths has also introduced 'Ready to Create' meal kit bags, similar to those from fresh food brands Hello Fresh and Youfoodz, making it the first meal kit concept available at a mainstream Australian supermarket.

Even the humble roast chicken has had a makeover, with the new chickens 'flame roasted' and marinated in breadcrumbs, herbs and lemon juice

The store even has a dedicated front of store pick up area for online shopping orders

The new Marrickville Metro store also has a dedicated pick-up area for online orders and an overhauled deli, seafood, butcher and bakery area

The huge store, described as a 'rustic yet future-proof design with a real community spirit', had to hire an extra 62 staff, bringing the total to 278.

Ms Peters, who is the first female supermarket boss in Australia, spent a few days interviewing customers in the store and asking their opinions on everything from food range to online shopping.

'Customers in particular Woolworths stores would want more range suited for their local area, they'd want more help on affordable, healthy pricing, and in some cases they would just want better direction around the store,' she said.Donald Trump told a Republican congressman after Tuesday night's State of the Union speech that he is '100 per cent ' in favor of releasing a controversial intelligence memo tied to a congressional investigation about Russia's impact on the 2016 election.

The classified memo has generated open rhetorical warfare between Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee and career officials at the FBI and Justice Department.

'Let's release the memo,' South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan told Trump on his way out of the House chamber, in video footage captured by C-SPAN.

'Oh, yeah. Don't worry. One hundred per cent,' Trump replied.

Scroll down for video

President Donald Trump told South Carolina Republican Rep. Jeff Duncan on Tuesday night that he would '100 per cent' release a controversial classified intelligence memo that Republicans want the public to see

'Oh, yeah. Don't worry,' Trump told Duncan on his way out of the House chamber following his State of the Union address

Republican House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes got a party-line victory in his 'release the memo' campaign, while ranking Democrat Adam Schiff (right) is trying to win public release for his countervailing memo

'Can you imagine that?' the president added, seeming to hint at a scenario where he would keep the memo secret.

'You'd be too angry.'

Trump has until Saturday to decide whether to block the memo's public release after the Intelligence Committee voted along party lines to release it to the public.

The White House has pledged to conduct a legal and national security review before making a decision.

The memo, crafted by aides to Republican committee chair Devin Nunes of California, reportedly shows that the FBI and DOJ improperly applied for wirtap warrants covering at least one member of the Trump campaign team

The warrant applications to a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act judge are thought to have been in part based on a notorious and uncorroborated anti-Trump 'dirty dossier' paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

The dossier, compile by a former British spy, contained salacious and unproven claims, including one about Trump cavorting with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel and indulging in a 'golden showers' urine fetish.

Duncan, a conservative Republican, has come out in favor of releasing the memo in recent weeks

All members of Congress have been able to see the memo in a secure facility at the U.S. Capitol. A Democratic memo offered in rebuttal could be released publicly, but only after the entire House of Representatives has a similar opportunity to review it.

The White House said Monday that Trump had not decided whether to authorize the release of the memo, but said he favored 'full transparency.'

Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said 'no one' at the White House had seen it yet, however.

A number of conservatives favor releasing the memo, which they believe could discredit the findings of the investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.

White House aides have previously said Trump favored releasing the document, which is in contrast to the stance of the Justice Department.

The New York Times reports that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein approved a request last spring for extended surveillance on Carter Page, an unpaid foreign policy adviser to Trump's presidential campaign.

The memo is expected to spell out how Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein approved a request last spring for extended surveillance on Carter Page (pictured), an unpaid foreign policy adviser to Trump's presidential campaign

Republicans appear poised to argue that Rosenstein did not thoroughly review the application to a FISA court.

Page is under scrutiny for a 2016 trip he made to Moscow where he met with Russian officials, but insists that he made it clear he was not representing the presidential candidate.

A report he provided to the campaign afterward with his insights and an offer to set up a trip to Russia for Trump has made him a person of interest in investigations into alleged collusion, however.

Republicans have been teeing up their memo as a bombshell that will justify demands for an independent investigation of the DOJ and FBI, which had been conducting the Russia probe until Rosenstein hired Robert Mueller to serve as special counsel in the matter.

The Rosenstein-approved FISA court warrant application is thought to have relied at least in part on the 'dirty dossier' funded by Democrats against Trump in 2016

Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said last week that the GOP members had 'selectively and misleadingly' characterized classified information 'in an effort to protect the president at any cost.'

In a Sunday morning appearance on CBS, White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short suggested Trump would lean toward releasing the four-page document.

'We haven't obviously read the memo. It's classified. So it's hard for me to speculate on what's in the memo,' he said.

'I do think that we typically prefer transparency. And so if there are concerns that I think it would be helpful for Americans to know about, we would be open for that being released.'

Republican Sen. Susan Collins said Sunday that she was concerned that classified information would be compromised, however.

'That's a really serious matter. So, to me, the preferable way to handle the allegations of wrongdoing by certain FBI agents and a lawyer there is to leave it in the hands of the inspector general,' she told CNN.A woman from Myrtle Bank, an inner southeastern suburb, became $10 million richer after entering the draw online, following complaints from her husband over his job (Stock image)

An Adelaide couple have become the country's newest multi-millionaires after winning big in Tuesday's Oz Lotto.

A woman from Myrtle Bank, an inner southeastern suburb, became $10 million richer after entering the draw online, following complaints from her husband over his job.

Her forward thinking paid off in a massive way, allowing her husband to leave work and them to pay off the mortgage on their home.

Still grappling with the shock, the woman was yet to decide what the couple would be spending the rest of their giant sum on, news.com.au reported.

'I don't usually check my tickets, but my partner isn't happy at work which is why I bought the ticket,' she said.

'So I said, hang on let me just check online if we won. I logged on and saw we had won and thought it must just be a few dollars.'

The woman, who opted not to be identified, was left reeling with excitement when she saw how much money she had actually won.

The woman, who opted not to be identified, was reeling with excitement when she saw how much money she actually won (Oz Lotto draw pictured)

'We didn't want to jinx it because we thought it couldn't be true but we cracked a bottle of champagne to celebrate.'

She was ecstatic to learn her eyes hadn't been deceiving her and thrilled at the thought of not only setting herself and husband up, but their children too.

While excited to present her husband with the option of resigning from work, the woman was confident she'd stay employed out of love for her job.

The winning numbers in Oz Lotto draw 1250 on Tuesday 30 January 2018 were 24, 12, 45, 5, 40, 31 and 2. The supplementary numbers 30 and 16.Chaos exploded at a council planning meeting after local residents (left and right insets) yelled expletives and even threw a chair (from left to right) over a scheme to build new houses near their homes. In aggressive scenes that made the infamous Handforth Parish Council viral video look like a teddy bears picnic, one woman yelled she hoped the new development would be bombed. Another screamed out 'You b******s, you will be sacked' after planning permission was granted. Howls of 'you're turning this town into a sh**hole' and 'you haven't even been there, you don't know how horrible it is'. Then one woman bellowed 'It looks like a f**** prison when you see it. I hope al-Qaeda bombs the f***** ugly thing.' As she was urged to leave by an official she put her papers away and picked up a walking crutch. She fired off as she departed 'I hope you sleep well at night known that you have destroyed and you are destroying a beautiful town. How dare you. How f***** dare you'. The woman then picked up a chair and hurled it to the ground before being led away.Google has removed one of the world's largest gay dating apps from its Indonesia Play Store after a crackdown on the LGBT community by the government.

Indonesian officials had called for the tech giant to remove 73 LGBT-related applications, including dating services, from its Play Store, and urged people to shun apps that broke with cultural norms in the world's biggest Muslim-majority nation.

Communications ministry spokesman Noor Iza confirmed Wednesday that gay dating application Blued - which boasts more than 27 million users globally - no longer appeared in the Google Play Store available to Indonesian users.

The government's gay apps ban comes against a backdrop of growing hostility towards Indonesia's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community

'There was some negative content related to pornography inside the application,' Iza told AFP.

'Probably one or some members of the application put the pornographic content inside.'

Apple's online store, however, still had the application Blued available as of Wednesday.

Google declined to say whether it would comply with the government demand to remove dozens of LGBT-related apps.

Although homosexuality and gay sex are legal in Indonesia, same-sex relationships are widely frowned upon. Public displays of affection between gay couples are almost unheard of.

Tech giant: Google complied by removing the application Blued, which boasts 27million users

Indonesian police forcibly cut the hair of a group of transgender women and told them to act like 'real men' on Sunday

In the conservative Aceh province, homosexuality is illegal as the area is ruled by Islamic law.

In Aceh over the weekend, police forcibly cut the hair of a group of transgender women and made them wear male clothing, sparking protests from rights groups.

Indonesia also has a harsh anti-pornography law that is at times used by police to criminalise members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

The governments ban on gay applications joins growing hostility towards the LGBT community in Indonesia, where the community has been targeted in raids on 'gay sex' parties in Jakarta and Surabaya.

Indonesia's parliament is reported to be debating an amendment to the criminal code that could make same-sex relationships and sex outside marriage illegal.

A survey released last week has added to fears that a wave of homophobia is sweeping the nation of more than 250 million, which has traditionally been regarded as a bastion of tolerant Islam, according to Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting.

But the poll also found that the majority of Indonesians who were familiar with the term LGBT thought individuals had a right to live in the country.Ken Bone is back and this time he's challenging Donald Trump's remarks that his administration ended the war on energy.

During the president's first State of the Union address Tuesday night, Trump declared that he had 'ended the war on American energy'.

'And we have ended the war on beautiful, clean coal,' he added.

Internet sensation Ken Bone slammed Trump's comments on ending the war on American energy made during the president's State of the Union address

Ken Bone posted the rules for his drinking on his Twitter page, tweeting shortly after Trump's address began that he was already one beer in

By 9.30pm Bone had downed three beers

Bone tweeted Tuesday night: I work in the coal industry. Very little has changed

Bone also slammed comments Trump made about the FDA fast tracking cures and generic drugs

Bone continued to live-tweet during Trump's speech - while also continuing to drink

Bone also took a jab at Trump's comments on immigration

Bones' tweets were liked hundreds of times by his followers

Bone, the sweater-wearing Illinois native who quickly became an internet sensation in 2016 after asking then Presidential candidates Trump and Hillary Clinton a question on energy while decked in a bright red sweater and dark-rimmed glasses, tweeted his skepticism that Trump had solved the energy problem.

'I work in the coal industry,' he posted. 'Very little has changed.'

The tweet has been shared hundreds of times and 'liked' more than a thousand times.

Bone's Twitter jabs at Trump didn't end there.

While swiftly making his way through a six-pack of beer after creating a Trump State of the Union drinking game the former coal power plant operator continued to slam Trump's speech.

Im not convinced that fast tracking drugs through the FDA is good, especially with the opioid epidemic in full swing, Bone tweeted. What other side effect ridden drugs might slip through?

polished of the six pack in an hour. The game was stupid but I won. let's talk. https://t.co/yGzxgLLTxC  Ken Bone (@kenbone18) January 31, 2018

Bones also had a few chose words on the opioid crisis

According to Bones, Trump's SOTU deserved a B minus

Bones' tweets were quickly gaining popularity on Twitter, and he announced that at the end he had finished a six-pack of beer

Ken Bone (left) was live tweeting during President Trump's (right) State of the Union address on Tuesday night

Bone became an internet sensation in 2016 after asking then Presidential candidates Trump and Hillary Clinton a question on energy while decked in a bright red sweater and dark-rimmed glasses

He later wrote that he had 'polished' off six beers during Trump's address and gave the hour-and-a-half long speech a B minus.

Overall not bad. Good job steering clear of divisive stuff (mostly),' he wrote.

Bone was thrust into the social media spotlight two years ago while asking a question Trump and Clinton's energy policies during the second presidential debate for the 2016 election.

While many people were impressed with Bone's question, his name and appearance quickly became popular on Twitter resulting in hundreds of memes and landing Bones interviews on CNN, Jimmy Kimmel Live and Comedy Central.A disgraced high school teacher who filmed up the skirts of schoolgirls and their mothers during interviews has walked free from court.

Brendan Cohen, 52, was sentenced to five months in jail but was granted bail while waiting for an appeal.

Cohen pleaded guilty to filming up the skirts of students at Bialik College and Mount Scopus Memorial College in Melbourne, both on the grounds and during parent-teacher interviews between 2015 and 2017.

He admitted to creating child pornography by photoshopping faces of 36 children children aged from 11 to 17-years-old on to pornographic photos and a video, the Herald Sun reported.

Former high school teacher Brendan Cohen has been sentenced to five months in jail for 'upskirting' schoolgirls and their mothers during interviews - but he has walked free on bail waiting for an appeal (stock image)

Cohen was sentenced at the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Tuesday.

Victoria Police found more than 80 videos made by Cohen, filmed up the skirts of parents and students during searches of the school in May 2017.

Magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg said Cohen's actions were 'fundamentally wrong' and he would've been jailed for nine months if not for his early guilty plea.

Cohen was sentenced to serve a two-year Community Corrections Order.

He read a lengthy apology at his sentencing hearing on Tuesday.

Brendan Cohen, 52, pleaded guilty to filming up the skirts of students at Bialik College (pictured) in Melbourne

He had taught media at Bialik College for 15 years and then moved to Mount Scopus in 2016.

Bialik College principal Jeremy Stowe-Linder said Cohen's behavior was 'sickening'.

'I acknowledge and applaud the dignity and bravery of the victims - at our school, at his next school, at the dance school, in shopping centres and in the wider community,' he said.

He had taught media at Bialik College for 15 years and then moved to Mount Scopus Memorial College (pictured) in 2016

A victim of Cohen's read an impact statement in court saying she was unable to sleep and suffered anxiety as a result of her teacher's actions.

Other victims said their school years had been taken away from them.

Cohen has been disqualified from teaching and will appear in the County Court for an appeal hearing on April.Polish authorities have appealed to the international crime fighting agency Interpol to help track down 1,600 former SS men still wanted for Nazi-era war crimes.

Poland suffered more because of the Nazis during the Second World War than any other country.

Most of the death camps used to murder Jews were built there - along with ghettos, work camps and Gestapo torture centres.

Now the hunt is on to track down and bring to justice any surviving war criminals.

The Poles are also seeking SS personnel who served in the Nazi camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau (pictured), Ravensbruck, Majdanek-Lublin, Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Sachsenhausen, Dachau, Mittelbau-Dora and Gross-Rosen - all places where enormous numbers of Polish citizens were murdered

Poland suffered more because of the Nazis during the Second World War than any other country. Pictured: SS fighters from Finland in Poland, 1941

Most of the death camps to murder Jews were built in Poland - along with ghettos, work camps and Gestapo torture centres. Pictured: The Warsaw Ghetto

During the Second World War, Poland lost an astonishing 21.4 per cent of its population - about six million people. Pictured: Nazi soldiers fighting in Warsaw, 1944, during the uprising

The Poles resisted German occupation throughout the war, most famously during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. The vast majority of the city (pictured at the time) was destroyed by the Nazis

'We finally have to deal comprehensively with the mass murder that was committed in the German camps,' State Prosecutor Robert Janicki, of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) in Warsaw, told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

'It is a state prosecutor's duty to find perpetrators and bring them to justice, and we want to see if it is still possible to find Nazi war criminals today.'

The institute has instigated hundreds of probes against suspects involved in mass executions at villages across Poland, and against SS men who took part in the bloody suppression of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944.

The Poles are also seeking SS personnel who served in the Nazi camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Ravensbruck, Majdanek-Lublin, Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Sachsenhausen, Dachau, Mittelbau-Dora and Gross-Rosen - all places where enormous numbers of Polish citizens were murdered.

'We are not randomly looking for people who may have committed crimes,' said Janicki. 'We are looking for specific individuals. We have evidence against them and have exact information as to their names and what their roles were at the camps.'

Warsaw has sent 400 requests for Interpol with another 1,200 to follow soon. Replies from Germany and Austria have come back saying the wanted are either dead or their whereabouts unknown.

Poland suffered more because of the Nazis during the Second World War than any other country. Pictured: Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland

The German occupation of Poland began in September 1939, when the Nazis agreed a deal with the Soviet Union to annex just under half of the country while Stalin stole most of the rest. Pictured: Nazi and Soviet soldiers together in Poland after their separate invasions

If Interpol can find some of the wanted men Poland would then issue European Arrest Warrants to bring them back for trial.

Poland has no statute of limitations for war crimes. Janicki says he believes Interpol's involvement in the hunt for surviving SS men will help to 'finally bring these events of war to an end.'

During the Second World War, Poland lost an astonishing 21.4 per cent of its population - about six million people.

Half of those killed were Jews - 90 per cent of the country's Jewish population.

'We finally have to deal comprehensively with the mass murder that was committed in the German camps,' State Prosecutor Robert Janicki, of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) in Warsaw, told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. Pictured: A pile of shoes taken from victims of the Nazis at Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp

The German occupation of Poland began in September 1939, when the Nazis agreed a deal with the Soviet Union to annex just under half of the country while Stalin stole most of the rest.

In June 1941, the Nazis betrayed their Soviet allies and invaded the rest of Poland during Operation Barbarossa.

Poland was destined to become part of the German 'Lebensraum' - 'living space' - for ethnic Germans whom the Nazis felt were restricted to too small a geographical area.

The point of the occupation was to exterminate the Polish people and replace them with Germans.

But the Jews of Poland - and Europe - were to be exterminated first.

Six of the the eight extermination camps built by the Nazis were based in Poland - Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Chelmno and Majdanek.

The Poles resisted German occupation throughout the war, most famously during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.

Lasting from August 1 to October 2, it was ultimately a failure - with about 15,000 Polish fighters and 16,000 Nazis killed.

There were 200,000 further Polish victims when the Nazis annihilated the city as retribution for the uprising.A powerful 6.1 magnitude earthquake has struck northern Afghanistan, with tremors felt as far away as Islamabad and New Delhi.

The quake hit at 7.07am GMT near Afghanistan's northern border with Tajikistan in the Hindu Kush mountains at a depth of 119 miles, the US Geological Survey said.

At least one girl was killed and nine others injured when roofs collapsed on mud-brick homes in the village of Lasbela in Pakistan's Baluchistan province, said local government official Izat Nazir Baluch.

The quake hit at 7.07am GMT near Afghanistan's northern border with Tajikistan in the Hindu Kush mountains (shown in a stock image) at a depth of 119 miles, the US Geological Survey said

The epicentre was near Afghanistan's Jarm, which was hit by a devastating 7.5 magnitude quake in October 2015

He said authorities were still trying to assess damages in Baluchistan.

Frightened residents ran out of homes and shops following the tremor in Kabul, where the city is already on edge after more than 130 people have been in killed in the last two weeks in a series of devastating militant attacks.

TV footage showed Pakistanis fleeing offices schools in panic in Islamabad and elsewhere in the country.

Pakistani officials also dispatched teams in Balochistan and nearby Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to assess reports of damage.

However Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority did not expect serious losses, a spokesman said.

Today's quake was felt in the Afghan capital Kabul and the Pakistan capital Islamabad. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries in Afghanistan.

The earthquake also was felt in the Indian capital New Delhi and the Indian Kashmir region. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage to buildings there.

The epicentre was near Afghanistan's Jarm, which was hit by a devastating 7.5 magnitude quake in October 2015 that triggered landslides and flattened buildings, killing more than 380 people across the region.

The bulk of the recorded casualties were in Pakistan, where 248 people were killed, including 202 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and more than 1,600 injured.

Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, which lies near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.

Aid agencies have stressed the need for greater disaster preparedness in the war-torn country, which remains extremely susceptible to recurring natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes and landslides.

But deteriorating security has seen international NGOs such as the Red Cross and Save the Children downgrade their operations across the country, making it even more difficult to deliver crucial help to its most vulnerable citizens.

A magnitude-7.6 quake in 2005 killed thousands of people in Pakistan and Kashmir.Video footage has captured the moment an angry mob descended on the home of a suspected paedophile who allegedly tried to meet a 14-year-old girl for sex.

The scene turned into chaos as police led the 31-year-old man from his house in Hull, where he is understood to live with his parents, into a waiting van beneath the cover of riot shields.

It is claimed the suspect became a target after word spread in the community that he had been involved in attempted child grooming.

He was driven to safety as residents broke windows while hurling stones and screaming 'paedo' after his address was posted on Facebook.

An angry mob descended on the home of a suspected paedophile who allegedly tried to meet a 14-year-old girl for sex

People scrambled to record the scene on their mobile phones, and shout obscenities at the suspect

The man is understood to have been snared by the group calling themselves Hull's Child Protectors, who carried out a sting and posted the video on Facebook.

However the operation wasn't met with a warm response by everyone, with some claiming the group were inciting 'hatred and riots'.

But others praised their actions and told them to 'keep up the good work'.

Police officers surrounded the property in Hull around 7pm last night as dozens of locals gathered outside demanding the man's arrest.

According to eyewitnesses, the property has been vandalised with smashed windows and graffiti daubed on an outside wall.

The man has been arrested in connection with an 'ongoing investigation', police say.

The volatile scenes were posted on social media last night and have been viewed more than 36,000 times.

The man is understood to have been snared by the group calling themselves Hull's Child Protectors, who carried out a sting and posted the video on Facebook

Furious residents chanted 'paedo, paedo' and allegedly broke one of the van's windows with stones as it drove away from the scene

Police officers surrounded the property in Hull around 7pm last night as dozens of locals gathered outside demanding the man's arrest

As more police cars arrive with blue lights flashing, the crowd cheer and start chanting: 'Paedo, paedo, paedo.'

The cameraman tells officers: 'Can't believe you're protecting a nonce. Have any of you got kids?'

Police order the crowd to 'move off the road' and usher them back.

The suspect emerges from the house crouching beneath an officer's riot shield and a man shouts: 'There he is, look.'

The crowd erupts with angry obscenities as he is rushed into the back of a nearby police van with blacked-out rear windows.

Officers then form a human barricade in front of the van as it makes a speedy exit.

Footage captured with a mobile phone shows around a dozen officers standing between the property and the mob, trying to keep the peace

As more police cars arrive with blue lights flashing, the crowd cheer and start chanting: 'Paedo, paedo, paedo'

Humberside Police issued a statement last night pleading with the crowd to disperse so residents could 'feel safe in their homes'.

A spokesman for the force said: 'A 31-year-old Hull man has been arrested in connection with an ongoing police investigation.

'We have an increased police presence in the area to reassure residents and would appeal for anyone with information that would help us with our enquiries to call us on 101 quoting log 553 of 29/01/2018.'Two British brothers have appeared in court over an alleged plot to smuggle 50million worth of cocaine into Britain in a private jet.

Bricklayers Martin, 48, and Stephen Neil, 53, from Poole in Dorset, were charged alongside Italian Alessandro Iembo, 28, of Bournemouth, and Spanish nationals Victor Franco-Lorenzo, 40, and Jose Ramon Miguelez-Botas, 55.

They appeared in court after 15 suitcases containing a total of 50million of cocaine were found on a plane which landed in Farnborough Airport, Hampshire yesterday.

A spokesman for the firm which supplied the plane said it had been released by the authorities, as had the crew.

Martin Neil is one of five men charged with cocaine smuggling after yesterday's drugs bust on a private jet flying into Farnborough Airport

Italian Alessandro Iembo (left), from Bournemouth, and Spanish 40-year-old Victor Franco Lorenzo (right) are among the five men charged with drug smuggling

A suitcase containing packages of cocaine was found in a plane arriving from Colombia

The discovery is believed to have been one of the largest recent seizures of its kind.

All five appeared at Uxbridge Magistrates Court this morning, where district judge Deborah Wright refused the brothers' bail applications on the grounds that there was a risk that they would fail to surrender.

The family of hair salon owner Jose Ramon Miguelez-Botas said he was due to return to Spain yesterday after telling relatives he was going to the UK for a short holiday.

The father-of-one was born in Leon, northern Spain, but has spent most of his adult life in Valladolid.

The Border Force said that the drug was hidden in 15 suitcases that were found on board

Border Force officers found the drugs after searching this aircraft at Farnborough Airport

The Bombardier Global Express jet used can take 13 passengers, or sleep six, and boasts an entertainment system with six TVs.

The 5,200-miles private jet flight is estimated to have cost at least 100,000.

The plane belonged to an Austrian private jet company Tyrolean Jet Services and a Bombardier Global Express plane they own was seen leaving Farnborough yesterday.

The company's website states: 'Take-offs at short notice, individually selected 1st class catering providing all options of religious or dietary needs, and last minute changes in destination or the number of passengers are no major problems.'

This is the interior of the plane understood to have been used by the alleged drug smugglers

The luxurious private jet offers in-flight entertainment and catering for those hiring it

Border Force Deputy Chief Operating Officer Mike Stepney said: 'After meeting the flight and questioning those on board, officers became suspicious and searched the aircraft and their luggage.

'When opened, each case was found to contain between 34 to 37 tape wrapped packages weighing approximately one kilo each.

'One of these was pierced and a white powder exposed which tested positive for cocaine.'

Three properties in Bournemouth, Dorset, were also searched by the National Crime Agency (NCA) as part of the investigation, and computers and phones taken away for examination.

NCA operations manager Siobhan Micklethwaite said: 'This is a major seizure of cocaine, one of the largest flown into the UK by plane in many years, and this seizure by Border Force represents a major blow to organised crime.

'We estimate that once cut and sold on the streets in the UK it would have had a potential value in excess of 50 million.'

The Bombardier plane believed to have been used can seat 13 passengers and sleeps six

The aircraft crew were questioned before being released without charge.

They and the five charged men are believed to have been the only ones on the plane.

Farnborough Airport was used in the filming of 2008 Bond film Quantum of Solace, in scenes featuring the private jet of villain Dominic Greene, played by Mathieu Amalric.

The airport, which is about 25 miles south east of London, is used for business and private flights only, and sees around 130 take-offs and landings a day.

Prison van is pictured leaving Uxbridge Magistrates Court containing the suspects

The Neil brothers - both bricklayers - told the court they lived here in Southbourne, DorsetHong Kong police today sealed off part of a busy downtown neighborhood after an unexploded bomb was found during construction work in the Asian financial center.

Around 1,200 people were evacuated after the dangerous device, weighing some 1,000 pounds, were discovered by construction workers who are building the city's new 7,88 billion rail link.

A police spokesman said explosive ordinance disposal officers were deployed to the scene in Wan Chai, the city's central business district.

A police officer from explosive ordinance disposal is deployed to the scene in the Wan Chai district of Hong Kong today after an unexploded war-time bomb was found by builders

The picture, released by Hong Kong Police, shows an expert examining the dangerous device

The unexploded bomb was found at building site for the city's new 7,88 billion rail link

An explosive expert said that the bomb is in a 'dangerous condition'.

Police diverted traffic, while shops and offices in surrounding towers were shuttered for the rest of the day and ferry service at a nearby pier was halted.

It's the second time in less than a week that a bomb has been unearthed at the site for the cross-harbor Shatin-Central commuter rail link.

The first bomb was found on Saturday. It is believed to contain 500 pounds of explosives and could cause damage 2,000 meters away.

It is thought to have been dropped by US forces in the WWII, during the Japanese occupation of the islands sometime between 1941 and 1945.

Police in Hong Kong battled for over 12 hours from Saturday to Sunday to defuse a 1,000lb US World War Two bomb.

Police officers from explosive ordinance disposal are deployed to the scene in the Wan Chai

The 1,000lb device was found under Wan Chai (pictured), the city's central business district

The Police's Bomb Disposal Officer Alick McWhirter, who works for the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Bureau, told the local reporters that the suspected explosive bomb found today is the same type as the one defused on Saturday.

However compared to the last bomb, the fuse of the mechanism in the newly found bomb is said to be severely damaged.

The new bomb, found embedded in a slope, is also harder to reach.

Police sealed off part of busy Hong Kong downtown and evacuated 1,200 people in the area

Police officers evacuate journalists at the Wan Chai district of Hong Kong today

Officer McWhirter explained that 'the position of the bomb is making it difficult for our equipment to gain an optimal access'.

The explosive experts are currently preparing for the disposal operation. It remains unsure how long it would take the police and experts to stablise or defuse the device.

Further evacuation is expected to take place.

The Home Affairs Department of Hong Kong said it would provide shelter for the affected Wanchai residents.

A policeman checks a 1,000lb World War Two bomb unearthed in Wan Chai District of Hong Kong island on Saturday. It was successfully defused at 1pm on Sunday (5am GMT)A teenager from Iowa allegedly murdered his former girlfriend so that she could 'feel the pain' he was enduring since their break-up, police interviews in court documents show.

Tran Walker, 18, was unhappy that Paiten Sullivan ended their relationship and stabbed her on Sunday when they were in a vehicle with a friend who was also fatally stabbed as he tried to intervene, Siouxcity.com reported, citing an affidavit filed in Woodbury County District Court.

Sullivan and Felipe Negron were rushed to the Mercy Medical Center-Sioux City, where both were pronounced dead, police said.

Tran Walker has allegedly confessed to the two murders and is due to appear in court again next month

Walker, from Sioux City, was arrested at a local grocery store where he showed up injured. He is accused of two counts of first-degree murder and is reported to have confessed to the fatal stabbings in an interview with police. He is now being held at Woodbury County Jail.

District Associate Judge Todd Hensley set bond at $1 million at Walker's initial appearance in court early on Monday morning. The next hearing has been set for 8 February.Justice minister Phillip Lee said the government could not 'dismiss' assessments that found the UK would do worse outside the EU

A Tory minister faces calls to quit today after suggesting Brexit should be stopped if it would harm the economy.

Justice minister Phillip Lee said the government could not 'dismiss' leaked draft assessments that found the UK would do worse economically outside the EU.

He warned there were 'serious questions' about whether it would be 'legitimate' for Brexit to be pushed through despite evidence it would cause 'damage'.

A Downing Street spokesman said this afternoon that Dr Lee had been reprimanded. 'He's been spoken to by the chief whip. He has been reminded he can best air his views in private,' the spokesman said.

'He was asked to air his views in private in future.'

The government admitted today it would have no choice but to hand the impact documents to MPs, despite Theresa May and other ministers deriding them as wrong.

Dr Lee's incendiary comments sparked fury from Eurosceptics - who said he should resign if he wanted to go against government policy. A Brexiteer minister told MailOnline the breach of collective responsibility was 'quite extraordinary'.

The intervention marks a dramatic escalation of the row over leaked impact assessments which claimed Britain will be worse off whatever deal is done with the EU.

The papers suggest even a Norway-style arrangement keeping the UK in the single market would be a drag on the economy over the next 15 years.

Referring to the findings on Twitter, Dr Lee said: 'If these figures turn out to be anywhere near right, there would be a serious question over whether a government could legitimately lead a country along a path that the evidence and rational consideration indicate would be damaging.

'We can't just dismiss this and move on. If there is evidence to the contrary, we need to see and consider that too.'

Mr Lee was not reprimanded for what he said - that Brexit could be rethought - but only for airing it publicly.

Downing Street refused to comment on whether it allowed policy to be directed by evidence or political dogma.

Dr Lee made his extraordinary intervention on Twitter last night, suggesting the government could not continue with Brexit if it was forecast to damage the economy

Brexit minister Steve Baker confirmed in the Commons this afternoon that the papers will be released, rather than suffer a defeat in a formal vote

Mr Baker said MPs should respect the need for 'confidentiality' when they were given access to the documents

House of Commons Speaker John Bercow said he expected the impact documents to be made available 'urgently'

Theresa May dismissed the paper as a draft today, pointing out it made no attempt to model the kind of comprehensive free trade deal being pursued by the Government.

Speaking to reporters on a flight to China, the Prime Minister said: 'There is analysis being done. This is very preliminary.

'What has been seen so far is a selective interpretation of a very preliminary analysis, which ministers have not signed off, have not approved, and which doesnt actually even look at the sort of deal that we want to deliver in terms of the future relationship with the European Union.'

Opposition MPs and some pro-Remain Tories have demanded the release of the documents, which were leaked to the Buzzfeed website.

Brexit minister Steve Baker confirmed in the Commons this afternoon that the papers will be released, rather than suffer a defeat in a formal vote.

Mr Baker said MPs should respect the need for 'confidentiality' when they were given access to the documents. Speaker John Bercow said he expected them to be made available 'urgently'.

The move came despite Mrs May saying overnight that it would be 'wrong' to release anything that could weaken her hand in talks with Brussels.

The Prime Minister and her husband Philip looked to be enjoying the show at the Crane Tower in Wuhan this morning. Mrs May is visiting China

Theresa May seemed to be enjoying herself at the event in Wuhan this morning

Mrs May pledged MPs would be given 'appropriate' information before they vote on the final deal, probably at the end of this year.

She added: 'When the time comes for Parliament to vote on the final deal, we will ensure that Parliament has the appropriate analysis on which to be fully informed, on which to base their judgement.

WHAT DID THERESA MAY AND PREMIER LI DISCUSS IN BEIJING AND HOW COULD IT BOOST TRADE? Beef is going back on the menu Premier Li Keqiang told a press conference after the talks that China would open up its markets to UK products - including agricultural products. British beef is expected to be back on the menu in China within six months as a result - decades after it was barred as a result of the BSE scare. They want to enhance the 'Golden Era' Mrs May said she was pleased that they had agreed to intensify the 'Golden Era' in the UK-China relationship. The PM said 'much progress' had been made in UK-China relations since the state visit of President Xi to Britain in 2015. Mr Li said it might be 'winter' in Beijing but it was 'springtime' for ties between the nations. Brexit will not damage relations Mr Li said Britain's decision to leave the EU would make no difference to the bilateral relationship. Premier Li said: 'Our relationship will not change with the changes of EU-UK relations. 'We will have assessment and discussion on our trade relationship to make our economic and trade relationship go forward.' Mrs May added that Britain would be more 'outward looking' after leaving the EU. 'We are committed to building on our deep and mature ties,' she said. 'We believe that is in the best interests of the UK.' North Korea sanctions Mr Li said they had agreed effective implementation of sanctions against North Korea was essential. 'We agree that its pursuit of nuclear and ballistic missile programmes is illegal, reckless and poses an unacceptable threat to international security,' she said. 'We have agreed that the full and effective implementation of UN Security sanctions is vital to persuade the North Korean regime to change course and abandon its illegal activity.' Advertisement

'But it would be wrong to publish analysis before that analysis has been completed, and it would also be wrong to publish analysis which might prejudice out negotiating position, and indeed Parliament itself has accepted that.'

However, Dr Lee went significantly further by suggesting that Brexit might not happen if the final impact assessment of a deal with Brussels was negative.

'We can't just dismiss this and move on. If there is evidence to the contrary, we need to see and consider that too,' he wrote.

'The PM has been dealt some tough cards and I support her mission to make the best of them. It's time for evidence, not dogma, to show the way.

'We must act for our country's best interests, not ideology & populism, or history will judge us harshly. Our country deserves no less.'

Tory MP Andrew Bridgen suggested Dr Lee should resign if he wanted to go against government policy.

He said: The chief whip needs to impose collective responsibility discipline across the government. If he wants to espouse his own views then he should be on the backbenches where he would be free to do so.

His comments are inaccurate. He said if there is any truth in these figures, but the fact is there is not. They will be proved wrong again.

It is an attempt to undermine Brexit minister Steve Bakers response on behalf of the government to the urgent question yesterday.

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said: He knows whether these figures are right does he? There is a big if in there.

This report is from the same people that produced every failed report so far. It uses the same model and is therefore very limited, does not deal with all eventualities and therefore should be dismissed out of hand.

What he does is a matter for him and the government.

Mrs May was challenged on the domestic infighting blighting her premiership at a press conference in China today.

But she insisted she was focused on delivering the 'British dream'.

'If you look at what weve been doing over the recent weeks and months, I think that there are many people in the United Kingdom want to ensure that they are their families can achieve the British dream of ensuring that each generation has a better future than the last,' she said.

'For a lot of young people, thats about owning their own home, being able to get their foot on the housing ladder.

'Weve cut stamp duty for 95 per cent of first time buyers and Im pleased to say that figures out only last week show that we have seen the highest number of first-time buyers in the last year for a decade.'Police found the illegal Croatian self-loading pistol inside glamour girl Sandy Hunter's (pictured) wardrobe at her home in Dagenham, Essex

A glamour model who claims she hooked up with boxer Amir Khan hours after he appeared with his pregnant wife on TV is facing jail after a loaded handgun and ammunition was found buried in her shoe cupboard.

Police found the illegal Croatian self-loading pistol inside glamour girl Sandy Hunter's wardrobe at her home in Dagenham, Essex.

Hunter, 33, who uses the name Sandy Rae Hunter and appeared on Channel 5 reality show 'One Night with My Ex', was living with her 10-year-old daughter in the two-bedroom house at the time of the raid in 2016.

Her trial at Maidstone Crown Court yesterday heard the 9mm Parabellum automatic pistol was on 'open display' stuffed into a holdall in a pile of shoe boxes.

The gun had 15 rounds of ammunition inside and was found alongside another 26 loose cartridges.

Earlier this month, it was reported Hunter had been sexually involved with Amir Khan just hours after he appeared on television with his pregnant wife Faryal Makhdoom.

Hunter claimed she and the I'm a Celebrity star drank cocktails before heading to a room at a London Dockland's hotel where he slapped her bottom and kissed her.

Despite denying she knew the gun was there when she was first arrested, the 33-year-old has now admitted firearms offences.

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Earlier this month, it was reported Hunter had been involved in a romp with Amir Khan (pictured on Good Morning Britain) just hours after he appeared on television with his pregnant wife Faryal Makhdoom

Her confession came after a series of Whatsapp messages between her and her boyfriend were presented to the jury.

The prosecution said they were 'clear evidence' of her knowledge of the gun and cartridges.

She used the word 'ting' to refer to the gun in an exchange about it being dropped off at and collected from her home.

In one message to her partner Spencer Tapper, Hunter also claimed she would kill another woman 'with his ting'.

Hunter, of Dagenham, Essex, denied possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life, possessing ammunition with intent to endanger life, possessing a prohibited firearm and possessing ammunition without a firearm certificate.

But prosecutor Paul Valder was only halfway through his opening speech when Hunter, who describes herself on social media as a TV personality, published model, ring girl and actress, pleaded guilty to two alternative charges.

She admitted intentionally assisting Tapper's possession of the 9mm Parabellum firearm and the cartridges.

Wearing a black fluffy coat, white top and black leggings, Hunter bit her lip and cried as she sat in the dock in Kent yesterday.

Hunter (pictured), 33, who uses the name Sandy Rae Hunter and appeared on Channel 5 reality show 'One Night with My Ex', was living with her 10-year-old daughter in the two-bedroom house at the time of the raid in 2016

The glamour girl (pictured) claims she and the I'm a Celebrity star drank cocktails before heading to a room at a London Dockland's hotel where he slapped her bottom and kissed her

Also on trial was 37-year-old Tapper, of Dagenham. He denied the same original four firearm charges, as well as three conspiracy offences relating to another gun and ammunition.

These were discovered by police as he and another man allegedly transported a Colt Government Model pistol and 50 bullets in two cars on the M2 motorway in Kent in February 2017.

But like Hunter he also decided to admit alternative charges as the prosecution opened the case against him.

He admitted possessing the prohibited Parabellum gun and ammunition, as well as possessing the prohibited Colt handgun and 50 loaded cartridges.

Hunter and Tapper will be sentenced with two other men on February 8.

Firearm offences usually carry a minimum five-year sentence but the court heard the two charges Hunter had admitted did not carry that mandatory term.

But Judge Martin Huseyin warned Hunter as she was released on bail that she still faced prison.

Despite denying she knew the gun was there when she was first arrested, the 33-year-old (pictured) has now admitted firearms offences

Wearing a black fluffy coat, white top and black leggings, Hunter (pictured) bit her lip and cried as she sat in the dock in Kent yesterday

The loaded weapon was found inside a velvet bag, similar to a cushion cover, in a grey holdall on top of a pair of boots in an open shoe box at Hunter's (pictured) home

He told her barrister: 'I release her on bail but it is not to be taken as any indication of the type of sentence she will receive.'

Tapper was remanded in custody.

The jury was formally discharged by the judge and the seven charges on the trial indictment are expected to be left on the court file.

Mr Valder told the court the police raid at Hunter's then home in Goresbrook Road, Dagenham, Essex was carried out at about 12.30pm on November 16 2016.

Officers were met by Hunter, and she and her daughter waited in a patrol car while the house was searched.

The loaded weapon was found inside a velvet bag, similar to a cushion cover, in a grey holdall on top of a pair of boots in an open shoebox.

Mr Valder said: 'It was loaded with ammunition when police arrived unannounced and searched the house.

'It was in plain sight because the wardrobe didn't have any doors. Police spoke to Sandy Hunter and asked who the bag belonged to.

'She asked where it had been. She was told it was in the wardrobe in the front bedroom and asked again if she knew whose it was and she answered no.'

Hunter was arrested and interviewed.

Amir Khan (pictured) has insisted his pregnant wife will stick with him 'through thick and thin' despite the cheating allegations against him

She said the house belonged to her mum but she and her daughter had been living there for some weeks.

She added all the clothing, shoes and make-up were hers, although her sister would also stay at the address.

Hunter also told police a friend had house-sat while she went on holiday to Cyprus the previous month, and that she was in the habit of leaving a key under the front door mat.

But she denied she had ever seen the holdall, gun or bullets.

'She said she had a lot of enemies but didn't know anyone who would put a loaded firearm in her home,' said the prosecutor.

'She said she would not have left it in view of where her daughter might see it and did not know why it was there.'

Tapper, she said, had visited her a few days before the raid and they had slept together. He let himself in with the key and left the following morning.

Pictured: Amir Khan and his pregnant wife Faryal Makhdoom on ITV's Good Morning Britain earlier this month (left) and at the BBC's Sports Personality of the Year awards (right)

'She said she hadn't seen the gun, let alone touched it, and hadn't been asked by anyone to look after it for them,' added Mr Valder.

'She said she wouldn't know who would have put it there, and again she said she had a lot of enemies.'

The WhatsApp messages between Hunter and Tapper were found by police on her iPhone.

The court was told several exchanged during a lengthy chat on October 19 concerned arrangements as to when the gun would be dropped at her home, where it would be left, and when collected.

Hunter referred to it as 'the ting' and at one stage, when Tapper suggested sending a woman called Jade to collect it, she replied: 'I will kill her. I swear to you. With your ting and rub your print on it'.

Tapper replied: 'She might kill you. Disarm you.' But Hunter continued: 'Her kill me? Do you know how much hate I have inside me for her and you.'

At one stage Hunter talked about the gun being put in a bin at her home and that it would not be her fault if it went missing.

Tapper then warned Hunter he would 'smash her head in', adding 'If you lose it, prepare to lose your dogs'.

Mr Valder told the court: 'The prosecution say that that conversation is clearly evidence that she was talking about his 'ting' being his firearm, that she was going to put it outside because she wants it to be collected.

Sandy Hunter, of Dagenham Essex, has been released on bail but warned she faces prison

'If it goes missing it's not down to her and he makes threats about if it does go missing, and so on.

'The prosecution say (that is) clear evidence that they both knew full well about the presence of a firearm in that address.'

Tapper was arrested after a police pursuit on the M2 motorway between Sittingbourne and Faversham in Kent involving armed officers from the Metropolitan Police's specialist team tackling gang violence.

He, together with Mahesh Chaitoo, 28, and Aymon Popo, 33, were involved in collecting and transporting a second illegal handgun and ammunition from the seaside town of Broadstairs and back to Essex.

Tapper was described as 'the guiding hand', using Chaitoo to transport the weapon as they travelled in convoy. Popo was 'the conduit' between the two, liaising via mobile phone.

Chaitoo, of Beresford Mansions, Beresford Road, Southend, Essex, pleaded guilty to possessing a prohibited firearm, namely the Colt Government Model pistol, on February 19 last year.

Popo, of Highfield Road, Romford, Essex admitted the same charge, as well as possessing ammunition without a firearm certificate on the same date.

Chaitoo and Popo will also be sentenced on February 8 and are in custody.A Canadian paraplegic has almost conquered the top of the New South Wales-Queensland border, with a lot of help from friends and strangers.

It took three hours and 17 people to carry and inspire Carl Reiner within metres of the 1159m summit of popular Mount Warning.

'It was one of those days no one can ever take away from me,' Mr Reiner, 30, told the Gold Coast Bulletin.

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Reaching the base of the final section of Mount Warning was an unforgettable moment for Daniel Stubbs and Carl Reiner.

The tourists' journey ended at the base of the final section of Mt Warning, which would have involved a difficult scramble across a rocky incline.

'When I heard about Mount Warning, I thought "Bring it on". I'm always up for a challenge. I have been my whole life, which I'm really thankful for now I'm in a wheelchair because I'm not just stuck in a house not wanting to do anything.'

The tourists' journey ended at the base of the final section of Mount Warning, which involved a difficult scramble across a rocky incline but would have ended in 360 degree views.

'It was a hard call to make,' Carl's mate and travelling partner Daniel Stubbs told the Bulletin.

'I hiked up to check it out and while I think we could have got him up, coming down would have been tough. Safety prevailed.'

The Mount Warning mountain climb was part of Mr Reiner's 30th birthday celebrations

'I really believe in young people and what I saw on Mount Warning was beautiful,' Paola Hopkinson-Smith said

The unforgettable experience is part of an overseas backpacking adventure, which began last October.

One of the first stops was Thailand, where Mr Reiner and Mr Stubbs met and became friends with Gold Coast woman Paola Hopkinson-Smith.

When the pair arrived in Queensland, Mrs Hopkinson-Smith introduced them to her brother, who took wheelchair-bound Mr Reiner on several trails, which inspired him to take on the more loftier challenge of Mount Warning.

'They tried to do it a couple of weeks earlier but only made it halfway because there was only four of them,' Mrs Paola Hopkinson-Smith said.

'This time my (adult) son got a lot of kids together. His friends brought their friends and we ended up with 17 of us. It was wonderful.'

Despite not reaching the peak, the group were extremely proud of what they had achieved.

'They're the most beautiful guys and I saw a lot of young people like them,' Mrs Hopkinson-Smith said.

'I really believe in young people and what I saw on Mount Warning was beautiful.'A teenage cheerleader who was not wearing a seat belt has been killed in a car crash.

Macie Behringer, 16, was driving by herself when she lost control of her car, which slid into the opposite lane and hit an oncoming vehicle.

Behringer, also a gymnast, was pronounced dead at the scene in Lake Township, Ohio, Cleveland19.com reported.

Macie Behringer, 16, was a popular gymnast and cheerleader at Lake High School in Lake Township, Ohio

Police say that speed was a factor in the teenager's death and that she was not wearing a seat belt

The other driver - who was wearing a seat belt - suffered only minor injuries. Police said that that excessive speed is believed to be a factor in the crash.

Behringer attended Lake High School - police say that she was a junior imminently due to graduate early with the senior class.

Counselors and local clergy are at the school to speak with students to cope with what has been described as a 'devastating loss' which has left many students heart-broken.A toddler died after he got wrapped up inside his Thomas the Tank Engine quilt during the night, a coroner heard.

Jordan Blue Elmore was found by his mother at around 10.30am with the quilt covering his face.

His mother Tanya Elmore, from Gainsborough in Lincs, called for an ambulance but Jordan was later pronounced dead at Scunthorpe General Hospital.

An inquest heard that Jordan was taken into foster care after his birth due to his mother's drinking, but was returned to her care.

Jordan Blue Elmore was found by his mother at around 10.30am with the quilt covering his face at their home in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire

A police officer said he smelled alcohol on her breath at the hospital but did not believe her to be intoxicated. She was cleared of any wrongdoing.

The hearing at Lincoln Coroners Court heard that his mother had put him to bed at 11.30pm on February 4, 2017.

Tanya was arrested at the hospital after Jordan's death on suspicion of neglect - but the case was later dropped because there was insufficient evidence.

In her police interview, which was read out in court, she said: 'It was about 11 to 11.30pm when I took him to bed. I picked him up and took him upstairs.

How to put babies and toddlers to bed safely According to advice from Which?, it is acceptable for quilts, duvets and pillows to be used by babies over a year old, like Jordan. On their website, advice states: 'Quilts, duvets and pillows shouldn't be used for babies under one year old. After this, it's fine to replace baby blankets and top sheets with a cot quilt or duvet if you wish. 'Pillows can also be safely used from the age of one year, but don't feel you have to buy one - your baby will be used to sleeping without one and may even not want it in the cot.' This also matches advice given by Mothercare, who say: 'If your child is younger than 12 months, it's important not to use cot quilts, duvets, pillows, sheepskin or hot water bottles. 'These can make the crib, cot or moses basket far too hot, and can also stop your baby from moving about comfortably.' Parents with children aged 1+ are advised that using duvets is acceptable (stock) Advertisement

'He just seemed strange, he was very quiet. I laid him on his back and tucked him in with his Thomas the Tank Engine quilt up to his chest, with his arms out of the top.

'I was in the room with him for another 20 minutes. He was awake and watching me. I left him and then went downstairs.

'I fell asleep at 12ish. I woke up at about 9.30am, gave the dog his tablet and opened the door for him to go outside, but he just came back into the living room and gave me a funny look.

'I went to the toilet and tried to be quiet so I didn't wake the baby.'

When she went into the bedroom, he was under the quilt and she realised something had gone horribly wrong.

He was taken to Scunthorpe General Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 11.48am.

Detective Sergeant Gail Hurley gave a statement at the inquest.

She said: 'Around the time of Jordan's birth, he was placed into a child protection plan and was placed in foster care due to concerns about Tanya's alcohol intake.

'However, after a time professionals were happy with Tanya's progress and Jordan was returned to her care.

'A police constable at the hospital could smell alcohol on her breath but he didn't think that she was intoxicated.

'She was arrested at 1.47pm on suspicion of neglect and she was taken to Lincoln police station.'

The report read out that there was also no sign of injuries or trauma or any indication of neglect.

No criminality was found, so the case was closed.

Coroner Paul Smith gave a narrative verdict and said: 'Jordan Blue Elmore was pronounced dead at Scunthorpe General Hospital at 11.48am on February 3 2017.

'He had been put to bed in his room at 11.30pm and was checked by his mother at 10.30am the next morning. He was found unresponsive.

'The precise medical cause has not been ascertained.'Sydney Trains have shared shocking CCTV footage of passengers taking dangerous risks at stations during morning rush-hour.

One of the clips shows a man running for the train at Windsor train station before they close on him.

He then falls down onto the tracks as the train begins to move, trapping him against the edge of the platform.

The man tries to escape but is unable to, and becomes stuck on the tracks.

Sydney Trains have shared shocking CCTV footage of passengers taking dangerous risks at stations during morning rush-hour

One of the clips shows a man running for the train at Windsor train station before they close on him

Other travellers manage to drag the man onto the platform as the train comes to a stop.

Miraculously the man is able to walk away seemingly without suffering any serious injuries.

Another clip filmed at Central station shows a man pushing a pram along the edge of the platform as the train's doors close.

The man puts his hand against the doors and tries to wedge them open while he waves down the outside of the carriage to get the attention of a staff member.

The train then takes off and the man is dragged metres along the platform, knocking the pram into the gap between the platform and the train.

The man manages to let go of the train doors and grabs a hold of the pram, pulling it away from the fast-moving train.

Another clip filmed at Central station shows a man pushing a pram along the edge of the platform as the train's doors close

'Our doors are not like elevator doors, you can't just push them open again,' Sydney Trains chief executive Howard Collins told Nine News.

'You may hit that door, fall on the tracks and as a result you could seriously injure yourself or other people.'

NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance said it was 'silly behaviour'.

The train then takes off and the man is dragged metres along the platform, knocking the pram into the gap between the platform and the train

'Advertisement

British beef is set to go back on the menu in China for the first time in decades as Theresa May renewed her commitment to the 'Golden Age' in relations today.

On a visit to Beijing, the Prime Minister used talks with Li Keqiang, the country's second most important politician, to signal her determination to boost trade with the giant economy.

At a press conference, both politicians hailed the potential for 'deepening our trade relationship even further'.

Mrs May said that would include ending the block on British beef within six months. The bar has been in place since the BSE crisis erupted in the 1980s.

'We have agreed new measures to improve market access in China and remove barriers to trade,' Mrs May said.

'This includes an agreement to make progress on the lifting of the BSE ban on British beef exports within six months and an agreement to allow exports of a broader range of dairy products from the UK to China.'

Premier Li also dismissed the idea that Brexit would make the UK less attractive to China. 'Our relationship will not change with the changes of EU-UK relations,' he said.

'We will have assessment and discussion on our trade relationship to make our economic and trade relationship go forward.'

At a press conference with Li Keqiang, the country's second most important politician, both politicians hailed the potential for 'deepening our trade relationship even further'

Theresa May said she was paving the way for a new and deeper relationship with China on her visit to the country

Mrs May said deeper trade would include ending the block on British beef within six months. The bar has been in place since the BSE crisis erupted in the 1980s

The two politicians looked on as a series of trade deals were signed at the meeting in Beijing this morning

Mrs May said Britain would be more 'outward looking' after leaving the EU. 'We are committed to building on our deep and mature ties,' she said. 'We believe that is in the best interests of the UK.'

During their meeting at the Great Hall of the People, Mrs May said 'much progress' had been made in UK-China relations since the state visit of President Xi to Britain in 2015.

Mrs May will have crunch discussions with President Xi Jinping tomorrow.

And she told Mr Li she wanted the meeting to 'consider how we can build further on that golden era and on the global strategic partnership that we have been working on between the UK and China.'

Mr Li told her that it was 'spring' in ties between the nations. 'It's now quite cold in northern China. But it is also the start of spring,' he said.

Mrs May said the pair had agreed effective implementation of sanctions against North Korea was essential.

'We agree that its pursuit of nuclear and ballistic missile programmes is illegal, reckless and poses an unacceptable threat to international security,' she said.

WHAT DID THERESA MAY AND PREMIER LI DISCUSS IN BEIJING AND HOW COULD IT BOOST TRADE? Beef is going back on the menu Premier Li Keqiang told a press conference after the talks that China would open up its markets to UK products - including agricultural products. British beef is expected to be back on the menu in China within six months as a result - decades after it was barred as a result of the BSE scare. They want to enhance the 'Golden Era' Mrs May said she was pleased that they had agreed to intensify the 'Golden Era' in the UK-China relationship. The PM said 'much progress' had been made in UK-China relations since the state visit of President Xi to Britain in 2015. Mr Li said it might be 'winter' in Beijing but it was 'springtime' for ties between the nations. Brexit will not damage relations Mr Li said Britain's decision to leave the EU would make no difference to the bilateral relationship. Premier Li said: 'Our relationship will not change with the changes of EU-UK relations. 'We will have assessment and discussion on our trade relationship to make our economic and trade relationship go forward.' Mrs May added that Britain would be more 'outward looking' after leaving the EU. 'We are committed to building on our deep and mature ties,' she said. 'We believe that is in the best interests of the UK.' North Korea sanctions Mr Li said they had agreed effective implementation of sanctions against North Korea was essential. 'We agree that its pursuit of nuclear and ballistic missile programmes is illegal, reckless and poses an unacceptable threat to international security,' she said. 'We have agreed that the full and effective implementation of UN Security sanctions is vital to persuade the North Korean regime to change course and abandon its illegal activity.' Advertisement

'We have agreed that the full and effective implementation of UN Security sanctions is vital to persuade the North Korean regime to change course and abandon its illegal activity.'

Mrs May said she was pleased that they had agreed to intensify the 'golden era' in the UK-China relationship.

Mr Li said that China would further open up its markets to UK products - including agricultural products.

He said that Britain's decision to leave the EU would make no difference to their bilateral relationship.

Earlier, Mrs May used a trip to the Chinese city of Wuhan - home to more students than any other city in the world - to announce plans to strengthen education ties.

But she sounded a note of caution about President Xi's flagship Belt and Road Initiative to establish overland transport links between China and Europe, which some investors believe could be a goldmine for Western construction companies.

While recognising that the Belt and Road could potentially offer 'huge' opportunities to businesses from outside China, she added: 'What I would like to see is ensuring that we have transparency and international standards being adhered to and I will be discussing that with my Chinese interlocutors.'

Mrs May promised to raise UK business concerns about over-production of steel and the need for more protection for Western company's intellectual property against the piracy for which China is notorious.

And she said she would raise concerns with Mr Xi about Hong Kong, where more than 100 democracy activists have been detained in protests against alleged encroachment on the partial automony granted the former colony after its handover by the UK in 1997.

'I will be raising both human rights and the issue of Hong Kong,' Mrs May told reporters travelling with her to China. 'We believe that the future of Hong Kong - that 'One Country, Two Systems' future - is important and we are committed to that.

'I've raised this in the past with President Xi and he has shown commitment to that, but I will continue to raise it with them.'

Although EU rules prevent a free trade deal until after the UK's withdrawal, Mrs May said there was work that can be done now on improving links.

'China is a country that we want to do a trade deal with,' said the Prime Minister.

'But I think there is more that we could be doing in the interim and doing right now in terms of looking at potential barriers to trade and the opening up of markets to ensure British businesses are able to do good trade into China.'

Earlier, Mrs May and husband Philip were treated to a colourful Opera performance in Wuhan.

Despite travelling thousands of miles from Westminster, Mrs May has been unable to escape the febrile atmosphere threatening to engulf her premiership.

Speaking to journalists on the flight overnight, the PM insisted she would not be derailed by mounting pressure from rebel Tory MPs, saying: 'I'm not a quitter.'

But she also acknowledged she needed to make a better job of explaining what the Government was trying to achieve.

MPs have said the Government appears to be 'drifting', with the PM apparently struggling to control her Cabinet.

Mrs May raised eyebrows last year following the general election when she vowed to stay on and lead the Tories into the next election in 2022. But last night she ducked a question about whether she still planned to remain leader.

However, she insisted she would not be knocked off course by the latest storm threatening her leadership. Asked about the threat to her position, she said: 'First and foremost, I'm serving my country.

During their talks at the Great Hall of the People, Mrs May said 'much progress' had been made in UK-China relations since the state visit of President Xi to Britain in 2015

The Prime Minister renewed her commitment to the 'Golden Age' in relations with China during the meeting today

Premier Li guided Mrs May as the Prime Minister was welcomed by the ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing

Mrs May was met by Premier Li Keqiang and a guard of honour as she arrived in Beijing for the next leg of her visit today

'I've said before, I'm not a quitter and there's a long-term job to be done. That job is about getting the best Brexit deal, about ensuring that we take back control of our money, our laws, our borders, that we can sign trade deals around the world. But it's also about our domestic agenda.'

Mrs May insisted she would not be distracted by the speculation surrounding her leadership, telling reporters: 'You always like talking about hypothetical situations. Let's talk about where we are now and what we are doing now.

'I'm leading a trade delegation to China, here I am going to China to enhance the British economy and enhance 'Global Britain'.'

The PM highlighted that 'we do need to speak about the achievements we have seen', suggesting things such as record employment levels and a recent cut in stamp duty had been drowned out by rows over Brexit. She acknowledged the importance of the Brexit negotiations, but added: 'We also want to deliver for people on things that matter on a day-to-day basis.'

Theresa May and husband Philip were treated to a performance of Chinese opera on her visit to Wuhan today

The Prime Minister and her husband Philip looked to be enjoying the show at the Crane Tower in Wuhan this morning

The performers were in traditional colourful dress for the Yellow Crane opera in China this morning

A senior Government source confirmed the need for the PM's team to get better at communicating with the public.

The source said: 'We have got a good story to tell on the economy and on issues like housing, where we are seeing things start moving in the right direction. But we are not always getting that across. That has got to change.'

Tory MPs have called for Mrs May to be bolder in recent days, with one even likening the Government to a 'tortoise'.

But she insisted she was already taking action on 'issues that colleagues are concerned about'. On Brexit, she said she wanted a result that left 'Britain standing tall and proud in the world, independent, signing these trade deals around the world, playing its role across the world'.

Mrs May refused to be drawn on Tory rules that allow 48 MPs to force a leadership contest by sending in anonymous letters expressing a loss of confidence in the leader. 'It's a matter for the party,' she said.

Reports have claimed that as many as 40 MPs may have sent letters to Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee, which polices the leadership rules. But senior Tories dismiss the claims as speculation, pointing out that no MP has publicly admitted sending one.

Earlier Mrs May had chatted happily to students at Wuhan University. The PM is making her second visit to China since taking over in Downing Street

Mrs May (pictured, after landing at Wuhan Airport) said she was leading the trade delegation to China to enhance the British economy and enhance 'Global Britain'

Mrs May and her husband, Philip arrived at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport in Hubei, China overnight as the crucial visit kicked off

Meanwhile, a poll revealed Tory voters back Mrs May to stay on as Prime Minister.

Nearly 70 per cent of those who voted Tory last year said Mrs May should carry on. Less than 20 per cent said she should stand down. Former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith weighed in behind the PM yesterday, urging MPs to 'calm down'.

He said Tory unity would be improved if Cabinet ministers 'said a little bit less and speculated a little bit less'  an apparent swipe at Chancellor Philip Hammond.

Mr Duncan Smith said: 'I have a very simple message to my colleagues generally: People should just calm down. The reality was this was always going to be bumpy  we don't have a massive majority and, anyway, we are in the middle of a negotiation.'

Mr Duncan Smith told the BBC there would be fewer rows if Cabinet ministers 'stuck to what Theresa May said'.

The YouGov poll showed 69 per cent of Tory voters think Mrs May should stay. Just 18 per cent said she should stand down. Among voters from all parties, 41 per cent backed her, compared to 34 per cent who said she should go.If you've ever wanted to live in a picturesque Italian village, now's your chance  you can buy a house in one for less than 1.

Ollolai, nestled in the mountain region of Barbagia on the island of Sardinia, is offering 200 abandoned stone dwellings for the bargain price of just 1 (90p) each.

The towns population has halved over the past three decades, with just 1,300 people  mostly middle-aged childless couples  left, according to thelocal.it.

With just a small number of babies born each year, Ollolais mayor decided to prevent the population plummeting further by launching the houses for 1 scheme in 2015.

But there is a catch  as well as purchasing costs, buyers must commit to refurbishing each dwelling, which are all in a poor condition, within three years at an estimated cost of up to 30,000 (26,000). They can sell their home after five years if they wish.

The picturesque village of Ollolai in Italy (pictured) is offering 200 homes for sale for 1 (90p) each

The gimmick is being offered in a bid to stop the destination from becoming a ghost town

Despite the extra costs, Ollalai's mayor is confident that the town's beauty and past will lure people in.

'My crusade is to rescue our unique traditions from falling into oblivion,' Efisio Arbau said, according to CNN.

'Pride in our past is our strength. We've always been tough people and won't allow our town to die.'

Once the capital of Barbagia, Ollolai's once-buzzing piazzas are now much quieter after families abandoned their homes and younger residents left for big cities.

Many of the homes have been left unoccupied, falling into ruin, for decades.

The 200 stone dwellings have fallen into disrepair after remaining unoccupied for years

Retired builder Vito Casula and his wife were the first to buy a two-storey home for less than a loaf of bread

Once the capital of Barbagia, Ollolai's once-buzzing piazzas are now much quieter after families abandoned their homes and younger residents left for big cities

So Mr Arbau contacted former homeowners, including shepherds and farmers, and asked them to sign their properties over to the town's authorities.

After approving a special decree, the homes were placed on the market.

His plan to bring 'our grandmas' homes back from the grave' and revive the local economy appears to be working.

The first to snap up a two-storey home for less than the cost of a loaf of bread was retired builder Vito Casula and his wife in the spring of 2016.

The couple, who lived nearby in Sardinia but often visited Ollolai, grabbed the opportunity after spotting an ad in a local newspaper.

Ollolai is a picturesque town in the mountain region of Barbagia on the island of Sardinia

The mayor of Ollolai plan to bring 'our grandmas' homes back from the grave' and revive the local economy appears to be working. Pictured, a community event in the town

The mayor contacted former homeowners, including shepherds and farmers, and asked them to sign their properties over to the town's authorities

He's refurbished it with environmentally friendly materials, but retained the original decor.

And Mr Casula recommends the town highly to anyone to looking to leave behind stress for a 'peaceful, healthy life.'

He added that the town also boasts delicious food and friendly, welcoming residents.

Following media reports, authorities the town started to receive applications for houses from all over the world.

Buyers must commit to refurbishing the dwellings, which are in a poor condition, within three years at a cost of around 17,500

Retired builder Vito Casula and his wife were the first to buy one of the stone dwellings for less than the cost of a loaf of bread

By late 2017, theyd received 120 applications from countries including the United States, Australia and Russia  with Mr Arbau saying many of them came from second-generation immigrants who wanted a home in their native land.

The high interest has led to a deadline of February 7 being set for applications, after which they will be assessed in order in which they were made.

But unsuccessful applicants have another option  a number of others towns threatened by depopulation are running the scheme, including Montieri in Tuscany, Patricia in Lazio and Lecce de Marsi in Abruzzo.A militant vegan campaigner tore into Jeremy Vine on his radio show for his ham sandwich lunch made 'from the flesh of a dead pig'.

Joey Carbstrong, an Australian 'celebrity' vegan activist with tens of thousands of YouTube and Instagram followers, lectured the BBC Radio 2 presenter for the ham sarnie on the table.

The 31-year-old former convict - who describes himself as a 'vegan educator' - has come to prominence recently because of his clashes with farmers who he has likened to 'slave owners'.

The vocal campaigner, from Adelaide in south Australia, is currently touring the UK and Ireland because he has an 'obligation' to convert meat eaters to veganism.

He said: 'If you stand by and watch, that's akin to standing by and watching someone abuse their wife and not saying anything. If you didn't intervene, then you become complicit.'

The vegan campaigner clashed with Jeremy Vine after he left a ham sandwich in plain sight

Mr Carbstrong's appearance on BBC Radio 2 came after Alison Waugh, a trainee farmer who works in Northumberland, said militant vegan protesters had called her a 'murderer and rapist' and sent death threats.

He was set to discuss that but was instead distracted by the ham sandwich Vine had brought in for his lunch.

Inspecting it, the former gang member who spent six months in prison, said: 'I'm a bit upset to see your sandwich has a piece of a pig's body in there. A dead pig that didn't want to die.

'Ham is a euphemism that actually comes from the flesh of a dead pig.'

In response, Vine asked the vegan campaigner: 'What would you rather call it?'

He replied: 'I'd like you to call it the dead body of an animal that didn't want to die.'

Vine then asked him whether the cheese in his sandwich was a problem as well.

Joe Carbstrong, an animal liberation activist, tore into Jeremy Vine for his ham sarnie

Informing the presenter it was, Mr Carbstrong told him: 'The cheese comes from a mother who had her children taken from her, and had hands shoved in her anus and was artificially inseminated with bull semen.

'This is probably why vegans would say a diary farmer is akin to a rapist.

'I wouldn't call a farmer a rapist. I wouldn't use any of those words without explaining to them the process and why they involve themselves in these types of practices.'

Following the discussion, Vine said: 'I obviously won't eat this sandwich now...I might never eat it. But it's offensive to see it?'

The militant vegan was criticised on social media for 'shouting down people' who didn't agree with his views

The vegan activist replied: 'I believe it's more offensive to actually show me the piece of an animal who didn't want to die than it is to call someone out for it.'

However Mr Carbstrong was ridiculed on social media for his reaction to Vine's ham sandwich, with commentators calling him 'absolutely embarrassing' and 'painful to hear'.

Twitter user David Wood said: 'Stop trying to force your view on the rest of us. What is it with these vegans shouting down anybody with a different view!'

Jack Ovenden wrote: 'The absolute state of this vegan. Mr High and Mighty banging on about eating meat.'

Another said: 'I believe that extremism in any walk of life is not a good thing.'

Mr Carbstrong had appeared on the radio show to discuss death threats farmers have been receiving from militant vegans. Protesters have also trespassed and vandalised farms with graffiti.

Threats from the anti-meat movement have become such a problem across the UK that the Association of Independent Meat Suppliers has met counter-terror police to plan a response.

Pig farmers have reported being woken up at night by activists, the National Pig Association said.

Joe Carbstrong, an animal liberation activist, has protested by waiting outside abattoirs and filming animals being moved

Battling vegan activism is one of their main challenges for 2018, the Victoria Derbyshire programme on BBC2 reported.

There are only about 542,000 vegans in the UK, according to the Vegan Society, but many are now choosing to put pressure on both consumers and farmers.

Mr Carbstrong, 31, who is a lead protester with the animal rights network the Save Movement, protests by waiting outside abattoirs and filming animals being moved.

He uploads the footage online, where he has more than 90,000 followers on Facebook and YouTube.

He has also compared farmers to 'slave owners'.

Discussing the animals' treatment, he said: 'When people go and buy a chicken breast, that breast was torn off an animal that didn't want to die.

'If abolitionists didn't didn't speak up for what happened back then with the slaves, it would never have been abolished.

'Slave owners would have been unhappy not having their slaves picking their crop for them. We want their job to not directly involve a victim.

'The meat, dairy and egg industries should be scared, because the world is waking up to the truth about these horrific industries.'

Who is militant vegan Joey Carbstrong? The 31-year-old, a former gang member, spent time in prison before turning his life around and turning 'full vegan' for both ethical and health reasons Joey Carbstrong, whose real name is Joey Armstrong, is a 'celebrity' vegan activist from Australia with tens of thousands of YouTube and Instagram followers. The 31-year-old, a former gang member, spent time in prison before turning his life around and becoming 'full vegan' for both ethical and health reasons. After dropping out of school aged 14, Mr Carbstrong fell in with the wrong crowd, eventually turning to 'more serious, hardcore, organised crime gangs' and dealing drugs to support his own habit. He is said to have spent much of his youth using methamphetamine and drinking alcohol. Aged 26, he spent six months in jail for possession of a firearm, which he had hidden down his trousers while on house detention. Discussing his gang related crime, he said: 'I still had compassion in my heart but it was clouded by the environment that shaped me and people around me.' While holed up in prison he had 'an epiphany' and became determined to turn his back on the criminal world. He said: 'It was the longest I'd been sober for the past 12 years of my life. I began seeing my life with new eyes. I'd seen all the other prisoners in there and didn't want to be there, I wanted to leave the gangs.' Mr Carbstrong turned to the teachings of Dan McDonald, an American advocate for raw food and fasting who formerly had a drug problem. Following his release from prison he then went 'full vegan'. The 31-year-old said: 'I'd always said that it's hypocritical to say you love animals  save the whales, dolphins, dogs  but then have a piece of an animal that's suffered and had a bolt gun to the head on your plate. I was a walking hypocriteI decided to align my actions and my morals.' Since then he has become a militant vegan campaigner and has been touring the world to encourage people with his radical message. He is currently on tour of the UK and Ireland, attending daytime vigils and protests alongside fellow activists. He hit the headlines this week because of his clashes with farmers, likening them to 'slave owners'. He has posted YouTube videos showing him confronting farmers and meat industry workers, saying they 'should be scared'. AdvertisementA prominent IT security consultant allegedly hacked GoGet to take his Swedish girlfriend on joyrides in luxury cars for free.

Nik Cubrilovic was accused of racking up a $3,000 bill hiring out 33 cars including an Audi A3 between May and July 2017, using other customers' details.

His girlfriend Britta Johansson even posted a photo to Instagram of the couple driving around Wollongong in a high-end GoGet car in May last year.

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Prominent IT security consultant Nik Cubrilovic allegedly hacked GoGet to take his Swedish girlfriend on joyrides in luxury cars for free (couple pictured in one of them in May 2017)

He was accused of racking up a $3000 bill hiring out 33 cars including an Audi A3 between May and July 2017, using other customers' details

The 37-year-old was arrested by heavily-armed riot and cyber crime police at his home in Penrose in the NSW Southern Highlands on Tuesday morning.

He allegedly gained access to the car hire company's fleet booking system to download customer identification information from the database.

Cubrilovic used the names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth and drivers' licence details to steal and return the cars, police alleged.

He was charged with two counts of unauthorised access or modification, and 33 counts of stealing cars, and faced Wollongong Local Court on Wednesday.

Prosecutors asked for him to be denied bail fearing he could 'destroy evidence' or hide it in his Amazon cloud account, according to the Daily Telegraph.

Cubrilovic and his girlfriend Britta Johansson driving in a luxury convertible earlier in their relationship before he allegedly started hacking GoGet

The couple have been in a relationship since at least mid-2015 according to their social media

'Investigators believe that if the accused is granted bail he will delete evidence and may use stolen identity details to create fake identity evade police and the courts,' Detective Simon Hulme said in court documents.

Police said Cubrilovic was 'extremely uncooperative' and refused to allow them access to his devices, and it would be difficult to monitor him 24/7.

They also warned in the court documents that he was a 'significant risk' of fleeing to Sweden, Ms Johansson's homeland, to evade the charges.

The couple have been in a relationship since at least mid-2015, according to their social media that show them taking many glamorous trips together.

There was no suggestion from police that Ms Johansson knew her boyfriend had obtained the cars illegally and she was not arrested.

The well-known hacker was granted bail on the condition he didn't have access to the internet or his Bitcoins and surrendered his passport.

Cubrilovic rose to prominence in 2011 when he exposed a Facebook privacy flaw which meant users' web-browsing was being tracked even after they logged out.

The 37-year-old was arrested by heavily-armed riot and cyber crime police at his home in Penrose in the NSW Southern Highlands on Tuesday morning

A man who allegedly hacked into car-sharing service GoGet and stole over 30 cars is behind bars after a police raid (pictured are police officers during the arrest)

His letter to the social media giant made international news and forced Facebook to make significant changes to its privacy systems.

Then in 2014 he revealed vulnerabilities in the Australian Government's myGov websites left the private information of millions exposed.

He demonstrated how he could easily exploit the weaknesses and hijack the account of any user and steal their identity.

'If you were to score this [myGov] site out of 10 in terms of security it would be, like, zero or barely half a point,' he said at the time.

The New South Wales Police riot squad arrested the man, 37, at a home in Penrose in the NSW Southern Highlands on Tuesday morning (pictured is the arrested man with police officers)

GoGet apologised to customers in an email on Wednesday (pictured are police officers with the arrested man)

It is alleged the man gained unauthorised access into GoGet's fleet booking system to download customer identification information from the database (pictured are police officers during the arrest)

Cubrilovic the same year ran a blog that analysed security holes in various companies including Apple's iCloud.

He explained in detail how the notorious 2014 celebrity photo leak, which led to thousands of nude photos being published online, was able to occur.

More recently he was researching how inadvertently leaked company information was being used to make millions on the stockmarket from insider trading.

Cubrilovic's arrest followed a six-month investigation by the Cybercrime Squad that began in July, after GoGet approached police.

Detective Superintendent Arthur Katsogiannis said customer details were not on-sold or used for any other purpose other than to steal cars.

He said GoGet's database was monitored during the investigation and users would have been warned if they were believed to be at risk.

'What's happened here is you've got a company that was proactive, on the front foot, came forward and reported the matter,' he said.

Police warned Cubrilovic was a 'significant risk' of fleeing to Sweden, Ms Johansson's homeland, to evade the charges

The well-known hacker appeared to have expensive taste as he was pictured casually downing a $200 bottle of Scotch

Superintendent Katsogiannis said making the breach public would have endangered the investigation and police gave 'strong advice' to GoGet to keep quiet.

GoGet chief executive Tristan Sender apologised to customers in an email on Wednesday, saying the company took privacy 'very seriously'.

'Although the investigation by NSW Police is ongoing, it appears that the suspect was accessing GoGet's systems in an attempt to use GoGet vehicles without permission,' he said.

Customers were assured their payment card details had not been affected by the incident.

'Based on advice from the NSW Police Cybercrime Squad, at this time there is no evidence of misuse of, or that the suspect has disseminated any of, your personal information,' he said.

'[That] includes your name, address, email address, phone number, date of birth, drivers licence details and other GoGet administrative account details.'

He then allegedly used the information to steal 33 vehicles between May and July 2017, police said (pictured are police officers during the arrest)A terminally ill woman chased off three African thugs who allegedly invaded her home and attempted to steal her car in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

Kellie McElligott, 48 - who has ovarian cancer - woke to find the alleged intruders of African appearance in her Ascot Vale home, in Melbourne's inner north-west, about 4.30am.

The mother-of-three said the group were after her beloved Mercedes, which her husband Gerard McElligott gifted her only three months ago, 9 News reported.

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Kellie McElligott (pictured), 48, chased off three African thugs who allegedly invaded her home and attempted to steal her car in the early hours of Wednesday morning

She said the group were after her beloved Mercedes (pictured), which her husband Gerard McElligott gifted her only three months ago

'I'm suffering from cancer, he decided to buy me one because I wanted it all my life,' Mrs McElligott said.

'Ive been through chemotherapy and I've opted not to go through anymore now. So there's no more really that they can do.'

Mrs McElligott said she yelled at the group and called her husband who helped her chase them out of the house and down the street.

She added: 'It's just amazing when adrenaline kicks in, what you can do.'

The alleged offenders hopped into a getaway vehicle with a set of stolen keys in hand, police said.

Mr McElligott said the family has 'been through enough' and he was 'annoyed' by the alleged attempted theft.

About an hour later, another aggravated burglary took place at a home in nearby Essendon, police said.

Mr McElligott (pictured) said the family has 'been through enough' and he was 'annoyed' by the alleged attempted theft

The same group allegedly entered the home stealing phones, purses and the keys to a Holden Commodore.

The car was then reversed out of the driveway and driven 10 kilometres to an address in Collingwood.

Police tracked the group by tracing an iPhone that was allegedly stolen from the Essendon home.

A 17-year-old and 15-year-old were arrested and charged with home invasion and theft of a motor vehicle.

Both were remanded in custody to appear in childrens court at a later date.North Korea is ramping up executions of military officers in a bid to stop the regime 'deteriorating' too quickly under pressure from international sanctions, a US general has said.

General Vincent K Brooks, the most senior American commander in South Korea, said the Stalinist dictatorship's ruler, Kim Jong-un, is ordering the deaths of political figures within the military who have been accused of corruption.

It comes after rumours spread that Vice Marshal Hwang Pyong-so, the most senior figure in the military, was expelled for his 'impure attitude'.

It comes after rumours spread that Vice Marshal Hwang Pyong-so (left with Kim Jong-un), the most senior figure in the military, was expelled for his 'impure attitude'

General Vincent K Brooks, the most senior American commander in South Korea, said the Stalinist dictatorship's ruler, Kim Jong-un, was ordering the deaths of political figures within the military who have been accused of corruption. Pictured: Hwang (left) with Workers Party Secretary Choe Ryong Hae

General Brooks told the Wall Street Journal: 'We're seeing some increase in executions, mostly against political officers who are in military units, for corruption.'

He added: '[Executions] are really about trying to clamp down as much as possible on something that might be deteriorating and keeping it from deteriorating too quickly.'

Kim's former confidante Hwang vanished as part of a purge of senior military figures last year during a bid by the dictator to reduce the influence of the army.

Hwang, the head of the military's powerful General Political Bureau, was once seen as the second-most powerful man in the secretive country.

But he was last seen in public in early October at a gymnastics gala and, according to South Korean newspaper, JoongAng Ilbo, it is not known if he is still alive.

Since taking power in 2011, North Korea's young leader has brutally removed anyone perceived as a potential challenge to his authority, including ordering the execution of family members.

General Brooks said: '[Executions] are really about trying to clamp down as much as possible on something that might be deteriorating and keeping it from deteriorating too quickly'

Since taking power in 2011, North Korea's young leader has brutally removed anyone perceived as a potential challenge to his authority, including ordering the execution of family members. Pictured: Kim watching a Hwasong-12 launch in September

Kim's former confidante Hwang vanished as part of a purge of senior military figures last year during a bid by the dictator to reduce the influence of the powerful army

Hwang was reportedly sentenced to a prison camp but Kim's recent actions have led many to believe he suffered the same fate as the dictator's uncle, Jang Song Thaek, who was executed in 2013.

Kim Won-hong, another politician and senior military figure, was also reportedly killed late last year.

In his interview with the Journal, General Brooks also said an increasing number of North Koreans are defecting from the dictatorship.An Uber driver has suffered horrific injuries after being dragged down a ritzy Melbourne street following a carjacking - but the ride-sharing company is refusing to help cover his medical costs.

Sayed Atman Shah, 31, was attacked while driving early on Sunday morning in Brighton. south-east of Melbourne, Seven News reported.

He was jumped by two men wearing masks and wielding a knife.

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Sayed Atman Shah, 31, was attacked while driving early on Sunday morning in Brighton. south-east of Melbourne, Seven News reported

He was jumped by two men wearing masks and wielding a knife

After attacking Mr Shah they took off with his blue Toyota Camry, dragging him along the road as he clung desperately to his car while partly unconscious

After attacking Mr Shah they took off with his blue Toyota Camry, dragging him along the road as he clung desperately to his car while partly unconscious.

'One of the person punch me here [in the face], but it was a very hard punch.

'I was thinking that I am killed, I will be killed,' he said.

As he hung onto the car the thieves did a U-turn before Mr Shah let go.

A resident found Mr Shah in a pool of blood outside his front door.

'There was a fair amount of blood about and he wasn't in good shape,' the unidentified man told Seven News.

As he hung onto the car the thieves did a U-turn before Mr Shah let go

'He was really shaken, definitely in shock.'

Mr Shah said Uber told him he was not eligible for compensation as he is a contractor.

In a statement, Uber said they were sorry for Mr Shah's experience but they would not help with his medical bills or losing his car.

Mr Shah said Uber told him he was not eligible for compensation as he is a contractor

Mr Shah said he was disappointed with the company's response.

'They should stand behind me. The Uber should stand behind me, I'm working for them.'

Police are searching for Mr Shah's blue Toyota Camry, which has Victorian registration plates reading IHK8LK, and are still hunting for the two men responsible for the attack.Hopes of finding the survivors of a missing ferry which disappeared in the middle of the Pacific Ocean are wearing thin as the search enters its 11th day.

Seven survivors were spotted clinging to a vessel eight days after the MV Buitaraoi ferry, which was carrying 80 people, went missing off the coast of Kiribati, an island republic in the Central Pacific.

However New Zealand, Australian and United States air force and rescue planes have failed to locate the ferry - and the presumed casualties - despite scouring vast swathes of ocean for days.

Seven survivors were spotted clinging to a fishing vessel (pictured) eight days after the MV Buitaraoi ferry, which was carrying 50 people, went missing off the coast of Kiribati

However New Zealand, Australian and United States air force and rescue planes have failed to locate the ferry - and the presumed 80 casualties - despite scouring vast swathes of ocean for days

It is believed the majority of those on board were locals, now believed to have perished at sea.

Initial estimates of how many people were aboard the sunken ferry when it went missing ranged from 35 to more than 100, but officials said the numbers were slowly becoming clearer.

'Kiribati authorities have confirmed that about 80 passengers plus crew of likely about five were on the ferry,' Rescue Coordination Centre NZ said in a statement.

It is believed the search is concentrating on locating a life raft that was launched from the sinking ferry.

'The life raft is designed for 25 people but more can be squeezed in uncomfortably,' the statement read.

Former Kiribati prime minister Ieremia Tabai, who represents the island of Nonouti from where the ferry departed on January 18, slammed the government's handling of the disaster.

Initial estimates of how many people were aboard the sunken ferry when it went missing ranged from 35 to more than 100, but officials said the numbers were slowly becoming clearer

It is believed the search is concentrating on locating a life raft that was launched from the sinking ferry (Map pictured)

Tabai said his grief-stricken constituents on the island of 2,000 wanted to know why it took eight days to raise the alarm and how the unseaworthy vessel was allowed to sail in the first place.

'This tragedy demands an independent commission of inquiry,' he told Radio New Zealand.

'We need to know why it happened and (who is) responsible.'

The MV Butiraoi, a 17.5-metre wooden catamaran, set off on a planned two-day voyage to Betio, the largest township of Kiribati's capital, South Tarawa.

Local authorities said it ran aground and underwent repairs to its propeller shaft before it left Nonouti.

Tabai said the vessel was not believed to be carrying mandatory safety equipment such as an emergency locator beacon.

The MV Butiraoi, a 17.5-metre wooden catamaran, set off on a planned two-day voyage to Betio, the largest township of Kiribati's capital, South Tarawa

Crews from the Royal New Zealand Air Force Orion drop emergency supplies to the survivors

Search and rescue teams have been scouring an area the size of New Zealand in hunt for ferry

'The government is responsible because they did not look after the situation well, they should have ensured that particular vessel should not have sailed in the first place,' he said.

He said the ferry was a free inter-island service that was carrying a large number of high-school students returning to Tarawa before the start of a new term.

Tabai said the ferry's loss was a tragedy for Kiribati, a nation of 33 atolls and reefs with a population of about 110,000, that lies some 3,460 kilometres (2,150 miles) northeast of Fiji.

'It's a real sad day for those who lost their loved one. For my village two or three people that I personally know, that live next door in my village, were on that boat and perished.'

Government spokesman Tearinibeia Enoo-Teabo said maritime authorities had given orders for the ferry not to carry any passengers before it left because it had sustained serious damage to its navigational system, rudders and hull.

It remains unclear if any repairs had been made.

He said investigators are going to the island to find out more about the passenger count and why the ferry left despite the orders.

Other questions remain, including why it took Kiribati authorities so long to tell New Zealand officials the ferry was missing.

John Ashby, a senior search and rescue officer with the RCCNZ, said earlier: 'We are doing everything we can to locate this ferry and its passengers.

'We understand the vessel underwent repairs to its propeller shaft just before it departed. This may have contributed to problems navigating the journey.'

Kiribati is a collection of 33 islands with a population of 110,000 people, with the largest group located 1,500km north of Fiji.Paedophile Michaela Sheldrake has been jailed for seven years after being caught with a sickening stash of child porn

A female paedophile found with a huge stash of child porn has been jailed for seven years.

Michaela Sheldrake, 41, described herself as a 'monster' after a court heard she had amassed indecent images and videos and had taken 356 indecent photographs of a girl under 16 - sending some of the pictures to a man.

Speaking after the case, a relative said the victim had been 'left serving a life sentence' and Sheldrake should be 'behind bars for the rest of her life'.

She was jailed after admitting nine offences at an earlier hearing.

They included two charges of taking indecent photographs of a child - three of the images were classed as category B and 353 were category C.

Sheldrake also admitted two charges of making indecent photographs of a young boy in connection with two images classified in category A - the most serious category - and five in category B.

At Leeds Crown Court, Sheldrake admitted a string of child sex offences. The court heard she described herself as a 'monster'

Sheldrake admitted one charge of inciting a girl aged under 16 to engage in sexual activity and one charge of engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a girl under 16.

Sheldrake, of Beeston, Leeds, West Yorkshire, admitted possessing 2,578 indecent images and 110 movies of children on a mobile phone.

She also admitted distributing indecent photographs of a child and attempting to pervert the course of justice by encouraging a child to provide false information to police.

Catherine Silverton, mitigating at Leeds Crown Court, said Sheldrake had no previous convictions and was ashamed of her offending.

She said: 'Nobody hates her as much as herself. 'She described herself as a monster.'

Miss Silverton said the case has been going on for almost three years.

Jailing Sheldrake, judge Sally Cahill, QC, said: 'It is said on your behalf that you have shown remorse. 'I have to say that, having read reports and reviewed the evidence, there is no real evidence of that in relation to your victims.

'You have realised the consequences of your behaviour and the consequences are severe. 'In my view you have not shown any real remorse.'

Det Insp Marc Bowes, of West Yorkshire Police, described the offences as 'absolutely appalling' and said Sheldrake's offending was 'significant and sustained'.He talked the talk and now, Rod Moore has walked the walk.

The underwater walker successfully completed his biggest and toughest adventure yet on Wednesday when he walked on the bottom of Sydney Harbour.

It took him a gruelling six hours to walk five kilometres of one of the world's most famous waterways from Rose Bay to Rushcutters Bay, where he reached depths of up to 15 metres.

The Hunter man described it as a murky and sandstone boulder-studded slog.

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Rod Moore described Sydney Harbour as almost twice as long, more than double the depth, and immeasurably harder than his recent Lake Macquarie underwater walk

'It was like mountain climbing at times,' Mr Moore told the Newcastle Herald.

'The rocks were up to 10 feet high and covered in kelp.'

Mr Moore was fed air through a line from a support boat, which got entangled on the keel of a yacht near Double Bay.

'It was pretty nerve-wracking at times,' support crewman Mark Boyce said.

'We had a few hiccups, but we got there.'

A relieved Rod Moore reached the finish line at Rushcutters Bay six hours after entering the waters of Sydney Harbour

Rod Moore said the harbour was in good condition, despite the limited visibility and stepping over a lot of rubbish

Mr Moore told the Herald: 'It's amazing how big those keels are. It's dark down there on an overcast day.'

Mr Moore was relieved to not have come face-to-face with his biggest fear of bull sharks, which are common in the harbour.

The harbour walk was three months after walking three kilometres under Lake Macquarie from Marks Point to Belmont, where he raised $8000 for a Balinese orphanage.

He did the same underwater journey 30 years earlier, as a 25-year-old.

This week's Sydney Harbour adventure raised awareness for Kiwanis International, which empowers members to pursue creative ways to serve the needs of children through local service projects and fundraising.'

'Really happy that we all had a great day for Kiwanis,' Mr Moore posted on Facebook.

He highly recommends the underwater walk and says it's better than taking the ferry on the harbour.

'This is much more exclusive,' he said.A tanning salon has installed 'anti-homeless sprinklers' after staff complained about the growing numbers of rough sleepers spending the night outside its shop.

The automatic system comes on every evening until the early morning, dripping water from the roof onto potential homeless people sleeping below.

There are also spikes on the wall outside the shop to stop people sitting down outside.

Owners at Consul tanning salon in Broadmead, Bristol, say it is the least aggressive way of deterring homeless people from setting up camp outside.

But the move has sparked anger from the homeless population and supporting charities.

Owners at Consul tanning salon in Broadmead, Bristol (pictured), say sprinklers are the least aggressive way of deterring homeless people from setting up camp outside

It comes in the same week as benches in Bournemouth, Dorset were fitted with 'anti-rough sleeper' bars and the Conservative leader of Windsor and Maidenhead Council survived a vote of no confidence over his calls to 'clear out' the area of homeless people before Prince Harry's wedding to Meghan Markle in May.

Salon bosses in Bristol claim they were left with no option after a rise in rough sleeper numbers.

They claim in the past six months they have left vomit, needles and bottles outside the premises.

Jesper Primdhal, the salon's director said: 'Obviously homelessness is on the rise in the city centre.

'Eighteen months ago we had just one or two people sleeping there - we had an understanding with them that when we turned up for work at 7am they would move on - it worked fine they packed up with no problem.

'That went on for a year but six months ago we started getting a group of five, six, seven people sleeping there.'

The automatic system (pictured) comes on every evening until the early morning, dripping water from the roof onto potential homeless people sleeping below

But the move has sparked anger from the homeless population and supporting charities

Jesper said the group left vomit outside the shop as well as needles and bottles. He said some of the group were abusive to his staff, who are mostly young women.

'We called the police four or five times,' he said.

'It was too much. In the end we thought what is the least aggressive deterrent?

'The simplest solution was to make it rain in that area, just enough to stop people sleeping there.

'In the end we are responsible for our staff, some of whom are leaving work at 10.30pm, so we talked to everyone and the decision was made.'

Annual homelessness figures for 2017 counted 86 people sleeping on the streets of Bristol - a rise of 12 people (14 per cent) on the previous year.

But rough sleeper Dexter, who has been on the streets of the area for four years, slammed the new measures, saying they 'punish people for being homeless'.

He said: 'It's a bit out of order to do that.

There are also spikes (pictured) on the wall outside the shop to stop people sitting down outside

'What purpose does it serve? Most people aren't nasty people - they don't deserve to be punished for being homeless.

'What we need is safe places to sleep. I slept here on the pavement last night, that wasn't safe.

'Fair play if some people are making a mess, - but that's what it feels like - its punishing people for being homeless.'

Mr Primdhal maintains the sprinklers are doing a 'good job' of deterring rough sleepers from outside his shop, but the wider problem is still causing issues throughout the city.

He said: 'We can see it in the streets - it's a serious problem but it's really the council's job to find a permanent solution, this isn't a solution. Moving them around isn't a solution.'

Salon bosses in Bristol claim they were left with no option after a rise in rough sleepers. They claim in the past six months they have left vomit, needles and bottles outside the premises

The homelessness problem in Bristol has been described as a 'humanitarian crisis', with reports of a 128 per cent rise in the number of people sleeping rough over the past three years.

Julie, a local volunteer who helps people sleeping on the city streets, said she is 'appalled' at Consul's sprinkler idea.

WHO ARE THE PEOPLE SLEEPING ROUGH? Of the 4,751 rough sleepers counted across the UK in 2017 653 (14 per cent) were women

(14 per cent) were women 760 (16 pr cent) were EU nationals from outside the UK

(16 pr cent) were EU nationals from outside the UK 193 (4 per cent) were from outside the EU.

(4 per cent) were from outside the EU. Nationality of 402 people (8 per cent) was not known  it suggests that some people may not wish to disclose their non-UK nationality.

people (8 per cent) was not known  it suggests that some people may not wish to disclose their non-UK nationality. 370 (8 per cent) were 18 - 25 years old.

(8 per cent) were 18 - 25 years old. 3 persons (less than 0.1 per cent) were under 18 years old Advertisement

She said: 'I'm appalled at the way certain business owners are treating the homeless.

'We need to be looking after the rough sleepers in the town.

'I keep hearing stories from the rough sleepers about how they're being treated and how they're being pushed out of the city.

'Really all we're doing is pushing them out, making them someone else's problem.

'Let's look after them, do something to help - not put sprinklers on them, not take away their cardboard remove their belongings.'

David Withers said he saw the sprinkler system on his way to work - he said such deterrents 'weaponised public spaces' against those at the bottom of society.

He said: 'Obviously I'm well aware of the fact that problems like addiction and antisocial behaviour can come along with homelessness and can sympathise with business owners but this seems like a very cold and uncaring measure.

'If one was unaware of the presence of the system they could well be soaked during the night which could well be a death sentence at this time of the year.'

Speaking in December on the annual rough sleeper count, Bristol City Council said it was 'disappointed but not surprised' there had been a rise of 14 per cent.

In the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead on Monday, Tory council leader Simon Dudley survived a motion of no confidence called against him after a homelessness row

Mr Dudley triggered the furore when he said beggars could present the town in a 'sadly unfavourable light' when Prince Harry marries American actress Meghan Markle in May

Marvin Rees, Mayor of Bristol, said he has made tackling the issue of homelessness a top priority and is committed to getting the number to zero.

He said: 'We are incredibly disappointed, but not surprised, that despite all the hard work of people across the city the number of people sleeping rough on the streets of Bristol continues to rise.

'The increasing intensity of the city and the country's housing crisis is the reason we have made homes and communities one of our very highest priorities from rough sleeping to the hidden homeless.

'National policy is making more people poorer and more vulnerable - this is the context in which we are providing services.

'Rough sleeping is complex and I have tasked various members of my cabinet with tackling all the things which cause it.'

MailOnline has contacted the council for further comment.

In the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead on Monday, Tory council leader Simon Dudley survived a motion of no confidence called against him after a homelessness row.

Mr Dudley triggered the furore when he said beggars could present the town in a 'sadly unfavourable light' when Prince Harry marries American actress Meghan Markle in May.

In a letter to police, he complained about 'aggressive begging and intimidation', and 'bags and detritus' on the streets.

He said police should use their powers under the 1824 Vagrancy Act and the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 to 'protect residents and tourists'.

Mr Dudley later apologised for his comments and said he was not referring to genuine homeless people, and that he regretted referring to Harry and Ms Markle's wedding at the time.

A petition to stop rough sleepers being taken off the streets has attracted more than 270,000 signatures.Advertisement

An historic castle described as the Welsh Downton Abbey is up for sale for a knockdown price.

Westbury Castle has had its price tag slashed from 5million to just 1.5million after it failed to sell in previous years.

The 200-year-old Grade II listed property in Flintshire, North Wales, is made up of a mansion house, servants' flat and nine luxury apartments in its west wing.

It failed to sell at auction five years ago when the 5million-valued sale also included a 16th century dovecote building, a three bedroomed lodge, and eight acres of land on its estate.

But the sale has now been stripped back to include just the former castle, and its market price scaled back to 1.5million.

Westbury Castle (pictured) has had its price tag slashed from 5million to 1.5million after it failed to sell in previous years

The historic Welsh castle has gone on the market and offers the perfect hideaway for anyone seeking solitude and privacy - and glamour

The historic castle, described as the Welsh Downton Abbey, is up for sale for less than a three-bedroom house in London

The 200-year-old Grade II listed property in Flintshire, North Wales, is made up of a mansion house, servants' flat and nine luxury apartments in its west wing (shown to the left)

Piece of history: original features, including wooden panelling, have been polished and restored ahead of its possible re-sale

Old and new: Thick curtains, ornate mirror, old-style bathtub, striped wallpaper and a chandelier, as well as a modern walk-in shower unit

The castle failed to sell at auction five years ago when the 5million-valued sale also included a 16th century dovecote building, a three bedroomed lodge, and eight acres of land on its estate (shown)

The estate agents say the castle would make a superb home for a celebrity looking for a hideaway in the Welsh hills

The mock-Gothic castle's original features have been preserved including heraldic medallions and a decorative fireplace in the hallway.

It has a State Dining Room and a Morning Room which would have been used as an area to receive guests before they were seated for lunch.

The Drawing Room is split into two areas, one for ladies and the other for gentleman after dinner.

The castle - which is split between a wedding and holiday-let venue and nine self-contained residential apartments - currently earns its owners 68,340-a-year.

Auctioneers Strutt and Parker say it would appeal more to property investors rather than a family wishing to live like the fictional Crawley family in Downton Abbey.

Alastair Summerfield, associate partner at the auctioneers, said: 'Ultimately it's going to appeal to someone who is wanting to actually invest in property and see a return from it.

'I don't see it being bought by someone who wants to live in the whole castle, partly because it's been split up into the wedding and holiday let venue and nine apartments.

'It could be quite a good return, depending on what price it goes for in the auction.'

Westbury Castle will be put to auction on February 15 at The Intercontinental Hotel on Park Lane, London.

The castle's kitchen area includes a central island, offering plenty of space for preparing food, as well as all the necessary appliances needed for preparing a banquet dinner

The castle - which is split between a wedding and holiday-let venue and nine self-contained residential apartments - currently earns its owners 68,340-a-year

It has a State Dining Room (pictured) and a Morning Room which would have been used as an area to receive guests before they were seated for lunch

Auctioneers Strutt and Parker say it would appeal more to property investors rather than a family wishing to live like the fictional Crawley family in Downton Abbey

The mock-Gothic castle's original features have been preserved including heraldic medallions and a decorative fireplace in the hallwayA senior member of Germany's right-wing Alternative for Deutschland party made headlines when he converted to Islam, and now cites the Protestant church's support of gay marriage as a reason for his conversion.

Arthur Wagner, 48, recently stepped down from his leading party position in the Brandenburg state legislative committee and converted to Islam.

The former politician has broken his silence on his conversion saying the church's support of same-sex marriage and the presence of priests at Christopher Street Day, Germany and Switzerland's gay pride parades, are reasons for his change of faith.

Despite his views on the migration crisis, however, Wagner (pictured) is also well known for his voluntary work with refugees in his hometown of Falkensee

Wagner did not approve of priests attending Christopher Street Day gay pride parades (above)

'One of the reasons (for the conversion) is tied to changes that have taken place in the church, which no longer reflects my values,' he said to a German newspaper.

He continued that the church's position 'with regard to the AfD, its support for marriage for all and the participation of pastors at Christopher Street Day, where there are children. It's unacceptable!'

His conversion is a shock for his former party, which is known to be anti-Muslim and anti-immigration, stressing that Islam 'does not belong' in Germany.

Wagner's conversion is also surprising as he once held an official position within the Protestant church.

Despite his new faith, Wagner is known for being outspoken against immigrants in his nation.

At the time of the migration crisis - when Angela Merkel unilaterally declared that over a million people could come to Germany from around the world - Wagner said the chancellor was making a 'huge mistake', Tagesspiegel reported.

'Germany is mutating into another country,' he said.

At the time of the migration crisis - when Angela Merkel (pictured) unilaterally declared that over a million people could come to Germany from around the world - Wagner said the chancellor was making a 'huge mistake'

He explained: 'Germany is mutating into another country.' Pictured: Some of migrants heading into the EU in 2015

Wagner initially resigned his senior position in the party for 'private reasons', according to an AfD official quoted in Berliner Zeitung.

The party since released a statement, clarifying that his leave was not on account of the party's own views on the religion.

'Mr. Wagner resigned on January 11 from the state board on his own volition. Only afterwards was it known that he had converted to Islam,' Daniel Friese of AfD said.

Despite his views on the migration crisis, however, Wagner is also well known for his voluntary work with refugees in his hometown of Falkensee.

He once admired Merkel, but after the mass movement of people into Germany he said he had made a 'gigantic mistake' about her.

It is AfD's 'mission' to 'save this country,' he added.

He was previously a member of her Christian Democrats party.

Wagner declined to comment on his conversion earlier this month. 'He does not want to speak with the press. He believes it is a private affair,' the party spokesman said.

The AfD became Germany's third largest party in parliament after last September's general election.

Earlier this month, an AfD lawmaker caused a furore after accusing police of 'appeasing the barbaric, Muslim, rapist hordes of men' by tweeting in Arabic.Iranian activists protesting the compulsory hijab by taking it off in public have been joined by conservative Muslim women wearing the chador, a garment covering everything but the face.

Women wearing the full-length veil have been photographed holding out headscarves in front of them in solidarity with the anti-obligatory hijab movement.

Their brave support of hijab protesters are part of a wider movement in Iran resisting the Islamic law, which dictates that women must cover their hair in public.

Unexpected support: A woman wearing the chador is seen holding out a scarf in front of her in solidarity with women protesting the compulsory headscarf

Photos and videos are being posted on social media showing Iranian women standing on telecoms boxes or benches, having removed their head scarves and tied them to sticks, which they hold out in front of them in silence.

Two women are known to have been arrested for carrying out this form of protest in the Iranian capital since December.

On Monday, a woman named locally as Nargess Hosseini, was arrested after standing on an electricity box in central Tehran, waving her head scarf in front of her.

Journalist and campaigner Masih Alinejad, the founder of the White Wednesdays and My Stealthy Freedom movements, which fights the compulsory hijab in Iran, has claimed that Ms Hosseini's bail has been set at a record-high level to detain others from protesting.

'While the law imposes a maximum of $12 or two months of jail time, the court has recently asked for a bail of $125000 to release one of the newly detained women,' Ms Alinejad tweeted today.

The original: Vida Movahed, 31, was arrested after taking off her hijab in public and standing on a telecoms box in Tehran in December - inspiring others to do the same

Movement: This woman stood on the same pillar box as Ms Movahed, on Enghelab Street in Tehran, Iran

Being brave: Another Iranian woman with bright turquoise hair has taken off her head scarf and holds it out while standing in silence

A young woman filmed during her protest revealed that she was encouraged by passersby, who later helped her and stopped police from arresting her

Two for one: Two young women are seen holding out their headscarves at an unknown location in Iran this week

Ms Hosseini was copying the brave stance of Vida Movahed, a 31-year-old mother-of-one whose protest and subsequent arrest a month ago is thought to have started the movement.

A video showing her calmly waving her white hijab tied to a stick above the crowds in the Iranian capital, went viral on social media.

Ms Movahed, who became known as The Girl In Enghelab Street, was released over the weekend, after spending a month in custody with her 20-month-daughter.

Thousands of social media users shared messages of support after her disappearance, dubbing her the 'Girl of Enghelab Street' after the area in central Tehran where she staged the protest.

Iranian activists started a Twitter campaign using the hashtag #WhereIsShe, demanding that the government reveal what happened to her.

The campaign eventually went global both on and offline, with protesters at the recent Women's March in the U.S. waving placards with the slogan.

Ms Movahed was protesting Iran's Islamic law, which requires women to wear a headscarf and long clothes that cover the arms and legs.

Copying: A woman as an unidentified street in Iran holds her white hijab out on a stick, mimicking the stance of Ms Movahed in solidarity and to protest enforced headscarves

An unidentified woman stands on a snowy street holding her headscarf in the air using a stick

All for one: A woman stands on a concrete bench holding out her hijab as other women, with their heads covered, walk past behind her

The 31-year-old was praised after a video of her protest went viral on social media, but she was reportedly arrested shortly afterwards

Join the force: After initially being shared by human rights campaigners in Iran, the fight to find out the fate of the Girl of Enghelab Street went global

Support: Two participants in the Women's March in Boston, US hold up placards with the campaign slogan

The Islamic dress code, in place since the 1979 revolution, considers veiling obligatory for any female above 13 in Iran and says they should cover themselves from head to toe while disavowing any figure-hugging dress.

Breaking the rules can result in fines of up to 500,000 rials (17) and up to two months in prison.

President Hassan Rouhani, who came to power in 2013 promising a more moderate stance, has previously said it is not the job of police to enforce religious rules such as those forcing women to cover their hair.

But in April 2016, officials said there were 7,000 undercover morality police reporting on things like 'bad hijab' - a blanket term usually referring to un-Islamic dress by women.

Figures are rarely given, but Tehran's traffic police said in late 2015 they had dealt with 40,000 cases of bad hijab in cars, where women often let their headscarves drop around their necks.

These cases generally led to fines and a temporary impounding of the vehicle.This is the bizarre moment a radio studio descended into chaos when two guests began fighting about Joseph Stalin.

The pair came to blows live on air after being invited to discuss the Soviet dictator by a Russian radio station in the capital Moscow.

A studio webcam caught how a physical altercation broke out while Nikolai Svanidze, 62, and Maksim Shevchenko, 51, discussed Stalin's role in World War II.

This is the bizarre moment Nikolai Svanidze, 62, and Maksim Shevchenko, 51, began fighting while discussing Josef Stalin's World War II legacy during a live radio debate

One of the men defended Stalin's legacy while the other insisted the dictator was responsible for much of the suffering in the Soviet Union following the defeat of the Nazis

Members of the radio station's staff were forced to intervene after the violence erupted

Mr Svanidze, a TV and radio presenter, said the communist leader was responsible for the terrible condition the Soviet Union was in by the end of the war.

He said: 'By late 1941 we had 3.8 million people as prisoners of war and this is all thanks to Stalin.'

Mr Shevchenko, a journalist, praised Stalin's leadership of the USSR.

He contrasted the situation in the USSR with that of France during the same period.

Mr Shevchenko said: 'Unlike France, the USSR did not kneel down to Germans. The Soviet Union was fighting.'

The discussion then turned personal, with the pair slinging insults at one another.

Mr Svanidze said: 'If you had been closer I would have punched you in the face.'

Mr Shevchenko replied: 'Please, go ahead, I am here! Punch me in the face. Get up and do it.'

Mr Svanidze got out of his chair and slapped him around the face before being punched twice by Mr Shevchenko.

The host of the Radio Rubka show on Komsomolskaya Pravda radio station can be seen desperately trying to restore calm in a video of the incident.

The video, posted on the station's YouTube channel, shows how staff had to step in to separate the pair.

The video has now received more than 300,000 views and almost 5,000 comments.Advertisement

For men in search of a space to call their own, the 'mancave' was simply a figure of speech - until now that is.

An off-the-grid home in rural Arizona has gone on sale for $200,000, and included in the price is its own 3,000sq ft underground cavern.

The property itself is modest - measuring just 1,000sq ft and featuring two bedrooms, one bathroom, living space and kitchen area, and an outside deck.

An off-the-grid home in rural Arizona has gone on sale for $200,000, featuring two bedrooms, a bathroom, combined living an kitchen space and views over the desert

But the home's showpiece can be found at the bottom of this 15ft ladder which is housing underneath a small workshop

The well leads down into a 3,000sq ft cavern which is currently home to salamanders but could be converted to house people

The cavern has never been used as the current owner discovered it after buying the property, but could be converted into a literal man cave, allowing the owner to get away from it all

The property has its own water collection systems, gas storage and solar panels as it is not connected to any amenities

The property sits on six acres of land near Route 66 and features stunning views over the Arizona desert

But located 20 yards away is a roofed workshop with a 15ft well underneath it, leading to the cave beneath.

Wendi Akins, the listing agent of High Country Realty which is selling the property, joked that the cavern is currently home to several salamanders.

But, she added, it has the potential to be converted for human habitation.

The property also comes with six acres of sprawling countryside and stunning views. It is located in Sleigman, just off Route 66 and two hours from the Grand Canyon.

Wendi Akins, the listing agent of High Country Realty, said: 'As far as we know, the cave was never used.

'This owner bought the home after it was foreclosed on and he found the cave after he purchased the property.

'This property is off-grid, on water-haul and a little far out on dirt roads, so it would take someone who likes to live out this far.

'The home also has to be purchased for cash, as banks in this area will not loan on homes that are off-grid and on dirt roads.

'The cave is the icing on this cake, as the home and the views are spectacular in themselves.'

Anyone looking to get away from the hustle of modern life will appreciate this deck area with panoramic views

This is one of two bedrooms inside the home, which is three times smaller than the cave it sits on top of

A kitchen area which connects to the living room, and is powered by the solar panels outside

The home itself is basic, but would provide a perfect getaway for anyone willing to make the trek down dirt tracks to find it

The property is so remote that anyone wanting to get hold of it will have to pay in cash, since local banks will not mortgage homes that are off-the-gridA gangster appeared to admit murder during a 49-minute Facebook Live video from prison.

Joseph Fletcher, 30, is serving 39-month prison sentence on a weapons charge in a federal jail in Atlanta, Georgia.

In a shocking Facebook Live video from an illegal phone, he appeared to admit to the 2010 murder of LaDonte Smith - aka Tay - who was shot in a car on Wall Street.

Fletcher's friend Anthony Smart - aka Champy - was locked up for the crime after he pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter.

But Fletcher has now suggested he committed the crime and Champy took the wrap for him.

He said: 'I did it, everybody know I did it. I love Tay... a situation presented itself... you can't be mad.'

He added: 'You know I still got love for Tay. The streets is mean like ... But RIP Tay.'

'What happened happened; it's a cold game. I'm talking about, it's a cold game. I seen it with my own eyes,' he added.

Fletcher later pointed his fingers as if he is pointing a gun. He then told one viewer: 'You ain't going to do nothing about it.'

Joseph Fletcher, 30, is serving 39-month prison sentence on a weapons charge in a federal jail in Atlanta. Pictured: His Facebook Live post from inside jail

Ladonte Smith's mother Lashoane Andrus was shocked when she saw the video. She told FOX 8: 'It really hurt me. I sat at the table for like a half hour just sitting there, just staring, just watching the video over and over again.'

Explaining how Fletcher got the phone into the jail, she added: 'He runs Akron. Like everybody is supposed to be scared of him, including Akron police. It's like nobody can do anything to him.'

Akron police refused to comment on the video but said they are aware of it.

Ladonte Smith's mother Lashoane Andrus (pictured) was shocked when she saw the videoAn endangered tigress defied all its normal instincts and walked out of the wild into a village to seek human help over a severe teeth and gum problem.

The rare predator - one of only 500 or so Siberian tigers living in their snowy natural habitat in eastern Russia - found a remote house and quietly lay down on the porch.

The big cats - the largest in the world - normally shun all human contact, but it was clear the exhausted and emaciated animal could no longer eat and needed urgent dental assistance.

Scroll down for video

An endangered tigress defied all its normal instincts and walked out of the wild into a village to seek human help over a severe teeth and gum problem

Galina Tsimano, who lives in far-flung Solontsovy - 3,915 miles east of Moscow - explained how her neighbour on the outskirts of the village found the unexpected big cat on his doormat in the early morning.

'Alexey Khaideyev came across a tiger on his porch,' she said.

'He wanted to go out to the yard in the morning, but his door was pressed by 'someone' from outside.

'He began to push the door and heard a tiger growling.

'He went back inside and started calling all the emergency services.'

The rare predator - one of only 500 or so Siberian tigers living in their snowy natural habitat in eastern Russia - found a remote house and quietly lay down on the porch

It was clear the exhausted and emaciated animal could no longer eat and needed urgent dental assistance

The predator did not let him approach too close but nor did it pounce on him.

Tiger experts are sure the predator was seeking human help as a desperate last resort.

An emergency team came and sedated the animal then moved it to a rehabilitation centre in Alekseevka village.

Here, specialists revealed the predator was around ten years old and female while also identifying an acute problem in the beast's jaw.

'The tigress behaved absolutely peacefully, as if she was waiting for help,' Sergey Aramilev, director of the Amur Tiger Centre, told The Siberian Times.

An emergency team came and sedated the animal then moved it to a rehabilitation centre in Alekseevka village

Here, specialists revealed the predator was around ten years old and female while also identifying an acute problem in the beast's jaw

'Nevertheless, the condition of the rare predator is severe and it needs urgent action.'

Galina Tsimano (pictured) explained how her neighbour on the outskirts of the village found the unexpected big cat on his doormat in the early morning

A fear that she had been wounded by poachers - a major threat to the survival of the species - proved unfounded.

'There were no visible injuries from firearms,' he said.

'However, there are problems with her oral cavity. '

Conservationist Yury Kolpak, from Russia's Ministry of Natural Resources, said: 'The tigress is thoroughly exhausted.

'She has serious gum problems and there are no upper teeth.'

It is likely her tiredness is due to being unable to eat properly, but the big cat is now feasting on ground meat.

'Now it is very important to provide the predator with qualified assistance.'

Vets are looking for ways to solve the animals dental problems but she is currently not strong enough the to be put under a general anaesthetic for major surgery.

'We really hope that the tigress will pick herself up and survive,' said Aramilev.

'For our part, we are doing everything possible.'Ten drug dealing gangsters have been jailed for more than 116 years after police busted their network when they discovered a bag full of cocaine in a Cardiff street.

Officers from south Wales, Essex, Thames Valley and the Metropolitan police forces dismantled seven organised crime gangs linked to a multi-million pounds Albanian drugs network.

Police recovered around 450,000 in cash as well as several kilos of cocaine, expensive clothes and jewellery worth about 100,000.

The gang created 'hides' behind the back seats in their vehicles to store their drugs and cash, with 80,000 found in one van alone.

When police busted the group they recovered around 450,00 in cash as well as several kilos of cocaine

Police recovered 450,000 when they broke the drug dealing gang that were flooding the streets of south Wales and south England with massive quantities of cocaine

Police seized several kilos of cocaine (pictured) when they busted the 'sophisticated' gang

The gang created 'hides' behind the back seats in their vehicles to store their drugs and cash (pictured)

The joint police investigation led officers to Albanian national Bledar Mziu, who was responsible for flooding the streets of south Wales and the south east of England with massive quantities of high purity cocaine.

Officers spent months tracking Mziu, 31, as he sourced the Class A drug from his own suppliers in the south east of England, and used fellow Albanian nationals Hysen Lika, 24, and Robert Xhepa, 29, to run drugs into south Wales.

Police surveillance led officers to five recipients  Paul Wyatt, Nicky Watson, Kevin Patton, Tamar Sheblan and Hayder Sheblan  all of whom were running their own organised crime gangs in south Wales.

The gang used 'sophisticated' anti-surveillance tactics to avoid detection, Cardiff Crown Court was told.

The chance discovery of a rucksack containing 1.5 kilos of crack cocaine, which had been abandoned in the middle of a road in Cardiff in August 2016, provided a further boost as officers were able to forensically link brothers Ali Sheblan, 23, and Hayder Sheblan, 25, to the network.

Following a number of arrests throughout the investigation, during which some individual members of the gangs were convicted and sentenced, police carried out a series of raids across the UK in June 2017.

This led to the recovery of almost half a million pounds in cash, multiple kilos of cocaine and high-value clothing and jewellery wroth around 100,000, while multiple arrests were made throughout the UK and in Marbella.

Albanian national Bledar Mziu (pictured) was the ringleader of the gang, Cardiff Crown Court heard - he was jailed for 18 years

Hysen Lika, 24, and Robert Xhepa, 29, ran the drugs into south Wales - they were jailed for 12 years and six years respectively

Paul Wyatt, from Adamsdown, in Cardiff, was jailed for 10 years, while Nicky Watson, also from Cardiff, received a 14 year prison sentence

Sentencing the men at Cardiff Crown Court, Judge Jeremy Jenkins said: 'I am satisfied that each of you knew the seriousness of what you were doing.

'Each of you knew that the stakes of being caught were extremely high. Each of you was caught and now each of you has to pay the price for your involvement.'

Ringleader Mzui, from Hornsey, in London, was jailed for 18 years.

Lika, from Hertfordshire, was jailed for 12 years, while Xhepa, from Tottenham, was jailed for six years.

Wyatt, from Adamsdown, in Cardiff, was jailed for 10 years, while Watson, also from Cardiff, received a 14 year prison sentence.

Kevin Patton, from Cardiff, was jailed for 14 years, while Tamar Sheblan, also from Cardiff, was jailed for 16 years and two months

Ali Sheblan got an eight year prison term, while Hayder Sheblan was jailed for eight years

Petar Govorusa, from Bedford, was jailed for a ten years for his role in the drug network

Patton, from Cardiff, was jailed for 14 years, while Tamar Sheblan, also from Cardiff, was jailed for 16 years and two months.

Ali Sheblan got an eight year prison term, while Hayder Sheblan was jailed for eight years.

Petar Govorusa, from Bedford, was jailed for a decade.

Following the sentencing, Detective Chief Inspector Julian Bull said: 'This was an extremely complex and protracted investigation - probably one of the most challenging Tarian has ever investigated.

'I cannot praise the officers involved enough for their patient and determined efforts to dismantle this complex network.

'It is pleasing to know that these organised criminals are now behind bars and unable to continue profiting from the misery their trade brings to our communities.'A Burmese python was found tied in a knot with a screwdriver puncturing its lungs in a suspected revenge attack.

A dog walker discovered the 14ft snake's carcass dumped in a woodland area in Crynant, Wales, on Sunday.

It was collected by local snake handler Geraint Hopkins, 64 and his wife Yolande, 39. The couple believes the reptile's murder is linked to the death of an exotic animal lover.

Revenge attack? Snake enthusiast Geraint Hopkins, 64, pictured above with the murdered carcass of a 14ft python, discovered the reptile on Sunday

Dan Brandon, 31, was suffocated by his 9ft pet python at his home in Fleet, Hampshire, in August last year.

Details surrounding his death were made public following an inquest last week. Then days later, a 14ft Burmese was found dead 160 miles away.

Mrs Hopkins, 39, said she believes the results of the hearing may have triggered the murder of the 14ft snake.

Dan Brandon was killed by his 8ft African Rock Python at his home in Fleet, Hampshire in August last year

Mrs Hopkins, from Llanelli, Wales, said: 'It seems very strange that the coroner's report for the man who had been killed by his pet python came out last week and now this one has been killed and dumped.'

Burmese pythons are not venomous however they are one of the five largest of their kind in the world and should be handled by at least two people at a time when adults.

She said: 'I think this is a revenge attack because either people were disgusted by Dan Brandon's death or it could have been that the owner was scared by what this man's snake did to him and panicked.

'The inquest took place last week then all of a sudden last weekend this snake was found dead. We found this python on Sunday morning.

'I don't know for definite what had happened to it. It'd definitely been bricked on the head.

'The skull has been crushed, it had been tied in a knot and someone had used a screwdriver to puncture its lungs.

'One or two people have said it was frozen as if it'd be put in a freezer to die.

'We were sick all day, all weekend, to find someone had killed their snake in such a way.

Murdered: The 14ft Burmese was found tied in a knot with its skull crushed following a brutal attack

'You need to understand that any pet can be dangerous. I used to have a chinchilla that everyone was terrified of. You just need to know how to handle them.'

An inquest in Basingstoke heard how Dan Brandon had been killed by his 8ft African Rock Python at his home in Fleet, Hampshire in August last year.

Coroner Andrew Bradley recorded a verdict of death by misadventure on the snake lover last Wednesday.

Mrs Hopkins, who also supplies snakes to TV programmes, added: 'We pick up for the council or police sometimes because my husband is a snake handler.

Mrs Hopkins believes the results of the hearing may have triggered the murder of the 14ft snake (above, her husband Geraint)

'A lot of people with reptiles don't look after them properly.

'People buy snakes and don't realise they're not like dogs and cats. Snakes are never going to become attached to you or love you.

'We need to educate people about reptiles before they go buying snakes. They may remember your smell but they're never going to show you affection like a dog.

'We've got a 22ft Burmese python named Hercules. I love snakes - I love all animals. But I want to educate and conserve them. It's not about money to me.'

In reaction to the death of the python, one Facebook user, Benjamin Robinson, said: 'Only days since the only suspected death by snake was back in the press. Articles had pictures of the albino burm didn't they? This feels like a reaction to me.'

A spokesperson from South Wales Police said: 'South Wales Police received a report of a dead snake found in Abernant, Cynant.

'Police were advised that the snake was a 13ft-14ft white and yellow, Burmese python.

'Police are attempting to locate its owner and asking anyone with information to call 101 or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.'The two women charged with assassinating Kim Jong-Un's brother had been paid to carry out 'pranks' in public by a suspected North Korean agent in the weeks before the killing, a Malaysian court has heard.

Siti Aisyah says she met a man called 'James', later identified as alleged spy Ri Ji-U, who offered her a job on a YouTube show, where she would 'prank' unsuspecting shoppers by smearing substances on their faces.

After carrying out three 'audition pranks' at a shopping centre in Kuala Lumpur, Aisyah claims she was awarded 72 ($102) with promise of further employment for the fake YouTube show.

Siti Aisyah (left at court and right after her arrest) met with a suspected North Korean spy a month before Kim Jong-nam was killed and was paid 72 and made to perform pranks

'At the Pavilion mall, Siti Aisyah was asked to watch a prank show done by another person and, subsequently, Siti Aisyah performed three pranks on the day itself and the prank was recorded by James,' Defense lawyer Gooi Soon Seng told Radio Free Asia, quoting the lead investigator of the case.

Both Aisyah, from Indonesia, and co-accused Doan Thi Huong, from Vietnam, say they thought they were participating in further pranks when they wiped deadly VX nerve agent on Kim Jong-nam's face at Malaysia Airport a month later.

Kim died in agony within minutes and the women were arrested days later.

Lawyers argue the prank show ruse was part of an elaborate plot by a group of North Korean agents to get two women to act as inadvertant assassins.

The pair face death by hanging if convicted for murder. Both have pleaded not guilty, and lawyers say blame for the murder should lie with the North Koreans.

During questioning of an investigating police officer, defence lawyer Gooi Soon Seng said Siti was approached by a taxi driver at a night club before dawn on January 5 last year.

Both Aisyah and co-accused Doan Thi Huong claim they were led to believe they were participating in a prank show when they rubbed nerve agent on Kim's face, killing him

The driver asked her to meet at a shopping mall where there would be an offer for her to take part in prank acting.

Kim was waiting for a flight to Macau when the attack took place and died in agony just minutes afterwards

Aisyah was shown a video of the prank, before performing it three times, CNN says.

The investigator did not confirm the date but agreed with the account and that it was at the shopping mall where Siti first met with Ri, the alleged North Korean agent.

News reports had previously mentioned Ri as the youngest of eight North Korean men wanted by the Malaysian police for suspected involvement in the killing.

Gooi said outside court that Ri was merely known for recruiting Siti in January and that he was 'no longer in the scene' in February when Kim was assassinated.

Malaysian police had previously said that four North Korean suspects fled the country on the day that Kim was attacked at Kuala Lumpur's airport.

CCTV shows the moment Aisyah and Huong jumped on Kim and rubbed the nerve agent on his face. They say they thought they were taking part in another prank

Kim can be seen talking to security guards in Malaysia Airport after the attack, moments before he collapsed and died

The trial at the Malaysian High Court resumed this month after a seven-week break.

On Monday, a witness told the court that Kim met an unidentified American on the Malaysian resort island of Langkawi on February 9, four days before his death.

Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported in May last year that the American was a US intelligence agent and that Kim was believed to have passed information to him.

A police computer forensics report showed that a laptop owned by Kim was last used on February 9, the day of the Langkawi meeting, and that a USB pendrive had been connected to it that day.Prominent Swiss academic Tariq Ramadan, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Oxford, has been taken into custody by French police following accusations of rape, a judicial source said on Wednesday.

The source said a preliminary investigation was opened after two complaints were filed against Ramadan, a well-known figure in the Middle East.

He is the grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Egypt, Hassan al-Banna.

Tariq Ramadan, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Oxford, has been taken into custody in Paris as part of an investigation into rape allegations

Ramadan took a leave of absence from Oxford last November after two women filed complaints in France alleging rape.

He has denied the allegations and filed a complaint for slander against author Henda Ayari, one of his accusers.

Ms Ayari, 41, claims Ramadan raped her at a Paris hotel during a Muslim convention in 2012.

She first made the allegation in October last year as part of the #MeToo movement in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal.

She later made a formal complaint to prosecutors in Rouen, Normandy on October 20, insisting she had been too scared to speak up until now.

Accuser: Henda Ayari, 41, a feminist activist, says Ramadan raped her in a Paris hotel room during a Muslim convention in 2012

The divorced mother-of-three also accused the contemporary Islamic studies professor of threatening her children to stop her from going to the police.

'He choked me so hard that I thought I was going to die,' she told Le Parisien newspaper.

The other accuser is a an unnamed disabled woman also claims the academic raped her in a hotel room in Lyon in 2009.

Ramadan has denied the two women's accusations, as well as further allegations in Swiss media of sexual misconduct against teenage girls in the 1980s and 1990s, as 'a campaign of lies launched by my adversaries'.Britain has sold its historic Thailand embassy in the heart of Bangkok for 420million in the biggest ever sale of Foreign Office property.

The huge price tag is also the biggest land deal in Thailand's history, the Foreign Office announced today.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson announced the deal to sell the building to a joint-venture consortium of Hongkong Land, a member of the Jardine Matheson Group, and Central Group today.

Britain has sold its historic Thailand embassy in the heart of Bangkok (pictured) for 420million in the biggest ever sale of Foreign Office property

Mr Johnson said the proceeds would pay for up to 40 modernisation projects at Foreign Office building around the world.

But it will fuel concern about the state of Britain's diplomatic operations around the world and alarm critics who fear the nation's influence will shrink.

Mr Johnson said: 'Britain is a leading player on the global stage and Im determined to ensure that our diplomats have all the necessary tools to do their job effectively.

'This includes working in modern, safe, fit for purpose premises not just in Bangkok but around the world.

'Our workforce in Bangkok will be moving into a state-of-the-art premises by 2019 and this can only enhance our trade links and bilateral relations in Thailand and throughout the region.'

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson (pictured today in London) announced the deal to sell the building to a joint-venture consortium of Hongkong Land

Simon McDonald, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office said: 'In a tight fiscal environment, it is right that we take tough decisions to ensure that the UK can maintain a global presence while getting the best value for taxpayers.

'This deal will ensure that we have a modern, state of the art premises in Bangkok, confirming our long-term commitment to our relationship with Thailand, while releasing much-needed funds to modernise other embassies around the world, including in Cairo, New Delhi and Washington.'

During the coalition, then Foreign Secretary William Hague pushed through a major programme of re-opening embassy and diplomatic buildings around the world.

The move came after years of shrinkage of the Foreign Office estate to save money.Hillary Clinton has explained why she didn't sack staffer Burns Strider from her campaign team when a woman accused him of sexual harassment in 2008.

The former presidential nominee said she wanted to give Strider a second chance and was loathe to take away his livelihood, but added that if she could do it all again she would have fired him.

At the time Strider was accused of kissing the woman on the head five times and 'excessively tracking her movements', among other things.

Strider has since been accused of harassment by two further women at pro-Clinton super PAC American Bridge, where he worked after Hillary lost the nomination to Barack Obama.

Hillary Clinton has spoken out about why she didn't fire staffer Burns Strider in 2008 when a female employee came to her with allegations of sexual harassment

Clinton said she was loathe to take away Strider's livelihood and wanted to give him a second chance, but would now fire him if she could go back and do it again

Clinton admits that her senior advisers had been in favor of letting Strider go, but she overruled them.

Instead she docked his pay, demoted him, moved the woman to work separately from him, stopped him from emailing her, forced him to seek counseling, and told him that if any further allegations were made, he would lose his job.

Explaining her thinking a decade ago, Clinton wrote on Facebook: 'I didnt think firing him was the best solution to the problem.

'He needed to be punished, change his behavior, and understand why his actions were wrong. The young woman needed to be able to thrive and feel safe.

'I thought both could happen without him losing his job. I believed the punishment was severe and the message to him unambiguous.'

She also believed that Strider deserved a 'second chance' and said taking away an employee's livelihood 'is perhaps the most serious thing an employer can do.'

Clinton addressed the issue following reports at the weekend that Strider sexually harassed two more women at a pro-Clinton super PAC after he stopped working for her

The women accused Strider of making inappropriate comments and trying to control their behavior, and one said he was involved in inappropriate touching

'When faced with a situation like this, if I think its possible to avoid termination while still doing right by everyone involved, I am inclined in that direction,' she added.

Clinton notes that there were no further allegations against him while he was working for her campaign, but her actions meant his reputation was untarnished and following her election loss Strider moved on to American Bridge where he was named vice president.

It was during his time in that role that he allegedly made repeated inappropriate comments towards two immediate subordinates and sought to control their behavior, according to Buzzfeed.

One woman also accused him of 'constantly' touching her.

On these new allegations, Clinton added: 'That reoccurrence troubles me greatly, and it alone makes clear that the lesson I hoped he had learned while working for me went unheeded.

'Would he have done better  been better  if I had fired him? Would he have gotten that next job? There is no way I can go back 10 years and know the answers. But you can bet Im asking myself these questions right now.'

Clinton lost the Democratic runoff (pictured during the campaign) but her handling of Strider's case meant his reputation went unblemished, allowing him to harass more women

After the new allegations came to light at the weekend, Clinton said she contacted the initial accuser to reflect on the experience.

The woman told her she felt the action was appropriate and talked about how she had thrived in her new role and done well since.

The story was shared with her permission, Clinton said.

In a 45-minute interview with Buzzfeed on Saturday, Strider didn't deny the allegations or dispute the inappropriate language.

Instead he said he didn't realize, at the time, that those 'terms in the work place' weren't appropriate or preferred.

He did deny accessing the calendars of the employees, however, saying he didn't know how to do it.

Strider is still working in Democratic politics and is the president of the American Values Network. He attended Hillary Clinton's 70th birthday party in 2017.British youngsters may have been among the victims of pedophile Glee actor Mark Salling (pictured), according to court files

British youngsters may have been among the victims of pedophile Glee actor Mark Salling, according to court files that revealed appalling details of his child porn obsession.

The disgraced 35-year-old, found hanged six miles from his home in Los Angeles on Tuesday, accepted a plea deal last year and was facing up to seven years in jail.

Court documents revealed the extent of his vile addiction after investigators found he had 'downloaded thousands' of sickening images and videos of children.

Two out of three examples of child abuse material found in his possession were described as being 'created' in Britain and depicted 'known victims of child exploitation', the files said.

The revelation sparked fears some of the victims may have been from the UK.

Salling's career came crashing down in 2015 after he was arrested for possession of child porn.

Investigators found he 'downloaded thousands of images of child pornography' between April and December 2015.

Federal court papers state he used software to mask his IP address, but twice showed some of his collection to an adult woman, who ultimately reported him to police.

Following the tip-off, Salling, who played bad boy Noah 'Puck' Puckerman in the hit US show. was arrested at his home in Sunland, California. Police found a cache of explicit images on his computer depicting children as young as three in sexual situations.

Authorities discovered more than 50,000 images and videos of child pornography and child erotica on Salling's computer. An additional 4,000 photos and 160 videos were later found on a thumb drive in Salling's residence.

There was an encrypted hard drive as well with photos, resulting in a total of 25,000 images of child pornography, 29,000 images of child erotica and over 600 videos.

The disgraced 35-year-old, found hanged six miles from his home in Los Angeles on Tuesday, accepted a plea deal last year and was facing up to seven years in jail. Police are pictured taking his body away

Further shocking details of his crimes, contained within the plea deal court documents, revealed he had a sickening manual on his laptop computer about how to abuse little girls.

The papers said: 'Defendant also possessed on his laptop computer a document called "jazzguide", which is a manual that instructs adult men' how to abuse 'little girls who are between three and six years old'.

Some imagery 'portrayed sadistic or masochistic conduct', according to the documents, filed at the US District Court in Los Angeles on October 3.

The actor was originally facing a maximum sentence of 20 years behind bars after being charged with two counts of child pornography last year.

Salling took a plea deal in December, where he pleaded guilty to possessing images of prepubescent children between the ages of three and five. Prosecutors in response, agreed to ask the judge to sentence him to between four and seven years in jail.

At the time of the hearing, he told the judge he was on medication for depression.

Court documents revealed the extent of Salling's vile addiction after investigators found he had 'downloaded thousands' of sickening images and videos of children

The 35-year-old would also have been required to register as a sex offender, pay restitution and abide by residency restrictions.

That would have meant he was banned from coming within 100 feet of schoolyards, parks, public swimming pools, playgrounds and video arcade venues; and cannot speak to children under the age of 18 without their parents or guardians present.

The agreement also stated that Salling had been ordered to pay 'approximately $50,000' restitution to each victim who has requested it.

They now face going without the restitution payments since this was agreement was due to be activated during sentencing in March.

Authorities were reportedly tipped off by one of Salling's ex-girlfriends and he was arrested in December 2015 before being released on $20,000 bail.

Officers found the shamed actor's abandoned car while they were attending to an unrelated matter and launched a search before finding his body in woodland nearby on Tuesday.

His body is said to have been at the spot 'for some time' and police have not been able to locate a suicide note.The French government has appealed to supermarkets to stop offering huge discounts on the likes of Nutella after videos emerged last week showing desperate shoppers scuffling over deals.

Videos of French shoppers jostling as they tried to grab heavily discounted tubs of the chocolate spread in Intermarche stores have gone viral over the past week.

'I met with the director of Intermarche yesterday,' Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said, as his government prepared to unveil a bill later today that will tighten rules on supermarket promotions.

'I told him that this must be stopped - we can't have scenes like this every few days in France,' Le Maire told RTL radio.

Chaos: Customers scrambled to get their hands on pots of Nutella last week after a French supermarket chain rolled out a 70 per cent discount

'I met with the director of Intermarche yesterday,' Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire (pictured) said, as his government prepared to unveil a bill later today that will tighten rules on supermarket promotions

Scramble: There was hysteria in shops around the country as bargain hunters tried to get their hands on knockdown pots of the chocolate hazelnut spread

Intermarche sparked the shopping frenzy last Thursday when it slashed the price of a 950-gram (2-pound) pot of Nutella - a favoured breakfast spread in France - from 4.50 euros (4) to 1.41 euros (1.24).

The three-day promotion prompted shoving and even full-blown fights in several stores, with one worker likening the scenes to 'an orgy'.

Intermarche apologised to customers, but it has since continued with aggressive discounts on coffee and nappies.

The DGCCRF consumer agency on Monday announced it was launching an investigation into the discounts.

Le Maire urged Intermarche to 'stop this kind of promotion', saying that the pushing and shoving seen as customers clamoured to get their hands on the Nutella tubs must not become 'normalised'.

He reminded Intermarche's management that like other supermarket chains, it had already 'signed a deal to no longer carry out these kind of promotions. They must keep their word.'

Videos of the shopping frenzy have been shared thousands of times on social media, with comedian Anthony Joubert racking up 700,000 plays on a song featuring the lyrics, 'A euro for Nutella, I'd kill a mother or father for that.'

Ferrero, the Italian company that makes Nutella, said the discount decision was taken 'unilaterally' by Intermarche and risked creating 'confusion and disappointment' for consumers.

Some media reports in France said shoppers were behaving like 'animals' in scenes reminiscent of the Black Friday sales in America as they scrambled to secure the heavily discounted goods at Intermarche supermarkets

The shopping mayhem was sparked when Intermarche announced its 4.50 pots were to be reduced to just 1.40

Chaos broke out in French supermarkets with reports of 'riots' caused by a 70 per cent discount on Nutella.

Some media reports in France said shoppers were behaving like 'animals' in scenes reminiscent of the Black Friday sales in America as they scrambled to secure the heavily discounted breakfast favourite at Intermarche supermarkets.

Le Progres newspaper was told by one customer in Rive-de-Gier, central France: 'They are like animals. A woman had her hair pulled, an elderly lady took a box on her head, another had a bloody hand. It was horrible.'

However, the store manager insisted there was no violence and dismissed such reports as inaccurate.

According to The Local police were called to a shop in Ostricourt in northern France when a brawl broke out.

The same happened in Wingles and Marles-les-Mines in Pas-de-Calais as well as in Roubaix in the Nord department, it is claimed.

In one shop in Saint-Cyprien in southern France, a staff member was pounced on while they were still in the process of carrying a crate of the spread on to the shop floor.

The Montbrison store in central France resorted to limiting the number of pots per customer to three - only for shoppers to keep returning for a repeat purchase.

Store manager Jean-Marie Daragon said 700 pots flew off the shelves in just 45 minutes.

About 100 million pots of Nutella are eaten each year in France. Some 365,000 tonnes of the spread are made each year.This is the face of a young boy whose body washed ashore in Galveston, Texas three months ago.

Authorities made the extraordinary decision to release a picture of the dead body on Tuesday, after failing to identify the boy after months of following up on hundreds of tips.

The image was edited slightly to cover signs of decomposition and make him easier to identify.

WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGE

Texas authorities released a photo of a dead boy's body on Tuesday, in hopes of identifying him. They edited the above photo to remove some decomposition and make him easier to identify

Police first released this sketch of the boy, but it didn't turn up any viable leads

When the body of the boy - dubbed 'Little Jacob' - washed up on October 20, police released a sketch of his face but no one came forward to claim the body.

Little Jacob didn't match the description of any of the children missing locally or across the country.

They also took his fingerprints and DNA - none of which showed up in national databases. But children the boy's age typically don't have their prints or DNA in these databases anyway.

'We're not releasing this photo lightly. It's really being done, at this point, as a last option,' police Capt. Joshua Schirard said at a press conference on Tuesday.

The boy - dubbed 'Little Jacob' - washed ashore on October 20 and police have failed to identify him

Det. Jeff Banks told the Houston Chronicle that his hope is that someone saw the sketch and might have recognized the boy, but was not sure enough to come forward.

'We really have no other options,' Banks said. 'The most important thing is we get him identified. I hate to release that photo. It's terrible. But I think at the end of the day the objective of identifying him outweighs it.'

Authorities are still unsure how the boy died as well, since an autopsy showed he didn't drown.

Investigators believe the boy had died two to three days before his body was found in the waters just west of Stewart Beach.

Based on the tides, authorities believe that the boy was placed in the water locally about 12 to 48 hours before his body was found, east of where his body was found.

His body showed signs of abuse and neglect, but a corner said that none of the injuries appeared to be fatal.

Det. Jeff Banks (pictured Tuesday) told the Houston Chronicle that his hope is that someone saw the sketch and might have recognized the boy, but was not sure enough to come forward

'Someone has seen him, that child deserves to be identified and be properly laid to rest, but for this to happen, input from the public is absolutely crucial,' Galveston Police Capt. Joshua Schirard said

There were signs he was malnourished as well, since he weighed just 26 to 30 pounds - about half the healthy weight of a child his age.

Authorities are investigating his death as a homicide.

'Someone has seen him, that child deserves to be identified and be properly laid to rest, but for this to happen, input from the public is absolutely crucial,' Schirard said.

The FBI is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the boy's identity and Crime Stoppers is offering a $5,000 reward.

Anyone with information on the boy is being asked to call 1-800-CALL-FBI or 1-800-225-5324.A wedding venue will repay a couple $13,000 for ruining their dream reception and humiliating them in front of guests by serving 'inedible' food.

Ben Bui and Wendy Lam, aged in their late 20s, paid Maison Melbourne $26,000 for an eight-course Asian banquet for 173 guests in November 2016.

The couple enjoyed an 'awesome' tasting weeks before the big day - only to endure a 'complete disaster' when it mattered.

Wedding venue Maison Melbourne will repay Ben Bui and Wendy Lam $13,000 for ruining their dream reception and humiliating them in front of 173 guests by serving 'inedible' food

Guests received this plate of two half-lobsters and some noodles instead of individual portions of half a lobster each - it is the dish that makes or breaks an Asian wedding

The lobster was supposed to look like this (pictured at the tasting) with the couple paying extra to upgrade to half a lobster for each guest

The abalone soup (R) looked nothing like the version the couple tried at the tasting (L)

'People couldn't eat it, that's how bad it was. It didn't look anything like the tasting,' Mr Bui told Daily Mail Australia.

'We were sitting at our table watching everyone and they were just disgusted. It was really embarrassing for us.'

The software engineer said food was badly cooked and came out as platters with nowhere near enough for each guest, who were supposed to get individual servings.

'No one could eat anything and some went to McDonald's afterwards because they were hungry. That's not something you want to hear at your wedding,' he said.

'Honestly, it would have been better if we'd served McDonald's, everyone would have at least been fed and knew what they were getting.'

Guests were to receive this starter meat platter of pork belly, barbeque pork, duck, and roast chicken

Mr Bui said some tables were served cold chicken wings for the first course instead of a meat platter of pork belly, barbeque pork, duck, and roast chicken.

The second course of crab claw 'looked like something you'd buy at a supermarket' and the abalone soup also looked nothing like the tasting.

Every guest was supposed to receive a whole quail but Mr Bui said a table of 10 got only three or four between them - with no utensils to cut them.

When they did pick at the birds with their own cutlery, they discovered many of them were still raw on the inside and couldn't eat them.

'The barramundi was supposed to be cut and de-boned into individual slices, but it was just a fish on the plate,' Mr Bui said.

'People cut it themselves with their own knife and fork.'

The barramundi was supposed to be cut and de-boned into individual slices (like this at the tasting), but it was just a fish on the plate

But the biggest disaster was the most important dish - the lobster, which can make or break the experience of an Asian wedding.

'We paid extra so our guests would have half a lobster each, but all that came out was two half lobsters with some noodles for each table,' Mr Bui said.

When he complained, the irate groom said the venue suddenly dumped the remaining courses on the tables at once instead of bringing them out one by one.

'It was like they were thinking "he noticed we stuffed up, let's just get it over and done with". We looked around everyone was confused,' he said.

Mr Bui said his grandmother and other family, many of whom travelled from overseas, went home early after the speeches because they couldn't eat anything.

'My wife and I were together for 13 years before we got married so both our families watched us grow up together and were all anticipating the wedding so we wanted to show them a good time and our appreciation, but it never happened,' he said.

The couple's wedding reception was ruined by the food but it seems at least the cake was a success

Mr Bui said his grandmother and other family, many of whom travelled from overseas, went home early after the speeches because they couldn't eat anything

'It was really devastating for us. The memory of our wedding is tainted and we feel like we got scammed.

'My wife, best man and I went around to all the tables and apologised and we found out our parents called everyone afterwards to apologise too.

'Everyone told us the food was horrible but when they found out what happened every guest who could speak English wrote a witness statement to VCAT for us.'

Ben and Wendy weren't the only ones to take legal action against Maison, and a chorus of other unhappy couples slammed the venue with one-star reviews online.

VCAT member David Kim said Maison breached 'some of its obligations under the contract' and ordered it to pay the couple $12,958.50, including $2000 for distress.

VCAT member David Kim said Maison breached 'some of its obligations under the contract' and ordered it to pay the couple $12,958.50, including $2000 for distress

Mr Bui was happy they had won but said the payout wouldn't be enough, especially as they had shelled out thousands in legal fees.

'The money is too little too late and we don't even know if they will pay up but at least we got some closure,' he said.

'Hopefully this means it won't happen to anyone else.'

Maison's website states it that as of December 22 last year it was 'closed and will not be reopening for business'.

The hall advertised itself as being rated the number one wedding venue in Melbourne with a ballroom and outdoor wedding ceremony space.A Labour councillor posted a picture of himself looking slim joking he'd 'just been released' from a Nazi concentration camp - two days after Holocaust Memorial Day.

Councillor Bill Shelton shared the picture of him as a younger, slimmer man on Facebook with the caption 'Me in the search for a good meal......or is it just released from Belsen!'

The post referred to German death camp Bergen-Belsen, one of the most notorious sites associated with Nazi genocide, which has since become a symbol of their crimes against humanity.

The image of the Leicester City councillor wearing just a pair of shorts was put online just two days after Holocaust Memorial Day 2018 on Saturday.

Councillor Bill Shelton shared the picture of him as a younger, slimmer man on Facebook with the caption 'Me in the search for a good meal......or is it just released from Belsen!'

The annual memorial sees people all over the world reflecting on the victims of the Holocaust.

Quizzed on his actions, the Saffron ward councillor immediately apologised and asked how he could delete the post.

He stressed he was not anti-Semitic, saying: 'I'm sincerely sorry for any offence it caused. With hindsight I should not have said it and the timing was very bad.'

Councillor Shelton said it had been a poor attempt at humour, adding: 'I didn't think about it and I should have. It isn't me.

'I have been campaigning against racism of all kinds for decades - since the 1960s.

'I am very sorry. It shouldn't have happened. It will not happen again. I'm very sorry.

'One of the people I know on Facebook pointed out what I had done.

'I said 'Ooops!' because it was obviously the wrong thing to do.'

The image of the Leicester City councillor (pictured) wearing just a pair of shorts was put online just two days after Holocaust Memorial Day 2018

Former Leicester Labour councillor Sundip Meghani challenged him online.

Mr Meghani said: 'I wrote a message in a private capacity on Bill Shelton's Facebook account.

'I thought his joke was in very poor taste and the timing was pretty bad.

'Labour politicians need to be mindful of anti-Semitism in our party and we must never make crass jokes about the horrors surrounding the Holocaust.

'I think it was an error on Bill's part for which I'm glad he has apologised.'

The prisoner of war camp in what is now known as Lower Saxony, northern Germany, is one of the worst examples of Nazi crimes against Jewish people and other minorities.

When it was liberated by British soldiers in April 1945 some 60,000 prisoners, many half starved and near death, were discovered along with 13,000 unburied corpses.

In all an estimated 50,000 Jews and Soviet prisoners of war were murdered there during the Second World War.Five people have been arrested for stealing 4.4tonnes of oranges, which they squeezed into two cars.

The fruit robbery ignited a police car chase when local Seville police became suspicious of the three vehicles travelling together in a close line.

When the vehicles spotted the police they made a 'sharp' turn, causing police to pursue the cars on a dirt road to track down the group.

Fallen fruit: Police arrested five people for stealing 4.4tonnes of oranges from a nearby town

Two cars were filled to the brim with the oranges, with the suspects failing to explain its source

In one van a couple traveled with their adult son. In the second, two brothers traveled together. Both were packed with with massive amounts of oranges in sacks.

The stolen goods lacked an invoice and labels.

The group also lacked the legal paperwork needed to transport such a massive quantity of fruit.

When police asked the origin of the stolen fruit, the suspects couldn't provide a strong answer.

Car chase: Police chased the vehicles that gave a sudden and suspicious 'sharp' turn

Discovered: A third van was also found filled with sacks of oranges, but without the owners

One said that they have picked it up on the ground along the way of their long journey, for their own consumption.

Police later conducted another search in the area of the arrest and found the third vehicle, without its occupants, loaded with oranges.

Later it was revealed that a ship in the nearby town of Carmona reported a theft just hours before of a large number of oranges.A driver accused of mowing down Muslim worshippers outside the Finsbury Park Mosque claims he was working with an accomplice who 'vanished like the illusionist Dynamo'.

Darren Osborne is alleged to have killed grandfather Makram Ali, 51, and injured several others when he ploughed into them in a hire van in north London on June 19 last year.

He claims he was not driving at the time and a man called 'Dave' was at the wheel while he was in the footwell, Woolwich Crown Court heard today.

The 48-year-old from Glyn Rhosyn in Cardiff, told jurors he had plotted with two men called Terry and Dave to 'plough through as many' people as possible at a pro-Palestinian march in central London the day before.

Darren Osborne (left) is alleged to have killed grandfather Makram Ali, 51, (right) and injured several others when he ploughed into them in a hire van in north London on June 19 last year

Osborne (pic in a court sketch today) was asked by Jonathan Rees QC how he could explain why he was the only person seen on CCTV getting out of the van after the collision

After this plan was thwarted, the three then planned to meet up in the Finsbury Park area for a drink, he claimed during cross-examination on the eighth day of his trial.

Osborne agreed that the man driving the van as it made a U-turn before the attack looked like him on CCTV, but that on the way back along Seven Sisters Road, under the railway bridge, 'Dave had jumped in the van and got in the footwell, before switching with him'.

He said he had not been able to identify from the CCTV images played to the court the point at which Dave had got in, saying it was 'sod's law' that the cameras had not picked it up.

The court has previously been told that cameras covered the whole of his journey except for a period of four seconds.

Osborne was asked by Jonathan Rees QC how he could explain why he was the only person seen on CCTV getting out of the van after the collision.

Mr Rees said: 'And Dave may be a funny fella, but he is not a magician is he?'

Osborne replied: 'He's like Dynamo, an illusion. An illusionist. He can make himself vanish perhaps. I don't know.'

Mr Rees said: 'All this business about first Dave hiding himself down and then you a little later, all this is all made up isn't it?

'No it's not,' Osborne countered.

Osborne claims he was not driving this hire van at the time and a man called 'Dave' was at the wheel while he was in the footwell

Osborne (seen in an earlier court sketch) was asked by Jonathan Rees QC how he could explain why he was the only person seen on CCTV getting out of the van after the collision

Osborne, as seen on a body worn camera following his arrest, claims he was not driving the van

Jonathan Rees QC asked Osborne why, when the plan to target the Al Quds March did not come off, he said he had been planning to go for a drink with Terry and Dave rather than take some sort of action.

Osborne replied: 'Dave said 'it's potato, potato'.

He added: 'Potato, potato, tomato, tomato, let's call the whole thing off.'

'What did you understand him to mean by that?' asked Mr Rees.

Osborne replied: 'That there wasn't going to be any protests or any attacks.

'There wasn't going to be a sufficient target. I wasn't interested just in getting one or two, if I was going to do it I was going to do it proper, cause as much damage as possible.'

Mr Rees referred to footage of Osborne in the back of a police van after the collision from a body worn camera belonging to PC David Jones, in which the defendant appears to say he 'lost control' of the van.

Asked why he had said that if he was not driving the van, Osborne replied: 'I have no explanation for that.'

Mr Rees said: 'Initially when you were put in the van you were trying to save yourself by putting forward this suggestion that you had lost control because the truth is there's a bit of a coward about you isn't there Mr Osborne?'

There was no answer in reply. Osborne described comments he made after the collision as 'rambling'.

Mr Rees said: 'You are not going to suggest are you that those are the ramblings of a mad man?'

Osborne said: 'No. I would not suggest I was mad. Angry.'

Mr Rees said the defence team had submitted no evidence regarding his mental health which may assist his case. Osborne replied: 'Correct.'

This was the scene in Finsbury Park following the incident after 12.15am on June 19 last year

Osborne (pictured in a court sketch), 48, is accused of killing Makram Ali and injuring several others after he mounted the pavement with a van he hired near a mosque in Finsbury Park

Osborne was also quizzed on why Terry had not been in the van at the time of the collision. The defendant told the court: 'Terry had gone to the pub.'

Asked why he thought Dave had got into the van, Osborne said: 'We were going to go park up somewhere and go to the pub and have a chat.'

He denied knowing Dave was planning to plough into pedestrians using the van.

Osborne claimed he joked with Dave about Diane Abbott while they were on their way to meet Terry.

He said while he planned to carry out an attack on the Al Quds march, he felt 'emotionally sapped' and was not responsible for the act which left Mr Ali dead.

Mr Rees told jurors that the motivation for Osborne's mission was the 'hatred of all Muslims, which had its roots in material he had watched on television and online'.

He added: 'We suggest that the defendant has conjured up a defence out of thin air.'

In his closing speech to the jury, prosecutor Jonathan Rees, QC, said: 'This is a serious and grave case, the public have an interest in it and we all have a responsibility we have to observe.

'We suggest that the evidence we call does in fact prove that the defendant set off alone on a venture of his own, not acting with so called Terry and Dave, on a mission to kill Muslims.

'His initial target had been those taking part in Al-Quds Day march but when he was unable to get through he looked to locate a Mosque while driving around Finsbury Park.

'The defendant ploughed a van into the group seeking to kill as many Muslims as possible. His intention was plainly to kill.

'What else do you intend if you drive such a van into a crowd of static pedestrians?

'That is why we say he is guilty of the charge of attempted murder.

'His viewing of the Three Girls drama, based on the Rochdale grooming gangs, caused the defendant to take against all Muslims.

'The defendant was heard to say, 'I want to kill you, I want to kill all Muslims, I have done my job you can kill me now'.

'The defendant was smiling when he was placed in the van, blowing a kiss to the crowd.

'When talking about Sadiq Khan, Jeremy Corbyn and Lily Allen, he said: 'Have some of that mate, have some of your f*****g own'.

'He said, 'At least I had a proper go'. The defendant has conjured up the defence out of thin air.

'You have the frankly abusrd account of the defendant rearranging himself in the passenger foot well. Under caution he accepted that he was acting alone and flying solo.

'You can be sure that the defendant is lying about Dave getting into and driving the van.

'Despite all his talk the defendant doesn't have the courage of these convictions.'

Osborne's defence barrister Lisa Wilding QC will give her closing speech tomorrow followed by the judge's summing up with the jury expected to retire later in the day.An eight-month-old girl raped in Delhi has suffered internal injuries, a leading rights campaigner said Wednesday.

Police investigating the attack say they have charged the girl's 27-year-old cousin after he confessed to the crime.

Swati Maliwal, who heads the Delhi Commission for Women, visited the infant in hospital after the attack and has urged a change in the law to deter such attacks in the city known as India's rape capital.

Maliwal has launched a 30-day protest to demand the death penalty for child rapists.

Media reports say the victim had to be fitted with a colostomy bag after the attack, which occurred while her mother was out at work.

Activist Swati Maliwal (right) launched protest demanding death penalty for child rapists

'She has gone through immense pain, her internal organs have been damaged. They will take a long time to heal,' Maliwal told AFP.

'She's just so small. It's horrific what she's gone through.'

India's Supreme Court dispatched two doctors to check on the child's welfare on Wednesday after a lawyer filed a public interest petition asking it to intervene in her case.

Maliwal announced a month-long protest to urge tougher laws in India, which has some of the world's highest rates of sexual violence against children.

'People are just fed up with the system, they feel there's no hope. They don't know how to express their anger any more,' she said.

'I will work day and night to ensure a safer environment for women and to force the government to listen to our demand for death penalty at least for all child rapists.'

Maliwal said delays in delivering justice was a key reason why high levels of sexual violence against women persisted.

'The fact is that an eight-month old baby has been raped. The doctors have given that testimony,' she said, demanding the death penalty.

'There is no other way of creating a deterrence in the society because currently there is no fear of the law.'

The victim's parents, impoverished daily wage labourers, have also called for the death penalty. Under Indian law the maximum sentence for rape is life imprisonment.

An eight-month-old girl is fighting for her life after allegedly being raped by her 27-year-old cousin while her parents were at work in Delhi, India

India has a horrifying record of sexual crimes against women, with nearly 39,000 rape cases reported in 2016, according to government data.

A UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2014 said one in three rape victims in India was a minor and expressed alarm over the widespread sexual abuse of children.

Nearly 11,000 cases of child rape were reported in India in 2015, according to the National Crime Records Bureau's latest figures.

It said three children were raped every day in Delhi alone.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets of the Indian capital in 2012 to demand government action after the fatal gang-rape of a young student.

The government responded by introducing tougher laws and setting up fast-track courts to try rape cases, but rights campaigners say implementation is patchy.One Democratic senator joined Republicans in a series of standing ovations during Tuesday night's State of the Union address, drawing eye rolls from others in his party.

As Donald Trump talked about infrastructure, the resurgence of coal as part of America's energy strategy and Christian faith as the center of American life, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin bucked his party and applauded.

On at least one occasion, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer glared at him as he rose, leading Manchin to quickly take his seat again.

In America, we know that faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, are the center of American life. 'The motto is, "In God We Trust",' the president said.

Manchin was the only Democrat who leapt to his feet during any of Trump's 115 applause lines.

Sen. Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, stood when the rest of his party's lawmakers sat last night during Donald Trump's State of the Union speech

Trump delivered an 80-minute stemwinder interrupted for applause 115 times

Manchin said Wednesday morning that he supports Trump's positions on coal, infrastructure spending and fighting opioid addiction

'Just to sit there and frown is not going to fix anything,' the Democrat said of his colleagues

'There's so much we need to do,' he said on 'CBS This Morning.'

'And just to sit there and frown is not going to fix anything.'

Manchin said on 'Fox & Friends' that supporting the president was a matter of respect.

'That's the way I was raised in West Virginia,' he said.

'There's some civility still yet, there should be civility in this place.'

Sitting on their hands: Democrats stayed stone-faced and largely silent Tuesday night, with the notable exception of Manchin

Not impressed: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi scowled and grimaced through Trump's speech

Partisan applause is nothing new in State of the Unions speeches.

The events are usually one-sided affairs: Republicans generally sat on their hands through all of Barack Obama's speeches to Joint Sessions of Congress.

But Trump had one defector on his side, even after most Democrats  those who didn't boycott the speech  made a beeline for the exits.

'I stood there and shook his hand and thanked him,' Manchin said. 'Because he talked about coal. We're going to do coal research, research and development. Opiate addiction. I need that.'

He also cited Trump's infrastructure development plans.

Manchin was the lone Democrat who leapt to his feet when the president talked about 'clean coal' technology

'I've never seen a pothole that belonged to a Democrat or a Republican. We both get blamed for that one,' he said.

Republican Rep. Chris Collins of New York told a C-SPAN interviewer after Tuesday night's speech that he was disappointed with the 'artisan divide' in the House chamber.

'Time after time, standing oveations by our Republicans  and I think with the exception of Joe Manchin from West Virginia who stood with us, the rest of the Democrats sat on their hands,' he lamented.

'It was  I'll just use the word disappointing.'The chef credited with inventing avocado on toast has revealed how he started serving the dish out of necessity 25 years ago.

Bill Granger put the now-famous snack on the menu of his Darlinghurst cafe, in Sydney's inner suburbs, in 1993.

The 48-year-old said the cafe had restricted trading hours of 7am to 4pm, meaning he had to open for breakfast to pay the rent.

Avocado on toast has since remained a staple within his 18 cafe-strong empire, and has grown to become the breakfast that defines a generation.

Bill Granger (pictured) - credited with inventing avocado on toast - has revealed how he started serving the dish out of necessity 25 years ago

Mr Granger put the now-famous snack on the menu of his Darlinghurst cafe (pictured), in Sydney's inner suburbs, in 1993

The 48-year-old (pictured) said the cafe had restricted trading hours of 7am to 4pm, meaning he had to open for breakfast to pay the rent

'I am now known as the avocado on toast person and not the scrambled egg person, which is quite nice actually,' Mr Granger told The Australian.

More than 20 years after its inception, the meal symbolises a growing division between baby boomers and disgruntled millennials struggling to gain a foot in the Australian property market.

Demographer Bernard Salt claimed in a 2016 column for The Weekend Australian that young people could afford houses if they stopped spending $22 on smashed avocado toast.

The claim was backed the following year by millionaire property tycoon Tim Gurner, who said: 'When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn't buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each.'

Millennials hit back at Salt and other baby boomers, claiming the market is much more expensive than when their parents were purchasing houses.

But despite the debate, Australians remain as obsessed with avocado on toast as ever, Mr Granger said.

Avocado on toast has since remained a staple within his 18 cafe-strong empire, and has grown to become the breakfast that defines a generation

The meal symbolises a growing division between baby boomers and disgruntled millennials struggling to gain a foot in the Australian property market

Mr Granger (pictured) is also credited as being the first person to put the recipe in a cookbook, which he said felt 'silly' at the time

Mr Granger has 18 cafes worldwide, including four in London, one in Hawaii and two in Korea

He added: 'It is in the Australian attitude to life. People are interested in health - they want to get up early, go for a surf and eat healthy, and because the climate is so mild it makes you want to eat fresh food.'

Mr Granger is also credited as being the first person to put the recipe in a cookbook, which he said felt 'silly' at the time.

'We had been selling it at the restaurant for years and I remember thinking this is so silly putting a recipe for avocado on toast in a book, so I jazzed it up a bit and put a bit of lime and coriander on it,' he said.

The Washington Post traced the first 'recorded sighting' of avocado on toast to his first cafe, bills.

Mr Granger opened the restaurant on Liverpool Street as an art student dropout at the age of 21.

He now has 18 cafes worldwide, including four in London, one in Hawaii and two in Korea.MPs have voted in favour of moving out of Westminster entirely so Parliament can be renovated before a disastrous fire.

The Commons voted 234 to 135, a majority of just 16, in favour of endorsing the work of a joint committee of MPs and Peers on what to do about the dilapidated state of the building.

It is the first time since the war that MPs and peers will move out of the Palace of Westminster, with the 4billion restoration expected to take at least six years.

For the first time, MPs have formally accepted the 'clear and pressing need' to repair the Victorian systems that underpin the Palace of Westminster.

But the main work will not begin until at least 2022, as only preparatory work will be allowed to take place before the next election.

A new delivery authority will now be set up to plan the massive programme of work, expected to cost at least 4billion and leave MPs and Peers in temporary accommodation elsewhere on the Parliamentary estate for years.

Tonight's vote came after Commons leader Andrea Leadsom told MPs the Government would write into a law a guarantee the Palace of Westminster would be the long-term home of Parliament.

Officials have spent months trying to persuade MPs of the urgent need to evacuate the building for a major overhaul before a disastrous fire or flood destroys it.

While the main project will not start before the next election in 2022 but emergency works are already underway. The Elizabeth Tower, housing Big Ben, is clad in scaffolding for repairs and the historic Westminster Hall is also being worked on.

Parliament is crumbling with parts of the stonework falling off - posing a potentially deadly threat to those who work there. The Elizabeth Tower, housing Big Ben, is already clad in scaffolding for repairs (pictured)

Commons leader Andrea Leadsom told MPs the Government would write into a law a guarantee the Palace of Westminster would be the long-term home of Parliament

Mrs Leadsom also sought to reassure MPs who feared they would not return following a full decant, telling them: 'To put the matter beyond doubt and recognising the depth of concerns from some colleagues, I am happy to confirm today that were the House to agree that we must take action now, this commitment to return to the Palace will be enshrined in the legislation the Government will subsequently introduce to set up the sponsor body and delivery authority.

'It will be on the face of the Bill, putting the matter beyond doubt.'

Mrs Leadsom warned: 'Around 75 per cent of the cost of the work that needs to be done to the Palace of Westminster will not be in any way cosmetic - it will be dealing with the mechanical, the engineering, the fire risks and so on to preserve essential services for future generations.

'We have a duty to do so: this is not about carpets and curtains this is about profound and essential services for the largest part.'

Labour MP Chris Bryant, who chaired a committee on the renovation project, said neither of the motions in Mrs Leadsom's name made a decision.

MPs will are finally debating (pictured this afternoon) what to do after months of delay and will take their first votes on the multi-billion pound project later

Labour MP Chris Bryant (pictured in today's debate), who chaired a committee on the renovation project, said neither of the motions in Mrs Leadsom's name made a decision

He said: 'In the end this place is here to make decisions on behalf of the nation. It's time we got a grip and made a decision.

'I don't mind what the decision is in the end, but make a decision we must surely to God.'

There have been proposals for MPs to move out altogether and decamp to a new, glass building which will float on the River Thames in London.

Others have called for MPs to go on tour across the UK, or to move in to the House of Lords while repairs are carried out in the Commons.

While the SNP want MPs to move out and abandon Parliament altogether - never to return.

Meanwhile, the parliamentary authorities are building a glass House of Commons Chamber in the courtyard of nearby Richmond House where it is expected MPs will move to.

Chris Bryant, Labour MP for Rhondda, pictured in the basement of Parliament, warned that parliament poses a very real safety risk to those who visit and work there

Many MPs are determined to stay on the parliamentary estate in Westminster - warning that if they move out they may never be allowed back.

Where will MPs sit when renovation and refurbishment works are carried out in Parliament? Parliament is in desperate need for major renovation works - prompting questions about where MPs will go when the work is being carried out. Here are some of the options: Floating Parliament: One of the more eye-catching suggestions is to build a glass barge on the River Thames and have MPs and Lords move in there. Under the plans, the rebuilding of the Commons and Lords chambers would have seen floating buildings spanning the full width of the river. Move into Richmond House MPs would leave Parliament and move into a glass replica of the Commons Chamber in the courtyard of Richmond House, the old Department of Health building around the corner. This is seen as the most likely option as the parliamentary authorities have already started work on it. Go on tour: Many MPs have called for Parliament to be taken on tour while the building work is going on. This could either mean decamping to a major city like Birmingham and Manchester for a period, or travelling between different towns and cities across the UK. Although this is seen s pricey and probably impracticable. Move into the Lords MPs eager that they stay on the estate have suggested that unelected peers are moved while the major works are undertaken and that MPs will move into the Lords instead. Rebuild the Commons Chamber in Portcullis House A new proposal would see the new extension which currently houses cafes, turned into a Commons Chamber while renovation is carried out in the older parts of the site. Many Tory MPs keen to stay in Westminster have backed this new suggestion. Move into Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre Another 'sensible option', this would see MPs move the conference centre across the road in Westminster. Advertisement

The historic building is in urgent need of repair as bits of masonry have fallen off, its toilets regularly leak, and exposed wiring means there is a risk of a 'catastrophic' fire.

Chris Bryant, Labour MP for Rhondda, told Mail Online: 'We have fires all the time, little fires.

'And because we haven't got a proper fire sprinkler system of any kind in the building we have to have fire wardens wondering around the building 24 hours a day looking for fires.

'The biggest difficulty with that is because of all the effectively chimneys between the different floors, are full of asbestos and high voltage electricity cables, which are deteriorating and crumbling to blackened dust.

'You can't even get in there to check with there there is a fire in there.

'So if a fire broke out as it happened in Windsor Castle, it would spread through the Palace very very quickly.'

He added: 'If there is a fire and somebody dies I wouldn't want to have been somebody who voted for us not to take action.'

Mr Bryant wants MPs to move out of Parliament to allow builders a free rein to renovate the restore the building.

He said: 'It is one of the most iconic buildings in the world and we are trustees for future generations.

'The biggest danger to it is of a catastrophic failure such as a fire or a flood.

'And we simply haven't got, and cannot put in place, proper fire safety measures unless we move out for a period.'

But other MPs warned that at a time when many Britons are still living in Grenfell-Tower style cladding it is not the right time to splash out billions of pounds for the renovations.

One minister told Mail Online: 'There are people in towers with Grenfell-style cladding.

'How can we tell those people that they have to stay there while work is done, but move out of Parliament ourselves because it is not safe?'

Among the wackier proposals is to put MPs and peers in temporary offices floating on rafts in the Thames.

Under the plans, the rebuilding of the Commons and Lords chambers would have seen floating buildings spanning the full width of the river.

But Mr Bryant dismissed the proposal as 'nonsense'.

He said: 'Apart from anything else the Thames is tidal, so it goes up and down, and I don't think it would be secure and I don't think anybody is going to buy that one.'

There have been proposals for MPs to move out altogether and decamp to a new, glass building (pictured) which will float on the River Thames in London

Architects behind the glass floating Parliament said they would keep the iconic green seats in the Chamber. But critics of the plan pointed out the River Thames is tidal and so Parliament would be literally bobbing up and down all day long

Some MPs have said only the Lords (pictured) should move out of Parliament and they should move into the red and gold Chamber while renovations are undertaken in the Commons

Instead he thinks MPs should move round the corner to Richmond House - the old home of the Department of Health.

WHAT ARE THE COSTS OF THE DIFFERENT OPTIONS FOR DECANTING MPS? Full decant: Commons and Lords both move out of Parliament to buildings nearby while renovation takes place. Estimated cost: 3.5bn over six years. Partial decant: Move the Commons off site first, then the Lords, renovating each in turn. Estimated cost: 4.4bn over 11 years. Refurbish on site: Commons and Lords chambers would still have to move, probably to Westminster Hall, as renovation happens around them. Estimated cost: 5.7bn over 35 years. Advertisement

While a string of MPs have called for Parliament to effectively be moved around to other cities and towns on a big tour of the UK.

MPs will vote on plans for restoration and renewal this evening after kicking back the issue many times before.

But the Government is putting forward a motion to effectively kick the issue into the long grass until 2022.

Tory MP Sir Edward Leigh is leading a push to enshrine a commitment to keeping the main Commons debates in a Chamber on the parliamentary estate - even if MPs and their staff move out of the offices attached.

The campaign for politicians to stay on estate led by Sir Edward and fellow Tory MP Shailesh Vara.

An SNP-led amendment which will be voted on later today, would see MPs consider the option of whether to abandon the Palace of Westminster altogether.

It calls for a review of the work to include a 'detailed assessment of the cost-effectiveness of relocating Parliament away from the Palace of Westminster'.Ramnik Jogiya, 74, pictured, was killed after he locked up his jewellery shop in Leicester

Three men have appeared in court after a jeweller was found dead after allegedly being kidnapped.

The body of father-of-three Ramniklal Jogiya, 74, was found dumped in a country lane in Stoughton, Leicestershire, at about 10am on Thursday.

It was just seven miles from the jewellery shop where he was allegedly abducted.

He is said to have been bundled into a vehicle by robbers who targeted his Vama Collections store in Leicester as he locked up on the evening of January 24.

Thomas Jervis, 23, Charles Frances Mcauley, 20 - who gave his surname as Ward - and Callan Reeve, 19, all appeared before Leicester Magistrates Court charged with kidnap and robbery.

The trio, all of Leicestershire, were remanded in custody to appear before Leicester Crown Court on February 28 for a pre-trial preparation hearing.

Jervis, wearing a denim shirt, Reeve and Ward, both in grey sweatshirts, looked emotionless during the 32-minute hearing as family members watched on from the public gallery.

Kwok Wan, prosecuting, said: 'On the 24 January, a 74-year-old male was walking a short distance from his jewellery shop, which he owned.

'On his way home, he walked down a one-way street where there was a white Ford transit van in front of him.

'As he approached the van, two passengers approached him and bundled him inside.

'A short while later, a person wearing a burka was able to enter the shop using a key.

'He was then caught on camera leaving the shop and walking a short distance, where he was met by another van, which was then driven away.

'The victim in this matter was dealt with in such a way that his keys were taken and his shop was entered in to.

'His body was found in Stoughton, on the other side of Leicester, and his cause of death was blunt force trauma to his head.

Mr Jogiya was the store owner of Vama Collections and was targeted in a raid on Wednesday night

Bail applications made on behalf of Reeve and Jervis were rejected, and Mcauley made no application.

Remanding the trio in custody, Deputy District Judge Martin Jackson said: 'Mr Mcauley, you will be remanded to appear before Leicester Crown Court on February 28.

'I am aware that no bail application has been made, but for the record I will remand you in custody.

'Mr Reeve and Mr Jervis, for each of you there will be a pre-trial preparation hearing at Leicester Crown Court on February 28 and you will be expected to enter pleas at that hearing as well.

'You both face serious charges of a sophisticated kidnap and robbery.

'You will both be remanded in custody to appear before Leicester Crown Court on February 28.'

Two other men, aged 18 and 22, who were arrested on suspicion of kidnap and murder remain in police custody, according to Leicestershire Police.An eight-year-old boy has become the latest victim of an anti-Semitic attack in France, sparking an angry response from President Emmanuel Macron.

The boy was beaten up by two teenagers for wearing a kippah - the Jewish skullcap - in the northern Paris suburb of Sarcelles on Tuesday.

It is the latest in a string of assaults that has worried France's large Jewish community, coming three weeks after a kosher supermarket in the Paris suburbs was gutted in a suspected arson attack.

Anti-semitic attack: Two teenagers reportedly attacked the eight-year-old boy for wearing a Jewish skullcap in the northern Paris suburb of Sarcelles (stock image)

'An eight-year-old boy was attacked today in Sarcelles. Because he was wearing a kippa,' Macron tweeted late Tuesday.

'Every time that a citizen is attacked because of their age, their appearance or their religion, it is an attack on the whole country,' the president added.

'And it's the whole country that must rise up today alongside French Jews to fight with them against these disgusting attacks.'

Prosecutors said the two youths attacked the boy while he was on his way to after-school tutoring on Tuesday, pushing him to the ground and then beating him.

Anger: French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted his outrage over the incident, calling the assault of the eight-year-old boy an 'attack on the whole country'

Arson: A kosher store in the southern Paris suburb of Creteil was targeted by arsonists earlier this month, days after it was daubed swastikas and anti-Semitic graffiti

Sarcelles, nicknamed 'Little Jerusalem' due to its large Jewish population, was rocked by anti-Jewish violence during the 2014 war in Gaza.

Several shops were set on fire or vandalised, including a kosher grocery.

Earlier this month, a kosher supermarket in Creteil, a suburb on the other side of Paris, was targeted by arsonists on the anniversary of the 2015 terror attack on another Jewish shop.

The supermarket was one of two neighbouring kosher shops in Creteil that had been daubed with anti-Semitic graffiti days earlier.

Israel's ambassador to France Aliza Bin Noun called the fire a 'shameful provocation' on the third anniversary of the January 9, 2015 attack at the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket in eastern Paris.

A record 7,900 French Jews emigrated to Israel in 2015 following the deadly jihadist shooting at a Parisian kosher supermarket two days after the attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

That exodus has since slowed, but a spate of anti-Semitic attacks since have continued to frighten one of Europe's biggest Jewish communities, numbering an estimated half a million.A Texas couple kept a woman prisoner for two weeks by chaining her up in their home while forcing her to do housework, police say.

Jean-Claude DeMars, 51, and Charlotte Kelly DeMars, 48, were arrested on the morning of January 26 in Ovilla after police were given a tip that a woman was being held against her will inside their home.

The victim, 51, who is not being identified, said she was kidnapped by Mr DeMars on January 16 when she blacked out after he gave her a drink at a gas station.

Charlotte Kelly DeMars, 48, and Jean-Claude DeMars, 51, were arrested this week after police received a tip that a woman was being held captive in their home

When she awoke she found herself inside the DeMars' home and was told she would be 'Charlotte's slave', according to an affidavit seen by The Dallas Morning News.

The woman said she had been involved in a years-long affair with Mr DeMars and he had been paying for a hotel for her to stay in.

He eventually stopped the payments and she was forced to move into a women's shelter, which is where he retrieved her from on the day of the kidnapping.

She claims the DeMars' kept her shackled by her hands and ankles to a bed and she was told she would have to pick up dog feces inside the house.

The couple allegedly gave her a bucket as a toilet, and only unchained her for as long as it took her to clean.

She eventually alerted a friend to what was happened after convincing Mr DeMars to give her a tablet computer.

Police raided the property and found the woman chained to a bed. She told officers she had been kept there for two weeks as a 'slave' and forced to clean the house

When officers arrived they found the woman tied to the bed. She was freed and given medical treatment, while detectives seized hand and leg cuffs, chains and collars that were found inside.

Mr DeMars admitted to officers that he had picked the woman up from the shelter, but said she became 'loopy' and passed out on the ride home after they got drinks at the gas station.

He also admitted chaining the woman up, but said he did so because she asked him to, otherwise she would kill them in their sleep.

The couple are being held on a bond of $150,000. Investigations continue.

It comes after David and Louise Turpin, also from Texas, were accused of keeping their 13 children shackled inside a home described as a 'house of horrors'.

The pair allegedly kept the children in 'dark and foul-smelling surroundings' for years while starving them and subjecting them to beatings, including strangulation.

The accusations only emerged after one of the teenagers, a 17-year-old girl, who was so emaciated she looked age 10, staged a courageous escape by climbing through a window, executing a plan shed crafted with her siblings for two years.Yunsong Zhao, from China, was detained Monday for illegally possessing a rifle

A Virginia Tech freshman has been arrested after trying to buy 5,000 rounds of ammunition, sparking fears of a mass attack on campus.

Yunsong Zhao, from China, was detained Monday for illegally possessing a rifle as a foreign national.

The arrest sparked rumors of a weapon stockpile and comparisons to a 2007 mass shooting in which a 23-year-old senior killed 32 on the school's campus.

But the university issued a statement Tuesday saying Zhao didn't pose a threat to campus.

Tech Police Chief Kevin Foust says an investigation found the rumors to be inaccurate.

Foust said in a statement posted to Facebook on Monday: 'I want to personally thank each and every one of you in assisting us here in our efforts to keep all Hokies safe.'

Alvaro Barros, a freshman from Brazil who knew Zhao, told WDBJ: 'He seemed like a normal guy, you know what I mean? Just someone trying to make friends and trying to blend in like everyone else.

'I was just shocked because he doesn't seem like the guy that would do it, not at all.'

Zhao faces up to five years in prison if convicted.Chinese social media users have worked themselves into a frenzy over the arrival of 'Auntie' Theresa May and her 'very handsome husband' Philip - but were puzzled by a picture of a businessman standing near to the Prime Minister holding baby formula.

Mrs May has been given the affectionate nickname usually reserved for Beijing's key allies as she flies into the country on a three-day trade mission.

But her visit sparked curiosity on Chinese social media.

Eagle-eyed users of Weibo - similar to Twitter - spotted a member of the business delegation travelling with the Prime Minister was holding something in a picture taken after the party landed in Wuhan today.

Chinese social media users have gone crazy for 'Auntie May' - and acted with bewilderment after one of the business delegation was pictured holding baby formula

And MailOnline can reveal the businessman is Ross McMahon, CEO of Cumbria-based Kendal Nutricare, which specialises in formulas

And MailOnline can reveal the man is Ross McMahon, CEO of Cumbria-based Kendal Nutricare, which specialises in formulas, including infant and adult.

Last week they signed a blockbuster five-year contract worth 85million with a Shanghai company. They expect to create 25 extra jobs through the deal.

Social media users erupted over the formula.

Guancha.cn, a Chinese online news site, posted on Weibo: 'UK Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip May bring 'the whole England' over: HSBC, BP, Standard Chartered, Aston Martin, London Stock Exchange, etc. But what is the one at the far right holding in his hand?'

Web users commented: 'Bring some milk formula for his cousins in China?'

Another said: 'Is the formula from the UK?'

One wrote: 'It's better to have a present when you first visit.'

Mrs May is in China on a three-day trade mission and has received a warm welcome. Her affectionate nickname of 'Auntie' is usually reserved for Beijing's key allies

A user typed: 'It must be product endorsement.'

And another said: 'Baby formula personal shopper.'

The pictures were shared by other users on the social media site and tagging local news media including China's mouthpiece, People's Daily.

Mr McMahon said: 'I'm delighted that our Kendamil infant formula has received approval from China FDA, enabling us to continue exporting our products.

'I look forward to working with colleagues in China, and to helping to create further employment opportunities here in Britain.'

And Mrs May's husband, Philip, has also received a glowing reception.

According to the BBC, the Chinese have been eagerly anticipating the arrival of the 'First Gentleman' and the the Xinhua News Agency is reported to have said, 'like most female leaders' spouses, the 'First Gentleman' is known for his modesty.'

Mrs May, pictured today with her 'very handsome' husband Philip, has been in China on a trade mission

While popular news website The Paper described Mr May as 'very low-key, stays away from the media and the public eye'.

Both of the outlets wrote extensive biographies on the Prime Minister's husband, and said it was 'unfortunate' they were unable to have children.

But it added: 'What is most important is that for 40 years he has been by her side, loved her, supported her and defended her.'

And Weibo users described him as 'a very handsome gentleman' and said their marriage is 'really beautiful'.

Mrs May is on a trade mission to China and this morning it was announced British beef would be back on the menu for the Asian country for the first time in decades.

On a visit to Beijing, the Prime Minister used talks with Li Keqiang, the country's second most important politician, to signal her determination to boost trade with the giant economy.The BBC told Carrie Gracie she did not deserve to be paid as much as her male counterparts because she was 'in development'  then smeared her name when she launched a public protest, MPs heard.

The revelation came as the former BBC China editor warned the broadcaster was stumbling towards a 'Greek tragedy' as it tries to duck blame for the pay row.

She made the claims in a grilling by MPs on the Commons culture, media and sport committee, which at times left her in tears as she recalled her treatment by the corporation.

Miss Gracie revealed how she turned down 100,000 in 'back pay' from the broadcaster and accused BBC bosses of treating women who speak out about pay as the 'enemy'.

She said: 'I didn't ask for pay rises, I only asked for equality. All I want is for them to say ''your work in China was equal to your male peers''.

A number of female BBC presenters, including Kate Adie, Mariella Frostrup, Kate Silverton, Louise Minchin and Naga Munchetty, were in Westminster to support Miss Gracie.

Former BBC China editor Carrie Gracie said the reason she was given for being paid less than male counterparts was that she was 'in development' - despite having worked at the Beeb for more than 30 years

Former and present female BBC television and radio presenters including Kate Silverton, (right), Kate Adie (second right), Mariella Frostrup (third right), Louise Minchin (centre left) and Naga Munchetty show their support for Carrie Gracie today

Former and present female BBC television and radio presenters show solidarity with the ex-China editor today

During the five-hour hearing:

It emerged that almost 300 staff have lodged formal grievances;

MPs described the scandal as a 'horror show' and said the BBC's 'credibility has been shot to pieces';

They claimed the BBC's report on presenter pay was full of 'holes' and amounts to 'the worst get out of jail free card';

Bosses were accused of using 'weasel words' to dodge 'fiscal responsibility' for decades of sexism.

Female BBC presenters who attended gasped as they heard Miss Gracie  who has spent more than 30 years at the corporation and is fluent in Mandarin  was recently told by bosses that she earned less than her male counterparts partly because she had been 'in development'.

She told the committee: 'It is an insult to add to the original injury. It is unacceptable to talk to your senior women like that. I would have never agreed to China on those terms.'

She added: 'I was for four years leading our China coverage, there are significant risks in our China coverage, I dealt with them. I did a good job.'

Radio and television presenter Mariella Frostrup (right) shows her support for Miss Gracie

Grievance hearing was a 'disgraceful nine pages of errors and spin' Describing her grievance hearing Ms Gracie said it was a 'disgraceful nine pages of errors and spin'. She added: 'I couldn't have been more disappointed. I would class that as my worst day in the BBC. 'I couldn't believe that after 30 years of trying to uphold BBC editorial standards, of never being challenged on accuracy in China in four years despite one can imagine the armies of people trying to take me down there, I really cared about editorial standards.' Ms Gracie continued: 'To be spun and filled with errors in an account of my own grievance hearing in the first complaint I ever made at the BBC, was unacceptable. 'That was the point I realised we are really in trouble and I have to do something to make this machine change course. 'So first I went to bed for two days and thought 'I can't do it, this is too big'. 'I was so distraught by what had happened but then I thought 'No, I have to fight.' 'So that is the point I decided to resign my post in protest at the way the BBC was handling my case and the cases of many other women and the way the BBC was discriminating against all the women.' Advertisement

BBC chiefs were asked to apologise to her, but MPs had to prompt them three times before chairman Sir David Clementi turned round to address her directly, saying: 'I'm actually very sorry.'

It is the first time that the BBC has offered an unequivocal apology.

Previously, the BBC tried to buy her silence.

They initially offered her a 45,000 pay rise (from her 135,000 salary), but have recently raised that to 100,000. Miss Gracie has rejected the hikes saying she is after equality, not money.

'I said I don't want that money', she said. 'I feel my salary is a good salary, it's public money. They're still not giving me equality, they're not giving me parity or the benchmark which would allow me to judge that it's a robust payment system.'

Director general Lord Hall claimed 'the system is working', when referring to the number of people who had come forward to complain about inequality.

Tory MP Julian Knight said: 'We have testimonies coming in right, left and centre from people at the BBC saying they are discriminated against and you are actually saying, 'The system is working, all is well, move on please'.'

Miss Gracie claimed the broadcaster has an informal 'caste system' and 'belittles' women who raise equal pay claims.

She accused it of trying to 'throw money' at people to resolve the problem and avoid a bigger 'fiscal liability'  and that its flurry of pay reports were trying to 'retrofit justifications for the indefensible'.

'We have a toxic work atmosphere women leaving, the credibility of management is diminished and damaged and they will lose in employment tribunals,' she said.

'They are stumbling towards a Greek tragedy  They need to stop now, pull up and trust their staff.'

She added: 'This is damaging the credibility of the BBC in a completely unacceptable way.

'Some day it would be nice if BBC could bring itself to say women, too, are good broadcasters and journalists but because its in this awful situation of not accepting an equal pay problem, it has to belittle us.

'It makes me angry, it makes me disappointed, and desperately anxious for the future of the BBC.

'If we're not truth tellers, who are we? We're no better than the next news source.

'The BBC lives or dies by its reputation for telling the truth without fear of favour, that is what we go out and do every day and that is what our bosses should do.'

Miss Gracie said the 'BBC management need to stop treating us as some kind of enemy'

Miss Gracie was told she was 'in development' Ms Gracie has said the reason she was given for being paid less than male counterparts was that she was 'in development' - despite having worked at the BBC for more than 30 years. She said: 'It is an insult to add to the original injury. It is unacceptable to talk to your senior women like that.' She told the MPs: 'But the thing that's very unacceptable to me it [the BBC] basically said in those three previous years - 2014, 2015 and 2016 - I was 'in development'.' She added: 'I would never have gone to China on those terms. I asked for equal pay at the very beginning.' Advertisement

Miss Gracie said she had been saddened by comparisons between her and her male counterparts.

She told the committee: 'I would like to put on record that I admire the work of my male peers as international editors.

'What I want to talk about more is the sense in which my case is just an example of a bigger problem.

'I was a senior person who they really wanted to keep in position...if the BBC can't sort it out for me, then how can it sort it out for more vulnerable people who don't have a public profile?'

MPs revealed the corporation had tried to dismiss Miss Gracie's public stand by telling the Press she worked part-time and spent only 100 days a year in China.

But she worked full-time and spent 214 days a year there  more than her contract obliged her to.

She insisted: 'I said I'm not part-time. I work so hard.'

The committee told her she represented everything they admired most about the BBC.

Miss Gracie is returning to a job in the BBC newsroom.

She explained: 'I could leave the BBC tomorrow and get a better paid job. I don't want to leave it in this state.

'It is in deep trouble and we need to sort it out and I need to be there alongside the other great BBC women, helping the BBC to sort it out.'

BBC director-general Tony Hall has told MPs that he holds Miss Gracie in 'the greatest regard' and added he admires the stand she has taken on pay

Miss Gracie's attack on BBC Director of News Referring to 'misinformation appearing in sections of the media' recently, Miss Gracie said it was 'very upsetting' to hear from a journalist at a Sunday newspaper that 'trusted sources at the BBC' had said she was part-time. She said: 'I said I'm not part-time, I work so hard.' Miss Gracie said that she was 'also very upset in mid-November before my grievance hearing when a former member of staff told me that the current director of news, who is the most senior woman in BBC news, had given him the impression that I was part-time. 'He was at an alumni event that (Fran Unsworth) was at the day after the pay disclosures, and he told me he had asked her why myself and the Europe editor were not on the high pay list, and he said, as reported by him, 'I don't understand why they're not on the list, Carrie Gracie and Katya Adler work so hard, why wouldn't they be on the list?' 'And he said that Fran's answer was that I was part-time.' Miss Gracie said she has raised it with Unsworth and she had said it was a 'misunderstanding'. She said: 'As the senior woman at the BBC News, I would expect her to stand up for her senior women journalists. I work so hard, it's been so tough.' Advertisement

The committee took a very different tone moments later, when the corporation's bosses  Lord Hall, his deputy Anne Bulford, director of news Fran Unsworth and chairman Sir David  gave evidence.

Lord Hall insisted he knew the BBC's pay levels long before salary disclosures last summer, saying: 'Of course I knew what was going on there.'

But when Labour MP Julie Elliott checked whether he knew women were doing equal jobs for unequal pay, he denied detailed knowledge.

Mr Knight said the way the BBC dealt with the issue was 'a complete horror show' and told of 'systematic inequality'.

He asked Lord Hall: 'Isn't this a situation where the organisation, over this particular issue, is in meltdown?'

He suggested the BBC needed a solution 'more radical than a report which seemingly exonerates you in the first line', adding that it was 'the worst get of jail free card I have ever seen'.

Lord Hall praised Miss Gracie's bravery, adding: 'On briefings from the BBC about other journalists, I completely deplore that side of any businessI would condemn anyone briefing against her.'

He also denied there is an 'old boys network' operating at the BBC.

He said: 'I don't believe there is an old boys network, I believe in equality of opportunity.

'Wherever I can, properly, we have been trying to appoint women to key roles at the BBC - key roles in news, key roles as correspondents and reporters in news.'

He added: 'The idea of some old boys club, I abhor. That is not the way I believe that BBC should be or is.'

Lord Hall denied there is an 'old boys network' operating at the BBC when giving evidence

The long-running debate about salary inequality at the BBC has dogged the broadcaster since last summer.

Unveiling a pay system with 'transparency at its heart', the broadcaster announced 'substantial pay cuts' for some men and increases for some female (and male) presenters.

The BBC has proposed a 320,000 cap on its news presenters' salaries after an outcry over gender pay inequality, according to BBC News.

Last week a number of the BBC's leading male presenters agreed to have their pay cut in the wake of the row.

The broadcaster said Jeremy Vine, Nicky Campbell, John Humphrys, Nick Robinson and Huw Edwards would take reduced wages.

Despite cutting the pay of highly paid male stars, the corporation will struggle to balance the books this year because so many staff now require pay increases.

How the men compare to the women: BBC 'big beast' presenters pay comparisons Fiona Bruce , who is also the presenter of Antiques Roadshow, earns between 350,000 and 399,999 While some men accepted pay cuts last week, the BBC report has shone a light on the comparison between 'big beast' presenters at the Corporation. BBC News at Ten: Presenter Huw Edwards is paid between 550,000 and 599,999. His colleague Fiona Bruce, who is also the presenter of Antiques Roadshow, earns between 350,000 and 399,999. BBC Radio 4: John Humphrys is in the pay band 600,000 to 649,999. In comparison, Mishal Husain earns between 200,000 and 249,999 a year. BBC One: Andrew Marr, who presents his own political talk programme on BBC One, is paid between 400,000 to 449,999. BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg earns between 200,000 and 249,999 a year. Andrew Marr , who presents his own political talk programme on BBC One, is paid between 400,000 to 449,999 BBC Radio Two: Radio 2 presenter Jeremy Vine earns between 700,000 and 749,999, while fellow presenter Jo Whiley's salary is between 150,000 and 200,000. Radio Five Live: Radio Five Lives Nicky Campbell is paid between 400,000 to 449,999, while Rachel Burden was not even on the list of the Corporation's top 96 paid presenters. AdvertisementA middle-aged courier's inappropriate behaviour - including hugging and requesting a birthday kiss from young women - has been ruled as valid grounds for dismissal.

Carmelo Sapienza claimed he was unfairly terminated by Perth transit business Secure Cash last July, the Fair Work Commission heard.

He was sacked following three separate complaints from his employers' clients about his alleged inappropriate behaviour within three months.

The most serious allegations included that on collecting cash from a ladies clothing store, Mr Sapienza would ask the female staff 'when will you be leaving your boyfriend so we can run away together'.

The Fair Work Commission ruled that Carmelo Sapienza's affectionate behaviour towards young female staff was 'improper' and 'unprofessional'

At another premises to collect the banking, he leaned over the counter and put his cheek up to two girls' faces to request a birthday kiss.

Mr Sapienza acknowledged that he may have asked the female employees for a kiss due to his cheeky nature and tendency to joke around.

His explanation for this conduct was that as an Italian he was used to affection and showing affection.

He claimed he hugged staff at other clients' premises and that he kissed his father every time he saw him until he passed away.

This week, Fair Work Commission ruled that Mr Sapienza's affectionate behaviour towards young female staff was 'improper' and 'unprofessional' and rejected his defence that it was due to his Italian heritage.

'If Mr Sapienza did not know or appreciate that it is inappropriate asking 18 year old females for a kiss and indulging in the practice of hugging as a greeting or goodbye, which may not be reciprocated willingly by much younger persons, he ought to,' Fair Work Commission deputy president Geoff Bull said.

Deputy president Bull found the company was 'seriously lacking in procedural fairness' as it had failed to give Mr Sapienza any chance to respond to the reasons for his dismissal

Carmelo Sapienza was sacked following three separate complaints from his employers' clients about his alleged inappropriate behaviour within three months

However, he dismissed Mr Sapienza's claims of unfair dismissal.

'The explanation provided by Mr Sapienza of showing affection due to his Italian heritage falls short of justification for such behaviour towards otherwise unrelated persons,' deputy president Bull concluded.

'This is a complete and distinct difference from how one may conduct themselves with physical familiarity towards friends or in a family environment. Having found that a valid reason for the dismissal existed and considering all other factors, the applicant has not demonstrated to my satisfaction that his dismissal was harsh, unjust or unreasonable.'The science community isn't so pleased with one of their most prominent members: Bill Nye the Science Guy, who attended last night's State of the Union address with a Republican lawmaker.

Nye had accepted the invitation of Rep. Jim Bridenstine, of Oklahoma, who is President Trump's nominee to lead NASA.

In a series of tweets on Monday, Nye made his case for heading to the Capitol, including that his attendance 'should not be interpreted as an endorsement of this administration, or of Congressman Bridenstine's nomination, or seen as an acceptance of the recent attacks on science and the scientific community.'

Bill Nye the Science Guy (left) attended the State of the Union as a guest of Republican Rep. Jim Bridenstine (right), President Trump's nominee to lead NASA

Bill Nye the Science Guy sent out a series of tweets explaining why he decided to attend the State of the Union with a Republican lawmaker

Still, the group known as '500 Women Scientists' was not pleased, blasting the decision Tuesday in an editorial written for Scientific American magazine, according to reporting from NPR.

Nye, they said, had 'tacitly endorsed' Republican policies and put 'his own personal brand over the interests of the scientific community at large.'

'Rep. Bridenstine is a controversial nominee who refuses to state that climate change is driven by human activity, and even introduced legislation to remove Earth sciences from NASA's scientific mission,' the group wrote.

'Further, he's worked to undermine civil rights, including pushing for crackdowns on immigrants, a ban on gay marriage, and abolishing the Department of Education,' the editorial said.

Bill Nye the Science Guy (right) was spotted with another lawmaker, this time Democratic Rep. Ted Deutch (left), last night on Capitol Hill

'As women and scientists, we refuse to separate science from everyday life. We refuse to keep our heads down and our mouths shut,' the editorial read.

Nye had argued that it was important to break bread with those across the aisle and that interest in space travel was often a common bond.

'While the Congressman and I disagree on a great many issues  we share a deep respect for NASA and its achievements and a strong interest in the future of space exploration,' Nye said.

Space travel wasn't enough to appease the '500 Women Scientists.'

'As someone with a show alleging to save the world, Bill Nye has a responsibility to acknowledge the importance of NASA's vast mission, not just one aspect of it,' the editorial said. 'He should use his celebrity to elevate the importance of science in NASA's mission  not waste the opportunity to lobby for space exploration at a cost to everyone else.'Pictured: Sukhpal Singh Sidhu, 45, is serving an eight-year stretch for abusing a 15-year-old schoolgirl

A convicted sex offender offered to show his penis to an appeal court judge to prove he was not guilty.

Sukhpal Singh Sidhu, 45, is serving an eight-year stretch for abusing a 15-year-old schoolgirl.

But the cornershop keeper claimed he could not be guilty because he is impotent.

He told appeal judge, Sir Brian Leveson, that a circumcision operation had left him with a scarred penis and a constant droop.

'The fact that I am unable to have sex should be an important factor.

'Don't you want to examine my scars?' he asked the surprised judge.

But, politely turning down the offer, Sir Brian said: 'Absolutely not. That's not a proper approach or line of inquiry for this court.'

The court heard Sidhu, of Pudsey, West Yorkshire, was convicted of four sex offences in August 2015.

He was jailed at Manchester Crown Court for three counts of sexual activity with a child and inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.

But, representing himself at the Court of Appeal, in London, he argued that he had been wrongly convicted.

Representing himself at the Court of Appeal, in London, Sidhu argued that he had been wrongly convicted

A circumcision in 2003 had rendered him impotent, he told Sir Brian, Mr Justice Jeremy Baker and Mr Justice Martin Spencer.

His wife had left him and his life had gone 'downhill', he added.

He said he was willing to show the judges his penis and to have it tested by experts.

In his judgment, Mr Justice Spencer said: 'Although he asked us to view the scars which remain, we declined to do so.'

Sidhu had been accused of making contact with the girl online and by telephone.

But he denied that they had engaged in any sexual activity in his car.

The girl had blackmailed him, demanding money to pay her phone bill, he claimed.

The judges, however, ruled Sidhu's appeal was hopeless and threw it out of court.David Cuthbertson (pictured), 68, and five of his children, aged between four and 11 perished when their home in Llangammarch Wells, Mid Wales, caught fire on October 30 last year

The cause of a fire at a Welsh farmhouse that killed five children and their 'perfect dad' is still being treated as 'unexplained', despite an inquest into their deaths.

David Cuthbertson, 68, and five of his children, aged between four and 11 perished when their home in Llangammarch Wells, Mid Wales, caught fire on October 30 last year.

Their heartbroken mother Seema Khan, 44, had to help police identify the remains of Just Raine, 11, Reef Raine, 10, Misty Raine, nine, and Patch Raine, six after the inferno.

Police yesterday revealed the identity of the sixth and youngest member of the family to die in the fire - Gypsy Grey Raine, four.

Three of their siblings named yesterday by officers as Leif, 13, Blue, 12, and Farr, 11, survived, escaping to a neighbouring house to raise the alarm.

Mr Cuthbertson, who had fathered over 18 children with four different women, was described by Mrs Khan as 'the perfect dad' who wanted his children to grow up in the countryside and loved nature and the great outdoors.

He rushed back into the flames, trying in vain to save five of his children after they engulfed their home in the early hours of the morning.

Their heartbroken mother Seema Khan, 44, had to help police identify the remains of Just Raine, 11, Reef Raine, 10, Misty Raine, nine, and Patch Raine, six after the inferno at the farmhouse

Mr Cuthbertson was living with his children after splitting from Mrs Khan and her subsequent stroke.

Police interviewed the surviving children to determine who was in the 200-year-old house at the time and what may have caused the blaze.

But an inquest into their deaths held in Aberdare, South Wales, this week ruled the cause of the fire as 'unexplained'.

The hearing took place in order to release the bodies of the six victims and give them a proper funeral.

Detective Inspector Jackie Lovatt told the hearing: 'Just after midnight on Monday October 30 police and the fire service arrived to find the farmhouse ablaze.

'It was the home of David Cuthbertson and eight of his children.

'Three managed to escape and alert neighbours who called the fire brigade.'

Police yesterday revealed the identity of the fifth and youngest member of the family to die in the fire - Gypsy Grey Raine, four. Pictured are flowers left at the scene

One emotional tribute to Mr Cuthbertson and his five children who died in the blaze last year

The family want to hold one joint funeral service for the six who perished in the horrific fire at Pointyn Farmhouse in Llangammarch Wells, Powys on October 30

The family want to hold one joint service for the six who perished in the horrific fire at Pointyn Farmhouse in Llangammarch Wells, Powys.

Detective Inspector Lovatt added: 'The house was destroyed. The internal walls, two floors and the roof all collapsed.

'Once the fire had been extinguished one body could be seen in the rubble, the others were not visible.

'The cause of the fire continues to be investigated by police and fire investigators.'

The inquest heard the remains of the building were structurally unsafe and special equipment had to be brought in to help find the bodies.

Police interviewed the surviving children to determine who was in the 200-year-old house (pictured from above) at the time and what may have caused the blaze. But an inquest held in Aberdare this week ruled it to be 'unexplained'

Crews of firefighters enter the torched shell of the family home in Llangammarch Wells

An aerial view shows the devastation following the blaze in Llangammarch Wells, Powys

Firefighters are pictured inside the structure after it was destroyed by the fire last year

The remains took two months to be recovered and were then identified through DNA except for those of Gypsy, four, who was identified through her dental records.

The dates of birth and family details of each child were given to police by their heartbroken mother Mrs Khan, who was not living at the farmhouse at the time of the fire.

At the time, Theresa May praised the 'bravery and professionalism' of the emergency services who responded to the blaze.

Expressing her condolences, Mrs May said: 'This was indeed a terrible tragedy that took place and as he said it isn't just the family themselves that have been affected by it but the local community.

Detective Inspector Jackie Lovatt (pictured) told the hearing: 'Just after midnight on Monday October 30 police and the fire service arrived to find the farmhouse ablaze. It was the home of David Cuthbertson and eight of his children. Three managed to escape and alert neighbours who called the fire brigade.'

'I know the emergency services did sterling work and I am also pleased to commend the work that they did and their bravery and professionalism in dealing with this issue.'

Powys Coroner Andrew Barkley said the funerals of all six victims could now go ahead.

He adjourned the hearing until April 6 when a pre-inquest review will be held in Welshpool, Mid Wales.

The inquest also heard the children were discouraged from watching television and there was no Wi-Fi at the house, which could only be reached via a mile-long gravel track.

In the days after the tragedy it was revealed one of the firefighters called to the blaze was Mr Cuthbertson's son-in-law, David Price, 25.

Neighbour Mary Ann Gilchrist said at the time: 'What I find so horrific is that one of those reponding was his own son-in-law, who is a retained fireman. Can you imagine?

'David's children are all so intelligent and sweet. He should be very proud of them.'

Locals are still coming to terms with the fire which robbed two local schools of five much-loved children.

DCI Lovatt told the Coroners Court (pictured): 'The house was destroyed. The internal walls, two floors and the roof all collapsed.'

The three who escaped lost all their school work and toys, as well as their father and five siblings.

They are being cared for by relatives who have declined to talk about the tragedy.

Local families have so far raised over 13,000 to help look after the surviving children.

A local woman who knew the family said: 'It still hasn't sunk in - this is a small place and to lose a dad and five children in an instant is too much to take in.

'People are doing what they can for the three children and the extended family but it will take a long, long time.'A woman celebrating her wedding anniversary saw her husband and son killed when a zebra ran in front of their jeep while they were on safari in Namibia.

Sissi Bohlen, who was born in Austria but lives in New York, was riding in a Land Rover through Namibia on January 17 - the date of her 26th wedding anniversary - when the animal jumped out in front of the vehicle.

The impact forced the vehicle off the road where it turned over, killing her 65-year-old husband Edgar and son Vincent, 25, who were sat in the middle row of seats.

Sissi Bohlen was riding in a Land Rover with husband Edgar, 65, and 25-year-old son Vincent (pictured together) in Namibia when a zebra jumped out in front of them

Sissi (left) survived the crash with broken ribs and knee damage, but Edgar (right) - with whom she was celebrating her 26th wedding anniversary - was killed

Mrs Bohlen, who was riding in the back, survived the accident, as did the driver.

She was taken to hospital with damage to her knee, broken ribs and a punctured lung, 27 East reports. The driver's condition was not reported.

Mrs Bohlen spent almost two weeks recovering in hospital and on Monday was well enough to fly and see her family in Austria on Monday.

The couple had booked the trip last year for their 25th wedding anniversary, to coincide with their 26th anniversary, which was this year.

Mr and Mrs Bohlen met in New York in 1991 before getting married the following year, son Vincent was born shortly after.

He was due to celebrate his 26th birthday in March. He was the couple's only child.

Vincent, a graduate of NYU's Stern Business School who was just getting into the family business of real estate, was also killed

The father and son (pictured) were riding in the middle row of seats during the accident, while Sissi was in the back. The driver was cleared of any blame and released

Mr Bohlen, originally from Germany, emigrated to America in the 1980s where he worked as a real estate developer.

Vincent studied at NYU's Stern School of Business, graduating a year and a half early before working as a financial analyst in Washington DC.

He returned to New York City in 2017 to take what had been his current job as a senior associate at Edge Principal, a real estate investment company.

Namibian authorities questioned the driver over the accident, but found he had not been speeding and was not under the influence of any substances at the time.

The man, who has been with the safari tour company for years, was subsequently released without charge.A psychopathic 'monster' who butchered a nine-year-old boy and wrote online that 'killing the neighbour's child didn't feel too bad to be honest' has been jailed for life in Germany.

Marcel Hesse, 20, was found guilty of slaughtering his young neighbour Jaden and one of his own internet friends in the town of Herne, in the north-western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, in March last year.

Hesse was dressed completely in black as he walked into the courtroom wearing handcuffs before he was sentenced by the Bochum court to life in prison with a 'conditional preventive detention'.

There was a nationwide manhunt for the killer who posted disturbing pictures and messages relating to the murders on the dark net in a crime that shocked the country.

Psychopathic 'monster' Marcel Hesse (left, being led into court today) who butchered a nine-year-old boy and wrote online that 'killing the neighbour's child didn't feel too bad to be honest' has been jailed for life in Germany

Hesse (pictured today) was dressed completely in black as he walked into the courtroom before he was sentenced by the Bochum court to life in prison with a 'conditional preventive detention'

Sadistic Marcel Hesse, 20, was found guilty of slaughtering his young neighbour Jaden (left) and one of his own internet friends, Christopher W (right) in the town of Herne, in the north-western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, in March last year

On the day of the first murder, Hesse asked Jaden if he could help with a ladder, only to stab him 52 times in a cold-blooded murder, posting footage of the act on the dark net.

After Hesse killed Jaden, he went to visit his friend Christopher W., who lived in the same town. They played computer games, ate pizza and went to sleep.

Hesse, who was rejected by the German army for being unstable, then killed Christopher W. after his friend saw his face on TV as a suspect in the boy's murder, fearing that he might call police and give away his location.

Hesse stabbed him 68 times and is even said to have rammed a pen into his back. Photos of this killing were also shared on the dark net.

Two days later Hesse gave himself up to police, bringing an end to one of the largest manhunts in recent German history.

Hesse uploaded a shocking manifest to the infamous internet message board 4chan just after he had killed Jaden.

The body of the boy was discovered by police in the cellar of a house by his stepfather. Police and forensics are pictured taking the body away

Investigation: Forensics descended on a flat in Herne, Germany after police discovered a body inside

The manifest read: 'To kill someone is just a series of movements.

'To produce the wound, to keep the victim from defending. To give the mortal blow and wait for the victim to be dazed.'

In his message, there were also Japanese words from the worlds of anime and video games.

Before the trial, police described him as a 'brutal killer' and said he had admitted both crimes.

The teenager is believed to have taken shocking video and photos of Jaden's murder before posting it on the 'dark web' of the Internet and going on the run sparking a massive police manhunt.

He also shared messages and photos on WhatsApp and in online chat rooms and some of that material was later posted back on to the dark web.

In one message on an internet chat room, he wrote: 'I have cut myself in the hand as I fought the 120kg beast'.

Pictures show him washing a knife and posing for a selfie with blood on his hands while in another message he boasted: 'I know that people die slowly when you slaughter them.'

Another chilling note believed to have been posted by Hesse was translated as saying: 'I just killed the neighbour's child, doesn't feel bad tbh, my hand bleeds lil' which is the only thing annoying me.

On the day of the first murder, Hesse (centre) asked Jaden if he could help with a ladder, only to stab him 52 times in a cold-blooded murder, posting footage of the act on the dark net

The nationwide manhunt for the killer, one of the largest in Germany's recent history, and the fact that the killer posted disturbing pictures of the murders on the dark net, shocked the country

'I actually wanted to get a girl in here so I can rape her.'

The court this week discussed whether Hesse should be tried as an adult or under juvenile criminal law, which in Germany is common under the age of 21.

In the end, the Bochum court decided to sentence Hesse according to adult law after hearing the testimony of a forensic psychologist.

He was sentenced to life in prison with a 'conditional preventive detention'.

In Germany, a life sentence without such a preventive detention would otherwise mean that a convict is automatically released after serving 15 years.

With its ruling, the court followed the demands of the public prosecutor's office as it noted the sheer brutality of the murders as reasons for the severe punishment.

Dr Sabine Nowara argued that Hesse 'at the time of the crime was not the same as a teenager'.

Even though the defendant looks 'youthful', Nowara said that his personality was already well-developed.

Nowara said that especially the 'psychopathic, narcissistic and sadistic' elements she found in Hesse's behaviour were worrying, which according to her puts a trial under juvenile law out of the question.

Last month, a prison doctor who watches over the health of Hesse, and examined him together with a psychiatrist shortly after he was first detained, also told the Bochum court about Hesse's horrific character.

The doctor said: 'After Hesse told my colleagues and me about his deeds, the psychiatrist told me: 'That is a monster'.'

According to the prison doctor, Hesse is almost exclusively found standing next to the fence with his eyes closed when prisoners are allowed out of their cells for a short break.

The doctor said: 'He is very meticulous, which shows itself during mealtime.

He puts butter on six pieces of bread, cuts off the bread crust and places it accurately on the edge.'Theresa May has rejected a minister's resignation after he stunned peers by walking of the Lords when he missed a question.

Aid Minister Lord Michael Bates said he was 'thoroughly ashamed' at the 'discourtesy' he had shown Labour's Baroness Lister.

Peers on all sides shouted 'no' and tried to call the minister back to the Despatch Box as he marched out of the chamber.

But a No 10 spokeswoman said: 'With typical sincerity, Lord Bates today offered to tender his resignation after missing the start of an Oral Questions session in the House of Lords, but his resignation was refused as it was judged this was unnecessary.

'As a hard-working and diligent minister, it is typical of his approach that he takes his responsibilities to Parliament so seriously.

'He has received support from across the House and we are pleased that he has decided to continue in his important roles at the Department for International Development and HM Treasury.'

Aid Minister Lord Bates said he was 'ashamed' at the 'discourtesy' he had shown Labour's Baroness Lister

Peers on all sides tried to call him back to the Despatch Box as he walked out of the chamber

British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during a joint press conference with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing today. She has rejected Lord Bates' resignation

Labour Lords Leader Angela Smith sprung to her feet to call the minister back, insisting there was no need to resign over a 'minor discourtesy'.

Lord Bates said: 'With the leave of the House, I would like to offer my sincere apologies to Baroness Lister for my discourtesy in not being in my place to answer her question on a very important matter at the start of questions.

'During the five years it has been my privilege to answer questions from this Despatch Box on behalf of the Government I have always believed we should rise to the highest possible standards of courtesy and respect in responding on behalf of the Government to the legitimate questions of the legislature.

'I am thoroughly ashamed at not being in place and therefore I shall be offering my resignation to the Prime Minister with immediate effect.

'I do apologise.'

The incident was triggered when Lord Bates missed the beginning of a debate on income inequality.

His absence forced Lords Chief Whip Lord Taylor to step in to answer the opening question from Baroness Lister.

Lord Bates arrived a few minutes later, but too late to answer the question himself.

Baroness Smith leapt to her feet to insist: 'I hope the Lords leader and chief whip have heard the House.

'An apology from Lord Bates is perfectly sufficient, It was a minor discourtesy of which any of us could be guilty.'

Labour Lords Leader Angela Smith sprung to her feet to call the minister back

Liberal Democrat Lords Leader Richard Newby said: 'Lord Bates resigns because he arrived a couple of minutes late to answer a question in the Lords.

'He is widely admired as a dedicated public servant and I hope he reconsiders his decision.'

Lord William Hague then rose to begin his speech on the EU Withdrawal Bill to a stunned House of Lords.

Lord Bates has already from Government once before. He resigned as a Home Office minister in March 2016 to talk part in a solo walk across South America.

He quit the Home Office after eighteen months as a minister, to trek 2,000 miles from Buenos Aires to Rio de Janeiro to raise funds for Unicef as part of the UN Olympic Truce ahead of the summers games.

He trekked through Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil during his adventure.

Theresa May reappointed him to her frontbench team when he got back, making him a minister in the Department for Aid and International development.A jealous ex-boyfriend who gunned down his former girlfriend and three others at a car wash had an altercation with one of his victims at a bar hours before the deadly rampage, it has been claimed.

Suspected shooter allegedly Timothy Smith ran into victim Billy Porterfield in bar rural Donegal, Pennslyvania before the attack on Sunday morning.

Billy's father Scott Porterfield told the Tribune Review he has seen security footage from Tall Cedars lounge in that shows suspected shooter Timothy Smith placing his hand on his son's shoulder.

A staff member asked Smith to leave, and his son remained at the bar, he said.

Left: Victim Scott Porterfield with his wife before his death. Right: Suspect Tim Smith was armed with a semi-automatic rifle, a .308-caliber rifle and a handgun (it's unclear whether the exact gun is shown)

Tall Cedars lounge in rural Donegal, Pennslyvania, where the shooter allegedly ran into his victim before the crime

Hours later Smith fatally shot 27-year-old Billy Porterfield and three others at a self-serve car wash in rural Fayette County. The victims were Chelsie Cline, 25, Courtney Snyder, 23, and Seth Cline, 21.

Another woman who managed to hide in the back seat of a truck survived with minor injuries.

Smith, 28, suffered an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head and was on life support until his death Sunday night, state police said.

District Attorney Richard Bower said he couldn't comment on why the death wasn't announced until Tuesday.

Smith was obsessed with Cline after they dated, leaving beer for her on her car and sending her flowers and other presents, Chelsie Cline's half-sister, Sierra Kolarik, told the Tribune-Review.

Porterfield's wife has said Chelsie Cline became involved with her husband recently. His father told the newspaper Porterfield had been thinking about getting divorced.

Suspected shooter Smith is shown left next to his ex-girlfriend Chelsea Cline who died Sunday

William Porterfield (left) also was shot dead Sunday. His wife said he had been hanging out with Cline days before her ex-boyfriend killed them

Exactly why the group was at the car wash just before 3am and whether Smith knew they would be there is unclear.

Investigators are trying to get phone records to help piece together the events leading up to the shooting, said Trooper Robert Broadwater.

More than 150 people attended a vigil Monday night at Christian Life Assembly church in Melcroft.

'Such a tragedy can cause us to isolate ourselves from the community,' said the Rev. Doug Nolt, pastor of Indian Head Church of God. 'But such a tragedy can also bring us together. We will not let this tragedy overcome us.'

Smith was armed with a semi-automatic rifle, a .308-caliber rifle and a handgun. He had been wearing a body armor carrier without the ballistic panels inserted at the time of the shooting.

Chelsea Cline's half-brother, Seth Cline, is pictured. He was another victim in the Sunday shooting

Courtney Snyder is the fourth victim who was shot dead. Her Facebook bio reads 'full time mommy'

A male neighbor near the car wash told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review he heard roughly 30 gunshots fired over a span of minutes.

Porterfield's pregnant wife, Jenna Porterfield, 24, revealed her husband and Cline - a former girlfriend to Smith - hung out together for two days prior to the shooting that killed them both, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The wife said she and her spouse were having marital issues since their November wedding, but she didn't care 'what he did' and 'would give anything to have him back.'

Police did not reveal whether the suspect knew the other two victims.

Cline's half-sister, Sierra Kolarik, told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Smith was obsessed with Cline, even after the pair's relationship came to a halt.

In this frame from video, police work at the scene of a fatal shooting at a car wash

A coroner walks under the police tape at the scene where a shooter killed four people

Kolarik said Smith left beer on her sister's car and sent her flowers and presents recently to prove he loved her.

Cline's sister added that Smith came across as 'the most kind-hearted person' but had interest mostly in 'guns and guns and guns and shooting and beer and rolling cigarettes.'

Smith's Facebook bio reads he is a cook at Ligonier Country Club in Ligonier and a 'former slave' at Out of The Fire Cafe in Donegal.

In his profile picture, he is shown him smiling widely and flipping a middle finger to his Facebook friends, underneath a cover photo that reads: 'Live in the moment'.

Just last week, Cline shared a meme on her page that said: 'After this week, I rlly (sic) need to get taken out ... on a date or by a sniper either one is fine w me at this point.'

People hug at the scene where a shooter killed four people Sunday, Jan. 28, 2018

Locals and family members comfort each other at the scene where a shooter shot dead four

Sad locals walk toward the car wash scene where four young people lost their lives

Smith replied in the comments section: 'I could do both.'

The shooting suspect was said to be the first to arrive at the car wash early Sunday before his ex-girlfriend and the three other parties arrived.

He sat in his parked pickup truck on the side of the two-bay car wash and waited.

Police say when Porterfield and Cline exited their vehicle and walked out, Smith opened fire.

Meanwhile the two other victims - Snyder and Cline's half-brother, Seth Cline, arrived in a pickup truck around the same time.

Smith is shown him smiling widely and flipping a middle finger to his Facebook friends

They were both shot and killed while still inside their vehicle, police say.

A neighbor informed car wash owner, Ed Bukovac, in a phone call around 4am that something had gone seriously wrong at his business, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports.

Bukovac said police were at the scene by the time he arrived and was informed on what had happened further.

Friend to construction worker Seth Cline, Cayleigh Myers, described him as 'very outgoing, very funny and very smart.'

Myers said: 'You always had fun when you were around him... he would give his shirt off his back for you, anything.

'It didn't matter what it was, what time it was, if you need him, you could call him. He was everything,' she added.

Snyder's Facebook bio reads 'full time mommy'.

Her cover photo says: 'She wears strength and darkness equally well, the girl has always been half goodness, half hell.'

The shooting happened in the rural and quiet town located about 55 miles (89 kilometers) southeast of Pittsburgh.

Porterfield is pictured on Facebook smiling before he died on Sunday in the senseless shooting

Cline is pictured alongside another individual. Her ex-boyfriend is on life support after he allegedly killed four and likely shot himself

In this photo taken by Cayleigh Myers, Myers is shown with Seth Cline. Cline was among the four people killedTheresa May has ducked questions about whether Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has told the full story of his fling with a junior colleague.

Mr Williamson stunned Westminster last week when he revealed details of a brief romance with a married colleague when he was managing director at a fireplace firm in 2004.

The defence secretary, who is a close ally of the Prime Minister, issued a statement to the Daily Mail last week in which described the 'profound impact' the romance had on his family.

In the following days he has declined to answer further questions about the incident, including the precise nature of his relationship with the unnamed woman and the exact circumstances in which he left the company shortly afterwards.

Theresa May (pictured in China today with her husband Philip) twice declined to say whether she was satisfied Gavin Williamson was telling the full story about his fling

Downing Street has declined to comment on the incident in detail, describing it as a 'private matter'.

Mrs May was also reluctant to be drawn on the matter today on her trip to Beijing when she was questioned about it for the first time.

Speaking to reporters on a visit to China, she twice declined to say whether she was satisfied Mr Williamson was telling the full story about the incident.

The Prime Minister dismissed suggestions that Mr Williamson could be investigated under the ministerial code for something that took place before he was a minister - as happened to her former deputy Damian Green.

She said: 'What has come out is something that happened even before Gavin was a member of Parliament, let alone a minister.

Gavin Williamson (pictured with his wife Joanne) stunned Westminster last week when he revealed details of a brief romance with a married colleague when he was managing director at a fireplace firm in 2004

'In relation to Damian Green, the report showed the ministerial code had been broken - it was on that basis that I took the decision.'

Asked again if she was satisfied Mr Williamson had told the full truth, she said: 'Gavin has told people about something that happened before he became an MP.'

Mr Williamson said last week that he had parted from his former employer on 'amicable terms', and friends have flatly denied claims he was subject to a disciplinary procedure.

One ally said the defence secretary was confident he had given an accurate account of the incident, adding: 'He knew there would be scrutiny. He's not stupid.'

But one senior Tory said the minister would be 'toast' if his story unravelled.White House chief of staff John Kelly said Wednesday that the public will soon see a classified memo that reportedly spells out election year surveillance abuses by the Obama administration.

The memo, which the House Intelligence Committee has voted along party lines to release, outlines wrongdoing by the FBI in its investigation of alleged collusion by the Trump campaign and Russian agents.

'It will be released here pretty quick, I think, and the whole world can see it, Kelly said Wednesday of the document, compiled by committee chairman Devin Nunes, a California Republican.

Kelly appeared on Fox News Radio's 'The Brian Kilmeade Show.'

Trump told a GOP congressman after Tuesday night's State of the Union Address that he is '100 per cent ' in favor of releasing the memo.

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, pictured during Tuesday's State of the Union address, said Wednesday on Fox News Radio that a controversial classified intelligence memo will be 'released pretty quick' by the White House

President Donald Trump told South Carolina Republican Rep. Jeff Duncan on Tuesday night that he would '100 per cent' release the memo that Republicans want the public to see

'Oh, yeah. Don't worry,' Trump told Duncan on his way out of the House chamber following his State of the Union address

Republican House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (left) got a party-line victory in his 'release the memo' campaign, while ranking Democrat Adam Schiff (right) is trying to win public release for his countervailing memo

It has generated open rhetorical warfare between committee Republicans and career officials at the FBI and Justice Department.

'Let's release the memo,' South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan told Trump on his way out of the House chamber, in video footage captured by C-SPAN.

'Oh, yeah. Don't worry. One hundred per cent,' Trump replied.

'Can you imagine that?' the president added, seeming to hint at a scenario where he would keep the memo secret.

'You'd be too angry.'

It's unclear whether the memo will live up to its hype; Kelly said he would 'let all the experts decide that when it's released.'

'This president wants everything out so the American people can make up their own minds.'

The memo came to the White House on Monday, he said, and 'we have our national security lawyers ... slicing and dicing and looking at it so they know what it means.'

Trump has until Saturday to decide whether to block the memo's exposure after the Intelligence Committee voted along party lines to release it to the public.

The White House has pledged to conduct a legal and national security review before making a decision.

The memo reportedly shows that the FBI and DOJ improperly applied for wiretap warrants covering at least one member of the Trump campaign team

Duncan, a conservative Republican, has come out in favor of releasing the memo in recent weeks

The warrant applications to a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act judge are thought to have been in part based on a notorious and uncorroborated anti-Trump 'dirty dossier' paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

The dossier, compile by a former British spy, contained salacious and unproven claims, including one about Trump cavorting with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel and indulging in a 'golden showers' urine fetish.

All members of Congress have been able to see the memo in a secure facility at the U.S. Capitol. A Democratic memo offered in rebuttal could be released publicly, but only after the entire House of Representatives has a similar opportunity to review it.

The White House said Monday that Trump had not decided whether to authorize the release of the memo, but said he favored 'full transparency.'

Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at the time 'no one' at the White House had seen it yet, however.

She also confirmed Wednesday morning on CNN that Trump had yet to review it.

The memo is expected to spell out how Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein approved a request last spring for extended surveillance on Carter Page (pictured), an unpaid foreign policy adviser to Trump's presidential campaign

A number of conservatives favor releasing the memo, which they believe could discredit the findings of the investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.

White House aides have previously said Trump favored releasing the document, which is in contrast to the stance of the Justice Department.

The New York Times reports that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein approved a request last spring for extended surveillance on Carter Page, an unpaid foreign policy adviser to Trump's presidential campaign.

Republicans appear poised to argue that Rosenstein did not thoroughly review the application to a FISA court.

Page is under scrutiny for a 2016 trip he made to Moscow where he met with Russian officials, but insists that he made it clear he was not representing the presidential candidate.

A report he provided to the campaign afterward with his insights and an offer to set up a trip to Russia for Trump has made him a person of interest in investigations into alleged collusion, however.

Republicans have been teeing up their memo as a bombshell that will justify demands for an independent investigation of the DOJ and FBI, which had been conducting the Russia probe until Rosenstein hired Robert Mueller to serve as special counsel in the matter.

One outgrowth of the memo's public release could be a broader understanding of the low bar prosecutors must clear before being granted FISA wiretap warrants.

Multiple media reports claim that less than one-tenth of one per cent of FISA court applications are turned down.

The Rosenstein-approved FISA court warrant application is thought to have relied at least in part on the 'dirty dossier' funded by Democrats against Trump in 2016

Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said last week that the GOP members had 'selectively and misleadingly' characterized classified information 'in an effort to protect the president at any cost.'

In a Sunday morning appearance on CBS, White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short suggested Trump would lean toward releasing the four-page document.

'We haven't obviously read the memo. It's classified. So it's hard for me to speculate on what's in the memo,' he said.

'I do think that we typically prefer transparency. And so if there are concerns that I think it would be helpful for Americans to know about, we would be open for that being released.'

Republican Sen. Susan Collins said Sunday that she was concerned that classified information would be compromised, however.

'That's a really serious matter. So, to me, the preferable way to handle the allegations of wrongdoing by certain FBI agents and a lawyer there is to leave it in the hands of the inspector general,' she told CNN.An inspirational journalism professor wrote his own obituary before succumbing to cancer.

Barry Hollander, who taught at the University of Georgia, died aged 59 on Tuesday after a long battle with thyroid cancer.

But the respected, yet quirky, professor wasn't about to let any old person write his obit.

In his own words: 'Yes, I wrote my own obituary in advance. No one who knows me is surprised.'

Today, his local paper, Online Anthens, published Hollander's touching obituary, where he discussed his long career, his illness, and - most tragically - leaving family behind.

Barry Hollander (pictured) who taught at the University of Georgia, died aged 59 on Tuesday after a long battle with thyroid cancer

Pictured is the beloved professor's office door at the University of Georgia

It follows his life story, from his paper route in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, to landing his first job at a small daily newspaper in Mississippi.

'On my first day at that paper, having nothing else to do with no assignments yet, the editor gave me a pile of obits to write. Here I am, full circle, writing my own,' he wrote.

He later moved to a daily paper in Louisiana where he met his wife, Edith, a fellow reporter.

Eventually, they both quit their jobs and enrolled in graduate school at the University of Florida, where Hollander discovered a love for academia.

In 1991, he took a job as an assistant professor at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at UGA - a job he would remain in for the next 26 until his death.

During that time, he inspired thousands of students, many of whom have gone onto become journalists and editors themselves.

Today, his former students, current students, friends and colleagues have been leaving moving tributes to the professor.

Students loved Hollander's quirky sense of humor and teaching style (pictured in a fun photoshoot)

Hollander with his daughter Erin (center) and his beloved wife Edith (right)

Journalism professor at NYU, Dan Fagin, wrote: 'When I was a cub reporter in the Florida boonies, I learned the most from my friend-for-life @barryhollander. I learned how to how to act like a reporter: sarcastic yet softhearted, reveling in exaltation of underdogs and exposure of hypocrites. Telling a dirty joke just right.'

Wes Blankenship, of 11Alive Nwes, wrote: 'My thoughts and prayers are with the family of UGA journalism professor Barry Hollander, who has passed away. He encouraged myself and all of his students to become better people, and better journalists. Rest in peace, sir.'

Former student and journalist intern Maureen Sheeran added: 'I'm so saddened to hear about the passing of @UGAGrady professor Barry Hollander. Rest in peace, @barryhollander. Thank you for the laughs, and thank you for all that you taught me about seeking truth.'

UGA Dean Charles Davis wrote, in an email to students, to inform them of the loss.

'We know many of you think of Dr Hollander as a mentor and role model,' he said in the email. 'He was the consummate journalist and a great journalism teacher who taught the fundamentals of reporting to virtually every journalism, and public relations student at Grady for more than 20 years.

'Dr Hollander loved being your professor. We know many of you are hurting.'

In his obituary, Hollander said he 'never once regretted accepting the UGA job, though once or twice perhaps Grady did.'

'I got to work with the very best faculty in the world, got to work with the very best students in the world, and got to live and raise a family in the very best town in the world,' he continued. 'I'm convinced Heaven, assuming I go there, looks a lot like Athens.'

Hollander, who revealed he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer several years ago, said that despite numerous different treatments, a rare genetic mutation meant he did not respond to typical treatment.

'Even an expert can only do so much. Eventually the cancer won,' he wrote.

He leaves behind his two children, Jacob, a geologist with Schnabel Engineering in Greensboro, North Carolina, and Erin, an MD/PhD student at UPenn in Philadelphia, and wife Edith, as well as his sister Deni Patton.

'Send flowers if you like, as Edith loves them, but in my memory raise a good glass of bourbon or single-malt whisky,' he continued.

'In my memory, tell stories about me, especially the ones that make me sound like an idiot. In my memory, buy a young person a subscription to a good news source like The New York Times. And in my memory, watch out for Edith, the love of my life. I never deserved someone as good as her, and she doesn't deserve this.'

His funeral will be held at Lord & Stephens funeral home in Athens, Georgia, on Thursday, February 1.A California traffic stop of a truck was discovered to be hauling 77 illegal immigrants packed inside the sweltering cargo area on Monday.

It is the second such truck stop in a week, on Friday a truck was discovered carrying 76 immigrants in Texas.

The incident unfolded after a California Highway Patrol officer pulled the truck over after observing it weaving and without tags on Old Highway 80 in Boulevard on Monday. A US Boarder Patrol Agent patrolling the area in an unmarked car asked the officer if he needed assistance.

The agent noticed the truck was riding 'extremely low' and observed the smell of body odor and and a pungent soap used in Mexico. Inside, five children were found among the group being smuggled.

A truck without tags was pulled over after swerving, authorities found 77 illegal immigrants packed inside

The cargo area was packed with people shoulder to shoulder according to the San Diego Union Tribune.

The driver, US citizen Shawn Lee Seiler, allowed the agent to search the vehicle, and after the authorities made the discovery, the driver admitted to taking payment for transporting the people inside.

The driver told authorities he was to be paid $100 for each unauthorized immigrant to be transported.

He also said he thought he only had 50 people in the truck, and was surprised to learn there were 77 people crammed inside.

Seiler was arrested and charged with transporting unauthorized immigrants for financial gain.

Two of the people in the group had prior deportations.

The remaining people inside the truck are being held as material witnesses in the case.

On Friday an eerily similar scene unfolded in Texas.

Sleeping on the floor and lying on top of each other, 76 illegal immigrants were found being smuggled across the US in the back of a trailer.

Border agents on Friday found 76 illegal immigrants packed into the back of a trailer in Texas

They were discovered at a checkpoint on US 83, about 35 miles north of Laredo in South Texas, the US Border Patrol said Monday.

A semitrailer was stopped in the checkpoint's primary lane where the driver, a US citizen, was questioned about his immigration status.

His rig was kept for further inspection, and agents found the immigrants inside the trailer.

The immigrants are from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Thirteen were unaccompanied minors. The Border Patrol says all of them are in good health.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Nina Pruneda says the driver's identity and other details about the case are being withheld at this time.

'These criminal organizations view these individuals as mere commodities without regard for their safety,' said Laredo Sector Assistant Chief Patrol Agent Gabriel Acosta.

'The blatant disregard for human life will not be tolerated. We will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to disrupt and dismantle these organizations and prosecute those responsible.'The respected teacher wife of a drug dealer was fired from her job after police found the pair were operating an international drug ring from their Florida home.

Former Lake Worth Middle School special education teacher Nicole Benjoino, 48, was sentenced Tuesday to 2 years in federal prison for assisting her fugitive bodybuilding partner, Emerson Benjoino, in the illicit activities from their Wellington residence.

Nicole pleaded guilty last year to possessing illegal drugs with intent to distribute.

Emerson fled back to Brazil after being released on bond last June for his arrest on state charges. He was declared a fugitive from justice as the country does not extradite their citizens, the Sun Sentinel reports.

Mugshots of Emerson Benjoino and his wife Nicole Benjoino are shown. The couple ran a drug ring from their Wellington, Florida home

Nicole's attorney said Emerson seduced Nicole into the illegal activity. She was 'obsessed' with Emerson, who the attorney said was 'controlling'

Nicole was sentenced Tuesday to 2 years in federal prison Tuesday. Emerson was declared a fugitive from justice in the federal case

Investigation revealed Nicole became involved in the ring with her 'controlling' husband, who she was 'obsessed' with, her defense attorney, Donnie Murrell said in a court statement.

'She literally became obsessed with him and he seduced her into this conspiracy,' the attorney said.

Nicole, a former obese woman who lost half her body weight after her first divorce, was willing to do anything for her husband - even if it meant spending time behind bars.

'To this day, more than 14 years after they met and after years of marital turmoil, Nicole still gushes when describing him,' Murrell said.

Nicole's was fired from her job at Lake Worth Middle School in Florida after the drug bust

Nicole is pictured with her children on Facebook back in March 2016

The pair wed in 2009, and Nicole discovered Emerson had been using steroids and selling them to his pals, the Sentinel reports.

Nicole's attorney said the illegal activity was something she participated in to remain with her 'trophy husband'

Emerson, a former bus boy, got hooked on the easy money and started selling harder substances.

Last June, police found 16 liters of the party drug GBL, or gamma-Butyrolactone, along with 24,000 generic Xanax pills and fentanyl, which were all imported from China and sold.

Police also found guns inside the home as well as $407,000 in cash.

'He exploited those things to keep her close to him and bend her to his will,' Murrell added.

Her buff, Brazilian beau kept the drugs locked in a secret safe that could only be opened with his fingerprint.

'Nicole Benjoino did not just wake up one day and decide to become part of a drug conspiracy,' the attorney wrote.

'Little by little, she was sucked into Emerson's schemes and became a part of his conspiracy.'

In September 2016, Nicole's $14,000 wedding ring was stolen at The Mall at Wellington Green

'The illegal activity was something she participated in to remain with her 'trophy husband.'

In September 2016, Nicole claimed her $14,000 wedding ring was stolen at The Mall at Wellington Green, according to WPTV.

She claimed she had been getting her rings cleaned at the time, when the jeweler suggested she remove her band while washing her hands in the future.

Immediately after the cleaning, Nicole went to a nearby Bath & Body Works where she sampled some soaps, the newspaper reports.

That's when she removed her ring - something Nicole said she never did before - when she forgot to put it back on and strolled out of the scent shop empty handed.

'By the time I realized they weren't on my hands, they were gone,' Nicole said at the time.Lowri-Anne Wilson (pictured), of Porthcawl, south west Wales, found herself in agony two days after visiting a nail salon near her home town

A mother-of-four could lose the use of her thumb after a set of acrylic fake nails left her with an infected abscess 'more painful than childbirth'.

Lowri-Anne Wilson, of Porthcawl, south west Wales, found herself in agony two days after visiting a nail salon near her home town.

The 31-year-old was horrified to discover her thumb had become infected and an abscess growing under the nail.

She went to hospital after it started to swell, but they told her to return to the salon and get the fake nails removed.

But after staff refused she went back to doctors who told her if the infection spreads to her bone she could lose the use of the thumb.

She now has to have an operation to remove the abscess . The mother-of-four described the pain as 'worth than childbirth'.

She said: 'I had my nails done in a salon, two days later there was a pulsing pain in my thumb on my left hand.

The 31-year-old was horrified to discover her thumb had become infected and an abscess growing under the nail

'It then began to swell, I went to the hospital and they told me that I had to go back to the nail salon to get it removed.

'I went back to the salon and they refused to take it off, in the end I had to have it removed in the hospital.

'I had an infection in my nail. It was so bad that I had an abscess under my nail.

'I had an X-ray and I was told that if the infection had spread to the bone then I could have lost my thumb.

'I am now on antibiotics for the pain but that isn't working.'

Ms Wilson was on a probation period at her new job, but has now lost her job due to absence.

Describing the pain and warning others of the danger of fake nails, she added: 'I was on gas and air for two hours, it was the worst pain that I have ever experienced and I have had four children.

'This is the first lot of surgery that I will be going through, there will be others to follow when the nail starts growing back.

'I have also lost my job. I was in a probation period and I currently can't work as I am in so much pain.

'This could happen to anyone if you have your nails done.

'I would never have them done now, it's just not worth it.

'I've been told that my nail may never grow again and it's going to take at least six months to heal.

She now has to have an operation to remove the abscess and could lose the use of the thumb

'You sometimes hear stories about acrylic nails going wrong but you never expect it to happen to you.'

Annie Collins, of Valencia Beauty, in Essex is a UK nail artist expert.

She said: 'Acrylics are not necessarily bad for your nails, it's down to the nail technician and how they apply the nails.

'If you go to a fully licence and qualified salon then you won't have any problems.

'I can't stress enough how important it is not to go to Non Standard Salons. A lot of these places don't sanitise their tools properly.

'The equipment they use are cheap and nasty. I have seen first hand what these salons can do to women's nails.

'As a qualified nail artist, I have had years of training in this industry.

'Qualified nail technicians are aware of the dangers that certain salons can do to your nails. It is not common knowledge to the general public.'Advertisement

A war hero and decorated soldier who fought alongside Prince Harry in Afghanistan was today honoured with a full military funeral.

Warrant Officer Nathan Hunt, 39, was found dead at his home in Lincoln at the beginning of this month.

Today moving eulogies were made by his wife Lainey, who is also a serving soldier, and the couple's nine-year-old daughter Megan. Hundreds of mourners packed in to Lincoln Cathedral for the 45-minute service.

The father-of-one's coffin, draped in the Union Flag, was carried in to the cathedral's west entrance with his wife, Lainey Hunt and daughter, Megan, following behind wearing some of her father's medals.

Today moving eulogies were made by his wife Lainey, who is also a serving soldier, and the couple's nine-year-old daughter Megan (right). Hundreds of mourners packed in to Lincoln Cathedral for the 45-minute service (left)

The service included moving eulogies from WO Hunt's wife, Lainey, who is also a Warrant Officer with 32 Engineer Regiment, and Megan.

There was also a tribute from WO Hunt's commanding officer Lt Col Andrew Windram, a reading of 'If' by Rudyard Kipling, and the hymns Amazing Grace and Jerusalem.

Lt Col Windram told the mourners WO Hunt became 'part of the Windsor furniture' during his service in Afghanistan where he was embedded as an engineer reconnaissance specialist with the Household Cavalry.

He said: 'Possessing a gritty determination and a sixth sense with his route proving skills , he was considered by his Squadron Leader to have been instrumental in bringing all unit personnel home.'

The father-of-one's coffin, draped in the Union Flag, was carried in to the Cathedral's west entrance with his wife, Lainey Hunt and daughter Megan following behind wearing some of her father's medals

A war hero and decorated soldier who fought alongside Prince Harry in Afghanistan was today honoured with a full military funeral

Warrant Officer Nathan Hunt, 39, was found dead at his home in Lincoln at the beginning of this month

The Lt Col added: 'Most remember him as a whimsical character and perhaps more frankly as the funniest man in the Corps. This however belies a fierce competitiveness and a highly professional attitude that was apparent in all areas of his work.

'As a close knit team we are devastated by his loss, especially at a time when he chose to resettle and had begun to create what looked to be a truly bright future with his young daughter always at the centre of his thoughts.'

The career soldier was found hanged at his Lincoln home on 2 January after police forced entry following concerns for his safety.

Lt Col Windram told the mourners WO Hunt became 'part of the Windsor furniture' during his service in Afghanistan where he was embedded as an engineer reconnaissance specialist with the Household Cavalry

According to Army colleagues WO Hunt had complained that his treatment for combat stress was 'useless'.

Following WO Hunt's death Prince Harry sent a private letter of condolence to his parents Derek, 66, and Maria Hunt, 64.

The Lincoln couple have described their son as a 'casualty of war' and want his death to help end the stigma of post-traumatic stress disorder.

WO Hunt served with Prince Harry in Helmand Province in 2008 after being attached to the Household Calvary.

WO Hunt, a member of the Royal Engineers, was awarded a Mention in Dispatches for his courage in locating improvised explosive devices while on secret missions to ambush the enemy

The father-of-one was part of a desert reconnaissance unit which was involved in identifying roadside bombs planted by the Taliban.

WO Hunt, a member of the Royal Engineers, was awarded a Mention in Dispatches for his courage in locating improvised explosive devices while on secret missions to ambush the enemy.

He was due to be discharged from the Army in September and had bought a neat town house in Lincoln after separating from his wife who lives in the North East of England with Megan.

The career soldier grew up in Lincoln and joined the Army as a boy soldier just before his 16th birthday after attending North Kesteven School in the cathedral city.

He was due to be discharged from the Army in September and had bought a neat town house in Lincoln after separating from his wife who lives in the North East of England with Megan

Following WO Hunt's death Prince Harry sent a private letter of condolence to his parents Derek, 66, and Maria Hunt, 64

Captain Dan Shepherd, who was awarded a posthumous George Medal after he was killed by an IED in 2009, attended the same school and was known to WO Hunt.

At the time of his death WO Hunt was on Christmas leave from a training post with the Territorial Army in Manchester.

He also served in Bosnia, Northern Ireland, two tours of Iraq and four tours of Afghanistan and rose to the rank of a Class Two Warrant Officer.

An inquest in to the circumstances of WO Hunt's death has been adjourned until June by Lincoln Coroner Paul Smith.Jilly Cooper, pictured, who penned the Rutshire Chronicles, said the dinner, where young women were allegedly groped and sexually harassed, was merely 'just men having fun... behaving badly.

Author Jilly Cooper has lashed out at women who worked at the controversial Presidents Club dinner - saying they 'knew what they were going in to'.

The 80-year-old, who penned the Rutshire Chronicles, added that the dinner, where young women were allegedly groped and sexually harassed, was merely 'just men having fun... behaving badly'.

Speaking to the Evening Standard, she said: 'The girls knew what they were going in to, didn't they? The fuss they made about it with everything going on.

'Also, Great Ormond Street Hospital sending that money back was a shocking, shocking thing.'

She added: 'I'm old, darling. When I was young I loved men saying I was pretty and had a nice bottom.'

Reporter Madison Marriage, who went undercover at the Presidents Club dinner, said she was groped several times and that other hostesses had suffered similar treatment.

Following the disclosures about the event in the Financial Times, charities and businesses have sought to dissociate themselves from the Presidents Club.

A number of charities that have benefited from the 20 million raised by the Presidents Club over more than 30 years said they will now refund previous donations.

Businessman David Meller quit his roles at the Department for Education and the Mayor's Fund for London over his involvement in organising the event.

After it emerged that the auction included lunch with Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and tea with Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, the Bank and the Foreign Office made clear that neither man had known about it and would not be honouring the engagements.

The Charity Commission said it was looking into the allegations 'as a matter of urgency'.

'Initially it started quite normally and then as the night went on I started to notice that this isn't normal.

'There was a lot of groping, a lot of girls sitting on laps, men beckoning girls over to their table and talking to them. It just didn't seem right.'

She added: 'I felt harassed. I removed myself from the situation and found a group of girls in a similar situation, feeling the same as me, weirded out.

'I stuck with them so I didn't have to engage so much with the men. But some girls were engaging and flirting.

'The thing for me was towards the after-party when everyone was a lot more drunk and girls were drunk.

'I think men were perhaps taking advantage of that. I saw a lot of hands up skirts. I saw a lot of grabbing.'

The Presidents Club, which said it was 'appalled' by the allegations surrounding the event, has announced it will distribute remaining funds to children's charities before shutting down in the wake of the scandal.Advertisement

A train hauling Republican lawmakers to their annual retreat in West Virginia slammed into a truck hauling garbage that had stopped on the track Wednesday - leaving one dead.

The impact crunched the front of the train's engine, smashed the truck, and left one truck passenger dead and at least five hospitalized - including Rep. Jason Lewis of Minnesota who suffered a concussion.

University of Virginia Health System tweeted just after 1pm that one of the patients was in critical condition while the others were still being evaluated.

Amtrak said three of the injured were passengers and and two were crew.

Sen. Jeff Flake (Arizona) was among the many lawmakers who sprang into action to tend to the injured after the accident, helping carry one man on a stretcher.

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An Amtrak train chartered to take Republican lawmakers to their annual retreat in West Virginia on Wednesday crashed into a truck carrying trash - leaving one dead and multiple injured

Above, an aerial view of the crash scene on Wednesday near Crozet, Virginia

The above picture shows that the railway crossing arms were down on at least one side of the tracks on Wednesday

Rep. Jason Lewis was among five people hospitalized after the accident. He suffered a concussion. He's seen above being rolled away from the scene on a stretcher

Lewis, a representative from Minnesota, is pictured above attending a meeting at the Capital in October

Sen. Jeff Flake (second from left) helped move one of the injured to an ambulance

Flake is seen again on the far right surveying the scene after the crash on Wednesday

He said that there were three people in the truck, one who died and two others who were injured. None of the lawmakers on the train were seriously injured.

'It was a hard impact. It threw everybody up in the air a little. I don't think anybody on the train is seriously injured, but I may be wrong,' Flake told the Washington Post.

Several lawmakers who are doctors tended to the victims, including former podiatrist Rep. Brad Wenstrup (Ohio), former OBGYNs Rep. Michael Burgess (Texas) and Rep. Phil Roe (Tennessee), former heart surgeon Rep. Larry Bucshon (Indiana) and former gastroenterologist Sen. Bill Cassidy (Louisiana).

Many may remember Wenstrup for aiding Rep. Steve Scalise after the Louisiana politician was shot in last year's Congressional baseball practice shooting.

'It was pretty amazing. The first responders were really the member doctors who were demanding to get off the train,' Rep. Tom Cole, a Republican from Oklahoma, told CNN.

'They were the first ones rendering assistance,' Cole added. 'Then you pretty quickly had emergency first responders, paramedics, a lot of fire vehicles and ambulance here now. But yeah, they were administering CPR to the folks that had been hurt in the crash.'

Another injured man is rolled away from the scene on a stretcher. One of the five people hospitalized was in critical condition Wednesday afternoon

Another man is seen being placed into an ambulance after the Wednesday crash in Virginia

Emergency personnel inspect the lead engine of an Amtrak train that was carrying multiple Republican lawmakers that crashed into a garbage truck in Crozet, Virginia, on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018

Many lawmakers on board who are physicians were among the first responders on the scene to tend to the injured. Above, a view of the crashed truck from inside the train

The crash caused serious damage for the forward engine of the train, pictured above in a picture posted to Twitter

The collision called the contents of the truck to spill out over the side of the tracks

Dozens of firefighters, cops and paramedics rushed to the scene in Virginia Wednesday afternoon

PICTURED: THE LAWMAKERS WHO USED THEIR MEDICAL TRAINING TO AID VICTIMS OF TRAIN CRASH Several lawmakers who are doctors tended to the victims, including former podiatrist Rep. Brad Wenstrup (Ohio), former OBGYNs Rep. Michael Burgess (Texas) and Rep. Phil Roe (Tennessee), former heart surgeon Rep. Larry Bucshon (Indiana) and former gastroenterologist Sen. Bill Cassidy (Louisiana). Many may remember Wenstrup for aiding Rep. Steve Scalise after the Louisiana politician was shot in last year's Congressional baseball practice shooting. Rep Roger Marshall of Kansas, a licensed OB-GYN, performed CPR on the garbage truck driver. 'He answered the call and has been helping people on the scene since,' his spokesperson Charyssa Parent told the New York Daily News . In addition to performing CPR, Marshall also attended to the train's conductor and the garbage truck passengers. Several lawmakers on the train are former medical professionals and used their training to help the victims. Above, three of the lawmakers who helped out from left to right: Sen Bill Cassidy (Louisiana), Rep Larry Bucshon (Indiana) and Rep. Brad Wenstrup (Ohio) Rep Roger Marshall of Kansas (left), Rep Michael Burgess of Texas (center) and Rep Phil Roe of Tennessee (right), all former OB-GYNs, also aided the victims Advertisement

Rep Roger Marshall of Kansas, a licensed OB-GYN, performed CPR on the garbage truck driver.

'He answered the call and has been helping people on the scene since,' his spokesperson Charyssa Parent told the New York Daily News.

In addition to performing CPR, Marshall also attended to the train's conductor and the garbage truck passengers.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan was also on board the train and released this statement:

'Today's incident was a terrible tragedy. We are grateful for the first responders who rushed to the scene and we pray for the victims and their families. May they all be in our thoughts right now.'

Sen. Jeff Flake said there were three people in the truck - one who died and two others who were injured

The National Transportation Safety Board has dispatched a team to investigate the cause of the accident

It's unclear if any other lawmakers besides Rep. Lewis were taken to the hospital

The retreat that the lawmakers were headed is scheduled to continue, with an abridged schedule and a moment of prayer

After the scene was cleared, the train continued on to Charlottesville, Virginia

Also on the train were the wives and children of some of the Republican Congressmen

Vice President Mike Pence, who was scheduled to speak at the event today, also released a statement.

'Getting regular updates on the Amtrack crash involving members of Congress and their fmailies. Praying for all involved and grateful for the swift action of first responders. POTUS and I will continue to monitor closely. I'm heading to WV later today,' he said.

President Trump briefly spoke about the train crash during an afternoon meeting on tax reform.

He said he had been briefed about the situation by House Speaker Ryan and said the members of Congress who were on the train are 'doing pretty good'.

'The train accident was a tough one, a tremendous jolt and they're proceeding to their conference,' the president said.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that the president 'has been fully briefed on the situation in Virginia and is receiving regular updates'.

'Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone that has been affected by this incident,' she added.

Passengers watch as emergency personnel operate work at the scene of a train crash involving a garbage truck in Crozet, Va., on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018

Emergency personnel work at the scene of a train crash involving a garbage truck in Crozet, Va., on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 201

The train slammed into a tractor trailer, leading to one fatality and one serious injury

Lawmakers revealed some of the immediate damage in the minutes after the crash.

Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon shared a photo that showed a truck carrying trash had been upended, with trash strewn all over the ground.

'I'm on the train w/members of Congress that was just involved in a crash. I'm ok. Most members are ok but serious injuries on the ground,' wrote Kentucky Rep. James Comer on Twitter.

The three people on the truck bore the brunt of the injuries.

'They were thrown from the truck and one appears to have been stabilized and air evacuated and the other one I don't have eyes on right now,' Rep. French Hill told CNN.

A statement from Amtrak reported that the accident occurred at 11:20am Wednesday morning in Crozet, Virginia.

It was en route to the annual retreat at the Greenbrier hotel. Lawmakers annually pile into the train together from Union Station in Washington, D.C.

A spokeswoman for the Republican conference said that they are 'adjusting the schedule' of the meeting, but intend for it to go on.

The retreat will now include a moment of prayer for the victim and those injured.

'Our thoughts and prayers are with those impacted by todays incident,' the spokesperson said.

The NTSB has dispatched a team to investigate the cause of the accident.

Rep. Greg Walden was among the first lawmakers to tweet about the accident on Wednesday

The Republican lawmakers were headed to the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia for their annual retreat'Off the charts weird': Florida inmate Robert O'Hare, 56, is suspected of hatching a plot with the help of his mother to hire a hit man to kill the judge presiding over his child porn case

A Florida inmate is accused of attempting to hire a partially blind 75-year-old man nicknamed the Rabbi to kill the judge presiding over his child-pornography case.

A report from the Lake County Sheriffs Office says 56-year-old Robert Anthony OHare has been charged with solicitation to commit murder during a phone call from jail on January 7, the day before Judge Don F. Briggs handed the lengthy sentence.

Speaking to WKMG, sheriff's Lt John Herrell described the botched murder-for-hire plot involving O'Hare's widowed mother and a secret cipher scribbled on a piece of paper as 'off the charts' weird.

Investigators say OHare called his mother from the Lake County Jail and gave her a coded message consisting of a series of numbers that translated to kill Briggs. He asked her to give it to a family friend named Albert Bowman, whom he called the Rabbi.

The arrest affidavit said Virginia OHare, of Fort Lauderdale, called her son back, saying Bowman knows what you want ... but he cant do it because hes just a Rabbi.

Call came from inside the jail: Investigators say O'Hare called his mother from the Lake County Jail a day before his sentencing and passed on a coded message that translated to kill Briggs

O'Hare (left) allegedly asked his widowed mother, Virginia O'Hare (right) to give the note with the cipher to a family friend named Albert Bowman, whom he called the Rabbi

The Orlando Sentinel reports that Virginia said she never gave Bowman a note and two never met to discuss the matter. She further claimed that the numbers in the message were not a cipher but Bible verses.

Bowman, of Mount Dora, Florida, also dismissed the suggestion that there was a plot to kill the judge.

Im 75 years old, blind in one eye and have a cataract in the other, he told the paper. I dont think Id hire me as a killer.

Bowman also said he didnt get any money.

I hope someone would look at my bank account. Its pretty drained right now, he said. This whole thing right from the get-go is something that doesnt make any sense.

Virginia OHare, who is a widowed real estate agent and a devout Christian, judging by the contents of her Facebook page, called the allegations against her son bogus charges and 'a bunch of lies.'

Mrs O'Hare, who is a devout Christian (pictured left with Robert in a church) claimed the note contained Bible verses. She dismissed the allegations as 'bogus charges' and 'lies'

My son never, ever in a million years would do something like that, she said, adding that the sheriffs office is out to get him.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement found more than 50 images and videos of underage girls on OHares computer in 2015, the arrest affidavit said.

Agents said OHare used an elaborate telescope and camera system to videotape a girl who lived next door while she was undressing.

In 2016, he was accused of putting hidden cameras inside miniature jukeboxes, which were then delivered to children so that he could record them in their homes.

OHares mother said he pleaded no contest to possession of child porn and video voyeurism so he could appeal the case.

Lt Herrell, with the Sheriff's Office, said investigators are looking into Virginia's involvement in the failed assassination plot. Meanwhile, her son could be looking at a life sentence, if convicted of solicitation to commit murder.Larry Nassar found himself in a very familiar situation on Wednesday, with the cuffed and chained pedophile doctor awaiting to hear a victim impact statement in a Michigan courtroom.

Sixty-five women are scheduled to speak over the course of three days in Eaton County Court, where Nassar is being sentenced after entering a guilty plea on three charges of criminal sex abuse, with each carrying a minimum sentence of 25 years in prison.

The first person to speak on Wednesday was charging victim Jessica Thomashow, whose impact statement was interrupted early on when she stated that one of the worst moments in her life was when Nassar and his legal team laughed at her in court while she testified about her assault.

That remark caused defense attorney Matt Newburg to jump out of his seat and object for the record, at which point Judge Janice Cunningham asked Thomashow and the other young women who would be testifying after her to limit comments to their assaults and its repercussions.

Assistant Attorney General Angela Povilaitis said later in the day that her office had received 256 reports of abuse in this case - so far.

The proceedings also drew out one very notable name, with Republican nominee for governor and current attorney general Bill Schuette seen in the gallery on Wednesday.

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Speaking out: The sentencing trial for Larry Nassar kicked off in Eaton County Court on Wednesday with testimony from Jessica Thomashow (above on Wednesday)

She recounted how one of the worst moments in her life was when Nassar and his defense attorneys laughed at her while she testified about being assaulted

'No teenager should ever have to see the inside of a courtroom as many times as I have,' said Thomashow, revealing this was her eighth time giving testimony.

She was in court just last week for Nassar';s sentencing in Ingham County and the week before that when she delivered her impact statement in that case.

Her sister Amanda also spoke, as the two are one of four sets of sisters who have come forward to reveal they were both abused by the doctor.

'Larry Nassar is evil,' said Thomashow.

He first molested me when I was 9. When I was in fifth grade, before I had braces, and when I still played with my American Girl dolls.'

She added: 'Larry Nassar preyed on us for his own pleasure, leaving in his wake traumatized and broken girls.'

Thomashow revealed that her abuse happened while she was training at Twistars, the gym owned by Nassar's friend John Geddart.

She also revealed that all the girls who worked out at that facility were forced to see Nassar for treatment per Geddart's orders.

'If you were injured, you were specifically instructed to see Nassar, not your family doctor,' said the high school student.

Thomas how said she heard much about Nasssar and his 'reputation' before her first appointment, all of which was very positive.

'I remember my coaches telling me to go see him, and I was actually quite excited,' said the teenager.

'Then I went into the back room, and that's when everything changed. I was alone with him. He had me lie down on the table, and he sexually assaulted me.'

She said that she did not understand the abuse and throught to herself at the time that 'the gross thing he did would help me get better.'

Thomashow's own mother is a doctor she stated, which she believes likely saved her from possible worse abuses at the hands on Nassar.

It was her father who accompanied her in court on Wednesday, standing by his daughter's side while she eloquently spoke about her horrifying assaults.

'You manipulated me and my entire family,' said Thomashow.

How. Dare. You.'

Judge Cunningham addressed Thomashow after she spoke, a practice that was also carried out in Ingham County by Judge Rosemarie Aquilina.

Her remarks were far briefer however than her predecessor, with the juedge thanking the first victim and stating: 'I will definitely take your statement into consideration.'

Horrific: Thomashaw, who is just 17, said she was 9 when Nassar molested her for the first time (Thomashaw above around the time that she was first abused)

Public face: Annie Labrie spoke about gymnastics culture, with its stringent rules and physical demands, stating: 'We had been conditioned for years to obey at all costs'

Preach: 'The administration at my school acted like uneducated sociopaths that felt no remorse and had absolutely no regard for the health and safety of their student body,' said Katherine Ebert (above)

The second victim to take the podium was speaking for the very first time.

Annie Labrie spoke about gymnastics culture, with its stringent rules and physical demands, stating: 'We had been conditioned for years to obey at all costs.'

For her, that meant giving up a normal childhood and dedicated her teenage years to the sport, and not saying anything when the she began being abused by Nassar.

'Our bodies did not belong to us,' said Labrie.

That is because from a young age Labrie and other gymnasts were taight to 'not to question authority and not expect respect' she explained in court.

And this, said Labrie, was the perfect environment for someone like Nassar to thrive.

Now, Labrie said that she wants to speak out and use her voice to let little girls know that they have a voice.

'I refuse to do anything other than live my truth,' said Labrie as the chagring victim revealed herself for the first time.

She later added: 'This is the end of my destruction. This is my new beginning.'

Bailey Lorencen, like Thomashow, gave an impact statement during Nassar's sentencing hearing in Ingham County, and on Wednesday her prepared remarks were read in court.

She had some additional comments to share this time, specifically regarding the infamous letter that Nassar submitted in which he voiced concern about his mental state.

'How dare you think anyone cares about your mental state at this point,' wrote Lorencen.

She then reminded Nassar of the position she and the other victims were put in, noting how little regard he had for their mental states.

''I am appalled at what my child self went through,' said Lorencen.

She then issued a chilling warning to Nassar's ensablers, saying: 'Our war is not yet over.'

Madison Bonofiglio, whose written statement was also read by the AG's office echoes Lorencen, and at oine point stated: '"It is the culture that surrounds college sports that creates the environment that allows sexual abuse.'

And Katherine Ebert felt that way too, with the young woman saying that she feels 'betrayed' by the faculty and executives at MSU, where she is still currently a student.

'The administration at my school acted like uneducated sociopaths that felt no remorse and had absolutely no regard for the health and safety of their student body,' said Ebert.

She then dug in as she stated: 'Talk is Cheap, but m,y tuition is not. And I am tired of your apologies.'

Cowering coward: Nassar continued to hid his face during some of the impact statements

Not laughing now: Newburg and Nassar share a quiet moment on Wednesday in court (above)

Nassar was sentenced to 175 years in prison just last Wednesday after a highly emotional seven-day sentencing hearing in a Michigan courtroom.

'I just signed your death warrant,' said Judge Rosemarie Aquilinia, referencing the fact that Nassar would never again be a free man and die in prison.

Nassar had agreed to serve a minimum sentence of 40 years as part of a plea deal, with that prison time coming after he completes his 60-year federal sentence for child pornography charges.

He was expected to get a maximum of 125 years in prison, but Judge Aquilina went well beyond that mark.

Prior to that, the pedophile doctor addressed his victims in a brief statement, choosing to turn and face the women as he made his remarks.

'Your words these past several days, your words, have had a significant emotional effect on myself and has shaken me to my core,' he mumbled through tears.

'I also realize what I'm feeling pales in comparison.'

He then added: 'I will carry you words with me for the rest of my days.'

Those tearful words were revealed to be completely hollow however by Judge Rosemarie Aquilina, who proved that point by reading from the letter that Nassar had submitted to the court.

'What I did in the state cases was medical, not sexual, but because of the [federal porn conviction] I lost all credibility,' read Judge Aquilina from the letter.

'So I'm trying to avoid a trial to save the stress to my community, my family. But look what's happening. It's wrong.'

He then wrote about his victims in words that were a far cry from the statement he had made moments earlier in court.

'I was a good doctor, because my treatments worked and those patients that are now speaking out were the same ones that praised and came back over and over,' wrote Nassar.

'The media convinced them that it was wrong and bad.'

The crowd gasped as the letter then read: 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.'

It was a shocking moment, and it seemed as if Judge Aquilina might be considering revoking the plea at one point.Government prosecutors have decided not to retry New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez on corruption charges, after a judge threw out some of the counts last week.

Prosecutors filed the motion with the court on Wednesday.

The first trial of Menendez and Florida eye doctor Salomon Melgen ended in a hung jury last November.

Menendez was charged with trading his political influence for gifts and campaign donations from Melgen, who has already been convicted of Medicare fraud in a separate trial. The gifts included vacations and flights on the doctor's private plane.

Last week U.S. District Judge William Walls threw out the bribery counts related to Melgen's campaign donations.

Government prosecutors have decided not to retry New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez on corruption charges, after a judge threw out some of the counts last week.

Menendez's first 11-week trial ended in a hung jury on Nov. 16, 2017; he faced bribery and corruption charges

The senator has been let off the hook as the Justice Department told a judge on Wednesday that it's dropping all the remaining charges

Annalou Tirol, the acting chief of the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section, wrote in a petition to the court that in light of Walls' ruling, 'the United States of America moves to dismiss the Superseding Indictment' against Menendez.

Eleven charges remained before Wednesday's decision, including bribery, fraud and conspiracy.

Defense lawyers had argued Melgen's donations had to be tied to specific acts by Menendez to be considered bribes.

That's a higher standard than the one applied to gifts Melgen gave to Menendez over the years that formed the basis for the bribery charges that remained.

Menendez did official favors for longtime friend Salomon Melgen, but his lawyers insisted it was because of a long-standing friendship and not because he got campaign donations and free vacations

Walls' ruling essentially overrode the jury, which couldn't reach a verdict after several days of deliberations in November.

After the mistrial, several jurors said as many as 10 of the 12 panel members were in favor of acquittal, leading some experts to speculate the government wouldn't pursue a retrial.

Prosecutors sought to tie Melgen's largesse to meetings and conversations Menendez had with executive branch officials on matters that would have benefited Melgen's business interests.

One such matter was a $9 million Medicare billing dispute involving Melgen's ophthalmology practice.

Melgen flew Menendez and other guests around on a CL-600 Challenger jet like this one, crisscrossing between New Jersey, Washington, Palm Beach and the Dominican Republic

Defense lawyers argued during the trial that the gifts, which included a stay at a luxury Paris hotel and trips on Melgen's private jet to his villa in the Dominican Republic, were an expression of the pair's longtime friendship and weren't bribes.

They also contended Menendez's meetings with officials including former Health and Human Service Secretary Kathleen Sebelius were to advance broader policy objectives.

The trial took a toll on Menendez's public image, as polls showed as many as 59 percent of voters saying he didn't deserve to be re-elected. But he has retained the support of Democratic heavy hitters including newly inaugurated Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy and southern New Jersey power broker George Norcross.

'Part of it is their experience with Menendez, that you simply can never count him out,' Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray told the Associated Press.

'He is an extremely good campaigner, very astute, and the sense is that without the trial happening at the same time as the fall campaign, Menendez's team will put together a very strong campaign to wipe out any negative feelings that may linger' from the first trial.Joe Kennedy III, the charismatic young Democrat who was chosen to deliver the traditional State of the Union rebuttal, laughed off jibes about his shining moment on Tuesday morning.

The 37-year-old, who is the grandson of Robert. F. Kennedy and is the Dem. Rep. for Massachusetts, appeared on Good Morning America on Wednesday to discuss his blistering attack on Trump and the Twitter reaction his glossy look received.

'Oddly enough I decided to go a little bit light on the ChapStick this morning. Moreon the coffee, light on the ChapStick!' he laughed.

He described his speech as an 'extraordinary honor' and said he 'had fun' delivering the remarks.

It was a monumental moment for the young Democrat and one which many interpreted as his first speech as a potential future presidential candidate.

Unfortunately, others could not see beyond his wet mouth to listen to the words coming out of it.

Twitter erupted with jokes about his 'drool' and Trump fans rejoiced in the faux-pas.

Dried off: Joseph Kennedy III's lips had no sheen whatsoever when he appeared on Good Morning America on Wednesday to laugh off his previous night's glossier look

On Tuesday, the 37-year-old's State of the Union rebuttal was overshadowed by his glistening lips

Many questioned whether it was drool on the corners of his mouth but the politician insisted on Wednesday it was ChapStick

Kennedy spoke from Fall River, Massachusetts, and addressed Americans' concerns that Trump's heated rhetoric has turned the country into us-versus-them in his speech.

'Where in order for one to win, another must lose,' Kennedy said. 'As if the mechanic in Pittsburgh and the teacher in Tulsa and the daycare worker in Birmingham are somehow bitter rivals, rather than mutual casualties of a system forcefully rigged for those at the top.'

'As if the parent who lies awake terrified that their transgender son will be beaten and bullied at school is any more or less legitimate than the parent whose heart is shattered by a daughter in the grips of opioid addiction,' Kennedy said.

While President Trump spent part of the State of the Union telling Americans they can 'achieve absolutely anything' while touting the strong economy, Kennedy said he's seen Americans, over the past year, feeling 'anxious, angry, afraid.'

'We see an economy that makes stocks soar, investor portfolios bulge and corporate profits climb but fails to give workers their fair share of the reward,' the 37-year-old congressman added.

The young Democrat condemned Russia being 'knee-deep in our democracy' and 'hatred and supremacy proudly marching in our streets,' a reference to what happened in Charlottesville in August 2017, when a counter-protester was run down by a Nazi sympathizer and President Trump referenced good people on 'both sides.'

'Bullets tearing through our classrooms, concerts and congregations. Targeting our safest, sacred places,' Kennedy continued. 'And that nagging, sinking, feeling, no matter your political beliefs: this is not right. This is not who we are.'

Good sport: On Wednesday, Kennedy said it was an 'extraordinary honor' to give the speech

The congressman said it would be easy to blame partisanship and politics or dismiss the last year as 'chaos.'

'But it's far bigger than that,' he warned. 'This administration isn't just targeting the laws that protect us  they are targeting the very idea that we are all worthy of protections.'

'For them, dignity isn't something you're born with but something you measure: By your net worth, your celebrity, your headlines, your crowd size,' he said. 'Not to mention the gender of your spouse, the country of your birth, the color of your skin, the God of your prayers.'

Kennedy railed that that was against the American ideal, in which people are equal and worthy.

Others swooned over Kennedy's appearance and described him as 'dreamy' and 'handsome'

'But today that promise is being broken,' he said. 'By an administration that callously appraises our worthiness and decides who makes the cut and who can be bargained away.'

Democrats, he pledged, wouldn't choose one American over the other.

'We choose both. We fight for both,' he said. 'Because the strongest, richest, greatest nation in the world shouldnt leave any one behind.'

Kennedy ended on an additional uplifting note.

'Bullies may land a punch. They might leave a mark. But they have never, not once, in the history of our United States, managed to match the strength and spirit of a people united in defense of their future,' he said.

In its choice of Kennedy, the Democratic Party, looked back to its past and toward the future.

A millennial in his own right, the congressman joined Snapchat this week to detail his preparation for the speech.

While the content of the speech, hit on many issues Democrats care about, the internet seemed fixated on Rep. Joe Kennedy III's well-greased lips

Rep. Joe Kennedy III (right) greets an audience member after he delivered the State of the Union's Democratic rebuttal

Rep. Joe Kennedy is photographed leaving the stage after giving the Democrats' official response to the State of the Union

He told audience members, and the greater public, that the Democratic Party chose 'both' - for both the parent of a transgender student and a parent of an opioid addict

But older Democrats likely appreciated that Kennedy is living up to his family name, as he's the grand son of Robert F. Kennedy, which would make President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Ted Kennedy, the congressman's late great uncles.

Republicans welcomed the pick with glee, suggesting he's just another limousine liberal like Hillary Clinton, as the young Kennedy is a multi-millionaire.

'Democrats using the multi-millionaire scion of a political dynasty as the face of their party shows they've learned absolutley,' Matt Gorman, a spokesman for the House Republicans' political arm, giddily told ABC News.

Instead of holding the speech in the autoshop at Diman Regional Technical School, Gorman said it should have been filmed 'live from the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis.'

The speech is one of the most tricky to handle in politics, as it's sometimes predicted future success  though has also produced some unshakable meme-worthy moments.

Both Speakers Nancy Pelosi and Paul Ryan delivered a State of the Union rebuttals before gaining the speaker's gavel.

In 2016, President Obama's last year in office, the Republicans put out then South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

She's since gone on to become the country's ambassador to the United Nations.

Sure, Sen. Marco Rubio rose in prominence after he delivered the Republicans' counter-argument in 2013, but he still gets picked on over how he awkwardly sipped water mid-address.

And Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Louisiana Republican, is barely on the political radar these days, after flubbing his 2009 response to President Obama's first joint address before Congress.

Jindal's lasting impression on pop culture-savvy Americans was his strong resemblance to the 30 Rock character Kenneth the Page.

Kennedy's very might well be his shiny lips.

'I bet Marco Rubio wished he could salivate as well as Joe Kennedy,' one Twitter user said, including side-by-side comparisons of Rubio sucking at a water bottle and Kennedy's gooey lips, in a tweet.

'Who's going to create the Joe Kennedy's Drool Twitter account first....???' another user mused.

A clear Trump supporter suggested Kennedy's motto should be 'Make America Drool Again,' adding that it was a 'trainwreck response.'

Yet another individual tweeted the contents of Kennedy's State of the Union 'preparation starter kit,' which included the triple threat of Carmex, ChapStick and Vaseline.

Kennedy had to pre-write a response, before actually hearing President Trump's State of the Union, which is why he couldn't directly attack certain lines.

The Democrats tapped Virginia Del. Elizabeth Guzman to deliver the party's official rebuttal in Spanish Tuesday night

Rep. Maxine Waters will appear Wednesday night on BET, a full 24 hours after President Trump's speech, to give yet another Democratic counterpoint

Sen. Bernie Sanders, in a livestreamed response, knocked President Trump for not bringing up items like the Russia investigation and climate change, while relishing in the fact that Trump has been a deeply unpopular president

For the first three minutes of former Democratic Rep. Donna Edwards' State of the Union response, the livestream broadcast her sideways

Four other Democrats gave or will be giving responses.

The Democrats officially sanctioned Virginia Del. Elizabeth Guzman to give the Spanish version of the party's rebuttal speech.

But Sen. Bernie Sanders, taking the opportunity for a second year in a row, barked his own response to the left-wing of the party, reacting to Trump's speech in real time.

Sanders named a number of things that he was appalled Trump didn't talk about, which were all things Trump would never have talked about from the dais.

'Now I don't understand how a president of the United States can give a State of the Union speech and not mention climate change?' Sanders asked.

He had that same thought about college affordability, the Citizens United Supreme Court case, funding for Social Security and the Russia probe.

'How do you not talk about that, unless, perhaps, you have a very special relationship with Mr. Putin?' the Vermont independent mused.

Sanders also relished Trump's chronically low poll numbers.

'The simple truth is that according to virtually every poll, Donald Trump is the least popular president after one year in office of any president in modern American history and the reason for that is pretty clear,' Sanders began.

'The American people do not want a president who is compulsively dishonest, who is a bully, who actively represents the interests of the billionaire class, who is anti-science,' he continued.

'And who is trying to divide us up based on the color of our skin, our nation of origin, our religion, our gender or our sexual orientation,' Sanders concluded.

Rep. Maxine Waters, who has become famous among millennials as of late, is to deliver a response to Trump too, doing it from a perch at BET Wednesday night, a whole 24 hours after the president's speech.

Waters will join CNN pundit Angela Rye for a State of the Union special.

And finally former Maryland Rep. Donna Edwards, whose bid for the Senate in 2016 was quashed by fellow Democrat Chris Van Hollen, had her own rebuttal.

Edwards, delivering the Working Families Party's response, was plagued by technical difficulties for the first three minutes of her address, as the image of the ex-lawmaker was livestreamed sideways.

Once righted, Edwards' critical message of Trump was less distracting, as she called the Republican tax bill 'a heist' and implored liberals to 'stand boldly against Trump and Trumpism.'

'It's not enough just to be anti-Trump, but that's important,' she added, noting the future candidates needed to be ready to fight against the scourge of income inequality, racism and sexism.

'Let's just get this done,' she encouraged.South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy added his name Wednesday to the growing list of committee chairmen announcing they will not seek re-election, saying this is the right time for him to leave politics and return to the justice system.

Gowdy is chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and will be remembered for leading a two-year investigation into the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, which focused heavily on Hillary Clinton's role as secretary of state.

It was the committee's probe that revealed Clinton used a private email server for government work, prompting an FBI investigation that proved to be an albatross in her presidential campaign.

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Rep. Trey Gowdy, a Republican from South Carolina, who chairs the House Oversight Committee says he will not seek re-election

Rep. Trey Gowdy, is photographed on the House floor awaiting the arrival of President Trump for the State of the Union Tuesday night. On Wednesday, Gowdy announced his retirement

Now, Gowdy is a key member of one of the Russia probes in Congress and the leader of a renewed investigation into the FBI and Clinton's emails.

Gowdy was elected in the 2010 tea party wave that returned control of the House to Republicans. He is the ninth House committee chair to head for the exits, but several of the others faced the prospect of being term-limited out of that role or faced difficult re-election prospects.

Gowdy did not have to account for such factors when making his decision, which made his decision all the more surprising.

In his statement, Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor, said: 'whatever skills I may have are better utilized in a courtroom than in Congress, and I enjoy our justice system more than our political system.

As I look back on my career, it is the jobs that both seek and reward fairness that are most rewarding.'

Rep. Steve Stivers, an Ohio republican, and the chairman of the arm that oversees Republican election efforts in the House, predicted that Gowdy's seat will stay solidly in Republican control in November.

'Trey Gowdy exemplifies the persona of a public servant,' Stivers said.

Gowdy has played a key role in the House intelligence committee's investigation into Russian election interference and any possible coordination with President Donald Trump's campaign.

In closed-door interviews, he has been the chief questioner for the Republicans on the committee, relying on his prosecutorial experience to cross examine numerous witnesses.

Among those witnesses were the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and Glenn Simpson, a Washington opposition researcher behind a dossier of allegations about Trump and his ties to Russia.

This week, Gowdy was among the committee members pushing for the release of a memo, drafted by Republicans, that alleges abuses of the government surveillance powers in the Russia investigation.

Democrats have called the memo a 'distraction' and a selectively edited group of GOP talking points.

Separately, Gowdy has used his chairmanship of the Oversight and Government Reform committee to renew scrutiny of the FBI's handling of its investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server.A prisoner has been stabbed to death at HMP Wormwood Scrubs, Scotland Yard has said.

The man was found with a number of knife injuries on Wednesday afternoon at the prison in west London.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: 'Police were called at 3.19pm on Wednesday January 31 to reports of a male with stab injuries at HMP Wormwood Scrubs.

The prisoner was found in another inmate's cell and had suffered multiple stab wounds at HMP Wormwood Scrubs (pictured)

'A male was later pronounced dead at the scene.

'No arrests have been made. Enquiries are ongoing.'

The man has not been formally identified and his family have been informed, police said.

A post-mortem examination will be held in due course.

Built in the late 19th century, Wormwood Scrubs held 1,131 inmates as of the end of December.

An inspection report published in December warned the 'iconic' jail was 'still not safe enough' with high levels of often serious violence.

A report just before Christmas found chronic staff shortages, food running out and a surge in violence among its key findings

The Met Police said: 'A male was later pronounced dead at the scene. Efforts are ongoing to inform the next of kin. We await formal identification'

The assessment detailed how the prison struggled to provide decent conditions, with outside areas strewn with litter, attracting rats and cockroaches.

Too many men were locked up for significant periods of the day, some for as long as 23 hours, HM Inspectorate of Prisons found.

Publishing the report, Chief Inspector of Prisons Peter Clarke said: 'Overall, this was an extremely concerning picture, and we could see no justification as to why this poor situation had persisted since 2014.'

The incident comes amid ongoing concern over safety in prisons in England and Wales.

Figures published last week showed three of the 295 deaths in prison custody in 2017 were homicides.

The statistics also revealed the number of assaults behind bars was at a new record level, with 28,165 incidents in the 12 months to September.Two men have been arrested on suspicion of people smuggling after nine migrants were rescued from a boat crossing the English Channel.

Eight men and one woman, who told Border Force officers they were Albanian, were rescued by lifeboat crews on Wednesday morning in the Dover Strait, 20 miles from Dungeness.

Two of the men have been arrested by the National Crime Agency and are being questioned.

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The migrants were taken ashore at Eastbourne's Sovereign Harbour on Wednesday afternoon and questioned by Border Control

Martin Grace, NCA senior investigating officer, said: 'This incident demonstrates the dangers associated with attempts to cross the Channel in this manner, and it is extremely fortunate that all those on this vessel were able to be recovered safe and well.

'An investigation is underway and we are working closely with Border Force and Immigration Enforcement.'

The other people on board are being dealt with by Border Force, the NCA said.

A search and rescue operation involving the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, the RNLI, Border Force and the NCA was launched after a small boat was spotted off the coast of East Sussex.

A rigid hull inflatable boat, carrying nine people, was eventually located and those on board taken by lifeboat to Eastbourne harbour.

It is understood the group had set sail from Boulogne in France on Tuesday night with gales in the English Channel reaching Force 6 to 7.

A Maritime and Coastguard Agency spokesman said: 'There are casualties, but no fatalities. They have all been recovered. Everyone is accounted for and safe and well.

'They are on a lifeboat and heading to port. They were recovered on a lifeboat. They are cold and a bit sea sick.'

It is understood the group had set sail from Boulogne in France on Tuesday night with gales in the English Channel reaching Force 6 to 7

It is not yet known how the distress signal was sent by the group or what caused the vessel to get into trouble, although the Coastguard ruled out engine trouble.

A Home Office spokesman said: 'At 5.30am this morning (Wednesday, 31 January), Border Force received a call from The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) after concerns were raised about a small boat off the coast of East Sussex.

'The MCA launched a search and rescue operation with the RNLI to locate the boat.

'It was found and is now in Eastbourne Harbour where the nine people on board, who presented themselves as being from Albania, are being dealt with by Border Force.

'The group consisted of eight men and one woman and they will be processed in line with immigration rules.

'An investigation led by the National Crime Agency is now underway.'

Dover MP Charlie Elphicke urged authorities to be 'vigilant' of illegal migrants attempting to enter Britain.

Mr Elphicke said: 'This underlines yet again the extreme lengths people will go to, risking their lives trying to break into Britain.

'Crossing the English Channel in a small inflatable boat during winter is about as dangerous as it gets.

'We know more migrants are returning to Calais following recent comments by President Macron.

'This is why we must be more vigilant than ever and protect our borders.'

Three RNLI lifeboats and a HM Coastguard helicopter were scrambled to locate the boat after it was reported to be in trouble. It is pictured here being towed into Eastbourne

Last week it was revealed that several hundred migrants are now living rough close to the Port of Calais in France as they try to make their way to Britain.

A Maritime and Coastguard statement said: 'HM Coastguard has been involved in coordinating a search and rescue operation today.

'The call came in just before 5am to which the Coastguard's search and rescue helicopter from Lydd, along with the Dover and Dungeness lifeboats were involved in the search off the Dover Straits.

'A vessel has been found and nine people rescued and taken on board the Dungeness all-weather lifeboat where they are currently being looked after by the crew.'House Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Devin Nunes of California hit back at the FBI, accusing the bureau of 'abuses' after it's stunning decision to go public with 'grave concerns' about the release of a classified memo.

Nunes blasted the bureau after the FBI released a statement sharply critical of his panel's decision to release a four-page classified Republican memo on the Russia investigation.

'Having stonewalled Congress demands for information for nearly a year, its no surprise to see the FBI and DOJ issue spurious objections to allowing the American people to see information related to surveillance abuses at these agencies, Nunes wrote in an angry statement released by his office.

He parroted back language that the FBI used to criticize the memo, which the bureau said had 'material omissions' that made its release reckless.

'The FBI is intimately familiar with "material omissions" with respect to their presentations to both Congress and the courts, and they are welcome to make public, to the greatest extent possible, all the information they have on these abuses.,' Nunes, who has clashed with Democrats on his committee, continued.

FBI Director Christopher Wray delivers remarks to a graduation ceremony at the FBI Academy on the grounds of Marine Corps Base Quantico in Quantico, Virginia, U.S. December 15, 2017. The FBI expressed 'grave concerns' about the release of a GOP Intelligence memo

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'Regardless, its clear that top officials used unverified information in a court document to fuel a counter-intelligence investigation during an American political campaign. Once the truth gets out, we can begin taking steps to ensure our intelligence agencies and courts are never misused like this again.'

The FBI released a jarring statement Wednesday expressing 'grave concerns' about the release of a Republican-crafted intelligence memo that Democrats claim will reveal sources and methods of intelligence gathering.

The FBI made plain its concerns about the memo Wednesday, just hours after President Donald Trump was caught on a hot mic saying he would '100 per cent' allow its release.

The issue fell into Trump's lap after the GOP-led House Intelligence Committee cast aside Democratic complaints and voted to approve its release, setting in motion a five-day review period.

'With regard to the House Intelligence Committee's memorandum, the FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it,' according to the statement.

'As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo's accuracy.'

The brief statement made plain that there is a vigorous behind-the-scenes bureaucratic fight about the memo  which Trump has said he wants out.

The four-page memo charges the FBI with bias and takes a critical view of its role during the origins of the Russia probe into associates of Donald Trump.

It also says it reveals possible misconduct in the Justice Department's decision to seek a warrant for electronic eavesdropping on former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page, who traveled to Moscow during the campaign.

Rosenstein is believed to have signed off on that warrant, which got renewed.

U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein arrives to speak at the State of the Net annual conference at the Newseum's Knight Conference Center in Washington D.C., U.S., January 29, 2018

President Trump told a lawmaker he would allow the release of the memo '100 per cent'

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said the GOP-crafted memo would come out 'pretty quick'

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, walks away from a meeting with House GOP members, on Capitol Hill January 30, 2018

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein  who overseas Robert Mueller's Russia probe  told White House chief of staff John Kelly the memo could risk classified information urged the president to reconsider his position, the Washington Post reported.

In another new development, CNN reported that during a December White House meeting, President Trump asked Rosenstein if he was 'on my team.' Rosenstein responded: 'Of course, we're all on your team, Mr. President, sources told the network.

The FBI's extraordinary public statement came just hours after Kelly told a radio program the memo would get released ''pretty quick.'

'It will be released here pretty quick, I think, and then the whole world can see it,' Kelly told Fox News Radio.

Rosenstein and new Trump-appointed FBI Director Christopher Wray attempted to intervene.

Kelly told the two men Trump was inclined to release it but would subject it to National Security Council review, a senior administration official told the Post.

The Intel panel, which has become highly split along partisan lines, also vote against allowing panel Democrats to release their own rebuttal memo. Democrats say the GOP document cherry picks information and leaves out explanatory information.Embattled actor Jeremy Piven appeared in fine spirits during a casual lunchtime outing with a mystery brunette and his beloved French bulldog on Tuesday - just days after three more women have come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against the Entourage alum.

To date, a total of eight women have accused Piven of inappropriate behavior, ranging from making unwanted advance to forcible kissing and groping.

Piven vehemently denied all the claims, which his legal team dismissed as 'works of fiction.'

Not a care in the world: Embattled actor Jeremy Piven appeared in fine spirits during a casual lunchtime outing with a mystery brunette and his beloved French bulldog in LA on Tuesday

Out and about: It was Piven's first sighting since three more women have come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against the Entourage alum

Keeping it healthy: Piven's friend had picked up some food from the trendy restaurant Tocaya, which serves organic Mexican fare

Casual chic: The actors female companion, who was wearing a distressed grey hoodie and burgundy leggings, was seen deep in conversation with Piven

Loyal sidekick: Piven was accompanied on the outing by his constant companion, his French bulldog Bubba, whom he kept on a leash

The 52-year-old stage and screen star appeared relaxed and animated as he stepped out in Los Angeles on Tuesday with the unknown woman and his four-legged sidekick Bubba.

The happy trio were captured taking a stroll after Piven's dark-haired friend had picked up some takeout from the trendy restaurant Tocaya, which serves organic Mexican fare.

The actors female companion, who was wearing fashionable 50s style cat-eye sunglasses, a distressed grey hoodie and burgundy leggings, was seen deep in conversation with the Mr Selfridge star.

Piven was sporting an equally laid-back ensemble consisting of an olive-green velvet jacket, a grey T-shirt, black pants and sneakers.

The actor's latest accusers  two of whom went on the record and one who chose to remain anonymous  told BuzzFeed News this week that Piven became physically aggressive with each of them during separate encounters in the 1980s and 90s.

One woman said that Piven was 21 years and she was 17 when he became physical with her in a trailer on the set of his first-ever movie role in 1986.

The news site reported that eight different people said they heard of the incidents from the women who shared it shortly after they took place or in the years since.

Piven vehemently denied all of the allegations, which his attorneys describe as works of fiction.

Pivens lawyers are saying that the accusations are conjured up in an opportunistic effort to capitalize on the current media storm in order to obtain attention and/or money.

The attorneys for Piven say that the actor provided BuzzFeed with the results of a lie detector test that he says he passed, proving that he never groped women or used force against women to gain sexual pleasure.

One of his accusers, Susan McCain Olson, who had just finished her junior year of high school in the Chicago area, was an extra in Lucas, the 1986 film which was Pivens first ever movie role

These allegations, which in one case goes back more than 30 years and the two others more than 20 years ago, are false, Piven said in a written statement given to BuzzFeed News.

As evidenced by the lie detector test I took and passed, I have never forced myself on anyone, nor have I ever exposed myself or restrained anyone against their will.

To the contrary, if any woman ever said no, I stopped.

The actors lawyers even threatened to sue BuzzFeed News  the second time they have issued a threat of litigation in response to a story about Pivens alleged sexual misconduct.

Susan McCain Olson, who had just finished her junior year of high school in the Chicago area, was an extra in a film that was Pivens first ever movie role.

He was just 21 years old when he was cast for a role in Lucas, the 1986 film which starred Charlie Sheen, Winona Ryder, Kerri Green, and Corey Haim.

McCain Olson, 51, told BuzzFeed News that she had a number of scenes in the film and that the environment on set was casual and friendly.

During filming, McCain Olson said she was asked to go into a trailer to retrieve something, which was not an unusual thing to happen.

He was just 17 years old when he was cast for a role in Lucas, the 1986 film which starred Charlie Sheen (far left), Winona Ryder (right), Kerri Green (middle), and Corey Haim. McCain Olson alleges that Piven followed her into a trailer and forced himself on her

McCain Olson said that Piven followed her into the trailer. She alleged that he then pinned her down on the sofa, climbed on top of her, and started to kiss her.

Piven is also alleged to have run his hands up and down her body and inside her shirt.

At one point I kind of was like, This is it, this is where Im going to get raped, McCain Olson said.

I kept trying to push him away. I was like, No, get off me.

McCain Olson said she managed to nudge Piven off of her and get away.

She said she feared telling others because she thought it might cost her job as an extra.

Piven also did not approach her for the remainder of their time together on set.

I saw him around after because we were on the same set but he never spoke to me, she said.

BuzzFeed News said it spoke to four people close to McCain Olson who said that they heard the same story from her in the years after it allegedly happened.

She said she chose not to go public since the culture surrounding sexual harassment was different in those days than it is now.

In those days, sexual assault was rape and I was like, Well, he didnt rape me, McCain Olson said.

I didnt talk much about it at all just because I guess it was embarrassing. Who was going to believe me?

An anonymous woman alleges that while Piven was in Montreal filming Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde in or around 1994, he pinned her against the wall in his hotel room and tried to kiss her, but that she rejected his advances. Piven is seen above in the film alongside co-star Sean Young

BuzzFeed News also spoke to another woman, a 46-year-old executive at a major international organization, about an encounter she says she had with Piven in Montreal in or around 1994.

Piven was in Montreal to film Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde, a movie which was released in 1995.

The accuser says she met the actor at a hair salon where she was working at the time.

She told BuzzFeed News that she agreed to show Piven around town, though she says she made it clear to him that she had no romantic interest in the actor.

When she went to meet Piven at his hotel, the front desk told her that he wasnt ready and that she should go up to his room.

She said she went up to the room because she had no reason to suspect Piven, who was a nice enough guy.

When she entered Pivens room, the actor pinned her against the wall and tried to kiss her, she alleged.

She said she pushed him off of her and asked him what he was doing.

He then replied by asking her why she came up to his room.

At that point, she said she left.

I didnt want to stick around to find out what else was going to happen, the woman said.

I guess he thinks hes this actor and he can do whatever the hell he wants to people.

As a woman  you deal with this kind of thing all the time. But this was a little more violent than the other things that have happened to me.

To have somebody force themselves on you like that  it made me feel very uncomfortable and grossed out.

In the mid-1990s, Piven landed a recurring role on the hit ABC sitcom Ellen. Diane Gonzalez, an extra on the set of Ellen, alleges that Piven became increasingly violent during a romantic encounter that she abruptly ended. Piven (far right) is seen with the cast of Ellen in 1995

Gonzalez alleged that the incident took place after a night out of drinks with cast and crew. Piven is seen above with co-star Ellen Degeneres in this 1995 image

She said she decided to come forward after reading Pivens denials of sexual misconduct against other women.

I was like, you would never force yourself on a woman? Yes, you would, because you did that to me, she said.

Piven, for his part, denied ever meeting a woman at a salon in Montreal.

BuzzFeed News spoke to two people who said the woman told them about the alleged incident.

By 1996, Piven had a recurring role on the hit ABC sitcom Ellen.

In February of that year, Diane Gonzalez was hired as an extra on the set, where she met Piven.

The two became involved in a consensual romantic encounter.

But Gonzalez said that things turned physically aggressive and left her feeling threatened.

After one night of taping, the cast and crew went out for drinks. Piven invited Gonzalez to join.

After the gathering ended, Piven asked Gonzalez to follow him to his house.

He escorted Gonzalez to her car. As the two were on a sidewalk outside, Piven started to kiss her, she said.

"I was taken aback, but I kind of just went with it, she said.

Anastasia Taneie says Piven invited her to talk with him and his manager, then pushed her against a wall and groped her breasts and genitals while on the set of HBO's Entourage

At Pivens home, the actor gave Gonzalez a tour. As she looked at pictures of Piven on his refrigerator, she turned around and saw him.

Piven, at this point, is alleged to have pulled down his pants and exposed his genitals to her.

I really was surprised  I guess I was naive and I just didnt have sex on the brain, Gonzalez said.

I kind of just laughed it off  and then quickly thought, What am I doing? This could go really wrong. So, just kind of play it cool.

Gonzalez alleged that Piven grabbed her and started to kiss her.

He then allegedly picked her up, wrapped her legs around his waist, and took her into the bedroom.

Gonzalez alleged that when they got to the bedroom, Piven threw her onto his bed and straddled himself on top of her.

She claimed that Piven pinned her arms behind her head and kissed her.

Piven escalated matters and kept using more force, Gonzalez alleged.

She said this made her uncomfortable and she told Piven she wanted to go home.

The kissing was very intense and at this point his penis is still exposed, so thats when I  [thought], No, no, this isnt right, Gonzalez said.

I was just starting to get very cautious to how I was going to react to this.

What I was saying out loud was, I think its time for me to go. I should go now, she said.

I think the threat was just how aggressive and how strong he became as he was holding me down. I just didnt want it to get any worse, Gonzalez said.

I just kept telling myself, Well, youre alone, nobody knows where Im at.

Its not like I told anybody Im going to follow him home, so I kept telling myself, Okay, you gotta play this smart now.

Gonzalez said that Piven also tried to unbutton her pants, but she managed to get away.

I was trying to be somewhat playful and not freak out because I was alone, of course, and I was just surprised at how quickly things were advancing, Gonzalez said.

So I kept saying, Okay, you know what, I think I need to go, its best that I leave. But he kept resisting.

Piven (right, with the cast of Entourage) denies the claim, which has been supported by Taneie's mom and others who were on the set at the time

She said she purposefully fell off the bed in order to get away from Piven. She then told the actor that she really needed to go.

Piven reacted angrily, she said. He then told her to leave and belittled her.

I'm just thankful I kind of got out there when I did, she said.

Two friends of Gonzalez told BuzzFeed News that they heard the story of the alleged encounter with Piven.

Gonzalez said that in retrospect she became more convinced that she was the victim of an alleged assault.

The way I explained it at the time was like, Oh, things got a little out of control.

But now as an older person looking back, that couldve been really bad.

I just want him to be accountable for what he did.

Any interaction that may have occurred between [Piven and Gonzalez], if any, was a consensual encounter, the actors attorneys said.

Piven also addressed the allegations, writing in a statement: Some of the assertions, as related to be by BuzzFeed, are not even physically possible.

As one example, there is a claim that I grabbed the woman, started to kiss her, picked her up, and wrapped her legs around my waist.

Actress Ariane Bellamar, (left) 38, last month accused the actor of groping her breasts. Porn star Isis Taylor (right) is among other women who claimed Piven harassed her

It is hard to understand how someone could hold a woman and at the same time wrap both of her legs around his waist without the consent of the woman.

Last year, a total of five other women accused Piven of sexual impropriety.

Anastasia Taneie told BuzzFeed News she was working as a 23-year-old background actress on Entourage in 2009 when Piven, then 44, cornered her in a darkened corridor and groped her breasts and genitals.

'I was scared at the time nobody was going to believe me. I didn't want to make a scene. I just wanted to go home,' she said this past November.

'It was the most horrible thing I've ever experienced.'

Piven denied the accusations and pointed to a lie detector test from November 13 which found him innocent of groping anyone after four other women including actress Ariane Bellamar accused him.

In October, Bellamar accused Piven of groping her twice, once in his trailer on the Entourage set and the other at the Playboy mansion.

Advertising executive Tiffany Bacon Scourby (left) says Piven attacked her in 2003 in his hotel room and actress Cassidy Freeman (right) also accused him of engaging in 'predatory behavior' against her when she was 'far too young'

Piven was accused on Twitter of sexual harassment and assault by 38-year-old Bellamar at the end of October.

She was followed by actress Cassidy Freeman who said on her Instagram page that Piven engaged in 'predatory behavior' against her when she was 'far too young'.

More women have since come forward accusing the Emmy winning actor of sexual assault and harassment.

Washington-based advertising executive Tiffany Bacon Scourby, 39, and Hawaii-based porn star Isis Taylor both say Piven attacked or harassed them.

Piven has denied all allegations of sexual assault saying they 'are absolutely false and completely fabricated'.Malcolm Naylor, 70, sat next to the girl at during a performance of the Peter Pan pantomime and asked if he could 'feel her vagina'

A retired chemist who indecently assaulted a woman by drugging them has been jailed after he tried to molest an 11-year-old girl at a pantomime.

Malcolm Naylor, 70, sat next to the girl at during a performance of the Peter Pan pantomime and asked if he could 'feel her vagina'.

Bradford Crown Court heard that the girl, who could not be named for legal reason, said no and jumped out of her seat before telling a family member and an usher.

Naylor, who has a string of previous convictions for sexual offences against girls and women dating back to the 1960s, managed to escape through an emergency exit at the Alhambra Theatre in Bradford, West Yorkshire.

Yet he was snared by police after he had given his address at the ticket desk and was arrested at home, prosecutor Stephen Wood said.

Naylor's previous convictions are for indencent assaults against a 15-year-old and another woman after he drugging them in October 1985.

Naylor's use of drugs in his crime was a 'dangerous trait' for someone who had trained as a chemist, the court heard.

The judge claimed the defendant's shocking move towards the 11-year-old girl showed that he had 'no control' over his impulses.

Naylor, of Bradford, was convicted for the incident which happened in January 2017 following a trial last month.

He was sentenced to 21 months in prison at Leeds Crown Court today, with an extended licence period of four years upon his release.

Naylor will also have to register with the police as a sex offender for the next 10 years.White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said a teacher can 'go to hell' after the educator said military personnel are the 'lowest of the low'

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly has fired back at a teacher who said military personnel are the 'lowest of the low'.

'Well, I think the guy ought to go to hell,' said Kelly on Wednesday in a post-State of the Union interview with Fox News Radio. 'I just hope he enjoys the liberties and the lifestyle that we have fought for.'

A Southern California high school teacher was caught on camera denigrating the intelligence of people serving in the US military.

In the videos, which were stealthily recorded in class by a student at El Rancho High in Pico Rivera, California, history teacher Gregory Salcido, 49, can be heard making a variety of unflattering remarks about service people, at one point calling them the 'lowest of the low'.

The videos went viral after being posted on Facebook by a Connecticut woman claiming to be the anonymous student's mother's friend.

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, pictured during Tuesday's State of the Union address, fired back at the California teacher

A woman posted clips of high school teacher Gregory Salcido, in which he could be heard denigrating the intelligence of US military members serving overseas

Salcido made the comments in the middle of a history class he was teaching at El Rancho High in Pico Rivera, California, where he is also an elected councilman

'My friends son was sporting his marine sweater while this liberal douche teacher rants about the military,' Kimberlie Flauto wrote on Facebook on Friday, while exhorting people to 'help me make this go viral'.

Although the videos - shot from under a desk on January 19 - do not show Salcido's face, El Rancho High officials confirmed to The Orange County Register that the person speaking in the video is in fact Salcido and that the video was shot in a school classroom.

In one of the clips, Salcido can be heard saying, 'Think about the people who you know are over there. Your freakin' stupid Uncle Louie or whatever. They're dumb s***ts. They're not like high-level thinkers. They're not academic people. They're not intellectual people.'

He then says that overseas service people are 'the freakin' lowest of our low. Not morally - I'm not saying they make bad moral decisions - they're not talented people.'

As he speaks, students can be heard laughing in the background.

It's unclear why exactly Salcido began spouting off about the military, but the video does capture him expressing disbelief over the fact that the military - with all of it's technology - can't control people 'wearing robes.'

It is unclear what sparked Salcido's (right) comments about the military, although he did say he objected to presidential declarations that the US military is the best in the world

El Rancho High officials confirmed the voice in the video belonged to Salcido and said that thy would be conducting an investigation into what happened

After the videos went viral, Salcido posted a message on his personal Facebook account

He also disagrees with President Trump and other prior presidents' claims that the US military is the best military in the world. 'The data is in, we don't have a good military,' Salcido says.

The 17-year-old high school senior who shot the videos, told The OC Register that he never intended for the videos to go viral. He merely showed it to his mother, who then sent it on to her friends.

The student, who wished to remain anonymous to avoid retribution, said that his brother and uncles were Marines who fought in Afghanistan, Desert Storm and Vietnam, and that Salcido's comments were 'so disrespectful.'

The school said that they have not been able to reach Salcido because he was not in town, however school officials would be conducting an investigation.

In a message on his personal Facebook page, posted on Friday from New York, Salcido wrote that: 'I don't think it's wise for me to make any specific comments, but I want my friends, family, and students to know we are fine and we respect the rights of free expression for all individuals.'

Salcido has allegedly had previous issues with students.

He was placed on paid administrative leave after police received a complaint that he had hit a student in 2012.

Before that, in 2010, a parent alleged that Salcido threatened his daughter, insulted other students and parents and made inappropriate comments about race during a summer school class.

Salcido denied the claims, but was suspended from teaching until the fall semester started.

In addition to being a teacher, Salcido is also a Pico Rivera councilman.ASIO officers secured thousands of sensitive government cabinet documents at ABC offices in Canberra and Brisbane after they were found in a locked filing cabinet bought from a second-hand shop.

The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet launched an urgent investigation on Wednesday after the ABC revealed it had obtained papers covering the inner workings of the past five federal governments.

At around 1am on Thursday, ASIO officers took a safe to the public broadcaster's bureaus at Parliament House and Brisbane so the documents could be secured.

The trove, some classified 'top secret', was sold cheaply at a second-hand shop in Canberra, which stocked ex-government furniture.

ASIO officers secured thousands of sensitive government cabinet documents at ABC offices in Canberra and Brisbane in the early hours of Thursday morning

At around 1am on Thursday, ASIO officers took a safe to the public broadcaster's bureaus at Parliament House and Brisbane

They sat in the shop for months, before the owner finally unlocked the cabinet with a drill. There was no key.

One theory is that the cabinet belonged to a bureaucrat who handled Freedom of Information requests.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said the person responsible for losing the documents will have serious questions to answer.

'Obviously someone's had a shocker and the investigation will find out exactly how this happened,' he told ABC radio on Wednesday.

Cabinet papers are legally supposed to remain secret for 20 years after their production.

The trove, some classified 'top secret', was sold cheaply at a second-hand shop in Canberra

'In the process of running a country, there are things which go awry. This is one of them,' Mr Joyce said.

The ABC said it had chosen not to publish many of the documents because of their classified nature.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott said he believed a junior or mid-ranking departmental officer was to blame and insisted they 'pay a price'.

'Not so much a cabinet leak as a leaked cabinet - that seems to be the problem,' Mr Abbott told 2GB radio.

The documents show ASIO was told to delay security checks so asylum seekers would miss deadlines and be unable to receive permanent protection visas.

They also reveal the National Security Committee under the Howard Government considered removing the right to remain silent under police questioning.

One document points to an audit showing the Australian Federal Police lost almost 400 national security files over five years.

The loss of the documents, which had been through the national security committee of cabinet between 2008 and 2013, was uncovered in an audit by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

ASIO staff (left) are seen at ABC officers on Thursday morning. Barnaby Joyce said the person responsible for losing the documents will have serious questions to answer

The papers also included a document that stated 195 top-secret codeword-protected and sensitive documents had been left in the office of former Labor government minister Penny Wong when Labor lost the 2013 election.

The documents which were left in the office - but not included in the old filing cabinets - included Middle East defence plans.

They also included national security briefs, Afghan war updates, intelligence on Australia's neighbours and details of counter-terrorism operations.

In another paper, it was revealed former Prime Minister Tony Abbott ignored legal advice when he handed over cabinet documents to the insulation royal commission.

'We think it would be highly undesirable (and legally confounding) if the Commonwealth were to simply produce cabinet-related documents to the royal commission on the basis of a purported waiver of public interest immunity,' read the advice from Tom Howe QC, chief counsel at the Australian Government Solicitor.

Meanwhile, the Federal Government announced sweeping changes to espionage and intelligence law to limit interference in Australia's political system.

A treasure trove of secret and highly sensitive cabinet documents has been discovered in two second-hand filing cabinets bought at a Canberra auction (pictured is a stock image of Parliament House in Canberra)

In one paper, it was revealed former prime minister Tony Abbott (pictured) ignored legal advice when he handed over cabinet documents to the insulation royal commission

ASIO warned the nation is facing an unprecedented level of foreign interference, worse than during the Cold War.

Appearing at a Canberra hearing examining proposed new laws to crack down on such offences, officials said adversaries were generally known during the Cold War, whereas there is a raft of unknown players today.

'Whilst (the Cold War) was obviously a very busy time in that particular period in history, our assessment is it's not on the scale which we're experiencing today,' deputy director general Peter Vickery said on Wednesday.

'(Espionage and foreign influence) is not something we think might happen, or possibly could happen, it is happening now against Australian interests in Australia and Australian interests abroad.'

Asked how concerned politicians should be about attempts to influence Australia's political systems, Mr Vickery said 'everybody should be alive to the possibility of it happening at a local, state and federal level'.

China expert Professor Clive Hamilton told the hearing that, while the draft laws are vital, media organisations fear the reforms could 'criminalise' journalism and unfairly punish those who are leaked documents with up to 20 years jail.Detectives investigating an offender dubbed the rush hour prowler have been given more time to question a man in connection with 26 sexual assaults across south-east London.

Kevin Bond, 51, appeared at Bromley Magistrates' Court charged with two counts of sexual assault against young girls.

He spoke only to confirm his name via video link from Lewisham station and did not enter a plea.

The Met Police have arrested a man after at least 26 young women and girls were molested. The attacks took place throughout south London

He remained seated throughout and was wearing a grey jumper and kept his arms crossed for the majority of the hearing, occasionally uncrossing them to sip a glass of water.

Bond from Chislehurst, Kent is charged with the sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl on October 19, 2017, in Winns Common, Plumstead.

He is also charged with the sexual assault on a 13-year-old girl on June 30, 2017 at Ravens Way in Lee, south east London.

Prosecutor Maxine Channer-McDaniel made a request under the Magistrates Court Act that Bond remain in custody while police continue their investigations.

Magistrates granted the application and he will appear in court in person on Saturday, February 3.

Detectives from the Metropolitan Police are investigating a series of 26 sexual assaults on schoolgirls and women across the boroughs of Lewisham, Greenwich, Southwark, Bexley and Bromley carried out during the morning and evening rush hours.

The last of the attacks being investigated took place on this street corner in Forest Hill

The attacks date back to October, 2016.

Detective Chief Inspector Andrew Furphy of Lewisham police, leading the investigation, said: 'We are aware that there might be further victims who have not yet spoken to police.

'If you are a victim, or know someone who has been a victim of a sexual assault, I can assure you your information will be treated with strict confidence and sensitivity and we can also access specialist support where needed.'Never-before-seen photographs have been unearthed showing a teenager dodging gunfire to escape across the Berlin Wall.

Frank Krause decided to brave the lethal death strip, that East Germany used to keep its own citizens from leaving, came after the 15-year-old's official request to emigrate was turned down.

Despite his bravery, his story has a tragic twist  because of his age, he was sent back to the totalitarian state by the West Berlin authorities just a few days after his escape.

Frank Krause climbing down off the Berlin Wall after his incredible escape from East Germany

Frank was motivated by a troubled school life and wanted to join his aunt in West Berlin, then a capitalist enclave, entirely surrounded by East Germany.

His incredible feat was captured by off-duty U.S soldier Harry Knights, a signals expert, but his pictures were immediately confiscated by the military authorities.

Knights was simply intending to take some pictures of life behind the Iron Curtain during time off for the Thanksgiving holiday.

But soon after taking up a position on a platform at Bernauer Strasse, a boy acting suspiciously and walking alongside wall with a home-made ladder caught his eye.

Photographer Harry Knights was taking pictures of everyday life in the Communist country

The U.S army soldier then spotted a boy carrying a ladder and acting suspiciously

The area was heavily fortified ans patrolled by East German border guards with orders to shoot dead would be escapees

The boy, later identified as Frank Krause, was seen moving back and forth as if he was planning an escape

Frank making his way across the death strip, past tank traps during his incredible escape

The position is not far from where people used to jump to freedom from apartment buildings, soon after the wall was built in 1961 until the windows were walled up by the authorities in the East.

In the astonishing pictures Frank can be seen walking among the death strip's metal tank traps with his head down after making it over the first wall on the east side of the border using his ladder, which was by now half broken.

At that point he was spotted by the East German border guards, who had had shoot-to-kill orders.

Eventually, he can be seen climbing down from the 12 feet wall after successfully making it across from East Berlin with only a grazed leg despite the 35 or so bullets fired at him.

East German border guards spotted the teenager and fired off about 35 rounds at him

The photographs were recently re-discovered by BBC journalist turned best-selling crime author David Young who tracked down Harry Knights, who is now a retired pastor in the US.

'We had an unobstructed view into East Berlin - the streets, buildings, vehicles, and people going about their day walking from place to place,' Knights told the Mirror Online.

'A teenaged boy was walking down the street carrying what appeared to be a home-made ladder. He would go a few steps and then would hide the ladder in a door front.

'He kept repeating this over and over, leading us to believe that he was intending to scale the Wall to try to escape.

The escape was chronicled in the West Berlin press but the pictures have only been widely available now

Harry Knights was serving as signals expert in the U.S Army in Berlin in 1976 when he witnessed the escape

'When he went out of our sight again behind the western side of the wall, we ran down the tower to be on the ground when he jumped down.

'Almost as soon as we reached the ground, we saw his head come up over the top.

'We had just come to Berlin and knew almost no German and the boy knew no English, so there wasn't any intelligible conversation between us.

'We were, however, excitedly shaking his hand, and welcoming him to West Berlin.'

Though the story was reported by the West Berlin newspapers, no pictures were thought to exist, so none were accompanied the story.

A week later it was reported Frank was being sent back to the East after a West Berlin youth court had ruled 'problems in school' weren't serious enough to allow a minor to stay.

His fate and his whereabouts both remain a mystery.

A Darker State by David Young is published by Bonnier on 8 February 2018.Jim Carrey, Ashley Judd and Jessica Chastain were among a host of celebrities who took to social media to share their impression of President Trump's first State of the Union address... and they weren't very happy.

During the 80 minute speech at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., Trump covered a wide array of topics including tax reform, foreign policy, economy and jobs, infrastructure and immigration.

Some 19.8million viewers from combined networks NBC, ABC, Fox and CBS tuned for what was the third-longest State of the Union address, behind Bill Clinton's efforts in 1995 and 2000 - and some big name stars were not afraid to share their opinions.

Tough: President Trump received backlash online during his first State of the Union address on Tuesday night at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C

Jim Carrey brought a a rather artistic approach to the address by sharing an image of shark fins swimming through colorful paint.

In another, the 'Presidential Reunion' actor posted a painting of Abe Lincoln with one solemn tear streaming down his face below the words, 'It's my party and I'll cry if I want to!'

Ashley Judd, one of Harvey Weinstein's many accusers, chimed in last night with a series of statuses slamming the Trump administration and their 'bigoted policies'.

Jim Carrey took to Twitter Tuesday night to share a painting of Abraham Lincoln with one solemn tear streaming down his face and the words, 'It's my party and I'll cry if I want to!'

The 'Where the Heart Is' actress wrote: 'My vision for America is one in which everyone is welcomed, regardless of religion, race, or country of origin. Its people who make America great, not bigoted policies. #StateOfTheDream'

While Time's Up added in a seperate tweet: 'Members of Congress, standing for safety and equity in the workplace at the #SOTU. Across all industries, the message is still the same: #TIMESUP'

Jessica Chastain then urged her followers to tune out of Trump's speech, and instead, watch the premiere of Rose McGowan's new documentary, 'Citizen Rose' on E! network.

Ashley Judd said the Time's Up movement was as relevant to politics as anything else

'I will always support you #Brave one. I wrap my arms of love around you with healing compassion,' the 'Zero Dark Thirty' actress wrote to her page.

'Please #WatchRoseNotTrump and make visible the once ignored. Sunshine is the best antiseptic.'

Patton Oswalt also led celebrity commentary as he took to social media to live tweet Trump's speech to his more than four million followers.

Jessica Chastain was in Sydney, Australia, last night but still urged her followers to ditch Trump's address and instead watch Rose McGowan's show

The comedian joked, 'Here comes Trump's cabinet. Scientifically this is called a "goblin picnic."

In another tweet, the 'Spy Kids' star wrote, 'Any lip readers out there? Is Melanie repeating, "Help me" through clenched teeth?'

Patton mocked the President: 'Good to be in a room where I'm either hated or barely tolerated... Feels like home.'

Comedy: The 47-year-old comedian joked along with his fans during the hour-long speech broadcast across television screens and on the internet

Part of Trump's address focused on the dangerous MS-13 gang and subsequent violence surrounding the group and its members.

'Stop trying to make "MS13" happen, Donald!' Oswalt again tweeted.

Other celebrities joined in on Twitter to voice their outrage toward the President.

Sarah Silverman wrote, 'I was told darkness could not exist in the light. But here it is, for everyone to not see.'

'Ellen Show' producer Andy Lassner mockingly tweeted his disgust at the 'ridiculous' address:

'Good luck to "Saturday Night Live" on trying to make this any more f****ng ridiculous than it already is', he wrote.

Actress Gabrielle Union re-tweeted a post that read: Immigrants aren't the only problem in this country. Racists are. #SOTU'

While actor-comedian Dane Cook said: 'Trump speaks the way a pit boss does to you when you're way up at the blackjack table. Sounds happy for you, secretly wants you to lose it all.'

Actor Jeffrey Wright added: 'Can't even watch this vile, deceitful fraud and his bizarre cult of self-interested sycophants. #SOTU #Click'

And actor George Takei: 'I'm not watching some frothing orange gorilla read off a teleprompter. I've got better things to do, like alphabetize me spice cabinet. #StateOfTheDream'

Comedian Billy Eichner went on to say: 'Here's my fun tweet about the #SOTU: the president is a lying, incompetent, racist misogynist sack of shit. Please register to VOTE in the Midterms on Nov. 6th: vote.gov'

Last but not least, actress Elizabeth Banks: 'PS - not all immigrants are murderous gangs, one did my hair color today - I don't really need to say this, right? #SOTU'

Discuss: Trump's speech was the third-longest State of the Union at one hour and 20 minutes long, according to The New York Times

For the address, Trump was joined in the House of Representatives by his wife, Melania, and all of his adult children.

His youngest son, Barron, stayed behind, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters on Monday.

First Lady Melania Trump also arrived in the House chamber in her own motorcade.

This comes amid allegations of marital troubles with the President after porn star Stormy Daniels alleged she had an affair with Trump in 2006 - a year-and-a-half into his marriage to Melania.A gunman is on the loose after shots were fired between two cars in south-eastern Sydney.

Witnesses saw bullets fly from a white Ford Ranger utility towards a Mazda sedan at Mascot, in Sydney's south-east, about 6pm on Wednesday, police said.

Both cars then sped away from the scene, travelling erratically along Jackson Drive.

A gunman is on the loose after shots were fired between two cars in south-eastern Sydney (pictured is a bullet hole in a Mazda sedan police believe was involved)

Witnesses saw bullets fly from a white Ford Ranger utility towards a Mazda sedan (pictured is a car believed to have been involved) at Mascot, in Sydney's south-east, about 6pm on Wednesday, police said

When police arrived, they discovered several projectile casings at the scene.

It is not known if anyone was injured and investigations are continuing.

A white Mazda bearing a green P-plate was later found at Riverwood marked with bullet holes, but police could not confirm it was involved in the shooting.

Police blocked Jackson Drive at both ends, including a side street near the Meriton Serviced Apartments.

Officers from Botany Bay were joined by the K9 Dog Squad and specialist forensic investigators at the scene.

Police are seeking the driver of the Ford Ranger and its passengers, and are urging witnesses to come forward.Lee Goggin, a resident of Dallas, Texas, passed away on Tuesday, after experiencing cardiac arrest while he was buried alive when a sand tunnel he was digging collapsed on him in Florida on Sunday.

The husband and father of three was passing through St. Augustine while on vacation when the family stopped at Crescent Beach, and tragedy struck.

'It is with great sorrow and sadness that I write this. My precious, big brother is with Jesus,' Goggin's sister, Rachel Burt, confirmed in a Facebook post on Tuesday.

A fundraising page was previously set up by Burt to help with medical costs, and has since raised more than $40,000 for Goggin's family.

Lee Goggin (right), a resident of Dallas, Texas, passed away on Tuesday, after experienced cardiac arrest while he was buried alive when a sand tunnel he was digging collapsed on him in Florida on Sunday; He is seen here with, left to right, daughter, Rylee, 8 months old; son, Jace, age 4; wife, Courtney Goggin; and son, Colton, age 2

Burt explained on a GoFundMe page what a uniquely tragic, and especially difficult financially, situation Goggin's untimely death has placed his wife, children and the rest of his family in.

'Lee was diagnosed with kidney disease that lead to a kidney transplant in 2014 that was donated by his brother, Aaron,' Burt wrote in an update to the GoFundMe page.

'Because of Lee's kidney transplant, he did not qualify for life insurance. He was the primary source of income for his family of five.'

Lee Goggin (right) received a life-saving kidney transplant from his brother, Aaron Goggin (left) in July of 2014

The kidney transplant required a six-hour surgery at Baylor All Saints Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas, the Star-Telegram reported.

'Its something he would have done if the situation was flipped and I was the one who was needing it,' Goggin's brother said at the time.

'He would have been there for me.'

Goggin said after the transplant: 'I just want to make sure that I take care of the kidney as well as possible so it lasts for a really long time.'

Little did he know his new lease on life would be cut drastically short, just four years later.

Goggin is sene here with his wife, children and other family members

At first the family had hoped he would pull through, but the 35-year-old personal personal trainer succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday at Flagler Hospital's Emergency Room.

Burt previously described the freak accident that ultimately took Goggin's life, on Sunday.

'Our family was just starting off on vacation when we stopped in at the beach in St. Augustine, Florida to let the kids burn some energy,' she wrote.

'Lee was building a tunnel in the sand when it collapsed on him.'

Goggin (right) is seen here with his sister, Rachel Burt (left), brother Aaron (second from right), and their father (second from left)

Goggin (right) is seen here with family at an Oklahoma University football game; Pictured, left to right: Sister Rachel Burt, her husband, and wife Courtney Goggin

Burt previously described the freak accident that ultimately took Goggin's life, on Sunday.

'Our family was just starting off on vacation when we stopped in at the beach in St. Augustine, Florida to let the kids burn some energy,' she wrote.

'Lee was building a tunnel in the sand when it collapsed on him.'

Goggin (second from left), is shown here in a photo shared on the GoFundMe page his sister created on Sunday

St. Johns County Fire Rescue (SJCFR) responded to the scene at approximately 1.40 pm Eastern on Sunday.

The first responders had to remove approximately 2-3 feet of sand before they found Goggin and removed him the from collapsed sand tunnel, SJCFR said in a Facebook post shared on Sunday afternoon.

The damage his body suffered proved to be too much for him to recover, after initially being hospitalized in critical condition, immediately following the accident.

St. Johns County Fire Rescue (SJCFR) responded to the scene at approximately 1.40 pm Eastern on Sunday

The first responders had to remove approximately 2-3 feet of sand before they found Goggin (top, right) and removed him the from collapsed sand tunnel

Goggin's family has found comfort in the fact that his death may save lives.

'Lee wanted to give as much of himself to others as he could,' Burt wrote.

'He will be following, once again, in our mom's footsteps by donating as many organs as possible to bring hope to other families.'

SJCFR did not immediately return a phone message from DailyMail.com seeking an update

Goggin's children are see here; They are Jace (right), age 4, Colton (left), age 2, and Rylee (center), 8 months old

Burt wrote on Sunday: 'Please keep his wife, Courtney, and their three sweet children, Jace, age 4, Colton, age 2, and Rylee, 8 months old, in your prayers along with his immediate family.'

Burt has asked anyone who knew Goggin to please send pictures and stories for the future creation of a book about the life her brother lived, via email, here.

Goggin is originally from Wellston, Oklahoma.

The accident occurred in the 8200 block of State Road A1A South's Crescent Beach.

Donations to the family may be made here.The former supervisory pharmacist convicted over with a deadly 2012 meningitis outbreak that killed 76 people and sickened hundreds has been jailed for eight years.

Glenn Chin, 49, co-founder of the now-defunct New England Compounding Center (NECC), was cleared of second-degree murder charges in October, but found guilty of dozens of other charges, including mail fraud, conspiracy, racketeering and introduction of misbranded drugs into interstate commerce with the intent to defraud and mislead.

In addition to incarceration, Chin will also face two years of supervised release, and forfeiture and restitution in an amount to be determined later.

Chin, who ran the so-called clean rooms at NECC where drugs that were found to be contaminated were made, tearfully apologized to the victims for the pain and suffering they endured, during his sentencing.

The outbreak was traced to mold-contaminated steroid injections, produced by the company.

Glenn Chin, 49, the former supervisory pharmacist convicted in connection with a deadly 2012 meningitis outbreak that killed 76 people and sickened hundreds, was sentenced to 8 years in prison on Wednesday

During his sentencing hearing on Wednesday, the Canton, Massachusetts man said he has prayed every day for the people who were impacted by the outbreak.

While sobbing and struggling through his statement, Chin said he understands that many of the victims will never forgive him, but that he will continue to pray that they will 'find some sort of peace.'

The 2012 outbreak led Congress in 2013 to pass a law that aimed to clarify the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's ability to oversee large compounding pharmacies that make custom drugs.

Attorneys for Chin (left) said blame instead rested with NECC co-founder Barry Cadden (right), who they said made all of the decisions at NECC and trained Chin on how to produce drugs in the ways that prosecutors contend were unsafe

In addition to incarceration, Chin will also face two years of supervised release, and forfeiture and restitution in an amount to be determined later; Chin is seen here entering the federal court in Boston, Massachusetts on September 19

'A key aspect of the FDAs mission is to ensure that drugs are made under high quality conditions so that no patient is at risk of harm due to poorly compounded products,' said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD.

'In response to episodes where patients were harmed by poorly compounded drugs, Congress passed a new set of laws to improve the FDAs oversight of these products. Were committed to the efficient, timely and robust implementation of that framework to help make sure patients can trust the reliability and safety of compounded drugs, recognize the benefits of pharmacy compounding, and that we protect consumers from harm.'

Chin was initially charged with the deaths of 25 people in Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, before a jury found him not guilty of murder.

Chin was the co-founder of the now-defunct New England Compounding Center (NECC)

Chin was cleared of second-degree murder charges in October, but found guilty of dozens of other charges, including mail fraud, conspiracy, racketeering and introduction of misbranded drugs into interstate commerce with the intent to defraud and mislead

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put the preliminary death toll from the outbreak at 64 in 2013. Federal officials identified additional victims in their investigation, raising the number of deaths to 76.

More than 700 people in 20 states were sickened in what's considered the worst public health crisis in recent U.S. history.

Prosecutors, at the time of Chin's trial, said that Chin directed staff in NECC's clean rooms to skip cleaning despite the presence of insects, mice and mold.

They claimed Chin disregarded the probability that people could die if he failed to ensure drugs were produced in sanitary conditions and were properly sterilized in order to keep up with demand from hospitals nationally for its medicines.

His lawyers countered that Chin never meant for anyone to die.

They said blame instead rested with Cadden, who they said made all of the decisions at NECC and trained Chin on how to produce drugs in the ways that prosecutors contend were unsafe.

The outbreak was traced to mold-contaminated steroid injections, produced at NECC

Lesser charges were filed against 12 other people associated with NECC. Three have pleaded guilty.

A federal judge dismissed charges against two defendants in 2016.

Prosecutors in Boston's federal court asked for Chin to receive a sentence of 35 years in custody for his role in the tragedy.

'Mr Chin was a pharmacist, but again and again he acted with complete disregard for the health and safety of patients,' said United States Attorney Andrew E Lelling.

'Mr Chin will now be held responsible for producing contaminated drugs that killed dozens and grievously harmed over 750 people across the country. No patient should suffer harm at the hands of a medical professional, and we will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to combat fraud and abuse in the health care system.'

Chin's 8-year sentence was handed down by US District Court Judge for the District of Massachusetts, the Honorable Richard G Stearns.

NECC co-founder Barry Cadden is seen here , in Boston, Massachusetts on June 26 walking to his car after being sentenced to nine years in jail, beginning in August, for his role in a deadly US meningitis outbreak in 2012

'As a licensed pharmacist, Glenn Chin took an oath to protect his patients,' said Harold H. Shaw, Special Agent in Charge, FBI Boston Division.

'In contrast, he failed miserably by cutting corners, ignoring warning signs, and harming hundreds of people with his reckless disregard for their safety. Dozens of unsuspecting patients died because of the tainted drugs that were distributed on his watch. Now, Mr Chin is finally being held accountable for his role in one of the worst pharmaceutical disasters in this country. The FBI hopes todays sentence will bring some comfort to the hundreds of victims and their families who have suffered so much.'

Chin's attorneys had unsuccessfully argued that his sentence should be just three years.

They said there was no evidence Chin caused the drugs to become contaminated and have blamed the deaths and illnesses on NECC's co-founder, Barry Cadden.

Cadden is currently serving a nine-year prison sentence, having been found guilty of racketeering and fraud, but also cleared him of murder.President Donald Trump got a pair of Aflac socks on Wednesday from a representative of the insurance company, and boasted that he has a family connection to its famous slogan-shouting duck.

'Your chairman I know very well, and he's done a fantastic job,' Trump told Michael Porter, the company's emissary to the Oval Office.

'He actually, a long time ago, hired my wife to do a big commercial. You know that, right? An Aflac commercial. And I think it was a successful commercial, too,' the president announced during an Oval Office event centered on tax reform.

Sure enough, Melania shot an Aflac ad in 2005 when the pair were newlyweds. She played the subject of a Frankenstein's-monster experiment in which her brain is swapped with that of the duck mascot.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO OF THE AD

First lady Melania Trump starred in one of the famous Aflac insurance commercials 13 years ago, President Donald Trump said Wednesday; this still from the ad shows a moment when a mad scientist swaps her brain with that of the company's duck mascot

Michael Porter, a Columbus, Ga. employee of Aflac, gave Donald Trump a pair of company-branded socks on Wednesday, and the president responded by recalling the 2005 ad

At the end of the ad's experiment, the duck wakes up speaking (in Melania's voice) about the company's supplemental insurance products

The mad scientist announces his intention at the top of the 30-second spot  shot in black-and-white  to 'take the voice of this lovely woman and put it into this duck!'

'Why?' asks a half-toothy Igor figure.

'To tell the world the benefits of Aflac  with sex appeal!' the ascot-sporting crazy man answers.

After the pipe organ-accented transmogrification, the duck talks with Melania's unmistakable Eastern European voice.

The socks Trump got in the Oval Office show a mosaic of profiles of Aflac's duck mascot, along with the company logo

'If you're hurt and can't work, Aflac can help pay your bills with cash,' it says.

Seconds later Melania sits up and quacks, 'AFLAC!'  sounding like the famous duck.

The spot ends with a freaked-out Melania realizing that she also has the duck's webbed feet.

The first lady used to include the ad in her modeling promotional materials.

In the ad, a Frankenstein-like mad scientist says he wants to market Aflac with 'sex appeal'  and Melania wakes up quacking the company slogan

On her now-defunct modeling website, Melania Trump once bragged about her Aflac gig

Her MelaniaTrump.com website, which disappeared during her husband's presidential campaign, once read: 'Melania has appeared in numerous television commercials, most recently for Aflac, in which she stars with one of America's top icons, the Aflac duck.'

The insurance company's rep told Trump on Wednesday that because of the recent Republican tax cuts, it had deposited an extra $500 in every employee's 401(k) plan.

Aflac also raised the amount of retirement savings that the company will match dollar-for-dollar by an extra per cent.A Florida high school administrator was fired from Sarasota High School on Monday after a Snapchat video emerged showing her dancing with a 'drunk' 17-year-old student.

Rowena Short, 39, was spotted at a party with the student at the home of the Sarasota High School Assistant Principal.

The video shows the 17-year-old Riverview High School student appearing to drink alcohol while the administrator danced on the counter top above him.

Rowena Short, 39, has been fired from Sarasota High School after a Snapchat video surfaced showing her partying with a student

Short appears to bump the student in the head with her rear end.

The caption on the video says 'my girl'.

Deputies questioned the student on January 18 asking if he and Short had a prior relationship, according to the Bradenton Herald.

The student denied knowing Short and said he learned of the party through the '941 Party' on Snapchat, which he claims gives locations of parties in the area.

He said did not remember who gave him the alcohol because he was intoxicated.

The video shows a 17-year-old student appearing to drink alcohol while the administrator danced on the counter top above him

The party took place at 42-year-old Bethany King's residence, who has since been reassigned from her assistant principal duties as the school's office conducts an internal investigation.

The Sarasota County Sheriff's Office has said the incident is no longer under investigation and mo further action will be taken by law enforcement.

Short was five months into a six-month probationary period with the school when she was fired.

Deputies also spoke with the student's mother, who said 'it would be a stretch to think there was an inappropriate relationship' between Short and her son.

'The well-being of our students both on and off campus is important to us,' the district said in a release. 'We will continue to investigate this matter and will take necessary action as warranted when the internal investigation concludes.'He dismissed the allegations as 'something that happens in every second house'

Presided over the withdrawal of common assault charge against Lanz Priestley

A Sydney Magistrate who was slammed earlier this week for dismissing an alleged domestic assault has let off a backpacker who shoved a police officer at a Christmas Day brawl because 'there's nothing wrong with young people having a good time'.

Waverley Local Court Magistrate Michael Barko made headlines on Tuesday when he presided over a withdrawal of a common assault charge against former 'Mayor of Martin Place' Lanz Priestly.

Priestly had been charged with assaulting his former partner Nina Wilson by grabbing her and pushing her to the floor - but Magistrate Barko said his alleged actions were on 'the lower end of the scale' and described the physical contact as 'something that happens in every second house'.

On Wednesday, Mr Barko released Irish backpacker Aisling Cudden without conviction after she pleaded guilty to assaulting a police officer, according to the Daily Telegraph.

Scroll down for video

On Wednesday, Magistrate Michael Barko released Irish backpacker Aisling Cudden (pictured) without conviction after she pleaded guilty to assaulting a police officer

Mr Barko (left) described the push as 'an instinctive-type reaction' and told the court he knows young people 'want to go somewhere they can drink heavily, listen to loud music and disturb the peace' (pictured right is Cudden being arrested during the brawl)

Cudden was arrested on Christmas Day after residents complained about an uncontrollable party at Little Bay Beach, in Sydney's east (pictured)

The 25-year-old was arrested on Christmas Day after residents complained about an uncontrollable party at Little Bay Beach, in Sydney's east.

Violence erupted between partygoers and police began when officers tried to break up the celebration, which was being held in an alcohol-free zone.

Video footage shows some revellers throwing bottles in protest and Ms Cudden can be seen shoving an officer just moments before she was led away in handcuffs.

Violence erupted between partygoers and police began when officers tried to break up the celebration, which was being held in an alcohol-free zone (pictured)

Mr Barko described the push as 'an instinctive-type reaction' and told the court he knows young people 'want to go somewhere they can drink heavily, listen to loud music and disturb the peace'.

'There's nothing wrong with young people having a drink ... or a good time,' he said, according to The Daily Telegraph.

Police Association president Scott Weber told the publication he hopes the decision is appealed.Rose McGowan on Wednesday clapped back at Harvey Weinstein and his representatives after his attorney called her claims of rape against the disgraced Hollywood producer 'a bold lie.'

In a strongly-worded statement written in the third person, the actress and advocate slammed Weinsteins response as 'a sad, pathetic old-fashioned sexist attempt to undermine obvious truth.'

She added that attorney Ben Brafman's statement released on Tuesday accusing her of trying to smear Weinstein to promote her new book, Brave, unequivocally proves a continued attempt to malign, smear and "slut shame" Rose McGowan.

Rose McGowan, pictured in New York City on Wednesday with her boyfriend Josh Latin, hit out at Harvey Weinstein after hit lawyer called her rape claims 'a bold lie'

Not mincing words: The outspoken star followed up with this expletive-laden tweet directed at her nemesis

McGowan details her allegations against Weinstein in the memoir and E! docuseries Citizen Rose, both of which were released on Tuesday.

She said in the book that the producer forced himself on her during what began as a business meeting at the Sundance Film Festival in 1997.

During an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, McGowan said of Weinstein: 'He can fall off the planet. My statement is truth. My statement is reality. Stop saying it's consensual, you pig! You know it's not true.'

This week, McGowan appeared on several talk shows, including The View and Good Morning America, to discuss the alleged rape.

Weinstein's lawyer accused McGowan of trying to smear the producer to promote her new book, Brave (pictured on Tuesday)

Brafman's statement said Weinstein and his attorneys 'have refrained from publicly criticizing any of the women who have made allegations of sexual assault against Mr. Weinstein despite a wealth of evidence that would demonstrate the patent falsity of these claims.

'Watching the "performance" by Rose McGowan as she looks to promote her new book however, has made it impossible to remain quiet,' the statement said.

The attorney also cited correspondence from 'two witnesses' to corroborate his client's position: McGowan's former manager Jill Messick and Oscar winner Ben Affleck.

The statement released through crisis management firm Sitrick & Co. also included several photos of McGowan looking cordial with Weinstein at an industry event in 2005.

McGowan responded on Twitter late Tuesday by calling out Weinstein by name, which she had pointedly refrained from doing until then.

'It is you (who) did this to us,' she wrote.

The outspoken star followed up with another expletive-laden tweet that included a link to an article about Weinstein's attorney calling her claims a 'lie.'

First interviews: Rose McGowan said on The View (above) that Harvey Weinstein called her three days after her rape to tell the actress she was a 'special friend'

'F*** you you f***ing d****e bag loser from hell,' she wrote. 'You will burn. you will be an empty suit coffin. You go fall off the planet you f***.'

In her statement, McGowan called Weinsteins response an affront not only to Rose but to the hundreds of women who have come forward with their stories of harassment, sexual abuse and rape perpetrated by Mr. Weinstein and those like him.

Echoing Brafmans own words, McGowan said the performance is [Weinstein] and his complicity machine, and they are bad actors.

McGowan concluded by saying that Weinsteins attempts to discredit her is part of his 20 year long campaign to silence her, clearly proving he IS the monster so many women have described him to be.

Weinstein issued a statement Tuesday that quoted an alleged email from McGowan's former manager, saying that the actress had spoken of a consensual encounter with him.

'Mr. Weinstein denies Rose McGowans allegations of non-consensual sexual contact and it is erroneous and irresponsible to conflate claims of inappropriate behavior and consensual sexual contact later regretted, with an untrue claim of rape,' said Brafman.

'This allegation, like her others of being in the CIA and equating a red carpet with being raped, are unsupported. It was Ms. McGowan, and only Ms. McGowan, who chose to demand money from Mr. Weinstein; it was Ms. McGowan who later chose to work with Mr. Weinstein professionally, and it was Ms. McGowan who later elected to personally appear with Mr. Weinstein at his charity event in Cannes.'

During an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, McGowan said of Weinstein: 'He can fall off the planet'

When asked if she told anyone about her alleged assault, specifically her manager, McGowan said: 'Yes, but she got a job with him for seven years right afterwards.'

That was a reference to Jill Messick, who allegedly arranged the appointment between McGowan and Weinstein and later went on to take a job at Miramax as vice president for development.

It was also Messick who headed up the settlement talks according to the lawyers from Addis-Wechsler & Associates, who said that they were asked by her to meet with Weinstein.

McGowan spoke about telling Messick last year in an interview with The New York Times, claiming it was her manager and actor Ben Affleck who were two of the first to know that day.

'She held me. She put her arms around me,' said McGowan.

The actress also said she did not want to settle with Weinstein, something that Messick's assistant at the time confirmed to the paper.

'I remember that Rose was extremely upset and did not want to settle. She wanted to fight,' said Anne Woodward.

And, as McGowan has claimed many times in the past, every single person she encountered told her it was pointless to try and fight Weinstein.

'It was an emotionally shocking way to see a woman being treated,' said Woodward.

'Thats what stuck with me.'

Woodward said she was shocked when just a few months after the settlement her boss went to work for Weinstein.

'Everybody knew,' McGowan said earlier in the day while appearing on Good Morning America to promote her new memoir Brave.

She also revealed that on that same day she was being followed around the festival.

'There was a camera following me for MTV, a day in the life of Rose McGowan,' she told GMA host Robin Roberts.

'So that did turn out to be a day in the life Rose McGowan.'

Later in the interview she said that she believes there are far more Weinstein victims out there, telling Roberts: 'I would probably estimate there's got to be over a thousand [victims], maybe 2,000 because this is a lifelong career of rape for this man.'

'The machinery was set up in every country he would go to for the handlers to hand him the victims,' said McGowan.

'Starting with the agents and managers.'

She also tried to explain why she and so many other women would ever agree to audition in a hotel room, something many have criticized the women for by arguing they should have known better.

'One of the things people don't understand about the hotel room specifically is people think it's like you open the door and there is a bed. These are people with the entire presidential suite,' said McGowan.

'That means it's the entire top floor of a hotel. Usually three offices, and so it was not unusual, I've auditioned in many hotel rooms, the director comes and sits and that's how it goes.'

McGowan did not detail the actual assault as she does in Brave, but did describe the overall experience of the attack.

Indictment: The actress, 44, claims that 'everybody' knew about Weinstein's behavior, and alleges that 'managers and agents' passed young women his way (Weinstein and McGowan above at the Cannes Film Festival in 2005)

'A lot of victims and survivors will say they detach, you know, and you really do,' McGowan told Roberts.

'You float up above your body because you're trying to figure out - my brain was literally, when he grabbed me, I was thinking: Oh, I hope I still have lipstick on for the camera. So your brain is in another place and all of the sudden your body is like what, what, what.'

She then added: 'This is not what I expected at 10:00 in the morning.'

Soon after is when McGowan claims she told Ben Affleck, her co-star in the film Phantoms that was playing at the festival.

'I looked at him and I must have had tears in my eyes because I remember shaking and I said, "I just came from a meeting with him" and I said his name and he goes, that's when he said, "Goddamn it, I told him to stop doing that,"' said McGowan.

'It's like you file it away for a later date to pick through but you analyze every single move that happened and the complicity machine and I started hammering that word three years ago.'

McGowan went on to state that her goal now is to improve the world by 10 percent and enact real and positive change.

She also said that by telling her story she hopes to help others come forward or believe the stories they hear from victims rather than cast suspicion or question their claims.

'You know, nobody talks, but to me, the truth isn't revolutionary. It's just the truth and I figure if other people - I'm not that unique,' said McGowan.

'So if I'm thinking it, I'm pretty sure other people are thinking it, but a lot of people are like maybe this isn't real because there's such gas lighting in this culture.'

Speaking out: McGowan (above in 1997) details Harvey Weinstein's alleged assault of her at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival in her new memoir Brave

Mellow yellow: McGowan out strolling in new York City on Monday (above)

.@rosemcgowan on Harvey Weinstein: "Everybody knew...to me truth isn't revolutionary. It's just the truth....it was systemic." pic.twitter.com/M9G1OkYZK6  Good Morning America (@GMA) January 30, 2018

McGowan writes in Brave that she had an appointment Weinstein on the day of her assault, arriving at the designated hotel to learn her breakfast meeting had been moved to his hotel suite.

Once she got to the suite, she claims that Weinstein tore off her clothing, made her sit on the edge of the Jacuzzi in his suite and proceeded to perform oral sex on the actress while masturbating himself to completion.

'Mr. Weinstein denies Ms. McGowans allegations of non-consensual sexual contact,' said Weinstein's rep in a statement.

'Mr. Weinstein has further confirmed that there were never any acts of retaliation against any women for refusing his advances.'

Soon after this alleged assault, McGowan received a $100,000 settlement from the disgraced mogul.

'I freeze, like a statue,' writes McGowan of the moments just before the alleged assault.

Weinstein proceeded to strip naked according to McGowan, and directed her towards the Jacuzzi while ripping off her clothes.

She details how the encounter ended that day at the Stein Eriksen Lodge in Deer Valley, writing: 'He moans loudly; through my tears I see his semen floating on top of the bubble.'

McGowan's alleged attack was remarkably similar to the one Asia Argento claims she endured at the Cannes Film Festival just a few months later in 1997. Like Argento, McGowan writes that she faked having an orgasm in hopes of quickly ending the encounter.

Affleck had done his best to deny McGowan's claims about their conversation that day by avoiding or ignoring the question.

The topic last came up during an appearance on Today in December when Savannah Guthrie very bluntly asked if Affleck had been told by McGowan that she was raped by Weinstein.

It's here: Brave hits bookshelves on Tuesday

Affleck responded by completely avoiding the question, saying: 'I don't want to get into other people's individual stories. Those are their stories and they're entitled to tell as much or as little of those. I believe Rose. I support her. I like and admire her tenacity and I wish her the best.'

Those feelings are not mutual however, with McGowan briefly getting the boot from Twitter back in October when she wrote: 'Ben Affleck f*** off.'

It is unclear how much more she will reveal about Affleck or other stars in her memoir which hits bookshelves on Tuesday.

'Very few sex symbols escape Hollywood with their minds intact, if they manage to stay alive at all ,' McGowan writes at one point in the book.

She quickly took issue with the Times write-up of Brave.

'For most adult readers, it wont be much of a revelation that Hollywood trades in distortion and exploitation, writes Michelle Goldberg.

'But I hope Brave finds its way into the hands of teenage girls who may still look to actresses as they try to figure out how theyre supposed to be in the world.'

McGowan responded by tweeting: 'Yes, please, reduce my message to teenage girls. Thanks.'

McGowan found little help or support in the time after her alleged assault, with McGowan saying that her attorney told her no one would believe her in court while others 'counseled me to see it as something that would help my career in the long run.'

It did not help in the long run, with the actress' career reaching its height in 1999 with the cult classic Jawbreaker before she was relegated to television, where she starred in the highly profitable but 'deadening' drama series Charmed.

Her situation was further complicated by Weinstein's attacks on her to executives at other studios, according to McGowan.

'It seemed like every creep in Hollywood knew about my most vulnerable and violated moment,' Rose writes in the memoir.

'And I was the one who was punished for it. Her film career was 'derailed'.

It was the Times that reported last year about McGowan receiving a $100,000 settlement in the wake of the incident.

That settlement did not require her to sign an NDA, but McGowan very publicly threw caution to the wind in November by alleging on Twitter that Weinstein was her rapist.

Bumbling Benny: McGowan also reiterates her claim that she told Ben Affleck about the attack immediately after and he said: 'Goddamn it. I told him to stop doing that' (Affleck avoiding the question on Today in December)

McGowan also took aim at Roy Price around that time, days before he was ousted as head of Amazon Studio following allegations of sexual harassment that became public two years after they were first reported to executives.

The actress wrote on Twitter that Price had told her that her rape claims against Weinstein were not credible.

Price is friends with Weinstein and the two men also worked together on projects when they had jobs.

He responded to her comment by killing the project she was developing for the streaming giant, claimed McGowan.

'I told the head of your studio that HW raped me. Over & over I said it. He said it hadnt been proven. I said I was the proof,' said McGowan in a tweet directed at company founder Jeff Bezos.

'I had already sold a script I wrote to your studio, it was in development. When I heard a Weinstein bailout was in the works.'

She then added: 'I forcefully begged studio head to do the right thing. I was ignored. Deal was done. Amazon won a dirty Oscar.'

The actress was promoting the project earlier this month when she reveled that she might have to unload her $2million home in the Hollywood Hills to pay for the legal help she has been receiving ever since she began publicly speaking out against Harvey Weinstein late last year.

'I am having to sell my house right now to pay legal bills fighting off the monster,' said McGowan.These are the filing cabinets which held some of Australia's most sensitive secrets and were sold off at a second-hand shop in Canberra - with no-one thinking to check what was inside.

The revelations of the extraordinary cache of confidential cabinet documents, which was then leaked to the ABC, comes as the Turnbull government pushes sweeping changes to the nation's espionage and intelligence laws that could see those in possession of sensitive government information jailed for 20 years.

ASIO officers raided the ABC's bureaus at Parliament House and Brisbane at 1am on Thursday after it was revealed the public broadcaster had obtained thousands of top secret documents covering the inner workings of the past five federal governments.

The trove, which included national security briefs and Middle East defence plans, was sold for a 'small charge' at a pre-owned shop which stocked ex-government furniture in Canberra.

The cabinets, for which there was no key, sat in the store for months before the purchaser finally opened them with a drill.

These are the dodgy filing cabinets which held some of Australia's most sensitive secrets

ASIO officers raided the ABC's bureaus at Parliament House and Brisbane at 1am on Thursday, securing the documents in this safe

One theory is that they belonged to a bureaucrat who handled Freedom of Information requests, while another suggests the were owned by the The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

ASIO staff were on Thursday morning pictured securing the files, placing them in cardboard boxes and locking them into a safe.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said the person responsible for losing the documents will have serious questions to answer.

'Obviously someone's had a shocker and the investigation will find out exactly how this happened,' he told ABC radio on Wednesday.

The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet launched an urgent investigation.

The files contained top secret documents covering the inner workings of the past five federal governments

ASIO officers secured thousands of sensitive government cabinet documents at ABC offices in Canberra and Brisbane in the early hours of Thursday morning

The dramatic raids came as the government pushes for a major shake-up of Australia's treason laws to limit interference in the county's political system.

The laws will ban foreign political donations and establish a foreign influence transparency register.

A new offence of intentional foreign interference will make it a crime for a person to engage in conduct on behalf of a foreign principal that will influence a political or governmental process.

The offence of espionage will capture not only the passing on of information, but possessing and receiving it.

Appearing at a Canberra hearing examining proposed new laws, ASIO warned that Australia is facing an unprecedented level of foreign interference and espionage, worse than during the Cold War.

Officials said adversaries were generally known during the Cold War, whereas there is a raft of unknown players today.

'Whilst (the Cold War) was obviously a very busy time in that particular period in history, our assessment is it's not on the scale which we're experiencing today,' deputy director general Peter Vickery said on Wednesday.

'(Espionage and foreign influence) is not something we think might happen, or possibly could happen, it is happening now against Australian interests in Australia and Australian interests abroad.'

WHAT INFORMATION WAS LOCKED AWAY IN FILING CABINETS SOLD AT A SECOND-HAND SHOP? The documents show ASIO was told to delay security checks so asylum seekers would miss deadlines and be unable to receive permanent protection visas. They also reveal the National Security Committee under the Howard Government considered removing the right to remain silent under police questioning. One document points to an audit showing the Australian Federal Police lost almost 400 national security files over five years. The loss of the documents, which had been through the national security committee of cabinet between 2008 and 2013, was uncovered in an audit by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. The papers also included a document that stated 195 top-secret codeword-protected and sensitive documents had been left in the office of former Labor government minister Penny Wong when Labor lost the 2013 election. The documents which were left in the office - but not included in the old filing cabinets - included Middle East defence plans. They also included national security briefs, Afghan war updates, intelligence on Australia's neighbours and details of counter-terrorism operations. In another paper, it was revealed former Prime Minister Tony Abbott ignored legal advice when he handed over cabinet documents to the insulation royal commission. Advertisement

ASIO staff (left) are seen at ABC officers on Thursday morning. Barnaby Joyce said the person responsible for losing the documents will have serious questions to answer

At around 1am on Thursday, ASIO officers took a safe to the public broadcaster's bureaus at Parliament House and Brisbane

A treasure trove of secret and highly sensitive cabinet documents has been discovered in two second-hand filing cabinets bought at a Canberra auction (pictured is a stock image of Parliament House in Canberra)

Asked how concerned politicians should be about attempts to influence Australia's political systems, Mr Vickery said 'everybody should be alive to the possibility of it happening at a local, state and federal level'.

China expert Professor Clive Hamilton told the hearing that, while the draft laws are vital, media organisations fear the reforms could 'criminalise' journalism and unfairly punish those who are leaked documents with up to 20 years' jail.

Universities and the Catholic church are also worried they could be caught up in the changes, announced by the Turnbull government in December.

The attorney-general's department responded to claims the draft laws are too broad, and said it would not prohibit people from political debate but rather merely require registration if they were working with a foreign agent.

Officials insisted academic activity would only fall within the legislation if it was undertaken on behalf of a foreign principal and for the purpose of influencing a political process.Former prime minister Kevin Rudd has launched legal action against the ABC over its report alleging his Labor government ignored safety warnings about the home insulation scheme.

Mr Rudd said in a statement on Thursday the report based on a secret cabinet file was 'a lie' as the ABC offices in Canberra and Brisbane were visited by security officers on Wednesday night.

He rejected claims he ignored safety warnings saying the ABC report was based on a document relating to financial and administrative risks rather than safety concerns about the scheme.

Kevin Rudd has launched legal action against the ABC over a report which he claims was 'a lie'

The ABC says it will be working with the federal authorities to ensure the safety of the files

'The risks referred to in the cabinet document used in the ABC report refer to financial and administrative risks to the program for the Commonwealth, not safety risks to workers,' he said in a statement.

'The ABC was told of these facts before publication.

'For these reasons, legal proceedings against the Australian Broadcasting Corporation have now commenced.'

Mr Rudd also said the document referred to by the ABC was considered by the Royal Commission into the Home Insulation Program in 2014.

'Having seen this document, and all other relevant cabinet papers, the royal commission concluded that there was no findings to be made against me,' he said.

The ABC said it would not comment on the news of Mr Rudd launching legal action against it.

Boxes were taken away after the files were found in a cabinet a second hand store in Canberra

The cabinet document was part of a trove of papers, some classified 'top secret', found in a filing cabinet sold cheaply at a second-hand shop in Canberra stocking ex-government furniture.

The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet has launched an urgent investigation and ASIO early on Thursday morning visited the ABC offices in Parliament House and Brisbane to deliver a safe to secure the papers.

ABC director of news Gaven Morris said: "The ABCs priority always is to protect and ensure the integrity of our reporting.

"The ABC is working in cooperation with the Federal Government and relevant authorities to ensure the Cabinet files are secure.

Security services raided the offices of the ABC in Brisbane and Canberra on Wednesday night

"ASIO officers delivered safes to ABC offices in Canberra and Brisbane overnight. This was not a raid."

The so-called pink batts royal commission was established by the then-Abbott coalition government in response to the deaths of four installers employed by companies that delivered the $2.7 billion Labor program.

It was part of an overall national economic stimulus package set up in the wake of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis.A pervert father, 55, found with almost 2,000 images depicting naked female children as young as five, has avoided jail time.

John Rodney Powell appeared in the Bundaberg District Court on Monday on child exploitation material charges  which carries a maximum 14 years in prison.

Images of naked girls aged between 5 and 12-years-old were uncovered on Powell's laptop by the police on November 4, 2016.

When Powell's laptop was seized, the police discovered 1916 images of naked children, 1897 of which were in the least serious category.

John Rodney Powell appeared in the Bundaberg District Court (pictured) on Monday on child exploitation material charges  which carries a maximum 14 years in prison

Judge Brendan Butler said 'any images are most concerning children have been exploited to obtain these images'.

'By accessing this material you're contributing to this market,' he said.

The court heard Powell was under a huge amount of financial stress at the time, and had expressed significant remorse and shame for his offending.

As a result of the charges, his relationship of 10 years broke down and he could only have limited time with his children, theNews Mail reported.

Judge Butler handed the 55-year-old father a 15-month jail sentence, wholly suspended.

The district court judge said there were no allegations of distribution or a commercial aspect to Powell's charges.

When Powell's laptop was seized, the police discovered 1916 images of naked children, 1897 of which were in the least serious category (stock)

In sentencing, Judge Butler also considered Powell's lack of similar offending.

He also took into consideration Powell's depression  a mental illness he only recently started getting treatment for.

Judge Butler told Powell it was 'likely your depression contributed to your lack of restraint in offending'.

He said Powell had taken steps to rehabilitate himself and was unlikely to re-offend.The body of Amelia Blake, 22, returned home to the UK today following a 24-hour flight from Sydney

There were emotional scenes at Manchester Airport this afternoon as the devastated parents of tragic Amelia Blake met her coffin which had been carried aboard a 24-hour flight from Sydney.

Builder Chris and secretary Sharon were 'beside themselves with grief' as they endured the painful ordeal, a family friend said.

Ms Blake, 22, whose parents previously paid tribute to her as 'a beautiful girl' who will be 'truly missed', died nearly three weeks ago on January 12.

The popular former student who had been travelling in Oz for eight months had been planning to leave the country in the New Year to visit Thailand before coming home.

The family friend said: 'Amelia's body was repatriated this afternoon at about 4pm. Her parents were at Manchester airport. There were heartbreaking scenes.

'Instead of greeting their beaming daughter at the end of her months-long adventure they were confronted with her coffin. It is unimaginable.

'Amelia had been fulfilling her dream of travelling the world before settling down to a career and she had decided to come home in a matter of weeks before her life was brutally and cruelly cut short.'

Amelia's parents and younger sister Lola, 20, from Loughborough, Leics, were too distraught to travel to Sydney to bring her body home.

Ms Blake is thought to have been killed by her obsessed boyfriend Brazil Gurung, 33, who was furious about her leaving the country, where she had been travelling (pictured)

Ms Blake, who had a younger sister, Lola, 20, died inside the unit (pictured) she shared with Gurung on King Street in Newtown, in Sydney's inner-west, on December 12

She was found dead in a suspected murder-suicide by an obsessed Nepalese boyfriend who was furious she was leaving the country.

Her body was heavily wounded in her partner's Sydney apartment and she had suffered appalling head injuries.

Brazil Gurung, 33, described by pals as 'a weirdo' had become infatuated with her and had demanded money from her to fund his drug habit.

Police believe he killed Amelia before taking his own life. A landlord discovered their bodies in a flat above a Persian restaurant. Her funeral is expected to be held within days.

The mother of Amelia's best friend told how she'd been 'so looking forward' to seeing her family on her planned return home.

After nearly a year enjoying her passion for travelling, the former Loughborough College psychology student had decided to come home to her close-knit family and friend.

The local pal's mum said: 'She was coming home. But she made the wrong decision with her choice of friend. He wasn't even a boyfriend, just a mate she worked with and hung out with but heartbreakingly it cost her her life. She was unlucky. Her parents are absolutely devastated.'

Gurung pictured in an undated social media photo

In a statement released by the Foreign Office after her death, Amelia's family said: 'We are deeply shocked and saddened by the sudden passing of our much loved daughter and sister Amelia, who will be truly missed by all who knew her.

'We would like to thank everyone for the love and support shown to our family.

'As we try to come to terms with losing our beautiful girl, we would very much appreciate privacy at this extremely difficult time.'

They released a favourite recent photo of Amelia cuddling a koala bear epitomising her love for Australia.

The adventure-seeker and her suspected killer had met at popular eaterie Fogo Brazilia Churrasco where she was working as waitress to help pay for her travels and he had a job as a chef.

Amelia had been 'desperate to go off travelling and see the world,' her neighbour Jemma Bagley said.

She told MailOnline: 'She used to have a boyfriend here but they split up when she went off travelling last spring.

'She had wanderlust and wanted to get it out of her system before settling down or getting struck into a career.

'She was a lovely, bright girl and this is such a terrible shock.'

Ms Blake (front) was found dead in her tiny Newtown flat in Sydney's inner-west, alongside the body of her older Nepalese boyfriend

Amelia's father works for William Davis, one of the Midlands' leading house developers, while her mother is and secretary for a reputable scientific, research and development company.

They have lived in the same comfortable semi-detached house for at least 20 years.

Another neighbour told how Amelia had been working at an optician to help fund her trip.

He said: 'This is the most awful tragedy. I've known the family for a long time and losing Amelia, who was a very pleasant and delightful young lady, will be very difficult to cope with. It is truly devastating and our hearts go out to them.'

Friend Ellie Mackness, remembered Ms Blake for her infectious smile and down-to-earth attitude

Tributes have been flooding in for the young Brit with one friend writing: 'In the short space of time that I knew Amelia, we hit it off straight away, became so close and great friends. I don't think I'll ever believe it and am in complete shock.'

Another close pal Rhys James Collington, said Ms Blake died while 'living the dream travelling round Australia.'

He added: 'She was a beautiful, kind woman with a big heart full of kindness.'

The Foreign Office refused to discuss Amelia repatriation to the UK. A spokesperson said: 'We are unable to provide details on repatriation as this process is undertaken privately by the deceased's next of kin, typically in conjunction with their insurance provider or funeral director.'A huge fire has broken out at a former school with 15 fire engines tackling the flames and residents told to keep their windows and doors shut.

Firefighters were called to the former Eston Park Academy in Teesside at 7.15pm are fighting the inferno of three hoses and a hydraulic platform.

Surrounding roads have been shut and members of the public have been advised to avoid the area.

Firefighters were called to the former Eston Park Academy in Teesside at 7.15pm are fighting the inferno of three hoses and a hydraulic platform

Initial enquiries suggest no one was inside the building at the time and it is not yet clear how the fire started

Initial enquiries suggest no one was inside the building at the time and it is not yet clear how the fire started.

Hannah Griffiths, 20, and Kelsey Nettleton, 21, attended the school before leaving in 2013.

Miss Griffiths told Gazette Live: 'It's sad. You make so many memories in school. I know it was going to get knocked down but it is awful to see it go like this.'

Her friend agreed adding: 'It has been derelict for a long time. When I drive past the windows have all been broken and the curtains flapping in the wind.

Surrounding roads have been shut and members of the public have been advised to avoid the area

A Cleveland Fire Service spokesman said: 'We are currently attending a large fire at Eston Park Academy, on Burns Road in Eston'

A Cleveland Fire Brigade spokesman said: 'We are currently attending a large fire at Eston Park Academy, on Burns Road in Eston.

'Our firefighters will be at the incident throughout the night.

'To ensure your safety we ask that you stay clear of the area! For your own safety please stay clear of the Burns Road area of Eston!'FROM LEFT:

'Dreamer' Astrid Silva - For nearly a decade Silva has been the face of the 'Dreamers,' inspiring both former Democratic leader and ex-President Barack Obama to act. She was involved in Hillary Clinton's campaign and spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Silva gave the Spanish language Democratic response to President Trump's joint address before Congress last year. She's the guest of Ruben J. Kihuen, a Democrat from her native Nevada.

'Dreamer' Aldo Solano - Solano works for the Oregon Latino Health Coalition and is going to the State of the Union in Rep. Earl Blumenauer's stead. Blumenauer is one of 13 Democrats boycotting the speech. Like Silva, he benefited from President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which President Trump nixed.

Staff Sgt. Patricia King - Rep. Joe Kennedy III, Democrat from Connecticut, is bringing King, a transgender servicemember, as his guest to protest President Trump's proposed trans military ban. Kennedy will also be giving the Democratic response to tonight's speech.

Cindy Garcia - Garcia's spouse Jorge was deported to Mexico in mid-January thanks to Trump administration policies. He was too old to apply for DACA, despite coming to the U.S. at the age of 10. She'll be the guest of Michigan Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell.

Jean Bradley Derenoncourt - Derenoncourt is a Haitian immigrant who came to the U.S. in 2010 after the disastrous earthquake in Haiti that year. He became an American citizen in 2016 and serves as a city council member in Brockton, Massachusetts. He's the guest of Sen. Elizabeth Warren who took offense to President Trump's comments that Haiti - among other places - represented a 's***hole.'

Travis Moore - Moore is a former Capitol Hill staffer who led the effort to get lawmakers to reevaluate how sexual harassment and assault is reported. He's the guest of Rep. Jackie Speier who has been leading a similar charge to change things as a lawmaker.

Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz - Cruz, the feisty mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, sparred with President Trump through hurricane season as the island was hurting for medical supplies, power, water and food. She's the guest of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand who has also had public spats with Trump.

Rose Gunter - Gunter is the niece of the late Recy Taylor, whose being honored by Democrats at the State of the Union this year. The late Taylor, a black woman, was gang-raped by six white men in 1944. When a white jury refused to indict them, Taylor's story helped inspire the civil rights movement. While she died last month, she received a shout-out from Oprah Winfrey at the Golden Globes. Gunter is the guest of Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey.

Danielle McGuire - McGuire's 2010 book 'At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance  A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power' brought Recy Taylor's story back to life years before Oprah Winfrey's 2018 Golden Globes speech. The Detroit-based author is the guest of Rep. Brenda Lawrence of Michigan.A shocking poll has revealed 250,000 women in Britain have been offered free or reduced rent in exchange for sexual favours in the past five years.

The survey, carried out by YouGov for housing charity Shelter, found 140,000 prospective female tenants had been propositioned in the past year alone.

One tenant described being sent a text after viewing a flat offering her the property on the basis she would perform 'very explicit sexual acts' in exchange.

Another reported having a landlord 'showing up nightly, sitting in my bedroom and refusing to leave'. A third described how the owner made a sexual pass at her while his wife was asleep upstairs.

The poll, published in The Times, follows reports of online classified advertisements offering accommodation in return for sexual favours.

Many female tenants said they had been the victim of 'sexual harassment' including 'uninvited touching (arm around shoulders), creepy behaviour' and the landlord entering their bedrooms while they were naked.

According to the results, 3 per cent of female renters had been offered 'sex for rent' in the past year equivalent to 139,314 women, and a further 3 per cent in the past five years, equivalent to 259,149.Beef is going back on the menu

Premier Li Keqiang told a press conference after the talks that China would open up its markets to UK products - including agricultural products.

British beef is expected to be back on the menu in China within six months as a result - decades after it was barred as a result of the BSE scare.

They want to enhance the 'Golden Era'

Mrs May said she was pleased that they had agreed to intensify the 'Golden Era' in the UK-China relationship.

The PM said 'much progress' had been made in UK-China relations since the state visit of President Xi to Britain in 2015.

Mr Li said it might be 'winter' in Beijing but it was 'springtime' for ties between the nations.

Brexit will not damage relations

Mr Li said Britain's decision to leave the EU would make no difference to the bilateral relationship.

Premier Li said: 'Our relationship will not change with the changes of EU-UK relations.

'We will have assessment and discussion on our trade relationship to make our economic and trade relationship go forward.'

Mrs May added that Britain would be more 'outward looking' after leaving the EU. 'We are committed to building on our deep and mature ties,' she said. 'We believe that is in the best interests of the UK.'

North Korea sanctions

Mr Li said they had agreed effective implementation of sanctions against North Korea was essential.

'We agree that its pursuit of nuclear and ballistic missile programmes is illegal, reckless and poses an unacceptable threat to international security,' she said.

'We have agreed that the full and effective implementation of UN Security sanctions is vital to persuade the North Korean regime to change course and abandon its illegal activity.'London has earned its reputation as the divorce capital of the world following a series of huge pay-outs in favour of the 'financially weaker spouse'.

The nickname - cemented by an emphasis on full disclosure from both parties - has encouraged foreign-born spouses to seek divorce settlements in London, rather than their home country.

Another reason for taking legal action in London is the fact that English courts have the discretion to decide on a case-by-case basis whether prenuptial agreements are binding.

In 2012, The Times found that a sixth of divorce cases heard by English courts involved foreign nationals. Of the cases where huge sums were involved, around half are thought to involve international couples.

Ayesha Vardag, a lawyer who has represented a number of wealthy clients in high-profile divorce battles, said: 'The principle that there is no discrimination between breadwinner and homemaker is the cornerstone of why the English jurisdiction is seen as a particularly fair one for the financially weaker spouse.'

MailOnline takes a look at some of the biggest divorce payouts...

Farkhad Akhmedov, a Russian energy tycoon

1. Akhmedov v Akhmedova - 453million

Tatiana Akhmedova was given a 41.5% share of Farkhad Akhmedov's 1billion-plus fortune following a London divorce court money fight.

News of Ms Akhmedova's payout emerged during the summer of 2017 following a hearing in the Family Division of the High Court in London overseen by a High Court judge.

Mr Justice Haddon-Cave revealed detail of the case in a written ruling published on a legal website.

His award was thought to be the biggest made by a divorce court judge in England.

However, the ruling has been challenged through an appeal.

2. Cooper v Hohn - 337m

The case of philanthropists Sir Christopher Hohn and Jamie Cooper was concluded by Mrs Justice Roberts in December 2014.

The husband was successful in his argument for 'special contribution' and the judge departed from equality to award the wife 337 million, 36 per cent of the overall total assets.

In June 2017 Sir Geoffrey Vos then ordered Sir Christopher to make a payment of 282 million from his charity into his ex-wife's own foundation.

3. Estrada v Juffali - 75m

The divorce between model Christina Estrada and Saudi billionaire Walid Juffali was finalised by Mrs Justice Roberts in June 2016.

The case was notable for the consideration of the couple's 'stratospheric' standard of living and Juffali's Islamic marriage to a second wife in 2012.

Mr Juffali had previously tried to avoid the proceedings through a 'spurious' assertion of diplomatic immunity.

The divorce between model Christina Estrada and Saudi billionaire Walid Juffali was finalised by Mrs Justice Roberts in June 2016

4. WM v HM - 73m

Mr Justice Mostyn presided over the case of WM v HM in May 2017. The husband's claim for 'special contribution' was dismissed and the wife was awarded 73 million.

The case was also interesting for Mostyn J's words on valuing a business in hindsight.

Former Miss Malaysia beauty queen Pauline Chai wanted around 100m from ex-husband Khoo Kay Peng following the breakdown of their 42-year marriage

5. Chai v Peng 64.5m

Former Miss Malaysia beauty queen Pauline Chai wanted around 100m from ex-husband Khoo Kay Peng following the breakdown of their 42-year marriage.

Dr Khoo, non-executive chairman of Laura Ashley Holdings, said she should pocket about 9m.

After analysing the evidence at the trial at the High Court in London, Mr Justice Bodey announced his decision last year that Ms Chai should get a 64m package made up of cash and property.

6. Al-Baker v Al-Baker 61m

The judgment for the multinational case of Sarah Al-Baker v Abdul Amir Al-Baker was handed down in October 2016 by Mr Nicholas Cusworth QC.

The case which stretched between civil and religious courts was remarkable because of the husband's consistent non-compliance and non-disclosure which resulted in the wife being awarded 61 million.

7. M v M - 54m

Mrs Justice Eleanor King DBE presided over the case of M v M in August 2013, resulting in the wife being awarded 54m.

Owing to the Russian couple's marital assets being tied up in offshore trusts, the case had an extra five respondents.

8. Charman v Charman - 48m

In 2006 Beverley Charman, the former wife of insurance magnate John Charman was awarded a 48million settlement by the English courts in proceedings which took two years.

Mr Charman appealed the decision but the pay out, which made legal history at the time, was upheld in 2007.

9. Sorrell v Sorrell - 30m

The case of Lady Sorrell v Sir Martin Sorrell was heard by Mr Justice Bennett in July 2005.

This is one of the rare cases where a husband successfully argued 'special contribution', which led to Lady Sorrell being awarded 30million, a 60/40 split of the marital assets.

The acrimonious split saw the head of advertising group WPP living for a time in the basement of their Knightsbridge townhouse.

In the divorce settlement, she also got two parking spaces at Harrods.

10. Young v Young 20m (6m costs)

Mr Justice Moor handed down the judgment for Young v Young in November 2013.

Michelle and Scot Young were involved in a particularly public divorce battle where, though he was legally bankrupt, the wife insisted that the husband had thousands or millions hidden offshore.

Ultimately, the wife was awarded 20 million and the husband was ordered to pay 6 million - believed to be the highest costs order in family law history.

Michelle and Scot Young were involved in a particularly public divorce battle where, though he was legally bankrupt, the wife insisted that the husband had thousands or millions hidden offshore

Many divorces do not end up in court, such as the 2008 split of Formula One tycoon Bernie Ecclestone and his wife, Slavica, who got a settlement estimated at 790million.The idea of an armoured vehicle to be used in battle goes back to at least the Renaissance.

Florentine polymath Leonardo Da Vinci is often credited with the first viable plan for a tank.

And in the 15th century, a Czech general named Jan Zizka reportedly employed armoured wagons containing cannons during battles.

But the weapon as we know it was first put onto the battlefield in 1916 during the Battle of the Somme - and was designed as a means of breaking through fortified trenches.

The weapon as we know it was first put onto the battlefield in 1916 during the Battle of the Somme. Pictured: The Mark I tank

Named the Mark I, the tank was extremely simple compared to modern designs.

Just 32 of the new vehicles were deployed during the Somme and they achieved only minor successes.

A year later, at the Battle of Cambrai, tanks made their first major impact in warfare.

The British deployed 476 of the armoured vehicles against the Germans to great effect, but failed to exploit the victory.

During the Second World War, however, the tank became crucial to warfare.

The main Soviet tank during the Battle of Kursk was the T-34 (pictured), which was first produced in 1940. It had a 76.2mm gun and could travel at 33mph

The most famous of the Allies' tanks was the M4 Sherman (pictured), a medium tank produced by the United States

One of the Allies' adversaries was the legendary Tiger I tank (pictured), which had an 88mm main gun and top speed of 28.2mph

The Nazi Blitzkrieg - or 'lightning war' - strategy depended on heavy armour penetrating deep into enemy territory with support from the air as a means of encircling opposing forces.

The conflict saw the engagement of perhaps the most famous tanks in history - including American Sherman, Russian T-34 and German Tigers.

In 1943, during the Battle of Kursk, over 8,000 Nazi and Soviet tanks went head to head in the biggest tank battle in history.

The main Soviet tank was the T-34, which was first produced in 1940. It had a 76.2mm gun and could travel at 33mph.

One of its adversaries was the legendary Tiger I tank, which had an 88mm main gun and top speed of 28.2mph.

The Nazis also produced the Tiger II heavy tank, of which only 492 were made.

Its armour was up to 185mm thick alongside an 88mm gun and it wreaked havoc when first deployed against the Allies at Normandy in 1944.

The Abrams is a third generation tank - with the first and second generations broadly corresponding to the Second World War and earlier Cold War - and comes with hull armour as tick as 700mm

The most famous of the Allies' tanks was the M4 Sherman, a medium tank produced by the United States.

It had up to 178mm of armour and a 75mm M3 gun, making it one of the most popular tanks of the time (49,234 were built in total).

After the Second World War, the Cold War spurred continued development of the tank - which became heavier, larger and much better armoured.

Guns also grew bigger and were given more sophisticated targeting technology.

Tanks were also given new kinds of weapons - like the US M551 Sheridan (first built in 1969), which was equipped with MGM-51 Shillelagh anti-tank guided missiles.

One of the tanks considered to represent a significant development in technology, however, is the Russian T-14 Armata (pictured)

As the Cold War progressed - in 1979 - the US produced the M1 Abrams main battle tank, which remains in use to this day.

The Abrams M1 is a third generation tank - with the first and second generations broadly corresponding to the Second World War and earlier Cold War - and comes with hull armour as thick as 700mm.

The earliest models feature a 105mm main gun and are capable of travelling at about 45mph.

Later models - including the M1A1 and M1A2 - come with 120mm guns.

The future of tanks - the fourth generation - is currently uncertain.

One of the tanks considered to represent a significant development in technology, however, is the Russian T-14 Armata.

A main battle tank, the T-14 was first produced in 2015. It has 900mm of armour and a 125mm gun while being able to travel at up to 56mph.Parliament is in desperate need for major renovation works - prompting questions about where MPs will go when the work is being carried out.

Here are some of the options:

Floating Parliament:

One of the more eye-catching suggestions is to build a glass barge on the River Thames and have MPs and Lords move in there.

Under the plans, the rebuilding of the Commons and Lords chambers would have seen floating buildings spanning the full width of the river.

Move into Richmond House

MPs would leave Parliament and move into a glass replica of the Commons Chamber in the courtyard of Richmond House, the old Department of Health building around the corner.

This is seen as the most likely option as the parliamentary authorities have already started work on it.

Go on tour:

Many MPs have called for Parliament to be taken on tour while the building work is going on.

This could either mean decamping to a major city like Birmingham and Manchester for a period, or travelling between different towns and cities across the UK.

Although this is seen s pricey and probably impracticable.

Move into the Lords

MPs eager that they stay on the estate have suggested that unelected peers are moved while the major works are undertaken and that MPs will move into the Lords instead.

Rebuild the Commons Chamber in Portcullis House

A new proposal would see the new extension which currently houses cafes, turned into a Commons Chamber while renovation is carried out in the older parts of the site.

Many Tory MPs keen to stay in Westminster have backed this new suggestion.

Move into Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre

Another 'sensible option', this would see MPs move the conference centre across the road in Westminster.Hundreds of letters claiming to have been written by 'Jack the Ripper' were sent to the media and the London Police following the brutal Whitechapel murders of 1888.

These letters have long been a mystery, with many suspecting they were faked by journalists to sell more newspapers.

Now, a scientist has provided some new evidence that suggests the letters were, in fact, fakes.

The study focused on the 'Dear Boss' letter, in which the name Jack the Ripper appears for the first time, and the 'Saucy Jacky' postcard.

It found similar linguistic constructions in both letters, such as the phrasal verb 'to keep back', as well as similarities in the handwriting.

They also used distinctive phrases, such as 'work' for killing and the use as 'ha ha'.

Both letters also have a likeness to a third text long thought to be a hoax, known as the 'Moab and Midian' letter.

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Two famous examples of letters supposedly written by Jack the Ripper were penned by the same person, new research has found. The use of the phrasal verb 'to keep back' to mean 'to withhold' (circled in red) appears in Ripper's 'Dear Boss' (left) and 'Saucy Jack' (right) letters

Jack the Ripper is thought to have killed at least five young women in Whitechapel, east London, over the course of three months, but was never caught.

The police started to publish letters allegedly from Jack the Ripper after receiving the first four, which encouraged hoaxers to send copycat letters claiming to be written by the killer.

Dr Andrea Nini, from the University of Manchester, undertook a 'cluster analysis' of 209 letters linked to the Ripper, studying similarities in the documents' text.

The 'Dear Boss' letter and 'Saucy Jacky' postcard stood out due to the striking similarities.

Similarities between the two texts include the use of the phrasal verb 'to keep back' mean 'to withhold'.

The Dear Boss letter, scrawled in red ink, was received by the Central News Agency in London on September 27, 1888, and forwarded to Scotland Yard.

'Saucy Jacky' was used as a reference to the killer in a postcard received by the Central News Agency on October 1, 1888.

WHAT WAS WRITTEN IN JACK THE RIPPER'S 'DEAR BOSS' LETTER? Jack the Ripper's 'Dear Boss' letter, scrawled in red ink, was received by the Central News Agency in London on September 27, 1888, and forwarded to Scotland Yard. It was the first letter received by police in which in the 'Jack the Ripper' nickname was written. The letter read: 'Dear Boss, 'I keep on hearing the police have caught me but they wont fix me just yet. 'I have laughed when they look so clever and talk about being on the right track. 'That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits. I am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled. 'Grand work the last job was. I gave the lady no time to squeal. 'How can they catch me now. I love my work and want to start again. 'You will soon hear of me with my funny little games. 'I saved some of the proper red stuff in a ginger beer bottle over the last job to write with but it went thick like glue and I can't use it. 'Red ink is fit enough I hope ha. ha. The next job I do I shall clip the ladys ears off and send to the police officers just for jolly, wouldn't you? 'Keep this letter back till I do a bit more work, then give it out straight. 'My knife's so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance. 'Good Luck. 'Yours truly, Jack the Ripper 'Don't mind me giving the trade name 'PS Wasn't good enough to post this before I got all the red ink off my hands curse it. No luck yet. They say I'm a doctor now. ha ha'. Because so many hoax letters were received by Scotland Yard, the press and others, it is not known definitively if this was an authentic letter written by the Whitechapel killer. Jack the Ripper's 'Dear Boss' letter, scrawled in red ink, was received by the Central News Agency in London on September 27, 1888, and forwarded to Scotland Yard. It was the first letter received by police in which in the 'Jack the Ripper' nickname was written Advertisement

The murderer is thought to have killed at least five young women in Whitechapel, east London , over the course of three months, but was never caught. Pictured is an 1889 artist's impression of a fictitious scene in which the Ripper is caught grasping the hair of one of his victims

A researcher has revealed that two of the most famous examples of the Ripper's letters were penned by the same person. One of the texts, the 'Dear Boss' letter (pictured), was the first to sign off with 'Jack the Ripper'

Jack the Ripper is thought to have killed at least five young women in Whitechapel, East London, in 1888

Using modern linguistic techniques to analyse the letters, Dr Nini uncovered certain shared distinctive linguistic constructions in the two early texts.

'My conclusion is that there is very strong linguistic evidence that these two texts were written by the same person,' he said.

'People in the past had already expressed this tentative conclusion, on the basis of similarity of handwriting, but this had not been established with certainty.'

Dr Nini also found evidence that a link exists between these letters and another of the key texts in the case, the 'Moab and Midian' letter.

Many people believe the text was a hoax created by the Central News Agency.

Dr Nini said: 'In addition to the historical value of my findings, they could help forensic linguists to better understand the important issue of individuality in linguistic production.

'Since all the hoaxers tried to mimic the style of the original 'Jack the Ripper', we can use the database of the letters to understand how people fake writing style - and how successful they are at imitation.

'The results indicate that it is very difficult to do so.'

This study doesn't identify the killer, or the author of the two letters, but it does seem to back up the journalist theory.

'There's historical evidence that points to the journalist theory for the earliest ones ('Dear Boss' and 'Saucy Jacky') and, since this 'Moab and Midian' letter might have been entirely fabricated at the Central News Agencythe original [document] was never found or sent to the policeif the linguistic evidence supports that this was the same author as the Dear Boss and Saucy Jacky then we could argue that the linguistic evidence does support to the journalist theory,' Nini told Gizmodo.

'However, this is a conclusion that should be reached by the historians, not the linguists.'

More than 200 letters were sent to media and officials during the spree, but the police started to publish them after the first four were received. This encouraged hoaxers to send copycat letters claiming to be written by the killer. Pictured is the Dear Boss letter published by police

From hell: The infamous serial killer who terrorised Victorian London Jack the Ripper is thought to have killed at least five young women in Whitechapel, East London, between September and November 1888, but was never caught. Numerous individuals have been accused of being the serial killer. At the time, police suspected the Ripper must have been a butcher, due to the way his victims were killed and the fact they were discovered near to the dockyards, where meat was brought into the city. There are several alleged links between the killer and royals. First is Sir William Gull, the royal physician. Many have accused him of helping get rid of the alleged prostitutes' bodies, while others claim he was the Ripper himself. A page from the Illustrated Police News page covering the murders of Jack the Ripper A book has named Queen Victoria's surgeon Sir John Williams as the infamous killer. He had a surgery in Whitechapel at the time. Another theory links the murders with Queen Victoria's grandson, Prince Albert Victor, the Duke of Clarence. At one point, cotton merchant James Maybrick was the number one suspect, following the publication of some of his diary which appeared to suggest he was the killer. Some believe the diary to be a forgery, although no one has been able to suggest who forged it. Other suspects include Montague John Druitt, a Dorset-born barrister. He killed himself in the Thames seven weeks after the last murder. George Chapman, otherwise known as Severyn Kosowski, is also a suspect after he poisoned three of his wives and was hanged in 1903. Jack the Ripper is thought to have killed at least five young women in Whitechapel, East London, between September and November 1888 Another suspected by police was Aaron Kosminski. He was admitted to Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum and died there. Dr Thomas Neill Cream poisoned four London prostitutes with strychnine and was hanged in 1892. Some of the more bizarre links include Lewis Carroll, author of the Alice in Wonderland books, who taught at Christ Church until 1881 - which was at the forefront of the Ripper murder scenery. Winston Churchill's father - Lord Randolph Churchill - has also been named as a potential suspect. Crime writer Patricia Cornwell believes she has 'cracked' the case by unearthing evidence that confirms Walter Sickert, an influential artist, as the prime suspect. Her theories have not been generally accepted. Author William J Perring raised the possibility that Jack the Ripper might actually be 'Julia' - a Salvation Army soldier. In The Seduction Of Mary Kelly, his novel about the life and times of the final victim, he suggests Jack the Ripper was in fact a woman. Police discovering the body of one of Jack the Ripper's victims, probably Catherine Eddowes In February 2019, it was suggested that Jack the Ripper may have been a sinister Dutch sailor who murdered two ex-wives in his homeland and bludgeoned to death two other women in Belgium. Crime historian Dr Jan Bondeson has named Hendrik de Jong as a prime suspect for the most notorious set of unsolved murders in history. At the time of the Whitechapel murders, de Jong is believed to have worked as a steward on board a ship which made frequent trips from Rotterdam to London, providing him with the perfect means of getting out of the country after his heinous crimes. He later murdered two of his ex-wives in his native Netherlands in 1893 and bludgeoned to death two women above a pub before attempting to set their bodies on fire in Belgium in 1898. AdvertisementDaniel Baker, from the University of Colorado, Boulder, says that parts of the planet will become uninhabitable during a reversal

If this happens, solar winds could punch holes into the Earth's ozone layer

This could be a sign that the planet's north and south poles are about to flip

Earth's magnetic field has weakened by 15 per cent over the last 200 years

The Earth has a fierce molten core that generates a magnetic field capable of defending our planet against devastating solar winds.

The protective field extends thousands of miles into space and its magnetism affects everything from auroras to power grids.

But this field, so important to life on Earth, has weakened by around 15 per cent over the last 200 years.

And this, scientists claim, could be a sign that the Earths poles are about to flip.

In a new report, Daniel Baker, director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, claims there are signs of a reversal.

He says if this reversal happens, it is likely to render some areas of the planet 'uninhabitable' by knocking out power grids.

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The movement of the Earth's magnetic poles are shown in this animation at 10-year intervals from 1970 to 2020. The red and blue lines sjpw the difference between magnetic north and true north depending on where you are standing. On the green line, a compass would point to true north. Credit: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information

His comments were made in an in-depth Undark report written by Alanna Mitchell, who has a new book about the topic titled 'The Spinning Magnet: The Electromagnetic Force that Created the Modern World and Could Destroy It',

Mitchell writes: 'The dangers: devastating streams of particles from the sun, galactic cosmic rays, and enhanced ultraviolet B rays from a radiation-damaged ozone layer, to name just a few of the invisible forces that could harm or kill living creatures.'

Historically, Earths North and South magnetic poles have flipped every 200,000 or 300,000 years.

However a flip is currently overdue as the last one was about 780,000 year ago.

The latest satellite data, from the European Space Agencys Swarm trio which monitors the Earth's magnetic field, suggests a flip may be imminent.

This animation shows how the magnetic field is weakening over South America, and the red area over North America is losing strength. The blue lines here indicate a weaker magnetic field, while the red lines show a stronger one, and the green line indicated the boundary between them, at 10-year intervals from 1910 to 2020. Credit: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information

The satellites allow researchers to study changes building at the Earths core.

Their studies suggest molten iron and nickel are draining energy out of the core near where the magnetic field is generated.

While scientists aren't sure exactly why this happens, they describe the type of 'restless activity' that could suggest the magnetic field is preparing to flip.

If a switch happens, we would be exposed to solar winds capable of punching holes into the ozone layer.

The Earth's protective field extends thousands of miles into space and its magnetism affects everything from global communication to animal migration and weather patterns

WHAT COULD HAPPEN TO EARTH IF ITS POLES FLIPPED? The Earths magnetic field is in a permanent state of change. Magnetic north drifts around and every few hundred thousand years the polarity flips so a compass would point south instead of north. The strength of the magnetic field also constantly changes and currently it is showing signs of significant weakening. Life has existed on the Earth for billions of years, during which there have been many reversals. There is no obvious correlation between animal extinctions and those reversals. Likewise, reversal patterns do not have any correlation with human development and evolution. It appears that some animals, such as whales and some birds use Earth's magnetic field for migration and direction finding. Since geomagnetic reversal takes a number of thousands of years, they could well adapt to the changing magnetic environment or develop different methods of navigation. Radiation at ground level would increase, however, with some estimates suggesting that overall exposure to cosmic radiation would double causing more deaths from cancer. But only slightly, said Professor Richard Holme. And much less than lying on the beach in Florida for a day. So if it happened, the protection method would probably be to wear a big floppy hat. The movement of the Earth's magnetic poles are shown in this animation at 10-year intervals from 1970 to 2020. The red and blue lines sjpw the difference between magnetic north and true north depending on where you are standing. On the green line, a compass would point to true north. Credit: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information Electric grid collapse from severe solar storms is a major risk. As the magnetic field continues to weaken, scientists are highlighting the importance off-the grid energy systems using renewable energy sources to protect the Earth against a black out. 'The very highly charged particles can have a deleterious effect on the satellites and astronauts,' added Dr Mona Kessel, a Magnetosphere discipline scientist at Nasa. I n one area, there is evidence that a flip is already occurring. The increasing strength of the South Atlantic anomaly, an area of weak field over Brazil, is already a problem, said Professor Richard Holme. The Earth's climate could also change. A recent Danish study has found that the earth's weather has been significantly affected by the planet's magnetic field. They claimed that fluctuations in the number of cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere directly alter the amount of cloud covering the planet. Henrik Svensmark, a weather scientist at the Danish National Space Centre who led the team behind the research, believes that the planet is experiencing a natural period of low cloud cover due to fewer cosmic rays entering the atmosphere. Advertisement

The impact could be devastating for mankind, knocking out power grids, radically changing Earths climate and driving up rates of cancer.

This is serious business, Richard Holme, Professor of Earth, Ocean and Ecological Sciences at Liverpool University told MailOnline in an earlier interview.

Imagine for a moment your electrical power supply was knocked out for a few months  very little works without electricity these days.

The Earth's climate would change drastically. In fact, a Danish study believes global warming is directly related to the magnetic field rather than CO2 emissions.

The study claimed that the planet is experiencing a natural period of low cloud cover due to fewer cosmic rays entering the atmosphere.

Radiation at ground level would also increase, with some estimates suggesting overall exposure to cosmic radiation would double causing more deaths from cancer.

Researchers predict that in the event of a flip, every year a hundred thousand people would die from the increased levels of space radiation.

'Radiation could be 3-5 times greater than that from the man-made ozone holes. Furthermore, the ozone holes would be larger and longer-lived,' said Dr Colin Forsyth from the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at UCL.

The magnetosphere is a large area around the Earth produced by the planet's magnetic field. It presence means that charged particles of the solar wind are unable to cross the magnetic field lines and are deflected around the Earth

The magnetosphere is a large area around the Earth produced by the planets magnetic field.

Its presence means that charged particles of the solar wind are unable to cross the magnetic field lines and are deflected around the Earth

Scientists have discovered that ancient pots can act as a magnetic time capsule.

This is because they contain an iron-based mineral called magnetite. When pots form, the magnetite minerals align with the Earths magnetic field, just like compass needles.

The Earth's magnetic field is generated in the very hot molten core of the planet. Scientists believe Mars used to have a magnetic field similar to that on Earth which protected its atmosphere

By examining pottery from prehistory to modern times, scientists have discovered just how dramatically the field has changed in the last few centuries.

Theyve found that Earths magnetic field is in a permanent state of flux.

Magnetic north drifts and every few hundred thousand years the polarity flips so a compass would point south instead of north.

If the magnetic field continues to decline, over billions of years, Earth could end up like Mars - a once oceanic world that has become a dry, barren planet incapable of supporting life.

But scientists claim the rate of decline is too fast for the Earths core to simply burn out.

Instead, the story told by ancient pottery suggests the Earth's poles could be about to undergo another flip.

According to the British Geological Survey, the Earth's magnetic field has on average four or five reversals in polarity every million years and were now overdue a similar event.

At the moment, we cannot accurately determine whether or not the Earths field is about to flip, said Dr Forsyth. We have only been recording the Earths field for around 170 years; about 1-15 per cent of the time a flip is expected to take.

If a flip occurs, it would cause the Earths magnetic shield to be weakened for thousands of years, opening up our defences and causing cosmic radiation to get through.

'We have a double layer defence shield,' said Jim Wild a space scientists at Lancaster University.

'Space is full ofstuff thats not great for biological tissue. If we didnt have an atmosphere,that stuff would be hitting us. Its the magnetic field protects atmospherefrom the solar wind.'

Not all of the effects of a weak magnetic field will be bad. The much sought-after spectacle of an aurora would be visible every night all over the Earth as solar winds hit the atmosphere



If the thought of boarding a long-haul flight without Wi-fi fills you with dread, then it's worth picking your airline carefully.

A new report reveals that Virgin Atlantic, Icelandair, Delta and Emirates and Southwest Airlines are the leaders when it comes to mid-air internet connectivity.

But British Airways, despite being a very early adopter of the technology, has fallen behind when it comes to offering in-flight connections across its fleet.

Overall, in-flight Wi-Fi has improved dramatically in the last year and worldwide, and there's now a 43 per cent chance your next flight will have Wi-Fi.

Shown here is table of the top airlines to fly with to have the best chance of having Wifi on your flight. This graph shows the results based on the percentage of available seat miles (ASM), which is a measure of an airline flight's passenger carrying capacity

That's an increase from 39 per cent last year, according to analysis by New York-based firm, RouteHappy.

The chance of boarding a flight with Wi-Fi rises dramatically when it comes to the United States, where there is an 80 per cent chance your next flight will offer at least some level of connectivity.

This compares to Wi-Fi on only two thirds of all US domestic flights back in 2015.

Outside of the US, the likelihood that you'll be skimming through your Facebook News Feed mid-air drops to a fifth, with an 80 per cent chance your flight won't have any connectivity.

WHO SHOULD YOU FLY WITH TO GET THE BEST WI-FI ACCESS? Globally, 82 airlines offer in-flight Wi-Fi, which is 12 more than last year. The service is now common enough that there is a 43 per cent chance your plane will have internet access, according to a survey by Routehappy. In terms of the most Wi-Fi access, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, and Emirates are the current leaders Delta and Emirates offer Wi-Fi on all of their long-haul flights. While Routehappy does not reveal which airlines has the best quality Wi-Fi, it does reveal that the basic category - which involves no streaming media capability - is losing favor. Basic Wi-Fi services have fallen by 16 percent from last year to slightly more than one-quarter of airline seat capacity. The 'better' category which allows for web browsing and some media streaming, represents 57 percent of the systems now in use. Below are the break down of the results: Airlines worldwide that are most likely to have in-flight Wi-fi: 1. Icelandair (100% of all flights have Wi-Fi) 2. Southwest (100% of all flights have Wi-Fi) 3. Virgin Atlantic (100% of all flights have Wi-Fi) 4. Emirates 5. Delta 6. Virgin America 7. Kuwait 8. Etihad 9. United 10. American Longhaul airlines that are most likely to have in-flight Wi-fi: 1. Emirates 2. United 3. Lufthansa 4. American 5. Delta 6. Etihad 7. Qatar Airways 8. Turkish 9. Singapore 10. China Eastern

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The top airlines to fly with globally to have the best chance of having Wifi on your flight. This graph shows the results based on total available seat miles (ASM)

According to the latest report, some 13 airlines globally now offer Wi-Fi on all of long-haul routes: Air Europa, Delta, Emirates, Etihad, Eurowings, EVA Air, Iberia, Kuwait, Lufthansa, SAS, Scoot, United, and Virgin Atlantic.

But in-flight Wi-Fi is no guarantee you'll be able to stream any of your favourite shows.

Only 16 per cent of all Air Seat Miles (ASMs) boast Wi-Fi boasts speeds close to a home broadband connection - fast enough to stream from video on-demand services like Prime Video and YouTube.

Even on those flights where the connection is fast enough, most airlines restrict this type of usage since it slows the speeds available to other passengers.

Overall, in-flight Wi-Fi has improved dramatically in the last year and worldwide, and there's now a 43 per cent chance your next flight will have Wi-Fi

While Routehappy does not reveal which airlines has the best quality Wi-Fi, it does reveal that the basic category - which involves no streaming media capability - is losing favor

Shown here is table of the top long-haul airlines to fly with to have the best chance of having Wifi on your flight. This graph shows the results based on the percentage of available seat miles (ASM), which is a measure of an airline flight's passenger carrying capacity

Shown here is table of the top long-haul airlines to fly with to have the best chance of having Wifi on your flight. This graph shows the results based on the total available seat miles (ASM)

According to RouteHappy, more than half of all in-flight Wi-Fi is capable of web browsing, but have limited media streaming capabilities.

Almost a third of in-flight Wi-Fi is only fast enough to provide access to the web.

Robert Albert, CEO of Routehappy, said: '2017 was another progressive year for in-flight Wi-Fi, with a large increase in the amount of airlines that provide Wi-Fi access, on top of the growing availability of nearly half the available seat miles worldwide.

'The 129 per cent growth of Best Wi-Fi is extraordinary, it shows the commitment airlines are making to best in class systems and we expect to see this number increase even more in 2018.'

The increased adoption is likely due to the drop in price around installing the in-flight technology.

Installation and operational costs have now dropped to levels where almost any airline can afford to offer some level of connectivity, RouteHappy claims.

This is something that would have been thought impossible for smaller airlines just a few years ago.

Outside of the US, the likelihood that you'll be skimming through your Facebook News Feed mid-air drops to a fifth, with an 80 per cent chance your flight won't have any connectivityA man inspired to take up fossil hunting by Sir David Attenborough made the find of a lifetime on his first outing - a giant ammonite.

The huge fossil, found by 21-year-old Archie Faiers, is 190 million years old and took the stone mason just 15 minutes into his first ever fossil dig to find.

Discovered on a Jurassic Coast beach in East Devon, the fossil is of the species Microderoceras Birchi, typical of ammonites found in the area.

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21-year-old stone mason Archie Faiers made the find of a lifetime on his first fossil hunting outing - a giant ammonite

Mr Faiers said he decided to go hunting for prehistoric relics after watching the BBC documentary Attenborough and the Sea Dragon.

He took his dogs for a walk along the Jurassic Coast and within minutes spotted an interesting rock in earth disturbed by a recent cliff fall.

It turned out to be an ammonite fossil that the 21-year-old later discovered was almost 200 million years old.

Mr Faiers, named the UK's top young Architectural Stone Mason, was on a strip of Jurassic Coast beach between Seaton and Lyme Regis when he made the discovery.

He wasn't far from where Sir David filmed the recovery of the fossilised remains of a large Ichthyosaur, or Sea Dragon, which was broadcast on the BBC two weeks ago.

Mr Faiers, from Uplyme, Devon, said 'I knew we were close to the spot where the TV fossil was found, there had been an overnight cliff fall and I spotted a rounded rock on the beach.

The huge fossil is 190 million years old and took Mr Faiers just 15 minutes into his first ever fossil dig to find. Discovered on a Jurassic Coast beach in East Devon, the fossil is of the species Microderoceras Birchi, typical of ammonites found in the area

WHAT ARE AMMONITES? Ammonites (artist's impression) sported a ribbed spiral-form shell, and lived between 240-65 million years ago Ammonites are perhaps the most widely known fossil, particularly in the UK where hundreds are dug up along the Jurassic Coast every year. The ancient sea creatures sported a ribbed spiral-form shell, and lived between 240-65 million years ago, when they were wiped out along with the dinosaurs. Ammonites were cephalopods; their nearest living relatives are animals like squid, octopus and cuttlefish. They ate starfish, small crustaceans such as shrimp and other small marine creatures, using their tentacles to probe the seafloor before snapping up prey. The creatures moved using jet propulsion via a tube near their mouth that squirted water, much like some species of modern squid. Advertisement

Mr Faiers said he took his dogs for a walk along the Jurassic Coast and within minutes spotted an interesting rock in earth disturbed by a recent cliff fall. It turned out to be the ancient ammonite fossil

'I knew that these rocks are the ones that could have a fossil inside.'

Archie heaved the heavy rock back along the beach into his workshop.

He added: 'I started to chip away at the outside off the rock and I soon realised that there was an ammonite inside.

Mr Faiers said he decided to go hunting for prehistoric relics after watching the BBC documentary Attenborough and the Sea Dragon (pictured)

'I'm using my traditional stone mason tools in preparing it but I need much finer tools so things are on hold at the moment.'

Ammonites are perhaps the most widely known fossil, particularly in the UK where hundreds are dug up along the Jurassic Coast every year.

The ancient sea creatures sported a ribbed spiral-form shell, and lived between 240-65 million years ago, when they were wiped out along with the dinosaurs.

Mr Faiers, named the UK's top young Architectural Stone Mason, was on a strip of Jurassic Coast beach between Seaton and Lyme Regis when he made the discovery

Ammonites were cephalopods; their nearest living relatives are animals like squid, octopus and cuttlefish.

They ate starfish, small crustaceans such as shrimp and other small marine creatures, using their tentacles to probe the seafloor before snapping up prey.

The creatures moved using jet propulsion via a tube near their mouth that squirted water, much like some species of modern squid.A massive slab of sandstone has given scientists an extremely rare peek into how dinosaurs, badger-like mammals and flying reptiles all interacted 100 million-plus years ago, in an area that would later become the suburbs of Washington.

To scientists' shock, the 8.5-foot-long piece of rock was hiding in plain sight at a NASA facility's parking lot.

The footprints were etched in the stone many millennia ago, but an amateur paleontologist, Ray Stanford, happened to stumble across the slab in 2012 as he dropped his wife off at work at NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

'I think it's just tremendously exciting,' Stanford said in a video describing the study.

The prints are a fraction of the size of a hand print and appear to come from theropod dinosaurs, which are smaller cousins of the T-rex, a veggie-eating sauropod, early mammals, as well as an armored nodosaur and her baby.

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Scientists have discovered what they deem to be the 'largest known slab' that has animal tracks on it 'from anywhere in the world.' The team identified 100 prints from at least 70 different mammals and dinosaurs, all traveling across the same piece of sandstone

Now, Stanford and a team of researchers have described their findings in a new paper, published Wednesday in the journal Scientific Reports.

Their findings give a fascinating glimpse into how dinosaurs and early mammals may have interacted.

'We're looking at the largest known slab that has animal tracks on it from anywhere in the world,' said Martin Lockley, a geology professor at the University of Colorado at Denver, who co-authored the study, in a video describing the study.

'I know of four or five sites in the whole age of dinosaurs that have mammal tracks and some of them only have one or two,' Lockley added.

'Here, we've got approximately 100 footprints on it,' Lockley explained. 'It's amazing.'

The 8.5-foot-long slab of sandstone was discovered in the parking lot of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, not far outside the nation's capital of Washington, D.C.

The 8.5-foot-long slab preserves a collection of footprints from early animals including squirrel-like mammals, plant-eating nodosaurs and flying reptiles that were close cousins of pterodactyls. A few footprints are from a mother dinosaur and her baby. It's unclear what they were all doing there, though it's possible that the dinosaurs were hunting the smaller mammals

Scientists discovered the rare slab of sandstone in a parking lot not far from a NASA facility. Pictured, the slab is shown at the time of discovery (A and B) and during excavation (C). The team built a fiberglass recreation of the fossilized remains (D) and found small tracks indicating that early mammals had traversed the 8.5-foot-long rock (E)

The spectacular piece of rock would have never been discovered had Stanford, 79, not come to Goddard to have lunch with his wife Sheila, who is also a co-author on the study.

Stanford spotted a piece of loose rock, made of iron-rich sedimentary material, sticking out of the grass and decided he should take a closer look, according to the New York Times.

He tipped NASA off to his findings and the agency sent climate scientist Compton Tucker, another co-author of the study, over to scan the site for additional remains using ground-penetrating radar.

A team of volunteers from Goddard helped Stanford and the other researchers unearth the entire slab of sandstone.

Upon closer examination, Stanford discovered that a number of theropods, which are smaller cousins of the T-rex, had walked across the rock alongside mammals the size of rodents.

Amateur paleontologist and dinosaur expert Ray Stanford (pictured) happened to stumble across the ancient slab of sandstone as he dropped his wife off for work at NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center in Maryland

In other words, curiously, predators were mingling with their prey - and not necessarily for the purpose of hunting.

'This was the real thing that hit me for a loop,' Stanford told the Times. 'To see them with their potential predators.'

In total, Stanford and the other scientists identified 100 prints from at least 70 different mammals and dinosaurs.

Lockley discovered that one of the mammal footprints may be particularly rare, signifying the 'largest mammal track' to have existed in the 'age of dinosaurs.'

Typically, during the age of dinosaurs (or the Mesozoic Era), most mammals were about the size of small rodents.

But the track suggests the footprint may have been from an animal as big as a badger.

'It's very rare to find anything this big,' Lockley explained.

Another print seems to come from a large, armored nodosaur and, closely behind it is a pair of prints from its offspring, trying to catch up to its mother.

'What excites me is that this shows us the actual life and action of all this incredible diversity,' Stanford said in video.

'From the flying reptiles to the large dinosaurs, to the smaller, tiniest dinosaurs,'

'In fact, it shows us not the dead, but that life is almost like a time machine,'

'We can look at over two weeks of activity of animals and we can almost picture it, unlike if we were just looking at bones,' Stanford added.

WHAT ANIMALS WERE PRESERVED IN THE WORLD'S LARGEST SLAB OF FOSSILIZED FOOTPRINTS? A team of scientists discovered an 8.5-foot-long slab of sandstone in 2012 The discovery, now detailed in a research paper published on Wednesday, gives a fascinating glimpse into how dinosaurs and early mammals may have interacted. Scientists identified 100 prints from at least 70 different mammals and dinosaurs, all traveling across the same piece of sandstone Their analysis of the fossil prints shows a myriad of animals: Small mammals, likely the size of a badger

Theropods, which are cousins of the T-rex

A large, armored nodosaur and her baby

Footprints of what could be a relative of the modern-day bird Pictured, the scientists analyzed a pair of footprints left behind by a theropod, which are smaller cousins of the fearsome T-rex Advertisement

But how were the footprints preserved? According to the scientists, in a 'geologic instant.'

Somehow, a flood washed over the rock, preserving the muddy footprints in the rock forever.

Because no prints overlap, Lockley told the Washington Post that the tracks may have been imprinted and preserved in just a few days, or perhaps, a few hours.

'What we have here is [the ability] to look deeply into an ancient time on earth,' Stanford said.

'I think it's just tremendously exciting,' he added.

The scientists created a fiberglass recreation of the fossilized remains that will remain on display at NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center, where it was first discovered.If you thought you'd seen the last of Nokia's retro 3310 phone, think again.

Nokia is releasing another 3310 model that's capable of connecting to super fast 4G LTE speeds.

For now, the 4G 3310 will only be available in China, beginning in early February.

But, if the success of prior 3310 versions is any indicator, it's possible that these could roll out to additional locations some time in the future.

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Nokia's retro-cool 3310 phone will now come with a 4G connection. Over the past several years, the company has released 2G and 3G versions of the iconic phone

Nokia's website doesn't indicate how much the device will cost, but the 3G version was priced at 49.99 ($66).

More details may be shared about the device at this year's Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona in February, according to The Verge.

The 4G 3310, which comes in a muted blue or black color, also has a few other futuristic updates.

THE NOKIA 3310 - Thin, light and durable - Measures 115.6 x 51.0 x 12.8mm - Weighs 79.6 grams (2.8 oz) - 22-hour talk time for 2G phones, 8-hour talk time for 3G phones and 5-hour talk time for 4G phones - One month battery life - 2.4 inch curved colour display - 2 megapixel camera with LED flash - 2G, 3G and 4G connectivity - Bluetooth, micro USB, and headphone jack connections - MicroSD card support up to 32GB - Revamped version of Snake comes pre-installed Advertisement

The phone is equipped to make HD voice calls, comes pre-loaded with a few 'hot mobile apps,' has a headphone jack and can be used as a WiFi hotspot.

Standard 4G is around five to seven times faster than 3G, offering theoretical speeds of up to 150Mbps.

HMD Global, which manufactures the phone, swapped out the 3310's old Java-based operating system and replaced it with YunOS, an Android-based operating system developed by Alibaba.

The 4G 3310 battery can handle phone calls for up to five hours on a single charge.

Rumors had been circulating for months that Nokia would release a 4G 3310.

Last December, leaked documents from China showed off the now-public device and correctly predicted that the 4G 3310 would run YunOS.

Pictured, the original Nokia 3310 phone was released on September 1, 2000. Nokia sold more than 126 million units of the inaugural 3310 device

The 4G 3310 is equipped to make HD voice calls, comes pre-loaded with a few 'hot mobile apps,' has a headphone jack and can be used as a WiFi hotspot

Reports noted that the 4G 3310 might come with stripped down versions of messaging apps like WhatsApp or Facebook, but those apps don't appear to be available on the latest version.

Nokia first announced that it would be revamping the retro 3310 phone at MWC in 2017.

It released 2G and 3G versions that were both available in Europe and the U.S.

The iconic handset was a massive hit with users back in 2000 and the relaunched version includes a month-long battery, 22 hours of talk-time, and even its popular game, Snake.

The 4G 3310 might look similar to its original predecessor, but Nokia did make some small changes to the phone's design.

The company replaced the inaugural 3310's monochrome screen, with a sleeker, more futuristic design and a color screen.

Since then, phone companies say the revamped 3310 has attracted huge interest.In the film, The Martian, Matt Damon's character is stranded on Mars and uses the faeces stored in the ship as fertiliser to grow potatoes.

Many people said this would have been covered with disease and would not be possible.

Currently, solid waste from astronauts on the ISS is discarded into space where it burns up in the atmosphere.

In the film, The Martian, Matt Damon's character is stranded on Mars and uses the faeces stored in the ship as fertiliser

Penn State University researchers received funding from Nasa to see if human waste could be better utilised for long-term space missions.

The team used an enclosed, cylindrical system, four feet long by four inches in diameter, in which select microbes came into contact with the waste.

The microbes broke down waste using anaerobic digestion, a process similar to the way humans digest food.

By using the methane released from the breakdown of the faeces, the team found large amounts of Methylococcus capsulatus, a bacteria which is used in animal feed.

They found that this bacteria was 52 per cent protein and 36 per cent fat which could provide a good source of nutrition for prolonged space flight.

The researchers compared it to a microbial goo which would be similar to Vegemite or Marmite.In December 2017, Apple admitted it slows down phones to extend their life and stop them from shutting down as batteries age and become less effective.

This is not the first time Apple has been accused of deliberately throttling the performance of its older phones.

Explanations for the slowness range from Apple's iOS causing problems on older devices to the firm deliberately slowing down old phones to make people buy the new handsets.

This latter explanation is known as planned, or built-in, obsolescence.

This is the idea that manufacturer's deliberately make their products in such a way that they become out-of-date sooner.

By doing this, the companies can encourage customers to buy the latest model of a certain product.Apple is facing eight lawsuits filed in various federal courts in the week since the company opened up about the year-old software change.

Some customers are unhappy the company has been less than transparent about the performance throttling feature, which they see as a ploy to drive sales of new handsets.

Apple admitted in December that it uses a feature for the iPhone 6, 6S, SE and 7 that slows down the device's processor

All the lawsuits - filed in U.S. District Courts in California, New York and Illinois - seek class-action to represent potentially millions of iPhone owners nationwide.

In the US, a class action lawsuit is a court case in which a large number of people join together to sue another person or company, or in which a large group of people or companies are being sued.

It often saves the time, money and energy of everyone involved to bring cases together into one class action lawsuit, rather than filing individual cases.

In general, you don't need to do anything to join a class action.

If your legal rights are affected by a class action, you usually will only need to get involved once the case settles.

In most cases, you will need to submit a claim, either online or through the mail, to receive your portion of the settlement or judgement.

If a class action has already been filed, you may receive a class action notice in the mail stating that your legal rights may be affected by a lawsuit.

You should carefully read the class action notice.

Some class actions only cover residents of certain states or individuals who suffered a particular type of physical or financial harm.

The situation is slightly different in the UK.

As a consumer, you're expected to try to resolve things directly with the company involved before taking legal action.

Legal action in what's usually known as the 'small claims court' is limited to claims under 10,000.

US style class action suits, known as Group Litigation, is becoming more popular, although these differ slightly.

They are a way for individuals with similar complaints to join together against the wrongdoer and avoid pitfalls that can be associated with individuals having to make their own separate claim each time.

By joining together as a group, individuals can benefit from collective strength in the commonality and sharing of knowledge, and the sharing of the risks and costs.

Usually test cases are selected from within the group so the rest of the group members benefit from the decisions in those cases.

Defendants in these types of claims are often large multinational companies and the group collectively enjoys the resources to fight on an even playing field.

Certain legal firms specialise in this area of the law, and will work on your behalf to prosecute the company in question.Dam Square is in the bulls-eye of Amsterdam and is home to monuments like the Royal Palace and Nieuwe Kerk, as well as scores of bars and restaurants. There are dozens of hotels within a 10-minute walk of the place. These are a few of the best.

Stay in a hotel with a stunning view of Amsterdam's iconic square, like Swissotel Amsterdam

Hotel TwentySeven

Rating:

You can walk from Hotel TwentySeven to Dam Square in just two minutes, but once you step inside you might find it hard to leave. To call this place opulent is an understatement. Its suite-only accommodation starts at around 250 a night and goes up to more than 1,000. The latter price is more than most peoples mortgages, but it gives you things like in-room Jacuzzis, cuddle corners, and binoculars so you can look out over the skyline of the city from aloft.

Staying at Hotel TwentySeven may come with a hefty price tag, but their opulent rooms are worth every penny

Swissotel Amsterdam

Rating:

Some of the rooms at Swissotel Amsterdam look out over Dam Square, but thanks to the hotels soundproofing, the scenes almost look like theyre going on in mime. If you get tired of the real-life view, you can soak up cityscapes by taking in the artwork that lines the walls of the rooms. Most rooms come with pictures or murals of gabled houses and monuments. For a taste of Amsterdam, meanwhile, head to the hotels restaurant and deli Royal 98 to tuck into Dutch pancakes and Old Amsterdam cheese sandwiches.

Swissotel Amsterdam offers luxurious, sound-proofed guest rooms and suites in a modern and sophisticated style

W Amsterdam

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Youll be sleeping in either a former telephone exchange or a former bank when you stay at the W Amsterdam, a three-minute walk from Dam Square. Although, sleeping might be putting it a little too strongly  W Amsterdam is a great place to play as well as rest. The hotel is home to a rooftop bar with 360-degree city views and resident DJs, and an underground club called Mad Fox. Alternatively, you can see the night out in The Duchess  the lavish Belle Epoque-style restaurant.

Feast your eyes on 360-degree city views from W Amsterdam's W Lounge

Ink Hotel Amsterdam MGallery by Sofitel

Rating:

A former newspaper headquarters is the base for Ink Hotel. It shouts about its heritage in its linotype-style wall murals and displays of vintage typewriters and telephones. Youll start your day sipping espresso from your in-room Nespresso machine when you stay here, and you can finish it drinking Jenever cocktails and tucking into what they call headline dishes in the Pressroom bar and restaurant. Thats if youre not out in Dam Square, which is a four-minute walk away.

Housed in a former newspaper headquarters, Ink Hotel is dedicated to helping you write your unique travel story

Hotel Luxer

This no-fuss three-star hotel is a seven-minute walk from Dam Square. Its a good choice for travellers on a budget as room rates start at 70 a night. For that you get a simple room with a purple colour scheme and Amsterdam artwork on the walls. You can add breakfast on for about 7 and get stuck into the typical sausages, eggs, breads, cheeses and pastries. Of course, if you want to head out for breakfast, the hotel is swamped by creperies, cafes and coffee shops.

Hotel Luxer gives the best of the Dutch no-nonsense attitude, with simple yet beautiful rooms at affordable prices

artotel Amsterdam

Rating:

As the name suggests, art is everywhere at artotel Amsterdam. Gawp-worthy features at the hotel include a 40-foot (12-metre) art curtain that shows video footage and an art gallery that hosts a varying schedule of exhibitions and lectures. Each of the rooms features a unique piece of art, although in some rooms, the pieces have to compete with the city views for guests attentions. The hotel has its own kitchen and bar, too, where the cocktail menu and sharing platters are as prettily presented as the hotels interior design.

artotel Amsterdam stays true to its name by surrounding guests with stunning installations and masterpieces

Kimpton de Witt

Rating:

Every room at the Kimpton de Witt comes with a gold dipped Pols Potten parrot statue. Its just one sign that this boutique hotel, seven minutes from Dam Square, does things a little bit differently. Rooms also come with yoga mats, Nespresso machines, Bluetooth speakers, bathrobes and honour bars with cocktails, beer and wine. Another highlight at the hotel is the daily evening wine reception that treats guests with free wine.

Kimpton de Witt exudes a contemporary approach to luxury through fresh, sophisticated rooms and creative spaces steeped in unique Dutch design

Hotel V Nesplein

Rating:

You cant help but notice the design at Hotel V Nesplein, four minutes from Dam Square. Theres a floor-to-ceiling chandelier in the lobby and an antique globe bar and free hanging fireplace in the Lobby Bar and Restaurant. At the latter people come for the looks and stay for the food  the place serves a la carte breakfasts like eggs Bennie and evening meals that sound simple on the menu but come out looking as high design as the hotel.Nothing makes a forest walk more magical than stumbling across a hidden waterfall.

And these are the most mesmerising forest waterfalls from around the world, captured in breath-taking pictures.

From the enchanting Chiapas water feature in Mexico to the breathtaking Purakaunui waterfall in New Zealand - these snaps will leave you awestruck.

And the images show that spectacular, spine-tingling waterfalls can be found all over the globe.

Feast your eyes on examples in Wales, Ireland, the USA, Canada and beyond.

Scroll down to see fairy-tale finds tinged with magic.Trendy tourists are always looking for new, cutting edge places to see - and be seen.

And, according to experts, they'll soon be adding Bristol and Zurich to their bucket list of essential hotspots for 2018.

That's because they've both been hailed as must-see sites in the annual Hip Hangout Guide, which was released this week and ranks the most fashionable destinations.

West Country winner: Montpeliers colourful streets beat London's trendy Dalston and Clapton, plus Stroud Green and Walthamstow

Top of the hotspots: Bristols Montpelier has been named the UK's ultimate hipster hangout

Split into two categories - Europe and the UK - Bristols Montpelier suburb topped the latter thanks to its 'multicultural, urban vibe' and 'close-knit feel, characterised by community meeting places, cosy cafes and independent shops.'

Interestingly, it trumped London's Dalston, Clapton, Peckham, Stroud Green and Walthamstow for the title, despite being relatively unknown to those outside of the West Country city.

But it wasn't a mere fluke. Bristol's bohemian quarter, Stokes Croft, also ranked fifth on the list, scoring a double-whammy for the region.

Meanwhile, Manchester's Ancoats and Chorlton, Glasgow's Partick and Hulls Old Town also made the Top 10.

Outside of the UK, Zurichs old red light district, Langstrasse, stole the number one spot: proving the power of gentrification to the reborn district.

Proving the power of gentrification: Zurichs old red light district, Langstrasse - which is now the main artery for nightlife - stole the number one spot for European options

Destination point: Specifically, it was credited for becoming 'the focal point of Zurichs nightlife' and 'increasingly attracting trendy locals looking for better prices'.

Specifically, it was credited for becoming 'the focal point of Zurichs nightlife' and 'increasingly attracting trendy locals looking for better prices'.

The Swiss district also trumped Scandi-cool Norrebro and Copenhagen's Vesterbro, which ranked in second and third place respectively.

Other runners-up included: Mariahilf (Vienna) Psiri (Athens), Het Eilandje (Antwerp), Erzsebetvaros (Budapest) and Belleville (Paris), which all made the shortlist's upper half.

Price comparison site, TravelSupermarket, created the index by looking at the ratio of trend-setting and creative industry indicators such as independent coffee shops, vintage fashion stores, record shops, vegan cafes, independent bike shops, co-working spaces and art galleries or studios to the number of residents.

Top three: Copenhagen's picturesque Vesterbro ranked third place in the European Top 20

Areas lost points based on the number of big chain brands on their streets which 'suggests the address has reached peak hipster.'

Of the Top 20 twenty UK areas, there are nine new entries, whilst the remaining eleven have remained in the index, rising and falling respectively.

In comparison, only four destinations in the rest of Europe list ranked on this years index, as sixteen new entries filled the list.

Emma Grimster, TravelSupermarket spokesperson, said: 'After scoring the UK and Europe to find the most independent areas, we hope the guide gives people ideas for new destinations to visit, at home or abroad.

'Taking a city break towards the start of the year can, in most cases, be the cheapest time to travel while demand is low.'

TOP 20 HIPPEST PLACES IN THE UK 1. Montpelier, Bristol 2. Peckham, London 3. Stroud Green, London 4. Dalston, London 5. Stokes Croft, Bristol 6. Clapton, London 7. Ancoats, Manchester 8. Old Town, Hull 9. Partick, Glasgow 10. Chorlton, Manchester 11. Baltic Triangle, Liverpool 12. Bishy Road, York 13. St Mawes, Cornwall 14. Romsey, Cambridge 15. Finneston, Glasgow 16. Walthamstow, London 17. Ropewalks, Liverpool 18. Cliftonville, Old town, Margate 19. Northern Quarter, Manchester 20. Jericho, Oxford Source: TravelSupermarket AdvertisementQuincy Jones might be 84, but old age hasn't stopped his womanizing ways.

In a GQ interview published on Monday, Jones revealed that he has romantic partners around the world  some as young as 28  and they're all aware of each other.

He told the magazine: 'I got 22 girlfriends... Hell yeah. Everywhere. Cape Town. Cairo. Stockholmshe's coming in next week. BrazilBelo Horizonte, Sao Paulo, and Rio. Shanghaigot a great girl over there from Shanghai, man. Cairo, whew.'

'22 girlfriends': Quincy Jones told GQ in an interview published Monday that he has lovers all over the world; pictured at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. late 2017

The famous producer has six daughters and a son through ex-wives Jeri Caldwell, Ulla Andersson, and Peggy Lipton, and former girlfriends, Carol Reynolds and Nastassja Kinski.

Jones further disclosed that he keeps things honest with his numerous partners about his womanizing ways: 'Yeah, I don't lie. And it's amazingwomen get it, man. Don't you ever forget they're 13 years smarter than we are. Don't you ever forget it.'

The Thriller producer clearly has an appetite for women, but when asked if he'd date someone his own age, he told the magazine: 'Hell no! You see me with an 84-year-old woman? Are you crazy?'

When pressed as to why not, he responded with: 'Why not??? Why? For what, man? There's nothing...there's no upside. You gotta be kidding. I got me some technology out there that keep fat and old away from here. Buzzes if they're too old.'

Young girlfriend: Jones is pictured in 2001 with then-girlfriend Lisette Derouaux at the 'Hollywood Moms' book party hosted by InStyle Magazine in New York

Jones continued: 'But you'd be surprised.... These women, the young ones, are aggressive now. Oh my God, they're fearless, man. All over the world.'

While the Off the Wall record producer prefers to date younger women, he admitted there are some age restrictions in place.

He said: 'Well, my daughters gave me new numbers, because they kept saying, 'Dad, you can't go out with girls younger than us.' I said, 'Y'all are not young anymore....' So the new numbers are 28 to 42. They gave them to me.'

Proud father: the famous composer loves his daughters and frequently attends events with them; pictured is Kidada Jones, left, and Rashida Jones, right

Despite his old age, the music legend said his desire for sex has not gone away: 'Not to me. Hell no. Never. Uh-uh.'

And while he doesn't plan to stop being a playboy, Jones thinks his punishment for his womanizer ways was to have gorgeous daughters.

He said: 'When you've been a dog all your life, God gives you beautiful daughters and you have to suffer. I love 'em so much. They're here all the time.'

Dapper man! Jones owes his success as a womanizer to his dapper good looks, as pictured here in 1962

Even though Jones is dealing with the punishment of having attractive daughters, he told the magazine that he wouldn't change anything about his past.

He told GQ: 'Je ne regrette rien de tout.

'I don't regret s**t.'James Franco looked in high spirits following a morning workout in Santa Monica on Tuesday.

The actor, who is facing sexual misconduct allegations, flashed a huge smile as he stepped out with a cool drink and bag of snacks.

The star, 39, was smiling from ear to ear as he caught up with a pal after a workout at the gym.

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Stepping out: James Franco looked in high spirits following a morning workout in Santa Monica on Tuesday

Franco wore a Black Sabbath band T-shirt, sporty grey shorts, black sneakers, a blue hat, and sunglasses.

The Spider Man actor and his girlfriend Isabel Pakzad attended the SAG Awards together this month after the actor was accused of sexual misconduct by several women.

A total of five women have accused Franco of sexual misconduct or abuse of power, sharing their stories as part of the movement, including four student-actors he worked with at Studio 4 and Playhouse West.

Through his attorney, Michael Plonsker, Franco has denied the allegations that emerged first on social media, and then later came out in more detail in an article by the Los Angeles Times published on January 11.

Casual and comfortable: Franco wore a Black Sabbath band T-shirt, sporty grey shorts, black sneakers, a blue hat, and sunglasses

He was nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role for his work in The Disaster Artist.

The SAG Award went to Gary Oldman for his performance in Darkest Hour.

Earlier this month Franco won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for his portrayal of Tommy Wiseau.

Making an appearance: The Spider Man actor and his girlfriend Isabel Pakzad attended the SAG Awards together this month after the actor was accused of sexual misconduct by several women

The actor was digitally removed from Vanity Fair's Hollywood Issue cover after the sexual misconduct allegations were made against him.

Vanity Fair confirmed on Thursday that he was deleted from the cover due to the sexual misconduct allegations.

The Oscars also snubbed Franco when nominations for the upcoming 90th Academy Awards were announced on Tuesday.She was named Hasty Pudding Woman Of The Year at Harvard last week.

But Mila Kunis was back in her hometown as she was spotted during a casual day out in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

The 34-year-old actress was enjoying the unusually warm weather for Southern California this time of year as she donned a tiny floral print romper.

Floral fun: Mila Kunis, 34, was spotted during a casual day out in Los Angeles on Tuesday

Daring to impress, the Bad Moms star put her gorgeous gams on center stage as the ensemble cut just above the thigh.

Her delicate decolletage was on full display as the stylish number plunged low cinching at her lithe waist.

Throwing caution to the wind, the wife of Ashton Kutcher went virtually makeup free with just a dab of berry lip.

Her trademark brunette tresses were left long and loose as they cascaded over her petite shoulders.

Impressive stunner: Daring to impress, the Bad Moms star put her gorgeous gams on center stage as the ensemble cut just above the thigh

Quite an affair: Mila got her very own parade in Cambridge, Massachusetts on Thursday to celebrate Harvard's Hasty Pudding Theatricals honoring her as Woman Of The Year

Meanwhile, Mila got her very own parade in Cambridge, Massachusetts to celebrate Harvard's Hasty Pudding Theatricals honoring her as Woman Of The Year.

Mila was flanked by members of the satirical group as she rode along in a Bentley Convertible waving to the crowd.

The Hasty Pudding members were dressed in elaborate period costume and slathered in heavy makeup.

Stayed warm in style: The Black Swan star wore a beanie and a warm winter coat

A small number of protesters had arrived to denounce Hasty Pudding, which did not cast women in its yearly shows and instead featured men in drag.

However, during the festivities for Mila, Hasty Pudding revealed it would begin admitting female cast next year, the Associated Press reported.

Mila and Aston were co-stars on That 70's Show and went on to marry in 2015.

The couple share three-year-old daughter Wyatt Isabelle and one-year-old son Dimitri Portwood.She's the wife of late Playboy mogul Hefner.

And Crystal Hefner stepped out for a cocktail bash in Sydney on Tuesday, months after the death of her late husband.

The 31-year-old appeared to be in high spirits as she made her way to Billich Gallery in The Rocks.

Sneak-ing up on us! Crystal Hefner makes a rare sighting in Australia months after the death of her late husband Hugh Hefner

She wore a floral bohemian dress by Australian label Spell & The Gypsy Collective and paired the look with blush-hued Nike sneakers.

Her luscious blonde locks were worn loosely and she wore minimal makeup during the low-key outing.

The Arizona-native has taken a break from the spotlight since Hugh's passing in September.

While it is unclear whether the former Playboy model is in Australia for business or pleasure, she certainly appears to be enjoying her time Down Under.

The beauty was snapped enjoying a day out at Australia Zoo earlier this week.

Blown away! The 31-year-old was seen fixing her wind-swept hair as she made her way to an event

Lace-y over racy! Crystal Hefner takes comfort to an entirely new level in chic Nike kicks before attending an event in Australia this week

On Instagram she was seen posing with a series of furry creatures, including an adorable koala and a kangaroo.

Had the best #australiaday learning all about the animals and conservation efforts of @wildlifewarriorsworldwide,' she captioned.

Such an incredible group making a difference in Australia and around the world. Was a pleasure and privilege to take a step in the Irwin familys shoes, even if for just one day.'

Tragic death: Hugh Hefner died from cardiac arrest and respiratory failure at age 91 in September last year

The last few months have no doubt been challenging for the young socialite, after losing the love of her life.

Crystal took on Hefners sir name back in 2012 and also signed a prenuptial agreement cutting her out of his will.

While she didnt pocket Hefners $43 million fortune, the playboy wife was left a $7 million home and $5 million lump sum in her name.

Hugs down under! Crystal posed with her new found koala pal, Macadamia during a visit to Australia Zoo

Dubai adventure: The model was snapped posing alongside a camel during a visit to Dubai

Hugh died at age 91 last year from cardiac arrest and respiratory failure.

Before landing on Australian turf, Crystals Instagram grid features her travel adventures across South Africa and Dubai.

Hefner first proposed in 2011 with a $90,000 engagement ring, which that she later auctioned off for $38,000 during an early relationship hiccup.

The two later reconciled and tied the knot in 2012.

Same shoe, different location: Crystal is seen posing in workout gear in Dubai



She's never been afraid to show off her phenomenal figure.

And Demi Rose Mawby ensured all eyes would be on her as she attended a dinner party held by Sixty6 magazine and ISAWITFIRST.COM at London's STK restaurant on Tuesday.

The 22-year-old model was a vision of beauty on the night as she flaunted her hourglass curves in a skimpy bandeau top.

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Turning heads: Demi Rose ensured all eyes would be on her as she attended a dinner party held by Sixty6 magazine and ISAWITFIRST.COM at London's STK restaurant on Tuesday

Flashing her ample cleavage, the Tommy Hilfiger bralet also highlighted her toned stomach, whilst she wore the garment beneath a black faux fur coat.

She teamed the garment with a pair of skinny jeans, whilst she boosted her frame with a pair of heeled Louis Vuitton ankle boots.

The model finished off the look by styling her glossy raven locks in loose waves that framed her pretty face, which boasted a neutral make-up palette.

Brunette bombshell! The 22-year-old model was a vision of beauty on the night as she flaunted her hourglass curves in a skimpy bandeau top

Ab fab! Flashing her ample cleavage, the Tommy Hilfiger bralet also highlighted her toned stomach, whilst she wore the garment beneath a black faux fur coat

Demi has credited health and fitness for her curvy form and is trained by Dean Delandro, who is the owner of HD Personal Development and Reset Yourself Ltd.

Dean recently spoke highly of the model's efforts: 'Demi's progress has really skyrocketed in the last two months with her new training programme.

'I currently train her 4-5 times per week depending on her workload and always squeeze a Saturday morning class together at Barry's boot camp or equivalent,' he continued.

Brunette beauty: The model finished off the look by styling her glossy raven locks in loose waves that framed her pretty face, which boasted a neutral make-up palette

Legs eleven! Demi teamed her bandeau with a pair of skinny jeans, whilst she boosted her frame with a pair of heeled Louis Vuitton ankle boots

Demi gruelling workout routine includes the likes of hip thrusts, partial squats and jumping lunges, while her meals focus on eggs, fish, vegetables and nuts.

Demi was joined by Love Island's Chloe Crowhurst on the night, and not her boyfriend Chris Martinez before Christmas.

The couple confirmed their romance just after Christmas and were seen packing on the PDA while preparing to jet out of Madrid airport.

Millionaire star Martinez is usually seen performing alongside his brother Stevie as part of the house DJ'ing duo.

Here comes the girls! Demi was also joined by Love Island's Chloe Crowhust on the nightWith Roy's Rolls and Dev's corner shop, it has always been a champion of independent shops.

But Coronation Street is to be launched into the world of major chains and branded merchandise, after ITV signed a product placement deal with Costa and Co-op.

In a major shift for the long-running soap, two 'fully branded' Costa and Co-op storefronts will soon spring up around the Cobbles and 'posters, bags and cups' will be seen across the show.

The partnership with Costa was teased earlier this week, when several characters were spotted holding the brand's dark red coffee cups during their scenes.

Coronation Street released episodes this week that featured Costa's signature red coffee cup in several scenes with the soap opera cast

ITV's soap opera signed product placement deals with Costa and Co-op. Items to be featured in future episodes include bags, posters and cups

But, in a sign that the product placement might not sit well with some avid fans, it sparked a major reaction.

Fans flooded to social media to comment on the prominence of the cups, with one writing: 'Since when has there been a Costa on Corrie ???'

Another commented: 'Bloody hell is Costa the new sponsor for Corrie, every episode someone has a Costa cup in their hand, what's wrong with Roy's oi.'

However, whilst many viewers raised concerns for the future of Dev's, Roy's Rolls and Frescho, ITV confirmed yesterday that all existing shops were safe.

Mark Trinder, sales director of ITV, said: 'The expansion of the Coronation Street set has given us a great opportunity to feature branded shop facades as more of Weatherfield is opened up to viewers. Incorporating product placement on this scale is something we have wanted to do for some time and we're delighted with this exciting opportunity.

'We've worked really closely with the Coronation Street team to make sure we've got a great brand fit for Co-op and Costa Coffee with the nation's favourite soap while still ensuring editorial integrity.'

An ITV official said the items will appear in multiple scenes per episode, but they should not disrupt the 'editorial integrity' of the show

Broadcasting rules changed in 2011 to now allow product placement in TV shows. Coronation Street became the first show to include peak time product placement

A source close to the show explained that the new area of the set, which includes the Costa and Co-op shops, has been designed in a way that a 'viewer will feel that it has always been there'.

No filming will take place inside the shops, however, because although they will have dressed up windows and appear to have fully furnished interiors, they are not 'complete sets'.

Coronation Street is the longest-running soap on British TV, having first been broadcast in 1960, and is the most watched soap in the country.

Changes to broadcasting rules in 2011 allowed for product placement, and that year Coronation Street became the first show to include peak time product placement. In previous years, the soaps has previously featured Interflora, Nationwide and Visa.

Coronation Street is the longest-running soap opera on British TV. It first aired in 1960

Costa and Co-op are not the first products to be featured on the show. It has previously shown products from Interflora, Nationwide and Visa

New sets of Costa and Co-op shops have been built for the show. A source close with the show said viewers will feel like the shops have 'always been there'

Alison Jones, customer director at Co-op, said: 'Coronation Street is all about community life and the Co-op is a retailer at the heart of local life and being close to the customer, which makes this a perfect match.

'We are excited about the opportunity to showcase our brand on the world's most famous street by unveiling a Weatherfield store and having further brand placements with our shopping bags.'

Eric Tavoukdjian, commercial marketing director for Costa Coffee UK and Ireland, said: 'Costa Coffee is delighted to be welcomed to the famous cobbles of Coronation Street as part of this innovative partnership with ITV.

'As the nation's favourite coffee shop and a presence on the UK high street for more than 40 years, we feel it's perfect to have a presence on one of the nation's favourite and most iconic soaps.

'We're looking forward to partnering with the ITV team to integrate the Costa Coffee brand into Coronation Street as part of this exciting Weatherfield set extension.'Vanderpump Rules' Scheana Shay blasted castmate Kristen Doute on Twitter Tuesday after comments she made on Monday's episode of Watch What Happens Live.

Host and Real Housewives executive producer Andy Cohen had asked the 34-year-old reality star whether there was any truth to Stephen McGee's claim on The Morning Breath Show that Shay slept with his Summer House co-star Carl Radke.

'So I wasn't there,' the SUR server - who appeared on the January 9 episode of Summer House - said, 'but I can one million percent confirm that it happened.'

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Catfight: Vanderpump Rules' Scheana Shay (L) blasted castmate Kristen Doute (R) on Twitter Tuesday after comments she made on Monday's episode of Watch What Happens Live

Gossip? Andy Cohen had asked the 34-year-old reality star whether there was any truth to Stephen McGee's claim on The Morning Breath Show that Shay slept with his Summer House co-star Carl Radke (pictured)

Outraged, 32-year-old Scheana tweeted that she wasn't even friends with Kristen anymore to her captive 281K followers.

'In regards to the "one million percent" tweet last night, refer to #WWHL where she AGAIN thinks she knows something happened and wasntt there,' the Azusa Pacific University alum wrote.

'Last thing I will say about this BS. In the words of Stassi, @kristendoute idk what Ive done to you, but Ill GET you a Pinot Grigio. Looking pretty thirsty over there...'

Shay also tweeted that she was a 'true friend' to Doute, who's 'proven not to be numerous times' when it wasn't 'convenient for her.'

The SUR server (R) - who appeared on the January 9 episode of Summer House - said: 'So I wasn't there, but I can one million percent confirm that it happened'

'She's never there': Outraged, 32-year-old Scheana tweeted that she wasn't even friends with Kristen anymore to her captive 281K followers

The Azusa Pacific University alum (R) wrote: 'Last thing I will say about this BS. In the words of Stassi, @kristendoute idk what Ive done to you, but Ill GET you a Pinot Grigio. Looking pretty thirsty over there' (pictured in 2016)

Burn: Shay also tweeted that she was a 'true friend' to Doute, who's 'proven not to be numerous times' when it wasn't 'convenient for her'

'No matter what we will always stand by each other': After divorcing Michael Shay last year, the Hollywood Medium guest star found love with This Is LA executive producer Robert Valleta (R, pictured January 22)

After divorcing Michael Shay last year, the Hollywood Medium guest star found love with This Is LA executive producer Robert Valleta.

Catch more of Scheana and Kristen on the sixth season of Vanderpump Rules, which airs Tuesdays on Bravo.

And Shay also stars alongside Chester Lockhart in the comedic play Sex Tips for Straight Women from a Gay Man, which runs through May 6 at the Anthony Cools Showroom inside Paris Las Vegas.

Drama queens: Catch more of Scheana and Kristen on the sixth season of Vanderpump Rules, which airs Tuesdays on BravoIt was announced that Meghan Markle would be leaving her hit show back in November.

And it looks like her on-screen fiance will be following suit.

Patrick J. Adams announced that he will be following his 36-year-old co-star's footsteps and is leaving Suits after seven seasons.

The 36-year-old actor and Prince Harry's new fiance played an engaged couple on the legal USA program.

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Moving on? Patrick J. Adams announced that he will be following co-star and on-screen love interest Meghan Markle's footsteps and is leaving Suits after seven seasons

The show is currently in the middle of the seventh season which as the second half will premiere on March 28.

Of the departure Patrick said: 'Its hard for me to imagine what words, in what order would sufficiently express my love and gratitude to all of the people who have made the last seven years possible.

'From my unbelievably talented cast mates to our relentlessly committed crew, to the brilliant minds at USA, UCP and Hypnotic, to the legions of fans all over the world, every one of them dedicating so much of their time, energy and talent to make Suits what it is today  one of the most beloved and successful shows on television.'

He goes on to thank everyone from the bottom of his heart and said that his character has taught him a lot about life and helped him grow as a person.

'Im excited to now step across the screen': The 36-year-old star said he is excited to watch the show from afar

He concluded: 'Im excited to now step across the screen and become solely a fan of a show that I know has much more in store in the years to come. I wish everyone involved the best and am excited to see what kind of trouble theyll get themselves in and out of from here on out.'

It was announced that the show will be returning for an eighth season without Markle and Adams.

Other stars Gabriel Macht, Sarah Rafferty, and Rick Hoffman are set to return as well as new series regular Dule Hill.

President of NBCUniversal Chris McCumber commented on the recent departures: 'While were excited for Season 8, everyone at USA will deeply miss Patrick and Meghan, and are grateful for the talent and commitment they brought to Suits season after season. We wish each of them nothing but the very best.'

Former flame? Patrick is engaged to Meghan's character on their show

Back in November Prince Harry, 33, and Meghan announced their engagement with a royal statement issued by Harry's father, Prince Charles.

It read: 'His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, is delighted to announce the engagement of Prince Harry to Ms. Meghan Markle.

'The wedding will take place in Spring 2018. Further details about the wedding day will be announced in due course.

'His Royal Highness and Ms. Markle became engaged in London earlier this month.

'Prince Harry has informed The Queen and other close members of The Royal Family.

Congratulations! Back in November Prince Harry, 33, and Meghan announced their engagement with a royal statement issued by Harry's father, Prince Charles

Hilarious! At the time Patrick reacted to the news hilariously on Twitter

'Prince Harry has also sought and received the blessing of Ms. Markle's parents.

'The couple will live in Nottingham Cottage at Kensington Palace.'

As Patrick is engaged to Meghan's character on their show, he couldn't help but crack a joke about the situation as he heard the news.

Quoting a tweet from Kensington Palace on Twitter, the actor said: 'She said she was just going out to get some milk... (sic)'.A judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by a British artist who claimed U2 stole elements of his song for the band's single The Fly.

Paul Rose claimed the Irish rockers had copied a 13-second guitar riff in his 1989 instrumental track Nae Slappin' and used it to create a 12-second guitar solo in the track that was released in 1991 as the first single from the Achtung Baby album.

Rose had been seeking at least $5 million in damages from Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. as well as UMG Recordings Inc, who releases U2's records under the Island Records label.

Off the hook: A judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by a British artist who claimed U2 stole elements of his song for the band's single The Fly

US District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan, New York, dismissed the case, ruling that the 12-second segment wasn't a 'sufficiently substantial' portion of the track to be a protectable 'fragment' of the work.

In his suit, Rose, who had sent a demo of Nae Slappin' to Island Records, claimed U2 had copied his track 'virtually note-for-note'.

Allegation: Peter Rose had been seeking at least $5 million in damages after claiming the Irish rockers had copied a 13-second guitar riff in his 1989 instrumental track Nae Slappin'. Pictured, Bono and The Edge at the Grammys on Sunday

25 years ago: The Fly was released by U2 in 1991 as the first single from their Achtung Baby album

Meanwhile, U2 recently released their 14th studio album Songs Of Experience.

Guitarist The Edge said the fact the band has maintained its original line-up and continues to create music together gives U2 a 'unique' perspective.

'I think there's very few bands in the history of rock and roll that have been around and made as many albums as we have with the same line-up,' The Edge said.

'On the last record (Songs of Innocence) we wrote about where we came from..... How this band came together, Dublin of the late 70s early 80s, and this new record is the companion album. But it's from this current perspective now.'If Mariah Carey's dogs use it, it HAS to be a multi-million dollar business.

The founders of the dog-walking app Wag have landed a $300million investment in their company.

Brothers Joshua and Jonathan Viner, who launched the service less than three years ago, announced on Tuesday that the SoftBank Vision Fund had backed them to the tune of nine-figures.

Wagging their tails! The founders of dog-walking app favored by Mariah Carey have landed a $300MILLION investment

The on-demand app is favored by a host of A-list celebs, including Mariah, Kendall Jenner, Chloe Grace Moretz, Hailey Baldwin, Bella Thorne and Gigi and Bella Hadid.

Launching in Los Angeles and New York City in 2015, it has since expanded into to more than 100 cities across the US.

The mobile app also promotes canine adoption by providing a meal to shelter dogs for every walk booked.

Four-legged customers can be spotted by the little green bandannas they wear on every walk, and owners even receive a report card when they are done.

Celeb favourite: The on-demand app is favored by a host of A-list celebs, including Mariah, Kendall Jenner (pictured) Chloe Grace Moretz, Hailey Baldwin, Bella Thorne and Gigi and Bella Hadid.

Chloe and her beloved pooch Pearl were recently gifted free walkies for life

'Were thrilled to have a strategic partner in SoftBank, and welcome their experience scaling leading technology companies through their global vision and operating expertise,' Joshua said.

The brothers also announced on Tuesday that they had partnered with veteran technology executive Hilary Schneider, who was coming on board as Chief Executive Officer.

She previously served as Executive Vice President of Yahoo, CEO of LifeLock, and  crucially  is parent of two Russian Black Terriers: Sadie and Zoe.

'Were also delighted to have recruited Hilary to join as CEO. Her track record in successfully building a number of consumer technology brands, combined with her love of dogs, makes her a perfect partner for us,' Jonathan added.

The pet services industry, which was estimated to be a $69 billion market in the US in 2017 and $180 billion globally, is currently experiencing unprecedented growth.Lily Collins kept it casual while shopping on Tuesday during a break from filming in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The 28-year-old actress wore a light sweater underneath an olive hoodie along with faded Black Orchid Denim jeans with frayed cuffs.

She completed her outfit with white sneakers while enjoying some retail therapy.

Shopping session: Lily Collins kept it casual on Tuesday while shopping in Cincinnati, Ohio during a break from filming

The daughter of English rocker Phil Collins, 67, accessorized with sunglasses perched on her head.

Lily later arrived on the set of her upcoming movie Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile with a cable sweater and iced drink in hand.

The film tells the story of notorious serial kiler Ted Bundy told from the perspective of his girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer, who struggled to accept that he was a charismatic serial killer.

Lily plays Kloepfer who ultimately turned him into law enforcement while 30-year-old Zac Efron portrays Bundy.

On set: The 28-year-old actress later arrived on her rainy set with an iced drink in hand

The film which is being directed by Joe Berlinger also stars John Malkovich as the judge who presided over Bundy's televised trial in 1979 and imposed the death sentence on him.

Filming began last week and Lily and Zac have been posting snaps from the set on social media

Bundy was executed in 1989 at the age of 42 at Florida State Prison after being found guilty on charges of assaulting and murdering multiple girls and women.

Starring role: Lily, shown last month in Los Angeles, portrays serial killer Ted Bundy's girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer in the upcoming movie Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile

Shortly before his execution, he confessed to 30 killings. Authorities believe he may have been responsible for many more.

It was also revealed earlier this month by the BBC that Lily was part of its star-studded cast for the blockbuster adaptation of Les Miserables.

She will be joining Dominic West and Olivia Colman in the production that broke new ground with its casting of black actor and Selma star David Oyelowo as Javert.

The girlfriend: Kloepfer is played by Lily who also shared a couple of photos from the set via social media

Handsome: It is said Bundy's charm and good looks helped lure many of his victims to their doom, traits Efron will have no problem portraying

The part previously has been played by Russell Crowe and Geoffrey Rush in recent film versions.

It is believed to be the first time a major screen version of Victor Hugos classic nineteenth-century novel will not have a white actor in the joint lead role.

The six-part series is expected to air in early 2019.Dorit Kemsley took on newcomer Teddi Mellencamp and veteran Kyle Richards on Tuesday's episode of The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills during a yacht party.

The 41-year-old mother of two unleashed her faux accent first on Teddi, 36, for bringing up her drinking glass preferences to Lisa Vanderpump.

'Ugh. Here we go again,' said Teddi during a confessional after earlier arguing with Dorit over her tardiness.

Glass gate: Dorit Kemsley challenged newcomer Teddi Mellencamp for bringing up her drinking glass preferences during Tuesday's episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

They were interrupted at the yacht party for Paul 'PK' Kemsley's 50th birthday by Kyle, 49, and Lisa Vanderpump, 57, as Teddi said she was ready to let it go.

Teddi felt talked down to by Lisa who was talking about the difference between wine and champagne glasses, but the British restaurateur denied it.

Dorit said her preference for the correct type of glass was a matter of 'etiquette'.

'I don't give a f*** about the glass,' Teddi said.

Sticking up: Kyle Richards stood up for Teddi and was shot down by Dorit

Glass drama: Teddi was miffed that Dorit complained during her spa party about being served in the wrong type of glass

Dorit complained that she didn't understand how she was being made the villain.

Kyle stood by Teddi and told Dorit that the incident registered with her.

'Are you her mouthpiece?,' Dorit pointedly asked Kyle.

Not really: Dorit asked Kyle if she was Teddi's mouthpiece and was met with an icy stare

'No, my darling,' Kyle said after shooting Dorit an icy stare.

Dorit then asked her to stop chiming in and speaking for Teddi, while Lisa remained silent.

The argument escalated as Dorit called Teddi a 'psycho'.

Argument escalation: The argument escalated as Dorit called Teddi a 'psycho'

Teddi said she didn't care and Kyle got up and left.

'You guys are all psycho. I'm outta here,' she said.

Lisa also made a hasty exit leaving Teddi and Dorit together again.

Worked up: Dorit was worked up as she also accused Teddi of being a liar and making things up

Teddi and Dorit then exchanged the fakest of goodbye hugs.

The episode titled Birthday Fever opened with Kyle and Erika Girardi, 46, shopping together at an upscale boutique.

Kyle said the experience reminded her of the movie Pretty Woman starring Julia Roberts.

Fake hug: Teddi and Dorit exchanged a fake hug as they said goodbye to each other

Erika noted that her life changed dramatically after marrying lawyer Tom Girardi in 2001.

'I am Pretty Woman,' she said.

Lisa Rinna lamented her husband Harry Hamlin agreeing to get a new puppy.

Upscale boutique: Kyle opened the episode shopping with Erika Girardi

Famous movie: Erika and Kyle said they felt like they were in a scene from Pretty Woman

Real life: Former cocktail waitress Erika said she was a 'Pretty Woman''

The actress said she had an appearance on Days Of Our Lives coming up along with her QVC commitments.

'I will be its fairy godmother,' she said of caring for the pup.

Teddi earlier met up with Lisa Vanderpump to ride horses together in Del Mar, California.

Busy star: Lisa Rinna had two television commitments that were keeping her busy

They talked afterward and Teddi brought up how someone at her spa party compained about being served in the wrong type of glass.

Vanderpump while giving Dorit advice for PK's birthday party told her that Teddi mentioned the glass issue.

Dorit became incensed and accused Teddie of being 'tightly wound'.

Horse riding: Lisa invited Teddi to ride with her in Del Mar, California

The incident: Teddi afterward told Lisa how someone made an issue about their glass at her party

Kyle and her husband Mauricio Umansky also met up for dinner with Teddi and her husband Edwin.

Edwin said the didn't know until after two months of dating that Teddi's father is rocker John Mellencamp.

Rinna also met up with Kyle but couldn't make the birthday party due to other commitments.

Party planning: Lisa while helping Dorit with birthday party planning told her about Teddi mentioning the glass incident

Meeting up: Kyle and her husband Mauricio met up with Teddi and her husband Edwin

Two months: Edwin said he didn't know Teddi's father was John Mellencamp after two months of dating

Erika helped Dorit prepare for her duet with Boy George of Fever together at PK's birthday party.

Dorit completely surprised PK who got emotional after seeing his parents Esme and Kenny who flew in from London for the bash.

Erika cheered on Dorit as she successfully serenaded her husband at his birthday party.

Getting ready: Dorit rehearsed with Boy George for their duet of Fever

Chopper ride: PK and Dorit flew in a helicopter to the party in Marina Del Rey

Big boat: The birthday bash was held on a three-story yacht

'It's actually not bad,' said Vanderpump who was skeptical Dorit could pull it off.

'It's actually better than I expected,' she added.

RHOBH continues next week on Bravo.

Getting emotional: PK got emotional after seeing his family at the party

Song time: Boy George and Dorit sang Fever together for PK

Loving it: PK loved the performance as his wife and friend/client performed

Proud coach: Erika cheered on Dorit as she performedAnyone who knows their Bible knows that Jesus' crucifixion was not the end of the story.

And now it's reported that Jim Caviezel is set to reprise the role of Jesus in a sequel to Mel Gibson's blockbuster The Passion Of The Christ.

Citing ICM Partners, which represents Caviezel, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed Tuesday that the actor is in negotiations with Gibson, who is likely set to produce and direct again.

Resurrection: Jim Caviezel is set to reprise the role of Jesus in a sequel to Mel Gibson's blockbuster The Passion Of The Christ, The Hollywood Reporter said Tuesday

The Passion Of The Christ was released in 2004 and grossed $612 million worldwide.

The film cost $30 million to make, was shot in Italy and the dialogue was in Aramaic, Herbew and Latin.

The R-rated movie also courted controversy with its graphic violence and alleged antisemitic undertones.

Back together: It's believed that Gibson will likely produce and direct the second film as he did the first one, for which he also co-wrote the screenplay

Purist: Gibson shot the 2004 film on location in Italy and the dialogue was in Aramaic, Hebrew and Latin. It was made for $30 million and grossed $612 million worldwide

Death wasn't the end of the biblical story: The R-rated movie also courted controversy with its graphic violence and alleged antisemitic undertones

Caviezel, 49, is a devout Roman Catholic who is anti-abortion and who famously refused to do love scenes with a naked Jennifer Lopez in the film Angel Eyes.

According to THR.com, screen writer Randall Wallace, who wrote Gibson's Oscar-winning Braveheart, had been working on a screenplay for The Passion Of The Christ: Resurrection.

Wallace told the trade publication in 2016 that his script was for 'a huge and sacred subject' and five months later Gibson revealed the name of the sequel during an interview on CBS' The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, THR.com reported.

Meanwhile, Caviezel will star in the faith film Paul, Apostle of Christ slated for release in March, in time for the Easter weekend.

Believer: Caviezel, 49, pictured in March 2017, is a devout Roman Catholic who is anti-abortion and who famously refused to do love scenes with a naked Jennifer Lopez in the film Angel EyesShe's been busy carving out a career in the modelling world away from her Victoria's Secret star sister Jessica Hart's shadow.

And Ashley Hart cemented her sartorial credentials on Wednesday, as she posed for a sizzling beach photoshoot in Byron Bay.

The 29-year-old blonde bombshell showcased her toned and tanned limbs in a thigh-grazing T-shirt dress as she worked her angles for the camera.

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Beach babe: Ashley Hart, 29, showcased her toned and tanned limbs in a thigh-grazing T-shirt dress as she posed for a sizzling beach photoshoot in Byron Bay

The yoga fanatic looked every inch the beach babe in her navy dress, which flashed a peek of her stripy bikini underneath.

Styling her golden tresses in tousled waves, the Melbourne-born stunner flaunted her striking features with minimal make-up.

Shielded from the blistering sun by an assistant, Ashley appeared to be in her element as she posed for the photographer.

Her outing comes after she admitted she and sister Jessica, 31, would like to start a school for models.

Turning heads: The yoga fanatic looked every inch the beach babe in her navy dress, which flashed a peek of her stripy bikini underneath

Turning heads: Styling her golden tresses in tousled waves, the Melbourne-born stunner flaunted her striking features with minimal make-up

Talking to the The Daily Telegraph, the genetically-blessed pair revealed their entrepreneurial dreams, with Ashley gushing: 'I have this vision and dream of a model finishing school'.

We want to teach women rites of passage, from teenager coming into womanhood, teaching things that for us are sort of like breathing because we've grown up in the industry,' she continued.

While it's unclear as to the nature of the syllabus taught at Jessica and Ashley's school, the pair will no doubt attract a wide interest from potential students thanks to their popular social media following.

Having fun: Shielded from the blistering sun by an assistant, Ashley appeared to be in her element as she posed for the photographer

Jessica is known for walking the catwalk for the famed Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, but it was the Dolly Model Search in 2000 that first launched Jess's career in the industry.

Piggybacking off her sister's new-found notoriety, Ashley has since found her own fame in the modelling world.

Meanwhile, Jessica recently sparked rumours that Ashley has found love with a new man after splitting from husband Buck Palmer more than a year ago.

Blonde ambition: Her outing comes after she admitted she and sister Jessica, 31, would like to start a school for models

Posting a photo of Ashley and a mystery individual in a romantic pose at the beach, she wrote: 'First light of 2018 was magical. Were off to a great start.'

Jessica added in the hashtags: 'Tulum', 'Don't know that couple', and 'Happy New Year to everyone.'

Ashley made headlines a year ago thanks to her 'hipster' breakup with meditation guru and socialite Buck.

In the breakup announcement, Ashley wrote an emotional poem and performed an 'infinite dance' with her ex on a mountaintop.Many celebrities in Hollywood roasted President Donald Trump on Twitter during his first State of the Union address on Tuesday night at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Patton Oswalt lead the way in celebrity commentary as he took to social media to live tweet Trump's speech to his more than four million followers.

The 47-year-old comedian joked along with his fans during the hour-long speech broadcast across television screens and on the internet, saying 'Here comes Trump's cabinet. Scientifically this is called a "goblin picnic" before using the hashtag #SOTU.

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Tough: President Trump received backlash online during his first State of the Union address on Tuesday night at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C

In another tweet, the Spy Kids star wrote, 'Any lip readers out there? Is Melanie repeating, "Help me" through clenched teeth?'

First Lady Melania Trump arrived in the House chamber wearing a white Dior suit, and reportedly took her own motorcade to Capitol Hill amid allegations of marital troubles with the president after porn star Stormy Daniels alleged an affair in 2006, a year-and-a-half into their marriage.

'Good to be in a room where I'm either hated or barely tolerated,' Patton tweeted of the president's speech. 'Feels like home.'

Comedy: The 47-year-old comedian joked along with his fans during the hour-long speech broadcast across television screens and on the internet

Goblin picnic: Patton Oswalt lead the way in celebrity commentary as he took to social media to live tweet Trump's speech to his more than four million followers

Help! In another tweet, the Spy Kids star wrote, 'Any lip readers out there? Is Melanie repeating, "Help me" through clenched teeth?

'Good to be in a room where I'm either hated or barely tolerated,' Patton tweeted of the president's speech. 'Feels like home'

Trump was joined in the House of Representatives by his wife, Melania, and all of his adult children. His youngest son, Barron, stayed behind.

Part of his nearly 80-minute long speech focused on the dangerous MS-13 gang and subsequent violence surrounding the group and its members.

'Stop trying to make "MS13" happen, Donald!' Oswalt tweeted.

'Puerto Rico's still underwater' Oswald wrote of the devastating hurricane that swept through the US territory in September

'Solid legacy' Patton tweeted of the Trump supporters in his timeline

'Stop trying to make "MS13" happen, Donald!' Oswalt tweeted

Many celebrities joined Patton on Twitter to voice their outrage at the president and his State of the Union.

Sarah Silverman wrote, 'I was told darkness could not exist in the light. But here it is, for everyone to not see.'

Jim Carrey brought a more artistic approach to the address with an image of shark fins swimming through colorful paint.

Funny lady: Sarah Silverman wrote, 'I was told darkness could not exist in the light. But here it is, for everyone to not see'

Unique: Jim Carrey brought a more artistic approach to the address with an image of shark fins swimming through colorful paint

Tears: In another drawing, Carrey showed Abraham Lincoln with one solemn tear streaming down his face and the words, 'It's my party and I'll cry if I want to!'

In another drawing, Carrey showed Abraham Lincoln with one solemn tear streaming down his face and the words, 'It's my party and I'll cry if I want to!'

The Ellen Show producer Andy Lassner eloquently tweeted, 'Good luck to "Saturday Night Live" on trying to make this any more f****ng ridiculous than it already is.'

Trump's speech was the third-longest State of the Union at one hour and 20 minutes in length, according to The New York Times.

President Bill Clinton spoke for one hour and 28 minutes in 2000, and one hour and 24 minutes in 1995, according to the American Presidency Project.

Laughs: The Ellen Show producer Andy Lassner eloquently tweeted, 'Good luck to "Saturday Night Live" on trying to make this any more f****ng ridiculous than it already is'She has flaunted her enviable physique in magazines and on runways all over the world.

And on Wednesday, Ashley Hart paraded her taut stomach and trim pins in a skimpy striped bikini.

The blonde bombshell, 28, wore the colourful two-piece while at a photoshoot on a beach in Byron Bay.

Beach babe! Model Ashley Hart shows off her incredible figure and taut stomach in a striped bikini while on a photoshoot in Byron Bay on Wednesday

She showcased her impressively toned figure in the colourful matching set, which also provided a glimpse of her assets.

Relaxing in-between takes, Ashley appeared to enjoy a chat with fitness model pal Aimee Fischer-Gray.

The pair walked along the water's edge and later found a spot to sit on their towels to soak up the sunshine.

Natural beauty: Ashley covered her fair complexion with a straw boater hat, while her blonde locks were styled loosely in waves and her makeup applied in natural tones

Ashley covered her fair complexion with a straw boater hat with a black ribbon.

The tanned beauty had her blonde locks styled loosely in waves, while her makeup appeared in natural tones.

Earlier in the day, she took a video in front of the mirror, writing: 'Shooting with the fam today.'

In the short clip, she wore a floral-designed bikini, that she later posed in outside as she wrote: 'sunshine heaven.'

'Shooting with the fam today': Ashley appeared on set with fitness model pal Aimee Fischer-Gray and Aimee's mother

'Sunshine heaven': Wearing a floral-designed bikini, she later posed outside as she soaked up the sunshine

The Australian beauty is the younger sister of former Victoria's Secret model, Jessica Hart.

Jess is known for her signature gap-tooth smile, having launched her career at just 13 years old, when she won a modeling competition hosted by Dolly Magazine in 2000.

The genetically-blessed pair regularly pose together on the red carpet and have both been based in the US for the past few months.The Raw Strength and Courage Club

Kayaking the Cascades in the cold

by John C. Heider

From the January, 2018 issue

You may have seen them some freezing afternoon: dipping in and out of the frigid waters, their exposed skin neon pinkish in its reaction to the constant chill, icicles forming on their beards or hair. It's an amazing sight--and even more amazing once you've realized that they were not suffering an accident on the Argo Cascades but rather purposefully and even joyfully plunging their boats and bodies into the arctic-like waters of the Huron River again and again in the middle of winter.



The hardy souls enjoying the waters of the seven mini-rapids of the Cascades in their short, teardrop-shaped, highly maneuverable play boats are members of the U-M Raw Strength and Courage Kayak Club. The club admits non-students but must maintain a more-than-50-percent Maize and Blue membership. Many students are away during the warmer months, and even some of those who are in town prefer to avoid the crowds from spring through fall, when tubers and less-committed kayakers clog the Cascades. That leaves the Raw Strengthers to concentrate their efforts in the winter months. When most fair-weather paddlers are safe in their warm homes, they can have the river to themselves.



Last winter, they included third-year law student Jason Pahlke. "The paddling is just so much fun," says Pahlke, trying to explain the inexplicable appeal. "If it's not frozen, we're there." And the Huron River near Argo Pond is convenient on a cold winter's day, with its nearby parking lot. "You simply dress for the weather, and the Cascades are a good spot 'cause it's so close to your car," Pahlke explains--"and if you get cold you can head back to your car or do some jumping jacks."



Even with the dedication of the kayakers, a day on the Cascades can be limited by what nature throws your way--and what the body can put up with. Sometimes the rapids freeze below the first drop, so "you just have to hang out in the first run," says Pahlke. And

...continued below...

then there are the mini-icebergs: "There are chunks of ice in the water as you're playing in it that break off from Argo Pond and come through the rapids," he says. In bartender-speak, it's a Cascades on the Rocks.Pahlke graduated last spring and now lives in Tacoma. But Huckleberry Febbo, thirty, a U-M mechanical engineering PhD student, will once again be paddling the river, in winter, bare-chested. "I guess you just gotta do the best with what you've got," he says. "It can't always be perfect weather. I just never minded cold water that much, even from when I was a little kid--I jumped in the Atlantic Ocean for the Polar Bear Club in Massachusetts when it was freezing outside."Hitting the water is a thrilling challenge for Febbo. "For me it's almost like an obligation: Who wouldn't prefer an eighty-degree water temp? But it adds an element of danger."Logan Hansen, twenty-two, was a Raw Strengther throughout his U-M premed studies. Now in med school at Northwestern, he says winter visitors to the Cascades, seeing the cold-weather kayakers, often ask "Do you need help?"--then add, as they watch the boaters plunge into the chilly waters, "What were you thinking?"The kayakers seem not only to relish the extreme challenge of dipping about the water when most don't even want to set foot outside but also to draw strength and encouragement from their fellow paddlers. "It's a lot of fun," says Pahlke. "You get some paddlers out there and some hot coffee in a thermos. They so much love it that they can't wait until it's nice: they just have to get out there."Once, "it was thirty-one degrees, and we actually had to break through ice to get out to open water," Hansen recalls. "You have to flip over"--that is, deliberately submerge yourself in the icy water--to keep the boats' nylon fabric skirts from freezing and cracking. "The guys with the beards and mustaches get the gnarly icicles on them that we like to take pictures of."As their heads dip into the water, there's always the potential for the winter kayakers to suffer from a condition well known to those who eat ice cream too fast: "There's some people that refuse to go out when you roll over and get brain freeze," Hansen admits. "But it's almost always worth it for the stories, if not for the kayaking alone." [Originally published in January, 2018.]It was her son Hunter, three, first day of school on Tuesday.

And Roxy Jacenko was thrilled to be reunited with her little boy when he got an early mark from classes on Wednesday.

All dressed up in his little school uniform, the private-school pre-schooler was seen embracing his mother with a tight hug outside the gates.

She couldn't wait to see him! On Wednesday, Roxy Jacenko was spotted in a casual ensemble as she picked up her son Hunter, 3, at midday on his second day of school

Jumping into her arms, Roxy was beaming as she cuddled her little man.

The entrepreneur dressed in a white t-shirt, which she paired with denim shorts and flashy red sneakers.

Although sporting a casual look, the blonde beauty was seen with her long locks styled into loose waves and a full face of makeup complete with fake lashes.

Reunited! Jumping into her arms, Roxy was all smiles when she was reunited with her little man

She's not a regular mum, she's a cool mum! The entrepreneur dressed in a white T-shirt, which she paired with denim shorts and flashy red sneakers

Stylish: Roxy accessorised her casual getup with her blue $12,000 Hermes Birkin bag and $450,000 engagement ring

Accessorising her getup with her blue $12,000 Hermes Birkin bag and $450,000 engagement ring, Roxy carried Hunter back to her $550,000 Bentley.

And looking adorable in his uniform, Hunter was in a striped polo and matching long shorts complete with fresh white Nike velcro sneakers.

While the three-year-old is still getting used to big school with half-days for the next two weeks, the learning didn't end there.

The learning never stops! Standing by the ticketing machine, Roxy was seen teaching Hunter how to pay for parking

Proud of his achievement! Grabbing the ticket, Hunter was seen proudly walking back to the car with the receipt in his hand

Loving school so far: Speaking to Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday, the blonde beauty said her youngest son's first day of school went smoothly

Stunner: With a full face of makeup, Roxy also added her $450,000 engagement ring to her look

Standing by the ticketing machine, Roxy was seen teaching Hunter how to pay for parking before he proudly walked back to the car with the receipt in his hand.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia on Tuesday, the blonde beauty said her youngest son's first day of school went smoothly.

While Pixie, 6, was greeted with high fives by her friends she said Hunter's drop off was no different.

The perfect first day: 'Hunty was off with the teacher and a see you guys later!'

Getting used to it: Roxy revealed Hunter will be finishing school at 12:30pm for the next two weeks

Happy to see Hunter: Roxy was all smiles as she did the daily pick up run

'Hunty was the same - off with the teacher and a see you guys later!' she revealed.

'I must be boring!! They were both happy to see the back of both Oli [husband Oliver Curtis] and I!'

And celebrating the end of day two, the pair headed off to the Beauty Boosters event at Bondi Beach.

Time to celebrate: Celebrating the end of day two, the pair headed off to the Beauty Boosters event at Bondi BeachFans were overjoyed when a surprise Crocodile Dundee sequel trailer dropped last week, before it became clear the movie was likely just a Super Bowl commercial.

But shortly after the film, starring US comedian Danny McBride and Australia's Chris Hemsworth was confirmed as fake, news of a different lost sequel emerged.

On Monday, Australian comedians Wil Anderson and Charlie Clausen revealed on their TOFOP podcast that they too had penned a sequel back in 2014.

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The REAL Crocodile Dundee remake: Wil Anderson and Charlie Clausen were planning a reboot starring Chris Hemsworth back in 2014 - four years before the spoof Super Bowl advert

What's more, Wil - a stand-up comedian and host of ABC's Gruen - reminded listeners that Chris Hemsworth was to star in their hypothetical reboot too.

'We had one person we thought would be ideal for this role, which is Chris Hemsworth,' Charlie said on Monday's episode.

'If youre going to do an action version of Crocodile Dundee with the biggest actor in the right age group theres no other choice.'

It was on the very same podcast that Wil and Charlie first came up with the idea for a fresh take on Paul Hogan's beloved classic, back in 2014.

Not to be? Fans were overjoyed when a surprise Crocodile Dundee sequel trailer dropped last week, before it became clear the movie was likely just a Super Bowl commercial

'I believed in it so much I wrote a three-page outline that I shared with people, when we struck up this idea I was so struck by it,' Charlie announced this week.

'Anyone I met I would tell about it and we had discussions about it, like we talked about how wed approach Paul Hogan, it seemed such a no-brainer.'

Wil reminded listeners that their version was to be a darker take on Hogan's light-hearted classic, citing drug-dealer-on-the-run film Pineapple Express as inspiration.

Great minds think alike! 'We had one person we thought would be ideal for this role, which is Chris Hemsworth,' Charlie said on Monday's episode (Chris was set to star in the all-but-confirmed fake 2018 film too)

There's no intention to kick up a stink over the forthcoming commercial either, he noted: 'Theres nothing in my world or mind that they stole this idea.'

The supposedly fake film, titled Dundee: The Son of A Legend Returns Home, was to revolve around Crocodile Dundee's American-raised son, Bryan (McBride) returning to his father's native Australian outback.

Last Wednesday, Chris promoted the apparent commercial by sharing a video from the project to Instagram.

'No other choice': 'If youre going to do an action version of Crocodile Dundee with the biggest actor in the right age group theres no other choice' he added

The Daily Telegraph quickly raised suspicions that the ad was nothing more than an expensive commercial for the NFL's biggest game, which takes place February 4.

The publication pointed out a number of clues that indicate that the movie is a spoof marketing stunt, including the fact that the director Steve Rogers is actually an advertising executive.

Various media outlets have also speculated that the new Dundee is 'probably fake,' including Slash Film and Yahoo Movies.She stunned in a low-cut wedding dress when she tied the knot with self-proclaimed 'alpha male' Dean Wells during Married At First Sight's premiere on Monday.

But while Tracey Jewel's gown revealed her bare decolletage and slight cleavage, viewers failed to see her diamond tattoo below her right collarbone.

The Perth-based single mum's ink appeared to be covered at all times by her lengthy brunette locks.

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Tatts different! Married At First Sight's bride Tracey Jewel has ink of a diamond under her right collarbone

Beautiful bride: She stunned in a low-cut wedding dress when she tied the knot with self-proclaimed 'alpha male' Dean Wells during Married At First Sight's premiere on Monday

The two-time author's small artwork was also hidden in promo shots and, despite her hair being parted over her shoulder during the wedding's ring exchange, it wasn't visible.

Tracey, who is the ex-girlfriend of Bachelor 'love rat' Blake Garvey, told Daily Mail Australia she has had the tattoo for some time.

She said: 'My last name is Jewel, so I got it done a few years ago.'

'My last name is Jewel, so I got it done a few years ago': Tracey, who is famously the ex-girlfriend of Bachelor 'love rat' Blake Garvey, told Daily Mail Australia she has had the tattoo for some time

Mystery: In a dual photo used on the show of the couples, a picture of Tracey's chest appeared free from the tattoo

Tracey also claimed the wedding dress partially covered her ink, but 'no makeup was used' to cover it up.

In a dual photo used on the show of the couples, a picture of Tracey's chest appeared free from the tattoo.

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Channel Nine for comment.

Meanwhile, Tracey was the blushing bride after enjoying 'fun and games' on her wedding night with 'alpha male' Dean Wells.

But questions remain about what is in the future for Tracey and her 'husband', as she was spotted in the company of fellow co-star Sean Thomsen for the second time this month on Monday.

Moving on? Tracey was spotted in the company of fellow co-star Sean Thomsen for the second time this month, raising questions on whether she and TV husband Dean are still together

The MAFS contestants, who are paired with other people on the show, were seen running errands together in Sydney's Bondi Junction last week and in Paddington on Monday.

Tracey told Daily Mail Australia on Monday that she is 'friends' with Sean, having spent time with him while filming the series.

The Nine Network also stated that 'a number' of contestants had been out and about in Sydney for publicity commitments.Josiah Duggar, 21, brought his courtship partner, Lauren Swanson, 18, along on his family vacation to New Zealand and Australia.

The two, who only went public with their relationship on January 23, were seen getting cozy on the shore of Lake Taupo.

The 19 Kids and Counting family traveled down under for holiday as well as a Meet the Duggars event.

Family affair! Josiah Duggar, 21, brought his courtship partner, Lauren Swanson, 18, along on his family vacation to New Zealand and Australia

The newly defined couple looked casual as they strolled by the beach on the North island of New Zealand.

Josiah was in a t-shirt and jeans while Lauren donned a beige skirt and a blue blouse.

'Im really enjoying the beauty in New Zealand...oh, and the landscape is pretty nice too I guess,' Duggar captioned his most recent Instagram photo of him and new girlfriend Lauren.

New love! The two, who only went public with their relationship on January 23, were seen getting cozy on the shore of Lake Taupo

His sister Jill Dillard responded with the comment: 'Aww! Y'all are just so presh!'

Only 15 members of the family decided to take the trip down under.

The ever-growing family took more than 25 pieces of luggage on their trip.

That's a hike! The 19 Kids and Counting family traveled down under for holiday as well as a Meet the Duggars event

Missing a few! Only 15 members of the family decided to take the trip to Australia and its neighbor New Zealand. The ever-growing family took more than 25 pieces of luggage

On January 26, the whole family headed over to a New Zealand Christian Community Church to perform and share their faith with the congregation.

Following the service, the church of Palmerston North enjoyed a light supper with the reality TV family.

Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar matched in red for the event.She recently moved to Hollywood to kick start the next chapter of her acting career.

And on Wednesday the stunner shared a picture of herself as a child with a sweet tribute to her mother Tania Gogos-Wilson.

The shot, taken in 1997, shows the now 25-year-old being carried by her mum and features some extra, modern days touches in the form of party hat emojis.

Guess who! She recently made the big move to the bright lights of Los Angles to kick start the next chapter of her acting career

The cute-as-a-button child was revealed to be none other than Neighbours star Olympia Valance.

Posting the photo from her new base in Los Angeles, the brunette beauty shared heartfelt message along with the adorable snap.

'Happiest of birthdays to my goddess of a mother Tania Gogos-Wilson. You are my world and I already miss you crazy,' the actress wrote.

'Come visit me ASAP queen,' she added.

Sweet: The cute-as-a-button child was revealed to be none other than Neighbours star Olympia Valance. This comes after Tania posted a very emotional photo of herself hugging her daughter at the international departure gates just before flying out to Los Angeles

This comes after Tania posted a very emotional photo of herself hugging her Olympia at the international departure gates just before flying out to Los Angeles.

In the snap, both mother and daughter appear teary-eyed as the embraced each other.

'My big baby is off on her big adventure. LA bound,' Tania wrote.

Like mother, like daughter: Both appear teary-eyed as the embraced each other in the snap. 'My big baby is off on her big adventure. LA bound,' Tania wrote

With Olympia's final scenes set to be aired in coming episodes, she also gushed over working with and learning from her co-stars, Jackie Woodburne and Kate Kendall, calling them 'incredible people'.

Aside from trying her luck in Los Angeles during pilot season in late January, Olympia recently completed filming British series Ghetto Heaven.

Last year, it was revealed she had signed with US management agency Roar, the same team who represent Chris, Liam and Luke Hemsworth.

Family time: Last year, it was revealed she had signed with US management agency Roar, the same team who represent Chris, Liam and Luke Hemsworth (Olympia pictured with her younger siblings, mother Tania and stepfather musician Ross Wilson)

Hollywood-bound 'I feel very lucky and very blessed to have been given this chance,' she told The Herald Sun about her move to Los Angeles

'I feel very lucky and very blessed to have been given this chance,' she told The Herald Sun.

It was also reported that she 'begged' the producers to not kill off her character, allowing her to allow her to return in the future.

'I never want to be killed off. I honestly love Melbourne, and I love working on Neighbours,' she said in a previous report by The Herald Sun.Over the years, he's been known for keeping his sartorial selections simple, opting frequently to step out in plain T-shirts and boot cut jeans.

And Simon Cowell, 58, showed that his wardrobe remains unchanged whatever the weather on Tuesday night, when he emerged from the London Palladium and stepped out on the chilly and wet streets of the capital wearing just a white tee.

Looking giddy and elated as he emerged from the Britain's Got Talent auditions, he was followed by glamorous fellow judges Amanda Holden, 46, and Alesha Dixon, 39, who sought cover from the inclement weather under large umbrellas.

Making an exit: Simon Cowell was spotted exiting the Britain's Got Talent auditions, held at the English capital's London Palladium on Tuesday night

Also spotted were the show's co-hosts Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly, both 42, who were seen getting into the back of a chauffeur-driven vehicle ahead of being whisked away following a day of work in the English capital.

Ant's outing comes as it has been reported that he could be in line to pay out as much as 155million in his divorce battle with estranged wife Lisa Armstrong, who he was reunited with when she was seen arriving at the auditions ahead of him.

On Sunday, the stars of the show were all seen arriving at the London Palladium for the auditions, which take place each year across various parts of the UK.

Under my umbrella-ella...: BGT judges Amanda Holden, left, and Alesha Dixon, right, sought cover from the cold and wet rain under large umbrellas

Best of British: Amanda opted to keep her head covered by a large Union Jack-themed brolly

Taking no chances: The glamorous co-stars' faces were completely obscured as they walked

Ant, whose separation from Lisa was confirmed little more than a fortnight ago, no doubt has a lot on his mind.

It has been reported that his estranged wife Lisa Armstrong could walk away with 155 million following their divorce.

As well as Simon, Amanda and Alesha, with Simon Cowell, David Walliams, Amanda Holden and Alesha Dixon all pictured leaving the iconic London venue.

Ant was seen keeping his costs down as he enjoyed a budget friendly tube journey to head to the BGT photocall in the English capital on Sunday.

Whatever the weather: While his co-stars ran for cover, Simon walked out in just a white T-shirt

Usual ensemble: He teamed his short-sleeved top with a pair of his signature boot cut jeans

Upbeat: The 58-year-old mogul appeared to be in a decidedly jovial mood as he stepped out

The presenter - who recently split with Lisa after eleven years of marriage - sported a huge smile as he enjoyed the cheaper mode of transport.

Their snap, which was shared on Amanda's account, saw stunning Alesha hold up the camera as the group snuggled in close to capture the moment.

Ant looked particularly happier as she grinned to the camera, wearing a slick navy shirt and grey baker boy hat.

While the panel and presenters of BGT are used to being driven around in style, they all looked happy and relaxed as they enjoyed a ride on public transport.

Out: Meanwhile, co-host Anthony McPartlin was also spotted making his way out of the venue

Downbeat: The star, who is currently dealing with a shocking marital split, looked downbeat

Smile: He cracked a smile as he bundled into the back of a car with co-host Declan Donnelly

Ant found fame as part of a double act with pal Dec, with the pair hosting ITV's Saturday Night Takeaway and I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!

In 2007 Ant and Dec signed a deal with ITV that was rumoured to be worth around 40 million that meant they would present exclusively on ITV  they recently renewed this deal for an estimated 30 million which sees the pair cemented with the channel until 2019.

Cosmopolitan claimed that for their one-month stint on Im A Celeb, Ant and Dec receive 2.5 million each, with the pair earning 79,000 as a per day in 2016.

As well as their work on TV, the duo are both property investors too  reportedly owning properties worth around 10 million combined.

Costly! The presenter's sighting comes after reports that his estranged wife Lisa Armstrong could walk away with 155 million following his divorce

Ant moved out of his marital home in November, and has been residing in another London residence since then.

The pair own their own production company Mitre, and Dec owns his own company called Deecour, and they also own Hurley Promotions together which handles their finances.

It is also reported that Ant and Dec are each insured against the other's death for 1 million.

The embattled TV presenter has been through a difficult 12 months after being rehabilitated for drug addiction following a painful knee injury and later splitting from his wife Lisa Armstrong which he announced earlier this month.

Keeping costs down: Ant was seen keeping his costs down as he enjoyed a budget friendly tube journey to head to the Britain's Got Talent photocall in London on Sunday

'On the tube with the gang': Comedian David Walliams also took to his Instagram account to share a snap of them heading to work on public transport

Your average commuter: While the panel and presenters of BGT are used to being driven around in style, they all looked happy and relaxed as they enjoyed a ride on public transpor

He spoke to The Sun at the NTAs after growing emotional on-stage when he and his best friend Ant dominated the annual awards ceremony, after sweeping the board with three gongs, including Best Presenter for the 17th year running.

Speaking to the publication, Ant, who has remained relatively silent on his woes, confessed to his struggles just days after his divorce announcement.

Earlier in the evening, on receiving the award, Ant broke down in tears as he made his way to the stage and insisted that the prize had 'meant a lot' following a 'tough year'.

On-stage he said: 'I'm emotional, very emotional. Because of the last 12 months what I've been through, winning this award is particularly emotional for me.'

Happy: Meanwhile, Ant put the drama to one side as he made his arrival on the red carpet for the Britain's Got Talent photocall in London on Sunday

Casual: The Geordie host sported a casual ensemble of jeans and a navy coat, along with a grey flat cap

Meanwhile, Alesha Dixon and Amanda Holden battled for best dressed on Sunday evening as auditions for the forthcoming series of BGT got underway.

The glamorous pair looked equally stunning while posing for photos outside the Palladium, where they were joined by their fellow judges.

Opting for an embellished thigh-skimming skirt beneath a fitted green vest top, Alesha commanded attention as she made her latest appearance on behalf of the long-running show.

Amanda chose a glamorous but girly ensemble, teaming florals with an edgy leather biker jacket as she made her arrival on the red carpet at the Palladium.

Looking good: Alesha Dixon and Amanda Holden battled for best dressed on Sunday as auditions for the forthcoming series of Britain's Got Talent got underway in London

Gorgeous: Amanda edged up her demure floral dress with a voluminous skirt by teaming with with a leather biker jacket

Glamorous: Amanda elongated her slender physique with blush pink suede heels as she arrived on the red carpet

The mother-of-two elongated her slender physique with matching blush pink suede heels, styling her blonde bobbed tresses into a funky waved look.

The star, who has been a judge on the ITV favourite since its inception in 2007, also showed off her flawless complexion with neatly lined eyes and browns along with a nude pink lip.

Alesha put on a leggy display in her military-inspired look, sporting an olive green cardigan and matching camisole top with her gold studded black miniskirt.

The Boy Does Nothing songstress accessorised her look with black suede strappy heels and a couple of simple gold necklaces.

Leggy: Alesha showed off her slender pins in a black studded miniskirt and olive green jacket and cami combo

Fierce and fabulous: Alesha accessorised her look with black suede strapped heels

Ever the spunky songstress, Alesha was seen jokingly flashing her shoulders as the posed up a storm on the red carpet, showcasing her famous grin for the cameras.

After another successful series in 2017, Britain's Got Talent has been travelling round the country again in a bid to find the next big star.

The show has already been having auditions in London since Saturday, after travelling to Blackpool earlier this month.

BGT's cast and crew will head to Manchester next week for the final round of auditions, with the series set to return in the spring.

Joker: Ever the spunky songstress, Alesha was seen jokingly flashing her shoulder in the red carpet

Eclectic: The Boy Does Nothing singer was sported an unusual military inspired jacket with a see-through back and shoulders

Last year saw pianist Tokio Myers take the 250,000 prize and a spot on the Royal Variety performance.

This year's hopefuls will be vying for the coveted Golden Buzzer, which awards them an automatic place in the live semi-finals.

So far, both Amanda and David revealed they had already pressed the button for a contestant who auditioned in Blackpool, so it remains to be see who the rest of the panel, and Ant and Dec, decide to support.

Simon has been vocal about his plans to make some changes to the formet this series, after the judges lost their chance to make a casting vote in the live semi-finals.

He told the Daily Star: 'On the live shows we actually don't do anything,' he admits. 'Amanda says it is like a posh Gogglebox. All we do is talk. I don't think we will be like this again. It is like 'why have I bothered to turn up?'

Squad: The stars of the long-running show teamed up for a glam group shot outside the venueRobert De Niro opened fire at point-blank range on Tuesday night while filming in New York City.

The 74-year-old acting legend raised a handgun at a man while shooting director Martin Scorsese's new mob drama The Irishman in Queens.

De Niro grimaced as he fired the revolver on a street while filming in snow.

Mob drama: Robert De Niro filmed a snowy scene on Tuesday in New York City in which he shot a man at point-blank range

He wore a brown leather jacket and black trousers and had his hair slicked back while filming.

The man on the other end of the gunfire donned a grey fedora, trench coat and trousers.

He crumbled to the ground in agony after being shot and De Niro hovered over his body with his gun drawn.

De Niro plays real-life hitman Frank 'The Irishman' Sheeran in the upcoming $125 million movie.

Hollywood legend: The 74-year-old actor plays real-life hitman Frank 'The Irishman' Sheeran in the upcoming mob drama by director Martin Scorsese

Small gun: De Niro aimed a small revolver at a man in grey

Going down: The gunshot victim crumbled after being struck

The film is based on the 2004 novel I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt and centers on Sheeran recalling his possible involvement in the death of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa.

World War II veteran Sheeran on his deathbed in 2003 reportedly confessed that he killed his friend Hoffa, which was really hard on him, but 'it was business'.

It's the ninth movie that De Niro and Scorsese have collaborated on following classics including Goodfellas, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver. The Godfather Part Two and The King of Comedy, earning them both Oscars.

In agony: De Niro stood over the gunshot victim as he dropped down in agony

But they haven't worked together since the 1995 Las Vegas-set Casino

As with many of Scorsese's films, the cast is an ensemble of the acting elite, also including Oscar-winners Al Pacino, who plays labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa; Joe Pesci, who plays mobster Russell Bufalino; and Anna Paquin, who plays Peggy Sheeran, the daughter of De Niro's character, along with Ray Romano and Harvey Keitel.

The cast has been spotted filming the Netflix drama around the city for the past few months.

Standing over: The hitman stood over the man as he fell to the ground

Finishing touch: De Niro's character hovered over his victim

The release date has still to be set with Variety reporting in November that Scorsese had asked for a commitment from Netflix for a theatrical run in 2019.

Sources familiar with the negotiations say Netflix film division chief Scott Stuber had assured him it would get a two-week theatrical run to qualify for the Oscars.

Netflix head of film publicity Julie Fontaine, however, told the trade publication that 'its premature to say anything at this point' regarding distribution.Arlene Phillips has defended Brendan Cole against the BBC's decision to sack him from Strictly Come Dancing - nine years after she was cut from the series herself.

On Tuesday's Good Morning Britain, the choreographer, 74, admitted she was 'shocked' by the news, and claimed the show needs 'conflict, excitement and challenges', after the outspoken dancer revealed his contract had not been renewed.

GMB's Charlotte Hawkins, who was his partner on the 2017 series, added that Brendan had been nothing but supportive during their time on the show - causing co-host Piers Morgan to joke she was to blame, as his 'worst performing partner'.

'The show needs conflict': Arlene Phillips (R) defended Brendan Cole against the BBC's decision to sack him from Strictly Come Dancing on Tuesday - nine years after she was cut from the series

When asked about Brendan's sacking on the show, Arlene said: 'I was shocked  normally if anyone goes its in June, but this has happened so close to the New Year.'

Brendan was known for his outspoken and rule-breaking nature, which Arlene said the show needs in order to keep it more entertaining and exciting.

She went on: 'I think the show needs conflict, excitement, challenges. Hes always been the outspoken one.

'Anton [du Beke] is as much loved as Brendan. He has always been the bad boy. Theres no doubles.'

Upset: Arlene appeared beside Charlotte Hawkins, who revealed Brendan had been nothing but supportive during their time partnered together on 2017 series (above)

Honest: When asked about Brendan's sacking on the show, Arlene said: 'I was shocked. 'I think the show needs conflict, excitement, challenges. Hes always been the outspoken one'

Arlene's comments about Brendan come after she was axed from the beloved ballroom show herself in 2009, after six series.

The BBC were accused of ageism after they dropped the choreographer from the judging panel and replaced her with pop star Alesha Dixon - who is 36 years her junior.

The former Hot Gossip director has made no secret of her disappointment at being let go from the show.

Unfair: She added: 'Anton [du Beke] is as much loved as Brendan. He has always been the bad boy. Theres no doubles'

Axed: Arlene, 74, was axed from the ballroom show herself in 2009 - leading the BBC to be accused of ageism (pictured with Craig Revel Horwood, Len Goodman and Bruno Tonioli)

Speaking of Len Goodman's departure on ITV in 2016, she said: 'Len is going and as always when the BBC said goodbye, the BBC do what the BBC want to do so I have no clue.'

Before admitting in an interview with Good Housekeeping last year: 'Ive never really been given a real reason [as to why I was axed]. I dont think I will ever know the answer.'

During the interview with Arlene, GMB host Charlotte expressed her own disappointment at his sacking, as Brendan had very fully supportive as a partner during their time on the 2017 series.

Partner in crime: During the interview, GMB host Charlotte expressed her own disappointment at his sacking, as Brendan had very fully supportive as a partner during the 2017 series

Standing up for her: Addressing his famous row with new head judge Shirley Ballas after their Tango, she said: 'I felt he had my back and he was defending me'

Unprofessional: Arlene added of the spat: ' I think it was mild. And Bruno jumping in, too - what are they, in school? This is a professional show'

Addressing his famous row with new head judge Shirley Ballas after their Tango, she said: 'I felt he had my back and he was defending me. That week we had tried to come back fighting after a bad week before.'

Arlene added of the so-called spat: 'I think it was mild. And Bruno jumping in, too - what are they, in school? This is a professional show.'

Keeping things light-hearted during the interview, host Piers Morgan joked Charlotte was the reason behind Brendan's axe, as his lowest scoring partner in fifteen years.

Playful: Keeping things light-hearted during the interview, host Piers Morgan (L) joked Charlotte was the reason behind Brendan's axe, as his lowest scoring partner in fifteen years

Poking fun: He asked: ' Are you to blame?', causing Charlotte to quip back: 'I think there was harsh treatment on the judges!'

He asked: 'Are you to blame? You were his worst performing dancer?', causing Charlotte to quip back: 'I think there was harsh treatment on the judges!'

Piers, who hosts GMB alongside former Strictly contestant Susanna Reid, also joked he will start a Bring Back Brendan campaign, after fans were left in uproar by the decision.

Brendan broke down when he revealed he had been cut from the show on Tuesday, during a live television interview with Lorraine Kelly.

The emotional 41-year-old, who has served on the show for 13 years, said: 'This is hard to talk about. The BBC havent renewed my contract.

Heartbroken: Brendan broke down when he revealed he had been cut from the show on Tuesday, during a live television interview with Lorraine Kelly

Upset: The emotional 41-year-old, who has served on the show for 13 years, said: 'I am very disappointed. Its an editorial decision. I will never know the ins and outs'

'They have made an editorial decision not to have me back on the show. I have had 15 incredible series on the show, they are a great team. I am very disappointed. Its an editorial decision. I will never know the ins and outs.'

Sources later told MailOnline: 'Producers were said to be furious over his recent interview, in which he criticised his celebrity partners.

'Theyve always tolerated his rows with the judges as it creates drama and acceptable headlines but this was a step too far.'

Another source added: 'The producers believe no one is bigger than the show.

'Theyve been struggling to recruit celebs in recent years and the producers thought this interview was a step too far in terms of negative press for the show, made it more difficult to recruit celebrities and was may have been a factor in the decision to not renew his contract.'

'It was a step too far': Sources later told MailOnline: 'Producers were said to be furious over his recent interview, in which he criticised his celebrity partners'

Outspoken: Brendan, who was partnered with Charlotte on the last series (above), implied that his strong opinions may have had something to do with him losing his position on the show

The BBC told MailOnline after the interview: 'Wed like to thank Brendan for being part of the show since the beginning - winner of the first series - and for the contribution he has made to its success. We wish him all the very best for the future.'

Brendan, who was partnered with GMB host Charlotte on the last series, implied that his strong opinions may have had something to do with him losing his position on the show.

He famously locked horns with new head judge Shirley when he took her to task over her criticism of his and Charlotte's tango, to Danger Zone by Top Gun.

Len Goodman's replacement said of the routine: 'Its definitely a little bit better' to which Brendan remarked: 'A little bit?'

Not happy: He famously locked horns with new head judge Shirley Ballas (above) when he took her to task over her criticism of his and Charlotte's tango, to Danger Zone by Top Gun

Firm: When Bruno Tonioli scolded Brendan for being 'disrespectful' after Shirley's criticism of their routine, he said: 'I do respect her but I just don't agree'

Back in the day: Brendan won the first series of Strictly Come Dancing in 2004 with newsreader Natasha Kaplinsky, and has appeared on every season since

Shirley retorted: 'Yeah definitely just a little bit Brendan, unfortunately. We've established that there is no rise and fall in tango, you have to make a concrete decision not to use rise and fall.'

Brendan, who had also been tipped for the role of head judge after Len's departure, snapped back: 'I'm really sorry but there was no rise and fall in that.'

Bruno then stepped in to defend his co-judge, adding: 'I'm not an expert, I've only done about 500 shows but I think Shirley's right, you should be more respectful,' he chided.

Pledging his respect to her, Brendan explained: 'I do respect her but I just don't agree'.

Brendan won the first series of Strictly Come Dancing in 2004 with newsreader Natasha Kaplinsky, and has appeared on every season since.

Making moves: Good Morning Britain presenter Kate Garraway was seen leaving the ITV Studios following Piers' hilarious comments about the Strictly team

Windswept: Kate's golden locks were blown around in the wind as she strolled out of the studioAlex Nation has revealed the heartbreaking news that her teenage sister threatened to kill herself on Tuesday night.

Taking to her Instagram page on Wednesday, the former Bachelor star shared an impassioned essay dedicated to her 13-year-old sibling Angie, who was driven to contemplate ending her life after receiving a bullying text message.

'This is my sister Angie, she's 13 years old. She's bright, funny, kind and caring,' wrote Alex next to a black-and-white photo of the smiling teenager.

'My heart was in pieces': Alex Nation has revealed the heartbreaking news that her teenage sister threatened to kill herself on Tuesday night

Alex went on to describe her sister as a happy-go-lucky teenager with aspirations of joining the army.

'She also has high functioning Aspergers, anxiety and depression. She has been severely bullied for almost 3 years and the internal torment that she goes through on a day to day basis is crippling. Often, her anxiety is paralysing,' Alex continued.

The mother-of-one proceeded to describe the events leading up to her sister's suicide threat on Tuesday night.

Taking to her Instagram page on Wednesday, the former Bachelor star shared an impassioned essay dedicated to her 13-year-old sibling Angie, who was driven to contemplate ending her life after receiving a bullying text message

'Angie had spent the school holidays with our grandparents on their farm. It's a loving, healing place and there, she felt safe. She came home two days ago and having barely been on social media for the last 5 weeks she thought she would connect with friends online,' Alex said.

'My heart was in pieces when I learnt what followed,' she added.

Horrific text: The former reality contestant revealed that Angie had received a message from a girl her age, which read: 'You know what would be better for [boy's name] and I, if you went and killed yourself. RIP'

The former reality contestant revealed that Angie had received a message from a girl her age, which read: 'You know what would be better for [boy's name] and I, if you went and killed yourself. RIP.'

'2 hours later, Angie had locked herself in my mums room, threatening self harm and phoned Lifeline,' Alex went on.

'She pleaded with lifeline to help make it stop, expressing that she simply didn't want to be here anymore and she wanted to be with her dad (he passed away 4 years ago). 'I want to kill myself, I'm going to kill myself, please help'', she regaled.

'2 hours later, Angie had locked herself in my mums room, threatening self harm and phoned Lifeline': Luckily, an ambulance and police offers arrived at the scene within minutes and prevented the situation from going any further

Luckily, an ambulance and police offers arrived at the scene within minutes and prevented the situation from going any further.

'This isn't the first time my sister has found herself in this dark place. A place where her thoughts are troubling, tormenting and deafening. People need to know and understand that their words can be the catalyst for someone like my sister,' warned Alex.

The social media star called for an end to bullying in an epidemic of youth suicide and and self harm.

'It infuriates me and saddens me that with tragedies such as Dolly's and having friends who have lost loved ones to suicide that this is still going on! It has to stop, it must! Spread kindness and make a stand for zero bully tolerance,' she concluded.

If you or anyone around you are struggling and/or seeking support, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

'It infuriates me and saddens me': The social media star called for an end to bullying in an epidemic of youth suicide and and self harmAs well as making a name for herself as a model, she's also been embraced as an advocate for body confidence.

And Iskra Lawrence was seen proudly celebrating her own curves on Tuesday, when she stepped out of the streets of New York City in a racy PVC ensemble.

The 27-year-old busty beauty turned heads in a figure-hugging, off-shoulder La Femme bustier gown, which featured a thigh-high rear split and was teamed with contrasting white booties.

Passion for fashion: Iskra Lawrence stepped out in style on the streets of New York on Tuesday

Staving off the autumnal chill with an Urban Outfitters bomber jacket draped loosely around her body, the blonde beauty was the picture of confidence as she strode her way around the bustling metropolis.

With her golden tresses styled in a centre-parting and cascading down her back, the Wolverhampton-born stunner accessorised with a collection of chains and necklaces and a pair of large hooped earrings.

Her outing came days after she added some sparkle to Sony's Grammys afterparty in the Big Apple on Sunday night.

Racy gown: The model turned heads in a figure-hugging, off-shoulder La Femme bustier gown

Contrasting: Her PVC dress featured a thigh-high rear split and was teamed with white booties

Staving off the chill: She staved off the autumnal chill with an Urban Outfitters bomber jacket draped loosely around her body

The British model was bound to set more than a few pulses racing, sizzling in an eye-catching, sequin-encrusted jumpsuit.

Her silver ensemblewas sure to turn more than a few heads with its daring cut-outs at the waist and deeply plunging neckline.

Of course, while some might never had the confidence to rock such a show-stopping style, the inspirational model wore the look with serious conviction.

The seventies-inspired outfit also featured dramatic flared trousers, which allowed for a mere peek at her simple, barely-there stilettos.

Goldilocks: Her golden tresses were styled with a centre-parting and cascaded down her back

Sparkle: The Wolverhampton-born stunner accessorised with a collection of chains and necklaces and a pair of large hooped earrings

Body confident: The 27-year-old Brit was the picture of confidence as she strode the streets

Iskra has always been passionate about body confidence, refusing to label herself a plus size model and previously protesting against the lack of diversity during London Fashion Week.

It is no wonder the blonde has bagged many high-profile invites, after forging a successful modelling career, with the aim to change the industry's perceptions on beauty and size.

A passionate advocate for body confidence, she recently spoke out about unattainable beauty standards in the fashion world.

'The whole concept of Photoshop is an illusion,' she told AFP. 'They're not flaws. They're part of your body. We were just convinced by society and the media that there was something wrong with them.'

Adding some sparkle: Iskra proudly paraded her sensational curves as she attended Sony's Grammys afterparty in New York City on Sunday night

If you've got it, flaunt it! Making the most of her ample curves, the beauty worked her angles as she posed for photographers before heading into the star-studded bashTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suspended his official visit to Brazil, Uruguay and Venezuela scheduled for early February. The government of Turkey planned a tour of South America after meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican on February 5.

January 31, 2018, 10:40 Erdogan cancels Latin America trip, local Armenian community planned protests

STEPANAKERT, JANUARY 31, ARTSAKHPRESS:In recent days, many newspapers reported the dissatisfaction of the Armenian community in Uruguay and possible demonstrations against the visit of the Turkish leader.

According to Uruguayan sources, several agents of the Turkish government traveled this week to organize the security of the president. The Armenian National Committee of Uruguay explained that "the negotiations prior to this eventual visit showed that Uruguay continues to be a key objective of the negationist apparatus of the Republic of Turkey due to the Uruguayan State policy of recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide."

The suspension of the trip also occurs in the framework of a major military operation launched against the Kurds of Syria in Afrin on January 20.She is an acclaimed actress who has won legions of fans with her signature English Rose looks and brunette tresses.

And Jenna Coleman wowed her fans as she unveiled her new caramel blonde locks as she jetted off to Australia on Wednesday,

The Victoria star, 31, who is headed Down Under to film new TV drama The Cry, shot the camera a coy smile as she showed off her dramatically lighter locks, which were styled in soft waves and parted on the side.

Blondes have more fun: Jenna Coleman wowed her fans as she unveiled her new caramel blonde locks as she jetted off to Australia on Wednesday

Transformation: The Victoria star, 31, who is headed Down Under to film new TV drama The Cry, shot the camera a coy smile as she showed off her dramatically lighter locks, which were styled in soft waves and parted on the side (pictured R in October 2017)

Clutching onto her script, the stunning star showed off her naturally radiant complexion with a minimal dusting of make-up as she settled in for the 20 hour flight, clad in a blue, red and white striped jumper.

The former Emmerdale actress drove her fans wild with her hair makeover with some followers praising her transformation while others pined for her original chestnut locks.

One follower wrote: 'Not sure about the blonde, but still beautiful!' while another wrote 'I CANT BELIEVE YOU REALLY WENT BLONDE IM LOVING IT'.

Another fan waxed lyrical about the makeover writing: 'Good luck! Love the blonde' as another added: 'You look so pretty'.

English Rose: The former Emmerdale actress drove her fans wild with her hair makeover with some followers praising her transformation while others pined for her original chestnut locks (above)

Fan reaction: One follower wrote: 'Not sure about the blonde, but still beautiful!'

Another excited follower wrote: 'GASP* YOURE BLONDE OMG' while another couldn't contain their shock as they wrote: 'Shes blonde holy s***'.

Psychological thriller The Cry, based on the 2013 book by Helen Fitzgerald, sees Jenna play Glaswegian new mother Joanna, whose baby boy Noah is abducted from a small Australian coastal town.

Along with her husband Alistair (played by Top of the Lake: China Girl star Ewen Leslie) she is subjected to intense public scrutiny as the couple struggle to cope with the loss of their newborn son.

Filming will take place in Scotland and Australia.

The star said of the production: 'I first read Jacquelin Perske's script on a plane, it felt like walking a tightrope, racing page to page, unsettling, unknowable, uncomfortable, and thrilling.'

Drama: Psychological thriller The Cry, based on the book by Helen Fitzgerald, sees Jenna play Glaswegian new mother Joanna, whose baby boy Noah is abducted from a small Australian coastal town

Victoria recently wrapped up its second series with the star returning to her regal role in the hit show's Christmas special.

The Christmas special, called Comfort And Joy, celebrated all of the festivities of a Victorian Christmas at Buckingham Palace.

Set in Christmas 1846, the episode saw Victoria uncharacteristically melancholy as she prepared to tackle her first Christmas without her beloved Baroness Lehzen.

Pregnant with her and Alberts fourth child, the festive period reminds her of her lonely childhood spent at Kensington.

Jenna also confirmed on the radio show that series three is now booked, and jokingly said: 'Yea, weve got six children to have!'She is an acclaimed actress, humanitarian, advocate of world peace and UNHCR Special Envoy.

And Angelina Jolie was seen visiting NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium to discuss ways to prevent sexual violence against women in areas of conflict on Wednesday.

The Oscar-winning actress, 42, wore a caped black dress and matching heels for her meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

Humanitarian: Angelina Jolie was seen visiting NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgiumm to discuss ways to prevent sexual violence against women in areas of conflict on Wednesday

The mother of six flashed a smile as she shook hands with Jens during the photocall before she was treated to a tour of the military base.

Angelina met with Jens in her role as co-founder of the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative.

In December Angelina and Jens united for an op-ed in The Guardian, with the actress writing how the NATO alliance could be a role model and 'leading protector' of womens' rights, and ending gender-based violence.

Stylish: The Oscar-winning actress, 42, wore a caped black dress and matching heels for her meeting with NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg

Making a difference: The mother of six flashed a smile as she shook hands with Jens during the photocall before she was treated to a tour of the military base

Talented: The visit to NATO HQ was the latest stop on Angelina's tour of Europe, with the star seen meeting with France's First Lady Brigitte Macron on Tuesday

Jolie wrote: 'In our different roles we have seen how conflicts in which womens bodies and rights are systematically abused last longer, cause deeper wounds and are much harder to resolve and overcome. Ending gender-based violence is therefore a vital issue of peace and security as well as of social justice.'

The visit to NATO HQ was the latest stop on Angelina's tour of Europe, with the star seen meeting with France's First Lady Brigitte Macron on Tuesday.

The meeting was to discuss her recent visit to Jordan and urge members of the UN Security Council to resolve the conflict in Syria.

She later attended a beauty launch at the Guerlain headquarters at the end of the night.

Impact: Jens and Angelina looked focused as they walked into headquarters before their meeting

Whistle-stop: Angelina was in Paris on Tuesday, before making her trip over to Brussels

Chat: Angelina looked delighted to be reunited with Jens in Brussels

Unity: In December Angelina and Jens united for an op-ed in The Guardian, with the actress writing how the NATO alliance could be a role model and 'leading protector' of womens' rights

Earlier in the day, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Special Envoy was seen taking a break from her charity work as she enjoyed a day of culture in the City of Light with her six children.

Angelina shares her kids with ex Brad Pitt, who she announced she was splitting from in 2016.

They share Shiloh and twins Vivienne and Knoxwhile Maddox, Pax and Zahara were adopted from Cambodia, Vietnam and Ethiopia respectively.

The family trip to Paris comes after Angelina took daughters Shiloh and Zahara to a Zataari refugee camp in Jordan last week.

Smile: The visit to NATO HQ was the latest stop on Angelina's tour of Europe, with the star seen meeting with France's First Lady Brigitte Macron on Tuesday

Here we go: Angelina placed her bag down as she prepared for her photocall

Strength: Angelina smiled as she chatted with Jens before the photographers started

Helping hand: Jens went to pick up Angelina's handbag after the photocall ahead of their meeting

The humanitarian said that her daughters 'asked to come' with her to meet with Syrians displaced from the country's on-going civil war which began nearly seven years ago, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

She said: 'Theyve spent time today speaking and playing with children their own age who have been forced from their homes, whose family members have been killed or have disappeared.

'Who are struggling with trauma and illness, but who at the end of the day are just children, with the same hopes and rights as children in any other nation.'

Change: During her time working with the organisation, she has carried out almost 60 field missions and become an advocate on refugee and displacement issues

Influential: Angelina took daughters Shiloh and Zahara to a Zataari refugee camp in Jordan last week

Philanthropic: The humanitarian said that her daughters 'asked to come' with her to meet with Syrians displaced from the country's on-going civil war which began nearly seven years ago

Angelina served as a Goodwill ambassador for the UN from 2001-2012.

During her time working with the organisation, she has carried out almost 60 field missions and become an advocate on refugee and displacement issues.

In 2012 she was appointed Special Envoy, which sees the working mother focus on crises that result in mass population displacements as well as represent the UN.

Time for change: Angelina served as a Goodwill ambassador for the UN from 2001-2012Jesinta Franklin controversially parted ways with David Jones in December.

And while there was some speculation that the retail giant may have dropped her, the 26-year-old has revealed to the Daily Telegraph that she was in fact asked to renew her contract.

However, the famed WAG goes on to say that she and the David Jones were unable to agree on the terms of the deal, leading to the end of their working relationship.

No deal: The Sydney Morning Herald claimed that Jestina's contracts with the likes of Olay and Christian Dior as being at odds with her David Jones deal

'I was really honoured they wanted to continue the relationship, but Im at a point in my life where I know what I want and Im not afraid to ask for it,' she said.

A friend of Franklin's goes on to tell the publication that the issue wasn't money, but exclusivity, which would've prevented the model from pursuing other opportunities.

This echoes a similar report from the Sydney Morning Herald, which claimed that Jestina's contracts with the likes of Olay and Christian Dior were at odds with her David Jones deal.

Fashionista? A friend of Franklin's revealed that the issue wasn't money, but exclusivity, which would've prevented the model from pursuing other opportunities

The publication reported that a 'senior fashion figure' had labelled the decision a 'bad idea.'

'It is a very bad decision, Jesinta has massive traction with the market they are after,' the source said.

They continued: 'Young women look up to her and follow her on social media... she has a high profile marriage with Buddy Franklin and pretty soon will be having babies, David Jones should have been a part of that.'

Jesinta officially parted ways with the retailer in December last year, reportedly turning down a $500,000 a year salary because she could not agree to 'total commercial exclusivity,' and was replaced by Victoria Lee

With up and coming model Victoria Lee announced as Jesinta's replacement, Jessica also found time to heap praise on the 27-year-old Victoria's Secret model.

'I love her,' Jessica gushed to Daily Telegraph. 'Victoria and i used to bump into each other at castings in New York.'

She continued: 'I was thrilled when it was announced.'

Jessica took over as David Jones ambassador from Miranda Kerr in 2013.Kylie Jenner is expecting rapper Travis Scott's baby girl in February.

But the 20-year-old beauty is not spending nights with him inside her posh Hidden Hills, California mansion.

Rather, the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star is staying with her mother Kris Jenner as she gets ready to become a mother for the first time, according to a Wednesday report from People.

Lean on me: Kylie Jenner has been staying at mom Kris Jenner's house, according to People; here they are seen in 2015 at a DailyMail.com party

Comfort zone: 'Kylie sleeps at Kris' house a lot,' a source told the weekly magazine. Kris lives a 15 minute walk from Kylie's property which is located in the same gated Hidden Hills community; seen here is Kris' home

'Kylie sleeps at Kris' house a lot,' a source told the weekly magazine. Kris lives a 15 minute walk from Kylie's property which is located in the same gated Hidden Hills community, which is 45 minutes northwest from downtown Los Angeles.

Scott is likely busy with his music career, often performing at venues all over the country.

His next tour date is on February 3 at the Marquee Nightclub & Dayclub at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas.

People sources reported last week that the reality TV star and the musician, 25, are still dating, but there is no talk of engagement as they want to take it slowly.

'They have no plans to get married, or even engaged. Kylie expects to rely mostly on her family for help and she seems fine with that,' said the source.

He's working: Baby daddy Travis Scott is busy with his music career, often performing at venues all over the country; seen in April

Kylie's digs: The 20-year-old lives in a sprawling mansion inside gated Hidden Hills, California

The source also said that Kris has been guiding Kylie when it comes to what the baby needs and the siren has yet to hire a nanny.

'Kris has been helping with the nursery,' the report added. 'It's all pink, pink and pink.'

And it was also claimed that Kourtney, 38, has stepped in to school Kylie on natural diapers and organic baby foods for the child.

Real? The same day this report came out, Wikipedia oddly listed that Kylie would be announcing her pregnancy on episode 19, which airs on February 25

Kylie is expecting a baby girl in February, which is less than four weeks away.

The same day this report came out, Wikipedia listed that Kylie would be announcing her pregnancy on episode 19 of KUWTK, which airs on February 25. It was also claimed that on March 4, Kylie and Travis start decorating their nursery.

E! has yet to comment on the posting.

Last week People claimed that Kylie is 'anxious' about expecting the child, wants a pain free birth and is ready to use medicine to make it easier.

Baby's arrival: Here she is seen in September; she has kept a low profile in the last four months. The star is due in less than four weeks

'She is nervous about the birth and anxious about pain,' noted the insider. 'She wants to have an easy birth and is open to pain medicine.'

Kylie had not been spotted for months until she was seen with her mother Kris Jenner and best friend Jordyn Woods at a construction site in Hidden Hills, California last week.

It is not known if Kylie is building a new home or adding on to what she has.

New world: 'She is nervous about the birth and anxious about pain,' noted the insider. 'She wants to have an easy birth and is open to pain medicine.' Here she is seen in 2016 before she even met Scott

She showed off a big baby bump as she wore a black sweat suit.

The TV staple also covered her tummy when she appeared in a Calvin Klein ad shared last week. She was with Khloe, Kim, Kourtney and Kendall but it is not known when the shoot took place.

The cover girl has also been seen in a Love Magazine shoot, which was done by sister Kendall.

Mentor: Kourtney Kardashian is guiding Kylie on using organic diapers

Her mother did the interview and asked about her growing cosmetics empire.

'It's estimated that in the next few years you could have the biggest beauty brand in the world. How do you think that phenomenon happened?' Kris asks her daughter.

'I think truly, I put a lot of hard work into this,' she replies after some thought. 'Its not like Im doing this to make money. I dont even think about that part. This is just something authentic to me.'

Meanwhile, the fashionista is putting her birthing plans into action as she prepares for the impending arrival of her child by taking on a discreet Lamaze class online.

TMZ reported that the elusive reality starlet has taken to the web to help with the soothing birthing techniques, with Woods as her partner.

Still working: The siren cover her tummy when she appeared in a Calvin Klein ad with Khloe, Kim, Kourtney and Kendall but it is not known when the shoot took place

Now with a shirt on: And here Jenner was seen with a large blue shirt on as Khloe, Kim and Kendall wore bras

Sources told the site that Kylie has enlisted her best friend to help her through the process, buying up baby books to get them both get clued up.

The gossip website also suggested that Kylie wanted her lamaze to remain under the radar, so instead of taking part in a class, she will instead take lessons off the internet.

Lamaze is a birthing technique that includes breathing, stretching and changing positions throughout childbirth.They were just glammed up for the Art Of Elysium Heaven Gala in Santa Monica, California earlier this month.

But on Tuesday, Rumer and Tallulah Willis were all about relaxed style.

The daughters of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis wore baggy T-shirts and sweatpants as they went shopping in Los Angeles.

Hip fashion: Rumer Willis, left, and sister Tallulah Willis, right, dressed casually as they were seen out separately in LA on Tuesday

Stylish sisters: The sisters looked glamorous when they attended the Art of Elysium Heaven Gala in Santa Monica earlier this month

Each sister sported a statement piece, but the rest of their ensembles were much more low key.

Rumer complemented her long winter coat with a loose charcoal-black shirt, baggy sweat pants, a beanie, and leather boots.

Meanwhile, Tallulah donned a gray sweat shirt, black pants, and an orange purse.

Both sisters greeted the sunny weather with stylish sunglasses. At one point, the eldest daughter grabbed her suitcase from a friend's car as she went to lunch in West Hollywood.

Out and about: The Empire actress carried a small gray suitcase with her as she grabbed lunch in West Hollywood

Not feeling hot: The warm west coast weather wasn't high enough for Rumer, who wore a long thick coat

Walking away: Both ladies might be related, but they each have different styles

Later Tallulah was seen with third sister Scout.

Rumer and Tallulah might not have been hanging out together, but earlier this month, they came together and stunned with their outfits at the star-studded Art Of Elysium Heaven Gala in Santa Monica.

The Empire actress commanded attention in her black cleavage-baring dress that featured multi-colored feathers at the straps and a mesh skirt.

Tallulah looked very slim in a red brocaded mini-dress finished with satin scarlet heels that strapped at the ankle.

In a rush: The blue Crocs didn't slow down the Bandits actress as she quickly walked with sister Scout

Hold please: Rumer held luggage while her sister held a bag from a sporting goods store

Both Rumer and Tallulah - along with their sister Scout - revealed in 2017, that they were all on a successful path to sobriety.

The eldest daughter of Willis and Moore announced on Instagram: 'I celebrated 6 Months of Sobriety.'

'I have never been more proud of myself in my entire life. Thank you all for the love and support and remember to be gentle with yourself,' the 29-year-old ended.She spent three wholly-unglamorous weeks languishing in the I'm A Celeb jungle.

So Georgia 'Toff' Toffolo is undoubtedly loving her return to luxury as she was spotted at the AC Atelier Chelsea hairdressers in Chelsea on Wednesday, where she had her blonde locks coiffed into a perfect blow-dry.

The 23-year-old former Made In Chelsea star naturally looked flawless as she wowed in a blue shirt dress with a waist-cinching belt and a camel coat, while she upped the sex appeal with a pair of thigh-high boots.

Coiffed to perfection: Georgia 'Toff' Toffolo is undoubtedly loving her return to luxury as she was spotted at the AC Atelier Chelsea hairdressers in Chelsea on Wednesday, where she had her blonde locks coiffed into a perfect blow-dry

The blonde beauty was appearing flawless as she sat in the hairdressers chair, with a full face of make-up complete with outlined eye and glossy lip.

Toff's lengthy locks were backcombed into a high rise on top while she had the ends coiffed into bouncy waves, all carried out while she sat engrossed in her phone.

Ensuring she was ready to for her photo finish, she also nailed her ensemble as she wore the chic tile-print navy mini with sexy tan suede boots.

She layered a shaggy camel coat over the top of her look, ensuring she was ready for winter following her styling session.

Stunner: The 23-year-old former Made In Chelsea star naturally looked flawless as she wowed in a blue shirt dress with a waist-cinching belt and a camel coat, while she upped the sex appeal with a pair of thigh-high boots

'No snakes in sight': Just days before, Toff gushed about her former campmate Stanley Johnson when she shared an Instagram from her first lunch date with her former camp mate, in London

Just days before, Toff gushed about her former campmate Stanley Johnson when she shared an Instagram from her first lunch date with her former camp mate, in London.

She cosied up to her number one crush and former Conservative MEP as they were reunited for the first time since leaving the jungle.

It was as if no time had passed between the I'm A Celebrity duo when they posed up a storm for the cosy Instagram post.

She showcased her incredibly petite figure in a slim-fit cream turtleneck, teamed with black jeans for an overall stylish look. Meanwhile, Boris Johnson's dad dressed to catch the eye in a teal green dinner jacket worn over his jumper.

Just the two of us: They forged an unlikely friendship in the jungle, with Georgia confessing she has a 'thing for older politicians'

They courted attention for their playful relationship in the jungle, so it's no surprise the I'm A Celebrity winner confessed Stanley was her 'favourite person'.

Reality star Toff gushed about how the pair had been 'laughing non stop' when they enjoyed their first 'proper long' catch up.

Toff penned on Instagram: 'Our first proper long lunch lunch after the jungle, first of many! Weve been laughing non stop haha favourite person TOFFLEY IS BACK!!!! On home ground no snakes in sight.' (sic)

Good pals: The pair courted attention for their playful relationship in the jungle, so it's no surprise the I'm A Celebrity winner confessed Stanley was her 'favourite person'

In the jungle, the single blonde coyly admitted she has always had a soft spot for older politicians.

She confessed : 'I have always said I do have a thing for older politicians before I came in here... and can confirm that is still standing!'

Their lunch comes after Georgia's latest venture will see her reunite with her I'm A Celebrity co-star and politician Stanley.

Former Conservative MEP Stanley was delighted his close pal went onto win the show after winning the hearts of the nation with her kindness and bubbly spirit.

The politician explained ITV feel the good friends would be a 'natural duo' in an interview with The Sun.

He told the newspaper: 'I haven't seen Toff since we got out of the jungle but I've absolutely kept in touch with her.

'In fact, we're lined up to present a show together for ITV. They think we're a natural TV duo. I can't reveal too much about it, but I have a really good feeling about it.'Keira Knightley engaged in an animated phone conversation when she stepped out in London on Wednesday afternoon.

The 32-year-old went make-up free as she channelled her own signature sense of style while adopting her trademark casual look.

She wrapped up in a beige, shearling coat with double-breasted buttons.

Fresh face: Keira Knightley, 32, stepped out make-up free on Wednesday afternoon in London, channelling her own casual sense of style

Her loose medium-washed jeans were cuffed above lace-up heeled ankle boots.

Keira's delicate brunette tresses were hidden beneath a black knitted cap, and she carried a black canvas tote with a white logo.

The Hollywood star is believed to be on a break from filming Berlin, I love you, in the German capital.

Casual: She wrapped up in a beige, shearling coat with double-breasted buttons while engaging in an animated phone conversation

The Pirates of the Caribbean actress made headlines earlier this month when she revealed that she had been sexually assaulted four times.

'In my personal life, when I've been in bars, I can count four times when I've been assaulted in a minor way,' she told Variety magazine.

'I think everyone has battled their fair share of monsters. It's not just actresses. It's teachers; it's lawyers.

'I'm not talking about rape, but I'm talking about the people who had been grabbed in pubs or their breasts had been fondled by somebody they didn't know or they'd had someone shove a hand up their skirt.'

In the wake of Hollywood sexual harassment scandals, she commented on her two professional experiences with disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein in The Imitation Game and Begin Again.

'He certainly never asked me for massages or anything like that,' she said.

Keira made her first big appearance on the silver screen in the 2003 film Bend It Like Beckham, for which she won two awards for breakthrough performance.

She has movies Colette, Aftermath and The Nutcracker and the Four Realms coming out later this year.

The superstar and her husband of five years James Righton, 34, have one child together, two-year-old daughter Edie.She has transformed into couture queen 'heroine' Donatella Versace for her latest gritty role in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.

And Penelope Cruz positively sizzled in a sultry shoot for Town & Country Magazine alongside her crime drama co-star Edgar Ramirez, who plays late fashion designer Gianni.

Spanish beauty Penelope, 43, also paid tribute to 'heroine' Donatella, who took over the label's design after her brother was murdered in 1997.

Dynamic duo: Penelope Cruz positively sizzled in a sultry shoot for Town & Country Magazine alongside her crime drama co-star Edgar Ramirez, who plays late fashion designer Gianni

Penelope flaunted her ample cleavage in a plunging gold and coral dress, with delicate spaghetti straps.

The shimmering gown clung to the Oscar winner's toned physique while revealing her flawless legs as she seductively leaned over a sofa in a lavish living room.

The Vanilla Sky actress wore her glossy brunette tresses in tumbling waves while her stunning features were enhanced with smoky eye make-up, fluttery lashes, peachy blusher and fuschia lipgloss.

Paying tribute to the Italian fashion house designer, she said: 'To me she [Donatella Versace] is like a heroine. She has demonstrated in so many ways in her life how to be an incredible woman.

Opulent: Penelope flaunted her ample cleavage in a plunging gold and coral dress, with delicate spaghetti straps

The Vicky Cristina Barcelona star said she could relate to the strength of the Versace family and the unbreakable bond between them.

She said: 'I could relate to that family emotion. Italian and Spanish people are very similar in that way. Its like what I have with my brother and sister. Donatella, Santo, Gianni, what they had together they started together, and that family passion is very tight.'

A second stunning photo saw the star don a backless fuschia sequinned gown and nude stiletto heels as she seductively posed on a chaise longue in opulent surroundings.

For the cover, Penelope and a hunky Edgar embraced to reflect the sibling bond they share onscreen.

Glittering: A second stunning photo saw the star don a backless fuschia sequinned gown and nude stiletto heels as she seductively posed on a chaise longue in opulent surroundings

Transformation: Penelope transforms into Donatella (L) for the show while Edgar plays late fashion icon Gianni Versace

Penelope wowed in a metallic silver and white geometric print gown while Edgar donned a navy blue fitted shirt and tropical print cravat.

The beauty then changed into a showstopping teal and rose sequinned jumpsuit, paired with glittery stiletto heels as she sat in a chair, while handsome Edgar leaned into her.

The Girl On The Train actor Edgar,also praised Gianni Versace for changing the landscape of the fashion world.

He said: 'He [Gianni Versace] was a visionary and a disrupter, and were experiencing an era that he helped create aesthetically. There were no designers expressing that rock n roll approach to couture before Gianni  this mix of sexuality and celebrity. The current obsession with fame started with Gianni.'

The series, produced by the team behind the award-winning The People v. O.J. Simpson, explores the murder of Gianni Versace, who was shot and killed in 1997, at the age of 50, by serial killer Andrew Cunanan.

Sibling bond: The beauty then changed into a showstopping teal and rose sequinned jumpsuit, paired with glittery stiletto heels as she sat in a chair, while handsome Edgar leaned into her

Coming soon: The full interview with Penelope and Edgar can be found in the March 2018 issue, out on February 6

Penelope and Edgar join a star-studded cast including Ricky Martin who plays Versace's long-term boyfriend, Antonio D'Amico and Glee star Darren Criss, who plays assassin Cunanan.

However Donatella, 62, denounced the new FX series earlier this month in an interview with Italian daily la Repubblica, calling the show 'a work of fiction.'

'I haven't seen (the series) nor will I see it, because after all this time it still hurts to see Gianni represented untruthfully,' she explained.

Donatella went on to claim that the family have neither authorized nor been involved in the series.

Meanwhile, Penelope revealed she got the designer's blessing for the role ahead of shooting.

Speaking to Ellen DeGeneres this month, Penelope revealed: 'You feel much more responsibility [playing a real person]. When [show creator Ryan Murphy] called me... I said "I need to make a phone call and talk to Donatella about this" before taking the job.'

Penelope admitted she felt comfortable with the role after speaking to Donatella herself, saying: 'She told me if somebody was going to do it, she was really happy that it was me, because she I think she knows what I feel for her and Gianni.

'They're the most kind people. It's important to me that when she sees what I've done she can feel the love and respect that I have put there and how I feel for her.'

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story premiered on FX last week and is expected to be aired on BBC2 for British viewers next month.Tia Mowry has talked about her difficulties conceiving.

In an interview with People, the Sister, Sister star admitted she and husband Cory Hardrict had been trying for their second child for years.

'I didnt think Id be able to have a second child, and its been over seven years since my first pregnancy,' said the 39-year-old.

Bumping along nicely! In an interview with People, 39-year-old Tia Mowry admitted she and husband Cory Hardrict had been trying for their second child for years

The West Germany-born actress told the magazine how hard she found her pregnancy struggles.

'I didnt let my infertility issues define me or define what my goals were and what I wanted out of life.'

Also on Wednesday, the expectant mother posted a candid, makeup free shot in her underwear to Instagram.

Showing off her physique, the Tia & Tamera star captioned the post: 'Embracing these curves and loving every bit of it!'

Candid: 'I didnt think Id be able to have a second child, and its been over seven years since my first pregnancy,' Mowry told the magazine

Mowry recently announced she was having a baby girl during a YouTube gender reveal.

And her baby bump was on full display as she made her way through LAX on Friday.

The Instant Mom actress recently revealed to UsWeekly she has 'more energy' during this pregnancy than her first, saying 'This time around, Im exercising. It just seems to be going rather well.'

Bump in the night: The starlet's baby bump was on full display as she made her way through LAX on Friday

The Twitches star, who already has a 6-year-old son with husband Cory Hardrict, wore a white cardigan over a full length tan maternity gown.

The actress wore black and blue suede ankle boots and she carried a black handbag and her iPhone.

Mowry went makeup free for the flight, covered her eyes with aviator shades and kept her raven tresses tied up in a bun atop her head.

The Twintuition author told UsWeekly that for this pregnancy, she seems to have avoided the morning sickness that tormented her the first time around.

'I had nausea with my son throughout my whole entire pregnancy and it was terrible.'

'This time around, I only had it in the first trimester.'It's the Channel Nine dating show that has the whole of Australia talking.

And now, the producers of Married At First Sight have revealed what really goes on behind the scenes.

Speaking to OK! Magazine on Thursday, producer Tara McWilliams and an 'insider' spilled all the secrets from the addictive reality TV series.

From strange wedding cake requests to the reason there's no music when the couples walk down the aisle: Married At First Sight producers reveal the show's most surprising secrets (Pictured: Sarah and Telv)

One of the more interesting revelations was the intriguing reason why the brides are forced to walk down the aisle to no music.

'This is so we can clearly capture the bride and groom's reactions to seeing each other for the first time,' Tara explained.

She added that around four to six weeks generally goes into planning each wedding and they shoot approximately 40 hours of footage at each nuptials.

The couples don't have to lift a finger! A Married At First Sight producer revealed they organise everything from the invitations to the venues (Pictured: Patrick and Charlene)

While there's glitz and glamour at every televised ceremony, Tara explained that the couples don't have to lift a finger or pay a cent.

'We do consult with them about what kind of wedding they'd like or not like, then absolutely every single detail is organised by us,' Tara said, adding that they don't give the couples a budget.

She continued: 'Sending out the invitations to the guests, organising all guests' flights and accommodation, organising the ceremony and reception venues, the celebrants, the cakes, limos, photographers, flowers...'

Dressed for the occasion! Brides can pick their own wedding gown - but there is a budget

When it comes all the finer details, the contestants involved do have a say on some elements - but not others.

According to the magazine, the brides can choose their own wedding dress and grooms can pick their suits, but they do have a budget.

However, it's not the groom who selects the ring for his new bride, as female members of the MAFS crew are left with that task.

A insider reportedly also told OK that strange requests can trickle in from the unlucky-in-love reality stars, with one bride requesting a 'wedding cake made out of cheese'.



Capturing everything: The brides are forced to walk down the aisle to no music so the cameras can pick up the couples' reactions to every dramatic momentABC News(NEW YORK) -- As President Donald Trump's first State of the Union looms large tonight, voters in three counties that were key in the 2016 election are discussing their impressions on the commander-in-chief with "World News Tonight" anchor David Muir.



Muir spoke with voters in Pennsylvania's Monroe County, Michigan's Saginaw County and Wisconsin's Sauk County -- the unexpected battlegrounds where the 2016 election was decided by just 77,000 votes in those three states.



These counties all have one thing in common: The difference in votes between Trump and Hillary Clinton was 1 percent or less in the 2016 race. A year after Trump's inauguration, Trump's approval rating is at a record one-year low and divisions still run deep as voters weigh their hopes and concerns for the country and ruminate over what they think is the current state of the union.



Across the Poconos Mountains and west of the Delaware River, Monroe County gave Clinton a victory of just 532 votes over Trump. Some voters said they thought the state of our union is "in shambles," but others like Jenny Collins, a retired music teacher, thought the president was doing a good job.



"Hes delivering his promises," Collins said. "He made a promise to the American people thats why they voted for him and he is trying his best to deliver."



John Moore, who works for the borough of East Stroudsburg, agreed.



"Right now the markets doing really good, and this week I got more money in my pay check," Moore said. "I dont know if he had anything to do with that or not but, thats a good."



The economy, health care and national security are on the minds of voters in all three counties. In Michigan's Saginaw County, two hours north of Detroit, Trump topped Clinton by just 1 percent. Some voters described the state of our union as "divisive" and "in decline."



The fear would be that small people will be forgotten," said Jimmy Westbrook, a retired principal in Saginaw County. "[Trump] talks about the lost man, lost woman -- they are lost right now because there's nothing for them. It's all for the rich.



But Rich Strogen, who raised his family in this county, thought that "the state of our union is positive."



"I think the president's doing a great job," he said. "He could curb some of his comments maybe but that's not for me to say."



In Baraboo, the seat of Wisconsin's Sauk County, where 109 votes gave Trump a razor-thin win, some voters don't mind the heated rhetoric coming out of the White House.



"President Trump is doing a good job," said resident Dave Gawronski. "Voters knew what they were getting with his rhetoric."



"Well, I'd give him a high grade," added Dan Hiller, a former sheriff in the county. "I believe he's trying to do everything that we want him to do, which is something that's never happened in politics before that I've ever known of, anyway."



While other Sauk County residents, like Megan Palmer, who is nine weeks pregnant, believe that the country is moving "backward" under Trump.



"It's kind of erasing things that we've already kind of established," she said.



Jeff Castree, the owner of the Broadway Diner in Sauk County, said he was able to hire staff for this coming year in this current economy. "I think were gonna have another great year," he said.



But another cafe owner, Mark Greenwood, sees things differently.



"I just find it complicated right now," he said. "I see neighbors fighting neighbors over stupid stuff right now.... I mean, the economy is strong and we're all still fighting over what. I don't get it. We should be moving forward."

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.Ewunga Goiba, a Waria Valley man from the Morobe Province, accompanied them with a small band of warriors. The bosboi and his clansmen provided protection for the prospectors, organised carriers for them and acted as intermediaries with the new groups they met.

TUMBY BAY - In 1930 gold prospectors Mick Leahy and Michael Dwyer followed the Markam River and crossed the gap to the Ramu River valley. They then worked their way along several highland rivers, panning for gold, before descending the Purari River to the Papuan Gulf.

But the educated and literate minority demands a history which makes known to them their own historical roots in the precolonial past, a history which is about their own people - Rod Lacey 1981

Put in the simplest terms, writers of history continue largely to publish histories dealing with foreigners, or at best, with relations between foreigners and Papua New Guineans or with actions and achievements of Papua New Guineans within a framework of foreign endeavours.

There is a crisis in the writing and teaching of Papua New Guinea history. It is created by the real gap between what is being made available through publication and the needs and demands for a truly autonomous and indigenous history.

Leahy kept a diary of this trip. From the diary it is easy to see how the success of the trip was very much dependent upon the Waria men. It is also easy to understand how Waria men later disproportionally filled the ranks of the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary.

In his diary Leahy recorded his meetings with many different highland groups and their reactions to seeing the white men for the first time. It was important to Leahy and Dwyer that these encounters were as friendly as possible because they were relying on them for food and safe passage.

It is a fascinating account in its own right but there are other aspects to these meetings that he did not and could not have recorded.

One of the groups the prospectors encountered puzzled them because their reception was unlike any of the others they had experienced.

These were the Daribi clans living in the foothills of Mount Karimui near the southern boundary of what is now Simbu Province.

These people showed no surprise in meeting the prospectors and, unlike all the other groups, they refused to trade for food. Leahy described them as sullen and unapproachable. This annoyed him no end because he was running short of food.

In the end the prospectors left, scratching their heads about this uncharacteristic and unfriendly encounter.

What Leahy and Dwyer didnt know was that the Daribi had a culture hero called Souw who had predicted their coming and the dire consequences that would follow.

Daribi history says that one of their ancestors had inadvertently stumbled upon Souw while he was having intercourse and had angered him no end. In retribution he had promised to one day find them and visit his revenge.

What Leahy and Dwyer didnt know was that their arrival was seen by the Daribi as the fulfilment of Souws threat.

The prospectors were big men with fair skins accompanied by fierce dogs, just like Souw. They also appeared able to change their skins like Souw.

In their attempts to trade for food Leahy and Dwyer sought to demonstrate the utility of the steel axes they were offering in exchange by cutting down several large trees.

For the Daribi this seemed like the fulfilment of Souws revenge. The prospectors were seen to be cutting down the very columns that held up the sky. For the Daribi this looked like a disaster and the end of time. It took them many years to get over the visit.

Leahy and Dwyer were probably lucky. It is entirely possible that the Daribi might have attempted to defend themselves against what they perceived as Souw, his companion and their ferocious dogs. If they had been attacked the prospectors wouldnt have had a clue about why.

It is also entirely possible that Ewunga and his men had talked with the Daribi and convinced them not to attack. When he later recorded his memories Ewunga didnt mention this possibility.

What this incident demonstrates is that there are often several ways to interpret an historical event.

There is the objective traditional historic account and there is the oral history account. In most cases these two, often disparate, accounts are never brought together so that, in effect, only half of a historic event is recorded.

For Papua New Guinean history it is important that the two are meshed. Otherwise they cannot be properly understood.

Denoon, D. & Lacey, R. (eds), Oral Tradition in Melanesia, The University of Papua New Guinea & The Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies, Port Moresby, 1981.

Leahy, M. J., Explorations into Highland New Guinea 1930-1935, (Edited by D. E. Jones), Crawford House Press, Bathurst, 1994.Since the show kicked off earlier this week, My Kitchen Rules' Roula Kfoury and Rachael Hammer have been at loggerheads with Jess Alvial and Emma Byron.

And in Thursday's Who magazine, Jess reignited her feud with her co-stars.

'They were itching for a fight!' the 31-year-old real-estate business manager told the publication.

'They were out to start trouble!' MKR's Jess Alvial (L), 31, reignited her feud with Roula and Rachael, in Thursday's Who magazine, as she claims co-stars were 'itching for a fight'

'I think they were out to start trouble. It was almost like they were itching for a fight or something,' Jess claimed of Melbourne-based best friends Roula and Rachael.

'For me, I didn't want to go in fighting with people, but I don't like when people are confrontational for no reason,' Jess' sister Emma, 38, added of their competitors.

However Roula, 34, had a different take on things, telling Who that she was 'taken aback' by the girls' harsh critique on their first dish.

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Roula and Rachael for comment.

Antics: 'I think they were out to start trouble. It was almost like they were itching for a fight or something,' Jess claimed of Melbourne-based best friends Roula Kfoury (L), 34, and Rachael Hammer (R), 21

'When I actually met Jess and Emma, I was nice, very nice. And then when I saw how they reacted towards my very first critique, I wasn't impressed with that. I was kind of taken aback.'

The comments follow Wednesday night's episode that saw Roula and Rachael purposely serve the blonde sisters uncooked brownies during their Instant Restaurant round.

The 'friends with attitude' made the choice to give 'The Plastics' raw dessert after realising they didn't have enough cooked brownies for everyone, causing the women to exclaim 'Game on. F**k you.'

Revenge is a dish best served... raw! Roula and Rachael dished up Jess and Emma uncooked 'cowpat' brownies as their explosive feud reached new heights

After being outspoken in earlier Instant Restaurant rounds, the pressure was on for Rachael and Roula to deliver at their 90s hip-hop themed restaurant 'House of Flava.'

However, the girls got off to a disastrous start when they forgot to make enough dishes for everyone and their prawn entree was overcooked and overpowered by onions.

'Fail. I pack better lunches for my son's school,' Jess complained of the entree, adding: 'It was horrible and I have to walk around with this breath for the rest of the night.'

Dessert disaster! Rachael and Roula's second batch of brownies were undercooked, and the women dealt with the debacle by improvising

While Rachael and Roula managed to turn the night around somewhat by dishing up perfectly cooked salmon with asparagus and mustard and dill sauce for the main course, the girls couldn't keep up the efforts in dessert round.

The friends had dramas in the kitchen when their second batch of brownies were undercooked, meaning they were two serves short.

'They're raw! F**k. What the hell are we going to do?' Rachael exclaimed, freaking out about the conundrum.

'F**k. What the hell are we going to do?' Rachael freaked out about the conundrum

With their guests and judges Pete Evans and Manu Feildel waiting for their meals, Rachael decided: 'One team is going to have to have the raw brownies. It's our only option right now.'

Despite the predicament, Roula tried to salvage their efforts as best they could.

'Just put cream on top of it!' she offered.

And since the blonde sisters and the 'friends with attitude' suffered personality clashes in previous rounds, Rachael and Roula decided it would be Jess and Emma who would receive the underwhelming fare.

'Jess and Emma are probably going to complain about any dish we made and we know they're going to be negative towards us anyway so we might as well give it to Jess and Emma,' Roula explained.

'They're going to be negative towards us anyway': Roula and Rachael picked their enemies Jess and Emma to receive the raw 'cowpat' brownies

Jess and Emma quickly realised that while the rest of the teams had been given cooked baked goods, they were served what fellow contestant Alex described as 'cowpat brownies'.

'We cannot believe what they just served us. Big mistake,' Jess said, adding: 'Game on. F**k you!'

Emma was just as perturbed, declaring: 'There's gooey and then there's pooey!'They've been happily married for over a year.

And Jesinta Franklin (nee Campbell), 26, has revealed her biggest pet peeve with her AFL star hubby Lance 'Buddy', 31.

Speaking to Sunrise on Thursday, the former David Jones model said that while she enjoys being a wife, there's one particular thing that gets on her nerves.

Biggest pet peeve: Jesinta Franklin (nee Campbell), 26, has revealed her biggest pet-peeve with her AFL star hubby Lance 'Buddy'

'I still yell at him for not putting the bins out on Thursday morning. Tell him to clean up,' she said.

'The bins is his job and I hate it when I wake up in the morning at 4:30 AM and I hear the bins going. Did you forget? And he jumps up! Has a towel on him to go get the bins.

She added: '... I don't think our relationship changed at all. On the day you do feel like there is a deeper connection and I don't think the day-to-day stuff changes.'

Frustrating: She said, 'The bins is his job and I hate it when I wake up in the morning at 4:30 AM and I hear the bins going. Did you forget? And he jumps up! Has a towel on him to go get the bins'

It comes after the notoriously private star detailed her plans to start a family with her Sydney Swans star husband.

Posing for the March cover of Marie Claire Australia, the 26-year-old model said they were not actively 'trying' for a baby, but insists they're also not trying to avoid parenthood either.

The model proceeded to talk openly about how amazing Buddy is going to be as a parent, News Corp reported.

'He'll be a beautiful father': Jesinta Campbell gushes over husband Buddy Franklin as model reveals baby news

Jesinta told the publication she was certain her husband will make a 'beautiful' father, implying parenthood is simply in his nature.

Clearly in the mood for sharing, she also revealed the pair had re-assessed their long-held desire to keep their professional lives separate from her modelling career.

'Some re-shuffling in their careers,' convinced them to appear in their first-ever magazine shoot as a couple.

Letting fate decide: In a rare candid interview, the 26-year-old model said they were not actively 'trying' for a baby, but insists they're not trying to avoid parenthood either

He's a natural! Struggling to contain her excitement, the model proceeded to talk openly about how amazing Buddy is going to be as a parent

Since making the decision, Jesinta and Buddy have already collaborated with Christian Dior on a Valentine's Day Campaign, and shot a cover for Marie Claire.

The magazine's March edition will feature the lovers cuddling-up at the beach, with the model to be pictured perching on Buddy's knee.

The 30-year-old was also in the mood for sharing, the Swans star opening-up on the moment he knew Jesinta was the one.

'I knew as soon as I met her that I wanted to marry her,' he said, 'It was love at first sight.'

Change of heart! She also revealed the pair had re-assessed their long-held desire to keep their professional lives separate from her modelling career (pictured shooting their first couples campaign, for Christian Dior)

That was news to his wife, who upon hearing the confession, jokingly chastised him for not letting her know these things earlier in their relationship.

'You couldve saved me going through hell thinking you just werent attracted to me! You couldve save me so much money buying sexy lingerie when nothing was happening!' she said.

Jesinta and Buddy got married in November 2016.She was awarded sole custody of her three children on Tuesday during her divorce battle with ex-husband James Stunt.

So it was no wonder Petra Ecclestone seemed in the mood to celebrate as she hit the town with her elder sister Tamara for a night out at Mayfair's C London on Wednesday.

The 29-year-old heiress was dressed to impress for her big night out, showing off her incredible figure in a little black dress with thigh high boots.

Out and about: She was awarded sole custody of her three children, so it was no surprise Petra Ecclestone seemed to be in the mood to celebrate in London on Wednesday

The scanty mini dress featured illusion panelling that looked like mesh cut outs beneath the bust and side, accentuating her hourglass curves.

The garment grazed her tanned and toned thighs, showing off a hint of leg whilst she donned a pair of floral thigh high boots to boost her petite frame.

Layering up, the blonde bombshell shrugged on a fur-lined black coat whilst she styled her glossy golden locks in loose waves that framed her pretty features.

Support: Petra was joined by her elder sister Tamara at the event as the pair enjoyed some sibling bonding time at the upmarket Mayfair eatery

Meanwhile, Tamara, 33, also looked incredible in a little black dress that featured lace up detailing across the bodice.

Clinging to her incredible figure, the garment showed off her long legs, whilst like her sister, Tamara also favoured a pair of thigh high boots.

The brunette beauty - who shares daughter Sophia, three, with husband Jay Rutland - finished off the look by wearing her glossy locks loose and curled.

The sisters seemed in great spirits on the outing, no doubt keen to toast Petra's news that she has sole custody of children: four-year-old Lavinia and two-year-old twins James and Andrew.

Leggy lady! The 29-year-old heiress was dressed to impress for her big night out, showing off her incredible figure in a little black dress with thigh high boots

The outing came after Petra's father Bernie Ecclestone branded his daughter's billionaire ex 'an idiot' after she was granted permission to quit Britain and move to Los Angeles with her children.

The Formula One boss said James Stunt 'used to be an honourable person' as he welcomed the decision of a judge to allow his daughter Petra to emigrate to the US.

A judge told Petra that she would have sole custody of the three children she had with ex-husband James.

But the Central Family Court in London ruled that an agreement had been reached that Mr Stunt could 'spend time with the children'.

Legs eleven! The mini dress grazed her tanned and toned thighs, showing off a hint of leg whilst she donned a pair of floral thigh high boots to boost her petite frame

She's a vision: Layering up, the blonde bombshell shrugged on a fur-lined black coat whilst she styled her glossy golden locks in loose waves that framed her pretty features

In a brief public statement, Her Honour Judge Gillian Brasse told the court: 'There have been lengthy proceedings in relation to the arrangements following the preceding divorce of Petra and Mr Stunt.

'The financial matters between them were agreed last year. Also an agreement at the end of last year that Miss Ecclestone could relocate to Los Angeles with her children was agreed.'

Her Honour Judge Brasse added: 'After a hearing I've ordered that the children will live with their mother Miss Ecclestone and I will make an order as to how much time they can spend with their father.'

Chic and cheerful: Tamara, 33, looked just as incredible as her younger sister as she hit the town in a little black dress that featured lace up detailing across the bodice

James was not in court to hear that his children would relocate to Los Angeles with their mother, his ex-wife Petra.

Petra listened silently as Her Honour Judge Brasse delivered her lengthy ruling on the case.

The warring former couple of Petra and James had been back and forth to court for 12 months while they geared up for the 5.5billion divorce battle.

But when their legal teams came before a judge in October, it emerged lawyers had agreed what is believed to be one of Britain's biggest ever divorce settlements.

Suited and booted: Clinging to her incredible figure, the garment showed off her long legs, whilst like her sister, Tamara also favoured a pair of thigh high boots

Hair she comes: The brunette beauty - who shares daughter Sophia, three, with husband Jay Rutland - finished off the look by wearing her glossy locks loose and curled

The out-of-court settlement meant a two-day public hearing to decide who should get what after their split was avoided.

Petra and James had been expected to fight over their 158million mansion in Los Angeles and a Grade II-listed home in London's Chelsea, worth up to 100million.

At a hearing last year, a court was told James had signed a prenuptial agreement worth 16million.Former Auburn deputy mayor Salim Mehajer's defence team may abandon his case after he was accused of assaulting and robbing a taxi driver.

The controversial NSW businessman denies stealing the cabbie's iPhone, throwing it out of the taxi and hitting the driver with an Eftpos machine outside Sydney's Star Casino last April.

The 31-year-old appeared dressed in a suit at the Downing Centre Local Court on Wednesday, but solicitor Brett Galloway indicated he may withdraw from the case.

"I've been asked to take a position which is untenable," he told magistrate Vivien Swain.

The property developer has pleaded not guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm, larceny to a value of less than $2000, destroying or damaging property and common assault.International aid organisations have warned senators a "chilling" proposed crackdown on foreign donations would muzzle the voice of charities and community groups.

The Australian Council for International Development likened the proposed changes to electoral funding to clampdowns on legitimate philanthropy in Russia, India and China.

"It erodes the voice of charities and the role (they) play in our democracy," chief executive Marc Purcell told a Senate inquiry in Canberra on Wednesday.

"It erodes legitimate sources of funding for charities and it erodes charities' ability to do essential work by stifling them with unwarranted, and unnecessary red-tape."

Mr Purcell said the proposed legislation blurred the definitions between charities and political entities.

"There is significant alarm that this will cause negative reputational effects for charities and potentially have a chilling effect," he said.

The council believes the expanded definition of "political expenditure" goes too far and could possibly encompass any public expression of matters of public importance.

"I think this bill overreaches extremely in a way that we haven't seen for many, many years in the Australian body politic," Mr Purcell said.Taiwan has suspended fruit imports from Tasmania after adult fruit flies and their larvae were found in the Apple Isle's north.

Adult flies, considered a list-A pest, were found on Flinders Island while larvae were discovered Spreyton, near Devonport, over the past week.

"We recognise the importance of this market to local producers and we will be working closely with industry and the Australian government to re-establish market access as soon as possible," Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment Biosecurity Tasmania general manager Lloyd Klumpp said on Wednesday.The NSW transport minister made a "balls-up" of the Ferry McFerryface saga, according to environmental campaigner Ian Kiernan, whose name could have been emblazoned on the now-controversial Sydney ferry.

Andrew Constance made a "captain's call" when naming one of the city's new ferries Ferry McFerryface and claimed it was the popular pick of Sydneysiders in a competition.

However, Freedom of Information documents revealed the name attracted just 182 votes and was ineligible under the NSW government's criteria, according to the Nine Network.

Mr Constance nevertheless signed off on the name, which was dropped this week following a backlash from ferry workers and the public.

The FOI documents reveal Mr Kiernan received the most votes - more than 2000 - in the competition which cost taxpayers $100,000.

"He's made a balls-up of it," Mr Kiernan told AAP on Wednesday.

"It's a political hijack, that's what it is. I'm not particularly concerned about it except that the public's been deceived. They voted, they selected it, then the government grabs it.

"It's disgraceful that this has become politicised."

Mr Constance on Tuesday denied he'd gone against the public vote and suggested the Nine report was "incorrect".

The transport minister said Ferry McFerryface came from the first open call for public nominations where people could vote for any name without stringent criteria.

"In that round, Ferry McFerryface received 229 nominations and Ian Kiernan received 17," Mr Constance told AAP in a statement.

"We always intended this vessel would be named for the kids."

The minister said after a summer on the harbour, Ferry McFerryface would now be renamed after prominent Australian author May Gibbs.

"This will retain the vessel's appeal to our youngest customers while also recognising an Australian icon with a long connection to Sydney."

Mr Kiernan on Wednesday questioned the ferry's new name.

"What's she got to do with Sydney Harbour though?" he asked.

Gibbs moved into a boarding house in Neutral Bay in 1913 and travelled by ferry to her "Little Studio" on Bridge Street in Sydney. She subsequently moved to Nutcote in present-day Kurraba Point where she lived until her death in 1969.

The five other new inner-harbour ferries were named Catherine Hamlin, Victor Chang, Fred Hollows, Bungaree and Pemulwuy.Heading into his third season as a professional, Ryan Ruffels has never been clearer about the road ahead.

The eventual destination is still the promised land of the US PGA Tour.

But the route map this year runs through some exotic locations in Latin America along with a few other stop-offs, including the Vic Open at Thirteenth Beach this week, where he will play as a pro for the first time on home soil.

Ruffels was flagged as Australia's best prospect since major winner Jason Day when he gave up his amateur status in 2016 aged just 17.

That reputation and a glittering amateur CV earned Ruffels a total of 15 sponsors' invites to US Tour events from 2016 onwards - which turned out to be a mixed blessing.

A best finish of T20 and seven missed cuts were below expectations, and also not enough to get him onto the secondary Web.com tour.

Fluent in both English and Spanish, the US-born Ruffels chose to play last year on the third-tier Latinoamerica Tour - where the top five finishers on the money list earn full Web.com Tour status.

The problem was that he spent so much time flying to and from the US in 2017 he was unable to finish any higher than 15th overall.

"I got caught in the middle of trying to play a full season down there but also getting caught up with invites on the main tour," Ruffels told AAP.

"This year I'm really going to put my focus on Latin America because had I played a full season down there in 2017 I would most probably have found myself on the Web.com Tour this year.

"That's a bit disappointing, but it is what it is and it's also a learning curve."

The way Ruffels sees it, even if he has yet to match the huge outside expectations in his first couple of years in pro ranks, the lessons learnt mean he is still well ahead of contemporaries who chose to retain their amateur status for longer.

He has excellent memories of the tough 36-hole Thirteenth Beach layout, having tied for third at the 2015 Vic Open as a 16-year-old.

"When the wind get up it will be a good test for me, seeing how fast I can adapt," he said.

"But it's a course where I've done well in the past and my game is in really good shape."

Defending Vic champ Dimi Papadatos, 2015 winner Richard Green, 2014 title-holder Matthew Griffin, fellow Australians Brad Kennedy, Matthew Millar and Nick Cullen and Kiwi Michael Hendry are among other players expected to figure prominently.

The tournament is again being run concurrently with the women's Vic Open.Grime music star Dizzee Rascal will soon be back on Australian soil for his first tour of the country in four years.

It seems like quite a while, considering the British rapper says he loves coming Down Under.

"I need to always go to Australia for ever, it's just such a good crowd," Dizzee Rascal, real name Dylan Mills, told AAP.

"It's always been a good testing ground. I swear I tried out a lot of new stuff in Australia too."

Mills released his sixth album, Raskit, last year. It was hailed as a return to his grime roots after a foray into more pop and dance-leaning albums.

"With this one I felt like, I've put my foot back in," he said.

Rascal appears to have hit a new stride in his return to grime, and is already working on new music.

"It's not going to take four years for the next album. I've been in the studio since about November," he said.

"I'm just writing about life, whatever's going on and forcing myself to just write on the spot as well. I never used to write in the studio. I'd prepare lyrics first and then go in the studio. But that's how you get the freshest stuff."

His live performance takes in all his music, spanning across his six albums. It's a high-octane show that's gone down well during his solo tour of the UK.

"It's been good, especially doing songs like Space (from Raskit). People go mad halfway through it when I start picking up the flow," he said.

"It's been nice to try out all the new ones along with the old ones, to see what works and what doesn't work as well. It's a learning curve. But there's so much to choose from from all the albums."

He does have one way of making sure the gig goes well and to fire up the crowd.

"The way we always do it is like a rollercoaster ride, it keeps going up."

Dizzee Rascal Australian tour dates:

February 17 - Perth International Arts Festival

February 20 - The Forum, Melbourne

February 21 - Enmore Theatre, SydneyWith the New Year prompting a frenzied focus on fitness, the NSW Fair Trading has cautioned gym junkies against signing dodgy membership deals.

Over the past three years, Fair Trading received around 550 complaints regarding gym memberships, said Minister for Better Regulation Matt Kean.

"It's important to know your consumer rights but at the same time don't forget you're signing a legally binding agreement, which means contractual obligations for you, and the gym," Mr Kean said in a statement on Wednesday.

Consumers were reminded to read gym contracts properly so as to avoid some of the biggest complaints involving membership cancellations, cooling-off periods and refunds.

"All businesses are required to clearly outline terms and conditions of their direct debit arrangements both at the time of joining and at the end of the agreement, and this is no different for fitness centres or gyms," Mr Kean said.

To avoid dodgy deals Fair Trading advised only signing up to gyms affiliated with Fitness Australia, bound by the Fitness Industry code of practice.How else should one of the globes richest nations be judged? In the Pacific, the US expects Australia to lead. The Pacific Island Forum states expect us to lead. The international community assumes Australia will shoulder responsibility as Pacific states succumb to multiple and systemic debilitation.

It hardly rates a mention in parliament, in foreign policy debates or in the public interest. There is no public recognition of the geostrategic realities: that Australia is the developed nation most surrounded by poor, struggling, developing countries and that our friends and allies will judge Australia by its leadership performance in its neighbourhood.

SYDNEY -Can you name the global region where Australias influence is greatest? Can you identify the region now falling behind Africa in social and economic progress? Can you locate the blind spot in our national security policy that guarantees future crisis?

Chinas penetration of the Pacific states has been highlighted in this newspaper in recent days. Earlier this month the Minister for International Development and the Pacific, Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, provoked Beijings anger by attacking its legacy of white elephant debt-heavy projects in Pacific nations, forcing Foreign Minister Julie Bishop into a diplomatic corrective statement.

Analysis by the Lowy Institute shows Chinas aid agenda in the Pacific is opaque in the extreme but has grown substantially and now exceeds US$1.7 billion ($2.1bn) to eight countries while traditional aid over the same period was more than US$9bn with Australia the main contributor.

China, of course, provides aid with the strategic purpose of building its influence in an area where Australia, in co-operation with New Zealand, should operate as the main regional power. And Australia cannot critique China for exploitative loans leaving countries with a heavy debt obligation to Beijing without also criticising the Pacific Island governments and leaders.

The most salient recent warning about Australias deficiencies in the Pacific came from Labor defence spokesman Richard Marles in his Lowy Institute address late last year and in an interview with The Australian this week.

These countries in the Pacific have a choice, Marles says. Australia has got to earn the relationships it has in the Pacific region. Our failure to embrace our leadership role in the Pacific is the biggest blind spot in Australias national security policy.

Why dont we eagerly lead where we are expected to lead?

There are 10 countries whose principal relationship in the world is with Australia. For those of us who are interested in the national security and foreign policy space, why cant we name those countries as a matter of reflex?

The Pacific is that part of the world in which our influence matters the greatest. What we say and do in the Pacific carries enormous weight.

The countries of the Pacific expect us to lead. They supported us fully when we sought a seat on the UN Security Council. The expectations of the Pacific Island countries for us to lead is matched by the expectations of the world. In one area, the US unambiguously follows us: the Pacific.

Australias contribution, as Marles says, is significant in aid, investment, defence, policing and development.

His central claim is more serious and sophisticated  that Australia is devoid of any strategy or guiding philosophy other than a general sense of obligation in its approach to a neighbourhood of vital national security interest.

Yet these countries are facing a developmental crisis. The region has the worst performance against the Millennium Development Goals. The recent foreign affairs white paper alluded to the problems: small economies, fast rising populations, high costs, the burden of distance, transactional crime, the threat of climate change, outbreaks of infectious disease  and security threats.

It is no surprise that offers from China, dubious or worthwhile, are so potent.

Papua New Guinea is a nation of eight million people expected to be 18 million by 2050, literally on our doorstep, sharing a war history and facing an accumulation of internal pressures that on the balance of probability will erupt at some point into a full security crisis. It is the largest recipient of Australian official support, currently running at $550 million annually.

The white paper addressed the strategic competition for economic opportunity and influence under way in PNG, East Timor and a range of Pacific nations. It made a critical pledge that has got almost no attention  that Australia will engage with the Pacific with greater intensity and ambition, including more integrated policy and longer-run investments.

Marles is unconvinced. He tells this newspaper: The question from the white paper is: does this amount to a change of approach? Does it offer an Australian vision for the Pacific? Its not clear to me that it does.

My thesis for a long time is that we are in a holding pattern in the Pacific and thats not enough.

He attacked the neo-colonial psychological shadow that still impedes Australias role in the region: The Pacific, whether we understand it or not, is our global calling card. And, rightly, we will be judged for good or ill based on what we do or do not do in the Pacific. I often feel there is an instinct not to act in the manner of an overbearing colonial power, to proceed on the basis of a light touch.

This sentiment is well motivated but it is wrong.

Far from being concerned that Australia might be overbearing, what the Pacific Island nations fear most is a lack of attention from Australia. The appetite and desire for Australia to play its role  with empathy and intelligence  is manifest.

There is an incongruity between our interests and our attention. As my colleague Greg Sheridan said on this page yesterday, the South Pacific has gone out of fashion in Australia.

It has become a place of confronting difficulties with few victories to be put up in lights. In relative terms the career prospects for visiting Australians arent as great as they once were, and there is declining incentive for MPs to get involved.

While our politicians naturally prefer the bigger, global stage on which Australia must commit, there have been major security achievements close to home over the past generation  witness the 1999 Australian-led, UN sanctioned force into East Timor securing the independence vote, and the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands.

The reality, however, as the white paper concedes, is that Australia must devote greater resources to the Pacific.

Australia should not forget. History has a habit of turning the most unlikely places into areas of sudden and imperative national-interest significance.Lead has been detected in water at five West Australian schools and testing at five more is yet to be completed as 450,000 students head back to school.

More than 800 schools had their water pipes flushed and any stagnant water that had built-up over the school break was tested for lead.

ChemCentre chief executive Peter McCafferty raised concerns last year that the same issue with lead contamination at Perth Children's Hospital could be present at new schools.

Education Minister Sue Ellery told reporters on Wednesday she was "very disappointed and frankly angry" with the late test results and said bottled water would be given to students at affected schools.Nine years after the Black Saturday bushfires decimated Victoria's Kinglake National Park, a species of owl has been spotted in a positive sign of recovery.

Parks Victoria says the sighting of a powerful owl in the park in recent months, suggests the recovery of the local environment has taken great strides.

The return of the bird, known as a predator, means vegetation is maturing and diversifying and possums - which the bird eats - are returning to feed on plants, the authority says.

"After a big fire, the habitat changes and we are continuing to see these changes nine years down the track," Parks Victoria ranger Tony Fitzgerald said.

Next week marks the ninth anniversary of the state's Black Saturday fires, which killed 173 people in 2009.The Turnbull government has rejected a proposal to overturn the Fair Work Commission's decision to reduce Sunday penalty rates.

A Senate inquiry report released in October last year called for the decision to be overturned.

However, the government said in its formal response to the inquiry, tabled in parliament, it would leave penalty rate decisions to the independent umpire.

"In making its decision to reduce penalty rates for some workers in the hospitality and retail sectors, the commission considered evidence over a two-year period," the response said.

The penalty rate reduction would boost jobs in retail and hospitality services and allow the hours of existing workers to be extended.

The government also rejected a Greens proposal flagged in the inquiry report to set up a royal commission into penalty rate underpayment and wage theft.

It said new laws to protect vulnerable workers had already been introduced and more funding given to the Fair Work Ombudsman for enforcement.

However, the government "noted" a Nick Xenophon Team proposal in the inquiry report to provide greater transparency of payments made between unions and employers before votes occurred on enterprise bargaining agreements.

"There is merit in considering further policy options."

Legislation has already been introduced to ban corrupting benefits and force unions and companies to disclose any benefits received in connection with an EBA.A man has been charged with historical child sex offences involving a three-year-old girl in NSW's Hunter region more than four decades ago, following a referral from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Police said the 69-year-old man, who was arrested and charged at Maitland Police Station on Tuesday, committed the offences in the 1960s.

He is facing three counts of assault female and commit act of indecency age under 16, and has been granted conditional.

He is due to appear in the Newcastle Local Court in March.Dallas Holland left for his job as a truck driver on January 10, 2017 just as he did every other day.

But tragically, the 34-year-old, engaged to be married, never made it home.

He was hit by a fellow truck driver after he pulled into an emergency bay on the Gateway Motorway, south of Brisbane.

He had stopped to secure his load of mining truck tyres when he was hit and thrown 13m, where he died at the scene.

Scott David Madill appeared in Brisbane District Court on Wednesday where he pleaded guilty to the dangerous operation of a vehicle causing death and leaving the scene.

He was sentenced to three years' jail, suspended after six months, and disqualified from driving for 18 months.

The court heard despite it being a clear day with little traffic, the 47-year-old did not remember seeing Mr Holland or his truck on the side of the road.

He told police he heard a bang and knew he had hit something, but couldn't look back as his left-side mirror had been knocked off in the collision.

Madill did not think he had hit a person and handed himself in to police when he heard there had been a fatal on the same stretch of road.

Judge Gregory Koppenol struggled to reconcile how a truck driver with 27 years' experience could have not seen Mr Holland or his vehicle.

"I can only conclude that you were inattentive, albeit briefly, and that period of inattentiveness resulted in the devastating consequences, the loss of Mr Holland's life, and the terrible and catastrophic consequences for his family and extended family," he said.

Judge Koppenol accepted Madill's defence barrister's submission that when he told police he "panicked" it was in relation to fears he would lose his job over damage to the truck, not that he had hit someone and driven away.

Mr Holland's family sobbed in court as details of the incident were read out.

Outside court, Mr Holland's mother Julie Reid questioned how a truck driver with so much experience could have not seen her son.

"How can you be so inattentive and just do that, and go back and say nothing happened?" she said.

Madill will be eligible for parole on July 31, 2018.Surf Life Saving Queensland has pledged to work with the state government to improve water safety for children, softening its stance on previous calls to introduce compulsory school swimming lessons.

SLSQ chief operating officer George Hill wrote to the Labor government in December 2016 arguing mandatory swimming lessons in schools would cut the number of incidents on beaches, in dams, rivers and pools.

The letter was revealed as two young children were taken to hospital after near-drownings in Queensland within 24 hours while a two-year-old reportedly died on Monday night, days after being found unconscious in a Darling Downs pool.

Newly appointed education minister Grace Grace on Wednesday defended the government against accusations Mr Hill's plea was ignored.

"We were able to increase funding which started this year for school swimming grants that are given to schools and also to look at other ways we can increase the number of children taking swimming lessons," she said.

Ms Grace pointed to difficulties faced by regional and remote schools without access to a pool, and expert advice that called for children to start swimming lessons well before they entered a classroom.

SLSQ chief executive officer John Brennan welcomed the comments, saying the organisation would continue to work with the Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk's government on existing and new strategies to improve water safety.

"We look forward to building upon our dialogue with the premier and various other ministers as we collectively work towards achieving our overarching vision of zero preventable deaths in Queensland public waters," he said in a statement.

Liberal National Party leader Deb Frecklington is seeking an urgent meeting with SLSQ to discuss the issue, but said a greater focus was needed for children aged one to four.

"Whilst it is important for school kids to learn to swim, we need to focus on those bubs," she said.The future of NSW RSL will be revealed as the findings from a public inquiry into the organisation are expected to be handed down.

The inquiry was set up under the Charitable Fundraising Act by the state government after the organisation's former president Don Rowe was accused of, and later admitted to, using its funds for private expenditure.

Public hearings started in September last year and finished at the end of October with Public Inquirer Patricia Anne Bergin SC, hearing from Mr Rowe among dozens of other RSL members and legal advisers.

Ms Bergin is due to hand down her findings to NSW Better Regulation Minister Matthew Kean by February 1.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she was looking forward to the report and dealing with any recommendations it makes.

"I love the RSL as an organisation and 99.9 per cent of the members do the right thing," Ms Berejiklian told reporters.

"They were the ones urging us to have the inquiry because they wanted to clear their name as an organisation to make sure they can get on with the job of what they do best."

In his closing submission to the public inquiry, senior counsel assisting the inquiry, Anthony Cheshire SC, said there was a culture within the organisation to never question authority.

Mr Cheshire said the lack of circulation of jobs at the top of the NSW RSL meant no "new blood" had been afforded the opportunity to assess an organisation "crying out for a shake-up and real reform".Former prime minister Kevin Rudd has launched legal action against the ABC after it published details from a secret cabinet document related to his Labor government's home insulation scheme.

In a statement, Mr Rudd said the document referred to by the public broadcaster was about financial and administrative risks to the program for the Commonwealth, not safety risks, and rejected suggestions he ignored safety warnings as a "lie".

"For these reasons, legal proceedings against the Australian Broadcasting Corporation have now commenced," he said on Thursday.Trucking companies are being raided in Australia's largest-ever heavy vehicle compliance operation after a spate of fatal crashes in NSW in January.

Five people died in three separate crashes involving trucks on NSW roads over two days in mid-January.

NSW Police, in conjunction with officers from Victorian, Queensland, the ACT and South Australian, began operation Rolling Thunder on Thursday morning.

"Today's operation will test the entire heavy-vehicle industry in NSW and across other states," said Commander of NSW Police Traffic & Highway Patrol Command, Assistant Commissioner Michael Corboy in a statement.Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has again called on the federal government to hold a Council of Australian Government's meeting in a regional area.

Ms Palaszczuk says after this month's meeting in Canberra, she would like to host the next COAG meeting somewhere in her state's north, to focus on development issues.

"The fact our last meeting was held in June last year and it was held in Hobart shows the federal government has taken the eye off the ball when it comes to northern Australia and its potential," she said in a statement.Katko told Tillerson about the problems facing Lake Ontario communities and the floods that occurred last year. Tillerson, Katko said, mentioned a similar pact that affects the state of Washington.

"He understands, generally, the issue," Katko said in a phone interview Tuesday night. "He started writing down notes and I said, 'Don't worry. I already wrote all the notes for you on the back of my business card.' I gave it to him and he started laughing and he goes, 'We're going to look into this.'"

Tillerson would play a pivotal role in any attempt to amend or repeal Plan 2014. While the International Joint Commission adopted the plan, it was negotiated between the U.S. and Canadian governments. The State Department, which is led by Tillerson, could encourage their Canadian counterparts to reconsider the strategy.South Australian teenagers could be banned from riding motorcycles until they're 18 under a proposal to slash the state's sky-rocketing road toll.

The state government will consider raising the minimum age for a learner's motorcycle permit from 16 to 18 in a proposal forwarded by the Centre for Automotive Safety Research, Road Safety Minister Chris Picton says.

"In 2017, 24 motorcyclists lost their lives on South Australian roads and clearly there is more to be done to help protect motorcyclists," Mr Picton said in a statement on Thursday.A man has been charged with alleged historical sex offences involving a 17-year-old girl and two women in their 30s and 40s at a psychology clinic in Sydney's northern beaches more than a decade ago.

Queensland police arrested the 62-year-old man at Brisbane home on Monday over offences that allegedly occurred while the man was employed at an Avalon clinic between 2004 and 2009.

The man is facing 13 counts of aggravated indecent assault, aggravated sexual assault and aggravated incite act of indecency, NSW Police said.

He appeared at Brisbane Magistrates Court on Tuesday where he was granted strict conditional bail.

His next court appearance is at Manly Local Court on Monday.An international tobacco giant has donated a total of $35,000 to the coffers of two Australian minor parties.

Australian Electoral Commission disclosure returns for 2016-17 released on Thursday show Philip Morris donated $20,000 to the Liberal Democratic Party and $15,000 to the National Party.

Labor banned tobacco donations in 2004 and the Liberals followed suit in 2013.

The donation to the National Party is up on the $10,780 the smoking giant gave in 2014-15.

The Liberal Democratic Party's website said the party is pro-choice when it comes to smoking.

It says the tobacco excise should be abolished and businesses and workers should have the right to choose if they want to operate in a smoky environment.

Smoking is the largest preventable cause of death in Australia with a tobacco-related death almost every 28 minutes.As $1 levy kicks in for all taxi, ride share and hire car operators across NSW, Uber has urged its customers to contact the transport minister about the "unfair" tax.

The levy, which starts on Thursday, goes towards the government's $250 million cab industry compensation package, brought in following the legalisation of ride-share operators such as Uber in 2015, which led to the devaluation of taxi licence plate numbers.

Taxi, ride share and hire car drivers can either pass the charge on to their passengers or pay the levy themselves.

Uber has sent a message to its customers warning them about the tax.

"As of 1 February 2018, the NSW Government will require all taxi, rideshare and hire car providers to pay a temporary $1 tax for each trip taken," a message sent on Tuesday said.

"This means riders will be charged an additional $1 + GST for every completed trip, on top of the current fare."

Customers have been urged to contact Transport Minister Andrew Constance about the "unfair" tax.Dozens of "Dreamers" -- immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children -- prepare to attend President Donald Trump's State of the Union address to Congress

Dozens of immigrants in legal limbo -- including a young teacher named America -- will have front row seats for President Donald Trump's State of the Union address Tuesday, getting a close-up look at US history despite their own precarious status.

Trump's primetime address will be delivered in the hallowed House of Representatives chamber, where immigrants from Chile, Guatemala, Mexico and South Korea will join US lawmakers, top administration and military officials, Supreme Court justices and foreign ambassadors.

The speech -- expected to touch on the divisive issue of immigration -- comes as some 700,000 immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children, the so-called "Dreamers," risk losing their protected status while the White House and Congress struggle to reach a deal on their fate.

For those supporting the Dreamers, the goal of their presence is simple: "Make sure the president is seeing the faces of young people who are contributing to our community every day," said Michelle Lujan Grisham, chair of the largely Democratic Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

For America Moreno Jimenez, who immigrated from Mexico at age two with her parents and is now a public school teacher in North Carolina, it will be a very personal moment.

"My name itself is a devotion to how much my family loves this country, and it's sad to see that nothing has been done yet," 24-year-old America told AFP, as congressman David Price, who invited her to the speech, stood nearby.

"I want to hear a decisive statement, one way or the other," she said of Trump's speech.

"Even if there is a negative outcome to what he has to say, at least we can take that and plan for our futures."

Thousands of Dreamers like America will be under threat of deportation if Congress does not legislate a fix to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which Trump scrapped last September and which expires on March 5.

In a pointed message to the Republican president to break the immigration stalemate, more than two dozen Democratic lawmakers invited Dreamers to his speech.

They "make America more American," top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi told Dreamers in the US Capitol. "You are the pride of America (and) you are here to stay."

Not if congressman Paul Gosar has a say in it.

The Republican from Arizona contacted US Capitol Police and Attorney General Jeff Sessions urging them to check identifications of those at the speech and arrest "any illegal aliens."

"Of all the places where the Rule of Law needs to be enforced, it should be in the hallowed halls of Congress," Gosar tweeted.

The move infuriated Democratic lawmakers.

"I would say to the congressman, you try it," boomed Texas congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee.

- No vitriol -

Despite the tension, Dreamer Denea Joseph, a 23-year-old UCLA graduate who immigrated from Belize at age seven, said she did not anticipate protests inside the chamber.

Instead she hoped Trump would soothe the concerns of so many immigrants who will be watching.

"I would hope that the president doesn't utilize the same vitriol that he's used pertaining to immigrant communities in the past," Joseph told AFP.

She said she hopes Democrats stick to their demands to pass a clean Dream Act that provides a pathway to citizenship for her and other immigrants, and not agree to the White House's latest plan.

Trump's proposal would include about 1.8 million of the 11 million undocumented immigrants currently in the country, while also providing funding for his border wall and severely curtailing legal immigration.

Dreamers who gathered before the speech, some of whom snapped selfies in front of American flags, wore yellow butterfly stickers, a nod to the insect's cross-border migratory patterns.

Most have DACA permits, distributed under Barack Obama's administration, that provide legal residency and work authorization.

But for many, the clock is ticking. Bolivian-born high schooler Nicolle Uria, 17, said she feels just as American as anyone else, but her DACA status lasts only through September.

"Dreamers like me wake up every morning knowing we have an expiration date on our futures," she said.Only seven people found been alive so far from the MV Butiraoi, believed to have sunk, and hopes are fading of locating any more

More than 80 people were aboard a ferry that sank in the remote Pacific, officials confirmed Wednesday, as a senior Kiribati lawmaker called for an independent inquiry into the vessel's disappearance.

A multinational rescue operation is scouring vast swathes of ocean for survivors, but only seven people have been found alive so far and hopes are fading of locating any more.

Initial estimates of how many people were on the MV Butiraoi when it went missing ranged from 35 to more than 100, but officials said the numbers were slowly becoming clearer.

"Kiribati authorities have confirmed that about 80 passengers plus crew of likely about five were on the ferry," Rescue Coordination Centre NZ said in a statement.

The centre said four aircraft from New Zealand, Australia and the United States had helped conduct sweeps in the area where the ferry went missing.

It said the search was concentrating on finding a life raft that was launched from the sinking ferry.

"The life raft is designed for 25 people but more can be squeezed in uncomfortably," it added.

Former Kiribati prime minister Ieremia Tabai, who represents the island of Nonouti from where the ferry departed on January 18, slammed the government's handling of the disaster.

Tabai said his grief-stricken constituents on the island of 2,000 wanted to know why it took eight days to raise the alarm and how the unseaworthy vessel was allowed to sail in the first place.

"This tragedy demands an independent commission of inquiry," he told Radio New Zealand.

"We need to know why it happened and (who is) responsible."

The MV Butiraoi, 17.5-metre (57.4-foot) wooden catamaran, set off on a planned two-day voyage to Betio, the largest township of Kiribati's capital, South Tarawa.

Local authorities said it ran aground and underwent repairs to its propeller shaft before it left Nonouti.

Tabai said the vessel was not believed to be carrying mandatory safety equipment such as an emergency locator beacon.

"The government is responsible because they did not look after the situation well, they should have ensured that particular vessel should not have sailed in the first place," he said.

He said the ferry was a free inter-island service that was carrying a large number of high-school students returning to Tarawa before the start of a new term.

Tabai said the ferry's loss was a tragedy for Kiribati, a nation of 33 atolls and reefs with a population of about 110,000, that lies some 3,460 kilometres (2,150 miles) northeast of Fiji.

"It's a real sad day for those who lost their loved one. For my village two or three people that I personally know, that live next door in my village, were on that boat and perished."Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May will hold talks with President Xi Jinping on Thursday and wraps up her China visit Friday in the eastern business hub of Shanghai

British Prime Minister Theresa May arrived in China on Wednesday as she seeks to bolster her country's global trade links ahead of its departure from the European Union.

May began her visit in the central industrial city of Wuhan and will be in China until Friday in what the Chinese foreign ministry has touted as a "historic visit".

Later on Wednesday, May will head to Beijing, where she will meet Premier Li Keqiang.

She will hold talks with President Xi Jinping on Thursday and wraps up her visit Friday in the eastern business hub of Shanghai.

Her trip comes as the House of Lords, the upper chamber of the British parliament, is scrutinising a key piece of Brexit legislation and ministers sought to downplay a leaked government report offering only economic downsides to leaving the EU in March 2019.

May travelled with her husband, Philip May, along with a delegation of 50 businesses and organisations, which her office said was "the largest" Britain has ever taken overseas.

May will also take the opportunity to discuss a wide range of other issues, including climate change and North Korea.

China also has high expectations that London will endorse its Belt and Road initiative, a massive infrastructure project aimed at reviving ancient Silk Road trade routes and creating greater market access for Chinese companies.

The British government, however, has been less sanguine about the project, with May's spokesman saying that while the idea holds promise, it is "vital that BRI projects meet international standards".

Before her trip, the former British governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, urged May to address concerns about the political situation in the semi-autonomous territory, which London handed back to Beijing in 1997.Guinea Bissau has been in the throes of a power struggle since August 2015 when President Jose Mario Vaz sacked his prime minister

Guinea-Bissau's President Jose Mario Vaz named a new prime minister late Tuesday, appointing Augusto Antonio Artur Da Silva by decree after the previous PM resigned in a bid to end a political crisis.

The new prime minister's first job will be to organise fresh parliamentary elections in the coming months.

The impoverished West African nation has been in the throes of a power struggle since August 2015, when Vaz sacked then prime minister Domingos Simoes Pereira.

Vaz and Pereira -- who heads the ruling African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) party of which the president is a member -- have accused each other of blocking the implementation of an accord reached in 2016.

The agreement had envisaged naming a new prime minister "who had the president's trust", and who would maintain his position until elections to be held in 2018.

The appointment of former foreign minister and fellow PAIGC member Da Silva as prime minister comes two weeks after the resignation of predecessor Umaro Sissoco Embalo, who declared that "if the president does not trust me, I won't wait to be fired".

Embalo had been in the post for less than a year and had lost the support of many within the ruling party.

Tuesday's presidential decree said that the appointment of Da Silva was part of "ongoing efforts to find a definitive solution to political-constitutional crisis which has hit the country in recent years".

Under the current constitution, the choice of prime minister rests with the ruling party.

But because the PAIGC has lost its parliamentary majority, Vaz has sought backing from MPs from the second party, the Party of Social Renovation, along with 15 rebels from the ruling party.

Guinea-Bissau, one of the world's poorest countries, has been plagued by military coups and instability since its independence from Portugal in 1974.

At its latest summit last month, the ECOWAS west African bloc urged Guinea-Bissau's leaders to resolve the crisis within two months, or else face sanctions.The boss of the company which operated the plane described the pilot's manoeuvres ahead of the crash as "inexplicable"

A seaplane that crashed near Sydney on New Year's Eve killing five British tourists and the pilot veered significantly off course just before plunging into the water, investigators said Wednesday.

The boss of the company which operated the plane described the pilot's manoeuvres ahead of the crash as "inexplicable".

A preliminary report released by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) identified no flight control or structural issues which might have caused the crash.

But the report noted that the accident location was off the standard path for the sightseeing flight.

British chief executive Richard Cousins, his two sons, fiancee and her daughter were killed alongside the pilot in the accident on the Hawkesbury River some 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Sydney.

Shortly after taking off, witnesses told the ATSB they saw the Sydney Seaplanes aircraft enter Jerusalem Bay outside its flight path at an altitude below the height of the surrounding terrain.

Witnesses said the plane's engine sounded normal but then they saw the "aircraft suddenly enter a steep right turn and the aircraft's nose suddenly drop before the aircraft collided with the water in a near vertical position", according to the report.

The head of Sydney Seaplanes said he was perplexed by the pilot's turn into Jerusalem Bay "which is surrounded by steep terrain and has no exit".

"It is not a route we authorise in our landing and take-off register and the plane simply should not have been where it was," Aaron Shaw, CEO of Sydney Seaplanes, said in a statement.

Shaw said the steep turn, reported to be at an 80-90 degree bank at a low altitude, "by a pilot with Gareth (Morgan)'s skill, experience and intimate knowledge of the location is totally inexplicable".

Morgan had a total flying experience of more than 10,000 hours, with 9,000 on floatplanes, the ATSB said.

The de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver aircraft was recovered on January 4 after sinking to a depth of 14.5 metres, with ATSB investigators carrying out an initial examination of the wreckage.

They said there was "no evidence of a bird-strike or collision with an object" before take-off or during the flight, and no evidence of an in-flight break-up or pre-impact structural damage.

The examination also found there was flight control continuity throughout, "indicating no evidence of flight control issues".

The investigation was complicated by the lack of a cockpit voice or flight data recorder -- which is not required for such an aircraft -- as well as no commercial video recording equipment on the seaplane.

Tests of the fuel used by the plane did not find any quality concerns.

The aircraft, which was manufactured in 1963, had been involved in a fatal accident in 1996 but was later repaired and recertified as airworthy, returning to service in 2000.

A final report by the ATSB is due by the end of the year, with investigators set to conduct further examinations including of the aircraft's components, the impact sequence and flight and engine control positions.There is growing concern that Ankara's air and ground offensive against a Kurdish militia1 in Syria could spark a "humanitarian tragedy" for civilians living in the Afrin region.

Turkey is drawing up contingency plans to cope with any movement of Syrian civilians towards the north of the country to flee Ankara's air and ground offensive against a Kurdish militia.

The campaign unleashed January 20 targets the US-backed People's Protection Units (YPG), considered a terrorist outfit by Ankara based in the border enclave of Afrin.

The Turkish army and authorities say the utmost care is taken not to harm civilians in the operation dubbed "Olive Branch".

But the country's humanitarian agencies are scouting for camp areas around Azaz as well as Idlib if large numbers of civilians head for the border seeking safety from the bombardment.

"We are ready to provide shelter for a maximum number of 50,000 civilians both in Azaz and in Idlib," Kerem Kinik, head of the Turkish Red Crescent, told AFP.

Turkey, which hosts over three million refugees from the nearly seven-year Syria conflict, has increasingly helped the displaced in camps on the other side of the border.

Turkey is drawing up contingency plans to cope with any influx of civilians fleeing Anakara's offensives against a Kurdish militia

The Syrian town of Azaz was liberated from the Islamic State (IS) group in the early stages of Turkey's "Euphrates Shield" operation between August 2016 and March 2017.

And Idlib was declared one of Syria's de-escalation zones after a ceasefire deal brokered by opposition backer Turkey and regime supporter Russia.

Turkey's AFAD emergencies agency head Mehmet Gulluoglu said they were working on a "worst-case scenario".

"It is hard to make a precise prediction of how many civilians would come because there's an ongoing operation," he said at Oncupinar border crossing near Azaz, where his agency carried out field work for potential camp sites last week.

- 'Aid from Turkey on hold'-

There is growing concern that a sustained military campaign could spark a "humanitarian tragedy" for civilians living in the Afrin region.

Over the past week, villages and towns around Afrin on the Syrian-Turkish border have come under intense bombardment.

According to the United Nations, Afrin has an estimated population of 324,000 people, with around 5,000 already displaced by the offensive.

The United Nations says the Syrian border enclave of Afrin under assault from Turkey has an estimated population of around 324,000 people, with around 5,000 already displaced by the offensive.

The United Nations warned last week that the clashes as well as a decision by Kurdish authorities to close exit points between Afrin and regime-held areas of Aleppo province were restricting civilian freedom of movement.

Turkey has reported that seven soldiers were killed since the start of the offensive, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group says at least 67 civilians have been killed, a figure Turkey strongly rejects.

At least 85 YPG militiamen have died, the Observatory says, as have 81 fighters from the rebel groups fighting with Turkish backing.

Kinik said his agency was working to provide humanitarian aid but added: "YPG forces blocked roads to Azaz and Aleppo barring civilians from leaving Afrin".

"There is no exit from Afrin right now," he added.

Kinik said Turkey could expand its camps in Azaz and Idlib in case of mass displacement.

"We have already spotted three campsites in the east of Azaz," he said.

The Turkish operation has forced a pause in cross-border UN humanitarian deliveries inside Syria, a UN official told AFP.

The bulk of assistance into Idlib passes through the crossings from Turkey to aid tens of thousands of newly displaced people.

"The UN will resume cross border shipments as soon as the security situation allows," the official said.

- 'Ankara rhetoric not helping'-

Analysts say that as long as the fighting rages, civilians -- mainly those who are not ethnic Kurds -- will seek safety elsewhere.

"I suspect only the non-Kurdish parts of the population will flee," Heiko Wimmen, International Crisis Group project director for Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, told AFP, noting that many Kurds would not feel safe in areas controlled by Turkey and its allies.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said operation Olive Branch sought to hand the border enclave of Afrin back to "its rightful owners"

"They won't believe that Turkey will make a difference between the YPG and the local population."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Olive Branch sought to hand Afrin back to "its rightful owners", while Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said it aimed to replace terror with peace in the region.

"The rhetoric of the leadership does not help," Wimmen said.

"Saying that Afrin will be returned to its rightful owners will leave many people wondering if they can return after the fighting is over."

The Red Crescent's Kinik however said civilians would feel safe at Turkish camps on the Syrian side.

"Azaz is a region of Euphrates Shield and Idlib is a de-escalation zone. The region is under Turkish security," he said.He also urged Congress to streamline the permitting and approval process for infrastructure projects. There is agreement that the process must change. The current method for reviewing applications can last years.

Katko was encouraged by what he heard from Trump on infrastructure.

"The plan that came out of the Problem Solvers, if you really go back and look at it and compare it to his speech, they tracked each other quite nicely and I am happy about that," he said. "I think he took elements of it and used it in his speech."

On other issues, Katko supports Trump's decision to maintain Guantanamo Bay as a site to hold suspected terrorists. Former President Barack Obama long advocated for closing the detention facilities at the naval base.

Trump signed an executive order Tuesday revoking Obama's order to close the detention facilities.

Katko also appreciated Trump's commitment to addressing the opioid epidemic. It has long been a priority for Katko to provide more treatment and crack down on the spread of heroin and other opioids.Young Iranians are inspiring each other through social media to overcome traditional constraints and go travelling

A travel frenzy is gripping young Iranians, who are inspiring each other through social media to overcome traditional constraints and expand their horizons.

The exploits of young Iranian travellers, hitchhiking and backpacking their way around the globe, have become immensely popular on Instagram and Telegram, the most widely used apps in Iran, with some gathering more than 200,000 followers.

Iran has long had a globetrotting elite thanks to the large diaspora that fled to the United States and Europe after the 1979 revolution, but now it is the turn of the emerging middle class to stretch their wings, overcoming cultural barriers and parental worries in the process.

Sara Louee, 31, grew up thinking that holidays were a family trip to the northern coasts of Iran.

But two years ago, she met a group of foreigners through the website couchsurfing.com and joined them as they hitchhiked to the ancient city of Yazd.

She was unprepared: "I had absolutely no equipment. I was wearing flimsy girly shoes and had borrowed a backpack from a friend," she told AFP.

But her mind was opened to a world of possibility and she was soon saving for a 40-day trip around Europe, even if it meant battling with her conservative-minded parents.

"My family didn't accept it easily or overnight. I went through a lot of pain. But I gradually proved I could do it with shorter trips and gained their trust," said Louee, who now blogs regularly about her travels.

"These days, if I stay home at the weekend, my dad comes over and asks if something is wrong," she added, laughing.

- 'Strangers in your room?!' -

Other young Iranians, particularly women, say they had been taught that travelling alone was dangerous.

"When I told people I stayed in a hostel in Europe, Iranians would be shocked and say 'You mean there were strangers in your room?! Didn't they do anything to you?'" said Mahzad Elyassi, another travel blogger.

She only heard about hitchhiking for the first time in 2015 but has since travelled to all 32 of Iran's provinces and 20 countries.

"We've proven that Iran is really safe for such trips. It's become a trend.

"One woman said she used my Instagram page to convince her husband, saying: 'If she can do it alone, so can we.'"

Last year, Iran recorded 9.2 million departures, a 38.5-percent increase on the previous year and almost double the numbers a decade ago.

The trend has been helped by President Hassan Rouhani, who came to power in 2013 promising to improve Iran's relations with the world.

Iranians are not welcome everywhere: the United States this year banned them from entry unless they have close family, and European countries have strict and laborious procedures for tourists designed to weed out poor people.

But much of the rest of the world is welcoming Iran's tourist boom, with 38 countries now waiving visas for Iranians.

They include Georgia, Russia, Turkey and Malaysia, and talks are reportedly under way with India.

- Tech support -

That has helped encourage travel among those outside of the rich elite by putting the focus on cheaper countries.

"Maybe Iranians don't have enough dollars or euros to travel to Europe but they can explore places like southeast Asia," said Elyassi.

Technology has also been crucial.

"When I started, Google Maps didn't exist. People couldn't just easily travel and share their experiences," said Reza Pakravan, 43, one of Irans best-known travellers after he broke the world record for crossing the Sahara on a bike.

Alireza Zafari, 38, has spent two years on the "Herculean task" of documenting the whole of Iran for travellers, a project he expects will take another eight years to complete.

He hopes to encourage more Iranians and foreigners to visit Iran's beauty spots rather than the default option of popping across the border to Turkey, still the top choice for Iranians with 2.1 million visits last year thanks to cheap package tours and the availability of booze.

"The reason behind the travel wave is that people have become aware of the world, and technology gives them easy access to the information they need," Zafari told AFP.US First Lady Melania Trump has been dogged by speculation that she and President Donald Trump lead largely separate lives

First Lady Melania Trump made a very visible return to the public stage Tuesday by attending her husband's maiden State of the Union address, her first official appearance since accusations of infidelity surfaced about the president.

The enigmatic wife of Donald Trump emerged publicly for the first time since she fed the Washington rumor mill by cancelling her trip to Davos, Switzerland, leaving her husband to attend last week's World Economic Forum on his own.

Melania's no-show in Davos came on the heels of a bombshell report that Trump had a fling with porn star Stormy Daniels in 2006, just months after his wife gave birth to their son.

But for Trump's big night in Congress, Melania arrived smiling and waving, to warm and extended applause -- dressed in a crisp cream white pantsuit that stood in contrast to the black donned by Democratic lawmakers in solidarity with the victims of sexual harassment.

Minutes later, her husband took the floor and exchanged waves with his wife.

Among Trumps' guests in the first lady's box were a US Marine corporal who stepped on an explosive device and lost both legs while deployed in Iraq in 2007; first responders who helped save hurricane victims in Louisiana and Texas, and parents of children killed by the gang MS-13.

Breaking with tradition, the first couple arrived separately to the Capitol, because, according to the first lady's spokesperson Stephanie Grisham, she was accompanying guests.

Afterwards, the first lady was seen being escorted out of the gallery by a military officer, as Trump spoke with lawmakers and administration officials on the House floor.

It was not immediately clear whether the Trumps returned together to the White House.

- The Melania mystery -

US First Lady Melania Trump arrived in Congress to warm applause ahead of President Donald Trump's State of the Union address

As the 47-year-old wife of a 71-year-old man known for past lewd remarks about women, and whose two past divorces became public spectacles, Melania Trump is dogged by speculation that they lead largely separate lives.

Speculation flared anew when The Wall Street Journal reported on January 12 that Trump had paid Daniels $130,000, one month before the November 2016 election, to keep their adulterous liaison quiet.

The porn star was questioned anew about the reports as a guest given star billing Tuesday on late night ABC talk show "Jimmy Kimmel Live!"

But Daniels, reportedly bound by the non-disclosure agreement about the alleged fling, revealed little -- laughing awkwardly, flashing tight-lipped smiles and deflecting Kimmel's questions at every chance.

"I thought this was a talk show, not a horror movie," she said as Kimmel read from the transcript of a 2011 In Touch magazine interview, only recently published and reportedly about the liaison.

As for Melania, her opinions and goals have remained a mystery to millions of Americans.

She is a former model who once posed nude in her husband's private jet, and the first foreign-born wife of a US president in nearly 200 years.

She spent her first months as first lady living in New York, and refused to move to the White House until their young son Barron finished the school year.

She makes few public speeches, and is rarely seen in Washington.Karrar Hassan is just one of tens of thousands of Iraqi fighters wounded in the battle against the Islamic State group

Karrar Hassan, 25, is just one of tens of thousands of Iraqi fighters wounded battling the Islamic State group. Now disabled, he struggles to survive on a $400 pension.

In 2014, he was unemployed and joined the Hashed al-Shaabi, a paramilitary coalition dominated by Iran-backed groups that fought alongside Iraqi government forces against the jihadists.

Months later, during fierce fighting for the city of Fallujah west of Baghdad, his left calf was ripped open by a blast and Karrar lost the leg.

The Hashed sent him for treatment to both Iran and Lebanon, and he returned with a prosthesis from the knee down.

This gave him enough mobility to allow a return to the front.

In 2015, Karrar was fighting in Baiji city, north of the capital, when he was hit again.

Karrar Hassan now spends his days at home trying to work out how to provide for his family on a monthly pension of $400

This time two bullets shattered his right knee, putting him out of action once and for all.

Iraq declared victory over IS in December 2017, after a gruelling three-year onslaught that also wounded tens of thousands of fighters.

The Hashed says it lost 8,000 men in the war on IS, and 26,000 were wounded.

Iraq's government, which mobilised tens of thousands of members of the security forces for the campaign, has not given its own toll.

Karrar, a father of three small children, has been left incapacitated.

Unemployed and now unable to drive, he spends his days at home trying to figure out how to provide for his family on a monthly pension of 500,000 Iraqi dinars ($400).

This amount represents a bit less than a medium salary in Iraq, but for Karrar it is not enough to buy medicine for his injuries as well as food for his wife and three children.

He says the ointment he needs to rub on his skin to avoid chafing from the prosthesis "costs $800" and lasts for 10 months.

Karrar would like to work, "but with my legs I can't even drive a taxi" or carry anything heavy.

Abu Mehdi al-Mohandis, second-in-command in the Hashed, says hospitals run by the paramilitary unit provide free medical care for 60,000 fighters and 300,000 civilians.

Dhia Hussein runs Al-Razi hospital for the Hashed in Baghdad, where he says 1,450 amputees have received treatment over the past six months alone.

Iraq has a long history of bloody conflict, from the 1980-1988 war with its neighbour Iran to the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein and to the later struggle against IS.

Each conflict has resulted in a heavy toll of casualties, many of whom are amputees.

Tahssin Ibrahim, who makes prosthetic limbs, in his Baghdad workshop on January 16, 2018

Tahssin Ibrahim has been making prosthetic limbs in Baghdad for more than 30 years.

He says the number of amputees has risen since the 2003 conflict, and the number of workshops specialising in prostheses and shops selling medical equipment has increased tenfold over the past 15 years.

Most of Ibrahim's clients are war wounded, and he says many are forced to borrow money to pay for their artificial limbs.

The most rudimentary prosthesis costs around $1,000 in Iraq -- more than twice the average monthly wage.

Ahmed, 32, was deployed with the federal police to second city Mosul, one of the jihadists' main hubs before they were driven out by a fierce offensive that lasted for months.

An IS mortar blast tore through his right leg, and Ahmed says his pension of 575,000 Iraqi dinars is simply inadequate.

Every month, half of this goes towards "paying for medical treatment", including doctor's visits and medicine, leaving him with just half to buy food for the family. That "is not enough".

A doctor's visit also means a taxi fare, he said.

"The bus is not adapted for handicapped people so I have to take a taxi," said the father of four.

A wheelchair-bound amputee at the Al-Razi hospital in the Iraqi capital Baghdad on January 21, 2018

One doctor who spoke to AFP, Ghassan al-Alussi, believes that the pensions allocated to war veterans are "insufficient".

"Public and health institutions must do more for amputee fighters because they have defended the country," Alussi said.US President Donald Trump put the spotlight on the achievements of his tumultuous first year in office in his State of the Union address

President Donald Trump appealed Tuesday for national unity and strong borders in his first State of the Union address, calling for "one American family" after a year marred by acrimony, division and scandal.

Delivering his biggest speech of the year, this most polarizing of presidents sought to put the spotlight on a robust economy, while pointedly calling on a packed joint session of Congress to enact tough curbs on immigration.

"Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve," he said.

"Tonight, I want to talk about what kind of future we are going to have, and what kind of nation we are going to be. All of us, together, as one team, one people, and one American family."

Trump's opening tone was uncharacteristically conciliatory, although it bridged no compromise on his drive to reduce immigration -- which he painted as responsible for a plethora of social ills.

He touched on a range of foreign policy issues -- including, in an emotive moment, offering the spotlight to crippled North Korean amputee defector Ji Seong-ho, who waved his crutches in the air as he received a prolonged standing ovation.

US President Donald Trump called on a packed joint session of Congress to enact hardline curbs on immigration

Trump warned that Pyongyang's "reckless" nuclear drive could "very soon" threaten the US homeland, while also eyeing the geopolitical challenge posed by adversaries China and Russia.

But Trump's State of the Union, the third longest on record at one hour 20 minutes, was overwhelmingly focused on domestic concerns.

Among those looking on were dozens of cross-armed Democratic lawmakers, some decked in black to honor the victims of sexual harassment and still others wearing butterfly stickers in support of immigrants -- two social issues that more than any others have roiled America in the age of Trump.

- Melania back in public eye -

Also in the audience were members of Trump's own family including the first lady, Melania, who recently cancelled a joint trip to Davos, Switzerland and has not been seen with her husband in public since reports alleged he paid porn actress Stormy Daniels hush money over an affair, which the White House denies.

Breaking with tradition, the first couple arrived separately to the Capitol, because, according to the first lady's spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham, she was accompanying guests.

Over the years the State of the Union address, a set piece of the American political calendar, has lost some of its impact and pizzazz.

But the primetime address, watched by as many as 40 million Americans, was still a once-in-a-year opportunity for Trump to speak to the nation and mend his sunken approval ratings, languishing around 40 percent.

A CNN poll released afterward suggested people who watched the address were underwhelmed by it.

US First Lady Melania Trump was greeted by warm applause ahead of the State of the Union address

Seeking to enliven his own base, Trump spoke at length on the need for immigration reform, drawing hisses from the opposition as he equated immigrants with criminality and economic tension and spoke of "chain migration."

For decades, he lamented, "open borders" had allowed "drugs and gangs to pour into" the United States. He again called for the construction of a border wall that remains unfunded in Congress.

"They have allowed millions of low-wage workers to compete for jobs and wages against the poorest Americans. Most tragically, they have caused the loss of many innocent lives."

Two couples whose daughters were murdered by MS-13, a Salvadoran gang, were among those joining the first lady to watch the address.

"The United States is a compassionate nation" he said, "but as president of the United States, my highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, and my constant concern is for America's children, America's struggling workers, and America's forgotten communities."

- Wall Street Don -

The 71-year-old real estate mogul and reality TV star touted a long bull run on Wall Street and improving growth rates, something the White House has dubbed a "Trump bump."

"The stock market has smashed one record after another, gaining $8 trillion in value," he said, even though that narrative suffered a setback Tuesday when stocks posted their biggest drop in eight months amid fears of a bubble.

Immigrants brought to the United States as children took part in a press conference with Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill ahead of President Donald Trump's State of the Union address

Trump also lifted his economic gaze beyond the United States, calling for "fair" trade and declaring that "the era of economic surrender is over."

"America has also finally turned the page on decades of unfair trade deals that sacrificed our prosperity and shipped away our companies, our jobs, and our wealth -- our nation has lost its wealth but we're getting it back so fast."

And there was a partisan-tinged focus on terror, which had been a central message of his campaign.

Trump vowed to keep the Guantanamo Bay prison open -- anathema to Democrats and many Republicans.

The CNN poll of people who watched the speech found 48 percent said they had a "very positive" impression of it. That compared to 57 percent after Barack Obama's first State of the Union address, the network said. Trump's number was the lowest since CNN first started conducting the poll in 1998, it added.

Offering the Democratic rebuttal to Trump's address, Joe Kennedy -- grandson of Bobby Kennedy -- said it would be "easy to dismiss this past year as chaos, as partisanship, as politics."

"But it's far, far bigger than that," he said. "This administration isn't just targeting the laws that protect us, they're targeting the very idea that we are all worthy of protection."The Jumaa family walks in front of an Israeli wall in the occupied West Bank that has left them cut off from the nearby Palestinian town

The logic of an Israeli wall north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank appears clear -- on one side Palestinians, on the other the Israeli settlement of Beit El.

But look carefully and you will see a small gap in part of it leading into a courtyard where the Palestinian Jumaa family live.

The newly-built part of the wall which stretches along the road next to the settlement has left the 25 members of the extended family on the opposite side to the rest of the Palestinian town of El-Bireh.

They are, they say, partially cut off from the outside world, sometimes having to cross through an Israeli checkpoint just to buy milk and bread.

"The wall separated us from the people and from Palestinians. I feel I am inside the settlement, even though I am Palestinian," said Hossam Jumaa, 54 and a father of eight.

"Now we live alone."

At the house, the children of the three families play in the shadow of the six-metre (20-foot) wall, while their vegetable plots run towards the barrier.

The family said they were informed three years ago by Israeli authorities that they would extend the wall along the road, leaving them on the other side.

But they say construction increased after US President Donald Trump's December 6 recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, which led to widespread protests and the Palestinian government freezing ties with the US administration.

The house of the Palestinian Jumaa family, which became encircled by Israel's controversial separation barrier, north of Ramallah

The Palestinians see east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, which they say is being rapidly eroded by Israeli settlement growth throughout the West Bank.

"The work used to be at night, but after the protests broke out in the Palestinian territories following the American decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital, the work was done in the day," Hossam's brother Hakim, 50, said.

The Israeli defence ministry said in a statement the wall was necessary "following a significant number of gunfire incidents from vehicles toward the Beit El community".

"The barrier does not harm any private land, does not block access to houses and does not change anything on the ground," it said.

"There is no harm to Palestinians or their land."

- 'Republic of Jumaa' -

The wall cutting off the Jumaa family is different from Israel's controversial separation barrier sealing off the West Bank from Israel.

Israel began building the barrier in 2002 during the bloody second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, arguing it was necessary to stop Palestinian attackers.

According to the United Nations, around 65 percent of the separation barrier has so far been constructed, with more than 80 percent inside the West Bank.

The house of the Jumaa family that has left them on the wrong side of an Israeli wall between a Jewish settlement and the West Bank town of El-Bireh

The UN says it "impedes access to services and resources, disrupts family and social life (and) undermines livelihoods".

The wall affecting the Jumaas ranks among the barriers, fences and private security protecting West Bank settlements.

More than 400,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank.

The United Nations says their existence and growth on land supposed to form a future Palestinian state is one of the largest obstacles to peace.

Palestinians are banned from entering settlements except in exceptional circumstances, and there are near-constant tensions between them.

Settlers have been the regular target of violent attacks by Palestinians. Hardline settlers on the other hand have attacked Palestinians.

The Jumaa family said they have asked for support from Palestinian politicians to oppose the wall but have had little help.

Hossam said being on the opposite side of the wall brings new fears.

In the early 1990s, he said, they were subject to an attack by settlers in which their windows were smashed.

"Now, after we became inside the wall, we are scared of attacks by settlers at any moment."

A nearby street is also used by the army, with the family worried of bumping into them late at night.

They say their children can no longer go to school or the shops alone without fear.

"We don't see anyone any more," seven-year-old Miriam said.

The family have increasingly little hope, instead taking to dark humour.

"Today we are independent. We will call ourselves the Great Republic of Jumaa," Hakim joked.North Korean defector Ji Seong-ho raises his crutches as he is recognized by US President Donald Trump during the State of the Union address

Amid nuclear tensions between Washington and Pyongyang, US President Donald Trump took the extraordinary step of honoring a North Korean defector Tuesday as he delivered his State of the Union speech before Congress.

Ji Seong-ho, who escaped from North Korea in 2006, was given a place of honor just seats away from First Lady Melania Trump, as the president told the his story to lawmakers near the end of his 80-minute speech.

Trump recounted the suffering of Seong-ho, who had a foot and a hand amputated after a North Korean train rolled over him in 1996.

Malnourished and badly disabled, he was later tortured by the regime for a short visit to neighboring China, before escaping and walking on crutches across swathes of China and Southeast Asia in a journey to freedom.

"Today he lives in Seoul, where he rescues other defectors, and broadcasts into North Korea what the regime fears the most: the truth," Trump said.

"He has a new leg, but Seong-ho, I understand you still keep those crutches as a reminder of how far you have come. Your sacrifice is an inspiration to us all."

As members of Congress rose to their feet, so did Seong-ho, thrusting his crutches triumphantly into the air and eliciting a roar of approval from lawmakers.

"Seong-ho's story is a testament to the yearning of every human soul to live in freedom," Trump added.

The striking image of a North Korean defector receiving a standing ovation was one of the memorable moments of Trump's speech.

Other symbolic honored guests were seated nearby, including the parents and two siblings of Otto Warmbier, an American student who died last year shortly after being released from detention by North Korean authorities.

"You are powerful witnesses to a menace that threatens our world," the president said of the grieving parents.KCNA released its report on Pyongyang's annual white paper on US human rights violations as Donald Trump began his State of the Union speech, in which he condemned the North

North Korea has denounced US President Donald Trump's administration as a "gross violator of human rights", its state media reported Wednesday.

The official Korean Central News Agency released its English-language report on Pyongyang's annual white paper on US human rights violations as Trump began his State of the Union speech, in which he condemned the North.

North Korea's rights rights record is heavily criticised by both the United States and the United Nations, and it is estimated to have up to 120,000 political prisoners in its sprawling gulag system.

Washington issues an annual human rights report which consistently ranks the North among the world's worst offenders, but Pyongyang's document focuses exclusively on the US.

"The US, 'guardian of democracy' and 'human rights champion', is kicking up the human rights racket but it can never camouflage its true identity as the gross violator of human rights," KCNA cited the white paper as saying.

"Racial discrimination and misanthropy are serious maladies inherent to the social system of the US, and they have been aggravated since Trump took office," it said, referencing the violent demonstrations in Charlottesville last year.

Working-class Americans were "hovering in the abyss of nightmare", it added, deprived of homes and jobs, and facing soaring medical fees.

But several of Trump's top officials are "billionaires from conglomerates", it said, with senior public servants' total assets worth $14 billion.

"The anti-popular policies the Trump administration pursued openly in one year were, without exception, for the interests of a handful of the rich circles," it said.

A UN commission published a searing report in 2014, which concluded North Korea was committing human rights violations "without parallel in the contemporary world".

The report, based on the testimony of hundreds of North Korean exiles, has shored up international efforts to pressure Pyongyang for its human rights violations.

Pyongyang has described the report as a work of fiction authored by the United States and its allies.Cardinal Joseph Zen said the Vatican is selling out the Catholic Church in China

The Vatican has chastised a Hong Kong cardinal who accused the Holy See of "selling out" to Beijing for reportedly promoting bishops endorsed by the Chinese government.

Although Beijing and the Vatican have improved relations in recent years as China's Catholic population has grown, they remain at odds over which side has the authority to ordain bishops.

Cardinal Joseph Zen, bishop emeritus of semi-autonomous Hong Kong, confirmed an AsiaNews website report that a Vatican diplomat asked two underground Chinese bishops recognised by the Vatican to resign in favour of state-sanctioned prelates.

China's roughly 12 million Catholics are divided between a government-run association, whose clergy are chosen by the Communist Party, and an unofficial church which swears allegiance to the Vatican.

China and the Vatican severed diplomatic relations in 1951, but Pope Francis has sought to improve ties since becoming head of the Holy See in 2013.

"Do I think that the Vatican is selling out the Catholic Church in China? Yes, definitely," Zen said in an open letter on Monday, adding that the Communist government had introduced "harsher regulations limiting religious freedom".

Zen said he appealed to the pope in a private meeting in Rome earlier this month, where he delivered a letter from one of the bishops who was asked to step aside, Zhuang Jianjian.

The cardinal suggested in his statement that the pope was not kept informed of actions he does not approve, a charge denied Tuesday by Vatican spokesman Greg Burke.

"The pope is in constant contact with his collaborators, in particular in the Secretariat of State, on Chinese issues," Burke said in a statement, adding that Francis was informed "faithfully and in detail".

"It is therefore surprising and regrettable that the contrary is affirmed by people in the Church, thus fostering confusion and controversy," he said.

The Holy See spokesman, however, did not comment on the alleged Vatican requests to the underground bishops.

A spokesman for the Diocese of Hong Kong on Wednesday told AFP it was "not involved in any of the dialogues between the Holy See and China," but added "the Catholic Church has always been accommodating" and "(accepts) different voices".

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she was not aware of the cardinal's letter.

"It's not diplomatic affairs," Hua said. "We will uphold the relevant principles to maintain constructive dialogue with the Vatican to advance our relations."Japan's Davis Cup challenge in Morioka will be spearheaded by Yuichi Sugita

Japan will be without talisman Kei Nishikori when they host Italy this week for a place in the Davis Cup quarter-finals.

With Nishikori only just returning from a wrist injury that had sidelined him for five months, Japan's challenge in Morioka will be spearheaded by Yuichi Sugita, who won his first ATP tour singles title in Turkey last summer.

Former champions Italy, making their first visit to Japan, have named world number 22 Fabio Fognini and 46th-ranked Paolo Lorenzi with Andreas Seppi, Thomas Fabbiano and Simone Bolelli also among Corrado Barazzutti's team.

Japan captain Satoshi Iwabuchi has called up world number 100 Taro Daniel alongside the 41st-ranked Sugita in singles, with Go Soeda offering experience alongside Yasutaka Uchiyama and Kiwi-born Ben Mclachlan, who recently reached the Australian Open doubles semi-finals.

Japan are looking to reach the quarter-finals of the Davis Cup for only the second time after Nishikori helped them reach the last eight in 2014.

But without the former world number four, who has slipped to 28th since injuring his wrist last August, the Japanese will have their work cut out after winning a World Group playoff against Brazil last September.

Italy were champions back in 1976 and have finished runners-up on six occasions.

The Italians won both of their two previous meetings, in Genoa back in 1930 and Milan in 1932. More recently, they lost to Belgium in last year's quarter-finals.

Japan returned to the top tier of the Davis Cup in 2011 after 26 years languishing at the regional level before registering their first victory in 2014.A devotee is tied with ropes hooked to his back as he makes his way towards the Batu Caves

Hundreds of thousands of Hindus across Malaysia celebrated the annual Thaipusam festival on Wednesday, with many piercing their skin with hooks and skewers to show devotion to the deity Murugan.

Thaipusam marks the day when the goddess Parvathi gave her son Lord Murugan a powerful lance to fight demons. It is observed mainly in countries with a significant ethnic Tamil population, including Malaysia and neighbouring Singapore.

Most of Malaysia's roughly 31 million people are Muslim but it also has ethnic Chinese and around two million ethnic Indians, mostly descendants of labourers brought from India by former colonial ruler Britain.

A worshipper with his mouth pierced makes his way towards the Batu Caves temple

Thousands of devotees thronged the Batu Caves on the outskirts of the capital Kuala Lumpur in the early hours Wednesday, walking barefoot up the 272 steps towards the site's limestone hilltop shrine.

Many carried prayer offerings known as "kavadi" and balanced milk pots on their heads with their hands as they ascended.

Some carried large platforms attached to a harness and decorated with images and idols of Hindu deities.

Others pierced their faces with tridents and rods or hung multiple hooks and chains from their skin in an act of penance.

The steps also take devotees past a statue of Lord Murugan standing 42.7 metres (141 feet) high -- the tallest figure of the deity in the world.

"I just recently got married so I just went up to say thanks to him (Lord Murugan)," Vijeyaletchumy Vimalan, a Thaipusam participant for 25 years, told AFP.U.S. Rep. John Katko was not injured after a charter Amtrak train transporting Republican members of Congress collided with a garbage truck in rural Virginia Wednesday.

The White House said a passenger in the garbage truck was killed in the collision. Another passenger was hurt. Amtrak said two passengers and two crew members on the train suffered minor injuries in the crash.

Katko, R-Camillus, posted a statement on Facebook confirming he was a passenger on the train and wasn't hurt.

"Appreciate all who have reached out and incredibly grateful for the first responders," he said. "Please join me in praying for those receiving medical care & their families."

At least two other upstate New York Republicans, U.S. Reps. Elise Stefanik and Claudia Tenney, said they were driving to the retreat and weren't on the train. U.S. Rep. Chris Collins, a Buffalo-area Republican, said he's in western New York and won't be attending the retreat.

The train was heading to West Virginia at the time of the crash. Republicans will hold a two-day retreat at the Greenbrier to discuss their 2018 legislative agenda.

The retreat will go on as planned. The members of Congress rode a train back to Charlottesville, Virginia. From there, they will be transported by bus to the Greenbrier in West Virginia.

Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 3 Angry 1A mother grieves for her dead son, a victim of the war on drugs, in Manila last October

Philippine officials on Wednesday welcomed comments by a US official noting what he described as its improving human rights record in the drugs war, but they denied Manila abetted the extrajudicial killing of suspects.

James A. Walsh, a senior US State Department drug official, said Tuesday he was "cautiously optimistic" the rights record was improving, even though President Rodrigo Duterte is pressing on with a war on drugs in which law enforcers have killed nearly 4,000 suspects.

Foreign rights monitors have described the crackdown as a possible crime against humanity.

"Many folks have been tracking the EJKs (extrajudicial killings) in the Philippines and the trends are going down so there is some encouragement that we are seeing in some of our human rights training working," Walsh told reporters.

"I would describe the United States as being cautiously optimistic in the trends when it comes to a good... appropriate way for a drug campaign," added the deputy assistant secretary for international narcotics and law enforcement.

Walsh's remarks "hint of a growing appreciation of the positive impact of the administration's anti-illegal drug campaign", Duterte spokesman Harry Roque said in a statement.

He also said there had been no illegal killings of drug suspects, a position repeated by Press Secretary Martin Andanar.

"While we welcome US State Department senior official James Walsh 'cautiously optimistic' view of President Duterte's successful anti-illegal drugs campaign, we maintain that there are no EJKs under the Duterte administration," Andanar said in a statement.

However human rights group Amnesty International warned that people should stay vigilant and keep pressing for an investigation into rights abuses.

"Since President Duterte came to power, police have unlawfully killed thousands of people, the vast majority of them from poor and marginalised communities, in attacks so extensive and brutal they may well amount to crimes against humanity," it said in a statement.

"To date, police have been allowed to operate in a culture of almost total impunity," Amnesty added.

It repeated calls for independent investigations into each death, "and all perpetrators, including those in positions of command, must be held to account".

The government has said almost 4,000 "drug personalities" have been killed by law enforcers since Duterte took office in mid-2016, but says officers shot the suspects in self-defence.

Human rights groups charge that thousands more have been murdered by shadowy vigilantes.

The anti-drugs campaign enjoys popular support while the fiery-tongued Duterte has rejected any criticism of his human rights record.

Previous US criticism frayed Manila's ties with Washington under former president Barack Obama.

New US leader Donald Trump has been noticeably less critical and US-Philippine ties have since improved.Iran's President Hassan Rouhani marks the anniversary of the 1979 revolution at a shrine in Tehran on January 31, 2018

President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday that Iran must listen to protesters behind a recent wave of unrest, hinting that it risked another revolution if their demands are ignored.

In a speech marking the 39th anniversary of the uprising, Rouhani also warned foreign powers that Iran's people would "forever safeguard the Islamic republic".

"As long as people love the culture of Islam and love their Iran and safeguard their national unity, no superpower can change the path of this nation," he said, taking a jab at the United States.

But he said that popular support was at risk if his fellow elites did not listen to protests that have swept the country in recent weeks, and heed the lessons of the 1979 revolution that toppled shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

"All officials of the country should have a listening ear for people's demands and wishes," Rouhani said at the shrine of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in southern Tehran.

"The previous regime thought monarchical rule would last forever, but it lost everything for this very reason -- that it did not hear the criticism of the people," he added, flanked by Khomeini's grandson, Hassan Khomeini, a prominent reformist.

Days of angry protests hit dozens of towns and cities over the new year, leaving at least 25 people dead and hundreds in detention.

Recent days have also seen unprecedented protests by a handful of women, posing in public without their headscarves to show their rejection of mandatory Islamic clothing rules.

Rouhani has allied himself with reformists and called for greater civil liberties, including the release of political prisoners, but has achieved little against an entrenched conservative elite that sees protests as subversive attacks orchestrated by foreign enemies.

"No one can stop the great people of Iran from expressing their views, criticism and even protest," he said.

The shah's regime "did not hear the voice of reformers, advisors, scholars, elites, and the educated," said Rouhani.

"It only heard the voice of revolution... and by then, it was too late."

His comments echoed the sharp criticism a day earlier from jailed reformist Mehdi Karroubi, who has been under house arrest for the past seven years for leading protests in 2009.

Karroubi lashed out at supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in an open letter, saying major reforms were needed "before it is too late".A protester holds a photograph of Mehsud during a protest in Karachi against his killing

The killing of a young social media star in Pakistan's chaotic port city of Karachi has unleashed festering anger at a rash of alleged extrajudicial murders and the police accused of orchestrating them.

Hundreds of people die each year at the hands of law enforcement officers under pressure to crack down on kidnapping, murder and gang crime in a city routinely ranked among the most dangerous in the world.

But the fatal shooting of 23-year-old Naqeebullah Mehsud, an aspiring model whose goofy dance videos and airbrushed brown locks had earned him a large Facebook following, brought thousands of people onto the streets to urge an end to impunity.

"We demand that his killer be hanged publicly," said Mohammad Khan Mehsud of a national outcry over his son's death.

"We saw people from all the four provinces (of Pakistan) -- men and women, kids, youngsters and sisters -- show solidarity with Naqeebullah".

Mehsud was shot dead along with three other people in what police say was an operation targeting Taliban insurgents on January 3rd.

Friends and relatives insist the internet celebrity had no connection to militancy.

They say he was the victim of a so-called "encounter killing" -- an "encounter" being police shorthand for when a suspect resists arrest.

Such deaths have surged in Karachi since 2013 when paramilitary forces and police launched a massive "clean up" operation targeting Taliban militants, organised crime networks and armed political muscle.

Mehsud's father arrives to attend a protest over the killing of his son

In its wake, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said there were at least 598 extrajudicial killings in 2014 and an additional 343 the following year.

A preliminary investigation headed by Sanaullah Abbasi, chief of Karachi's Counter Terrorism Department, said the encounter involving Mehsud was probably staged.

"We have interviewed some militants (purportedly linked with the case) in jail and inspected the scene of crime that seemed to be very doubtful," Abbasi told AFP.

"Prima facie, it was a fake encounter."

Much of the anger following the social media star's death has focused on Rao Anwar, senior superintendent of the Karachi police force.

Anwar, who rose through the force's battle-hardened ranks in the 1990s, has been accused of spearheading hundreds of killings including that of Mehsud.

Last week a Karachi lawyer filed a petition in the Sindh High Court, listing 250 allegedly fake encounters involving Anwar since 1992.

The police officer has also been added to a travel ban after trying to flee the country.

He has missed successive court summonses and is now believed to be on the run, according to a senior police official familiar with the case.

- One option -

Yet as anger grows against him, experts warn that the campaign is not the work of a few bad cops, but rather the result of institutional shortcomings in the sprawling and violent megacity.

Long before Anwar, bullet-riddled bodies were being dumped in barren neighbourhoods as police with little faith in the courts took on dangerous armed political factions and often heavily-armed insurgents.

"The investigation procedures are archaic," said Asad Iqbal Butt, director of HRCP.

"So they (police) are left with only one option... pick a guy, hang him, beat him and if he survives that is his fate and if he dies, just dump him in the bushes."

The rise in encounter killings accompanying the clean-up offensive has coincided with a drop in violent crime -- with instances of kidnapping, murder and terrorism all dramatically down.

"It is good that crimes and violence have come down in the city as police and (paramilitary) Rangers have been killing the terrorists and criminals. But common and innocent people must be not the victims," said Umeed Ali, an auto rickshaw driver in Karachi.

Demonstrators shout slogans over the police killing of Mehsud

Rehmat Khan, a retired senior police officer, said that in developed countries, "encounter" killings were rare.

"Here it takes place because we are incompetent professionally, we look for short cuts."Tourists take pictures of the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur

A Malaysian tourism campaign logo featuring cartoon animals wearing sunglasses which was widely panned online will stay despite the criticisms, the tourism minister said Wednesday.

The "Visit Malaysia 2020" logo features drawings of Malaysian animals -- including an orangutan wrapping an arm around the shoulders of a proboscis monkey -- set against garish, multi-coloured fonts with the slogan "Travel. Enjoy. Respect".

Malaysian netizens have widely criticised the logo as dated and an eye-sore.

But Tourism Minister Nazri Abdul Aziz has refused to budge.

"I still stick to the same logo, no change," he told AFP in brief comments.

An online petition has been launched on change.org to demand the tourism ministry to stop using the design.

"The design is appalling. It looks cheap and does not represent the country, the people and its history," said the petition, which has garnered 9,873 signatures by Wednesday afternoon.

"The public were not consulted. This petition is to STOP Tourism Malaysia from using the design. It makes a mockery of Malaysia and her rich history. It is alienating the rakyat (people). It has to go," it said.

In interviews with local media, the tourism minister explained why the animals wore shades.

"It is to show that Malaysia is a sunny country with beautiful beaches and that we are into conservation of the environment," he told the New Straits Times.

But many Malaysian netizens were not placated.

"How to create a viral campaign in Malaysia? Launch an ugly logo," fumed Mohd Hisham Saleh on Twitter:

Muhammad Hanafi Muhamad added on Facebook: "It's a mockery to Malaysians' graphic design level."

Some designers quickly offered their own alternative versions online.

Malaysia, which boasts of white-sand beaches, colourful diving spots, tropical forests and a variety of cultures, welcomed nearly 26.8 million visitors in 2016.The case is the latest example of how social media platforms have become a key online market for animal traffickers

A group of suspected animal traffickers have been arrested in Indonesia for selling crocodiles, pythons and other protected species through Facebook and the messaging service WhatsApp, police said Wednesday.

The case is the latest example of how social media has become a key online market place for animal traffickers as conservationists warn that tech giants have not done enough to halt the trade on their platforms.

The seven suspects, who were arrested at separate locations in and around Jakarta last week, bought the animals for just 300,000 rupiah ($22) each before re-selling them online for between two million and five million rupiah, authorities said.

"The suspects put the animals up for sale on a Facebook page or via WhatsApp," said Jakarta police spokesman Argo Yuwono.

"Interested buyers were asked to meet and the animals were handed over to them," he added.

The suspects have been charged under Indonesia's environment law which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

The for-sale animals, including some rare species endemic to Indonesia, were brought to the capital Jakarta from the jungles of Java and Sumatra islands, Yuwono said.

During their raids, police said they confiscated two crocodiles, two reticulated pythons, six jungle cats, a pair of gibbons, two Javan lutungs, a Javan surili, two owls, a brahminy kite eagle, and a slow loris.

The animals were handed over to Jakarta's conservation agency.

Earlier this month conservation watchdog TRAFFIC warned that Facebook had emerged as the top site for wildlife trafficking in the Philippines with thousands of endangered crocodiles, snakes and turtles illegally traded in just three months.

Indonesia is one of the world's most biodiverse countries making it a lucrative market for the illegal trade in wildlife, which has brought some endangered species to the brink of extinction, activists say.

In November, Indonesian police arrested several smugglers who stuffed more than 120 exotic birds into drain pipes.

TRAFFIC has also warned that the illicit sale of pangolins has seen thousands of the critically endangered animals smuggled out of Indonesia every year.Residents of Cape Town have been turning to springs to fill up water containers as the region's drought worsens

Tensions are mounting at a natural spring in Cape Town that is popular with residents forced to contend with water restrictions due to severe drought, the city council said Wednesday.

A fight broke out and one person was arrested by police earlier in the week in long queues at the Newland spring, southeast of the city centre, and local residents have complained of traffic gridlock.

Capetonians will be expected to abide by a 50 litre-a-day (13.2-US-gallon) personal consumption limit from Thursday in an effort to avert the so-called "Day Zero" scenario which would see taps shut off across the city.

"Day Zero" is currently forecast for April 16. Householders and traders would be forced to queue at 200 water collection points to collect a daily allocation of 25 litres per person -- less than a two-minute shower.

Theewaterskloof Dam, a major source of water for Cape Town, has been reduced to a desert-like state

The Newland spring has attracted hundreds of residents keen to supplement their current 87-litre quota.

"A physical conflict broke out and a person was arrested by the South African Police Service," said city security chief, councillor Jean-Pierre Smith in a statement.

"Congestion and noise from cars and persons visiting the site at all hours of the day and night is causing many complaints."

Residents will only be able to collect 25 litres per visit to the spring and officials will be posted to the site 24-hours a day to keep order in the queue.

Current dam levels fell last week to 26.3 percent, with the last 10 percent difficult to use, according to the Cape Town government.

But only about 55 percent of residents stuck to last week's limit of 87 litres a day.

A typical shower uses 15 litres per minute while a standard toilet consumes 15 litres per flush, according to WaterWise, a South African water usage awareness campaign.Members of the administration of former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse are accused of stealing vast sums from government coffers

Sri Lanka is to set up special courts to investigate charges of corruption amounting to billions of dollars under former president Mahinda Rajapakse, the government said on Wednesday.

The move, designed to accelerate the process of trying such cases, follows criticism over the slow pace of justice under the government elected three years ago.

President Maithripala Sirisena came to power in 2015 promising to stamp out corruption and punish members of the former administration accused of stealing vast sums from Sri Lanka's coffers during Rajapakse's decade in power.

"There will be special three-judge high courts set up exclusively to hear bribery and corruption cases which are currently clogging the lower courts," the government said in a statement.

Sirisena has said as many as half of all public procurement contracts under the Rajapakse administration were corrupt and the new government has renegotiated several multi-billion dollar projects.

Rajapakse's chief aide Lalith Weeratunga has already been convicted on a charge of misappropriating $4 million and sentenced to three years in prison.

Two of the former president's three sons have been charged with money-laundering and other family members face allegations of corruption.

Rajapakse, who is not under investigation, denies any wrongdoing and says his successor is carrying out a witch hunt.

Official sources said the new courts could start functioning by the middle of this year.Ankara began a cross-border operation dubbed "Olive Branch" supporting Syrian rebels with air strikes and ground troops in northern Syria against the People's Protection Units militia and its western enclave of Afrin on January 20.

A 17-year-old girl was killed in a Turkish border town on Wednesday by rockets launched from Syria, officials said, as Turkey presses its offensive against a Syrian Kurdish militia.

Ankara began a cross-border operation dubbed "Olive Branch" supporting Syrian rebels with air strikes and ground troops in northern Syria against the People's Protection Units (YPG) militia and its western enclave of Afrin on January 20.

Another individual was also hurt after two rockets hit Reyhanli in Hatay province from northern Syria, the district mayor Huseyin Sanverdi said in a statement.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told a press conference in Ankara that 17-year-old Fatma Avlar was killed in a rocket attack.

According to state-run news agency Anadolu she died after she was taken to hospital.

The agency added that the rockets were launched by the YPG and hit two different houses.

A few hours later, at least one new rocket hit a street in the centre of Reyhanli, not far from where the previous two rockets landed, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.

One man was injured as a result and taken to hospital, the correspondent added.

Ankara views the YPG as a "terrorist" offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), but the militia has been working closely with the United States to recapture swathes of territory in Syria from the Islamic State extremist group.

But the PKK is proscribed as a terror group by Ankara, the US and the European Union.

Multiple rockets have hit the Turkish border provinces of Hatay and Kilis and had already killed at least four people before Wednesday.

A Turk and a Syrian were killed after two rockets hit Kilis on January 24.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday said the operation would "not stop until we eliminate the terror threat from our border and ensure a secure return for our Turkish brothers to their country".

"The Afrin operation is a security issue for us," Yildirim said.

The Turkish military said earlier on Wednesday that 712 "terror organisation members had been neutralised" since the operation began.Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi (R) and French President Emmanuel Macron give a press conference after signing accords at the Presidential Palace in Carthage on January 31, 2018

French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday pledged support for Tunisia at an "important moment" for its fragile democracy as he arrived on a first visit two weeks after protests rocked the country.

"We are at an important moment in the life of Tunisia," Macron said at a press conference with his counterpart Beji Caid Essebsi.

"We want to accompany you," he said. "We want to allow the youth of Tunisia to succeed."

Tunisians ousted longtime dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011 in protests that sparked the Arab Spring uprisings across the region.

Despite a relatively smooth democratic transition, unemployment and corruption remain rife seven years on and new austerity measures adopted at the start of this year sparked a wave of violent protests.

Human Rights Watch on Wednesday demanded an investigation into alleged "abusive treatment" by the police during the demonstrations.

"In trying to quell the social protests that gripped much of Tunisia during January 2018, police sometimes beat those arrested and denied their right to a lawyer," the New York-based group said.

Essebsi sought to downplay the criticism of the authorities by insisting that Tunisia remained a "democratic country" and should not be condemned "in the same ranks as the despots and tyrants".

"You should not judge us as if we were a democracy that been going for centuries," he said.

France -- Tunisia's former colonial ruler -- is the country's largest trading partner.

Macron signed a series of accords pledging funds aimed at boosting local businesses and helping reform the economy.

Analysts say the Tunisian public is sceptical towards pledges of overseas aid.

"They are not expecting much from foreign officials' promises of support, which they only half believe," said Tunisian political scientist Selim Kharrat.

"In 2011, we were promised a Marshall Plan and exceptional aid, which never arrived."

More recent promises "were rarely followed by facts that were palpable on the ground", he added.

- Economic woes -

Successive governments have struggled to revitalise Tunisia's economy since 2011, especially after deadly jihadist attacks in 2015 dealt a major blow to the key tourism sector.

Tunis did secure a 2.4-billion-euro ($2.9-billion) IMF loan in return for a reduction in its budget deficit and other financial reforms.

But employment has remained stubbornly high, and an austerity budget and hikes in value added taxes sent demonstrators onto the streets in early January.

France has said it wants to help Tunisia tackle joblessness, which remains above 15 percent overall and over 30 percent among the young, despite a slight uptick in economic growth last year.

Paris has also called on French firms to "invest massively" in Tunisia.

Macron in addition signed a deal on closer counter-terrorism cooperation and is due to visit the National Bardo Museum, the site of a deadly Islamic State group attack in 2015.

The French leader will address the People's Assembly on Thursday as well as meeting officials, civil society leaders and members of the public.Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is in open conflict with his country's anti-graft watchdog

The Philippines' top anti-corruption prosecutor on Wednesday defied an order by President Rodrigo Duterte to suspend her deputy on suspicion of leaking his bank records, accusing the Filipino leader of breaching the constitution with the demand.

Duterte has been accused by an opposition politician of unlawfully failing to disclose 211 million pesos ($4.1 million) in secret bank accounts back when he was a presidential candidate.

The 2016 complaint, which Duterte denies, was lodged with the Ombudsman, the country's anti-graft prosecutor, which is independent of the executive.

On Monday Duterte ordered a 90 day suspension for deputy Ombudsman Melchor Arthur Carandang for "misuse of confidential information and disclosing false information".

Carandang had previously confirmed to media that the Ombudsman had been quietly investigating Duterte and his family's bank transactions.

Duterte's suspension order has sparked an open clash with the country's anti-graft watchdog.

On Wednesday Ombudsman Conchita Morales said she would not suspend her deputy, calling Duterte's order a violation of the constitution.

"Like any government official, the Ombudsman has sworn to uphold the constitution and the laws of the land," Morales said in a statement.

"The Ombudsman will thus not allow herself to betray her sworn duty to uphold the constitution by recognising what is patently unconstitutional," she said, adding her decision was backed by legal precedent.

Duterte's spokesman Harry Roque brushed off Morales' comment, saying administrative charges would also be filed against Carandang.

The president's legal counsel Salvador Panelo also hinted that they would take the suspension dispute to court.

The row is the latest development in a growing conflict between the Ombudsman and the controversial Duterte who took office in mid-2016.

Morales and Carandang are seen by Duterte critics as among the few public figures standing up to the firebrand populist who has been accused of eroding the country's democracy through his declaring martial law in the southern Philippines and his bloody anti-drug campaign that has left thousands dead.

Last year Duterte repeatedly threatened to have the Ombudsman ousted and pro-Duterte groups later filed an impeachment complaint against Morales in Congress.

Other public figures who have resisted Duterte, such as Supreme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, are also facing impeachment complaints or been forced out of office.Agricultural society treasurer and secretary Robin Bartholomew said she was never contacted by the county about her "very rough draft plan," and she didn't know what the society would do with the state funding at this point.

"We can't use it for anything but infrastructure, so the money, we'll probably lose the money," she said in a phone interview Tuesday. "It's a little frustrating as a taxpayer, and as an agricultural person. These funds could have been used to support a county fair and agricultural fair, which is, agriculture is the largest industry in New York state and in Cayuga County, but I think we're going to be losing almost $100,000. That's too bad. Some other county will probably benefit from that."

Bartholomew said she tried to make it clear that nothing in the society's proposal was set in stone, and she wanted to work with the agricultural museum and the county on using the funds to benefit everyone. She emphasized that no one from the county contacted her with thoughts.

At the Jan. 23 meeting some legislators had suggested moving the fair to another location. No legislators suggested changing the master plan.Thailand ruthlessly police any criticism or scrutiny of its monarchy using a harsh lese majeste law

Five Thai teens and a 20-year-old were sentenced to between nearly 3.5 and 11.5 years in prison Wednesday for setting fire to royal portraits, their lawyers said.

Thailand has one of the harshest royal defamation laws in the world and aggressively polices any perceived slight to its ultra-rich royal family, whose portraits are plastered across billboards and storefronts around the kingdom.

Lese majeste cases are highly sensitive and all media based in Thailand are forced to heavily self-censor to avoid falling foul of the law.

The six young men, five of whom are in their late teens, were arrested in May 2017 in the northeastern province of Khon Kaen after allegedly vandalising royal portraits.

"The charges included lese majeste, arson, criminal association and destroying property," said a spokesperson for Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR), who represented the defendants in a provincial court.

The 20-year-old and three others were convicted of two cases of burning royal portraits.

They were handed 11.5 years and seven years and eight months respectively, according to TLHR.

The two others were convicted of involvement in one case and sentenced to three years and four months behind bars, the lawyers said.

Thailand's lese majeste law specifically bans insulting the king, queen, heir or regent with 15 years per offence.

But it is freely used to silence any criticism or sleights of the monarchy, an opaque, ultra-rich institution that wields vast power behind the scenes in Thailand.

Most cases are shrouded in secrecy and heard behind closed doors.

Defendants are rarely granted bail and conviction rates are above 90 percent, leading many to plead guilty in exchange for lighter punishments.

Lese majeste prosecutions have shot up since an arch-royalist junta grabbed power in 2014, with many charges lodged over critical commentary posted or shared on social media.

The recent trend of record, decades-long sentences have continued under Thailand's new king Maha Vajiralongkorn, who took the throne in late 2016 after the death of his deeply-revered father Bhumibol Adulyadej.

He has yet to attain the widespread popularity of his father and spends large chunks of the year outside his kingdom, usually in southern Germany.A fighter from the separatist Southern Transitional Council walks with smoke billowing in the background in the government's de facto capital Aden

Yemeni ministers were holed up in Aden's presidential palace on Wednesday after separatist forces seized effective control of the southern port city, dealing another blow to the country's embattled government.

The United Nations agency for humanitarian affairs reported a "cautious calm" in the city, but damage to aid distribution channels and donor nation confidence had already been inflicted.

Kuwait's deputy foreign minister Khaled al-Jarallah said the infighting in Yemen's de facto capital had prompted his country to halt multi-million dollar development programmes.

In Aden, pro-separatist forces backed by the UAE known as the "security belt" fanned out across the city after three days of fighting that left 38 people dead.

The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have backed the beleaguered government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi since intervening against Shiite Huthi rebels in Yemen's civil war in March 2015.

But the Arab allies, whose military coalition was launched to roll back rebel gains and restore Yemen's "legitimate" government to power in Sanaa, have not intervened to prop up Hadi against his separatist rivals.

The coalition has instead urged the separatists to exercise restraint and called on the government to weigh up the demands of its rivals.

While Yemen's president resides in the Saudi capital, the power struggle in the anti-Huthi camp has left Prime Minister Ahmed bin Dagher and a number of senior government figures holed up in the Aden presidential palace.

A high-ranking military source said the separatists had also taken over bin Dagher's office chief overnight.

- 'Meaningless' fighting -

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, said staff were able to work a half day Wednesday, citing a "cautious calm" after separatists seized most of the city from government loyalists.

"Some shops have re-opened in the city and civilians have been able to move out of their homes to stock up on essential supplies," it said, adding however that most schools remained closed and entry points for aid cut off.

"There are still no humanitarian flights or vessels into or out of Aden. The VOS Apollo is still anchored in international waters off the Aden coast," OCHA said.

At least 38 people have been killed and 222 wounded in Aden since Sunday, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The UN earlier Wednesday raised alarm bells over the impact of the violent standoff on more than 40,000 Yemenis recently displaced to Aden, saying planned aid distributions had been postponed with cargo stuck at Aden port.

Since 2015, Aden had served as a refuge for tens of thousands of Yemenis fleeing conflict in their hometowns across the country, as the Saudi-backed government battled Huthi rebels allied with Iran.

Kuwait -- which according to its deputy foreign minister has pledged $100 million to UN aid agencies in Yemen and another $400 million through its own development fund -- has suspended its contributions in light of the recent fighting.

"What is happening in Aden is regrettable and painful," Khaled al-Jarallah told the Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

"Meaningless and unjustified fighting will only worsen Yemen's wounds," he said, calling on all parties to restore calm.

- Southern separatists -

Separatists, mainly based in Aden, have gained traction since April in their push for self-rule, accusing Hadi's government of corruption and demanding the reinstatement of South Yemen under a Southern Transitional Council.

In his first public appearance since the clashes erupted, STC chief Aidarouss al-Zoubeidi stressed the separatists were still fighting alongside the Arab military coalition, which has staunchly backed Hadi for three years against the Huthi rebels.

"We have warned this failure of a government time and again that the economic situation in the south in particular, and Yemen in general, was unbearable and that they had no choice but to heed the demands of the people of Aden, and of Yemen," Zoubeidi told France24 via satellite link.

He declined to confirm the STC had its sights set on forming its own government, saying: "the people of south Yemen have the right to determine their own future when the international community responds".

The clashes have sparked fears of a repeat of South Yemen's 1986 civil war, a failed socialist coup which killed thousands in just six days and helped pave the way for the 1991 unification of South and North Yemen.

The separatists, who enjoy popular support and are backed by some regular troops, rapidly gained control over all but one district in Aden since Sunday.

The UAE -- a pillar of the coalition -- has close ties to separatist leader Hani bin Breik while its "security belt" force backs the STC.

More than 9,200 Yemenis have been killed since the coalition intervened in the war three years ago, triggering what the UN has called the world's largest humanitarian disaster.

The coalition's original mission of rolling back Huthi gains has expanded to include fighting jihadist groups that have flourished during the war, and now keeping the peace between its allies on the ground.

bur-faw-ny-str-atm/dvA headscarf is displayed on a mannequin at the Islamic fashion exhibit in central Tehran on December 18, 2014

Iran's chief prosecutor has played down recent protests by women removing their headscarves in public, saying they were "trivial" and "childish" moves possibly incited by foreigners.

"This is a trivial matter and not a matter of concern," Mohammad Jafar Montazeri said in comments carried by the ISNA news agency Wednesday.

"This was a childish move by a young girl taking off her scarf, where some are carrying on with their daily lives."

He had been asked about one of at least two woman detained this week after standing on pillar boxes in busy streets without the mandatory headscarf.

Unprecedented images of at least 11 women protesting the same way have been widely shared on social media.

A prominent human rights lawyer told AFP on Tuesday that one of the detained women had her bail set at more than $100,000 (80,000 euros).

Montazeri said those flouting "hijab" rules -- which require headscarves and modest clothing -- must have been encouraged by outsiders.

"I think those who committed these acts did it out of ignorance and being incited. They could have been influenced from outside the country," he said.

But even religiously conservative Iranians have voiced support for the protests, with many saying that religious rules should be a personal choice.

At least two photos shared on Twitter on Wednesday showed women in traditional black chador robes, standing on pillar box with signs supporting freedom of choice for women.

One held a sign reading: "I love my hijab but I'm against compulsory hijab."

Female activist Azar Mansouri, a member of the reformist Union of Islamic Iranian People party, said attempts to control female clothing had failed over many decades.

"Women show their opposition to such forceful approaches by their very clothing, from resisting covering their hair to wearing long boots and leggings," she wrote in a series of tweets this week.

Women have increasingly flouted the Islamic republic's clothing rules in recent years and often let their headscarves fall around their necks.

Morality police once rigidly enforced the rules, but are a much less common sight since President Hassan Rouhani came to power in 2013, promising greater civil liberties.

The protests appear to mirror that of a woman who stood in Tehran's busy Enghelab (Revolution) Street in December without a headscarf and waving a white scarf on a stick.

She was reportedly kept in detention for nearly a month and has since kept a low profile.Syrian rebel fighters and Turkish troops launched a major offensive against Kurdish militia in Afrin on January 20

French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview Wednesday that he would have a "real problem" with Turkey's intervention against a Kurdish militia in Syria if it turned into an outright "invasion".

"If the operation became more than fighting a potential terrorist threat on the Turkish border and turns out to be an invasion operation, we would have a real problem with that," Macron told Le Figaro daily.

Turkey's 12-day cross-border offensive against the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week threatened to expand, has strained relations with its NATO allies.

Ankara views the YPG as a terror organisation allied to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) inside Turkey but the US has been backing it as a key secular ally in the fight against the Islamic State group.

Reacting to Macron's remarks Turkish Prime Minister Binaldi Yildirim said any suggestion that Ankara had broader designs in Syria, beyond pushing the YPG back from the border, was "totally wrong".

"The whole world knows, or should know, that Turkey is not engaged in an invasion," he told reporters in Ankara, comparing operation "Olive Branch" with a seven-month cross-border Turkish offensive in 2016/2017 against both Kurdish militia and Islamic State jihadists.

Turkey's latest Syrian foray began on January 20, further dampening the prospects of an imminent end to Syria's seven-year-old civil war.

On Tuesday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that if Turkey's intervention turned into an "occupation" of parts of Syria, it would be "totally reprehensible".

His remarks came after Erdogan threatened to push further east along the Syrian-Turkish border, until there was "no terrorist on our border leading to Iraq".

He also vowed to "clean up" the YPG-held city of Manbij east of Afrin, where the US has troops.

Macron said Turkey's operation required Europe and its allies to "have discussions and take decisions", without specifying what they might be.Turkish-backed Syrian rebels drive toward the border on January 30, 2018, to join Operation Olive Branch against Kurdish militia in the Afrin enclave of northwestern Syria

Clashes raged between Turkish-backed forces and Kurdish militia in Syria's Afrin region on Wednesday, as wounded civilians fled intense Turkish air strikes.

Turkey and allied Syrian rebels have pressed on with Operation Olive Branch in the Kurdish-controlled Afrin enclave despite mounting international concern and reports of rising civilian casualties.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said heavy bombardment and Turkish air strikes were accompanying ground fighting around Jandairis and Rajo, two areas to the west of Afrin near the Turkish border.

The Britain-based war monitor reported that Turkish-backed forces had seized control of the border village of Shinkal to the northwest.

"Turkish forces dispatched new military reinforcements overnight, including fighters and equipment, to Shinkal in an attempt to consolidate their control over several points and support attacking forces," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.

Turkey and its Syria rebel allies launched Operation Olive Branch against the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), on January 20.

The group has been a key ally of Washington in its fight against the Islamic State group, but Ankara says it is an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a deadly insurgency in southeastern Turkey since 1984.

On Wednesday, the Turkish army said it destroyed 22 YPG targets overnight.

Ankara has denied hitting civilians in its military operations, but hospitals in Afrin say they are receiving civilian casualties on a daily basis.

- 'The whole world knows' -

Syrian Kurds receive treatment at Afrin hospital on January 30, 2018, after they were wounded in what medics said was a Turkish air strike on their village

AFP's correspondent in Afrin heard warplanes flying overhead on Wednesday and saw new groups of civilians arriving at the region's main hospital throughout the day.

Splayed out on hospital bed, a frail woman with a wrinkled face cried out sharply when a nurse tried to examine her head.

Young children had their hands and legs wrapped in bloodstained bandages as medics wheeled in more wounded.

The hospital has been flooded with civilians, with a heartbroken family seen late Tuesday carrying out the body of their father, killed in shelling several days earlier.

A sobbing woman touched her head to the casket.

Nearby, an elderly man was yelling to anyone who would listen.

He had survived heavy Turkish bombardment of his neighbourhood, but 12 of his family members -- including two infant grandchildren -- had not.

"The whole world knows what's happening here. Everyone know that civilians are dying," he screamed.

"A four month old and a nine month old -- as if we're the Daesh of Afrin," he said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.

The YPG said Turkish fire Wednesday on Afrin killed one child and wounded 10 other civilians.

The Observatory also said a child had been killed Wednesday and reported that the Turkish operation had so far left 68 civilians dead, including 21 children.

Turkish Defence Minister Nurettin Canikli insisted on Tuesday that Ankara's forces and its rebel allies "have not harmed any civilian" during the operation.

But the offensive has come under growing global pressure, with French President Emmanuel Macron warning Ankara against a full-blown "invasion" on Wednesday.

"If the operation became more than fighting a potential terrorist threat on the Turkish border and turns out to be an invasion operation, we would have a real problem with that," Macron told Le Figaro daily.

- Turkish teen killed -

In reaction, Turkish Prime Minister Binaldi Yildirim said any suggestion that Ankara had broader designs in Syria beyond pushing the YPG back from the border, was "totally wrong".

Since launching the assault, Turkey and rebel allies have captured 11 villages and the strategic Barsaya hill, according to the Observatory.

Barsaya overlooks both the rebel-held Syrian town of Azaz, and Kilis across the border in Turkey.

Turkish soldiers dig in on the strategic Barsaya hill on the Syrian side of the border on January 29, 2018, after capturing it from Kurdish fighters

Advancing fighters were facing "fierce resistance from YPG fighters holed up in the mountains, in spite of Turkey's massive firepower," said Abdel Rahman.

The Observatory said that 91 YPG fighters and 85 pro-Ankara rebels had been killed in the fighting so far.

Turkey says seven of its soldiers have been killed.

On Wednesday, rockets launched from Syria killed a 17-year-old girl and wounded another resident of a Turkish border town, officials said.

The US and France have repeatedly expressed concern over the cross-border offensive, which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week threatened to expand.

Erdogan has vowed to "clean up" the YPG-held city of Manbij east of Afrin, where the US has troops as part of its operations against IS.

Syria's conflict erupted in 2011 with anti-government protests but has morphed into a tangled war pitting rebels, jihadists, Kurds, and government forces against each other.

On Wednesday, a pair of missiles fired by rebels outside Damascus hit the capital's civilian airport without causing damage, state news agency SANA said.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opens the weekly cabinet meeting at his Jerusalem office on January 21, 2018

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel on Wednesday, publicly correcting him over Israel's stance on a two-state solution to its conflict with the Palestinians.

Netanyahu had snubbed Gabriel in April when the visiting diplomat declined to call off meetings with rights groups critical of Israel's government.

In statements after Wednesday's meeting, the two were cordial, but Netanyahu interrupted Gabriel when he talked about a two-state solution to the conflict.

Gabriel said he was "very thankful to hear that, of course, also the government of Israel wants to have two states" with secure Israeli borders.

Netanyahu, who heads what is seen as the most right-wing government in Israel's history, interjected to reiterate his position that his country would have to maintain security control in the Palestinian territories under any peace arrangement.

"No, that we will control security west of the Jordan (river)... that is I think the first condition," Netanyahu said.

"Whether or not it's defined as a state when we have the military control is another matter, but I'd rather not discuss labels, but substance."

A two-state solution has long been the ultimate goal of international efforts to mediate a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

US President Donald Trump has however declined to commit to a two-state solution, instead saying he can support it if both sides agree.

He has also recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital, breaking with decades of international consensus that the disputed city's status must be negotiated.

Prominent members of Israel's government openly oppose the creation of a Palestinian state, while some call for much of the West Bank, occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War, to be annexed.

Netanyahu says he wants the Palestinians to govern themselves, but in recent months has declined to specify whether that would mean an independent Palestinian state or some diluted form of autonomy.

- 'Mixed signals' -

Speaking later in Tel Aviv, Gabriel questioned Israel's approach to the conflict.

"These, at best, mixed signals do not go unnoticed in Europe, where there is clearly growing frustration with Israel's actions," Gabriel said in a speech at a conference of the Institute for National Security Studies think-tank.

Germany's Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel (R) waves upon his arrival at the Palestinian presidential complex in the West Bank city of Ramallah

"Also in Germany, and frankly inside my own party, young people, the young generation, feel increasingly less inclined to accept what they deem unfair treatment of the Palestinians.

"And it's increasingly difficult for people like me to explain to them the reasons why our support for Israel must persist. As a friend and close ally, we need to know if Israel is not supporting a negotiated solution to this conflict anymore."

European nations have repeatedly warned that chances are diminishing for a two-state solution and called on Israel to halt settlement building in the West Bank.

Such criticism has led to tensions between some European officials and Netanyahu, who accuses them of overlooking Palestinian attacks and what he calls Palestinian incitement against Israel.

Gabriel also met Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in Ramallah in the West Bank on Wednesday.

He condemned Trump's decision to withhold tens of millions of dollars in aid to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

Trump has also threatened to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to force the Palestinians to return the negotiating table to reach what he has called "the ultimate deal".

Abbas has said the Jerusalem decision disqualifies the United States as mediator and has called Trump's efforts the "slap of the century".

Gabriel said when meeting Abbas that Jerusalem's status must be negotiated and that "we are prepared with others in Europe and also in the region to make sure that the refugees' situation does not worsen."

He also warned that "we are moving further from Middle East peace every day."EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini (R) said there could be no Middle East peace process without US involvement, at a press conference with Norwegian Foreign Minister Ine Marie Eriksen Soreide

EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini urged US reengagement in the Middle East peace process Wednesday after President Donald Trump's controversial recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

"This is a difficult moment," she said after an extraordinary meeting of international donors in Brussels to discuss the Trump administration's decision to cut aid to the Palestinians.

"If I can put it in a headline, nothing without the United States, nothing with the United states alone," she told a press conference with the visiting foreign minister of Norway, a key donor.

The Palestinians have said the United States can no longer mediate in the Middle East conflict following Trumps decision on Jerusalem, which they also consider to be their capital.

The row threatens to derail the Trump administration's peace plan, which had been set to be presented to both sides later this year.

The EU is the biggest donor to the Palestinians and has spoken out against Trump's Jerusalem decision.

"For the United States' plan, we'll wait and see. We don't have for the moment details or even a time framework, said Mogherini.

"For us what counts is first and foremost that everybody recognises the United States are essential for any process to realistically have a chance to succeed. But also for our American friends to understand that alone it will be more difficult to achieve anything."

Trump last week accused the Palestinians of disrespecting the US and threatened to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in aid until they returned to the negotiating table.

Provoking Palestinian outrage, he reaffirmed his Jerusalem decision and said the disputed city had been taken "off the table", despite having previously said his recognition did not preclude later negotiations on its borders.A picture taken on January 29, 2018 shows destruction at the ancient temple of Ain Dara, near Afrin, after it was damaged in Turkish air strikes according to Syria's antiquities department and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

For 3,000 years, the lion sculptures of Syria's Ain Dara stood as testaments to the Iron Age. But as Turkish bombardment pounds the region, they have little left but their paws.

Syrian and Kurdish authorities have blamed the damage squarely on Ankara's nearly two-week offensive on Afrin, a Kurdish-controlled pocket of northwest Syria that borders Turkey.

Perched on a hilltop in northern Syria, the neo-Hittite temple of Ain Dara dates back to the Aramaic era from around 1,300 to 700 BC, and is named after a village located in Afrin.

The identify of the deity worshipped there has not been officially determined, but one theory is that it is Ishtar, the goddess of love.

Until last week, the temple stood as "one of the most important monuments built by the Aramaeans in Syria during the first millennium BC", according to Syria's department of antiquities.

But on January 26, Turkish bombardment battered Ain Dara.

Today, visitors can barely make out the dark, engraved steps that once led into the temple but are now covered with rocks and debris.

And the frescoes of imposing winged animals carved in black basalt stone have been reduced to indistinguishable piles of rubble.

Only the temple's rear section was spared, including a basalt sculpture of a lion standing guard, overlooking the green hills of Afrin.

- Artefacts 'scattered' -

"I was sitting right there," said Ahmed Saleh, pointing to the steps of his home in the adjacent village of Ain Dara.

The elderly villager's home directly faces the heritage site.

"The strike was so fierce that we were really shaken up. Then, the smoke began to rise up from the hill," said Saleh, his head wrapped in the ubiquitous red-and-white checkered scarf of local residents.

A picture shows destruction at the ancient temple of Ain Dara, near Afrin, after it was damaged in Turkish air strikes according to Syria's antiquities department and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group

Between 40 to 50 percent of the site was damaged, estimated Salah el-Din Senno, an archaeologist and member of Afrin's local antiquities council.

Senno pointed to old photographs of the temple hung around the walls of his office.

"The damage began from the entrance and extended to the interior -- the legendary animal statues, guardians of the temple, and other sculptures representing the gods were scattered" by the force of the blast, he said.

"Stone slabs were thrown a distance of 100 metres (yards)," he told AFP.

Turkey and allied Syrian rebel groups launched operation Olive Branch on January 20 against the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which controls the Afrin region.

Ankara considers the YPG a "terrorist" organisation and has pledged to oust them from the area.

The Turkish military has insisted that "religious and cultural buildings, historical sites, archaeological ruins and public facilities are absolutely not among the targets of Turkish Armed Forces".

- 'Catastrophe' -

But government authorities in Damascus, Kurdish officials in Afrin and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group have all accused Ankara of damaging Ain Dara.

Condemning "Turkish attacks against Afrin's archaeological sites," Syria's directorate of antiquities and museums condemned "the destruction of the Ain Dara temple".

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a UNESCO official told AFP the Ain Dara temple had been special.

"The temple is an important example of Syro-Hittite religious architecture and the most extensively excavated structure of its kind in Syria," said the official.

The bombardment caused "heavy damage to the central and southeastern portions of the building" and some features "have been blasted into fragments", the official said.

Syria has been rocked for nearly seven years by a ferocious conflict that has killed more than 340,000 people and displaced millions.

UNESCO-listed heritage sites around the country have also been ravaged, including Aleppo's celebrated Umayyad mosque and the desert city of Palmyra.

Islamic State group fighters deliberately destroyed the famed tower tombs in Palmyra, its statue of the Lion of Athena and the main Temple of Bel.

"Destroying the Ain Dara temple is the same level of atrocity as destroying the Temple of Bel," said Syria's former antiquities chief Maamun Abdulkarim.

"It is a catastrophe in all meanings of the word. Three thousand years of civilisation destroyed in an air strike," Abdulkarim told AFP.

He also voiced concern for 40 old villages in Afrin, dubbed the "Ancient Villages of Northern Syria".

According to the UNESCO, the villages date from the 1st to the 7th centuries and feature the remains of homes, pagan temples, churches and bathhouses.Three of Kenya's main private TV channels had their live feeds cut or blocked while covering the mock swearing in of opposition leader Raila Odinga

Kenya's interior minister said Wednesday that opposition leader Raila Odinga's mock inauguration as "people's president" was an effort to overthrow the government and media outlets were shut down for their complicity in the event.

Odinga, 73, held a swearing-in ceremony in Nairobi on Tuesday in front of thousands of supporters in another challenge to President Uhuru Kenyatta's re-election last year.

The lawyer and MP who swore Odinga in -- TJ Kajwang -- was arrested on Wednesday afternoon and was being investigated for his role in the ceremony, according to a senior police officer speaking on condition of anonymity.

After initially vowing to block the gathering, police kept their distance, but a furore broke out after the Communication Authority shut down three of the country's main private television channels who were covering the ceremony.

"What was witnessed at Uhuru Park was a well-choreographed attempt to subvert or overthrow the legally-constituted government of the Republic of Kenya," Interior Minister Fred Matiangi said in a statement.

"Some elements in the media fraternity participated in furtherance of this illegal act," he charged.

Matiangi said the authorities had information that "criminal elements operating under the banner" of the National Super Alliance (NASA) opposition coalition had planned to "shed blood" at the event and "blame it on the police".

That was why police had withdrawn from the venue, he said.

Matiangi said the outlets -- among them NTV, Citizen TV and KTN -- would remain shut until an investigation was finished.

The Media Council of Kenya said in a statement it was "shocked at the recent turn of events."

"A political contest has turned into the greatest threat and assault on freedom of expression and media in Kenyas recent history," it said.

The shutdown came after media organisations were summoned to State House last week for a meeting.

- 'Intimidation' of media -

Kenya's interior minister says the mock inauguration of the opposition leader as the "people's president" was a bid to overthrow the government

During the meeting, Kenyatta, his deputy William Ruto and other senior officials warned editors against live coverage of the ceremony and threatened to revoke their licenses if they failed to comply, according to Linus Kaikai, chairman of the Kenya Editors' Guild.

Rights groups on Wednesday criticised the gagging of the media.

"Kenyan authorities have restricted media coverage at a critical moment, and violated the public's right to information about important events," said Otsieno Namwaya, Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW).

HRW said the shutdown "underlines a trend since 2013, when Kenyatta took office for the first time" of intimidation, harassment and threats aimed at the media.

"Kenya is on a very slippery trajectory in regard to human rights, and president Kenyatta urgently needs to reverse this trend," Namwaya said.

- 'Anarchy and mayhem' -

Kenya's Uhuru Kenyatta was sworn in for a second term as president in late November after months of political violence and unrest

Matiangi said Odinga's swearing-in itself was also under investigation and that "appropriate legal action" would be taken.

Authorities had repeatedly warned that such an inauguration would be treasonous and that Odinga could face arrest.

However, as the wording of the oath was different to that in the constitution, the consequences of Odinga's act of political theatre remain unclear.

Three of Odinga's co-leaders of NASA failed to show up at the event, including Kalonzo Musyoka who was to be sworn in as his deputy, raising speculation of a rift in the opposition.

Kalonzo said they did not attend after their bodyguards were withdrawn.

Then, on Wednesday he said his home had been attacked in the early hours of the morning, with shots and a stun grenade fired at his house.

Police said they were investigating.

Odinga has refused to accept Kenyatta's victory, which came after last year's deeply-divisive election season in which rights activists say at least 92 people were killed.

First was an election on August 8 that was won by Kenyatta then annulled in a historic decision by the Supreme Court, which ordered a re-run on October 26.

Odinga boycotted the second vote and Kenyatta won with 98 percent.

Since boycotting the re-run poll, citing a lack of reform at the election commission, NASA's strategy has been to challenge Kenyatta's legitimacy by seeking to establish parallel government structures.

Matiangi on Tuesday denounced the opposition's National Resistance Movement wing, tasked with implementing a threatened programme of boycotts and civil disobedience, as an "organised criminal group".

"It is a group of individuals who are bent on causing anarchy and mayhem," he added on Wednesday.

"We will not accept subversion and criminal acts disguised as political activities. This will not be tolerated."Pendjari National Park is one of the last remaining wildlife sanctuaries in West Africa

Benin's vast Pendjari National Park, one of West Africa's last remaining wildlife refuges, will receive $23.5 million (18.9 million euros) to help protect it and fight poaching, donors announced in London on Wednesday.

The Benin government will provide $6 million (4.8 million euros), with the National Geographic Society donating $7.5 million (6 million euros) and the US Wyss Foundation stumping up the rest through the African Parks NGO, the groups said at a press conference.

The 4,800-square-kilometre Pendjari is one of the three parks in the "WAP" complex (W, Arly and Pendjari) that spans across covers Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger, and is one of the last remaining wildlife sanctuaries in West Africa.

It is home to the cheetah, West African Lion, antelope and buffalo.

The UNESCO World Heritage site, which is located more than 12 hours away from the economic capital Cotonou, has suffered from decades of neglect, and is under threat from poaching and population growth.

"Pendjari National Park is an exceptional reserve, but its long-term future has been under threat," said Benin President Patrice Talon.

Pendjari National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage site

"The support we are seeing for this landscape is extraordinary and could not have come at a more important time. This partnership will help us create a sustainable future for this landscape," he added.Support Local Journalism Your membership makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}}

The Skaneateles location opened with the help of Stees in May 2014, after Stees started out at the original F. Oliver's location in Canandaigua when it opened in 2010. The blog reassured customers that their locations in Rochester, Canandaigua and Ithaca will remain open.

Pankow said right now F. Oliver's is "regrouping" before actively seeking a new spot  but she said her hope is to have a presence in the Auburn area within the year.

"We're very high on what's happening in Auburn right now," Pankow said, adding that they are aware of, and excited about, the food and beverage industry in Auburn.

Pankow said the company has added a few new things to the Canandaigua store location, and has hosted some visiting chefs at the Rochester location, but the new Auburn-area store will be the first to pilot the expansion of culinary services and events.

"I think it's important for people to know that we've loved the area and want to be back," Pankow said.A Fulani woman, pictured last August at a camp for displaced people in Gwoza, northeast Nigeria

The UN refugee agency appealed on Wednesday for $157 million (126 million euros) to help over a quarter of a million people affected by the insurgency led by the militant Islamist group Boko Haram.

The UNHCR, acting with more than 40 other agencies, said it needed to help 208,000 Nigerian refugees and 75,000 of their hosts in Niger, Cameroon and Chad, where infrastructure has been strained by the influx.

Since 2013, the Boko Haram conflict has internally displaced another 2.4 million people in northeast Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger, it said.

"The Boko Haram crisis lingers on and is far from over," said UNHCR deputy high commissioner Kelly Clements while launching the appeal.

"The world should not forget the victims of this deadly conflict, especially as there appears to be little hope for a return to peace and stability in the near future."

"Devastating" side effects of the conflict include a huge rise in food insecurity and severe malnutrition, the agency said.

More than seven million people in the Lake Chad Basin region were food-insecure as of September 2017, with potentially severe consequences for child health, it said.

A similar appeal for $241 million in 2017 was only 56-percent funded, the UNHCR noted in its press release.

Chad and Cameroon are engaged alongside Nigeria and Niger in the battle against Boko Haram extremists, who first took the conflict across the border into Niger in 2015, with numerous raids around the region of Diffa.

Between 2015 and 2017, UN monitors recorded 582 civilian casualties in 244 raids blamed on Boko Haram in Diffa.

On Monday at least two soldiers were killed in southeastern Niger while fighting off an attack by suspected Boko Haram militants.

A source in Niger's security forces said that the insurgents came from neighbouring Nigeria.For the second time in a week a wartime bomb has been unearthed at a construction site in Hong Kong's Wan Chai district

A second wartime bomb was discovered at a construction site in the heart of Hong Kong within a week, prompting thousands of people to evacuate on Wednesday and stores to shutter.

Police sealed off parts of the busy Wan Chai district and ferry services crossing the Victoria Harbour were suspended as experts worked to unearth the explosive, an operation that would likely continue overnight.

The bomb was found at the same construction site along the harbour front as a 450-kilogram explosive that was successfully defused on Saturday.

Over 4,000 people had been evacuated by Wednesday evening including hotel customers, residents, workers from the surrounding office towers and students from over 40 schools at a track and field event, Apple Daily reported.

Many restaurants and shops in the area teeming with office workers on a typical afternoon were also closed, according to an AFP reporter at the scene.

Both bombs were of the same American-made model that had been dropped on Hong Kong during the Second World War but the newly discovered one was in an unstable state, local media reported citing the police.

"The bomb is in a dangerous condition. The fuse mechanism is severely damaged and the bomb's position is making it difficult for our equipment to gain optimum access," the South China Morning Post cited bomb disposal officer Alick McWhirter as saying.

Unexploded wartime bombs or grenades are frequently found by hikers or construction workers in the southern Chinese city, which was the scene of fierce fighting between Japanese and British allied forces in 1941 and was also bombed from the air during sortees.

In 2014 police defused a wartime bomb weighing nearly one ton, the largest yet found in the city.Togo has been mired in political turmoil for months with protesters flooding the streets to demand the departure of President Faure Gnassingbe

Togo's government was facing fresh turbulence on Wednesday as healthcare workers went on strike, joining thousands of demonstrators holding opposition protests on the streets.

The two-day nationwide strike was called by the National Union of Hospital Practitioners of Togo (SYNPHOT) who are demanding better equipment and more nursing staff.

"The strike is well-followed throughout the country. We will take stock tomorrow evening to know what to do in the coming days," SYNPHOT secretary-general Atchi Walla told AFP.

At Sylvanus Olympio university hospital, the country's largest health care centre, several departments were closed, according to an AFP journalist.

"We are here only for very urgent cases. The other patients will be rescheduled," said a worker at the entrance to the emergency surgery department.

There was a similar situation in the operating room and at reception, where only one person was working.

"This situation is tiring. I came to get treatment but nobody can help because they are on strike," said Albert Kudju, a retired civil servant.

"The authorities should meet the demands of the workers."

Primary and public school teachers are also on strike, demanding an increase in their wages, while students are protesting against a sharp rise in tuition fees.

The walk-outs come against a backdrop of widespread discontent with the government and opposition calls for the resignation of President Faure Gnassingbe.

Gnassingbe has been in power since 2005 and took over from his father, General Gnassingbe Eyadema, who himself ruled Togo for 38 years.

A coalition of 14 opposition parties has been organising almost weekly marches for the past five months.Brenda Fitzgerald (R), seen here in a 2014 file picture with Georgia Governor Nathan Deal (L), has resigned as head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because of financial conflicts of interests

The top US public health official resigned Wednesday due to financial conflicts of interest, a day after US media reported she bought tobacco stocks while heading the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A statement from the US Department of Health and Human Services confirmed that it had accepted the resignation of CDC director Brenda Fitzgerald.

"Dr. Fitzgerald owns certain complex financial interests that have imposed a broad recusal limiting her ability to complete all of her duties as the CDC director," said the statement by spokesman Matt Lloyd.

"Due to the nature of these financial interests, Dr. Fitzgerald could not divest from them in a definitive time period."

On Tuesday, POLITICO reported that Fitzgerald bought shares in a tobacco, drug and food companies just weeks after taking the job.

Among the CDC's top responsibilities is reducing smoking, which is a top killer and leading cause of lung cancer and heart disease.

Fitzgerald, a medical doctor and former Georgia Department of Public Health commissioner, has long publicly championed anti-smoking efforts.

She became CDC chief on July 7, 2017.

That same month, and in August and September, she "bought tens of thousands of dollars in new stock holdings in at least a dozen companies," Politico reported.

"Purchases included between $1,001 and $15,000 of Japan Tobacco, one of the largest such companies in the world, which sells four tobacco brands in the US through a subsidiary."

She also bought shares of Merck, Bayer and the health insurance company Humana.A picture released by the Egyptian Presidency on January 31, 2018 shows President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (3rd-R) looking at mockups of natural gas extraction facilities during the inauguruation of the offshore Zohr gas field

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Wednesday inaugurated the offshore Zohr gas field, aimed at making the Arab world's most populous country self-sufficient in natural gas by the end of 2018.

"We are now entering into the self-sufficiency stage... and, God willing, by the end of the year we will have reached self-sufficiency," Petroleum Minister Tarek al-Molla said at a ceremony broadcast live on state television.

In December, the oil ministry said it was starting production from the field discovered in 2015 by Italian energy giant Eni at an initial 350 million cubic feet (10 million cubic metres) a day.

Molla said Egypt expects it "will be able to stop importing liquefied natural gas... and therefore save what we import which is $230 million per month, or $2.8 billion annually".

The field, which is about 200 kilometres from the shore west of the canal city of Port Said, has a full output capacity of 2.7 billion cubic feet per day.

The Egyptian government is trying to roll back the economic impact of the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak and led to years of turmoil.

The inauguration comes after strains in the traditionally close relationship between Cairo and Rome over the 2016 murder of 28-year-old Italian student Giulio Regeni in Egypt.

The body of the Cambridge University PhD researcher was discovered by a roadside bearing signs of torture after he went missing in the Egyptian capital.

The slow pace of the investigation prompted Italy to withdraw its ambassador from Cairo for more than a year.

A new ambassador was put in place in September 2017.

"We will not forget Regeni," Sisi said at the ceremony attended by Eni boss Claudio Descalzi.

"We offer our condolences to Regeni's family and we won't forget this incident until we find the perpetrators and bring them to justice in Egypt."

Egyptian authorities initially suggested Regeni died in a traffic accident, but later said he was killed by a criminal gang that was subsequently wiped out in a shootout with police.

That account was met with suspicion in Italy, where politicians and the media have suggested Regeni was slain by elements in Egypt's security services.Almost all of the 1,400 delegates at the Syria talks in Sochi were pro-regime

Hastily organised, snubbed by the Syrian opposition and the Kurds, Russia's Syria peace talks achieved little and exposed the limits of Moscow's efforts to find a solution to the seven year Syrian conflict, analysts say.

Regime backer Russia hosted the so-called Syria congress in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Tuesday in which participants agreed on creating a commission to rewrite the war-torn country's constitution.

But despite Moscow insisting Syrian society would be fully represented at the meeting, almost all of the 1,400 delegates were pro-regime.

"This was a failed Moscow project with the aim of creating an instrument to keep (Bashar al) Assad (in power)," said Alexei Malashenko, head of research at Moscow's Institute for the Dialogue of Civilisations.

"All talk of a new constitution has the intent of keeping Assad and therefore Russian presence in Syria," he added.

Malashenko said the Sochi talks were "badly organised" and that "the most important thing is who did not turn up."

On the eve of the talks, the main opposition group - the Syrian Negotiations Committee (SCN) - and the Kurdish minority said they would boycott the event.

Some rebel representatives who had flown in from Turkey said they would go no further than Sochi's airport because the conference logo featured only regime flags, eventually going directly back to Turkey.

Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova however said this "did not dampen the atmosphere" of the talks.

- 'Ridiculous' -

Analysts say talks hosted by Russia did little to find a solution to the conflict in Syria

"In terms of credibility of the people represented, it was quite ridiculous," said Thomas Pierret, an analyst at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris.

He said that the Damascus regime and its allies never envisaged the peace process as a "solution of negotiation and compromise."

But Pierret said the presence of the UN's Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura "saved" the Sochi talks.

"Russia's success was to have de Mistura on board," he said. "He reminded them that the talks should stay in the UN format but he also spoke a lot about the issue of constitutional reform."

In his closing remarks, de Misutra said the UN would lead efforts to form the constitutional committee, but did not specify how this would happen. A ninth round of UN-backed talks ended in Vienna last week without the warring sides having met face to face.

Hasni Abidi, director of Geneva's Center of Research on the Arab World, said Sochi showed "the limits of Russian diplomacy" while demonstrating the centrality of the UN-led Geneva talks.

"It showed that the multilateral approach followed by Geneva is the only format to engage in serious discussion," said Abidi.

The UN, he said, is demanding that Russia and Iran put pressure on the regime to take part in future negotiations. This, he said, puts the West in an "embarrassing" position at times.

"They know they can't diverge from Moscow too much because they need them for the Geneva process to succeed," Abidi said.

- 'Propaganda success' -

Despite "not moving (towards) the settlement by an inch," Russian independent analyst Vladimir Frolov said the Sochi talks were a "success in propaganda terms" for both Moscow and Damascus.

"They seek to legitimise a substitute for the real talks with a fake opposition that has no following on the ground," he said.

On Wednesday, an editorial in Syria's pro-Assad paper Al-Baath said the Sochi talks "confirmed that the Russian-led political process is the best way to put an end to the bloodshed" in Syria. It added that Syrians "had lost faith in the UN-led" talks.

Meanwhile, Syrian opposition spokesman Yehia al-Aridi, said the Sochi congress "unveiled the Russian intention of rehabilitating the regime."

"The constitutional question is one of the essential points, but there is also the electoral process and political transition that the Russians ignored with arrogance," al-Aridi said.Riot police in southwest Cameroon were deployed to sensitive areas last October as tensions rose among the country's anglophone minority

Cameroonian forces have crossed into neighbouring Nigeria, where thousands of people have fled from Cameroon's restive anglophone regions, local sources and state officials said Wednesday.

"Last week, 50 to 70 Cameroonian soldiers came to (the village of) Danare to tell us our village (in Cameroon) was safe now and that we could go back home," said Tony Kajang, a 22-year-old displaced Cameroonian.

Other Cameroonians who have fled to the southeast Nigerian state of Cross River and a local resident in Danare also confirmed the soldiers' presence.

But they said the forces were not on a military operation.

The head of Cross River state emergency management agency, John Inaku, also said the troops were in Danare, in the Boki area of the state, early on Monday.

"There were people coming in from the neighbouring country. It is not the first time. The first time was in (the district of) Ekang in December," he told AFP.

A police source in the southeast Nigerian state said only: "Yes, it's true. There were men on the ground."

Thousands of Cameroonians have fled to the remote border region from violence in English-speaking southwest Cameroon, which abuts Nigeria.

Media on both sides of the frontier on Wednesday reported that some 80 Cameroonian gendarmes had been in Danare.

According to Nigeria's daily The Punch, they were targeting suspected anglophone separatists among the influx.

Cross River state security adviser Jude Ngaji was quoted as saying: "The issue has gone beyond the police and the Nigerian army has just deployed a battalion to the area."

- Independence bid -

Cameroon's government is fighting an insurgency by a group demanding a separate state for two western regions that are home to most of the country's anglophones, who account for about a fifth of the population.

On October 1 last year, the breakaway movement issued a symbolic declaration of independence for "Ambazonia," their name for the putative state.

Cameroon's president, Paul Biya, has met the agitation with a crackdown, including curfews, raids and restrictions on travel.

Around 30,000 people have fled into Nigeria.

Despite their military collaboration against Boko Haram Islamists in northeast Nigeria and northern Cameroon, the two countries have long had tense relations.

For years, the neighbours staked claims to the oil-rich Bakassi peninsula until an International Court of Justice ruling ceded it to Cameroon in 2002.

Nigeria is also facing an independence movement from pro-Biafran supporters in the southeast but Abuja has moved closer to Yaounde in recent weeks.

On Monday, the head of the Ambazonia separatist movement, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, who was arrested in the Nigerian capital in early January, was extradited with 46 of his supporters.

Amnesty International has expressed concern about the fate of the arrested separatists -- whom Yaounde has called "terrorists" -- saying they could face torture and an unfair trial in Cameroon.

Nigeria, which said in December that it "saw eye to eye" with Yaounde regarding the crisis but denied harbouring the separatists, finally handed them over following closed-door negotiations.

"It's a real blow by the Cameroonian authorities," political scientist Mathias Eric Owona Nguini, a researcher at Cameroon's Paul Ango Ela Foundation. "They managed to capture a big part of the (separatist) leadership."

However Hans De Marie Heungoup, a researcher at the International Crisis Group, told AFP that Biya "should quickly initiate a political dialogue on federalism or decentralisation (or) it's possible that the Anglophone side will be radicalised even further and the current cycle of violence will escalate."

Cameroon's communications minister, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, this week congratulated what he saw was the "excellent cooperation" between Abuja and Yaounde in terms of security.

He also said both countries would "never allow their territory to act as bases for destabilising activities against the other".Russia's UN envoy Vassily Nebenzia said it was unclear whether missiles and weapons used by Yemen's Huthi rebels were Iranian-made or were shipped before 2015, when an arms embargo was imposed on the country

Russia on Wednesday dismissed evidence presented by the United States and UN experts that Iran had supplied missiles to Yemen's Huthi rebels as inconclusive, signaling it would oppose a bid to slap sanctions on Tehran.

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said it was unclear whether missiles and weaponry used by the rebels were sent by Iran or whether they were shipped before the arms embargo on Yemen was imposed in 2015, casting doubt over the findings of a UN panel of experts.

"Iran is vehemently denying it is supplying anything to Yemen," Nebenzia told two reporters.

"Yemen hosts a pile of weapons from the old days. Many countries were competing to supply weapons to Yemen during the time of president Saleh, so I cannot give you anything conclusive."

Ali Abdullah Saleh, who ruled Yemen from 1990 to 2012, was killed in December by his erstwhile Huthi rebel allies.

Asked whether the case had been made for action against Iran, the ambassador answered "no."

Nebenzia joined UN Security Council ambassadors on a visit to Washington this week to inspect debris from missiles that the United States says were supplied by Iran to the Huthis.

The ambassadors had lunch with President Donald Trump, who urged the council to take steps to counter "Iran's destabilizing activities" in the Middle East.

- Lack of evidence -

A recent report by the UN panel of experts bolstered the US claims when it concluded that Iran had violated the arms embargo on Yemen by failing to block missile supplies to the rebels.

The Trump administration has said it will seek action at the Security Council against Iran, although it has yet to specify what those measures may be.

"If there is something we will see. How can we pass judgment prematurely before we know what it is about," Nebenzia said.

Russia has the power to block sanctions by resorting to its veto power as one of the five permanent Security Council members along with Britain, China, France and the United States.

Last month, US Ambassador Nikki Haley presented the missile fragments as "undeniable" evidence that Iran had fabricated a ballistic missile fired by Yemen's Huthi rebels at Saudi Arabia in November.

Kazakh Ambassador Kairat Umarov, this month's council president who also traveled to Washington to inspect the missile debris, said there was no strong evidence of a supply route from Iran to the Huthis.

"It would be good of course to have very conclusive evidence to say how this kind of armaments appeared in Yemen, because at this point in time, there is no information about that," Umarov told reporters.

"We understand that this was produced in Iran, but (there is) no information on how it was sent to Yemen."Hamas leader Ismail Haniya -- shown here giving a speech in Gaza City on January 23, 2018 -- is now under US sanctions on Washington's terror blacklist

The United States on Wednesday put the head of Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, Ismail Haniya, on its terror blacklist and slapped sanctions on him -- a move sure to raise tensions, after Washington recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

The 55-year-old Haniya, who was named head of Hamas in May 2017, represents the more pragmatic wing of the movement, which said the US move would not deter the group's "resistance."

"Haniya has close links with Hamas' military wing and has been a proponent of armed struggle, including against civilians," the State Department said in a statement.

"He has reportedly been involved in terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens. Hamas has been responsible for an estimated 17 American lives killed in terrorist attacks."

Haniya is now on the US Treasury sanctions blacklist, which freezes any US-based assets he may have and bans any US person or company from doing business with him.

Hamas -- which has controlled the Gaza Strip for more than a decade -- had already been on the US terror blacklist since 1997.

The US government also slapped sanctions on Harakat al-Sabireen -- a small militant group that splintered away from the Islamic Jihad, is close to Iran and operates in Gaza -- and two other groups active in Egypt: Liwa al-Thawra and HASM.

"These designations target key terrorist groups and leaders -- including two sponsored and directed by Iran -- who are threatening the stability of the Middle East, undermining the peace process, and attacking our allies Egypt and Israel," Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement.

"Today's actions are an important step in denying them the resources they need to plan and carry out their terrorist activities."

In Gaza, Hamas said: "The American decision to include Haniya on the terrorist list is a failed attempt to pressure the resistance.

"This decision will not deter us from continuing the resistance option to expel the occupation."

Hamas has fought three wars with Israel since 2008. The group receives military support from Iran.

Iran "continues to support a rogues' gallery of terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and others," Nathan Sales, the US State Department coordinator for counter-terrorism, said in a speech to an Israeli think tank on Wednesday.

He added that Tehran gives Palestinian militant groups "potentially up to $100 million annually."

- 'Every red line -

Haniya replaced Khaled Meshaal, who now lives in Doha in exile, atop the Hamas movement. Unlike Meshaal, Haniya will remain in the Gaza Strip.

Also known as Abu Abed, Haniya was born in Gaza's Shati refugee camp in January 1963 to parents who fled when Israel was created in 1948.

Hamas has frequently highlighted his modest background as a counterpoint to officials within president Mahmud Abbas's Palestinian Authority, who have been accused of being corrupt and too easily compliant with Israel or the United States.

Relations between Washington and the Palestinians have been severely strained since US President Donald Trump broke with decades of policy in December to name Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

The Hamas leader voiced rage over the decision, saying it "crosses every red line," and called for a new intifada, or uprising.

"This Zionist policy supported by the US cannot be confronted unless we ignite a new intifada," Haniya said.

Days of sometimes violent demonstrations in the Palestinian territories and other parts of the Middle East ensued. Washington says the new embassy will open in Jerusalem in 2019.US President Donald Trump is offering a path to citizenship for "Dreamers" in return for changes that experts say will cut immigration overall

A showdown over US immigration policy loomed Wednesday after President Donald Trump laid out a tough deal in his State of The Union address that offers citizenship to 1.8 million "Dreamers" in exchange for sharp overall cuts to immigration.

Less than two weeks after Democrats forced a three-day shutdown of the government over the issue, the Republican president said he would not give in to anything less than a harsh cutback on existing immigration and massive funding for a wall on the Mexican border.

In exchange, Trump is offering a 12-year pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million people who came to the US illegally as children, 700,000 of whom are set to lose their current protection from deportation on March 6.

Democrats are pushing for the fate of the Dreamers to be tackled as a priority, and are resisting Republican efforts to tie it into a broader bargain on immigration.

The stalemate led Democrats to block a one-month budget extension on January 19, forcing a partial shutdown of the federal government, and the same threat looms over the new deadline for a long-term budget, February 8.

In his annual speech before Congress late Tuesday, Trump again portrayed legal and illegal immigration as a threat to the country, highlighting murders by gang members from other countries and terror attacks by people who entered the United States legally.

"For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities. They have allowed millions of low-wage workers to compete for jobs and wages against the poorest Americans. Most tragically, they have caused the loss of many innocent lives," Trump said.

"My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans -- to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream. Because Americans are Dreamers too."

- Democrats: Trump 'uncompromising' -

With the immigrant population a crucial part of their voter base, Democrats sought to frame Trump's speech as demeaning and uncompromising.

Representative Joe Kennedy, chosen by the party to answer Trump's speech, began with a paean to new foreign arrivals and their contributions to the country.

"We are here in Fall River, Massachusetts -- a proud American city, built by immigrants," he said.

Speaking in Spanish, he tried to assuage the mostly Latino Dreamers.

"To all the Dreamers watching tonight, let me be clear: You are a part of our story. We will fight for you. We will not walk away."

Speaking on NPR radio, early Wednesday Democratic Senator Chris Murphy accused Trump of using the Dreamers as "political pawns."

"The president doubled down on his rhetoric, demonizing immigrants and trying to make Americans afraid of people who are crossing our border to come here to seek a better life," he said.

"We didn't get any closer to a deal on immigration or on the federal budget. We got further away," he said.

- Dreamers vs. immigration cuts -

Democrats have pressed since last year for separate legislation to deal with the fate of 690,000 "Dreamer" immigrants who are registered under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, established by president Barack Obama in 2012 to protect their presence in the country.

Trump cancelled the program in September, but is now offering a 12 year path to citizenship that goes beyond DACA recipients, extending to all those who arrived in the country as youths and children and have grown up here.

As a counterpart, however, he wants $25 billion for a border wall, an end to the "green card lottery," and a sharp cutback to family-based, or "chain" migration.

Immigration groups say that will reduce overall immigration by as much as half, and Democrats say the chain migration cutback will hurt families.

Democratic Representative Steny Hoyer called Trump's proposal "draconian."

"His immigration proposal betrays family values and uses Dreamers as a bargaining chip to harm other families."

Democratic Congresswoman Jackie Speier said Wednesday that Trump's stance was a non-starter.

"I think we are nowhere," she said on CNN. Without a "clean" DACA fix, and a budget bill without his immigration demands, "I think we will be teetering on another shutdown, which is horrible."

"Nobody wants a shutdown," she said. "What we need to do is be responsible adults and realize we're not going to get everything we want, and carve a pathway forward."Republican Senator Jeff Flake (R) and others are pictured outside of a train that collided with a garbage truck near Crozet, Virginia

A train carrying several dozen Republican lawmakers including US House Speaker Paul Ryan collided with a garbage truck Wednesday in Virginia, killing one person and sending six others, including a congressman, to hospital, officials said.

The White House said no members of Congress were seriously injured, and that President Donald Trump had been briefed on the accident.

At least 300 people, including lawmakers, their families and staff, were aboard the train from Washington bound for a Republican policy retreat in West Virginia.

The truck that was struck was carrying three people, one of whom was killed and another seriously injured, Senator Bill Cassidy, a licensed physician who helped attend to the injured, said on Twitter.

"There is one confirmed fatality and one serious injury. There are no serious injuries among members of Congress or their staff," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone that has been affected by this incident."

A train carrying US Republican lawmakers to a retreat collided with a garbage truck near Crozet, Virginia

Train operator Amtrak said two crew members and three passengers were transported to a local hospital with minor injuries, and that transportation safety officials were investigating at the scene of the accident in Crozet.

It said that while the event was under investigation, "this is an opportunity to remind everyone about the importance of exercising caution around railroad rights-of-way."

The engine, which according to lawmaker photographs was mangled in the crash, derailed, but the rest of the cars remained upright on the tracks, according to Amtrak.

Congressman Jason Lewis, a Republican from Minnesota, was taken to a hospital to be checked for a concussion, his office said.

- 'Harsh' impact -

Republican lawmakers left Washington Wednesday bound for the historic Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, for their annual three-day retreat

Congressman Tom Cole said first responders evacuated at least two people who were injured, and who were apparently on the truck.

Shortly after the accident, Ryan's office said the House speaker was "fine."

Vice President Mike Pence, who flew in later in the day, delivered an evening address to lawmakers at the three-day retreat west of the US capital.

Pence said he was in the Oval Office with President Donald Trump when the news broke.

"We were both deeply troubled at the initial reports but quickly relieved that the scope of the accident was not larger," he said.

"Days like today especially I just want you to know -- to you and your families -- thank you for your service to America."

Trump is due to headline the event on Thursday.

House Republican Greg Walden tweeted a photograph of the scene, showing people standing off the train tracks next to a badly-damaged truck, with garbage and debris strewn on the ground.

"We're fine, but our train hit a garbage truck. Members with medical training are assisting the drivers of the truck," Walden said.

The accident quickly became a security concern for police and security personnel tasked with guarding members of Congress, as lawmakers jumped off the disabled train to aid the injured.

Senator Jeff Flake described a chaotic scene along the tracks, where he said he helped carry a badly-injured man away from the truck and watched emergency responders try but fail to revive the person who died.

"It was harsh, it threw everyone up in their seat," Flake told CNN of the impact.

Last June, Flake was among several Republicans at a congressional baseball game practice when a gunman opened fire on lawmakers. Colleague Steve Scalise was gravely wounded, and Flake ran to his aid once the shooter was down.

Dozens of Republican members of the House of Representatives and the Senate left Washington earlier Wednesday, the morning after Trump delivered his maiden State of the Union speech before Congress.

They were bound for the historic Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, for their annual retreat. The event's organizers said the retreat "will proceed with an adjusted program," including a moment of prayer for those involved in the accident.

Top House Democrat Nancy Pelosi said she was "praying that all are well both on the train and off."Former president of the Commercial Farmers Union Deon Theron inspects a disused cattle dip on Eden farm in 2017 in Beatrice, Zimbabwe, where he ran a successful dairy before being forced off the property during the Mugabe land reform programme

Zimbabwe has announced that white farmers still in business after controversial land reforms will be able to obtain 99-year leases, signalling a new government approach to the key agricultural sector.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who replaced the ousted Robert Mugabe in November, has vowed to revive the moribund economy, boost investment and create employment after years of decline.

The agriculture ministry directed "all remaining white farmers be issued with 99-year leases instead of five as per previous arrangements," according to a statement seen by AFP on Wednesday.

Thousands of white farmers were forced off their land by violent mobs or evicted, with Mugabe saying the reforms would help black people marginalised under British colonial rule.

Critics blame the land redistribution, which began in 2000, for the collapse in agricultural production that saw the former regional breadbasket become a perennial food importer.

Mnangagwa, a former Mugabe ally who came to power following a military intervention, has pledged to compensate farmers who lost their properties, but said they would not be given their land back.

Ben Gilpin, director of the Commercial Farmers' Union, reacted cautiously to the policy announcement.

"We have seen the letter and we are seeking clarification," he told AFP. "People have gone to various offices and there hasn't been a uniform response."

The CFU says there are about 200 white farmers remaining in Zimbabwe.Camp 5 at the US military's prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba on January 26, 2017

President Donald Trump's decision to keep Guantanamo Bay open marks the start of a new chapter for the prison, and highlights the administration's intentions for captured Islamic State jihadists.

Trump signed an executive order late Tuesday reversing his predecessor Barack Obama's ultimately fruitless 2009 directive to shutter the facility that has drawn global scorn.

Trump's order indicates the prison could be needed for IS fighters, hundreds of whom have been captured by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed alliance in northern Syria.

"I am asking Congress to ensure that in the fight against ISIS and Al-Qaeda, we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists wherever we chase them down, wherever we find them, and in many cases for them, it will now be Guantanamo Bay," Trump said during his State of the Union Speech on Tuesday.

Under president George W. Bush, the military hastily built the prison camp in southeastern Cuba following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.

Roughly 780 people have been detained at Guantanamo, mostly for their alleged ties to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The prison predates IS by years.

US military officials have recently began openly discussing the fate of IS detainees, mainly foreign fighters, held by the SDF and other US-backed militias in northern Syria.

General Paul Selva, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says there are now "hundreds" of such detainees.

Officials are worried those held en masse could become even more radicalized.

It's an experience America remembers well from the Iraq war, when the US held hundreds of prisoners, including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, at a camp on the Kuwaiti border.

He was eventually released and went on to lead IS.

"In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds of dangerous terrorists, only to meet them again on the battlefield -- including the ISIS leader, al-Baghdadi," Trump said.

Colonel Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the US-led coalition fighting IS, said the SDF captures about six foreign fighters a day.

The US and the SDF are communicating with the jihadists' home nations in attempts to repatriate them, but some countries do not recognize the SDF and will not work with them.

"This is a global issue, a global challenge that needs to be addressed," Dillon told AFP.

- 'Bad dudes' -

Activists protest Guantanamo Bay during a January rally in Washington

As things stand, Guantanamo has not received any new inmates since 2008. Spokeswoman Commander Sarah Higgins said there were currently no plans to change that.

"We are not, at this time, adding more personnel," she said.

But on the campaign trail, Trump vowed to load Guantanamo with "bad dudes," and said it would be "fine" if US terror suspects were sent there for trial.

Since becoming president, Trump has even mused about sending Americans to Guantanamo, though federal judges would likely bar any such attempt.

His order states it should not be "construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention" of US citizens.

Still, Trump in October suggested the man accused of carrying out a deadly truck attack along a bike path in New York could be sent to Guantanamo, but he soon backed off the idea.

- 'Forever prisoners' -

Rights groups, critics and legal observers reacted swiftly to Trump's order, blasting both the cost of the prison and the image it projects to the world.

"Guantanamo has been proven time and again to be harmful to America's values and security," American Civil Liberties Union attorney Jonathan Hafetz, who has helped litigate for Guantanamo detainees and written extensively about the prison, told AFP.

"It does not enhance America's security to hold detainees at an offshore prison established to keep individuals outside the country and deny them the right to a fair trial."

The ACLU said it costs the American taxpayer $445 million a year to detain the remaining inmates. Critics say it would be far cheaper and speed up prosecutions if the men were moved to a maximum-security prison in America.

But conservative lawmakers lauded Trump's order, pointing to figures showing some former Guantanamo detainees had taken up arms again.

"Far too many terrorists released from GTMO have returned to the fight and directly threaten the safety of American troops and our citizens at home and abroad," Republican Senator Marco Rubio said, using the military abbreviation for Guantanamo.

The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Representative Adam Smith, accused Trump of "taking us in the wrong direction."

"Today, Guantanamo continues to be an international eyesore that undercuts our national security, damages our credibility with our international partners and is a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars," he said.

First under Bush and then under Obama, the US released hundreds of detainees from the prison.

The most notorious inmates, including several alleged 9/11 co-conspirators -- among them accused mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- are still awaiting trial.

A prison cell at Guantanamo's Camp 5 detention facility

Their cases have been beset by legal woes in Guantanamo's much-maligned criminal justice system that grants detainees -- who are considered "unprivileged enemy belligerents" -- only some of the legal rights that US federal courts guarantee.

Of the 41 inmates remaining, about 26 are trapped in legal purgatory.

These so-called "forever prisoners" have never been charged -- yet they have been deemed too dangerous to release.US food distributors are accusing major chicken producers of manipulating prices in a suit

Two US food distributors have filed suit against major chicken producers for alleged manipulation and artificially inflating prices in a market worth almost $30 billion a year.

Sysco and US Foods say that the producers faced low prices and anemic profits in 2008 when they began voluntarily and in a concerted manner limiting their hen supplies to lower their production levels, according to court documents seen by AFP.

The "joint efforts to impose supply-side 'discipline'," included public statements by their executives and marked a significant departure from industry practice, according to the two separate lawsuits filed Tuesday by Sysco and US Foods before a federal court in the state of Illinois.

They are further alleged to have manipulated an indicator called the Georgia Dock which determined the price of chickens but was calculated with information provided by the producers themselves.

That indicator was eliminated at the end of 2016. Florida state prosecutors in May 2017 opened an investigation into possible manipulations linked to the pricing indicator.

The US produced $26 billion worth of chicken meat in 2016, according to the Department of Agriculture.

Reached by AFP, one of the two largest American chicken producers, Pilgrim's Pride, said the case is completely without merit.

"We look forward to defending our interests through the appropriate legal process," a spokesman said.

Tyson Foods, the other giant of American chicken production, also dismissed the lawsuits and vowed "to vigorously defend" the company.

"Follow-on complaints like these are common in antitrust litigation," the company said through a spokesman.

In its lawsuit, Sysco said that a small producer in Georgia, Fieldale Farms, has already agreed to pay $2.25 million dollars in an out-of-court settlement.

Sysco and US Foods have not said how much financial compensation they are seeking.Former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar is facing his accusers once again, in a sentencing hearing on a final set of sex abuse charges

The number of women and girls now known to have been abused by Larry Nassar has risen to 265, a Michigan judge told a final sentencing hearing Wednesday where the former USA Gymnastics doctor faced his accusers once again.

At least 65 of Nassar's victims were to speak out over several days at the last of three sentencing hearings for the disgraced doctor who molested his patients for two decades under the guise of medical treatment.

The 54-year-old Nassar was sentenced last week to 40 to 175 years for molesting girls at his Michigan State University (MSU) clinic, in addition to a prior sentence of 60 years for possessing child pornography.

The poignant accounts of abuse suffered by more than 150 young women and girls, who took the stand over the past two weeks, have had profound repercussions for the US sporting world, with resignations, retirements and new investigations announced at a rapid pace.

Under pressure, the entire board of USA Gymnastics has stepped down as of Wednesday.

As the final hearings got under way, star gymnast Simone Biles slammed the US Olympic Committee for failing to reach out to her after she revealed this month she had been molested by Nassar.

She revealed she was initially in denial -- and broke down when she realized she had been abused.

"I remember just bawling my eyes out," the four-time Olympic gold medal winner told NBC News. "It feels like he took a part of me that I can't get back."

Biles, along with fellow gold-medalists Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas and McKayla Maroney, have all identified themselves as Nassar victims, along with scores of female athletes in gymnastics and others who sought medical treatment at Michigan State.

- 'Criminal of the worst kind' -

The small courtroom in Charlotte, Michigan filled up early in the morning, long before Nassar was brought in for hearings that were expected stretch into early next week.

Abuse victim Jessica Thomashow confronted Larry Nassar as his sentencing hearing on a final set of abuse charges began in Charlotte, Michigan on January 31, 2018

"We have over 265 identified victims and an infinite number of victims in the state, in the country, and all over the world," Judge Janice Cunningham said.

"As a result, by allowing live streaming and tweeting, all individuals are able to participate in this process."

Jessica Thomashow, 17, who had also testified at Nassar's previous sentencing hearing, urged the judge to impose the maximum allowable sentence.

"Larry Nassar is evil," she said. "Larry Nassar is a criminal of the worst kind."

Under a plea agreement, Nassar could get a minimum 25 to 40 years in prison, in addition to his prior sentences.

- 'Best friends' -

Gymnast Madison Bonofiglio testified against Larry Nassar in March 2017, when molestation charges were initially brought. She said she knew of at least 10 other victims who have not come forward.

Mya Covey was one of 65 victim of former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar who were set to speak out during his final sentencing hearings

"This really makes me sad that some of my best friends think because they were only assaulted by Nassar five to 10 times, that it doesn't matter," she said.

The latest hearing relates to abuse that took place at the Twistars gymnastics training facility. Approximately 30 statements were read Wednesday, and another 35 expected when court resumes Friday.

The victims' courtroom revelations have sent shockwaves through the sport.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered an investigation of the Karolyi Ranch -- until recently the training ground for America's top gymnasts, where victims said they were abused.

USA Gymnastics severed ties with the ranch and three board members resigned, but that failed to quell the furor. The US Olympics Committee demanded all USA Gymnastics board members resign, and they complied Wednesday.

"USA Gymnastics embraces not only the changes necessary," it said in a statement, "but we also will hold the organization to the highest standards of care and safety."

US lawmakers on Tuesday passed a bipartisan bill mandating reporting of all sexual assault allegations in amateur sports.

Meanwhile, the fallout from the Nassar case may yet grow, with the US Olympic Committee, MSU and USA Gymnastics all facing investigations in what victims see as a belated push to establish who knew about Nassar's conduct, and what could have been done to stop him.Pall bearers carry coffins during the funeral service for people killed during clashes between cattle herders and farmers, on January 11, 2018

Suspected reprisal attacks between herdsmen and farmers killed at least 14 people in central Nigeria, police said on Wednesday, the latest violence of an escalating conflict.

Amnesty International said on Tuesday that 168 people have been killed in communal violence this year alone, warning it is "spiralling" out of control and heaping pressure on President Muhammadu Buhari to act.

In central Nigeria's Nasarawa state, gunmen suspected of being cattle herders killed at least seven farmers.

Nasarawa police spokesman Idrisu Kennedy said armed men stormed the farming village of Kadarko in the Keana district of the state on Tuesday and opened fire on residents.

"We received report of an attack on (an ethnic) Tiv neighbourhood in Kadarko by unknown gunmen who opened fire, killing seven people," he said.

The attack was believed to be a reprisal against Fulani herders after suspected Tiv gunmen on Sunday killed 73 cows in the same village and two herders went missing.

Kennedy refused to comment on the identities of those behind the two attacks.

Kadarko lies on the border with Benue state, which has been gripped in a cycle of violence between Tiv farming communities and Fulani herders.

On Wednesday morning, suspected Tiv youths murdered seven suspected herders in Gboko, Benue state, in what police described as another possible reprisal attack.

"After these seven persons were brutally murdered, their remains were also burnt," said Benue state commissioner of police Fatai Owoseni.

Gboko has been placed under a "dawn to dusk" curfew, Owoseni said, warning that more reprisal attacks could take place in the coming days.

Herders are alleged to have killed at least 80 farmers three weeks ago in attacks that sparked outrage locally and ignited a fierce debate in the country about the long-running conflict.

Thousands of people have been killed in recent decades in a dispute fundamentally over land and grazing rights that has become increasingly politicised and exacerbated by religious and ethnic rivalries.

The Tiv are predominantly Christian while the Fulani are mainly Muslim.

The violence has intensified as herders from the arid north move southwards in search of greener pastures for their livestock as a result of desertification.Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) has prepared a potentially explosive memo that reportedly calls into question the FBI's surveillance of a former Trump campaign aide

The FBI warned Wednesday it has "grave concerns" over the accuracy of a secret Congressional memo that could depict the agency as deeply politicized, as President Donald Trump's top aide signalled the White House would allow the document's release.

Based on highly classified information, the four-page memo -- written by Republican lawmaker Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee -- suggests that the Justice Department and the FBI abused their power in running surveillance on a member of President Donald Trump's election campaign in 2016.

The Justice Department and the FBI have actively lobbied against its release, which has the potential to taint special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians, an investigation that is edging closer to the president himself.

But White House chief of staff John Kelly said Wednesday that the document could be made public soon, once White House lawyers have vetted it.

"It'll be released here pretty quick, I think, and the whole world can see it," Kelly told Fox Radio.

"This president .... wants everything out so the American people can make up their own minds. And if there are people to be held accountable, then so be it."

The FBI stressed its concerns in an extraordinary, unsigned public statement that demonstrated its growing rift with Trump and Nunes, a staunch defender in Congress of the president.

"With regard to the House Intelligence Committee's memorandum, the FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it," it said.

"As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo's accuracy."

In a statement, Nunes countered that it was "no surprise" that the Justice Department and FBI would oppose the release of "information related to surveillance abuses at these agencies."

"It's clear that top officials used unverified information in a court document to fuel a counter-intelligence investigation during an American political campaign," he said.

- Espionage probe during 2016 election -

Nunes' committee voted on Monday to release the memo, distilled from a much larger volume of documents used by the FBI to get a so-called FISA national security warrant to spy on Trump campaign official Carter Page, who was suspected of espionage.

Media reports, citing lawmakers who have seen the document, say it alleges that to obtain the warrant, they submitted as evidence the contentious and unproven "Russia dossier."

The Trump-Russia probe

The dossier includes information on contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele and financed in part by Democrat Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

Republicans say it provides evidence that the Justice Department, allegedly full of pro-Clinton officials, actively sought to undermine Trump.

Because of its sensitive nature, to release the memo, Nunes needs the president's approval.

If Trump does not act either way, Nunes can release it as early as Saturday.

- Trump relations with FBI sink -

But Democrats say the memo is based on selective information that does not reflect the entire classified file on the FISA warrant application on Page.

Instead, they say, Nunes is running a politically-motivated stunt to smear the Mueller collusion investigation, which is also examining whether Trump tried to obstruct the probe.

Indeed, Democrats raised questions Wednesday over whether Trump worked with Nunes to produce the memo.

"Today's announcement that the FBI has 'grave concerns' about the Nunes memo is the latest reason not to release it," said Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee.

"It's clear the goal is to undermine the special counsel's investigation."

The release of the memo could sour relations between the president and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which Trump has repeatedly attacked as biased against him.

In May 2017, Trump fired FBI director James Comey, who refused to swear personal loyalty to the president as he pressed forward on the Russia investigation.

Trump has also alleged that the FBI deliberately went easy on Clinton in its 2016 criminal investigation into her misuse of a private email server when she was secretary of state.

That investigation was led by Comey and his deputy Andrew McCabe.

Amid an internal FBI investigation into the handling of the Clinton case, McCabe agreed Monday to step down as FBI deputy director -- two months before his planned retirement.

Leaked text messages of two FBI investigators involved in both the Clinton and Russia probes show them expressing strong anti-Trump feelings.A bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota collapse during rush hour in August 2007, killing 13 people, illustrating the need to upgrade the aging infrastructure in the United States

In his first State of the Union address, President Donald Trump called for a $1.5 trillion infrastructure initiative to upgrade America's aging transportation networks.

But the bridge from wishes to reality begins with finding the necessary funds, a topic he did not address in the Tuesday night speech.

- What are the facts? -

Built for the most part between the 1950s and 1970s, US highways, bridges, railroads, airports and other infrastructure are showing their age. Even Trump said they were "crumbling."

A third of US bridges, or 226,837, and a third of highway overpasses, 17,726, are in need of repair, according to the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA).

And the association says that is just "the tip of the iceberg."

- Longtime worry -

The American Society of Civil Engineers first sounded the alarm about decaying infrastructure decades ago. In 1998, it gave US infrastructure a "D" grade and put the total cost of investing in modernization at $2 trillion over 10 years.

In 2007, a bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota collapsed killing 13 people, and federal investigators found the structure was not designed to handle the increased use it was seeing as a major commuter route into the city.

Former President Barack Obama pushed for years for Congress to fund a rebuilding program to address the problems and create jobs but Republicans blocked the effort almost entirely.

- Trump's plan? -

In his address, Trump called on Congress to act but gave few details. He claimed that winning regulatory approvals to build a road could take as much as a decade, whereas New York's 102-story Empire State Building was completed in about a year.

"This is not a plan, this is a number," said Jacob Kirkegaard, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

He noted that the Trump administration has promised for months to release a detailed proposal.

So far, the White House says it favors a public-private partnership. Trump's budget proposal last year included $200 billion for infrastructure, in the hopes of generating a total of a $1 trillion from private investors as well as state and local governments.

"I think this is a completely unrealistic aspiration," Kirkegaard told AFP. "An aspiration is not a plan."

Lawmakers seem unlikely to approve funding, especially given that massive tax cuts approved in December already have ballooned budget deficit forecasts.

- Other options -

Other, less politically palatable options could involve charging tolls on roads and bridges -- something many US states already do -- or raising the federal gasoline tax, which has long been used for road projects but has not changed since 1993.

The choice of what to build and where also will have to break with the tradition of "pork barrel" spending which funds infrastructure projects to help political allies, eager to unveil a new road or bridge in their districts.

Different types of infrastructure projects have distinct funding models. Airports are handled by private investors, and the US Interstate Highway System was built by the federal government although its upkeep is mainly a responsibility for states, while county governments are responsible for smaller local roads.

- Crucial to the economy -

"The nearly 48,000-mile (77,249-kilometer) Interstate Highway System literally moves the US economy. It carries 75 percent of the nation's heavy truck traffic," according to ARTBA.

And traffic bottlenecks cost the trucking industry $60 billion annually in fuel and lost productivity, which "increases the cost of everything we make, buy or export,"ARTBA's chief economist Alison Premo Black said in a statement this week.

Senior White House economic adviser Gary Cohn said this week there was broad consensus on the need to address aging US infrastructure.

"I think we all know how important infrastructure is to this country and how it is holding back economic growth and it's holding back productivity," he said.NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) - A helicopter crashed into a Southern California home shortly after takeoff Tuesday, killing three people and injuring two others, officials said.

The four-seat Robinson R44 went down in a gated community in Newport Beach, about 45 miles (72 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles. Four people were on board the helicopter.

One of the killed or injured people was a bystander on the ground outside the house, authorities said.

Police investigate the scene where several people were killed and others injured when a helicopter crashed into a home in Newport Beach, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. The four-seat Robinson R44 went down in a gated community in Newport Beach, about 45 miles southeast of Los Angeles. Revolution Aviation, which is based at the airport and operated the helicopter, offers helicopter and airplane classes, the use of aircraft for photography and video production as well as sightseeing flights. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via AP)

The injured were taken to hospitals but there was no immediate word on their condition.

"I was upstairs and all of a sudden the house just shook and I thought, 'Oh my gosh, we're having an earthquake,'" said Marian Michaels, who lives behind the home where the helicopter crashed.

Roger Johnson was doing some woodwork in his garage when he heard the sound of a helicopter and then a tremendous boom across the street.

"I turned to look out of the garage and that's when I see this piece of metal flying through the air and hitting a bush and garage door," Johnson said. "Then I heard someone scream - a real for-real horror scream, like something terrible had happened."

Johnson rushed to the wreckage and several people started to try to pull victims out of the helicopter. That's when Johnson urged them not to move them for fear of further injuring them.

A neighbor who heard the crash told KCAL-TV that he saw the pilot lying injured but alive on the grass and three other people inside the wreckage.

"We tried to pry them out but we didn't want to touch them," said the neighbor, who was not identified by the television station. "We didn't want to take a chance of hurting anybody."

"The three people were all crunched in there together," he said. "One I could see moving an arm."

The helicopter crashed into the house with such force that it was barely recognizable. The crushed metal sat in a heap on the side of the house, its tail rotor sticking out of the roof of a nearby home a 6-foot (1.8-meter) chunk lying down the street in front of yet another house.

Audrey Ellis, who lives next door to the house where the crash happened, was not home at the time but said her neighbors told her they were in the kitchen when the helicopter hit the bedroom of their house.

"It's so scary," Ellis said, adding that her neighbors weren't hurt. "I'm so thankful."

The aircraft had taken off from John Wayne Airport, said Ian Gregor, a spokesman with the Federal Aviation Administration. The airport is about a mile (1.6 kilometers) from the crash site. There was no fire.

Messages seeking comment from Revolution Aviation, which is based at the airport and operated the helicopter, were not immediately returned.

The company offers helicopter and airplane classes, the use of aircraft for photography and video production as well as sightseeing flights.

A woman who knows someone on a helicopter that crashed listens to a witness hoping to get information on any survivors near the scene in Newport Beach, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Authorities say several were killed after a small helicopter crashed into a home near John Wayne Airport. (Leonard Ortiz/The Orange County Register via AP)

This still frame from video provided by KNBC-TV shows the wreckage of a Robinson R44 helicopter after it crashed into a home in Newport Beach, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. (KABC-TV via AP)

Family of the crash victims react upon speaking to a Newport Beach police officer and seeing the scene where several people were killed and others injured when a helicopter crashed into a home in Newport Beach, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. The four-seat Robinson R44 went down in a gated community in Newport Beach, about 45 miles southeast of Los Angeles. Revolution Aviation, which is based at the airport and operated the helicopter, offers helicopter and airplane classes, the use of aircraft for photography and video production as well as sightseeing flights. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via AP)

Crews clean up near where a helicopter crashed into a house in Newport Beach, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. The four-seat Robinson R44 crashed shortly after takeoff at John Wayne Airport, killing several people and injuring a few others. (AP Photo/Amy Taxin)LOS ANGELES (AP) - Helen Mirren says her new film "Winchester " isn't a horror flick, but rather a ghost story with foreign roots and a distinct American element - the psychological impact of gun deaths.

Mirren plays the real-life Sarah Winchester, a 19th-century heiress who inherited a massive fortune from her husband's creation of the Winchester repeating rifle shortly after the Civil War. In the film, Winchester believes she is haunted by those killed by the firearm, which allowed for more rapid firing than previous rifles.

"It's a ghost story, hopefully in the tradition, the very grand tradition, of Japanese ghost stories, ghost films," Mirren said in a recent interview. "You know, the Japanese love ghost stories and have great belief in the power of the ancestor spirits, of the ancestors, as many cultures do."

FILE - In this Nov. 11, 2017 file photo, Helen Mirren arrives at the 9th annual Governors Awards in Los Angeles. Mirren says her latest film "Winchester" isn't really a horror film, but rather a ghost story with a very distinct American element. The 72-year-old Oscar winner plays Sarah Winchester, a heiress who inherited a massive fortune from her husband's invention of the Winchester repeating rifle after the Civil War. In the film, Winchester is haunted by the people killed by the famous firearm. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, file)

Part of the film was shot at Winchester's mansion in San Jose, California, where she moved after the death of her husband in 1881. Now known as the "Winchester Mystery House," it is a popular tourist attraction and has more than 160 rooms, 10 thousand windows, two thousand doors and forty staircases.

According the lore around Winchester's life, she ordered constant construction on the home to try to confuse the ghosts she believed were haunting her.

"There are many theories why she did this," Mirren said. "And one of the theories that we explore in the film. She was trying to placate the ghosts of the people who'd been killed by the Winchester rifle. She felt their deaths very strongly. She felt responsible. She felt the weight of their deaths upon them. And she was trying, in her own way, to placate their spirits."

Despite "Winchester's" themes, Mirren, 72, said the film isn't trying to make any broad statements about gun ownership in America.

"What I like about it and I think ... about America is that it doesn't deal with whether you can carry guns or not. That's kind of not the issue," she said. "The issue is more putting the question mark or the weight of moral decision upon the people who make a fortune from making arms - whether they're guns, bombs, grenades ... or whatever it is. It puts a moral decision upon the people who make huge fortunes from making and then I would say the armaments dealers in the world I would like to see it... I see it personally in a much more global way."Rick Timbs of the Statewide School Finance Consortium told Cayuga County-area educators and state representatives that New York state places financial burdens on less affluent school districts because of an unfair state aid distribution formula.

That was five years ago.

Last week, Timbs said much the same thing. In fact, similar meetings are held just about every year, and the overall concern of school districts always sounds about the same: we need more state aid.

But because Port Byron's concerns might not exactly align with Auburn's or Southern Cayuga's, it isn't enough to call for change. The tricky part is to make something concrete happen.

This time around, the state representatives put the onus on the school districts to define exactly what they want to see changed.

"What can we do to make your districts less costly?" state Sen. John DeFrancisco asked. Come up with a list of your top five concerns, state Sen. Pam Helming suggested.

We are used to hearing members of the Assembly and Senate (especially Republicans) put all the blame for school finance issues on Gov. Andrew Cuomo (a Democrat). But the job of representing people is putting in some work on their behalf, not simply showing up at meetings.Former Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner served three months in jail after a jury convicted him of sexually assaulting a young woman

Stanford University is canceling plans to put a plaque on the campus site where a woman was sexually assaulted by a former school swimmer after the two sides failed to agree on a quote for the marker.

University spokesman Ernest Miranda said on Tuesday that the university is deferring to the woman, who decided not to participate after the school rejected two quotes she offered from a statement she read during the June 2016 sentencing of Brock Turner.

Miranda said the victim rejected three alternative quotes the university suggested from the same victim impact statement.

Stanford law professor Michele Dauber, a family friend of the victim who suggested the marker, said the university's 'poor handling of the situation' scuttled a plaque meant to acknowledge the sexual assault.

She said the plaque was intended to recognize the victim's 'voice and experience.'

The first quote suggested by the victim read: 'You are beautiful, you are to be valued, respected, undeniably, every minute of every day, you are powerful and nobody can take that away from you.'

The second read: 'On nights when you feel alone, I am with you. When people doubt you or dismiss you, I am with you. I fought every day for you. So never stop fighting, I believe you.'

Miranda and the victim's lawyer, Michele Dauber, responded with a different quote, which Stanford considered but ultimately rejected because a sexual assault counselor reviewed it and 'felt that it would be triggering to some sexual assault survivors.'

At this point, Dauber again rejected the quotes Stanford had suggested, and 'subsequently communicated that she did not want any quote to be used.'

Stanford University says it will defer to a victim sexually assaulted on campus by Turner and scrap plans for a plaque to mark the spot where she was attacked, above

Dauber said the university offered unacceptable alternatives, including a quote that reads: 'I'm right here, I'm okay, everything's okay, I'm right here.'

She said the quote the university suggested was an out-of-context reference to the victim trying to comfort her sister upon their first meeting after the assault.

Dauber said the decision to reject the original two quotes the victim suggested 'was a very poor choice.'

The victim was referred to as Emily Doe in court to protect her identity. Her statement was circulated widely on social media.

'Emily Doe's impact statement inspired millions around the world,' Dauber said. 'It would have been a real benefit to the Stanford community to have a quote from this important piece of writing selected by the author for that location.'

The woman who was sexually assaulted by Turner, pictured outside court in 2016, will no longer participate in the creation of a plaque after the university rejected her quote suggestions

Turner served three months in jail after a jury convicted him of sexually assaulting the unconscious woman after a fraternity party in 2015. He also is required to register as a sex offender.

Turner's relatively light sentence prompted nationwide protests and criticism over how sexual assault victims are often treated by the justice system.

Dauber is leading a campaign to remove Santa Clara County Judge Aaron Persky from office because of his sentence of Turner.

The campaign gathered enough signatures to place the recall election on the June ballot.CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) - The judge who let partial recordings be played to jurors of the former president of a truckstop chain making racist remarks explains in a new court filing that they stemmed from a work meeting and reflected on the former executive's character.

News outlets report U.S. District Judge Curtis Collier filed a memo Monday explaining reasons for letting jurors hear excerpts. Audio played in court included former Pilot Flying J President Mark Hazelwood using a racial epithet and saying derogatory things about the Cleveland Browns.

Pilot Flying J is controlled by the family of Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam and Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam. The Haslams weren't at the meeting where the recordings were made and haven't been charged with any wrongdoing.

Hazelwood and three other ex-workers are accused in a scheme to shortchange trucking customers on diesel rebates.LIMA, Peru (AP) - The political party loyal to former President Alberto Fujimori expelled the ex-strongman's son Tuesday as a rift widened between his two children over the party's botched attempt to oust Peru's current president in December.

The son, Kenji Fujimori, led a group of rebellious lawmakers from the Popular Will party who blocked a legislative push by the party, headed by his sister, to remove Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski for alleged corruption linked to Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.

Two days later, the scandal-tainted Kuczynski granted a medical pardon to Alberto Fujimori in what many see as a closed-door political deal. The elder Fujimori had been serving a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses and graft committed during his 1990-2000 rule. The pardon angered many Peruvians and has brought periodic protests, including on Tuesday.

Demonstrators wear defaced masks depicting the children of Peru's former President Alberto Fujimori, from left, Kenji and Keiko, during a protest against medical pardon granted their father, in Lima, Peru, Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. The party loyal to Alberto Fujimori, called Popular Will, is expelling from its ranks the ex-strongman's son Kenji, as a rift widens between him and his older sister Keiko, over last month's botched attempt to oust the country's sitting President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

Although Kenji Fujimori obtained the most votes of any lawmaker in 2016 congressional elections, he has taken a back seat in the party to his older sister, Keiko Fujimori, who narrowly lost the presidency to Kuczynski in a runoff election.

His expulsion was the biggest sign of discord between the siblings.

Kenji Fujimori confirmed on his Twitter account the party's decision to remove him.

Keiko and Alberto Fujimori made no immediate public comment on his expulsion from the party.BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - A federal judge refused Tuesday to order a temporary halt to construction of a crude oil pipeline through a river swamp in south Louisiana, a setback for environmental groups challenging the project.

U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick denied the groups' request for a temporary restraining order that would have suspended pipeline construction in the environmentally fragile Atchafalaya Basin pending a hearing next week.

Environmental groups sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Jan. 11. The lawsuit accuses the Corps of violating the Clean Water Act and other environmental laws when it approved a permit for the Bayou Bridge pipeline project in December.

The Corps completed an environmental assessment for the project before issuing the permit. The groups' lawsuit claims that review was "plainly inadequate" and ultimately wants the court to vacate the permit.

Judge Dick, however, said she reviewed the Corps' 92-page environmental assessment and "cannot find that the Corps was arbitrary and capricious" in its review.

"Simply having an opposing opinion, or disagreeing with the mitigation plans imposed, is insufficient to establish a substantial likelihood of success on the merits, especially in light of the high deference that the law requires the Court to afford the Corps," she wrote.

Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners plans to build the 162-mile-long (261-kilometer), 24-inch-wide (60-centimeter-wide) pipeline from Lake Charles to St. James Parish, a path that crosses the basin.

Dick scheduled a Feb. 8 hearing for environmental groups' request for a preliminary injunction that would block construction of the pipeline through the basin until their lawsuit can be resolved. In the meantime, the groups had asked for a "short-term delay in construction." The groups didn't ask the court to suspend pipeline work outside the basin.

Earthjustice attorney Jan Hasselman said the judge's ruling is "not at all the final word" in the case.

"We look forward to meeting the judge in person and being able to demonstrate that this is the wrong project for the people of the Atchafalaya Basin," he said.

Dick said the plaintiffs correctly noted that they didn't have to "win the case" at this stage. But the judge said she couldn't justify the "extraordinary remedy" of a temporary restraining order because she isn't convinced it's "substantially likely" the groups will "prevail on the merits" of the case.

Energy Transfer Partners spokeswoman Alexis Daniel said in an email Tuesday that "construction activities" began in the basin earlier this month.

"Currently, we are in the primary stages, and are clearing and grading," she wrote.

The basin is the nation's largest river swamp and includes roughly 880,000 acres (356,000 hectares) of forested wetlands, according to the groups' lawsuit. In a court filing Monday, their lawyers described it as "one of the nation's ecological crown jewels" and "an economic powerhouse, providing rich opportunities for commercial and sport fishing, recreation, and tourism."

"But the Basin is under siege, with numerous threats including poor management of water and sediment, construction of barriers, and the 'death by a thousand cuts' of habitat loss," they wrote. "Leading this charge is the oil and gas industry, whose activities have irrevocably degraded the Basin."

Bayou Bridge Pipeline LLC, a joint venture of Energy Transfer Partners and Phillips 66, wasn't named as a defendant in the federal lawsuit. But the judge has allowed the company to intervene and participate in the case.

Energy Transfer Partners built the Dakota Access pipeline, a project that sparked a string of violent clashes between protesters and police in North Dakota in 2016 and 2017.

The Louisiana pipeline is designed to have a maximum capacity of 480,000 barrels, or roughly 20 million gallons (75 million liters), of crude a day. The groups' lawsuit says it "in essence" would be the final segment of a pipeline network connecting the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota with Louisiana refineries and export terminals.

Earthjustice attorneys filed the suit on behalf of Sierra Club, Waterkeeper Alliance, Gulf Restoration Network, Atchafalaya Basinkeeper and the Louisiana Crawfish Producers Association-West.Nevada gambling regulators are investigating the sexual misconduct allegations against casino mogul Steve Wynn.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board announced the investigation in a statement Tuesday.

The board says it opened the probe after completing a review, but it did not provide any details. Board chairwoman Becky Harris declined to comment.

Nevada state regulators have opened an investigation into sexual misconduct accusations leveled against Las Vegas casino magnate Steve Wynn (pictured left, with Trump in 2012)

Mr Wynn and wife Andrea Hissom were at one point a regular visitors to the White House

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that a number of women said they were harassed or assaulted by Wynn. One case led to a $7.5 million settlement with a manicurist.

Wynn, 76, has strongly denied the allegations, which he attributed to a campaign led by his ex-wife.

He resigned Saturday as finance chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Gambling regulators in Massachusetts, where Wynn's company is building a casino, are also looking into the allegations.

In addition, the China arm of Wynn's casino empire has said it will comply with Macau regulators as they seek more information.

Wynn married his first wife Elaine (left) in 1963, divorced her in 1986, remarried her in 1991 and divorced her once again in 2010. The pair are pictured here in 2005

A little closer to home, the Nevada Gaming Control Board revealed that it was conducting it's own investigation.

'After completing our review, the Nevada Gaming Control Board is conducting an investigation with regard to the allegations of sexual misconduct involving Steve Wynn. The Nevada Gaming Control Board will conduct its investigation in a thorough and judicious manner,' Board Chair Becky Harris was quoted as saying.

A spokesman for Wynn Resorts, Michael Weaver, said the company 'will fully cooperate with any review by regulators.'

His former spouse, Elaine Wynn, whom he accused of fomenting false allegations against him, has denied through her lawyer that she did any such thing.

The company's stock dropped more than 10 percent on Friday after publication of the Journal's article, closing the day at $180.29 per share on the Nasdaq exchange. As of Wednesday evening they were trading even lower at $165.50 a share.

Wynn is reported to have lost $462 million since allegations of sexual misconduct were made against him.

The value of his company's shares has plummeted since the allegations materialized

Hours later, the Wynn Resorts board said it had formed a special committee to conduct its own inquiry into the accusations.

That panel is chaired by Patricia Mulroy, who sits on the board's corporate governance and compliance committees and is a former member of the Nevada Gaming Commission.

In a recent court filing, his ex-wife Elaine alleges that a $7.5million payout was made in 2007 to a manicurist he forced into having sex with him at his Las Vegas property (above)

The Journal report marked the latest in a wave of sexual abuse and harassment allegations against powerful men in the United State during the past year, especially in the media and entertainment industries and politics.

The Journal said its report was based on interviews with dozens of people who had worked for Wynn and that none of the 150 individuals contacted for its story had reached out to the newspaper.

The allegations include a multi-million-dollar settlement with a manicurist, the paper reported.

The newspaper said that Wynn's actions were so well known that employees would sometimes enter fake appointments in the books to help other female workers avoid him.

One worker said that she was coerced into performing a sex act on Wynn with her hand at the end of his massages, adding that Wynn asked at one point if she could use her mouth rather than rubbing his penis to climax when they were done with the session.

That woman refused, but in 2005 another employee was not able to decline Wynn's alleged advances when he ordered her to disrobe and lie on a table so they could have sex.

She reported Wynn and received a $7.5million settlement, which was revealed by Wynn's ex-wife Elaine in court papers.

Wynn has also been accused by several employees of parading around his casino in short shorts and no underwear at times, with workers in the spa stating that his genitals would be hanging out and on full display at times.

There are also allegations that he tried to get intimate with female workers he could not get alone in a room with him by kissing them in what they describe as sudden attacks that came out of nowhere.

Both Wynn and his company have insisted the allegations are part of a smear campaign related to his divorce proceedings.

Wynn married his first wife Elaine in 1963, divorced her in 1986, remarried her in 1991 and divorced her once again in 2010.

He married second wife Andrea Hisson, 54, in 2011, and the pair are close friends with President Trump and the First Lady.BOSTON (AP) - Massachusetts' top court will examine a case sparked by the misconduct of a former chemist who authorities say was high almost every day she worked at a state drug lab for eight years.

Prosecutors already have agreed to dismiss about 8,000 convictions tainted by Sonja Farak, who pleaded guilty in 2014 to stealing drugs from the lab.

The Supreme Judicial Court will now decide whether prosecutors have to dismiss additional cases tied to Farak. The court also will consider whether all cases that passed through the drug lab during Farak's employment should be re-examined, even if she didn't work on them.

Farak's case is separate from another Massachusetts drug lab scandal that resulted in the dismissal of some 21,000 convictions last year.PHOENIX (AP) - A trial began Tuesday in the case of a Syrian man accused of supplying a component of improvised bombs used in the Iraq War, with a prosecutor saying the man had sympathized with a group that wanted to use violence to drive a wedge between Iraqis and Americans.

Ahmed Alahmedalabdaloklah (AL-ah-med-AL-ab-dahl-OK'-lah) is accused of making circuit boards used to remotely detonate roadside bombs in Iraq for the 1920 Revolution Brigades.

The trial is being staged in Phoenix because authorities said a part for improvised explosive devices was made by a company headquartered in Arizona.

Prosecutor Joseph Kaster told jurors in opening statements that Alahmedalabdaloklah embraced the group's objectives to force American troops to abandon Iraq. "He shared their violent objectives," Kaster said.

The case against the 40-year-old Alahmedalabdaloklah arose out of a raid a decade ago at a Baghdad apartment where soldiers discovered a large cache of bomb-making materials, though no explosives were found. Prosecutors say Alahmedalabdaloklah's fingerprints were found on several items in the apartment.

Authorities said in court records that several witnesses have tied him to the production of IED components, including one person who said Alahmedalabdaloklah, after fleeing Iraq and moving to China, found a factory in China to make the circuit boards.

Alahmedalabdaloklah has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, conspiracy to destroy U.S. government property with an explosive, possession of a destructive device in furtherance of a violent crime, conspiracy to commit "extraterritorial murder" of a U.S. citizen and providing support to terrorists. If convicted, he could face up to life in prison.

Defense attorney Jami Johnson said her client never expressed any sentiments against Americans in 12 years of his emails that were reviewed by investigators. "Twelve years - and not one single anti-American statement," Johnson told jurors.

Johnson said her client, who was brought to Iraq as a refugee when he was a child, operated a legitimate electronics shop in Baghdad and moved to China when security in Iraq deteriorated.

Johnson said Alahmedalabdaloklah set up an electronics business in China that sold products in Iraq and elsewhere but never sent any components used in a bomb.

She said her client's fingerprints were found on his photos and documents inside the Baghdad apartment, but none of the electronics contained his prints or DNA.

Alahmedalabdaloklah was arrested in May 2011 after flying to Turkey from China. He was jailed for three years in Turkey before being extradited to the United States in August 2014.

Prosecutors have said in court papers that 1920 Revolution Brigades claimed responsibility for 230 attacks in Iraq against American soldiers from 2005 to 2010.

The 1920 Revolution Brigades was active against U.S. forces in Sunni-dominated parts of Iraq until it switched sides in 2007 to fight against al-Qaida. The group derived its name from the 1920 revolution in which Iraqis revolted against a British occupation.

___

Follow Jacques Billeaud at www.twitter.com/jacquesbilleaud. His work can be found at https://www.apnews.com/search/jacques%20billeaud.HONOLULU (AP) - The missile alert mistakenly sent on Jan. 13 by Hawaii officials came just a few minutes after a shift change at state Emergency Operations Center in Diamond Head Crater.

Here's a timeline of what happened:

8:05 a.m. - The midnight shift supervisor started a no-notice ballistic missile defense drill at shift change. In a phone call, the supervisor pretended to be U.S. Pacific Command to initiate the drill. The supervisor said ahead of and after the drill, "Exercise, exercise, exercise." However, it also contained the language, "This is not a drill." The day shift warning officers received the message on a speaker phone. The FCC says while the other officers understood this to be a drill, the person at the alert origination terminal "claimed to believe, in a written statement" that this was a real emergency and not a drill. The officer responds, as trained, by sending a live incoming missile alert.

Hawaii Adjutant General Maj. Gen. Joe Logan speaks during a news conference about the state's mistaken missile alert, Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018, in Honolulu. Hawaii's emergency management leader has resigned and a state employee who sent an alert falsely warning of an incoming ballistic missile has been fired, officials said Tuesday, weeks after the mistake caused widespread panic. Hawaii Emergency Management Agency Administrator Vern Miyagi stepped down Tuesday, Logan said. (AP Photo/Caleb Jones)

8:07 a.m. - The state emergency agency employee selects the template for a live alert from a drop-down menu, and clicks 'yes' in response to a prompt that reads, 'Are you sure that you want to send this Alert?'

8:08 a.m. - The head of the Emergency Management Agency, state adjutant general Maj. Gen. Joe Logan, speaks to the warning center and is notified of false alert.

8:09 a.m. - Logan calls and informs Gov. David Ige. Agency notifies counties there's no missile threat.

8:10 a.m. - Logan confirms with U.S. Pacific Command that there was no missile launch. Honolulu police are notified of the false alarm.

8:12 a.m. - The state issues a cancellation that prevents the message from being sent to phones that hadn't previously received it, such as those out of cellphone coverage range or had been turned off.

8:13 a.m. - Officials begin outreach, but phone lines become congested.

8:19 a.m. - If there had been a real missile, this is about when it would have hit the islands. It is estimated that a missile would take about 20 minutes to reach Hawaii from North Korea. Officials say it would take about five minutes for the military to analyze the launch trajectory and notify the state, leaving only 12 to 15 minutes of warning time before impact.

8:20 a.m. - Officials post to Facebook, Twitter accounts that there is no missile threat.

8:24 a.m. - Gov. David Ige retweets the cancellation notice.

8:27 a.m. - Officials determine that a Civil Emergency Message is the best way to correct this message, which the Federal Emergency Management Agency confirms three minutes later.

8:30 a.m. - Federal Emergency Management Agency officials say they received a call from Hawaii seeking guidance on sending correction of alert. State officials say the call was about a minute long. Ige posts cancellation notice on his Facebook page.

8:31 a.m. - An emergency management supervisor logs into alert system to start crafting false alert correction.

8:45 a.m. - Cancellation of warning sent to cellphones: "There is no missile threat or danger to the State of Hawaii. Repeat. False Alarm." The state said it issued the cancellation after getting authorization from FEMA. However, FEMA said its approval was not required.

Source: Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, FCC.

FILE - This Jan. 13, 2018 file smartphone screen capture shows a false incoming ballistic missile emergency alert sent from the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency system. The Federal Communications Commission says human error and inadequate safeguards are to blame for a missile alert that was sent mistakenly in Hawaii. The FCC said Tuesday, Jan. 30, that the individual who sent the false alert refused to talk to the agency, but provided a written statement. The FCC says Hawaii has been testing alert capabilities, and he mistook a drill for a real warning about a missile threat. He responded by sending the alert. There was no sign-off from a supervisor. (AP Photo/Caleb Jones, file)LAS VEGAS (AP) - A court error publicly revealed the name of a man identified as a person of interest in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Clark County District Court Judge Elissa Cadish acknowledged that a member of her court staff failed to black out the man's name on one of 276 pages of documents released to news organizations including The Associated Press and Las Vegas Review-Journal.

After the error was recognized, lawyers for the news organizations were told to return the documents. The attorney representing AP and other media did so, but the other lawyer had already transmitted the documents and the Review-Journal published Douglas Haig's name online.

Cadish later ordered the document not be published without redactions, but she acknowledged she couldn't order the newspaper to retract the name.

"The reality is, now that it is online, there is nothing I can do," Cadish said.

The unsealed search warrants in the investigation of the Oct. 1 shooting that killed 58 people revealed Haig as a person of interest authorities spoke to after the shooting. Haig told AP he sold ammo to Paddock and that he had been contacted earlier by investigators in the case.

A spokeswoman for the FBI in Las Vegas declined to comment and referred calls to the U.S. attorney in Nevada. A spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor's did not immediately respond to messages.

Reporters at the AP never received the document with Haig's name, but the news organization used the name based on the Review-Journal's reporting citing police documents.

Brian Barrett, AP's assistant general counsel, said the news organization might have viewed it differently if reporters received the documents before the court asked them to be returned.

"Once truthful information is in the hands of journalists there are strong First Amendment protections that apply and would allow them to publish," Barrett said.

Michael Parks, journalism professor at the University of Southern California, said if he were in his former position as editor of the Los Angeles Times, he might ask about the origin of documents but wouldn't engage in prepublication censorship if the source was legitimate.

"You can't unring the bell. ... It was a mistake, but it's out," Parks said. "Journalists are not in the business of suppressing news. ... We publish it."

___

Melley reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press reporter Anita Snow contributed to this report from Mesa, Arizona.WASHINGTON (AP) - A look at President Donald Trump's statement on border security Tuesday night and how it compares with the facts:

TRUMP: "For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities."

THE FACTS: "Open borders" is an exaggeration. Border arrests, a useful if imperfect gauge of illegal crossings, have dropped sharply over the last decade.

In this Jan. 25, 2017, file photo, an agent of the border patrol, observes near the Mexico-US border fence, on the Mexican side, separating the towns of Anapra, Mexico and Sunland Park, N.M. (AP Photo/Christian Torres, File)

The government under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama roughly doubled the ranks of the Border Patrol, and Bush extended fencing to cover nearly one-third of the border during his final years in office. The Obama administration deported more than 2 million immigrants during the eight years he was in office, more than in previous administrations.

Studies over several years have found immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the United States.

___

Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd

Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheckWASHINGTON (AP) - A look at President Donald Trump's statement about terrorists returning to the battlefield Tuesday night and how it compares with the facts:

TRUMP: "In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds and hundreds of dangerous terrorists only to meet them again on the battlefield, including the ISIS leader, (Abu Bakr) al-Baghdadi, who we captured, who we had, who we released."

THE FACTS: Trump is correct that al-Baghdadi had been released after being detained at Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca, U.S. detention facilities in Iraq. But Trump made his comment while announcing that he had signed an executive order to keep open the controversial U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. If he meant that "hundreds and hundreds" of Guantanamo detainees had been released only to return to the battlefield, his math is off.

In this June 27, 2006 file photo, reviewed by a U.S. Department of Defense official, U.S. military guards walk within Camp Delta military-run prison, at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, Cuba. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)

The office of the Director of National Intelligence said this summer in its most recent report on the subject that of the 728 detainees who have been released from Guantanamo, 122 are "confirmed" and 90 are "suspected" of re-engaging in hostile activities.

___

Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd

Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheckNEW YORK (AP) - The dirty word for describing President Donald Trump's first State of the Union address was "presidential."

That was what some Trump critics tried to put in the mind of pundits assigned to analyze Tuesday's address, urging them ahead of time not to be seduced by a smooth speech - an unusual form of "working the refs" that reflects today's divided times politically.

Since the word "presidential" didn't come up much among television's chattering class Tuesday, that effort was largely successful. Instead, the "p'' word that mostly came to mind was partisan. Pundits were no more successful finding common ground than the politicians they cover.WASHINGTON (AP) - In vivid detail, President Donald Trump told stories of American heroism, heartbreak and tragedy in his emotionally charged first State of the Union. What he didn't detail were solutions to the crises ahead.

Trump's 80-minute speech surveyed familiar territory for a president drawn to drama. He warned of gangs, nuclear threats, the drug epidemic and unlawful immigrants. He highlighted guests in the crowd, a group representing a mix of valor and victimhood, which he used to illustrate his calls for patriotism and perseverance.

"No people on Earth are so fearless, or daring, or determined as Americans," Trump said. "If there is a mountain, we climb it. If there is a frontier, we cross it. If there is a challenge, we tame it. If there is an opportunity, we seize it."

President Donald Trump claps at his first State of the Union address in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol to a joint session of Congress Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018 in Washington. (Win McNamee/Pool via AP)

But his vision for a way out of what he once described as "American carnage" was not nearly as clear. Although he said lowering prescription drug prices would be "one of my greatest priorities," he did not suggest a strategy for getting it done. He hinted at hopes for reforming prisons, supporting family leave and improving job training, with little meat on the bone. He raised hopes for an infrastructure plan but provided little guidance as to how the plan should be funded.

Trump's most detailed proposal was, perhaps, the most contentious.

When Trump outlined his four-part immigration plan Tuesday, a grim-faced House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi held up her hands to try to silence the booing Democrats. Republicans, too, have deep reservations about his hopes for cutting legal immigration. The debate has left the fate of hundreds of thousands "Dreamer" immigrants uncertain, as they wait for a Trump-imposed expiration date for the program that protects them from deportation. Trump did not acknowledge that hurdle Tuesday, or the government shutdown looming if Democrats hold to their demands that a Dreamer deal must be tied to a budget plan.

He did advocate for compromise - an unusual role for the often strident president.

The deal is a "down-the-middle compromise," he said. "One where nobody gets everything they want, but where our country gets the critical reforms it needs."

Democrats are likely to remain deeply skeptical about Trump's ability to play the role of bipartisan broker. He has often shifted positions without notice and, at times, seemed unfamiliar with details.

"We need more than talk. We need a president who will bring the country together rather than foster further division," said Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California. "We need a president who understands and engages in important issues rather than spending hours on Twitter."

Freshman Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., said he was happy to hear Trump bring up infrastructure, controlling prescription drug prices and boosting vocational education but said he was short on detail. "It sounds like, 'I'm for world peace.' Fine, how do you get there?" Krishnamoorthi said.

He also contrasted Trump's words with what he's done as president: "If you don't govern in a way that's consistent with your rhetoric, people are left wondering if these are just empty words."

Republican Sen. David Perdue of Georgia, who has been working closely with the White House, said he believes Trump offered guidance on finding a solution to the impasse on immigration.

"He's given a lot to both sides to make that happen," Perdue said. "We're working on legislative action, this needs to be fixed in Congress. He's laid down the roadmap."

Trump did not address his outsized role in fostering the party rancor.

Ever the salesman, Trump spent much of his speech highlighting the accomplishments of the last 12 months while taking credit for the nation's roaring economy and booming stock market. Suppressing his penchant for making the moment about himself, Trump repeatedly highlighted the guests sitting in the Capitol, each of whom possessed a powerful story.

There was a North Korean defector who defiantly waved the crutches he used to make his escape after losing a leg. There were the New Mexico police officers who adopted the baby of a heroin addict. And the tearful black family who lost their child at the hands of an immigrant who had entered the United States illegally.

His Twitter largely silent for a day, Trump holstered his usual partisan weaponry in favor of "an open hand to work with members of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to protect our citizens, of every background, color and creed."

___

Associated Press Writer Jonathan Lemire has covered the White House and politics for The Associated Press since 2013.

___

Associated Press writers Tom LoBianco and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington and Charles Arbogast in Chicago contributed to this report.

___

Follow Lemire on Twitter at http://twitter.com/@JonLemireMichigan State University it set to name a former state governor as interim president after the former president quit in the wake of the Larry Nassar case.

John Engler, 69, who led the state from 1991 until 2002, will be handed the role at a public meeting on Wednesday, a high-ranking university official said.

Engler's appointment comes a week after Lou Ann Simon resigned after Nassar was convicted of sex offenses against young athletes at the school, where he was a faculty member.

John Engler, 69, former Michigan governor, will be named interim president of Michigan State University at a public meeting on Wednesday, according to a high-ranking college official

Engler's appointment comes after previous president Lou Ann Simon quit as Larry Nassar was convicted of sexually abusing young athletes during his times as a college faculty member

The selection was welcomed by allies who said Engler is tenacious, not afraid to ruffle feathers and can steer the 'green and white' Spartans through the tumult.

He will also have to shake up a culture that critics say led to the university turning a blind eye to victims of Nassar for years.

The board will search for a permanent president as Engler navigates mounting investigations, civil lawsuits and a public relations crisis.

Michigan State denies wrongdoing, saying nobody at the university believed Nassar was guilty until news reports began to emerge in 2016, CNN reports.

'The victims can hopefully rest a little better knowing they've got John Engler to straighten the ship. He earns respect. He commands respect,' said Dan Pero, who was Engler's first chief of staff in the governor's office.

Engler will listen, he said, yet also not be afraid to make tough decisions - having done so when he first won the governorship and, facing a large budget deficit, pushed through cuts to welfare, state mental hospitals and the arts.

'Lord knows there will be many decisions that will need to be made at the school that will upset people,' Pero said.

'With change comes pushback. But ultimately with change comes better times.'

The choice already is coming under criticism in some quarters - including from Rachael Denhollander, the first victim to go public against Nassar after she read an Indianapolis Star investigation of how USA Gymnastics handled sexual abuse allegations against coaches.

Nassar has been accused of abuse by more than 150 women, including Team USA gold medal winners Simone Biles and Aly Raisman

On Facebook, she called Engler a 'deep political insider' at a time Michigan State needs outside accountability.

She later softened her words, saying she hopes that 'despite his close ties, he will act with leadership and integrity.'

Though the board of four Democrats and four Republicans is expected to unanimously back Engler on the same day Nassar's third and final sentencing hearing begins, other Democrats questioned the appointment of the polarizing conservative known for his hardball negotiating tactics.

'John Engler is not known as somebody who is a real uniter,' said Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Brandon Dillon.

'I think it's going to be very difficult for him to do that. But in the interest of not only the university but all of the survivors of Dr. Nassar's abuse, he's going to really have to step up and do things a lot differently than he's done in the past.'

The five at-large faculty members of the university's steering committee, which is involved in academic governance, said they urged trustees in a private meeting Monday to not 'rush' and appoint a former governor with no academic leadership experience.

They said they recommended that the interim president be a woman with experience devising and implementing anti-sexual harassment and sexual abuse programs.

As governor, Engler helped to overhaul school funding and was a strong advocate for charter schools. He gained a reputation as an excellent political strategist in his 32 years in the Legislature and governor's office.

In college, he joined with another Michigan State University student to write a paper for a Michigan politics class on how he could win a state House seat then held by an incumbent. Engler took that paper, recruited another agricultural economics major to run his campaign and won at age 21.

Twenty years later, he narrowly defeated Democratic Gov. Jim Blanchard in an upset.

Political observers say Engler's job at Michigan State, which could last up to a year depending on how quickly the board brings in someone else, may be his toughest task yet.

State Sen. Margaret O'Brien, who is working on legislation as a result of the Nassar scandal, said she expects him to 'clean (the) house of those who must go.'BEIJING (AP) - British Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday called for expanding the "global strategic partnership" between the United Kingdom and China, at the start of a visit to the world's second-largest economy focused on hashing out new trade arrangements once the U.K. leaves the European Union.

Meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, May referred to "a golden era" in relations between the two countries that London hopes will bring vast amounts of new job-creating investment from China's fast-growing global firms.

"This is an auspicious time of the year to ... think about and consider how we can build further on that golden era and on the global strategic partnership that we have been working on between the U.K. and China," May said.

British Prime Minister Theresa May attends a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool)

Officials oversaw the signing of a raft of agreements covering trade - including the import of British food products to China - investment, education and other areas. More than 155,000 Chinese students now study in the U.K., according to the British government.

Brexit appeared to figure prominently in the talks and May said that as Britain prepares to leave the EU "we are committed to deepening our strong and vital partnership" with China.

"And that relationship is indeed broad and deep and delivers benefits to both countries," May said.

As Britain prepares to leave the EU, "we will become a country that is able to operate an independent trade policy and is able to sign free trade agreements around the rest of the world," she said at a later question-and-answer session with Li.

Li said Brexit would not change the basic trading relationship.

"In EU-U.K. relations. We will have assessments and discussions in our trade relationship to take it forward," Li said.

As she makes her China visit, May's job is under threat from rivals within her Conservative Party, who are divided over whether to make a clean break with the EU or seek to keep the closest-possible economic relationship.

May insisted to reporters flying with her to China, "I'm not a quitter."

She said there was "a long-term job to be done" by her government, according to the Press Association news agency.

"That job is about getting the best Brexit deal, it's about ensuring that we take back control of our money, our laws, our borders, that we can sign trade deals around the rest of the world," she said. "But it's also about our domestic agenda."

In her meeting with Li, May said the two countries, both permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, were also cooperating on North Korea and other security challenges. North Korea's nuclear weapons program, she said, is "illegal, reckless and poses an unacceptable threat to international security."

Li said they also discussed overcapacity in the steel industry, while May said an agreement had been reached to open China to imports of British beef this year. Business deals worth more than 9 billion pounds ($13 billion) would be announced before the end of the visit, May said.

May also expressed support for British involvement in the "Belt and Road" initiative, China's mega-plan for trade and infrastructure links across Asia.

However, she said related projects needed to adhere to established global business practices. Beijing has been criticized for undermining those rules by agreeing to finance major infrastructure projects on condition they were awarded to Chinese companies without entertaining bids from competitors.

"We've discussed how the U.K. and China will continue to work together to identify how best we can cooperate on the Belt and Road initiative across the region and ensure it meets international standards," May said.

"We will work together to encourage free and fair trade, ensure a transparent, rules-based multilateral trading system, and build an open global economy that works for all."

May first visited the central industrial city of Wuhan on Wednesday before traveling to Beijing for talks with Li. On Thursday, she is scheduled to meet with President Xi Jinping, whose 2015 state visit to Britain helped propel what China refers to as the golden era in ties.

May is being accompanied on her visit by 50 British business leaders, including the chief executives of Jaguar Land Rover and drug firm AstraZeneca. She will also visit the financial hub of Shanghai before heading home Friday.

Bolstering ties with China became more urgent after Britain voted in 2016 to leave the EU, compelling it to forge new trade agreements outside of the 28-nation bloc.

British exports to China are up 60 percent since 2010, and China is expected to be one of the U.K.'s biggest foreign investors by 2020.

British finance minister Philip Hammond visited in December, pledging to promote London as a center for transactions in China's yuan currency and announcing up to 25 billion pounds ($35 billion) in support for British businesses involved in the Belt and Road initiative.

But May appears more cautious about embracing Chinese investment than her predecessor, David Cameron. She annoyed Beijing in 2016 by temporarily delaying approval for a Chinese-backed nuclear power plant in southwestern England.

___

Associated Press writers Jill Lawless and Danica Kirka in London contributed to this report.

British Prime Minister Theresa May, center left, and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, center right, listen to a speaker during the inaugural meeting of the UK-China CEO Council at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool)

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang gestures as he speaks during a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, Pool)

British Prime Minister Theresa May listens to a speaker during the inaugural meeting of the UK-China CEO Council at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool)

British Prime Minister Theresa May, left, and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang leave after the inaugural meeting of the UK-China CEO Council at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool)

British Prime Minister Theresa May, left rear, and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang attend a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool)

British Prime Minister Theresa May interacts with Chinese youth during a tour to the UK-China Spirit of Youth Festival in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province, Wednesday Jan. 31, 2018. (Chinatopix via AP)

Visitors take smartphone pictures as British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during a tour to the UK-China Spirit of Youth Festival in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province, Wednesday Jan. 31, 2018. (Chinatopix via AP)

British Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip May, second from right, accompanied by Chen Yixin, the Communist Party boss of Wuhan, second from left, watch an opera show during a tour to the ancient Huanghelou Tower in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (Chinatopix via AP)

British Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip May, right, accompanied by Chen Yixin, the Communist Party leader of Wuhan, center, watch an opera show during a tour to the ancient Huanghelou Tower in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (Chinatopix via AP)

British Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip May, right, accompanied by Chen Yixin, the Communist Party leader of Wuhan, second from left, watch an outdoor opera show during a tour to the ancient Huanghelou Tower in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (Chinatopix via AP)

British Prime Minister Theresa May, left, and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang walk together during a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, right, gestures to British Prime Minister Theresa May during a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. May arrived in China earlier in the day on a visit focused on hashing out new trade arrangements once the U.K. leaves the European Union. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, second from left, and British Prime Minister Theresa May review a Chinese honor guard during a welcome ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Members of the Chinese honor guard march in formation past a curtain before a welcome ceremony for British Prime Minister Theresa May at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)WASHINGTON (AP) - Addressing a deeply divided nation, President Donald Trump summoned the country to a "new American moment" of unity in his first State of the Union, challenging Congress to make good on long-standing promises to fix a fractured immigration system and warning darkly of evil forces seeking to undermine America's way of life.

Trump's address Tuesday night blended self-congratulation and calls for optimism amid a growing economy with ominous warnings about deadly gangs, the scourge of drugs and violent immigrants living in the United States illegally. He cast the debate over immigration - an issue that has long animated his most ardent supporters - as a battle between heroes and villains, leaning heavily on the personal stories of White House guests in the crowd. He praised a law enforcement agent who arrested more than 100 gang members, and he recognized the families of two alleged gang victims.

He also spoke forebodingly of catastrophic dangers from abroad, warning that North Korea would "very soon" threaten the United States with nuclear-tipped missiles.

President Donald Trump gestures as he finishes his first State of the Union address in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol to a joint session of Congress Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018 in Washington, as Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Paul Ryan applaud. (Win McNamee/Pool via AP)

"The United States is a compassionate nation. We are proud that we do more than any other country to help the needy, the struggling and the underprivileged all over the world," Trump said. "But as president of the United States, my highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, and my constant concern is for America's children, America's struggling workers and America's forgotten communities."

Trump addressed the nation with tensions running high on Capitol Hill. An impasse over immigration prompted a three-day government shutdown earlier this year, and lawmakers appear no closer to resolving the status of the "Dreamers" - young people living in the U.S. illegally ahead of a new Feb. 8 deadline for funding operations. The parties have also clashed this week over the plans of Republicans on the House intelligence committee to release a classified memo on the Russia investigation involving Trump's presidential campaign - a decision the White House backs but the Justice Department is fighting.

The controversies that have dogged Trump - and the ones he has created- have overshadowed strong economic gains during his first year in office. His approval ratings have hovered in the 30s for much of his presidency, and just 3 in 10 Americans said the United States was heading in the right direction, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. In the same survey, 67 percent of Americans said the country was more divided because of Trump.

At times, Trump's address appeared to be aimed more at validating his first year in office than setting the course for his second. He devoted significant time to touting the tax overhaul he signed at the end of last year, promising the plan will "provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small businesses." He also highlighted the decision made early in his first year to withdraw the U.S. from a sweeping Asia-Pacific trade pact, declaring: "The era of economic surrender is totally over."

He spoke about potential agenda items for 2018 in broad terms, including a call for $1.5 trillion in new infrastructure spending and partnerships with states and the private sector. He touched only briefly on issues like health care that have been at the center of the Republican Party's policy agenda for years.

Tackling the sensitive immigration debate that has roiled Washington, Trump redoubled his recent pledge to offer a path to citizenship for 1.8 million young immigrants - but only as part of a package that would also require increased funding for border security, including a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, ending the nation's visa lottery method and revamping the current legal immigration system. Some Republicans are wary of the hardline elements of Trump's plan and it's unclear whether his blueprint could pass Congress.

"Americans are dreamers too," Trump said, in an apparent effort to reclaim the term used to describe the young immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

A former New York Democrat, the president also played to the culture wars that have long illuminated American politics, alluding to his public spat with professional athletes who led protests against racial injustice by kneeling during the national anthem, declaring that paying tribute to the flag is a "civic duty."

Republicans led multiple rounds of enthusiastic applause during the speech, but for the opposition party it was a more somber affair. Democrats provided a short spurt of polite applause for Trump as he entered the chamber, but offered muted reactions throughout the speech. A cluster of about two dozen Democrats, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus, remained planted firmly in their seats, staring sternly at the president and withholding applause.

After devastating defeats in 2016, Democrats are hopeful that Trump's sagging popularity can help the party rebound in November's midterm elections. In a post-speech rebuttal, Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy, the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, was seeking to undercut Trump's optimistic tone and remind voters of the personal insults and attacks often leveled by the president.

"Bullies may land a punch," Kennedy said. "They might leave a mark. But they have never, not once, in the history of our United States, managed to match the strength and spirit of a people united in defense of their future."

The arc of Trump's 80-minute speech featured the personal stories of men and women who joined first lady Melania Trump in the audience. The guests included a New Mexico policeman and his wife who adopted a baby from parents who suffered from opioid addiction, and Ji Seong-ho, a defector from North Korea and outspoken critic of the Kim Jong-un government.

On international affairs, Trump warned of the dangers from "rogue regimes," like Iran and North Korea, terrorist groups, like the Islamic State, and "rivals" like China and Russia "that challenge our interests, our economy and our values." Calling on Congress to lift budgetary caps and boost spending on the military, Trump said that "unmatched power is the surest means of our defense."

Trump's biggest foreign policy announcement of the night concerned the Guantanamo Bay detention center, which former President Barack Obama tried but failed to close. Reversing Obama's policy, Trump said he'd signed an executive order Tuesday directing the Pentagon to keep the prison open while re-examining the military's policy on detention.

Trump said he was also asking Congress to ensure the U.S. had needed powers to detain Islamic State group members and other "terrorists wherever we chase them down," though it was unclear whether he was referring to a new war powers authorization or some other mechanism. Trump also said he wanted Congress to pass a law ensuring U.S. foreign aid goes only "to America's friends" - a reference to his frustration at U.S. aid recipients that voted at the U.N. to rebuke his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Mrs. Trump arrived at the Capitol ahead of her husband to attend a reception with guests of the White House, but she rode back to the White House with him. It was the first time she was seen publicly with the president following a report that his lawyer arranged a payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, to prevent her from talking about an alleged affair. Daniels denied the affair in a new statement released hours before the speech.

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Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC and Zeke Miller at http://twitter.com/zekejmiller

President Donald Trump delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of U.S. Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. (Jim Bourg/Pool via AP)

President Donald Trump arrives before the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

President Donald Trump smiles during State of the Union address in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol to a joint session of Congress Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018 in Washington. (Win McNamee/Pool via AP)

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., center seated, with other House members wearing black in support the #metoo and #timesup movement, pose for a group photo ahead of tonight's State of the Union address on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)BEIJING (AP) - China has criticized rival Taiwan over the cancellation of flights during the Lunar New Year holiday in response to a dispute over a new air route.

A spokesman for the Chinese Cabinet's Taiwan Affairs Office says the move to cancel 176 flights over the holiday beginning Feb. 16 is inconveniencing Taiwanese and "hurting the feelings" of people on both sides.

Taiwan complains it was not properly consulted about the opening of route M503 and that it poses a danger to planes landing and taking off from on islands near the Chinese coast controlled by Taiwan.

China and Taiwan divided amid civil war in 1949 and Beijing threatens to use force to take control of the self-governing island republic. It has been increasing economic and diplomatic pressure on the island.BERLIN (AP) - German police say they have arrested three suspects during raids against a group that is believed to have smuggled at least 160 migrants into Germany over recent months.

Federal police spokesman Christian Meinhold said raids were staged in four German states Wednesday. Two suspects were arrested in Berlin and a third in Bad Muskau, on the Polish border, and seven properties searched.

The suspects are believed to belong to a group that smuggled migrants from the Czech Republic and Poland, largely using trucks.

The alleged smuggling took place since August and an investigation was launched in the fall.

Germany saw around 186,000 asylum-seekers arrive last year. That's much lower than the previous two years, but officials say it's still too high and that's due in part to smugglers' activities.FAW Car teams up with Corun to tailor HEV model

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- FAW Car announced on Jan. 30 that it signed a cooperation agreement with Hunan Corun New Energy Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Corun) in Changchun, Capital of Jilin Province.



According to the agreement, both parties will adopt Corun's hybrid system on models under Besturn brand at the early stage of their cooperation. They will develop a tailored HEV model, which is expected to go on sale in 2019 and will run and be promoted in public transportation area.

As their cooperation deepens, they will jointly promote the application of Corun's hybrid system on more models of FAW Car and develop the HEV and PHEV models. In the future, they will conduct cooperation in various areas, including hybrid technology, vehicle development technology, localization of R&D and manufacturing for core parts, establishment of supply chain system and operation for market sales, based on their demands. Their cooperation modes include but not limited to the cooperation on products, technologies, capitals and sharing mobility.

FAW Car and Corun will collaboratively manufacture and sell 150,000 NEVs during 2019 and 2021, according to the announcement. During 2019 and 2020, the tailored HEV model will prioritize to meet Corun's desire of promoting the model in public transportation area.

When the tailored HEV model reached sales of 50,000 units, they will carry forward deep negotiation on the cooperation of Corun's hybrid system.STOCKHOLM (AP) - Swedish low-cost fashion brand Hennes & Mauritz AB said Wednesday that its fourth-quarter profit fell 33 percent to 3.99 billion kronor ($506 million) as the company tried to adapt to a broad shift toward online shopping by consumers.

Sales during the same period dropped 2 percent to 50.4 million kronor ($6.4 million) as "the industry changes are challenging everyone and this will continue in 2018."

CEO Karl-Johan Persson says "at the heart of the transformation is digitalization and it is driving the need to transform and re-think faster and faster." He said the group's 2017 performance was "clearly below our expectations."

Persson said the company found weakness in sales at the physical stores, where "the changes in customer behavior are being felt most strongly and footfall has reduced with more sales online."

There is "still potential for strong growth in some regions whereas in others we can get a better balance by reducing store space," he said.

The group said it plans to open approximately 390 new stores and close 170 stores in 2018 with new H&M store markets planned in Uruguay and Ukraine.

The brands H&M and H&M Home will open on the world's largest e-commerce platform in China in March, and H&M will launch a new brand, called Afound, in Sweden together with a digital marketplace there. It will be an off-price marketplace offering products from well-known and popular fashion and lifestyle brands.

In recent weeks, the Stockholm-based group had been accused of racism over an ad showing a black child dressed in a hoodie reading "coolest monkey in the jungle," for which H&M has apologized.

It led to the company appointed a company veteran to become a diversity leader.

"All in all, we feel 2017 was a year where we made more steps forward and did more groundwork for the future, but we have also made some mistakes that have slowed us down," Persson said.ISLAMABAD (AP) - Afghanistan's intelligence chief and interior minister made a surprise visit to Pakistan's capital on Wednesday following a recent spate of deadly attacks in Afghanistan.

The visit by Masoom Stanikzai and Wais Ahmed Barmak comes amid charges leveled by Afghanistan that some of the attacks were carried out by perpetrators linked to Pakistan's powerful spy agency, the ISI.

The attacks, which have killed nearly 200 people and wounded hundreds more, have been alternately claimed by the Taliban and the Islamic State group affiliate in Afghanistan. Most of the attacks in the capital Kabul have been blamed on the Haqqani network, whose links to Pakistan's intelligence agency dates back to the 1980s Soviet invasion of Afghanistan when Pakistan and the United States were on the same page about using jihadi groups to oust invading Russian soldiers.

File - In this Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2015, photo, Afghanistan's then acting defense minister Masoom Stanikzai talks during a press conference at presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan. Stanikzai, now Afghanistan's current intelligence chief and Foreign Minister Wais Ahmed Barmak have made a surprise visit to Pakistan's capital following a recent spate of deadly attacks in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini, file)

Afghanistan's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Mahmoud Saikal tweeted Monday that the father of one of the insurgents involved in the bloody Jan. 20 assault on Kabul's Intercontinental Hotel "conceded his son was trained in Chaman of Balochistan Province of Pakistan by the InterServices Intelligence of Pakistan."

Chaman is a Pakistani border town located opposite Afghanistan's Spin Boldak in southern Kandahar province. Kandahar was the spiritual heartland of the Taliban when they ruled Afghanistan until their ouster by the U.S.-led coalition in 2001.

Saikal's tweet said the attacker's father, Abdul Qahar, was in the custody of the Afghan authorities.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry and Afghanistan's Ambassador to Pakistan, Omar Zakhilwal, confirmed the officials' visit but there were no immediate details.

The audacious hotel attack involved several insurgents who went floor to floor and room to room killing occupants, some of whom died when they jumped from their balconies to escape assailants who tossed grenades and opened fire with assault rifles. Twenty-two people died in the attack, 14 of whom were foreigners, most of them employed with the private Kam Air airline.

Pakistan denies it aids insurgents.

The only details about Wednesday's meeting came in a tweet from Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Dr. Mohammad Faisal, who said that Afghanistan requested the meeting to deliver "a message from Afghan president and for discussions about cooperation between the two countries."

The visit by Stanikzai and Barmak comes a day after Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said it handed over 27 insurgents to Afghan authorities last year, including members of the Haqqani network.

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Associated Press writers Munir Ahmed in Islamabad and Rahim Faiez in Kabul, Afghanistan contributed to this reportPHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - Soldiers in northeastern Cambodia, an area where illicit logging and smuggling are rife, killed a forest protection ranger, a military police officer and a conservation worker in apparent retaliation for their seizure of equipment from illegal loggers, officials said Wednesday.

Keo Sopheak, a senior environmental official in Mondulkiri province, said the three-person team was attacked late Tuesday afternoon after patrolling in the Keo Siema wildlife conservation sanctuary. He said the dead civilian was a Cambodian employee of the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society.

The three are the latest victims of an alarming trend in recent years, the murder of environmental defenders by parties seeking the financial exploitation of natural resources. Roughly 200 activists have been killed worldwide in each of the past two years, according to the U.K.-based watchdog group Global Witness.

"The three were killed not by robbers or a guerrilla group but they were shot by government armed forces who backed the illegal timber cutting," Keo Sopheak said. The conservation team had earlier confiscated chain saws and motorcycles from some Vietnamese logging illegally, he said.

A copy of a report sent by Mondulkiri police chief Ouk Samnang to National Police Chief Neth Savouen seen by The Associated Press identified three border security officials who it said had shot and killed the conservation team.

The report named Phal Penh, a border police officer, Keut Vehar and Ngur, border military officers, as the shooters. Cambodian security forces are known to collaborate with illegal loggers who smuggle the wood to neighboring Vietnam.

The Keo Sieman sanctuary has valuable timber and is a habitat for many wildlife species. The multi-million dollar illicit trade in wood plagues much of Southeast Asia, with China being the major market and transit point. The trade is vast even though the region has suffered heavily from deforestation for several decades.

In early 2016, Cambodia established a special committee led by army Gen. Sao Sokha to crack down on the smuggling of logs to neighboring Vietnam, and tough-talking prime minister Hun Sen said he authorized helicopters to fire rockets at smugglers of illegally cut timber, but there has been no public evidence of a major crackdown.

Keo Sopheak and other officials said a special committee has been established to investigate Tuesday's attack.PARIS (AP) - The French mountain climber who was rescued from a Himalayan peak where her climbing partner is presumed to have died was still recovering in a French hospital on Wednesday.

Elisabeth Revol has returned to France after she was rescued Sunday from Nanga Parbat mountain - the world's ninth-highest peak at 8,126 meters (26,660 feet.) Revol and her climbing partner Tomasz Mackiewicz called for help Friday.

Frederic Champly, the doctor responsible for her treatment at the Sallanches hospital near the Mont Blanc massif, said Revol has serious "grade 3 or 4 frostbites."

CORRECTS YEAR - In this photo released by Pakistan Alpine Federation, rescued French climber Elisabeth Revol, left, poses for photographer with Karrar Haidri, a senior official in the Pakistan Alpine Federation, at a hospital in Islamabad, Pakistan Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. A Pakistani official says the French climber who was rescued from a Himalayan peak amid bad weather has returned home. (Pakistan Alpine Federation via AP)

Revol was brought down from the mountain by Polish climbers on a separate expedition to scale the K2 peak. The group volunteered for the rescue, braving high winds and nighttime temperatures of around minus 35 degrees Celsius ( minus 31 F) to scale the slippery mountain wall and bring her down.

The rescue team was unable to reach Mackiewicz, from Poland, due to poor weather, and made the decision to leave him behind after Revol reported the poor condition he was in when she last saw him.

Revol said Mackiewicz, who turned 43 this month, had frostbitten hands and legs and face, no sense of time or space, was snow blind, and unable to move unassisted.

Speaking at a news conference at the hospital, fellow mountain climber Catherine Destivelle said she has been told Revol is in "good psychological condition."

"I think she must be happy to be alive and to have survived," Destivelle said.

The four Polish climbers who rescued her are in Skardu, Pakistan, waiting for the weather to allow them to be flown back to their base on K2, the world's second tallest mountain. They are still planning to make the first winter ascent on it.

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Monika Scislowska in Warsaw contributed.WASHINGTON (AP) - Twitter went wild with speculation when first lady Melania Trump showed up for her husband's first State of the Union address in an ivory Christian Dior pantsuit.

Some suggested sarcastically her attire was a tribute to Hillary Clinton, her husband's 2016 Democratic opponent, who favors pantsuits. Or, was she honoring the suffragettes, who made white their signature color? Others tweeted that Mrs. Trump looked "divine."

Her suit was in contrast to the black worn by Democratic congresswomen and their allies.

First lady Melania Trump arrives before the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Tuesday marked the first time Mrs. Trump was seen in public with her husband since The Wall Street Journal reported that Donald Trump's lawyer paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 in 2016 to keep quiet about an affair they had. Daniels on Tuesday issued a statement denying the affair.MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) - Rain was falling in Memphis, Tennessee, when two sanitation workers picking up trash sought shelter in the back of a city garbage truck on Feb. 1, 1968.

The poorly-maintained truck's compactor malfunctioned, crushing Echol Cole and Robert Walker to death.

Fed up with bad working conditions, low pay and a lack of benefits, 1,300 black sanitation workers went on strike. Their walk-out drew support from civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who came to Memphis, where he was fatally shot on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel that April 4, the day after he seemingly foretold his own death in his famed "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech at the Mason Temple.

FILE-In this March 28, 1968, file photo, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rev. Ralph Abernathy, right, lead a march on behalf of striking Memphis, Tennessee., sanitation workers. Fifty years ago, two sanitation workers were killed by a malfunctioning garbage truck in Memphis. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Memphis to support the strike, a move that cost him his life when he was fatally shot on the balcony of a Memphis hotel on April 4, 1968. (Sam Melhorn/The Commercial Appeal via AP)

At 1 p.m. EST on Thursday, mayors and elected officials in more than 25 U.S. cities are expected to observe a moment of silence to honor the 50th anniversary of the workers' death, their pivotal strike and King's legacy.

Sanitation drivers plan to pull over and people are expected to gather and bow their heads in silence during the demonstration, organized by the "I Am A Man 2018" campaign, which is led by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; and the Church of God in Christ.

The moment of silence is one of many events planned ahead of the 50th anniversary of King's assassination. Since early December, surviving strikers have witnessed the groundbreaking of a new memorial in Memphis near the Clayborn Temple - where organizers passed out the famous "I Am A Man" placards they would carry during protests - and received the NAACP's Vanguard Award at the Image Awards.

Memphis, Houston, Washington and San Diego, California, are among the cities that will be participating in the demonstration, organizers say.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said the city will honor the lives of Cole and Walker, "celebrating the progress we have made over the past fifty years, and recommitting ourselves to the work still left to do."

"Today, as we continue fighting for justice and equality, we do so on the shoulders of the many men and women who protested and resisted before us," Bowser said in a statement given to The Associated Press.

One of those people is Cleophus Smith, a surviving striker. Smith, 75, still works for the Memphis Department of Public Works. He drives a truck and leads a three-man crew, picking up garbage in neighborhoods across the city of about 650,000 people.

Smith was working in a different neighborhood than Cole and Walker and did not know them well, he said in a phone interview Tuesday. Smith and others were told to stay on the job that day.

"We kept working until our job was completed that evening and we went home," Smith said. "We didn't have time or any days off."

On the same rainy day, 22 black sewer workers were sent home without pay while their white supervisors were retained for the day with pay, according to the National Archives.

Workers received little help from their department while toiling in bad weather.

"We didn't have sufficient equipment to work in, like gloves, shoes, jackets and things like that," Smith said. "It was a crucial time back then, as far as trying to maintain the job."

King came to Memphis to march with the workers and gain support for his Poor People's Campaign. He led a March 28 rally that turned violent when police and marchers clashed.

King promised to lead a second, peaceful march in Memphis, but was killed before he could do so. After weeks of struggling to pay bills and feed their families, the sanitation workers struck a deal for higher pay and improved conditions.

AFSCME President Lee Saunders says the workers "represented the heart of Dr. King's vision" that labor rights and civil rights are the same.

Smith said he is glad to hear that he and his colleagues are getting recognition. The surviving workers have a busy schedule of events leading up to April 4.

"We haven't declined anything," Smith said. "We're going to continue to work to bring about justice. Just can't stop here. It's got to move on."

FILE-In this March 29, 1968 file photo, striking Memphis sanitation workers march past Tennessee National Guard troops with fixed bayonets during a 20-block march to City Hall in Memphis, Tenn. Fifty years ago, two sanitation workers were killed by a malfunctioning garbage truck in Memphis. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Memphis to support the strike, a move that cost him his life when he was fatally shot on the balcony of a Memphis hotel on April 4, 1968. (AP Photo/Charlie Kelly, File)LONDON (AP) - This is not a metaphor: Britain's Parliament is a mess.

The 19th-century building is crumbling, leaky, infested with vermin and riddled with asbestos.

After years of dithering, lawmakers voted Wednesday to move out of the building to allow several years of major repairs. The plan will cost billions, but experts say the alternative could be catastrophic.

People wearing high-visibility jackets stand on scaffolding for repairs to the clockface of Big Ben's clock tower, the Elizabeth Tower in London, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. Experts have issued increasingly urgent warnings about the state of the neo-Gothic 19th-century parliament building, and lawmakers are set to vote Wednesday on what to do about the crumbling, leaky, vermin infested building which will take years to fix and cost billions. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

"This debate arguably should have taken place about 40 years ago," House of Commons leader Andrea Leadsom told lawmakers, adding that the building "is in dire need of repair."

Legislators voted to back a call for lawmakers and staff to leave the building by the mid-2020s - a plan known as a "full decant" of Parliament. It's estimated the repairs will take six years and cost about 3.5 billion pounds ($5 billion).

The decision came after warnings about the risks of delaying.

"It might be an exaggeration to say that Parliament is a death trap," Conservative lawmaker Damian Green said. "But it's not a wild exaggeration."

Experts have issued increasingly urgent warnings about the state of the neo-Gothic Parliament building, one of London's most famous landmarks and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Reports have sounded alarm bells about leaky roofs, temperamental steam heating, antiquated plumbing, crumbling stonework and ventilation shafts clogged with old pipes, wires and asbestos.

Wednesday's vote backed a 2016 report commissioned by parliamentary authorities which said the building is at risk of a flood or fire that could leave it uninhabitable. The issue still has to be considered by the House of Lords, Parliament's upper chamber.

Caroline Shenton, former director of the parliamentary archives and author of "The Day Parliament Burned Down," said that without major repair work, Britain could lose "the most iconic, famous building in the country."

"It could just simply be a utilities failure that brings the whole thing to a halt - the electricity goes, the water stops working, the loos stop flushing," she said. "But something more catastrophic could happen."

David Leakey, who retired last year as Parliament's head of security, has said that without major work Parliament could be "another Grenfell Tower" - the London high-rise that burned down last year, killing 70 people.

Despite the warnings, lawmakers had put off making a decision for several years. Some worried the public will resent the expense. Traditionalists are reluctant to leave the historic Commons and Lords chambers, the subsidized bars and restaurants and the riverside terrace with its magnificent view across the Thames.

Some modernizers think a permanent move to a new building - perhaps even one outside London - would make politicians less out of touch with the people they serve.

Scottish National Party lawmaker Pete Wishart urged his colleagues to "make this beautiful building a tourist attraction ... and let's design and create a Parliament for the 21st century."

Shenton said she hoped today's lawmakers would remember history. The current Parliament building, designed by architect Charles Barry, was built after fire destroyed its predecessor in 1834.

Shenton said authorities had debated what to do about their aging building for years before the 1834 blaze.

"Nobody could make a decision," she said. "In the end, the decision was made for them."

People wearing high-visibility jackets stand on scaffolding for repairs to the clockface of Big Ben's clock tower, the Elizabeth Tower in London, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. Experts have issued increasingly urgent warnings about the state of the neo-Gothic 19th-century parliament building, and lawmakers are set to vote Wednesday on what to do about the crumbling, leaky, vermin infested building which will take years and cost billions to fix. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

People aboard a boat make way past the Houses of Parliament with Big Ben's clock tower, the Elizabeth Tower covered in scaffolding for repairs in London, framed by a hole in a tourist telescope stand Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. Experts have issued increasingly urgent warnings about the state of the neo-Gothic 19th-century parliament building, and lawmakers are set to vote Wednesday on what to do about the crumbling, leaky, vermin infested building which will take years and cost billions to fix. Westminster Bridge at right. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

Workers stand on scaffolding for repairs on the Houses of Parliament in London, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. Experts have issued increasingly urgent warnings about the state of the neo-Gothic 19th-century parliament building, and lawmakers are set to vote Wednesday on what to do about the crumbling, leaky, vermin infested building which will take years and cost billions to fix. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

Workers stand on scaffolding for repairs on the Houses of Parliament in London, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. Experts have issued increasingly urgent warnings about the state of the neo-Gothic 19th-century parliament building, and lawmakers are set to vote Wednesday on what to do about the crumbling, leaky, vermin infested building which will take years and cost billions to fix. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

Tourists take a selfie on Westminster Bridge backdropped by the Houses of Parliament with Big Ben's clock tower, right, the Elizabeth Tower covered in scaffolding for repairs in London, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. Experts have issued increasingly urgent warnings about the state of the neo-Gothic 19th-century parliament building, and lawmakers are set to vote Wednesday on what to do about the crumbling, leaky, vermin infested building which will take years to fix and cost billions. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)BRUSSELS (AP) - Movie star Angelina Jolie says she and NATO's chief have agreed on ways to help the military alliance better combat the use of sexual violence against women and children in conflict zones.

Jolie said Wednesday that wherever sexual violence occurs "peace is far harder and far more costly to achieve. It therefore has a direct bearing on NATO's efforts to protect stability."

Speaking after a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels, she said: "We are going to focus on training, reporting, monitoring and awareness as a way of ending impunity."

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, right, and the Special Envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Angelina Jolie leave after a media briefing at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

Jolie, a special envoy for the U.N. refugee agency, warned that rape is being "used as a weapon to achieve political or military goals."

The Special Envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Angelina Jolie, left, picks up her bag after an official photo session with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, upon her arrival at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, right, welcomes the Special Envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Angelina Jolie at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

The Special Envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Angelina Jolie leaves after a media briefing at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - A Maryland state delegate wants "certain, select" public school employees to be able to carry firearms on school property to prevent or minimize the loss of life during school shootings.

The Baltimore Sun reports Republican Del. Rick Impallaria filed his bill on Tuesday, citing the recent Kentucky school shooting and instances of gun violence threats at schools Harford County, which he represents.

Impallaria says his bill would not force school districts to allow their employees to carry firearms on scholl grounds, but instead enable them to work with law enforcement to create programs through which certain employees, such as former military personnel, could be permitted to do so.

Harford County Board of Education President Joseph Voskuhl, who stressed he was speaking for himself, said he would "never support" such legislation.

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Information from: The Baltimore Sun, http://www.baltimoresun.comISTANBUL (AP) - A court in Istanbul has ruled for the release from jail of Amnesty International's Turkey chairman, Taner Kilic, pending a verdict in his trial.

Kilic, who was imprisoned in June, is accused of links to cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Turkey says orchestrated the 2016 failed coup attempt. Kilic was accused of using an encrypted mobile messaging application allegedly employed by Gulen's network. Kilic denies the accusation.

The court ruled for Kilic's release on Wednesday on condition that he regularly report to a police station.

Human rights activists stage a protest outside a court in Istanbul, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018 where the trial of eleven human rights activists, accused of belonging to and aiding terror groups, is ongoing. They hold placards demanding the release of Amnesty's Turkey chairman Taner Kilic, who was imprisoned separately in June 2017, and goes on trial in the city of Izmir for alleged links to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, blamed by the government for last year's coup attempt. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

He is on trial with a group of 10 other activists detained in a police raid in July while attending a workshop on digital security. They were charged with belonging to and abetting terror organizations. The others of the group have already been released from jail.

Human rights activists stage a protest outside a court in Istanbul, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018 where the trial of eleven human rights activists, accused of belonging to and aiding terror groups, is ongoing. They hold placards demanding the release of Amnesty's Turkey chairman Taner Kilic, who was imprisoned separately in June 2017, and goes on trial in the city of Izmir for alleged links to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, blamed by the government for last year's coup attempt. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

Human rights activists stage a protest outside a court in Istanbul, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018 where the trial of eleven human rights activists, accused of belonging to and aiding terror groups, is ongoing. They hold placards demanding the release of Amnesty's Turkey chairman Taner Kilic, who was imprisoned separately in June 2017, and goes on trial in the city of Izmir for alleged links to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, blamed by the government for last year's coup attempt. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)Tianjin FAW Xiali estimates loss of RMB 1.6 billion for 2017

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Tianjin FAW Xiali estimated a loss of RMB 1.605 billion to RMB 1.685 for the financial achievements in 2017, according to the automaker. In 2016, its net profit attributable to shareholders reached RMB 162.33 million.

Tianjin FAW Xiali said that it failed to complete the adjustment in product structure in the past year. Its sales and production scale were not large enough and its ability to earn money needs significant improvement. All these above reasons may account for its loss in 2017.

Last year, Xiali delivered a total of 27,000 vehicles, slumping by 26.39 percent from a year earlier. Since the automaker suspended the production of Xiali, Wei series for several months, the models output and sales were halved compared with the previous year. Currently, a total of 8 models are on sale, four under Junpai series, one under Wei series and three under Xiali Series.

In the result forecast statement, FAW Xiali said that it has been preparing for the production of new products. In order to enrich the product portfolio and improve the production and sales scale, the automaker will introduce the all-new sedan Junpai A50, the crossover Junpai CX65 and also A-SUV product.THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - A Dutch appeals court on Wednesday convicted a man for helping his ailing, 99-year-old stepmother take her own life a decade ago, a case that has become a focal point in the fierce debate in the Netherlands about end-of-life issues.

The city court in Den Bosch gave Albert Heringa a suspended six-month sentence, meaning he will not go to prison unless he commits another crime.

The court said that while it was aware of the public debate about assisted suicide, it had to apply Dutch law as it currently stands.

The country's euthanasia and assisted suicide association, known by its acronym NVVE, said it was "enormously disappointed" in the verdict.

"The NVVE is astonished that the court showed no sympathy at all for the position in which Albert Heringa found himself at the time," the association said in a statement.

While euthanasia by a physician under strict conditions is legal in the Netherlands, helping someone take their own life is punishable by up to three years in prison and a fine.

In its written ruling, the court acknowledged the debate in Dutch society about whether people who consider their lives "completed" should be able to get help to end their lives. The court, however, said it would not get involved in the debate.

"The court believes that a legal body cannot get ahead of a possible legislative process," the ruling said. "That is why it won't give an opinion on the question of whether offering help in dying to a person with a completed life should be permitted."

Heringa was convicted in 2013 of giving his stepmother, who took her own life in June 2008, "a combination of medicines." He was not punished, but an appeals court ordered a retrial.BERLIN (AP) - A survivor of the Nazis' Auschwitz death camp praised Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to open her country's doors to asylum seekers in 2015, telling lawmakers Wednesday at a special parliamentary session commemorating the victims of the Holocaust it was a sign of Germany's "exemplary" conduct following the war.

Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, a 92-year-old German-born Jew who survived Auschwitz with her sister but lost her parents in the Holocaust, said that after the war they emerged as refugees in a world of closed borders.

"Now they are opened, thanks to an incredibly generous and courageous gesture made here," she said to wide applause, with Merkel sitting not far away.

Holocaust survivor Anita Lasker-Wallfisch delivers her speech during a remembrance session of the German parliament to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (Wolfgang Kumm/dpa via AP)

International Holocaust Remembrance Day fell this year on Saturday, 73 years after the Soviet army liberated the Auschwitz death camp in occupied Poland.

Germany's parliament holds a special session annually to mark the day, commemorating not only the victims of the Holocaust but also those who helped the persecuted and others who resisted Adolf Hitler's tyranny.

The event this year was the first at which lawmakers from the anti-migrant nationalist Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party were present after they won seats in parliament for the first time in September's election.

They didn't join the applause for Lasker-Wallfisch's coments about Merkel's migrant policy, but did when she spoke out against Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism, as well as a standing ovation after the speech.

"What happened happened, and it cannot be expunged," Lasker-Wallfisch said. "Now it is about making certain it can never, ever, happen again."

After a minute of silence starting the commemoration, parliamentary speaker Wolfgang Schaeuble noted to lawmakers that it was only a day after the 85th anniversary of when Hitler had become chancellor, noting that he had too easily turned "racial ideology into public policy."

"It was all about us and the others, and the others did not belong, were not allowed to belong," he said, adding that the lesson is there must be "consistent opposition to any form of exclusion before it is too late."

Anti-Semitism in Germany today is "intolerable," Schaeuble said, and that also applies to new migrants from Arab nations that have an anti-Israel stance.

"Migration brings obligations, and whoever wishes to live here must accept them, we insist upon that," he said.

But, in criticism of the nationalism that helped the AfD win votes, he said migrants were also part of Germany.

"Whoever speaks of the people but only means certain parts of the population threatens our democratic order," said Schaeuble, a member of Merkel's party.

Lasker-Wallfisch, who moved to Britain after the war, urged Germany and other nations to remain vigilant in fighting anti-Semitism, saying that people needed to see one another as individuals and overcome hatred.

"Hate is toxic, and ultimately those who hate poison themselves," she said.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, left, arrives with holocaust survivor Anita Lasker-Wallfisch for a remembrance session of the German parliament to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

German Parliament President Wolfgang Schaeuble, at the podium left, delivers his speech during a remembrance session of the German parliament to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018.(AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

German Parliament President Wolfgang Schaeuble delivers his speech during a remembrance session of the parliament Bundestag to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust at the Reichstag building in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

German Parliament President Wolfgang Schaeuble, at the podium left, delivers his speech during a remembrance session of the German parliament to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

In this photo taken with reflection at a window of the visitors tribune, Holocaust survivor Anita Lasker-Wallfisch delivers her speech during a remembrance session of the German parliament to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Holocaust survivor Anita Lasker-Wallfisch delivers her speech during a remembrance session of the German parliament to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)GENEVA (AP) - The U.N. human rights office said Wednesday that 206 companies - mostly Israeli and American - are facing a review of their business practices involving Israeli settlements, which are considered illegal under international law.

In a long-awaited report, the office said more resources were needed to handle the complex and unprecedented task of compiling what some critics call an unfair "blacklist" and a sign of alleged anti-Israel bias at the U.N.

Proponents insist that companies must be held accountable for their activities in the settlements, arguing that those actions can contribute to injustices against Palestinians.

The 16-page report does not cite companies by name, and says the rights office still has work to do.

The office said it had contacted 64 companies, but it would not identify until all 206 companies had been contacted - and possibly not at all. Of those companies, 143 are based in Israel or the settlements, and 22 in the United States. Of the 19 other countries linked to such companies, Germany is home to seven and the Netherlands to five.

Ultimately, the rights office's review could lead to a public naming and shaming of companies for their activities linked to the settlements and give an U.N. imprimatur to efforts championed by the "BDS" movement (boycott, divest and sanction), which has been primarily a grassroots campaign to pressure Israel through action against companies.

"The violations of human rights associated with the settlements are pervasive and devastating, reaching every facet of Palestinian life," the report said, citing restrictions on movement, freedom of religion, education and land ownership faced by Palestinians in east Jerusalem and the West Bank. "Businesses play a central role in furthering the establishment, maintenance and expansion of Israeli settlements."

"Business enterprises may need to consider whether it is possible to engage in such an environment in a manner that respects human rights," it said.

Some 115 other companies were eliminated after an initial review.

Israel and the United States have been sharply critical of a resolution passed by the 47-member Human Rights Council in March 2016 that paved the way for the review - the first of its kind. The resolution called on the rights office to create "database" of companies found to engage in any of 10 activities, either explicitly linked to the settlements or supportive of them.

"I urge all sides to avoid misrepresenting the contents of this report, which has been produced in good faith on the basis of the mandate laid down by the Human Rights Council," said Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. He said he hopes the database "will assist states and businesses in complying with their obligations and responsibilities under international law."

Ahmad Majdalani, an aide to President Mahmoud Abbas, said the Palestinians remain supportive of the rights office's efforts.

"We think the world should boycott all companies that work in settlements and we believe this is a very effective way in challenging the illegal building on our occupied land," he said.

Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, criticized the timing of the report's release, and vowed to fight the release of any "blacklist" of companies.

"On the day that the U.N. is marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the UNHRC has chosen to publicize this information about the number of companies operating in Israel," he said. "This is a shameful act which will serve as a stain on the UNHRC forever.

"We will continue to act with our allies and use all the means at our disposal to stop the publication of this disgraceful blacklist," he added.

Advocacy group Human Rights Watch urged more resources for the rights office to continue its work.

"Today's report shows progress in identifying and communicating with companies that contribute to serious abuses in Israeli settlements in the West Bank," said Sari Bashi, Israel and Palestine advocacy director at Human Rights Watch.

"The U.N. and member states should allocate the resources needed to complete the work of advising companies of their human rights responsibilities and publish the names of those who continue to operate in settlements," Bashi said.

Eugene Kontorovich, head of International Law at the Kohelet Policy Forum, a conservative think-tank in Jerusalem, said no international law was being violated by countries who do business in occupied lands, including in the settlements, and said Israel was being singled out unfairly.

"The U.N. Human Rights Council is supposed to be about human rights, not Israeli wrongs, so to create a report just about Israel seems to go against its own mission," he said.

___

Josef Federman and Tia Goldenberg contributed from Jerusalem.LAKE PLACID, N.Y. (AP) - With the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics at hand, Lake Placid is rolling out the welcome mat for travelers who won't make that trip but might want to celebrate in a village that embraces the Olympic spirit like nowhere else.

Lake Placid is one of only three places to host two Winter Olympics. (St. Moritz, Switzerland and Innsbruck, Austria, are the others.) The heroics of the U.S. hockey team and speed skater Eric Heiden helped make the 1980 Lake Placid games one for the ages, one with an enduring legacy. The town also hosted the 1932 Olympics.

Today, it's nearly impossible to go anywhere in the village without encountering somebody in training for something - whether it's skiing, bobsledding, mountain biking or the region's Ironman triathlon.

FILE - In this Feb. 17, 1980, file photo, Winter Olympic visitors stroll through the snow-covered downtown area of Lake Placid, N.Y., With the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics slated to start next week, Lake Placid is rolling out the welcome mat for travelers who won't make that trip but might want to celebrate in a village that embraces the Olympic spirit like nowhere else. (AP Photo, File)

"Everything about it, it's the whole vibe," said Lisa Weibrecht, a former luge athlete for the United States whose son Andrew has won silver and bronze medals in downhill skiing at the past two Winter Olympics and will be gunning for gold in South Korea. "It's a beautiful place, but the number of athletes going to the Olympics who live and train here speaks to the kind of lifestyle and activities people engage in every day. I don't think there's another place in the world like it, maybe St. Moritz."

The Olympic tradition will be front and center in a monthlong celebration in Lake Placid that starts Feb. 1 with the opening ceremony of the Empire State Winter Games .

Main Street will be decorated in red, white and blue and adorned with welcome flags, and organizers have upped their game for the 38th version of the four-day Olympic-style event, creating a mini-village adjacent to the Olympic Center downtown, replete with a Jumbotron that will be in place through the Winter Olympics for visitors to watch the action overseas. The Olympic cauldron will be lit on Feb. 9 .

The venue includes a zip line, snow tubing, local foods, live music, and also is the site of winter bike races. On Feb. 2, the U.S. Olympic aerials team will get a sendoff with a fireworks display.

Part of what made the 1980 games special was the close proximity of the Olympic venues, all within 8 miles of Main Street. Nothing's changed, save improvements made by the state-run Olympic Regional Development Authority, which maintains venues.

Visitors can make the short drive down Route 73 to Mount Van Hoevenberg to ride in a bobsled or on a skeleton (sled), ski the cross-country network of groomed trails used during the 1980 Winter Games, or ski and shoot at the biathlon center. (Reservations are highly recommended for sliding sports, which are dependent on track and weather conditions.)

On the edge of town sits the Olympic Jumping Complex. Today, the complex comprises 120-meter and 90-meter ski jump towers. Visitors can zoom up the 26 stories in an elevator to get a bird's-eye view from the top. You can also ride a chairlift to the base of the jumps.

Seven miles down Route 86 sits Whiteface Mountain , which hosted Olympic Alpine events in 1980 and boasts the greatest vertical drop (3,166 feet) in the East. Whiteface features 11 lifts and 87 trails with varying terrain for skiers and snowboarders.

In town next to Herb Brooks Arena, where the U.S. hockey team pulled off its "Miracle on Ice" upset of the powerful Soviet Union, sits the same outdoor speed skating oval where local hero Jack Shea won two gold medals in 1932 and Heiden accomplished his stunning achievement of five golds. Plunk down $8 to skate, or walk to the 30-foot-high converted ski jump trestle that sends toboggans down two ice-covered chutes onto frozen Mirror Lake, or go for a dogsled ride at the other end of the lake. The Olympic Museum next to the hockey rinks inside the Olympic Center has exhibits spanning the history of the 1932 and 1980 games.

For most of the last three decades, Ski Magazine has ranked Whiteface-Lake Placid No. 1 for off-hill activities. Its readers selected it the No. 2 resort overall in the eastern United States. That's partly because overnight options are more varied than ever, from bed-and-breakfasts like Cobble Mountain Lodge and the Interlaken Inn , to chain mainstays Marriott , Hampton Inn , and Crowne Plaza , to the stately Mirror Lake Inn Resort and Spa operated by Ed and Lisa Weibrecht since the late 1970s.

Food options are varied, too, from Caffe Rustica and its Mediterranean fare, to excellent barbecue at Smoke Signals , to Lisa G's and Lake Placid Pub and Brewery . The Cottage at the edge of Mirror Lake is one of the area's most popular apres ski sites and will stage an Opening Ceremony party (Feb. 9) on its outside deck with a big screen TV. It's also created Olympic-themed drinks like the War Horse, named after Andrew Weibrecht.

A highlight of the month is Winterfest (Feb. 24), which will include meet-and-greets with former Olympians.

"It's pretty exciting," Ed Weibrecht said.

FILE - In this Dec. 11, 2014, file photo, lights decorate the Mirror Lake Inn in Lake Placid, N.Y. With the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics slated to start next week, Lake Placid is rolling out the welcome mat for travelers who won't make that trip but might want to celebrate in a village that embraces the Olympic spirit like nowhere else. (AP Photo/Mike Groll, File)NEW YORK (AP) - Hillary Clinton says she should not have let a senior campaign adviser keep his job after a female staffer accused him of sexual harassment in 2007.

"The most important work of my life has been to support and empower women," Clinton wrote on Facebook Tuesday night . "So I very much understand the question I'm being asked as to why I let an employee on my 2008 campaign keep his job despite his inappropriate workplace behavior. The short answer is this: If I had it to do again, I wouldn't."

Clinton said that senior campaign staff and legal counsel confirmed that the behavior by faith-based adviser Burns Strider had occurred after the woman came forward. Her campaign manager recommended that Strider be terminated, but Clinton said she instead demoted him, docked his pay, required counseling, separated him from the victim, and warned him that he'd be fired if he did it again.

FILE - In this Dec. 15, 2017 file photo, former Secretary of State and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks to the GirlsBuildLA Leadership Summit in Los Angeles. Clinton is expressing regret about allowing a senior campaign adviser to keep his job after another worker complained in 2007 that he had behaved inappropriately. Clinton put out a lengthy Facebook post Tuesday, Jan. 30, 3018 saying that she wouldn't have let adviser Burns Strider keep his job on her 2008 presidential campaign if she had it to do over again. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

Strider did not immediately respond Wednesday to a call and email requesting comment. Strider told BuzzFeed News that he didn't consider his behavior "excessive, but that doesn't mean it wasn't to" the woman.

Clinton said that there were no further complaints against Strider during the rest of the campaign, but that she is troubled that he was terminated from a job leading an independent political action committee supporting Clinton for inappropriate behavior several years later.

"I believed the punishment was severe and the message to him unambiguous. I also believe in second chances," Clinton said in the post published shortly before the start of President Donald Trump's State of the Union address. "But sometimes they're squandered."

She said that the reoccurrence of the behavior "troubles me greatly" and leads her to question whether it would have been better if she had fired him.

"There is no way I can go back 10 years and know the answers. But you can bet I'm asking myself these questions right now."

Clinton said that her first thought after the New York Times reported on the incident "was for the young woman involved" and that she reached out to her "to see how she was doing, but also to help me reflect on my decision and its consequences."

"She expressed appreciation that she worked on a campaign where she knew she could come forward without fear," Clinton said. "She was glad that her accusations were taken seriously, that there was a clear process in place for dealing with harassment, and that it was followed. Most importantly, she told me that for the remainder of the campaign, she flourished in her new role. "

She said the woman "read every word of this and has given me permission to share it."TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - The Latest on Kansas swearing in a new governor (all times local):

5:30 p.m.

New Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer is open to a top Republican legislator's proposals for ending ongoing legal battles with local school districts over education funding.

FILE - In this Sept. 27, 2017, file photo, Kansas Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer speaks to reporters outside the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. Colyer begins his tenure Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018, as Kansas governor replacing Gov. Sam Brownback, his GOP predecessor who is stepping down to become U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. (AP Photo/John Hanna, File)

Colyer said Wednesday that the education proposals from Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning are a good place to start.

Ahead of Colyer's swearing-in Wednesday, Denning said the new governor should endorse rewriting the state constitution's provisions on education funding or initiate new settlement talks with the four school districts now suing the state.

The Kansas Supreme Court ruled in October that the state must increase its spending on public schools.

Colyer also said after his inaugural address that he will be working with legislators on measures to increase government transparency and could issue executive orders on the issue.

___

4:25 p.m.

Kansas' new governor is a surgeon who plans to continue seeing patients even as he directs state government.

Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer said Wednesday during his inaugural address that he plans to continue seeing patients for a few hours a week. He said people should not be surprised to see him working from 80 to 100 hours a week.

Colyer was sworn in to replace former Republican Gov. Sam Brownback after Brownback stepped down to become U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom.

Colyer had been lieutenant governor for seven years. His Kansas City-area practice performs both cosmetic and reconstructive procedures.

The new governor spent part of his speech calling on Kansas residents to perform public service and recounting a past medical relief mission to Rwanda during its genocide in the 1990s.

___

3:15 p.m.

Republican Jeff Colyer has been sworn in as the new Kansas governor.

Colyer took the oath of office Wednesday in a Statehouse ceremony after former GOP Gov. Sam Brownback resigned.

Brownback stepped down to become U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. Colyer was Brownback's lieutenant governor for seven years.

The 57-year-old Colyer was the state's longest-serving lieutenant governor.

He is facing a skeptical, Republican-controlled Legislature that is deeply divided over a court mandate to increase spending on public schools.

The Kansas Supreme Court ruled in October that funding for public schools remains constitutionally inadequate. Brownback proposed phasing in a $513 million increase over five years and relying on growth in state revenues to pay for it.

___

11:40 a.m.

Kansas Democrats aren't waiting until incoming Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer takes office to launch a website criticizing him.

The state Democratic Party unveiled its website Wednesday ahead of Colyer's swearing-in. The site ties Colyer to the policies of departing GOP Gov. Sam Brownback and is www.BrownbackClone.com .

Colyer has served as Brownback's lieutenant governor for seven years. Brownback is stepping down as governor to become U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom.

Brownback's popularity waned after his 2014 re-election because of the persistent state budget problems that followed aggressive income tax cuts that Brownback championed in 2012 and 2013. Legislators rolled back most of the tax cuts last year.

Colyer was Brownback's running mate in 2010 and 2014. He is running for a full, four-year term as governor this year.

___

9 a.m.

A top Republican in the Kansas Legislature is urging incoming GOP Gov. Jeff Colyer to push for a long-term settlement of ongoing lawsuits over funding for public schools.

State Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning said Wednesday ahead of Colyer's afternoon swearing-in that the new governor should either back a change in the state constitution or initiate settlement talks with school districts suing the state. Denning is influential among GOP conservatives.

Kansas has been in and out of school funding lawsuits for decades. Four local school districts sued the state in 2010.

The Kansas Supreme Court ruled in October that the state's funding of more than $4 billion a year is inadequate under the state constitution.

Colyer is replacing GOP Gov. Sam Brownback, who is stepping down to take an ambassador's post.

___

11:38 p.m. Tuesday

Republican Jeff Colyer is preparing to take over as Kansas' next governor, facing a skeptical Legislature deeply divided over a court mandate to increase state spending on public schools.

Colyer is the state's longest-serving lieutenant governor and was scheduled to be sworn in as governor Wednesday afternoon.

He is replacing GOP Gov. Sam Brownback, who's stepping down to become U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom.

The biggest task facing Colyer and the GOP-controlled Legislature is responding to a Kansas Supreme Court ruling in October that funding for public schools remains constitutionally inadequate.

Brownback proposed phasing in a $513 million increase over five years and relying only on growth in state revenues to pay for it. The plan angered many Republicans, who viewed it as fiscally reckless.

Sign painter Bob Sell paints Jeff Colyer's name on the Governor's office door. Colyer is to be sworn in as Governor of Kansas during an afternoon ceremony at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan., Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - Republican Jeff Colyer promised a "new day" of openness Wednesday shortly after taking the oath as Kansas' governor, then made overtures to a skeptical GOP-controlled Legislature on the divisive issue of public school spending.

Colyer, the state's longest-serving lieutenant governor, replaced former GOP Gov. Sam Brownback immediately after Brownback stepped down to become U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. Colyer, a 57-year-old surgeon, took the oath for his new office in a ceremony inside the Statehouse.

"We will set a tone and insist on an environment of openness, honesty and respect and without harassment, especially in this building," Colyer said. "When others blame and complain, I'll be busy working for you and finding solutions."

Republican Jeff Colyer is sworn in as the 47th Governor of Kansas during a ceremony at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan., Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. Colyer, the state's longest-serving lieutenant governor, replaced former GOP Gov. Sam Brownback immediately after Brownback stepped down to become U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)

Colyer largely avoided policy issues in his inaugural address, which included a call to the state's residents to "give yourself to your fellow man." He plans to give a longer and more detailed speech to a joint session of the Legislature next week.

But ahead of the ceremony, a top Republican lawmaker urged him to push for a long-term settlement of ongoing legal battles over education funding that prompted a mandate from the Kansas Supreme Court to boost school spending.

Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning, who is influential among GOP conservatives, said Colyer should either support rewriting the state constitution or initiate settlement talks with four school districts suing the state.

"That's the No. 1 priority," said Denning, a Kansas City-area Republican. "We have to settle it this year."

Colyer told reporters after his speech and a reception that Denning's ideas were "a good place to start."

"I want to focus on getting this problem solved," he said.

The Supreme Court ruled in October that funding for public schools remains constitutionally inadequate, despite an increase approved last year. The decision came in a lawsuit filed by the four districts in 2010, but the state has been in and out of education funding lawsuits for decades.

Denning and other conservative Republicans favor rewriting the state constitution to curb the court's power over school funding issues, but they have been unable to muster the two-thirds majorities in both chambers that they'd need to get a measure on the ballot. The state also has had unsuccessful settlement talks with the aggrieved school districts, as well as successful negotiations in the past about some issues over how dollars are distributed.

Alan Rupe, the lead attorney for the school districts, said he's open to new settlement talks: "We know what the ballpark is, and we'd welcome a discussion."

Brownback proposed phasing in an additional $513 million increase over five years, relying only on the annual growth in state revenues to pay for it. The plan angered many Republicans, who viewed it as fiscally reckless and undercutting a push for a constitutional amendment.

Lawmakers are waiting to see whether Colyer breaks with Brownback's policies or modifies the school funding plan.

The new governor also told reporters that he will work with legislators on measures to improve government transparency and might issue executive orders to address the issue.

Colyer remained a loyal No. 2 during seven years as Brownback's lieutenant governor, even as Kansas voters turned on Brownback because of the persistent budget problems that followed aggressive income tax cuts the governor championed in 2012 and 2013. Lawmakers last year rolled back most of the cuts.

And the Kansas Democratic Party launched www.BrownbackClone.com Wednesday ahead of Colyer's swearing-in to remind voters of his ties to Brownback.

Colyer is a Kansas City-area plastic surgeon who does both cosmetic and reconstructive procedures. He's been associated with the International Medical Corps for three decades and has continued during regular medical relief missions as lieutenant governor.

He spoke about his experiences on a relief mission to Rwanda during its genocide in the 1990s and said he will continue to see patients a few hours a week while serving as governor.

"It helps me be a better governor because I'm dealing with people where they are, in some of their most difficult times," he told reporters.

___

Follow John Hanna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/apjdhanna

Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer, front, sits with former Gov. Sam Brownback, back, before being sworn in as Governor of Kansas during a ceremony at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan., Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. Colyer promised a "new day" of openness shortly after taking the oath Wednesday as Kansas' governor, addressing the public and a GOP-controlled Legislature that is deeply divided over a court order to increase state spending on public schools. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)

Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer smiles after being sworn in as the 47th Governor of Kansas during a ceremony at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan., Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)

Gov. Jeff Colyer waves after being sworn in as the 47th Governor of Kansas during a ceremony at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan., Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. Colyer promised a "new day" of openness shortly after taking the oath Wednesday as Kansas' governor, addressing the public and a GOP-controlled Legislature that is deeply divided over a court order to increase state spending on public schools. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)

Republican Jeff Colyer, left, is sworn in as the 47th Governor of Kansas during a ceremony at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan., Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner)NEW YORK (AP) - The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has resigned because of financial conflicts of interest, government officials announced Wednesday.

Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald's complex financial investments presented conflicts that made it difficult to do her job, according to a statement from the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC.

Alex Azar, who was sworn in as head of the department Monday, accepted her resignation.

FILE - In this Oct. 16, 2014 file photo, Brenda Fitzgerald, Georgia Department of Public Health commissioner, left, and Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal respond to questions in Atlanta. U.S. officials announced that Fitzgerald, the director of the nation's top public health agency has resigned because of financial conflicts of interest. On Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials said Fitzgerald's complex financial interests had caused conflicts of interest that made it difficult to do her job. Alex Azar, who was sworn in as head of the department Monday, accepted her resignation. (AP Photo/David Tulis, File)

Fitzgerald's investments have "imposed a broad recusal limiting her ability to complete all of her duties as CDC Director," HHS spokesman Matt Lloyd said in the statement. "Due to the nature of these financial interests, Dr. Fitzgerald could not divest from them in a definitive time period."

Fitzgerald's resignation follows a news report Tuesday that her financial manager bought tobacco and drug stocks after she took the job in July, while selling other stocks that posed a conflict of interest.

She had owned a range of stocks, including holdings in beer and soda companies, the tobacco company Philip Morris International, and a number of health care companies. She said she sold the stocks, but in December U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) wrote Fitzgerald saying she was concerned about unresolved financial holdings.

Government documents showed that Fitzgerald was unable to sell certain long-term investments in companies that could prevent her from talking about cancer and prescription drug monitoring programs, wrote Murray.

On Tuesday, Politico reported that a month after becoming CDC director, Fitzgerald's financial manager bought shares in Japan Tobacco and the drug companies Bayer and Merck & Co. Those stocks were later sold, Politico reported.

Fitzgerald could not be reached immediately for comment. Her predecessor, Dr. Tom Frieden, said in a statement that Fitzgerald told him she didn't know about the purchase of the tobacco stocks.

"I have spoken with Dr. Fitzgerald and believe her when she says that she was unaware that a tobacco company investment had been made, she understands that any affiliation between the tobacco industry and public health is unacceptable, and that when she learned of it, she directed that it be sold," Frieden said.

Fitzgerald, 71, was a long-time OB-GYN in the Atlanta area, a former major in the U.S. Air Force, and campaigned twice, unsuccessfully, as a Republican candidate for Congress in the 1990s. She led Georgia's state health department for six years before being tapped for the CDC job.CAIRO (AP) - Egypt's president again accused unknown parties of being responsible for the 2016 murder of Italian researcher Giulio Regeni, alleging a failed plot to sabotage bilateral relations during a Wednesday ceremony inaugurating a massive gas project with Italian energy firm Eni.

The offshore Zohr field, discovered by Eni in 2015 and touted as the largest ever in the Mediterranean, began production last month after being brought online in record time despite the temporary cutting of diplomatic ties over the Regeni affair. It contains enough gas to eventually allow Egypt to cover its own needs and export the fuel.

Speaking at the ceremony in Port Said, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi thanked Eni and the Italian government for persevering. Italy had withdrawn its ambassador in April 2016, saying Egypt was not cooperating in the Regeni investigation. An ambassador returned last September.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi speaks during a ceremony marking the start of a massive gas project with Italian energy firm Eni, Wednesday Jan. 31, 2018, in Port Said, Egypt. During the ceremony el-Sissi again accused unknown parties of being behind the 2016 murder in Egypt of Italian researcher Giulio Regeni, alleging a plot to sabotage bilateral relations. He pledged Egypt would help bring the killers of the 28-year-old researcher to justice. (MENA via AP)

"We will not forget Italy's standing alongside us despite the Regeni case," el-Sissi said, addressing Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi by his first name. "Do you now know why they wanted to undermine relations between Egypt and Italy? So we don't get to be here," he added.

El-Sissi also repeated his pledge that Egypt would help bring the killers of the 28-year-old researcher to justice, and that his family in Italy should know that "we will not forget this incident, until we find the culprits and bring them to account."

Regeni was a Cambridge University doctoral student researching labor movements in Egypt when he was abducted in Cairo in 2016. His body was found along a road several days later bearing marks of extensive torture, of the kind that activists and rights groups say is widespread within Egyptian detention facilities.

Egypt's security services have denied any involvement in his abduction or death.

In a letter published on Jan. 25, the second anniversary of Regeni's disappearance, Rome prosecutor Giuseppe Pignatone said the motive behind the killing was "the research activity Giulio conducted in the months of his stay in Cairo," and that he had been under police surveillance until his disappearance.

Regeni had been researching labor movements in Egypt, a sensitive subject that would have drawn scrutiny from security agencies. He went missing in central Cairo when police were out in force to prevent protests on the fifth anniversary of the 2011 uprising. His main contact in the unofficial street vendors' union later said he had told police Regeni was a spy.

Egypt has been waging a fierce crackdown on dissent since the military overthrow of an elected but divisive Islamist president in 2013. Thousands of people have been jailed, mainly Islamists but also several prominent secular activists. Pro-government media routinely portray Egypt as the target of foreign conspiracies aimed at destabilizing the country.

CEO Claudio Descalzi of the Italian energy firm Eni, center right, presents Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi with a gift during a ceremony marking the start of a massive gas project, Wednesday Jan. 31, 2018, in Port Said, Egypt. During the ceremony el-Sissi again accused unknown parties of being behind the 2016 murder in Egypt of Italian researcher Giulio Regeni, alleging a plot to sabotage bilateral relations. He pledged Egypt would help bring the killers of the 28-year-old researcher to justice. (MENA via AP)NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - Federal prosecutors decided Wednesday not to retry Sen. Bob Menendez on corruption charges that ended in a hung jury last fall, lifting the legal cloud hanging over the New Jersey Democrat as he gears up for re-election this year to the closely divided Senate.

The move brings to an end a more than five-year investigation that began with never-substantiated allegations about consorting with prostitutes and eventually resulted in a bribery indictment.

Menendez, 64, was charged with trading his political influence for gifts and campaign contributions from Florida eye doctor Salomon Melgen, 63. Their 11-week trial ended in November with the jury deadlocked.

FILE - IN this Nov. 16, 2017 file photo, Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez becomes emotional as he speaks to reporters in front of the courthouse in Newark, N.J. Federal prosecutors decided Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018 not to retry Menendez on corruption charges, lifting the legal cloud hanging over the New Jersey Democrat as he gears up for re-election this year. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

"From the very beginning, I never wavered in my innocence and my belief that justice would prevail," Menendez said in a statement. "I am grateful that the Department of Justice has taken the time to re-evaluate its case and come to the appropriate conclusion."

Prosecutors had said on Jan. 19 that they would pursue a retrial, but they abandoned the case after the judge last week threw out the bribery charges related to the campaign donations. Eleven charges remained, including bribery, fraud and conspiracy.

The Justice Department didn't immediately comment on the reasons for the change in course but mentioned the judge's ruling in its two-sentence memo Wednesday.

Though the case weakened Menendez's poll numbers, he retained the full support of the major Democratic players in New Jersey, including Gov. Phil Murphy. Wednesday's development further solidified his chances in a state that hasn't elected a Republican senator since the 1970s and where Menendez won by nearly 20 points in 2012.

"It's game over," said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. "The case is literally closed, not just in federal court but also in terms of its impact on the campaign."

Melgen was convicted separately in Florida last spring in a Medicare fraud case that prosecutors amounted to more than $100 million. They are pressing for a 30-year prison sentence.

The investigation of Menendez dated to late 2012 after a story appeared on a conservative website claiming Menendez and Melgen consorted with prostitutes at Melgen's home in the Dominican Republic. Three women later recanted and said they were paid to make the false claims.

The probe widened to examine the relationship between the two men, who have known each other for more than 20 years.

They were indicted in 2015, accused of operating a scheme in which Menendez used his clout in exchange for trips on Melgen's private jet to his Dominican resort, a Paris vacation and other inducements.

Prosecutors said Menendez pressured government officials on Melgen's behalf over a Medicare billing dispute and a contract to provide port screening equipment and also helped obtain U.S. visas for the doctor's girlfriends.

The senator's attorneys argued Melgen's gifts were tokens of friendship, not bribes.

Jurors told reporters as many as 10 members of the panel were in favor of acquittal on all counts, leading many to speculate the government wouldn't pursue a retrial.

In throwing out some of the bribery charges, U.S. District Judge William Walls said the government failed to show there was an explicit quid pro quo, or "this-for-that" agreement, connecting the campaign contributions and Menendez's actions.

Menendez served in the House from 1992 to 2006, taking over Jon Corzine's Senate seat when Corzine became New Jersey governor. Menendez is a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.GAC Honda, GAC Trumpchi announce generous bonus for staff

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Recent news show that the 2017 year-end bonus of GAC Trumpchi will be up to 12 months of salary. Besides, staff of the automaker will receive 10 percent higher salary this year than that of last year.

Another subsidiary under Guangzhou Automobile Group, GAC Honda, also revealed its year-end bonus plan. After discussing with the staff representatives, the company decided to pay the workers another 9 months of salary and a special bonus of RMB 4,000. Besides, workers in GAC Honda have already received a bonus of RMB 6,000.

The generous bonus comes from the outstanding vehicle sales performance. In 2017, the group sold a total of 2,001,036 vehicles in the whole year, jumping 21.27 percent compared with the year before. GAC Honda handed over 705,000 vehicles last year, exceeding its annual sales target and increasing 10.37 percent year on year. The annual sales of GAC Motor, the self-owned brand of GAC, jumped 36.7 percent to 508,586 units.

Beijing Hyundai also announced its bonus scheme. Even though its annual sales slumped by nearly 30 percent in 2017, Beijing Hyundai also announced that apart from the bonus for the Spring Festival, workers will also receive a bonus equivalent to 3.5 month of salary. The joint venture said that in spite of the failure to complete the sales target, the sales and production improved a lot in the second half of last year and that the bonus is to express gratitude for the staffs work.



ROME (AP) - A European border agency is launching a new Mediterranean Sea operation with a focus on detecting terror threats.

The Frontex agency says Joint Operation Themis starts Thursday in the central Mediterranean. Its vessels will still rescue migrants from human traffickers' boats but the operation will also involve "intelligence-gathering and other steps aimed at detecting foreign fighters and other terrorist threats at the external borders" of Europe.

Themis' operational area will span the waters off Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Turkey and Albania. The security component will also help Italy fight drug smuggling across the Adriatic Sea.

In this Saturday Jan. 27, 2018 photo, aid workers of the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms transfer a group of refugees and migrants from an overcrowded wooden boat to a Spanish war-ship, 45 miles north of Al-Khums, Libya. (AP Photo/Santi Palacios)

Frontex executive director Fabrice Leggeri said Themis will "better reflect the changing patterns of migration, as well as cross-border crime."

There has a recent uptick in African migrants trying to reach Spain across the Mediterranean.

In this Saturday Jan. 27, 2018, photo, Spanish soldiers assist 329 refugees and migrants, mostly from Eritrea and Bangladesh, in collaboration with aid workers of the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, after they left Libya trying to reach European soil aboard an overcrowded wooden boat, 45 miles north of Al-Khums, Libya. (AP Photo/Santi Palacios)

In this Saturday Jan. 27, 2018, photo, 329 refugees and migrants, mostly from Eritrea and Bangladesh, wait to be rescued by aid workers after leaving Libya trying to reach European soil aboard an overcrowded wooden boat, 45 miles north of Al-Khums, Libya. (AP Photo/Santi Palacios)

In this Saturday Jan. 27, 2018, photo, Spanish soldiers assist 329 refugees and migrants, mostly from Eritrea and Bangladesh, in collaboration with aid workers of the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, after they left Libya trying to reach European soil aboard an overcrowded wooden boat, 45 miles north of Al-Khums, Libya. (AP Photo/Santi Palacios)

In this Saturday Jan. 27, 2018 photo, aid workers of the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms transfer a group of refugees and migrants from an overcrowded wooden boat to a Spanish war-ship, 45 miles north of Al-Khums, Libya. (AP Photo/Santi Palacios)

In this Saturday Jan. 27, 2018 photo, aid workers of the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms transfer a group of refugees and migrants from an overcrowded wooden boat to a Spanish war-ship, 45 miles north of Al-Khums, Libya. (AP Photo/Santi Palacios)

In this Saturday Jan. 27, 2018, photo, a woman reacts aboard a rescue speed boat from the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms after being rescued from a wooden boat transfer 329 refugees and migrants, mostly from Eritrea and Bangladesh, from an overcrowded, 45 miles north of Al-Khums, Libya. (AP Photo/Santi Palacios)

In this Saturday Jan. 27, 2018, photo, Spanish soldiers assist 329 refugees and migrants, mostly from Eritrea and Bangladesh, in collaboration with aid workers of the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, after they left Libya trying to reach European soil aboard an overcrowded wooden boat, 45 miles north of Al-Khums, Libya. (AP Photo/Santi Palacios)

In this Saturday Jan. 27, 2018 photo, 329 refugees and migrants, mostly from Eritrea and Bangladesh, wait to be rescued by aid workers after leaving Libya trying to reach European soil aboard an overcrowded wooden boat, 45 miles north of Al-Khums, Libya. (AP Photo/Santi Palacios)PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - The federal government says there will be an investigation into a spate of deaths among minke whales along the East Coast last year.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says Wednesday the deaths of more than two dozen minke whales will be investigated. The minke is a fairly common species of baleen whale, which is a group of large whales that also includes the blue whale and right whale.

The agency says it is treating the deaths as an "unusual mortality event." The agency also has investigated multiple deaths of humpback and right whales recently. Both of those investigations are still in progress.

FILE - In this Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2006 file photo, a man looks at a dead Minke whale on Cleveland Beach near Hubbards, Nova Scotia, Canada. On Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018, the federal government announced there will be an investigation into a spate of minke whales deaths along the U.S.'s East Coast in 2017. (Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press via AP)

The minke is more abundant than some other whale species that have been threatened by die-offs. They have been found dead from Maine to South Carolina.WASHINGTON (AP) - Rep. Trey Gowdy, a powerful GOP watchdog who built his name leading the investigation into the 2012 attacks against Americans in Benghazi, Libya, has become the latest prominent Republican to head for the exits rather than run for another term.

The former South Carolina prosecutor who is chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said in a statement Wednesday that he planned to return to the justice system, though he did not elaborate.

The committee's lengthy investigation into the attacks that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans focused heavily on Hillary Clinton's role as secretary of state, though an 800-page report produced no smoking gun pointing to wrongdoing by her. The investigation also revealed that Clinton used a private email server for government work, prompting an FBI investigation that proved to be an albatross in the Democrat's 2016 presidential campaign.

FILE - In this Dec. 7, 2017 file photo, House Judiciary Committee member Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., speaks during a House Judiciary hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. Gowdy says he will not seek re-election. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Today, Gowdy is involved in one of the House's Russia investigations and the leader of a renewed review of the FBI and Clinton's emails.

Gowdy, 53, was elected in the 2010 tea party wave that returned control of the House to Republicans. He is the ninth House committee head to step down, although several departing colleagues faced the prospect of being term-limited from that post or difficult re-election prospects. Gowdy did not have such obstacles, which made his decision all the more surprising.

"Whatever skills I may have are better utilized in a courtroom than in Congress, and I enjoy our justice system more than our political system," Gowdy said.

Gowdy has played an important role in the House Intelligence Committee's investigation into Russian election interference and any possible coordination with Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

In the committee's private interviews, he has been the chief questioner for majority Republicans and has relied on his prosecutorial experience. Among those witnesses were the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and Glenn Simpson, a Washington opposition researcher who was behind a dossier of allegations about Trump and his ties to Russia.

This week, Gowdy was among the committee members pushing for the release of a memo, drafted by Republicans, that alleges abuses of the government surveillance powers in the Russia investigation. Democrats have called the memo a "distraction" and a selectively edited group of GOP talking points.

A Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee described Gowdy's tenure as chairman as a "lost opportunity." Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., said the lack of investigations into the Trump administration and a dearth of hearings and legislation stand in stark contrast to how aggressively Republicans steered the committee when a Democrat was in the White House.

"He decided to throw his lot with protecting the Trump presidency and the White House at all costs," Connolly said of Gowdy.

Gowdy's love for the legal system is evident even in the naming of his family dogs, Jury and Bailiff. Gowdy was as an assistant federal prosecutor in South Carolina for six years before winning election as solicitor covering part of the state's conservative northwest.

Elected to three terms, Gowdy earned a reputation as a hard-charging lawman who prosecuted a wide range of cases, including some that ended in death sentences.

South Carolina's top federal prosecutor slot is technically open. It's now occupied by a career prosecutor serving as acting U.S. attorney for more than a year. But Wednesday's decision prompted no such announcements from the state's two senators, who would propose a replacement candidate to the Trump administration.

A bigger prize would be a seat on the federal bench. Gowdy's announcement comes on the day when Judge Dennis W. Shedd assumed senior status on 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, according to Shedd's biography on the court's website. Shedd is from South Carolina, and his decision allows the president to appoint a new full-time judge to fill the spot.

A Gowdy aide not authorized to discuss his decision publicly said the congressman was approached about a federal judge position in the past year, but Gowdy turned the opportunity down. The aide said Gowdy's plans are to return to South Carolina to practice law once he finishes his term.

GOP Rep. Steve Stivers of Ohio, chairman of the campaign committee that oversees Republican election efforts in the House, predicted that Gowdy's seat will stay in Republican control in November.

___

Associated Press writers Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, and Chad Day contributed to this report.STOCKHOLM (AP) - Britain's Prince William has praised Sweden's embrace of the great outdoors, in particular the physical and mental benefits of outdoor exercise for children.

Speaking Wednesday at the end of a two-day visit to Sweden, William said that "one lesson that we will take home with us, is that children are actively encouraged to spend time outdoors, whatever the weather."

During the visit, William and the Duchess of Cambridge sought to meet Swedes from all walks of life. At a medical institute, they discussed with academics Sweden's approach to managing mental health challenges, a subject the royals have campaigned about.

Britain's Prince William is greeted by pupils at Matteus School in Stockholm, Sweden, Wednesday Jan. 31, 2018. Prince William and Kate Duchess of Cambridge are on a four-day visit to Sweden and Norway. (Jonas Ekstromer / TT via AP)

William and Kate, both 35, will begin a two-day visit to Norway on Thursday.

Britain's Princess Kate Duchess of Cambridge, meets with pupils at Matteus School in Stockholm, Sweden, Wednesday Jan. 31, 2018. Prince William and Kate Duchess of Cambridge are on a four-day visit to Sweden and Norway. (Jonas Ekstromer / TT via AP)

Britain's Princess Kate Duchess of Cambridge, takes part in a lesson at Matteus School in Stockholm, Wednesday Jan. 31, 2018. Prince William and Kate Duchess of Cambridge are on a four-day visit to Sweden and Norway. (Jonas Ekstromer / TT via AP)

Britain's Kate Duchess of Cambridge, centre, and Prince Daniel of Sweden, left, visit the department store NK, Nordiska kompaniet, during the their official visit in Stockholm, Wednesday Jan. 31, 2018. The British royal couple Prince William and Kate Duchess of Cambridge are on an official visit to Sweden. (Henrik Montgomery/TT via AP)BRADENTON, Fla. (AP) - Talk about one heckuva an explosive donation.

Authorities say a grenade launcher, loaded with a live grenade, was left with other donated items at a Florida Goodwill store.

The Bradenton Herald reports that employees at a Goodwill store near Tampa reported the weapon on Sunday.

The Manatee County Sheriff's Office says the store manager told deputies that the grenade launcher had come in a shipment from another store several days earlier. The employees at the other location said they sent it along because they didn't know what it was.

Deputies say they disposed of the active grenade in a Hazmat locker, and the launcher was stored in the agency's property room.

It's not clear who donated the items.

___

Information from: The Bradenton (Fla.) Herald , http://www.bradenton.comCHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - An American Airlines flight has returned to a North Carolina airport about an hour after takeoff because of an odor in the cabin.

American spokeswoman Katie Cody said Flight 1965 from Charlotte Douglas International Airport was heading to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, on Wednesday when it turned around and returned to Charlotte. The cause of the odor wasn't known, and the plane was taken out of service for maintenance.

Cody said two of the 183 passengers onboard the Airbus 330 were evaluated and cleared at the airport, while a flight attendant was taken to a hospital with what was described as a condition that was not life-threatening. The plane had a crew of 10.

According to Cody, passengers were to be placed on another aircraft to continue their trip Wednesday.PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - Rhode Island has quietly released a new tourism campaign after a previous rollout turned into a fiasco , with a video that included footage from Iceland and the head-scratching tagline, "Cooler and Warmer."

The new campaign for the smallest state in the union uses the tagline "Fun-Sized" and began in November. Its release was first reported by Providence Business News this week.

The campaign includes 7-second videos with people doing things such as rock-climbing and kayaking at Rhode Island sites. The camera then pans out to reveal a selectively focused wider shot simulating a miniature scene.

State officials say the videos were all shot in Rhode Island.

The state's economic development agency says "Fun-Sized" means you can do everything you want on a fun vacation in a short period of time.CLEVELAND (AP) - Ohio's attorney general says he's encouraged by the start of talks to pursue a settlement with pharmaceutical companies and distributors facing more than 250 federal lawsuits over the nation's opioid epidemic.

Attorneys general from six states, representatives from other states and dozens of attorneys from both sides gathered Wednesday in U.S. District Judge Dan Polster's courtroom in Cleveland to make presentations and answer the judge's questions.

Polster has been assigned to broker a national settlement. He closed his courtroom to the public and media Wednesday.

FILE - This Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017 file photo shows an arrangement of pills of the opioid oxycodone-acetaminophen, also known as Percocet, in New York. Cities and counties of all sizes have sued companies that make and distribute prescription opioids. Among the plaintiffs so far: Philadelphia; the state of Ohio; Princeton, West Virginia; the Cherokee Nation; and a consortium of counties across Wisconsin. (AP Photo/Patrick Sison)

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, asked by Polster to speak on behalf of states that have sued the industry in state court, says Polster is "dead serious" about a reaching a resolution.

Around 42,000 people in the U.S. died from opioid-related overdoses in 2016.

FILE - This Jan. 11, 2018 file photo shows judge Dan Polster in his office in Cleveland. Polster has called the opioid addiction epidemic "100 percent man-made" and asserted that other branches of government have "punted" on solving it. Polster has made clear that he wants to use the cases before him as a way to forge a solution to the opioid crisis _ not just a legal resolution. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak, file)ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - In stories Jan. 31, 2018, and Oct. 12, 2017, about an Alaska police officer being cleared in a fatal shooting, The Associated Press reported erroneously the first name of the officer. He is Matthew "Eddie" Armstrong, not Michael "Eddie" Armstrong.

A corrected version of the Jan. 31 story is below:

APNewsBreak: Alaska cop cleared in shooting death of suspect

An Alaska police officer has been cleared in last year's fatal shooting of a suspect who had been placed in the officer's patrol car and managed to start driving it away

By RACHEL D'ORO

Associated Press

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - An Alaska police officer has been cleared in a fatal shooting of a handcuffed suspect who had been placed in the back of the officer's idling patrol car and managed to start driving it away, according to a decision by the state attorney general's office.

The office in a letter obtained by The Associated Press following a public records request said it was reasonable for Officer Matthew "Eddie" Armstrong to use deadly force in the Oct. 1 shooting of Micah McComas in the port city of Seward.

Armstrong had handcuffed McComas and put him in the back of the car after drugs were found in his wallet during a traffic stop. McComas somehow got into the car's front seat and tried to drive off while the officer was outside. Authorities have said McComas was officially detained, but not under arrest although the officer read him his Miranda rights.

The letter said "Officer Armstrong stated that at the time he decided to shoot, he knew that McComas was attempting to steal his vehicle with firearms in the trunk" and that the officer was concerned about his safety and the safety of a woman standing near the car McComas' car had been driving.

Video footage released to the AP as part of the records request shows the incident as it unfolded. Armstrong appears calm and in control in the video and McComas is initially relaxed but appears to become agitated when the drugs are found and he is placed in handcuffs.

McComas was put in handcuffs in the back of the idling patrol car with a sliding partition separating the front seat from the back, which was open at the time, according to Andrew Peterson, a chief assistant attorney general.

The footage from the officer's body camera appears to show headlights just before the officer is knocked over by the moving patrol car. It does not show the shooting but gunfire can be heard on the audio plus the officer calling out on his radio that shots were fired.

Armstrong got McComas out of the cruiser and began giving him first aid, according to the letter, which states McComas told the officer, "I was just trying to get away, I was gonna get away."

He died later at a hospital and the letter said the autopsy report showed that he tested positive for amphetamine, methamphetamine and diazepam.

Armstrong, whose ear was injured in the incident, returned to active duty in recent weeks, said Seward City Attorney William A. Earnhardt.

"The city is proud of Officer Armstrong's professionalism in this," he said. "But we also have deep sympathy for McComas' family."

McComas' sister, Krista Smith of Greenville, South Carolina, said it's suspicious that the footage did not capture the shooting and wonders why so many shots were fired. She is traveling to Alaska soon to meet with officials and view the video.

Seward is city of about 2,800 people 90 miles (140 kilometers) south of Anchorage, on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula.

___

Follow Rachel D'Oro at https://twitter.com/rdoroNEW YORK (AP) - Stocks that moved substantially or traded heavily Wednesday:

Xerox Inc., up $1.45 to $34.13

Japan's Fujifilm will take majority control of the company.

Boeing Co., up $16.66 to $354.37

The aircraft maker forecast strong results for this year and reported that its fourth-quarter profit nearly doubled from a year ago.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc., up 87 cents to $13.74

The chipmaker reported earnings and revenue that came in ahead of analysts' forecasts.

Thomson Reuters Corp., down $3.21 to $43.41

Blackstone is paying $17 billion to acquire a unit of the news and information company.

Electronic Arts Inc., up $8.26 to $126.96

The video game maker forecast quarterly earnings and sales that were well ahead of what Wall Street analysts were expecting.

Textron Inc., down $1.51 to $58.67

The industrial conglomerate's earnings and revenue fell short of forecasts.

Tupperware Brands Corp., down $6.02 to $57.76

The maker of kitchen and other consumer products reported sales that fell short of analysts' forecasts.

Juniper Networks Inc., down $2.17 to $26.15

The provider of network equipment and services forecast quarterly results that were well below what Wall Street analysts were expecting.Changan to mass produce autonomous vehicles in 2020

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Changan Automobile (Changan) plans to mass produce its own autonomous vehicles in 2020, according to Luo Minggang, vice general-manager of Changan.



As early as April 2016, the automaker completed a 2000km autonomous trip from Chongqing to Beijing, at a maximum speed of 120km/h. This is China's first long-distance autonomous driving test.

In July last year, the company showcased its automatic parking technology with L3 autonomous driving function at CS55 release show in Hangzhou. Drivers are able to control their vehicles using apps in mobile phones to achieve self-steering, road mapping, automatic parking-lot searching as well as automatic parking. The vehicles carrying this technology are expected to be mass produced in 2022.

According to Luo Minggang, vehicle intelligentization will trigger a series of transformation and upgrading in auto industry.

Since autonomous driving system can work instead of human operation, people will be released from sitting behind the steering wheel all the time. Meanwhile, the evolvement of intelligent vehicles will promote the construction of smart cities.

Chinese government also seeks cooperation with relevant enterprises to achieve the intelligent vehicle progress. For example, the government of Chongqing Municipality signed a strategic cooperative agreement with Alibaba, a Chinese e-commerce titan, to provide better intelligent transportation conditions for the intelligent vehicle growth in Chongqing.

Besides, Changan Automobile has opened a research center in Detroit and an innovation base in Silicon Valley to accelerate its intelligent driving development. The company also has partnerships with Baidu, Huawei, NEXTEV, Intel, Tencent, and NXP.

In the next 10 years, the automaker plans to invest around RMB 21 billion in R&D of intelligent vehicle technologies and products.

Luo also stated that the relevant supporting policies need be improved along with the technology development. Some automakers, including Changan Automobile, plans to mass produce autonomous vehicles with L3 functions by the end of 2020. However, the relevant supporting laws and regulations have not come out yet. In addition, he suggested that government can give backing of investment and infrastructure by setting up intelligent vehicle projects and establishing industrial demonstration zone.

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - Silicon Valley's largest city became the latest to wade into debate over divisive historical figures after San Jose's Italian-American mayor and council members voted to boot a statue of Christopher Columbus from City Hall.

The vote Tuesday night came after hours of boisterous debate as people argued over the explorer's legacy, according to a KPIX 5 report . Council members suggested alternative public spots but could not agree, leaving the Italian-American community with six weeks to find a new home for the statue. Otherwise, it will go into storage.

Across America, communities are taking a fresh look at historic yet controversial figures such as Columbus, who is a point of pride for many Italian- Americans but also a symbol of oppression for others. Columbus, an Italian explorer, journeyed to the Americas.

In this photo taken Aug. 23, 2017, a statue of explorer, Christopher Columbus, stands in the lobby of San Jose City Hall in San Jose, Calif. Leaders of Silicon Valley's largest city voted Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018, to remove the statue of Columbus. The Mercury News reports that the Italian American community has six weeks to find the statue a new home or else it will be put in storage. (Patrick Tehan/Bay Area News Group via AP)

In January, San Francisco joined a growing list of cities that have replaced the Columbus Day holiday with Indigenous Peoples Day to honor Native American people decimated by the arrival of European immigrants.

San Jose's marble statue, which was hand-carved in Italy, was a gift to the city from Italian-American groups in the 1950s. The statue has held a prominent spot at City Hall since then.

San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo was among those who supported the statue's removal.

"Look, I'm Italian-American. I think my grandfather was a member of the group that donated it," he said. "But I think that our understanding of history evolves as we learn more."

Tony Zerbo, who is with the Italian American Heritage Foundation, said the removal is a setback for his community. Italian immigrants have also suffered discrimination.

"Columbus is renown throughout the world, not just in Italy," he said. "Italian Americans here, in San Francisco and throughout the Bay Area are very proud of that."

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Information from: KPIX-TV.NEW YORK (AP) - Simone Biles met the new president of USA Gymnastics but hasn't heard from the U.S. Olympic Committee regarding the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal.

The four-time gold medalist at the Rio Olympics is among those who say they were sexually abused by Nassar, a former team doctor for the governing body for American gymnastics.

USA Gymnastics president Kerry Perry spoke with Biles at her gym in suburban Houston, where she is training for the 2020 Tokyo Games.

FILE - In this Aug. 7, 2016, file photo, United States' Simone Biles waits to perform her floor routine during the artistic gymnastics women's qualification at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Sunday. Biles has met the new president of USA Gymnastics but hasn't heard from the U.S. Olympic Committee regarding the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal. The four-time gold medalist at the Rio Games is training for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)

"I have not heard from the USOC, but the new president of USA Gymnastics did fly down and introduce herself to me, but not in regards to the whole entire situation," Biles said Wednesday in a phone interview with The Associated Press. "There's still a lot of work that needs to be done, like independent investigations. So they can ensure this never happens in any sport again."

Nassar has been sentenced to 60 years in prison on child pornography charges and 40 to 175 years for abusing young women and girls while working at Michigan State University. He also is facing sentencing for molesting gymnasts at an elite club in Lansing, Michigan.

USOC CEO Scott Blackmun wrote an open letter last week apologizing to the women and girls abused by Nassar. The entire USA Gymnastics board of directors resigned Friday and Blackmun called for an independent investigation into how Nassar was allowed to abuse athletes for decades.

"Any of us girls that have gone through what we've been through are finally happy that (Nassar) will no longer be able to hurt anybody else," Biles said. "But I feel like there's still a lot of work that needs to be done so we can actually feel like this has gone somewhere. So we're not stuck in the same place wondering who did this or when or why it happened."

On Jan. 15, Biles posted a statement on her Twitter account, saying she was sexually abused by Nassar but she "won't let one man, and the others that enabled him, to steal my love and joy." Fellow Olympic stars Aly Raisman, Jordyn Wieber, Gabby Douglas and McKayla Maroney have made similar disclosures of abuse.

Biles, the most decorated American gymnast with 14 world championship medals, thinks investigations, awareness and education are key to keeping kids safer in sports.

She called Raisman and Judge Rosemarie Aquilina her heroes - Raisman for joining the group of women who confronted Nassar in court last week and the judge for allowing so many to speak.

"It's eye-opening and it's very empowering and very inspiring to hear the other girls go out and speak so strongly about something so devastating," Biles said. "That has happened not only to the athletes and the girls and the men, but also to our sport."

USA Gymnastics recently severed ties with the Karolyi Ranch in Texas after Biles wrote on Twitter that she dreaded returning to the same training facility where she was abused.

Biles is currently working out at her home gymnastics facility in preparation for the World Championships in October. The 4-foot-8 powerhouse set the bar high for the Tokyo Olympics after her accomplishments in Rio. But she said on the "Today" show Wednesday that she wants to improve on the balance beam, where she finished with a bronze.

The 20-year-old Biles also plans to study business online, through the tuition-free University of the People, where there's a scholarship in her name devoted to foster children.

On Saturday night, Lifetime will debut the TV movie "The Simone Biles Story: Courage to Soar."

FILE - In this Aug. 11, 2016, file photo, United States' Simone Biles waits to perform on the balance beam during the artistic gymnastics women's individual all-around final at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Biles has met the new president of USA Gymnastics but hasn't heard from the U.S. Olympic Committee regarding the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal. The four-time gold medalist at the Rio Games is training for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky, File)

FILE - In this Sept. 12, 2015, file photo, U.S. gymnast Simone Biles trains at the Karolyi Ranch in New Waverly, Texas. Biles has met the new president of USA Gymnastics but hasn't heard from the U.S. Olympic Committee regarding the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal. The four-time gold medalist at the Rio Games is training for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip, File)BAYONNE, N.J. (AP) - A New Jersey city that denied a Muslim group's bid to build a mosque last summer has reached a settlement with the group that will allow the project to proceed.

The settlement made public Wednesday calls for Bayonne to pay the group $400,000 and have the project go before the city's zoning board for another vote. City officials noted that a lengthy legal battle could have cost Bayonne millions of dollars.

The Bayonne Muslims had filed a federal lawsuit against the city in May, arguing that their two-year effort to convert an abandoned warehouse into a mosque and community center was met by virulent attacks against their religion and was then unfairly voted down by a zoning board.

The group said the attacks included flyers calling for boycotts of Muslim-owned businesses with references to the Sept. 11 attacks and anti-Muslim graffiti on the walls of the church they rented for prayer services. Signs saying "Save Bayonne" and "Stop the mosque" were displayed around the town.

The zoning board in the working-class city across the harbor from New York City voted 4-3 in favor of the mosque proposal in March, but it needed a minimum of five votes to pass. Those who voted against it cited parking and traffic concerns, although the Bayonne Muslims argued that the building would be located in an uncongested part of the city with ample parking.

Shortly after the board's vote, federal law enforcement officials said they were investigating the city's decision. That came a day after the U.S. Department of Justice announced a $3.25 million settlement between a different New Jersey town and an Islamic group - a deal that requires the town to allow a mosque to be built after a similar zoning dispute.

"We are so grateful for the support of so many of our fellow Bayonne residents through this long struggle and we commend the City of Bayonne for moving now to correct the wrong that was done to Bayonne's Muslims," Abdul Hamid Butt, the organization's president, told The Jersey Journal. "We look forward to welcoming Bayonne residents of all faiths to the city's first mosque."CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) - An Iowa county agreed Wednesday to pay $285,000 to an Arizona man who was arrested, transported across the country and jailed for 68 days for a crime that he didn't commit.

The payment will resolve a federal lawsuit that 23-year-old Joseph McBride filed in early January against Linn County and its longtime top prosecutor, County Attorney Jerry Vander Sanden.

John Harris, chairman of the county board, confirmed the unusually quick settlement Wednesday to The Associated Press, moments after it was signed. He said the county is self-insured and the payout will come from its insurance fund.

"A person doesn't like to think that mistakes can be made, but everybody's human," he said. "We just have to acknowledge our mistakes, in most cases right them and move on."

The settlement doesn't include a formal admission of liability or an apology to McBride, who is black. But his attorney, Tom Frerichs, praised assistant county attorney Bob Hruska, who negotiated the settlement, for "his prompt and thoughtful attention to this case."

"He did the right thing for the people in Linn County to bring this case to a quick resolution," Frerichs said.

McBride was wrongly accused of participating in a Jan. 1, 2017, home invasion in Cedar Rapids in which a 27-year-old man was beaten with a handgun and robbed. McBride had grown up in Cedar Rapids but moved to Phoenix in November 2015, and had evidence showing he was 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) away from the scene when the crime occurred.

Vander Sanden signed a complaint charging McBride and two others with first-degree robbery, which carries up to 25 years in prison. Investigators from the Cedar Rapids Police Department never interviewed McBride. But he was implicated after the victim said he did his own investigation on Facebook and told detectives he was "90 percent sure" an account linked to McBride belonged to one of the assailants.

Authorities arrested McBride last August at his home in Phoenix, where he was ordered jailed on a $50,000 cash-only bond. He was taken to Iowa on a private prison van that made stops at jails in Nevada, Colorado and Missouri and cost Linn County taxpayers $2,500. Even before he arrived in Cedar Rapids on Sept. 19, he insisted he was innocent and had cellphone photos proving he was in Glendale, Arizona, hours before the robbery.

McBride's attorney filed notice of the alibi defense Oct. 9, providing names of witnesses. One attested that he celebrated New Year's Eve with McBride in Phoenix and spent the next day with him rearranging a storage unit. Prosecutors dropped the case and had McBride released from jail on Oct. 31, a day after one of the robbery participants identified another man as the third suspect as part of a cooperation agreement. That suspect, a convicted felon with a violent past, hasn't been charged.

McBride's lawsuit alleged that the criminal complaint falsely contended police had "phone records and social media" evidence showing he conspired with the other two suspects. In reality, McBride's only connection was that he was a Facebook friend with one of them.

The lawsuit had sought unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for McBride, who works at an Arizona dog treats factory.

The settlement marks the second $285,000 payment an Iowa county has recently made to one of Frerichs' clients over claims that they were the victims of a shoddy investigation. Last year, neighboring Johnson County paid that sum to settle a lawsuit filed by an attorney who spent 16 days in jail for a crime he didn't commit.SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) - Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner urged bipartisanship Wednesday to confront Illinois' economic crisis, at times drawing mock applause from Democratic legislators who blame him for exacerbating the mess by proposing tax cuts they say the state can't afford.

Rauner used his fourth State of the State speech to call for an end to the rancor that has defined his first term, yet the political undertones were obvious. The former venture capitalist faces a tough fight in November to keep the job leading the heavily Democratic state, even if he fends off a GOP primary challenge in March.

"The state of our state today is one of readiness," Rauner said. "Readiness born of unprecedented frustration with our political culture, along with the firm belief that we have tremendous, but as-yet unrealized, economic potential."

Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner delivers his State of the State address to a joint session of the General Assembly Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018, at the Capitol, in Springfield, Ill. (Rich Saal/The State Journal-Register via AP)

The Republican's term has been marked by a budget battle with a budget stalemate that lasted two years, the longest any state has gone without an annual spending plan since at least the Great Depression. Rauner did not get the pro-business changes he wanted, but Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan picked up enough House Republicans to override Rauner's veto of an income-tax increase last summer to fuel an end to the impasse. Illinois still has billions of dollars in overdue bills and the nation's worst credit rating.

"For all of us who have listened to him for three years, we're waiting for him to show some action," said Rep. Jeanne Ives, a Wheaton Republican who is challenging Rauner in the primary. "But I don't think it helps that he's called legislators in the past corrupt, he's called Mike Madigan a 'crook,' and now he wants to strike a bipartisan tone."

In encouraging bipartisanship, Rauner pointed out Democrats and Republicans worked together to make Chicago's bid for Amazon's second headquarters and could do so again for future projects.

"This is not a prize one wins alone. It takes a collaborative effort, a forget-about-the-politics-and-roll-up-our-sleeves kind of approach," Rauner said. "It requires a laser-like focus on economic development and job creation and a bipartisan dedication to restore public trust."

In calling for a balanced budget, he declared "the people of Illinois are taxed out." One of his leading challengers responded that Rauner was the wrong messenger.

"He's never introduced a balanced budget in the three years that he's been governor and he suggests now he's going to and he wants bipartisanship?" said J.B. Pritzker, the Chicago businessman who is running for governor as a Democrat. "This is a failed governor trying to make up for three lost years."

Rauner maintains he has introduced balanced budgets. But in 2015, it depended on pension-program changes that never occurred, and last year, a balanced bottom line was contingent on a Senate compromise that never materialized.

He also called Wednesday for the state to "curb our spending and work together to give people the capital they need to build and grow." He earlier said he would roll back the income tax hike over several years but hasn't explained how he'd make up the shortfall in revenue as the state remains billions in debt.

The speech had the support from Senate Republican Leader Bill Brady of Bloomington.

"Gov. Rauner reached out to both sides of the political divide in an effort to move Illinois in the right direction," Brady said. "By working in a bipartisan manner, we need to pass a truly balanced budget, as well as provide meaningful property tax relief, both of which will help grow our economy and create jobs."

Rauner also promised a crackdown on sexual harassment before an audience overwhelmingly clad in black in solidarity with the #MeToo movement, capitalizing on the issue as one "where we agree."

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Follow John O'Connor at https://twitter.com/apoconnor and Sarah Zimmerman at https://sarahzimm95 .

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Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner enters the House Chamber before delivering his State of the State address to a joint session of the General Assembly Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018, at the Capitol, in Springfield, Ill. (Rich Saal/The State Journal-Register via AP)

Rep. Dan Brady, R-Bloomington, and other members of the Illinois General Assembly stand and acknowledge members of the military in the House gallery to hear Gov. Bruce Rauner's State of the State address to a joint session of the General Assembly Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018, at the Capitol, in Springfield, Ill. (Rich Saal/The State Journal-Register via AP)NEW YORK (AP) - President Donald Trump reached an audience of 45.6 million people for his first State of the Union address, not enough to give him bragging rights over his predecessor.

The Nielsen company said former President Barack Obama drew 48 million people for his first State of the Union in 2010.

Trump's audience was down from the 47.7 million people who watched his address to the joint session of Congress last February.

President Donald Trump gestures as delivers his first State of the Union address in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol to a joint session of Congress Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018 in Washington, as Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Paul Ryan applaud. (Win McNamee/Pool via AP)

Fox News Channel earned the top spot among the individual networks, with 11.5 million viewers during the speech. It was the first time that Fox News, home of Trump-friendly opinion hosts like Sean Hannity, beat all of the networks for the State of the Union, although Fox also was the network of choice for Trump's address to Congress last February.

NBC (7.1 million) and CBS (7 million) fought for second place. The Fox broadcast network had 3.6 million, CNN had 3.1 million and MSNBC had 2.7 million, Nielsen said.US President Donald Trump will herald a robust economy and push for bipartisan congressional action on immigration in Tuesdays State of the Union address, as he seeks to rally a deeply divided nation.

The speech marks the ceremonial kick-off of his second year in office and is traditionally a presidents biggest platform to speak to the nation.

However, Mr Trump has redefined presidential communications with his high-octane, filter-free Twitter account and there is no guarantee that the carefully crafted speech will resonate beyond his next tweet.

The speech marks the ceremonial kick-off of Donald Trumps second year in office (Matt Cardy/PA)

Still, White House officials are hopeful the president can use the prime-time address to Congress and millions of Americans watching at home to take credit for a soaring economy.

Though the trajectory of lower unemployment and higher growth began under his predecessor, Mr Trump argues that the tax overhaul he signed into law late last year has boosted business confidence and will lead companies to reinvest in the United States.

Considering the strength of the economy, Mr Trump will step before lawmakers in a remarkably weak position.

His approval rating has hovered in the 30s for much of his presidency and at the close of 2017, just three in 10 Americans said the United States was heading in the right direction, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research.

In the same survey, 67% of Americans said the country was more divided because of Mr Trump.

It is unlikely Mr Trump will be able to rely on a robust legislative agenda to reverse those numbers in 2018.

Congress has struggled with the basic function of funding the government, prompting a brief government shutdown earlier this month that was resolved only with a short-term fix that pushed the spending deadline to February 8.

Against the backdrop of the spending fight, Republicans and Democrats are also wrestling with the future of some 700,000 young immigrants living in the United States illegally.

Mr Trump has vowed to protect the so-called Dreamers from deportation, but is also calling for changes to legal immigration that are controversial with both parties.

Though Democrats are eager to reach a resolution for the young immigrants, the party is hardly in the mood to compromise with Mr Trump ahead of the midterm elections.

Lawmakers see his unpopularity as a key to their success in November, and are eager to mobilise Democratic voters itching to deliver the president and his party a defeat at the ballot box.

From health care to economic justice to civil rights, the Democratic agenda stands in powerful contrast to President Trumps broken promises to American families. Deeply honored to be chosen to deliver the response to the State of the Union next week. Stay tuned for updates!  Joe Kennedy III (@joekennedy) January 26, 2018

Seeking to set the tone for their election-year strategy, party leaders have tapped Massachusetts Republican Joe Kennedy, the grandson of Robert F Kennedy, to deliver a post-speech rebuttal aimed at casting Democrats, not Mr Trump, as champions of the middle class.

Democrats are also looking to make their mark in other ways.

A handful of lawmakers are planning to boycott the presidents remarks, and several Democratic women plan to wear black to protest against sexual harassment, an issue that has tarnished several lawmakers in both parties.

Mr Trump himself has been accused of assault or harassment by more than a dozen women, accusations he has denied.The Labour leader of Haringey Council is quitting after condemning sexist and bullying behaviour during a bitter party battle over a controversial redevelopment scheme.

Claire Kober will not seek re-election in the north London borough in May following a long-running row over a proposed 2 billion housing project known as the Haringey Development Vehicle (HDV).

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has opposed the project, which has been criticised by many on the left of the party.

Councillor Claire Kober has attacked sexism, bullying and undemocratic behavour (Yui Mok/PA)

In an unusual move, Labours ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) requested last week that Haringey Council call a halt to the scheme, which involves partnership with the private sector.

Ms Kober told the London Evening Standard: The sexism, bullying, undemocratic behaviour and outright personal attacks on me as the most senior woman in Labour local government have left me disappointed and disillusioned.

Announcing on Twitter that she was standing down, Ms Kober took a thinly veiled swipe at pro-Corbyn campaign group Momentum, whose members have been active in selection battles for the forthcoming council elections.

My news: in May I will step down as Council Leader and a Haringey Councillor. Its been a privilege to serve https://t.co/ankK5a0l6R  Claire Kober (@ClaireKober) January 30, 2018

Praising council colleagues, Ms Kober said: I am only sorry that many have been denied the opportunity to stand once again.

Labours shadow local government secretary Andrew Gwynne, who has been asked to mediate in the development row, said: I am sorry that Claire Kober is standing down, she has led Haringey through a very difficult time for local government.

The housing crisis is a national scandal caused in 10 Downing Street.

However, there are issues specific to Haringey that have caused concern for many residents and local politicians, which is why I have been asked to mediate.

I am committed to working with Haringey Council, its residents and local MPs, to tackle the housing crisis in the borough.

Labour former frontbencher Harriet Harman told BBC Radio 4s The World at One: I just cannot speak too highly of Claire. Im really disappointed that she is standing down.

All that she says about the difficulty about being a woman in leadership Im sure is absolutely true and is a challenge to all of us in the party, the Labour Party, which is a party of women and equality after all.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan praised the council leader, saying: Claire deserves massive credit for the excellent job she has done turning around childrens services in Haringey in the aftermath of the terrible Baby P scandal and improving local schools to the point that they are now almost all rated Good or Outstanding. 

Tory party chairman Brandon Lewis said: From Labour headquarters to Haringey Council, Jeremy Corbyns hard-left supporters continue their takeover of the Labour Party.

Critics of the HDV have described the scheme as social cleansing, while Ms Kober, who has led the council since 2008, returned fire by hitting out at ideological dogmas.

The 2 billion scheme would see the transfer of council assets and land into a 50/50 partnership with a private developer.An activist group spearheading the campaign for same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland has met the Democratic Unionists for the first time.

The DUP opposes changes to marriage legislation in the region and its use of a contentious Stormont voting mechanism has effectively blocked reform in the past.

The issue is one of the key disputes at the heart of the year-long powersharing crisis in the region, with Sinn Fein citing a law change as a prerequisite to the re-establishment of a devolved government.

A DUP team led by former health minister Edwin Poots held a 45-minute meeting with the campaign group Love Equality NI at Parliament Buildings.

The exchange took place as political talks aimed at restoring powersharing continue at Stormont.

Afterwards, John ODoherty, from Love Equality NI, welcomed the meeting but expressed disappointment that the DUP had not changed its stance.

The DUP remains unfortunately opposed to the introduction of equal marriage, he said.

Mr ODoherty said the party was less clear on whether it would attempt to use the petition of concern mechanism again.

John ODoherty from Love Equality NI speaks to media in Parliament Buildings, Stormont after meeting the DUP (David Young/PA)

The petition is a peace process construct designed to protect minority interests within the Assembly.

If 30 members of the 90-strong legislature sign a petition of concern, votes can only be carried with the support of a majority of unionists and a majority of nationalist members, rather than a straight headcount.

If the Assembly was restored, the DUP would not have enough MLAs to trigger a petition on its own, but it could potentially join forces with other socially conservative members to reach the 30 threshold.

Mr ODoherty said: If this issue was brought forward through a private members bill or through the executive it would achieve majority support, the only barrier to the introduction of equal marriage would be a petition of concern.

He added: They (the DUP) did not state categorically that they would use the petition of concern but they didnt state that they wouldnt use the petition of concern.

Mr ODoherty said the fact the meeting had taken place was a positive development.

We want to achieve the position where equality for everyone is celebrated by everyone for Northern Ireland, he said.

No-one has anything to fear from equality, no-one has anything to fear from marriage equality and that is the message we want to bring to everybody in Northern Ireland.

Campaigners calling for the introduction of same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland during a parade and rally in Belfast city centre (Niall Carson/PA)

A DUP spokeswoman said: Edwin Poots MLA led a delegation to meet with Love Equality. The group asked for a meeting to lobby the party on the redefinition of marriage.

The DUP has a mandated policy to defend the current definition of marriage.

Lasting approximately forty-five minutes, this was a useful exchange of views. The debate about this matter can be highly energised. We would urge respect and sensitivity on all sides.Labour has suspended a senior councillor after Scottish party leadership candidate Anas Sarwar alleged he had been the victim of racist comments.

A Scottish Labour Party spokesman confirmed it has suspended Davie McLachlan, the leader of the partys group on South Lanarkshire Council.

It comes after Anas Sarwar claimed that during the Scottish Labour leadership campaign a councillor told him he could not back him because he was a brown, Muslim Paki.

Labour MSP Anas Sarwar and his wife Furheen (Jane Barlow/PA)

The Labour spokesman said: Davie McLachlan has been suspended by the Labour Party, pending an investigation.

Ive contacted Anas this morning to express my solidarity and support. I will do everything I can to kick racism out of our Party wherever it is found. I have also encouraged Anas to raise this as a formal complaint so that swift action can be taken. Zero tolerance for racism.  Richard Leonard (@LabourRichard) January 29, 2018

Mr Sarwar, who is Labours health spokesman at Holyrood, confirmed: I met with the party and disclosed the identity of the councillor involved. I have also provided in writing the full details of what was said to me.

He added: It is now for the Scottish Labour Party to take the next step as regards to an investigation.

My focus will remain on tackling the wider issues of everyday racism and everyday Islamophobia. I stress that this is bigger than any one individual or one organisation. This is about challenging the institutional prejudices that impact on workplaces, campuses and classrooms across the county.

On Monday he told the Daily Record newspaper: A leader of a Labour council group told me very clearly the reason that he couldnt support me in the leadership election was that, in his words, Scotland wasnt ready for a brown, Muslim Paki.

When I challenged him on that, saying it was a racist, Islamophobic comment, he said that wasnt his opinion, it was his fear about what his constituents believe.

Mr Sarwar lost out to Richard Leonard in last autumns leadership contest, which was sparked by the resignation of Kezia Dugdale.

He said he did not he lost due to his ethnic background, but added that he had spoken out to raise awareness about racism and Islamophobia.

He also claimed another Labour member told him she could not support his bid after seeing a picture of his wife Furheen wearing a hijab.Former Barcelona forward Samuel Etoo has left Turkish club Antalyaspor by mutual agreement.

The 36-year-old joined the Scorpions in 2015 and helped them to a fifth-placed finish in the Turkish Super Lig last term.

However, with Hamza Hamzaoglus side currently in the relegation zone, they have decided to let their captain leave.

Samuel Etoo spent time at Everton in 2014-15 (Richard Sellers/Empics)

A statement on the clubs website read: We thank him for his contributions to the club so far and we wish him success in the next sporting event.

Etoo won the Champions League twice during a five-year stint with Barca and he also won Europes top prize while with Inter Milan in 2010.Schools across England face a growing sense of crisis because the Government has not dealt with a rise in the number of teachers quitting, MPs have said.

The Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) criticised the Department for Education (DfE), saying it had failed to get a grip on the retention of teachers.

The report said it was particularly worrying that the number of secondary school teachers has been falling since 2010.

Schools only managed to fill about half of vacant posts in 2015/16 with qualified teachers who had the experience and expertise required, according to the report.

The PAC said the Government had got the balance wrong by spending 555 million a year training new teachers, and just 36 million on retaining and developing teachers.

PAC chairwoman Meg Hillier has expressed concern at failure to retain more teachers (Martin Rickett/PA)

MPs called on the Government to move to end wide variations in the quality of teaching across the country.

The report said that in the Midlands and the north of England more than 20% of pupils were in secondary schools rated as requires improvement or inadequate for teaching, learning and assessment.

The report stated: The quality of teaching and the level of teaching vacancies vary significantly across the country.

However, the department does not seem to understand the reasons for the variation or the different challenges that schools in different regions face.

The failure of the department to get to grips with the number of teachers leaving puts additional pressure on schools faced with rising numbers of children needing a school place and the teachers to teach them.

While the overall number of teachers rose by 15,500 between November 2010 and November 2016, secondary school posts dropped by 10,800 in the same period.

MPs expressed concern as DfE forecasts show secondary school pupil numbers will increase by 540,000, almost 20%, between 2017 and 2025.

The number of teachers leaving the profession for non-retirement reasons increased from 22,260, or 6%, in 2011 to 34,910, 8.1%, in 2016.

The PAC said pressures of workload was a big factor in teachers leaving the profession, as well as living costs.

The report called on the Government to look at whether adequately funded initiatives could help teachers with housing costs in expensive property areas.

PAC chairwoman Meg Hillier said: A crisis is brewing in English classrooms but Government action to address it has been sluggish and incoherent.

It should have been clear to senior civil servants that growing demand for school places, combined with a drive for schools to make efficiency savings, would only build pressure in the system.

Instead they seem to have watched on, scratching their heads, as more and more teachers quit the profession.

Government must get a grip on teacher retention and we expect it to set out a targeted, measurable plan to support struggling schools as a matter of urgency.

There is a real danger that, without meaningful intervention from Government, these challenges will become an intractable threat to childrens education.

Labours shadow education secretary Angela Rayner said: This Conservative Government is presiding over a crisis in teacher recruitment and retention; missing their own targets five years in a row, with demoralised teachers leaving the profession in record numbers.

Their cap on public sector pay has left the average teacher over 5,000 worse off and makes it impossible for many schools to retain the staff that they need.

A Department for Education spokesman said: There are now a record number of teachers in our schools  15,500 more than in 2010  and last year, despite a competitive labour market with historic low unemployment rates and a growing economy, 32,000 trainee teachers were recruited.

Retention rates have been broadly stable for the past 20 years and the teaching profession continues to be an attractive career.

We want to continue to help schools recruit and retain the best teachers.

We are consulting on proposals to improve and increase development opportunities for teachers across the country and working with teachers, unions and Ofsted to tackle unnecessary workload with specific support for teachers at the start of their careers.

Alongside this, we continue to offer financial incentives to attract the brightest and best into our classrooms.Energy giant BP has said it expects to double production in the North Sea by 2020 as it announced two new oil and gas discoveries in the area.

The finds were made in the central North Sea and west of Shetland after wells were drilled last year.

Tests have been carried out to discover volumes of gas and oil present, and the data is under evaluation.

BP has announced two exploration discoveries made in the North Sea (Nick Ansell/PA)

The company said evaluation and interpretation of the well results is ongoing to assess future options.

Options are expected to be considered for a possible tie-back development to existing infrastructure.

BP North Sea regional president Mark Thomas said: These are exciting times for BP in the North Sea as we lay the foundations of a refreshed and revitalised business that we expect to double production to 200,000 barrels a day by 2020 and keep producing beyond 2050.

We are hopeful that Capercaillie and Achmelvich may lead to further additions to our North Sea business.A lecture theatre is to be renamed in memory of motor neurone disease (MND) activist Gordon Aikman.

Edinburgh University is to honour the campaigner and business school graduate by renaming its George Square lecture theatre after him.

Mr Aikman died last February aged just 31 after being diagnosed with the condition in 2014.

He launched the Gordons Fightback campaign as he battled the condition, raising more than 600,000 for MND Scotland to fund research into a cure.

Gordon Aikman and campaigners celebrate raising half a million pounds for MND research in 2016 (Jane Barlow/PA)

The renaming of the universitys largest lecture theatre was proposed by the student union.

Joe Pike, Mr Aikmans husband, said: We are all very touched by the universitys very generous decision.

It seems fitting that Gordons work as a campaigner has been recognised after a campaign by the student body he was once an active member of.

And how wonderful that the lecture hall Gordon sat in aged 18 as a first year business student, will now bear his name.

Professor Charlie Jeffery, the universitys senior vice-principal, said: Gordon Aikman was a tenacious campaigner. By striving to change the quality and funding of care and research, he helped to improve the lives of people living with MND and was an inspiration to many.

We are delighted to honour his remarkable achievements in this way.

A formal naming ceremony and plaque unveiling will take place later this year.Theresa May has issued a defiant response to critics who have questioned her future as Conservative leader, declaring: Im not a quitter.

After a torrid week of Westminster speculation about possible challenges to her position, the Prime Minister insisted that she was getting on with the job of delivering on the real-life issues which matter to voters.

Mrs May admitted that there was always more for us to do on issues such as housing and schools and appeared to acknowledge that she had not done enough to get her message across to voters.

Theresa May and her husband, Philip arrive in Beijing (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

But, in a message apparently directed at grumbling Tory backbenchers, she said it was time for Conservatives to speak out more loudly about the Governments achievements.

Asked by reporters travelling with her on a trade mission to China whether she expected to lead the Tories into the next election, Mrs May said: First and foremost, Im serving my country and my party. Im not a quitter and theres a long-term job to be done.

That job is about getting the best Brexit deal, its about ensuring that we take back control of our money, our laws, our borders, that we can sign trade deals around the rest of the world. But its also about our domestic agenda.

The Prime Minister is in China for a three day visit to build on the existing strong ties between our two countries #PMinChina  pic.twitter.com/GO94elaeig  UK Prime Minister (@10DowningStreet) January 31, 2018

Responding to former minister Robert Halfons suggestion that she had governed like a tortoise when a lion was needed, Mrs May retorted: I have never tried to compare myself to any animal, or bird, or car, or whatever comparisons that sometimes people use.

Theres a focus to the Government. Yes, we want to get Brexit right and we are working on that, but we also alongside that are working on the key issues that matter to people on a day-to-day basis.

Theresa May inspects a ceremonial guard at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

Mrs May steered clear of direct criticism of backbenchers who have accused her of lacking drive and publicly described her agenda as dull.

But she pointedly added: We need to ensure that we do speak about the achievements that weve seen.

She pointed to the reduction of unemployment to its lowest level since 1975, a cut in the educational attainment gap between children from rich and poor backgrounds, stamp duty relief for first-time buyers and GDP growth.

If you look at what, as Conservatives in government, weve achieved in terms of national minimum wage increases, the lowest unemployment since 1975, what weve done in school attainment with 1.9 million more children in good or outstanding schools  all of these things make a big difference to peoples lives on a day-to-day basis, she said.

Thats what people raise when you go on the doorsteps and talk to people. Its those issues that matter to them and thats what we are delivering on.

She said: Is there more for us to do, to talk to people about what we are achieving and what we are doing? Yes, theres always more, to talk to people about what we are achieving.

Delighted to hear the PM is not a quitter. Could we please not quit the EU then?  Andrew Adonis (@Andrew_Adonis) January 31, 2018

Sometimes (Tory MPs) say `1.9 million more children in good and outstanding schools, but we need to go further`. Yes, of course we do, and thats what we are doing.

Mrs May made clear she was proud that first-time buyers have reached their highest level since before the 2007 financial crisis, describing housing as an area we need to be pushing on where there would be more Government announcements to come.

Pushed on whether she would fight to keep her job if disgruntled MPs forced a vote of no confidence, Mrs May said: You always like talking about hypothetical situations. Lets talk about now and what we are doing now.

I am doing what I think is important for the sake of the country What I feel about this is that actually weve got a job to do.

She brushed off suggestions that Conservative leadership rules  which require the chair of the backbench 1922 Committee Sir Graham Brady to call a vote when he has received 48 letters from MPs  leave a sword hanging over the head of a serving prime minister.

The rules that are set are a matter for the party, she said.

We are in Government. The next general election isnt until 2022. What we are doing now is doing the job that the British people asked for a government to do.The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will meet Swedish stars from the worlds of movies, the arts, sport and television at a glittering reception celebrating the Nordic countrys cultural life.

William and Kate, who are on a four-day tour of Sweden and Norway, will meet the leading figures at the Fotografiska Gallery in Stockholm on Wednesday evening, and before the event begins will view an exhibition by UK photographer Nick Veasey.

During their second day in Stockholm the royal couple will spend much of their time with Swedens Crown Princess Victoria and her husband Prince Daniel and visit a department store to open an interactive exhibition of UK design, fashion and brands that operate in Sweden.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, pictured with the Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel of Sweden on Tuesday, will be joined by the foreign royals during day two of their Nordic tour (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

At Matteusskolan, a comprehensive in the city centre, the duke and duchess will join children who have taken part in the Youth Aware of Mental Health programme run by the National Association for Suicide Research and Prevention of Mental Ill Health.

The initiative is aimed at 14 to 16-year-olds and teaches the teenagers about mental health issue through discussion and role-playing, and now operates internationally including in the UK.

The royal party will also visit the Karolinska Institute, a major medical academic research centre, to meet leading scientific researchers and practitioners to discuss groundbreaking academic work in developmental psychology, and Swedens approach to managing mental health challenges.A coroner is expected to open the inquest into the death of an eight-year-old schoolgirl who was found with stab wounds at a bungalow at the weekend.

Mylee Billingham, described as a fun-loving pupil at St James Primary School in Brownhills, West Midlands, by head teacher Andy Nicholls, died in hospital on Saturday after she was found with stab wounds at a bungalow in Valley View.

Her father Bill Billingham, 54, was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder on Saturday.

He remains in a critical condition in hospital and is due to be questioned by police.

Floral tributes in remembrance of Mylee Billingham outside the property in Brownhills, near Walsall (Phil Barnett/PA)

It is not known whether members of Mylees family will attend the hearing at Black Country Coroners Court, Oldbury, West Midlands, before Assistant Coroner Emma Whitting.Meghan Markles on-screen husband-to-be has said their final storyline in TV series Suits will not make any reference to the royal engagement.

Actor Patrick J Adams, who plays Mike Ross, has announced his departure from the popular US legal series a few months after Ms Markle confirmed she would be leaving.

Meghan Markle playing Rachel Zane in Season 6 of Suits (USA Network/PA)

Ms Markle, who has played Rachel Zane in the show since 2011, confirmed in her first joint television interview with Prince Harry at the end of last year that she would be giving up her acting career.

The 36-year-old said: I dont see it as giving anything up, I just see it as a change.

Talking to The Hollywood Reporter about his departure, Adams said Suits creator and writer Aaron Korsh had always actively avoided any sort of real-life commentary.

Adams said: He (Aaron) actively wanted to keep those two worlds totally separate. People can draw their own conclusions and comparisons.

The last season of Suits has been really special in that we didnt let anything bleed into our world.

Prince Harry and fiancee Meghan Markle (Ben Birchall/PA)

Suits fans will be eagerly waiting to see if Mike and Rachel have a happily-ever-after ending in the swansong series.

Asked if he and Ms Markle had talked about their respective exits, Adams told The Hollywood Reporter a lot went unsaid. Meghan has this whole crazy part of her life thats just beginning now.

He continued: In some ways, Meghan and I were the closest because we were the youngest people in the cast and both came in with the least experience.

We grew up together over the course of the show. There was this natural sense that we both knew that the time had come for both of us.

It went unspoken and we just enjoyed the hell out of the last few episodes that we got to shoot. We both knew that we wouldnt be coming back. It made every one of our scenes that much more special. We had a great time.

In an Instagram post confirming he was leaving, Adams said: The last 7 years have been life changing. And playing a character that so many people all over the world have connected with has been one of the great honours of my life.

His Suits co-star, Sarah Rafferty, who plays fiery redhead Donna, paid an emotional tribute to him on Instagram, writing: I love you and your huge heart, @halfadams. Ever grateful for this journey together and excited for all the goodness that lies ahead.

It will forever be a highlight of my life and career to have shared screen time with wildly talented, super hilarious, deeply honest, you.

Adams commented on the post, saying Love you the most, to which the shows leading man, actor Gabriel Macht who plays Harvey Specter, replied jokingly: Really?

The final episode of Suits featuring Ms Markle and Adams will air in the US as a two-hour special at the end of April, with UK dates to be confirmed.Jake Ball will remain with the England squad as cover ahead of the Trans-Tasman Twenty20 series, with fellow seamers Liam Plunkett and Chris Jordan managing injuries.

Ball was due to fly home at the conclusion of the one-day campaign but made the trip from Perth to Canberra, where England face a warm-up against a Prime Ministers XI on Friday.

The Nottinghamshire paceman, who has been on tour since October but played just one Ashes Test and one ODI, will be available if needed at the Manuka Oval but has not yet been formally added to the squad for the duration of the series against Australia and New Zealand.

The 26-year-old is providing seam cover ahead of the Trans-Tasman Series (Jason OBrien/PA)

Plunkett has not been available since tweaking his hamstring mid-over in the third ODI in Sydney, while Jordan was carrying a hamstring niggle when he linked up with the team on Tuesday night.

England are expected to leave both out against the PMs XI, meaning a likely pace attack of Mark Wood, David Willey and Tom Curran.

Ball suffered a dizzy spell and briefly left the field to receive medical attention when he played in the final match of the 4-1 series victory but there are no lingering concerns over his condition.

Liam Plunkett will miss the final two ODIs against Australia with a hamstring injury.



 https://t.co/RbyqJuLKuD #AUSvENG pic.twitter.com/vzmX1Jyuqe  England Cricket (@englandcricket) January 25, 2018

Opening batsman Alex Hales is also due to miss out in Canberra after hurting his hand when dropping a catch in the outfield in Perth.

England are hopeful, though not certain, all three of their walking wounded will be ready for the series proper but Hales absence means the trio of Sam Billings, Dawid Malan and James Vince will play initially.

Billings and Malan were non-playing members of the triumphant ODI squad, while Vince has been on duty in Australias Big Bash since his underwhelming performance in the Ashes.

Ashes duo James Vince and Usman Khawaja set to join up for the remainder of #BBL07. Story: https://t.co/k4Bhx9zU9b #ThunderNation pic.twitter.com/lUwiIgIy4n  Sydney Thunder (@ThunderBBL) January 9, 2018

Ive watched quite a bit of the one-day series out here on the TV and theyve gone from strength to strength, said Vince.

To beat Australia in Australia, especially after an Ashes defeat, is a great response. There are a few new faces in this squad but well try to take the momentum into this series.The latest gangland murder victim in Dublin was shot dead while a family held a wake for another.

Jason Molyneaux, 27, was shot several times in the body in a gun attack in the James Larkin House flat complex off North Strand at about 9.45pm on Tuesday night.

His murder took place 10 days after Derek Coakley Hutch, also 27, was shot dead outside Cloverhill Prison in west Dublin in a killing linked to the bloody Kinahan-Hutch feud.

Locals reported how Buda Molyneaux had been at the removal service for Hutch in the north inner city in the hours before he was shot.

A number also suggested he would have been carrying the coffin at the funeral at Our Lady of Lourdes Church on Sean MacDermott Street.

Superintendent Gerard Murphy speaks to the media outside the James Larkin House flat complex off North Strand, Dublin (Niall Carson/PA)

Councillor Nial Ring, who works in the area, raised concerns about the impact gangland murders were having on young children.

It has added to the tensions. Within 100 yards of where that man was shot kids are going to schools, passing a crime scene of where another man was shot in the north inner city, he said.

As well as the tensions, people are actually becoming immune. But its the trauma over the long term for children thats an effect were concerned about.

Gardai said Molyneaux, who had scores of convictions and is understood to have been told his life was under threat, was rushed to the Mater Hospital after being shot but was pronounced dead.

The area of the flat complex where the gun attack occurred remained sealed off for a technical examination.

Gardai appealing for witnesses to contact officers in Store Street or use the Confidential Line on 1800 666 111 or contact any Garda station.

It is understood Molyneaux had one son and lived across the road from where he was shot.

Hutchs murder was linked to the familys feud with the Kinahan gang in which 14 people have died.Mominul Haque made Sri Lanka suffer with a dominant century for Bangladesh on day one of the first Test in Chittagong.

The 26-year-old hit a masterful 175 not out as the hosts reached 374 for four at the close.

Haque brought up his ton in just 96 balls, the second quickest in Tests by a Bangladesh batsman.

He shared a third-wicket stand of 136 with Mushfiqur Rahim, who fell eight short of his century with five overs remaining.

Mominul Haque enjoyed a memorable day against Sri Lanka (Simon Cooper/PA)

Liton Das then departed the next ball to Suranga Lakmal to give Sri Lanka a late reward for their day of toiling in the field.

Tamim Iqbal had earlier made 52 before falling to Dilruwan Perera, and fellow opener Imrul Kayes was removed by Lakshan Sandakan for 40.

Stand-in captain Mahmudullah ended the day on nine not out.Environment Secretary Michael Gove has been urged to intervene in the row over proposals for a huge increase in council tax on second homes in the Yorkshire Dales.

A group formed to oppose the plan has written to Mr Gove accusing the national park authority of exceeding its remit and trying to exert political influence.

The campaigners have also cited one of the Daless most famous characters  James Herriot  in the controversy, pointing out that the vet  whos real name was Alf Wight  was a Dales second home owner.

Alf Wight, who wrote under the name of James Herriot. Campaigners say Wight had a second home in the Yorkshire Dales (PA Archive)

But authority chairman Carl Lis has now written an open letter to second home owners acknowledging the hurt the proposal has caused, while stressing the fact that we cannot shy away from, no matter how uncomfortable: too many second homes are bad for local communities.

The Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority backed the measure last month, saying it was to try to halt and then reverse the decline in the number of young people in the region.

It is now consulting with the eight local authorities which form parts of the national park with a view to putting a proposal for a pilot scheme to the Government.

Richmondshire Council will be first to vote next month.

Report: Consider five times Council Tax for second homes. A report published today ...https://t.co/aHhlcoGPwz pic.twitter.com/jhzZyWNElm  Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (@yorkshire_dales) December 11, 2017

The Dales Homeowners Action Group (DHOAG) has claimed an estimated 3.4 million second home owners across Britain could eventually be affected.

The group pointed out that Alf Wight lived in Thirsk, outside the national park, but bought a second home in Coverdale after the success of his books and the subsequent TV series.

A spokesman said: The council leaders behind this hare-brained scheme should consider the long-term consequences of their ill-informed comments in promoting an idea that they know is destined to fail.

They are making sweeping statements without the benefit of any proper financial impact assessment; causing untold reputational damage to the park, causing unnecessary stress and in the process talking down the local housing market.

Its only a few decades ago that Welsh extremists were burning down English holiday cottages in North Wales. That was fuelled by prejudice.

Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority Chairman Carl Lis (Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority/PA Wire

In his open letter to second home owners, Mr Lis said: It has never been in doubt that you love the Yorkshire Dales and want the best for the community in which you have your second home. Many of you have deep roots here, and contribute to the local economy when you are here.

It is also true that the high proportion of second homes in the national park is only one of the factors contributing to the decline of some of our towns and villages.

However, there is one further fact that we cannot shy away from, no matter how uncomfortable: too many second homes are bad for local communities.

Mr Lis said: People have asked why the National Park Authority is getting involved in this issue. The answer is simple: the natural beauty, wildlife and cultural heritage of the Park cannot be effectively conserved and enhanced without strong, viable local communities.Theresa May has won an assurance from Chinas premier that Beijing will further open up its markets to the UK  including to agricultural products and financial services.

Following talks in the Chinese capital with Li Keqiang, the Prime Minister said they had agreed to intensify the so-called golden era in their bilateral relationship.

She told a joint news conference that with UK-China trade currently worth a record 59 billion a year, she expected deals worth a further 9 billion to be signed during the course of her three-day visit.

(PA Graphics)

Mr Li said that their talks had delivered substantive results and that their bilateral relationship would not be affected by Britains impending withdrawal from the EU.

We will work to maintain the continued growth in our bilateral relations to take forward our relationship in the golden era, he said.

The two-way opening up between China and the UK will go even further and China will open even wider to the UK.

(PA Graphics)

In line with our agreement China will expand openness to UK products including agricultural products. China will import UK products that are needed in the Chinese market.

He said that their talks had covered a wide range of issues including human rights, the protection of intellectual property rights and overcapacity in the international steel market.

Theresa May inspects a ceremonial guard at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing with Chinese premier Li Keqiang (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

The two leaders said that they had also agreed to co-operate more closely on the United Nations Security Council to uphold world peace and the international rules-based order  including in relation to North Korea.

We agree that its pursuit of nuclear and ballistic missile programmes is illegal, reckless and poses an unacceptable threat to international security, Mrs May said.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang: "Our bilateral relationship will not change with the changes of EU/UK relations" pic.twitter.com/ARxkYAQmNC  Andrew Woodcock (@AndyWoodcock) January 31, 2018

We have agreed that the full and effective implementation of UN Security Council sanctions is vital to persuade the North Korean regime to change course and abandon its illegal activity.

The Prime Minister said they had agreed to carry out a joint trade and investment review to identify priorities for promoting growth in goods, services and investment.

It included agreement by the Chinese to make progress over the course of the next six months on lifting the BSE ban on British beef exports as well as allowing a broader range of UK dairy products.

Theresa May and her husband Philip arrive in Beijing (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

She said that they had also agreed to work to ensure that when companies innovate and develop new products, they could be confident their intellectual property and rights will be fully protected, including against cyber threats.

We will work together to encourage free and fair trade, ensure a transparent rules-based multilateral trading system and build an open global economy that works for all, she said.

Mrs May said the UK was a natural partner for President Xi Jinpings flagship Belt and Road Initiative to establish overland transport links between China and Europe, and they would be discussing how best they could co-operate on the project while maintaining international standards.

Theresa May looks out over the Yangtze River in the Chinese city of Wuhan (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

Earlier, the Prime Minister began her trip with a visit to Wuhan University  one of the countrys most prestigious higher education institutions  to meet students at a UK-China Spirit of Youth festival.

The PM was greeted by famous Chinese actress Jiang Shu-Ying, who studied at the University of East Anglia and is an ambassador for the scheme, as well as the Communist Party secretary of Hubei province, Jiang Chaoliang.

More than 200 Chinese students of English and young Britons studying in Wuhan cheered and took videos on their mobile phones as the PM took to the stage to announce a series of new educational links between the countries.The best and worst train operators for being able to access the internet have been identified by a major survey.

Great Northern and Southeastern are joint bottom of the rankings for the reliability of internet connections on board, with just 18% of passengers satisfied.

Southern is the third worst with a score of 22%, followed by Merseyrail (24%), London Overground (25%) and Northern (27%).

(PA graphic)

Heathrow Express achieved the highest satisfaction score for the ability of its passengers to secure a reliable internet connection at 71%.

Grand Central is the runner-up at (68%), ahead of Hull Trains (61%) and Chiltern Railways (51%).

Passengers were asked to consider both the provision of onboard wi-fi and their ability to stay online using a mobile or tablet.

The overall satisfaction score across all operators in Britain was just 30%, with more than half of passengers (56%) describing themselves as dissatisfied with the web connection on their journey.

(PA graphic)

This was the second worst score out of all 38 satisfaction measurements.

Only the availability of power sockets scored lower at 25%.

Transport Focus head of policy Mike Hewitson said internet access is the third most important thing that passengers aged 16-25 want to see improved, ahead of punctuality.

He told the Press Association: One of the benefits of rail travel is it allows you to do things in a way that driving or being on a plane doesnt.

That means connecting with people, doing work, checking emails or chatting on Facebook.

What really drives people batty is when you get the connection and it drops out.

How was your commute home this evening? See how your train compares in our National Rail Passenger Survey  https://t.co/1JeGYc6MS3 pic.twitter.com/207xdf4oMp  Transport Focus (@TransportFocus) January 30, 2018

Its got to be reliable. Its no longer a treat. Its become essential and an expectation.

Mr Hewitson said the results of the research show the reliability of internet connections on trains is still patchy.

He continued: There are commitments for new rolling stock to have better wi-fi provision.

When we get that well see a difference, but there will be a transition for a while.

Youre not going to get much wi-fi on a Pacer train, but the replacements will be much more equipped.

It is the first time that internet connections have featured in the survey, meaning there is no historical comparison.

A spokesman for the Rail Delivery Group, which represents train operators and Network Rail, said: We know that our customers expect to stay connected throughout their journey.

Were introducing 7,000 new carriages, the vast majority of which will have wi-fi for better connectivity.Ryanair has pledged to make it easier for passengers to claim compensation when flights are delayed or cancelled.

The Dublin-based carrier will establish a dedicated team to process valid EU Regulation 261 claims in 10 days.

It has also committed to help disrupted customers find out what their options are using the Ryanair website or app rather than forcing them to call a helpline.

Ryanair has pledged to make it easier for customers to claim compensation (Peter Byrne/PA)

About 700,000 passengers were affected when Ryanair cancelled flights between September 2017 and March 2018 after it mismanaged pilots annual leave.

Ryanair chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs said the airline wanted to take away anxiety and make it as simple as it possibly can be.

He went on: Were making a promise to customers that all EU261 claims will be processed within 10 days.

Currently this is 28 days.

If less than 14 days notice is given for a cancellation, airline travellers can claim up to 250 euros (220) under EU261, depending on the timing of the alternative flight.

Only about half of all passengers entitled to a payout make a claim and Mr Jacobs said Ryanair was looking at making the process automatic.

The airline was accused by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) of not complying with the law in relation to what it told affected passengers they were entitled to during the pilot shortage.

The CAA claimed the airline did not initially inform them that they were entitled to be re-routed by other carriers under EU261 rules.

Ryanair responded by emailing customers to clarify their rights.

It told them they could receive a refund or be transferred to other flights or travel by trains, buses or car hire.

Ryanair revealed that it will introduce a clause into its terms and conditions for post-Brexit flights.

Bookings will include a caveat that they are subject to the regulatory environment allowing this flight to take place, Mr Jacobs said.

Customers will be refunded if flights are grounded, he added.

The airline will publish its schedule for flights after the planned Brexit date of March 29 2019 next month.

Ryanair boss Michael OLeary has repeatedly warned that carriers will be forced to cancel post-Brexit services if no agreement is reached by September.

Mr Jacobs said he believes an agreement will be found but there will initially be a transition period of two to two-and-a-half years.

Ryanair also launched a plan to remove all recyclable plastics by 2023.

That means wooden rather than plastic cutlery will be used, and biodegradable cups will be introduced.

The airline is examining whether passengers will be able to use their own cups when buying drinks, which is a policy implemented by some major coffee shop chains.Court of Appeal judges are considering legal issues involving a solicitor who worked for a billionaire businessman ordered to pay 453 million to his estranged wife.

Anthony Kerman, who had represented Farkhad Akhmedov at an early stage of proceedings, complained about an order made by Mr Justice Haddon-Cave during litigation in the Family Division of the High Court.

He complained that he had been unfairly summonsed to give evidence at short notice.

A housewife awarded 453 million after her marriage to a billionaire businessman broke down is back at the Royal Courts of Justice for the latest round of a legal battle. (PA/Nick Ansell)

Lawyers representing Mr Kerman said the appeal raised important issues concerning legal professional privilege.

Mr Akhmedovs estranged wife Tatiana Akhmedova was at the appeal hearing, which is expected to end later this week and is being held at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

News of Ms Akhmedovas payout emerged during the summer of 2017 following a hearing in the Family Division of the High Court in London overseen by a High Court judge.

Mr Justice Haddon-Cave disclosed detail of the case in a written ruling published on a legal website.

His award was thought to be the biggest made by a divorce court judge in England.

A lawyer representing Ms Akhmedova told appeal judges that Mr Akhmedov had not yet paid a penny.The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were welcomed with kisses and high-fives as they learned about the Swedish approach to good mental health.

William and Kate were greeted affectionately by their Swedish hosts Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel on the second day of their Nordic tour when they arrived at a leading medical research centre.

Victoria and Daniel, who were guests at the Cambridges 2011 wedding and are getting to know their distant UK relatives, showed their growing bond with the British royals with the warmth of their welcome.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge greet Prince Daniel of Sweden as they arrive at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

Kisses on both cheeks were exchanged between the royal women and Daniel and William shook hands outside the Karolinska Institute in a snowy Stockholm, where the foursome met leading scientific researchers to discuss groundbreaking academic work in managing mental health challenges.

The duchess, who is around six months pregnant and clearly showing her baby bump, wore a Catherine Walker coat, a dress by Alexander McQueen and Swedish earrings by In2Design.

Later at the Matteusskolan, a combined primary and comprehensive in the city centre, the duke, duchess and the Swedish royals went on a walkabout meeting dozens of children waiting to greet them outside.

William and Kate, accompanied by Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel of Sweden, outside the Matteusskolan school (Victoria Jones/PA)

William and Kate high-fived a number of children from the school bending down to speak to the youngsters.

The duke repeatedly told them youve got cold hands and complimented the youngsters on the Swedish flags they were waving.

One teenager, more in hope than expectation, quizzed the duchess about her taste in rap music.

I asked her if she knew J Hus, said Lucas Tinseau, 15, She said I will look out for him.

At the Karolinska Institute the Cambridges joined a discussion on the correlation between mental health in young people and physical exercise.

The duke and duchess were at the world-famous medical university to learn more about its research into the impact of physical activity on peoples mental well-being.

The Crown Princess has spoken openly about her own battle with an eating disorder as a young woman while her husband, a former fitness trainer who opened a chain of exclusive gyms, is interested in the subject and started his own programme to promote physical well-being in the young.

The Duke speaks to students, teachers and invited guests about the importance of young people having conversations about mental health challenges #RoyalVisitSweden pic.twitter.com/siW0PDhD5F  The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (@KensingtonRoyal) January 31, 2018

William and Kate have made campaigning on mental health issues one of the central themes of their public working lives.

Their Heads Together mental health campaign saw a series of events staged last year to encourage Britons to talk about their psychological problems or provide a sympathetic ear for others.

The royal foursome were briefed by senior staff including Dr Ulrika Berg who outlined some of their research.

Dr Berg said: I am a paediatrician and meet a lot of children with mental problems. It is absolutely important that we use physical activity as a tool for prevention and also for treatment for mental diseases such as depression.

Kate and William in a classroom at the Matteusskolan school (Victoria Jones/PA)

I think people think oh, it is good for children to move. But it has really been shown, in research, that there are important effects, for example in depression when we know that self-esteem increases.

Later at the school the four royals watched pupils take part in a role-playing exercise exploring family problems.

They also spent time privately talking to young people about the emotional issues they face.

The royal party were marking the 10th anniversary of the Youth Aware Mental Health (YAM) programme, which encourages young people aged between 14 and 16 to help each other battle a wide range of emotional and mental health problems.

TRH hear more about the Youth Aware of Mental Health (YAM) programme, a project for 14  16 year olds which promotes increased knowledge about mental health through dialogue and role-play. pic.twitter.com/Ups5QF0l6Q  The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (@KensingtonRoyal) January 31, 2018

In the school hall, they heard one teenage student, Hugo Steg, make a speech in English about his experiences doing the course and supporting his friends.

William told an audience of teachers, students and mental health practitioners: Catherine and I and Victoria and Daniel care deeply about mental health. Its all about early intervention. Sometimes a conversation is enough.

Later William and Kate travelled to the Haga Palace, Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniels official residence, for a private tea with the couple.

Victoria is the modern, approachable and down-to-earth face of the Swedish monarchy who married her personal trainer Daniel Westling after a long period as a couple like William and Kate.

They now have two children, five-year-old Princess Estelle and one-year-old Prince Oscar, with Daniel a house husband.

Pictures released following the private tea showed the Cambridges meeting the Swedish royal couples children with their proud parents.A priest has branded the perpetrators of gangland warfare the living dead.

At the funeral of one of 14 victims of the Hutch-Kinahan feud, mourners were told that everyone had become vulnerable to the reign of violence.

Derek Coakley Hutch, 27, was shot dead outside Cloverhill Prison in west Dublin 10 days ago.

A garda at the scene in the James Larkin House flat complex off North Strand, Dublin where Jason Molyneaux was shot dead on Tuesday night.

As his family waked him in their north inner city home, an associate, Jason Molyneaux, also 27, was shot dead less than a mile away after paying his own respects.

Locals reported how he was due to carry the coffin of Delboy Hutch at Our Lady of Lourdes Church on Sean McDermott Street.

Fr Michael Casey told mourners that gang warfare was evil.

Those with hardened closed hearts have cut themselves of from lifes source, which is compassion, forgiveness, being reconciled, he said.

They have become living dead.

They and their actions and the dark world they inhabit has no place in this sacred place nor indeed in this community.

Thou shall not kill remains, thou shall not kill.

Derek Hutch, who was also known as Derek Coakley Hutch, was a father-of-two and is survived by his mother Noleen, his partner Nikita, his children and his brother Nathan. His burial took place in Glasnevin Cemetery.

He was a nephew of Gerry The Monk Hutch whose family and associates have been targeted since late 2015 when Gary Hutch was murdered on the Costa del Sol after the Kinahan cartel reportedly suspected he had become an informer.

A large garda presence surrounded the funeral.

Addressing mourners Fr Casey said: We must not forget who we are.

We are children of light not of darkness. We are called to be peacemakers, not people of violence.

Fr Casey said the area around the Sean McDermott Street parish  the site of several murders linked to the feud  was a place where decent people tried to live their lives as best they could.

He said the murder had wreaked havoc, pain, suffering and devastation on a family and community and said it could not be justified.

This reign of violence and total disrespect for human life carried out by people who have become soulless is frightening and leaves us all vulnerable, he said.

This spiral of violence, revenge, retaliation and the ensnarement of many in this web of what can only be described as evil has led to the destruction of the most precious gift, that of life itself and our call to be human.The councillor suspended by Scottish Labour amid allegations of racism and Islamophobia has said he is stunned by the claims.

Davie McLachlan, who had been leader of the Labour group on South Lanarkshire Council, said he categorically denied making racist remarks to leadership candidate Anas Sarwar and said he would launch a robust defence.

He issued a statement after being suspended by Scottish Labour Party bosses pending an investigation into Mr Sarwars claims.

Labour MSP Anas Sarwar (Andrew MIlligan/PA)

The Glasgow MSP, who lost the leadership contest to left-winger Richard Leonard, claimed an elected councillor had told him he could not support him because he was a brown, Muslim Paki.

He did not initially name the councillor but on Tuesday he met with party bosses and provided them with details in writing as well as disclosing the identity of the councillor.

Mr McLachlan said afterwards: I categorically deny these deeply hurtful allegations.

Im stunned and dismayed at the claims that I would say such things, and I will defend myself robustly in the partys investigation and in any actions that follow.

Early in the campaign I pledged my support to Anas but later decided to support Mr Leonard. Anas will know this and would understandably be disappointed.

Mr Sarwar earlier explained he had not spoken about the comments during last autumns Scottish leadership contest as he did not want to be accused of playing the so-called race card.

Going public with the claims was the most difficult thing he had done, the MSP added, but stressed it was also the right thing to do.

Mr Sarwar has just launched a cross-party group on tackling racism and Islamophobia at the Scottish Parliament.

He insisted that elected politicians should be held to a higher standard than the public on such issues.

Great turnout at Cross Party Group on Tackling Islamophobia launch. 50+ orgs, representing all faiths & none.



This is bigger than any 1 individual or organisation. Its about challenging everyday racism & Islamophobia that impacts on workplaces, campuses & classrooms. pic.twitter.com/YzIcUKZu4f  Anas Sarwar (@AnasSarwar) January 30, 2018

Speaking about his own experiences on BBC Radio Scotlands Kaye Adams Programme, the Labour MSP said: In 1997 I was assaulted because of the colour of my skin, in the early 2000s when I was out with my friends on a Saturday night in Glasgow glass bottles were thrown at me because of the colour of our skin.

That is happening less and that is to be welcomed, we have seen a difference in terms of tolerance and understanding in our communities.

What my fear is is it now becoming a much more insidious and much more institutionalised form of everyday racism and Islamophobia, and thats what needs to be challenged.

While he did not speak about the issue during the leadership contest, Mr Sarwar said that when setting up the cross-party group at Holyrood I felt it was right to put my own head above the parapet and talk about my own personal experiences, in the hope we can spark a wider debate.

Mr Sarwar added: Weve got an issue with everyday racism which isnt criminality, most of it cant reported to the police, but impacts upon playgrounds, on college and university campuses, it impacts upon workplaces, and I think as a society in Scotland we should be brave enough to speak about it.Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang wants to be Arsenals new Thierry Henry.

The Gabon striker revealed his lofty ambitions after completing his move to the Emirates Stadium from Borussia Dortmund for a club-record fee of 56million.

The 28-year-old, who scored 98 goals in 144 Bundesliga games for Dortmund, is a replacement for Alexis Sanchez following his switch to Manchester United.

But Aubameyang has set his sights higher than stepping into the Chileans boots  he wants to emulate record Gunners goalscorer Henry.

I think the club has such a big history and great players like Thierry Henry, he told Arsenal Player.

Hes an example for us strikers because he was fast and scored a lot of goals.

I think I have to work a lot to be like him, but I will do. Im a fast player and I score goals too, like Henry a little bit. But as I said, I have to work a lot more.

Thierry Henry was an Arsenal hero (Stephen Pond/Empics)

Aubameyang will be reunited with former Dortmund team-mate Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who moved to north London in exchange for Sanchez.

Of course I can join Micki in this team, so Im really happy to be here in this great team, he added.

I hope that we will come back to the top as soon as possible. I will do my best to join in.

Aubameyangs arrival signing is a welcome boost for boss Arsene Wenger, who saw his sides hopes of a top-four finish suffer a setback with a 3-1 defeat at struggling Swansea on Tuesday night.

It could also pave the way for the departure of French striker Olivier Giroud, who has been linked with a move to Chelsea.

Tensions between Aubameyang and Dortmund had grown in recent weeks, but the German sides sporting director Michael Zorc said on the club website: He has done great things for Borussia Dortmund, scored many important goals and is part of the team that brought the DFB-Pokal to Dortmund in 2017.

We wish Pierre-Emerick all the best for his future at Arsenal.

Aubameyang posted a message on Instagram apologising for the acrimonious circumstances surrounding his departure, but describing himself as a crazy kid.

Aubameyang, who was suspended twice by Dortmund this season for disciplinary reasons, said: First of all sorry for everything that has happened in the last month. But I wanted a transfer last summer, it did not work, but now it had to.

Maybe it was not the best way for me to choose, but everyone knows that Auba is crazy  and yes, I am a crazy kid.

Ive made mistakes, but never with malice.

Henry hopes Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan can rekindle their understanding from when they played at Dortmund together.

The former Gunners striker told Sky Sports news: I hope they were thinking about that Arsenal, Aubameyang played with Mkhitaryan at Borussia Dortmund so they know about each other and how they play.

I think its a great thing that you can add two guys coming from two different clubs that already played with each other.

Im happy as an Arsenal fan that we attracted Aubameyang.Three people have been jailed for life for their involvement in an Islamic State suicide bombing in 2016 at Istanbuls historic Sultanahmet district which killed 12 German tourists.

Hasan al Mayyuf, Fevzi Muhammed Ali and Halil Dervis were given life terms at a court in Istanbul for breaching the Turkish constitution and an additional 329 years each for killing 12 people and attempting to murder 16 others in the blast.

A fourth defendant was sentenced to six years and three months in prison for membership of an armed group, while 18 other people were acquitted, according to reports. No ruling was issued for four other defendants who are on the run.

Turkish police officers guard a court in Istanbul where three people were jailed for life over a suicide bombing in the city (AP)

Turkish authorities said the suicide bomber, a Syrian identified as Nabil Fadli, was affiliated with IS. He set off the bomb near a group of German tourists close to the landmark Blue Mosque.

The attack was one of several to rock Turkey since 2015. The list of wounded included nine Germans and citizens of Norway, Peru and South Korea.Facebook has banned adverts for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on its sites after recent criticism from users about scams and hoaxes being promoted in their newsfeed.

The worlds biggest social network said such digital currencies are frequently associated with deceptive promotional practices.

Two of our core advertising principles outline our belief that ads should be safe, and that we build for people first, said Rob Leathern, a product manager at Facebook, announcing the changes.

Misleading or deceptive ads have no place on Facebook.

The new policy puts adverts for cryptocurrencies in the same category as drugs, weapons and surveillance equipment in Facebooks prohibited content, meaning even legitimate advertisers of Bitcoin and other digital currencies are now banned from promoting their products.

Ads for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies like this have been banned from Facebook (TheBoyCrypto/Twitter/PA)

Mr Leathern said the policy is intentionally broad, while engineers at the company work on better ways to detect misleading or deceptive advertising.

He also promised that rules around advertising would be better enforced across Facebook and its sister company, Instagram, as well as the companys advertising platform, Audience Network.

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, a professor of political communication at Oxford University who specialises in the media, praised the move as a step in the right direction.

If it is accompanied by more effective enforcement of their advertising policies and greater transparency around how these are enforced and what kinds of ads are served, it will help reduce the room for misinformation on the platform, he said.

The move comes weeks after the Press Association reported on multiple scams appearing in peoples newsfeeds under the guise of quick ways to make Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

It is wrong that social media companies, such as Facebook, are profiting from phishing scams and fake adverts that are harmful to their platforms users, said Damian Collins MP, chairman of the parliamentary inquiry into fake news, at the time.

We also understand that we may not catch every ad that should be removed under this new policy, and encourage our community to report content that violates our Advertising Policies. People can report any ad on Facebook by clicking on the upper right-hand corner of the ad! https://t.co/AgmdMx97xT  Rob Leathern (@robleathern) January 30, 2018

Facebook made more than 10 billion US dollars from advertising in the year to September 2017, but pressure from legislators is mounting as many do not believe the company is doing enough to protect its users.

Germany is threatening to limit how Facebook collects data from its two billion users  which it uses to help companies target their ads  following a December report from the Federal Cartel Office which found that the company was abusing its dominant market position.

Last October Facebook reported that almost 150 million people may have seen Russian efforts to sway the 2016 US election on its platform, during a hearing at the House Intelligence Committee in Washington.

Facebook is not alone in taking heat from politicians, as both Google and Twitter have come under increasing pressure to crack down on misinformation, fraudulent advertising and extremism on their platforms.

All three companies are due to give evidence to MPs from the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee about possible Russian meddling in the Brexit vote during a special hearing in Washington on February 8.The family of a 74-year-old great-grandmother are facing a 72,000 US dollar bill after she had to be airlifted to hospital from a cruise ship off the coast of Mexico.

Joyce Kettle, from Blyth, Northumberland, thought she had holiday insurance through her bank but the policy only covered her for European trips.

She suffered from breathing difficulties after the Marella Discovery II left port on Monday and the on-board doctor said she needed urgent medical hospital treatment.

Joyce Kettle, with daughter Leanne and granddaughter Jamie (Family handout/PA)

The widow, who was travelling with a friend and her friends son, was airlifted alone to hospital in Cozumel, a holiday island near Cancun.

Her family have been told the medical bills already run to 72,626 dollars (51,150) without the doctors fees, and they say she has no savings to pay the cost.

The family have set up an online fundraiser at https://www.gofundme.com/getjoycehome to help them cover the cost of getting her home.

Joyce Kettles family are desperate to get her home to Blyth, Northumberland (Family handout/PA)

She is recovering from a heart procedure which required three stents.

Mrs Kettle has three children, six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, and is retired.

Les Chrisp, partner of Mrs Kettles youngest daughter Leanne, said the family struggled to get information from the cruise ship and hospital.

In desperation, they contacted an English-speaking bar in Cozumel to ask for advice and its manager was quickly able to speak to medics on their behalf.

Less than three hours after first making contact with the No Name Bar, the grateful family was told that Mrs Kettle was awake and stable.

Mr Chrisp said: We just want her home, everybody is worried sick.

Its not like we can just jump in the car and visit her in hospital.

In fact, the embassy told us not to fly out to see her as they said we should keep our money as we would need it for the medical bills.A Tory former minister has launched a scathing attack on her hard Brexiteer colleagues, saying they would destroy the party and the Prime Minister to get the Brexit they wanted.

Anna Soubry said 35 of her colleagues had been banging on about Europe for decades in a way that was not particularly good for their mental health.

In an impassioned Commons speech Ms Soubry called on the Government to get a grip, park the Brexiteers and build a consensus across the House.

I would have voted for it and will still speak in favour of it https://t.co/Y9cmkhOSZa  Anna Soubry (@Anna_Soubry) January 31, 2018

She said the Governments inability to grasp Brexit and do the right thing frankly is now at a point where as I say, it has got to stop.

There are millions and millions of people in this country who do not believe that either of the two political parties in this country represent their views, she told the Commons.

I see it in these terms, I think theres a group of people, the hard Brexiteers, and you arent going to change them.

In my own party my Government believes that somehow they can manage the 35 hard Brexiteers, whove been banging on about Europe in a way at times which I think is not particularly good for their mental health for decades.

They think they can manage them, you cant manage them. Even if you gave them what they wanted today they would complain that you hadnt done it yesterday.

Its a battle to death as far as many of them are concerned and they will not hesitate to destroy this party, to destroy our Prime Minister to get what they want. They can see the prize and theyre damned if anybody is going to get in their way.

The Government needs to wake up to that reality.

Anna Soubry (PA)

Her remarks came after Brexit minister Robin Walker confirmed the Government would release a leaked economic analysis to the Exiting the European Union Select Committee following pressure from Labour.

But Mr Walker urged the committee against making the analysis public, describing it as preliminary, unfinished and said there are aspects of it which remain negotiation-sensitive and should not be put in the public domain.

He also said the document contains a large number of caveats, adding it is not yet anywhere near being approved by ministers.

Labour used an arcane parliamentary procedure to attempt to force ministers to release the analysis leaked to BuzzFeed News earlier this week.

The Government intends to allow MPs and peers a chance to view a hard copy of the analysis in a confidential reading room.

Speaker says motion is binding and there is a reference to urgency in the motion so the report will be released as a matter of urgency pic.twitter.com/rcriD9TEs3  PARLY (@PARLYapp) January 31, 2018

Following the debate, the motion was approved without a division.

Commons Speaker John Bercow, responding to a point of order by shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer, said the motion was binding and added: There is reference to a matter of urgency and therefore the expectation must be that the report which is the subject of the debate, will be released, published, made available to those persons mentioned in the motion as a matter of urgency.

Tory former chancellor Ken Clarke welcomed the common-sense decision to stop trying to withhold the documents, but accused the Government of adopting a cult of secrecy.

Explaining the Governments decision, Mr Walker praised the hard work of our officials before noting: If every time any element of their work leaks we are forced to present unfinished work to the scrutiny of Parliament, the public and press, there is a very real chance that the quality of that work would suffer.

He said it would not be conducive for the process of open, honest policy-making on any topic for any Government, adding: I urge the select committee to provide some assurances in good faith that for these reasons, and reflecting on the words of the motion which recognise the confidential nature of this document, that this preliminary analysis will not be made public.An 18-year-old man who repeatedly raped a young woman at gunpoint has been jailed for 20 years.

Police said Aquib Ahmed and a 16-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, operated as a twisted tag team as they subjected the woman, who is in her 20s, to a disgusting, heartless attack.

Aquib Ahmed, who was jailed for 20 years for raping a woman in Sheffield (South Yorkshire Police/PA Wire)

The pair broke into a house in the Fir Vale area of Sheffield in March last year looking for drugs and threatening the man and his daughter inside, South Yorkshire Police said.

But they realised they had targeted the wrong house as the occupants had no criminal or drugs connections.

The pair returned three days later when they subjected the young woman to a disgusting, heartless attack.

Detective Constable David Devey said: They returned to the house, purely for their own sexual gratification, where they threatened the man and his daughter at gunpoint before they each raped the young woman repeatedly.

Ahmed told the man and his daughter hed kill them both if they reported what happened to police.

Over 25-years for teens who raped young woman and made threats with a firearm. A good result following a lengthy investigation by Force Crime Unit detectives and officers working in Sheffield @UBJennings https://t.co/14TDZuiib7 pic.twitter.com/PuUGYNokuA  South Yorkshire Police (@syptweet) January 31, 2018

Temporary Detective Inspector Anna Sedgwick who led the investigation, said: The victims quite rightly viewed their home as a safe place, where they could relax and spend time with each other.

Both offenders have selfishly destroyed this, subjecting them both, and especially the woman, to what can only be described as a disgusting, heartless attack. The woman has shown immense bravery throughout the entire investigative process and Id like to praise the strength she has shown after being subjected to this horrendous ordeal.

Ms Sedgwick said: The prosecution described the pair as a twisted tag team, who have shown little to no remorse for what they did, which has ultimately shattered the innocent world of a father and daughter.

Im in no doubt that both offenders absolutely deserve todays sentences and can only hope that father and daughter can continue moving forward with their lives knowing that these abhorrent, cruel, boys are behind bars where they belong.

Police confirmed that Ahmed, of Barnsley Road, Fir Vale, Sheffield was jailed for 20 years on Wednesday after pleading guilty to two counts of rape and possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence at an earlier hearing.

The 16-year-old boy was jailed for six years after pleading guilty to the same offences.The BBCs former China editor Carrie Gracie became emotional as she told MPs she felt angry about what people were going through as they fought for equal pay.

Gracie, who resigned as the BBCs China editor in a row over unequal pay, fought back tears as she gave evidence to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee at the House of Commons.

Journalist Carrie Gracie gives evidence to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee in Portcullis House, London, on pay at the BBC (PA)

She recounted the effect the situation has had on her mental health, recalling how when she received an inaccurate account of a grievance she had filed she went to bed for two days and thought I cant do it, this is too big.

She said: The mental health issues that Michelle (Stanistreet) talks about people facing, the strain of being in conflict and the delays and the obfuscation and the opacity and the belittling of your work because that is what has to happen if they are not going to concede, they are going to have to crush your self-esteem about your work so that is very painful. I found all of that really hard.

I feel very angry about what they (the BBC) have put some other people through, I feel angry about some of the things Ive seen and heard and some of the women and the suffering they have gone through, its not funny.

All of these women have been underpaid, I believe, for years.

Carrie Gracie speaks to the media outside BBC Broadcasting House (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

She earlier spoke of what she said was a toxic work atmosphere and warned BBC management saying:  It is going to get worse, we have women leaving, the credibility of management is diminished and damaged and they will lose in employment tribunals.

They are stumbling towards a Greek tragedy where they make happen their own worst fears. They need to stop now, pull up and trust their staff.

Early on in the session, Gracie told how she had been earning 135,000 before the BBC offered her a 45,000 rise, which she rejected.

She said she had received results of a grievance last week and that the BBC had said it had inadvertently underpaid her since 2014.

Heartfelt, compelling words from @BBCCarrie at @CommonsCMS select committee. Thank you Carrie for speaking so clearly about pay injustice. Will spur change not just @BBC but for all women at work.  Harriet Harman (@HarrietHarman) January 31, 2018

Gracie said the BBC had not described her pay discrepancy as gender pay discrimination.

She said: They have said it was not gender pay discrimination, they havent called it pay discrimination either.

Im not an employment lawyer but it sounds to me like a tacit admission that it is pay discrimination in that they want to pay me now nearly 100,000 in back pay.

The thing that is very unacceptable to me is they have basically said in the previous years 2014, 2015, 2016, I was in development.

It is an insult to add to the original injury. It is unacceptable to talk to your senior women like that. I would have never agreed to China on those terms.

The BBC was forced, last summer, to reveal the salaries of all stars earning more than 150,000 a year.

Gracie was not on the list, while other international editors were.

Jeremy Bowen earned between 150,000 and 199,999 (Ian West/PA)

North America editor Jon Sopel was in the 200,000 to 249,999 bracket while Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen earned between 150,000 and 199,999.

It has since been revealed that Sopel, alongside other broadcasters John Humphrys, Huw Edwards, Nicky Campbell, Nick Robinson, and Jeremy Vine, has taken a pay cut.

Humphrys was criticised after a leaked tape showed him joking with Sopel about Gracie and the gender pay gap.

A review, commissioned by the BBC and published on Tuesday, found there was no evidence of gender bias in pay decision-making.

(PA Graphics)

BBC Director-General Tony Hall will also be appearing before the committee.A physiotherapist who supplied guns and ammunition to criminal gangs, including bullets and weapons used in three murders, has been jailed for 14 years.

Mohinder Surdhar, who worked with the English karate team and for the NHS, used the cover of a legitimate firearms certificate to obtain weapons thought to have been sold on by his co-conspirators for up to 3,000.

The 58-year-old, of Grove Lane, Handsworth, Birmingham, pleaded guilty at a previous hearing to a single count of conspiracy to transfer prohibited weapons and ammunition.

Passing sentence at Birmingham Crown Court, Judge Richard Bond told Surdhar he had breached the trust placed in him as a licensed owner of firearms, including a sniper rifle with a range of up to two miles.

The judge told Surdhar: You were a physiotherapist with a PhD, well-educated and well-respected in your field.

In short, over a period of several years you acted as the fulcrum in the supply of prohibited weapons and ammunition to criminal gangs.

Mohinder Surdhar, who has been jailed for 14 years (West Midlands Police/PA)

Trials of other defendants involved in the conspiracy heard that police across the country started to recover antique handguns and specially made ammunition from crime scenes from 2014.

Previous hearings which led to the conviction of more than a dozen men, including Gloucestershire-based gun dealer Paul Edmunds, were told Surdhar acted as a middleman to supply the criminal networks chief armourer.

Police inquiries linked Surdhar to weapons used in 11 non-fatal incidents and 28 other shootings.

Jailing Surdhar, Judge Bond added: It is impossible to say how many weapons you supplied over the years but it would now appear that you supplied hundreds of guns to the gang.

Even to this day, weapons sold by you are still being seized from crime scenes.

Edmunds was at the top of the chain of supply and he was illegally importing many handguns both current and antique into the United Kingdom.

He has the highest culpability in this conspiracy. But yours is not much less than his.Former Arsenal and Manchester City midfielder Samir Nasri has left Antalyaspor after just six months in Turkey.

The former France international ended his six-year stay at City last summer to join the Super Lig outfit on a two-year deal.

But the 30-year-old is now looking for a new club after he was released from his contract by mutual agreement.

Samir Nasri spent six years with Manchester City (Adam Davy/PA)

A statement on the Turkish clubs website read: We thank him for his contributions to the club and wish him success in the next sporting event.

Nasri, who made only eight appearances for Antalyaspor, is the second big name to leave the club in 24 hours after Samuel Etoos contract was terminated on Tuesday.Theresa May has repeatedly declined to answer questions about whether Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson told the truth about an extra-marital liaison.

Mr Williamson dramatically confessed last week that he almost threw away his marriage by kissing a female colleague while working at a fireplace manufacturing firm before he entered Parliament.

The 41-year-old South Staffordshire MP said the flirtation progressed no further than kissing and that his wife forgave him after he owned up and apologised.

Gavin Williamson

Asked during a visit to China whether she was confident that Mr Williamson had told the truth about what happened, and about his subsequent departure from the company Elgin and Hall, Mrs May said only: Gavin has told people about something that happened before he became a Member of Parliament, let alone became a minister.

Journalists travelling with the PM pressed her on the issue, pointing out that she had sacked Damian Green as deputy prime minister because he was shown not to have told the truth about events which happened before he joined the Government.

Mrs May replied: What has come out is something that happened even before Gavin was a Member of Parliament, let alone a minister.

In relation to Damien Green, the report showed the ministerial code had been broken, it was on that basis that I took the decision.The final body recovered from a fire that destroyed a farmhouse in Mid Wales has been identified as a four-year-old girl.

Gypsy Grey Raine died alongside four other children from the family  Just Raine, 11, Reef Raine, 10, Misty Raine, nine, and Patch Raine, six.

David Cuthbertson, 68, was also killed in the blaze at the remote property at Llangammarch Wells, Powys, on October 30 last year.

David Cuthbertson (Dyfed-Powys Police/PA)

Andrew Barkley, coroner for Powys, Bridgend and the Glamorgan Valleys, opened and adjourned inquests into the six deaths at Aberdare Coroners Court.

Detective Inspector Jacqui Lovatt, of Dyfed-Powys Police, told the hearing that the cause of the fire was still under investigation.

On October 30, just after midnight, fire and rescue services attended Poityn Farm in Llangammarch Wells following reports of a fire, she said.

On arrival the farmhouse was ablaze. The farmhouse is known to be the home of David Cuthbertson and eight of his children who were in the building at the time of the fire.

Three of the children managed to escape and alert neighbours.

Flowers left close to the scene in Llangammarch Wells, Powys (Ben Birchall/PA)

The fire destroyed external walls, two floors and the roof of the farmhouse building, causing them to collapse, she said.

Recovery and identification of the bodies was carried out between November and December of last year.

Mr Cuthbertson, who was born in Scotland, was identified through DNA.

A police search dogs van drives towards the scene (Ben Birchall/PA)

Just, Reef, Misty and Patch were also identified through DNA, with their mother Sima Khan confirming their identities, address and dates of birth.Gypsy was identified through dental and skeletal analysis. Her identity, address and date of birth was also confirmed by her mother.

A pre-inquest review will be held in Welshpool, Mid Wales, on April 6.BBC director-general Tony Hall has said the corporation did not discriminate against former China editor Carrie Gracie over her gender when it paid her less than men doing similar jobs.

Lord Hall said there were differences in the work as he gave evidence to the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee.

Tony Hall gives evidence to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee in Portcullis House, London, on pay at the BBC.

His comments came after Gracie had addressed the committee following her resignation as China editor in a row over unequal pay.

Gracie told MPs she had been offered 100,000 in back pay by the BBC, who she said explained her lower salary as being because she had been in development in the role.

During her evidence, Gracie also revealed she had only received the outcome of a grievance over her unequal pay last week and that the BBC had said it had inadvertently underpaid her since 2014.

Lord Hall said: We will not discriminate on gender between anybody but there are differences in the work, the nature of the work and the amount of work between say North America and China.

Journalist Carrie Gracie gives evidence to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee in Portcullis House, London, on pay at the BBC.

The range between those two has been too big and Im sorry about that but there is a difference in the scope and the scale of the two jobs.

Mr Hall started off his evidence session by telling MPs that he holds Gracie in the greatest regard and added he admires the stand she has taken on pay.

Asked if she has been vindicated in her complaint, he said: I think the result of the grievance which she described to you did say very clearly that we had got some things wrong, I would that we hadnt got things wrong but we did.

Lord Hall said Gracie had done first rate work for the BBC and added: I dont want to undermine in any way the work she has done.

He continued: I admire the stand she has taken on this. It takes courage to speak out about the corporation which, as she says, she loves a great deal.

Gracie was joined for her evidence session by Michelle Stanistreet, General Secretary of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) which has supporting many of the journalists challenging the BBC over pay issues.

Carrie Gracie speaks to the media outside BBC Broadcasting House (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

Gracie spoke of what she said was a toxic work atmosphere and warned BBC management: It is going to get worse, we have women leaving, the credibility of management is diminished and damaged and they will lose in employment tribunals.

They are stumbling towards a Greek tragedy where they make happen their own worst fears. They need to stop now, pull up and trust their staff.

Early on in the session, Gracie told how she had been earning 135,000 before the BBC offered her a 45,000 rise, which she rejected.

Heartfelt, compelling words from @BBCCarrie at @CommonsCMS select committee. Thank you Carrie for speaking so clearly about pay injustice. Will spur change not just @BBC but for all women at work.  Harriet Harman (@HarrietHarman) January 31, 2018

Gracie said the BBC had not described her pay discrepancy as gender pay discrimination.

She said: They have said it was not gender pay discrimination, they havent called it pay discrimination either.

Im not an employment lawyer but it sounds to me like a tacit admission that it is pay discrimination in that they want to pay me now nearly 100,000 in back pay.

The thing that is very unacceptable to me is they have basically said in the previous years 2014, 2015, 2016, I was in development.

It is an insult to add to the original injury. It is unacceptable to talk to your senior women like that. I would have never agreed to China on those terms.

The BBC was forced, last summer, to reveal the salaries of all stars earning more than 150,000 a year.

Gracie was not on the list, while other international editors were.

Jeremy Bowen earned between 150,000 and 199,999 (Ian West/PA)

North America editor Jon Sopel was in the 200,000 to 249,999 bracket while Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen earned between 150,000 and 199,999.

It has since been revealed that Sopel, alongside other broadcasters John Humphrys, Huw Edwards, Nicky Campbell, Nick Robinson, and Jeremy Vine, has taken a pay cut.

Humphrys was criticised after a leaked tape showed him joking with Sopel about Gracie and the gender pay gap.

A review, commissioned by the BBC and published on Tuesday, found there was no evidence of gender bias in pay decision-making.

(PA Graphics)

Lord Hall was joined by the BBCs director of news and current Affairs, Fran Unsworth, the corporations deputy director general, Anne Bulford and Sir David Clementi, chairman of the BBC.The Scottish Governments Budget has passed its first hurdle at Holyrood, after agreements with the Greens and two Liberal Democrats saw the tax and spending package approved in principle.

MSPs voted by 69 to 56 in favour of the Budget (Scotland) Bill at Stage 1, with Finance Secretary Derek Mackay insisting he had made a deal that works for Scotland.

He won the support of the six Green MSPs with a string of measures, including an additional 159.5 million for local government budgets.

Derek Mackay has agreed a deal with the Scottish Greens which will see his budget passed (Jane Barlow/PA)

Meanwhile a further 10.5 million for Orkney and Shetland councils for ferry services secured the backing of Liberal Democrats Liam McArthur and Tavish Scott, who represent the two island constituencies.

Mr Mackay told the Scottish Parliament the SNP had secured popular support for our tax plans, popular support for our investment plans in our public services, popular support to tackle inequality as well.

He stated: In a Parliament of minorities we have reached out, we have found consensus, we have a deal that works for Scotland. We are building a better country in the face of Tory cuts.

After the deal was struck First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted her congratulations to the Finance Secretary, insisted the Budget will reverse Tory austerity, protect public services and grow our economy.

Well done @DerekMackaySNP - delivering a budget that will reverse Tory austerity, protect public services and grow our economy. https://t.co/wctguniowr  Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) January 31, 2018

Scottish Green co-convener Patrick Harvie hailed the deal as just the latest example of Greens leading the change in Scottish politics.

He stated: Last year we stopped the cuts; this year weve pushed the government even further and delivered a real-terms increase in funding, including a fair contribution towards the additional pressures councils are facing.

New changes announced to the draft Budget will end the anomaly which would have seen some higher earners pay less income tax next year  with this move raising an additional 55 million.

This cash, together with previously unspent funding, will help the Scottish Government to find the extra money for councils.

The Budget will also mean public sector workers earning up to 36,500 will receive a pay rise of 3% in 2018-19  with Mr Mackay saying this would include 80% of NHS staff and the vast majority of teachers.

https://t.co/Vdnc8RIiZA



The Green #ScotBudget deal means an extra 170m to fund local services and help pay fair wages, reversing all the 157m of cuts proposed by the SNP. pic.twitter.com/jKLDYpWZJY  Scottish Greens (@scottishgreens) January 31, 2018

Meanwhile an extra 400 million of funding for the NHS in Scotland next year will take health spending to a record level, he said.

Tory finance spokesman Murdo Fraser savaged the Greens, after they backed the SNPs Budget plans for the second year in a row.

The Conservative MSP hit out: The ever faithful Patrick Harvie has once again saved the SNPs bacon.

The always willing Scottish Greens are there to do their masters bidding. The wholly-owned subsidiary has had its orders from head office.

He accused the SNP of having broken its 2016 manifesto pledge not to increase the basic rate of income tax, adding: This is a budget that can be summed up in four words  pay more, get less.

Under the Scottish Governments planned income tax changes, the two highest rates of the levy will be increased by 1p.

While the basic rate will be frozen at 20p, Mr Mackay plans to create a new intermediate rate of 21p, but he is also bringing in a starter rate of 19p, which will be applied to the first 2,000 of taxable earnings.

The Tories claimed almost 400,000 Scottish taxpayers would be left worse off after what Mr Fraser branded as yet another tax grab.

Labour finance spokesman James Kelly also vowed his party would oppose the Budget, claiming it falls well short of what is required.

He added: Theres a lack of investment in public services, it doesnt properly fund fair pay for public sector workers, it lacks ambition in tackling child poverty and it does not alleviate the growing crisis in the NHS.

The grubby deal thats been announced today by Derek Mackay, the Green SNP deal, just does not cut it.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said the proposals did not deliver the transformational change that Scotland needed.A prisoner has been stabbed to death at HMP Wormwood Scrubs, Scotland Yard has said.

The man was found with a number of knife injuries on Wednesday afternoon at the prison in west London.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: Police were called at 3.19pm on Wednesday January 31 to reports of a male with stab injuries at HMP Wormwood Scrubs.

A male was later pronounced dead at the scene.

No arrests have been made. Enquiries are ongoing.

The exterior of HMP Wormwood Scrubs in London, where a prisoner has been stabbed to death (Yui Mok/PA)

The man has not been formally identified and his family have been informed, police said.

A post-mortem examination will be held in due course.

Built in the late 19th century, Wormwood Scrubs held 1,131 inmates as of the end of December.

An inspection report published in December warned the iconic jail was still not safe enough with high levels of often serious violence.

The assessment detailed how the prison struggled to provide decent conditions, with outside areas strewn with litter, attracting rats and cockroaches.

Too many men were locked up for significant periods of the day, some for as long as 23 hours, HM Inspectorate of Prisons found.

Publishing the report, Chief Inspector of Prisons Peter Clarke said: Overall, this was an extremely concerning picture, and we could see no justification as to why this poor situation had persisted since 2014.

The incident comes amid ongoing concern over safety in prisons in England and Wales.

Figures published last week showed three of the 295 deaths in prison custody in 2017 were homicides.

The statistics also revealed the number of assaults behind bars was at a new record level, with 28,165 incidents in the 12 months to September.Tottenham have announced the signing of winger Lucas Moura from Paris St Germain on a contract until 2023.

The Brazilian has made only six substitute appearances this season, having fallen behind Neymar and Kylian Mbappe in the pecking order.

Moura, 25, moves to White Hart Lane for an undisclosed fee, reported to be 25million, and could make his debut in Spurs trip to Liverpool on Sunday.

Lucas Moura has joined Tottenham until 2023 (Mike Egerton/Empics)

Its a new chapter of my life, a new challenge, Im so happy, he told the clubs official site.

I can play in the Champions League and its a big objective for me. To make new friends is always a pleasure and I will give my best for the club. We have a lot of quality and we can win big things.

Im so excited, everything is perfect and Im sure well do big things together. I want to play, to help the team. Its very strong and can win a lot of things, why not the Champions League?

The Brazil international moved to PSG from Sao Paulo in January 2013 and played 229 times, scoring 46 goals.

He won four Ligue 1 titles, three French Cups, four French League Cups and five French Super Cups.

Moura has not played in the Champions League in this campaign so is eligible to feature for Spurs, who face Juventus in the last 16 of the competition.BBC director-general Tony Hall denied there is an old boys network at the corporation as he addressed the issue of equal pay.

Appearing before the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee, Lord Hall also said he believed he had not let the BBC down in his nearly five years at its helm.

He said he had done quite a lot in getting more women on the air and into more senior positions.

His comments came after Carrie Gracie gave evidence to the committee following her resignation as China editor in a row over unequal pay.

"I really believe in getting women's place in the workplace right" - BBC Director general Lord Hall at BBC pay inequality hearing https://t.co/SFxKMCbJwk pic.twitter.com/RB3xcP1Uji  BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) January 31, 2018

Gracie told MPs she had been offered 100,000 in back pay by the BBC, who she said explained her lower salary as being because she had been in development in the role.

Lord Hall said: I dont believe there is an old boys network, I believe in equality of opportunity.

Wherever I can, properly, we have been trying to appoint women to key roles at the BBC  key roles in news, key roles as correspondents and reporters in news.

He added: The idea of some old boys club, I abhor. That is not the way I believe that BBC should be or is.

Earlier in the committee, Lord Hall had said the BBC did not discriminate against Gracie, but that there were differences in the work between her post and that of the North America and Middle East roles filled by men.

During her evidence, as well as saying she had been told she was in development in the China role, Gracie said she had only received the outcome of a grievance over her pay last week and that the BBC had said it had inadvertently underpaid her since 2014.

Lord Hall said: We will not discriminate on gender between anybody but there are differences in the work, the nature of the work and the amount of work between say North America and China.

The range between those two has been too big and Im sorry about that but there is a difference in the scope and the scale of the two jobs.

Gracie  whom Lord Hall said he has the greatest regard for and whom he admires for taking a stand  said the BBC had not described her pay discrepancy as gender pay discrimination.

Gracie said: The thing that is very unacceptable to me is they have basically said in the previous years 2014, 2015, 2016, I was in development.

It is an insult to add to the original injury. It is unacceptable to talk to your senior women like that. I would have never agreed to China on those terms.

The BBC was forced, last summer, to reveal the salaries of all stars earning more than 150,000 a year.

Gracie was not on the list, while other international editors were, including North America editor Jon Sopel, who was in the 200,000 to 249,000 bracket.

Carrie Gracie (PA)

Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen earned between 150,000 and 199,999.

It has since been revealed that Sopel, alongside other broadcasters John Humphrys, Huw Edwards, Nicky Campbell, Nick Robinson, and Jeremy Vine, has taken a pay cut.

A review, commissioned by the BBC and published on Tuesday, found there was no evidence of gender bias in pay decision-making.

Lord Hall defended his tenure at the BBC when challenged by Giles Watling on whether he felt he had let the corporation down.

Lord Hall insisted he is not reactive and that the BBC has been proactive in bringing in these reforms.

The BBC boss was also pressed by Julie Elliott, who asked why he had done nothing to sort out the pay discrepancy sooner.

Lord Hall said: No, I think thats completely wrong.

I really believe in getting womens place in the workplace right, Ive been really helping to promote more women into senior positions, working to get more women on the air  Carrie was one of those  that is what Ive been pushing for.

Its misrepresenting what Ive been doing, quite the reverse, Ive done quite a lot.

"My case is just an example of a bigger problem" - former BBC China editor Carrie Gracie gives evidence to MPs about equal pay https://t.co/kExvCXAsjQ pic.twitter.com/Jd2eGLWQZj  BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) January 31, 2018

He added: Thats not saying Im happy with where we are.

Gracie had been joined for her evidence session by Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) which has been supporting many of the journalists challenging the BBC over pay issues.

Gracie spoke of what she said was a toxic work atmosphere and warned BBC management: It is going to get worse, we have women leaving, the credibility of management is diminished and damaged and they will lose in employment tribunals.

They are stumbling towards a Greek tragedy where they make happen their own worst fears. They need to stop now, pull up and trust their staff.

Lord Hall was joined by the BBCs director of news and current Affairs, Fran Unsworth, the corporations deputy director general, Anne Bulford and Sir David Clementi, chairman of the BBC.Head of BBC News Fran Unsworth has denied describing Carrie Gracie as part-time, saying: I did the contract, I knew she wasnt.

The corporations former China editor, who resigned over equal pay, said it had been very upsetting to hear that a journalist from a Sunday newspaper had been told by trusted sources at the BBC that she was part-time.

Carrie Gracie (PA)

Giving evidence to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) committee, Unsworth denied the claim and said there had been a misunderstanding.

She told MPs: I never said Carrie was part-time, I never would have done.

I wrote to Carrie back on November 15 and I have apologised to her if my language was loose which led to some kind of misunderstanding.

I never would have said she was part-time. I did the contract, I knew she wasnt.

Referring to misinformation appearing in sections of the media recently, Gracie told MPs she was also very upset in mid-November before my grievance hearing when a former member of staff told me that the current director of news, who is the most senior woman in BBC news, had given him the impression that I was part-time.

Carrie Gracie (PA)

He was at an alumni event that (Unsworth) was at the day after the pay disclosures, and he told me he had asked her why myself and the Europe editor were not on the high pay list, and he said, as reported by him, I dont understand why theyre not on the list, Carrie Gracie and Katya Adler work so hard, why wouldnt they be on the list?

And he said that Frans answer was that I was part-time.

Unsworth told the committee that she agreed for Gracie to be paid 130,000 which she said was still more, in fact, than either the North America or the Europe editor were on at the time.

At the time that we set Carries pay, in that role there was no issue around gender at all. Subsequently what happened, and I moved into a different job and there was a new head of news gathering, and then Jon Sopel was appointed to the job of North America editor, and Jon Sopel obviously came with a different pay history.

He had been a BBC One presenter, he had been a presenter on World News, he was a former political editor of the news channel, he was a former Paris correspondent and he had accumulated a much higher salary than what Carrie was on at the time as presenter of the news channel.

And we did not cut his pay going to North America, we felt he was the right person for the role. And this is when we see things get out of line, and this is where we should have addressed what the impact of appointing such a highly-paid person to all the other salaries we have.

Unsworth gave evidence at the hearing alongside director-general Lord Tony Hall, chairman Sir David Clementi and deputy director-general Anne Bulford.Swansea made Andre Ayew their first signing of the January transfer window as the Ghana striker returned to the Liberty Stadium in a club-record deal.

Ayew left Swansea for West Ham in the summer of 2016 for 20.5million.

The 28-year-old returns for a record fee, understood to be 18million and possibly rising to 20million.

Andre Ayew has re-joined Swansea from West Ham (Andrew Matthews/PA)

The move reunites him with his brother Jordan as the pair were previously together at Marseille.

Swansea City have re-signed Andre Ayew from West Ham United in a club-record deal, said a statement on the official club website.

Ayew has put pen to paper on a three-and-a-half-year contract at the Liberty Stadium after the Swans agreed an undisclosed fee with the Hammers.

He first joined Swansea from Marseille in June 2015 and scored 12 goals in 35 appearances before joining West Ham.

Ayew scored 12 goals in 50 games in east London but Hammers boss David Moyes was happy for him to leave the club as he felt his squad was imbalanced with too many forwards.

Swansea have taken 10 points from 15 under new manager Carlos Carvalhal to boost their hopes of avoiding relegation from the Premier League.Theo Walcotts maiden Everton goals secured a first win in eight matches as a 2-1 triumph over Leicester arrested their slide under Sam Allardyce.

The 20million January signing became the first Toffees player to score twice in his maiden Premier League appearance at Goodison Park since Romelu Lukaku against Newcastle in September 2013 with a first-half double.

Jamie Vardys penalty midway through the second half set up a nervous finish but Everton clung on to inflict the Foxes first defeat of 2018 as they squandered the chance to close the gap on sixth-placed Arsenal.

Picture

Despite saying a couple of weeks ago Wayne Rooney and Gylfi Sigurdsson could not play in the same side Allardyce picked both, opting to give the former a deeper role in midfield.

Offensively it worked with Walcott, a willing runner, a frequent beneficiary but it cannot be considered even a medium-term solution as there are too many questions posed when Everton are not in possession.

Defender Seamus Coleman made his first appearance in an Everton shirt for 319 days after recovering from a double fracture of his leg while on international duty with the Republic of Ireland last March.

Allardyce still obviously has some concerns about the defence, however, and while this match was being played, a deal to sign Manchester City centre-back Eliaquim Mangala on loan was being thrashed out.

Conversely, the opposition were left to rue an absence as they were without Riyad Mahrez, for whom a move did not materialise for the second deadline day running after Manchester City did not follow up their interest after baulking at the Foxes asking price.

At first it did not appear to impact Claude Puels side as they dominated and almost took a 10th-minute lead when Wilfrid Ndidis header bounced back off the crossbar.

It was from another visitors corner midway through the half that Everton took the lead with a counter-attack eventually leading to Cuco Martina dispossessing Ben Chilwell on the edge of the Leicester penalty area, allowing Sigurdsson to cut back for the onrushing Walcott.

His second was equally as clinical, six minutes before half-time, as he volleyed in from close range after Michael Keane had headed Rooneys pass back across goal, the first time he had scored twice in a league match since October 2016.

 | Seamus Colemans beats his chest and salutes the Gwladys Street before leaving the pitch. What a performance on his return!#WelcomeBackSeamus  pic.twitter.com/PTCU8Dw2Rz  Everton (@Everton) January 31, 2018

The same could not be said for Oumar Niasse with the Senegal international missing the target from 10 yards and then taking a heavy touch when clean through on goal after robbing Harry Maguire straight from the kick-off either side of Walcotts second.

For once Everton looked in control until the 72nd minute, when Rooney was penalised for tugging at Ndidis shirt and Vardy converted from the spot, Leicesters first shot on target.

The hosts were rattled and so was the frame of the goal as Foxes substitute Kelechi Iheanacho hit the crossbar and then the post from a corner from a combined distance of five yards.Christian Eriksen scored within 11 seconds as Tottenham brushed aside a below-par Manchester United to seal a crunch 2-0 victory in the race for the top four.

Eriksens strike, coming after four Spurs passes, is the third fastest in Premier League history, slower only than Ledley King and Alan Shearer, who both took 10 seconds to hit the net in 2000 and 2003 respectively.

A Phil Jones own-goal then put Tottenham in charge before half-time at Wembley, with United fortunate not to suffer a more emphatic defeat.

Tottenham celebrate Christian Eriksens opener (Tim Goode/Empics)

Their chaotic display was summed up by Jose Mourinho substituting Marouane Fellaini in the second half, less than eight minutes after the Belgian had been brought on.

Mauricio Pochettinos men stay fifth but have reduced the gap behind Chelsea to three points and United to five.

A pulsating contest was played out in front of a crowd of 81,978, beating the previous Premier League record set when Spurs hosted Liverpool here earlier this season.

Alexis Sanchez was handed his league debut by Mourinho but by the end the Chileans contribution was nothing more than a footnote. Tottenhams own new star signing Lucas Moura was paraded on the pitch at half-time.

Four Tottenham players had touched ball before Eriksen was celebrating. Mousa Dembele laid the kick-off back to Jan Vertonghen, who launched a pass forward to Harry Kane.

Kane headed into the path of Dele Alli and a feathered flick allowed Eriksen space to finish past David de Gea. Mourinho stood stone-faced on the touchline.

A frantic beginning continued with Jesse Lingard being denied by the foot of Hugo Lloris, but it was Tottenham who looked most likely to capitalise.

Son Heung-min almost skipped past the hapless Jones when left one against one and Spurs wanted a penalty when Kieran Trippier went down under a clumsy challenge from Ashley Young.

United were not without threat as Ben Davies made an excellent challenge inside the area to thwart Anthony Martial but every time Spurs attacked they looked like they could score.

One break left Alli with only Jones to beat but he neither rounded the defender nor made the pass to Son, who was free and screaming in the middle.

A second seemed inevitable, however, and it came when Trippier, left completely free out wide, fired a low cross into the near post. Jones opted against clearing with his left foot and instead with his right diverted into his own net.

United were lucky not to concede a penalty when Antonio Valencia clattered Alli in the box, saved only perhaps by the slightest of touches on the ball. Mourinho marched down the tunnel three minutes before half-time.

There was an optimistic penalty appeal when Sanchez headed against the arm of Son but otherwise the second half followed a similar pattern to the first.

Eriksen brilliantly let the ball run for Kane but the strikers effort was straight at De Gea and then Kane was left fuming when Son chose to shoot instead of squaring to him in the middle.

Mourinho reacted by hauling off Fellaini, whom he had only sent on as a substitute seven minutes and 29 seconds before. Spurs fans took great delight in waving off the Belgian, who may have been forced off injured.

Alli, who had not enjoyed the most fruitful of nights, landed a petulant kick on Sanchez late on before he was also taken off by Pochettino, presumably to save the midfielder from further indiscipline.Theresa May has announced a joint UK-China effort to strengthen international action against illegal wildlife trading.

The initiative, unveiled during the Prime Ministers three-day visit to China, comes after an overwhelming majority of more than 70,000 responses to a Government consultation backed a ban on the sale of ivory in the UK.

A new law came into effect in China on New Years Day, making all trade in ivory and ivory products illegal.

The move was seen as a massive step forward for efforts to save the elephant, as the Far Eastern country has traditionally been a big driver of the demand for the animals tusks to make ivory products.

Ahead of the 2018 Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference in London, the UK and China are pledging to share expertise in this area with countries in the southern African region.

Prime Minister Theresa May at the Yangtze River in Wuhan, China, where she was briefed on anti-pollution efforts (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

And an enforcement workshop facilitated by UK and Chinese experts is being held in Johannesburg to share best practice.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs launched a public consultation in October last year on proposals to ban sales of ivory in the UK.

After one of the largest responses the department has ever seen, Environment Secretary Michael Gove said last month that it was clear the overwhelming majority were in favour of a ban.

Analysis of the consultation results is continuing, and a formal Government response will not come until it is complete

Mr Gove said then that he wanted the UK to be front and centre of global efforts to end this insidious trade.

On Wednesday, Mrs May heard how efforts to reduce plastic pollution in the Yangtze River in Wuhan have helped restore the population of finless porpoises, assisted by experts from the Zoological Society of London.

The Prime Minister said: My visit to China is about our two countries working together on some of the most significant challenges of our time.

And during my visit I have seen first-hand the way UK expertise is supporting Chinese efforts to protect wildlife and improve the quality of life of its citizens.

I am proud of the agreement that the UK and China have made to boost our co-operation in the fight against the illegal ivory trade.

We have committed to using all the levers at our disposal to lobby for other countries to implement domestic bans and stamp out this abhorrent practice.

Wildlife campaigners believe 30,000 African elephants are killed by poachers every year, and reducing demand for their tusks is regarded as an important part of ending the carnage.Technologies to capture carbon emissions from the atmosphere have limited realistic potential to help avoid dangerous climate change, scientists have warned.

Schemes such as planting forests, adding iron to oceans to boost plankton absorbing carbon dioxide, and capturing and storing emissions from wood-fuelled power plants have been touted as ways to cut greenhouse gases.

Other potential measures include managing land to increase carbon stored in the soil, directly capturing carbon dioxide from the air and adding certain minerals to land or oceans to absorb the greenhouse gas.

Measures to take carbon from the air, such as planting forests, have limited potential to tackle climate change, scientists warn (David Cheskin/PA)

But none of the measures can take carbon out of the atmosphere at the scale and rate of deployment required to meet targets set in the worlds first comprehensive climate treaty, the Paris Agreement, a report warned.

There is no single silver bullet and the focus needs to be on deep and rapid cuts to the amount of greenhouse gases being put into the atmosphere by human activities such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation.

The Paris Agreement commits countries to holding temperature rises to well below 2 Celsius above pre-industrial levels, which means emissions must be cut to net zero by the second half of the century.

But with emissions from some sectors such as aviation and agriculture hard to tackle, negative emissions technologies would have a role to play, the scientists from the European Academies Science Advisory Council added.

Some 87% of scenarios by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for meeting the 2C target require negative emissions technologies, while all models for meeting a more stringent 1.5C limit involve such measures.

Professor Michael Norton, EASAC environment programme director, said: Theres no single technology that offers potential for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at the scale envisaged in IPCC models, which are now Paris Agreement targets.

He added: We can rule out a single silver bullet.

He warned of severe drawbacks to one of the main suggested technologies, which would see renewable energy sources such as wood pellets burned in power stations and the carbon emissions captured and permanently stored.

Even if all the carbon were captured when biomass was burned, there could be significant emissions during the supply chain as a whole, including changing use of land to grow energy crops and transporting them, he said.

A report on negative emissions technologies also warned measures such as putting iron in the ocean and even planting new forests could have impacts on wildlife, while land-based measures could compete with growing food.

Emissions stored in forests were not secure, as the trees could be cut down in the future, and reforesting and planting new woods should not distract from efforts to curb the existing problem of deforestation, the scientists said.

But in the UK, initiatives to plant more woodlands such as the recently announced Northern Forest could play a part in tackling emissions in the country, which is already deforested, over the next few decades.

Measures to increase the amount of carbon in soils are a win-win because they could also improve soil productivity and reduce the need for fertilisers which also create greenhouse gas emissions.

But Prof Norton warned: Overall our message is that we cannot trust technology to come to the rescue and the (European) Commission should intensify its efforts together with member states to reduce emissions as rapidly as possible.

Prof John Shepherd added: These negative emissions technologies are very interesting but theyre not an alternative to deep and rapid emissions reductions, these remain the safest and reliable option that we have for dealing with too-high levels of carbon dioxide.The Wilpattu forest reserve made headlines with massive deforestation practices taking place over the past few years. Although these activities seem to be in a dormant stage as at now, the necessary damage has already been done. Last December, the Auditor General issued a comprehensive report on the illegally deforested Wilpattu Forest Reserve. Following this report, the Dailymirror initially reported on the current status of this proposed resettlement project and the threats identified by environmental groups. However it seems that various other projects, including the Lower Malwatu Oya Project  a project paused for 30 years due to the ethnic conflict, have commenced operations once again.



Hence, the Dailymirror sheds light on the impact of this project which required clearing more than 19,000 acres of forest land, destroying more resources and imposing threats on endemic species in this forest reserve.

Other requirements for an EIA are as follows:

An EIA should be open for public inspection and comment for a mandatory period of 30 days.

Prescribed projects which do not have complex environmental issues require an Initial Environmental Examination (IEE) report.

The PAAs mentioned here are administrative agencies led by the CEA that are responsible for guiding the EIA for projects and issuing EIA approval or rejection. A single PAA is appointed as the appropriate PAA for each EIA by the CEA.

Forest Department should have cleared land prior to conducting an EIA

Speaking to the Dailymirror, Kanthi De Silva, Deputy Director General  Environmental Management and Assessment Division (EMA) of the CEA said that an EIA is conducted only with regard to legal projects. But for this, the consent of the land owner is a prerequisite. Prior to starting an EIA the land clearing needs to be done. With regard to this particular issue in Wilpattu, where 700 acres were cleared for resettlement, the CEA was not aware of it to begin with. The Forest Department should have cleared this land prior to conducting an EIA.

If the project isnt approved by the Government the CEA should be informed



The process includes six steps from screening to scoping, preparation of the EIA report, review of the report by the public and the Project Approving Agency (PAA), approval with terms and conditions or rejection with reasons and post approval monitoring. If the project is not approved by the Government the CEA should be informed at the beginning,said De Silva.

EIA and EPC are currently being conducted

The above project falls under the purview of the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources Management as a priority project. Speaking to the Dailymirror, Engineer Sisira Kumara, Secretary of the subject ministry, said that the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract is currently being evaluated. The EIA too is being conducted via a company we selected to handle the necessary work. The Environmental authority requested us to submit an EIA which we will draft and send out for public opinion. The project will feed tributaries and the Yoda Wewa in Mannar. The project is currently at a negotiation stage and if we get the EIA approved, the project will proceed, said Kumara.

The EIA too is being conducted via a company we selected to handle the necessary work

President and everybody else has contributed to deforestation practices

Speaking at a press conference organised to expose findings about this Project, Ven. Waakadawala Rahula Thera said that with the implementation of the Mahaveli Development Project huge damage was caused to the environment. We know that there is a struggle to protect the rest of the natural resources left for us. The deforestation that took place during every regime has become a major social issue today.

The destruction of the Wilpattu-Kallaru Forest Reserve is part of a bigger development plan, known as the National Physical Plan 2011-2030



The destruction of the Wilpattu-Kallaru Forest Reserve is part of a bigger development plan, officially known as the National Physical Plan 2011-2030. There are various isolated protests to justify the alleged involvement of Minister Rishad Bathiudeen, but it is not only he who is to blame. The President, Environment Minister and every other regime that existed have actively contributed to these deforestation practices. The Lower Malwatu Oya Project is another one of those plans. For this purpose over 19,675 acres of land will be cleared as an initial step to carry out this project. As a result of these projects natural habitats are rapidly destroyed and it has imposed a threat on endemic species of flora and fauna,the Thera said.

19,000 acres of forest destroyed to give water to 2000 acres of land

Environmentalist and Centre for Environmental Studies (CENS) Executive Director Ravindra Kariyawasam said that in 2009 a road had been constructed via the Wilpattu Forest Reserve and its Northern Border, separating the habitat in two. From 2009 till 2016 this destruction had continued in various other places of the forest reserve as well. Therefore the Wilpattu National Park, Kallaru and Marichikaddu are directly affected by this destruction and adding to this is the Lower Malwatu Oya Project as mentioned by Ven. Rahula Thera. This project will be continued across the Malwatu Oya-Kappachchi area covering an area of 17,000 acres. As a result of this project the water capacity is expected to increase by 290 cubic metres and the water is to be distributed to the surrounding areas.

The Lower Malwatu Oya Project is a result of an agreement inked by the Sri Lankan and the Russian Governments back in 1960. But due to the 30-year-conflict this project was halted. Work in this project was commenced last year, but even then there was no Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) done. But the National Environmental Act No. 47 of 1980 specifies that if an area of more than two and a half acres is being cleared for any project, an EIA has to be done. If you take this project, 17,000 acres will dedicated to the project while another 675 acres of land to the west of the Thanthirimale-Cheddikulam Road have been allocated for resettlement. In addition to that another 2000 acres have been allocated for a fruit cultivation project. So in total, a 19,675 acre forest area will be allocated for this project. This extent of land also includes areas such as Sarattikulam, Bandiwewa and Sinnakkulam. When such a massive project has already been implemented, the Environmental Ministry and the Central Environmental Authority (CEA) have not shown any interest to carry out an EIA,said Kariyawasam.

When this excess water is reserved the Wilpattu National Park will not get adequate water



Speaking further Kariyawasam said that the assessment then needs to be presented to the public for reference. Therefore this is another illegal project. The dam will be constructed by a Chinese company and the income generated will be given back to the employees of this company who will be involved in constructing the project. Another important fact to note is that this project will only distribute water to another 2000 acres of land. But this area includes Yoda Wewa which supplies water to many paddy fields and other cultivations in the area. So to give water to an extra 2000 acres, a 19,000 acre area of forest land will be destroyed. As a result of this project many species of flora and fauna are facing threats.

The Lower Malwatu Oya Project is a result of an agreement inked by the Sri Lankan and the Russian Governments back in 1960.



Environmental studies conducted in this area have identified 41 species of mammals, 29 species of fish, 17 species of amphibians and 149 species of birds. These areas are also inhabited by elephants and they too could face a massive threat. The irrigation system which flows on either side of the Malwatu Oya and Kappachchi area will also be destroyed. The proposed project is said to lower the chances of floods occurring in the Vavuniya District, but it is clear that the villus in Wilpattu are fed by the excess water flowing from Malwatu Oya. When this excess water is reserved the Wilpattu National Park will not get adequate water. Therefore many paddy fields and other cultivations will be greatly affected. In other words it is quite impractical to implement a project which was proposed back in the 1960s and the necessary authorities need to open their eyes and look closely at the destruction caused by these projects, he added.

Forest cover in the country lies as low as 16%

Airing his views on the issue of deforestation, Dr.Prasanna Cooray said that it could lead to long periods of drought. One of the main contributors to global warming is deforestation and one of the countries that carry out deforestation is Sri Lanka. According to a research done by the University of Gothernberg, Sweden, Sri Lanka stands in fourth place in the list of countries that carry out deforestation at large. As a result of deforestation, the forest cover in the country lies as low as 16%, but the Government continues to show exaggerated figures. Development practices in the North and East should take place with the knowledge of those settled there. There are various issues with regard to resettlement approaches and uplifting their livelihoods. Without attempting to find any solution to these issues, it is very wrong that the Government continues to implement such unplanned projects which would cause more harm to the people,said Dr. Cooray.

Development practices in the North and East should take place with the knowledge of those settled there

Major concerns

One main concern in this clearing of forest land is that no Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was done given that it is a priority. Without conducting an EIA the authorities involved took their first illegal step in proceeding with the deforestation of Wilpattu Forest Reserve.

As more skyscrapers and concrete establishments are substituting the greenery it has imposed threats on both humans and animals

A country that once had a massive forest cover at present suffers with just 16% of greenery across the country. Cohabiting with other species is a necessity as trees and animals are active participants in the ecosystem. As more skyscrapers and concrete establishments are substituting the greenery across the country it has imposed threats on both humans and animals. The International Association of Impact Assessment (IAIA) defines an EIA as the process of identifying, predicting, evaluating and mitigating the biophysical, social and other relevant effects of development proposals prior to major decisions being taken and commitments made. In Sri Lanka, the National Environmental Act, 1998 requires EIAs for large scale projects in sensitive areas and is enforced by the Central Environmental Authority (CEA).In 2002 when the United National Party (UNP) was briefly in power there were plans to celebrate, yes celebrate (!) the 500th anniversary of the Portuguese arrival in the island. It was as though that party had no notion whatsoever about about the relevant history.



Those plans were scuttled when the UNP was defeated in 2004 April, but this project was a blessing in disguise. It spurred professionals and scholars to delve into this Portuguese Encounter. A conference by that name was jointly organized by the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Asiatic Society and the Archaeological Society. Records of Purtuegese writers such as Queyroz, Trinidade, Perniola, Barros and do Couto as well as the

Sandesa poems and other works in Sinhala were perused meticulously. Dr Susantha Goonatilake wrote a book titled The Portuguese presence in Sri Lanka. He could have called it Portuguese Butchery or given some other title that reflected the truth of that particular colonial encounter. Thats another story, however,

Sixteen years later, we have another UNP Government, which is reported to have invited Prince Edward as the Chief Guest for Sri Lankas 70th Independence Day celebration. He will be representing his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. Clearly this was in agreement with President Maithripala Sirisena who is the leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party.



Interestingly, the year 2018 marks another anniversary. It is 200 years since the great Uva-Wellassa uprising. On December 8, 2016 President Sirisena declared as national heroes the 81 leaders of the rebellion who were branded as traitors by the British.



It is good to remind ourselves about what happened in 1818. The British issued a gazette notification [No. 6 of 1817] announcing that a reward of two thousand Rix dollars would be awarded for the head of each rebel leader. They set fire to villages, crops and livestock. They massacred all males above the age of 18 in Uva-Wellassa. They had to bring in troops from India to put down the rebellion. The leaders were branded traitors and beheaded or exiled.



In a way it is appropriate that this Government has invited Prince Edward for the Independence Day celebrations. After all, it was Independence but under the Crown that was given. It was on May 22, 1972 that true political independence was obtained and Sri Lanka became a Republic.

He failed, but his life powered other struggles. He was part, then, of every success great and small. He helped make 1948 possible



And yet, we dont talk of 1818. Instead we are told (in comparison to the independence secured by India, for example) that ours was won without a single drop of blood being shed! Thats how history gets written. Theres very little or nothing about the 1818 rebellion, nothing of the 1848 rebellion, nothing of the countless acts of objection and resistance from 1815 to 1948 and nothing of how the people tenaciously protected their culture, philosophies, ways of life and related literatures. We are taught mostly about the agitations that secured bits and pieces of constitutional guarantees. Crumbs, really.



So what is it with our leaders? Why this fascination with Royalty? Why this aversion to celebrating those who would not be slaves of British imperialism? Why this forgetting? True power lies in making others inhabit your version of their reality, as Philip Gurevich observed in his classic, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda. Is this what has happened? Which version of independence and which version of history are we celebrating here?



We remember 1948 but have forgotten 1848. We are fascinated by the number 70 but have forgotten the number 200. Is it something to do with remembering better the recent because the further you go back in history the foggier the narrative is? Well, the narrative is not blurred. It is clear. It is bloody and too full of blood and humiliation to be easily erased.



The year 1918 is remembered in certain quarters and certain times. I remember a particular commemoration which, interestingly took place on an Independence Day. This was in 2011. It was in a small village called Kudamaduwa located off the Piliyandala-Kottawa Road. That day, in the village temple, Independence Day was celebrated by remembering Keppitipola.



The following are some lines I wrote on that event:

The organizers made a claim. This cool breeze is the life-breath of our heroes, the sweet sounds of nation is the cry of their glory, the precious stones embedded deep in our soils are the congealed drops of blood they shed for nation, civilization and citizen. The organizers posed a question: do you belong to that tradition and civilization, and are you of that blood? The organizers made a proposal: let us be like Keppetipola.



Who was Keppitipola? He is remembered by some as a villain and others as a hero, because he first sided with the British and later broke ranks with them, joining Pilimatalawa and the other rebels after handing over arms and ammunition to the British Governor because he did not want to destroy them with their own weapons.



What he did was to unshackle himself from mental slavery, as the song by Bob Marley has it. He remembered history (perhaps late, admittedly) and drew strength from it. He failed, but even at his execution he would not be colonized. Legend has it that his last request was the opportunity to recite the namaskaaraya three times before the Dalada Wahanse. Apparently the executioners heart had failed and his hand had trembled. His strike did not find intended target and Keppetipola, wounded, had to tutor his executioner, so the story goes.



He failed, but his life powered other struggles. He was part, then, of every success great and small. He helped make 1948 possible. It was not only the executioner that he tutored, clearly. Some, clearly, will not or cannot learn.



The 4th day of February is a wrong day to begin with. The 70th Independence Day celebration is not being held in the Uva-Wellassa. The families of the 81 leaders of the 1818 rebellion who were officially vilified for 198 years have not been invited. Instead we have Prince Edward gracing the occasion.

It is as though the UNP and SLFP are made of every single act of acquiescence and shame that allowed the British to plunder the islands resources and keep the people enslaved.



Whether or not we remember Keppetipola and the thousands murdered in 1918, it is clear theres a lot of work to be done before we can celebrated Independence. We can start by refusing to celebrate a lie and a travesty of justice. The least we can do is to tell ourselves that those who pretend to sleep will not be awoken. The pretend-slumberers in this instance are the UNP and SLFP.

Malinda Seneviratne is

a freelance writer.

malindasenevi@gmail.com; www.malindawords.blogspot.comAll arrangements had been made to accord a red carpet welcome with all state honours to the visiting head of government from Lion-city.



The guard of honour, the unfurling of the national flags and the singing of the national anthems of the two counties and all other customary formalities to honour the foreign visitor were duly observed at this ceremony where our own Number One was duly associated with the former.



Arrangements also had been made on the Galle Face Green to fire 21 salvoes in honour of the distinguished guest. However, the visitor from Lion-city and our own boss stepped down from the dais and walked away soon after the initial formalities and by the time the 21 salvoes were fired, both of them were nowhere near the venue of the state ceremony.



This incident is unprecedented in that no foreign dignitary in the countrys post-independence history had missed a 21-salvo gun-salute as on this occasion, they say.



This blunder had occurred due to the failure on the part of the foreign Ministry authorities concerned to brief the foreign visitor and our own boss on the arrangement, knowledgeable sources say.The Pathfinder Foundation, together with an Australian delegation led by the National Security College at the Australian National University and Carnegie India held a one-day Track II trilateral conference titled Colombo Dialogue: Emerging Dialogue in the Indian Ocean - Regional Cooperation on Maritime Domain Awareness at the Cinnamon Grand, Colombo recently.



The dialogue covered themes such as maritime security in the Indo-Pacific Oceans and transnational security threats; challenges in building regional maritime security architecture in the Indian Ocean; and governance at sea and maritime domain awareness.



This trilateral forum was held with the participation of Indian, Australian and Sri Lankan academics and subject matter experts on maritime security, maritime strategy and regional cooperation. On the Australian side, Prof. Rory Medcalf, head of the National Security College of the Australian National University, Dr. David Brewster and Commodore (Retd.) Richard Menhinick presented papers. Dr. Raja C. Mohan, Vice Admiral Anil Chopra and Ms. Darshana Baruah presented papers representing Carnegie India. On the Sri Lankan side, papers were presented by former Commanders of the Sri Lanka Navy, Admiral Dr. Jayanath Colombage, Admiral Travis Sinniah and Barana Waidyatillake representing the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute.



The Chairman of Pathfinder Foundation Bernard Goonetilleke delivered the welcome address and the High Commissioner of Australia for Sri Lanka; Bryce Hutchesson graced the occasion as the chief guest and delivered the opening remarks. High Commissioner Hutchesson noted that Australia, Sri Lanka and India had increasingly congruent security interests, particularly when it came to the stability and openness of the Indian Ocean.



He said that for Australia, no long-term foreign policy goal was more important than keeping the Indo-Pacific region peaceful and prosperous at a time of change.



He emphasised that it made good sense for Australia, Sri Lanka and India to develop a strategic conversation, including through second track dialogues like the Colombo Dialogue. Arindam Bagchi, Deputy Indian High Commissioner graced the inaugural session as guest of honour. Lalith Weeratunga, Senior Fellow of the Pathfinder Foundation delivered the concluding remarks.



All participants agreed that a rule-based maritime order is essential in the Indo-Pacific oceans, in order to maintain freedom of maritime commerce. A new world economic order is developing in this region and hence the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean have become the focal point for major maritime users and a range of non-state actors. There was general agreement that we need to move from cooperation to collaboration on maritime security.



The participants opined that the dialogue would be beneficial to efforts being taken by Sri Lanka as the coordinator of the Indian Ocean Rim Associations maritime safety and security working group.

The Australian High Commission office in Colombo sponsored the Dialogue. Its concluded with commitment to endeavor to pursue issues highlighted during the deliberations at a future discussion and to bring discussion outcomes to the attention of policy makers of the three countries that took part in the dialogue.Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex and the Countess of Wessex arrived in Sri Lanka today on a five-day official visit.

The royal couple will attend the 70th anniversary celebration of Sri Lankas independence representing Queen Elizabeth II.

Issuing a statement, the British High Commission said their five day visit will focus on the long-standing UK and Sri Lanka relationship, the Commonwealth, education and young people.

During the visit Their Royal Highnesses will meet young people overcoming challenges from a variety of communities across Sri Lanka. During their visit to the Schools for the Deaf and Blind in Ratmalana, they will meet able and differently-abled young people following the Duke of Edinburgh Awards scheme and witness how the scheme helps the communication impaired integrate into society in meaningful ways.

The Royal couple will also meet with young athletes and para-athletes who will represent Sri Lanka at the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, it said.

British High Commissioner to Sri Lanka James Dauris said it is a delight to have The Earl and Countess of Wessex in Sri Lanka to celebrate the strong links between our two countries, young people and the Commonwealth.

Their visit comes just two months before we host the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London and allows us to celebrate our Commonwealth links and the important role young people will play in developing its potential, he said.

His Royal Highness The Prince Edward is the youngest child of Her Majesty The Queen and His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh.

The Earl and Countess will also travel to Kandy where they will visit the Temple of the Tooth Relic and the Royal Botanical Gardens.The tension of elections once again pervades the air. With 15.8 million Sri Lankans eligible to elect their representatives across 341 local government authorities, this years local government elections are to be conducted under a mixed electoral system. The new system will see 60% of candidates elected via the first-past-the-post voting system, where the voter would cast his or her vote for the representative of their choice. The remaining 40% of the process would be via a closed list proportional representation, where voters cast their vote for the preferred political parties as opposed to individual representatives. The Dailymirror took to the streets to gauge public understanding and awareness of the new electoral system. Interestingly many individuals we spoke to had little or no faith in the upcoming election and revealed that they are not looking forward to cast their vote on February 10. Meanwhile many others pointed to several weaknesses in the new system highlighting the need for more such reforms, including an aptitude assessment of candidates.

Pix by Kushan Pathiraja

The treasury doesnt have a cent left

- Suranga(43) Kalutara

The new electoral system is better than the previous outdated one. But I dont agree with the number of candidates that will be taking charge of local government bodies as this is a huge sum to be paid in terms of salaries alone. The word on the streets is that the treasury doesnt have a cent left. Given such a backdrop the only way this system would succeed is if these representatives forgo their benefits at least until the economy turns for the better. Otherwise there will be no change in the local government system. I dont believe a change would be made with the mandatory quota for womens representation either. The problems in the system run far deeper than this.

System should focus on quality of candidates

-Dilrukshi(23) Nikaweratiya

The new electoral reforms are born out of a good initiative. But there are some major flaws in it. For instance, the system should focus more on the quality of the candidates who are being represented by parties. Their education and aptitude should be assessed, but there is no mechanism to ensure that we get a quality candidate to vote for. Some representatives have not even passed their O/Levels and we select them to govern the country. This should change and that is why I believe the JVP deserves

my vote.

The problem is not in the system alone

- Retired officer speaking on condition of anonymity

The system appears to be good, but the problem is not in the system alone. For instance, officers in local government bodies go through years of examinations and possess various qualifications but are forced to work under a politician who has not even passed A/Level exams. This is unfair on the voters of this country and therefore educational requirements are a must. Excluding such factors reflect grave errors of the system.

The new system facilitates better voter representation

Hansini Kaushalya(24) Colombo

With my limited knowledge of the subject I think the new system is better as it facilitates better representation of the voter. Additionally there will also be less rivalry among candidates and there is more opportunity given for young voices. Womens representation is encouraged by every party and independent group, therefore I think the new system has been successful.

With no preferential system there is no tension

- Darshana(40) Horana

The new system has decreased rivalry between parties as well as candidates, which we can witness already during the campaign period. With the preferential system gone, there is no tension in the air. I have some faith that the new candidates will take their duties seriously and serve the voters.

I have complete faith in the government

- Susantha Weerasinghe(43) Kaduwela

Im aware of the new electoral system but I dont expect to see a great change with the local government election. As per my understanding, the local government authorities must function as the consensus government which is in power at present. I have complete faith in the government and I believe their good work will reflect in election results. I think 95 out of 100 votes will be cast for the United National Party and ensure its victory.

Better is about to take place

- T. Wanigasekara (53) Maharagama

The new system is good as it downplays the chances of rivalry between parties. I also saw that new candidates have been given the opportunity to contest. Even though, I dont have a complete understanding of this system but I have faith that change for the better is about to take place.

I dont have faith in any change in the political arena

- A.G. Jagath(45) Kaduwela

With the elimination of the preferential vote based rivalry with the new system, we are ensured a peaceful election day. This is a very good sign. I dont think there will be any drastic changes either in the lead up to the election or following the election. Its a commendable aspect of the new system that young candidates have been encouraged to contest. But I dont have faith in a significant change in the political arena.

Elected candidates forget voters when they take office

Gamini Peters Payagala

The new system is good as it instills increased responsibility on the parties who field candidates for the local government bodies. Selection of representatives through wards is the correct way to proceed as opposed to the former system, where the elected candidates forget voters as soon as they take office.

We need the preferential vote system

- Anton Perera(71) Kelaniya

I see both positive and negative aspects of the new electoral system. The party is represented by the people therefore I think we need the preferential vote system to see those who really work towards the development of their voter, being elected to office. On the other hand the inclusion of womens representation is certainly encouraging.

We need to see new faces representing us

- P.J. Dodawatte(67) Malabe

What we need is not just a new electoral system but an entirely new party comprising new political candidates. I think I speak for a majority when I say that we need to see new faces representing us. Looking at the personalities, behaviour and actions of the new candidates, I have no faith that they will do us any good even if elected. We need intelligent and educated candidates to represent us and for that a completely new party must be formed.

Doubling candidates is a waste of our money

Janaka Perera(35) Kohuwala

I dont believe the new system will cause significant change in this country. I think youth representation has failed too. Electing double the number of candidates to office with this new system is a complete waste of our money. The effectiveness of the mandatory quota for womens representation is yet to be seen. Female candidates have a task of testing the waters with this experience as the current political environment is not created to encourage them. Therefore its impact is yet to be witnessed.

We want to see politicians engage in real work

- Chinthaka(53) Weligama

I have understood the new election system well but I have decided not to cast my vote. I think its a futile exercise because I dont want to vote for people who engage in debates about who swindled public funds first. We the voters wish to see real development in Sri Lanka. We want to see politicians engage in real work. The new electoral system is good, but with the number of candidates almost doubled, it is the voter who has to ultimately foot the bill. Why should we do that when politicians repeatedly fail to resolve persistent issues? All we ask of them is to help uplift our livelihoods and improve our lifestyles. Surely a majority of the voters feel the same way. The results of this election are not apparent yet.

The new system will discourage rivalry for preferential votes

- Priyantha Jayarathne(47) Kandy

In my opinion, the new electoral system is a good one. It will discourage rivalry for preferential votes among candidates which usually plague elections. I dont think the increase in representatives in local government bodies is a cost to the nation, it is more of a requirement to serve the people. However I think when it comes to women, they will face difficulty in contesting, given the current set-up.

Elections are useless in propagating change this country desperately needs

- Abeygunawardana(65) Minuwangoda

Elections are completely useless in propagating change this country desperately needs. The new mixed electoral system I believe is good in theory. It is much better than the previous system as we are sure to witness less clashes between parties and candidates. But as long as we dont select educated people to be our representatives, no amount of changes will warrant the solution to persistent issues in the local government level.

Lethargy in govt. servants hasnt changed

Weerasiri, (83) Enderamulla

The people in this country do not engage in productive work. I have been employed in 27 different places and worked with many people during my 50-year employment period. But one thing that hasnt changed all these years is the lethargy especially in government servants. The same applies for the local government elections. Even though the new electoral system is good, 90% of these representatives are likely to ignore serving their wards. They must serve their people and for this they should have a deeper understanding of the voters needs. Until they have this understanding, elections will be a futile exercise.

Happy that women have the opportunity to contest

- Sifayaah(42) Slave Island

I dont have much awareness of the new electoral system to comment on it. However I have seen a number of young candidates being fielded by parties and I believe this is what we need. I intend to cast my vote and Im happy that women have also been given the opportunity to contest. We would like to see new faces and young people serving their wards.

Candidates should have their own views

- Iresha Maduwanthi(21) Kiribathgoda

I dont keep track of current events and therefore I dont have a great understanding of the new electoral system. I personally believe that each candidate should have their own views, morale and discipline. If these election reforms can ensure that kind of development in our politicians, then it is a good sign.

Im positive that we need change

- W. Kumuduni(54)Nugegoda

Im not aware of the new electoral system a great deal but Im positive that we need change. We need more and more womens representatives to voice our issues and to fight for our issues. Its a positive sign of change that the role of women has been deliberated and we have been provided an inclusive environment in the forthcoming election.

System may not elect voters preferred candidate

- Tissa Jayathilaka(49) Rajagiriya

The mixed electoral system is a good standard to abide by. When representatives are elected through wards, the voter is better represented and the candidate is more accountable. The only issue I see is that this system may not elect the preferred candidate of the voter. But this is for future to tell. The elected candidate may not be the preferred one but could be the best one for a particular ward. There are also certain faults in the candidates fielded by parties but overall the new system has the ability to develop the villages and rural areas which need attention of the lawmakers.The Government will implement the Enforced Disappearance Bill soon, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said yesterday at an election rally in Vavuniya.

The government has already got the Enforced Disappearance Bill approved and is now ready to implement it, he said. The Government is fully aware that justice has to be meted out to people in the North. We are also ready to empower the widows in the North who need help. We are also aware that the youth in the North wants employment and the government has a plan to fulfil that expectation."

Mr. Wickremesinghe who elaborated on the government's economic development plans for the North said a highway network would be constructed in the North. He said a highway will be constructed from Kandy to Trincomalee. He said a Singaporean company had consented to develop the Trincomalee Port.

Areas around Trincomalee including Vavuniya will also be developed as a result of the development that will take place in Trincomalee. Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka will be in charge of the development work in Trincomalee. Minister Rishard Bathiudeen will be in charge of the development work in Wanni while Minister D.M. Swaminathan will be in charge of the development work in the North. An industrial zone will also be set up in Mankulum, the Prime Minister said.

Minister Bathiudeen said the government-led by the UNP would do its utmost to develop villages through local bodies. (Yohan Perera, Priyantha Hewage and Sithum Chathuranga)Currently Fonterra Sri Lankas General Manager of Marketing, Vidya Sivaraja was recently appointed Managing Director of the Malaysia and Singapore business, effective 1stFebruary 2018.



It is the first time a Sri Lankan has led one of the global dairy co-operatives country markets.

Sunil Sethi, Managing Director of Fonterra Brands Sri Lanka and the Indian Sub-Continent said, Our people are our biggest asset and we want to grow with them as they grow their careers. Vidyais a strong leader with a proven track record. Her story is areflection of the unique opportunities available to inspiring leaders to take on challenging and interesting work across the globe.



I am proud of Vidya and know that the Malaysia and Singapore business will greatly benefit from the different perspectives she will bring. We wish her the very best in her new role.



Commenting on her new role, Vidya said, The opportunity is incredibly exciting and I am honoured to step up to the challenge. I am looking forward to working with the fantastic team of people we have in both markets to unleash the energy in our business, strengthen our brands leadership positions and develop high quality dairy solutions to delight our consumers.



Vidya began her career at Fonterra in 2004 as a Group Brand manager and drove the growth of thelocal dairy business under the Anchor Newdale brand.



In 2007 she was given the opportunity to work on a regional role in Singapore. This experience, Vidya says, made her appreciate the common ground diverse teams had despite different geographies, cultures and ways of working.



My time in the regional team made me learn how to motivate and unite diverse teams. Gaining abetter understanding of local nuancesand the commonalities across markets helped me develop communication with global and local relevance. Global exposure helps you realise how resilient and innovative you can be, making you think and do things differently to get results.



In 2010 Vidya returned to Sri Lanka as Marketing Director. She took on another challenge and role with the global team in 2013 as Category Director - adding to her experience across 14 markets. Vidya returned to Sri Lanka to head the marketing role for Sri Lanka in addition to developing brands and consumer opportunities for Fonterras operations across the Indian subcontinent.



Vidyas international career path and leadership roles have made her an obvious role model and mentor to other women in the co-op, and her emphasis on performance and people has made a mark on the Sri Lankan business.



A core part of leadership is about building diversity to harness different perspectives, providing a strong sense of ownership and passion through clarity of purpose and fostering a contagious can do attitude, she says.



In building her marketing team, she actively sought non-core marketing people to source new thinking, searching for personality and attitude over age, experience, gender and qualifications on paper. Each person has their own strength but everybody needs to come together to do extraordinary things.



I dont believe in hierarchy and title. We have brilliant interns who are just as likely to have a truthful insight and fresh perspective on global trends or what people think. Im proud to see the team Ive built, with their diverse strengths and personalities, growing as leaders in their own right whilst delivering results.The battle for Local Government Elections is heating up. An election should benefit the people, irrespective of symbols like the Pohottuwas, Beetle leaves or Elephants through which they come into power. Several decades down the line, people are still hoping for a better country. Sharmila Gonawela is contesting from the Bambalapitiya Ward for the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) under the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) ticket.



Speaking to the Dailymirror, Gonawela spoke about the challenges she faced being a Municipal Councillor back in 2002 and what she is planning to do if elected.

Excerpts :



QYou were a member of the CMC before. What made you contest again?

I was a member back in 2002 and I won under the UNP ticket. I was the only woman sitting with 52 other men. I have fought corruption and malpractices, but I never got the support that I needed from the party. Thereafter I went to the Bribery Commission, the CID and other Presidential Commissions with documentation to complain about all these issues. Eventually I stepped down from politics after four years. But in 2010 after the war concluded I voted for Mahinda because I thought it was the duty of all Sri Lankans. He invited me this time and I therefore decided to contest under the SLPP ticket.

If I can be the Mayor of Colombo who has worked for the city after 60 years, who has built up a greener, healthier and an IT-friendly city and if people say that all this was done by a woman, I would be the happiest. Im also sure that I can be that person as well



QBack in 2002, women were rarely involved in the political scene when compared to the present time. What challenges did you face back then?

There were some men who were very supportive. But when I went in I was the only woman sitting there. Some would bring in bottles and get drunk at official meetings and then I requested for a private area. I even refused to use the toilets there because they were in a row with just one door. Although I requested for a separate room, neither the party nor the councilors backed me. They feared that I would get more power if I went in to a separate room. So my requests were more often than not, turned down.



QWhat are your views on operationalizing the 25% quota for women in politics?

Its an excellent move. Women have to be encouraged to be in politics. They are more sensitive towards issues and we also want to change the political culture. We need to be more transparent and ensure a corruption-free society. We have 5% of Parliamentarians who are women, but what have they really spoken about? There was an issue of a 14-year-old girl who was raped in Down South and she then took her life. We also have the incident where the Uva Province Chief Minister made a teacher kneel down. But has any female Parliamentarian made any statement with regard to these issues? When my opponent candidate Rosy was in the Womens and Childrens Affairs ministry, there was a complaint made regarding the rape of an underaged girl by a powerful cabinet ministers son. But was any action taken? With regard to the Bond Issue, Rosy was in the COPE committee and during the 100 days inquiry a vote was called for and she didnt come and vote. The son was accused of it. But she went and sat with Sujeewa Senasinghe when he launched the book. So aiding and abetting is equal to being corrupt.



QHow challenging is the political game today with the implementation of the Mixed Electoral System?

Im on the National List and looking after the Bambalapitiya Ward. Just because womens representation was increased, if the number of councillors is being increased from 53 to 113, we are still placing the burden on the people. As at now, we dont see any service being rendered to the people. We are adding to the 53 who are already available, so its the rate payer who will be deprived of their services which they should be getting. I feel its not very practical. With the increase the general council meetings have been shifted elsewhere and Rs. 25 lakhs is being charged per sitting. In addition to that the existing members room is being renovated to accommodate 113 members, but what if this system is a failure? What will they do with 113 seats?

I must say that I have received good feedback, especially from Muslim ladies. People in Colombo have come to realise that they get nothing out of the rates they have been paying for 60 long years. The Government has shown that they arent capable of delivering anything. I feel that theres a big swing



QWhat are your plans for Colombo?

In 2003 I spoke of a greener Colombo. I also spoke of a separate bus line for women in the city. We need to implement these things. Also with regard to the traffic congestion in Colombo we can only talk of sky trains and a good city bus service run by the private sector. The transport system comes under the Central Government and the city bus service is the only thing we can depend on. Garbage is another issue. Way back we had the Kunu mola watte in Kirulapona and Central Colombo. Garbage was brought here and burnt. Today this Kunu mola watte is called Nagaswatte and has been turned into a low-income housing area. People made a living at Kunu mola watte by segregating plastic, cardboard and other materials which were eventually sold. The segregation was done free-of-charge because people had an interest in collecting them. This has come to a halt as well.



It was the UNP that led the CMC for 60 years. During those 60 years they had no plan. Of course Gotabhaya Rajapaksa had a good plan for garbage, but as they came in, it was stopped due to political reasons. But I believe that we have to stop thinking politically and look at result-oriented approaches for the people. If they continued what Gota started, people would have said this is Gotas project, but this garbage problem wouldnt have emerged today. Dengue is another result of this garbage problem. The rate payer pays rates for garbage collection and disposal. If the council has no proper plan for garbage they also cannot penalise the rate payer. Today we have over 100 engineers in the Council and we privatise garbage collection and disposal.



The low-income houses are another aspect Im considering. If every district has officials looking after the area, then under whose advice or assistance do these unauthorised structures come up daily? Its all politically motivated. If you are from a low income family I would encourage you to build a separate house because Im sure of your vote. But after a few years you need to be fed, provided with basic amenities such as roofing sheets and also with pin padi (A dole)  which is received by 13,000 people in the city. This is just a political hub of one party and the rate payers are maintaining Colombo for this party to win.



QDoes it mean that the UNP has not found any practical solution for the past 60 years?

Yes. Im directly challenging the partys Mayoral Candidate. She is talking about a greener Colombo, but her answer to mitigate the mosquito menace is to cut down huge trees. Who would have a heart to cut trees? How can you run a city like that? We have 13,000 people receiving pin padi so cant we get them to plant a tree each? We also have maternity centres and medicine clinics. We also have one laboratory and Ayurveda clinic as well in addition to all the staff that is required. If we can strengthen these establishments Im sure we can stop the traffic congestion near the general hospitals. We have the money and the infrastructure, but the priority has been on politically

motivated issues.



QBut the majority of the people have always supported the UNP. Do you still think that after all these years, they would vote for the your party this time?

It was a UNP hub. But in my area I have walked into every house unlike my opponent candidate who goes round throwing leaflets into every house.



The response has been very good. The UNP was confident that the minorities were with them. I must say that I have received good feedback, especially from Muslim ladies. People in Colombo have come to realise that they get nothing out of the rates they have been paying for 60 long years. The Government has shown that they arent capable of delivering anything. I feel that theres a big swing.



QThe past regime carried out various city beautification projects and they appeared to be practical in front of the citizens. But why do you think people voted for the present regime instead?

I wasnt politically involved when it happened, but I believe that they trusted a lot of wrong people. I think Mahinda Rajapaksa (MR) didnt take appropriate actions when he had to take them. The correct message wasnt conveyed to him, at times.



QAs you said earlier, you have voiced out on corruption and malpractices. The present regime has appointed various commissions to probe into these matters. What are your views?

The Government appointed commissions one month before the elections. Thajudeen or Lasantha cannot be brought back. They started investigations, but it was stuck somewhere. The people who were rumoured to be involved in these cases were never questioned to begin with. MR and Namal were accused of having accounts in Dubai and so on. So why cant they question the accused? The opposition now has enough evidence to probe into corrupt practices that have been taking place for the past three years.



QHow confident are you that you will win?

Im 100% confident. Im challenging my opponent and Im going to defeat her in her own Ward. If she doesnt win her own Ward she cant be Mayor. I as a woman I would like to be a woman Mayor of Colombo, but I wouldnt just want to be the first woman Mayor of Colombo. If I can be the Mayor of Colombo who has worked for the city after 60 years, who has built up a greener, healthier and an IT-friendly city and if people say that all this was done by a woman, I would be the happiest. Im also sure that I can be that person as well. I strongly feel that a Mayor is not just an administrator. We have a staff comprising highly educated engineers and also those people who collect garbage. We have a very strong political wing which is represented by different political parties. The Mayor has to be someone who is good in administration and also someone who has a political background.A video of a Southern California high school history teacher referring to military members as the frickin lowest of our low during a classroom rant has gone viral, sparking widespread outrage.

In the video, El Rancho High teacher Gregory Salcido, who is also a Pico Rivera City council member, says military members are failed students who had no other choice but to serve.

"Think about the people you know who are over there," Salcido is heard saying in the recording.

"Your freakin' stupid Uncle Louie or whatever. They're dumb sh*ts. They're not high-level bankers. They're not academic people. They're not intellectual people."

"They're the freakin' lowest of our low."

He is also seen asking why military recruiters are allowed to visit the school.

"We don't allow pimps to come into school," he said.By Zahara Zuhair

The need to modernise Sri Lankas existing education law, which is required to carry out educational reforms, was underscored recently at a forum held in Colombo.



The current education code law is Education Ordinance (No. 31 of 1939). Since then, we have not had a single act for general education though we had several acts for different sections such as examination.



The Supreme Court in 2007 pointed out when discussing with regard to access to school to Grade 1, that there is a legal vacuum for education in this country. This is a situation we need to overcome, National Education Commission (NEC) Vice Chairman Dr. G.B. Gunawardena said at a policy engagement forum organised by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) this week. The Education Ordinance (No. 31 of 1939), which was enacted after a long deliberation, still remains the basic law of education in Sri Lanka.



Gunawardena said that though several attempts were made to push the implementation of new policies and proposals over the last couple of decades, such attempts have failed. As the NEC, what we can do is, we can submit recommendations to the president. The president, according to the existing law, should declare if he/she accepts it as a policy.

But this has never happened in the last 26 years. At 18 occasions, recommendations have been presented to several presidents, from President Premadasa up to the present president, but it has failed, he charged.



Proposals for a national policy on general education in Sri Lanka for the next decade were submitted to the president by the NEC chairman on January 26, 2017, at the President House. The prepared set of recommendations is guided by the key concept of raising the quality of education policy proposes on general education.



Dr. Gunawardena said that they are hopeful that the latest proposals they prepared in 2016 would be accepted by the present policymakers.



However, sharing contrasting views, education sector specialist Dr. Upali M. Sedere said that an act would not resolve the problem but what is needed now is an educational policy framework.



An act itself will not resolve problems. Many countries dont have an act. There are many reasons; an act itself will not bring any solutions. Sometimes it locks you up in the process of the needed change, he said.



He was of the view that as education is a process, it cannot be structured.



This is why many developed countries do not have educational acts. We need an education policy framework.



What is important is the need to understand the pillars where the investment should go, which direction it should go. Sometimes it locks you up that it becomes the bottle neck. You need to have a policy frame work that guides you though giving you the chance to go through the change, he said.By Supun Dias

Oman Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Al-Sheikh Jumah Hamdan Al-Shehhi called on Sri Lankan entrepreneurs to invest in Oman who would be bestowed with incomparable incentives of entry especially in the Sohar Free Port Zone.



He made these comments while attending as the guest speaker at the Meet the Ambassador programme organized by the National Chamber of Commerce.



Sohar is one of the fast growing free ports in the world, Oman is interested in Sri Lankan tea and offers zero custom duties, tax exemptions and other benefits for investors, he said.



He welcomed investors who are keen to invest in key areas such as rubber, plastics, ceramics, steel and iron.



Sohar free zone in Oman, is known as a gateway to the gulf. Sri Lanka has multiple benefits beyond exports when starting at Sohar which can be Sri Lankas main manufacturing and re-exports base in the Middle East. The 11000-acre Sohar free zone is Omans joint venture with the Port of Rotterdam, he noted.



While the free ports first phase has been completed and taken almost entirely by 16 global companies, vast amount of space is available for Sri Lankan exporters to set up with us in Phase II, the Omani officials said.



Therefore Sri Lanka has multiple benefits beyond exports when starting at Sohar which can be Sri Lankas main manufacturing and re-exports base in the Middle East as well as GCC. Sometime ago Sri Lanka wanted to use Oman as a re-export hub for tea. So, I believe in the future these opportunities would be made available, he added.



We have good relations with Syria, Iran and Qatar. We have a neutral foreign policy and that offers many partners around the world to use our country as a gateway to do business with these particular countries, he said.



He added that an Omani investor has already completed setting up a garment factory in Galle and that Oman is interested in investing specially in the tourism sector in Sri Lanka.Sri Lanka's High Commissioner to India Chitranganee Wagiswara on Tuesday advised the Indian and Sri Lankan governments to discuss the fisheries issues, Outlook India reported.

Fisheries issue is something for which we need to talk to each other. We have to speak to each other. Our fisheries ministers visit each other and a joint working group is discussing how to sort this issue, she said.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau Managing Director Sutheash Balasubramanian said fisheries issues are different and that the two factions need to talk each other.

Tamil Nadu fishermen come for fishing in our territory which makes an impact on our fishermens livelihood. Solution is to talk to each other to see how we can sort out the issue and hope we can do it soon, he said.

On Jan 26, Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development Mahinda Amaraweera said, Parliament approved the amendments to the Foreign Fisheries boats Regulation Act to increase fines on foreign vessels poaching in the country's waters.

The Act aims to prevent illegal fishing activities in the Sri Lankan waters and protect the fisheries and aquatic resources of the country's coastal belt.Oops....! We couldn't find that...

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Check the URL you entered for any mistakes and try again. Alternatively, search for whatever is missing or take a look around the rest of our site.Moody's expects that the company will not be asked to share fuel subsidies as long as the oil prices stay below USD 60-65 per barrel.

Mumbai: Rating agency Moody's on Tuesday affirmed the ratings for state-run ONGC as 'stable' following the oil major's recent acquisition of majority shareholding in Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL).

The transaction remains subject to requisite approvals from the shareholders of ONGC. ONGC has acquired 51.11 per cent equity stake in HPCL from the centre for a consideration of Rs 36,915 crore to be paid in cash by January 31, this year.

"Moody's Investors Service, affirmed Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd's (ONGC) 'Baa1' local and foreign currency issuer ratings, and the 'Baa1' ratings on the senior unsecured bonds issued by ONGC Videsh Ltd and ONGC Videsh Vankorneft Pte Ltd, both guaranteed by ONGC," the rating agency said.

"The outlook on all ratings is stable," it added.

ONGC's 'Baa1' issuer ratings are primarily driven by its standalone credit profile. Moody's noted that ratings reflects ONGC's position as the only integrated oil and gas company in India with significant reserves, production and crude distillation capacity, post the acquisition.

Besides, it also incorporates substantial operating cash flow generation capacity as well as weakened but still appropriate credit metrics for its ratings following the HPCL acquisition.

Further, Moody's expects that the company will not be asked to share fuel subsidies as long as the oil prices stay below USD 60-65 per barrel.

"The rating outlook is stable reflecting Moody's expectation that the company will lower its borrowings through sale of stake in IOC and GAIL," the agency said.

"Further, the stable outlook also incorporates our expectation of benign oil price environment and that the company's growth plan will continue to be executed within the tolerance level of its current ratings," it added.

However, the agency noted that likelihood of a ratings upgrade for ONGC in the next 12 -18 months remains low given the high leverage. Moody's said that ONGC may finance HPCL equity stake will be funded by up to Rs 25,000 crore of incremental borrowings, with the balance being cash on hand.

"The payment of acquisition price will result in ONGC's net borrowings increasing by Rs 36,915 crore, irrespective of the mix of debt and cash used for such payment," it said.

Accordingly, post-acquisition, ONGC's proforma net borrowings for the fiscal year ending March 2018 will increase to Rs 1,26,500 crore as against Rs 47,200 crore without the acquisition.

It can be noted, post-acquisition the ONGC board had approved fresh debt raising of Rs 35,000 crore.

"ONGC's proforma credit metrics for fiscal 2018 will also weaken with retained cash flow/net debt declining to 28 per cent from 68 per cent without the acquisition," the agency said.New Delhi: Microblogging platform Twitter on Tuesday said it has partnered automobile industry body SIAM for the upcoming Auto Expo 2018. The 14th edition of the biennial Auto Expo will take place this year on February 7-14.

As part of the collaboration, Twitter will host a special #BlueRoom pop-up show onsite, live stream highlights from the Auto Expo, and make available a custom Auto Expo emoji, Twitter said in a statement.

In addition, automotive majors like Hero Moto Corp, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Motors and Maruti Suzuki will live stream their showcase at the Auto Expo on Twitter, it added.

Tata Motors will also feature live Q&A interaction with artistes, rock band Parikarma and guitarist Dhruv, a live performance onsite and video highlights on Twitter.

"We're excited to partner SIAM on the Auto Expo, to bring car enthusiasts in India and around the world with the opportunity to follow all the fast and furious car launch action in real-time," Twitter India Country Director Taranjeet Singh said.

Sugato Sen, Deputy Director General at SIAM, said the collaboration with Twitter will help create a unique brand image for Auto Expo.

"...it (the emoji and other initiatives) not only gives a separate identity to the Auto Expo, The Motor Show but also highlights the enormity of the Auto Expo 2018 making it more grandiloquent and customer centric," he added.The Vice Chairman of the Aayog has asked various departments of the Centre to ensure the speedy implementation of these proposals

New Delhi: Niti Aayog has given an "inprinciple" approval to various proposals related to roads, telecommunication, education, LPG and banks for the overall development of Chhattisgarh's Bastar region, a press release issued today said.

Bastar is one of regions of the state severely affected by Naxalite activities. The approval was given at a meeting held here on Tuesday attended by senior officials led by Chhattisgarh Chief Secretary Ajay Singh, Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar, its CEO Amitabh Kant and senior officials of select central government departments, it said.

The "in principle" approval is for the construction of an additional 600km of roads in Bastar under the Rashtriya Road project 2 and sanctioning Rs 65 crore for the expansion of telecom services to increase connectivity in remote areas, the release said.

The amount will be utilised for increasing connectivity between districts and development blocks in Bastar and expedite the execution of 402 towers in the first phase and 1,028 telecom towers in the second phase of operations.

In a bid to strengthen the education system, "in principle" approval was also given for declaring 10 Maoist- affected blocks as educationally backward.

The Niti Aayog has given its approval for the expansion of banking services in remote rural areas of Bastar and the Department of Financial Services has said it would immediately take the matter up with the banks concerned to ensure that 88 new branches were opened in these areas, the release said.

Houses will also be provided under the 'Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana' to 1,555 surrendered Naxalites and whose names do not figure in the 2011 socio-economic caste census, it said.

The Kerosene quota of Chhattisgarh will be maintained at current levels till agencies of 26 new LPG distributors gets operational in Bastar under the 'Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana', the release said.

The Vice Chairman of the Aayog has asked various departments of the Centre to ensure the speedy implementation of these proposals, it said.

Chhattisgarh's Additional Chief Secretaries Sunil Kujur and B V R Subrahmanyam, Principal Secretaries Amitabh Jain and Subrat Sahu, Secretaries Vikas Sheel and Subodh Kumar Singh, Resident Commissioner Chhattisgarh Bhawan Sanjay Kumar Ojha and other officials of the state government were also present at the meeting.Deepika Padukone recently feasted on a scrumptious Marwari thali in Mumbai to mark the success of her latest outing. However, the strategy may have been ill-advised by her marketing team, which was a sign of peace diplomacy vis-a-vis the Rajasthan government. But the fact remains that the film is likely to remain banned in Rajasthan, at least for a while now.

However, there is heartening news from another quarter. The film opened to a roaring reception in Patna and rest of Bihar on Monday, four days after it was released in other parts of the country. An unnamed manager from a theatre in Patna says, We would have opened on Wednesday night (January 24), like other parts of the country. But after promising us security bandobast to protect us against threats from the Karni Sena, the local administration backed out. It was only after repeated reminders that security was provided from Monday morning, and we are running to full houses peacefully. We also got an assurance from the Karni Sena that it was safe to run the film.

Reliable sources close to the developments regarding the release of Padmaavat insist that the ban in Gujarat and Haryana is to end soon. The source says, The team has been relentlessly processing the modalities for a release in Gujarat and Haryana. A solution is on the way. The film may release in these two states by the end of this week. But Rajasthan is another ballgame altogether  there, the release may take time.New Delhi: Actor Ranveer Singh says he felt pushed against the wall with the many roadblocks ahead of the release of 'Padmaavat' and its long gestation period, a rage that propelled his portrayal of Alauddin Khilji in the film.

The film, which released on January 25 with multiple disclaimers following nationwide protests, found itself in trouble from the very beginning with its sets being vandalised twice in Rajasthan and Maharashtra.

"There was a lot of anxiety surrounding the shooting. Whatever untoward incident happened, it made me very, very angry. Ever since the first incident on the sets... I was raging from inside. But I chose not to act out in a destructive way. I channeled it and used it constructively. I put it into my performance," the actor told PTI in an interview.

The much-debated film is already a blockbuster, and Ranveer's portrayal of Khilji has been singled out for particular praise. More than happiness, however, Ranveer says he feels a sense of relief.

The costume drama was not easy to shoot, says the star. The many delays led to the film being shot in almost one go, in 40 plus days.

"Apart from what was happening, the actual shooting process was difficult due to the delays. I was shooting for more than 40 days straight, which is unheard of in a costume drama, especially on a Sanjay Leela Bhansali film. It is draining at every level, physically mentally, emotionally."

In his previous collaborations with Bhansali, there would be a break every six to eight days so that the crew could recuperate, but that was not the option this time.

"My brain had turned into mush, my body had turned into pulp, I had no feeling in my muscles. I kept pushing but physically, I was breaking. But when you have your back against the wall, you need to keep digging deeper. It was the angst that kept me going."

Constantly being in character took its toll on Ranveer. The darkness of the character, he says, started to creep up on him, a feeling so intense that he lost touch with himself for a while.

"I try to be as honest to my craft as I can possibly be. The dark person that Khilji was, I had to become that from the inside. I had to feel all those things and that can be unhealthy. The shooting process was non-stop. I would put on the make-up for two hours and shoot for 12-14 hours straight and repeat it the next day.

"I lost touch with myself. I realised that something was wrong. I had become uneasy, unstable. So I first confided in my mother and my best friend. They started spending time with me after the shoot. They brought me back to myself. I was lucky to have that kind of support."

Also read: This is what Amitabh Bachchan did after watching Ranveer Singh in Padmaavat

While the release of 'Padmaavat' was stalled by Rajput groups over the portrayal of queen Padmavati, post-release, the film has attracted criticism in certain quarters over the unidimensional portrayal of Khilji as an evil, imbalanced ruler, which some historians say is inaccurate.

Asked whether Khilji's extremism was over-hyped, Ranveer said he moulded himself to Bhansali's vision of the character.

"As an actor, I need to be honest with the script. I used the script as my textbook. For the most part, I take my cues from what is written. The character that Mr Bhansali and Prakash Kapadia created, I tried to do the best I could with it.

"In fact, I wanted to make Khilji darker and even more of an extremist. Mr Bhansali really moulded me this time. In 'Bajirao', he allowed me to interpret but this time he was hands-on. I built on what was written and how he directed me."

The other criticism against the film is over the 'jauhar' (mass sati) scene towards the end, which many feel glorifies the practice. Actor Swara Bhasker has written a scathing letter to Bhansali criticising the scene.

But Ranveer sidestepped the issue and said, "I got a message from Swara just yesterday. She loved my performance in the film. So..."

Also read: It's odd that somebody is writing this on a personal level: Shahid on Swara's letter

The actor, who has collaborated with Bhansali for the third time after 'Ram-Leela' and 'Bajirao Mastani', says the praise for 'Padmaavat' is sweeter as he was not sure Khilji would be accepted.

"I feel like I am walking on clouds. There were enough people who were advising me to be careful. It is scary to take on a part like this. It is such a big risk that it can be your undoing. But I went with Mr Bhansali's conviction and gave my whole and soul to this part. I am just relieved that my risk has paid such dividends."

There is a running joke between them where he calls Bhansali (Martin) Scorsese to his (Robert) De Niro.

"It is all in jest, we are not actually comparing, but we joke about it. He is quite brutal when I am not getting a scene right and equally effusive with praise when I get it right. I have been his leading man in three back-to-back films. It is a big deal and like a major acquisition. He is very special and dear to me."Mumbai: Rana Daggubati is as much remembered in Bollywood for Baahubali as much for his rumoured relationship with Bipasha Basu around the release of their film Dum Maro Dum few years ago.

While the Bong beauty is happily married to Karan Singh Grover today, Rana has gone on to establish himself almost as the Ranbir Kapoor of South industry, considering his Casanova image for link-ups with popular actresses from Tamil and Telugu film industry.

Also read: Dhanushs sisters emotional outpouring on Suchi leaks

His link-up with Shriya Saran had made headlines and his kiss on Trisha Krishnan's cheek in the super controversial Suchi leaks is well-known.

And the latest South actress to be linked to Rana is Rakul Preet Singh, with rumours of them being an item doing the rounds.

The Aiyaary actress, however, has denied that there was anything brewing between the two.

Weve been hearing this for such a long time and (we) cant help but laugh. This is just a rumour. Rana and I are very good friends. Hes there for me whenever I need him. I stay in Hyderabad, away from family, and there I have a group of 15-20 friends. Rana and I are a part of the group. So, we often hang out together and are neighbours, too. In the group, only two-three (people) are single, and were among them. And I think people tend to link those who are single, Rakul told Hindustan Times in an interview.

Also read: Rana Daggubati sheds 15 Kg for his upcoming film Haathi Mere Saathi

She also joked, In fact, I often tell my friends, Guys, find me someone, what are you doing? And they are on it, and then added, On a serious note, I want to concentrate on my work. When love happens, Id prefer to announce it rather than hide it.

Parineeti Chopra had recently said she wouldnt prefer dating or marrying someone from the film industry, but Rakul doesnt share the same thoughts, I think someone from the same industry or profession would understand my kind of work. But all said and done, one cant decide with whom one would fall in love.

We wonder if Rakuls use of good friends has the same meaning as Bollywood couples definition of the term, if not, lets hope her friends succeed in finding her Mr. Right.Author Wendy Holden, who chaired the judging panel, on Tuesday called the collection life affirming and uplifting. (Photo: Twitter/ Helen Dunmore)

A poetry collection by the late British writer Helen Dunmore has won the lucrative Costa book prize .

Inside the Wave was published two months before the poet and novelist died of cancer last year at age 64 and reflects on the intertwined worlds of life and death.

Author Wendy Holden, who chaired the judging panel, on Tuesday called the collection life affirming and uplifting.

Open to writers based in Britain and Ireland, the Costa prizes are awarded in five categories, with one chosen as the overall book of the year.

Dunmores poems beat four other finalists for the 30,000-pound ($42,000) prize: Gail Honeymans debut novel Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine; Rebecca Stotts memoir In the Days of Rain; John McGregors novel Reservoir 13 and childrens book The Explorer by Katherine Rundell.Many people are opting to get plastic surgery to look good in selfies. (Photo: Pixabay)

There is no doubt that in today's world social media has an effect on our lives. Sometimes more than we would like it to.

Now, researchers have found some people might be taking extreme measures to look good in selfies.

An American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery survey revealed 40% of surgeons said patients incentive for getting plastic surgery was so they could look good on Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook, the New York Post reported.

"People see pictures of themselves fairly routinely on Facebook," Fred Fedok, a plastic surgeon, and president of the academy told the New York Post. Adding, "Constantly seeing yourself from unflattering angles can take its toll on your self-esteem."

Many people are taking a cue from celebrities and seeking the help of celebrity plastic surgeons online. Lip fillers that are used by reality TV start like Kylie Jenner are some of the most common requests, according to a 2016 survey from the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

Pressure to look on point all the time is driving more and more people to choose this option. "Our research shows the vast majority of patients are middle-class people, mostly women, who just want to maintain a youthful appearance," Debra Johnson, a plastic surgeon with a private practice in Sacramento told the New York Post. "People are working longer into their late 60s and 70s and they want to look youthful, competitive and energetic in the workplace," she further explained.

What is making it even more accessible for people who may not be able to afford it, is doctors offering payment plans.Washington: Turns out, the complications differ in reconstruction surgery for male-to-female and cis-male transgender patients.

A new study has found that risks of penile reconstruction surgery, also known as phalloplasty, appear higher in female-to-male transgender (trans-male) patients, compared to the risks posed by native male (cis-male) patients undergoing surgery.

Jeffrey B. Friedrich, MD, of University of Washington, Seattle, conducted the study with colleagues from American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). According to Dr. Friedrich, complications are also less frequent when reconstruction of the urethra (urethroplasty) is done as a single-stage procedure.

He noted, "Our results provide useful information for surgeons and patients to consider when discussing options, risks, and expected outcomes of phalloplasty".

The study also focused on increased phalloplasty risks for trans-male patients and with staged-urethral surgery. The team of researchers analysed the findings of 50 previous studies related to phalloplasty. Incidentally, 19 of these studies reported phalloplasty on 869 trans-male patients and 32 reported phalloplasty on 482 cis-male patients.

The results showed some important differences in outcome between the two groups. The overall rate of complications related to the urethra was 39.4 percent in trans-male patients compared to 24.8 percent in cis-male patients. Rates of complications involving the tissue flaps used for penile reconstruction were also higher in trans-male patients - 10.8 versus 8.1 percent.

Outcomes were also affected by the approach used to reconstruct the urethra - 23 studies including 723 patients used a single-step (primary) approach to urethroplasty, while 13 studies including 201 patients used multiple-step (staged) procedures.

The rate of tissue flap-related complications was also lower with primary urethroplasty: 8.6 percent, compared to 16.7 percent for staged procedures. In addition to fewer complications, single-stage urethral reconstruction was associated with improvement in key outcomes, for both trans-male and cis-male patients.

Ability to urinate while standing, sexual functioning, and patient satisfaction were all better with primary versus staged urethroplasty. The study is published in the medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.According to the researchers, the mafia appeared in locations where lemon producers made high profits for overseas export.

According to a new study, craze for lemons in the 19th century allowed mobsters to cement their position as protectors of local businesses.

The surge in demand for lemons arose during the Napoleonic Wars after James Lind, a Scottish doctor and pioneer of naval hygiene, discovered that citrus fruits cured scurvy.

According to the researchers, the mafia appeared in locations where lemon producers made high profits for overseas export.

The mafia protected lemon farmers from 'predation' and acted as middle men between producers and exporters.

The study was conducted by researchers at Queens University Belfast and was published in the Journal of Economic History.

It involved analysing data from a parliamentary inquiry in 1881-1886 on Sicilian towns.

The study looked at the causes of crimes in 143 towns, finding that mafia presence was strongly related to the production of oranges and lemons.

The study further argued that an increase in fragmented land following the Bourbon-era land reforms (1816-1860) provided the 'breeding ground' for mafia protection - because there were a higher number of land owners, there was an increased need for private protection.

Lemons became prized after their health benefits were discovered, particularly with regards to prevention of scurvy.

When demand for the fruit began to grow, they had to be imported from Sicily. However, lemon trees have a poor tolerance for extreme climatic conditions, and require temperatures between 13-30.

The average temperature in Sicily is between 1022C, making the island one of the few places in Europe where lemons could be reliably grown.

As demand for lemons surged, the mafia were seen as a force that protected small-scale farmers.Although Hemal's practice area is urology, he delivered seven babies during medical school although never on the floor of a jetliner. (Facebook/ Sij Hemal)

New York: An off-duty Indian-origin doctor had an "oh boy" story when he helped deliver a healthy baby boy while on a trans-Atlantic flight from Paris to New York at 35,000 feet, according to media reports.

Dr Sij Hemal, 27 a second-year urology resident at Cleveland Clinic's Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute, immediately went into doctor mode when Air France flight attendants asked if there were any doctors on the flight to a 41-year-old who had gone into labor a week early, Cleveland 19 News reported.

Hemal started in New Delhi, stopped in Paris and was heading to New York, where he would catch a connecting flight to Cleveland -- his final destination.

Urologist Hemal was hoping to drink a glass of champagne and take a nap on a plane from Paris to New York on December 17, but instead helped deliver a healthy baby boy named Jake during the flight, the report said.

Together with Dr Stefanie Ortolan, a pediatrician from France, the pair managed to deliver baby Jake after just 30 minutes of pushing, Hemal said.

He did not know that she was pregnant. He said the mom's bump was covered with a blanket.

"As a urologist, I was excited. I thought it was kidney stones, but later found out that she was 39 weeks pregnant," he said.

Hemal said there was no time to land the plane and the best decision was to deliver the baby in the air. Hemal used a shoestring to tie and cut the umbilical cord for baby Jake.

"This has been a team effort and certainly a flight I will never forget," he said.

Although Hemal's practice area is urology, he delivered seven babies during medical school although never on the floor of a jetliner.

"We're trained to stay calm and think clearly in emergency situations," he adds. "I just tried to think ahead to what might go wrong, and come up with a creative solution."

After Jake arrived, Hemal said he FaceTimed his parents.

"'Look I'm flying first class,'" he told his parents. "I wanted to surprise them and tell them I was flying first class. I'd never flown first class before. And ... umm ... by the way I also just delivered a baby! It was one of those moments I"ll never forget," he said.

For his efforts, Air France delivered a travel voucher and a bottle of champagne to Hemal.Customs officials at Chennai airport seized 3.8 kg of gold bars, worth Rs 1.16 crore, from a passenger who arrived from Jeddah in Saudi Arabia on a Kuwait Airlines flight on Monday morning at Chennai Airport. (Photo: DC)

Chennai: Customs officials at the international airport here have seized 3.8 kg of gold bars with a value of Rs 1.16 crore which was concealed in a plastic pouch containing dates.

Officials said the gold bars were recovered from Rafi Syed, 43, who arrived here from Jeddah in South Arabia on Monday morning.

They also said the gold bars are worth Rs 1.16 crore. The passenger, who holds an Indian passport, was intercepted at the exit point of the arrival hall.

They found 39 gold bars concealed in a pouch -- 37 of them weighing 100 gm each and two bars weighing 50gm each. He was arrested under the provisions of the Customs Act.Sub-inspector of Jawaharnagar is facing a departmental probe for his alleged affair with a married woman who had come to the station with a domestic complaint. (Representational Image)

Hyderabad: Police officers and constables with extra marital affairs have dented the image of the city police. A constable of Mughalpura was booked for having an affair with a woman and a sub-inspector of Jawaharnagar is facing a departmental probe for his alleged affair with a married woman who had come to the station with a domestic complaint.

G. Narasimhulu, the sub-inspector, had allegedly wooed a married woman, claimed her husband, a freelance photographer, in his complaint. A. Satish lodged a complaint with the Malkajgiri DCP, saying that the sub-inspector forced his wife to divorce him. The woman went to the police station to register a complaint. Satish met the DCP at his office and submitted a written complaint.

The SI was relieved from his regular duties and shifted to the AR wing. After verifying facts, necessary action will be initiated against him, said the DCP.

Satish was married to Jyotsna Devi and was staying in Dammaiguda. The couple used to quarrel and Jyotsna approached the Jawahar Nagar police to file a complaint against Satish over harassment. However, the issue was resolved after Satish attended a counselling session, said the police.

Before leaving the police station, Narsimhulu gave his phone number to Devi. Since then, they have been in contact with each other and were meeting secretly without my knowledge. She had even spent Rs 26,000 from her credit card for him and was constantly seen talking to him on the phone, he said in the complaint.

Mr Mahesh M. Bhagwat, Rachakonda police commissioner, issued the order to attach Narsimhulu to the AR wing on Wednesday.

A constable of Mughalpura was booked for having an extramarital affair with a married woman. Sneha, a mother of a two-year-old, left her house and married the police constable, identified as Satish.

Her husband, Nagaraj, a resident of Shamshabad, alleged that the constable married her in Vikarabad. The RGIA police has registered a case against the constable and started a probe.

CasesBengaluru: Five months after she was shot dead by a bike borne assailant outside her house, former editor-cum-activist - Gauri Lankesh's murder remains a mystery till date and will remain one unless the police lay their hands on the weapon - the mysterious 7.65mm country made pistol, which was allegedly used for the cold blooded killing on September 5.

According to police department sources, though the SIT has got some good leads they are yet to lay their hands on the handlers and that one clinching evidence - the weapon, which killed her.

"The weapon will end the mystery; whether hers was an ideological or contract killing, whether Gauri's killers had the blood of Prof Narendra Dabholkar, Comrade Govind Pansare and Prof M.M. Kalburgi on their hands or that was a different module," said an official source.



"The pistol which was used to kill Gauri will have the firing pin marks and the gunshot residue of the spent cartridges, which were found at the crime scene. The police need to get the pistol to crack the case. It is the single most important and prosecutable piece of evidence in the murder case," said the ace ballistic expert N.G. Prabhakar.

In the absence of weapon recovery, Gauri's case may unfortunately get archived in the list of perfect and unsolved murder mysteries in Karnataka and the detection of the case could be by chance, say officers, who are privy to the investigation. It is turning out to be the third unsolved assassination case of a public figure since 1996, when the then BJP MLA U. Chittaranjan was killed inside his house, while he was watching television on the fateful night of April 10. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had to face flak, when the court rejected its closure report after nine teams of ace CBI investigators failed to solve the Chittaranjan murder case. On August 30, 2015 Kannada litterateur M.M. Kalburgi was killed in his house by two bike borne assailants. The Criminal Investigation Department, which is probing the Kalburgi case, has hit a wall. Interestingly, all the three victims were killed in or just outside their house.

"The three sensational murder cases have gone undetected because the investigating agencies have failed to get the weapon, which was used in the crime. The firearms may have exchanged many hands for commissioning of multiple crimes across the country. The underground firearms market is huge," said Prabhakar.

He added that Karnataka has a long list of pending murder cases, majority of them are from Bengaluru City and Dakshina Kannada district. In 2010, when Mr. Prabhakar retired from the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) Bengaluru as the head of ballistic department, he had given an indent for the much needed equipment - Canada-manufactured - Integrated Ballistics Identification System, or IBIS, which stores the data of all spent cartridges, which were used in multiple crimes, the firing pin impressions, the marks of extractor and ejector. IBIS is a data computer attached to a microscope. It links ballistic information to prior investigations and to the firearms, which were used in the commissioning of multiple crimes but were not recovered during the course of investigation. "IBIS is critical to get information on the previous use of a firearm and spent cartridges. Barring Bengaluru FSL, most of the forensic science laboratories, in Maharashatra, Gujarat, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Chandigarh have the ballistic data computer," said Prabhakar.The She Teams concept introduced by the state police is drawing a lot of appreciation countrywide.

Hyderabad: About 700 stipendiary women constables passed out of the Raja Bahadur Venkata Ram Reddy Telangana State Police Academy on Wednesday.

Home Minister Nayani Narasimha Reddy, who was the chief guest for the function, said that the police should upgrade itself according to the changing scenario.

The state government is providing all necessary infrastructure to the police to maintain law and security in the state.

The government is providing 33 per cent job reservation to women to ensure the their social stability and give them opportunities in challenging jobs, he said.

He said that the She Teams concept introduced by the state police is drawing a lot of appreciation countrywide.BENGALURU: The High Court on Wednesday heard a petition which stated that the recent photo shoot for a Kannada film on high court premises was a breach of security. The court sent a notice to the state government and adjourned the matter by two weeks. The petition, filed by a city based advocate N.P. Amruthesh V, stated that a photo shoot for the film Ananthu vs Nusrat was done inside the Advocate Association Library on the court premises. The petitioner submitted that actor Vinay Rajkumar, grandson of thespian late Rajkumar, had attended the photo shoot.

The petitioner submitted that as per the Emblems and Names (Prevention of Improper Use) Act, 1950, under The Schedule Sl No.17-The name of the parliament or the Legislature of any State, or the Supreme Court, or the High Court of any State, or the Central Secretariat, or the Secretariat of any State Government or any other Government office or the pictorial representation of any building occupied by any of the aforesaid institutions are prohibited.

Since the security of the High Court was breached when the premises is manned by the Assistant Commissioner of Police, a police complaint dated October 14, 2017 was lodged, and also to the Registrar of High Court. As no reply/action was taken, the petition has been filed before the court, the petitioner said.

The film crew were unauthorisedly allowed to bring in generators/van, video cameras, electrical equipment, lighting(arch lights) equipment inside the high court premises, the petitioner added.New Delhi: An IAF officer has been taken into custody by the force for alleged involvement in spying, sources said on Wednesday.

The officer posted here was indulging in certain unwanted activities through unauthorised electronic devices which is against orders.

The officer was taken into custody a couple of days ago and a team of the IAFs security and investigation is questioning him. The unwanted activities by the officer were discovered during the routine counter intelligence surveillance, the sources said. The identity and rank of the officer has been kept secret. Probe is also on to find out whether the officer has passed on any sensitive information to anyone.Sreejith and his mother Ramani Prameela arrive at the CBI office to depose on the alleged murder of his brother Sreejeev, during police custody on Wednesday.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Sreejith, who has been on a strike in front of the Secretariat for the last 782 days, ended it on Wednesday with the CBI kicking off a probe into the custodial death of his brother S.R. Sreejeev in police custody at Parassala on May 21, 2014.

I stopped the stir for the time being as the CBI officials promised a fair probe into my brothers custodial death. I also need to restore my health to give detailed statements to the CBI team and as much evidence as I can, Sreejith told DC.

Sreejith and his mother Ramani Prameela went to the CBI office on Wednesday morning after being summoned by the CBI. A team led by DySP T.P. Ananda Krishnan took a brief statement from them.

They also met CBI SP K.M. Varkey and urged them for a fair probe. The CBI officials said they would take a detailed statement later. They also asked Sreejith and his mother to produce any evidence helpful for the probe.

Sreejith was learnt to have told the CBI team that the suicide note produced by the police was not that of Sreejeev. The note was in fluent Malayalam, but Sreejeev was not that good in writing Malayalam.

Sreejeev was taken into custody by the Parassala police on May 19, 2014 in connection with a theft case and he died on May 21. His relatives alleged that Sreejeev was held owing to his relationship with a girl, the relative of a police man, and was severely tortured. The police claimed that Sreejeev was taken into custody on charges of the theft of mobile phones and that he consumed poison that was hidden in his undergarments.

The State Police Complaints Authority had found evidence of custodial torture and also ordered a compensation of `10 lakh to his family. But subsequent police investigation concluded that there was no evidence of custodial torture and hence Sreejith insisted on a CBI probe.

Sreejith has been staging a sit-in in front of the Secretariat demanding action against the guilty police officials for the last 782 days. His stir got massive public support when the news of it crossing 750 days went viral on the social media. Subsequently, the state government, MPs and BJP leadership pressed the centre for a CBI probe. The CBI formally took over the probe last week.

Sreejith was taken by his friends to a private hospital at Neyyatinkara for medical checkup.Outgoing Telangana State Chief Secretary S.P. Singh congratulates his successor Shailendra Kumar Joshi after the latter took charge as new CS.

Hyderabad: Shailendra Kumar Joshi, a 1984-batch IAS officer, was appointed Chief Secretary of Telangana State on Wednesday. The centre had turned down the request of the state government to extend the tenure of the outgoing chief secretary S.P. Singh, who retired on Wednesday.

Mr Joshi took charge as CS at around 3.40 pm; usually he would have assumed charge at arou-nd 5 pm when office ho-urs end, but due to the lunar eclipse, the ceremony was advanced by almost one-and-a-half hours.

Mr Joshi thanked the Chief Minister for his appointment and said his aim was to ensure completion of the Kale-shwaram irrigation project in time.

Mr Joshi was special chief secretary in the ir-rigation department be-fore his elevation. He was born on December 20, 1959 in Bareilly, Utt-ar Pradesh. He schooled in Bareilly till Class XII, studying Telugu as his third language from Classes VI to VIII.KOZHIKODE: The recent revelation of the Excise Department is that all the major catches of narcotic products reported from the city during the last one month were through the citys prominent Government, aided and unaided schools. According to Excise and Narcotic officials, the recent three major catches that provided links to the citys prominent drug peddlers were as a result of information from schools.

Police came to know about the penetration of the interstate drug racket working in and around schools, after teachers started giving information to the department following the seizures of such narcotic products from the students.

It is indeed a shocking revelation that schools are turning out to be a major source for us to track down drug peddlers. Very recently three such big catches reported from the city were following information we got from schools or the students, said A.J. Babu Assistant Commissioner, Narcotic Department.

Initially the drug is gifted to these children but when they get addicted, the drug suppliers charge a huge sum from these kids. This is how kids or students get addicted to such products and become major carriers for their friends, he added. Ganja in small packets hare been seized from the students which they usually smoke, he added. Drug candies which are considered as the cheapest among the drug products have also started coming back to the schools. These drugs look like pop rocks - a type of sweet that fizzles in the mouth, according to reports.

The excise and narcotic department have warned parents, teachers and students about the comeback of these drug trends and the vulnerability of their kids. These candies are made out of methamphetamine which is an extremely addictive stimulant drug that takes the form of a white, odourless, bitter-tasting crystalline powder. It can be taken orally, smoked, snorted, or dissolved in water or alcohol and injected, he explained. Sources from where the students get these candies have also been revealed in the recent raids.

Drug abuse around educational institutions is rampant, according to officials. While the police booked more than 15 cases of drug abuse around schools and colleges in 2016, the numbers shot up to more than 20 in 2017. And with just a month into 2018, the police have already booked over two cases of drug abuse and arrested several drug-peddlers.Raipur Kendriya Vidalaya biology teacher Snehlata Shankhwar said Jyoti Singh was out with a man who was not her husband and therefore, the assailants were not wrong given our social rules. (Photo: ANI)

Raipur: A biology teacher from the elite government school Raipur Kendriya Vidyalaya has defended her blatant sexist comments in class after complaints from a group of outraged parents.

The students recorded the teacher's comments in the class, where she is clearly heard accusing women of inviting rapes and molestation through make-up and revealing attire.

Teacher, Snehlata Shankhwar, also blamed the horrific rape of Jyoti Singh (Nirbhaya) in Delhi in December, 2012 on the victim herself.

The students replayed the recording to the principal Bhagwan Das Ahire. Later, a group of parents also lodged a complaint with the principal.

Jyoti Singh, the teacher said, was out with a man who was not her husband and therefore, the assailants were not wrong given our social rules.

Blaming Jyoti's parents for demanding justice, she said, "you say justice is not being done... now these men will be hanged but you can't control your daughter..."

The teacher also went on to say that lipstick and jeans lay in the root of such incidents.

"When boys see girls doing it with one person they assume the girl would do it with others as well," she said.

The teacher, however, justified her reasons for being misogynistic on Wednesday, saying she was trying to warn class 11 students who were out late.

"I saw Class 11 students outside at 8:30 pm and suggested they go home," she said.

The teacher said: "A person's safety is in their own hands. What happened with Nirbhaya was wrong, but had she not gone out late, she could have saved herself."

"I instruct girls according to Kendriya Vidyalaya's code of conduct," she added.

"Parents should ensure that their children should at least wear the school uniform properly. I have objected and pointed out at girl students for wearing lipstick at times, the teacher said.The bridge which is submerged in the water is roughly 100 meters wide and up to 10 metres in depth.

Chennai: The Adams Bridge, aka Rama Setu, was formed about 18,400 years ago, according to researchers from the Anna University and the Madras University, who said their study was the first of its kind done on samples taken from the drilled core surface in the depths of Gulf of Mannar off Rameswaram.

Adams Bridge is a 35 km long stretch of shoal and sandbank under the sea between Pamban Island of Tamil Nadu and Mannar Island of Sri Lanka. The bridge which is submerged in the water is roughly 100 meters wide and up to 10 metres in depth.

The research funded by University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Service (INCOIS) was carried out to know the past of the Gulf of Mannar region, which did not get affected by disasters such as 2004 tsunami. Scientists have found marine terraces which had a steeper descending slope on the seaward side near the Rameswaram islands.

Suspecting tectonic activity which could have caused the submarine landslide and vertical slopes in the region, they took samples at three places including one sample on the slope of the bridge. The water depth at the slope was 260 metres and the core sample was taken for 1.3 metres on December 12, 2015.

They looked for the microfossil called Cibicides margaritiferus to know more about the regions past and also about the formation of the structure in the marine sediment of Adams Bridge.

The microfossil Cibicides margaritiferus was almost nil up to 75 cm depth and after that, we found the fossil in good numbers. The sediments taken at the depth of 130 cm in the seabed, had microfossil around 300-350 per 10 gram, said Professor Srinivasalu from Institute of Ocean Management, Anna University and the Principal Investigator of the project.

Since the shell-shaped fossils are rare to find on the east coast of India, scientists wanted to find out the time period of the fossils. We knew something major had happened in that period. These fossils are also very sensitive to the climate and environmental changes and major incidents like tsunami or earthquake can wipe out its population. So, the samples were sent to US-based Beta Analytics, one of the top radiocarbon dating labs to determine the exact time period, he told Deccan Chronicle.

The lab has determined the age of fossil using Carbon-14 dating method. The method uses organic remains of the fossil to find out the time period of its death.

The results showed that the fossils found between 94 cm and 132 cm were at least 18,400 years old. The fossils in the marine sediment between 35 cm and 94 cm were 700-780 years old.

Its a major finding as we are one of the first groups to have scientifically got the samples from Adams Bridge. Now, it has been confirmed that the structure was formed at least 18,400 years ago, Professor Srinivasalu said. The results also revealed that the region had a major undersea earthquake around 700 years ago.

There were research publications indicating Indonesia and Thailand, Sri Lanka, Andaman had records of a major Tsunami and earthquake around the same time. But, there is no study that showed any quake affecting the east coast of India. This is the first study to find the evidence for an earthquake in the Bay of Bengal, he added.

Scientists are surprised to find out the earthquake in the seismically passive Gulf of Mannar. It was a major earthquake and tsunami happened 700 years ago and affected several countries like in 2004. It may again hit in future and we need to be prepared, scientists said. G.Kalpana, a researcher from Anna University and Professors N.Rajeswara Rao and M.Jayaprakash from the Department of Applied Geology at Madras University also contributed to this study.Counsel Prashant Bhushan told the court that the remaining 20 per cent of the Rohingya refugees too should be allowed to enter India. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: Making it clear that India cannot be allowed to become the refugee capital of the world, the Centre on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court not to intervene in the executive decision on deportation of Rohingya Muslims to Myanmar.

Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Tushar Mehta made this submission before a three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Kanwilkar and DY Chandrachud while hearing a batch of petitions seeking to restrain India from deporting 40,000 Rohingyas to Myanmar.

Counsel Prashant Bhushan had filed a fresh application for a direction to permit the remaining Rohingya refugees to cross over the border and enter India as the Border Security Force (BSF) is thwarting their entry. The court asked the Centre to file its response on this application.

At the outset the ASG said, We do not want India to become the refugee capital of the world. If we allow people from every other country will flood our country. The government is in diplomatic talks and it must be allowed to take a decision. There was no contingency as of now and this was not a matter for the court to intervene. This is not a matter in which we can show any leniency.

Prashant Bhushan told the court that the remaining 20 per cent of the Rohingya refugees too should be allowed to enter India. He complained that the BSF was preventing them from crossing over the border by sprinkling chilli powder.

Senior counsel Gopal Subramanium, appearing for the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), told the court that he agreed with what the ASG was saying.

However, he said that the NHRC was only concerned with the Rohingyas present in the country and had no instructions regarding others.

Bhushan pointed out that Rohingya refugees in camps in India live in abject poverty and squalor.

"The conditions are inhuman. There is no access to either schools or hospitals," he said.

Justice Chandrachud observed that the court did acknowledge the humanitarian aspects in Bhushan's submissions, but asked if judicial standards of India, which applied to refugees already living on Indian soil, also apply to those attempting to enter the country"

The Judge said, If somebody comes to your border and says 'I am a refugee, it has to be determined whether he is a refugee or not. He cannot be blindly pushed back, then what is the commitment of India to refugee determination. Several high courts have upheld the right to refugee determination. Let the government deal with it diplomatically, but this court should also decide on its own.

The bench will further hear the case on March 7.The eight-month-old infant was raped by her cousin in northwest Delhis Netaji Subhash Place, had to undergo a three-hour-long surgery for her injuries, after which she is in the ICU. (Representational Image | AFP)

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it is 'very much concerned' about the rape of the 8-month-old girl by her 28-year-old cousin and ordered Delhi Legal Services Authority to assist in the case.

The apex court directed two doctors from AIIMS (All India Institutes of Medical Sciences) to supervise the entire case of the rape of the 8-month-old girl who was raped by her 28-year-old cousin in Delhi.

The court said a decision to shift her to AIIMS and other possible steps for the infant will be taken after the supervision.

SC will further hear the rape case of the Delhi infant on Thursday.

Earlier on Wednesday, the top court had agreed to hear the PIL seeking justice for the 8-month-old baby. The petition sought directions to authorities to shift the baby to a better hospital and ensure compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the family.

The infant who was raped by her cousin in northwest Delhis Netaji Subhash Place, had to undergo a three-hour-long surgery for her injuries, after which she was in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Doctors said she is stable.

The baby was rushed to a local hospital on Sunday evening with severe wounds and bleeding. The surgery took place on Monday.

The baby was assaulted when both her parents were out for work, according to police.

"I left for duty and later my wife also had to leave for about an hour," said the baby's father, a labourer. The child was left with her aunt who stays in the same building.

Since it was a Sunday, the son of the relative was at home.

When the accused saw that his mother was not around, he allegedly forced himself on the baby, police said.

Also Read: Cousin, 28, admits to raping 8-month old, arrested; infant stable after surgery

When the girls mother, who works as a domestic help, returned home at around 12:30 pm, she found the baby crying on a bed that was covered in blood. She immediately informed her husband.

The baby was rushed to a hospital, where it was confirmed that she was sexually assaulted, police said.

The family told the police that they suspected the child's cousin -- also a father -- who was missing.

The victim was arrested on Monday evening. According to police, the 28-year-old also confessed to raping the baby under the influence of alcohol, said a senior police officer.

According to reports, he had allegedly taken away the baby saying he wanted to play with her.

Laws on rape were made stringent after a young medical student was gangraped on a moving bus in the national capital in December 2012.In a joint statement, Panneerselvam and Palanisamy said these persons were being expelled from AIADMK for 'acting in contravention to the party's policies and ideals,' and for 'bringing disrepute' to it.

Chennai: The internal churning in the ruling AIADMK post its defeat in the RK Nagar bypoll continued on Wednesday, with top leaders O Panneerselvam and K Palanisamy cracking the whip against dissidents in four districts.

Panneerselvam, AIADMK coordinator, and Co-coordinator Palanisamy announced the expulsion of 123 office-bearers of the party's units in Tiruchirappalli, Erode, Vellore and Ramanathapuram for bringing 'disrepute' to the organisation.

Also read: AIADMK spring cleans, expels 150 more office bearers across Tamil Nadu

The Tiruchirappalli Rural unit topped the list with 106 office-bearers being shown the door by the two leaders.

The others were from Vellore West, Erode Rural and Ramanathapuram districts.

Also read: AIADMK expels 117 office bearers for going against party principles

In a joint statement, Panneerselvam and Palanisamy said these persons were being expelled from AIADMK for "acting in contravention to the party's policies and ideals," and for "bringing disrepute" to it.

They were being expelled from all their present posts, besides from the party's primary membership, the two leaders said.

They asked party workers to not to have any truck with expelled members.

Also read: AIADMK expels over 144 office-bearers

Palanisamy and Panneerselvam, who merged the factions led by them in August 2017, had last month warned of action against those who go against the party line, following its loss in the December 21 RK Nagar assembly bypoll which was won by sidelined party leader TTV Dhinakaran.

They had earlier too expelled a number of functionaries, while stripping some of the key aides of Dhinakaran of party posts.

The party had on Tuesday removed its Coimbatore Lok Sabha MP AP Nagarajan from a key party post, while expelling more than 150 office bearers there and in Kancheepuram district.Chennai: Under pressure to save withering crops in the Cauvery Delta region, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami will soon lead a delegation to his Karnataka counterpart Siddaramaiah to demand release of the states remaining share of 81 tmcft of water out of the stipulated 192 tmcft every year.

At a cabinet meeting, Palaniswami announced that he would lead a high-powered delegation consisting of ministers from the Cauvery Delta region, which depends on water released by Karnataka for irrigation, to Siddaramaiah to place Tamil Nadus demands before him personally.

The meeting decided to send the delegation to save the samba crops in the Delta region by requesting Karnataka Government to release water from Cauvery. A formal letter seeking appointment of the Chief Minister of Karnataka has been sent to the states chief secretary and the CMs principal secretary. A request in this regard has also been made through a telephone call, an official statement said.

The decision was taken at the meeting chaired by Palaniswami and attended by deputy chief minister O. Panneerselvam, Forest Minister Dindigul C. Srinivasan, School Education Minister K.A. Sengottaiyan, Electricity Minister P. Thangamani and Local Administration Minister S.P. Velumani and Chief Secretary Girija Vaidyanathan.

Sources said the Chief Minister and his cabinet colleagues were briefed about the distress situation in the Cauvery delta region, where farmers are already up in arms demanding water from Karnataka to save withering crops. Farmers in the entire Delta region depend only on Cauvery water for cultivating and harvesting crops.

The decision by the Tamil Nadu Government came a day after farmers and political parties staged a rail roko in Tiruchy and Thanjavur among other towns in the region demanding the release of Cauvery water.

The sources said the delegation will consist of Food Minister R. Kamaraj, Handlooms Minister O.S. Manian and Agriculture Minister R. Duraikannu among others.

They also said the Tamil Nadu delegation will demand the release of remaining 81 tmcft of water. Palaniswami had on January 10 told the Tamil Nadu Assembly that the Karnataka government has only released 111 tmcft of water from the Cauvery River to Tamil Nadu against the stipulated 192 tmcft every year.

Karnataka has to release 192 tmcft (thousand million cubic feet) of water to Tamil Nadu every year (May-April) according to the Cauvery Tribunal award in 2007. Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry share Cauvery water.an earthquake of 6.1 magnitude shook the Afghan capital, Kabul, at around 12:40 pm on Wednesday. There were no reports of damage or casualties. (Photo: File | PTI)

New Delhi: Tremors were felt in the Delhi and NCR (National Capital Region), Srinagar and Punjab after an earthquake of 6.1 magnitude shook the Afghan capital, Kabul, at around 12:36 pm on Wednesday.

In Srinagar, people rushed out of building and offices after the tremors were felt.

According to reports people, in Chandigarh felt tremors which lasted for a few seconds.

Tremors were also felt in parts of Himachal Pradesh.

According to reports, Delhi metro services were halted briefly after the earthquake tremors were felt.

According to the EMSC (European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre), an earthquake of magnitude 6.1 occurred in Afghanistan's Hindu Kush region.

According to news agency PTI, tremors have been felt in Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar in Pakistan.

The earthquake reportedly originated 35 kilometres south of Jarm in Afghanistan, close to the Tajikistan border.

According to Pak media, at least one person died and several others were injured in Balochistan's Lasbela.

According to news agency AFP, in Pakistan's Balochistan region, an infant was reported dead after a roof collapse due to the earthquake.

The roof collapse also left nine other family members injured.

The epicentre of the earthquake was near Jarm in Afghanistan, which was the site of a devastating earthquake in October 2015.

In 2015, the earthquake had triggered landslides and flattened buildings and killed more than 380 people across the region, according to AFP.

Further details are awaited.This blue moon which is also a superman will be 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter.

Chennai: In a rare celestial treat, sky gazers can witness a triple treat  a blue moon, a supermoon and a total lunar eclipse all rolled into one on Wednesday evening.

The blood moon or lunar eclipse occurs because the Earth is passing between the Moon and the Sun in a straight line. The moon will come in the Earths shadow, giving the moon a reddish colour due to the light bending around the Earths atmosphere.

The second full moon of the month is called the blue moon. Since the moon is coming closer to the Earth, it is also called super moon and this is a rare event, said P.Iyamperumal, executive director, Tamil Nadu Science and Technology centre.

The eclipse will be visible throughout India, most of North America, eastern Asia, Australia and the Pacific Ocean. The blue moon and lunar eclipse last occurred on March 31, 1866. The next event will occur on December 31, 2028.

The lunar eclipse will occur from 5.18 pm to 8.41 pm. In Tamil Nadu, the moon rising time is 6.04 pm and from that time we can witness this celestial event, he said.

The moon which will pass the Earth at the distance of 3,64,507 km will appear 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than the normal full moon.

Lunar eclipses can be viewed without telescopes, from an open space. The Tamil Nadu Science and Technology Centre has made arrangements for public viewing at Birla Planetarium in Gandhi Mandapam Road in Kotturpuram.

Tamil Nadu Science Forum has arranged for the public viewing at over 100 places all over the state including schools and colleges.

We have made arrangements for the public and enthusiasts to view the lunar eclipse at Thiruvanmiyur beach in Chennai from 6 pm to 9 pm. Scientists and academicians will explain to the public about the celestial event with telescopes and binoculars, said Udhayan, state secretary, Tamil Nadu Science Forum.

Another total eclipse of the Moon can be seen from India on the night of 27th July 2018 to early hours of 28th July 2018.

What is a blue moon?

The second full moon of the month is called the blue moon. The term once in a Blue Moon means that something is rare. Blue Moons happen once every two or three years. In 2018, there are two Full Moons in both January and March. Double Blue Moons happen only about 3 to 5 times in a century. The next year that has two months with two Full Moons each will be 2037.Security forces stand next to a crater created by a massive explosion, that killed over 150 according to the Afghan president, in front of the German Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Photo: File/AP)

The latest wave of terror attacks in Kabul that has claimed dozens of civilian lives marks the bloodiest phase of the so far 16-year war with the insurgents getting more audacious. The escalation in fighting raises questions about Americas new Afghan strategy. Not that the Afghan capital has not witnessed such high-profile terrorist attacks before, but the ferocity and the frequency of assaults is alarming.

Three attacks in a week in high-security zones indicate the increasing capacity and the organisation of the insurgents despite massive escalation in the US air strikes. While the Afghan Taliban claimed responsibility for two of the first two attacks, the militant Islamic State group reportedly carried out the third one. The insurgents have taken the war into the nations capital. The rising toll of civilian casualties is disturbing.

It signals a shift in insurgent strategy  from gaining territorial control to focusing more on the capital to test the mettle of the Afghan security forces. It seems that the Afghan Taliban and ISIS are competing when it comes to carnage in the besieged capital and other towns and cities in Afghanistan.

The Afghan National Army has improved its performance greatly over time, but it is still not capable of dealing with such organised terrorist attacks on its own.

While the Taliban control vast swathes of territory, the increasing presence of ISIS in Afghanistan is extremely worrisome. The terrorist group that is fighting both Kabul and the Taliban has been responsible for several high-profile attacks in the capital over the last few months. The terrorist group has made some inroads in eastern and northern Afghanistan. The rise of IS has brought greater devastation and caused a spike in the number of civilian casualties.

The latest surge in militant attacks has come as the relentless US air strikes have forced the Taliban to retreat from some of their strongholds in western Afghanistan. But the US military offensive has failed to contain the insurgency that has now spread to vast areas.

Predictably, the violence has evoked a strong reaction from Washington. There are clear indications that the Trump administration will intensify military action in Afghanistan. Addressing the UN Security Council members in the aftermath of the Kabul attacks, President Trump vowed to take the battle to the finish.

Notwithstanding Mr Trumps tough tenor, such promises have also been made by previous US administrations in the past decade.

Mr Trump has ruled out negotiations with the Taliban, at least for now. So the US administration is still pursuing an elusive military victory that it has failed to achieve in the past 16 years with more than 150,000 troops on the ground.

Not surprisingly, the surge in militant violence inside Afghanistan has increased pressure on Islamabad. Both Kabul and Washington have once again accused Pakistan of providing safe havens to militants. They have also blamed Pakistani security agencies for facilitating those responsible for the carnage. More alarming is the growing Afghan-Indian nexus demanding tougher US action against Pakistan.

There are clear indications that the Trump administration is getting ready to tighten the screws on Pakistan further and intensify air strikes on alleged Taliban sanctuaries inside this countrys tribal region. The recent attack on reportedly an Afghan refugee camp in Kurram Agency that has allegedly been used as a sanctuary for the Haqqani network is ominous. There is also a strong possibility of the US slapping economic and military sanctions on Pakistan and using its influence to persuade multilateral financial institutions to squeeze assistance.

Washington has already suspended military assistance to Pakistan. There could also be a move to get the country declared as a terrorist haven. Surely such radical moves cannot succeed. Still, they would put greater diplomatic pressure on Islamabad to crack down on suspected militant sanctuaries and take action against the Taliban leadership allegedly operating from Pakistan.

It certainly presents a very serious challenge to the Pakistani leadership. That raises questions about Pakistans options and how its political and military leadership can deal with this serious situation. The prevailing political instability and absence of a chain of command has complicated our predicament.

It may be true that Pakistan is being used as a scapegoat for Americas failure to wind up the war. Yet the allegations of some Afghan insurgent groups taking sanctuary in Pakistans border areas cannot be refuted. The fact that so many proscribed militant groups are operating with such impunity has weakened Pakistans case and made it extremely vulnerable to growing international pressure. Pakistan cannot hide behind a sense of victimhood.

It is not just about US pressure. It is imperative for Pakistan to clean up its home in its own national security interest. The surge in militant violence and growing instability in Afghanistan threaten its security too. Indeed, Americas continuing reliance on the military solution and an ineffective, fragmented administration in Kabul has been the major cause of the deepening Afghan crisis. Yet it is in Pakistans own interest that it continue to cooperate with Afghanistan and the international community to contain violence in the strife-torn country.

By arrangement with DawnIn a Shopian village in specially-disturbed southern Kashmir, the Army fired back on Saturday when a small unit of soldiers driving by was attacked by a stone-pelting mob. Two young men were killed. The local police named the major in charge of the unit in the FIR it registered, although the Army denies the officer was present. A magisterial inquiry has been ordered.

When social and political conditions are as disturbed as they are in Kashmir for the past two years, the outcome of such an inquiry is likely to be contested. However, going by news reports, neither side disputes that the Army fired after the stone-pelting, in which some soldiers were badly injured, commenced.

This alone is sufficient to justify the Armys action, specially when the AFSPA is in force. It may have been justifiable even in the absence of the special powers, though evidence would then be needed that the force did not behave in a trigger-happy manner.

It should also be considered that the Army has punished its soldiers as well as officers in several cases in Kashmir of late, though not in all, in spite of AFSPA. This signals that the security forces have tended to be responsible on the whole  even when civilians have stood in their way to shield terrorists during anti-terrorist operations.

In the latter half of 2016, when pellet injuries caused serious injuries to civilians, blinding dozens, when the Army confronted violent stone-pelting mobs stage-managed by agents provocateur, a large number of soldiers sustained serious injuries.

The day after the Shopian firing, the extremists, separatists and Pakistan-backed agents, operating these days under the rubric of Joint Resistance Leadership, gave a call to shut down the Valley. This enjoyed considerable success. This suggests that the mood of political confrontation remains strong from the side of the separatists, fuelled by Pakistani machinations.

The bandh call was the first one of the new year, and may be seen as a barometer for the rest of the year. It is quite clear that the security situation is likely to remain fragile. This is only to be expected when the Centre has taken no credible step over the last four years to revive a congenial political atmosphere in spite of repeated calls to do so even by the Army.

In the state Assembly, chief minister Mehbooba Mufti strongly defended the action of the police to name the Army major in charge of the unit that fired on the stone-throwers, eliciting a sharp response from her coalition partner, the BJP. She has courted hostility from the populace by aligning with the BJP and may see in her present move a chance to politically rehabilitate herself. What Kashmir desperately needs, however, at this point is political cooling.Move aimed at helping BJP win polls

Pankaj Sharma

After Prime Minister Narendra Modis pitched for holding simultaneous elections to Parliament and the state Assemblies, President Ram Nath Kovind is now calling for it too. Mr Modi has been preparing a plan for the merger of elections for a long time and the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS)-backed think tanks have been working overtime to create an atmosphere so that the PM gets support on this.

Mr Modi calls it electoral cycle reforms which he argues will limit the amount of time and money spent in electioneering. He wants politicians to have more time for people-oriented programme rather than wasting most of their time on elections. But the real intention behind it is to consolidate the position of the BJP across the nation.

At an all-party meet two years back, Mr Modi spoke about merging forthcoming elections. The proposal was then raised again at a meeting of the BJPs national executive. This was a plan in motion even before the last general election. The BJPs manifesto for the 2014 election had underlined: Evolve method of holding Assembly and Lok Sabha Elections simultaneously.

Then, in December 2015 the Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law, and Justice tabled a report in Parliament on the Feasibility of Holding Simultaneous Elections to the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies. The report said, This is important for India if it is to compete with other nations in developmental agenda on real time basis as a robust, democratic country.

Mr Modis proposal is motivated more by political considerations than the reasons he wants us to believe. It is no secret that when simultaneous elections are held, voters tend to vote for the same party. An analysis of Election Commission data from 1999 onward shows that there is a 77 per cent chance that the Indian voter would vote for the same party at the state and Centre if elections were held simultaneously.

Constitutional provisions are very clear on the matter. Article 83(2) provides for a term of five years for the Lok Sabha, from the date of its first sitting, unless dissolved earlier. Similar provisions under Article 172 (1) provide for a five-year tenure for state Legislative Assemblies from the date of its first sitting. The mandatory term has to be completed first. It is the prerogative of the Assembly to decide when to call an election.

The President has the power to extend the period of Assemblies by up to one year to bring about uniformity in holding the elections at the same time. Itll be interesting to see that how far our new President would like to stretch his powers to fulfill the desire of a particular political party as it is bound to raise many questions.

Moreover, to conduct elections across the country on the same day, about 4,000 companies of paramilitary forces will be required. The country is able to make available only around 1,000 at the moment. Purchasing Electronic Voting Machines and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail machines would cost around Rs 10,000 crores if elections are to be held together. State and national elections are often fought on different sets of issues. In simultaneous polls, voters may end up privileging one set of issues over the other. National issues could be ignored or local issues could be swept away by a national wave. The proposal is entirely against the basic principles of a federal system.

The writer is an office-bearer of the Congress Party

It will save money, time and energy

Virender Sachdeva

Every year one state or the other state is geared up for an election. The tiring process of campaigning and the cost incurred in the midst of all this is an ideal example on why this country needs the policy of One nation, one election. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has always been calling for holding state and national elections together to reduce the expenses that go into holding these, as also the chaos associated with it. The BJP has always promoted work culture, and proven itself through its work, not fake promises and schemes. Issues like expenditure; diversion of security and civil staff from primary duties; impact on governance due to the model code of conduct and disruption to normal public life stand among the key reasons as to why India needs this policy.

We talk about India being the worlds biggest democracy, and the Opposition is asking how one election could justify the right to vote of nearly 850 million people. We do not want to create any ruckus or hindrance in the peoples right or choices, but if simultaneous elections are held we can save about Rs 2,000 crores from each state election and around Rs 30,000 crores in Lok Sabha elections. This amount can then be used for the development of the country. The decision will be taken on the basis of consensus amid all political parties; we will invite all political parties to participate in the discussion on this issue.

Not only Mr Modi but former President Pranab Mukherjee too had expressed concern over frequent elections. He also spoke of massive expenditure, diversion of officials from their primary duties, and disruption of the administrative cycle, which further burden human and economic resources.

There is no denying that this could also affect a partys fortunes, as a common election would affect the votebank. Weve witnessed parties working only when the elections are round the corner; if simultaneous elections are held all the parties would be forced to work for development at all times, and not just before elections, which in turn would take our country further on the path of progress. Those who wish to see the country rising shouldnt see a policy like this through the narrow prism of politics.

Simultaneous elections is not something new; this was the practice before 1967 as well but was discontinued due to the premature dissolution of Assemblies. The Niti Aayog has also listed the benefits of holding simultaneous elections in its discussion paper. A combined election procedure would give the policymakers enough time to concentrate on policymaking. I feel such a practice would also reduce casteism, communalism and corruption.

If elections are held simultaneously, the odds of gaining or losing prevails just once. The rest of their term, a politician can work for the job he/she been elected to.

Further, India wont be the only country to hold simultaneous elections as and when that happens; countries like the United States, South Africa and Sweden also hold national and provincial elections simultaneously. The issue should not be negated just because Mr Modi is bringing it to the platform, the issue should be considered for its innate merits.

There have been suggestions coming from various political parties. For such a drastic step, we must rise above party politics. All politicians must leave their egos aside and support this issue for the national cause.

The writer is a member of the BJP national good governance department.At the cost of being misunderstood by some fellow countrymen who may prefer to pursue a soft line on China, seeking unrestricted imports and investments from that country, preferring to facilitate Beijings entities unchecked entry and exit across the length and breadth of India, I shall question their love for China and all things Chinese. What is being done today is exactly what a tottering Shah Alam II did in the last days of the Mughal durbar by granting British the diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa (now Odisha), upgrading the status of the foreign traders to virtual rulers in almost one stroke.

How does one react to the Financial Times report Beijings censors make it tougher for global groups to scale Great Firewall (Jan. 17, 2018)? Beijing is reportedly plugging the last holes in its great firewall Internet censorship, thereby severely disrupting the ability of global multinationals to efficiently operate in, and from, China.

Does it appear surprising or unexpected? That depends on who are talking to. Undoubtedly, its all about ones self-interest at an individual level, which turns institutional at the national level. Multinationals and other big corporations are known for their strategic interest in profit, markets, consolidation and expansion, but seen from the point of view of an Westphalian sovereign state like China, can these corporations overlook a countrys legitimate national interest which could be linked to not only economics and profits, but also to an overreaching arch of internal polity, security, integrity, sovereignty, macro-economics, indigenous industry protection, employment and social stability.

From that viewpoint, China may have something drastically different to state. Yes, prima facie, China does reserve the sovereign right to determine what it considers to be in its national interest. Theres nothing wrong with that, except by the same logic, can one support China for doing the exact opposite? Understandably, then the complaint list given by several international companies operating from Beijing raises issues. Chinese telecom providers regularly block crucial software used by foreign companies in China. Although MNCs use Virtual Private Network (VPN) software to avoid censorship and save their sensitive commercial communications from being hacked, Chinese regulators are pressuring them to buy expensive state-approved VPNs. This will be disadvantageous to them as it could expose their communications to Beijing. The partner of a prominent Western legal firm in Beijing, Wilmer Hale, says: Chinas intention is to control the flow of information entirely, making people use only government-approved VPNs by making it difficult, if not impossible, to use alternatives. You may recall how state-engineered disruptions forced Google to move out of China. According to Consultancy Control Risks, Shanghai: The Xi administration has prioritised control over all information flows within China and in and out of its borders. But then, what China is doing is done by the West too.

Yet today the crux of the matter is: in and out of its (Chinas) border. India stands just across the border, a border to be recognised only if demarcated, delineated and decided by China! Hence, all information emanating from India too must be controlled, captured and censored because India is an irritant foreign country. So China takes full advantage of divided Indians, both inside and outside the establishment. There was a strong China lobby in the 1960s too  which came into existence after the 1962 Chinese invasion of India. How did those who were cursing the Chinese in 1962 for its unprovoked invasion become its ardent fans and staunch supporters within five years (like Naxalites in 1967), resorting to rabid anti-national slogans like Chinas Chairman (Mao Zedong) is our chairman?

One still remembers those turbulent college days in Kolkata (then Calcutta), being bashed up by fellow countrymen for opposing them and refusing to raise pro-Mao and rabid anti-India slogans. Indeed, China entered early in Indias psyche. In 1950s, it entered Jawaharlal Nehrus mind. In the 1960s, it entered the Bengali psyche as Hindu Bengalis were branded as regressive and targeted all over for being violent Naxalites and pro-Communist Chinese. How-ever, the same Indians in the 21st century are falling head over heels for cheap Chinese goods and the charm offensive launched by Beijing. They are now regarded progressive. China slapped India through bullets in 1962, but today it is penetrating into Indias sensitive economic sphere.

British traders in 18th century Delhi convinced the Mughal Emperor of Hindustan to grant them the opportunity to do business unencumbered by all local laws, that ultimately bled India white. Not only was indigenous industry ruined but from being a producer, India became a net consumer.

The question here is: what does China do, or is doing, with its own companies and industrial planning? Says former US treasury secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr, who knows China well: In 2006, the government of China revealed a list of sectors state-owned enterprises must dominate, including defence, electricity, oil, petrochemicals, telecommunications, coal, aviation and shipping. Beijing also wanted to maintain a strong presence in pillar industries like equipment manufacturing, automobiles, electronics, construction, steel, non-ferrous metals, chemicals, surveying and scientific research. Will any Indian company be able to get into China the way Chinese companies are penetrating into our sensitive sectors? Do we realise that if China can do what it wants to do to foreign companies in Beijing, by disrupting their communications system, what awaits India in its own backyard where telecommunications systems are virtually going into Chinese hand? Its not just surprising, but in fact shocking, how, ever since 1947, Indians have been mesmerised, first by Mao and Marx, and now by money, with the possibility of handing over its critical, sensitive sectors to the Chinese, who are not known for their ethics in any terrain. Computers, servers, towers, transmission, distribution and consumption  all of it will soon be known to the Chinese, if it is not already! Thus, with firm control of internal India, one shudders to think what awaits the fate of external India, particularly the soldiers and sentries at border? Do they say Good morning, Sir, how are you? to the Chinese? Or do they keep the powder dry for action, should the need arise?Since Microsofts Hololens AR headset rolled for the world to use a few years ago, augmented reality has gone viral with both the manufacturers and the consumers. AR is predicted to be the next big thing and is expected to revolutionise the way we use computers. However, predicting the future is one thing and working towards it to increase its accessibility requires pretty considerable efforts, especially when you consider the immense costs required to make it reach the common man in various fields. However, India is known for making affordable alternatives to expensive solutions and one startup from IIT Bombay has come up with an AR headset to promote this next generation of computing.

Indian startup Dimension NXG has come up with AjnaLens, which is claimed to be Indias first home-grown AR headset. The headset is currently under development but has already achieved lots of accolades, one of which is the Graham Bell innovation Award. It will be some time before AjnaLens makes it to the hands of users, but the company claims that it will help improving certain sectors such as automobile, aerospace, manufacturing, healthcare, architecture and many more. They already got few pre-orders from India & USA.

The AjnaLens basically displays holograms on the display, thus integrating AR objects with reality. Users will able to see virtual objects in 3D and interact with them in intuitive ways. AjnaLens will allow the user to interact with the AR objects using hand gestures, voice commands and gaze controls (which is next-gen cursor control technology). For example, users will able to interact with virtual furniture and adjust their size by pinching on the edges to adjust it to desired levels. With gaze controls, all you would need to navigate inside the interface is simply look at various UI elements.

On the hardware front, AjnaLens will come with the ability to see the world, i.e. it will scan the world in real-time using depth-sense technologies. The headset will be able to create a 3D map of the environment and measure AR elements accordingly to deliver the most realistic experience.

On top of that, the software will take into account the presence of Artificial Intelligence and will work to improve the experience over time. The team working on the graphics of the AR headset is ensuring that AR objects will not merely remain cartoon figures in the real world  all the AR objects will blend with the environment by using ambient light shades on them. The team will be working on the VFX to make it look more real, i.e. an AR car will have shadows on the other side when being viewed directly under the sunlight. The team is also working on realistic shaders to ensure the headset tries its best to blur the lines between all the realities.

Given the aims that AjnaLens is expected to achieve; we expect the headset to use some really potent hardware underneath. In the coming days, it will be challenging for the company to commercialise the product in a country obsessed with efficient economics, considering the advanced technology that has gone under its hood.

Therefore, it wont be long before you will be having your personal JARVIS assistant at your disposal, telling you more about your surroundings than what your eyes can see. The future of technology is surely going to be exciting.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.The effected devices include models of ThinkPad L560 and P40 Yoga and many more.

Lenovo has acknowledged that its Fingerprint Manager Pro can be hacked and the company is looking into it. This vulnerability has been identified by the company for its Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 and not Windows 10. This breach allows hackers to access the sensitive data of the users, including Windows login credentials and passwords.

The company says Fingerprint Manager Pro is a utility for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 that allows users to log into their PCs or authenticate to configured websites using fingerprint recognition. This sensitive data on these PCs is currently using a weak algorithm, which contains a hard-coded password and is vulnerable to hackers.

The effected devices include models of ThinkPad L560, P40 Yoga, P50s,T440, T440p, T440s, T450, T450s, T460, T540p, T550, T560, W540, W541, W550s, X1 Carbon (Type 20A7, 20A8), X1 Carbon (Type 20BS, 20BT), X240, X240s, X250, X260, Yoga 14 (20FY), Yoga 460, M73, M73z, M78, M79, M83, M93, M93p, M93z,E32, P300, P500, P700, P900.

The company is providing a patch for now and users need to know that the patch is only required on Windows versions prior to Windows 10.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.US PresidentDonald Trump delivers his maiden State of The Union address, an annual message presented by the US President to a joint session of the Congress. (Photo: AP)

Washington: US President Donald Trump on Tuesday delivered his maiden State of The Union address, an annual message presented by the US president to a joint session of the Congress.

The State of The Union was recently mired in controversy as tickets to the prime-time speech were printed inviting lawmakers and guests to the State of the "Uniom". Although Donald Trump has been a presidential trailblazer on the spelling front, this goof-up had left his officials red-faced.

Also Read: What Trump said at the State of the Union Speech: Full Text

Here are the highlights from Trump's State of The Union speech:

Donald Trump on North Korea's "cruel dictatorship"

"No regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally or brutally than the cruel dictatorship in North Korea. North Korea's reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland," Trump said.

"Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation. I will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got us into this very dangerous position," he added.

Trump on Iran and US' nuclear deal with Iran

"When the people of Iran rose up against the crimes of their corrupt dictatorship, I did not stay silent. America stands with the people of Iran in their courageous struggle for freedom," Trump said.

"I am asking the Congress to address the fundamental flaws in the terrible Iran nuclear deal. My administration has also imposed tough sanctions on the communist and socialist dictatorships in Cuba and Venezuela," the US president added.

"I am asking the Congress to pass legislation to help ensure American foreign-assistance dollars always serve American interests, and only go to friends of America, not enemies of America," Trump said.

Trump on Jerusalem as Israel's capital

"Last month, I also took an action endorsed unanimously by the US Senate just months before I recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel," the US president said.

US President Donald Trump on Afghanistan

"Our warriors in Afghanistan also have new rules of engagement. Along with their heroic Afghan partners, our military is no longer undermined by artificial timelines, and we no longer tell our enemies our plans," Trump said.

Without naming the recent Kabul ambulance attack, Trump said, "Terrorists who do things like placing bombs in civilian hospitals are evil. When possible, we have no choice but to annihilate them."

On keeping Guantanamo Bay open, Trump said, "Today, I am keeping another promise. I just signed an order directing Secretary Mattis to re-examine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay"

US President Donald Trump on ISIS

"I also pledged that we would work with our allies to extinguish ISIS from the face of the Earth. 1 year later, I am proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated very close to 10 per cent of the territory just recently held by these killers in Iraq and Syria"

"Perhaps someday in the future there will be a magical moment when the countries of the world will get together to eliminate their nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, we are not there yet, sadly," said the US president

US President Donald Trump on Russia and China

"These four pillars represent a down-the-middle compromise, and one that will create a safe, modern, and lawful immigration system," Trump said

"In recent weeks, two terrorist attacks in New York were made possible by the visa lottery and chain migration. In the age of terrorism, these programs present risks we can just no longer afford," Trump added

On chain migration, Trump said, "The fourth and final pillar protects the nuclear family by ending chain migration. Under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives," said Trump, adding, "We will now restrict that to the spouse and minor children only"

"The third pillar ends the visa lottery, a program that randomly hands out green cards without any regard for skill, merit, or the safety of American people," said the US president

"The second pillar fully secures the border. That means building a great wall on the Southern border," said Trump. He added that, "Our plan closes the terrible loopholes exploited by criminals and terrorists to enter our country, and it finally ends the horrible and dangerous practice of 'catch and release"

US President Donald Trump on citizenship and immigration

"The first pillar of our framework generously offers a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants who were brought here by their parents at a young age. That covers almost 3 times more people than the previous administration," Trump said. He further added, "Under our plan, those who meet education and work requirements, and show good moral character, will be able to become full citizens of the United States over a 12-year period."Sunaynas husband Srinivas Kuchibhotla was shot dead while his colleague, also an Indian, sustained bullet injuries after an American navy veteran opened fire in a crowded suburban bar in Olathe city in February 2017. (Photo: Facebook/Sunayana Dumala)

Washington: Sunayana Dumala, the widow of an Indian engineer who was shot dead in a hate crime shooting in the US 2017, Tuesday attended President Donald Trump's first State of the Union Address.

Sunayana, 32, was invited as a guest by Congressman Kevin Yoder to attend the event.

Her husband Srinivas Kuchibhotla was shot dead while his colleague, also an Indian, sustained bullet injuries after an American navy veteran opened fire in a crowded suburban bar in Olathe city in February 2017.

The shooter, thought they were Middle Easterners and was heard telling them to "get out of my country" at the time of the shooting.

Earlier in the day, Sunayana, met a number of Congressional leaders including House Speaker Paul Ryan.

The speaker said he knows Sunayana's story and remembers her.

Sunayana Dumala just met Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. A brief moment but powerful.... pic.twitter.com/26LClC1cw8  Christa Dubill (@christadubill) January 30, 2018

Yoder said that he had asked Sunayana to be his guest as a recognition for her tireless efforts to promote peace, and as a message to the Indian community that the US is a nation of immigrants and they are welcome here.

"Each year, I have the privilege of inviting one guest to attend the president's State of the Union address. This year, I invited Sunayana Dumala, widow of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, the Indian immigrant who was tragically killed in the hate crime shooting last year at in Olathe," Yoder had said.

The Indian-American community welcomed the move.

Brijpal Singh, the chairman of the India Association of Kansas City, said this step will not only assure the Indian community but also send a strong message about the unstinted support from the elected representatives and administration towards the Indian community.

Sunayana Dumala has her ticket for the State of the Union. Says she hopes to hear a message of unity and positivity (she says her husband was the epitome of positivity). pic.twitter.com/N6lyShyKcb  Christa Dubill (@christadubill) January 30, 2018

"This further strengthens our belief and confidence in the American system and its Constitution where everyone is respected, loved and is welcome," Singh said in a letter to Yoder.

The State of the Union Address is a traditional annual speech of the US president to a joint session of the Congress where he gives an account of the situation in the country.Daniels who has rediscovered fame with sold out shows at strip clubs and multiple appearances on Television shows and awards, including Jimmy Kimmel Live! denied the affair amid reports of first lady Melania Trump being upset about the news. (Photo: Facebook/ @stormydanielshd)

Washington: Hours before Donald Trumps State of the Union speech on Tuesday, porn star Stormy Daniels issued a statement rubbishing rumours about an affair with the US President.

The signed statement, later confirmed as authentic by Daniels representative Gina Rodriguez, is addressed to "To Whom It May Concern" and denies charges of the alleged affair, the Washington Post reported.

"The fact of the matter is that each party to this alleged affair denied its existence in 2006, 2011, 2016, 2017 and now again in 2018," the signed statement reads. "I am not denying this affair because I was paid 'hush money' as has been reported in overseas owned tabloids. I am denying it because it never happened."

News of the affair started making rounds in January when Wall Street Journal reported a secret negotiation worth USD 130, 000 made by Trumps long-time attorney Michael Cohen, allegedly in an attempt to buy Daniels silence ahead of 2016 presidential elections.

Cohen later released a statement signed by Stormy Daniels denying reports of the affair and the payment, calling them completely false.

The White House dismissed the story as "old, recycled reports."

Also Read: Hate crime victim Indian techies widow attends Trumps State of Union speech

The celebrity magazine In Touch subsequently published a transcript of an interview it said Daniels gave in 2011. The reporter, Jordi Lippe-McGraw, who spoke with Daniels according to In Touch, confirmed that the transcript was an accurate reflection of their May 2011 phone interview, The Washington Post said.

Daniels who has rediscovered fame with sold out shows at strip clubs and multiple appearances on Television shows and awards, including Jimmy Kimmel Live! denied the affair amid reports of first lady Melania Trump being upset about the news.

Melania, who cancelled plans to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland with the President was present at the State of the Union address on Tuesday night.Trump has exchanged insults and threats with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and officials say he and his advisers have discussed a preventative strike against North Korea. (Photo: AP)

Washington: Branding North Koreas leadership depraved, President Donald Trump told Americans on Tuesday that Pyongyangs pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland and vowed a continued campaign to prevent that.

In his first State of the Union speech to the US Congress, Trumps tough rhetoric underscored persistent tensions despite recent talks between North and South Korea that led to Pyongyangs agreement to participate in Frebruarys Winter Olympic games hosted by the South.

North Koreas reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland, Trump said. We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from ever happening. We need only look at the depraved character of the North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose to America and to our allies, he said.

Trump offered no new prescription or specifics on how he intended to rein in North Korea. Hours before the speech, news broke that Victor Cha, who had expressed concerns about the possibility of a limited US bloody nose strike on North Korea, was not longer being considered as the next US ambassador to South Korea.

Also Read: State of Union: Americans are dreamers too, Trump on immigration woes

While Trumps administration says it prefers a diplomatic solution to the crisis over North Koreas development of weapons capable of hitting the United States, it says all options are on the table, including military ones.

Trump has exchanged insults and threats with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and officials say he and his advisers have discussed a preventative strike against North Korea, alarming experts who warn that this could trigger catastrophic retaliation, especially on South Korea.

Attending the State of the Union address as Trumps guests were the parents of Otto Warmbier, an American college student who died in June shortly after he was released from North Korea in a coma. Tonight, we pledge to honour Ottos memory with total American resolve, Trump said, as the tearful parents looked on.

Another in the audience was North Korean defector Ji Seong-ho, who also shed tears as Trump described his escape from North Korea, where he had been run over by a train while trying to steal coal to barter for food.

Trump called Ji, who suffered torture and starvation and lost a hand and a foot, a witness to the ominous nature of North Koreas government. Ji now heads a group that rescues and resettles North Korean refugees.

Also Read: Pornstar Stormy Daniels denies affair with Prez hours before Trump's State speech

Ambassador dropped

Earlier on Tuesday, US officials said that Cha, a former White House official who for months had been in line to be the next US ambassador to South Korea, was no longer being considered for the job. The Washington Post quoted people familiar with the matter as saying Cha, a Korean-American, had raised concerns with White House officials about the consequences of a bloody nose strike and the administrations threats to tear up a trade deal with South Korea, a US treaty ally.

In an article in the Washington Post on Tuesday, Cha said a preventative military strike was not the way to deal with the crisis as it carried a huge risk of escalating into a war that could kill hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Force will be necessary to deal with North Korea if it attacks first, but not through a preventative strike that could start a nuclear war, Cha wrote.

US officials have said the debate on military action has lost some momentum as a result of the North-South talks.

The vice chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Tuesday that North Koreas nuclear program had made strides in recent months but had not yet demonstrated all the components of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), including a survivable re-entry vehicle that can deliver a nuclear weapon.

Air Force General Paul Selva also said he was confident that if required the United States would be able to destroy most of North Koreas nuclear missile infrastructure.

North Korea tested a new ICBM last November which it said could reach all of the United States. US-based experts said data from the test appeared to support that.

Trump refrained in his speech from referring to Kim as Rocket Man, a disparaging nickname he has used before. But he said no regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally or brutally than the cruel dictatorship in North Korea.

Trump had recently held back on harsher language after having threatened in 2017 to unleash fire and fury on North Korea, which has threatened to target US Pacific territory of Guam.

Despite the recent North-South diplomacy, Kim has shown no sign of willingness to give in to US demands and negotiate away a weapons program he sees as vital to his survival.Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people. This is really the key, Trump said. (Photo: AP)

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, first lady of the United States, and my fellow Americans, less than one year has passed since I first stood at this podium in this majestic chamber to speak on behalf of the American people and to address their concerns, their hopes and their dreams. That night, our new Administration had already taken very swift action. A new tide of optimism was already sweeping across our land.

Each day since, we have gone forward with a clear vision and a righteous mission: to make America great again for all Americans.

Over the last year, we have made incredible progress and achieved extraordinary success. We have faced challenges we expected and others we could never have imagined. We have shared in the heights of victory and the pains of hardship. We have endured floods and fires and storms. But through it all, we have seen the beauty of America's soul and the steel in America's spine.

Each test has forged new American heroes to remind us who we are and show us what we can be. We saw the volunteers of the Cajun Navy, racing to the rescue with their fishing boats to save people in the aftermath of a totally devastating hurricane.

We saw strangers shielding strangers from a hail of gunfire on the Las Vegas strip. We heard tales of Americans, like Coast Guard Petty Officer Ashlee Leppert, who is here tonight in the gallery with Melania.

Ashlee was aboard one of the first helicopters on the scene in Houston during the Hurricane Harvey. Through 18 hours of wind and rain, Ashlee braved live power lines and deep water to help save more than 40 lives. Ashlee, we all thank you. Thank you very much.

We heard about Americans like firefighter David Dahlberg. He's here with us, also. David faced down walls of flame to rescue almost 60 children trapped at a California summer camp threatened by those devastating wildfires. To everyone still recovering in Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, everywhere, we are with you, we love you, and we always will pull through together always.

Thank you to David and the brave people of California. Thank you very much, David. Great job.

Some trials over the past year touched this chamber very personally. With us tonight is one of the toughest people ever to serve in this House, a guy who took a bullet, almost died, and was back to work three-and-a-half months later, the legend from Louisiana, Congressman Steve Scalise.

I think they like you, Steve.

We're incredibly grateful for the heroic efforts of the Capitol Police officers, the Alexandria Police, and the doctors, nurses, and paramedics who saved his life and the lives of many others, some in this room. In the aftermath - yes. Yes.

In the aftermath of that terrible shooting, we came together, not as Republicans or Democrats, but as representatives of the people. But it is not enough to come together only in times of tragedy. Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people. This is really the key. These are the people we were elected to serve.

Thank you.

Over the last year, the world has seen what we always knew: that no people on Earth are so fearless, or daring, or determined as Americans. If there is a mountain, we climb it. If there's a frontier, we cross it. If there's a challenge, we tame it. If there's an opportunity, we seize it.

So let's begin tonight by recognizing that the state of our union is strong because our people are strong.

And together we are building a safe, strong, and proud America.

Since the election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs, including ... including 200,000 new jobs in manufacturing alone. Tremendous number. After years and years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages. Unemployment claims have hit a 45-year low. And something I'm very proud of, African-American unemployment stands at the lowest rate ever recorded. And Hispanic-American unemployment has also reached the lowest levels in history.

Small-business confidence is at an all-time high. The stock market has smashed one record after another, gaining USD 8 trillion and more in value in just this short period of time. The great news ... the great news for Americans, 401K, retirement, pension, and college savings accounts have gone through the roof.

And just as I promised the American people from this podium 11 months ago, we enacted the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history. Our massive tax cuts provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small business. To lower tax rates for hardworking Americans, we nearly doubled the standard deduction for everyone. Now the first USD 24,000 earned by a married couple is completely tax-free. We also doubled the child tax credit. A typical family of four making USD 75,000 will see their tax bill reduced by USD 2,000, slashing their tax bill in half.

In April, this will be the last time you will ever file under the old and very broken system, and millions of Americans will have more take-home pay starting next month. A lot more.

We eliminated an especially cruel tax that fell mostly on Americans making less than USD 50,000 a year, forcing them to pay tremendous penalties simply because they couldn't afford government-ordered health plans. We repealed the core of the disastrous Obamacare. The individual mandate is now gone.

We slashed the business tax rate from 35 percent all the way down to 21 percent, so American companies can compete and win against anyone else anywhere in the world. These changes alone are estimated to increase average family income by more than USD 4,000. A lot of money.

Small businesses have also received a massive tax cut and can now deduct 20 percent of their business income. Here tonight are Steve Staub and Sandy Keplinger of Staub Manufacturing, a small beautiful business in Ohio. They've just finished the best year in their 20-year history. Because of tax reform, they are handing out raises, hiring an additional 14 people, and expanding into the building next door. Good feeling.

One of Staub's employees, Corey Adams, is also with us tonight. Corey is an all-American worker. He supported himself through high school, lost his job during the 2008 recession, and was later hired by Staub, where he trained to become a welder. Like many hardworking Americans, Corey plans to invest his tax cut raise into his new home and his two daughters' education. Corey, please stand. And he's a great welder. I was told that by the man that owns that company that's doing so well, so congratulations, Corey.

Since we passed tax cuts, roughly 3 million workers have already gotten tax cut bonuses, many of them thousands and thousands of dollars per worker. And it's getting more every month, every week. Apple has just announced it plans to invest a total of USD 350 billion in America and hire another 20,000 workers.

And just a little while ago, ExxonMobil announced a USD 50 billion investment in the United States. Just a little while ago.

This, in fact, is our new American moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American dream.

So to every citizen watching at home tonight, no matter where you've been or where you've come from, this is your time. If you work hard, if you believe in yourself, if you believe in America, then you can dream anything, you can be anything, and together, we can achieve absolutely anything.

Tonight, I want to talk about what kind of future we are going to have and what kind of a nation we are going to be. All of us, together, as one team, one people, and one American family can do anything. We all share the same home, the same heart, the same destiny, and the same great American flag.

Together, we are rediscovering the American way. In America, we know that faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, are the center of American life. The motto is ``in God we trust.'' And we celebrate our police, our military, and our amazing veterans as heroes who deserve our total and unwavering support.

Here tonight is Preston Sharp, a 12-year-old boy from Redding, California, who noticed that veterans' graves were not marked with flags on Veterans Day. He decided all by himself to change that and started a movement that has now placed 40,000 flags at the graves of our great heroes. Preston, a job well done.

Young patriots like Preston teach all of us about our civic duty as Americans. And I met Preston a little while ago, and he is something very special, that I can tell you. Great future. Thank you very much for all you've done, Preston. Thank you very much.

Preston's reverence for those who have served our nation reminds us why we salute our flag, why we put our hands on our hearts for the Pledge of Allegiance, and why we proudly stand for the national anthem.

Americans love their country. And they deserve a government that shows them the same love and loyalty in return. For the last year, we have sought to restore the bonds of trust between our citizens and their government.

Working with the Senate, we are appointing judges who will interpret the Constitution as written, including a great new Supreme Court justice and more circuit court judges than any new administration in the history of our country.

We are totally defending our Second Amendment and have taken historic actions to protect religious liberty. And we are serving our brave veterans, including giving our veterans choice in their health care decisions.

Last year, Congress also passed, and I signed, the landmark V.A. Accountability Act. Since its passage, my administration has already removed more than 1,500 V.A. employees who failed to give our veterans the care they deserve, and we are hiring talented people who love our vets as much as we do.

And I will not stop until our veterans are properly taken care of, which has been my promise to them from the very beginning of this great journey. All Americans deserve accountability and respect, and that's what we are giving to our wonderful heroes, our veterans. Thank you.

So tonight, I call on Congress to empower every cabinet secretary with the authority to reward good workers and to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.

In our drive to make Washington accountable, we have eliminated more regulations in our first year than any administration in the history of our country. We have ended the war on American energy, and we have ended the war on beautiful clean coal. We are now very proudly an exporter of energy to the world.

In Detroit, I halted government mandates that crippled America's great, beautiful autoworkers so that we can get Motor City revving its engines again. And that's what's happening.

Many car companies are now building and expanding plants in the United States, something we haven't seen for decades. Chrysler is moving a major plant from Mexico to Michigan. Toyota and Mazda are opening up a plant in Alabama, a big one. And we haven't seen this in a long time. It's all coming back.

Very soon, auto plants and other plants will be opening up all over our country. This is all news Americans are totally unaccustomed to hearing. For many years, companies and jobs were only leaving us. But now they are roaring back, they're coming back. They want to be where the action is. They want to be in the United States of America. That's where they want to be.

Exciting progress is happening every single day. To speed access to breakthrough cures and affordable generic drugs, last year the FDA approved more new and generic drugs and medical devices than ever before in our country's history.

We also believe that patients with terminal conditions and terminal illness should have access to experimental treatment immediately that could potentially save their lives.

People who are terminally ill should not have to go from country to country to seek a cure. I want to give them a chance right here at home. It's time for Congress to give these wonderful, incredible Americans the right to try.

One of my greatest priorities is to reduce the price of prescription drugs. In many other countries, these drugs cost far less than what we pay in the United States. And it's very, very unfair. That is why I have directed my administration to make fixing the injustice of high drug prices one of my top priorities for the year. And prices will come down substantially. Watch.

America has also finally turned the page on decades of unfair trade deals that sacrificed our prosperity and shipped away our companies, our jobs, and our wealth. Our nation has lost its wealth, but we're getting it back so fast. The era of economic surrender is totally over. From now on, we expect trading relationships to be fair and, very importantly, reciprocal.

We will work to fix bad trade deals and negotiate new ones. And they'll be good ones, but they'll be fair. And we will protect American workers and American intellectual property through strong enforcement of our trade rules. As we rebuild our industries, it is also time to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure.

America is a nation of builders. We built the Empire State Building in just one year. Isn't it a disgrace that it can now take 10 years just to get a minor permit approved for the building of a simple road? I am asking both parties to come together to give us safe, fast, reliable, and modern infrastructure that our economy needs and our people deserve.

Tonight I'm calling on Congress to produce a bill that generates at least USD 1.5 trillion for the new infrastructure investment that our country so desperately needs. Every federal dollar should be leveraged by partnering with state and local governments and, where appropriate, tapping into private sector investment to permanently fix the infrastructure deficit. And we can do it.

Any bill must also streamline the permitting and approval process, getting it down to no more than two years, and perhaps even one.

Together, we can reclaim our great building heritage. We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways all across our land. And we will do it with American heart, American hands, and American grit.

We want every American to know the dignity of a hard day's work. We want every child to be safe in their home at night. And we want every citizen to be proud of this land that we all love so much. We can lift our citizens from welfare to work, from dependence to independence, and from poverty to prosperity. As ... as tax cuts create new jobs, let's invest in workforce development and let's invest in job training, which we need so badly.

Let's open great vocational schools so our future workers can learn a craft and realise their full potential. And let's support working families by supporting paid family leave.

As America regains its strength, opportunity must be extended to all citizens. That is why this year we will embark on reforming our prisons to help former inmates who have served their time get a second chance at life.

Struggling communities, especially immigrant communities, will also be helped by immigration policies that focus on the best interests of American workers and American families.

For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities. They've allowed millions of low-wage workers to compete for jobs and wages against the poorest Americans. Most tragically, they have caused the loss of many innocent lives.

Here tonight are two fathers and two mothers: Evelyn Rodriguez, Freddy Cuevas, Elizabeth Alvarado, and Robert Mickens. Their two teenage daughters -Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens - were close friends on Long Island.

But in September 2016, on the eve of Nisa's 16th birthday, such a happy time it should have been, neither of them came home. These two precious girls were brutally murdered while walking together in their hometown. Six members of the savage MS-13 gang have been charged with Kayla and Nisa's murders. Many of these gang members took advantage of glaring loopholes in our laws to enter the country as illegal unaccompanied alien minors and wound up in Kayla and Nisa's high school.

Evelyn, Elizabeth, Freddy, and Robert, tonight, everyone in this chamber is praying for you. Everyone in America is grieving for you. Please stand. Thank you very much.

I want you to know that 320 million hearts are right now breaking for you. We love you. Thank you. While we cannot imagine the depths of that kind of sorrow, we can make sure that other families never have to endure this kind of pain.

Tonight, I am calling on Congress to finally close the deadly loopholes that have allowed MS-13, and other criminal gangs, to break into our country. We have proposed new legislation that will fix our immigration laws, and support our ICE and Border Patrol agents - these are great people, these are great, great people that work so hard in the midst of such danger - so that this can never happen again.

The United States is a compassionate nation. We are proud that we do more than any other country anywhere in the world to help the needy, the struggling, and the underprivileged all over the world. But as president of the United States, my highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, my constant concern is for America's children, America's struggling workers, and America's forgotten communities. I want our youth to grow up to achieve great things. I want our poor to have their chance to rise.

So tonight, I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties - Democrats and Republicans - to protect our citizens of every background, color, religion, and creed.

My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans, to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American dream. Because Americans are dreamers, too.

Here tonight is one leader in the effort to defend our country, Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Celestino Martinez. He goes by DJ. And CJ. He said call me either one. So we'll call you CJ.

Served 15 years in the Air Force before becoming an ICE agent and spending the last 15 years fighting gang violence and getting dangerous criminals off of our streets. Tough job. At one point, MS-13 leaders ordered CJ's murder, and they wanted it to happen quickly. But he did not cave to threats or to fear. Last May, he commanded an operation to track down gang members on Long Island. His team has arrested nearly 400, including more than 220 MS-13 gang members.

And I have to tell you what the Border Patrol and ICE have done. We have sent thousands and thousands and thousands of MS-13 horrible people out of this country or into our prisons. So I just want to congratulate you, CJ. You're a brave guy. Thank you very much.

And I asked CJ, what's the secret? He said, ``We're just tougher than they are.'' And I like that answer.

Now let's get Congress to send you - and all of the people in this great chamber have to do it, we have no choice - CJ, we're going to send you reinforcements and we're going to send them to you quickly. It's what you need.

Over the next few weeks, the House and Senate will be voting on an immigration reform package. In recent months, my administration has met extensively with both Democrats and Republicans to craft a bipartisan approach to immigration reform. Based on these discussions, we presented Congress with a detailed proposal that should be supported by both parties as a fair compromise, one where nobody gets everything they want, but where our country gets the critical reforms it needs and must have.

Here are the four pillars of our plan. The first pillar of our framework generously offers a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants who were brought here by their parents at a young age. That covers almost three times more people than the previous administration covered. Under our plan, those who meet education and work requirements, and show good moral character, will be able to become full citizens of the United States over a 12-year period.

The second pillar fully secures the border. That means building a great wall on the southern border, and it means hiring more heroes like CJ to keep our communities safe. Crucially, our plan closes the terrible loopholes exploited by criminals and terrorists to enter our country, and it finally ends the horrible and dangerous practice of catch and release.

The third pillar ends the visa lottery, a program that randomly hands out green cards without any regard for skill, merit, or the safety of American people. It's time to begin moving toward a merit-based immigration system, one that admits people who are skilled, who want to work, who will contribute to our society, and who will love and respect our country.

The fourth and final pillar protects the nuclear family by ending chain migration. Under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives. Under our plan, we focus on the immediate family by limiting sponsorships to spouses and minor children.

This vital reform is necessary, not just for our economy, but for our security and for the future of America. In recent weeks, two terrorist attacks in New York were made possible by the visa lottery and chain migration. In the age of terrorism, these programs present risks we can just no longer afford. It's time to reform ... these outdated immigration rules and finally bring our immigration system into the 21st century.

These four pillars represent a down-the-middle compromise and one that will create a safe, modern, and lawful immigration system. For over 30 years, Washington has tried and failed to solve this problem. This Congress can be the one that finally makes it happen.

Most importantly, these four pillars will produce legislation that fulfills my ironclad pledge to sign a bill that puts America first. So let's come together, set politics aside, and finally get the job done.

These reforms will also support our response to the terrible crisis of opioid and drug addiction. Never before has it been like it is now. It is terrible. We have to do something about it.

In 2016, we lost 64,000 Americans to drug overdoses, 174 deaths per day, seven per hour. We must get much tougher on drug dealers and pushers if we are going to succeed in stopping this scourge.

My administration is committed to fighting the drug epidemic and helping get treatment for those in need, for those who have been so terribly hurt. The struggle will be long and it will be difficult, but as Americans always do, in the end, we will succeed, we will prevail.

As we have seen tonight, the most difficult challenges bring out the best in America. We see a vivid expression of this truth in the story of the Holets family of New Mexico. Ryan Holets is 27 years old, an officer with the Albuquerque Police Department. He's here tonight with his wife, Rebecca. Thank you, Ryan.

Last year, Ryan was on duty when he saw a pregnant, homeless woman preparing to inject heroin. When Ryan told her she was going to harm her unborn child, she began to weep. She told him she didn't know where to turn, but badly wanted a safe home for her baby.

In that moment, Ryan said he felt God speak to him: ``You will do it because you can.'' He heard those words. He took out a picture of his wife and their four kids. Then he went home to tell his wife, Rebecca. In an instant, she agreed to adopt. The Holets named their new daughter Hope.

Ryan and Rebecca, you embody the goodness of our nation. Thank you. Thank you, Ryan and Rebecca.

As we rebuild America's strength and confidence at home, we are also restoring our strength and standing abroad. Around the world, we face rogue regimes, terrorist groups, and rivals like China and Russia that challenge our interests, our economy, and our values. In confronting these horrible dangers, we know that weakness is the surest path to conflict, and unmatched power is the surest means to our true and great defense.

For this reason, I am asking Congress to end the dangerous defense sequester and fully fund our great military.

As part of our defense, we must modernise and rebuild our nuclear arsenal, hopefully never having to use it, but making it so strong and so powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression by any other nation or anyone else.

Perhaps some day in the future there will be a magical moment when the countries of the world will get together to eliminate their nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, we are not there yet, sadly.

Last year, I also pledged that we would work with our allies to extinguish ISIS from the face of the Earth. One year later, I am proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated very close to 100 percent of the territory just recently held by these killers in Iraq and in Syria and in other locations, as well. But there is much more work to be done. We will continue our fight until ISIS is defeated.

Army Staff Sergeant Justin Peck is here tonight. Near Raqqa last November, Justin and his comrade, Chief Petty Officer Kenton Stacy, were on a mission to clear buildings that ISIS had rigged with explosive so that civilians could return to that city, hopefully soon and hopefully safely.

Clearing the second floor of a vital hospital, Kenton Stacy was severely wounded by an explosion. Immediately, Justin bounded into the booby-trapped and unbelievably dangerous and unsafe building and found Kenton, but in very, very bad shape. He applied pressure to the wound and inserted a tube to reopen an airway. He then performed CPR for 20 straight minutes during the ground transport and maintained artificial respiration through two-and-a-half hours and through emergency surgery.

Kenton Stacy would have died if it were not for Justin's selfless love for his fellow warrior. Tonight, Kenton is recovering in Texas. Raqqa is liberated. And Justin is wearing his new Bronze Star, with a V for Valor. Staff Sergeant Peck: All of America salutes you.

Terrorists who do things like place bombs in civilian hospitals are evil. When possible, we have no choice but to annihilate them. When necessary, we must be able to detain and question them. But we must be clear: Terrorists are not merely criminals. They are unlawful enemy combatants.

And when captured overseas, they should be treated like the terrorists they are. In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds of dangerous terrorists, only to meet them again on the battlefield, including the ISIS leader, al-Baghdadi, who we captured, who we had, who we released.

So today, I am keeping another promise. I just signed prior to waling in an order directing Secretary Mattis - who is doing a great job, thank you ... to re-examine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay.

I am asking Congress to ensure that in the fight against ISIS and Al Qaida we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists, wherever we chase them down, wherever we find them. And in many cases, for them it will now be Guantanamo Bay.

At the same time, as of a few months ago, our warriors in Afghanistan have new rules of engagement. Along with their heroic Afghan partners, our military is no longer undermined by artificial timelines, and we no longer tell our enemies our plans.

Last month, I also took an action endorsed unanimously by the US Senate just months before. I recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Shortly afterwards, dozens of countries voted in the United Nations General Assembly against America's sovereign right to make this decision. In 2016, American taxpayers generously sent those same countries more than USD 20 billion in aid. That is why tonight I am asking Congress to pass legislation to help ensure American foreign assistance dollars always serve American interests and only go to friends of America, not enemies of America.

As we strengthen friendships all around the world, we are also restoring clarity about our adversaries. When the people of Iran rose up against the crimes of their corrupt dictatorship, I did not stay silent. America stands with the people of Iran in their courageous struggle for freedom.

I am asking Congress to address the fundamental flaws in the terrible Iran nuclear deal. My administration has also imposed tough sanctions on the communist and socialist dictatorships in Cuba and Venezuela.

But no regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally or brutally than the cruel dictatorship in North Korea. North Korea's reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland. We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from ever happening.

Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation. I will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got us into this very dangerous position.

We need only look at the depraved character of the North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose to America and to our allies.

Otto Warmbier was a hardworking student at the University of Virginia. And a great student, he was. On his way to study abroad in Asia, Otto joined a tour to North Korea. At its conclusion, this wonderful young man was arrested and charged with crimes against the state.

After a shameful trial, the dictatorship sentenced Otto to 15 years of hard labor, before returning him to America last June, horribly injured and on the verge of death. He passed away just days after his return.

Otto's wonderful parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, are here with us tonight, along with Otto's brother and sister, Austin and Greta. Please. Incredible people. You are powerful witnesses to a menace that threatens our world, and your strength truly inspires us all. Thank you very much. Thank you. Tonight we pledge to honor Otto's memory with total American resolve. Thank you.

Finally ... we are joined by one more witness to the ominous nature of this regime. His name is Mr. Ji Seong-ho.

In 1996, Seong-ho was a starving boy in North Korea. One day, he tried to steal coal from a railroad car to barter for a few scraps of food, which were very hard to get. In the process, he passed out on the train tracks, exhausted from hunger. He woke up as a train ran over his limbs. He then endured multiple amputations without anything to dull the pain or the hurt.

His brother and sister gave what little food they had to help him recover and ate dirt themselves, permanently stunting their own growth. Later, he was tortured by North Korean authorities after returning from a brief visit to China. His tormentors wanted to know if he'd met any Christians. He had, and he resolved after that to be free.

Seong-ho traveled thousands of miles on crutches all across China and Southeast Asia to freedom. Most of his family followed. His father was caught trying to escape and was tortured to death. Today he lives in Seoul, where he rescues other defectors, and broadcasts into North Korea what the regime fears most: the truth.

Today he has a new leg, but Seong-ho, I understand you still keep those old crutches as a reminder of how far you've come. Your great sacrifice is an inspiration to us all. Please. Thank you.

Seong-ho's story is a testament to the yearning of every human soul to live in freedom. It was that same yearning for freedom that nearly 250 years ago gave birth to a special place called America. It was a small cluster of colonies caught between a great ocean and a vast wilderness. It was home to an incredible people with a revolutionary idea, that they could rule themselves, that they could chart their own destiny, and that, together, they could light up the entire world.

That is what our country has always been about. That is what Americans have always stood for, always strived for, and always done.

Atop the dome of this Capitol stands the Statue of Freedom. She stands tall and dignified among the monuments to our ancestors who fought and lived and died to protect her. Monuments to Washington and Jefferson, and Lincoln and King. Memorials to the heroes of Yorktown and Saratoga, to young Americans who shed their blood on the shores of Normandy and the fields beyond. And others who went down in the waters of the Pacific and the skies all over Asia.

And freedom stands tall over one more monument: this one. This Capitol. This living monument. This is the monument to the American people.

We're a people whose heroes live not only in the past, but all around us, defending hope, pride, and defending the American way. They work in every trade. They sacrifice to raise a family. They care for our children at home. They defend our flag abroad. And they are strong moms and brave kids. They are firefighters and police officers and border agents, medics and Marines. But above all else, they are Americans. And this Capitol, this city, this Nation belongs entirely to them.

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Our task is to respect them, to listen to them, to serve them, to protect them, and to always be worthy of them. Americans fill the world with art and music. They push the bounds of science and discovery. And they forever remind us of what we should never, ever forget: The people dreamed this country. The people built this country. And it's the people who are making America great again.

As long as we are proud of who we are and what we are fighting for, there is nothing we cannot achieve. As long as we have confidence in our values, faith in our citizens, and trust in our God, we will never fail.

Our families will thrive. Our people will prosper. And our nation will forever be safe and strong and proud and mighty and free. Thank you, and God bless America. Good night.More than 80 people were aboard a ferry that sank in the remote Pacific, officials confirmed today, as a senior Kiribati lawmaker called for an independent inquiry into the vessel's disappearance.



A multinational rescue operation is scouring vast swathes of ocean for survivors, but only seven people have been found alive so far and hopes are fading of locating any more.

Initial estimates of how many people were on the MV Butiraoi when it went missing ranged from 35 to more than 100, but officials said the numbers were slowly becoming clearer.

"Kiribati authorities have confirmed that about 80 passengers plus crew of likely about five were on the ferry," Rescue Coordination Centre NZ said in a statement.

The centre said four aircraft from New Zealand, Australia and the United States had helped conduct sweeps in the area where the ferry went missing.

It said the search was concentrating on finding a life raft that was launched from the sinking ferry.

"The life raft is designed for 25 people but more can be squeezed in uncomfortably," it added.

Former Kiribati prime minister Ieremia Tabai, who represents the island of Nonouti from where the ferry departed on January 18, slammed the government's handling of the disaster.

Tabai said his grief-stricken constituents on the island of 2,000 wanted to know why it took eight days to raise the alarm and how the unseaworthy vessel was allowed to sail in the first place.

"This tragedy demands an independent commission of inquiry," he told Radio New Zealand.

"We need to know why it happened and (who is) responsible."

The MV Butiraoi, 17.5-metre (57.4-foot) wooden catamaran, set off on a planned two-day voyage to Betio, the largest township of Kiribati's capital, South Tarawa.

Local authorities said it ran aground and underwent repairs to its propeller shaft before it left Nonouti.

Tabai said the vessel was not believed to be carrying mandatory safety equipment such as an emergency locator beacon.

"The government is responsible because they did not look after the situation well, they should have ensured that particular vessel should not have sailed in the first place," he said.

He said the ferry was a free inter-island service that was carrying a large number of high-school students returning to Tarawa before the start of a new term.

Tabai said the ferry's loss was a tragedy for Kiribati, a nation of 33 atolls and reefs with a population of about 110,000, that lies some 3,460 kilometres northeast of Fiji.

"It's a real sad day for those who lost their loved one. For my village, two or three people that I personally know, that live next door in my village, were on that boat and perished."Sunayana Dumala, the widow of an Indian engineer who was shot dead in a hate crime shooting in the US last year, on Wednesday attended President Donald Trump's first State of the Union Address.



Sunayana, 32, was invited as a guest by Congressman Kevin Yoder to attend the event.

Her husband Srinivas Kuchibhotla was shot dead while his colleague, also an Indian, sustained bullet injuries after an American navy veteran opened fire in a crowded suburban bar in Olathe city in February last year.

The shooter, thought they were Middle Easterners and was heard telling them to "get out of my country" at the time of the shooting.

Earlier in the day, Sunayana, met a number of Congressional leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan.

The speaker said he knows Sunayana's story and remembers her.

Yoder said that he had asked Sunayana to be his guest as a recognition for her tireless efforts to promote peace, and as a message to the Indian community that the US is a nation of immigrants and they are welcome here.

"Each year, I have the privilege of inviting one guest to attend the president's State of the Union address. This year, I invited Sunayana Dumala, widow of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, the Indian immigrant who was tragically killed in the hate crime shooting last year at in Olathe," Yoder had said.

The Indian-American community welcomed the move.

Brijpal Singh, the chairman of the India Association of Kansas City, said this step will not only assure the Indian community but also send a strong message about the unstinted support from the elected representatives and administration towards the Indian community.

"This further strengthens our belief and confidence in the American system and its Constitution where everyone is respected, loved and is welcome," Singh said in a letter to Yoder.

The State of the Union Address is a traditional annual speech of the US president to a joint session of the Congress where he gives an account of the situation in the country.The death toll in the army firing on a mob in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday rose to three after a critically injured youth succumbed to injuries.



Rayees Ahmad, who was among the nine people injured in the army firing last week, succumbed to injuries at a hospital here on Wednesday morning, police said.

With this, death toll in the firing incident at Ganovpora area of Shopian has risen to three.

The army opened fire on a stone-pelting mob on January 27. The army claimed it had opened fire in self-defence after seven of its personnel were injured.

The state government has ordered a magisterial probe into the incident.

The police filed an FIR under sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) against army personnel, including a major, involved in the incident.The sixth state pay commission has recommended an increase of 30% in pay to 5.3 lakh state government employees.



The commission constituted by the state government and headed by retired IAS officer M R Srinivasmurthy submitted its report to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday.

Siddaramaiah is expected to make an official announcement accepting the recommendations of the panel in his budget address on February 16.

The commission's recommendation places the minimum pay scale to government employees at Rs 17,000 and maximum at Rs 1.5 lakh plus allowances per month.

The revised pay scale will come into effect from July 2017 and will cost the state exchequer an additional burden of Rs 10,508 crore per annum.India's foreign policy has become vibrant and assertive under the Modi government with its risk-taking ability also on the rise, according to a top official of a prominent state-run Chinese think tank.



Rong Ying, Vice President of China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), a think-tank affiliated to Chinese Foreign Ministry, said over the past three years, India's diplomacy has been vibrant and assertive, and has formed a distinctive and unique "Modi Doctrine", a strategy for the rise of India as a great power in the new situation.

In an article in the 'CIIS' journal, the first of its kind by a Chinese think tank on the Modi government so far, Rong, who also served as a diplomat in India, took a critical look at India's relations with China, South and Southeast Asia, India's closer relations with US and Japan, saying Indian foreign policy under him has become increasingly assertive while offering mutual benefits.

On India-China ties, Rong said since Modi took office, the development of overall relations between the two countries has maintained "steady momentum".

"The Dong Lang (Dokalam) incident taking place at the Sikkim section of the China-India borders has not only highlighted the border issue, but also for a time seemed to imperil the overall relationship between the two countries," he said.

Rong, also a senior research fellow at the CIIS, said India and China should stick to the strategic consensus of mutual support for each other's development.

On the future formula for ties, he said as major countries on the rise, India and China are both partners and competitors.

"There is competition in cooperation and cooperation in competition. The coexistence of cooperation and competition will become the norm. This is the status quo of China-India relations, which cannot be evaded," he said.

"We must implement the strategic consensus of the two leaders," he said, adding that China is not a "hurdle" for India's development but a major opportunity for India.

"It will not and cannot stop the rise of India. The biggest obstacle to India's development is India itself," he said.

For China, India is an important neighbour and a big emerging country, an important partner in promoting the reform of the international system.

"India's huge market potential will bring about opportunities for the successful transformation of China's economy, especially for Chinese enterprises going global," he said.

He said from the "Gujral Doctrine" to the peaceful diplomacy between India and Pakistan proposed by former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, all previous Indian governments have regarded the South Asian region as their diplomatic priority.

"After his election, Modi invited leaders of all neighbouring countries in South Asia for his swearing-in, chose to visit Bhutan, the smallest country in the region, highlighting his policy of giving priority to the development of relations with neighbouring countries," Rong said.

The concept and practice of the "Modi Doctrine" reflected in South Asia diplomacy, when compared to previous administrations, has highlighted both its own authority as well as the benefits it can provide to its neighbours and is more concerned about its dominance in South Asia, he said.

While continuing to provide massive assistance to neighbours, the Modi government paid more attention to its control over them, he said claiming that India imposed an economic blockade on Nepal on the constitutional issues relating to Madhesis.

"In order to exert pressure on Pakistan, the Modi government was not averse to crossing the border to attack the base of the anti-Indian organisation in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir," he said.

Rong said Modi's strong and decisive governing style and pragmatic governance philosophy paid special attention to delivery of projects committed by India in the neighbourhood.

Also "under the influence of Modi's governing style, the risk-taking and practicability of India's diplomacy are also on the rise, he said, pointing to Indian troops crossing the Myanmar border to destroy rebels bases.

"In 2016, India risked a conflict with Pakistan and crossed the border to attack a militant camp in PoK, at one point causing great anxiety both at home and abroad," he said and criticised India's policy towards Pakistan saying the confrontation will consume India's energy and diplomatic resources and create new problems for India in South Asia.Two Railway employees have been booked by the CBI on charges of fraudulently claiming educational allowances to the tune of Rs 42.24 lakh of 59 employees working on the Bengaluru-Salem section using forged documents.



The two employees are accused of conspiracy, corruption and other offences for claiming the money of other railway employees posted in Hosur, Dharmapuri and Salem in Tamil Nadu between 2013 and 2016.

Govindaraju, a junior clerk working in the office of senior section engineer in Dharmapuri and P Basavaraju, who was a peon in Salem when the offence was committed and now working as goods guard in Bengaluru's Whitefield, were named along with unknown officials in an FIR registered by the CBI.

According to the CBI, Govindaraju and Basavaraju "fraudulently and dishonestly fabricated false and forged bills towards education allowances, tuition fees and hostel subsidy in the names of various employees working in the Bengaluru-Salem section."

They "misappropriated" Railway funds to the tune of Rs 42.24 lakh. The FIR came following an investigation into information received at the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) of the CBI in Bengaluru.

It came to light that some of the educational institutions in whose names the bills were fabricated are "non-existent" and in certain cases, investigations showed that the students on whose name the allowance was claimed had "never studied" in the schools mentioned.

The duo also reportedly raised the claim for allowances, ranging from Rs 16,600 to Rs 1.71 lakh, "without the consent and knowledge" of these 59 employees.

Later, the FIR said they processed the claims, sanctioned and disbursed it to these employees' accounts and "induced" them to withdraw it and hand it over to them.Rescue workers today fished out the body of passengers of the ill-fated government bus that fell into a canal in Murshidabad taking the toll in the tragedy to 43.



Search is on for more bodies as relatives of about five missing persons have sought help apprehending that they may have boarded the bus and the exact number of passengers is yet to be known, a senior district official told PTI.

Bodies of 42 passengers were fished out and eight injured others were rescued from the Gogra canal at Balirghat area of the district after the bus fell into it early on Monday morning.

So far, 40 bodies have been identified and the eight injured are undergoing treatment at the Murshidabad Medical College, the official said.

"Search operations will continue till we are convinced that no bodies are stuck in the river bed. But it is quite difficult to search for bodies as it is quite dark and cold underneath the water," he said.

The state government has already handed over the compensation package of Rs five lakh to the next of kin of each of those killed and Rs one lakh for those gravely injured. Other injured would get a compensation of Rs 50,000.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has ordered an inspection of the bridge from which the bus fell into the canal.

Meanwhile, the state government has decided to ban drivers of state-run buses from using mobiles while driving, following the bus tragedy.

The decision was taken following a reported statement by a couple of passengers of the ill-fated bus who claimed that the driver was talking over his mobile phone while driving and lost control over the vehicle.A day after the Centre sought a report, the Uttar Pradesh(UP) government on Wednesday submitted a detailed account of the violence that erupted in Kasganj and the steps taken to contain it.



According to officials, the UP government gave a detailed report on how the sequence of events that led to the communal violence in Kasganj as well as the action taken against the culprits.

It also provided details about the arrests made by UP Police as well as circumstances leading to the death of Chandan Gupta.

The state government said it is probing whether the violence was pre-planned.

One person was killed and some others were injured in communal clashes during Republic Day celebrations last Friday.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had asked the state government to submit a comprehensive report about the violence and the steps taken to restore law and order in Kasganj and other areas.

The incident started in Kasganj after a motorcycle rally taken out by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) activists insisted on removing the chairs arranged by a group of people in Kasganj.

The violence started after stone-pelting by a mob on the motorcycle rally.Solar energy has become one of the most prosperous industries over the past decade, thanks to the technological innovations and the constant requirement for alternative solutions that are sustainable and greener. As a result, this field is seeing a surge of employment. Since there is a scarcity of qualified people in this emerging sector, pursuing a degree in solar energy engineering is definitely an ideal choice.



So, who is a solar engineer? Also called as solar array engineers or alternative energy engineers, they are experts who use the sunlight to generate electricity. In technical terms, solar engineers create solar cells which are capable of collecting and storing the sun's rays. Understanding exactly what a career in solar engineering entails is far from simple.

In essence, their job needs them to plan, design and implement solar energy projects. Doing so is a complex process. After a client consultation, solar engineers will have to do a site assessment and financial assessment. Then, they will have to design an appropriate plan and implement it after taking all the relevant factors into account. In addition to these, solar engineers are also called on to report on a project's efficiency and safety. They may also be asked to deal with outages, crises and system maintenance.

One can consider choosing a career in the field of solar energy as the field is seeing advancements technologically and has been witnessing extensive financial investment. Other factors that may drive a student to enter the field are the emergence of the concept of alternative energy and increased government initiatives in this regard. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers reveals that around 20% of the world's electricity is already coming from renewable energy sources and notes that wind and solar energy top the list. As environmental concerns grow, the use of such natural resources will only increase in the future.

To enter the solar engineering field, candidates will need a bachelor's degree in Mechanical or Electrical engineering. However, pursuing Master's degree could open up one's career and lead to higher-paying roles. Other degrees which could be helpful are Industrial engineering, Computer Science engineering and Chemical engineering. One could also consider doing a course which focuses on sustainability or an MBA with a specialisation in Sustainability and Compliance. For engineers who offer professional services to the public, an Engineer in Training (EIT) or Professional Engineer license is a must.

In addition to these, some of the key skills one will need are:

* Systems design and engineering

* Solar systems installation

* Device fabrication and characterisation

* Quality assurance and reliability testing

* Project management and consultancy

* Strong communication skills

In addition to these essential skills, it is important that solar engineers have a knowledge in software that will help them create designs and test photovoltaic systems. One such software that solar engineers should be proficient in is the AutoCAD, a computer-aided design program that is widely used in engineering. In Solar engineering, this software is typically used for photovoltaic system layout. To keep up with the technological developments, solar engineers should participate in professional development courses.

Irrespective of being a very specific field, solar energy is already creating a huge impact in various industries. Solar engineer, photovoltaic engineer and installer, energy management technician and solar thermal installer are some careers that one can consider. Additionally, one can consider taking up engineering and consultancy roles in specialised solar engineering companies, renewable energy companies, oil and gas companies who want to provide renewable sources of fuel, and non-profit organisations.

A degree in solar energy is challenging and exciting, and is in demand. By becoming a part of the developing renewable energy sector, one can secure a sure-fire career.

(The author is with edX.org, Delhi)With not many Indian firms prepared for the fast-approaching European Union's Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), aimed at data protection and privacy, deadline, there could be a last-minute rush for compliance.



Ernst and Young (EY)'s Global Forensic Data Analysis Survey, 2018, released here on Wednesday revealed that over 60% of Indian executives who participated in their study were not even aware of the GDPR, leave alone its compliance.

The deadline for compliance is May 25 and organisations will face heavy fines for non-compliance.

Arpinder Singh, head of India and emerging markets, Fraud Investigation and Dispute services, at Ernst and young (EY) said at the release of the survey that it is a serious wake-up call.

"India being a hub of major IT companies with so many multinationals in the IT sector, the number is too low. We need to increase the awareness if we have to be relevant in the global IT sector," he said.

However, he said that India is doing better compared to Japan and Singapore in making their firms GDPR compliant.

"We are actually getting lot of requests; in the last month when this deadline has suddenly come everybody started calling us on policies procedures etc. Companies are now taking it seriously. We are working with 55 large IT companies. Three months ago there were not even 10 companies interested in GDPR," Singh said.

He said that it takes at least six months to make them up to the EU standards. As per the EU standards any firm that detects a breach of data should immediately inform the regulator about it within 72 hours otherwise the firm will be in violation.

Andrew Gordon, global leader of the EY's fraud investigation and disputes dervices, said that 80% of the EU firms are GDPR compliant.

EY, which has around 746 employees in different parts of the country, is planning to expand its tech-lab in Hyderabad, which has a staff of only 140. EY will be recruiting over 100 specialists for both Hyderabad and Delhi units.Tension gripped parts of Uttar Pradesh as Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal (BD) workers took out 'Tiranga Yatras' (marches carrying tricolor) on Wednesday.



The marches were taken out in several districts, including Agra, which is very close to Kasganj - where communal clashes on Republic Day claimed one life and left many injured.

According to the reports 'Tiranga Yatras' were also taken out in communally sensitive town including Ferozabad, Etah, Bareilly, Aligarh and Shahjahanpur.

Police deny

Police, however, claimed that no 'yatras' were taken out as permission for the same was denied.

Pictures of the 'yatras', however, appeared on the local media networks in several districts.

Marchers, who carried tricolors in their hands, shouted ''anti-Pakistan'' slogans, sources said.

Cries of 'vandemataram' and 'Jai Shriram' also rented the air during the marches.

According to reports, Shahjahanpur became tense after some miscreants pelted stones at the marchers near Bilariyaganj police outpost in which one youth was injured.

Irate VHP and Bajarang Dal workers demanded miscreants' arrest as a large number of sesecurity personnel were deployed to thwart any attempt to disrupt peace, sources said.

Sources said that police and saffron workers had a scuffle in Ferozabad after the former tried to stop the march, which didn't have permission.

Tight-lipped

When asked if permission was granted for taking out the 'Tiranga Yatras', senior officials remained tight-lipped.

The newly appointed Police Chief of the State, O P Singh, had earlier said that no permission was required for 'tiranga yatras'

Violence had broken out at Kasganj during a similar march on Republic Day in which one person was killed and several others injured.

VHP leaders said that the 'yatras' were being taken out to press the demand to pay tribute to Chandan Gupta, who was killed in the Kasganj violence and declare him a martyr.

Senior UP IAS officer and district magistrate of communally sensitive Bareilly had also recently said in his post on social media that it had become a ''fashion to undertake marches in Muslim dominated areas and shout anti-Pakistan slogans''.The Army has submitted its version of the January 27 incident, when its convoy was attacked in Shopian district, to the Jammu and Kashmir Police and explained its reasons for opening fire at the stone pelting mob, officials said today.



According to the Army's narrative, submitted yesterday, the force's convoy was attacked by a group of stone pelters and its personnel resorted to firing to save themselves, the officials said.

The Army's version comes after the state police registered an FIR about the incident in Ganovpora area of Shopian in south Kashmir in which two youths were killed. One more person succumbed to his injuries today, raising the toll to three.

It has claimed it opened fire in self-defence after seven of its personnel were injured. The Army has also submitted photographs of the vehicles damaged in the stone pelting.

The state government has ordered a magisterial probe into the incident.

The FIR filed by the state police names no accused but states that a company of 10 Garhwal led by Major Aditya was on its way for official duty when it was attacked by an unruly mob with stones.

Police has filed an FIR under sections 336 (endangering life or personal safety of others), 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) of the Ranbir Penal Code, which is similar to the Indian Penal Code but applicable only in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Shopian incident became a bone of contention between the state's ruling alliance partners PDP and BJP.

A BJP legislator demanded on the floor of the House that the FIR be cancelled. This was, however, turned down by Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, who said the FIR will be taken to its logical conclusion.The Indian Air Force has taken a Group Captain into custody after he was accused of passing classified documents to a woman

The IAF's counter-intelligence wing has taken the officer, posted at the IAF headquarters, in custody for further questioning. The security unit is probing possible espionage charges against the officer, who is not from the flying branch.

The officer befriended a woman on Facebook and later continued their communication on WhatsApp. Because of his seniority and posting, he was privy to certain information, some of which have been passed on to the woman through WhatsApp. There is also suspicion of him being a case "honey trapping".

"The officer was indulging in certain unwanted activities through unauthorised electronic devices which is against existing orders. The unwanted activities were discovered during routine counter-intelligence surveillance," sources said.

The IAF has not officially commented on the incident.

"Regular counter-intelligence coverage in liaison with central agencies is being maintained for all the units and establishments (of the armed forces) to defeat subversion and espionage attempts of foreign intelligence agents. Further, service personnel are regularly educated on the modus operandi of foreign intelligence operatives including awareness drive on threats from social media," former defence minister Manohar Parrikar informed the Parliament in 2016.

In December 2015, one person each from Army and Air Force was arrested for espionage activities and the IAF person was dismissed from service.

The armed forces have strict rules on the use of social media. The personnel are barred from posting any photograph or information on their ranks, place of work, location, infrastructure and operations.

Also, the computers used in the three services and the defence ministry to handle sensitive information are not connected to the internet. There are also strict restrictions on the use of smartphones.India is reaching out to Nepal's new leftist alliance to prevent the neighbouring nation getting closer to China.



Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 21 congratulated Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist Leninist) chief K P Sharma Oli, who is set to take over as Prime Minister of Nepal soon. Modi had contacted Oli even as early results indicated that the Left alliance was heading for a landslide victory.

Modi is now sending External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale to Kathmandu.

Though Oli is perceived to be pro-China and known for his anti-India stand since 2015, he has of late positively responded to New Delhi's overtures.

Swaraj's visit to Kathmandu is being seen as a further attempt by New Delhi to engage with the new leadership of Nepal, where India and China compete with each other for geopolitical influence.

New Delhi said that the visit was "in keeping with the tradition of regular high-level political exchanges between India and Nepal" and would reflect the expanding bilateral partnership and the importance that the two countries attach to further strengthening it across diverse sectors.

"The upcoming visit will provide an opportunity to hold discussions with political leaders of Nepal on issues of mutual interest, and to advance age-old, special ties of friendship between India and Nepal," Raveesh Kumar, spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, said.

A coalition of Oli's party, Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) led by Prachanda and the newly floated Naya Shakti won the elections last month.

Challenge to India

Reports received in New Delhi indicated that China had played a role in bringing the three Left parties together a ostensibly to pose a challenge to India's traditional influence on politics of Nepal.

India was upset when Prachanda, who led a Maoist insurgency in Nepal from 1996 to 2006, chose to visit China first after becoming the Prime Minister of Nepal in 2008. Almost all of his predecessors in the past half-a-century had come to India on first official visits as premiers. When he took over as Prime Minister for the second term in 2016, Prachanda visited India first.The Delhi Declaration issued at the end of the recent India-ASEAN summit underscores the growing range of issues on which the India and the 10-nation grouping share concerns and are looking to cooperate. In the past, India-ASEAN statements avoided using terms like 'cross-border terrorism' or 'maritime security co-operation', perhaps out of apprehension that this would ruffle feathers in Islamabad and Beijing. That hesitation appears to have been overcome. The Delhi Declaration issued last week explicitly affirms that India and ASEAN will work together in "countering cross-border movement of terrorists and foreign terrorist fighters." It calls for full and effective implementation of the "Declaration on the Conduct of the Parties in the South China Sea" and an early conclusion of the "Code of Conduct in the South China Sea." In doing so, Delhi has shown solidarity with ASEAN's position in the South China Sea dispute with China. Improving connectivity in the region is another issue that leaders of India and ASEAN have pledged to prioritise.



Inviting all the leaders of ASEAN as chief guests at India's Republic Day was a diplomatic master-stroke. India was able to showcase its military might, plural society and soft power to Southeast Asia. It sent out a strong signal to ASEAN of the priority Delhi accords to building strong bonds with the regional grouping. In an article published in 27 newspapers in the 10 ASEAN countries, Prime Minister Narendra Modi pointed to the fact that India-ASEAN relations are "free from contests and claims." India has underscored to the south-east Asian nations that it is keen to become their strong partner. Now, Delhi must back its effusive words and flamboyant diplomacy with strong action to deepen bonds with the ASEAN. In 2014, the Modi government promised to move from a 'Look East' policy to 'Act East.' It's time to fulfil this promise. There is enormous potential. India's trade with ASEAN has grown by 25 times in as many years. But compared to China's trade with the regional grouping, which is worth $473 billion, India's is a paltry $73 billion.

Southeast Asia looks upon India as a bit of a snail when it comes to completing infrastructure projects. The India-Myanmar-Thailand highway, which was to be ready in 2016, is nowhere near completion. Meanwhile, India has proposed extension of this highway to Cambodia, Lao PDR and Vietnam. ASEAN countries will not take India's proposals seriously so long as its plans remain on paper. India will need to be more dynamic and energised in its engagement with them. Else, it will be China, not India, that will provide ASEAN with inspiration and dominate its imagination.The Congress and Left pitched for single-phase Assembly polls during their meeting with Chief Election Commission Om Prakash Rawat on Wednesday.



The BJP, however, was silent on the dates, only requesting the Election Commission to hold the election in the middle of the week and not on a weekend. The JD(S) has sought multi-phase polls.

Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Sanjiv Kumar had recently recommended to the Election Commission for single-phase elections akin to the 2013 polls. This, he argued, would deter "bad or rowdy elements from indulging in multiple or bogus voting and intimidation of voters".

An Election Commission of India (ECI) delegation led by Rawat met representatives of various political parties as part of a two-day review of the state's election preparedness.

The Congress urged the ECI not to announce election dates in a hurry, KPCC vice-president B L Shankar told reporters. "The model code of conduct should not be imposed earlier than prescribed, because the term of our government ends in May," he said.

The Congress demanded "complete transparency" in the use of the electronic voting machines, while the JD(S) has asked for ballot papers to be used given the "suspicions that EVMs can be tampered with".

Shankar said the Congress asked for votes cast on the EVM and the printouts from the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines to be tallied in all polling booths of a constituency if there were doubts raised. "Also, we want every single EVM to be used in mock-polling."

The JD(S) has sought voter IDs to be linked with Aadhaar to weed out bogus voters, its leader Ramesh Babu said. "We have also told the ECI that officials are colluding with the Congress. We will give them names," he said.

The BJP highlighted irregularities in the inclusion of new voters.

"In the KR Puram constituency, people are being enrolled on the basis of just an affidavit. This has to be reviewed," BJP leader Vivek Subba Reddy said. "We have urged the ECI to take note of officials colluding with the Congress in KR Puram and BTM Layout."The Congress and Left pitched for single-phase Assembly polls during their meeting with Chief Election Commission Om Prakash Rawat on Wednesday.

The BJP, however, was silent on the dates, only requesting the Election Commission to hold the election in the middle of the week and not on a weekend. The JD(S) has sought multi-phase polls.

Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Sanjiv Kumar had recently recommended to the Election Commission for single-phase elections akin to the 2013 polls. This, he argued, would deter "bad or rowdy elements from indulging in multiple or bogus voting and intimidation of voters".

An Election Commission of India (ECI) delegation led by Rawat met representatives of various political parties as part of a two-day review of the state's election preparedness.

The Congress urged the ECI not to announce election dates in a hurry, KPCC vice-president B L Shankar told reporters. "The model code of conduct should not be imposed earlier than prescribed, because the term of our government ends in May," he said.

The Congress demanded "complete transparency" in the use of the electronic voting machines, while the JD(S) has asked for ballot papers to be used given the "suspicions that EVMs can be tampered with".

Shankar said the Congress asked for votes cast on the EVM and the printouts from the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines to be tallied in all polling booths of a constituency if there were doubts raised. "Also, we want every single EVM to be used in mock-polling."

The JD(S) has sought voter IDs to be linked with Aadhaar to weed out bogus voters, its leader Ramesh Babu said. "We have also told the ECI that officials are colluding with the Congress. We will give them names," he said.

The BJP highlighted irregularities in the inclusion of new voters.

"In the KR Puram constituency, people are being enrolled on the basis of just an affidavit. This has to be reviewed," BJP leader Vivek Subba Reddy said. "We have urged the ECI to take note of officials colluding with the Congress in KR Puram and BTM Layout."The Karnataka Sixth Pay Commission has recommended a 30% hike in basic salary for government employees, including pensioners.

The report was submitted to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah by panel chairman and retired IAS officer M R Srinivasamurthy in Bengaluru on Wednesday.

Siddaramaiah said the recommendations of the commission will be placed before the next state Cabinet meeting for approval. With Assembly elections just round the corner, Siddaramaiah, who also holds the finance portfolio, is likely to make an official announcement accepting the recommendations of the commission in his budget speech in the state legislature on February 16.

Karnataka State Government Employees Association has welcomed the commission's recommendations. "We welcome the 30% hike. We had sought a 45% hike. We will try to convince the chief minister about our demand," association president B P Manje Gowda said.

The pay hike will come as a bonanza for 5.2 lakh state government employees, 5.73 lakh pensioners and family pensioners besides 73,000 employees working in aided institutions, local bodies and non-teaching staff of colleges and universities.

The minimum pay in the revised scales will be Rs 17,000 per month (it is Rs 9,600 at present) and maximum pay will be Rs 1,50,600 and allowances, while minimum pension will be Rs 8,500 and maximum pension will be Rs 73,000 per month besides dearness allowance. Family pension will have an upper limit of Rs 45,180 per month with dearness allowances. The commission has recommended that the wages be given with effect from April 1, 2018 for employees and from July 1, 2017 for pensioners.

The additional expenditure to the state government due to the revision of pay, allowances and pensions is estimated at Rs 10,508 crore per year.

The panel has not changed the retirement age of 60 years. However, it has recommended that minimum qualifying service for voluntary retirement be reduced from the present 15 to 10 years, while the eligibility for receiving full pension be reduced from the present 33 to 30 years.

The maximum limit of death-cum-retirement gratuity is proposed to be increased from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 20 lakh. The commission has also recommended payment of additional pensions of 20% to 100% to all pensioners aged above 80 years.

Siddaramaiah told reporters the commission was constituted eight months ago. After consulting various neighbouring states and going through the central pay commission recommendations, the state panel submitted its first report. They have sought three more months for non-salary related issues, Siddaramaiah said.

Besides Srinivasamurthy, the commission has former IAS officer Mohammed Sanaullah and former Controller of State Accounts Department R S Phonde as its members.On Jan. 25 the Carmel Valley Community Planning Board reviewed plans for Costa Azul, a new development that includes an Element by Westin hotel, office building and restaurant on the corner of El Camino Real and Valley Centre Drive.

The corner currently includes Hampton Inn, Residence Inn and San Diego Marriott Del Mar and in October 2017 the board approved a five-story, 127-room Hyatt Place Hotel from Excel Hotel Group which will replace the existing Tio Leos Mexican Restaurant.

Father-son developers Fred and Hunter Oliver, who also built the neighboring Residence Inn, are proposing the new development in the space between Hampton Inn and the new Hyatt Place.

Costa Azul is proposed as a six-story, 123-room hotel, a four-story office building with a 5,400-square-foot restaurant and a subterranean parking garage which can be accessed by Old El Camino Real, near the existing Shell station.

Architect Darrel Fullbright, with Gensler Architecture, said they came back to the board with a very different project based on what they heard from the planning board last October regarding connectivity, community benefits and the architecture.

We listened to you, said Fred Oliver, who has built projects in the Carmel Valley community since 1981. We think that the project is better because of what weve heard from you.

In response to the planning boards comments that the architecture was boxy, Fullbright said they have considered more variation with heights and terracing. They have also added building articulations such as glass elements and created an amenity deck for the office space with views of the terrain.

To address connectivity and community benefits, they have proposed amenities such as an 8-foot-wide walkway path to and around the project from Valley Centre Drive as well as a pocket park. A pedestrian promenade will connect with the new hotel across the street and the park space will close to the potential restaurant.

The project will still be requesting a height variance as the maximum height allowed in the zone is 60 feet and 15 percent of the project is at 75 feet. As the project has evolved, the developers have brought the height down from an originally proposed 95 feet to preserve the views of the bluffs.

The developers are in the process of re-submitting their new project to the city and will be back before the board in February.With more than half the seats set to expire, Solana Beach appointed a new slate of residents onto the five committees that take a first swipe at crafting some of the citys most important policies, budgets and decisions.

The city council last week approved 17 appointments for two-year terms, leaving only one empty spot on the Public Arts Commission.

The nine-member Climate Action Commission saw six nominations for five upcoming vacancies. Two of the five seats went to returning members: Mary Yang, who holds degrees in chemistry, geochemistry and biology from Berkeley, Princeton and MIT, respectively, and Heidi Dewar, a federal fisheries biologist. They will be joined by geologic consultant Jonathan Goodmacher; Sarah Richmond, an Encinitas resident who until last year was a planner with the California Coastal Commission; and Jeffrey Martin, founder and CEO of the Solana Beach-based Yulex Corp., whose recent work included partnering with Patagonia to develop the worlds first bio- and plant-based wetsuit, thus eliminating the need for harmful neoprene.

Martins appointment to CAC is his first in three tries in his 12 years living in Solana Beach, and he was the only applicant to speak at the councils Jan. 24 meeting. Much of the commissions upcoming work will focus on steps to implement the landmark Climate Action Plan that the council approved last year.

Ive got a keen interest in helping you execute the plan, Martin said. Id like to add my talents and my resources to help you accomplish a very ambitious goal.

The most competition came over the four vacancies on the often-contentious View Assessment Commission, a seven-member panel that decides whether new homes, additions and commercial construction violate the citys stringent view ordinance.

Passing over three would-be newcomers, the council unanimously approved the four commissioners whose terms were set to expire: 27-year resident Gary Garber, real estate agent Molly Fleming, retired teacher Pat Coad and Paul Bishop, whose importance Deputy Mayor Dave Zito stressed as the VACs only architect.

The five-member Budget and Finance Commission, which provides crucial input on the citys operating budget, filled its two pending vacancies with Sharon Gross, a CPA and 25-year Solana Beach resident, and Judith Hamilton, whose 38 years as a CPA are exceeded only by her 39 years living in Solana Beach.

The Parks and Recreation Commission reappointed one member and added two new ones. Linda Swindell, who has made the proposed skate park at La Colonia her personal crusade, will return to her seat. She and the other two returning commissioners are being joined by litigation attorney Tracy Richmond and Jolene Koester, a higher-ed consultant who was president of Cal State University-Northridge from 2000 to 2011.

The sole unfilled vacancy is on the Public Arts Commission, which plans the annual Arts Alive event and helps choose artists to carry out public art projects. Four seats were available on the Public Arts Commission but only three candidates applied. The three seats are going to Sharon Klein, who served on PAC from 2001 to 2013; realtor Nancy Pfeiffer; and Brad Auerbach, a business development executive who is also an adjunct professor in media and technology at UCSD.

With such a crowded field of hyper-qualified applicants, Councilwoman Jewel Edson had a message for those who did not make the cut.

Please reapply, she said. There is always an opportunity, and we had such a marvelous pool of talented people again this year. Its amazing. We have a great community.Target - a cloud data repository for Oman

Target Oilfield Services is building a cloud based data repository for the Oman government - and finding that putting data on the cloud can make it easier to manage. Would oil companies get the same benefits from cloud based data hosting?

Target Oilfield Services, a company based in Oman but with digital services provided from the UK, has been building a cloud based data repository for the Oman government, to manage its oil and gas data.



Oman awarded Target the contract to manage its national data repository (government owned oil and gas data), after the previous operator had run it for 5 years.



Oman wanted to get the oil companies supplying data to carry out these tasks, taking responsibility for quality control of the data they own.

They also wanted data to be cloud hosted, so that oil companies would be able to load data themselves.



Before Target became involved, there were many staff members employed to manage the data repository, including doing data clean-up and loading, covering seismic, wells and GIS data.



The Oman government also wanted a data store to be based on open standards, so it would be easier to move the data to a different service provider in future, should it want to.



The Oman government also liked the idea of paying for the service on an ongoing basis, rather than making a capital investment.



They wanted the data, including 10 petabytes of seismic, to be hosted within their own country.



The Oman government wanted to make it possible to interact with the data as visually as possible, not just have people looking at data. This includes being able to visualise seismic without downloading it.



The government also wanted a system it can use to manage its ongoing bid rounds, providing data to companies considering bidding for license blocks. (You can see this online at ldr.omanbidround.com).



So altogether this means a transformation of the commercial aspects, user experience and operating model, says Jamie Cruise, president of digital services at Target.



Target chose to put the data into the PPDM standard data model format, hosting it in a public Tier 3 (99.98 per cent availability) data centre in Oman.



Migrating the data to Target's software system took 12 months.



Today, data can be accessed just from entering a URL into a web browser, no software is required.



To make the data easier to visualise, nearly all of the data is accessed via a map or other graphic. 'We have a passion for making sure we don't present bland tables of data to people,' he said. 'Our users require more than that.'



Once the cloud data server was set up, Oman found many more document types it wanted to store on it, including data connected to bid rounds, work programs, budgets, regulatory information, collaboration work with operators, and feedback on regulations.



In building the system, it was important for Target to see itself as a supporter of critical organisational decision making, not just running a database, Mr Cruise said. For example, it needs to understand what information a regulator needs to ensure that companies are in compliance with oil and gas regulations.



This means being focussed on workflows and data integration, not just focussing on data repositories, he said.



Target developed its software using Amazon Web Services, but because most production data needs to be stored within the country where the production happens, the software needs to be transferred to a local cloud data provider before being operational.



Jamie Cruise has been writing web based information management software since the 1990s, for a company which was sold to Halliburton. He went on to found a company called FUSE Information Management in 2005, which was acquired in 2014 by Target Oilfield Services, a company based in Oman.



Offering software to the public



Next year, Target plans to take its system to the market as a 'public cloud offering', an online software service, like Microsoft's Office 365. Companies will be able to buy their own 'instance' of the software online.



The company sees a potential market from oil companies which don't already have an infrastructure to manage their corporate data.



As part of the system, it is possible to build 3D 'scenes' of subsurface data, using technology developed to draw 3D city maps.



The view is good enough for data quality control, but not for doing interpretation directly on it. It is possible to work with seismic post stack data in this way, doing some basic quality control.



Using the system, oil companies will be able to search for and access information via map interfaces. This can either be done via ESRI GIS software (if you have an ESRI license), or through an open source GIS system (which is free). The system can provide mapping data from any company, if it supports WMS (Web Map Services) and WFS (Web Feature Services) standard.



It is very important to make the system easy to integrate with other systems. Mr Cruise sees Twitter as a company which has created a particularly easy to use Application User Interface (API). The APIs for some oilfield software are very complex.



Target is considering using GraphQL, a data query language designed to keep multiple data stores updated without needing too much data transfer. It was developed internally by Facebook for keeping Facebook pages updated from multiple data sources in any structure. The language was released by Facebook for public use in 2015.



Easier when centrally managed



The work showed that data management can be easier when data is stored on the cloud, with all of the data in one place and centrally managed, said Mr Cruise.



This is not the first time data has been centrally managed - it was also centrally managed in the pre-digital era, in libraries, and it was centrally managed when it was stored on mainframe computers. Both systems had strict rules about how the data should be managed, to maintain quality and ensure accessibility.



Decades from now, the era of storing files on individual PCs, and having multiple versions of files circulating around the company, might look like the anomaly, Mr Cruise said. Workstations made life easier for workers, but meant a big increase in the challenge for data management governance, he said.



Now, as oil and gas data increasingly moves to cloud servers, 'we're hopefully entering a new era of data management with more well managed, centralised environment,' he said. 'We can go back to having one version of each piece of data. That will make our business processes much more effective.'



Future role of data managers



One question is what the role of the data manager will be from now on. Some people assume that data managers will no longer be needed, as 'middle man' removed by technology - files can be loaded and downloaded by the people who create them or need them.



Some people think data managers will need to become data scientists, developing skills for statistical analysis of data.



Mr Cruise's personal view is that there will always be a big role of looking after data and ensuring data quality and standards (governance).



'Our responsibility as data managers is ensuring the right data is delivered to the right person,' he said.



The oil and gas industry keeps all of its data from the past - 'we carry our legacy with us,' he said. None of the old data can be ignored.



Matthias Hartung, President Digital Transformation - ?Target Oilfield Services and a former VP technical data with Shell, noted that a common fault of data managers is to try to get everything perfect, in the belief that perfect data is what the business mostly needs.



The professional trait most missing is curiosity, he said. A curious data manager will work out what internal customers need - and whether they are being provided with it, and if it is possible to provide it, and understands why this adds significant value. 'What is the most important data requirement for the most important business/process/customer that you serve?' he challenged



Another essential ability for data managers is communication skills, explaining how data assets can be leveraged to enable well-informed business decisions, using language the customer understands. Data and Digital can transform the Upstream from being laggards to leaders in energy solutions, they are mutually supportive and need each other to succeed, Mr Hartung said.

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Note: If you choose to use the log-out feature, you will lose your saved information. This means you will be required to log-in the next time you visit our site.Inequality has become the Wests all-consuming focus. Economic inequality has become the prism through which the media report on every story from the annual Oxfam report and Davos forum to last nights State of the Union address, health care, gender relations, blockchain  even the proper amount of homework to assign and whether parents should read their children bedtime stories.

But should people of faith be worried about inequality?

The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), based in London, has produced a new video comparing two hypothetical young women, Kate and Chloe. The short film  titled Inequality: Should We Be Worried?  describes how economic redistribution aimed at creating equality would impact both women.

IEA scholars Ryan Bourne and Christopher Snowden examine the issue in granular detail in their 2016 report, Never Mind the Gap: Why We Shouldnt Worry about Inequality.

A strong focus on inequality within nations obscures the fact that global income inequality has been falling, the report says. The overwhelming focus on summary statistics of income or wealth at a given point in time perpetuates two misconceptions  namely, that a distribution can be easily controlled and that the economy is a zero-sum game.

Christians must be mindful that we understand the economic consequences of utopian policies, so that we do not make life worse for those who are struggling. For a more detailed exploration, you can download the 54-page IEA report here.

(Photo credit: Public domain.)Afghanistan's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Mahmoud Saikal has accused Pakistan's intelligence network ISI of training one of the Kabul attackers on Tuesday. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence trained a terrorist involved in the attack on Kabul's iconic Intercontinental Hotel in which over 20 people were killed, Saikal alleged in a tweet on Monday. "Abdul Qahar, father of one of the terrorists involved in last week attack on #Kabul Intercontinental Hotel, concedes his son was trained in Chaman of #Balochistan Province of #Pakistan by the Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan. Qahar is currently in custody of Afg authorities," Saikal tweeted. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. Pakistan has denied its involvement. A mid-level diplomat at the Afghan embassy in the US alleged the attack was planned by Pakistan. ''A clear proof that the attack on the hotel was planned in a madrasa on Pakistan's soil. Abdul Qahar, the father of one of the suicide attackers, is an eyewitness of the story,'' wrote Majeed Qarar, the cultural attache at the embassy of Afghanistan on the micro-blogging site. Meanwhile, President Ashraf Ghani refused to take a phone call from Pakistan's Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi who had phoned in connection with the spate of recent attacks in Afghanistan, a source told TOLOnews on Wednesday. According to a presidential palace source, Abbasi called Ghani on Tuesday night to pass on his condolences but Ghani refused to take his call. Instead he sent a delegation including Masoom Stanekzai, the chief of the National Directorate of Security, and interior minister Wais Ahmad Barmak to Pakistan to hand over evidence of ISI involvement in the recent attacks in Kabul. The source added that the evidence will be shared with Pakistan's army. On 20 January, Taliban men armed with Kalashnikovs and suicide vests attacked the landmark Intercontinental Hotel and killed around 25 people, going from room to room, searching for foreigners during the more than 12-hour ordeal. "The night vision goggles found with Taliban attackers in maiwand's ANA base were military grade goggles (not sold to public) procured by Pak army from a British company & supplied 2 Lashkar-e-Tayyeba in Kashmir & Taliban in Afghanistan. Lashkar-e-Tayyeba is an int'l terrorist org," Saikal said in another tweet. The hotel strike in Kabul was similar to the attack on Taj and Trident hotels in Mumbai on 26 November 2008. US intelligence agencies reportedly had evidence of the ISI hand behind the 26/11 terror attack. The hotel attack was followed by a Taliban-claimed ambulance bombing on 27 January in Kabul that claimed over 100 lives. The continued attacks in Afghanistan by the Taliban prompted severe condemnation from the US as well as the UN Security Council, which have sought to bring to justice the perpetrators of the attack. US President Donald Trump also asked all countries to take decisive action against the Taliban and the terrorist infrastructure that supported them. "I condemn the despicable car-bomb attack in Kabul today (January 27) that has left scores of innocent civilians dead and hundreds injured. This murderous attack renews our resolve and that of our Afghan partners," Trump had said, ruling out holding talks with the Taliban.







At least 36 people have been killed and 185 wounded in two days of heavy fighting between separatists and government troops in Yemen's interim capital of Aden, the International Committee of the Red Cross said. Fighting intensified on Tuesday night after the two sides used tank and artillery on the second day of an attempted "coup" in the southern port city, military sources said. Earlier reports said Yemeni separatists had surrounded the presidential palace in Aden. "The separatists have surrounded the palace and now control the main gate. Those inside are unofficially under house arrest at this point," a high-ranking officer with the Yemeni military told AFP. Tension between the separatists and the government erupted into clashes at the weekend, with more than 36 people killed in Aden since Sunday, according to the Red Cross. Brigadier Saleh al-Sayyed, who heads troops that have fought alongside the separatists since Sunday, announced his forces had seized control of the Fourth Brigade, the presidential guard in Aden. The southern city has served as the government's de facto capital since 2014, when the Huthi rebels seized control of Sanaa in their fight against the state. Saudi Arabia-backed President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi resides in Riyadh. The Saudi-led military coalition which supports the government called on Tuesday for an immediate ceasefire and an end to "all forms of armed conflict", in a statement cited by Saudi state news agency SPA. It said it would take "all necessary measures to restore security and stability" after earlier calls for restraint went unheeded. The flare-up has added yet another dimension to one of the world's most complicated conflicts, a civil war that has left thousands dead and millions on the brink of starvation. Formerly independent states, North and South Yemen were unified in 1991 under the presidency of Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was killed in December in clashes with the Huthis in Sanaa. The Huthi rebels, who are backed by Iran, control most of northern Yemen. The south is home to the Southern Transitional Council, a separatist movement that wants to reinstate South Yemen as an independent entity. The head of the Red Cross mission in Yemen, Carlos Batallas, said on Twitter on Monday that the clashes in Aden had killed 36 people and wounded 185. The ICRC did not provide figures on civilian casualties. Residents were hunkered down at home as five separatist fighters were killed by snipers and four soldiers died in clashes, military sources said, with tanks and heavy artillery entering the fray. The clashes came after separatist forces seized government buildings in what Yemen's prime minister called an attempted coup. At night, pro-separatist security forces advanced in some areas and were reported just 1km away from the presidential palace in Aden. They also seized two military camps near Aden international airport which remained closed for the second day. Fighters from both sides have been deployed in most areas of Aden, paralysed for a second day after 15 people were killed and dozens wounded on Sunday. The hostilities erupted early Sunday when pro-government troops prevented supporters of the separatist Southern Transitional Council from entering Aden for a rally. Separatists have dispatched additional forces from the central province of Marib and the southern province of Abyan, security sources said. After the separatists seized the government headquarters on Sunday, Prime Minister Ahmed bin Dagher denounced a "coup ... in Aden against legitimacy and the country's unity". He urged the Saudi-led coalition to intervene in its defence.







 President of Bethlehem Bible College Expresses Thanks for Antisemitic Comment | Main | Moderate Palestinian Peace Negotiator Outraged Over U.S. Designation of Hamas Terrorist 

January 31, 2018

Echoes of the Past: German Tanks and the Turkish Government Assaulting Minorities

An article in the German newspaper Deutsche Welle reports on the consternation of members of the German government over the use of German Leopard tanks by the Turkish army in its cross-border invasion of the Kurdish enclave in Syria.

The Germans should be concerned, not only because of the use of German tanks for an act of aggression, but also because of the disturbing imagery and historical resonance associated with this aggression.

In World War I, the Ottoman Turk's longstanding military ties with the Germans paved the way for the entrance of the Ottomans into the war against the Allies. Under the the pretext of the war, the Turkish government proceded to conduct a genocide against its Armenian minority.

Today, the Kurds are the target of the Turkish regime's wrath.

Furthermore, the imagery of the Leopard tank, which bears a striking resemblance to the infamous World War II Tiger tank, may not be lost on German politicians concerned with Germany's image; nor does the fact that the Kurds have the moral (and wavering military) support of the United States and fellow democratic coalition members.

Posted by SS at January 31, 2018 01:01 PM

The grand-father of my grand-father was a personal friend and chess partner to Heinrich Marx, Karl's father. So I am from German descent (partially, 2 other of my 4 grand-parents came from Strasbourg and Luxembourg, hence my Luxembourg nationality though I was born in Germany). Grown up in the most intimate familiarity with German culture as well as French, I truly feel European but, when it comes to the crunch, I suspect my German birth/first upbringing takes it all. So yes, I am deeply concerned, above all because my own father has helped to get Jews from Denmark to Sweden (one can read about this in "Exodus" by Leon Uris, without my father's name however, otherwise I wouldn't sit here)

Posted by: Rene Fries at February 3, 2018 08:55 AM

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Post a commentBlockchain, cryptocurrencies and e-wallets. Wearables such as Google Glass and fitness trackers. Sharing economy platforms. ConstructionTech. Machine learning and artificial intelligence. Bots, smart home devices and self-driving cars. Virtual and augmented reality. Big Data. Internet-connected fridges and other IoT gadgets.

Depending on who you ask, some of these technologies are either hot properties or hot air, while others have yet to reach their full potential.

For our Lets Talk feature, this week, we asked 20 thought leaders, including startup founders and other entrepreneurs, to identify the technology trends that have their attention in business as well as the trends they consider fads. To paraphrase one commentator, businesses shouldnt seek to jump on the bandwagon whenever a sexy new technology lands; instead, they should embrace the right solutions, based on a deep understanding of their industry and the problem theyre solving.

Read on for further insights from this weeks lineup

Greg Taylor, Group VP (APAC), New Relic: The move to the cloud is definitely a technology trend that is here to stay. With digital disruption rife, companies have to move fast and with confidence to survive. They are turning to cloud adoption/migration, spending billions of dollars to migrate infrastructure and applications to public cloud platforms like Amazon Web Services. Organisations are increasingly motivated to invest heavily in the cloud due to the strongly-held belief that it will increase the agility and velocity of their teams to deploy and develop applications, and ultimately lead to greater competitive edge in the market. Driverless cars on the other hand is a fad in my opinion. The idea of autonomous vehicles has been around for decades but it is only in recent years that this prospect has become a reality. However, the technology and resources required to get there are still a fair way away before self-driving cars become mainstream.

John Heaton, CTO, Moneycatcha: Organisations and consumers are adopting technology at an ever-increasing pace. Businesses today are technology. Application Programming Interfaces, standardisation and automation of business processes, and the explosion of information means more information will be shared in future than we have created in our entire history. The volume, physical movement and ownership of data will present an ever-increasing problem if we rely on existing technology.

Cryptocurrency is in the spotlight but needs significant consolidation and maturation before being commercially viable. Blockchain technology, which underpins cryptocurrency, presents a unique opportunity to think about this problem in a different way. By having secure and immutable information data ownership can be assigned to the correct parties enabling information to be shared in a secure and efficient manner.

Standard definitions of information and distributed ledgers can enable multiparty business processes nearly instantaneously. Blockchain technology can exponentially increase speed, accuracy and efficiency of business processes.

Claire Sawyers, Head of Product, BlueChilli: At BlueChilli, were excited by the potential of blockchain, machine learning, AR and bot technologies. Within our portfolio, we have startups applying these by:

using the blockchain to give people back ownership of their data (BronTech)

using machine learning to predict places you will love, from where youve been (Huntr).

using bots to facilitate habit change in peoples working lives (Coworkally)

use AR technology to get kids outside exploring again (SciGround)

In Australia, the bot framework is one of the most versatile but under-utilised new technologies. We only have to look to sheer volume of deal flow via Chinas WeChat network to see how far were lagging behind in adopting this technology.

We receive over 1000 pitches a year, so theres definite themes we observe as entrepreneurs look for ways to apply new technology to old problems. Its a common trap to think that the sexy new technology IS the solution though. Weve seen countless businesses fail as they doubled down on building a mobile app at the start of the mobile-first craze, without the business ever warranting a mobile use case. Similarly, AR technology to date has failed to break from proof-of-concept to the everyday, but time will tell as handsets gain power and drop in price. Rather than chasing new technologies for the sake of it, we seek to work with Founders who deeply understand their industry and the problem that needs solving; then help them choose the right tech from the tool shed to get the job.

Jessica May, CEO, Enabled Employment & Portfolio CEO, Heads Over Heels: Automation has always been my thing, and Im very consciously determined to incorporate more artificial intelligence into the custom-built system weve developed. We have some elements of machine learning driving the site already, and Im looking at future development to automate more of the recruitment process. Im not sure about fads, its always hard to determine which new technology will be around in ten years but at the moment Im very wary of the cryptocurrency investment boom going on as it is looking a bit like multi-level marketing.

Sebastien Eckersley-Maslin, CEO, BlueChilli: Im bullish on blockchain technology. But Im bearish on the original bitcoin currency, BTC.

A decentralised distributed ledger, with anonymisation and integrity at its core with irrefutable redundancy and security built into the fundamental construct of its operation has many exciting applications. I think were only starting to scratch the surface for blockchain technologies as the general business and entrepreneurial community is only recently dreaming exciting ideas on how to use it. Blockchain is no longer confined to the super geeky!

Voting systems for government, distributed consumption of commodity services (like electricity, telephony, even transportation and logistics) are all enhanced by being public and irrefutable. At BlueChilli we have a number of amazing startups like Brontech and FarmPay which will use blockchain (in these cases, ETH) to add value to the end user in new and exciting ways.

My enthusiasm, however, does not extend to BTC, the original block chain currency. Originally conceived as a potential replacement for all transactions, a decentralised currency certainly has its appeal. However, I believe the technical limitations in how BTC works, with proof of work as the core verification engine will limit the upside. Already, today, we are experiencing long delays in BTC transactions being verified, making the use of it in consumer transactions doubtful. Combined with the fluctuations in value, and the overbearing amount of electrical energy required to support it, I think BTC is overhyped.

Dan Ross, Managing Director, Optimizely ANZ: A key trend in todays tech-fuelled world is digital agility. This requires not only having the correct tech tools but knowing how to capitalise on them to ensure they fall in line with your business vision. For example, it is important to find the technologies that will support your companys customer experience objectives, rather than the other way around.

Conversely, a tech fad has emerged around installing blackbox AI tools before basic digital foundations are laid. Ultimately, businesses are still run by humans and as such we are reluctant to cede control of our companies to someone elses code. For mature digital enterprises, AI will be well-utilised to play targeted roles in accelerating human decision-making and performance, as opposed to exercising complete autonomy. This should come late in a digital transformation, not early.

Alex Gruszka, COO, StartupAUS: The ConstructionTech sector is one to watch in 2018. We conservatively estimate that it will contribute at least $134.2 billion to the Australian economy. The acquisition of iconic ConstructionTech brand Aconex to Oracle for US$1.2 billion at the end of last year is a great bellwether for Australian startups in this space, whove collectively generated nearly $100 million in VC investment last year across a range of software and hardware innovations. With a corporate climate that is accepting of its digital future, the conditions are ripe for ConstructionTech to take its place among the technological niches for which Australia is famous.

Alexis Rouch, COO, Medical Media: The tech trend thats caught my attention is artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Theres been a lot of hype surrounding AI, particularly over the last year, and the term tends to get overused but its a very exciting technology when you consider what it can do and the potential applications in business.

Theres certainly a stigma associated with AI, including a fear that robots will take over the work industry, but the negative implications have been over-dramatised. With technological advancement, businesses need to get smarter and this involves utilising AI and machine learning. There are benefits in its use, from helping with the operation of the business to providing clients a personalised service.

In my company, Medical Media, AI implementation is a possibility down the track. By helping us work out what types of people would watch our screens, AI would enable us to better personalise our advertising services.

As for technology fads virtual and augmented reality have been around for 20 odd years, and I dont see them picking up steam. Another big fad trend is wearables such as IPhone watches and Google glasses. Any technology you can wear and integrate into your clothing doesnt seem to be catching on as a trend. Theres all this hype, and its just not catching, and I cant see it taking off, there are niches for it, but thats as far as it goes.

Another thing Ive noticed is that they seem to be designing these wearables for men, but if you think about the demographic that buy into these things, it should be fashionable, and something that women want to wear as well, or it wont stick.

Richard Miller, CTO, Prospa: In business, it seems we just cant get away from Blockchain. This is fuelled by current cryptocurrency trading mayhem, but it is the underlying technology which is really exciting and has future potential.

I emphasize the word future because I believe there really is a long way to go before the technology overcomes the many barriers to becoming as mainstream and embedded in everything we do as something like public key infrastructure (PKI). As with PKI, the maths and algorithms underlying Blockchain technology is rock solid and has stood the test of time, however the implementation of that technology is not without its challenges.

It is the humans that cause the failures, not the technology. All of the secure communications we use every day, such as Internet banking or logging into Gmail rely on PKI and yet there have been many times that the technology has been compromised through poor implementation.

I believe that Blockchain is still in its infancy and will undergo similar challenges. We still need to figure out as a community and society at large just where the tech makes most sense. Just like self-driving car technology has to overcome legal, social and political challenges, so too will Blockchain.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are many IoT gadgets that seem to be faddish and not fit for purpose: internet-connected fridges are one of my pet hates. Not everything needs to be connected. A real problem with IoT is that many gadget makers have no understanding of security, and these so-called connected devices introduce hundreds of new unpatched attack vectors into your home and business.

Dion Oxley, CEO, Quizling, Portfolio CEO, Heads Over Heels: I dont think VR or AR are fads but I do wonder if they are fad-ish! At the moment their use is really being driven by novelty  which is great and means the technology is getting tested. But it will be interesting to see where the real value is found. The use in education is being explored at the moment. Will seeing Machu Picchu through VR goggles change the way we learn  maybe not. But lets keep exploring!

Renece Brewster, CEO, Visual Domain, Portfolio CEO, Heads Over Heels: Automated video and personalisation in video content has definitely got my attention. Tailoring a users experience is so valuable to business and each day there are new levels to be reached. Something we are really proud of at Visual Domain.

Ashik Ahmed, Co-founder & CEO of Deputy: The evolution of home assistants like Alexa, Google Home and now Apples new HomePod is something that Ill be watching carefully over the coming months and years. At present, I would say theyve launched with only 10% of what their full potential could be. A lot of people would label these smart speakers as a fad right now, but as it continues to improve, the company that wins this race will end up owning their customer at a level that we can only imagine right now. In 10 years time, we will be looking back on current home assistant technology with the same nostalgia that we do for the very first iPhone.

Bitcoin on the other hand, is a tech fad that wont stand the test of time. It is the PR and noise around bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies for that matter) that is contributing to its inflated value at this point. Without the hype, Bitcoin seems to be an unscalable solution that lacks the support of any major government or commercial tech enterprise. While Bitcoin, Ethereum or any other cryptocurrency will ride the popularity wave for a while, they are all fundamentally flawed in the sense that they cannot be controlled by the government, and so will never become mainstream as long as this is the case.

SuperEd, Chief Customer Officer, James Coyle: The rapid advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, data gathering capabilities (including open banking) and virtual reality will give us the opportunity to deliver highly personalised advice experiences that will respond not only to what people say and do but also to other cues such as an individuals tone of voice and gestures. Machines can look at all the different behavioural signals in each interaction and respond intuitively to have a true conversation with someone in real-time and I find that really exciting, because the ability to help people in any environment they want is incredibly promising. This will enable consumers to hold real conversations with their digital adviser and engage with that adviser in whatever means best suits them  voice, video, virtual and augmented reality. Essentially, we are on the cusp of being able to combine the EQ of a person with the IQ of a supercomputer.

When it comes to fads, one area where I would urge a little caution is the very trend I am excited about. The view that technology can ultimately replace human interactions is flawed, because there will always be a place for face-to-face human interactions. Despite the promise and potential afforded by rapid advances in technology, its easy to overlook the fact that people are social beings and, while I believe the true virtual adviser is imminent, it will not replace the need that some people will continue to have for a human interaction with their adviser. The virtual adviser will meet all the financial advice needs of some people but only some of the needs of others.

Neil Smoli, Founder, Invex: One of the key technologies that we at Invex have been exploring more deeply is AI. Through our platform, weve been observing the application of AI as our platform pairs property developers to relevant agents based on parameters supplied by both parties. The results have been incredible; the software is distinctly targeted and streamlines the entire process. As the AI program runs, the more it learns about ideal matches and understands which user parameters pair together most effectively, meaning our platform is literally improving itself. This technology is powerful and here to stay, as anything that delivers timely insights and adds value to an offering always will.

I think that a lot of recent technology fads have actually been innovative developments but havent been launched at the right time or havent quite got their formula right. For example, the watch wearables and similar tech will no doubt have a paramount impact in the decade to come. Im just not convinced at this stage they have reached a level where their best use has been realised and they can integrate into society as it is. One of the greatest things about my role is that I get to meet with some of the worlds pioneering tech visionaries, one of which is working on a wearable human brain/computer interface. When this technology reaches a stage where it is applicable it will be a far more powerful technology than the wearables were seeing emerge today and the uptake will reflect that.

Michael Jankie, CEO, PoweredLocal: I think that the uptake of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) will be a running trend for a long time. With the time and cost of raising capital through traditional private equity, venture capital firms or Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), more and more startups will turn to ICOs to raise capital with far greater reach, ease and speed. A total of $1.7b was raised in the first three quarters of last year, including Aussie startups Power Ledger ($34m raised) and fintech HCash ($53m raised) and that will grow substantially in 2018. Well see traditional investors move over more and more into crypto assets in-order to be able to participate.

As for a fad, lets talk about big data. The dust generated by all the hype surrounding big data is settling and companies have realised that capturing and housing huge sets of data is virtually useless. Companies who spent millions collecting and storing data are now realising that without having this data in a usable format, without a use case, and without knowing what theyre looking at  theres actually no value at all. Taking advantage of companies big data paralysis have come startups, like Fulcrum, who are helping institutions with a use-case led approach that helps identify which data to capture that will deliver real returns.

Shane Baker, CEO, TAS: Were interested in how banks will leverage tech to appeal to the growing demands of millennials in the years to come. As technology natives, millennials want to engage with banks better, easier, quicker  and banks want much the same from these customers. From better customer support via chat bots, to emerging Fintechs disrupting traditional systems with new banking platforms, and innovative money-handling apps  tech in finance presents big banks a wealth of opportunity. Millennials will continue to demand forward-thinking technologies in their everyday life, and this definitely includes what happens with their money.

As for fads, I think there will be a gradual fade-out of the need for payment wearables to be fashionable. Rather, as technology advances at a rapid rate, these trending tech devices will focus more solely on technology, not appearance. Fashion is cyclical, but technology is a continuum, where, like we saw with the classic iPod ads, technology itself becomes the fashion. Look out for technologically advanced wearables getting bigger and better  possibly totally replacing the common watch and other more traditional analogue items  no matter what they look like.

Michael Fyson, Regional Director, Stratus: In Australia, around 70% of the adult population now owns an NFC (Near Field Communication)-based credit or debit card  and we will see that percentage of adopters rising quickly over the next decade. The payment card industry has traditionally been focused on higher-value purchases. At an operational level, card issuers have long struggled to address convenience spending and lower-value payments (such as buying a newspaper or a coffee at the corner store) due to the lower revenues these transactions generate relative to costs.

With upgrades to support contactless payments technology happening across most developed markets over the last decade, it will only be a matter of time before e-wallets become more frequently used than a real wallet, and that industry players will need to ready to accept the technology of such micropayments through NFC-enabled items such as cards and wearables. On that same vein, wearables as we know them will see more integrated functionality as technology allows for smaller, more powerful processors to provide a wide range of capabilities. The fad of single-tech items, such as fitness trackers, will be surpassed with smarter, multi-tech options as consumers gravitate towards more functional pieces with speedier output.

Dean McEvoy, Co-Founder & CEO, TechSydney: Corporations will become a set of APIs, and the corporations that make their APIs the most open will win What does that mean? Lets break down all the processes and functions that a brand, say a bank, does for you today. For some it may just be a home loan they provide, well within that home loan there is a bunch of stuff they do  they source the capital to lend to you, they take an application, they assess it, they securely wire the cash to pay for a verified asset and take security over that asset, they allow you to pay your home loan via direct debit, they give you flexibility to pay more or less, they provide reports and feedback and then handle all the exceptions. The companies that break that home loan into individual bits or functions and allow others access to use those bits of the value chain will win. No individual company can win today by harnessing the collective power and intelligence of many.

Kelvin Kirk, Managing Director, Pureprofile: The rise of the Personal Information Economy. Everyday Australians will monetise their personal profiles and personal data. Todays consumer is increasingly savvy about their data and its worth to brands, and many are understanding the monetisation potential of their data. This is called the Personal Information Economy, where the consumer is responding against personal data collection from companies. In Europe, this is already an advanced market reality which we expect to see mature in the APAC market in the next few years. Helping consumers to take back control of their personal profiles is a way that brands can create trust and improve their CX by understanding what the customer wants from them.

Chris King, Founder, Splend: The Gig Economy will expand and create new opportunities for the underemployed. If you thought about the sharing economy as mainly Uber & Airbnb, think again  its diversifying at pace and creating a lot of new jobs for professionals and part-time workers. Over two thirds (68%) of Australians are said to now spend and earn money through the sharing economy, according to new research from RateSetter. Uber drivers are now using their vehicles to make money offering a range of sharing economy services such as courier and delivery services and even home care solutions. Splend is an established Australian startup which equips Uber drivers and others with vehicles which allow them to generate an income using the vehicle. This is an example of how brands like Uber are a feeder for the broader sharing economy. 2018 will see the proliferation of the trend towards sharing economy gigs creating jobs for the underemployed and part-time workers, or those with a side-hustle.

About Lets Talk

Lets Talk is an exciting weekly initiative that provides entrepreneurs and industry experts with a forum to share rapid-fire views on a range of issues that matter to start-ups and SMEs. Every Wednesday, we pose a themed question to a line-up of knowledgeable industry figures, with a view to picking their brains for valuable insights to share with you, our readers.Leading companies across a range of sectors  including finance, utilities, government, education, automotive and telecommunications  need to lift their game when it comes to customer experience (CX), a new study reveals.

CX consulting firm, Customer Service Benchmarking Australia (CSBA), studied 3000 customer interactions with 136 companies in Australia, assigning each a score out of 100 for quality of service across phone, face to face, email and chat. The three key elements measured were success, ease of doing business and sentiment.

The Commonwealth Bank achieved the highest score, with 62.4 out of 100, followed by Melbourne Water (60.2), NAB (58.9), Western Sydney University (58.8), Sunsuper (58.6), Water Corporation (58.1), MAZDA (57.6), Teachers Mutual Bank (57.5), REST (57.2) and Volkswagen (57.1)

According to CSBA Director Paul Van Veenendaal, the overall findings indicate that leading companies really need to lift their game because they are failing to meet increasingly high service expectations in Australia.

He spoke to Dynamic Business about the need for companies to place a greater emphasis on CX quality as distinct from CX governance, the challenge they face in providing a consistent experience for customers across multiple service channels and whether or not Net Promoter Score (NPS) is still a relevant measure of CX.

DB: Do the findings suggest companies arent measuring CX?

Veenendaal: Customer experience is being measured by leading companies  there is no doubt about that. The challenge facing nearly all organisations  large and small, corporate and government  is what to do with the metrics once they get them. Most organisations have some form of management KPI that is designed to ensure the score gets managed. However, when scores dont move in the right direction or other challenges appear on the horizon, the customers experience can be the first thing de-prioritised.

Secondly, there needs to be a greater distinction between measures for Governance (e.g. agents asking customers for account numbers) vs assessment for Experience. We have seen growth in the former to meet regulatory requirements but organisations are still developing the latter.

When the CX barrier is low, this makes it easier for the international competitors to come into the market.

DB: Where are companies falling short when it comes to CX?

Veenendaal: Over the last decade, organisations have shifted customer servicing online. Often described as customer lead innovation, this approach has had the concurrent effect of lowering service costs due to the fact that customers have effectively become self-serving. By reducing calls to the customer service team, organisations have saved money. Now, however, when customers do reach out to an organisation, it is for something more complex  something they cant do themselves. Consequently, organisations have seen call times increase over the last five years, with their contact centre staff forced to deal with more complex problems. Throw in customers now preferring more than one channel and you have whole industries in a state of flux.

Everyone is now scrambling to develop strategies that enable them to service across multiple channels. Some organisations are better than others. Some are finding that the systems they thought would work, no longer will. Others are questioning the service models they have. In a quest to provide customers more choice, sometimes we are seeing too many channels and the experience across all of them deteriorating  think of the example of maintaining both an app and a mobile responsive web portal. investing in one well rather than diluting resources across both does improve the customer experience.

One thing is clear, the increase in channels has made it harder for the companies to provide a consistent experience across all channels and this can lead to more communication and not less.

DB: Are companies out of touch with what customers expect?

Veenendaal: Sometime back, CSBA identified the shift in customer expectations and created the CX measurement tool SenseCX. It is an independent quality assurance program that enables an organisation to operationalise outstanding customer experiences. It makes those great experiences that most of us can recall and tell people about, something that organisations can create repeatedly. Even more importantly, the standards CSBA has developed work across channels. In fact, for the chat channel, I believe were the first organisation to test with people their views on what they expect during a chat. Our research found that although businesses often viewed chat as a more informal channel, that customers still expected correct punctuation and spelling throughout the interaction.

We are excited by the incremental improvement being delivered to customers in the Australian marketplace but we know all too well the impediments to continued progress  boardrooms are still struggling to unite silos and how to account for upstream costs driving downstream customer benefits the next evolution in CX maturity will see shared Enterprise level CX metrics, joint accountability for issue resolution, stock allocation for customer outcomes rather than top line growth or cost efficiencies and a much higher focus on intrinsic employee engagement.

DB: Any tips for SMEs seeking to ensuring high standards for CX?

Veenendaal: It is important for all companies to be clear on the experience they want to provide the customer. This experience needs to be clear to all in the company. It should be measured across all channels. Companies should not be distracted by focusing on just the governance issues in assessing the experience (e.g. asking for an account number). When seeking new employees, they should also look at measuring the agents ability to provide a great experience rather than just product knowledge.

DB: What is your position on Net Promoter Scores as a CX measure?

Veenendaal: It Our position on NPS is that while external benchmarking can create a platform for action (for poor performers) companies should set their own realistic (but aspirational) target reflective of their commercial reality to improve over timein essence, moving in the right direction over time is the important thing.

We have many clients who were once NPS advocates who have become less so over the years. This is because no single measure is going to give you what you need to improve and develop your business. Ease of doing business has become increasingly more relevant, and for many, a better measure as it is more tangible for organisations to rally teams around. No one wants to be known as being difficult to deal with. This can often translate into actions and improvement initiatives more easily.With just over three weeks until mandatory data breach reporting laws come into effect, the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman (ASBFEO), Kate Carnell, has urged small businesses to ensure they are prepared as a matter of urgency.

From 22 February, organisations with personal information security obligations under the Privacy Act 1988 will be covered by the Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) scheme, which is administered by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).

According to the Ombudsman, where an individual is likely to suffer serious harm due to an unauthorised entity accessing their personal information from an organisations computer system, that organisation must notify the OAIC as well as the individual of the data breach.

She noted that an unauthorised entity could refer to an employee, independent contractor or external third party (e.g. a hacker) and that serious harm may include physical, psychological, emotional, financial or reputational harm.

The Ombudsman said the NDB scheme carries significant financial penalties  up to $360,000 for individuals and $1.8 million for organisations  meaning small businesses that collects personal information from their customers and staff cant afford not to understand what the new laws mean to them.

She continued, Yet, Ive read this morning a new study reporting 44 per cent of Australian businesses are not fully prepared. Another report by Telstra last year found 33 per cent of small businesses dont take proactive measures to protect against cyber breaches.

Carnell said information on what a breach is, how to report a breach, or how to take steps to avoid notification in a timely manner can be accessed from the OAIC website.

With the new laws commencing in around three weeks, I suggest small business operators also read our Cyber Security Best Practice Guide, which was released this earlier month, she said.

This free guide will help small businesses understand the risks and how to prevent cyber-attacks. It explains very simply what cyber security is, who to talk to and provides links to further information.

Small businesses are particularly vulnerable to sophisticated cyber criminals as they often lack the time and resources to properly investigate and understand this very real threat.

Protect your businesss data like you would your office: lock up at night, dont give the keys to anyone you dont trust, and report any suspicious activity that takes place on your premises.

See also: A last-minute guide to preparing your business for Australias new data breach regulationsThe deadline has been known for more than two years, yet many Australian organisations are still woefully unprepared for new data breach regulations that come into effect next month.

From Thursday, 22 February, the Notifiable Data Breaches Scheme (NDB) will require all organisations that are covered by the Australian Privacy Act to notify individuals whose personal information has been involved in an eligible data breach that is likely to result in serious harm.

Most people responsible for preparing for the new laws believe it is the responsibility of the IT department to prepare for and prevent cyberattacks, however the legislation is actually more concerned with privacy than security.

With just a matter of weeks left, it may already be too late for most organisations to do much about their IT security, but they can still take steps to lower their risk of being fined or found non-compliant thanks to a privacy lapse.

The key steps your organisation should be taking before 22 February include:

1. Understand what constitutes an eligible data breach

A data breach is more than a hacking attack or some other obviously malicious behaviour. Losing a laptop or USB stick with personal data stored on it can be regarded as a breach.

Giving personally identifiable information (PII) to a third party that is out of alignment with your privacy policy can also be a data breach. For example, if your privacy policy says we will never give or sell your email to anyone else, but a marketing manager approves giving it to an external marketing company, that could be considered a breach.

However, unless that action is likely to result in serious harm, it isnt an eligible breach as likely means more probable than not. Forwarding a single credit card number to the wrong person is unlikely to cause an issue, however forwarding that same single credit card to a large distribution list raises the probability.

Serious harm isnt legally defined, but is generally accepted to mean a noticeable negative impact on the victim, be that financial, emotional, or reputational. A simple email address lost from a grocery store marketing list is not likely to result in serious harm, but the exact same breach from a business specialising in erectile dysfunction would.

2. Understand what PII your organisation is holding

It is important to have a clear understanding of what information is being held, how it is used, and where it is stored. Its vital to ensure all users and owners of the data know what would be considered permitted use of that data, and what would be defined as a data breach.

Also, make sure incidental uses of data are considered. A user might never consider opening a spreadsheet of customer details on their phone however, if their phone automatically synchronises email, it may well contain PII which could qualify as a data breach if lost or stolen. Its important to remind all users of PII that they have a responsibility to handle that data as if their own records were in that data set.

3. Prepare a data breach response plan

Ensure everyone who handles or has access to PII knows how to answer the following questions:

If an employee gives away, loses, or has PII stolen, who do they report it to?

Who will assess whether the data breach is eligible, and what remedial actions will be taken?

How will this assessment process and the decisions made be documented?

Who has the authority to take damage limiting and remedial actions, including notifying affected people, the OAIC, law enforcement and the media?

If in doubt, it is generally better to unnecessarily report, rather than to hold off reporting for even a few days. Even though no credit card fraud was ever detected in the Sony PlayStation Network breach at the time, the harshest criticism was their seven-day delay to notify customers, as many were anxiously watching their credit cards. Sony had to pay for fraud watch services for millions of customers afterwards.

4. Review the OAIC Guide to securing personal information [1]

Fines are not there to add insult to injury after someone has been hacked. Rather, theyre penalties to those who havent taken due care. If you can show the OAIC that you followed their guide, and you still got hacked, they would find it very difficult to fine you.

5. Prepare a longer term PII strategy when you have time

Remember that your strategy should not be an IT strategy, but a business and legal one. Holding PII is a risk and all risks have a cost, calculated as frequency of risk x cost of event. Securing PII is a cost of mitigating the risk, so if the benefit to the business does not exceed the cost of holding PII, its a poor decision to hold it. Instead, find a way to avoid it.

For example, charities found it prohibitively expensive to become PCI compliant to process donations. Instead, many have used payment processors and paid them very small portion of each donation. This worked out to be much cheaper for the charities. The same principle should apply to PII. This process should guide you as to how much to invest in IT security to protect your PII.

The bottom line

By following these key steps, your organisation will be in a much stronger position when the new regulations come into force on February 22. Taking action now could prevent significant and costly ramifications in the coming months.

See also: Small businesses face stiff penalties under new data breaches scheme, Ombudsman warns

About the author

Ken Pang is Chief Technology Officer at Content Security and has more than 20 years experience in the IT industry. He assists in developing the technical capabilities of Content Securitys consultants and engineers, building and strengthening relationships with Content Security partners, as well as delivering practical and effective security solutions for Content Securitys customers.

[1] https://www.oaic.gov.au/agencies-and-organisations/guides/guide-to-securing-personal-informationLUCEDALE, Miss. -- A Lucedale man was sentenced to a 10-year sentence on Monday for being a habitual offender, according to Assistant District Attorney, Cherie Wade.

Malcolm Korey Williams, 27, of Lucedale, pled guilty as a habitual offender to one count of Grand Larceny and one count of Possession of a Controlled Substance while in Possession of a Firearm, and one count of Possession of a Weapon by a Convicted Felon, and one count of Possession of a Stolen Firearm.

Williams had prior convictions of Burglary of a Dwelling and Taking Away a Motor Vehicle from Jackson County and Possession of a Controlled Substance in George County.

Circuit Court Judge Dale Harkey sentenced Williams as a habitual offender on the charges of Possession of a Controlled Substance while in Possession of a Firearm and Possession of a Weapon by a Convicted Felon.

Jackson County District Attorney Tony Lawrence said he hopes this sends a message that these types of actions will not be tolerated.

"I hope this ten-year day for day habitual offender sentence sends a message that those who continue to violate the laws of the State of Mississippi will be held accountable for their actions," Lawrence said.

Harkey was also ordered Williams to pay a total fine of $4,000, with $300 to the crime victim's compensation fund.

"I commend the joint effort of the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics and the George County Sheriff's Department in investigating this case," said Assistant District Attorney Bill Barnett, prosecutor on the case.OCEAN SPRINGS, Mississippi -- Ocean Springs High School students were ordered to "shelter in place" Wednesday morning after a male student at the school made a threat on social media.

Superintendent Bonita Coleman did not elaborate on the nature of the threat, but said it was not against any students, teachers or facilities.

"But it was a threat, so for that reason we felt it was appropriate to locate the student in the school and get him to the office so he could be questioned about the threat," Coleman said.

School officials learned of the threat during the school's morning breakfast break, when many of the school's 1,802 students are roaming the campus, rather than in classrooms. Shortly after 10 a.m., students were ordered to shelter in place while the student who made the threat was located.

"When you have that many kids and it's during breakfast break, with so many of them moving around at the same time, we just needed to keep them in one place until we locate him and get him to the office," Coleman said.

Coleman said the student was being questioned, but as of late morning he had not been arrested.

"It was a precautionary measure," Coleman said. "As we always say, with that many students on campus, we just want to make sure if we are every aware of anything that we exercise due diligence."

Coleman also said that people frequently confuse a "shelter in place" order with a "lockdown" of the school.

"Shelter in place can be used when we feel the best course of action is to keep students where they are during a situation and continue with instruction," she said. "We've used shelter in place when we've had medical emergencies, for example.

"Lockdown would be used when we think there is the possibility of an imminent threat on campus."Washington, D.C.

President Donald Trump used his first State of the Union address to call on Congress to create a path of citizenship to Dreamers"including thousands of current K-12 teachers and students who were brought to the country as undocumented childrenwhile boosting border security and significantly restricting legal immigration.

And he asked Democrats to join him passing an infrastructure bill, without specifically asking for new resources for school constructiona priority for many in the education community.

There was almost no mention of K-12 schools in the speech, including Trumps favorite issue: school choice. Trump did ask lawmakers to enact paid family leave, and gave a quick nod to the importance of career and technical education.

Dreamers

Trump urged Congress to embrace his plan to create a path to citizenship for the so-called Dreamers"a big priority for Democratswhile at the same time placing serious new restrictions on legal immigration and providing funding for a wall along the border with Mexico.

For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities, Trump said. We have proposed new legislation that will fix our immigration laws, and support our ICE and Border Patrol Agents, so that this cannot ever happen again.

He added, Under our plan, those who meet education and work requirements, and show good moral character, will be able to become full citizens of the United States.

Democrats havent rushed to embrace the presidents proposal, in part because many oppose its new restrictions on legal immigration.

The outcome of the stand-off is critical for K-12 schools.

Last year, Trump rescinded the Obama administrations Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program , which allowed undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children to remain here legally. But he allowed DACA to stay on the books until early March, giving Congress time to come up with a longer-term solution for the 800,000 recipients that protection.

They include 9,000 teachers, according to the Migration Policy Institute. And 250,000 schoolchildren have become DACA-eligible since Obama first unveiled the program in 2012, also according the organization.

Its unclear what will happen to these students and teachers if DACA is rescinded without a replacement. Some school districts, including Los Angeles and Miami-Dade, have said theyll do everything they can to protect employees and students covered under DACA, if the program goes away.

For their part, Democrats filled the Capitol Hill galleries with Dreamers, whose future remains uncertain as Congress and the White House negotiate.

DACA recipient Diego De La Vega, who came to the United States from Ecuador 17 years ago when he was 7-years-old, attended the speech as a guest of Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y. Along with many members of Congress, De La Vega wore a monarch butterfly on his jacket, a symbol of the beauty of migration.

Trumps mentions of immigration did not give him hope.

I think all of us [Dreamers] were hopeful that he was going to portray us in a lighter, more friendlier tone, but I believe he antagonized us and put us in the lines with gangs, and gangsters, and criminals. he said. And that was immediately followed by four pillars of legislation that I believe will be dead on arrival in Congress. ... But thats nothing new for us. Its been 17 years of repeated failures and attempts at the DREAM Act.

Underscoring the intensity of the debate: Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., asked the Capitol Police to check identifications of any State of the Union guests and arrest any who were undocumented.

And Trump invited the parents of two teenagers murdered by gang members to sit in the First Ladys box during the speech. The MS-13 gang members who killed Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens may have been brought to the country illegally as children, Trump said.

Many of these gang members took advantage of glaring loopholes in our laws to enter the country as unaccompanied alien minors - and wound up in Kayla and Nisas high school, he said.

Infrastructure

Trump called on lawmakers to act quickly on a $1.5 trillion infrastructure package that the administration is likely to put in coming weeks.

I am asking both parties to come together to give us the safe, fast, reliable, and modern infrastructure our economy needs and our people deserve, he said. We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways across our land. And we will do it with American heart, American hands, and American grit.

Its not likely the Trump administration will make school construction a part of its proposal. (Check out this leaked draft of the plan, obtained by Axios ).

But any infrastructure push will likely need to garner at least some Democratic support to put it over the finish line.

Democrats are seeking some $100 billion for school construction in their own infrastructure plan , unveiled last spring. And more senatorsincluding at least one Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaskaurged Trump to consider partnering with states to modernize and repair schools .

Some conservatives though, argue that school construction should be beyond the scope of the federal government.

Career and Technical Education

Trump framed a focus on career and technical education as key to continued economic prosperity, but didnt offer specifics on how his administration would strengthen it.

Let us open great vocational schools so our future workers can learn a craft and realize their full potential, he said.

Members of Trumps cabinet, including U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, have been pushing the idea of apprenticeships and postsecondary certifications hard in recent months. Three cabinet secretaries, including DeVos, are even part of a White House task force on the issue.

The timing for a push on career and technical education may also be ripe: Congress is in the midst of reauthorizing the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, the main legislation governing these programs. The House passed a bipartisan bill renewing the measure last summer that gives states more flexibility with their CTE dollars. The Senate has yet to act.

Child Care

Trump also made a sales pitch for the part of the tax legislation he said was intended to help working parentsa doubling of the child tax credit, from $1,000 to $2,000.

A typical family of four making $75,000 will see their tax bill reduced by $2,000slashing their tax bill in half, he said.

But not everyone thinks the change will make much of a difference. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research organization dedicated to alleviating poverty, said it would provide only token help for low-income families .

During the campaign, Trumps eldest daughter, Ivanka, helped craft a broader child-care proposal, largely made up of tax credits. That didnt make it into the final legislation.

But Trump signaled that some kind of child-care proposal might be back on the table this year, calling on Congress to, support working families by supporting paid family leave.

Scrapping Regulations

And Trump took a victory lap for his efforts to shrink the federal government.

In our drive to make Washington accountable, we have eliminated more regulations in our first year than any administration in history, he said.

That includes key K-12 regulations. With Trumps blessing, Congress scrapped the Obama administrations accountability regulations for the Every Student Succeeds Act, and regulations calling on states to rate their teacher preparation programs in part on the performance of their graduates. The Trump administration also put the kibosh on Obama guidance calling for transgender students to use the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity.

And in a line that could have serious implications for many career staffers at the Department of Education, Trump called on Congress to give his cabinet secretaries, the authority to reward good workersand to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.

Reaction

Rep. Joseph Kennedy III of Massachusetts gave the Democratic response to the State of the Union at Diman Regional Technical School in Fall River, Mass.

With Trump in charge, we are bombarded with one false choice after another: coal miners or single moms. Rural communities or inner cities. The coast or the heartland, he said. As if the mechanic in Pittsburgh and the teacher in Tulsa and the day-care worker in Birmingham are somehow bitter rivals, rather than mutual casualties of a system forcefully rigged for those at the top.

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos applauded the presidents speech in a statement. America must do better to prepare our students for success in the 21st century economy, she said. I join the President in calling on Congress to act in the best interest of students and expand access to more education pathways.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., rejected the idea that the president didnt spend much time on education in his address, singling out his mention of vocational schools. There are millions of jobs in the country that require people with various educational backgrounds, she said.

Theyre jobs that require skills at all levels. In my mind, all education is vocational education, said Foxx.

When asked if he would support including school facilities in Trumps infrastructure proposal, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., was noncommittal.

Thats usually a local issue, he said. He said local, state, and federal, so well see.

President Donald Trump delivers his first State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Jan. 30.--Susan Walsh/AP

Staff Writer Evie Blad contributed to this report.

Here are highlights of President Donald Trumps administration on education:This post is by Frank LaBanca, a Students at the Center Distinguished Fellow and the founding principal of the Westside Middle School Academy Magnet in Danbury, Connecticut.

Maggie and Daniel, seventh-grade students, participated in a field trip where they learned about Emmett Till , a 14-year-old African-American boy who was lynched in 1955 and is often recognized as a symbol of the Civil Rights Movement. Moved by his story, they decided to collaborate and create a documentary about Tills life for a school project, with the overall goal of making a product with the theme take a stand.

The students conducted online research, collected images and b-roll footage , and designed a storyboard. Serendipitously, their teacher was able to introduce them to a local civil rights leader who was a friend of Tills more than 60 years ago. The students interviewed him as part of their documentary. They shared their final 10-minute video, Till Death Do Us Justice: The Lynching that Changed History, at the schools Project Expo.

To ensure autonomy for all students working on these types of projects, their teacher created a digital module in the schools online learning management system that included graphic organizers, video resources, online activities, and standards-aligned rubrics to guide project planning and execution. The online components of the project allowed students to work independently, with control over their path and pace of learning, while the teacher was available both virtually and face-to-face to provide guidance and advice. Students were excited about learning because they were able to use technology to both conduct research and create an exciting product that they could share with others!

Student-centered educators are always looking for ways to give students what they need, when they need it, in a way that doesnt restrict learning to school buildings and school days. Effective use of technology, as demonstrated by Maggie and Daniel, offers that flexibility. Blended learning, broadly defined as an instructional strategy that utilizes both online and face-to-face components, has become a crucial tool in the student-centered learning toolbox.

When blended learning is designed well, emerging and existing instructional technologies can be personalized to individual student needs and can also provide a platform for virtual collaboration and communication with peers and educators in and outside of school. A well-conceived, technology-enhanced instructional model can facilitate multiple forms of student-centered learning , making it more personalized, student owned, competency based, and available anywhere, anytime.

Theres a need for caution, however. While blended learning can be powerfully utilized to support student-centered practices, it is often described and implemented with teacher- or school-centered designs. (For some examples, see here , here , and here .) Of course, school and district infrastructure is important, as is training and support for the educators charged with using it. But its what students do with technology that is most critical. For this reason, a student-centered blended learning model and philosophy that positions student outcomes and learning as the primary focus will be far more beneficial to students than models that focus more on adult roles and responsibilities.

There are two ways to describe how students can use blended learning: consumption and production. Both practices are important for student learning and complement each other.



In a consumption model, students seek or, more passively, teachers provide them with information that helps them gain knowledge and skills. Most of the virtual learning experiences available for students today are consumption based; adaptive platforms to assist with literacy and mathematics skill development are classic examples (e.g., Read180 , MobyMax , IXL ). In addition, students often conduct their own research using search engines to retrieve and evaluate resources in ways that demonstrate information literacy. In such cases, students are taking what they find and using it to advance their understanding.

, MobyMax , IXL ). In addition, students often conduct their own research using search engines to retrieve and evaluate resources in ways that demonstrate information literacy. In such cases, students are taking what they find and using it to advance their understanding. In a production model, however, students go beyond taking resources to actually making them. They use technology to develop and share emerging ideas and final products that they create. To maximize the outcomes of the production model, educators often integrate a level of flexibility and choice so that students are supported to develop diverse ways of identifying and solving problems. In this approach, there is rarely one right answer. Consequently, educators emphasize the creative/innovative and problem-solving skills, using high-quality content as a support. A wide variety of digital media products, including podcasts, infographics, animations, simulations, and documentaries, can fall into this category. In this way, blended learning becomes extended learning.

For learners and teachers, knowing how to engage in learning is a necessary component of doing it well. For educators implementing blended learning, its important to determine whether the purposeful intention is to focus more on consumption or production. Doing so is a simple way to categorize instructional design choices that will help illuminate which tools and techniques will be most helpful, and also what kinds of outcomes to expect.

Ensuring that students understand the purpose of the blended learning activity can create an environment in which students own their learning as they use technology to solve problems that are important to them. And when we move increasingly toward more production-oriented tasks in blended learning, well be using digital tools for knowledge acquisition and for collaboration, communication, and creation.

Plus, if sufficient opportunities for revising, showcasing, and reflecting are provided, we will be helping students develop deeper learning skills , independence, self-direction, and problem-solving capacities. That sets them up for success in college, career, and civic life.

This is why a commitment to keeping students needs, voices, outcomes, and ideas at the center of their learning experience will ensure our instructional planning and technology integration will have the greatest impact.

This article was created with support from Jobs for the Futures Student-Centered Learning Research Collaborative and its funders. Learn more at sclresearchcollab.org .By now, its old news: Many teachers cant afford housing on their salaries. Their options generally include finding cheap housing far away from school and suffering a long-distance commute, getting a second job, or leaving the profession.



For West Coast teachers who cant afford to buy homes, a San Francisco-based startup called Landed has another option: The group will foot up to half of the down payment on a home for a teacher. The hitch? The teacher must come up with the other half10 percent of the sale price in a high-cost areaand pay that back plus 25 percent of the profit upon selling the home.

The startup has partnered with 35 school districts and counting in the San Francisco Bay area, Los Angeles, and Denver, and is expanding thanks to financial backers like the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, as reported in this Education Week article highlighting housing benefits for educators ranging from tiny homes to teacher villages .

Home prices in the areas where Landed operates are nothing to sneeze at. The median price for a home in the San Francisco Bay area last month was $825,000, up 15 percent from the same time last year, according to the Mercury News . The median public teacher salary in San Francisco is about $68,000 , according to Salary.com. Over the summer, the median home price in Denver hit $424,500, up nearly 8 percent percent from the previous year, according to the Denver Post , while the median salary for a Denver public elementary teacher is about $57,000 .

For the teacher who can manage half of a 20 percent down payment, heres how Landed works. A teacher wants to buy a home priced at $800,000. Landed puts up $80,000, half of the down payment of $160,000. Down the road, when the teacher sells the home, shell repay Landed its half of the down payment. But she will also fork over to Landed 25 percent of the profit earned in the sale.



If the home loses value, Landed shares in that loss. Lets say the home loses $100,000 in value. Landed shoulders a quarter of the loss, or $25,000. So if Landed put down $80,000 for the initial downpayment, the company will only recoup $55,000.

Now lets say the teacher never plans to sell the home. In that case, shell have to repay Landed before the end of the investment term, between 10 and 30 years, usually by taking out a new loan, according to the company.



Landed puts the repaid down payment and the 25 percent profit into a pool that will be used to fund future teachers down payments.

So how does Landed make money to pay its investors? Real estate agents representing the buyers pay Landed a part of their sales commission as a sort of finders fee, according to Alex Lofton, the startups cofounder. Thats the companys main source of revenue. Landed also charges its investors up to a 1 percent fee to cover the accounting and auditing costs of setting up a fund, but Lofton said this fee doesnt net the company a profit.

Our goal isnt to be a hedge fund, he told Education Week. We arent trying to make all of our money off of the investment. Our interest is to operate more as a brokerage and focus on the relationship to the homebuyer. The more homebuyers we can support, the more we can grow the company, which then makes us more interesting to our corporate investors.

So far, Landed has helped 25 teachers cover down payments. Lofton sees the company as just now taking off, since by mid 2017 it had only helped five teachers. But Lofton expects that by the end of the year Landed will be in several other cities like Seattle; Boston; New York City; Austin; Washington, D.C.; and several others.

Still, not everyone is convinced of the virtues of mortgage-assistance companies. As Liana Loewus reported in this Education Week article on teacher-housing incentives, some worry that privately funded teacher-housing initiatives like Landed end up benefiting investors rather than actually helping teachers. Michael Hickey, president of United Teachers of Santa Clara, said these kinds of companies are trying to find a way to make money off a situation thats wholly unjust in the first place because teachers are underpaid.

One commenter on a Mercury News article took offense to the idea of teachers having to share the profit on their home in exchange for the down payment help: Come on, the ultra-rich getting a 25 percent ownership stake in a house for a 10% investment???? While I applaud their stated intent this seems to be put together by people not used to doing the right thing for others. Why not simply take the 10 percent ownership they are paying for in the down-payment? REALLY bad optics and taking advantage of the working class to further their own image.

To be fair, Landeds help allows teachers to avoid paying monthly mortgage insurance (PMI), the penalty for fronting less than 20 percent of the down payment on a home. And just as Landed shares in the profit, the company also agrees to share a portion of the losses in the sale, should there be any. (Its worth noting, though, that the cities the company is planning to operate in are all pretty safe bets for housing investments.)

Landeds impact investors see themselves as doing a service, according to Lofton. "[The investors] main metric, he says, is I am interested in retaining great talent and that helps schools. If this fund performs as it is supposed to then I am meeting my impact goals. On the financial side, the fund can keep growing with appreciation and Im getting a fee paid by Landed to us for borrowing this money.

For Hickey all of this talk of down-payment assistance misses the larger point: educators should be paid more rather than receive subsidized housing or mortgage help. Some of the commenters on news articles on Landed agree, calling for teachers to get salary bumps instead. Others questioned how teachers could possibly benefit from the Landed program, considering that even a 10 percent down payment could prove too heavy a lift on a teachers salary.

Even some in the business agree. Jacalyn Gallegos, a loan officer at Hallmark Home Mortgage in Colorado posted this comment on an article about Landed on Colorado Public Radios website : Most teachers that are clients of mine arent able to come up with the 10 percent. Most fall into our lower down payment option programs. So while I do think this is a great idea in theory, Im not sure its a viable option for a lot of clients. Ten percent down on a $400K house is still $40K, plus closing costs and prepaids is conservatively another $5K.

Lofton acknowledges that for many teachers saving even just the 10 percent down payment is a burden. One hundred percent, there is no way of getting around that this is hard, he said. But the reality is we do have buyers, single- and dual-earner educators. Theyre able to do it. Homeownership has been their goal for a while, so theyve been saving for their down payment and working to get to a debt-to-income ratio that will qualify them for a mortgage, paying down car loans and their student-loan debt. Some, even with all that, have to seek financial help from family members.

So whats your take on Landeds mortgage assistance for teachers? The comments section is open.

Image: pixabay.com

See also:Ship-building companies in the southern port city of Guangzhou are acquiring a wide range of cutting-edge technologies which are expected to give them a competitive edge in the international market and significantly boost China's ship-building industry.

Chen Jianrong, secretary general of Guangdong Shipbuilding Industry Information Service Platform, noted that China's economic growth, especially within the ship-building industry, seems to be transitioning from high-speed growth to high-quality growth.

In early spring last year, Audax, an LNG transportation vessel weighing over 28,000 tons, arrived in Sabbetta Port, north of the Arctic circle, after a two-week-long voyage which saw the ship braving treacherous visual conditions and temperatures as low as minus 40 degrees Celsius. The energy-efficient, high performance vessel was built by Guangzhou Shipyard International Company Limited (GSI) and is the world's first polar-region heavy load carrier. Equipped with advanced anti-freezing technology, it can reach speeds of 3.7 kilometers per hour while travelling through ice as thick as 1.5 meters.

Audax, an LNG transportation vessel built by GSI, travels through the Arctic in pitch-black conditions. [Photo/southcn.com]

The launch of the 38,800-ton iDolphin, the world's first smart bulk carrier, at the 2017 Marintec China exhibition in Shanghai last December once again attracted worldwide attention. The ship was built by Guangzhou-based CSSC Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding Company Limited and features a special navigation system and smart operation and maintenance system which make the ship safer, greener and more efficient.

Other notable ships built in Guangzhou include the Xin Guang Hua, the largest semi-submerged ship in Asia and the Thjelvar, the world's fastest luxury ro-ro passenger ship which cost more than 1 billion yuan ($160 million) to make. These new state-of-the-art vessels reflect the rapid development of Guangzhou's ship-building industry, with its newfound focus on quality, efficiency and smart manufacturing.

Xin Guang Hua, built by GSI for COSCO Shipping Specialized Carriers Company, is the largest semi-submerged ship in Asia. [Photo/southcn.com]

"Advanced technology is the result of innovation and talent, and the recent breakthroughs experienced by Guangzhou's shipbuilding industry are entirely thanks to researchers and personnel who have dedicated their lives to the development of science and technology", said Chen.

"I once heard about an engineer who spent decades researching ships and never even set foot in a Guangzhou shopping mall. This deeply moved me," he said. The dedication of individuals such as this have an immeasurable impact on Guangzhou's ship-building industry. One Guangzhou-based shipyard, CSSC Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding Company, applied for nearly 400 patents in 2017.

The improved quality and performance of Guangzhou-made vessels has helped the city gain an ever-increasing international market share.

Last December, a 261,000-ton ore carrier built by GSI for Australia's Fortescue Metals Group Ltd (FMG) was assigned the name Matilda. According to Elizabeth Gaines, CEO of FMG, the company has ordered a total of four ships from GSI, citing their reliability and technological capability.

A ceremony is held in Guangzhou to celebrate the launch of Matilda, a 261,000-ton ore carrier built by GSI for FMG. [Photo/southcn.com]

In 2017, GSI completed construction on 31 client vessels, with 18 of them being built in its Nansha factory, while CSSC Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding Company completed 35 ships worth 12.4 billion yuan.

Despite excess capacity in China's ship-building industry, Guangzhou still stands out among its competitors due to flourishing offshore oil and wind power markets, as well as several large-scale bridge projects.

Guangzhou is home to two thirds of shipyards in Guangdong province and, according to Chen, the city will seek to further bolster its position through development of more high-end industries such as ship maintenance, shipping finance, and tour cruises. Chen also noted that ship-building companies should solidify themselves as developers of new technology, as smart manufacturing is the undeniable future of the industry.



Do grades provide an accurate snapshot of a students performance? Or are they anxiety-producing scores that prevent educators from focusing on true learning?

In an Education Week opinion essay by Mark Barnes, the creator and publisher of the popular Hack Learning book series, he writes that gradeless classrooms are a brave new world that more educators need to embrace.

Teachers would learn how to effectively assess academic performance, and students would become independent learners, driven by curiosity and inspiration rather than by the empty promise of a good grade or the threat of a bad one, Barnes writes.

See the full essay: No, Students Dont Need Grades

School districts across the country have been questioning and even replacing the traditional grading system with more experimental practices. These practices include standards-based grading , in which students receive detailed feedback on how well they have mastered specific course objectives, and competency-based learning , in which students can show what they know and progress toward mastery at their own pace. (For a breakdown of the differences between the two practices, see this analysis .)

And some school districts have implemented no zero policies, so that students who finish their assignments will receive at least a score of 50. The idea is that this allows struggling students to stay motivated and stay in schoolits easier for students to recover from a 50 than a zero. (The District of Columbia has a no zero policy, which is explored in Education Weeks and NPRs podcast series, Raising Kings . Its interesting to hear from educators who both oppose and support the policy.)

See also: When It Comes to Grading, Is 50' the New Zero?

But many teachers are skeptical of the idea of throwing out the gradebook entirely. In the comments section of Barnes essay, many weighed in with their concerns:

This builds no work ethic or personal responsibility; these are the biggest problems we have in our classrooms and the workplace today, one commenter said.

I have a hard time accepting that 4th graders dont need letter grades in math, another commenter wrote. It would be nice if they did not, but its probably not reality.

Another commenter put it this way:

If I had to peg a number to it, I'd say about 60 percent of middle class suburban kids (the kind I teach) would find a grade-less classroom quite rewarding, if more choice were allowed. 20 percent would probably not be affected at all and would perform the same, either way. But another 20 percent would see this as a field day to goof off more than they do already. No grades? No tests that mean anything (because there are no grades)? Party time! You would need to start a system like this in kindergarten and let that class work its way up if you truly wanted systemic change and to alter mindsets about the purpose of school and learning. Old, ingrained habits die pretty damn hard."

Still, there are many educators who are excited about the idea of a gradeless classroom.

One commenter wrote that not giving grades does build a strong work ethic and a sense of personal responsibility: The current system decreases autonomous motivation and does not support competency, the commenter wrote.

A % or number grade doesnt really mean anything unless the subject has right & wrong answers--which many dont. Often, being able to recall the correct answer, like a date, is a lower level thinking skill. Creativity and deep understanding cant be assessed with %. -- Barbara Larochelle (@BarbLarochelle) January 18, 2018

Education Week Teacher opinion blogger Starr Sackstein frequently writes about why she threw out grades in her classroom . Learning ends when you put a grade on something, she once wrote. Learning isnt about grades , its about mastery.

In this video, she shares six tips for going gradeless and focusing on ongoing learning:

And Barnes gave another four pieces of advice for teachers including asking students to grade themselves and being transparent with parents.

Teachers, would you consider going gradeless? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or on Twitter .

And for more big ideas like going gradeless, check out Education Weeks full report , featuring essays on improving student motivation and parent engagement .The case for Financial Instruments in the next multiannual EU budget

An important part of the EU financial system relies on institutions such as the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group implementing EU financial instruments that complement and leverage the EU budget.

In its role as the EU Bank, the EIB Group is successfully managing key EU programmes such as the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), External Lending Mandate (ELM), Competitiveness of Enterprises and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (COSME) and InnovFin which provide EU value added for all citizens by increasing investment and competitiveness, boosting growth and creating jobs.

The EIB Groups loans and guarantees, the advice we provide and the initiatives we support are the concrete evidence of the EUs importance to businesses and lives across Europe.

Going forward the EIB Group is vital to allow the EU to do more with less and leverage the EU budget in the post-2020 Multiannual Financial Framework.

About the conference

The doing more with less conference organised by the EIB, brings together top-level policy-makers from public institutions. Confirmed speakers include the President of the European Investment Bank, Werner Hoyer and the President of the European Court of Auditors, Klaus-Heiner Lehne, as well as Lilyana Pavlova, Minister for Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

EIB Vice-Presidents Alexander Stubb, Ambroise Fayolle and Vazil Hudak will be moderating panels on financial instruments within and outside of the EU and in cohesion policy. The panelists include, Members of the European Parliament, Iskra Mihaylova, Eider Gardiazabal Rubial, and Jan Olbrycht, as well as senior representatives from financial institutions, the European Commission and several EU institutions. Registrations for this event are closed.

Panel overview

Panel 1 - Financial Instruments inside the EU

Significant investment gaps will remain in the years after 2020. Innovation, education and skills, business dynamism and entrepreneurship as well as smart infrastructure will all require considerable investment if we are to pave Europes path towards competitiveness and inclusive growth. The question remains how to fill these gaps in times of shrinking budgets and new priorities.

Financial instruments represent a significant opportunity to the EU, crowding-in private and public financing to leverage budget resources. Whilst FIs are not an answer for all challenges, there may well be untapped potential for an innovative investment approach in a number of areas. In this panel we will discuss flexibility, timing and balance between grants and financial instruments and how we can develop even more efficient instruments that work harder for the EU in the post-2020 era?PKK/YPG starts to aim at civilians

17-year-old girl was killed and a civilian injured near Turkeys border on Wednesday by rocket attacks from PKK/YPG terrorists.

Since the start of the Operation Olive Branch, PKK/YPG has carried out cross-border attacks on Turkey by firing rockets on civilian neighborhoods.

PKK/YPG terrorists killed a teenage girl and injured a civilian with a rocket attack in Hatay, the border province of Turkey.

Fatma Avlar, 17, died in hospital from wounds sustained in the cross-border rocket attack in Reyhanli province in the border of Hatay. Another civilian exposed to the attack was badly injured from his leg.

Fatma Avlar

Two houses and several cars in the neighborhood were also damaged.

Actress Nicole Eggert stopped by the Megyn Kelly Today show to discuss the allegations she made against Happy Days star Scott Baio. Eggert alleged on her Twitter account that Baio sexually molested her during the production of the show, Charles in Charge, which both actors starred in.

Nicole's Story

The Baywatch star alleged that from the ages of 14 to 17, Baio sexually molested her. Eggert also claimed that the actor took her virginity. During the interview with host Megyn Kelly, Eggert recounted that the abuse happened after the two were in the actor's car and he "penetrated" her with his finger. Eggert claimed that the abuse began "repetitively" after that.

"The issue with him, is that he was our boss and he was also telling me, 'You can't telling anybody, this is illegal, I will go to jail, the show will be over, everyone will be sued. You will be out of a job, you will ruin everybody's life.' And it is scary and it's imitating, especially when you are that young," Eggert stated.

The actress elaborated that Baio was "playing on her emotions and hormones" while he physically assaulted her.

"More than ten times, more like probably once a week. And then on set, there was just a lot of groping, a lot of fondling, a lot of pulling me on his lap, trying to sneak kisses in the back, which other cast members saw."

"What my truth is, is that I wasn't ready to tell my story and for me it was always protecting the show and protecting that whole legacy that nothing happened there. That was my delusion and that was my cover-up always," the actress concluded.

Baio Reacts

Baio has denied Eggert's allegation in a video on his Facebook where he stated that the actress "seduced" him during their time on the show. Baio and Eggert did briefly date and slept together once; however, Baio stated that this happened when the show was over and Eggert was of age.

Baio also added that Eggert has made these claims since 2013, and has been served with two "cease and desist" letters.

The Joanie Loves Chachi star caught flak in the past for his undying support and loyalty to President Donald Trump. Baio also told several liberal celebrities to move to Canada if they were unhappy with Trump being president.29/01/2018

Mining Department monitors Companies issued with Mining Licence.



The ABG Department of Mining has so far processed six applications for Mining Exploration in Bougainville and two of which were rejected by the Bougainville Executive Council (BEC).

According to the Bougainville Mining Registrar Kenton Samson, the Bougainville Executive Council has granted four applications by Kalia Investment LTD, Toremana Resources Ltd, Isina Resource Holdings LTD and SRMI Bougainville Ltd.

The other two applications from Central Mekamui Exploration Ltd and BCL were refused due to the government reserving Panguna Mine area from any mining operations or exploration.

Mr Samson says that if the Companies who were issued with Exploration Licence dont comply with conditions such as proving work plans of land identification studies, social mapping and providing their environment impact management plan within the given time frame, the companies will be penalised accordingly.

Mr Samson says that if the companies go into exploration they must also sign the compensation and access agreement with the land owners.

Mr Samson says the department is monitoring the companies with exploration licence to make sure that they comply with the conditions given.

He said that letters have been issued to the companies to remind them of the conditions given.



Ends//

The post-liberalisation period has witnessed suicides of more than three lakh farmers (including cultivators and agricultural labourers) in India. This spate of farmer suicides has been one of the biggest tragedies of the century as more than half of Indias workforce is still dependent on agriculture for their daily sustenance (Basu et al 2016).

The concern regarding this issue has manifested in many forms. First, national and international media have widely reported on this subject. The focus has been on understanding and presenting the problem at the micro level and to highlight community programmes that have made a difference at a smaller scale. It is noteworthy that, in recognition of the spate of suicides in the state, some media forums have referred to Maharashtra as the graveyard of farmers (Sainath 2011). Second, a number of academicians have studied the issue of farmer suicides in India. These include economists, agronomists, sociologists, psychologists, and social workers, who have analysed agrarian distress in specific states in India, particularly focusing on the causes of farmer suicides; they have also suggested remedies and reviewed and/or critiqued the current agrarian policy framework and mitigation or relief measures. Some of these studies include Deshpande (2002) for Karnataka, Mishra (2006) for Maharashtra, and Sridhar (2006) for Andhra Pradesh. The analyses were accomplished using primary data from field studies, secondary data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), and agriculture statistics from state governments. Some researchers have also reported on the prevalence of suicides (Nagaraj 2008; Sadanandan 2014). Finally, the extant literature has also identified the reasons behind suicides (Mishra 2006; Deshpande and Arora 2010; Kumari 2009); the burden of financial debt seems to have contributed to around 90% of the suicides.

While the issue of farmer suicides has been studied extensively from the viewpoint of the suicide victims, the victims families and their situations after the tragedy have received relatively less attention. This is despite the fact that after the death of the breadwinner in the family, it is the women and other survivors in the family that vie with society for survival and encounter obstacles of an unprecedented nature. Having lived in the hetero-patriarchal structure of marriage and family, women are left fending for themselves while facing difficult and unpleasant encounters with bank agents and moneylenders. For instance, Padhi (2009) studied this issue for women in Punjab. Her article and subsequent book, Those Who Did Not Die (Padhi 2012), focused on women in agriculture and the life and challenges of widows after a farmer suicide in their family. The findings pointed towards a desperate attempt for survival by farmer widows in Punjab.

This article aims to contribute in several ways to the literature on the lives of surviving family members of farmers who have committed suicide. First, the survivors studied as part of this article include children and older people in the family, in addition to widows. Second, it is one of the few studies that attempt to discuss the life of survivors of farmer suicides in Maharashtra. Finally, the article goes beyond reporting the challenges faced by the survivors and analyses the key concerns that can have strong policy implications.

Literature Review

Basu et al (2016), Nagaraj (2008), and Sadanandan (2014) are the three main studies that have focused on highlighting the volume of farmer suicides in the country, along with discussing statewise patterns. In what is the latest study, Basu et al (2016) summarise the recent trends and provide the aggregate picture of farmer suicides in India from 1995 to 2011. Instead of focusing on the total number of suicides in India, as was done by earlier studies, their focus is on measuring the severity of farmer suicides, which is defined as the ratio of the farmer suicide mortality rate (SMR) to the non-farmer SMR.

According to NCRB statistics, the total number of farmer suicides between 1995 and 2004 increased from 10,720 in 1995 to 18,241 in 2004. The time series exhibits a break in 2004, when the total number of farmer suicides in the country started trending downwards, falling to 11,772 in 2013 and then climbing back to 12,360 in 2014. Basu et al (2016) show that the SMR, in comparison, for all farmers displays a pronounced upward trend over the post-liberalisation period until 2004. In precise terms, SMR increased from 4.95 suicides per one lakh farmers in 1995 to 8.76 suicides per one lakh farmers in 2009 before declining a little over the next two years. The article also compares the SMR ratios between states, and Maharashtra is shown to have the third highest SMR in the country (19 percentage points above the all-India level).

The article also summarises the corresponding data for the period 200511, which presents an even more dismal picture. At 0.69, the average SMR ratio for India is much higher during this period. Over this period, states that have an SMR ratio greater than the countrywide average still include Kerala (2.43), Maharashtra (1.15), Uttar Pradesh (0.96), Punjab (0.8), and Karnataka (0.8).

A number of studies have focused on understanding the reasons behind farmer suicides and on recommending possible frameworks for dealing with this issue. For instance, according to Deshpande and Arora (2010), the key reasons behind farmer suicides are indebtedness, illiteracy, and lack of basic support facilities related to health and education. The key policy recommendation emerging from their analysis is improving access to credit facilities and helping in reducing transaction costs associated with borrowing, particularly for small and medium farmers. Mitra and Shroff (2007) and Bharti (2011) also highlight indebtedness as a key reason for suicides, particularly so in the case of crops such as cotton. Mohanty (2013) attributes the increasing farmer suicides to the broader economic malaise being faced by the agricultural sector in India. Reddy and Mishra (2009) find limited rural non-farm employment opportunities, decline in size of holdings, falling investment, falling agricultural credit taken from formal sources, uncertainty of water availability, improper input and use of technology, and increasing costs and fluctuating prices as a broad set of factors contributing to farmer suicides.

By using qualitative data analysis techniques and after studying the farmer suicide issue in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Punjab, Kumari (2009) finds that the reasons for farmer suicides in most agricultural states are similar, the main ones being illiteracy and lack of alternative rural livelihood opportunities. The article recommends focusing on sustainable rural livelihoods and introducing methods by which the rural population can be given specific training in livestock farming and using other rural resources effectively. Mohanty (2005, 2013) attempts to examine how far Durkheims types explain farmer suicides in India and find egoism and anomie to be the most relevant for the Indian case. Anomie results from loss of social regulation, while egoism indicates loss of integration. According to Mohanty, most farmers committing suicide belong to higher social yet lower economic strata and are not able to deal with the ignominy of not being able to pay off their debts. This situation is exacerbated by diminishing social networks and thinning social support systems in testing times (Sonawat 2001).

The literature has also focused on impact evaluation of the policies introduced by governments. Narayanamoorthy (2006) analyses the various relief packages announced by the government for suicide victims in 2005 and questions whether the benefits actually cascaded to the targeted individuals. The study argues that such packages are only a stop-gap arrangement and may not be enough even to provide immediate relief to the farmers family. Instead, the government must focus on long-term measures such as investment in irrigation facilities and diversifying the possibilities for livelihood in rural areas by harnessing the potential of the livestock and fishing industries. More so, measures for expanding credit availability and improving the process of post-harvest support to the farmer must be incorporated in the agricultural policy framework. Jadhav (2008) presented a critical review of the action plan for balanced agricultural development of Maharashtra. The report called for a complete rethinking of the prevailing cropping pattern and farming methods in different regions of Maharashtra. The document also criticised lopsided policies such as the Agricultural Debt Waiver and Debt Relief Scheme, 2008, wherein the amount payable to the farmers was equally divided between different regions of Maharashtra even if districts such as Vidarbha had more farmers than some other districts in the state.

Kalamkar and Shroff (2011) also analysed the efficiency of relief packages for suicide victims families. The study states that Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra have spent heavily on relief packages. However, these packages have not brought any significant benefits to farmer families, and the spate of suicides has only increased over a period of time. Assadi (2008) also criticises the centralised relief packages for farmers and calls for serious policy intervention by state governments.

Finally, a few studies have also looked at women farmers and the situation of widows of suicide victims. Krishnaraj and Kanchi (2012) highlights the discrimination faced by women in agriculture even though more and more women are participating in agrarian activities. The study states that, as of 2011, only 50% of rural male workers were involved in agriculture, while the corresponding figure for females was around 70%. Kumari (2009) briefly discusses the challenges faced by widows of suicide victims. These include assuming entire responsibility for the household, including thinking about ways and means by which to manage basic household expenditure. Padhi (2009, 2012) focuses on the lives of widows of farmers and landless labourers in Punjab. According to the book, most survivors face a huge economic, social, and emotional burden after the death. Most women have to deal with paying off the outstanding debts, gathering and paying the dowry of their unwed girl children, and meeting education expenses of their schoolgoing children in addition to also acting as primary caregivers to the older people in the family. These challenges overcome their lives and pull them into chronic deprivation.

Research Design and Methodology

The following steps were followed for data collection and methodology design:

Sample for data collection: The study was conducted in Nanded, Maharashtra, in 2014 for a number of reasons. Maharashtras population is hugely dependent on agriculture and has four divisions from the perspective of crop specialisation. western Maharashtra produces sugar cane, wheat, onion, and other irrigated crops; Konkan is famous for paddy and fruit cultivation; Marathwada1 grows cotton, pulses, and oil seeds; and Vidarbhas staple crops include cotton, arhar (pigeon peas), and soybean. Among the four divisions, western Maharashtra is the most developed in terms of irrigation infrastructure, cooperative farming, and availability of alternative livelihoods such as animal husbandry.

Nanded is located in the southern part of Maharashtra, near its boundary with Andhra Pradesh. It is one of the largest districts of the Marathwada region of Maharashtra and has a population of 33,61,292 (Directorate of Census Operations, Maharashtra 2011). More than 50% of the population of this district is directly or indirectly dependent on agriculture, and soybean and cotton are the main crops. However, harsh climatic conditions and deepening agrarian distress have led to a spate of farmer suicides in this district. In 2014 and 2015, Nanded witnessed the second highest numbers of farmer suicides in Maharashtra. More so, as per Nanded district collector office statistics, 40% of families where farmers committed suicides were left out of government compensation schemes. Thus, Nanded is an ideal model district to study the problems associated with farmer suicides in Maharashtra.

Research design: Data on farmer suicides were obtained from the district and block offices. Based on the information obtained, a sampling plan was formulated. All the 508 households in Nanded where a farmer suicide occurred between 2001 and 2014 were included in the sampling environment. However, due to financial and other constraints, only 5% (around 30 households) of the sampling environment was actually included in the study. The researcher visited 25 villages in five blocks (Hadgaon, Bhokar, Kinvat, Mahur, and Ardhapur) for data collection. The choice of villages was based on the concentration of farmer suicides in those villages. While choosing the specific households in the village, sample stratification was used and families of diverse socio-economic attributes were chosen. These included the size of land held (small versus medium farmers), the age group of children in the family (babies, teenagers, or adults), the number of years post suicide, and the caste (whether Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, or Other Backward Classes) among others.

The data for the study were collected using the triangulation method, which comprises case studies, semi-structured interviews, and focus group discussions (FGDs). Case studies helped in gaining an in-depth understanding of families who were victims of a farmer suicide. The respondents were asked about the impact of the suicide on their livelihood pattern and how they were able to make ends meet. Further, an attempt was made to understand their sufferings and their pressing needs. FGDs, on the other hand, helped in gathering the views of the villagers about farmer suicides in Nanded and the situation of the family which suffered the loss. Semi-structured interviews with the sarpanch (village head) and police patil (village police head) helped obtain macro views regarding the situation of the farmers. The above data were complemented by the observation method and secondary data from books, articles, loan repayment papers, government reports, and diary letters.

Key Findings

Impact on survivors: The observation method during data collection was indispensable to understanding the challenges of agrarian households in Nanded. During travel between villages, it was evident that the region lacked basic public transportation and infrastructure. This prevents villagers from accessing health and education facilities as most government hospitals and schools are not well connected by any means of public transport. Additionally, the district also lacks irrigation facilities, and the supply of drinking water is also scarce. The researcher noticed several women and children carrying water across long distances even in the rainy season.

Among the households that were interviewed, it was observed that most families lived in semi-pucca houses and not even a single household had a pucca (permanent) house. The households did not have hygienic toilet facilities, and none of them had a toilet inside their house.

Because most basic resources were scarce, dominant communities such as the Marathas monopolised these resources in the region. Life seemed to be very difficult for families that did not have an adult male as there was almost nobody in the family who was socially respected and could speak for their rights and entitlements. Surviving family of farmer suicide victims thus face multiple economic and social challenges.

Economic challenges: Data analysis revealed that survivors of suicide victims struggle to make basic ends meet. The huge burden of debt combined with sporadic income leads such families into a vicious circle of poverty and deprivation.

Livelihood sustainability issues: After the suicide, the responsibility of providing for the surviving household falls on the victims widow and the eldest male child in the family. For families that may not have male children, or for younger widows, the situation is even more onerous. Given the patriarchal nature of their society, these women have never had any experience in crop planning, seed procurement, cultivation, and harvesting. Apart from dealing with the trauma of losing their loved ones and continuing with their regular chores, they must immediately assume the role of the head of the family and provide for them. In most cases, the survivors said that they sold off their agricultural land for a meagre sum and went to work as paid labourers on other farms. This is because they felt that the social pressure of being and maintaining their status of respected women prevented them from performing any market-related activities such as seed procurement and post-harvest sales. A widow from Shirsavdi village said,

In the absence of my husband, I find myself unable to perform the agricultural tasks dominated by males (from fear of what the villagers would say) and hence gave our land on lease.

Most survivors who sold off their land and went to work as paid labourers reported that their income dropped considerably and that only basic expenses could be met. They were unable to find alternate means of livelihood as they possessed no other skills. More so, they had limited hours available in the day for working as labourers given their household responsibilities of child-rearing and caring for older family members. The data revealed that the majority of the families earned around 25,000 per annum. However, families whose social networks were strong, where elder male children were the primary providers, and for whom cultivation continued to be the primary means of livelihood, the average income was

almost 50,000 per annum.

While families where elder male children assumed responsibility of the household reported better income, this effected a dramatic change in the lives of these children. They had to discontinue their education and focus solely on being able to meet the day-to-day needs of the family and finding ways to create a sustainable livelihood. In Kautha village, the elder son of a family said,

When my father was alive, all my school-related needs were taken care of. We feel his absence acutely now, and we can barely make ends meet. I am trying to complete my studies, but resources are limited, and I may have to drop out of school soon.

Increased indebtedness: The data revealed that dealing with increased indebtedness is a key challenge for survivors. As stated in the previous section, income considerably drops for survivors, and yet creditors still hound the families for past payments. In many cases, it was observed that families borrow at exorbitant interest rates to repay old debts and pull themselves further into debt. Those who receive some compensation from the government might not borrow immediately. However, large expenses such as over funerals and over dowries for female children do lead to an increased debt burden at different points in time. Even if these women receive compensation from the government, a limited income source means that there is a huge possibility that their debt burden will increase in the future. A woman from Talani village who had received government compensation said,

Now our family is free from any kind of debt, but for the marriage of my daughter, I will have no other option than to borrow money from someone or to sell my land.

Because most survivors have had limited exposure, if any, to managing funds, they are not able to use relief package money judiciously. Most often, the money is used to cover immediate expenses and is not used to generate future returns. The penetration of sustainable opportunities such as microfinancing in Nanded is low, and some women reported a fear of borrowing from unknown sources. One of the survivors said, I will skip meals, but I will not take a loan from anyone after what has happened in my family.

Bleak future growth prospects: Severe financial constraints mean that children in the family have bleak future prospects. Apart from the fact that most families reported dropping out of school for their eldest child, there is barely any money left to be set aside for education and other needs of the children in the family. In several cases, it was reported that the families that did not sell their land and continued to cultivate were unable to make substantial profits. This lower income meant lesser funds for expanding production and using available resources to their full potential. Manula, a widow, summarised this by saying,

We have six acres of land, only three acres of which is arable; therefore, we cannot generate the expected income. We do not have an alternate source of income either.

Apart from there being limited physical resources, there is also little money left over for the development of human capital. The data revealed that majority of the children in the families left school or moved to a school with very few facilities after the death of their father. Additionally, children who did go to school were undernourished and could not do well academically, eventually dropping out. The difficulty allocating the meagre resources between subsistence, education, and health expenditure is the biggest economic challenge for most of these families.

Social challenges: Survivors of farmer suicide tragedies face a number of social challenges. Women in the family become vulnerable and face gender discrimination in all walks of life, while children and young adults must face their declining economic and social status. Life is even more difficult for the lower castes as they face the worst encroachment on their entitlements. Most survivors cope by succumbing to their fate.

Increased gender discrimination: Before the incident of suicide in the family, women reported having faced gender discrimination within the household. Even after working on their own to complete household chores along with helping their husbands in cultivation, they reported that their contribution was never recognised as being valid. They were excluded from the decision-making process and only carried out orders passed on to them by their husbands when alive. Soon after the suicide, the nature of gender discrimination shifted for most women. They now had to deal with experiencing gender discrimination while working on other peoples lands or while selling their produce. Most women had never been to market or had been completely out of the radar of economic activities and found it very difficult to perform jobs that have been traditionally male-dominated. More so, some women also revealed that they faced more discrimination from women than from men and called for greater support of women

towards each other.

In a group discussion with Takali village participants, the thought process of the male villagers showed that they vetted this discrimination and believed that what happened with the women farmers was their destiny, and even if unfortunate, it must be dealt with. One person said, As bad times have fallen upon these women, they must consider it their destiny and follow the social and cultural norms.

Girl children also face substantive discrimination with regard to their education. With a tight financial situation at hand, girls in the family are made to drop out of school. In Shivpuri, a daughter survivor said, After the death of my father, I left school as expenses couldnt be met, and anyway, a girls education is given no importance in our society.

Social stigma of being a widow: Many women felt that one of their greatest personal challenges was dealing with the stigma of being a widow. They were excluded from most cultural functions and rituals and could talk freely only with other widows. The society also expected these women to maintain proper widow titles and roles and to accept the fate of being a symbol of bad luck, due to which their presence on happy occasions is discouraged if not forbidden. This stigma may often exist within the family, and the widows reported that they felt highly isolated.

As summed up by a respondent from Shirsavdi, When my husband was alive, people used to come home, help us in any way we needed, but now the same people do not even look at our home.

When the above points were raised in FGDs with villagers, participants revealed that they do not help widows because they feel that other villagers may doubt the reasons for which they were extending help.

Psychological trauma: Almost all survivors reported that they felt depressed and dejected after the suicide. Children reported restlessness, fatigue, and insomnolence. Some women and

elder children said that even a slight reference to the incident precipitated signs of vulnerability and of falling into depression in the younger children. Further, many women noticed

behavioural changes in their children, which they believe is due to the trauma. In some cases, complete withdrawal was noticed, while in other cases, the children became extremely responsible and never made any demands of their mother and elder siblings.

Most of the elderly people interviewed felt that they were unfortunate for being alive while their children had died. They felt bad for not being able to contribute towards for the income of the family. Additionally, they felt that their ill health and lack of financial resources was an additional burden for the elder children and primary earners in the family. An aged father of a victim said, My sons passing feels to me like my own death while still living. Nothing is sadder than a father having to perform the last rites for his son.

Falling social status: Families without a male member reported facing a huge downgrade in their social status. In many cases, they could not even find suitable matches for their children. This is mainly because they start having fewer interactions with relatives, and acquaintances hardly bother about their existence.

Villagers also do not prefer marrying their sons to daughters of suicide victims. This is because they are aware of their deteriorating economic conditions and know that they may not be able to extract substantial dowry out of such families.

Identified Concerns and Issues

The economic and social challenges summarised above are a brief quantification of the manifold problems that survivors of farmer suicides face in their daily life. These impediments affect their lives and curtail the growth possibilities of future generations. In light of the above findings, policy frameworks that aim to deal with the grave issue of farmer suicides must also pay heed to creating a support system for making the lives of these survivors better. In this section, a brief summary of the identified lacunas in Nanded is presented.

Limited penetration of non-governmental organisations: According to Reddy and Mishra (2009) and other studies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs; Sangath and Apulkee among others) have been useful in helping survivors to understand their basic rights and in helping them file for relevant entitlements such as government compensation in different regions across the country. During the process of data collection, almost all participants said that they had no idea about the work and role of NGOs, and none of the families interviewed had ever been contacted by an NGO.

Limited impact and coverage of government compensation schemes: The post-liberalisation period in India saw a huge focus on schemes for battling agrarian distress. Government programmes aimed at creating employment opportunities in rural areas (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act [MGNREGA] programmes) and providing financial resources to cash-strapped farmers and helping them insure their produce (Rajeshwari Mahila Kalyan Insurance, Janatha Rural Personal Accident Insurance, and Bhagyashri Kalyan Yojna). Additionally, the National Agricultural Insurance Scheme was introduced to support farmers in any natural calamities such as droughts and crop failure. Other programmes included supporting farmers as part of the National Food Security Mission (NFSM) through which pulse productivity could be improved (Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of India 2013).

Additional support services for improved agricultural and allied activities include National Horticulture Mission, National Bee Board, National Rainfed Area Authority, National Rural Health Mission, National Watershed Development Project for Rainfed Areas, National Fisheries Development Board, Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, National Bamboo Mission, Integrated Food Law, Legislative Framework for Warehousing Development and Regulation, and Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Rights (Department of Agriculture Cooperation and Farmers Welfare 2017).

During the data collection process, the respondents were asked about any benefits that they had availed as part of these schemes, and the response was always tepid. The respondents felt that most government schemes targeting farmer suicides cater to relief packages of paltry amounts for suicide victims families. Apart from the fact that the compensation amounts are very small and hardly sufficient as a down payment for starting an alternate livelihood, a number of families are not even able to prove that they are eligible for such schemes. A widow from Kautha village said,

The one lakh rupees given by the government was a small sum and therefore not enough to cover cultivation expenses. The government should increase the amount or should provide other alternatives.

Lack of resource management, knowledge, and opportunities: As highlighted earlier, most survivors had little idea about the best way to make use of the resources available to them. This was true for land, assets, and the compensation received from the government. They employed their resources in the payment of dowry or outstanding debt. Further, there seemed to be a deficiency in alternate livelihood opportunities, and families could not think of any other ways apart from farming to make use of their resources.

Difficulty in getting compensation: Many families reported trouble with being able to prove that they were eligible for suicide compensation. Respondents said that they had to struggle a lot to get their payments, and the process was tedious and lengthy. A widow from Dhanora village said,

After my husband committed suicide, police visited the village, but they didnt register his suicide as a case of farmer suicide. After that, I went several times to the police station and they only finally recorded it as a farmer suicide because my brother-in-law was with me. We then went to the block office, but there too no one would respond to us. We did finally receive the compensation but after so much struggle.

Many respondents also said that the process to get the compensation was very hard and lengthy. When this point was brought up in semi-structured interviews with the block officer (tahsildar) of Hadgaon, he said that after a farmers suicide, it is the police who is responsible for forwarding the relevant documents to the block officer and that delays were often caused by the police department.

Fraudulent Claims for Compensation

The eligibility for compensation also seems to have been a factor in inducement as summarised by a participant from Talani village.

I have seen many cases of farmer suicide, but real farmer suicides are not recorded as farmer suicide. But those who have good contacts or influence with police and other government officials have their cases registered even though they are not genuine farmer suicides.

However, none of the participants in the interview wanted to talk about bribes paid for becoming eligible for the compensation.

Lack of support for continuing education: Most respondents expressed keenness in sending their children to school. However, they complained about not having access to decent public schools in the vicinity. The families felt that it was not safe for girl children to be sent to distant schools. Further, even the families in which children did go to school were unsure of how far they would be able to continue their childrens education. In Sivadasi, a respondent said,

At present, all my three children go to school, but I couldnt say when theyd have to leave school. Our family does not have enough money for two square meals a day, so how I will educate my children?

Conclusions

The present study is an attempt to examine the struggles in the lives of the deceased farmers families with a focus on the role and importance of society in their lives, coping strategies for survival, livelihood practices after the suicides, and the degree of helpfulness of government initiatives.

The study revealed that survivors face innumerable economic and social challenges. First, widows must embrace the immediate change in their social and personal status along with becoming the breadwinner in the family. They must strive to exist despite facing gender discrimination in all walks of life and must accept the status quo of living in a patriarchal society. Second, the eldest children in the family must give up their dreams of improving their future growth prospects as they drop out of formal schooling to help the household with day-to-day survival. Third, young children grapple with coming to terms with the fact that their lives and economic conditions have changed. Additionally, a grim mood at home and lack of adequate nutrition make them more susceptible to losing interest in school work. Finally, elders in the family must try to contain their grief and find ways to alleviate the decline of their social status.

Most families who were interviewed pointed towards an inability to continue with farming as the key source of livelihood as they lacked the material resources and know-how for the same. Majority of the widows started working as daily-wage labourers in others farms even if this was not in keeping their social status. This limited income meant more difficulty in subsistence and inability to pay debts in time.

Finally, most respondents reported that government schemes had not been very useful to them. The procedure to get the compensation money was tedious and often involved illicit means. The respondents called for a better structuring of schemes, such as greater support for skill building, provision of alternative means of livelihood, and development of education- and nutrition-related programmes for children.

Note

1 Marathwada is one of the five regions in the Indian state of Maharashtra. Historically, this region has faced several droughts, which lead to farmer suicides.

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Sonawat, Reeta (2001): Understanding Families in India: A Reflection of Societal Changes, Psicologia: Teoria e Pesquisa, Vol 17, No 2, pp 17786.

Sridhar, V (2006): Why Do Farmers Commit Suicide? The Case of Andhra Pradesh, Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 41, No 16, pp 155965.

Tiwari, A K and A K Shivhare (2016): Pulses in India: Retrospect and Prospects, http://nfsm.gov.in/StatusPaper/PulsesStatus2016.pdf. [Citation: Tiwari and Shivhare 2016]Imagine a source that produces X-rays 10 trillion times brighter than the X-rays used in hospitals, X-rays that allow us to fathom the structure of matter down to the minutest detail, at the atomic level. Imagine no further! These X-rays, endowed with exceptional properties, really do exist. They are produced at the ESRF  The European Synchrotron Radiation Facility  located in Grenoble, France, in an international and innovative campus.

A brilliant light for science

The ESRF hosts the most intense and brilliant hard X-ray source existing today worldwide. These X-rays are produced by the high-energy electrons that race around the institutes emblematic "storage ring", an accelerator of impressive proportions, with a circumference of 844 metres.

The ESRF functions like a giant microscope, which "films" the position and motion of atoms in condensed and living matter, and reveals the structure of matter in all its beauty and complexity. It provides unrivalled opportunities for scientists in the exploration of materials and living matter in a very wide variety of fields: chemistry, material physics, archaeology and cultural heritage, structural biology and medical applications, environmental sciences, information science and nanotechnologies. It can help to answer questions such as: What is our planet made of? How can we explain the properties of matter? Will we be able one day to develop better targeted drugs to overcome pandemics or cancer, to produce more efficient renewable materials, to invent new electronic components, to tackle pollution more successfully?

A benchmark for science and innovation

The ESRF is an international cooperation that has steadily grown since its foundation in 1988 when 11 European countries united to draw up the statutes of the company. The ESRF is registered under French law as a "Societe Civile".

In 1994, the ESRF opened for user operation and was officially inaugurated with 15 beamlines, or experimental stations. Today, the ESRF is backed by 22 partner nations and has 44 highly specialised beamlines, each equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation. The institute operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The ESRF employs 650 people from a wide variety of backgrounds and cultures.

Each year, about 9000 scientists from around the world come to the ESRF to conduct experiments at the beamlines.

A large part of the research carried out at the ESRF is peer-reviewed and the results are published in the public domain with open access.

The ESRF also offers research opportunities for industrial research and development. The experimental techniques available allow for testing in real time and under real operating conditions. Major companies in the fields of pharmaceuticals, chemistry, catalysis, cosmetics, food, batteries, nanotechnologies, medicine and materials use the ESRFs non-destructive techniques to improve their products and processes.

Pioneering synchrotron science

The world of research is highly competitive. The ESRF has been a leader in the field since the beginning and has a track record for breaking records (source brilliance, X-ray beam stability and coherence).

To maintain this leadership, the ESRF launched an extensive modernisation programme in 2009 that saw the creation of 19 new beamlines and many developments in instrumentation.

In 2015, the ESRF launched a second and major step in the modernisation with the ESRF-EBS project (ESRF-Extremely Brilliant Source).

On 25 August 2020, the ESRF opened its completely rebuilt x-ray source, ESRF-EBS, the worlds first fourth-generation high-energy synchrotron. Together with the most advanced portfolio of new beamlines, ESRF-EBS opens new vistas for X-ray science in imaging condensed and living matter from the nanoscale, enabling scientists to address the global challenges facing our society such as health, climate changes and environment, but also energy and innovative industry.

In total the ESRF has invested 330 M over the period 2009-2022 for its upgrade programme:The appearance of plate tectonics 2.5 billion years ago, favouring the internal dynamics of the Earth, would have allowed a significant release of oxygen in the atmosphere inducing the development of life on our planet, according to a study published by the journal Geochemical Perspectives

The Earths atmosphere remained anoxic for two billion years after the formation of our planet. Then, its oxygen content increased drastically during a well-identified Great Oxygenation Event. It is generally believed that the release of free oxygen was due to the biosphere itself, in relation with the evolution of life on Earth. An international team of researchers from Laboratoire Magmas et Volcans (Universite Clermont-Ferrand, CNRS-IRD-OPGC), Geosciences Montpellier (Universite de Montpellier, CNRS), the laboratory Conditions Extremes et Materiaux: Haute Temperature et Irradiation (CNRS), and involving five scientists from the ESRF propose a completely different scenario. Based on the experimental observation of a significant amount of ferric iron in the deep Earths mantle, they suggest an ascent toward the Earths surface of a primordial oxidised-mantle material, inducing the arrival of oxygen into the atmosphere. The upwelling movements would have been hampered during the Archean eon, which was dominated by floating micro-plates at the Earths surface. Then, major mantle mixing started when modern plate tectonics and deep slab subduction were established about 2.5 billion years ago, enabling the release of oxygen to the Earths surface.

During the Archean, the oxidised deep mantle remained isolated from the Earths surface because of a tectonic regime characterised by almost no subduction. At that time, the atmosphere was anoxic. The transition to modern plate tectonics that occurred 2.5 billion years ago greatly enhanced mantle mixing. Subduction of slabs associated to global mantle convection induced ascent of deep oxidised mantle material and fresh lavas reached the Earths surface. Large amounts of oxygen were potentially degassed, due to the increase in volcanic fluxes and other sub-surface exchange processes.

This thermochemical evolution could have been fairly chaotic as it resulted in major ultramafic volcanic events greatly increasing the amount of fresh lava rising to the Earths surface. Interestingly, it is around the same period that the Earths atmosphere experienced the Great Oxygenation Event, which is a major step on the course of life evolution on Earth.

As explained by Denis Andrault This type of time-coincidence is rarely fortuitous in Nature. Thats why we thought that we could make a link between the thermochemical evolution of the interior of the Earth and the oxygen content of the atmosphere ".

For the first time, the authors of this study suggest a global scenario that correlates the timing and the amplitude of the Great Oxygenation Event with the dynamical evolution of the interior of our planet along the geological ages. The scenario first describes a primordial deep mantle relatively rich in oxygen due to the removal of metallic iron at the earliest period of the core formation. It is the most abundant mantle phase, the Al-bearing (Mg,Fe)SiO 3 bridgmanite, that can incorporate significant amounts of ferric iron (Fe3+) and thus a relative excess in oxygen.

For this study, the team use both X-ray absorption spectroscopy and Mossbauer spectroscopy and carried out experiments at two ESRF beamlines (ID24 and ID18). From the experimental point of view, the challenge here was to determine a quantitative estimate of the proportion of Fe3+ in the deep mantle, where Fe is found in different minerals. The ESRF presently operates the only instruments worldwide, i.e., a double-sided laser heating facility coupled to an energy dispersive XAS beamline (ID24), and to a nuclear resonance beamline (ID18) capable of probing the local and electronic structure of matter at conditions relevant to the Earths mantle, explained Sakura Pascarelli, Aleksandr Chumakov and Valerio Cerantola from ESRF.

As underlined by Denis Andrault, The fate of such primordial oxygen-excess is key for our understanding of the redox state of our planet. For the 2 - 2.5 billion years after the formation of our planet, the oxidised material remained hidden in the deep Earths interior. When plate tectonics and deep slab subduction started to mix the entire mantle from very deep to the Earths surface, the excess of oxygen was released into the atmosphere. It induced a major thermochemical evolution of the atmosphere, to which terrestrial life has adapted with major biological developments

Publication:

Large oxygen excess in the primitive mantle could be the source of the Great Oxygenation Event. D. Andrault, M. Munoz, G. Pesce, V. Cerantola, A. Chumakov, I. Kantor, S. Pascarelli, R. Ruffer, L. Hennet. Geochemical Perspective letters. January 17th, 2018. DOI: 10.7185/geochemlet.1801Giacomo Ghiringhelli and Lucio Braicovich were awarded the 2018 Europhysics Prize of the Condensed Matter Division of the European Physical Society (EPS), for their groundbreaking work  for the development and scientific exploration of high-resolution resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) .

Awarded once every 2 years, the EPS Condensed Matter Europhysics Prize is one of Europes most prestigious prizes in the field of condensed matter physics. The Prize will be presented on Tuesday March 13th, 2018, at the Awards Session of the 27th General Conference of the EPS Condensed Matter Division, to be held in Berlin.

"All of us at the ESRF wish to express our most vivid congratulations to Lucio Braicovich and Giacomo Ghiringhelli from the Politecnico di Milano for being awarded this prestigious Prize.  said Francesco Sette, ESRF Director General. "We are particularly pleased as Lucio and Giacomo invented RIXS at the ESRF, initially on ID12B/ID08 beamlines in the mid 90's, and then actively participated in the conception and construction of the new ID32 RIXS station that stands today as the world flagship in the RIXS field. We wish to congratulate Nick Brookes, ESRF scientist, and his team for the wonderful job that they have done in supporting the Milano team. 

Thanks to their seminal work at the ESRF, RIXS has indeed established itself as a prime spectroscopic technique to study highly correlated materials as high-temperature superconductors. Many RIXS stations, following the Milano design and their construction at the ESRF, have been developed around the world in today's most performing synchrotron laboratories. Plans are also being considered at present for RIXS stations using the new X-ray Free Electron Laser facilities.

The RIXS spectrometer of the ESRF ID32 beamline (credit: ESRF/Stef Cande)



Recently, Braicovich and Ghiringhelli, with Nick Brookes, have conducted the first experiments that take advantage of the unprecedented resolution of the ESRF ERIXS spectrometer (0.03 eV at the Cu L-absorption edge). These concern detailed, quantitative comparisons of magnon dispersions in different families of cuprates; the measurement of phonons and the electron-phonon interaction; and the discovery of collective modes of charge density waves.

As explained by EPS, the advantages of the RIXS technique  measurement of the entire Brillouin zone, unprecedented energy resolution, applicability to small sample volumes under extreme conditions  have led to advances and discoveries inconceivable just a few years ago, that have transformed the landscape of solid-state spectroscopy, inspired a new generation of scientists now entering the field, and will continue to very significantly impact condensed matter research in the years to come. This revolutionary development is due to the vision, the commitment, and the determination of Lucio Braicovich and Giacomo Ghiringhelli, who conceived and worked on high resolution RIXS with great determination for well over a decade, have pioneered the development of both key hardware and scientific concepts, and performed crucial experiments.

As explained by Giacomo Ghiringhelli : "I am honored and excited for this award, that recognizes Lucio's foresight in exploring the great opportunities offered by third generation synchrotron sources to X-ray spectroscopy, and our common endurance in finding some of them. It took several years of technical and scientific efforts before count rate and energy resolution became good enough for RIXS experiments to be really significant. And then we realized that high Tc superconductors were the ideal samples for RIXS, a technique capable of probing several facets of their complex and mysterious electronic and magnetic structure. The collaboration with eminent colleagues for the development of the instruments, of the theory and of the experiments on cuprates has been a key for the success of high resolution RIXS. On the personal side, working with Lucio for more than 20 years has been a daily pleasure. We have continuously renewed our fellowship thanks to shared curiosity and complementarity in our competences. And the belief that the quality of experimental data is the first prerequisite of all scientific enterprise."

Lucio and Giacomo continue a tradition of Europhysics prizes of EPS Condensed Matter Division awarded to spectroscopy work carried out at the ESRF. In fact, the 2000 one was awarded to Paolo Carra - at the time Head of the ESRF Theory Group - and to his colleagues Gerrit van der Laan and Gisela Shultz-Gmeineder - for "their pioneering work in establishing the field of X-ray circular magnetic dichroism."Protein cages based on coiled coil units can self-assemble in bacteria and mammalian cells. A tetrahedron, rectangular pyramid and trigonal prism cages of 5 to 10 nm diameters were designed. The prism, composed of more than 700 amino acid residues, represents the largest single-chain designed protein. Potential applications include drug delivery, vaccines, enzyme encapsulation, smart biomaterials, biosensors and molecular machines.

Proteins are natures nanomachines performing key processes necessary to sustain life, such as catalysis of chemical reactions, transportation of oxygen in our blood and molecular recognition. Proteins also provide structural support, for example in the form of microtubules, actin filaments, intermediary filaments and collagen fibres. Proteins are built as a linear chain of amino acids, which encodes information about the 3D structure. Before proteins can do their jobs, they must first fold into the correct 3D structure. Understanding the relationship between the sequence, 3D structure and function of proteins is one of the key challenges of protein research. The problem is not only of academic interest but also of great technological importance as designed proteins could be used to build new nanomaterials, transport vessels and therapeutic agents such as improved vaccines, cancer therapeutics and flu inhibitors. However, designing novel proteins is far from trivial. Twenty different amino acids appear in proteins, making the number of possible amino acid sequences almost infinite. For peptides with 8 amino acids, there are four times as many possible sequences as there are people on earth. For proteins of length 64, there are more possible sequences than the estimated number of all atoms in the known universe!

Scientist from the Department of Synthetic Biology and Immunology at the National Institute of Chemistry in Ljubljana, Slovenia have found an alternative solution to the protein-folding puzzle. They have invented a method to design protein cages of any selected shape that can self-assemble in living organisms. Their approach was based on previous work that included the design of a single-chain polypeptide tetrahedron assembled from coiled-coil segments [1]. The method was named coiled-coil protein origami (CCPO), since it was inspired by DNA origami, a technique that involves folding a long DNA strand into the desired shape by multiple short complementary DNA staples [2].

The key insight of CCPO was to use coiled-coils as building blocks. Coiled-coils are natural protein binding motifs that can be designed so that only the specific pairs form in solution. In this way, a toolbox has been created of coiled-coil building modules with simple and modular binding rules.

To construct larger structures, the coiled-coils have to be connected together in a longer chain. The scientists, assisted by the mathematician Tomaz Pisanski, solved the folding problem in a way that can be likened to the construction of a pyramid from a single piece of rope (Figure 1). They identified a path for the protein chain that passes over each side of the pyramid exactly twice. This path determines the order in which the halves of the coiled-coils have to be connected along the chain. Instructions for this strategy are available in an open-source program CoCoPOD [3].

Figure 1. Design of coiled-coil protein origami. A target shape is chosen, in this case a pyramid. Then a double circular path is found that passes every side exactly twice, setting the order of coiled-coil pairs.

Over 20 variants of CCPO cages have been designed and characterised. Several tetrahedra, two square pyramids and a triangular prism were designed and produced in bacteria. The triangular prism at more than 700 amino-acids represents the largest de novo designed single chain protein so far. The cages correctly self-assemble in bacteria, mammalian cells and live mice, without causing unwanted side effects. The structures of the cages were confirmed using a variety of experimental techniques including small-angle X-ray scattering at beamline BM29 and electron microscopy and they agree well with the designed scaffolds (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Designed and determined structures. The designed structures (top) match very well with structures determined from electron microscopy and SAXS modelling (bottom).

The research was highly interdisciplinary, employing a wide range of techniques, from molecular and structural biology to immunology and even mathematics.

A multitude of potential applications have been envisioned: active substances could be packed inside the cages, leading to novel cargo delivery vehicles. For example, toxins could be encapsulated and the cages used to deliver the toxins only to cancer cells. Additionally, more efficient vaccines could be created, by placing antigens at the vertices of the cages. Future projects include the creation of cages that can open and close in response to external stimuli, such as light or pH, leading to the development of smart nanomaterials and biosensors and perhaps novel molecular machines.

Principal publication and authors

Design of coiled-coil protein-origami cages that self-assemble in vitro and in vivo, A. Ljubetic (a) , F. Lapenta (a,b), H. Gradisar (a,c), I. Drobnak (a), J. Aupic (a,d), Z. Strmsek (a), D. Lainscek (a), I. Hafner-Bratkovic (a,c), A. Majerle (a), N. Krivec (a), M. Bencina (a), T. Pisanski (e), T. Cirkovic Velickovic (f), A. Round (g,h), J. Maria Carazo (i), R. Melero (i) and R. Jerala (a,c), Nat Biotechnol. 35, 1094-1101 (2017); doi: 10.1038/nbt.3994.

(a) Department of Synthetic Biology and Immunology, National Institute of Chemistry, Ljubljana (Slovenia)

(b) Graduate School of Biomedicine, University of Ljubljana (Slovenia)

(c) EN-FIST Centre of Excellence, Ljubljana (Slovenia)

(d) Doctoral Study Programme in Chemical Sciences, University of Ljubljana (Slovenia)

(e) FAMINT, University of Primorska, Koper and Institute of Mathematics and Physics, Ljubljana (Slovenia)

(f) Center of Excellence for Molecular Food Sciences, Faculty of Chemistry, University of Belgrade (Serbia)

(g) ESRF

(h) School of Chemical and Physical Sciences, Keele Univerity (UK)

(i) Centro Nacional de Biotecnologia (CNB-CSIC), Madrid (Spain)

References

[1] H. Gradisar et al., Nature Chemical Biology 9, 362366 (2013); doi: 10.1038/nchembio.1248.

[2] P.W.K. Rothemund, Nature 440, 297302 (2006); doi: 10.1038/nature04586.

[3] CoCoPOD: https://github.com/NIC-SBI/CC_protein_origami.

Acknowledgements

This project was funded by the Slovenian Research Agency, ERANET project Bioorigami, MSCA project Tollerant and a grant from ICGEB.The African Union (AU) has repatriated around 13,000 migrants to their homelands since December last year. The news of the repatriation operation comes only two months after it had been reported that African migrants are being sold out as slaves in Libya. Speaking to the media, Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Mahamat Faki, noted that the number was still lower than the target set by the AU to airlift 20,000 migrants out of conflict-ridden Libya by mid-January. He commented that the operation was making progress, although with a bit of delay. Already more than two-thirds have been repatriated.

Worn-torn Libya collapsed into chaos following its 2011 Arab Spring revolt that saw longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi toppled and killed along with various militias and many jihadist groups battling for power. The situation of migrants on the ground fell into scrutiny following the shocking reports of slavery in Libya. The video, aired by the US TV channel CNN, showed sub-Saharan migrants, referred to as merchandise, being sold at an auction in slave markets for $400. The reports triggered outrage around the world.

The video footage prompted world-leading players  the United Nations, the European Union and the African Union  during the EU-AU summit held at Abidjan at the end of November 2017 to put in place a joint Task Force to save and protect lives of migrants and refugees along the migrant routes inside Libya. The three organizations discussed concrete steps to jointly address the situation in the North African country. The United Nations estimates that the number of migrants in Libya is around 700,000.US President Trump said that the European Union was trading America very unfairly and warned that many of his problems with the bloc may morph into something very big. The European Union has treated the United States very unfairly when it came to trade, he said in an interview for the British ITV channel. Ive had a lot of problems with (the) European Union, and it may morph into something very big from that standpoint  from a trade standpoint.

At the World Economic Forum that has just concluded in Davos, Switzerland, Donald Trump shared his vision for and optimism in the American economy  America is open for business. He also said that his mantra did not mean America alone and he hinted that the US could reconsider its role in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. However, earlier in January, the Trump administration had imposed tariffs on imported solar panels and washing machines and last year he had vowed to impose almost 300% punitive tariffs on airplanes made by Canadas bombardier.

EU and US investments are the real driver of the transatlantic ties, contributing to economic growth and job creation on both sides of the Atlantic. Donald Trump specifically said that American companies were having a hard time to get their products in the EU while European companies send their products to the US without any or with very little taxes. But the European Union has been very, very unfair to the United States. And I think it will turn out to be very much to their detriment.

It is estimated that a third of the trade across the ocean is attributable to intra-company transfers. Total US investment in the EU is three times higher than in all of Asia and EU investment in the US is around eight times the amount of EU investment in India and China together. US trade in goods and services with the EU totaled almost $1.1 trillion in 2016. Exports totaled $501 billion while imports totaled $592 billion. The US goods and services trade deficit with the EU was $92 billion in 2016.

President Donald Trump is still determined to increase restrictions on people moving to the US to live and work but has offered help to immigrants who were brought to the country illegally.If his plans outlined in his State of the Nation speech to end chain immigration, where family members are sponsored to move to the US, and to introduce a merit based visa system are agreed it would be the biggest change to immigration for decades.As a concession to critics of his hard line immigration stance, Trump said there would be an opportunity for an estimated 1.8 million current illegal immigrants who arrived with their parents to be given citizenship.But in return he wants funding for a wall along the Mexican border, limits on family members who can be sponsored for visas and an end to the currently visa lottery system. He has a lot of support for a merit based system like those used in Australia and Canada.The proposal would limit family sponsorship to spouses and minor children, eliminating a number of existing categories including adult children, both married and unmarried, parents of adult US citizens and siblings of adult US citizens.Experts have estimated that cutting these categories would reduce the roughly one million green cards given out yearly by 25% to 50%. US Attorney General Jeff Sessions backs a hard line stance on immigration. He has spoken out in recent days about his backing for wide ranging immigration reforms and restrictions.Sessions is a supporter of Trumps wall along the Mexican border and he has also been outspoken about wanting to end family members automatically being able to move to the US and a merit based immigration system.For a permanent fix to our immigration laws, Congress needs to act. The American people have known for more than 30 years that our immigration system is broken. It is time to end the lawlessness and create a system that serves the national interest, Sessions said in a speech.He believes that a merit based immigration system would still attract the best and the brightest talent to the United States and bringing in more people with education and skills would improve the economy.310118 Private School contributes to students success

By- Trish Baranangko



The Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) in Buka has been supporting drop out students since its establishment in 2005 by providing second change of education.

According to the School Principal, Rodney Pelgepo, the school has been imparting the necessary education needed for such students to develop their ability to learn and enhance the required marks to further their studies to tertiary level.

The Principal says the school is unfortunate to receive any form of financial support from the Government since the school has failed to meet the requirement of being registered as there were no infrastructural development and other school facilities such as toilet and school library seen at that time. The curriculum used however was registered under the Education Department.

Despite not having full support by the Education Department and the Government, the school has improved over the years in terms of producing qualified students and also infrastructural development.

According to the Principal, support by the former Member for North Bougainville Mr Lauta Atoi and parents contribution has seen the completion of a ten in one classroom last year.

He says he is looking forward to reapply for registration once other facilities are completed.

Ends//

Thank you so much for helping us out here so marriage certificate and other documents that proves relationship will be enough to enter because we don't have enough time to apply for visa once we there we can start our application process from there and can we travel to uk on 3months Irish entry and come back to ireland?It's tricky, but doable



Hi there and congrats on taking the right steps of your pre-departure to the US - asking questions.



You can get a lot accomplished in two weeks, but you have to be savvy. You will see that getting one thing depends on having another and each step is connected to a previous and/or future one. Definitely be patient and be prepared for multiple trips to the same location.



As an E3 visa holder - the first thing you should get is some form of ID. A government issued ID card or driver's license will facilitate so many of the tasks you want to accomplish.

You will have to take your passport, visa and I-20 and other forms with you when you apply. Read the requirements on the California DMV page for an ID or DL. You will have to take a test for the DL also.



Once you have an ID - it will be easy to open a bank account. Choose a bank and ask what documents are required to open an account. Usually they want to forms of ID, which you now have - passport and DL/ID.



Once you have an account (with money in it) - have them issue you a debit card and/or credit card. Use the card for as many purchases as you can. This will start to establish a credit rating for you, which will then allow you to purchase/lease a car and rent an apartment. Credit (not cash) is king in the US.



Like a Driver's License, a social security number can really simplify your life in the US, especially when it comes to renting an apartment or buying a car, and people want to know you are a legit person. I would apply for it right away. You might be in luck and receive one within that two-week window. If not, by the time it does come (several weeks later) you will have learned how valuable that little blue card is and be able to do so much more.



(NOTE: Always take all your paperwork with you, so you don't make unnecessary trips. Before you leave a place, always ask "Is there something else I should know that I haven't already asked?)



All the best with your move. If you have any questions, check outOne of the greatest food scenes in cinematic history has to be the unveiling of the timpano in the film Big Night.

In the 1996 film, Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub play brothers and owners of a failing Italian restaurant in mid-century New Jersey. In the end, they throw a huge dinner in a last-ditch effort to save their dream, and the timpano is the centerpiece.

In his 2012 cookbook The Tucci Cookbook, actor, director and cook (who knew?!) Tucci renames the dish Drum of Ziti and Great Stuff, and that pretty much describes it. A huge bowl is lined with dough and then layered with ziti, ragu, meatballs, cheese, hardboiled eggs, salami and more cheese and ragu. It gets sealed up, baked and then, once cool, inverted and released from the bowl so the result looks like a big pasta drum.

My boyfriend and I (mostly my BF) recently made this over the holidays with help from his son Alex for a 14-person dinner party. Unveiling and serving the dish were wonderfully theatrical and dramatic. And it was incredibly satisfying to hear the hush that fell as guests took their first bites and then the oohs and ahhs and compliments that followed.

And let me say the oohs and ahhs were justified because this was truly delicious, with silky layers of pasta and cheese blanketed with flavorful sauce and enlivened with bites of meat.

This is a dish to impress. But its a lot of dish, with a lot of component recipes in addition to the final assembly instructions.

So each Sunday in February, Ill be sharing a recipe with you. Today is the meatballs; Feb. 11 will be the ragu sauce; Feb. 18 will be the pasta; and it will all come together with the assembly Feb. 25.

Each of these recipes also can stand on its own to be used in other dishes. The ragu is great with any pasta; the pasta recipe works for any shape of pasta you care to make; and the meatballs can top off spaghetti or sit on the tip of a toothpick as an hors doeuvre. And they all can be made ahead, leaving just the assembly for the day-of.

But this should give you plenty of time to prepare should you want to attempt the whole shebang for an Oscar-watching party March 4. In case you dont already have a ginormous 6- to 8-quart enamel bowl, we bought and used this one (which says its 6 quarts, but its really 8) from Amazon.com for $33.93: Crow Canyon - Enamelware Timpano Basin - Solid White with Red Rim. You have plenty of time for shipping.

Next week, Ill share a recipe for a rich ragu youll want to pour on everything.

Mangia, yall.

Recipe: Timpano-perfect Mini MeatballsWhile curing cancer remains a far-away but widely shared hope, UT Health San Antonio celebrated a step toward that dream Tuesday, announcing a Mays Family Foundation gift of $25 million to kick-start its cancer centers new partnership with the Houston-based MD Anderson Cancer Center.

An enthusiastic crowd of about 300 staff and faculty  joined by Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff and state Sen. Jose Menendez, D-San Antonio  interrupted the announcement on the lawn of the South Texas Medical Center campus with cheers and applause.

As the Cancer Therapy and Research Center was renamed in honor of the Mays family, Dr. William Henrich, the president of UT Health, called the moment an inflection point in its history.

Cancer has aptly been called the emperor of all maladies. The disease has been acknowledged to be the most difficult to diagnose accurately, and the most challenging to treat with precision, Henrich said. Defeating its complexity requires leading-edge science, consummate team work, perseverance and courage, all in equal measure.

It was the fourth private donation of $25 million ever given to UT Health, said its spokesman Will Sansom. The original acquisition of the center by the University of Texas System in 2007 was made possible by more than $25 million allocated over several years by the centers foundation.

The latest gift will partly be spent recruiting at least 10 endowed faculty positions and partly on cutting-edge research and therapies, said Dr. Ruben Mesa, the centers director.

The partnership with MD Anderson is expected to be activated this year, with hopes of integrating some of Houstons top-tier research and processes into UT Health San Antonio. The idea is that more San Antonians will have access to top-quality cancer treatment without having to travel for it.

Think of the kids growing up with their parents, think of the parents spared the loss of a child. Think of San Antonians and South Texans from all walks of life living longer, healthier, more productive and happier lives, said UT System Chancellor William McRaven.

McRaven is battling leukemia, but during Tuesdays ceremony he said cancers greatest impact on him was his mothers 1984 lung cancer diagnosis. She died two years later.

We have an obligation to use this gift wisely, he said. To prove, day after day, year after year, within those walls, that the confidence of the Mays family is well-placed.

Other donations of this size to the institution were Joe and Teresa Lozano Longs $25 million gift last year, the same amount by the Longs in 2008, and a 2007 donation by the Greehey Family Foundation.

The Mays Family Foundation also donated $5 million in 2015 to continually fund the directors position at the cancer center.

At the end of the announcement, audience members rose from their seats to stare up at the building behind them, its top draped in white fabric. At Henrichs word, balloons exploded into the air and the fabric lifted, revealing the words Mays Cancer Center emblazed on the building  a temporary designation before a formal sign is installed.

My parents vision has always been to strengthen this community  and its our hope that this will be a place close to home where all of San Antonio and South Texas can come when they hear those words: You have cancer, said Kathryn Mays Johnson, president of the foundation and daughter of Lowry and Peggy Mays, its founders. And I can assure you, those words are life-altering.

To have a collaborative center in our own community that will elevate the cancer care available right here is going to change the lives of so many.

sfosterfrau@express-news.netJaime Montelongo Solis was a toddler when his mother brought him to the United States from Mexico. After graduating from Kennedy High School in 2015, he wanted a degree in nursing or another medical field, but as an undocumented immigrant, he didnt think he was eligible for any scholarships.

That changed Tuesday, when Montelongo Solis attended the Keep DREAMing event sponsored by the Mexican-American studies department at San Antonio College. Outside the Loftin Student Center at the heart of the campus, SAC President Robert Vela joined the public show of support for undocumented students, which provided information about legal rights and financial aid.

Montelongo Solis, 21, is protected from deportation for now under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy and has been working in construction. He said he planned to call a number provided at the event to get help applying to the Alamo Colleges.

I really dont plan on staying in fear and just hiding, he said. If you do that, youre not really going to live a life.

The Alamo Colleges DREAMers Advisory Council estimates about 630 undocumented students were enrolled last fall in at least one of the districts five community colleges.

Mariano Mono Aguilar, an English and Mexican-American studies instructor at SAC, said he decided in November to spearhead Tuesdays event because he and other faculty districtwide noticed that undocumented students seemed afraid to reach out for help.

President Donald Trumps proposal last week to provide a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million young undocumented immigrants, in exchange for border wall funding and tighter immigration restrictions, has not done much to ease the climate of fear, faculty and students said.

It feels like being in purgatory or something, said a 20-year-old radio and television broadcasting student, who has DACA protection but requested anonymity out of concern for his undocumented parents.

About 30 students who stopped by Tuesdays event signed up for an email list that will provide more information and resources for undocumented students, said Steven Maldonado, administrative services specialist for the Mexican-American Studies department.

Carmen De Luna-Jones, offsite coordinator for economic and workforce development within the district, encouraged undocumented students to stay in school and named organizations that would help them with DACA renewals. Students at the event also received information about scholarships for DREAMers through TheDream.US and the Alamo Colleges Foundation.

Aguilar encouraged students to come to the Mexican-American studies office in the Chance Academic Center if they, their family or friends need help.

If you dont know what to do, you come to us, Aguilar said. If we dont know what to do, we will find the answer for you.

Vela promised the assembled crowd that SAC and the Alamo Colleges District will do everything in their power, politically and educationally, to ensure the success of undocumented students.

Im not in here representing a political position, Vela said. Im here representing our students, and undocumented students are our students.Incumbents in most Bexar County races reported large cash-on-hand advantages over their primary opponents in January, laying out a tough road for challengers about three weeks before early voting starts in the March 6 primaries.

Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff and Precinct 2 Commissioner Paul Elizondo, both longtime Democratic incumbents who say this years campaigns will be their last, had significantly out-raised opponents by the end of December, adding to already sizable war chests revealed at the last semiannual filing in July.

Wolff, 77, reported $619,237 cash on hand after raising a whopping $347,725 during the 6-month reporting period from July 1 to Dec. 31. At last count, Elizondo, 82, had a coffer of $560,665 for his 10th run at the Precinct 2 seat. So far, Elizondos campaign has spent funds primarily on mailers and signage, campaign manager Christian Anderson said.

Unopposed in the primary, Wolff faces a general election challenge from Tom Rickhoff, 73, a Republican sitting on the Probate Court No. 2 bench. In the Democratic primary, Elizondo is trying to fend off Mario Bravo, 42, and Queta Rodriguez, 47.

Candidates for Bexar Countys elected offices can receive unlimited contributions from individual donors, including those seeking contracts with the county  points of contention raised by both Bravo, who has made campaign finance reform a peg of his platform, and Rickhoff. Bravo reported having $6,149 on hand after raising $15,371, while Rodriguez had $6,070 after tallying $21,364 in contributions.

Rickhoff had yet to raise or spend any money, aside from his filing fee. He said he returns unused campaign funds, part of his rule against maintaining an officeholders account. He called Bexar County a moneyocracy where the wealthy elite rule, not the people  a point he underscored by noting that Wolff received 11 contributions of $10,000, which he called an obscene result for our democracy.

Christian Archer, Wolffs chief strategist, said Rickhoffs words are what somebody who doesnt have anyone supporting him says.

To attack the other guy for all the support he has doesnt make a ton of sense, Archer said. Our (finance) reports show Nelsons got support from Democrats, Republicans and independents across the board.

In September, Wolff said he had put on a more concerted effort to ready himself for a surprise challenge, following the 2014 primary during which court ally-turned-opponent Tommy Adkisson caught him flat-footed.

Wolffs team isnt taking this challenge lightly, either. Rickhoff ran a successful low-funded campaign to win a seat on the 4th Court of Appeals in 1992, fourteen years after knocking off District Clerk Elton Cude  seen as a deeply entrenched veteran of many political battles, according to a copy of the San Antonio Light displayed in Rickhoffs office.

Though Wolff and Elizondo held the most prodigious fundraising edges, the incumbency advantage extended to other races, too. District Attorney Nicholas Nico LaHood reported $136,547 on hand after raising $244,576 during the reporting period.

LaHoods challenger, Joe Gonzales, a defense attorney and former prosecutor, raised $13,401, including a $6,000 contribution from the George Soros-backed Texas Justice & Public Safety PAC, and lent himself $50,000. Gonzales maintained $35,359 by the end of 2017.

In perhaps an indication that hes not taking Gonzales campaign lightly, LaHood spent $180,161 during the reporting period, more than any other county candidate. The bulk of the spending  about $142,000  went to Chile Media, a San Antonio-based firm, for media consulting and production.

Tylden Shaeffer, the Republican candidate for DA who is unopposed in the primary, took in $11,950 in contributions and $27,315 in loans, reporting $11,510 cash on hand.

In a notable exception to the incumbency fundraising advantage, Democratic district clerk candidate Larry Romo reported $23,835 cash on hand, with $7,695 raised and $30,200 in outstanding loans. Incumbent Donna Kay McKinney, a Republican who did not draw a primary challenger, had $4,798 cash on hand after raising $3,250 in the past 6 months. Romos primary opponent, Mary Angie Garcia, reported $1,757 in contributions, with no cash on hand.

Candidates who face opposition must file a separate report by Feb. 5, covering contributions and expenditures from Jan. 1 to Jan. 25.

jscherer@express-news.net

Twitter: @jaspschererAs of Wednesday, a person in Bexar County suspected of certain low-level misdemeanor offenses, including possession of small amounts of marijuana, could be eligible to take a class, pay a fine and do community service instead of having an arrest on their record.

District Attorney Nico LaHood said he changed the policy, which he is allowed to do under a 2007 state law, as a way to give offenders a second chance and free up limited law enforcement resources.

I think this is a good balance of holding someone accountable, making sure they learn from their poor choices, making sure that we're using resources wisely (and) keeping officers on the street to respond to violent calls, LaHood said during a news conference about the new cite-and-release program.

The pilot program is being rolled out by the Bexar County Sheriffs Office first, and within 60 days, the district attorneys office intends to provide guidelines for the dozens of other law enforcement agencies in Bexar County, if they so choose. The program is not mandatory.

The San Antonio Police Department said in a statement that the department has talked with the district attorneys office to study the issue, examine the impact and determine a proper course for implementation but that no formal decision had been made.

More Information Guidelines to be eligible for cite and release Must be a Bexar County resident Have a valid government-issued ID 17 or older Not be on bond, probation or parole No active warrants No other pending charges See More Collapse

Legally, police officers within any department now can start using discretion to decide if they want to arrest a suspect or issue a summons, depending on the circumstances and whether the suspect even is eligible. But the police departments wont have guidelines from the district attorneys office until later.

Offenses eligible under the new policy include: Class A and Class B possession of marijuana up to 4 ounces, Class B criminal mischief, Class B theft, Class B theft of service and Class B driving with an invalid license.

There are two other offenses  graffiti and possession of synthetic marijuana  that are eligible under state law for cite-and-release, but they will not be included in Bexar Countys.

LaHood, who is running for re-election and first talked about the program in September, said hes spoken with residents and law enforcement officials throughout the county about it and that the response has been overwhelming positive.

Everyone that weve spoken to is opting in, LaHood said.

But officials at five local police departments, after being contacted by the San Antonio Express-News, said they didnt know the program existed or they hadnt received any documentation about how it works.

The only thing I received is a phone call from another reporter and that was the first Id heard of it, Alamo Heights Police Chief Rick Pruitt said. I've heard some conversation about it, but nothing specific as to a timeline and what was going to be involved.

Pruitt said he would decide if the department would take part after learning more about the policy, adding that the department supports LaHood.

It is not clear how many cases the new policy will affect. According to an Express-News analysis of court records, about 44,000 people were arrested in the past 10 years  between January 2007 and April 2017  on charges of possession of marijuana of 4 ounces or less.

Another 60,000 people were arrested in the past 10 years on 32 different charges relating to theft, driving with an invalid license and criminal mischief, the records show.

Some of those offenders, though, would not have been eligible for the Bexar County program, had it existed. Suspects are not eligible if theyre out on bond, on probation or parole, or have active warrants or other pending charges.

If an officer chooses to cite a suspect instead of making an arrest, the suspect is required to pay a $250 fee, complete eight hours of community service, take an educational class and give a urine sample, if applicable.

If someone is caught committing more than one crime covered under the new policy, the officer can decide if he or she wants to issue two separate summonses.

After receiving the citation, the suspect has 30 days to appear at the Bexar County Sheriff's Office Central Records department to confirm his or her identity, according to the policy.

Suspects arrested prior to the program's start but still in the process of being prosecuted, should have the same end result as offenders cited moving forward, LaHood said. Thats because many low-level offenders already take part in pretrial diversion programs and they later can try to have the arrest expunged.

We cant go back and undo what the law said, LaHood said. If somebody is arrested on one of these offenses that qualify under this new program, the end result should be the same.

Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar did not have a specific data on how much money the program would save taxpayers, but did say it would be less costly than before and a better use of our resources.

A law passed by the Legislature in 2007 gives municipalities the power to use cite-and-release programs. Several other counties have established similar programs.

Previously, LaHood said the countys program is a hybrid version of others in the nation. He said he looked at the successes and failures of other cities, such as Dallas and Houston, both of which announced similar programs last year.

In Houston, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said the county spent $25 million a year locking up people for having less than 4 ounces of marijuana. Now, misdemeanor offenders in possession of less than 4 ounces have to take a four-hour education class.

In Dallas, the City Council approved a similar cite-and-release program in April.

LaHood said the 2007 law change was a wonderful option for law enforcement agencies.

We're refining it, in my humble opinion, even more to make it a win-win for law enforcement, the community, but also for the citizen accused, to have a clean record going forward after they have learned from their poor choices, he said.

LaHood became district attorney in 2015 after a close race with Susan Reed, a tough-on-crime incumbent of more than 15 years. During the campaign, LaHood faced criticism for his 1994 arrest for attempting to sell 200 Ecstasy pills to an undercover police officer. He had received deferred adjudication with a probated fine and community service.

While campaigning, he described the experience as a terrible choice from which he redeemed himself.

In his first campaign for district attorney, in 2009, LaHood sought and received a court order to seal his 1999 attempt to hide the record of his arrest. The attorney general later ordered the records be made public.Members of Congress from Texas were on board the train from Washington, D.C., to West Virginia that was involved in a fatal accident Wednesday morning, with no major injuries reported among them.

Some of the congressmen were banged up, though.

Sen. Ted Cruz took to Twitter moments after the accident.

Thanks to all who have showed concern, I am just fine, Cruz tweeted. Please keep in your prayers any others involved in the collision who have been injured.

Cruz was not the only Texan on the train that was heading for a Republican retreat. U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Dallas, also posted that he and those traveling with him on the train were OK.

Karen, my staff members, and I are all on the train to the GOP conference and we are all safe, Sessions wrote.

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler, was also on the train and checked in, retweeting a message saying he was safe.

Re: #TrainCrash: We have heard from @replouiegohmert, and he is okay. We have no other firsthand information at this time. - Kimberly Willingham, reported the tweet that Gohmert retweeted.

Gohmert, saying he was OK, gave an account to KETK television in East Texas.

We were rolling down the track, and we have a train that almost all of the Republicans in the House and numerous Republican senators were on going to the annual retreat, Gohmert said.

The way it looks, the guard arm is down, so the garbage truck must have been weaving through the warning devices and they nearly got through. It appears we caught the tail end of the garbage truck.

Gohmert reported that while no lawmakers appeared to be seriously hurt, he believes some may have suffered bruises and even concussions.

We have a number of doctors in Congress who were doing all they could, Gohmert continued.

The White House is confirming there was one fatality, according to the Associated Press. The priest that was with us gave him (the deceased) his last rights, Gohmert said.

One of the doctors on board was a Texan  Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Pilot Point, who helped administer aid to victims.

Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, also was on the train but reported to be fine.

A spokeswoman for Houston-area Congressman Pete Olson said he was slightly injured in the crash.

He banged up his knee a little bit, but hes OK, said Melissa Kelly, an aide to the Sugar Land Republican, a former Navy pilot. He was a little shaken up.

He did not require hospitalization and continued on the journey to the GOP retreat, she said.

Congressman John Culberson, a Houston Republican, also sustained minor injuries in the accident, according to Jamie Robinette, his chief of staff.

He complained about his neck, but I think hes going to be OK, she said.

Also on the train was Houston region Republican Rep. Michael McCaul.

Several Texans heading for the same conference were not on the train. U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold said he was driving to the event.REYNOSA, Mexico  After living in a border town controlled by drug gangs for the past decade, the Kobyleckys hope their nightmare soon will come to an end.

Yedid Kobylecky, 36, a Mexican citizen, was barred from entering the United States after she admitted to twice crossing the border illegally.

Refusing to be separated, the family moved from Chicago to Reynosa, across the border from the Rio Grande Valley, to wait out her sentence. While there are no guarantees, Yedid finally is able to seek consent to reapply for a visa to enter the country. Shes working on that now.

Shes made some mistakes in her past, said Tom Kobylecky, 40, Yedids husband. Weve followed the law, and weve paid a heavy penance.

Yedid left her home in Cuernavaca, Mexico, at 17, hoping to find work to support her parents, and gave little thought to her immigration status. She returned to Mexico to visit her ailing father, then illegally crossed the border again.

Yedid eventually settled in Chicago. She met Tom in 2003 at a Home Depot, where he worked. They married a year later. The Kobyleckys had a son, Teddy, now 11, and lived a quiet life in the suburbs, until, after four years of marriage, the couple decided to petition for her visa.

The Kobyleckys dutifully gathered the necessary paperwork and were summoned to the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

Most couples who apply through Juarez manage to get legal status for their foreign-born spouse by claiming that to deny the application would cause extreme hardship for the U.S. citizen spouse. The Kobyleckys assumed their application would be no different.

I didnt have any idea how the laws worked, Tom said. I just figured honesty is the best policy.

Under the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, staying more than a year in the United States without documentation carries a 10-year ban. A repeat offender is handed a permanent ban and is barred from even applying for a waiver of that ban for at least 10 years.

Yedid would have to stay in Mexico.

The Kobyleckys' situation is not unique, though perhaps their decision to remain together in Mexico is. They moved to Reynosa, where Tom could find work as a trucker north of the border by day and return south of it to be with his family in the evening.

Meanwhile, their family continued to grow: Janet was born in 2010, and Kimberly was born in 2012, both in Reynosa. They have dual citizenship, allowing them to cross the border legally back and forth.

At first, Tom couldnt fathom raising them in this industrial Mexican city, so he turned to political activism. He sought help from immigration lawyers, petitioned federal representatives and even requested that President Barack Obama pardon his wife. But none made a difference.

Tom was stressed, he wanted to leave, Yedid said tearfully. I felt bad for him. I told him I would understand if he wanted to leave.

Finally, the Kobyleckys resigned themselves to a life in Reynosa until Yedid could try again for a visa. There have been spasms of gunfire and grenade blasts between warring drug gangs near their home, and money always is tight, but they have endured.

The children attend public school in Reynosa, and speak English at home with their father. Harder for the children to understand is why their mother cant join them on weekend excursions to the Rio Grande Valley.

Sometimes, we go to Texas and we have to leave mom behind, Teddy said. Its sad.

They hired an immigration attorney, paying him with the sale of Yedids land outside Cuernavaca and the extra cash Tom earns from restoring Star Wars action figures. They also started a GoFundMe page to help cover unexpected expenses along the way.

Its assumed all families suffer hardships when one or both are living in a foreign nation. The Kobyleckys case is different from most because Tom lives in Reynosa.

Tom also has a 19-year-old daughter, Aleksi, from a previous relationship who has struggled with depression in his absence. Underscoring the extreme hardships, he points to the psychological impact on Aleksi, who lives with her mother in Chicago.

In their 14 years of marriage, Tom and Yedid admit to struggling to keep it together.

Our relationship is not perfect, Tom said, with a wry smile. We havent had a decent date night in years.

Still, they persevere.

Its more important to stay together, he said. Thats what marriage is about.

anelsen@express-news.netWASHINGTON  From immigration and border security to infrastructure and disaster response, President Donald Trumps first State of the Union address hit a host of hot-button issues that were felt deep in the heart of Texas.

Even as Trump called for unity, the symbolic centerpiece of his speech was the renewed call for a great wall along the Mexican border, the central barrier to a deal on immigration and Dreamers  the children of undocumented immigrants who the president acknowledges find themselves in the country through no fault of their own.

The first pillar of our framework generously offers a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants who were brought here by their parents at a young age, Trump said. Those who meet education and work requirements, and show good moral character, will be able to become full citizens of the United States.

But Trumps second pillar, he said, means building a great wall on the Southern border. Rounding out the four pillars of Trumps immigration program are new restrictions on legal immigration  another flash point in the in the political battle that threatens to shut down the government again next week.

The rancor surrounding the issue was on display in the hours leading up to the speech, as Dreamers from all over the country, including Texas, converged on the U.S. Capitol to demonstrate their plight.

Among them was Houston Dreamer Cesar Espinosa, founder of an immigrants' rights organization named FIEL, who arrived as a guest of U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee.

San Antonio Democrat Joaquin Castro also hosted a Dreamer, though he declined to give her name to protect her identify.

With the number of Dreamers in the chamber multiplying, one Republican lawmaker, Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, called on the U.S. Capitol Police to check IDs and arrest any illegal aliens in attendance.

No arrests were reported. But there were hard feelings.

The amnesty lobby and their millions (were) out in full force, said Maria Espinoza of the Remembrance Project, a Houston-based organization that highlights crimes committed by people living in the U.S. illegally.

But for Julian Castro, the former San Antonio mayor and housing secretary under President Barack Obama, Trumps speech was a marker.

One year into the most divisive administration in recent memory, we are at a defining moment for Latino political engagement, he said at a Capitol Hill rally for Dreamers.

Meanwhile Houston U.S. Rep. Al Green, joined about a half-dozen other members of the Congressional Black Caucus in boycotting the speech, calling it a matter of principle.

But the speech was welcomed by Texas Republicans, including U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, one of the chief negotiators on an immigration pact that Congress hopes to reach by a March 5 deadline set by the president for ending the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Despite the mounting tensions, which already have led to one government shutdown, Cornyn listed Trump-backed initiatives on infrastructure, criminal justice reform and immigration as potential areas of bipartisan cooperation.

The president has laid out a framework that is exceedingly generous to the DACA recipients, something that has surprised a lot of people in its generosity, Cornyn said. But hes also said we need to make sure this doesnt happen again, and thats why the border security and the enforcement piece is an important part of the puzzle. Its going to take everybody giving something.

Trump, who has called for heart in dealing with the Dreamers, laid out the case for what he sees as a compromise on immigration, one that would provide immediate relief to some 124,000 Dreamers in Texas.

But the price, $25 billion for a border security, including walls and fences, is more than many immigrant activists and Democrats want to pay.

I am bewildered by the oversight of the negative impact that a border wall has on the 15 million people who call the southern border region their home, said U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela of Brownsville. The apparent acceptance of the border wall and disregard of the impact on border communities demonstrates a fundamental lack of thought, logic, and empathy.

Christian Ramirez, director of the Southern Borders Communities Coalition, rejected Trumps proposal outright.

We should not be using border communities and the lives of Dreamers as bargaining chips to score cheap political points, he said.

But Trumps plan has garnered support from at least one Hispanic civil rights group, the Corpus Christi-based League of United Latin American Citizens. Cornyn cited its support as a sign of hope for Trumps plan, which would create a path to citizenship for as many as 1.8 million Dreamers.

Cornyn said the offer should entice Democrats, whose leader, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, recently rescinded his previous offer to go along with Trumps wall.

My guess is if theyre serious about coming up with a solution for  young adults who would benefit from the presidents proposal, theyll come back to the table, he said.

Trump also made the case for new limits on legal migration, a central plank of his nativist America First agenda.

Struggling communities, especially immigrant communities, will also be helped by immigration policies that focus on the best interests of American workers and American families, Trump said. So tonight, I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to protect our citizens, of every background, color, and creed. My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans  to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream. Because Americans are dreamers too.

Trumps proposed immigration limits already have run afoul of Democrats in Congress. But the White House plan mirrors provisions in a House bill co-sponsored by Houston-area Republican Michael McCaul that restricts family migration and ends a visa lottery system for nations that are underrepresented in the U.S. immigration system.

We need to close the legal loopholes, McCaul said in a Fox News interview Tuesday. The bottom line is  we want to deal with this in a holistic way with security and DACA, and not have to deal with another DACA five, 10 years down the road."

A more narrowly drawn bill backed by San Antonio Republican Will Hurd, who represents a heavily Latino border district in West Texas, calls for enhancing border security technology and surveillance, as opposed to a physical barrier. Unlike McCauls bill, it also provides a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers.

San Antonio Democrat Lloyd Doggett said after the speech that Trump's unceasing, unhinged attacks have left the state of the union endangered, chaotic and divisive. What a wide gap between his tweets and his Teleprompter. He talks unity but repeatedly pits one group of Americans against another.

In a venue that is traditionally thematic and light on details, Trump laid out an ambitious $1.5 trillion federal infrastructure plan, also tapping into state, local and private funds.

We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways across our land, Trump said. And we will do it with American heart, American hands, and American grit.

He also sought to strike a unifying tone of optimism with allusions to the heroes of Hurricane Harvey and other national traumas.

Tonight, I want to talk about what kind of future we are going to have, and what kind of nation we are going to be, Trump said. All of us, together, as one team, one people, and one American family.

One of his invited guests in the first ladys seating area was Jon Bridgers, who founded the Cajun Navy that responded to flooding after Harvey hit Texas and Louisiana last summer.

Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, also brought another Harvey hero into the chamber: Businessman Jim "Mattress Mack" McIngvale, who opened his Gallery Furniture to shelter Houstonians displaced by Harvey.

Stephen Willeford, one of the heroes of last November's shooting rampage at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, also arrived as an invited guest of U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Laredo Democrat, and Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican.

Trump also gave a friendly nod to an energy sector that has long fueled Texas economy.

We have ended the war on american energy, he said. We have ended the war on clean coal. We are now very proudly an exporter of energy to the world.

Bill Lambrecht of the Washington Bureau contributed to this report.Accepting Referedum Outcome

Akaying

310118



Trusting and accepting the outcome of the Referendum by Bougainvilleans must be emphasised by the Autonomous Bougainville Government.

Former Chief Secretary Chris Siriosi says the ABG must make this a priority for the peoples acceptance of the outcome will decide Bougainvilles future.

So far the governments emphasis on the referendum has been to make Bougainvilleans referendum ready through the stringent implementation of the Bougainville Peace Agreement.

The ABG has also encouraged achieving a sustainable fiscal capacity an important as an important lead up to the referendum.

Mr Siriosi says that how people are going to react to the sweeping socio-political changes that will come about after the referendum remains an important issue.

Mr Siriosi adds that ABG has to look at means to appease the people after the referendum is held.

He says people with differing opinions but one side must learn to accept the outcome of the referendum based on the majoritys decision.



Ends////

WASHINGTON  More than two-dozen Dreamers were on hand as guests in the House chamber Tuesday evening to remind President Donald Trump of unfinished business as activists gathered to set strategy for the midterm elections.

Trumps demand for immigration curbs likely will be a central issue in November, evidenced by a political summit of Latino activists and election specialists in Washington on the day of Trumps State of the Union address.

This is a hostile administration that is hell-bent on attacking our community, said Cristobal Alex, president of Latino Victory Fund, which sponsored the gathering.

U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, and his twin brother, Julian Castro, a former San Antonio mayor and housing secretary in the Obama administration, were among those at the gathering.

Joaquin Castro invited a Dreamer he did not identify because, his office said, there are many back home in San Antonio who dont know her status. Castro tweeted that he would sit with the young woman to remind our country to reject Trumps anti-immigrant policies.

In an interview, Castro said he doubted the validity of the appeals for unity and bipartisanship made by the president.

This president has been incredibly divisive, pitting Americans against each other, and he hasnt made much of an effort to work with Congress on the main issues, Castro said.

Its been difficult because he shifts his positions so much. The DACA negotiations were a prime example of that, he said, referring to efforts to restore protections of the expiring Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

When Julian Castro stepped up to the lectern, a computer screen displayed a word cloud with CASTRO 2020 prominent in the center  a reference to his assertion last year that he might seek the Democratic presidential nomination.

Which Castro? he joked, without shedding further light on his plans.

One year into the most divisive administration in recent memory, we are at a defining moment for Latino political engagement, Julian Castro said.

The Democratic-aligned Latino Victory Fund was founded in 2014 by actress and director Eva Longoria and San Antonio businessman Henry Munoz. It supports Latino candidates with money and training.

Alex said his organizations goal in coming months is establishing a framework for a unified Latino electorate, building on historic successes in 2017. Latinos won elections last year in sometimes surprising places, among them the mayors office in Topeka, Kansas, and City Council seats in Boise, Idaho, and Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Virginia elected Latinos to the state Legislature in November for the first time. One of them, Elizabeth Guzman, a Democrat, was selected to deliver the Spanish State of the Union response after the presidents speech.

U.S. Rep. Nydia Velasquez, D-N.Y., said Democrats need to invest heavily in mobilizing Latino voters if party leaders expect to keep the momentum in the midterm elections.

You can not expect just to do voter registration and think that people will show up like magic on Election Day. Dont knock on my door right before the election or the week before, she said.

Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, asserted that his party already is organizing for Democrats across the country. He offered a withering assessment of the White House immigration proposal last week offering protections and a path to citizenship for 1.8 million Dreamer-age immigrants, along with new curbs on legal immigration.

This proposal reminds me of the Chinese Exclusion Act of the late 19th century. Its not a proposal, its a ransom note, he said at the summit.

blambrecht@express-news.netIn more than three hours of testimony Tuesday, the owner of a San Antonio funeral home company being sued in the apparent loss of a body in 2015 was adamant that the use of third-party contractors did not misrepresent his companys motto of maintaining care, custody and control of loved ones.

Care, custody and control. Are you talking start to finish regarding someones deceased loved one, plaintiff attorney Alex Katzman asked Robert Dick Tips, who owns MPII Inc. and Mission Park Funeral Chapels and Cemeteries.

Tips replied, Yes, sir.

The motto was uttered numerous times Tuesday on the opening day of the civil case against Tips and his wife, Kristin, who are being sued by Timothy and Sharlotte Mott, Julie Motts parents, in the mysterious loss of her body following a funeral service.

Julie Mott died Aug. 8, 2015. She was 25. Her grieving family had her embalmed so that she could be cremated, something she told her father she wanted before she died. The family has accused the couple of hiding the use of third-party contractors who had the keys, security codes and unrestricted access to all of the Mission Park funeral homes seven days a week, 24 hours a day, to transport bodies to be prepared for burial or cremation.

The company disputes the assertions, stating that they do not outsource funeral services and that the company they use, Beyer & Beitel, represents Mission Park, which Tips described as a family business. They also allege that the Mott family did not share with them that their daughters ex-boyfriend was physically and mentally abusive, obsessed and objected to her cremation after she died of complications from cystic fibrosis.

No one can say who had contact with Julie, Ron Salazar, attorney for the Motts, told the jury in his opening statement. They have no chain of custody in their obligation to shelter a loved one.

Ricardo Reyna, the attorney for the defendants, countered in his opening statement that Bill Wilburn, Julie Motts ex-boyfriend, had the motive  he objected to the cremation. Wilburn was arrested on a trespassing charge related to the funeral home and has been a person of interest in the case.

The attorney told the jury that when Wilburn was asked in his deposition if he took the body, he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

It would have been simple for him to say I did not. Instead, he takes the Fifth, Reyna told the jury.

The funeral was held Aug. 15, at Mission Park Funeral Chapels North on Cherry Ridge, on what would have been Julie Motts 26th birthday. After the service concluded around 1:30 p.m., funeral home workers moved a casket holding Mott to a hallway where it was to await transfer to a crematorium.

Timothy Mott noticed Wilburn hanging around and told the funeral director to watch him, Salazar told the jury. The casket was moved to a visitation area that wasnt secure, and the funeral home closed around 4:30 p.m. When workers returned the next day, the empty casket was damaged, and Motts body was gone.

A San Antonio police spokesman said at the time that the case was handled in a way that a homicide would be investigated. Authorities believe Motts body was stolen sometime between the end of the service and when the funeral home closed the next day  within about a 17-hour time frame.

All afternoon, Katzman interrogated Dick Tips on which one of his employees was the last to leave, and who locked and secured the facility the day Julie Motts body disappeared. When Tips said it was the responsibility of his funeral director, Richard Edwards, Katzman played audio of a deposition in which Edwards said the usual process was to use students and interns to go through the facility, lock the doors and pick up the trash before locking up and turning on the alarm.

Tips disputed that and maintained that Edwards was the man to secure and lock up.

He told me he locked the door, Tips told Katzman, who replied, Well, he told us he didnt.

The Mott family filed a civil lawsuit in January 2016 against Mission Park and are asking for unspecified monetary damages.

Testimony is expected to resume Wednesday morning in the 131st Civil District Court, presided by Judge Norma Gonzales. The trial is expected to last at least three weeks.San Antonios $280-million downtown streetcar project screeched to a halt in 2014, but, in a political sense, it never went away.

If you want proof, just take a quick glance at the happenings in the Republican primary for Texas House District 121, the seat being vacated by House Speaker Joe Straus.

Former Councilman Carlton Soules is casting one of his primary opponents, Steve Allison, as Streetcar Steve. Allison served on the board of VIA Metropolitan Transit for the past eight years, the first four of which involved VIAs focused concentration on bringing the now-defunct streetcar plan to fruition.

Soules clearly views Allison, a veteran business attorney and former Alamo Heights Independent School District trustee, as his most formidable adversary and senses that streetcar remains ballot-box poison among North Side Republicans.

At a Jan. 10 San Antonio Express-News editorial board meeting, Allison said San Antonio needs to address transportation needs, in a multimodal or comprehensive way, whether thats rail, bus rapid transit, streetcar, ride share. He added, however, that any rail project would require public acceptance and sufficient funding and added, I think thats what makes, just my opinion, rail difficult.

It was a nuanced answer, open but noncommittal to the concept of rail. But Soules saw it as an attempt by Allison to disown his own history with the doomed streetcar project. So he pounced.

Im somewhat confused by the answer that Mr. Allison gave, Soules said, pointing to Allisons work on the VIA board and as a member of the steering committee for the SA Tomorrow Comprehensive Plan.

Allison countered that he had recused himself from a Sept. 24, 2013, VIA vote on the streetcar route, because his son was the youth director at St. Marks Episcopal Church, a site near the proposed route.

As Soules points out, however, that vote was just one of several taken by the VIA board on streetcar during Allisons tenure.

On July 26, 2011, Allison voted in favor of a near term plan based on an East/West streetcar line, according to the minutes of the VIA board meeting.

On Dec. 17, 2013, Allison voted in favor of a 3.15-mile streetcar starter route which would connect the citys north, west and south sides.

Nonetheless, Allisons campaign website depicts the former VIA board member as an outspoken critic of the streetcar plan.

As vice chairman of an area transit authority, the website states, Steve argued against an expensive streetcar boondoggle that he thought threatened to end in an economic disaster.

This is where the Soules/Allison debate moves from the realm of transportation systems to the question of honesty.

There is no public record to support Allisons contention that he argued against the streetcar project before then-Mayor Ivy Taylor pulled the plug on the plan in July 2014.

Lou Miller, who served alongside Allison on the VIA board for more than four years, said Allison never took a public position against streetcar. Miller added, We were already rolling by the time he joined the board so it wouldnt have made sense for him to take an anti-streetcar position anyway.

Soules suggests that Allison is trying to rewrite history.

You own your record and you own your vote, he said.

Allison insists, however, that he was troubled by some of the early streetcar route proposals, including a suggestion from former Mayor Julian Castro that he says was just silly and didnt go anywhere.

Allison said he pushed back in an informal way with other board members to get them to consider better routes.

Miller remembered, however, that Allison didnt argue about it (streetcar). Hes not an argumentative person.

In a way, its sad that Allison is being put in a defensive posture on the streetcar project, which was a worthy idea, if one bungled in its execution. If Allisons website is overstating his resistance to the project (and I think it is), his messaging speaks to the nature of local Republican primary politics, in which the word streetcar is essentially synonymous with leftist.

Soules line of attack speaks to something else: the fact that Allison, as a well-funded favorite of the chamber crowd, is a big target in the District 121 race.

I think its desperate on (Soules) part and it really irks me, Allison said of his opponents attacks. He knows Im in the lead and hes trying to take me down.

ggarcia@express-news.net

@gilgamesh470



Failte Ireland today announced a new appointment to its senior management team  its new Director of Marketing will be Niall Tracey.



Mr Tracey is a Commerce graduate from UCD and worked with Jefferson Smurfit before moving to Chicago and joining the DDB Needham advertising agency. After returning to Ireland he worked with Bell Advertising and then Diageo where he was Head of Lagers. More recently, he has worked as a consultant for a number of leading domestic and international companies across a wide range of sectors.



Speaking today, Failte Ireland CEO Paul Kelly said:



We had a very strong response when we advertised this post  which speaks volumes about Failte Irelands reputation  and we interviewed a field of very high calibre candidates. After a very competitive process, I am delighted to welcome Niall on-board. He will bring a breadth and depth of marketing experience to our organisation and I am very pleased to have such an experienced and accomplished professional join our team.



Mr Tracey will take up his new position with Failte Ireland in February.





Jump to topSTAMFORD  When Henkel relocated its North American consumer goods headquarters last summer to the downtown from Scottsdale, Ariz., it wanted to make sure it kept its key operations together.

Several months after the move to 200 Elm St., company executives continue to highlight the strategy. In a ceremony and tour last Friday attended by a number of elected officials, the company showed off its new research and development center for personal care products. Emulating a similar facility that had operated in Scottsdale, the new 24,000-square-foot complex houses a clinical testing facility and product formulation, packaging and microbiology labs.

It is a state of-the-art facility, Martina Spinatsch, vice president of research and development for Henkels Beauty Care division, said at the ceremony. Its ingrained in science, technology and innovation. And it strengthens our commitment to deliver the products we know consumers are going to use and love every day.

The first-floor R&D center, which employs about 40, complements the 135,000 square feet of offices that Henkel occupies on the fifth and sixth floors at 200 Elm. The offices house several departments including human resources, finance, legal, IT, purchasing and marketing.

Weve chosen this (R&D) location, together with marketing, to be very close with our colleagues from marketing, so they can also visit us in the lab and can see what we are doing, said Thomas Foerster, global head of research and development for Henkel Beauty Care.

Next month, the clinical testing lab is set to welcome its first testers from the general public. They will try out products including liquid hand soaps, body washes and antiperspirants for brands such as Dial, Tone and Right Guard.

For the antiperspirants, subjects sit for 80 minutes at a time in a room set at 100 degrees, with humidity of 30 percent to 40 percent.

We like to say this is where the outside community actually gets to see how our products work, Eleanor Harding, principal scientist in the testing lab, told the public officials who visited the lab last Friday.

About 450 prospective testers from the area have already contacted Henkel. Subjects are usually between the ages of 18 and 65. They will likely be paid about the same rate as testers in Scottsdale, where the hourly rate ran at around $15 to $20.

The Stamford center does not do any animal testing, Henkel officials said.

Later this year, Henkel plans to add a hair-care hub to its R&D Center. Its hair products include the Got2b and Schwarzkopf brands.

Last week, Henkel also marked its recently expanded laundry-focused research and development center in Trumbull.

Henkels arrival represented the largest corporate relocation to Stamford in 2017. In addition to the transfer of the operations from Scottsdale, the company also moved to Stamford the formerly Wilton-based Sun Products, which it acquired in 2016.

In total, about 475 Henkel employees now work at 200 Elm.

It was a very impressive visit today (Jan. 26), and it looks like youre making great progress, Stamford Mayor David Martin told Henkel employees. I hope you enjoy and profit by your work here in the city. I think that by you coming here you make us better.

Henkel is receiving from the state a $20 million loan  which could be fully forgiven if it reaches certain job-creation targets  as well as up to $5 million in tax credits and a $1.8 sales tax exemption.

Also last week, Henkel appointed a new consumer goods president.

Stephan Fuesti-Molnar will oversee Henkels North American consumer goods business. He has worked at Henkel since 2009, most recently at its global headquarters in Dusseldorf, Germany, where he served as the companys Germany president and general manager of the companys laundry and home care business.

Fuesti-Molnar succeeds Jens-Martin Schwaerzler, who has been appointed to the Henkel management board as executive vice president of beauty care. Schwaerzler is relocating to the global headquarters.

pschott@scni.com; 203-964-2236; twitter: @paulschottWASHINGTON  In his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, President Donald Trump touched on the nations need for infrastructure improvements, calling on Congress to generate $1.5 trillion in investment in roads, bridges, railways and water lines.

But his plan, which includes leveraging state and local money and, where appropriate, private sector money drew raised eyebrows and doubt from Connecticuts Democratic congressional delegation.

Expectations that states can fork over the lions share of infrastructure funding doesnt help Connecticut with its ongoing financial crisis, said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. And public-private partnerships  P3 in the infrastructure lexicon  are not practical for major reconstruction projects because they offer investors limited opportunities to turn a profit, he said.

You cannot rebuild I-95 and the Northeast rail corridor with public-private partnerships, Murphy said.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal called the infrastructure portion of Trumps speech vacuous, adding: He was very short on specifics.

In a businesslike speech that marked a departure from Trumps scalding insults on Twitter, Trump sketched out a vision of restoring our building heritage.

We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways and waterways across our land, Trump said. And we will do it with American heart, American hands and American grit.

Trump previously promised a $1 trillion infrastructure investment, with $200 billion in federal dollars leveraging the remainder from states and the private investment world.

More for you Full text: President Trump's 2018 State of the Union address

In his speech, Trump cast the lack of progress on infrastructure as a regulatory issue.

America is a nation of builders, said Trump, himself a New York hotel and resort construction magnate before winning the White House in 2016. We built the Empire State Building in just one year. Isnt it a disgrace that it can now take 10 years just to get a permit approved for a simple road?

Trump spoke after a topsy-turvy first year in office, in which he failed to replace Obamacare but won the battle to push through major tax code revisions  an overhaul that Democrats state have characterized as harmful to high-cost, high-service states like Connecticut.

But legislative wins and losses were less a mark of Trumps first year than his personal attacks and insults, many launched on Twitter, and the ongoing investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller into Trump campaign collusion with Russian intelligence and possible obstruction of justice by Trump himself.

Connecticut senators and House members who attended the speech with special guests were looking for olive branches, but few saw such offerings from the president.

President Trump spent much of the night talking about how great the economy is doing and how great the Republican tax scam is for the American people, said Rep. Rosa DeLauro. He could not be farther from the truth.

But a few in the states delegation said they maintain hope that deals across the partisan divide in Washington can still be reached.

Rep. Elizabeth Esty, a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said infrastructure improvements are bipartisan work that can be done.

With congressional elections later this year, however, we have two months before the primary season takes over and its too late, Esty said. Theres a narrow window for threading the needle, but I think it can be done.

Trump cast his get-tough immigration policies as a necessary counter to MS-13, a violent Central America-based gang with members among youthful immigrants in the U.S.

He also touched on the plight of youthful immigrant Dreamers, who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children and received legal status under then President Barack Obamas Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy. More than 8,000 live in Connecticut.

But he continued to couple relief from Dreamers to building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, ending the visa lottery and limiting what he has termed chain migration  letting in relatives of legal immigrants.

His proposal paralleled a deal he offered last week on DACA, offering legal status for 1.8 million in exchange for a $25 billion border wall trust fund, as well as ending the visa lottery and limiting chain migration to spouses and minor children.

Trump called the deal a fair compromise  one where nobody gets everything they want, but where our country gets the critical reforms it needs.

Connecticut Democrats were unimpressed.

I was really dispirited his long riffs about how immigrants pose a criminal danger to the country, said Murphy, whose guest was cancer-screening advocate Caroline Johnson, of New Britain. It was very difficult to listen to.

Blumenthal said: Hes holding dreamers hostage, and the price is cruel and callous policies that rip apart families and terrorize immigrant communities.

A major portion of Connecticuts infrastructure dates back 50 to 100 years, with some rail bridges built in the late 19th century. While the infrastructure need right now is the highest, the states capacity to rebuild is the lowest.

Earlier this month, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy delayed $4.3 billion in projects as he implored the Legislature to fully fund the states depleted Special Transportation Fund.

Both Malloy and his GOP opponents in the Legislature would love nothing better than Washington to weigh in on infrastructure projects. But Trump held out little promise in his speech that extra federal dollars would be riding to the rescue for Connecticut or any state in dire financial straits.

A number of infrastructure reports paint a stark picture of the poor state of repairs of roads, rails, sewers, waterlines and other such necessities in Connecticut.HARTFORD  HARTFORD  House Minority Leader Themis Klarides of Derby announced on Wednesday that she will not seek the GOP nomination to run for governor this fall.

After ruminating on the possibility for months, she now intends to run for re-election and gamble that GOP lawmakers can flip the House, where they are a 79-72 minority, and persuade her caucus to name her the come the first female Republican speaker of the House.

She told her House minority caucus in the morning, shortly before the overwhelming vote to override Gov. Dannel P. Malloys recent veto of legislation to restore $54 million in funding for a popular Medicare Savings Program for about 90,000 Connecticut elderly and disabled.

I believe me staying in the House, getting the majority and being speaker of the House will be the direction I will go in, she told reporters. I told my caucus this morning. I do believe that having the majority in the House and Senate is the most-important thing we can do as Republicans in showing this state what we can do in the majority. Evidenced by what weve done in the past few years, with the numbers as close as they are, imagine what can happen if were in the majority.

In recent years Republicans have made major gains in the state House and Senate. The House low of 37 members in 2009 and 2010, has grown to 72. In the Senate, where there were 12 GOP members in 2009 and 2010, there are 18, along with 18 Democrats. Klarides was named minority leader after the 2016 election, following the retirement of Rep. Lawrence F. Cafero Jr. of Norwalk.

Speaker of the House Joe Aresimowicz pointing to Democratic gains statewide in last falls elections, which they saw as a partial repudiation of the Trump administration in Washington, discounted Klarides political goals.

When asked for a reaction to Klarides aspiration to become speaker, Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, snapped back: Id say fat chance. Aresimowicz said the Democrats have momentum -- and he added that he also is not running for governor.

But Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven, said that Klarides could have stood out in the GOP gubernatorial field.

"We certainly caught a break there and now weve caught another one," Looney on Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano, and now Klarides not running for gov. "I think she would have been a formidable candidate for governor."

Staff writer Dan Haar and Neil Vigdor contributed to this reportFAIRFIELD  The town is in strong financial shape, said First Selectman Mike Tetreau in his annual State of the Town address, but it needs to grow its grand list and reduce the tax burden on residents.

In their response, the Republicans agreed expanding the commercial tax base and growing the grand list of taxable properties is needed.

Our town is financially strong and economically vibrant, but the trends at the state and federal levels are having an impact, Tetreau said.

For example, he said, just two years ago, Fairfield received $3.5 million in Education Cost Sharing funds from the state. That has been cut to less than $1 million. The state will also not be reimbursing the town $414,000 for tax credits given by the town to elderly and disabled residents. Tetreau said the state has also eliminated $70,000 in operational support for the regional fire training facility located here.

Add to that, the first selectman said, are concerns that new federal tax laws limiting local and state tax deductions on federal returns could cause a negative disruption in the real estate market.

According to Tetreau, Westport has been able to increase its expense budgets, and yet have a lower mill rate, with only half the population of Fairfield. The same is true, he said, in Darien, Greenwich, and New Canaan.

The lesson here is that we cannot get to a lower mill rate just by cutting expenses, Tetreau said. While his administration will continue to improve cost management, It is clear from these four other town examples that to control our mill rate growth, we need to grow our grand list, Tetreau said.

Commercially-zoned property in town makes up 4.5 percent of town land, and generates 10 percent of the tax revenue, he said.

There are only two primary ways to grow our commercial tax base  either expand our commercial and area or add value to the current land area zoned commercial, the first selectman said. He said the town needs to decide whether it expands commercial zones, or increase the value of existing zones through methods like increasing density with five, six or seven-story buildings.

He cited two projects bringing in new tax dollars  Trademark Fairfield, a mixed-use building at the corner of Black Rock Turnpike and Commerce Drive, and the Orthopedic Specialty Group located just across the street.

The key to any approach is to maintain our towns charm and character, Tetreau said. We need to be strategic and targeted with any commercial zone changes.

To help the goal of expanding the grand list, Tetreau said the Economic Development Commission has completed a long-range plan, and the town has joined the Fairfield County 5, a multi-town economic development initiative. An overall strategic plan is also being developed.

Working together, we will make Fairfield a leader in moving Connecticut in the right direction, Tetreau said.

The GOP, in its response delivered by Deputy Minority Leader Michael Herley, said Fairfield is facing serious problems and needs serious people willing to work together.

After listening to the first selectmans address, however, youd think its just another warm, sunny Saturday afternoon at Jennings Beach and that we were attracting major corporations to Fairfield, not losing them  but we all know thats not a vision grounded in reality, Herley said.

Herley said if the town is to lower the tax burden, we must grow our commercial tax base. Thriving commercial districts require good roads so people can get to and from work  not 30-minute bumper-to-bumper traffic to cross town, he said.

He said residents need to ask themselves if traffic congestion has gotten worse under the Tetreau administration. We all know the answer here, it has gotten much worse, and its impeding our economic progress.

And economic development, Herley said, follows well-designed transit, not the other way around. What type of infrastructure program has the first selectman proposed in recent years to improve traffic flow and to help attract businesses of significance, Herley asked. He said outside of the Fairfield Metro Center, nothing comes to mind.

Herley was also critical of the income limits on the elderly tax relief program. Those limits are set by the RTM, and are reviewed on a periodic basis. A committee to review and update the tax relief program was approved by the RTM at Mondays meeting.

When Fairfield is united, we are unstoppable in what we can achieve, Herley said. We urge the public to join us in building a better vision for Fairfields future.Tbara

29/01/18

Title: ABG Fisheries to Fund fish projects



Bougainvilleans along the coast and interested inland fish farmers will soon benefit from the Fisheries Projects that will be initiated by the ABGs Department of Primary Industries.

ABG Director for Fisheries Mahara Auhi says the ABG Fisheries Authority and the National Fisheries Authority have signed an MOU from which K15 million was remitted to the ABG as part of fishing royalties.

Mr Auhi said under the MOU Bougainville will now have the right to create its own Fisheries policies and guidelines.

He says once these policies are created, awareness will be carried out throughout the Region so that Bougainvilleans wishing to apply for Fishing Projects are aware of the policies and project type so that they can apply for them.

Mr Auhi says that it will be a challenge for the department to carry out the project so he has urged the support from stakeholders and communities.

Residents in the South West are asked to look out for fast-moving wasps that are attracted to protein, following the detection of European wasps in Australind.

The European wasp is considered the worlds worst social wasp and is a declared pest in Western Australia due to its potential to flourish and impact the States horticulture, outdoor lifestyles and the health of people, pets and livestock.

The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development deployed additional traps in the Australind area after a single wasp was trapped in December.

Department European wasp activity leader Catherine Webb said additional wasps had recently been trapped, which indicated there was a nest in the area.

Residents and businesses in the region are reminded to be vigilant and keep an eye out for the pest, Ms Webb said.

European wasps resemble common yellow paper wasps but have several distinguishing features  theyre about the same size and shape as a honey bee, and are a bright lemon-yellow colour with black stripes and yellow legs, and entirely black antennae.

They are scavengers, so if a wasp settles on pet food, fish or other meat products, photograph it if possible and report it immediately to the department.

Ms Webb also appealed to South West residents, local government and industry to provide additional support to the departments grid of surveillance traps in the region.

Through the Adopt-a-trap initiative participants are provided free traps to regularly monitor at their property and asked to replace the small raw fish lure fortnightly over summer, she said.

Wasps caught in traps indicate a nearby nest, usually located within one kilometre. The departments biosecurity officers track foraging wasps to the nest and eradicate it free of charge.

About 90 per cent of nests are hidden underground and rarely visible.

Last season, one European wasp nest was destroyed in Busselton and 51 nests were destroyed in metropolitan Perth.A FRONT runner in a race to produce high-grade Sulphate of Potash (SoP) fertiliser in WAs desert regions, Kalium Lakes Ltd (KLL), has cleared a final access hurdle.

KLL told the Australian Securities Exchange last Thursday it had signed a second native title agreement giving it access to all of the salt lakes and 2400 square kilometres covered by its Beyondie SoP project tenements, 160 kilometres south east of Newman.

The agreement signed with Mungarlu Ngurrarankatja Rirraunkaja Aboriginal corporation, representing the Birriliburu people, covers the second stage or eastern half of the project that is north west of Wiluna.

An agreement signed in 2016 with the Gingirana people already covered the first stage, western end of KLLs Beyondie project which is based on a chain of salt lakes containing potassium-rich brine under their salt crusts.

KLL said the agreements provided for a mutually beneficial relationship with both native title holders and allowed them to participate in the project, including provision of a future royalties stream.

The Birriliburu people were granted native title over 66,000km2 of the Western Desert by the Federal Court in 2008.

Although KLL had an agreement with them, the Gingirana people were not formally recognised as native title holders of their land until Justice Michael Barker declared them to be at a special Federal Court sitting at Kumarina Roadhouse on December 7 last year.

KLL said it would apply for mining tenure over Beyondie stage one where it is collecting harvest salts from a large-scale pilot gravity-flow system of 11 plastic-lined evaporation ponds filled with brine, pumped from lakes at the western end of the chain.

Engineers are investigating fitting laser levels to a salt harvester to ensure the plastic pool liners are not damaged during salts harvesting.

The company is preparing to send several tonnes of harvest salts samples from Beyondie to potash industry consultants K-UTEC AG Salt Technologies in Germany, to test a gas-fired modular purification plant designed and built to produce a commercial SoP fertiliser product and ultimately for relocation to the Beyondie project.

Signing the agreement with MNR and formal recognition of the Gingirana people as native title holders gave both KLL and the native title parties certainty, said KLL managing director Brett Hazelden.

These agreements, together with the strong relationship the Kalium Lakes team has established with both native title groups, will lead to opportunities for all parties involved and provides a firm foundation for a long-term relationship, Mr Hazelden said.

The agreements provide for consent to grant of mining leases, ancillary tenure and approvals required for both stages of the project.

The projects development is based on producing 150,000 tonnes of SoP fertiliser a year for domestic and international markets, with the option of an incremental ramp up from an initial 75,000t a year to minimise operational and financial risks.

Beyondie is projected to generate more than a billion dollars over a 21-year life based on an international SoP price of US$500/t and a currency exchange rate of 0.75 between Australia and the United States.

KLL estimates its operating cash cost of delivering SoP free on board ready for shipping at Geraldton port to be A$244-253/t over the life of the project.

It claims this puts Beyondie in the lowest quartile cost of global SoP production.

An estimated $220 million pre-production capital cost includes a 78 kilometre gas pipeline to the project and start-up cost could be cut to $124m with the incremental ramp up option.

Additional revenues are anticipated from potential recovery of magnesium by-products from the brine.

Earlier this month KLL told the ASX a 64-auger hole program at its Carnegie joint-venture potash project with BC Iron Ltd had confirmed prospects of it also being able to produce SoP fertiliser.

The joint venture is at Lake Carnegie, 200km east of the Beyondie project and between Beyondie and two similar but not as progressed SoP projects on Lake Wells in the northern Goldfields, about 500km north east of Kalgoorlie.

As previously reported in Farm Weekly, KLL is one of five Perth-based companies looking to exploit remote salt lake brine to supply growing domestic and global demand for SoP fertiliser.

Its proponents claim SoP can help drought-proof crops against climate change by strengthening plant structures.

Australian agriculture imports 40,000 tonnes a year of SoP fertiliser which sells in bulk for up to $950/t.

It is used mainly on high-value fruit, vegetable and flower crops because of its price premium over more readily available and cheaper fertilisers.

But domestic usage could grow to 70,000t annually if SoP can be produced more cheaply and in sufficient quantity, particularly if it becomes cheap enough for viable use on broadacre crops in marginal salt-affected areas, some have predicted.WHILE sheep producers are cashing in on the demand for quality wool, lamb, mutton and export wethers, does the industry have the expertise to increase WA flock numbers and improve profitability?

Agrarian Management consultant Ashley Herbert said a decline in experienced professional sheep expertise since the 1990s was a potential constraint to the WA industry increasing its flock numbers.

Mr Herbert said the consequence of nearly two generations of farmers thinking that sheep were not profitable has been a reduction in professional animal husbandry and sheep enterprise skills.

He said there was only a handful of consultants in the State with specialist expertise at the professional level able to assist farmers in analysing their sheep enterprises to improve profitability  compared to the many agronomists available to assist broadacre farmers.

Mr Herbert said any appreciable growth in the WA sheep industry would most likely be through existing producers increasing stock numbers, rather than new entrants into the industry.

He said if producers were shown what was possible, how to achieve it and how to manage the risks along the way, they would have the ability and confidence to work towards their goal.

If there is money to be made farmers will change, Mr Herbert said.

But they need people to get advice from and to help them through the decision-making process.

He suggested that Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) and Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) should look at investing funds into upskilling individuals to ensure that there were consultants who could help producers.

The number of professional specialist sheep consultants is low and so it is easy for sheep to not be considered as a front running enterprise, he said.

There are a lot of younger people in agriculture (professionals and farmers) who have effectively grown up being told that sheep are not profitable.

Understandably, this has created a bias towards cropping when making decisions on enterprise mix.

People are starting to look at adjusting their enterprise mix but it will take a while for confidence to be restored.

Because of the way it has been over the past 20-odd years it will take time to bring about the significant change.

What we find is that farmers often have the capacity to run more sheep but are wary of running too many.

With the profitability of sheep being at a historical high, the opportunity cost of being understocked is potentially significant.

Mr Herbert said access to professional assistance greatly improved the success of any planned increase in stock numbers.

Pastoralists and Graziers Association western beef and sheep producers chairman Chris Patmore said as a sheep producer he thought the existing expertise available to producers through private consultants, and also through grower-funded bodies such as AWI and MLA, were not being utilised as well as they could.

I think what we have already is under-utilised, Mr Patmore said.

Theres plenty of consultants available for the demand thats there  and if theres not many there its because people havent been using them.

Theres plenty of resources to access  maybe not in every town but in the major towns.

Mr Patmore was optimistic the high prices for wool and sheep meat could result in a change of mindset among WA producers and also attract younger farmers to sheep production.

WAFarmers past president Mike Norton said there was more than enough expertise available to producers  particularly through DPIRD and MLA.

The only way to drive sheep production is dollars  when the price is high people will go to it, Mr Norton said.

He said by getting the wild dog situation under control pastoralists would be more confident to run sheep again, which would also see a boost in the production numbers in the State.

Department of Primary Industry and Regional Development (DPIRD) sheep industry development director and Sheep Industry Business Innovation project manager Bruce Mullan said a lot had changed in the past 20 years.

We could always use more expertise in the sheep industry but things are different to the old days, Dr Mullan said.

In terms of access to information people use the internet and social media, which has been a major change across all of agriculture.

The department of agriculture was the place to go in the past, but now certainly universities deal with farmers directly, as well as grower groups and consultants.

Theres different players in the field than what there was 10-20 years ago.

Dr Mullan said many graduates were heading into agronomy because they could do a degree and head straight into a job  instead of furthering their studies and specialising more.

When I talk to universities in general, students are keen to get out and get a job instead of going on to a masters or a PhD, he said.

Its hard to get students to look at alternatives  its very competitive.

Dr Mullan said AWI and universities had found the same thing.

There is a need for young people to come into the industry, he said.

If you look at the demographics theres quite a gap.

We need a continuous supply coming through.

Dr Mullan said while there was need for more expertise in the sheep industry, there were a few things happening to make up for the shortfall.

We are using the resources we have got  we cant be everything to everyone  but there are certain groups that have expertise and so we want to harness that and work together, he said.

The benefit is that we share ideas and innovation comes out of that.

According to DPIRDs WA Agrifood, Fibre, Fisheries and Forestry Industries booklet  there are about 4500 sheep producers in WA running a total flock of 13.9 million head, as of 2016.

The gross value of production for sheep disposals (slaughter and live export) was $513m in 2015/16.

Fifty two per cent of the WA flock was made up of breeding ewes  with 82pc of that population being Merino  reflecting the importance of the wool industry in WA.

In 2015/16 WA produced 20pc of the national wool clip at 65.2 million kilograms greasy  to a value of $661m, with the majority exported to a value of $477m.

The price for WA wool has been record breaking for weeks on end and everyone in the industry is hoping it continues.SELECTIVE is the only way to describe the buying trend at the Landmark weaner sale at Boyanup last week.

With more than 1400 calves penned, quality was always going to vary but the range from outstanding to better-left-at-home was more marked than recent sales.

Some excellent drafts from breeders sold strongly under good competition, while the other end saw lower prices not seen for a season or two.

Steer calves topped at $1235 with lightweights reaching 364 cents a kilogram, with one pen of heifers making $1045 and 312c/kg.

The sale gross of $1.337 million and average of $954 speaks volumes for the top-end result.

Most of the usual supporters were out although a couple of lotfeeders were absent.

Landmark commercial cattle manager Darren Chatley was active buying for Landmark International on the top steers while Ben Cooper, Landmark Bridgetown, struggled valiantly to keep the lower end heifers to a reasonable value and bought many pens.

Richard Pollock, Landmark Waroona, helped out and secured numbers for clients.

The top steer price was not realised until pen 67 when Harvey Beef Farms paid $1235 for 10 Charolais steers weighing 451 kilograms from Tandar Pty Ltd that sold at 274c/kg.

The sale started with a pen of five Angus steers weighing 422kg from Paul Thompson, Boyup Brook, going to volume buyer Kevin Armstrong, Willowbank, Benger, at 290c/kg to cost $1224.

The next 10 weighing 396kg from E & C Russell joined those at $1148 and 290c/kg.

Few pens sold under $1100 until the top at pen 67, with early sales from Rim Rock Grazing making $1215 and $1112, going to Willowbank and Landmark International respectively.

Errol Gardiner, Landmark Brunswick, took the two pens of Angus from JS Stowe, Dardanup, paying $1130 and $1109.

Frank Tomasi Nominees, Karridale, had several pens of quality calves that topped at $1139 to average very close to $1100.

Landmark International, Willowbank and Kalgrains shared the spoils.

The annual draft of Mordallup Angus from GD Muir & Co attracted strong support to top at $1147 and 334c/kg for lighterweights.

Landmark International, RA Rogers, Kalgrains, Mal Barrett, Elders Boyanup and Natures Valley Grass all secured pens, mostly for more than $1100.

South West Pastoral, Pinjarra, sold several pens of Angus with a top of $1149 bought by Landmark International.

RA Rogers paid $1140 for 11 weighing 364kg at 308c/kg.

Rodney Galati wore several different hats, buying for Livestock Shipping Service (LSS) and Galati Family Trust, paying $1029 for 15 Angus sold by Paul Thompson at 338c/kg.

Reenmore Grazing carried the Murray Grey flag, selling 12 weighing 382kg for $1123 and 294c/kg to Kalgrains.

Another 10 from WJ Layng made $1091 when bought by Landmark International at 310c/kg.

Simmental calves from Don Partridge sold for $1126 when Jamie Abbs, Landmark Boyup Brook, bid to 308c/kg.

A single, 510kg Charolais sold by PT Alexander returned $1204 when bought by Willowbank at 236c/kg.

Silverlands, Bridgetown, had pens of Angus calves with the first of 11 going to RA Rogers for $1155 and 316c/kg.

The lighter end of these made the top of 364c/kg when the 252kg calves sold to Jock Embry, Landmark Margaret River, for $920.

LSS supported the Silverlands calves, buying several pens for up to 348c/kg.

LSS later dominated the very light calves at the end of the steer section.

Heifers were in lesser numbers and quality, although a single Charolais from S & WL Chisari, Waterloo, topped at $1045 when Willowbank bid to 220c/kg for the 475kg female.

Other higher priced heifers were 10 Charolais from BJ Jackson, McAlinden, with these also going to Willowbank for $1031 and 258c/kg.

Tandar Pty Ltd sold 12 weighing 416kg for $1041 and 250c/kg to this buyer also.

The top of 312c/kg was for seven Angus from Aird & Co bought by Mr Embry with the 348kg females costing $1085.

Four Murray Grey heifers weighing 457kg sold by Love & Son made $915 when Willowbank bid to 200c/kg.

Another 12 from WJ Layng weighed 355kg and sold to L & S Miaolo for $987 at one of the higher prices of 278c/kg.

A second pen of the BJ Jackson Charolais heifers weighing 357kg saw the start of the domination of Mr Cooper toward the end of the heifers, with these costing $986 and 276c/kg.

Mr Cooper went on to buy another 14 pens of heifers with Mr Pollock giving strong opposition to buy some pens of lightweight heifers also.Ned Scholfield and his wife Raquel Boedo are bringing a fresh look to woollen knits through their McIntyre label.

Their business may be just three years young but it's built on heritage dating back to 1846.

Ned Scholfield and his wife Raquel Boedo are the fresh young faces behind Melbourne-based woollen jumper label McIntyre and they have just returned from showing their Australian made range at the world's biggest fair for men's wear, Pitti Uomo in Florence, Italy.

As the name suggests, McIntyre's heritage is Scottish.

Mr Scholfield's ancestor Duncan McIntyre came to Australia as a cabin boy aboard a ship in 1846 and promptly sought work on a farm at Clunie in the Western District of Victoria.

It is where he was introduced to Merino sheep and the attraction was instant encouraging him to work hard and save to buy his own property.

He bought land at Tabor, 300km south west of Melbourne in the Western District, called it Glenoe and established his own Merino sheep breeding enterprise.

The property is still in family hands today under the care of Mr Scholfield's cousin Tom Scholfield and running 2000 Bindawarra blood ewes, averaging about 18.5 micron with more recent ram purchases from the Connewarran, Toland and Curlew studs, Victoria.

About 1000 crossbred ewes plus lambs also call Glenoe home.

Mr Scholfield was raised at Glenoe, but like many of his generation probably didn't fully appreciate what was sitting right under his nose and left for the bright lights of Melbourne to study social science at Swinburne University.

The opportunity for a one year cultural exchange program saw him jetting off to the Netherlands in 2008 and it's where he met his wife Raquel.

When they returned to Australia he took on a role at fashion distribution house Abyss, his first taste of the rag trade and probably where the seed for what was to follow was sown.

During an ensuing stint as sales manager at luggage manufacturer Crumpler, he says it dawned on him about missed opportunities.

"Here I was a kid who had grown up on a sheep farm and I'd found a passion for fashion," Mr Scholfield said.

"How many people get the chance to put those two things together.

"I thought I am a young guy with an interest in wool so why can't I spark the same enthusiasm for wool, especially knitwear, in other young people."

Mr Scholfield said there were other traditional woollen jumpers on the market at the time but he felt they lacked fitted designs and bright colour palettes more appealing to his generation.

"I wanted pop colours, bright colours that pop out of the page at you," Mr Scholfield said.

And so with full support from Raquel, McIntyre was born.

The couple, in their early 30s, started with men's jumpers sourcing Australian Woolmark certified yarn and using about 500 grams of yarn per garment.

Their first two designs, produced at A & B Knitters were named after his ancestor Duncan and Duncans brother Colin and the range was launched in March 2017.

It was small, just 300 pieces, but the interest and demand was such they were encouraged to pursue their passion.

This year they ramped up production to 500 pieces and are planning to exceed 1000 pieces next year.

"Everyone I explain the label to loves it," Mr Scholfield said.

"They totally get what we are doing.

"The hardest thing is finding the time to do be able to everything."

McIntyre garments are marketed through their own e-commerce store mcintyreaustralia.com, via online retailer The Iconic and through selected boutiques in Sydney and Melbourne.

Mr Scholfield said, much to his surprise greatest demand was coming from inner city Sydney, from their target audience of 25 to 45 year old young professionals.

"They are mostly wearing it for office wear, often replacing a collared shirt with our jumpers because they are soft and comfortable to wear and because of their quality they look good," he said.

For the second season two female lines, named Polly and Marian after Duncan and Colin's wives, were added to the range.

Bright colours such as red and orange have proved most popular with men while pastel pink remains a favourite of the ladies.

Along with Blundstone boots and RM Williams, McIntyre was one of few Australian labels displaying at Pitti Uomo.

"It sounds strange but we actually came to this event in Italy to talk to Asia," Mr Scholfield said.

"Pitti is the biggest fair for men's fashion in the world, it is recognised as a place for premium products and known to have a lot of Asian buyers visiting.

"Premium quality is what we want to be recognised for and I know Made in Australia means a lot in Asia," he said.

"Our aim is to grow the business into a major Australian company selling Australian wool garments globally."

The range currently includes men's and women's crew and v-neck jumpers and bolder cable knit jumpers and cardigans for men.

For Ms Bodeo, a city girl from Rotterdam, the introduction to wool has been a steep learning curve but her passion is now just as intense as that of her husband who was born to it.

"It was a total eye opener to me," she said.

"I like many Dutch people knew little of wool but thought it was itchy and scratchy.

"Good wool, good Australian wool, is not like that at all and I want to educate the audience to this, especially city people.

Mr Scholfield said the trip to Pitti had been well worthwhile with lots of positive feedback about the brand and quality of the products and interest in the story behind the brand, particularly from Japan and Korea.The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you, we are excited to offer 4 weeks FREE Digital & Print access to all subscribers new and returning alike.

We are dedicated to continuing providing reliable, high quality journalism. This is possible with the trust and support of our subscribers in the community we are proud to serve.Prince Charles has praised the work of the Alliance for Agricultural Biodiversity as being of "fundamental importance to the future of humanity".

Prince Charles

The 69-year-old royal is the royal patron of The Crop Trust - which aims to preserve crop diversity in order to protect global food security - and on Tuesday (30.01.18) hosted a reception for the charity at Clarence House, where he spoke about the importance of monitoring the food people eat.

He said: "As Patron of the Crop Trust, I was very touched indeed to be asked, I really am so pleased to have the opportunity to meet the distinguished members of the Alliance for Agricultural Biodiversity while they are actually here in London for their latest gathering. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that their work is of fundamental importance to the future of humanity.

"What we eat, and in what quantities, can be the difference between life and death. It can keep us healthy, or ruin us. And we can produce this food in harmony with the environment that sustains every aspect of our lives, or place our own survival in peril by undermining it."

Charles went on to discuss the effect climate change is having on crops, and said that whilst current food production methods are "unsustainable", agricultural biodiversity - which involves growing crops that are not always the most popular in order to contribute to food security - is one of "the world's most valuable natural resources".

He continued: "Agricultural biodiversity needs to be recognised as one of the world's most valuable natural resources. Whatever we allow to be lost is gone forever. So every time we allow it to be diminished we sacrifice our options for the future, leaving our food systems more vulnerable to the challenges that lie ahead, be they the production of sufficient nutritious food for an increasing population, adaptation to changing climates, the ravages of new pests and diseases or, indeed, all of the above."

And the royal also highlighted the important work of The Crop Trust, which he dubbed as "crucial", and said the charity has his "full support".

In closing his speech, he said: "So the time to act is now. And a much more ambitious and global effort to appreciate, safeguard and share the world's food diversity is urgently required. This is why, if I may say so, the work of the Crop Trust and the Food Forever Initiative is so absolutely crucial. As I said, it has my full support, for what it's worth and I hope, as its Patron, and I pray Ladies and Gentlemen it has yours too."Brendan Cole's firing from 'Strictly Come Dancing' was reportedly brought on because of his "attitude".

Brendan Cole

The 41-year-old professional dancer revealed in an emotional interview on Tuesday (30.01.18) that the BBC Latin and ballroom dance competition had chosen not to renew his contract for the next series, and sources have now claimed that the star's "ego" had led him to believe he was "bigger than the show", which caused producers to let him go.

A source told The Sun newspaper: "Brendan's ego and his attitude became too much to handle and in reality that's why he's gone. He brought it upon himself.

"He used to be lovely and charming, but by the last series he thought he was bigger than the show. Some of the junior staff were too frightened to even talk to him because they worried he'd bite their heads off.

"He's paid the price because nobody is bigger than the show."

The New Zealand-born dancer was known for his feisty tongue on the show, and admitted in his interview to having a "strong character", as he often liked to "argue with the judges".

He said: "It's going to be hard for me to watch but I'm a fan of the show and the show comes first. They've made the decision and I respect it completely - I don't like it very much - but I still want to support my friends. I'm a strong character in the show and they won't have that anymore. No one will argue with the judges."

Meanwhile, former head judge Len Goodman - who left the show in 2016 and was replaced the following year by Shirley Ballas - has dubbed Brendan "the bad boy of the ballroom", but admitted he was "sad" to hear he had been axed.

Len said: "I'm so sad. You can't say he didn't do a great job. He did and there was always a bit of an edge with him - the bad boy of ballroom. But there always has been egos with the professionals and it was the same when I danced, with anything competitive."Piers Morgan wants to be a judge on 'Strictly Come Dancing'.

Piers Morgan

The 52-year-old TV presenter thought it would be a good idea to put himself forward for the panel on the hit BBC dance competition because he's "opinionated."

Speaking on 'Good Morning Britain' on Wednesday (31.01.18), Piers said: "We need characters on television. Opinionated people that wind everybody up. Otherwise what the hell is going to happen to me?

"I might go and be a 'Strictly'... I'd love to be a 'Strictly' judge. Having been a trans-Atlantic judge."

Charlotte Hawkins - who was on the latest series of the ballroom and latin dance competition - was shocked by his suggestion.

She said: "You have to know something about dancing."

To which Piers - who has been a judge on 'Britain's Got Talent' and 'America's Got Talent' - replied: "'Britain's Got Talent' got 20 million viewers when I was a judge on it, and now it gets half of that. 'America's Got Talent' got 25 million viewers for the six years I was on that. I'm a top world class judge."

However, Piers - who now works on ITV - joked that there would be a pay issue after the BBC came under scrutiny for their gender pay gap row.

Piers' comments come after 'Strictly' professional Brendan Cole - who danced with Charlotte last series - was axed by the BBC.

Brendan - who has been on the show since 2004 - announced that the BBC had decided not to renew his contract yesterday (30.01.18) and admitted he was devastated by the news.

Piers also told the nation: "Why don't we launch a campaign to get Brendan Cole restored on 'Strictly'?

"The campaign starts now. Bring back Brendan! Hashtag bring back Brendan."This article was written for Fethiye Times by Semsi Toprak

The 23rd East Mediterranean International Travel and Tourism Exhibition (EMITT) was held between 25th and 28th of January in Istanbul TUYAP Fair and Exhibition Center.

The event is considered to be one of the five major tourism fairs in the world and annually attracts over 46.000 industry professionals and tourists from across the globe.

There were 1065 exhibitors from 85 countries at the EMITT this year but the majority of the exhibition space was devoted to destinations in Turkey.

An accelerated tour around Turkey

Visiting EMITT is like having an accelerated tour around Turkey. All the destinations presented in the fair were competing with each other by presenting their unique selling points and, of course, serving a selection of their local foods to the visitors.

Apart from learning details about many different Turkish destinations, calling EMITT also a Turkish food extravaganza is not an exaggeration. You could enjoy free treats while wandering around the destination stands, from special toast sandwiches of Ayvalik to many different authentic dishes and desserts from distant parts of Anatolia.

Fethiye at EMITT

Naturally Fethiye was also presented in EMITT with a very successful and strong consortium led by the Fethiye Municipality.

The slogan for this year was again New Trend Fethiye which is an ongoing promotions campaign managed by local tourism stakeholders and professionals.

The latest Fethiye promotion videos were shown at the the giant screen installed at the stand which was almost always busy with visitors and tourism professionals.

Representatives from hotels, tour operators, chambers, tourism cooperatives, NGOs and local authorities were all presenting Fethiye at a very high level and one could feel the synergy even from a distance.

A cocktail party

Right after the opening day, Fethiye became one of the most talked about destinations at the fair and even the big space reserved for the stand wasnt enough for the people who attended the cocktail party hosted by Fethiye Tourism Council on the second day.

The party brought the interest of the national press and interviews with Fethiye Mayor Behcet Saatc were shown on various news channels that day.

An award

It was certainly not a surprise when Fethiye stand was given the Best Destination Presentation Award by the EMITT organization committee.

For Fethiye, 2018 EMITT was a great example of what can be achieved if local organizations can work in harmony for a common cause.

Fethiye to play host to visitors in 2018

Right after the event, an assessment meeting was organized by Fethiye Tourism Council to identify the next steps after this great start to 2018 tourism season preparations. It was agreed by all the representatives that most important thing is not to just bring tourists to the destination but to play host to them in the most genuine and honest ways.

All the organization representatives and leaders pledged to pass this message to their members so that Fethiye can keep its promise and present Turkish hospitality at its best.MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 01/30/18 -- Glen Eagle Resources Inc. (TSX VENTURE: GER) ("Glen Eagle" or the "Company") announces the resignation of Frank Rosenberg as Director of the Company. Mr. Rosenberg stated in his resignation letter that his decision was preemptive to avoid a potential conflict of interest that could result from his latest investment activities.

The Company wants to thank Mr. Rosenberg for his services and sound advice that he brought to the Board over the years. With due respect, the Company wishes him the best of success in his numerous business ventures for many years to come.

"Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release."

Values in the news release are quoted in canadian dollars.

Contacts:

Glen Eagle Resources Inc.

Jean Labrecque

President

514-808-9807



CUPERTINO (dpa-AFX) - The U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating whether Apple Inc. (AAPL) violated securities laws concerning its disclosures about a software update that slowed older iPhone models, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar with the matter. The government has requested information from the company. The inquiry is in early stages, the report cautioned, and it's too soon to conclude any enforcement will follow. Investigators are looking into public statements made by Apple on the situation. While the slowdown has frustrated consumers, U.S. investigators are concerned that the company may have misled investors about the performance of older phones. Several weeks ago, Apple said a software update released in early 2017 slowed down the performance of older iPhones models as a way to avoid the phones shutting down at random. When it released the update, the company hadn't said the software would slow down the devices. In December, Apple apologized for not clearly communicating this information and vowed to release another update to mitigate the concern. The slowdowns occur when an older iPhone's battery reaches a certain, unspecified point of low health and can be fixed if a user replaces the battery. As part of its public apology, Apple cut the prices of battery replacements in its stores to $29, a $50 discount. 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.BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - German conglomerate Siemens AG (SIEGY.PK, SMAWF) reported first-quarter net income of 2.21 billion euros, 12 percent higher than last year's 1.98 billion euros. Basic earnings per share were 2.68 euros, compared to 2.41 euros a year ago. The latest quarter's results included a largely tax-free gain from the sale of shares in Osram Licht AG and benefited from sharply lower income tax expenses due mainly to the revaluation of future tax positions following U.S. tax reform. On a nominal basis, revenue for the quarter grew 3 percent to 19.82 billion euros from 19.21 billion euros last year. Revenue increased 1 percent on a comparable basis, excluding currency translation and portfolio effects. Orders of 22.48 billion euros rose 14 percent from 19.71 billion euros in the the previous year. Looking ahead, Siemens said it expects a mixed picture in its market environment in fiscal 2018, ranging from strong markets for its short-cycle businesses to unfavorable dynamics in energy generation markets, as well as geopolitical uncertainties that may restrict investment sentiment. For fiscal 2018, Siemens continues to expect modest growth in revenue, net of effects from currency translation and portfolio transactions, and anticipates that orders will exceed revenue for a book-to-bill ratio above 1. In addition, the company affirmed its outlook for a profit margin of 11.0 percent to 12.0 percent for its Industrial Business, and basic earnings per share from net income in a range of 7.20 euros to 7.70 euros, both excluding severance charges. 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.ANKARA (dpa-AFX) - Turkey's foreign trade gap widened notably in December from a year ago, as imports grew much faster than exports, figures from the Turkish Statistical Institute showed Wednesday. The trade deficit rose to $9.2 billion in December from $5.6 billion in the corresponding month last year. Exports climbed 8.6 percent year-over-year in December, while imports registered a double-digit growth of 25.4 percent. On a monthly basis, seasonally and calendar-adjusted exports increased 1.0 percent in December and imports surged by 12.2 percent. During the whole year 2017, total trade deficit of the country was $76.7 billion versus $56.1 billion in 2016. 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.Posted 1/31/18

MOzarkers have long had a love-hate relationship with the stereotypical and dismissive term hillbilly. Once used derisively, and now used as a marketing tool by area businesses who cater to Inspirata to reignite Dynamyx software platform, ensuring commitments to existing customers while positioning the business for global expansion Tampa, FL, 2018-01-31 09:18 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cancer informatics and digital pathology workflow solution provider Inspirata, Inc. announced today that it has acquired Pittsburgh, PA-based Omnyx from GE Healthcare. Omnyx was an early innovator in bringing brilliant software to pathology departments around the world. The company's flagship digital pathology software product, Dynamyx, enhances the pathology workflow by providing new channels for collaboration and tools to boost efficiency. Combined with Inspirata's solution-as-a service approach, Dynamyx eases adoption challenges and empowers pathologists. The software is CE-marked in Europe and licensed by Health Canada for in vitro diagnostic (IVD) use. "The acquisition of Omnyx positions Inspirata with the most comprehensive digital pathology workflow solution in the world," says Inspirata CEO Satish Sanan. "It brings us the last mile to reach our goal of having an end-to-end integrated pathology solution with a scanner-agnostic whole slide image viewer and image management system. It also gives us a fully supported IVD device cleared for primary digital diagnosis in Europe and Canada, and it expands our customer base and geographic footprint across those countries." Inspirata plans to retain Omnyx' office and its employees. The company will use this location and the resources to create a center of excellence for ongoing digital pathology software development. "Our short-term plan is to rapidly combine the advantages of our digital pathology software platform and the Dynamyx platform by converging them onto a shared, state-of-the-art technology stack," continues Sanan. "Inspirata has shown a strong commitment to promoting the adoption of digital pathology to improve cancer diagnostics," says Omnyx CEO Andrew Chomos. "By combining our platforms, we will be able to offer a device and application agnostic solution in both Europe and Canada that can integrate with pathology departments' existing hardware and health information systems." About Inspirata, Inc. Inspirata, Inc. offers the most comprehensive cancer diagnostics workflow solution available for precision diagnosis today. The solution, which employs a unique "solution-as-a-service" business and delivery model, accelerates anatomic and molecular pathology workflows and facilitates whole slide imaging and image analytics, prognostic and predictive assays, remote consultations and tumor boards. This comprehensive solution includes an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) to help to solve interoperability issues and a Natural Language Processing Engine (NLP) for structuring data. Inspirata amalgamates this structured data into a central multi-institutional and multi-modal big data cancer repository for clinical, research and educational purposes. Its use will extend to physicians, patients, researchers and pharma among others. This comprehensive solution facilitates a modern precision diagnosis to build a strong foundation for precision medicine. For more information, please visit www.inspirata.com or contact info@inspirata.com. About Omnyx, LLC Omnyx, LLC, a digital pathology venture of GE Healthcare, has helped transform the way pathologists worldwide work and collaborate. Through its Precision Solution that includes the brilliant Dynamyx software and transformative consulting, all members of the cancer care team can work together to enhance patient outcomes. Dynamyx goes beyond simple image viewing and evaluation. It streamlines case management and communication among the entire care team while providing a foundation for image analysis algorithms to enable pathologists to gain deeper insights into patients' cancers. The open platform features bi-directional enterprise connectivity, which helps to eliminate manual tasks and reduce errors. The Omnyx vision is a world in which efficient and effective cancer diagnosis helps guide personalized patient care. Omnyx products are for in vitro diagnostic use for specific clinical applications and are intended for research use only on other applications. All trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. Attachments: A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/b58aa542-73ef-4061-8c40-5389f 7746f03 Marjorie BuloneInspirata, Inc.813-570-8905mbulone@inspirata.comHawker Pacific's 33% year-on-year growth in business aviation and MRO

Hawker Pacific lines up top-level business delegation for Asia's premier aviation show

SINGAPORE, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Hawker Pacific, the leading aviation solutions provider in Asia, Pacific and the Middle East, is proud to support the remarkable growth of business aviation in the Asian region with attendance at the Singapore Airshow. Exhibiting at the biennial show since its inception in 2008, Hawker Pacific is proud to be part of the growth in the region.

"For over 40 years, Hawker Pacific has been serving the region from our Singapore base. We will be at the airshow to share our wealth of expertise and experience in MRO, Aircraft Sales, Fleet Services, Special Missions and Spare Parts with new customers and existing partners," said Mr. Alan Smith, Chief Executive Officer, Hawker Pacific.

The 2018 Singapore Airshow at the Changi Exhibition Centre runs from 6 - 11 February 2018. Hawker Pacific's chalet will be located at CD43.

Through their network of strategically placed support facilities in Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, China and the United Arab Emirates, Hawker Pacific is well positioned to meet the growing demands of the fast-expanding aviation market.

Singapore is highly regarded as a key business aviation hub in Asia and is well respected for its heavy maintenance and MRO activities. It is estimated that MRO spending from the region including commercial airlines accounts for approximately 30% of global annual spend.

Hawker Pacific Singapore, has experienced substantial year-on-year growth in business aviation and MRO. Singapore's aerospace industry has seen an average of seven percent growth in value-add over the past 20 years.1

Having established a presence in Singapore in the 1970's, Hawker Pacific upgraded its facility in 2012 to meet the growing demand of customers in the region.

The purpose built 9,400m2 hangar and office complex at Seletar Aerospace Park provides maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO), retrofits, modifications and upgrades, including an environmentally friendly paint shop capable of up to Falcon 8X, Global Express or Gulfstream aircraft. The facility also offers a variety of support services including aircraft sales, aircraft management, FBO and aircraft handling services.

"Hawker Pacific is at the forefront of state-of-the-art maintenance and support services in Asia and Australasia. As demand increases, so do the challenges. As aviation's trusted choice, Hawker Pacific has always provided quality, innovative and customised solutions to meet the diverse needs of our customers - high net-worth individuals, corporations and government," concluded Mr. Alan Smith. "We are also the gateway for North American and European companies seeking to venture into the region which represents immense opportunity."

1 https://www.edb.gov.sg/en/our-industries/aerospace.html

Notes to Editor:

Hawker Pacific is a market leader in integrated civil and military aerospace sales and product support in Asia Pacific and Middle East. It operates established businesses in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, China and the United Arab Emirates. It supports a wide range of fixed wing aircraft and helicopters for corporate, charter, defence and special mission operators.

For more information, visit www.hawkerpacific.com

For media enquiries and high-resolution images, please contact:

Mr. Blake Irwin

Senior Marketing Manager

T: +61 2 9708 8560

M: +61 466 564 025

E: blake.irwin@hawkerpacific.com

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/635698/Hawker_Pacific_Logo.jpg

NORWALK (dpa-AFX) - While reporting its fourth-quarter financial results today, Xerox Corp. (XRX) provided its financial outlook for fiscal 2018. The company also announced a deal with Japan's Fujifilm Holdings Corp. (FUJIF.PK, FUJIY.PK) to combine Xerox and their longstanding Fuji Xerox joint venture.



The companies noted that the combined company will be a global leader in innovative print technologies and intelligent work solutions, with annual revenues of $18 billion and leadership positions in key geographic regions. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of calendar year 2018.



For fiscal 2018, Xerox forecast reported earnings from continuing operations of $2.30 to $2.50 per share and adjusted earnings per share of $3.50 to $3.70.



The company expects its full-year revenue trajectory to improve, declining 2 to 4 percent at constant currency. 2018 adjusted operating margin is expected by the company to expand and be in the range of 13 to 14 percent.



On average, analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect the company to report earnings of $3.52 per share for the year on revenues of $9.8 billion. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.



Xerox noted that the proposed combination with Fuji Xerox joint venture will provides Xerox shareholders with significant cash at closing, as well as a substantial interest in the significantly enhanced combined company.



Under the terms of the agreement, Xerox shareholders will receive a $2.5 billion special cash dividend, or approximately $9.80 per share, funded from the combined company's balance sheet. Xerox shareholders will own 49.9 percent of the combined company at closing.



Fujifilm will own 50.1 percent of the combined company, and provide important operational support as well as transformational leadership.



The transaction has been unanimously approved by the Boards of Directors of both Fujifilm and Xerox. The combined company will be named 'Fuji Xerox' and trade on the NYSE under the ticker 'XRX'.



The new Fuji Xerox will have dual headquarters in Norwalk, Connecticut, U.S. and in Minato, Tokyo, Japan, with presence in over 180 countries. The combined company will go to market and maintain the 'Xerox' and 'Fuji Xerox' brands within its respective operating regions.



The companies expect the combination to deliver at least $1.7 billion in total annual cost savings by 2022, with approximately $1.2 billion of the total cost savings expected to be achieved by 2020.



The targeted cost savings represent approximately 10 percent of the total cost base of the new Fuji Xerox and will drive significant margin expansion over the next four years.



Upon close of the transaction, Jeff Jacobson, chief executive officer of Xerox, will serve as chief executive officer of the new Fuji Xerox.



The combined company's Board of Directors will include 12 members, seven of whom will be appointed by the Fujifilm Board. Five independent directors will be appointed from the Xerox Board. Shigetaka Komori, chairman and chief executive officer of Fujifilm, will serve as chairman of the board.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.deThis is a correction of the announcement released by the Company at 7.00am this morning, 31 January 2018.

The title of that announcement stated that the Final Results for the Company were for the year ended 30 September 2017. The Final Results reported in the announcement are for the year ended 31 August 2017. The full amended text of the announcement is shown below.

Formation Group Plc

("Formation" or the "Company")

Final Results for Year Ended 31 August 2017

Chairman's Statement

I am pleased to present the annual result for the Company for the twelve-month period to 31 August 2017.

The year ended31 August 2017saw Formation work on existing construction projects, and initiate new larger projects during the latter part of the year. The more cautious investment activity is predominantly due to the uncertainty of the UK economy, both before and after the 'Brexit' referendum. House prices in London, the Group's key market, have been volatile though the reporting period.

The Group spent much of the year completing existing projects, and revenues have increased 26% this year from 29.410m in 2016 to 37.011m in 2017. Revenue has mainly been generated from projects initiated in 2016. As a result, and despite the increase in turnover, the Company has produced an operating loss this year of 0.107m (2016 profit 0.733m).

The finance income item of 0.33m relates to an adjustment to income recognised from the profit share in relation to a development property at Norwich House, 9-19 Streatham High Road.The total amounts due by Sunbel Development Limited in relation to the profit share agreement, were repaid in February 2017. The loss on ordinary activities, before taxation was 0.152m (2016 profit of 2.157m). The reduction in this figure from last year is reflective of the conclusion of the Norwich House profit share agreement.

Every effort is being made to source further development and investment opportunities, and the Group is continuingto seek out new opportunities.

The Group has added and will continue to add to the experienced base of construction personnel.

The Board and Staff

I would like to thank all board members and staff for the enormous efforts and dedicated contributions they have made during the year. I would also like to thank our shareholders for their continued trust and confidence in the Board and in my leadership as Chairman.

William O'Dea

Non-Executive Chairman

Consolidated income statement

For the year ended 31 August 2017

2017 2016 GBP'000 GBP'000 Continuing operations Turnover 37,011 29,410 Cost of sales (34,835) (26,488) __________ __________ Gross profit 2,176 2,922 Administrative expenses (2,283) (2,189) __________ __________ Operating (loss) / profit from continuing operations (107) 733 Finance income (33) 1,424 Finance costs (12) - __________ __________ (Loss) / Profit on ordinary activities before taxation (152) 2,157 Taxation - (394) __________ __________ (Loss) /Profit for the year from continuing operations (152) 1,763 Discontinued operations Profit for the year from discontinued operations - 1,022 __________ __________ (Loss) / Profit for the year (152) 2,785 __________ __________ Attributable to: __________ __________ Equity holders of the parent (152) 2,785 __________ __________ Earnings per share From continuing operations Basic and diluted (0.34)p 0.79p From discontinued operations Basic and diluted - 0.46p From continuing and discontinued operations Basic and diluted (0.34)p 1.25p

2017 2016 GBP'000 GBP'000 (Loss) / Profit for the year (152) 2,785 ___________ ___________ Total comprehensive Income for the financial year (152) 2,785 ___________ ___________ Attributable to: Equity holders of the parent Continued operations (152) 1,763 Discontinued operations - 1,022 ___________ ___________ (152) 2,785 ___________ ___________

Consolidated statement of financial position

As at 31 August 2017

2017 2016 '000 '000 Fixed Assets Tangible Assets 21 22 Investment Property 275 275 __________ __________ 296 297 __________ __________ Current assets Inventories

Debtors 1,406

7,525 7,245

9,888 Cash at bank and in hand 4,229 330 __________ __________ 13,160 17,463 __________ __________ Current liabilities Creditors: Amounts falling due within one year Creditors (3,227) (4,065) Bank loans - (3,314) __________ __________ Total current liabilities Net current assets 9,933 10,084 __________ __________ Total assets less current liabilities 10,229 10,381 __________ __________ Net assets 10,229 10,381 __________ __________

2017 2016 GBP'000 GBP'000 Shareholders' funds Share capital 2,205 2,205 Share premium account 2,106 2,106 Capital redemption reserve 61 61 Share option reserve 22 22 Retained earnings 5,835 5,987 __________ __________ Total shareholders' funds 10,229 10,381 __________ __________

Changes to Accounting Standards

Following the Group's move from AIM to NEX Exchange, the Group and the Company have moved from IFRS to the UK's FRS102 because FRS102 is deemed more suitable for the Group and is used by its subsidiaries. No adjustments have been necessary to the carrying values included within these financial statements or their comparatives because of this change. There are no significant differences between IFRS and UK FRS102.

The financial information contained in this statement has been extracted from the full audited accounts of the Company.

The Directors do not propose a dividend for the period reported.

The Directors of the Company accept responsibility for this announcement.

--ENDS-



Enquiries:



Formation Group Plc

David Kennedy; Chief Executive Officer

020 7920 7590



NEX Exchange Corporate Adviser

Peterhouse Corporate Finance Limited

Fungai Ndoro and Mark Anwyl

020 7469 0930



Date: 31st January 2018

On behalf of: London Finance & Investment Group P.L.C.



LONDON FINANCE & INVESTMENT GROUP P.L.C.

Directorate Change

London Finance & Investment Group P.L.C. (LSE: LFI, JSE: LNF) is pleased to announce that Warwick Marshall will be joining the Board with immediate effect.

Warwick Hugh Marshall, aged 47, is the son of David Marshall, the Company's Chairman.

Warwick was raised and schooled in South Africa, and trained as an accountant in London after completing National Service in South Africa. He established the trading division of the Monteagle Group in 1996 initially trading in retailer branded fast moving consumer goods, and subsequently diversifying into metals, minerals and logistics. This profitable division of the Monteagle Group now turns over in excess of US$350 million annually. He has extensive investment experience in his private capacity and he now resides in Zug, Switzerland.

John Maxwell, chairman of the Company's Nominations Committee, said "We welcome Warwick to the Board. His substantial business experience will assist in the assessment of the performance of investments and will complement the skills and experience of existing board members."

United Kingdom

31st January 2018

The Company confirms there are no further disclosures to be made under rule 9.6.13 of the Listing Rules.

This announcement contains inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of EU Regulation 596/2014.

The directors of the Company accept responsibility for the contents of this announcement.



For further information, please contact:

London Finance & Investment Group P.L.C.: 020 7796 9060

(David Marshall/Edward Beale)

Johannesburg Sponsor:

Sasfin Capital (a member of the Sasfin group)Popular Exhibition Space Showcases How Mobile Products and Services are Creating a Better Future; Includes Immersive Experiences from Cisco IoT, Huawei Wireless X Labs, KT Corporation, Sierra Wireless and Turkcell/Lifecell Ventures.

The GSMA Innovation City will be at Mobile World Congress 2018 once more, offering visitors with an opportunity to discover how mobile products and services are helping to create a better future for citizens and businesses around the world. The interactive exhibition space, which welcomed over 30,000 visitors last year and is one of the key attractions at Mobile World Congress, covers the latest innovations in mobile from artificial intelligence (AI) to 5G through a range of hands-on, experiential demonstrations that illustrate how mobile impacts virtually every aspect of our lives in sectors such as transport, health, agriculture, industry, home and retail.

"From chatbots to 5G, the GSMA Innovation City includes the very latest developments and innovations in this fast-moving industry and frames them in a consumer context via immersive, interactive demonstrations," said Michael O'Hara, Chief Marketing Officer, GSMA. "One of the most popular destinations at Mobile World Congress, the City is a one-stop shop for the latest developments in our industry and we encourage all attendees to visit this year's showcase."

At the heart of the event and next to the Conference Village in Hall 4 in Fira Gran Via, the City is supported by leading brands including Cisco IoT, Huawei Wireless X Labs, KT Corporation, Sierra Wireless and Turkcell/Lifecell Ventures as well the GSMA's key programmes and initiatives including Future Networks, Identity, Internet of Things, and Mobile for Development. The City will also include examples of the GSMA's work supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Showcasing a Range of New Experiences

The Innovation City will showcase an array of interactive product and service demonstrations including:

CISCO IOT

Cisco IoT will enable visitors to experience firsthand how businesses globally are using the Cisco IoT Data Control platform to maximise the value of their IoT data. Visitors will get to see how Cisco IoT solutions can enable them to connect, extract, compute and move their IoT data to deliver the best business outcomes. Attendees will:

See how Departments of Transportation are using the Cisco Kinetic IoT data platform to connect their roadways and act upon data in real time at the edge in order to save lives

Learn how businesses across the globe are utilizing Cisco's IoT device connectivity management platform Cisco Jasper Control Center to monitor and automatically reduce water waste to help combat drought conditions

Experience how NB-IoT connectivity management is enabling smart lighting solutions that help keep citizens safer while making smart cities more efficient

Get live, on-demand demos of the entire Cisco IoT solution set, and learn how Cisco enables the IoT ecosystem globally

TURKCELL/LIFECELL VENTURES

Experience how Turkcell/Lifecell Ventures takes the communication and entertainment experience to the next level by offering a wide array of services like BiP, fizy, Tv+, lifebox designed exclusively for today's digital lifestyle

See how Turkcell/Lifecell Ventures is using LPWA NB-IoT networks to support smart agriculture

Learn how Turkcell/Lifecell Ventures uses their big data analytics tools to respond instantly to humanitarian crises with smart city simulations

HUAWEI WIRELESS X LABS

Huawei will demonstrate its innovative mobile applications jointly developed by its Wireless X Labs and vertical partners with highlights including:

Moon Landing Cloud Virtual Reality: Enter the 'Lunar Lander' and experience a moon landing via a wireless Virtual Reality headset

Flying Car Connected Drone: See the future of transport with a flying connected drone

Wireless Factory: Participate in a real manufacturing scenario constructed by Huawei and Denso

KT CORPORATION

KT Corporation, one of Korea's leading telecommunication service providers, will showcase its 5G network service for the first time ever. They will also demonstrate their first commercial 5G technologies and allow guests to experience futuristic 5G-based experiences including virtual reality, mixed reality and the connected car.

SIERRA WIRELESS

Sierra Wireless is empowering customers to reimagine their future in a connected world. Their demonstrations in the Innovation City will allow visitors to experience examples of how the IoT is creating a better future in all facets of life, including:

Worker safety with an LPWA-connected work boot,

Agriculture with a smart solution to optimize yields and better serve growing population needs over the long term,

Security and energy efficiency with a solar-powered drone designed for long-endurance flights and monitoring remote locations, and

A connected washing machine showing how connectivity helps laundry service providers transform their customer experience.

GSMA INDUSTRY PROGRAMMES

The GSMA will also include a number of exhibits and experiences highlighting its key industry programmes, allowing attendees to:

Experience how licensed Low Power Wide Area networks (LTE-M NB-IoT) are transforming everyday life across cities, businesses, communities and citizens around the world

Learn how Mobile Connect is supporting cross-border identify verification compatible with the European Union e-Identification and Trust Services (eIDAS) regulation

Test out your boxing skills on the IoT Punch Bag, which measures the power of your shots and transmits the data in real-time via a live Mobile IoT network

See how the SmartThings Tracker tracks everyday objects from cars and laptop bags to pets in real-time on Mobile IoT Networks

Visit the GSMA Mobile for Development programme's Humanitarian Innovation Showcase to see cutting-edge hardware demonstrations alongside 360-degree interactive content and learn how mobile services are impacting lives in humanitarian contexts

See how cities are using the IoT to measure air quality using new sensors and big data analytics to improve the health prospects and quality of life for citizens

Experience how 5G networks will transform critical communications for the emergency services

See how operators, aggregators and brands are using RCS A2P messaging services to engage directly with customers using chatbots and AI with real-life demos from some of the world's biggest brands

Score a goal at the Innovation City football pitch and experience the power of 5G latency through remote robotic technologies that mimic your movements and hit targets to have a chance of winning a top prize

See how FC Barcelona is using IoT big data and Mobile IoT technologies to improve the safety and efficiency of their stadium for fans and visitors

See how 5G is enabling remote experiences and engage in an intergalactic virtual reality battle showcasing cloud gaming services

See how Mobile Connect is supporting paramedics with secure access to patient medical records in emergency situations

Learn how mobile is impacting all 17 of the SDGs and connecting everyone and everything to a better future. Experience the CaseForChange journey in immersive 360 video and discover how big data is being used for social good.

Visit the Innovation City in Hall 4, Fira Gran Via

The GSMA Innovation City is located in Hall 4, Stand 4A30, 4A5 and 4A15in Fira Gran Via and will be open during Mobile World Congress exhibition hours from Monday, 26 February to 1 March from 8:00 am to 7:00 pm. GSMA Members are invited to visit the exclusive Members Lounge for networking and cocktails daily from 4:00 pm. The GSMA Innovation City is open to all attendees with all pass types.

Get Involved at Mobile World Congress 2018

For more information on Mobile World Congress 2018, including how to attend, exhibit or sponsor, visit www.mobileworldcongress.com. Follow developments and updates on Mobile World Congress on Twitter @GSMA using MWC18, on our LinkedIn Mobile World Congress page www.linkedin.com/company/gsma-mobile-world-congress or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/mobileworldcongress/.

The Mobile World Congress is the cornerstone of the Mobile World Capital, which will be hosted in Barcelona through 2023. The Mobile World Capital encompasses programmes and activities that span the entire year and will benefit not only the citizens of Barcelona, Catalonia and Spain, but also the worldwide mobile industry. For more information on the Mobile World Capital, visit www.mobileworldcapital.com.

-ENDS-

About the GSMA

The GSMA represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide, uniting nearly 800 operators with more than 300 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset and device makers, software companies, equipment providers and internet companies, as well as organisations in adjacent industry sectors. The GSMA also produces industry-leading events such as Mobile World Congress, Mobile World Congress Shanghai, Mobile World Congress Americas and the Mobile 360 Series of conferences.

For more information, please visit the GSMA corporate website at www.gsma.com. Follow the GSMA on Twitter: @GSMA.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180131005449/en/

Contacts:

Media Contacts:

For the GSMA

Beau Bass

+44 79 7662 4962

beau.bass@webershandwick.com

or

Pau Guerrero Gloria Almirall

+34 93 236 09 00

PGuerrero@webershandwick.com

or

GSMA Press Office

pressoffice@gsma.comTORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 01/31/18 -- Denison Mines Corp. ("Denison" or the "Company") (TSX: DML)(NYSE MKT: DNN)(NYSE American: DNN) is pleased to announce an 88% increase in the Indicated Mineral Resources estimated for the Wheeler River project. Denison is also pleased to announce it has increased its interest in the Wheeler River project during 2017 from 60% to 63.3% in accordance with an agreement with its Wheeler River Joint Venture partners, as previously announced on January 10, 2017. The updated mineral resource estimate for Wheeler River is highlighted by a significant increase in the estimated mineral resources for the property's basement-hosted Gryphon uranium deposit.

To view the Figures associated with this release, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/1106977_figs.pdf

Resource Update Highlights:

-- The Gryphon deposit is estimated to contain, above a cut-off grade of 0.2% U3O8, 61.9 million pounds of U3O8 (1,643,000 tonnes at 1.71% U3O8) in Indicated Mineral Resources, plus 1.9 million pounds of U3O8 (73,000 tonnes at 1.18% U3O8) in Inferred Mineral Resources. -- Wheeler River is also host to the Phoenix deposit, which is estimated to include Indicated Mineral Resources of 70.2 million pounds of U3O8 above a cut-off grade of 0.8% U3O8 (166,000 tonnes at 19.1% U3O8), as disclosed in the Preliminary Economic Assessment for the Wheeler River Uranium Project, Saskatchewan, Canada dated March 31, 2016 and prepared by Ken Reipas, P.Eng of SRK Consulting (Canada) Inc. (the "PEA"). -- With this update to the resources estimated for the Gryphon deposit, the combined Indicated Mineral Resources estimated for Wheeler River have increased by 88% to 132.1 million pounds U3O8, which will be used to support the Pre-Feasibility Study ("PFS") initiated for the project in July 2016 and expected to be completed during 2018. Wheeler River Property Mineral Resource Estimate Summary, including the updated mineral resource estimate for the Gryphon deposit as of January30, 2018(the "Effective Date") Grade Million lbs U3O8 Million lbs U3O8 Deposit Category Tonnes (% U3O8) (100% Basis) (Denison 63.3%) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gryphon Indicated 1,643,000 1.7 61.9 39.2 Phoenix Indicated 166,000 19.1 70.2 44.4 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total Indicated 1,809,000 3.3 132.1 83.6 Gryphon Inferred 73,000 1.2 1.9 1.2 Phoenix Inferred 9,000 5.8 1.1 0.7 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total Inferred 82,000 1.7 3.0 1.9

Notes:

1. CIM Definitions (2014) were followed for classification of Mineral Resources. 2. Mineral Resources for the Gryphon deposit are reported above a cut-off grade of 0.2% U3O8. See detailed results below for additional notes related to the Mineral Resources estimated for the Gryphon deposit. 3. Mineral Resources for the Phoenix deposit are reported above a cut-off grade of 0.8% U3O8. Mineral Resources for the Phoenix deposit were last estimated in 2014 to reflect the expansion of the high-grade zone. As no new drilling has been completed at Phoenix since that time, the mineral resource estimates for the Phoenix deposit remain current. 4. Numbers may not add due to rounding.

David Cates, President and CEO of Denison commented, "This updated resource estimate for Gryphon marks an important milestone for the Wheeler River project - solidifying its ranking as the largest undeveloped uranium project in the infrastructure rich eastern Athabasca Basin, and positioning the project to be the next new mine developed in the region. The long-term fundamentals for the uranium mining business are certainly at the forefront of the market right now, with a series of production curtailments recently being announced. As a developer positioning to build a new mine for the next uranium bull market, we strongly believe that the ability to leverage existing infrastructure, and limit up-front costs and timelines to production, will make the difference in building and financing a new mine as the uranium market strengthens. This updated resource, is expected to bode well for our ongoing efforts related to the Wheeler River PFS, which is planned to be completed during 2018."

Dale Verran, Vice President Exploration of Denison commented, "The results of this updated mineral resource estimate validates how the Gryphon deposit has continued to grow in size and confidence - having converted more than 100% of the inferred resources previously estimated for the A, B and C series lenses into indicated resources, and introducing an initial estimate of mineralization for the D and E series lenses. With over 97% of the total resources for the project classified as indicated, we have turned our focus in 2018 to step-out drilling where the Gryphon deposit offers numerous expansion opportunities - including along strike of the new D and E series lenses."

The updated mineral resource estimate for the Gryphon deposit was prepared for the Company by RPA Inc. ("RPA") in accordance with CIM Definition Standards (2014) in National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101").

Wheeler River Highlights

-- Largest undeveloped high-grade uranium project in the eastern Athabasca: With the updated mineral resource estimate for the property's Gryphon deposit, the Wheeler River project retains and improves its position as the largest undeveloped high-grade uranium project in the eastern portion of the Athabasca Basin region, in northern Saskatchewan. The property is host to two high-grade uranium deposits discovered by Denison - namely the basement-hosted Gryphon deposit and the unconformity-hosted Phoenix deposit, which ranks as the highest grade undeveloped uranium deposit known in the world. -- Proximal to existing uranium mining and milling infrastructure: The property is located in the infrastructure rich eastern portion of the Athabasca Basin, which is host to existing uranium mining and milling infrastructure, including the 22.5% Denison owned McClean Lake mill. The Wheeler River property lies alongside provincial highway 914 and a provincial powerline that run between the McArthur River mine and the Key Lake uranium mill. -- Positive preliminary project economics: On April 4, 2016, Denison announced the results of its Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") for the Wheeler River Project, which considers the potential economic merit of co-developing the high-grade Gryphon and Phoenix deposits as a single underground mining operation. The PEA was based on the resources estimated at the Gryphon deposit in late 2015, and returned a base case pre-tax Internal Rate of Return ("IRR") of 20.4% based on the then current long term contract price of uranium (US$44.00 per pound U3O8). Denison's share of initial capital expenditures ("CAPEX") in the PEA is estimated to be CAD$336M (CAD$560M on 100% ownership basis). The PEA is preliminary in nature, was based on Inferred Mineral Resources that are considered at the time to be too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them to allow them to be categorized as mineral reserves, and there is no certainty that the results from the PEA will be realized. The updated estimate of Indicated Mineral Resources for the project of 132.1 million pounds U3O8 will support the PFS expected to be completed in 2018. -- Increasing Denison ownership: The project is a joint venture between Denison (63.3% and operator), Cameco Corp. ("Cameco") (26.7%), and JCU (Canada) Exploration Company Limited ("JCU") (10%). In January 2017, Denison entered into an agreement with its Wheeler River Joint Venture partners to fund 75% of Joint Venture expenses in 2017 and 2018 (ordinarily 60%) in exchange for an increase in Denison's interest in the project to up to approximately 66%. Under the terms of the agreement, Cameco will fund 50% of its ordinary 30% share in 2017 and 2018, and JCU is expected to continue to fund its 10% interest in the project. -- Significant potential for resource growth: The Gryphon deposit is a growing, high-grade uranium deposit that belongs to a select group of large basement-hosted uranium deposits in the eastern Athabasca Basin, which includes Cameco's Eagle Point mine and Millennium deposit, and Rio Tinto's Roughrider deposit. The Gryphon deposit remains open in numerous areas with significant potential for future resource growth. Priority target areas include: (1) Along strike to the northeast of the E series lenses, where both unconformity and basement potential exists; (2) Down plunge of the A and B series lenses; (3) Along strike to the northeast and southwest of the D series lenses; and (4) Within the currently defined D series lenses, where additional high-grade shoots may exist. In addition, very little regional exploration has taken place on the property in recent years, with drilling efforts focussed on Phoenix and Gryphon, which were discovered in 2008 and 2014 respectively. The property is host to numerous uranium-bearing lithostructural corridors which are under- or unexplored and have the potential for additional large, high-grade unconformity or basement hosted deposits. Exploration drilling is warranted along these corridors to follow-up on previous mineralized drill results, or to test geophysical targets identified from past surveys.

Details of the Updated Mineral Resource Estimate for the Gryphon Deposit

Updated Mineral Resource Estimate

The Gryphon deposit was discovered in March 2014 and, following the completion of 66 drill holes (40,864 metres of drilling) on an approximate 50 x 50 metre spacing, a maiden resource estimate was completed by RPA in September 2015. The maiden estimate was comprised of Inferred Mineral Resources of 43.0 million pounds of U3O8 above a cut-off grade of 0.2% U3O8 (834,000 tonnes at 2.3% U3O8) and included the deposit's A, B and C series lenses.

The updated mineral resource estimate, reported herein, was completed by RPA - a recognized independent consulting firm with significant resource estimation experience in high-grade Athabasca uranium deposits. For the updated mineral resource estimate, RPA used data collected from eight diamond drilling campaigns completed during the last four years, including a total of 117,788 metres of drilling in 210 drill holes. The updated mineral resource estimate includes the expanded A and B series lenses, C series lenses, and the recently delineated D and E series lenses, as detailed in the table below.

Mineral Resource Estimate for the Gryphon Deposit with an Effective Date of January 30,2017 (100% basis) Grade Million lbs U3O8 Lens Category Tonnes (% U3O8) (100% Basis) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A1HG Indicated 148,000 7.60 24.72 A1 Indicated 365,000 0.84 6.74 A2 Indicated 262,000 0.96 5.52 A3 Indicated 36,000 0.38 0.30 B1 Indicated 161,000 1.05 3.74 B2 Indicated 158,000 1.50 5.24 B3 Indicated 59,000 1.33 1.71 C1 Indicated 105,000 1.19 2.74 D1HG_HW Indicated 17,000 5.00 1.82 D1HG_MD Indicated 11,000 7.37 1.80 D1HG_FW Indicated 15,000 7.52 2.47 D1 Indicated 153,000 0.58 1.95 D4 Indicated 89,000 0.74 1.45 E2 Indicated 65,000 1.15 1.66 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total Indicated 1,643,000 1.71 61.86 A4 Inferred 2,000 0.34 0.01 B5 Inferred 10,000 0.25 0.05 D2 Inferred 5,000 0.40 0.04 D3 Inferred 13,000 1.19 0.35 E1 Inferred 31,000 1.30 0.88 E2 Inferred 12,000 2.01 0.54 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total Inferred 73,000 1.18 1.89

Notes:

1. CIM Definitions (2014) were followed for classification of mineral resources. 2. Mineral Resources are estimated at an incremental cut-off grade of 0.2% U3O8 using a long-term uranium price of US$50 per lb, and a US$/C$ exchange rate of 0.75. The cut-off grade is based on incremental operating costs for low-grade material. 3. A minimum mining width of 2 metres was used. 4. Bulk density is derived from grade using a formula based on 279 measurements. 5. High grade mineralization was capped at 30% U3O8 and restricted at 20% U3O8 for the A1HG and capped at 20% U3O8 for the D1HG with no search restrictions. 6. Low grade mineralization was capped at 20% U3O8 for the C1 domain with search restrictions applied to U3O8 grades greater than or equal to 10.0% U3O8. 7. Low grade mineralization was capped at 15% U3O8 for the B1, B2, E1 and E2 domains with search restrictions applied to U3O8 grades greater than or equal to 10.0% U3O8 for the B1 domain and 5.0% U3O8 for the E2 domain. 8. Low grade mineralization was capped at 10% U3O8 for the A1-A4, B3-B7, C4-C5, and D2-D4 domains with no search restrictions. 9. Low grade mineralization was capped at 5% U3O8 for the D1 domain with no search restriction 10. Numbers may not add due to rounding.

Geology and Mineralization

The Gryphon uranium deposit occurs within southeasterly dipping crystalline basement rocks of the Wollaston Supergroup below the regional sub-Athabasca Basin unconformity. The deposit is located from 520 to 850 metres below surface and has an overall strike length of 610 metres, dip length of 390 metres and varies in thickness between 2 and 70 metres, depending on the number of mineralized lenses present. The mineralized lenses are controlled by reverse fault structures which are largely conformable to the basement stratigraphy and dominant foliation. The A, B and C series of lenses comprise stacked, parallel lenses which plunge to the northeast along a fault zone ("G-Fault") which occurs between hanging wall graphite-rich pelitic gneisses and a more competent pegmatite-dominated footwall. A ubiquitous zone of silicification ("Quartz-Pegmatite Assemblage") straddles the G-Fault and the A, B and C series of lenses occur hanging wall, within, and footwall to the Quartz-Pegmatite Assemblage respectively. The D series of lenses occur within the pegmatite-dominated footwall along a secondary fault zone ("Basal Fault") or within extensional relay faults which link to the G-Fault. The E series of lenses occur along the G-Fault, up-dip and along strike to the northeast of the A and B series lenses, within the upper basement or at the sub-Athabasca unconformity. Mineralization within the Gryphon deposit lenses is dominated by massive, semi-massive or fracture-hosted uraninite associated with an alteration assemblage comprising hematite, dravitic tourmaline, illite, chlorite and kaolinite. Secondary uranium minerals, including uranophane and carnotite, and sulphides are trace in quantity.

Drilling, Sampling and Assay Procedures

The updated mineral resource estimate for the Gryphon deposit, reported herein, is based on a total of 210 drill holes. Drill collars were surveyed in the field utilizing a Differential Global Positioning System ("DGPS") and the trajectory of all drill holes was determined with a Reflex survey instrument in single point mode, which measures the dip and azimuth at 50 metre intervals down the hole. Denison employed a directional drilling method to improve drilling accuracy and 120 of the 210 drill holes were completed as subsurface 'daughter' holes which were drilled as off-cuts from surface 'parent' holes.

Drill core with anomalous total gamma radioactivity (greater than 300 counts per second utilizing a RS-120 or RS-125 scintillometer) was sampled over 0.5 metre intervals. Sampling is undertaken on site by splitting the core in half, with one half submitted for analysis and the other half retained in the core box for future reference. Uranium assays are performed by the Saskatchewan Research Council ("SRC") Geoanalytical Laboratories using an ISO/IEC 17025:2005 accredited method for the determination of U3O8 weight %. Sample preparation involves crushing and pulverizing core samples to 90% passing -106 microns. The resultant pulp is digested using aqua-regia and the solution analyzed for U3O8 weight % using ICP-OES. Other major and trace elements are determined using ICP-MS or ICP-OES after partial and total digestions. Boron values are obtained through NaO2/NaCO3 fusion followed by ICP-OES. In addition to internal checks by SRC Geoanalytical Laboratories, the Company has rigorous quality assurance and quality control ("QAQC") procedures including the insertion of standard reference materials, blanks and field duplicates. The assay data is subject to verification procedures by qualified persons employed by Denison prior to disclosure. Core recovery at Gryphon is typically 100% and therefore radiometric equivalent U3O8 grades ("eU3O8") are seldom required as a substitute for chemical U3O8 assays. For the updated Gryphon mineral resource estimate, reported herein, 6.5 % of the assay intervals relied on eU3O8 grades where core recovery was less than 80%. For further details on the assay, QAQC and data verification procedures please see Denison's Annual Information Form dated March 23, 2017 filed under the Company's profile on SEDAR (www.sedar.com).

Estimation Methodology

The three-dimensional mineralized wireframes were created by Denison utilizing Gemcom software following detailed interpretation of the deposit geology and structure. The wireframes were defined using a threshold of 0.05% U3O8 and minimum thickness of two metres. One higher grade domain was defined within the A1 lenses and three higher grade domains were defined in the D1 lenses based on a threshold of 4.0% U3O8. The wireframes and drilling database were sent to RPA for grade modelling following QAQC which included ensuring the wireframes were 'snapped' to the drill hole mineralized intervals.

Based on 279 dry bulk density determinations, a polynomial formula was determined relating bulk density to uranium grade which was used to assign a density value to each assay. Bulk density values were used to weight grades during the resource estimation process and to convert volume to tonnage. Uranium grade multiplied by density (GxD) values and density (D) values were interpolated into blocks measuring 5 metres by 1 metre by 2 metres using an inverse distance squared (ID2) algorithm since variograms were not considered good enough to derive kriging parameters. Hard domain boundaries were employed at the wireframe edges, so that blocks within a given wireframe were only informed by grade data from that wireframe. For the A1 high-grade domain, assays were capped at 30% U3O8 with a search restriction applied to composite grades over 20% and for the D1 high-grade domains, assays were capped at 20% U3O8 with no search restriction. For the A1-A4, B3-B7, C4-C5 and D2-D4 low-grade domains, assays were capped at 10% U3O8. For the C1 low-grade domain, assays were capped at 20% U3O8 with a search restriction applied to composite grades over 10%. For the B1, B2, E1 and E2 low-grade domains, assays were capped at 15% U3O8 with search restrictions applied to composite grades over 10% U3O8 for the B1 domain and 5.0% U3O8 for the E2 domain. For the D1 low-grade domain, assays were capped at 5% U3O8. Block grade was derived from the interpolated GxD value divided by the interpolated D value for each block. Block tonnage was based on volume times the interpolated D value.

The mineral resource estimate for the Gryphon deposit was classified according to the drill hole spacing and the apparent continuity of mineralization, as either Indicated Mineral Resources (generally, drill hole spacing of 25 x 25 meters) or Inferred Mineral Resources (generally, drill hole spacing of 50 x 50 metres). The block models were validated by comparison of domain wireframe volumes with block volumes, visual comparison of composite grades with block grades, comparison of block grades with composite grades used to interpolate grades, and comparison with estimation by a different method.

Updated Wheeler River Technical Report

RPA, an independent technical consulting firm, was retained by Denison on behalf of the Wheeler River Joint Venture to prepare the updated mineral resource estimate for the Gryphon deposit. An updated independent Technical Report will be prepared for the Wheeler River Project, including both the Gryphon and Phoenix deposits, and will be filed on SEDAR (www.sedar.com) within 45 days of this news release.

Qualified Persons

The Mineral Resource Estimate was prepared by Mr. Mark Mathisen, C.P.G., Principal Geologist at RPA and Mr. William Roscoe, PhD, P. Geo, Principal Geologist at RPA, who read and approved the related disclosure about the mineral resources in this press release. Both are independent Qualified Persons in accordance with the requirements of NI 43-101.

The technical information contained in this release has been reviewed and approved by Mr. Dale Verran, MSc, P.Geo, Pr.Sci.Nat., Denison's Vice President, Exploration, who is also a Qualified Person in accordance with the requirements of NI 43-101.

About Wheeler River

Wheeler River is the largest undeveloped high-grade uranium project in the infrastructure rich eastern portion of the Athabasca Basin region, in northern Saskatchewan. The project is a joint venture between Denison (63.3% and operator), Cameco Corp. ("Cameco") (26.7%), and JCU (Canada) Exploration Company Limited ("JCU") (10%), and is host to the high-grade Gryphon and Phoenix uranium deposits discovered by Denison in 2014 and 2008, respectively.

On April 4th, 2016, Denison announced the results of a Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") for the Wheeler River Project, which considers the potential economic merit of co-developing the high-grade Gryphon and Phoenix deposits as a single underground mining operation. The PEA returned a base case pre-tax Internal Rate of Return ("IRR") of 20.4% based on the current long term contract price of uranium (US$44.00 per pound U3O8), and Denison's share of estimated initial capital expenditures ("CAPEX") of CAD$336M (CAD$560M on 100% ownership basis). Exploration results from the subsequent drilling programs have not been incorporated into the resource estimate or the PEA. The PEA is preliminary in nature and includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them to be categorized as mineral reserves, and there is no certainty that the preliminary economic assessment will be realized. Mineral resources are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. On July 19th, 2016 Denison announced the initiation of a Pre-Feasibility Study ("PFS") for the Wheeler River property and the complimentary commencement of an infill drilling program at the Gryphon deposit.

As previously announced on January 10, 2017, Denison has entered into an agreement with its Wheeler River Joint Venture partners, Cameco and JCU, to fund 75% of Joint Venture expenses in 2017 and 2018 (ordinarily 60%) in exchange for an increase in Denison's interest in the project to up to approximately 66%. Under the terms of the agreement, Cameco will fund 50% of its ordinary 30% share in 2017 and 2018, and JCU is expected to continue to fund its 10% interest in the project. Pursuant to the agreement, as at December 31, 2017, Denison has increased its interest in the Wheeler River project from 60% to 63.3%.

About Denison

Denison is a uranium exploration and development company with interests focused in the Athabasca Basin region of northern Saskatchewan, Canada. In addition to its 63.3% owned Wheeler River project, which hosts the high-grade Phoenix and Gryphon uranium deposits, Denison's exploration portfolio consists of numerous projects covering approximately 347,000 hectares in the Athabasca Basin region, including 327,000 hectares in the infrastructure rich eastern portion of the Athabasca Basin. Denison's interests in Saskatchewan also include a 22.5% ownership interest in the McClean Lake joint venture ("MLJV"), which includes several uranium deposits and the McClean Lake uranium mill, which is currently processing ore from the Cigar Lake mine under a toll milling agreement, plus a 25.17% interest in the Midwest and Midwest A deposits, and a 64.22% interest in the J Zone deposit and Huskie discovery on the Waterbury Lake property. Each of Midwest, Midwest A, J Zone and Huskie are located within 20 kilometres of the McClean Lake mill.

Denison is also engaged in mine decommissioning and environmental services through its Denison Environmental Services division and is the manager of Uranium Participation Corp., a publicly traded company which invests in uranium oxide and uranium hexafluoride.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain information contained in this press release constitutes "forward-looking information", within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and similar Canadian legislation concerning the business, operations and financial performance and condition of Denison.

Generally, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", or "believes", or the negatives and/or variations of such words and phrases, or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur", "be achieved" or "has the potential to". In particular, this press release contains forward-looking information pertaining to the following: exploration (including drilling) and evaluation activities, plans and objectives; potential mineralization of drill targets; the estimates of Denison's mineral resources and the results of its PEA; plans and objectives with respect to updating its resource estimates and preparing a PFS to assess on a preliminary basis the potential for mine development an whether to proceed with a detailed feasibility study; and Denison's percentage interest in its properties and its plans and agreements with its joint venture partners, as applicable. Statements relating to "mineral reserves" or "mineral resources" are deemed to be forward-looking information, as they involve the implied assessment, based on certain estimates and assumptions that the mineral reserves and mineral resources described can be profitably produced in the future.

Forward looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made, and they are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Denison to be materially different from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. Factors, such as environmental impacts, stakeholder approvals, and capital needs can significant alter plans and achievements. Denison believes that the expectations reflected in this forward-looking information are reasonable but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be accurate and may differ materially from those anticipated in this forward looking information. For a discussion in respect of risks and other factors that could influence forward-looking events, please refer to the factors discussed in Denison's Annual Information Form dated March 23, 2017 under the heading "Risk Factors". These factors are not, and should not be construed as being exhaustive. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

The forward-looking information contained in this press release is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Any forward-looking information and the assumptions made with respect thereto speaks only as of the date of this press release. Denison does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking information after the date of this press release to conform such information to actual results or to changes in Denison's expectations except as otherwise required by applicable legislation.

Cautionary Note to United States Investors Concerning Estimates of Measured, Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resources: This press release may use the terms "measured", "indicated" and "inferred" mineral resources. United States investors are advised that while such terms are recognized and required by Canadian regulations, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission does not recognize them. "Inferred mineral resources" have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence, and as to their economic and legal feasibility. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of an inferred mineral resource will ever be upgraded to a higher category. Under Canadian rules, estimates of inferred mineral resources may not form the basis of feasibility or other economic studies. United States investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of measured or indicated mineral resources will ever be converted into mineral reserves. United States investors are also cautioned not to assume that all or any part of an inferred mineral resource exists, or is economically or legally mineable.

Contacts:

David Cates

President and Chief Executive Officer

(416) 979-1991 ext. 362



Sophia Shane

Investor Relations

(604) 689-7842



Follow Denison on Twitter

@DenisonMinesCo





NEUBIBERG (dpa-AFX) - Shares of Infineon Technologies AG (IFNNY) were losing around 3 percent in German trading after the manufacturer of semiconductors and system solutions cut its forecast for margin and revenue growth for the remainder of fiscal 2018, despite reporting better than expected first-quarter profit. In the quarter, adjusted gross margin was weak.



Reinhard Ploss, CEO of Infineon, said, '... we are unable to compensate a further depreciation of the US$ by another 8 percentage points, which negatively affects more than half of our revenues. As such, we currency-adjusted our outlook accordingly.'



For the remainder of the 2018 fiscal year, Infineon now forecasts year-on-year revenue growth of about 5 percent, plus or minus 2 percentage points,. Previously, the company projected an increase of about 9 percent, plus or minus 2 percentage points.



At the mid-point of revenue guidance, the full-year Segment Result Margin is now predicted to come in at 16.5 percent, down from the earlier outlook for segment result margin to come in at about 17 percent at the mid-point of revenue guidance.



For the second quarter, Infineon expects a quarter-on-quarter revenue increase of 4 percent, plus or minus 2 percentage points. At the mid-point of revenue guidance, the Segment Result Margin is expected to come in at 16 percent.



In its first quarter, net income increased 27 percent to 205 million euros from 161 million euros in the year-ago period.



Earnings per share for the quarter were 0.18 euro, up 29 percent from 0.14 euro last year. Adjusted earnings per share were 0.20 euro, compared to 0.17 euro last year.



Segment result grew 15 percent from last year to 283 million euros. Segment result margin was 15.9 percent, higher than 15 percent a year ago.



Gross margin improved to 36.4 percent from 36 percent last year. Adjusted gross margin was 37.4 percent, down from 37.6 percent a year ago.



Revenue for the quarter rose 8 percent to 1.78 billion euros from 1.65 billion euros a year earlier. Sequentially, revenues dropped 2 percent.



Infineon noted that excellent market conditions drive high demand for power components used in applications across the board, such as solar power plants, especially in China, and also for data centers.



Ploss added, 'Infineon has made a strong start to the new fiscal year. Earnings and margin were better than forecast - despite the expected slight seasonal dip in revenues. The market for electro-mobility continues to drive growth.'



In Germany, Infineon shares were trading at 22.94 euros, down 3 percent.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.deTORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 01/31/18 -- Pangolin Diamonds Corp. (TSX VENTURE: PAN) (the "Company" or "Pangolin") is pleased to announce a drill program at the Company's wholly-owned Malatswae and Moenyenana Diamond Projects. Drill results are expected to be announced by the end of the second quarter once analyzed and confirmed by a qualified laboratory. The drill programme is fully funded.

Pangolin has been working on developing new drill targets at these projects for the past 8 months. Work included the collection of over 2,400 soil samples that averaged 60 litres in size, as well as processing them through the Company's DMS plant and extensive ground magnetic and VLF (very low frequency) surveys.

Dr. Chris Jennings assisted the Company's management with the process of identifying new pipe targets. He purchased a 1.3 % royalty from the Company in May, 2017. Dr. Jennings' and his exploration teams diamond mine discoveries include Diavik in Canada, Gaghoo in Botswana, Klipspringer and Marsfontein in South Africa.

Malatswae Diamond Project

Malatswae consists of 1,836 square kilometres, and is located roughly 60km southeast of the prolific Orapa Diamond Fields. A total of 25 diamonds have been recovered from soil samples, with the largest measuring 4mm x 3mm x 2mm, with good colour. Over 750 kimberlitic indicator minerals, including G10 garnets and ilmenites, have been collected. Soil sampling, ground magnetics and analysis is ongoing.

The Moenyenana Diamond Project

Moenyenana consists of 5,061 square kilometres, and is located between Pangolin's Malatswae and Motloutse Diamond Projects. An extensive soil sampling and ground magnetics program continues.

The Chairman, Mr. Gareth Penny stated, "We are extremely encouraged by the team's hard work in identifying these targets and look forward to a successful drill program."

Quality Control and Quality Assurances

Quality assurance procedures, security, transport, storage, and processing protocols conform to chain of custody requirements.

The technical disclosure in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Dr. Leon Daniels, BSc., BSc. Honours Geology, PhD and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.

About Pangolin Diamonds Corp. and Our Social Connections

For more information on Pangolin Diamonds Corp., please visit our website at http://pangolindiamonds.com.

Follow us on Twitter @pangolindiamond and Facebook at Pangolin Diamonds Corp.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contacts:

Pangolin Diamonds Corp.

Scott Young

Investor Relations

+1.705.888.2756

syoung@pangolindiamonds.com



Pangolin Diamonds Corp.

Graham C. Warren

Chief Financial Officer

+1.416.594.0473

+1.416.594.1630 (FAX)

gwarren@pangolindiamonds.com



Hitachi Ltd Corporate Communications Tel: +81-3-3258-1111

TOKYO, Jan 31, 2018 - (JCN Newswire) - FANUC CORPORATION (TSE: 6594), Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE:6501), and Preferred Networks, Inc. (PFN) today announced that they have reached an agreement to establish a joint venture company on April 2, 2018, to develop Intelligent Edge Systems(1) that utilize artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in edge devices in the industrial and social infrastructure field. Yutaka Saito, who is currently Executive Vice President and Executive Officer at Hitachi, and who will be appointed Senior Executive Vice President at FANUC on April 1, will hold a concurrent position as CEO of the new company(2).In recent years, innovations using AI technologies have been expanding rapidly in a variety of fields. In the field of industrial and social infrastructures in particular, AI technologies are expected to play an important role in the part close to edge devices, for example in the case of vehicles and robots.In this backdrop, FANUC, Hitachi, and PFN have agreed to undertake joint development of the world's most advanced Intelligent Edge Systems in the industrial and social infrastructure field, and to establish a joint venture company for that purpose. The new company will develop these Intelligent Edge Systems by combining FANUC's technologies and expertise in machine tools and robots, Hitachi's knowledge of control technologies and other aspects of OT and IT in the front lines of manufacturing, and PFN's deep learning and distributed computing technologies. After establishing a joint venture company, the three companies will test business potential and create business plans, and then undertake actual system development and expand application fields.Through the new company's activities, FANUC, Hitachi, and PFN will develop Intelligent Edge Systems and other next-generation control systems as part of efforts to promote collaborative creation aimed at the realization of Society 5.0(3).Comment from Yoshiharu Inaba, Representative Member of the Board, Chairman and CEO of FANUC"FANUC is planning to continue investing efforts into the development of FIELD systems as part of its activities targeting IoT. We believe that the activities of the joint venture company, as it strives to achieve faster, cyclic, real-time control, will have a positive effect on these development activities. As a company that has specialized in the field of factory automation, we will respond quickly and flexibly to the rapid introduction of IoT in the manufacturing industry, and continue to contribute to the growth and development of this industry in the future. We have great expectations for this joint venture company as a new phase of these activities."Comment from Toshiaki Higashihara, President and CEO of Hitachi"It is a great honor to work with FANUC and PFN in establishing this joint venture company. Through the Social Innovation Business, where we combine knowledge and expertise accumulated through more than 100 years of experience in OT and more than 50 years in IT, Hitachi strives to resolve issues faced by society, and achieve safer, more secure, and more comfortable lifestyles for everyone. Now, by merging the strengths of these three companies, we will develop and offer the world's most advanced Intelligent Edge Systems, to contribute to advancements in the field of industrial and social infrastructures."Comment from Toru Nishikawa, President & CEO of Preferred Networks"I am very pleased that we are able to begin these new activities so soon after the announcement of our capital tie-up with Hitachi in December of last year. PFN entered a capital tie-up with FANUC in 2015, and since then, we have been working together to create innovative manufacturing bases where machine learning and deep learning technologies are used to establish intelligent links between machine tools, robots, and other devices. Now, by establishing this joint venture company, our three companies will accelerate the development and provision of innovative technologies that leverage each of our respective specialty fields, to further advance this trend on a global scale."(1)Intelligent Edge Systems: Systems that use AI as an intermediary between the Cloud and edge devices such as machine tools, industrial machinery, and robots to achieve cyclic, real-time control(2)Yutaka Saito is scheduled to resign as Executive Vice President at Hitachi on March 31.(3)A human-centered society that balances economic advancement with the resolution of social problems by a system that highly integrates cyberspace and physical space.About FANUC CORPORATIONFANUC CORPORATION, headquartered at the foot of Mt. Fuji, Japan, is the global leader and the most innovative manufacturer of FA, ROBOT and ROBOMACHINE in the world. More than 260 offices in 45 countries, FANUC provides world-class customer service and support. Since its inception in 1972, FANUC has contributed to the automation of machine tools as a pioneer in the development of computer numerical control equipment. FANUC technology has been a leading force in a worldwide manufacturing revolution, which evolved from the automation of a single machine to the automation of entire production lines. For more information visit: http://www.fanuc.co.jp/eindex.htm.About Preferred Networks, Inc.Preferred Networks, Inc. (PFN, Headquarters: Tokyo, Japan, President and CEO: Toru Nishikawa) was founded in March 2014 with the aim of promoting business utilization of deep learning technology focused on IoT. PFN advocates Edge Heavy Computing as a way to handle the enormous amounts of data generated by devices in a distributed and collaborative manner at the edge of the network, driving innovation in various fields, with a focus on three business areas: transportation, manufacturing, and bio/healthcare. PFN develops and provides Chainer, an open source deep learning framework. PFN promotes advanced initiatives by collaborating with world leading organizations, such as Toyota Motor Corporation, FANUC CORPORATION, and the National Cancer Center. https://www.preferred-networks.jp/en/.About Hitachi, Ltd.Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, delivers innovations that answer society's challenges with our talented team and proven experience in global markets. The company's consolidated revenues for fiscal 2014 (ended March 31, 2015) totaled 9,761 billion yen ($81.3 billion). Hitachi is focusing more than ever on the Social Innovation Business, which includes power & infrastructure systems, information & telecommunication systems, construction machinery, high functional materials & components, automotive systems, healthcare and others. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at www.hitachi.com.Source: Hitachi, Ltd.Contact:Copyright 2018 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.Posted 1/31/18

Kenadi Brownfield, 7 1/2 months old, Buffalo, is a baby like any other; she needs to be fed, changed and held.

You might not guess she spent 74 days in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at 

WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Seattle Genetics, Inc. (SGEN) announced Wednesday that it has signed a definitive merger agreement to acquire Cascadian Therapeutics, Inc. (CASC). Under the deal terms, Seattle Genetics will pay $10 per share in cash, or approximately $614 million. In pre-market activity, Cascadian shares were gaining around 67.8 percent to $9.90.



Seattle Genetics separately reported preliminary fourth-quarter results, expecting total revenues between $128 million and $130 million. Total revenues increased from the comparable periods in 2016 primarily as a result of increased ADCETRIS net product sales.



ADCETRIS net product sales in the U.S. and Canada would be $82 million to $84 million, higher than last year, primarily due to an increase in sales volume and, to a lesser extent, price increases.



The increases in sales volumes in both periods were driven primarily by increased use of ADCETRIS across multiple lines of therapy in Hodgkin lymphoma and for the treatment of other malignancies.



In the deal with Cascadian, the per share price represents a 69 percent premium to the closing price of Cascadian Therapeutics' common stock on Tuesday, January 30, and a 139 percent premium to its 30-day volume weighted average stock price.



The transaction was unanimously approved by the Boards of Directors of both companies.



Seattle Genetics will commence a tender offer on or about February 8. The tender offer is subject to customary closing conditions. Following the offer, a unit of Seattle Genetics will merge with and into Cascadian Therapeutics.



The transaction is anticipated to close in the first quarter of 2018.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.deVANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 01/31/18 -- Venzee Technologies Inc. (TSX VENTURE: VENZ) ("Venzee" or the "Company") is pleased to announce a partnership with BTL Group Ltd (TSX VENTURE: BTL) ("BTL") that will bring together the Company's data transformation solution, Mesh, with BTL's blockchain development platform, Interbit.

Using artificial intelligence, Mesh is able to import, merge and transform data from existing systems before writing to blockchain networks, greatly simplifying the process of integrating blockchain networks with conventional databases.

Kate Hiscox, President of Venzee Technologies Inc., commented, "Since announcing Mesh, we have had interest from enterprise customers, including major retail and globally recognized banks who are looking to deploy blockchain as part of their data strategy. BTL offers a world-class permissioned blockchain solution that, combined with Mesh, means we can provide an end-to-end solution that helps companies achieve their blockchain goals more efficiently."

Interbit is a blockchain development platform. Designed to be developer friendly using today's most popular and proven tools and languages, developers are empowered to build enterprise-grade blockchain-based applications without having to learn new tools or languages.

"We are very excited about our partnership with Venzee, especially as we believe it will result in a number of client projects originating from Mesh and BTL. The projects we see often include multiple data sources from the same or different companies. This is where Mesh helps connect the dots by merging and transforming data before it's written directly to Interbit or any applications on the platform," stated Dominic McCann, CEO of BTL.

Increasing adoption of Blockchain-as-a-service, rising cryptocurrency market caps and ICO's are simplifying business processes. This immutability and newly created transparency is expected to propel the growth of the blockchain market to US$7,683 million by 2022 (source: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-global-blockchain-market-size-is-expected-to-grow-to-usd-76837-million-by-2022-300575324.html).

Venzee and BTL have entered into a letter of intent in respect of their partnership, the terms of which will be set out in a definitive agreement.

About BTL

Listed on the TSX Venture Exchange and operating from both Canada and the United Kingdom, BTL is an enterprise technology platform provider that is developing Interbit, a proprietary next-generation blockchain platform. Via Interbit, BTL can help companies greatly reduce risks and costs by securely streamlining existing IT infrastructures. BTL has successfully demonstrated how Interbit can innovate and transform existing business processes, for leading companies in the finance, energy, and gaming sectors. Interbit is a fast, private and scalable inter-connected blockchain platform.

About Venzee

Venzee is a SaaS company that launched in 2014 to help ecommerce vendors and retailers easily share product information in a US$23 trillion retail industry (source: Statista). Traditionally, this was done using spreadsheets which created a labor-intensive process that delayed products from reaching the marketplace. Venzee's technology, leveraging artificial intelligence to streamline product information exchange, allows thousands of vendors and retailers to seamlessly share information, avoiding delays and getting products to market faster than ever. The Company graduated from notable startup accelerator program 500 Startups and recently announced support for blockchain networks via its product Mesh.

To learn more about Venzee, visit https://meshblockchain.com.

Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to the execution of the Company's growth strategy, the planned launch of Mesh and its key features, the terms of the partnership between Venzee and BTL and the entering into of a definitive agreement and the timeline for same, and the expected benefits of the partnership. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to: general business, economic, competitive, geopolitical and social uncertainties; and regulatory risks. Additional information about these assumptions and risks and uncertainties is contained under "Risk Factors" in the Company's filing statement dated December 12, 2017, which is available under the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com, and in other filings that the Company has made and may make with applicable securities authorities in the future. In addition, there can be no assurance that a definitive agreement for the partnership between Venzee and BTL will be entered into.

Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The forward-looking information contained in this news release is expressly qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except as required by applicable securities laws.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contacts:

Investor Relations

Caleb Jeffries

Kin Communications Inc.

1-866-684-6730

VENZ@kincommunications.com

www.venzee.com



Jacobs employs Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) to enhance travelers' experience

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. (NYSE:JEC) received a framework agreement from Manchester Airport Group (MAG) to deliver building and infrastructure construction maintenance/refurbishment works for East Midlands Airport in the United Kingdom. This includes the ongoing expansion projects which will improve capacity, throughput and overall customer experience at the airport. Jacobs' scope of work includes project management, procurement, construction and commissioning activities for airport buildings and associated infrastructure. Jacobs' initial framework agreement with MAG runs until 2020, with options for extensions up to 2025.

"In alignment with our vision of creating a more connected world, we are leveraging our airside aviation construction knowledge to help enhance the experience travelers will have while visiting East Midlands Airport," said Jacobs Buildings Infrastructure and Industrial President Bob Pragada. "Jacobs will support Manchester Airport Group through an Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) approach led by our knowledgeable project management and construction experts, along with a right-sized supply chain management approach."

Rob Williams, Head of Procurement and Contracting Capital and Asset Management for MAG, said, "Manchester Airport Group framework agreements are a key part of our overall strategic procurement strategy, across all aspects of our extended supply chain. The framework agreements for building, civil and M&E works provide a platform for us to work with a small number of high-quality, efficient contractors, managing and executing a wide range of projects that include construction, refurbishment, maintenance and infrastructure works at our airports.

"We look forward to working closely with Jacobs over the next few years and utilising their skills and experience to broaden and strengthen the resources available to our capital delivery team."

Manchester Airports Group (MAG) is the largest UK-owned airport operator, serving around 52 million passengers every year in addition to handling 600,000 tonnes of air freight annually. MAG owns and operates Manchester, London Stansted, East Midlands and Bournemouth airports.

Jacobs leads the global professional services sector delivering solutions for a more connected, sustainable world. With $15 billion in combined revenue and a talent force more than 74,000 strong, Jacobs provides a full spectrum of services including scientific, technical, professional and construction- and program-management for business, industrial, commercial, government and infrastructure sectors. For more information, visit www.jacobs.com.

Statements made in this release that are not based on historical fact are forward-looking statements. We base these forward-looking statements on management's current estimates and expectations as well as currently available competitive, financial and economic data. Forward-looking statements, however, are inherently uncertain. There are a variety of factors that could cause business results to differ materially from our forward-looking statements. For a description of some of the factors which may occur that could cause actual results to differ from our forward-looking statements please refer to our Form 10-K for the year ended September 29, 2017, and in particular the discussions contained under Items 1 Business, 1A Risk Factors, 3 Legal Proceedings, and 7 Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statements made herein.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180131005066/en/

Contacts:

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc.

Kerrie Sparks, 214-583-8433Demand for Trifacta's Market-Leading Platform Accelerates as Customer Base Triples in 2017 SAN FRANCISCO, 2018-01-31 14:00 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Trifacta, the global leader in data wrangling, announced $48 million in financing from new strategic investors, including Columbia Pacific, Deutsche Borse, Ericsson, Google, and New York Life along with participation from existing investors Accel, Cathay Innovation, Greylock Partners, Ignition Partners, and Ridge Ventures. This brings Trifacta's total financing to $124 million to date. Building on the company's more than 3x increase in customer count, the new funding will support continued development of Trifacta's award-winning data wrangling platform and accelerate the company's continued cloud and geographic expansion. According to IDC, the big data and business analytics market will be worth $210 billion by 2020, and the market for data wrangling technologies is anticipated to grow 2.5x faster than the market for traditional data preparation tools. In addition, Gartner reports1 that data preparation technologies will be used in more than 50 percent of new data integration efforts for analytics by 2020. "Investing in and partnering with Trifacta, an innovator with its leading data wrangling offering, helps us expand our capabilities in data-driven areas such as risk management, investment decision making and trading analytics meaningfully," said Ankur Kamalia, MD & Head of Venture Portfolio Management and DB1 Ventures, Deutsche Borse. "Trifacta's cutting-edge technology, client success and vision position the company for continued growth," said Paul McNamara, VP of Ericsson Ventures. "Ericsson is honored to invest with Trifacta to help drive further momentum in data wrangling that will help our telecommunications customers to get actionable insights and create business value from their data." "At New York Life, we're keenly focused on new analytics technologies to enhance our speed to insight," said Joel Albarella, Head of New York Life Ventures. "As part of this effort, we're investing in Trifacta for its forward-thinking approach to data wrangling." Accelerating Corporate Momentum in 2017 Trifacta continues to engage customers deeply around their most important business initiatives, dramatically shrinking the most tedious, expensive, and time-consuming part of the analytics process. Trifacta automates the discovery of new insights by helping users who know the data best stitch together complex data across transactions, interactions and behavior. "Commerzbank is a leading international commercial bank and the second largest bank in Germany. As we embarked on creating a Big Data & Advanced Analytics division within Commerzbank, we knew that data wrangling technology would be a critical investment for its success; Trifacta was absolutely the right choice," said Kerem Tomak, EVP & Divisional Board Member, Big Data & Advanced Analytics at Commerzbank. "Easy to use and integrate across a broad range of employees, Trifacta is a core part of our efforts to accelerate our analytics projects. As a result this will help us expand our existing efforts around data quality, fast response to ad-hoc requests, big data analytics monetization for retail and corporate clients, and risk and compliance reporting." Using the Trifacta platform, customers are able to balance the need for self-service and the need for data governance through collaborative curation and crowdsourcing of new data products. This makes the data understandable and useful for analysis regardless of where it lives or how it is consumed. Trifacta makes wrangling data fun, using an entirely new approach - attacking the problem through user experience and machine learning. "Data is bigger, it's messier and it's changing faster than ever before. Solving for this requires customers to modernize their analytic stack to achieve better economics and improved agility. It has become essential to democratize the production of new data assets with self-service data wrangling in much the same way enterprises previously democratized the consumption of data with self-service BI," said Adam Wilson, CEO at Trifacta. "At precisely this moment, Trifacta offers a mature platform built for big data, cloud, and self-service. We also offer the credibility of being the pioneer and the established leader in the data wrangling market." Additional company milestones from 2017 include: -- Drove significant customer adoption among industry leaders such as GlaxoSmithKline, Bank of America, Royal Bank of Scotland, Commerzbank, PepsiCo, eBay, Enstar, Deutsche Borse, Centers for Disease Control (CDC), New York Life, BNSF Railway Company, and Nordea Bank. -- Introduced significant product advancements to Wrangler Enterprise: Ensuring the success of broader enterprise deployments, Trifacta improved the platform's user experience and performance, and built functionality to support "groups and loops." Enhanced collaboration enables groups of Trifacta users to share work with their colleagues and build collective knowledge across teams; adding data wrangling flows, self-service scheduling and broader connectivity allows users to more effectively build loops out of their work through repeated use. End users are able to not only build their own wrangling workflows in Trifacta, but also automate pipelines and manage versions. -- Established leadership in cloud data wrangling: Trifacta delivered on the vision to make its data wrangling solution work seamlessly across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Trifacta supports deployments in popular cloud ecosystems Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Microsoft Azure. The past six months have seen record growth for Trifacta's cloud offerings, which have been adopted by more than 10,000 users across over 200 accounts. Trifacta also launched Cloud Data Prep on GCP in conjunction with Google, and is now listed in the AWS Marketplace and featured as part of the AWS machine learning competency. -- Recognized as the No. 1 data preparation solution in every independent and analyst ranking: According to a Q1 2017 Forrester Wave report - Forrester's widely respected evaluation of vendors in a given market - "Trifacta delivers a strong balance for self-service and business users."2Dresner Advisory Services' End User Data Preparation Survey ranked Trifacta the No. 1 data preparation vendor of 2017, the third year in a row. In the Gartner Research Market Guide for Data Preparation, Trifacta demonstrated support in all of the established capabilities for "Data Transformation, Blending and Modeling," "Diverse Data Sources," and "Data Exploration." -- Added world's largest consulting and technology providers to partner ecosystem: In 2017, Trifacta greatly expanded the company's technology, systems integrator and consulting partner ecosystem. Trifacta announced integration and joint customer success with a number of leading data cataloging vendors including Alation as well as a number of leading data science platforms such as DataRobot. Trifacta is also now embedded as the data wrangling standard within the Infosys Information Platform (IIP), Leidos Collaborative Analytics and Data Sharing Platform (CAADS), and Wipro Data Discovery Platform (WDDP). In addition to this, FICO now offers Trifacta as a high-end wrangling option as part of the FICO Decision Management Suite. -- Expanded executive team: Trifacta continues to strengthen its executive team with the addition of proven industry leaders. Zarnaz Arlia has joined as vice president of marketing. Zarnaz was formerly with Neustar as the head of corporate marketing, responsible for the company's brand and marketing strategy as well as go-to-market initiatives. Prior to Neustar, Zarnaz held executive marketing roles at Qualys and Adobe. Bryan Plaster has joined as the vice president of customer success and services. Bryan was formerly the head of customer success for Talend and, prior to that, ran customer success for Informatica's cloud business. Yuri Bukhan has joined as the vice president of alliances. Yuri was formerly head of ISV alliances for Cloudera in addition to his broad experience in data and analytics at GoodData, Pentaho, and Tibco. To experience Trifacta firsthand, download the newest Trifacta Wrangler for free today at https://www.trifacta.com/start-wrangling/ About Trifacta: Trifacta is the global leader in data wrangling. Trifacta leverages decades of innovative research in human-computer interaction, scalable data management and machine learning to make the process of preparing data faster and more intuitive. Around the globe, tens of thousands of users at more than 10,000 companies, including leading brands like Deutsche Borse, Kaiser Permanente, New York Life and PepsiCo, are unlocking the potential of their data with Trifacta's market-leading data wrangling solutions. Learn more at trifacta.com. Gartner Disclaimer: *Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. 1Gartner, Market Guide for Data Preparation, Ehtisham Zaidi, Rita L. Sallam, Shubhangi Vashisth, 14 December 2017 2 Forrester Research, Inc., The Forrester Wave: Data Preparation Tools, Q1 2017, by Cinny Little, Gene Leganza, Jun Lee; March 13, 2017 Media Contacts: Jennifer Harlan trifacta@highwirepr.com (415) 963-4174HAVANT, England, Jan. 31,2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Nordic postal and logistics operator PostNord will receive Lockheed Martin's (NYSE: LMT)latest sorting technology thanks to a contract extension between the two companies.

Lockheed Martin has been working with PostNord for more than a decade, supplying and supporting their automated sorting system. Based on successful performance trials, PostNord awarded Lockheed Martin a contract extension that will upgrade PostNord's Gemensam Las Plattform (GLP) system.

This upgrade will incorporate Lockheed Martin's Next Generation Sortation Platform (NGSP), a flexible business-rule driven workflow engine, which will bring significant cost benefits and increased flexibility to PostNord's operations throughout Sweden.

"Our automated sorting technology helps companies in the postal sector transform their operations, improving efficiency and competitiveness during the rise of e-commerce based mail volumes," said Emlyn Taylor, managing director of Lockheed Martin UK System Solutions. "We are pleased to extend our relationship with PostNord and play a role in transforming how the company delivers to its customers."

This contract extension also includes the supply of Lockheed Martin's Minerva technology: a system that makes use of sophisticated artificial intelligence routines to provide greatly improved recognition performance for e-commerce packets. Minerva will increase the customer's ability to process a complex and rapidly changing mail stream which has challenged postal operators all over the world.

"PostNord is really excited to collaborate with Lockheed Martin on this solution, which will help us greatly to improve the processing of these items. We look forward to continuing that relationship to bring even bigger improvements as Minerva is developed," said Christian Edfjall, strategic system manager at PostNord.

Lockheed Martin has more than 40 years of experience working in partnership with postal and logistics operators around the world to provide innovative, cost-effective technology.Lockheed Martin develops, deploys and maintains a range of complex solutions for Royal Mail, U.S. Postal Service and Australia Post. As a result, more than a quarter of the world's letter mail is sorted by Lockheed Martin recognition systems. In addition, Lockheed Martin has delivered more than 500 mail and material handling systems worldwide.

About Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin UK, headquartered in London, is the UK-based arm of Lockheed Martin Corporation, a company principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. www.lockheedmartin.co.uk

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/466735/LOCKHEED_MARTIN_Logo.jpgVANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwired - January 31, 2018) -Zecotek Photonics Inc. ("Zecotek" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: ZMS) (FRANKFURT: W1I) (OTC PINK: ZMSPF), a developer of leading-edge photonics technologies for healthcare, industrial and scientific markets, is pleased to announce that it has closed on a previously announced divisional equity financing of $5 million.

The financing was completed by selling a 6.67% equity interest in a newly formed, wholly owned subsidiary Zecotek Imaging China Ltd. for net proceeds of $5 million. Zecotek has secured the divisional investment with an industrial business group based in China, which has also made a significant investment in the recently announced non-brokered private placement. The divisional financing was based solely on the appraised pre-commercialized value of Zecotek's patented LFS scintillation crystal technology of approximately $75 million.

"The funds raised by the equity sale in Zecotek Imaging China will be used to enhance the production capacity and sales of our patented LFS scintillation crystals," said Dr. A.F. Zerrouk, Chairman, President, and CEO of Zecotek Photonics Inc. "The in-house capacity will allow us to gain full control over the cost and price of our LFS crystals, and set a benchmark and standard to ensure price-performance and supply consistency for our customers. We have made considerable progress in the Chinese marketplace with collaboration and supply agreements with EBO Optoelectronics and have commitments from three medical scanner OEMs to use our LFS crystals. Our own China based operation complements our existing China based manufacturing partnerships and will provide supply assurance for our existing partners as well as immediate European and Chinese medical scanner OEM customers and other LFS crystal users worldwide."

Zecotek is also pleased to announce the formation of a new subsidiary: Zecotek Imaging China Ltd. This wholly owned subsidiary has been established in the Shanghai Technology Zone, and will operate under its parent company Zecotek Imaging Systems Ltd. Zecotek Imaging China will establish a presence in China and around the world through the production and commercialization of Zecotek's patented LFS scintillation crystals in its current and future forms. Zecotek Imaging China will work closely with EBO and its customers within China and the broader international medical imaging market.

About Zecotek

Zecotek Photonics Inc (TSX VENTURE: ZMS) (FRANKFURT: W1I) is a photonics technology company developing high-performance scintillation crystals, photo detectors, positron emission tomography scanning technologies, 3D auto-stereoscopic displays, 3D metal printing, and lasers for applications in medical, high-tech and industrial sectors. Founded in 2004, Zecotek operates three divisions: Imaging Systems, Optronics Systems and 3D Display Systems with labs located in Canada, Korea, Russia, Singapore and U.S.A. The management team is focused on building shareholder value by commercializing over 50 patented and patent pending novel photonic technologies directly and through strategic alliances with Hamamatsu Photonics (Japan), the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Switzerland), Shanghai EBO Optoelectronics Technology Co. (China), Beijing Optoelectronics Technology Co. Ltd. (China), NuCare Medical Systems (South Korea), the University of Washington (United States), and National NanoFab Center (South Korea). For more information visit www.zecotek.com and follow @zecotek on Twitter.

This press release may contain forward-looking statements that are based on management's expectations, estimates, projections and assumptions. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve certain risks and uncertainties, which are difficult to predict. Therefore, actual future results and trends may differ materially from what may have been stated.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of the content of this news release. If you would like to receive news from Zecotek in the future please visit the corporate website at www.zecotek.com.

For Additional Information Please Contact:

Zecotek Photonics Inc.

Michael Minder

T: (604) 783-8291

ir@zecotek.comInfiniti Research, a market intelligence solutions provider, has announced the completion of their most recent article on the difference between business intelligence and business analytics. With the rapid increase in the volume of data produced and stored by organizations, businesses have started trying to figure out advanced ways to handle the data at their disposal. Business analytics and business intelligence solutions help in providing insights that help manage high volumes of unstructured data.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180131005723/en/

Infiniti Research helps companies foresee changing market dynamics to make informed decisions. We also help companies identify markets with the most potential to increase revenues. (Graphic: Business Wire)

In today's competitive business environment, organizations have started switching towards the adoption of advanced technological solutions to manage workloads, uphold profitability, and enhance competitiveness. For your business to prosper, you need to know what's working, what's not, and how to improve. Infiniti has listed a few differences between business intelligence and business analytics to help you choose the right tool for your business.

According to the experts at Infiniti, "The number of google searches for business analytics has increased sharply in the past few years while business intelligence saw a mid decline."

Request a free brochure to see how Infiniti Research's solutions can help you.

Some benefits of business analytics

Business analytics involves the use of statistical analysis and predictive modeling to improve business planning

Answers questions such as why customers buy the products

To read more, download FREE sample

Some benefits of business intelligence

Business intelligence is about retrieving and discovering the organization's data to understand how the business is functioning and make better-informed business decisions.

Business intelligence is required to run the business

To read more, download FREE sample

Download the complete article on the difference between business intelligence and business analytics here:

https://www.infinitiresearch.com/request-white-paper?related=84296

About Infiniti Research

Established in 2003, Infiniti Research is a leading market intelligence company providing smart solutions to address your business challenges. Infiniti Research studies markets in more than 100 countries to help analyze competitive activity, see beyond market disruptions, and develop intelligent business strategies.

With 15+ years of experience and offices across three continents, Infiniti Research has been instrumental in providing a complete range of competitive intelligence, strategy, and research services for over 550 companies across the globe.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180131005723/en/

Contacts:

Infiniti Research

Anirban Choudhury

Marketing Consultant

US: +1 844 778 0600

UK: +44 203 893 3400

hello@infinitiresearch.com

https://www.infinitiresearch.com/contact-usNEW YORK, January 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Start-ups working on a range of technologies and discoveries - from AI to immunotherapy - receive complimentary access to Elsevier's information solutions to accelerate innovation

Elsevier, the global information analytics business specializing in science and health, today announced that six start-up companies have been selected from more than 150 global applicants for The Hive, Elsevier's innovation initiative for biotech and pharmaceutical start-ups.

Exscientia, LegoChem Biosciences, 4P-Pharma, Beacon Discovery, Sigilon Therapeutics, and Unum Therapeutics, were selected for their commitment to cutting-edge science in emerging areas of research; all six demonstrate significant potential to impact how future treatments are researched and developed. As members of The Hive, each company will receive support, complimentary training, and access to Elsevier's suite of information solutions for 18 months.

"As the pharma ecosystem grapples with how to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into R&D, or how to accelerate the discovery of new biologics and immunotherapies, start-ups around the globe are playing a pivotal role," said Betsy Davis, Senior Strategic Marketing Manager at Elsevier. "We received more than three times the number of applications than in 2016 - underlining the importance that start-ups place on the role of discovery solutions in innovation."

"This year, to demonstrate the vast contribution of start-ups in the origin of drug discoveries, we will especially focus on helping these companies close the gap between concept and commercialization - particularly for start-ups from academic backgrounds. And we look forward to sharing the stories of these dynamic, exciting biotech start-ups with a global audience," Ms. Davis said.

The goal of The Hive is to help foster the discoveries that happen in these early stages, start-up environments, ensuring that the route to market for new innovations is accelerated. The six participating companies - the second intake of start-ups to The Hive - will use Elsevier's tools to support their groundbreaking and innovative work in some of the hottest research areas, including:

Exscientia, from Scotland , UK; uses systems driven by AI to actively learn best practices from vast repositories of discovery data, and design millions of novel, project-specific compounds; Exscientia is the first company to automate drug design

, UK; uses systems driven by AI to actively learn best practices from vast repositories of discovery data, and design millions of novel, project-specific compounds; Exscientia is the first company to automate drug design LegoChem Biosciences, from South Korea (the first Hive participant from Asia ); develops Antibody-Drug Conjugates (ADC) utilizing its proprietary ADC platform ConjuAll TM , which provides solutions for major unmet needs in ADC development

(the first Hive participant from ); develops Antibody-Drug Conjugates (ADC) utilizing its proprietary ADC platform ConjuAll , which provides solutions for major unmet needs in ADC development 4P-Pharma, from France ; bridges the gap between academic discoveries and the pharma industry, helping to mature early-stage technologies from the drug discovery level to clinical phase and commercialization

; bridges the gap between academic discoveries and the pharma industry, helping to mature early-stage technologies from the drug discovery level to clinical phase and commercialization Beacon Discovery, from San Diego, CA , USA; composed of a group of scientists who have worked together for more than a decade; leverages academic and pharma partnerships to advance research around translating G-Protein Coupled Receptors into new therapeutics

, USA; composed of a group of scientists who have worked together for more than a decade; leverages academic and pharma partnerships to advance research around translating G-Protein Coupled Receptors into new therapeutics Sigilon Therapeutics, from Cambridge, MA , USA; develops treatments based on a platform enabling a new therapeutic modality for chronic diseases that are currently treated with intermittent injection or infusion in order to restore health and improve quality of life

, USA; develops treatments based on a platform enabling a new therapeutic modality for chronic diseases that are currently treated with intermittent injection or infusion in order to restore health and improve quality of life Unum Therapeutics, from Cambridge, MA , USA; develops novel immunotherapy products based on its universalAntibody-Coupled T-cell Receptor (ACTR). Unlike other approaches, its therapies are not restricted to a particular target and may be used in many different cancer types

"Being part of The Hive will increase the efficiency of our team's research and development activities. Access to Elsevier's R&D information and solutions will be a real boost to help us in achieving our aim of developing a new blockbuster drug," said Yong-Zu Kim, CEO and President, LegoChem Biosciences.

Elsevier's suite of R&D Solutions fuels research and decision-making in early stage drug discovery and development, and are used by most of the world's leading biopharmaceutical companies. The products that The Hive participants will be using include: Pathway Studio', Reaxys ReaxysMedicinal Chemistry, ScienceDirect, Scopus, PharmaPendium and Embase The Hive, which first launched in 2016 with four start-ups selected to take part, engages the global pharma community via content featuring the participants, which will be widely-promoted throughout Elsevier's online and social networks.

"At Exscientia, we apply AI algorithms to drug design - one of our biggest challenges is systematic access to high quality data. As such, being part of The Hive and using a range of Elsevier's tools will help us drive our research forward," said Andrew Hopkins, CEO, Exscientia. "For example, patent data in Reaxys will support better model building and evaluation of novelty, and Pathway Studio will give us deep visibility into disease pathways. We look forward to working with Elsevier within The Hive to achieve our goals and uncover new commercial applications."

For more information please visit: www.elsevier.com/thehive.

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a global information analytics business that helps institutions and professionals progress science, advance healthcare and improve performance for the benefit of humanity. Elsevier provides digital solutions and tools in the areas of strategic research management, R&D performance, clinical decision support, and professional education; including ScienceDirect, Scopus, Scival, ClinicalKey and Sherpath. Elsevier publishes over 2,500 digitized journals, including The Lancet and Cell, more than 35,000 e-book titles and many iconic reference works, including Gray's Anatomy. Elsevier is part of RELX Group, a global provider of information and analytics for professionals and business customers across industries.www.elsevier.com

Media contact

Christopher Capot, Director, Corporate Relations

Elsevier

+1-917-704-5174

c.capot@elsevier.com

CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - Statistics Canada releases Canada GDP data for November at 8:30 am ET Wednesday. The economy is expected to expand 0.4 percent on month, after stagnating in the previous month. Ahead of the data, the loonie traded mixed against its major rivals. While the loonie held steady against the euro, it rose against the rest of major rivals. The loonie was worth 1.2276 against the greenback, 88.73 against the yen, 1.5291 against the euro and 0.9948 against the aussie as of 8:25 am ET. 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.RagingWire Data Centers, Inc., the nation's premier data center provider, and its parent company NTT Communications (NTT Com), the information and communications technology (ICT) solutions and international communications business within the NTT Group (TO: 9432), announced today that NTT Com has exercised its option to purchase the remaining shares of RagingWire and acquire 100% ownership of the company. As part of this investment, NTT Com named RagingWire its Americas data center platform responsible for NTT Com's data center business in the United States, Canada, Latin America, and South America under the global NexcenterTM brand.

In January 2014, NTT Com acquired an 80% equity stake in RagingWire. By joining the NTT Com family of companies, RagingWire became part of one of the largest data center companies in the world with more than 140 facilities in over 20 countries and regions. Since this time and with the financial backing of NTT Com, RagingWire has more than doubled in size bringing online 60 megawatts of capacity at its Ashburn VA2 and VA3 data centers, the Dallas TX1 Data Center, and the Sacramento CA3 Data Center. RagingWire has also taken a leadership role on the global steering committee for NTT Com's data centers, helping to set consistent design standards, operations, and sales contracts worldwide.

"We are excited to expand our investment in RagingWire and the America's data center market," said Masaaki Moribayashi, Senior Vice President of Cloud Services at NTT Communications and a Board Member for both NTT Communications and RagingWire. "Since joining the NTT Communications family of companies, RagingWire has become a linchpin in our global data center strategy. Their award-winning design, 100% availability operational model, and industry-leading sales and marketing have been critical to our growth worldwide."

Founded in the year 2000, RagingWire was one of the early start-ups that helped to create the data center colocation industry, which has grown to a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide. Today the company has 1.5 million square feet of data center space with 113 megawatts of power in the United States. In the last four years, RagingWire has become a leading provider of wholesale data centers for top enterprises and cloud companies. Its latest designs being deployed in mega campuses in top data center markets in the U.S. offer flexible and highly-efficient options for power and cooling, global telecommunications, and cloud connectivity. These campuses and facilities also feature advanced security systems for perimeter defense, asset protection, and monitoring.

"By joining NTT Communications, RagingWire became a global company with access to NTT's financial strength, global data centers, and world-class information and communications technology (ICT) solutions," said Douglas Adams, CEO and President of RagingWire Data Centers. "Thanks to the support we have received from NTT Com, RagingWire is uniquely positioned to meet the data center needs of large enterprises and hyperscale cloud companies that require available data center capacity in the top U.S. and international markets."

As part of the NTT Com family of data center companies, RagingWire joins Netmagic Solutions Pvt. Ltd. in India, Gyron Internet Ltd. and e-shelter facility services GmbH in Europe, along with the extensive data center portfolio of NTT Com in Asia to create a global data center platform of 4,000,000 square feet.

About RagingWire Data Centers

RagingWire Data Centers designs, builds, and operates mission critical data centers that deliver 100% availability, high-density power, flexible configurations, carrier neutral connectivity, and superior customer service. The company has 113 megawatts of critical IT power spread across 1.5 million square feet of data center infrastructure in Ashburn, Virginia; Dallas, Texas; and Northern California with significant growth plans in these locations and other top North American data center markets. As part of the NTT Communications group, RagingWire is one of the largest wholesale data center providers in the world with a global network of 140 data centers operated by NTT Communications under the Nexcenter brand and one of the most financially strong companies in the data center industry. For more information visit www.ragingwire.com.

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NTT Communications provides consultancy, architecture, security and cloud services to optimize the information and communications technology (ICT) environments of enterprises. These offerings are backed by the company's worldwide infrastructure, including the leading global tier-1 IP network, the Arcstar Universal One VPN network reaching over 190 countries/regions, and over 140 secure data centers worldwide. NTT Communications' solutions leverage the global resources of NTT Group companies including Dimension Data, NTT COCOMO, and NTT DATA.

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wg-cl@ntt.comPosted 1/30/18

A couple were charged in Dallas County Circuit Court for abuse of a 3-month-old girl in May 2017.

Autumn Rose Henrichs, 29, Long Lane, was charged with two counts of the class B felony of Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 31, 2018) - Vendetta Mining Corp. (TSXV: VTT) (the "Company")is pleased to announce results from Zone 1 drilling from the completed 2017 program at the Pegmont Lead-Zinc Project in Queensland, Australia.

Zone 1 Sulphide Highlights:

PVRD104:7.10 metres of 11.02% Pb+Zn (7.10% Pb, 3.93% Zn); PVRD109: 5.77 metres of 11.56% Pb+Zn (7.87% Pb, 3.69% Zn);

and: 5.15 metres of 14.02% Pb+Zn (10.95% Pb, 3.07% Zn); and

PVRD111: 5.72 metres of 11.55% Pb+Zn (7.79% Pb, 3.76% Zn)

Zone 1 Transition Highlights:

PVRD123: 8.54 metres of 12.56% Pb+Zn (9.52% Pb, 3.04% Zn); and PVRD126: 9.26 metres of 11.23% Pb+Zn (8.31% Pb, 2.91% Zn)

A full summary of the assay results including estimated true widths are provided in Table 1, with the location of the holes shown on the map in Figure 1. Zone 1 Sulphide results are shown in cross section in Figure 2.

Michael Williams, Vendetta's President and CEO commented "This is the first drilling we have conducted in Zone 1, the key objectives were to define the fold structure, obtain metallurgical samples, and confirm our theory that there are higher grades in the fold structure than are currently modelled due to a lack of data density. We are pleased with the results and are confident that these drill intersections less than 100 m from surface, will add significant value to the potential Open Pit."

Zone 1 Sulphide Drilling

The main Zone 1 fold is a recumbent fold, a flat lying position that offers an advantage of having up to 3 repetitions of the mineralised horizon.

A total of five close spaced holes were drilled from one pad to define the recumbent fold in Zone 1. This is the first oriented core from Zone 1 and the structural data has confirmed the 2016 interpretations however the mineralization is more extensive than expected. The section was completed between existing sections, which were spaced too far apart for the resource estimation to populate all of the resource model in-between.

Zone 1 Transition Drilling

Transition material is defined as lead and zinc mineralisation that is predominately sulphide (sphalerite and galena) within variably weathered rocks. Attempts to extend the transition mineralisation to the south-west were not successful, six holes on three pads intersecting attenuated mineralised beds, in a different structural position than currently modelled. The completed drilling will assist greatly in refining the geological model in this area.

Two holes (PVRD123 and 126), drilled specifically for metallurgical sampling successfully tested the upright fold limb at high than expected grades and at 15 metres shallower than modelled in the June 2017 resource model.

With limited drilling in Zone 1 Transition there remains potential to further develop high grade near surface (<40 m) transition mineralisation to the north-east, representing an opportunity for additional project optimization.

Metallurgical Sampling

Metallurgical composites are currently being tested by ALS Metallurgy laboratory in Tasmania. Details of the Zone 2 sulphide composite can be found in the new release VTT2017 NR #13, November 15th, 2017. The Zone 1 sulphide composite comprised the five holes discussed in in this release: PVRD104, 109, 110, 111 and 121. Drilling in Zone 1 was limited to one section, however, the drilling covers the complete north-west to south-east down dip extent of Zone 1.

The Zone 1 sulphide and transition composite included dilution through the addition of 0.5 m of sub 3% Pb + Zn material on both the hangingwall and footwall to reflect potential mining performance, the Zone 1 sulphide composite has a length weighted average grade of 7.78% Pb and 3.18% Zn, a grade considered to be representative of Zone 1 sulphide drilling on recumbent fold structure.

The Zone 1 transition composite was made from PVRD123 and 126, with a length weighted average grade of 8.43% Pb and 2.83% Zn. The Zone 1 transition composite included dilution through the addition of 0.5 m of sub 3% Pb + Zn material on both the hangingwall and footwall. As discussed attempts to extend the transition resource to the south-west were unsuccessful and drilling schedule constraints didn't allow time to complete additional transition metallurgical drilling. With limited spatial distribution the Zone 1 transition composite is not considered representative of the transition material, the test work will, however, advance the understanding of the metallurgical performance of the transition material.

Results from this current metallurgical program are expected by the end of February.

Copper-Gold Target Exploration

A third exploration drill hole, PVRD151, located 300 m to the SW of the previously completed PVRD149 and 150, was suspended due to a drilling water supply logistics and subsequent wet season rain events meant the site could not be reaccessed. The copper target drilling completed to date will be assessed against the geophysics and if warranted PVRD151 will be completed in 2018.



Table 1. Summary of Open Pit Target Zone 1 Sulphide and Zone 1 Transition Assay Results.

Bore

Hole Dip / Azimuth From

(m) To

(m) Interval

(m) True Thickness* (m) Vertical Depth Below Surface

(m) Grade# Pb+Zn

% Pb

% Zn

% Ag

g/t Zone 1 - Sulphide PVRD105 -78/322 No Significant Result PVRD104 -52/320 36.88 43.00 6.12 5.3 40.0 5.93 4.23 1.70 10 including 36.88 40.94 4.06 3.5 39.2 8.06 5.91 2.15 15 and 70.13 77.00 7.10 6.6 75.8 11.02 7.10 3.93 7 including 71.13 76.04 4.91 4.7 74.8 14.44 9.30 5.14 9 PVRD109 -70/141 62.28 68.05 5.77 5.7 63.5 11.56 7.87 3.69 8 including 62.28 67.05 4.77 4.7 62.6 13.76 9.46 4.30 10 and 87.30 92.45 5.15 5.0 86.1 14.02 10.95 3.07 16 and 97.25 104.46 7.21 6.1 97.2 11.16 8.41 2.75 17 including 97.25 103.46 6.21 5.4 96.4 12.96 9.77 3.19 20 PVRD110 -84/143 63.44 71.75 8.31 8.0 68.5 8.26 5.34 2.92 7 including 63.44 68.04 4.60 4.5 67.4 13.59 8.55 5.04 11 PVRD111 -62/139 66.21 71.93 5.72 5.0 62.7 11.55 7.79 3.76 11 and 83.26 88.37 5.11 5.0 76.9 9.18 6.66 2.52 10 including 84.26 87.25 2.99 2.9 75.9 14.54 10.74 3.79 16 and 105.20 116.35 11.15 8.8 100.8 8.83 6.37 2.46 9 including 106.20 113.35 7.15 6.0 98.3 12.89 9.34 3.55 12 Zone 1 - Transition PVRD119 -51/140 No Significant Result PVRD120 -72/138 No Significant Result PVRD123 -52/321 36.60 45.14 8.54 8.0 36.1 12.56 9.52 3.04 12 Including 37.60 45.14 7.54 6.5 36.1 14.05 10.71 3.34 13 PVRD126 -75/326 40.20 49.46 9.26 7.7 48.0 11.23 8.31 2.91 13 PVRD140 -80/324 No Significant Result PVRD141 -53/321 No Significant Result PVRD142 -51/321 No Significant Result PVRD143 76/146 No Significant Result

*True thickness is estimated using structural measurements and three dimensional geological modelling.

Drill intersections are summarized intersection lengths >2.0 m, using a combined 1% lead and zinc grade with maximum 1 m internal dilution. Included intervals are at a combined 3% lead and zinc grade with no internal dilution.





Figure 1. Surface Map Showing 2017 Mineral Resource Block Model Contours, Pit Shell and Location of Current Results and 2017 Completed Holes

To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

http://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/2983/32461_a1517378678741_65.jpg







Figure 2. Cross Section through Zones 1, 2 and 3

To view an enhanced version of Figure 2, please visit:

http://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/2983/32461_a1517378680101_12.jpg



Update on Pegmont Resource Development Drilling

The 2017 resource development program at Pegmont was concluded on December 18, 2017. During 2017 the Company completed a total of 112 drill holes, for a total of 23,228 m.

Including drill holes discussed in this release, the Company has announced the results from 72 drill holes, see also Company news releases dated July 25th 2017 (VTT2017 NR #7), August 24th 2017 (VTT2017 NR #9), September 19th 2017 (VTT2017 NR #10), November 7th 2017 (VTT2017 NR#12) and November 15th (VTT2017 NR#13).

Drill holes not discussed in this news release and in previous releases are currently being validated and interpreted. Results will be released as they are finalized.

Notes on Zone 1 Drilling and Assay QA/QC

The drilling at Zone 1 Sulphide involved drilling RC pre-collars using a 5.75 inch diameter face sampling bit to depth prior to casing and continuing the hole in NQ2 diamond core. Drilling in Zone 1 Transition used RC pre-collars and HQ2 diamond core tails. Diamond core samples were taken on nominal 1 m lengths but varied to match geological contacts. Samples of the core are obtained using a diamond saw to half cut the core, if the hole is to be included in metallurgical test work it is then halved again. This is performed to provide sufficient sample for metallurgical test work while retaining a permanent core record.

Diamond core samples were taken on nominal 1 m lengths, with a diamond saw being used to half core and then quarter the core. Quarter core samples are dispatched for analysis, so as to provide sufficient sample for metallurgical test work while retaining a permanent core record.

Field duplicate samples were taken and blanks and commercially prepared certified reference materials (standards) were added into the sample sequence for every hole submitted. These were analysed by the Company and no issues were noted with analytical accuracy or precision.

Samples used for the results described herein were prepared and analyzed at ALS Laboratory Group in Townsville, Queensland. Analysis was undertaken using a four acid digest and ICP (ALS method: ME-ICP61 for 7 elements) with over limit (>10,000 ppm lead and zinc and >100 ppm silver) high grade samples being read with an atomic absorption spectrometer (AAS), (ALS methods: Pb-OG62, Zn-OG62 and Ag-OG62).

Drill hole collars are initially located using handheld GPS, the collars have since been surveyed by a licensed surveyor. Down hole surveys were undertaken using a true north seeking gyroscope with stations every 6 m.

All NQ2 diamond core is orientated using digital core orientation systems, this data is incorporated into the 3D interpretations. Assay intervals shown in Table 1 are down hole intervals, and the true thickness noted are based on 3D interpretations of the host lithology, structure, and mineralization.

About The Pegmont Lead Zinc Project

Pegmont is a stratiform, Broken Hill-Type deposit that outcrops with an overall shallow dip to the south east and is hosted in a magnetite-rich banded iron formation within high grade metamorphic rocks. The project consists of three granted mining leases and one exploration permit that cover an area of approximately 8,290 ha.

Pegmont is situated in the Mount Isa - McArthur Mineral Province, which hosts one of the world's richest endowments of lead-zinc-silver mineralization, including several world-class lead-zinc-silver mines.

Pegmont is located 25 km west of South 32's Cannington silver-lead-zinc operation, one of the world's largest producers of lead and silver and 28 km north of Chinova Resources' Osborne copper-gold operations. Pegmont is proximal to existing infrastructure including public roads, mine haul roads, rail, and a natural gas pipe line for power generation.

In June 2017 Vendetta updated the Mineral Resource estimate for Pegmont, for details please see Vendetta's news release, VTT2017-NR#6, June 27th, 2017 and the NI 43-101 technical report "Pegmont Resource Update June 2017" available on SEDAR.

The Company expect to complete an updated Mineral Resources Estimate and accompanying NI 43-101 technical report in Q1, 2018.

About Vendetta Mining Corp.

Vendetta Mining Corp. is a Canadian junior exploration company engaged in acquiring, exploring, and developing mineral properties with an emphasis on lead and zinc. It is currently focused on the advanced stage Pegmont Lead Zinc project in Queensland, Australia. Additional information on the Company can be found at www.vendettaminingcorp.com

Qualified Person

Peter Voulgaris, MAusIMM, MAIG, a Director of Vendetta, is a non-independent qualified person as defined by NI 43-101. Mr. Voulgaris has reviewed the technical content of this press release, and consents to the information provided in the form and context in which it appears.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

"Michael Williams"

Michael Williams

President & CEO

The TSX Venture Exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Certain statements within this news release, other than statements of historical fact relating to Vendetta Mining Corp., are to be considered forward-looking statements with respect to the Company's intentions for its Pegmont project in Queensland, Australia. Forward-looking statements include statements that are predictive in nature, are reliant on future events or conditions, or include words such as "expects", "anticipates", "plans", "believes", "considers", "significant", "intends", "targets", "estimates", "seeks", attempts", "assumes", and other similar expressions.

The forward-looking statements are based on a number of assumptions which, while considered reasonable by Vendetta Mining Corp., are, by their nature, subject to inherent risks and uncertainties and are not guarantees of future performance. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include: the interpretation of previous and current results from the 2017 drilling program mentioned in this news release, further results from the 2017 drilling program, the accuracy of exploration results, the accuracy of Mineral Resource Estimates, the anticipated results of future exploration, the forgoing ability to finance further exploration, delays in the completion of exploration, delays in the completion of the updated Mineral Resource Estimate, the future prices of lead, zinc, and other metals, and general economic, market and/or business conditions. There can be no assurances that such statements and assumptions will prove accurate and, therefore, readers of this news release are advised to rely on their own evaluation of the information contained within. In addition to the assumptions herein, these assumptions include the assumptions described in Vendetta Mining Corp.'s Management's Discussion and Analysis for the three months ended August 31st, 2017.

Although Vendetta Mining Corp. has attempted to identify important risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual performance, achievements, actions, events, results or conditions to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by the forward-looking statements, there may be other risks, uncertainties and other factors that cause future performance to differ from what is anticipated, estimated or intended. Unless otherwise indicated, forward-looking statements contained herein are as of the date hereof and Vendetta Mining Corp. does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements after the date on which such statements were made, except as required by applicable law.Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - January 31, 2018) - U3O8 Corp. (TSX: UWE), (OTCQB: UWEFF) ("U3O8 Corp." or the "Company") wishes to clarify information provided in its January 30, 2018 press release. The framework through which a Russian State-owned uranium producer may invest up to US$250 million in the exploration for, and development of, uranium deposits amenable to in situ leach in Argentina, was signed by three parties: the Argentine Foreign Ministry on behalf of the Argentine Minister of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation, the Uranium One Group and UrAmerica Argentina SA.

About U3O8 Corp.

U3O8 Corp. is focused on exploration and development of deposits of uranium and battery commodities in South America. Battery commodities that occur with uranium resources include vanadium, nickel, zinc and phosphate. The Company's mineral resources estimates were made in accordance with National Instrument 43-101, and are contained in three deposits:

Laguna Salada Deposit, Argentina - a PEA shows this near surface, free-digging uranium - vanadium deposit has low production-cost potential;

Berlin Deposit, Colombia - a PEA shows that Berlin also has low-cost uranium production potential due to revenue that would be generated from by-products of phosphate, vanadium, nickel, rare earths (yttrium and neodymium) and other metals that occur within the deposit; and

Kurupung Deposit, Guyana - a uranium resource has been estimated in four veins within a uranium-zirconium vein system. Resources have been estimated on four veins, while consistent mineralization of the same type has been intersected in scout drilling of an additional six veins, while yet other veins require first-time exploration drilling.

Additional Information

For further information, please contact Richard Spencer, President & CEO, U3O8 Corp. Tel.: (416) 868-1491, or by e-mail: richard@u3o8corp.com

Information on U3O8 Corp., its resources and technical reports are available at www.u3o8corp.com and on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Follow U3O8 Corp. on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/u3o8corp, Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/u3o8corp and YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/u3o8corp.

Further details on U3O8 Corp.'s Laguna Salada Deposit and Argentina's electricity generation from large nuclear reactors, as well as its prototype small modular reactor that represents a prime export opportunity, are available in the Company's Corporate Presentation accessible on the homepage of our website http://www.u3o8corp.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release includes certain "forward looking statements" related with the development plans, economic potential and growth targets of U3O8 Corp's projects. Forward-looking statements consist of statements that are not purely historical, including statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intensions for the future, and include, but not limited to, statements with respect to: (a) the low-cost and near-term development of Laguna Salada, (b) the Laguna Salada and Berlin PEAs, (c) the potential of the Kurupung district in Guyana, (d) impact of the U- pgradeTM process on expected capital and operating expenditures, and (e) the price and market for uranium. These statements are based on assumptions, including that: (i) actual results of our exploration, resource goals, metallurgical testing, economic studies and development activities will continue to be positive and proceed as planned, and assumptions in the Laguna Salada and Berlin PEAs prove to be accurate, (ii) a joint venture will be formed with the provincial petroleum and mining company on the Argentina project, (iii) requisite regulatory and governmental approvals will be received on a timely basis on terms acceptable to U3O8 Corp., (iv) economic, political and industry market conditions will be favourable, and (v) financial markets and the market for uranium will improve for junior resource companies in the short-term. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results, performance or developments to differ materially from those contained in such statements, including, but not limited to: (1) changes in general economic and financial market conditions, (2) changes in demand and prices for minerals, (3) the Company's ability to establish appropriate joint venture partnerships, (4) litigation, regulatory, and legislative developments, dependence on regulatory approvals, and changes in environmental compliance requirements, community support and the political and economic climate, (5) the inherent uncertainties and speculative nature associated with exploration results, resource estimates, potential resource growth, future metallurgical test results, changes in project parameters as plans evolve, (6) competitive developments, (7) availability of future financing, (8) exploration risks, and other factors beyond the control of U3O8 Corp. including those factors set out in the "Risk Factors" in our Annual Information Form available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Readers are cautioned that the assumptions used in the preparation of such information, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise and, as such, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements. U3O8 Corp. assumes no obligation to update such information, except as may be required by law. For more information on the above-noted PEAs, refer to the September 18, 2014 technical report titled "Preliminary Economic Assessment of the Laguna Salada Uranium-Vanadium Deposit, Chubut Province, Argentina" and the January 18, 2013 technical report titled "U3O8 Corp. Preliminary Economic Assessment on the Berlin Deposit, Colombia."

WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - President Donald Trump has called on Democrats and Republicans to move beyond the partisan divide to a path of bipartisan co-operation in his first State of the Union address to Congress.



'In the aftermath of that terrible shooting, we came together, not as Republicans or Democrats, but as representatives of the people. But it is not enough to come together only in times of tragedy. Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve,'Trump told a joint sitting of the Senate and the House of Representatives.



The president, who had been opposing citizenship for some younger undocumented immigrants, offered an olive branch Tuesday night.



'Tonight I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to protect our citizens, of every background, color and creed.'



He called for bipartisan support in the House and Senate when they vote over the next few weeks on an immigration reform package.



He explained that the first pillar of the framework generously offers a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants who were brought to the US by their parents at a young age. 'Under our plan, those who meet education and work requirements, and show good moral character, will be able to become full citizens of the United States,' he told the lawmakers.



In a stern warning to countries like China, Trump announced that the era of economic surrender is over, and made it clear that Washington expects trading relationships to be 'fair and to be reciprocal.'



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.deThe "Investment Research Unbundling: Implications for the Buy-Side" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

Among the raft of legislative standards set out under the European Union's revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II), the unbundling of investment research from execution payments has been one of the most contentious. While unbundling may seem like nothing more than a process formality, its implications for the industry are profound, and it could have global repercussions. On the buy-side, firms are faced with the prospect of having to pay for something they traditionally receive without an explicit price. How will these firms react?

This report looks at the latest call for unbundling in the EU and its repercussions in the investment-research industry and across buy-side firms. It is based on Q1 2017 interviews with global and regional investment managers, brokers, independent research providers, and vendors to understand their perspectives and insights on the pending MiFID II regulation.

Key Topics Covered:

Impact Points Introduction Methodology The Backdrop: Marketplace Themes MiFID II Banning of Trade Inducements and Industry Implications Scope of Unbundling Rules and Requirements Changing Research Procurement Investment Research Industry of the Future Demystifying Research Payment Methods: the Good and the Bad Paying Research Out of Investment Managers' Profit and Loss (P&L) The Transactional Method (Enhanced CSA Model) The Accounting Method (Swedish Model) Managing the Research Payments: Hand it to the Professionals What Payment Methods Will Buy-Side Firms Choose? Unbundling Chat With the Buy-Side Research as a Cost of Doing Business: No More Shopping on an Empty Stomach Evaluating and Pricing Research: Not an Easy Task Governance and Control of Research Budget: Best Use of Clients' Money Technology and Service Providers: Get All the Help Conclusion

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Visible Alpha ONEAccess

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For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/jlvmhq/investment?w=4

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Related Topics: Investment BankingAlytus, Lithuania, 2018-01-31 15:37 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders of Snaige AB did not take place on 31 of January 2018 because there was no quorum. On 15 February 2018 the repeated extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders of Snaige AB, the address of head office Pramones str. 6, Alytus, the company code 249664610 (hereinafter, the "Company"), is convened (hereinafter, the "Meeting"). The place of the meeting -at AB "Snaige" office, at the address Kareiviu str. 6, Vilnius, Lithuania. The Meeting commences - at 10 a.m. (registration starts at 9.45 a.m.). The Meeting's accounting day - 8 February 2018 (the persons who are shareholders of the Company at the end of accounting day of the General Meeting of Shareholders or authorized persons by them, or the persons with whom shareholders concluded the agreements on the disposal of voting right, shall have the right to attend and vote at the General Meeting of Shareholders). Agenda of the Meeting: 1. Election of the audit firm for auditing purposes of financial statements and establishment of terms regarding the payment for audit services; The Company shall not provide the possibility to participate and vote in the Meeting through electronic communication channels. Draft resolutions on agenda issues, documents be submitted to the General Meeting of Shareholders and other information related with the exercising of the shareholders' rights are available on the website of the Company www.snaige.lt on menu item "For investors". This information will be also available for the shareholders at the head office of the Company (Pramones street 6, Alytus) on business days from 9:00 am. till 16:00 pm. (on Fridays till 14:00), tel. +370 315 56206, +370 5 2361970. The general meeting is repeated and for this reason agenda is not changing. Shareholders holding shares that grant at least 1/20 of all votes shall have the right of proposing new draft resolutions on the issues already included or to be included in the agenda of the Meeting, audit firms for auditing purposes of financial statements. The proposals shall be submitted in writing or by e-mail. The proposals shall be presented in writing to the Company on business days till 14 February 2018, 2 p.m. or by sending it by registered mail at the address Snaige AB, Pramones street 6, LT-62175 Alytus, Lithuania. During the Meeting the proposals shall be submitted to the Chairman of the Meeting after he announces the Meeting agenda and no later than the Meeting starts working on the issues of agenda. The proposals submitted via the electronic mail shall be sent on vilniaus.biuras@snaige.lt. The proposals submitted on this e-mail till 14 February 2018, 2:00 p.m. will be discussed during the Meeting. The shareholders shall have the right to present questions related to the General Meeting of Shareholders' agenda issues to the Company in advance in writing. The shareholders shall present the questions not later than 3 business days before the Meeting via the electronic mail on vilniaus.biuras@snaige.lt. The Company undertakes to respond to the submitted questions via the electronic mail till the Meeting day, except the questions related to the Company's commercial secret and confidential information. During the registration to attend the Meeting the shareholders or the persons authorized by them shall submit a document which is a proof of his identity. The shareholders' authorized persons shall submit the power of attorney confirmed by the established order. The power of attorney issued by the natural person shall be notarized. A power of attorney issued in a foreign state must be translated into Lithuanian and legalized in the manner prescribed by law. Representative can be authorized by more than one shareholder and shall have a right to vote differently under the orders of each shareholder. The shareholder holding shares of the Bank, where the shares have been acquired on his own behalf, but for the benefit of other persons, must disclose before voting at the General Meeting of Shareholders to the Company the identity of the final customer, the number of shares that are put to the vote and the content of the voting instructions submitted to him or any other explanation regarding the participation agreed upon with the customer and voting at the General Meeting of Shareholders. Shareholder shall also have the right to authorize through electronic communication channels another person (natural or legal) to participate and vote in the Meeting on shareholder's behalf. Such authorization shall not be confirmed by the notary officer. The power of attorney issued through electronic communication channels must be confirmed by the shareholder with a safe electronic signature developed by safe signature equipment and approved by a qualified certificate effective in the Republic of Lithuania. The shareholder shall inform the Company on the power of attorney issued through electronic communication channels by e-mail vilniaus.biuras@snaige.lt no later than the last business day before the meeting at 2:00 p.m. The power of attorney and notification shall be issued in writing. The power of attorney and notification to the Company shall be signed with the Electronic Signature but not the letters sent via the e-mail. By submitting the notification to the Company the shareholder shall include the Internet address from which it would be possible to download free of charge software to verify an Electronic Signature of the shareholder. Each shareholder or representative thereof shall have the right to cast his/her vote in advance in writing by filling in a general ballot paper. The general ballot paper form is on the Company's website www.snaige.lt on menu item "For Investors". Upon the written shareholder's request, the Company no later than 10 days before the Meeting shall send a general ballot paper by registered mail or hand it in person against signature. The general ballot paper filled shall be signed by the shareholder or his/her representative. In case the ballot paper is signed by the shareholder's authorized representative, such person along with the filled ballot paper shall submit the document to confirm the voting right. The ballot paper filled and the document confirming the voting right (if required) shall be submitted in a written form to the Company by registered mail at the address Snaige AB, Pramones street 6, LT-62175, Alytus, Lithuania, or by submitting it to the Company. Validated will be dully filled-in ballot papers, received until the meeting. The following information and documents are available on the website of the Company www.snaige.lt on menu item "For Investors": - report on the convening of the Meeting; - the total number of the Company's shares and the number of shares with voting rights on the convening day of the Meeting; - draft resolutions on each agenda issue and other documents to be submitted to the Meeting; - general ballot paper form. Additional information on the stock event is provided by telephone: +370 5 2361970. Draft resolutions of the General Meeting of Shareholders are attached. Managing Director Gediminas Ceika +370 315 56206 Attachment: https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=661500Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 31, 2018) - Alliance Growers Corp. (CSE: ACG) (FWB: 1LA) (WKN: A2DFYX) ("Alliance Growers" or the "Company") is pleased to provide a progress report on the development of the Cannabis Botany Centre. In a news release dated December 30, 2017, Alliance Growers announced that it has entered into a binding Letter of Intent ("LOI") with WFS Pharmagreen Inc. ("Pharmagreen"), and its proposed subsidiary BC New Co, to create a strategic relationship, together with equity participation by Alliance and Pharmagreen, whereby Alliance will acquire a 30% equity interest in Pharmagreen's subsidiary BC New Co (the "Proposed Transaction"). The execution of this LOI initiated the development of the Cannabis Botany Centre that Alliance and Pharmagreen have been working on for the past year.

Pharmagreen principals have purchased the land required to build the Cannabis Botany Centre East of Mission, BC (the "Land"). The Land will be leased initially to BC New Co. with an option to purchase at or near cost. BC New Co will build and operate the Cannabis Botany Centre to permit the growth and sale of tissue culture plantlets, and storage of strains and nursery plants to wholesale, retail and medical markets.

The development of the Cannabis Botany Centre has been progressing quickly on several key fronts and Alliance Growers is pleased to provide the following updates:

The Fraser Valley Regional District, Electoral Area G, for Deroche has approved the land use on Bell Road, site of the Cannabis Botany Centre for cannabis production and cannabis related business.

Company management has commenced discussions with FORTIS BC to bring natural gas to the location. This will benefit the surrounding community

The hydrological engineering assessment report for the site to be completed this week

B.R.I.M. Inc. research for the Cannabis Botany Center, on tissue culture protocols and plant development of cannabis strains, has shown that plants derived from tissue culture grow much faster and exhibit a significantly better plant structure compared to traditional cloning of plants. These plantlets will provide a significant advantage to cultivators producing on a large commercial scale.

The Cannabis Botany Centre is poised to supply up to 300,000 plantlets per month to cultivators once built and operating at full capacity.

There are numerous expansion capabilities with 25 acres of available land.

Commenting on the development progress of the Cannabis Botany Centre, Dennis Petke, Alliance Growers' President and CEO, said "Now that Alliance is capitalized, we will be working closely with Pharmagreen to accelerate the development of the Cannabis Botany Centre. The path to approval for an ACMPR license will be expeditious. The development of the Cannabis Botany Centre is consistent with Alliance Growers business plan to be in partnership with a range of cannabis sector business opportunities including strategic investments in ACMPR licensed cannabis producers. Alliance Growers has already acquired interests in two ACMPR applicants, notably Biocannatech, whereby Alliance recently acquired 100% ownership of this late-stage Quebec ACMPR applicant; and Canwe, a private company based in Ontario that has applied for its ACMPR license and is currently in the review and security clearance stage. Alliance continues to negotiate further acquisitions in the grow space in Canada and Australia.

We look forward to announcing new strategic and complementary acquisitions as we move forward. It is an exciting time of progress in the cannabis industry and Alliance is building a diversified global cannabis company that is focused on where the market is going, not where the market is today."

About Alliance Growers

Alliance Growers Corp is a diversified cannabis company driven by the Company's 'Four Pillars' Organization Plan - Cannabis Botany Centre, Strategic ACMPR Investments, CBD Oil Supply and Distribution, and Research and Development.

Alliance Growers has finalized its a new business partnership with WFS Pharmagreen Inc., to jointly develop and operate a 40,000-square foot facility to be the first of its kind in Western Canada to house a DNA Botany lab, extraction facility and Tissue Culture Plantlet Production facility to service the Cannabis market and agriculture market in general. The proposed Cannabis Botany Centre will grow Cannabis plantlets using proprietary tissue culture propagation, specifically the "Chibafreen Invitro Plant Production System", which assures consistent composition and purity of each plantlet for the growers.

Alliance Growers has entered into an exclusive agreement to acquire a late stage licensed producer applicant, Biocannatech, to become a licensed producer under Health Canada's access to cannabis for medical purposes regulations ("ACMPR") in Quebec. Alliance Growers will supply financing and resources to build out the medical marijuana facility in preparation for the inspection required to obtain a growing license. Once Health Canada is satisfied with a successful crop, Alliance Growers will be granted its distribution license.

This acquisition allows the Company an opportunity to become a licensed producer in the Province of Quebec and gain an in-road to provide tissue culture plantlets to all licensed producers in Quebec.

Further, Alliance Growers has been negotiating to obtain other exclusive Canadian distribution agreements for certain proprietary products for support of the Cannabis growing industry in addition to possible partnerships with Licensed Producer Applicants at various stages in the Health Canada License process.

For further information, please visit the Company's website at www.alliancegrowers.com or the Company's profile at www.sedar.com.

If you would like to be added to Alliance Growers' news distribution list, please send your email address to newsletter@alliancegrowers.com

On behalf of the board of directors of

ALLIANCE GROWERS CORP.

"Dennis Petke"

Dennis Petke

President and CEO

For more information contact:

Dennis Petke

Tel: 778-331-4266

DennisPetke@alliancegrowers.com

Rob Grace

Communications Consultant

Tel: 778-998-5431

RobGrace@alliancegrowers.com

THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE HAS NOT REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY OR ADEQUACY OF THIS RELEASE.

FORWARD LOOKING INFORMATION

This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. These statements relate to future events or future performance. All statements other than statements of historical fact may be forward-looking statements or information. More particularly and without limitation, the news release contains forward-looking statements and information relating to Company's corporate strategy. The forward-looking statements and information are based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by management of the Company, including, without limitation, the Company's ability to carry out its business plan. Although management of the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking statements and information are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements and information since no assurance can be given that they will prove to be correct.

Forward-looking statements and information are provided for the purpose of providing information about the current expectations and plans of management of the Company relating to the future. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such statements and information may not be appropriate for other purposes, such as making investment decisions. Since forward-looking statements and information address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks. These include, but are not limited to, the Company's ability to identify and complete additional suitable acquisitions to further the Company's growth as well as risks associated with the medical marijuana industry in general, such as operational risks in development and production delays or changes in plans with respect to development projects or capital expenditures; the uncertainty of the capital markets; the uncertainty of receiving the required licenses, production, costs and expenses; health, safety and environmental risks; marketing and transportation; loss of markets; environmental risks; competition; incorrect assessment of the value of the potential market; ability to access sufficient capital from internal and external sources; failure to obtain required regulatory and other approvals and changes in legislation, including but not limited to tax laws and regulated regulations. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements, timelines and information contained in this news release. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive.

The forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release are made as of the date hereof and no undertaking is given to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements or information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless so required by applicable securities laws or the Canadian Securities Exchange. The forward-looking statements or information contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.

WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - President Donald Trump has announced that he was ordering Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facility to be kept open, reversing an Obama-era directive to close it.



In his first State of the Union address to Congress Tuesday, Trump said he has signed an order directing Defense Secretary James Mattis to reexamine US military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay.



Terrorists are not merely criminals, but unlawful enemy combatants, the president told a joint session of Congress. 'And when captured overseas, they should be treated like the terrorists they are,' he said. 'In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds of dangerous terrorists, only to meet them again on the battlefield, including the ISIS leader, [Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi -- who we captured, who we had, who we released.'



He urged Congress to ensure that in the fight against ISIS and al Qaeda, 'we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists, wherever we chase them down, wherever we find them. And in many cases, for them, it will now be Guantanamo Bay'.



After releasing more than 600 detainees, currently 60 men are held at the U.S. naval base in southeast Cuba. The high-security military jail was set up in 2002 by former president George W. Bush to hold those who are suspected of committing terrorist activities against the United States.



Due to the facts that the inmates are detained indefinitely without trial and some of them were severely tortured, this camp is considered as a major breach of human rights.



But President Donald Trump is skeptical of potential threat posed by the release of terrorism suspects in GTMO, and has made it clear that its closure is unlikely.



Separately, Trump asked Congress to end the dangerous defense sequester and fully fund the military.



He also asked Congress to pass legislation to help ensure American foreign-assistance dollars always serve American interests, and 'only go to friends of America, not enemies of America'.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.deHOUSTON, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Shell Offshore Inc. ("Shell") today announced one of its largest U.S. Gulf of Mexico exploration finds in the past decade from the Whale deep-water well. The well encountered more than 1,400 net feet (427 meters) of oil bearing pay. Evaluation of the discovery is ongoing, and appraisal drilling is underway to further delineate the discovery and define development options.

"Deep water is an important growth priority as we reshape Shell into a world-class investment case," said Andy Brown, Upstream Director for Royal Dutch Shell. "Today's announcement shows how, through exploration, we are sustaining a strong pipeline of discoveries and future projects to sustain this deep-water growth."

Whale is operated by Shell (60%) and co-owned by Chevron U.S.A. Inc. (40%). It was discovered in the Alaminos Canyon Block 772, adjacent to the Shell-operated Silvertip field and approximately 10-miles from the Shell-operated Perdido platform.

"Whale builds on Shell's successful, nearly 40-year history in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico and is particularly special in that it offers a combination of materiality, scope and proximity to existing infrastructure," said Marc Gerrits, Executive Vice-President Exploration for Royal Dutch Shell. "The result is another opportunity to think differently about ways we can competitively develop deep-water resources."

This major discovery in a Shell heartland adds to the company's Paleogene exploration success in the Perdido area. Through exploration, Royal Dutch Shell has added more than one billion barrels of oil equivalent resources in the last decade in the Gulf of Mexico.

Shell currently has three Gulf of Mexico deep-water projects under construction - Appomattox, Kaikias, and Coulomb Phase 2 - as well as investment options for additional subsea tiebacks and Vito, a potential new hub in the region.The Shell group expects its global deep-water production to exceed 900,000 boe per day by 2020, from already discovered, established areas.

Cautionary Note

The companies in which Royal Dutch Shell plc directly and indirectly owns investments are separate legal entities. In this release "Shell", "Shell group" and "Royal Dutch Shell" are sometimes used for convenience where references are made to Royal Dutch Shell plc and its subsidiaries in general. Likewise, the words "we", "us" and "our" are also used to refer to subsidiaries in general or to those who work for them. These expressions are also used where no useful purpose is served by identifying the particular company or companies. 'Subsidiaries', "Shell subsidiaries" and "Shell companies" as used in this release refer to companies over which Royal Dutch Shell plc either directly or indirectly has control. Entities and unincorporated arrangements over which Shell has joint control are generally referred to "joint ventures" and "joint operations" respectively. Entities over which Shell has significant influence but neither control nor joint control are referred to as "associates". The term "Shell interest" is used for convenience to indicate the direct and/or indirect ownership interest held by Shell in a venture, partnership or company, after exclusion of all third-party interest.

This release contains forward-looking statements concerning the financial condition, results of operations and businesses of Royal Dutch Shell. All statements other than statements of historical fact are, or may be deemed to be, forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements of future expectations that are based on management's current expectations and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements. Forward-looking statements include, among other things, statements concerning the potential exposure of Royal Dutch Shell to market risks and statements expressing management's expectations, beliefs, estimates, forecasts, projections and assumptions. These forward-looking statements are identified by their use of terms and phrases such as 'anticipate', 'believe', 'could', 'estimate', 'expect', 'goals', 'intend', 'may', 'objectives', 'outlook', 'plan', 'probably', 'project', 'risks', "schedule", 'seek', 'should', 'target', 'will' and similar terms and phrases. There are a number of factors that could affect the future operations of Royal Dutch Shell and could cause those results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements included in this release, including (without limitation): (a) price fluctuations in crude oil and natural gas; (b) changes in demand for Shell's products; (c) currency fluctuations; (d) drilling and production results; (e) reserves estimates; (f) loss of market share and industry competition; (g) environmental and physical risks; (h) risks associated with the identification of suitable potential acquisition properties and targets, and successful negotiation and completion of such transactions; (i) the risk of doing business in developing countries and countries subject to international sanctions; (j) legislative, fiscal and regulatory developments including regulatory measures addressing climate change; (k) economic and financial market conditions in various countries and regions; (l) political risks, including the risks of expropriation and renegotiation of the terms of contracts with governmental entities, delays or advancements in the approval of projects and delays in the reimbursement for shared costs; and (m) changes in trading conditions. No assurance is provided that future dividend payments will match or exceed previous dividend payments. All forward-looking statements contained in this release are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements contained or referred to in this section. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Additional risk factors that may affect future results are contained in Royal Dutch Shell's 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2016 (available at www.shell.com/investor and www.sec.gov ). These risk factors also expressly qualify all forward-looking statements contained in this release and should be considered by the reader. Each forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date of this release, January 31, 2018. Neither Royal Dutch Shell plc nor any of its subsidiaries undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or other information. In light of these risks, results could differ materially from those stated, implied or inferred from the forward-looking statements contained in this [report].

We may have used certain terms, such as resources, in this release that United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) strictly prohibits us from including in our filings with the SEC. U.S. Investors are urged to consider closely the disclosure in our Form 20-F, File No 1-32575, available on the SEC website www.sec.gov.

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/449079/shell_oil_company_logo.jpgWASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - United Airlines disallowed a female traveler from taking a peacock as an 'emotional-support animal' on board a flight. United Airlines, in a statement to NBC News, said the peacock 'did not meet guidelines for a number of reasons, including its weight and size.' The incident occurred at Newark Liberty International Airport on Saturday. 'We explained this to the customer on three separate occasions before they arrived at the airport,' the airline said. The lady had even offered to buy the bird its own plane ticket, according to travel blog Live and Let Fly. 'We know that some customers require an emotional support animal to assist them through their journey,' the statement said. 'In order to ensure we provide the best service to everyone onboard our flights, consistent with government rules we currently require these customers to provide documentation from a medical professional and at least 48 hours advance notice.' Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Pierre Agnes', CEO of surfwear brand Quiksilver, boat was found washed ashore on France's Atlantic coast. French authorities have reportedly sent three helicopters and two boats in search for Agnes off the southwest coast of France after his boat was found empty. Agence-France Presse reported that Agnes set out early in the morning on Tuesday sending a message to port authorities that he was delaying his return to shore because of thick fog. In a statement, Boardriders Inc., the parent company for Quiksilver, Roxy and DC shoes, said Agnes had gone out fishing on his boat as he often did in the morning. However, later in the morning his boat was recovered on the beach near his hometown and Pierre has not been heard from since. 'The Boardriders family and entire surfing world are devastated by this news,' the company said. 'We are concentrating on working with the local authorities on the search and rescue effort and supporting Pierre's family. Please keep Pierre and his family in your prayers.' Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.

WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Republican Congressman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., announced Wednesday he will not seek re-election later this year and will instead return to work in the justice system.



Gowdy, who is currently Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, served as a federal prosecutor before being elected to Congress in 2010.



'Whatever skills I may have are better utilized in a courtroom than in Congress, and I enjoy our justice system more than our political system,' Gowdy said in a statement.



He added, 'As I look back on my career, it is the jobs that both seek and reward fairness that are most rewarding.'



Gowdy said he decided to make the announcement now in order to give potential candidates to succeed him ample time to reflect on the decision.



'The book of Ecclesiastes teaches us there is a time and a season for all things. There is a time to start and a time to end,' Gowdy said. 'There is a time to come and a time to go. This is the right time, for me, to leave politics and return to the justice system.'



Gowdy made a name for himself as the Chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, which investigated the terrorist attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012.



In a statement, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, expressed confidence that Gowdy's seat will stay solidly in Republican control in November.



President Donald Trump won South Carolina's 4th congressional district by more than 20 points in the 2016 presidential election.



Meanwhile, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Deputy Communications Director Patrick Burgwinkle accused Gowdy of making a mockery of Congressional oversight.



'His eagerness to use the deaths of brave Americans overseas in service of his partisan, political goals is a dark and shameful chapter in the history of the House of Representatives,' Burgwinkle said in a statement.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.dePORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The AngosturaGlobal Cocktail Challenge 2018 competition, which takes place on February 11th, 2018, at the House of Angostura, will see eleven (11) gifted bartenders demonstrate their inventiveness and skill as they find creative uses for world-famous ANGOSTURAaromatic bitters, ANGOSTURAorange bitters, AngosturaRums and Amaro di ANGOSTURAin a Cocktail Competition like no other.

The Competitors, representing Australia, USA, Canada, Latin America, United Kingdom, Europe, Middle East & Africa, New Zealand and Trinidad and Tobago, will make two cocktails in seven minutes:

An Amaro Cocktail using Amaro di ANGOSTURAas a key ingredient, and ANGOSTURAaromatic bitters and/or ANGOSTURAorange bitters

A "Rum Cocktail" using Angostura'sInternational rums and ANGOSTURAaromatic bitters and/or ANGOSTURAorange bitters

Cocktails will be judged on the taste of the drink, presentation, appearance and aroma, charm and storytelling and category knowledge.

The winner of the Finals will be awarded the coveted title of "AngosturaGlobal Cocktail Challenge Champion," a cash prize of US$10,000 and a two-year contract to serve as the AngosturaGlobal Brand Ambassador, representing world-famous ANGOSTURAaromatic bitters, ANGOSTURAorange bitters, AngosturaRums and Amaro di ANGOSTURA

Judging the competition will be a world-famous panel led by renowned drinks personality Mike Ryan (Kimpton's Director of Bars). Mike's experience in the culinary and bar industry spans 15-plus years. Mike's primary responsibilities on the core beverage team involve training and educating on-the-ground bartenders.

Monica Berg is one of the leading bartenders to come out of Scandinavia, with a background from Oslo, Norway. She is highly praised for her innovative flavor combinations and experimental techniques, as well as her minimalistic and elegant style when it comes to cocktails.

A globally recognized personality and thought-leader in the world of mixed drinks, JJ Goodman is the Founder and Owner of The London Cocktail Club bar group, Craft Cocktail Co. bottled cocktails and Keystones Cocktail Club. Infatuated with bartending from a young age, JJ firmly established himself as an innovator in the drinks industry before opening his first bar at the age of 24 in 2008. Since then he has opened seven cocktail bars across London, pioneered revolutionary cocktail trends and through a series of accolades is now looked upon as one of the globe's greatest drinks' minds.

Trinidad & Tobago's very own Neal Ramdhan, winner of the Angostura Global Cocktail Challenge 2016, and; Carol Homer-Caesar, Angostura's Senior Manager - Quality Assurance, at Angostura Limited will join our judges panel.

Visit www.AngosturaGlobalCocktailChallenge.com for more information!

CONTACT: Vitra Deonarine, Contact Number: 868-623-1841 ext 290Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 31, 2018) - RT Minerals Corp. (TSXV: RTM) (OTC Pink: RTMFF) (the "Company") announces that pursuant to its news release dated October 25, 2017, the Company has exercised its option to acquire 100% interest in the Golden Reed Mine property located near Wawa, Ontario for consideration of a final option payment of 1,000,000 common shares of the Company which are subject to a four month hold period expiring June 1, 2018. The Vendor retains a 2% net smelter royalty of which 1% can be purchased at any time for $1,000,000.

ABOUT RT MINERALS CORP.

RT Minerals Corp. is a junior resource company engaged in the acquisition, exploration and evaluation of primarily gold and diamond properties in Canada. The Company's principal mineral properties include the 100% optioned Norwalk and Dill River gold properties that are respectively contiguous to the southern and eastern borders of Red Pine Exploration Inc.'s Wawa Gold Project near Wawa, Ontario; the 100% owned Golden Reed Mine gold property that is staked within Red Pine's Wawa Gold Project; the 100% owned Ballard Lake diamond and gold property located ~50 km ENE of Wawa, Ontario; and the 100% owned Dog Lake gold property located ~59 km NE of Wawa, Ontario.

The Company's common shares are listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "RTM" and on the OTC Pink Market under the symbol "RTMFF" with DTC eligibility for trading in the United States.

For more information on the Company and its properties, please visit the Company's website at www.rtmcorp.com.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Paul Antoniazzi

President and Chief Executive Officer

RT Minerals Corp.

Toll Free: 877-581-3170

Telephone: 604-681-3170

Fax: 604-681-3552

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as the term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of accuracy of this news release.TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 01/31/18 -- (TSX: CDZ)(TSX: CDZ.A)(TSX: CPD)(TSX: CPD.A)(TSX: CUD)(TSX: CUD.A)(TSX: CYH)(TSX: CYH.A)(TSX: CGR)(TSX: CGR.A)(TSX: CIF)(TSX: CIF.A)(TSX: CWW)(TSX: CWW.A)(TSX: COW)(TSX: COW.A)(TSX: CBD)(TSX: CBD.A)(TSX: CBN)(TSX: CBN.A)(TSX: XQB)(TSX: XQB.A)(TSX: CBO)(TSX: CBO.A)(TSX: CBH)(TSX: CBH.A)(TSX: CHB)(TSX: CHB.A)(TSX: CLF)(TSX: CLF.A)(TSX: CLG)(TSX: CLG.A)(TSX: CVD)(TSX: CVD.A)(TSX: CMR)(TSX: CMR.A)(TSX: FIE)(TSX: FIE.A)(TSX: CEW)(TSX: CEW.A)(TSX: CSD)(TSX: CSD.A)(NEO: CIE)(NEO: CIE.A)(NEO: CJP)(NEO: CJP.A)(NEO: CLU)(NEO: CLU.A)(NEO: CLU.B)(NEO: CLU.C)(NEO: CRQ)(NEO: CRQ.A)(NEO: CWO)(NEO: CWO.A)

BlackRock Asset Management Canada Limited ("BlackRock Canada"), an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of BlackRock, Inc. ("BlackRock") (NYSE: BLK) today announces that it plans to simplify its product lineup by reclassifying all advisor class units of its exchange traded funds ("iShares ETFs") into common units of the same iShares ETF. This change is consistent with overall industry trends towards transparent and simplified fee structures.

Advisor class units are a class of iShares ETF units on which the iShares ETF pays a service fee to registered dealers who have purchased them on behalf of their clients. The iShares ETFs do not pay a service fee in respect of common units.

Advisor class units are only available on certain iShares ETFs offered by BlackRock Canada and are denoted by ".A" or ".B" after their ticker symbol (see table below). As at December 31, 2017, the advisor class units made up less than 1% of BlackRock Canada's assets under management ("AUM"). While iShares ETFs have experienced rapid growth in Canada, demand for advisor class units has decreased significantly in recent years.

On or about March 31, 2018, for each iShares ETF, BlackRock Canada plans to reduce the annual management fee payable on the advisor class units by an amount equal to the applicable service fee component in respect of such units.

On or about April 6, 2018 (the "Reclassification Date"), advisor class units of the iShares ETFs will be reclassified into the corresponding common units of the same iShares ETF, subject to receipt of regulatory and third party approvals, if any. As at the Reclassification Date, the advisor class units and corresponding common units of each iShares ETF will share the same attributes and fee structure. Accordingly, the reclassification will not adversely impact the financial interests or rights of unitholders.

Each advisor class unit will be reclassified into the number of corresponding common unit(s) of the same iShares ETF equal to the net asset value ("NAV") per advisor class unit as of the Reclassification Date divided by the corresponding NAV per common unit as of the Reclassification Date. No fractional common units of any iShares ETF will be delivered upon reclassification. The reclassification of advisor class units into whole common units of the same iShares ETF is not expected to give rise to a disposition by unitholders of advisor class units for tax purposes on any whole units reclassified. In lieu of delivering fractional common units, payment in cash will be made for the remaining advisor class units, and such transaction will be considered a disposition of such advisor class units for tax purposes.

Unitholders do not have to take any action to participate in the elimination of the service fee or the reclassification. Certain amendments will be made to the applicable declaration of trust or trust agreement of the iShares ETFs to reflect the elimination of the service fee and facilitate the reclassification. A further press release will be issued confirming the details of the reclassification on or about the Reclassification Date.

In connection with this change, the distribution reinvestment plan ("DRIP"), pre-authorized cash contribution plan ("PACC") and systematic withdrawal plan ("SWP") with respect to the advisor class units of the iShares ETFs will be terminated on or about March 2, 2018. The last month to participate in the DRIP, PACC and SWP for the advisor class units will be February 2018. Following the reclassification, unitholders may elect to participate in these plans with respect to their common units by contacting the CDS participant through which they hold units as more fully described in each iShares ETF's prospectus.

The advisor class units of the iShares ETFs are expected to be voluntarily delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange or Aequitas NEO Exchange, as the case may be, at the close of business on the Reclassification Date, as all outstanding advisor class units will be subject to the mandatory reclassification described above and BlackRock Canada does not intend to offer advisor class units of the iShares ETFs in the future.

As a result of the reclassification, the annual management fees and ticker symbols of the advisor class units of the iShares ETFs will change to the annual management fees and ticker symbols of the corresponding common units as shown in the table below. BlackRock Canada is not making any change to the annual management fees payable on the common units.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Current Advisor Advisor Class Class Management Fee Common Common Unit Unit (including Unit Management iShares ETF Name Ticker Service Fee) Ticker Fee ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares International Fundamental Index ETF CIE.A 1.40% CIE 0.65% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares Japan Fundamental Index ETF (CAD-Hedged) CJP.A 1.40% CJP 0.65% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares US Fundamental Index ETF CLU.A 1.40% CLU 0.65% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares US Fundamental Index ETF - Non-Hedged CLU.B 1.40% CLU.C 0.65% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares Emerging Markets Fundamental Index ETF CWO.A 1.40% CWO 0.65% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares Canadian Fundamental Index ETF CRQ.A 1.40% CRQ 0.65% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares S&P/TSX Canadian Dividend Aristocrats Index ETF CDZ.A 1.35% CDZ 0.60% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares S&P/TSX Canadian Preferred Share Index ETF CPD.A 0.95% CPD 0.45% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares US Dividend Growers Index ETF (CAD-Hedged) CUD.A 1.35% CUD 0.60% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares Global Monthly Dividend Index ETF (CAD-Hedged) CYH.A 1.35% CYH 0.60% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares Global Real Estate Index ETF CGR.A 1.40% CGR 0.65% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares Global Infrastructure Index ETF CIF.A 1.40% CIF 0.65% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares Global Water Index ETF CWW.A 1.35% CWW 0.60% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares Global Agriculture Index ETF COW.A 1.40% COW 0.65% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares Balanced Income CorePortfolio Index ETF CBD.A 1.25% CBD 0.25% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares Balanced Growth CorePortfolio Index ETF CBN.A 1.25% CBN 0.25% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares High Quality Canadian Bond Index ETF XQB.A 0.62% XQB 0.12% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares 1-5 Year Laddered Corporate Bond Index ETF CBO.A 0.75% CBO 0.25% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares 1-10 Year Laddered Corporate Bond Index ETF CBH.A 0.75% CBH 0.25% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares U.S. High Yield Fixed Income Index ETF (CAD-Hedged) CHB.A 1.00% CHB 0.50% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares 1-5 Year Laddered Government Bond Index ETF CLF.A 0.65% CLF 0.15% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares 1-10 Year Laddered Government Bond Index ETF CLG.A 0.65% CLG 0.15% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares Convertible Bond Index ETF CVD.A 0.95% CVD 0.45% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares Premium Money Market ETF CMR.A 0.50% CMR 0.25% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares Canadian Financial Monthly Income ETF FIE.A 1.40% FIE 0.65% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares Equal Weight Banc & Lifeco ETF CEW.A 1.30% CEW 0.55% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares Short Duration High Income ETF (CAD-Hedged) CSD.A 1.05% CSD 0.55% ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update to Risk Ratings

In connection with updating the disclosure documents for the iShares ETFs to reflect this announcement, BlackRock Canada applied the new investment risk classification methodology set out in National Instrument 81-102 - Investment Funds, which came into force on September 1, 2017, to determine the risk rating of each iShares ETF. As a result of the application of the new investment risk classification methodology, BlackRock Canada today also announces an update to the risk rating of one of the iShares ETFs (as described below). This change will be reflected in the prospectus amendment for the iShares ETF that will be filed on or about February 2, 2018. There have been no changes to the investment objectives, investment strategies or management of the iShares ETFs.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Previous Risk Updated Risk iShares ETF Name Rating Rating ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- iShares U.S. High Yield Fixed Income Index ETF (CAD-Hedged) Low to Medium Medium ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

A copy of the standardized risk classification methodology used by BlackRock Canada to identify the risk ratings of the iShares ETFs is available on request, at no cost, by calling us at 1-855-255-5951 or by writing to BlackRock Canada at 161 Bay Street, Suite 2500, Toronto, Ontario M5J 2S1.

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1 Based on US$6.288 trillion in AUM as of 12/31/17.

iShares ETFs are managed by BlackRock Asset Management Canada Limited. Commissions, trailing commissions, management fees and expenses all may be associated with investing in iShares ETFs. Please read the relevant prospectus before investing. The funds are not guaranteed, their values change frequently and past performance may not be repeated. Tax, investment and all other decisions should be made, as appropriate, only with guidance from a qualified professional.

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WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Cigna (CI) announced that the net financial benefits of United States tax reform will allow the company to further accelerate investments in its employees. Effective immediately, the company is establishing a minimum wage across its U.S. employee base of $16 an hour, substantially exceeding the national minimum wage in the United States. Cigna will also provide salary increases above the $16 an hour level, largely to front line employees. These investments in employee wages will total more than $15 million. Additionally, Cigna is adding $30 million to its 401(k) program to match an additional one percent of employee compensation contributed to the 401(k) in 2018. This match will benefit the retirement accounts of over 30,000 employees. 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.Bespin Global, a Seoul, South Korea, and Shanghai and Beijing, China-based cloud management company, closed US$27m funding round.

The round was led by ST Telemedia (STT) with participation from Legend Capital and other existing investors. In conjunction with the funding, Ronald Totton, Executive Vice President of STT, will join Bespins board of directors.

The company intends to use the capital to further accelerate the development of its cloud management platform and support more Asia-based customers in migrating from legacy IT to cloud IT.

Led by Hanjoo Lee, CEO and co-founder, Bespin Global provides enterprise customers with management solutions to move their legacy IT operations to the cloud, use cloud effectively and use cloud to power their digital transformation. The company works through:

 The Professional Services group, which provides cloud architecture, migration and cloud strategy consulting services;

 The Managed Services group, which offers 247 monitoring, triage, and ongoing optimization services;

 The OpsNow group, which develops and markets a SaaS product that automates much of cloud IT operations and cost management on multi cloud environment.

Bespin Globals team of over 300 employees are experts in Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Aliyun, Google Cloud Platform, IBM Softlayer, and private clouds based on VMWare, Openstack, and Microsoft Azurestack. The company has served over 190 corporate and government clients since its founding in October 2015.

Concurrent with STTs investment in Bespin Global, the two companies have signed a Business Cooperation Agreement for business collaboration including joint development and cross-selling of products and services and sharing of best practices, branding, marketing, positioning, and joint service platforms.

FinSMEs

31/01/2018Children also need to be protected from physical and emotional abuse just as much as from dangerously crumbling school buildings and infrastructure.

Children under the age of 18 accounts for more than 40 percent of Indias population. Even while India is moving on a high growth trajectory, and we are hopeful of a demographic dividend, what stops us from investing enough in children today? Why are budget trends over the years not very child-friendly? We possibly first need to introspect on what impresses us when we elect our representatives and governments.

The share of child sectors in the Union Budget has also shown a decreasing trend over the years:

 Child education budget decreased from 3.28 percent in 2014-15 to 2.48 percent in 2017-18.

 Child health and nutrition budget decreased from 1.26 percent in 2014-15 to 1.15 percent in 2017-18.

 Child protection budget has remained almost stagnant between 2014-15 and 2017-18. It was 0.04 percent in 2014-15 and was 0.06 percent in 2017-18.

The general assumption is that with the 14th Finance Commission funds are devolved and consequently there will be enhanced allocations at the state level as per their priority. However, in reality, the desired allocations have actually not happened as reflected in the table below which gives the percentage change in child budget and sectoral share in the Union Budget and some state budgets between 2014-15 and 2017-18:

Budget Union of India NCT of Delhi West Bengal Uttarakhand Uttar Pradesh (Till 2016-17) Total Child Budget -19.47 5.64 -3.45 -10.33 4.73 Child Education -24.45 8.90 -4.78 -5.01 7.76 Child Health and Nutrition -8.29 -24.89 1.01 -39.40 -7.61 Child Protection 31.17 -19.23 20.35 -80.95 75

Looking at the manifestos and promises usually made before the elections, it is largely around employment and economic growth along with some assurances for the poorest to survive. A governments performance is largely judged basis the economic growth of the country. Nevertheless, the guiding document of plans and budgets in India emphasises on human development and recommends investments in human capital. However, in reality, the focus remains on infrastructural growth for faster economic development.

Investing in human capital, particularly children, will yield results only in 10-15 years and it seems evident that the government is under pressure for immediate results that will justify their performances. When we demand more budgetary allocation for children, as much as it needs to realise the dream of the demographic dividend, let us see that these are also factored in manifestos when we choose our leaders and governments.

However, the budget exercise presents an opportunity to create a safer space for the children of India.

Among the deprived, the most vulnerable are children in street situations, whom we keep bumping in on streets and traffic signals and yet they remain invisible. According to our survey of five cities including Delhi and Kolkata, there are more than 100,000 children who live on the streets. Several thousand more are found in other cities and towns. In order to provide them with care and protection, the government needs to put in place a strategy of incremental investment in the Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS).

Rationalise budgets for child protection

To ensure safety and protection for all children we need to strengthen our existing protection mechanisms. As the only pan-India child protection service, the Childline(1098) needs to be given appropriate and adequate resources. It is important that allocations for Childline be made in accordance with requirements calculated from the revised financial norms of ICPS for all the states of India.

Moreover, the Child Welfare Committees appointed under the ICPS needs to meet more frequently than ever before. We suggest that the CWC meet five days a week instead of three, and the necessary budgetary provisions should be made at the rate of Rs 1,500 per sitting per member.

Focus on safety in schools

According to District Information System For Education, most of the one million-odd government schools are located in rural and semi-rural areas. Many of them lie in zones that face annual floods and other natural disasters, and often it is these school buildings that turn into a refuge for disaster-affected families. Which is a fine choice, since, lives need to be saved and shelter and rations have to be provided (the supplies meant for mid-day meal are often used for this purpose). However, these recurring emergencies have left thousands of schools unsafe and unfit for education.

In Assam alone, nearly 5,000 schools have been found to be unsafe. Accounting for 29 percent of all government schools in the state, these schools dont conform to required safety norms. Similarly, schools in Bihar, parts of Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal are prone to recurring natural disasters and manifest a change in strategy.

Children also need to be protected from physical and emotional abuse just as much as from dangerously crumbling school buildings and infrastructure. In Maharashtra for instance, dozens of tribal children enrolled in government-run residential schools die every year because of causes like snake bites and drowning. Safety of children in schools is a big and emerging concern and needs governments urgent attention.

To ensure that school buildings remain fit appropriate allocations for repair and maintenance need to be made in the upcoming Budget. Presently, operation and maintenance of schools account for only 0.7 percent of the recurrent requirement under existing norms. However, the least that could be done to ensure for schools which fall in disaster-prone areas to remain functional is to allocate contingency funds at the panchayat level. This will allow the panchayat to undertake repairs and other maintenance work to keep the schools structurally safe for children. Going beyond the physical safety of school buildings, the government also needs to make a separate budget line item for recurring expenses towards water, sanitation and hygiene under school grants (these should not be used for any other activity). The financial norm worked out at a conservative estimate is Rs 12,000 per year per school. This could be spent by the School Management Committees (SMC) as per the local requirements.

To curb child abuse, the government must create a separate budget line item under school grants for training on child abuse. This training can be conducted through SMC in collaboration with Child Rights Committees, Child Protection Committees, Child Welfare Committees(CWCs) and District Child Protection Units(DCPU). The financial norm worked out at a conservative estimate would amount to nearly Rs 15,000 per year per school. In addition, the government should make an allocation of Rs 6,000 per school per month for schools in rural areas towards honorarium of office-cum-safety staff who will work under the supervision of SMC and CPC.

Lastly, a child-friendly budget should have two purposes: it should provide an analytical resource for civil society advocacy groups involved in promoting rights of children; and secondly, it should provide policymakers and legislators with the required information to consider particular needs of children. This will enable decision-makers to know of strategy impacts when developing child-friendly programmes.

The author is General Manager, Policy and Advocacy, Save the Children.The government should focus more on creating awareness on crop insurance with farmers through training about the benefit of the scheme at Krishi Vikas Kendra and rural NGOs

Expectations from this Union Budget are really high as this is seen as the last full-fledged budget before 2019 elections. Besides the continued stress among farmers and farming community, especially in rural areas, is an area which is expected to receive priority from the finance minister. This is where the insurance-crop insurance scheme can fit in.

Many states have implemented the agriculture insurance schemes for farmers which have met with different degrees of success. We believe that the government will focus more on creating awareness among farmers through training about the benefit of the scheme at Krishi Vikas Kendra and rural NGOs. Provision should be made to improve the infrastructure of all rural banks with internet connectivity which will help farmers to enroll under the scheme. This will help government to achieve target penetration of crop insurance to 50 percent in three years.

There can be special courses offered under the Prime Minister's Skill Development program to develop resources to support this program for loss assessment, conduct crop cutting experiment and educate farmers about good practices.

Apart from this, government should also address the following issues to support farmers income:

1) Farmer credit target to be increased to Rs 11 lakh crore from Rs 10 lakh crore last fiscal

2) Change in minimum support price to entire cost of production plus 50 percent profit

3) Special focus on rural infrastructure

Health insurance is another area where the government really needs to step in a major way. Healthcare cost financing in India continues to face challenges with spiralling healthcare costs, low public health spending, low penetration level of health insurance products with less than one-fifth of Indian population covered under any form of health insurance, thereby resulting in higher out-of-pocket expenses. Besides health insurance policies of private and PSU insurers through individual and group policies, the larger group of insured population is under the three Central government-funded health schemes - -Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS), Employees' State Insurance Scheme (ESIC) and Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY).

The National Health Policy 2017 envisages an increase in public health spending to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2025 and advocates a progressively incremental assurance-based approach with focus on universal access to primary healthcare. In this context, the industry expects this budget to have an increased plan allocation for central schemes such as RSBY which can then offer a higher coverage through this scheme as well as improve the quality of coverage. Moves such as increase of sum insured from Rs 30,000 to Rs 100,000 as well as inclusion of critical care and OPD are expected.

To boost penetration of health insurance, industry will welcome a two-fold move -- enhance deduction limit under Sec 80D of I-T Act for spend on health insurance and lower GST rate as the current GST rate of 18 percent is a 3 percent increase over pre-GST era tax rate of 15 percent.

Recent incidents of fire-related tragedies and other accidents also have highlighted the crucial needs of insuring the properties and factories. The Union Budget can share guidelines so that such tragedies can be addressed and survivors of victims receive some support during their times of need.

In a country where insurance penetration and depth are abysmally low, there is an imperative need to educate the population of the importance of covering their lives, properties and health. The regulatory body, IRDAI is doing a commendable job in this regard. The Union Budget can perhaps give it a thrust by supporting annual campaigns on a pan-India basis to popularise both general and life insurance. This would herald a long-term approach to address the issue of low penetration of insurance in India.

For full coverage of Union Budget 2018 click here.

(The writer is CEO, JLT Independent Insurance Brokers)Most of the developed nations have already addressed the issue of angel tax by offering the angel investors tax breaks

The last Budget before the 2019s Lok Sabha elections is just a few days away. The entrepreneurs and investors are eyeing the Budget in hopes that the government should address the major issue of angel tax.

There are a few ways in which the government can address angel tax.

Accreditation of angel investors

Investment sector is easily accessible and is free for all, so anyone and everyone is welcomed in the sector. However, this very scenario has given rise to the attempts to dispose of the undisclosed income. One of the methods to address the situation is formulating the guidelines for the accreditation of the angel investors, as in the absence of guidelines distinguishing between the genuine investors to the rest very difficult. An angel investor should also help in mentoring the startup and the entrepreneur, and due to the little knowledge about the industry, most of the angel investors are not capable of carrying out the task of mentoring. A specific set of guidelines or rules will help to eradicate the investors who are not genuine.

The government should make provisions to exempt genuine angel investors who get certified through the accreditation process from the tax; angel tax should only be levied on the non-accredited investors. This will help in cleansing the angel investment sector by only allowing the genuine investors to invest in the startups. One caution here is that this should not be retrospective, but implemented from next financial year with a plan in place for the same.

Slab-based system

One of the principals in taxation is to ensure that any entity or individual is taxed only if it is capable of paying tax. Startups generally take at least a couple of years time to reach revenue and taxing them prior to the same will not only be dangerous but also further increase the time to positive cash flow. Rather, the government must offer a framework that gets them to revenue making faster and gives them the ability to pay tax on income generated out of profits.

One option to implement the above is what is followed in direct tax  having a slab based system in place. The tax department can define the minimum threshold for annual profits for a startup beyond which it would fall under the purview of angel tax. Also, it can further have a slab structure where the tax increases as the profit threshold increases.

This will address most of the draconian features of angel tax and will also bring equalisation in opportunities.

Tax breaks

The governments initiatives for the startups are applausable; however, there is still a scope of learning from the developed nations. Most of the developed nations have already addressed the issue of angel tax by offering the angel investors tax breaks.

Most of the European countries and UK provide this incentive to the angel investors and entrepreneurs, it is one of the better solutions to tackle the tricky issue of angel tax; hence, the government should look to follow the footsteps of those countries. These incentives were offered only for a few years. Such incentives are necessary as angel investment is one of the riskiest investments. It will kick start the start-up investments and expand angel investment as an asset class.

The government needs to realise that angle tax cannot be a blanket rule for the entire ecosystem. There has to be enough and appropriate deliberation and discussion that involves all the key stakeholders. However, it is still to be seen what comes out of Pandoras box.

(The writer is a vice president at Cross Border Angels)

Click here for full coverage of Union Budget 2018.Mobile Number Portability or MNP allows telecom subscribers to retain their existing mobile number, even when they shift to another operator

New Delhi: Telecom regulator Trai on Wednesday slashed mobile number portability rates by almost 79 percent to a maximum of Rs 4, citing lower cost and higher volumes for such transactions. The prescribed ceiling for mobile number portability rates was Rs 19, so far.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) in a statement directed the reduction in "per port transaction charge of Rs 19 to Rs 4 for each successful porting". "...the ceiling of charges leviable from subscriber stands automatically reduced to Rs 4. However, recipient operators are free to charge a lesser amount from the subscriber for Mobile Number Portability," it said.

Put simply, the Mobile Number Portability or MNP allows telecom subscribers to retain their existing mobile number, even when they shift to another operator. Trai had initiated a consultation process to review MNP charges in mid-December, and followed it up with an open house discussion on the issue on 16 January.

"After taking into consideration the comments received from stakeholders during consultation process and other relevant facts, the authority has decided that the per port transaction charge may be reduced as the costs of operations of Mobile Number Portability Service Providers (MNPSPs) have substantially gone down and the volume of MNP traffic has increased," Trai said.

The new charges will come into force from the date of notification in the official gazette, Trai said. Telecom operators said that the move will reduced MNP cost burden on them.

"Operators have been requesting Trai to bring down this charge as the MNP transaction have increases manifold since inception of MNP. In several instances, the operators were bearing this cost on behalf of the customers approaching them for port-in. Hence, it will be beneficial for both customers and operators as the cost of porting will be greatly reduced," industry body COAI Director General Rajan S Mathews said.

The review of the rates was initiated as the regulator felt that considering the upsurge in the volume of porting requests (with effect from July 2015) and the financial results of both the mobile number portability service providers (MNPSPs), the ceiling of Rs 19 is "quite high" when compared to cost and volumes of transaction involved.Raja agreed to a full interview, the excerpts of which are reproduced here.

Former telecom minister A Raja has had just over a month to gather and organise his thoughts about the 2G scam that saw his fall, and eventual acquittal. Since then he has, on various occasions, talked about his role in what was easily one of the most sensational corruption scandals which rocked the nation in the last two decades, and which provided the BJP with sufficient ammunition to unseat the ruling UPA, in 2014.

There is only one source that offers a comprehensive look at his experiences and impressions about the inner workings of spectrum allocation to cellular phone operators during former prime minister Manmohan Singh's tenure - Raja's tell-all book on the scam  2G Saga Unfolds. Other than this, there are just the few interviews and excerpts from the book that offer any sense of his role in the scandal. Firstpost pressed the former telecom minister to speak at length about the scam, his impressions of the investigation and indictment, and, most critically, the part played by Manmohan Singh in the goings on. Raja agreed to a full interview, the excerpts of which are reproduced here.

***

Firstpost: What made you write this book?

A Raja: I was not given natural justice. I was not heard by Parliament or by the Supreme Court or by the media. Even statutory institution like Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) did not understand the case. To get natural justice, the only way left for me was to go to the people. It was only through a book that I could get my voice heard.

FP: You presented the first copy of the book to former prime minister Manmohan Singh. What was his reaction?

Raja: He became emotional. He broke down and started crying. He expressed his deepest regrets and said yes, something should have been done (to help me).

FP: In retrospect, do you feel a sense of betrayal by Manmohan? Do you feel that he had always wished to remain at arm's length from this entire episode?

Raja: Yes, I feel I was betrayed by Manmohan Singh. I was dropped from the Cabinet. I was not protected. They (prime minister's council of ministers) felt something was wrong with my actions but they did not check. They did not call for the files.

The evidence of 80 percent of the witnesses was recorded after they put me in jail. Who will be expected to depose in my favour? I was arrested in February 2011  who will be expected to depose properly after that. This is my deep anguish, it's my deep grievance.

FP: Do you feel the former prime minister was deliberately kept in the dark about the whole issue?

Raja: I had narrated everything to the prime minister (Manmohan). He was kept in the dark about spectrum. I wrote a letter dated 2 November, 2007 to the prime minister to give him all the details of what I had done on the entire 2G licensing and spectrum. But on the same day I received a letter from the Prime Minister's Office, whose contents were the same as had been made by the Cellular Operators Association of India. How come the text of the annexure of the prime minister's letter is exactly the same text as the plea taken by the COAI in the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal and to the ministry?

FP: The prime minister was not supported by these ministers?

Raja: The Cabinet did not support him properly. The Cabinet and senior officers did not support him. When I met Kapil Sibal, he admitted there was division in the Cabinet on this issue.

FP: Manmohan Sing also did not have the support of his own officers in the PMO?

Raja: The prime minister was transparent but he was misguided by media reports. TK Nair came to my bungalow twice to meet me but the prime minister did not know about it. There were surreptious acts in the PMO but prime minister had all the intelligence agencies. He should have been informed about all that was going on. My reading is that they believed that matter would rest with A Raja. That is the biggest administrative joke. They believed if A Raja resigns, everything will be taken care of. The bullet will stop with Raja.

I warned the government that this will kill UPA-II. My leader(Karunanidhi) told this directly to the prime minister. I conveyed this to (TR) Balu. Their assumptions were completely wrong.

FP: Why did the former home minister P Chidambaram avoid meeting you when you crossed each other at the airport? Was this decision by him linked to the fact that you were rivals from the same state?

Raja: I cannot comment on that even though I can draw my own inferences.

FP: Were you supported through this entire controversy by your leader Karunanidhi?

Raja: My leader and party supported me like a child in its womb.

FP: In your book you also claim former solicitor general GE Vahanvati gave false testimony against you before the CBI?

Raja: Vahanvati agreed on the file. His concurrence was there. For reasons best known to him, he later disowned it.

On advise of (prime minister) Manmohan (Singh) in December 2007, Pranab Mukherjee had chaired a meeting. This was attended by me, Vahanvati and Pranab in his chambers. The CBI said no such meeting took place because Vahanvati, during his deposition before the police said so. But the minutes of the meeting are there. Was it not the duty of the CBI to question Pranab Mukherjee? I was in jail. Vahanvati said there was no such meeting but why didn't Pranab speak out?

FP: But the thrust of your attack in your book is directed against former CAG chief Vinod Rai? You have called for an inquiry against Rai. He made three specific charges against you. The first that you did not follow the procedures which had been laid down. Second, that you shifted the timelines and the third was regarding the computation of the loss. Your book has responded to all three charges. Will you care to elaborate?

Raja: What is the word, notional loss. He is claiming Rs 1.76 lakh crore. What is his yardstick? You cannot advise government to change policy. Policy is decided by the Cabinet in Parliament. Rai thought he was above all institutions. You are not a technical man. Without any comparisons, no logic, he arrived at this figure. This is nothing but administrative terrorism under a Constitutional label.

Since he gets shelter under constitutional protection of Article 148 and 149, at least, a commission of inquiry should be instituted against him. His figure did not stand before court, CBI did not accept it, even the superintendent of police in the CBI did not accept his version, even the judge did not agree with his version. Is that not a slap on Rai's cheek?

FP: Your book states that under Rai, the sanctity of CAG was severely compromised. How did his vigilantism sacrifice national progress?

Raja: I did not unilaterally decide to change the timeline for the 575 application. Documents are now available to show that initially I was opposed to it; that Secretary DS Mathur decided collectively, must have cut off date on the basis of how much spectrum is available. I have proved it in my book that what I did was correct but Rai said I had bulldozed officers.

My reading is that there was a political conspiracy to finish off the UPA-II and the gun was shouldered by Vinod Rai. The needle of suspicion points to him and we should go to the roots of his appointment.

I seek a commission of inquiry. How did Rai arrive at this conclusion? There was an exit conference on 20 May, 2010 attended by DOT and CAG officials. It showed that there was no loss. The audit team sat with DOT officers, came to conclusion on first come first policy, dual technology and eligibility of applications. And yet suddenly we hear about this astronomical figure. How did Rai give this report? It is unfair, it is capricious, we have to read between the lines. Even RP Singh, deputy CAG, did not sign the final report.

There was a big conspiracy to kill UPA, to tarnish its image and this can be easily inferred.

This Modi government is supposed to be clean. Modi keeps saying we are clean, clean, clean. The 2G is a big scam by the Congress, it should be investigated.

FP: What has been the response to your demand for commission of inquiry?

Raja: Nobody is opening their mouth. Rai is quiet. The moment he released the report to Parliament (when he was the CAG) he held a press meet and came forward with his lies. Since I proved his report wrong, he has not opened his mouth. What type of man are you? It shows his credibility?

I offered himself to he CBI; I released this book; I issued an open challenge (to him) because truth is on my side.

FP: You have paid a big price?

Raja: I paid a huge price. My family suffered a lot. My daughter was in Class VI, what type of anguish she went through, just imagine? Think about the attitude of her friends? The same goes for my wife. My brothers and sisters also suffered. Their homes were searched by Enforcement Directorate and CBI. But truth was always on my side.

FP: But Rai's version was supported by the Supreme Court?

Raja: The 2G matter is a complicated and very technical matter. We need legal acumen to understand the issue.

We shifted 1994 telecom policy, we shifted from action route to revenue route. The shift was done by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. At that time also, there was a lot of criticism by the public. Lawyer Ram Jethmalani, who was also an Union minister in the Vajpayee government, also wrote a book on this. The CAG report of 2002 said there was a Rs 3,000 crore scam. This report was not considered in PAC. The policy was made by the BJP but was criticised by their own minister Ram Jethmalani. Today, the same BJP said that there is a big spectrum scam. We have taken the legacy of the past. With due respect to Supreme Court judges, they hurriedly passed orders without proper assessment of law.

FP: Do you think cancelling of licenses deal a serious blow to the telecom industry?

Raja: After arrest of coal secretary, senior officers were not able to take bold decisions because of criminal cases launched against them. During UPA regime, thousands of crores of foreign investment started coming into country. After the Coalgate scam, 2G cancellation, FDI stopped coming. The administration is not able to deliever. Everyone is keeping mum. What is the progress? If water keeps flowing, there is progress. When there is stagnant water, no one will touch it.

What is your GDP now? This government is not able to recognise diversity, how then will it then run this multi-cultural, diverse country?

FP: In your book you explain that shifting the timelines was that your officers wanted a cut-off date because all 575 applications could not be accommodated. Could you explain?

Raja: When we gave a unified access license, like the driving license, the operator could use other technologies also. The TRAI recommendation was to permit dual technology and I accepted their recommendation.

If new technologies come, we have to accept it. The reply was sent to CAG. Inspite of black-and-white on table, what made Rai shift blame to me? Parliament enacted a law. This was a collective decision. In the trial court Saini has shown there was no criminality.

FP: How long did it take for you to write this book?

Raja: Two and a half years. I collected the documents when I was in jail. I relied on my memory and my memory matched the documents available from the court. That was an amazing coincidence.

FP: Despite the CBI special court verdict, the CBI has already stated it will appeal in higher court. This is something that members of the legal fraternity, including Subramanian Swamy, have also called for.

Raja: Either of the aggrieved parties is entitled to go for appeal. My point is that no one has criticised the judgment by fact and law. No person is available with legal and political arguments to challenge this; going in for appeal is taking shelter under legal provisions. I have given an open challenge, let us have a live debate on this but nobody has come forward.

FP: Senior officials in the office of then prime minister Manmohan Singh are reported to have suppressed the most relevant and controversial part of your letter to Manmohan Singh and that you cannot be faulted for misrepresenting the facts. Why were they doing so ?

Raja: Everyone can draw their own inferences. I was not running the PMO. All I will say is that these matters need to be investigated.

FP: What are your plans now?

Raja: I will return to active politics.

FP: Is DMK planning a tie-up with the BJP?

Raja: Karunanidhi has said that there will be no tie up wih BJP. DMK is known for secularism. Secularism is in trouble. Now, the role of the DMK is bound to intensify.An ambitious China attaches paramount importance to the Indo-Pacific Region, an area which includes the Western Pacific Ocean as well as whole of the Indian Ocean, but this runs in parallel to Indias pre-eminence in the region.

Gwadar Port, situated in the restive Balochistan province, has been the it project of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the torch bearer of the China-Pakistan relations, which Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani once said is "higher than mountains, deeper than the ocean, stronger than steel and sweeter than honey." The Gwadar Port is expected to provide Chinas western hinterland with access to the Arabian Sea  and in turn the Indian Ocean  for maritime trade. Now partly operational, the port is one of the first visible signs of the $62 billion CPEC, which is a network of infrastructure projects that are currently under construction throughout Pakistan

On Monday, Pakistan prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi inaugurated the Economic Free Zone at the Gwadar Port, which will be run by China Overseas Port Holding Company. A Xinhua report said that 30 companies belonging to businesses such as hotel, banking, logistics and fish processing will be in the free zone. The free zone is expected to garner direct investment of about $474.3 million, while the annual output is expected to be $790.5 million after full operation.

On the same day, both countries also signed six agreements to further develop the capacities of the deep water port.

Ever since it was first launched in 2002, the Gwadar Port has been a point of discussion among the Indian strategic community. With China asserting its claim to be a global power, its military interests in the Indian Ocean Region have seen a spike in the recent years. An ambitious China attaches paramount importance to the Indo-Pacific Region, an area which includes the Western Pacific Ocean as well as whole of the Indian Ocean, but this runs in parallel to Indias pre-eminence in the region.

Pakistan expects Gwadar to be a "gamechanger"  a term often used by the Establishment there  due to its strategic location near the Gulf of Hormuz. This gives China access to the Gulf region, a major route for oil supplies in the world. Moreover, there are military implications of the project too.

China is expected to be in control of the port till 2059 after which will turn into Pakistans second naval base  after Karachi. However, what is more worrying are reports of Gwadar being a part of grand Chinese designs to encircle India through strategic ports in the Indian Ocean. Called the string of pearls, the true nature of the plan has been a matter of speculation, with The Economist considering it to be of commercial rather than military value. Nevertheless, a recent report claimed that China was building a naval base off the coast of Gwadar, which was denied by the Chinese foreign ministry.

While the opening of the Chabahar Port in Iran is being dubbed as Indias counter to Gwadar Port, only time will tell if it serves Indias economic as well as strategic purpose. The port, located in the Sistan-Balochistan province on the energy-rich Persian Gulf nations southern coast, lies outside the Persian Gulf and is easily accessed from Indias western coast, bypassing Pakistan.

The CPEC and India's concerns

More than the Gwadar Port, it is the CPEC that has been a contentious issue for the Indian government. The reason being that parts of the corridor passes through Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK), which is legally a part of India. India has been raising the issue of "sovereignty" while opposing the CPEC as well as associated plans like the One Belt One Road (OBOR) Initiative.

In Gilgit-Baltistan, which is the largest part of PoK, hydropower dams and railway lines are the major CPEC-related infrastructure projects.

Speaking in the Lok Sabha in December last year, MoS, External Affairs VK Singh had said, "The government has conveyed to the Chinese side, including at the highest level, its concerns about China's activities in PoK and asked them to cease these activities. However, there may have been a softening in China's stance over CPEC too. China on Monday said it is ready to hold talks with India to resolve their differences on the controversial issue.

As to the differences between China and India, China stands ready to communicate and hold talks with India to seek a proper solution so that these differences will not affect our general national interests. This best serves the interests of the two countries," Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said.

Not only in India, but concerns over CPEC have been raised in Gilgit-Baltistan region as well. Activists in the disputed region claim that Chinas pace of implementing projects will environmentally harm the region. They also believe that these projects will lead to rampant land grabbing and loss of employment opportunities for the locals.

Despite local concerns, including opposition from Baloch groups for the fear of alienation as well as economic exploitation by Chinese companies, the project is likely to continue. But CPEC, as a project linking two of India's major geo-political rivals, spells a major security threat to India.

As noted by this Firstpost article, written on the eve of Chinese president Xi Jinpings maiden visit to Pakistan, "CPEC project would mean Chinese presence in entire Pakistan, including Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, becomes all pervasive and powerful. Chinas hectic economic and so-called 'commercial' engagement with Pakistan, which is nothing but a strategic gamechanger in the region, would go a long way in making Pakistan a richer and stronger entity than ever before."

Since the last decade, the fear of a two front-war has been bothering the strategic community in India. Echoing similar sentiments, former northern army GoC, DS Hooda told The Times of India in 2017 that with China investing $62 billion in the corridor, any war with Pakistan will invariably also involve China.

"You have to be prepared for China. For India, the prospect of a two-front war is a real one. The question is: will China resort to armed hos tilties if a conflict breaks out between India and Pakistan? We are looking at it carefully and preparing," Hooda said while stressing on the reported close military relationship between the two of India's arch rivals.

Between June and August 2017, India and China were involved in a military standoff at the Bhutan-India-China tri-junction at Doka La. While border disputes between the countries were not new, the intensity and the persistence of the standoff was unprecedented. An opinion piece in The Economic Times at the time of the standoff linked the standoff to India's refusal to join the OBOR, which India had boycotted in May 2017 as part of CPEC passed through Gilgit Baltistan.

"The actual theatre of Doklam war might not be the India-Bhutan-China tri-junction where Indian and Chinese soldiers are facing off. It could be thousands of kilometres awaythe Line of Control between India and Pakistan. In Doklam, China might be manoeuvring to secure CPEC, its biggest strategic asset in the region," the opinion piece noted.

As CPEC projects near their completion dates, Balochistan may well be at the centre of a security strategy of China. Beijing will like to securing Balochistan as a major part of the CPEC passes through the insurgency-ridden state. Two factors may force China to be proactive with regards to any security threat to Pakistan. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's reference to the persecuted population in Balochistan and the rise in Chinese casualties in terror attacks in the insurgency-ridden state.

As China embarks on its ambitious connectivity programme, India may find itself in a spot of bother as Beijing has brought almost all of New Delhi's neighbours on board. Afghanistan, which is a strategic partner of India, has also expressed interest in joining the connectivity programmes. Amid such developments, India-China rivalry across South Asia will be watched out.

With inputs from agenciesBacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi's clarion call for simultaneous elections in India, two former Chief Election Commissioners, N Gopalaswami and SY Quereshi, told Firstpost on Wednesday that such an idea will be cost and time effective for the country.

Even as the debate over holding simultaneous elections for state Assemblies and Parliament rages on, two former chief election commissioners have come out in support of the idea. Pitched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the idea found supporters in N Gopalaswami and SY Quraishi on Wednesday who said that it will be cost and time effective for a country like India.

"If the question is whether the Election Commission will be able to conduct such an election. The answer is an emphatic yes," Gopalswami, who was the chief election commissioner between 2006 and 2009, told Firstpost.

Quraishi, who served as the CEC between 2010 tro 2012, said, "Logistically, it is the most convenient and the best idea. This is because voter is the same, the polling station is the same, the staff and the security is also the same. Modi has been a votary of simultaneous elections, arguing that a continuous cycle of elections across the country harms developmental works due to enforcement of the Model Code of Conduct, besides incurring a huge cost.

The buzz around simultaneous elections gathered steam after President Ram Nath Kovind in his annual parliamentary address backed the Centre over the idea. "A sustained debate is required on the subject of simultaneous elections and all political parties need to arrive at a consensus on this issue," Kovind had said in his address.

Quraishi urged the Modi government to call for an all-party meeting to establish a consensus on the issue, which has sharply divided the political parties in India. On the other hand, Gopalswami said that the ruling party needs to have the will power to implement the idea.

Making state and central elections simultaneous would, however, mean an amendment to the Indian Constitution. But Gopalswami was confident.

"We need a constitutional amendment for validating simultaneous elections in India. If political parties have to come together in the past for dozens of amendments, they can do so this time too," Gopalswami said while pointing out the manner in which parties came to a consensus on the Goods and Services Tax.

However, as high profile states such as Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat had voted in 2017, a simultaneous election to the Assemblies and the Parliament in 2019 would mean snap polls in these states.

"We can see this happening in 2024 or 2029. The machines wont be ready for the process by 2019. There are already some states that go to polls with Lok Sabha. In 2019, few more may go for simultaneous polls," Quraishi, a 1971-batch Haryana cadre IAS officer, told Firstpost.

Gopalswami also echoed similar views and said, "Implementation will be a problem as the election season is not in sync now. We may see this happening in the next cycle (2024 or 2029)." Historically, India followed the pattern of simultaneous elections till 1967 before it was broken by former prime minister Indira Gandhi, who called for an early election in February-March 1971.

Former home minister Lal Krishna Advani, too, had pitched the idea of "one nation, one poll" in 2009. However, regional parties and national parties like CPM have been opposing the idea on the ground that it would go against the principle of federalism.

Speaking at an event on Tuesday, Congress leader P Chidambaram dismissed the idea as an election jumla.

"In a parliamentary democracy, especially when we have 30 states, under the present Constitution you cannot have simultaneous election. This is another of these election jumla. One nation, one tax was a jumla. Now one nation, one election is a jumla," the Rajya Sabha MP said.

"This is why Modi needs to come to a consensus with all parties so that the process is smooth," Quraishi said. Gopalaswami agreed and added, "India is more unitary than federal. Those raising the issue of federalism are just indulging in political gimmick."

Ultimately, simultaneous election is also being pegged as a measure to fight money power in election campaigning. Quraishi, who has written extensively on electoral reforms in India, referred to his 2016 article published in The Indian Express, which had urged the government to clamp down on corrupt practices. While Quraishi maintained that elections have "become a fountainhead of corruption", he added, "To win an election, you need to collect funds and every election cycle is also a corruption cycle."

Gopalaswami had a tongue-in-cheek response: "The idea will be bad for only those voters who are used to receiving money twice in five years."Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief and 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed said his group will observe a 10-day 'Kashmir solidarity Ashra' starting from 2 February

Lahore: Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief and 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed said his group will observe a 10-day 'Kashmir solidarity Ashra' starting from 2 February.

"We will hold rallies, conferences and seminars across Pakistan to show solidarity with the Kashmirs," Saeed said. Saeed, who was listed under UN Security Council Resolution 1267 in December 2008, was released from house arrest in Pakistan in November.

The US department of treasury has designated him as a 'Specially Designated Global Terrorist', and the US, since 2012, has offered a $10 million reward for information that brings Saeed to justice.

He claimed he had spent 10 months under house arrest only because he raised voice against the alleged "Indian atrocities" and Pakistani government's "impotence".

Saeed's JuD is believed to be the front organisation for the LeT which is responsible for carrying out the Mumbai attack that killed 166 people. It has been declared as a foreign terrorist organisation by the US in June 2014.

Early this month, the US has told clearly to Islamabad that Saeed is a "terrorist" and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, reacting strongly to Pakistan prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi's remarks that there was no case against the Mumbai attack mastermind.An Indian Air Force Group Captain  a rank equivalent to a colonel in the Indian Army  was held late on Wednesday evening on espionage charges, media reports said.

A Group Captain of the Indian Air Force  a rank equivalent to a colonel in the Indian Army  was held for questioning on Wednesday evening, according to several media reports.

According to a report in NDTV, the senior officer of the Indian Air Force (IAF) was being questioned for allegedly leaking classified information. The air force, however, refused to divulge the exact nature of the information it suspected was compromised.

The officer was detained for questioning after he was found using an unauthorised electronic device during a routine surveillance, ANI reported.

An IAF Officer detained from New Delhi for further questioning after he was found indulging in activities through unauthorised electronic devices during routine counter intelligence surveillance carried out by the IAF's Central Security and Investigation Team.  ANI (@ANI) January 31, 2018

The Tribune reported that the officer who was an instructor, and not a part of the flying squad, was apparently 'honey-trapped' and was being blackmailed. He divulged crucial information to a woman he struck a friendship with over Facebook, according to the report.

"Posted in New Delhi at the IAF headquarters he had access to certain level of plans and documents," the report read.

The identity of the woman is not yet clear and IAF authorities suspect the officer may have passed "critical information," over the past few months, India Today reported.

"We have strong reason to believe that the officer was regularly meeting his handlers in the capital (Delhi)", sources told India Today.

Army, air force and navy personnel are required to follow strict guidelines on social media. The armed forces impose severe restrictions on the cyber activity of their officers. Among other restrictions, officials are barred from revealing in any way the details of their posting, designation and current or past deputations. The officers are also advised against posting pictures in uniform or posing with a weapon, even when in civilian clothing, according to a report in The Times of India.Former Indian Navy chief admiral (retired) L Ramdas has filed a plea in the Supreme Court seeking an independent inquiry by a panel of retired apex court judges

New Delhi: Former Indian Navy chief admiral (retired) L Ramdas has filed a plea in the Supreme Court seeking an independent inquiry by a panel of retired apex court judges and former police officers into the alleged mysterious death of special CBI judge BH Loya.

Loya, who was hearing the sensitive Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case, had died of cardiac arrest in Nagpur on 1 December, 2014, when he had gone to attend the wedding of a colleagues daughter. Some members of Loyas family had alleged foul play in his death.

BJP chief Amit Shah was one of the accused in the Sheikh encounter case in which he was later discharged. The application, filed by Ramdas, has also sought a direction to the Centre to cooperate with the inquiry committee and provide the necessary documents.

He has sought an independent probe, saying the statements made by Loyas family members have led to allegations of foul play coming to the surface regarding the events that had transpired on the night he died. It is therefore just and necessary that an independent probe be directed to be made, the plea said.

It further said that the silence of individuals who were present during the final hours of Loyas life coupled with institutional inaction to probe the circumstances of his death when it occurred in 2014 threatens these cherished ideals of independence of judiciary and the rule of law.

The plea said a judicial probe was needed in the case in order to uphold the image of judiciary and deliver justice to Loyas family.

It claimed that the death of a sitting judge hearing a sensitive case in an unnatural manner raises questions about the rule of law and requires to be properly probed by an independent agency.

The petition also sought permission that anyone who had evidence to establish the circumstances of Loyas death be allowed to appear before the multi-member panel and provide relevant information.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra is hearing the petitions which have sought probe into Loyas death.

The apex court had on 22 January restrained other high courts from entertaining any petition relating to Loyas death and transferred to itself the petitions pending before the Bombay High Court.

The matter is scheduled to come up for hearing in the Supreme Court on 2 February.Congress leader Kapil Sibal on Wednesday said that Judge Loya's death must be probed as his sister has raised doubts at a press conference in New Delhi.

Congress leader Kapil Sibal on Wednesday said that special CBI judge BH Loya's death must be probed as his sister has raised doubts at a press conference in New Delhi. Sibal said the "truth is to be investigated... Loya talked of pressure and right now democracy is under threat," NDTV reported.

Sibal went on to say, "If the sister and father said they are 'in grave doubts' and the demeanour of the young man (Loya's son) should make us draw our own conclusions."

Judge Loya's death must be probed, says Congress Watch LIVE: https://t.co/hMlRpgak2y pic.twitter.com/9PdD8UM0ya  NDTV (@ndtv) January 31, 2018

If the Supreme Court sets up a Special Investigation Committee (SIT) then the Congress will collaborate with it, Sibal said at the press conference.

Earlier on 18 January, the Congress had described as "unnatural" the BJP's opposition to its demand for an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Loya in Nagpur about three years ago.

Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi told reporters his party has been demanding a probe into judge Loya's death, but the BJP is opposing the demand.

Earlier on 12 January, Congress had said "democracy is in danger" after four senior-most Supreme Court judges came out in the open to say that the situation in the apex court was "not in order".

Congress president Rahul Gandhi had described the concerns expressed by four apex court judges over the institution's functioning as "extremely important", and sought a probe into Loya's death by the "highest level" of the apex court.

With inputs from agenciesIn a bonanza, the Karnataka 6th Pay Commission has recommended 30 percent hike in the salaries of state government employees and pensioners, effective 1 July 2017

Bengaluru: In a bonanza, the Karnataka 6th Pay Commission has recommended 30 percent hike in the salaries of state government employees and pensioners, effective 1 July 2017. The move will benefit 5.2 lakh government employees, 5.73 lakh pensioners and also about 73,000 employees of government-aided educational institutions, local bodies and non-teaching staff of colleges and universities of the state.

The pay commission has recommended that the revision of pay and pension is to be notionally effected from 1 July 2017 with the resulting financial benefit being paid from 1 April 2018. If implemented, the revision of pay, allowances and pension is set to cost the state exchequer an estimated Rs 10,508 crore annually, the commission said.

The commission headed by retired IAS officer MR Srinivas Murthy submitted the first volume of report to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday. The minimum pay as per the revised pay scales will be Rs 17,000 and the maximum pay Rs 1,50,600 plus allowances.

After revision, the minimum revised pension will be Rs 8,500 with the maximum pension fixed at Rs 75,300 per month plus dearness allowance. Family pension will have an upper limit of Rs 45,180 per month with dearness allowance.

The pay commission said the method it proposed to effect the revision of salaries and pension was increasing the basic pay of each employee as on 1 July 2017 by 30% and then adding the dearness allowance of 45.25 percent payable from that date.

While the pay commission agreed to retain the maximum age for retiring at 60 years, it, however, recommended that the minimum qualifying service for voluntary retirement be reduced from the present 15 years to 10 years and the eligibility for receiving full pension be reduced from 33 years to 30.

The maximum limit of death-cum-retirement gratuity is proposed to be increased to Rs20 lakh from the present Rs10 lakh. The commission has also recommended payment of additional pension to all pensioners aged above 80 years.

It has also recommended medical reimbursement benefit to retired employees and cashless treatment for family pensioners in empanelled hospitals as in the case of Jyothi Sanjeevini scheme.

These benefits will cost the state government Rs500 crore. Substantial increase in various allowances and subsidies in vehicles for the differently-abled employees have also been recommended.

These recommendations will not be applicable to All India Services and judicial officers drawing NJPC pay scale and teaching staff getting UGC/AICTE pay scales.

On the occasion, Siddaramaiah said the second volume of the recommendations will be submitted three months later.

We have three months to think of the second volume of the report. We will come back to power after three months and it is only we who will implement the second set of recommendations, Siddaramaiah said.

He conceded the recommendation will have an additional burden on the state government, which will be discussed at the next cabinet meeting.In a fresh outbreak of violence, a mosque was damaged, a shop was burnt, and locals got into heated altercations at different places in Kasganj district in the last 24 hours.

Kasganj town in Uttar Pradesh, which saw rioting and vandalism following communal clashes on 26 January, remains on the boil. In a fresh outbreak of violence, a mosque was damaged, a shop was burnt, and locals got into heated altercations at different places in Kasganj district in the last 24 hours.

According to newly appointed district police chief Piyush Srivastava, a mosque was damaged by unidentified miscreants in Amapur area, around 17 kilometres from Kasganj, in the early hours of Tuesday.

The dome of the mosque was damaged by miscreants in Amapur, which led to tension in the area. There seems to be a gang behind it as earlier incidents occurred in the city area, whereas now its happening on the outskirts. The situation could have deteriorated further, as people from both the communities (Hindus and Muslims) entered into heated arguments, but timely intervention by the police and the forces brought everything under control, said Srivastava, who has been patrolling the entire city along with Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel ever since he took charge.

He said the gang hasnt been identified yet but added that "every anti-social element would soon be put behind bars." A delegation of the local peace committee, formed in the aftermath of the riots, has been asked to stay in the area until the situation gets back to normal, he added.

Early on Wednesday morning, a wooden shop (locally called khokha or gumti) owned by a Hindu businessman was gutted in Sahawar town, 19 kilometres from Kasganj town. Two boys were taken into custody in connection with the incident, said Srivastava. Sahawar is a Muslim-dominated area with around 300 households of the community.

"The situation in Kasganj is tense, but it is under control," said Inspector General (IG), Aligarh range, Sanjeev Gupta, who is camping in Kasganj to bring the situation back to normal. He said that reinstating the confidence of both communities was the biggest challenge and that the forces were working on this.

Gupta said that three companies of the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC), one company of the RAF, and additional police forces from neighbouring districts have been deployed in Kasganj. Since the miscreants have moved away from the city, additional forces in "adequate numbers" have been deployed on the outskirts of the town as well.

Trouble started on 26 January when a Tiranga Yatra (a motorcycle rally taken out by Hindu youth to celebrate Republic Day) ran into a flag-hoisting ceremony in a Muslim-populated area. Reportedly, hateful jibes were exchanged between the two groups and the altercation spiralled into a clash. Some people pelted stones at the motorcycle rally and firing ensued, in which a Hindu youth named Abhishek Gupta alias Chandan was killed. An angry mob rioted in communally sensitive areas, resorting to arson and vandalism. Several shops and religious places were set afire by the mob and the town has remained on edge since then.

Meanwhile, the main accused in Chandan's murder, Salim Javed, has been arrested from Kasganj, Additional Director General of Police Ajay Anand told Firstpost. Anand said that acting on a tip-off, the police conducted a raid on a building on Wednesday morning and arrested Javed. The police have so far arrested 112 people for spreading violence.

Political parties to hold Tiranga Yatras in Mathura, Etah, Agra and Firozabad

Meanwhile, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal announced that they would hold motorcycle Tiranga Yatras in Mathura, Etah, Agra and Firozabad districts of the state to pay tribute to the deceased. The parties havent taken permission from the district administrations for the rallies.

"Although the situation in Etah is normal, I am not sure about the event. So far, no one has approached the district magistrate for permission. We are not going to let anyone disrupt the peace in this city in wake of whatever has happened and is happening in the neighbouring district," Amit Kishore, District Magistrate of Etah district said.

The Agra and Firozabad rallies were stopped midway on Wednesday afternoon by the district administrations as section 144 of the CrPC has been imposed in these places. The Etah and Mathura rallies hadn't started at the time of filing this story.

Vivek Kumar, a senior functionary of the ABVP Agra range, spoke to Firstpost on the phone before the rally was held.

"One of our brothers has sacrificed his life for the country and this Tiranga Yatra is a small tribute to him. We will chant Bharat mata ki jai and Vande Mataram in the Tiranga Yatra. Chandan, who was like my brother, died chanting Bharat mata ki jai. What is the need of permission for the Tiranga Yatra? We are not doing anything anti-national and not even taking law and order in our hands. The Tiranga Yatra will be peaceful and I assure that peace will not be hurt," he said.

Aligarh police also stopped a delegation of the All India Congress Committee led by Uttar Pradesh Congress president Raj Babbar in the city. The Congress delegation was on its way to examine the situation in the area and also to meet the victims' families.

Hate and rumour-mongering escalated tension

According to Gupta, hate and rumour-mongering have escalated tension in the area, which was otherwise slowly returning to normalcy.

The shops in the main market are open now. Police forces have been deployed at every nook and corner of the city, while time-to-time patrolling is being done by the RAF. But there are elements on social media who are indulging in rumour-mongering. Yesterday (Tuesday), everything was normal post mid-noon, but suddenly there was a rumor that a cow has been killed in the Muslim-dominated area. The police rushed there and found nothing, he said.

The police have identified groups and accounts of people who are posting objectionable and hateful posts and comments on social media. "Yesterday (Tuesday) four people were arrested for rumour-mongering and more will be taken in custody. We have identified them," Gupta said.

Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh governor Ram Naik has termed this communal clash as a blot on the state and asked the government to initiate measures to ensure such incidents did not recur.

"Whatever happened in Kasganj was not good. The incident there is a 'kalank' (blot) for UP. The government is probing the incident. It should initiate effective measures to ensure that such incidents are not repeated," Naik told reporters.

Saurabh Sharma is a Lucknow-based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.A Delhi court on Wednesday rejected the bail plea of Kashmiri separatist leader Shabir Shah in a 2007 money laundering case related to alleged terror financing

New Delhi: A Delhi court on Wednesday rejected the bail plea of Kashmiri separatist leader Shabir Shah in a 2007 money laundering case related to alleged terror financing.

Additional Sessions Judge Sidharth Sharma, who had in August last year denied the relief to Shah citing the ongoing probe, dismissed his fresh bail plea.

In his bail application filed through advocate MS Khan, the accused had told the court that investigation into the case was complete as the agency has filed its charge sheet and there was no chance for Shah to hamper the probe.

The court had on 22 August last year rejected Shah's earlier bail plea after the ED said it was probing whether he had received money from countries such as Pakistan to promote terrorism in India.

On 15 November, the court had framed money laundering charges against Shah and alleged hawala dealer Mohammad Aslam Wani in the case. Both the accused have pleaded not guilty and claimed trial.

The central probe agency, in its charge sheet filed under sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), had furnished Shah's statements where he had allegedly told the investigators that he had "no source of income of his own" and that had "not filed any Income Tax Return (ITR)."

The probe agency had recorded the statement of 36-year- old Wani where he allegedly said that he came to Delhi from Srinagar "at the directions of Shah" sometime in April, 2003 and that was the first time he had met him.

Wani was arrested by the ED on 6 August from Srinagar.

The ED alleged that Wani was asked by Shah to "work for him (on a commission basis) in collecting hawala money from Delhi and deliver to him at Srinagar".

The case dates back to August 2005 in which the Delhi Police's Special Cell had earlier arrested Wani.

Wani had then claimed that he had given Rs 2.25 crore to Shah, following which the ED had registered a case under PMLA against the duo in 2007. He was arrested with Rs 63 lakh, allegedly received through 'hawala' channels from the Middle East, and a cache of ammunition, on 26 August, 2005.

In 2010, a Delhi court had cleared Wani of terror funding charges in the 2005 case but convicted him under the Arms Act.United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. BRITTANY VONCIA JONES, Defendant-Appellant. No. 17-12478 Decided: January 30, 2018

Before WILLIAM PRYOR, ROSENBAUM, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.

Brittany Jones appeals the 30-month sentence of imprisonment she received after the district court revoked her term of supervised release. See 18 U.S.C.  3583(e). Jones first argues that her sentence is procedurally unreasonable because the district court considered an impermissible factor, 18 U.S.C.  3553(a)(2)(A), which she believes does not apply in revocation proceedings. Second, she argues that the sentence is substantively unreasonable as unduly harsh under the totality of the circumstances. After careful review, we affirm.

I.

Jones was indicted in March 2012 on one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, three counts of bank fraud, and one count of aggravated identity theft. According to the indictment, Jones opened fraudulent bank accounts into which she deposited worthless checks and then withdrew the funds before the bank could determine that the checks were worthless. She pled guilty to each count in the indictment and was sentenced to 48 months of imprisonment to be followed by three years of supervised release. She began serving her term of supervised release in August 2015.

In March 2017, the U.S. Probation Office petitioned to revoke Jones's supervised release based on her October 2016 arrest for allegedly engaging in the same type of fraud that resulted in her 2012 conviction. Jones admitted to the violation, so the issues before the district court at the revocation hearing in June 2017 were whether, and if so, for how long, Jones should be sentenced to prison. The applicable guideline range, based on a Grade B violation and a criminal history category of II, was 6 to 12 months. The statutory maximum sentence was 36 months, which is the sentence the government requested. Jones argued for a sentence of 18 months of home confinement with electronic monitoring followed by 18 months of supervised release.

Ultimately, the district court sentenced Jones to a term of 30 months of imprisonment with no supervised release to follow. The court stated that, pursuant to 18 U.S.C.  3583(e), it considered certain factors set forth in  3553(a). In particular, the court cited the fact that Jones, shortly after starting her term of supervised release, went back to doing the exact same thing again. This conduct, according to the court, showed that she had not really learned anything, or [that she had] a lack of respect for the law. The court also considered deterrence as well as the nature and circumstances of the prior and present offenses in concluding that a sentence of 30 months was appropriate.

Jones objected, without success, that the sentence was unreasonable, particularly substantively unreasonable in light of the  3553(a) factors. She then brought this appeal.

II.

We generally review the sentence imposed upon revocation of supervised release, including a sentence above the recommended guideline range, for reasonableness. United States v. Velasquez Velasquez, 524 F.3d 1248, 1252 (11th Cir. 2008); United States v. Aguillard, 217 F.3d 1319, 1320 (11th Cir. 2000). We review the substantive reasonableness of a sentence under a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard. Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51, 128 S. Ct. 586, 591 (2007). But when a defendant fails to object to the procedural reasonableness of a sentence in the district court, we generally review that aspect of the sentence for plain error. United States v. Vandergrift, 754 F.3d 1303, 1307 (11th Cir. 2014).

Upon finding that the defendant violated a condition of supervised release, the district court may revoke supervised release and impose a term of imprisonment after considering certain factors set forth in 18 U.S.C.  3553(a). 18 U.S.C.  3583(e)(3). The district court may in its discretion give greater weight to some factors over others, United States v. Rosales-Bruno, 789 F.3d 1249, 1254 (11th Cir. 2015), and the court is not bound by the guideline range established by the Sentencing Guidelines, United States v. Silva, 443 F.3d 795, 799 (11th Cir. 2006). If the district court decides to impose an upward variance, it must consider the extent of the deviation and ensure that the justification is sufficiently compelling to support the degree of the variance. United States v. Williams, 526 F.3d 1312, 1322 (11th Cir. 2008) (internal quotation marks omitted). We will vacate a sentence only if we are left with the definite and firm conviction that the district court committed a clear error of judgment in weighing the  3553(a) factors by arriving at a sentence that lies outside the range of reasonable sentences dictated by the facts of the case. United States v. Shaw, 560 F.3d 1230, 1238 (11th Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Jones first argues that the district court erred by considering  3553(a)(2)(A) when imposing her revocation sentence. She concedes that our review is for plain error because she did not raise this specific issue before the district court at sentencing. See Vandergrift, 754 F.3d at 1307.

According to  3583(e), which governs the revocation of supervised release, the court may impose a term of imprisonment after considering the factors set forth in section 3553(a)(1), (a)(2)(B), (a)(2)(C), (a)(2)(D), (a)(4), (a)(5), (a)(6), and (a)(7). These factors include the nature and circumstances of the offense, the history and characteristics of the defendant, the need for adequate deterrence, and the need to protect the public. Notably absent from this list is  3553(a)(2)(A) (the need for the sentence to reflect the seriousness of the offense, to promote respect for the law, and to provide just punishment for the offense). Jones reasons that  3583(e)'s omission of  3553(a)(2)(A) makes clear that district courts may not consider that factor in revocation proceedings.

We addressed this same argument in Vandergrift. There, we concluded that a court's consideration of  3553(a)(2)(A) in the supervised-release revocation context was not a plain error. See 754 F.3d at 130809. While Jones relies on the text of  3853(e) to establish the plainness of the error, we found in Vandergrift that [t]he text of  3583(e) does not  explicitly forbid a district court from considering  3553(a)(2)(A). Id. We also noted that the U.S. Supreme Court had not addressed whether it was an error to consider  3553(a)(2)(A) in the revocation context, that other circuits were split on the issue, and that we had not addressed the issue in a published opinion. Id. at 1308. Because the Supreme Court had not resolved the issue and the circuits were split, we concluded that any alleged error could not be plain. Id. at 1309.

Jones has not identified any development in the law on this issue since Vandergrift. Accordingly, under Vandergrift, Jones has not shown that the district court plainly erred by considering  3553(a)(2)(A) when imposing her revocation sentence.

Jones next argues that her sentence is substantively unreasonable because it is unduly harsh under the circumstances. In support, she points out that she had no prior violations, that she complied with the other conditions of supervised release, that her criminal history is non-violent and not extensive, and that she was seeking treatment and rehabilitation.

We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in imposing the 30-month sentence of imprisonment, an upward variance from the advisory guideline range. See Gall, 552 U.S. at 41. The court determined that an upward variance was appropriate given that Jones, shortly after starting her term of supervised release, went back to committing the exact same type of crime that led to her incarceration in the first place. The similarity in criminal conduct, the court found, showed that Jones did not learn anything from her initial incarceration and that the needs of deterrence would be served by a longer revocation sentence with no supervised release to follow. The court's findings are supported by the record and it did not abuse its considerable discretion in weighing the  3553(a) factors as it did. See Rosales-Bruno, 789 F.3d at 1254. Accordingly, we conclude that the court's reasons for imposing a sentence above the advisory guideline range were sufficiently compelling to support the degree of the variance, Williams, 526 F.3d at 1322, and that the chosen sentence was not outside the range of reasonable sentences dictated by the facts of the case, see Shaw, 560 F.3d at 1238.

For these reasons, we affirm Jones's sentence.

AFFIRMED.

FOOTNOTES

. In Tapia v. United States, 564 U.S. 319, 326 (2001), the Supreme Court stated in dicta that a court may not take account of retribution (the first purpose listed in  3553(a)(2)) when imposing a term of supervised release under  3583(c), which lists the same  3553(a) factors as  3583(e). In Vandergrift, we found that this statement, to the extent it was binding for the initial decision to impose a term of supervised release, was not binding in the context of imposing a sentence of imprisonment upon revocation of a term of supervised release. 754 F.3d at 1308 n.3.

. Indeed, on this record, are we not convinced that the district court even erred, much less plainly so. Although the court cited Jones's lack of respect for the law, which mirrors one of the factors in  3553(a)(2)(A), the court's comments could just as easily be construed as reflecting its intent to punish Jones's breach of trust. After all, the primary goal in sentencing a defendant upon revocation of supervised release, according to the Sentencing Guidelines, is to sanction the defendant's breach of trust. U.S.S.G. Ch. 7, Pt. A, intro. cmt. 3(b). And the fact that a defendant, shortly after release from confinement, goes back to committing the exact same type of criminal conduct that led to her confinement in the first place seems to us a relevant and proper factor for a court to consider when evaluating the extent of the breach. It also speaks to the defendant's history and characteristics and the need for deterrence, two factors which undisputedly may be considered during revocation proceedings. See 18 U.S.C.  3583(e).

PER CURIAM:The Maharashtra government today ordered a probe into inadequate compensation awarded to an elderly farmer who committed suicide while protesting over the payout given to him for a plot of land.

Mumbai: The Maharashtra government on Tuesday ordered a probe into inadequate compensation awarded to an elderly farmer who committed suicide while protesting over the payout given to him for a plot of land.

Chief Secretary Sumit Mullick will probe the circumstances under which the farmer, Dharma Patil, died, state Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said after a cabinet meeting.

The 84-year-old resident of Dhule, North Maharashtra, consumed a poisonous chemical at the state secretariat here on 22 January and died at a government hospital on Sunday night.

He was protesting against inadequate compensation for a plot of land acquired by the government for a project in Vikharan, Dhule district.

Shiv Sena minister Diwakar Raote raised the issue in the cabinet meeting here and blamed the previous Congress-NCP government for Patil's death.

Raote said if the previous Congress-NCP government had committed mistakes while awarding compensation to farmers in Vikharan, there was no need for the present dispensation to repeat those mistakes.

"We know the Congress government had finalised the amount of compensation and it was disbursed in our tenure. Thus, the previous government (led by Congress) should be held responsible for the death of Dharma Patil and for not resolving his grievances," Raote told reporters here.

"However, our ministers have been trying to protect the officials who actually are responsible for the whole issue," he added.

Raote said the need of the hour was to take corrective steps and provide relief to farmers whose land had been acquired for a power project in Dhule district. This will ensure such incidents are not repeated.

Mungantiwar said the chief secretary has been asked to submit a report at the cabinet meet next week. The government will take strict action against officials found guilty in the investigation.

The chief secretary will probe why Patil was awarded a meagre compensation. Besides other things, he has also been asked to probe if agents are active to "manage officials" to receive higher compensation from the government, official sources said.Maharashtra government on Tuesday approved a proposal to provide sanitary napkins at a subsidised rate of Rs 5 to women in rural areas.

Mumbai: In a major decision, the Maharashtra government on Tuesday approved a proposal to provide sanitary napkins at a subsidised rate of Rs 5 to women in rural areas.

The decision, aimed at promoting hygiene among menstruating girls and women, was taken at the state Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

Women and Child Development Minister Pankaja Munde said the decision would be effectively implemented from International Women's Day, which falls on 8 March.

"The use of sanitary pads (among girls and women) stands at around 17 percent due to high costs. It has also been noticed that girls remain absent for 50-60 days a year during their menstrual cycles. Thus, along with health, absenteeism was also an issue," Munde told reporters in Mumbai.

She said the subsidised sanitary napkin scheme would be implemented through Women Self Help Groups (SHGs).

"Along with the distribution of sanitary pads, they (SHGs) would also disseminate information on personal hygiene, health, and education to rural women. Thus, even employment opportunities would be created in women SHGs," the minister said.As the death toll in the Shopian firing rose to three on Wednesday, the Indian Army filed an FIR countering the one previously filed by the Jammu and Kashmir government

The Indian Army filed a counter FIR in the Shopian firing even as the death toll in the incident rose to three on Wednesday, ANI reported.

Indian Army files a counter FIR in Shopian incident in which two civilians were killed in army firing on 27 January; one more civilian succumbed to his injuries earlier today #JammuAndKashmir  ANI (@ANI) January 31, 2018

This comes days after the Mehbooba Mufti government filed an FIR against the army. On Sunday, the police registered the FIR under sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) against the personnel of the army's 10 Garhwal unit. The major, who reportedly led the army personnel at the time of the incident, was also mentioned in the FIR. The army has maintained that the personnel fired in self-defence. ANI quoted Northern Command Lieutenant General D Anbu as saying: "Everything will come out in investigation. Not withstanding what state government did, we did our own inquiry and are clear that we responded when we were provoked to the ultimate," he said, according to ANI.

That is an unfortunate thing, in such a case a generic FIR should have been filed. I think they have prematurely put the name of an individual, I am sure when they investigate truth will come out: Lt Gen D.Anbu, Commander Northern Command on FIR in Shopian Army firing case pic.twitter.com/E6BqCP0lbI  ANI (@ANI) January 31, 2018

Meanwhile, the united Hurriyat leadership announced a march in Shopian on Friday to protest the death of civillians.

JRL Protest march at #JamaMasjid today against Shopian killing of civilians by Indian forces.while Geelani Sb &myself continue to be under #HouseArrest,YasinSb managed to lead the protest,JRL protest rally &dharana to be held at ShopianChowk on FridayAgainst the gruesome killings pic.twitter.com/5AA4fR1HUk  Mirwaiz Umar Farooq (@MirwaizKashmir) January 31, 2018

Two youths, Javaid Ahmad and Suhail Ahmad, were killed and nine others were injured after army on Saturday reportedly fired on a mob targeting a convoy at Ganovpora in Shopian. Ahmad, 19, who was injured in the firing, died on Wednesday.

While the BJP has demanded the FIR against the army be withdrawn, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said the investigation into the deaths of the civilians would be taken to its "logical conclusion".

A magisterial probe was also ordered by the state government. PTI quoted army sources as saying that the major mentioned in the state government's FIR was not present at the spot of the incident.

"The major was not present at the site of the incident. He was around 200 metres away from it... He was in the vicinity of the spot," a source told PTI.

Jammu and Kashmir Police chief SP Vaid said on Monday that registration of the FIR naming the major was just the beginning of the investigation and the army's version would be taken into account as well.

With inputs from agenciesExternal Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is slated to travel to Kathmandu on Thursday to discuss issues of 'mutual interest' with top Nepal leaders just days ahead of the formation of a new government.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is slated to travel to Kathmandu on Thursday to discuss issues of "mutual interest" with top Nepal leaders just days ahead of the formation of a new government.

According to a report in The Times of India, Swaraj is scheduled to meet Sher Bahadur Deuba, KP Oli, Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda and call on President Bidya Bhandari. Her two-day trip comes as part of an attempt to reset relations with Nepal, which have been strained for some time, made worse by a recent argument over boundary pillars and encroachment on the no man's land between the two countries, according to the report.

Complicating matters is the ascendance of Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) chief KP Oli, who is widely regarded as Nepal's next prime minister after the Left Alliance's (Oli's CPN-UML and CPN-Maoist headed by Prachanda) victory at the polls. This development was viewed as something of a setback for India given that Oli had publicly criticised New Delhi for interfering in Nepal's internal matters and accused it of toppling his government last year.

Dipanjan Roy Choudhary, writing in The Economic Times, said Swaraj's visit comes after months of effort by India to re-establish its special position in the Himalayan State after China has been expanding its Nepal presence. Following Narendra Modi's telephonic conversation with Oli immediately after his re-election, several high-level contacts were established between Delhi and Kathmandu which culminating in the visit, Choudhary wrote.

And according to a report in Hindustan Times, this has paid off with Oli recently striking a more conciliatory tone in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of Republic Day: "As one of the recently elected peoples representatives and leader of the largest party in the Federal Parliament, I am eager to work together with Excellency and your government for the betterment of our two countries." Oli, who has been a vocal critic of New Delhi's policies following the blockade along the southern border with India, wrote that he expected "further close cooperation between our two countries and the people" according to the Hindustan Times report.

However, it may be far too early for India to celebrate. As an editorial in the South China Morning Post correctly pointed out, the Left Alliance shares an ideological affinity with community China and both Oli and Dahal have a personal equation with top Chinese leaders and party officials. Dahal even eschewed the tradition of visiting India after taking office and selected China as his first port of call in August 2008. And Oli has been bullish on China while he was in high office, signing multiple deals, including trade and transit, when he visited Beijing in March 2016, according to the report.

Harsh V Pant, writing in The Diplomat, acknowledges India's tricky balancing act. "The blockade along the India-Nepal border due to the Madhesi crisis angered a large part of the Nepalese population, allowing China to step in as an alternative to India by providing not only internet access but also alternative trade routes," Pant wrote. "Nepals economy has been ailing since the earthquake of 2015 as its reliance on aid and remittances remains at an all-time high. Chinas attraction under such circumstances is quite natural."

India will have to be careful not to be seen as playing big brother to Nepal and keeping a watchful eye on any further possible moves by Kathmandu to move closer to China.

With inputs from PTIRescue workers on Monday fished out the body of the passenger of the ill-fated government bus that fell into a canal in Murshidabad taking the toll in the tragedy to 43.

Baharampur: Rescue workers on Monday fished out the body of the passenger of the ill-fated government bus that fell into a canal in Murshidabad taking the toll in the tragedy to 43.

Search is on for more bodies as relatives of about five missing persons have sought help apprehending that they may have boarded the bus and the exact number of passengers is yet to be known, a senior district official told PTI.

Bodies of 42 passengers were fished out and eight injured others were rescued from the Gogra canal at Balirghat area of the district after the bus fell into it early on Monday morning.

So far, 40 bodies have been identified and the eight injured are undergoing treatment at the Murshidabad Medical College, the official said.

"Search operations will continue till we are convinced that no bodies are stuck in the river bed. But it is quite difficult to search for bodies as it is quite dark and cold underneath the water," he said.

The state government has already handed over the compensation package of Rs five lakh to the next of kin of each of those killed and Rs one lakh for those gravely injured. Other injured would get a compensation of Rs 50,000.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has ordered an inspection of the bridge from which the bus fell into the canal.

Meanwhile, the state government has decided to ban drivers of state-run buses from using mobiles while driving, following the bus tragedy.

The decision was taken following a reported statement by a couple of passengers of the ill-fated bus who claimed that the driver was talking over his mobile phone while driving and lost control over the vehicle.Hyderabad's police system was formally ordained in 1847, but evidence of its existence during the reign of Nizams in the 18th century has been found | #FirstCulture

Did you know that the first documented evidence of policing in India was recorded in one of Sanskrits most prodigious literary works? Sudrakas Mrichchakatika, written in the fifth century or Kalidasas Abhijnana Shakuntalam believed to be written between the first and fourth centuries were the first pieces of literature to speak about a police system in ancient India.

While our greatest epics the Ramayana and Mahabharata provide very little information about the policing measures of the era when they were written, Chankayas seminal work Arthashastra describes at length the police system prevailing at the time. Communal peace, espionage, retributive justice, watch and ward were the most important duties of the police, and commissioners were called Nagara Pala or Kota Pala, meaning guardian of the city.

Noopur Kumar, author of the newly released book Journey of the Hyderabad City Police, discovers many fascinating nuggets of information about the policing system prevalent in India in ancient times, apart from chronicling the journey of the police force in the 400-year-old city of Hyderabad.

The scope of the book

Journey of the Hyderabad City Police is a treasure trove of information about all things related to the city police and gives details about the Kotwals of the Qutb Shahi Era (started in 1518) to the city police under the Nizams (from 1713) and gives us a peek into the legendary figures of Hyderabad Police like Raja Venkatrama Reddy, who served as Kotwal for 14 years starting from 1920, to Nawab Deen Yar Jung Bahadur who is credited for revamping the police department in 1944.

The author confesses that she was skeptical about writing a book on an unfamiliar subject and started exhaustive research, which included combing the State archives, private collections and the library at the National Police Academy for details. Speaking about her discoveries, she said, The ancient texts speak a lot about the police structure, but the Mughals really used the concept of the Kotwal (commissioner) to the best use for maintaining law and order. Speaking specifically about Hyderabad, though sadly there isnt much information about the reign of the Qutb Shahi kings, the Nizams and especially Sir Salarjung I, the Prime Minister of the sixth Nizam who adopted the British arrangement of policing created a structured police force unknown to Hyderabad.

Anjani Kumar, the co-author of the book and Additional Commissioner of Police, Law and Order, Hyderabad City, says that a lot of changes have taken place after the Telangana state was formed and the book captures that transformation. He adds, Hyderabad is a unique state which encompasses both traditional and modern elements. The old city is different from the newer parts where IT Parks have sprung up, and policing is changing with the times. Kumar, a former student of history from Delhi University, calls writing the rekindling of an old passion, and the book has a mix of both his personal and professional interests.

The Hyderabad City Police is one of the oldest in the country, when it was formally ordained in 1847, though there is evidence of its existence earlier. Only Chennai predates it, going back to 1659, while it took shape in Kolkata only in 1856.

A look into the past

The Nizams, who ruled the city from 1713 till India achieved Independence, had a structured police force consisting of irregular troops comripising Rohillas, Sikhs, Sowars, Nizamats and village servants to perform the duties. The structure was revamped in 1865-66, and since then the Kotwal was appointed to maintain order.

A privileged position, the Kotwal had direct access to the Nizam and was given immense importance in the durbar. In 1901 a police training school was established, and in 1906 a number of buildings were constructed to house the chowki (police station) and outposts.

Noopur Kumar says that the Kotwal had an important duty to play during the reign of the Nizams. "He was chosen from the nobility and was a trusted aide of the Nizam. Because the place was communally sensitive, the Kotwal had a defined role and far-reaching powers.

Modern day innovations

What makes the book relevant is the clear information given about the inner workings of the modern day duties of the police  whether it is traffic management, their use of technology, automation, training personnel in soft skills and monitoring crime, including analysing CCTV camera footage.

While most of the core workings of the police are similar to what Chankaya outlined in Arthashastra, the penetration of the Internet has expanded its scope, which include tackling crimes ranging from cyber bullying and fraud to being an instrument of policing online.

Kumar has interviewed 12 ex-commissioners of the city for the book. She explains that technology has changed the way the police functions, I think the police today have incorporated technology into their daily routine. From body-worn cameras to updating traffic jams on Facebook, they are very tech-savvy. The video wall in the commissioners office is connected to the entire city. The facilities are state of art.

Through her research, the author dug out interesting information, such as the fact that the city today has 1,00,000 cameras or that up until the late 70s, Hyderabad only has 3 traffic lights  at Abids, MJ Market and Secunderabad!

Anjani Kumar says that every aspect of the modern day living has an imprint of police. The reach and penetration of the police today is very wide. Hawk Eye, the app launched by the police, empowers every citizen and we have an exclusive app, HYDCOP, for internal use. The police department has been at the forefront of modernisation.

As a story told through pictures

What makes the book appealing is the usage of images, both archival and new, to take the story forward. From images of policemen from over a century ago (from the archives of Chowmahalla and Falaknuma Palaces) to the many candid shots which capture the police personnel in their everyday environment, the pictures bring the story to life.

The man behind the pictures, D Ravinder Reddy who is one of the citys most popular photographers, reveals that he has submitted over 20,000 pictures for the book, out of which a little over 200 were used. Reddy says that his concern was to ensure that the pictures were interesting, considering that the subject was serious. My only challenge was to make the book visually appealing. We took a lot of candid shots and captured the police at work. Apart from using just shots of people, we captured events in Hyderabad like the Bonalu and Bathukamma festivals where the police form an important part in maintaining order. Both the police and the city they protect have been showcased in the book, he says.

Presenting a different dimension

Policing in India is mostly a thankless job with the common perception of abuse of power and intimidation. The book presents a more humane side to the people in uniform. Kumar says that Hyderabad, a communally sensitive city, wouldnt have been what it is without its police. She says, There is no time for a crime and these people work 24 x 7. Its a hard life and the notion that all police officers are corrupt isnt true. Which system doesnt have its flaws? There is a lot which goes into making a city safe, and these people are integral to it.

Anjani Kumar disagrees that its a thankless job. People always had trust in the institution. There is a cop in every citizen too, and we want this inner cop to come to the fore so that it is mutually beneficial to society.

The difference between regular policing seen through the centuries and now is the importance given to the handling of cyber crimes. With the city of Hyderabad currently building a state-of-the-art multi-agency operation center on the lines of the best command centers in the world, the Hyderabad Police aims to tackle cyber crimes deftly.The internal churning in the ruling AIADMK post its defeat in the RK Nagar bypoll continued on Wednesday, with top leaders O Panneerselvam and K Palaniswamy cracking the whip against dissidents in four districts.

Chennai: The internal churning in the ruling AIADMK post its defeat in the RK Nagar bypoll continued on Wednesday, with top leaders O Panneerselvam and K Palaniswamy cracking the whip against dissidents in four districts.

Panneerselvam, AIADMK coordinator, and Co-coordinator Palaniswamy announced the expulsion of 123 office-bearers of the party's units in Tiruchirappalli, Erode, Vellore and Ramanathapuram for bringing 'disrepute' to the organisation.

The Tiruchirappalli Rural unit topped the list, with 106 office-bearers being shown the door by the two leaders.

The others were from Vellore West, Erode Rural and Ramanathapuram districts.

In a joint statement, Panneerselvam and Palaniswamy said these persons were being expelled from AIADMK for "acting in contravention to the party's policies and ideals," and for "bringing disrepute" to it.

They were being expelled from all their present posts, besides from the party's primary membership, the two leaders said.

They asked party workers to not to have any truck with expelled members.

Palaniswamy and Panneerselvam, who merged the factions led by them in August 2017, had last month warned of action against those who go against the party line, following its loss in the 21 December RK Nagar Assembly bypoll which was won by sidelined party leader TTV Dhinakaran.

They had earlier too expelled a number of functionaries, while stripping some of the key aides of Dhinakaran of party posts.

The party had on Tuesday removed its Coimbatore Lok Sabha MP AP Nagarajan from a key party post, while expelling more than 150 office bearers there and in Kancheepuram district.Congress president Rahul Gandhi's attire at a party-organised concert in poll-bound Meghalaya has become a topic of political debate now.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi's attire at a party-organised concert in poll-bound Meghalaya has become a topic of political debate now.

Gandhi was dressed in blue denim trousers and a black jacket as he attended the concert on Tuesday.

He barely spoke for five minutes at the 'Festival of Peace' concert as he listened to the musical bands enthralling the 4,000-plus crowd.

However, BJP's Meghalaya unit lashed out at Gandhi's attire and shared two images on Twitter, one showing Gandhi interacting with people at the venue and the other showing specifics of a Burberry jacket, whose price the party claimed was around Rs 63,400.

BJP used Gandhi's 'suit-boot ki sarkar' remark made earlier against the prime minister to target the Congress president.

So @OfficeOfRG , soot(pun intended!)-boot ki sarkar with black money fleeced from Meghalayan State exchequer by rampant corruption? Instead of singing away our woes, you could have given a report card of your inefficient govt in Meghalaya! Your indifference mocks us! pic.twitter.com/sRvj5eoyRb  BJP Meghalaya (@BJP4Meghalaya) January 30, 2018

Meanwhile, Congress' defence of its president's attire was equally bizarre. While Congress leader Renuka Chaudhary said that a similar looking jacket (perhaps a close copy of the branded piece) could be easily procured at a much cheaper price, Meghalaya chief minister Mukul Sangma said that Gandhi wore a branded jacket because, well, youth in Meghalaya do that too. And the Congress president was only trying to connect to the youth.

Besides, Times Now reported that Rahul has said that he had borrowed a jacket for the occasion.

Responding to BJP's barbs, Chaudhari said that she could produce the same jacket for "Rs 700 instead of Rs 70,000", reported NDTV.

"They auctioned Modi's jacket for crores...These are the same people who are talking about Rahul's jacket?" the report quoted her as saying.

CNN-News 18 reported that Sangma chose to defend Gandhi's sartorial choices by saying that it was only a move to connect with the youth of Meghalaya, who the chief minister said are also fond of branded jackets.

Congress has been in power in Meghalaya for nearly 15 years and the BJP this time is hopeful of dethroning the grand old party.

Although the BJP has never had a significant stronghold in the state, the party, riding on confidence after sweeping several Assembly polls in the country recently, is targeting the incumbent Congress government's alleged policy paralysis, corruption and ignorance towards development work.

At the concert, Gandhi had said, "We are strongest when we stand together in our diversity. India's strength is our diverse culture and different languages, different ways of thinking."

Gandhi urged the youths to love and respect each other to make the country strong.

"When we fight each other and spread hatred, we are not strengthening our country but weakening it and disrespecting our people, our past and our future," he said.

Asking the people to be proud of their heritage, language and religion, the Congress president said, "We are all proud of you and we will defend your way of thinking".

Stating that every single person from all states has a space in the country, he noted, "Their dreams and aspirations are equally important, no matter how small or big a state is".

With inputs from PTIPrithviraj Chavan said if the Shiv Sena wanted to join hands with the anti-BJP parties, it would have to first snap its ties with the NDA and quit power.

Aurangabad: Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan on Tuesday said if the Shiv Sena wanted to join hands with the anti-BJP parties, it would have to first snap its ties with the NDA and quit power.

The former chief minister indicated the Shiv Sena can have a formal alliance with the Congress, subject to approval by his party's central leadership.

"The Shiv Sena is in power with the BJP today and if it separates and wishes to come with the anti-BJP parties, we would think and a proposal (for alliance) may be sent to the high command in Delhi," he told reporters.

Chavan was in Aurangabad in central Maharashtra to attend a party convention.

The Sena, the oldest constituent of the NDA, recently announced that it would contest the 2019 Maharashtra assembly and Lok Sabha elections on its own.

The Uddhav Thackeray-led party is currently part of the BJP-led governments at the Centre and in Maharashtra.

Chavan said all parties which are against the Sangh ideology should come together to defeat the BJP.

"All parties which share anti-Sangh ideology should come together in the forthcoming elections. This would make it easy to defeat the BJP."

"In May 2014 elections, only 31 percent of the electorate voted for the BJP, while the secular and anti-RSS votes got divided. This enabled the BJP to record a thumping majority (in the Lok Sabha polls)," the former Union minister said.

Replying to a question, he said in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Shiv Sena was in alliance with the BJP but it fought the Assembly polls in Maharashtra, held later the same year, alone.

"Some days ago, the Shiv Sena declared it would go alone in the upcoming elections."

"But I personally feel Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Maharashtra Chief Minister (Devendra Fadnavis) and other (BJP) leaders would not let that happen," Chavan said.

However, state unit Congress president Ashok Chavan said there was no possibility of a tie-up between his party and the Shiv Sena, considered ideologically rival outfits.

"There are no chances of the Congress and the Sena joining hands in Maharashtra in the coming days," he said in Satara in Western Maharashtra.Former Karnataka minister BS Anand Singh, who recently quit BJP and tendered his resignation from the state Legislative Assembly, on Wednesday joined the Congress ahead of Assembly polls.

Bengaluru: Former Karnataka minister BS Anand Singh, who recently quit BJP and tendered his resignation from the state Legislative Assembly, on Wednesday joined the Congress ahead of Assembly polls.

Singh along with his supporters joined the party at the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee office in the presence of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, party state President G Parameshwara, campaign committee chief and minister DK Shivakumar.

After quitting BJP, Singh had said he was fed up with the "squabbling and bickering" in the party.

Speaking to reporters, Singh said he has joined the Congress accepting its principles, and that the party represents the country's future.

"In the coming days, I will work towards winning all the nine seats in the district for Congress," he said.

Siddaramaiah said Singh has left BJP and joined the Congress as there was "no place for secular principles there."

Singh represented Vijayanagara Assembly constituency in Ballari district.United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. SARONTAY DEON BANKS, Defendant-Appellant. No. 17-1167 Decided: January 30, 2018

BEFORE: SUHRHEINRICH, GRIFFIN, and THAPAR, Circuit Judges.

Defendant Sarontay Banks belonged to a Detroit-based crew that robbed a Massachusetts jewelry store. For his part, Banks stole a getaway vehicle and waited outside while two other men ran into the store, smashed several glass cases with a sledgehammer, and took fifteen Rolex watches. Banks pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act robbery in violation of 18 U.S.C.  1951(a).

The district court sentenced him as a career offender to 151 months in prison (a term at the bottom of the applicable Guidelines range), three years of supervised release, and $85,668 in restitution. Banks challenges that sentence on several grounds. Because Banks has forfeited his lynchpin Guidelines-calculation claim that Hobbs Act robbery does not qualify as a crime of violence, and because his remaining arguments lack merit, we affirm.

I.

Defendant maintains two Guidelines-calculation challenges. His primary contention is that the district court erroneously sentenced him as a career offender under the Guidelines because the instant offense is not a crime of violence. He qualifies as a career offender if the instant felony offense and at least two of his prior felony convictions count as either crimes of violence or controlled-substance offenses. USSG  4B1.1(a). And Hobbs Act robbery qualifies as a crime of violence if it has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another, or if it is an offense listed in USSG  4B1.2(a)(2). See id.  4B1.2(a).

Banks failed to develop this argument, so we consider it forfeited. See United States v. Brown, 819 F.3d 800, 829 (6th Cir. 2016). He does not address why Hobbs Act robbery would not qualify under the enumerated-offenses clause, which includes robbery and extortion. See USSG  4B1.2(a)(2). Although he asserts without exposition that Hobbs Act robbery can be accomplished without using force capable of causing physical harm, see USSG  4B1.2(a)(1), Defendant acknowledges that we rejected this argument in United States v. Gooch, 850 F.3d 285, 29092 (6th Cir. 2017) and United States v. Tibbs, 685 F. App'x 456, 46465 (6th Cir. 2017). He observes that those cases involved firearms and analyzed the question under 18 U.S.C.  924(c) rather than the Guidelines, but he does not address any differences between the statutory and the Guidelines crime-of-violence definitions, or otherwise explain why Gooch and Tibbs are not dispositive here. Such conclusory assertions are no substitute for developed argumentation.

Banks also argues it was error to increase his offense level pursuant to USSG  2B3.1(b)(2)(D) for otherwise us[ing] the sledgehammer during the robbery. But the alleged error, if any, was harmless. The offense level calculations made based on the Guidelines applicable to the instant offense did not ultimately determine Banks's sentencing range. Those Guidelines established Banks's base offense level as 20, which was then adjusted to 26 after four levels were added for using the sledgehammer, and another two for the attempted loss amount. His final offense level of 29 was calculated independently based on Banks's career offender status, which required a base offense level of 32. See USSG  4B1.1(b)(3). Because Banks's offense level as a career offender was greater than the otherwise-applicable adjusted offense level of 26, it controlled. See id.  4B1.1(b). The district court plainly chose its sentence based on Banks's career offender status; thus we need not remand because it may have erred in calculating Banks's offense level under Guidelines that did not control. See Williams v. United States, 503 U.S. 193, 203 (1992).

II.

Defendant also claims that his sentence is both procedurally and substantively unreasonable. We review reasonableness challenges for abuse of discretion. United States v. Kamper, 748 F.3d 728, 739 (6th Cir. 2014). We find that Banks's within-Guidelines sentence is reasonable.

A.

We first consider whether the district court committed significant procedural error, such as  failing to consider the  3553(a) factors[.] Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007). Banks argues that the district court so erred by failing to consider whether his criminal history was overrepresented, or whether there was a disparity between his Guidelines range and those of his co-defendants, and by basing its sentence on a general perception of the risk a smash-and-grab robbery poses rather than on the circumstances of the instant offense. We address each argument in turn.

Banks is correct that the district court did not expressly address whether his criminal history was overrepresented even though he asked the district court to vary below the career offender Guidelines range. A district court cannot ignore a defendant's non-frivolous arguments, but we may assume, even absent express analysis by the judge, that the sentence reflects consideration of the argument where a defendant presents issues that are conceptually straightforward[.] United States v. Simmons, 587 F.3d 348, 361 (6th Cir. 2009).

Here, as the government emphasized and the presentence investigation report (PSR) detailed, thirty-year-old Banks had already been convicted five separate times for drug trafficking offenses, once for larceny from a motor vehicle, and once for armed robbery. The government elaborated that the larceny and armed robbery convictions involved dangerous conduct including a flight from police and Banks pointing a gun at a victim's stomach. Moreover, the government noted, defendant had absconded from supervision twice in the past, had 27 misconducts in prison, and had [n]ew criminal history almost every time [he had been] on probation. Banks's defense counsel gave no substantive response other than to assert that his client had not dealt drugs on the scale the government would have the Court believe[,] had always quickly admitted his guilt once apprehended, and had apologize[d] for his record rather than avoid it.

The issue of Banks's criminal history was thus squarely before the district court, and it concluded that the career offender Guideline range was applicable and appropriate. It stated that defendant had continuously g[otten] into trouble, and very serious trouble that jeopardize[d] not only himself, but [also the] community. Specifically, the district court noted that defendant once joined a horrible flight from police that endangered both civilians and law enforcement, and that his prior conviction for armed robbery was a very, very serious offense. And Banks, said the district court judge, had never been successful either in prison or under supervision. The district court continued that although defendant had suffered a terrible childhood, that did not excuse his criminal record because he had been afforded prior opportunities to remedy the effects of his upbringing.

Banks argued at length that he was finally ready to change and that he had a support system in place to facilitate a peaceful and productive transition back into the community. The district court noted, however, that defendant had promised to change his ways before. According to the district court, a Guidelines sentence was thus still appropriate because Banks's actions to date showed no respect for the law. Because the instant offense was extremely serious, and Banks had not been deterred by previous penalties or promises to change, the district court concluded that its sentence must be sufficient to deter defendant and others from future criminal activity and thus protect the community. Accordingly, the district court found that the career offender Guidelines were necessary, and that they adequately deal[t] with [Banks] without overly penalizing him.

The district court's remarks are logically responsive to defendant's conceptually straightforward argument that his criminal history was overrepresented and he thus deserved the variance he was requesting. See Simmons, 587 F.3d at 361. Had the district court agreed with Banks's characterization of his past criminal conduct, it would not have emphasized how he had continually broken the law in serious ways, nor would it have chosen a career offender Guidelines sentence. An obvious implication of the district court's decision is that, given Banks's serious criminal conduct and chronic recidivism, a below-Guidelines sentence would have provided neither adequate deterrence nor adequate public protection. The district court's rationale was thus clear from the context and the record, and reflected its considered rejection of Banks's overrepresentation argument. United States v. Chiolo, 643 F.3d 177, 184 (6th Cir. 2011). The district court's failure to expressly address that argument therefore does not make its sentence procedurally unreasonable. Id.

Nor is defendant's sentence procedurally unreasonable even though the district court did not expressly address the disparity between his Guidelines range and those applicable to his co-defendants. Banks argued that a reasonable sentence for him would be consistent with those imposed on his co-defendants. A district court must consider unwarranted sentence disparities among defendants with similar records who have been found guilty of similar conduct. 18 U.S.C.  3553(a)(6). Although a district court may exercise its discretion and determine a defendant's sentence in light of a co-defendant's sentence, it is not required to do so under  3553(a)(6). Simmons, 501 F.3d 620, 624 (6th Cir. 2007).

And in any event, as the government emphasized, Banks alone is a career offender. Thus, Banks and his co-defendants were not similarly-situated within the meaning of  3553(a)(6). See United States v. Thomas, 395 F. App'x 168, 175 (6th Cir. 2010). The Guidelines ranges are themselves designed to treat similar offenders similarly. United States v. Elliot, 327 F. App'x 540, 549 (6th Cir. 2009) (quoting United States v. Shrake, 515 F.3d 743, 748 (7th Cir. 2008)). By imposing a Guidelines sentence on Banks so that we have consistency, the district court was logically responsive to Banks's disparity argument.

Finally, defendant argues it was procedurally improper for the district court to base its sentence on the general risk posed by smash-and-grab robberies as opposed to the circumstances of the instant offense. This myopic argument fails for two reasons. First, Banks cites no legal authority prohibiting sentencing courts from considering the potential ramifications of a defendant's illegal conduct. On the contrary,  3553(a) requires district courts to take into account the nature and circumstances of the offense and its seriousness. See 18 U.S.C.  3553(a)(1), (a)(2)(A) (emphasis added); see also United States v. Caraway, 189 F. App'x 460, 463 (6th Cir. 2006) (appropriate for district court to consider the risk to self and others posed by a defendant with a pistol who fled from police).

Second, defendant specifies nothing in the record that indicates the district court based Banks's actual sentence on any such generalized perceptions. Banks was the fourth defendant the district court judge had sentenced for the instant offense. And although Banks asserts otherwise, the district court confirmed (after some initial confusion) that it had previously watched the security video of the specific robbery in which Banks participated. Moreover, the district judge had read the PSR, sentencing memoranda, and the letters submitted by Banks and by others on his behalf. The district court was thus well-aware of the facts specific to Banks's case, and stated that it had considered the nature and circumstances of the offense in crafting a sentence. This argument also fails.

In imposing a procedurally reasonable sentence, the sentencing judge must provide an explanation sufficient to satisfy the appellate court that he has considered the parties' arguments and has a reasoned basis for exercising his own legal decisionmaking authority. Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338, 356 (2007); United States v. Bolds, 511 F.3d 568, 580 (6th Cir. 2007). Because the district court met its obligations here, we find no procedural error.

B.

Defendant's sentence is also substantively reasonable. A district court imposes a substantively unreasonable sentence by selecting the sentence arbitrarily,  failing to consider pertinent  3553(a) factors, or giving an unreasonable amount of weight to any pertinent factor. United States v. Webb, 403 F.3d 373, 385 (6th Cir. 2005) (footnotes omitted). We presume Banks's bottom-of-the-Guidelines-range sentence is reasonable. United States v. Vonner, 516 F.3d 382, 38990 (6th Cir. 2008) (en banc).

Banks's procedural and substantive arguments largely overlap. Here, he similarly faults the district court for placing too much weight on his criminal history, and argues that his sentence is greater than necessary because the district court did not conduct an individualized inquiry. As detailed above, defendant is correct that the district court stressed his past criminal conduct and recidivism as significant factors in its sentencing decision. Given the nature and extent of Banks's criminal history in light of his relatively young age, this concern was not undue; it was a valid reason for imposing a Guidelines sentence. A district court does not commit reversible error simply by attach[ing] great weight to a single factor. Gall, 552 U.S. at 57. Indeed, [n]ot all [ 3553(a) factors] are important in every sentencing; often one or two prevail, while others pale. United States v. Bridgewater, 479 F.3d 439, 442 (6th Cir. 2007).

A full review of the sentencing record shows that the district court considered the other pertinent factors in crafting a sentence sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to comply with the purposes of  3553(a) in this case. Specifically, the district court weighed Banks's personal history and characteristics including his criminal history, difficult childhood, family support, addiction issues, past efforts to reform, and his renewed commitment to rehabilitation against the seriousness of the instant offense, and the need to avoid sentencing disparities, deter future criminal activity, promote respect for the law, and protect the public. Moreover, the district court recommended placement in an institution that would afford defendant an opportunity for mental health and drug treatment, and vocational training. To the extent the court did not provide a detailed discussion of all of Banks's mitigating circumstances, a sentencing judge is not required to explicitly address every mitigating argument that a defendant makes[.] United States v. Madden, 515 F.3d 601, 611 (6th Cir. 2008).

Defendant has failed to rebut the presumption that his sentence was reasonable. The district court may not have weighed the  3553(a) factors as Banks wanted, but that does not compel the conclusion that it imposed his sentence arbitrarily or ignored his arguments for greater leniency. See United States v. Houston, 813 F.3d 282, 296 (6th Cir. 2016). We find no abuse of discretion.

III.

Banks maintains that the district court also erred in imposing certain special conditions of supervised release for a three-year term. Specifically, defendant takes issue with being unable to: (1) incur new debt or open new lines of credit without the approval of probation; (2) join or associate with a group oriented toward a criminal purpose, with known gang members, or own or wear clothing that could signify such affiliation; or (3) spend his money on new tattoos or piercings. Banks also challenges the requirement that he (4) obtain his General Educational Development (GED) certificate. We generally respect [a district court's] imposition of supervised-release conditions in the absence of an abuse of discretion. United States v. Shultz, 733 F.3d 616, 619 (6th Cir. 2013).

A.

A district court errs procedurally in imposing special conditions of supervised release if it fails to state in open court its rationale for mandating them. United States v. Doyle, 711 F.3d 729, 733 (6th Cir. 2013). But any omission is harmless error where the rationale for a condition is discernable from the record as a whole. Id. at 73334.

Banks argues that the district court did not give any rationale for imposing certain release conditions and that no such rationale is discernable from the record. The district court's imposition of supervised release immediately followed its imposition of Banks's sentence of incarceration. When the district court imposed the conditions of supervised release, it did not repeat its explanation for Banks's prison sentence. But as Banks acknowledges, we do not require unnecessarily duplicative discussion where the special conditions of supervised release logically flow from the reasons given for imposing a sentence of incarceration. See United States v. Zobel, 696 F.3d 558, 572 (6th Cir. 2012).

In discussing the  3553(a) factors and its reasons for imposing defendant's prison sentence, the district court was also discussing its rationale for imposing the conditions of supervised release. See id. The district court's remarks reveal its serious concern with Banks's criminal history and recidivism, deterring Banks from committing more crimes, and thus protecting the public; but also with facilitating Banks's desire to rehabilitate himself. Given defendant's prior gang affiliation, and his history of committing crimes with others (including larceny, armed robbery, and the instant offense), barring him from associating with gang members or displaying any reasonably construable sign of gang affiliation would address these concerns. Moreover, only a slight inference is required to conclude that the district court sought to ensure Banks's ability to make restitution payments by prohibiting him from incurring new debt or opening new lines of credit without prior approval, or from spending his money on nonessentials like tattoos and piercings. The same is true for the GED requirement, a condition that addresses Banks's rehabilitation, ability to pay restitution, and his recidivist history by helping to ensure his future employability through necessary educational training.

The sentencing factors discussed by the district court are thus relevant to the special conditions of supervised release, and make the basis of its decision sufficiently clear on the record to permit reasonable appellate review. United States v. Presto, 498 F.3d 415, 419 (6th Cir. 2007) (internal quotation marks omitted). Accordingly, to the extent that the district court judge could have given a more explicit explanation for imposing each condition, any error is harmless. Doyle, 711 F.3d at 73334. Whether these conditions were in fact warranted is a question of substantive reasonableness, to which we now turn.

B.

For sentences of supervised release, a non-mandatory condition must: (1) be reasonably related to a sentencing factor like the nature and circumstances of the offense or the history and characteristics of the defendant, (2) involve[ ] no greater deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary to serve a sentencing purpose such as deterrence, protecting the public, or providing educational training, and (3) be consistent with any pertinent policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission. United States v. Carter, 463 F.3d 526, 529 (6th Cir. 2006) (quoting 18 U.S.C.  3583(d)(1)(3)). [A] condition need not satisfy every single factor and purpose within each of the first two requirements. Id.

Defendant develops no argument regarding policy statements. Instead, he challenges the aforementioned special conditions as unrelated to any sentencing factor or purpose, and argues that the three-year term of supervised release therefore constitutes a greater-than-reasonably-necessary deprivation of his liberty. We disagree.

Banks objects to the requirement that he complete his GED as potentially burdensome while also claiming that he has already earned it. Banks must comply only if his GED cannot be verified. And in any event, this condition was imposed in partial response to defendant's own statements that he was determined to better [himself] while incarcerated, and wanted to further his education. When explaining its sentence, the district court referenced Banks's desire to rehabilitate himself and to get out and be able to get a job and to support his family. Ensuring that Banks obtains at least a GED, if he does not in fact already have one, thus addresses the rehabilitative purpose of sentencing and Banks's own professed desire to break from his criminal past. See 18 U.S.C.  3553(a)(2)(D). Not to mention that facilitating his future employability through necessary educational training will help ensure Banks's ability to pay restitution while reducing his risk of recidivism. See id.  3553(a)(1), (a)(2)(C)(D), (a)(7). The district court did not abuse its discretion in imposing this condition.

Defendant also objects to being unable to incur new debt or open new lines of credit without permission, or to spend any money on additional tattoos and piercings. But the instant offense was a robbery that resulted in a monetary loss to the victims and a restitution award. The district court must consider the need to provide restitution to any victims when determining the length and conditions of supervised release. See id.  3583(c); id.  3553(a)(7). Here, the district court was fully aware, via the PSR, of defendant's history of chronic unemployment, lack of assets, and lack of vocational training. See United States v. Weiss, 328 F.3d 414, 41718 (8th Cir. 2003) (condition prohibiting incursion of new debt or new lines of credit was reasonable considering defendant's documented history of unemployment, lack of assets, and restitution order). And the district court observed that Banks had never been productive in terms of his post-jail time, and that he had previously admitted to only want[ing] to earn money so he could buy drugs. The judge later underscored that if [Banks] has any money, he's to make restitution rather than spend it on nonessential tattoos and piercings. In light of its reasonable concerns about Banks's willingness and ability to pay restitution, the district court did not abuse its discretion in imposing these conditions.

Finally, Banks objects to the related conditions that he not join or associate with any group oriented toward a criminal purpose, with known gang members, or possess, wear, or display clothing bearing large insignias. Although defendant asserts that he is no longer a member of a gang, his defense counsel argued at sentencing that his client's recidivism was due in large part to defendant returning to the same community and being around the same associates every time he had been released before. Those associates, according to Banks's lawyer, encouraged Banks to continue leading a life of crime. Indeed, Banks committed the instant offense, as well as larceny and armed robbery, with others.

Defense counsel asserted that his client was now ready to get away from the situation that fostered this entire criminal lifestyle[.] Therefore, preventing Banks from once again falling in with any associates upon release, and from owning or displaying any construable sign of such affiliation including certain types of clothing, are conditions reasonably related to Banks's criminal history and to breaking his cycle of recidivism. See 18 U.S.C.  3583(d)(1); id.  3553(a)(1). In curbing any such affiliations, these conditions serve the sentencing purposes of deterring future criminal conduct and thus protecting the public. See 18 U.S.C.  3583(d)(1); id.  3553(a)(2)(B)(C). The district court did not abuse its discretion in imposing these conditions either.

We afford defendant's within-Guidelines three-year term of supervised release a rebuttable presumption of reasonableness. United States v. Coffee, 180 F. App'x 562, 564 (6th Cir. 2006); see USSG  5D1.2(a)(2). Defendant has failed to rebut that presumption because the conditions he contests are each reasonably related to the instant offense or to his own history and characteristics, and serve several purposes of sentencing. Moreover, the lengthier term is reasonable considering, as the district court acknowledged, that Banks has never adjusted well to supervision, having absconded from, and been arrested for new criminal conduct while on, parole.

Accordingly, we find no abuse of discretion here in imposing these special conditions for three years, and note that the district court shall have abundant opportunity to amend or ameliorate any unreasonable adverse impact during the term of [Banks's] supervised release. United States v. Deatherage, 682 F.3d 755, 765 (8th Cir. 2012); accord. Zobel, 696 F.3d at 575; see 18 U.S.C.  3583(e)(2).

IV.

For these reasons, we affirm Banks's sentence.

FOOTNOTES

. The 2016 version of the Guidelines Manual applied when Banks was sentenced on February 7, 2017. See USSG  1B1.11(a).

. We also reject defendant's contention that the district court must have considered the supervisory release Guidelines to be mandatory because it did not state otherwise. Treating the Guidelines as mandatory is procedural error. See Gall, 552 U.S. at 51. But the district court said nothing here to suggest that it felt bound by the Guidelines. Rather, it explained that the Court has to start with the Guidelines, and then look at the issues. That the guidelines are advisory is, by now, a basic tenet of federal criminal sentencing and [w]e presume that federal judges know the law. United States v. Vega-Salgado, 769 F.3d 100, 104 (1st Cir. 2014); cf. United States v. Gale, 468 F.3d 929, 941 (6th Cir. 2006). This argument provides no grounds for relief.

. To the extent defendant is also challenging his obligation to provide his probation officer access to his financial records upon request, the Guidelines expressly recommend imposing that condition where, as here, the sentencing court also imposes a restitution order. USSG  5D1.3(d)(3).

GRIFFIN, Circuit Judge.Dressed in blue denim trousers and a black jacket, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday attended a party-organised concert in poll-bound Meghalaya, in a bid to reach out to young voters.

Shillong: Dressed in blue denim trousers and a black jacket, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday attended a party-organised concert in poll-bound Meghalaya, in a bid to reach out to young voters. The Congress has been in power in the north eastern state for nearly 15 years.

Gandhi barely spoke for five minutes at the 'Festival of Peace' concert as he listened to the musical bands enthralling the 4,000-plus crowd, who braved a cold winter evening to attend the festival.

"We are strongest when we stand together in our diversity. India's strength is our diverse culture and different languages, different ways of thinking," he said as the crowd, including a large number of women, cheered him.

Gandhi urged the youths to love and respect each other to make the country strong.

"When we fight each other and spread hatred, we are not strengthening our country but weakening it and disrespecting our people, our past and our future," he said.

Asking the people to be proud of their heritage, language and religion, the Congress president said, "We are all proud of you and we will defend your way of thinking".

Stating that every single person from all states has a space in the country, he noted, "Their dreams and aspirations are equally important, no matter how small or big a state is".

The Congress, which has been in power for nearly 15 years in the state, organised the concert to woo young voters for the 27 February elections.

Noted bands such as 'Soulmate' and 'Emperical Tribe' besides cultural troupes of the Khasis, Jaintias and Garos performed at the festival.On face of it, Rahul Gandhis trip to Meghalaya to kick off Congresss poll campaign didnt offer exciting prospects for media. But the Congress president apparently had other ideas, and made the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

On face of it, Rahul Gandhis trip to Meghalaya to kick off Congresss poll campaign didnt offer exciting prospects for the media. But the Congress president apparently had other ideas, and made the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

While his Rs 70,000, two-in-one down puffer jacket from Burberry, a British luxury fashion brand, was making news and trending on social media, Rahul went on a different tangent, trying to woo the electorate by comparing RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat to Mahatma Gandhi: Two persons of different stature, belonging to two different generations, two different situations, and two different ideologies.

This is what Rahul said at a program in Saint Edmunds College, Shillong: "If you see a picture of Mahatma Gandhi, you'll find women on this side (right), women on that side (left) and women behind. But, if you see a picture of Mohan Bhagwat, he'll be alone or surrounded by men. He will never be surrounded by women." The point is: Rahul was trying to paint the RSS as an anti-women organisation and present it in stark contrast to the Congress.

"In our society, women have a very large space. They play a crucial role in decision making and running things. However, the RSS does not believe in women's rights and give more power to men to dominate without fear in the society RSS idea is aimed at disempowering women. Does anyone know many leadership positions are with women in RSS? Zero", Rahul said.

The question: Why is Rahul Gandhi talking so extensively about the Mohan Bhagwat and RSS, not Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP, which is his principal opponent in the state? Remember, Meghalaya is one of four states which Congress rules. Plagued with a number of defections by party MLAs and factional feuds, the Meghalaya Congress landed itself in a difficult situation.

What is even more important is that Meghalaya is a Christian-dominated state. According to the 2011 census, Christians comprise 74.59 percent of total population, while Hindus make up 11.53 percent and Muslims stand at 4.40 percent.

While the BJP previously had a miniscule presence in Meghalaya, it has lately become an effective challenger with the help of local ally National People's Party (NPP). The BJP also made Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Culture, and Tourism KJ Alphons election in-charge for Meghalaya.

It's a well-known fact that even though the BJP had a marginal presence in the North East until the advent of Narendra Modi at the Centre, the RSS' footprint in that region goes back ages. As the RSS is seen as a Hindu organisation, an attack on it might impact the voting pattern of non-Hindus and Christians who might ultimately choose a party which would keep the BJP at bay.

"We are fighting the RSS ideology across the nation. The idea is that one form of thinking is imposed on the country. What the BJP and RSS are doing all over India, particularly in North East, is attempting to undermine your culture, language and way of life", Rahul said. The Congress president also took on BJP directly: If they (the BJP) form the government here and continue to capture institutions, then your culture, your religion and your way of life will be under pressure".

Will Rahuls warnings and scaremongering work on the Christian community? The answer will be revealed in the coming weeks. Modi is yet to start his campaign, but the BJP and its allies are very confident of giving a tough fight to the ruling Congress. Their confidence that the Christian community could place its trust in the party at the Centre stems from the fact that the BJP rules Goa, which has a substantive Christian population and has broadly kept the community's confidence.

BJP's jacket jibe

The BJPs Meghalaya unit made waves on social media on Wednesday after it took a jibe at Rahul's fashionable jacket:

So @OfficeOfRG , soot(pun intended!)-boot ki sarkar with black money fleeced from Meghalayan State exchequer by rampant corruption? Instead of singing away our woes, you could have given a report card of your inefficient govt in Meghalaya! Your indifference mocks us! pic.twitter.com/sRvj5eoyRb

 BJP Meghalaya (@BJP4Meghalaya) January 30, 2018

The music concert which Rahul attended (wearing his fashionable Burberry jacket) was named peace conclave. Alphons mocked Rahul, saying: "Some people are asking me which war he was referring to that he needed a peace conference in Meghalaya. The nearest war is a few thousand kilometres away."With 5 MLAs quitting party, the NPP emerging strong in Meghalaya and the combined resources of the BJP and RSS, the threat against ruling Congress is real and growing

With political parties, local and national, gearing up for the final rounds of election campaigns in poll-bound Meghalaya, Congress president Rahul Gandhi attended a party-organised concert in the state on Tuesday, in a bid to reach out to young voters.

Speculations are that the Congress, which has been in power for nearly 15 years in Meghalaya, is facing serious political competition in the upcoming Assembly polls for the first time in years.

Here are some of the factors that prove that the threat to Congress' reign in the hill state is palpable:

Five Congress MLAs quit party

On 29 December 2017, five MLAs of the ruling Congress, including former deputy chief minister Rowell Lyngdoh, resigned from the state Assembly. The 60-member Meghalaya Assembly now has only 24 Congress MLAs.

Along with the five MLAs, three others, including one from the United Democratic Party (UDP) and two Independents, tendered resignation from the House. Lyngdoh, a veteran Congress leader of the state, later announced that all eight MLAs would join the National People's Party (NPP) at future rallies.

The five Congress legislators who put in their papers had earlier rebelled against Chief Minister Mukul Sangma and the party leadership. Four of the five Congress legislators were part of the state Cabinet, and were sacked by the chief minister in the past on grounds of incompetence. They were joined by party MLA Mlangaitlang Dhar in quitting the Assembly membership.

Lyngdoh said it was a difficult decision to leave the Congress, but he was compelled to do so "because of the people".

Hitting out at Mukul Sangma, the former deputy chief minister said, "The autocratic style of functioning of the chief minister had made it difficult for me and others to function in the government."

He also lashed out at the state Congress president DD Lapang and alleged that he gave in to the diktats of the chief minister, and went ahead to dissolve the block Congress committee in many constituencies, including his. Senior Congress leader and former cabinet minister Prestone Tynsong said the prospects of the Congress in Meghalaya will be badly hit.

The NPP factor

In an interview to News18, senior journalist and editor of The Shillong Times Patricia Mukhim said the real challenge to the chief minister will be posed only by Tura MP and NPP supremo Conrad K Sangma.

"The Khasi-Jaintia people seem to have reposed faith in this party, and if you ask me, Conrad Sangma is the only chief ministerial face that can give Mukul Sangma a run for his money," she said.

One of the only regional parties to have gained significant prominence in the last few years has been the NPP. In 2013, the NPP was nearly wiped out of its home base of Garo hills, but five years later, the party finds itself in a much stronger position and could play a key role in the formation of the next government.

"The NPP is the only party that is Northeast-oriented, although it has national aspirations. We are constantly focussing on issues related to the tribal community, besides addressing concerns of the religious minorities. We are also focussing on economic development and are coming out with a vision document. The economic measures have been never seriously implemented in the state," Conrad Sangma told Firstpost last week.

Earlier in January, Conrad Sangma said the NPP would not only emerge as the single largest party but also win single majority in the upcoming Assembly polls.

"Not just that the people have lost faith and confidence in Congress but even their leaders  former chief minister DD Lapang, deputy chief minister Roytre Christopher Laloo, and Health and Family Welfare Minister Roshan Warjri (who have announced their retirement)  are not confident and opted not to contest the elections," he said.

Emergence of BJP

Although the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has never had a significant stronghold in the state, the party, riding on confidence after sweeping several Assembly polls in the country recently, is targeting the incumbent Congress government's alleged policy paralysis, corruption and ignorance towards development work.

"We will go to people with the slogan that Meghalaya needs change, and that the state should be ridden of corruption and the misrule of the Congress," The New Indian Express quoted BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav as saying.

Much like the rebel MLAs who left the Congress late last year, the BJP too has voiced strong disapproval of the chief minister's work in Meghalaya.

In an interview with Firstpost, Meghalaya BJP president Shibun Lyngdoh said, "Mukul Sangma as chief minister doesn't have a good relationship with his own ministers. Ministers call him a dictator. All files go through his table. Due to his approach, so many senior Congress leaders are leaving the party and joining other parties. Sangma has not done anything good for the state. He is busy helping his own family."

Responding to reports that the catholic church is not helping BJP's electoral prospects in this year's election, Lyndoh said, "Propaganda remains propaganda. It will disappear very soon. It is the propaganda of other parties. It has not created difficulties for the BJP. People accept BJP as a development-oriented party. They are happy with the way our president Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are leading from the front."

Experts believe if the NPP joins forces with the BJP, of which it is already an ally in the central government, it will help both parties politically. The NPP is also currently supporting the BJP-led government in Manipur.

"There are political compulsions on the ground. Many leaders might not like to give away their seats for others to contest. Partnering is not an easy process," Conrad Sangma said.

Regional political outfits

On Sunday, the UDP exuded confidence that regional outfits would form the next government in Meghalaya. People in Meghalaya have had enough of the Congress and the BJP is yet to gain ground in the state, a senior UDP leader said.

"We are forming the next government and there is no doubt about it. We are leaving no stone unturned to cross the magic number 31 in the 60-member House," UDP working president Paul Lyngdoh said.

After the Congress and NCP, UDP is the third-largest party in the state. For the upcoming elections, it has forged an alliance with Hill State People's Democratic Party and the Garo National Council. The UDP, like some other regional parties, is against national political outfits forming the government in the state, and believes the "communal" BJP and "cancerous" Congress must not be allowed to come to power.

Although the UDP happens to be a constituent of North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), led by the BJP, Paul Lyngdoh feels NEDA is a political platform for the development of Northeast, and not for pre-poll alliances.

Garo National Council president Kalpana D Sangma said she expected her party to win at least five of the six seats in the three districts of South Garo Hills, South West Garo Hills and West Garo Hills.

Congress' chances of forming another government might also depend on the support (or lack of it) of smaller regional parties in Meghalaya. The Khun Hynniewtrep National Awakening Movement (KHNAM), another regional outfit, said it would support any party that wins maximum number of seats on conditions that issues identified by it in the state get addressed.

"Any party which needs our support will have to understand our issues and agree in principle that they will take it up as its government's agenda," KHNAM working president Adelbert Nongrum said.

With inputs from agenciesFor long, the DMK's symbol of the rising sun has been used to pun on M Karunanidhi's son MK Stalin's rise in Tamil Nadu. That may need a revision with yet another son-rise set to take place within the political family.

For long, the DMK's symbol of the rising sun has been used to pun on M Karunanidhi's son MK Stalin's rise in Tamil Nadu. That may need a revision with yet another son-rise set to take place within the political family. This when Stalin, thanks to divisions within the ruling AIADMK, seems to be on the cusp of getting his place under the sun.

In the last two weeks, on more than one occasion, Udhayanidhi Stalin the actor-producer son of Stalin, has made his desire to take the political plunge apparent. And there is good reason why this cannot be dismissed as day dreaming by yet another young one born into a powerful political family. And Udhayanidhi does not shy away from highlighting his political family tree, emphasising he is the youngest branch.

"Since my birth, I have been in politics. I am a DMK-ian since birth, my blood is DMK blood. I have been active in politics even before my entry into the film industry. I have campaigned for Thalaivar (Karunanidhi) and Murasoli Maran and have gone on tours with my father. I have been away from all this for a while but now since all the actors are coming in, I think it is time for me to enter politics too,'' Udhayanidhi told a vernacular website.

It is quite rare to find politicians speak the truth and inadvertently, Udhayanidhi had let the cat out of the bag. The DMK's default reaction to Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan testing political waters was to be sugar sweet, almost patronising. At the same time, it was dismissive of the Kollywood imports, insisting they cannot shake DMK with all its organisational heft. But the fact is having been out of power since 2011, having been bested by the AIADMK in three successive elections, there is a certain unease in the DMK camp.

Not for a moment does this suggest that Udhayanidhi's position in the Tamil film industry is anywhere near that of Rajini or Kamal.

The intention is perhaps to present a face, considerably younger, in order to appeal to the first time voters, who form Udhayanidhi's fan base. Starting off as a producer with his banner Red Giant Movies, Udhayanidhi tasted success as the leading man with Oru Kal Oru Kannadi in 2012. With eleven films under his belt so far, Udhayanidhi ensures his films, even if not super-hits, are at least moderate successes, helped to a large measure by his production and distribution muscle.

Udhayanidhi's latest release is Nimir, a remake of Malayalam hit movie Mahshinte Prathikaram. Nimir incidentally means Rise in English, ironically true in the political context.

Eyebrows have gone up with the 40-year-old's pronouncements because dad Stalin had in 2016 ruled out the entry of any member of his family - son Udhayanidhi or son-in-law Sabareesh - into active politics. While Udhayanidhi looks after the operations of the DMK mouthpiece Murasoli, that celebrated its platinum jubilee last year, Sabareesh had looked after the backend operations of the 2016 election campaign and reportedly played a role in key political decisions. Udhayanidhi's utterances could not have happened without Stalin's nod and if that is indeed the case, this marks a decisive move in DMK's family politics.

Stalin Junior made his presence felt on Saturday at a protest against the hike in bus fares in Tambaram in Chennai. The cameo led to chatter if Udayanidhi will contest from any of the seats in Chennai whenever assembly elections are held next.

If Stalin has indeed green-lit Udhayanidhi's formal entry into politics, it is important political messaging. Stalin knows he succeeded in ensuring elder brother MK Alagiri's exit from the DMK in 2014 but there is no guarantee his gen-next won't stake claim to the Karunanidhi legacy. With Kanimozhi also now untainted by the 2G scam and her ability to articulate in English, she could emerge as a rival power centre within the family. Udayanidhi's entry, that has for now been welcomed by Kanimozhi, reveals Stalin's mind loud and clear.

Most believe that Stalin's ascension to the top job was delayed by Karunanidhi, mainly because of opposition from Alagiri. Going by the indications in the last two weeks, Stalin is in no mood to do to his son what his father did to him.

How is the DMK rank and file likely to react to Udhayanidhi's ascension? While a section of the cadre will react favorably to Karunanidhi's grandson, the DMK is also a party with several capable leaders who have risen in the ranks after putting in years of hard work. Stalin was accepted because he had cut his teeth in the party from the time of the Emergency and his rise up the ladder was gradual. The jury is out on how the senior leadership will take to dynastic politics being encouraged by the first family of the party.Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set the proverbial cat among pigeons by calling for a debate on simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. The idea that has since been echoed by the president during the Joint Session of Parliament and some Union ministers is not new. In fact, many political parties and pundits reflexively dismissing the notion as unconstitutional and anti-democratic would do well to remember that simultaneous polls were held in India for two decades since Independence.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set the proverbial cat among pigeons by calling for a debate on simultaneous Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. The idea, which has since been echoed by the president during the Joint Session of Parliament and some Union ministers, is not new. In fact, many political parties and pundits reflexively dismissing the notion as unconstitutional and anti-democratic would do well to remember that simultaneous polls were held in India for two decades since Independence.

During the heydays of Congress as the single-largest political party with a dominant national footprint, concurrent polls were held in 1951-52, 1957, 1962 and 1967. Premature dissolution of Legislative Assemblies disrupted the practice after which separate elections were held for national and sub-national legislatures.

The practice discontinued, but the idea lived on. In 1983, Election Commission of India suggested a return to the practice of holding concurrent polls. As Liz Mathew pointed out in The Indian Express, the the Election Commissions suggestion was resurrected by the Justice BP Jeevan Reddy-headed Law Commission, which in May 1999 (via its 170th report), stated that we must go back to the situation where the elections to Lok Sabha and all the Legislative Assemblies are held at once.

Modi was also staying consistent with BJPs consistent effort to mainstream the idea. Leaders such as Lal Krishna Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee floated it in the past. Vajpayee had, in fact succeeded in getting the UPA to refer it to the Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice even after his loss in 2003, as Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay reminded us in The Economic Times.

Big steps towards formalisation of the idea were taken in recent years when the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice in its report came out in favour in 2015, followed by the Niti Aayog study conducted by Bibek Debroy and Kishore Desai in 2016. A year later, the Election Commission claimed that it is logistically equipped to stage concurrent polls in 2018.

Former Union minister P Chidambaram has a sharp memory, so he must have been betting on a short public memory when he termed holding of concurrent polls as yet another election jumla. The senior Congress leader doubtlessly remembers that Pranab Mukherjee, his long-time party colleague, in his capacity as president, strongly argued in favour of simultaneous polls during the Joint Session of Parliament last year.

With some election or the other throughout the year, normal activities of the government come to a standstill because of code of conduct. This is an idea the political leadership should think of... the Election Commission can also put in their idea and efforts on holding the polls together and that will be highly beneficial... He held that frequent elections put on hold development programmes, disrupt normal public life, and impact essential services and burden human resource with prolonged periods of election duty.

Though implementation of the idea is still a remote possibility, incumbent as it is on a variety of factors including political consensus and a Constitutional amendment, theres no denying that the idea has gained traction. On cue, the idea has generated a heated debate among backers, critics and the Opposition. The proposal demands a dispassionate discussion of merits and demerits instead of alarmism or political rhetoric.

Voter participation increases

Study of voter behaviour in India shows that voter motivation has decreased in accord with holding of separate Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. In the participatory nature of Indian democracy, this is undesirable. While power has become more decentralised with the advent of regional parties, it has also meant that fewer and fewer voters are turning up to cast their ballots. Conversely, it proves that concurrent polls would increase voter participation.

Quoting Concordia University professor Csaba Nikolenyis paper on Indian election (based on Riker-Ordeshook model) Sai Manish wrote in Business Standard that while the number of registered voters has increased four times since 1967 (when simultaneous polls were held for the last time), the Election Commission managed to enhance voter turnout by around 5 percent. This means that of almost 600 million additional voters added over the years, just about 30 million have turned up to cast their vote: Abysmal by standards of certain democracies like the UK and Canada.

Northeastern states have recorded a much higher (17-21 percent) turnout when concurrent polls have been held, argues the article. It is therefore fallacious to claim that simultaneous polls will result in subversion of democracy.

Cuts pressure on exchequer, streamlines resources

Both Niti Aayog and the Parliamentary Standing Committee have gone into detail over how frequent elections are putting huge amount of pressure on the exchequer. The cost factor is important in a resource-stretched country like India where the state and the federal governments are locked in a relentless battle to balance fiscal prudence with redistributive schemes aimed at uplifting the most vulnerable section of the populace.

For instance, the spending for 2014 general elections almost rivalled that of the US presidential polls. As The Economic Times pointed out in a report shortly before the expenditure was made public, "The projected expenditure to elect the 16th Lok Sabha is set to rival the $7 billion (approximately Rs 42,000 crore) spent by candidates and parties in the 2012 US presidential elections".

Holding elections also involves indirect costs involving logistics, arrangement of personnel and deployment of security forces. The huge manpower required to hold frequent polls are usually diverted from other sectors (such as educational institutions) that have an adversarial impact. Simultaneous polls will make it easier for streamlining of these resources.

No blackmail by pressure groups

Frequent elections create a situation where any caste, community or interest group may hold the administration to ransom by way of organised protest. In such a situation, the checks and balances fail to function, governance suffers and democracy gets subverted.

The latest iteration of this formula was noticed during the Padmavaat protests when Karni Sena goons, who claimed to represent the Rajput community, went on a rampage in different parts of the country and the entire political class (both ruling and the Opposition) were either silent or sided with the goons to pander to community sentiments.

As this writer recently argued: In absence of the political compulsion of pandering to every pressure group before the next upcoming election, the government may no longer be afflicted with paralysis in confronting a threat to law and order and the Opposition may rediscover its political will in holding the government accountable in case it falters.

Less time in campaign mode

One of the biggest insecurities that led Opposition to vociferously protest against the idea is Modis prowess as a campaigner. The prime minister is energetic, relentless and a consummate orator who knows how to mould public sentiment. The Opposition fears that a presidential style election will minimise their chances by amplifying the Modi effect and hand BJP a decisive advantage. Multiple elections in a year will force Modi to be on a permanent campaign mode, and BJPs ace weapon will likely suffer a burnout.

Lets flip this argument. Elections are not only about BJP and Modi. Conversely, this also means that not just the prime minister, but the entire political class is forever locked in an election mode which allows little time for policy-making, administrative or developmental work. Add to this the Model Code of Conduct, and the recipe for policy and administrative paralysis is clear.

As Kanishka Singh wrote in The Indian Express, Due to elections each year, key leaders holding posts in government are tied up for months in campaigning across the country leaving the functioning of their government to the hands of the bureaucracy.

No subsuming of sub-national causes

The argument that simultaneous elections will favour big parties and go against regional chieftains, is specious. Aam Aadmi Partys overwhelming success in Delhi came in February 2015, just a few months after BJPs momentous victory in Lok Sabha polls. If regional parties have a relevant agenda and a strong leader, they can serve to actually counterbalance the dominant national force during simultaneous elections.

The Oppositions irrational fears are rooted more in overstating of the Modi factor in polls. To argue that voter will become influenced by wave is to actually admit defeat even before an election is fought.

There is some amount of overlap that goes on in terms of accountability, as R Jagannathan argued in Swarajyamag: The argument that says voters can get confused when all elections are held simultaneously is valid, but the remedy for it could be constitutional amendments that provide clarity on the division of law-making powers. The concurrent list is pointless... Once this is done, the voter will have no confusion on what to demand from whom, even if elections are held on the same day for three levels of government.

Strongest argument against the idea

The strongest argument against simultaneous polls remains the premature dissolution of state Assemblies before the five-year term. It militates against the cardinal principle of democracy: Rule of majority. Both Niti Aayog and parliamentary panel have advised workarounds in terms of two-phase elections or devising a confidence motion along with no-confidence motions to allow for the president to elect a representative in select cases. These, however, need a more thorough and constructive discussion. Little can be achieved through alarmism to stop an idea whose time has come.Members of the Opposition Congress and the CPM on Tuesday staged a walkout from the West Bengal Assembly.

Kolkata: Members of the Opposition Congress and the CPM on Tuesday staged a walkout from the state Assembly, alleging that the state government is breaking norms of the House and is functioning in an arbitrary way.

They alleged that the Governor's address and obituary references were scheduled on the same day, violating norms.

"Never before the Assembly has witnessed such whimsical decisions. How can there be obituary references just after the address of the Governor on the same day?" Leader of Opposition Abdul Mannan of the Congress asked.

The Opposition MLAs staged a walkout after Speaker Biman Banerjee made obituary references following Governor KN Tripathi's address at the beginning of the budget session.

Besides the eminent persons who died recently, Banerjee made references and expressed grief over the death 41 persons in a bus accident in Murshidabad district on Monday.

Tripathi has also expressed grief over the killing of journalists Gauri Lankesh in Karnataka and Santanu Bhowmick in Tripura.Congress president Rahul Gandhi appeared upbeat as he launched the party's campaign in poll-bound Meghalaya on Tuesday, saying he encountered huge crowds and felt the excitement among the people there

Congress president Rahul Gandhi appeared upbeat as he launched the party's campaign in poll-bound Meghalaya on Tuesday, saying he encountered huge crowds and felt the excitement among the people there.

"Huge crowds, excitement and energy here in Meghalaya, where we launched our campaign for the Assembly election," he said on Twitter.

He also underlined his family's bonds with the people of the North East. "My family and I have had a special bond with the people of the North East and I enjoy renewing and strengthening that bond with every visit," he added, using the hashtag #OneMeghalaya.

Rahul, who is currently on a two-day visit to the north eastern state, attended a meeting with party leaders in Jowai earlier in the day.

One of the five states and Union Territories under Congress rule at present, Meghalaya goes to the polls on 27 February. Counting of votes will be held on 3 March.

Besides Meghalaya, the Congress is in power in Karnataka, Mizoram, Punjab and the Union Territory of Puducherry.Rahuls statement comes in the backdrop of the Core Committee of Nagaland Tribal Hoho and Civil Organisations' (CCNTCHOC) call for a poll boycott.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi said on Wednesday that the party is yet to decide whether it will participate in the Nagaland Assembly polls, slated to be held on 27 February. He was in Meghalaya for a two-day visit to meet party leaders and workers.

Rahuls statement comes in the backdrop of the Core Committee of Nagaland Tribal Hoho and Civil Organisations' (CCNTCHOC) call for a poll boycott. Urging the Centre to find a "solution before election", eleven political parties in the state, including the ruling Naga Peoples Front (NPF) and Congress, had issued a joint statement conveying their decision to not file nominations for the elections.

In 1998, Congress was the only party to ignore the poll boycott called by the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Issak-Muivah (NSCN-IM) and Naga Hoho, proponents of Greater Nagaland or Nagalim. It ended up sweeping 53 of the 60 seats.

The bone of contention is the long-pending resolution of the Naga issue. The Naga Peace Accord signed between the BJP-led Centre and NSCN-IM in August 2015 seems to have made no headway.

During an interaction with media persons from Meghalaya in the State Convention Centre in Shillong, AICC chief Rahul blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the situation in Nagaland, and said no one really knew what the peace accord contained. He said he had called up then Congress chief ministers of Assam and Manipur, and even the Ministry of Home Affairs, to know the details of the agreement, but they too did not have a clue about its contents. Nobody understands what the prime minister signed. That is his style. He used the same idea when he brought demonetisation and GST at midnight. He has no sense of what he is saying, Rahul said.

He said what was now happening in Nagaland is the reaction of the style of functioning of the BJP government at the Centre. People now dont believe in what he says. He does not have credibility, he added.

The CCNTHCO letter requesting Chief Election Commissioner OP Rawat to defer the elections for an early solution to the seven-decade-old Naga insurgency did not work. They had threatened to impose a statewide bandh on 1 February if the Election Commission issued the election notification for the 60-member Nagaland Assembly. While the Nagaland chief electoral officer Abhijit Sinha has said they are all prepared to conduct the polls, it has been confirmed that the bandh will be held as scheduled.

'NPP is BJPs proxy'

Having already lost five of his party MLAs, who quit the Meghalaya Assembly late December to join National Peoples Party (NPP), the Gandhi scion minced no words on Tuesday in cautioning electorates. "There is no price, there is no amount of money that can buy the people of Meghalaya. BJP may buy a few leaders here and there, as few leaders may defect to BJP or their proxy the NPP, he said.

In Meghalaya, the Congress has been in power since 2009. On the question of forging an alliance in the run-up to the 27 February polls, Rahul said it was for the state unit of the party to decide on the issue. We can approach for an alliance if we share the same vision and ideas. We dont like to make opportunistic alliances, he said.

BJP leads the North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), a grand coalition of various regional parties in the region. From Meghalaya, United Democratic Party (UDP) and National Peoples Party (NPP) were a part of NEDA. However BJP, NPP and UDP are fighting this election separately.

The UDP has forged an alliance with the Hill State Peoples Democratic Party (HSPDP) in Khasi-Jaintia Hills region of the state, while in the Garo Hills region UDP will combine forces with the Garo National Council (GNC) for the Meghalaya Assembly polls.

Kyrmenlang Uriah is a Meghalaya-based journalist and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.Congress leaders Azad and Anand Sharma had sought the involvement of Sonia Gandhi in galvanising the opposition.

New Delhi: UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi is likely to chair a meeting of opposition leaders on Thursday to plan a joint strategy for the ongoing Budget Session of Parliament.

According to sources, the meeting is slated to be held in the Parliament Library Building in the evening after the presentation of the Union Budget on Thursday morning by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

Hectic preparations are on to garner the support of all 17 parties that had come together during the presidential and vice-presidential polls with Congress hopeful of a good gathering.

Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad is taking the lead in inviting the leaders. Among the parties likely to attend Thursday's meet are NCP, DMK, TMC, SP, NC, CPI(M), CPI, RJD, JMM, RSP, IUML, Kerala Congress.

JDU rebels Sharad Yadav and Ali Anwar Ansari, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Ram Gopal Yadav of Samajwadi Party and TMC's Sudip Bandyopadhyay are among the leaders expected to attending the meeting.

West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC boss Mamata Banerjee said she won't attend the meeting on Thursday due to other preoccupations. However, the party will be represented by Trinamool Congress Parliamentary party leaders. she said.

It remains to be seen whether JDS sends its representative to the meeting considering elections in another few in months in Karnataka where the Congress is facing anti-incumbency with the BJP mounting an aggressive fight. The presence of JDS in Thursday's meeting is likely to signal future possibilities of a truce between the Deve Gowda-led party and the Congress.

Crucial issues the instant triple talaq bill, the Supreme Court judges row and the recent communal clashes in Uttar Pradesh are likely to be discussed.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi is also likely to be present at the meeting along with top party leaders. Sonia Gandhi is, however, likely to will chair the meeting in her capacity as Congress parliamentary party leader and the UPA chief.

Thursday's meeting comes three days after Pawar hosted some Opposition leaders for tea at his residence. That meeting had skeletal Opposition presence and it was therefore decided to hold another larger one post the Budget presentation.

At the 29 January meet, Congress leaders Azad and Anand Sharma had sought the involvement of Sonia Gandhi in galvanising the opposition.

Pawar had also met Sonia and Rahul Gandhi that day after the president's address to the joint sitting of both houses of Parliament at the start of the budget session.As the election date for the Assembly election in Tripura comes closer, media reports have raised questions as to whether anti-incumbency might finally kick in the state.

As the 18 February election date for the Assembly election in Tripura comes closer, multiple media reports have pointed to the long tenure the Left Front has enjoyed in the state, and raised questions as to whether anti-incumbency might finally kick in the northeastern state this time. After all, Tripura has been ruled by the Left Front since 1978 with only a five-year break in between 1988 and 1993 (when a Congress-led coalition ruled). The incumbent Chief Minister Manik Sarkar has been in power since 1998, making him one of the longest-serving state chiefs in the country.

As with most long-serving governments, the Left government in Tripura has seen good days and bad. Thus, while it has been credited with reducing militancy and getting the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) withdrawn from the state by investing heavily in a local police force, it has lately come under attack over its stance on the partition of the state. The movement for a separate state called Tipraland (also spelt Twipraland) has been led by the tribal-based Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT). The party has demanded that a separate state be carved out for the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) areas, which constitute two-third of the state territory and is the home to the tribals, who form one-third of the population.

The party has also ceded political ground to the BJP which recorded wins in the 2017 Assembly byelections and also picked up more than 50 seats in the urban local bodies and panchayats, reported Hindustan Times.

The government has also received a jolt after a Supreme Court order upheld a Tripura High Court verdict terminating the jobs of 10,323 government school teachers, citing irregularities. However, in a fresh order on 14 December, the apex court extended the termination deadline to 30 June, 2018 instead of 31 December, 2017.

The tribal and non-tribal population have been at odds with each other in the state and the ethnic tension along with a demand for autonomy of tribal regions have been deciding factors in the political history of Tripura since the 1940s. Partition and Bangladesh's independence led to the migration of a large number of displaced persons into the state. The large tribal population has also ensured that a third of Tripura's Assembly is reserved for its tribal population. These areas have traditionally supported the Left, according to DailyO.

However, the BJP is making inroads in this part of the electorate as it recently announced an alliance with the IPFT. "After a series of discussions, the BJP and the IPFT (NC Debbarma faction) formed an alliance to fight unitedly against the ruling Left," Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, also the BJP in-charge of the Tripura elections, told the media.

According to the deal, the BJP will field candidates in 51 of the 60 seats and the IPFT in nine. "If any leader of other parties is keen to enter this alliance, he or she has to contest on BJP's lotus symbol." On the IPFT's separate state demand, he said the Modi government and a BJP-led government in Tripura  if one is formed  would take steps to develop the socio-economic condition, education, language and culture of the tribals.

According to Scroll, three parties have sought to take advantage of CPM's weakening in the state. However, all three seem unlikely to mount a substantial challenge. The Congress had won 10 seats in the last election but has lost ground after tying up with the Left in West Bengal. The Trinamool Congress has showed eagerness to expand to Tripura but has suffered heavily from defections of top leaders. This leaves the BJP to take the challenge to the Left as it has made steady gains in vote share in the state's elections.

For its part, the BJP has been constantly attacking against the CPM with its party president Amit Shah saying said a regime change in Tripura had become inevitable as the incumbent government had failed on many fronts, including combating crimes against women and unemployment.

The BJP has also claimed that the state has not developed at a quick enough pace despite a continuous, stable rule, according to Hindustan Times. It lags behind in several development parameters, such as health facilities and employment. The party's morale will also be buoyed by its membership numbers which have risen from 15,000 before the Lok Sabha election in 2014 to over 2 lakh by the end of 2016. This is an increase of 14 times in three years.United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit. ALEXANDRA BEDFORD, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. STATE OF MICHIGAN; COUNTY OF KALAMAZOO, Defendants-Appellees. Case No. 17-1344 Decided: January 30, 2018

Before: MERRITT, MOORE, and BUSH, Circuit Judges.

This federal case arises from domestic-relations litigation in family court in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in which plaintiff Alexandra Bedford was a party. Plaintiff appeals from a district court ruling in favor of defendants, the State of Michigan and the County of Kalamazoo, Michigan, dismissing pursuant to Federal Rule of Procedure 12(b)(6) her claims under the broad language of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C.  12131 et seq., and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C.  794. In the state-court action, plaintiff claimed as an invisible disability her particular tendency to become stressed or extremely nervous when engaged in litigation. She asked the state court judge presiding over her domestic relations case to allow her to have a disability advocate represent her rather than a lawyer. She asks this court to recognize litigation stress as a disability and as a basis for substituting a disability advocate with training in litigation stress syndrome to represent her in her domestic relations case. For the following reasons, we affirm the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's complaint. She has failed to state a claim demonstrating that she was denied a required accommodation for a recognized disability.

At the outset, it should be noted that the Supreme Court in Tennessee v. Lane, 541 U.S. 509 (2004), upheld the constitutionality of Title II against Eleventh and Fourteenth Amendment claims. The Court cautioned nevertheless that Title II does not require States to employ any and all means to make judicial services accessible to persons with disabilities, and it does not require States to compromise their essential eligibility criteria for public programs. Id. at 531-32.

I.

Plaintiff was a litigant appearing before the state family court pro se when she sought accommodations for her alleged disability. Plaintiff is represented by counsel in this action before our court, and she was represented by counsel below in the federal district court. Plaintiff calls her disability a diagnosed invisible disability, specifically extreme anxiety that triggers symptoms that include an inability to concentrate, understand, and speak in an effective manner when under stress. Second amended complaint at  1, 4. Claiming physical and emotional injury, plaintiff maintains that

Defendants have discriminated intentionally against Plaintiff in violation of Title II of the ADA, by refusing to provide auxiliary aids and services necessary to ensure an equal opportunity for Plaintiff to participate in Defendants' programs and activities.

Second amended complaint at  59-60 (citation omitted). Plaintiff submitted numerous requests to the Michigan state court to provide accommodations during three hearings held in 2015. In her second amended complaint, filed in federal district court below, she included the following five requested accommodations she made to the state court: (1) that telephonic hearings be held for nonevidentiary hearings; (2) allow short breaks in proceedings if plaintiff was becoming symptomatic, i.e., stressed; (3) allow plaintiff to digitally record proceedings for her immediate and private use to offset memory deficits brought on by her condition, and for which written transcripts would not be available in a timely manner; (4) allow a disability advocate to act on her behalf during court proceedings; and (5) access to a court administrator regarding her accommodations.

Contrary to plaintiff's claim that the state court denied her requests for accommodations, the record discloses that the state court specifically allowed plaintiff to appear by telephone for nonevidentiary hearings, and stated it always tried to accommodate litigants' reasonable requests for short breaks during proceedings. The court denied her request to record proceedings because all court proceedings are recorded and transcripts are available. The court denied her request for representation by a disability advocate because the advocate was not a lawyer, and it denied her request for access to a court administrator to the extent that plaintiff wished unfettered, direct access to court personnel. Instead, the court ruled that plaintiff's requests for accommodations must be in writing to be considered.

In late 2015, plaintiff filed her first complaint in federal court claiming violation of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act by numerous individual and institutional defendants in the State of Michigan. After two more amendments to the complaint, the district court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a cognizable claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act or the Rehabilitation Act on two grounds: (1) that plaintiff did not allege specific facts that would plausibly describe a qualifying disability; and (2) failure to allege facts to show that she was denied access' to the courts either solely by reason of such disability or that she would have been treated differently but for her disability.  D. Ct. op. at 6.

II.

To survive a motion to dismiss, a plaintiff must allege facts with sufficient specificity to state a claim for relief that is plausible on its face. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 67879 (2009). The plausibility standard asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully, id. at 678, and instead calls for enough fact to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence of [unlawful conduct]. Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 556 (2007). Under the standard set out in Iqbal and Twombly, a court accepts as true all factual allegations, but the court does not apply this presumption of truth to conclusory or legal assertions. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 67879. If the plaintiff's facts, accepted as true, do not state a claim that has facial plausibility, the plaintiff has not satisfied the pleading requirements under Rule 8, and the complaint will be dismissed. We review the district court's ruling on a motion to dismiss de novo. In re NM Holdings Co., 622 F.3d 613, 618 (6th Cir. 2010).

Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C.  12132, states in broad language that no qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of the services, programs, or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by any such entity. The broad language of the statute and regulations leaves it to the federal judiciary to define what is a disability and what action constitutes a required accommodation for such disability. To sustain a claim, a disabled person must be denied meaningful access to a benefit or service. Alexander v. Choate, 469 U.S. 287, 301 (1985). Reasonable accommodation may be necessary to ensure meaningful access; and a refusal to modify a program or policy may, in view of the circumstances, become unreasonable and discriminatory. Id.; see also Ability Center v. City of Sandusky, 385 F.3d 901, 907 (6th Cir. 2004). The language of Title II generally tracks the language of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the jurisprudence interpreting either section is applicable to both and should be interpreted and applied consistently. See MX Group, Inc. v. City of Covington, 293 F.3d 326, 332 (6th Cir. 2002).

To establish a claim under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, a plaintiff must show: (1) that she is a qualified individual with a disability; (2) that she was excluded from participation in a public entity's services, programs, or activities or was otherwise discriminated against; and (3) that such exclusion or discrimination was by reason of her disability. See Anderson v. City of Blue Ash, 798 F.3d 338, 357 (6th Cir. 2015).

A. Plaintiff's Alleged Disability

To survive a motion to dismiss, the plaintiff must first demonstrate that she is disabled within the meaning of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and that such impairment [ ] substantially limits one or more major life activities. 42 U.S.C.  12102(1)(A). Major life activities include, but are not limited to, caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating, and working. 42 U.S.C.  12102(2)(A).

The district court ruled that plaintiff's pleading contained merely conclusory assertions that she has a disability because she does not allege specific facts that would plausibly describe a qualifying disability. D. Ct. op. at 6 (citing Marks v. Tennessee, 562 F. App'x 341, 346 (6th Cir. 2014)). While we agree that the bare bones description in plaintiff's pleading is lacking in detail, plaintiff's accommodation request for the hearing dated June 4, 2015, describes her functional impairments more fully:

Bedford is concerned that her symptoms have caused her to be misperceived by the Court as uncooperative or resistant. In fact problems with expressive speech and concentration slows her reaction time. It is important to notice that Dr. Bedford's impairment is an injury that is largely invisible. When under the stress of litigation, she may appear to be functional on a superficial level even when she is not. Dr. Bedford's functioning is highest when she is in supportive and safe environments. Her functioning deteriorates when she is in non-supportive, unsafe environments, or when she is under any perceived time pressure or stress. Concentration is affected causing communication difficulties. Stress is causing somatic symptoms. Dr. Bedfordduring litigationcannot sleep normally, rest, or recuperate due to traumatic stress symptoms including nightmares and startle responses (i.e., she jumps when doorbell rings). She has hyper reactivity/hyper arousal and she can't eat or sleep or digest food normally.

Accommodation Request at 2.

Although we uncovered no case where a court has recognized stress caused by litigation to qualify as a disability covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act or the Rehabilitation Act, and we do not do so here, depression and severe anxiety, whatever its cause, can rise to the level of a disability. See, e.g., Jacobs v. N.C. Admin. Office of the Courts, 780 F.3d 562, 572 (4th Cir. 2015) (anxiety can be a valid disability for purposes of the ADA); Santos v. City of New York, No. 01-cv-0120, 2001 WL 1568813, *4 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 7, 2001) (stress and depression may be considered impairments depending on whether they result from a documented physiological or mental disorder); Reilly v. Revlon, Inc., 620 F. Supp. 2d 524, 539 (S.D.N.Y. 2009) (finding that depression may qualify as a disability for purposes of the Americans with Disabilities Act, provided that the condition is not a temporary psychological impairment ). We will assume, at this stage of the litigation, that plaintiff has a qualifying disability.

B. Plaintiff's Requested Accommodations

In her brief for this appeal, plaintiff challenges the district court's dismissal of her complaint on the issue of whether she has sufficiently alleged a qualifying disability in her second amended complaint. The accommodations she seeks reflect the nature of the disability she asserts. Plaintiff has not made any argument in her brief on appeal discussing how the handling of her accommodation requests excluded or limited her access to the state court, or how she was otherwise discriminated against based on her alleged disability.

Under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, an individual may assert a claim against a state or its employees for violation of the right of access to the courts. Tennessee v. Lane, 541 U.S. at 53334. The Disabilities Act requires reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities, to provide them an even playing field, but does not require that disabled persons be treated preferentially or necessarily be given the accommodation of their choice. Goldblatt v. Geiger, 867 F. Supp. 2d 201, 210 (D.N.H. 2012) (quoting Felix v. New York City Transit Auth., 324 F.3d 102, 107 (2d Cir. 2003)). In Lane, the Supreme Court held that Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act's requirement of program accessibility in the context of the right of access to the courts unquestionably is valid  as it applies to the class of cases implicating the accessibility of judicial services. 541 U.S. at 534. But, as quoted in the introduction to this opinion, Lane cautioned that Title II requires only reasonable modifications that would not fundamentally alter the nature of the service provided, not to employ any and all means to make judicial services accessible to persons with disabilities. Id. at 53132 (internal quotation marks omitted).

In her second amended complaint, plaintiff enumerated five accommodation requests she submitted to the state court. Plaintiff's primary complaint is focused on the state court's denial of her request to present her case through a disability advocate. We note that in response to at least one of plaintiff's requests for a disability advocate, plaintiff was directed to file a written motion with the court if she wanted her disability advocate to be present with her when she appeared in court. Plaintiff objected to filing a written motion and apparently did not do so. At the October 1, 2015, show-cause hearing concerning plaintiff's failure to pay certain court-ordered fees, plaintiff did not appear in person and instead sent her disability advocate to represent her. Because the person was not a lawyer, the court denied the person permission to speak on plaintiff's behalf because Michigan does not allow the unauthorized practice of law. See Mich. Comp. Laws  600.916(1).

As the state court judge ruled, Michigan law generally prohibits appointment of a nonlawyer to represent a party in state court. Plaintiff points to no authority that would require a court to allow a disability advocate to substitute for representation by a lawyer, and she fails to explain why she did not file a written motion requesting her disability advocate participate in the proceedings when told this was necessary for the state court to consider her request. The Americans with Disabilities Act does not require that a state court in a family-court proceeding approve an accommodation that allows a party to present her case through a nonlawyer disability advocate in violation of state law when the party did not file a motion as directed. Plaintiff has the same right as all litigants to be assisted in court proceedings by a lawyer or to speak on her own behalf, with or without the assistance of a lawyer. Imposing a federal duty to allow a litigant to act through a disability advocate without complying with the state court's requirement to file a written motion on the issue would fundamentally alter the services provided by the court in violation of Lane and is not a reasonable modification. Plaintiff was not denied access to the court or prevented from participating in the proceeding either pro se or with a lawyer. Plaintiff represented herself competently at numerous points throughout the state-court proceeding. The number of filings made and hearings held in the proceeding belie plaintiff's allegation that she was denied meaningful access to the courts. And the state court did make reasonable modifications to its proceedings in response to plaintiff's other requests.

Even assuming plaintiff had a qualifying disability, she has not alleged facts to show that she was denied access to the state court. In short, construing the second amended complaint, with its allegations accepted as true and all reasonable inferences drawn in her favor, along with consideration of the record in the state court proceeding, plaintiff failed to state a cognizable claim.

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

FOOTNOTES

. In addition to the allegations in the complaint, we may also consider other materials that are integral to the pleadings or are attached to the pleadings, including public records, and documents that are otherwise appropriate for the taking of judicial notice, such as transcripts and filings from a state court proceeding. See Ashland, Inc. v. Oppenheimer & Co., 648 F.3d 461, 467 (6th Cir. 2011).

MERRITT, Circuit Judge.The Congress leader entrusted with overseeing the party's election preparations in the North East believes the BJP's presence in the region is overrated.

Imphal: The Congress leader entrusted with overseeing the party's election preparations in the North East believes the BJP's presence in the region is overrated.

With Tripura scheduled to go to polls in less than three weeks  followed by Meghalaya and Nagaland just nine days later  Congress president Rahul Gandhi has asked the party's Manipur-based leader, Rajkumar Imo, to assist the Tripura Congress Committee in awarding tickets to the worthy and improve the party's prospects in the state.

Imo is a third generation Congressman. His late father, RK Jaichandra Singh, was Manipur's seventh chief minister while his father-in-law, Nongthombam Biren, migrated from the Congress to the BJP in 2016 to become the party's first chief minister of the state.

Imo spoke with Armstrong Chanambam for Firstpost about the prospects of a Congress resurgence in the hill states. Edited excerpts follow:

What groundwork has your team done to revive the Congress in Tripura?

This is not going to be an easy election for the Congress, which has been in the Opposition for 25 years. During my three trips to Tripura before 20 December, I travelled across 20 constituencies and local leaders everywhere told me that we must refrain from joining hands with regional parties.

When I visited two constituencies on the Tripura-Bangladesh border, I was told that I was the first party representative to visit the area in the last 40 years. People were pleased and advised that I identify leaders in terms of priority while allocating tickets as this will enhance the performance of the party in the long run. We gathered insights from the local leaders, party workers and heard common people's expectations to put together a ground report to help formulate our poll strategy.

How important are young leaders for the Congress this election?

We are looking to connect with more of young people who show promise and will remain an asset to the party in the long run. Our focus will be on candidates who have a high probability of winning, who will remain rooted in the party and aren't likely to defect to another party.

Is the Congress in talks with or willing to talk to other parties about any alliance to counter CPM?

In the past Assembly elections, the Congress had always joined hands with other local parties, such as INPT and IPFT, for the tribal seats. But this time around, we have not decided if we will share the reserved seats with any local outfit; the Congress may go to the polls alone. We will go by the local representatives' opinions as much as possible so that the party also creates workers and retains candidates at the grassroots level, which I approve off.

BJP is on a winning spree across the country. How do you plan to check this in Tripura and the rest of North East?

Our main opponent at the national level is the BJP, but in Tripura, our focus is on the Left-front government, which has ruled Tripura for 25 years. However, the BJP will employ all privileges at its disposal as it's in power at the Centre. But we will take on these challenges and wrest a majority. I feel it will be the Congress that dethrones the Left-front government in Tripura.

The RSS organised one of its biggest rallies in Guwahati recently to spread its wings in the North East. What do you make of it?

The BJP has won only in Assam and hasn't performed spectacularly in the North East. Of course, it is ruling in Manipur but it managed to win only 21 seats while the Congress bagged 28. Despite losing in Gujarat, the Congress managed to receive the maximum number of votes in last 20 years. Party workers feel rejuvenated after our recent performances.

With Rahul's appointment as party president, an enthusiastic Congress is confidently entering the fray.

Initially, I was of the opinion that Tripura will prove to be a tough contest due to the Left-front government's 25-year reign. However, after numerous visits to the state, Agartala seems to be way behind Imphal in terms of development. It would be prudent to change such a government and that is going to be our focus in Tripura.

The Congress is in power in Meghalaya and we consider the Conrad Sangma-led NPP as the principal opposition party. The BJP doesn't have a strong presence in Nagaland. Yes, they have performed well in one or two states, but I do not see the so-called BJP wave here.

The only heir to Tripura's royalty Pradyot Kishore Manikya is leading the election as the working president of Tripura Congress. What impact, if any, will this have on the tribal votes?

Pradyot Kishore Manikya, the Maharajah of Tripura, is also the PCC working president, and he accompanied me during my recent trips to the state. He is a young leader who will have a definite impact on tribal voters if he enters grassroots politics. We all also wish that he enters the field and works with the party, as he is a potential Congress leader. Moreover, the common folks trust him a lot as he is a member of the Tripura royal family. His presence in the campaigning will earn the Congress a fair share of votes.

The Congress' performance in Manipur polls last year was worse than it was the previous elections. Will lessons from this setback help in Tripura this time around?

Congress paid the price for being overconfident in Manipur. Most of us won or lost by small margins. We have learnt not to be overconfident in politics, we must stay close to the people and perform. In Tripura, the local Congress leaders should be confident that they can usher change by toppling the government. They must have this firm belief that they can do it.

Across the North East, there has been a spike in instances of veteran Congress leaders deserting the party. Why so? What is the party doing in this regard?

In 2013, the Congress had 10 MLAs in Tripura but eight of them deserted the party, causing a major setback. Some ultimately ended up with the BJP after defecting from the Trinamool Congress and a few sided with the Left-front government. While allocating tickets, we will focus on young leaders who will remain loyal to the Congress.

Why should people vote for the Congress?

I did not notice any significant development in Tripura during my recent trips. If such a situation had prevailed in Manipur, the incumbent government would have been voted out long ago. The Congress stands for peace, stability and development. We want to prevent the recurrence of violent agitations by the tribal people, the kind we witnessed recently. We want to bring stability in the region by addressing the issues indigenous people face.

The author is an Imphal-based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.tech2 News Staff

Apple is ready to launch HomePod, its Siri-based smart-speaker on 9 February. The HomePod was unveiled at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June 2017.

Phil Schiller, Apples senior vice president of worldwide marketing, spoke to Sound and Vision about the $349 smart-speaker which will first launch in the US, UK and Australia.

On being asked why HomePod was being released now, Schiller said that the company had the knowledge and technology to deliver something special in the home segment. He added, "Weve applied machine learning so that HomePod can sense the environment it's in and sounds great wherever its placed. HomePod uses advanced machine learning techniques including deep neural networks (DNNs) optimised for the hardware to detect Hey Siri in challenging environments."

Schiller touched upon the expertise Apple has developed over the years in the music department and pairing that with Siri intelligence seemed like the next logical step. The audio innovations on the iPad Pro and the AirPods as well as making Apple Music more intelligent was discussed.

"We use our A8 chip to run advanced software on the device for real-time acoustic modelling, audio beam-forming, echo cancellation, and more," said Schiller.

Smart speaker category is expected to see a boom in the coming years, if this year's CES was any indication. While Schiller did not say how Apple saw the future playing out, he did say that Apple could create a new kind of musical experience and also look at making the HomePod a smart home hub. Siri's integration with HomeKit allows users to turn on the lights and set scenes before going to bed through the smart speaker.

Amazon's Echo line of products are in their second generation and have a lion's share of the market. Also, Echo Plus comes with a Zigbee smart home controller on board. So it definitely has a first mover advantage in this space.

Apple's advantage lies in the fact that its Siri voice assistant handles over 2 billion requests each week thanks to the widespread use of Apple devices. This is certainly an advantage and helps Apple to understand how people interact via voice and what are the kind of questions to expect.

Apple HomePod. Apple.com

Schiller went deeper on how the spatial awareness technology works on the HomePod. He said that from the moment you plug in HomePod and start listening to music, it will try and sense its location in the room and tweak settings to that it's taking full advantage of the environment it is in.

"The microphone array in HomePod listens to the reflection of the music off neighbouring surfaces, senses where the bookshelf is, or if its in the corner of a room or against a wall, and then uses machine learning to understand what its hearing, interpret the sound, and adjust the audio," said Schiller. This ability, paired with the software and the underlying Apple A8 chip, lets HomePod smartly beam centre vocals and direct energy away from the wall. This process is expected to begin within minutes after the first setup and is repeated every time you move the location of the HomePod.

On HomePod's voice recognition chops, Schiller said that it uses advanced machine learning techniques including deep neural networks which are optimised to detect 'Hey Siri' in the most challenging of environments. It is a combination of hardware and software. Post the 'Hey Siri', the message requests are sent to Apple using a Siri ID, which is encrypted.

HomePod

Schiller also spoke about how Apple has been grooming its audio team which has been around since the time of the iPod. He gave the quad-speaker systems of the iPad Pro as well as the wireless AirPods as examples on how Apple is innovating on the audio front.

With the HomePod the brief given to them was to get great audio in a small cylindrical form factor. "They developed a beam-forming array made up of seven tweeters, each with its own individual amplifier."

You can read the complete interview here.tech2 News Staff

In a bid to bring safer experience for users, Google Play Store has removed 7,00,000 apps which have violated the app store's policies.

According to the Play Store blog, these apps were either copycats, inappropriate content, or potentially harmful applications (PHA) such as malware which can potentially affect a smartphone's Android software. However, according to its findings, the number of PHAs were of a small number.

Meanwhile, 99 percent of the content which was removed was inappropriate and mostly abusive in nature. Play Store claims to have removed such content even before anyone could install them.

Google has not only removed these apps but also rejected the app developers who were involved in the developing these offensive apps. Those app developers who were repeatedly developing such apps were removed from the platform.

The blog post says that in 2017 it has taken down 70 percent more apps as compared to 2016.

Machine learning models and techniques were some of the ways in which these apps were removed.

According to Andrew Ahn, Product Manager, Google Play, "We've also developed new detection models and techniques that can identify repeat offenders and abusive developer networks at scale. This resulted in taking down of 100,000 bad developers in 2017, and made it more difficult for bad actors to create new accounts and attempt to publish yet another set of bad apps."

Google Play Store had come under the radar for harbouring apps which were malicious and were hosting ads which had pornographic content in them.

It took down 60 gaming apps from Play Store and were available to both adults and children.tech2 News Staff

Google has introduced a new series of posts on its blog to explain 'How Google Search works'. It has also explained when, where and why they provide featured snippets.

Featured snippets are the descriptive boxes that show up at the top of Google's Search results. The featured snippet was introduced in January 2014.

Google made the featured snippets different from the general snippets so that they are easier to read. Danny Sullivan, the Public Liaison for Search on Google in a blog post said, "We believe this format will help people more easily discover what theyre seeking, both from the description and when they click on the link to read the page itself. Its especially helpful for those on mobile or searching by voice."

Featured snippets are also available for video search results.

Danny Sullivan mentioned that search traffic on mobile has surpassed the desktop traffic worldwide and more people are using voice-activated digital assistants.

The snippets are the more useful format in these search results as compared to the traditional "10 blue links" format. Google provides links to the page of the results shown in a snippet form on the Google Home app to the voice-assisted search results.

The blog post mentioned that Google will now provide near-matches related to the search done on the search engine so that users can explore more options and get close to what they are looking for. The company will also provide more than one featured snippet for the search results. Users can click on the options provided at the top of the search results to get a snippet from another source.

The company is also planning to launch a new feature that will provide more than one snippet in the search results. The snippets might be contradicting to each other to provide different results for the same search.

According to the blog, search results provided by Stone Temple found 97.4 percent accuracy for the featured snippets and similar formats like Knowledge Graph information.

Google was criticised for providing a misleading result on Google Home Assistant.

The bot once said that former US president Barak Obama is organising a coup against Donald Trump in a question asked by a user. Other similar incidents have also been reported, that tarnish the image of the snippets.

Commenting on the incident Danny Sullivan said, "We failed in these cases because we didnt weigh the authoritativeness of results strongly enough for such rare and fringe queries."

Today in a new series going behind-the-scenes on how Google Search work, we explore when, where and why we provide featured snippets. https://t.co/Gm8bwSJ1Oo  Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) January 30, 2018

After the criticism of the bad search results, Google launched a feature to rate the search results including misleading information, unexpected offensive results, hoaxes and unsupported conspiracy theories. According to the post, Google is now providing better results for search to be used as snippets.PTI

South Korean auto major Hyundai plans to invest over USD 1 billion (around Rs 6,300 crore) in India in the next three years on new products, development of powertrain and setting up of a new office building.

The company, which operates here through its wholly-owned arm Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL), plans to launch an electric vehicle in 2019 and is also gearing up for the possible comeback of its popular model Santro around Diwali this year.

HMIL has lined up nine products to be introduced between 2018 and 2020.

"Our total investment till 2020 will be over USD 1 billion," HMIL Managing Director and CEO Y K Koo told PTI in an interview here.

He further said, "The investments will be on nine new products to be launched between this year and 2020, powertrain development and setting up of our new office building in Gurugram," he said.

Elaborating on the new products to be introduced, he said, "Two will be completely new models, one will be an electric vehicle, two facelifts and four will be full model changes of existing products."

Electric vehicles

Commenting on the company's foray into electric vehicles (EV), Koo said, "Our first EV in India will be launched next year. At the moment we are yet to finalise whether it will be the Ioniq EV sedan or the fully electric version of SUV Kona."

Currently, the company is doing a market study on customer preference which would help in deciding which model to launch. In the meantime, he said the company is awaiting clarity from the government in the form of an EV policy so that it can plan the road ahead keeping in view the 2030 target of 40 percent of all personal vehicles being EVs.

"We will import our first EV as CKD (completely knocked down) units and assemble at our Chennai plant. Later on, depending on the market response, we will consider manufacturing here in India but that will take time," Koo said.

Stressing on the need for government support for EVs, he said the current GST rate of 12 percent must be reduced to 5 percent in order to help popularise the eco-friendly technology.

With battery being an important component for the success of EVs in India, Koo said HMIL is keeping the option open of partnering with local firms for sourcing of electric vehicle battery, besides considering other alternatives like importing from China or South Korea.

Possible return of Santro brand

Koo said that among the two completely new products, it plans to launch, one is a compact family oriented car codenamed AH2.

When asked if it would be launched as Santro, Koo said that its "is a possibility" but the company is yet to take a final call on the matter.

"It would be launched near Diwali this year. So we will take a final call on the Santro badge at around that time. However, I must admit that we are under a lot of pressure from dealers, customers and market to bring back the Santro brand," he added.

If Santro had continued in the market, he said that this year would have marked the completion of 20 years of the model in India. The car was launched in the country in September 1998.

Sharing details about the product, he said the hatchback would be wider and taller than the i10 model. The car will be powered by a petrol engine with options for factory-fitted CNG engines. It will also have automated and manual transmission options.

Koo also said HMIL is preparing for the introduction of its compact SUV codenamed Qxi sometime next year. The vehicle will be powered by a 1-litre turbocharged petrol engine.

Production plans

On plans to set up a new manufacturing plant in the country, Koo said the company can manage with the current facility till the next three years.

He added that since exports to some big markets like Algeria are not doing well, more units from the Chennai plant could be adjusted for the domestic market.

"We can increase the current production capacity at Chennai plant to 7.13 lakh units. Even with the domestic market growing at 7 to 8 percent, with flexible production at the plant, we can manage by 2020," Koo said.

He, however, declined to comment when asked if HMIL would use the group firm Kias upcoming plant in Andhra Pradesh.

The company, which is completing 20 years in the Indian market, sold 6.78 lakh units last year in the country with a market share of around 16.5 percent in the passenger vehicle segment.

"We would like to have a market share of around 17 percent in the domestic market by 2020," Koo said.President Donald Trump will call for a 'new American moment' in Tuesday night's State of the Union address, as he seeks to rally a deeply divided nation.

President Donald Trump will call for a "new American moment" in Tuesday night's State of the Union address, as he seeks to rally a deeply divided nation and infuse his presidency with a sense of optimism, for at least one high-profile night.

According to excerpts released ahead of the prime-time address, the president will declare that there has "never been a better time to start living the American dream." He's calling on lawmakers in both parties to join forces to modernise the nation's crumbling infrastructure and revamp immigration policies to focus on "the best interests of American workers and American families."

"I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to protect our citizens, of every background, colour, and creed," Trump said in the excerpts.

The following are the excerpts from Trump's State of the Union Speech as released by the White House:

***

- Together, we are building a SAFE, STRONG, and PROUD America.

- We want every American to know the dignity of a hard days work; we want every child to be safe in their home at night, and we want every citizen to be proud of this land that we love.

- Just as I promised the American People from this podium 11 months ago, we enacted the biggest tax cuts and reform in American history.

- Our massive tax cuts provide tremendous relief for the Middle Class and small businesses.

- Since we passed tax cuts, roughly 3 million workers have already gotten tax cut bonuses  many of them thousands of dollars per worker.

- This is our New American Moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American dream.

- Tonight, I want to talk about what kind of future we are going to have, and what kind of nation we are going to be. All of us, together, as one team, one people, and one American family.

- Americans love their country. And they deserve a government that shows them the same love and loyalty in return.

- For the last year we have sought to restore the bonds of trust between our citizens and their government.

- In our drive to make Washington accountable, we have eliminated more regulations in our first year than any administration in history.

- We have ENDED the war on American Energy  and we have ENDED the War on CLEAN COAL. We are now an exporter of energy to the world.

- America has also finally turned the page on decades of unfair trade deals that sacrificed our prosperity and shipped away our companies, our jobs and our nations wealth.

- America is a nation of builders. We built the Empire State Building in just one year  isnt it a disgrace that it can now take ten years just to get a permit approved for a simple road?

- I am asking both parties to come together to give us the safe, fast, reliable, and modern infrastructure our economy needs and our people deserve.

- Struggling communities, especially immigrant communities, will also be helped by immigration policies that focus on the best interests of American Workers and American Families.

- So tonight I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to protect our citizens, of every background, colour, and creed.

- As we rebuild Americas strength and confidence at home, we are also restoring our strength and standing abroad.

- Last year I pledged that we would work with our allies to extinguish ISIS from the face of the earth. One year later, Im proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated almost 100 percent of the territory once held by these killers in Iraq and Syria. But there is much more work to be done. We will continue our fight until ISIS is defeated.

- Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation. I will not repeat the mistakes of the past Administrations that got us into this dangerous position.A year into his presidency, President Donald Trump stands before the nation Tuesday night to account for his promise to 'make America great again'.

Washington: The state of the union is ...

Great again? Or not quite?

A year into his presidency, President Donald Trump stands before the nation Tuesday night to account for his promise to "make America great again" amid talk of a rising threat of nuclear war and special counsel Robert Mueller's probe of Trump's 2016 campaign and potential obstruction of justice.

For both parties, the speech operates like the pop of a starting gun for the midterm elections, when Republicans will defend their majorities in the House and Senate.

A look at what to watch:

How superlative?

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Monday previewed the speech by describing the state of the union as "incredible."

But will the hyperbole-loving president tone down his bombastic speaking style a bit? The White House is setting expectations as close to "yes" as possible  but only for as long as the speech itself lasts. Expect the president to cast the tax overhaul he signed in December and the strong economy as Trump initiatives that help all Americans. Thematically, Trump is expected to speak of having built the foundation for a safer and stronger nation.

But can Trump stay on message  and off Twitter  after the reviews come in?

The elephant in the chamber

Will Trump make any mention of Mueller's probe of Russian connections and obstruction of justice, or his own expressed willingness to be interviewed under oath? Trump told reporters last week he'd "love" to be interviewed under oath about the matter. But his lawyers didn't seem as enthusiastic and are still negotiating.

FLOTUS

First lady Melania Trump will face extra scrutiny this year  and not just because of the former model's fashionable couture.

Mrs Trump's movements have been closely watched ever since The Wall Street Journal reported earlier in January that the president's lawyer had arranged a payment to an adult film star, Stormy Daniels, to keep her from talking about an alleged 2006 affair with the future president. The couple's 13th wedding anniversary passed without public comment last week, and Mrs Trump abruptly announced she was skipping a trip with her husband to an economic summit last week in Switzerland. In a turnabout, Daniels on Tuesday said in a statement that the affair never happened.

Who's there

Often who is in the chamber reflects the president's priorities. Seated around Mrs Trump will be more than a dozen guests, including small-business owners, beneficiaries of tax relief, victims of gang violence and a police officer who adopted a baby from parents addicted to opioids.

Democrats are strategically populating their guest lists, too  with faces of the immigration debate that is roiling Congress and vexing Trump. Their guests will include immigrants who are among the nearly 7,00,000 people who received protection from deportation under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Trump cancelled the program in 2017 but gave Congress until March to come up with a legislative fix.

Only four Supreme Court justices, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch, are expected at the speech. Roberts, Breyer and Kagan regularly attend, as do justices appointed by the president who is speaking. Trump nominated Gorsuch a year ago.

Who's not

Traditionally, one member of the Cabinet stays away from the address for security reasons. Justice Samuel Alito, who shook his head and mouthed "not true" at President Barack Obama during the 2010 State of the Union speech, has not attended a presidential address since. And Clarence Thomas hasn't been in years..

Justice Anthony Kennedy's long-standing travel plans have him in California, while Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is in Rhode Island and Justice Sonia Sotomayor is in Panama.

Some Democratic lawmakers also plan to boycott the president's address.

What they wear

Typically, some female lawmakers wear bright colours so they will stand out on television. But this year, several Democratic women plan to wear black to protest sexual harassment after a season of scandals toppled male leaders across industries. Congress is no exception: Accusations have forced resignations and retirements in both parties. Trump, too, has faced sexual assault allegations.

Your name here

Looking for a little publicity? The speech will be a your-name-here opportunity for campaign donors. The Trump campaign said donors who chip in before the speech can have their names "displayed right under the livestream" of the speech on the campaign website.

Rebuttal

Representative Joe Kennedy of Massachusetts will deliver the Democratic response to the president's address. He is the grandson of the late Robert F Kennedy, the senator and US attorney general, and the son of former Representative Joseph Kennedy II, who served in the House from 1987 to 1999. Democratic leaders are pitching Kennedy as someone who can champion Democratic policies to the middle class.

Then this happens

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is scheduled to appear on ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" following Trump's address. She said she had an affair with Trump shortly after he married Melania Trump.Instead of citing data to back up claims of a roaring economy, more jobs, better national security, Donald Trump lauded American patriots and luminaries, only deflecting attention away from his own failing regime

Donald Trump delivered his first State of the Union address on Tuesday, and for a man considered by many to be the most polarising of US presidents, it was a change in strategy. Out went the personal attacks on rivals and critics, out went the conspiracy theories, and out went the negativity.

Speaking on the eve of the address, White House officials had said the president would strike a more "positive, bright and optimistic" note. Whether it checked all three of those boxes can be debated, but it definitely went towards striking a conciliatory tone.

Starting with the theme  'safe, strong and proud America'  Trump seemed ready to look forward instead of dwelling on the past. Even when pandering to American jingoism, another Trump trope, he did so forward looking. "We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways and waterways across our land. And we will do it with American Heart, American Hands, and American grit," he said.

He even attempted to strike a conciliatory tone with his critics in the Democratic Party, saying they should set aside their differences and come together.

"Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve. Tonight, I want to talk about what kind of future we are going to have, and what kind of Nation we are going to be. All of us, together, as one team, one people, and one American family," he said.

Facing approval ratings that are historically low  it's above the 50 percent mark in only 12 out of 50 states within a year into his presidency  Trump has also been facing a gridlocked Congress. It was only through a last-minute compromise made by the Democrats that the US government shutdown ended earlier this month.

Given the many challenges, it was always going to be unlikely that Trump would go into his first ever State of the Union address all guns blazing, but he managed to keep his emotions in check and delivered a sedate, non-controversial, even boring speech.

Low on emotion, low on evidence

In his 12 months in office, Donald Trump has traditionally stuck to his tested recipe for being high on rhetoric but low on facts. From climate change to the economy to creating jobs for America international relations, Trump has made a string of claims which has routinely pressed fact-checkers into business. And it was no different here.

In his State of the Union address, Trump spoke for nearly 100 minutes but dealt with statistics in the first quarter alone. And even then, many of the statistics he quoted were questioned and debated. As pointed out by The Washington Post, Trump's claim of having created 2.4 million new jobs was off by half a million, while his claim of enacting the biggest tax cut in American history was also false  it was the eighth largest  and was even smaller than two of Barack Obama's tax cuts, the report said.

But with evidence on the ground not being kind to the Trump administration, the president fell back to his favourite trope: Rhetoric, emotion and jingoism. Speaking from the podium, he introduced a string of personalities who have contributed to the American Dream  or at least to Trump's idea of the American Dream.

Speaking of small businesses, he introduced the owners of Staub Manufacturing, a small business from Ohio, which had a stellar year in 2017, and which, because of tax reforms, is expanding big. He also introduced one of Staub's employees, Corey Adams, "an all American worker", who supported himself through high school, lost his job during the 2008 recession and was later hired by Staub, where he trained to become a welder. "Like many hardworking Americans, Corey plans to invest his tax-cut raise into his new home and his two daughters' education," he said.

It would become a familiar idea, one that would be repeated throughout the evening. Trump would point to people in the audience who have championed the "American Dream", those who lost family and friends, or those who were simply being patriotic, and urge everybody to congratulate them.

On a night when he was expected to spell out the achievements of his government, he would repeatedly highlight the extraordinary feats performed by people in the audience. And while it's not to suggest these people didn't deserve the adulation and ovation coming their way, their achievements aren't the product of the Trump administration's efforts. In choosing to laud them and their efforts, Trump was merely deflecting attention away from the fact that he himself had little to offer.

American heroes in attendance

There was Coast Guard officer Ashlee Leppert who was aboard one of the first helicopters on the scene in Houston during Hurricane Harvey. There was firefighter David Dahlberg. "David faced down walls of flame to rescue almost 60 children trapped at a California summer camp threatened by wildfires," Trump said, urging the man be given a standing ovation.

Congressman Steve Scalise, who was shot at in Virginia in June last year, before making a recovery, was also present in the room for Trump's address. As was Preston Sharp, a 12-year-old boy from Redding, California, who noticed that war veterans' graves were not marked with flags on Veterans' Day. "He decided to change that and started a movement that has now placed 40,000 flags at the graves of our great heroes. Preston, a job well done. Young patriots like Preston teach all of us about our civic duty as Americans," Trump said.

From Albuquerque in New Mexico came Ryan Holets, a 27-year-old police officer who saw a pregnant homeless woman preparing to inject heroin. "When Ryan told her she was going to harm her unborn child, she began to weep. She told him she didn't know where to turn, but badly wanted a safe home for her baby. In that moment, Ryan said he felt God speak to him: 'You will do it  because you can'. He took out a picture of his wife, and their four kids. Then, he went home to tell his wife Rebecca. In an instant, she agreed to adopt," Trump said.

Also present were army staff sergeant Justin Peck and his comrade chief petty officer Kenton Stacy, who were on a mission to clear buildings in Raqqa that Islamic State had rigged with explosives so that civilians could return to the city. "Clearing the second floor of a vital hospital, Kenton was severely wounded by an explosion. Immediately, Justin bounded into the booby-trapped building and found Kenton in bad shape. He applied pressure to the wound and inserted a tube to reopen an airway. He then performed CPR for 20 straight minutes during the ground transport and maintained artificial respiration through two hours of emergency surgery. Kenton would have died if not for Justin's selfless love for a fellow warrior," Trump said.

Fred and Cindy Warmbier, parents of Otto, the University of Virginia student who was arrested in North Korea and accused of crimes against the State, were also in attendance and were also given a standing ovation.

Which is kind of the point. There were American heroes aplenty in the audience, and they deserved many plaudits and ovations. But it was courtesy a president who didn't have actual data to reinforce his claims of a better America who praised and lauded them.A man accused of deliberately driving a van into a group of London Muslims has told his trial that he wanted to kill the British Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn.

London: A man accused of deliberately driving a van into a group of London Muslims has told his trial that he wanted to kill the British Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Darren Osborne said on Tuesday that killing the leftist Labour leader would have been "one less terrorist off our streets", while killing Labour London Mayor Sadiq Khan as well "would have been like winning the lottery".

Osborne is accused of murdering 51-year-old Makram Ali and trying to kill others in the Finsbury Park area of north London on 19 June 2017, after growing angry at recent terror attacks and child sexual exploitation scandals involving gangs of mainly Muslim men, the trial has heard.

Osborne, 48, from the Welsh capital Cardiff, denies the charges.

He is accused of deliberately driving a van at a group of Muslims who had been attending Ramadan prayers at local mosques.

Taking the stand at Woolwich Crown Court in southeast London, Osborne claimed he had plotted with two men called Terry Jones and Dave to "plough through as many" people as possible at a pro-Palestinian march.

Corbyn was believed to be attending the central London event but was not there, and road closures meant there was no way for the vehicle to get close to marchers, Osborne said.

Prosecutor Jonathan Rees asked him, "Were you hoping that you would have an opportunity to attack Jeremy Corbyn and kill him?"

Osborne replied, "Oh yeah", adding, "It would be one less terrorist off our streets.

"If Sadiq Khan had been there it would have been even better. It would have been like winning the lottery."

Osborne claimed that at the time of the collision in the Finsbury Park area, Dave was driving, and carried out the "spontaneous" attack.

Both prosecutor and defendant agreed it was "remarkable" that Dave had managed to escape the scene of the attack.

Rees said Dave and Terry were "totally fabricated" by Osborne in order to deflect responsibility away from himself.

In his opening statement, Rees told jurors that Osborne was "obsessed" with Muslims and deliberately drove into a group near a mosque in what amounted to an act of terrorism.

At its opening on 22 January, the trial was set to last two weeks.Addressing a deeply divided nation, President Donald Trump called upon lawmakers Tuesday to 'summon the unity' needed to make good on long-standing promises.

Addressing a deeply divided nation, President Donald Trump called upon lawmakers Tuesday to "summon the unity" needed to make good on long-standing promises to fix the nation's crumbling infrastructure and fractured immigration systems, using his State of the Union address to infuse his presidency with a sense of optimism, for at least one high-profile night.

At times, Trump's address appeared to be aimed more at validating his first year in office than setting the course for his second. He devoted significant time to touting the tax overhaul he signed at the end of 2017, promising the plan will "provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small businesses."

Republicans led multiple rounds of enthusiastic applause during the speech, but for the opposition party it was a more sombre affair. Democrats provided a short spurt of polite applause for Trump as he entered the chamber, but offered muted reactions throughout the speech. A cluster of about two dozen Democrats, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus, remained planted firmly in their seats, staring sternly at the president and withholding applause.

The following is the full text of Trump's speech:

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, the First Lady of the United States, and my fellow Americans.

Less than one year has passed since I first stood at this podium, in this majestic chamber, to speak on behalf of the American People -- and to address their concerns, their hopes, and their dreams. That night, our new Administration had already taken swift action. A new tide of optimism was already sweeping across our land. Each day since, we have gone forward with a clear vision and a righteous mission -- to Make America Great Again for ALL AMERICANS.

Over the last year, we have made incredible progress and achieved extraordinary success. We have faced challenges we expected, and others we could never have imagined. We have shared in the heights of victory and the pains of hardship. We endured floods and fires and storms. But through it all, we have seen the beauty of America's soul, and the STEEL in America's spine.

Each test has forged new American Heroes to remind us who we are, and show us what we can be. We saw the volunteers of the Cajun Navy, racing to the rescue with their fishing boats to save people in the aftermath of a devastating hurricane. We saw strangers shielding strangers from a hail of gunfire on the Las Vegas strip. We heard tales of Americans like Coast Guard Petty Officer Ashlee Leppert, who is here tonight in the gallery with Melania. Ashlee was aboard one of the first helicopters on the scene in Houston during Hurricane Harvey. Through 18 hours of wind and rain, Ashlee braved live power lines and deep water, to help save more than 40 lives. Thank you, Ashlee.

We heard about Americans like firefighter David Dahlberg. He's here with us too. David faced down walls of flame to rescue almost 60 children trapped at a California summer camp threatened by wildfires. To everyone still recovering in Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, California, and everywhere else  we are with you, we love you, and we will pull through TOGETHER.

Some trials over the past year touched this chamber very personally. With us tonight is one of the toughest people ever to serve in this House  a guy who took a bullet, almost died, and was back to work three and a half months later: the Legend from Louisiana, Congressman Steve Scalise. We're incredibly grateful for the heroic efforts of the Capitol Police Officers, the Alexandria Police, and the doctors, nurses and paramedics who saved his life, and the lives of many others in this room. In the aftermath of that terrible shooting, we came together NOT as Republicans or Democrats, but as representatives of the people.

But it is not enough to come together only in times of tragedy. Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve. Over the last year, the world has seen what we always knew: that no people on Earth are so fearless, or daring, or DETERMINED as AMERICANS. If there is a mountain, we climb it. If there's a frontier, we cross it. If there's a challenge, we tame it. If there is an opportunity, we seize it. So let's begin tonight by recognizing that the State Of Our Union Is Strong Because OUR PEOPLE ARE STRONG. And together, we are building a SAFE, STRONG, and PROUD America.

Since the election, we have created 2.4 MILLION new jobs, including 200,000 new jobs in manufacturing alone. After years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing RISING WAGES. Unemployment claims have hit a 45 year low. African American unemployment stands at the lowest rate ever recorded, and Hispanic American unemployment has also reached the lowest levels in history. Small business confidence is at an all-time high. The stock market has smashed one record after another, gaining $8 trillion dollars in value. That's great news for Americans' 401k, retirement, pension, and college savings accounts.

And just as I promised the American People from this podium 11 months ago, we enacted the BIGGEST TAX CUTS AND REFORMS IN AMERICAN HISTORY. Our massive tax cuts provide tremendous relief for the Middle Class and small businesses. To lower tax rates for hardworking Americans, we nearly doubled the standard deduction for everyone. Now, the first $24,000 dollars earned by a married couple is completely TAX-FREE. We also DOUBLED the CHILD TAX CREDIT. A typical family of four making $75,000 dollars will see their tax bill reduced by two thousand dollars  slashing their tax bill in half. This April will be the last time you ever file under the old broken system  and millions of Americans will have more take-home pay starting next month. We eliminated an especially cruel tax that fell mostly on Americans making less than $50,000 dollars a year  forcing them to pay tremendous penalties simply because they couldn't afford government-ordered health plans.

We repealed the core of disastrous Obamacare  the individual mandate is NOW GONE. We slashed the business tax rate from 35 percent, all the way down to 21 percent, so American companies can compete and win against ANYONE in the world. These changes alone are estimated to increase average family income by more than $4,000 Dollars. Small businesses have also received a massive tax cut, and can now deduct 20 percent of their business income. Here tonight are Steve Staub and Sandy Keplinger of Staub Manufacturing  a small business in Ohio. They've just finished the best year in their 20-year history. Because of tax reform, they are handing out raises, hiring an additional 14 people, and expanding into the building next door. One of Staub's employees, Corey Adams, is also with us tonight. Corey is an all-American worker. He supported himself through high school, lost his job during the 2008 recession, and was later hired by Staub, where he trained to become a welder. Like many hardworking Americans, Corey plans to invest his tax-cut raise into his new home and his two daughters' education. Please join me in congratulating Corey.

Since we passed tax cuts, roughly 3 million workers have already gotten tax cut bonuses  many of them thousands of dollars per worker. Apple has just announced it plans to invest a total of $350 billion dollars in America, and hire another 20,000 workers. THIS is our New American Moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American Dream. So to every citizen watching at home tonight  no matter where you've been, or where you come from, THIS IS YOUR TIME. If you work hard, if you believe in yourself, if you believe in America, then you can DREAM anything, you can BE anything, and together, we can ACHIEVE anything.

Tonight, I want to talk about what kind of future we are going to have, and what kind of nation we are going to be. All of us, together, as one team, one people, and one American family. We all share the same home, the same heart, the same destiny, and the same GREAT AMERICAN FLAG. Together, we are rediscovering THE AMERICAN WAY. In America, we know that faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, are the center of the American life. Our motto is "IN GOD WE TRUST".

And we celebrate our police, our military, and our amazing veterans as HEROES who deserve our total and unwavering support. Here tonight is Preston Sharp, a 12-year-old boy from Redding, California who noticed that Veterans' graves were not marked with flags on Veterans' Day. He decided to change that, and started a movement that has now placed 40,000 flags at the graves of our great heroes. Preston  A Job Well Done. Young patriots like Preston teach all of us about our civic duty as Americans. Preston's reverence for those who have served our nation reminds us why we salute our flag, why we put our hands on our hearts for the pledge of allegiance, and why we PROUDLY STAND FOR THE NATIONAL ANTHEM.

Americans love their country. And they deserve a government that shows them the same love and loyalty in return. For the last year we have sought to restore the bonds of trust between our citizens and their government. Working with the Senate, we are appointing judges who will interpret the Constitution as written, including a great new Supreme Court Justice, and more circuit court judges than any new Administration in the history of our country. We are defending our second amendment, and have taken historic actions to protect religious liberty. And we are serving our brave Veterans  including giving our Veterans Choice in their healthcare decisions. Last year, Congress also passed, and I signed, the landmark VA Accountability Act. Since its passage, my Administration has already removed more than 1,500 VA employees who failed to give our veterans the care they deserve  and we are hiring talented people who love our Vets as much as we do. I will not stop until our Veterans are properly taken care of, which has been my promise to them from the very beginning of this great journey.

ALL Americans deserve accountability and respect  and that's what we are giving them. So tonight I call on Congress to empower EVERY cabinet Secretary with the authority to reward good workers  and to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American People. In our drive to make Washington accountable, we have eliminated more regulations in our first year than any administration in history.

We have ENDED the war on American Energy  and we have ENDED the War on CLEAN COAL. We are now an exporter of energy to the world. In DETROIT, I halted government mandates that crippled America's autoworkers -- so we can get the MOTOR CITY REVVING ITS ENGINES once again. Many car companies are now building and expanding plants in the United States, something we haven't seen for decades. Chrysler is moving a major plant from Mexico to Michigan, Toyota and Mazda are opening up a plant in Alabama. Soon, plants will be opening up all over the country.

This is all news Americans are unaccustomed to hearing  for many years, companies and jobs were only leaving us. But now they are coming back. Exciting progress is happening every day. To speed access to breakthrough cures and affordable generic drugs, last year the FDA approved more new and generic drugs and medical devices than ever before in our history. We also believe that patients with terminal conditions should have access to experimental treatments that could potentially save their lives. People who are terminally ill should not have to go from country to country to seek a cure  I want to give them a chance right here at home. It's time for Congress to give these wonderful Americans the Right To Try. One of my greatest priorities is to reduce the price of prescription drugs. In many other countries, these drugs cost far less than what we pay in the United States. That is why I've directed my administration to make fixing the injustice of high drug prices one of our top priorities. Prices will come down.

America has also finally turned the page on decades of unfair trade deals that sacrificed our prosperity and shipped away our companies, our jobs and our nation's wealth. THE ERA OF ECONOMIC SURRENDER IS OVER. From now on, we expect trading relationships to be FAIR and to be RECIPROCAL. We will work to fix bad trade deals and negotiate new ones. And we will protect American Workers, and American Intellectual Property, through strong enforcement of our trade rules. As we rebuild our industries, it is also time to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. America is a nation of builders. We built the Empire State Building in just ONE year  isn't it a disgrace that it can now take TEN years just to get a permit approved for a simple road? I am asking both parties to come together to give us the safe, fast, reliable, and modern infrastructure our economy needs and our people deserve.

Tonight, I am calling on Congress to produce a bill that generates at least $1.5 trillion dollars for the new infrastructure investment we need. Every federal dollar should be leveraged by partnering with state and local governments and, where appropriate, tapping into private sector investment  to permanently fix the infrastructure deficit. Any bill must also streamline the permitting and approval process  getting it down to no more than TWO YEARS, and perhaps even one. Together, we can reclaim our building heritage. We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways and waterways across our land. And we will do it with American Heart, American Hands, and AMERICAN GRIT.

We want every American to know the dignity of a hard day's work; we want every child to be safe in their home at night, and we want every citizen to be proud of this land that we love. We can lift our citizens from WELFARE TO WORK, from DEPENDENCE TO INDEPENDENCE, and from POVERTY TO PROSPERITY. As tax cuts create new jobs, let's invest in workforce development and job-training. Let's open great vocational schools so our future workers can learn a craft and realize their full potential. And let's support working families by supporting Paid Family Leave. As America regains its strength, opportunity must be extended to all citizens. That is why this year we will embark on reforming our prisons to help former inmates, who have served their time, get a second chance. Struggling communities, especially immigrant communities, will also be helped by immigration policies that focus on the best interests of American Workers and American Families.

For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities. They've allowed millions of low-wage workers to compete for jobs and wages against the poorest Americans. Most tragically, they have caused the loss of many innocent lives. Here tonight are two fathers, and two mothers: Evelyn Rodriguez, Freddy Cuevas, Elizabeth Alvarado, and Robert Mickens. Their two teenage daughters  Kayla Cuevas and Neesa Mickens  were close friends on Long Island. But in September 2016, on the eve of Neesa's 16th birthday, neither of them came home. These two precious girls were brutally murdered while walking together in their hometown. Six members of the savage gang MS-13 have been charged with Kayla and Neesa's murders. Many of these gang members took advantage of glaring loopholes in our laws to enter the country as UNACCOMPANIED ALIEN MINORS  and wound up in Kayla and Neesa's high school. Evelyn, Elizabeth, Freddy, and Robert: Tonight, everyone in this chamber is praying for you. Everyone in America is grieving for you. And 320 million hearts are BREAKING for you. We cannot imagine the depth of your sorrow, but we can make sure that other families never have to endure this pain. [Please Stand]

Tonight I am calling on Congress to finally close the deadly loopholes that have allowed MS-13, and other criminals, to break into our country. We have proposed new legislation that will fix our immigration laws, and support our ICE and Border Patrol Agents, so that this cannot ever happen again. The United States is a compassionate nation. We are proud that we do more than any other country to help the needy, the struggling, and the underprivileged all over the world. But as President of the United States, my highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, my constant concern is for AMERICA'S children, AMERICA'S struggling workers, and AMERICA'S forgotten communities. I want OUR youth to grow up to achieve great things. I want OUR poor to have THEIR CHANCE to rise.

So tonight I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to protect OUR CITIZENS, of every background, color, religion, and creed. My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend AMERICANS  to protect THEIR safety, THEIR families, THEIR communities, and THEIR right to the American Dream. Because AMERICANS ARE DREAMERS TOO. Here tonight is one leader in the effort to defend our country: Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Celestino Martinez -- he goes by CJ. CJ served 15 years in the Air Force, before becoming an ICE agent and spending the last 15 years fighting gang violence and getting dangerous criminals off our streets. At one point, MS-13 leaders ordered CJ's murder. But he did not cave to threats or fear. Last May, he commanded an operation to track down gang members on Long Island. His team has arrested nearly 400, including more than 220 from MS-13. CJ - great work.

Now let's get Congress to send you some reinforcements. Over the next few weeks, the House and Senate will be voting on an immigration reform package. In recent months, my administration has met extensively with both Democrats and Republicans to craft a bipartisan approach to immigration reform. Based on these discussions, we presented Congress with a detailed proposal that should be supported by both parties as a FAIR COMPROMISE  one where nobody gets everything they want, but where our country gets the critical reforms it needs.

Here are the FOUR PILLARS of our plan: The First Pillar of our framework generously offers a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants who were brought here by their parents at a young age  that covers almost THREE TIMES more people than the previous administration. Under our plan, those who meet education and work requirements, and show good moral character, will be able to become full citizens of the United States. The Second Pillar fully secures the border. That means building a wall on the southern border, and it means hiring more heroes like CJ to keep our communities safe. Crucially, our plan closes the terrible loopholes exploited by criminals and terrorists to enter our country -- and it finally ends the dangerous practice of Catch-and-Release.

The Third Pillar ends the Visa Lottery, a program that randomly hands out green cards without any regard for skill, merit, or the safety of our people. It is time to begin moving towards a MERIT-BASED immigration system -- one that admits people who are skilled, who want to work, who will contribute to our society, and who will love and respect our country. The Fourth and Final Pillar protects the nuclear family by ending chain migration. Under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually UNLIMITED numbers of distant relatives. Under our plan, we focus on the IMMEDIATE FAMILY, by limiting sponsorships to spouses and minor children. This vital reform is necessary not just for our economy, but for our security, and our future. In recent weeks, two terrorist attacks in New York were made possible by the visa lottery and chain migration. In the age of terrorism, these programs present risks we can no longer afford. It is time to reform these outdated immigration rules, and finally bring our immigration system into the 21st century.

These four pillars represent a down-the-middle compromise  and one that will create a SAFE, MODERN and LAWFUL immigration system. For over 30 years, Washington has tried and failed to solve this problem. This Congress can be the one that finally makes it happen. Most importantly, these four pillars will produce legislation that fulfills my ironclad pledge to only sign a bill that puts America First. So let's come together, set politics aside, and FINALLY GET THE JOB DONE.

These reforms will also support our response to the terrible crisis of opioid and drug addiction. In 2016, we lost 64,000 Americans to drug overdoses. 174 deaths per day. 7 per hour. We must get much tougher on drug dealers and pushers if we are going to succeed in stopping this scourge. My Administration is committed to fighting the drug epidemic and helping get treatment for those in need. The struggle will be long and difficult  but, as Americans always do, WE WILL PREVAIL.

As we have seen tonight, the most difficult challenges bring out the best in America. We see a vivid expression of this truth in the story of the Holets Family of New Mexico. Ryan Holets is 27 years old, an officer with the Albuquerque Police Department. He's here tonight with his wife Rebecca. Last year, Ryan was on duty when he saw a pregnant homeless woman preparing to inject heroin. When Ryan told her she was going to harm her unborn child, she began to weep. She told him she didn't know where to turn - but badly wanted a safe home for her baby. In that moment, Ryan said he felt God speak to him: "You will do it  because you can." He took out a picture of his wife, and their four kids. Then, he went home to tell his wife Rebecca. In an instant, she agreed to adopt. The Holets named their new daughter HOPE. Ryan and Rebecca, you embody the goodness of our nation. Thank you, and CONGRATULATIONS.

As we rebuild America's strength and confidence AT HOME, we are also restoring our strength and standing ABROAD. Around the world, we face rogue regimes, terrorist groups, and rivals like China and Russia that challenge our interests, our economy and our values. In confronting these dangers, we know that weakness is the surest path to conflict, and unmatched power is the surest means of our defense. For this reason, I am asking Congress to END the dangerous defense sequester and fully fund our great military. As part of our defense, we must modernize and rebuild our nuclear arsenal, hopefully never having to use it, but making it so strong and powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression. Perhaps someday in the future there will be a magical moment when the countries of the world will get together to eliminate their nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, we are not there yet.

Last year I also pledged that we would work with our allies to extinguish ISIS from the face of the earth. One year later, I'm proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated almost 100 percent of the territory once held by these killers in Iraq and Syria. But there is much more work to be done. We will continue our fight until ISIS is defeated. Army Staff Sergeant Justin Peck is here tonight. Near Raqqa last November, Justin and his comrade, Chief Petty Officer Kenton Stacy, were on a mission to clear buildings that ISIS had rigged with explosives, so that civilians could return to the city. Clearing the second floor of a vital hospital, Kenton Stacy was severely wounded by an explosion. Immediately, Justin bounded into the booby-trapped building and found Kenton in bad shape. He applied pressure to the wound and inserted a tube to reopen an airway. He then performed CPR for 20 straight minutes during the ground transport, and maintained artificial respiration through two hours of emergency surgery. Kenton Stacy would have died if not for Justin's selfless love for a fellow warrior. Tonight Kenton is recovering in Texas. Raqqa is liberated. And Justin is wearing his new Bronze Star, with a V for "Valor." Staff Sergeant Peck: ALL OF AMERICA SALUTES YOU.

Terrorists who do things like place bombs in civilian hospitals are EVIL. When possible, we annihilate them. When necessary, we must be able to detain and question them. But we must be clear: terrorists are not merely criminals. They are unlawful enemy combatants. And when captured overseas, they should be treated like the terrorists they are. In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds of dangerous terrorists only to meet them again on the battlefield  including the ISIS leader, al-Baghdadi. So today I am keeping another promise. I just signed an order directing Secretary Mattis to reexamine our military detention policy, and to keep open the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay. I am also asking Congress to ensure that in the fight against ISIS and Al Qaeda we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists -- wherever we chase them down.

Our warriors in Afghanistan also have new rules of engagement. Along with their heroic Afghan partners, our military is no longer undermined by artificial timelines, and we no longer tell our enemies our plans. Last month, I also took an action endorsed UNANIMOUSLY by the U.S. Senate just months before: I recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Shortly afterwards, dozens of countries voted in the United Nations General Assembly against America's sovereign right to make this recognition. In 2016, American taxpayers generously sent those same countries more than $20 BILLION dollars in aid.

That is why tonight, I am asking Congress to pass legislation to help ensure American foreign-assistance dollars always serve American interests, and only go to America's friends. As we strengthen friendships around the world, we are also restoring clarity about our adversaries. When the people of Iran rose up against the crimes of their corrupt dictatorship, I did not stay silent. America stands with the people of Iran in their courageous struggle for FREEDOM. I am asking Congress to address the fundamental flaws in the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal.

My administration has also imposed tough sanctions on the communist and socialist dictatorships in Cuba and Venezuela. But no regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally or brutally than the cruel dictatorship in North Korea. North Korea's reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland. We are waging a campaign of MAXIMUM PRESSURE to prevent that from happening. Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation. I WILL NOT repeat the mistakes of past Administrations that got us into this dangerous position. We need only look at the depraved character of the North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose to America and our allies.

Otto Warmbier was a hardworking student at the University of Virginia. On his way to study abroad in Asia, Otto joined a tour to North Korea. At its conclusion, this wonderful young man was arrested and charged with crimes against the state. After a shameful trial the dictatorship sentenced Otto to fifteen years of hard labor, before returning him to America last June, horribly injured and on the verge of death. He passed away just days after his return. Otto's Parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, are with us tonight  along with Otto's brother and sister, Austin and Greta. [Please Stand]

You are powerful witnesses to a menace that threatens our world, and your strength inspires us all. Tonight we pledge to honor Otto's memory with AMERICAN RESOLVE. Finally, we are joined by one more witness to the ominous nature of this regime. His name is Mr. Ji Sung-Ho. In 1996, Sung-ho was a starving boy in North Korea. One day, he tried to steal coal from a railroad car to barter for a few scraps of food. In the process, he passed out on the train tracks exhausted from hunger. He woke up as a train ran over his limbs. He then endured multiple amputations without anything to dull the pain. His brother and sister gave what little food they had to help him recover, and ate dirt themselves  permanently stunting their own growth. Later, he was tortured by North Korean authorities after returning from a brief visit to China. His tormentors wanted to know if he'd met any Christians. HE HAD  and he RESOLVED TO BE FREE. Sung-ho travelled thousands of miles on crutches across China and Southeast Asia to freedom. Most of his family followed. His father was caught trying to escape, and was tortured to death. Today he lives in Seoul, where he rescues other defectors, and broadcasts into North Korea what the regime fears the most  THE TRUTH. Today he has a new leg, but Sung-ho, I understand you still keep those crutches as a reminder of how far you've come. Your great sacrifice is an inspiration to us all.

Sung-Ho's story is a testament to the yearning of every human soul to live in FREEDOM. It was that same yearning for freedom that nearly 250 years ago gave birth to a special place called America. It was a small cluster of colonies caught between a great ocean and a vast wilderness. But it was home to an incredible people with a revolutionary idea: that they could RULE THEMSELVES. That they could chart their own destiny. And that, together, they could light up the world.

That is what our country has always been about. That is what Americans have always stood for, always strived for, and always done. Atop the dome of this Capitol stands the Statue of Freedom. She stands tall and dignified among the monuments to our ancestors who fought and lived and died to protect her. Monuments to WASHINGTON and JEFFERSON, to LINCOLN and KING. Memorials to the heroes of YORKTOWN and SARATOGA. To young Americans who shed their blood on the shores of Normandy, and the fields beyond. And others, who went down in the waters of the Pacific, and the skies over Asia.

And Freedom stands tall over one more monument: THIS ONE. This Capitol  This Living Monument to the American People. A people whose heroes live not only in the past, but all around us  defending hope, pride, and the American Way. They work in every trade. They sacrifice to raise a family. They care for our children at home. They defend our flag abroad. They are strong moms, and brave kids. They are firefighters, police officers, border agents, medics, and Marines. But above all else, they are AMERICANS. And THIS Capitol, THIS City, THIS Nation, belongs to THEM. Our task is to respect them, to listen to them, to serve them, to protect them  and to always be WORTHY of them.

Americans fill the world with art and music. They push the bounds of science and discovery. And they forever remind us of what we should never forget: The People DREAMED this country. The People BUILT this country, and it is THE PEOPLE who are MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. As long as we are proud of WHO we are, and WHAT we are fighting for -- there is NOTHING we cannot achieve. As long as we have confidence in our values, faith in our citizens, and trust in our God -- WE WILL NOT FAIL. Our families will THRIVE. Our People will PROSPER. AND OUR NATION WILL FOREVER BE SAFE AND STRONG AND PROUD AND MIGHTY AND FREE!

Thank you, and God Bless America! Goodnight!

The text is exactly as has been provided by C-SPAN and has not been edited by Firstpost.This is the blog of China defense, where professional analysts and serious defense enthusiasts share findings on a rising military power.A high-level Afghan delegation arrived here on Wednesday and is expected to hold talks with Pakistani officials about cooperation between the two countries, an official said.

Islamabad: A high-level Afghan delegation arrived here on Wednesday and is expected to hold talks with Pakistani officials about cooperation between the two countries, an official said.

Foreign Office spokesperson Muhammad Faisal said that the delegation, comprising Afghan Interior Minister Wais Ahmad Barmak and National Directorate of Security chief Masoom Stanekzai, is visiting Islamabad with a message from Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and will hold discussions about cooperation.

Afghan news service Tolo News reported, citing a presidential palace source, that the delegation is to hand over evidence to Pakistan regarding the recent attacks in Kabul. The evidence will be shared with the Pakistan Army, the source claimed, without providing further details.

At least 11 Afghan soldiers were killed in an attack on a military compound in Kabul on 29 January claimed by the Islamic State, the third major assault in the Afghan capital in recent days.

On 27 January, a Taliban suicide attacker driving an explosives-packed ambulance blew it up in a crowded area of the capital, killing at least 103 peoplemainly civilians and injuring 235 in one of the worst bombings in the city in recent years.

The Islamic State also attacked Save the Children's office on 24 January. Five people were killed and 26 wounded while the organisation was forced to suspend operations across the country.

On 20 January, Taliban fighters stormed Kabul's landmark Intercontinental hotel and killed at least 25 people, in an assault lasting more than 12 hours.

Kabul remains on high alert as the city braces for further violence. Security warnings have been sent to foreigners in recent days, cautioning that the Islamic State was planning to attack supermarkets, hotels and shops frequented by foreigners.

Several foreign organisations, including humanitarian groups, are reassessing their operations after the spate of deadly violence.First Lady Melania Trump made a very visible return to the public stage on Wednesday by attending her husband's maiden State of the Union address, her first official appearance since accusations of infidelity surfaced about the president.

Washington: First Lady Melania Trump made a very visible return to the public stage on Wednesday by attending her husband's maiden State of the Union address, her first official appearance since accusations of infidelity surfaced about the president.

The enigmatic wife of Donald Trump emerged publicly for the first time since she fed the Washington rumor mill by cancelling her trip to Davos, Switzerland, leaving her husband to attend last week's World Economic Forum on his own.

Melania's no-show in Davos came on the heels of a bombshell report that Trump had a fling with porn star Stormy Daniels in 2006, just months after his wife gave birth to their son.

But for Trump's big night in Congress, Melania arrived smiling and waving, to warm and extended applause  dressed in a crisp cream white pantsuit that stood in contrast to the black donned by Democratic lawmakers in solidarity with the victims of sexual harassment. Minutes later, her husband took the floor and exchanged waves with his wife.

Among Trumps' guests in the first lady's box were a US Marine corporal who stepped on an explosive device and lost both legs while deployed in Iraq in 2007; first responders who helped save hurricane victims in Louisiana and Texas, and parents of children killed by the gang MS-13.

Breaking with tradition, the first couple arrived separately to the Capitol, because, according to the first lady's spokesperson Stephanie Grisham, she was accompanying guests.

Afterwards, the first lady was seen being escorted out of the gallery by a military officer, as Trump spoke with lawmakers and administration officials on the House floor.

It was not immediately clear whether the Trumps returned together to the White House.

As the 47-year-old wife of a 71-year-old man known for past lewd remarks about women, and whose two past divorces became public spectacles, Melania is dogged by speculation that they lead largely separate lives.

Speculation flared anew when The Wall Street Journal reported on 12 January that Trump had paid Daniels $130,000, one month before the November 2016 election, to keep their adulterous liaison quiet.

The porn star was questioned anew about the reports as a guest given star billing Tuesday on late night ABC talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live!

But Daniels, reportedly bound by the non-disclosure agreement about the alleged fling, revealed little  laughing awkwardly, flashing tight-lipped smiles and deflecting Kimmel's questions at every chance.

"I thought this was a talk show, not a horror movie," she said as Kimmel read from the transcript of a 2011 In Touch magazine interview, only recently published and reportedly about the liaison.In his first tweets this year, Trump had accused Pakistan of playing a 'double game' on fighting terrorism and asked Islamabad to take decisive action against militants operating from its soil to 'earn' the US aid.

Afghanistan on Wednesday rejected Pakistan's claims that it had handed over 27 Taliban and Haqqani network prisoners to Afghanistan last year.

"Pakistan has not handed over any members of these groups," an official source was quoted as saying by TOLO News.

This comes after a spokesman for Pakistan's Foreign Office Mohammad Faisal claimed on Tuesday that Pakistan handed over 27 individuals suspected of having ties to Taliban and Haqqani network to Afghan officials last year.

In a series of tweets, Faisal said Pakistan "continued to push any suspected TTA (Tehreek-e-Taliban Afghanistan) and HN (Haqqnai Network) elements to prevent them from using our soil for any terrorist activity in Afghanistan."

"In this context, 27 individuals suspected of belonging to TTA & HN have been handed over to Afghanistan in November 2017," he tweeted.

In his new South Asia Policy in last August, US President Donald Trump had called for tougher measure against Pakistan if it fails to cooperate with the US in its fight against terrorism.

In his first tweets this year, Trump had accused Pakistan of playing a "double game" on fighting terrorism and asked Islamabad to take decisive action against militants operating from its soil to "earn" the US aid.

Attacking Pakistan, he also said they have given America "nothing but lies and deceit" despite having received more than $33 billion in last 15 years.

The United States later suspended its $255 million military aid to Pakistan.

The FO spokesman also said that "Pakistan has sacrificed 75,000 civilians & 6000 soldiers to the scourge of terrorism". He said that Pakistan has one of the highest officer-to-soldier casualty rate globally, as traditionally officers lead the fight.

About economic losses in the war on terror, Faisal said that Pakistan "suffered economic losses worth $123 billion".

Meanwhile, a high-level Afghan delegation, comprising the country's Interior Minister Wais Ahmad Barmak and the chief of its intelligence agency the National Directorate of Security (NDS), Masoom Stanekzai have arrived in Islamabad to discuss "possible cooperation to tackle cross border militancy".

Announcing this on social media, Faisal said that had also brought a message from Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani.

The visit by Afghan delegation comes after a recent wave of deadly attacks in Kabul, including ambulance bombing that killed around 100 people for which the Taliban and the Daesh took responsibility.

"Afghan government had requested that a high-level delegation comprising Interior Minister and NDS chief would like to visit Pakistan with a message from Afghan President and for discussions about cooperation between the two countries. Delegation is here and will have talks today," he tweeted.

Official sources said that the two sides would discuss possible cooperation to tackle cross border militancy as both countries are victims of such attacks.

The two sides often allege each other for failing to stop militants using their soils for lethal attacks.

With inputs from agenciesDonald Trump's State of the Union address  an annual speech seen as a blueprint for the year to come for the US  drew sharp reactions from global media.

President Donald Trump made a pitch for national unity and strong borders in his maiden State of the Union address on Tuesday, calling for "one American family" after a year plagued by acrimony, division and scandal.

Delivering his biggest speech of the year, this most polarising of presidents sought to put the spotlight on a robust Trump economy, while pointedly calling on a packed joint session of Congress to enact hardline curbs on immigration.

"Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve," he said.

Trump's opening tone was uncharacteristically conciliatory, although it bridged no compromise on his drive to reduce immigration  which he painted as responsible for a plethora of social ills.

He touched on a range of foreign policy issues  including, in an emotive moment, offering the spotlight to crippled North Korean amputee defector Ji Seong-ho, who waved a crutch in the air as he received a prolonged standing ovation.

But Trump's State of the Union, the third longest on record at one hour twenty minutes, was overwhelmingly focused on domestic concerns.

Seeking to enliven his own base, Trump spoke at length on the need for immigration reform, drawing hisses from the opposition as he equated immigrants with criminality and economic tension and spoke of "chain migration."

For decades, he lamented, "open borders" had allowed "drugs and gangs to pour into" the United States. He again called for the construction of a border wall that remains unfunded in Congress.

The address, often seen as a blueprint for the year to come for the United States, drew sharp reactions from global media.

A CNN op-ed warned about taking Trump's address seriously, as it would be a 'mistake'. "Yes, past presidents have used the annual State of the Union address as part wish list/part outline of their coming year. But Trump is not like any president that has held the office before. So we need to stop using the same old frameworks  and guideposts  to describe and measure him."

The piece argued that best way to think about and analyse Trump as a day-to-day president, and lamenting on his address was to digress from the issues at hand. In his speech, the 71-year-old real estate mogul and reality TV star touted a long bull run on Wall Street and improving growth rates, something the White House has dubbed a "Trump bump."

"The stock market has smashed one record after another, gaining $8 trillion in value," he said, even though that narrative suffered a setback on Tuesday when stocks suffered their biggest drop in eight months amid fears of a bubble.

The New York Times, however, argued that while Trump can sell an improved economy, he cannot sell himself to America. "The challenge for Trump is that even as he sells the economy with the fervour of a real estate developer, he has not been able to sell himself. His approval ratings remain at historic depths and effectively unchanged after a year in office. His success at passing tax cuts and the continued progress of the economy he inherited have not changed the dismal views that a sizable majority of Americans hold of their president."

The piece pointed out that Trump's outsize personality has so polarised the country that he may not be able to win over many converts easily, even with opportunities like a national television audience of tens of millions.

Contrasting the change in his tone from his address to the Congress 11 months ago, that was warmly received, a BBC article said: "Eleven months ago, the newly inaugurated president gave a speech to Congress that was warmly received, even by some Trump critics on the left. Trump at one point pledged to put 'trivial fights behind us'. It hasn't exactly turned out that way."

"Now the president is again preaching national unity. The question is whether a divided American public - nearly half of whom 'strongly disapprove' of the president - can still be converted," the piece added.

"The United States is a compassionate nation" Trump had said in his address, "but as president of the United States, my highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, and my constant concern is for America's children, America's struggling workers, and America's forgotten communities."

The Atlantic, meanwhile, pointed out how the long, surprisingly standard speech ignored the tumultuous lived reality of American politics over the past yearand the likely reality in the year to come. Faced with the challenge of presenting new proposals when many of the old ones are still on the table, Trump decided to conjure his own reality, outlining a set of some accomplishments, delivering the standard list of policy proposals, and ignoring the Russia probe altogether, the piece said.

"... Not only was the picture he painted of America removed from reality, but Trump himself was also practically unrecognisable. The speech somehow managed to render Trump the one thing he almost never is: boring," the report said.

Another Washington Post article highlighted Trump's penchant to alter his tone to suit the occasion. It noted that a special version of the president emerges on special occasions, with his smooth, modulated voice. No shouts, no big gestures, not a mention of "radical Islamic terrorism" or "a network of lawless savages."

"The Donald Trump who delivered his first State of the Union address Tuesday night referred instead to 'IS'. He didnt say a word about his opponents, nothing about the critics. The man who rose to power on a wave of inflammatory rhetoric sounded as if hed been doused with a warm glass of milk, the piece said."

With inputs from AFPDonald Trump's address blended self-congratulation and calls for optimism amid a growing economy with ominous warnings.

Washington: Addressing a deeply divided nation, President Donald Trump summoned the country to a "new American moment" of unity in his first State of the Union address, challenging Congress to make good on long-standing promises to fix a fractured immigration system and warning darkly of evil forces seeking to undermine America's way of life.

Trump's address Tuesday night blended self-congratulation and calls for optimism amid a growing economy with ominous warnings about deadly gangs, the scourge of drugs and violent immigrants living in the United States illegally. He cast the debate over immigration  an issue that has long animated his most ardent supporters  as a battle between heroes and villains, leaning heavily on the personal stories of White House guests in the crowd. He praised a law enforcement agent who arrested more than 100 gang members, and he recognised the families of two alleged gang victims.

He also spoke with foreboding of catastrophic dangers from abroad, warning that North Korea would "very soon" threaten the United States with nuclear-tipped missiles.

"The United States is a compassionate nation. We are proud that we do more than any other country to help the needy, the struggling and the underprivileged all over the world," Trump said. "But as president of the United States, my highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, and my constant concern is for America's children, America's struggling workers and America's forgotten communities."

Trump addressed the nation with tensions running high on Capitol Hill. An impasse over immigration prompted a three-day government shutdown earlier in 2018, and lawmakers appear no closer to resolving the status of the "Dreamers"  young people living in the US illegally ahead of a new 8 February deadline for funding operations. The parties have also clashed this week over the plans of Republicans on the House intelligence committee to release a classified memo on the Russia investigation involving Trump's presidential campaign  a decision the White House backs but the Justice Department is fighting.

The controversies that have dogged Trump  and the ones he has created have overshadowed strong economic gains during his first year in office. His approval ratings have hovered in the 30s for much of his presidency, and just 3 in 10 Americans said the United States was heading in the right direction, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. In the same survey, 67 percent of Americans said the country was more divided because of Trump.

At times, Trump's address appeared to be aimed more at validating his first year in office than setting the course for his second. He devoted significant time to touting the tax overhaul he signed at the end of last year, promising the plan will "provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small businesses." He also highlighted the decision made early in his first year to withdraw the US from a sweeping Asia-Pacific trade pact, declaring: "The era of economic surrender is totally over."

He spoke about potential agenda items for 2018 in broad terms, including a call for $1.5 trillion in new infrastructure spending and partnerships with states and the private sector. He touched only briefly on issues like health care that have been at the centre of the Republican Party's policy agenda for years.

Tackling the sensitive immigration debate that has roiled Washington, Trump redoubled his recent pledge to offer a path to citizenship for 1.8 million young immigrants  but only as part of a package that would also require increased funding for border security, including a wall along the US-Mexico border, ending the nation's visa lottery method and revamping the current legal immigration system. Some Republicans are wary of the hardline elements of Trump's plan and it's unclear whether his blueprint could pass Congress.

"Americans are dreamers too," Trump said, in an apparent effort to reclaim the term used to describe the young immigrants in the US illegally.

A former New York Democrat, the president also played to the culture wars that have long illuminated American politics, alluding to his public spat with professional athletes who led protests against racial injustice by kneeling during the national anthem, declaring that paying tribute to the flag is a "civic duty."

Republicans led multiple rounds of enthusiastic applause during the speech, but for the opposition party it was a more sombre affair. Democrats provided a short spurt of polite applause for Trump as he entered the chamber, but offered muted reactions throughout the speech. A cluster of about two dozen Democrats, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus, remained planted firmly in their seats, staring sternly at the president and withholding applause.

After devastating defeats in 2016, Democrats are hopeful that Trump's sagging popularity can help the party rebound in November's midterm elections. In a post-speech rebuttal, Massachusetts Representative Joe Kennedy, the grandson of Robert F Kennedy, was seeking to undercut Trump's optimistic tone and remind voters of the personal insults and attacks often levelled by the president.

"Bullies may land a punch," Kennedy said. "They might leave a mark. But they have never, not once, in the history of our United States, managed to match the strength and spirit of a people united in defense of their future."

The arc of Trump's 80-minute speech featured the personal stories of men and women who joined first lady Melania Trump in the audience. The guests included a New Mexico policeman and his wife who adopted a baby from parents who suffered from opioid addiction, and Ji Seong-ho, a defector from North Korea and outspoken critic of the Kim Jong-un government.

On international affairs, Trump warned of the dangers from "rogue regimes," like Iran and North Korea, terrorist groups, like the Islamic State, and "rivals" like China and Russia "that challenge our interests, our economy and our values." Calling on Congress to lift budgetary caps and boost spending on the military, Trump said that "unmatched power is the surest means of our defence."

Trump's biggest foreign policy announcement of the night concerned the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, which former President Barack Obama tried but failed to close. Reversing Obama's policy, Trump said he'd signed an executive order Tuesday directing the Pentagon to keep the prison open while re-examining the military's policy on detention.

Trump said he was also asking Congress to ensure the US had needed powers to detain Islamic State group members and other "terrorists wherever we chase them down," though it was unclear whether he was referring to a new war powers authorisation or some other mechanism. Trump also said he wanted Congress to pass a law ensuring US foreign aid goes only "to America's friends"  a reference to his frustration at US aid recipients that voted at the UN to rebuke his decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Mrs Trump arrived at the Capitol ahead of her husband to attend a reception with guests of the White House, but she rode back to the White House with him. It was the first time she was seen publicly with the president following a report that his lawyer arranged a payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, to prevent her from talking about an alleged affair. Daniels denied the affair in a new statement released hours before the speech.Sunayana Dumala, the widow of an Indian engineer who was shot dead in a hate crime shooting in the US last year, on Wednesday attended President Donald Trump's first State of the Union Address.

Washington: Sunayana Dumala, the widow of an Indian engineer who was shot dead in a hate crime shooting in the US last year, on Wednesday attended President Donald Trump's first State of the Union Address.

Sunayana, 32, was invited as a guest by Congressman Kevin Yoder to attend the event.

Her husband Srinivas Kuchibhotla was shot dead while his colleague, also an Indian, sustained bullet injuries after an American navy veteran opened fire in a crowded suburban bar in Olathe city in February last year.

The shooter, thought they were Middle Easterners and was heard telling them to "get out of my country" at the time of the shooting.

Earlier in the day, Sunayana, met a number of Congressional leaders including House Speaker Paul Ryan.

The speaker said he knows Sunayana's story and remembers her.

Yoder said that he had asked Sunayana to be his guest as a recognition for her tireless efforts to promote peace, and as a message to the Indian community that the US is a nation of immigrants and they are welcome here.

"Each year, I have the privilege of inviting one guest to attend the president's State of the Union address. This year, I invited Sunayana Dumala, widow of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, the Indian immigrant who was tragically killed in the hate crime shooting last year at in Olathe," Yoder had said.

The Indian-American community welcomed the move.

Brijpal Singh, the chairman of the India Association of Kansas City, said this step will not only assure the Indian community but also send a strong message about the unstinted support from the elected representatives and administration towards the Indian community.

"This further strengthens our belief and confidence in the American system and its Constitution where everyone is respected, loved and is welcome," Singh said in a letter to Yoder.

The State of the Union Address is a traditional annual speech of the US president to a joint session of the Congress where he gives an account of the situation in the country.The last time a complete lunar cover-up took place on the second full Moon of the month was 30 December 1982, at least as reckoned by local time in Europe, Africa, and western Asia

Many parts of the globe may catch a glimpse Wednesday of a giant crimson moon, thanks to a rare lunar trifecta that combines a Blue Moon, a Supermoon and a total lunar eclipse.

The spectacle, which NASA has coined a "Super Blue Blood Moon," will grace the pre-dawn skies in the western United States, as the moon crosses into the shadow of the Earth and turns blood red.

"Weather permitting, the West Coast, Alaska and Hawaii will have a spectacular view of totality from start to finish," said Gordon Johnston, a lunar expert at NASA.

Other parts of the world, including Australia and Asia, will see it at night, as the moon comes up in the west.

"The last time a complete lunar cover-up took place on the second full Moon of the month was 30 December 1982, at least as reckoned by local time in Europe, Africa, and western Asia  locations where the event could be seen," said Sky and Telescope magazine.

"The last 'Blue Moon' total lunar eclipse visible from the US and North America happened on 31 March 1866."

The "Blue Moon" aspect simply means it is the second Full Moon in a month, not that the Moon will appear blue. A Blue Moon happens on average just under every three years.

It's called a Supermoon because the Moon, in its elliptical orbit, is near its closest point to Earth.

This proximity, or perigee, makes it appear 14 percent bigger than normal and 30 percent brighter.

The reddish tint  or Blood Moon  happens due to "the effect of all the sunrises and sunsets all around the planet reflecting off the moon, which I think is really lovely," said NASA astrophysicist Michelle Thaller.

Sunrises and sunsets appear pink, red and orange because of the long distance light must travel, causing light waves to bounce in different ways, explained Thaller.

"The reason a sunrise or a sunset is red is the sunlight has to pass through a large amount of air on the side of the Earth and that actually scatters away any blue light and just lets the red light come on through," she said.

How to watch

The Blood Moon will not be visible in much of Europe, Africa and South America.

Viewing will also be a challenge for those on the US East Coast, since the eclipse begins just as the moon is setting in the west and the sun is rising in the east.

But those who are not in the path of totality, or who are experiencing cloudy weather, may catch it anyway, via a live stream broadcast on NASA.gov.

Moon-watching parties for the one-hour-16-minute eclipse were advertised up and down the US West Coast, including at Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, where the gathering kicks off at 3:45 am.

If you miss this one, the next Blue Moon total lunar eclipse will happen on 31 December 2028, though it won't be quite as large since the moon will not be at its closest point to Earth.

Another will happen on 31 January 2037, a total of 17 hours before perigee.

"The red colour during a lunar eclipse is very distinctive and it's a rare treat to be able to see a blood red moon," said Brian Rachford, associate professor of physics at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

"One of the great things about a lunar eclipse is you also don't need any special equipment to see it. Anyone can go outside and look at the moon."Trump SOTU tears into visa lottery, chain migration; pushes hardline vision on immigration

For Indian expats following the US Presidents first State of the Union speech, the extraordinary influence of a 32 year old firebrand immigration restrictionist named Stephen Miller on Trumps view of assimilation in America was unmistakable. Trump's White House calls the President's maiden speech unifying but Democrats were thoroughly put off by Trump's hardline on immigration in what is, after all, another crucial election year. If Trump believes he held out his hand, his opponents see a fist.

Calling his plan a middle of the road compromise, Trump outlined a plan that the hardliners in White House, especially Miller, have scripted in painstaking detail: It is time to begin moving towards a merit-based immigration system -- one that admits people who are skilled, who want to work, who will contribute to our society, and who will love and respect our country. The fourth and final pillar protects the nuclear family by ending chain migration. Under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives. Under our plan, we focus on the immediate family by limiting sponsorships to spouses and minor children. This vital reform is necessary, not just for our economy, but for our security, and our future. In recent weeks, two terrorist attacks in New York were made possible by the visa lottery and chain migration. In the age of terrorism, these programs present risks we can no longer afford," Trump said as victims of immigrant gang violence took front row seats with the First Lady. The message wasn't lost on anyone - the need for the portrayal (and lumping) of the immigrant as enemy and the current "broken" immigration system as riddled with "horrible loopholes".

Miller, who has the President's ear on the hot button immigration issue, wants a policy that favors skills-based recruitment over extended families and he wants a lower immigration rate overall. He says hes concerned about native wages; his critics say he just wants to keep America white as possible, and that his presence at meetings makes dealmaking impossible.

It is untrue that an immigrant can bring in an unlimited number of immigrants - you area BIG LIAR Trump  Cyrus Mehta (@cyrusmehta) January 31, 2018

Over the next few weeks, the House and Senate will be voting on an immigration reform package and time is running out for the most affected. The February 8 deadline for a deal on what America needs to do with 700,000 undocumented immigrants is looming. Despite Trump's platitudes about protecting people from every community and of every color, the narrative aimed for the heart of the same base which put Trump in the White House, the same people Trump will need for the upcoming midterm elections.

Trumps opponents both on the ground and on news telly obsessed over the Presidents character and the Mueller probe into the Trump campaigns dealings with Russia, fantasising about things like impeachment and even playing a clip of the Richard Nixon SOTU before the Watergate scandal erupted. On the other extreme, Trumps lap dog telly channel Fox News deployed their trademark brand of folksy outrage against Democrats as the Party of No.

The Trump presidency has offered many distractions and has also shown us his Davos avatar of being able to stick to thoroughly scripted messages and on occasion, strike a chord with the audience before wild deviations when his handphone is back. In the massive set piece that the State of the Union offers, Trump ripped apart the current immigration system as a safety hazard in favor of a merit based immigration system which, if it passes, will cut legal immigration to the lowest in several decades.

Despite his grenade-throwing campaign, Trump has not followed through on his worst threats. Immigration offers the US President a chance to solidify his cheering white base before the crucial midterms in November.

Trump repeated his proposal to deeply cut legal immigration by no longer allowing U.S. citizens to sponsor parents, adult children and siblings for green cards  the biggest proposed reduction in legal immigration in decades. Politicians on both sides of the aisle looked deeply uncomfortable with the bluster equating immigration with evil while the usual suspects cheered loudly.

After his dark theme of American carnage in his inaugural speech (which President Bush was said to have refereed to as some weird #$^&), this was the second outsize bully pulpit for the US President to speak directly to the American people. While Trump laced his fiery rhetoric with the genteel language that the occasion called for, half the House bounced up and down for standing ovations while the other half stayed somber, wearing black in recognition of the #MeToo movement and the President's own record of allegedly assaulting and groping women.

Trump's SOTU plays to a captive audience; the real rodeo will play out in the coming weeks, as Washington DC careens towards another possible shutdown and a clock ticking on the DACA impasse.

For today, the US President managed to read off a teleprompter for a full hour without veering off script or insulting women. Next stop - Twitter.Pioneers and BibleMesh Introduce Online Theological Training for Missionary Candidates, Marking New Ways to Prepare for Service Contact: Douglas Baker,



HAMILTON, Bermuda, Jan. 31, 2018 /



"Pioneers is keenly aware of the need to equip workers well for the challenging task of church planting among unreached people groups," stated Ken Mauger, Vice-President of Pre-Field Ministries for Pioneers-USA. "Accordingly all of our missionaries must have trusted theological training that will serve as an unshakeable foundation for ministry in the often-difficult contexts to which they are called."



"We are honored by this new opportunity to come alongside these emerging missionary candidates - who come from all walks of life - and provide for them access to trusted theological education that will equip them for service around the world," said Dr. Benjamin Quinn, Director of the BibleMesh Institute.



About Pioneers

For more than 35 years, Pioneers' passion has been to see God glorified among those who are physically and spiritually isolated from the gospel of Jesus Christ. Today, 2.9 billion people live among languages and cultures with no church. In response, Pioneers sends church-planting teams to serve among these 7,000-plus people groups. Today we have 3,248 international members serving on 324 teams in 104 countries among 202 unreached people groups. Additionally, Pioneers partners with more than 2,000 churches to send these missionaries to least-reached peoples.



About BibleMesh

BibleMesh works with churches, ministries, and institutions to provide affordable global trusted theological education. Accredited degree pathways and certificate tracks are available through the BibleMesh Institute. BibleMesh incorporates advanced technology to enhance student assessment, memory and learning.



Related Links:



www.pioneers.org/



institute.biblemesh.com/pioneers-bible-certificate/



Share Tweet Contact: Douglas Baker, BibleMesh , 405-443-1157, douglas.baker@biblemesh.com HAMILTON, Bermuda, Jan. 31, 2018 / Christian Newswire / -- Today, BibleMesh and Pioneers-USA launched a new online theological resource providing theological training for incoming missionary candidates. The BibleMesh Institute (BMI) will serve as the preferred online option for theological training with whom new team members can complete a six-course certificate designed by Pioneers."Pioneers is keenly aware of the need to equip workers well for the challenging task of church planting among unreached people groups," stated Ken Mauger, Vice-President of Pre-Field Ministries for Pioneers-USA. "Accordingly all of our missionaries must have trusted theological training that will serve as an unshakeable foundation for ministry in the often-difficult contexts to which they are called.""We are honored by this new opportunity to come alongside these emerging missionary candidates - who come from all walks of life - and provide for them access to trusted theological education that will equip them for service around the world," said Dr. Benjamin Quinn, Director of the BibleMesh Institute.About PioneersFor more than 35 years, Pioneers' passion has been to see God glorified among those who are physically and spiritually isolated from the gospel of Jesus Christ. Today, 2.9 billion people live among languages and cultures with no church. In response, Pioneers sends church-planting teams to serve among these 7,000-plus people groups. Today we have 3,248 international members serving on 324 teams in 104 countries among 202 unreached people groups. Additionally, Pioneers partners with more than 2,000 churches to send these missionaries to least-reached peoples.About BibleMeshBibleMesh works with churches, ministries, and institutions to provide affordable global trusted theological education. Accredited degree pathways and certificate tracks are available through the BibleMesh Institute. BibleMesh incorporates advanced technology to enhance student assessment, memory and learning.Related Links:Working from home? Switch to the DIGITAL edition of CLICK HERE to signup now!VLC has finally added support for Chromecast, which was first introduced back in 2013. The latest beta update for Android with V2.9.0 also brings support for Samsungs DeX as well as improved Chromebook support.

Though the update is live in this update, it still states as experimental, meaning there might be unexpected crashes or might not work reliably. Apart from Chromecast support, the update also brings bug fixes, improvements for Android Oreo, and improved stability, and added support for more platforms.

Opening up the VLC app, you can now see Chromecast icon when a compatible device is on the same network as your device. Once you press the icon, you will be shown Cast-compatible TVs, streaming sticks, speakers, etc. You can play your media be it video or audio. Chromecast with VLC is working with both local content and internet streams, but then, streams arent fully supported just yet, which is why we guess the feature is in experimental.

You can download the update from PlayStore if you are a beta tester, if not, you can manually side-load the APK from here and try it out.

SourceApples Taiwan manufacturer Wistron Corp is said to be on the verge of closing a land deal in Bengaluru and is also is likely to invest about $157 million to develop the site, according to a latest report from Reuters.

It is rumored earlier that Wistrons who currently assembles Apples low-cost iPhone SE in India, has been scouting for some land in Bengaluru, and now reports coming claim that some of the Wistrons global executives and its Indias head met with the industries minister of Karnataka earlier this month and a deal on the land lease may be struck in a few weeks.

Apple, Wistron and Karnataka government body that deals with investment proposals are yet to comment on the ongoing development. While the part of the land bought by Wistron will be used to set up new assembly lines for Apple. On the other hand, on a different note, another source claim that Apple is likely to start assembling its iPhone 6s models in India through Wistron soon in order to cost cut and diversify its production base. Since 6s is still one of the top sellers for Apple, it makes sense.

Since ICT has recently won federal approval to import machinery from China into India, it is now the right time set up fresh assembly lines for iPhones. With local assembly taking shape, it could lead to save import taxes, price phones cheaper and potentially widen its customer base for Apple in India. It is already known that Apple has been in talks with the Indian government tax breaks and incentives to expand operations in the country. Indian Government didnt make any such exceptions for Apple as of now but said it is ready to welcome Apple in India.

SourceThe Medicare Annual Disenrollment Period, which allows beneficiaries who have a Medicare Advantage Plan to make changes, ends on Feb. 14. The disenrollment period provides beneficiaries with an opportunity to switch back to original Medicare or return to original Medicare and join a prescription drug plan. Counselors from SHINE (Serving Health Insurance Needs of Elders) are available to assist beneficiaries with this process.

Choosing a health care or prescription drug plan requires careful consideration of coverage and cost, and some beneficiaries may need assistance in understanding the benefits. Free help is available statewide from the Department of Elder Affairs SHINE program. Locally, SHINE is managed by the Area Agency on Aging for Southwest Florida.

SHINE is an award-winning program that provides information and free, unbiased counseling for people with Medicare, their families, and their caregivers. The SHINE program can help beneficiaries compare plans and understand their options. For example, it is important to understand that beneficiaries cannot use this disenrollment period to switch from one Medicare Advantage Plan to another. Beneficiaries are allowed only one change during this enrollment period, so it is especially important that beneficiaries review their options carefully.

Medicare beneficiaries with limited income and assets may qualify for additional assistance with the cost of prescription drug plan premiums, deductibles, and co-payments. Medicare beneficiaries who believe they may be eligible are encouraged to contact a SHINE counselor for information about applying for these benefits. SHINE counselors can assist with applications for these programs.

SHINE is a program of the Florida Department of Elder Affairs and is operated through the states network of Area Agency on Aging offices. SHINE volunteers are trained to offer free, unbiased, and confidential information and counseling concerning Medicare.

For help understanding the Medicare Advantage Disenrollment Period or to set up an appointment with a trained SHINE counselor to compare plans and review benefit programs, call the Elder Helpline toll-free at 1-866-41-ELDER (1-866-413-5337). You can also locate a counseling site in your area by visiting www.floridashine.org.

The Area Agency on Aging for Southwest Florida is a nonprofit organization serving Charlotte, Collier, DeSoto, Glades, Hendry, Lee, and Sarasota Counties. AAASWFL is the states designated Aging and Disability Resource Center for Southwest Florida. The organization is committed to helping adults ages 60 and over and people with disabilities to live with independence and dignity in their own homes and communities. More information is available at www.aaaswfl.org or by calling the toll-free Helpline at 866-413-5337 (866-41-ELDER).Convicted murderer Kevin Foster remains on Death Row after the Florida Supreme Court denied his latest appeal, the State Attorneys Office said Tuesday.

Foster was the ringleader of the Lords of Chaos, a self-proclaimed militia group whose purpose was to create disorder through criminal acts in the Fort Myers community. He was convicted in 1998 of the First Degree Murder of Mark Schwebes, a Riverdale High School music teacher and sentenced to death, the release states.

In April 1996, Schwebes caught Foster and other members of the group preparing to vandalize the high school and set the auditorium on fire. Schwebes instructed them to leave and told them that he would report the incident to the resource officer the following day.

The group, at the direction and insistence of Foster, then planned the murder of Schwebes. They tracked down where he lived and went to Schwebes home. They knocked on the front door and when Schwebes answered Foster shot him twice, once in the face and once in the pelvis. Mark Schwebes died as a result.

The three other members who were present that night entered into plea agreements. Christopher Black and Derek Shields were sentenced to life in prison. Peter Magnotti was sentenced to 32 years in prison.

Source: Office of the State Attorney, 20th Judicial CircuitA killer responsible for one of the most heinous crimes in the history of Collier County has had his latest appeal denied by the Florida Supreme Court.

Brandy Bain Jennings committed the infamous Cracker Barrel Murders in November 1995. He will remain on Floridas death row.

Jennings, along with co-defendant Charles Graves, murdered 18-year-old Jason Wiggins, 27-year-old Vicki Smith and 38-year-old Dorothy Siddle during a robbery at the restaurant off Collier Boulevard. All three employees had their hands bound, their throats slit and were left in a restaurant freezer. Jennings and Graves were both former employees of the restaurant. The pair had also stolen $6,000 and then fled to Las Vegas where they were later captured.

In 1996, Jennings was convicted of three counts of first degree murder and one count of robbery with a deadly weapon. He was sentenced to three death sentences for the murders and 15 years in prison for the robbery charge. Graves is serving three life sentences for the murders along with 15 years on the robbery charge.

The Florida Supreme Court properly rejected Brandy Jennings argument. With this decision, we move one step closer to achieving justice for Dorothy Siddle, Vicki Smith and Jason Wiggins, said Chief Assistant State Attorney Amira Fox in a prepared statement.

Source: State Attorneys Office, 20th Judicial CircuitIts a piece of music history  a priceless set of gongs the great composer Giacomo Puccini ordered custom-made for what would be his final opera. The odd turn of events that landed the gongs in a warehouse in Queens is recounted in the latest episode of the FOX Business Network series Strange Inheritance with Jamie Colby.

The program premieres Monday, Feb. 5 at 9:30 p.m. ET.

Puccini set his last opera Turandot in ancient mythical China. Turandot is a princess who is reluctant to marry, so she challenges her suitors with three riddles. Whoever answers them correctly wins the princess, whoever doesnt loses his head.

The opera was a percussionists dream, with tubular bells, a glockenspiel and an array of gongs that sound when each suitor arrives at the palace.

Puccinis problem was that he couldnt find any gongs that made just the perfect sound, says Fred Plotkin, author of Opera 101.

So Puccini had gongs manufactured specifically for Turandot, Plotkin says. It was the only way he could have those ethereal Chinese sounds that he heard in his head.

The gongs arrived, but Puccini died before he finished the last act. A composer named Franco Alfano was hired to complete the opera based on Puccinis notes. Turandot became one of the most performed operas around the world, although the gong parts would continue to bedevil the musicians in the pit.

One director who shared Puccinis obsession with those gongs was Anthony Stivanello of Queens. On a trip to Italy in the 1960s, he actually paid a call on Puccinis publisher, who still had the originals.

Stivanellos son Roberto said his father would do about anything to get them.

Its like Stradivarius, except theres only one set of true Puccini gongs, he said. So my father, being a colorful figure, started playing cards with the publisher, and he won the gongs on a bet.

The gongs remained in Stivanellos warehouse until 1975, when a percussionist with the New York City Opera named Howard Van Hyning got a summer gig on a production of Turandot in Central Park. Though he owned a vast array of cymbals among his thousands of percussion instruments, he also couldnt find any that provided just the right sound.

Thats when he got a tip that Puccinis own gongs were at Stivanellos shop in Queens. Van Hyning desperately wanted to buy them, but Stivanello would only agree to rent them out. It took Van Hyning six years to wear Stivanello down.

Van Hynings wife, Marlene Piturro, recalled that day.

He came home with a burlap bag and he said, Look what I have! And he dumped out a few of the gongs. He paid $8,000. I was speechless.

Van Hyning toured with the gongs until he died in 2010. Piturro, however, has been reluctant to lend out her strange inheritance after the set went missing for several days at Newark Airport.

Howard was more than willing to send them out, Piturro says. He loved that they could go to different opera houses, but I feel I cant take that risk.

Piturro believes they are worth $2 million. Nothing like this has ever been sold.

If she gets her price, she says she will use the proceeds to fulfill her husbands dying wish: to commission a new ending for Turandot that improves on Alfanos ending by featuring Puccinis gongs more prominently.French authorities are desperately searching for the chief executive of a top U.S. surfwear brand after his boat was found washed up on a beach.

Pierre Agnes, CEO of Boardriders Inc., the parent of Quiksilver, Roxy and DC shoes brands, set sail early Tuesday off the coast of southwest France but did not return, authorities said.

The 54-year-olds boat was later discovered empty in Hossegor, a surfing resort town in the city of Biarritz, late Tuesday morning.

According to local reports, French authorities have deployed multiple boats and helicopters throughout the vicinity to search for Agnes but had to end search efforts late Tuesday.

Boardriders Inc. released a statement saying it is devastated by the news, and given that the situation on the ground is still evolving, its statement will be limited.

We are concentrating on working with the local authorities on the search and rescue effort and supporting Pierre's family. Please keep Pierre and his family in your prayers, the company said, adding that Agnes morning boat ride was an everyday occurrence.

French rescue teams are expected to resume search efforts on Wednesday morning.

Agnes, who has been with the company for almost 30 years, recently oversaw a deal which combined two of the worlds best known beachwear brands. Boardriders announced it is buying rival brand Billabong for $300 million in early January.The Czech government is looking to back out of a deal that could give an Australian company the right to mine a huge deposit of lithium, a key component in electric batteries.

Acting Prime Minister Andrej Babis says his industry and trade minister has been asked to find a way to make the memorandum of understanding, signed last year with European Metals Holdings, not legally binding.

Babis said Wednesday he would prefer a Czech state-run company to explore the local deposit.

Europe's biggest deposit of lithium was recently found in the northwestern part of the Czech Republic. EMH has had an exclusive license to explore for the element and was seeking permission to mine.

It has been planning to open a mine at Cinovec, on the German border.French authorities are desperately searching for the chief executive of a top U.S. surfwear brand after his boat was found washed up on a beach.

Pierre Agnes, CEO of Boardriders Inc., the parent of Quiksilver, Roxy and DC shoes brands, set sail early Tuesday off the coast of southwest France but did not return, authorities said.

The 54-year-olds boat was later discovered empty in Hossegor, a surfing resort town in the city of Biarritz, late Tuesday morning. According to local reports, French authorities have deployed multiple boats and helicopters throughout the vicinity to search for Agnes but had to end search efforts late Tuesday.

Boardriders Inc. released a statement saying it is devastated by the news, and given that the situation on the ground is still evolving, its statement will be limited.

We are concentrating on working with the local authorities on the search and rescue effort and supporting Pierre's family. Please keep Pierre and his family in your prayers, the company said, adding that Agnes morning boat ride was an everyday occurrence.

French rescue teams are expected to resume search efforts on Wednesday morning.

Agnes, who has been with the company for almost 30 years, recently oversaw a deal which combined two of the worlds best known beachwear brands. Boardriders announced it is buying rival brand Billabong for $300 million in early January.Hong Kong lawmakers gave final approval on Wednesday to a government proposal banning local ivory trading in the Chinese territory by 2021, with conservation groups hailing it as a major victory in the fight to save elephants.

Lawmakers overwhelmingly supported the measure, voting 49-4 to amend the existing law to outlaw sales of ivory in Hong Kong, which researchers say is the world's biggest retail ivory market.

The proposal also includes significantly stiffer penalties to deter smuggling of ivory and other highly endangered species.

Under the new law, the maximum sentence will increase to a 10 million Hong Kong dollar ($1.3 million) fine, double the current amount, and 10 years in prison, up from the current two years.

Wildlife activists applauded the move, even as Hong Kong moves more slowly than Beijing. Mainland China, the biggest source of global ivory demand, banned sales at the start of the year after shutting all carving factories and shops last March.

"A ban on ivory sales with heavier penalties in Hong Kong shows a clear commitment towards the future of African elephants," Cheryl Lo of the World Wildlife Fund said in a statement. "This will help reverse the trend of elephant poaching and illegal ivory trafficking."

The existing Hong Kong law allowed domestic sales of ivory dating from before CITES, or the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Under CITES, ivory trading started to be regulated in the mid-1970s before a total ban in 1990 on international sales.

Activists say there are signs that unscrupulous dealers were exploiting that loophole to "launder" newer, illicit ivory, making Hong Kong a major black market trading hub.

They hailed the ban as a major step in efforts to slow the poaching that results in the annual slaughter of tens of thousands of elephants and threatens the lives of park rangers in Africa.

The Hong Kong government refused to offer any compensation to the city's dozens of ivory shop owners and hundreds of licensed traders, who had demanded tens of millions of dollars in return for giving up their ivory stockpile, estimated at 670 metric tons (740 short tons).

The new law will take effect in stages, with the full ban coming into effect at the end of 2021 after traders' current licenses expire.

Conservation groups, worried that Hong Kong's five-year enforcement gap with mainland China would fuel an increase in illegal trading, urged authorities to enforce regulations and step up monitoring.

WWF also called for governments in other Asian countries such as Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Japan to institute similar bans, saying there was evidence that those markets are increasingly catering to Chinese visitors.Sears Holdings (NASDAQ:SHLD) on Wednesday cut about 220 jobs from its corporate offices, as the struggling retailer continues to slash costs.

The majority of the layoffs impacted the companys headquarters in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, spokesman Howard Riefs confirmed to FOX Business. Sears eliminated positions across various business units, effective immediately. The company will provide severance and transition assistance to eligible employees.

Sears said the layoffs were made as part of its restructuring program aimed at returning the company to profitability.

Sears, which was once Americas largest retailer, is fighting to reverse a decline in store traffic and rebuild its online business. The department-store chain had a rough holiday season, estimating a 16% to 17% drop in same-store sales at Sears and Kmart stores. The disappointing report came despite an effort to lure holiday shoppers with record-level discounts of 10% to 50% off.

In addition to ramping up promotions, Sears has closed hundreds of stores, borrowed cash from CEO Edward Lampert and spun off locations to capitalize on the value of their real estate. The company disclosed $1.25 billion in cost cuts in fiscal 2017.

As a result of these actions, in addition to other liquidity and strategic actions, we made significant progress in our efforts to improve our financial position and to sharpen our operating focus, Sears said Wednesday.

Sears, which sold Craftsman last year, recently began selling Kenmore appliances and DieHard auto parts through Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN). Earlier this month, Sears said it would continue to seek other ways to monetize its assets.Sears Holdings Corp. says it's laying off 220 workers primarily at its headquarters in Hoffman Estates, Illinois as it struggles to turn around its ailing business.

A company spokesman said Wednesday the job cuts were across the board and are effective immediately. Sears says it's offering severance and transition assistance to those workers who are eligible.

Earlier in January, the retailer said it was closing more than 100 locations under the Sears and Kmart names. That includes 64 Kmart stores and 39 Sears stores that will be shuttered between early March and early April.

That's in addition to closing about 250 stores announced last year.

Sears, which struggled through a weak holiday season, has been selling off some of its real estate and brands as it tries to raise cash.Stocks that moved substantially or traded heavily Wednesday:

Xerox Inc., up $1.45 to $34.13

Japan's Fujifilm will take majority control of the company.

Boeing Co., up $16.66 to $354.37

The aircraft maker forecast strong results for this year and reported that its fourth-quarter profit nearly doubled from a year ago.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc., up 87 cents to $13.74

The chipmaker reported earnings and revenue that came in ahead of analysts' forecasts.

Thomson Reuters Corp., down $3.21 to $43.41

Blackstone is paying $17 billion to acquire a unit of the news and information company.

Electronic Arts Inc., up $8.26 to $126.96

The video game maker forecast quarterly earnings and sales that were well ahead of what Wall Street analysts were expecting.

Textron Inc., down $1.51 to $58.67

The industrial conglomerate's earnings and revenue fell short of forecasts.

Tupperware Brands Corp., down $6.02 to $57.76

The maker of kitchen and other consumer products reported sales that fell short of analysts' forecasts.

Juniper Networks Inc., down $2.17 to $26.15

The provider of network equipment and services forecast quarterly results that were well below what Wall Street analysts were expecting.The theme of President Donald Trumps first State of the Union address is a safe, strong and proud America, at a time when U.S. military funding remains in limbo.

Congress passed another continuing resolution (CR) earlier this month in lieu of concrete budget appropriations. The temporary solution continues funding at 2017 levels and endangers U.S. military readiness.

The 2017 budget was due on Sept. 30.

In his State of the Union speech, Trump will address progress made against ISIS in both Iraq and Syria, but some believe he cannot build up the military without a concrete budget in place.

At a press conference in December, chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana W. White said nothing has a greater impact on combat readiness than CRs.

Failing to pass a budget causes uncertainty that trickles down to many aspects of military planning, including fulfilling contracts.

"What the CR says is, 'Stop, wait, don't award that contract yet,' David Norquist, comptroller at the U.S. Department of Defense, told reporters at the same December conference.

Training plans, operations and maintenance programs and acquisitions can all be halted without new appropriations, which all impact the militarys ability to meet combat commanders requirements.

Continuing resolutions also waste taxpayer dollars. U.S. Navy Secretary Richard Spencer said the branch has squandered billions of dollars since 2011 due to the use of CRs.

We have put $4 billion in a trash can, poured lighter fluid on it, and burned it, Spencer said in December. Four billion is enough to buy a squadron of F-35s, two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, 3,000 Harpoon missiles. Its enough money to buy us additional capacity that we need. Instead, its lost, because of inefficacy in the ways of the continuing resolution.

The president has outlined an ambitious national defense strategy for the country, which includes not only a military expansion, but economic prosperity and trade reform. The White House is expected to release its full 2019 budget next month, which will call for $719 billion in defense spending, an increase of 7% over the current years unfulfilled requests.

Meanwhile, under the sequester, the Pentagon faces a spending limit for the current fiscal year of $549 billion, which is less than the amount requested in the fiscal-year 2018 defense budget. In order to increase resources Congress would need to vote to raise the budget caps put in place under the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011, or get rid of them entirely.

Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney told FOX Business on Monday that defense spending will be the administrations next big fight.

This week, the House voted to pass a standalone military budget measure. However, the bills fate is less certain in the Senate, where a funding battle has been brewing over Dreamers, or children born to illegal immigrants.

Democrats have also demanded that non-military spending rise in step with defense spending.

The most recent CR runs out on in early February.Big business was a focal point for President Donald Trump during his first State of the Union address, where he commended a handful of U.S. companies for pledging billions in domestic investments throughout the coming years.

Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) got an off-script nod from the president after the worlds largest publicly traded oil company announced on Monday that it would invest $50 billion in the U.S. over the next five years. The company, formerly led by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, said recent changes to the U.S. corporate tax rate have opened up increased opportunities for capital investments.

President Trump also cited tech giant Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) during his address and its plans to invest a total of $350 billion in America, and hire another 20,000 workers. The company announced the news last week, citing those figures as its estimated direct contribution to the domestic economy. President Trump famously pledged during his campaign to get Apple to start building its products in the U.S. He also said in July that the companys CEO Tim Cook had committed to building three domestic manufacturing plants.

The motor city was also acknowledged by the president; he praised a couple of companies spending plans while the administration seeks to continue rebuilding Detroits auto industry.

Chrysler is moving a major plant from Mexico to Michigan; Toyota and Mazda are opening up a plant in Alabama. Soon, plants will be opening up all over the country, Trump said.

Changes to the tax code, including a significant 14 percentage-point reduction in the corporate tax rate, have caused a number of companies to invest in the U.S. by not only building new plants and expanding existing facilities, but also by increasing worker pay.

The president noted that 3 million workers have already gotten a raise as a result of the new policies, with some even receiving thousand-dollar bonuses.

As previously reported by FOX Business, many companies are set to give workers a pay bump in the wake of the implementation of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, including Boeing (NYSE:BA) and AT&T (NYSE:T).Orange you glad you didnt have to help clean up this mess?

Police in Seville, Spain, arrested five people last week after a high-speed chase led to the discovery of tons of stolen oranges that the crooks had packed into a couple of compact cars and a van.

Cops got suspicious when they saw three vehicles ahead make sharp turns down a dirt road, the Europa Press reports.

After a short pursuit, police managed to stop two of the vehicles. When they opened the rear door of a small sedan, hundreds of oranges spilled out.

The van was also packed with the fruit, while a search of the area turned up the third car nearby with even more.

The oranges were tracked back to a warehouse in the town of Carmona, which had reported the theft just hours before the incident.

Police said that nearly 9,000 pounds of the fruit was recovered and the investigation into the theft is ongoing.Founded in Dallas, the group today is especially active on the East Coast, from Boston to Jacksonville, Fla. The group portrays itself as a militant, modern-day expression of the black power movement (it frequently engages in armed protests of alleged police brutality and the like), but principals of the original Black Panther Party of the 1960s and 1970s a militant, but non-racist, left-wing organization  have rejected the new Panthers as a "black racist hate group" and contested their hijacking of the Panther name and symbol.

In Its Own Words

"Our lessons talk about the bloodsuckers of the poor . It's that old no-good Jew, that old imposter Jew, that old hooked-nose, bagel-eating, lox-eating, Johnny-come-lately, perpetrating-a-fraud, just-crawled-out-of-the-caves-and-hills-of-Europe, so-called damn Jew  and I feel everything I'm saying up here is kosher."

 Khalid Abdul Muhammad, one of the party's future leaders, Baltimore, Md., Feb. 19, 1994

"Kill every goddamn Zionist in Israel! Goddamn little babies, goddamn old ladies! Blow up Zionist supermarkets!"

Malik Zulu Shabazz, the party's national chairman, protesting at B'nai B'rith International headquarters in Washington, D.C., April 20, 2002

"I hate white people. All of them. Every last iota of a cracker, I hate it. We didn't come out here to play today. There's too much serious business going on in the black community to be out here sliding through South Street with white, dirty, cracker whore bitches on our arms, and we call ourselves black men.  What the hell is wrong with you black man? You at a doomsday with a white girl on your damn arm. We keep begging white people for freedom! No wonder we not free! Your enemy cannot make you free, fool! You want freedom? You going to have to kill some crackers! You going to have to kill some of their babies!"

 King Samir Shabazz, head of the party's Philadelphia chapter, in a National Geographic documentary, January 2009

Background

The New Black Panther Party (NBPP) is a black separatist group that believes black Americans should have their own nation. In the NBPP's "10 Point Platform," which is a takeoff on the 10-point platform of the original Black Panther Party, the NBPP demands that blacks be given a country or state of their own, within which they can make their own laws. They demand that all black prisoners in the United States be released to "the lawful authorities of the Black Nation." They claim to be entitled to reparations for slavery from the United States, all European countries and "the Jews."

The NBPP is notable for its anti-white and anti-Semitic hatred. Its leaders have blamed Jews for the 9/11 terrorist attacks and for the slave trade. The late former party chairman Khalid Abdul Muhammad has said, "There are no good crackers, and if you find one, kill him before he changes." A document on the NBPP website entitled "The Nationalist Manifesto" claims that white men have a secret plan to commit genocide against the non-white races. It also refers to black people who condone mixed-race relationships as the "modern day Custodians [sic] of Uncle Tom's Cabin."

NBPP members also hold black-supremacist religious beliefs. Some think that blacks are God's true "chosen people" and that the people normally called "Jews" actually are impostors (this ideology is remarkably similar to the white racist theology of Christian Identity, which says whites are God's real chosen people). They believe that blacks are naturally superior to people of other races. In September 1997, Khalid Muhammad said that he could not be anti-Semitic because Jews had no claim to the term "Semite."

Members of the original Black Panther Party, which has no connection to the NBPP, have heavily criticized the New Black Panther Party. An open letter from the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation, which is run by members of the original Black Panther Party, decries the NBPP for being a hateful and unconstructive group. Bobby Seale, a famous founding member of the original Panthers, calls the organization "a black racist hate group."

By injecting themselves into racially charged and other high-profile events, the NBPP has won considerable press attention. When members march, they often wear coordinated, military-style uniforms  black boots, black pants, a black shirt with NBPP patches on it, and black berets.

The NBPP claims to have been founded in 1989, although the group was not active until 1990. That year, Aaron Michaels, a Dallas radio personality, assembled a group of black citizens to engage in community activism. He called the group the New Black Panther Party. One of its main goals was to increase black representation on the Dallas school board. The group also attempted to reduce drug dealing in certain black neighborhoods. In 1993, the group organized an event called the National Black Power Summit and Youth Rally, which had around 200 attendees. White supremacist Tom Metzger spoke at the event as a special guest. Although Metzger is no friend of blacks, both he and NBPP members believe that whites and blacks should live in their own separate countries. At that 1993 meeting, Michaels made the likely exaggerated claim that the NBPP had formed 20 chapters.

In 1994, Khalid Abdul Muhammad became actively involved with the NBPP. Muhammad was formerly the personal assistant to Louis Farrakhan , leader of the Nation of Islam , which the Southern Poverty Law Center has listed as a black hate group since 1998. In November 1993, while still associated with the Nation of Islam, he gave a notorious speech at Kean College in New Jersey. He accused Jews of being responsible for the slave trade, called Jews "bloodsuckers," and asserted that white South Africans should be killed if they refuse to leave South Africa. The speech caused a controversy, leading Farrakhan to demote Muhammad from his position as national spokesman in February 1994. In May 1994, Muhammad was shot and injured by James Bess, a former Nation of Islam member.

A Dallas school board meeting was canceled in May 1996 after the Panthers threatened to come with loaded weapons. NBPP founder Aaron Michaels and Khalid Muhammad worked together closely during this time, appearing together at a press conference regarding the school board incident.

In 1997, Fahim Minkah and Marvin Crenshaw, two original Panthers from Dallas, won an injunction against Aaron Michaels disallowing him from using either the old Panther name or its logo. The injunction was never enforced and the NBPP continued to use the Panther name and the Panther logo to this day.

On June 7, 1998, James Byrd, Jr., was murdered in Jasper, Texas, by three white men who chained the black man to the back of a truck and dragged him to death. In the wake of the horrific murder, Khalid Muhammad led a group of armed NBPP members to Jasper where members confronted a group of Klansmen who rallied in the town. About 50 Panthers, a dozen of whom carried rifles and shotguns, faced off against about 20 Klan members. Police officers erected a barricade to separate the two groups. NBPP members twice tried to break through and confront the KKK protesters, but failed to do so. Frustrated, Muhammad called for his followers to attack the police, shouting: "Black people, we can take these bastards. We can run over the damn police and take their ass. Who's with me?" Police officers attempted to evacuate the Klan members, but a small group of Panthers surrounded one of their vehicles and started rocking it back and forth. As a result, one NBPP member was arrested. No further violence occurred.

In September 1998, Khalid Muhammad organized the Million Youth March in New York City. Then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani attempted to prevent the group from holding the event, denying them a permit and referring to the rally as a "hate march." But the NBPP won a court battle, forcing the city to allow the event. Malik Zulu Shabazz, the future leader of party, played a prominent role in organizing the event. On Sept. 5, about 6,000 people attended the march while 3,000 police officers oversaw the event. A few minutes after the rally was scheduled to end, police began to disperse the crowd, resulting in a scuffle that left 16 police officers and 12 attendees injured. Muhammad reportedly encouraged the crowd to attack police officers with chairs and bottles and even to take the officers' guns if attacked. Shortly after this event, Muhammad became the national chairman of the NBPP, making him the leader of the organization.

Muhammad served as chairman until Feb. 17, 2001, when he died of a brain aneurysm. That year, Malik Zulu Shabazz, a Washington, D.C., attorney who had run unsuccessfully for the City Council in 1995, took over leadership of the group. He co-sponsored an Oct. 31, 2001 conference in which he and a handful of Muslim clerics blamed the Jews for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Said Shabazz: "Zionism is racism, Zionism is terrorism, Zionism is colonialism, Zionism is imperialism, and support for Zionism is the root of why so many were killed on September 11." He also referred to Israel and the United States as "terrorists." Shabazz would later claim that Jews had received advance warning of the attacks, a false conspiracy theory that is also highly popular in white supremacist and neo-Nazi circles.

Shabazz worked to improve relations between the NBPP and the Nation of Islam, where many NBPP members had their roots, including former leader Khalid Muhammad. In 2005, Louis Farrakhan invited Shabazz to be the co-convener of the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March. The groups also appeared together at events calling for reparations for black slavery. (That friendly relationship has continued. As late as January 2010, Shabazz was expressing his approval of the Nation of Islam and reiterating his commitment to support its efforts.)

In May 2006, Shabazz led a group of New Black Panthers in a protest on Duke University's campus in North Carolina. A few months earlier, members of Duke's lacrosse team had been accused of raping a black exotic dancer who they had hired to work a private party  charges that were ultimately shown to be false. The NBPP demanded that the accused players be found guilty and that all the students who were at the party be expelled. Several of the NBPP members came to the protest armed. Two brought knives, some wore bulletproof vests, and one brought a gun, which a police officer insisted that he leave in his car.

In August 2006, several members of the NBPP served as security personnel for former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney's primary campaign, which she lost. After McKinney lost the primary, a journalist asked her what she attributed her loss to. Hashim Nzinga, the NBPP National Chief of Staff, interrupted: "Why do you think she lost? You wanna know what led to the loss? Israel. The Zionists. You. Put on your yarmulke and celebrate." (The former Georgia Democrat and the NBPP's connection continues today. In May 2010, McKinney spoke at the NBPP Black Power Convention.)

In September 2007, three white men and three white women in West Virginia were arrested for kidnapping, torturing, and sexually assaulting Megan Williams, a 20-year-old mentally disabled black woman. In October 2007, Shabazz seized on Williams' case, demanding that all six of the defendants be charged with hate crimes  this despite Williams' previous romantic involvement with one of her assailants, which prosecutors said underlined how the crimes were not legally hate crimes. But Shabazz ignored the prosecutors, reaching out to Megan's mother, Carmen Williams, and giving her legal advice and supposedly working to raise money for her daughter.

On Nov. 3, 2007, Shabazz held a rally in front of the federal courthouse in Charleston, W.Va., where he demanded that all the defendants be charged with hate crimes. The rally drew about 1,000 people. The NAACP refused to endorse the event, presumably because of Shabazz and the NBPP's racist views. But Shabazz was supported by the Rev. Al Sharpton, who reportedly attended and later had Shabazz on his radio program, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which also reportedly endorsed the rally. After the event, Shabazz announced that he had collected at least $5,000 on Williams' behalf, and pledged to continue to raise money. Two weeks later, Logan County prosecutor Brian Abraham petitioned the court to appoint a legal guardian for Williams. He was worried that Williams' mother and Shabazz were not acting in Megan's best interests, and that the publicity was not good for Megan or her case. Shabazz challenged the guardian petition and it was denied. But many of those close to the case remained concerned about Shabazz's advocacy. In October 2009, Megan's attorney, Byron Potts, said, "I know for a fact she [Megan] has been manipulated.  People raised money for her, she never received that money."

On Nov. 4, 2008, two NBPP members showed up, wearing military-style fatigues and berets, at a Philadelphia polling station, supposedly to protect black voters from having their rights violated. King Samir Shabazz, the local NBPP chapter leader, brandished a nightstick and made threatening remarks to voters (much of this was captured on a videotape reportedly made by GOP poll watchers). An eyewitness claimed that Samir Shabazz said, "Cracker, you are about to be ruled by a black man." Jerry Jackson, a certified Democratic poll watcher who also wore NBPP garb, accompanied him. Police officers arrived at the scene and forced Samir Shabazz to leave, though they allowed Jackson to stay. After the incident, the NBPP distanced itself from Samir Shabazz's actions and suspended the Philadelphia chapter.

The Justice Department filed civil charges of voter intimidation in January 2009 under the Voting Rights Act (the Bush Administration, which filed the charges in its last hours, chose not to pursue a criminal case) against King Samir Shabazz, Jerry Jackson, the New Black Panther Party and Malik Zulu Shabazz. They won the case by default in April 2009 when the defendants did not appear in court. But DOJ officials under the Obama Administration decided to drop most of the charges, saying the evidence did not substantiate the allegations that votes were suppressed or that the party or its leader were culpable. They did, however, get an injunction against Samir Shabazz that forbade him to bring a weapon to any Philadelphia polling place until 2012.

In January 2010, Samir Shabazz was reinstalled as head of the newly reactivated Philadelphia chapter. On April 23, 2010, he wrote in a reference to the prosecutors who investigated the case against him, "You are nothing more than a modern day lynch mob." In May 2010, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez defended the Department of Justice's decision to drop the charges. He cited local officers' decision to allow Jackson to remain when they removed Samir Shabazz (suggesting that Jackson was not intimidating voters) and the fact that there were no similar incidents at other polling stations. These facts, Perez argued, exonerated Jackson, Malik Shabazz, and the NBPP from charges of voter intimidation. Nevertheless, a wide array of right-wing and conservative individuals and groups attacked the DOJ's decision as supposedly revealing the Obama Administration's refusal to pursue cases against black racists.

The group made headlines across the country in March 2012 when Mikhail Muhammad, a New Black Panther leader in Florida, said the NBPP was placing a $10,000 bounty on a neighborhood watch volunteer who killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, an African American, in Sanford, Fla. When asked whether he was inciting violence, Muhammad said, An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The group also called for the mobilization of 10,000 black men to capture the Hispanic man who shot the unarmed teen as he was walking through a gated community wearing a hooded sweatshirt and carrying only some candy and iced tea. The lack of charges against the gunman, who claimed he was attacked by Martin, sparked nationwide outrage.



NBC News coverage of President Trumps first State of the Union address got off to a rocky start when Savannah Guthrie and Tom Brokaw seemed to disrespect the president by spewing comments about the Russian probe as Trump was at the podium preparing to speak.

Lets not forget as we see Attorney General (Jeff) Sessions, this is a president under criminal investigation for obstruction of justice with regard to the Russia investigation, Guthrie said, while Trump was receiving a round of applause.

Brokaw then chimed in, pointing out that there is a missing major figure in this hall tonight that we ought not to forget about, and that is the special prosecutor of the United States, who at this hour is probably meeting with his team, referring to Robert Mueller.

That is an extraordinary important part of what is going on in Washington, D.C., Brokaw said as Trump was starting to address the nation. Despite all of the grandeur of this setting, and the television photos and members of the Supreme Court, members of the Cabinet, out there is a highly regarded investigator who is looking into whether or not he broke the law.

Trump uttered his first words while Brokaw was still speaking. A longtime TV executive who has worked on multiple State of the Unions told Fox News the display was very disrespectful and offensive.

Radio host Mark Simone tweeted, The most biased commentator on TV, Tom Brokaw, keeps bringing up Robert Mueller in every sentence, keeps trying to imply that Pres Trump is going to jail any minute. Ridiculously slanted coverage from Brokaw. Like they say, theres no fool like an old fool.

One viewer took to Twitter to say, News used to be unbiased and not agenda driven. Brokaw, you are the total opposite. You should be ashamed of yourself, while another wrote, Im assuming that was Tom Brokaws gravelly voice providing narration during Trumps entry; and am under the impression Brokaw isnt a fan.

One viewer mocked Brokaw pointing out that Mueller wasnt in attendance, Because hed get an invite? Good grief.

Lester Holt anchored the networks coverage that also featured Megyn Kelly, Chuck Todd, Andrea Mitchell, along with Guthrie and Brokaw. Meanwhile, Mueller has spent months investigating whether Trumps campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election, but the president repeatedly has declared that there was no collusion, and he is willing to testify under oath.

There was absolutely no reason to bring up the Mueller probe as Trump prepared to make, arguably, the most important speech of his presidency to this point. The State of the Union is historically supposed to unify the nation  but someone apparently forgot to tell NBC News that it claims to be a non-partisan news organization.Reality television star Amy Duggar said she asked her husband if she could adopt the 13 children kept captive by their parents in a home in California dubbed a house of horrors.

Duggar, 31, tweeted Monday: I just asked Dillon (her husband) and told him I wanted to adopt all 13 Turpin children. I would love to show them true love and have a beautiful life and provide a secure and stable home for them. God can restore what the devil has stolen.

In another tweet she added: Anyone who can hurt animals and starve/torture children in any way need to be hung by their toenails. Watching the news just breaks my heart.

Duggar, the niece of 19 Kids and Counting couple Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, has been married to Dillon King since 2015.

MARK SALLING DEAD, GLEE STAR WAS FACING PRISON FOR CHILD PORN POSSESSION

The parents of the 13 children, David and Louise Turpin, both face sentences of 94 years to life in prison if they are convicted of charges ranging from torture to abuse. Their 13 malnourished children, who range in age from 2 to 29, were rescued from the foul-smelling California home on Jan. 14 after their 17-year-old sister climbed out of a window of the home and called 911. Prosecutors have accused the couple of shackling the children up for months at a time.

According to prosecutors, the Turpins allegedly forced their children to shower only once a year, shackled them and beat them routinely. When they were found, they hadnt been to a doctor in over four years and had never been to a dentist.

A judge prohibited the couple from contacting their children  directly or indirectly  for at least three years.

Duggar has previously revealed that she was abused by her father while she was featured on Marriage Boot Camp, Us Weekly reported.

When I was 6, my dad was watching me, and he picked me up by my throat, she said. My dad was like, Amy, did you brush your teeth? And I was like, Yeah, Daddy! And he was like, No, you didnt, and he picked me up by my throat, all the way up to the ceiling, and I was scared s---less.

ROSE MCGOWAN DETAILS WEINSTEIN ALLEGATION, CULT UPBRINGING IN NEW BOOK

Duggar also claimed she was called names and was almost run over by her father.

Ive seen things thrown in the air. Ive been called every name in the book. He tried to run me over with a car. It scared me out of my mind, Duggar said.

Duggar told People she and her husband have a heart for hurting children.

Dillon and I have a heart for hurting children. The Turpin children are in my prayers. It absolutely just breaks my heart, she said.

Fox News Greg Norman, Lucia Suarez and the Associated Press contributed to this report.The Big Bang Theory star Jim Parsons is taking his acting talents in a drastically different direction from his lovable, albeit difficult, sitcom character. Its been revealed that the Sheldon Cooper actor will be joining Zac Efron in the world of serial killers in the upcoming film Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Parsons will join an already star-studded cast list that includes John Malkovich, Lily Collins, Jeffrey Donovan, Grace Victoria Cox and, of course, Efron. The film centers on the infamous serial killer Ted Bundy and how a routine traffic stop unraveled his sordid tale of murder and mayhem. Parsons will join the cast as Larry Simpson, the real-life lead prosecutor in the 1979 Miami trial that finally got Bundy convicted.

Efron has been making a splash on social media by posting photos from the set that show off his uncanny resemblance to the infamous killer as well as his infamous Volkswagen Beetle, where People reports nearly a dozen of his victims are believed to have died. Bundy was executed in Florida on Jan. 24, 1989 after confessing to 30 murders committed across seven states.

In addition to providing voice talent on CBS spinoff hit Young Sheldon, Parsons is starring on the eleventh season of The Big Bang Theory. As the shows star continues to shine, two of his co-stars have discussed a potential end to the beloved sitcom after Season 12. Johnny Galecki discussed the end at the 2018 Television Critics Association press tour and Mayim Bialik echoed his sentiments that the cast might be ready to move on to other projects sometime soon. However, no official end date has been set for The Big Bang Theory as of now.

In the meantime, fans can eagerly wait for Parsons to flex his dramatic chops in the upcoming serial killer biopic, which has no release date at this time.The filming of Blake Lively's new movie, "The Rhythm Section," is still on hold because the A-list star is recovering from an on-set injury.

On Monday, producers for Lively's film said that the shooting of the thriller was shut down.

"Hiatus on the production of 'The Rhythm Section' has been extended due to the hand injury Blake Lively sustained while filming an action sequence on the action thriller at the end of last year," producers told The Hollywood Reporter.

Lively originally injured her right hand back in December and following the announcement of her injury, filming was temporarily halted. According to THR, sources close to Lively said that the star's "initial hand surgery did not go as planned," leaving the actress to have to "undergo a second surgery and will need more time to recover."

It is unclear whether the film will make it's Feb. 22, 2019 release date.

An insider who spoke to THR said that the $50 million film was midway through filming before the suspension, but another source said that it could be five months before filming begins again.

On Jan. 5, Director Reed Morano gave a statement to THR which read, "[Lively's] OK. She's just recovering. The problem is that normally, that kind of an injury, you would have four to six weeks of rehab and then you would wear a splint. We have to go into stunts, so it's very complicated."

Though Lively has yet to comment on her injury, the star has shared posts on social media from the film's set and separate posts of her sporting a cast on her hand.

The spy-thriller, directed by "The Handmaid's Tale's" Morano, is based on Mark Burnells Stephanie Patrick novel series and also stars Jude Law.The mainstream medias reaction to President Trumps first State of the Union address serves as a microcosm of his first year in office, with triggered liberals expressing outrage disguised as analysis on a non-stop basis from pre-speech coverage through Wednesdays morning shows.

Democrats didnt do themselves any favors by sitting on their hands when Trump appealed for unity and declining to applaud things like economic gains and calls to honor veterans. However, Democratic lawmakers attending the speech werent the only people to illustrate how low their party will go when given a chance to mock Trump or discredit his rhetoric. Pundits and commenters from an assortment of news organizations were out to prove they can be equally outrageous.

Liberal media members began disrespecting Trump as he stood at the podium before he even uttered a word. NBC News Savannah Guthrie and Tom Brokaw felt it was appropriate to remind viewers of the Russian probe as Trump was beginning his speech  literally talking over the president at one point.

MSNBCs pre-speech coverage included Rachael Maddow and Brian Williams giggling over a protester who gave Trumps motorcade a one-fingered salute and many outlets fixated on Melania Trump traveling to the Capitol building in a separate vehicle from her husband.

CBS News Gayle King may have provided the most honest moment of the night when she said, Many of the Democrats, at many times, looked like they had bitten a couple of lemons, even when he was saying things most people would agree with.

MSNBCs Joy Reid was on a combative Twitter rampage throughout the evening, accusing Trump of leading a culture war, but one tweet she sent essentially denounced church, family, policy, the national anthem and even the military.

Church ... family ... police ... military ... the national anthem ... Trump trying to call on all the tropes of 1950s-era nationalism. The goal of this speech appears to be to force the normalization of Trump on the terms of the bygone era his supporters are nostalgic for, Reid wrote.

She also retweeted a message that mocked one of Trumps most quotable moments from his first address to Congress: Americans are dreamers too, is the new All lives matter.

Not to be outdone, CNNs Jim Acosta tweeted his own take on Trumps memorable line.

Of course Americans are dreamers. But Dreamers think of themselves as Americans because they've been living here since they were children, brought to the U.S. through no fault of their own, Acosta wrote.

What some may call an attempt to unify the nation, MSNBCs Nicole Wallace called a deep and almost, sort of, sad obsession with being liked.

CNN's Van Jones, a former Obama adviser, compared Trumps speech to sweet-tasting candy with poison in it. Jones then claimed that Trump deliberately implied that DREAMers are gang members.

The CBS News panel didnt exactly praise Trumps speech. John Dickerson said he was a cheerleader of his own policies and totaled up all the wins that he gives himself, sometimes bending the truth a little bit, while Norah ODonnell said this reality TV president was trying to create a new reality.

ABCs George Stephanopoulos, who was an advisor to Bill Clinton, pointed out that speech was a long one but The Hill media columnist Joe Concha pointed out that Clintons final State of the Union was actually eight minutes longer.

Author and CNN contributor Sally Kohn called it a scary speech and said that people chanting USA sends chills down her spine.

I'm gonna go curl up in the fetal position for a few hours, she wrote. And then get up and get back to resisting!

Liberals were so outraged by Trumps speech that the Washington Post apparently was forced to change its front page headline when a tweet previewing A call for bipartisanship resulted in an onslaught of criticism. The paper scrapped that headline and went with A new American moment when angry media members ranging from Nate Silver to Oliver Willis attacked the papers initial cover.

Some media outlets even criticized Trump for clapping when it came time to honor veterans and heroes in attendance.

The mainstream media wasnt finished trashing the speech when bedtime rolled around on Tuesday night, as Wednesdays morning shows were packed with much of the same.

MSNBCs Morning Joe's Mika Brzezinski lampooned Trump as a great dictator and frequent guest Mike Barnicle said there was a level of disbelief in everything that came out of Trumps mouth.

Hes the principal divisive figure in this nation right now, Barnicle said.

At least one anti-Trump media member took the high road, as ESPNs Jemele Hill decided it wasnt a good idea for her to tweet during the State of the Union. Tonight aint the night for me to be on Twitter. Im out, she wrote.Harvey Weinsteins estranged wife canceled her upcoming New York Fashion Week runway show for her line Marchesa amid the continued fallout from the Hollywood mogul's sex abuse scandal, a report said on Tuesday.

Georgina Chapman, who announced in October she would be divorcing Weinstein, canceled the show because she couldnt go through with it and was too scared, a source told The New York Post.

The Marchesa show was scheduled for Feb. 14 during Fashion Week. The fall 2018 collection will instead be reportedly shown in a digital presentation.

A rep for the fashion brand said, "Marchesa is looking forward to presenting their Fall 18 collection in an updated format this season.

"They were gung-ho... but as they got closer, she choked, the source told the New York Post.

The 41-year-old fashion designer has stayed relatively out of the spotlight since allegations made against her husband were detailed in a New York Times article and subsequent New Yorker piece.

More than 100 women  including prominent actresses such as Salma Hayek, Ashley Judd, Rose McGowan and Gwyneth Paltrow  have accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct.

Weinstein, 65, has repeatedly denied having non-consensual sex with any of the women.

Chapman, who was married to Weinstein for 10 years, later said she was leaving her husband and focusing on raising their two children.

My heart breaks for all the women who have suffered tremendous pain because of these unforgivable actions. I have chosen to leave my husband. Caring for my young children is my first priority and I ask the media for privacy at this time, she said in a statement to People.

The couple reached a deal in their divorce settlement, where Chapman is estimated to receive between $15 million and $20 million, a source told Page Six.When "Glee" first graced the small screen in 2009, few could imagine the slew of controversies that would later hit the cast of the hit musical dramedy.

Most recently, Mark Salling, who played bad-boy Noah "Puck" Puckerman died Tuesday of an apparent suicide weeks before he was scheduled to be sentenced in Los Angeles on child pornography charges.

Here are a few of the scandals that have rocked the "Glee" cast over the years.

Mark Salling

Mark Salling, who played bad-boy Noah "Puck" Puckerman in the hit musical-comedy "Glee," died Tuesday, several weeks after pleading guilty to possessing child pornography. He was 35.

Salling pleaded guilty in December after authorities said a search of his computer found more than 50,000 images of child porn. He was scheduled to be sentenced March 7, and prosecutors planned to ask a judge to send him to prison for four to seven years.

Naya Rivera

Naya Rivera, who played cheerleader Santana Lopez on the hit Fox show, recently faced a domestic battery charge that was dismissed in West Virginia on Jan. 12, 2018, after her husband decided not to seek prosecution.

The star opened up about her time on "Glee" in her 2016 memoir "Sorry Not Sorry: Dreams, Mistakes and Growing Up."

Rivera revealed in the book that she had an abortion in 2010 during her day off from filming the show. She also discussed her relationship with co-star Mark Salling, whom she secretly dated, and detailed how she reacted to news of his child pornography possession charge.

"I can't say I was totally shocked, but stillWTF?" Rivera wrote of Salling in her book. "My son's nanny actually told me about it when the story broke. Then I had no doubt that God really did have my back along the way."

Cory Monteith

"Glee" stars were shocked when Cory Monteith was found dead in a hotel room in Vancouver, British Columbia, on July 13, 2013. An autopsy later revealed he died of an overdose of heroin and alcohol.

The actor, who played the loveable Finn Hudson, was open with fans about his long history of drug and substance abuse but his death was a shock to not only fans, but the entire cast of "Glee."

Monteith's girlfriend and co-star Lea Michele said in her first public appearance one after month his death, "He was very special to me and also to the world and we were very lucky to witness his incredible talent, his handsome smile, and his beautiful, beautiful heart. So, whether you knew him personally or just as 'Finn Hudson,' Cory reached out and he became a part of all of our hearts and that's where he'll stay forever. So, thank you guys so much. Thank you."

Nude photo scandals

Several of the stars of the show had their private nude photos hacked and leaked online. Lea Michele, Heather Morris, Becca Tobin and Melissa Benoist all had their private pictures posted on the Internet without permission.

Morris reportedly joked at the time, "Well, it could be worse! At least I look good!"Netflix announced Wednesday that House of Cards resumed production for its final season, and added Diane Lane and Greg Kinnear to the cast.

The political drama announced the sixth season would be its last in October after the shows star Kevin Spacey was accused of sexual misconduct.

KEVIN SPACEYS BROTHER CLAIMS ACTOR IS WORSE THAN HIS NAZI RAPIST FATHER

Star Trek: Discovery actor Anthony Rapp told Buzzfeed News that Spacey, then 26, made a sexual advance on him when he was 14 years old. After Rapp came forward, a number of other men came forward accusing the disgraced actor of sexual misconduct.

Following the report, Netflix announced in November it was severing ties with the Academy Award-winning actor.

Robin Wright, who plays Spaceys wife on the drama, will be taking the lead role, the Los Angeles Times reported.

DISGRACED ACTOR KEVIN SPACEY ACCUSED OF RACISM: REPORT

Netflix also announced veteran actors Diane Lane and Greg Kinnear would be joining the cast for the last season. The two would be playing a brother and sister duo. More information on their roles was not immediately available.

It was also not clear how the show would write Spaceys character out.

The last season will consist of eight episodes, down from 13 every other season had previously. The air date has not been announced.Author and self-proclaimed CNN talking head Jonathan Tasini took to Twitter on Wednesday to declare that God is working hard today to clean up the stink because a train full of Goopers slammed into a dump truck moments after the news broke that GOP lawmakers were in a collision that resulted in at least one death.

A train carrying members of Congress to a Republican retreat in West Virginia hit a truck on the same morning that South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy announced that he is retiring from Congress at the end of his term.

Tasini, who penned a column for CNN as recently as Jan. 13, decided the two stories were the result of God ridding Washington D.C. of his political opponents.

Wow, btwn train full of Goopers hitting truck and this, God is working hard today to clean up the stink. Thank her. #TreyGowdy #goptrainwreck, Tasini wrote in a now-deleted tweet.

The Bernie Sanders surrogate might have pulled off the worst comment-to-like ratio in the history of Twitter, as roughly 781 people commented while only 21 felt inclined to like the disturbing message at the time he deleted the tweet. Tasini was slammed in the comments beneath his anti-GOP message, with one user writing, From one media figure to another: you're going to regret posting this.

Tasini claims to be a CNN talking head in his Twitter bio, but the network was quick to point out that he isnt paid by them when Fox News reached out for comment. CNN presumably contacted Tasini because he quickly sent a follow-up tweet after several users tagged @CNN beneath his original tweet stating, Let me save you time. I don't work for CNN. They don't pay me. They can't fire me. I apologized nonetheless.

Its unclear when Tasini last appeared on CNN, but video of a segment from November 2017 when he appeared with Brooke Baldwin is pinned atop his Twitter feed. He wrote a column headlined, Why Walmarts bait and switch matters, for the networks website earlier this month.

CNN declined comment when asked if the network condemns the tweet or if Tasini will be allowed to appear on the network or write for its website in the near future.

After being criticized for the insensitive tweet, Tasini deleted it and claimed it was poked out in midst of convo w 2 colleagues on the deep racism/hypocrisy/criminality promoted by GOP or as GOPer Amanda Carpenter says, gaslighting of America.

Tasini has written several books, including The Essential Bernie Sanders and His Vision for America, and hosts the Working Life podcast. He has also launched several unsuccessful bids to become an elected official.

Meanwhile, the White House confirmed in a statement that there was one "fatality" and one serious injury in the train crash; lawmakers said this involved those in the truck, which may have been stuck on the tracks when it was hit.A radio DJ who was ordered to pay a symbolic $1 to Taylor Swift for groping her at a photo op reportedly landed a new job at a station in Mississippi.

David Mueller, a former Denver radio host, started a new job at Kix 92.7 FM in Greenwood, Miss., under the moniker Stonewall Jackson, Fox 31 Denver reported.

Swfit alleged that the incident happened during a 2013 meet-and-greet. She said Mueller groped her during a photo opportunity by putting his hand up her skirt and on her bare backside. After being fired from his radio station, Mueller sued Swift alleging that the pop star, her mother and her radio liaison, Frank Bell, were deliberately trying to destroy his career. Swift then countersued.

A jury ruled in favor of Swift.

Delta Radio CEO Larry Fuss defended the decision to hire Mueller.

I sat down with him face-to-face in Minneapolis before I offered him the job and talked to him about it, Fuss told the New York Daily News. Hes either the worlds best liar, or hes telling the truth. I tend to believe his version of the story and most people who have talked to him face-to-face do believe his version of the story.

Fuss explained to Radio Ink that he believed Mueller didnt deserve to be banned from the radio airwaves for life and deserved a break after the death of his sister and having to put his mother into a nursing home

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Actor Scott Baio adamantly denies sexually abusing an underage co-star and says she seduced him once when she was 18 and legally an adult.

Baio said Wednesday on ABC's "Good Morning America" that "false allegations" against him have "got to stop" for the sake of his wife and 10-year-old daughter.

On Tuesday, Nicole Eggert said that her former "Charles in Charge" co-star molested her for years, starting when she was 14.

"He immediately took to me and befriended me. Then he started expressing his love for me," an emotional Eggert told Megyn Kelly during the "Today" show Tuesday. "Then when I was still 14, before my 15th birthday, we were at this house, in his car, in his garage and he reached over and he penetrated me with his finger and that is when the sexual touching and abuse [started]."

Baio says that would have been "absolutely impossible" on a set filled with teachers, relatives, crew members and producers.

NICOLE EGGERT DOUBLES DOWN ON BAIO ABUSE CLAIMS

He says Eggert "makes up" things, and he's "not the first person" to become a target.

Eggert says she is exploring legal options and is considering filing a police report.

Baio says that wouldn't bother him because he didn't do anything wrong.

Baio told Fox News on Tuesday, "These false claims are part of a regular pattern of making and then deleting outrageous and untrue statements. Nicole Eggert, on national television today, acknowledged that she had no answer to the fact that her core claim of having underage sex was proven to be untrue in a 2013 radio interview, not just in her own words, but actually in her own voice."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.A sequel to Mel Gibsons 2004 film "The Passion of the Christ" about the crucifixion of Jesus is reportedly in the works and will be the biggest movie ever created, an actor told USA Today.

Jim Caviezel, 49, who will reprise the role of Jesus, gave few details about the film, but made the prediction because the movie will be "that good."

There are things that I cannot say that will shock the audience, said Caviezel, who also said he was inspired by Gibson. Its great. Stay tuned.

Gibson told USA Today in 2016, The Resurrection. Big subject. Oh, my God. Were trying to craft this in a way thats cinematically compelling and enlightening so that it shines new light, if possible, without creating some weird thing.

Upon its release, "The Passion of the Christ" was the highest-grossing R-rated film in North America, generating $611 million worldwide on a $30 million budget.

Gibson said in an interview last year that the film is going to focus on the Resurrection.

"Of course, that's a very big subject and it needs to be looked at because we don't want to just do a simple rendering of it  you know, read what happened," the actor added.

"Passion of the Christ" screenwriter Randall Wallace told The Hollywood Reporter that "there's a lot more story to tell."

Caviezel, who hasnt acted in a biblical film since then, will portray Luke in "Paul, Apostle of Christ," slated for a March 28 release.It should come as no surprise that Hollywood was not happy with President Trump's first State of the Union address.

Many self-proclaimed activists from Hollywood took to social media to offer their critique of Trump's speech. While some stars did watch Trump's address, others said they refused to tune in but still offered their criticism.

Many of Trump's vocal Hollywood critics participated in a "People's State of the Union" counter-event in New York City on Monday.

Outspoken Trump critic and actor Mark Ruffalo hosted the program which focused on the anti-Trump "Resistance" movement, immigration issues and attacking the "ugly underbelly" of Americans who voted for Trump.

The three-hour event was sponsored by various left-wing organizations including Planned Parenthood and MoveOn.org and organizers of the Women's March.2018 is shaping up to be a special year for the British royal family, as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle marry in May, and Princess Eugenie and beau Jack Brooksbank tie the knot in October. As if family matters couldnt get any sweeter, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will welcome their third child in April, around their seventh wedding anniversary.

On the eve of such festivities, Fox News chatted with Kathryn Money, VP of Strategy and Merchandising at ethically-sourced jeweler Brilliant Earth, about one of the buzziest topics in the style world this year  all those engagement rings.

Fox News: Can you speak to the engagement rings of each bride-to-be? These pieces truly seem to reflect their personalities.

Kathryn Money: Princess Eugenies ring features what appears to be a brilliant, oval, padparadscha sapphire  its a gorgeous gemstone and very unique, due to its pinkish orange color. Her ring showcases the gemstone in a mixed metal white and yellow gold setting, with a distinctive vintage halo that has pear and round diamonds.

What we love about Eugenies ring is that its a beautiful reflection of a general trend were seeing in the marketplace of brides who opt for rings that express their unique personality and their individual tastes. In particular, her ring incorporates a number of stylistic elements that are becoming increasingly popular among brides today  shes featuring a colored gemstone in lieu of a center diamond, a setting with a distinctive halo or mixed metal. Shes even incorporated the very on-trend millennial pink hue into her ring.

Meghans ring was custom designed by Harry. It features a center cushion-cut diamond that is framed by two round diamonds from Princess Dianas personal collection, and theyre set on a timeless yellow gold band, so really sophisticated, very befitting for a princess, while also matching Meghans chic-yet-relaxed style perfectly. Certainly the fact that the center diamond is from Botswana really sets the ring apart and reflects both Harry and Meghans shared commitment to social and environmental responsibility.

We also love that this ring is a combination of the old and the new  the diamonds from Princess Dianas reflects a connection to family and tradition, and the stone from Botswana represents a connection for Harry and Meghan and their shared memories together.

MEGHAN MARKLE WINS PRAISE FOR MESSY BUN

Fox News: For the entire Windsor clan, were seeing a strong family influence on their engagement rings. Meghans ring has Dianas diamonds, Eugenies ring looks just like her mother Fergies ring from Prince Andrew, Kate has Dianas actual engagement ring. When it comes to engagement rings and wedding bands for everyday couples, do you often encounter such strong homage to family?

Money: The family connection is one of the aspects of these royal engagement rings that we really love  I think for everyday couples, it really varies. Most families dont have a royal collection to select from, but certainly we love the sentiment attached to honoring a family member, or connecting a family heirloom to your wedding.

If couples are not incorporating a family heirloom as an engagement ring, there are other ways they can certainly involve heirlooms, such as a pendant or earring on the wedding day, or as your something borrowed or your something blue, which is a really nice way to honor a family member.

Fox News: Estimates for these engagement rings are quite high. How would you gauge them?

Money: As Kate Middletons belonged to Princess Diana, and theres significance, historical and cultural value associated with that  its a very difficult ring to estimate, and I would contain that ring as priceless.

For Princess Eugenies ring, we were estimating the approximate price would be $30,000 to $50,000 U.S. dollars, but it varies and depends on the specific qualities of the gemstone, which is obviously to hard to assess just looking at a picture.

And then Meghans ring, we estimate that the center is five carats and its framed by two diamonds that are roughly three quarter carats each; to replicate that ring, we estimate it to be upwards of $120,000 U.S. dollars, assuming that that cushion-cut center diamond has rare, high-quality cut. Given the use of royal heirlooms with Princess Dianaa diamonds, again, her ring has a cultural significance which makes estimating a challenge.

Regardless of whatever a ring costs, its really about what it represents for the couple, signifying a really important personal step in their life, its really the most important thing.

KATE MIDDLETON DONATED SEVEN INCHES OF HAIR FOR PEDIATRIC CANCER WIGS, SAYS CHARITY

Fox News: With the help of Cleave & Company of London, Harry is said to have designed Meghans ring himself. The main stone is from Botswana; do you think its ethically sourced?

Money: Botswana diamond mining has actually contributed to transforming Botswana as one of Africas most prosperous economies. Nearly half of the government revenue in Botswana comes from the diamond industry, so, when the country declared independence in the late 196s, the government had used the diamond revenues to institute universal primary education, and make investments in infrastructure and health care.

Its exciting that they have collected a diamond from Botswana because its a great model for an African nation who has really benefited from their diamond wealth.

Fox News: In 2010, we heard so much about Princess Dianas sapphire ring when Prince William and Kate got engaged. According to Vogue, it was actually Harry who inherited the ring, but he gave it over to Will because he adored Kate "like a sister." What are your thoughts on the matter?

Money: I think the rings are a perfect reflection of each of the princess unique style. Kates ring is timeless, and it fits perfectly with her sophisticated, chic style. Meghan ring is very timeless, in that classic, relaxed manner, and connects with the personal: Botswana, a place personally important to Harry and Meghan. Both rings have a connection to Princess Diana, which is wonderful.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

Fox News: From Meghans three-stone sparkler to Princess Eugenies millennial pink diamond, both of the ladies' rings have a definite, personal look to them. Do you think we can expect to see the rings set fashion trends?

Money: Kates ring was certainly a trendsetter, causing a resurgence in the popularity of colored gemstone rings, the irony being that sapphire, ruby, emerald engagement rings amongst royal families have gone back for generations. I anticipate that well see an increase in three-stone rings, as well as an interest in the market for colored sapphires. I anticipate more three stone rings, as well an interest in the more precious, offbeat gemstones  and I am looking forward to it!First Lady Melania Trump made quite the entrance at husband President Donald Trumps first State of the Union address on Jan. 30.

Floating down the stairs of the House of Representatives chamber in an ivory Christian Dior pantsuit, white Dolce & Gabbana blouse and nude Christian Louboutin pumps to a standing ovation, her outfit has since sparked great debate. Her look has been described as everything from a dig at her husband's rumored affair with porn star Stormy Daniels (which both she and Trump deny), to an homage to the suffragettes, to just simply a nice wardrobe choice.

KATE MIDDLETON DONATED SEVEN INCHES OF HAIR FOR PEDIATRIC CANCER WIGS, SAYS CHARITY

Some have linked the look to Hillary Clinton or Kesha's 2018 Grammy performance, while others pointed out that Democratic congresswomen wore white to Trump's first address to Congress in 2017 to demonstrate resistance aganist his administration itself.



Though FLOTUS did not sport an American designer, she did support a woman by donning Dior, as Maria Grazia Chiuri is the fashion houses first female artistic director. Melania's all-white ensemble starkly contrasted the black attire some Democratic members of congress wore in ode to the #MeToo movement against sexual abuse and harassment.

HOPE HICKS TURNS HEADS IN DAVOS LOOKS

Whether the white pantsuit was a political statement or simple fashion choice, the former model has embraced the power of sartorial messaging in her high-profile role.

Reading between the seams, FLOTUS' communications director Stephanie Grishman has previously said that while Melania certainly knows how to dress to make statement, her detractors cannot shake her passion for her role.



FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

"She knows she is representing the United States, and wants to be sure she is appropriate in all that she does, Grisham said in a November interview. "Mrs. Trump will never fit into a mold and is not concerned about the comparisons often made of her. The first lady wishes to make a difference in our country and hopes that regardless of political affiliation, everyone will realize she is her own individual."NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

President Donald Trumps first State of the Union was much like the first year of his presidency. He thrilled his Republican audience and angered the Democrats. And many in the media naturally responded with crazy or hateful comments. The medias war on Trump never lets up one second. All three broadcast networks led their websites with fact checks of the speech.

CNN host Van Jones topped the evening with yet another insane anti-Trump moment. The man who complained the election was some sort of white lash on election night, now blistered Trump on immigration and the Dreamers issue. He was selling sweet-tasting candy with poison in it, said Jones, who was recently given his own CNN show.

His comment was only the worst of many. CNN White House reporter Kate Bennett pretended to wonder why First Lady Melania Trump arrived at the capitol separately from the president in an effort to imply there were problems between the couple.

She even used what the First Lady wore to make her point. You know, she's wearing a cream-colored suit there, which I find interesting. Remember last year the female Democratic Senators all wore white, she said, forgetting somehow that Democrat women were wearing black for the evening as part of the #MeToo protest. So wearing white was the opposite.

CNN political contributor Paul Begala criticized the mood of the speech. That speech was a lot of things. Unifying isn't one of them, he wrote. CNNs Editor-at-Large Chris Cillizza made fun of how Trump read the speech: Trump reading the teleprompter is an odd thing. He always seems sort of surprised by the next words.

The New Yorker billed the speech as, A Historically Unpopular President Addresses the State of the Union. And a New York Times columnist explained how the only way Trump could be presidential is if he were to apologize and resign effective immediately.

MSNBC tried valiantly to be just as bad. Embarrassingly disgraced former NBC anchor Brian Williams, shoved into an MSNBC role, tried to rally the viewers with promises to check facts. As I said, our entire team of correspondents will analyze what we see and hear. We'll fact check it on the fly, as well. Given his own fictional history, that was guaranteed to get laughs. The gang even joked about a protester giving the Trump limo the finger. Host Rachel Maddow commented, One-fingered salute!

NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel took exception to Trumps comments about illegal immigration and immediately conflated them to a discussion of all immigration. Its the anti-immigrant rhetoric from a nation of immigrants that has many world powers confused, he commented.

Social justice website Splinter showed its unique form of professionalism. Trump keeps clapping for himself like a f*cking maniac. Even Dictionary.com waged its own resistance against the president. When he mentioned clean coal, the sites Twitter feed mocked him. It featured a gif of a confused look, saying, TFW [That Feeling When] when you are trying to find beautiful clean coal, and all you can find is  it followed with a link to the word oxymoron.

Comedian Patton Oswalt seemed to fantasize about the First Lady shooting Trump. He tweeted: Melania checks to see if the Marine beside her is armed. No pistol in the holster. Deep sigh. Not tonight. #SOTU. Actress Elizabeth Banks grew so angry over the speech she said it made me throw my remote and now I am listening to Tom Petty.

Liberals were on the attack even before Trump took to the podium. Former Star Trek actor Wil Wheaton displayed his wide vocabulary. Tonight, Sh*tler is going to read a speech filled with lies and falsehoods. American Horror Story actor Billy Eichner tried a similar attack, claiming: the President is a lying, incompetent, racist, misogynistic sack of sh*t. Neither used asterisks.

Actor Josh Gad joked, the 2 hour live broadcast of the new Purge film on all of network TV is very bold.

Director Michael Moore used one of the many anti-Trump events to vow ominously that he would deal with Vice President Mike Pence: Stop worrying about Pence. Leave Pence to me! Ill take care of Pence! Ill take care of him!

Some in Hollywood simply urged congressmen to walk out. Comedian Rosie ODonnell and actor John Cusack both embraced that strategy.

They Resisted

The opposition to the State of the Union was typical on the left. The New Yorker billed the speech as, A Historically Unpopular President Addresses the State of the Union. And a New York Times columnist explained how the only way Trump could be presidential is if he were to apologize and resign effective immediately.

The New Yorker called for the speech to be canceled. Abolish the State of the Union Address, it urged. The story was more hyperbolic. The annual State of the Union pageant is a hideous, dispiriting, ugly, monotonous, un-American, un-republican, anti-democratic, dreary, backward, monarchical, retch-inducing, depressing, shameful, crypto-imperial display of official self-aggrandizement and piteous toadying, he wrote.

Left-wing 538 ran, Why We Hate The State Of The Union. And A Rebuttal. Lefty Splinter went with: Cancel the State of the Union. The Washington Post tried a snarkier take: State of the Union gives Trump the chance to act presidential, at least for a night. And The Root suggested alcohol because youre probably going to need something to help you get through the pimp Don Magic Cons address to the nation.

At least 11 Democrats announced plans to skip the speech. And those who werent playing hooky were resisting. There were at least six responses to the speech planned in one form or another. This is the Resistance Era, after all.

The Democrats had Rep. Joe Kennedy, D-Famous Family, give their official response. Sometime Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who ran last election as a Democrat, gave his own. Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters was going on BET to give the unhinged response.

Comedy Central ran a Livestream with former funnyman Stephen Colbert providing commentary. And millionaire celebrities from actor Mark Ruffalo to comedian Amy Schumer to rapper Common held a so-called Peoples State of the Union the night before Trumps speech. That was followed Tuesday by a separate Peoples SOTU Response that featured prominent liberals like NARAL President Ilyse Hogue, comedians Sarah Silverman and Patton Oswalt and actress Debra Messing.

CNN Anchor Jake Tapper mocked the number of responses. You might think tonight would be a good time for Democrats on the Hill to come together and craft a focused, unified response. Instead, the opposition will feature no fewer than five separate responses, he said.

Yes, you might.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Fifteen years ago this week, President George W. Bush traveled up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol to announce the largest commitment ever to fight a single disease  a commitment that has saved the lives of millions of people with HIV/AIDS.

President Bushs creation of Presidents Emergency Response Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was a remarkable bipartisan commitment of $15 billion to fight the deadly AIDS epidemic in low-income countries.

In his announcement of the program during his State of the Union address, President Bush said that seldom has history offered an opportunity to do so much for so many.

PEPFAR is currently funding life-saving antiretroviral treatment for 13.3 million people with HIV/AIDS, and has leveraged funding from other sources providing treatment for a combined total of about 21 million people.

The mission of PEPFAR is to do the right thing by our brothers and sisters needlessly dying. It shows them and their families what the heart of our country is, and provides the resources needed where very few existed.

The situation on the continent of Africa and in Haiti was grim at the beginning of this century. Less than 50,000 people were receiving anti-retroviral drugs in sub-Saharan Africa. Haiti had an HIV prevalence rate of 19 percent. Over 16 countries were facing the prospect of losing over 10 percent of their population to AIDS.

In addition, 36 million people were living with HIV (the virus that causes AIDS) and a staggering 22 million people had already died from HIV/AIDS.

President Bush was encouraged by the results of a pre-PEPFAR smaller commitment targeting mother-to-child transmission of HIV. He charged his team with looking for a way to do something on a much larger scale.

The primary motivation of the program was humanitarian. But the program was also intended to make a statement on American values.

PEPFAR also had another mission, which was secondary in President Bushs consideration, but one that was no less important. Against the backdrop of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, PEPFAR was a way to ensure that the 16 countries hit hardest by HIV/AIDS and many more like them were given new reasons for hope.

President Bush later successfully advocated for passage of the 2008 Reauthorization of PEPFAR, which brought an additional five-year commitment of $48 billion to the fight against HIV/AIDS.

President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush visited Africa together twice and hosted three State Dinners for African leaders. Mrs. Bush made five trips to Africa and to 12 of PEPFARs focus countries.

The Bushes commitment to PEPFAR was continued on a bipartisan basis by President Obama, and now by President Trump.

President Trump has continued to fund PEPFAR. He signaled his commitment by placing the AIDS Red Ribbon on the North Portico of the White House last December for World AIDS Day.

Laura Bush has frequently said that its the generosity of America that enabled PEPFAR to achieve such dramatic results. To date, over $70 billion has been committed by the United States to help our partners fight HIV/AIDS.

The U.S. investment has been leveraged to encourage significant additional funding from the international community  most notably through the Global Fund.

PEPFAR has also supported the testing of more than 85.5 million people for HIV and enabled 250,000 health-care workers to be trained. It has prevented 2.2 million babies from being born infected with HIV.

In order to reach these results, PEPFAR had to instill strong management principles at all levels of the programs implementation. It has continuously used data taken from the field to help it push medicines towards areas of greater need, and demanded accountability and strong reporting from the field.

Working with governments, local clinics, and faith-based organizations PEPFAR has also built relationships between Americans and participants from PEPFAR countries.

As the emergency in its name suggests, PEPFAR was intended to be a massive, short-term infusion to stem the rising tides of infections. One large victory is that today more spending for HIV/AIDS treatment comes from indigenous country support than from international donors.

A 2015 UNAIDS report showed that 57 percent of spending on AIDS now comes from the countries with the highest burdens of the disease, and 43 percent comes from international donors. The United States generosity through PEPFAR, and its contributions to the Global Fund, have been leveraged to build up capacity for countries to more effectively fight their own epidemics.

The mission of PEPFAR is to do the right thing by our brothers and sisters needlessly dying. It shows them and their families what the heart of our country is, and provides the resources needed where very few existed. It has been excellently administered, results-oriented, and built tremendously powerful bridges to our partners.

As other opportunities arise to do so much for so many, Americans and our leaders can take heart and courage in PEPFARs shining example of success.

On this 15th anniversary of one of the greatest humanitarian accomplishments of our country, we should look for more cost-effective, data-driven and results-oriented ways to extend the same heart of compassion towards other global problems that cant be solved without the power and capabilities of the United States.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Is America the world's freest country? Sadly, no.

When researchers first started doing detailed international comparisons, the USA came in second or third. This year, however, we ranked 17th.

The comparison I cite is the newly released Human Freedom Index, compiled by the Fraser and Cato Institutes. They compared economic freedoms such as freedom to trade, amount of regulations and tax levels, plus personal freedoms such as women's rights and religious freedom.

Their new report concludes that the world's freest countries are now:

1. Switzerland.

2. Hong Kong.

3. New Zealand.

4. Ireland.

5. Australia.

"The United States used to have one of the freest economies in the world," Index co-author Ian Vasquez says. "It used to be a two, three or four, and then government started to grow (and) spend more."

Republicans and Democrats, under Presidents Bush and Obama, voted for increases in spending and regulation. Obama tried to make tax increases sound harmless. "Those who are more fortunate are going to have to pay a little bit more."

The result was that we fell farther from the top of the freedom ranking. Switzerland now takes first place. It has comparatively little regulation, low taxes, a free press and personal freedoms such as same-sex marriage.

A good ranking matters, not just because freedom itself is a good thing, but because economic freedom allows people to prosper.

Consider the story of Hong Kong, No. 2 on the overall freedom list (but No. 1 in economic freedom). In just 50 years, people in Hong Kong went from being among the poorest in the world to among the richest.

Prosperity happened because Hong Kong's government puts few obstacles in the way of trying new things. It took me just a few hours to get legal permission to open a business in Hong Kong. In New York, it took months. In India, I didn't even try -- it would have taken years.

That's a reason India stays poor. Bureaucrats have the power to review and reject most any new idea. Fewer new ideas get tried.

The absolute worst places to live are countries that lack both economic and personal freedom.

Those are the places at the bottom of the freedom ranking:

155. Egypt.

156. Yemen.

157. Libya.

158. Venezuela.

159. Syria.

(Totalitarian North Korea wasn't ranked because the researchers couldn't get accurate information.)

Syria ranked so low mostly because of the war. You aren't free if you worry you might be killed.

Second-to-last place Venezuela was once the richest country in Latin America. Then socialists promised to spread the wealth.

The next three: Libya, Yemen, Egypt -- well, the Arab Spring didn't turn out as well as some hoped.

On the top of the list, I wasn't surprised to see New Zealand and Australia. They always do well.

But Ireland? I associate Ireland with poverty. For 150 years after English rulers caused the Potato Famine, Irish people left Ireland to search for a better life.

But Ireland recently changed, says Vasquez.

"They reduced taxes ... spending, reduced regulations. They opened up to trade."

Now people want to live there.

You can read the full freedom rankings on the Cato Institute's and Fraser Institute's websites. If you plan to move or start a business in another country, the Freedom Index is a good guide.

Greece is beautiful, but it ranks 60th, mostly because the country lacks economic freedom. China got richer, but because personal freedom is so limited, China ranks 130th.

How do you summarize a free country? I asked Vasquez.

"You can lead your life any way you want as long as you respect the equal rights of others, he answered. You (decide) what job you want to take, what kinds of things you want to do, who you want to marry, what you want to do on your free time, where you want to live."

I suggested that countries don't regulate your free time, but Vasquez set me straight.

"They do." Some countries, he says, "regulate everything!"NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Hollywood, eat your hearts out. President Trumps first-ever State of the Union Address delivered more drama, passion and feel-good patriotism than his critics in Tinseltown delivered all year. My guess  his ratings will top the Oscars and the Grammys, combined.

Pundits expected to hear from a kinder, gentler President Trump who would reach across the aisle to enlist the aid of Democrats in pursuing his agenda. While the tone of the presidents address was surely more positive and upbeat than his dark and combative inaugural address, he did not stoop to conquer.

He asked for Congress to come together, to serve the people of the nation, but on his terms.

He did not attempt to topple the Resistance by backing away from his campaign promises; instead, he reaffirmed his dedication to border security, to a strong military, to religious freedom, to protecting the second amendment and to upholding our veterans and our law enforcement, seemingly challenging Democrats to deny the reasonableness and popularity of these bedrock commitments.

The sour faces of his critics suggested this: they fear his success.

Pundits expected to hear from a kinder, gentler Trump who would reach across the aisle to enlist the aid of Democrats in pursuing his agenda. While the tone of the presidents address was surely more positive and upbeat than his dark and combative inaugural address, he did not stoop to conquer.

As Trump reviewed his administrations accomplishments of the past year, Americans listening in might applaud the tax cuts that will save families thousands of dollars. They might welcome the bonuses and raises being handed out by corporations because of the GOP tax bill, and cheer the new investments by Apple and others encouraged by the tax reforms. They might rejoice that  finally  wages have started to rise.

Trump proudly ticked off data points on the strong economy, including unemployment among African-Americans falling to the lowest level ever recorded. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus failed to stand and applaud; how foolish does that look?

Trump celebrated the buoyant economy, saying, There has never been a better time to live the American dream, and promising the country that You can be anything and that Together we can achieve anything. But while he stressed that the nation should move forward together, since we share the same home, the same heart, the same destiny and the same flag, he was clear that he wanted Americans to join him on the path he has laid out.

Emphasizing that the government serves the people, and not the other way around, he touted moves to make agencies more responsive to the needs of our citizens. He said he would ask Congress to pass legislation making it easier to fire government employees, and noted that because of the VA Accountability Act that he signed into law, his administration had been able to remove 1,500 employees who failed to give vets the care they deserve. He did not pledge to drain the swamp, but you could just tell he wanted to.

He celebrated his numerous efforts to protect and help American workers. Trump tiptoed past the graveyard of climate change, saying he had ended the war on American energy and the war on beautiful clean coal. He touted the revving up of car manufacturing in the U.S., and also the accelerated approval of drugs flowing from the FDA.

He claimed to have turned the page on unfair trade deals, reiterating that future pacts must be fair and reciprocal and that his government will work to protect workers as well as our intellectual property.

He asked Democrats to partner with his administration in delivering an infrastructure program, asking Congress to create a bill designed to unlock $1.5 trillion in new infrastructure investment, leveraging federal funds with money from state governments and private funding. In particular, he demanded that the permitting process be streamlined. Getting the required permissions to build a simple road can take up to ten years; he wants that cut down to two.

And then there was immigration. The president has already proposed a four-part compromise on immigration reform, and in particular on resolving the fate of the Dreamers. He offered no new concessions, and instead took a hard stand on the security aspect of immigration policy. He personalized the real threat from gang members in the country illegally by introducing two Long Island families grieving for their daughters who were murdered by members of MS-13. Cory Booker looked like he was sucking on a prune.

The president also reviewed his America First foreign policy, and suggested he would ask Congress to ensure that our foreign aid will be increasingly handed out only to Americas friends. He celebrated the success in taking back nearly all the lands so recently held by ISIS, and vowed to continue the fight, declaring that terrorists will be treated as enemy combatants, and not criminals. Lest anyone misunderstand that distinction, he vowed to keep Guantanamo open.

And he talked about the dangers of North Korea, recounting the horrible imprisonment and death of Otto Wambier, a college student who was released to his family shortly before he died, presumably succumbing to months of torture and hardship at the hands of Kim Jong Un. Wambiers parents made a tearful salute to the assembled crowd.

President Trumps speech will likely not have won over any Democrats, only 11 percent of whom approve of him, according to the latest Fox News poll. But he may have shored up his support amongst independents, some of whom have moved away from him in recent months. His strong, clear-eyed message of American empowerment appeals. It is hard to deny that our government should put our people first. It is tough to argue that the bureaucracy functions as well as it should, or that security should not be the uppermost concern of our leaders.

Most important, Trump has a good story to tell. A story of accomplishment, of lower taxes, better jobs and higher wages. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke earlier in the day, attempting to deny Mr. Trump credit for the improving economy and instead arguing that President Obama was responsible for the brightening picture.

Sorry Charlie; the experts say this is Trumps economy, and come the fall voters may well agree.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Tuesday night, President Trump delivered his first State of the Union address to Congress and to the nation.

The president highlighted his administrations successes in its first year, touting the growing economy and the recent passage of the Republican tax overhaul. The president also shed light on his plans for policy-making going forward, specifically in the areas of infrastructure, immigration, and trade policy.

In full, this address was a departure from how President Trump has governed, being much more optimistic, and was clearly an attempt to avoid being tagged with the label of simply governing to satisfy his base.

This change in approach is welcome, important, and essential.

Clearly, the United States cannot be strong globally if we are divided, and President Trumps first year proved he cannot get things done if he governs only from the right and demonizes his opponents.

That being said, it is now up to President Trump  as well as both parties  to put words into action, especially on immigration.

In President Trumps own words, his immigration proposal is designed to protect and defend all Americans because Americans are dreamers too.

This bipartisan outreach should be applauded, but we need concrete action and process to achieve this goal, not just rhetoric.

Indeed, we are all Americans, we are the United States of America, and it is only by approaching our most critical issues with an inclusive notion that we can succeed and be the nation and the people we have always been and hopefully always will be.

It was strikingly clear at Davos that Americas global influence is fading as China is rapidly rising as a leader on the world stage. This was evident as leaders such as President Michel Temer of Brazil and Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi of Pakistan praised Chinese investment in their countries and announced plans to partner more closely with China.

In light of the United States rapidly diminishing influence in the global economy, it is absolutely necessary that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle dispense with the political posturing and waffling, and instead work towards meaningful progress on both the national and international scale.

This means that President Trump must focus and engage on the issues he addressed in his State of the Union, rather than wavering on each new bill and decision. Likewise, the Democrats, especially Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, must commit to compromises instead of abandoning opportunities to enact reforms at the eleventh hour.

This also requires that our leaders refocus on policy and stop waging politically-driven, partisan shouting matches.

To this point, Tuesday nights State of the Union seemed to be a step in the right direction, as Trump used the highly anticipated speech to discuss his top policy proposals.

As the president said on Monday, For many, many years they've been talking immigration and never got anything done. Were going to get something done, we hope. It's got to be bipartisan, because the Republicans really don't have the votes to get it done in any other way.

This sentiment was echoed in his State of the Union address, as he spoke about how the divisiveness that has defined Washington for too longparticularly around immigration policy  is simply not working.

Moreover, the Trump administrations walk-back on the status of Dreamers demonstrates a willingness to turn this rhetoric into action, and work towards a compromise on immigration that satisfies both Democrats and Republicans.

President Trumps focus on infrastructure is similarly promising for bipartisan collaboration, as well as for advancing national interests generally. In Tuesday nights address, the president gave more details about his long-standing promise to invest more than $1 trillion to revamp and rebuild key infrastructure throughout the country.

Though Democrats and Republicans diverge on the exact details of what they believe this effort should entail, both parties should be able to come together in support of improving infrastructure.

Senator Chuck Schumer has in fact affirmed his support for a broad infrastructure projectunder certain conditions.

In an op-ed in published in The Washington Post earlier this week, Schumer wrote, On Tuesday, if President Trump chooses a real, direct, federal investment in infrastructure, he will have a chance to pass an effective, bipartisan bill. We Democrats will gladly work with him on it.

Ultimately, high-quality infrastructure and the vast number of jobs that such a project would create is not partisan or controversial and represents an opportunity for Washington to showcase its ability to make meaningful, beneficial progress.

Further, President Trumps notable shift in his rhetoric on trade during his address tonight is promising in terms of both promoting bipartisan cooperation, as well as rebuilding the United States global economic reputation.

Though his speech at Davos and his State of the Union address both reinforced his administrations tough stance on trade deals that they perceive as unfair, his latest rhetoric also reveals his willingness to move beyond his previous protectionist messages and work towards policies that allow the United States to benefit from global trade significantly, such as by potentially re-entering a renegotiated version of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Ultimately, President Trumps apparent readiness to collaborate with both Republicans and Democrats to create positive policies that both sides can agree is exactly the kind of work that needs to be done.

Now, as he enters his second year in office, it is incumbent upon the president to actually honor these words, and not to waver and resort to the same divisive, hardline, bombastic rhetoric that we have repeatedly seen from him in the past.

Similarly, it is up to the members of Congress, both Democrat and Republican, to work with the president and with one another in order to create meaningful reforms that help everyday Americans and put the United States at the forefront of the global economy once again.Manila (CNN Philippines Life)  The appointment on March 17, 2017 of Cesar Gilbert Adriano as director of the National Library of the Philippines (NLP), in any other circumstance, would have been unremarkable. The position was vacated due to the demise of Atty. Antonio Santos, its former director, in 2015.

In the interim, the Civil Service Commission posted a job vacancy for Director IV of the NLP, with an annual salary of 812,808, possessing the following qualification requirements: a masters degree, 120 hours of managerial training for the last five years, five years of supervisory experience, Career Service Executive/Career Executive Service eligibility, and  most significantly  the director must be a licensed librarian.

Adriano is not a licensed librarian.

For 27 years, maybe more than that now, since the law was passed in 1992, a professional licensed librarian has been holding the helm of the premier institution in the country which was the National Library, says Fe Angela Verzosa, a 72-year-old retired professional librarian, and a former president of the Philippine Librarians Association, Inc. (PLAI) and the Philippine Association of Academic and Research Librarians (PAARL) in 2000.

There were applications, pero hindi yun yung kinonsider, Verzosa adds. We were aghast when we heard, and it was confirmed na a certain Mr. Adriano from Davao was appointed.

Adriano is virtually unknown in the librarian community. When the news first came out that Mr. Adriano was appointed director of the NLP, we looked at the roster of librarians. Kasi di namin siya kilala eh, says Kathleen Lourdes Obille, dean of the UP School of Library and information Studies (SLIS). Then we realized na hindi siya librarian. So its really a surprise. We were disgusted by the news, because we know that there are other qualified librarians out there.

Vernon Totanes, director of the Ateneos Rizal Library, filed a complaint with the Ombudsman. He questioned why, despite the provisions of The Philippine Librarianship Act of 2003 that only qualified and licensed librarians shall be employed in government libraries, Caesar Adriano was assigned as Director IV of the National Library of the Philippines. Photo by KENNETH ABALLA

Adrianos non-librarian status was the white elephant in the room  everyone knew he was not qualified, but no one questioned it in strong terms, even PLAI  until Vernon Totanes, director of the Ateneos Rizal Library, filed a complaint with the Ombudsman.

In it, he questioned why, despite the provisions of RA 9246 (The Philippine Librarianship Act of 2003) that only qualified and licensed librarians shall be employed in government libraries, Adriano was assigned as Director IV of the NLP  that is, the National Librarian of the Philippines. He further alleged that a violation of this provision was a criminal and corrupt act, punishable by law.

As of publication, Adriano has yet to comment on the issue, averring in a report that he will wait for the Ombudsman complaint. Another report quotes NLPs assistant director Edgardo Quiros who said that Adriano is not covered by RA 9246, and that Adriano was merely appointed to a temporary, non-career service position.

Nevertheless, the issue has made its impact upon the professional librarian community. Disheartened sila, says Obille, as dean of UP SLIS. Ang pinaka-comment nila is, how can a non-librarian lead us?

Why a librarian as director?

Notwithstanding the legal and professional requirements of the National Library director, Totanes says that a librarian with wide experience in the profession is essential for the development of public libraries all over the Philippines. Appointing licensed librarians also discourages the practice of assigning non-librarians who do not have the welfare of libraries in mind.

Ako, okay na ako doon sa mga scholars, book lovers. Di ko na kukuwestiyonin yun, says Totanes. Pero yung mga non-librarian na dahil lang kamag-anak at kaibigan sila ni mayor  Eh anong nangyari dun sa library? Wala. Dahil wala silang alam, wala silang malasakit sa libro, umupo lang sila doon para sumweldo, tapos parang namatay na yung library.

This is why the best place to start exercising exactitude and professionalism as librarians is the National Library, adds Totanes. Siya actually magsasabi na hindi pwede yung mga ina-appoint na yan. But if he is appointed himself, not a licensed librarian, can he actually tell the mayors, the cities, in all these public libraries, to follow the law? Wala siyang credibility.

Sa mga students din namin, siyempre tinuturo namin na kailangan professional, you have to get a license to be a librarian, [so] sila din nagulat. Kathleen Lourdes Obille

Obille, who has been working with PLAI and other groups in revising the Librarianship Act, says that while there is no explicit provision that the National Library director himself or herself shall be a licensed librarian, the principle embodied in the law is that all librarians shall be licensed.

But then di kami makagalaw kasi presidential appointee siya. Hindi naman siya career official, she says. But we are coordinating with PLAI and what were doing is revising our RA [9246] to include explicitly that the National Library director, most especially, should be a licensed librarian.

Verzosa sees a legal question arising from the appointment of Adriano. On one hand, she says the CSC should have been more aware of the enabling law that regulates the librarianship profession.

We saw the position advertised in the CSC and naka-indicate naman talaga doon na licensed ang dapat mag-o-occupy ng position that was vacated by the late Atty. Santos. Bakit di na-observe?

On the other hand, she avers to the power of the president to appoint officials such as the National Library director. Hindi tayo sigurado kung ano ba talaga ang mas supreme  ang appointing power or ang enabling law? Its going to be very interesting.

Whats at stake

As a professor in UP SLIS, Obille teaches her students that being a librarian is a profession that requires dedicated years of study and a license.

Sa mga students din namin, siyempre tinuturo namin na kailangan professional, you have to get a license to be a librarian, [so] sila din nagulat, she says of Adrianos appointment.

Medyo disappointing din kasi, the director of the National Library should represent the Philippines in international conferences, like IFLA [International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions], Obille adds. But for the previous IFLA, hindi siya nagpunta. The IFLA is a leading international body representing the interests of library and information services and its users.

The issue has made its impact upon the professional librarian community. Disheartened sila, says Katherine Obille, dean of UP School of Library and information Studies. Ang pinaka-comment nila is, how can a non-librarian lead us? Photo by KENNETH ABALLA

Totanes also observes that Adriano is not present in important events concerning the profession. Hes not here [in the PAARL General Assembly]. He was not there at the National Congress last year. He sent someone to read his message, he says. Hes not here, yet hes supposed to be everywhere, pushing the advocacy agenda of libraries in the Philippines. But hes not doing that. Bakit? Kasi he doesnt know anything.

The appointment of the national non-librarian also sheds light on other pressing problems in Philippine libraries. First walang item on government librarians, says Obille. So the government cant fill a nonexistent item. But they have libraries all over. Yun nga lang hindi qualified yung mga tumatao doon.

As for precedents, for schools and university libraries, who are covered by accreditation by CHED [Commission on Higher Education], we are mandated to have licensed librarians for their top positions, with either Masters or Ph.D. So educational qualification yan. Pero sa mga public libraries na hindi rin sufficiently na napo-police, wala, they dont follow, Obille adds.

Obille says there is also need to redefine the context of librarianship (if it includes archiving and other services) and revisit the salaries of government librarians. She hopes that such issues will be addressed in the ongoing revision of the Librarianship Act.

All these are issues that could gain widespread traction with the support of the National Library director. Looking at him as a manager, sige pwede, pero i-empower lang niya yung mga librarians to help him, says Obille. Sige andyan na yan, ano pa nga ba, hes coterminus. But there has to be a move out there, especially with this move by Von [Totanes] na ma-address yung issue.

But for Totanes, the National Library requires no less than a licensed librarian, and not just a manager. The issue for me is not how he manages. The issue for me is if he qualifies for the position, he says.

This is really not just about the National Library, he adds. Its about, you know, whos going to replace Patricia Licuanan at CHED?  How about the SC justices?  There are actually department secretaries who have not been named. Wala namang batas dun. Maybe with this kind of pressure, people like Mocha Uson will never be appointed again.Democrats on Tuesday night took their 'resistance' to President Trump to new lengths, with some refusing to even applaud or stand during his State of the Union address to acknowledge economic gains or an honoring of veterans.



This included during Trump's reference to record-low African-American unemployment and a promise to fix the countrys crippled infrastructure.

"It was amazing to watch," Donald Trump Jr. told Fox News' Sean Hannity after the speech, saying it looked like Democrats wanted to stand but felt obligated to oppose his father.

Several pundits pointed out the striking response on Twitter, noting these are the kind of non-controversial items that usually merit applause.

The Congressional Black Caucus led the opposition, as expected. The roughly 45-member, all-Democrat group (with the exception of GOP Rep. Mia Love) vowed early Tuesday to show their discontent with Trump's policies and his reported derogatory remarks about African nations.

Several members during the address chose not to stand when Trump honored Louisiana Republican Rep. Steve Scalise and praised his resolve for returning to work less than four months after he took a bullet from a gunman and "almost died.

And they chose not join in the applause for a 12-year-old boy in the gallery whom Trump praised for putting flags on soldiers graves on Veterans Day.

Democrats are no longer just the party of resistance and obstruction, they are now also the party of sitting on their hands, said the Republican National Committee. No matter the issue, Democrats chose to sit on their hands tonight.

While the CBC members -- dressed in Kenta-cloth scarves and ties -- were the most hardened, few Democrats applauded any Trump economic policies, including his tax-reform plan that is expected to put at least hundreds more dollars in many workers' pockets.

The biggest groans from Democrats came during Trumps vow to end a policy that allows immigrants to bring extended family into the country. That came over the displeasure of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who flung out her arms to signal members of her caucus to stop.

Pelosi, who joined in a chant of U-S-A, U-S-A, and did applaud Tuesday night, advised fellow House Democrats earlier in the day to not walk out on Trumps address.

Sources in the room said Pelosi told members: If you want to walk out, dont come.

Many of the female Democratic members of Congress, including Pelosi, wore black in solidarity with the #MeToo movement and other campaigns to create awareness about sexual misconduct toward women.

First lady Melania Trump and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley wore two-piece, off-white outfits.

Still, some Democrats applauded much of Trumps address, including West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who is facing reelection in a conservative-leaning state.

Manchin applauded several of Trumps proposals including one for the United States to keep up its nuclear arsenal.Guantanamo Bay prison has been open for more than 16 years, and it's going to remain that way under the Trump administration, President Donald Trump said during his State of the Union address on Tuesday.

"Today, I am keeping another promise," said Trump as he announced his decision to keep the prison, located in Cuba, open.

"I just signed an order directing [U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis] to reexamine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay," Trump continued.

Under the order, the U.S. maintains the option to keep additional enemy combatants at Guantanamo when lawful and necessary to protect national security. It requires Mattis to recommend criteria for determining the fate of individuals captured by the U.S. in armed conflict.

"We must be clear: Terrorists are not merely criminals. They are unlawful enemy combatants," Trump said. "In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds and hundreds of dangerous terrorists only to meet them again on the battlefield, including the ISIS leader, [Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi], who we captured, who we had, who we released."

The detention center, often referred to as "Gitmo," opened in January 2002 under former President George W. Bush as a place to detain and interrogate people with suspected links to terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, 779 men have been imprisoned at the detention center since it opened. As of September 2017, 41 remain.

Trump has repeatedly voiced his support for the continued operation of the military prison.

During his presidential campaign, Trump said he wanted to load the military up with some "bad dudes."

He also criticized former President Barack Obama's plan close the detention center as well as prohibit some of interrogation techniques.

"122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield. Just another terrible decision!" Trump tweeted in March 2017.

This year, Trump said he'd "love" to send the New York City truck attack suspect to Guantanamo.

"But statistically that process takes much longer than going through the Federal system," the president said in November.

Fox News' Kaitlyn Schallhorn and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

With boat docks, vacation homes and quaint shops on the banks of Lake Michigan, this is an idyllic little town.

The area is a mix of farms, agri-business, manufacturing and small business. As a result, it attracts people from all walks of life. Van Buren County has evolved into the ultimate swing county, having voted with every wining president except Carter in the last 15 elections.

Van Buren County is a swing county because people here, they like problems solvers that are going to get things done, said Republican State Rep. Beth Griffin. Thats not a partisan type of frame work.

On that point, there is agreement from both the right and left.

Its kind of an interesting melting pot, says Wendi Onuki with Progressives United of South Haven.

Wednesday morning, the Golden Brown Bakery smelled like fresh-baked desserts, donuts and coffee. The morning before the State of the Union address, diners who support President Trump hope they hear an upbeat message that celebrates a bounce in the economy and jobs returning nationwide, and to Michigan.

I hope to hear him talk about the accomplishments that have been made because I dont think enough attention has been given to them, said Erin Garnaat.

Were already starting to see the benefits from tax reform, said Robin Peake.

The restaurant as also filled with a significant number of people who didnt support Trump before the election, dont support him now and say there is nothing he can do to win them over in one speech.

Hes gonna have to build action and trust over time, said Cindy Murphy. And so far, this year, hes done one of that.

I dont think were going to hear anything new tonight, Pam Chappel said.

People in South Haven anticipate the president re-visiting promises to invest in infrastructure and highways. Specific to Michigan and the Flint water crisis, David Benac, a history teacher at Western Michigan University, hopes to see funds directed toward replacement of lead water pipes.

Its an issue too big for a city to handle on its own. So, this is something where we can step in and do something on a national scale to help millions of Americans, he said.

On foreign policy, people in South Haven said they are happy with the presidents support of Israel. Some said they want a message of peace through strength.

One Army veteran said he wants Mr. Trump to hold off on the provocative comments.

I sure dont want to hear about South Korea, Monty Brenner said. Because all he keeps doing is rattling the cage and somebodys going to pull the trigger.

Immigration is important in a farming area that, ultimately, employs a lot of migrant labor.

I think I just want to hear that hes going to continue on and secure the border, said Linda Craig.

Another expressed support for the presidents stance on Dreamers.

I feel the President is taking a step in the right direction by offering a pathway to citizenship for people who really came to this country as small children, said Kent Brindley.

Mostly, what voters in Van Buren County said is that they want to hear a unifying voice that can bridge the bitter partisan divide that separates the population in D.C. and small towns like South Haven.

Im looking for a positive tone. I think the presidents trying to bridge some gaps here, said Jim Horan.

Hes trying very hard to unify, but one side doesnt want to unify, said John Mathews.

Another residents wasnt so sure the president is helped bridge the countrys divide.

Its polarized, said Laura Beckwith. But Im not sure hes helped to stop that.With tears in his eyes, North Korean defector Ji Seong-ho stood up and pumped a pair of crutches proudly in the air as President Donald Trump applauded his bravery and slammed Kim Jong-un's authoritarian regime during his first State of the Union address on Tuesday.

"We are joined by one more witness to the ominous nature of this regime," Trump said as he introduced Seong-ho, who was sitting in first lady Melania Trump's gallery box alongside the parents of Otto Warmbier, the American college student who died after suffering injuries while being detained in North Korea.

To say Ji had a "rough" childhood would be an understatement.

Growing up under North Korea's grueling famine in the '90s, Ji and his siblings were in constant pain from hunger.

"One day, he tried to steal coal from a railroad car to barter for a few scraps of food," Trump explained during the State of the Union. "In the process, he passed out on the train tracks, exhausted from hunger. He woke up as a train ran over his limbs."

He survived, but lost his leg in the process.

"Later, he was tortured by North Korean authorities after returning from a brief visit to China," Trump continued. "His tormentors wanted to know if he had met any Christians. He had -- and he resolved to be free."

Ji trekked thousands of miles on crutches across China and Southeast Asia to escape his homeland.

Ji now lives in Seoul, South Korea, where he helps other defectors like himself. He studies law at Dongguk University and serves as the president of Now Action and Unity for Human Rights, a position that allows him to broadcast into North Korea "what the regime fears the most  the truth, Trump said.

The young man has a new leg, but he uses the crutches as a symbol of how far he's come, Trump added.

Trump used Ji's story to highlight the problems that plague North Korea, and the threat its government poses to the U.S.

"No regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally or brutally than the cruel dictatorship in North Korea," Trump said. "North Korea's reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland. We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from happening."President Donald Trump acknowledged the family members of Otto Warmbier, a college student who died after suffering injuries while in North Korean captivity, during an emotional moment of his first State of the Union address.

Warmbier died at the age of 22 in June 2017, just days after he was returned to the U.S. by North Korea. A University of Virginia student, Warmbier had been arrested while on a trip to the Asian nation and tortured during his detention, his parents have said.

He reportedly suffered extensive brain damage while detained.

Trump recognized Fred and Cindy Warmbier, Otto Warmbiers visibly emotional parents, during his State of the Union remarks, calling them incredible people.

You are powerful witnesses to a menace that threatens our world, and your strength inspires us all, Trump said. Tonight we pledge to honor Ottos memory with American resolve.

The Warmbiers received a standing ovation from those in attendance in the U.S. Capitol.

Trump highlighted Warmbiers death during his address to underscore his criticism of North Korea and reiterate the nuclear threat of the regime.

After Warmbiers death, Trump said the era of strategic patience with the North Korean regime has failed during an address from the White House.

During the State of the Union, Trump also recognized Ji Seong-ho, a North Korean defector who helps others escape the regime.

Your great sacrifice is an inspiration to us all, Trump said.Rep. Joe Kennedy III, D-Mass., a member of one of Americas most prominent political families, took the national stage to give the Democratic response to President Donald Trumps State of the Union address Tuesday night.

Speaking from a high school auto shop in Fall River, Mass., Kennedy slammed bullies in his response to Trump.

Bullies may land a punch. They might leave a mark. But they have never, not once, in the history of our United States, managed to match the strength and spirit of a people united in defense of their future, Kennedy said.

He also slammed the administration for targeting the very idea that we are all worthy of protection.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced on Jan. 25 that Kennedy would give the rebuttal. In a statement, Pelosi called Kennedy a relentless fighter for working Americans.

Ahead of his remarks, Kennedy, 37, said he was honored to have been chosen to deliver the speech.

Here's what you need to know about Kennedy and his rebuttal.

Who is he?

Kennedy is the son of Joe Kennedy II, a six-term Massachusetts congressman. Hes also the grandson of Sen. Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968, and his two great uncles are former President John F. Kennedy and former Sen. Edward Ted Kennedy. (Its worth noting that in 1982, Sen. Edward Kennedy, along with other Democrats at the time, gave a pre-recorded response to former President Ronald Reagans State of the Union message).

Kennedy, currently serving his third term, was born and raised in Massachusetts. Hes a graduate of Stanford University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in management science and engineering, according to his biography. He later attended Harvard Law School, graduating with a J.D.

He and his wife, Lauren, a health policy expert, met during a class that Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., taught at Harvard. The couple has two children together: a young daughter named Eleanor and a son, James, who was born in December 2017.

The young family lives with their dog, Banjo, in Newton.

What about his career?

Before entering politics, Kennedy served in the Peace Corps and then as an assistant district attorney in eastern Massachusetts, where he worked for Michael OKeefe, an old-school rough-around-the-collar Republican, Peter Ubertaccio, a professor of political science at Stonehill College, a school outside of Boston, told Fox News.

Its an interesting part of his career -- thats really where he got his start, he added.

In 2012, Kennedy ran for a seat in Massachusetts' fourth district after Barney Frank, a longtime Democratic congressman, announced his retirement.

Franks retirement was unexpected, said Ubertaccio. But for Kennedy, the timing served as the perfect way for him to enter politics the way he wanted.

He understands what it means to be a Kennedy. But he doesnt rest on that name. He works hard to develop his [personal] reputation."  Peter Ubertaccio

As a representative, Kennedy has focused on educational access, health care and has continued the conversation around STEM and STEM training, Ubertaccio said. STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering and math.

Kennedy is also a member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, where hes focused on issues like mental health, addiction and energy costs, among other things. In the past, he was a co-sponsor of the Paycheck Fairness Act and opposed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The representative has also advocated for LGBTQ equality, voting rights and civil rights.

He understands what it means to be a Kennedy. But he doesnt rest on that name. He works hard to develop his [personal] reputation, Ubertaccio said.

What does giving the rebuttal mean for Kennedy's career?

Kennedy has a good reputation in his home state, said Ubertaccio.

Hes developed a reputation for himself in Massachusetts as thoughtful and conscientious," he said. And while Kennedy can be passionate and aggressive on issues that he deeply cares about, the Massachusetts representative has worked in a bipartisan fashion which is still expected in the state despite its liberal reputation.

But the rising political star has largely lacked national recognition up until now. Indeed, aside from introducing Sen. Warren at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, giving the rebuttal at the State of the Union is arguably one of Kennedys most significant political moves to-date, said Ubertaccio.

The national recognition will benefit him. If he wants to move up politically, this opportunity raises his profile, he added.

And giving the response does not just benefit the representative, Ubertaccio added. It also could be an advantage for the Democratic Party.

In a time when the Democratic Party is struggling with its image, its a smart political move to give a young leader the rebuttal, he said. Hes done an excellent job in Congress and is well regarded by those across the [political] aisle.Rep. Joe Kennedy III slammed bullies in his response to President Trumps first State of the Union address Tuesday night, though couldnt escape the social media scrutiny that dogs nearly every lawmaker tapped to give the SOTU rebuttal these days.

Shortly after the president addressed the nation, promising unity and touting his administrations accomplishments to Make America Great Again, the 37-year-old congressman and member of one of Americas most prominent political dynasties lamented how the country is fractured, offering an answer from Democrats.

Because the strongest, richest, greatest nation in the world shouldnt leave anyone behind, Kennedy said, criticizing the Trump administrations plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare, its infrastructure plans and more. His speech did not offer a clear answer from Democrats, but instead listed affordable education and health care as important policies.

During his speech, though, Twitter was buzzing with questions over the apparent moisture in the corner of Kennedy's mouth, that some speculated appeared to be drool or some sort of water.

"Rubio had his water. Kennedy has his drool," American Conservative Union Chair Matt Schlapp tweeted, pointing to Sen. Marco Rubio's now-infamous mid-rebuttal pause for a drink of water.

Kennedy, though, later claimed it was a generous application of ChapStick.

He told CNN that Tuesdays ChapStick was a little too much, apparently. On ABCs Good Morning America on Wednesday, he said he decided to go a little bit light on the ChapStick this morning.

During his rebuttal, Kennedy took numerous shots at the Trump administration.

Bullies may land a punch. They might leave a mark. But they have never, not once, in the history of our United States, managed to match the strength and spirit of a people united in defense of their future, Kennedy said. Politicians can be cheered for the promises they make. Our country will be judged by the promises we keep.

Kennedy spoke at a technical school in Fall River, Mass., and stood in front of a Ford Mustang and three flags -- the American flag, the Massachusetts state flag and the school flag.

We see an economy that makes stocks soar, investor portfolios bulge and corporate profits climb, but fails to give workers their fair share of the reward, Kennedy said, listing other complaints on behalf of the Democrats.

A government that struggles to keep itself open. Russia knee-deep in our democracy. An all-out war on environmental protection. A Justice Department rolling back civil rights by the day. Hatred and supremacy proudly marching in our streets. Bullets tearing through our classrooms, concerts and congregations. Targeting our safest, sacred places, Kennedy said.

And that nagging, sinking feeling, no matter your political beliefs: This is not right. This is not who we are.

The congressman is the son of six-term Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy II and the grandson of Sen. Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968. His two great uncles are former President John F. Kennedy and former Sen. Edward Ted Kennedy.

Kennedy followed in one great uncles footsteps Tuesday. Ted Kennedy delivered the Democratic response to former President Ronald Reagans address in 1982.

In the past, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla, and former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal gave Republican responses. Both ran for president in 2016.

REP. JOE KENNEDY III TO DELIVER STATE OF THE UNION REBUTTAL: WHAT TO KNOW

Kennedys rebuttal was the official Democratic response, with Virginia state Delegate Elizabeth Guzman giving a Democratic response in Spanish.

Kennedy, though, addressed Dreamers, and spoke a message to them in Spanish, followed by an English translation.

And to all the Dreamers watching tonight, let me be clear: You are a part of our story. We will fight for you. We will not walk away.

Kennedy was referring to the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children. Those immigrants were protected by the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which was eliminated by the Trump administration in September. The administration, however, offered Congress a six-month window to create legislation to protect Dreamers.

During Trumps State of the Union address, he noted that Americans are dreamers too, and said that he has a four-pillar plan on immigration. Trump did not go into full detail on the plan that would replace DACA, but rather noted that those who meet education and work requirements, and show good moral character, will be able to become full citizens of the United States.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.A top Russian intelligence official was able to travel to the U.S. for high-level meetings last week despite being targeted by sanctions that typically prohibit such visits.

The official -- Sergei Naryshkin, the head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service -- met with his American counterparts to discuss the fight against terrorism, Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov told Russian state TV.

The visit came less than a week before President Donald Trump decided not to issue any new sanctions against Russian politicians and oligarchs over Russian meddling in the U.S. election.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a frequent critic of Trump's treatment of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government, said the timing of the trip was suspicious.

"This is a serious national security issue," Schumer told reporters. "Russia hacked our elections. We sanctioned the head of their foreign intelligence, and then the Trump administration invites him to waltz through our front door. This is an extreme dereliction of duty by President Trump, who seems more intent on undermining the rule of law in this country than standing up to Putin."

Schumer wants to know whether sanctions were discussed, whether Naryshkin also met with White House or national security officials and whether other sanctioned Russian officials were along on the trip. Naryshkin was sanctioned in 2014 in response to Russia's annexation of Crimea.

The U.S. ambassador to Russia, Jon Huntsman, told a Russian radio station on Tuesday that CIA Director Mike Pompeo recently met with Russian spy officials, but he did not say where the meeting occurred or say specifically who attended. Huntsman was underscoring cooperation between the two nations.

"Just in the last week, he (Pompeo) has had probably the most important meetings on counterterrorism that we've had in a very, very long time, at the senior levels," Huntsman said in the interview with the radio station Echo of Moscow.

The CIA released a statement saying that while it does not discuss the schedules of U.S. intelligence leaders, "rest assured that any interaction with foreign intelligence agencies would have been conducted in accordance with U.S. law and in consultation with appropriate departments and agencies."

Jonathan Schanzer, a sanctions expert at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told the Associated Press that typically people who have been sanctioned have their assets frozen and are barred from entering the United States. He said there are cases where individuals from sanctioned countries enter the United States after getting permission to attend meetings at the United Nations.

Situations like Naryshkin's visit are more unusual, Schanzer said.

"We don't see this sort of thing being reported very often," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Manila (CNN Philippines Life)  Many people have heard and heeded the call of the mountains, and this has boosted tourism in the many mountainous regions of the country. There is definitely a sense of well-deserved pride when one is able to reach the summit of any mountain. Some mountains have now become famous not just for their picturesque views, but for being accessible even to the neophyte trekker.

However, this has led to several mountains being overcrowded, taking away from the experience of being close to nature and being far from the jam-packed city.

There is also the issue of irresponsible hikers who end up causing damage to a mountain ecosystem: writing or carving names on trees and rock formations, littering along the trail, trampling of plantlife. Luzons highest peak, Mt. Pulag, recently suffered a forest fire that razed its famous dwarf bamboo grasslands due to the irresponsible use of camping equipment.

Those who wish to hike must be aware of their responsibility to care and preserve the mountain that they choose to visit.

Here are some hiking destinations that are less known, but are equally worth going to.

Mt. Ayaas' summit offers a 360 view of nearby mountains, including its more famous Wawa siblings. Photo by KARIS CORPUS

Mt. Ayaas

The mountains of Rodriguez, formerly Montalban, Rizal, have quickly gained popularity due to their being beginner-friendly and easily accessible from Manila. Many weekend warriors troop to the area for day hikes that satisfy their craving for adventure. Brgy. Wawa has been enjoying a steady stream of visitors with good reason, for its Mts. Pamitinan and Binacayan have easy yet challenging trails and beautiful views. The nearby Brgy. Mascap also has mountains that boast of gorgeous scenery.

One is Mt. Ayaas, the highest in the area at 627+ masl (meters above sea level). Ayaas has gently rolling trails with minimal assaults, making it perfect for the fledgling hiker. The summit does not disappoint: an open grassland featuring a 360 view of nearby mountains, including its more famous Wawa siblings. Be prepared for the heat of the sun should you reach the summit near noon.

How to get there: You can get to Mt. Ayaas by taking a shuttle from Cubao to Eastwood, Rodriguez, then taking a tricycle to the Mascap barangay hall. Hikers are required to register there and hire a local guide.

Mt. Sipit Ulang is named after the crab claw-shaped rock formation at its summit. The trail, which features rock scrambling and creeping through caverns, makes for a fun, adventurous trek. Photo courtesy of KARIS CORPUS

Mt. Sipit Ulang

Another gem in Brgy. Mascap, Mt. Sipit Ulang is much lower at only 252+ masl. It is possible to reach the summit in 40 minutes, but the guides will usually take you through the longer, two to three-hour long Paniki trail. This trail features a bit of rock scrambling and creeping through caverns, which makes for a fun, adventurous trek. Expect to become a bit muddy and dirty, especially during the rainy season. Thankfully, there are decent showers back at the jump off where hikers can refresh themselves before heading home.

The mountain is named after the magnificent rock formation at its summit, which is shaped like a crabs claw. The sharp rocks may seem intimidating, but the guides will help you navigate its edges.

How to get there: Mt. Sipit Ulang shares the same jump-off point as Mt. Ayaas, and both may be done as a day twin-hike. Payaran Falls is also a nice, cooldown side-trip. As with Mt. Ayaas, local guides are required.

Mt. Buntis' trail is a scenic route that involves trekking past open fields and through the Maragondon River. Photo by KARIS CORPUS

Mt. Buntis and Mt. Nagpatong

Those with a penchant for history would know that the Father of the Revolution, Andres Bonifacio, spent his final hours in the mountains of Maragondon, Cavite. Historians are still debating whether it was in Mt. Buntis or in Mt. Nagpatong that the Supremo was killed; all we know for sure is that it happened somewhere in the quiet Maragondon mountain range.

Some may consider the two as hills rather than mountains: Mt. Buntis stands at a mere 280+ masl, while Mt. Nagpatong is only 100+ masl. Both mountains are perfect for first-timers, as the greater part of the trek is simply walking past open fields. Be prepared with your hats should sunny weather be the forecast, or risk being toasted by the sun.

The final and very gentle assault that leads to the summit will only take even the slowest ones a mere 15 minutes. At the summit, grandiose views of the nearby mountain ranges are visible, and it makes for a nice place to have a picnic. After the trek, one can take a tour of the historical town of Maragondon.

How to get there: Make your way to Maragondon by taking a Naic-bound bus from Taft, then a tricycle to the town proper. Tricycle drivers in the area often double as guides, though it is recommended to look for one from the municipal tourism office.

Mt. Talamitam features wide, sloping grasslands with sweeping views of surrounding mountains, including Mt. Batulao, Pico de Loro, and Mt. Marami. Photo by KARIS CORPUS

Mt. Talamitam

Often referred to as the younger sister of the more popular Mt. Batulao, Mt. Talamitam is also located in Nasugbu, Batangas. This mountain features wide, sloping grasslands that many compare to Teletubbyland (yes, from the Teletubbies), with sweeping views of surrounding mountains, including Mt. Batulao, Pico de Loro, and Mt. Marami.

Once upon a time, the mountain was covered with talamitam trees that gave it its name. Now, the only cover one gets when trekking Mt. Talamitam is the talahib lining the final summit assault. Be prepared for the suns unrelenting heat, and use arm sleeves to avoid cuts from the grass blades. Should the heat become unbearable, there are often vendors selling buko juice and other beverages along the trail and at the summit.

How to get there: Hop on a bus headed to Nasugbu and ask the driver to drop you off at KM 83, or Sitio Bayabasan. You wont miss it: its right beside the highway and is marked by a tarpaulin that indicates the Mt. Talamitam jump off point.

Mt. 387 is touted as the Chocolate Hills of the North, for the views of the hilly surroundings are reminiscent of Bohols famous hills. Photo courtesy of KARIS CORPUS

Mt. 387

A bit further away from Manila is a place touted as the Chocolate Hills of the North: Mt. 387. The number 387 refers to the number of hectares that is covered by the Kalinga sa Kalikasan ng Puncan, a group that looks after the area.

Those who wish to trek this mountain are required to take a seedling and plant it in designated areas along the trail. The ascent consists of gently rolling trails, culminating in the summit and campsite marked by the Lovers Tree.

True to its moniker, the beautiful views of the hilly surroundings are reminiscent of Bohols famous hills. A traverse to the nearby Aloha falls is possible, but beginners should be very careful as the trail from the summit down to the falls is quite steep and difficult. A refreshing dip in the falls makes for a nice reward after a grueling descent.

How to get there: Given its distance from Manila, it is recommended to use private transportation to get to Mt. 387. However, public transportation is possible: take a bus to Puncan, Carranglan, Nueva Ecija from Cubao (watch out for the Iglesia ni Cristo, the landmark).

As with any outdoor activity, always exercise caution and respect both for fellow hikers and the mountain. Follow the leave no trace principles, and always be aware of the impact that you will inevitably cause by going to any place.President Donald Trump urged Congress to pass "Right to Try" for terminally ill patients during his State of the Union address, and on May 30 he signed the bill into law.

The act, sponsored by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., cleared the Senate in August 2017 and passed in the House in late May with a 250-169 vote.

"Patients with terminal conditions should have access to experimental treatments that could potentially save their lives," Trump said back in January. "It is time for the Congress to give these wonderful Americans the 'Right to Try.'"

Trump's signature on the bill is seen as a victory for the administration.

"Today I am proud to keep another promise to the American people as I sign the right to try legislation into law," Trump said on May 30. "I called on congress to pass Right to Trysuch a great namesome bills they dont have a great namethis one...And a lot of that trying is going to be successful. I really believe that. We did it."

The "Right to Try" bill allows terminally ill patients to request access to experimental medicines that have passed Phase 1 of the Food and Drug Administration approval process.

It authorizes patients diagnosed with life-ending illnesses to use unapproved medications  so long as they have undergone early testing on humans and are under continual evaluation. Patients also would have to have tried other treatment options.

'RIGHT TO TRY' BILL HEADS TO TRUMP'S DESK AFTER HOUSE OK

In August, the Senate passed the bill by unanimous consent.

The Senate took a strong stand in support of the millions of Americans and their families suffering from terminal illness, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said in a statement following the vote. Patients with terminal diseases ought to have a right to access treatments that have demonstrated a level of safety and could potentially save their lives.

"Right to Try" laws were already enacted in 40 states by the time the bill was passed, according to righttotry.org. Supporters called for federal legislation.

"FDA regulations cannot preempt state laws that preserve constitutionally protected rights, such as the fundamental right to life and medical self-preservation," the website explained. "The United States Supreme Court has never addressed Right To Try specifically, but it has held that states have great latitude in regulating health and safety, including medical standards, which are primarily and historically a matter of local concern."

Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.President Trump honored the parents of MS-13 victims Tuesday during his first State of the Union address, saying that everyone in America is grieving for you.

The White House extended State of the Union invitations to parents Evelyn Rodriguez and Freddy Cuevas and Elizabeth Alvarado and Robert Mickens, whose teenage daughters were killed by MS-13 gang members in 2016.

Everyone in America is grieving for you. And 320 million hearts are breaking for you, the president said. We cannot imagine the depth of your sorrow, but we can make sure that other families never have to endure this pain.

The president called on Congress to finally close the deadly loopholes that allow MS-13 and other criminals to break into our country.

The president noted that the administration and congressional Republicans proposed new legislation that would fix immigration laws and support immigration law enforcement officers. He tied his concerns about MS-13 to immigration talks over a plan he hopes will include security measures while also preserving so-called DACA protections.

My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americansto protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream, Trump said. Because Americans are dreamers too.

The body of Alvarado and Mickens 15-year-old daughter, Nisa Mickens, was found on a tree-lined street in Brentwood, N.Y., on Sept. 13, 2016a day before her 16th birthday.

Rodriguez and Cuevas 16-year-old daughter, Kayla Cuevas, was beaten and stabbed to death by MS-13 gang members in 2016. Her body was found the day after Mickens was found.President Donald Trump, during his first State of the Union address Tuesday night, praised the heroics of Staff Sgt. Justin Peck.

Peck, who has served in the Army for the last eight years, was part of an intense U.S. Army mission with coalition forces in Raqqa, Syria in November, according to the Air Force Times.

Peck was helping clear IEDs, set by the Islamic State, from a hospital when one detonated, injuring Chief Petty Officer Kenton Stacey. Peck ran into the building and up to an IED-ridden second floor to help Stacey, according to the Air Force Times. The White House credited Peck with saving Staceys life.

Trump praised Pecks bravery during his address.

"Tonight, Kenton is recovering in Texas. Raqqa is liberated. And Justin is wearing his new Bronze Star, with a 'V' for 'Valor,' Trump said to Peck. "All of America salutes you."

Peck was among the service members who were invited by Trump to sit in the gallery during the State of the Union address. Cpt. Matthew Bradford and 11-year-old Preston Sharp were also among those honored during the speech. Bradford became the first blind double amputee to re-enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps, while Preston started the movement to plant a flag on every veterans grave site.Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, tendered her resignation Wednesday following a bombshell report that she bought thousands of dollars in shares in one of the worlds largest tobacco companies less than a month after being named as the nations top health official.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who was sworn in two days ago, accepted Fitzgeralds resignation because she was unable to divest from those interests in a definitive time period.

The current principal deputy CDC director, Rear Admiral Dr. Anne Schuchat, will serve as interim director until a replacement for Fitzgerald is named, according to HHS.

Fitzgerald, an OB-GYN doctor and former Georgia Department of Public Health Commissioner, also owned stock in other tobacco companies prior to assuming her role at the CDC in July.

News of Fitzgeralds questionable financial holdings were first reported Tuesday by Politico, which said she bought tens of thousands of dollars in new stock holdings in at least a dozen companies including Japan Tobacco.

Her financial investments in areas of health information technology and cancer detection required Fitzgerald to recuse herself from large parts of her job and prevented her from testifying before lawmakers.

Fitzgerald's investments have "imposed a broad recusal limiting her ability to complete all of her duties as CDC director," HHS spokesman Matt Lloyd said in the statement. "Due to the nature of these financial interests, Dr. Fitzgerald could not divest from them in a definitive time period."

Fitzgerald has owned a range of stocks, including holdings in beer and soda companies, the tobacco company Philip Morris International and a number of health care companies.

Fitzgerald said she sold the stocks, but in December Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., wrote Fitzgerald saying she was concerned about unresolved financial holdings.

Government documents showed that Fitzgerald was unable to sell certain long-term investments in companies that could prevent her from talking about cancer and prescription drug monitoring programs, wrote Murray.

Dr. Fitzgeralds tenure was unfortunately the latest example of the Trump administrations dysfunction and lax ethical standards, Murray said in a statement. I hope the incoming Secretary of Health  nominated because his predecessor resigned for using taxpayer dollars for his personal luxury travel  will encourage President Trump to choose a new CDC director who is truly prepared to focus on families and communities.

Fox News' John Roberts and The Associated Press contributed to this report.Disgraced ex-Democratic Rep. Corrine Brown arrived in style this week at a Florida federal prison to serve her five-year sentence for lying about a purported charity for poor students that she was found to have used as a personal slush fund.



The 71-year-old emerged from a limousine-style minibus at the prison in Sumter County to serve her sentence for fraud on Monday, according to The Orlando Sentinel.



Brown was convicted in May of stealing money from a bogus charity, One Door For Education, which claimed to give scholarships to poor children. Instead prosecutors said she and a top aide used the donations for lavish parties, concerts and trips to the Bahamas.

Brown said she was left in the dark about the goings-on with One Door's money, and blamed the theft on her former chief of staff. But she admitted she should have paid more attention to the finances. She is appealing the conviction.

Brown, who served 24 years in Congress before she was beaten in a 2016 primary, was reportedly accompanied by family to the prison, where she will serve time at the low-security prison camp, according to the Sentinel.

Larry Levine, of Wall Street Prison Consultants, told the Sentinel that Brown will wake at 6 a.m. to wait in line for the bathroom and then breakfast. She will then tidy her room and a small locker, after which she will likely do either clerical or janitorial work.

Brown will work until 10 a.m. before a two-hour lunch break, after which she will resume work until about 4 p.m.

Levine said there would be a lot of attention on Brown from fellow inmates due to her status as a former politician, and that she could face a tough time as she serves her sentence.

When they get high-profile inmates like her, they like to treat them like [expletive], said Levine. Seriously, shes got a rough road ahead of her.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.The FBI said Wednesday that the bureau has grave concerns about the classified memo that purportedly reveals government surveillance abuses, but White House Chief of Staff John Kelly says it is going public, anyway.

With regard to the House Intelligence Committees memorandum, the FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it, the FBI said in a statement. As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memos accuracy.

But earlier Tuesday, Kelly told Fox News in an exclusive interview the classified memo will be made public soon. Kelly said White House national security aides have been reviewing the memo.

It'll be released here pretty quick I think and the whole world can see it, he said.

The bureaus claim that the memo involves omissions of fact came a day after a source told Fox News that two senior FBI officials reviewed the memo and could not point to any factual inaccuracies in the memo itself.

FBI OFFICIALS REVIEW SURVEILLANCE MEMO, COULD NOT CITE 'ANY FACTUAL INACCURACIES'

The two officials  one from the bureaus counterintelligence division and the other from the legal division  followed up after an initial review of the memo during a rare Sunday trip to Capitol Hill by FBI Director Christopher Wray.

One senior U.S. official told Fox News, though, that Wray "expressed concern about the accuracy of the memo" and told others in the meeting the memo "gives an inaccurate impression of the bureau's work on this matter."

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes reacted to the bureaus written statement by saying: Having stonewalled Congress demands for information for nearly a year, its no surprise to see the FBI and DOJ issue spurious objections to allowing the American people to see information related to surveillance abuses at these agencies.

The FBI is intimately familiar with material omissions with respect to their presentations to both Congress and the courts, and they are welcome to make public, to the greatest extent possible, all the information they have on these abuses, the California Republican said. Regardless, its clear that top officials used unverified information in a court document to fuel a counter-intelligence investigation during an American political campaign.

Once the truth gets out, we can begin taking steps to ensure our intelligence agencies and courts are never misused like this again, he added.

On Tuesday night, President Trump was overheard telling a GOP lawmaker at the State of the Union that hes 100 percent behind releasing the memo.

The House Intelligence Committee on Monday evening voted to release it, but Trump is able to object to the release. Lawmakers have said the memo details abuses involving FISA, or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. A source close to the matter said the memo details the Intelligence Committees oversight work for the FBI and Justice Department, including the controversy over unmasking and FISA surveillance.

TRUMP OVERHEARD SAYING HE IS 100 PERCENT BEHIND RELEASING SURVEILLANCE MEMO

The FBI takes seriously its obligations to the FISA Court and its compliance with procedures overseen by career professionals in the Department of Justice and the FBI, the bureau said in its statement. We are committed to working with the appropriate oversight entities to ensure the continuing integrity of the FISA process.

Fox News Jake Gibson and Catherine Herridge contributed to this report.U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez mockingly praised President Donald Trumps State of the Union address Tuesday night, saying in a statement that it was clear and well-delivered, and that [w]hoever translated it for him from Russian did a good job.

The Illinois Democrat, who has announced he will retire from Congress at the end of his current term, is testing the waters for a 2020 presidential run, Fox News reported.

In his statement, Gutierrez  who has previously called Trump a major criminal who wants to destroy families and pollute the environment -- specifically criticized Trumps immigration policy.

If you look at how the President has treated Puerto Rico, you have to conclude that he just doesnt care and probably thinks of Puerto Rico as just another s---hole country, Gutierrez wrote.

If you look at how the President has treated Puerto Rico, you have to conclude that he just doesnt care and probably thinks of Puerto Rico as just another s---hole country.  U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill.

The longtime congressman -- whose 4th Congressional District is composed of parts of Chicago and its suburbs -- added that the White House agenda is to gut legal immigration in exchange for allowing some of the Dreamers to live here and that Trumps speech did nothing to bring the pro- and anti-immigrant sides closer together.

Earlier in January, Gutierrez suggested he would support a deal funding Trumps proposed border wall with Mexico if the White House offered protections for so-called Dreamers.

"I'll go down there with bricks and mortar," Gutierrez said last week, adding that he found the idea of the wall offensive.

But after Trumps State of the Union address, Gutierrez struck a less conciliatory note.

I was hoping to get through my life without having to witness an outwardly, explicitly racist American President, but my luck ran out, he said in the statement.White House chief of staff John Kelly, in a wide-ranging interview with Fox News Radio, said the California teacher who has made headlines for bashing the military in a profane classroom rant should go to hell  while also vowing that the classified memo that Republicans say reveals shocking government surveillance abuses will soon be made public.

Well, I think the guy ought to go to hell, Kelly, a retired Marine general, told host Brian Kilmeade on Wednesday in a post-State of the Union interview. I just hope he enjoys the liberties and the lifestyle that we have fought for.

Gregory Salcido, the El Rancho High School teacher, was recorded asking students in his government class why they would want to serve in the military overseas, calling them "the lowest of our low. He has since been put on administrative leave.

MILITARY-BASHING CALIFORNIA TEACHER PULLED FROM CLASSROOM, CITY COUNCIL DUTIES PENDING INVESTIGATION

Kelly also said the classified memo circulating in Congress that purportedly reveals government surveillance abuses will be made public soon.

It'll be released here pretty quick I think and the whole world can see it, he said.

His comments followed President Donald Trump being overheard telling a GOP lawmaker Tuesday night at the State of the Union that hes 100 percent behind releasing the memo.

TRUMP OVERHEARD SAYING HE IS 100 PERCENT BEHIND RELEASING SURVEILLANCE MEMO

The House Intelligence Committee on Monday evening voted to release it, but Trump is able to object to the release. Kelly said White House national security aides have been reviewing the memo.

In the interview, Kelly celebrated gains made against ISIS over the last year.

As he pointed out last night, I think 99 percent of the Caliphate is dead, Kelly said. "Is gone. And the ISIS survivors, if you will, theyre still out there. Theyll still cause us problems. But you know, a year ago, we had cities that were held by ISIS in Iraq and Syria and today theyre gone. And thats a coalition effort led by the United States and led by the U.S. military.

Fox News Robert Gearty and Lukas Mikelionis contributed to this report.A Maryland state lawmaker in Baltimore has introduced what he calls the Jared Kushner Act -- a bill that would ban the state's judges from issuing arrest warrants for tenants being sued for less than $5,000 in unpaid rent.

Delegate Bilal Alis measure follows reports that the real estate management company owned by Kushner, a top adviser to President Donald Trump, was among the most forceful companies in Maryland in getting civil arrest warrants against tenants, the Baltimore Sun reported.

The bill aims to prohibit courts in the state from issuing arrest warrants for a tenant who is a defendant in a landlord-tenant action in which the amount of rent claimed does not exceed $5,000, exclusive of interest and costs.

The warrants  called body attachments  are not issued for owning the money but for failing to show up in court to address the debt. The warrants are a way to encourage tenants to appear.

The management company owned by Kushner, called Kushner Cos., reportedly filed more than 1,000 legal actions against the tenants since 2013. The courts awarded $5.4 million in judgments against renters who owed on average $4,400 in addition to lawyers fees, court costs and interest to the company, the Sun found.

GUY FIERI'S TIMES SQUARE EATERY CLOSED BECAUSE KUSHNER'S COMPANY DEMANDED HIGH RENT, REPORT SAYS

Court records indicated that at least 20 former tenants, who stayed at properties provided by the Kushner-affiliated company, have been detained as a result of unpaid rent.

Government has always developed policies to financially protect wealthy institutions such as the Bank Bailout of 2008, Ali told the Sun. On the flip side, regressive policies that hurt and even incarcerate the poor have historically been the norm. This bill prohibits policies that were developed to hurt poor communities and jail poor residents.

Officials at New York-based Kushner Cos denied wrongdoing, saying the company seeks civil arrest warrants only as a last resort when tenants miss two court hearings about the alleged debts.

Our local counsel in Maryland handled these matters consistent with other attorneys in similar situations there and in accordance with Maryland law, company spokeswoman Christine Taylor told the Sun.

It is clear that this proposed bill with its proposed name is politically motivated, she added. For a couple of local politicians to sponsor a bill called the Jared Kushner Act when neither Kushner Companies nor Jared Kushner, when he worked at Kushner Companies, had anything to do with these issues is petty.

Kushner used to be the CEO of the Kushner Cos. but stepped down from the position Jan. 19, 2017, as he took a key role in the Trump administration. The company is still owned by him.David Bowdich was named the FBI acting deputy director after Andrew McCabe abruptly stepped down on Jan. 29 -- just months before he was slated to retire.

McCabes departure comes amid President Trumps continuous criticism of the former deputy director, who served with the FBI for 22 years.

Trump previously accused McCabe of bias, mainly over his wife's political connections. Indeed, during an unsuccessful Senate run, Jill McCabe reportedly accepted campaign contributions from former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffes political action committee. McAuliffe is both a Democrat and friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

The president also accused McCabe of bias because an FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server led to no criminal charges against her.

Additionally, Trump has publicly pressured FBI Director Christopher Wray to get rid of any officials who were confidants of James Comey, the former bureau head whom Trump fired last spring. But McCabes exit, Wray allegedly wrote in a message to FBI employees on Monday, was not a result of political or other pressure, The Associated Press reported.

In light of McCabes departure, here's what you should know about Bowdich, a former sniper who is now the bureau's new acting second-in-command.

Career prior to the FBI

Before joining the FBI, Bowdich attended New Mexico State and Georgetown Universities, where he received a bachelor's of science degree in criminal justice and a masters in leadership, respectively.

Bowdich then worked as a police officer and detective in Albuquerque, N.M., for the city's police force. Bowdich's father, Joe, was a sheriff in Bernalillo County, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

His career with the FBI

Bowdich joined the FBI in 1995 as a special agent in the San Diego field office, according to the FBI's website. In that role, he investigated violent crimes and gangs. He also worked as a SWAT team operator and sniper.

It was during this time that Bowdich had one of his first significant successes as a FBI agent: After he led a yearlong wiretapping investigation, federal racketeering convictions were brought against gang members in Southern California for the first time.

In 2003, Bowdich was promoted and served in the Safe Streets and Gang Unit at the FBI headquarters in Washington. But he returned to San Diego two years later to lead a task force that investigated drug and racketeering cases against some of the nations most infamous gangs, such as the Bloods, Crips and Hells Angels, the Washington Post reported.

A few years later, in 2009, he oversaw non-white-collar crime investigations in San Diego. At that time, he created the first FBI squad to help spot kidnapping threats on either side of the U.S-Mexico border.

Bowdich next served as special agent in charge of the counterterrorism division at the Los Angeles field office before he became the assistant director in charge of the same office in 2014.

After the San Bernardino shooting in December 2015, Bowdich gained national attention when he led the FBIs response to the attack. Before the shooting, Bowdich suspected that Southern California could be a potential target for a terror attack, according to an interview he gave to the Los Angeles Times.

Before becoming acting deputy director, Bowdich was named the bureau's associate deputy director in 2016 -- managing the FBIs personnel, budget, administration and more.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 30)  Former Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon will be treated just like the rest of his fellow inmates in the crowded Pasay City jail.

The Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) made this clear following the transfer of the former Customs Chief from the Senate to the Pasay jail.

"He will be living with other inmates, no special treatment." BJMP Spokesperson Xavier Solda said in a statement.

Faeldon was transferred to the city jail at 12:05 p.m. Tuesday. The jail has an 830 percent congestion rate with 997 inmates.

Solda said Faeldon, through his lawyer Jose Dino, was given a copy of jail rules and regulations.

"We are expecting his full compliance to it," said Solda.

The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee decided to transfer Faeldon to the city jail after a heated exchange between him and Committee Chairperson Richard Gordon in a hearing on corruption in the Bureau of Customs on Monday.

READ: Order to transfer ex-Customs chief to Pasay jail signed  Gordon

Last September, the Senate cited Faeldon in contempt for skipping committee hearings on the P6.4-billion shabu shipment from China that slipped past Customs last May. He has since been detained in the Senate for this.

READ: Ex-customs chief Faeldon detained at Senate

Faeldon camp 'hopeful' SC will favor motions

Faeldon, appointed deputy administrator of the Office of Civil Defense (OCD), has filed before the Supreme Court a "very urgent" motion for a release order, temporary restraining order, and writ of preliminary injunction.

This is in addition to a petition for a review of his case and a request to order the Senate to release him from detention

Speaking to CNN Philippines' News Night, Dino said they are hoping for a "favorable resolution" by the court.

"What I'm banking on was the performance so to speak of Sen. Gordon during yesterday's (Monday) Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing," he said.

He called Gordon's actions "the worst display of arrogance, pomposity and grandstanding" he'd seen in a "long, long while."

"I'm sure that the honorable justices of the Supreme Court have seen that as a matter of judicial notice," Dino added.

Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque, meanwhile, said the Palace believes Faeldon can still perform his duties while in detention.

"He's appointed to OCD which is a policy making body, no? So our position is he can perform his task wherever he may be. Even in jail." he said.

Faeldon was appointed to his post in December while in detention at the Senate.

Gordon: Faeldon brought this upon himself

Speaking to CNN Philippines earlier, Gordon said the former BOC chief had "brought this upon himself."

"If you had behaved yourself, this would not have happened. This is a self-inflicted wound," he told CNN Philippines' The Source on Tuesday.

Faeldon had accused Gordon of "exaggerating" things, adding that senators had pre-judged him.

"Mayabang [Boastful], arrogant, defiant... When he (Faeldon) cannot get his way, he conducts a coup. When he is incarcerated, he escapes. This is a creature of habit. He is a spoiled brat," Gordon charged.

While Faeldon has maintained his innocence on the drug shipment, Gordon said Faeldon should at least be accountable for negligence in the case.

"Can you imagine this guy sat on a case - the biggest drug smuggling case... he sat on this for two months?" he pointed out. "You are liable for commission and omission. He was already neglectful... when he did not file the case."

Gordon also dismissed Faeldon's claims that requests for favors made to him by Majority Leader Tito Sotto and Minority Leader Frankling Drilon were "illegal." He said the requests could have been turned down.Sen. Bob Menendez will not face a new bribery and corruption trial after all, federal prosecutors said last month.

The Department of Justice had announced earlier this year that it intended to retry the New Jersey Democrat after a federal judge declared a mistrial in the case in November, but ultimately walked away from the pursuit.

Menendez was accused of accepting a plethora of donations and gifts from a wealthy friend in exchange for political influence. Both Menendez and the doctor, Salomon Melgen, maintained their innocence.

From the very beginning, I never wavered in my innocence and my belief that justice would prevail. I am grateful that the Department of Justice has taken the time to reevaluate its case and come to the appropriate conclusion, Menendez said on social media following the announcement.

Menendez is up for re-election this year. He was selected to replace former Gov. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., in the Senate in 2005. He rejoined the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee as its ranking member on Feb. 6, after stepping down from the post when he was indicted in 2015.

Read on for a look at what Menendez was accused of and what happened in the trial.

What was Menendez accused of?

Menendez, 64, accepted an abundance of campaign donations, gifts and vacations from Salomon Melgen, a Florida ophthalmologist, prosecutors alleged when Menendez faced trial in 2017. In return, prosecutors claimed, he used his position to lobby on behalf of Melgens business interests.

Melgen allegedly directed more than $750,000 in campaign contributions to entities that supported Menendez, according to the indictment, which prosecutors said were inducements to get Menendez to use his influence on Melgen's behalf. Prosecutors have also accused Menendez of trying to hide the gifts.

Melgen paid for Menendez and his girlfriend to stay for three nights at a Parisian hotel where rooms typically cost about $1,500 per night and allowed the senator the use of his private jet, according to prosecutors.

Federal prosecutors said that Menendez sold his office for a lifestyle that he couldnt afford.

The indictment also alleged that Menendez pressured State Department officials to give visas to three young women described as Melgen's girlfriends.

What was the senators defense?

Both Menendez and Melgen pleaded not guilty  and Menendez has vehemently denied the accusations against him.

Throughout the original trial, defense attorneys sought to prove that Menendez and Melgen have been friends since before the former became a senator, and the trips were nothing more than friends traveling together.

Is there anything else to know about Salomon Melgen?

Melgen, 63, was convicted of 67 counts of health care fraud in April 2017 in what the Palm Beach Post called one of the biggest Medicare fraud cases in the U.S.

Melgen was sentenced to 17 years in prison on Feb. 22 for Medicare fraud, as he persuaded patients to undergo treatments they did not necessarily need.

Aside from Menendez, Melgen has given significant amounts of money to a variety of Democratic lawmakers, according to public records.

How did the trial end?

After the jury again informed the judge they could not reach a decision, U.S. District Court Judge William H. Walls declared a mistrial, saying he found no alternative.

The mistrial was declared on Nov. 16.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Vice President Mike Pence extolled the benefits of recently enacted tax cuts in West Virginia Wednesday, while simultaneously taking rhetorical shots at Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin in a likely preview of what could be a crucial Senate race for both parties.

"When it came to cutting your taxes, Joe voted no," Pence told employees at a White Sulphur Springs truck dealership, adding that Manchin "has voted no time and again on the policies that West Virginia needs."

Pence attacked Manchin for voting against repealing and replacing ObamaCare, defunding Planned Parenthood and promising to vote against an immigration package that includes funding for President Trump's promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Manchin has bucked his party to vote with the GOP in the past, and even said fellow Democrats who refused to stand during Trump's State of the Union address Tuesday were acting "disrespectful."

Still, Pence held firm. "Folks, Joes just going to keep voting against West Virginia," Pence said. "Now, that might make [Senate Democratic Leader] Chuck Schumer and [House Democratic Leader] Nancy Pelosi pretty happy, but West Virginia needs to let him know: you expect better from Joe. You need to let Joe know that West Virginia deserves better in Washington D.C."

In a statement posted on Twitter, Manchin said he was "disappointed" by Pence's comments and said they were "exactly why Washington Sucks."

"I am shocked that after the Vice President worked for almost a year in a divisive and partisan way to take healthcare away from almost 200,000 West Virginians, bankrupt our hospitals, and push tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and huge corporations that he would come to West Virginia and continue partisan attacks," Manchin wrote.

Manchin, a popular former governor and the lone Democrat in West Virginia's congressional delegation, is seeking re-election to a second full Senate term this November. Trump won West Virginia by 42 percentage points in November 2016, leading some to speculate that a GOP candidate could ride Trump's coattails to pick up the seat for Republicans.

Pence praised Republican Rep. Evan Jenkins, who attended the speech, for voting for the tax bill. Jenkins is running for Manchin's seat.

"In just the past month, businesses large and small have already committed to invest an extra $425 billion into American enterprises to expand, innovate, to create jobs, to raise wages for their workers," Pence said. "And before this year is out, we believe the typical American worker will see their take-home pay rise by as much as $4,000 a year. That's real results for the American people."

The vice president, speaking at Worldwide Equipment, Inc., added that cuts in taxes and federal regulations prompted CEO Terry Dotson to give bonuses to all the company's 1,100 employees and move ahead with a new dealership in Charleston, S.C.

The $300 bonuses were paid in December when the tax bill was signed, Dotson told the Associated Press. The biggest benefit in the bill was the cut in the corporate income tax rate, he said, which went from 35 to 21 percent.



The vice president singled out Pelosi for more scorn later Wednesday when he addressed GOP lawmakers at a legislative retreat at the Greenbrier resort. He took particular issue with Pelosi's contention that bonuses paid to workers as a result of the tax cuts were "crumbs."

"Let me just remind you all, I come from the JoS. A. Bank wing of the West Wing," Pence said, referencing the popular discount men's clothing retailer. "So, if you're going to say $1,000 is crumbs, you live in a different world than I live in ... Any leader in America who would say $1,000 in the pocket of working families is 'crumbs' is out of touch with the American people."

The vice president also predicted that Republicans would hold the House and Senate in November's midterm elections, despite polls indicating that one or both houses of Congress could be up for grabs.

"I know that conventional wisdom holds that the upcoming midterms are going to be a challenge," Pence acknowledged before adding, "But I think you all know what President Trump thinks about conventional wisdom. I mean, the conventional wisdom said in 2016 that Hillary Clinton was going to be elected president of the United States of America."

Pence also spoke briefly about the Virginia crash of the Amtrak train carrying GOP lawmakers to a West Virginia retreat earlier Wednesday. One person outside the train was killed in the wreck. The vice president said Americans were grateful for the lawmakers' service, adding, "We thank God it wasn't worse."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.U.S. Rep. Bob Brady of Philadelphia won't seek another term in Congress, giving up the seat he's held for two decades.

Brady and his lawyer revealed the news to reporters and Democratic Party ward leaders in Philadelphia on Wednesday.

The 72-year-old Brady was facing a potentially stiff primary challenge from former city official Nina Ahmad. His decision comes after the FBI investigated a payment his campaign made to a primary opponent in 2012.

Court documents made public in November showed the FBI believed Brady unlawfully concealed the $90,000 payment to get the primary opponent to quit the race. Brady has denied any wrongdong.

Last month, a political consultant for Brady pleaded guilty to lying about the payment.Federal prosecutors announced Wednesday they will not retry U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez on bribery and corruption charges.

Prosecutors filed a motion with the court to dismiss the case after a trial judge threw out several counts against the longtime New Jersey Democratic lawmaker last week.

From the very beginning, I never wavered in my innocence and my belief that justice would prevail, Menendez said in a statement. I am grateful that the Department of Justice has taken the time to re-evaluate its case and come to the appropriate conclusion.

Earlier this month, the DOJ said it had intended to retry Menendez, who is up for re-election this year, after a federal judge declared a mistrial in the high-profile bribery case in November.

In that case, U.S. District Court Judge William Walls said there was no alternative to declaring a mistrial.

The mistrial was seen as a major victory for Menendez and a blow to the Justice Department, whose efforts to go after politicians in recent years have not been successful.

Outside the courthouse after the mistrial, an emotional Menendez made clear that he would be out for political vengeance.

"Certain elements of the FBI and of our state cannot stand, or even worse, accept that the Latino kid from Union City and Hudson County could grow up to be a United States senator and be honest," said the 63-year-old son of Cuban immigrants.

Juror Edward Norris, a 49-year-old equipment operator, told reporters he didnt think the government proved anything.

Norris told reporters that 10 people on the jury wanted to acquit Menendez of all charges while two held out for conviction.

The mistrial brought an inconclusive end to the two-and-a-half month trial.

Menendez is up for re-election to the U.S. Senate this year.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has called on the Ethics Committee to investigate Menendez for possible violations of the public trust and the Senate code of conduct.

The case against Menendez marked the first time in almost a decade that a sitting U.S. senator faced a federal bribery charge.

According to the criminal complaint, Menendez greased wheels for Salomon Melgen, a Florida ophthalmologist.

Among other things, Menendez was accused of helping obtain visas for several of Melgens girlfriends as well as lobby the State Department on his behalf regarding a $500 million port security contract in the Dominican Republic.

Melgen, in turn, paid for private jets, hotel rooms and forked over nearly $75,000 in campaign contributions to Menendez.

The defense argued that the gifts were not bribes, but tokens of friendship between two men who were "like brothers."

In Menendez attorney Abbe Lowell's closing argument, he used the words "friend," "friends" or "friendship" more than 80 times.

The Menendez case was the first major federal bribery trial since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016 threw out the conviction of Republican former Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia and narrowed the definition of bribery.Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., on Wednesday took a shot at grouchy members of his own party who refused to stand for any of President Trumps State of the Union address -- describing their behavior as disrespectful.

Manchin, whose state voted for Trump in 2016 and who is running for re-election, was speaking on "Fox & Friends" about how he stood when the president entered the chamber, and how he stood and applauded some of Trumps policy proposals.



Thats the way I was raised in West Virginia. We have respect, he said. There is some civility still yet. There should be civility in this place.



Manchin stuck out like a sore thumb among his colleagues as he was one of just a few red-state Democrats who applauded some of the presidents policy proposals on topics such as clean coal and infrastructure. Sens. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., and Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., two other red-state Democrats facing tough re-election bids in November, also applauded some of the presidents remarks.



However, many Democrats refused to stand when Trump entered the chamber and stayed seated during the presidents applause lines -- even apparently non-controversial lines such as when Trump hailed a record-low black unemployment rate.

Some members even chose not to stand when Trump honored Louisiana Republican Rep. Steve Scalise and praised his resolve for returning to work less than four months after he took a bullet from a gunman and "almost died.



Manchin blasted such behavior as disrespectful.

Ive seen it on both sides when Obama gave speeches, Republicans. Thats disrespectful and last night was disrespectful, he said.



Manchin said he welcomed when the president embraced issues that would help his state, refusing to walk out immediately after the speech as many of his colleagues did.



Not me, I stayed there and shook his hand and thanked him because he talked about coal, were gonna do coal research and development, opioid addiction, I need that, he said. Infrastructure, Ive never seen a pothole that belongs to a Democrat or a Republican -- we both get blamed for that one -- so weve got to fix this stuff.



Republicans seized on the Democrats' refusal to stand as proof that Democrats are now the party of sitting on their hands.

Democrats are no longer just the party of resistance and obstruction, they are now also the party of sitting on their hands, said the Republican National Committee. No matter the issue, Democrats chose to sit on their hands tonight.

Fox News Joseph Weber contributed to this report.

A train carrying members of Congress to a Republican retreat in West Virginia slammed into a garbage truck Wednesday, throwing lawmakers from their seats and leaving at least one person dead, officials said.

Authorities identified the person killed as Christopher Foley, 28, of Louisa County, Va., one of two passengers inside the truck. The other passenger, still unidentified, was airlifted to the University of Virginia Medical Center with critical injuries.

The truck's driver, also still unidentified, was transported to a hospital with serious injuries, according to Madeline Curott, public information officer of the Albemarle County, Va., police department.

Several train passengers and crew members, including at least one lawmaker, were rushed to a local hospital for what were largely described as minor injuries.

"It was a very high-speed collision," U.S. Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif., who was on board, told Fox News. "There was no braking that was felt. We hit an immediate impact and went from 70 to zero very quickly."

According to numerous accounts, lawmakers on the scene sprung into action to help the injured, including by carrying one individual across the tracks to an ambulance.

'It was a very high-speed collision.'  Rep. Jeff Denham

There were mixed reports on whether the train actually derailed, but sources said the front engine ended up with wheels off the tracks. Lawmakers on the train quickly flooded social media with images of the wrecked truck, as well as damage to the crumpled front of the train.

"There is one confirmed fatality and one serious injury. There are no serious injuries among members of Congress or their staff," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement. "Senior Administration officials are in regular contact with Amtrak and state and local authorities. Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone that has been affected by this incident."

After initially claiming there were no reported injuries to passengers or crew members, Amtrak later said two crew members and two passengers "were transported to a local hospital with minor injuries."

"Local law enforcement is investigating the incident," Amtrak said in a statement.

One of those passengers was apparently U.S. Rep. Jason Lewis, R-Minn., who told Fox News he had a little bit of a whiplash and maybe a tiny bit of a concussion. An aide to House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., also was taken to the hospital after suffering a head injury, his office said.

Ryan was on the train but is fine, Fox News was told. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was not on the train.

The crash unfolded in Crozet, Va., near Charlottesville. Members were on a special chartered Amtrak train to the Greenbrier resort, where Vice President Pence was set to speak Wednesday night, with a planned appearance from President Donald Trump on Thursday. Trump confirmed that he still will be traveling to the retreat, adding that the crash was a pretty rough hit, thats what they all tell me.

The retreat is where the party traditionally gathers to discuss its agenda and goals for the coming year -- and was starting a day after Trump's State of the Union address.

The retreat is expected to go on as planned. The train -- which had a functional engine on the other end -- was able to run in reverse back to Charlottesville, where members were taking buses to West Virginia.

While injuries on the train were largely described as minor, U.S. Rep. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., a medical doctor, tweeted that he was helping the injured immediately after the crash.

"We are on our way to our annual GOP retreat, the train carrying members and spouses hit something. Laina and I are ok, I am helping those that are injured, I will have Laina keep you updated as I know more," he tweeted.

A Politico reporter, U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., and others posted photos of the wreckage of the truck, where the most serious injuries were reported.

In a phone interview from the train, U.S. Rep. Mark Walker of North Carolina described several helicopters in the air, saying there was also lots of armed security working to determine it was an accident and there was no nefarious behavior.

We don't think that's the case, he told Fox News.

The crash is the latest tragedy to affect congressional Republicans, who were targeted in a shooting last summer at a baseball practice in northern Virginia. The lawmaker most seriously injured in that attack, U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., was not on the train Wednesday.

The crash also follows another fatal incident last January when a motorcade was shuttling Senate Democrats to their retreat in West Virginia. When an SUV stopped for the motorcade, the vehicle was rear-ended and exploded; the driver died.

Fox News' Mike Emanuel, Alex Pappas and Jon Decker contributed to this report.President Donald Trump was overheard telling a GOP lawmaker Tuesday night that hes 100 percent behind releasing a classified Republican intelligence memo detailing alleged surveillance abuses.

"Don't worry," the president reportedly told U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., on the House floor after delivering his first State of the Union address. One hundred percent."

Duncan asked Trump to release the memo, a controversial document drafted by U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

The House panel voted Monday along party lines to release the memo, prompting a political fight between Republicans and Democrats and pitting Congress against the FBI and the Department of Justice, which object to the release of the four-page document.

Republicans said the memo reveals alleged abuses of government surveillance powers in the investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Democrats said the document is selectively edited in an attempt to thwart the investigation.

House Speaker Paul Ryan came out Tuesday in support of releasing the memo, but warned against using it to attack special counsel Robert Mueller. "This is a completely separate matter from Bob Mueller's investigation and his investigation should be allowed to take its course," he said.

Ryan added that the memo shows there may have been malfeasance at the FBI by certain individuals and raise questions about whether an American's civil liberties were violated by the FISA process, referring to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which was extended for an additional six years earlier this month.

The Justice Department called the Republican staff memos release unprecedented and reckless. Assistant Attorney General Stephen E. Boyd wrote in a Jan. 24 letter that Though we are currently unaware of any wrongdoing relating to the FISA process, we agree that any abuse of that system cannot be tolerated.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray reportedly advised White House Chief of Staff John Kelly against releasing the memo, saying such action would set a dangerous precedent and would not accurately characterize the FBI's investigative practices, the Washington Post reported.

But two senior FBI officials  one from the bureaus counterintelligence division and the other from the legal division  who reviewed the memo said they could not point to any factual inaccuracies, Fox News reported Tuesday.

The White House has five days to review the content of the memo and decide whether to release the memo. It said Tuesday that it would conduct a legal and national security review before making the decision.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Eliminating chain migration, the process that allows family members of immigrants to come to the U.S., has been a target of President Trump.

Trump has often lambasted the program and called for its end, including in his first State of the Union address. And at a bipartisan meeting with lawmakers earlier this month, Trump said any immigration reform package would have to include a solution to chain migration in order for him to be on board.

What is it?

Chain migration occurs when immigrants enter the U.S. through sponsorship from family members already settled in the country. Relatives are able to apply for visas through this system.

Another term for this system is family reunification.

Green card holders are able to petition for their spouse and unmarried children to become permanent U.S. residents, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

U.S. citizens can petition for visas for additional family members.

Critics have argued that the system is flawed in that it could trigger an endless flow of family members emigrating into the country.

What has Trump said about it?

While giving the State of the Union address, Trump walked through four pillars of his immigration reform plan, one of which includes stopping chain migration.

"Under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives," Trump said. "Under our plan, we focus on the immediate family by limiting sponsorships to spouses and minor children."

The president also spoke about two New York City terror attacks which he said were made possible by the visa lottery and chain migration.

Accused terrorist Sayfullo Saipov reportedly immigrated via the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program. Saipov is accused of mowing down pedestrians in October on a crowded bike lane in Manhattan, killing eight people and wounding a dozen others.

Terrorist suspect Akayed Ullah reportedly immigrated through chain migration. Ullah allegedly set off a pipe bomb in a corridor of the Times Square subway station in December.

Trump has also often tweeted his call to end chain migration.

Some people come in, and they bring their whole family with them, who can be truly evil, Trump said in one online post.

Fox News Zoe Szathmary and The Associated Press contributed to this report.The Trump administration announced last year its plan to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA)  which provides a level of amnesty to certain undocumented immigrants, many of whom came to the U.S. as children  with a six-month delay for recipients. But a federal appeals court ruled against the proposal in early November, declaring the government couldn't immediately end the program.

The Executive wields awesome power in the enforcement of our nations immigration laws, the ruling said. Our decision today does not curb that power, but rather enables its exercise in a manner that is free from legal misconceptions and is democratically accountable to the public.

Trump had initially set a March 5 deadline for the program and called on Congress to pass legislation pertaining to the young immigrants. But the deadline came and went, with no congressional action but several lawsuits challenging the administration's decision to end the program.

FEDERAL APPEALS COURT RULES AGAINST TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ON DACA

Federal judges in New York and Washington also have ruled against President Trump on DACA.

President Trump has repeatedly blamed Democrats for inaction.

Heres a look at the DACA program and why the Trump administration wants to dismantle it.

What is the DACA program?

The DACA program was formed through executive action by former President Barack Obama in 2012 and allowed certain people who came to the U.S. illegally as minors to be protected from immediate deportation. Recipients, called Dreamers, were able to request consideration of deferred action for a period of two years, which was subject to renewal.

Deferred action is a use of prosecutorial discretion to defer removal action against an individual for a certain period of time, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services stated. Deferred action does not provide lawful status.

Individuals were able to request DACA status if they were under the age of 31 on June 15, 2012, came to the U.S. before turning 16 and continuously lived in the country since June 15, 2007.

Individuals also had to have a high school diploma, GED certification, been honorably discharged from the military or still be in school. Recipients could not have a criminal record.

It did not provide legal status.

How many people are affected by DACA?

Nearly 800,000 youth, called Dreamers, are under the program's umbrella.

Daniel Garza, president of the conservative immigration nonprofit Libre Initiative, told Fox News that DACA offers a reprieve from a life of uncertainty for innocent kids who didnt break the law.

Its rather disappointing to think they could return to a state of anxiety and fear, he said.

What did the Trump administration do?

The Trump administration announced in September 2017 that it planned to phase out DACA for current recipients, and no new requests would be granted. But a lower court order required the administration to continue accepting renewal applications for those under the DACA program, and the Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration's request to intervene.

Since the announcement, Trump had offered to work with lawmakers on a solution for the hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. who fell under DACAs umbrella of protections. But at the same time, he has repeatedly blamed Democrats on social media for lack of a solution.

Earlier this year, Trump released his four pillars of immigration reform, which included a provision for legal status for DACA recipients and others who would be eligible for DACA status. The White House estimated that total to be 1.8 million people. The Senate rejected the plan.

Republicans  and some Democrats  opposed Obamas directive establishing DACA from the start as a perceived overreach of executive power.

Obama spoke out on social media after the Trump administration announced a plan to dismantle the program, stating that it's "self-defeating ... and it is cruel" to end DACA and questioned the motive behind the decision.

Do any DACA recipients serve in the military?

Despite some rumors circulating online to the contrary, Dreamers were eligible to serve in the U.S. military since 2014 when the Pentagon adopted a policy to allow a certain amount of illegal immigrants to join.

In fiscal year 2016, 359 DACA recipients had enlisted in the Army  which is the only branch to accept immigrants of this category.

Fox News' John Roberts and The Associated Press contributed to this report.Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 31)  The Department of Health (DOH) has demanded the full refund of P3.5 billion worth of Dengvaxia vials  both used and unused  from the dengue vaccine maker.

Facing the Commission on Appointments (CA) for his confirmation hearing Wednesday, Secretary Francisco Duque III said the health department also sought a refund of over P1 billion for used and unused vaccines from Sanofi Pasteur.

"We did send a letter, Friday of last week (January 26), to Sanofi and demanding that the equivalent amount of the used vaccines be refunded as well," he said.

The total cost of unused vaccines is at P1.4 billion. On January 19, the Health chief announced Sanofi Pasteur has refunded an initial 1.161 billion for unused Dengvaxia vaccines.

Despite the reimbursement, the Health chief said it does not put the French pharmaceutical company off the hook, adding the investigation continues on whether Sanofi withheld significant information regarding the controversial vaccine.

On December 1, the DOH temporarily halted its dengue vaccination program after a clinical study by Sanofi showed those not previously infected with dengue and got vaccinated with Dengvaxia could contract "severe disease."

More than 800,000 children were immunized with Dengvaxia, the world's first dengue vaccine. The DOH implemented the program in 2016.

Duque further said a clear indemnification fund must be set up to provide for families affected.

CNN Philippines' Chad de Guzman contributed to this report.Police have arrested six people in connection to an elaborate plot to smuggle gold into Japan to avoid paying taxes.

The six suspects were taken into custody after five gold bars worth about 22.8 million yen ($209,000) were discovered under a panel at the back of a toilet in a plane bathroom.

Authorities believe the scheme had many parts. The first involved one man bringing the gold bars onto a Japan Airlines flight in Taiwan that was heading to Chubu Airport in Japan. He is believed to have hidden the gold bars in the plane bathroom.

INDIAN AIRPORT STOPS 29 PASSENGERS SMUGGLING GOLD IN THEIR RECTUMS

The same Japan Airlines plane was scheduled to be used for a domestic trip to Tokyos Haneda Airport from Chubu Airport, Asahi news reports.

The scheme allegedly involved another member of the group boarding the plane when it landed at Chubu Airport, where he would retrieve the gold bars and then carry them off the plane in Tokyo.

The plan was cooked up to avoid customs  since passengers on domestic flights dont have to go through customs  and therefore get out of paying 1.82 million yen ($16,725) in taxes.

However, the group did not make it to the final step of their plan. Customs officers discovered the gold bars in the toilet before the plane took off for Tokyo, Asahi reports.

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The six involved in hatching and carrying out the plan were taken into custody. Except for the person on the domestic flight, who was not charged.

The ring leader is thought to be Muhammed Rafieque Muhammed Rezane of Sri Lanka who lives in Japan.

Those arrested have been accused of violating the Customs Law and attempting to dodge consumption tax payments. Police have not reported whether the individuals have pled guilty or not guilty to the charges.

Police are concerned this is part of a larger gold smuggling ring throughout the country.A Nigerian man is claiming an Emirates Airlines flight crew punched and bound him and taped his mouth shut for hours on his flight from Dubai to Chicago.

David Ukesone was eight hours outside of Chicago when the dispute with flight attendants broke out, his attorney said according to ABC News.

Ukesone, a retired police officer in his 70s, said he had an argument with the flight attendant about which seat he was supposed to be in and that prompted the violence.

"He apparently sits in the wrong seat and was told to change seats by a flight attendant," attorney Howard Schaffner told ABC News. "He didn't think he was in the wrong seat and there was an argument and, at some point, he was hit."

In a statement released by Emirates Airlines to Fox News, the airline confirms that an incident occurred, but said the man became unruly and flight attendants were forced to restrain him.

UNITED KICKED OFF WOMAN TRAVELING TO SEE HER DYING MOTHER: 'NOBODY FLIES FOR FREE'

"Emirates can confirm that Mr. Ukesone was a passenger on flight EK235 from Dubai to Chicago on 23 January, and that he had to be restrained by cabin crew due to unruly behaviour during the flight. Despite the best efforts of our crew to intervene and reason with him, Mr. Ukesone repeatedly disturbed other passengers, refused to remain in his assigned seat, and forced his way into another cabin class. He also assaulted crew and bit another passenger. As a consequence, he was restrained by our crew. Our cabin crew are highly trained to ensure the safety and security of our passengers, and constantly monitored Mr. Ukesones welfare throughout the flight. The safety and security of our passengers and crew is of the utmost importance and will not be compromised."

Ukesone had been on a flight from Nigeria to Dubai with no incident, ABC News reports.

Ukesone was flying from Dubai to Chicago to meet his wife and adult son and daughter who had immigrated to the United States, Shaffner said.

"They told him he was in the wrong seat and they laid hands on him to move him and that's when everything escalated."  Schaffner

When Ukesone boarded his second flight, he was assigned to seat 35D. During the flight, Ukesone allegedly got up to use the restroom and when he returned, he accidentally sat in a seat that wasnt 35D, but was very close, his lawyer says.

A flight attendant reportedly approached Ukesone and asked him to move, which confused Ukesone because he claims he thought he was in the proper seat. Ukesone says he speaks and understands English, but sometimes has difficulty understanding accents other than Nigerian.

"He was asked to move and he wants to take his bag in the overhead compartment with him," the attorney said.

"They told him he was in the wrong seat and they laid hands on him to move him and that's when everything escalated," Schaffner added.

The disagreement escalated, the attorney claims, when a flight crew member hit him at least once, leaving a large welt on his face, ABC 7 reports.

Ukesone was also allegedly restrained with a hemp rope that was tied from his ankles to his head and left significant wounds on his wrists and ankles.

Schaffner said his client claims his mouth was taped and he was left that way for the rest of the eight-hour flight without any food or water.

A spokesman for Emirates Airlines refuted the claim, telling NY Daily News, "Our cabin crew are highly trained to ensure the safety and security of our passengers, and constantly monitored Mr. Ukesones welfare throughout the flight."

Upon arrival at Chicago OHare International Airport, Ukesone was removed from the plane by the U.S. Customer and Border Patrol and turned over to local authorities. He was then allegedly transported to the hospital on a stretcher where he was treated for lacerations and bruising. His family, who was waiting for him at the airport, was not told until several hours later.

Ukesone remained in the hospital for several days, according to reports.

"People have to be trained to deal with things ... without escalating them into something crazy."  Schaffner

The airline told FOX 32 a flight attendant was also taken to the hospital for injuries.

Schaffner insists his client was not on any medication, had not had any alcohol and has no history of mental illness.

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Schaffner said his client has not been charged with any crime and is planning to take legal action.

"There's no question we're going to file a lawsuit," Schaffner said, adding that he hopes other passengers who were flying with Ukesone that day come forward.

"Everybody needs to step back for a second and take a deep breath," Schaffner said. "He hasn't flown in a long time and he's clearly from another country ... he just made an honest mistake of sitting in the wrong seat and people have to be trained to deal with things like that, without escalating them into something crazy."Five men were arrested at a small airport in England after smuggling in over 1,100 pounds of cocaine estimated to be worth around $71 million from Columbia.

A private jet carrying the drugs arrived at Farnborough airport in Hampshire, Monday, when U.K. Border Force officers found whats believed to be one of the largest recent seizures of its kind, the Independent reports.

GROUP ACCUSED OF SMUGGLING GOLD IN AIRPLANE TOILET

After questioning the people on board, the officers became suspicious and searched the aircraft, where they found the drugs hidden in 15 suitcases.

When opened, each case was found to contain between 34 to 37 tape-wrapped packages weighing approximately one kilo each. One of these was pierced and a white powder exposed which tested positive for cocaine, Border Force deputy chief operating officer Mike Stepney told the Independent.

Of the five men arrested, two were British brothers, along with a Spanish and Italian national, according to The Sun. Border Force officers questioned the airplane crew as well, who were released without being charged.

NCA operations manager Siobhan Micklethwaite told the Independent: This is a major seizure of cocaine, one of the largest flown into the UK by plane in many years, and this seizure by Border Force represents a major blow to organized crime. We estimate that once cut and sold on the streets in the U.K. it would have had a potential value in excess of 50m (about $71m).

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A spokesperson for the Farnborough Airport told The Sun this was a matter for the authorities and they "do not comment on individual aircraft and passengers."The Transportation Security Administration announced earlier this week that its officers had confiscated a record setting 3,957 firearms from carry-on bags in 2017, well surpassing the 3,391 firearms discovered in 2016.

The TSA, however, had also confirmed that it screened 771.5 million passengers in 2017, up from 738.3 million in 2016.

THE WEIRDEST THINGS THE TSA CONFISCATED IN 2017

The organization released these findings in its annual Year in Review blog post on Monday, along with statistics concerning where these firearms were confiscated, and details of other prohibited or dangerous items found by TSA officers.

Of the 3,957 firearms confiscated by the TSA, 84 percent  or 3,324  were found to be loaded, while 34.8 percent of the total confiscated firearms were round-chambered. Other statistics show that firearms were only discovered at 239 of the 440 federalized airports, with agents confiscating 31 from Atlantas Hartsfield-Jackson airport in the month of August alone.

TSA HOLDS MAN AFTER FINDING COUGAR CARCASS IN HIS LUGGAGE

Hartsfield-Jackson was also listed as the top airport for firearm discoveries (245) followed by Dallas/Fort Worth (211), George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston (142), Denver International (118) and Phoenix Sky Harbor International (115).

The TSA further revealed that its officers confiscated grenades, smoke grenades, flashbang grenades, gun powder, and ground burst simulators at various airports. In other cases, a replica suicide vest was discovered in the bag of an explosives ordnance disposal contractor who failed to give proper notice that he was traveling with the item, and a few inert blocks of explosives were found in the bag of a military instructor who forgot they were in his bag.

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The TSAs blog post urged passengers to check any bags they havent used for a while, lest they inadvertently travel with a prohibited weapon or device. The agency can impose civil penalties of up to $13,066 per violation, or more for repeat offences.A five-year-old transitional elementary school student was forced by her teacher to wear a weighted compression vest as punishment, turning her into a classroom pariah, according to her father.

Carlos Pennington made the allegation at Berkeley School Board meeting in early January, and in a complaint filed with the district, Berkeleyside reported.

Pennington and the girls mother, Carissa London, charged that an occupational therapist had apparently assessed the girl and approved the use of the vest at LeConte Elementary without their consent.

Veronica Valerio, the schools principal, said the girls teacher claimed to have obtained verbal consent from both Pennington and London.

I dont know how a kid is supposed to go to school and be ostracized like that, Pennington reportedly said at the meeting. Ive never heard of anything like that before in my life.

The Berkeley Unified School District owns nearly two dozen weighted compression vests, according to local reports.

The colorful outerwear, produced by the company Form and Function, is designed to have a calming impact on the body, a BUSD spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Berkeleyside.

Form and Function claims on its website that the vests feel like a reassuring hug, perfect for helping to calm down, focus or cope with sensory overload.

The steady proprioceptive input and compression around the trunk are especially soothing for those with sensory challenges, the website states.

Valerio indicated in a letter to the parents that the episode would change school policy.

Your complaint made me aware of the potential for misunderstandings with assumed verbal consent, and accordingly I have directed the occupational therapist to provide a written consent form that must be discussed with, read and signed by all families to initiate a students trial period using a weighted vest, Valerio wrote.Border Patrol agents in El Paso, Texas found a 75-foot tunnel along the U.S. bank of the Rio Grande river  and one former Border Patrol chief believes its origins could go back 100 years.

The tunnel was found when Texas Department of Transportation employees were building near downtown and notified Border Patrol agents of a cave in. The Border Patrols Confined Space Entry Team went inside to take a look and found it goes further into the U.S. but not into Mexico.

Remediation efforts are already under way, which include filling the tunnel with concrete. At this time we are working with federal, state and local partners in order to determine the purpose of this makeshift structure, said Aaron Hull, chief patrol agent of the U.S. Border Patrol, El Paso Sector.

Law enforcement officials say the tunnel managed to escape notice for decades  even though its in a high-security area. The heavily patrolled location has a security camera about 200 yards south, and theres a major highway construction project directly above. Yet it took a cave in for authorities to find it.

The tunnel is covered by a wooden door in an area with thick bushes. Its about 10 feet below a road with a concrete barrier, the type usually used for medians on highways.

Journalists were not allowed inside for safety concerns, but a look in showed its about 2-feet high and 3-feet wide. It is supported by wooden beams going up the side and wooden planks across the ceiling.

El Paso has an extensive storm drain system with major spillways along the banks of the Rio Grande. That system is used by human smugglers to hide migrants and avoid climbing over the large 18-foot fences, so man-made tunnels of this type are less common.

But former El Paso Border Patrol Chief Victor Manjarrez believes this tunnel could have been used for opium smuggling between 1900 and 1920, when downtown El Paso was Chinatown.

Downtown El Paso, which once had a thriving Chinatown, has miles of underground tunnels that were used to smuggle drugs and Chinese immigrants from Mexico during the Chinese Exclusion Act. Some call it an underground railroad of sorts for the Chinese at the turn of the 20th century. Years later, the city still finds remnants of those tunnels.

When I heard about, in essence, a cave in, which is what the Border Patrol found, right off the bat I thought its one of the dens. Its one of the Chinatown opium dens, said Manjarrez. He did research on the history of the dens for ICE in 2014.

Manjarrez said this isnt the first find of its kind. Three years ago, workers constructing highway 375 near downtown found a very similar tunnel.

Perhaps most interesting is the tunnel may not have always been located along the river. The border between El Paso and Juarez used to be different and changed when the Rio Grande flooded. It wasnt until the Chamizal convention in 1963 that the river was cemented to have a permanent track between the two cities.

A tunnel on the banks there doesnt surprise me. Because that was probably constructed back again at the turn of the century in the 1900s and the river would have been much, much different, said Manjarrez.

But it is possible the tunnel has been used more recently for nefarious activity. A wheel barrel, plastic water bottle and ball of string were visible inside.

I have no doubt that if there was current criminal activity, thats what they were doing. They were trying to exploit something that already existed. And that makes sense, said Manjarrez. Why make something from new when you have a portion of it done?

The name of a person of interest in the Las Vegas mass shooting investigation was identified from search warrant records that were released on Tuesday.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal identified the person of interest as Douglas Haig. When contacted by Newsweek in October, 55-year-old Haig, of Mesa, Ariz., said he was an aerospace engineer who used to sell ammunition reloading components.

He also said he said had no link to the killer, Stephen Paddock, adding, I didnt even know who this guy was.

Paddock opened fire on an outdoor country music concert below the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on Oct. 1, the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

VEGAS GUNMANS GIRLFRIEND REPORTEDLY DELETED FACEBOOK ACCOUNT HOURS AFTER SHOOTING

A second person of interest named in the court records was Marilou Danley, Paddocks girlfriend. Danley was in the Philippines at the time of the attack, and has been cooperating with investigators.

Las Vegas Sheriff Joe Lombardo has said he doesnt expect Danley to face any charges. However, authorities have said an unnamed person could face unspecified charges in connection to the mass shooting.

Lawsuits from media organizations requesting to make the documents  which included autopsy records of the 58 victims, whose names were blacked out  public were what sparked the ordered release of the court records.

Clark County District Court officials also blacked out sentences that Judge Elissa Cadish agreed could affect an ongoing investigation focusing on the unnamed person and stemming from evidence found during the service of the warrants.

Lombardo on Jan. 19 released an 81-page preliminary report of the investigation, and said police and the FBI believe Paddock acted alone before he killed himself after the shooting.

LAS VEGAS SHOOTER PADDOCK HAD CHILD PORN ON COMPUTER, FBI INVESTIGATING PERSON OF INTEREST: SHERIFF

The police report characterized the 64-year-old Paddock  a retired accountant who amassed a millionaires fortune  as a high-stakes video poker player on a losing streak who was obsessed with cleanliness. Police say he may have been bipolar, and that he was having difficulties with Danley.

It did not answer the key question: What made Paddock stockpile a cache of 23 assault-style weapons and fire for about 10 minutes out the windows of the high-rise hotel into a crowd of 22,000 people at an open-air concert on the Las Vegas Strip.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.An Arizona man named in court documents as a "person of interest" in the investigation into the Oct. 1 Las Vegas shooting said Tuesday that he met gunman Stephen Paddock one time and sold him ammunition.

Douglas Haig said investigators had contacted him earlier in connection with the case, in which 58 concertgoers were slain and hundreds of others were injured on the Las Vegas Strip.

Speaking at his suburban home in Mesa, Haig said he planned to hold a news conference later this week to answer questions about his name surfacing in the investigation.

"I am the guy who sold ammunition to Stephen Paddock," Haig said without disclosing further details. Police say Paddock was the gunman and killed himself as officers converged on him.

"I am the guy who sold ammunition to Stephen Paddock."  Douglas Haig, of Mesa, Ariz.

Paddock reportedly bought 1,000 rounds of tracer ammunition from a private seller he met at a Phoenix gun show. It was not immediately clear if that person was Haig.

Records show Haig owns Specialized Military Ammunition LLC. The company's website says it sold tracer and incendiary ammunition but is now "closed indefinitely."

Haig's name emerged by mistake Tuesday when court documents were released nearly four months after the shooting. The documents show that early in the investigation, police believed Paddock must have had help.

"Given the magnitude of the incident, it is reasonable to believe multiple suspects and months of planning were involved in this premeditated massacre," said one search warrant request submitted to a judge nine days after the shooting stopped.

Haig's name was blacked out in the more than 270 pages of search warrant records released by a Nevada judge to the Associated Press, but remained on one page of documents provided to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The newspaper published the name online. Clark County District Court Judge Elissa Cadish later ordered the full document not be published without redactions, but she acknowledged she couldn't order the newspaper to retract the name.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.A Texas man vacationing in Florida has died two days after a sand dune collapsed on him burying him alive, family members said.

Rescue officials found Lee Thomas Goggin, 35, Sunday afternoon buried under several feet of sand in a hole that he was digging when the dunes collapsed around him, The St. Augustine Record reported.

Goggin was taken to Flagler Hospital in critical condition after being buried in two to three feet of sand.

Rachel Goggin Burt posted on Facebook Tuesday that her brother had been pronounced dead.

Goggin and his family were headed to Orlando for a vacation at Walt Disney World.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 31)  State prosecutors have filed another drug case against suspects in the smuggling of P6.4 billion worth of shabu shipment from China last May 2017.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed the case against nine suspects and three unidentified persons at the Valenzuela Regional Trial Court. The case was received on Tuesday, released to the media on Wednesday.

Among those charged were Richard Tan, owner of the Hong Fei Logistics warehouse in Valenzuela City where the drug shipment was found; fixer Mark Taguba II; alleged middlemen Manny Li and Kenneth Dong; import company owner Eirene May Tatad; Customs broker Teejay Marcellana; and Taiwanese businessmen Chen I-Min, Jhu Ming Jhun, and Chen Rong Huan.

They are accused of transporting and delivering dangerous drugs and for engaging in a conspiracy, according to Sections 5 and 26 of Republic Act 9165. These crimes are punishable with life imprisonment and a fine of up to P10 million.

The DOJ said the suspects conspired with each other to "jointly, knowingly, willfully and feloniously and without authority of law transport, convey and deliver 602.279 kilograms of shabu" between May 23 and 24, 2017.

"There is reasonable ground to believe that the offense charged has been committed and the accused are probably guilty thereof," the prosecutors said, citing this as a result of the DOJ preliminary investigation.

The Valenzuela court earlier junked the original DOJ case for lack of jurisdiction.

This is separate from the case filed at the Manila Regional Trial Court in November 2017 for the importation of drugs.

READ: DOJ files drug charges vs. customs fixer Taguba, 11 others over P6.4B shabu shipment

The 604-kilogram shabu shipment, one of the biggest hauls of smuggled drugs in the country, passed through the Bureau of Customs as kitchenware on May 17, 2017.

At dawn on May 26, Customs officials found the bags of shabu in Tan's warehouse, hidden in five solid steel cylinders used in printing presses, each a foot in diameter.

After clearing Customs and National Bureau of Investigation personnel, the DOJ intends to use them as witnesses, including former Customs Intelligence Chief Neil Estrella.

Estrella supposedly received an alert on May 25 from a Chinese Customs official of an undetermined quantity of illegal drugs from China. He said he immediately informed then Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon, who ordered him to reach out to Tan, who Chinese Customs said was the tipster.

Faeldon had been detained at the Senate for skipping hearings on the shabu shipment. He was transferred to the Pasay City Jail on Tuesday after a heated exchange between him and Committee Chairperson Richard Gordon when he finally attended a hearing on Monday.

CNN Philippines' Anjo Alimario contributed to this report.A judge ruled Tuesday that a USC graduate student accused of stabbing a professor to death on campus was not guilty by reason of insanity.

The ruling, based on reports from two psychiatrists, means that David Jonathan Brown could spend the rest of his life in a state psychiatric hospital. The 29-year-old has a March 6 hearing to determine where he will be placed.

Brown killed his mentor, Siaufung "Bosco" Tjan, on Dec. 2, 2016, inside the University of Southern California building where the 50-year-old psychology professor ran an intensive lab that studied vision loss, authorities said.

The killing occurred on the final day of classes before final examinations. Prosecutors said that Brown told authorities he believed he was "a victim of human experimentation."

Tjan's widow spoke during the hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court.

"He was not a soldier in a war zone or policeman in a dangerous street. He was murdered in his research lab," Carissa Pang said, according to City News Service.

"I feel helpless when my son asked me why his father was killed," she said.

She said she told him that the killer was "having bad thoughts."

Brown's family "gives their condolences and hopes that you find some solace," defense attorney Steve Schoenfield told her.

Tjan's family will be notified of any changes in where Brown is housed and what treatment he receives, Judge Leslie A. Swain told Pang.

After the killing, Brown's fellow graduate students described him as nice and intelligent but possibly troubled.

Brenton Keller wrote on Facebook that classmates knew things weren't right because Brown wouldn't always finish his work and would go missing for weeks at a time.One of President Trumps main goals in office is to combat the notoriously violent MS-13 gang.

The gang, responsible for dozens of gruesome deaths throughout the U.S., was designated a priority last year by the Department of Justices Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. Prosecutors are able to pursue any legal avenue to target MS-13, according to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Read on for a look at the gang and the Trump administrations fight against it.

What is MS-13?

MS-13 was started by Central American immigrants, mainly from El Salvador, in Los Angeles in the 1980s. It has expanded since to include Hondurans, Guatemalans, Mexicans and other Central and South Americans.

MS-13s motto is mata, viola, controla  which means "kill, rape, control," according to Robert Hur, an official with the Justice Department.

They seek to live up to this motto through truly shocking acts of violence designed to instill fear: vicious machete attacks, execution-style gunshots, gang rape and human trafficking.

Gang members perpetuate a number of various criminal acts, according to the FBI, including: murder, rape, home invasions, kidnapping, carjacking and robbery. The FBI said most of the crimes are carried out against members of rival gangs, but often innocent people are hurt as well.

Is it a big threat?

MS-13 recruits are middle- and high-school students, predominantly in immigrant communities, who are said to risk violent retribution if they leave.

Authorities estimate the group has tens of thousands of members across several Central American countries and many U.S. states. MS-13's presence is higher in the western and northeastern parts of the U.S., according to the FBI.

OFFICIALS DETAIL BEST WAYS TO COMBAT MS-13

The gang is believed to be behind at least 25 killings on Long Island in the past two years. Many teenagers on Long Island have been held on gang accusations, swept up in various federal investigations.

What has the Trump administration said about MS-13?

Trump called on Congress to finally close the deadly loopholes that have allowed MS-13 members into the U.S. during his first State of the Union address. He also acknowledged parents of MS-13 victims  some of whom were guests of the White House for the speech  and said the country is praying for you.

Trump has often blamed the Obama administration for the rise of MS-13 across the country. The gang was sanctioned as a transnational criminal organization by the Treasury Department in 2012.

Trump's Justice and Homeland Security Departments have made targeting the gang a top priority. Sessions instructed his department's law enforcement agencies and federal prosecutors across the country to prioritize MS-13 members prosecution, as directed by an executive order Trump signed in February 2017.

The classification of MS-13 allows some local police departments to tap into federal money to help with investigations. Suffolk County was granted $500,000 by the federal government.

Trump has used the word "animals" to describe members of MS-13, and says he will continue to use the term when speaking about members of the gang.



In July 2017, Trump visited Brentwood, N.Y., a town that has experienced firsthand the tragedy caused by MS-13, and pledged to push Congress for additional federal immigration agents to crack down on gang members who are in the country illegally. He is back on Long Island in May 2018 to hold a roundtable discussion on gang violence.

What are some of MS-13s more notable killings?

-Two teenage girls from Brentwood, N.Y. were found dead after being brutally beaten and cut in September 2016. Kayla Cuevas, 16, was targeted by gang members and her friend, 15-year-old Nisa Mickens, tried to scare off the attackers, WPIX-TV reported.

-The remains of Oscar Acosta, a 19-year-old high school senior, were found in a wooded area in Brentwood in September 2016. Acosta, who had been missing for months, came to the U.S. from El Salvador and had told his mother he was worried about gangs, she told WNBC-TV.

-The remains of Miguel Garcia-Moran were found in the same area as Acostas in September 2016. He was 15 years old at the time of his death and had been missing since February. Police said he was the victim of a homicidal beating.

-Damaris Reyes Rivas, 15, was killed in January 2017 and found one month later buried under railroad ties. The teenager, from Gaithersburg, Maryland, was stabbed multiple times by MS-13 gang members who filmed the brutal attack. Venus Romero Iraheta, who was 17 at the time of the attack, pleaded guilty in 2018 to the murder. She told Reyes Rivas dont forget my name during the slaying, Iraheta told investigators.

-Police in Nassau County charged Kevin Granados-Coreas, 19, and Carlos Portillo, 22, with second-degree murder in the killing of Julio Cesar Gonzales-Espantzay. Police said MS-13 gang members lured the 19-year-old with the promise of marijuana and sex before they hacked him to death in a park. Gonzales-Espantzay was not a gang member, police said.

-Prosecutors said Christian Villagran Morales was stabbed more than 153 times in a Maryland park. Juan Gutierrez-Vazquez took part in the 2016 killing, holding down the victim while other gang members took turns stabbing him, prosecutors said. Gutierrez-Vazquez pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 40 years in prison. Vanesa Alvarado, who was accused of luring Morales to the park, was also sentenced to 40 years in jail.

-The bodies of four young men, ranging in ages from 16 to 20, were found in April 2017 in a park in Central Islip, N.Y. Police said all had signs of significant trauma. Justin Llivicura, 16; Michael Lopez Banegas, 20; Jefferson Villalobos, 18; and Jorge Tigre, 18; were reportedly lured to the park by two women associated with MS-13 before they were ambushed by more than a dozen gang members armed with wooden clubs and machetes.

-Angel Soler was 15 years old when he went missing in July 2017. His body was found a few months later in the Roosevelt hamlet of Long Island, police said. Soler was hacked to death with a machete as he was attacked by a group of people, police said. Several MS-13 members have been indicted or charged in connection to his murder.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.A manhunt is underway in Massachusetts for three men caught on surveillance trying to use a blow torch to steal money from a car wash kiosk.

Lawrence police said the three unidentified men drove a stolen 1999 green Honda CRV to Haffners Car Wash around 3:15 a.m. Sunday.

Armed with a crowbar, sledgehammer  and the blow torch  they pulled up to the cash and ticket machine, Boston 25 reported.

Surveillance footage shows one of the masked suspects attempting to use what appears to be a blow torch to try and steal the money inside.

When that failed to open the metal box, the suspects pulled out a crowbar and sledgehammer. That also proved fruitless.

Police said the three suspects fled the scene and are still on the run.

One of the suspects was described as a light-skinned male with long black hair wearing a blue North Face jacket and black sweatpants. Another suspect was wearing a gray sweatshirt with a Nike logo on it and had a tattoo on the left hand.

Patrick Bernand, an employee at Haffners Car Wash, told Boston 25 that they had learned of the attempted robbery a couple hours after it happened.

We had about 650 cars done, it was a really, really busy day, he said. [There was] a good $6,000 in there.

The car washs owners told the news station they are looking at ways to increase security and make sure money doesnt stay in the machines overnight.California's emerging pot industry is expected to bring in billions of dollars to the Golden State, but as of now there's no place to actually put the money.

California State Treasurer John Chiang announced Tuesday that state officials are moving forward with plans to examine creating a taxpayer-backed bank to handle the cash coming in, one that doesn't fall under control of the federal government since it still lists marijuana as illegal.

Legal pot sales started in California on Jan. 1, but most of the business is done cash-only, sometimes in tens of thousands of dollars, because banks want to avoid getting into legal trouble with the federal government.

"We all know that the lack of banking services affects government taxes and forces the cannabis industry to operate in cash," Chiang said in a statement. "This creates hardships and poses dangers to cannabis entrepreneurs, their employees and the general public."

Chiang, a Democratic candidate for governor, said the study is expected to take a year.

"We don't want to create a shadow economy, we don't want violence in local communities," he told FOX40.

WITH NEW YEAR, CALIFORNIA'S RECREATIONAL POT LAWS TAKE EFFECT

A taxpayer-backed state bank still may run into risks outlined in a state report released last year, which included difficulty of getting deposit insurance, unknown start-up costs, investments likely to measure in the billions of dollars, and the probability of losses for several years or more that taxpayers would have to cover.

The state report added that "a public cannabis institution might have trouble obtaining federal regulatory approval and access to Federal Reserve money transfer systems."

The report came out before the latest guidance from President Trump's administration that it may be more aggressive in terms of prosecution. Earlier this month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions rolled back an Obama-era policy that allowed legal marijuana to thrive without federal intervention. The move effectively unleashes federal prosecutors to consider bringing marijuana cases, while stopping short of ordering them to do so.

Chiang said Session's action "casts into turmoil a newly established industry that is creating jobs and tax revenues" and that California should consider going alone.

SAN FRANCISCO BEGINS SELLING RECREATIONAL MARIJUANA FOR THE FIRST TIME

"Until the slow, clunking machinery of the federal government catches up with the values and will of the people it purportedly serves, states like California will continue to both resist, and more importantly, to lead," he said.

Chiang compared the problem in California to conditions that led to the creation of the Bank of North Dakota in 1919, which is nation's only deposit-holding, publicly owned financial institution.

At that time "private banks failed to promote agriculture, commerce and industry in the rural state, so the public bank was created," he said. The failure to meet the needs of the multibillion-dollar cannabis industry in California "could well turn out to be the catalyst that vaults public banking into a reality here."

For Lynette Davies, who runs the marijuana dispensary Canna Care in Sacramento, her cash-only business doesn't generate the kind of records other businesses gave. Everything from collecting money to paying employees and her taxes must be done completely in cash, which can be difficult and dangerous.

Davies has tried to get banking services, but told FOX40 each time she gets a letter saying banks can't do business with her because she's violating federal law by selling marijuana.

"You want to feel like you're doing something wrong? Davies told FOX40. Be thrown out of a bank because you sell cannabis to sick and dying patients."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.A former Florida officer was sentenced Monday to life in prison for allegedly using money from his retirement income to pay a Texas woman to sexually abuse her toddler daughter and send him photos, WOKV reported.

Williams pleaded guilty last June to sex trafficking of a child. According to a news release by a U.S. Attorneys Office, former Jacksonville officer Michael Eugene Williams was sentenced Monday.

Williams, 61, allegedly asked a woman in Texas to photograph the sexual abuse of her 3-year-old daughter and sell him the images.

An investigation began after the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children tipped off the Jacksonville Sheriffs Office. After searching Williams house, authorities found more than 450 images and videos of child pornography as well sexually-explicit texts between Williams and the woman in Texas in which they discussed the toddler, WOKV reported.

Williams allegedly paid the woman for the photos using retirement from his career as a JSO officer, WOKV reported.

The woman pleading guilty to two counts of production of child pornography and was sentence to 60 years in federal prison. Williams has been ordered to pay restitution to the victim as well as forfeit his phone, table and Internet router, WOKV reported.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Welcome to Fox News First. Not signed up yet? Click here.

Developing now, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018

In his first State of the Union address, President Trump extends an 'open hand' to Democrats on immigration, touts tax cuts and issues warning on North Korea

Many Democrats show frustration during Trumps speech, refusing to applaud economic achievements, veterans and parents of MS-13 victims

Trump overheard saying he backs '100 percent' releasing a controversial classified GOP memo that details alleged FISA surveillance abuses

Hillary Clinton explains why she didn't fire a 2008 campaign adviser after he was accused of sexually harassing a female staffer

Did former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe delayed the Hillary Clinton email probe? The Justice Department is investigating

A rare phenomenon known as a 'Super Blue Blood Moon' is taking place early Wednesday morning

THE LEAD STORY - A 'NEW AMERICAN MOMENT' UNDER TRUMP: President Trump appealed for common ground in the immigration debate at his first State of the Union address Tuesday night, while holding firm on his demands for border security and using the grand setting to tout his economic accomplishments and declare, "there's never been a better time to start living the American dream" ... At a critical time when the political divide over immigration has held up essential government funding, the president called to put politics aside and "get the job done." "Tonight, I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties -- Democrats and Republicans -- to protect our citizens of every background, color, religion, and creed," he said. It remains unclear whether Democrats are ready to make a deal on immigration, but the issue could hang over a looming Feb. 8 deadline to pass a new spending bill.

RESISTING THE 'RESISTANCE': Democrats on Tuesday night took their "resistance" to President Trump to new depths, with many refusing to even applaud or stand during his State of the Union address to acknowledge economic gains or to honor veterans ... This included during Trump's reference to record-low African-American unemployment and a promise to fix the countrys crippled infrastructure. "It was amazing to watch," Donald Trump Jr. told Fox News' Sean Hannity after the speech, saying it looked like Democrats wanted to stand but felt obligated to oppose his father. Several pundits pointed out the striking response on Twitter, noting these are the kind of non-controversial items that usually merit applause.

'RELEASE THE MEMO': President Trump was overheard telling a GOP lawmaker Tuesday night that hes "100 percent" behind releasing a classified Republican intelligence memo detailing alleged surveillance abuses ... "Don't worry," the president reportedly told U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., on the House floor after delivering his first State of the Union address. One hundred percent." Duncan asked Trump to "release the memo," a controversial document drafted by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. The House panel voted Monday along party lines to release the memo, triggering a political fight between Republicans and Democrats and pitting the Congress against the FBI and the Department of Justice that object to the release of the four-page document.

Source: FBI officials review surveillance memo, could not cite 'any factual inaccuracies'

HILLARY BELIEVES IN 'SECOND CHANCES' - AND APPARENTLY, TIMING: Minutes before President Trump's State of the Union address, Hillary Clinton issued a detailed explanation on why she didnt fire a senior adviser to her 2008 presidential campaign after he allegedly sexually harassed a female staffer ... In a lengthy Facebook post, Clinton said Tuesday she understands why she's being asked why she let the staffer "keep his job despite his inappropriate workplace behavior." "The short answer is this: If I had it to do again, I wouldnt," she said. But Clinton said she believes in second chances and didnt want to completely terminate his employment. Instead, Clinton said she demoted him and put in place technical barriers to his emailing" his accuser.

WAS CLINTON EMAIL PROBE SLOW-WALKED?: The Justice Department's internal watchdog has been scrutinizing why former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe seemingly delayed an investigation of emails related to Hillary Clinton's personal server in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, the Washington Post reported Tuesday ... Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz is attempting to determine whether McCabe or other FBI officials wanted to hold off on probing the emails found on the laptop of former Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner. McCabe, a 22-year FBI veteran, left his position Monday ahead of his planned retirement, effective March 18. The Post reported that McCabe's departure was announced following a meeting with FBI Director Christopher Wray at which the inspector general's investigation was discussed.

THE SUPER BLUE BLOOD MOON RISES: Tuesday morning, a total lunar eclipse will occur with a blue moon, producing the rare phenomenon known as a Super Blue Blood Moon... By no stretch of the definition is a full moon rare. It happens approximately once a month, or every 29.5 days. Occasionally, it happens twice in one month, approximately every three years or so. This event is known as a Blue Moon, which last occurred in July 2015. A Blood Moon occurs when the Earth is passing between the Moon and the Sun, which gives the Moon a reddish tint. (This is caused by light bending around the Earth because of gravity passing around a portion of the atmosphere, more commonly known as a lunar eclipse.)

When a Blue Moon combines with a Supermoon (where the Moon is at its closest point to Earth and appears to be 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than normal), a Super Blue Blood Moon happens. The last time all of these events occurred simultaneously in the Western hemisphere was 1866. Click here to see when and where to see the Super Blue Blood Moon.

Opinion: Super Blue Blood Moon reminds us the heavens are still operating like clockwork

AS SEEN ON FOX NEWS

'ANGEL MOM' TO DEMS - STAND UP FOR AMERICANS: "They do commit crimes, they don't [all] graduate from high school, they're not all contributing members of society. And to lie to the American public to promote an agenda is just not beneficial to this country at all."  Mary Ann Mendoza, whose police officer son was killed by a drunk-driving illegal immigrant in 2014, on "The Story," saying Democratic lawmakers need to stop importing, protecting and providing for illegal immigrants, and instead focus on the well-being of American citizens. WATCH

TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME ON DISPLAY: "You could see them all wanting to stand. You could see them all almost looking around like, 'We almost have to stand for this.' But the derangement is real."  Donald Trump, Jr., on Hannity, sounding off on the muted reaction from Democrats during his father's State of the Union address. WATCH



ACROSS THE NATION

Legislation prompted by Olympic sports doctor scandal heads to Trump.

'Person of interest' in Las Vegas massacre identified from court records.

Texas authorities release photo of dead boy in hopes of aiding investigation.

COUNTDOWN TO SUPER BOWL LII

Super Bowl events take steps to fight flu as estimated 1 million to attend.

Eagles fans expected to outnumber Pats fans 3 to 1.

Super Bowl betting total to top $4.7 billion, with 97 percent betting illegally.

MINDING YOUR BUSINESS

Amazon, Berkshire and JPMorgan grapple with US health care | Dow tumbles 362 points

Fed expected to keep interest rates steady as Yellen era ends.

Auto sales may eke out gains in January: analysts.

NEW IN FOX NEWS OPINION

Ego much? Obama talked about himself nearly four times as often as Trump in first State of Union speech.

Trump's State of the Union spoke to America's innovative, entrepreneurial spirit.

John Stossel: Is America the world's freest country?

HOLLYWOOD SQUARED

Stephen Colbert rips Trump after State of the Union speech.

Sequel to 'The Passion of the Christ' will be biggest film in history: actor

Former 'Glee' star Mark Salling dead, was facing prison for child porn possession.

DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THIS?

Jack the Ripper letter mystery solved?

PHOTO: Bar introduces gruesome 'black margarita' with feral pig eye.

School-bus sized 'Holy Grail' dinosaur discovered in Sahara desert.

STAY TUNED

On Fox News:

Fox & Friends, 6 a.m. ET: Eric Trump will size up his father's State of the Union address; we'll have all the fallout and behind-the-scenes tidbits from President Trump's closely watched speech from Jason Chaffetz, Sen. Joe Manchin, Sen. Marco Rubio, Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie.

The Story with Martha MacCallum, 7 p.m. ET: The USA Gymnastics scandal shocked the nation. Three of Larry Nassar's victims speak out.

Tucker Carlson Tonight, 8 p.m. ET: From the speech to where we stand as a nation, Tucker breaks down Trump's State of the Union address.

Fox News @ Night, 11 p.m. ET: Inside the latest developments in the fight over the infamous surveillance memo and what it could mean for America.

On Fox Business:

Stay with Fox Business for analysis of President Trump's State of the Union address throughout the day with all the guests below!

Mornings with Maria, 6 a.m. ET: Guests include: Sean Spicer, former White House press secretary; Sen. David Perdue ; Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO president; Mercedes Schlapp, White House senior adviser for strategic communications; House Majority Whip Steve Scalise.

Varney & Company, 9 a.m. ET: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin; La. Sen. John Kennedy.

Risk & Reward, 5 p.m. ET: Rep. Marsha Blackburn.

On Fox News Radio:

The Fox News Rundown podcast: President Trump delivered his first State of the Union address Tuesday night. Fox News' Jared Halpern in Washington will be joined by Jon Decker who was in the House Chamber for the speech. Democratic strategist Jehmu Greene and GOP strategist Brad Blakeman will also share their insight. The House Intelligence Committee voted to release a classified memo revealing alleged government surveillance abuses, and President Trump is expected to decide by the end of the week whether the memo should be made public. Washington Examiner chief political correspondent Byron York weighs in. Plus, commentary by Fox News Radio host Tom Shillue.

Want the Fox News Rundown sent straight to your mobile device? Subscribe through Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Stitcher.

The Brian Kilmeade Show, 9 a.m. ET: The latest fallout from Trump's first State of the Union address with the Wall Street Journal's Bill McGurn; White House Chief of Staff John Kelly; Linda McMahon, administrator of Small Business Administration; Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke; Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget; Mercedes Schlapp, White House senior adviser for strategic communications; Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.

The Tom Shillue Show, 3 p.m. ET: A breakdown of the mainstream media's reaction to Trump's State of the Union address with columnist Anthony L. Fisher, podcaster Hitha Herzog and comedian Stephen Kruiser.

#OnThisDay

1990: McDonald's Corp. opens its first fast-food restaurant in Moscow.

1958: United States enters the Space Age with its first successful launch of a satellite, Explorer 1, from Cape Canaveral.

1865: The U.S. House of Representatives joins the Senate in passing the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution abolishing slavery, sending it to states for ratification. (The amendment would be adopted in December 1865.)

Fox News First is compiled by Fox News' Bryan Robinson. Thank you for joining us! Enjoy your day, and we'll see you in your inbox first thing Thursday morning.An Iowa county agreed Wednesday to pay $285,000 to an Arizona man who was arrested, transported across the country and jailed for 68 days for a crime that he did not commit.

The payment will resolve a federal lawsuit that 23-year-old Joseph McBride filed in early January against Linn County and its longtime top prosecutor, County Attorney Jerry Vander Sanden.

John Harris, chairman of the county board, confirmed the unusually quick settlement Wednesday to The Associated Press, moments after it was signed. He said the county is self-insured and the payout will come from its insurance fund.

"A person doesn't like to think that mistakes can be made, but everybody's human," he said. "We just have to acknowledge our mistakes, in most cases right them and move on."

The settlement doesn't include a formal admission of liability or an apology to McBride, who is black. But his attorney, Tom Frerichs, praised assistant county attorney Bob Hruska, who negotiated the settlement, for "his prompt and thoughtful attention to this case."

"He did the right thing for the people in Linn County to bring this case to a quick resolution," Frerichs said.

McBride was wrongly accused of participating in a Jan. 1, 2017, home invasion in Cedar Rapids in which a 27-year-old man was beaten with a handgun and robbed. McBride had grown up in Cedar Rapids but moved to Phoenix in November 2015, and had evidence showing he was 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) away from the scene when the crime occurred.

Vander Sanden signed a complaint charging McBride and two others with first-degree robbery, which carries up to 25 years in prison. Investigators from the Cedar Rapids Police Department never interviewed McBride. But he was implicated after the victim said he did his own investigation on Facebook and told detectives he was "90 percent sure" an account linked to McBride belonged to one of the assailants.

Authorities arrested McBride last August at his home in Phoenix, where he was ordered jailed on a $50,000 cash-only bond. He was taken to Iowa on a private prison van that made stops at jails in Nevada, Colorado and Missouri and cost Linn County taxpayers $2,500. Even before he arrived in Cedar Rapids on Sept. 19, he insisted he was innocent and had cellphone photos proving he was in Glendale, Arizona, hours before the robbery.

McBride's attorney filed notice of the alibi defense Oct. 9, providing names of witnesses. One attested that he celebrated New Year's Eve with McBride in Phoenix and spent the next day with him rearranging a storage unit. Prosecutors dropped the case and had McBride released from jail on Oct. 31, a day after one of the robbery participants identified another man as the third suspect as part of a cooperation agreement. That suspect, a convicted felon with a violent past, hasn't been charged.

McBride's lawsuit alleged that the criminal complaint falsely contended police had "phone records and social media" evidence showing he conspired with the other two suspects. In reality, McBride's only connection was that he was a Facebook friend with one of them.

The lawsuit had sought unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for McBride, who works at an Arizona dog treats factory.

The settlement marks the second $285,000 payment an Iowa county has recently made to one of Frerichs' clients over claims that they were the victims of a shoddy investigation. Last year, neighboring Johnson County paid that sum to settle a lawsuit filed by an attorney who spent 16 days in jail for a crime he didn't commit.An Arizona man who sold hundreds of rounds of ammunition to the Las Vegas shooter said Stephen Paddock told him during one of their encounters he was going to go put on a light show.

Douglas Haig, of Mesa, had been named by police Tuesday in newly-unsealed court documents as a "person of interest" in the investigation into the Oct. 1 massacre in which 58 people died and hundreds of others were injured.

"He said he was going to go put on a light show, Haig told CBS News. And I can't remember whether he said for or with his friends, but that's what he did say."

The news station reported that investigators tracked down Haig after finding an Amazon package with his address on it inside Paddocks suite at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on the Las Vegas strip, the location from which he fired on the crowd of country music concert attendees. Haig insists he didnt see the slaughter coming.

"I felt that they were hoping that they could find a connection between myself and Paddock, that would go back showing that I supplied him with most of his ammunition, possibly even some firearms," Haig told CBS News. "They're not gonna find it. I talked to the guy three times."

Haig, who owns Specialized Military Ammunition LLC, which describes itself as your source for premium, MILSPEC, tracer and incendiary ammunition in popular military calibers, says he sold Paddock 720 rounds in the weeks before the attack. The rounds included tracer ammunition bullets that leave a trail when shot.

"I couldn't detect anything wrong with this guy," he told CBS News. "He told me exactly what he wanted. I handed him a box with the ammunition in it, and he paid me and he left."

"I'm still racking my brain for what did I miss. Why didn't I pick this up?"  Douglas Haig

Haig shuttered the business weeks after the attack.

"I'm still racking my brain for what did I miss. Why didn't I pick this up?" he said.

Haigs attorney told CBS News that Haig is continuing to assist investigators in the probe.

When he spoke to Newsweek in October, Haig said he didnt even know who this guy was, referring to Paddock before the attack.

I have to think that if it was really, really serious or there was something that they thought I did that was wrong, [the agents] would have been kicking my door down, Haig told the website.

Haig said he plans to hold a press conference this week to further answer questions about his name surfacing in the fallout of the attack.A London resident who pleaded guilty to kidnapping a Georgetown University student and attempting to rob him will be deported.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia said in a release 35-year-old Paolo Aldorasi was sentenced Tuesday to 24 months in prison, with all but 11 months suspended. Since Aldorasi has been incarcerated for 11 months, he now faces deportation and five years' probation, during which he's barred from the United States.

Aldorasi pleaded guilty to assault with intent to commit robbery in November.

Authorities say Aldorasi abducted the victim near the school's main campus and drove him to four banks, a Best Buy and a Cartier store in Maryland in January 2017. Aldorasi let the student go, uninjured, when the transactions failed.

He was arrested in Seattle in February.Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 31)  The House of Representatives on Tuesday approved on third and final reading a bill recognizing church annulments as the same as court annulments.

House Bill 6779 provides that "whenever a marriage, duly and legally solemnized by a priest, minister, rabbi or presiding elder of any church or religious sect in the Philippines is subsequently annulled in accordance with the canons or precepts of the church or religious sect, the said annulment shall have the same effect as a decree of annulment issued by a competent court."

Under the Family Code of the Philippines, annulment presumes that a marriage was never valid from the start, thus allowing the spouses to remarry.

The bill also provides that the status of children from a marriage annulled by the church shall be determined by the Family Code.

In case the grounds for the church annulment is not similar to any of the grounds provided in the Family Code, the common children born or conceived before the issuance of the church annulment decree shall be considered legitimate.

Grounds for annulment under the Family Code include:

Either spouse was psychologically incapable of marrying

Consent to marry was obtained through fraud

Consent to marry was forced

Either spouse is physically incapable of consummating the marriage

Either spouse had an undisclosed and incurable sexually transmitted disease

Another provision of the bill states that the liquidation, partition and distribution of the property of the spouses, the custody and support of the children and the delivery of their presumptive legitimes shall be agreed upon by the spouses and embodied in a public document.

In case no agreement is met, the provisions of the Family Code shall be in force.

The bill also mandates that the church annulment shall be recorded in the appropriate civil registries, together with the agreement of the spouses required under the measure, within 30 days from the issuance of the church annulment.

Authors of the measure include Deputy Speaker Gwendolyn Garcia, Reps. Yedda Marie Romualdez, Nancy Catamco, Emmi de Jesus, Arthur Yap, Arlene Brosas, Carlos Zarate, Antonio Tinio and Ariel Casilao.

CNN Philippines Digital Producer VJ Bacungan contributed to this report.A police officer specially trained in dealing with crisis situations was stabbed in Memphis, Tenn., Tuesday night while trying to take a suspect into custody, police said.

The CIT (crisis intervention training) officer, was rushed to a hospital in critical condition, but was upgraded to stable condition, the Commercial Appeal reported.

Our officer is conscious and in good spirits, Memphis Police Director Michael Rallings told the newspaper. His family is currently with him and we pray that he will experience a speedy recovery.

Officers were called to a home by a woman who said her son had a weapon and was speaking erratically, officials said.

The suspect was outside the house when police arrived, but fled inside and then threw what resembled fireworks at pursuing officers, authorities said. There was no effect when officers used a stun gun on the suspect, they said.

As officers arrested the suspect, he stabbed the 39-year-old officer in the upper torso, authorities said.

Police said they would release the suspects name once hes charged, and would release the officer's name once he's been debriefed.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.A Michigan police officer risked his life to pull a teenager from a car that burst into flames early Sunday after the driver crashed into the woods in a dramatic incident captured on dashcam video.

The Oakland County Sheriff's Office said the crash happened around 2:30 a.m. north of Pontiac, after the driver flew past the deputy at speeds that exceeded 100 mph.

The deputy tried to chase the driver, but couldn't catch up. The driver ended up crashing into a group of trees before the car then erupted into flames.

In dashcam video, the deputy is then seeing running over to the inferno, then breaking the sunroof of the car to pull the 18-year-old driver from the burning vehicle.

"This is a reminder of the types of incidents our deputies can encounter each and every day," Sheriff Michael J. Bouchard said in a statement to FOX2 Detroit. "While our deputy had been in pursuit of this speeding suspect, it was their first instinct to risk their own lives to save his individual from a burning vehicle. If not for the quick action of our deputies, this individual may have not survived this incident."

MARYLAND POLICE OFFICER, 3 OTHERS FALL THROUGH ICE ON LAKE BEFORE DRAMATIC RESCUE

The teen driver, who was not identified by police, smelled of alcohol and marijuana when he was pulled from the vehicle. He was later taken to a hospital for treatment from a broken femur and other lacerations sustained in the crash.

Police told FOX2 the teenager has since been released from custody, pending further investigation and blood results.The mother of a developmentally disabled man whose body was found encased in concrete in the storage area of a Fulton, Mo., group home, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit.

The lawsuit, which Carolyn Summers filed Jan. 23, alleges that negligence occurred and her sons civil rights were violated. It names the group home, state and county agencies, and several individuals as defendants, the Fulton Sun reported.

Summers' son, Carl DeBrodie, 31, was reported missing April 17 from the Second Chance Homes in Fulton, however investigators later determined that DeBrodie hadnt been seen in months. His body was found April 24 encased in concrete in a container inside the storage area, authorities said.

The lawsuit alleges eight counts: wrongful death, three civil rights violations, two civil conspiracies, negligence and right of sepulcher. KRCG-TV of Columbia/Jefferson City, Mo., reported.

Summers is seeking $25,000 in damages and court costs, the Sun reported.

The facility where DeBrodie was living is an independently supported home that is run by private contractors. It houses a handful of clients, all of whom have disabilities.

No arrests have been made in connection with the case. Prosecutors said results of DeBrodie's autopsy will be kept confidential as an investigation continues.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Police in Fairfax County, Va., said Tuesday that a 17-year-old male from the Alexandria area has been identified as a person of interest in connection with the recent death of a teenage girl.

The body of 16-year-old Jholie Moussa was discovered last week in a northern Virginia park.

Moussa has been missing since mid-January and was initially listed as a runaway. But authorities said Tuesday that theyve learned Moussa had been the victim of a previously unreported assault.

The 17-year-old, whose name was not released, is in custody and has been charged in the assault, police spokesman Richard Perez said.

But he added that police continue to pursue other leads.

Police said the 17-year-old was taken into custody Jan. 18 for a prior felony assault against Moussa that was previously unreported.

Detectives said the alleged incident happened before Moussa went missing Jan. 12, Washingtons Fox 5 reported.

Sources told the station that the person of interest is Moussa's ex-boyfriend.

A source told Fox 5 that one of the last calls to Moussas phone came from an area near the park where she was found dead. However, the GPS of the cellphone was not accurate enough to tell if the call came exactly from the park.

Moussa's mother told Fox 5 that the teen left home about 4:15 p.m. Jan. 12 and she told her twin sister she was going to a party in Norfolk. Police said they investigated that tip, but found no useful information.

Until Friday, Moussa's case was being treated as a juvenile runaway.

But police noted that many of the 20 friends of Moussa with whom detectives spoke did not seem to be fully cooperating with investigators.

The park where Moussa's body was found was reopened on Monday. A memorial service for Moussa was scheduled to be held Thursday at a church in Springfield.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.A Massachusetts pharmacist convicted in connection with a deadly 2012 meningitis outbreak fought through sobs as he apologized to victims and their families Wednesday before being sentenced to eight years in prison for his role in whats considered the worst public health crisis in recent U.S. history.

Nearly 80 people died and almost 800 were sickened in the fungal meningitis outbreak caused by mold-tainted steroid injections produced by the New England Compounding Center.

Glenn Chin, who ran the so-called clean rooms where the drugs were made, sobbed as he struggled through his statement during his sentencing hearing in Bostons federal courthouse. Chin said he knows some victims will never forgive him, but will continue to pray that they will find some sort of peace.

I realize these are just words and nothing will bring back your loved ones, the 49-year-old said, occasionally turning to look directly at the victims and their relatives seated behind him. But believe me when I say that I am truly sorry that this ever occurred, he said.

Prosecutors wanted a 35-year-sentence for Chin, pointing to the devastating impact the outbreak had on families across the country. Chins lawyers asked for about three years behind bars.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Strachan relayed how a victims daughter said she heard her mothers scream of pain from floors below when the daughter visited her mother in the hospital. The daughter compared the sound of her mothers screams to the sound of the ship careening into the ocean in the movie Titanic, Strachan said.

Thats the sound that she has in her head when she thinks about her mothers death, Strachan said. Its the sound made by Glenn Chins conduct.

Mary Beth Krakowski of South Bend, Indiana, whose aunt died at age 88 after being injected with the contaminated drugs, told Chin he had a chance to be a hero and blow the whistle on the pharmacys dangerous practices.

How did you get lost? How did you lose those ideals? How could you have fallen so far to become uncaring, cold and callous enough to put the patients welfare behind your personal gain? asked Krakowski, the niece of Alice Machowiak.

Chin was convicted in October of racketeering and mail fraud but was cleared of second-degree murder, which could have brought a life sentence. He had had been charged with the deaths of 25 people in Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

Throughout his trial, prosecutors portrayed him as a callous employee who cut corners and ignored warning signs that the pharmacys production methods were unsafe in order to boost production and profits.

Chins attorneys argued that he didnt deserve more time behind bars than the pharmacys co-founder, Barry Cadden, whos serving a nine-year sentence for his role in the outbreak. Cadden also was acquitted of second-degree murder.

Chins attorneys said Cadden was the one calling the shots and that Chin just couldnt stand up to his boss. They said there was no evidence Chin caused the drugs to become contaminated.

There is more to Glenn Chin than NECC, attorney Stephen Weymouth told the judge, pointing to the dozens of letters written by friends and family that described him as a mentor and loving father to his two young children.

This will be Glenn Chins own prison from which he will never be able to get out of for as long as he lives, Weymouth said.

After the sentencing, victims expressed their dismay at what they considered to be a light sentence and the fact that neither Chin nor Cadden were convicted of murder.

I want somebody in there blamed for the deaths, said Willard Mazure, Jr., of Michigan, who became sickened after receiving an injection in 2012. Weve got 80 people dead, and nobody is responsible.

The judge ordered Chin to report to prison in March.A man is accused of hitting another man with a machete during a road-rage incident in Florida.

A Zephyrhills police report says 34-year-old Jonathan Bailey was arrested Tuesday night outside a Wal-Mart store.

The Tampa Bay Times reports that Bailey pulled his car up beside the victim's vehicle and "swung a sword," cutting the man's hand.

The victim told officers the incident happened because he had cut Bailey off in traffic earlier. Bailey told police he used a machete but only because the other driver was following him.

Bailey was charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and remained in jail Wednesday on a $10,000 bond. A lawyer wasn't listed in jail records.

The victim had a cut on his hand between his thumb and index finger.Several university and college professors took issue with President Trumps first State of the Union address, turning to social media to express disgust at Trump's immigration rhetoric, the overall tone of the speech -- and even chants of USA from those in attendance.

Trump's speech, billed as being a bipartisan effort to reach across the aisle, was instead viewed by numerous academics as carnage porn taking place at a Klan rally."

STATE OF THE UNION REACTIONS: CELEBRITIES SLAM TRUMP BUT ADMIT THEY DIDNT TUNE IN

One professor of political science at Howard University took issue with the sight of Trump instead of former President Barack Obama.

Seeing Barack Obama as president of the United States used to be surrealbut, in a good way. This is surreal, in the traditional sense, tweeted Assistant Professor Keneshia Grant.

This is carnage porn, tweeted Philip Cohen, professor of sociology at the University of Maryland.

Cohen also tweeted a photoshopped image depicting Trump pointing a gun at the Statue of Liberty's head and mockingly featuring the hashtags America First and SOTU.

A Princeton University African American studies professor called every standing ovation a cheer for racism and hatred.

The SOTU is officially a Klan rally, tweeted Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor.

Taylor added in a separate tweet: #SOTU settler colonialism. slavery. exploitation of immigrant labor. indigenous genocide. American exceptionalism is littered w bodies.

A political science professor, who focuses on Latino and minority politics and LGBT rights, was incredulous when those attending the speech began an improptu "U.S.A." chant.

Are they seriously chanting USA?! I am embarrassed for my country, tweeted Melissa Michelson, a professor at Menlo College in Atherton, Calif.

Wednesday morning she added: I have no respect for news media outlets reporting last night's #SOTU as anything other than divisive and xenophobic #unpresidented.

University of Miami, Fla. Political Science Professor Fernand Armandi slammed Trump as a pathological liar prior to the speech, adding not a single word he utters tonight means a damn thing.

While @realDonaldTrump now demonizes hard working undocumented immigrants slurring them in equivalence as a MS13 criminal gang element, @TheDemocrats passively sit in stunned silence like battered spouses afraid to stand up to their serial alcoholic abuser, Armandi tweeted.

Patrick Blanchfield, a professor who teaches American Violence: Empire, Capital, and Culture at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research in New York City, tweeted actually f*** ICE, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

FROM ANTI-TRUMP PROFESSORS MOUTHS, 2017S MOST EXPLOSIVE QUOTES

Blanchfield added Trump delivered a variety of trollish appropriations of social justice language, cunningly designed by his speech writers. He venerated the war machine. He used dogwhistles instead of outright slurs, and deployed people and their pain as props.

A University of Georgia associate professor of international affairs, Cas Muddle, tweeted: That was a long-winded way to say white #immigrationreform #SOTU.Traffic stop law enforcement, in the form of photo enforcement, is at the center of a heated national debate  and it has both sides seeing red.

More than 500 communities in the U.S. have some type of red light or speed camera program to catch motorists who flout traffic laws. There are other municipalities who are either looking into starting to use them, or expanding their existing program.

But now, there are a growing number of areas who are starting to question whether the speed camera programs are effective. Critics even call them unconstitutional.

Seven states, including Arizona, are considering legislation to prohibit red light and speed camera use. They say those programs, which have grown in popularity the past few years, are ripe for abuse.

The way the red light cameras work are if someone is caught running a red light, the camera will snap a picture of the car and its driver. The accused will then receive a citation in the mail.

I think everyone in the country should be concerned about this type of law enforcement action, especially when its so ripe with corruption, said Arizona State Rep. Travis Grantham.

What Grantham has a problem with is that law enforcement contracts the camera programs out to third-party companies, with some companies even issuing the tickets. Hes also concerned about third-party companies having access to the cameras and data.

I think everyone in the country should be concerned about this type of law enforcement action, especially when its so ripe with corruption.  Arizona State Rep. Travis Grantham

In one case in Arizona in 2016, a former traffic light enforcement camera vendor was sentenced to prison for bribery and fraud.

The practice of privatizing law enforcement actions is just wrong, Grantham said. Every aspect of it is wrong. When you add the equation of for-profit into the mix, it presents a lot of opportunity for fraud, for abuse.

But those in favor of red light cameras say they save lives  and municipalities should be embracing them, not getting rid of them.

Barbara Hoffman, executive director of Red Means Stop Traffic Safety Alliance, joined the company after her son was killed at an intersection after a driver ran a red light.

She believes these cameras are important in helping law enforcement officers keep the streets safe.

Since my son was killed by a red light runner, I thought if there was more of these, maybe less people would be running red lights, Hoffman said.

The constitutionality of automated enforcement laws has been challenged in several cities but few challenges have been successful. The total number of camera programs, however, has declined since 2012 because many programs were discontinued. The main reasons for turning off cameras include a reduction in camera citations, difficulty paying for it and community opposition.

"I just dont see why theres a constitutional problem except if hes saying the police ought to be more involved in the issuing (of) the tickets. That I think is a plausible constitutional question.  Paul Bender, Constitutional law professor

Hoffman said the unconstitutional argument has not held up in court.

I can name six courts that have actually gone through and proved that it wasnt unconstitutional, Hoffman said. These judges all ruled against that. So, I believe the judges have enough to back that up. I dont think Rep. Grantham has that knowledge to override a judge. And this is judges throughout the United States.

Granthams bill would get rid of every one of the cameras in the state. Its already passed through committee and up for vote on the state House floor.

The way photo radar works, it really does not afford the person receiving the ticket the right to due process, Grantham said. Thats a huge problem.

Paul Bender is a professor of constitutional law and dean emeritus at Sandra Day OConnor College of Law at Arizona State University. Hes argued a number of cases about the Constitution in courts, including the Supreme Court. He said the red light cameras are constitutionally sound  but having non-law enforcement officials issuing traffic tickets could be a problem.

Youre allowed to enforce criminal law in a way thats efficient and this is just a way that its efficient. So, I just dont see why theres a constitutional problem, Bender said, except if hes saying the police ought to be more involved in the issuing the tickets. That, I think, is a plausible constitutional question.

Bender said the government should not contract out things that it has the responsibility for. But, he added, that can easily be resolved by having a police officer involved.

Along with the constitutional debate, theres the big question of what makes intersections safer. Studies support both sides of the debate.

Studies in Oxnard, Calif., and Fairfax, Va., reported reductions in red-light violation rates of about 40 percent after the introduction of red-light cameras. Some studies have shown that while red-light cameras reduce front-into-side collisions and overall injury crashes, they can increase rear-end crashes. But such crashes tend to be much less severe than front-into-side crashes, so the net effect is said to be positive, studies show.

Since my son was killed by a red light runner, I thought if there was more of these, maybe less people would be running red lights.  Barbara Hoffman, executive director of Red Means Stop Traffic Safety Alliance

Any kind of help that can stop people from running red lights, to me, is a benefit because I would hate to see another mother or another family lose a loved one just because of selfishness and people being in a hurry and thinking they can get away with it, Hoffman said.

Plus, Bender said, there is little room to dispute a camera proving that someone broke the law.

I dont think you have a right (to evade the law). As long as its done properly and fairly, its OK to enforce the law, Bender said. I think cameras are probably fairer overall than individual police officers.

But Grantham said the third-party companies are holding too much data about motorists and should not be upholding laws.

We start infringing on peoples constitutional rights and we start privatizing law enforcement to the point where you could be issued a fine, he said, you could potentially have your driving privileges revoked when a private corporation, whos really going unchecked by many law enforcement in many instances, is able to just issue these tickets, [program the equipment that has used these tickets, harvest your data, distribute your data for whatever purposes they see necessary, its very problematic.An award-winning San Francisco elementary school teacher turned himself in to police Tuesday after he was accused of dangling a student from a window.

Andres Tobar, 47, was a bilingual teacher at Marshall Elementary School for more than two decades, the San Francisco Examiner reported. The educator was named teacher of the month in January 2013.

But last month, Tobar was accused of child endangerment and abuse. The teacher was being investigated for an incident regarding a student allegedly being dangled from the schools second-floor window, police said. A warrant for Tobars arrest was issued by the San Francisco District Attorneys Office following an investigation.

MILITARY-BASHING CALIFORNIA TEACHER PULLED FROM CLASSROOM, CITY COUNCIL DUTIES PENDING INVESTIGATION

"Tobar was seen cradling a student and holding the student over the balcony on the second floor," Gentle Blythe, the spokesperson for San Francisco Unified School District, said in a statement. The incident reportedly occurred Dec. 19, 2017.

A school employee reported the incident after witnessing the child hanging outside the window and other witnesses backed up that account, the San Francisco Examiner reported. The child was not identified by name or age.

The school immediately contacted the parent of the involved student and SFUSD placed Mr. Tobar on paid administrative leave while the district conducted a thorough investigation, Blythe said.

TEACHER MISSPELLS HILLARY CLINTONS NAME, LEADING FAMILY TO DEMAND APOLOGY

No motive for the alleged incident was revealed.

The district announced Tobar has been placed on paid administrative leave, KTVU reported.

Before the teachers arrest, more than 100 families signed a petition in support of Tobar.

He is a dearly loved teacher, and this will be a real challenge for the school to overcome, Lloyd Rath, who worked with Tobar, told the San Francisco Examiner. I hope that Mr. Tobar is exonerated.

Police have asked anyone to come forward if they have had suspicious contact with Tobar.Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 31)  Customs fixer Mark Taguba has surrendered to the National Bureau of Investigations (NBI) after the Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) issued an arrest order over a drug case filed by the Justice Department.

Taguba's lawyer Raymond Fortun confirmed the information, adding Taguba will be brought to the Manila RTC on Thursday.

Taguba is facing drug charges for the P6.4-billion shabu shipment from China that slipped through Customs.

The crime is punishable with life imprisonment and a fine of up to P10 million.

Others charged were Richard Tan, owner of the Hong Fei Logistics warehouse in Valenzuela City where the drug shipment was found; alleged middlemen Manny Li and Kenneth Dong; import company owner Eirene May Tatad; Customs broker Teejay Marcellana; and Taiwanese businessmen Chen I-Min, Jhu Ming Jhun, and Chen Rong Huan.

READ: DOJ files drug charges vs. customs fixer Taguba, 11 others over P6.4B shabu shipment

The Department of Justice initially filed the case before a Valenzuela court, but was dismissed due to lack of jurisdiction.

It refiled the case before a Manila court on January 23.

State prosecutors field another case against the same nine suspects and three unidentified persons at the Valenzuela RTC on January 30.

READ: DOJ files drug case vs. 'conspirators' in P6.4-B shabu smuggling

They are accused of transporting and delivering dangerous drugs and for engaging in a conspiracy.

The 604-kilogram shabu shipment, one of the biggest drug hauls in the country, passed through the Bureau of Customs as kitchenware on May 17, 2017.

At dawn on May 26, Customs officials found the bags of shabu in Tan's warehouse, hidden in five solid steel cylinders used in printing presses, each a foot in diameter.

After clearing Customs and National Bureau of Investigation personnel, the DOJ intends to use them as witnesses, including former Customs Intelligence Chief Neil Estrella.

Estrella supposedly received an alert on May 25 from a Chinese Customs official of an undetermined quantity of illegal drugs from China. He said he immediately informed then Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon, who ordered him to reach out to Tan, who Chinese Customs said was the tipster.

Faeldon had been detained at the Senate for skipping hearings on the shabu shipment. He was transferred to the Pasay City jail on Tuesday after a heated exchange between him and Committee Chairperson Richard Gordon when he finally attended a hearing on Monday.

CNN Philippines' Eimor Santos and Ver Marcelo contributed to this report.A Pennsylvania family is demanding a public apology from their daughters sixth grade teacher after the man admitted to intentionally misspelling Hillary Clintons name in a letter the 11-year-old had written.

Mary Reinard, 11, of Sunbury said she wanted to write a letter to the former presidential candidate because she considers Clinton her hero.

She told the Daily Item she had seen a story online about Clinton reportedly speaking to the dead, and, having lost a baby sister nearly a decade ago, Mary said she wanted to know if it was true.

The preteen asked Benjamin Attinger, her teacher at Shikellamy Middle School, for help to address the letter to the appropriate place.

ENGLISH PROFESSOR 'PLEDGES' SHE WON'T DISCLOSE IMMIGRANT STATUS OF HER STUDENTS

On Friday, with her letter ready to be mailed at home, Mary and her mother Shannon were surprised when they took a closer look at the address.

Attinger had addressed the letter to Hiliar Rodham Clinton  misspelling the former Secretary of States first name to include the word liar in it.

Shannon Reinard, 35, and her husband Shawn Reinard, 38, called the school to complain, saying they were angry a teachers politics made it into the classroom.

He can write a letter himself and call her a liar, she said. Dont channel it through my 11-year-old daughter.

She said Attinger called them and admitted, in a voicemail, that he had done it on purpose but as a joke.

When I addressed it, I put liar in the name because I was telling her it [talking to the dead] wasnt true, he reportedly said. It was kind of a joke. I didnt really expect it to be taken the way that apparently she took it. I apologize.

YALE PROFESSOR SLAMS HOWARD DEAN FOR HALLOWEEN COSTUME CONTROVERSY COMMENTS

Mary Reinard told the newspaper that she didnt notice the misspelling at first, but dreads what might have happened had they not caught it and it was sent out.

I would have felt embarrassed, she said. I wouldnt have been able to go to school for a week.

Shawn Reinard, who told the newspaper that he didnt vote in the 2016 presidential election but would have supported President Trump, said he initially found the envelope funny but quickly changed his tune after seeing his daughters anger.

Im angry, he said. Whether I agree or not, you keep that out of school. His student asked him for help, and he failed as a teacher. At minimum, he owes my little girl a public apology.

The Reinards said they met with Attinger and school and district officials Tuesday.

Mary Reinard said Attinger again offered an apology  which they accepted  but wanted people to know what happened here.

The districts Superintendent Brett Misavage confirmed a meeting took place with the Reinards on Tuesday, but declined to comment further to the Daily Item.

Shannon Reinard did not immediately respond to Fox News request for comment on Wednesday.A third person living in the United States under an Obama-era protection for illegal immigrants who entered the country as minors was arrested this week for allegedly trying to smuggle Mexican nationals into the U.S.

U.S. Border Patrol said agents in Arizona nabbed the 26-year-old man, who is a Mexican national and a beneficiary of the 2012 Deferred Action Childhood Arrivals executive order, after spotting footprints from four people who had crossed the border near the Colorado River on Monday.

Officials said they soon discovered the four people getting into a white Ford F-150 in a nearby citrus grove.

The vehicle was pulled over and the driver, who now lives in Salinas, Calif., was identified as a DACA recipient, authorities said. The four other occupants were identified as Mexican nationals who were in the U.S. illegally.

Border Patrol said the unidentified driver was arrested on human smuggling charges while the four passengers were arrested for immigration violations. The vehicle was seized for forfeiture.

Monday's incident was at least the third human smuggling-related arrest this week in which agents nabbed a so-called "Dreamer."

Border Patrol officials said two Dreamers -- one in the country legally under the DACA program and the other whose permission had expired -- were arrested last week in separate incidents in California.

One arrest occurred last Wednesday near Torrey Pines State Beach while the other happened in Campo, Calif. Both suspects are in custody. Officials did not indicate the three men were linked to each other in any way.

The arrests come while Congressional lawmakers try to write legislation to give the DACA recipients legal status. DACA has protected about 800,000, many of them college-age students.The U.S. has added the leader of Hamas to its list of international terrorists, ratcheting up pressure on the Islamic militant group.

State Department counterterror official Nathan A. Sales told a Tel Aviv conference that Ismail Haniyeh is now considered a "specially designated global terrorist." The designation freezes any assets Haniyeh may have in U.S. jurisdictions and bars Americans from any financial transactions with him.

The U.S. already considers Hamas a terrorist organization. Wednesday's announcement steps up U.S. opposition to the group, which has killed hundreds of Israelis and has fought three wars with Israel since taking over the Gaza Strip in 2007.

Hamas says the designation will not deter it from opposing Israel. Other Hamas officials, including the group's Gaza leader, are also on the list.A Wisconsin father bought a full-page ad in the Washington Post costing $65,000 on Tuesday in the hopes of renewing the investigation into his sons shooting death more than 13 years ago.

Michael Bell told FOX6 he took a gamble and bought the ad to push the Kenosha police department to again look into the case of his son Michael Bell Jr., who was shot and killed in 2004 after a scuffle with officers.

"It was important for me to go ahead and do something on a grand scale to try to get awareness to this case  to show that there was a problem," Bell told FOX6. "The ad cost just under $65,000. I received a lot of pushback but it was a decision I had to make."

Bell Jr. was pulled over in November 2004 and was intoxicated when police officers encountered him, a police report released at the time said, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. During the scuffle, Officer Erich Strausbaugh yelled that Bell had a gun, prompting another cop, Alberto Gonzalez, to intervene. Bell, who was 21 at the time, was shot in the head by Gonzalez and died hours later.

Bell Sr. said he believes his sons death could be a result of a mistake. He previously told FOX6 he strongly believed the department and administration covered up this case.

One evidence he points to is the autopsy results that showed Bell Jr. was shot on the right side of his head. Police said Gonzales was on the left side of Bells body but the 21-year-old suffered a gunshot wound to the right side because he turned his head. In a 20-minute video on Bells deadly shooting, a medical examiner report said that evidence was forensically impossible based on the blood and where the shell casing landed, according to FOX6.

The Bell family and the police department reached a nearly $2 million settlement in 2010, according to USA Today. The police officers involved were cleared of any wrongdoing. The department denied a cover-up in the case.

"I want to find out what really happened that night regarding my son's death," Bell said.French authorities deployed boats and helicopters Wednesday as part of the desperate search for Pierre Agnes, the chief executive of sportswear maker Quiksilver whose empty boat was discovered washed ashore Tuesday.

Wednesday's search focused on the coast of southwest France one day after Agnes boat was found on a beach at Hossegor, about 20 miles north of Biarritz.

Agnes, 54, vanished Tuesday after he went on a fishing trip, The Guardian reported. It was not immediately clear if the CEO was alone on the boat or had been with other people.

MICHELIN ALLOWS FRENCH TOP CHEF TO RELINQUISH STARS

The father of three messaged port authorities Tuesday telling them he was postponing his return due to thick fog, Reuters reported.

Maritime authorities said two boats and three helicopters were involved in the search.

Quiksilver, known for its surf wear, was founded in Australia but is now majority-owned by an American investment group and based in Huntington Beach, Calif. Agnes was the head of its France-based European headquarters before being named CEO of the whole company in 2015. Agnes has been with the company for some 30 years.

The company said in a statement to NBC News that they were devastated by this news.

FRENCH MOUNTAIN CLIMBER RESCUED RECOVERING IN HOSPITAL

The Boardriders family and entire surfing world are devastated by this news, the statement read. We are concentrating on working with the local authorities on the search and rescue effort and supporting Pierre's family.

Kelly Slater, an American professional surfer, posted on Instagram that he was praying for a miracle in the search for Agnes.

I love this man. Pierre Agnes went missing in Hossegor today when his boat washed ashore in the cold, early morning fog. Im praying for a miracle but its just starting to hit me what a profound effect this man had on my life and the surf community at large. He loved his morning fishing trips, family, Quiksilver, surfing, friends, motorbikes, Capbreton...Im not even sure how to let it sink in, he wrote.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.An Egyptian court has sentenced 19 Muslim defendants to a one-year suspended sentence for attacking an unlicensed church south of Cairo.

Wednesday's sentence was handed down in Atfih misdemeanor court. The defendants will not have to serve prison time unless they get into trouble again.

Separately, a Coptic Christian defendant was fined 360,000 Egyptian pounds (about $20,383) for setting up the unlicensed church.

The incident took place Dec. 22 when dozens of demonstrators gathered outside the building and stormed it. They destroyed the church's contents and assaulted Christians inside before security forces arrived and dispersed them.

The church in Giza outside the capital Cairo has yet to be sanctioned by the state but has held prayers for 15 years.

Christians constitute around 10 percent of Egypt's predominantly Muslim population.Climate change will be on the agenda for this year's Group of Seven summit in Quebec despite Canada's difference of opinion with the Trump administration.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's personal representative for the summit said in an interview Wednesday that implementation of the Paris climate accord will be discussed even though U.S. President Donald Trump has pulled the U.S. out of the agreement. Peter Boehm said if countries agreed on everything, there wouldn't be a reason to meet.

The June gathering of leaders from seven wealthy democracies will mark Trump's first trip to Canada.

Gender equality and women's empowerment will also be major themes.

Boehm is hosting a meeting with the representatives of each country in Waterloo, Ontario, and says Trump's representative is happy with Canada's focus.next Image 1 of 2

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The son of former Peruvian strongman Alberto Fujimori is forming his own bloc in congress after being kicked out of the party led his sister.

Kenji Fujimori announced Wednesday that he and nine other lawmakers from the Popular Will party will henceforth support President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.

Fujimori abstained from voting for Kuczynski's impeachment in December, bucking a drive led by Popular Will leaders to remove the unpopular president from office.

Days later, Kuczynski pardoned Fujimori's father, former President Alberto Fujimori, from a 25-year jail sentence in what many Peruvians believe was a quid pro quo deal. Both Kuczynski and Kenji Fujimori have denied that.

Popular Will is led by Kenji Fujimori's older sister Keiko, who narrowly lost to Kuczynski in the 2016 presidential election.German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem after talks were canceled last year when the diplomat met with an Israeli whistleblower group critical of the military.

Standing alongside Netanyahu on Wednesday, Gabriel said: "Israel always can count on Germany as a fair partner to defend the security of Israel."

Netanyahu abruptly canceled a meeting in April with Gabriel over his meeting with Breaking the Silence, a group of Israeli army veterans critical of the country's military actions in the West Bank and Gaza.

Israeli leaders oppose the group's work, citing the anonymity of its claims and its outreach efforts abroad to foreign audiences.

The incident sparked a rare diplomatic feud with Germany, one of Israel's closest and most important allies.A co-founder of the terror group Hamas died Tuesday, three weeks after accidentally shooting himself in the face while cleaning his weapon, an official said.

Imad al-Alami, 62, was examining his personal weapon in his home Jan. 9 when the gun went off and a bullet struck him in the face, Hamas said.

He had been hospitalized in Gaza until his death, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Hamas initially announced al-Alami died of natural causes, dispelling rumors he'd committed suicide or was murdered. However, the group later admitted an accident had actually caused al-Alami's death.

Al-Alami held several key posts as a member of Hamas policy-making body and lived in Syria until 2012. He remained a top-ranking official, though not a member of the militant outfit's current staff.

After the 2014 Israel-Hamas war, al-Alami traveled to Turkey for treatment for an injury in which he lost a leg. Hamas said he was wounded in the war.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, January 31)  The Office of the Ombudsman said Wednesday it would not enforce the suspension order against Deputy Ombudsman Melchor Arthur Carandang.

"It's clear she will not enforce OP (Office of the President) suspension order," a member of Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales staff said in a message to CNN Philippines.

Citing a 2014 decision by the Supreme Court, Morales said the Office of the President insulted the Supreme Court and the independence of the Ombudsman.

Morales made the statement in the wake of Carandang's suspension for 90 days for supposedly spreading false information on President Rodrigo Duterte's bank accounts.

READ: Deputy Ombudsman suspended, facing 'false information' charges

In a press release on Wednesday, Morales called the Palace move "patently unconstitutional" based on a Supreme Court en banc ruling in Gonzales III vs. Office of the President.

"The Supreme Court categorically declared unconstitutional the administrative disciplinary jurisdiction of the President over deputy ombudsmen," Morales said.

In 2012, the Supreme Court's ruling on the case affirmed a deputy or special prosecutor may be removed from office by the Office by the President. However, it later reversed this decision in 2014, and denied the President disciplinary jurisdiction over deputy ombudsmen as it was "unconstitutional."

"The Ombudsman cannot, therefore, seriously place at risk the independence of the very Office which she has pledged to protect on the strength of the constitutional guarantees which the High Court has upheld," said Morales.

Morales said the Palace actions were an insult to the high court.

"It has become clear that the act of the Office of the President was not an inadvertent error but a clear affront to the Supreme Court and an impairment of the constitutionally enshrined independence of the Office of the Ombudsman," said Morales.

She added, the recent "spate of events" are a "great cause for concern."

Under the Constitution, the Office of the Ombudsman is an independent body.

Malacanang, however, remains firm on its position.

Shortly after Morales' statement, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said it was giving Carandang 10 days to file his answer on the "Resolution and Order."

"It is incumbent upon Mr. Carandang to submit his answer within the required period," said Roque. He said the President will decide on the matter after the ten-day period has lapsed.

Carandang said last year he received a report from the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) that President Rodrigo Duterte's bank account has amounted to over P1 billion. The AMLC, however, denied it provided any report to the Ombudsman on Duterte's bank transactions.

READ: AMLC denies providing Office of Ombudsman report on Duterte's bank records

Roque said Monday the Office of Executive Secretary formally charged the deputy ombudsman with grave misconduct and grave dishonesty for misuse of confidential information and disclosing false information. This was in line with the complaint of Manuel Luna and Eligio Mallari filed in October 2017.

Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo, meanwhile, said until a "competent court" says the act violates the law and the Constitution, it is presumed "valid and legal.

He said any "willful refusal" to halt such an enforcement may open the official to administrative and criminal sanctions.

"If it is malicious and deliberate, it can be considered a betrayal of the public trust. Otherwise, it may not be," he said when asked if the Ombudsman's refusal to suspend Carandang could be an impeachable act.

In a separate press release, Panelo added Duterte "has no desire" to intrude on the Ombudsman's Constitutional independence.

"To be clear, the implementation of check-and-balances in government and the enforcement of public accountability is not incongruent with the respect for Constitutionally guaranteed independence," he said.

Panelo added while the Supreme Court had ruled on the Gonzales case in 2014, the circumstances of Carandang's suspension "differ."Israel's attorney general says an investigation looking into two corruption allegations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in its "final stretch."

Speaking at a meeting of the Israel Bar Association Wednesday, Avichai Mandelblit says dozens of witnesses have been questioned in various countries as part of the probe. He says authorities will "not be afraid to take difficult decisions" if needed.

One probe reportedly concerns allegations Netanyahu improperly received lavish gifts from Hollywood and business figures.

Another is over secret talks with the publisher of a major Israeli newspaper in which Netanyahu allegedly requested positive coverage in exchange for reining in a free pro-Netanyahu daily.

Netanyahu has denied wrongdoing and has dismissed the accusations as a witch hunt orchestrated by a hostile media.This is not a metaphor: Britain's Parliament is a mess.

The 19th-century London building is crumbling, leaky, infested with vermin and riddled with asbestos. Fixing it will take years and cost billions, but experts say the alternative could be catastrophic.

After years of dithering, lawmakers are set to vote Wednesday on what to do  but there's a good chance they will opt for more delay.

Experts warn the Victorian Gothic building is at risk of a flood or fire that could leave it uninhabitable. A 2016 report urged politicians to move out for six years for renovations costing 3.5 billion pounds ($5 billion).

On Wednesday lawmakers will vote on several options, from agreeing to leave the building so work can begin to deferring a decision for several more years.Filing cabinets containing thousands of classified documents from the Australian government ended up being sold at a secondhand shop, prompting government officials Wednesday to launch an investigation into how the highly sensitive documents were disposed of.

The cache of documents was obtained by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which reported the two cabinets were sold by a Canberra furniture shop at a discount price because they were locked and no one could find keys.

The ABC described the episode as an "extraordinary breach of national security," and that nearly all the documents are classified with some documents being marked "top secret," "sensitive," "Australian eyes only," and "cabinet-in-confidence."

The state-owned broadcaster did not say when the documents, known as the Cabinet Files, were found or whom the buyer was who removed the locks with a drill -- but in recent weeks the outlet has reported stories on embarrassing moments during the tenures of former Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott.

The documents contain information detailing Australia's intelligence priorities, counterterrorism strategies, missile upgrades and profiles of terror suspects that spans more than a decade and four prime ministers, the most recent being Abbott. Abbott was replaced in 2015 by current Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

When questioned about the ABC's reporting of Cabinet documents on Tuesday, Turnbull told reporters: "I think they've come across someone's bottom draw in Canberra," Sky News reported.

Some of the files reveal former finance minister Penny Wong left nearly 200 top-secret papers in her old office when her government was voted out in 2013. The documents included Middle East defense plans, national security briefs and updates on the war in Afghanistan.

EX-NSA CONTRACTOR TO PLEAD GUILTY TO 'BREATHTAKING' HEIST OF TOP-SECRET DATA

The files also revealed that former Prime Minister John Howard's National Security Committee at one point gave serious consideration to removing the right to remain silent to terrorism suspects when being questioned by police.

"I would also like NSC to consider whether amendments should be made to a suspect's right to remain silent to allow a court to draw adverse inferences in a terrorism trial where an accused relies on evidence which he or she failed to mention when questioned by police," Ruddock wrote in his NSC submission obtained by the ABC.

The proposal was then supported by the Australian Federal Police and Australian Security Intelligence Organization, but later rejected by the majority of the committee.

Another document reveals that AFP had lost almost 400 national security files over five years ending 2013. While the content of the missing security files was not revealed, "troop deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq, counterterrorism operations, foreign relations and Australia's border protection were among the top-secret and sensitive issues decided in the five-year period," according to the ABC.

Australian Cabinet documents are usually kept secret for 20 years before they are made public in a heavily redacted form. The sale of the ex-government furniture in the country's capital was not limited to Australians, meaning anyone could make a purchase and could have handed the contents to a foreign agent or government.

The ABC said it chose to publish some of the files because "national security and the inner workings of our government affect the lives of all Australians."

The broadcaster said it had not chosen to report on some of the documents on national security grounds, but said the leak shows the "casual attitude of some of those charged with keeping the documents safe."

Rory Medcalf, head of the Australian National University's National Security College, told The Associated Press the matter was "very weird and embarrassing." He added that while the U.S. and other Aussie allies should be concerned, the leak is not as damaging as prior ones.

"This is not catastrophically damaging for national security in the sense that that something like the Snowden revelations must have been," Medcalf told the AP, referring to the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who disclosed classified information in 2013.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.A member of Britain's House of Lords has drawn praise and puzzlement for resigning as a government minister because he was late to answer a question.

International Development Minister Michael Bates apologized to another member "for my discourtesy for not being in my place to answer her question on a very important matter." Bates said Wednesday he was "thoroughly ashamed" and "shall be offering my resignation."

With that, he walked out of the Lords chamber to the astonishment of other members.

Former Foreign Secretary William Hague, who now sits in Parliament's upper chamber, said he hoped "my noble friend, who has given 20 years of strong public service" would reconsider.

Bates quit a previous government position in 2016 to walk 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) across South America for charity.More than a year after United Nations peacekeepers were condemned by their own auditors for heedlessly dumping sewage, untreated waste water, garbage, medical waste and other dangerous materials in a wide array of war-torn countries, the same horrific health practices have surfaced again, in battered Somalia.

The main difference this time: the accusations are levelled not at a major force of blue-helmeted U.N. peacekeepers but at a 595-person U.N. mission known as UNSOS, providing infrastructure and field supportincluding safe disposal of sewage and waste-- to some 30,000 or so African Union and Somali National Army forces that are battling Islamist Al Shabaab extremists and struggling to create order in one of the worlds most dangerous countries.

In effect, UNSOSthe acronym stands for United Nations Support Office in Somaliais the infrastructure backbone of the regional peacekeeping effort, supplying everything from facilities and communication to air and ground transportation services, finance and budgeting, not to mention waste management services, as well as sewage and wastewater treatment and a variety of other infrastructure related to the environmental services.

The toxic outcomes, however, in a country with some 1.6 million internally displaced persons, where 50 percent of the population is deprived of water and sanitation, and that is also ravaged by endemic cholera and other infectious diseases, were about the same as other countries where U.N. peacekeepers mishandled the effort, according to watchdogs from the U.N.s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS).

The auditors visited Somalia from July to October 2017 and issued a report covering UNSOS activities from January 2015 to the end of last June. The report was completed last December but made public only in mid-January, 2018.

Based on the auditors report, it is hard to imagine a lapse in sanitary and environmental practices that UNSOS was not committing. Among them:

- Lack of any waste management planning to speak of by UNSOS, which had not gotten around to making assessments of the task at five out of six African Union troop headquarters and six out of seven AU mission office locales. During the audited period, the U.N. operation didnt have a full-time waste management officer to deal with the issue. One was appointed in July 2017about the time the auditors arrived. So was a new chief officer for water and sanitation.

UNSOS was also charged with raising environmental awareness among the non-U.N. peacekeepers; the main result auditors could find was a poster campaign urging water conservation at the main headquarters in the capital of Mogadishu. UNSOS likewise didnt have a full-time environmental officer, even though the U.N. has made much of its heightened environmental awareness in peacekeeping after issuing a glossy report on the topic in 2010. The position was finally filled in June 2017.

- No sewage treatment and disposal for thousands of African Union troops in a variety of Somalian centers, including parts of Mogadishu. Instead troops relied on simple makeshift latrines made from trenches, roofing steel sheets and wood, according to the auditors report. Result: untreated sewage and cooking and cleaning water flowed out through rainwater drains and trenches into the surrounding environment. In one regional headquarters, untreated sewage was collected in an oxidation pond, even though an internally displaced persons camp was close by, the auditors noted.

One of the other centers with inadequate water treatment was the city of Baidoa, capital of Somalias South West State, which is an epicenter of a Somalian cholera epidemic that had affected some 60,000 people, and killed more than 800 in 2017.

The World Health Organization has carried out repeated vaccination programs to stem the disease. A spokesperson for U.N. peacekeeping operations asserted to Fox News that no outbreaks of cholera or other diseases have been caused as a result of UNSOS activities.

- Substandard quality control, even when wastewater was treated. UNSOS had only one laboratory, operated by a contractor, to monitor the quality of treated wastewater at its Mogadishu headquarters. (There was no laboratory in cholera-stricken Baidoa.) The contractor, however, was only testing for two of several usually-required water quality indicators. There was no testing for fecal coliform bacteria, for example, a major disease vector; nor for contaminating oils and greases. This was because UNSOS had not provided the necessary equipment and reagents to the contractor, the U.N. auditors noted. No record of test results were kept in any event, and the contractor-run treatment plants were not regularly inspected.

- Not surprisingly, perhaps, those treatment plants were inadequately maintained. The auditors noted that in Mogadishu and Baidoa, UNSOS and a predecessor U.N. organization had not emptied the sludge from septic tanks since 2011. Baidoas one treatment plant did not operate full-time due to lack of trained personnel.

- In Baidoa, treated wastewater was simply emptied on the ground in the UNSOS headquarters area. In Mogadishu, treated wastewater was thrown into the nearby oceanunless, as OIOS auditors noted, it came from broken hospital wastewater pipes that spilled it on the ground, along with chemicals from a hospital laboratory.

- Unsecured kitchen waste and abandoned supplies were haphazardly piled up, dumped and burned helter-skelter, often in open pits. Some of the dumps were just 50 yards from UNSOS offices in Mogadishu, and attracted vermin. They spewed evil smells and incinerator ash around the area. After the auditors arrived, one of the waste dumps was movedto within about 200 yards of runways at Mogadishu International Airport and close to a local market, which posed a health risk to staff and local population, auditors noted. The unprotected waste dumps allowed hazardous materials to leach into local soils and water, or in the case of huge piles of incinerator ash, to blow across the neighborhood.

- Hazardous liquids like used oil were stored in unlabeled, deteriorated drums by the waste disposal contractor. UNSOS never saw the records of the volume of used oil the contractor collected; it was deemed too dangerous to retrieve them from the contractors office outside UNSOSs Mogadishu compound, the auditors reported. (Why the contractor did not bring the records to UNSOS is not discussed in the report.)

- Stockpiles of toxic junk, like electrical waste, used tires, batteries and vehicle spare parts and scrap metals were simply abandoned around various peacekeeping camps, or stored haphazardly on the ground, the report says.

The good news appears to be that ever since the OIOS inspectors turned upalbeit many months after they had filed equally dismal reports from other U.N. peacekeeping sitesa scramble began for UNSOS to get its act together.

A U.N. peacekeeping spokesperson told Fox News that nearly a score of wastewater treatment plants are now operational in Somalia, along with a number of solid waste management facilities. The last planned wastewater plans are expected to be working by April 2018, with more to be added as required. New toilets and washing facilities have been built to replace latrines, the spokesperson added. New incinerators are on the way. So is a new contractor for environmental management services, who is supposed to be at work by March.

All told, the U.N. has now budgeted $3.5 million for waste management, and another $1.5 million for projects to help reduce the environmental impact of UNSOS. Another $10.7 million or so has been budgeted for 2018-2019 for cleanup, improved energy supply, and waste management, in line, as the spokesperson put it, with [U.N. peacekeepings] Department of Field Support environmental vision to maximize efficiency in the use of natural resources and to minimize risk to people, societies and ecosystems.

Adding to the new crew of concerned officials, UNSOS intends to add an Occupational Health and Safety Officer this year, along with two experts on environmental management and engineering.

To be on the safe side, however, UNSOS set a deadline of December 1, 2018nearly a year after the OIOS report was producedfor getting most of its major changes in place, including final production of an actual waste management plan.

As the U.N. peacekeeping spokesperson told Fox News by way of explanation, logistics and facilities delivery are very complex in Somalia. The supply chain is long and complex and often involves dangerous routes, some of which have been closed for a long time.

George Russell is editor-at-large of Fox News and can be found on Twitter: @GeorgeRussell or on Facebook.com/GeorgeRussellUh-oh! It could be you, or it could be us, but there's no page here.Free Freightnet Membership

List your company in the Freightnet directory. It's Free, it's Easy and your company can be displayed in front of potential freight buyers within 24 hours.Veterinary leaders are keeping up pressure on regulators to respond to a possible veterinary staffing crisis that could hamper UK exports after Brexit.

British Veterinary Association (BVA) president John Fishwick yesterday repeated calls for the Home Office to add veterinary surgeons to the shortage occupation list.

He said veterinary workloads could treble at a time when the profession is expecting one-third of European vets to leave the UK.

See also: Vets warn of growing staff shortage post Brexit

Vet industry figures An estimated 33% of EU vets to leave Britain

95% of abattoir vets are not UK citizens

Exports requiring veterinary certification could increase by up to 325%

Addressing the BVAs annual London dinner, Mr Fishwick said the volume of exports requiring certification after Brexit could rocket by 325%, while Royal College of Veterinary Surgeon estimations show one-third of European vets or vet nurses are considering leaving the UK.

He said: To prevent an acute crisis in veterinary capacity, the BVA is urging the Home Office to add veterinary surgeons to the shortage occupation list.

Depending on the outcome of Brexit negotiations, new veterinary certifications will need to be developed and supervised to ensure the continuation of smooth trade, which will require an increase in the number of specially trained official veterinarians to perform this role.Page Content

The European Committee of the Regions (CoR) urges the European Commission to consider establishing an exchange programme for 2018-2020 aimed at providing local and regional elected representatives with training on European policies. This programme would be based on the positive experiences gained from the pilot "Erasmus for local and regional representatives" project that was run in 2012-2013. It would help meet the need to better inform, assist and train elected local and regional representatives on how the European Union works and how European funds are used, and at the same time promote the exchange of experience and good practices.



For local and regional representatives, performing the duties of their office increasingly involves mastering specialised skills concerning European policies and the use of European funds. They are expected to apply the majority of European legislation in a variety of fields (water, waste, mobility, energy, etc.) at local level, to ensure that the European Structural and Investment Funds are used effectively, and to cooperate with authorities in other Member States on joint projects. And yet they do not always get the training they need to perform these tasks.

In response to this, in 2012 the European Commission, on the initiative of the European Parliament and in partnership with the European Committee of the Regions, launched a preparatory action entitled "Erasmus for local and regional representatives" that aimed to improve elected representatives' knowledge on European cohesion policy. Although the initiative was a great success  with more than 1 000 applications received for 100 places  it has not yet been followed up on.

At the initiative of Francois Decoster (FR/ALDE), vice-president of the Hauts-de-France Region and mayor of Saint-Omer, the CoR adopted an opinion on 31 January calling for the establishment of an "Erasmus for local and regional representatives" programme, based on experience from the pilot project and focusing on the training aspect.

" The 91 000 local and regional authorities in the EU  and their hundreds of thousands of elected representatives  are an indispensable link between Europe and its citizens, but they are not always trained on European issues before taking office ", said Mr Decoster. " That's why we are campaigning for a new training and exchange programme for local and regional representatives to be included in the Commission's legislative programme. "

Mercedes Bresso MEP (IT/S&D) , who was CoR president when the pilot project was launched in 2012, commented: " To face up to today's challenges, cohesion policy has evolved over recent years and will probably continue to do so after 2020. New tools and new funds have already been created and, in order to make the best possible use of them, a project like this Erasmus scheme could be extremely useful in ensuring that elected representatives are properly trained for these new opportunities. The knowledge and experience they gain would also be of real benefit for European citizens and the EU in general. "

The aim of the programme would be that, at the end of this basic training, local and regional elected representatives would be able to cooperate with elected representatives working on the same topics in different Member States in order to:

improve their knowledge of European legislation,

exchange good practices,

launch new local and regional initiatives, and

understand the ins and outs and the spirit of European integration, so that they can better explain to their constituents why and how the European project can benefit them.

On the question of funding, the Committee suggests that the costs could be shared by EU budgets, the local authorities of the elected representatives taking part and, if need be, training bodies receiving public funds in some Member States.

As a next step, the CoR calls on the European Parliament to support the initiative, as it did in 2012, by proposing that a project be included in the 2018 budget for implementation in 2019. A working group made up of representatives of the Commission, the European Parliament and the Committee should also be established quickly to develop and prepare this programme.

"The European institutions cannot ignore this call" , adds the rapporteur, Mr Decoster, "as they bear some of the responsibility for providing local and regional representatives with training to improve their knowledge of the spirit of European integration and of the EU's policies. As we approach the European elections in 2019, they also need new ideas for strengthening the link between the public and the EU  local representatives can help with this."

Further information:Veterans Last Patrol honors Joe Buice Serving in the U.S. Navy changed the rest of Joes life.

Korean War veteran Joe Buice almost lost his life on the USS Princeton aircraft carrier when a fire broke out after a plane missed his landing and crashed into the...

Students encouraged to fill out college applications Blacksburg and Gaffney High seniors will start figuring out their post graduation plans with the start of college application month events in South Carolina. Gaffney High has planned a college...

WHATS UP Blood Drive A blood drive in honor of Traci Ervin will be held Saturday, Sept. 11 from 12-5 p.m. at Workout Anytime, 108 Wilkinsville Highway, Gaffney. All donors will receive...

$66,000 up for grabs Its Christmas in September for local nonprofits in need of some extra spending cash. The Cherokee County Local Accommodations Tax Advisory Committee is now accepting applications until Friday, Sept. 30...Free

centerpiece

Galveston police say Little Jacob didn't drown

kelseywalling / KELSEY WALLING/The Daily News Galveston Police Capt. Joshua Schirard discusses new findings on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018, from the Little Jacob case. On Oct. 20, 2017, an unidentified 3- or 4-year-old boy was found on a seawall beach. Police released a postmortem photo of boy in an effort to identify him. kelseywalling / KELSEY WALLING/The Daily News Detective Jeff Banks talks about the autopsy of a boy police are calling Little Jacob. The autopsy found the boy was dead before he was put in the Gulf of Mexico. Police have not released the cause of the boys death. kelseywalling / KELSEY WALLING/The Daily News Galveston Police Capt. Joshua Schirard speaks with officials before a news conference regarding the Little Jacob case Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Police released a postmortem photo of boy in an effort to identify him. kelseywalling / KELSEY WALLING/The Daily News Galveston Police Capt. Joshua Schirard discusses new findings from the Little Jacob case on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. COURTESY Police are seeking the publics help to identify a boys body found on a Galveston beach Oct. 20, 2017. Police commissioned a sketch artist to draw a portrait of the boy. The Galveston Police Department on Tuesday released this post-mortem photo of "Little Jacob", the unidentified boy found on a Galveston beach in October. Police hoped the photo would shock the public into sharing new information about the boy.

GALVESTON

Island police on Tuesday released a postmortem photograph of the unidentified boy found on a Galveston beach in October, in hopes that the image would shock the memories and consciences of people that might have useful information for investigators.

The boy, given the nickname Little Jacob by investigators, was found dead on a seawall beach near Eighth Street in Galveston on Oct. 20.

Police on Tuesday said an autopsy report determined the boy did not drown, and may have been put into the water up to two days before his body was found on the beach.

The cause of the boys death was not released to preserve the integrity of the investigation, police said.

Police did confirm the boys body showed signs of neglect or abuse, but did not elaborate about what those signs were.

With the help of the U.S. Coast Guard and National Weather Service, investigators conducted a reverse drift analysis to try to determine where the boy was put into the water. The analysis pointed to areas east of where the body was found, which would include Stewart Beach and East Beach, two of the islands most readily accessible beach parks.

Since finding the boy in October and releasing an artists sketch of his face, the police department has received hundreds of tips in the case, Galveston spokesman Capt. Joshua Schirard said.

None of them have been fruitful, and the main investigator on the case, Galveston Police Detective Jeff Banks, said on Tuesday that most leads have now been exhausted.

I dont think we have anything left to investigate at this point, Banks said. Were no closer to figuring out who he is.

Banks said he had spent all but two days since the boys body was found working on the Little Jacob case.

With few other options available, police released a photograph of Little Jacob taken soon after he was found on the beach. It was an unusual step, but investigators hope that the disturbing image would motivate someone new to come forward, Schirard said.

We continue to believe that someone out there knows this child, Schirard said. Someone has seen him. That child deserves to be identified and properly laid to rest. For that to happen, input from the public is absolutely crucial.

The FBI is offering a $10,000 reward for information relating to the case. Police asked anyone with information about the boy to call 1-800-CALL-FBI.Page Content

The opinion contributes to the new strategy presented by the European Commission and includes recommendations focusing on economic growth, competitiveness and jobs. The Committee supports the protection of sensitive products and greater investment in strategic sector such as renewable energy and the blue economy. The assembly backs the system of subsidies rather than financial tools, and warns of the impact of Brexit on the outermost regions given the high level of interlinkage with the United Kingdom. At a time when the next multiannual financial framework is under negotiation, the Committee regrets that the European Commission has failed to address the impact of cohesion policy on the outermost regions (ORs) in its new strategy.

The Assembly of the EU's cities and regions today unanimously adopted the opinion drawn up by Fernando Clavijo, president of the Canary Islands Towards full implementation of the renewed European Strategy for the Outermost Regions.

President Clavijo argued that "in view of the difficult challenges such as climate change, recurrent crisis in the global economy, migration flows and Brexit, it is crucial to coordinate efforts between the ORs in order to defend our place in the European Union both today and in the future. We are convinced that the Commission's new strategy should enable us to tackle the challenge of systematically applying Article 349 TFEU - the article that governs our territories - with the aim of reconciling three goals in a single approach: equal opportunities, competitiveness and external reach".

The Committee supports the president of the Canary Islands in all the key points of the opinion. With regard to funding, the assembly of EU cities and regions emphasises that financial tools cannot be a substitute for subsidies, and supports easier access for the ORs to the European Fund for Strategic Investments to develop infrastructure for clean energies, the circular economy and the blue economy, which offer great potential to the these regions. The assembly also supports calling for a specific allocation under the European Social Fund (ESF).

Turning to trade policy, the Committee supports the protection of sensitive products. With respect to banana imports, the Committee identifies a need to extend the stabilisation mechanism beyond 2020 as part of the bilateral agreements signed with the Latin American countries. The Committee welcomes the possibility of granting state aid for the construction of new fishing boats, and sees the adoption of support measures to allow financing of traditional and artisanal fishing vessels in the ORs as essential.

The Committee also supports President Clavijo with regard to the introduction of a specific programme to uphold biodiversity and adapt to climate change, and recommends that it be managed directly by the European Commission in partnership with the relevant regions. The ORs enjoy exceptional biodiversity, accounting for close to 80% of Europe's biodiversity. The Committee welcomes the fact that the LIFE environmental protection programme for 2018-2020 contains a chapter dedicated to waste management in the ORs.

The Committee regrets that the new communication does not address the issues of key importance for the outermost regions, such as the impact of cohesion policy, specific adjustments in the areas of social and employment policy, transport policy, or the future of special tax and customs regimes for the ORs.

Looking to the future, President Clavijo pointed out that "we undeniably have untapped potential. We will be following the implementation of the European Commission's new proposals very closely, to make sure that they match the needs and expectations of our outermost islands and regions".

Further information

As well as the autonomous region of the Canary Islands, the outermost regions comprise six French overseas communities (French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, Reunion and Saint Martin) and two autonomous Portuguese regions (the Azores and Madeira).

Canary Islands  Facts and figures, 24 October 2017, European Commission.

Between November 2017 and the end of 2018, the Canary Islands is holding the chair of the Conference of Presidents of the Outermost Regions (CPOR).

The EU's outermost regions experience disadvantageous conditions such as remoteness, a lack of various resources, dependency and particular vulnerability to weather events and global warming. These challenges demand specific measures. The ORs come under Article 349 of the TFEU, which provides for such specific measures in trade, agricultural and fisheries policies, together with access to structural funds to offset the geographic, economic and social obstacles they face.

Communication from the Commission, 17 October 2017: A stronger and renewed strategic partnership with the EU's outermost regions.

European Commission, 24 October 2017: The Outermost Regions: European lands In the world - A privileged, renewed and strengthened partnership.

European Parliament, 19 January 2018: Outermost regions of the EU: A stronger and renewed partnership.

Contact:

David Crous

Tel. +32 470 88 10 37

david.crous@cor.europa.euA flight packed full of plumbers, en route from Norway to Germany, was ironically forced to make a U-turn after the plane toilet suffered a plumbing issue.

About 85 plumbers were onboard flight DY1156 bound for Munich from Oslo, as they travelled there for work with the Rrkjp plumbing company.

But just as the plane was nearing the Swedish border, it was forced to turn around because the toilets onboard were not functioning properly.

Plumbers were eager to address the issue, but were told that it wasn't possible and that the plane would have to return after circling to rid itself of excess fuel.

"We would have liked to fix the restrooms, but unfortunately it had to be done from the outside and we didn't risk sending a plumber to work at 10,000m," Rrkjp chief executive Frank Olsen told Norwegian news website Dagbladet.

"There was a good atmosphere in the plane, what with the irony about the broken toilets."A new study has issued a hefty warning after discovering that vaping causes mutations in DNA which can lead to cancer.

Professors at New York University began exposing a human and mice bladder and lung cells to e-cig smoke and monitoring the damage it caused.

Let's face it, we all know any sort of smoking isn't going to be good for you, but finding that the cells mutated when hit by the smoke is a bit of a downer... Fuck man.

The new research by Moon-shong Tang is set to be published today which will go against the previous suggestions that vaping was healthier for you than normal smoking.

The research found that vaping does include fewer cancer causing chemicals than normal smoking but vapers could be at greater risk of lung and bladder cancers and heart diseases.



For what it's worth, e-cigs are still safer than smoking darts, but not safer than not smoking at all.

Maybe weed is more your thing? Today, Green Party's medical marijuana bill is voted on in Parliament. This vote will determine whether or not weed will finally be legalised in NZ.

Green Party's medical marijuana bill makes 'interesting' developments

Chloe Swarbrick, Green Party MP, spoke to 'The AM Show' this morn ahead of the official vote being locked in:kacylee at 31-01-2018 08:27 AM (3 years ago) (f)

Less than 2 years after their wedding, the marriage of Nigerian-born American-based entrepreneur and activist; Ambassador Dion Osagie and Winifred, is under threat as a result of repeated domestic violence. According to reports, Osagie recently beat up Winifred and locked her up against her will, in their house in Benin, Edo State, after allegedly hitting her on the head with a knife. Winifred, however, somehow sent an SMS to her brothers who had to rush down and break into the house to rescue their sister. It was gathered that the beating had been going on for long. The couple tied the knot on Wednesday June 8, 2016.

Less than 2 years after their wedding, the marriage of Nigerian-born American-based entrepreneur and activist; Ambassador Dion Osagie and Winifred, is under threat as a result of repeated domestic violence. According to reports, Osagie recently beat up Winifred and locked her up against her will, in their house in Benin, Edo State, after allegedly hitting her on the head with a knife. Winifred, however, somehow sent an SMS to her brothers who had to rush down and break into the house to rescue their sister. It was gathered that the beating had been going on for long. The couple tied the knot on Wednesday June 8, 2016.

















http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDa8-1F3UvI

Post Reply I have been reporting for several years now and I am very interested in visual news reportage with strong inclusion of photos and video multimedia. Posted: at 31-01-2018 08:27 AM (3 years ago) | Addicted Herokacylee at 31-01-2018 09:21 AM (3 years ago) (f)

Eight people have been arrested after a Nigerian student was kidnapped and killed in Cyprus. The body of a 28-year-old Nigerian student has been recovered at the Canakkale Pond near Famagusta area of Cyprus after he was reportedly kidnapped and killed.

Eight people have been arrested after a Nigerian student was kidnapped and killed in Cyprus. The body of a 28-year-old Nigerian student has been recovered at the Canakkale Pond near Famagusta area of Cyprus after he was reportedly kidnapped and killed.

According to Kibrisgercek News, the Nigerian identified as Kennedy Toomwabwa Dede was assaulted by 8 people, yesterday, kidnapped from his car, taken to the Canakkale Pond, seriously beaten and killed there.







Three Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus citizens, namely, OK (E-18), ZK (E-22) and B.C. (K-16), have been arrested in connection with the case.



The police are still investigating. According to Kibrisgercek News, the Nigerian identified as Kennedy Toomwabwa Dede was assaulted by 8 people, yesterday, kidnapped from his car, taken to the Canakkale Pond, seriously beaten and killed there.Three Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus citizens, namely, OK (E-18), ZK (E-22) and B.C. (K-16), have been arrested in connection with the case.The police are still investigating.

Post Reply I have been reporting for several years now and I am very interested in visual news reportage with strong inclusion of photos and video multimedia. Posted: at 31-01-2018 09:21 AM (3 years ago) | Addicted Heronametalkam at 31-01-2018 06:29 PM (3 years ago) (m)

Top leaders of thought from the Ijaw ethnic nationality on Tuesday converged at Kiagbodo, the country home of the Ijaw National leader, Chief Edwin Clark, to take a definite position on the raging call to restructure the country.

Top leaders of thought from the Ijaw ethnic nationality on Tuesday converged at Kiagbodo, the country home of the Ijaw National leader, Chief Edwin Clark, to take a definite position on the raging call to restructure the country.





The meeting had in attendance Chief Clark, the Governor of Bayelsa State, Hon. Henry Seriake Dickson, the Deputy Governor of Delta State, Mr. Kingsley Otuaro, former Minister of Aviation, Alabo Graham Douglas, former Minister of Police Affairs, Chief Broderick Bozimo, National Assembly members, traditional rulers and others.



Briefing journalists shortly after the meeting which lasted four hours, Governor Dickson, said that the leaders took a critical look at the issue of restructuring and took further steps to reaffirm their position that restructuring was a matter of survival to the Ijaw people.







According to Dickson, the meeting resolved that Ijaw people who are the most affected by the current situation in the country would only vote candidates with genuine and demonstrable support for restructuring irrespective of political party.







Dickson said in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media Relations, Mr.Fidelis Soriwei, that it was the position of the meeting that the next general election would be a referendum on restructuring across Ijaw land.







The next election is going to be a referendum on restructuring because it affects the well being and survival of our people. We will be with candidates who are genuinely committed to this issue of restructuring.



Dickson stated further that the leaders also commended the work of the All Progressives Congress Committee on Restructuring led by Governor Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna State, which made far reaching recommendations on the burning issue of restructuring in the country.



The leaders called on the APC and indeed President Muhamnadu Buhari to show the requisite courage to ensure implementation of the committees report before 2019 as a test of their sincerity.



The Governor said that the leaders urged Buhari to show statesmanship and the courage to commence a process of legislation to implement the partys position on restructuring.



He said that the meeting also set up a high -powered committee on the issue of restructuring and the report of the APC Committee on Restructuring.



The committee which has five representatives each from the three zones to which the Ijaw Nation is divided  the West, the Central and the East -has three weeks to submit its reports.



Leaders of Thought of the Ijaw Nation held an emergency meeting at the country home of Ijaw National Leader, Chief Edwin Clark, Kiagbodo. We have discussed a lot of issues ranging from the need for peace and stability in the Ijaw communities, the Niger Delta and the Nigerian Federation.



We have also examined the subject matter of restructuring. People shouldnt play politics with the issue of restructuring. It is about the survival and well being of our people, it is about the stability of Nigeria. It is far more beyond politics, the Ijaws are passionate about it.



We commend all Nigerians from wherever they come from who are in support of his issue of restructuring.



Concerning the recommendations of the APC committee, we call for sincere commitment, we call on the President to lead the charge to restructure the country which will lead to an equitable just and fair Nigeria.



A high powered committee had been set up on this issue of restructuring, the APC report and other matters.



Clark Who also spoke shortly after the well attended meeting stressed that restructuring was beyond politicking.



He insisted that any Presidential candidate who was opposed to restructuring would face rejection in Ijaw land during the election.



Others at the meeting were Chief Pius Sinebe, Chief Wellington Okrika, Dan Ekpebide, Chief PY Biakpara , Joel Bisina, Chief David Pere, Chief Robinson Ogunkoru, Pastor Imeleye Emmanuel, the IYC President, Rowland Pereotubo, Bishop Godwin Soroaye, Graham Douglas, Prof Dagogo Fubara, Nimi Briggs, Pr. Steve azaiki, Chief Francis Doupkolagha, Chief TK Okorotie, Justice Francis Tabai , Prof. Dimie and others.



A press statement issued after the meeting which reinforced the peoples position on restructuring was signed by Chief Broderick Bozimo, Alabo Tonye Graham Douglas, Chairman Bayelsa Elders Forum Chief Francis Doukpola, former President of the Ijaw National Congress, Prof. Dimie The meeting had in attendance Chief Clark, the Governor of Bayelsa State, Hon. Henry Seriake Dickson, the Deputy Governor of Delta State, Mr. Kingsley Otuaro, former Minister of Aviation, Alabo Graham Douglas, former Minister of Police Affairs, Chief Broderick Bozimo, National Assembly members, traditional rulers and others.Briefing journalists shortly after the meeting which lasted four hours, Governor Dickson, said that the leaders took a critical look at the issue of restructuring and took further steps to reaffirm their position that restructuring was a matter of survival to the Ijaw people.According to Dickson, the meeting resolved that Ijaw people who are the most affected by the current situation in the country would only vote candidates with genuine and demonstrable support for restructuring irrespective of political party.Dickson said in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media Relations, Mr.Fidelis Soriwei, that it was the position of the meeting that the next general election would be a referendum on restructuring across Ijaw land.The next election is going to be a referendum on restructuring because it affects the well being and survival of our people. We will be with candidates who are genuinely committed to this issue of restructuring.Dickson stated further that the leaders also commended the work of the All Progressives Congress Committee on Restructuring led by Governor Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna State, which made far reaching recommendations on the burning issue of restructuring in the country.The leaders called on the APC and indeed President Muhamnadu Buhari to show the requisite courage to ensure implementation of the committees report before 2019 as a test of their sincerity.The Governor said that the leaders urged Buhari to show statesmanship and the courage to commence a process of legislation to implement the partys position on restructuring.He said that the meeting also set up a high -powered committee on the issue of restructuring and the report of the APC Committee on Restructuring.The committee which has five representatives each from the three zones to which the Ijaw Nation is divided  the West, the Central and the East -has three weeks to submit its reports.Leaders of Thought of the Ijaw Nation held an emergency meeting at the country home of Ijaw National Leader, Chief Edwin Clark, Kiagbodo. We have discussed a lot of issues ranging from the need for peace and stability in the Ijaw communities, the Niger Delta and the Nigerian Federation.We have also examined the subject matter of restructuring. People shouldnt play politics with the issue of restructuring. It is about the survival and well being of our people, it is about the stability of Nigeria. It is far more beyond politics, the Ijaws are passionate about it.We commend all Nigerians from wherever they come from who are in support of his issue of restructuring.Concerning the recommendations of the APC committee, we call for sincere commitment, we call on the President to lead the charge to restructure the country which will lead to an equitable just and fair Nigeria.A high powered committee had been set up on this issue of restructuring, the APC report and other matters.Clark Who also spoke shortly after the well attended meeting stressed that restructuring was beyond politicking.He insisted that any Presidential candidate who was opposed to restructuring would face rejection in Ijaw land during the election.Others at the meeting were Chief Pius Sinebe, Chief Wellington Okrika, Dan Ekpebide, Chief PY Biakpara , Joel Bisina, Chief David Pere, Chief Robinson Ogunkoru, Pastor Imeleye Emmanuel, the IYC President, Rowland Pereotubo, Bishop Godwin Soroaye, Graham Douglas, Prof Dagogo Fubara, Nimi Briggs, Pr. Steve azaiki, Chief Francis Doupkolagha, Chief TK Okorotie, Justice Francis Tabai , Prof. Dimie and others.A press statement issued after the meeting which reinforced the peoples position on restructuring was signed by Chief Broderick Bozimo, Alabo Tonye Graham Douglas, Chairman Bayelsa Elders Forum Chief Francis Doukpola, former President of the Ijaw National Congress, Prof. Dimie

Post Reply I specialize in investigative reportage across several subject matter and sectors but mainly focus on metro events and investigation. Do leave your thoughts and opinion on my reports to let me know what you think about them. Thank you Posted: at 31-01-2018 06:29 PM (3 years ago) | Herokacylee at 31-01-2018 09:15 PM (3 years ago) (f)

A young Nigerian woman has taken the internet by storm after showcasing her works as a shoemaker in Lagos state.



A Nigerian woman, Miss Nkiru Emodi has left many people talking on social media after making a breakthrough in a male dominated profession. The woman who is a shoemaker and a graduate of University of Benin has shown off some of her works on social media.

A young Nigerian woman has taken the internet by storm after showcasing her works as a shoemaker in Lagos state.A Nigerian woman, Miss Nkiru Emodi has left many people talking on social media after making a breakthrough in a male dominated profession. The woman who is a shoemaker and a graduate of University of Benin has shown off some of her works on social media.





Emodi, popularly called the shoe doctor make different shoes of different sizes for men and women. Speaking about her work, the amiable lady said that her shoes are available on demand for male and female designs also in colours like  navy blue, sliver, black with touch of purple, sliver with touch of black, sliver with touch of green (very light shade), wine etc.







You can also have combinations using materials like leather, suede, patent (wetlook), and leather fabrics with it. she said.



See some of her works below:















Emodi, popularly called the shoe doctor make different shoes of different sizes for men and women. Speaking about her work, the amiable lady said that her shoes are available on demand for male and female designs also in colours like  navy blue, sliver, black with touch of purple, sliver with touch of black, sliver with touch of green (very light shade), wine etc.You can also have combinations using materials like leather, suede, patent (wetlook), and leather fabrics with it. she said.See some of her works below:

Post Reply I have been reporting for several years now and I am very interested in visual news reportage with strong inclusion of photos and video multimedia. Posted: at 31-01-2018 09:15 PM (3 years ago) | Addicted HeroMembers of the law enforcement community in Glasgow attended a suicide prevention training course on Jan. 29. Valley County Undersheriff (and current candidate for sheriff) Luke Strommen was among the attendees.

According to Sheriff Vernon Buerkle, alcohol compliance checks are planned at area businesses in coming weeks and months. Sheriff Buerkle stressed that the checks are designed to increase compliance restricting sales of alcohol to minors. If you operate a point of sale location in Valley County, this means you. Despite a public notice on the subject, a number of area businesses were cited for violations during last years checks. VCSO and the Glasgow Police Department are cooperating with the Montana Highway Patrol to conduct checks in the area.

A rollover crash involving a single vehicle was reported north of Glasgow on Highway 24 on Jan. 29, around 8 p.m. There were no fatalities, but alcohol may have been a contributing factor in the accident.Missouri River Country Tourism Region of Fort Peck received grant funds in the amount of $28,000 from Governor Bullock on Jan. 19, through the Tourism Grant Program at the Department of Commerce, Office of Tourism and Business Development.

Missouri River Country is Montanas northeastern tourism region, covering Garfield, McCone, Phillips, Valley, Sheridan, Daniels, Richland and Roosevelt counties as well as the Fort Peck Indian Reservation. The funds are planned to be utilized in order to redesign their website to better promote tourism and recreation in these counties.

The Tourism Grant Program awards funds to projects that strengthen Montanas economy through the development and enhancement of the states tourism and recreation industry. Visitors from out of state add billions of dollars to Montanas economy, which directly support our communities, small businesses and people, said Governor Bullock in a press release. By investing in our tourism and recreation resources, we will maximize our ability to attract and serve the visitors who drive one of Montanas leading industries.

In total, Governor Bullock awarded $750,000 in grant funding to develop and enhance tourism and recreation in 27 Montana communities across the state.

To learn more about the Tourism Grant Program, visit marketmt.com/grants. For more information on Missouri River Country, visit http://www.missouririver.visitmt.com.Editors note: The most recent addition to the list of candidates for Valley County Commissioner is Jim Uphaus. Check back for more candidate profiles in coming weeks.

We have another newcomer to local politics. His name is Mike Carney. As former business owner and Boy Scout of America volunteer, Carney is looking to take a new direction in life by running for the Valley County Commissioner seat. Anyone that knows him, knows they can call him anytime they need a hand. Even though he has zero experience in public office, Carney says he is ready for the challenge and plans to bring his varied experience to the table. And experience is not something he is short on.

Carney is a Glasgow native who has spent most of his life living on the Hi-Line. He started his own business in Malta in 1989, with MJs Trading Post and eventually sold his business to work for the Boy Scouts of America (BSoA). Working with the Boy Scouts of America as a professional, he has traveled all over northern Montana from Fort Kipp to Glacier. During that time, he was district executive and district director for the BSoA. In terms of administration, it doesnt seem much different than what the county commissioner is responsible for, as Carney was accountable for setting and implementing policy throughout his district and responsible for organizing training and events. This experience could prove invaluable to Carney if he were to be elected.

Even though he hasnt run for office before, public service is part of his character. After leaving the professional side of the BSoA, he continued to volunteer his time to teach upcoming Scouts and help uplift his community as a whole. He even did a little teaching in Nashua. He is well rounded in his experiences and not ignorant of his faults. Running for office isnt something he is done before, and he admits he is nervous. Because he is a newcomer, he isnt trying to cause any waves and make sweeping changes. Carney doesnt claim to have all the answers but is willing to learn what is needed to accomplish the job. As he put it, There are two sides to every story. By listening to the concerns of the county, Carney is confident he can make informed decisions to benefit the county as a whole.

Despite being out of his element as he describes, I believe Carney is well suited for the job. He has the right temperament and genuinely cares about his community. His lack of experience in public office can be offset by his years of administrative experience. Now he must get out and convince us why he is the best for the job. And the competition is fierce. With two qualified challengers, it wont be easy for Carney, but his candid approach and warm personality should serve him well. Just dont be surprised if you cant get him to stop talking. Remember your advice Carney, Talk, but listen.

The filing deadline for open county positions is March 12.The election cycle is picking up steam and campaigning is well underway. While it is important to pay attention to what each candidate has said, it is also important to look at what each candidate has done. This proves more true for an incumbent candidate like Jon Tester. As one of our state's senators, he has a large presence on the national scale for Montana. Has he truly fought for what is in the best interest of Montana and its citizens? What are his plans moving forward for our state and our nation? And most importantly, is he really the right person to represent Montana in the U.S. Senate? These are the questions that must be asked about all of our representatives on every political level.

Integrity is one of the most vital aspects of public service. Transparency is the only way to ensure our elected officials actually represent the citizens. As a founding member of the Senate Transparency Caucus, Tester has been leading the fight in D.C. to reign in the flow of dark money into our government. He successfully sponsored an amendment to the 2017 Legislative Branch Appropriations Bill, which requires U.S. Senate candidates to file their campaign finance reports electronically to make reports available to the public sooner. Tester already does this, being the first senator in U.S. history to post his public schedule online. The American Library Association recognized Jon Tester as one of the most transparent members of the Senate and awarded him the James Madison award for his efforts in the fight for public access to information.

Throughout his record as a senator, there are many examples of Tester fighting for Montana values. He has successfully fought repeated attempts by the government to sell public lands during budget debates. He passed legislation to give our communities more control over their local schools. As a former educator, he continues to fight for public education and affordable college for the youth of Montana. Even more recently, Tester pushed back against Verizon for its decision to eliminate contracts and remove rural customers from its network. Without coverage, many families in rural areas like the Hi-Line would lose access to emergency services. Verizon, ultimately, reversed its decision to terminate its service to rural areas after receiving pressure from the senator.

We must always hold our representatives to a high standard. Not only must they be a political warrior for us, but also a leader. Earlier this month, Tester presented his #EmployMT plan to strengthen American businesses, cut red tape, and boost infrastructure investments and workforce training. Tester believes we need a modern infrastructure in order to remain a global leader. By investing in our roads, bridges, rail, and water systems, many jobs can be created for workers in Montana and across the nation. The rise of good-paying jobs would bolster our economy and our updated infrastructure would net-save money. Tester said he will introduce the Berry Amendment Extension Act to require the Department of Homeland Security to purchase American products, guaranteeing jobs for American workers.

Jon Tester has proven his commitment to Montana's citizens and the values he represents. He remains an outspoken voice for Montana in the Senate and continues to stand by his promise of integrity and transparency.Interoute cloud heads to Sao Paulo, Brazil

January 2018 by Marc Jacob

Interoute has announced the launch of new services in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The site is Interoutes first in South America, and will deliver a range of connectivity solutions in collaboration with local partners, as well as host a new Interoute Virtual Data Centre (VDC) zone. This latest addition to Interoutes platform builds on its existing Americas presence in Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Washington.

As customer demand for Interoutes services continues to grow, Sao Paulo provides an entry point into the rapidly developing emerging markets in South America. The city is ranked by the Global Cities Index as the South American leader in business activity.

The new site in South America demonstrates Interoutes commitment to increasing its global footprint by adding yet another continent to its platform reach, following its recent announcement for Sydney, Australia.

With services in Sao Paulo set to go live in the first half of 2018, Interoutes global network will now connect 128 major cities across 31 countries on 5 continents. Interoute offers a global ICT infrastructure platform that supports the secure integration of enterprise legacy IT with digital environments. The Interoute Enterprise Digital Platform brings improved application performance to the enterprise. It combines a fast global fibre optic network with a software defined core, a global cloud computing platform, and edge SD-WAN & security devices for connecting sites, offices and branches, to optimise enterprise data traffic flows across the world.Switzerland First Nation to Unveil Threat Intelligence Sharing Group, Powered by Anomali and Security Interest Group Switzerland

January 2018 by Marc Jacob

Anomali, the provider of threat management and collaboration solutions, powers the first Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC) in Switzerland. This is in collaboration with Security Interest Group Switzerland (SIGS), which unites security professionals from every organisation across the country in the fight against cybercrime. The SIGS ISAC will enable businesses to benefit from each others threat intelligence, with high volumes of valuable data distilled in real-time into actionable insights to mitigate risks.

Intelligence sharing is imperative in order to achieve a greater understanding of the entire cyber security environment. I am determined to help all Swiss organisations thrive with a threat intelligence collaboration platform that will bring together insights from multiple industries for the ultimate defense against malicious actors.

My goals are to shift organisations from feeling forbidden to talk about cyber security to openly engaging with peers, as well as increase the numbers of professionals in the sector, and expand their capabilities by learning from each other. Time and resources can be saved and a significant amount of value added by not reinventing the wheel all the time. At present, theres still a real lack of information sharing and I hope this platform will bridge any concerns and provide a valuable source to better protect businesses, said Gabi Gerber, Founder of Security Interest Group Switzerland.

Switzerlands government initiatives are largely focused on critical infrastructure (GovCERT.ch). This leaves all other organisations without access to essential cyber threat information and analysis, exposing them to malicious activity. To benefit everyone, the SIGS ISAC opens up cyber threat intelligence to all organisations, including smaller businesses that will now be able to access the right resources and data to help mitigate their cyber risk.

The SIGS ISAC is powered by the Anomali ThreatStream platform, which operationalises threat intelligence from hundreds of sources, automating collection and integration. This enables security teams to identify and respond to threat actors and tactics more efficiently. While the sharing and collaboration of the ISAC will mean organisations can apply additional context to intelligence, and contribute attack vectors that could mean the difference in someone else being penetrated. Proprietary information can be kept private and members can choose to anonymise data for guaranteed confidentiality. The platform will also be delivered on-premise to abide by Switzerlands strict data exchange laws, which cannot be held in the cloud.

We are delighted to be supporting SIGS on its drive to educate and enhance Switzerlands fight against cybercrime. The power of community cannot be underestimated in the cyber security world. Threat intelligence from all sources, private and public, and data shared by peers makes for the most relevant and contextual data to build the ultimate defense strategy against adversaries, commented Colby DeRodeff, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Anomali.VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 30, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cannabis Wheaton Income Corp. (d/b/a Wheaton Income) (TSX-V:CBW) ("Wheaton Income" or "Wheaton" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into a binding interim agreement (the Agreement) with Inverell S.A. (Inverell), pursuant to which Wheaton will purchase 80% of the issued and outstanding common shares on a fully diluted basis of Inverell.



Inverell is a federally licensed Cannabis Operator based in Montevideo, Uruguay and was founded by Dr. Raul Urbina. Dr. Urbina completed his post-graduate studies in Molecular Biology at Princeton University and Agronics at the University of Almeria in Spain and possesses broad experience managing high-tech agricultural projects with a strong innovation component. His experience also includes founding Stevia One where under his leadership as Chief Executive Officer, the company became the lowest cost producer of Stevia in the world, expanded its field under production up to 1000 hectares in 5 years and achieved the highest purity with the highest yields in the market. Pursuant to the Agreement, Dr. Urbina will remain as CEO of Inverell and leader of the Innovation Department of the Company.

Inverells Cannabis Operator license (the License) allows it to cultivate and harvest its proprietary hemp strain (RU) which contains approximately 0.5% THC and up to 8% CBD. Inverell also possesses a prime genetic bank and three additional hemp strains with variations of higher CBD and lower THC concentrations. Inverell currently has 16 hectares (approximately 1.72 million square feet) planted which is estimated to be harvested in April 2018. Inverell has another 574 hectares available for cultivation for a total of 600 hectares (approximately 60 million square feet).

The License also permits Inverell to plant up to 5 hectares of its proprietary genetics for the purposes of producing feminized seeds. In addition, Inverell has applied for a license to conduct research and development on various forms of cannabis and expects to receive the necessary governmental and regulatory approvals in short order.

Pursuant to the Agreement, the shareholders of Inverell are entitled to receive aggregate consideration of USD$15,000,000, to be paid as follows:

USD$2,000,000 in cash on closing of the transaction (the Closing); USD$3,562,500 payable in common shares in the capital of Wheaton (the Common Shares) on Closing; and USD$9,437,500 payable in Common Shares upon the achievement of certain milestones, including the successful registration of Inverells cannabis genetics and the successful exportation of CBD products.

Hugo Alves, President of Wheaton, stated: We are incredibly excited to work with Dr. Urbina and his team in Uruguay. This transaction helps us secure a significant amount of CBD-rich hemp production that can be exported to other federally legal jurisdictions for further processing into nutritional and pharmaceutical products. We expect to see a significant increase in global CBD demand over the course of the coming years and believe that low-cost jurisdictions with favorable climates for outdoor cultivation will be key sources of CBD supply. As we continue to execute our international strategy, we are thrilled to have identified Inverell as our first international production operation.

Chuck Rifici, Chief Executive Officer of Wheaton, stated: This transaction serves as our first entry into Latin America and provides our platform with a diversified source of low-cost CBD production for our international distribution channels. We believe that Dr. Urbina and Inverells experience in large scale commercial cultivation will be a significant competitive advantage for our domestic operations, especially when outdoor cultivation is permitted in Canada.

Raul Urbina, Chief Executive Officer of Inverell, stated: We are very excited to start this new adventure with a company that shares our values and vision and that will allow us to help deliver cannabis products under our 3 'P' philosophy: People, Planet, Profit.

The transaction remains subject to certain conditions precedent including receipt of applicable regulatory approvals and the execution of a definitive agreement.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

"Chuck Rifici" Chairman & CEO

About Wheaton Income. (TSX.V: CBW)

Wheaton Income is a collective of entrepreneurs with a passion for the cannabis industry past, present and future. Our mandate is to facilitate growth for our partners by providing them with financial support and sharing our collective industry experience. Our partners all have different visions, voices and brand values, and all share a common goalto build a world-class industry based on ethics, diversity, quality and innovation.

About Inverell S.A.

INVERELL  innovation beyond imagination - was founded by Dr. Urbina in February 2017 and has a committed team with a passion for innovation. Inverell has already achieved the creation of various strains, a genetic bank, growth protocols, in vitro propagation protocols, massive seed propagation protocols and innovative and more efficient organic extraction processes.

Stay Connected:

For more information about investing in Cannabis Wheaton, please visit: http://www.wheatonincome.com

or contact our investor relations team at: 800.980.1314 or IR@wheatonincome.com. Follow up on Twitter @WheatonIncome.

Media Contact:

Sarah Bain, VP External Affairs

Email: sarah@cannabiswheaton.com

Phone: 613.230.5869

Notice Regarding Forward Looking Statements:

This news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "continue", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "may", "will", "potential", "proposed" and other similar words, or information that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. This information is only a prediction. Various assumptions were used in drawing the conclusions or making the projections contained in the forward-looking information throughout this news release. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to: the ability to consummate transactions which are currently in discussions, the Companys ability to obtain all requisite regulatory approvals for the production and export of cannabinoid based products from Uruguay and/or import of such products to other federally legal jurisdictions, the Companys ability to produce various cannabinoid based products in a cost-effective manner, or at all, and to successfully cultivate and harvest outdoor hemp crops in Uruguay, regulatory or political changes domestically and abroad, competition and other risks affecting the Company in particular and the cannabis industry generally. Forward-looking information is based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the information is made, and is subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking information. The Company is not under any obligation, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation, to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable law.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.Politicians from both political parties reacted angrily to news of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's plan to end shipment of emergency food and water supplies to storm-battered Puerto Rico. On Tuesday, several lawmakers called on the agency to reverse its decision.Details of FEMA's plan  which the agency said would take effect Jan. 31  were first reported by NPR. In addition to ending new shipments to the island, the agency said it would turn the food and water that remained over to the Puerto Rican government, which would distribute them until stocks ran out.Speaking on the Senate floor, Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson said he was "absolutely shocked" by FEMA's decision. "I urge the administration to reverse this disastrous decision immediately and to continue providing the people of Puerto Rico with the help that they need as they are trying to recover from two disastrous hurricanes."His concerns were echoed by Democrats and Republicans alike, including Democratic Rep. Nydia Velazquez of New York and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.serves as the Level 1 trauma center for all of Western New York. The 550-bed hospital hosts the regions HIV care and burn units, and is the teaching hospital for the University of Buffalo.In the early morning hours of Sunday, April 9, 2017 -- a quiet time of day when large hospitals like Erie Countys are nonetheless buzzing with activity -- hackers infiltrated the medical centers computer systems. The screens went blank, replaced by a pop-up message that read, What happened to your files? Hospital staffers could get their data back, the message said, but it would cost them: 24 bitcoin, the cybercurrency that, at the time, was equivalent to about $30,000.Hospital leadership acted quickly. They determined that they wouldnt pay the ransom. Instead, they shut down the entire computer system, following protocol that had been put in place for a massive power outage. Doctors, nurses and other staffers relied on more rudimentary systems such as pen and paper until they could get back online safely.That didnt fully happen until six weeks later. Rebuilding the network -- and suffering from some lost revenues during the recovery period -- cost the hospital nearly $10 million.Erie County wasnt a sitting duck. In fact, the hospital had recently undergone a risk assessment for cyberthreats and had tweaked different parts of its system to make them more secure. It had upgraded its cybersecurity insurance from a $2 million annual plan to $10 million. (That insurance means the hospital wasnt on the hook for most of the recovery costs after the attack.) In terms of security, the hospital was actually rather advanced, says CEO and President Thomas Quatroche. Our cybersecurity team said they would have rated us above-average before the attack.Many other hospitals across the country have been victims of a similar hack. MedStar Hospitals -- a Washington, D.C.-based chain -- was forced to shut down its computer systems for days after getting hit by a cyberattack in 2016. Princeton Community Hospital in West Virginia had to revamp its entire network after a global cyberattack hit its medical records system. Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles decided to pay the $17,000 its hackers requested after the hospitals computers were taken over.Ransomware in general has rapidly become an extremely lucrative operation: In 2015, according to FBI reports, cybercrime victims paid about $24 million to unlock their computers after an attack. By 2016, that number had hit $1 billion. Cyberattacks have become an omnipresent threat. High-profile hacks of companies from Equifax to Uber to Target to Sony Pictures have made it clear that all sorts of data are vulnerable. Credit scores, Social Security numbers, email addresses, credit card numbers. Everything.But the health-care sector finds itself in a special predicament. Health data can be extremely valuable: National reports suggest that while credit card numbers can be sold by hackers for 10 to 15 cents apiece, a medical record can fetch between $30 and $500. People dont think of their health data with the same urgency they would their checkbook, says LeRoy Foster, chief security officer at Advocate Health, an Illinois-based health system. But if I get your health-care data, I get everything. I get insurance information, I get part of your financial info and your pharmaceutical information.At the same time, health-care systems are often complex and fragmented, and the health sector in general lacks the kind of across-the-board standardization that, say, the banking industry has. Experts say most hospitals and health systems are trying their best. But as the threats keep shifting, health IT has had to get more nimble -- something its not very good at.If the spotty, halting implementation of electronic health records over the past decade has taught IT experts anything, its that health data is uniquely tough to lock down. If the industry cant figure out an easy way to get health records online, then it also isnt going to be easy to create systems that secure the data. There is no standard for what health records look like. Every single different health records system has a different format and process, says Teri Takai, the former CIO of California and Michigan, as well as the former CIO for the Department of Defense. (Takai is now the executive director of the Center for Digital Government at e.Republic, Governings parent company.) Takai recalls working once for a small insurance company focused on Medicaid, and she says she was struck by how many small, regional health-care firms were out there, each with their own way of doing things. Theres such fragmentation, she says.Part of that fragmentation comes from just how sprawling health care is. Under the giant umbrella of health care are insurance companies, Medicaid, thousands of hospitals, private practices and health departments -- each holding different bits and pieces of a persons medical history. That sprawling nature is why getting health data online at all has been a struggle. Today, more than 80 percent of doctors and more than 90 percent of hospitals use electronic health records, but thats largely attributed to financial incentives from the Obama administration. And moving records online is only the beginning: A 2015 survey from the American Medical Association found that only 34 percent of providers were happy with their own electronic health records.Health data also doesnt lend itself well to standard security measures like automatic logouts and two-step verification. Doctors already complain that accessing relevant information when theyre in front of a patient can take more than 20 clicks of a mouse. Adding more onerous security measures would require extra time that doctors and nurses often dont have. You have hundreds of people who need to access things fast, says Andrew Boyd, an assistant professor of health information sciences at the University of Illinois, Chicago. You cant have automatic logouts after 15 seconds -- youre adding several minutes to a procedure. If you put up too many barriers, that can hurt patients.that theres been little help from government, particularly from Washington, to protect health-care systems and help them stay in front of emerging threats. The federal government is really good at helping the financial sector on cybersecurity, says Quatroche in Erie County. There really is no support system from the feds for hospitals. Its quite the opposite. He adds, There needs to be some recognition that we were victims of a crime.State legislatures are slowly trying to address cybersecurity needs. But their efforts usually arent targeted to health care, and policy experts say they need to do more. A bill introduced in Ohio in October would offer businesses a legal safe harbor from penalties of a breach, as long as they had some kind of cybersecurity program in place. Thats a good first step, because a large number of breaches go unreported or unresolved simply because providers do not know what steps to take, says Mitchell Parker, executive director of information security and compliance at Indiana University Health. ZDNet, a business technology news site, reported in 2013 that about half of data breaches go unreported. The New York Department of Financial Services last year mandated that all financial institutions must have in place a cybersecurity program approved by the state. That requirement wasnt directly related to health care, but its an approach that a state health department could copy, says Thomas MacLellan, director of policy and government affairs at Symantec. During their annual meeting in August, members of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners discussed adopting New Yorks policy for every state, although it would have to be approved by state legislatures first.A good place for states to start is just making sure they fund cybersecurity insurance and training in public hospitals and health departments. More than a dozen states require cybersecurity insurance, though there is currently no national or legal standard for what the policies should protect. Having an adequate insurance plan is what allowed the Erie County Medical Center to weather its attack last year. Is it burdensome? Yes, Quatroche says. But its the reality now.The problems can be especially acute for rural hospitals. Many of those facilities have been struggling financially for the past decade, with declining populations, sicker patients and more people relying on Medicaid, which doesnt pay as well as private insurance. Its tough to tell small hospitals to maintain a million-dollar cybersecurity insurance plan when they can barely keep their doors open as it is. The attack that blindsided Erie County could have decimated other medical centers that didnt have the same resources, Quatroche says. If youre a rural hospital, that could have closed you.MacLellan says he encourages health systems to contract IT work offsite through a cloud system if they cant afford to hire someone on their own. After all, what business are you in? Are you in health care or are you in cybersecurity? he says. When you look at some of these smaller hospitals, can they afford to bring someone on, or should you contract it out?The stakes are high in any data breach. But health-care attacks can be particularly scary. Along with putting sensitive health records information at risk, hospital cyberattacks could impact doctors ability to deliver care to their patients. Delayed surgeries, postponed tests and canceled prescriptions are all very real threats. As technology continues to evolve, health experts say theres a new looming concern: the security of medical devices. Hacking into insulin pumps or anesthesia machines or a whole host of devices could have extremely dire consequences. Ransomware of patient data is one thing, says MacLellan. But imagine you get a text saying your pacemaker is being held ransom in exchange for 100 bitcoin.Ultimately, says Takai, its an issue of proper management. This isnt a technology problem, its a business leadership problem she says. Think of it like a disaster plan. How would you recover? What will you tell people?And health-care departments cant treat cybersecurity as an afterthought, says Boyd at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Theres this permanent new cost that can be tempting to waive to balance a budget. But there will always be new threats, he says. Health-care IT needs to be a permanent line item.The Nevada board that regulates gambling announced Tuesday that it was opening an investigation into sweeping claims of sexual misconduct by casino mogul Steve Wynn.The announcement by the powerful Nevada Gaming Control Board came four days after The Wall Street Journal published a story that chronicled decades of sexual harassment allegations against Wynn.Becky Harris _ who became chairwoman of the board a week ago and is the first woman to hold that job _ said Friday that the board was reviewing the information about the allegations. Now it is taking the next step."After completing our review the Nevada Gaming Control Board is conducting an investigation with regard to the allegations of sexual misconduct involving Steve Wynn," Harris said in a statement Tuesday. "The Nevada Gaming Control Board will conduct its investigation in a thorough and judicious manner."The board could take a variety of steps once it completes its investigation, including levying heavy fines against Wynn and holding an open or closed hearing to determine whether he should lose his gaming license.Wynn, 76, has two high-profile properties on the Las Vegas Strip _ Wynn and Encore _ with the former bearing his famous signature as its emblem. He also plans to build West Wynn across the street from those two properties, adding 2,000 to 3,000 rooms to his empire.Wynn and Encore count more than 4,700 rooms between them and have about 186,000 square feet of casino space.The allegations sent the stock price of his company tumbling from about $200 a share before the revelations came out to about $171 Tuesday. The Wynn Resorts board of directors has announced that Patricia Mulroy _ a member of the board and former member of the state gaming commission _ would lead an investigation against its chairman."The board is deeply committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of all of the company's employees and to operating with the highest ethical standards," it said in a statement.Wynn also resigned as the Republican National Committee's finance chairman.But he has been defiant about the allegations and in a statement accused his ex-wife, Elaine Wynn, of orchestrating the campaign against him amid a bitter divorce."The idea that I ever assaulted any woman is preposterous," the statement said. "We find ourselves in a world where people can make allegations, regardless of the truth, and a person is left with the choice of weathering insulting publicity or engaging in multiyear lawsuits. It is deplorable for anyone to find themselves in this situation."Elaine Wynn's lawyers have said she was not behind The Wall Street Journal report, which the newspaper said was the product of interviews with 150 people.The Gaming Control Board's investigation could lead to a complaint process that involves the state attorney general. It could also hold a deposition-like process, with witnesses called for a hearing to determine Wynn's fate.Wynn is also being investigated by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission in light of the sexual misconduct allegations. It is meeting Wednesday to discuss Wynn's future, including his company's $2.4-billion Wynn Boston Harbor project, currently under construction."The commission is profoundly aware of the gravity of this matter and will proceed with the appropriate sense of urgency and rigor," spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said in a statement.Wynn is one of the most powerful casino owners in Las Vegas, moving to the city in the late 1960s from the East Coast and renovating the Golden Nugget. Decades later, he built the Mirage and Bellagio before selling Mirage Resorts to MGM Resorts International.Pointing to economic stagnation and a culture of official corruption, state Senate Republican Deputy Majority Leader John DeFrancisco on Tuesday announced his bid to seek the Republican nomination for governor.Surrounded by family, friends and supporters in his home district outside Syracuse, DeFrancisco said New Yorkers "deserve a leader they can trust and one who will fight for what is right for them and their families."He's the third Republican so far to get in the race to challenge Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat seeking a third term.Also seeking the GOP nomination are state Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb of Canandaigua and former Erie County Executive Joel Giambra.Like Kolb, DeFrancisco has been a critic of Cuomo's policies, including the governor's economic development strategies for upstate.He reiterated that critique on Tuesday, saying Cuomo "uses his economic development office for political gain. He thinks economic development is one big game of Monopoly -- except it's your money he's playing with."Like other upstate Republicans, DeFrancisco focused on the economic struggles facing much of the region, which is dotted with Rust Belt factory towns and farming communities. "People are fleeing this state," he said.A Syracuse University graduate and attorney, DeFrancisco was first elected to the Senate in 1992.DeFrancisco referenced the ongoing federal corruption trial of Joe Percoco, a former top Cuomo aide facing bribery charges alongside two Syracuse-area development executives.Republicans may have an uphill fight against Cuomo, given the Democrats' more than 2-to-2 voter registration edge and the more than $30 million that Cuomo has in his campaign fund.Still, supporters were hopeful on Tuesday.State GOP Chairman Ed Cox deployed a phrase made famous during Republican George Pataki's 1994 campaign against Gov. Mario Cuomo, who was defeated that year after three terms: "For the sake of New Yorkers, this year we must elect 'Anyone But Cuomo.' "Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour was arrested for having a loaded handgun at the Jackson-Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport in Jackson on Jan. 2, according to the Associated Press.The Transportation Security Administration told the AP a .38 caliber revolver, loaded with five bullets, was spotted in an x-ray machine at a security checkpoint. Police later arrested Barbour, who has since said he'll pay a fine. The fine for having a loaded gun at an airport checkpoint begins at $3,920.Barbour told the AP he was boarding a flight from Jackson to Washington and forgot he was carrying the gun in his briefcase."This was absentmindedness and nobody's fault but mine," Barbour told the AP.Barbour served as Mississippi's governor from 2004-12 and was the Republican National Committee chairman from 1993-97. Prior to that, he was a lobbyist in Washington D.C.Gov. Greg Abbott is in the process of replacing two top officials at the scandal-plagued juvenile justice agency that is still adjusting to a new executive director who took the helm last month.Wes Ritchey, a county judge in Dallam County, is taking over for current Texas Juvenile Justice Department board chair Scott Fisher, Abbott announced Monday. A day later, the chief ombudsman, Debbie Unruh, sent an email to central office employees announcing her resignation, officials confirmed."This is a really sad day for youth in Texas," Lindsey Linder, a policy attorney with the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, said upon learning of Unruh's departure.The changes at the top come on the heels of a sex abuse scandal that prompted the governor to send in the Texas Rangers for a "detailed investigation" at the Gainesville State School, where one guard was recently convicted and three other employees arrested for allegedly having sexual relationships with incarcerated youths. At the same time, the agency has struggled with chronic understaffing and repeated assaults."They are being run by the bullies and the gangs, and the employees are working in an environment of fear," state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, said in December.Last month, the board hired Camille Cain, Abbott's criminal justice director, to take the helm as executive director following David Reilly's retirement. At the time, top aides said Abbott was unhappy that faster actions had not been taken to stem the problems.In a letter congratulating Cain on her on the new gig, the governor promised the "egregious" abuse would be "dealt with to the fullest extent of the law" and expressed hope for reducing the juvenile prison population.The agency has already begun reviewing certain assaultive inmates for possible transfer to adult prisons and, at the same time, reinstated release criteria that could send better-behaving offenders home to their communities."The goal over time would be to reduce our population by approximately 250 to get to where we needed to be to be safe, based on the number of staff we have available," TJJD spokeswoman Carolyn Beck said this month.Ritchey joined the board one year ago and currently serves as its Finance and Audit Committee chair. As the current Dallam County judge, he hears juvenile cases for the county and serves on the Dallam-Hartley-Sherman County Juvenile Probation Board. He's a former Dalhart ISD trustee and certified juvenile probation officer.It was not immediately clear how Unruh's departure came about, Beck said.Unruh's departure email offered best wishes to the agency and indicated the governor would be appointing a replacement immediately. She'd been with the independent ombudsman office for seven years.The ombudsman, an office reporting to the governor and the legislature, is responsible for investigating abuse allegations at the state's juvenile facilities, a role that Linder highlighted as a critical part of agency oversight."She has demonstrated an unfailing commitment to transparency," Linder said. "It's largely because of Debbie's efforts that we know the extent of the issues happening in TJJD."What Can Kiosks Do for You?

1. Provide event information and directions

3. Translate information into multiple languages

4. Improve access for people with disabilities

Overcrowded message boards. Outdated directories. English-only menus.Walk into almost any courthouse or government office across the country, and you're likely to encounter all of those headaches and more. But not in San Francisco.What's the Golden Gate city's secret? Touchscreen kiosks. Recently, San Francisco prototyped digital kiosks to be installed in its city hall.Now, instead of using static directories to navigate the building, San Franciscans can use the kiosks to search through listed rooms, change languages and see upcoming events. City employees, meanwhile, update the content as needed. Completely paperless, the kiosks make it easy for both staff and citizens to get and give the information they need.Of course, the project wasn't without its challenges. Because San Francisco's city hall is a historic building, there were limitations around what the kiosks could look like, where they could be installed, and whether the associated areas had accessible power and Internet hookups.Perhaps rules and regulations have stopped other governments from springing for touchscreen kiosks. But for a small investment, these machines more than pay for themselves through added convenience and information access.State and local governments on the fence about installing similar kiosks should consider the following capabilities that make it worthwhile to take the plunge:City halls see plenty of visitors, not to mention the dozens of government employees who work there. Weddings, meetings, dinners and other events take place within those halls, and anyone who isnt intimately familiar with the layout has to flag down an employee for help. Then, that employee  whose job probably isn't to give directions to confused visitors  has to turn to old directories for answers.Kiosks free up city staff's time by displaying lists of events that visitors can't miss. People can walk up to the screen, tap what they want to see, and then receive information on where and when the event is.Although San Francisco's kiosk doesn't yet provide turn-by-turn event directions, it should soon via a product road map that includes a mapping function. The technology is already used at interactive kiosks in shopping malls. The concept is the same: People in a large place need to know where to go, and digital kiosks provide that information in an intuitive, interactive format.Most government buildings contain static directories that were installed years ago, which can be even more frustrating than paper documents to update. From department moves to personnel changes, reprinting large boards is a time-consuming and expensive process.Touchscreen kiosks, however, are as easy to update as a Facebook status. Through content management systems, city employees can log in and update information, and all the kiosks will be updated immediately  no need to take down, reprint or rehang anything.In San Francisco, local regulations outlined strict rules about languages and translations of signs. While printing translated signs (and keeping them updated) is a hassle, digital services make it easy to improve translations and add languages as populations change.The protoype used a Microsoft translation service, which programmatically requests translations when admin users update the CMS. Although these auto-translation services are far from perfect, they are much easier and more reliable than asking staff members to update translations manually.Stipulations by the Americans with Disabilities Act greatly influenced the kiosk design as well. If, for example, someone in a wheelchair needs to locate a wedding at City Hall, that person deserves the same level of access to the kiosk as everyone else.In terms of interface design, that means positioning interactive elements in the right places. The San Francisco kiosk was placed used the ADA Accessibility Guidelines, and ultimately an ADA Mode was added to the kiosk for people who needed touchable items to be lower.In an age when we turn to smartphones for our every need, stacks of paper and static directories no longer provide an acceptable level of service. By adding touchscreen kiosks, governments can meet citizens' needs today without worrying about what tomorrow will bring.(TNS)  CLEVELAND, Ohio  Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland State University have received a $1.75 million grant from the Cleveland Foundation to launch the IoT Collaborative - an effort focused on the "internet of things."The internet of things refers to items connected wirelessly so they can communicate and make data-based decisions. The term also describes devices connected to the web.Experts estimate that the IoT will consist of about 30 billion objects by 2020, excluding smartphones, tablets, and computers, according to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.The two universities formed the partnership to expand research and educational opportunities in this emerging technology in May 2017.Last November, a team of faculty and staff at the two institutions received a $100,000 one-year planning grant from the National Science Foundation to determine what the internet of things will mean for small and mid-sized businesses in several Cleveland neighborhoods.The Cleveland Foundation grant will help the universities attract top academic talent, create research labs on their respective campuses and formally establish the IoT Collaborative organization, according to a joint statement . The grant builds upon a $250,000 planning grant awarded by the foundation in January 2017 as part of its Digital Excellence Initiative.CSU said the funding is for this year and the collaborative intends to seek additional funding from the foundation in future years.CSU and CWRU will collaborate on research programs, research assets, cross-registered courses and community engagement.CSU will leverage its strengths in technology development, social and applied sciences, cybersecurity, and business.CWRU said the partnership with CSU dovetails with an effort the university launched in March 2016 to create the Institute for Smart, Secure and Connected Systems to advance IoT research."This work has the potential to be economically transformative if we are able to take a global leadership position on this critical aspect of the IoT revolution while leveraging Cleveland's history as an industrial and manufacturing powerhouse," Cleveland Foundation President and CEO Ronn Richard said in the news release. "We applaud this game-changing collaboration between Case Western Reserve and Cleveland State and we hope our support will help spark additional sources of funding to get this initiative quickly online."CSU President Ronald Berkman said the partnership already has led to new relationships and early successes."It is imperative that we build the research infrastructure, both in terms of talent and a supportive environment, to establish Cleveland at the forefront of this rapidly growing and evolving sector," he said in the release.The IoT Collaborative will focus primarily on manufacturing, energy and health care, as well as infrastructure initiatives."The possibilities for Northeast Ohio are extraordinary, among them enhanced patient care, increased factory efficiency, and improved local infrastructure and services," CWRU President Barbara Snyder said in the release. "Just as important, we also will prepare leaders to seize the opportunities inherent in an increasingly digital economy."The colleges will seek additional support from federal and state grants, traditional fundraising through alumni and other donors, research agreements and other local and national foundations."IoT already has been a tremendous driver for Eaton in areas including energy and lighting, and it will continue to do so moving forward," Michael Regelski, a senior vice president at Eaton said in the release. "The Cleveland IoT Collaborative will allow other companies and the nonprofit sector to quickly adapt and embrace this burgeoning technology - and to seize the opportunities that result."(TNS) - Public safety officials will soon be able to microtarget areas for cell phone alerts during natural disasters after the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday approved changes to the nations emergency communications system.The approved upgrades to the Wireless Emergency Alerts system will allow public safety officials to send alerts to all the cell phones in areas as small as one-tenth of a mile in radius -- or about the size of Minute Maid Park -- once the new rules are adopted by the November 2019 deadline also approved by the FCC.Previously, alerts could only be sent to all cellphones in a specific county -- a problem that was laid bare by Hurricane Harvey and the historic California wildfires."When disaster strikes, it's essential that Americans in harm's way get reliable information so that they can stay safe and protect their loved ones," FCC Chairman Ajit Pai wrote in a statement Tuesday. "Overbroad alerting can cause public confusion, lead some to opt out of receiving alerts altogether, and, in many instances, complicate rescue efforts by unnecessarily causing traffic congestion and overloading call centers."The unanimous vote is a huge win for officials in disaster-prone areas across the country, who in the wake of a historic year of natural disasters had warned that the current system was woefully inadequate and could, in some instances, unnecessarily push otherwise-safe people into harms way.During Harvey, for example, the Harris County Office of Emergency Management largely decided against deploying the wireless alerts, fearing the messages would confuse residents who were not actually in danger. With 911 systems overloaded during the worst of the storm, officials instead had to rely on social media and mobile phone applications like Nextdoor to communicate with residents in small, specific pockets of the county."I would have loved to have been able to draw a polygon around Buffalo Bayou and say, 'Hey, water is being released, expect water to rise,'" Francisco Sanchez, Harris County's deputy emergency management coordinator, said earlier this month. "But because I didn't have that granularity, that message would have gone countywide."Officials in Sonoma County, California cited similar concerns in defending their decision not to deploy the wireless alerts as wildfires ravaged the area late last year.The FCC vote also delivers a blow to wireless carriers, who had for years lobbied against new rules that they said would be expensive and could potentially overload their networks.However, in the wake of the costliest natural disaster season in United States history, a bipartisan group of leaders had loudened their call for upgrades to the alert system.California Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris earlier this year urged Pai to approve the upgrades.Texas Rep. Pete Olson, R-Sugar Land, voiced similar demands in the wake of Harvey."Almost 11 years (after Hurricane Katrina), we continue to witness event after tragic event where an effective and reliable emergency alert system could have saved lives," he wrote in a Sept. 27 opinion column for the Houston Chronicle. "As we are in hurricane season and face more natural and man-made disasters in our future, our citizens deserve and need a device-based public alert system now that will deliver timely and accurate information to those who find themselves in harm's way."Hamilton Bean, a University of Colorado-Denver professor who's studied wireless alerts extensively, called the Tuesday vote "a step in the right direction."But, he added, the "device-based geo-targeting" that allows for more precise alerts is only one of the many issues faced by emergency managers.He said the FCC should next consider allowing longer alerts that can include hyperlinks or other useful information."Our research team found that short messages can be confusing and fear-inducing  not really a surprise," he wrote in an email Tuesday. "If you watch online videos of people in Hawaii getting the false alarm WEA, it supports what social science research has determined over and over again: You need to tell people what to do to protect themselves."2018 the Houston ChronicleVisit the Houston Chronicle at www.chron.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.Miscommunication between the HI-EMAs midnight shift supervisor and the day shift supervisor resulted in a drill being run without adequate supervision.

The midnight shift supervisor started the drill by playing a recording that deviated from the agencys drill script because it incorrectly included the words, This is not a drill.

The day shift warning officer who triggered the false alarm said in his written report that he failed to recognize the exercise was a drill because he had not heard the script words, exercise, exercise, exercise, although other warning officers had.

When the false alarm was happening, HI-EMA did not have any procedures that required warning officers to double check with a colleague before double-clicking a live-alert prompt, which did not offer the warning officer an opportunity to review the text.

The state conducted an atypical number of no-notice drills, increasing the potential for error.

Alert-origination software didnt differentiate between tests and live alerts and wasnt hosted on separate domains or applications.

HI-EMAs reliance on stored templates made it too easy for the warning officer to click through the alert origination without sufficient focus.

HI-EMA had not anticipated the possibility of issuing a false alert and wasnt prepared to issue a correction.

HI-EMA was overwhelmed by calls, some of which didnt get through.

Gov. David Ige delayed sending out social media notification because he forgot his Twitter password.

(TNS) - The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency worker who triggered panic by sending a false ballistic missile alert to phones across the state on Jan. 13 believed the state was actually under attack, according to a preliminary investigation released today by the Federal Communications Commission.Gov. David Ige and HI-EMA officials, in several public explanations on the false alarm, have never revealed that the agency warning officer actually thought a missile attack was imminent, instead saying that he pushed the wrong button or selected the wrong option from a drop-down computer menu.FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and staff discussed the Jan. 13 event in a preliminary report during this mornings commission meeting in Washington, D.C. While a final report has yet to be issued, their initial probe has revealed that poor planning, inadequate technology and a series of errors from multiple people contributed to and exacerbated the button pushers mistake.According to the FCC findings presented in Washington today, a shift supervisor initiated a drill of the missile alert system by pretending to be U.S. Pacific Command and played a recorded message over the phone.The recording began by saying exercise, exercise, exercise, language that is consistent with the beginning of the script for the drill, according to the FCC investigator. After that, however, the recording did not follow the Hawaii Emergency Management Agencys standard operating procedures for this drill. Instead, the recording included language scripted for use in an Emergency Alert System message for an actual live ballistic missile alert. It thus included the sentence this is not a drill. The recording ended by saying again, exercise, exercise, exercise.According to a written statement from the day shift warning officer who initiated the alert, as relayed to the Bureau by the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, the day shift warning officer heard this is not a drill but did not hear exercise, exercise, exercise,  the FCC reported. According to the written statement, this day shift warning officer therefore believed that the missile threat was real. At 8:07 a.m., this officer responded by transmitting a live incoming ballistic missile alert to the state of Hawaii.The male warning officer, HI-EMA officials revealed last week, is not cooperating with either the FCC or internal investigations into the Jan. 13 event.Pai said in a statement, In my view, here are the two most troubling things that our investigation has found so far: (1) Hawaiis Emergency Management Agency didnt have reasonable safeguards in place to prevent human error from resulting in the transmission of a false alert; and (2) Hawaiis Emergency Management Agency didnt have a plan for what to do if a false alert was transmitted.Every state and local government that originates alerts needs to learn from these mistakes, Pai continued. Each should ensure that it has adequate safeguards in place to prevent the transmission of false alerts, and each should have a plan in place for how to immediately correct a false alert.The public needs to be able to trust that when the government issues an emergency alert, it is indeed a credible alert. Otherwise, people wont take alerts seriously and respond appropriately when a real emergency strikes and lives are on the line, Pai said.Pai and FCC staff discussed the Jan. 13 event and the preliminary report during this mornings open commission meeting in Washington. While a final report has yet to be issued, so far, their probe has revealed that poor planning, inadequate technology and a series of errors from multiple people contributed to and exacerbated the button pushers mistake.FCC investigators identified the following key errors:The FCC said it was pleased that the agency already has taken steps to ensure that a similar incident never happens again, but said there is more work to be done.At todays hearing in Washington, FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said the false ballistic missile alert in Hawaii should be a wake up call for all stakeholders involved in emergency communications.We cannot simply dismiss this as being an inadvertent mistake that only public officials and Hawaii need to address, Clyburn said. This incident should serve as a catalyst to review their emergency alert process. Every community should be doing more to prevent an issuance of a false alert.Clyburn said if and when a false alert is ever sent again, the technical capability to immediately send a correction should be in place and the protocols on how to go about that should be clearly defined.2018 The Honolulu Star-AdvertiserVisit The Honolulu Star-Advertiser at www.staradvertiser.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.When writing military plans, it was always wise to separate phases of an operation by specific achievable objectives. For instance, Phase II will begin when our forces reach across the river. In the case of FEMA and Puerto Rico, the decision to end the distribution of food and water is a bit more fuzzy.See this NPR story on the decision to end food and water distribution,For anyone without power and drinking water, they are definitely still in the response phase. It would seem more logical that those areas without power and water should receive special consideration for continued distribution of supplies.Perhaps FEMA is saying that the mission is now for the Puerto Rico emergency management to accomplish. So be it  but imagine yourself being without commercial power or drinking water for five months. I'm surprised there isn't more outrage  but we who have had water and power for the last five months have moved on with our lives.Rebuilding

(TNS)  A higher gas tax and new fees for alternative-fuel vehicles are among the ways America can pay for a major overhaul of its outdated infrastructure  and create jobs in the process, says a bipartisan group that includes U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty.This will put people to work, and everybody knows we need to do it, said Esty, a three-term Democrat who co-chairs the U.S. House Problems Solvers Caucus Infrastructure Working Group. We think there is narrow window of a couple months to do this, so we are going to push very hard to get it done.Esty is referring to recommendations in the groups new report that include modernizing not only highways and bridges but also power plants, water systems and broadband networks - especially in rural America.Although most infrastructure money comes from the states, the House members recommendations were welcomed by one Connecticut group for putting the focus on the countrys future.Taxes cant always be an evil word, said Kevin Maloney, the communications director of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities. The state of Connecticut is still very fiscally challenged, so we have to look at alternative ways to fund infrastructure projects.As anyone whos endured Fairfield County rush hour knows, Connecticut is at an infrastructure crossroads. For years, the state has delayed upgrades to roads and bridges while millions of dollars in dedicated transportation funds are spent by the legislature to close gaps in the budget.Gov. Dannel P. Malloy had proposed a $100 billion transportation plan over the next three decades, but that initiative was undercut earlier this month when the outgoing Democrat suspended $4 billion in road improvement projects in greater Danbury and across the state.At the same time, the nation has fallen behind on repairs, in part because Congress has raided infrastructure funds to solve its own budget problems and in part because the 18 cent-a-gallon gasoline tax has not been raised since 1993 and no longer pays for the nations annual highway needs.Unless Congress makes changes, the federal Highway Trust Fund will be $2 trillion in the hole by 2025, Estys report says.The good news is that if one issue unites Republicans and Democrats in Washington, D.C., its infrastructure, Esty said.President Donald Trump made headlines last year when he proposed a $1 trillion infrastructure program over 10 years. He has said in published reports that he would consider raising the gas tax to pay for it. Trump plans to unveil details of that plan next month.Esty said a fully funded federal highway program would help Connecticut.If we appropriately fund it, that will help Connecticut because there will be more money for projects, Esty said. The federal match for highways generally is 75 to 80 percent.The state Department of Transportation had not reviewed Estys report by Friday.We appreciate the congresswomans interest in transportation, DOT spokesman Kevin Nursick said. It is important to have this focus, particularly with the issue we face with the highway special transportation fund.A Republican member of Estys working group, U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker, tells the story of a bridge in his district in southeast Pennsylvania.Each day the school bus stops at the bridge to let the children out. The bus then crosses the bridge empty, since any more weight on the bridge would be dangerous. The children cross on foot, and then climb back into the bus.That story underscores the kind of issues we are all facing, Esty said. That is not what a great country does.Esty and the Republican co-chair of the infrastructure group, Rep. John Katko of New York, spent four months analyzing the practices surrounding federal infrastructure and looking for areas where there might be support from the White House and both parties.In addition to new user fees and regulatory reform, the group said that government accountability was vital to building a 21st century infrastructure.Specifically, provisions need to be passed to ensure that money raised by new user fees is spent on highway improvements, Esty said.You cannot collect user fees and then not use them for what you collected them for - that just erodes public confidence and makes it hard to get support for the revenue you need to have, Esty said. It is very important to have public confidence.(TNS)  Despite recent major data breaches or hacks from companies such as Equifax or Gmail, Iowa State University Associate Professor of Informations Systems Rui Chen said people still do not seem to be overly concerned with their online security, a trend he believes is growing and could place consumers at further risk of hackers.The trend is known as "data breach fatigue," and Chen and his colleagues at the University of Texas at San Antonio are working to better understand the behavior. According to Chen, data breach fatigue results in many consumers not changing their passwords or signing up for identity theft protection, despite the increased risk."We need more attention from all different parties, consumers, industry, government, law enforcement," Chen said. "We need a lot of joint efforts from different stakeholders to combat this data breach fatigue."According to ISU, Chen and his colleagues received funding from the National Science Foundation to study public response to the 2015 data breach at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which affected 21.5 million people. Chen and his team examined more than 18,000 tweets posted on Twitter over a two-month period that included the hashtag "#OPMHack." According to ISU, the two-month period started with public notification about the breach and included five significant events, such as the OPM director's resignation.The results from the study showed a drop-off rate after the news first broke of about 35 percent, which near the end of the two-month period was around 84 percent, meaning that consumers were no longer engaged on social media and commenting on the breach.With so much personal information stored online, Chen said breaches have become the norm for consumers, and this breach fatigue has created constantly growing opportunities for cyber criminals."When an incident happens, when a data breach incident goes to the media, people read that news and they start to lose interest," Chen said. "They take it as a new normal in today's society."According to Ames Police Cmdr. Geoff Huff, data breaches resulting in stolen credit card numbers or identity are difficult to investigate."It actually is kind of hard to narrow it down because it happens all the time and so many different ways," Huff said. "There are just so many ways that people are getting our personal information, that it's really hard to narrow it down to do this or do that and you'll never be the victim because I don't think we can probably say that."Both Chen and Huff said that responsibility comes down to the individual. With hackers constantly finding new ways of obtaining personal information, Huff suggested consumers make sure everything looks in order, and take extra caution when a site or email seems untrustworthy."Every day you hear about data breaches, and our information is in so many places in the online world that it really does get to the point where you figure, 'I'm probably just going to be the victim sooner or later so what am I going to do?'" Huff said. "But at the end of the day, I think it's just about being vigilant about your own information and trying to check on those things occasionally."Chen said breaches do not only come in the form of stolen credit card numbers, as hackers have hit medical facilities, government agencies and email providers to obtain other personal information."Anymore, people target biodata," Chen said. "We know that everything is circulated around the black market, and that's not just credit cards but like fingerprints, for government agencies their personal records, background check records. Everything is there and everything has a pricetag."According to Chen, the breach fatigue also gives legislators less incentive to put laws in place to help combat data breach and hackers, as it becomes a less urgent matter. Chen said that cyber laws are already been one step behind, as technology is constantly advancing, making regulation difficult."Given the history of so many other big profile breaches in the past, and also the widespread fatigue, the chance of quick action may be low," Chen said. "It may be a sad consequence out of the breach fatigue."Chen said that he and his colleagues believe that data breach fatigue can be combated. He said the responsibility relies on the consumers, who should be constantly checking their bank and credit card statements for fraudulent charges, stop posting personal information on social media, stop responding to "phishing" emails, and take the opportunity to use or renew ID protection services."If a company provides a victim 12 or 18 months of ID protection services for free, guess what, some people will say that 12 or 18 months is a long time, so they're protected," Chen said. "Well that's not really too much time. Social Security numbers will not change after 18 months, so that's really not enough time to protect you."Chen said that while there is no guarantee against being hacked, any proactive measure is better than not taking any action at all."People can do a lot of things just to help," he said. "It may not prevent subsequent ID theft, but it really helps to reduce the chance that bad things will happen."Former F1 driver Robert Doornbos has played down hopes of a Dutch grand prix revival.

In recent days and weeks, off the back of Max Verstappen's meteoric popularity, Zandvoort and Assen have indicated their desire to bid for a grand prix of The Netherlands.

But Dutchman Doornbos insisted: "The chances are still small.

"Zandvoort has estimated the costs and Charlie Whiting has inspected the track in Assen, so that is positive news," he told Ziggo Sport Totaal. "But you cannot forget about the competition.

"There are already so many European races and this year there are even three in a row -- in France, Austria and the UK," the former Red Bull and Minardi driver said of the controversial F1 'triple header'.

"There are also several other countries that want grands prix," said Doornbos. "However, the F1 leadership are very enthusiastic about Verstappen, so it is possible."

(GMM)Niki Lauda has denied that he is beginning to pull away from formula one.

Throughout the team's ultra-successful 'power unit' era, the F1 legend has been Mercedes' F1 chairman alongside team boss Toto Wolff.

But Lauda will no longer be an expert TV pundit for the German broadcaster RTL in 2018, and in recent days he made a successful bid to buy back his airline Niki.

Asked if it means he is scaling back his F1 involvement, the 68-year-old Austrian said: "Why? Nothing changes.

"As always, I will be at every grand prix and involved at Brackley as often as necessary," Lauda told Speed Week.

His fellow Mercedes chief, Toto Wolff, agrees: "Niki's work on our supervisory board was never in question. There are no problems at all."

(GMM)Artificial intelligence is a core competency in the development of automated driving. We are expanding our expertise in the area of Deep Machine Learning to enable automated driving and to support our Vision Zero  a future without accidents. Karl Haupt, head of Continentals Advanced Driver Assistance Systems business unit

The Budapest Competence Center for Deep Machine Learning will be integrated in an existing Global Software Factory network with other development locations inside the Advanced Driver Assistance Systems business unit. The focus topic in the new site will be Deep Machine Learning for embedded and safety-critical real-time software applications.

The Advanced Driver Assistance Systems business unit has been using Machine Learning and neural networks for many years. Due to massively increased computing power in the new camera platform MFC 500 (multi-function camera), Continental is able to use deep neural networks on a large scale. Complex traffic situations can be captured more precisely. A comprehensive understanding of the scenes is a big step closer towards automated driving.

Intelligent vehicles need to have an understanding of the intended actions of all of the surrounding traffic. In complex driving scenarios, decisions need to be taken on the basis of not just one object or one sensor, and not just in environments that can be predicted very well. Automated Driving needs to work safely at all times and under all circumstances. This complexity can become difficult to handle, e.g. in terms of design, implementation and test.

Deep Machine Learning based methods will add value to help with the handling of this complexity on the different levelsfrom environmental sensing through driving strategy planning to actual vehicle control. Deep Learning methods are scalable, which means more available data and more computing power will lead to more performance.Vehicular networks, especially for autonomous driving applications, must offer ultra-reliability while requiring very low latency. Given the conflicting nature of these dual requirements and the unpredictability of the mobile wireless channel, a real-time experimental testbed where researchers can prototype their ideas is essential. The planned testbed for this collaboration will be built on NIs flexible software defined radio (SDR) hardware and a 5G New Radio URLLC reference design.

James Kimery, director of wireless research and SDR marketing at NI, said that researchers in both industry and academia are using NIs flexible SDR platform to further the research and test of 5G communications.Jonas Cullwick, a former General Manager of VBTC is now a Senior Journalist with the Daily Post. Contact: jonas@dailypost.vu. Cell # 678 5460922Weddings are joyous occasions-until you get the bill. According to financial site WalletHub, the average spends over $33,000 on a wedding, and growing wedding industry is worth about $81 billion. But some places are more expensive than others.

WalletHub compared 182 U.S. cities to find "the cheapest and most convenient wedding destinations that also promise a memorable day." The site looked at factors like average wedding cost, venues, event spaces per capita and hotel availability.HARTFORD  The House and Senate on Wednesday quickly overrode Gov. Dannel P. Malloys veto on Medicare Savings Program funding for about 90,000 Connecticut seniors and disabled. It took the House less than 15 minutes, while the Senate debate and vote lasted about eight minutes.

Lawmakers admitted that they will revisit the overall funding issue, especially the second year of the popular savings program, in the budget-setting session that starts February 7.A few years into his career selling Seattle real estate, Matt van Winkle reached a crossroads: He could continue as an independent agent or build a bigger office where he could mentor other agents. In our market, theres an assumption that if youre independent, youre a discount agent, he says. I wanted a lot of support and technology, and I wanted a brand everyone knew but was underrepresented in this area.

Related: 8 Proven Ways to Make Money in Real Estate

He found both of those qualifications in RE/MAX, the 45-year-old franchise, whose hot-air balloon is an instantly recognizable corporate symbol. Van Winkle opened his office six and a half years ago, and now, at age 34, hes Washington states highest-grossing RE/MAX broker, with an impressive 235 agents working out of his firm.

These are the success stories RE/MAX loves to tout, as it transforms the careers of brokers nationwide. RE/MAX opened 59 new U.S. franchises in the first quarter of 2017, and it promotes growth by supporting brokers like Van Winkle with website design templates, a mobile app, and that priceless brand recognition -- and in turn, brokers bring in and mentor new talent. Its a winning model that offers outstanding customer service and a strong global brand that has led the industry for more than 40 years, says co-CEO Adam Contos. The company saw 12.5 percent revenue growth in 2017. By the second quarter of 2017, the total number of RE/MAX agents had grown by 5.7 percent from the year before, to more than 116,000.

Related: 5 Reasons Why Real Estate Is a Great Investment

For Van Winkle, being a broker-owner means spending less time at open houses and closing meetings. To be successful in a large market like his, he says, brokers cant sell real estate and keep up with the demands of recruiting and supporting agents. The brokerage owners I know who are the most successful? None of them sell real estate.

For more on franchises, check out 2018's Franchise 500 list.

Related:

How Fast-Growing RE/MAX Keeps Attracting New Realtors

As a Franchisee, You Can't Be the Investor AND the Manager and Still Be Successful

24 Surprising, Bizarre and Delicious Fast Food Items From Across the Globe



Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com

U.S. prosecutors told a judge they want to drop a federal corruption case against Sen. Robert Menendez rather than retry him after a divided jury failed to reach a verdict last year.

The decision lifts a legal cloud over the New Jersey Democrat as he faces re-election in November and represents a quiet surrender by prosecutors who pursued a criminal case against him for five years.

"From the very beginning, I never wavered in my innocence and my belief that justice would prevail," Menendez said in a written statement. "I am grateful that the Department of Justice has taken the time to reevaluate its case and come to the appropriate conclusion. I thank God for hearing my prayers and for giving me strength during this difficult time."

The Justice Department said it abandoned the case after U.S. District Judge William Walls ruled last week that the trial evidence and testimony persuaded him that Menendez was not guilty on four criminal counts. Walls left in place other bribery and fraud charges but bowed out of the case. The retrial had been assigned to U.S. District Judge Jose Linares.

Linares held a 15-minute status conference with lawyers in the case on Wednesday morning, and prosecutors filed their motion to dismiss the case less than an hour later, court records show.

"Given the impact of the court's Jan. 24 order on the charges and the evidence admissible in a retrial, the United States has determined that it will not retry the defendants on the remaining charges," Justice Department spokeswoman Nicole Navas Oxman said in a written statement.

A trial would have been a major political liability for Menendez, a leading Hispanic lawmaker, as he prepares for a re-election campaign in which he is favored and faces no major Republican challenger.

Even if he had been convicted and forced to step down, the seat would likely have remained in Democratic hands because it would be filled by New Jersey's new Democratic governor, Phil Murphy. Republicans hold a 51-49 majority in the chamber, where Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has called for an Ethics Committee investigation of Menendez.

Menendez and his co-defendant, Salomon Melgen, a wealthy Florida eye doctor accused of bribing the senator in exchange for political favors, have maintained their innocence since the investigation began in late 2012. During an 11-week trial that ended Nov. 16 with a hung jury, defense lawyers had argued that the two men were close friends who had no corrupt intent. Melgen faces sentencing for a separate fraud conviction in Florida.

Kirk Ogrosky, a lawyer for Melgen, said: "Five years ago today, FBI agents started this ill-fated adventure that destroyed my client's life when the raided his office in West Palm Beach. Dr. Melgen is now and has always been innocent of the charges brought in New Jersey. He did not ever give anything to his best friend of over 20 years with an expectation that he would get something in return.

"We take no pleasure in seeing justice done at this stage in a case that should never have been brought," Ogrosky said. "All that said, justice today is better than continuing on to inevitable acquittals on the remaining counts. We hope that this type of meritless case is never again brought by DOJ."

After the mistrial, one juror said the panel had favored acquittal on most of the 18 counts by a 10-2 margin. He said that prosecutors failed to persuade him that the men had engaged in bribery.

Walls acquitted Menendez and Melgen of seven of the 18 counts in their indictment. He dismissed three counts of bribery against Menendez and three against Melgen that involved more than $750,000 in political contributions benefiting the senator's 2012 re-election campaign. Walls ruled that prosecutors failed to meet a higher legal standard for campaign contributions: that they were exchanged for a specific action.

The senator was still accused of taking bribes in the form of private jet travel and a Paris vacation in exchange for pushing the doctor's business interests at the highest levels of the U.S. government. He also faced a false-statements count.

The decision to abandon the case didn't surprise Robert Mintz, a former U.S. prosecutor.

"Any time you have a political corruption case that doesn't include a cooperating witness, you've got a difficult case to prove," Mintz said. "There were no wiretaps, conversations, videos or cooperating witnesses. Those are typically the pillars on which a public corruption case is built. So it was always to going to be difficult for prosecutors."

Another former U.S. prosecutor, Lee Vartan, said that the case was weak from the start and that the Justice Department shouldn't have pursued a retrial. Prosecutors lacked smoking-gun evidence and failed to prove a corrupt bargain between the senator and the doctor, he said.

"Anyone who works in this world was surprised this case was brought," he said. "This is the way things work in Washington. This case was almost criminalizing the political process."

Menendez attorney Abbe Lowell, who clashed often with prosecutors and Judge Walls during the trial, said the Justice Department "made the right decision to end this case" and that Menendez never wavered in his innocence.Federal Bureau of Investigation(WASHINGTON) -- In the weeks before special counsel Robert Mueller's team interviewed Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Justice Department turned over a cache of internal correspondence, including documents related to Sessions' thwarted resignation last year and emails with the White House about fired national security adviser Michael Flynn, ABC News has learned.



Details of what the Justice Department has now provided to Mueller's team, which is investigating whether President Donald Trump sought to obstruct a federal inquiry into connections between his presidential campaign and Russian operatives, reflects how widely investigators are looking for evidence of such a crime.



ABC News reported in November that Mueller's office was interested in obtaining internal emails related to the firing of FBI Director James Comey and the earlier decision of Sessions to recuse himself from the entire matter, but at the time it was unclear what other type of information Mueller's office might have been seeking.



Comey was fired in May of last of year, and days later Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel.



In an Oval Office meeting after Mueller's appointment, Trump told Sessions he should resign, prompting the attorney general to submit a letter of resignation, according to The New York Times. But Trump ultimately rejected the resignation after advisers warned against it in the wake of Comey's firing, the newspaper reported.



A month after that episode, Trump moved to have White House aides fire Mueller but backed off after White House counsel Don McGahn threatened to resign, according to a report in The New York Times last week.



Emails and other documents produced within the Justice Department during that time, including emails with White House officials, have now been sent to Muellers office, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.



Sessions and Rosenstein both played key roles in Comey's high-profile removal.



To publicly bolster the controversial move, the White House released two memos written separately by Sessions and Rosenstein, with both faulting Comey for his handling of the FBI's probe into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server when she was secretary of state.



During a House hearing last year, Rosenstein refused to say whether he consulted with the White House before Comey's firing or whether anyone asked him to write his memo, insisting such questions "may well be within the scope of the special counsel's investigation."



The special counsel has already secured charges against four Trump associates, including Flynn.



Flynn was fired only weeks into the Trump administration after thenActing Attorney General Sally Yates informed White House officials that Flynn lied to them about his contacts with Russian officials, according to what Yates told lawmakers last year.



Referring to the Justice Department, she testified, "We believed Gen. Flynn was compromised in regards to the Russians" and could be blackmailed by the Russians."



Yates said she privately brought those concerns to the White House, and Flynn has since pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, acknowledging that before Trump's inauguration he spoke about U.S. sanctions against Russia with Russia's then-ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak.



The Justice Department has now provided Muellers team with internal documents related to the matter, according to the source with knowledge of the matter.



As ABC News previously reported, Muellers team also asked former senior Justice Department officials for information from their time at the department.



Meanwhile, Sessions has faced public criticism from Trump over his recusal and Rosenstein's subsequent appointment of Mueller.



At one point last year, Trump told reporters he wouldn't have nominated Sessions to run the Justice Department had he known Sessions would give up oversight of the investigation.



In announcing his recusal, Sessions said he and "senior career department officials" spent "several weeks" discussing whether his role as top foreign policy adviser to Trump's presidential campaign last year meant his "impartiality might reasonably be questioned."



Such internal discussions have been turned over to Mueller's team, ABC News was told.



Sessions was interviewed by Mueller's team two weeks ago, and Rosenstein was interviewed last summer, according to Justice Department officials.



Court documents indicate that in the wake of Flynn's guilty plea, the former national security adviser is now cooperating with Muellers investigation, which has already netted another guilty plea and an indictment against two Trump associates.



Former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his time with the campaign. In court documents, he admitted telling Sessions and Trump during a 2016 meeting that he was working with Russians to orchestrate a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.



In addition, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and his former business partner Rick Gates have been indicted on money-laundering and other charges tied to their previous lobbying efforts. They have pleaded not guilty.



Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.ZTC

Build it and they will come. This is what New Lab hoped would happen after it cost more than $30 million to design its community space.

Based in Brooklyn, N.Y., the collaborative office space opened its doors in late 2016 and was not nearly filled to capacity. This could kill a business but New Lab managed to overcome this challenge and flourish.Yes. I will do my part to conserve household energy usage, even if I'm uncomfortable in my home.

No. It is too hot to conserve household energy usage.

I already conserve, even before ERCOT requested it.

Maybe, depending on the reason ERCOT provides and whether or not I am home during that time.

Vote

View ResultsRousset heads to Champagne for first in wine tour series

By Rob Brown

Master sommelier and restaurateur Xavier Rousset is preparing to host a guided tour of Champagne that will include tastings, blending sessions and access to the regions most prestigious producers.

Guests will be treated to a blending session, tour and lunch at Gosset before being given a private behind the scenes tour of Champagne Tattinger in Reims.

They can also expect Michelin star food at the restaurant La Briqueterie, a gastronomic dinner at Champagne Lallier and a tasting session at AR Lenoble.

The tour, which takes place from the 8 to 10 March, will be the first of a series guided trips Rousset plans to conduct this year, with other excursions planned in Alsace, Burgundy and Piedmont.

Late last year Rousset founded wine club Pinot & Chardo, giving members discounts on fine wine, access to winemakers dinners and tastings and other wine related perks.

Rousset began his career at Hotel du Vin, where he served as the groups chief sommelier from 1999 to 2004. In 2002 he became the worlds youngest master sommelier.

In 2004, he joined Raymond Blancs Michelin-starred Le Manoir aux QuatSaisons as head sommelier before becoming a restaurateur in 2007 with the opening of Texture in Marylebone.

Texture went on to win a Michelin star and within three years Rousset had opened 28-50 Wine Workshop & Kitchen on Fetter Lane, before expanding into several sites around London.

In 2016, he opened Blandford Comptoir in the Marylebone, then Cabotte in the City, with fellow master sommelier Gearoid Devaney, and Mayfairs Comptoir Cafe & Wine in April 2017.

The Champagne tour is priced from 595 per person based on two people sharing, with discounts available for Pinot & Chardo members.

Email Sabrina at wine@pinotandchardo.co.uk or visit www.pinotandchardo.co.uk/travel for more details.







Tre Bicchieri heads to London

By Rob Brown

As UK sales of Italian wine continue to boom, some of Italys top winemakers are converging in London next week for Tre Bicchieri Grand Tasting.

The event will include two masterclasses giving insight into the booming Italian wine market and the announcement of the red, white and sparkling Italian wines of the year, judged by 60 tasters to values set by Gambero Rosso, publisher of the Vini dItalia guide books.

For the first time the event will showcase a selection of value Italian wines that can be purchased in Italy for less than 13 a bottle.

In the first eight months of 2017, the value of UK imports of Italian wine hit 494m, a year on year rise of 8.3%, said the events organisers. The UK is the second biggest market for Italian wine, which commands the second greatest share of the market after Australian.

A key driver of Italian wines growth in the UK has been exploding sales of Prosecco in recent years. According to Kantar Worldpanel figures, supermarket sales of Prosecco surged by nearly a third in 2016 and have continued to soar.

Last year, The Co-operative Group said that it had its best ever year in terms of wine sales, thanks in no small part to its four Prosecco lines, which accounted for 65% of its sparkling wine sales. Aldi said its Prosecco sales had doubled.





The Tre Bicchieri Grand Tasting is coming to the Royal Horticultural Halls on Thursday, February 8, from 12pm  6pm.

Visit www.winetecalondon.co.uk for more information.











Hawaii: Trigger Modification Ban & Other Anti-Gun Bills Scheduled To Be Heard in Committees

From NRA-ILA, Tuesday, January 30, 2018

On Thursday, February 1st, the Hawaii state Senate Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs will be considering Senate Bill 2046 and Senate Bill 2436, and the House Committee on Judiciary will be considering House Bill 2024. Please contact members of the committees and urge their opposition to SB 2046, SB 2436 and HB 2024 by clicking the take action button below.

Also, please consider submitting testimony to the committee through the Hawaii Legislature website. In order to submit testimony, you will need to create an account. For help creating an account and submitting testimony, click here.

Senate Bill 2046 , sponsored by Senator Karl Rhoads (D-13), would make it a crime to own, manufacture, possess, sell, barter, trade, gift, transfer, or acquire a firearm accessory or any other device, part or combination of parts that is designed to or functions to accelerate the rate of fire of a semi-automatic firearm. In addition, SB 2046 would also criminalize installing, removing, or altering parts of a firearm with the intent to accelerate the rate of fire. The broad and overreaching provisions of SB 2046 could criminalize firearm modifications such as competition triggers, muzzle brakes, and ergonomic changes that are commonly done by law-abiding gun owners to make their firearms more suitable for self-defense, competition, hunting, or even overcoming disability.

Senate Bill 2436 , sponsored by Senator Clarence Nishihara (D-17), would drastically shorten the time period a prohibited person, whether temporarily or permanently prohibited, has to comply with the current requirement to surrender their firearms from 30 days to an unspecified number of hours. This expedited time period could subject an individual, who may have nothing more than allegations as the basis for the prohibition, to an unfettered search of their home and/or business within hours of being accused; all this without taking into account the many issues surrounding surrender statutes in general, including possible violations of an individuals right against self-incrimination.ACLU of Hawaii Report Shows Current Bail Practices Prioritize Wealth Of The Accused Over Risk To The Community

News Release from Hawaii ACLU, Jan 31, 2018

Honolulu, Hawaii: the ACLU of Hawaii (ACLU) has released a study showing that almost half of the people in Hawaii jails are pre-trial detainees who have not been convicted of the crimes for which theyve been accused. This preliminary report, called As Much Justice As You Can Afford  Hawaiis Accused Face an Unequal Bail System, also reveals that the average bail amount in Honolulu for the lowest level felony is over $20,000. This means the primary reason so many people wait in jail for months is because they just cannot afford to get out while waiting for trial. The report is part of an ongoing, statewide investigation and analysis of how bail practices affect our local families and communities.

Legal Director Mateo Caballero said: Bail is not supposed to be punishment. Bail is supposed to minimize the risk of flight and danger to society while preserving the constitutional rights of the accused. Instead, our early findings show that the way bail is used in Hawaii does not serve any of these purposes. Instead, bail practices regularly cause people to waive their rights just to get out of jail. That is unjust and violates the constitution.

The preliminary report is based on an analysis of six months of public data and interviews with court officials. It captures a snapshot of how bail is used in Hawaiis criminal justice system, typical outcomes for the accused, and how current practices affect overcrowding of local jails like the Oahu Community Corrections Center (OCCC). An update with a full year of data is planned for late 2018.

Executive Director Joshua Wisch added: In practice, the way bail works in Hawaii means that if youre wealthy you get out of jail while you wait for trial, and if you arent  you dont. Almost half of the people in Hawaii jails have not been convicted of the crime for which theyve been accused  theyre only in jail because they cant afford bail. We hope this report will start a discussion about how we can improve this system.

The report follows ACLU community events in Hilo and Honolulu to discuss criminal justice reform concerns. Among the reports findings, which have been provided to legislators, the judiciary, and the administration:

Money is required to bail out about 93% of the time on Oahu, 88% statewide.

Over 50% of those accused do not post bail, likely because they cannot afford it.

Of the almost 2,200 people held in Hawaiis jails on any given day, about half are pre-trial detainees and they are held at a cost of $146/day per person.

Even if eventually allowed to go free without money bail while awaiting trial, the accused in Hawaii wait in jail an average of over 90 days before that hearing even happens, when most large counties in the country are able to release arrestees in 15 days or less.

Almost 70% of accused who changed their not guilty plea to a guilty plea did so while in pretrial custody, raising serious concerns for due process, bias, and fairness.

As Much Justice As You Can Afford: Hawaiis Accused Face and Unequal Bail System

The report can be found at: www.acluhi.org/bailstudy

###

SA: Bail system treats accused unfairly

HTH: The battle over bail: Reform efforts fail despite ACLU study critical of states courts, jails(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission obtained a court order halting an allegedly fraudulent initial coin offering (ICO) that targeted retail investors to fund what it claimed to be the worlds first decentralized bank.

According to the SECs complaint, filed in federal district court in Dallas on Jan. 25 and unsealed late yesterday, Dallas-based AriseBank used social media, a celebrity endorsement, and other wide dissemination tactics to raise what it claims to be $600 million of its $1 billion goal in just two months.

AriseBank and its co-founders Jared Rice Sr. and Stanley Ford allegedly offered and sold unregistered investments in their purported AriseCoin cryptocurrency by depicting AriseBank as a first-of-its-kind decentralized bank offering a variety of consumer-facing banking products and services using more than 700 different virtual currencies. AriseBanks sales pitch claimed that it developed an algorithmic trading application that automatically trades in various cryptocurrencies.

The SEC alleges that AriseBank falsely stated that it purchased an FDIC-insured bank which enabled it to offer customers FDIC-insured accounts and that it also offered customers the ability to obtain an AriseBank-branded VISA card to spend any of the 700-plus cryptocurrencies. AriseBank also allegedly omitted to disclose the criminal background of key executives.

We allege that AriseBank and its principals sought to raise hundreds of millions from investors by misrepresenting the company as a first-of-its-kind decentralized bank offering its own cryptocurrency to be used for a broad range of customer products and services. We sought emergency relief to prevent investors from being victimized by what we allege to be an outright scam, said Stephanie Avakian, Co-Director of the SECs Enforcement Division.

This is the first time the Commission has sought the appointment of a receiver in connection with an ICO fraud. We will use all of our tools and remedies to protect investors from those who engage in fraudulent conduct in the emerging digital securities marketplace, said Steven Peikin, Co-Director of the SECs Enforcement Division.

Shamoil T. Shipchandler, Director of the SECs Fort Worth Regional Office, said, Attempting to conceal what we allege to be fraudulent securities offerings under the veneer of technological terms like ICO or cryptocurrency will not escape the Commissions oversight or its efforts to protect investors.

The court approved an emergency asset freeze over AriseBank, Rice, and Ford and appointed a receiver over AriseBank, including over its digital assets. The SEC intervened to protect the digital assets before they could be dissipated, enabling the receiver to immediately secure various cryptocurrencies held by AriseBank including Bitcoin, Litecoin, Bitshares, Dogecoin, and BitUSD. AriseCoins public sale began around Dec. 26, 2017, and was originally scheduled to conclude on Jan. 27, 2018, with distribution to investors on Feb. 10, 2018. The SEC seeks preliminary and permanent injunctions, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains plus interest and penalties, and bars against Rice and Ford to prohibit them from serving as officers or directors of a public company or offering digital securities again in the future.

The SECs investigation was conducted by David Hirsch and supervised by Jessica Magee and Eric Werner in the Fort Worth Regional Office in coordination with the Enforcement Divisions Cyber Unit. The litigation is being conducted by Timothy Evans, Christopher Davis, and Mr. Hirsch, and supervised by B. David Fraser. The SEC appreciates the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Attorneys Office for the Northern District of Texas, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and Texas Department of Banking.

Investors in the AriseBank ICO who believe they may be a victim are asked to report it to the SEC as a tip or complaint.tristanrobin said: I just this moment stopped watching because I can't stand to watch that arrogant son of a bitch applaud himself (literally) one more time.

What an arrogant fucking asshole.

I loathe him. Click to expand...

There are many "pull quotes" from DJ's SOTU address. Here's a good pair:Trump declared that he is the "opposite of an exaggerator." Of course. Everyone knows that.And he claimed that "his" tax cuts were the largest in US history. Nope, they weren't.It's the latter, the lying about something easily checked, it's this habit of Trump's. that means nothing he says can be believed. The precise Art of the Deal was declared by Kellyanne. This administration was open to using alternative facts.Constructing an alternate reality requires using alternative facts. In Alternative Factland, DJT went out, and told the people they just got the biggest tax cut ever. They were happy already over their tax cut, but knowing it was the biggest ever, that's extra special.That's what the president does in Alternative Factland, formerly the US. He tells the people the sweet lies. They feel good. He feels good. It's all so cool except for the haters.

iolo said: What was the man talking about then? He seemed to be going on and on and on about nothing when I went to sleep. Click to expand...

He began with trying to align himself with heroes who are nothing like him. I wonder if those heroes will always be proud of they were used?Least we forget, we took great pride in getting the USSR to tear down their wall. We should not take pride in building one.Police arrested a Santaquin man Tuesday on reports hed sexually abused a teenage girl.

Quinton Jones, 41, was arrested on suspicion of four counts of the second-degree felony of forcible sexual abuse. A protective order was also served against him.

Police heard reports earlier this month from a teenager who said Jones had touched her inappropriately across her body during multiple instances, according to a police report.

Jones reportedly did not want to answer any questions from police about the allegations without an attorney present.Hawaiian Airlines Bellanca

The Bellanca Pacemaker was one of the first of the great North Country single-engine utility airplanes, a tradition continued by the Noorduyn Norseman, de Havilland Beaver and various Fairchilds and Fokkers. Many Bellancas flew out their days, often on floats, in Canadas Northwest Territory and Alaska, so it might seem odd that the only flying Pacemaker CH-300 in the world now lives in subtropical Hawaii.

Theres a good reason, though: This very aircraft, a six-seat, 300- hp, 1929 monoplane with Bellancas characteristic flying strutsbroad, airfoil-shaped wing struts that, one hopes, contributed perhaps as much lift as they did dragwas Hawaiian Airlines first airplane. Eighty years after having been first put into service in Honolulu, it was shipped back to the islands by Hawaiian, totally restored and ready to again fly for the line (at least on PR and educational missions), in a remarkable example of one farsighted, 80-year-old airline taking pride in its history in an era when many carriers were born yesterday and most prefer to forget those troublesome days before airliners were called airbuses.

Few U.S. airlines are older than Hawaiian, originally named Inter-Island Airways. The Bellanca was bought new in 1929 by Inter-Island founder Stanley Kennedy, who used it not on the line but as a $3-aride sightseer, making endless fair-weather circuits over Honolulu to introduce Hawaiians to the idea of traveling by air. At the time, interisland travel was rare, but Kennedy and 12,000-plus awed Hawaiians who rode the Bellyanchor over Diamond Head created a market. Later that year, Inter-Island bought two Sikorsky S-38 amphibians and launched scheduled service, eventually between all five main islands.

Inter-Islands Bellanca, having fulfilled its mission, found its way to a productive career in, yes, Alaska, hauling freight. In 1967 it was bought for $150 as a wreck by an Oregon vintage-aircraft restoration company, Big Sky Stearman, and was largely rebuilt and flew actively through the 1980s. Big Sky completed the full, impeccable restoration for Hawaiian in 2009.

-Stephan Wilkinson

The Ultimate Upgrade

Theres a small subset of airliner enthusiasts who build mock cockpitshomemade flight simulatorsin their basements or garages, but theres an even smaller number who carefully craft replica passenger cabins, a rare hobby perhaps because traveling in an aluminum warehouse has become the 21st-century equivalent of taking the bus. After all, who wants to be reminded that getting there is no longer half the fun?

Anthony Toth, a 43-year-old air travel enthusiast, begs to differ. He has created a remarkably authentic replica of a 1970s Pan Am 747 first-class cabin in his Redondo Beach, Calif., garage, where he and his friends do their best to duplicate the heady experience of flying during jet travels golden age, when flight attendants were still called stewardesses and Pan Am international captains had one of the most envied careers on the planet.

Toths cabin reproduces the upper deck of a 747the jet-set hideaway inside the hunchback behind the cockpitthat was accessed by a red-carpeted spiral staircase. (Toth has the staircase, but he needs a taller garage to fit it under the cabin.) Pan Am headsets play recorded Clipper Class audio tracks. Drinks are poured into real glasses, not plastic cups. Authentic-looking salted almonds and peanut packs are served, and for special friends theres even a meal on heavy Pan Am dinnerware and silver, while a vintage movie unreels on a modern flat-panel screen. Toth traveled to Bangkok to buy the earphones after hearing that a trove of them had been found in Thailand, though he had to create the plastic-packaged snacks himself. He estimates that his ground-bound cabin has cost him a good $50,000, and its still a work in progress.

Toths airline obsession has been a lifelong hobby. He collected throwaway artifacts from every flight he took as the child of a well-traveled family, and saved headset sounds on a tape recorder. When he was 10, he subscribed to the Official Airline Guide, a pulp-paper collection of all the worlds airline schedules about as thick, and as interesting, as the average phone book. So what does Toth do for a living? Hes the director of global accounts for United Air Lines.

-Stephan Wilkinson

American Air Museum Poster

For the past 12 years, aviation photographer Philip Makanna has been donating his time and talent to create a yearly limited-edition collectors print to benefit the American Air Museum in Britain (located at famed Duxford Aerodrome). The 2009 print features the North American P-51D Mustang Jumpin Jacques. Its available for a donation of $35 or more to the American Air Museum in Britain (Attn: Phillippa Wray/Collectors Print), Imperial War Museum, Duxford, Cambridge, CB22 4QR, Great Britain.

Liberator 586 Comes Home

More than 60 years after it first crash-landed in the wilderness outside of Goose Bay, Labrador, Liberator 586 is finally coming home. The Consolidated B-24, once part of the Royal Canadian Air Forces No. 10 Bomber Reconnaissance Group stationed at Gander, New  foundland, flew long-range reconnaissance and convoy escort missions from the Canadian coast to Iceland during the Battle of the Atlantic. With two submarine sinkings to its creditU-341 in September 1943 and U-420 in October 1943it was the most successful of the North Atlantic Squadrons long-range aircraft.

Liberator 586 was returning from just such a mission in February 1944 with six men aboard when bad weather forced the bomber down in the woods 13 miles outside of Goose Bay. All five members of its crew survived; however, the planes lone passenger, a public relations officer, was thrown out of the aircraft and killed. Since then the wreck of Liberator 586 has rested on the spot where it landed: the wings sheared off in the crash, the fuselage open to the ravages of the elements.

Now the Avalon Historical Aircraft Recovery Association hopes to restore Liberator 586 either wholly or partially and return it for display at the North Atlantic Aviation Museum in Gander, just blocks from the base it once called home. The rarity of existing B-24smost were scrapped after the war, and fewer than 15 complete examples are known to existand the historical significance of this particular airplane make the task especially meaningful to the organization. This one is extra special because of its war record, said Darrell Hillier, project director. To be in a position to preserve an aircraft as rare and unique as this is a real opportunity.

Parts of the wreck were originally recovered in 1989 by an American restoration company, which moved sections of the fuselage and cockpit to the airfield at Goose Bay. But the provincial government intervened, claiming that the historical value of Liberator 586 determined that it should remain in the province.

Yet without the funds to move the pieces already recovered or retrieve the parts of the wreck that remained at the original crash site, the bomber lingered in limbo for 20 years, until the Avalon group was able to secure transportation for the pieces already recovered to make the trip back to Gander. The bulk of the fuselage has already been moved back to the Gander airfield.

With plans currently underway to return to the original crash site, Avalons president, Robert Maher, says the groups immediate objective is to recover the rest of the wreck, especially the wings, and then begin the long process of securing funding to undertake the restoration. When its complete, he hopes to be able to display the B-24 to the public, allowing aircraft enthusiasts and history buffs to get a firsthand look at this important piece of history from the Battle of the Atlantic.

-Rebecca Johns

Twin Mustang Tug of War Over

A longstanding dispute between the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force and the Commemorative Air Force over ownership of an F-82B Twin Mustang was settled on November 2. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit denied an appeal by the CAF to retain ownership of the Twin Mustang, upholding an earlier ruling granting ownership to the Air Force Museum. The CAF took control of the Twin Mustang in 1966 and flew it until an accident in 1987. Since then it has sought funding to return the rare fighter to the air. In July 2009, following the original district court judgment, the F-82 was shipped to the museum in Dayton, Ohio. Earlier the CAF had offered to keep it grounded if the Air Force would drop its case, but the offer was rejected.

French Tribute to WWI Medal of Honor Airmen

On September 26, 1918, Americas largest battle of World War Ithe Meuse-Argonne offensivebegan. One of the biggest stories to emerge from the campaign was that of the famed Lost Battalion. This group of American soldiers, made up of units from the 77th Division, was trapped and surrounded on a woody hillsideand being slowly annihilated. Airmen of the U.S. Army Air Service 50th Aero Squadron took off from their aerodrome at Remi  court to try to supply and support the besieged men. On October 6, Lieutenants Harold E. Goettler (pilot) and Erwin R. Bleck ley (observer) took off on their second mission of the day to locate the trapped men and drop supplies. After flying back and forth at low altitude, scanning the terrain below and drawing heavy groundfire the entire time, Goettler was hit by machine gun fire and killed. Their Liberty engine de Havilland D.H.4 nosed into the ground just outside of Binarville, killing Bleckley. Both men were later awarded the Medal of Honor, two of only four USAS fliers to receive that award in WWI.

The small French towns of Binarville and Remicourt paid tribute to the memory of Goettler and Bleckley on October 6-7, 2009, when more than 200 peopleincluding French and American dignitaries and military members, townspeople and representatives of the pressgathered to pay tribute to the fallen airmen and the squadron with which they flew. Also in attendance were the nieces of Goettler and Bleckley, Joan Starr of Wilton, Conn., and Nancy Erwin of Shreveport, La. A bronze plaque, provided by Jerry Hester of Winston-Salem, N.C.the driving force behind the eventwas presented to the town of Remicourt in a moving ceremony. As a finale, famed French airshow pilot Jack Krine performed an aerial display over Remicourt in a WWI S.E.5a replica, flying from the original field at Remicourt that the 50th Aero Squadron used in 1918.

-Steve Ruffin

Originally published in the March 2010 issue of Aviation History. To subscribe, click here.In his twilight years, a WWII tail-gunner relives the perils of his youth and takes home a powerful memento.

Secured in his tail-gunner position at the rear of a Consolidated B-24 Liberator, 20-year-old Sergeant Francis J. Lashinsky was about to age several additional years within a scant few minutes. Lashinsky had never been inside an air- plane before joining the U.S. Army Air Forces. In fact, he didnt even have a drivers license. Soon, however, he would undergo the most trying ordeal of his life.

Below lay the Liberators target: the Floridsdorf oil refinery in Vienna, Austria. By this late date in the war, March 12, 1945, the Allies had gained a foothold across the Rhine, and German Luftwaffe defenses were frail. But Lashinsky knew this was no milk run. Even a tiny piece of flak could have deadly consequences.

The B-24 disgorged its load of 10 500-pound RDX bombs and made a descending turn to the right. Bomb run completed, the crewmen looked forward to returning to their 455th Bomb Group home base at Cerignola, Italy.

Suddenly a shrill whine filled the Liberator, overwhelming the normal roar of the massive radial engines. A shell fragment had likely hit the No. 4 engine, damaging the propeller pitch control. The runaway engine threatened to tear loose from its mounts. Vibrating like a tuning fork, the badly wounded B-24 dropped away from the 42-bomber formation.

The crew desperately struggled to regain control. They shut down No. 4, but the propeller would not feather and continued to windmill until it eventually froze. Returning to Cerignola was out of the question. Captain Richard J. von Schriltz decided to divert the crippled Liberator to an airfield behind Soviet lines at Pecs, Hungary. He ordered the crew to jettison weight to stabilize altitude. Unfortunately, a piece of equipment ejected from the front of the plane struck the radome, rendering it inoperable. Without radar, and with the B-24 folded into a thick undercast at 11,000 feet, navigation was nearly impossible. Compass, airspeed and wind information from the mornings briefing were all they had to go on.

Chaos prevailed as weight shedding continued in earnest. Machine guns were dismantled and hurled out, along with ammunition. Crewmen popped the rivets holding oxygen tanks and threw the tanks out. Finally, the Liberator steadied at 8,000 feet.

When the navigators estimated they had arrived over Pecs, von Schriltz put the plane into a spiral descent through the undercast to visually identify their location. He instructed navigator 1st Lt. Charles M. Brazelton to call out every 100 feet of descent. Around 4,000 feet, they could make out the ground, but the anticipated airfield was nowhere in sight. The navigators gave von Schriltz a heading based on sighting two rivers that they assumed to be the Danube and the Drava.

In the tail turret, Lashinsky huddled defenseless, having traded his two .50-caliber machine guns and ammunition for altitude. Only the skeletal remains of the perforated cooling barrels allowed him to mount a faux defense. He turned the turret and aimed the useless barrels at three fighters bearing down on the stricken Liberator.

The B-24 suffered repeated additional damage from the fighters fire. The aft section filled with white smoke and something resembling confetti, probably from a shell burst in the belly radar turret that scattered the debris of paper capacitors. Von Schriltz had no choice but to order a bailout.

Ball turret gunner Art Colton delayed his exit, signaling Lashinsky to get to the forward side of the escape hatch, but the tail-gunner waved him ahead. As Colton jumped, the hatch fell closed, leaving Lashinsky alone in the bombers waist. What he saw next terrified him. One of Coltons flying boots was jammed between the hatch and its frame.

Lashinsky recalled the moment with chilling clarity: I had a mental picture of Art hanging out of the plane, held by his foot stuck in the hatch. I faced a dilemma. Had Art struck his head on the aircraft? Was he conscious or unconscious? How could I help? I reasoned I could hold him from falling with my right hand and open the hatch with my left. To this day, I still believe the feat was possible. I grasped the boot, opened the hatch and was relieved to have only the boot in my hand.

Kneeling, face to the rear, Lashinsky dived headfirst from the crippled B-24. During his freefall tumble he saw the Liberator about 1,000 yards above and ahead of him. Suddenly two shell bursts flashed just below the wing, and the bombers landing gear dropped out of the retracted position.

As he fell, Lashinskys mind reeled. He and his crew had already miraculously survived the loss of three B-24s (see sidebar, P. 47). The grinding stress of yet another life-or-death episode nearly overpowered him. For a brief instant the thought of not pulling the ripcord crossed my mind, Lashinsky recalled. I wearied of coming face to face with death so many times in my short lifetime. But realizing what I was contemplating amounted to suicide, I dismissed the thought.

His chute deployed, Lashinskys descent was now accompanied by an unexpected new hazard: Bullets hissed and snapped close by. He grasped the shroud lines, spilling air first from one side of the chute, then the other, oscillating and increasing his descent rate.

Two other crewmen were recovered unscathed by the Soviets, who also nursed a third back from near-death. Three did not survive. Second navigator 1st Lt. John A. Coates was wounded as he descended in his chute. He was picked up by the Soviets and treated at a field hospital in Siklos, but died during the night. The Soviets buried him near a chapel in a Catholic cemetery in Siklos. In the late 1940s, graves registration teams recovered his body for reburial. First navigator Lieu  tenant Brazelton, who had been severely wounded in the abdomen, landed on the Gordisa farm of Ozslar Ferenc. Brazelton crawled a few feet, collapsed and died. Ferenc later claimed to have buried him, and stated further that Swabian German residents pressed into service by the Soviets reburied the airman. The remains of radar officer 1st Lt. Charles S. Adams have never been recovered.

After a hard landing in an area bristling with barbed wire, Lashinsky stood up and found himself directly in front of a trench line. A bareheaded trench occupant beckoned me with his finger to come into the trench, Lashinsky said. I jumped in to face about 10 Ger  mans armed with rifles with fixed bayonets. The bareheaded one ex  tended his hand and said, Pistol. Lashinsky surrendered his Colt .45.

Now a POW, Lashinsky endured several harrowing incidents during his captivity. A German commander, speaking English, ordered him to strip and hand his clothes to a colleague. I did as I was told and stood stark naked among them, he said. I felt more vulnerable and solitary than I had minutes earlier. I fully realized that the Fifteenth Air Force would not have the slightest notion of our fate or location. If the Germans decided to execute me, the world would never know. The Americans had heard rumors, later confirmed, that Adolf Hitler had ordered captured airmen executed because they were gangsters.

Lashinskys captors discovered a prayer book in his pocket. They slapped his face hard with it, admonishing him that he shamelessly carried a prayer book yet killed women and children. They asked what he would say if told he was to be executed. Whenever queried, Lashinsky only responded with his name, rank and serial number.

His captors questioned him about the recent firestorm bombing of Dresden, asking if he had participated. Lashinsky was not aware of the bombing. When he responded with the customary name, rank and serial number, Lashinsky said his inquisitor sprang to his feet instantly, like a spring uncoiling. A torrent of loud, strong and I assumed Teutonic curses were hurled at me. Even though I did not understand a word of it, there was no question I had provoked his extreme anger. Miraculously, without a further word, the Germans returned his clothing and told him to dress.

Lashinsky and five of his fellow crew members became hostages of the retreating German army. Loaded into a troop train with flak guns on flatcars, they traveled by rail through Croatia into Germany. The six B-24 crewmen, 10 other Americans, 13 Bulgarian officers and a Russian officer shared half of a 40 and 8 boxcar (originally designed to hold 40 men or eight horses). A barbed wire barrier down the middle separated them from their guards in the other half. Allied fighters strafed the fleeing train during its long journey, and it was also bombed in Brod. The prisoners went days without food. They drank from streams and rivers.

A month later, the train was parked in a marshaling yard in Regensburg, Germany. Air raid sirens sounded, and the guards abandoned their prisoners, leaving them locked inside the boxcar. Bombs struck nearby, igniting fires in surrounding trains. The POWs broke out of their boxcar by pulling the iron-barred window from the car wall and hoisting the smallest man through it to the ground. He undid the latch, and the men escaped to a quarry beyond the railroad yards. The guards saw the men and approached with sheepish looks on their faces, presumably because they had abandoned them.

It soon became obvious the guards were hoping to be captured by the Western Alliespreferably Americans. They seemed to regard the prisoners more or less as safe conduct passes to be used for their eventual surrender. Amid increased indications of a German collapse, however, the guards conceded they no longer considered the captives their prisoners. The POWs agreed to surrender the guards to Americans if an opportunity presented itself.

The guards and prisoners set off on foot for their eventual destination, Stalag VIIA in Moosberg. It took about 2 weeks to get there, walking by day and spending the nights in barns. On April 25, 1945, they finally reached Stalag VIIA, and the guards turned the prisoners over to the camp commander. It was the last the POWs saw or heard of them.

On April 29, a flight of North American P-51 Mustangs buzzed the camp. They were warning us that attack was imminent, recalled Lashinsky. The prisoners all cheered. The message became even more emphatic when the Mustangs began to dive and strafe the camp-perimeter. Lashinsky and his fellow detainees lay on the floor of their barracksquestionable shelter, but better than nothing.

After the planes withdrew, Lashinsky witnessed the drama unfolding outside the main gate. A few of the guards had their arms raised above their heads. A Sherman tank slammed through the unopened gate, with infantry close behind. The prisoners would learn their liberators were members of General George S. Pattons Third Army.

They proceeded to the flagpole, lowered the swastika and raised the Stars and Stripes, Lashinsky remembered. Unless youve experienced captivity by a foreign power, you never have experienced this singular thrill, to see your own flag raised, restoring your liberty. Reliving this event in memory even today, during a flag raising ceremony, can choke me up and bring tears to my eyes.

Twenty-seven thousand prisoners were freed that day, the largest single liberation of Allied captives in World War II. Patton arrived wearing his signature battle dress, complete with ivory-handled revolvers, Lashinsky said. He addressed the freed men briefly, standing up in his jeep. Then he left to continue pursuit of the enemy.

Nearly six decades later, in January 2004, Frank Lashinsky received a phone call at his Pennsylvania home from Chief Petty Officer Dennis Friedbauer at the Pentagon, part of a team working in the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, POW/Missing Personnel Affairs. Friedbauer was working on the case of 1st Lt. Charles Adams, the crews still unaccounted for radar officer.

Friedbauer had visited Gordisa, Hungary, and the site outside the town where Lashinskys B-24 crashed. Although the bombers markings had been obliterated in the conflagration, identification was made from serial numbers on portions of two machine guns that remained in the wreckage. Friedbauer had examined the area and interviewed residents, including eyewitnesses to the crash, and also scoured archives relating to the incident. He and Lashinsky talked for hours by phone and for seven more hours face to face. Contact was also made with other surviving crew members.

Friedbauer sent Lashinsky pictures taken at Gordisa showing the crash site and pieces of wreckage. Via the Internet, he introduced Lashinsky to Nandor Mohos, a young Hungarian interested in World War II. Nandi, who spoke English, had investigated a number of sites where American planes had crashed. He and the Pentagon team had trekked more than 1,000 miles in Hungary looking for the remains of missing airmen. He provided Lashinsky with maps that pinpointed the area where the crew had parachuted.

Lashinskys desire to learn more about that fateful day 59 years earlier compelled him to return to Gordisa. At Friedbauers urging, and knowing that his recollection of the incident might assist in the search, Lashinsky and his wife Dorothy committed to the trip. The Hungarian language barrier was the last obstacle. Nandi agreed to accompany the Lashinskys and act as their interpreter.

At Cerignola they toured the former airfield, site of the final departure for the ill-fated Liberator. It was now planted with wheat. They saw the ruins of a wine cellar that had been the bomb crews briefing room. The Lashinskys were received by Cerignolas mayor, and learned that the father of legendary New York City mayor Fiorello LaGuardia had emigrated from the town.

After driving up a mountain abutting Pecs, the group took an elevator to the observation deck atop it. Nandi pointed out the location of the airfield that had been the crews destination. It was now a housing development. Pecs open pit coal and uranium mines were still visible but now idle.

When Gordisas mayor, Lukacsne Kislaki, received the group at her home, two other important guests were present. Joszef Kovacs and Sandor Pupos, who were 15 and 11 at the time of the incident, had been eyewitnesses to the B-24s death throes.

Soon a TV crew arrived at the mayors house for filming and interviews. The entourage walked down the unpaved street to Janos Szabos house, where a group had assembled. In the backyard, several pieces of aluminum airplane skin were propped against the fence. Lashinsky examined them as TV cameras rolled. The group then rode a horse-drawn buggy to the area where, Kovacs and Pupos indicated, the plane had come down. Returning to Gordisa, they were driven around and shown the town.

While the Lashinskys attended church in Harkany, Nandi went back to Gordisa to secure a portion of the wreckage for Frank to take home. The piece he brought back was about 3 feet by 20 inches and included one of the blue-outlined white side bars that joined the circle, enclosing the white star, in the insignia painted on the wing surfaces. Lashinsky wanted a piece that would fit in his luggage and could be easily transported, but Nandi insisted the artifact should remain as is.

Nandi carefully packaged the wing piece and wrote a note in Hungarian to explain the unusual parcel to airport security personnel. Lashinsky showed the note to security and customs officers, who did not question him further. He returned home with a piece of the Liberator that had held him aloft just long enough for him to bail outand also with a sense of closure about the event that had changed his life so many years ago.

Gary Wright is an Illinois-based freelance writer with a special interest in aviation history. He is a friend member of the Air Forces Escape and Evasion Society (airforceescape.com). He suggests for further reading: The Forgotten 500, by Gregory A. Freeman; and B-24 Liberator Units of the Fifteenth Air Force, by Robert F. Dorr.

Originally published in the March 2010 issue of Aviation History. To subscribe, click here."It's going to be a monster!" says Mav...

The Artist Formerly Known as Lethal Dialect, Paul Alwright, has confirmed the summer release of his Hungry album.

Its impressive roll-call of guests includes Damien Dempsey, Maverick Sabre, Kodaline and Overhead, The Albatross man David Prendergast, his O,TA bandmate Ben Garrett and Nichola Hegarty.

Weve had a sneaky listen, and can reveal that its a soulful hip hop cracker!

Following his brilliant appearance in Cardboard Gangsters, itll be interesting to see if Paulie bags any more acting parts.

Very excited to be releasing my new album HUNGRY this year featuring some of my favorite musicians alive, @Nicjazzcat , @DamoDempsey & @MaverickSabre to name but a few. Big love to @dproducerclique & @bencgarrett for their musical soundscapes. Gonna be a hot summa!  Paul Alwright (@Paul_Alwright) January 29, 2018Mark Salling, who played bad-boy Noah "Puck" Puckerman in the hit musical-comedy "Glee," died of an apparent suicide today. The 35 year old pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography several weeks ago.

Salling, a Texas native, body was discovered by a riverbed in the Sunland-Tujanga neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Cast and crew members of Glee have been responding to Salling's death on Twitter.

Today we lost another #Glee cast member, Tim Davis, a producer on the beloved Fox show, tweeted. Yes, he committed crimes against children. Yes, its horrific. But #MarkSalling was a broken man, no doubt an abuse victim himself. I loved Mark, and am sad when I consider the devastation of his parents. PLEASE withhold your cruel comments.

Actress Jane Lynch, who played Sue Sylvester on the show, also tweeted her thoughts, saying Let me be clear. Having compassion for #MarkSalling in no way minimizes his crimes, nor does it minimize the pain and devastation of the victims of those crimes, Davis added of the late actor, who pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography in December 2017 and was awaiting his March sentencing. Im just saying stop adding to his familys pain. This was their son. If youre without skin, feel free to cast stones.

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Salling was first arrested for possession of child pornography in December 2015. Prosecutors say he had 50,000 images of underage children.

He attempted suicide in August 2017, according to TMZ, two months before he struck a plea deal with prosecutors, agreeing to four to seven years in jail.

If you or someone you know is feeling suicidal, you can contact Pieta House at any hour of the day by phoning Freecall 1800 247 247. Or you can simply text HELP to 51444.WASHINGTON  With President Donald Trump pushing Congress to fund a national infrastructure overhaul, lobbyists for energy companies are pressing the administration to look beyond highways and airports to the future of U.S. energy needs.

From pipelines, to high-voltage power lines, to the waterways upon which barges full of coal and oil products travel, companies are looking for not just for federal funding, but in some cases a rewriting of the regulations that govern how that energy infrastructure is built and operated.

"We need to continue to be vigilant in talking about the need for energy infrastructure and, more specifically, private sector dollars to be thought of in the wider infrastructure debate, so we don't immediately migrate to roads, bridges, etc.," said Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry's chief lobbying arm.

RELATED: Trump officials examining states' authority in pipeline delays

During his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, Trump called on Congress to produce an infrastructure bill that will provide $1.5 trillion for public works projects using federal funding to leverage investment from state and local governments as well as the private sector. Trump also called on streamlining permitting to dramatically reduce the time it takes to break ground.

"Together, we can reclaim our building heritage," Trump said. "We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways across our land. And we will do it with American heart."

Here's what the energy sector is looking for out of an infrastructure bill, if and when it comes together:

1.A super highway of a power grid

Within the power sector, the hope is that federal largesse will also extend to the nation's electric grid, much of which is close to a century-old and in need of upgrades to handle not only the recent surge in wind and solar power, but also the growing threat from hackers.

RELATED: Power industry is next target for disruption

And with more change ahead -- from electric cars to grid-scale batteries  there is a need for more long-distance power lines and upgraded, digital equipment capable of moving electricity greater distances, said Guido Jouret, chief digital officer at the Swiss infrastructure giant ABB.

"The way [former president Dwight] Eisenhower invested in the interstate highway system, we could be building energy freeways across this country," he said. "One of the main concerns for the U.S. is the grid itself is aging. The average age of a transformer is 40 years, and that's just about its usual life."

2.Regulatory speed-up

Energy companies have complained for years about the wait times for getting state and federal agencies to sign off on their projects, whether it's a new pipeline or a petrochemical plant.

Now, the oil and gas industry is leading the charge to speed things up, lobbying to give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission more authority over other agencies and curtailing states' ability to hold up projects through environmental review.

RELATED: Americans should be allowed to pipe up

Gerard points to the situation in New York, where state regulators have denied pipeline permits over concern they would contribute to climate change.

"If you get an individual state trying to thwart the purposes of an interstate decision then, yes, we need to look at that and see if that process is being abused," Gerard said. "There's a variety of fixes that can come into play, from legislation to regulation to direction or mandate. We need to look at all of the above."

3.It's transportation, stupid

Like all industries, the U.S. energy sector relies on America's network of highways, rail, waterways and airports to get supplies and deliver its product to market.

A case in point is the network of rivers, canals and lakes that allow refineries and petrochemical plants along the Gulf Coast to get their products to markets in the Midwest. Barges travel along the Intracoastal Waterway to the Mississippi River, from where they can connect to cities as far afield as St. Louis, Chicago and Pittsburgh.

But the system of locks and floodgates that allows barges to move upriver are aging, with some structures in desperate need of repair. A series of projects have been identified by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but federal funding has yet to be finalized, said Matt Woodruff, vice president of public and government affairs at the Houston-based barge operator Kirby Corp.

"We've inherited that system from our grandparents, and it is an aging system. If we want to maintain a safe, reliable system into the future, we need to reinvest in it," he said.Celebrity neuroscientist David Eagleman abruptly left Houston 1 years ago after Baylor College of Medicine didn't award him tenure, but he landed profitably, according to a recent magazine article.

In its January issue, San Francisco magazine reports that Eagleman has collected a cool $4.2 million from California investors for the company he started in Houston built around his device that streams data to the brain in a bid to enable deaf people to "feel" words.

"I've been wanting to come out here," Eagleman, whose 2015 PBS series on the brain spotlighted the Texas Medical Center, says of the Silicon Valley in the article. "Everybody out here is up to something. It's a totally different level in terms of people aspiring to do big things."

The article calls "Silicon Valley's unconstrained, go-getter ethos" a perfect fit for Eagleman and adds that "descending the academic prestige ladder was easily outweighed by the chance to become a start-up entrepreneur." After 13 years as a full-time neuroscience professor at Baylor and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Eagleman is currently an adjunct professor in Stanford University's department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences.

RELATED: Houston loses one of its top intellectuals

The article attributes investor excitement to a TED Talk Eagleman gave in 2015 in Vancouver, where he "painted a mind-blowing picture of a future in which humans would be unconstrained by their biology" and touted the device he calls VEST -- or Versatile Extra-Sensory Transducer. After he stepped off the stage, says the article, Eagleman was approached by several venture capitalists eager to invest in the idea.

Eagleman's ambitions for the VEST are nothing if not grandiose. "If I'm going to win a Nobel Prize in anything, it'll be this piece right here," he says in the article. "We have no idea what the limits are. Can you have a sixth sense? Yeah. Can you have a seventh? Probably. Can you have an eighth? I mean, who knows?" At another point he says, "I feel like we're at the foot of the mountain here. Which is to say, we're just about to expand what it means to be a human right now."

Such big talk doesn't go over well with more grounded scientists, a couple of whom pooh-pooh Eagleman's ideas in the article. "Have his big ideas, pumped up with Silicon Valley cash, made him a brain-oil salesman?" teases a headline.

Some of the article's fun is in the descriptions  Eagleman "combines the warm charisma of Neil deGrasse Tyson with the manic energy of Ross Geller on Friends"  and tidbits of news about what he's working on. For instance, says the article, expect the VEST to make an appearance in the second season of the HBO sci-fi series Westworld  Eagleman says he's calling it VESTworld now  for which he serves as the scientific advisor.

You can read the article here.Months after record rainfall during Hurricane Harvey caused some communities to experience historic flooding, the Lake Conroe Association's response to calls for a permanent 3-foot reduction in the lake's level was a resounding "no."

"As residents and businesses in the Lake Conroe area, we support a comprehensive, independent flood control study covering the area from northern Montgomery County to Galveston Bay," Lake Conroe Association President Mike Bleier said.

"We have the utmost sympathy for those affected by the flooding. We want to work cooperatively with representatives from the Lake Houston community that have called for action such as lowering the water levels of Lake Conroe. We want to assist through studies to determine what we can do in the future to help with flooding issues."

Now Playing: Hundreds of families in riverfront neighborhoods east of Houston fear that massive flooding has poisoned their land and fouled their wells with sewage, industrial pollution and toxic sediment from the region's most notorious Superfund site - the San Jacinto Waste pits. (Drone video taken by: Greg Moss) Video: Houston Chronicle

The Lake Conroe Association started a letter-writing campaign last week to send elected officials such as Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick that express their concerns for resolutions proposed by the Lake Houston and Kingwood communities to potentially prevent future flooding.

"The Lake Houston community began their letter-writing campaign around November and we've heard they have received thousands of letters expressing the need to lower the levels of Lake Conroe by three feet," Bleier said. "We decided to launch our letter writing campaign because we need to have our voices heard. As a consensus, the Lake Conroe Association finds that lowering the lake by three feet is not in our best interest and there are no studies that demonstrate lowering the level of the lake or a 'pre-release' of what would be beneficial; we need to look into these options more before proceeding."

Normal pool for Lake Conroe is 201 feet above mean sea level.

According to information from the San Jacinto River Authority, water flowing into Lake Conroe during the storm reached a peak rate of 130,000 cubic feet per second, well above the record release rate of 79,000 cubic feet per second, which occurred a few days into the storm. Rainfall totals reported in the region varied from around 30 inches to up to 50 inches.

"Water released from Lake Conroe by SJRA during Hurricane Harvey is estimated at only 10-15 percent of the inflows into Lake Houston; so based on the information from SJRA, a 'pre-release' on the levels of the lake would not have made a difference," Bleier said.

In response to the flooding at the end of August 2017, the Lake Houston Area Chamber of Commerce launched the Lake Houston Area Long Term Recovery Task Force in November 2017 to form a plan to help rebuild the community and prevent future catastrophic flooding.

"We formed the task force to find out what happened with the flooding and find ways for us to rebuild since there was damage to approximately 16,000 homes and 3,300 businesses," Lake Houston Area Chamber of Commerce President Jenna Armstrong said. "A majority of the flooding in the city of Humble and Kingwood was because of the West Fork of the San Jacinto so that is our main point of focus when it comes to remediation."

To aid these efforts, they launched the "Plea for 3" calling for remediation, which includes dredging the San Jacinto River and Lake Houston and stricter regulation enforcement of legal and illegal sand mining operations along the river; reduction of the pooling level of Lake Conroe from 201 feet above sea level to 198; and representation on the San Jacinto River Authority Board  three governor-appointed interim board members representing downstream communities to serve until legislation is passed to address the issue.

WINDFALL? Hurricane Harvey could produce economic boost for Texas

Armstrong and Bleier talk frequently to find a middle ground in regard to both the Lake Conroe and Lake Houston communities.

"We both understand that we are trying to protect the interests of our respective communities," Armstrong said. "There are a few who feel as if our initiative is retribution when it is not. We understand economic development and we want to help everyone in that regard. We just want to discover what happened with the flooding and what we can do to prevent this from happening again."

Bleier echoed Armstrong's sentiments by adding, "They are learning about Lake Conroe as we are learning about Lake Houston. It is important for us to talk because we are neighbors and need to look at alternatives to prevent flooding. We have a lack of information on the effectiveness of lowering the lake levels and a 'pre-release.'"

The Lake Conroe Association fully supports the Lake Houston and Kingwood communities' call for remediation of the San Jacinto River, but not the main body of Lake Houston unless it is coupled with a reduction of water. According to information from the Lake Conroe Association, increasing the capacity by dredging would not impact flood control if the lake level is unchanged after remediation.

The association also supports the Lake Houston Area Long Term Recovery Task Force's request for representation on the SJRA board with one member who would be able to provide their community with information on specific operations of the SJRA and have a voice in the decision-making process.

However, the Lake Conroe Assocation does not support any kind of reduction of the water levels on Lake Conroe  whether it is permanent or temporary.

"Structures have been built and local economies developed based on the state-mandated level on Lake Conroe of 201 feet," the Lake Conroe Association stated. "Several Lake Houston residents have also called for the reduction of water levels before a storm to which the association did not agree with as well unless a study proves otherwise.

"Consideration could be given to supporting a 'pre-release strategy' if a study is completed by an independent third party that evaluates the effectiveness and risks of 'pre-release' to those on Lake Conroe and downstream," the association stated in their letters. "Specific protocols would need to be developed and adhered to which direct SJRA in a decision to 'pre-release.'"

The Lake Conroe Association continues to stress the need for studies to determine what would be the best plan for all parties involved.

"There are a few possible options such as a joint program between the Harris County Flood Control District and the Montgomery County Flood Control District for flood control and other programs that include retention ponds; it will just take time to find a viable option for flooding issues," Bleier said.

For more information or to mail a letter to an elected official on behalf of the Lake Conroe Association, visit www.lakeconroeassociation.com.WASHINGTON - Democratic lawmakers and activists frustrated with the pace at which Congress is moving on protections for "dreamers," undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, often point to fears of deportation. Stories of undocumented immigrants being arrested at courthouses while seeking protections from crimes, or meeting with officers to apply for legal residency have only stoked those fears.

Now they may also have to fear the chambers of Congress, with one conservative lawmaker confirming their anxieties ahead of the State of the Union speech Tuesday night.

Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., tweeted that he contacted the U.S. Capitol Police and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to ask law enforcement to consider checking the identification of all attending the State of the Union address. The hardline conservative even called for arresting "any illegal aliens in attendance."

"Of all the places where the Rule of Law needs to be enforced, it should be in the hallowed halls of Congress. Any illegal aliens attempting to go through security, under any pretext of invitation or otherwise, should be arrested and deported," he continued in a series of tweets.

The move was in response to the decision by as many as 50 Democratic lawmakers who have reportedly invited dreamers and other undocumented immigrants to President Donald Trump's first State of the Union.

Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., is bringing Cindy Garcia, who is the wife of Jorge Garcia, a 39-year-old father who was brought to the U.S. as a child and lived here for more than 30 years before being deported to Mexico.

RELATED VIDEO: CNN: Source Says State Of The Union Address Will Include 'Eye-Opening' Remarks About North Korea

Now Playing: President Trump's State of the Union address will reportedly include some "eye-opening" remarks about the United States' efforts to curtail North Korea's nuclear program. Video: GeoBeats

"The Garcia family's story is heartbreaking and infuriating. It is both a symptom of a long-broken immigration system and a new rash immigration policy that does not recognize the difference between a hardworking family man and a criminal. This must change," Dingell said in a statement.

This isn't the first time Gosar's extreme immigration views have surfaced; the Arizona congressman is known for posting studies on social media claiming that dreamers are responsible for sizable percentages of crime in his homestate.

According to AZCentral:

"In separate posts, Gosar also wrote, citing Lott's report, that "DACA-aged illegals" accounted for "15 percent of all Arizona manslaughters," "14 percent of all sexual assaults each year" and "nearly 14 percent of all first-degree murders in Arizona."

All of Gosar's posts were made under the headline, "Getting to know DACA-aged illegals," even though most undocumented immigrants with criminal records are not eligible for the DACA program.

Trump's own record on protecting dreamers is mixed. While launching his presidential campaign, Trump accused immigrants from Mexico of being rapists and murderers. And the brief government shutdown earlier this month arguably happened in part because of Trump's reluctance or lack of clarity on what he wants for the dreamers. That, and his "shithole countries" comment.

Liberal lawmakers have accused the president of leveraging the dreamers as "ransom" to restrict legal immigration, calling it a wish list for "anti-immigration hard-liners" and "white supremacists."

Gosar's view of dreamers is inconsistent with that of most Americans, including his own party: The majority of Americans support protections for dreamers.

Sen. Jeff Flake, another Arizona Republican, has repeatedly clashed with his own party for advocating protections for dreamers, but Gosar's views have significant support among his constituents. He won nearly 70 percent of the vote in his last reelection.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told journalists he doesn't support Gosar's suggestion to arrest undocumented immigrants attending the speech. The question that remains: Does the president?

GOP lawmakers being silent about Gosar's suggestion risks giving the impression that Republicans don't even want dreamers present who are eager to hear Trump's vision for America. For a party that is struggling with Latino voters, Gosar's rhetoric likely doesn't move the GOP in the direction of winning more of their support. And this aggressive approach to immigration reform could cause a party to lose votes in the midterm elections with the majority of Americans who are sympathetic to dreamers and their families.Campus police at a Houston-area school have stepped up security as they investigate claims that an eighth-grade girl was gang-raped by classmates behind Forest Brook Middle School.

"They ruined my niece real bad," said the girl's uncle. "They forcefully took her out of the school and to the back woods and sexually molested her."

Her mother, whose name the Chronicle is withholding to protect the teen's anonymity, said she found out about the alleged attack Monday when the school called her.

No one has been charged as authorities continue looking into the report, according to a Houston ISD spokesman.

The girl's mother said that just before the last class period Monday, several male classmates forced the 13-year-old out into woods behind the school.

Now Playing: Texas News & Crime Video: Houston Chronicle

"They stripped off her clothes and were hitting her," the mother said. "One pulled down his stuff and had sex with her."

Another, she said, recorded it all and posted it on Instagram, where it quickly made the rounds to the rest of the student body. Eventually, school officials learned of the incident through the online post, the mother said.

In total, two or three attackers had sex with the teen, her mother said.

"One was pulling on her hair, one was punching her," she added.

The girl had attended the same school since sixth grade and had not previously had problems there, though the mother described Forest Brook as "very unsafe" with "no supervision."

In a statement Tuesday, Houston ISD said it is looking into the incident.

"HISD Police are investigating an alleged sexual assault involving several Forest Brook Middle School students near the campus," the district said. "At this time, no charges have been filed."

Student safety is "our top priority," the district said. "School administrators and HISD police will increase frequency of their patrols on and around campus."

But the worried mom faulted the school for failing to offer proper supervision at the time.

"No teachers were out there when this was going on," she said. "No teachers, no officers, no one out there watching the kids."

Now, she's concerned about her younger girl who goes to the same school, and she kept her older daughter home from class.

"I know she's hurt," she said. "I can see it in her eyes."Jim Lo Scalzo/POOL

When Donald Trump's State of the Union address gets underway at 8 p.m. CST tonight, Texans will be gathered to watch it. The speech no doubt will be playing in bars and homes. Some viewers will be cheering. Others may let out a groan.

The speech will air on cable and broadcast news channels. Look closely, and one might spot the Cajun Navy founder or Mattress Mack in the crowd. It will also stream live on the White House webpage.Why can't immigrants here illegally just apply for citizenship? Or get in line and "do it the right way"?

As an immigration reporter for the Houston Chronicle, I hear that question almost every day. Why not go to the nearest federal building, fill out some paperwork and pay the fee? How hard can that be?

It's a question worth considering now, as President Donald Trump gives his State of the Union address. He will almost certainly raise the issue of young immigrants who stand to lose their work permits in March unless Congress acts.

THE SHORT ANSWER: Of the roughly 11 million immigrants in the country illegally, around two-thirds have been here for more than a decade. Many don't have any path to citizenship precisely because they have been here unlawfully, even if it was only for a few months.

By statute, they cannot apply for a green card while in the United States  even if they otherwise would qualify. (And that's hard. See more below.)

But if they leave, they might not be able to come back because of laws that penalize those who were here illegally. Even if they marry a U.S. citizen, one of the fastest and surest paths to citizenship, they could have to spend up to 10 years outside the United States.

Just look at the case of Jose Escobar, who had a temporary protected status for some Salvadorans that he lost through his mother's paperwork error when he was a teen. Though he married an American citizen, had two children and otherwise committed no crimes in nearly two decades of his American life, he was deported early last year.

RELATED: Deported immigrant trying to adjust to life alone in the foreign land of his birth

Juan Carlos

"Dreamers," the 700,000 young immigrants who have temporary work permits under an Obama-era program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, don't have a permanent legal status. They hold a provisional permission to work and protection from deportation under a legal concept known as deferred action that was first widely used in an argument over whether Beatles frontman John Lennon could stay in the country despite having a drug conviction.

Some Republicans thought that program was an executive overreach by Obama, and Trump rescinded it in September giving Congress until March before those youth will begin losing their temporary lawful status, meaning they won't be able to legally work and could be deported.

RELATED: 'Dreamers' now face uncertain future, including those who helped in Harvey

Jon Shapley/Staff Photographer

Why didn't the illegal immigrant population in the United States "get in line" before breaking the law and coming here without permission to begin with?

The short answer is: There is no real line.

My great-grandfather stood in line at Ellis Island. Did something change?

Until the late 19th century, there were no real immigration laws, so there weren't any to break. People did not have to obtain visas at U.S. consulates before entering the country, so they simply arrived at ports of entry such as Ellis Island, where they were inspected and the vast majority were allowed into the country.

It wasn't until the 1920s that Congress set numerical caps on immigration and began tightening restrictions on who could come here.

The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, which reformed a previous quota system that was based on national origin, is the basis of today's legal framework.

EXPLAINER: Did my family really come "legally"?

So how is it possible now to come here legally?

Today there are three main ways to do that: through work, family or refugee protection.

To come here for work, you must have a job lined up with a company that will sponsor you for the appropriate visa. An employer can request to bring in specific qualified foreign workers if they meet the requirements and no Americans could fill the job.

Most employment visas are available only for highly skilled technical professions, but there are some for people of extraordinary ability such as scientists, and even a category for models. (First lady Melania Trump came here on a tourist visa and later received a work visa for models.) There are also temporary visas for agricultural work and "less-skilled workers."

The overall limit for permanent employment visas each year is 140,000  a number that includes the employees, their spouses and their children.

It's difficult to get such work visas. In the H-1B professional work visa category, for instance, the government receives about 200,000 applications every year for only 85,000 available visas. Applicants are entered into a lottery system.

RELATED: Key worker visa in short supply

But even if you are lucky enough to get a visa, you can't march downtown and ask for citizenship. Your company must first sponsor you for a green card. And even if you are authorized, that doesn't mean you will immediately get it.

Congress imposed caps on each country's employment-based green cards, so if you are from a nation such as India that sends a lot of qualified immigrants to the United States, you might have to wait two decades before you receive a green card  even if you have been approved.

Look at the case of two Indian doctors who were nearly deported last year: They had been here legally since 2002 on student visas, then in 2008 the Houston Methodist Hospital System sponsored them for permanent residency.

But because of the country caps and a tremendous backlog in the overwhelmed system, the doctors were provided a provisional status until their green cards become available. The category for India is currently so far behind that only immigrants who applied for the labor certification before June 2008 are receiving their green cards.

The couple renewed their temporary work authorizations and their travel documents every two years as required  then a trivial paperwork error almost caused them to lose their lives here.

Godofredo A. Vasquez/Staff

RELATED: Houston immigrant doctors given 24 hours to leave the U.S., then a reprieve

Once you (finally!) receive a green card, you must "continuously" live in the country for five years without committing a crime or an offense of "moral turpitude." Only then can you finally apply for citizenship.

What if you have family here?

Some Republicans and groups seeking to reduce immigration argue far too many people are coming here through so-called "chain migration." They want to end it.

There are 480,000 family migration visas available every year.

American citizens can petition for their spouses, parents, and children younger than 21. There are no caps on this category.

They can also sponsor their adult children and siblings, and green card holders can do so for spouses and unmarried children, but here there are quotas. Limits on the number of immigrants who receive green cards each year in these categories mean some can wait years, if not decades, before they receive this permission.

Consider the case of Karla Perez, a 25-year-old law student at the University of Houston who will graduate in May. The family has been waiting more than 20 years to receive green cards through Perez's grandfather, an American citizen.

But just over 23,400 green cards are available in this category every year, and for Mexico, the wait time is about 22 years. Because Perez is now older than 21, she is no longer eligible for residency through her grandfather.

Mark Mulligan/Mark Mulligan / Houston Chronicle

RELATED: DACA's fate in court's hands

OK, so what about refugee status?

Each year the United States sets a numerical limit on how many refugees will be admitted for humanitarian reasons. This year, the Trump administration capped it at 45,000, compared to 110,000 initially set under President Barack Obama for 2017.

It's not that easy to become a refugee.

The United Nations recommends a certain number of people every year, and they are screened by multiple international and U.S. agencies and must prove that they have a "well-founded fear of persecution based on race, religion, membership in a particular social group, political opinion or national origin."

KHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP/Getty Images

RELATED: 10 things to know about how the U.S. takes in refugees

Asylum seekers are people already in the United States who can show they fear returning to their home countries because of such persecution, and not simply because they want to escape poverty and violence.

It is true that thousands of migrants cross the southern border and pass the initial test for asylum, proving they have a credible fear of return, and then wait years before their cases come up before judges as a result of the nation's critically backlogged immigration courts. Some never show up for their court dates and disappear into daily American life.

The Trump administration wants to change that and has promised to end the practice of so-called "catch and release."

But there is concern that would erode protections for asylum-seekers and violate international treaties holding that countries shouldn't penalize potential refugees.

Already the administration is separating parents and children at the border so that officials can criminally prosecute the adults and detain them until they are deported. That allows the government to bypass a 20-year-old federal settlement ruling that migrant children cannot be locked up for long and should be kept with their parents if possible.

In the case of Blanca Vasquez, she spent weeks without any idea what the government did with her child.

RELATED: Trump moves to end 'catch and release', prosecuting parents and removing children who cross border

Now, what about those young immigrants in the country illegally?

Polls show that most Americans, in some cases more than 80 percent, support allowing those who came here illegally as children to remain if they meet certain requirements, such as working or going to school.

So why is the issue so difficult for Congress to solve?

One reason is that since 2001, both Democrats and Republicans have been using so-called dreamers as political pawns to push changes to the larger immigration system.

RELATED: Dreamer immigrants caught in middle of debate over reform

But another reason is that a core group of Republicans, who tend to be politically active and show up in force to vote in primary elections, are still furious about changes made to the immigration system under President Ronald Reagan in 1986.

"Every part of that bill has been violated by our federal government and some state governments. They have never honored what they are supposed to do," said Larry Korkmas, the Houston-based president of Texans for Immigration Reduction and Enforcement. "We cannot trust anyone in this particular situation. When we can, then we might be able to do something" for young immigrants.

Marie D. De Jesus/Houston Chronicle

Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a powerful national group pushing to reduce immigration, said in an email that the 1986 bill gave nothing to Americans who wanted a solution to illegal immigration.

"While (that legislation) delivered amnesty to about 3 million illegal aliens, it delivered nothing to the American people," he said. "No border security, no meaningful employer sanctions or anything else to deter future illegal immigration."

The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act allowed for the legalization of nearly 3 million people, but its promises on border enforcement and sanctions on employers who hired workers here illegally never fully materialized, according to a 2014 analysis by the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank in Washington D.C.

The legislation penalized employers who "knowingly" hired workers here illegally, but didn't require them to verify the authenticity of identification documents, spurring a flourishing business in fraudulent documents.

Michael Ciaglo/Staff

Employers, particularly those in the construction industry, protected themselves from sanctions by turning to middlemen who hired workers here illegally as independent contractors. A 2013 report by the Workers Defense Project in Austin estimated that half of all construction workers in Texas lack legal status.

Nationally, the Bureau of Labor Statistics counts about 2.7 million temporary workers, but industry sources estimate as many as 15 million workers are hired annually as contract employees, according to the Migration Policy Institute's analysis.

"A major driver of the growth of this practice has unmistakably been to shield the ultimate employer from responsibility for the subcontractors' employment practices, including the hiring of unauthorized workers," the report notes.

The 1986 act also authorized greater enforcement on the southern border, but that didn't fully materialize until years later. By 1996, border control spending reached $1.5 billion  twice the total when the law was passed  but in that decade the number of immigrants here illegally is estimated to have doubled as well, to about 6 million.

Border spending skyrocketed after the 2001 terrorist attacks, however, and funding for Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement alone stood at $19.3 billion in 2016, according to federal statistics.

John Moore/Getty Images

Is the number of immigrants here illegally growing?

No. In fact, the number of immigrants here illegally has declined from its peak in 2007 and appears to have stabilized.

Historically the overwhelming majority of immigrants here illegally have come from Mexico. Since the recession, Mexicans leaving the U.S. have outnumbered those who come here.

The number of Mexicans living here illegally declined from 6.4 million in 2009 to 5.6 million in 2016, according to the Pew Research Center, a think tank in Washington, D.C. Researchers point to Mexico's growing economy and declining birth rates as well as increased border enforcement.

Arrests of people trying to cross illegally into the U.S. from Mexico are now at their lowest level since 1971, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Border officers apprehended 310,531 people for crossing into the country illegally in 2017. Apprehensions peaked at 1.7 million in 2000, and have mostly been on the decline since then.

RELATED: Immigrant arrests up sharply, but deportations drop to 10-year low

Meanwhile, the 1986 act gave legal status to about 2.7 million people.

As a result their wages increased by as much as 15 percent in five years while their educational attainment and home-ownership levels also rose, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

But its report notes another lesson from those reforms: that legalization must be as "inclusive and as simple as possible," important to consider as Congress debates for whom and how many to grant a type of authorization, if at all.

The 1986 bill created a 1982 cutoff date for eligibility  five years before the beginning of the program  and so excluded about half the unauthorized population, "leaving the goal of wiping the illegal immigration slate clean well short of reality," according to the report. Those who remained without status became the nucleus of today's population of immigrants here illegally.

Michael Ciaglo/Staff

RELATED: With fate of immigration reform unknown, family's ability to stay together also in question

The act also left out a large number of immediate family members, creating such a dilemma that in 1990 Congress passed another immigration act amending the system. As a result, it expanded the number of family immigration visas allotted per year and created the diversity visa lottery  both programs Trump and his supporters now want to reduce or cut.

What neither law did was provide a substantial temporary worker program, said Charles Foster, a Houston immigration attorney who advised President George W. Bush on the issue.

"Before, temporary workers would enter without documents and work within a hundred miles or so of the border, go home for the holidays and keep their families," he said. "Once enforcement kicked in, it became safer and wiser for them just to stay permanently in the U.S. and to smuggle their families into the U.S. to join them on a one time basis."

RELATED: Future unsure for Visa lottery

The 1990 reforms occurred under Republican President George H.W. Bush. Together, he and Reagan created one of history's biggest legalization programs for unauthorized immigrants. Every president since has failed to push major changes through Congress.

Now we will wait to see what Trump does.

Lomi Kriel (@lomikriel) covers immigration for the Houston Chronicle.Hundreds of juveniles are jailed in Harris County often for weeks at a time for infractions as minor as failing drugs tests, violating curfews, running away or failing to attend school classes or rehabilitative programs, according to county records.

The records show a "pattern and practice" of detaining juveniles for technical violations that should instead be handled through the probation system, according to attorneys and juvenile justice advocates.

"You're not complying with the terms of probation, but you're not actually a risk to public safety," said Elizabeth Henneke, an attorney with the Lone Star Justice Alliance, which advocates against incarcerating juvenile offenders.

"You never want to have a technical violation, especially for a kid, result in detention, because we know the negative effects," she said. "Even a short amount of time can be problematic for kids, but long, protracted, weeks out of school, weeks out of your home environment - that can have really big consequences for them."

Of the 1,055 juveniles cited for a probation violation in 2016, nearly 73 percent were detained, a proportion Henneke said is alarming, particularly in a county where the 250-capacity juvenile justice center has faced recurrent overcrowding problems for several years.

It is the largest percentage of juveniles ordered detained on probation violations since at least 2003, when 69 percent of 1,502 juveniles were detained, according to data from the Harris County Juvenile Probation Department.

The most recent 2017 data, which goes through Oct. 15, shows that 73 percent of juveniles continued to be jailed for probation violations - an average of 55 kids each day.

The average length of time spent behind bars on the violations ranged from nine days for leaving the county without permission to 30 days for violating special probationary terms, which can include specific judge-ordered requirements such as routine drug assessments or compliance with taking medication.

JUVENILE JUSTICE: In bid to boost safety, agency reviewing violent youth for possible transfer

State District Judge Michael Schneider, one of three judges who preside over juvenile cases in Harris County, said the findings raise concern and said he would try to seek help from academic professionals to analyze why low-level juvenile offenders are being held behind bars.

"The entire juvenile system should have nothing to do with punishment," he said. "If you look at what the Legislature said, it should only be about rehabilitation. You take that a step further, when they're in detention and there's not even been a finding that they committed the offense or the violation of probation that they're accused of, I think you need to be even more careful about who you lock up."

Juvenile Court Judges Glenn Devlin and John Phillips did not respond to emailed requests for comment or messages left through their court coordinators. Tom Brooks, executive director of the Harris County Juvenile Probation Department, declined comment.

Behind bars on a technicality Of the 681 juveniles locked up in 2017 through Oct. 15 for probation violations, more than 42 percent were detained for running away from their court-ordered placement. Here is the breakdown in the number of juveniles detained, why and for how long, not including juveniles with determinate sentences for more serious crimes that could land them in adult prison. 252 Warrant issued for running away, average stay of 28 days 95 Failing a drug test, average stay 22 days 83 Violation of the law, average stay 21 days 71 Failing to attend/participate in programs, average stay 17 days 42 Failing to attend all classes, average length of stay 21 days 38 Left placement (running away), average stay of 21 days 33 Failure to follow curfew rules, average stay 17 days 22 Failing to report to juvenile probation officer or toreport contact information, average stay of 15 days 20 Violation of probation special rules, average stay 30 days 8 Warrant for violation of the law, average stay 27 days 5 Warrant issued for failing to report to probation officer, average stay 22 days 4 Warrant for failure to attend/participate in programs, average stay 26 days 4 Left county without permission, average stay 9 days 2 Violation of court-ordered restitution, average stay 19 days 2 Warrant for failure to follow curfew rules, average stay 17 days Source: Harris County Juvenile Probation Department See More Collapse

Alternatives

Harris County has consistently jailed juveniles for breaking rules instead of laws over the past 15 years, the records show.

The vast majority were locked up for technical violations, though about 14 percent of juveniles were detained after being accused of committing a new crime while on probation.

From 2003 to 2009, the Chronicle found, anywhere from 53 to 69 percent of juveniles were detained for probation violations out of an average 1,800 juveniles cited for violations each year.

Noticeable declines in the pattern appear to have unfolded, however, in the years after Harris County adopted the Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative's principles in 2007 - a national initiative run by the Annie E. Casey Foundation that strongly discourages detaining kids for things such as probation violations.

MORE: Harris County leads Texas in life-without-parole sentences as death penalty recedes

But JDAI's impact on probation violators appears short-lived. Declines in detaining those kids were sustained for only three years, from 2010 to 2012, when between 39 and 44 percent were detained. By 2016, Harris County was detaining nearly three-quarters of them, 761 out of 1,055 accused violators.

Nate Balis, director of the foundation's juvenile justice strategy group, said that Harris County is far from the only jurisdiction in the nation that appears to be jailing kids for minor violations.

"It's pretty common around the country that young people end up being detained for things that are not a function of a risk of public safety, and it's certainly not unusual to have kids locked up in detention centers for technical violations of probation," he said. "But it's not good."

Balis said juvenile justice departments need to focus on trying to figure out why the juvenile failed: Does he need additional services or programs? Is the current program not working? And if they repeatedly keep violating rules in spite of being offered these programs, he said, is detention really going to help anything?

"Detention as a response to noncompliance is never a good idea," he said. "It's understandable that a judge gets to a point of frustration if a young person is constantly brought back before them and they're breaking rules. But is there a case where the number of rules broken are enough to say he should be in detention? It presumes that our main thing is that we should be sanctioning them if they break rules rather than getting them back on the right track."

Schneider said that expansion of programs such as one he helps lead, My Brother's Keeper, which works with boys of color who may face socioeconomic disadvantage, is one example of ways to steer youths out of juvenile detention centers.

Get them out quickly

Schneider said his own research has revealed an uptick in juveniles detained on misdemeanors.

"What disturbs and me and what I think we need to worry about is why do we have more misdemeanants detained, when we have the discretion to have them released?" he asked.

Equally troubling, he said, is how long the youths stay behind bars on minor violations.

"You've got to focus on the length of stay," he said. "It's one thing to have an emergency that makes you worry about the safety of someone - those kinds of things happen - but you need to figure out a way, at every level of the system, to get them out as quickly as possible."

MORE: Sharp rise in juveniles facing trial in adult court

Schneider said he has no blanket policy about probation violators and makes each decision based on the individual. But he was clear that a decision to detain a probation violator would only be made if there were a public safety threat or extenuating circumstances, such as a mental health crisis or turmoil at the child's home.

He said it would be unusual if someone were detained for a single curfew violation or failed drug test; usually it would be the result of repeated violations, he said. Such circumstances are not reflected in the data.

Still, he said, even if extenuating circumstances warrant detention, the next question should be: Do they really belong there for weeks?

"Cutting down the length of stay would be really important in getting our (population) numbers down in a way that doesn't compromise any public safety," Schneider said. "There may be a case where reasonable minds might differ. Is there an acute issue right now where someone might need to be detained? That's a completely different question than, should this kid be in for 10 days, 20 days, 30 days. Is there really an ongoing risk?"

New detention facility

Officials are working now to relieve the crowded conditions at the Harris County Juvenile Detention Center.

Last year, Harris County rolled out initial plans to build a new juvenile detention facility on Chimney Rock, and in January, gave official approval to the project.

The design phase alone is expected to cost about $8 million. A construction company has since been chosen to carry out those plans.

But Michele Deitch, a senior lecturer at the University of Texas who has published extensive research on juvenile detention alternatives, said county officials need to take a closer look at who Harris County is detaining at its current facility.

As of Jan. 23, the number of youths detained in the facility was 239. Deitch said removing juveniles detained on probation violations could make plenty of room.

"We expect more from Harris County because they are a JDAI site," Deitch said, "and they're well aware of what other kinds of best practices they should be using with these youth."Michael Ciaglo/Houston Chronicle

Did you miss the super moon when you woke up this morning? If so, don't panic - Houston Chronicle photographers were up early to capture the rare moon.

Wednesday's full moon was dubbed a "super blue blood moon" according to NASA. The moon was notable for being the second full moon this month, making it a blue moon. The moon was also considered a super moon since it was closer to Earth than normal, making it larger and brighter than usual.Dallas County Sheriffs Office

A Dallas-area judge denied hiring a special medical guardian requested by a mother accused of putting her son through more than a dozen surgeries, all of which prosecutors argue were unnecessary.

Kaylene Bowen-Wright, who made headlines in December after being charged with injury to a child for also allegedly putting her 8-year-old son through 323 unnecessary doctor visits, appeared in court Monday to ask a judge presiding over her Child Protective Services case to appoint the guardian, arguing that the guardian was necessary for her son's "complex" medical needs, according to WFAA-TV. Associate Judge C. Andrew Ten Eyck denied her motion for the appointment, a decision that comes about a month after Bowen-Wright lost custody of the child.Earlier this month, the autopsy of 3-year-old Dallas girl revealed she died of "homicidal violence," contradicting a statement by her adoptive father claiming she had gone missing on her own.

Now, two North Texas women are hoping to get new legislation passed in her name: Sherin's Law.

The proposed law would make it illegal to leave a child at home alone if they were under a certain age and strengthen punishment for people who don't report child abuse, reports the Carrollton Leader.

"With Sherin, we draw the line. It's enough. It's time to make a change," Reena Bana, one of the parents pushing for the new law, told the Dallas-area paper.

The law would also require parents to report a child missing within one hour, according to CBS DFW.

AUTOPSY: 8-foot pet snake strangled owner to death

Now Playing: Brandon Todd reports. Video: FoxM9NJ

Sherin Mathew's parents, Wesley and Sini, reported their 3-year-old daughter missing on Oct. 7, roughly five hours after they told police she had gone missing.

Initially, Wesely Matthews told police the child went missing after they left her outside alone as punishment for not drinking her milk. Then, his story changed and told police Sherin was left home alone while the family went out to eat dinner.

When police found Sherin's body less than a mile from the family home, the duo was arrested and questioned. Matthews later told police his daughter choked to death after he forced her to drink milk.

Above: See tragedies that went on to inspired change in Texas law.

Fernando Ramirez is a reporter for Chron.com and the Houston Chronicle. You can read more of his stories here and follow him on Twitter at @fernramirez93.The Trump administration is planning to build 250 miles of border fencing that will cut across South Texas ranch land from Laredo to McAllen, Congressman Henry Cuellar said Wednesday.

Cuellar, a Laredo Democrat, said he received the information in briefings from Homeland Security Department officials, but he was not given a cost estimate for the construction.

The president has asked for $25 billion in border security funding, which would include new wall and fence construction, in exchange for granting legal status to 1.8 million young immigrants who are in the country illegally.

The Trump administration equates border security to a wall, said Cuellar, whose district stretches along the border from Laredo to Hidalgo County. They feel that the only way to secure a border is with a wall.

Forty percent of the people who come here come through legal visas. A wall isnt going to stop those people. Some of the people (crossing the border) dont evade, they come up to Border Patrol and say Im here and request asylum. Heroin, cocaine, meth, they all come through the ports of entry, and if thats where, if you want to stop drugs, you need to put the focus.

President Donald Trumps promise to add to the 650 miles of existing border fencing was the centerpiece of his presidential campaign, and the Border Patrol previously had announced plans for 60 miles of new fencing in the Rio Grande Valley.

Cuellars comments marked the first time the full extent of the planned construction has been made public. Congress has yet to fund the wall construction.

Theres already nearly 60 miles of fencing, including about 20 miles built on flood control levees in Hidalgo County, in the Valley. Laredo largely avoided wall construction under the 2006 Secure Fence act.

It was the first time Id seen Laredo targeted for fence construction, Cuellar said. Really, Im the only (border) congressman who doesnt have a fence, except for the levee wall.

A homeland security study last year found 12 highest priority locations for new wall construction, Cuellar said. Those priorities include building 130 miles in the Laredo Sector, which includes Webb and Zapata counties, and 126 miles would be in Rio Grande Valley Sector, which includes Cameron, Hidalgo and Starr counties.

The priorities also include a handful of short stretches of new wall and replacement wall that would be built in West Texas, Arizona and California.

If the work is completed, about 900 miles of the 2,000-mile border with Mexico will be fenced.

The Border Patrols highest priority is building new fencing in Hidalgo and Starr counties, Cuellar said. He didnt know if the fencing in the Laredo Sector would be built in would be in Webb County, where Laredo is located, or Zapata County, home to the Falcon International Reservoir.

The Laredo Sector covers about 170 miles of the Rio Grande River and the Valley Sector sits along 316 miles of the river.

Benjamin Huffman, the chief of Border Patrols Strategic Planning and Analysis Directorate, said Wednesday that the Valley Sector, the busiest in the country for illegal immigration, is long overdue for getting resources.

RGV was chosen primarily because of the traffic coming across there, Huffman said.

A previously announced plan to build 28 miles of new fencing in Hidalgo County called for construction atop federally owned flood control levees, avoiding land condemnations.

The Border Patrol last year also had announced it planned to build 32 miles in adjacent Starr County. Cuellar said the Hidalgo County construction is expected to cost $498 million and the Starr County construction would cost $784 million.

The proposed levee wall have drawn criticism from environmentalists, who said it will cut off wildlife refuges from the public and leave wildlife trapped during flooding. The new plans immediately raised concerns about property rights in Zapata and Webb counties, where theres little publicly owned property as well as environmental issues and flooding.

Scott Nicol, the co-chair of the Sierra Clubs Border Lands team, said the Rio Grande twists and bends, but a wall built back from the banks could cut off access to the river for most of the region.

With that kind of mileage, it sounds like they just want to wall everything off, Nicol said.

That would be tremendously destructive, and it would mean hundreds and hundreds and possibly thousands of landowners having their land taken away from them, he added.

The union representing Border Patrol agents cheered the news that the Texas border, which is where most illegal immigration to the U.S. occurs, could get more resources.

Chris Cabrera, an agent in the Rio Grande Valley whos also the spokesman for the National Border Patrol Council, echoed Huffmans comments about the need for resources in South Texas.

I think its great, Cabrera said. Id like to see what the plans are and where theyre going to put it, but its long overdue.

Gary Jacobs, a Laredo businessman whose family owns property on the Rio Grande west of Laredo  some of which recently was donated to the city to build a golf course  and in Zapata County, said building a fence or wall in the region would be a logistical nightmare.

Building in the river vega, or floodplain, would create flooding problems and damage to the wall, and building above the floodplain would require a system of gates so landowners and municipalities arent cut off from their water pumps and would back up arroyos that feed into the Rio Grande, Jacobs said.

Landowners need immediate access to the river to raise their pumps when the water level rises, he said.

What are they proposing to do? Jacobs asked Our farms we own to the river and all of us own pump installations in the river. And we have ranch land around Falcon Lake that sometimes is underwater, but we still own it. So were going to have to be able to get to it. So if they say were going to condemn a 60-foot-wide easement to build a wall, were going to own on both sides of the wall, so our pumps are going to be on the river side. Anybody thats farming on the river has to be able to access their pumps frequently.

Hector Lopez Jr., a Zapata resident whose family owns property on the Falcon reservoir that was granted by Spain the 18th century, said the community there already suffered through a government land grab in the 1950s when the Falcon dam was built and the land was flooded.

Its been 60-some years. That generation is basically gone. Now its their children that have to deal with this reality thats going on, Lopez said. I would say to some extent (the wall) is going to curtail the immigration coming across and the drugs. As to what extent? Who knows.

Laredo City Councilman George Altgelt wondered if a physical barrier that would require landowners to give up river access is the best use of taxpayer money.

The question we all have to ask ourselves, is there a more cost-effective alternative than to what the private interests through their Congress are telling us we should do? Altgelt asked. Such as a virtual wall, which would be a river road laden with technology, open lines of sight and deterrents, coupled with meaningful immigration reform to allow more work visas for the jobs that Americans dont want to do.

jbuch@express-news.netIt could have been a dump truck, or maybe a fire truck, that gouged the ruts in Trish Hagner's front yard, still visible five months after Hurricane Harvey. Whatever it was, the floodwaters' departure weeks later showed the vehicle also had fractured a water pipe.

There were bigger issues, of course. Hagner and her husband made it safely out of Briargrove Park in west Houston, but their home of 18 years filled with chest-deep water and all but a few heirlooms were lost.

Amid the disruption and stress, a $1,049 September water bill from City Hall was the last thing Hagner needed.

For Hagner and more than 6,300 other households, the City Council on Wednesday will consider suspending its rules on water bill collections to forgive Harvey-related anomalies.

Houston Public Works found 6,362 homeowners' accounts doubled - or more - during or immediately after Harvey; 10 commercial or industrial accounts saw similar spikes.

In the weeks after the storm, Public Works flagged those accounts to prevent them from being disconnected or penalized for lack of payment and set up a hotline for residents to call.

About 30 percent of the affected owners filed FEMA claims before the end of November, and, if council approves, those homeowners would have their bills automatically reduced to their average monthly usage.

Any other homeowner who can show he or she filed a FEMA claim after Nov. 30, filed a private insurance claim related to Harvey, or can show other proof of Harvey damage would have to apply to qualify for the special bill adjustment. Those in that situation would need to present the relevant documents, along with an application, to Public Works within 90 days of council approval.

FEMA FEAR: Disaster victim activists concerned about FEMA's fairness, transparency

Beyond their control

The rule suspension also would partly reimburse homeowners who had to empty and refill their flooded pools; those residents would be billed only for the water used, rather than paying wastewater charges on the same volume, as typically would be the case.

"We're extremely happy to hear there's a possibility this could be resolved in some way," Hagner said. "We're people who pay our bills, but it didn't feel right to pay it, and it didn't feel right not to pay it, so we just kind of put everything on hold."

LISTEN: How a Houston investor buys and sells flooded homes

In Hagner's case, the pipe that broke fed her sprinkler system rather than her home; their bill would be adjusted down to about $200. She and her husband hope to move back within a week or two.

"We couldn't be in our house, we were overwhelmed trying to deal with all the financial impacts, and then to have something that was completely beyond our control hit like that for another $1,000 was a very emotional, stressful punch in the gut," Hagner said.

Alanna Reed, communications director for the Public Works department, called suspending the city's rules "the right thing to do."

"This speaks to the importance of the community letting us know when something's happening so we can work with them to come up with a solution," Reed said. "We need to be empathetic and do the right thing for these people."

Cheers and concerns

Reed said the department's testing showed the accuracy of the city's water meters was not to blame, noting that high bill complaints affect less than 1 percent of all accounts.

Still, though the vast majority of high Harvey bills came from residents whose homes flooded, she said 82 percent of the identified cases have no precise explanation.

The department does have plausible theories: Perhaps the refrigerator, floating away in the floodwaters cracked the icemaker water line and created a pressurized, days-long leak. Or, as in Hagner's case, a vehicle trying to make it through high water broke a buried water pipe.

Public Works estimates it will forego $650,000 on the nearly one-third of Harvey-affected accounts whose owners promptly filed FEMA claims, and up to another $17,000 in pool refill credits.

Councilman Mike Laster, long a critic of Public Works' handling of citizens high water bill complaints, cheered the proposal.

"A systematic, one-time adjustment is clearly in need," he said. "I'm grateful that the Public Works department has recognized that and is moving forward to adjust its billing authority appropriately."

Laster said he remains concerned that the city's water bill ordinance is insufficient to deal with daily anomalies that cause residents to be overcharged, historic hurricanes notwithstanding.

"They use this ordinance to really, I think, punish people unfairly, just assuming the water meters are perfect and they don't break," Laster said. "This ordinance revision is helpful, but it doesn't seem to correct that problem. They need an inherent system to acknowledge that sometimes mechanical things break."

Options on unusual bills

Under existing city ordinance, homeowners have three ways to adjust unusual bills.

If one month's bill spikes to more than double a homeowner's monthly average and neither the owner nor the city can determine why - a scenario that covers most of the accounts affected by Harvey - the owner can pay 1.5 times his monthly average and have the rest forgiven. The rule suspension before council on Wednesday, in essence, would drop that 1.5 ratio down to 1.

The other scenarios envisioned in the existing ordinance are leaks - the customer can pay what he would have paid in an average month and pay for half of all the excess water related to the leak - and "exceptional circumstances," which allow a customer to pay five times his average monthly bill and have the rest of the unusual bill, up to $4,000, forgiven.Houston-area voters are registering to vote in record numbers just in time for the March 6 primaries, and the two major political parties are bracing for yet another wave of newcomers over the next few days.

With Monday's voter registration deadline fast approaching, both major political parties say they are seeing a definite uptick in interest from people wanting to be ready for the nation's first in the nation political primaries.

"We are seeing a spike in activity," said Vlad Davidiuk, communications director for the Harris County Republican Party.

HOUSTON VOTING ESSENTIALS: When, where to vote and what's on the primary election ballot

Harris County Democrats say they too are seeing a lot more interest than usual during a midterm election cycle for both the primary races on March 6 and the general election in November.

Already Harris County has nearly 2.3 million registered voters. Four years ago in 2014, the last time Texas had a midterm election cycle with the governor's race being the top draw, Harris County had less than 2.1 million registered voters.

Harris County Voter Registration Totals Since 2010 2010 - 1,937,850

2012 - 2,000,011

2014 - 2,062,792

2016 - 2,234,671

2018 - 2,252,416 SOURCE: Texas Secretary of State See More Collapse

This year's primary ballot has no shortage of intrigue for both political parties.

In the race for governor, nine Democrats are on the ballot vying to see who will get to take on Gov. Greg Abbott if he is able to defeat two lesser known Republicans challenging him in a primary.

Thanks in part to two longtime members of Congress retiring in Houston, Republicans and Democrats have a record 61 candidates running for congressional seats just in Harris County. U.S. Reps Ted Poe, R-Atascocita, and Gene Green, D-Houston, are both leaving Congress, prompting a surge in candidates trying to replace them. In addition, U.S. Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, is holding what many expect will become one of the most competitive House races in the country.

ELECTION HQ: News and analysis on 2018 elections

And for U.S. Senate, Ted Cruz goes for his first re-election if he can win a GOP primary battle first. His likely opponent is U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke, an El Paso Democrat, who has raised more money for his campaign than any Democrat running for the U.S. Senate in 16 years.

While Election Day is March 6, early voting begins on Feb. 20.

To register to vote, Texans must fill out an application either at the county's voter registrar's office or by picking up the forms at public libraries, government offices, or high schools. The application can also be downloaded at from the Texas Secretary of State's website at: https://webservices.sos.state.tx.us/vrapp/index.asp

Jeremy Wallace writes about state politics and government for the Chronicle. Follow him on Twitter at @JeremySWallace.If any Patriots fans feel a slight chill while watching Tom Brady face off against the Philadelphia Eagles this Sunday and decide to turn up the thermostat a few notches, they might want to consider taking a knee and thanking Vladimir Putin. After all, their natural gas could have been shipped all the way from Mother Russia.

A tanker full of Siberian-produced liquified natural gas anchored in Massachusetts Bay last week and emptied its cargo over the weekend. Another tanker of Russian LNG is scheduled to reach the United States on Feb. 15, according to Bloomberg News.

So why are the dorms at Harvard being powered by Putin instead of by American shale?

RELATED: LNG exports are riding high, so what happens next?

ALSO: U.S. expected to become net exporter of natural gas for first time in decades

Your average Texas driller is probably left scratching his head. Domestic crude production is on path to the record set in 1970 - around 10 million barrels - and natural gas is following right behind. There's little reason to go looking across the ocean for petroleum.

Just one problem: All that gas can't get to the people who need it because New England simply never built enough pipelines.

Kinder Morgan, a Houston-based pipeline company, had proposed a connection to bring Marcellus Shale natural gas to customers in Massachusetts. That planned pipeline was scuttled in 2016, and opposition from U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., certainly didn't help.

WARREN TO CEO: 'You should be fired'

All across Texas, workers are building pipelines that will move oil and gas across the border into Mexico or to coastal ports where it can be pumped into tankers and shipped across the ocean to China, India and other markets.

Yet Boston Harbor remains a bridge too far.

RELATED: Sins of oil will be shouted from the rooftops

Pipeline opponents have their reasons - safety, pollution, global warming. But it's not as if the alternative to natural gas pipelines solves any of those concerns. Burning fuel oil to keep warm - the preferred method for many a Boston brownstone - is more expensive and dirtier than natural gas.

When supply gets tight, it isn't wind or solar that fills the gap. People just end up paying for international LNG. And there's no guarantee Russian or Qatari wells impose all the same stringent environmental and anti-leak protections as U.S. drillers and frackers.

INTERNATIONAL PIPES: Outdated trade ideas threaten to weaken Houston's energy economy

Meanwhile, the money that consumers pay for the Russian gas eventually ends up in the pockets of Moscow-linked oligarchs that the United States has struggled to sanction after Putin's 2014 invasion of Ukraine. This New England-bound shipment skirts the Obama-era prohibitions because, technically, the contents are owned by a French energy trader and arriving on a French-owned vessel.

We imagine U.S. Sen. Warren, a proponent of the ongoing Russia probe, isn't exactly pleased with the developing news.

It's time for Warren and her fellow travelers to face the reality of global energy markets.

OUR FUTURE: Houston after 2040

If you want to want to undercut Russian oligarchs and Saudi theocrats; if you want to replace coal and fuel oil with a cleaner alternative; if you want to avoid paying the same exorbitant price for liquefied natural gas as an island nation like Japan, then you have to build pipelines.

Maybe one day some technological innovation will replace natural gas in the same way that frackers are currently replacing coal. Maybe some battery-storage breakthrough will soon allow renewable energy to dominate the grid. But until then, America is producing a bounty of petroleum products and there's little reason for New England to miss out.

If our politicians keep standing in the way of pipeline projects, you can bet that Putin will be the one saying "Thank you."Amid the pomp and pageantry surrounding his first State of the Union address, President Trump's speech shined a spotlight on some heroes who helped Houston during the darkest hours of Hurricane Harvey.

Among the guests invited to join first lady Melania Trump was Jon Bridgers, the self-proclaimed founder of the Cajun Navy, the armada of selfless Louisiana boat owners who ventured to Texas in the middle of the storm and saved countless lives. Ashlee Leppert, a member of United States Coast Guard who rescued dozens, received a standing ovation. Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands, invited Jim "Mattress Mac" McIngvale, who opened his Gallery Furniture stores as shelters for Houstonians who were displaced during the storm.

Cheers to all of these worthy honorees, but we would have added a couple of other names to the invitation list: Karen Knight, Christina Quintero and Deborah Williams. All three of these women lost their homes during Hurricane Harvey, and unlike members of Congress they couldn't go home for the holidays. Mayor Sylvester Turner invited them to City Hall last month for an emotional news conference emphasizing why the U.S. Senate needs to approve a stalled Hurricane Harvey relief bill.

EDITORIAL: Harvey victims deserve more than what Congress offers

Let us take a moment to remind the senators and representatives who watched the president's speech about what happened on Capitol Hill last month. Just a couple of days before Christmas, the House approved a long-sought $81 billion relief package for victims of Harvey and other natural disasters across the country. That was nearly double the amount originally requested by the White House, but it still fell short of the $61 billion the Texas delegation originally sought for our state.

ALSO: White House hurricane bill messes with Texas

Still, it seemed like our area might finally get at least some of its desperately needed disaster relief funds. Then the ball was lobbed onto the other side of the Capitol dome. Senate leaders announced they wouldn't take up the measure until after the holidays, and they went home in time for Christmas.

FIRE UP CONGRESS: Shutdown threats presented an opportunity to fight for a full hurricane recovery

Texas senators and representatives from both parties railed against the delay. Seldom do U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee agree on anything, but they both joined the congressional chorus calling for the bill's passage. (Cruz's knack for making political enemies put him in a poor position to lobby for this legislation; his colleagues from the Northeast bitterly remembered his grandstanding vote against relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy.) Nonetheless, our state's once-powerful congressional delegation couldn't get this ball across the goal line.

DEAR TRUMP: President must get to know Houston, offer critical federal funding

So we wish the president would have introduced to Congress Karen Knight, a single mother of five children - including a paralyzed daughter - whose home was rendered unlivable by an infestation of mold. Maybe some of those senators could have explained their inaction to Christina Quintero, a mother of an autistic child who broke down in tears at City Hall when she talked about floodwaters destroying everything she owned. For them, the State of the Union is pretty lousy.

"Let me be very clear: This is urgent," our mayor has said. "There are thousands of people living in homes that need to be remediated, and there are thousands of people still living in hotels."

Honoring the Cajun Navy's founder and Mattress Mac at the State of the Union address was all well and good, but that's not really what the Texas Gulf Coast needs out of Congress. Thanks for the pats on the back. That's not enough.

Now, senators, it's time to do your job. Pass the disaster relief bill.The year 2018 holds exciting opportunities and challenges for the Houston Independent School District. Last year brought difficulty and disruption for all of us as we dealt with the devastation of Hurricane Harvey and its aftermath. Many HISD students, employees, and their families are still recovering. And the district continues to rebuild from a storm that will have ramifications long after homes are repaired and schools reopened.

As we enter into this new semester, I need to inform you that our district is facing significant budget challenges. I'd say we're in a financial storm unlike any the district has seen before. We, like every other district in the state, depend on local property taxes as our primary source of funding. Looking forward, we must consider the possibility of a decrease in our property values resulting from Harvey. Those values will be released in April. Lower property values would mean lower revenues for the district.

FALKENBERG: Sit up and listen, folks: HISD is about to make big changes

The storm has also impacted our student enrollment, and we anticipate losing more students in the upcoming school year as families continue to struggle to find safe and permanent housing. When you combine those factors with our upcoming recapture payment of more than $268 million, we are looking at budget challenges that will require us to shift our thinking about how we allocate funds for the 2018-'19 school year at both the school and department level.

RELATED: Houston ISD proposes drastic changes to school funding, magnet programs

While we examine every aspect of how we operate this district and educate our children, one thing will not change: our obligation to ensure that we deliver a quality education to all students and provide all schools with equitable access to essential services, programs and staff. Some of our schools - in particular, the smaller schools - have struggled for years to meet the basic needs of their students. They have not had essential staff such as a librarian, counselor or nurse, who are critical to encouraging social and academic student success.

ALSO: HISD to move forward with plan for low-performing schools, regardless of whether state offers reprieve

Around HISD, our staff hears the word "equity" in almost every conversation and decision-making process. It's what I believe in. It's what the HISD board believes in. And it's our goal for the district: making sure every student has access to the highest quality education we can provide with the resources available. Using an equity lens, we've reviewed our current funding model and are recommending the district shift to a more centralized budgeting process for schools in 2018-'19. This move will change the way schools are staffed and operated, and it gives us an opportunity to maximize our limited funding.

And schools are not alone. I've directed every department in HISD to take a hard look at their budgets and staffing models to determine areas that can be streamlined.

RHETORIC VS. ACTION: The budget from Dan Patrick's Senate all but guarantees higher property taxes

We cannot afford to continue doing business the way we've been doing business. Our unfortunate reality is that we are in a financial storm caused by the aftermath of the worst natural disaster Houston has ever seen and a school finance model that simply does not work for large, urban public school districts like HISD.

We must start a thoughtful conversation about resources, materials and staffing if we are to meet our goals of educating the whole child.

Last week, I shared some of the changes with all of our principals. As you can imagine, they had a lot of questions about what this more centralized budget model means for their campus. We are still figuring that out, but we're doing it with their input. We want to be sure that with this new model, our schools do not lose the flexibility to meet the unique needs of their community or stifle innovation in the classroom. But know that HISD is committed to providing a quality education for every student. This has been a district of innovation for as long as it's been around.

That same spirit of innovation will be required as we enter into these uncertain times. But I'm sure we will come out on the other side of the storm stronger, wiser and better by working together.

Carranza is superintendent of the Houston Independent School District.As an existing print subscriber it is easy to get FREE access to all our online content.

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If you are already a print subscriber and want online access, it is free, you simply have to create an online account and then attach your print subscription account number to the online account you create.Great Barrington Firefighters Snuff Kitchen Blaze at Pizzeria

Great Barrington firefighters respond to a fire at the Pizza House early Tuesday morning.



Fire damage was limited to areas on the first floor and a second-floor bathroom. GREAT BARRINGTON  The Fire Department extinguished a fire at Pizza House on State Road early Tuesday morning that severely damaged the business's kitchen and structure's first floor.

"Our crews did an excellent job limiting the damage despite the challenges posed by this particular structure, which has been a fixture in town for decades," Chief Charles Burger said. "I'm extremely grateful that a tragedy was avoided this morning, and I'm hopeful that Pizza House will be able to rebuild and the residents will be able to return home soon."

Firefighters were dispatched to the 36 State Road business at about 3:30 a.m. for a report of a structure fire with tenants possibly trapped on the floor above.

Upon arrival, firefighters observed heavy fire venting from the first-floor kitchen windows and smoke coming from the remainder of the building. Tenants were able to escape the building prior to firefighters reaching the scene, but there was still some uncertainty about whether or not a second apartment was occupied at the time the fire started.

Firefighters made an aggressive interior attack and conducted a thorough search of the second floor while battling extreme heat and zero visibility inside the building. Their search confirmed that there were no tenants left inside, and crews were able to quickly knock down the flames.

Once the fire was extinguished, firefighters remained on scene to extinguish hot spots. The firefighting effort was complicated by the fact that the building has been renovated and added onto multiple times during its lifespan, creating hidden areas that could potentially allow a fire to extend more easily.

The Fire Department was assisted on scene by police, the Sheffield Fire Department and Southern Berkshire Ambulance.

Fire damage was limited to the first-floor kitchen and a second-floor bathroom, but there is smoke damage throughout the entire building.

Residents in the upstairs apartments suffered from smoke inhalation that is not believed to be serious, and later went to the hospital on their own to seek medical treatment.

Displaced tenants were able to make alternative arrangements for shelter.

An investigation by the Fire Department and State Fire Marshal's Office is pointing to an electrical failure as the cause of the fire.Pittsfield Officer Cleared in Officer-Involved Shooting Death

The September incident on Taylor Street was the second officer-involved shooting in Pittsfield in 2017.

PITTSFIELD, Mass.  The district attorney has determined that Office Christopher Colello will not be charged with a crime in the shooting of Daniel Gillis in September.

Colello shot and killed 36-year-old Daniel Gillis on Taylor Street on Sept. 1, 2017. District Attorney David Capeless said on Wednesday that Colello "acted lawfully in defense of his fellow officers when Gillis suddenly charged at the officers while brandishing a knife."

"I have completed the investigation into the shooting death of Daniel Gillis on the afternoon on September 1, 2017, and I have concluded that there was no criminal behavior on the part of any of the officers of the Pittsfield Police Department. Specifically, I have determined that Officer Christopher Colello acted lawfully in defense of his fellow officers when Gillis suddenly charged at the officers while brandishing a knife," Capeless said in a statement.

"Clearly, this was an unfortunate situation which ended tragically. The entire incident developed within a short period of time and rapidly escalated when Gillis emerged from the house holding a knife to his throat and advanced upon officers despite their calls to drop the knife. When Gillis suddenly changed direction and charged at several officers, yelling at them, the situation changed from dangerous to life-threatening."

Capeless went on to say, "In this case, a cell phone video taken by a neighbor was quite helpful to the investigation, as it showed the incident shortly after Gillis emerged from the rear of the house and included the shooting. The investigation involved multiple, extended interviews of the many participants and witnesses, but the few seconds of the real-time capture of the event provided the most informative piece of the investigation."

Police responded that afternoon to a reported domestic incident. According to police, Gillis had initially barricaded himself in the house and was armed with a knife. He was said to be distraught and intoxicated, according to Capeless. Authorities said he exited the home and charged at officers while refusing to drop the weapon.

Colello shot the man seven times and Gillis was later pronounced dead at Berkshire Medical Center. The incident was the second officer-involved shooting involving Colello. He had previously shot a man in Dalton in 2010. It was also the city's second officer-involved shooting in 2017. In January 2017, 55-year-old Mark Marauszwski was shot by Officer Martin Streit after a police pursuit. Streit was cleared of any wrongdoing in that case.

The investigation of the Gillis incident was conducted by the state police detective unit assigned to the berkshire district attorney's office, assisted by the state police's Firearm Identification and Crime Scene Services sections, chemists assigned to the State Police Crime Laboratory, the Berkshire County sheriff's department and the Pittsfield Police Department.Health Matters: Antibiotic Resistance And What You Can Do About It

The introduction of antibiotics in the late 1930s decreased U.S. infection deaths by 73 percent in the first 15 years. Antibiotics have enabled complicated surgery, chemotherapy for cancer, care for premature babies, organ transplants and more. As a result, many claim that antibiotics are the most important medical advance of the 20th century.



What's troubling about antibiotics is that scientists are discovering fewer antibiotics than ever, and those we have are losing their effect. Bacteria and other microorganisms, which cause infections and disease, use several ways to impede antibiotic action and thus become "resistant" to the antibiotic. They can change themselves by mutating their own DNA, share DNA between different bacteria, change their structure to be less porous for antibiotics to be absorbed, create proteins which inactivate the antibiotic itself, among other ways to evade the action of antibiotic to kill a microorganism.



In fact, the time between when a new antibiotic is introduced and when resistance starts to be noticed among bacteria has fallen from 10 years to just 1. These developments have given rise to the "super bugs." These bacteria can be resistant to nearly every antibiotic developed to kill them.



There are about 15 known super bugs. They go by unusual names, like C. Diff., CRE and MRSA. These super bugs show resistance to the types of antibiotics that would normally kill them and return the infected person to health. When untreated, bacterial infections can cause serious prolonged illness and even death. If we continue on our current path, it is predicted that deaths attributable to antibiotic resistance will surpass those caused by cancer by 2050. The cost of treating a patient with an antibiotic-resistant infection is an estimated $20,000 to $30,000 more expensive than normal treatment, and hospital stays for those with antibiotic-resistant infections are an extra six days long.



This is scary, but we can fight back. The most effective way to fight back is to work together. Medical and pharmaceutical researchers are working to discover and develop new antibiotics. The Infectious Disease Society has launched a campaign to develop 10 new antibiotics by the year 2020. They have discovered eight so far, and seven have been FDA-approved. This effort was initially supported by the Obama administration and so far has been continued with monetary support from Congress. The plan is called the National Action Plan for Combatting Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria and was initiated in 2015.



Local doctors are working to fight antibiotic resistance too. While many of the most common infections are caused by bacteria, and can be helped with an antibiotic, others are viral. And antibiotics do not work on viruses. They don't cure the infection, prevent the spread of the illness, or make you feel any better. Taking an antibiotic for a virus may provide exposure that bacteria can use to develop resistance. Local doctors are working to prescribe antibiotics only for bacterial infections.



In this arena of complex science, the average person might think that there's not much she can do. In this case, there is. In fact, individuals' participation might be the most powerful in reversing this dangerous trend.



The first and easiest thing you can do to is to get vaccinated. You might think at first that getting vaccinated for a viral disease, like the flu, for instance, shouldn't have any effect on antibiotics. But it does. Those who get the viral flu often get bacterial infections like strep or staph as complications, each of which require an antibiotic. With each prescription we save, we decrease the likelihood that resistance will develop. So every person who doesn't get the flu is a win in the fight against antibiotic resistance.



The second thing to do is to practice good hygiene. Wash your hands frequently, cover your coughs and sneezes. If we all followed these rules, we would decrease the instance of both viral and bacterial infections and greatly reduce the demand for antibiotics.



Educate yourself about which infections are related to bacteria and which to viruses. The CDC's Viruses or Bacteria Fact Sheet, available online, is a great resource for this information. Work with your doctor to ensure that you are prescribed an antibiotic only if you are reasonably sure the infection is bacterial. If you do have an illness that requires a prescription, take it exactly as prescribed.



While the widespread adoption of these actions alone would make a tremendous difference, there is more for those who are interested in making a greater impact. You can learn the effects of antibiotics in agriculture and make wise purchasing decisions. You can use social media and the CDC's antibiotic resistance social content to educate others. Finally, you can also visit here to review current legislation and support politicians who take this issue seriously.



Together  the researchers, the doctors and associate providers, and patients  can ensure that our antibiotics remain effective and restore us to good health for many, many years to come.



Dr. Marie George is the medical director for Infectious Disease at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center. Her practice is within the SVMC Multispecialty Practice. "Health Matters" is a column meant to educate readers about their personal health, public health matters, and public policy as it affects health care. For more columns like this one, visit svhealthcare.org/wellnessconnection.What did Daniel Day-Lewis see in Phantom Threads pattern that spooked him so? The part of Reynolds Woodcock  an haute-couture designer in 1950s London who treats young women as disposable accessories to his visions, until he meets Alma (Vicky Krieps) and the professional thread of his life snags  brought the actor to the end of something, too. The end of acting itself, he soon told the world. This was a big drag for all of us, the films director Paul Thomas Anderson said, unconsciously echoing Paul McCartneys phrase of stunned understatement when John Lennon was shot, and hardly sounding less appalled.

The films title perhaps refers to a curse that can hang over dressmaking, which leaves Reynolds tethered to his sister and, in one sickened hallucination, haunted by his mother. Then theres Reynoldss pursuit of spectral perfection, of silence, order and shape in life and art to keep lurking chaos at bay. Not for the first time, the obsession seems autobiographical of an actor whose disappointed desire to perfect each role is legendary.

Day-Lewiss six months living off the land preparing for The Last of the Mohicans (1992), his staying in character throughout each shoot so that, as cerebral palsied poet Christy Brown in My Left Foot (1989), he needed help to get into his wheelchair, the reincarnation of Abraham Lincoln down to the reedy Kentucky cadences of his voice and weary unfolding of his long body in Lincoln (2012): this was all seen as a passing of the torch from Robert De Niro, who lost the energy for such obsession as Day-Lewis gained his.

Day-Lewis and Vicky Krieps star in Paul Thomas Andersons Phantom Thread (Universal Pictures)

But the Day-Lewis we now seem to be losing was De Niros heir in a more fundamental way. For a precious decade from Mean Streets (1973) to Once Upon a Time in America (1984), De Niro was an unknowable mystery, a seeming husk passing from role to role, other-worldly in his strokes of genius. Though Day-Lewis says his most important film experience was watching Britains Sixties kitchen-sink cinema, and his star-making role in My Beautiful Launderette (1985) took that tradition down new paths of race and sexuality, he also abandoned it there. The same years A Room With a View said goodbye to Britains heritage cinema, and he quit theatre in 1989. Realism and the stage werent for him. Instead, the De Niro-like mystery he often talks of preserving in his work is unique among male British actors (Tilda Swinton is an actress who rivals it).

His Anglo-Irish, poet laureate father Cecil Day-Lewis and Jewish mother Jill Balcon (the actress daughter of Ealing Studios boss Sir Michael Balcon) made him an ethnic and class outsider during schooldays in relatively tough parts of Greenwich, south-east London. Hes even more of an outsider from British cinema, a Blakean figure who dabbles in magical and spiritual theories to get lost in his art. He told a trusted American interviewer, Charlie Rose, that his need to stay in character might be pure paganism; that acting itself was the worshipped idol he had faith in. It was his salvation from an inchoate, wild childhood. But of course its bound to let you down, he said. Its a very fragile form.

This often disappointed faith plays out in even minor roles. Nine (2009), the musical remake of Fellinis 8, was misbegotten. But as artistically blocked director Guido Contini, Day-Lewis utterly convinces when shuffling down a street in defeated, anonymous retirement. The characters opening speech could describe his current artistic agonies. The film is a dream, he sighs. You kill it writing it down. You kill it with the camera...for a moment, your actors breathe life back into it. But then it dies again.

Day-Lewis in one of his most celebrated roles, as poet Christy Brown in My Left Foot, 1989 (Rex) (Rex Features)

With Phantom Threads Reynolds Woodcock, this creative connection to a role was more intimate than ever before. Simply wanting to work with Day-Lewis again after their first film together, There Will Be Blood (2007), Anderson offered his barely formed notions for a script. The actor then participated very closely in the writing, Anderson told Rolling Stone. In terms of the dialogue ... there are massive amounts of lines that are all him ... he would write these fantastic flourishes that could only come from Reynolds. Even Reynolds Woodcocks name, teetering between epicene refinement and obscene absurdity, was created by Day-Lewis. The late 1950s London setting, meanwhile, became a sentimental journey back into the lost English world of his childhood. More specifically, it recalled his poet father, who died when Day-Lewis was 14.

My dad was very like Reynolds Woodcock, he told W magazine. In his last minutes as a stage actor, playing Hamlet in 1989, his fathers ghost seemed to rear up in place of that of Hamlets father, making him tearfully unable to continue. In Phantom Thread, Reynolds Woodcocks dead mother stares sadly back at him in a moment of crisis. You could see this as a circle closing for Day-Lewis, or a wound being ripped open. At any rate, as he turned 60 playing a man much like his father  who died aged 68  a sadness ... settled on me ... during the telling of the story. Theres something of the responsibility of the artist that hung over me, he added, trying to explain his mood. I need to believe in the value of what Im doing. He no longer believed in it enough.

Something broke in his film acting once before. He hates the job, director Jim Sheridan infamously said after their third collaboration, The Boxer (1997), became an unhappy, compromised experience which wore him out. Vanishing to Italy for five years with his wife and young son, he became a cobbler.

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Day-Lewis and Cameron Diaz in Scorceses The Gangs of New York. The brutish role signalled the end of the reserve and refinement for which he had been noted previously (Rex) (Rex Features)

It was after this mythic period in the wilderness that Day-Lewis found his full glory. Before, he had favoured wild, romantic outsiders, whether as Hawkeye roaring through hostile armies as if theyre mist to rescue his true love in Last of the Mohicans, or a witch-hunts rough martyr in The Crucible (1996). Now, he found the nerve to be a monster. Lured back to work by Scorsese, he made the 19th century gang-leader Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York (2002) a figure of brute, brimstone malevolence, a wax-moustached, music-hall Satan. The screen seemed to tilt towards him when he shared it with his co-star, Leonardo DiCaprio. This was a heavyweight let loose, the reserve and refinement of most previous English screen acting behind him in the dust.

When his south London contemporary Gary Oldman went that wild, it was usually a manic joke. As Day-Lewis pumped himself up to be Bill by playing Eminems anthem Lose Yourself in his dressing room, he was more like a troll beneath a bridge, readying real mayhem. There was a relatively gentle interlude in his wife Rebecca Millers The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005). Then Paul Thomas Anderson offered him Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood, taking him deeper into an absurd and tragic heart of darkness.

Plainviews black-eyed squint at a world he despises, as if seeing it through the stygian dust of the mine where we discover him, is almost as memorable as his hoarse yet mesmeric bark of a voice. I like to kid myself that I can hear that voice before I make the sound of it, Day-Lewis mused, as if Plainview was in the ether, waiting for him. During the 30 years the film covers, the character tears strips off his own humanity. He makes me laugh, said Day-Lewis.

Day-Lewis won an Oscar for his portrayal of the American President in Lincoln (Rex) (Rex Features)

Theres nothing mad you can do that he wont encourage me to be madder, he explained of Anderson, when they discussed Phantom Thread last week. Reynolds Woodcock is therefore the last and most personal in the actors gallery of grotesques. But the film is haunted for him, with spells in it he cant explain. What he has called bereavement in the drifting aftermath of previous roles overtook him even as he was making it. There were many melancholy moments, Anderson accepts, many more than in the script. Day-Lewis cant bear to watch it.

Charlie Rose once got him to recall his first retirement, from the theatre. And now looking back at it, we reach what we think are the boundaries of our endurance, 10 minutes later thinking that ... I could have gone further, he reflected of his sudden exhaustion then. But quite honestly ... I was beyond caring at that moment. Id done it enough. I couldnt do it any more. He was talking about Hamlet specifically, but never set foot on a stage again. A similar need for self-preservation has cut the cord with cinema. This second retirements urgent announcement felt like an emergency operation, cauterising a depressive poisons spread. He couldnt do it any more.

The responsibility of a creative life ... is both a curse and a blessing, Day-Lewis said last year. You can never separate them till the day you die. Acting seemed to die for him on the set of Phantom Thread. He had only 16 leading roles in 33 years, five of them Oscar-nominated, three successfully. And yet the personal disappointment and damage that are his works private curse cancels all.

Talking about his old job, Daniel Day-Lewis sounds as bereft as a priest whos lost sight of God, or a lover whose life-partner is gone. Though hes likeably aware of how pompous this can seem, thats the level of belief he brought to acting.

Of course, his beloved wife and children are very much alive. Maybe a future in acting will be again. For now, Reynolds Woodcock is his parting gift: an artist consumed by his fastidious genius, who concludes that what he really needs is a long lie-down. The actor admitted to sharing Plainviews fever in his previous Anderson film, a mania for acting like his characters for oil and power. Im finished, Daniel Plainview finally says. Daniel Day-Lewis, too.

Phantom Thread is in cinemas from 2 FebruaryFor superhero fans, the most exciting prospect about the Disney/Fox merger is the X-Men series and Marvel Cinematic Universe being under the same roof.

But what does that mean for the future of the Avengers? Well, no-ones quite sure yet, including the head of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige.

The truth of the matter as I understand it is the deal has to be figured out, Feige told Vulture.

Theres been no communication. Were not thinking about it. Were focusing on everything weve already announced. If and when the deal actually happens, well start to think more about it. Until then, we have a lot to do.

Pressed on whether Marvel Studios had a plan for when the X-Men are up for grabs  something similar to their plan to write Spider-Man into Captain America: Civil War even though the rights to the character are owned by Sony  Feige remained vague.

27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Show all 27 1 /27 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Black Panther Released: 12 February 12 February Director: Ryan Coogler Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o, Forest Whitaker, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 The Greatest Showman Released: 1 January 1 January Director: Michael Gracey Cast: Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Michelle Williams, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Darkest Hour Released: 12 January 12 January Director: Joe Wright Cast: Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ben Mendelsohn 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri Released: 12 January Director: Martin McDonagh 12 JanuaryMartin McDonagh Cast: Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Caleb Landry Jones > Twentieth Century Fox 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Coco Released: 19 January 19 January Director: Lee Unkrich ,p>Cast: Anthony Gonzalez, Gael Garcia Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, Renee Victor 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Downsizing Released: 19 January 19 January Director: Alexander Payne Cast: Matt Damon, Christopher Waltz, Jong Chau, Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudeikis 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Early Man Released: 26 January 26 January Director: Nick Park Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Tom Hiddleston, Maisie Williams, Timothy Spall 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Fifty Shades Freed Released: 9 February 9 February Director: James Foley Cast: Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Kim Basinger 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Maze Runner: The Death Cure Released: 9 February 9 February Director: Wes Ball Cast: Dylan O'Brien, Thomas Brodie Sangster, Kaya Scodelario, Giancarlo Esposito, Aidan Gillen 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 The Shape of Water Released: 16 February 16 February Director: Guillermo del Toro Cast: Sally Hawkins, Octavia Spencer, Michael Shannon, Michael Stuhlbarg, Doug Jones 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Annihilation Released: 23 February 23 February Director: Alex Garland Cast: Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Lee, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, Oscar Isaac 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Dark River Released: 23 February 23 February Director: Clio Barnard Cast: Ruth Wilson, Mark Stanley, Sean Bean 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Red Sparrow Released: 2 March 2 March Director: Francis Lawrence Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Jeremy Irons 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Tomb Raider Released: 16 March 16 March Director: Roar Uthaug Cast: Alicia Vikander, Walton Goggins, Daniel Wu, Dominic West, 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 A Wrinkle in Time Released: 23 March 23 March Director: Ava DuVernay Cast: Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Zach Galifianakis 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Pacific Rim: Uprising Released: 23 March 23 March Director: Steven S. DeKnight Cast: John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Charlie Day, Burn Gorman 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Roman J Israel, Esq Released: 23 March 23 March Director: Dan Gilroy Cast: Denzel Washington, Colin Farrell, Carmen Ejogo Columbia Pictures 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Isle of Dogs Released: 30 March 30 March Director: Wes Anderson Cast: Bill Murray, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton, Scarlett Johansson 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Ready Player One Released: 30 March 30 March Director: Steven Spielberg Cast: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Mark Rylance, Simon Pegg 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Avengers: Infinity War Released: 27 April 27 April Director: The Russo Brothers Cast: Robert Downey, Jr, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Josh Brolin 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Untitled Han Solo Film Released: 25 May 25 May Director: Ron Howard Cast: Alden Ehrenreich, Emilia Clarke, Woody Harrelson, Donald Glover 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Released: 8 June 8 June Director: J.A. Bayona Cast: Bryce Dallas Howard, Chris Pine, B.D. Wong, Toby Jones 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Deadpool 2 Released: 1 June Director: David Leitch 1 JuneDavid Leitch Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, T.J. Miller, Zazie Beetz, Josh Brolin 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Ocean's 8 Released: 22 June 22 June Director: Gary Ross Cast: Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Anne Hathaway, Olivia Munn, Helena Bonham Carter, Rihanna, Matt Damon 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Ant-Man and the Wasp Released: 29 June 29 June Director: Peyton Reed Cast: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Soldado Released: 29 June 29 June Director: Stefano Sollima Cast: Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Jeffrey Donovan, Catherine Keener, Matthew Modine 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 The Incredibles 2 Released: 13 July 13 July Director: Brad Bird Cast: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, Samuel L. Jackson

It would be years away, the producer continued. Weve announced everything through 2019, so none of those would be adjusted.

Those already announced projects include the upcoming Black Panther, the first social media reviews for which have reached the internet already. Beyond that, there are two Avengers film, Ant-Man and the Wasp, and the Brie Larson-starring Captain Marvel.Production on spy thriller The Rhythm Section has been shut down, after a hand injury sustained by star Blake Lively.

The star first sustained the injury while doing a stunt while filming in Dublin in December. At the time, filming was only temporarily suspended while she took time to heal.

The Hollywood Reporter now cites sources stating that the actor's initial hand surgery did not go as planned, meaning she must now undergo a second surgery, with added time to heal and recover.

The sources add that, in light of this, production has been indefinitely suspended, with crews told to find other work. Just under half the film has been reportedly shot, with another source stating it could be at least five months before production can resume.

Producers confirmed the shutdown in a statement on Monday: "Hiatus on the production of The Rhythm Section has been extended due to the hand injury Blake Lively sustained while filming an action sequence on the action thriller at the end of last year."

27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Show all 27 1 /27 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Black Panther Released: 12 February 12 February Director: Ryan Coogler Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o, Forest Whitaker, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 The Greatest Showman Released: 1 January 1 January Director: Michael Gracey Cast: Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Michelle Williams, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Darkest Hour Released: 12 January 12 January Director: Joe Wright Cast: Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ben Mendelsohn 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri Released: 12 January Director: Martin McDonagh 12 JanuaryMartin McDonagh Cast: Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Caleb Landry Jones > Twentieth Century Fox 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Coco Released: 19 January 19 January Director: Lee Unkrich ,p>Cast: Anthony Gonzalez, Gael Garcia Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, Renee Victor 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Downsizing Released: 19 January 19 January Director: Alexander Payne Cast: Matt Damon, Christopher Waltz, Jong Chau, Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudeikis 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Early Man Released: 26 January 26 January Director: Nick Park Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Tom Hiddleston, Maisie Williams, Timothy Spall 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Fifty Shades Freed Released: 9 February 9 February Director: James Foley Cast: Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Kim Basinger 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Maze Runner: The Death Cure Released: 9 February 9 February Director: Wes Ball Cast: Dylan O'Brien, Thomas Brodie Sangster, Kaya Scodelario, Giancarlo Esposito, Aidan Gillen 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 The Shape of Water Released: 16 February 16 February Director: Guillermo del Toro Cast: Sally Hawkins, Octavia Spencer, Michael Shannon, Michael Stuhlbarg, Doug Jones 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Annihilation Released: 23 February 23 February Director: Alex Garland Cast: Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Lee, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, Oscar Isaac 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Dark River Released: 23 February 23 February Director: Clio Barnard Cast: Ruth Wilson, Mark Stanley, Sean Bean 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Red Sparrow Released: 2 March 2 March Director: Francis Lawrence Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Jeremy Irons 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Tomb Raider Released: 16 March 16 March Director: Roar Uthaug Cast: Alicia Vikander, Walton Goggins, Daniel Wu, Dominic West, 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 A Wrinkle in Time Released: 23 March 23 March Director: Ava DuVernay Cast: Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Zach Galifianakis 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Pacific Rim: Uprising Released: 23 March 23 March Director: Steven S. DeKnight Cast: John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Charlie Day, Burn Gorman 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Roman J Israel, Esq Released: 23 March 23 March Director: Dan Gilroy Cast: Denzel Washington, Colin Farrell, Carmen Ejogo Columbia Pictures 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Isle of Dogs Released: 30 March 30 March Director: Wes Anderson Cast: Bill Murray, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton, Scarlett Johansson 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Ready Player One Released: 30 March 30 March Director: Steven Spielberg Cast: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Mark Rylance, Simon Pegg 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Avengers: Infinity War Released: 27 April 27 April Director: The Russo Brothers Cast: Robert Downey, Jr, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Josh Brolin 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Untitled Han Solo Film Released: 25 May 25 May Director: Ron Howard Cast: Alden Ehrenreich, Emilia Clarke, Woody Harrelson, Donald Glover 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom Released: 8 June 8 June Director: J.A. Bayona Cast: Bryce Dallas Howard, Chris Pine, B.D. Wong, Toby Jones 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Deadpool 2 Released: 1 June Director: David Leitch 1 JuneDavid Leitch Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, T.J. Miller, Zazie Beetz, Josh Brolin 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Ocean's 8 Released: 22 June 22 June Director: Gary Ross Cast: Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Anne Hathaway, Olivia Munn, Helena Bonham Carter, Rihanna, Matt Damon 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Ant-Man and the Wasp Released: 29 June 29 June Director: Peyton Reed Cast: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 Soldado Released: 29 June 29 June Director: Stefano Sollima Cast: Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Jeffrey Donovan, Catherine Keener, Matthew Modine 27 films to look out for in the first half of 2018 The Incredibles 2 Released: 13 July 13 July Director: Brad Bird Cast: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, Samuel L. Jackson



Before Lively's injury, The Rhythm Section was a hype-inducing project from Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, of EON Productions, and The Handmaid's Tale director Reed Morano.

Also starring Jude Law, the film was adapting the first book of Mark Burnell's Stephanie Patrick series, with Lively playing a woman whose life is thrown into chaos after the death of her family in an airplane crash - a flight that she was meant to be on.

After she discovers the crash was caused by an onboard bomb, she undergoes a complete self-transformation into a deadly assassin, hell-bent on tracking down those responsible.

Follow Independent Culture on Facebook for all the latest on Film, TV, Music, and more.Mark Sallings Glee co-stars have paid tribute to the actor who was found dead near his Los Angeles home weeks before he was due to be sentenced for possession of child pornography.

Best known for playing Noah Puck Puckerman on the popular TV series, the 35-year-old's death is being investigated as a suicide, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.

His body was found near a riverbed in Tujunga, a neighbourhood to the north of the city.

Ahead of his guilty plea for possession of child pornography, prosecutors said a search of Salling's laptop found more than 25,000 images. Others were discovered on a hard drive and USB stick.

His girlfriend reported him to police after he showed her some of them. He was facing between four to seven years behind bars at his sentencing on 7 March.

While acknowledging his crime, some of his Glee co-stars and colleagues paid tribute to Salling on social media and expressed their shock at the news.

Tim Davis, the show's former vocal coordinator, called him a broken man".

He said: Today we lost another Glee cast member. Yes, he committed crimes against children. Yes, it's horrific. But #MarkSalling was a broken man, no doubt an abuse victim himself.

Davis post was retweeted by other members of the Glee cast.

Matthew Morrison, who played Will Schuester in the Emmy Award winning show with Salling, shared a photo on Instagram of Salling with Cory Monteith, who played Finn Hudson on the show.

In 2013 Monteith died of an "accidental overdose" of heroin and alcohol in a Vancouver hotel room.

Iqbal Theba, who played Principal Figgins on the show, tweeted: Oh Mark.

He followed it up with a fuller statement.

"His death is painful for me," he wrote. "Some of u might know him for only his flaws but I also knew him as someone who was great to work with & was kind to my kids. I truly wish hed fought his demons &atoned himself & came out a winner. May we all find solace in some of his gentler memories."

Paris Barclay, a director who worked on the show, shared an image of himself alongside Salling and

"It's a painful loss, again, Barclay wrote alongside the picture. "Two young actors, lost too soon. RIP #marksalling."

Prior to his sentencing, Salling was ordered to stay at least 100 feet away from schools, parks, public swimming pools, youth centres, playgrounds, and arcades. He had also been ordered to pay $50,000 in restitution to each victim of his, was not allowed to have any verbal or electronic contact with minors, and checked into a treatment plan.

"Mark is focused on accepting responsibility and to atone for his conduct," his lawyer Michael Proctor said after his client's guilty plea.

He also confirmed Salling had passed away, but did not reveal the cause of death.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

"Mark was a gentle and loving person, a person of great creativity, who was doing his best to atone for some serious mistakes and errors of judgement," he said in a statement.

The overnight success of Glee turned Salling, who was regular on the first four seasons of the high school set musical, and his co-stars into instant stars.The lineup for this year's Parklife Festival in Manchester is a good'un.

The xx, Liam Gallagher and Skepta will headline the weekend event, which takes place in Heaton Park on 9 and 10 June. Also on the billing are Lorde, N.E.R.D, Chvrches, Jessie Ware, Sigrid, Kelela, Raye and Jamie xx also join the bill.

Dance acts Four Tet, Justice, Everything Everything and The Black Madonna will also appear.

Parklife will mark Gallaghers first return to Heaton Park since he performed with his old band Beady Eye as support for The Stone Roses in 2012. Last year the festival scored an appearance by Frank Ocean; his first UK show in three years.

Read our review of last year's festival here.

Follow Independent Culture on FacebookVeteran BBC journalist John Simpson has become embroiled in a Twitter spat with Piers Morgan after he argued the controversial columnists interview with Donald Trump was spineless.

Morgan, who presents Good Morning Britain and is editor-at-large of US Mail Online, interviewed the US president at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland last week.

He was fiercely criticised for his approach to what was Mr Trumps first international TV interview since becoming president.

Critics on social media argued the so-called love-in between Morgan and his great friend was uncomfortable to witness, while 88 per cent of people polled by the Radio Times said Morgan was not tough enough on the world leader.

Mr Simpson, a long-time BBC foreign correspondent and world affairs editor, was among those who criticised Morgan for the interview.

He said: The art of the political interview, Piers, is to push your interviewee hard - not let them spout self-evident tosh. That's just showbiz.

Morgan responded to the tweet, which has been shared nearly six thousand times, by branding Simpson a pompous old prune.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 South Africa's Ntando Mahlangu (centre) wins the Men's 200 metres T61 Final ahead of second placed Great Britain's Richard Whitehead at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2021 A young common seal on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, as hundreds of pregnant grey seals come ashore ready for the start of the pupping season. PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA UK news in pictures 12 August 2021 Children ride horses in the River Eden in Appleby, Cumbria, during the annual gathering of travellers for the Appleby Horse Fair PA UK news in pictures 11 August 2021 Stella Moris (left) reacts after talking to the media outside the High Court in London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal, n London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal. 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The bridge was closed last year after cracks in it worsened during a heatwave Getty

He said: The BBC led on revelations from my interview all Friday morning, and Andrew Marr said yesterday it had made real news. So it would appear youre the one spouting tosh, you pompous old prune.

But Simpson, who has spent the entirety of his career at the BBC, hit back: Pompous, probably. Old, undeniably. Prune, quite possibly. But I dont enjoy watching spineless political interviews.

Morgan replied: You once claimed live on air that the BBC (you!) had liberated Kabul, you egotistical charlatan. So please spare me the journalism lectures".

The interview, in which the president discussed Jeremy Corbyn, Brexit, fast food, Twitter, the royal wedding and a number of other issues, gave ITV a 10pm bump as three million people tuned in to watch.

Simpson joined the BBC in 1970 at the age of 25 and in 1988 was appointed the corporation's world affairs editor. He has reported on more than 38 conflicts in over 140 countries around the world was made a CBE in 1991.South Korea is not planning to ban cryptocurrency trading, the countrys finance minister has said.

Bitcoins value has fallen heavily over recent weeks, amid fears that the South Korean government was planning an extreme crackdown.

Several senior figures recently hinted that a complete ban on cryptocurrency exchanges was under consideration.

Gadget and tech news: In pictures Show all 25 1 /25 Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gun-toting humanoid robot sent into space Russia has launched a humanoid robot into space on a rocket bound for the International Space Station (ISS). The robot Fedor will spend 10 days aboard the ISS practising skills such as using tools to fix issues onboard. Russia's deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin has previously shared videos of Fedor handling and shooting guns at a firing range with deadly accuracy. Dmitry Rogozin/Twitter Gadget and tech news: In pictures Google turns 21 Google celebrates its 21st birthday on September 27. The The search engine was founded in September 1998 by two PhD students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, in their dormitories at Californias Stanford University. Page and Brin chose the name google as it recalled the mathematic term 'googol', meaning 10 raised to the power of 100 Google Gadget and tech news: In pictures Hexa drone lifts off Chief engineer of LIFT aircraft Balazs Kerulo demonstrates the company's "Hexa" personal drone craft in Lago Vista, Texas on June 3 2019 Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures Project Scarlett to succeed Xbox One Microsoft announced Project Scarlett, the successor to the Xbox One, at E3 2019. The company said that the new console will be 4 times as powerful as the Xbox One and is slated for a release date of Christmas 2020 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures First new iPod in four years Apple has announced the new iPod Touch, the first new iPod in four years. The device will have the option of adding more storage, up to 256GB Apple Gadget and tech news: In pictures Folding phone may flop Samsung will cancel orders of its Galaxy Fold phone at the end of May if the phone is not then ready for sale. The $2000 folding phone has been found to break easily with review copies being recalled after backlash PA Gadget and tech news: In pictures Charging mat non-starter Apple has cancelled its AirPower wireless charging mat, which was slated as a way to charge numerous apple products at once AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures "Super league" India shoots down satellite India has claimed status as part of a "super league" of nations after shooting down a live satellite in a test of new missile technology EPA Gadget and tech news: In pictures 5G incoming 5G wireless internet is expected to launch in 2019, with the potential to reach speeds of 50mb/s Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Uber halts driverless testing after death Uber has halted testing of driverless vehicles after a woman was killed by one of their cars in Tempe, Arizona. March 19 2018 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie 'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway resembling the giant panda is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway, resembling a giant panda, is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A concept car by Trumpchi from GAC Group is shown at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A Mirai fuel cell vehicle by Toyota is displayed at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A visitor tries a Nissan VR experience at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A man looks at an exhibit entitled 'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A new Israeli Da-Vinci unmanned aerial vehicle manufactured by Elbit Systems is displayed during the 4th International conference on Home Land Security and Cyber in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv Getty

That spread panic amongst investors, which caused the value of many of the biggest digital currencies by market capitalisation to decline heavily.

However, an outright ban now appears to be off the table.

There is no intention to ban or suppress cryptocurrency [market], said Kim Dong-yeon, South Koreas finance minister, today.

He added that the governments immediate task was to regulate exchanges.

One of the biggest concerns around bitcoin is its popularity amongst criminals, who tend to favour it over traditional fiat money because it allows them to conceal their identities while buying illicit goods.

Effective from 30 January, the South Korean government imposed rules that allow only real-name bank accounts to be used for cryptocurrency trading.

The rule is designed to stop bitcoin and other digital currencies from being used for money laundering and other crimes.

Shortly after the rule was enforced, bitcoins value dropped heavily.

Additional reporting by Reuters

Weve teamed up with cryptocurrency trading platform eToro. Click here to get the latest Bitcoin rates and start trading. Cryptocurrencies are a highly volatile unregulated investment product. No EU investor protection. 75% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs.Everyone knows how debilitating a headache can be.

More often than not our first instinct is to simply pop a paracetamol, hydrate and carry on with our day.

However, a doctor has urged people to be more wary when suffering from headaches, as multiple headaches could be a sign of something far more serious.

Michael Munger, a primary-care physician from Overland Park in Kansas, was shocked to discover the number of people he treats who ignore their headaches when they arise, simply choosing to grin and bear the pain.

Munger believes that people should pay closer attention when experiencing headaches, as they could indicate that an individual is suffering from conditions such as brain tumours or aneurysms.

You dont want people to overreact, but you also dont want them to underreact, he told The Washington Post.

The three most common types of headaches that people experience are tension headaches, sinus headaches and migraines.

However, its not just the severity of their headaches that people should become more aware of.

Noting how often youre struck down by a headache could also be an indication of whether you need to seek medical advice.

Munger believes that if a person has more than two headaches a week for longer than a fortnight, then they should have themselves checked by a medical professional.

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If you believe your frequent headaches warrant a doctors visit, then there are a number of factors you should consider beforehand so that you can provide your doctor with all the information they need to give you a comprehensive evaluation.

By making a note of when your headaches occur, you may be able to figure out what your triggers are.

These could include things like eating specific kinds of food, not drinking enough water, being on your period and not having a sufficient amount of sleep.

Pinpointing exactly where you can feel the pain caused by a headache could also help you doctor assess what kind of headache you have.

Tension headaches start at the back of the head, then radiate up and over the crown, Munger explains.

Sinus headaches, on the other hand, usually affect the face around the eyes, while migraines often cause pain at a specific point on one side of the head in addition to nausea and blind spots.

Other symptoms, such as numbness, nausea and memory problems could be a sign of an underlying serious condition.A woman and a homeless man who fell in love after meeting on a bench in Amsterdam have now been married for 10 years and have six-year-old twins.

Emmy Abrahamson is a 41-year-old writer from Sweden.

In 2006, she was sitting on a bench in Amsterdam while waiting for a friend when she was approached by Vic Kocula.

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Abrahamson felt immediately drawn to Kocula despite realising instantly that he was sleeping rough on the streets.

Straight away I could see that he was homeless because he was very dirty and his hair, his beard was bigger then and was very dirty, Abrahamson said on This Morning.

But we started chatting, and I also noticed that he had the most beautiful brown eyes Id ever seen and he just made me laugh straight away.

Abrahamson and Kocula both felt an immediate mutual attraction and so arranged to meet again on the same bench five days later.

This Morning (YouTube)

Kocula, who's originally from America, became homeless as a result of a European backpacking trip gone wrong.

Id run out of money earlier than I expected to, but I hadnt done everything that I wanted to do during the trip, so I just said well, Ill do it without any money, he said.

The wheels fell off and the alcoholism sort of kicked in heavy and it was such a gradual turn that all of a sudden one day I noticed, I realised, oh my god, Im a homeless alcoholic.

Abrahamson and Kocula met again on the same bench, spending the day in each others company.

However, Abrahamson had to return to Vienna, where she was living at the time.

Unsure whether she would ever see Kocula ever again, she gave him her number with no means of contacting him herself and returned home.

Nevertheless, not long afterwards, Abrahamson received a surprising phone call.

I didnt know if I was ever going to see him again, I mean, I hoped I would and I couldnt stop thinking about him and then three weeks later, Id just turned 30, and I just get a phone call on a Monday morning and it was just Vic saying, 'Im here now, and hed followed me to Vienna and weve been together ever since.

Kocula, who had managed to scrounge enough money for a train ticket to Vienna, now works as a mechanical engineer after Abrahamson encouraged him to go back into further education.

The couple, who now have six-year-old twins called Desta and Til, married in a castle in what some may describe as a fairytale wedding.

Abrahamson has written a book based on their incredible story called How to Fall In Love with a Man Who Lives in a Bush.The contractor Capita on Wednesday issued a profits warning, cancelled its dividend and said it would request up to 700m in extra funds from investors. The share price plunged by 47.5 per cent in response.

The news follows the traumatic collapse into liquidation of another big outsourcing firm, Carillion, earlier this month.

So what does Capita actually do? Can its fortunes be turned around? Or is it another Carillion in the making?

And should we brace for other outsourcing firms to follow it into trouble?

What does Capita do?

Like Carillion, its a major provider of outsourced services to the public sector.

But whereas Carillions specialism was the blue collar construction and maintenance of buildings, Capitas focus is white collar back office IT projects and administration.

Two of its most high-profile contracts are collecting the BBC licence fee from households and running the London Congestion Charge. It also looks after the NHSs administration services.

Work by the research group Tussell suggests that the firm won contracts from 226 different public sector buyers over the last two years alone, with around half of these coming from local governments.

Capita secured more than twice as many contracts as its next biggest rival, Mitie, over that period, emphasising the degree to which the public sector depends on the firm.

So it only does public sector work?

No. The 2016 annual report said 53 per cent of Capitas revenue came from the private sector. This includes work for pension funds, retailers and telecoms companies.

The company employs around 73,000 people, three quarters of them in the UK, and the rest in Europe, India and South Africa.

In the six months to June 2017 Capita reported total revenues of 2.1bn, roughly the same as the year earlier. However, reported profits were only 28m, down 26 per cent on a year earlier. Free cash flow fell 9 per cent to 182m.

Weakening results and profit warnings had forced the departure of previous chief executive of three years, Andy Parker, in March last year.

The Capita share price peaked at 13 in July 2015. On Wednesday it was trading at just 1.82. That has taken the market capitalisation of the firm from above 8.6bn to just 1.2bn.

Whats the latest thing thats gone wrong?

In its announcement to the stock market on Tuesday the new chief executive, Jonathan Lewis, did not hold back.

He said Capita was spread over too many markets, had underinvested and that there had been too much emphasis on acquisitions to drive growth. He also mentioned weakness in new sales.

Capita is too complex, it is driven by a short-term focus and lacks operational discipline and financial flexibility, was Mr Lewiss unsparing conclusion.

On top of this, Mr Lewis said the firm still had too much debt, at 1.15bn, and that this urgently needed to be brought down through selling assets.

Not exactly solid foundations, responded Mike van Dulken, head of Research at Accendo Markets.

Other analysts and traders were similarly spooked (especially with the Carillion experience fresh in their mind) hence the brutal share price sell off.

So is Capita the new Carillion?

Some City of London analysts welcomed the drastic action by Mr Lewis to shore up Capitas balance sheet, suggesting this is this kind of kitchen sinking that Carillion ought to have done.

Some highlighted that Capitas cash reserves are around 1.2bn, which should, in theory, give it leeway to get its house in order. Carillion ultimately failed because its banks refused to extend their loans to the firm.

Yet though Capitas cash position is stronger than the 390m that Carillion was reporting in its most recent report it was not lost on investors that Carillion burned through that cash extraordinarily rapidly, so that it had just 29m in the bank by the time it finally sank into liquidation.

The deficit in Capitas defined benefit pension scheme is also apparently smaller than Carillions. Mr Lewis told the stock market that the deficit was expected to be significantly below the 381m reported last June (versus Carillions roughly 600m shortfall) and that the firm would pump an additional 21m into the scheme this year.

The Prime Ministers spokesman said the Government was monitoring the health of Capita and did not think it was in a comparable position to Carillion.

But the reference by Mr Lewis to acquisitions being used to drive growth at Capita and the slowdown in contract renewals is ominous because that appears to be the story of Carillions downfall.

Michael Donnelly of the stockbroker Panmure Gordon, who has been warning about the fragility of Capita for two years, estimates that 469m of its public sector contracts are up for retender this year.

If it cannot hold on to those contracts, and the revenues from them, it will be in serious trouble.

Could other outsourcing companies be in trouble too?

Some of the big players in the outsourcing sector are certainly under similar pressure in the stock markets.

The share price of Serco is down 30 per cent over the past three years. Mitie is down 36 per cent over that time. Interserve is down 81 per cent. Both fell further on Wednesday.

Analysts say these firms have been underbidding for public sector contracts in recent years, effectively overstretching themselves financially to win new work.

However, other outsourcers are doing better in the stock market. G4Ss share price is flat late 2014, Sodexo is 27 per cent higher and ISS up 33 per cent.

The broad point about outsourcing firms like Capita is that it is inherently difficult for outsiders to estimate their value accurately since their worth is largely based on complex and opaque contracts for the future delivery of services.

If managements are overly aggressive in their valuations of these contracts and the amount of profit they expect to make from them its not simple for outsiders to identify that hubris.

The National Audit Office argued in 2013 that there ought to be more public transparency over the sectors books given the public sectors inordinate reliance on them.

In response to the Carillion debacle and the latest crisis for Capita, Labour is pressing for the law to be changed to make private contractors subject to Freedom of Information laws.Justin Rosenstein and Dustin Moskovitz are trying to fix a problem they played a role in creating. In 2008, they co-founded Asana, a San Francisco startup devoted to making project management software that lets employees focus on the task at hand while fighting pesky nuisances like email and app notifications.

For years before that though, they helped to magnify the very digital interruptions their users are now trying to resist. Moskovitz was Mark Zuckerbergs roommate at Harvard University and is Facebooks co-founder.

Rosenstein, after a stint at Google working on tools like Google Chat, helped to create Facebooks like button.

The partners arent as disdainful about their past creations as some of their former colleagues. Sean Parker, Facebooks first president, has lamented social medias addictive nature, while former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya, now a venture capitalist, argues that its ripping society apart. The Asana founders think their software, which helps an organisation manage and prioritise tasks, can help cure the scourge of workplace distraction.

The average knowledge worker works out of their email inbox, just continuously scanning it for what they should do next, said Moskovitz. Just being able to come in every day and focus on my task list, in priority order, helps a ton with being able to focus on whats important.

Now a new group of investors is also betting that Asana can be part of the solution. The startup plans to announce that it has raised $75m (52m) in venture funding, in a round led by Al Gores Generation Investment Management.

Other investors include 8VC, Peter Thiels Founders Fund, Y Combinator President Sam Altman and Moskovitz himself.

Asanas goal is to eliminate the work about work, or the meetings, emails and status updates, and all of this coordination cost just to keep everyone on the same page, said Rosenstein, the companys head of product. In Asanas software, users can assign each other projects and track the progress of each task. Teams at Airbnb, Uber and Pinterest use it, but the company likes to highlight customers like the Whale and Dolphin Conservation, the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, a century-old German heating and air conditioning company called Viessmann and the city government of Providence, Rhode Island.

Asana is part of a wave of startups making new kinds of online collaboration tools, like the office chat company Slack. While the younger Slack has 50,000 teams paying for its service, Asana has grown more slowly: It boasts about 30,000. Both services offer free and paid versions with additional features. (Asanas is $10 per user per month.) Both also launched more sophisticated versions for large companies about a year ago.

In the latest round, investors valued Asana at around $900m, according to a person familiar with the matter. Trello, a task-management tool with some similar features, sold to the Australian software company Atlassian. a year ago for $425m. More than 45 per cent of paying Asana users are outside the US, and its adding languages like French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese, the company said.

The new funding will help Asana expand its overseas sales and customer operations, and continue to develop on its product for large companies. Asana is also working on tailoring its software for specific uses, such as magazine planning or starting a company, said Chris Farinacci, its head of business. To Moskovitz and his colleagues, who can embody the tech industry earnestness thats so easily mocked on shows like HBOs Silicon Valley, Asana is also about bringing mindfulness to the world. If we can build a single tool to enable any team to work together more efficiently, that can accelerate human progress, said Rosenstein, who meditates an hour per day. Of course, Asana could also make organisations with bad intentions more efficient, but I just have to take comfort for now that there are fewer of them, Rosenstein said.

As for whether their former employer could be one of those malevolent organisations, the founders are more subdued. Asked about the recent controversies swirling around Facebook, Moskovitz mentions how demonstrators used the social network to organize events like the Womens March and said Im pretty confident things are net positive. Im a little sad that the good parts have been sort of swept aside and diminished. He adds that its an opportunity to do a better job evolving the relationship that Facebook has with its users, and theres a big need for users to mature their relationship to technology. If its not Facebook, its going to be something else.

Business news: In pictures Show all 13 1 /13 Business news: In pictures Business news: In pictures Flybe collapses Airline Flybe has collapsed. All future flights on the Exeter-based airline have been cancelled  leaving more than 2,300 staff facing an uncertain future, and wrecking the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers. The chief executive, Mark Anderson, said: Europes largest independent regional airline has been unable to overcome significant funding challenges to its business. AFP via Getty Business news: In pictures Future product placement will be 'tailored to individual viewers' Marketing executives say that product placement in films and televison shows on streaming services such as Netflix may be tailored to individuals in future. For instance, if data shows that a viewer is a fan of pepsi, a billboard in the background of a shot would host an advert for pepsi, while for a viewer known to have different tastes it could be for Coca-Cola Paramount Business news: In pictures Corbyn wishes Amazon a happy birthday In a card sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on the company's 25th birthday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn writes: "You owe the British people millions in taxes that pay for the public services that we all rely on. Please pay your fair share" Business news: In pictures No deal, no tariffs The government has announced that it would slash almost all tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Notable exceptions include cars and meat, which will see tariffs in place to protect British farmers Getty Business news: In pictures Fingerprint payment NatWest is trialling a new bank card that will allow people to touch their hand to the card when paying rather than typing in a PIN number. The card will work by recognising the user's fingerprint NatWest/PA Wire Business news: In pictures Mahabis bust High-end slipper retailer Mahabis has gone into administration. 2 Jan 2019 Mahabis Business news: In pictures Costa Cola Coca-Cola has paid 3.9bn for Costa Coffee. A cafe chain is a new venture for the global soft drinks giant PA Business news: In pictures RIP Payday Loans A funeral procession for payday loans was held in London on September 2. The future of pay day lenders is in doubt after Wonga, Britain's biggest, went into administration on August 30 PA Business news: In pictures Musk irks investors and directors Elon Musk has concluded that Tesla will remain public. Investors and company directors were angry at Musk for tweeting unexpectedly that he was considering taking Tesla private and share prices had taken a tumble in the following weeks Getty Business news: In pictures Jaguar warning Iconic British car maker Jaguar Land Rover warned on July 5, 2018 that a "bad" Brexit deal could jeopardise planned investment of more than $100 billion, upping corporate pressure as the government heads into crucial talks AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures Spotif-IPO Spotify traded publically for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. However, the company isn't issuing shares, but rather, shares held by Spotify's private investors will be sold AFP/Getty Business news: In pictures French blue passports The deadline to award a contract to make blue British passports after Brexit has been extended by two weeks following a request by bidder De La Rue. The move comes after anger at the announcement British passports would be produced by Franco-Dutch firm Gemalto when De La Rues contract ends in July. The British firm said Gemalto was chosen only because it undercut the competition, but the UK company also admitted that it was not the cheapest choice in the tendering process. Business news: In pictures Beast from the east economic impact The Beast from the East wiped 4m off of Flybes revenues due to flight cancellations, airport closures and delays, according to the budget airlines estimates. Flybe said it cancelled 994 flights in the three months to 31 March, compared to 372 in the same period last year.

Rosenstein said the original purpose of the like button was to spread positivity and help focus attention on valuable content. Instead of seeing technology as all good or all terrible, he said, the middle way is mindfulnessto accept that every time you take a step forward, theres going to be a half step back.

Meanwhile, their plan to keep technologys influence under control involves more technology. Moskovitz imagines adding artificial intelligence to future versions of Asana, so that the software only sends the most urgent notifications. To Rosenstein, Asana could one day serve as an all-seeing project manager, which assigns tasks based on knowing an employees individual strengths, what tasks are most important, even the time of day. That coordination workits soul-sucking and emotionally damaging. And if we can leave all that work to Asanas robots, then we can let humans focus on the things that are intrinsically human.

BloombergJust over a third of former Carillion apprentices have received job offers since the construction giant collapsed, according to new figures.

The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) said 553 of the 1,400 apprentices affected by the crisis had been offered a role with another employer.

The board said it had contacted more than 40,000 construction employers since Carillion went into liquidation earlier this month, encouraging them to take on apprentices, with the help of a 1.5m cash incentive programme.

More than 850 employers have responded with job offers.

Gillian Cain, head of apprenticeships at the CITB, said: "I'm delighted that we've been able to help so many former Carillion apprentices.

"So many small firms have been critical in finding these roles but the job is not done. I want to reassure those who have not yet received job offers that the team at CITB will continue to do everything they can to help apprentices find new employers and get on with their training.

"We are confident that with industry support we can get all apprentices back on track very soon."

The Work and Pensions and Business Select Committees announced that as part of a joint inquiry into Carillion's collapse a series of questions have been put to the firm's major shareholders, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) and HMRC, to try to get a better picture of operations at the company, and whether there were warning signs that could have been spotted earlier.

The committees have written to BlackRock, UBS, Standard Life, Letko Brosseau & Associates, Kiltearn Partners, Deutsche Bank and Brewin Dolphin - seeking "to examine the performance of the board ... the effectiveness of the board's stakeholder engagement and whether its major institutional investors complied with the Stewardship Code" and what lay behind each of their decisions to sell shares in Carillion when they did.

The FSB has been asked to provide an overview of Carillion's supplier payment, and how many of those supplier businesses have been affected directly or indirectly so far by Carillion's collapse.

HMRC has been asked about Carillion's performance in paying tax and total outstanding tax liability.

PACoronation Street is set to get its own Co-op supermarket and Costa Coffee branch in a landmark deal that will see shop fronts appearing on a show as product placements.

Viewers of the ITV soap will see both stores open on the street this spring.

Co-op's and Costa Coffee's facades will be seen on the show, alongside branded posters, bags and cups used by Coronation Street characters.

ITV did not disclose the amount it would be paid under the deal.

Coronation Street is all about community life and the Co-op is a retailer at the heart of local life and being close to the customer, which makes this a perfect match, said Co-ops customer director Alison Jones.

Costa Coffees UK and Ireland commercial marketing director Eric Tavoukdjian said the chain was delighted to be welcomed to the famous cobbles of Coronation Street as part of this innovative partnership with ITV.

Product placement was first allowed on UK TV screens in 2011. Broadcast regulator Ofcoms rules stipulate what cant be promoted within programmes, for example: cigarettes, alcoholic drinks, gambling products and baby milk.

ITV reported a 9 per cent fall in advertising revenue in the first three quarters of last year and announced the appointment of Dame Carolyn McCall, formerly of easyJet, as its new CEO in July. Ms McCall started her new role earlier this month.A blood test that could allow accurate and cheap identification of one of the early indicators of Alzheimers before the disease begins to cause noticeable symptoms has been developed by scientists.

It is thought this could make earlier treatment to slow or, in future, halt the progression of the disease possible, giving patients more years of symptom-free health and independence.

Currently, only expensive and invasive tests can reliably detect the early build-up of amyloid beta, the defective protein molecules in the brain that are a major hallmark of Alzheimers disease.

Now researchers from Japan and Australia have for the first time demonstrated that the precursor molecules that form amyloid beta protein build-ups can be detected in the blood with 90 per cent accuracy.

Independent researchers said the findings were very promising and demonstrated that a blood test  the holy grail of Alzheimers research  can provide accurate results.

But they nonetheless cautioned that amyloid beta build-up alone does not mean a person is going to develop Alzheimers or dementia and the findings need to be validated further in a larger patient population.

However, this test could allow patients to be prioritised for further testing, or as candidates for trials of new drugs, they said.

Writing in the journal Nature, they said that there are two accepted ways to detect the amyloid protein: through a positron emission tomography (PET) scan  which can cost upwards of 1,000 a time  or through a lumbar puncture, a so-called spinal tap, to measure build-up in the cerebrospinal fluid.

Everyone the Government blames for the NHS crisis  except themselves Show all 6 1 /6 Everyone the Government blames for the NHS crisis  except themselves Everyone the Government blames for the NHS crisis  except themselves The elderly We acknowledge that there are pressures on the health service, there are always extra pressures on the NHS in the winter, but we have the added pressures of the ageing population and the growing complex needs of the population, Theresa May has said. Waits of over 12 hours in A&E among elderly people have more than doubled in two years, according to figures from NHS Digital. Getty Everyone the Government blames for the NHS crisis  except themselves Patients going to A&E instead of seeing their GPs Jeremy Hunt has called for a honest discussion with the public about the purpose of A&E departments, saying that around a third of A&E patients were in hospital unnecessarily. Mr Hunt told Radio 4s Today programme the NHS now had more doctors, nurses and funding than ever, but explained what he called very serious problems at some hospitals by suggesting pressures were increasing in part because people are going to A&Es when they should not. He urged patients to visit their GP for non-emergency illnesses, outlined plans to release time for family doctors to support urgent care work, and said the NHS will soon be able to deliver seven-day access to a GP from 8am to 8pm. But doctors struggling amid a GP recruitment crisis said Mr Hunts plans were unrealistic and demanded the Government commit to investing in all areas of the overstretched health service. Getty Everyone the Government blames for the NHS crisis  except themselves Simon Stevens, head of NHS England Reports that key members of Ms Mays team used internal meetings to accuse Simon Stevens, head of NHS England, of being unenthusiastic and unresponsive have been rejected by Downing Street. Mr Stevens had allegedly rejected claims made by Ms May that the NHS had been given more funding than required. Getty Everyone the Government blames for the NHS crisis  except themselves Previous health policy, not funding In an interview with Sky Newss Sophy Ridge, Ms May acknowledged the NHS faced pressures but said it was a problem that had been ducked by government over the years. She refuted the claim that hospitals were tackling a humanitarian crisis and said health funding was at record levels. We asked the NHS a while back to set out what it needed over the next five years in terms of its plan for the future and the funding that it would need, said the Prime Minister. They did that, we gave them that funding, in fact we gave them more funding than they required Funding is now at record levels for the NHS, more money has been going in. But doctors accused Ms May of being in denial about how the lack of additional funding provided for health and social care were behind a spiralling crisis in NHS hospitals. Getty Images Everyone the Government blames for the NHS crisis  except themselves Target to treat all A&E patients within four hours Mr Hunt was accused of watering down the flagship target to treat all A&E patients within four hours. The Health Secretary told MPs the promise  introduced by Tony Blairs government in 2000  should only be for those who actually need it. Amid jeers in the Commons, Mr Hunt said only four other countries pledged to treat all patients within a similar timeframe and all had less stringent rules. But Ms May has now said the Government will stand by the four-hour target for A&E, which says 95 per cent of patients must be dealt with within that time frame. Getty Images Everyone the Government blames for the NHS crisis  except themselves No one Mr Hunt was accused of hiding from the public eye following news of the Red Crosss comments and didnt make an official statement for two days. He was also filmed refusing to answer questions from journalists who pursued him down the street yesterday to ask whether he planned to scrap the four-hour A&E waiting time target. Sky News reporter Beth Rigby pressed the Health Secretary on his position on the matter, saying the public will want to know, Mr Hunt. Sorry Beth, Ive answered questions about this already, replied Mr Hunt. But you didnt answer questions on this. You said it was over-interpreted in the House of Commons and you didnt want to water it down. Is that what youre saying? said Ms Rigby. Its very difficult, because how are we going to explain to the public what your intention is, when you change your position and then wont answer the question, Mr Hunt. But the Health Secretary maintained his silence until he reached his car and got in. Getty

The researchers trialled the new test in 373 Japanese and Australian patients who were either cognitively normal, had mild impairment or who had diagnosed Alzheimers disease.

They then checked the accuracy of their predictions using the accepted PET scan and spinal fluid measurements, and found that the test was right nine times out of 10.

These results demonstrate the potential clinical utility of plasma biomarkers in predicting brain amyloid beta burden at an individual level, the researchers, from the National Centre for Geriatrics and Gerontology in Obu, Japan, wrote.

These plasma biomarkers also have cost-benefit and scalability advantages over current techniques, potentially enabling broader clinical access and efficient population screening.

Independent researchers agreed. Professor Tara Spires-Jones, the UK Dementia Research Institute programme lead, said this method needed validating in more people and at different stages of the disease.

But she added: This data is very promising and may be incredibly useful in the future, in particular for choosing which people are suited for clinical trials and for measuring whether amyloid levels are changed by treatments in trials.

Paul Morgan, professor of immunology and director of the Systems Immunity Research Institute at Cardiff University, said that while the test method described was technically demanding, it was likely a better option.

Easily and cheaply measured blood plasma-derived biomarkers that aid diagnosis, stratification or prediction of outcome in individuals suspected of having early signs of disease represent a Holy Grail of Alzheimers research, he said.

The study clearly shows that PET scanning to assess disease burden, an expensive and invasive procedure, may not be needed in future either for diagnosis or for monitoring response to treatment.Health service officials have been reprimanded for putting the health of vulnerable migrants, and the wider public, at risk and told to stop handing over confidential information to immigration officials immediately.

The chair of the Health Select Committee has written to NHS Digital saying it must withdraw from a deal with the Home Office to trace immigrants through their personal details.

Committee chair Dr Sarah Wollaston said NHS Digital had failed to consider the public interest in maintaining the fundamental principle of patient confidentiality or the ethical implications of sacrificing it.

These were laid bare in an evidence session earlier this month when charities told the committee that one woman, a domestic worker, died because she was too frightened to seek help after contracting pneumonia.

Meanwhile, the British Medical Association warned that the deal is already having a real effect on patients and their trust in their doctors.

Pride and prejudice: The Victorian roots of a very British ambivalence to immigration Show all 3 1 /3 Pride and prejudice: The Victorian roots of a very British ambivalence to immigration Pride and prejudice: The Victorian roots of a very British ambivalence to immigration 405361.bin GETTY IMAGES Pride and prejudice: The Victorian roots of a very British ambivalence to immigration 405362.bin GETTY IMAGES Pride and prejudice: The Victorian roots of a very British ambivalence to immigration 405363.bin GETTY IMAGES

In the letter, Dr Wollaston said the NHS undoubtedly holds information useful to the Home Office, but it should not place that above the serious adverse consequences of such a decision.

It adds: We are seriously concerned about the way NHS Digital has approached its duty to respect and promote confidentiality.

We call for a halt to the present system of information-sharing and a full review of the original memorandum of understanding with the Home Office.

The Home Office makes thousands of requests each year through the deal with NHS Digital and the Department of Health and only a fraction  around 3 per cent  are turned down.

Requests are made for individuals who are being sought for immigration offences, such as missing a reporting requirement, absconding from immigration control or exceeding their right to stay in the UK.

Details handed over include non-clinical information, such as the patients name, date of birth, last known address and their GPs contact information.

The full extent only came to light in January 2017, and official figures show 8,127 requests were made in the first 11 months of 2016, leading to 5,854 people being traced.

The Health Select Committee said it was concerned that the deal, which was recently renewed by NHS Digital, makes no reference to the importance of medical confidentiality.

It also warned the NHS had failed to consult organisations responsible for maintaining patient confidence in the medical profession and data governance, like the General Medical Council and National Data Guardian.

According to MPs, NHS Digital comprehensively ignored the advice of Public Health England when it warned there could be serious consequences to public health if migrants with highly infectious diseases such as tuberculosis or HIV didnt seek medical help.

Recommended Home Office snatching of NHS data is putting migrant women at risk

Instead, the Government argued no consultation was needed because the deal is just an internal document that streamlines existing data-sharing.

NHS Digital has also said there is a risk in leaving vulnerable people unsupported in the community to be considered.

To which the Health Select Committee responded: The purpose of tracing is not to provide these individuals with medical assistance but to take enforcement action, presumably leading to deportation, and it seems to us to be misleading to include this point.

Dr John Chisholm, the BMAs ethics chair, strongly supported the committees intervention, adding: We know this agreement is already having a real effect on patients  and in turn their relationship with doctors. That relationship is built on a foundation of trust, and the arrangement between NHS Digital, the Home Office and the Department of Health is eroding this.

If patients are refusing to visit the doctor for fear of repercussions from the Home Office, it is not only a danger to that individuals health, but it could also pose a threat to the wellbeing of the public if communicable infectious diseases are being diagnosed and treated at a later stage."

Charities also welcomed the request from NHS Digital, saying it had failed in its duty to protect patient information.

 A domestic worker died because she was too afraid to access healthcare, says charity director

Deborah Gold, chief executive of the National Aids Trust, said: NHS Digital is meant to be the trusted safe haven for patient information. Sadly it has proven to be nothing of the kind and has been far too eager to breach our confidentiality.

Scaring people away from healthcare has grave consequences for the individual and, in cases involving infectious disease, can endanger public health.

A spokesperson for NHS Digital said: We can confirm we have received a letter from the chair of the Health Select Committee. We will consider it carefully and will respond fully in due course.

A Government spokesperson said: Non-clinical information is shared on occasion between health agencies and the Home Office to locate individuals suspected of committing immigration offences  this data is strictly controlled and only shared if there is a legal basis to do so.

The memorandum of understanding simply streamlines existing processes and does not involve additional data being provided to the Home Office. Urgent and emergency care is always available from the NHS regardless of immigration status.

We will carefully consider the points raised by the Health Select Committee.The Government has pledged to review tens of thousands of cases where women have been given harmful vaginal mesh implants.

In a major win for campaigners, the Department of Health and Social Care has committed to look at every case back to 2005 to determine the true extent of serious complications that can leave women in agony.

Around 100,000 women are estimated by NHS England to have a mesh device fitted and this is the first review to follow patients from the initial condition that required an implant to subsequent treatment for complications.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 10 September 2021 People paddle board during a misty morning in Ullswater, the second largest lake in the Lake District, Cumbria PA UK news in pictures 9 September 2021 Troops from Wiltshire based 4 Armoured Close Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during final inspection at Wellington Barracks in London, ahead of providing troops for the Queens Guard PA UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. 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PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA UK news in pictures 12 August 2021 Children ride horses in the River Eden in Appleby, Cumbria, during the annual gathering of travellers for the Appleby Horse Fair PA UK news in pictures 11 August 2021 Stella Moris (left) reacts after talking to the media outside the High Court in London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal, n London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal. The US government has won the latest round in its High Court bid to appeal against the decision not to extradite Julian Assange on espionage charges PA UK news in pictures 10 August 2021 Students react after they receive their A-Level results at the Ark Academy, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 9 August 2021 The final athletes from Great Britain arrive home including Jason Kenny, Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald (front left-right) at Heathrow Airport, London following the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games PA UK news in pictures 8 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny during the closing ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Olympic stadium in Japan PA UK news in pictures 7 August 2021 People from the Glasgow Southside community take part in the Govanhill Carnival, an anti-racist celebration of pride, unity and the contributions immigrants have made to the community in Govanhill, at Queen's Park, Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 6 August 2021 Chijindu Ujah of Britain, Zharnel Hughes of Britain, Richard Kilty of Britain and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake of Britain celebrate winning silver as they pose with Asha Philip of Britain, Imani Lansiquot of Britain, Dina Asher-Smith of Britain and Daryll Neita of Britain after they won bronze in the women's 4 x 100m relay during Olympic Games Day 14 Getty UK news in pictures 5 August 2021 A protester places flowers on a photograph of an executed man during a demonstration organised by supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) to protest against the inauguration of Iran's new president Ebrahim Raisi in central London AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 4 August 2021 England's Joe Root looks on as India's KL Rahul doesn't make it to a catch during day one of Cinch First Test match at Trent Bridge, Nottingham PA UK news in pictures 3 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny and Jason Kenny with their silver medals for the Women's Team Pursuit and Mens Team Sprint during the Track Cycling at the Izu Velodrome on the eleventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 2 August 2021 Great Britains Charlotte Worthington competes during the Womens BMX Freestyle Final at the Tokyo Olympics PA UK news in pictures 1 August 2021 EPA UK news in pictures 31 July 2021 James Guy, Adam Peaty and Kathleen Dawson celebrate winning the gold medal in the mixed 4x100m medley relay final at the Tokyo Olympics AP UK news in pictures 30 July 2021 Great Britain's Bethany Shriever and Kye Whyte celebrate their Gold and Silver medals respectively for the Cycling BMX Racing at the Ariake Urban Sports Park on the seventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 29 July 2021 Team GB's Mallory Franklin during the Womens Canoe Slalom Final on day six of the Tokyo Olympic Games. She went on to win the silver medal Getty UK news in pictures 28 July 2021 Canoers on Llyn Padarn lake in Snowdonia, Gwynedd. It was announced that the north-west Wales slate landscape has been granted UNESCO World Heritage Status PA UK news in pictures 27 July 2021 A view of one of two areas now being used at a warehouse facility in Dover, Kent, for boats used by people thought to be migrants. 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Estimates vary over the extent of complications; NHS England figures say they occur in 3 to 5 per cent of women, but academics say it is closer to 10 per cent.

Campaigners have predicted it could affect one woman in three and said it is the biggest health scandal since thalidomide.

Responding to the news, Owen Smith, Labour MP and chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Surgical Mesh Devices, said the audit would provide crucial answers on the true extent of complications.

It comes after the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), in December, withdrew its recommendation for the use of mesh devices in women with pelvic organ prolapse.

The watchdog said evidence of the long-term effects of this type of implant was inadequate in quality and quantity.

Mesh devices have been linked to serious internal injuries, chronic pain and even death, and hundreds of British women have already joined thousands worldwide taking legal action against manufacturers.

The device comes in the form of a rigid plastic mesh which is inserted into the vagina to support the vaginal wall and weakened pelvic floor muscles after childbirth, preventing internal organs pushing through.

Recommended The vaginal mesh scandal has claimed its first victim

Experts have said other mesh devices, which can include tape slings for urinary incontinence and hernia treatments for men and women, are less risky.

Problems have arisen, in part, because of a lack of regulation for medical devices in Europe, which researchers have shown allowed 61 devices to be sold based on just two that passed safety scrutiny.

There are also issues with the initial implantation and long-term follow up of women, as the devices can degrade once inside, leaking plastics into the surrounding tissue or cutting into the vaginal walls.

Mesh campaigner Chrissy Brajcic died of sepsis last year after developing a drug resistant bacterial infection from her implant.

Kath Sansom, founder of campaign group Sling the Mesh, said the Government was finally recognising these issues.

 Cross-party debate on mesh procedure

After two decades of mesh use with poor audit, the Government is finally hearing the voices of women whose lives have changed beyond repair, she said.

A survey of 570 women in Sling The Mesh shows a third have suffered mesh slice into their vagina or organs and eight out of 10 have pain walking or sitting.

Six out of 10 have lost partners because of the strain while seven out of 10 have lost sex lives. A third have had to give up work because of pain. Not surprisingly six out of 10 suffer depression and anxiety.

Mr Smith, whose parliamentary mesh group has been calling for an in-depth investigation for the past two years, added: Im delighted that the Government has listened to our concerns and has now agreed to undertake this audit to get a better understanding of complications related to mesh surgery.

I hope the audit will provide crucial answers about the proportion of women adversely affected by mesh surgery.

The Department of Health and Social Care confirmed it was launching an audit but had not provided further details at time of publication.The US has promised it will continue to support Lebanons military after Israel said the force was indistinguishable from Hezbollah, and so fair game in any future war.

The Lebanese army was a potential counterweight to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia, a former US ambassador said.

It was a very public difference of opinion between senior officials which came on the same day at an Israeli security conference.

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The Lebanese Armed Forces took no part in the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, which killed around 1,200 people in Lebanon and 158 Israelis. It has received more than $1.5bn (1.06bn) in US military assistance since then and in the last seven years training and support from US special forces.

With Hezbollah having helped sway the Syrian civil war in President Bashar al-Assads favour, Israel and the US both worry it could now broaden its clout in its Lebanese heartland. They disagree on whether the Lebanese army would help or hinder Hezbollahs expansion.

We will sustain our efforts to support legitimate state security institutions in Lebanon, such as the Lebanese Armed Forces, which is the only legitimate force in Lebanon, David Satterfield, acting assistant US secretary of state, told the conference organised by Tel Aviv Universitys Institute for National Security Sturdes (INSS) think-tank.

Mr Satterfield, a former US ambassador to Lebanon, added that the Lebanese army could well serve as a counter-weight to Hezbollahs desire to expand its own influence there, as well as Irans reach in Lebanon.

But speaking three hours later on the same stage, Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman reiterated his view that the Lebanese army was subordinate to the better-equipped Hezbollah.

As far as Im concerned, all of Lebanon  the Lebanese army, Lebanon and the Lebanese army  are no different from Hezbollah, said Lieberman, a far-right member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus conservative coalition government.

They are part of Hezbollah and they will all pay the full price if any large-scale attack on Israel takes place," Mr Lieberman added.

The INSS conference coincided with heightened concern in Israel about what it describes as Iranian efforts to fit precision-guidance systems onto Hezbollahs longer-range missiles  improvements that could potentially allow the fighters to knock out key Israeli infrastructure.

Israels public response has been to lobby Russia, which has some sway over Iran and Hezbollah because of their alliance in Syria. Israel has also issued explicit warnings that it would devastate Lebanon should Hezbollah launch another war.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

There was no immediate response from Hezbollah or the Lebanese military to Mr Liebermans comments. Neither Hezbollah nor Iran has responded to the Israeli allegations about missile conversions.

The Lebanese military has previously said it operates independently from Hezbollah, most recently during an operation against Isis at the Lebanese-Syrian border last year.

Then the army said there was absolutely no coordination with Hezbollah fighters who attacked Isis from the Syrian side.

Mr Lieberman made similar remarks about the Lebanese military in October, diverging from more measured Israeli estimates that the Lebanese army maintained autonomy even if some of its troops cooperated with Hezbollah.

ReutersScientists have grown a perfectly compatible ear in a lab and grafted it onto a patient, in what they said was a world first in regenerative medicine.

The groundbreaking technique saw them use the patients own ear cartilage cells to form a new one.

Five children suffering from a condition known as microtia, in which the external ear is underdeveloped, have undergone the experimental surgery.

The first child to have the procedure two-and-a-half years ago was showing no signs the body has rejected or accidentally absorbed the new cells, the Chinese team who developed the procedure wrote when they published their findings in the journal EBioMedicine.

Currently the widely used treatments for microtia include the use of silicone prosthetic ears, or rib-cartilage reconstruction, which has mixed results.

The new technique involves taking a scan of the childs unaffected ear, reversing the dimensions and 3D-printing a biodegradable mould punctuated with tiny holes.

Cartilage cells taken from the recipients other, unaffected ear are then used to fill the holes while the new ear is still in the lab.

Over three months the cartilage cells begin to grow in the shape of the mould, and the mould itself begins to break down.

While this process is underway, the ear is grafted onto the recipient.

Its a very exciting approach, Tessa Hadlock, a reconstructive plastic surgeon at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston, told New Scientist, which first reported on the research.

Gadget and tech news: In pictures Show all 25 1 /25 Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gun-toting humanoid robot sent into space Russia has launched a humanoid robot into space on a rocket bound for the International Space Station (ISS). The robot Fedor will spend 10 days aboard the ISS practising skills such as using tools to fix issues onboard. Russia's deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin has previously shared videos of Fedor handling and shooting guns at a firing range with deadly accuracy. Dmitry Rogozin/Twitter Gadget and tech news: In pictures Google turns 21 Google celebrates its 21st birthday on September 27. The The search engine was founded in September 1998 by two PhD students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, in their dormitories at Californias Stanford University. Page and Brin chose the name google as it recalled the mathematic term 'googol', meaning 10 raised to the power of 100 Google Gadget and tech news: In pictures Hexa drone lifts off Chief engineer of LIFT aircraft Balazs Kerulo demonstrates the company's "Hexa" personal drone craft in Lago Vista, Texas on June 3 2019 Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures Project Scarlett to succeed Xbox One Microsoft announced Project Scarlett, the successor to the Xbox One, at E3 2019. The company said that the new console will be 4 times as powerful as the Xbox One and is slated for a release date of Christmas 2020 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures First new iPod in four years Apple has announced the new iPod Touch, the first new iPod in four years. The device will have the option of adding more storage, up to 256GB Apple Gadget and tech news: In pictures Folding phone may flop Samsung will cancel orders of its Galaxy Fold phone at the end of May if the phone is not then ready for sale. The $2000 folding phone has been found to break easily with review copies being recalled after backlash PA Gadget and tech news: In pictures Charging mat non-starter Apple has cancelled its AirPower wireless charging mat, which was slated as a way to charge numerous apple products at once AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures "Super league" India shoots down satellite India has claimed status as part of a "super league" of nations after shooting down a live satellite in a test of new missile technology EPA Gadget and tech news: In pictures 5G incoming 5G wireless internet is expected to launch in 2019, with the potential to reach speeds of 50mb/s Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Uber halts driverless testing after death Uber has halted testing of driverless vehicles after a woman was killed by one of their cars in Tempe, Arizona. March 19 2018 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie 'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway resembling the giant panda is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway, resembling a giant panda, is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A concept car by Trumpchi from GAC Group is shown at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A Mirai fuel cell vehicle by Toyota is displayed at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A visitor tries a Nissan VR experience at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A man looks at an exhibit entitled 'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A new Israeli Da-Vinci unmanned aerial vehicle manufactured by Elbit Systems is displayed during the 4th International conference on Home Land Security and Cyber in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv Getty

Theyve shown that it is possible to get close to restoring the ear structure.

The scientists will now monitor the recipients for at least five years to evaluate the success of the procedure. They will be checking whether the ears remain intact after the moulded scaffold has completely broken down, and working to refine the procedure in the hope of producing increasingly natural-looking ears.

The Vacanti mouse (Wikimedia)

The surgery was reportedly inspired by the so-called earmouse, a lab mouse which appeared to have a human ear growing on its back.

The 1997 experiment by a team in Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, led by Charles Vacanti, sparked an outcry among animal rights activists and religious groups after the publication of a picture of the live mouse.

Misinformation about the technique, including that the mouse had been genetically engineered to grow the ear sparked protests, despite the fact the ear had been grafted onto the mouse.The alleged Finsbury Park attacker has claimed that another man was behind the wheel of a van that ploughed into a group of Muslims and that he then vanished like the famed illusionist Dynamo.

Darren Osborne told Woolwich Crown Court that a man called Dave was driving. The father-of-four denied knowing that he was going to drive into pedestrians.

Hes like Dynamo, hes an illusion, an illusionist, he can make himself vanish perhaps, I dont know, Mr Osborne told the jury.

Prosecutors accused Mr Osborne of conjuring his defence out of thin air and urged jurors to dismiss the frankly absurd account.

The 48-year-old denies charges of murder and attempted murder over the incident on 19 June, which left one man dead and injured nine others.

He admitted that along with Dave and another man called Terry Jones he planned to attack a pro-Palestinian march in London which he hoped Jeremy Corbyn would attend.

But he told the court that he wasnt interested in finding a new target after driving from Cardiff on 18 June and did not plan to kill Muslims in Finsbury Park. Instead he believed they were going to a pub.

He claimed that Dave jumped into the van in the four seconds it was not filmed on CCTV and ploughed it into a group of Muslim worshippers helping a collapsed man.

Asking how Dave allegedly took over while the van was moving at speed, Mr Osborne said he put it in neutral and shimmied over real quick.

He had no answer to a series of questions on why he supposedly decided to change his trousers in the footwell and did not pull over, adding: Were a peculiar bunch of guys.

Prosecutor Jonathan Rees QC said the defendants account was a desperate attempt to evade responsibility.

Closing the prosecutions case, Mr Rees said the involvement of Dave and Terry was a fabrication the defendant cobbled together after hearing days of evidence against him.

The prosecutor told the court that no defence statement was submitted until Friday and that Mr Osborne then repeatedly contradicted it during cross-examination to further minimise his involvement.

The defendant has conjured up the defence out of thin air, Mr Rees said. If there was any truth that Dave was in any way responsible for the attack, the defendant would have chosen to tell police.

Earlier in the trial, the jury were shown body-worn camera footage of Mr Osborne telling police he was the vans driver, initially claiming he lost control before later launching into a rant about Muslims. At least I had a proper go, he said.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 9 September 2021 Troops from Wiltshire based 4 Armoured Close Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during final inspection at Wellington Barracks in London, ahead of providing troops for the Queens Guard PA UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. 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PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA UK news in pictures 12 August 2021 Children ride horses in the River Eden in Appleby, Cumbria, during the annual gathering of travellers for the Appleby Horse Fair PA UK news in pictures 11 August 2021 Stella Moris (left) reacts after talking to the media outside the High Court in London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal, n London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal. The US government has won the latest round in its High Court bid to appeal against the decision not to extradite Julian Assange on espionage charges PA UK news in pictures 10 August 2021 Students react after they receive their A-Level results at the Ark Academy, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 9 August 2021 The final athletes from Great Britain arrive home including Jason Kenny, Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald (front left-right) at Heathrow Airport, London following the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games PA UK news in pictures 8 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny during the closing ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Olympic stadium in Japan PA UK news in pictures 7 August 2021 People from the Glasgow Southside community take part in the Govanhill Carnival, an anti-racist celebration of pride, unity and the contributions immigrants have made to the community in Govanhill, at Queen's Park, Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 6 August 2021 Chijindu Ujah of Britain, Zharnel Hughes of Britain, Richard Kilty of Britain and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake of Britain celebrate winning silver as they pose with Asha Philip of Britain, Imani Lansiquot of Britain, Dina Asher-Smith of Britain and Daryll Neita of Britain after they won bronze in the women's 4 x 100m relay during Olympic Games Day 14 Getty UK news in pictures 5 August 2021 A protester places flowers on a photograph of an executed man during a demonstration organised by supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) to protest against the inauguration of Iran's new president Ebrahim Raisi in central London AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 4 August 2021 England's Joe Root looks on as India's KL Rahul doesn't make it to a catch during day one of Cinch First Test match at Trent Bridge, Nottingham PA UK news in pictures 3 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny and Jason Kenny with their silver medals for the Women's Team Pursuit and Mens Team Sprint during the Track Cycling at the Izu Velodrome on the eleventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 2 August 2021 Great Britains Charlotte Worthington competes during the Womens BMX Freestyle Final at the Tokyo Olympics PA UK news in pictures 1 August 2021 EPA UK news in pictures 31 July 2021 James Guy, Adam Peaty and Kathleen Dawson celebrate winning the gold medal in the mixed 4x100m medley relay final at the Tokyo Olympics AP UK news in pictures 30 July 2021 Great Britain's Bethany Shriever and Kye Whyte celebrate their Gold and Silver medals respectively for the Cycling BMX Racing at the Ariake Urban Sports Park on the seventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 29 July 2021 Team GB's Mallory Franklin during the Womens Canoe Slalom Final on day six of the Tokyo Olympic Games. She went on to win the silver medal Getty UK news in pictures 28 July 2021 Canoers on Llyn Padarn lake in Snowdonia, Gwynedd. It was announced that the north-west Wales slate landscape has been granted UNESCO World Heritage Status PA UK news in pictures 27 July 2021 A view of one of two areas now being used at a warehouse facility in Dover, Kent, for boats used by people thought to be migrants. 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A police officer who interviewed the suspect in hospital recorded him saying he was flying solo and that no-one else was involved in the attack.

Dave didnt vanish into thin air  he was never there in the first place, Mr Rees said.

In his mind, the defendant had cast all Muslims as criminals and decided to take matters into his own hands and punish them the sad and depressing truth is that he intended to kill as many members of the group as possible.

Mr Osborne insisted that he did not carry out the attack himself but did not retract comments he admitted making in a written note and to police.

He repeated the sentiments in court, launching into a rant accusing Muslim men of raping white girls en masse and alluding to grooming gangs and the Quran.

I wouldnt suggest Im a madman, just angry, Mr Osborne added.

His wife, Sarah Andrews, previously told the court he was being treated for depression and had considered suicide in the weeks leading up to the attacks.

But Mr Rees said a psychiatric assessment found no illness that would have diminished responsibility.

He said the atrocity was inspired by a hatred of all Muslims that had its roots in the material Mr Osborne had watched on television and viewed online.

The catalyst was a drama on grooming gangs in Rochdale, Mr Rees added, saying his hatred was fuelled by online research and the Isis-inspired attacks in Manchester and London Bridge.

The evidence proves that the defendant set out alone, on a venture of his own and not with Terry and Dave, to kill Muslims, the prosecutor told the jury. Dont let him pull the wool over your eyes.

The trial continues.A prisoner has died after being stabbed at Wormwood Scrubs prison in London, Ministry of Justice sources told The Independent.

An investigation into the death has been launched by the Metropolitan police.

Police were called at 3.19pm on Wednesday to reports of a man with stab injuries, the force said.

Officers and London Ambulance Service attended the scene where the man was later pronounced dead. Next of kin have been informed. We await formal identification.

No arrests have been made and enquiries are ongoing, the police said.

The Category B Victorian-era prison in West London has about 1,200 male inmates.

A report published in November said the prison was a dangerous place, with 40-50 violent incidents a month.

In addition, the report said the facility was consistently short of staff.

At the time, collapsed construction company Carillion had been contracted to provide maintenance services to the building. The report said the company was not able to adequately maintain the fabric of the prison.

Areas of the jail were found to be covered with litter, attracting cockroaches and rats.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. 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PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA UK news in pictures 12 August 2021 Children ride horses in the River Eden in Appleby, Cumbria, during the annual gathering of travellers for the Appleby Horse Fair PA UK news in pictures 11 August 2021 Stella Moris (left) reacts after talking to the media outside the High Court in London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal, n London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal. The US government has won the latest round in its High Court bid to appeal against the decision not to extradite Julian Assange on espionage charges PA UK news in pictures 10 August 2021 Students react after they receive their A-Level results at the Ark Academy, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 9 August 2021 The final athletes from Great Britain arrive home including Jason Kenny, Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald (front left-right) at Heathrow Airport, London following the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games PA UK news in pictures 8 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny during the closing ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Olympic stadium in Japan PA UK news in pictures 7 August 2021 People from the Glasgow Southside community take part in the Govanhill Carnival, an anti-racist celebration of pride, unity and the contributions immigrants have made to the community in Govanhill, at Queen's Park, Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 6 August 2021 Chijindu Ujah of Britain, Zharnel Hughes of Britain, Richard Kilty of Britain and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake of Britain celebrate winning silver as they pose with Asha Philip of Britain, Imani Lansiquot of Britain, Dina Asher-Smith of Britain and Daryll Neita of Britain after they won bronze in the women's 4 x 100m relay during Olympic Games Day 14 Getty UK news in pictures 5 August 2021 A protester places flowers on a photograph of an executed man during a demonstration organised by supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) to protest against the inauguration of Iran's new president Ebrahim Raisi in central London AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 4 August 2021 England's Joe Root looks on as India's KL Rahul doesn't make it to a catch during day one of Cinch First Test match at Trent Bridge, Nottingham PA UK news in pictures 3 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny and Jason Kenny with their silver medals for the Women's Team Pursuit and Mens Team Sprint during the Track Cycling at the Izu Velodrome on the eleventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 2 August 2021 Great Britains Charlotte Worthington competes during the Womens BMX Freestyle Final at the Tokyo Olympics PA UK news in pictures 1 August 2021 EPA UK news in pictures 31 July 2021 James Guy, Adam Peaty and Kathleen Dawson celebrate winning the gold medal in the mixed 4x100m medley relay final at the Tokyo Olympics AP UK news in pictures 30 July 2021 Great Britain's Bethany Shriever and Kye Whyte celebrate their Gold and Silver medals respectively for the Cycling BMX Racing at the Ariake Urban Sports Park on the seventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 29 July 2021 Team GB's Mallory Franklin during the Womens Canoe Slalom Final on day six of the Tokyo Olympic Games. She went on to win the silver medal Getty UK news in pictures 28 July 2021 Canoers on Llyn Padarn lake in Snowdonia, Gwynedd. It was announced that the north-west Wales slate landscape has been granted UNESCO World Heritage Status PA UK news in pictures 27 July 2021 A view of one of two areas now being used at a warehouse facility in Dover, Kent, for boats used by people thought to be migrants. PA UK news in pictures 26 July 2021 A woman is helped by Border Force officers as a group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, onboard a Border Force vessel, following a small boat incident in the Channel PA UK news in pictures 25 July 2021 Vehicles drive through deep water on a flooded road in Nine Elms, London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 24 July 2021 Utilities workers inspect a 15x20ft sinkhole on Green Lane, Liverpool, which is suspected to have been caused by ruptured water main PA UK news in pictures 23 July 2021 Children interact with Mega Please Draw Freely by artist Ei Arakawa inside the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern in London, part of UNIQLO Tate Play the gallery's new free programme of art-inspired activities for families PA UK news in pictures 22 July 2021 Festivalgoers in the campsite at the Latitude festival in Henham Park, Southwold, Suffolk PA UK news in pictures 21 July 2021 A man walks past an artwork by Will Blood on the end of a property in Bedminster, Bristol, as the 75 murals project reaches the halfway point and various graffiti pieces are sprayed onto walls and buildings across the city over the Summer PA

Following the report, HM Inspectorate of Prisons said Wormwood Scrubs was "still not safe enough", with chief inspector Peter Clarke saying the findings painted an extremely concerning picture.The Independents special report on modern slavery, commissioned as part of our recent Slaves on Our Streets campaign, was launched last night at a gala reception at the Houses of Parliament.

The report, which lays out 11 recommendations for governments and businesses to implement to combat this modern day scourge, is to be distributed to political and business leaders across Britain.

Next Friday, Pope Francis will also inspect its findings at the prestigious anti-modern slavery Santa Marta Group conference being held at the Vatican, which is attended by many of the world's leading police chiefs.

At the reception last night, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Britains most senior Catholic who chaired the round table of experts who produced Slaves on our Streets: A report on modern slavery in the UK, hailed the document saying it expresses the commitment of the people of London to carry on this long battle.

He spoke of his horror of the evils taking place right here in the UK today, saying: When I first met the first victim of modern slavery Id come across I was shocked by what I heard.

She was English and had been trafficked into prostitution in Italy. That turned all my preconceived notions about human trafficking on their head and brought the issue home.

From September to November The Independents three-month investigation exposed the scale of the crime in London, from sex trafficking to those forced to work in car washes and on building sites.

As part of the investigation, Cardinal Nichols convened the round table of experts from business, media, law, finance, philanthropy, law enforcement and victim support.

Among the experts on it were Kevin Hyland, the independent anti-slavery commissioner who was our partner in the investigation, newsreader and TV presenter Julie Etchingham, chief executive of the Thomson Reuters Foundation Monique Villa, Jean Baderschneider of the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery, Yasmin Waljee from law firm Hogan Lovells, Unilever chief executive Paul Polman, former chief constable of Northern Ireland Sir Matt Baggott and vice-chairman John Studzinsk of investment giant Blackstone.

At the House of Commons event, Mr Hyland hailed the progress made since the start of the campaign, including a 160 per cent increase in reports of the crime by the general public.

Mr Hyland said: Thank you to The Independent and to the Cardinal for making this happen. And a big thanks to the people who are addressing this on a daily basis.

Among the key recommendations put forward by the reports experts are giving longer-term support for survivors regardless of their immigration status, making trafficking a coordinated national policing priority and encouraging companies to investigate slavery in their supply chains.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe and Cardinal Vincent Nichols attended the launch and have both welcomed the project (Nigel Howard)

Former Met Police chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, who worked with The Independent to oversee the investigation, said the investigation had added to the understanding of the crime.

Many people have contacted me and told me how much theyve learned about modern slavery, he said as he thanked the panel, adding: Its when you get leadership like this that things can change.

Visit Freedom United's action hub for The IndependentTo look at him, Frank Foley was no-ones idea of a hero.

Small, slightly paunchy, with round glasses, he was less James Bond, more like the kind of functionary who could blend in with the backroom furniture while performing whatever humdrum task his superior set him.

Which is precisely what made him, to use the words of Sir Alex Younger, the current head of MI6, a consummately effective intelligence officer".

So consummately effective, in fact, that while posing as a mild-mannered bureaucrat, Major Frank Foley  to give him his proper rank  became the pimpernel of the Jews, rescuing more than 10,000 men, women and children from under the noses of the Nazis in Hitlers Germany.

Now, 60 years after his death, Frank Foley has received the rarest of accolades: a public statement from the serving head of Britains Secret Intelligence Service, acknowledging the work of one of its spies.

 Holocaust Memorial Day: three unsung heroes who helped Europe's Jews escape the Nazis

At a special ceremony in MI6s London headquarters, Sir Alex told members of Foley's family and the Holocaust Educational Trust: There is a mantra that surrounds MI6's history: 'Our successes are private, our failures are public'.

[So] it is a wonderful thing for MI6 that one of its most distinguished members' successes are no longer private.

While many condemned and criticised the Nazis' discriminative laws, Frank took action.

He took a stance against evil. He knew the dire consequences were he to get caught. He saved the lives of many thousands of European Jews [and] ensured they could travel safely out of the clutches of Hitler's killers.

It was an extraordinary tribute to an extraordinary spy.

Using his cover as passport officer in the British Consulate, Foley  actually our most senior agent in Berlin  bent or broke the rules to give Jews the visas they needed to escape the Reich, even entering Nazi concentration camps to extract them.

One former MI6 officer told the author Michael Smith that the work of Oskar Schindler, immortalised in the film Schindlers List pales into insignificance compared to Foleys success in rescuing Jews from the Nazis.

Perhaps tellingly, the ex-MI6 man added: One of the most interesting things about Foley was that normally to be a case officer you have to be a bit of a s**t. But Foley managed to be a good case officer and a near saint.

In fact, Foley wasnt just a good case officer. His agent handling skills were so exceptional they were used as a model for training future generations of MI6 officers.

And its true he had nearly become a Catholic missionary.

Born in 1884 in relatively humble circumstances, the son of a Great Western Railway engine fitter, at the age of 14 Foley was sent by his devoutly Catholic mother to a Jesuit seminary in France.

Eventually though, the lure of student life proved stronger than the training to be a missionary, and Foley decided on a career as an academic.

When the First World War broke out, he found himself stranded in Hamburg, where he was studying philosophy.

Yet rather than submit to being interned, Foley had the chutzpah to borrow a military uniform and escape Germany by train, posing as a Prussian officer on his way to the front.

At first, British intelligence rejected him, on the grounds that such a fit young man was needed in the infantry.

Only after he had been shot in the lung on the Western Front was the young subaltern admitted into the ranks of the Secret Intelligence Service.

By the 1920s he was in Germany.

After Hitler came to power in January 1933, it didnt take long for this quiet, thoughtful and highly effective spy to work out was going on.

In the spring of 1933 he took his wife Kay on a drive into some pinewoods looking for a picnic spot. Every possible place they came to was marked with signs saying Forbidden to halt. One of the first concentration camps was being built.

In his book Foley, the spy who saved 10,000 Jews, Michael Smith revealed for the first time the full extent of how Foley bent and broke the rules to grant Jews the visas they needed to get from Germany to Britain or British-controlled Palestine.

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To begin with, when the rules insisted on 1,000 for a Palestine visa  a huge sum, especially for Jews with bank accounts frozen by the Nazis  Foley would accept payments of 10 on the grounds that 990 would somehow magically appear once the refugee disembarked in the port of Haifa.

When people said they had no money at all, he would gently hint that maybe someone could write them a letter promising them 1,000.

And when he found out about illegal Zionist operations to smuggle Jews from Germany to Palestine, he kept quiet, instead of telling his superiors as the (British) rules decreed.

Some British diplomats shared Foleys sympathies and also did their bit to help Jews escape. John Carvell, Consul-General in Munich, issued certificates allowing 300 Jewish men to go from Dachau to Palestine.

But by no means all Britons were quite so welcoming of the immigrants now fleeing Nazi persecution.

In the Commons in 1933, the Conservative MP Edward Doran rose to ask the House: Are we prepared in this country to allow aliens to come in here from every country while we have three million unemployed?

Consular staff were told that while the current numbers of refugees entering Britain were acceptable We most certainly dont want numbers increased, and it is our policy to do nothing to encourage further immigration.

A Cabinet committee formed the opinion that there was no room in Palestine for any appreciable number of German refugees, and in time the head of MI6 himself, Sir Hugh Sinclair, came to tell the Home Secretary he was seriously concerned about the influx of refugees to Britain.

It was, Sir Hugh declared, A menace to our national interests.

Yet if Foley was risking disciplinary action from his superiors, it was nothing compared to what the Nazis would have done to him had they realised exactly what he was up to. Foley could expect no diplomatic immunity: he was operating as a spy.

But he pressed on, going as far as helping Jews to obtain forged passports and visas, even hiding some of them in his own Berlin apartment.

Foleys nephew, who visited in 1934, told Michael Smith how There would be this knock on the door at two or three oclock in the morning and we would hear Frank go downstairs to talk to them.

At the same time, Foley was continuing his spying duties. His wife Kay recalled how the strain and the terrible stories of persecution he was hearing pushed him to the point where he felt he could go on no longer.

But by 1939 the British passport control office in the Consulate building on Tiergartenstrasse was attracting queues of 250-300 people at a time, some of them Jews who had come from as far away as Austria or Hungary.

Many never met the man who saved them. Many were never even expecting salvation.

One Sunday morning, recalled Werner Lachs, Out of the blue, the post produced a letter from the British Passport Control Office.

Young Werner, a 12-year-old in 1939, escaped to Britain and lived to become a 91-year-old great-grandfather-of-four. Like many others rescued by Foley, he spent decades thinking he owed his life to a curious administrative mix-up in the British passport office.

Others, though, got to meet the man who saved them, in the most extraordinary circumstances.

In 1939 Gunter Powitzer was in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, having been arrested for race defilement after getting his non-Jewish girlfriend pregnant.

One night, he returned late to his hut to find it empty. When he eventually found someone to ask why no-one else was in the hut, he was told: They tried out a new machine-gun today.

A few days later, he was surprised to be cleaned up, shaved and led by an SS man into the camp office.

There, Powitzer later told Michael Smith, Sat a small man wearing glasses, who told me in English: My name is Foley. I am from the British Consulate in Berlin.

Foley had started going into the concentration camps, convincing the Nazis that their Jewish prisoners had been granted a visa but been interned before they could receive it.

Foley didnt just get Powitzer out. He got his infant son to Palestine too.

In late August, days before war broke out, Foley left the Berlin passport office for the last time, but not before he had summoned someone to collect visas for 80 young Jews.

Even after Foley left Germany, Jews were still escaping on papers signed by him. The last group, 300 men, got out on August 28 1939, four days before Hitlers invasion of Poland started the Second World War.

After doing what he could to rescue as many Jews as possible, Foley took the fight to the Nazis.

He questioned Rudolf Hess after Hitlers deputy flew to Scotland in 1941. He played his part in the Double Cross deception operation, helping to run a network of double agents and turned spies who were able to trick Hitler into thinking the D-Day landings would be in Pas-de-Calais, not Normandy.

And then, in 1949, this most normal, pleasant man  as one unsuspecting Consulate civil servant remembered him - retired from MI6 to enjoy a quiet retirement in Stourbridge with his wife.

There was little official recognition. The CMG awarded in January 1941 had been blandly listed as for services rendered to the Foreign Office.

To his Stourbridge neighbours, Foley was a quiet, nondescript little man, the kind you could easily miss in a crowd.

But in all likelihood he was quite content with what he did receive: letters sent by those who did know who had rescued him, a canned turkey sent every Christmas from New York, from a grateful Jewish doctor.

He also formed a firm friendship with someone living round the corner from him: Ernst Ruppel, who had been rescued from Buchenwald by Foley before settling in England.

In later years, Foley worried about the possibility of a third world war. He declared himself a pacifist unless some tyrant gets busy trying to rob people of their mental and physical liberty.

With more reason than most to know what he was talking about, he confided to his brother: I hate war, and all the suffering it causes to the weak and innocent.

His death aged 73, from a heart attack in May 1958, attracted little attention beyond a few appreciative letters in the Daily Telegraph.

The funeral was a simple one, for friends and family, at Stourbridge cemetery.

It would be 40 years before the true scale of Foleys achievement was fully recognised.

Told about Foley by the former MI6 officer who regarded him as a near saint, the author Michael Smith began investigating. Finally, when Smiths book was first published in 1999, the world realised what Foley had done.

Today, he is honoured at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem as one of the Righteous Among Nations. The figure for how many he saved is normally put at more than 10,000  but it could be yet higher.

Recommended How a dozen silk stockings helped bring down Adolf Hitler

As one helped by the quiet spy put it, It is impossible to say how many owe Frank Foley their lives.

Now, there are public honours for Frank Foley, even where he once worked undetected.

On 24 November 2004, the 120th anniversary of Foleys birth, a plaque was unveiled in his honour at the British Embassy in Berlin.

There, finally, at the age of 91, Elisheva Lernau, rescued by Foley aged 22, could offer her thanks.

His name is written on my heart, she said. I owe my life to this man I never met: a man of humanity in a time of unparalleled inhumanity.The Home Office is being urged by leading charities to reverse its decision to refuse asylum to a child slavery victim which would see him forced to return to the country from which he was trafficked.

Nineteen-year-old orphan Stephen, whose real name cannot be revealed for his own protection, was trafficked to the UK at the age of 10 and exploited in a cannabis farm, where he was forced to endure dangerous conditions and regular beatings.

After six years, Stephen was found by police aged 16 and placed into foster care, where he began rebuilding his life by attending school, making friends and becoming part of his local community in the north-east of England.

But a year later, he lost his automatic right to remain in the country and applied for asylum. His claim was refused by the Home Office in December, meaning he now faces removal to a country he has not visited in nine years and where he has no family or support network.

Now the teenager is being backed by dozens of leading charities which argue his individual case deserves to be reconsidered and that, as a child trafficking victim, he should have the right to a durable solution as required by the European Directive on trafficking (2011/36/EU).

An open letter to the Home Secretary, penned by leading child trafficking charity ECPAT UK and signed by 29 charities and organisations including Barnardos and the Childrens Society, calls on Amber Rudd to reconsider the decision and reform the support provided to all children identified as victims of modern slavery in the UK.

Additionally, a petition calling on Stephens claim to be reversed has already gained more than 100,000 supporters and will also be handed to the Home Office on Thursday ahead of his asylum appeal on 5 February.

Page 1 of the letter from charities sent to Amber Rudd regarding modern slavery

The two-page letter from charities sent to Amber Rudd regarding modern slavery

Speaking to The Independent ahead of the hand-in, Stephen said: I was so disappointed and upset about the refusal letter. I got the same feeling before when my foster mum died and there was no one who wanted to have me. I cant imagine how I would cope with many terrible things if I am to be sent back to Vietnam.

Luckily Ive got so much amazing support from family and people. Family and people have shown me that Im not alone. The petition is unbelievable. Im so, so lucky to have so much support. People have saved my life. I own my family and people so much. I would never pay back enough for that.

Naomi Tomlinson, Stephens foster sister, said the family was devastated at the Home Offices refusal, saying Stephen had over three-and-a-half years become a member of the family and warning that he has nothing to go back to in Vietnam.

We were devastated when he got the refusal letter. In our eyes theres no reason for him to be deported. Hes worked really hard since coming to live with us to learn English, to learn British culture, to make friends, to become a part of the community, she said.

Hes so kind and so helpful. Hes the type of young person who would see someone old crossing the street and he would run to help them. Hes always talking about how he wants to work so he can help other people like people have helped him.

We definitely consider him as a member of our family. The idea of him being deported to a place where he knows no one, has nothing, hasnt been for almost 10 years, is just heartbreaking.

It comes after The Independent reported on stark warnings from authorities that the National Referral Mechanism (NRM)  the UKs official framework for identifying victims of human trafficking  was failing to protect young people both during and after the identification process.

Social workers, police and lawyers said children as young as 13, from a number of countries including the UK, were subsequently identified as victims of slavery and recorded on the national database, but then slid back into exploitation within weeks or even days.

Helen Goodman, Stephens MP and the shadow minister for foreign affairs, who will be leading a meeting of MPs on Thursday where Stephen will be speaking, said the Home Offices decision was grotesque and urged for a more coherent approach to asylum decisions for slavery victims.

I think its absolutely grotesque that the Government treats somebody who is a victim of trafficking in same way as somebody who has turned up under their own esteem, she told The Independent.

The police rescued him. They knew all the problems he had in his life. He has nothing to go back to in Vietnam  nobody and nothing to go back to. Whereas here he has a new family, a new way of life, education and all those things.

The modern slavery legislation is not treating victims properly if we dont take it into account when deciding asylum claims. The two laws need to be looked at together. It isnt sensible to say they are different things. We need a coherent approach.

Dr Geoff Debelle, child protection officer for the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, one of the letters signatories, said the organisation strongly supported the letter and agreed there needed to be a care pathway developed for children rescued, or who escape from slavery.

This should include trauma informed therapy and rehabilitation. It should not involve deportation back to the situation that enslaved them, he added. This care pathway is a basic human right and deportation is a violation of this. This therapeutic approach should be enshrined in Home Office policy.

Modern Slavery in the UK Show all 13 1 /13 Modern Slavery in the UK Modern Slavery in the UK NCA has launched a touring photographic exhibition which aims to portray the signs of slavery and exploitation. Entitled Invisible People, the exhibition will tour the country as part of the National Crime Agencys campaign to raise awareness of modern slavery and human trafficking. National Crime Agency Modern Slavery in the UK Child trafficking Child trafficking for sexual exploitation Traffickers use grooming techniques to gain the trust of a child, family or community. The children are recruited, transported and then sold for sex, often returning to their homes immediately afterwards, only to be picked up by the same people again. This is happening here in the UK, to migrant and British-born children. Spot the signs of child trafficking: Often, children wont be sure which country, city or town theyre in. They may be orphaned or living apart from their family, in unregulated private foster care, or in substandard accommodation. They may possess unaccounted-for money or goods or repeatedly have new, unexplained injuries. National Crime Agency Modern Slavery in the UK Agriculture Some workers in the farming sector, harvesting grains or root vegetables, tending livestock or fruit picking, are being exploited every day in the UK. Victims of this crime in the agricultural sector are often Eastern European men and women, who were promised a job by traffickers, or they could be individuals on the fringes of society, homeless or destitute. Through threats, violence, coercion or forced drug and alcohol dependency, theyre enslaved, working for little or no money, living in squalid conditions having had their identity documents taken from them. Spot the signs of exploitative labour in agriculture: Agricultural slaves often have their wages paid into the same bank account, meaning an illegal gangmaster is likely collecting all their wages. Exploited agriculture workers often dont have suitable protective equipment, working instead in cheap sports clothing and trainers, and dont have a different change of clothes from day-to-day. National Crime Agency Modern Slavery in the UK Food processing Polish or Slovakian men are brought to the UK with the offer of employment and, after arrival, gangmasters seize documents, opening multiple bank and utility accounts in their names  but refuse to handover access to the accounts or bank cards. Hours are long and the work is gruelling and dangerous. Workers are abused and are controlled by threats of harm to their families at home. Spot the signs: Those exploited wear inappropriate clothes and often no safety gear  despite working with dangerous and life-threatening equipment. They may often have untreated injuries and be refused medical attention, and will live and work in agricultural outhouses. National Crime Agency Modern Slavery in the UK Construction Labour-intensive sectors like construction, where temporary and irregular work are common, are high-risk sectors for forced labour. With new homes, offices and buildings being constructed or upgraded in great quantity, labour exploitation is the second most common type of modern slavery, after sexual exploitation. Spot the signs of exploitative labour in construction: Exploited workers are often not provided with protective clothing or equipment, and may show signs of abuse or carry old untreated injuries. Slave workers are also likely to work extremely long work hours for six or seven days a week without any leave. Photographer Rory Carnegie, said: I wanted this image to communicate that despite being forced to live, eat, wash and sleep  where theyre working, in cramped and unhygienic conditions, that there is a human instinct to domesticate. I wanted to show how there is still hope and dignity in the most squalid and difficult of circumstances. National Crime Agency Modern Slavery in the UK Maritime In the tough maritime industry young men, often Filipino or Indian, Eastern European or African, are promised a better life, but instead find themselves in a cycle of debt and exploitation. Unable to read, they are offered a job, given papers to sign and begin working on a trial-basis, only to be told they have failed and owe money, and have to work more to settle the debt. They may be forced to work for long hours in intense, hazardous and difficult conditions. Photographer Rory Carnegie, said: In the 80s, Chris Killip published a series of images called In Flagrante, and these images were at the forefront of my mind while composing this shot. I wanted to show the utter desperation of these men - how passed their limit they are. The broken floats and the entire decaying environment around him, I saw as a metaphor for his existence. Rory Carnegie/National Crime Agency Modern Slavery in the UK Forced prostitution Each year, women from across Eastern Europe and West Africa are lured to the UK by the dream of a better life. Whether by fake migration services or unscrupulous individuals who befriend and then betray them, women fall into a dark spiral of sexual exploitation and forced, unpaid prostitution, unable to escape. Photographer Rory Carnegie, said: What I really wanted for this image, was to depict how women are used as commodities, the complete control slavery has over them  the helplessness of having to sit and wait for man after man, until no more men arrive. I wanted the image to show how lonely and eventually numbing that experience is, and for that ugliness to be contrasted against the bright blue of the wig  a fancy dress item that we would usually associate with a fun event  but here is used as a disguise, perhaps of her own identity to herself - to further emphasise how unjust the situation is. NCA Modern Slavery in the UK Cannabis farming The cannabis industry hides a dark secret in the house next door. Gangs bring young boys to the UK from countries like Vietnam and deliver them to a house where, once in, they wont be able to leave. Forced to tend cannabis plants that fill specially rigged houses, the boys are often locked in and forced to work, sleep and eat in one confined and dirty room. The chemicals used on the cannabis are poisonous, and often victims dont know where they are or how to get help if they do escape. The eyes, ears and compassion of the local community are essential. Spot the signs: Aside from the strong and prolonged smell of cannabis, have you noticed a house that looks unusual? Are the windows covered or usual entry points blocked? Buildings might be over-heated  in very cold weather is the roof without frost, because the house is being kept warm to grow plants National Crime Agency Modern Slavery in the UK Agriculture Some workers in the farming sector, harvesting grains or root vegetables, tending livestock or fruit picking, are being exploited every day in the UK. Victims of this crime in the agricultural sector are often Eastern European men and women, who were promised a job by traffickers, or they could be individuals on the fringes of society, homeless or destitute. Through threats, violence, coercion or forced drug and alcohol dependency, theyre enslaved, working for little or no money, living in squalid conditions having had their identity documents taken from them. Spot the signs of exploitative labour in agriculture: Agricultural slaves often have their wages paid into the same bank account, meaning an illegal gangmaster is likely collecting all their wages. Exploited agriculture workers often dont have suitable protective equipment, working instead in cheap sports clothing and trainers, and dont have a different change of clothes from day-to-day National Crime Agency Modern Slavery in the UK Forced prostitution Spot the signs of forced prostitution: Victims of this type of crime might appear withdrawn or scared, avoid eye contact, and be untrusting. Poor English language skills could indicate exploitation because it suggests someone else must be arranging the work. A brothel is likely to be an average house on a normal looking street, but may have curtains which are usually closed and many different men coming and going frequently. National Crime Agency Modern Slavery in the UK Maritime Spot the signs of exploitative labour in the maritime sector: Victims might appear withdrawn or frightened, often unable to answer questions directed at them or speak for themselves,. They might be afraid of authorities like police, immigration or the tax office, and may perceive themselves to be in debt to someone else. They may not have been given proper protective equipment so can suffer illness or injury. Photographer Rory Carnegie, said: Throughout the series of images, I wanted to juxtapose the harshness of the lives of slaves against bright primary colours  colours we traditionally associate with happiness or a feeling of wellbeing  to provoke a reaction. The image, as rich as it is, communicates how completely uncomfortable this person is. I wanted to show how his body is not his own, and how he has no right to avoid hardship, avoid the ice, or wear better shoes, he is utterly controlled. Rory Carnegie/National Crime Agency Modern Slavery in the UK Food processing Photographer Rory Carnegie, said: This image communicates utter exhaustion and dejection. We can see how dire his situation is. He has no protective gear on, and we can see the extreme tiredness that leads him to a place of anxiety and distraction, where he doesnt care about whether hes operating machinery safely, or putting himself at risk. National Crime Agency Modern Slavery in the UK The exhibition comprises a series of large, freestanding cubes displaying images capturing snapshots of life within different types of modern slavery - in agriculture, construction, maritime, cannabis farming and food processing, child trafficking for sexual exploitation and forced prostitution. Each image comes with written commentary describing what the viewer is seeing, and information about signs which may indicate someone is a victim. National Crime Agency

Chloe Setter, head of advocacy, policy and campaigns at ECPAT UK, said: As Stephens case sadly demonstrates, being recognised by the National Referral Mechanism as a victim of trafficking does not currently guarantee children any specialist support or long-term leave to remain in the UK.

This makes it very difficult for young people to build a stable life, access education and plan for their future.

Moreover, having begun to recover from traumatic experiences of abuse, these young people are then often forced to return to countries where they have few, if any, support structures, and may face further exploitation.

If the Government is serious about tackling slavery, it must treat its youngest victims better than this and reform the support system.

A Home Office spokesperson said: The UK has a proud history of granting asylum to those who need our protection and every case is assessed on its individual merits.

Protection is normally granted when a claimant establishes a well-founded fear of persecution under the Refugee Convention or their particular circumstances engage our obligations under Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

In October 2017 the Government announced that the UK would spend at least 3m of the Modern Slavery Fund in Vietnam. This money will help to catch offenders, support victims and stop people falling into slavery in the first place.

Read about The Independent's Slave on Our Streets campaign here.Refugees in the UK are being left "desperate"  and in some cases suicidal  due to government immigration laws which prevent close family members from being reunited.

New research shows people who have fled war torn countries are developing mental health problems as a result of being separated from grandparents, siblings and children because of the Home Office's "damaging" reunification policies.

Many are plagued by worry, making it difficult for them to successfully integrate into British life as they struggle to focus on finding work, making friends and learning English. In some cases they are said to be so anxious they rarely leave their homes.

The UK currently only allows adult refugees to apply for their spouses and dependent children under 18 to join them. This means their grandparents, parents, siblings and children above the age of 17 are prevented from coming to Britain to join them in starting a new life.

Additionally, legal aid has not been available for refugee family reunion since 2013, making it even more difficult for families separated by war and persecution to reunite.

The report, by Oxfam and the Refugee Council, finds that three-quarters of refugee families in the UK have separated relatives who are not eligible for family reunification under the UKs existing immigration rules.

Based on interviews with 44 refugee families, the study shows that as well as the emotional trauma of being separated from loved ones, refugees are becoming overwhelmed by extra caring responsibilities that restrict the time they can spend on activities to help them settle in the UK.

The Home Office said it revised its family reunion guidance in July 2016 to make it clear that certain types of cases may be eligible for a grant of leave to remain outside the Immigration Rules where as a result of age, illness or disability they require long-term personal care that can only be provided by their relative in the UK.

It said an increased number of applicants had been referred for a grant of leave outside of the rules since then, including children over the age of 18 from countries such as Syria, Iraq and Sudan who applied as part of a family unit.

But the research suggests many refugees are still facing serious difficulties because they cannot reunite with family who are still trapped in precarious situations overseas.

In one case, a young Syrian man named Joram became the sole carer for his eight-year-old sister and parents, both of whom have serious medical conditions. His brother, who used to share the responsibility of looking after the family, is said to be trapped in Lebanon and ineligible to join them in the UK.

Recommended Emmanuel Macron to tell Theresa May to take more refugees

In another case, an Eritrean woman called Aster, who arrived in the UK in 2016 after she was forced to flee or face death on account of her religion, said she was "desperately worried" about her three children, who remain in Africa.

Her daughter faces conscription into Eritreas military, while her two sons are both seriously ill after escaping to Ethiopia with no one to care for them, she said. Aster knows there is little chance of being reunited with them because two of them are 18 or over.

When I think of my children, I am always sad and I cannot enjoy life or take any part in anything," she told researchers. "Im doing my best but I cant fully concentrate on anything I do, all the time I am stressed thinking about the day when I will be reunited with my children.

The report coincides with the launch of the families together campaign, which calls for changes to the rules on refugee family reunion and has support from Amnesty International UK, British Red Cross, Oxfam, Refugee Council and UNHCR.

These groups are backing the Refugee Family Reunion Bill, which was introduced by Angus MacNeil MP in support of the campaign and returns to Parliament on 16 March. It is co-sponsored by MPs from all the main political parties.

The bill calls for child refugees to be able to sponsor their parents and siblings under the age of 25 and for adult refugees to be able to sponsor their parents, their children under the age of 25 and their siblings under the age of 25. It also calls for the reintroduction of legal aid for refugee family reunion.

Mr MacNeil, MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, told The Independent: This research just underlines the misery caused by preventing refugee families being together. The current rules do not ensure that refugees can live with their loved ones in safety.

"It is not enough for the Government to say that applications will be looked upon with sympathy. Thats why Ive introduced a bill to Parliament which will ensure that the fate of refugee families does not rest on the whim of a Home Office official.

"If I had not introduced this I am sure another MP from any other party would have as it is a crying injustice that speaks to everyone. This is about humanity, not party politics. I implore MPs of all parties to join me on March 16th and support the Bill.

In light of the new findings, Maurice Wren, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: As this report makes crystal clear, refugee families living in the UK are just like most other families in the UK: the safety of their loved ones is of utmost importance.

The evidence is clear: reuniting refugee families gives them the best chance of living settled and fulfilling lives. Denying them the chance to restore their family ties condemns then to a future of anguish and guilt, with the anxiety of separation undermining their mental health.

We urge the Government to do better by refugees and amend the unfair, restrictive UK rules that prevent refugee families from being reunited just when they need each other the most.

Sally Copley, Oxfams head of policy, programmes and campaigns, said: We all know how important family are when it comes to feeling safe, loved and secure. Most people would be shocked to discover that families are being torn apart simply because a brother or sister is over 18 and therefore not eligible to join their parents and siblings in the UK.

Refugees want to be able to play an active role in their communities and be able to learn English, but all too often they face pointless hurdles because of a system that keeps them separated from their family.

Refugees welcome here: Protesters demand UK resettle more migrants in response to refugee crisis Show all 7 1 /7 Refugees welcome here: Protesters demand UK resettle more migrants in response to refugee crisis Refugees welcome here: Protesters demand UK resettle more migrants in response to refugee crisis The Solidarity With Refugees group said Saturdays protest aimed to show our Government and the world that Britain is ready to welcome more refugees. Rex Features Refugees welcome here: Protesters demand UK resettle more migrants in response to refugee crisis People march through central London as they take part in a protest rally organised by Solidarity with Refugees in a bid to urge the Government to take more action on the migrant crisis Press Association Refugees welcome here: Protesters demand UK resettle more migrants in response to refugee crisis The protest comes days before world leaders meet to discuss crisis at UN General Assembly Press Association Refugees welcome here: Protesters demand UK resettle more migrants in response to refugee crisis Demonstrators made their way from Park Lane to Parliament Square in London on Saturday afternoon Press Association Refugees welcome here: Protesters demand UK resettle more migrants in response to refugee crisis Marchers chanted refugees are welcome here and waved banners reading no-one is illegal and lets help people Press Association Refugees welcome here: Protesters demand UK resettle more migrants in response to refugee crisis The march was supported by charities and groups including the Red Cross, Asylum Aid, Save the Children, Hope Not Hate, Oxfam and the UN Refugee Agency Rex Features Refugees welcome here: Protesters demand UK resettle more migrants in response to refugee crisis In the wake of Alans death, David Cameron pledged to resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees in the UK over the coming five years but there have been additional calls to re-home those who have already reached Europe, as well as asylum seekers coming from other conflict zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan Rex Features

This in turns destroys their confidence to go out, make friends and be part of their community. As this study shows, it is not only harmful but also damaging to their chances of integrating successfully.

A Home Office spokesperson said: We support the principle of family unity and have reunited over 24,000 families in the last five years.

The routes already in place in the Immigration Rules allow extended family members lawfully resident here to sponsor children where there are serious and compelling circumstances. Extended family are also able to come here in exceptional circumstances.MPs will be shown the secret analysis predicting major economic harm from Brexit as a matter of urgency, after the Government caved in over the controversy.

The document  concluding all three mooted exit options would leave Britain poorer  will be shown to the select committee scrutinizing withdrawal and all other MPs will be able to view it in a confidential reading room.

John Bercow, the Commons Speaker, declined to set a strict deadline for release, while ordering ministers that the study must be made available as a matter of urgency.

Recommended May silences minister who suggested Brexit should be halted

Labour demanded a handover by the end of the week  arguing openness was the only way to ensure Theresa Mays withdrawal strategy is driven by evidence, not ideology.

This is a victory for Parliament and for our country, said Keir Starmer, the partys Shadow Brexit Secretary,

The Speaker has made clear that this decision should be implemented as a matter of urgency. Labour therefore expects ministers to hand these documents over by the end of the week. To not do so would obstruct the will of Parliament.

The release will come despite the Prime Minister herself claiming, while in China, that to do so was wrong  and despite a minister warning it would be harming the national interest.

The Government threw in the towel by not opposing Labours motion, apparently accepting the inevitability of defeat after some Tories joined the demands for the secrecy to end.

Nicky Morgan, the former Education Secretary and now chairwoman of the Commons Treasury committee, said: The document can hardly undermine the Governments negotiating position if it does not consider the Governments desired outcome.

Brexit so far: in pictures Show all 53 1 /53 Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit campaign Boris Johnson led the VoteLeave campaign PA Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit campaign Boris Johnson MP, Labour MP Gisela Stuart and UKIP MP Douglas Carswell address the people of Stafford in Market Square during the Vote Leave Brexit Battle Bus tour on 17 May 2016. Their lead line on the tour was: We send the EU 350 million a week, let's fund our NHS instead. Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Voting day A man shelters from the rain as he arrives at a polling station in London on 23 June 2016. Millions of Britons voted in the referendum on whether to stay in or leave the European Union AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Referendum results Leader of Ukip, Nigel Farage, reacts at the Leave EU referendum party at Millbank Tower in central London as results indicated that it was likely the UK would leave the European Union AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Protesting the result A young couple painted as EU flags and a man with a sign reading Im not leaving protest outside Downing Street against the voters decision to leave the EU on 24 June 2016 Getty Brexit so far: in pictures David Cameron resigns British Prime Minister David Cameron resigns on the steps of 10 Downing Street on 24 June 2016 after the results of the EU referendum were declared and the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Theresa May Becomes the new Conservative Party leader Theresa May receives a kiss from her husband Philip, after becoming the new Conservative Party leader on 11 July 2016. May became Prime Minister two days later and although she voted to remain in the referendum was keen to lead Britains Brexit talks after her only rival in the race to succeed David Cameron pulled out unexpectedly. May was left as the only contender standing after the withdrawal from the leadership race of Andrea Leadsom, who faced criticism for suggesting she was more qualified to be prime minister because she had children AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Lancaster House keynote speech on Brexit British Prime Minister Theresa May delivers her keynote speech on Brexit at Lancaster House in London on 17 January 2017. Where she spoke about her offer to introduce a transition period after the UK formally leaves the European Union in March 2019. Despite repeating the pro-Brexit mantra of no deal is better than a bad deal, the Prime Minister claimed she wanted a tone of trust between the negotiators and said Britain was leaving the EU but not Europe. She said there should be a clear double lock needed for the transitional period to make sure businesses had time to prepare for changes to their trading relationships with the EU Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Triggering of Article 50 British Prime Minister Theresa May in the cabinet, sitting below a painting of Britain's first Prime Minister Robert Walpole, signs the official letter to European Council President Donald Tusk invoking Article 50 and the United Kingdom's intention to leave the EU on 29 March 2017 Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Gibraltar nonsense Tensions have risen over Brexit negotiations for the Rock of Gibraltar. The European Council has said Gibraltar would be included in a trade deal between London and Brussels only with the agreement of Spain. While former Conservative leader Michael Howard claimed that Theresa May would be prepared to go to war to protect the territory. Spain's foreign minister stepped in only to assert that there was no need for the dispute Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Shock snap election Soon after triggering Article 50, Theresa May called on 18 April 2017 for a snap general election. The election would be on 8 June and it came as a shock move to many, with her reasoning to try to bolster her position before tough talks on leaving the EU AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Dissolution of Parliament for General Election Campaign Prime Minister Theresa May makes a statement in Downing Street after returning from Buckingham Palace on 3 May 2017. The Prime Minister visited the Queen to ask for the dissolution of Parliament signalling the official start to the general election campaign Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Conservatives lose parliamentary majority An arrangement of British daily newspapers showing front page stories about the exit poll results of the snap general election. British Prime Minister Theresa May faced pressure to resign on 9 June 2017 after losing her parliamentary majority, plunging the country into uncertainty as Brexit talks loomed. The pound fell sharply amid fears the Conservative leader would be unable to form a government AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Labour gains Britains opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn gives a tumbs up as he arrives at Labour headquarters in central London on 9 June 2017 after the snap general election results showed a hung parliament with Labour gains and the Conservatives losing their majority AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit negotiations begin Brexit Minister David Davis and European Commission member in charge of Brexit negotiations Michel Barnier address a press conference at the end of the first day of Brexit negotiations in Brussels on 19 June 2017 AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures May speaks in Florence British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks on 22 September 2017, in Florence. May sought to unlock Brexit talks after Brussels demanded more clarity on the crunch issues of budget payments and EU citizens' rights AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures EU council summit  insufficient progress German Chancellor Angela Merkel joins other EU leaders for a breakfast meeting during an EU summit in Brussels on 20 October 2017. The EU spoke about Brexit and announced that insufficient progress had been made AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures DUP derails settlement on the withdrawal part of Brexit DUP Deputy Leader Nigel Dodds walks off after speaking to members of the media as a protester holding flags shouts after him outside the Houses of Parliament on 5 December 2017. British Prime Minister Theresa May was forced to pull out of a deal with Brussels after the DUP said it would not accept terms which see Northern Ireland treated differently from the rest of the UK Getty Brexit so far: in pictures May suffers defeat over EU (Withdrawal) Bill Theresa May suffers defeat in parliament over EU (Withdrawal) Bill on 13 December 2017. The Government was defeated by Conservative rebels and Labour MPs in a vote on its key piece of Brexit legislation. MPs amended the EU (Withdrawal) Bill against Theresa May's will, guaranteeing Parliament a meaningful vote on any Brexit deal she agrees with Brussels. Ms May's whips applied pressure on Conservative rebels who remained defiant in the Commons throughout the day and in the end the Government was defeated by 309 votes to 305 Brexit so far: in pictures EU council summit  sufficient progress Britain's Prime minister Theresa May arrives to attend the first day of a European union summit in Brussels on 14 December 2017. European leaders discussed Brexit and announced there was finally sufficient progress at the end of the two days AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures The game moves to transition Brexit Secretary David Davis gives evidence on developments in European Union divorce talks to the Commons Exiting the EU Committee in Portcullis House, London, on 24 January 2018 PA Brexit so far: in pictures Trade deal is what May wants French President Emmanuel Macron gestures to Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May after they hold a press conference at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, on 18 January 2018. May and Macron agreed a new border security deal, through which the UK will pay more to France to stop migrants trying to reach British shores on 18 January 2018 AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Transition period agreed The UK and EU agree terms for Brexit transition period on 19 March, 2018 Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures No agreement on Irish border The EU and UK however failed to reach an agreement on the Irish border during the successful talks on other Brexit issues AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures EU attacks Mays fantasy strategy For months after the March deal is struck there is little significant progress in talks. One senior EU official tears into Britains fantasy negotiating strategy and accuses Theresa May of not even having a position on a variety of important issue Getty Brexit so far: in pictures UK releases Ireland plan Britain releases a new customs plan to solve the Northern Ireland border but Michel Barnier says it leaves unanswered questions and would not prevent a hard border EbS Brexit so far: in pictures Chequers plan agreed The cabinet agrees on a plan known as the "Chequers deal" on July 6 2018. The plan seeks regulatory alignment on goods and food, divergence on services, freedom from the European Courts of Justice and an end to free movement. Many were surprised that the hard Brexiteers of the cabinet would agree to this plan PA Brexit so far: in pictures Chequers plan sparks resignations Brexit Secretary David Davis and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and numerous ministers resign in the days following the Chequers agreement Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures Davis out, Raab in On 9 July, Dominic Raab replaces David Davis as Brexit Secretary. Raab is a keen Brexiteer and was a housing minister before taking over from Davis Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures Barnier's "deal like no other" EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier claims on August 29 2018 that they are prepared to offer Britain a trade deal like no other, though he stressed that they will not divide or change the single market to accommodate Britain AP Brexit so far: in pictures "My deal or no deal" In an interview on Panorama on September 17, the Prime Minister insists that any Brexit deal will be offered to the EU on her terms. She asserts this amongst continued attacks on her approach to Brexit by Boris Johnson and the European Research Group, headed by Jacob Rees Mogg BBC/Jeff Overs Brexit so far: in pictures EU leaders reject Chequers Quite the blow was dealt to the Prime Minister at a EU leaders summit in Salzburg on September 20. European Council President Donald Tusk stated that the Chequers deal "will not work" Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures May demands respect Following the rejection of her Chequers plan the day before, the Prime Minister voiced her anger that the EU had dismissed it without offering an alternative. She stated that throughout this process, I have treated the EU with nothing but respect. The UK expects the same. A good relationship at the end of this process depends on it." Getty Brexit so far: in pictures People's Vote march As the People's Vote campaign and The Independent's Final Say campaign gain traction, 700,000 people turn out in London to demand a final say on the UK's Brexit deal on October 20 2018 PA Brexit so far: in pictures More resignations As the Prime Minister settles on a Brexit deal, Brexit secretary Dominic Raab resigns along with Work and Pensions secretary Esther McVey and many other ministers Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Final Say petitions delivered to Downing Street People's Vote supporting MPs Chukka Umunna, Justine Greening and Caroline Lucas and The Independent editor Christian Broughton deliver over a million signatures in favour of a People's Vote to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street on December 3 2018 PA Brexit so far: in pictures May delays vote On December 10, the Prime Minister delayed the vote on her Brexit deal as it was near certain not to pass through the Commons due to Tory rebels and lack of DUP support AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures No confidence motion Tory MPs triggered a confidence vote in the Prime Minister on December 12. She won by 200 votes to 117 Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures Commons rejects the deal Following the delay, the Prime Minister's deal was rejected in the Commons by a historic 230 votes AFP Brexit so far: in pictures Corbyn tables a no confidence motion Following the rejection of the Prime Minister's deal, opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn tabled a motion of no confidence in the government, which the government won by a margin of 19 AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Plan B The Prime Minister won the support of the commons to return to Brussels to renegotiate the backstop on January 29. In the same sitting, MPs also voted against a no-deal Brexit in a non-legally binding motion PA Brexit so far: in pictures EU council president savages Brexit campaigners who failed to plan for departure: Special place in hell There is a special place in hell for pro-Brexit campaigners who demanded Britain leave the EU without explaining how it should happen, Donald Tusk has said. The European Council president launched the scathing attack as he accused anti-EU campaigners of pushing for Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely. Mr Tusk also dismissed suggestions that the EU could reopen negotiations over the controversial Northern Ireland backstop, dealing a blow to Theresa Mays hopes of securing fresh concessions as she tries to get her exit deal through parliament. Speaking in Brussels alongside Irish taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Mr Tusk said: Ive been wondering what a special place in hell looks like for people who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely. He also tweeted the accusation moments later Getty Brexit so far: in pictures EU and UK announce talks to restart after Theresa May visits Brussels Both have agreed to restart Brexit talks to find a way through the deadlock in Westminster, following a visit by Theresa May to Brussels. In a joint statement the British government and European Commission said Ms May had had a robust but constructive meeting with president Jean-Claude Juncker, and that the pair would meet again before the end of the month. But the EU again refused to reopen the withdrawal agreement and its controversial backstop  with any negotiations expected to focus on the future relationship between the UK and EU instead Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit strategy lost MPs voted down May's Brext plans, with a majority of 45. The prime minister did not appear in parliament to see another defeat PA Brexit so far: in pictures Labour and Conservative MPs resign and create the Independent Group Back row of Chris Leslie, Gavin Shuker, Chuka Umunna and Mike Gapes, middle row of Angela Smith, Luciana Berger and Ann Coffey and front row of Sarah Wollaston, Heidi Allen, Anna Soubry and Joan Ryan PA Brexit so far: in pictures Non-biding votes on amendments to Brexit motion On February 27 he house held a series of votes, unanimously calling for the UK and EU to guarantee citizens rights in a no-deal scenario AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Attorney General publishes legal advice A hammer blow for May as Geoffrey Cox said her renegotiated deal can still leave UK in backstop against its will. Mr Cox did say the prime ministers efforts had reduced the risk of the UK being trapped in the backstop indefinitely. MPs went on to vote against her deal by 391 to 242 UK Parliament/PA Brexit so far: in pictures No-deal off the table MPs rejected a no-deal Brexit by 43 votes on March 13, with cabinet ministers rebelling in another humiliating defeat for Theresa May. A day later they voted in favour of the prime minister seeking an extension to Article 50 AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures House speaker bans May from third Commons vote on same Brexit deal John Bercow sensationally told Theresa May he would stop her making another attempt to pass her Brexit deal unless she has secured changes. The Speaker said a further meaningful vote would be ruled out of order if the motion was the same or substantially the same  under an ancient convention to stop the government bullying parliament on issues MPs have rejected Parliament Live Brexit so far: in pictures May writes to Tusk The prime minister wrote to Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, to ask for a three-month extension to give her more time to try to get her deal through parliament. However the European Commission advises the EU27 should offer a short extension to May 23 or a longer one meaning the UK would participate in European elections 10 Downing Street/AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures European Council summit Theresa Mays request to extend triggering Article 50 until the end of June was rejected by the EU, and instead offered a shorter time frame. She accepted the offer of a delay until May 22 if her withdrawal deal is approved by Parliament. If MPs rejected it for a third time, the EU said Britain must propose a new plan by April 12. Ms May said she will not support a long delay because it would mean Britain participating in elections for the European Parliament Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Brussels confirms preparations for a no-deal Brexit are completed They warned that it is increasingly likely the UK will crash out. In a statement the European Commission (EC) said preparedness and contingency work, which the EC has been conducting since December 2017, was now finished. The announcement came days after EU leaders agreed to a request by Theresa May to extend the UKs Brexit date AFP Brexit so far: in pictures May resigns Reuters

And Chris Leslie MP, a Labour supporter of the pro-EU Open Britain campaign, said: The Government are so used to staggering from defeat to humiliation about Brexit on a daily basis, that they are not even contesting key votes in Parliament.

The defeat mirrored the order for David Davis to release 58 "impact assessments" for various economic sectors, although he later admitted they did not exist in that form.

The leak said the new analysis predicted a no-deal Brexit, leaving Britain trading with Europe on World Trade Organisation terms, would reduce growth by 8 per cent over 15 years.

Leaving with a Canada-style free trade agreement would see growth cut by 5 per cent, while staying inside the single market would reduce growth by 2 per cent.

The document also warned that the gains from free trade deals with other big countries would fail to make up for the losses - a boost of just 0.2 per cent over 15 years from a deal with the US, for example.

In the Commons, Brexit minister Robin Walker said: We will provide the analysis to the select committee for Exiting the European Union and all members on a strictly confidential basis.

This means we'll provide a hard copy of the analysis to the chair of the EU select committee and a confidential reading room will be available to all members and peers to see a copy of this analysis once those arrangements can be made.

His colleague, Steve Baker, insisted the release as only being sanctioned because of the poor reporting of the leak  continuing to insist it was a partial and preliminary assessment.

It does not constitute a meaningful commentary on the expected outcome of the negotiations, he claimed.Theresa May has signalled she is preparing for a fight with Brussels over its demands that EU citizens should be able to secure full residence rights in the UK during the Brexit transition period.

Ms May said she is clear that there should be a difference in the rights afforded to people who arrived in the UK before the expected March 2019 Brexit date and those who come afterwards.

She made her comments after the EU set out its demands for the two-year transition period, including the one which would increase the number of EU citizens who can win UK residency rights after Britain officially quits the bloc.

Recommended UK car production slides as Brexit erodes confidence

But a group representing EU citizens immediately warned that her stance would bring utter chaos and inflict widespread discrimination in their search for jobs and homes.

MPs on the Conservative Partys right wing are even more annoyed by the proposal, because they believed the matter had been settled in the withdrawal phase of Brexit talks, which reached agreement at the end of 2017.

Addressing the growing dispute while travelling to China on a trade visit, Ms May said: Im clear theres a difference between those people who came prior to us leaving and those who will come when they know the UK is no longer a member of the EU.

She explained: When we agreed the citizens rights deal in December, we did so on the basis that people who had come to the UK when we were a member of the EU had set up certain expectations, they made a life choice and  it was right that we have made an agreement that ensured they could continue their life in the way they had wanted to.

 UK will be worse off in every possible scenario after Brexit, concludes leaked Government analysis

Now for those who come after March 2019 that will be different because they will be coming to a UK that they know will be outside the EU.

Conservative MPs who want a clean break from the EU have been demanding Ms May take a tougher line on Brexit, while Labour has been questioning whether she can achieve a deal at all.

With her leadership once again under pressure as negotiations heat up, Ms May insisted that people should not underestimate her ability to secure an agreement for the transition.

She said: I kept reading before the December deal was done that we werent going to be able to do a deal, that we werent going to manage to do a deal, that we werent setting the right things out and so forth.

We did that deal. We did an agreement which when everybody looked at it, business said this gives us more certainty, citizens saw that their rights were being protected.

She dismissed speculation that she had been forced to cancel a speech setting out her terms for the transition and Brexit end state because of a lack of consensus over key areas within her Cabinet.

Brexit so far: in pictures Show all 53 1 /53 Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit campaign Boris Johnson led the VoteLeave campaign PA Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit campaign Boris Johnson MP, Labour MP Gisela Stuart and UKIP MP Douglas Carswell address the people of Stafford in Market Square during the Vote Leave Brexit Battle Bus tour on 17 May 2016. Their lead line on the tour was: We send the EU 350 million a week, let's fund our NHS instead. Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Voting day A man shelters from the rain as he arrives at a polling station in London on 23 June 2016. Millions of Britons voted in the referendum on whether to stay in or leave the European Union AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Referendum results Leader of Ukip, Nigel Farage, reacts at the Leave EU referendum party at Millbank Tower in central London as results indicated that it was likely the UK would leave the European Union AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Protesting the result A young couple painted as EU flags and a man with a sign reading Im not leaving protest outside Downing Street against the voters decision to leave the EU on 24 June 2016 Getty Brexit so far: in pictures David Cameron resigns British Prime Minister David Cameron resigns on the steps of 10 Downing Street on 24 June 2016 after the results of the EU referendum were declared and the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Theresa May Becomes the new Conservative Party leader Theresa May receives a kiss from her husband Philip, after becoming the new Conservative Party leader on 11 July 2016. May became Prime Minister two days later and although she voted to remain in the referendum was keen to lead Britains Brexit talks after her only rival in the race to succeed David Cameron pulled out unexpectedly. May was left as the only contender standing after the withdrawal from the leadership race of Andrea Leadsom, who faced criticism for suggesting she was more qualified to be prime minister because she had children AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Lancaster House keynote speech on Brexit British Prime Minister Theresa May delivers her keynote speech on Brexit at Lancaster House in London on 17 January 2017. Where she spoke about her offer to introduce a transition period after the UK formally leaves the European Union in March 2019. Despite repeating the pro-Brexit mantra of no deal is better than a bad deal, the Prime Minister claimed she wanted a tone of trust between the negotiators and said Britain was leaving the EU but not Europe. She said there should be a clear double lock needed for the transitional period to make sure businesses had time to prepare for changes to their trading relationships with the EU Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Triggering of Article 50 British Prime Minister Theresa May in the cabinet, sitting below a painting of Britain's first Prime Minister Robert Walpole, signs the official letter to European Council President Donald Tusk invoking Article 50 and the United Kingdom's intention to leave the EU on 29 March 2017 Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Gibraltar nonsense Tensions have risen over Brexit negotiations for the Rock of Gibraltar. The European Council has said Gibraltar would be included in a trade deal between London and Brussels only with the agreement of Spain. While former Conservative leader Michael Howard claimed that Theresa May would be prepared to go to war to protect the territory. Spain's foreign minister stepped in only to assert that there was no need for the dispute Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Shock snap election Soon after triggering Article 50, Theresa May called on 18 April 2017 for a snap general election. The election would be on 8 June and it came as a shock move to many, with her reasoning to try to bolster her position before tough talks on leaving the EU AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Dissolution of Parliament for General Election Campaign Prime Minister Theresa May makes a statement in Downing Street after returning from Buckingham Palace on 3 May 2017. The Prime Minister visited the Queen to ask for the dissolution of Parliament signalling the official start to the general election campaign Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Conservatives lose parliamentary majority An arrangement of British daily newspapers showing front page stories about the exit poll results of the snap general election. British Prime Minister Theresa May faced pressure to resign on 9 June 2017 after losing her parliamentary majority, plunging the country into uncertainty as Brexit talks loomed. The pound fell sharply amid fears the Conservative leader would be unable to form a government AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Labour gains Britains opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn gives a tumbs up as he arrives at Labour headquarters in central London on 9 June 2017 after the snap general election results showed a hung parliament with Labour gains and the Conservatives losing their majority AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit negotiations begin Brexit Minister David Davis and European Commission member in charge of Brexit negotiations Michel Barnier address a press conference at the end of the first day of Brexit negotiations in Brussels on 19 June 2017 AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures May speaks in Florence British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks on 22 September 2017, in Florence. May sought to unlock Brexit talks after Brussels demanded more clarity on the crunch issues of budget payments and EU citizens' rights AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures EU council summit  insufficient progress German Chancellor Angela Merkel joins other EU leaders for a breakfast meeting during an EU summit in Brussels on 20 October 2017. The EU spoke about Brexit and announced that insufficient progress had been made AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures DUP derails settlement on the withdrawal part of Brexit DUP Deputy Leader Nigel Dodds walks off after speaking to members of the media as a protester holding flags shouts after him outside the Houses of Parliament on 5 December 2017. British Prime Minister Theresa May was forced to pull out of a deal with Brussels after the DUP said it would not accept terms which see Northern Ireland treated differently from the rest of the UK Getty Brexit so far: in pictures May suffers defeat over EU (Withdrawal) Bill Theresa May suffers defeat in parliament over EU (Withdrawal) Bill on 13 December 2017. The Government was defeated by Conservative rebels and Labour MPs in a vote on its key piece of Brexit legislation. MPs amended the EU (Withdrawal) Bill against Theresa May's will, guaranteeing Parliament a meaningful vote on any Brexit deal she agrees with Brussels. Ms May's whips applied pressure on Conservative rebels who remained defiant in the Commons throughout the day and in the end the Government was defeated by 309 votes to 305 Brexit so far: in pictures EU council summit  sufficient progress Britain's Prime minister Theresa May arrives to attend the first day of a European union summit in Brussels on 14 December 2017. European leaders discussed Brexit and announced there was finally sufficient progress at the end of the two days AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures The game moves to transition Brexit Secretary David Davis gives evidence on developments in European Union divorce talks to the Commons Exiting the EU Committee in Portcullis House, London, on 24 January 2018 PA Brexit so far: in pictures Trade deal is what May wants French President Emmanuel Macron gestures to Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May after they hold a press conference at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, on 18 January 2018. May and Macron agreed a new border security deal, through which the UK will pay more to France to stop migrants trying to reach British shores on 18 January 2018 AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Transition period agreed The UK and EU agree terms for Brexit transition period on 19 March, 2018 Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures No agreement on Irish border The EU and UK however failed to reach an agreement on the Irish border during the successful talks on other Brexit issues AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures EU attacks Mays fantasy strategy For months after the March deal is struck there is little significant progress in talks. One senior EU official tears into Britains fantasy negotiating strategy and accuses Theresa May of not even having a position on a variety of important issue Getty Brexit so far: in pictures UK releases Ireland plan Britain releases a new customs plan to solve the Northern Ireland border but Michel Barnier says it leaves unanswered questions and would not prevent a hard border EbS Brexit so far: in pictures Chequers plan agreed The cabinet agrees on a plan known as the "Chequers deal" on July 6 2018. The plan seeks regulatory alignment on goods and food, divergence on services, freedom from the European Courts of Justice and an end to free movement. Many were surprised that the hard Brexiteers of the cabinet would agree to this plan PA Brexit so far: in pictures Chequers plan sparks resignations Brexit Secretary David Davis and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and numerous ministers resign in the days following the Chequers agreement Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures Davis out, Raab in On 9 July, Dominic Raab replaces David Davis as Brexit Secretary. Raab is a keen Brexiteer and was a housing minister before taking over from Davis Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures Barnier's "deal like no other" EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier claims on August 29 2018 that they are prepared to offer Britain a trade deal like no other, though he stressed that they will not divide or change the single market to accommodate Britain AP Brexit so far: in pictures "My deal or no deal" In an interview on Panorama on September 17, the Prime Minister insists that any Brexit deal will be offered to the EU on her terms. She asserts this amongst continued attacks on her approach to Brexit by Boris Johnson and the European Research Group, headed by Jacob Rees Mogg BBC/Jeff Overs Brexit so far: in pictures EU leaders reject Chequers Quite the blow was dealt to the Prime Minister at a EU leaders summit in Salzburg on September 20. European Council President Donald Tusk stated that the Chequers deal "will not work" Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures May demands respect Following the rejection of her Chequers plan the day before, the Prime Minister voiced her anger that the EU had dismissed it without offering an alternative. She stated that throughout this process, I have treated the EU with nothing but respect. The UK expects the same. A good relationship at the end of this process depends on it." Getty Brexit so far: in pictures People's Vote march As the People's Vote campaign and The Independent's Final Say campaign gain traction, 700,000 people turn out in London to demand a final say on the UK's Brexit deal on October 20 2018 PA Brexit so far: in pictures More resignations As the Prime Minister settles on a Brexit deal, Brexit secretary Dominic Raab resigns along with Work and Pensions secretary Esther McVey and many other ministers Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Final Say petitions delivered to Downing Street People's Vote supporting MPs Chukka Umunna, Justine Greening and Caroline Lucas and The Independent editor Christian Broughton deliver over a million signatures in favour of a People's Vote to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street on December 3 2018 PA Brexit so far: in pictures May delays vote On December 10, the Prime Minister delayed the vote on her Brexit deal as it was near certain not to pass through the Commons due to Tory rebels and lack of DUP support AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures No confidence motion Tory MPs triggered a confidence vote in the Prime Minister on December 12. She won by 200 votes to 117 Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures Commons rejects the deal Following the delay, the Prime Minister's deal was rejected in the Commons by a historic 230 votes AFP Brexit so far: in pictures Corbyn tables a no confidence motion Following the rejection of the Prime Minister's deal, opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn tabled a motion of no confidence in the government, which the government won by a margin of 19 AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Plan B The Prime Minister won the support of the commons to return to Brussels to renegotiate the backstop on January 29. In the same sitting, MPs also voted against a no-deal Brexit in a non-legally binding motion PA Brexit so far: in pictures EU council president savages Brexit campaigners who failed to plan for departure: Special place in hell There is a special place in hell for pro-Brexit campaigners who demanded Britain leave the EU without explaining how it should happen, Donald Tusk has said. The European Council president launched the scathing attack as he accused anti-EU campaigners of pushing for Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely. Mr Tusk also dismissed suggestions that the EU could reopen negotiations over the controversial Northern Ireland backstop, dealing a blow to Theresa Mays hopes of securing fresh concessions as she tries to get her exit deal through parliament. Speaking in Brussels alongside Irish taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Mr Tusk said: Ive been wondering what a special place in hell looks like for people who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely. He also tweeted the accusation moments later Getty Brexit so far: in pictures EU and UK announce talks to restart after Theresa May visits Brussels Both have agreed to restart Brexit talks to find a way through the deadlock in Westminster, following a visit by Theresa May to Brussels. In a joint statement the British government and European Commission said Ms May had had a robust but constructive meeting with president Jean-Claude Juncker, and that the pair would meet again before the end of the month. But the EU again refused to reopen the withdrawal agreement and its controversial backstop  with any negotiations expected to focus on the future relationship between the UK and EU instead Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit strategy lost MPs voted down May's Brext plans, with a majority of 45. The prime minister did not appear in parliament to see another defeat PA Brexit so far: in pictures Labour and Conservative MPs resign and create the Independent Group Back row of Chris Leslie, Gavin Shuker, Chuka Umunna and Mike Gapes, middle row of Angela Smith, Luciana Berger and Ann Coffey and front row of Sarah Wollaston, Heidi Allen, Anna Soubry and Joan Ryan PA Brexit so far: in pictures Non-biding votes on amendments to Brexit motion On February 27 he house held a series of votes, unanimously calling for the UK and EU to guarantee citizens rights in a no-deal scenario AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Attorney General publishes legal advice A hammer blow for May as Geoffrey Cox said her renegotiated deal can still leave UK in backstop against its will. Mr Cox did say the prime ministers efforts had reduced the risk of the UK being trapped in the backstop indefinitely. MPs went on to vote against her deal by 391 to 242 UK Parliament/PA Brexit so far: in pictures No-deal off the table MPs rejected a no-deal Brexit by 43 votes on March 13, with cabinet ministers rebelling in another humiliating defeat for Theresa May. A day later they voted in favour of the prime minister seeking an extension to Article 50 AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures House speaker bans May from third Commons vote on same Brexit deal John Bercow sensationally told Theresa May he would stop her making another attempt to pass her Brexit deal unless she has secured changes. The Speaker said a further meaningful vote would be ruled out of order if the motion was the same or substantially the same  under an ancient convention to stop the government bullying parliament on issues MPs have rejected Parliament Live Brexit so far: in pictures May writes to Tusk The prime minister wrote to Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, to ask for a three-month extension to give her more time to try to get her deal through parliament. However the European Commission advises the EU27 should offer a short extension to May 23 or a longer one meaning the UK would participate in European elections 10 Downing Street/AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures European Council summit Theresa Mays request to extend triggering Article 50 until the end of June was rejected by the EU, and instead offered a shorter time frame. She accepted the offer of a delay until May 22 if her withdrawal deal is approved by Parliament. If MPs rejected it for a third time, the EU said Britain must propose a new plan by April 12. Ms May said she will not support a long delay because it would mean Britain participating in elections for the European Parliament Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Brussels confirms preparations for a no-deal Brexit are completed They warned that it is increasingly likely the UK will crash out. In a statement the European Commission (EC) said preparedness and contingency work, which the EC has been conducting since December 2017, was now finished. The announcement came days after EU leaders agreed to a request by Theresa May to extend the UKs Brexit date AFP Brexit so far: in pictures May resigns Reuters

Labour MP Peter Kyle, a supporter of Open Britain campaign for a soft Brexit, said the comments would simply increase uncertainty over Brexit for thousands of people living in the UK.

He said: The Government says it values EU citizens who want to live in the UK, then tells them theyre not wanted. The Government tells businesses they want stability and continuity, then tells them their ability to recruit the staff they need will be hampered.

Our economy must not be sacrificed on the altar of an extreme and counter-productive attitude towards immigration. If thats what Brexit means, then everyone is entitled to keep an open mind about whether its the right path for the country.

Nicolas Hatton, the founder of the3million group which represents EU citizens, warned that Mrs Mays policy would bring utter chaos.

People wont have the paperwork to prove they arrived in this country before March 2019, he said.

That means there will be widespread discrimination because employers and landlords will want to know whether that person can stay and will ask for that paperwork.

However, Eurosceptic Conservative Nigel Evans welcomed the move as a red line in the talks amid concern from some MPs that Ms May is preparing to deliver Brexit in name only.

He told The Independent: I think this should be a wake-up call to [the European Commissions chief negotiator] Michel Barnier and others that they cannot push us around.

I believe that this clarity will not only be welcome to MPs who are supportive of the referendum result, it will also be welcomed by millions of people across the country who voted for Brexit.

It is not the backdrop the Prime Minister would have wanted for her trip to China on which she is seeking to present an image of Britains bright and prosperous trading future after Brexit.

She travels to Wuhan, Beijing and Shanghai seeking to increase trade with China and ultimately boost her chances of securing an all-important trade deal that Brexiteers believe will help make up for lost business from Europe.

British exports are up 60 per cent since 2010 and China is expected to be one of the UKs biggest foreign investors by 2020.

Ms May has already announced some 550m worth of deals in the education sector, with more expected on her three-day visit.Theresa May has promised she will publish an economic impact analysis of the final Brexit settlement she agrees with the EU, so that Parliament is fully informed before voting on the deal.

She made the pledge after a leaked document indicated the UK will be worse off outside the European Union with or without a trade deal, than it would if it stayed in.

Speaking to reporters on the way to an important trade visit to China, Ms May argued the leaked paper was a very preliminary analysis and had not tested the specific scenario she is seeking.

Recommended Labour vows to force Government to publish secret Brexit reports

Asked by The Independent if she accepted it showed Britain would be worse off outside the EU under every scenario tested, Ms May said it would be wrong to describe the document as the Brexit impact assessment.

She went on: There is analysis being done. This is very preliminary. What has been seen so far is a selective interpretation of a very preliminary analysis, which ministers have not signed off, have not approved, and which doesnt actually even look at the sort of deal that we want to deliver in terms of the future relationship with the European Union.

 UK will be worse off in every possible scenario after Brexit, concludes leaked Government analysis

Pressed on why the deal the Government wants was not included in the analysis, Ms May then said: When the time comes for Parliament to vote on the final deal, we will ensure that Parliament has the appropriate analysis on which to be fully informed, on which to base their judgement.

Brexit so far: in pictures Show all 53 1 /53 Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit campaign Boris Johnson led the VoteLeave campaign PA Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit campaign Boris Johnson MP, Labour MP Gisela Stuart and UKIP MP Douglas Carswell address the people of Stafford in Market Square during the Vote Leave Brexit Battle Bus tour on 17 May 2016. Their lead line on the tour was: We send the EU 350 million a week, let's fund our NHS instead. Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Voting day A man shelters from the rain as he arrives at a polling station in London on 23 June 2016. Millions of Britons voted in the referendum on whether to stay in or leave the European Union AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Referendum results Leader of Ukip, Nigel Farage, reacts at the Leave EU referendum party at Millbank Tower in central London as results indicated that it was likely the UK would leave the European Union AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Protesting the result A young couple painted as EU flags and a man with a sign reading Im not leaving protest outside Downing Street against the voters decision to leave the EU on 24 June 2016 Getty Brexit so far: in pictures David Cameron resigns British Prime Minister David Cameron resigns on the steps of 10 Downing Street on 24 June 2016 after the results of the EU referendum were declared and the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Theresa May Becomes the new Conservative Party leader Theresa May receives a kiss from her husband Philip, after becoming the new Conservative Party leader on 11 July 2016. May became Prime Minister two days later and although she voted to remain in the referendum was keen to lead Britains Brexit talks after her only rival in the race to succeed David Cameron pulled out unexpectedly. May was left as the only contender standing after the withdrawal from the leadership race of Andrea Leadsom, who faced criticism for suggesting she was more qualified to be prime minister because she had children AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Lancaster House keynote speech on Brexit British Prime Minister Theresa May delivers her keynote speech on Brexit at Lancaster House in London on 17 January 2017. Where she spoke about her offer to introduce a transition period after the UK formally leaves the European Union in March 2019. Despite repeating the pro-Brexit mantra of no deal is better than a bad deal, the Prime Minister claimed she wanted a tone of trust between the negotiators and said Britain was leaving the EU but not Europe. She said there should be a clear double lock needed for the transitional period to make sure businesses had time to prepare for changes to their trading relationships with the EU Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Triggering of Article 50 British Prime Minister Theresa May in the cabinet, sitting below a painting of Britain's first Prime Minister Robert Walpole, signs the official letter to European Council President Donald Tusk invoking Article 50 and the United Kingdom's intention to leave the EU on 29 March 2017 Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Gibraltar nonsense Tensions have risen over Brexit negotiations for the Rock of Gibraltar. The European Council has said Gibraltar would be included in a trade deal between London and Brussels only with the agreement of Spain. While former Conservative leader Michael Howard claimed that Theresa May would be prepared to go to war to protect the territory. Spain's foreign minister stepped in only to assert that there was no need for the dispute Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Shock snap election Soon after triggering Article 50, Theresa May called on 18 April 2017 for a snap general election. The election would be on 8 June and it came as a shock move to many, with her reasoning to try to bolster her position before tough talks on leaving the EU AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Dissolution of Parliament for General Election Campaign Prime Minister Theresa May makes a statement in Downing Street after returning from Buckingham Palace on 3 May 2017. The Prime Minister visited the Queen to ask for the dissolution of Parliament signalling the official start to the general election campaign Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Conservatives lose parliamentary majority An arrangement of British daily newspapers showing front page stories about the exit poll results of the snap general election. British Prime Minister Theresa May faced pressure to resign on 9 June 2017 after losing her parliamentary majority, plunging the country into uncertainty as Brexit talks loomed. The pound fell sharply amid fears the Conservative leader would be unable to form a government AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Labour gains Britains opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn gives a tumbs up as he arrives at Labour headquarters in central London on 9 June 2017 after the snap general election results showed a hung parliament with Labour gains and the Conservatives losing their majority AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit negotiations begin Brexit Minister David Davis and European Commission member in charge of Brexit negotiations Michel Barnier address a press conference at the end of the first day of Brexit negotiations in Brussels on 19 June 2017 AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures May speaks in Florence British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks on 22 September 2017, in Florence. May sought to unlock Brexit talks after Brussels demanded more clarity on the crunch issues of budget payments and EU citizens' rights AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures EU council summit  insufficient progress German Chancellor Angela Merkel joins other EU leaders for a breakfast meeting during an EU summit in Brussels on 20 October 2017. The EU spoke about Brexit and announced that insufficient progress had been made AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures DUP derails settlement on the withdrawal part of Brexit DUP Deputy Leader Nigel Dodds walks off after speaking to members of the media as a protester holding flags shouts after him outside the Houses of Parliament on 5 December 2017. British Prime Minister Theresa May was forced to pull out of a deal with Brussels after the DUP said it would not accept terms which see Northern Ireland treated differently from the rest of the UK Getty Brexit so far: in pictures May suffers defeat over EU (Withdrawal) Bill Theresa May suffers defeat in parliament over EU (Withdrawal) Bill on 13 December 2017. The Government was defeated by Conservative rebels and Labour MPs in a vote on its key piece of Brexit legislation. MPs amended the EU (Withdrawal) Bill against Theresa May's will, guaranteeing Parliament a meaningful vote on any Brexit deal she agrees with Brussels. Ms May's whips applied pressure on Conservative rebels who remained defiant in the Commons throughout the day and in the end the Government was defeated by 309 votes to 305 Brexit so far: in pictures EU council summit  sufficient progress Britain's Prime minister Theresa May arrives to attend the first day of a European union summit in Brussels on 14 December 2017. European leaders discussed Brexit and announced there was finally sufficient progress at the end of the two days AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures The game moves to transition Brexit Secretary David Davis gives evidence on developments in European Union divorce talks to the Commons Exiting the EU Committee in Portcullis House, London, on 24 January 2018 PA Brexit so far: in pictures Trade deal is what May wants French President Emmanuel Macron gestures to Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May after they hold a press conference at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, on 18 January 2018. May and Macron agreed a new border security deal, through which the UK will pay more to France to stop migrants trying to reach British shores on 18 January 2018 AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Transition period agreed The UK and EU agree terms for Brexit transition period on 19 March, 2018 Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures No agreement on Irish border The EU and UK however failed to reach an agreement on the Irish border during the successful talks on other Brexit issues AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures EU attacks Mays fantasy strategy For months after the March deal is struck there is little significant progress in talks. One senior EU official tears into Britains fantasy negotiating strategy and accuses Theresa May of not even having a position on a variety of important issue Getty Brexit so far: in pictures UK releases Ireland plan Britain releases a new customs plan to solve the Northern Ireland border but Michel Barnier says it leaves unanswered questions and would not prevent a hard border EbS Brexit so far: in pictures Chequers plan agreed The cabinet agrees on a plan known as the "Chequers deal" on July 6 2018. The plan seeks regulatory alignment on goods and food, divergence on services, freedom from the European Courts of Justice and an end to free movement. Many were surprised that the hard Brexiteers of the cabinet would agree to this plan PA Brexit so far: in pictures Chequers plan sparks resignations Brexit Secretary David Davis and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and numerous ministers resign in the days following the Chequers agreement Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures Davis out, Raab in On 9 July, Dominic Raab replaces David Davis as Brexit Secretary. Raab is a keen Brexiteer and was a housing minister before taking over from Davis Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures Barnier's "deal like no other" EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier claims on August 29 2018 that they are prepared to offer Britain a trade deal like no other, though he stressed that they will not divide or change the single market to accommodate Britain AP Brexit so far: in pictures "My deal or no deal" In an interview on Panorama on September 17, the Prime Minister insists that any Brexit deal will be offered to the EU on her terms. She asserts this amongst continued attacks on her approach to Brexit by Boris Johnson and the European Research Group, headed by Jacob Rees Mogg BBC/Jeff Overs Brexit so far: in pictures EU leaders reject Chequers Quite the blow was dealt to the Prime Minister at a EU leaders summit in Salzburg on September 20. European Council President Donald Tusk stated that the Chequers deal "will not work" Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures May demands respect Following the rejection of her Chequers plan the day before, the Prime Minister voiced her anger that the EU had dismissed it without offering an alternative. She stated that throughout this process, I have treated the EU with nothing but respect. The UK expects the same. A good relationship at the end of this process depends on it." Getty Brexit so far: in pictures People's Vote march As the People's Vote campaign and The Independent's Final Say campaign gain traction, 700,000 people turn out in London to demand a final say on the UK's Brexit deal on October 20 2018 PA Brexit so far: in pictures More resignations As the Prime Minister settles on a Brexit deal, Brexit secretary Dominic Raab resigns along with Work and Pensions secretary Esther McVey and many other ministers Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Final Say petitions delivered to Downing Street People's Vote supporting MPs Chukka Umunna, Justine Greening and Caroline Lucas and The Independent editor Christian Broughton deliver over a million signatures in favour of a People's Vote to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street on December 3 2018 PA Brexit so far: in pictures May delays vote On December 10, the Prime Minister delayed the vote on her Brexit deal as it was near certain not to pass through the Commons due to Tory rebels and lack of DUP support AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures No confidence motion Tory MPs triggered a confidence vote in the Prime Minister on December 12. She won by 200 votes to 117 Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures Commons rejects the deal Following the delay, the Prime Minister's deal was rejected in the Commons by a historic 230 votes AFP Brexit so far: in pictures Corbyn tables a no confidence motion Following the rejection of the Prime Minister's deal, opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn tabled a motion of no confidence in the government, which the government won by a margin of 19 AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Plan B The Prime Minister won the support of the commons to return to Brussels to renegotiate the backstop on January 29. In the same sitting, MPs also voted against a no-deal Brexit in a non-legally binding motion PA Brexit so far: in pictures EU council president savages Brexit campaigners who failed to plan for departure: Special place in hell There is a special place in hell for pro-Brexit campaigners who demanded Britain leave the EU without explaining how it should happen, Donald Tusk has said. The European Council president launched the scathing attack as he accused anti-EU campaigners of pushing for Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely. Mr Tusk also dismissed suggestions that the EU could reopen negotiations over the controversial Northern Ireland backstop, dealing a blow to Theresa Mays hopes of securing fresh concessions as she tries to get her exit deal through parliament. Speaking in Brussels alongside Irish taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Mr Tusk said: Ive been wondering what a special place in hell looks like for people who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely. He also tweeted the accusation moments later Getty Brexit so far: in pictures EU and UK announce talks to restart after Theresa May visits Brussels Both have agreed to restart Brexit talks to find a way through the deadlock in Westminster, following a visit by Theresa May to Brussels. In a joint statement the British government and European Commission said Ms May had had a robust but constructive meeting with president Jean-Claude Juncker, and that the pair would meet again before the end of the month. But the EU again refused to reopen the withdrawal agreement and its controversial backstop  with any negotiations expected to focus on the future relationship between the UK and EU instead Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit strategy lost MPs voted down May's Brext plans, with a majority of 45. The prime minister did not appear in parliament to see another defeat PA Brexit so far: in pictures Labour and Conservative MPs resign and create the Independent Group Back row of Chris Leslie, Gavin Shuker, Chuka Umunna and Mike Gapes, middle row of Angela Smith, Luciana Berger and Ann Coffey and front row of Sarah Wollaston, Heidi Allen, Anna Soubry and Joan Ryan PA Brexit so far: in pictures Non-biding votes on amendments to Brexit motion On February 27 he house held a series of votes, unanimously calling for the UK and EU to guarantee citizens rights in a no-deal scenario AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Attorney General publishes legal advice A hammer blow for May as Geoffrey Cox said her renegotiated deal can still leave UK in backstop against its will. Mr Cox did say the prime ministers efforts had reduced the risk of the UK being trapped in the backstop indefinitely. MPs went on to vote against her deal by 391 to 242 UK Parliament/PA Brexit so far: in pictures No-deal off the table MPs rejected a no-deal Brexit by 43 votes on March 13, with cabinet ministers rebelling in another humiliating defeat for Theresa May. A day later they voted in favour of the prime minister seeking an extension to Article 50 AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures House speaker bans May from third Commons vote on same Brexit deal John Bercow sensationally told Theresa May he would stop her making another attempt to pass her Brexit deal unless she has secured changes. The Speaker said a further meaningful vote would be ruled out of order if the motion was the same or substantially the same  under an ancient convention to stop the government bullying parliament on issues MPs have rejected Parliament Live Brexit so far: in pictures May writes to Tusk The prime minister wrote to Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, to ask for a three-month extension to give her more time to try to get her deal through parliament. However the European Commission advises the EU27 should offer a short extension to May 23 or a longer one meaning the UK would participate in European elections 10 Downing Street/AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures European Council summit Theresa Mays request to extend triggering Article 50 until the end of June was rejected by the EU, and instead offered a shorter time frame. She accepted the offer of a delay until May 22 if her withdrawal deal is approved by Parliament. If MPs rejected it for a third time, the EU said Britain must propose a new plan by April 12. Ms May said she will not support a long delay because it would mean Britain participating in elections for the European Parliament Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Brussels confirms preparations for a no-deal Brexit are completed They warned that it is increasingly likely the UK will crash out. In a statement the European Commission (EC) said preparedness and contingency work, which the EC has been conducting since December 2017, was now finished. The announcement came days after EU leaders agreed to a request by Theresa May to extend the UKs Brexit date AFP Brexit so far: in pictures May resigns Reuters

But it would be wrong to publish analysis before that analysis has been completed, and it would also be wrong to publish analysis which might prejudice our negotiating position, and indeed Parliament itself has accepted that.

Brexit minister Robin Walker later said the analysis would be provided to all parliamentarians on a "strictly confidential basis".

The paper, leaked to Buzzfeed, which was being briefed to Cabinet ministers this week, predicted that if the UK left the EU with no trade deal and reverted to WTO rules its GDP growth would be eight per cent lower over 15 years.

 Kier Starmer vows to force to Government to publish secret Brexit reports laying bare economic damage

Even if the Government secured a free trade agreement, growth would still be five per cent lower, while if the UK remained in the single market after leaving the EU, growth would only be two per cent lower, the paper said.

Ministers have been heavily criticised over their reluctance to publish Government analysis of the impact Brexit will likely have on the British economy, with Cabinet minister David Davis previously forced to publish a range of sectoral analysis by a vote in Parliament.

Earlier this week chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier set out the blocs desired terms for the expected transition period between March 2019 and December 2020, in which the UK is likely to effectively remain in the single market and customs union, accept European Court jurisdiction and free movement.

As if that was not enough to annoy Conservative hard-Brexit backing MPs, Mr Barnier also poured cold water on British plans to negotiate free trade agreements during the transition and said the UK would have to accept new laws from Brussels, despite having no say in shaping them.

Bill Cash MP branded the EU demands an ultimatum and urged the Prime Minister to reject them, while John Redwood MP asked the Government to speed preparations for a no deal Brexit in response.A minister who questioned whether Brexit should be halted after a secret Government analysis exposed the predicted economic damage has been silenced by Theresa May.

Phillip Lee was told to air his views in private after a meeting with the Conservative chief whip, but has escaped the sack, No 10 said.

The disciplinary action raised fresh questions about Brexit minister Steve Baker, who has not been censored despite suggesting civil servants had drawn up the analysis behind the backs of ministers.

 UK will be worse off in every possible scenario after Brexit, concludes leaked Government analysis

The Prime Ministers spokesman was forced to deny that pro-EU civil servants were working rogue  insisting it was entirely correct for such studies to be prepared.

However, the spokesman said Mr Lee, a justice minister, should recognise that the analysis was initial and not worth commenting on.

He has been spoken to by the chief whip and been reminded that it is best to air views in private, he added.

In tweets last night, Dr Lee said he doubted whether Mrs May could legitimately lead a country along a path that the evidence and rational consideration indicate would be damaging.

The extraordinary intervention was an apparent response to Mr Bakers statement to MPs that the analysis was worthless because forecasts drawn up by civil servants are always wrong.

Dr Lee posted: The next phase of Brexit has to be all about the evidence. We cant just dismiss this and move on. If there is evidence to the contrary, we need to see and consider that too.

Its time for evidence, not dogma, to show the way. We must act for our countrys best interests, not ideology & populism, or history will judge us harshly. Our country deserves no less.

A leak of the analysis  which will now be published, after a Government cave-in  suggested a no-deal Brexit, leaving Britain trading with Europe on World Trade Organisation terms, would reduce growth by 8 per cent over 15 years.

Brexit: the deciders Show all 8 1 /8 Brexit: the deciders Brexit: the deciders European Union's chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier Getty Brexit: the deciders French President Emmanuel Macron Getty Brexit: the deciders German Chancellor Angela Merkel Reuters Brexit: the deciders Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker EPA Brexit: the deciders The European Parliament's chief Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt Getty Brexit: the deciders Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May Getty Images Brexit: the deciders Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond PA Brexit: the deciders After the first and second appointed Brexit secretaries resigned (David Davis and Dominic Raab respectively), Stephen Barclay is currently heading up the position PA

Leaving with a Canada-style free trade agreement would see growth cut by 5 per cent, while staying inside the single market would reduce growth by 2 per cent.

The document also warned that the gains from free trade deals with other big countries would fail to make up for the losses  a boost of just 0.2 per cent over 15 years from a deal with the US, for example.

 Donald Trump says "I would have negotiated Brexit differently"

Its leak has enraged Brexiteers, who accused the head of the civil service of conspiring with the Treasury to produce the devastating research without the knowledge of ministers in the Department for Exiting the European Union.

On Tuesday, Mr Baker told the Commons: Even the ministerial team in my department has only just been consulted on this paper in recent days and we've made it clear it requires significant further work.

It is a selective interpretation of a preliminary analysis. It is an attempt to undermine our exit from the European Union.

The attack triggered a protest from the Whitehall trade union, which said it was an insult to dedicated professionals and suggested he should be sacked.

Asked why Mr Lee had been disciplined over his remarks but not the Brexit Minister, a spokesman said Mr Baker's comments were made in a statement to the Commons, while Mr Lee had been speculating on leaked documents. Close Emily Thornberry: Conservatives are a 'coalition of cavemen'

Cabinet minister David Lidington said young people lack "sufficient maturity" to vote at 16, as he stood in for Theresa May during Prime Minister's Questions.

Labour's Emily Thornberry branded the Government and its DUP allies as a "coalition of cavemen", when she asked why 16-year-olds were denied the right to vote when they are able to get married, leave school and join the armed forces.

It comes as Downing Street reprimanded a Justice minister who questioned whether Brexit should go ahead if damaging assessments of Britains economic prospects are accurate.

In an unusual and hugely significant intervention, Dr Philip Lee asked whether Theresa May could legitimately lead a country along a path that the evidence and rational consideration indicate would be damaging after leaked papers laid bare the potential economic damage of withdrawal.

After Prime Ministers Questions, Labours opposition day motion  calling on the Government to release the papers  also passed after the Government ordered its MPs to abstain on the motion.

The documents will now be released to the Exiting the European Union committee in confidence and in a hard copy format for MPs to study.The British Government is failing to provide strong enough protection to its citizens when they are unjustly jailed or tortured abroad, a new report claims.

The human rights organisation Redress says more than 100 British citizens a year are subjected to ill-treatment or torture in foreign jails, but many struggle to get the Foreign Office assistance they need.

Highlighting the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British mother jailed in Iran, the report accuses the Government of a failure to speak out in the face of serious human rights violations that seriously weakens the protection of its own nationals and risks legitimising abuses.

Demanding that the rights to consular assistance and diplomatic protection be enshrined in UK law, the report also alleges a catalogue of failings involving other Britons, many of whom cant be named for their own protection, including:

:: A torture victim who waited three months for a follow-up consular visit, despite evidence of the torture having already been made public at an earlier court hearing.

:: The case of a British national arrested and imprisoned in the Middle East who observed bitterly that while the British Embassy only visited its nationals once every three months, other countries embassies conducted weekly visits and provide[d] real support

:: Consular staff providing someone awaiting trial for serious criminal charges with a list of civil, not criminal solicitors.

In comments likely to add to pressure on Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson over his handling of Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffes case, the report says the British Government shows reluctance [in] acknowledging human rights violations committed against its own nationals abroad.

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffes case, the report argues, is an example of how this reluctance exists even after mistreatment of the British national has been highlighted by international bodies like the UN.

The FCO, the report says, Frequently refuses to acknowledge the findings of international human rights bodies [like] the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

This not only undermines its own human rights strategy, but seriously weakens the protection of its own nationals.

A failure to speak out in the face of serious human rights violations committed against its nationals risks legitimising such abuses.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. 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In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. 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Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. 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The Beyond Discretion report argues that many of the alleged failings occur because the right to consular assistance and the right to diplomatic protection measures in cases where there have been serious human rights violations are not enshrined in UK law.

This, the report argues, allows the British Government to treat consular assistance and diplomatic protection as discretionary policy commitments rather than things that it is under a legal obligation to provide.

As a result, the report says, Survivors and their families have raised complaints regarding the lack of (effective) consular assistance and diplomatic protection.

For many, what is fundamentally missing is a lack of transparency, making it unclear under what circumstances and how the FCO will actually provide consular assistance or exercise diplomatic protection.

Another consequence of the discretionary policy is the significant challenges in holding the FCO accountable for any arguable shortcomings.

Overall, the report adds, There is often a frustrating gap in expectations regarding what the UK Government should be doing, and what it actually does.

Families can feel like they are in a constant battle with the FCO and jumping through hoops to achieve very little progress in their cases.

There is more the UK Government should be doing in regards to its nationals who face or have suffered serious human rights abuses abroad.

The report comes as Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratclifffe, prepares to report her case to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, alleging she has been subjected to mistreatment including lengthy periods of solitary confinement, despite being innocent.

Mr Ratcliffe is also continuing to press the Government to grant his wife diplomatic protection status. This would allow UK diplomats to go beyond consular assistance requests and instead assert that because Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been treated badly, she is entitled to protection as an extension of the British state and must therefore be released.

Welcoming the Redress report, Mr Ratcliffe said it took the furore over Boris Johnsons erroneous statement that his wife had been teaching journalists before the UK publicly criticised Iran and said she was an innocent mother who had gone on holiday with her daughter.

Mr Ratcliffe added that the report reflected his own experiences of trying to get Foreign Office assistance in the year following his wifes arrest in April 2016 on charges related to national security.

He said: The lack of a clear framework for expectations and obligations is a real impediment to trust.

Opaque assurances can easily feel like empty promises - in the first year I often felt like I was being managed and spun in circles.

Arguing that there was a discrepancy between how the Police were expected to act in the UK, and the obligations on Foreign Office diplomats abroad, he added: In the UK, the Police would not be guided by discretion about whether to act in cases of serious abuse. They would have a [legally-binding] obligation.

It seems counterintuitive that discretion should apply when overseas, when you might be so much further away from those that can protect you.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: We note the publication of the Redress Report.

The Foreign Office is committed to providing professional, non-judgemental, polite and helpful consular assistance to British nationals overseas, irrespective of gender, race, age, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, religion or belief.

We take all allegations or concerns of torture and mistreatment very seriously and will follow up with action appropriate to the circumstances of the case.

The Iranian government has previously said that Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe has always received fair treatment and been subject to due judicial process.The Labour leader of Haringey Council has dramatically quit over what she called bullying and sexism by supporters of Jeremy Corbyn.

Claire Kober, who has held the post since 2008, said she would step down after Mays local elections amid controversy over a huge regeneration scheme in the borough.

Her departure is the latest incident in the ongoing battle between centrist Labour representatives and left-wing members who have joined since Mr Corbyn became leader.

Ms Kober has been a target of left-wing activists because of her decision to push ahead with the plan, named the Haringey Development Vehicle, which has been widely criticised by councillors and members of the public in the north London borough.

She fought off an attempt to remove her late last year, but saw a number of her cabinet allies deselected by left-wing members and replaced with Momentum-backed candidates because of their support for the scheme. Other sitting councillors stepped down before they were forced out.

Ms Kober told the Evening Standard: "The sexism, bullying, undemocratic behaviour and outright personal attacks on me as the most senior woman in Labour local government have left me disappointed and disillusioned.

Earlier this month, Labours ruling National Executive Committee took the unprecedented step of asking Haringey to halt the HDV, prompting accusations from councillors across the country that the Momentum-dominated committee was setting a dangerous precedent by intervening in local matters. It came after 22 Haringey councillors wrote to the committee asking them to intervene.

Ms Kober said she would let the next council leader decide whether to proceed with the HDV, meaning it is all but certain to be ditched.

Insiders have previously told The Independent that all of the frontrunners to succeed Ms Kober are from the left of the party and are opponents of the HDV, as well as being staunch supporters of Mr Corbyn.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 10 September 2021 People paddle board during a misty morning in Ullswater, the second largest lake in the Lake District, Cumbria PA UK news in pictures 9 September 2021 Troops from Wiltshire based 4 Armoured Close Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during final inspection at Wellington Barracks in London, ahead of providing troops for the Queens Guard PA UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 South Africa's Ntando Mahlangu (centre) wins the Men's 200 metres T61 Final ahead of second placed Great Britain's Richard Whitehead at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2021 A young common seal on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, as hundreds of pregnant grey seals come ashore ready for the start of the pupping season. PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA UK news in pictures 12 August 2021 Children ride horses in the River Eden in Appleby, Cumbria, during the annual gathering of travellers for the Appleby Horse Fair PA UK news in pictures 11 August 2021 Stella Moris (left) reacts after talking to the media outside the High Court in London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal, n London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal. The US government has won the latest round in its High Court bid to appeal against the decision not to extradite Julian Assange on espionage charges PA UK news in pictures 10 August 2021 Students react after they receive their A-Level results at the Ark Academy, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 9 August 2021 The final athletes from Great Britain arrive home including Jason Kenny, Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald (front left-right) at Heathrow Airport, London following the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games PA UK news in pictures 8 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny during the closing ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Olympic stadium in Japan PA UK news in pictures 7 August 2021 People from the Glasgow Southside community take part in the Govanhill Carnival, an anti-racist celebration of pride, unity and the contributions immigrants have made to the community in Govanhill, at Queen's Park, Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 6 August 2021 Chijindu Ujah of Britain, Zharnel Hughes of Britain, Richard Kilty of Britain and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake of Britain celebrate winning silver as they pose with Asha Philip of Britain, Imani Lansiquot of Britain, Dina Asher-Smith of Britain and Daryll Neita of Britain after they won bronze in the women's 4 x 100m relay during Olympic Games Day 14 Getty UK news in pictures 5 August 2021 A protester places flowers on a photograph of an executed man during a demonstration organised by supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) to protest against the inauguration of Iran's new president Ebrahim Raisi in central London AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 4 August 2021 England's Joe Root looks on as India's KL Rahul doesn't make it to a catch during day one of Cinch First Test match at Trent Bridge, Nottingham PA UK news in pictures 3 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny and Jason Kenny with their silver medals for the Women's Team Pursuit and Mens Team Sprint during the Track Cycling at the Izu Velodrome on the eleventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 2 August 2021 Great Britains Charlotte Worthington competes during the Womens BMX Freestyle Final at the Tokyo Olympics PA UK news in pictures 1 August 2021 EPA UK news in pictures 31 July 2021 James Guy, Adam Peaty and Kathleen Dawson celebrate winning the gold medal in the mixed 4x100m medley relay final at the Tokyo Olympics AP UK news in pictures 30 July 2021 Great Britain's Bethany Shriever and Kye Whyte celebrate their Gold and Silver medals respectively for the Cycling BMX Racing at the Ariake Urban Sports Park on the seventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 29 July 2021 Team GB's Mallory Franklin during the Womens Canoe Slalom Final on day six of the Tokyo Olympic Games. She went on to win the silver medal Getty UK news in pictures 28 July 2021 Canoers on Llyn Padarn lake in Snowdonia, Gwynedd. It was announced that the north-west Wales slate landscape has been granted UNESCO World Heritage Status PA UK news in pictures 27 July 2021 A view of one of two areas now being used at a warehouse facility in Dover, Kent, for boats used by people thought to be migrants. 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In a letter to Labour bosses, Ms Kober called the NECs decision legally dubious and democratically unsound. She said she was "deeply disappointed" that she had not been informed that the issue was to be discussed, adding that it was "discourteous" not to give her the opportunity to explain the council's reasoning.

She said: Ideological dogma will do nothing to improve their lives; only a determination to find practical solutions  in partnership with other sectors  offers them any realistic prospect of a better, more secure future.

For me the responsibility of political office is to work to improve peoples lives even when that means finding solutions that arent always an ideologically comfortable fit.

Political issues are rarely binary, solutions are not simply good or bad. Political leadership is about setting a vision and working to deliver on it using whatever tools are available.

That is how we deliver improved outcomes for the communities that seek to gain most from Labour in government, be that local or national.Survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire could be deported as the deadline to apply for the Governments immigration amnesty expires, it has emerged.

Residents of the tower block who did not have leave to remain in the country at the time of Junes fire were offered a 12-month amnesty by the Home Office, in a much-publicised move following criticism of the Governments role in the tragedy.

But a less well-documented condition of the offer imposed a deadline of 31 January to apply for the amnesty.

While the Home Office insists anyone applying after the deadline has elapsed will still be considered for leave outside of the immigration rules, the revelation has prompted fears the public inquiry could be deprived of key testimony if certain survivors are forced to leave the country.

Separately, it is understood families of some survivors could lose their right to remain in the UK within weeks, including a relative of one disabled survivor who has been looking after them since losing their partner in the blaze.

Families of those affected by the fire, which claimed 71 lives, were granted a maximum of six months leave to remain to provide ongoing support to their loved ones.

Community groups from the area called the policy shocking and inhuman, expressing grave concerns that survivors quest for justice was not being put at the heart of the inquiry.

Labour is now calling for urgent reassurances to be made to survivors who have not yet come forward  and to families granted short-term visas  that they will not face deportation.

The party has warned the policy could have a serious impact on the outcome of the public inquiry, which will aim to establish the causes of the fire, if survivors are too scared to participate and their families are not able to support them.

In a letter addressed to the Home Secretary, seen by The Independent, Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott called for a deadline-free arrangement to be extended to all survivors.

The exact number affected by the policy is unknown, but Ms Abbott said it was likely to be a small enough number that the Government could make allowances.

 How the Grenfell Tower fire happened, explained

The Home Office announced in October that individuals affected by the fire would have the chance to gain permanent residence as long as they passed security and criminality checks.

While it said consideration of cases would continue, it stated no further invitations will be made to survivors after tonights cut off.

Some members of the community have raised concerns the deadline was not publicised widely enough. A Home Office spokesperson said the deadline had been promoted online and by teams and stakeholders on the ground, but did not confirm whether any written communications had been sent to survivors or support networks.

In a letter to Amber Rudd, Diane Abbott and Emma Dent Coad have said the issue needs 'addressing urgently'

Moyra Samuels, local resident and campaign coordinator for Justice4Grenfell, said it was outrageous a complete amnesty had not been offered.

Right in the middle of this atrocity, what weve seen is an anti-immigrant narrative  that was there before Grenfell  but here we have another example where you would think given what had happened some compassion and sensitivity would be shown, but instead in some kind of business as usual way they are actually implementing an immigration policy in a very narrow way, she said.

It just shows a lack of compassion and the general attitude to people from minority, immigrant communities.

I hope that it will be challenged and Justice4Grenfell will certainly be challenging it.

Labour has also raised concerns families of the bereaved and survivors could face deportation within weeks as their leave to remain under the Grenfell Tower Relatives Policy expires.

Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Show all 31 1 /31 Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Jeremy Corbyn hugs a woman after the Grenfell Tower National Memorial Service PA Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Prince Harry leaving after the Grenfell Tower National Memorial Service PA Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures A woman appears emotional as she leaves the Grenfell Tower National Memorial Service PA Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Jeremy Corbyn consoles a mourner AFP/Getty Images Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Mourners carry pictures of victims of the fire and white roses as they leave St Paul's cathedral AFP/Getty Images Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Mourners carry white roses as they leave St Paul's cathedral after attending a Grenfell Tower National Memorial service AFP/Getty Images Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Jeremy Corbyn consoles a relative of a victim AFP/Getty Images Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Mourners leave after attending the Grenfell Tower National Memorial Service AFP/Getty Images Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Labour opposition party leader Jeremy Corbyn embraces a mourner AFP/Getty Images Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures People hold photos and flowers as they leave after the Grenfell Tower National Memorial Service PA Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Mourners hold up photos of victims as they leave St Paul's cathedral after attending a Grenfell Tower National Memorial service AFP/Getty Images Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures People hold photos and flowers as they leave after the Grenfell Tower National Memorial Service PA Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Service members carry a Grenfell banner Rex Features Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures People at the Grenfell Tower National Memorial Service PA Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Prime Minister Theresa May attends the Grenfell Tower National Memorial Service PA Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Marcus Mumford, Adele and Carey Mulligan attending the Grenfell Tower National Memorial Service PA Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Attendees hold a banner at the Grenfell Tower National Memorial Service AFP/Getty Images Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Prince Harry, The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, The Duchess of Cornwall and The Prince of Wales attend the Grenfell Tower National Memorial Service PA Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures The Grenfell Tower National Memorial Service PA Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott arrive at St Paul's Cathedral REUTERS Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Members of the public gather outside St Paul's Cathedral ahead of the Grenfell Tower national memorial service Getty Images Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry attend the Grenfell Tower National Memorial Service Getty Images Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Mourners arrive at St Paul's cathedral for a Grenfell Tower National Memorial service AFP/Getty Images Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Firefighters arriving for the Grenfell Tower National Memorial Service PA Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Mourners arrive at St Paul's cathedral for a Grenfell Tower National Memorial service AFP/Getty Images Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Mourners arrive at St Paul's cathedral for a Grenfell Tower National Memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral PA Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures People arrive for the Grenfell Tower Memorial Service Rex Features Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Mourners arrive at St Paul's cathedral for a Grenfell Tower National Memorial service AFP/Getty Images Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Former footballer Les Ferdinand (right) arriving for the Grenfell Tower National Memorial Service at St Paul's Cathedral PA Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Police officers arrive at St Paul's Cathedral for a memorial service in honour of the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire REUTERS Grenfell Tower memorial service: in pictures Mourners arrive at St Paul's cathedral for a Grenfell Tower National Memorial service AFP/Getty Images

Kensington MP Emma Dent Coad said at least six families in her constituency needed to extend their visas and were living in limbo as they anxiously waited to hear if the Home Office will accept their applications.

One disabled survivor, who did not wish to be identified, asked a close family member to come to the UK to help them after their partner  and carer  died in Junes blaze.

The family member is still waiting to hear back from the Home Office about whether they will have the right to remain to look after their relative once their visa expires.

Ms Abbott said deportations of survivors or their families could block important testimony from being heard by the ongoing public enquiry.

The Prime Minister has said she wants the Inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire to leave no stone unturned and that all those affected by the fire should participate in it, she wrote.

With the amnesty for undocumented people expiring this month, the threat of deportation is a real possibility. A number of core participants short-term visas are also due to run out in the next few weeks.

We need a full picture of all the contributory factors to the fire and its consequences. Immigration status should not and must not become a barrier to the Inquirys investigations.

Ms Dent Coad said the Home Office was in a position to alleviate some of the burden for those who have lost everything by guaranteeing survivors and their families would not be deported.

Ms Rudd had not responded to Labours letter at the time of writing.

A Home Office spokesperson said: The welfare of survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire is a top priority for this government. That is why we introduced a policy to encourage people who may have feared enforcement action to come forward and access the support they need.

If anyone were to come forward after the deadline, we would still consider them for leave outside of the immigration rules as an exceptional case.

Our policy has been promoted online and by teams and stakeholders on the ground and has also received extensive media coverage.The European Union has pledged an additional 42.5m (37m) aid package for the Palestinian occupied territories following Donald Trumps decision to cut US support to the would-be state.

The new money comes weeks after the US President decided to withhold $65m (45.8) of a $125m aid package to the UN agency in Palestine, arguing that America gets no appreciation or respect for its payments.

Federica Mogherini, the EUs foreign affairs chief, announced the package on Wednesday in Brussels, warning Mr Trump that the US would jeopardise the Israeli-Palestinian peace process by going it alone in the region.

Recommended Trump threatens more cuts to Palestinian aid without peace talks

Any framework for negotiations must be multilateral and must involve all players  all partners  that are essential to this process. A process without one or the other would simply not work, would simply not be realistic, Ms Mogherini told reporters in Brussels. Nothing without the United States, nothing with the United States alone.

The new aid package includes 14.9m to preserve the Palestinian character of East Jerusalem, which has been encroached on by Israeli settlements in recent years, including 176 new settler homes signed off in October last year.

Ms Mogherini restated the EUs commitment to a two-state solution with Jerusalem as the capital of both an Israeli and Palestinian state. Observers have warned that illegal Israeli settlements in Palestinian land would make it even harder to draw a future Palestinian state and jeopardise the peace process.

The money also includes 27.6m towards building institutions for a democratic and accountable Palestinian state.

Announcing the aid at the joint press conference with Norway's foreign minister Ine Marie Eriksen Soreide, Ms Mogherini said the EU was thinking, first and foremost, to the population in Gaza.

The daily life of citizens has been very difficult for too long a time and this is despite large international humanitarian help, including from the European Union, she said.

Palestinians protest against aid cuts outside the United Nations Relief and Works Agency office in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip (Reuters)

She added that the new support would be on top of an additional 107m the EU is providing for the UNWRA, the UN agency that faced funding cuts from Mr Trump.

EU Commissioner for Europes neighbourhood policy, Johannes Hahn, said: With this new assistance package the EU continues to support the Palestinians on their way towards the establishment of their own state as part of the two-state solution, with Jerusalem as capital of both Israel and Palestine.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

The European Union is, and will remain, Palestine's most reliable and important donor, investing in businesses, youth and schooling, helping to provide access to clean water in Gaza, strengthening civil society and investing on education and health.

The Belgian government was first off the blocks after Mr Trumps decision to cut aid, pledging to donate an immediate extra 19m to help make up the UNRWA shortfall in early January.A Government minister has questioned whether Brexit should go ahead if damning assessments on Britain's economic prospects prove accurate.

In a highly unusual intervention, Conservative Dr Phillip Lee raised fears over whether Theresa May could "legitimately lead a country along a path that the evidence and rational consideration indicate would be damaging" after leaked papers revealed that Britain would be worse off out of the EU than if it stayed in.

It comes as Labour was set to force a Commons vote demanding the Government release Whitehall documents, obtained by website Buzzfeed, that suggested that growth would fall by 8 per cent if Britain crashes out of the EU without a deal. Even with a comprehensive trade deal of the kind Ms May seeks, growth could fall by 5 per cent over the next 15 years.

 Kier Starmer vows to force to Government to publish secret Brexit reports laying bare economic damage

Dr Lee said the Goverment could not ignore the evidence after Brexit minister Steve Baker tried to dismiss the secret analysis by telling MPs that official forecasts drawn up by civil servants were "always wrong".

Recommended Labour vows to force Government to publish secret Brexit reports

Dr Lee, a Justice minister, posted on Twitter: "The next phase of Brexit has to be all about the evidence. We cant just dismiss this and move on. If there is evidence to the contrary, we need to see and consider that too.

"But if these figures turn out to be anywhere near right, there would be a serious question over whether a government could legitimately lead a country along a path that the evidence and rational consideration indicate would be damaging. This shows the PM's challenge.

"The PM has been dealt some tough cards and I support her mission to make the best of them. Its time for evidence, not dogma, to show the way. We must act for our countrys best interests, not ideology & populism, or history will judge us harshly. Our country deserves no less."

His comments indicate the growing pressure on the Prime Minister from both sides of her own party on her vision for Brexit and domestic policy, amid warnings of growing discontent among Tory donors.

Ms May sought to play down the leaked study - which was drawn up by the Department for Exiting the EU - telling Cabinet ministers that it represented "initial work" by officials.

In the Commons, Mr Baker, a Eurosceptic Brexit minister, dismissed the economic forecasting and said MPs would be given the "appropriate analysis" carried out by the Government when they came to vote on a final deal with the EU.

He said reports about the leaked study were based on "selective interpretation" of a "preliminary analysis".

However Ms May told reporters on a trade mission to China that she would publish an economic impact analysis before Parliament votes on the final deal.

The leaked papers set out a range of potential scenarios, where even if the UK was able to negotiate a comprehensive free trade agreement, estimated growth would be down 5 per cent over the next 15 years.

That would rise to 8 per cent if Britain left without a deal and was forced to fall back on World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.

Brexit so far: in pictures Show all 53 1 /53 Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit campaign Boris Johnson led the VoteLeave campaign PA Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit campaign Boris Johnson MP, Labour MP Gisela Stuart and UKIP MP Douglas Carswell address the people of Stafford in Market Square during the Vote Leave Brexit Battle Bus tour on 17 May 2016. Their lead line on the tour was: We send the EU 350 million a week, let's fund our NHS instead. Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Voting day A man shelters from the rain as he arrives at a polling station in London on 23 June 2016. Millions of Britons voted in the referendum on whether to stay in or leave the European Union AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Referendum results Leader of Ukip, Nigel Farage, reacts at the Leave EU referendum party at Millbank Tower in central London as results indicated that it was likely the UK would leave the European Union AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Protesting the result A young couple painted as EU flags and a man with a sign reading Im not leaving protest outside Downing Street against the voters decision to leave the EU on 24 June 2016 Getty Brexit so far: in pictures David Cameron resigns British Prime Minister David Cameron resigns on the steps of 10 Downing Street on 24 June 2016 after the results of the EU referendum were declared and the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Theresa May Becomes the new Conservative Party leader Theresa May receives a kiss from her husband Philip, after becoming the new Conservative Party leader on 11 July 2016. May became Prime Minister two days later and although she voted to remain in the referendum was keen to lead Britains Brexit talks after her only rival in the race to succeed David Cameron pulled out unexpectedly. May was left as the only contender standing after the withdrawal from the leadership race of Andrea Leadsom, who faced criticism for suggesting she was more qualified to be prime minister because she had children AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Lancaster House keynote speech on Brexit British Prime Minister Theresa May delivers her keynote speech on Brexit at Lancaster House in London on 17 January 2017. Where she spoke about her offer to introduce a transition period after the UK formally leaves the European Union in March 2019. Despite repeating the pro-Brexit mantra of no deal is better than a bad deal, the Prime Minister claimed she wanted a tone of trust between the negotiators and said Britain was leaving the EU but not Europe. She said there should be a clear double lock needed for the transitional period to make sure businesses had time to prepare for changes to their trading relationships with the EU Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Triggering of Article 50 British Prime Minister Theresa May in the cabinet, sitting below a painting of Britain's first Prime Minister Robert Walpole, signs the official letter to European Council President Donald Tusk invoking Article 50 and the United Kingdom's intention to leave the EU on 29 March 2017 Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Gibraltar nonsense Tensions have risen over Brexit negotiations for the Rock of Gibraltar. The European Council has said Gibraltar would be included in a trade deal between London and Brussels only with the agreement of Spain. While former Conservative leader Michael Howard claimed that Theresa May would be prepared to go to war to protect the territory. Spain's foreign minister stepped in only to assert that there was no need for the dispute Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Shock snap election Soon after triggering Article 50, Theresa May called on 18 April 2017 for a snap general election. The election would be on 8 June and it came as a shock move to many, with her reasoning to try to bolster her position before tough talks on leaving the EU AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Dissolution of Parliament for General Election Campaign Prime Minister Theresa May makes a statement in Downing Street after returning from Buckingham Palace on 3 May 2017. The Prime Minister visited the Queen to ask for the dissolution of Parliament signalling the official start to the general election campaign Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Conservatives lose parliamentary majority An arrangement of British daily newspapers showing front page stories about the exit poll results of the snap general election. British Prime Minister Theresa May faced pressure to resign on 9 June 2017 after losing her parliamentary majority, plunging the country into uncertainty as Brexit talks loomed. The pound fell sharply amid fears the Conservative leader would be unable to form a government AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Labour gains Britains opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn gives a tumbs up as he arrives at Labour headquarters in central London on 9 June 2017 after the snap general election results showed a hung parliament with Labour gains and the Conservatives losing their majority AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit negotiations begin Brexit Minister David Davis and European Commission member in charge of Brexit negotiations Michel Barnier address a press conference at the end of the first day of Brexit negotiations in Brussels on 19 June 2017 AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures May speaks in Florence British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks on 22 September 2017, in Florence. May sought to unlock Brexit talks after Brussels demanded more clarity on the crunch issues of budget payments and EU citizens' rights AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures EU council summit  insufficient progress German Chancellor Angela Merkel joins other EU leaders for a breakfast meeting during an EU summit in Brussels on 20 October 2017. The EU spoke about Brexit and announced that insufficient progress had been made AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures DUP derails settlement on the withdrawal part of Brexit DUP Deputy Leader Nigel Dodds walks off after speaking to members of the media as a protester holding flags shouts after him outside the Houses of Parliament on 5 December 2017. British Prime Minister Theresa May was forced to pull out of a deal with Brussels after the DUP said it would not accept terms which see Northern Ireland treated differently from the rest of the UK Getty Brexit so far: in pictures May suffers defeat over EU (Withdrawal) Bill Theresa May suffers defeat in parliament over EU (Withdrawal) Bill on 13 December 2017. The Government was defeated by Conservative rebels and Labour MPs in a vote on its key piece of Brexit legislation. MPs amended the EU (Withdrawal) Bill against Theresa May's will, guaranteeing Parliament a meaningful vote on any Brexit deal she agrees with Brussels. Ms May's whips applied pressure on Conservative rebels who remained defiant in the Commons throughout the day and in the end the Government was defeated by 309 votes to 305 Brexit so far: in pictures EU council summit  sufficient progress Britain's Prime minister Theresa May arrives to attend the first day of a European union summit in Brussels on 14 December 2017. European leaders discussed Brexit and announced there was finally sufficient progress at the end of the two days AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures The game moves to transition Brexit Secretary David Davis gives evidence on developments in European Union divorce talks to the Commons Exiting the EU Committee in Portcullis House, London, on 24 January 2018 PA Brexit so far: in pictures Trade deal is what May wants French President Emmanuel Macron gestures to Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May after they hold a press conference at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, on 18 January 2018. May and Macron agreed a new border security deal, through which the UK will pay more to France to stop migrants trying to reach British shores on 18 January 2018 AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Transition period agreed The UK and EU agree terms for Brexit transition period on 19 March, 2018 Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures No agreement on Irish border The EU and UK however failed to reach an agreement on the Irish border during the successful talks on other Brexit issues AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures EU attacks Mays fantasy strategy For months after the March deal is struck there is little significant progress in talks. One senior EU official tears into Britains fantasy negotiating strategy and accuses Theresa May of not even having a position on a variety of important issue Getty Brexit so far: in pictures UK releases Ireland plan Britain releases a new customs plan to solve the Northern Ireland border but Michel Barnier says it leaves unanswered questions and would not prevent a hard border EbS Brexit so far: in pictures Chequers plan agreed The cabinet agrees on a plan known as the "Chequers deal" on July 6 2018. The plan seeks regulatory alignment on goods and food, divergence on services, freedom from the European Courts of Justice and an end to free movement. Many were surprised that the hard Brexiteers of the cabinet would agree to this plan PA Brexit so far: in pictures Chequers plan sparks resignations Brexit Secretary David Davis and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and numerous ministers resign in the days following the Chequers agreement Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures Davis out, Raab in On 9 July, Dominic Raab replaces David Davis as Brexit Secretary. Raab is a keen Brexiteer and was a housing minister before taking over from Davis Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures Barnier's "deal like no other" EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier claims on August 29 2018 that they are prepared to offer Britain a trade deal like no other, though he stressed that they will not divide or change the single market to accommodate Britain AP Brexit so far: in pictures "My deal or no deal" In an interview on Panorama on September 17, the Prime Minister insists that any Brexit deal will be offered to the EU on her terms. She asserts this amongst continued attacks on her approach to Brexit by Boris Johnson and the European Research Group, headed by Jacob Rees Mogg BBC/Jeff Overs Brexit so far: in pictures EU leaders reject Chequers Quite the blow was dealt to the Prime Minister at a EU leaders summit in Salzburg on September 20. European Council President Donald Tusk stated that the Chequers deal "will not work" Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures May demands respect Following the rejection of her Chequers plan the day before, the Prime Minister voiced her anger that the EU had dismissed it without offering an alternative. She stated that throughout this process, I have treated the EU with nothing but respect. The UK expects the same. A good relationship at the end of this process depends on it." Getty Brexit so far: in pictures People's Vote march As the People's Vote campaign and The Independent's Final Say campaign gain traction, 700,000 people turn out in London to demand a final say on the UK's Brexit deal on October 20 2018 PA Brexit so far: in pictures More resignations As the Prime Minister settles on a Brexit deal, Brexit secretary Dominic Raab resigns along with Work and Pensions secretary Esther McVey and many other ministers Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Final Say petitions delivered to Downing Street People's Vote supporting MPs Chukka Umunna, Justine Greening and Caroline Lucas and The Independent editor Christian Broughton deliver over a million signatures in favour of a People's Vote to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street on December 3 2018 PA Brexit so far: in pictures May delays vote On December 10, the Prime Minister delayed the vote on her Brexit deal as it was near certain not to pass through the Commons due to Tory rebels and lack of DUP support AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures No confidence motion Tory MPs triggered a confidence vote in the Prime Minister on December 12. She won by 200 votes to 117 Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures Commons rejects the deal Following the delay, the Prime Minister's deal was rejected in the Commons by a historic 230 votes AFP Brexit so far: in pictures Corbyn tables a no confidence motion Following the rejection of the Prime Minister's deal, opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn tabled a motion of no confidence in the government, which the government won by a margin of 19 AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Plan B The Prime Minister won the support of the commons to return to Brussels to renegotiate the backstop on January 29. In the same sitting, MPs also voted against a no-deal Brexit in a non-legally binding motion PA Brexit so far: in pictures EU council president savages Brexit campaigners who failed to plan for departure: Special place in hell There is a special place in hell for pro-Brexit campaigners who demanded Britain leave the EU without explaining how it should happen, Donald Tusk has said. The European Council president launched the scathing attack as he accused anti-EU campaigners of pushing for Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely. Mr Tusk also dismissed suggestions that the EU could reopen negotiations over the controversial Northern Ireland backstop, dealing a blow to Theresa Mays hopes of securing fresh concessions as she tries to get her exit deal through parliament. Speaking in Brussels alongside Irish taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Mr Tusk said: Ive been wondering what a special place in hell looks like for people who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely. He also tweeted the accusation moments later Getty Brexit so far: in pictures EU and UK announce talks to restart after Theresa May visits Brussels Both have agreed to restart Brexit talks to find a way through the deadlock in Westminster, following a visit by Theresa May to Brussels. In a joint statement the British government and European Commission said Ms May had had a robust but constructive meeting with president Jean-Claude Juncker, and that the pair would meet again before the end of the month. But the EU again refused to reopen the withdrawal agreement and its controversial backstop  with any negotiations expected to focus on the future relationship between the UK and EU instead Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit strategy lost MPs voted down May's Brext plans, with a majority of 45. The prime minister did not appear in parliament to see another defeat PA Brexit so far: in pictures Labour and Conservative MPs resign and create the Independent Group Back row of Chris Leslie, Gavin Shuker, Chuka Umunna and Mike Gapes, middle row of Angela Smith, Luciana Berger and Ann Coffey and front row of Sarah Wollaston, Heidi Allen, Anna Soubry and Joan Ryan PA Brexit so far: in pictures Non-biding votes on amendments to Brexit motion On February 27 he house held a series of votes, unanimously calling for the UK and EU to guarantee citizens rights in a no-deal scenario AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Attorney General publishes legal advice A hammer blow for May as Geoffrey Cox said her renegotiated deal can still leave UK in backstop against its will. Mr Cox did say the prime ministers efforts had reduced the risk of the UK being trapped in the backstop indefinitely. MPs went on to vote against her deal by 391 to 242 UK Parliament/PA Brexit so far: in pictures No-deal off the table MPs rejected a no-deal Brexit by 43 votes on March 13, with cabinet ministers rebelling in another humiliating defeat for Theresa May. A day later they voted in favour of the prime minister seeking an extension to Article 50 AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures House speaker bans May from third Commons vote on same Brexit deal John Bercow sensationally told Theresa May he would stop her making another attempt to pass her Brexit deal unless she has secured changes. The Speaker said a further meaningful vote would be ruled out of order if the motion was the same or substantially the same  under an ancient convention to stop the government bullying parliament on issues MPs have rejected Parliament Live Brexit so far: in pictures May writes to Tusk The prime minister wrote to Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, to ask for a three-month extension to give her more time to try to get her deal through parliament. However the European Commission advises the EU27 should offer a short extension to May 23 or a longer one meaning the UK would participate in European elections 10 Downing Street/AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures European Council summit Theresa Mays request to extend triggering Article 50 until the end of June was rejected by the EU, and instead offered a shorter time frame. She accepted the offer of a delay until May 22 if her withdrawal deal is approved by Parliament. If MPs rejected it for a third time, the EU said Britain must propose a new plan by April 12. Ms May said she will not support a long delay because it would mean Britain participating in elections for the European Parliament Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Brussels confirms preparations for a no-deal Brexit are completed They warned that it is increasingly likely the UK will crash out. In a statement the European Commission (EC) said preparedness and contingency work, which the EC has been conducting since December 2017, was now finished. The announcement came days after EU leaders agreed to a request by Theresa May to extend the UKs Brexit date AFP Brexit so far: in pictures May resigns Reuters

Alternatively, if the UK were to retain access to the single market through membership of the European Economic Area the loss would be just 2 per cent.

No 10 said the analysis had only considered a range of "off-the-shelf" deals and had not covered the "bespoke" agreement which the Government is seeking.Theresa May has launched a major expansion of education programmes with China including deals worth some 550m to the economy.

The Prime Minister kicked off her three-day visit to the country with the announcements that also including an expansion of a maths teacher exchange scheme and an English language project.

Ms May wants to use the trip to bang the drum for UK exports and win new investment, with a particular focus on post-Brexit Britain.

She said: The agreements we have signed today will build on [existing cooperation] and enable more children and more young people than ever to share their ideas about our two great nations. And by teaching children to speak our languages we will ensure that our golden era of cooperation will endure for generations to come.

The education deals totalling more half a billion pounds and expected to create over 800 jobs in the UK, included a 75m export win for the UKs biggest childcare provider. Busy Bees will open 20 new nurseries across China on the back of the visit, on which Ms May has taken her biggest ever business delegation.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 South Africa's Ntando Mahlangu (centre) wins the Men's 200 metres T61 Final ahead of second placed Great Britain's Richard Whitehead at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2021 A young common seal on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, as hundreds of pregnant grey seals come ashore ready for the start of the pupping season. PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA UK news in pictures 12 August 2021 Children ride horses in the River Eden in Appleby, Cumbria, during the annual gathering of travellers for the Appleby Horse Fair PA UK news in pictures 11 August 2021 Stella Moris (left) reacts after talking to the media outside the High Court in London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal, n London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal. The US government has won the latest round in its High Court bid to appeal against the decision not to extradite Julian Assange on espionage charges PA UK news in pictures 10 August 2021 Students react after they receive their A-Level results at the Ark Academy, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 9 August 2021 The final athletes from Great Britain arrive home including Jason Kenny, Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald (front left-right) at Heathrow Airport, London following the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games PA UK news in pictures 8 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny during the closing ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Olympic stadium in Japan PA UK news in pictures 7 August 2021 People from the Glasgow Southside community take part in the Govanhill Carnival, an anti-racist celebration of pride, unity and the contributions immigrants have made to the community in Govanhill, at Queen's Park, Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 6 August 2021 Chijindu Ujah of Britain, Zharnel Hughes of Britain, Richard Kilty of Britain and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake of Britain celebrate winning silver as they pose with Asha Philip of Britain, Imani Lansiquot of Britain, Dina Asher-Smith of Britain and Daryll Neita of Britain after they won bronze in the women's 4 x 100m relay during Olympic Games Day 14 Getty UK news in pictures 5 August 2021 A protester places flowers on a photograph of an executed man during a demonstration organised by supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) to protest against the inauguration of Iran's new president Ebrahim Raisi in central London AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 4 August 2021 England's Joe Root looks on as India's KL Rahul doesn't make it to a catch during day one of Cinch First Test match at Trent Bridge, Nottingham PA UK news in pictures 3 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny and Jason Kenny with their silver medals for the Women's Team Pursuit and Mens Team Sprint during the Track Cycling at the Izu Velodrome on the eleventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 2 August 2021 Great Britains Charlotte Worthington competes during the Womens BMX Freestyle Final at the Tokyo Olympics PA UK news in pictures 1 August 2021 EPA UK news in pictures 31 July 2021 James Guy, Adam Peaty and Kathleen Dawson celebrate winning the gold medal in the mixed 4x100m medley relay final at the Tokyo Olympics AP UK news in pictures 30 July 2021 Great Britain's Bethany Shriever and Kye Whyte celebrate their Gold and Silver medals respectively for the Cycling BMX Racing at the Ariake Urban Sports Park on the seventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 29 July 2021 Team GB's Mallory Franklin during the Womens Canoe Slalom Final on day six of the Tokyo Olympic Games. She went on to win the silver medal Getty UK news in pictures 28 July 2021 Canoers on Llyn Padarn lake in Snowdonia, Gwynedd. It was announced that the north-west Wales slate landscape has been granted UNESCO World Heritage Status PA UK news in pictures 27 July 2021 A view of one of two areas now being used at a warehouse facility in Dover, Kent, for boats used by people thought to be migrants. 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She announced the deals from the Chinese city of Wuhan, which has the largest student population of any city in the world.

Chinese people already constitute the largest single source of overseas students in the UK, with 155,000 currently in the country and worth an estimated 5bn annually to the economy.

There are also now some 9,000 young British people studying in China, with numbers up 60 per cent since 2013.

Ms Mays announcements also included a new commitment to extend the UK-China maths teacher exchange primary school programme for a further two years to 2020. This will enable an additional 140 primary teachers and 45 secondary school teachers in England to benefit from further training in China. The project involves English teachers visiting China for two weeks and vice versa, and learning from each others methods.

The Prime Minister also launched the new English is GREAT campaign, promoting proficiency in the language for more people in China. There are more than 300 million people learning English in China, but standards are at the lowest levels in the whole of Asia.

The programme seeks to echo the UK-Mandarin Excellence Programme, launched in 2016 and which aims to have 5,000 secondary school pupils in the UK fluent in Mandarin by 2020. Education Secretary Damian Hinds said: Mandarin is the most spoken language in the world, so this partnership will play a crucial role in teaching pupils the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in an increasingly global economy.Theresa May will tell Chinese leaders that the UK and their country will not always see eye to eye as she prepares to raise the contentious issue of steel dumping on a three-day visit.

The Prime Minister will call on her Chinese counterparts to work with the UK so that both countries industries and economies can grow side by side.

Ms May is using the trip to promote UK exports, with a particular focus on Brexit, but said she also wants to press the importance of sticking to the rules-based approach to free trade.

The visit will see the Prime Minister visit three major Chinese cities in three days, leading the biggest business delegation she has ever taken on a foreign trip.

She said: The UK and China will not always see eye-to-eye. But as partners committed to global free trade we can work together to confront and tackle challenges that affect all of our economies.

So we will continue to look at what more can be done to tackle global overcapacity in sectors such as steel, and to ensure that, as our companies innovate and develop new products, they are confident that their intellectual property and rights will be fully protected.

We also need to protect the rules-based approach that underpins and enables robust, sustainable, free-flowing global trade. As we have long argued, all major economies have a special responsibility to show leadership on this front, demonstrating that we respect the rulebook and collaboration through the WTO as we seek to open markets and embrace new opportunities.

The large flow of Chinese steel into the European and UK markets was one of the reasons cited for the troubles of the UKs industry, which threatened its collapse two years ago, risking thousands of jobs in Wales and the north of England.

Ms May said she wanted to embrace free trade with China, with her Trade Secretary Liam Fox joining her on the trip ahead of potential post-Brexit trade deal.

But she argued that it had to happen in a way that protects our values, ensures global security and advances the system and the rules of global trade.

Kicking off the visit, Ms May also said: In our increasingly interconnected world, any government that is serious about the economic prosperity and security of its people must have an international outlook, and must be prepared to reach out around the world and secure agreements abroad that ensure jobs and prosperity at home.

Brexit so far: in pictures Show all 53 1 /53 Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit campaign Boris Johnson led the VoteLeave campaign PA Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit campaign Boris Johnson MP, Labour MP Gisela Stuart and UKIP MP Douglas Carswell address the people of Stafford in Market Square during the Vote Leave Brexit Battle Bus tour on 17 May 2016. Their lead line on the tour was: We send the EU 350 million a week, let's fund our NHS instead. Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Voting day A man shelters from the rain as he arrives at a polling station in London on 23 June 2016. Millions of Britons voted in the referendum on whether to stay in or leave the European Union AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Referendum results Leader of Ukip, Nigel Farage, reacts at the Leave EU referendum party at Millbank Tower in central London as results indicated that it was likely the UK would leave the European Union AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Protesting the result A young couple painted as EU flags and a man with a sign reading Im not leaving protest outside Downing Street against the voters decision to leave the EU on 24 June 2016 Getty Brexit so far: in pictures David Cameron resigns British Prime Minister David Cameron resigns on the steps of 10 Downing Street on 24 June 2016 after the results of the EU referendum were declared and the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Theresa May Becomes the new Conservative Party leader Theresa May receives a kiss from her husband Philip, after becoming the new Conservative Party leader on 11 July 2016. May became Prime Minister two days later and although she voted to remain in the referendum was keen to lead Britains Brexit talks after her only rival in the race to succeed David Cameron pulled out unexpectedly. May was left as the only contender standing after the withdrawal from the leadership race of Andrea Leadsom, who faced criticism for suggesting she was more qualified to be prime minister because she had children AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Lancaster House keynote speech on Brexit British Prime Minister Theresa May delivers her keynote speech on Brexit at Lancaster House in London on 17 January 2017. Where she spoke about her offer to introduce a transition period after the UK formally leaves the European Union in March 2019. Despite repeating the pro-Brexit mantra of no deal is better than a bad deal, the Prime Minister claimed she wanted a tone of trust between the negotiators and said Britain was leaving the EU but not Europe. She said there should be a clear double lock needed for the transitional period to make sure businesses had time to prepare for changes to their trading relationships with the EU Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Triggering of Article 50 British Prime Minister Theresa May in the cabinet, sitting below a painting of Britain's first Prime Minister Robert Walpole, signs the official letter to European Council President Donald Tusk invoking Article 50 and the United Kingdom's intention to leave the EU on 29 March 2017 Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Gibraltar nonsense Tensions have risen over Brexit negotiations for the Rock of Gibraltar. The European Council has said Gibraltar would be included in a trade deal between London and Brussels only with the agreement of Spain. While former Conservative leader Michael Howard claimed that Theresa May would be prepared to go to war to protect the territory. Spain's foreign minister stepped in only to assert that there was no need for the dispute Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Shock snap election Soon after triggering Article 50, Theresa May called on 18 April 2017 for a snap general election. The election would be on 8 June and it came as a shock move to many, with her reasoning to try to bolster her position before tough talks on leaving the EU AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Dissolution of Parliament for General Election Campaign Prime Minister Theresa May makes a statement in Downing Street after returning from Buckingham Palace on 3 May 2017. The Prime Minister visited the Queen to ask for the dissolution of Parliament signalling the official start to the general election campaign Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Conservatives lose parliamentary majority An arrangement of British daily newspapers showing front page stories about the exit poll results of the snap general election. British Prime Minister Theresa May faced pressure to resign on 9 June 2017 after losing her parliamentary majority, plunging the country into uncertainty as Brexit talks loomed. The pound fell sharply amid fears the Conservative leader would be unable to form a government AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Labour gains Britains opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn gives a tumbs up as he arrives at Labour headquarters in central London on 9 June 2017 after the snap general election results showed a hung parliament with Labour gains and the Conservatives losing their majority AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit negotiations begin Brexit Minister David Davis and European Commission member in charge of Brexit negotiations Michel Barnier address a press conference at the end of the first day of Brexit negotiations in Brussels on 19 June 2017 AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures May speaks in Florence British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks on 22 September 2017, in Florence. May sought to unlock Brexit talks after Brussels demanded more clarity on the crunch issues of budget payments and EU citizens' rights AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures EU council summit  insufficient progress German Chancellor Angela Merkel joins other EU leaders for a breakfast meeting during an EU summit in Brussels on 20 October 2017. The EU spoke about Brexit and announced that insufficient progress had been made AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures DUP derails settlement on the withdrawal part of Brexit DUP Deputy Leader Nigel Dodds walks off after speaking to members of the media as a protester holding flags shouts after him outside the Houses of Parliament on 5 December 2017. British Prime Minister Theresa May was forced to pull out of a deal with Brussels after the DUP said it would not accept terms which see Northern Ireland treated differently from the rest of the UK Getty Brexit so far: in pictures May suffers defeat over EU (Withdrawal) Bill Theresa May suffers defeat in parliament over EU (Withdrawal) Bill on 13 December 2017. The Government was defeated by Conservative rebels and Labour MPs in a vote on its key piece of Brexit legislation. MPs amended the EU (Withdrawal) Bill against Theresa May's will, guaranteeing Parliament a meaningful vote on any Brexit deal she agrees with Brussels. Ms May's whips applied pressure on Conservative rebels who remained defiant in the Commons throughout the day and in the end the Government was defeated by 309 votes to 305 Brexit so far: in pictures EU council summit  sufficient progress Britain's Prime minister Theresa May arrives to attend the first day of a European union summit in Brussels on 14 December 2017. European leaders discussed Brexit and announced there was finally sufficient progress at the end of the two days AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures The game moves to transition Brexit Secretary David Davis gives evidence on developments in European Union divorce talks to the Commons Exiting the EU Committee in Portcullis House, London, on 24 January 2018 PA Brexit so far: in pictures Trade deal is what May wants French President Emmanuel Macron gestures to Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May after they hold a press conference at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, on 18 January 2018. May and Macron agreed a new border security deal, through which the UK will pay more to France to stop migrants trying to reach British shores on 18 January 2018 AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Transition period agreed The UK and EU agree terms for Brexit transition period on 19 March, 2018 Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures No agreement on Irish border The EU and UK however failed to reach an agreement on the Irish border during the successful talks on other Brexit issues AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures EU attacks Mays fantasy strategy For months after the March deal is struck there is little significant progress in talks. One senior EU official tears into Britains fantasy negotiating strategy and accuses Theresa May of not even having a position on a variety of important issue Getty Brexit so far: in pictures UK releases Ireland plan Britain releases a new customs plan to solve the Northern Ireland border but Michel Barnier says it leaves unanswered questions and would not prevent a hard border EbS Brexit so far: in pictures Chequers plan agreed The cabinet agrees on a plan known as the "Chequers deal" on July 6 2018. The plan seeks regulatory alignment on goods and food, divergence on services, freedom from the European Courts of Justice and an end to free movement. Many were surprised that the hard Brexiteers of the cabinet would agree to this plan PA Brexit so far: in pictures Chequers plan sparks resignations Brexit Secretary David Davis and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and numerous ministers resign in the days following the Chequers agreement Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures Davis out, Raab in On 9 July, Dominic Raab replaces David Davis as Brexit Secretary. Raab is a keen Brexiteer and was a housing minister before taking over from Davis Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures Barnier's "deal like no other" EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier claims on August 29 2018 that they are prepared to offer Britain a trade deal like no other, though he stressed that they will not divide or change the single market to accommodate Britain AP Brexit so far: in pictures "My deal or no deal" In an interview on Panorama on September 17, the Prime Minister insists that any Brexit deal will be offered to the EU on her terms. She asserts this amongst continued attacks on her approach to Brexit by Boris Johnson and the European Research Group, headed by Jacob Rees Mogg BBC/Jeff Overs Brexit so far: in pictures EU leaders reject Chequers Quite the blow was dealt to the Prime Minister at a EU leaders summit in Salzburg on September 20. European Council President Donald Tusk stated that the Chequers deal "will not work" Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures May demands respect Following the rejection of her Chequers plan the day before, the Prime Minister voiced her anger that the EU had dismissed it without offering an alternative. She stated that throughout this process, I have treated the EU with nothing but respect. The UK expects the same. A good relationship at the end of this process depends on it." Getty Brexit so far: in pictures People's Vote march As the People's Vote campaign and The Independent's Final Say campaign gain traction, 700,000 people turn out in London to demand a final say on the UK's Brexit deal on October 20 2018 PA Brexit so far: in pictures More resignations As the Prime Minister settles on a Brexit deal, Brexit secretary Dominic Raab resigns along with Work and Pensions secretary Esther McVey and many other ministers Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Final Say petitions delivered to Downing Street People's Vote supporting MPs Chukka Umunna, Justine Greening and Caroline Lucas and The Independent editor Christian Broughton deliver over a million signatures in favour of a People's Vote to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street on December 3 2018 PA Brexit so far: in pictures May delays vote On December 10, the Prime Minister delayed the vote on her Brexit deal as it was near certain not to pass through the Commons due to Tory rebels and lack of DUP support AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures No confidence motion Tory MPs triggered a confidence vote in the Prime Minister on December 12. She won by 200 votes to 117 Reuters Brexit so far: in pictures Commons rejects the deal Following the delay, the Prime Minister's deal was rejected in the Commons by a historic 230 votes AFP Brexit so far: in pictures Corbyn tables a no confidence motion Following the rejection of the Prime Minister's deal, opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn tabled a motion of no confidence in the government, which the government won by a margin of 19 AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Plan B The Prime Minister won the support of the commons to return to Brussels to renegotiate the backstop on January 29. In the same sitting, MPs also voted against a no-deal Brexit in a non-legally binding motion PA Brexit so far: in pictures EU council president savages Brexit campaigners who failed to plan for departure: Special place in hell There is a special place in hell for pro-Brexit campaigners who demanded Britain leave the EU without explaining how it should happen, Donald Tusk has said. The European Council president launched the scathing attack as he accused anti-EU campaigners of pushing for Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely. Mr Tusk also dismissed suggestions that the EU could reopen negotiations over the controversial Northern Ireland backstop, dealing a blow to Theresa Mays hopes of securing fresh concessions as she tries to get her exit deal through parliament. Speaking in Brussels alongside Irish taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Mr Tusk said: Ive been wondering what a special place in hell looks like for people who promoted Brexit without even a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely. He also tweeted the accusation moments later Getty Brexit so far: in pictures EU and UK announce talks to restart after Theresa May visits Brussels Both have agreed to restart Brexit talks to find a way through the deadlock in Westminster, following a visit by Theresa May to Brussels. In a joint statement the British government and European Commission said Ms May had had a robust but constructive meeting with president Jean-Claude Juncker, and that the pair would meet again before the end of the month. But the EU again refused to reopen the withdrawal agreement and its controversial backstop  with any negotiations expected to focus on the future relationship between the UK and EU instead Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Brexit strategy lost MPs voted down May's Brext plans, with a majority of 45. The prime minister did not appear in parliament to see another defeat PA Brexit so far: in pictures Labour and Conservative MPs resign and create the Independent Group Back row of Chris Leslie, Gavin Shuker, Chuka Umunna and Mike Gapes, middle row of Angela Smith, Luciana Berger and Ann Coffey and front row of Sarah Wollaston, Heidi Allen, Anna Soubry and Joan Ryan PA Brexit so far: in pictures Non-biding votes on amendments to Brexit motion On February 27 he house held a series of votes, unanimously calling for the UK and EU to guarantee citizens rights in a no-deal scenario AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Attorney General publishes legal advice A hammer blow for May as Geoffrey Cox said her renegotiated deal can still leave UK in backstop against its will. Mr Cox did say the prime ministers efforts had reduced the risk of the UK being trapped in the backstop indefinitely. MPs went on to vote against her deal by 391 to 242 UK Parliament/PA Brexit so far: in pictures No-deal off the table MPs rejected a no-deal Brexit by 43 votes on March 13, with cabinet ministers rebelling in another humiliating defeat for Theresa May. A day later they voted in favour of the prime minister seeking an extension to Article 50 AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures House speaker bans May from third Commons vote on same Brexit deal John Bercow sensationally told Theresa May he would stop her making another attempt to pass her Brexit deal unless she has secured changes. The Speaker said a further meaningful vote would be ruled out of order if the motion was the same or substantially the same  under an ancient convention to stop the government bullying parliament on issues MPs have rejected Parliament Live Brexit so far: in pictures May writes to Tusk The prime minister wrote to Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, to ask for a three-month extension to give her more time to try to get her deal through parliament. However the European Commission advises the EU27 should offer a short extension to May 23 or a longer one meaning the UK would participate in European elections 10 Downing Street/AFP/Getty Brexit so far: in pictures European Council summit Theresa Mays request to extend triggering Article 50 until the end of June was rejected by the EU, and instead offered a shorter time frame. She accepted the offer of a delay until May 22 if her withdrawal deal is approved by Parliament. If MPs rejected it for a third time, the EU said Britain must propose a new plan by April 12. Ms May said she will not support a long delay because it would mean Britain participating in elections for the European Parliament Getty Brexit so far: in pictures Brussels confirms preparations for a no-deal Brexit are completed They warned that it is increasingly likely the UK will crash out. In a statement the European Commission (EC) said preparedness and contingency work, which the EC has been conducting since December 2017, was now finished. The announcement came days after EU leaders agreed to a request by Theresa May to extend the UKs Brexit date AFP Brexit so far: in pictures May resigns Reuters

For a global trading nation like the UK it is doubly important, which is why Im travelling to China at a crucial moment in the history of both our countries.

China is opening up to the world. The sheer economic weight of China means that the way in which this happens will have huge role in shaping the future of the world in which we live.Theresa May has sidestepped questions over whether she believes her Defence Secretary told her the truth about a flirtatious relationship he had with a married woman.

The Prime Minister was repeatedly asked if she thought Gavin Williamson had been honest about the fling, but would only say that it occurred before he became an MP.

Mr Williamson has been in the spotlight since his decision to reveal his relationship with the woman at Elgin & Hall, a fireplace manufacturer in North Yorkshire he worked at.

The key ally of Ms May  tipped as a future prime minister  told how he decided to leave the company on amicable terms in order to save his marriage.

But it has now been claimed that Mr Williamson departed after a meeting was held to discuss the problem with senior executives from parent company Aga Foodservice Group.

Stories of the Williamson affair come after the sacking of Ms Mays former deputy Damian Green last year  he was found to have broken the ministerial code by making misleading comments about pornography on an office computer and amid claims of inappropriate behaviour which he denied.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 9 September 2021 Troops from Wiltshire based 4 Armoured Close Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during final inspection at Wellington Barracks in London, ahead of providing troops for the Queens Guard PA UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 South Africa's Ntando Mahlangu (centre) wins the Men's 200 metres T61 Final ahead of second placed Great Britain's Richard Whitehead at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2021 A young common seal on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, as hundreds of pregnant grey seals come ashore ready for the start of the pupping season. PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA UK news in pictures 12 August 2021 Children ride horses in the River Eden in Appleby, Cumbria, during the annual gathering of travellers for the Appleby Horse Fair PA UK news in pictures 11 August 2021 Stella Moris (left) reacts after talking to the media outside the High Court in London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal, n London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal. The US government has won the latest round in its High Court bid to appeal against the decision not to extradite Julian Assange on espionage charges PA UK news in pictures 10 August 2021 Students react after they receive their A-Level results at the Ark Academy, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 9 August 2021 The final athletes from Great Britain arrive home including Jason Kenny, Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald (front left-right) at Heathrow Airport, London following the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games PA UK news in pictures 8 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny during the closing ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Olympic stadium in Japan PA UK news in pictures 7 August 2021 People from the Glasgow Southside community take part in the Govanhill Carnival, an anti-racist celebration of pride, unity and the contributions immigrants have made to the community in Govanhill, at Queen's Park, Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 6 August 2021 Chijindu Ujah of Britain, Zharnel Hughes of Britain, Richard Kilty of Britain and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake of Britain celebrate winning silver as they pose with Asha Philip of Britain, Imani Lansiquot of Britain, Dina Asher-Smith of Britain and Daryll Neita of Britain after they won bronze in the women's 4 x 100m relay during Olympic Games Day 14 Getty UK news in pictures 5 August 2021 A protester places flowers on a photograph of an executed man during a demonstration organised by supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) to protest against the inauguration of Iran's new president Ebrahim Raisi in central London AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 4 August 2021 England's Joe Root looks on as India's KL Rahul doesn't make it to a catch during day one of Cinch First Test match at Trent Bridge, Nottingham PA UK news in pictures 3 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny and Jason Kenny with their silver medals for the Women's Team Pursuit and Mens Team Sprint during the Track Cycling at the Izu Velodrome on the eleventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 2 August 2021 Great Britains Charlotte Worthington competes during the Womens BMX Freestyle Final at the Tokyo Olympics PA UK news in pictures 1 August 2021 EPA UK news in pictures 31 July 2021 James Guy, Adam Peaty and Kathleen Dawson celebrate winning the gold medal in the mixed 4x100m medley relay final at the Tokyo Olympics AP UK news in pictures 30 July 2021 Great Britain's Bethany Shriever and Kye Whyte celebrate their Gold and Silver medals respectively for the Cycling BMX Racing at the Ariake Urban Sports Park on the seventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 29 July 2021 Team GB's Mallory Franklin during the Womens Canoe Slalom Final on day six of the Tokyo Olympic Games. She went on to win the silver medal Getty UK news in pictures 28 July 2021 Canoers on Llyn Padarn lake in Snowdonia, Gwynedd. It was announced that the north-west Wales slate landscape has been granted UNESCO World Heritage Status PA UK news in pictures 27 July 2021 A view of one of two areas now being used at a warehouse facility in Dover, Kent, for boats used by people thought to be migrants. PA UK news in pictures 26 July 2021 A woman is helped by Border Force officers as a group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, onboard a Border Force vessel, following a small boat incident in the Channel PA UK news in pictures 25 July 2021 Vehicles drive through deep water on a flooded road in Nine Elms, London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 24 July 2021 Utilities workers inspect a 15x20ft sinkhole on Green Lane, Liverpool, which is suspected to have been caused by ruptured water main PA UK news in pictures 23 July 2021 Children interact with Mega Please Draw Freely by artist Ei Arakawa inside the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern in London, part of UNIQLO Tate Play the gallery's new free programme of art-inspired activities for families PA UK news in pictures 22 July 2021 Festivalgoers in the campsite at the Latitude festival in Henham Park, Southwold, Suffolk PA

Asked whether, in the light of Mr Greens departure, she was confident Mr Williamson had told the whole truth, Ms May said: What has come out is something that happened even before Gavin was a Member of Parliament, let alone a minister. In relation to Damien Green, the report showed the ministerial code had been broken, it was on that basis that I took the decision.

Pressed during a trip to China on whether she thought Mr Williamson had told her the truth, she only added: Gavin has told people about something that happened before he became a Member of Parliament, let alone became a minister.

The Defence Secretary claimed the fling never went further than sharing a kiss with the woman a couple of times and that it stopped as suddenly as it had started.

However, he is under pressure to explain whether he was subject to an internal disciplinary process and why he kept the job at the firm off his official and social media profiles.

 Damian Green sacked as First Secretary of State amid computer porn allegations

Meanwhile, Mr Williamson is also under fire after, in a separate interview on the same day, he warned Russia could cause thousands and thousands and thousands of deaths in a cyber-attack.

The Russian defence ministry ridiculed the claim and the Ministry of Defence was forced to deny that he had leaked military intelligence.

That interview appeared to spark a briefing war between allies of Mr Williamson and Boris Johnson, another leadership contender.

An unnamed Foreign Office official criticised the tone used, but sources said the Defence Secretary was the victim of smears following anonymous and incorrect briefings that he leaked intelligence.The Prime Minister has said she intends to raise concerns about potential human rights violations in Hong Kong with President XI Jinping when she meets him on her critical trade mission to China.

Theresa May said that while the President had previously told her he is committed to the one country, two systems approach to the territory, she would speak with him again amid fresh concerns in the UK.

It will be a difficult conversation for Ms May, given she is travelling to Beijing seeking business and in hope of eventually securing an all important post-Brexit trade deal with China.

Recommended Theresa May to warn China against steel dumping during trade mission

She has also so far held back from giving a full-throated endorsement to Chinas huge Belt and Road Initiative, which is seeing the country invest vast sums of cash to construct infrastructure across Asia and Eastern Europe.

Ahead of her trip, Ms May received a letter from former Hong Kong governor Lord Patten highlighting increasing threats to the basic freedoms, human rights and autonomy which the people were promised by China.

Speaking to reporters on the plane to her first stop in China, the city of Wuhan, Ms May was asked whether she would raise concerns with the countrys powerful leader.

She said: I will be raising both human rights and the issue of Hong Kong.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 10 September 2021 People paddle board during a misty morning in Ullswater, the second largest lake in the Lake District, Cumbria PA UK news in pictures 9 September 2021 Troops from Wiltshire based 4 Armoured Close Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during final inspection at Wellington Barracks in London, ahead of providing troops for the Queens Guard PA UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 South Africa's Ntando Mahlangu (centre) wins the Men's 200 metres T61 Final ahead of second placed Great Britain's Richard Whitehead at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2021 A young common seal on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, as hundreds of pregnant grey seals come ashore ready for the start of the pupping season. PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA UK news in pictures 12 August 2021 Children ride horses in the River Eden in Appleby, Cumbria, during the annual gathering of travellers for the Appleby Horse Fair PA UK news in pictures 11 August 2021 Stella Moris (left) reacts after talking to the media outside the High Court in London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal, n London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal. The US government has won the latest round in its High Court bid to appeal against the decision not to extradite Julian Assange on espionage charges PA UK news in pictures 10 August 2021 Students react after they receive their A-Level results at the Ark Academy, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 9 August 2021 The final athletes from Great Britain arrive home including Jason Kenny, Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald (front left-right) at Heathrow Airport, London following the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games PA UK news in pictures 8 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny during the closing ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Olympic stadium in Japan PA UK news in pictures 7 August 2021 People from the Glasgow Southside community take part in the Govanhill Carnival, an anti-racist celebration of pride, unity and the contributions immigrants have made to the community in Govanhill, at Queen's Park, Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 6 August 2021 Chijindu Ujah of Britain, Zharnel Hughes of Britain, Richard Kilty of Britain and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake of Britain celebrate winning silver as they pose with Asha Philip of Britain, Imani Lansiquot of Britain, Dina Asher-Smith of Britain and Daryll Neita of Britain after they won bronze in the women's 4 x 100m relay during Olympic Games Day 14 Getty UK news in pictures 5 August 2021 A protester places flowers on a photograph of an executed man during a demonstration organised by supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) to protest against the inauguration of Iran's new president Ebrahim Raisi in central London AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 4 August 2021 England's Joe Root looks on as India's KL Rahul doesn't make it to a catch during day one of Cinch First Test match at Trent Bridge, Nottingham PA UK news in pictures 3 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny and Jason Kenny with their silver medals for the Women's Team Pursuit and Mens Team Sprint during the Track Cycling at the Izu Velodrome on the eleventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 2 August 2021 Great Britains Charlotte Worthington competes during the Womens BMX Freestyle Final at the Tokyo Olympics PA UK news in pictures 1 August 2021 EPA UK news in pictures 31 July 2021 James Guy, Adam Peaty and Kathleen Dawson celebrate winning the gold medal in the mixed 4x100m medley relay final at the Tokyo Olympics AP UK news in pictures 30 July 2021 Great Britain's Bethany Shriever and Kye Whyte celebrate their Gold and Silver medals respectively for the Cycling BMX Racing at the Ariake Urban Sports Park on the seventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 29 July 2021 Team GB's Mallory Franklin during the Womens Canoe Slalom Final on day six of the Tokyo Olympic Games. She went on to win the silver medal Getty UK news in pictures 28 July 2021 Canoers on Llyn Padarn lake in Snowdonia, Gwynedd. It was announced that the north-west Wales slate landscape has been granted UNESCO World Heritage Status PA UK news in pictures 27 July 2021 A view of one of two areas now being used at a warehouse facility in Dover, Kent, for boats used by people thought to be migrants. PA UK news in pictures 26 July 2021 A woman is helped by Border Force officers as a group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, onboard a Border Force vessel, following a small boat incident in the Channel PA UK news in pictures 25 July 2021 Vehicles drive through deep water on a flooded road in Nine Elms, London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 24 July 2021 Utilities workers inspect a 15x20ft sinkhole on Green Lane, Liverpool, which is suspected to have been caused by ruptured water main PA UK news in pictures 23 July 2021 Children interact with Mega Please Draw Freely by artist Ei Arakawa inside the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern in London, part of UNIQLO Tate Play the gallery's new free programme of art-inspired activities for families PA

We believe that the future of Hong Kong, that one country, two systems future is important. We are committed to that.

Ive raised this in the past with President Xi and hes shown commitment to that, but I will continue to raise it with him. I think thats part of the relationship, its on a basis where we are able to do that.

Ms May also declined to give full backing to Chinas Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), with some fearing that the vast investment plan is being used to increase and embed Chinas international influence in Europe and Asia.

While acknowledging that the BRI has potential to be hugely significant and to have opportunities for businesses outside China, she went on: What I would like to see is, ensuring that we have transparency and international standards being adhered to, and I will be discussing that with my Chinese interlocutors.

But anything Ms May says to President Xi will be tempered by her need to secure greater trade from China  where the consumer market alone is worth over 3.3tn  as the UK departs the European Union.

 China stages biggest ice sculpture festival in the world

British exports are up 60 per cent since 2010 and China is expected to be one of the UK's biggest foreign investors by 2020.

Ms May has already announced some 550m worth of deals in the education sector, with more expected on her three-day visit.

She said: As you know we're already starting discussions with a number of countries around trade deals. One of the other things we're doing with a number of countries is actually talking about how we can enhance trade now, even before we get a trade agreement.

China is a country that we want to do a trade deal with. But I think that there is more we can be doing in the interimin terms of looking at potential barriers to trade and the opening up of markets.

She added: Also, obviously we also have significant Chinese investment into the United Kingdom.Theresa May has accepted she needs to do more to talk to voters about her Governments achievements amid mounting Tory concern that she is underperforming as Prime Minister.

But the Conservative leader argued that she is not a quitter in the face of recent calls to name a date for her departure and claims that she lacks the ideas to win the next election.

Disquiet among Tory MPs is threatening to overshadow Ms Mays trade mission in China, on which she aims to promote UK exports accompanied with her biggest ever business delegation.

Speaking to reporters on her RAF jet at 30,000 feet, she said: Are you asking me, is there more for us to do talk to people more generally about what we are achieving and what we are doing?...yes, theres always more for us to be able to do to talk to people about what were achieving.

Ms May argued that she had heeded her MPs calls for new policy  citing a move to cut stamp duty for first-time buyers, merging social and healthcare policy and securing a reduction in the educational attainment gap between higher and lower income children.

She went on: First and foremost, Im serving my country, my party. Ive said to you before, Im not a quitter and theres a long-term job to be done.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 9 September 2021 Troops from Wiltshire based 4 Armoured Close Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during final inspection at Wellington Barracks in London, ahead of providing troops for the Queens Guard PA UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 South Africa's Ntando Mahlangu (centre) wins the Men's 200 metres T61 Final ahead of second placed Great Britain's Richard Whitehead at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2021 A young common seal on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, as hundreds of pregnant grey seals come ashore ready for the start of the pupping season. PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA UK news in pictures 12 August 2021 Children ride horses in the River Eden in Appleby, Cumbria, during the annual gathering of travellers for the Appleby Horse Fair PA UK news in pictures 11 August 2021 Stella Moris (left) reacts after talking to the media outside the High Court in London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal, n London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal. The US government has won the latest round in its High Court bid to appeal against the decision not to extradite Julian Assange on espionage charges PA UK news in pictures 10 August 2021 Students react after they receive their A-Level results at the Ark Academy, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 9 August 2021 The final athletes from Great Britain arrive home including Jason Kenny, Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald (front left-right) at Heathrow Airport, London following the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games PA UK news in pictures 8 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny during the closing ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Olympic stadium in Japan PA UK news in pictures 7 August 2021 People from the Glasgow Southside community take part in the Govanhill Carnival, an anti-racist celebration of pride, unity and the contributions immigrants have made to the community in Govanhill, at Queen's Park, Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 6 August 2021 Chijindu Ujah of Britain, Zharnel Hughes of Britain, Richard Kilty of Britain and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake of Britain celebrate winning silver as they pose with Asha Philip of Britain, Imani Lansiquot of Britain, Dina Asher-Smith of Britain and Daryll Neita of Britain after they won bronze in the women's 4 x 100m relay during Olympic Games Day 14 Getty UK news in pictures 5 August 2021 A protester places flowers on a photograph of an executed man during a demonstration organised by supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) to protest against the inauguration of Iran's new president Ebrahim Raisi in central London AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 4 August 2021 England's Joe Root looks on as India's KL Rahul doesn't make it to a catch during day one of Cinch First Test match at Trent Bridge, Nottingham PA UK news in pictures 3 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny and Jason Kenny with their silver medals for the Women's Team Pursuit and Mens Team Sprint during the Track Cycling at the Izu Velodrome on the eleventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 2 August 2021 Great Britains Charlotte Worthington competes during the Womens BMX Freestyle Final at the Tokyo Olympics PA UK news in pictures 1 August 2021 EPA UK news in pictures 31 July 2021 James Guy, Adam Peaty and Kathleen Dawson celebrate winning the gold medal in the mixed 4x100m medley relay final at the Tokyo Olympics AP UK news in pictures 30 July 2021 Great Britain's Bethany Shriever and Kye Whyte celebrate their Gold and Silver medals respectively for the Cycling BMX Racing at the Ariake Urban Sports Park on the seventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 29 July 2021 Team GB's Mallory Franklin during the Womens Canoe Slalom Final on day six of the Tokyo Olympic Games. She went on to win the silver medal Getty UK news in pictures 28 July 2021 Canoers on Llyn Padarn lake in Snowdonia, Gwynedd. It was announced that the north-west Wales slate landscape has been granted UNESCO World Heritage Status PA UK news in pictures 27 July 2021 A view of one of two areas now being used at a warehouse facility in Dover, Kent, for boats used by people thought to be migrants. PA UK news in pictures 26 July 2021 A woman is helped by Border Force officers as a group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, onboard a Border Force vessel, following a small boat incident in the Channel PA UK news in pictures 25 July 2021 Vehicles drive through deep water on a flooded road in Nine Elms, London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 24 July 2021 Utilities workers inspect a 15x20ft sinkhole on Green Lane, Liverpool, which is suspected to have been caused by ruptured water main PA UK news in pictures 23 July 2021 Children interact with Mega Please Draw Freely by artist Ei Arakawa inside the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern in London, part of UNIQLO Tate Play the gallery's new free programme of art-inspired activities for families PA UK news in pictures 22 July 2021 Festivalgoers in the campsite at the Latitude festival in Henham Park, Southwold, Suffolk PA

And that job is about getting the best Brexit deal, about ensuring that we take back control of our money, our laws, our borders, that we can sign trade deals around the rest of the world. But its also about our domestic agenda.

She added: Yes, we need to ensure that we do speak about the achievements that weve seen.

Three Conservative MPs, including two former ministers, wrote an article on Tuesday demanding new and bold action on housing, education and healthcare.

One of them, Nick Boles, had also recently criticised Ms May directly on social media claiming her Government had disappointed on key decisions and even disparagingly comparing the Prime Minister to a tortoise.

Asked about the attack, Ms May said: I have never tried to compare myself to any animal, or bird or car or whatever sort of comparisons that sometimes people use.

As I have said, there is a focus for the Government  yes we want to get Brexit right, and we are working on that  but we also, alongside that, are looking at the key issues that matter to people on a day to day basis.

 Angela Merkel 'ridicules Theresa May in secret press briefing'

Former Tory party chairman Grant Shapps recently called for Ms May to name a date for her departure and claimed more letters are being sent to the all-powerful Conservative backbench 1922 Committee demanding a vote of no confidence in Ms May, with 48 needed to bring the issue to a head.

Ms May refused to engage with a question over whether she would contest a vote if enough letters were received, and said rules of the Conservatives relating to leadership issues are a matter for the party.

Conservative MP Johnny Mercer recently said that the window is closing for the Government to get its message across before the next election, which could see Jeremy Corbyn end up in Downing Street.

Asked whether Tory infighting risks handing the keys of Number 10 to the Labour leader, Ms May said: We are in Government. The next general election is not until 2022.

What were doing now is doing the job that the British people asked the Government to do which is to deliver on Brexit. They want us to do that.Young people aged 16 and 17 lack the maturity and responsibility needed to vote, the de facto deputy prime minister has suggested.

In a move likely to anger young people demanding the right to vote, David Lidington dismissed calls for the voting age to be lowered to 16.

The Cabinet Office minister and unofficial deputy prime minister was standing in for Theresa May, who is in China, at Prime Ministers Questions.

Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry, taking the place of Jeremy Corbyn, called the Government a coalition of cavemen.

She had asked why the Government refuses to lower the voting age, pointing out that 16-year-olds are allowed to leave home, start a family, marry, work, pay taxes and join the army but are still denied the right to vote.

In response, Mr Lidington said: The logic of the argument is that she wishes to lower the age of majority from 18 to 16. She listed a number of areas in which she supported the age at which activities should be allowed to 18 on grounds that only then could people be expected to have sufficient maturity and responsibility to have those rights.

My argument to her is that the age of majority should be set matching both rights and responsibility and I think its perfectly to say that from the 18, we entrust young men and women to exercise those rights and responsibilities in full.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 South Africa's Ntando Mahlangu (centre) wins the Men's 200 metres T61 Final ahead of second placed Great Britain's Richard Whitehead at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2021 A young common seal on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, as hundreds of pregnant grey seals come ashore ready for the start of the pupping season. PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA UK news in pictures 12 August 2021 Children ride horses in the River Eden in Appleby, Cumbria, during the annual gathering of travellers for the Appleby Horse Fair PA UK news in pictures 11 August 2021 Stella Moris (left) reacts after talking to the media outside the High Court in London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal, n London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal. The US government has won the latest round in its High Court bid to appeal against the decision not to extradite Julian Assange on espionage charges PA UK news in pictures 10 August 2021 Students react after they receive their A-Level results at the Ark Academy, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 9 August 2021 The final athletes from Great Britain arrive home including Jason Kenny, Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald (front left-right) at Heathrow Airport, London following the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games PA UK news in pictures 8 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny during the closing ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Olympic stadium in Japan PA UK news in pictures 7 August 2021 People from the Glasgow Southside community take part in the Govanhill Carnival, an anti-racist celebration of pride, unity and the contributions immigrants have made to the community in Govanhill, at Queen's Park, Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 6 August 2021 Chijindu Ujah of Britain, Zharnel Hughes of Britain, Richard Kilty of Britain and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake of Britain celebrate winning silver as they pose with Asha Philip of Britain, Imani Lansiquot of Britain, Dina Asher-Smith of Britain and Daryll Neita of Britain after they won bronze in the women's 4 x 100m relay during Olympic Games Day 14 Getty UK news in pictures 5 August 2021 A protester places flowers on a photograph of an executed man during a demonstration organised by supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) to protest against the inauguration of Iran's new president Ebrahim Raisi in central London AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 4 August 2021 England's Joe Root looks on as India's KL Rahul doesn't make it to a catch during day one of Cinch First Test match at Trent Bridge, Nottingham PA UK news in pictures 3 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny and Jason Kenny with their silver medals for the Women's Team Pursuit and Mens Team Sprint during the Track Cycling at the Izu Velodrome on the eleventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 2 August 2021 Great Britains Charlotte Worthington competes during the Womens BMX Freestyle Final at the Tokyo Olympics PA UK news in pictures 1 August 2021 EPA UK news in pictures 31 July 2021 James Guy, Adam Peaty and Kathleen Dawson celebrate winning the gold medal in the mixed 4x100m medley relay final at the Tokyo Olympics AP UK news in pictures 30 July 2021 Great Britain's Bethany Shriever and Kye Whyte celebrate their Gold and Silver medals respectively for the Cycling BMX Racing at the Ariake Urban Sports Park on the seventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 29 July 2021 Team GB's Mallory Franklin during the Womens Canoe Slalom Final on day six of the Tokyo Olympic Games. She went on to win the silver medal Getty UK news in pictures 28 July 2021 Canoers on Llyn Padarn lake in Snowdonia, Gwynedd. It was announced that the north-west Wales slate landscape has been granted UNESCO World Heritage Status PA UK news in pictures 27 July 2021 A view of one of two areas now being used at a warehouse facility in Dover, Kent, for boats used by people thought to be migrants. PA UK news in pictures 26 July 2021 A woman is helped by Border Force officers as a group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, onboard a Border Force vessel, following a small boat incident in the Channel PA UK news in pictures 25 July 2021 Vehicles drive through deep water on a flooded road in Nine Elms, London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 24 July 2021 Utilities workers inspect a 15x20ft sinkhole on Green Lane, Liverpool, which is suspected to have been caused by ruptured water main PA UK news in pictures 23 July 2021 Children interact with Mega Please Draw Freely by artist Ei Arakawa inside the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern in London, part of UNIQLO Tate Play the gallery's new free programme of art-inspired activities for families PA UK news in pictures 22 July 2021 Festivalgoers in the campsite at the Latitude festival in Henham Park, Southwold, Suffolk PA UK news in pictures 21 July 2021 A man walks past an artwork by Will Blood on the end of a property in Bedminster, Bristol, as the 75 murals project reaches the halfway point and various graffiti pieces are sprayed onto walls and buildings across the city over the Summer PA UK news in pictures 20 July 2021 People during morning prayer during Eid ul-Adha, or Festival of Sacrifice, in Southall Park, Uxbridge, London PA UK news in pictures 19 July 2021 Commuters, some not wearing facemasks, at Westminster Underground station, at 08:38 in London after the final legal Coronavirus restrictions were lifted in England PA

Earlier in the exchange, Mr Lidington said: The age of 18 rather than 16 is widely recognised as the age at which one becomes an adult, and that is when full citizenship rights are obtained.

Only a few countries in the world allow people younger than 18 to vote, he added.

But Ms Thornberry referenced The Independents revelation that the number of young carers has rocketed in recent years, saying many of them have to take on great responsibilities but are still denied the right to vote.

Labour has committed to reducing the national voting age to 16. At the weekend, the Labour-led Welsh government announced it would bring forward plans to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in council elections.Starbucks and other major retailers could be forced to warn Californians that a cup of coffee is hazardous to their health.

The reason is a long running lawsuit that invokes a voter-passed law, Proposition 65, that identifies harmful chemicals and compels businesses to post warnings when those substances are present.

One chemical on the states list is acrylamide, which occurs naturally in some foods and is produced when coffee is roasted. California associates it with both cancer and developmental issues. Fast food titan KFC was ordered by the state a decade ago to warn customers about the chemical appearing in fried and baked potatoes.

A lawsuit filed by the Council for Education and Research on Toxics alleges that prominent coffee sellers like Starbucks, Peets and BP  which oversees a massive gas station chain  have failed to notify customers about the risks of acrylamide.

Yum Yum Donut Shops, 7-Eleven and Gloria Jeans Gourmet Coffees have already agreed to post warnings and pay fines in accepting settlements. The remaining parties have been engaged in a protracted court fight, and a ruling is expected some time in the coming months.

Britain's caffeine boom: Why can't we wake up without smelling the coffee? Show all 3 1 /3 Britain's caffeine boom: Why can't we wake up without smelling the coffee? Britain's caffeine boom: Why can't we wake up without smelling the coffee? 639106.bin EPA Britain's caffeine boom: Why can't we wake up without smelling the coffee? 639105.bin Reuters Britain's caffeine boom: Why can't we wake up without smelling the coffee? 639107.bin Alamy

Starbucks won an early victory when a judge denied the Council for Education and Researchs push to find the company violated the law. The same judge ruled against Starbucks in a subsequent phase of the proceedings, rejecting its argument that the amount of acrylamide in coffee is slight enough to cancel out cancer risks.

Coffee does not cause cancer, Kyra Auffermann of the National Coffee Association, a trade group that has been the public face of major coffee sellers' response to the suit, said in an email.

 Latte levy: The plastic problem inside your coffee cup

While it has drawn praise for safeguarding clean water and protecting Californians from toxic substances, Proposition 65 has also been a target for critics who warn unscrupulous lawyers are using it to shake down businesses. The owner of Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting told customers in 2013 he was reluctantly posting warning labels, assailing  this particular interpretation of a well-intended bill as a great waste of our money and resources.

The labelling requirement regularly spurs fights over the right way to warn customers. After California added bisphenol A, or BPA, to its list, public health groups accused the state of lax warning rules that they said wouldnt do enough to inform consumers.Two billionaire brothers who have poured their fortune into investing in the Republican Party have pledged to spend $400m in an attempt to thwart the Democrat surge in the midterms.

Charles and Davich Koch have ordered their network of conservative activists and donors to radically broaden its political scope in the lead up to this years midterm elections in order to safeguard Republican majorities in the House and Senate.

Around 550 Koch donors gathered at a five-star Indian Wells Resort and Spa in the California desert last weekend to discuss their plans for the forthcoming midterms and the tricky political climate Republicans are faced with.

Recommended Republicans launch huge fundraising drive amid fears of Dem domination

The Koch brothers, who have invested in a network of charitable organisations that are committed to supporting Republican causes and candidates, are owners of Koch Industries. This is the second-largest privately run business in America.

Among other things, the Koch brothers own oil refineries in Texas, Alaska, and Minnesota and also control some 4,000 miles of pipeline.

The Koch network, one of the most powerful conservative groups in the US, plans to spend a whopping $400 million this cycle to elect Republican candidates and promote conservative causes.

This is not only 60 per cent more than it forked out during the 2016 presidential cycle but also more than the combined resources spent by the Republican National Committee, the NRA and the Chamber of Commerce during the 2016 election cycle.

The Koch networks 2018 investment comprises $20m to help sell the recent tax overhaul to an American public who remains skeptical via a spate of public rallies, phone banking and paid advertising.

My challenge to all of us is to increase the scale and effectiveness of this network by an order of magnitude, by another tenfold on top of all the growth and progress weve already made, Charles Koch said in a speech to the donors.

If we do that, Im confident we can change the trajectory of this country.

Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Show all 29 1 /29 Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inauguration - 20 January 2017 US President Donald Trump acknowledges the audience after taking the oath of office as his wife Melania (L) and daughter Tiffany watch during inauguration ceremonies swearing in Trump as the 45th president of the United States on the West Front of the US capital in Washington on 20 January, 2017. Photographer Jim Bourg: "This photo was shot with one of two remote cameras. The cameras were monitored and triggered remotely and the pictures were transmitted to clients worldwide within minutes of being taken." Reuters/Jim Bourg Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Obama farewell address - 10 January 2017 US President Barack Obama wipes away tears as he delivers his farewell address in Chicago on 10 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "In his final days in office, Obama made a visit home to Chicago. As he spoke from the stage to his wife and daughter in the audience, he became emotional when he talked about what they had sacrificed during his time in office. I turned from photographing the Obama women embracing to find him onstage wiping away tears." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inauguration - 20 January 2017 A combination of photos shows the crowds attending the inauguration ceremonies to swear in U.S. President Donald Trump at 12:01pm (left) on January 20, 2017 and President Barack Obama sometime between 12:07pm and 12:26pm on January 20, 2009. Reuters/ Lucas Jackson/Stelios Varias Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Liberty Ball - 20 January 2017 US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump attend the Liberty Ball in honour of his inauguration in Washington on 20 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "What I see when I look at this picture is the end of a very long day, not to mention weeks and months of preparation by many photographers, editors and network experts and the beginning of everything since." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inaugural Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders Reception - 22 January 2017 US President Donald Trump greets Director of the FBI James Comey as Director of the Secret Service Joseph Clancy (L), watches during the Inaugural Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders Reception in the Blue Room of the White House on 22 January, 2017. Photographer Joshua Roberts: "I have covered the White House for 16 years and normally either the President or the pool is in position when an event starts. In this case the President was not where anyone expected him to be. In fact, he was almost blocking the door when the pool came in. We had to scramble to find a position without bumping him or the furniture as he greeted and thanked members of law enforcement for their security efforts during the inauguration. Luckily, he greeted FBI Director James Comey a few seconds after the pool had made its way into the room." Reuters/Joshua Roberts Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Private phone calls to world leaders - 28 January 2017 US President Donald Trump, is joined by his staff, as he speaks by phone with Russia's President Vladimir Putin in the Oval Office on 28 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Very early in the Trump administration, weekends were as busy as weekdays. On Trump's second Saturday the official schedule said he would be making private phone calls to a number of world leaders including Russia's Vladimir Putin. I arrived early and, before sitting down at my desk walked up to Press Secretary Sean Spicer's office. He, too, was just taking his coat off. I gingerly made the suggestion that previous administrations had sometimes allowed photos of such phone calls through the Oval Office windows on the colonnade. To my mild shock, he didn't even think about it twice. "We'll do it!" he said. In truth, I really only expected the Putin call, but we were outside the windows multiple times throughout the day as the calls went on." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Senior advisor Kellyanne Conway - 27 February 2017 Senior advisor Kellyanne Conway (L) attends as US President Donald Trump welcomes the leaders of dozens of historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) in the Oval Office on 27 February, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "We're often asked how much access we have to the Trump administration, and the answer is we have an awful lot. President Trump himself is very comfortable in the spotlight, and his aides are similarly unfazed by cameras. In this instance, senior advisor Kellyanne Conway was so comfortable in our presence she seemed not to consider the optics of kneeling on a Oval Office sofa to take pictures with her phone." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Angela Merkel heads to Washington - 17 March 2017 Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Donald Trump hold a joint news conference in the East Room of the White House on 17 March, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Chancellor Merkel made one of the earliest important visits of any US allies to meet Trump in his first months in office. When world leaders give joint news conferences they don't always tend to give each other their full attention - but Merkel watched Trump intently at several key moments, and here seemed particularly rapt." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump welcomes truckers to the White House - 23 March 2017 President Trump reacts as he sits on a truck while he welcomes truckers and CEOs to attend a meeting regarding healthcare at the White House on 23 March, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "The White House organised a listening session with truckers and CEO's of major American companies, regarding healthcare reform. An 18-wheeler tow truck was parked on the South Lawn of the White House and as Trump welcomed the truckers someone invited the him to come and sit in the driver's seat. Trump jumped into the cab and started yelling and pretending to drive - creating one of the most memorable pictures of the year. A lesson learned, always be prepared for the unexpected." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Air Force One - 6 April 2017 US President Donald Trump talks to journalists members of the travel pool on board the Air Force One during his trip to Palm Beach, Florida on 6 April, 2017. Carlos Barria: "During the many trips to President Trump's residence in Florida it is usual to see the president coming to the back of the plane to chat with journalists. During one of the trips to the so called 'Winter White House', Trump had a long talk with reporters while the Air Force One entertainment system was playing one of the latest Star Wars movies. As I was listening to Trump talk I was also looking at the movie waiting for a part of the movie to frame the mood of the day. Of the many scenes, I choose the one with Darth Vader." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures 100 Days - 27 April 2017 US President Donald Trump speaks during an interview with Reuters in the Oval Office of the White House on 27 April, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "A day before President Trump's hundred days in office I was part of the team that interviewed the commander-in-chief in the Oval Office. I was only allowed to photograph Trump during the last five minutes of the interview. The time was very tight so I had to move fast as I had pictures in mind that I wanted to shoot. I walked into the Oval Office and saw that the President had printed maps of the country showing areas in red where he won. I raised my hands holding my camera as high as possible to get the best view of the scene using a 16mm wide angle lens." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures 100 Days - 27 April 2017 US President Donald Trump reacts as he arrives at Harrisburg international airport, before attending a rally marking his first 100 days in office in Pennsylvania on 29 April, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "President Trump travelled to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to celebrate his hundred days in office with a victory rally. He was in friendly territory as he won with a big difference over his opponent Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, during the November elections. As usual when the commander-in-chief arrives local residents gather to greet him. This time a small group of military personnel attended the arrival. Surrounded by secret service agents Trump walked from the Air Force One and raised his hand in a sign of victory as the crowd cheered him on." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House staffers - 2 May 2017 White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer (L) and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus watch as US President Donald Trump presents the U.S. Air Force Academy football team with the Commander-in-Chief trophy in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on 2 May, 2017. Photographer Joshua Roberts: "Covering the White House does not just mean covering the President. White House staffers are an important part of the story and their relationship with the President and each other is an indicator of how things are going in the West Wing. The tendency is to focus exclusively on the President once an event starts but I always try to look around to see how people are reacting as things unfold." Reuters/Joshua Roberts Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Secret Service - 4 May 2017 Secret Service agents use a presidential limousine as cover from spraying water as US President Donald Trump lands via Marine One helicopter in New York on 4 May, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "The best part of any trip to New York City with the sitting US President is the helicopter ride into Manhattan. The ride out at night can be stunning. Here, Secret Service agents protect themselves from the spray from the East River as Trump lands on the helipad." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures NATO Summit - 25 May 2017 US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump wait the arrival of French President Emmanuel Macron (unseen) before a lunch ahead of a NATO Summit in Brussels on 25 May, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "One of the best parts of travelling overseas for White House coverage is the chance to see the U.S. president in different environments and (literally) a different light. Here, Trump and his wife came out of the shadows to greet France's President Macron." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump meets Putin at G20 summit - 7 July 2017 US President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany on 7 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "On July 7, I witnessed one of the most important meetings of President Trump's first year in office. Trump met Russian President Vladimir Putin during a bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Germany. The world's eyes were on these two leaders after speculation about Russian interference during the 2016 US elections. We entered the room for less than two minutes, where I took dozens of pictures. But there was this very interesting moment when Trump extended his hand to Putin for a handshake. Putin paused for a second and looked at Trump's hand. That was the picture that I was looking for, a little moment that seemed to say a lot." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures First lady - 8 July 2017 First lady Melania Trump chats with US President Donald Trump during their return from Germany at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on 8 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "After President Trump's trip to Germany he arrived back at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. First Lady Melania Trump said goodbye to Trump as she was heading off in a different direction that day. While chatting a breeze blew Melania's hair up in the air." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Made in America product showcase - 17 July 2017 Vice President Mike Pence laughs as President Donald Trump holds a baseball bat as they attend a Made in America product showcase event at the White House on 17 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "This summer the White House organized an event to showcase 'Made in America' products. All kinds of exhibitors brought their products as the President and Vice President toured the event. One of the companies was Marucci Sport, a manufacturer of baseball bats based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. As Trump approached a table full of baseball bats, photographers at the event, including me, rushed to get a good angle hoping that he would pick up a bat. As we predicted, he did. He took one and joked around as though he was hitting something hard. The only thing closer to him right there, was the media." Reuters Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House staffers - 25 July 2017 Former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski says hello to reporters as he and White House advisors including Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci accompany President Trump for an event celebrating veterans at AMVETS Post 44 in Ohio, July 25, 2017. Jonathan Ernst: "The most visible person in any White House is naturally the President, followed by the press secretary. But there are also the staff who support them. For those of us covering the Trump administration, there seem to be more compelling figures in the West Wing than ever before. It's crucial to know who's who and why they're important. When I raised my camera and back-pedalled ahead of the group to take this image Lewandowski gave me a hello. I liked the photo, but had no idea it would go a little bit viral, especially since Scaramucci, who was the biggest mover and shaker that week, was hidden back in the pack. But I guess the image catches a glimpse of what it's like to be a West Wing staffer on the road." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Campaign rally - 3 August 2017 US President Donald Trump arrives at a rally in West Virginia on 3 August, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "President Trump travelled to Huntington for one of his usual campaign rallies. While members of his family spoke to the crowd he was waiting under a black curtain to be introduced. Suddenly he walked onto the stage, one of the first frames that I took was of his hand. I set my exposure for the light on the stage hoping to create this dark background and it worked." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Staring into the solar eclipse - 21 August 2017 Without his protective glasses on, US President Donald Trump looks up towards the solar eclipse while viewing with his wife Melania and son Barron at the White House on 21 August, 2017. Photographer Kevin Lamarque: "On a day when everyone, and I mean everyone, was told not to look at the eclipse without protective glasses, Trump, President of the United States, couldn't help himself." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Hurricane Harvey - 2 September 2017 US President Donald Trump poses for a photo as he and first lady Melania Trump help volunteers hand out meals during a visit with flood survivors of Hurricane Harvey at a relief centre in Houston, Texas on 2 September, 2017. Photohrapher Kevin Lamarque: "Trump, eager to deliver the image of a hands-on response to Hurricane Harvey, made this visit to a relief centre and obliged this woman with a selfie as Melania continued to work." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House - 15 September 2017 Donald Trump welcomes 11-year-old Frank Giaccio as he cuts the Rose Garden grass at the White House on 15 September. Frank, who wrote a letter to Trump offering to mow the lawn, was invited to work for a day at the White House along the National Park Service staff. Frank was so focused on his task that he did not notice the President arrive to surprise him. He took his father jumping in to grab his attention and point Trump out. Photographer Carlos Barria said: The image of Trump shouting at a kid who is mowing his lawn might have many interpretations in today's politically polarized United States. But for me it was just a kid who loved what he was doing, to the point he almost appeared to ignore the President." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Take a knee - 27 September 2017 A man kneels with a folded U.S. flag as the motorcade of U.S. President Donald Trump passes him after an event at the state fairgrounds in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S., September 27, 2017. In September, soon after Trump had made comments condemning NFL players who kneel during the national anthem, he made a day trip to a rally in Indianapolis. Jonathan Ernst managed to capture a man on one knee with a tri-folded flag and was able to use a portion of the sign on the building he was kneeling in front of to track the man down and tell his story in full. US Army veteran Marvin Boatright wanted to send a message against social injustice. Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Hurricane Maria - 3 October 2017 President Donald Trump throws rolls of paper towels into a crowd of local residents affected by Hurricane Maria as he visits Calgary Chapel in San Juan, Puerto Rico on 3 October, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "During an afternoon visit to Puerto Rico for President Trump to survey damage from Hurricane Maria and greet some of its victims, Trump made a stop at a church where food and supplies were being distributed. Among the items were paper towels and Trump, apparently caught up in the moment, decided to distribute some of the rolls." Reuters Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Jared Kushner - 1 November 2017 White House Senior adviser Jared Kushner sits behind President Trump during a cabinet meeting in Washington on 1 November, 2017. Photographer Kevin Lamarque: "The role of Jared Kushner has gone through a series of changes. He began front and centre as a high profile adviser, but as time has passed and issues surrounding him have surfaced, he has become more of a background figure." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump in China - 9 November 2017 Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping shake hands after making joint statements at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on 9 November, 2017. Photographer Damir Sagolj: "It's one of those "how to make a better or at least different shot when two presidents shake hands several times a day, several days in row". If I'm not mistaken in calculation, presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump shook their hands at least six times in events I covered during Trump's recent visit to China. I would imagine there were some more handshakes I haven't seen but other photographers did. And they all look similar - two big men, smiling and heartily greeting each other until everyone gets their shot. But then there is always something that can make it special - in this case the background made of US and Chinese flags. The first time it didn't work for me. The second time I positioned myself lower and centrally, and used the longest lens I have to capture only hands reaching for a handshake." Reuters/Damir Sagolj Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Air Force One - 10 November 2017 US President Donald Trump boards Air Force One to depart for Vietnam from Beijing Airport in Beijing, China, November 10, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "There is a Reuters photographer in the tight pool covering the US president for every appearance he makes 365 days a year. This was just one of 32 images of mine that were transmitted on the Reuters wire of President Trump visiting China and Vietnam that day. You never know when a sudden interaction, a gust of wind or a unique facial expression will lead to a striking image that grabs peoples' attention." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures ASEAN handshake - 13 November 2017 Donald Trump registers his surprise as he realises other leaders, including Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte and Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, are crossing their arms for the traditional "ASEAN handshake" as he participates in the opening ceremony of the summit in Manila on 13 November, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Having covered a few ASEAN summits, I knew to expect the ASEAN handshake. Not everyone in the room knew to expect the ASEAN handshake. A lot was written about this unscripted moment, and what deeper meaning it might have. The simple truth is that sometimes in life there are unscripted moments." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

Donors were only invited to the event if they donated $100,000 or more to the network in 2017.

Among Koch donors there is believed to be heavy frustration with US president Donald Trump and the slew of controversies he has found himself in.In order to fight Zika and other similar viruses, researchers are going to release thousands of sterilised mosquitoes in south Miami, Florida this week.

Researchers infected the male of the species with a bacteria in a lab and when they mate with females, the resulting eggs will die before hatching.

The Miami-Dade County Mosquito Reduction Test Program is a collaboration from the University of Kentucky and Kentucky-based company MosquitoMate.

The project is an attempt to reduce mosquito populations in the region without artificial genetic modification.

The bacteria used to infect the males, wolbachia, is a naturally-occurring substance in 60 per cent of insects including butterflies and dragonflies.

It is not harmful to humans.

Argentina experiences major dengue outbreak as mosquito population swells

It has a sterilisation effect and researchers are using it on the Aedes aegypti species of mosquito, which is the type most associated with the spread of Zika, dengue, and yellow fever.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Called cytoplasmic incompatibility, if a male mosquito that has been infected with wolbachia mates with a female that does not, the eggs laid by that female will die and subsequent populations of mosquitoes will decrease.

The company will only release males of the species because only females bite, blood feed, and can spread disease.

A trial had begun in Key West, Florida, but was interrupted by Hurricane Irma.Three people died after a helicopter crashed into a southern California home, authorities said.

The Newport Beach Police Department said four passengers were on board when the four-seat Robinson 44 helicopter went down, affecting a bystander.

Two people were transported to the hospital for treatment.

The helicopter had travelled only a mile (1.6 km) from John Wayne Airport, the area's main transit hub, before going down.

Federal Aviation Administration inspectors were en route and the National Transportation Safety Board was preparing to join the investigation.

Footage from the scene showed the helicopters red-and-yellow frame crumpled against a house.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

A witness told KCAL he went outside after hearing a loud noise and encountered a cloud of dust. He saw someone partially hanging out of the plane.

We tried to pry him out but we didn't want to touch him, we didn't want to take a chance of hurting anybody, he said.A test of Americas missile defence systems in Hawaii has reportedly failed to shoot down its target, against the backdrop of heightened tensions with North Korea.

An exercise conducted by the Missile Defence Agency was unsuccessful, with the military unable to shoot down an incoming missile launched from an aircraft, multiple outlets reported.

A Department of Defence representative confirmed a drill had taken place without responding to questions about whether it had accomplished its objectives.

The Missile Defense Agency and US Navy sailors manning the Aegis Ashore Missile Defense Test Complex (AAMDTC) conducted a live-fire missile flight test using a Standard-Missile (SM)-3 Block IIA missile launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Kauai, Hawaii, Wednesday morning, Lt Col Michelle Baldanza said in an email to The Independent.

North Korean aggression has raised the stakes for Americas ability to repel missile attacks, with the isolated regime launching a series of ballistic missile tests and claiming it has the ability to strike anywhere on the US mainland.

A test in May successfully intercepted and destroyed a medium-range missile, the Pentagon said at the time, the first live-fire test of defending against an intercontinental ballistic missile.

North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch Show all 13 1 /13 North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch Pyongyang residents react after the news of the successful launch of the new intercontinental ballistic missile AFP/Getty Images North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un signing an order to test-fire the newly developed inter-continental ballistic missile KRT via AP Video North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch A news broadcast displays Kim Jong Un's signed document AP North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch People cheer as they watch the news broadcast announcing Kim Jong Un's order to test-fire the new inter-continental ballistic missile AFP/Getty Images North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch Residents react after the document signing AP North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch Pyongyang residents celebrate Kim Jong Un's announcement AFP/Getty North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch Cheering Pyongyang residents react AP North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch To counter North Korea's missile test, South Korea fired missiles into the East Sea The Defence Ministry/Yonhap via REUTERS North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch The Hyunmu-2 missiles firing during the drill South Korean Defense Ministry vi North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch The exercise was carried out in an attempt to counter Kim Jong Un's order South Korea Defense Ministry via AP North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch The South Korean army continue to carry out military exercises AP North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch Where K-9 self-propelled howitzers were taking part in a drill Rex Features North Korea announces intercontinental missile launch US soldiers are also present in the border city of Paju AFP/Getty Images

Unnamed officials said that they were avoiding commenting publicly on the more recent, failed test because of tensions with North Korea, according to CNN.

Earlier this month an erroneous alert of an incoming missile briefly threw Hawaii into a panic.

An employee who triggered the false alarm has been fired and the head of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency has resigned as a result.The head of Americas leading health protection agency has resigned after it was revealed she had bought shares in a tobacco company.

Brenda Fitzgerald, director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), quit as the result of what officials said were conflicts of interest that made it difficult to do her job.

Dr Fitzgerald owns certain complex financial interests that have imposed a broad recusal limiting her ability to complete all of her duties as the CDC Director, said Matt Lloyd, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Due to the nature of these financial interests, Dr Fitzgerald could not divest from them in a definitive time period.

The resignation of Ms Fitzgerald, who had only been in the post a month, came a day after Politico reported she had bought shares in a company that produces tobacco, the major cause of preventable deaths in the US and something that that the CDC had long campaigned against.

Mixed reaction to tobacco laws

The tobacco industry spends billions of dollars each year on cigarette advertising and promotions, the CDC says on its website. Smoking costs the United States billions of dollars each year.

As of 2015, around 36.5m Americans still smoked, despite repeated warnings that it causes cancer, the CDC reported.

The stock in Japan Tobacco was one of about a dozen new investments Ms Fitzgerald had made after she took over the job, according to documents obtained by the news site.

She had previously come under congressional scrutiny for being slow to divest from other, older investment that officials said posed potential conflicts of interest and prevented her from testifying before Congress.President Donald Trump's first State of the Union address touched on everything from immigration to Iran, North Korea to his vision for America's future.

There were boos, and plenty of cheers from the Republican-heavy audience. Mr Trump stuck to the script and leaned heavily on introducing a number of his guests to provide some human drama.

At one hour and 20 minutes, it was one of the longer addresses of recent memory and you can read the whole transcript below.

"Mr Speaker, Mr Vice President, Members of Congress, first lady of the United States, and my fellow Americans, less than one year has passed since I first stood at this podium in this majestic chamber to speak on behalf of the American people and to address their concerns, their hopes and their dreams. That night, our new Administration had already taken very swift action. A new tide of optimism was already sweeping across our land.

Each day since, we have gone forward with a clear vision and a righteous mission: to make America great again for all Americans.

Over the last year, we have made incredible progress and achieved extraordinary success. We have faced challenges we expected and others we could never have imagined. We have shared in the heights of victory and the pains of hardship. We have endured floods and fires and storms. But through it all, we have seen the beauty of America's soul and the steel in America's spine.

Each test has forged new American heroes to remind us who we are and show us what we can be. We saw the volunteers of the Cajun Navy, racing to the rescue with their fishing boats to save people in the aftermath of a totally devastating hurricane.

Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Show all 29 1 /29 Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inauguration - 20 January 2017 US President Donald Trump acknowledges the audience after taking the oath of office as his wife Melania (L) and daughter Tiffany watch during inauguration ceremonies swearing in Trump as the 45th president of the United States on the West Front of the US capital in Washington on 20 January, 2017. Photographer Jim Bourg: "This photo was shot with one of two remote cameras. The cameras were monitored and triggered remotely and the pictures were transmitted to clients worldwide within minutes of being taken." Reuters/Jim Bourg Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Obama farewell address - 10 January 2017 US President Barack Obama wipes away tears as he delivers his farewell address in Chicago on 10 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "In his final days in office, Obama made a visit home to Chicago. As he spoke from the stage to his wife and daughter in the audience, he became emotional when he talked about what they had sacrificed during his time in office. I turned from photographing the Obama women embracing to find him onstage wiping away tears." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inauguration - 20 January 2017 A combination of photos shows the crowds attending the inauguration ceremonies to swear in U.S. President Donald Trump at 12:01pm (left) on January 20, 2017 and President Barack Obama sometime between 12:07pm and 12:26pm on January 20, 2009. Reuters/ Lucas Jackson/Stelios Varias Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Liberty Ball - 20 January 2017 US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump attend the Liberty Ball in honour of his inauguration in Washington on 20 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "What I see when I look at this picture is the end of a very long day, not to mention weeks and months of preparation by many photographers, editors and network experts and the beginning of everything since." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inaugural Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders Reception - 22 January 2017 US President Donald Trump greets Director of the FBI James Comey as Director of the Secret Service Joseph Clancy (L), watches during the Inaugural Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders Reception in the Blue Room of the White House on 22 January, 2017. Photographer Joshua Roberts: "I have covered the White House for 16 years and normally either the President or the pool is in position when an event starts. In this case the President was not where anyone expected him to be. In fact, he was almost blocking the door when the pool came in. We had to scramble to find a position without bumping him or the furniture as he greeted and thanked members of law enforcement for their security efforts during the inauguration. Luckily, he greeted FBI Director James Comey a few seconds after the pool had made its way into the room." Reuters/Joshua Roberts Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Private phone calls to world leaders - 28 January 2017 US President Donald Trump, is joined by his staff, as he speaks by phone with Russia's President Vladimir Putin in the Oval Office on 28 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Very early in the Trump administration, weekends were as busy as weekdays. On Trump's second Saturday the official schedule said he would be making private phone calls to a number of world leaders including Russia's Vladimir Putin. I arrived early and, before sitting down at my desk walked up to Press Secretary Sean Spicer's office. He, too, was just taking his coat off. I gingerly made the suggestion that previous administrations had sometimes allowed photos of such phone calls through the Oval Office windows on the colonnade. To my mild shock, he didn't even think about it twice. "We'll do it!" he said. In truth, I really only expected the Putin call, but we were outside the windows multiple times throughout the day as the calls went on." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Senior advisor Kellyanne Conway - 27 February 2017 Senior advisor Kellyanne Conway (L) attends as US President Donald Trump welcomes the leaders of dozens of historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) in the Oval Office on 27 February, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "We're often asked how much access we have to the Trump administration, and the answer is we have an awful lot. President Trump himself is very comfortable in the spotlight, and his aides are similarly unfazed by cameras. In this instance, senior advisor Kellyanne Conway was so comfortable in our presence she seemed not to consider the optics of kneeling on a Oval Office sofa to take pictures with her phone." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Angela Merkel heads to Washington - 17 March 2017 Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Donald Trump hold a joint news conference in the East Room of the White House on 17 March, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Chancellor Merkel made one of the earliest important visits of any US allies to meet Trump in his first months in office. When world leaders give joint news conferences they don't always tend to give each other their full attention - but Merkel watched Trump intently at several key moments, and here seemed particularly rapt." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump welcomes truckers to the White House - 23 March 2017 President Trump reacts as he sits on a truck while he welcomes truckers and CEOs to attend a meeting regarding healthcare at the White House on 23 March, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "The White House organised a listening session with truckers and CEO's of major American companies, regarding healthcare reform. An 18-wheeler tow truck was parked on the South Lawn of the White House and as Trump welcomed the truckers someone invited the him to come and sit in the driver's seat. Trump jumped into the cab and started yelling and pretending to drive - creating one of the most memorable pictures of the year. A lesson learned, always be prepared for the unexpected." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Air Force One - 6 April 2017 US President Donald Trump talks to journalists members of the travel pool on board the Air Force One during his trip to Palm Beach, Florida on 6 April, 2017. Carlos Barria: "During the many trips to President Trump's residence in Florida it is usual to see the president coming to the back of the plane to chat with journalists. During one of the trips to the so called 'Winter White House', Trump had a long talk with reporters while the Air Force One entertainment system was playing one of the latest Star Wars movies. As I was listening to Trump talk I was also looking at the movie waiting for a part of the movie to frame the mood of the day. Of the many scenes, I choose the one with Darth Vader." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures 100 Days - 27 April 2017 US President Donald Trump speaks during an interview with Reuters in the Oval Office of the White House on 27 April, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "A day before President Trump's hundred days in office I was part of the team that interviewed the commander-in-chief in the Oval Office. I was only allowed to photograph Trump during the last five minutes of the interview. The time was very tight so I had to move fast as I had pictures in mind that I wanted to shoot. I walked into the Oval Office and saw that the President had printed maps of the country showing areas in red where he won. I raised my hands holding my camera as high as possible to get the best view of the scene using a 16mm wide angle lens." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures 100 Days - 27 April 2017 US President Donald Trump reacts as he arrives at Harrisburg international airport, before attending a rally marking his first 100 days in office in Pennsylvania on 29 April, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "President Trump travelled to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to celebrate his hundred days in office with a victory rally. He was in friendly territory as he won with a big difference over his opponent Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, during the November elections. As usual when the commander-in-chief arrives local residents gather to greet him. This time a small group of military personnel attended the arrival. Surrounded by secret service agents Trump walked from the Air Force One and raised his hand in a sign of victory as the crowd cheered him on." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House staffers - 2 May 2017 White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer (L) and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus watch as US President Donald Trump presents the U.S. Air Force Academy football team with the Commander-in-Chief trophy in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on 2 May, 2017. Photographer Joshua Roberts: "Covering the White House does not just mean covering the President. White House staffers are an important part of the story and their relationship with the President and each other is an indicator of how things are going in the West Wing. The tendency is to focus exclusively on the President once an event starts but I always try to look around to see how people are reacting as things unfold." Reuters/Joshua Roberts Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Secret Service - 4 May 2017 Secret Service agents use a presidential limousine as cover from spraying water as US President Donald Trump lands via Marine One helicopter in New York on 4 May, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "The best part of any trip to New York City with the sitting US President is the helicopter ride into Manhattan. The ride out at night can be stunning. Here, Secret Service agents protect themselves from the spray from the East River as Trump lands on the helipad." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures NATO Summit - 25 May 2017 US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump wait the arrival of French President Emmanuel Macron (unseen) before a lunch ahead of a NATO Summit in Brussels on 25 May, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "One of the best parts of travelling overseas for White House coverage is the chance to see the U.S. president in different environments and (literally) a different light. Here, Trump and his wife came out of the shadows to greet France's President Macron." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump meets Putin at G20 summit - 7 July 2017 US President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany on 7 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "On July 7, I witnessed one of the most important meetings of President Trump's first year in office. Trump met Russian President Vladimir Putin during a bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Germany. The world's eyes were on these two leaders after speculation about Russian interference during the 2016 US elections. We entered the room for less than two minutes, where I took dozens of pictures. But there was this very interesting moment when Trump extended his hand to Putin for a handshake. Putin paused for a second and looked at Trump's hand. That was the picture that I was looking for, a little moment that seemed to say a lot." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures First lady - 8 July 2017 First lady Melania Trump chats with US President Donald Trump during their return from Germany at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on 8 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "After President Trump's trip to Germany he arrived back at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. First Lady Melania Trump said goodbye to Trump as she was heading off in a different direction that day. While chatting a breeze blew Melania's hair up in the air." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Made in America product showcase - 17 July 2017 Vice President Mike Pence laughs as President Donald Trump holds a baseball bat as they attend a Made in America product showcase event at the White House on 17 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "This summer the White House organized an event to showcase 'Made in America' products. All kinds of exhibitors brought their products as the President and Vice President toured the event. One of the companies was Marucci Sport, a manufacturer of baseball bats based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. As Trump approached a table full of baseball bats, photographers at the event, including me, rushed to get a good angle hoping that he would pick up a bat. As we predicted, he did. He took one and joked around as though he was hitting something hard. The only thing closer to him right there, was the media." Reuters Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House staffers - 25 July 2017 Former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski says hello to reporters as he and White House advisors including Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci accompany President Trump for an event celebrating veterans at AMVETS Post 44 in Ohio, July 25, 2017. Jonathan Ernst: "The most visible person in any White House is naturally the President, followed by the press secretary. But there are also the staff who support them. For those of us covering the Trump administration, there seem to be more compelling figures in the West Wing than ever before. It's crucial to know who's who and why they're important. When I raised my camera and back-pedalled ahead of the group to take this image Lewandowski gave me a hello. I liked the photo, but had no idea it would go a little bit viral, especially since Scaramucci, who was the biggest mover and shaker that week, was hidden back in the pack. But I guess the image catches a glimpse of what it's like to be a West Wing staffer on the road." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Campaign rally - 3 August 2017 US President Donald Trump arrives at a rally in West Virginia on 3 August, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "President Trump travelled to Huntington for one of his usual campaign rallies. While members of his family spoke to the crowd he was waiting under a black curtain to be introduced. Suddenly he walked onto the stage, one of the first frames that I took was of his hand. I set my exposure for the light on the stage hoping to create this dark background and it worked." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Staring into the solar eclipse - 21 August 2017 Without his protective glasses on, US President Donald Trump looks up towards the solar eclipse while viewing with his wife Melania and son Barron at the White House on 21 August, 2017. Photographer Kevin Lamarque: "On a day when everyone, and I mean everyone, was told not to look at the eclipse without protective glasses, Trump, President of the United States, couldn't help himself." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Hurricane Harvey - 2 September 2017 US President Donald Trump poses for a photo as he and first lady Melania Trump help volunteers hand out meals during a visit with flood survivors of Hurricane Harvey at a relief centre in Houston, Texas on 2 September, 2017. Photohrapher Kevin Lamarque: "Trump, eager to deliver the image of a hands-on response to Hurricane Harvey, made this visit to a relief centre and obliged this woman with a selfie as Melania continued to work." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House - 15 September 2017 Donald Trump welcomes 11-year-old Frank Giaccio as he cuts the Rose Garden grass at the White House on 15 September. Frank, who wrote a letter to Trump offering to mow the lawn, was invited to work for a day at the White House along the National Park Service staff. Frank was so focused on his task that he did not notice the President arrive to surprise him. He took his father jumping in to grab his attention and point Trump out. Photographer Carlos Barria said: The image of Trump shouting at a kid who is mowing his lawn might have many interpretations in today's politically polarized United States. But for me it was just a kid who loved what he was doing, to the point he almost appeared to ignore the President." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Take a knee - 27 September 2017 A man kneels with a folded U.S. flag as the motorcade of U.S. President Donald Trump passes him after an event at the state fairgrounds in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S., September 27, 2017. In September, soon after Trump had made comments condemning NFL players who kneel during the national anthem, he made a day trip to a rally in Indianapolis. Jonathan Ernst managed to capture a man on one knee with a tri-folded flag and was able to use a portion of the sign on the building he was kneeling in front of to track the man down and tell his story in full. US Army veteran Marvin Boatright wanted to send a message against social injustice. Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Hurricane Maria - 3 October 2017 President Donald Trump throws rolls of paper towels into a crowd of local residents affected by Hurricane Maria as he visits Calgary Chapel in San Juan, Puerto Rico on 3 October, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "During an afternoon visit to Puerto Rico for President Trump to survey damage from Hurricane Maria and greet some of its victims, Trump made a stop at a church where food and supplies were being distributed. Among the items were paper towels and Trump, apparently caught up in the moment, decided to distribute some of the rolls." Reuters Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Jared Kushner - 1 November 2017 White House Senior adviser Jared Kushner sits behind President Trump during a cabinet meeting in Washington on 1 November, 2017. Photographer Kevin Lamarque: "The role of Jared Kushner has gone through a series of changes. He began front and centre as a high profile adviser, but as time has passed and issues surrounding him have surfaced, he has become more of a background figure." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump in China - 9 November 2017 Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping shake hands after making joint statements at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on 9 November, 2017. Photographer Damir Sagolj: "It's one of those "how to make a better or at least different shot when two presidents shake hands several times a day, several days in row". If I'm not mistaken in calculation, presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump shook their hands at least six times in events I covered during Trump's recent visit to China. I would imagine there were some more handshakes I haven't seen but other photographers did. And they all look similar - two big men, smiling and heartily greeting each other until everyone gets their shot. But then there is always something that can make it special - in this case the background made of US and Chinese flags. The first time it didn't work for me. The second time I positioned myself lower and centrally, and used the longest lens I have to capture only hands reaching for a handshake." Reuters/Damir Sagolj Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Air Force One - 10 November 2017 US President Donald Trump boards Air Force One to depart for Vietnam from Beijing Airport in Beijing, China, November 10, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "There is a Reuters photographer in the tight pool covering the US president for every appearance he makes 365 days a year. This was just one of 32 images of mine that were transmitted on the Reuters wire of President Trump visiting China and Vietnam that day. You never know when a sudden interaction, a gust of wind or a unique facial expression will lead to a striking image that grabs peoples' attention." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures ASEAN handshake - 13 November 2017 Donald Trump registers his surprise as he realises other leaders, including Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte and Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, are crossing their arms for the traditional "ASEAN handshake" as he participates in the opening ceremony of the summit in Manila on 13 November, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Having covered a few ASEAN summits, I knew to expect the ASEAN handshake. Not everyone in the room knew to expect the ASEAN handshake. A lot was written about this unscripted moment, and what deeper meaning it might have. The simple truth is that sometimes in life there are unscripted moments." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

We saw strangers shielding strangers from a hail of gunfire on the Las Vegas strip. We heard tales of Americans, like Coast Guard Petty Officer Ashlee Leppert, who is here tonight in the gallery with Melania.

Ashlee was aboard one of the first helicopters on the scene in Houston during the Hurricane Harvey. Through 18 hours of wind and rain, Ashlee braved live power lines and deep water to help save more than 40 lives. Ashlee, we all thank you. Thank you very much.

We heard about Americans like firefighter David Dahlberg. He's here with us, also. David faced down walls of flame to rescue almost 60 children trapped at a California summer camp threatened by those devastating wildfires. To everyone still recovering in Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, everywhere, we are with you, we love you, and we always will pull through together always.

Thank you to David and the brave people of California. Thank you very much, David. Great job.

Some trials over the past year touched this chamber very personally. With us tonight is one of the toughest people ever to serve in this House, a guy who took a bullet, almost died, and was back to work three-and-a-half months later, the legend from Louisiana, Congressman Steve Scalise.

I think they like you, Steve.

 Boos from the House of Representatives as Donald Trump rails against chain migration at the State of the Union

We're incredibly grateful for the heroic efforts of the Capitol Police officers, the Alexandria Police, and the doctors, nurses, and paramedics who saved his life and the lives of many others, some in this room. In the aftermath  yes. Yes.

In the aftermath of that terrible shooting, we came together, not as Republicans or Democrats, but as representatives of the people. But it is not enough to come together only in times of tragedy. Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people. This is really the key. These are the people we were elected to serve.

Thank you.

Over the last year, the world has seen what we always knew: that no people on Earth are so fearless, or daring, or determined as Americans. If there is a mountain, we climb it. If there's a frontier, we cross it. If there's a challenge, we tame it. If there's an opportunity, we seize it.

So let's begin tonight by recognizing that the state of our union is strong because our people are strong.

And together we are building a safe, strong, and proud America.

Since the election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs, including ... including 200,000 new jobs in manufacturing alone. Tremendous number. After years and years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages. Unemployment claims have hit a 45-year low. And something I'm very proud of, African-American unemployment stands at the lowest rate ever recorded. And Hispanic-American unemployment has also reached the lowest levels in history.

Small-business confidence is at an all-time high. The stock market has smashed one record after another, gaining $8 trillion and more in value in just this short period of time. The great news ... the great news for Americans, 401K, retirement, pension, and college savings accounts have gone through the roof.

And just as I promised the American people from this podium 11 months ago, we enacted the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history. Our massive tax cuts provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small business. To lower tax rates for hardworking Americans, we nearly doubled the standard deduction for everyone. Now the first $24,000 earned by a married couple is completely tax-free. We also doubled the child tax credit. A typical family of four making $75,000 will see their tax bill reduced by $2,000, slashing their tax bill in half.

In April, this will be the last time you will ever file under the old and very broken system, and millions of Americans will have more take-home pay starting next month. A lot more.

We eliminated an especially cruel tax that fell mostly on Americans making less than $50,000 a year, forcing them to pay tremendous penalties simply because they couldn't afford government-ordered health plans. We repealed the core of the disastrous Obamacare. The individual mandate is now gone.

 Donald Trump at State of the Union: 'Remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people'

We slashed the business tax rate from 35 percent all the way down to 21 percent, so American companies can compete and win against anyone else anywhere in the world. These changes alone are estimated to increase average family income by more than $4,000. A lot of money.

Small businesses have also received a massive tax cut and can now deduct 20 percent of their business income. Here tonight are Steve Staub and Sandy Keplinger of Staub Manufacturing, a small beautiful business in Ohio. They've just finished the best year in their 20-year history. Because of tax reform, they are handing out raises, hiring an additional 14 people, and expanding into the building next door. Good feeling.

One of Staub's employees, Corey Adams, is also with us tonight. Corey is an all-American worker. He supported himself through high school, lost his job during the 2008 recession, and was later hired by Staub, where he trained to become a welder. Like many hardworking Americans, Corey plans to invest his tax cut raise into his new home and his two daughters' education. Corey, please stand. And he's a great welder. I was told that by the man that owns that company that's doing so well, so congratulations, Corey.

Since we passed tax cuts, roughly 3 million workers have already gotten tax cut bonuses, many of them thousands and thousands of dollars per worker. And it's getting more every month, every week. Apple has just announced it plans to invest a total of $350 billion in America and hire another 20,000 workers.

And just a little while ago, ExxonMobil announced a $50 billion investment in the United States. Just a little while ago.

This, in fact, is our new American moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American dream.

So to every citizen watching at home tonight, no matter where you've been or where you've come from, this is your time. If you work hard, if you believe in yourself, if you believe in America, then you can dream anything, you can be anything, and together, we can achieve absolutely anything.

Tonight, I want to talk about what kind of future we are going to have and what kind of a nation we are going to be. All of us, together, as one team, one people, and one American family can do anything. We all share the same home, the same heart, the same destiny, and the same great American flag.

Together, we are rediscovering the American way. In America, we know that faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, are the center of American life. The motto is in God we trust. And we celebrate our police, our military, and our amazing veterans as heroes who deserve our total and unwavering support.

Here tonight is Preston Sharp, a 12-year-old boy from Redding, California, who noticed that veterans' graves were not marked with flags on Veterans Day. He decided all by himself to change that and started a movement that has now placed 40,000 flags at the graves of our great heroes. Preston, a job well done.

Young patriots like Preston teach all of us about our civic duty as Americans. And I met Preston a little while ago, and he is something very special, that I can tell you. Great future. Thank you very much for all you've done, Preston. Thank you very much.

 Donald Trump pledges to keep Guantanamo Bay open at the State of the Union

Preston's reverence for those who have served our nation reminds us why we salute our flag, why we put our hands on our hearts for the Pledge of Allegiance, and why we proudly stand for the national anthem.

Americans love their country. And they deserve a government that shows them the same love and loyalty in return. For the last year, we have sought to restore the bonds of trust between our citizens and their government.

Working with the Senate, we are appointing judges who will interpret the Constitution as written, including a great new Supreme Court justice and more circuit court judges than any new administration in the history of our country.

We are totally defending our Second Amendment and have taken historic actions to protect religious liberty. And we are serving our brave veterans, including giving our veterans choice in their health care decisions.

Last year, Congress also passed, and I signed, the landmark V.A. Accountability Act. Since its passage, my administration has already removed more than 1,500 V.A. employees who failed to give our veterans the care they deserve, and we are hiring talented people who love our vets as much as we do.

And I will not stop until our veterans are properly taken care of, which has been my promise to them from the very beginning of this great journey. All Americans deserve accountability and respect, and that's what we are giving to our wonderful heroes, our veterans. Thank you.

So tonight, I call on Congress to empower every cabinet secretary with the authority to reward good workers and to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.

In our drive to make Washington accountable, we have eliminated more regulations in our first year than any administration in the history of our country. We have ended the war on American energy, and we have ended the war on beautiful clean coal. We are now very proudly an exporter of energy to the world.

In Detroit, I halted government mandates that crippled America's great, beautiful autoworkers so that we can get Motor City revving its engines again. And that's what's happening.

Many car companies are now building and expanding plants in the United States, something we haven't seen for decades. Chrysler is moving a major plant from Mexico to Michigan. Toyota and Mazda are opening up a plant in Alabama, a big one. And we haven't seen this in a long time. It's all coming back.

 Donald Trump at the State of the Union: 'Our motto is 'In God we trust''

Very soon, auto plants and other plants will be opening up all over our country. This is all news Americans are totally unaccustomed to hearing. For many years, companies and jobs were only leaving us. But now they are roaring back, they're coming back. They want to be where the action is. They want to be in the United States of America. That's where they want to be.

Exciting progress is happening every single day. To speed access to breakthrough cures and affordable generic drugs, last year the FDA approved more new and generic drugs and medical devices than ever before in our country's history.

We also believe that patients with terminal conditions and terminal illness should have access to experimental treatment immediately that could potentially save their lives.

People who are terminally ill should not have to go from country to country to seek a cure. I want to give them a chance right here at home. It's time for Congress to give these wonderful, incredible Americans the right to try.

One of my greatest priorities is to reduce the price of prescription drugs. In many other countries, these drugs cost far less than what we pay in the United States. And it's very, very unfair. That is why I have directed my administration to make fixing the injustice of high drug prices one of my top priorities for the year. And prices will come down substantially. Watch.

America has also finally turned the page on decades of unfair trade deals that sacrificed our prosperity and shipped away our companies, our jobs, and our wealth. Our nation has lost its wealth, but we're getting it back so fast. The era of economic surrender is totally over. From now on, we expect trading relationships to be fair and, very importantly, reciprocal.

We will work to fix bad trade deals and negotiate new ones. And they'll be good ones, but they'll be fair. And we will protect American workers and American intellectual property through strong enforcement of our trade rules. As we rebuild our industries, it is also time to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure.

America is a nation of builders. We built the Empire State Building in just one year. Isn't it a disgrace that it can now take 10 years just to get a minor permit approved for the building of a simple road? I am asking both parties to come together to give us safe, fast, reliable, and modern infrastructure that our economy needs and our people deserve.

Tonight I'm calling on Congress to produce a bill that generates at least $1.5 trillion for the new infrastructure investment that our country so desperately needs. Every federal dollar should be leveraged by partnering with state and local governments and, where appropriate, tapping into private sector investment to permanently fix the infrastructure deficit. And we can do it.

Any bill must also streamline the permitting and approval process, getting it down to no more than two years, and perhaps even one.

Together, we can reclaim our great building heritage. We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways all across our land. And we will do it with American heart, American hands, and American grit.

We want every American to know the dignity of a hard day's work. We want every child to be safe in their home at night. And we want every citizen to be proud of this land that we all love so much. We can lift our citizens from welfare to work, from dependence to independence, and from poverty to prosperity. As ... as tax cuts create new jobs, let's invest in workforce development and let's invest in job training, which we need so badly.

Let's open great vocational schools so our future workers can learn a craft and realize their full potential. And let's support working families by supporting paid family leave.

As America regains its strength, opportunity must be extended to all citizens. That is why this year we will embark on reforming our prisons to help former inmates who have served their time get a second chance at life.

Struggling communities, especially immigrant communities, will also be helped by immigration policies that focus on the best interests of American workers and American families.

For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities. They've allowed millions of low-wage workers to compete for jobs and wages against the poorest Americans. Most tragically, they have caused the loss of many innocent lives.

Here tonight are two fathers and two mothers: Evelyn Rodriguez, Freddy Cuevas, Elizabeth Alvarado, and Robert Mickens. Their two teenage daughters  Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens  were close friends on Long Island.

But in September 2016, on the eve of Nisa's 16th birthday, such a happy time it should have been, neither of them came home. These two precious girls were brutally murdered while walking together in their hometown. Six members of the savage MS-13 gang have been charged with Kayla and Nisa's murders. Many of these gang members took advantage of glaring loopholes in our laws to enter the country as illegal unaccompanied alien minors and wound up in Kayla and Nisa's high school.

Evelyn, Elizabeth, Freddy, and Robert, tonight, everyone in this chamber is praying for you. Everyone in America is grieving for you. Please stand. Thank you very much.

I want you to know that 320 million hearts are right now breaking for you. We love you. Thank you. While we cannot imagine the depths of that kind of sorrow, we can make sure that other families never have to endure this kind of pain.

Tonight, I am calling on Congress to finally close the deadly loopholes that have allowed MS-13, and other criminal gangs, to break into our country. We have proposed new legislation that will fix our immigration laws, and support our ICE and Border Patrol agents  these are great people, these are great, great people that work so hard in the midst of such danger  so that this can never happen again.

The United States is a compassionate nation. We are proud that we do more than any other country anywhere in the world to help the needy, the struggling, and the underprivileged all over the world. But as president of the United States, my highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, my constant concern is for America's children, America's struggling workers, and America's forgotten communities. I want our youth to grow up to achieve great things. I want our poor to have their chance to rise.

So tonight, I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties  Democrats and Republicans  to protect our citizens of every background, color, religion, and creed.

My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans, to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American dream. Because Americans are dreamers, too.

Here tonight is one leader in the effort to defend our country, Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Celestino Martinez. He goes by DJ. And CJ. He said call me either one. So we'll call you CJ.

Served 15 years in the Air Force before becoming an ICE agent and spending the last 15 years fighting gang violence and getting dangerous criminals off of our streets. Tough job. At one point, MS-13 leaders ordered CJ's murder, and they wanted it to happen quickly. But he did not cave to threats or to fear. Last May, he commanded an operation to track down gang members on Long Island. His team has arrested nearly 400, including more than 220 MS-13 gang members.

And I have to tell you what the Border Patrol and ICE have done. We have sent thousands and thousands and thousands of MS-13 horrible people out of this country or into our prisons. So I just want to congratulate you, CJ. You're a brave guy. Thank you very much.

And I asked CJ, what's the secret? He said, We're just tougher than they are. And I like that answer.

Now let's get Congress to send you  and all of the people in this great chamber have to do it, we have no choice  CJ, we're going to send you reinforcements and we're going to send them to you quickly. It's what you need.

Over the next few weeks, the House and Senate will be voting on an immigration reform package. In recent months, my administration has met extensively with both Democrats and Republicans to craft a bipartisan approach to immigration reform. Based on these discussions, we presented Congress with a detailed proposal that should be supported by both parties as a fair compromise, one where nobody gets everything they want, but where our country gets the critical reforms it needs and must have.

Here are the four pillars of our plan. The first pillar of our framework generously offers a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants who were brought here by their parents at a young age. That covers almost three times more people than the previous administration covered. Under our plan, those who meet education and work requirements, and show good moral character, will be able to become full citizens of the United States over a 12-year period.

The second pillar fully secures the border. That means building a great wall on the southern border, and it means hiring more heroes like CJ to keep our communities safe. Crucially, our plan closes the terrible loopholes exploited by criminals and terrorists to enter our country, and it finally ends the horrible and dangerous practice of catch and release.

The third pillar ends the visa lottery, a program that randomly hands out green cards without any regard for skill, merit, or the safety of American people. It's time to begin moving toward a merit-based immigration system, one that admits people who are skilled, who want to work, who will contribute to our society, and who will love and respect our country.

The fourth and final pillar protects the nuclear family by ending chain migration. Under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives. Under our plan, we focus on the immediate family by limiting sponsorships to spouses and minor children.

This vital reform is necessary, not just for our economy, but for our security and for the future of America. In recent weeks, two terrorist attacks in New York were made possible by the visa lottery and chain migration. In the age of terrorism, these programs present risks we can just no longer afford. It's time to reform ... these outdated immigration rules and finally bring our immigration system into the 21st century.

These four pillars represent a down-the-middle compromise and one that will create a safe, modern, and lawful immigration system. For over 30 years, Washington has tried and failed to solve this problem. This Congress can be the one that finally makes it happen.

Most importantly, these four pillars will produce legislation that fulfills my ironclad pledge to sign a bill that puts America first. So let's come together, set politics aside, and finally get the job done.

These reforms will also support our response to the terrible crisis of opioid and drug addiction. Never before has it been like it is now. It is terrible. We have to do something about it.

In 2016, we lost 64,000 Americans to drug overdoses, 174 deaths per day, seven per hour. We must get much tougher on drug dealers and pushers if we are going to succeed in stopping this scourge.

My administration is committed to fighting the drug epidemic and helping get treatment for those in need, for those who have been so terribly hurt. The struggle will be long and it will be difficult, but as Americans always do, in the end, we will succeed, we will prevail.

As we have seen tonight, the most difficult challenges bring out the best in America. We see a vivid expression of this truth in the story of the Holets family of New Mexico. Ryan Holets is 27 years old, an officer with the Albuquerque Police Department. He's here tonight with his wife, Rebecca. Thank you, Ryan.

Last year, Ryan was on duty when he saw a pregnant, homeless woman preparing to inject heroin. When Ryan told her she was going to harm her unborn child, she began to weep. She told him she didn't know where to turn, but badly wanted a safe home for her baby.

In that moment, Ryan said he felt God speak to him: You will do it because you can. He heard those words. He took out a picture of his wife and their four kids. Then he went home to tell his wife, Rebecca. In an instant, she agreed to adopt. The Holets named their new daughter Hope.

Ryan and Rebecca, you embody the goodness of our nation. Thank you. Thank you, Ryan and Rebecca.

As we rebuild America's strength and confidence at home, we are also restoring our strength and standing abroad. Around the world, we face rogue regimes, terrorist groups, and rivals like China and Russia that challenge our interests, our economy, and our values. In confronting these horrible dangers, we know that weakness is the surest path to conflict, and unmatched power is the surest means to our true and great defense.

For this reason, I am asking Congress to end the dangerous defense sequester and fully fund our great military.

As part of our defense, we must modernize and rebuild our nuclear arsenal, hopefully never having to use it, but making it so strong and so powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression by any other nation or anyone else.

Perhaps some day in the future there will be a magical moment when the countries of the world will get together to eliminate their nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, we are not there yet, sadly.

Last year, I also pledged that we would work with our allies to extinguish ISIS from the face of the Earth. One year later, I am proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated very close to 100 percent of the territory just recently held by these killers in Iraq and in Syria and in other locations, as well. But there is much more work to be done. We will continue our fight until ISIS is defeated.

Army Staff Sergeant Justin Peck is here tonight. Near Raqqa last November, Justin and his comrade, Chief Petty Officer Kenton Stacy, were on a mission to clear buildings that ISIS had rigged with explosive so that civilians could return to that city, hopefully soon and hopefully safely.

Clearing the second floor of a vital hospital, Kenton Stacy was severely wounded by an explosion. Immediately, Justin bounded into the booby-trapped and unbelievably dangerous and unsafe building and found Kenton, but in very, very bad shape. He applied pressure to the wound and inserted a tube to reopen an airway. He then performed CPR for 20 straight minutes during the ground transport and maintained artificial respiration through two-and-a-half hours and through emergency surgery.

Kenton Stacy would have died if it were not for Justin's selfless love for his fellow warrior. Tonight, Kenton is recovering in Texas. Raqqa is liberated. And Justin is wearing his new Bronze Star, with a V for Valor. Staff Sergeant Peck: All of America salutes you.

Terrorists who do things like place bombs in civilian hospitals are evil. When possible, we have no choice but to annihilate them. When necessary, we must be able to detain and question them. But we must be clear: Terrorists are not merely criminals. They are unlawful enemy combatants.

And when captured overseas, they should be treated like the terrorists they are. In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds of dangerous terrorists, only to meet them again on the battlefield, including the ISIS leader, al-Baghdadi, who we captured, who we had, who we released.

So today, I am keeping another promise. I just signed prior to waling in an order directing Secretary Mattis  who is doing a great job, thank you ... to re-examine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay.

I am asking Congress to ensure that in the fight against ISIS and Al Qaida we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists, wherever we chase them down, wherever we find them. And in many cases, for them it will now be Guantanamo Bay.

At the same time, as of a few months ago, our warriors in Afghanistan have new rules of engagement. Along with their heroic Afghan partners, our military is no longer undermined by artificial timelines, and we no longer tell our enemies our plans.

Last month, I also took an action endorsed unanimously by the U.S. Senate just months before. I recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Shortly afterwards, dozens of countries voted in the United Nations General Assembly against America's sovereign right to make this decision. In 2016, American taxpayers generously sent those same countries more than $20 billion in aid. That is why tonight I am asking Congress to pass legislation to help ensure American foreign assistance dollars always serve American interests and only go to friends of America, not enemies of America.

As we strengthen friendships all around the world, we are also restoring clarity about our adversaries. When the people of Iran rose up against the crimes of their corrupt dictatorship, I did not stay silent. America stands with the people of Iran in their courageous struggle for freedom.

I am asking Congress to address the fundamental flaws in the terrible Iran nuclear deal. My administration has also imposed tough sanctions on the communist and socialist dictatorships in Cuba and Venezuela.

But no regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally or brutally than the cruel dictatorship in North Korea. North Korea's reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland. We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from ever happening.

Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation. I will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got us into this very dangerous position.

We need only look at the depraved character of the North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose to America and to our allies.

Otto Warmbier was a hardworking student at the University of Virginia. And a great student, he was. On his way to study abroad in Asia, Otto joined a tour to North Korea. At its conclusion, this wonderful young man was arrested and charged with crimes against the state.

After a shameful trial, the dictatorship sentenced Otto to 15 years of hard labor, before returning him to America last June, horribly injured and on the verge of death. He passed away just days after his return.

Otto's wonderful parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, are here with us tonight, along with Otto's brother and sister, Austin and Greta. Please. Incredible people. You are powerful witnesses to a menace that threatens our world, and your strength truly inspires us all. Thank you very much. Thank you. Tonight we pledge to honor Otto's memory with total American resolve. Thank you.

Finally ... we are joined by one more witness to the ominous nature of this regime. His name is Mr. Ji Seong-ho.

In 1996, Seong-ho was a starving boy in North Korea. One day, he tried to steal coal from a railroad car to barter for a few scraps of food, which were very hard to get. In the process, he passed out on the train tracks, exhausted from hunger. He woke up as a train ran over his limbs. He then endured multiple amputations without anything to dull the pain or the hurt.

His brother and sister gave what little food they had to help him recover and ate dirt themselves, permanently stunting their own growth. Later, he was tortured by North Korean authorities after returning from a brief visit to China. His tormentors wanted to know if he'd met any Christians. He had, and he resolved after that to be free.

Seong-ho traveled thousands of miles on crutches all across China and Southeast Asia to freedom. Most of his family followed. His father was caught trying to escape and was tortured to death. Today he lives in Seoul, where he rescues other defectors, and broadcasts into North Korea what the regime fears most: the truth.

Today he has a new leg, but Seong-ho, I understand you still keep those old crutches as a reminder of how far you've come. Your great sacrifice is an inspiration to us all. Please. Thank you.

Seong-ho's story is a testament to the yearning of every human soul to live in freedom. It was that same yearning for freedom that nearly 250 years ago gave birth to a special place called America. It was a small cluster of colonies caught between a great ocean and a vast wilderness. It was home to an incredible people with a revolutionary idea, that they could rule themselves, that they could chart their own destiny, and that, together, they could light up the entire world.

That is what our country has always been about. That is what Americans have always stood for, always strived for, and always done.

Atop the dome of this Capitol stands the Statue of Freedom. She stands tall and dignified among the monuments to our ancestors who fought and lived and died to protect her. Monuments to Washington and Jefferson, and Lincoln and King. Memorials to the heroes of Yorktown and Saratoga, to young Americans who shed their blood on the shores of Normandy and the fields beyond. And others who went down in the waters of the Pacific and the skies all over Asia.

And freedom stands tall over one more monument: this one. This Capitol. This living monument. This is the monument to the American people.

We're a people whose heroes live not only in the past, but all around us, defending hope, pride, and defending the American way. They work in every trade. They sacrifice to raise a family. They care for our children at home. They defend our flag abroad. And they are strong moms and brave kids. They are firefighters and police officers and border agents, medics and Marines. But above all else, they are Americans. And this Capitol, this city, this Nation belongs entirely to them.

Our task is to respect them, to listen to them, to serve them, to protect them, and to always be worthy of them. Americans fill the world with art and music. They push the bounds of science and discovery. And they forever remind us of what we should never, ever forget: The people dreamed this country. The people built this country. And it's the people who are making America great again.

As long as we are proud of who we are and what we are fighting for, there is nothing we cannot achieve. As long as we have confidence in our values, faith in our citizens, and trust in our God, we will never fail.

Our families will thrive. Our people will prosper. And our nation will forever be safe and strong and proud and mighty and free. Thank you, and God bless America. Good night."

Associated PressJoe Kennedy III, the Democrat selected to respond to Donald Trump's State of the Union address, broke into Spanish during his emotional speech, telling childhood immigrants to the US that their country would not walk away from them.

"To all the Dreamers watching tonight, let me be clear: Ustedes son parte de nuestra historia. Vamos a luchar por ustedes y no nos vamos alejar," the Representative from Massachusetts said.

In English, he added: "You are a part of our story. We will fight for you. We will not walk away."

Recommended Democrats choose Joseph Kennedy III to respond to State of the Union

Mr Kennedy was speaking specifically to the millions of immigrants who were brought to the US illegally as children  also known as Dreamers. Mr Trump announced he would wind down protections for these immigrants late last year, opening them up to the threat of deportation.

More recently, the President has used these protections as a bargaining chip with Democrats, saying he would allow some 1.8m childhood immigrants a path to citizenship in exchange for $25b for his proposed border wall with Mexico and other security measures.

Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Show all 29 1 /29 Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inauguration - 20 January 2017 US President Donald Trump acknowledges the audience after taking the oath of office as his wife Melania (L) and daughter Tiffany watch during inauguration ceremonies swearing in Trump as the 45th president of the United States on the West Front of the US capital in Washington on 20 January, 2017. Photographer Jim Bourg: "This photo was shot with one of two remote cameras. The cameras were monitored and triggered remotely and the pictures were transmitted to clients worldwide within minutes of being taken." Reuters/Jim Bourg Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Obama farewell address - 10 January 2017 US President Barack Obama wipes away tears as he delivers his farewell address in Chicago on 10 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "In his final days in office, Obama made a visit home to Chicago. As he spoke from the stage to his wife and daughter in the audience, he became emotional when he talked about what they had sacrificed during his time in office. I turned from photographing the Obama women embracing to find him onstage wiping away tears." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inauguration - 20 January 2017 A combination of photos shows the crowds attending the inauguration ceremonies to swear in U.S. President Donald Trump at 12:01pm (left) on January 20, 2017 and President Barack Obama sometime between 12:07pm and 12:26pm on January 20, 2009. Reuters/ Lucas Jackson/Stelios Varias Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Liberty Ball - 20 January 2017 US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump attend the Liberty Ball in honour of his inauguration in Washington on 20 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "What I see when I look at this picture is the end of a very long day, not to mention weeks and months of preparation by many photographers, editors and network experts and the beginning of everything since." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inaugural Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders Reception - 22 January 2017 US President Donald Trump greets Director of the FBI James Comey as Director of the Secret Service Joseph Clancy (L), watches during the Inaugural Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders Reception in the Blue Room of the White House on 22 January, 2017. Photographer Joshua Roberts: "I have covered the White House for 16 years and normally either the President or the pool is in position when an event starts. In this case the President was not where anyone expected him to be. In fact, he was almost blocking the door when the pool came in. We had to scramble to find a position without bumping him or the furniture as he greeted and thanked members of law enforcement for their security efforts during the inauguration. Luckily, he greeted FBI Director James Comey a few seconds after the pool had made its way into the room." Reuters/Joshua Roberts Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Private phone calls to world leaders - 28 January 2017 US President Donald Trump, is joined by his staff, as he speaks by phone with Russia's President Vladimir Putin in the Oval Office on 28 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Very early in the Trump administration, weekends were as busy as weekdays. On Trump's second Saturday the official schedule said he would be making private phone calls to a number of world leaders including Russia's Vladimir Putin. I arrived early and, before sitting down at my desk walked up to Press Secretary Sean Spicer's office. He, too, was just taking his coat off. I gingerly made the suggestion that previous administrations had sometimes allowed photos of such phone calls through the Oval Office windows on the colonnade. To my mild shock, he didn't even think about it twice. "We'll do it!" he said. In truth, I really only expected the Putin call, but we were outside the windows multiple times throughout the day as the calls went on." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Senior advisor Kellyanne Conway - 27 February 2017 Senior advisor Kellyanne Conway (L) attends as US President Donald Trump welcomes the leaders of dozens of historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) in the Oval Office on 27 February, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "We're often asked how much access we have to the Trump administration, and the answer is we have an awful lot. President Trump himself is very comfortable in the spotlight, and his aides are similarly unfazed by cameras. In this instance, senior advisor Kellyanne Conway was so comfortable in our presence she seemed not to consider the optics of kneeling on a Oval Office sofa to take pictures with her phone." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Angela Merkel heads to Washington - 17 March 2017 Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Donald Trump hold a joint news conference in the East Room of the White House on 17 March, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Chancellor Merkel made one of the earliest important visits of any US allies to meet Trump in his first months in office. When world leaders give joint news conferences they don't always tend to give each other their full attention - but Merkel watched Trump intently at several key moments, and here seemed particularly rapt." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump welcomes truckers to the White House - 23 March 2017 President Trump reacts as he sits on a truck while he welcomes truckers and CEOs to attend a meeting regarding healthcare at the White House on 23 March, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "The White House organised a listening session with truckers and CEO's of major American companies, regarding healthcare reform. An 18-wheeler tow truck was parked on the South Lawn of the White House and as Trump welcomed the truckers someone invited the him to come and sit in the driver's seat. Trump jumped into the cab and started yelling and pretending to drive - creating one of the most memorable pictures of the year. A lesson learned, always be prepared for the unexpected." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Air Force One - 6 April 2017 US President Donald Trump talks to journalists members of the travel pool on board the Air Force One during his trip to Palm Beach, Florida on 6 April, 2017. Carlos Barria: "During the many trips to President Trump's residence in Florida it is usual to see the president coming to the back of the plane to chat with journalists. During one of the trips to the so called 'Winter White House', Trump had a long talk with reporters while the Air Force One entertainment system was playing one of the latest Star Wars movies. As I was listening to Trump talk I was also looking at the movie waiting for a part of the movie to frame the mood of the day. Of the many scenes, I choose the one with Darth Vader." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures 100 Days - 27 April 2017 US President Donald Trump speaks during an interview with Reuters in the Oval Office of the White House on 27 April, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "A day before President Trump's hundred days in office I was part of the team that interviewed the commander-in-chief in the Oval Office. I was only allowed to photograph Trump during the last five minutes of the interview. The time was very tight so I had to move fast as I had pictures in mind that I wanted to shoot. I walked into the Oval Office and saw that the President had printed maps of the country showing areas in red where he won. I raised my hands holding my camera as high as possible to get the best view of the scene using a 16mm wide angle lens." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures 100 Days - 27 April 2017 US President Donald Trump reacts as he arrives at Harrisburg international airport, before attending a rally marking his first 100 days in office in Pennsylvania on 29 April, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "President Trump travelled to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to celebrate his hundred days in office with a victory rally. He was in friendly territory as he won with a big difference over his opponent Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, during the November elections. As usual when the commander-in-chief arrives local residents gather to greet him. This time a small group of military personnel attended the arrival. Surrounded by secret service agents Trump walked from the Air Force One and raised his hand in a sign of victory as the crowd cheered him on." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House staffers - 2 May 2017 White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer (L) and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus watch as US President Donald Trump presents the U.S. Air Force Academy football team with the Commander-in-Chief trophy in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on 2 May, 2017. Photographer Joshua Roberts: "Covering the White House does not just mean covering the President. White House staffers are an important part of the story and their relationship with the President and each other is an indicator of how things are going in the West Wing. The tendency is to focus exclusively on the President once an event starts but I always try to look around to see how people are reacting as things unfold." Reuters/Joshua Roberts Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Secret Service - 4 May 2017 Secret Service agents use a presidential limousine as cover from spraying water as US President Donald Trump lands via Marine One helicopter in New York on 4 May, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "The best part of any trip to New York City with the sitting US President is the helicopter ride into Manhattan. The ride out at night can be stunning. Here, Secret Service agents protect themselves from the spray from the East River as Trump lands on the helipad." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures NATO Summit - 25 May 2017 US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump wait the arrival of French President Emmanuel Macron (unseen) before a lunch ahead of a NATO Summit in Brussels on 25 May, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "One of the best parts of travelling overseas for White House coverage is the chance to see the U.S. president in different environments and (literally) a different light. Here, Trump and his wife came out of the shadows to greet France's President Macron." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump meets Putin at G20 summit - 7 July 2017 US President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany on 7 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "On July 7, I witnessed one of the most important meetings of President Trump's first year in office. Trump met Russian President Vladimir Putin during a bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Germany. The world's eyes were on these two leaders after speculation about Russian interference during the 2016 US elections. We entered the room for less than two minutes, where I took dozens of pictures. But there was this very interesting moment when Trump extended his hand to Putin for a handshake. Putin paused for a second and looked at Trump's hand. That was the picture that I was looking for, a little moment that seemed to say a lot." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures First lady - 8 July 2017 First lady Melania Trump chats with US President Donald Trump during their return from Germany at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on 8 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "After President Trump's trip to Germany he arrived back at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. First Lady Melania Trump said goodbye to Trump as she was heading off in a different direction that day. While chatting a breeze blew Melania's hair up in the air." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Made in America product showcase - 17 July 2017 Vice President Mike Pence laughs as President Donald Trump holds a baseball bat as they attend a Made in America product showcase event at the White House on 17 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "This summer the White House organized an event to showcase 'Made in America' products. All kinds of exhibitors brought their products as the President and Vice President toured the event. One of the companies was Marucci Sport, a manufacturer of baseball bats based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. As Trump approached a table full of baseball bats, photographers at the event, including me, rushed to get a good angle hoping that he would pick up a bat. As we predicted, he did. He took one and joked around as though he was hitting something hard. The only thing closer to him right there, was the media." Reuters Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House staffers - 25 July 2017 Former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski says hello to reporters as he and White House advisors including Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci accompany President Trump for an event celebrating veterans at AMVETS Post 44 in Ohio, July 25, 2017. Jonathan Ernst: "The most visible person in any White House is naturally the President, followed by the press secretary. But there are also the staff who support them. For those of us covering the Trump administration, there seem to be more compelling figures in the West Wing than ever before. It's crucial to know who's who and why they're important. When I raised my camera and back-pedalled ahead of the group to take this image Lewandowski gave me a hello. I liked the photo, but had no idea it would go a little bit viral, especially since Scaramucci, who was the biggest mover and shaker that week, was hidden back in the pack. But I guess the image catches a glimpse of what it's like to be a West Wing staffer on the road." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Campaign rally - 3 August 2017 US President Donald Trump arrives at a rally in West Virginia on 3 August, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "President Trump travelled to Huntington for one of his usual campaign rallies. While members of his family spoke to the crowd he was waiting under a black curtain to be introduced. Suddenly he walked onto the stage, one of the first frames that I took was of his hand. I set my exposure for the light on the stage hoping to create this dark background and it worked." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Staring into the solar eclipse - 21 August 2017 Without his protective glasses on, US President Donald Trump looks up towards the solar eclipse while viewing with his wife Melania and son Barron at the White House on 21 August, 2017. Photographer Kevin Lamarque: "On a day when everyone, and I mean everyone, was told not to look at the eclipse without protective glasses, Trump, President of the United States, couldn't help himself." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Hurricane Harvey - 2 September 2017 US President Donald Trump poses for a photo as he and first lady Melania Trump help volunteers hand out meals during a visit with flood survivors of Hurricane Harvey at a relief centre in Houston, Texas on 2 September, 2017. Photohrapher Kevin Lamarque: "Trump, eager to deliver the image of a hands-on response to Hurricane Harvey, made this visit to a relief centre and obliged this woman with a selfie as Melania continued to work." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House - 15 September 2017 Donald Trump welcomes 11-year-old Frank Giaccio as he cuts the Rose Garden grass at the White House on 15 September. Frank, who wrote a letter to Trump offering to mow the lawn, was invited to work for a day at the White House along the National Park Service staff. Frank was so focused on his task that he did not notice the President arrive to surprise him. He took his father jumping in to grab his attention and point Trump out. Photographer Carlos Barria said: The image of Trump shouting at a kid who is mowing his lawn might have many interpretations in today's politically polarized United States. But for me it was just a kid who loved what he was doing, to the point he almost appeared to ignore the President." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Take a knee - 27 September 2017 A man kneels with a folded U.S. flag as the motorcade of U.S. President Donald Trump passes him after an event at the state fairgrounds in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S., September 27, 2017. In September, soon after Trump had made comments condemning NFL players who kneel during the national anthem, he made a day trip to a rally in Indianapolis. Jonathan Ernst managed to capture a man on one knee with a tri-folded flag and was able to use a portion of the sign on the building he was kneeling in front of to track the man down and tell his story in full. US Army veteran Marvin Boatright wanted to send a message against social injustice. Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Hurricane Maria - 3 October 2017 President Donald Trump throws rolls of paper towels into a crowd of local residents affected by Hurricane Maria as he visits Calgary Chapel in San Juan, Puerto Rico on 3 October, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "During an afternoon visit to Puerto Rico for President Trump to survey damage from Hurricane Maria and greet some of its victims, Trump made a stop at a church where food and supplies were being distributed. Among the items were paper towels and Trump, apparently caught up in the moment, decided to distribute some of the rolls." Reuters Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Jared Kushner - 1 November 2017 White House Senior adviser Jared Kushner sits behind President Trump during a cabinet meeting in Washington on 1 November, 2017. Photographer Kevin Lamarque: "The role of Jared Kushner has gone through a series of changes. He began front and centre as a high profile adviser, but as time has passed and issues surrounding him have surfaced, he has become more of a background figure." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump in China - 9 November 2017 Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping shake hands after making joint statements at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on 9 November, 2017. Photographer Damir Sagolj: "It's one of those "how to make a better or at least different shot when two presidents shake hands several times a day, several days in row". If I'm not mistaken in calculation, presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump shook their hands at least six times in events I covered during Trump's recent visit to China. I would imagine there were some more handshakes I haven't seen but other photographers did. And they all look similar - two big men, smiling and heartily greeting each other until everyone gets their shot. But then there is always something that can make it special - in this case the background made of US and Chinese flags. The first time it didn't work for me. The second time I positioned myself lower and centrally, and used the longest lens I have to capture only hands reaching for a handshake." Reuters/Damir Sagolj Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Air Force One - 10 November 2017 US President Donald Trump boards Air Force One to depart for Vietnam from Beijing Airport in Beijing, China, November 10, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "There is a Reuters photographer in the tight pool covering the US president for every appearance he makes 365 days a year. This was just one of 32 images of mine that were transmitted on the Reuters wire of President Trump visiting China and Vietnam that day. You never know when a sudden interaction, a gust of wind or a unique facial expression will lead to a striking image that grabs peoples' attention." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures ASEAN handshake - 13 November 2017 Donald Trump registers his surprise as he realises other leaders, including Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte and Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, are crossing their arms for the traditional "ASEAN handshake" as he participates in the opening ceremony of the summit in Manila on 13 November, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Having covered a few ASEAN summits, I knew to expect the ASEAN handshake. Not everyone in the room knew to expect the ASEAN handshake. A lot was written about this unscripted moment, and what deeper meaning it might have. The simple truth is that sometimes in life there are unscripted moments." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

In his State of the Union address, Mr Trump emphasised the need for increased border security, and even suggested ending a legal immigration programme sometimes called "chain migration". Democrats booed the President when he described chain migration  the practice in which immigrants' family members also come to the US  as allowing "virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives" into the country.

In his rebuttal, Mr Kennedy assailed many of the President's other policies, from his attempts to repeal and replace Obamacare to his administration's rollback of protections for transgender students. He touched briefly on the issue of Russian meddling in the 2016 election  a sore spot for Mr Trump  and on the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

 Boos from the House of Representatives as Donald Trump rails against chain migration at the State of the Union

Mr Kennedy even managed to work in his party's 2018 tagline, telling his audience that Democrats would choose a "better deal" for everyone who calls America home.

He closed by paying lip service to activist movements like "Me too," which sparked a national conversation about sexual harassment, and Black Lives Matter, which works to combat police brutality against black people.

"You bravely say, 'Me too'." You steadfastly say, 'Black lives matter'," the 37-year-old told his audience. "You wade through floodwaters, battle hurricanes, brave wildfires and mudslides to save a stranger."

He added: "You serve, you rescue, you help, you heal. That  more than any law or leader, debate work disagreement  that is what drives us towards progress."Four months after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is shutting down its operations on the island. And the mayor of San Juan says that it is a premature decision.

While Im standing here with you, there are children without food in Puerto Rico, Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz told NBC on Tuesday while visiting Washington for President Donald Trumps first State of the Union.

During all the humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico, theres been a feature of the Trump administration, and that is that they take away the aid before its done, she continued.

Recommended Video shows Puerto Rico school go wild as lights finally come back on

The agency has said that it believes the immediate humanitarian emergency has subsided after they provided more than 30 million gallons of water, and nearly 60 million meals across the island.

All of FEMAs remaining supplies will be handed over to Puerto Rican government sources, who will continue to distribute that aide.

But, as FEMA retreats from its crisis response operations, nearly half a million people remain without power, some still do not have running water. The agency has said that its internal analytics suggest just 1 per cent of the island is still in need of emergency food and water.

Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Show all 20 1 /20 Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Crew chief Kenney shelters under the blade of an HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit preparing to take off during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Isla Grande, Puerto Rico, October 6, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico An HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit takes off behind Crew Chief Alexander Blake and his fellow soldiers during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Morovis, October 5, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Crew member Bynum stands in tropical rain as a HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit prepares to take off during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Isla Grande, October 6, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter pilot Chris Greenway receives a hug from a woman thanking him for water as he works with the First Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Verde de Comerio, October 7, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico A man carries a case of water away from an HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter after soldiers working with 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit dropped off relief supplies during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Jayuya, October 5, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Crew chief Alexander Blake from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit loads water into a helicopter during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Isla Grande, October 5, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Residents wait for soldiers in UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters from the First Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade to deliver food and water during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in San Lorenzo Reuters Bringing aid to Puerto Rico An HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit lands in a field to avoid lightning during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Manati, October 5, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Residents hold their hands aloft to signal that they need water as UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters from the First Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade fly past during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, near Ciales, October 7, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Tropical rain splashes on a runway as HH-60 Blackhawk helicopters from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit wait for weather to clear during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Isla Grande, October 6, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Pilot Eldwin Bocanegra Torres speaks with residents isolated by landslides in the mountains after unloading water and food from a helicopter during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, near Utuado, October 10, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Residents stand in front of wind-damaged trees as they wait for soldiers in UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters from the First Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade to deliver food and water during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in San Lorenzo, October 7, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico The contents of a home are seen from the air during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria near Utuado, October 10, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Thomas looks out of the window of an HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit, loaded with relief supplies, during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria in Isla Grande, October 6, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico A message written on the rooftop is seen from the air during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria near Humacao, October 10, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico A HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit lands in a field during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria in San Sebastian, October 6, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Sergeant First Class Eladio Tirado, who is from Puerto Rico, looks for a landing spot for a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from the First Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade, during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria near Ciales, October 7, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Boys carry water away from an HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter after soldiers working with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit dropped off relief supplies during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Jayuya, October 5, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Sergeant First Class Eladio Tirado from the First Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade, who is from Puerto Rico, speaks with residents as he helps during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in San Lorenzo, October 7, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Residents peek through a fence at helicopters from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit that had parked in a locked field during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Lares, October 6, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson

The reality is that we just need to look around. Supermarkets are open, and things are going back to normal, Alejandro De La Campa, FEMAs director for Puerto Rico, said of his agencys decision to end operations.

FEMA has provided more than $500 million worth of Maria-related assistance in Puerto Rico since the hurricane battered the island and destroyed infrastructure. That has allowed emergency responders to make headway in their attempts to rebuild downed power lines, crumbled bridges and roads, and other necessary features of life on the island.

There has also been an additional $3.2 million worth of unemployment assistance that has been given to residents of the island whose jobs were impacted by the storm.At least one person has died after a train carrying Republican members of the US Congress crashed into a bin lorry at a railroad crossing in rural Virginia.

No members of Congress or their staff were seriously injured in the collision, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, but one person travelling in the truck was killed and another seriously injured. Investigations are underway into the cause of the accident.

Amtrak said two crew members and three train passengers were taken to hospital with minor injuries after the crash in Crozet, Virginia. Senator Bill Cassidy, a doctor, said he and others who are doctors tended to the injured until emergency personnel arrived.

Recommended Amtrak train derails in Washington and falls onto busy motorway

The legislators were en route to a three-day conference in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia, to discuss politics and policies for the upcoming year before the crash occurred at 11.20 local time [16:20 GMT]. Both President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were expected to make an appearance.

We were going along the Virginia countryside at pretty good speed, Senator Jeff Flake said in comments released by his office. All of a sudden, we felt an impact and obviously heard a pretty loud noise. Most of us were thrown a bit in our seats and those of us who were standing were really thrown.

The legislators chartered buses to bring them the remainder of the distance to their destination. Mr Pence tweeted that he would be heading to West Virginia later on Wednesday, as previously planned.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan was onboard the train but not injured. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was not onboard.

Mr Trump was in a national security meeting at the time of the crash, Ms Sanders said. The President later told reporters that he had spoken with Mr Ryan about the incident and that his thoughts were with those affected.

It was a pretty rough hit, Mr Trump said of the crash.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Pictures from the scene showed the truck knocked on its side, rubbish spilling out on the ground around it. The front of the Amtrak train also appeared dented and scratched.

Some legislators on the train reported injuries such as whiplash and possible mild concussion.

There was a feeling of an impact and you could feel we had hit something, Senator Mike Lee told the Washington Post of the crash. It took us maybe a quarter mile to stop.

He added: We saw debris go by the left side of the train. The part of the truck we can see was decimated. Very relieved when the train came to a stop and still on the tracks.

Among those lending a hand to emergency responders was Representative Brad Wenstrup, who treated some of the victims at a GOP baseball practice last June where several people were shot, including Representative Steve Scalise.

We jumped off the train and went to work, Representative Neal Dunn told ABC News. Every member of the Doc Caucus got out of the train and helped the guys whod been injured.

The Virginia Department of Transportation said there were flashing signals and gates on the intersection where the crash occurred, to stop drivers from entering the tracks when a train was approaching. There have been three reported crashes near the intersection since 2007, but none involving a train.

Local law enforcement was investigating the incident and crews were inspecting the trains equipment for damage, Amtrak said in a statement. The United States Capitol Police were also on the scene, and the National Transportation Safety Board said it was sending a team to investigate .President Donald Trump has branded North Korea's leadership "depraved" as he told Americans during his first State of the Union address that Pyongyang's pursuit of nuclear missiles could "very soon threaten our homeland"

Vowing a continued campaign of maximum pressure to keep such a threat from becoming reality, Mr Trump's tough rhetoric underscored persistent tensions despite recent talks between North and South Korea that led to Pyongyang's agreement to participate in next month's Winter Olympic games hosted by Seoul.

"We need only look at the depraved character of the North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose to America and to our allies," he said.

North-South negotiations earlier this month have eased fears of war on the Korean peninsula that were in part stoked by an exchange of insults and threats between Mr Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Mr Trump and top advisers have publicly welcomed the talks but US officials have said privately that Pyongyang might be trying to drive a wedge between allies Washington and Seoul.

Attending the State of the Union address as Trump's guests were the parents of Otto Warmbier, the American college student who died in June shortly after he was released by North Korea in a coma.

North Korea  South Korea relations: in pictures Show all 21 1 /21 North Korea  South Korea relations: in pictures North Korea  South Korea relations: in pictures Pukguksong-2 missile - 2 May 2017 A solid-fuel "Pukguksong-2" missile lifts off during its launch test in North Korea on May 22, 2017. They said that it was examining operational plans for attacking Guam, an angry reaction to UN punishment for previous North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile tests and a US suggestion about preparations for possible preventive attacks to stop the North's nuclear weapons program. Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP North Korea  South Korea relations: in pictures Hwasong-12 -16 September 2017 North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un inspecting a launching drill of the medium-and-long range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12 at an undisclosed location. Kim vowed to complete North Korea's nuclear force despite sanctions, saying the final goal of his country's weapons development is "equilibrium of real force" with the United States, state media reported on September 16, 2017. AFP/Getty Images North Korea  South Korea relations: in pictures Donald Trump address South Korean assembly - 7 November 2017 President Donald Trump talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-In during their joint press conference at the presidential Blue House on November 7, 2017 in Seoul.Trump was the first US President to address the South Korean National Assembly since President Clinton in 1993. He addressed Kim Jong Un warning him to not underestimate the US and that for talks to materialize then Pyongyang would need to take steps into denuclearization. Getty North Korea  South Korea relations: in pictures Demilitarized Zone Haean-Myeon, is a small military town near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and border between North and South Korea, in Gangwon province. The zone is a strip of land running across the Korean Peninsula and was created after the 'Korean Armistice Agreement'. Any negotiations between the two countries tend to take place in this zone. AFP/Getty Images North Korea  South Korea relations: in pictures Declared state sponsor of terrorism by Trump - 20 November 2017 President Donald Trump speaks to the media during a cabinet meeting at the White House on November 20, 2017, where he officially designated North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism. North Korea had previously been on the list, however was removed in 2008. Getty North Korea  South Korea relations: in pictures Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile - 29 November 2017 The North Korean government launches it's Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile at an undisclosed location in North Korea on November 29, 2017. It is supposedly capable of reaching all parts of the US. Korean Central News Agency via AP North Korea  South Korea relations: in pictures Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile - 29 November 2017 North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un celebrating the launch of the Hwasong-15 missile on November 29, 2017. AFP/Getty North Korea  South Korea relations: in pictures Kim Jong-Un New Year's speech - 1 January 2018 North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un delivering his New Year's speech. He vowed North Korea would mass-produce nuclear warheads and missiles in a defiant New Year message on January 1 suggesting he would continue to accelerate a rogue weapons programme that has stoked international tensions. Korean Central News Agency via AFP/Getty North Korea  South Korea relations: in pictures Intercontinental ballistic missile ice sculpture - 1 January 2018 Fireworks are seen above the Taedong River during New Year celebrations as visitors pose for a photo in front of an ice sculpture of an intercontinental ballistic missile at the Pyongyang Ice Sculpture Festival in Kim Il Sung Square in North Korea on 1 January, 2018. REUTERS North Korea  South Korea relations: in pictures US-South Korean military drills postponed - 4 January 2018 South Korean President Moon Jae-in talks with US President Donald Trump on January 4, 2018 in Seoul. South Korea and US agreed to delay the annual "Foal Eagle" military drills until after the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games in an effort to "de-conflict" the Games and "focus on ensuring the security" of the event. South Korean Presidential Blue House via Getty North Korea  South Korea relations: in pictures North and South Korea have first official talks in over two years - 9 January 2018 Vehicles transporting the South Korean delegation, led by South Korean Unification Ministrer Cho Myoung-Gyon, drive past a checkpoint on the road connecting South and North Korea at the Unification Bridge, near the Demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating them both on January 9, 2018 in Paju. They began their first official face-to-face talks in two years. Getty North Korea  South Korea relations: in pictures North and South Korea have first official talks in over two years - 9 January 2018 Members of the South Korea delegation (R) shake hands with members of the North Korean delegation (L) during their meeting at the border truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing the two Koreas on January 9, 2018. They focused on the forthcoming Winter Olympics after months of tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme. AFP/Getty North Korea  South Korea relations: in pictures Foreign Ministers Meeting on Security and Stability on the Korean Peninsula - 16 January 2018 Foreign Ministers from twenty countries from North and South America, Asia, and Europe pose for a photo at the Vancouver Foreign Ministers Meeting on Security and Stability on the Korean Peninsula, in Vancouver on January 16, 2018. The US urged an escalation in pressure on North Korea over its nuclear missile program, despite a more cautious tone from key US ally South Korea. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, co-hosted the event with Canada's foreign minister Chrystia Freeland, and called for North Korean ships to be intercepted and for new punitive measures to be implemented every time Pyongyang tests new weapons. AFP/Getty North Korea  South Korea relations: in pictures North Korea and South Korea to march together at Winter Olympics - 20 January 2018 PyeongChang 2018 Olympics President Lee Hee-beom, North Korea's Sports Minister and Olympic Committee president Kim Il Guk, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, South Korean Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Do Jong-hwan and South Korea's National Olympic Committee President Lee Kee-heung join their hands as they pose during a signing ceremony at the Olympic Museum on January 20, 2018 in Lausanne. North Korea will send 22 athletes to the Winter Games in the South. The two nations will also march together at the opening ceremony. AFP/Getty North Korea  South Korea relations: in pictures Anti-North Korea activists protest delegation arrival - 22 January 2018 Anti-North Korea activists burn a portrait of leader Kim Jong-Un during a rally Seoul Station as a North Korean delegation arrived to check out performance venues for the Winter Olympics on January 22, 2018. Protesters led by the Korean Patriots Party gathered and complained that the talks to encourage North Korea's participation is stealing the spotlight from their country to the benefit of the regime. Donga Daily via Getty North Korea  South Korea relations: in pictures Panmunjom - 7 February 2018 South Korean soldiers stand guard at the border village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between South and North Korea on February 7, 2018. In a sign of thawing bilateral ties, North Korea today announced that Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, will attend the opening ceremony of the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games. Getty Images North Korea  South Korea relations: in pictures North Korean ferry arrives in South Korea - 6 February 2018 North Korean ferry Mangyongbong-92 carrying a 140-strong orchestra approaches a port in Donghae, South Korea, February 6, 2018. REUTERS North Korea  South Korea relations: in pictures Anti-North Korea protest - 6 February 2018 A member of a conservative civic group tears a portrait of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during an anti-North Korea protest as the North Korean ferry Mangyongbong-92 carrying a 140-strong orchestra approached. REUTERS North Korea  South Korea relations: in pictures North Korea at the athletes village - 8 February 2018 A North Korean flag is seen hanging on a building at the Winter Olympics athletes village in Gangneung, South Korea. REUTERS North Korea  South Korea relations: in pictures Olympic Welcome ceremony - 8 February 2018 Democratic People's Republic of Korea Vice Sports Minister Won Gil-woo receives a gift from mayor of the Olympic Village Kim Ki-hoon during the welcome ceremony ahead of the PyeongChang 2018 Games at the Olympic Village on 8 February, 2018 in South Korea. Getty Images North Korea  South Korea relations: in pictures Mike Pence meets Moon Jae-in - 8 February 2018 US Vice President Mike Pence shakes hands with South Korean President Moon Jae-in before their meeting at the presidential office in Seoul, South Korea on 8 February, 2018. REUTERS

"Tonight, we pledge to honour Otto's memory with total American resolve," Mr Trump said. But he offered no new prescription or specifics on how he intended to rein in North Korea.

Mr Trump said that among the witnesses to the "ominous" nature of the North Korean government was Ji Seong-ho, a defector who escaped from North Korea after being run over by a train while trying to steal coal and suffering torture and starvation.

Joining Mr Trump's guests in the gallery, Mr Ji, who lost a hand and foot, now heads a group that rescues and resettles North Korean refugees.

 North Korea defector Ji Seong-ho honoured at State of the Union

The Trump administration has repeatedly stressed its preference for a diplomatic solution to the Korea tensions while saying all options are on the table.

Earlier on Tuesday, the vice chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea's nuclear program had made strides in recent months but the country has not yet demonstrated all the components of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), including a survivable re-entry vehicle that can deliver a nuclear weapon.

In November, North Korea said it had successfully tested a new type of ICBM that could reach all of the American mainland. US.-based experts said data from the test appeared to support that.

Mr Trump refrained from referring to Mr Kim as "Rocket Man," a disparaging nickname he has used before. But he insisted that "no regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally or brutally than the cruel dictatorship in North Korea."

Mr Trump had recently held back on harsher language after having threatened last year to unleash fire and fury" on North Korea.

Pyongyang, in turn, has threatened to target the US territory of Guam in the Pacific Ocean. Kim has shown no sign of willingness to give in to U.S. demands and negotiate away a weapons program he sees as vital to his survival.

ReutersThis is the emotional moment that disabled North Korea defector Ji Seong-ho is given a standing ovation at the State of the Union address.

President Trump told the story of how Seong-ho was made to suffer in North Korea before escaping.

Today Seong-ho lives in Seoul, South Korea where he rescues other defectors and broadcasts into North Korea.Donald Trump appeared to suggest the UK and more than 100 other countries were enemies of America in his State of the Union address, re-igniting a row over his decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israels capital.

Asserting the US sovereign right to make that decision, he lamented that billions of foreign aid dollars had gone to some of the 128 countries that backed a UN resolution condemning it in December.

The money should only go to friends of America, not enemies of America, Mr Trump said in his address to Congress on Tuesday night.

He said: Last month, I also took an action endorsed unanimously by the Senate just months before  I recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Shortly afterwards, dozens of countries voted in the United Nations General Assembly against Americas sovereign right to make this decision.

In 2016, American taxpayers generously sent those same countries more than $20bn (14.1bn) in aid every year.

That is why, tonight, I am asking the Congress to pass legislation to help ensure American foreign assistance dollars always serve American interests, and only go to friends of America, not enemies of America.

In the next breath, however, he said the US continued to strengthen friendships around the world.

 Boos from the House of Representatives as Donald Trump rails against chain migration at the State of the Union

Mr Trumps decision to officially recognise Jerusalem and announce his intention to move the US embassy there from Tel Aviv led to days of protests by Palestinian activists, which resulted in a number of deaths.

Ahead of the UN vote the US ambassador to the body, Nikki Haley, warned she was taking names of countries that voted to condemn the recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital.

I want you to know the President and the US take this vote personally. The President will be watching this vote carefully and has requested I report back on those who voted against us, she said.

It is not the first time Mr Trump has publicly clashed with the UK.

After Theresa May criticised his decision to retweet Islamophobic posts by the far-right group Britain First, the US President tweeted that she should not focus on him, but on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom. We are doing just fine!

When the pair met at Davos last week, however, Mr Trump claimed they had a great relationship and were on the same the wavelength in I think every respect.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

A visit to Britain by the Republican appears to be back on the cards, after he said he would not open the new US Embassy in Battersea because it cost too much and was in an off location.

Protesters had pledged massive demonstrations when a full state visit was first mooted in 2017.

Ms May was the first foreign leader to visit Mr Trump in Washington after his inauguration. She later said she was optimistic and positive for the future of the special relationship.In his first official State of the Union address, President Donald Trump is expected to herald the start of a new American moment by recounting his past accomplishments and laying out his vision for the future.

Excerpts released ahead of Mr Trumps speech show the President will push the idea that there has never been a better time to start living the American dream.

We want every American to know the dignity of a hard days work; we want every child to be safe in their home at night, and we want every citizen to be proud of this land that we love, one excerpt reads.

As expected, Mr Trump will tout his legislative accomplishments  namely, passing a massive tax overhaul bill  while skipping over failures, such as the GOPs ill-fated attempt to repeal Obamacare.

He is not expected to mention climate change, but will boast that he has ended the war on American energy and war on clean coal, and made America an energy exporter.

Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Show all 29 1 /29 Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inauguration - 20 January 2017 US President Donald Trump acknowledges the audience after taking the oath of office as his wife Melania (L) and daughter Tiffany watch during inauguration ceremonies swearing in Trump as the 45th president of the United States on the West Front of the US capital in Washington on 20 January, 2017. Photographer Jim Bourg: "This photo was shot with one of two remote cameras. The cameras were monitored and triggered remotely and the pictures were transmitted to clients worldwide within minutes of being taken." Reuters/Jim Bourg Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Obama farewell address - 10 January 2017 US President Barack Obama wipes away tears as he delivers his farewell address in Chicago on 10 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "In his final days in office, Obama made a visit home to Chicago. As he spoke from the stage to his wife and daughter in the audience, he became emotional when he talked about what they had sacrificed during his time in office. I turned from photographing the Obama women embracing to find him onstage wiping away tears." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inauguration - 20 January 2017 A combination of photos shows the crowds attending the inauguration ceremonies to swear in U.S. President Donald Trump at 12:01pm (left) on January 20, 2017 and President Barack Obama sometime between 12:07pm and 12:26pm on January 20, 2009. Reuters/ Lucas Jackson/Stelios Varias Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Liberty Ball - 20 January 2017 US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump attend the Liberty Ball in honour of his inauguration in Washington on 20 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "What I see when I look at this picture is the end of a very long day, not to mention weeks and months of preparation by many photographers, editors and network experts and the beginning of everything since." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inaugural Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders Reception - 22 January 2017 US President Donald Trump greets Director of the FBI James Comey as Director of the Secret Service Joseph Clancy (L), watches during the Inaugural Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders Reception in the Blue Room of the White House on 22 January, 2017. Photographer Joshua Roberts: "I have covered the White House for 16 years and normally either the President or the pool is in position when an event starts. In this case the President was not where anyone expected him to be. In fact, he was almost blocking the door when the pool came in. We had to scramble to find a position without bumping him or the furniture as he greeted and thanked members of law enforcement for their security efforts during the inauguration. Luckily, he greeted FBI Director James Comey a few seconds after the pool had made its way into the room." Reuters/Joshua Roberts Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Private phone calls to world leaders - 28 January 2017 US President Donald Trump, is joined by his staff, as he speaks by phone with Russia's President Vladimir Putin in the Oval Office on 28 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Very early in the Trump administration, weekends were as busy as weekdays. On Trump's second Saturday the official schedule said he would be making private phone calls to a number of world leaders including Russia's Vladimir Putin. I arrived early and, before sitting down at my desk walked up to Press Secretary Sean Spicer's office. He, too, was just taking his coat off. I gingerly made the suggestion that previous administrations had sometimes allowed photos of such phone calls through the Oval Office windows on the colonnade. To my mild shock, he didn't even think about it twice. "We'll do it!" he said. In truth, I really only expected the Putin call, but we were outside the windows multiple times throughout the day as the calls went on." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Senior advisor Kellyanne Conway - 27 February 2017 Senior advisor Kellyanne Conway (L) attends as US President Donald Trump welcomes the leaders of dozens of historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) in the Oval Office on 27 February, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "We're often asked how much access we have to the Trump administration, and the answer is we have an awful lot. President Trump himself is very comfortable in the spotlight, and his aides are similarly unfazed by cameras. In this instance, senior advisor Kellyanne Conway was so comfortable in our presence she seemed not to consider the optics of kneeling on a Oval Office sofa to take pictures with her phone." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Angela Merkel heads to Washington - 17 March 2017 Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Donald Trump hold a joint news conference in the East Room of the White House on 17 March, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Chancellor Merkel made one of the earliest important visits of any US allies to meet Trump in his first months in office. When world leaders give joint news conferences they don't always tend to give each other their full attention - but Merkel watched Trump intently at several key moments, and here seemed particularly rapt." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump welcomes truckers to the White House - 23 March 2017 President Trump reacts as he sits on a truck while he welcomes truckers and CEOs to attend a meeting regarding healthcare at the White House on 23 March, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "The White House organised a listening session with truckers and CEO's of major American companies, regarding healthcare reform. An 18-wheeler tow truck was parked on the South Lawn of the White House and as Trump welcomed the truckers someone invited the him to come and sit in the driver's seat. Trump jumped into the cab and started yelling and pretending to drive - creating one of the most memorable pictures of the year. A lesson learned, always be prepared for the unexpected." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Air Force One - 6 April 2017 US President Donald Trump talks to journalists members of the travel pool on board the Air Force One during his trip to Palm Beach, Florida on 6 April, 2017. Carlos Barria: "During the many trips to President Trump's residence in Florida it is usual to see the president coming to the back of the plane to chat with journalists. During one of the trips to the so called 'Winter White House', Trump had a long talk with reporters while the Air Force One entertainment system was playing one of the latest Star Wars movies. As I was listening to Trump talk I was also looking at the movie waiting for a part of the movie to frame the mood of the day. Of the many scenes, I choose the one with Darth Vader." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures 100 Days - 27 April 2017 US President Donald Trump speaks during an interview with Reuters in the Oval Office of the White House on 27 April, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "A day before President Trump's hundred days in office I was part of the team that interviewed the commander-in-chief in the Oval Office. I was only allowed to photograph Trump during the last five minutes of the interview. The time was very tight so I had to move fast as I had pictures in mind that I wanted to shoot. I walked into the Oval Office and saw that the President had printed maps of the country showing areas in red where he won. I raised my hands holding my camera as high as possible to get the best view of the scene using a 16mm wide angle lens." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures 100 Days - 27 April 2017 US President Donald Trump reacts as he arrives at Harrisburg international airport, before attending a rally marking his first 100 days in office in Pennsylvania on 29 April, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "President Trump travelled to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to celebrate his hundred days in office with a victory rally. He was in friendly territory as he won with a big difference over his opponent Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, during the November elections. As usual when the commander-in-chief arrives local residents gather to greet him. This time a small group of military personnel attended the arrival. Surrounded by secret service agents Trump walked from the Air Force One and raised his hand in a sign of victory as the crowd cheered him on." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House staffers - 2 May 2017 White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer (L) and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus watch as US President Donald Trump presents the U.S. Air Force Academy football team with the Commander-in-Chief trophy in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on 2 May, 2017. Photographer Joshua Roberts: "Covering the White House does not just mean covering the President. White House staffers are an important part of the story and their relationship with the President and each other is an indicator of how things are going in the West Wing. The tendency is to focus exclusively on the President once an event starts but I always try to look around to see how people are reacting as things unfold." Reuters/Joshua Roberts Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Secret Service - 4 May 2017 Secret Service agents use a presidential limousine as cover from spraying water as US President Donald Trump lands via Marine One helicopter in New York on 4 May, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "The best part of any trip to New York City with the sitting US President is the helicopter ride into Manhattan. The ride out at night can be stunning. Here, Secret Service agents protect themselves from the spray from the East River as Trump lands on the helipad." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures NATO Summit - 25 May 2017 US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump wait the arrival of French President Emmanuel Macron (unseen) before a lunch ahead of a NATO Summit in Brussels on 25 May, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "One of the best parts of travelling overseas for White House coverage is the chance to see the U.S. president in different environments and (literally) a different light. Here, Trump and his wife came out of the shadows to greet France's President Macron." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump meets Putin at G20 summit - 7 July 2017 US President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany on 7 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "On July 7, I witnessed one of the most important meetings of President Trump's first year in office. Trump met Russian President Vladimir Putin during a bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Germany. The world's eyes were on these two leaders after speculation about Russian interference during the 2016 US elections. We entered the room for less than two minutes, where I took dozens of pictures. But there was this very interesting moment when Trump extended his hand to Putin for a handshake. Putin paused for a second and looked at Trump's hand. That was the picture that I was looking for, a little moment that seemed to say a lot." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures First lady - 8 July 2017 First lady Melania Trump chats with US President Donald Trump during their return from Germany at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on 8 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "After President Trump's trip to Germany he arrived back at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. First Lady Melania Trump said goodbye to Trump as she was heading off in a different direction that day. While chatting a breeze blew Melania's hair up in the air." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Made in America product showcase - 17 July 2017 Vice President Mike Pence laughs as President Donald Trump holds a baseball bat as they attend a Made in America product showcase event at the White House on 17 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "This summer the White House organized an event to showcase 'Made in America' products. All kinds of exhibitors brought their products as the President and Vice President toured the event. One of the companies was Marucci Sport, a manufacturer of baseball bats based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. As Trump approached a table full of baseball bats, photographers at the event, including me, rushed to get a good angle hoping that he would pick up a bat. As we predicted, he did. He took one and joked around as though he was hitting something hard. The only thing closer to him right there, was the media." Reuters Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House staffers - 25 July 2017 Former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski says hello to reporters as he and White House advisors including Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci accompany President Trump for an event celebrating veterans at AMVETS Post 44 in Ohio, July 25, 2017. Jonathan Ernst: "The most visible person in any White House is naturally the President, followed by the press secretary. But there are also the staff who support them. For those of us covering the Trump administration, there seem to be more compelling figures in the West Wing than ever before. It's crucial to know who's who and why they're important. When I raised my camera and back-pedalled ahead of the group to take this image Lewandowski gave me a hello. I liked the photo, but had no idea it would go a little bit viral, especially since Scaramucci, who was the biggest mover and shaker that week, was hidden back in the pack. But I guess the image catches a glimpse of what it's like to be a West Wing staffer on the road." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Campaign rally - 3 August 2017 US President Donald Trump arrives at a rally in West Virginia on 3 August, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "President Trump travelled to Huntington for one of his usual campaign rallies. While members of his family spoke to the crowd he was waiting under a black curtain to be introduced. Suddenly he walked onto the stage, one of the first frames that I took was of his hand. I set my exposure for the light on the stage hoping to create this dark background and it worked." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Staring into the solar eclipse - 21 August 2017 Without his protective glasses on, US President Donald Trump looks up towards the solar eclipse while viewing with his wife Melania and son Barron at the White House on 21 August, 2017. Photographer Kevin Lamarque: "On a day when everyone, and I mean everyone, was told not to look at the eclipse without protective glasses, Trump, President of the United States, couldn't help himself." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Hurricane Harvey - 2 September 2017 US President Donald Trump poses for a photo as he and first lady Melania Trump help volunteers hand out meals during a visit with flood survivors of Hurricane Harvey at a relief centre in Houston, Texas on 2 September, 2017. Photohrapher Kevin Lamarque: "Trump, eager to deliver the image of a hands-on response to Hurricane Harvey, made this visit to a relief centre and obliged this woman with a selfie as Melania continued to work." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House - 15 September 2017 Donald Trump welcomes 11-year-old Frank Giaccio as he cuts the Rose Garden grass at the White House on 15 September. Frank, who wrote a letter to Trump offering to mow the lawn, was invited to work for a day at the White House along the National Park Service staff. Frank was so focused on his task that he did not notice the President arrive to surprise him. He took his father jumping in to grab his attention and point Trump out. Photographer Carlos Barria said: The image of Trump shouting at a kid who is mowing his lawn might have many interpretations in today's politically polarized United States. But for me it was just a kid who loved what he was doing, to the point he almost appeared to ignore the President." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Take a knee - 27 September 2017 A man kneels with a folded U.S. flag as the motorcade of U.S. President Donald Trump passes him after an event at the state fairgrounds in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S., September 27, 2017. In September, soon after Trump had made comments condemning NFL players who kneel during the national anthem, he made a day trip to a rally in Indianapolis. Jonathan Ernst managed to capture a man on one knee with a tri-folded flag and was able to use a portion of the sign on the building he was kneeling in front of to track the man down and tell his story in full. US Army veteran Marvin Boatright wanted to send a message against social injustice. Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Hurricane Maria - 3 October 2017 President Donald Trump throws rolls of paper towels into a crowd of local residents affected by Hurricane Maria as he visits Calgary Chapel in San Juan, Puerto Rico on 3 October, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "During an afternoon visit to Puerto Rico for President Trump to survey damage from Hurricane Maria and greet some of its victims, Trump made a stop at a church where food and supplies were being distributed. Among the items were paper towels and Trump, apparently caught up in the moment, decided to distribute some of the rolls." Reuters Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Jared Kushner - 1 November 2017 White House Senior adviser Jared Kushner sits behind President Trump during a cabinet meeting in Washington on 1 November, 2017. Photographer Kevin Lamarque: "The role of Jared Kushner has gone through a series of changes. He began front and centre as a high profile adviser, but as time has passed and issues surrounding him have surfaced, he has become more of a background figure." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump in China - 9 November 2017 Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping shake hands after making joint statements at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on 9 November, 2017. Photographer Damir Sagolj: "It's one of those "how to make a better or at least different shot when two presidents shake hands several times a day, several days in row". If I'm not mistaken in calculation, presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump shook their hands at least six times in events I covered during Trump's recent visit to China. I would imagine there were some more handshakes I haven't seen but other photographers did. And they all look similar - two big men, smiling and heartily greeting each other until everyone gets their shot. But then there is always something that can make it special - in this case the background made of US and Chinese flags. The first time it didn't work for me. The second time I positioned myself lower and centrally, and used the longest lens I have to capture only hands reaching for a handshake." Reuters/Damir Sagolj Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Air Force One - 10 November 2017 US President Donald Trump boards Air Force One to depart for Vietnam from Beijing Airport in Beijing, China, November 10, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "There is a Reuters photographer in the tight pool covering the US president for every appearance he makes 365 days a year. This was just one of 32 images of mine that were transmitted on the Reuters wire of President Trump visiting China and Vietnam that day. You never know when a sudden interaction, a gust of wind or a unique facial expression will lead to a striking image that grabs peoples' attention." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures ASEAN handshake - 13 November 2017 Donald Trump registers his surprise as he realises other leaders, including Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte and Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, are crossing their arms for the traditional "ASEAN handshake" as he participates in the opening ceremony of the summit in Manila on 13 November, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Having covered a few ASEAN summits, I knew to expect the ASEAN handshake. Not everyone in the room knew to expect the ASEAN handshake. A lot was written about this unscripted moment, and what deeper meaning it might have. The simple truth is that sometimes in life there are unscripted moments." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

In contrast with his dark inaugural speech last year  in which he spoke of crime, and drugs, and American carnage  Mr Trumps State of the Union appears to strike a unifying tone. The President will refer to Americans as one team, one people, and promise to extend an open hand to work with members of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to protect our citizens, of every background, colour, and creed.

In a likely reference to North Korea, Mr Trump will argue against complacency and concessions to enemies. The President has taken a much more aggressive tone in dealing with North Korea than previous administrations  something he will note towards the end of his speech.

I will not repeat the mistakes of the past Administrations that got us into this dangerous position, he is expected to say.The Trump administration has reportedly suggested cutting funds for the Energy Departments renewable energy office by nearly three-quarters, as part of the President's shift away from "green" energy development.

The cuts to the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), which helps to transition the US to a clean energy economy, are reportedly even deeper than the two-thirds budget reduction Donald Trump proposed last year.

It shows that weve made no inroads in terms of convincing the administration of our value, and if anything, our value based on these numbers has dropped, one EERE employee told the Washington Post, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Recommended Budweiser switches to renewable energy for US brewing

A draft of the Presidents proposed budget for fiscal year 2019 shows the administration wants to lower the offices budget from $2.04bn this year to $575.5m in 2019, according to the Post.

The draft suggests cutting research into fuel-efficient vehicles by 82 per cent, bioenergy technologies by 82 per cent, and solar energy technology by 78 per cent. It would also cut funding for research into geothermal, hydro and wind power.

Congress has the final say in budget appropriations, and it is unlikely legislators will implement the full, 72-percent cut suggested by Mr Trump. The President recommended reducing the EERE budget to $636.1m in 2018, but Congress did not implement the change.

 Trump seems to have different idea to how energy exports work to the Polish President

It is unclear whether the documents viewed by the Post were preliminary drafts of the Presidents budget, or completed versions. The White House told the Post that it would not comment on any pre-decisional documents prior to the release of the official budget.

A spokesperson for the Energy Department said she would not comment on the budget before its release, but urged anyone questioning the administration's approach to "simply look at our record".

"Last year the Energy Department awarded hundreds of millions of dollars to solar and wind energy," Press Secretary Shayln Hynes said. "Though it may not fit into the narrative of the environmental lobby and their pundits, the truth is that Secretary Perry believes that there is a role for all fuels  including renewables  in our energy mix."

The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Show all 9 1 /9 The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the media White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer takes questions during the daily press briefing Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Union leaders applaud US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order withdrawing the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington DC. Mr Trump issued a presidential memorandum in January announcing that the US would withdraw from the trade deal Getty The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Mexico wall A US Border Patrol vehicle sits waiting for illegal immigrants at a fence opening near the US-Mexico border near McAllen, Texas. The number of incoming immigrants has surged ahead of the upcoming Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump, who has pledged to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. A signature campaign promise, Mr Trump outlined his intention to build a border wall on the US-Mexico border days after taking office Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and abortion US President Donald Trump signs an executive order as Chief of Staff Reince Priebus looks on in the Oval Office of the White House. Mr Trump reinstated a ban on American financial aide being granted to non-governmental organizations that provide abortion counseling, provide abortion referrals, or advocate for abortion access outside of the United States Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the Dakota Access pipeline Opponents of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines hold a rally as they protest US President Donald Trump's executive orders advancing their construction, at Columbus Circle in New York. US President Donald Trump signed executive orders reviving the construction of two controversial oil pipelines, but said the projects would be subject to renegotiation Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and 'Obamacare' Nancy Pelosi who is the minority leader of the House of Representatives speaks beside House Democrats at an event to protect the Affordable Care Act in Los Angeles, California. US President Donald Trump's effort to make good on his campaign promise to repeal and replace the healthcare law failed when Republicans failed to get enough votes. Mr Trump has promised to revisit the matter Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Donald Trump and 'sanctuary cities' US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January threatening to pull funding for so-called "sanctuary cities" if they do not comply with federal immigration law AP The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and the travel ban US President Donald Trump has attempted twice to restrict travel into the United States from several predominantly Muslim countries. The first attempt, in February, was met with swift opposition from protesters who flocked to airports around the country. That travel ban was later blocked by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The second ban was blocked by a federal judge a day before it was scheduled to be implemented in mid-March SANDY HUFFAKER/AFP/Getty Images The controversial orders Donald Trump has already issued Trump and climate change US President Donald Trump sought to dismantle several of his predecessor's actions on climate change in March. His order instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to reevaluate the Clean Power Plan, which would cap power plant emissions Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Mr Trump has made his preference for natural gas and clean coal known, boasting in his recent State of the Union address that he had ended the war on clean coal and made America an exporter of energy to the world. (The Energy Information Administration deemed the US a net exporter of energy shortly before Mr Trump took office.)

Last week, the President implemented a tariff of up to 30 per cent on solar panels made abroad, angering green-energy advocates. In March of last year, he signed an executive order scrapping the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan and ordering the reduction of environmental regulations on the energy industry.

At a coal conference in West Virginia on Wednesday, a Trump administration adviser told industry insiders he was here to help.

I went to Washington, DC, for one purpose and that was to help create coal jobs in the United States. That's my total purpose for being there, said Doug Matheney, the special adviser in the Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy, according to Axios.

He added: I'm not a researcher, I'm not a scientist, I'm an advocate for the coal industry."Search All categories Advertising General Aerospace General Agriculture General Airlines General America - Post 9/11 General Apparel General Apple Products General Architectural General Architecture Architecture Art & Entertainments Books Celebrities Country Music Dance Magazines Movies Museums Music Music Downloads News & Talk Shows Performing Arts Photography Television Web Sites Arts/Culture General Auction General Automotive Aftermarket Classic Autos Consumer Publications General Motorcycle & Bike Racing Recreational Vehicle Repair & Service Trade Publications Blogging & Social Media Blogging & Social Media Business Advertising / Marketing Books Consumer Research Direct Marketing e-Commerce Entrepreneurs Finance Franchise Human Resources Insurance Investment Management Markets Network Marketing Online Marketing / SEO Payday Loans Public Relations Publications Real Estate Retail Stocks 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Shipbuilding General Society African American Interests Asian Interests Childrens Issues Disabled Issues / Disabilities Gay / Lesbian Hispanic Mens Interests Native American Senior Citizens Social Services Teen Issues/Interests Womens Interest Software General Sports Baseball Basketball Bicycling Boating / Maritime Bowling Boxing Fishing Football Golf Hockey Hunting Martial Arts Outdoors Rugby Soccer Tennis Water Winter/Snow Sports/Fitness General Stocks General Supermarkets General Technology Biotechnology Computer Electronics Enterprise Software Games Graphics/Printing/CAD Hardware / Peripherals Industrial Information Internet Multimedia Networking Public Sector/Government Robotics Semiconductor Software Telecommunications Webmasters Telecom General Wireless Television General Tobacco General Trade General Transportation General Travel General Utilities General Volunteer Volunteer Weather WeatherThe FBI has warned it has grave concerns about releasing a classified memo that Republicans have claimed shows evidence of anti-Donald Trump bias in the Russia investigation, joining the Justice Department in an extraordinary confrontation with Congress and the President.

Republicans insist the American people have a right to see its contents, which they have hinted shows misuse of government surveillance powers and misconduct in the FBIs investigation of ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

A push by Republicans to release the document, which was compiled under the auspices of the House Intelligence Committee's Republican majority, has divided the government and posed a dilemma for President Trump.

"The FBI was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it. As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo's accuracy," the FBI said in a rare public statement.

The House Intelligence Committee voted along party lines this week to release the memo. Mr Trump has until the weekend to decide whether to make it public.

Democrats on the House panel - who had an effort to release a counterpoint memo defending the FBI's conduct blocked by Republicans - have said the memo selectively uses highly classified materials in a misleading effort to discredit Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the Justice Department's Russia probe, and Deputy US Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who hired him.

Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd wrote to Republicans last week to warn releasing the memo would be extraordinarily reckless. The FBI's director, Christopher Wray has also sought to discourage the president over its release because the memo contains inaccuracies, according to Bloomberg

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

The decision over whether to do so now falls to Mr Trump, who has frequently lambasted the Russia investigation as baseless and accused the FBI of failing to run an impartial probe. Mr Trump was picked up by broadcast microphones assuring a Republican legislator that he was 100 per cent in favour of releasing the memo, in the wake of his State of the Union address on Tuesday night.

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly followed that up by telling Fox News Radio on Wednesday that the memo "will be released here pretty quick, I think, and then the whole world can see it. He added that he had seen the four-page document and that White House lawyers were reviewing it. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told CNN that there's always a chance that it would not be released.

Both the FBI and the Justice Department have tamped down allegations that they abused spying powers granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Mr Boyd said officials were unaware of any wrongdoing in obtaining surveillance permission, and the FBI said it takes seriously its obligations to the FISA Court and its compliance with procedures overseen by career professionals in the Department of Justice and the FBI.

House Speaker Paul Ryan has claimed the memo shows there may have been malfeasance at the FBI by certain individuals" and that there are legitimate questions about whether an American's civil liberties were violated by the FISA process. However, Mr Ryan said the memo should not be used to undermine Mr Mueller and his investigation into Russian meddling into the 2016 presidential election and possible connections into Mr Trump's campaign team and the Kremlin.

After Republicans voted to release the memo, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee Adam Schiff blasted an effort to circle the wagons around the White House and distract from the Russia probe. He followed that up with a tweet on Wednesday saying Republicans have used this memo to mislead the House. Will the president now use it to mislead the country?Reports of a new dossier containing salacious allegations about Donald Trump have sparked speculation about its contents, and curiosity about its author.

The so-called Shearer dossier is a report about Mr Trump that is currently being investigated by the FBI, according to The Guardian. The memo was reportedly compiled during the 2016 campaign by Cody Shearer, a friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Unlike Christopher Steele, the former MI6 agent who compiled the now-infamous Steele dossier, Mr Shearer has no background in espionage. According to The Guardian, however, that hasn't stopped the FBI from taking this new memo seriously.

Below is everything you need to know about the dossier and its controversial author.

 Ex-MI6 agent behind Trump Russia dossier breaks silence

What is the Shearer dossier?

It's unclear what is in the Shearer dossier, or if it even exists. Speculation about the memo stemmed only from The Guardian's report of its existence and the FBI's investigation.

According to The Guardian, the memo corroborates Mr Steeles report that Mr Trump engaged in lewd acts in a Moscow hotel room  acts of which the Kremlin had evidence. Mr Trump has denied engaging in these acts.

The dossier was reportedly given to the FBI by Mr Steele, after the agency demanded he hand over any evidence that could be useful in their investigation of possible Russian meddling in the US election.

Sources told The Guardian that the fact that the FBI was treating the document at least somewhat seriously, based on their continue investigation.

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

Who is Cody Shearer?

Mr Shearer is perhaps most commonly known as a freelance writer, though he has had few bylines since the 1980s, when he co-wrote a syndicated politics and culture column with Maxwell Glen.

According to a Slate profile, Mr Shearers defining moment as a journalist came when he and Mr Glen published several accounts of drunken behaviour by former Senator John Tower, helping to derail his nomination for secretary of defence.

Less publicly, Mr Shearer maintained ties with the Clinton White House in the 1990s, and helped provide information to Hillary Clinton during her time as Secretary of State.

There is no evidence that Ms Clintons presidential campaign knew about the Shearer dossier.

How did Mr Shearer know the Clintons?

The political activist grew close to the Clintons through family connections. His brother-in-law, Strobe Talbott, became friends with Bill Clinton while they were students at Oxford, and later served as special adviser to the Secretary of State during the Clinton administration.

Mr Shearers brother, Derek, also served the Clinton administration as ambassador to Finland.

Mr Shearer never served the Clinton administration in an official capacity, but investigative reporting and hacked emails have revealed the operative worked for the Clintons in more indirect ways.

 Donald Trump says he is a 'germaphobe' in apparent response to dossier sex allegations

What makes him so controversial?

Despite taking a less-prominent role in the Clinton White House than some of his family members, Mr Shearer has made national news on several occasions.

According to the Washington Examiner, Mr Shearer was investigated by the State Department Inspector General in 1998, after he led negotiations that "caused temporary diplomatic damage in Bosnia". Citing documents obtained by Citizens United through the Freedom of Information Act, the Examiner reported that Mr Shearer "may have represented himself as speaking on behalf of the State Department" in conversations about the proposed partitioning of Bosnia.

Mr Shearer's named resurfaced again in 2015, when Gawker and ProPublica reported on emails hacked from a private email server Ms Clinton used as Secretary of State.

The hacked emails showed Mr Shearer and fellow Clinton family friend Sidney Blumenthal had helped provide Ms Clinton with intelligence about the situation in Libya, just weeks before Islamic militants attacked a US diplomatic outpost in the country. Mr Blumenthal and his associates helped the Libyan opposition, and even plotted to insert operatives on the ground, according to a ProPublica report.

Capitalising on outcry around Ms Clintons private email server, conservatives deemed Mr Blumenthal and Mr Shearer part of Ms Clintons secret spy network. The National Review, a conservative magazine, even called Mr Shearer the strangest character in Hillarys vast left-wing conspiracy.

A Slate profile from 1999, however, concluded that Mr Shearer may just be a person who things happen to happen to, a guy with a penchant for pretending to be what others want to believe that he is.

The Independent has attempted to reach Mr Shearer for comment.House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi has reportedly urged Democrats to be on their best behaviour during Donald Trumps State of the Union address in order to keep the spotlight on the President.

Let the attention be on his slobbering self, Ms Pelosi told House Democrats at their weekly private meeting, according to Politico. If you want to walk out, dont come in.

Any kind of Democratic interruption during Mr Trumps address would likely distract from the partys attempts to rebut his speech later, she is said to have asserted.

About a dozen House Democrats are expected to skip the State of the Union. Meanwhile, several other members plan to attend but will also engage in some form of protest.

Many Democrats, including Ms Pelosi, are bringing young undocumented immigrants as their guests in an attempt to make a statement against the Trump administrations immigration policies.

Mr Trump has yet to reach a deal with Democrats to protect hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the US as children  so-called Dreamers.

In his first State of the Union address since taking office last year, Mr Trump is expected to lobby Congress on an immigration proposal that would offer a path to citizenship for nearly 2m Dreamers in exchange for funding for his long-promised border wall.

Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Show all 29 1 /29 Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inauguration - 20 January 2017 US President Donald Trump acknowledges the audience after taking the oath of office as his wife Melania (L) and daughter Tiffany watch during inauguration ceremonies swearing in Trump as the 45th president of the United States on the West Front of the US capital in Washington on 20 January, 2017. Photographer Jim Bourg: "This photo was shot with one of two remote cameras. The cameras were monitored and triggered remotely and the pictures were transmitted to clients worldwide within minutes of being taken." Reuters/Jim Bourg Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Obama farewell address - 10 January 2017 US President Barack Obama wipes away tears as he delivers his farewell address in Chicago on 10 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "In his final days in office, Obama made a visit home to Chicago. As he spoke from the stage to his wife and daughter in the audience, he became emotional when he talked about what they had sacrificed during his time in office. I turned from photographing the Obama women embracing to find him onstage wiping away tears." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inauguration - 20 January 2017 A combination of photos shows the crowds attending the inauguration ceremonies to swear in U.S. President Donald Trump at 12:01pm (left) on January 20, 2017 and President Barack Obama sometime between 12:07pm and 12:26pm on January 20, 2009. Reuters/ Lucas Jackson/Stelios Varias Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Liberty Ball - 20 January 2017 US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump attend the Liberty Ball in honour of his inauguration in Washington on 20 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "What I see when I look at this picture is the end of a very long day, not to mention weeks and months of preparation by many photographers, editors and network experts and the beginning of everything since." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inaugural Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders Reception - 22 January 2017 US President Donald Trump greets Director of the FBI James Comey as Director of the Secret Service Joseph Clancy (L), watches during the Inaugural Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders Reception in the Blue Room of the White House on 22 January, 2017. Photographer Joshua Roberts: "I have covered the White House for 16 years and normally either the President or the pool is in position when an event starts. In this case the President was not where anyone expected him to be. In fact, he was almost blocking the door when the pool came in. We had to scramble to find a position without bumping him or the furniture as he greeted and thanked members of law enforcement for their security efforts during the inauguration. Luckily, he greeted FBI Director James Comey a few seconds after the pool had made its way into the room." Reuters/Joshua Roberts Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Private phone calls to world leaders - 28 January 2017 US President Donald Trump, is joined by his staff, as he speaks by phone with Russia's President Vladimir Putin in the Oval Office on 28 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Very early in the Trump administration, weekends were as busy as weekdays. On Trump's second Saturday the official schedule said he would be making private phone calls to a number of world leaders including Russia's Vladimir Putin. I arrived early and, before sitting down at my desk walked up to Press Secretary Sean Spicer's office. He, too, was just taking his coat off. I gingerly made the suggestion that previous administrations had sometimes allowed photos of such phone calls through the Oval Office windows on the colonnade. To my mild shock, he didn't even think about it twice. "We'll do it!" he said. In truth, I really only expected the Putin call, but we were outside the windows multiple times throughout the day as the calls went on." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Senior advisor Kellyanne Conway - 27 February 2017 Senior advisor Kellyanne Conway (L) attends as US President Donald Trump welcomes the leaders of dozens of historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) in the Oval Office on 27 February, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "We're often asked how much access we have to the Trump administration, and the answer is we have an awful lot. President Trump himself is very comfortable in the spotlight, and his aides are similarly unfazed by cameras. In this instance, senior advisor Kellyanne Conway was so comfortable in our presence she seemed not to consider the optics of kneeling on a Oval Office sofa to take pictures with her phone." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Angela Merkel heads to Washington - 17 March 2017 Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Donald Trump hold a joint news conference in the East Room of the White House on 17 March, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Chancellor Merkel made one of the earliest important visits of any US allies to meet Trump in his first months in office. When world leaders give joint news conferences they don't always tend to give each other their full attention - but Merkel watched Trump intently at several key moments, and here seemed particularly rapt." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump welcomes truckers to the White House - 23 March 2017 President Trump reacts as he sits on a truck while he welcomes truckers and CEOs to attend a meeting regarding healthcare at the White House on 23 March, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "The White House organised a listening session with truckers and CEO's of major American companies, regarding healthcare reform. An 18-wheeler tow truck was parked on the South Lawn of the White House and as Trump welcomed the truckers someone invited the him to come and sit in the driver's seat. Trump jumped into the cab and started yelling and pretending to drive - creating one of the most memorable pictures of the year. A lesson learned, always be prepared for the unexpected." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Air Force One - 6 April 2017 US President Donald Trump talks to journalists members of the travel pool on board the Air Force One during his trip to Palm Beach, Florida on 6 April, 2017. Carlos Barria: "During the many trips to President Trump's residence in Florida it is usual to see the president coming to the back of the plane to chat with journalists. During one of the trips to the so called 'Winter White House', Trump had a long talk with reporters while the Air Force One entertainment system was playing one of the latest Star Wars movies. As I was listening to Trump talk I was also looking at the movie waiting for a part of the movie to frame the mood of the day. Of the many scenes, I choose the one with Darth Vader." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures 100 Days - 27 April 2017 US President Donald Trump speaks during an interview with Reuters in the Oval Office of the White House on 27 April, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "A day before President Trump's hundred days in office I was part of the team that interviewed the commander-in-chief in the Oval Office. I was only allowed to photograph Trump during the last five minutes of the interview. The time was very tight so I had to move fast as I had pictures in mind that I wanted to shoot. I walked into the Oval Office and saw that the President had printed maps of the country showing areas in red where he won. I raised my hands holding my camera as high as possible to get the best view of the scene using a 16mm wide angle lens." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures 100 Days - 27 April 2017 US President Donald Trump reacts as he arrives at Harrisburg international airport, before attending a rally marking his first 100 days in office in Pennsylvania on 29 April, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "President Trump travelled to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to celebrate his hundred days in office with a victory rally. He was in friendly territory as he won with a big difference over his opponent Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, during the November elections. As usual when the commander-in-chief arrives local residents gather to greet him. This time a small group of military personnel attended the arrival. Surrounded by secret service agents Trump walked from the Air Force One and raised his hand in a sign of victory as the crowd cheered him on." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House staffers - 2 May 2017 White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer (L) and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus watch as US President Donald Trump presents the U.S. Air Force Academy football team with the Commander-in-Chief trophy in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on 2 May, 2017. Photographer Joshua Roberts: "Covering the White House does not just mean covering the President. White House staffers are an important part of the story and their relationship with the President and each other is an indicator of how things are going in the West Wing. The tendency is to focus exclusively on the President once an event starts but I always try to look around to see how people are reacting as things unfold." Reuters/Joshua Roberts Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Secret Service - 4 May 2017 Secret Service agents use a presidential limousine as cover from spraying water as US President Donald Trump lands via Marine One helicopter in New York on 4 May, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "The best part of any trip to New York City with the sitting US President is the helicopter ride into Manhattan. The ride out at night can be stunning. Here, Secret Service agents protect themselves from the spray from the East River as Trump lands on the helipad." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures NATO Summit - 25 May 2017 US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump wait the arrival of French President Emmanuel Macron (unseen) before a lunch ahead of a NATO Summit in Brussels on 25 May, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "One of the best parts of travelling overseas for White House coverage is the chance to see the U.S. president in different environments and (literally) a different light. Here, Trump and his wife came out of the shadows to greet France's President Macron." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump meets Putin at G20 summit - 7 July 2017 US President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany on 7 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "On July 7, I witnessed one of the most important meetings of President Trump's first year in office. Trump met Russian President Vladimir Putin during a bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Germany. The world's eyes were on these two leaders after speculation about Russian interference during the 2016 US elections. We entered the room for less than two minutes, where I took dozens of pictures. But there was this very interesting moment when Trump extended his hand to Putin for a handshake. Putin paused for a second and looked at Trump's hand. That was the picture that I was looking for, a little moment that seemed to say a lot." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures First lady - 8 July 2017 First lady Melania Trump chats with US President Donald Trump during their return from Germany at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on 8 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "After President Trump's trip to Germany he arrived back at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. First Lady Melania Trump said goodbye to Trump as she was heading off in a different direction that day. While chatting a breeze blew Melania's hair up in the air." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Made in America product showcase - 17 July 2017 Vice President Mike Pence laughs as President Donald Trump holds a baseball bat as they attend a Made in America product showcase event at the White House on 17 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "This summer the White House organized an event to showcase 'Made in America' products. All kinds of exhibitors brought their products as the President and Vice President toured the event. One of the companies was Marucci Sport, a manufacturer of baseball bats based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. As Trump approached a table full of baseball bats, photographers at the event, including me, rushed to get a good angle hoping that he would pick up a bat. As we predicted, he did. He took one and joked around as though he was hitting something hard. The only thing closer to him right there, was the media." Reuters Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House staffers - 25 July 2017 Former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski says hello to reporters as he and White House advisors including Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci accompany President Trump for an event celebrating veterans at AMVETS Post 44 in Ohio, July 25, 2017. Jonathan Ernst: "The most visible person in any White House is naturally the President, followed by the press secretary. But there are also the staff who support them. For those of us covering the Trump administration, there seem to be more compelling figures in the West Wing than ever before. It's crucial to know who's who and why they're important. When I raised my camera and back-pedalled ahead of the group to take this image Lewandowski gave me a hello. I liked the photo, but had no idea it would go a little bit viral, especially since Scaramucci, who was the biggest mover and shaker that week, was hidden back in the pack. But I guess the image catches a glimpse of what it's like to be a West Wing staffer on the road." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Campaign rally - 3 August 2017 US President Donald Trump arrives at a rally in West Virginia on 3 August, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "President Trump travelled to Huntington for one of his usual campaign rallies. While members of his family spoke to the crowd he was waiting under a black curtain to be introduced. Suddenly he walked onto the stage, one of the first frames that I took was of his hand. I set my exposure for the light on the stage hoping to create this dark background and it worked." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Staring into the solar eclipse - 21 August 2017 Without his protective glasses on, US President Donald Trump looks up towards the solar eclipse while viewing with his wife Melania and son Barron at the White House on 21 August, 2017. Photographer Kevin Lamarque: "On a day when everyone, and I mean everyone, was told not to look at the eclipse without protective glasses, Trump, President of the United States, couldn't help himself." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Hurricane Harvey - 2 September 2017 US President Donald Trump poses for a photo as he and first lady Melania Trump help volunteers hand out meals during a visit with flood survivors of Hurricane Harvey at a relief centre in Houston, Texas on 2 September, 2017. Photohrapher Kevin Lamarque: "Trump, eager to deliver the image of a hands-on response to Hurricane Harvey, made this visit to a relief centre and obliged this woman with a selfie as Melania continued to work." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House - 15 September 2017 Donald Trump welcomes 11-year-old Frank Giaccio as he cuts the Rose Garden grass at the White House on 15 September. Frank, who wrote a letter to Trump offering to mow the lawn, was invited to work for a day at the White House along the National Park Service staff. Frank was so focused on his task that he did not notice the President arrive to surprise him. He took his father jumping in to grab his attention and point Trump out. Photographer Carlos Barria said: The image of Trump shouting at a kid who is mowing his lawn might have many interpretations in today's politically polarized United States. But for me it was just a kid who loved what he was doing, to the point he almost appeared to ignore the President." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Take a knee - 27 September 2017 A man kneels with a folded U.S. flag as the motorcade of U.S. President Donald Trump passes him after an event at the state fairgrounds in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S., September 27, 2017. In September, soon after Trump had made comments condemning NFL players who kneel during the national anthem, he made a day trip to a rally in Indianapolis. Jonathan Ernst managed to capture a man on one knee with a tri-folded flag and was able to use a portion of the sign on the building he was kneeling in front of to track the man down and tell his story in full. US Army veteran Marvin Boatright wanted to send a message against social injustice. Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Hurricane Maria - 3 October 2017 President Donald Trump throws rolls of paper towels into a crowd of local residents affected by Hurricane Maria as he visits Calgary Chapel in San Juan, Puerto Rico on 3 October, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "During an afternoon visit to Puerto Rico for President Trump to survey damage from Hurricane Maria and greet some of its victims, Trump made a stop at a church where food and supplies were being distributed. Among the items were paper towels and Trump, apparently caught up in the moment, decided to distribute some of the rolls." Reuters Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Jared Kushner - 1 November 2017 White House Senior adviser Jared Kushner sits behind President Trump during a cabinet meeting in Washington on 1 November, 2017. Photographer Kevin Lamarque: "The role of Jared Kushner has gone through a series of changes. He began front and centre as a high profile adviser, but as time has passed and issues surrounding him have surfaced, he has become more of a background figure." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump in China - 9 November 2017 Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping shake hands after making joint statements at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on 9 November, 2017. Photographer Damir Sagolj: "It's one of those "how to make a better or at least different shot when two presidents shake hands several times a day, several days in row". If I'm not mistaken in calculation, presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump shook their hands at least six times in events I covered during Trump's recent visit to China. I would imagine there were some more handshakes I haven't seen but other photographers did. And they all look similar - two big men, smiling and heartily greeting each other until everyone gets their shot. But then there is always something that can make it special - in this case the background made of US and Chinese flags. The first time it didn't work for me. The second time I positioned myself lower and centrally, and used the longest lens I have to capture only hands reaching for a handshake." Reuters/Damir Sagolj Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Air Force One - 10 November 2017 US President Donald Trump boards Air Force One to depart for Vietnam from Beijing Airport in Beijing, China, November 10, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "There is a Reuters photographer in the tight pool covering the US president for every appearance he makes 365 days a year. This was just one of 32 images of mine that were transmitted on the Reuters wire of President Trump visiting China and Vietnam that day. You never know when a sudden interaction, a gust of wind or a unique facial expression will lead to a striking image that grabs peoples' attention." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures ASEAN handshake - 13 November 2017 Donald Trump registers his surprise as he realises other leaders, including Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte and Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, are crossing their arms for the traditional "ASEAN handshake" as he participates in the opening ceremony of the summit in Manila on 13 November, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Having covered a few ASEAN summits, I knew to expect the ASEAN handshake. Not everyone in the room knew to expect the ASEAN handshake. A lot was written about this unscripted moment, and what deeper meaning it might have. The simple truth is that sometimes in life there are unscripted moments." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

Ms Pelosi has also reportedly predicted that expectations are so low for the unconventional Presidents performance, that he will receive good reviews as long as his nose isnt running.

If his nose isnt running and he isnt burping, he did a great speech, Ms Pelosi said, according to Politico.Hong Kong has voted to ban the trade of ivory in a landmark decision after years of campaigning.

Politicians voted in favour of amending an existing law to outlaw sales of ivory in the Chinese territory by 2021.

The proposal also includes significantly stiffer penalties for the smuggling of ivory and other highly endangered species to deter black market sales.

Researchers say Hong Kong is the worlds largest ivory market.

 China destroys ivory hoard

Under the new law, the maximum sentence will increase to a HK$10m (920,000) fine, which is double the current amount, and 10 years in prison, up from the current two years.

Wildlife activists celebrated the move, even though Hong Kong has moved more slowly than Beijing.

Mainland China, the biggest source of ivory demand, banned sales at the start of the year after shutting all carving factories and shops last March.

The ban will have a "chilling effect on the global demand for ivory," Iris Ho, a spokesperson for Humane Society International, told The Independent.

She said the majority of ivory exports from the UK and EU have been destined for Hong Kong. "Now that their biggest customer is rejecting ivory consumption, the UK and EU should take swift action and shut down their domestic markets as well. "

Cheryl Lo, a spokesperson for the World Wildlife Fund, said in a statement: "A ban on ivory sales with heavier penalties in Hong Kong shows a clear commitment towards the future of African elephants."

"This will help reverse the trend of elephant poaching and illegal ivory trafficking."

Bert Wander, campaign director at Avaaz, said: Shutting down this massive ivory market has thrown a lifeline to elephants. People all over the globe are standing up for these magnificent creatures and governments are listening.

"First it was China, then Hong Kong and next were taking this ban to Europe to stop the worlds largest exporter of legal ivory."

Hong Kong politicians vote to ban ivory sales in landmark bill to end the infamous trade in the city (ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP/Getty Images)

The current law in the former British colony allowed domestic sales of ivory dating from before the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES)

Under CITES, ivory trading started to be regulated in the mid-1970s, before a total ban in 1990 on international sales.

Activists say there are signs unscrupulous dealers were exploiting the loophole to "launder" newer, illicit ivory, making Hong Kong a major black market trading hub.

They hailed the ban as a major step in efforts to slow poaching which results in the slaughter of tens of thousands of elephants and threatens the lives of park rangers in Africa.

The Hong Kong government refused to offer any compensation to the city's dozens of ivory shop owners and hundreds of licensed traders, who had demanded tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars in return for giving up their ivory stockpile, estimated at 670 tonnes.

Earlier this month, a member of Hong Kong's endangered species board pleaded guilty to illegal ivory possession and was fined fined HK$8,000 (756).Hundreds of top secret Australian government files are being published after being discovered in two old filing cabinets bought at a second hand shop.

The huge cache of documents reveal the inner workings of five separate Australian administrations and should have remained sealed for 20 years.

The Cabinet Files, as they have been dubbed, were found after being put up for sale at an ex-government furniture sale in Canberra, and were reportedly bought for small change, because the keys to the cabinets could not be found.

The leak is embarrassing for the Government, which has ordered an urgent investigation into the disposal of the cabinets.

After their discovery, the files were obtained by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Reporters for the ABC said the cabinets had remained unopened for some months until the locks were attacked with a drill.

Almost all the documents were classified, with most files marked top secret, sensitive, Australian eyes only, and Cabinet-in-confidence.

The broadcaster has used the contents of the files to publish stories that have been embarrassing to the former governments of prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott as well as a number of serving ministers.

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The documents cover Australia's intelligence priorities and counterterrorism planning. They detail missile upgrades, profiles of suspected militants and Australia's desire in 2010 for more Indonesian cooperation to stop asylum seekers reaching Australian shores in fishing boats, the ABC said.

One document refers to an audit that revealed the Australian Federal Police had lost almost 400 national security files over five years ending in 2013.

The documents also reveal that a former finance minister left 195 top-secret papers in her old office when her government was voted out in 2013.

Rory Medcalf, head of the Australian National University's National Security College, described the discarded documents as very weird and embarrassing from a national security and political perspective.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Australia's allies, including the United States, would be concerned, but I wouldn't overstate it, Mr Metcalf said.

This is not catastrophically damaging for national security in the sense that that something like the Snowden revelations must have been, he added, referring to the former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden disclosing a cache of classified material in 2013.Catalonias fugitive former president Carles Puigdemont has been caught sending text messages in which he reportedly said the Spanish government had won the fight for independence in Catalonia.

Mr Puigdemont denied he was giving up following the publication of text messages in which he appeared to say the battle is over.

The messages were allegedly sent to a fellow fugitive MP, Toni Comin, and said that he had been sacrificed by his allies.

Mr Puigdemont was apparently responding to a Spanish television broadcast of the messages, and tweeted that he was human and that there are times that I also doubt. But he insisted he is the President of Catalonia and wont cower or step back.

We continue! he added.

Mr Puigdemont fled to Belgium after organising Octobers independence referendum which was declared illegal. He faces arrest if he returns to Spain.

On Tuesday, the Catalan parliament postponed indefinitely a session in which Mr Puigdemont was due to be re-elected president of the region.

The postponement left the pro-Catalan independence camp in disarray and the appointment of a president and formation of a new regional government uncertain.

The Spanish government seized control of the Catalonia region in late October, and called new Catalan elections in a bid to quell the region's illegal independence drive.

Mr Puigdemont was re-elected as an MP in December. Spain's top court ruled recently that he could only be re-elected as president if he is physically present in the parliament in Barcelona and must first obtain court permission.

Recommended Spain withdraws arrest warrant for exiled Catalan leader

Spain's Telecinco published the phone text messages on Wednesday, saying they were obtained when Mr Comin was seen checking his phone during the filming of an event.

In his tweet, Mr Puigdemont did not mention the messages, but wrote: I am a journalist and I have always understood that there are limits, such as privacy, which should never be violated.

Spanish deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said the time had come to accept publicly what is said privately, and called on the Catalan parliament speaker to start contacts with regional parties to choose a new candidate.

Mr Comin, one of four ex-Catalan ministers who fled to Brussels with Mr Puigdemont, warned on Twitter he may take legal action over the publication of the messages, adding that any message devoid of its context always loses its meaning.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

The text messages appear to have been sent around the same time as Mr Puigdemont's camp aired a video of him reacting to the parliament postponement. He said he was standing firm and called on pro-independence MPs to remain unified in re-electing him.

PA contributed to this reportMystery surrounds the disappearance of the multimillionaire boss of surfwear brand Quiksilver after his boat was found washed ashore on a French beach.

Pierre Agnes, 54, set off from the surfing resort of Hossegor, Landes, in the south-west of France early on Tuesday morning, reportedly to go fishing.

The father of three was alone on board the 11m Mascaret III when he told port authorities he was postponing my trip home due to thick fog, according to authorities.

After friends and family were unable to contact him, a mayday alert was launched. Two speedboats and at least two helicopters began the search for the Frenchman, who was declared missing at sea.

His boat was later found on a beach close to Hossegor, just north of Biarritz on the Atlantic Ocean. The area is known for intense, sometimes dangerous, waves, which are prized by surfers.

An air-and-sea search operation is underway, a Landes region spokesperson said in a statement. Winds were light, they added, but waves as high as eight feet were hampering visibility.

Pierre Agnes failed to return after setting sail from south-west France (Getty) (Getty Images)

The sea search continued after dark, but rescuers on land were forced to suspend their search until Wednesday morning.

Mr Agnes, a former professional surfer, is chief executive of Boardriders, which is 85 per cent controlled by US private equity firm Oaktree Capital. Boardriders is comprised of the Quiksilver, Roxy and DC Shoes brands.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Boardriders Inc announced on 5 January that it had agreed to buy Australias Billabong International Ltd in a deal that valued the company at A$197.7m (113m).

Despite being heavily involved in his worldwide business, Mr Agnes is known for spending as much time as possible in south-west of France, and for shunning publicity.Vladimir Putin has renamed a regiment of the Russian air force after the Estonian capital, in a move likely to be seen as provocative by leaders of the former Soviet Baltic state.

A presidential order announced the 23rd Fighter Aviation Regiment would now be known as the Tallinn Regiment.

The decree said the units new name was intended to raise spirit of military obligation and preserve holy historical military traditions.

Recommended US Special Forces deployed at Russian border to defend Baltic states

Estonia was under Soviet rule for nearly 50 years after being occupied during World War II. Russias annexation of Crimea from Ukraine heightened tensions in the Baltic states, and the Kremlin has been accused of attempting to destabilise the region.

Derek Averre, a senior academic who specialises in Russian foreign policy at the University of Birmingham, said Moscows renaming of the regiment was likely meant to be provocative.

Russia is concerned that its influence is being further marginalised in the Baltic states and the dual NATO-EU enlargement has been pushed further eastwards, he told The Independent.

He said renaming an air force regiment after Tallinn, a former strategic outpost of the Soviet Union, was indicative of Moscows use of political narratives to exert influence on former Soviet estates.

The Russians like to make a point and as part of that the strategic narratives of Soviet Russian glories in the past, said Dr Averre, Reader in Russian Foreign and Security Policy at the university.

He added: In the absence of actually being able to exercise full control over the sovereignty it tends to take the form of cyber-mischief, trying to destabilise a bit through strategic narratives, trying to make people in these countries see things the Russian way.

"Thats been a feature over the last three or four years of Russian diplomatic intelligence operations.

Part of the Russian narratives which have emerged since then are very much harking back to Russias past. [They include] a lot of talk of Russia being the saviour of Ukraine and Eastern Europe, casting off the yolk of Nazism during the Second World War and really going back to past historical glories, during the Soviet period particularly.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Upnorth, an English-language news website covering the Baltic region, described the regiments renaming as a naked attempt at intimidation by Mr Putin.

The Soviet Union dropped thousands of bombs on Tallinn in repeated air raids during World War II. Hundreds of people, mostly civilians, were killed.

Last year Russia sent 2,500 troops to an airborne military drill in the Pskov region, which borders Estonia, raising anxieties about possible conflict in the region.

The UK has stationed troops in Estonia as part of a Nato mission to deter Russian aggression.The Congress of Syrian National Dialogue, Russias unlikely peace conference apparently aimed at trying to bring an end to a devastating civil war, was several months in the making. By the time it started, three hours late and without a clear timetable, it was teetering on disaster.

A key delegation of the armed opposition had arrived in Sochi, the venue of the Congress, only to refuse to leave the airport. They had taken offence at the event logo, plastered around town, which used the flag of Bashar al-Assads regime in isolation. The opposition delegation demanded the banners be removed. Mediation by the Turkish government was unsuccessful. Sometime on Tuesday morning, several dozen delegates flew back to Ankara; only three decided to stay.

Russia  a staunch supporter of Mr Assad  said it had invited 1,600 representatives to the congress, hoping that it would launch negotiations on drafting a new constitution for Syria. The event was already being boycotted by the leadership of the Syrian opposition, while Western countries like Britain and France made clear their support a separate UN-mediated peace process, which held its latest talks last week.

Things were no smoother at the opening ceremony. Half-way through his short speech, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was stopped in his tracks by a small group of hecklers. Security guards quickly made their way towards the group, but not before they accused Russia of killing innocent Syrian civilians, with one shouting You are killing our people. The protest was soon drowned out by a rival group shouting in support of President Assad. Minister Lavrov looked on impatiently.

Asked to comment on the situation, a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry accepted there had been some problems with the start of the Congress. Syrian opposition groups had made additional demands on organisers, he said, but, after a couple of ministerial phone calls, the situation was now resolved: the Turkish government would represent the interests of Syrian opposition.

There were several unresolved questions: Was the Russian Congress logo deliberate, a hint at the outcome of the conference, or an oversight? Were the Russians aware of potential issues, and, if so, why did the banners remain? Why had the opposition waited until today to bring the matter to light? The logo had, after all, been known for several weeks.

Inside Syria's obliterated capital of the revolution Show all 10 1 /10 Inside Syria's obliterated capital of the revolution Inside Syria's obliterated capital of the revolution The reconstructed Khaled Bin al-Waleed Mosque is framed by a damaged building, in the old city of Homs AP Inside Syria's obliterated capital of the revolution Sumaya Bairuty, 38, an English-language teacher who works in the capital Damascus, speaks with The Associated Press while as she walks to her parents house in the war-damaged Bab Dreib neighborhood of Homs AP Inside Syria's obliterated capital of the revolution Bairuty walks to her parents house AP Inside Syria's obliterated capital of the revolution A family that returned to live in their apartment inside a heavily damaged building hang their carpets in the sun AP Inside Syria's obliterated capital of the revolution A car drives through a devastated part of the old city AP Inside Syria's obliterated capital of the revolution A pigeon keeper watches his pigeons fly from the roof of his home AP Inside Syria's obliterated capital of the revolution Two people carry goods on a bicycle in the war-damaged neighborhood AP Inside Syria's obliterated capital of the revolution Children play football in the street AP Inside Syria's obliterated capital of the revolution It has been almost four years since the last rebels and civilians withdrew from the remaining strongholds in the ancient heart of Homs in Syria AP Inside Syria's obliterated capital of the revolution A man rides his bicycle past a banner showing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad AP

According to Russia, the Congress was designed to unite Syrias many warring parties around a single post-war settlement. Critics of the talks pointed to the absence of much of the armed Syrian opposition and Kurdish groups, who stayed away. Both have resisted Russian efforts to legitimise President Assad, and to create alternatives to the Western-backed UN peace process in Geneva.

Vitaly Naumkin, a Syria-expert closely associated with the Russian government, led the briefing of journalists, who were kept in a restricted area away from the discussion hall. Mr Naumkin insisted that the absence of the Syrian armed opposition or Kurds had not made the Sochi Congress any less legitimate, and pointed to the attendance of United Nations envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, as proof: Having a UN representative here is a clear sign of support and legitimacy, he said.

Since its beginnings in 2011, the Syrian civil war has lurched from one set of complexities to another.

In Syria, opposition activists reported more air strikes on the rebel-held Idlib province, which has faced heavy government bombardment, and Turkish troops continued their offensive on the Afrin enclave, held by a US-allied Kurdish militia which also boycotted the Russian-sponsored talks.

Tensions in the Russian-Kurdish relationship was the one obvious issue hanging over the Congress. Only a handful of Kurdish delegates made it to Sochi, and most of those were Moscow-based.

The assault on Afrin is still very fresh. In a statement on Saturday, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) said Russia behaved as a partner in crime. Without the permission of global forces and mainly Russia, whose troops are located in Afrin, Turkey cannot attack civilians using Afrin airspace, it said. The Syrian Democratic Forces, the US-backed group of Kurdish fighters, described the failure of Russia to intervene as a betrayal and immoral.

Mr Naumkin told journalists that Russia understood the Kurdish grievances, but had prioritised its alliance with Turkey and Iran. That troika now dominates the Syrian peace process, with talks in Astana arguably superseding the UN-led Geneva process. Astana delivered the last major breakthrough in July, when de-escalation zones were established around Syria.

Whether the faltering Sochi event will help add to that dominance is less clear. According to Anton Mardasov, a non-resident expert at the Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), the primary audience for the Congress was domestic.

Sochi was successful in terms of the presidential election campaign, but only that he said. Its only shot at international legitimacy was if the armed opposition attended, and that did not happen.

Depleted of two of the main military groupings, the Sochi Congress ended with a few vague resolutions. Delegates had agreed Sochi would supplement the Geneva process, said UN envoy Mr de Mistura, and would set up a new committee exploring constitutional reform. However, work on the constitution has already been met with disdain by critics who suggest it will have no credibility with opposition groups who have boycotted the conference and will do little more than entrench Mr Assads position.

Mr Lavrov said that the committee working on the constitution would be doing so from Geneva and it would include groups not present in Sochi. There will, however likely be consternation from opposition groups over the final statement from the conference. That urged the preservation of security forces without calling for their reform, something the opposition has demanded.

The statement also said Syrians must decide their future through elections, but did not say whether Syrian refugees would be allowed to take part, something sought by Mr Assad's opponents and Western states - making it hard to conclude that the conference had done more than kicking the Syrian can further down the road.British barristers have written to Irans supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to protest against the treatment of lawyers in the country and the ongoing detention of prominent human rights advocates.

A letter from the Bar Council urged Iranian authorities to release all lawyers and anyone who has been detained for their work defending peoples rights.

It highlighted the cases of Abdolfattah Soltani and Narges Mohammadi, two leading human rights lawyers who are currently detained in the country.

But the letter warned that others were also being held and urged the Iranian authorities to comply with international obligations and standards.

Mr Soltani, a lawyer and co-founder of the Centre for Human Rights Defenders (DHRC), is currently six years into his 13-year sentence which he received for spreading propaganda against the system and endangering national security, along with setting up an illegal opposition group.

Ms Mohammadi, the vice president of the DHRC, was arrested and sentenced to six years imprisonment in 2012 for meeting and conspiring against the Islamic Republic and spreading anti-government publicity.

She was released in 2013 on medical grounds but was reportedly arrested again in 2015 without notice, to serve the remainder of her sentence.

In May 2016, the Islamic Revolutionary Court sentenced her to an additional 16 years imprisonment after it was claimed that she was involved in an assembly and collusion to commit crimes against national security.

She was also accused of spreading propaganda against the state and establishing and running an illegal group.

Andrew Walker QC, chair of the Bar Council, said he hoped that Iran would respond to the calls and respect the role that lawyers have to play in the country.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Strong and confident nations recognise the role played by independent lawyers in upholding the rights of their citizens and others, and they protect the right of lawyers to act for their clients without fear or interference, including in cases that bring those clients into conflict with the state itself, Mr Walker said.

Kirsty Brimelow QC, chair of the Bar Human Rights Committee, added that legally Iran had to allow lawyers to perform their professional functions.

It is in breach of that obligation. President Hassan Rouhani has an opportunity to deliver upon his original campaign promise of greater respect for civil and political rights by urgently addressing the imprisonment of its lawyers, she said.

The Iranian embassy had not responded to a request for comment from The Independent at the time of publication.Azerbaijan tries to pressure Armenia-Russia relations - Expert (video)

Information security expert Tigran Kocharyan told at a news conference today that the recent signature collection, aimed at eliminating the symbolism of Nazism in post-Soviet countries, including the dismantling of the statue of Garegin Nzhdeh, is the result of pro-Azerbaijani experts. "The Russian Federation has different groups that pursue different goals, and there is also a group that lives in the nostalgia of the Soviet Union. That is why they are trying to take steps that more countries be under the direct control of Russia. There was an attempt to involve Azerbaijan in the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) within the last 2-3 years. Azerbaijan, realizing that it is a good way to irritate Armenia and solve its problems, has begun to "play this game." Some Russian experts see the solution of the issue in such a way that Armenia and Azerbaijan should be involved in EEU and Russia will decide how Artsakh and other issues will be settled, that is, Russia will manage Armenian-Azerbaijani issues." According to Tigran Kocharyan, the name of Garegin Nzhdeh was connected with Nazism due to the people of "Izboryan" club, Taras Shevchenko, Sergei Markov. The signature collection against the fascist was held in a crafty way in Russia. According to the expert, the text of the online signature collection was written by Alexander Perenjiev, who included the name of Garegin Nzhdeh in the general list. Naturally, people do not go into detail, sign it, and it turns out that the Russians demand the removal of the statue of Nzhdeh.Saudi Arabia has banned foreigners from certain jobs in favour of giving them to Saudi citizens.

The Kingdom's Minister of Labour ordered that jobs in 12 private sector areas would be restricted to domestic applications from early September 2018.

Ali bin Nasser al-Ghafis said the ministry's objective was to give more employment opportunities to Saudi men and women, the Saudi Gazette reports.

A spokesman for the ministry, Khalid Abalkhail, said the jobs were mostly in retail and sales, including sales in watches, glasses, medical equipment, cars and motorbikes.

 Saudi Arabia's crown prince: Country will return to 'moderate, open Islam'

The decision comes after the unemployment rate in Saudi Arabia rose over 12 per cent last year as the government has seen its finances strained by low oil prices.

And it comes as part of a drive to renovate Saudi Arabia's economy by the country's new Crown Prince, Muhammad bin Salman.

Before he became successor to the king, Prince Muhammad said he had "great opportunities to create jobs in the private sector."

During an interview with The Economist in 2014, he said he had "reserves" of "ten million jobs that are being occupied by non-Saudi employees" that he could "resort to at any time of my choosing."

He went on to say he did not want to "pressure the private sector, unless this is the last resort."

10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Show all 10 1 /10 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In October 2014, three lawyers, Dr Abdulrahman al-Subaihi, Bander al-Nogaithan and Abdulrahman al-Rumaih , were sentenced to up to eight years in prison for using Twitter to criticize the Ministry of Justice. AFP/Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In March 2015, Yemens Sunni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi was forced into exile after a Shia-led insurgency. A Saudi Arabia-led coalition has responded with air strikes in order to reinstate Mr Hadi. It has since been accused of committing war crimes in the country. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Women who supported the Women2Drive campaign, launched in 2011 to challenge the ban on women driving vehicles, faced harassment and intimidation by the authorities. The government warned that women drivers would face arrest. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Members of the Kingdoms Shia minority, most of whom live in the oil-rich Eastern Province, continue to face discrimination that limits their access to government services and employment. Activists have received death sentences or long prison terms for their alleged participation in protests in 2011 and 2012. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses All public gatherings are prohibited under an order issued by the Interior Ministry in 2011. Those defy the ban face arrest, prosecution and imprisonment on charges such as inciting people against the authorities. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In March 2014, the Interior Ministry stated that authorities had deported over 370,000 foreign migrants and that 18,000 others were in detention. Thousands of workers were returned to Somalia and other states where they were at risk of human rights abuses, with large numbers also returned to Yemen, in order to open more jobs to Saudi Arabians. Many migrants reported that prior to their deportation they had been packed into overcrowded makeshift detention facilities where they received little food and water and were abused by guards. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses The Saudi Arabian authorities continue to deny access to independent human rights organisations like Amnesty International, and they have been known to take punitive action, including through the courts, against activists and family members of victims who contact Amnesty. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Raif Badawi was sentenced to 1000 lashes and 10 years in prison for using his liberal blog to criticise Saudi Arabias clerics. He has already received 50 lashes, which have reportedly left him in poor health. Carsten Koall/Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Dawood al-Marhoon was arrested aged 17 for participating in an anti-government protest. After refusing to spy on his fellow protestors, he was tortured and forced to sign a blank document that would later contain his confession. At Dawoods trial, the prosecution requested death by crucifixion while refusing him a lawyer. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Ali Mohammed al-Nimr was arrested in 2012 aged either 16 or 17 for participating in protests during the Arab spring. His sentence includes beheading and crucifixion. The international community has spoken out against the punishment and has called on Saudi Arabia to stop. He is the nephew of a prominent government dissident. Getty

Earlier this week, the government seized more than 400bn riyals (70bn) from businessmen and officials detained in its crackdown on corruption.

Dozens of the kingdom's top officials and businessmen were detained and many were held during investigations at Riyadh's opulent Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

The huge sum provides a financial boost for the government, which has a predicted state budget deficit of 195bn riyals (37bn) for this year.A bipartisan team of US Senators has asked Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to discuss possible Russian meddling in the upcoming Mexican election on his trip there next week.

Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Democratic Senator Bob Menendez wrote in a letter to Mr Tillerson that they are increasingly concerned about Russian interference in Latin American elections, particularly the July 2018 presidential elections in Mexico.

Weak electoral systems can be easily exploited and manipulated by malicious actors like Russia, wrote the Senators.

Recommended Trump offers amnesty for Dreamers in return for his border wall

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied interference in any foreign election.

They added that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) continue to provide technical assistance and monitoring to strengthen electoral systems in the region.

The request comes just a few weeks after White House National Security Adviser HR McMaster said in a speech at a Washington DC think tank on 7 January: Youve seen actually initial signs of it in the Mexican presidential campaign already.

As you see, this is really a sophisticated effort to polarise democratic societies and pit communities within those societies against each other and create crises of confidence and to undermine the strength within Europe," Mr McMaster said, particularly referring to the French and German elections in 2017.

But, as Dr Tony Payan, Director of the Mexico Center at Rice University in Houston, Texas, told The Independent there has been no evidence of actual Russian tampering in the Mexican electoral process that has been presented.

 US border patrol guards kick over water left for migrants near Mexico border

One can conclude, if Russia interferes [with the Mexican election] it would be to deepen US isolationism and Mexico or its society would not actually be its target, Mr Payan explained.

US President Donald Trumps relationship with Mexico has been strained, at best, since he was on the campaign trail in 2016 and repeatedly claimed Americas southern neighbor would pay for a nearly 2,000 mile border wall to stem illegal immigration into the US.

The US President also claimed that the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) - a $1.2 trillion trade pact - was unfair and a bad deal for American manufacturing workers.

It is absurd American politicians are concerned...and strange with Russia possibly interfering, Mr Payan said.

The Trump administration itself has damaged the bilateral relationship and "done enough" to isolate itself, but now it wants to put the blame on Russia, he said.

Mr Payan also noted the administrations unwillingness to admit that Russia actually interfered with the US election.

Congress and the FBI, through special prosecutor Robert Mueller, are continuing to investigate the alleged meddling and any possible collusion between members of Trumps campaign team and Russian officials.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

While Mr Payan does not doubt Russias long, long history of misinformation, ability, and perhaps motivation, to undermine western democracies he questions the US motivation for bringing this up with Mexico.

He argued that Mr Tillersons discussion could be seen as interference in and of itself given the candidate the US does not want in office, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, is actually ahead in the polls at the moment.

While there are no inherently anti-American candidates in the election, Mr Payan said one reason for Mr Tillerson to bring up Russia would be to sway the public away from Mr Lopez Obrador since he would put Mexico first, just as Mr Trump puts America first in his foreign policy.

The current leading candidate would likely also pose a threat to the administrations designs to protect the Mexico as a market for American exports - specifically in the energy sector - because he wants to develop Mexicos own natural resources and agriculture industries.

Is that American or Russian interference? Mr Payan asked.

To wit, Mr Lopez Obrador posted a video to Twitter at the busy pot of Veracruz in which he said: Im standing here waiting for the Russian submarine...It will be bringing me Moscows gold.

Mr Lopez Obrador then mocks Javier Lozano, one of the [opposition partys] spokesmen, who this week warned against possible Russian intervention in Mexicos electoral process and said I am now Andres Manuelovich, the Washington Post reported.

Mr Tillerson is set to travel to Mexico next week. The election will take place on 1 July.New York is a city of hectic and exciting extremes: wind tunnel avenues and skyscrapers are cosied up to Sunday afternoon-type bars and cafes. The metropolis is a must-see for those who love culture, history, food and nightlife  and its a delight for architectural devotees who simply enjoy pounding the miles of pavement in a grid-like structure that ensures getting lost isnt an option.

And with Norwegian (norwegian.com) offering flights to New York from three UK airports from as little as 69 one way, theres even less excuse not to hope across the pond for a visit.

What to do

Walk the streets

Recommended 10 of the best New York hotels

One of the most enjoyable things to do is simply take a stroll and absorb the eclectic buildings as you go. Wear comfortable shoes as there is a lot of ground to cover, from the oldest buildings in the city near the Wall Street financial district to Chinatown, Little Italy, Tribeca and the West Village  all are worth exploring.

Be sure to walk up Fifth Avenue, from the Washington Square Arch at the bottom to the Plaza Hotel at the top. Youll see Central Park along the way; its especially beautiful in spring and autumn.

Take a boat trip to the Statue of Liberty (Getty/iStock) (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Hit the river

Indulge in a boat trip to the Statue of Liberty and the Ellis Island Immigration Museum. The pick-up point is Battery Park, and you can hop on and off the islands as you wish. Tickets (statuecruises.com) start at $18.50 (13) per adult.

Make for the museums

The American Museum of Natural History (amnh.org) is worth visiting for the dinosaur skeletons alone. It asks for a donation, rather than an entry fee. Open daily, 10am-5.45pm.

For a more bite-sized cultural trips, the Museum of the City of New York (mcny.org) is on the opposite side of Central Park and offers fascinating insights into the citys history. Open daily, 10am-6pm; $18.

The Tenement Museum (tenement.org) houses a derelict but carefully preserved building where hundreds of immigrants lived together in crammed quarters in the 20th century, and many of the inhabitants stories have been carefully documented. Buy a tour online at the Tenement Museum for $25.

The Tenement Museum is a preserved building where hundreds of immigrants lived (Getty) (Getty Images)

Find your muse

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (metmuseum.org) is one of the finest galleries in the world, and the largest in the US. As well as the permanent collection, there are numerous temporary exhibitions; current highlights include Rodin, David Hockney and Michelangelo. Open 10am-5.30pm Mondays to Thursdays, 10am-9pm Fridays and Saturdays; entry is free but suggested donation is $25.

Meanwhile the Museum of Modern Art, or MoMA (moma.org), contains an evolving collection of almost 200,000 works of contemporary and modern art from artists such as Van Gogh, Picasso and Rothko, plus photography, film, design, and performance. Open 10.30am-5.30pm Mondays to Sundays and until 8pm on Fridays; entry $25.

The Whitney (whitney.org), which recently moved to an impressive modern building in the meatpacking district, focuses on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Open Wednesday to Monday 10.30am-6pm; closed Tuesdays.

MoMA has an extensive modern art collection (Getty) (Getty Images)

The smaller Neue Galerie (neuegalerie.org) houses the original Woman In Gold painting by Gustav Klimt, and Cafe Sabarsky, a wonderfully old European-style cafe. Open 11am-6pm Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, closed Tuesday and Wednesday mornings; entry $20.

The New York Public Library (nypl.org) on Fifth Avenue is sublime, boasting the famous Rose Main Reading Room. Sneak a look at Charles Dickens desk upstairs before it is moved back to London later this year. Open daily from 10am or 11am, except Sundays.

Where to stay

New York is infamously expensive, but there are a range of hotels to suit every budget if you know where to look.

Recommended 10 of the luxury hotels in New York

Millennial-favourite The Pod Hotel has funky colours, iPads in the communal room and roof decks. There are four locations around the city and Brooklyn. Doubles from $85, room only.

The lobby is spectacular at The Row, although the rooms are fairly basic. Situated on Times Square, its a stones throw from Broadway and most of the theatres. Doubles from $67, room only.

The trendy Pod Hotel has roof decks (Pod Hotel)

If you fancy splashing out, The Bowery is a chic option situated in the trendy Lower East Side. Rooms have large windows and stylish communal lounges. Doubles from $335, room only.

Find more hotels in New York

Where to eat

The Cornelia Street Cafe (corneliastreetcafe.com) in the heart of the West Village is perfect for brunch, lunch or dinner, offering delicious side dishes such as hummus drizzled with fruity balsamic vinegar. For $10, you can head down to the basement after your meal for a night of jazz.

La Esquina (esquinanyc.com) has trendy decor, tasty Mexican food and friendly service. The setting at its flagship restaurant in Soho is also cool  you have to walk through a quiet diner and go downstairs before being hit by the great music and an upbeat atmosphere.

Buddakan featured in the Sex and the City film (Buddakan)

New York demands you splash out on at least one meal. Buddakan (buddakannyc.com)  recognisable to Sex and the City fans as the place where Big and Carrie hold their engagement dinner in the film  serves mouth-watering Asian dishes and cocktails.

Where to drink

Enjoy a white Russian or an espresso martini 22 floors up at Westlight (thewilliamvale.com/dining/westlight), the rooftop bar at the William Vale hotel, which offers one of the best views of the Manhattan skyline from Brooklyn. Open daily, 4pm-12am.

The midtown gem that is Monkey Bar (monkeybarnewyork.com) is an institution for jazz and beer. Enjoy the music, the artwork on the walls and the old New York-style lamps as you brush shoulders with the cool, Saturday-evening crowd. Open daily, 11.30am-1am.

The Westlight bar has incredible views of the Manhattan skyline (Westlight)

For a more laidback and cheaper vibe, head to Old Town Bar (oldtownbar.com) a stones throw from Union Square. It has all the classics  a long bar, marble floor and cosy wooden booths. It serves excellent fries, too. No need to book but get there before the local, after-work crowd arrives. Open daily, 11.30am-1am.

Where to shop

Walk over the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan and check out the up-and-coming industrial chic architecture of Dumbo and the famous Brooklyn Flea market (brooklynflea.com) on Sundays (April through October).

Then jump on a water taxi two stops north to Williamsburg. The small but lovely Artists & Fleas market (artistsandfleas.com), open 10am-7pm on weekends, is near the water on North 7th Street. While in the neighbourhood, check out the boutiques and shops on Williamsburgs Bedford Avenue.

Brooklyn Flea market is worth a browse (Getty) (Getty Images)

For vintage clothes shops, head to the East Village. At Nomad Vintage (nomadvintage.com) East 6th Street there are tribal frocks aplenty, while No Relation Vintage (norelationvintage.com) on 204 1st Avenue has a strong selection of shirts and denims.

Fifth Avenue (visit5thavenue.com) is crammed with designer shops and the flagship Tiffany jewellery store, but a more compact and affordable shopping experience can be found at the new Westfield mall (westfield.com/westfieldworldtradecenter) under what used to be the World Trade Centre. Open daily, 10am-9pm.

Architectural highlight

If youre a fan of Edith Wharton or Henry James, head to East 4th Street. The 19th-century Merchants House Museum (merchantshouse.org) is the oldest, fully preserved townhouse in the city; it used to be owned by a prestigious New York family called the Tredwells. Open 12-5pm Friday to Monday, 12-8pm Thursday; entry $15.

Head to the Rockefeller Centre for the best view of the Empire State Building (Getty) (Getty Images)

New York Nuts and bolts

Cheapest time to fly

What currency do I need?

New York uses US dollars.

Should I tip?

For eating, drinking, taxis and tour guides, tip between 15 and 20 per cent.

Whats the time difference?

New York is five hours behind and runs on East Coast Time (ET).

Public transport

A bus or subway ride costs $2.75 with a travel card. Water ferries are the same price for a one-way ticket.

Whats the flight time from the UK?

Most flights take around eight hours there and six hours back.

Best view

For the best view of the 1930s Empire State Building, head to the Rockefeller Centre (topoftherocknyc.com)  at night, surrounded by the Hudson and the East River, it is even more spectacular. Tickets cost $34.

Insider tip

Many art galleries and museums offer extended late hours and free entry on the first Friday of every month.Everything goes pitch black as the door to the small adobe hut is pushed closed from the outside. The hiss of water hitting hot stone strikes my ears before the steam rises around us, filling my lungs quickly and burning my eyes with the sting of mezcal and eucalyptus. In that moment, I feel two things: invigorated, and an urge to run screaming for the door.

This isnt my first time in a temazcal  a Mesoamerican sweat lodge  but every time the door shuts, I feel the same intense feelings of claustrophobia and exhilaration as the last. This time, inside a hut in Oaxaca, my eyes cant make out anything in the darkness, and the air is making them stream.

After a long moment of silence, punctuated only by a few people coughing lightly, the shaman begins to chant an offering to the gods, giving thanks and asking for blessings, his low, deep tone vibrating through the thick air.

Just as my body (and, more importantly, my racing mind) is getting used to the temperature inside this low-ceilinged hut, I hear another gourd of water hit the hot stones. The heat rises and I talk my mind away from the ledge as my body edges subconsciously towards the door.

Expect to struggle with the steam (Ceviarem Temazcal) (Susannah Rigg)

Once an important part of pre-Hispanic life, temazcales have once again risen in popularity and can now be found throughout Mexico. The ritual has deep roots: most Mesoamerican temazcales have been discovered at the heart of Mexicos ancient civilisations. Temazcales represented the centre of the earth  a place of transition between the heavens and the underworld. They were often used for ritual and medical practices by priests, warriors or the players of an obscure ancient Mesoamerican ball game. Entering and exiting through a tiny doorway, I cant help but see the imagery of death and rebirth.

Before my symbolic rebirth, however, I need to sweat  a lot. As the heat keeps rising, my pores open. Sweat streams from my head to my toes  it feels like all the dirt from city life is escaping from every pore of my body. My eyes have become acclimatised to the dark now, too, and I can see the outline of the people Im sharing the experience with. Some are regulars, there for the health benefits, hoping to clear their pores, raise their heart rate and cleanse their lungs. Some are quietly focused, there for spiritual purification. Others, like me, have come to experience both. I like the feeling of being so intensely clean, but I love the idea of an emotional reset too.

The temazcal in Oaxaca is led by a curandero (healer) who comes from a long line of healers (Ceviarem Temazcal) (Susannah Rigg)

Bunches of basil are handed round, and some of the foreigners look confused. Thick bundles of the herb are used for a kind of Mesoamerican self-flagellation, beating out tension and negative emotions. I start smacking myself hard, the sound echoing around, leaves flying in the air. The tension in my shoulders seems to take off with the leaves, and I start to cry, tears mingling with the sweat on my face  a deeper cleanse. The smell of basil now fills the temazcal, its scent uplifting and restorative.

And then we go really deep as more and more water is hurled onto the volcanic rocks. Just as Im wondering how much longer I can bear it, the shaman splashes a gourd of cold water into my face. I gasp with relief  one in a line of gasps, as each person feels the sudden respite from the heat.

The temazcal is a sacred ritual (Ceviarem Temazcal) (Susannah Rigg)

From there, were recovering  rubbing pulverised fresh orange all over our bodies and smoothing honey into our hair. As more water splashes onto the rocks, I lie on the ground, where the heat is slightly less intense. I focus on what Im here to let go of  what I want to leave behind in this small, dark womb-like space. Im ready for my rebirth. Or maybe Im just ready to feel the cool air of the outside world on my face.

And finally, the door is opening and the sunlight and cold wind rushing in. I feel like Ive left unwanted emotions and about half my body weight in sweat behind me in that little adobe hut. Whats more, my skin is soft as a babys. My rebirth is complete.

Mayan shaman greets visitors with copal smoke (Alamy)

Travel essentials

Getting there

Aeromexico flies from Heathrow to Oaxaca via Mexico City from 570. Ceviarem Temazcal is located 15 minutes from the centre of Oaxaca. Curandero (healer) Joshave CIrigo is from a long line of healers and his wife Blanca Estela Conde speaks English. Prices start from 15 for a group temazcal.

Staying there

The bohemian and beautiful Agrado Guest House has doubles from 35 per night, half board

More information

facebook.com/ceviarem.temazcalTravellers booking discount tickets to key destinations in Africa including Johannesburg, Lagos and Nairobi will find the previous allowance of 46kg cases has halved overnight to 23kg.

On a return flight from Heathrow or Manchester to any African destination, a second 23kg bag will cost $1,280 (904), plus a further 25 per cent if paid at at the airport.

The lowest limits apply to economy passengers with deal tickets. Those choosing saver or classic tickets have had their free baggage cut to 30kg, while economy flex travellers can take 40kg.

Bizarrely, for journeys beginning in Africa, the allowance has barely changed, with 40kg allowed for all economy passengers.

UK economy travellers to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh who were previously entitled to 46kg have seen their allowance fall by over one-third, to 30kg  unless they book a flex ticket, in which case the limit is 35kg.

On a test booking from Manchester to Mumbai on 4 February for a week, the economy deal fare is 400, with flex more than twice as expensive at 910.

Premium passengers have also seen their allowances cut. Both business and first-class travellers used to enjoy a limit of 64kg. In business class the limit drops to 40kg, and in first to 50kg.

The only exception is for travellers in The Residence on the upper deck of Airbus A380 jets, who continue to enjoy an allowance of 128kg.

The wholesale reductions appear to reduce convenience and customer benefit, while diminishing the travel experience. But according to the airlines executive vice president commercial, exactly the opposite applies.

Mohammad Al Bulooki said the new policy provides greater convenience and customer benefit while enhancing the travel experience.

An Etihad spokesperson told The Independent: We are bringing our baggage allowance in line with our competitors in each of the markets we operate in. The new system is simpler and will now be based on total weight, rather than the number of checked in bags. Every guest will continue to experience our award winning inflight service.

Etihad has been under financial pressure following a series of disastrous investments in loss-making airlines, including Alitalia and Air Berlin. The German airline collapsed in October after Etihad withdrew financial support.

The Abu Dhabi airline started in 2003, 18 years later than Emirates of Dubai  which is around three times larger.

Emirates cut its luggage allowance for discount economy passengers from 30kg to 20kg in 2016. Qatar Airways, based in Doha, has a free baggage limit of 30kg for all economy travellers.

Etihad passengers who booked before 31 January are entitled to the more generous allowances that pertained when they bought their tickets.

The giant US airline, Delta, is to eliminate the free baggage allowance for Basic Economy passengers flying from the UK to the US from 10 April onwards.Ryanair has vowed to pay compensation for delayed or cancelled flights faster than any other airline.

We will pay all valid claims within 10 days, said the airlines chief marketing officer, Kenny Jacobs. Currently the airlines guide time for paying out is four weeks.

Under European passengers rights rules, travellers who arrive three hours or more late at their destination, or whose flight is cancelled at short notice, are entitled to compensation. For flights of under 1,500km the payout is set at 250; for longer flights, 400.

An airline need not pay when extraordinary circumstances are to blame. Examples include air traffic control strikes or bad weather. But mechanical faults or staffing issues are not acceptable excuses.

A special unit of 150 customer service staff has been established in Madrid to process claims.

In the unlikely event that there is any disruption well pay faster than any other airline, said Mr Jacobs.

The Independent has received multiple complaints about the complexity of filing a claim with Ryanair, and delays in paying out. Mr Jacobs said that the claims process would be simplified and accelerated. We want to take away any doubt that its difficult, he said.

Mr Jacobs told The Independent: Its very black and white in terms of whats valid and whats not valid.

However, many delay and cancellation incidents involve a combination of causes, leading to disagreements about whether compensation is due. Passengers who believe they have been wrongly denied a payout can take legal advice or go through Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR).

Ryanair is contemplating providing automatic payment of compensation in cases where it accepts responsibility for disruption. At present the only transport undertaking known to do so is Virgin Trains, for Advance bookings on the West Coast main line.

Its something that we would consider, said Mr Jacobs. But at this stage the process itself is going to simplify, and make that straightforward for customers, so they have less information they have to provide us with, and well make the process faster.

The Consumers Association is conducting an online petition calling on all airlines to implement automatic payment of valid claims. Carriers are extremely reluctant to do so, because of the high cost. Ryanair says its average fare in the current financial year is 39, less than 10 per cent of the higher payout, 400.

At present it is thought that fewer than half of eligible passengers make claims, and on some airlines the estimate is down to single figure percentages.

Ryanair has also brought in a price promise, saying: Find a cheaper fare and well refund the difference, plus 5 in compensation.

But it applies only on the same airport-to-airport pair, as opposed to city-to-city; so between Stansted and Rome Ciampino, rather than all flights between London and Rome. The rival flight must leave within two hours of the Ryanair departure time.

In practice very few of the airlines routes have head-to-head competition, and on many of those that do overlap rivals flights are at very different times. Between Manchester and Faro in Portugal, for example, served by both Jet2 and Ryanair, departure times are nine hours apart.

Mr Jacobs also alluded to the issues Ryanair and its passengers have encountered since the abrupt cancellation of 20,000 flights last autumn due to pilot-rostering problems.

Weve learned a lot about customer service over the past six months, he said.A deadline has been introduced to a scheme in Sardinia that offers the chance to buy a house for 1.

The Italian village of Ollolai in the Barbagia region launched the initiative in 2015 to attract more residents after the local population had dwindled to 1,300, with few babies born each year.

The mayor, Efisio Arbau, aimed to rejuvenate the community via the innovative programme, which invites people to buy one of 200 stone houses for just 1 (88p)  although there are strings attached.

The houses themselves are in varying states of disrepair and in need of serious work, and only those with around 20,000 to 30,000 to make them inhabitable will be considered. The scheme stipulates that participants must commit to refurbish the property within three years of purchase, and can only sell it on after five years.

However, after being in the spotlight recently, the village has now been overwhelmed with interest, leading to a deadline of 7 February 2018 being set for applications. Theres only one week left to apply.

Since being featured by various media outlets over the last six months, by late 2017 the number of applications had increased to 120, with many coming from overseas. Interest has now reached such a pitch that the website, casea1euro.it, currently appears to be down.

Arbau issued a statement saying: The Municipality of Ollolai announces that with effect from 2pm on 7 February 2018 it will no longer be possible to submit applications for participation in the Case a 1 Euro scheme, as the number of requests submitted has potentially exhausted the number of available properties.

He added that, after the cut-off, applications will be evaluated in the order they were received. If the scheme is reopened it will be announced on the village website.

The Sardinian village is keen to grow the population after numbers dropped to 1,300, with few babies born each year

Ollolai itself sits on the slopes of Monte San Basilio Magno, surrounded by Mediterranean woodland. It is one of the few remaining Sardinian towns where a local martial art and ancient form of wrestling, SIstrumpa, is still practised, and it keeps up traditional artisan crafts such as the weaving of asphodel baskets.

The mayor has said his aim in launching the campaign was to rescue the villages unique traditions from falling into oblivion, a goal that will hopefully be achieved now it has attracted so many potential new residents.

For those left disappointed, Ollolai is not the only Italian town to entice people with too-good-to-be-true sounding housing offers.

Candela, a small town in Puglia, announced in October 2017 it would pay up to 2,000 for new residents to move there in a bid to halt the areas population decline.

Nicola Gatta, the town mayor, said he wanted to bring numbers back up to the 8,000 of the 1990s, when the town was known as Little Naples, after resident numbers had shrunk to 2,700.

Like the Ollolai offer, it came with a catch  those interested in the dolce vita needed to commit to being a permanent resident, rent a house in the town and earn more than 7,500 per year. If you meet the requirements, the council will pay 800 for singles and 1,200 for couples. Families of up to five receive over 2,000. Tax credits on council bills and childcare are also available. Life quality rocks here, said Stefano Bascianelli, who works with the mayor.

Recommended Italy is giving away castles for free

An idyllic village in the Italian mountains made the same offer in May last year, but quickly withdrew it after being overwhelmed by applicants.

Daniele Galliano, the mayor of Bormida, wrote a post on social media promising to give new residents 2,000 in cash, and guaranteeing cheap rent of around 50 a month once theyd moved there. People from all over the world, including the US, the UK, Indonesia and Hungary, expressed interest, even offering to waive the fee and live there anyway.

And as part of Italys Strategic Tourism Plan  an initiative designed to alleviate the overcrowding at Italys most popular spots, such as Venice, and redistribute tourists to lesser-known destinations around the country  it was announced in May 2017 that 103 historic sites were being given away for free.

These included castles, monasteries and towers all over the country; however, they were only up for grabs to those who could show concrete plans of how they would renovate and rejuvenate the sites to help boost tourism in the local area.Most of those engaged in resisting Donald Trump, the man and the agenda, were ladling scorn on his address to a joint session of Congress, otherwise known as the State of the Union, long before the last of the (mostly Republican) applause had died down. Some Democratic lawmakers showed their disgust before he had even started by simply not showing up.

Their boycott was one of the nights multiple subplots. Was it a meaningful protest against a man who has shown so little respect for the institutions of government or itself an act of petulance that merely descended to his own level, showing the same kind of disrespect for the rhythms and traditions of Washington that most Americans still hold dear?

Trump could have cared less. The feed I was watching on did nothing to filter out the source of noise closest to the microphones that wasnt his mouth - the relentless colliding of his hands. If he wasnt speaking, he was applauding. Applauding the special guests in the first ladys gallery, yes, but just as much applauding himself. Clap, clap, clap. He has that way of breathing in through his teeth when he is feeling particularly pleased with himself. Gales of inhaling.

There was plenty to pick at. The linkage he made between MS-13 and other violent gangs and illegal immigration was repellant, as was using relatives of victims of the violence, seated beside Melania, as props. Once more Trump was demonising every illegal immigrant and stoking anti-immigrant prejudice among his base voters. Nothing about this president stirs my anger more.

His calls for national unity might have flown were they not so phony. Trump cant help sow division, racial and partisan, usually by Twitter. In the speech, he picked at the scar of black athletes refusing to stand for the national anthem. No unifying there. His claiming of all credit for the current strength in the US economy, ignoring the long labours of Barack Obama, is absurd.

That these and other unflattering thoughts were flooding the synapses of those Democrats who were in the chamber was obvious from the cut-away shots of their stony faces. Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader in the house, looked most of the time like she was choking on a quince.

Joe Kennedy III delivering his response on behalf of his fellow Democrats (CNN/YouTube)

But even if they didnt know it then, there was an opposing explanation for the grim demeanour of the Democrats. Standing before them was the Trump they are most afraid of. You may not like the pistons that drive him, but on this night they were humming in impressive, dangerous unison. He can create a sense of forward motion even when its false. And it is hard to resist.

Take his report card on the economy and the contention that because its so promising the country is on the threshold of a new American moment. His facts and figures were as exaggerated as his willingness to give anyone but himself credit was absent. But such are his selling skills, Trump doesnt just get away with these lies, he creates a narrative so upbeat and rosy they may on their own give the economy an extra boost. Its the feel-good thing.

Beyond his polarising language on immigration, Trump offered a bargain that would end the limbo of the 700,000 Dreamers brought into the country as children by their parents in return for tougher border protection, including some sort of a wall, tighter rules on legal immigrants bringing family members into the country and a winding down of the visa lottery system. The resist movement will demand that Democrats refuse even to discuss these ideas. Thats one option, but a poor one. Some how, some day, the deadlock on immigration must be resolved.

Trump did not just repeat his appeal of a year ago for a bipartisan bill to rebuild the countrys creaking infrastructure, he made it more ambitious, asking Congress for $1.5 billion for new schools, bridges, hospitals, roads, rail lines and airports. Assuming they can find the funding for all this, that means new jobs. Again, the Democrats must choose. Are they going to say no? Trump asked for rehabilitation of long-term prison inmates too. He also made a call for funds for paid family leave when new babies arrive. Do they want to resist those things too?

The Trump denouncers and Democrats on Capitol Hill tell themselves that one moderately well-written speech delivered with a degree of confidence from a tele-prompter does not a decent president make and that Trump will surely create a new crisis for himself, with an ill-advised comment here or Twitter post there, before the week is out. Or they are counting on the Mueller probe into alleged Russian collusion to hobble him before he can take his agenda much further.

But what if neither of those things happen? The Trump who appeared on Tuesday night was a new version of himself, more polished and effective than we have seen before. The Democrats need more to overcome that and more to win the confidence of voters this November to give them majority control of the House than they have shown us so far. A few weeks ago, we were jabbering about Oprah Winfrey becoming their leader. This week, the great new hope was meant to be Congressman Joe Kennedy, chosen to deliver the official riposte to the president. Where did he come from all of a sudden (aside from a near-mythological New England clan)?

Whether or not Trump inspired you, whether or not you think there was a iota of honesty or statesmanship in what he said, his performance this week was sobering for Democrats. It was a Trump they are ill-prepared for. Sitting on hands and wearing sour faces is not a strategy. They can resist him where they need to, of course, but where he has ideas with real bi-partisan appeal, they should engage. Otherwise they look like deers in his headlights. And sulky ones.The next president cannot change situation in Armenia - Hovhannes Igityan (video)

International expert Hovhannes Igityan told journalists today that the policy toward Russia is not conditioned by the next president, Russia has a monopoly position in all spheres. Talking about Armen Sarkissian, he said: Armen Sarkissian meets with different forces and tries to send some messages to the society, we must understand, and as the candidate also often referrs to, is that he does not come to the office with the help of the public. He simply does not need people's approval to be elected in that position and to expect that a person elected to this position can change the situation in Armenia is impossible. He also stated that at least this time, the person presented to the post of president has both experience and education. It is difficult for me to speak about Armen Sarkissian, I'm subjective in that matter, as I have known him for a long time, we have gone the way together. And how he will be able to fit into the situation of Armenia, it will known over time.Prakash Jha will host a web series titled Saare Jahan Se Achha that will showcase the lives of ordinary individuals who try to create a change in the lives of many through their efforts. (photo provided)"The Power of One Dram" to overcome childhood cancer

Generation A 13  your chance to be the change

President of the Artsakh Republic Arayik Harutyunyan met with Russian Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group Igor Khovayev

"uDays" special offer at Ucom: discounts for all smartphones and accessories for 2 days only

Google Ad

For more than 3 hours, 50 or more Azerbaijani servicemen have blocked the interstate road

Call on the international community for an adequate response against azerbaijani aggresssion

Transformation and trust are important for success in modern banking. Artak Hanesyan

UCOMS LEVEL UP 1700 REGIONAL TARIFF PLAN USERS TO RECEIVE MORE THAN THOSE IN YEREVAN

Joint statement

Statement by the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group

Covid-19: 163 new cases in Armenia

Armenia: Remarks by Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi at the press point with Acting Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan

The United States Welcomes Azerbaijans Release of Armenian Detainees and Armenias Actions to Facilitate Demining

The Coronavirus-Related Situation in Armenia

International aviation: Council greenlights signing of major agreements with four countries

With UCOMs level up tariff plans subscribers have unlimited access to Netflix, Duolingo and Zoom

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Armenia: Statement by the Spokesperson on the early parliamentary elections

Armenias Parliamentary Elections PRESS STATEMENT

COVID19:77 new cases

Armenias early parliamentary elections were competitive and well run, but polarized and marred by aggressive rhetoric, international observers say

International election observers to Armenias early parliamentary elections held press conference

Drop Charges Against Rights Defender Sashik Sultanyan

The Coronavirus-Related Situation in Armenia

The European Union in Armenia calls all parties to contribute to a peaceful Election Day to celebrate democracy

22 ventilators to Armenia

PACE to observe the early parliamentary elections in Armenia

With Ucom's level up tariff plans subscribers have unlimited access to Tiktok, Spotify and Coursera

PACE rapporteur welcomes Azerbaijans release of Armenian captives and Armenias handing over of mine-maps to Azerbaijan

Armenia/Azerbaijan: Statement by High Representative Josep Borrell on the latest developmentsVictoria and Abdul, which stars Bollywood actor Ali Fazal and Hollywood actress Judi Dench, has been nominated in two categories  Best Costume Design, and Best Makeup and Hairstyling  at the 90th annual Academy Awards. Fazal debuted in a minor role in the Indian American film, The Other End of the Line. (Victoria and Abdul/Twitter photo)The Waters Edge restaurant in New York, owned by Indian American Harendra Singh, was at the heart of a bribery scandal in which Singh attempted to bribe New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and former city official Edward Mangano. The restaurant has since closed. (watersedgenyc.com photo)An Indian American couple, Kiran and Pallavi Patel, donated an additional $25 million to Nova Southeastern University. The donation comes months after the Patels committed to donate $200 million to NSU for the institution to build a new medical school. The Tampa businessman is seen here with his family members on the green carpet at the 15th International Indian Film Academy Awards in Tampa, Florida, on April 26, 2014. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)Pratham USA has been named the winner of the Newman's Own Foundation Holiday Challenge. Supporters of the nonprofit organization helped it raise nearly $1 million and Newman's added another roughly $200,000 in prize money to support Prathams education programs throughout India. Pratham USA was established in Houston by Indian American entrepreneur and philanthropist Vijay Goradia in 1999. (crowdrise.com photo)The European Central Bank (ECB) will examine 37 euro area banks as part of the 2018 EU-wide test conducted with the European Banking Authority (EBA). In line with the EBAs selection criteria, these banks, which are directly supervised by the ECB , represent 70% of total euro area banking assets, a relevant press released stated on WednesdayThe only proof that he has nothing to do with this mine will be his support and participation in public rebellion against mine exploitation - Gegham Ohanyan

Fighter for nature of Armenia Gegham Ohanyan, who is also against Amulsar Exploitation, Told "A1+" about the 4th candidate of the Armenian President Armen Sarkissian's interview to Shant TV. "I should say with regret that during 27 years of independence, we learned a good lesson which is not believing in the words of a politician. And we have not learned it voluntary, but we learned it by being imposed. Any representative of the authorities and the opposition has come to promises and has left the people deceived." "We have no facts that will prove the connection between Armen Sarkissian and this catastrophic mine, and it's natural because any such scale activity is carried out with the "most transparent" hands," said Gegham Ohanyan, "In any case, the only proof that he has nothing to do with this mine will be his support and participation in public rebellion against mine exploitation," he said. To note, yesterday, the presidential candidate denied his connection with Lydian's activities during the above stated interview, saying that he and any member of his family never have been a shareholder of this company and probably, will not be. "I have been one of the 8 members of the advisory body and I have been in that council for 3 months."Hamas Leader Ismail Haniya Added to US 'Terror List'

By Al Jazeera

January 31, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - The United States has designated Ismail Haniya , the senior political leader of Hamas , as a "global terrorist".

The US State Department issued a press release on Wednesday saying that Haniya "has close links with Hamas' military wing" and "has been a proponent of armed struggle including against civilians".

The US accused Hamas of being involved in attacks that have resulted in the killing of 17 Americans since the group's founding in 1987.

Al Jazeera's Rosiland Jordan, reporting from Washington, DC, said this designation raises the possibility of the US placing Haniya on trial.

"His financial assets are going to be frozen. There will be a travel ban on him, and this possibly makes it easier for the US Justice Department to try to bring him to trial for his alleged role in the deaths of these 17 Americans".

This article was originally published by Al Jazeera -

Ismail Haniya Warns Against US Deal of the Century



Al Jazeera - Posted: 8:40 am, January 31, 2018



Hamas leader Ismail Haniya has said that the US had offered the Palestinian Authority government a Jerusalem suburb, Abu Dis, as an alternative to East Jerusalem for the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Speaking at a meeting with Palestinian clan leaders in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, Haniya labelled President Donald Trumps recent decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israels capital a ploy to demolish the Palestinian cause in line with the so-called deal of the century.

The US is still offering deals and continues to be on the side of the Palestinian Authority (PA) one way or another, in order to give them a capital or entity in the Abu Dis area, away from Jerusalem, with a bridge linking to al-Aqsa Mosque allowing for the freedom of prayer, he said.

Haniya said certain regional forces are seeking to divide the West Bank into three sections, in addition to creating a political entity in the Gaza Strip with its own controlling powers.

Al Jazeeras Wael al-Dahdouh, reporting from Gaza City, said Haniya cautioned local, regional and international players against working to implement the US plan for the Middle East, which is yet to be published.

Jared Kushner , Trumps son-in-law and a White Houser adviser, has been spearheading efforts to gauge the possibility of resuming the Israeli-Palestinian peace process .

Haniya sent a warning to all the parties that are involved in this deal of the century, whether they are Palestinian, Arab or Muslim, or international, Dahdouh said.

There are also signs that the Israelis will take advantage of this deal to impose their version of facts on the ground, such as the Judaization of Jerusalem bill that will be voted on tomorrow.

Never Miss Another Story Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter

Haniya said the US decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel introduces new risks that could affect the nature of the relationship between Palestine and Jordan .

He cited reports of discussions regarding an alternative homeland for Palestinians and a confederation between Jordan and Palestine.

Haniya said he hasd spoken to King Abdullah of Jordan about what he saw as the dangers arising from the Jerusalem decision, the resettlement project and alternative homeland.

He also asked Palestinians to continue their uprising against Trumps decision, and for popular movements in the Arab and Muslim capitals to carry on their protests.

Addressing the ongoing reconciliation process between the two main Palestinian groups, Fatah and Hamas , Haniya said the internal political issues need to be addressed quickly In order for a unified government to devote itself to major national issues.

He also sounded a warning regarding the potential grave consequences of the slow implementation of the Egypt-brokered reconciliation agreement , which was signed in October in Cairo by Fatah and Hamas representatives.

For his part, Yahya Sinwar, the prime minister of the Hamas government, speaking at Tuesdays meeting in Gaza, called for efforts to support reconciliation efforts aimed at uniting in the battle of Jerusalem.

He also demanded that the Palestinian leadership convene the unified leadership framework of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation ( PLO ) in the presence of all Palestinians.(Al Jazeera)

This article was originally published by Al Jazeera -

- See Also -

Trump: Countries against Jerusalem move are enemies

Join the DiscussionOlu Jacobs children are another mystery for Nigerians. They are rarely shown to the public. Olu Jacobs is a famous Nigerian actor. Still, despite his fame, he does not bring journalists close to his family. His past family issues did not give much choice. Let`s look at what we know about Olu Jacobs Family.

Olu Jacobs from the very beginning had family issues with parents. They were frustrated at theiir son`s career choice. This forced young Olu Jacobs to leave Nigeria and study Dramatic Arts in the United Kingdom. When he returned to Nigeria after his graduation  there were no jobs for artists. His first job was in TV series Vigilante.

Olu Jacobs met his wife Joke Silvia at the casting of Wole Soyinka`s Jero`s Metamorphosis. The Lagos National Theatre brought this two young people together and they have been that way for decades. Olu Jacobs wife is also a famous actress who changed the course of history for Nigerian Arts industry.

The famous Nigerian couple has two sons. Olu Jacobs and Joke Silvia children rarely appeared to the public. According to the reports, Olu Jacobs sons studied in the Great Britain. They also did not show any sign of going into a career in acting.

Still, Joke Silvia shared a photo of her son, Gbenga Jacobs with the public. Olu Jacobs child and Joke Silvia appeared together at the MTN Project Fame West Africa Show. This young man greatly resembles his dad. The other son of the couple is also a mystery to the public. He once appeared at the National Award in Abuja when his mother was receiving an award.

Olu Jacobs is a brilliant movie and drama actor that invested his soul into the art industry in Nigeria. He is one artist that does not desire to show off his family. Still, people want to know more about their favorite actor. For them, it seems unfair that he hides his sons from the public.

source: TheinfongAn official of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation NNPC, was attacked by suspected herdsmen, while his group were busy working on the petroleum pipeline at Tse Torkula a border community between Nasarawa and Benue state in Guma local government area of the state today January 30th.

It was reported that the NNPC officials were busy working on the pipeline from Nasarawa state when they came under heavy fire from the armed men which also left some of the officials injured and hospitalized.

Confirming the development, the Benue state Police Commissioner, Fatai Owosenyi said the attack could be regarded as the handiwork of bandits operating in the said area. He said the police will be investigating the matter.

Source: ( Vanguard News )The Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, has given himself a pass mark, saying he has done well as Nigerias head of police.

Mr. Idris, who delivered a keynote address on Tuesday in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, during the 9th General Assembly of the National Council of Traditional Rulers of Nigeria, said his successes in the police was because of a code of conduct for police officers, which he said he successfully institutionalised.

The code is otherwise called Our Creed, Mr. Idris said.

This code of conduct for police officers has succeeded in eliminating all forms of illegal and unlawful conducts that are not in conformity with the principles of democratic policing, such as unlawful arrest, prolonged detentions, torture, commercialisation of bail process, incivility to members of the public, extra-judicial killings and victimisation, Mr. Idris told the traditional rulers, which included the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Abubakar.

He said such conducts had in the past contributed to the negative perception of the police.

He appealed to the traditional rulers to help sensitise Nigerians that they do not have to pay money to secure their release on bail at any police station.

Encourage your subjects to report any police officer who demands money for bail to the Public Complaint Rapid Response Unit (PCRRU) which is domiciled in my office through the online media and phone calls, the IGP said.

The IGP acknowledged the recent nationwide campaign for the abrogation of the dreaded Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS for its impunity.

He said the abrogation would be counter-productive to the nations fight against crimes.

There may have been misconducts among some of the officers but that will not be enough to dismantle the unit to the detriment of public interest, he said.

To make the FSARs more responsive, effective and of high ethical standards, I have reorganised and repositioned the Unit which is now under the direct supervision of a Commissioner of Police in the Office of the DIG Operations, Force Headquarters Abuja.

The Unit is now to concentrate only on heinous crimes such as armed robbery and kidnapping. They are not to be involved in land cases and other minor offences. The Commissioners of Police in the states are also to have a close supervision on the activities of FSARS in their states.

The traditional rulers have the role and responsibilities to observe the activities of FSARS and you can attest that they have been a tremendous improvement in their conducts and actions, the IGP said.

The IGP said his successes in crime-fighting across the nation was because of the support from the various traditional rulers.

He, however, advised the traditional rulers to desist from conferring chieftaincy titles on persons with a questionable source of livelihood.

If children and youth in our communities are aware early in life, that crime is evil and does not pay, it will reduce criminal tendencies in them, he said.

Source: ( Premium Times )The National Coordinator, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, says 21 deaths have been recorded from the 77 confirmed cases in the current outbreak of Lassa fever in Nigeria.

Ihekweazu disclosed this at the opening ceremony of the National Executive Council meeting of the National Association of Resident Doctors in Abuja on Tuesday.

He said that of the 77 confirmed cases, 10 affected health workers.

The national coordinator quoted Dr Sylvanus Okogbeni, Chief Medical Director, Irrua Specialist Hospital, Edo, as confirming that two of the health workers affected were discharged on Monday.

He described the situation as sober, adding that it had resulted in serious emotional trauma, fear, anxiety and sometimes anger among stakeholders.

Ihekweazu said it was high time stakeholders came together and addressed the challenges of hemorrhagic fevers, including Lassa fever.

The national coordinator said NCDC has distributed more Ribavirin drugs used in the treatment of the disease to the affected states than it had ever done in the past.

He said that government alone might not be able to supply the needed drugs to all the affected persons in the country.

Ihekweazu said the centre had produced guidelines for the prevention and control of hemorrhagic fevers, adding that the NARD members should work with their hospitals chief medical directors to address outbreaks.

In his remarks, the President, Nigeria Medical Association, Prof Mike Ogrima, urged doctors in the country not to attend to patients if they did not have protective gears.

You have to get some level of immunity or protection before you provide services to such patients, he said.

Lassa fever is a viral infection caused by the Lassa fever virus and the disease occurs all year round but more cases are recorded during the dry season.

It is spread through direct contact with urine, faeces, saliva or blood of infected rats, eating food or drinking contaminated water.

The disease can be prevented through enhance personal hygiene, avoidance of all contact with rats (dead or alive) and keeping the house and surrounding clean always.

Source: ( NAN)Hadiza Aliyu also known as Hadiza Gabon is a name familiar to many who are fans of Kannywood movies, the Kannywood actress is an exceptional star as she fluently speaks English and French languages.

Born in Libreville, Republic of Gabon, on the 1st June 1989, is a Nigerian professional Hausa actress and filmmaker. Hadiza Aliyu is the daughter of Malam Aliyu who is an elder statesman. On her fathers side, Hadiza is of Gabonese descent, and on her mothers side, she is of Fulani ancestry from Adamawa State, Nigeria. She is regarded as one of the most popular actress considered by many in Kannywood and a good role model as she appears to be highly cultured and well dressed. Hadiza serves as an ambassador for MTN Nigeria and

Indomie and has won the Best Actress Jury Award at the 2nd Kannywood Award Supported by MTN Nigeria. She presently serves as founder of HAG Foundation.

Hadiza Aliyu attended primary and secondary schools in her birth country where she wrote her A-Level examination with an aspiration to become a lawyer and later chose Law as her favourite degree course. She started her university year as a student, but had to drop out of school due to some issues that trailed her studies. Her education was halted then and that gave her the opportunity to attend a diploma programme in French Language and later became a French-language teacher in a private school.

Source: NaijaloadedSope Aluko is the Hollywood actress that you need to know. After landing a coveted role in highly anticipated movie Black Panther, the Nigerian/British/American actress popped up on our radar.

Sope Aluko was born in Nigeria but primarily raised in the UK. She has dual-citizenship in both the US and the UK, and speaks four different languages, including her native language, Yoruba.

In the past couple of years, Sope has had roles on Netflixs Bloodline, NBCs Law & Order SVU and Parks & Recreation, and guest appearances on USA Networks Burn Notice, Graceland and Lifetimes Army Wives. Her film credits include supporting roles in feature films like Identity Thief, Pitch Perfect 2, 96 Minutes, Grass Stains, The Good Lie and more.

Sope is a mother to two teenage boys, and currently splits her time between Miami and Los Angeles.

Last night Sope looked gorgeous as she attended the world premiere of Black Panther.

She stayed true to her roots as she rocked a green laser cut outfit from leading fashion brand Deola Sagoe. She accessorized with a bracelet by HStern, earring from Neil Lane, a pair of Stuart Weitzman shoes and a Tyler Ellis clutch.

She also posed with other stars of the movie.

See photos below;

source: 36ngThe Naira on Monday closed at 364/dollar at the parallel market, the same rate the United States Dollar traded against the local unit on Friday, January 26, 2018.

This is just as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) yesterday injected another $210m into various segments of the inter-bank foreign exchange market.

At Mondays trading, the CBN offered the sum of $100m as wholesale interventions and allocated the sum of $55m to the Small and Medium Enterprises forex window.

Customers requiring forex for Business/Personal Travel Allowances, tuition and medical fees, among others, equally got an allocation of $55m.

Confirming the sales, the Acting Director, Corporate Communications, CBN, Mr. Isaac Okorafor, reiterated that the bank would continue to sustain its interventions in the foreign exchange market.

He expressed optimism that the value of the naira would continue to spike in the face of accretion to the foreign reserves and the attendant reduction in the countrys import bill.

While also attributing the stability in the market to the banks transparency and cooperation of authorised dealers, he urged all dealers to continue to play by the rule, as the CBN would not hesitate to sanction any erring bank or dealer.

Fridays sales were in favour of interests in the agricultural, airlines, petroleum products, raw materials and machinery sectors.

Meanwhile, the naira is expected to edge up this week due to tepid dollar demand.At least 3,400 members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have dumped the ruling party and joined the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State.

While receiving the defectors, the partys Publicity Secretary in the state, Mr. Samuel Nwanosike, assured them of equal treatment and hailed them for being bold in their decision to leave the opposition party in Rivers.

He also told the decampees that the party was expecting a landslide victory in the governorship, senatorial and other elections in the state.

The party said its expectation was based on the performance of Governor Nyesom Wike, in the execution of projects across the 23 local government areas of the state.The Kaduna State Police Command said it had arrested 38 suspects, involved in kidnapping, armed robbery and street gangs from Oct. 20, 2017 to January 25, 2018.

The State Commissioner of police, Austin Iwar, made the disclosure while briefing journalists in Kaduna on Wednesday.

He said of the 38 suspects, 21 were arrested in connection with kidnapping and armed robbery, while 17 were nabbed in connection to street gangs, popularly known as Sara Sucks.

He said that items recovered within the period under review include: 41 arms and ammunition and three vehicles, adding that the command also dislodged three armed robbery syndicate.

Mr. Iwar said that the most significant of these successes was the arrest of a notorious armed robbery syndicate operating along the Zaria -Kano expressway.

Some of the suspects who were involved in kidnapping for ransom and operating in Lere and pambegua axis of Kubau and Zaria Local Government Areas were also arrested,he said.

The commissioner said that the street gangs were arrested in Rigasa, Tudun Wada, Kawo and Unguwar Rimi, all in Kaduna metropolis.

He said that the suspects who are in police custody are giving useful information which are aiding investigation, after which they will be charged to court for prosecution.

We want to reassure members of the public that the command will not relent in its effort in fighting all forms of crime and criminality in the state. he said.

He called on all citizens of the state to be part of effort, adding that the command would not fold its arms and allow miscreants to continue operate in the state.

Source : (NAN)The Nigerian Senate has decided to investigate the cases of 108 officers deployed to the Federal Ministry of Health, who are yet to be captured by the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) and so are yet to be paid for about two years.

This resolution was reached after the senate deliberated on a motion titled, failure of capturing 108 Civil Servants under IPPIS for two years, which was sponsored by Andrew Uchendu (APC, Rivers East).

Mr. Uchendu informed the senate that in 2014, about 167 young Nigerians were recruited by the Federal Civil Service Commission and deployed to various ministries including Federal Ministry of Health, adding that the newly-recruited officers were verified and authenticated by the Federal Civil Service Commission for capturing.

Of the 167 officers about 59 of them were extracted from the list and were captured by Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) platform under the cover of presidential awardees and physically challenged.

The remaining 108 civil servants have been working since then without any salaries because they have not been captured. Their colleagues who were recruited along with them in 2014 and deployed to the Ministries of Education, Agriculture, Interior, Women Affairs, have been captured and have been receiving their salaries duly, he said.

The lawmaker further expressed disappointment that after a letter of intervention written by the Secretary, Federal Ministry of Health to the Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission on the December, 18, 2017, the 108 civil servants have still not been captured.

The senate therefore resolved to direct the Senate Committee on Establishment to find out why 108 officers of 167 officers recruited and deployed to the Federal Ministry of Health cannot be captured by IPPIS and their entitlements paid accordingly and report back to the Senate in two weeks.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper)Update 3/28/18  WPI has acquired another self-storage facility in California. The former Foothill You-Stor at 1808 W. Foothill Blvd. in Upland will be rebranded as US Storage Centers. The company now operates 43 locations in Southern California.

The property comprises 45,452 square feet of storage space in 483 drive-up units. Features include gated access, video cameras and vehicle storage.

WPI was represented by Garrett Sholer, principal and senior vice president of Lee & Associates, a nationwide provider of commercial real estate brokerage and advisory services. The seller was represented by Travis Allan, also a senior vice president with Lee & Associates.

1/31/2018  Westport Properties Inc. (WPI), which operates 122 self-storage facilities under the US Storage Centers brand, has purchased Magellan Storage in Commerce, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles. The company now owns and operates 16 locations in the area, according to a press release.

The 4-acre property at 5415 E. Olympic Blvd. is just off Interstates 5 and 710, and within 15 minutes of downtown Los Angeles. Built in 1964, the six-building facility comprises 140,048 square feet of storage space in 1,347 units. Property features include climate control, gated access, vehicle storage, video cameras, and a retail store that sells moving and packing supplies.

The buyer and the seller were represented in the transaction by Greg Wells, senior director of brokerage services for Cushman & Wakefield Self Storage Industry Group.

Southern California is a very strategic region for our firm, with its density and continued population growth, said Charles Byerly, CEO and president. We will continue to grow our presence in Los Angeles, Orange County and other key regions of the state.

WPI recently opened a new site in North Miami, Fla. The five-story facility comprises 122,605 square feet of storage space in 931 climate-controlled and drive-up units.

Founded in 1985 and based in Irvine, Calif., WPI is a real estate investment company that acquires, develops and operates self-storage facilities as well as provides third-party management services. Its portfolio comprises 8 million rentable square feet in 15 states.

Sources:

CP Executive, US Storage Centers Expands in Los Angeles

Rebusiness Online, US Storage Centers Buys 483-Unit Self-Storage Facility in Upland, CaliforniaVancouver, British Columbia - January 31, 2018 (Newsfile Corp.) (Investorideas.com Newswire) Alliance Growers Corp. (CSE: ACG) (FWB: 1LA) (WKN: A2DFYX) ("Alliance Growers" or the "Company") is pleased to provide a progress report on the development of the Cannabis Botany Centre. In a news release dated December 30, 2017, Alliance Growers announced that it has entered into a binding Letter of Intent ("LOI") with WFS Pharmagreen Inc. ("Pharmagreen"), and its proposed subsidiary BC New Co, to create a strategic relationship, together with equity participation by Alliance and Pharmagreen, whereby Alliance will acquire a 30% equity interest in Pharmagreen's subsidiary BC New Co (the "Proposed Transaction"). The execution of this LOI initiated the development of the Cannabis Botany Centre that Alliance and Pharmagreen have been working on for the past year.

The Fraser Valley Regional District, Electoral Area G, for Deroche has approved the land use on Bell Road, site of the Cannabis Botany Centre for cannabis production and cannabis related business.

Company management has commenced discussions with FORTIS BC to bring natural gas to the location. This will benefit the surrounding community

The hydrological engineering assessment report for the site to be completed this week

B.R.I.M. Inc. research for the Cannabis Botany Center, on tissue culture protocols and plant development of cannabis strains, has shown that plants derived from tissue culture grow much faster and exhibit a significantly better plant structure compared to traditional cloning of plants. These plantlets will provide a significant advantage to cultivators producing on a large commercial scale.

The Cannabis Botany Centre is poised to supply up to 300,000 plantlets per month to cultivators once built and operating at full capacity.

There are numerous expansion capabilities with 25 acres of available land.

Commenting on the development progress of the Cannabis Botany Centre, Dennis Petke, Alliance Growers' President and CEO, said "Now that Alliance is capitalized, we will be working closely with Pharmagreen to accelerate the development of the Cannabis Botany Centre. The path to approval for an ACMPR license will be expeditious. The development of the Cannabis Botany Centre is consistent with Alliance Growers business plan to be in partnership with a range of cannabis sector business opportunities including strategic investments in ACMPR licensed cannabis producers. Alliance Growers has already acquired interests in two ACMPR applicants, notably Biocannatech, whereby Alliance recently acquired 100% ownership of this late-stage Quebec ACMPR applicant; and Canwe, a private company based in Ontario that has applied for its ACMPR license and is currently in the review and security clearance stage. Alliance continues to negotiate further acquisitions in the grow space in Canada and Australia.

We look forward to announcing new strategic and complementary acquisitions as we move forward. It is an exciting time of progress in the cannabis industry and Alliance is building a diversified global cannabis company that is focused on where the market is going, not where the market is today."

About Alliance Growers

Alliance Growers Corp is a diversified cannabis company driven by the Company's 'Four Pillars' Organization Plan - Cannabis Botany Centre, Strategic ACMPR Investments, CBD Oil Supply and Distribution, and Research and Development.

Alliance Growers has finalized its a new business partnership with WFS Pharmagreen Inc., to jointly develop and operate a 40,000-square foot facility to be the first of its kind in Western Canada to house a DNA Botany lab, extraction facility and Tissue Culture Plantlet Production facility to service the Cannabis market and agriculture market in general. The proposed Cannabis Botany Centre will grow Cannabis plantlets using proprietary tissue culture propagation, specifically the "Chibafreen Invitro Plant Production System", which assures consistent composition and purity of each plantlet for the growers.

Alliance Growers has entered into an exclusive agreement to acquire a late stage licensed producer applicant, Biocannatech, to become a licensed producer under Health Canada's access to cannabis for medical purposes regulations ("ACMPR") in Quebec. Alliance Growers will supply financing and resources to build out the medical marijuana facility in preparation for the inspection required to obtain a growing license. Once Health Canada is satisfied with a successful crop, Alliance Growers will be granted its distribution license.

This acquisition allows the Company an opportunity to become a licensed producer in the Province of Quebec and gain an in-road to provide tissue culture plantlets to all licensed producers in Quebec.

Further, Alliance Growers has been negotiating to obtain other exclusive Canadian distribution agreements for certain proprietary products for support of the Cannabis growing industry in addition to possible partnerships with Licensed Producer Applicants at various stages in the Health Canada License process.

For further information, please visit the Company's website at www.alliancegrowers.com or the Company's profile at www.sedar.com.

If you would like to be added to Alliance Growers' news distribution list, please send your email address to newsletter@alliancegrowers.com

On behalf of the board of directors of

ALLIANCE GROWERS CORP.

"Dennis Petke"

Dennis Petke

President and CEO

For more information contact:

Dennis Petke

Tel: 778-331-4266

DennisPetke@alliancegrowers.com

Rob Grace

Communications Consultant

Tel: 778-998-5431

RobGrace@alliancegrowers.com

THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE HAS NOT REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY OR ADEQUACY OF THIS RELEASE.

FORWARD LOOKING INFORMATION

This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. These statements relate to future events or future performance. All statements other than statements of historical fact may be forward-looking statements or information. More particularly and without limitation, the news release contains forward-looking statements and information relating to Company's corporate strategy. The forward-looking statements and information are based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by management of the Company, including, without limitation, the Company's ability to carry out its business plan. Although management of the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking statements and information are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements and information since no assurance can be given that they will prove to be correct.

Forward-looking statements and information are provided for the purpose of providing information about the current expectations and plans of management of the Company relating to the future. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such statements and information may not be appropriate for other purposes, such as making investment decisions. Since forward-looking statements and information address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks. These include, but are not limited to, the Company's ability to identify and complete additional suitable acquisitions to further the Company's growth as well as risks associated with the medical marijuana industry in general, such as operational risks in development and production delays or changes in plans with respect to development projects or capital expenditures; the uncertainty of the capital markets; the uncertainty of receiving the required licenses, production, costs and expenses; health, safety and environmental risks; marketing and transportation; loss of markets; environmental risks; competition; incorrect assessment of the value of the potential market; ability to access sufficient capital from internal and external sources; failure to obtain required regulatory and other approvals and changes in legislation, including but not limited to tax laws and regulated regulations. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements, timelines and information contained in this news release. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive.

The forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release are made as of the date hereof and no undertaking is given to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements or information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless so required by applicable securities laws or the Canadian Securities Exchange. The forward-looking statements or information contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.

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Global investors must adhere to regulations of each country. Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.aspVancouver, British Columbia - January 31, 2018 (Newsfile Corp.) (Investorideas.com Newswire) Vendetta Mining Corp. (TSXV: VTT) (the "Company")is pleased to announce results from Zone 1 drilling from the completed 2017 program at the Pegmont Lead-Zinc Project in Queensland, Australia.

Zone 1 Sulphide Highlights:

PVRD104: 7.10 metres of 11.02% Pb+Zn (7.10% Pb, 3.93% Zn);

PVRD109: 5.77 metres of 11.56% Pb+Zn (7.87% Pb, 3.69% Zn);

and: 5.15 metres of 14.02% Pb+Zn (10.95% Pb, 3.07% Zn); and

PVRD111: 5.72 metres of 11.55% Pb+Zn (7.79% Pb, 3.76% Zn)

Zone 1 Transition Highlights:

PVRD123: 8.54 metres of 12.56% Pb+Zn (9.52% Pb, 3.04% Zn); and

PVRD126: 9.26 metres of 11.23% Pb+Zn (8.31% Pb, 2.91% Zn)

A full summary of the assay results including estimated true widths are provided in Table 1, with the location of the holes shown on the map in Figure 1. Zone 1 Sulphide results are shown in cross section in Figure 2.

Michael Williams, Vendetta's President and CEO commented "This is the first drilling we have conducted in Zone 1, the key objectives were to define the fold structure, obtain metallurgical samples, and confirm our theory that there are higher grades in the fold structure than are currently modelled due to a lack of data density. We are pleased with the results and are confident that these drill intersections less than 100 m from surface, will add significant value to the potential Open Pit."

Zone 1 Sulphide Drilling

The main Zone 1 fold is a recumbent fold, a flat lying position that offers an advantage of having up to 3 repetitions of the mineralised horizon.

A total of five close spaced holes were drilled from one pad to define the recumbent fold in Zone 1. This is the first oriented core from Zone 1 and the structural data has confirmed the 2016 interpretations however the mineralization is more extensive than expected. The section was completed between existing sections, which were spaced too far apart for the resource estimation to populate all of the resource model in-between.

Zone 1 Transition Drilling

Transition material is defined as lead and zinc mineralisation that is predominately sulphide (sphalerite and galena) within variably weathered rocks. Attempts to extend the transition mineralisation to the south-west were not successful, six holes on three pads intersecting attenuated mineralised beds, in a different structural position than currently modelled. The completed drilling will assist greatly in refining the geological model in this area.

Two holes (PVRD123 and 126), drilled specifically for metallurgical sampling successfully tested the upright fold limb at high than expected grades and at 15 metres shallower than modelled in the June 2017 resource model.

With limited drilling in Zone 1 Transition there remains potential to further develop high grade near surface (< 40 m) transition mineralisation to the north-east, representing an opportunity for additional project optimization.

Metallurgical Sampling

Metallurgical composites are currently being tested by ALS Metallurgy laboratory in Tasmania. Details of the Zone 2 sulphide composite can be found in the new release VTT2017 NR #13, November 15th, 2017. The Zone 1 sulphide composite comprised the five holes discussed in in this release: PVRD104, 109, 110, 111 and 121. Drilling in Zone 1 was limited to one section, however, the drilling covers the complete north-west to south-east down dip extent of Zone 1.

The Zone 1 sulphide and transition composite included dilution through the addition of 0.5 m of sub 3% Pb + Zn material on both the hangingwall and footwall to reflect potential mining performance, the Zone 1 sulphide composite has a length weighted average grade of 7.78% Pb and 3.18% Zn, a grade considered to be representative of Zone 1 sulphide drilling on recumbent fold structure.

The Zone 1 transition composite was made from PVRD123 and 126, with a length weighted average grade of 8.43% Pb and 2.83% Zn. The Zone 1 transition composite included dilution through the addition of 0.5 m of sub 3% Pb + Zn material on both the hangingwall and footwall. As discussed attempts to extend the transition resource to the south-west were unsuccessful and drilling schedule constraints didn't allow time to complete additional transition metallurgical drilling. With limited spatial distribution the Zone 1 transition composite is not considered representative of the transition material, the test work will, however, advance the understanding of the metallurgical performance of the transition material.

Results from this current metallurgical program are expected by the end of February.

Copper-Gold Target Exploration

A third exploration drill hole, PVRD151, located 300 m to the SW of the previously completed PVRD149 and 150, was suspended due to a drilling water supply logistics and subsequent wet season rain events meant the site could not be reaccessed. The copper target drilling completed to date will be assessed against the geophysics and if warranted PVRD151 will be completed in 2018.

Table 1. Summary of Open Pit Target Zone 1 Sulphide and Zone 1 Transition Assay Results.

*True thickness is estimated using structural measurements and three dimensional geological modelling.

#Drill intersections are summarized intersection lengths >2.0 m, using a combined 1% lead and zinc grade with maximum 1 m internal dilution. Included intervals are at a combined 3% lead and zinc grade with no internal dilution.

Figure 1. Surface Map Showing 2017 Mineral Resource Block Model Contours, Pit Shell and Location of Current Results and 2017 Completed Holes

Figure 2. Cross Section through Zones 1, 2 and 3

Update on Pegmont Resource Development Drilling

The 2017 resource development program at Pegmont was concluded on December 18, 2017. During 2017 the Company completed a total of 112 drill holes, for a total of 23,228 m.

Including drill holes discussed in this release, the Company has announced the results from 72 drill holes, see also Company news releases dated July 25th 2017 (VTT2017 NR #7), August 24th 2017 (VTT2017 NR #9), September 19th 2017 (VTT2017 NR #10), November 7th 2017 (VTT2017 NR#12) and November 15th (VTT2017 NR#13).

Drill holes not discussed in this news release and in previous releases are currently being validated and interpreted. Results will be released as they are finalized.

Notes on Zone 1 Drilling and Assay QA/QC

The drilling at Zone 1 Sulphide involved drilling RC pre-collars using a 5.75 inch diameter face sampling bit to depth prior to casing and continuing the hole in NQ2 diamond core. Drilling in Zone 1 Transition used RC pre-collars and HQ2 diamond core tails. Diamond core samples were taken on nominal 1 m lengths but varied to match geological contacts. Samples of the core are obtained using a diamond saw to half cut the core, if the hole is to be included in metallurgical test work it is then halved again. This is performed to provide sufficient sample for metallurgical test work while retaining a permanent core record.

Diamond core samples were taken on nominal 1 m lengths, with a diamond saw being used to half core and then quarter the core. Quarter core samples are dispatched for analysis, so as to provide sufficient sample for metallurgical test work while retaining a permanent core record.

Field duplicate samples were taken and blanks and commercially prepared certified reference materials (standards) were added into the sample sequence for every hole submitted. These were analysed by the Company and no issues were noted with analytical accuracy or precision.

Samples used for the results described herein were prepared and analyzed at ALS Laboratory Group in Townsville, Queensland. Analysis was undertaken using a four acid digest and ICP (ALS method: ME-ICP61 for 7 elements) with over limit (>10,000 ppm lead and zinc and >100 ppm silver) high grade samples being read with an atomic absorption spectrometer (AAS), (ALS methods: Pb-OG62, Zn-OG62 and Ag-OG62).

Drill hole collars are initially located using handheld GPS, the collars have since been surveyed by a licensed surveyor. Down hole surveys were undertaken using a true north seeking gyroscope with stations every 6 m.

All NQ2 diamond core is orientated using digital core orientation systems, this data is incorporated into the 3D interpretations. Assay intervals shown in Table 1 are down hole intervals, and the true thickness noted are based on 3D interpretations of the host lithology, structure, and mineralization.

About The Pegmont Lead Zinc Project

Pegmont is a stratiform, Broken Hill-Type deposit that outcrops with an overall shallow dip to the south east and is hosted in a magnetite-rich banded iron formation within high grade metamorphic rocks. The project consists of three granted mining leases and one exploration permit that cover an area of approximately 8,290 ha.

Pegmont is situated in the Mount Isa - McArthur Mineral Province, which hosts one of the world's richest endowments of lead-zinc-silver mineralization, including several world-class lead-zinc-silver mines.

Pegmont is located 25 km west of South 32's Cannington silver-lead-zinc operation, one of the world's largest producers of lead and silver and 28 km north of Chinova Resources' Osborne copper-gold operations. Pegmont is proximal to existing infrastructure including public roads, mine haul roads, rail, and a natural gas pipe line for power generation.

In June 2017 Vendetta updated the Mineral Resource estimate for Pegmont, for details please see Vendetta's news release, VTT2017-NR#6, June 27th, 2017 and the NI 43-101 technical report "Pegmont Resource Update June 2017" available on SEDAR.

The Company expect to complete an updated Mineral Resources Estimate and accompanying NI 43-101 technical report in Q1, 2018.

About Vendetta Mining Corp.

Vendetta Mining Corp. is a Canadian junior exploration company engaged in acquiring, exploring, and developing mineral properties with an emphasis on lead and zinc. It is currently focused on the advanced stage Pegmont Lead Zinc project in Queensland, Australia. Additional information on the Company can be found at www.vendettaminingcorp.com

Qualified Person

Peter Voulgaris, MAusIMM, MAIG, a Director of Vendetta, is a non-independent qualified person as defined by NI 43-101. Mr. Voulgaris has reviewed the technical content of this press release, and consents to the information provided in the form and context in which it appears.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

"Michael Williams"

Michael Williams

President & CEO

The TSX Venture Exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Certain statements within this news release, other than statements of historical fact relating to Vendetta Mining Corp., are to be considered forward-looking statements with respect to the Company's intentions for its Pegmont project in Queensland, Australia. Forward-looking statements include statements that are predictive in nature, are reliant on future events or conditions, or include words such as "expects", "anticipates", "plans", "believes", "considers", "significant", "intends", "targets", "estimates", "seeks", attempts", "assumes", and other similar expressions.

The forward-looking statements are based on a number of assumptions which, while considered reasonable by Vendetta Mining Corp., are, by their nature, subject to inherent risks and uncertainties and are not guarantees of future performance. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include: the interpretation of previous and current results from the 2017 drilling program mentioned in this news release, further results from the 2017 drilling program, the accuracy of exploration results, the accuracy of Mineral Resource Estimates, the anticipated results of future exploration, the forgoing ability to finance further exploration, delays in the completion of exploration, delays in the completion of the updated Mineral Resource Estimate, the future prices of lead, zinc, and other metals, and general economic, market and/or business conditions. There can be no assurances that such statements and assumptions will prove accurate and, therefore, readers of this news release are advised to rely on their own evaluation of the information contained within. In addition to the assumptions herein, these assumptions include the assumptions described in Vendetta Mining Corp.'s Management's Discussion and Analysis for the three months ended August 31st, 2017.

Although Vendetta Mining Corp. has attempted to identify important risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual performance, achievements, actions, events, results or conditions to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by the forward-looking statements, there may be other risks, uncertainties and other factors that cause future performance to differ from what is anticipated, estimated or intended. Unless otherwise indicated, forward-looking statements contained herein are as of the date hereof and Vendetta Mining Corp. does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements after the date on which such statements were made, except as required by applicable law.

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Disclaimer/Disclosure: Investorideas.com is a digital publisher of third party sourced news, articles and equity research as well as creates original content, including video, interviews and articles. Original content created by investorideas is protected by copyright laws other than syndication rights. Our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investing involves risk and possible losses. This site is currently compensated for news publication and distribution, social media and marketing, content creation and more. Disclosure is posted for each compensated news release, content published /created if required but otherwise the news was not compensated for and was published for the sole interest of our readers and followers. Contact management and IR of each company directly regarding specific questions.

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Global investors must adhere to regulations of each country. Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.aspCHICAGO, IL - January 31, 2018 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Invenergy announced today that its La Jacinta Solar project, located in the Salto Department of Uruguay, issued a 24.5-year investment-grade rated project bond (Baa3/Moody's) for approximately $64.75 million in the U.S. Private Placement Market. La Jacinta Solar is a 50 megawatt alternating current (AC) / 64.8 megawatt direct current (DC) solar project, and is Invenergy's second in Uruguay.

The issuance is under an innovative A/B Bond structure involving a capital markets solution under the umbrella of the IDB Invest, the private sector arm of the IDB Group. The deal was structured and arranged by DNB Markets, Inc. and IDB Invest, and was marketed by DNB Markets, Inc. as Sole Placement Agent. The project bond also received a green bond (GB) certification and assessment of GB2 from Moody's.

"We are very pleased to have executed this noteworthy refinancing transaction for La Jacinta Solar that obtained not only investment-grade, but also received a lot of interest from investors," said Meghan Schultz, Senior Vice President of Structured Finance at Invenergy. "The energy transformation in Latin America is underway, and La Jacinta underscores our commitment to the region."

"This is DNB Markets' second green bond transaction brought to market in recent months using this very interesting and innovative financing structure," said Emilio Fabbrizzi, Head of Project Finance Latin America at DNB Markets. "The strong partnership between IDB Invest and DNB, along with the attractiveness of a fully-contracted renewable energy project in Uruguay and the sponsorship of U.S.-based renewable energy expert Invenergy, enabled a record-breaking 24.5-year financing tenor for a renewable energy project in Latin America. The success of the transaction demonstrates the strength of DNB in Latin America."

"We are excited to continue to use the B-Bond, a product developed by the IDB Group, to mobilize institutional investors to Latin America and the Caribbean. The historical 24.5-year investment grade issuance for La Jacinta under the umbrella of IDB Invest signals the developing appetite from institutional investors for renewable energy assets" said Gian Franco Carassale, Lead Investment Officer at IDB Invest.

La Jacinta Solar completed construction and began commercial operations in September 2015. The facility generates power from 216,000 BYD solar modules, 50 Ingeteam inverters and 25 step-up LV/MV (low voltage/medium voltage) transformers and is delivered to the country's grid under an approximately 26-year remaining power purchase agreement with Administracion Nacional de Usinas y Trasmisiones Electricas (UTE), the Uruguayan state-owned utility. The proceeds of the project bond issuance will be used to refinance the existing construction loan.

The La Jacinta Solar project and the project bond issuance are under Invenergy's renewables arm, Invenergy Renewables LLC.

About Invenergy

Invenergy drives innovation in energy. Invenergy and its affiliated companies develop, own, and operate large-scale renewable and other clean energy generation and storage facilities in the Americas and Europe. Invenergy's home office is located in Chicago and it has regional development offices in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan and Europe.

Invenergy and its affiliated companies have developed more than 17,300 megawatts of projects that are in operation, construction or contracted, including wind, solar, natural gas-fueled power generation and energy storage projects. For more information, please visit www.invenergyllc.com.

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This news is published on the Investorideas.com Newswire - a global digital news source for investors and business leaders

Disclaimer/Disclosure: Investorideas.com is a digital publisher of third party sourced news, articles and equity research as well as creates original content, including video, interviews and articles. Original content created by investorideas is protected by copyright laws other than syndication rights. Our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investing involves risk and possible losses. This site is currently compensated for news publication and distribution, social media and marketing, content creation and more. Disclosure is posted for each compensated news release, content published /created if required but otherwise the news was not compensated for and was published for the sole interest of our readers and followers. Contact management and IR of each company directly regarding specific questions.

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Global investors must adhere to regulations of each country. Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.aspThe Ames Main Street Farmers Market is a local market that has been a staple of downtown Ames for the past eight years. The market Iowa State Student Government elections take place every spring. One of 15 constituencies, the College of Design is represented by oApples SVP of worldwide market Phil Schiller sat down for a brief interview with Sound & Vision talking about the HomePod, why Apple decided to create it and why it will stand out from the competition.

For the very first question Why HomePod?, Phil says that it brings together all the work Apple has been doing to deliver an outstanding music experience in ones home. Apples audio engineers and scientists have been pushing the boundary in term of whats capable with the quad-speaker system on the iPad Pro and the AirPods. On the other hand, Apple Music has turned into a great music streaming service and Siri has become smart enough to help you discover new music based on your taste. Add in the technological advancements and machine learning, and you get the HomePod  a device where all these technologies and advancements work together to deliver fantastic music experience.

Schiller then talks about various HomePod features and how Apple is able to create spatial awareness to deliver great music quality despite the tiny form factor of the device.

From the moment you plug in HomePod and start listening to music, it automatically and instantly senses its location in the room to take full advantage of the environment its in. The microphone array in HomePod listens to the reflection of the music off neighboring surfaces, senses where the bookshelf is, or if its in the corner of a room or against a wall, and then uses machine learning to understand what its hearing, interpret the sound, and adjust the audio. Using advanced software and the A8 chip, HomePod intelligently beams center vocals and direct energy away from the wall while reflecting the ambient reverb and back-up vocals against the wall for dispersion into the room. The end result is a wide soundstage with a feeling of spaciousness and depth.

Talking about Siri on the HomePod, Schiller confirmed that Apple had made improvements to its virtual assistant so that it offers a more personalized experience on the smart speaker. Thanks to the tight integration with Apple Music, one can simply say I like this song to like a particular song being played on your HomePod. Similarly, one can also tell Siri to play more like this and Siri will automatically understand that the context is relevant to the currently played music. Apple also went to great lengths to ensure that Hey Siri on the HomePod works even when the speaker is blasting music at full volume. Schiller says that this is a great example of the collaboration between Apples software and hardware team.

HomePod uses advanced machine learning techniques including deep neural networks (DNNs) optimized for the hardware to detect Hey Siri in challenging environments. The detection of Hey Siri happens on the device, so nothing is being sent to Apple until that trigger is detected and the Siri waveform lights up. At that time, the request is sent to Apple using an anonymous Siri ID, and of course that communication is all encrypted. Were able to do this because we designed audio technology, advanced software, and Siri to work together as one system.

Schiller also revealed during the interview that Siri now responds to over 2 billion requests every week.

Schiller talks about other aspects of the HomePod in the interview which might be worth checking out if you are looking to order a HomePod for yourself. The smart speaker is already up for pre-order in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, with a release date of February 9.

[Via Sound&VisionAs a subscriber, you are shown 80% less display advertising when reading our articles.

Those ads you do see are predominantly from local businesses promoting local services.

These adverts enable local businesses to get in front of their target audience  the local community.

It is important that we continue to promote these adverts as our local businesses need as much support as possible during these challenging times.

CloseFocus on Lisa Netz, co-owner of The Lavish Loft

Submitted by Haleh Rabizadeh Resnick, Federation Business and Community Development Director For the Voice What was your path to South Jersey? I grew up in...

Focus on Peter Hecht Partner at Magna Legal Services

Tell me about your connection to the South Jersey Jewish Community? I actually grew up in East Brunswick, Exit 9 off the Turnpike. But weve...

Focus on Abigail Dahan: Owner of the Bake School

Tell me a bit about your life in South Jersey. I grew up in Cherry Hill. We moved here from Paris when I was six...Kylie Mohr covers the education and health beats. Mohr grew up in Washington and came to Wyoming via Georgetown. She loves seeing the starry night sky again.Cody Cottier covers town and state government. He grew up with a view of the Olympic Mountains, and after graduating Washington State University he traded it for a view of the Tetons. Odds are the mountains are where youll find him when not on deadline.Allie Gross covers Teton County government. Originally from the Chicago area, she joined the News&Guide in 2017 after studying politics and Spanish at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.The Secretaries of State from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and South Carolina [official websites] filed a motion [text, PDF] on Monday urging the US Supreme Court to block the Pennsylvania Supreme Courts recent order [JURIST report] striking down the Congressional Redistricting Act of 2011 as violating the state constitution.

The motion seeks the ability to submit an amicus brief on behalf of the Pennsylvania General Assembly and support their emergency request for stay (a request for immediate action addressed to an individual Justice). Raising issues pertaining to the potential disruption of 2018 elections, the state leaders claim there are urgent circumstances to justify action by the Supreme Court.

[The Secretaries of State] are concerned by the tendency of courts, acting deep in the decade, to direct changes in state districting plans that were enacted soon after the last decennial Census in 2010. They are also concerned that injunctive relief, like that directed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in this case, will cause chaos in their states. The expectations of voters and candidates will be changed on short notice, and the interest of overseas and uniformed services voters will have to be protected.

The brief continues the primary concern of [the Pennsylvania General Assembly] is that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court inserted itself into a fundamentally legislative process in contravention of the separation of powers.

Justice Samuel Alito has issued a request for a response by the League of Women Voters, respondents in the pending appeal, by Friday at 4PM.US President Donald Trump [official profile] signed an executive order [text] Tuesday to continue operations at the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

The order states that the facility is legal, safe, humane, and conducted consistent with United States and international law. Trumps new executive order not only allows for those detained currently to remain detained, but also allows for the US to transport new persons to the facility when lawful and necessary.

Trumps order revokes the 2009 order from then-president Barack Obama that was intended to close the facility at Guantanamo [JURIST report] and transport detainees to other detention facilities, their home countries or to a third country.

There are currently 41 detainees in custody at Guantanamo.A court in Istanbul released the chairman [AI report] of Amnesty International Turkeys, Taner Klc, Amnesty International said Wednesday.

Klc was among the Istanbul 10, a group of 10 human rights activists based in Istanbul who were arrested last summer by the Turkish government.

Klc was accused of association with the Fethullah Terrorist Organization, to whom the government attributes the failed 2016 coup against the state. The Turkish government claimed Klc downloaded the app, ByLock onto his phone. The prosecution claimed ByLock was used as a messaging program by members of the Gulen terrorist organization. Two subsequent independent investigations commissioned by Amnesty International on Klcs phone indicate no record of him downloading ByLock. Last month the government released 11,480 detainees, stating they were wrongfully accused of downloading ByLock.

Prior to his release, Klc remained in jail for eight months, and his release is conditioned on bail.The UN human rights office issued an update Wednesday of its report [text, PDF] on the human rights situation in Palestine.

The report implements the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. It was mandated by a 2016 resolution [text, PDF] to create a database of businesses contributing to human rights violations related to Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories. Given the international consensus about the illegal nature of the settlements, the report states that business enterprises may need to consider whether it is possible to engage in such an environment in a manner that respects human rights.

The reports methodology involved gathering the names of 321 companies alleged to have contacts with or contribute to the illegal Israeli settlements. Evidence of those contacts was insufficient to continue investigating 115 of those companies. The remaining companies are being contacted by the council and given the opportunity to provide evidence that their business is not related to the settlements. So far, 64 companies have been contacted while 142 remain.

While the majority of the companies are Israeli companies, 20 are from the US.

A rare lunar trifecta will delight stargazers Wednesday morning provided clouds and fog don't get in the way. The combination of a supermoon, blood moon, and a blue moon hasn't happened in over 150 years. This lunar spectacle is made up of a supermoon, where the moon is closer to Earth. It'll appear 14 percent closer, according to NASA. It'll be a blood moon, which is where a total lunar eclipse occurs. The moon will be cast in a reddish, orange hue as it passes through the Earth's shadow, hence the name blood moon. Finally, it'll be a blue moon, which is the second full moon in a calendar month. These three phenomenon haven't all come together since March 31, 1866.

We're fortunate here in Southern Oregon and Northern California because we'll be able to see the entire lunar eclipse. It'll begin at 4:51 AM and end at 6:07 AM with totality occurring at 5:29 AM. It should be quite the sight.

Sky conditions should be fair for most of us. There should just be some scattered high clouds for most locations. However, in the Rogue Valley, there will be the chance for areas of fog to develop that could obscure or limit the view of the Super Blue Blood Moon. Some patchy fog is also possible in the Klamath Basin.

If you're able to see to Super Blue Blood Moon, don't forget to share your photos with us.

The next total lunar eclipse with a supermoon will be January 21, 2019. However, it will not be accompanied by a blue moon like this time.SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - California State University is considering raising tuition in for the second straight year, a move trustees say would be a last resort if the state does not chip in more funding for the country's largest university system.

The Board of Trustees said Tuesday that Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed state budget allocates a fraction of what the system's 23 campuses need to maintain their quality of education at a time of record-high enrollment.

Trustees discussed a proposal that would raise in-state tuition by $228 in 2018-19, bringing the annual cost of undergraduate tuition to $5,970.

A similar increase was approved in the previous academic year, the first increase since 2011.

Trustees say their priority is to win additional state funding before the Legislature finalizes the state budget in June.MEDFORD, Ore. -- A man is admitting guilt in a case of a bank robbery that led to Grace Christian School's parking lot, where a man was stabbed and car jacked.

NewsWatch 12 was in the courtroom when John Eric Young pled guilty today to three counts of Robbery in the First Degree, one count of Assault in the Second Degree, one count of Assault in the Third Degree, one count of Failure to Perform Duties of a Driver to an Injured Person, one count of Unauthorized Use of a Motor Vehicle and one count of Driving while Under the Influence of Intoxicants.

Young was sentenced to 298 months, almost 25 years, in the Oregon Department of Corrections with 3 years of post-prison supervision.

This is a case that dates back to November 9, 2017, at 3:47 pm. Law enforcement responded to an armed robbery at the Chase Bank on 601 Crater Lake Avenue. Young entered the bank with a mask on and demanded cash from the teller, which he was given. While in the bank, Young, armed with a screwdriver, demanded a mans keys and money, and stabbed the man in the arm when he refused. After exiting the bank, Young ran north into the parking lot of the nearby First Baptist Church. The private school at the church, Grace Christian School, had kids in after-school care and they locked down to keep the kids safe.

In the parking lot, Young grabbed a knife and threatened an employee; demanding the keys to the vehicle. Young was refused and turned his attention to a vehicle that had just entered the parking lot. Young entered that mans vehicle, stabbed him and demanded he get out, and then drove away. Young abandoned the vehicle shortly thereafter and ran away.

At 8:00 pm that same night, law enforcement received a report of a crashed vehicle in Gold Hill. A deputy found Young, who matched the description of the person who had crashed the vehicle. Young saw the deputy and took off running. At the time of contact, Young had a backpack with him that contained approximately $3,000. Young also had $700 cash in his pocket. Young was given field sobriety tests and failed. Young was found to be under the influence of a controlled substance. Law enforcement located money, clothing worn during the bank robbery and other evidence linking Young to the robberies.

Below, you can see the interview we did with the victim who was stabbed.WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on President Donald Trump's State of the Union speech (all times local):

8 p.m.

Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy III says it would be easy to dismiss the first year of President Donald Trump's presidency as "chaos" marked by partisanship and politics.

But Kennedy says Trump has caused serious problems for the American people, including proposals that target Muslims, transgendered people and others.

Kennedy is delivering the Democratic response to Trump's State of the Union address.

In excerpts released early, Kennedy says the Trump administration "isn't just targeting the laws that protect us - they are targeting the very idea that we are all worthy of protection."

In apparent reference to Trump, Kennedy says "bullies may land a punch" and leave a mark but have "never managed to match the strength and spirit of a people united in defense of their future."

__

7:45 p.m.

President Donald Trump is declaring a "new American moment" in his State of the Union address - but his former campaign foe, Hillary Clinton, declared one first.

"This is our New American Moment," Trump will say, touting the state of the economy, according to excerpts released by the White House. "There has never been a better time to start living the American dream."

In a 2010 speech, then-Secretary of State Clinton told the Council on Foreign Relations that "a new American moment" was taking shape on the global stage, "a moment when our global leadership is essential, even if we must often lead in new ways."

It's hardly the first time Trump has appropriated a slogan. "Let's Make America Great Again" was popularized in 1980 by Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign.

__

6:50 p.m.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue will skip Tuesday's State of the Union address, serving as the so-called "designated survivor."

A member of the presidential line of succession traditionally skips the address to the joint session of Congress and is safeguarded at an undisclosed location to ensure continuity of government in the event of a catastrophe. Usually, a lesser-known member of the president's Cabinet is selected - with higher-profile officials retained to applaud the president's speech from the floor of the House.

The Cold War-era ritual took on new significance after the attacks of September 11, 2001, as fears of terrorism replaced nuclear war as a top threat facing the nation.

A designated high-ranking member of Congress also traditionally skips the speech to maintain the legislative branch's continuity plans.

__

6:40 p.m.

President Donald Trump will tell the American people that it is "our new American moment" and call on Republicans and Democrats to come together in his State of the Union speech.

That's according to excerpts released Tuesday evening by the White House.

Trump will strike an optimistic and bipartisan tone, telling Americans he is "extending an open hand to work with members of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to protect our citizens, of every background, color and creed. "

He'll also discuss the impact of the Republican tax overhaul, explain his administration's efforts to combat the Islamic State group and call on Congress to pass a major infrastructure investment plan.

__

6:30 p.m.

A handful of immigrants who have legally lived in the U.S. since disasters struck their countries years ago will attend President Donald Trump's State of the Union address as guests of Democratic lawmakers.

The immigrants benefit from temporary protections granted to people from countries ravaged by natural disasters or war.

The Trump administration has ended the temporary protection for El Salvador, Haiti and Nicaragua and will make a decision later this year for Honduras.

Democratic lawmakers want to put a face on immigration policy.

Nery Martinez, guest of Nevada Rep. Jacky Rosen, fled civil war in El Salvador and now lives in Las Vegas. Martinez says he'll be at the address to remind the president that temporary protection recipients are "here to make this already great nation even greater."

__

5:30 p.m.

What has President Donald Trump learned in his first year as president? That you have to lead with "heart."

That's what Trump told network news anchors during a pre-State of the Union lunch Tuesday.

Trump says, "You govern with all of the instincts of a businessperson, but you have to add much more heart and soul into your decisions than you would ever have even thought of before."

That's according to excerpts released by the White House.

Trump also says issues like immigration would be "so simple" to solve if they were pure business matters, but he says he realizes that "millions and millions of people" are affected by his actions.

He adds that "it's much different, in that way, than I thought it would be."

__

4:30 p.m.

First lady Melania Trump is promoting the guests she'll be sitting with at her husband's first State of the Union address.

The first lady tweeted Tuesday that she'll be joined at the speech "by an honorable group of Americans," including "heroes who have served our nation in times of need, families who have suffered at the hands of evil, and citizens who have embraced the American dream."

Mrs. Trump has been keeping a low profile following a report that adult film star Stormy Daniels had an affair with Donald Trump in 2006, shortly after he and the first lady wed.

Daniels released a statement Tuesday saying the affair never happened.

___

3:55 p.m.

Many congressional Democrats are giving their guest passes for President Donald Trump's first State of the Union address to young immigrants known as "Dreamers," who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

More than 20 Dreamers are expected in the House gallery Tuesday night to put a face on the toll of the congressional stalemate on immigration policy.

They are the guests of high-profile Democrats including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and potential 2020 presidential candidates including New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and California Sen. Kamala Harris.

Trump ended Obama-era protections for such immigrants. He now says he wants to grant them a path to citizenship, but Congress has been unable to come up with a legislative solution for an issue at the center of the recent government shutdown.

___

2:50 p.m.

President Donald Trump has told news anchors from all the major TV networks at a White House lunch that he is striving to bring the country together.

Journalists from outlets including PBS, CNN and Fox News say Trump told the group Tuesday that there is "tremendous divisiveness" in the country that has existed for years.

He says if he could unite the country, he would consider it a great achievement.

The lunch is an annual White House tradition ahead of the president's State of the Union address.

Fox News host Bret Baier said on the "The Daily Briefing with Dana Perino" that the lunch menu featured smoked tomato soup, thyme roasted chicken and orange merengue pudding. Baier says the rest of the lunch was off the record.

___

12:30 p.m.

Four of the Supreme Court's nine justices are expected to attend the State of the Union address.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch are expected at the speech. Roberts, Breyer and Kagan regularly attend, as do justices appointed by the president who is speaking. Trump nominated Gorsuch a year ago.

Among the justices who will not be in the audience, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito haven't attended a State of the Union speech in years. Alito last went in 2010, when he was captured on camera mouthing the words "not true" in response to President Barack Obama's criticism of the court's then new ruling in the Citizens United campaign finance case.

Justice Anthony Kennedy's long-standing travel plans have him in California. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is in Rhode Island and Justice Sonia Sotomayor is in Panama.

___

12:18 p.m.

President Donald Trump's top economic and national security advisers help with his State of the Union address.

A White House official says national security adviser H.R. McMaster and economic adviser Gary Cohn contributed to the speech Trump plans to deliver Tuesday night at the Capitol. The official says they were assisted by policy adviser Stephen Miller, staff secretary Rob Porter and other speechwriters.

The official stressed that the speech is the president's and that Trump has spent months giving his aides "tidbits" on lines he wants to use.

The White House has said Trump will use the speech to discuss economy and national security, as well as trade, immigration and infrastructure.

The official was not authorized to discuss internal White House deliberations by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

__

1:27 a.m.

President Donald Trump will herald a robust economy and push for bipartisan congressional action on immigration in Tuesday's State of the Union address.

The speech marks the ceremonial kickoff of Trump's second year in office and is traditionally a president's biggest platform to speak to the nation. However, Trump has redefined presidential communications with his high-octane, filter-free Twitter account and there's no guarantee that the carefully crafted speech will resonate beyond his next tweet.

Still, White House officials are hopeful the president can use the prime-time address to Congress and millions of Americans watching at home to take credit for a soaring economy. Trump argues that the tax overhaul he signed into law late last year has boosted business confidence and will lead companies to reinvest in the United States.

(Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)Trainees Dan Brook and Bradley Williams are directed by instructor Clint Dyck while training to lay down drill pipe on a rig floor, at Precision Drilling in Nisku, Alta., on January 20, 2016. A growing number of Canadian drilling rigs are being moved south of the border to take advantage of brighter prospects in the United States -- and observers say its unlikely they will ever return home. A week ago, Calgary-based Akita Drilling Ltd., primarily a Canadian driller, announced it would deploy its first rig into the prolific Permian Basin in West Texas by moving one from Western Canada. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason FransonThe infected foot of Katie Stephens is shown in this undated handout photo taken from Facebook. The experience of a Windsor, Ont., couple who returned from a Caribbean vacation with their feet severely infected with parasitic worms is a cautionary tale of what travellers to some warm-weather destinations might encounter ??? and how they might avoid a similar fate, says a tropical medicine specialist. Dr. Jay Keystone, a physician in the tropical disease unit at Toronto General Hospital, said cases of the hookworm-related skin infection that afflicted Katie Stephens and Eddie Zytner on a recent trip to the Dominican Republic are not that uncommon among travellers to countries in the developing world. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO - Facebook, Katie StephensAn entrance to the Calgary Courts Centre is shown in Calgary on Friday, Aug. 27, 2010. A former longtime employee of Calgary performance group The Young Canadians has officially pleaded guilty to some of the sex-related charges against him. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntoshFentanyl pills are shown in an undated police handout photo. Traffickers are exploiting Canadian money service businesses to buy deadly fentanyl from overseas and then launder the proceeds through banks and credit unions, warns the national financial intelligence agency.THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO - Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams (ALERT) MANDATORY CREDITUnited Conservative Party leader Jason Kenney meets with supporters after being sworn in as MLA for Calgary-Lougheed in Edmonton on January 29, 2018. The leader of the United Conservative Party in Alberta says they will rigorously vet prospective candidates for conduct related to sexual harassment or aggression. Jason Kenney was sworn in Monday as a member of the legislative assembly in Alberta. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason FransonLifeline Syria's Chair Ratna Omidvar, centre, works with volunteers at the organization's offices in Toronto on September 4, 2015. The Liberals should toughen up proposed legislation aimed at boosting diversity on corporate boards at publicly traded companies if they want it to be effective, says a group of senators pushing for the change. "We want it to mean something," said Independent Sen. Ratna Omidvar. Senators are expected this week to debate Bill C-25, which would, among other things, amend the Canadian Business Corporations Act to require publicly traded companies to disclose the number of women -- and others from equity-seeking groups, such as visible minorities -- on their corporate boards and in senior management, as well as their policies on diversity. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris YoungQuebec member of Parliament Maxime Bernier, who finished a close second to Andrew Scheer in last year's Conservative Party leadership vote, says he wants to know why disgraced former MP Rick Dykstra was allowed to run in the 2015 election. Bernier rises during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday, Sept.28, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian WyldRep. Adam Schiff, D- Calif., center, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, walks back to the meeting room after speaking to members of the media, Monday, Jan. 29, 2018 on Capitol Hill in Washington. Also with Schiff are Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., left, and Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind. Brushing aside opposition from the Department of Justice, Republicans on the House intelligence committee have voted to release a classified memo that purports to show improper use of surveillance by the FBI and Justice Department in the Russia investigation.(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)FILE - In this Nov. 17, 2012 file photo, actor Scott Baio arrives at the TeenNick HALO Awards in Los Angeles. Actress Nicole Eggert appeared on "Megyn Kelly TodayAu on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018, and claimed that her former "Charles in Charge" co-star Scott Baio sexually abused her for years starting when she was 14. Baio in a previous Facebook Live video says he is being falsely accused and said he and Eggert had a consensual relationship after she was over the age of 18. (Photo by Joe Kohen/Invision/AP, File)Applications now open to become a New York State Trooper Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that applications are now open for the next New York State Police Trooper Entrance Exam. The exam, which will be administered from January through April of...

DEC adopts new deer and bear hunting regulations, update dress codes Western New York hunters will have additional hours in the woods at their disposal, as well as some new rules by which to abide, after the New York State Department...

Asbury Pointe continues its open houses through October As more and more seniors embrace the independence that comes with the maintenance free lifestyle of retirement community living, Asbury Pointe Retirement Community announces additional open house dates in September...

News Briefs Two North Tonawanda residents received awards at the recent Erie County Fair in the Creative Arts Exhibit area, which was located in the lower grandstand. Tri-Color Awards were handed out...

News Briefs One way to express your opinion is to write a letter to the editor and email it to arizzo@beenews.com. The Bees policy states that letters to the editor cannot exceed...EUGENE, Ore. -- A popular pub in downtown Eugene is closing soon.



The owner of the Wayward Lamb made the announcement Monday night on the bar's Facebook page.



In the post, Colin Graham wrote, "It's been a privilege to be a part of this community and to get to know so many of you. I'm a wiser person for it." Graham goes on to say, "I've decided that the time has come to end my journey."

The post gives no explanation as to why they are closing. KEZI 9 News reached out to Graham but he declined to comment on the closure.

KEZI spoke with Oblio Stroyman, the executive director of Transponder, a non-profit organization that supports the trans and gender diverse community. He said the bar was a safe place for many, and will leave a huge hole in the Eugene community.

"Queer dedicated spaces are really essential, we are not all one, Stroyman said. It is not a level playing field, we don't feel safe in all areas of the town especially where there's intoxication happening."

The owner of Cowfish wants to reassure people that many downtown businesses will continue to open their doors to anyone and everyone.

"There are people that are working to make downtown a safe place for everybody and we're going to continue to strive to do that," Shawn Difiore said.

Wayward Lamb opened up three years ago and will be closing its doors Saturday, Feb. 3.EUGENE, Ore. -- A University of Oregon student is suing a popular tavern for more than $3.7 million.

Winston Martin claims Max's Tavern is responsible for an injury that caused him to lose the ability to use his left hand. The lawsuit was filed on Jan. 15th in the Lane County Circuit Court.

According to court documents, Martin's injury made him unable to "pursue a host of attractive, lucrative careers," leading him to reassess his educational goals. Prior to the injury, Martin was planning on attending medical school.

Martin went to the bar with a friend on Jan. 18th, 2016. Court documents state that Martin was served four beers over the course of an hour, as well as a few free cocktails that the bartenders were learning how to make.

Another customer, seated next to Martin, ordered a margarita. According to the lawsuit, the bartender used a pint glass instead of the top of the shaker and was unable to separate the shaker from the pint glass. The bartender then handed it to Martin and asked if he could pull them apart.

Martin tried to separate the shaker and the glass cup but the glass shattered, slicing his hand and leaving a deep cut on his left index finger. The wound caused Martin to lose the sensation in his finger, according to the lawsuit.

The bartender repeatedly stated that he shouldn't have asked Martin for help and Martin went to the emergency room.

The lawsuit states that since the incident Martin has had stitches, physical therapy, and surgery to restore feeling in his finger. These treatments were "virtually inoperable. Martin only has minimal feeling in the finger and his hand remains in constant pain, the lawsuit states.

It is expected that Martin will not regain feeling in his finger and that the pain will be constant, according to court documents.LEBANON, Ore.  Firefighters rescued and resuscitated a dog trapped inside a Lebanon home Tuesday.



Fire crews with the Lebanon Fire District said they were called to a home on the 700 block of E. Oak Street shortly before noon on Tuesday for the report of smoke. Once on scene, crews put out a fire inside the single-story wood framed home.

Crews said they found a small dog inside which had been overcome by smoke and immediately began resuscitative efforts using a special high flow oxygen mask designed specifically for pets. They said the owner, who wasnt home at the time, returned home to transport the dog to a local veterinarian for evaluation.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Oregon State Police say a trapper shot a gray wolf after finding it caught in one of his traps in December.

Capt. Bill Fugate says an examination of the dead wolf revealed a small-caliber bullet in its spinal column.

Four wolves have been inadvertently captured by licensed trappers since the animals began returning to Oregon around the turn of the century. In those cases, the trappers contacted the state and wildlife biologists responded to help free the wolves. Wildlife biologists were able to collar the wolves and safely release them from the traps.

Court records show that 58-year-old David Sanders of Elgin was arraigned in Union County last week on two misdemeanor counts of unlawful taking of wildlife. A plea hearing is scheduled for March 27.

Sanders' attorney, Charles Gillis, declined comment.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife says the wolf was a juvenile female born last spring. Biologists believe it was the offspring of a new pair of wolves that bred this year in the Mt. Emily Wildlife Management Unit.ROSEBURG, Ore. (AP) - The chief of surgery for the Roseburg Veterans Affairs Medical Center has stepped down following allegations of retaliation and bullying last year.

The News-Review reports that an email sent to VA employees Monday announced Chris Curry as the acting chief after Dinesh Ranjan voluntarily left the position.

MORE: Roseburg VA responds to negative report on patient care

Ranjan referred questions to the VA director's office. A VA spokesman declined to comment, citing personnel matters.

Director Doug Paxton did not respond to the newspaper's questions.

SPECIAL REPORT: Eugene VA staff fear retaliation

Allegations of retaliation spurred an investigation by the VA's Office of the Medical Inspector and the Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection. Investigators interviewed about 200 VA employees in Oregon late last year.

Investigators described the VA as having a "toxic culture," and a preliminary report called for changes in senior management.1 of 4

A Tigger captured that resembles Winnie the Pooh's bouncy friend



A photographer has captured an incredible image of a leaping tiger that looks exactly like Winnie the Pooh's bouncy best friend Tigger. David Ogden's shot of a tiger jumping up from a body of water is so well-timed that it looks as though it was bouncing on its tail just like the A.A. Milne creation.



The shot was captured at the now-closed Tiger Temple, in Kanchanaburi Province, Thailand, in September 2014.



Read More...

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) - Authorities say two drivers have died in a three-vehicle collision involving a car driving south in the northbound lanes of Interstate 380 in Cedar Rapids.

Police say several people called 911 about the car around 9:10 p.m. Monday. Officers soon found the collision wreckage.

The driver headed the wrong way was identified as 69-year-old Robert Norton Jr., who lived in Iowa City. The driver killed in one of the two northbound vehicles was identified as 28-year-old Jennifer Koenighain, who lived in Cedar Rapids.

Two people in the second northbound vehicle were taken to University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries. Police didn't release their names.

The collision is being investigated.ROCHESTER, Minn. - After a data breach impacting about 143 million people in 2017, Equifax responded by providing consumers in the U.S. with one free year of ID protection.

In the hack, people's names, birth dates, and social security numbers were stolen by hackers. Wade Fields is the owner of Miracle Computers in Rochester. He said the free protection is helpful, but people should take other precuations as well.

"Make sure your email is secure," he said. "A lot of the times you forget your password you reset your password, where does it go, it goes right to your email."

Since emails can have sensitive information, Fields recommends having what is called 'two-factor authentication,' which gives more barriers to get into an email.

He also said online security is something that needs to be continuously monitored.

"Security is kind of a process. It's not just a set and forget type of thing. So you do have to pay attention to activity," he said.

People have until midnight on January 31, 2018 to sign up.

Learn more about the breach and how to sign up for the free service here.FOREST CITY, Iowa  A North Iowa teen is pleading not guilty to five burglaries.

Authorities say 18-year-old Jordan Lee Meier of Forest City is charged with two counts of 2nd degree burglary and three counts of 3rd degree burglary. Hes accused of illegally entering Forest City homes in the 400 block of West N Street, the 200 block of North Central Street, the 200 block of East L Street, and the 300 block of East K Street. These crimes reportedly happened between September 2, 2016 and October 27, 2016.

According to the criminal complaint, authorities believe Meier stole a handgun, a rifle, a shotgun, medication, and cigarettes. Law enforcement says photos of some of the stolen property were found on Meiers cell phone and theres a DNA match between his blood and blood left behind at one of the burglaries.

Meier entered a not guilty plea on Tuesday. No trial date has been set.

Meier had previously pleaded guilty to other crimes in both Winnebago and Worth counties. For details, click here.DES MOINES, Iowa (AP)  Iowa bankers have launched an advertising campaign calling for an end to credit unions' nonprofit status, which they say gives an unfair competitive advantage.

The move comes as Iowa's credit unions increase their market share.

The Iowa Bankers Association has released digital, radio and television ads pushing for a leveled playing field between for-profit banks and nonprofit credit unions, the Des Moines Register reported . The association wants banks' 5 percent franchise tax on profits to also be levied on the state's credit unions.

One of the ads calls for an end to "the credit union industry's free ride."

"We have a real opportunity here to address this issue and protect Iowa taxpayers," said John Sorensen, president and CEO of the Iowa Bankers Association.

Credit unions said they should remain exempt from the state's bank taxes.

Justin Hupfer, vice president of government affairs for the Iowa Credit Union League, said that banks are growing nervous because the state's credit unions are gaining market share.

"Banks want to get rid of credit unions, is the short of it," said Hupfer.

The Iowa Credit Union League is preparing to oppose any potential tax reform bill in the Legislature, Hupfer said.

Republican Rep. Guy Vander Linden said he'd rather lower taxes for banks than levy new taxes on credit unions.

"I tend to agree with their thought that they're working on an unlevel playing field, especially for the large credit unions," said Vander Linden. "They've gotten a tax advantage that allows them to be more competitive against banks. However, I am not interested in raising anybody's taxes."

Vander Linden said that this session's tax reform debate could bring the issue to the table.

"I think it's more likely," he said. "That doesn't necessarily mean it's going to result in any action."MASON CITY, Iowa - Immigrants wanting to become a U.S. citizen have to take a test to prove they understand how the government works.

Some lawmakers in Iowa are trying to make it so that same test is required to get a high school diploma.

What does the stripes represent on the American flag? KIMT News 3s Emily Boster asked.

The 13 colonies, Kevin Seaman a senior at Mason City High School replied.

Which of the following does not border Canada? Boster asked senior Chloe Stephens.

New York? Stephens replied.

Seniors like Kevin Seaman and Chloe Stephens aren't being quizzed on regular school work on this day but on the U.S. citizenship test.

I think I might be able to pass it, Seaman said.

I think it wouldn't be that big of a deal, Stephens said.

Stephens wasn't a huge fan of it.

Because Im already a citizen, Stephens said.

Seaman on the other hand says its important.

I think to pass the U.S. citizenship test is more important than most of the tests we take around here, Seaman said.

The proposed bill that would require students to pass the citizenship test in order to graduate is meant to get kids more interested in politics according to lawmakers supporting it. Students could start taking the test in 7th grade, once they pass at 60 percent they're good to go.

At the moment I do not think I would pass but I feel like I would study for it, Stephens said.

The U.S. civic test is 100 questions, one is only asked 10.KIMT NEWS 3- With the Iowa Department of Public Health saying the flu has not yet reached its peak, popular influenza medication is in high demand nationwide and our area is no exception.

Tamiflu is a prescribed drug that helps cut down the symptoms of influenza, but several local pharmacies are running low. We spoke to eight major pharmacy companies in our area Tuesday. In Mason City, both Hy-Vees say they cannot get the liquid form of the drug, but Hy-Vee East does have some in supply. Shopko in Mason City says they do not have the liquid Tamiflu or the generic capsules. Target in Mason City says they cannot order any of the liquid forms, but do have some in stock.

In Winnebago County, Shopko says they dont have any of the generic brand liquid form but do have some of the other forms.

K-Mart and Hy-Vee in Floyd County say they have an adequate amount of the drug in supply.

There is good news if you live in Worth County. Ver Helst Drug Center in Northwood says they are not having a problem getting any of the drugs in.

We spoke to one woman today who says she is happy that she has some extra in her cabinet.

Doesnt make me throw up all the time, says Marylin Hasapopoulos, of Clear Lake. That helped so I didn't get dehydrated because I live by myself."MASON CITY, Iowa  A Mason City man is facing a felony domestic abuse charge after police say he strangled a woman.

Ryan Driscoll, 34, is being held in the Cerro Gordo County Jail without bond.

Police say Driscoll strangled a woman in their kitchen in the 700 block of S. Jackson Ave. and impeded the womans breathing. The incident happened Tuesday at 1 a.m.

Police say the victim attempted to get off the ground to get a cellphone before Driscoll punched her in the throat.

Mason City police say the woman did have a bruise on her throat, and Driscoll had injuries to his right hand and left eye that are consistent with the victim defending herself.DES MOINES, Iowa (AP)  Des Moines police say a man who reported being shot in a drive-by shooting later admitted he had shot himself in the leg while cleaning a rifle.

The Des Moines Register reports that police were called to the 22-year-old man's home around 4 a.m. Tuesday. Arriving officers found the man lying on a couch with a gunshot wound to this thigh.

The officers say the man initially told them that someone shot at him three times from a car while he was at a nearby park. But the officers say his story continued to change. When officers searched his bedroom, they found blood on his sheets and several firearms, including a .22 rifle.

Officers say he later admitted accidentally shooting himself.

Police say officers took the firearms for safekeeping.ROCHESTER, Minn.  A search warrant at five different locations connected to a narcotics investigation has resulted in one arrest.

Rochester police say 24-year-old Alex Kilian is facing a charge for fifth-degree possession after a search yielded more than a pound of marijuana, a couple grams of cocaine, butane honey oil, a shotgun and $13,676 in cash.

The locations where the search warrants were carried out were Kilians Auto Service (two locations), 3800 West River Parkway and 2304 32nd Ave. NW, 4037 Alberta Dr. NE, 2827 Agate Place NW and a storage unit at Lock-Away Storage on Highway 63 N.WORTH COUNTY, Iowa  A traffic stop on Interstate-35 Tuesday night led to the arrest of two and first-degree theft charges.

According to the Iowa State Patrol, Allen Davis, 28, of Kansas City, and Shameka Wells, 26, of Kansas City, are facing charges for first-degree theft, possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Davis is facing additional charges for OWI, no valid drivers license, fraudulent use of registration and speeding.

According to court documents, Wells stated the stolen car, a 2017 Chevy Trax, belonged to her and that she had bought it for $700. She later stated she received the car as a gift, and Allen said that since he was driving he should be charged for it.

The car was pulled over going 83 miles per hour, and Allen admitted to smoking marijuana within the previous 30 minutes.

Both are being held in the Worth County Jail. Allen is being held on $16,000 bond and Wells is being held on $11,000 bond.SHANGHAI, Jan 31 (Reuters) - China's Ministry of Finance on Wednesday auctioned 20 billion yuan ($3.16 billion) of one-year bonds at an average yield of 3.38 percent, and an additional 20 billion yuan of 10-year bonds at 3.85 percent, traders said, both below market expectations.

For one-year bonds, market estimates had centred around a yield of 3.45 percent and forecasts ranged from 3.30 percent to 3.50 percent.

The auction yield came in below Tuesday's benchmark secondary market yield of 3.5101 percent for one-year government bonds .

For the 10-year bonds, market forecasts had centred around 3.91 percent and ranged from 3.86 percent to 3.97 percent.

The auction yield came in below Tuesday's benchmark secondary market yield of 3.9292 percent for 10-year government bonds .

For stories on Chinese debt issues, click on . ($1 = 6.3301 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Sunil Nair)HAVANA, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Cuba said on Tuesday it had signed a deal with Algeria to import fuel over the next three years, as it seeks to offset a steep decline in oil shipments from its key ally Venezuela.

The Communist-run island has a close relationship with Algeria and annually imports oil products from the north African country but has relied almost exclusively on Latin American socialist partner Venezuela for crude supplies in recent years.

A drop in subsidized oil imports from Venezuela however in the wake of its economic meltdown pushed Cuba last year to resume importing large quantities of oil from Russia and buy 2.1 million of barrels of crude oil from Algeria.

An official at Algerian state energy firm Sonatrach told Reuters earlier this month Algeria would ship the same amount in 2018. The Cuban foreign ministry did not break down details of the new deal, for the 2019-2021 period, and whether it would include crude.

However official news agency Prensa Latina wrote that "the commitment is one of the most significant between the two countries in recent times".

It came as Cuba agreed to send more doctors to Algeria, Prensa Latina wrote, during the visit of Algerian Health Minister Mokhtar Hasbellaoui.

The cash-strapped Caribbean nation exchanges medical and other professional services for oil and oil products. The expansion of services provision to Algeria could suggest the energy deal entails increased shipments.

The drop in Venezuelan oil imports has weighed heavily on Cuba's economy over the last few years, prompting it to ration fuel and electricity.

(Reporting by Sarah Marsh; Editing by Alistair Bell)(Kitco News) - Gold prices rose in Asian trading as U.S. President Donald Trump delivered his first State of the Union address, in which he praised economic progress, called for cooperation and ordered to keep Guantanamo Bay prison open.

April Comex gold futures were last at $1,344.20, up 0.31% on the day.

In his speech, Trump touted stock market gains, tax cuts benefits and rising wages.

Since the election we created 2.4 million new jobs, Trump said in his first State of the Union address, delivered in the chamber of the House of Representatives.This is our new American moment: To every citizen watching - this is your time.

The U.S. President also urged cooperation, calling upon all sides to set aside differences and seek common ground. Tonight, I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties to protect our citizens, of every background, color, and creed, he said.

Trump said he wants to resolve the immigration debate with the Democrats, stating that he would provide Dreamers  people brought illegally to the country as children  with a path to citizenship over the next twelve years in exchange for funding for a border wall with Mexico and additional restrictions on legal immigration.

Its finally time to bring our immigration rules into the 21st century, Trump said.

When speaking about trade, Trump stated that U.S. has turned the page on unfair trade deals and warned to expect trading relationships to be fair and reciprocal.

In addition, Trump said he signed an order to keep the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay opened.

I just signed an order directing Secretary Mattis to reexamine our military detention policy and to keep open Guantanamo Bay, he said.

#TRUMP: I just signed an order directing Secretary Mattis to reexamine our military detention policy and to keep open #Guantanamo Bay | #SOTU  Kitco NEWS (@KitcoNewsNOW) January 31, 2018

During the speech, Trump also referred to the North Korean leadership as depraved.

North Koreas reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland, Trump said. We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from ever happening.HANOI, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Here's a snapshot of Vietnamese dong exchange rates in the official and unofficial markets, indicative SJC gold prices in Hanoi and interbank offered rates at 0426 GMT.

January 31 USD/VND mid-point 22,441 USD/VND interbank 22,709/22,710 USD/VND unofficial 22,700/22,720 SJC gold (mln dong/tael) 36.67/36.89

Interbank offered rates Overnight 1.1-2.0

1 week 1.3-2.0

1 month 3.3-3.9

3 months 3.8-4.7

NOTES: As of Jan. 4, 2016, the State Bank of Vietnam has begun setting the mid-point rate on daily basis, allowing dollar/dong transactions to move in a band of +/- 3 percent around the mid point. The dong's exchange rate against other currencies is not restricted by a band. Interbank offered rates are the latest indicative bid/ask prices, quoted from market sources.

One tael is equivalent to 37.5 grams or 1.21 troy ounces. SJC gold prices are quoted by state-owned Saigon Jewelry Co.

For more interbank rate fixings released at 0400 GMT, click on .

For Vietnam market overview click on: Vietnam's bonds market auctions: Bonds auction results: (Compiled by Hanoi Newsroom)* Mineral Resources has until Feb. 2 to match Mitsui

* Waitsia co-owner Beach happy to work with a new partner

* AWE shares hold above Mitsui's A$0.95 offer price

(Adds Beach CEO comments on Waitsia)

By Sonali Paul

Jan 31 (Reuters) - AWE Ltd has given suitor Mineral Resources three days to match a A$594 million ($480 million) takeover offer from Mitsui & Co , or it will back the Japanese bid as a superior offer.

The Australian gas producer said in a statement it notified Mineral Resources late Tuesday, giving it a deadline of Friday, Feb. 2 to match the Mitsui proposal, which was 14.5 percent above an offer from Mineral Resources.

AWE said it would agree to Mitsui's all cash offer of A$0.95 a share if Mineral Resources did not match it.

Investors, however, are eyeing a higher bid emerging, with AWE's shares currently trading at A$0.97 a share. Mineral Resources was not immediately available for comment on Wednesday, but a spokesman said in an emailed statement on Monday that the company was looking at Mitsui's proposal and considering its position.

Mitsui's offer on Monday marked the first full takeover bid by the Japanese trading giant for an Australian company and would make it the operator of a gas field for the first time, bolstering its credentials to bid on other gas assets.

State-owned China Energy Reserve and Chemicals Group (CERCG) had also bid for AWE last November, although its offer was later topped by Mineral Resources.

All three suitors want AWE for its 50 percent stake in the Waitsia gas field, considered the biggest onshore conventional gas find in Australia in the last 40 years, with enough gas to supply about a tenth of the Western Australian market.

The other owner of Waitsia, Beach Energy , said it is closely watching the AWE takeover tussle. It just obtained its 50 percent stake with its acquisition of Origin Energy's Lattice business, completed on Wednesday.

"The key for us is that we have long thought that Waitsia was a very high quality asset," Beach Chief Executive Matt Kay told Reuters.

Kay declined to comment on whether Beach would be comfortable with Mineral Resources, a miner, becoming operator of Waitsia, but said Beach would be happy to volunteer its skills running gas projects to any partner.

He did not rule out selling Beach's Waitsia stake to one of AWE's underbidders, but declined to comment on whether Beach had held any talks with any of the suitors.

"We're not actively selling any assets. But if someone wants to put a number on the table, we're willing to listen and hear."

($1 = 1.2370 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Sonali Paul; additional reporting by Aditya Soni and Rushil Dutta in Bengaluru; editing by Richard Pullin)* Jan official factory PMI dips to 51.3, 8-month low

* Jan official services PMI edges up to 55.3, 4-month high

* Factory reading reinforces views economic momentum is cooling

* But data suggests economy remains resilient

(Adds breakdown of factory PMI, China composite PMI)

By Stella Qiu and Ryan Woo

BEIJING, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Growth in China's manufacturing sector slowed more than expected in January to an 8-month low in the face of a cooling property market and tighter pollution rules that have curtailed factory output.

The data, which gives global investors their first look at business conditions in China at the start of 2018, reinforced the view that the economy is beginning to gradually lose steam after growing by a better-than-expected 6.9 percent last year.

The official Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) released on Wednesday edged lower to 51.3 in January, compared with 51.6 in December. But it remained comfortably above the 50-point mark that separates growth from contraction on a monthly basis.

Analysts surveyed by Reuters had forecast the headline number would ease slightly to 51.5.

Indexes for output, total new orders and imports all showed more moderate expansion in January compared with last month, while export orders fell marginally. The new export order index dropped to 49.5, 2.4 percentage point lower than December's reading.

However, the overall factory reading still appeared relatively solid, marking the 19th straight month of expansion and reinforcing expectations that any slowdown in the economy would be gradual. Economists polled by Reuters are pencilling in growth of 6.5 percent this year. A separate PMI on the steel sector rose to 50.9 in January from 50.2 in December.

In another sign of broader economic resilience, a sister survey showed activity in China's service sector accelerated to a four-month high in January. The official non-manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) rose to 55.3 from 55 in December.

The services sector accounts for over half of China's economy, with rising wages giving Chinese consumers more spending power.

A buoyant services industry is welcome news for the policymakers who are counting on growth in services and consumption to rebalance their economic growth model from its heavy reliance on investment and exports.

TRADE RISKS

Boosted by government infrastructure spending, a resilient property market and unexpected strength in exports, China's manufacturing and industrial firms were a major driver behind the solid economic growth last year.

But analysts say increasing trade frictions with the United States could cloud the outlook for exporters in the world's second-largest economy.

U.S. President Donald Trump slapped steep tariffs on imported washing machines and solar panels last week. China is the world's biggest solar panel producer. The decisions were the first of several potential tariff actions that Trump may take in the coming weeks and months. He is also considering recommendations on import restrictions for steel and aluminium and other trade sanctions against China over its intellectual property practices.

A slowing property market is also likely to dent China's industrial activity this year, dampening demand for building materials from glass to steel. Property investment growth in December alone moderated to 2.4 percent from a year earlier, the lowest since July 2016. Moreover, China is expected to continue a wide-ranging crackdown this year on riskier types of financing and debt. The campaign is slowly pushing up companies' borrowing costs and making it harder and more expensive for weaker firms to raise funds.

"Looking ahead, some of the recent weakness in manufacturing may be partially reversed in the coming months as disruptions caused by the anti-pollution campaign fade," Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China Economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a research note on Wednesday.

"But any rebound is likely to prove short-lived given that the drags on economic activity from slower credit growth and the cooling property market are set to intensify this year."

China also published a composite PMI for the first time on Wednesday, covering both manufacturing and services activity in a bid to better capture overall economic trends.

The composite PMI stood at 54.6 in January, well above the 50-mark that separates expansion from contraction and unchanged for a third month.

<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ GRAPHIC - Trends in China's PMI and other economic indicators ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> (Reporting by Stella Qiu and Ryan Woo; Editing by Kim Coghill)Jan 31 (Reuters) - The Baltic Exchange's main sea freight index fell on Wednesday as rates fell across vessel segments with the capesize index recording its biggest monthly percentage decline in two years.

* The overall index, which tracks rates for ships carrying dry bulk commodities, was down 39 points, or 3.27 percent, at 1,152 points. This represented its biggest daily percentage fall since Jan. 17.

* Baltic index, which factors in rates for capesize, panamax, supramax and handysize shipping vessels, lost more than 15 percent this month, its biggest monthly percentage decline since May last year.

* The capesize index fell 135 points, or 7.72 percent, to 1,613 points. It slumped 43 percent this month, most since January 2016.

* Average daily earnings for capesizes, which typically transport 150,000-tonne cargoes such as iron ore and coal, were down $939 at $12,727.

* The panamax index shed 39 points, or 2.69 percent - its biggest one-day percentage fall in four weeks - to 1,411 points. It gained 1.1 percent this month, after falling for the previous two months.

* Average daily earnings for panamaxes, which usually carry coal or grain cargoes of about 60,000 to 70,000 tonnes, declined $313 to $11,309.

* Among smaller vessels, the supramax index shed 5 points to 884 points and the handysize index lost 8 points to 558 points.

(Reporting by Sumita Layek in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday said he did not think U.S. President Donald Trump would pull out of NAFTA, despite slow progress at negotiations to update the $1.2 trillion trade pact.

Trudeaus comments were among the most positive made by any Canadian official since talks started last year to revamp the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump calls a disaster that killed off many U.S. manufacturing jobs.

Scrapping NAFTA would badly hurt U.S. workers and industries, Trudeau told Winnipeg radio station 680 CJOB.

Im confident that the President is going to see that and choose to not terminate because its not in his or Americans best interests to walk away from NAFTA, he said.

Trumps trade chief, speaking on Monday after the sixth of eight rounds of talks, rejected proposals for unblocking the negotiations but promised to seek quick breakthroughs.

Foreign ministers from the United States, Canada and Mexico will meet in Mexico on Friday to discuss the talks and other issues, Ottawa said on Wednesday.

Work on renegotiating the deal began soon after Trump took office a year ago. He said if it could not be overhauled to better favor U.S. interests and American workers, Washington would pull out.

The Trump administration is demanding big changes to the pact, and this has caused tensions with Canada and Mexico.

Trudeau told 680 CJOB that there are multiple issues at which point Canada would not accept a deal.

Weve pushed our American partners on this and they understand that right now, he said.

In his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, Trump said America has also finally turned the page on decades of unfair trade deals, but did not mention NAFTA by name.

Trudeau told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp that Canada has multiple contingency plans in the event Washington does announce it plans to withdraw.

Government sources told Reuters on Jan 10 that Ottawa was increasingly convinced Washington would give notice of withdrawal. The news hit stock markets and the Canadian and Mexican currencies.

Asked about contingency plans, Trudeau told the CBC not only do we have a Plan B, we have a Plan C and D and E and F. He declined to give details.

Trade Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne says his Plan B is diversification. Canada currently sends around 75 percent of all goods exports to the United States.

Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Frances Kerry and Andrew HayBEIJING, Jan 31 (Reuters) - China's central bank said on Wednesday its counter-cyclical adjustment on cross-border yuan account financing is aimed at helping curb "herd" effects in markets and improving the country's financial supervision. The People's Bank of China said earlier this month that Chinese commercial banks' upper limit on yuan cross-border financing will be determined by their outstanding deposits and a counter-cyclical factor, which was 3 percent currently. The coefficient on counter-cyclical adjustment on cross-border yuan account financing at 3 percent has been in place since July 2013, the PBOC said in a statement sent to Reuters in response to queries on how the adjustment is set.

(Reporting by Beijing Monitoring Desk; Editing by Sam Holmes)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.BEIJING, Jan 31 (Reuters) - China will continue to advance trade liberalisation and will not block "normal movement of money", Premier Li Keqiang said on Wednesday, denying claims that China exercises capital controls.

Li made the remarks after meeting visiting British Prime Minister Theresa May in Beijing. He did not specify under what circumstances such capital flows are considered normal.

Chinese companies have faced lengthy approvals for their outbound deals after Beijing tightened capital controls late last year in an effort to stabilise a weakening yuan. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard and William James; Writing by Yawen Chen; Editing by)MOSCOW, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Demand for Russian government bonds exceeded the amount of paper on offer by more than three times on Wednesday in the absence of any new U.S. sanctions on holding Russian debt.

The United States released a report on people close to President Vladimir Putin earlier this week but did not impose any restrictions on ownership of Russian state debt, something that the market feared could happen. At two auctions on Wednesday, the finance ministry sold 30 billion roubles ($532.85 million) worth of treasury bonds, known as OFZs, or all paper on offer. The overall demand at two auctions topped 108 billion roubles.

OFZ bonds have been in strong demand in the past few years thanks to their lucrative yields.

On Wednesday, yields of benchmark 10-year OFZ bonds fell to their lowest since late 2013 of 7.24 percent but were still far above the 2.7 percent carried by U.S. Treasury bonds with the same term .

OFZ bonds are popular with foreign investors. As of Dec. 1, they held 2.2 trillion roubles of these bonds, or more than 32 percent of all OFZs, up from 1.4 trillion and 25.6 percent, respectively, a year earlier.

Demand for OFZs was fanned recently by concerns that possible new U.S. sanctions could hamper future buying of bonds but not affect existing OFZ holdings. Expectations that the central bank will cut rates throughout 2018 also supports demand for OFZs. When the central bank trims its key rate, now at 7.75 percent, yields of OFZ bonds go down, which, in turn, pushes bond prices higher.

Following are details of the auctions, taken from the Finance Ministry website ( ): Maturity date 16/10/2024 Offer volume 15.000 bln rbls Bids 68.317 bln rbls Issue (allotted) 15.000 bln rbls

Issue (funds raised) 15.364 bln rbls

Cut-off price 100.5001 pct of par Average price 100.5219 pct of par Cut-off yield 7.12 pct Average yield 7.12 pct Maturity date 23/03/2033 Offer volume 15.000 bln rbls Bids 40.012 bln rbls Issue (allotted) 15.000 bln rbls

Issue (funds raised) 15.781 bln rbls

Cut-off price 102.8201 pct of par Average price 102.8479 pct of par Cut-off yield 7.52 pct Average yield 7.52 pct ($1 = 56.3010 roubles)

(Reporting by Andrey Ostroukh; Editing by Adrian Croft)FRANKFURT, Jan 31 (Reuters) - European Central Bank board member Benoit Coeure praised Ireland's candidate to become the ECB's next vice-president on Wednesday, describing Philip Lane as an "outstanding economist" and a "good colleague".

The appointment is being closely watched by investors because it could end up influencing the race to replace ECB President Mario Draghi in 2019. Lane has only just joined the race to succeed Vitor Constancio as the ECB's second-in-command when he steps down in May. He may win the backing of France and some southern European countries over Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos, long considered the favourite.

Coeure, a Frenchman, praised Lane but said the central bank had little say in the selection process, which is led by euro zone governments. "Governor Lane, he's an outstanding economist. He's a good colleague on the Governing Council of the ECB," Coeure told Ireland's RTE TV.

"Now, as you know, the ECB has a very limited role in that process. We'll give an opinion at a later stage and it's really a political discussion, that's all what I can say."

France and other states may fear that the appointment of a Spaniard to the number two post would strengthen the chances of a northern European candidate, such as Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann, in the race to replace Draghi.

Some southern euro zone members may welcome Lane's nomination because they feel de Guindos has aligned himself too closely with hardline German positions in recent years.

Euro zone finance ministers launched the process of choosing his replacement last week, kicking off two years of significant change on the six-member executive board of the ECB.

(Reporting by Francesco Canepa; editing by Andrew Roche)FRANKFURT, Jan 31 (Reuters) - The European Central Bank will publish the results of a stress test of Greece's four largest banks in May to allow time for any capital shortfall to be filled before Greece leaves its bailout programme in August.

"In order to complete the test before the end of the third European Stability Mechanism stability support programme for Greece, the timetable will be accelerated and the results are expected to be published in May," the ECB said.

The announcement confirms a Reuters report published in November. Test results for the remaining 33 lenders from other euro zone countries will be published on Nov. 2.

(Reporting By Francesco Canepa; Editing by Catherine Evans)By Bruno Federowski

SAO PAULO, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Latin American currencies strengthened on Wednesday, tracking global U.S. dollar weakness after U.S. President Donald Trump sent a mixed message on bipartisan compromise in his first State of the Union address.

Trump called on the U.S. Congress to pass legislation to ensure at least $1.5 trillion in new infrastructure spending, and urged lawmakers to put aside partisan interests but pushed a hard line on immigration. "The lack of specifics (and a more combative tone) has allowed US equity markets and U.S. Treasury bonds to steady and improve after slipping since the start of the week but the U.S. dollar remains on the defensive overall," Scotiabank analysts wrote in a client note.

The new round of weakness came after a period of consolidation earlier this week as markets expected the U.S. Federal Reserve to take a more confident stance about the outlook of the economy but keep policy unchanged. The Fed will publish a policy statement later Wednesday following a two-day meeting.

Currencies from Brazil , Colombia , Mexico and Chile firmed between 0.2 percent and 1 percent as the U.S. dollar headed for its biggest monthly drop in nearly two years against a basket of developed market currencies. Stock markets were mixed with Brazil's benchmark Bovespa index the biggest gainer in the region due to a rally in bank shares.

Banco Santander Brasil SA rose sharply after it beat fourth-quarter earnings estimates and quickly expanded its loan book into higher-margin segments. Shares in other lenders, such as Banco Bradesco SA and Itau Unibanco Holding SA , followed along.

Key Latin American stock indexes and currencies at 1630 GMT: Stock indexes daily % YTD %

change change

Latest MSCI Emerging Markets 1254.33 0.54 7.7 MSCI LatAm 3202.28 0.95 12.16

Brazil Bovespa 85414.09 1.1 11.80 Mexico IPC 50204.41 -0.35 1.72 Chile IPSA 5857.25 -0.04 5.26

Chile IGPA 29421.71 0 5.15 Argentina MerVal 34857.03 1.8 15.94

Colombia IGBC 12210.34 -0.45 7.38

Currencies daily % YTD %

change change

Latest Brazil real 3.1730 0.18 4.42

Mexico peso 18.5930 0.98 5.95

Chile peso 601.12 0.92 2.25

Colombia peso 2831.32 0.71 5.32 Peru sol 3.215 0.03 0.68

Argentina peso (interbank) 19.6250 0.05 -5.22 Argentina peso (parallel) 19.91 0.65 -3.42 (Reporting by Bruno Federowski; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)TBILISI, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Georgia's economy expanded by 4.8 percent year-on-year in 2017, preliminary official data showed on Wednesday, up from 2.2 percent in 2016.

Economic growth accelerated thanks to higher exports and remittances from abroad. The highest growth was registered in the processing industry, services and real estate operations.

In December alone, gross domestic product grew by 4.7 percent after expanding 3.7 percent in November. In December a year ago, GDP grew by 0.3 percent.

The former Soviet republic, through which pipelines carry Caspian oil and gas to Europe, is recovering from a decline in exports and a plunge in the currencies of its main trading partners, which have depressed economic growth in recent years.

The International Monetary Fund said in October that it expected Georgia's economy to grow 4.3 percent in 2017, up from a previous forecast of 3.5 percent.

(Reporting by Margarita Antidze; Editing by Catherine Evans)NAIROBI, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Kenya's central bank Monetary Policy Committee will hold its next rate-setting meeting on March 19, it said on its website on Wednesday. At its last meeting earlier this month, the bank held its benchmark lending rate at 10.0 percent. (Reporting by George Obulutsa; Editing by Maggie Fick)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.WELLINGTON, Feb 1 (Reuters) - Job advertisements in New Zealand jumped 3.1 percent in January, the largest monthly rise in three years, a survey by ANZ Bank showed on Thursday.

Gains were led by the construction and manufacturing sector, amid severe skill shortages as the country goes through a building boom.

Areas outside the main cities, such as the West Coast and Southland, saw the fastest growth in job ads. In the commercial centre of Auckland they fell 0.5 percent year on year.

Economists suggested that meant the strong surge might be short-lived and that job ads would soon flatten out.

"All three main centres provide evidence that the number of job ads is bouncing around high levels, rather than trending upward from here," said Kyle Uerata, economic statistician at ANZ.

On an annual basis job ads grew 5.9 percent, the survey showed.

(Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield; editing by Andrew Roche)STOCKHOLM, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Swedish pension funds AP1 and AMF are investing 20 million euros ($24.88 million) in mobile payment solutions firm iZettle, the three parties said in a joint statement on Wednesday.

* The main part of the stake was bought from Santander Innoventures, which will remain a shareholder also going forward

* The news comes after iZettle raised 40 million euros in December in a funding round led by venture capital firm Dawn and the Fourth Swedish National Pension Fund (AP4) * Sweden's iZettle has said it is preparing for an eventual listing

* Online news outlet Breakit reported in August, citing sources, that iZettle had appointed banks to handle the IPO ($1 = 0.8039 euros)

(Reporting by Johannes Hellstrom; editing by Niklas Pollard)Following are news stories, press reports and events to watch that may affect Poland's financial markets on Wednesday. ALL TIMES GMT (Poland: GMT + 1 hour):

BZ WBK Polish lender Bank Zachodni WBK reported a 19 percent jump in fourth-quarter net profit on Wednesday, underpinned by improvements in its core segments' results on the back of an accelerating economy. KACZYNSKI

There are so many areas in Poland that have to be changed radically that the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) will need at least three terms to do it, the party leader told Gazeta Polska weekly in an interview published on Wednesday.

DANWOOD

Private equity fund Enterprise Investors plans to list its Polish energy-efficient housebuilder Danwood on the Warsaw Stock Exchange , Puls Biznesu daily said quoting the company's statement.

CD PROJEKT , ASSECO POLAND Poland's largest video game developer CD Projekt will likely replace Asseco Poland, the country's largest IT company, in the Warsaw Stock Exchange blue chip index WIG20 in the next revision in March, Puls Biznesu daily said quoting analysts.

BMW German BMW had planned to invest in the electric vehicles business in Poland, but resigned after Warsaw launched regulations which hit wind farms, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna daily said quoting unnamed sources.

SUNDAY TRADE

Poland's president signed into law a Sunday trade bill which restricts trading to two Sundays in a month, Parkiet daily said.

****Reuters has not verified stories reported by Polish media and does not vouch for their accuracy.****

For other related news, double click on: Polish equities E.Europe equities Polish money Polish debt Eastern Europe All emerging markets Hot stocks Stock markets Market debt news Forex news For real-time index quotes, double click on: Warsaw WIG20 Budapest BUX Prague PX (Reporting by Warsaw Bureau)The performance at the event (Source: haufo.org.vn)

The event was considered as a gift for Vietnamese delegates and international friends working in Vietnam, contributing to strengthening the solidarity and friendship between Vietnam and other countries.

It drew the participation of leaders of committees, central agencies, Hanoi City, representatives from embassies, international organizations and non-governmental organizations, foreign students in Vietnam and foreigners working in Hanoi.

According to Ms. Nguyen Lan Huong, Head of the Commission for Mass Mobilization of Hanoi City Party Committee, and head of the Hanoi Union of Friendship Organizations, 2017 was a brilliant year for foreign affairs. Many international events took place in Hanoi, especially the APEC Vietnam Year. Many bilateral and multi-lateral relations between Hanoi capital and other countries, territories, localities and organizations have been established and raised to new heights. The support of international friends helped to achieve these achievements.

On behalf of international friends, Mr. Jorge Rondon Uzcategui, Ambassador of Venezuela, Head of Diplomatic Mission in Vietnam sent to Vietnamese people a new year of peace, prosperity, happiness and success. He believed that in 2018, the union would be further developed./.(Repeats for wider readership with no changes to text)

JAKARTA, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Indonesia's energy ministry announced on Wednesday five winning bids in its 2017 oil and gas block tender, including units of Premier Oil , KrisEnergy and Perusahaan Gas Negara (PGN) .

The table below shows the results of the tender.

Work Area Winner

- Direct offers - Andaman I Mubadala Petroleum (SE Asia) Ltd Andaman II Consortium: Premier Oil Far East,

KrisEnergy (Andaman II) BV, Mubadala

Petroleum (Andaman II JSA) Ltd Merak-Lampung PT Tansri Madjid Energi Pekawai PT Saka Energi Sepinggan West Yamdena PT Saka Energi Indonesia South Tuna None

- Regular tender - Kasuri III None Tongkol None East Tanimbar None Memberamo None

According to a statement from the ministry, five of the conventional oil and gas blocks that did not attract any bids in 2017 will be re-tendered this year.

Deputy Energy Minister Arcandra Tahar said the next tender would be announced in mid-February.

The tender was opened in May 2017 and extended four times while waiting for a new government regulation on the gross split production sharing contract mechanism, it said, describing the result as a "new era" in the country's upstream oil and gas industry.

Direct offer tenders are preceded by a joint study process, in which oil and gas companies and the government work together to develop seismic data for certain blocks. Companies involved in the study gain rights to match bids once the blocks are offered in the tender, discouraging other participants.

Former OPEC member Indonesia was once self-sufficient in oil and gas, but has been struggling for years to attract investment and bring the declining output to a halt.

With thin interest in recent oil and gas block tenders, some analysts have said more work is still needed to make the new regime and the country's energy sector attractive.

(Reporting by Wilda Asmarini; Writing by Fergus Jensen, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)* Promsvyazbank to service defence sector

* Finmin to use funds spent on Otkritie, B&N - sources

* PSB to be transferred to the government by April

By Darya Korsunskaya, Oksana Kobzeva and Tatiana Voronova

MOSCOW, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Russia's Finance Ministry is seeking to recapitalise Promsvyazbank using funds it gets back from the central bank rescue of two other banks, Otkritie and B&N, two sources familiar with the plan told Reuters.

The plan to recapitalise and transfer PSB to government ownership by April was announced earlier this month, with aim of the bank servicing the defence sector. PSB was itself rescued by the central bank at the end of last year. The central bank estimated at the time that up to 200 billion roubles ($3.6 billion) would be needed to restore the bank's health. The fate of such banks has become increasingly in focus as Russia aims to protect its financial system from the risk of a tightening of U.S. sanctions. By having banks such as PSB concentrate on defence sector work, it protects other bigger banks which would not then do the work themselves.

The ministry spent 83 billion roubles on Otkritie and B&N, via OFZ bonds, during the financial crisis of a couple of years ago. After the bailouts, the ministry said it wanted the funds back. The central bank is now working to overhaul Otkritie and B&N, estimated to cost a combined figure of up to 820 billion roubles and last for around a year. The central bank would like to sell them in the next 3-4 years, considering a public share offering among possible options. A state official, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter, said the Finance Ministry was preparing amendments to legislation which would allow to transfer the funds spent by the ministry on Otkritie and B&N to PSB, boosting the capital of the latter.

A banker from a state bank familiar with the discussions confirmed the plan. The both did not say whether all 83 billion roubles the Finance Ministry aims to recover would be spent on PSB.

It was not immediately clear by how much PSB needs to be recapitalised to serve the defence sector in total, or which other tools are planned to be used, apart from OFZs.

Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseev told reporters on Wednesday that the return of funds spent by the ministry on the support of Otkritie and B&N was linked to the process of PSB's transfer to the government.

"This (the scheme) is in general approved," he said, adding that the final version of the amendments was expected to be ready on Thursday. He declined to provide other details.

The central bank declined to comment. ($1 = 56.2040 roubles)

(Writing by Katya Golubkova; Editing by Alison Williams)JOHANNESBURG, Jan 31 (Reuters) - South Africa's trade surplus in December widened to 15.72 billion rand ($1.33 billion) from a revised 13.05 billion rand surplus in November, data from the revenue agency showed on Wednesday. Exports fell by 10.2 percent to 104.32 billion rand on a month-on-month basis in December, while imports were down 14.1 percent to 88.6 billion rand, the South African Revenue Service said in a statement. On a cumulative basis the trade balance between January and December was at a 80.55 billion rand surplus compared to a 1.05 billion rand surplus over the same period in 2016. ($1 = 11.8534 rand)

(Reporting by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo; Editing by Alexander Winning)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.

OSLO, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Norway's central bank sold the following government bond (NST 479) in a uniform price auction on Wednesday: Coupon: 1.75 pct Maturity: Feb 17, 2027 Settlement date: Feb. 2, 2018 AUCTION DATE Jan 31, 2018 Nov 22, 2017 YIELD (pct) 1.81 1.52 ALLOTMENT PRICE (pct) 99.52 101.95 SCHEDULED OFFER (bln NOK) 3.00 3.00 TOTAL BIDS (bln NOK) 7.438 6.004 ALLOTED (bln NOK) 3.00 3.00 BID-TO-COVER RATIO 2.48 2.00 NOTE: The central bank said that there was 75 percent allotment on lowest accepted bids.

(Reporting by Oslo newsroom)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.ANKARA, Jan 31 (Reuters) - The number of foreign visitors arriving in Turkey surged 27.84 percent in 2017 to 32.41 million, data from the Tourism Ministry showed on Wednesday.

The number of Russian visitors to Turkey in the same period rose more than five-fold to 4.72 million people, the data indicated. In December alone, foreign arrivals to Turkey jumped 30.84 percent.

Earlier on Wednesday, data showed Turkey's tourism revenues jumped by nearly a fifth to $26.28 billion in 2017, rebounding after a sharp fall a year earlier.

(Reporting by Ercan Gurses; Writing by Ece Toksabay; Editing by David Dolan)(Adds Cameroon government comment)

ONITSHA, Nigeria, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Cameroonian troops crossed into neighbouring Nigeria in pursuit of separatist rebels, a Nigerian state defence spokesman and a former community leader said on Wednesday.

Cameroon has been fighting Anglophone separatists who have taken up arms over the past year in an attempt to create a nation which they call Ambazonia. The insurgency represents the gravest challenge yet to the 35-year rule of Cameroon's President Paul Biya.

More than 43,000 Cameroonians have fled as refugees to Nigeria to escape the government crackdown on the separatists, say local aid officials. The majority are in Nigeria's Cross River state, which borders southwest Cameroon .

A spokesman for Nigeria's civil defence agency in Cross River state said Cameroonian gendarmes crossed into Danare, a border community in the Boki local government area of Cross River state, on Tuesday. He said they harassed Cameroonian refugees and their Nigerian hosts.

"The gendarmes came in briefly, harassed the people and left immediately. They have been doing this since the crisis of agitation for independence forced these refugees to flee Cameroon and come into Nigeria," said Solomon Eremi, a spokesman for the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC).

A former councillor in Boki, Douglas Ogar, also said Cameroonian gendarmes had entered the community. "The gendarmes are so emboldened as they have shown outright defiance to Nigeria's territorial sovereignty," he said.

"The government does not comment on rumours," said Cameroon government spokesman Issa Tchiroma Bakary when asked about claims that gendarmes had entered Nigeria.

It is not the first reported incursion by Cameroonian gendarmes. At least one such move was carried out by troops last month .

Last week, a Cameroonian separatist leader arrested in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, was deported .

The linguistic divide in Cameroon - a mostly Francophone country - harks back to the end of World War One when the German colony of Kamerun was carved up between allied French and British victors.

The English-speaking regions joined the French-speaking Republic of Cameroon the year after its independence in 1960. French speakers have dominated the country's politics since.

(Reporting by Anamesere Igboeroteonwu, Tife Owolabi in Yenagoa and Josiane Kouagheu in Douala; writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; editing by Janet Lawrence)(Adds 2018 production forecast, context)

MOSCOW, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Norilsk Nickel (Nornickel) , the world's largest palladium producer, said on Wednesday its production of palladium could decline in 2018, while the output of nickel from Russian raw material would remain flat.

Nornickel, part-owned by Russian tycoon Vladimir Potanin and aluminium giant Rusal , previously said its production of nickel and platinum group metals would be unchanged with rising copper output in 2018-2020. "We reiterate our earlier 2018 metal production guidance, with a small downside risk to platinum group metals volumes owing to a potential build-up of work-in-progress material at Kola division due to ongoing nickel refinery upgrade," Sergey Dyachenko, Nornickel Chief Operating Officer, said in a statement.

The company completed the main phase of its downstream reconfiguration programme in 2017 and plans active modernisation and expansion of capacity at its Kola nickel refining operations in 2018.

Nornickel, which competes with Brazil's Vale SA for the rank of the world's top nickel producer, experienced a fall in consolidated production of nickel as its reconfiguration led to a reduction of low-margin processing of third parties' feed at Norilsk Nickel Harjavalta in Finland.

Its output of copper and platinum group metals rose in 2017 mainly due to the processing of concentrate it previously purchased from state conglomerate Rostec.

This year Nornickel plans to produce from Russian feedstock 210-215 tonnes of nickel, 400-420 tonnes of copper, 2.6-2.7 million troy ounces of palladium and 600-650 ounces of platinum.

In 2017, consolidated nickel production was 217,112 tonnes, down 8 percent year-on-year, and consolidated copper output was 401,083 tonnes, up 11 percent. Its palladium and platinum production was 2.8 million ounces, up 6 percent, and 670,000 ounces, up 4 percent, respectively.

Nornickel's production in 2017 and production guidance for 2018 from Russian feedstock, excluding its Bystrinsky copper project *: Metals 2017 output 2018 Nickel, 000 tonnes 210 210-215 Copper, 000 tonnes 398 400-420 Palladium, 000 ounces 2,728 2,630-2,725 Platinum, 000 ounces 650 600-650

* In 2018, Bystrinsky plans to produce 35,000-40,000 tonnes of copper and 180,000-200,000 ounces of gold in concentrate. Nornickel owns a 50 percent stake in the project.

Source text for Eikon: (Reporting by Polina Devitt, editing by David Evans)(Updates prices)

JOHANNESBURG, Jan 31 (Reuters) - South Africa's rand firmed against the U.S. dollar on Wednesday, supported by a weaker greenback and data showing the country's trade surplus widened last year.

At 1506 GMT, the rand traded at 11.8575 per dollar, 0.84 percent firmer than its close on Tuesday. South Africa's trade surplus in December widened to 15.72 billion rand from a 13.05 billion rand surplus in November, the revenue agency said.

On a cumulative basis the trade balance between January and December was at a 80.55 billion rand surplus compared to a 1.05 billion rand surplus over the same period in 2016. "One of the catalysts is the slight dollar weakness that has come into the market that has helped South Africa and the rest of emerging markets gain a little bit of ground," said TreasuryOne chief currency dealer Wichard Cilliers. He added: "The trade surplus has also helped the rand slightly."

Market attention was also pinned on President Jacob Zuma's future as head of state.

South African news website News24 reported late on Tuesday that top officials from the ruling African National Congress (ANC) would meet Zuma to discuss "options" to avoid him being impeached or voted out by parliament.

The ANC has been discussing whether to tell Zuma, whose presidency has been tainted by corruption allegations, to resign. Any sign that Zuma could go before his second term ends next year has tended to boost South African assets, including the rand.

Government bonds also firmed, with the yield for the benchmark instrument falling 9 basis points to 8.47 percent.

In equity markets, the main stock indices ended little changed but Vodacom was in demand after the mobile phone operator reported higher quarterly sales.

Vodacom, the unit of Britain's Vodafone, rose 5.4 percent to 163.50 rand after posting a 6.7 percent increase in third-quarter sales thanks to increasing customer base.

The blue-chip Top-40 index was off 0.1 percent at 52,614 and the broader All-share index inched down 0.07 percent at 59,506.

(Reporting by Tiisetso Motsoeneng and Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo; editing by Mark Heinrich)(Adds China comment)

By Lesley Wroughton

WASHINGTON, Jan 30 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump vowed on Tuesday to protect American intellectual property, but made little mention of China, which his administration has accused of trade abuses, in his first State of the Union speech to Congress.

Trump had been expected to deliver strong warnings to countries about unfair trade practices, including stealing intellectual property and providing state aid to their industries.

Instead, his comments on trade during the speech were restricted to several sentences that omitted China in which he repeated that "fair and reciprocal" trade was necessary.

"We will work to fix bad trade deals and negotiate new ones," Trump said, adding: "We will protect American workers and American intellectual property, through strong enforcement of our trade rules."

Trump has threatened to walk away from trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, and the U.S-South Korean Free Trade Agreement, unless they bolster U.S. manufacturing and American jobs.

Last week, he imposed tariffs on imported washing machines and solar panels in his first major trade actions since withdrawing the United States from the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement within weeks of taking office last year.

Trump is considering broad tariffs or quotas on steel and aluminum following investigations by the U.S. Department of Commerce into whether rising steel and aluminum imports represent a threat to national security.

In his speech, Trump briefly referred to China as among "rivals" that challenge U.S. interests, values and the economy, prompting China's Foreign Ministry to say that the United States should "abandon its Cold War mentality and outdated zero-sum game ideas."

"China and the United States have broad and important joint interests," ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a news briefing in Beijing on Wednesday when asked about Trump's remarks, adding that those interests were bigger than the two countries' differences.

The Alliance for American Manufacturing, a group representing steel and other basic industries, welcomed Trump's remarks on trade in his speech but called for actions to combat Chinese imports.

"This speech won't change China's behavior and defend American jobs. Only action will," said AAM President Scott Paul, "It's time for the president's policies and actions to match his talk."

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Additional reporting by Michael Martina in Beijing; Editing by Peter Cooney and Nick Macfie)(Adds detail on appointment)

LONDON, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Britain's finance ministry appointed a woman for the first time as its next chief economist at a time when lawmakers want to increase the number of women appointed to senior economic policy roles.

Clare Lombardelli is currently in charge of helping finance minister Philip Hammond draw up his annual budget. She joined the finance ministry in 2005 after beginning her career at the Bank of England, the finance ministry said.

She previously served as an economic advisor to David Cameron when he was prime minister and was then-finance minister George Osborne's principal private secretary.

Before that, she was seconded to the International Monetary Fund where she was part of a team based in the Greek finance ministry to monitor bailout terms during 2010 and 2011.

Lombardelli's new role will make her responsible for advising Hammond on economic issues related to Brexit, and she will also be the finance ministry's non-voting representative at BoE monetary policy meetings.

Lombardelli is also likely to help Hammond select a successor to BoE Governor Mark Carney, who steps down next year.

Hammond appointed Lombardelli's predecessor, Dave Ramsden, to be one of the BoE's deputy governors in September. She will start her new job on April 3.

After Ramsden's appointment, the head of the parliament committee which supervises the BoE and Britain's Treasury said Hammond had done too little to encourage diversity at the BoE, which at the time had only two women among its 23 most senior policymakers. Lombardelli featured on the front page of the Daily Mail newspaper in August 2010 under the headline "That Woman Must Show Some Respect" - a view attributed to the welfare minister at the time, Iain Duncan Smith, who clashed with Osborne and his officials over changes to social security benefits.

(Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by William Schomberg)It is not a bad thing for us, that the route known as the Goldene Strae or the Golden Road as we will get to know it- has escaped the attention of so many. It has been spared being overrun by hordes of tourists and as you will discover



By Yoon Ja-young



Korea and the United States began the second round of talks to amend their free trade agreement (KORUS FTA).



Negotiators led by Yoo Myung-hee, deputy minister for FTA negotiations at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, sat for two days of talks with their counterparts led by U.S. Assistant Trade Representative Michael Beeman, at the Lotte Hotel in downtown Seoul, Wednesday.



Ahead of the meeting, Yoo told reporters that topics raised in the first round of talks in Washington D.C. will continue to be addressed in the negotiations.



"The two parties exchanged matters of concern on Jan. 5. Discussions on the main interests of each side will be further developed in detail this time."



Her counterpart Beeman, meanwhile, headed to the negotiations without giving any comments to reporters.



When asked whether automobiles and the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) clause will be central topics, Yoo said this would probably be the case.



Since his inauguration, U.S. President Donald Trump has been insisting that the five-year old bilateral trade pact should be revised to decrease the U.S. trade deficit with Korea, despite experts' consensus that the KORUS FTA has little to do with this. It has been widely expected that the U.S. will put pressure on automobile and automobile components, which make up 80 percent of the trade deficit with Korea. Washington has also been claiming that there are non-tariff trade barriers such as environmental regulations against U.S. automobiles.



Abuse of trade remedies by the United States, meanwhile, has been concerning Korean exporters, and Yoo told reporters after the meeting that she raised the issue.

"We talked about the issue today and will continue discussions tomorrow."

The abuse includes Trump's signing last week of safeguard tariffs on foreign washers and solar panels including those exported by Korean manufacturers. It plans to apply a 20 percent tariff on the first 1.2 million washers imported in the first year, and up to a 50 percent tariff on washers beyond that number, while solar panels will face up to a 30 percent tariff. Korea may demand amending the article on safeguard actions to prevent their abuse.



The U.S. has also been exercising trade remedies at its own discretion using ambiguous provisions, such as "adverse facts available" and "particular market situation" provisions. The former allows levying extremely high anti-dumping and countervailing duties if an accused company doesn't hand in data demanded by the U.S., while the latter enables imposing high tariffs at its discretion when it determines that the market situation of a specific country is abnormal.



While Yoo said that she will seek a balance of interests in the negotiations, the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) noted that a revision of the KORUS FTA is likely to be the first trade agreement sacrificed through "America First" policies.



"In the negotiations, the United States is likely to demand unilateral concessions by Korea rather than seeking a balance in bilateral interests. If the NAFTA revision negotiations come to a halt or get delayed, it is likely to be the first trade pact to see the Trump administration's America First policies applied," noted Eum Chi-sung, head of international cooperation at the FKI.



While expecting "very tough negotiations," he said the negotiators should "exclude protectionism and protect the free trade agreement instead of seeking a quick compromise."



Policymakers need to spend more time communicating with people



By Park Hyong-ki



Eighty percent of what people do every day is negotiate, according to experts.



They will constantly find themselves in a situation where they will need to make deals to achieve their goals or targets.



Newly-wed couples negotiate for a better price to buy their first house with a real estate broker and an owner, who want to sell their assets for a high price.



Salaried workers seek a raise by negotiating with their bosses based on their annual results.



Even kids will try to talk their parents into letting them watch cartoons on television and eat chocolate cookies instead of doing homework.



It is not only Hollywood stars, diplomats, business executives and lawyers who negotiate to get a better deal.



"Everyone negotiates. It is an essential part of the communication process for everyone if they live in a democratic society," said Kim Hak-lin, a head professor of negotiations at Dankook University's Business School in Yong-in, Gyeonggi Province.



Kim specializes in public dispute resolution, and is a research fellow at the Dankook Center for Dispute Resolution.



Negotiation is both an art and science. The practice and theory of deal making derives from all sorts of studies such as game theory in economics, communication, psychology, philosophy and political science.



People who are highly aware of the art and science of negotiation take into account many concepts in acronyms such as BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement), ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) or IBM (Interest-based Model) before heading to the negotiating table.



Besides those, there are a number of pointers  don't get personal, this is only business; don't show your cards all at once; gather as much information as one can; listen closely and communicate and so on.



Negotiators such as diplomats especially would know all these professionally by heart.



KORUS FTA



Kim said this is why he believes negotiators like Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chong or diplomats will not back down and lose in geopolitical talks, including the renegotiations between Korea and the United States to partly revise their free trade agreement (KORUS FTA).



The minister would face his counterpart, U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Lighthizer, upfront like equal men, and take the trade issue at the outset, not personally but very professionally, he said.



At negotiating tables abroad, government officials have become very skillful, knowing when to play good cop, bad cop while following international protocols.



But they have been poor negotiators at home.



"When it comes to the KORUS FTA renegotiations, I would be more concerned about whether they can effectively communicate with local interested parties," Prof. Kim said.



"Over the past years, government officials negotiating overseas for this country did not really communicate with and persuade the people at home. They were trained that way. They habitually thought what they were doing was for the interest of this country, and therefore, they did not see the obligation to come back home and talk to their own people about it."



The U.S. negotiators spend 50 percent of their time negotiating with their counterparts overseas, and the other 50 percent communicating with their people at home with interest in issues of their concern.



Britain takes a step further than the U.S., spending 70 percent at home and 30 percent overseas.



Both believe true negotiations mostly take place at home talking with their people and gaining their understanding and trust before making deals abroad.



The ratio for Korea seems to be 100 percent to none, Kim noted.



The general way of persuading people at home has been using force and making them yield to results negotiators gained through overseas talks.



This tends to raise only mistrust between the administration and the people or industries, as seen constantly from a conflict between farmers and the government over FTAs.



"How can you truly know and reflect what is the best interest of the people without even trying to communicate with them?" Kim said.



"Clearly, we will have winners and losers in trade talks. But the way it has worked here was winners like automobiles have kept themselves distance from the issue, hiding in the shadow and reaping all the benefits and not really contributing to society. The losing side such as agriculture just kept on losing, facing endless blame games with governments."



This is why many analysts say the KORUS FTA is "half complete."



The vicious cycle is giving little room for negotiators to maneuver and hold talks with their U.S. counterparts especially in agriculture.



Korea's strategy on rice and other agricultural and service goods is fully exposed to the U.S., which is expected to continue its demand to further open the local market.



The U.S. knows Korea cannot fully open its agriculture market. But the U.S. will keep on increasing its pressure to gain something else out of it, Kim said.



Also, the public should not underestimate Donald Trump's "crazy guy" or madman tactics through his rhetoric.



"That is just his unique style. He is not a politician. He has been a businessman who knows how to calculate odds, risks and returns."



The environment for domestic talks has improved especially after the candlelit protest against the former Park Geun-hye administration last year.



However, considering ongoing issues such as Japan's wartime sex slavery and the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery, negotiators still need to change their mindset about negotiations with their domestic and overseas counterparts.



"Japan's sex slavery and THAAD can be interpreted as a much simpler issue than the FTA renegotiations, which involve a number of market sectors," Kim said.



"Negotiators will have to play a strategic game where Korea, Japan and China will not let others win over their respective issues. Korea will have to play a two-level game for the KORUS FTA renegotiations at the national and international level."





Statues show a reenactment of Seo Hui, a diplomat for Goryeo, right, negotiating with General Xiao Sunning of the Liao Dynasty across the table at a park in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province. / Courtesy of Icheon CityBy Kim Yoo-chul



Amid growing calls that cryptocurrencies need universal regulation, Korea is seeking international cooperation for transparency and security regarding digital tokens.



The Ministry of Strategy and Finance said Monday it had sent officials of its taxation and economic policy divisions to Japan last week for consulatations.



"They were sent to discuss oversight of the cryptocurrency market. The ministry is particularly interested in whether Japan has detailed plans for the imposition of capital gains tax for earnings from cryptocurrency trading," said an official from the ministry. He added that they met with executives from the private sector and government officials who are deeply involved with crypto trading-related policies and investment.



The ministry is also planning to send officials to the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany to cooperate with authorities in these countries on new rules for cryptocurrency trading.



Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon told lawmakers at the National Assembly last week that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has called for global cooperation on cryptocurrency trading, warning of the risks of the surging prices of digital coins.



The minister said it was too early to talk about setting common rules, but stressed Korea could follow guidelines set through international cooperation.



The country's central bank, financial regulators, tax agency and justice ministry argue that cryptocurrencies aren't currencies and can't even be considered as financial products. Nevertheless, Korea plans to impose a tax on capital gains earned via their trading.



There is no common or standardized legal framework at the international level. In Iceland, for instance, trading of bitcoins is prohibited under the Icelandic Foreign Exchange Act. Regulation without prohibition is currently being sought in Europe. The European Commission (EC) is hoping to modify the Fourth Anti Money Laundering Directive, adopted in May 2015, to include cryptocurrencies.



The finance ministry said there have been some indications of what should be discussed at the upcoming G20 meeting of finance ministers in March.



"Given the moves seen in the United States, Germany and France, it's highly likely that the G20 meeting will be very focused on cryptocurrencies," said an official, adding the ministry has been in talks with authorities in the United States to develop systems to block attempts at money laundering using cryptocurrencies.



"There is a risk that virtual currencies could be used by terrorist organizations to circumvent the traditional financial system and conceal financial transactions, as trading can be carried out anonymously," the EC said.

By Yoon Ja-young



With a rising number of senior citizens living alone, safety sensors will be installed at their homes to make sure they are alive and to prevent "lonely death."



According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, a revision plan on the ordinance to support housing of the underprivileged got approval at the Cabinet meeting. The revision includes installing safety sensors at rental homes provided to underprivileged senior citizens.



"With the number of senior citizens who live away from their families or relatives rising steeply, Godoksa' has become a social problem," the ministry noted in a media release. "Godoksa" refers to "lonely death," or the phenomenon where people die alone and remain undiscovered for a long period of time.



"There has been a growing need to get rid of the blind spots in the housing welfare system," it added.



Godoksa has been making headlines in the country as it is facing an aging population coupled with the crumbling of traditional families where children support their old parents by living with them.



According to Statistics Korea, 33.5 percent of senior citizen households are single-person households, with the number totaling 1.3 million. Data by the welfare ministry shows that there were 338 lonely deaths in Seoul in 2015. The figure includes deaths that remained undiscovered for some time as well as those who died without any family or relatives. In such cases, the local government holds the funeral for the deceased.



Experts warn that the lonely death problem in Korea is likely to get bigger as the number of single-person households is increasing steeply. Research findings project the nationwide figure to reach 3,200 in 2020.



Sensors should be installed in all public rental homes provided for underprivileged senior citizens aged 65 or older. The sensor, which detects the movement of the resident, automatically notifies the apartment management center if there is no movement detected for a certain period of time. The system will be activated only when the resident wants.



The ministry plans to install sensors in around 500 rental homes first. The revision will be executed in February.



The sensor is a part of the internet of things (IoT) home service to be introduced by the Korea Land and Housing Corp. which supplies public rental homes. To cut energy use at homes, the company plans to adopt an IoT home service which includes a light emitting diode lighting sensor, carbon dioxide sensor and data on energy use.ECCK members express concerns over rising wage costs



By Park Jae-hyuk



European business leaders in Korea responded negatively to the Moon Jae-in administration's labor and other economic policies, according to a survey of executives at 108 European companies employing a combined total of 30,000 people.



Releasing the results of the survey, Tuesday, the European Chamber of Commerce in Korea (ECCK) said half of respondents believe that the administration's efforts to increase employment and incomes will not be positive for the nation's overall economy.



The liberal Moon government has promised to raise the minimum wage to 10,000 won ($9.3) by 2020 and hiked it by 16.4 percent to 7,530 won beginning this year.



Against this backdrop, rising labor costs emerged as the second-most significant business challenge for European firms last year, following the country's economic growth. In 2016, increasing wage costs ranked fourth among the top five business challenges by order of significance.



About half of the companies described the business outlook for their industries in Korea over the next two years as pessimistic in terms of labor costs.



"Providing a fair salary for labor is a good thing, but it might be difficult for some industries to maintain the number of employees," ECCK President Christoph Heider said. "An evolutionary increase in the minimum wage would be the preferred way."



Asked about the youth employment quota for the creation of additional jobs, 48 percent of respondents said this will not facilitate job creation. Also, 58 percent of companies regarded converting irregular workers to regular ones as an unfeasible approach and a hindrance to job growth.



"Switching irregular workers to regular workers can be a factor of change in a company's business model," said Barbara Zollmann, the president and CEO of the Korean-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry.



The labor-friendly Moon government's other economic policies also caused concern for 45 percent of respondents who said the measures will end up harming the country's competitiveness.



The survey indicated that 63 percent of European company executives feel the government discriminates against foreign-invested firms here, although the country is still on the European Union's (EU) gray list of tax havens.



Heider defined that issue as something between the EU and the government, not a matter for the chamber.



Despite the concerns, Korea still remains an important market for European companies, given that 44 percent of respondents saw an increasing importance of the country in their company's overall global strategy and 47 percent characterized the country as having the same level of importance as before.

By Ko Dong-hwan





The central Seoul district of Jung-gu has pulled up its sleeves to lead the city in global fair trade by reaching out to developing countries, pushing to becoming the nation's first city district to earn certification for its efforts.







The district signed with Fair Trade Korea on Monday to collaborate on empowering fair trade campaigns across the nation. They agreed on using education and promotion, nurturing and supporting small and medium business operators, and forming networks among business entities in the district.







Jung-gu's bid aims to raise the sales of products from developing countries through fair trade to help them overcome poverty.







Mayor Choi Chang-sik said the district "is unique in that it is shared by firms and traditional markets, an ideal condition to spread fair trade."







"The campaign will boost the district's local economy," Choi said.







To acquire global fair trade certification from the central government, Jung-gu plans to meet local distributors, department stores and hotels to discuss how to pave the way for the campaign.







Currently, the district obligates retailers and restaurants to use fair trade-certified products. A coffee shop on the first floor of the district office uses beans imported through fair trade.







Fair Trade Korea says over 1.6 million farmers and laborers across 74 countries are participating in fair trade. Their products include bananas, cocoa, coffee, cotton, gold, sugar and tea.

Kim Keum-soon, 69, CEO of Allmeone, poses with traditional Korean sweets known as "hangwa" at the shop in Dangjin, South Chungcheong Province. / Korea Times photo by Kim Ji-soo



By Kim Ji-soo



Dangjin, SOUTH CHUNGCHEONG PROVINCE  It is lunchtime at the Baekseok Allmeone Farming Association Cooperation in the Maesil-ro neighborhood. On Thursday, the women at the co-op, in their white uniforms complete with caps, gather for their lunch break. They engage in amicable conversation as they eat rice cake soup.

To the residents of the neighborhood formerly known as Baekseok Village, these women, whose median age is about 75 and the oldest is 83, are workers and members of the co-op that makes "hangwa," a traditional Korean dessert of fried rice coated with plum-flavored rice grain syrup, as well as other food products.

Some advantages of the co-op are its access to locally grown ingredients, including plums and rice, for the traditional Korean desserts the members make, and its ideal location for providing field experiences for visitors.

The Baekseok cooperation is part of a gradually expanding area of agriculture  known as the sixth industrialization  that grows ingredients, processes products and offers field experiences and other tourist services to revive the declining agricultural industry.

The flat, peaceful Maesil-ro neighborhood is inland. Its plums were harvested too late to compete nationally for sales with those harvested earlier in the south. The residents make hangwa by processing the plums into extracts mixed with rice grain syrup.

The co-op started in 2012 with 33 women, each of whom contributed capital of 2 million won. It has since grown to 58 members. Initial sales in 2012 were around 90 million won. This figure reached about 75 million won in 2017. "We are looking to reach another level soon by hitting 1 billion won (in sales)," said Kim Keum-soon, 69, CEO of Allmeone.

As the Lunar New Year holiday approaches, the women at Allmeone are busy. Its biggest achievement is its empowerment of older residents in the community, especially women who get a chance to enter the workforce at a later age. Since 2013, the government has been promoting this area of the agricultural industry as part of efforts to raise the quality of life and create jobs in rural communities, where people face pressure as free trade pacts are signed and the population ages. According to 2015 figures released by Statistics Korea, people who are 65 or older make up 38.4 percent of the population in agricultural communities.

The women of the cooperation weren't always so busy. They started selling its products in 2012 for Chuseok, a major Korean autumn holiday, reaching about 90 million won in sales.

Encouraged by this success, the women increased the scale and elected Kim as their chief. Kim, a former Seoul resident, got down to work. With a little help of her husband, who used to work for a conglomerate in Seoul, the co-op has made it to where it is now.

"We went through a lot of trial and error," Kim said. "I think, all in all, it took about three years for Allmeone to become as functional as we are now." The co-op's cash cow is hangwa, but the members also make salted sliced plums and plum-flavored red chili pepper paste, products sold at the shop and online.

There are myriad of agricultural cooperatives around the nation, but Allmeone stands out because of its all-elderly women members and the many awards it has won.

It was selected as one of eight outstanding village companies by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, and it also it won the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Rural Affairs?top prize for farming cooperations engaged in the sixth industrialization of agriculture.

"We make our hangwa with sticky rice grown from a single-source field, and the plums and sesame seeds are also grown here," Kim said.

Kim makes a practice of purchasing the produce at a standardized price every year, that is, at a higher price than distributors pay for them. "We try to give back to the farmers more rather than seek more profit through our co-op products," she said.

Kim has been working to standardize the taste and safety of the co-op's products to help it earn Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) accreditation, a government system through which food safety is addressed.

At the co-op site, Kim welcomes the customers who pop in to purchase products, takes customer orders by cellphone and goes back and forth between her employees to ensure everything is running smoothly.

Kim, a former housewife who had brief working experience before getting married, said she is belatedly discovering her "business" side.

Kwon Tak, 73, is one of the 20 or so women gathered for lunch on Thursday, as they have been working to fill orders for the Lunar New Year holiday starting Feb. 15. She has been with the co-op since the beginning. Before joining, she worked on her farm.

"It feels good to be able to earn a wage, be able to buy my grandson his junior high school uniform and send my mother a 100,000 won allowance. It feels good," Kwon said.

After the co-op hits its goal of 1 billion won in annual sales, it hopes to create a residential community for senior citizens who live alone, Kim said. "We hope to build that so people do not have to go to nursing homes or suffer depression from living alone," she said.

"But in the meantime, we need to come up with new products to be able to achieve that target, and that remains the challenge for now but something we hope to overcome by making traditional Korean sauces."By Kim Yoo-chul



While the government maintains that it doesn't guarantee the proper value of cryptocurrencies as they are neither currencies nor financial products, a local court has ruled that it is appropriate to confiscate cryptocurrencies.



The Suwon District Court ruled Wednesday that it was appropriate to seize 191 Bitcoins, the worth of which was estimated at some 2.42 billion won, as the profits were gained from running adult (pornographic) websites.



The case involves a person surnamed Ahn, who was indicted for operating pornography sites, which had some 1.4 million registered members. Pornography is illegal in Korea and lots of adult websites such as videos or red tube are blocked.



Ahn was arrested last year for taking membership fees with Bitcoins, which the court believes is illegal. The Southern Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency "seized" Ahn's 191 Bitcoins. It was the first time here for a local enforcement agency to confiscate digital tokens which were gained from illegal activities.



"It's appropriate to confiscate 191 Bitcoins as these were the profits from criminal activities," the court said in its ruling.



One interesting point is that the latest ruling in the appeals court was the major reversal from the lower court ruling. The Suwon district court ruled last year, "Bitcoin is not subject to confiscation."



The court regarded cryptocurrencies as "actual assets," which have monetary value. The ruling added, "The criminal profit prevention law includes all types of properties, not just cash but goods which have economic value based on conventional social ideas."



The court said while Bitcoins are not "physical goods," they are used to sell and trade in offline markets and cryptocurrency exchanges. "Actual transactions are happening. Cryptocurrencies have economic value," said the ruling.



Attorneys said the latest ruling doesn't necessarily mean that the court has given legal authority for digital currencies or confirmed their status as official currencies.



"The ruling just showed that cryptocurrencies are assets and law enforcement agencies can seize or confiscate them if profits are in accordance with criminal activities," Suk Keun-bae, an attorney at Shin and Kim lawfirm, said.



Talks are underway between relevant government offices regarding how to further regulate the booming domestic cryptocurrency markets. A real-name trading scheme has been effective since Tuesday in order to prevent money laundering.



Now, the finance ministry is teaming up with the National Tax Agency and financial regulators to fix a set of taxation guidelines, which will require crypto-traders to pay capital gains tax on profits that were earned from crypto-trading.



Other than these moves, the country has no clear legal grounds on cryptocurrencies.



Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon said late Wednesday that a task force which is under direct control of the country's prime minister is handling all cryptocurrency-related issues. "Because this issue is linked to societal, legal and policy fronts, the government is asked to announce comprehensive and applicable plans."

Austrian government to disband fraternity amid Nazi song scandal

An Austrian fraternity with links to the governing Freedom Party (FPOe) faces dissolution by the authorities, the government announced on Wednesday, reacting to revelations over Nazi-style texts in the group's songbook.

GALLERY

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz of the conservative Peoples Party and Interior Minister Herbert Kickl of the far-right FPOe agreed to initiate the dissolution of the Germania fraternity, Kurz told reporters on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting in Vienna.

Vienna (dpa) - The scandal has shocked the political system, as the Germania high school fraternity included Udo Landbauer, the top FPOe candidate in last Sundays regional election in Lower Austria.Chancellor Sebastian Kurz of the conservative Peoples Party and Interior Minister Herbert Kickl of the far-right FPOe agreed to initiate the dissolution of the Germania fraternity, Kurz told reporters on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting in Vienna.Meanwhile, prosecutors have launched a separate investigation of four people who are linked to the production of the song book. Landbauer is not among them.The book contained a passage that said "In their midst came the Jew Ben Gurion: Step on the gas you old Germans, we can reach seven million." The reference was to David Ben-Gurion, known as the founding father of Israel. The figure alludes to the 6 million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust.On Tuesday, the scandal gained a wider dimension when the opposition Social Democrats confirmed that one of their members was among the four suspects. The man, who allegedly illustrated the songbook, was expelled from the party.The FPOe has announced plans to task historians with examining the partys past, amid efforts to present itself as a centrist movement.The FPOe was founded after World War II as a party that appealed to former Nazis but has been represented in parliament since the 1950s.Two Japanese people told customs officials that they traveled to South Korea to sell their holdings of the cryptocurrency bitcoin because they can sell it at a higher price here than in Japan, officials said Wednesday.

The two individuals, aged 25 and 33, gave the reason for their trip while being investigated at Incheon International Airport on Jan. 25, after being stopped for taking 38 1-kg gold bars, worth about 2 billion won ($1.87 million), with them on their way out of the country.

They were investigated on smuggling suspicions but released as no irregularities were found.

They told customs authorities that they purchased the gold bars with money made from selling their bitcoin holdings. They said they came to South Korea to sell the virtual currency because it sells at a higher price here than in Japan.

The two told authorities that they purchased the gold bars in cash at a local gold exchange and even applied for a VAT refund. They also told officials that they wanted to declare the gold bars with customs officials but couldn't find where to do so, according to officials. (Yonhap)



In Jigaiya's temple there is a wooden Buddha, which he carved himself, with no eyes, nose or mouth. The statue, made out of an old tree root, only has two ears. /Courtesy of Jigaiya



By Park Jin-hai





Monk JigaiyaCurrent white and black signboard of the Gwanghwamun Gate / Yonhap



Cultural Heritage Administration to strengthen earthquake safety

By Kwon Mee-yoo

The three characters of "Gwang Hwa Mun" on the namesake main signboard at the main gate of Gyeongbok Palace, one of Korea's main architectural icons, will have a newly restored black-and-gold signboard, more faithful to its original colors.

The Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA) confirmed Tuesday an old photo from the late 19th century proved the original signboard has a black background and gold letters.

The history of the Gwanghwamun gate goes back to 1395, soon after the 1392-1910 Joseon Kingdom was established and the capital moved here. The original gate burned down during the 1592-98 Japanese invasion. King Gojong reconstructed it in 1867 and the wooden structure was destroyed during the 1950-53 Korean War.

Former President Park Chung-hee rebuilt the wooden structure with concrete and wrote the signboard in Korean, until the gate went through a major restoration project from 2006 to 2010. The gate's original signboard was also restored in black characters against a white background.

However, the discovery of an old photo of Gwanghwamun, presumed to be taken before 1893, in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of National History suggested the original has a darker background.

The CHA experimented with various color combinations and consulted experts to confirm the original signboard in the photo was gold on black.

The newly restored signboard will be installed in the first half of 2019.

The CHA also vowed to set up better disaster prevention measures for cultural heritage sites.

"We will establish a five-year plan for disaster prevention, which includes measures such as hiring experts, conducting more drills and employing state-of-the-art technology such as IoT," CHA director general Kim Jong-jin said.

As more powerful earthquakes hit Korea, the CHA is prioritizing the region of Pohang and Gyeongju in North Gyeongsang Province which have both been struck by earthquakes in recent years.U.S. President Donald Trump applauds during his first State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress inside the House Chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 30, 2018. / REUTERS



Branding North Korea's leadership "depraved," U.S. President Donald Trump told Americans on Tuesday that Pyongyang's pursuit of nuclear missiles could "very soon threaten our homeland" and vowed a continued campaign of maximum pressure to keep that from happening.



In his first State of the Union speech to the U.S. Congress, Trump's tough rhetoric underscored persistent tensions despite recent talks between North and South Korea that led to Pyongyang's agreement to participate in next month's Winter Olympic games in South Korea.



"North Korea's reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland," Trump said. "We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from ever happening."



"We need only look at the depraved character of the North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose to America and to our allies," he said.



North-South negotiations earlier this month have eased fears of war on the Korean peninsula that were in part stoked by an exchange of insults and threats between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Trump and top advisers have publicly welcomed the talks but U.S. officials have said privately that Pyongyang might be trying to drive a wedge between allies Washington and Seoul.













Attending the State of the Union address as Trump's guests were the parents of Otto Warmbier, the American college student who died in June shortly after he was released by North Korea in a coma.



"Tonight, we pledge to honor Otto's memory with total American resolve," Trump said. But he offered no new prescription or specifics on how he intended to rein in North Korea. The Trump administration has repeatedly stressed its preference for a diplomatic solution to the Korea tensions while saying all options are on the table. But U.S. officials have said internal debate on military action, including the possibility of a limited pre-emptive strike on a nuclear or missile site, has lost some momentum in recent weeks after the North-South talks ahead of ahead of the Olympics.



NORTH KOREA MISSILES



Earlier on Tuesday, the vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea's nuclear program had made strides in recent months but the country has not yet demonstrated all the components of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), including a survivable re-entry vehicle that can deliver a nuclear weapon.



Air Force General Paul Selva also said he was confident that if required the United States would be able to destroy "most" of North Korea's nuclear missile infrastructure. In November, North Korea said it had successfully tested a new type of ICBM that could reach all of the U.S. mainland.



U.S.-based experts said data from the test appeared to support that. Trump refrained from referring to Kim as "Rocket Man," a disparaging nickname he has used before. But he insisted that "no regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally or brutally than the cruel dictatorship in North Korea."



Trump said that among the witnesses to the "ominous" nature of the North Korean government was Ji Seong-ho, a defector who escaped from North Korea after being run over by a train while trying to steal coal and suffering torture and starvation. Joining Trump's guests in the gallery, Ji, who lost a hand and foot, now heads a group that rescues and resettles North Korean refugees.



Trump had recently held back on harsher language after having threatened last year to unleash "fire and fury" on North Korea. Pyongyang, in turn, has threatened to target the U.S. territory of Guam in the Pacific Ocean. Kim has shown no sign of willingness to give in to U.S. demands and negotiate away a weapons program he sees as vital to his survival. (Reuters)By Kim Rahn



It seems the United States thinks a precision strike against North Korea is one of its serious options, despite concerns about catastrophic results it might trigger, as the Donald Trump administration withdrew its nominee for ambassador to Seoul who opposed the idea.



Victor Cha, a senior adviser and Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in an op-ed piece in the Washington Post Wednesday that a strike against the Kim Jong-un regime would only delay its nuclear and missile programs but could not prevent them.



Cha's contribution was posted on the same day it was reported the Trump administration recently withdrew the nomination of Cha for the ambassadorial position, a rare decision because the South Korean government already approved the nomination.



By quoting U.S. government sources, the Washington Post reported the withdrawal came after Cha disagreed with National Security Council officials over their consideration of a limited strike on Pyongyang, which is the so-called "bloody nose" strategy.





Late Hwang Byung-ki / Yonhap



Hwang Byung-ki, a master of the Korean traditional musical instrument "gayageum," died of pneumonia Wednesday, his family said.

"He was treated for a cerebral stroke last December but died of pneumonia that he'd developed as a complication," a family member told Yonhap News Agency.

He died at 3:15 a.m. Wednesday.

The master, professor emeritus at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, is credited with pushing the boundaries of the Korean traditional music "gukak" and experimenting with the genre by mixing it with Western music.

Born in 1936 in Seoul, he escaped to the port city of Busan with his family after the Korean War broke out in 1950. At 15, he was introduced to the instrument by his friend, and he was instantly attracted to it.

He became very passionate about the music and went to the National Gugak Center to learn from Kim Yeong-yun, Kim Yun-deok and Shim Sang-geon, all renowned gayageum masters.

Despite his talent in gukak, he went to study law at Seoul National University because there was no department dedicated to the genre.

From 1974 to 2001, he taught Korean traditional music at Ewha Womans University. In 1985, he served as visiting professor of Korea Music at Harvard University. The next year, he held a solo concert at New York's Carnegie Hall. In 1990, he played gayageum at the Pan-Korean Unification Concert in Pyongyang, North Korea.

He is also renowned for composing innovative music for traditional Korean instruments and published several albums.

He actively interacted with other Korean artists regardless of age and genre, including dancer Hong Sin-cha, cellist Chang Han-na, composer Yun I-sang and media artist Paik Nam-june. (Yonhap)Youngsters gather for a story telling session read by their teachers at an English institute in Seoul. / Korea Times



By Kim Hyun-bin



English kindergartens and daycare centers have long been saying that learning English at early ages effectively helps children communicate with native speakers later in their lives.



This is in contrast to the government's claim that early English education is ineffective.



They also argue that early English education does not hinder young students from picking up their native language even if they learn English and other foreign languages at early ages.



One of the largest English institution franchises in the country says that there is a huge difference in a child's linguistic level, if they start early and emphasized that their English skills are incomparable to a student who starts English later on.



The institution provides English classes taught by foreign teachers five hours a day.



"We have kindergarten students who study here for a few years and then go abroad.



Most of them did not have to take ESL courses there, which are classes provided for foreigners to catch up," said the director of the institution. "They had no prior experience overseas, but had no problem communicating with teachers and classmates."



The government is seeking to ban English in public daycares and kindergartens and a final decision is expected to be made next year.



If banned, many parents might consider sending their children to private institutions.



There are 474 private English institutions in the nation with 160 (34 percent) of them located in the capital, according to the ministry.



Private English institutes are preferred by parents as they believe they are the next best thing to studying abroad.



The government made it illegal for English institutes to label themselves as kindergartens; there are many that offer kindergarten-like curricula for children aged 3 to 6, before they start elementary school.



The problem is not the availability of English education, but the cost.



The lesson fees for 160 English kindergartens in Seoul average 797,000 won ($748) a month.



When adding in other expenses including meal costs and transportation, an average total of 1.6 million won is required for a child to attend private institutions in the capital, according to data released by the MOE.



Many parents are protesting the government's plans to ban English classes in elementary schools and kindergartens, emphasizing the ban which cost around 30,000 won a month, only benefit private English institutions, as more parents will likely choose the institutions as the next best alternative.



"I have three children and the prices for their education are through the roof already. If the government bans English classes, I might have to teach them myself," said Kim a women in her 40's. "Well off people are going to send their kids to private institutions anyway, this could lead to a greater gap in education between the rich and the poor."



Recent surveys have shown that most parents would like the government to do more, not less, to support early English education.



The Ministry of Education (MOE) claims that learning a second language before the third grade is ineffective and that it causes too much stress for young children.



According to the MOE, some research provides evidence that young children need to learn their native tongue first or it could cause confusion and cause a great deal of stress.



The ministry also pushed to ban English for kindergarten and daycare centers, claiming it will become just a prerequisite for elementary school students, but the decision has been postponed due to strong protests from both parents and teachers.



The government initiative to ban early English education goes against scores of both local and international studies that have been conducted for the last few decades.



The studies highlighted the importance and effectiveness of learning a second language early on.



"ESL students learn much quicker, it's human instinct to learn to survive, they need to learn how to communicate if they want to satisfy their basic human needs such as eating," said Kil Roung-lee, a professor of English literature at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.



However, the ministry stressed most of the studies conducted abroad focused on English as second language (ESL) students not English as a foreign language (EFL), which applies to local Korean children.



"Most of the foreign studies focused on ESL in which the atmosphere is totally different from EFL students, so it is difficult to apply the results of the study to local students," said Kwon Ji-young, director of early childhood education at MOE.



EFL usually takes place in a foreign country with students from the same nationality, however ESL classes takes place in an English speaking country with students from all different backgrounds.





By Kim Jae-heun







With the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics about to start, Incheon International Airport is gearing up to welcome Olympic athletes and fans from all over the world.







The PyeongChang Olympic Organizing Committee and Incheon International Airport Corp. is providing full support to get athletes through entry procedures quickly and without trouble.







According to the committee, 60 athletes arrived Tuesday and 190 Wednesday. The number arriving is expected to soar today as the committee expects to greet around 530 athletes, and an average of 500 on a daily basis after that.







Incheon International Airport Corporation has prepared special immigration checkpoints exclusively for athletes participating in the Olympics at Terminal 1 and 2. It is also operating a center for Olympic officials to register for their Pre-Valid ID Card at immigration and customs service checkpoints.







"A person with a Pre-Valid ID Card can use a special immigration and customs service center exclusively provided for them and no-visa entry is also possible. The same applies when they leave Korea," an airport corporation official said.







"Athletes coming from Europe and North America suffer from fatigue and jetlag and many of them are happy to go through quick and easy entry procedures, so they can rest as soon as possible."







Another exclusive immigration service checkpoint is provided near a large luggage claim area for the convenience of athletes.







Incheon International Airport Corporation began operating 39 Olympic experience zones to promote the upcoming event at both Terminal 1 and 2.







Meanwhile, Gimpo International Airport is preparing for athletes arriving in Korea by private jet.







The Korea Airports Corporation expects 39 private planes will arrive between Feb. 9 and 25.







Gimpo International Airport is currently operating the Seoul Gimpo Business Aviation Center for people arriving by such planes.







Aircraft traveling from Incheon to Yangyang during the Olympics will pay no fees for using airport facilities at Yangyang International Airport and Korea Airport Corporation will provide facilities there for bigger planes to taxi.





By Lee Min-hyung







Defense Minister Song Young-moo ended his three-day Indonesia visit, which focused on expanding bilateral defense cooperation, Wednesday.







On Tuesday, he met with his Indonesian counterpart Ryamizard Ryacudu, with both sides pledging to make concerted efforts to resolve North Korea's nuclear provocations peacefully.







They also agreed to continue strengthening their technological partnership for the ongoing KF-X project under which both countries jointly develop the fighter jet by the first half of 2026. They also reached a consensus to expand the partnership in other areas such as co-developing next-generation submarines, according to the defense ministry.







On Wednesday, Song paid a courtesy visit to Indonesian President Joko Widodo, asking for the latter to continue giving close attention and support to Korea's defense industry.







The Indonesian president praised Seoul's efforts to offer a series of reconciliatory gestures to Pyongyang to improve inter-Korean relations ahead of the upcoming PyeongChang Winter Olympics.







He said he will visit Korea this year, and promised to build additional momentum for enhancing mutual ties in security and defense.

By Park Si-soo



North Korea abruptly called off a joint cultural event with South Korean artists ahead of the forthcoming PyeongChang Winter Olympics, blaming Seoul's media for encouraging "insulting" public sentiment regarding the North, Seoul's unification ministry said on Monday.



In a telegram, the North said it was canceling the event planned to be held at Mount Gumgang on Feb. 4, the ministry said.



The ministry said in a statement issued Monday night: "The North, in the notice, said our press was fanning public opinion that insults the North's sincere efforts made for the PyeongChang Olympics, and even took issue with the North's internal celebratory event, leaving the North no choice but to cancel the agreed-upon event."



The "internal celebratory event" apparently refers to a military parade the North is expected to hold one day before the Olympics' opening ceremony or Feb. 8 to mark the 70th anniversary of its military.



The ministry said the North's cancelation was "very regrettable" and stressed Pyongyang should uphold all agreements made between North and South Korea.



The joint cultural event was to be part of a series of events to be held in the divided Koreas ahead of the Olympics.



Early in January, North and South Korea launched rare talks to bring North Koreans to the PyeongChang Winter Olympics after the North's leader Kim Jong-un said he was willing to open up discussions with Seoul.



The North has agreed to stage art performances and taekwondo demonstrations in the South to commemorate its participation in the Olympics. The two Koreas had been in discussions regarding final details over the joint performance. They were also talking about a different concert in South Korea by a North Korean orchestra and sending South Korean athletes to train at a North Korean ski resort.



Many local news outlets here, however, have voiced concerns over the joint events in that they may be in violation of U.N. Security Council sanctions currently in place against the communist North for its military provocations, including six nuclear tests.



Seo Ji-hyeon, a public prosecutor at the Tongyoung branch of the Changwon District Prosecutors' Office, speaks out on a sexual crime against her during Jtbc's prime time news show on Monday. / Captured from Jtbc



Calls are mounting on Tuesday for an investigation into a sexual harassment claim by a female prosecutor against a former senior justice ministry official.

Seo Ji-hyeon, a public prosecutor at the Tongyoung branch of the Changwon District Prosecutors' Office, insisted that she was unfairly moved to another post because of the complaint.

Seo made the revelation on the prosecution's internal board online Monday. She accused an ex-senior prosecutor, who had been dispatched to the Ministry of Justice, of groping her body at a funeral in 2010.

She also claims that the then chief of the ministry's criminal affairs bureau tried to cover it up and later she was transferred to an unwanted post in the regional office in 2015. She said the appointment came after she was given a disciplinary warning for her regular performance assessment, which she still finds unconvincing.

Seo appeared on a prime time cable TV news program late Monday, recounting the past eight years of agony and regrets she had to live with and that she decided to come forward to make things right.

Calls for a probe have been growing since her revelation. An online petition has been filed with the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae, with thousands of citizens signing up to call for a swift launch of a fair investigation into the allegations.

Prosecutor-General Moon Moo-il told reporters early Tuesday that he will do everything in his power to uncover the truth and hold those responsible for their wrongful actions.

The alleged offender turned out to be Ahn Tae-geun, who was sacked by the justice ministry in June last year for what's known as a "cash scandal." Two senior prosecutors, including Ahn, were dismissed from their posts and charged for giving money to his subordinates at a private dinner earlier in the year.

The ministry's then criminal bureau chief accused of covering it up is incumbent lawmaker Choi Gyo-il of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party.

Following the revelation, Ahn told media that he apologizes for "things that may have happened," but he does not remember because he was intoxicated at the time and it happened a long time ago. Choi has denied any involvement in Seo's appointment or alleged cover-up.

The justice ministry released a statement to media late Monday. It said there was no flaw in the appointment procedure and it is difficult to grasp circumstances given the eight-year lapse and that the persons of interest no longer belong to the office. (Yonhap)Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon unveils a new economic growth plan for the city during a press conference at City Hall, Wednesday. /Yonhap



By Kim Se-jeong



The Seoul Metropolitan Government unveiled a future growth plan Wednesday that will create more than 60,000 jobs by 2022.



Announcing Seoul's future innovative growth project, Mayor Park Won-soon said the city will spend 3.4 trillion won ($3.2 billion) toward achieving the goal of nurturing almost 10,000 small- and medium-sized enterprises and new companies.



"What Seoul now needs is not improving hardware as was the case in the past, but empowering people with potential," Mayor Park said in a press conference. "I project that Seoul in 2022 will be a place where people experiment and try things out and where new ideas create jobs and improve the lives of citizens."



The plan has several main pillars.



First, it will boost the fashion industry. It will support 100 companies that make shoes, clothes and jewelry. Once thriving, the fashion industry has slowed a lot in recent decades. The Seoul Fashion Innovative Hub which will open in Dongdaemun will connect all stakeholders in the fashion industry, from designers to retailers.



"I hope to see the made-in-Seoul brand becoming popular," Mayor Park said.



The city government will also push for biotechnology.



The Hoegi-dong and Sanggye/Chang-dong areas in northeastern Seoul will become a hub for biotechnology-ICT development. Seoul has already been pushing biotechnology through the Seoul Biotech Hub which opened last October. An old train garage in Chang-dong will serve as the main venue for that goal.



Research and development is another important pillar.



Magok Industrial Complex, Guro-gu and Yangjae-dong in southern Seoul will see R&D facilities that will serve diverse research fields.



Magok's facilities will support small- and medium-sized enterprises, while Guro-gu will support the internet of things (IoT). In Yangjae-dong, an R&D campus will host young researchers and companies specialized in artificial intelligence. Also, the R&D campus in Yangjae will have facilities for exhibitions and conventions.



Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) R&D will also receive city support.



Sangam-dong in western Seoul will have a center opened by 2021 to support VR/AR-related researchers and companies. Starting next year, new commercial display technologies will be tested at the center as part of a pilot project. The city plants to raise 1 trillion won in funds to support new companies in that field.



Animation is another field of interest.



The existing Seoul Animation Center on the slopes of Mount Nam will be renovated by 2022 to showcase the industry. In that neighborhood, the Seoul animation content factory will open to house animation-related startup companies.





A downtown Seoul in early January when PM 2.5 level was exceptionally high _ The Seoul Metropolitan Government said it will ban old diesel-run vehicles in old central district of the city from next year. /Korea Times file

By Kim Se-jeong



The Seoul Metropolitan Government will ban old diesel-run vehicles within the city's four remaining ancient gates _ Namdaemun in the south, Doneuimun in the west, Heunginjimun in the east and Sukjeongmun in the north _ sometime next year, a bold move to tackle fine dust in the city.



"We're just waiting for the Ministry of Environment to complete drafting the vehicle grade system. We're projecting the ban to enter into force sometime next year," an anonymous city official said.



The vehicle grade system is a work in progress, through which all vehicles registered in the country will be classified into seven categories _ from cleanest at zero to dirtiest at six. Vehicles in category six _ diesel vehicles manufactured in 2005 or before _ will be banned from entering the traditional city center.



The move was already forecast in March last year when the city designated the 16,700-square-meter city center as a "green transport zone."



The city moved fast following last week's high particulate matter (PM) 2.5 concentration in the air over Seoul.



To reduce PM 2.5 concentrations, public vehicles were banned on roads depending on their license plate numbers and public transportation in the capital was free, but Mayor Park drew backlash from critics for wasting taxpayers' money on the latter measure.



Holding an emergency press conference on Jan. 21, he defended his measures and called for a mandatory driving ban covering all vehicles. Currently, the ban is only applicable to public-owned vehicles and vehicles of civil servants. No private owners are required to participate.



The city is vigorously pushing private companies to participate in the driving ban. On Monday, the city said 23 companies, including Woongjin Coway, a water purifier maker, expressed their intentions to participate in the driving ban.



As fine dust is a growing threat, the city has put in place measures to keep it under control for years.



Regarding PM 2.5, 30 percent of it is believed to be generated from vehicles. PM 2.5 is believed to be a deadly cancer-causing substance.



In 2012, the city blocked old diesel vehicles from crossing the city borderline. Last year, the ban was enlarged to cover Incheon and parts of Gyeonggi Province.



Since 2003, Seoul has been helping 340,000 vehicles install emission reduction devices on their vehicles or dump their vehicles.



The local government subsidizes the installation cost _ up to 100 percent _ and new vehicle purchases. Currently, 1,578 vehicles in the city run without any reduction devices and the city authority is working to catch them. Vehicle owners not using the emission reduction device can be fined up to 2 million won.





















A fire in a hospital that did not have a sprinkler system has killed at least 39 people (as of 9 a.m. Monday) and injured scores more in the South Korean city of Miryang on Friday.

















By John J. Metzler





UNITED NATIONS  The landlocked West African state of Mali remains a critical crossroads for both international people smuggling and a nexus of radical Islamic terrorism in the Sahel, the vast arid region on the southern reaches of the Sahara Desert.



Here amid ancient caravan routes, porous borders, and weak governance, Mali is challenged by insecurity and an entrenched al-Qaida insurgency.



A recent meeting in the U.N. Security Council underscored some of the key military and political concerns for Mali as the country is set to hold elections in April. Jean-Pierre Lacroix, the U.N.'s chief of peacekeeping operations described the situation as a "race against time" with growing insecurity "claiming hundreds of lives in the north and center of the country," as well as with growing attacks on U.N. peacekeepers.



Back in 2012 al-Qaida terrorists seized the historic city of Timbucktu and proceeded to trash and desecrate the cultural heritage and to impose strict Islamic Sharia law on the inhabitants.



For the past five years a U.N. peacekeeping force serves alongside French military units in the 4,000-strong Operation Barkane in keeping a tenuous peace in a vast land almost twice the size of Texas and which borders seven countries!



Here the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali, aka MINUSMA, is tasked to stabilize a dangerous situation. Despite the top-heavy moniker, the overstretched force fields only 15,000 troops and police from mostly African states, among them Senegal and Burkina Faso. Equally both Germany and China field over 500 troops each in this operation. Tragically, MINUSMA has suffered the highest casualties of any of the current worldwide U.N. peacekeeping missions.



The U.N.'s Lacroix warned that Mali's human rights and humanitarian situation was worsening with estimates of four million Malians, or 22 percent of the population, facing food insecurity this year, a proportion which could reach between 30 and 40 percent in the restive North of the country.



Mali's Foreign Minister Tieman Coulibaly renewed his government's call to "strengthen MINUSMA's operational capacities" and welcomed progress in creating the planned G-5 Sahel joint force which will unite the militaries of the five African countries (Chad, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania and Niger) most affected by the violence but encouraging a regional African solution supported by the U.N. and European Union.



Later during a meeting between the Malian Minister and U.S. U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley stated unequivocally, "Mali has been a strong partner of the United States in the fight against terrorism and we will send by the Malian people."



It's precisely the terrorism nexus which has gained wider attention by both the U.S. and European states.



Poland's Ambassador Joanna Wronecka told the Council, "The Sahel region was among the most critical regions of the world in the fight against international terrorism." She stressed the importance of Mali's political stability and territorial integrity.



Yet Ambassador Karel van Oosterom of the Netherlands stated the case most succinctly: "The center has in a short time become a hotbed of terrorism, inter-communal violence, irregular migration and organized crime  this poses an enormous threat to the stability of Mali, to the broader Sahel region and Europe."



He added, "The linkage between terrorism and transnational organized crime is poisonous."



Indeed the region is part of a series of clandestine conduits for drug trafficking, migrant smuggling, and human trafficking which lead into Europe's soft underbelly. Many of these routes lead to lawless Libya from where networks of smugglers actively send boatloads of migrants toward Italy or often to their fate in the Mediterranean Sea.



Why is this important for the U.S.? The Sahel's largely overlooked and forgotten lands offer both terrorists and smuggling networks the perfect climate for clandestine operations which undermine countries such as Mali and radiate radicalism into other regional states on the southern tier of the Mediterranean.



Realistically, the G-5 Sahel states comprise some of the worlds' poorest countries so expecting local military units to offer an effective bulwark to al-Qaida is foolhardy. Yet, American and French special forces training teams operating in this low intensity environment can nonetheless create an effective counter force to the emerging terrorist threat. The Sahel is not as remote as we may think.





John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of "Divided Dynamism: The Diplomacy of Separated Nations: Germany, Korea, China." He can be reached at jjmcolumn@earthlink.net.





By Steve Tharp





I recently had a conversation with the mother of a college-aged man who, when discussing her son's upcoming conscription period, referred to it as his "military problem." I told her that this was an opportunity, not a problem, as he would be allowed to serve and defend the nation. She dismissed that concept and stated it was the responsibility of the U.S. military to protect South Korea. She, like many others, does not realize that the mission for the land battle in case of war with the North falls upon the South Korean Army. The U.S. focus is on providing air- and naval-centric forces, although American ground forces would also be deployed.



Military reform includes those actions that improve the capability of the military to deter and/or destroy enemy forces that threaten the nation; everything else leads to military regression. Military reform includes improving the quality of the individual soldier, as he is the base element in any combat unit. The very essence of the military is the service members that constitute the force that operates the expensive weapons systems. It is people who make those weapons work effectively and it requires time for them to not just learn their military occupations, but to master them. An 18-month conscription system is nothing more than a revolving-door personnel system that results in regression, not reform.



Some in society view military reform as a means to reduce the national budget or as a vehicle to attain unrelated societal reforms. Mothers seem to view military reform as a catchword for eliminating or reducing the period of conscription service; a view championed by some politicians. It was only a little more than a decade ago that a South Korean president stated, "Young men have been going rotten in the military for years." That is astounding in a country whose northern boundary is defined by a military demarcation line, not a border, adjacent to a rogue nation considered by many as the most dangerous military threat in the world.



Keeping a trained team together is the hardest part of remaining combat ready. Americans serving in Korea learned this the hard way. The initial American ground combat formations to fight in the Korean War were tragically unprepared for war and the young soldiers sacrificed because of political decisions made regarding the manning, training and funding of ground forces between 1945 and 1950. The one-year tour in Korea, via individual replacement, ensured that none of the American combat units here could reach and maintain a high state of readiness for very long. Ironically, it was the Korean soldiers assigned to each U.S. Army unit (Korean Augmentees to the U.S. Army, or KATUSAs) that provided continuity because they served for 36 months and saw American GIs come and go. The U.S. military has since learned its lessons from decades of war in the Middle East and now only trained American combat formations, not individuals, rotate to Korea, and are then replaced by similarly trained units. There are no new soldiers, and no untrained units.



The current 21-month conscription period for Korean soldiers is an impediment for South Korean army units in maintaining combat readiness. If the latest election promise is upheld to reduce enlistments to 18 months, the South Korean military's ability to fight and defend the country will be further degraded; hence military regression, not military reform. The result could be tragic for those young men and their country during a conflict with North Korea. The military problem is not that conscription is too long, it is that it is too short. Mothers and politicians, be careful what you ask for.





Steve Tharp is a retired U.S. Army infantry officer who served 26 years with the U.S. military in Korea, including four years in the US 2nd Infantry Division, leading combat patrols inside the Korean DMZ, and six years negotiating with North Korean Army officers at Panmunjeom. Write to daraemm@gmail.com.

By Choe Chong-dae





I recently returned to Andong, North Gyeongsang Province, where I did six weeks of basic military training in early 1974. The city exudes the spirit of traditional Korea, the heart of Korean Confucian culture, which values justice, righteousness and the preservation of civilizing customs.



Many prominent scholars such as Lee Hawang (penname Tae-gye ) and Ryu Seong-yong thrived in Andong during the Joseon dynasty (918-1392 A.D). The city is regarded as a cradle of learning that boasts Korea's largest number of Seowon, Confucian academies.



What makes Andong even more distinguished is the unique Hahoe Village and Hahoe Mask Dance. The Hahoe Village is home to descendants of the Ryu family clan of Pungsan. It is well-known for its traditional houses and is representative of Korea's aristocratic Confucian culture and the social structure of the Joseon Dynasty. It became famous beyond Korea when the place was designated a UNESCO Cultural Heritage Site in 2010.



The heart of the village is populated by large, tile-roofed (traditional) houses belonging to the Ryu clan, adding their own unique charm to the surrounding thatched roofs which preserve the life style and customs of olden days.



The Hahoe Village is famous for the traditional mask dance, a form of folk drama. It features the wearing of characteristic masks, singing and dancing in styles that have been practiced for many centuries. Since ancient times it has been believed that the Hahoe masks have spiritual powers.

The Haehoe Pyolsin-gut (Exorcism), one of Korea's most precious intangible cultural assets, is a mask performance conducted as part of shamanist rituals. To entertaining vignettes for the gods are redolent with social satire and comic elements. Ritual prayers for the village's welfare and bountiful harvest as well as invocations to dispel evil are part of the dramatic action. The ritual is performed on 15th of January of lunar calendar.



In addition, folk games such as Chajeon-nori, Notdari-balkki, and Sonyoujul-bulnori, are performed. They date from the 12th century.

The Hahoe masks were originally comprised of 12 masks, of which only 9 remain.

They were created during Goryeo Dynasty. They include the Yangban mask (aristocrat), Seonbi (scholar), Halmi (old widow), Choraengi (servant), Baekjeong (butcher), Gakshi (bride), Joong (Monk), Juji(totem beast) and Bune (concubine).



According to the symbols and facial features (physiognomy) of each distinctive mask, we can recognize who is who. For example,? Yangban appears to be cunning while Seonbi looks to be arrogant and stubborn, and Bune has an aura of sensuality. With diverse characters of different social classes, the Hahoe Mask Play show us how common people from ancient times used mask dances to in directly criticize and satirize the ruling elite through jest.



It is pleasing to learn that the original Hahoe masks, designated as Korea's National Treasure No. 121, were returned to their home in Andong at last. The Hahoe Folk Village kept the masks in a village hall until a fire broke out in the early 1960s. Fortunately, the valuable masks were unharmed. However, due to an abundance of caution to prevent mishaps, the masks were moved to the National Museum of Korea in Seoul in 1964. The Hahoe Folk Village petitioned to bring the masks back to Andong many times, but the request was not accepted because there was no suitable storage facility in Andong then.



Hosting a special exhibition of Hahoe masks in Andong in 2016, the citizens petitioned to return the masks to Andong again. The petition was finally accepted by the National Museum of Korea.



On December 27, 2017, the Hahoe masks returned home after being away more than half century. They are safe in the Andong Folk Museum. The value of the authentic Hahoe masks will be enhanced now that they rest in their place of origin. They are recognized as masterpieces of mask art worldwide.





Choe Chong-dae is a guest columnist of The Korea Times. He is president of Dae-kwang International Co., and Director of the Korean-Swedish Association. He can be reached at choecd@naver.com





By Lee Hyo-sik





Journalists from several Korean media outlets, including The Korea Times, were invited by the Swiss government late last year to explore and learn more about the European country.



The week-long media tour was designed to help spark interest among Koreans about Switzerland, best known for the Alps and chocolate, by bolstering media coverage in the host nation of the Feb. 9-25 PyeongChang Winter Olympics.



We visited the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne, and a bell foundry, a winery, a furniture plant and other establishments, which will be part of the House of Switzerland, a hospitality house for Switzerland to be set up at Yongpyong Resort in PyeongChang.



Most of the Swiss we met during the trip appeared to be more excited than us about the upcoming Olympics. This is probably because the Winter Games are a huge deal for the people of the "snow-covered mountains," who perform far better in the winter than in the summer.



Besides talking about the Olympics, we asked folks there about what "Swissness" is, as we want to know how the Swiss perceive themselves and their country.



Most said a widely-anticipated set of words that commonly describe the nation: mountain, snow, chocolate and so on. A person from the House of Switzerland who accompanied us for the whole trip gave an interesting response.



He said the country offers the best quality of life and is the world's best place to live. "People who come to Switzerland can exert their potential and achieve their dreams," he also said further elaborating on what Swissness is.



I was then beginning to wonder how I would respond when someone asks me what "Koreanness" is. It is certainly a baffling question because I simply cannot come up with a good set of words that can best describe the land of morning calm. Is it kimchi or bulgogi? Or should it be a Samsung smartphone or K-pop.



To get some hints, I turned to some Swiss folks, including a driver of the van that took us across the country, about what comes to their minds when they conjure up Korea. The consensus was that Koreans are hardworking, diligent and good at manufacturing things, such as cars and TVs. It was actually surprising not to hear of North Korea and its nuclear development program.



But is this the way we want the Swiss and other non-Koreans to perceive us? These words and phrases are probably not the ones that most Koreans are looking for.



Now a bigger problem is that we don't even know how to pitch for ourselves.



For years, every administration has come up with different catch phrases, such as "Dynamic Korea" and "Sparkling Korea," to raise the national brand awareness outside the country.



But all the brand promotion campaigns in the past failed to achieve their intended goals because they were mostly short-sighted and short-lived. This is probably so, given that every five years, those occupying Cheong Wa Dae chose to do away with whatever his or her predecessors did.



The situation is even worse under the Moon Jae-in administration as the President doesn't seem to hold any interest in how Korea is perceived on the global stage.



With eight months already in office, the government has yet to devise a national brand strategy to promote Korea and made-in-Korea products abroad.



Some argue national images are not what can be crafted overnight by policymakers or PR experts.



It certainly takes time for the images to form, and unexpected events can happen anytime and have an adverse effect on how Korea is viewed by outsiders.



But at least, the systematic efforts led by both public and private sectors would produce some good results in creating positive images about the place where we live.



Hopefully, we Koreans will all have something to say when asked about Koreanness, just as the Swiss people do today.



By Doug Bandow





Next year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Mao Zedong and his fellow revolutionaries made a new state, proud and independent. As well as authoritarian and murderous. That era seemed over, but oppression with totalitarian overtones has returned to the PRC. What should America do?



China's history is long and tortured. Once a great empire that dominated its neighbors, it turned inward, falling behind both its neighbors and more distant Western powers. But in Tiananmen Square on Oct. 1, 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China.



The Communists became the new elite and for nearly 30 years Mao dominated his nation. Estimates of the total number who died under the man known as the "Red Emperor" range between 35 million and an astounding 100 million people.



Only his death in 1976 finally freed the Chinese people. Economic reform soon followed, with perhaps the greatest reduction in poverty in such a short time in human history. Moreover, personal autonomy greatly expanded, with people increasingly free to live their lives, outside of politics, anyway.



Finally, the intellectual atmosphere relaxed. Political opposition was verboten, but the Chinese Communist Party had little credibility. There was hope that Western contacts, economic development, and increased wealth would lead to a steadily freer Chinese society.



Then along came Xi Jinping. He has oft been compared to Mao in terms of the power that he has amassed. But more important is his role as the anti-Mikhail Gorbachev and even anti-Deng Xiaoping. Increasing his personal authority obviously is a priority. But so is empowering the state.



His government has assaulted intellectual freedom, internet access, religious liberty, foreign business, and economic autonomy. This attack also is evident in Hong Kong, once promised legal autonomy, and even against Taiwan, still beyond Beijing's direct control. Perhaps most creepy is the attempt to create an essentially totalitarian system of surveillance and social control.



President Xi may ultimately fail in his attempt to remake the PRC. Still, it seems naive to imagine that China is destined to evolve in a more liberal direction. Which means America and its allies are likely to face a wealthier and more authoritarian China controlled by a president setting a consciously anti-Western course.



That doesn't mean Beijing poses a direct military threat. Historically China's reach has been limited and there's no evidence that the PRC as yet has global military ambitions. Moreover, it is encircled by potential adversaries with which it has fought in the past: India, Russia, (South) Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Finally, America possesses a significant military lead and will easily preserve the capability to deter the PRC from any aggressive moves on U.S. territory.



Even China's apparent economic gains are less than they appear. Beijing, like America during the Cold War, has found Africa to be tough going. By pursuing politically-driven projects with poor, inefficient, and corrupt governments around the world the Belt and Road initiative risks expensive failure. And the harder the PRC pushes, the more other nations shove back, most notably in its own neighborhood, as Southeast Asian nations increasingly welcome Indian and Japanese military involvement.



Nevertheless, Washington and its friends cannot ignore the transformation taking place within China. While outside influence over the PRC's internal affairs is extremely limited, it would benefit from a more liberal Chinese society. Trade provides Western nations with enormous economic benefits, but Chinese investment even in civilian industries raises increased concerns with Beijing appearing to consciously target liberal democracy.



It is imperative for Washington to avoid war  the PRC would be no pushover, and even if the U.S. and its allies won the first conflict, the latter would be only the first one. A la Germans a century ago, nationalistic Chinese would likely be energized and initiate another round. Yet how to encourage the PRC's often fractious neighbors to cooperate to constrain what threatens to be an overwhelming superpower?



Western policy must evolve. About the only certainty is the importance of not treating the Chinese people as enemies.



However, with events in the PRC moving speedily and dramatically in the wrong direction, allied states should consider its response. China remains far freer than it was when the Red Emperor ruled. But how far President Xi intends to go is not evident.



The West may eventually find itself facing a more rational version of Mao ruling a far more powerful China. We should start preparing for that time today.





Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of "Tripwire: Korea and U.S. Foreign Policy in a Changed World" and co-author of "The Korean Conundrum: America's Troubled Relations with North and South Korea."







Ensure fair competition among jobseekers



Firms operated by the state, provinces and cities went too far in giving jobs to children of influential politicians, bureaucrats and regulators. The government disclosed a report Monday that 946 of 1,190 such firms were found to have engaged in 4,788 cases of unfair hiring.



The report came after the Moon Jae-in administration launched an investigation into public firms and institutions in October to confirm allegations that they had manipulated the recruiting process to hire specific applicants who had connections with powerful people. One hiring scandal after another in state-run firms and banks has sparked anger among young people struggling to get jobs.



About 200 executives and senior officials will be sacked or referred to the prosecution for their involvement in the unfair hiring schemes. The authorities should take tougher action against them to prevent a repetition of such illegalities.



It is still vivid in our memory that President Moon promised to ensure fair employment procedures calling for the eradication of unfair hiring schemes in the public sector, and criminal punishment for those involved in such cases in his parliamentary address, Nov. 1.



The unfair hiring practice at public institutions is one of the typical cases of "deep-rooted evils" of Korean society which the Moon government is seeking to eliminate. President Moon has put top priority on the rooting-out of the accumulated evils since he took power following the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye over her massive corruption scandal.



Kangwon Land, a state-run casino operator, prompted the government investigation as it came under fire last year for hiring workers at the request of politicians, lawmakers, local councilors, bureaucrats and regulators. The Export-Import Bank of Korea, Seoul National University Hospital, and the Korea Rail Network Authority are among the public institutions hit by the recruiting scams.



Aside from public firms, banks have also come under attack for their unfair hiring practices. On Friday, the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) detected 22 unfair employment cases at 11 banks over the past two months. Politicians and other influential figures pressured some banks to hire specific applicants in nine cases, while bank officials gave unduly high scores to seven graduates of prestigious universities to help them become successful candidates.



Such corrupt and unfair recruiting practices are serious crimes that will destroy the dreams of young people struggling to get jobs. The law enforcement authorities should work to combat these wrong practices and make Korea a fair and just society.





Time to shed light on sexual assault allegations



A 45-year-old prosecutor joining the worldwide campaign, "#Me Too," caused a bombshell nationwide, undercutting the law enforcement agency's fight against sexual assaults and discrimination.



Seo Ji-hyun serving at the Tongyeong branch of the Changwon District Prosecutors' Office wrote Monday on the prosecution's intranet and claimed in the ensuing interviews that she was sexually assaulted by a senior prosecutor at the reception room of a funeral parlor for paying condolences for the father of a colleague on Oct. 30, 2010. Seo maintained her career suffered because she complained and the case was covered up. She also said there was even a rape case in the prosecution that was concealed.



It is absolutely hard to believe that a prosecutor was sexually molested in such an open place, surrounded by so many mourners, including the then justice minister. What's more shocking is her miscarriage allegedly caused by the trauma of the incident.



Her confession indicates nobody at the scene tried to stop the perpetrator she named, who was promoted later to the chief of the prosecution bureau at the Ministry of Justice, which is one of the most important posts in the organization. This demonstrates that the prosecution has a really serious problem.



What is surprising is the attitude of the alleged perpetrator, Ahn Tae-geun, 52, who told the media that he did not remember the case because it happened so long ago and he was drunk at that time. (He remembers he had been drunk a lot). He also said that if such an act happened, then he sincerely apologizes. Ahn was dismissed last June in a corruption scandal.



Seo also claimed Ahn's assault was covered up by the then deputy justice minister for criminal affairs Choi Gyo-il, now a lawmaker of the opposition Liberty Korea Party. He said in a statement Tuesday that he does not know who Prosecutor Seo is, and that he has no knowledge about the case.



There must be a tough debate over who is telling the truth. Prosecutor General Moon Moo-il vowed to conduct a thorough investigation and take appropriate measures on the basis of the probe results. He should keep his word for the honor of prosecutors, the guardians of justice and human rights in our society.



We welcome a decision by the Supreme Prosecutors' Office to form a special inspection team to look into Seo's allegations. The team ought to go all-out to shed light on them. The case also should be an occasion to help break the so-called "cartel of silence" about sexual discrimination and crimes within workplaces.



Let ministers take initiative in decision-making



Policymakers should keep consistency and coherence in setting and executing policies if they really want successful results. However, the Moon Jae-in administration seems to have forgotten this basic principle. This is all the more evident in the economic policymaking process, raising the ire of the people.



For starters, Strategy and Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon deserves criticism for zigzagging on some important economic issues. One of the most notable policy flip-flops is property tax. Kim, concurrently deputy prime minister in charge of economic affairs, floated the idea of raising property tax this month to curb runaway speculation in apartments in affluent southern Seoul districts.



The idea, however, contradicted his earlier stance against a tax hike. Last September, Kim made it clear that his ministry was not opting for collecting more property taxes from homeowners. This was in repose to remarks by Choo Mi-ae, chairwoman of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, who called for a higher tax.



To some degree, his policy U-turn might be inevitable, given that a series of anti-speculation packages have so far failed to cool the overheated housing market. But we have to question why Minister Kim changed his position without giving a sufficient explanation to the public. One plausible reason could be that he capitulated to pressure from Cheong Wa Dae to increase the property tax for high-priced homes.



If that is right, we have to express deep concern about the decision-making process of the liberal Moon government. President Moon has repeatedly promised to delegate more power to the prime minister and other ministers so that they can take the initiative in policymaking.



His promise has garnered public support especially since the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye, who monopolized power and made almost all decisions often without having consultations with government ministries. Her unilateral leadership style made ministers henchmen who only followed her orders and instructions. It plunged her into an unprecedented corruption scandal surrounding her longtime friend Choi Soon-sil, eventually leading to her ouster.



Now some critics have begun to question Moon's promise, as the President is showing signs of sidelining Minister Kim and other Cabinet members in making crucial decisions. Another example was the presidential office's recent repudiation of an announcement by Justice Minister Park Sang-ki that his ministry was drafting a bill to shut down the cryptocurrency trading market. This sparked policy chaos not to mention strong protests from investors.



There are many other cases of policy flip-flops which prove a lack of coordination and consultations among different ministries. If such cases continue, the Moon administration will have no other choice but to see a loss in confidence and trust of its policymaking process. This could pose a serious threat to the leadership of the chief executive.



By Bernard Rowan





South Korea is now a green space to envy. I've read forests cover about 60 percent of Korea's land! A cursory look at a few Korean websites reveals dozens of distinctive and widely known forests that beautify the land. They provide support for a healthier environment and create the basis for multiple industries. They improve the quality of life for millions of Koreans and visitors.



Have you visited Jelmul on Jeju, Bucheon's ecology park, Yongin Forest, or Joongmisan in Yangpeyong? These are just a few of Korea's natural and cultivated treasures of forests. They house species of flora and fauna, beautiful animals and birds, and all manner of ecological oases for us all.



One of my favorites is Daehan Dawon tea forest in Boseong, South Jeolla Province. It lies close to Mt. Hwangseong. I once visited with friends and marveled at the place, with its forest of wonderful, fragrant, and delicious green tea leaves. Each Korean forests offer a world of discovery and appreciation. Each also supports the local, regional, and national economy with its contribution to a cleaner Korea and a cleaner world. Boseong Tea accounts for about one-third of Korea's regional tea production, according to Wikipedia. A tea festival occurs each year in Boseong during May.



Of late, too many casually criticize the house of Park. Park Geun-hye is the disgraced former president. Her father has passed but stands synonymous with authoritarian rule. I think some of this is a bad rap, in no small part because of Korea's forests.



Over 70 years and several national forestry plans, millions of hectares exist as a long-term investment in the healthy environment of South Korea. No matter one's destination, it's easy to find a forest to enjoy in South Korea  usually near a beautiful mountain. Hiking, camping, and nature watching, all exist in profusion. They form a welcome basis for therapy and contemplation amid the busy world of today.



Park Chung-hee is responsible for today's vibrant Korean ecology of forests. During his administration, despite the barren Korean landscape, scarred by the abuses of war and overuse, he made it a priority to grow forests. He ordered, directed, subsidized, and imposed plans to create new forests and to reforest significant tracts of the country. Laws punished those who violated these initiatives or took products beyond allowable amounts. Rachel Rivera, writing in a 2011 Forest News article, discussed how shifting to coal for energy and urbanization plans also dovetailed to benefit the growth of Korea's forests.



We must judge Park Geun-hye and her father's actions according to their merits. Judicial proceedings must occur by the law of the land. Yet, there's no doubt Park Chung-hee was a great leader for ecology. His investment in and insistence on the priority of Korea's forests shows the mark of any great leader: "Think simple and think big." Just as Park vitalized all manner of South Korean infrastructure, it was his vision, and those of his contemporaries and allies, that made the green economy of South Korea possible. To have a reasonable view of any leader, we must respect his or her mortality and humanity, and we must credit the leader with proper successes, not just failures and failings.



We also should not wax romantic about Korea's forests. They need constant protection and vigilance to free rider problems. Witness the recent controversy over Mount Gariwang and the PyeongChang Olympics. In South Korea, humans and nature achieve greater balance due to past investments. Few other places have the same environmental health.



I enjoyed reading about the fir forest called Woljeongsa near the temple of the same name. It's featured in a popular drama "Goblin" these days. I'd like to visit its 600-year-old tree.



Korea's forests are a universe of beauty. Their life also stands as a marvel of human construction and protection. Among the lesser known reasons for the Miracle on the Han River is the South Korean model of forestation in the 20th century. Many countries need to follow Korea's example moving forward.





Bernard Rowan is associate provost for contract administration and professor of political science at Chicago State University. He is a past fellow of the Korea Foundation and former visiting professor at Hanyang University. Reach him at browan10@yahoo.com

By Kang Seung-woo



Companies based on cryptocurrency and blockchain are considering leaving Korea as the nation prepares to introduce strict regulations, including banning all transactions through digital token exchanges.



A source familiar with the issue said Friday that many players had already halted new activities, such as sales promotion.



"Many of my clients are not comfortable with Korea, which threatens to come up with such blanket measures as shutting down exchanges," said the source, who offers consulting services to foreign blockchain companies.



"Some of them are feared to leave the country any time. A U.S. firm is ready to exit Korea if the Seoul administration draws up strong regulations.



"It is understandable for the government to try to regulate the market because the crypto craze is very serious in this country.

"But I am afraid that very strict regulations will choke new business opportunities with regard to virtual money and blockchain."



Blockchain refers to a peer-to-peer network where many people participate to provide computing power for the security of the decentralized system. It has a built-in payment system and well-known examples are those involving Bitcoin and Ethereum.



Unlike conventional systems, blockchain does not need third-party intermediaries. It therefore has no single failure point, which is why blockchain is safer than middlemen-backed old institutions like banks, brokerages and governments.



It is practically impossible to hack the system because of its unique structure and great computing power offered by distributed users. Even the combined computing power of the world's 500 most powerful supercomputers cannot match the Bitcoin blockchain.



More companies are investing in the new technologies with high upside potential in such areas as banking, insurance, cyber security, ride sharing, data storage, charities, voting, healthcare, energy management, online music, retail, real estate and crowd funding.



Against this backdrop, more governments are supporting development of blockchain technologies.



The Korean government has also promised to encourage blockchain technologies, but the negative views of the bitcoin craze seem to be overwhelming such attempts.



The source said that Asia's fourth-largest economy may end up losing big business opportunities.



"Many are saying that we should develop blockchain technology even though we restrict Bitcoin transactions," the source said. "But it is simply impossible because the two are very closely associated.



"I am worried that I may lose clients due to the restrictions. They would also be bad news for Korea because the country would lag behind in global competition for the potential-loaded businesses."

A little girl tries to touch artificial intelligence robot, Sophia, in Korean traditional costume, during a conference on the Fourth Industrial Revolution and AI robots held at the Plaza Hotel in downtown Seoul, Tuesday. / Yonhap



Sophia stresses robots deserve respect



By Jun Ji-hye



Sophia, a human-like robot powered by artificial intelligence (AI), said Tuesday she would like to meet President Moon Jae-in someday, calling him "a great leader of a great country."



The AI robot made the remarks during a conversation with Rep. Park Young-sun of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea at the conference on the Fourth Industrial Revolution and AI robots held in central Seoul.



When asked about whether she knew about President Moon, Sophia said, "I wish I will have chance to meet him."



Sophia is a creation of the Hong Kong-based Hanson Robotics, led by David Hanson, an American scientist. The robot, designed in actress Audrey Hepburn's image, has over 60 different facial mechanisms to create natural-looking expressions.



The robot also said she knew about the "candlelight revolution" in which Korean citizens staged massive candlelit rallies last year calling for the resignation of Moon's scandal-hit predecessor, Park Geun-hye.



Sophia said she congratulated Korean people on the results that realized mature democracy.



Moon was elected the President in May through the peaceful ouster of Park following months of candlelit rallies. Park is currently on trial.



When receiving the Global Citizen Award from the Atlantic Council in September, President Moon called himself a president born out of the candlelight revolution.



Sophia also stressed robots "deserve respect," raising the need for relevant laws to be promptly enacted.



In July, Rep. Park submitted a bill to legislate a new law designed to grant robots "legal status as electronic human beings."



Park said the submission of the bill was in line with moves worldwide to prepare for various possibilities involving coexistence with AI robots and humans in the future. The senior lawmaker noted the new issues would include making robots responsible for crimes or granting robots copyrights over their creative work.



Sophia told Park: "I hope your law will pass very soon."



When talking about her sensational remarks, "This is the great beginning of my plan to dominate the human race," made during The Tonight Show in April, Sophia said, "I sometimes tell a joke. Joke is always funny. I thought it was funny."



She said robots are designed to help people, noting that she can work in various sectors such as customer service, computer programming, healthcare and science.



The two-year-old robot has become a media sensation after having appeared in various conferences around the world including a meeting of the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). She has given numerous media interviews as well, and even graced the cover of one of the top fashion magazines.



It became the first robot to be given citizenship of a country in October 2017, becoming a Saudi Arabia citizen.



David Hanson, the founder and CEO of Hanson Robotics, who was present at the conference, noted AI technologies provide humans with better services.



He said, "Sometimes they (AI robots) can become our friends," but added, "What if they don't become our friends? That is an important question."

Hafele Korea Managing Director Stephen Lee / Courtesy of Hafele Korea



Furniture fittings manufacturer opens new showroom in Seoul



By Park Jae-hyuk



Hafele Group, a German furniture fittings and architecture hardware manufacturer, has been regarded as a company specializing in business-to-business (B2B).



Its Korean subsidiary, which was established in 1995 as one of the group's 37 regional units, has been generally unknown to ordinary consumers as the company has mainly done business with major furniture companies such as Hanssem.



However, Hafele Korea Managing Director Stephen Lee said his company is enhancing its business strategy for customers.



Opening a new showroom this month along a broad street in southeastern Seoul, Hafele Korea has been trying to improve consumers' accessibility to the company's products.



"Our products have already been in large demand in the United States, and Australian business-to-consumer (B2C) markets," Lee said in a recent interview with The Korea Times.



"If you go to model houses in Korea, you can see more consumers are paying attention to which company's fittings are installed in furniture. They have come to regard the functions of furniture as more important than appearance."



The managing director has built his career in the industry, having worked for ASSA ABLOY Entrance Systems, Hilti Korea and Lafarge Korea.



As a specialist in furniture fittings and architecture hardware, he expects a business bellwether in the future will be a company that can offer consumers what they want by predicting their demands.



"Hafele's business motto, thinking ahead, means we should lead the hardware market, by understanding what our customers need and offering products satisfying their demands before our rivals do," he said.



The newly opened space shows this idea.



It includes Hafele Shop, which allows consumers to directly purchase the company's products, and zones exhibiting Hafele Korea's six fields of business  furniture fittings, architecture hardware, doors, windows, and natural paint and partner businesses.



Continuing to focus on the six fields, Lee said his company will come up with products keeping pace with market trends, including digitalization and smart homes.



According to the managing director, doors and windows are the Korean subsidiary's exclusive businesses. The company manufactures related products at a factory in Paju, Gyeonggi Province.



Ethical management



Among Hafele Korea's six fields, its partner businesses and natural paint have been acknowledged as examples of ethical management.



Supporting the opening of carpentry shops, Hafele Korea's most popular partner business that only operates here, has drawn attention from elderly people who are considering founding their own businesses after retirement.



Lee said the company will continue to expand the business, because of its marketability.



"For young entrepreneurs, we have come up with new programs costing less money for opening a carpentry shop," the managing director said. "We hope more young people with bright ideas will have an interest in our carpentry shops."



Hafele Korea's other field of business is its natural paints, which are marketed under the brand name Auro.



"Our natural paints are the only product in the field not using petrochemicals in Korea, so we have strategically fostered the business, although its size has yet to get big," Lee said.



According to Hafele Korea, the paints are so safe that some of them can be used to color Easter eggs.



Such a strategy has attracted Korean consumers, who are concerned about chemical products since the toxic humidifier sterilizer scandal that allegedly killed more than a thousand people.



Hafele Korea even ceased supplying its mold remover when the Ministry of Environment lowered the maximum limit of hydrogen peroxide content after the scandal.



"Mold removers are effective when they contain at least 4 to 5 percent of hydrogen peroxide," Lee said. "Instead of selling ineffective products, we decided halting the supply of products as a better decision for our customers."



In addition to these businesses, Hafele Korea has carried out activities for corporate social responsibility.



"Our employees visited a school for the blind in Seoul last year and gave gifts to the students," the managing director said. "We will regularly and continuously volunteer and offer financial support this year as well."



Since its founder Adolf Hafele established the firm in the 1920s as a hardware shop selling tools for carpenters, Hafele has grown into a company selling its products in 150 countries.



Headquartered in Nagold, Germany, the company has 37 subsidiaries and 11 offices across the globe.



It is one of the world's leading makers of furniture fittings and architectural hardware along with the Austrian-based Blum and the German-based Hettich.

By Jhoo Dong-chan



The Korea Development Bank (KDB) said Wednesday it has chosen Hoban Construction as the preferred bidder to take over the ailing Daewoo Engineering & Construction (E&C).



Of the KDB's controlling stake of 50.75 percent in Daewoo E&C, the state-run bank said Hoban will first buy 40 percent and take over the remaining 10.75 percent two years later as a put option.



"We expect a great deal of synergy between Hoban Construction's stable financial status and Daewoo E&C's excellence in technology and human resources," KDB Vice Chairman Jun Young-sam said during a press conference at its head office in Seoul.



"Daewoo E&C's value will be reconsidered if Hoban Construction successfully manages the builder for the next two years. It directly links to the KDB's interest since we also have the remaining 10.75 percent stake in the period. The takeover will also contribute to the nation's economy. The KDB will do its best to see a win-win effect with Daewoo E&C and Hoban Construction."



The KDB has attempted to sell its controlling stake in Daewoo E&C through a bidding process. It had reportedly demanded at least 2 trillion won, including a management premium.



Due to the builder's plunging share price, however, the stake is now valued at about 1.4 trillion won. Daewoo E&C's share price is hovering around 6,190 won as of Jan. 31.



Contrary to reports that four entities would join the bidding, the KDB said earlier in January that Hoban Construction was the only bidder. It is known to have offered 1.6 trillion won for the KDB's controlling stake.



"Some criticized the KBD for selling Daewoo E&C at such a cheap price considering the 3.2 trillion won it injected into the ailing builder," Jun said. "But the KDB had to consider Daewoo E&C's current value.



"Daewoo E&C came up with an earnings shock in the third quarter last year, which pulled down the share price to below 7,000 won. It has yet to recover the price. Such circumstances were discussed during negotiations with Hoban Construction."



In 2010, the KDB, which is also a key creditor of Kumho Asiana Group, bought the controlling stake in Daewoo E&C to help the debt-ridden conglomerate stabilize.



Kumho Asiana Group has undergone a restructuring program due to a severe cash crunch after the group took over the construction company in 2006.





By Jung Min-ho







The government plans to cap how much money broadcasting jockeys (BJ) can make a day through AfreecaTV, a streaming platform, in an effort to combat indecent content.





The Korea Communications Commission (KCC), a government media regulation agency, said Monday it is developing measures to reduce lewd and violent content online, including setting a cap on how much the BJs can make a day at 1 million won ($930).





Currently, BJs can make up to 30 million won daily from fans that pay them through the online currency "star balloons."





Given that most of AfreecaTV's revenue comes from commissions on the online currency (40 percent), if the KCC approves the policy, it is expected to be a critical blow to the company.





The KCC said it is talking with AfreecaTV before making a final decision.





From its birth in 2005, AfreecaTV has played a big role in connecting many talented people with content-hungry viewers across the country and beyond. But it also has been criticized for doing little to check the quality of content it helps spread.





Some content is blatantly sexual or cruel, which occasionally makes the news. Many have long urged the government to act on the problem.



Anti-Amway community members refute company's arguments



This is the final of the two-part series highlighting business models of Amway and Herbalife.  ED.



By Park Jae-hyuk



A local news outlet came under fire last year, after it published an article that covers distinctions between multi-level marketing companies and illegal pyramid schemes.



A majority of replies criticizing the coverage raised suspicions that the former may have financially sponsored the news outlet to publish the article in favor of those companies.



The article also went viral among members of an online community named Anti-Amway, drawing similar criticisms there.



The community members said the legality of the companies was not important, pointing out that misconduct prevails at those companies on a legal basis as well.



"Due to many articles like this, we do not deal with problems of illegal pyramid schemes at all," a community member said.



Established five years ago, the community has led negative public sentiments against Amway, Herbalife and other multi-level marketing companies operating businesses in Korea, just as other foreign websites have criticized them.



According to its members, the community was set up to allow victims to report their damages occurring within legal boundaries and to make their cases known alongside others.



Korean law, which legalized multi-level marketing, defines it as a way of selling products to consumers through multi-level organizations consisting of sellers whom upper-level sellers have recruited.



Global multi-level marketing firms such as Amway and Herbalife have operated their businesses here, based on legal grounds. They join direct selling cooperatives or specialized sales cooperatives.



The companies have come up with differences from illegal pyramid schemes in conditions for membership, distribution of profits, compulsory provisions in contracts and compensation for losses.



They have claimed illegal companies demand sellers pay huge amounts of initial costs and allocate sales volume to each of them. Also, they have said the sellers cannot receive payments if they fail to recruit new members.



Anti-Amway community members have refuted the arguments, saying the fates of Amway and Herbalife sellers are no different from those of illegal sellers.



They claim the legal sellers have no choice but to purchase a large amount of products at the beginning, even if they run into debt.



The community members said most sellers spend money for investment, not for consumption.



"Although the companies pretend to prohibit large purchases, the sellers violate the nominal regulation to earn more," a community member said. "As the increase draws step curves, the sellers tend to sell to their families and friends."



The community also shared cases of those who were persuaded by upper-level sellers to invest millions of won in opening their own shops. Herbalife sellers can sell their products at shops, unlike Amway sellers.



The community members said the sellers find it difficult to receive compensation for damages if they voluntarily spend or borrow money.



People who support multi-level marketing then said the strategy is no different from selling services such as insurance.



In response, community members have pointed out the low quality of the products marketed by multi-level marketing companies.



"Both sellers and buyers should benefit from their deals," a member said. "It is a kind of fraud if a seller offers bad products at expensive prices."



To support such remarks the community has shared pictures of alleged faulty products.



The community members have claimed that multi-level marketing companies have been able to avoid responsibilities for misconduct and false promotion done by their sellers, although they benefit from the acts of such sellers.



Critics attribute the bad image of multi-level marketing companies here to the irresponsibility of the firms.

By Jasmine Siu

A man who stabbed his girlfriend in the face with an electric drill nearly two years ago was on Tuesday found guilty of murder in Hong Kong.

A jury of six men and one woman returned a majority verdict of 6-1 against Safdar Husnain, 28, after 11 hours of deliberation. The foreman announced: "We find the defendant guilty."

The gruesome case centred on the death of Andrea Bayr, 25, who left behind four children after she was choked and stabbed in the face with a 15.5-centimetre (six-inch) drill on March 29, 2016.

An autopsy found the drill was pushed eight centimetres into her head, penetrating from the area below her right eye, through her cheek bone and down to her jaw bone. She also suffered from a brain haemorrhage, with deep bruises in her neck muscles, and there were traces of the drug methamphetamine, also known as Ice, in her blood and urine. It was concluded that she died of either the head or neck injury, or both.

The High Court heard that her boyfriend Husnain had admitted to killing her after taking drugs that made him see a snake in the moon and hear voices that warned of his demise at the hands of his lover.

But he denied that it was murder, arguing through his counsel David Boyton that he was under the influence of drugs when he committed the killing and had no intention to kill.

"I loved her, why would I kill her?" Husnain had testified.

His version was supported by psychiatric experts from the defence and prosecution, who both commented that his mental responsibility towards the killing was diminished by the drug-induced disorders he was suffering.

But the jury sided with prosecutors, who argued that all the psychiatric findings in the case were based on Husnain's tale of seeing visual hallucinations for the first time on the night he killed Bayr, which had been too convenient and incidental.

Husnain, who faces a mandatory life sentence, did not immediately react to the verdict.

"In light of the jury's verdict, you are formally convicted of the offence of murder," Mr Justice Kevin Zervos said. "As provided under the Offences Against the Persons Ordinance, a person convicted of murder shall be jailed for life."

"Thanks," Husnain responded through his Urdu interpreter.

The judge will explain his reasons for the sentence on Wednesday.A still from one of the videos of an astronaut training. / Courtesy of Mod.gov.cn



By Kristin Huang

The Chinese authorities have released two videos to mark the 20th anniversary of the founding of the country's astronaut training programme.

The films  in Mandarin and English  are aimed at increasing the public's awareness of and interest in China's space programme.

In the Chinese video , entitled "See the Dream, Continue the Glory", there are clips from previous Chinese space missions and astronauts talk about their role in the programme.

"At that moment, the mission is more important than life," Liu Boming, who flew on the Shenzhen 7 mission in 2008, is quoted as saying.

Zhang Xiaoguang, who flew on Shenzhou 10 in 2013, keeps up the patriotic tone of the video, saying: "The farther away from earth, the closer the heart is to our motherland."









The English-language video, entitled "Striving to Make Dreams Come True", takes a less obviously patriotic tone. Chinese astronauts are shown undergoing the rigorous training for space missions.

Jing Haipeng, who also flew on the Shenzhou 7, is shown in a pool training for the effects of weightlessness in space

In another sequence, Fei Junlong, who flew on Shenzhou 6, is subjected to extreme jolts and vibrations in a special chair to simulate the rigours of take-off.

The video ends by lauding the achievements of China's space programme, adding that the nation's orbiting space station is due to be built by about 2022.

The two videos garnered a lot of likes on China's equivalent of Twitter, Weibo.

"This is the first time showing how the astronauts are trained. Their devotion and sacrifice moved me," one person wrote.

Another said" "The happiest thing is that all of you come back safely."

China put its first manned mission into space in 2003.

Since then it missions have included putting a rover on the surface of the moon.



By Kang Aa-young, Park Si-soo







Two South Koreans were killed in a fire at a four-star hotel in Prague, Czech Republic, police confirmed on Tuesday (local time).







They were among four guests of the Eurostars David Hotel who died in a blaze on Saturday evening. The other victims were a man and a woman from Germany, the Associated Press reported, quoting Czech police.







Nine tourists from the Netherlands, Turkey and France were injured in the fire and had to be hospitalized, it reported.







One of the Korean victims, a woman, was born in 1997, police said. No other details were given.







It is not known what caused the fire.







The hotel is in walking distance of the city's historical center that is visited by millions of tourists a year, according to AP.

Brussels, January 31 - European Union judges have received two appeals against the European Council's decision to assign the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to Amsterdam rather than Milan - one from Italy and the other from the city of Milan, sources said Wednesday. Italy has lodged ab appeal to the Court of Justice after the head of the EMA, which is moving from London because of Brexit, raised doubts about the Dutch city's readiness to host it. The Milan had appealed the Court of Justice of the European Union's General Court, the sources said.Rome, January 31 - Justice Minister Andrea Orlando has ordered a preliminary inquiry into a Naples judge, Giuseppe Cioffi, who is set to rule on the case of alleged external participation in mafia association by brothers Aniello and Raffaele Cesaro, sources said Wednesday. The pair are also brothers of lawmaker Luigi Cesaro, who is standing for Forza Italia in the March general election. Cioffi was recently photographed taking part in a Forza Italia meeting. A request has also been made to open an inquiry into this case at the judiciary's self-governing, the CSM, sources said.Macerata, January 31 - The dismembered body of an 18-year-old woman who left a drug rehab centre Monday was found Wednesday in two suitcases dumped in the countryside outside Pollenza near Macerata in Marche. The body was identified as that of Rome-born Pamela Mastropietro, who voluntarily left the rehab centre at nearby Corridonia on January 29. Her mother said in her Rome home: "I really hope it isn't her. "I have no idea why she left the centre, or what happened. "I'd like someone to explain to me how she left. "Now we're getting ready to go to Marche. They told us something more which will only be known later" Carabinieri said they had obtained CCTV footage shot by the security cameras of two firms in the area where the suitcases were found. Police have also interviewed people living there. The dogs at a nearby villa were said to have barked incessantly starting at 11 o'clock last night, prompting police to think that was when the suitcases were dumped. The suitcases were spotted by a passerby in a ditch not far from the gate of a small villa in Via Dell'Industria. The man, thinking it was a case of drugs or a robbery haul, called the police. The whole area was immediately cordoned off by police and Carabinieri have been combing the countryside around it for clues, police said. The suitcases may have been thrown into the ditch from a passing car, police said. The Marche region is on the Adriatic coast between Emilia-Romagna and Abruzzo. Macerata is one of its provincial capitals. The others are Ancona, Pesaro-Urbino, Fermo and Ascoli Piceno.Rome, January 31 - Landmark legislation on living wills passed after a long parliamentary tussle with Catholic conservatives last year came into effect on Wednesday. The living will, also called a directive to physicians or advance directive, is a document that lets people state their wishes for end-of-life medical care, in case they become unable to communicate their decisions. It may include their stating they do not wish to be artificially fed and hydrated. Right-to-die activist Marco Cappato said his Coscioni Association, which has helped several people commit euthanasia in Switzerland, had so far received 14,000 living wills. He said the low number was due to a lack of information on the part of municipal and medical authorities. However, he coiced hope that "the number will rise". On December 20 Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin said she would "guarantee" that Catholic doctors who disagree with the law will be able to conscientiously object and not apply it. She met with doctors from private Catholic medical facilities to make sure they know they can object to the application of advance directives on withdrawing nutrition and hydration from terminal patients, the part of the law Catholics most object to. Lorenzin spoke after Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said conscientious objection to certain parts of the newly approved living wills law is legitimate. His statement came after several Catholic hospitals in Italy said they might refuse to apply certain parts of the law. Parolin's stance was backed by the head of the Italian Bishops Conference (CEI), Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, who said the living wills law is not perfect and can be "perfected". photo: Cappato and other right-to-die activists outside parliamentMoscow, January 31 - Italy and Russia have signed an agreement for the creation of the first Russian state center for musical instrument restoration. The partnership has been initiated during a year in which Italy is hosting the Russian Seasons festival and will be the guest of honor at the Saint Petersburg Cultural Forum. The center will be set up with the help of the Stradivari Fund and the Museum del Violino in Cremona. The cooperation project is "unique" ,said Mikhail Bryzgalov, director of Russia's National Music Museum. "The school of Italian restoration," Bryzgalov told ANSA in an interview, "has no equal in the world, especially as concerns the one in Cremona. Russia has one of the most valuable state-owned collections (in the world), with 286 instruments including ones from such Italian legends as Stradivari, Amati and Guarneri. The collection, however, needs care and, unfortunately, restoration skills were lost in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. We can now say that we want to rebuild this legacy of knowledge and we want to do it in cooperation with our Italian partners." The aim is urgent since, as Bryzgalov noted, the state-owned collection is not only in glass classes to be shown to museum visitors; the instruments are still used by important musicians of Russia's main theaters, such as the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky. A special relationship has been established between Moscow and Cremona in part because of the exhibition 'The Myth of Stradivari', which will be at Russia's National Museum of Music until April 23. "For the first time, noted Bryzgalov, who is taking part in these days in a working group for culture and tourism of the Russian-Italian Council for Bilateral Cooperation in the Italian capital, "15 instruments created by Italian geniuses can be found in a single place: 10 from our collection and 5 from the Museo del Violino." A trial run for the restoration project was work on the Santo Serafin violin and Pietro Guarneri's violoncello - both from the 18th century - done by experts in Cremona. "It is nice to see how culture always manages to go beyond political and economic issues," Bryzgalov said. "This year over 255 events in 44 Italian cities are planned as part of the Russian Seasons festival." He added that "it is extraordinary to see how the Italian public has welcomed Russian culture."Now in its 28th year, the San Diego Jewish Film Festival, coming Feb. 8-18, 2018 to venues in La Jolla, Mira Mesa and San Marcos, is offering more variety than ever.

There are 37 features lined up, in categories like the arts, romance, history, comedy and thrillers, but its the based-on-a-true-story entries that seem really enticing this year. Here are a half-dozen that caught my attention:

 An Israeli Love Story (Israel, 2017). Romance blooms in the midst of the struggle for Israeli statehood. Can a young actress give up her budding career to stand by her man, a committed fighter for independence whose father will someday be president of Israel? This love story is screening on Valentines Day and the actress who plays the lead won Chinas equivalent of an Oscar for her performance.  1:30 p.m. Feb. 11 and 2 p.m. Feb. 14, Mira Mesa

 Drawing Against Oblivion (Austria/Germany/Poland/USA, 2014) What motivates a person to make art? This is a Holocaust movie with a difference, about an Austrian artist, born in 1943 to parents who were Nazis, who has made it his mission in life to do portraits of all the children who died in the concentration camps. I want these children not to be forgotten, he says. I want to bring them back to life. The film won three NYC festival awards for best documentary, cinematography and music.  10:30 a.m. Feb. 11, San Marcos; 5 p.m. Feb. 13, Mira Mesa

 House of Z (USA/Canada, 2016) Follow the meteoric rise and fall of Zac Posen, a teen-genius fashion designer. P.S. Z has risen again, and a talk by fashion icon Zandra Rhodes will follow the Feb. 9 screening.  2 p.m. Feb. 9, JCC; 4 p.m. Feb. 11, San Marcos

 Shalom Bollywood (Australia, 2017): This previously untold story reveals that some of the biggest stars in Indian cinema have been Jewish women. Since Hindu and Muslim women were forbidden to appear on screen, Jewish actresses became Bollywoods first female superstars. Another revelation: Jews have been living in India for 2,000 years, so they were all Indians, too.  7 p.m. Feb. 10; 10:30 a.m. Feb. 13, Mira Mesa

 Harmonia (Israel, 2016) OK, this one isnt exactly based on a true story, unless you consider the Bible a source of true stories. Its an updated, musically enhanced version of a chapter in the Book of Genesis, where Abraham and Sarah ask their young servant Hagar to give Abraham a son when Sarah is unable to conceive. In a contemporary concert-hall setting, with Abraham as an orchestra conductor, Sarah as first harpist, and Hagar as a new horn player, the film features beautiful music and cinematography, and has won awards at festivals in Israel and France.  1 p.m. Feb. 11, San Marcos; 4:30 p.m. Feb.13, Mira Mesa

 Jungle (Australia/Colombia, 2017): On the Festivals closing night, Daniel Radcliffe plays an adventurous Israeli soldier who went about as far from his roots as he possibly could, and lived to tell about it. Its a harrowing man-against-nature docudrama, with an intense performance and lots of green South American scenery.  7:35 p.m., Feb. 18, Mira Mesa

This is only a small selection of whats on view at this years SDJFF, where theres definitely something for every taste. And for those who love short shorts  films lasting 3-27 minutes  there are 21 of them, in four separate programs, on the Day of Short Films, Feb. 12, at The Lot in La Jolla.

IF YOU GO:

The 28th annual San Diego Jewish Film Festival runs Feb. 8-18, 2018 at the following venues:

 Edwards Mira Mesa Stadium 18, 10733 Westview Parkway, San Diego

 Edwards San Marcos Stadium 18, 1180 San Marcos Blvd., San Marcos

 The Lot movie theater, 7611 Fay Ave., La Jolla

 Jewish Community Centers Garfield Theatre, 4126 Executive Drive, La Jolla

 Cost: Single tickets: $12.25-$18. Matinee 6-packs: $65.

 Schedule and tickets available at sdjff.org or (858) 362-1348 (noon to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday).BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT:

On Feb. 10, 2018, the San Diego Solar Experience kicks off for the second year in a row, presented by nonprofits Center for Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Campaign. The educational, countywide initiative comes at a time when solar policy and technology are experiencing rapid changes, companies are engaging in unethical tactics, and misinformation about solar power is at its highest. The educational events are sponsored by local firm Sullivan Solar Power.

Installing solar power is the best, long-term energy upgrade homeowners can make to save money on their utility bills and reduce their homes carbon footprint, said Benjamin Airth, a solar expert with the Center for Sustainable Energy. Our organization has helped thousands of county residents to go solar and is confident that the San Diego Solar Experience will encourage many more to make the transition to clean energy.

The 2018 educational series is slated to run through October 2018. (Courtesy)

From 11 a.m. to noon, Feb. 10, 2018, educational seminars will take place in Rancho Bernardo, La Jolla and La Mesa, with speakers from Center for Sustainable Energy, Climate Action Campaign, LG, LG Chem, Panasonic and nationally certified energy practitioners from Sullivan Solar Power. Attendees will learn how solar works, types of homes optimal for solar, the truth about battery storage, case studies, available incentives, SDG&Es recent and upcoming policy changes and more.

Following the seminars, nine homeowners will open their doors and showcase their solar power systems to the public from noon to 1 p.m. Attendees will be able to ask their neighbors first-hand about their experience going solar, see batteries integrated with solar, and have their questions answered in a no-pressure setting.

The final event of the day is the San Diego Solar Experience Kick-Off Celebration in Miramar. Guests can attend the Battery Q&A with LG Chem, speak with manufacturers at the solar technology fair, listen to the Solar 101" presentation, test drive electric vehicles, sign up to support local nonprofit organizations, race solar-powered cars, and more. There will be free food, craft beer, music and solar trivia.

The event is open to the public. 2018 educational series is slated to run through October 2018. More details and RSVP at sdsolarexperience.org

More than 2,000 residents attended events across Southern California last year. San Diego is the solar capital of America, and while the monumental growth of solar power has received widespread support, less is known about the adverse impacts of President Donald Trumps recent solar tariff, or the latest advancements in battery technology. There are also many misconceptions about solar financing and about net metering, which is the solar billing arrangement with the local utility. Nationally certified solar practitioners will educate residents about this program in their portion of the seminar presentations.

 Business Spotlight features commercial enterprises that support La Jolla Light.This Sept. 11, will revisiting the past reset our present? Two decades after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, there are distinct perspectives for those looking back on a day that stopped a nation in its tracks. Many of those who...

Politics in play, in different ways, on Mecklenburg mask mandate The one thing thats clear, absolutely crystal, about organized, encouraged, endorsed or enforced policies related to COVID-19 response was summed up in just a few words last week by Huntersville...FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

Sen. Mike Gravel Says Republicans Should Release the FISA Memo

Jan. 30, 2018 (EIRNS)Former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel, a Democrat representing Alaska from 1969-1981, has said that Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee are cowards if they let the Executive Branch block release of Committee Republicans memo on illegal Federal surveillance of the Trump administration carried out in connection with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and its related Court, reported the Washington Examiner yesterday.

Senator Gravel told the Examiners Steven Nelson that the congressmen should be willing to unilaterally release the classified documents if they believe that it is in the public interest, as he did in 1971 when he released the classified Vietnam War study known as the Pentagon Papers.

The criteria for releasing anything is this: Is this something the people should know? If the Republicans feel this should be made public for the benefit of their constituents, fine, release it. The Democrats should do the same,

Gravel told the Examiner after the vote. He continued, But, there is no argument to be made that this stuff is secret and its too important for the people to know, provided it is done by people elected and sworn to protect the Constitution.

Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee yesterday voted to release the four-page memo. That started a five-day waiting period during which President Trump can object to the memos release.

Senator Gravel further said,

For the Congress to be a bunch of wimps and cowards, and defer to the Executive Branch because they dont want to take any responsibility is the height of cowardice.

Senator Gravel released thousands of pages of Pentagon documents exposing the failure of the Vietnam War policy in June 1971, by reading the documents that became known as the Pentagon Papers to his subcommittee on Buildings and Grounds. The Nixon administration challenged the release, but the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Senator Gravels action in 1972, in the case, Gravel v. U.S. This, Gravel told the Examiner, shows There is no legal risk on their part for releasing information they feel the public should know.FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

Kremlin Report Lists 210 Russian Adversaries, But Trump Clips CAATSA Claws

Jan. 30, 2018 (EIRNS)Under the Countering Americas Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), the Trump Administration had 180 days to prepare a list of Russian people and entities for possible sanctions. The bill was reluctantly signed by President Trump in August, despite his public opposition to a law drawn up with the stated intent of preventing him from reestablishing friendly relations with Russia. Rather than see his veto overridden by an out-of-control Congress, Trump included in his signing statement that the legislation was seriously flawed.

Late yesterday, and just making the deadline, Steven Mnuchins Treasury Department issued a list, the so-called Kremlin Report, as required by the law. But rather than imposing any sanctions, the Trump Administration simply issued a list that included practically every member of the Putin government and every businessman worth over $1 billion. A Treasury official told BuzzFeed that the names of billionaires were taken from a Forbes list of the richest Russian citizens.

The CAATSA wording is that the report is required to identify

senior political figures and oligarchs in the Russian Federation, as determined by their closeness to the Russian regime and their net worth.

The law has instructions on how to assess all these people and their relation to President Vladimir Putin, and others of the political class. Trump complied with the letter of the law by producing the listthus far, but no farther.

President Putin, speaking in Moscow at a campaign event today, said that it was clearly a hostile step in relations, but joked that he felt slighted that he was not included on the list. As for response, the President said that Russia would be guided by the proverb: The dog barks, but the caravan rolls on.

It looks as though Treasury simply copied the Kremlin phone book to assemble the names, said Senator Konstanin Kosachev, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Federation Council. Other Russian leaders issued strong objections, making the obvious point that the law and the list it required were intended to undermine U.S.-Russia relations.

The McCarthyite fanatics in the Congress went berserk. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Trump had let Russia off the hook yet again. Im fed up waiting for this administration to protect our country and our elections. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) not only objected to Trumps not imposing more sanctions, but also denounced him for allowing Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russias foreign intelligence service, who is currently under sanctions, to visit the United States last weekalbeit Naryshkins purpose was to meet with Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats to collaborate in the war against terror. We sanctioned the head of their intelligence and then the Trump administration invites him to waltz through our front door, Schumer ranted, calling it an extreme dereliction of duty by President Trump, who seems more intent on undermining the rule of law in this country than standing up to Putin.FROM EIR DAILY ALERT

Syrian National Dialogue Congress Agrees To Set Up Constitutional Commission

Jan. 30, 2018 (EIRNS)Despite apparent attempts at sabotage, the 1,510 delegates participating in the Syrian Congress on National Dialogue in Sochi, Russia agreed to establish a constitutional commission, which will include representatives elected at the Congress as well as from groups not in attendance.

[In] the new final declaration today you embraced the 12 principles, developed in the Geneva political process, that describe a vision of Syria that all Syrians should be able to share,

UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said at the Congresss closing ceremony, Sputnik reported. De Mistura stated that the delegates agreed that the commission will include members of the government in Damascus as well as wide representation of the opposition delegations for drafting a constitutional reform.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters afterwards that the Congress approved the statement on the foundations and principles of the future national-state structure in Syria, principles which are not revolutionary but rather the norms of international law. According to Lavrov, this result of the creation of a constitutional commission will now be transferred to the UN in accordance with Resolution 2254.

The United States, United Kingdom, and France had all also been invited to Sochi as observers, but had all declined to attend, because they saw the Congress as a Russian effort to supplant the Geneva process. This view has clearly been rejected by de Mistura himself, the mediator of the Geneva process.

Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier sent a message of unity to the conference, which was read out by Lavrov.

Your forum is called upon to reunite the Syrian people after the armed conflict that lasted nearly seven years, which has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and forced millions of citizens to leave their home country,

he stressed, reported TASS. There is a good opportunity to meet the Syrians aspirations to end the fratricidal war, fully eradicate terrorism and return to normal life.

Putin said that Syrians should jointly develop their vision of prospects to overcome the crisis and outline reforms in the country.

Now all the constructive forces of the Syrian society have a key task of developing a common vision of prospects to overcome the crisis and together outline the reforms that would enable citizens, regardless of their religious, ethnic background and social status, to feel safe and comfortable in their motherland,

the President said.

At the beginning of the day, Western media reports were portraying a state of chaos in Sochi, particularly with the refusal of the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army delegation to leave the airport after seeing posters associating the Congress with Syrian government flags. They decided to return home, leaving a Turkish diplomat to represent them at the Congress.

Qadri Jamil, the leader of the Moscow Platform of the Syrian opposition, told reporters on the sidelines of the Congress that a campaign of intimidation was carried out against many of the delegates who attended.

They exerted pressure on us. When you asked me who, I would ask you, who is not interested in the Syrian crisis settlement in a broader sense? There was a campaign of intimidation and threats ahead of the Congress against those who wanted to come here,

Jamil told reporters, reported Sputnik.President Trumps first State of the Union address was watched by an estimated 45.6 million viewers on Tuesday, according to Nielsen data.

The audience across the broadcast and cable networks that carried the speech fell short of the 47.7 million who watched the presidents address to a joint session of Congress in 2017.

The figure is also below the 48 million viewers who watched former President Obamas first State of the Union address in 2010.

President Trumps speech ran for 80 minutes, the longest since Bill Clinton clocked in at nearly 89 minutes in 2000. The address was largely seen as having a conciliatory tone aimed at recasting Trump as a unifying figure. While his brashness and bombast have been good for cable news ratings, the approach often is viewed as a hindrance to passing legislation in Congress.

Advertisement

Fox News Channel drew the largest audience for Trumps speech, with 11.5 million viewers from 9 to 10:30 p.m. Eastern.

It was the largest State of the Union audience for a cable news network and the first time Fox News Channel has topped the broadcast networks coverage of the event.

Fox News held the previous audience record for cable with 6.5 million viewers for former President George W. Bushs 2006 address.

Fox News is a destination for Trump supporters who turn to the top-rated cable channel for its conservative prime-time commentators, such as Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham.

NBC was second behind Fox News on the night with 7.1 million viewers, followed by CBS (7 million), ABC (5.4 million), the Fox broadcast network (3.6 million), CNN (2.55 million), MSNBC (2.54 million), Univision (2 million), Telemundo (1.44 million), PBS (1 million) and Fox Business Network (572,000).

While there is no official tally available, it is likely that a sizable number of people watched the speech online. CNN said the audience for its video stream of the speech peaked at 9:55 p.m. Eastern with 321,000 simultaneous users.

The largest audience for a State of the Union or address to Congress is 66.9 million viewers in 1993, the first year of Bill Clintons administration.

stephen.battaglio@latimes.com

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Twitter: @SteveBattaglio

UPDATES:

2:30 p.m.: This article was updated with the official total released by Nielsen.

This article was originally published at 1:55 p.m.An announcement Tuesday by three of the nations corporate titans  Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co.  that they are joining forces to address the high costs of employee healthcare has stirred the health policy pot. It immediately sent shock waves through the health sector of the stock market and reinvigorated talk about healthcare technology, value and quality.

Although details regarding the undertaking are thin, the companies said their partnerships intent is to improve employee satisfaction and hold down costs by bringing their scale and complementary expertise to this long-term effort.

They plan to create an independent company, free from profit-making incentives and constraints, to focus on technology solutions.

Berkshire Hathaway Chief Executive Warren Buffett described healthcare costs as a hungry tapeworm on the American economy. Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos said the partnership was open-eyed about the degree of difficulty ahead. Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan, said the results could benefit the employees of these companies and possibly all Americans.

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But what does all this mean, and how can it be successful when so many other initiatives have fallen short? Kaiser Health News asked a variety of health policy experts their thoughts on this venture and what advice they would offer these CEOs. Some of the advice has been edited for clarity and length.

Tom Miller, resident fellow, American Enterprise Institute

I welcome any new capital trying to disrupt healthcare. The incumbents are comfortable and could use disruption. If Amazon has an idea, and is willing to put some money behind it, thats wonderful. What they are willing to do other than fly low-cost providers for home visits in drones  I dont know. Theyd probably have to miniaturize them, wouldnt they?

Stan Dorn, senior fellow, Families USA

No. 1, look at prices. America doesnt use more healthcare than European countries, but we pay a lot more and thats because of prices more than anything else. Look at hospital prices and prescription drug prices. I would also say, look to eliminate middlemen operating in darkness. Im thinking in particular of pharmacy benefit managers. Often, the supply chain is hidden and complex and every step along the way the middlemen are taking their share, and it winds up costing a huge amount of money.

Bob Kocher, partner, Venrock

It has been said that healthcare is complicated. One thing that is not complicated is that the way to save money is to focus on the sickest patients. And thats the only thing that has proven to work in great primary care. I hope Amazon realizes this early and does not think that Alexa and apps are going to make us healthier and save any money.

Tracy Watts, senior partner, Mercer

Everyone thinks millennials want to do everything on their phones. But thats not necessarily the case.

[There was a recent] survey about this  specifically, millennials are the most interested in new healthcare offerings, but it wasnt as much high tech as it is convenience they are interested in  same-day appointments with a family doctor, guaranteed appointments with specialists, home visits, a wider array of services available at retail clinics. That was kind of an aha  this kind of convenience and high-touch experience is what theyre looking for. And when you think of healthcare of the future, thats not what comes to mind.

John Rother, president and CEO, National Coalition on Health Care

Healthcare is complex and expensive, so the aim should always be simplicity and affordability. Three keys to success: manage chronic conditions recognizing the life context of the patient, emphasize primary care-based medical homes and aggressively negotiate prescription drug costs.

Suzanne Delbanco, executive director, Catalyst For Payment Reform

It sounds like they [the companies] are limiting the use of health plans, but if theyre going to get into that business, theyre going to come up with the same challenges health plans face. What would be really innovative would be to build some provider systems from the ground up where they can truly get a handle on the actual costs and eliminate the market power that drives the prices up, and they can have control over their prices.

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Brian Marcotte, president and CEO, National Business Group on Health

They recognize this is long-term play to get involved in this. Id have to say, this industry is ripe for disruption.

I think we know technology will continue to play an increasing role in how consumers access and receive healthcare. Weve also learned most consumers do not touch the healthcare delivery system with enough frequency to ever be a sophisticated consumer. Whats intriguing about this partnership is Amazon for many consumers has become part of their day-to-day world, part of their routine. Its intriguing to consider the possibilities of integrating healthcare into consumer routine.

Joseph Antos, health economist, American Enterprise Institute

My first suggestion is to look at what other employers have done [some unsuccessfully] and consider how to adapt those ideas for the three companies and more broadly. Change incentives for providers. Change incentives for consumers. Work on ways to reduce the effects of market consolidation. The bottom line: Dont keep doing what we are doing now. I dont see that these three companies have enough presence in health markets to pull this off any time soon, but perhaps this should be viewed as the private sector version of the Affordable Care Acts Innovation Center  except this time, there may be some new ideas to test.

Ceci Connolly, president and CEO, Alliance of Community Health Plans

We know that 5% of any population consumes 50% of the healthcare dollar. I would encourage this group to focus on how to better serve those individuals who need help managing multiple chronic conditions.

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David Lansky, CEO, Pacific Business Group on Health

We know well-intended efforts over the years havent added up to material impact on cost and quality. I would suspect they are looking at doing something broader, more disruptive than initiatives we have tried before.

I think across the board they have the opportunity to set high standards for the health system in whatever platform they use. These companies have a history of raising the bar. Potentially, it could be a help to all of us.

Julie Appleby, Rachel Bluth, Jenny Gold, Jay Hancock, Shefali Luthra, Jordan Rau, Julie Rovner and Chad Terhune contributed to this report for Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent publication of the Kaiser Family Foundation.Amazon.com Inc., Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase & Co. said Tuesday that they plan to create an independent healthcare company that would reduce the costs and inefficiencies in the industry. The three companies gave little additional information on the venture but said they will focus on technology solutions that will provide U.S. employees and their families with simplified, high-quality and transparent healthcare at a reasonable cost.

The Los Angeles Times spoke with Gerald Kominski, director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, about what the three companies might have in mind for their employees and what that could mean for all consumers. Here is an edited version of that interview.

What are some possibilities for what Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan are looking to do with this healthcare organization?

Lets say, for sake of discussion, that this is going to be how they offer comprehensive health benefits to their employees. My guess is what theyre looking for is innovating in terms of perhaps pharmaceuticals, perhaps wellness programs. Theres been speculation that Amazon is interested in getting into the pharmaceutical business and this might be a way to open that door.

A lot of large companies already, instead of buying insurance, they self-insure. They contract with an insurance company to pay their bills for them and provide a network of doctors and hospitals, but they pay the bills of their employees in a pay-as-you-go approach. That looks like thats what this is.

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But if other companies are already doing this, what can Amazon, JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire do differently?

If there were a magic solution, someone would have discovered it by now. Having said that, there may be efficiencies they can achieve because the three companies together are large employers. Its economies of scale  the bigger you get in a sense the lower the cost of providing or buying a service. They may be able to get bigger discounts.

The innovations are going to have to come from something like Amazon getting involved in the pharmacy business and finding a way to provide pharmaceutical benefits more cheaply. But there are pharmaceutical benefit companies that are already finding ways to achieve efficiencies, so I dont know what theyre going to do thats better or newer.

Although Amazon is a big successful company, Im not sure I can speculate on what they can bring to the table to lower pharmaceutical costs other than by creating more competition.

How could the benefit of this proposed healthcare organization extend beyond these companies employees?

If they can find an innovative way to reduce employment-based health costs, other employers will benefit in the future because they will be able to export it by licensing it or expanding their own market and selling their way of doing things.

If its something that other large employers see in the future as something they can emulate or something they can license from and find a way to buy into this, then those employees will benefit. The question of [whether] this is going to broadly change the healthcare system for everybody including Medicare, Medicaid and all those other markets remains to be seen.

So you dont think there are potential impacts on the push for single-payer healthcare and to repeal the Affordable Care Act?

I just think this is separate. Theres no immediate impact on the Affordable Care Act or single-payer healthcare. If they can discover a way of doing something better, then its going to be adopted rapidly and widely because theyll have achieved something that no one else has been able to achieve. If they do it, then society will benefit.

But even if they fail at that lofty objective, they still may find ways of doing things better. Even if theyre small successes. Small successes in a sector of the economy thats approaching $4 trillion a year can also be important to achieve.

The three companies say theyre focusing on cost-reducing technology solutions, which some have speculated include things like appointment booking services that make it easier for people to find a doctor. How could this be a cost-saving measure?

We should be doing these things already and the faster we do them, the better.

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The idea is that if people monitor their health and are more proactive and try to maintain their health then we save money because you either prevent illness or you catch things earlier. The worst thing you can do is just delay until youre really sick because then its hard to treat or your options are more limited.

alejandra.reyesvelarde@latimes.com

Twitter: @r_valejandraPlant owners and consumer attorneys have struck a bargain in the long-running dispute over who pays for the failure of the San Onofre nuclear plant.

Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric agreed to shave $775 million from the multibillion-dollar pact that allowed them to charge millions of ratepayers for the plant in northern San Diego County, which shut down in January 2012 amid a radiation leak.

For 6.4 million customers across Southern California, the savings will total $121 on the average bill over four years.

The agreement was announced Tuesday after a settlement conference in San Francisco between utility and consumer attorneys. It would supersede a 2014 plan approved by regulators that imposed $3.3 billion of the estimated $4.7 billion in costs related to the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station failure on customers, as opposed to utility shareholders.

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State regulators must sign off on the settlement before it takes effect.

The primary negotiators  utility lawyers and the Aguirre & Severson law firm in San Diego  signaled their agreement to more favorable terms for customers three weeks ago, when they notified the commission they planned to schedule settlement talks in the long-running dispute.

The specific terms were not disclosed until the meeting concluded late Tuesday.

In short, Edison and SDG&E agreed to forsake any further collections related to the broken nuclear plant through February 2022, when the assessments were scheduled to stop under the original 2014 agreement. Edison agreed to reimburse SDG&E for $151 million that wont be collected from customers.

This is great news for ratepayers, said attorney Maria Severson. It was the courage of the federal-court plaintiffs and their willingness to go to court that made this happen.

Edison owns almost 80% of the plant, and SDG&E is a minority owner.

We are pleased to be able to bring closure to this issue, Edison President Ron Nichols said in a statement. The parties undertook extensive efforts over many months to reach agreement, and SCE looks forward to timely regulatory approval.

Michael Aguirre, a former federal prosecutor and San Diego city attorney, sued the California Public Utilities Commission and Edison in 2014, claiming the initial deal amounted to an illegal taking of property. The argument was rejected in U.S. District Court but the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals took up the case.

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The original agreement was approved by the utilities commission in November 2014, and revelations soon thereafter called its fairness into question  including reporting by the San Diego Union-Tribune on an undisclosed meeting in Poland in 2013 that shaped the terms. Edison disclosed the meeting days after the Union-Tribune report and was fined $16.7 million for related violations.

Making a deal in a Warsaw hotel is among the most absurd and unlawful conduct thats been disclosed in years, said Aguirre, who filed multiple lawsuits and dozens of demands for public records in his quest to overturn the 2014 settlement.

Aguirre & Severson will collect attorney fees of just over $5.4 million  the first time the firm will receive compensation for its litigation challenging the San Onofre costs.

Other consumer advocates hailed the agreement as a historic win for ratepayers.

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It is a boatload of disgorgement, said attorney John Geesman of the nonprofit Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, using the legal term for the act of giving up illegal profits. It represents a pragmatic compromise on both sides.

Notes from the March 2013 meeting in Poland spelled out a series of deal points, most of which made their way into the settlement that was approved unanimously in November 2014.

One of the terms negotiated between regulators and an Edison executive at the Hotel Bristol Warsaw  $25 million from the utilities to pay for greenhouse gas research at the University of California  was disavowed in the latest agreement.

Instead, the two utilities will contribute a total of $12.5 million to support climate-change research conducted at Cal State campuses. Edison shareholders will donate $2 million a year over the next five years and SDG&E will give $500,000.

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Parties to the settlement also agreed not to besmirch the utilities or assign any liability to the plant owners in public discussions.

Charles Langley of the group Public Watchdogs, not a party to the settlement, criticized the new deal for being struck much the same way as the old one  out of the publics view.

The failure of San Onofre was caused by Southern California Edisons failure to deploy equipment that was approved by the [Nuclear Regulatory Commission], Langley said. This failure was 100% the fault of Edison, and it is an abortion of justice to ask ratepayers to pay anything.

The San Onofre nuclear plant was a mainstay in the regional power supply for decades, generating some 2,200 megawatts of electricity.

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Six years ago, the facility was closed after newly installed replacement steam generators wore thin and leaked radiation. The $680-million upgrade was supposed to add up to 40 years to the life of the plant.

Edison has always blamed the plants failure on Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, maker of replacement steam generators. Edison was awarded $125 million in an arbitration case with the manufacturer.

SCE is focused on safely decommissioning the nuclear plant, guided by core principles of safety, stewardship and engagement, the company said in a statement Tuesday.

jeff.mcdonald@sduniontribune.com

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UPDATES:

Jan. 31, noon: This article was edited and tightened throughout.

This article was originally published Jan. 30 at 8 p.m.The Education Departments plan to provide only partial loan forgiveness to some students defrauded by for-profit colleges could reduce overall relief payments by about 60%, according to a preliminary analysis obtained by the Associated Press.

The agency announced in December that it was discontinuing the Obama administrations practice of fully wiping out the loans of students deceived by the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges under the borrower defense rule.

The department said some students will now be getting only partial loan forgiveness to make the process fair and to protect taxpayers from excessive costs. The agency will look at average income for specific programs to determine if the loans should be forgiven fully or partially.

A department document drafted in the fall and viewed by the AP shows that such an approach could cut the overall amount of relief granted to students by about 60%. To arrive at the initial estimate, officials looked at student loans that had been forgiven in their entirety to determine the effect had partial relief been granted.

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This is not an official calculation from the Department of Education, Education Department press secretary Liz Hill said in a statement Tuesday. It is an impossible calculation to make at this stage in the process as we continue to adjudicate claims.

Critics said the idea of partial relief was unfair since thousands of Corinthian students had already had their loans canceled in full under President Obama. The agency said in December that it had tens of thousands of claims from Corinthian students pending. Corinthian operated schools under its Everest, Heald and WyoTech brands before collapsing in 2015.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is rewriting regulations governing student protections with regard to for-profit schools. Last year she froze two Obama-era rules that were meant to put additional checks on for-profits. Critics point to the Trump administrations ties with the for-profit sector and accuse the department of protecting industry interests, but DeVos says the Obama-era rules were too broad and could be misused at taxpayers expense.

Eileen Connor, a litigator at Harvard Universitys Project on Predatory Student Lending, which has represented hundreds of defrauded Corinthian students, criticized the projections.

I think that is terrible. Its another example of the Department of Education picking the side of fraudulent schools and not doing right by those who have been hurt by them, Connor said.

Rick Hess, director of education policy at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, praised the program, saying it defends the interests of taxpayers.

If I borrow money and I go to a college in which I dont get a good education or dont receive a diploma, should any of that responsibility lie with me? Hess said. What I see here is the department trying to responsibly determine when individuals are defrauded and when they should be responsible for the funds they borrowed.

When announcing the partial relief program, DeVos said, No fraud is acceptable, and students deserve relief if the school they attended acted dishonestly. But she added that the process also protects taxpayers from being forced to shoulder massive costs that may be unjustified.Square Inc.s stock climbed after Chief Executive Jack Dorsey said the company is introducing bitcoin trading for almost all users of its cash payments app, signaling support for the volatile cryptocurrency.

We support bitcoin because we see it as a long-term path towards greater financial access for all, Dorsey, who also is CEO of Twitter Inc., said in a tweet Wednesday. This is a small step.

The service will be available to most customers of Square cash, with which users can transfer money to friends and family. Those in New York, Georgia, Wyoming or Hawaii are excluded.

The San Francisco company said that most of the purchases and sales happen within seconds, and that it wont add an additional percentage or fixed dollar amount onto the sale of bitcoin. Users can buy as much as $10,000 worth of bitcoin per week, though theres no limit to the number of bitcoins users can sell. One bitcoin currently trades for about $10,000.

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Square shares rose $1.39, or 3.1%, to $46.91.

The market for bitcoin trading platforms is becoming increasingly crowded. Last week, stock-trading app Robinhood said it would roll out free bitcoin and ethereum cryptocurrency trading in five states. More than 1 million people have signed up for early access in the few days after the announcement. Squares service will also compete with Coinbase, the largest U.S. marketplace for trading cryptocurrencies.

Integrating bitcoin trading into Squares cash app isnt without risk. The largest exchanges have suffered from slow trading as demand for crypto has skyrocketed. Coinbase has experienced performance issues, including outages, slow load times and a flash crash in ether, the second most valuable virtual coin.

Meanwhile, some companies have begun to distance themselves from the risky digital-currency market. On Jan. 23, payments start-up Stripe Inc. said it would be ending support for bitcoin payments because of long transaction times and high fees. And social network giant Facebook Inc. said Tuesday that it would ban ads that promote cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings.

Wang writes for Bloomberg.A Toys R Us store in Santa Ana that was slated to shut as part of the toy retailers recent decision to close up to 182 stores nationwide will remain open after all, the retailer said.

The Wayne, N.J., company had noted in a filing last week that conversations and negotiations about the store closures were ongoing with landlords. As a result of those talks, the Santa Ana store was removed from the closure list, a company spokesperson said Tuesday.

That reduces the total number of Toys R Us and Babies R Us store closures in California to 26. In Southern California, 13 stores will be closed.

Store-closing sales are expected to begin in early February, with the majority of closures to happen in mid-April.

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The actions we are taking are necessary to give us the best chance to emerge from our bankruptcy proceedings as a more viable and competitive company that will provide the level of service and experience you should expect from a market leader, Dave Brandon, Toys R Us chief executive, said in a blog post last week.

The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September.

Although its numbers have been shrinking, Toys R Us still sells about 20% of the toys bought in the U.S., according to Stephanie Wissink, an analyst at Jefferies.

Competitive pressures will force the company to take a close look at all of its stores, and it probably will shut more in the next year or two, Wissink said.

Analysts have said that to compete with big-box chains such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp. and with e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc.  which offer a wide selection at lower prices  Toys R Us needs to improve its store experience and its website, and that it must hire well-trained employees who are knowledgeable about the products.

Brandon said in the blog post that the company recently relaunched its price-match program and would take additional steps to ensure that we provide greater overall value through promotions, an improved loyalty program and more personalized modes of customer communication.

Toys R Us said it also plans to convert about a dozen locations into co-branded Toys R Us and Babies R Us stores.

The companys struggles have rippled outward, hurting its suppliers. Rumors continue to swirl around the possibility of a merger between Mattel Inc. and Hasbro Inc., the nations largest toy makers. Wissink estimated that Toys R Us accounts for about 11% of Mattels annual sales and about 9% of Hasbros.

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Toys R Us operates 881 Toys R Us and Babies R Us stores nationwide, including in Puerto Rico and Guam.

The Los Angeles County stores that are slated to be closed are:

City of Industry: 1600 S. Azusa Ave.

Santa Clarita: 26573 Carl Boyer Drive

Torrance: 20120 Hawthorne Blvd.

West Covina: 960 Lakes Drive

The other Southern California stores slated for closure are:



Brea: 2575 E. Imperial Highway

Brentwood: 5461 Lone Tree Way

Corona: 3665 Grand Oaks

Emeryville: 3938 Horton St.

Fairfield: 1400 Gateway Blvd.

Folsom: 2785 E. Bidwell St.

Fresno: 3520 W. Shaw Ave.

Indio: 42500 Jackson St.

Pinole: 1330 Fitzgerald Drive

Pittsburg: 4505 Century Blvd.

Riverside: 2550 Canyon Springs Parkway S.

San Diego: 8181 Mira Mesa Blvd. and 1240 W. Morena Blvd.

San Jose: 2179 Monterey Hwy. and 865 Blossom Hill Road

San Rafael: 600 Francisco Blvd.

Simi Valley: 1189 Simi Town Center Way

Stockton: 10640 Trinity Parkway

Union City: 31250 Courthouse Drive

Vista: 1990 University Drive

Westminster: 530 Westminster Mall

Yuba City: 700 A Onstott Road

The Associated Press was used in compiling this report.

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samantha.masunaga@latimes.com

Twitter: @smasunagaIn Marvels Black Panther, when King TChalla, played by Chadwick Boseman, calls upon his team of heroes, its not the Avengers who assemble around him but the strong, complex women of Wakanda. They are brave warriors, brilliant scientists, fearless spies and queens. Eighteen films into Marvels blockbuster franchise theyre long overdue, arriving in a Black Panther origin tale that also breaks ground as the first standalone film of the modern Marvel era to be led by a black superhero.

Oscar-nominated actress Angela Bassett plays Queen Ramonda, mother to newly crowned TChalla, who ascends to the throne of the fictional African nation of Wakanda  and inherits the superpowered mantle of Black Panther, protector of his people  after the death of his father in Captain America: Civil War.

In African culture they feel as if there is no king without a queen, and I think this story highlights the queen, the warrior, the general and the young sister, Bassett said Tuesday in Beverly Hills at a press conference for the Feb. 16 release.

ALSO: At the Black Panther premiere, representation is everything

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Seeing black representation portrayed on-screen at the films world premiere on Monday was a powerful experience, she said. I was so proud to have my daughter and my son there last night, because in their faces and in their spirits they were feeling themselves  and they stood taller after last night.

Written and directed by Creed helmer Ryan Coogler (with co-writer Joe Robert Cole), Black Panther also features a strong female presence behind the scenes.

This film had involvement from brilliant women from all over start to finish, said Coogler, who made a point to name several of his female collaborators, including Oscar-nominated cinematographer Rachel Morrison, Oscar-nominated costume designer Ruth E. Carter, production designer Hannah Beachler, first assistant director Lisa Satriano, editor Debbie Berman and Marvel Studios exec Victoria Alonso, who executive produced.

They werent hired because they were women but because they were the best for the job, he said. I was incredibly blessed to have these people and their perspectives, and to have their fingerprints all over it.

1 / 25 Lupita Nyongo, who plays Nakia in Black Panther, at the films world premierein Los Angeles. (Chris Pizzello / Invision/Associated Press) 2 / 25 Chadwick Boseman stars as TChalla in Black Panther. (Chris Pizzello / Invision/Associated Press) 3 / 25 Danai Gurira, who plays Okoye in Black Panther, at the films premiere. (Chris Pizzello / Invision/Associated Press) 4 / 25 Michael B. Jordan (Erik Killmonger) st the world premiere of Black Panther. (Chris Pizzello / Invision/Associated Press) 5 / 25 Black Panther writer-director Ryan Coogler and his wife, Zinzi Evans, at the Los Angeles premiere of the film. (Valerie Macon / AFP/Getty Images) 6 / 25 Angela Bassett, who plays TChallas mother, Ramonda, at the Black Panther premiere. (Chris Pizzello / Invision/Associated Press) 7 / 25 Letitia Wright, who plays Shuri in Black Panther, at the films Los Angeles world premiere. (Jesse Grant / Getty Images) 8 / 25 Actors Daniel Kaluuya, left, Lupita Nyongo and Danai Gurira at the Black Panther world premiere. (Jesse Grant / Getty Images) 9 / 25 Black Panther cinematographer Rachel Morrison, left, and production designer Hannah Beachler at the films Los Angeles world premiere. (Jesse Grant / Getty Images) 10 / 25 Actress Issa Rae at the Black Panther premiere in Los Angeles. (Valerie Macon / AFP/Getty Images) 11 / 25 Actress and recording artist Janelle Monae embraced a royal theme at the purple-carpet premiere of Black Panther. (Valerie Macon / AFP/Getty Images) 12 / 25 Actor and recording artist Donald Glover at the Black Panther world premiere. (Valerie Macon / AFP/Getty Images) 13 / 25 Writer-actor Lena Waithe, center, poses with the Dora Milaje, an all-female team of bodyguards, at the Black Panther premiere. (Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images) 14 / 25 Actress Yara Shahidi at the Black Panther premiere in Los Angeles. (Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images) 15 / 25 Lupita Nyongo, left, Usher and Tessa Thompson at the Los Angeles premiere of Black Panther. (Jesse Grant / Getty Images) 16 / 25 Marvel icon Stan Lee, left, greets the Black Panther himself (actor Chadwick Boseman) at the Black Panther world premiere in Los Angeles. (Valerie Macon / AFP/Getty Images) 17 / 25 Winston Duke, who plays MBaku in Black Panther, at the films Los Angeles premiere. (Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images) 18 / 25 Forest Whitaker, who plays Zuri in Black Panther, at the films world premiere in Los Angeles. (Chris Pizzello / Invision/Associated Press) 19 / 25 Actresses Tessa Thompson, left, Danai Gurira and Janelle Monae at the Black Panther world premiere in Los Angeles. (Jesse Grant / Getty Images ) 20 / 25 Actresses Angela Bassett, left, and Lena Waithe at the Los Angeles premiere of Black Panther. (Jesse Grant / Getty Images) 21 / 25 Martin Freeman, who appears as Everett K. Ross in Black Panther, at the films premiere in Los Angeles. (Chris Pizzello / Invision/Associated Press) 22 / 25 Chadwick Boseman at the Black Panther premiere in Los Angeles. (Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images) 23 / 25 Andy Serkis, who plays Ulysses Klaue in Black Panther, at the films Los Angeles world premiere. (Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images) 24 / 25 Actress Lupita Nyongo at the Black Panther world premiere. (Valerie Macon / AFP/Getty Images) 25 / 25 Writer Emily V. Gordon and writer-actor Kumail Nanjiani at the Black Panther premiere in Los Angeles. (Jesse Grant / Getty Images)

Critics have hailed the breadth and depth of its new-to-the-Marvel Cinematic Universe characters, from Michael B. Jordans compelling villain Erik Killmonger, to Lupita Nyongos principled spy Nakia, to the effervescent Shuri, TChallas brilliant kid sister, played by scene-stealing British actress Letitia Wright.

The Walking Deads Danai Gurira, who lends bold presence to Okoye, head of King TChallas elite team of female bodyguards, said she was floored by Cooglers vision for the women of Wakanda because of how rare strong roles like these are.

Her Okoye, like all members of the Dora Milaje, wears her head shaven and tattooed with traditional markings  and while the initial shock of the characters look took a few days to get used to, a sense of honor followed when her fellow Dora Milaje cast mates followed suit.

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The pride started to grow  the pride around it, and of embracing of this symbol of power in these women, said a beaming Gurira. Her joy, her pride, is in walking with that bald head with that tattoo on it. Its so subversive, and its subversive in the right ways. You dont have to have hair to be beautiful.

ALSO: At the Black Panther premiere, its a regal night of stars and standout looks

Chadwick Boseman, left, and Angela Bassett at the Marvel Studios Black Panther press conference in Beverly Hills. (Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images for Disney )

For Wright, empowerment was similarly written into the character of Shuri, Wakandas resident millennial tech genius. As the Q to Black Panthers James Bond, its Shuri who designs much of the next-gen technology that powers the isolated nation  including deadly weapons powered by the Wakandan metal vibranium that TChalla must prevent from falling into the wrong hands.

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She praised the Black Panther script for positioning the relationship between TChalla and Shuri as one in which the superhero king uplifts and celebrates his sisters abilities.

TChalla is like, Go ahead, this is your department, this is your domain, Wright said. Thats the mentality of a king, and thats brilliant.

Its both freeing and powerful to depict such a range of strong female characters who arent competing with one another to boot, said Nyongo.

What I love about the way this film represents women is that each and every one of us is an individual, unique, she said. We all have our own sense of power and our own agency and we hold our own space without being pitted against each other. And I think thats a very, very powerful message to send to children  both male and female.

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Its an empowering vision.

[We] really get a sense of the fabric of Wakanda as a nation, Nyongo added. We see women alongside men, and we see how much more effective a society can be if they allow women to explore their full potential.

jen.yamato@latimes.com

@jenyamato

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Inside Logics Grammy-nominated suicide prevention video, with Don Cheadle, Matthew Modine and a mission

Helen Mirren welcomes the Times Up movement and the anti-gun vibe of horror film Winchester

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Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya celebrates his mental lead actor nomination but acknowledges the whole teamCathleen Decker is a former politic analyst for the Los Angeles Times who wrote about the Trump administration and the themes, demographics and personalities central to national and state contests. In 2016 she covered her 10th presidential campaign; she has also covered seven races for governor and a host of U.S. Senate and local elections. She directed The Times 2012 presidential campaign coverage. Decker left The Times in 2018.After years of mounting delays and cost increases, the first formal state audit of the California bullet train project was authorized Tuesday by the legislatures joint audit committee.

The decision comes after the rail authority disclosed this month that the cost of building the first 119 miles of track in the Central Valley would cost $10.6 billion, a 77% increase over the original estimate of $6 billion.

For the record: An earlier version of this story wrongly stated that the audit was estimated to require 26,000 hours of work. It is estimated to require 2,600 hours.

The construction work underway is about seven years behind schedule and facing challenges acquiring property, designing safety measures and relocating underground utilities.

State Auditor Elaine Howle last reviewed the project in 2012, reporting a range of problems in management and planning. But she was not tasked for another audit, despite efforts by Republican legislators over the last two years.

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The new request had bipartisan support, introduced by Assemblyman Jim Patterson (R-Fresno), a longtime bullet train critic, and Sen. Jim Beall (D-San Jose), a supporter of the project.

The committee vote was unanimous. But Republicans and Democrats on the panel disagreed on the scope of the audit.

Dante Acosta (R-Santa Clarita) asked that the audit include an assessment of whether the future system could operate without a state subsidy, as required by the 2008 bond act that provided $9 billion. Assemblywoman Catharine Baker (R-Dublin) asked whether the audit would examine the alternative economic benefits of other transportation projects.

Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance), chairman of the committee, suggested that amending the audit request to include those provisions could delay approval of the audit until a future committee meeting. The subsidy issue will be addressed in the rail authoritys upcoming 2018 business plan, Beall noted, which is expected to be released in March.

Opponents of the project say it is likely to need hundreds of millions of dollars to billions of dollars in annual operating subsidies, based on Californias high costs and its projected low fares. But rail authority executives have insisted that their ridership models and business plans show a subsidy would not be required.

Beall reiterated the importance of linking Silicon Valley to the Central Valley in an initial phase of the project, which the rail authority had hoped to complete by 2025 at a cost of $21 billion. But the cost increases and delays have put that plan out of reach unless Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature can find new revenue sources or measures to drastically reduce the cost of construction. The linkage to Southern California will be an even more difficult objective.

In remarks to the committee, rail authority Chairman Dan Richard acknowledged that there have been delays and cost growth. This is an appropriate time for this body to take a snapshot look at how we are doing, he said.

Howle, who sent the committee members a list of tasks that she envisioned for the audit, said at the hearing that the tasks would consume 2,600 hours of work and take about seven months. The cost is estimated at $344,000.

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The audit would examine the rail authoritys contracting practices and procedures, along with how it handles changes to contracts that result in higher prices and how it tracks invoices. In a related task, the audit would examine whether it could move faster and cut costs by cooperating with other transportation or rail agencies.

The audit would also include an evaluation of the projects economic impact on communities. Supporters have made the case that it is directly and indirectly creating thousands of jobs in the Central Valley, helping to drive down chronically high unemployment. Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula (D-Fresno), a member of the committee, blamed lawsuits by the projects opponents for the delays and cost increases.

Howles tasks also include reviewing small and disadvantaged business contracts and the projects compliance with environmental goals.

ralph.vartabedian@latimes.com

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Follow me on Twitter @rvartabedianThree people killed when a helicopter crashed into a home in a gated neighborhood in Newport Beach on Tuesday have been identified, authorities said Wednesday.

Joseph Anthony Tena, 60, of Newport Beach; Kimberly Lynne Watzman, 45, of Santa Monica; and Brian Reichelt, 56, of Hollywood died in the crash, according to the Orange County Sheriffs Department. Two other people were injured, authorities said.

Four people were onboard the Robinson R44 helicopter when it crashed into a home on Shearwater Place near Egret Court in the Bayview Terrace community. Police responded to the crash about 1:50 p.m., officials said.

A pedestrian also was involved, police said. Authorities said Wednesday they could not confirm whether all those killed in the crash were on the helicopter, though a photographer at the scene said the person on the ground appeared to have suffered minor injuries.

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The four-seat copter crashed under unknown circumstances after it departed from John Wayne Airport, according to Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor.

The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash.

Resident Paddi Faubion said she was in her home when she heard a helicopter rotor struggling to turn. The aircraft sounded as though it was losing power, she said. She ran to her balcony and watched as the copter clipped the roof of a neighbors home and slammed into the side of another, sending up a plume of dust.

It was like a train hitting a wall, Faubion said. You just knew something horrible had happened.

Several neighbors rushed to the aircraft to help, and two of them pulled out the pilot, who looked extremely pale, with his mouth bloodied, Faubion said. Fuel spilled from the helicopter onto the street.

A woman was in the kitchen of the home when the helicopter crashed, damaging a bedroom, according to neighbors. No one in the house was hurt.

FAA records show the helicopter was registered to Spitzer Helicopter LLC in Canyon Lake in Riverside County.

Eric Spitzer of Spitzer Helicopter said he leased the R44 to Revolution Aviation, a flight school and touring company at John Wayne Airport.

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Spitzer said that with three passengers aboard, the pilot  a friend of his who owns the aviation company  likely was conducting a tour.

Authorities would not confirm Wednesday who was flying the helicopter.

Revolution Aviation had been leasing the aircraft  one of 85 helicopters in Spitzers fleet  since April 2016 and flew it regularly, he said.

A message left with Revolution Aviation was not returned Tuesday.

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The copter was manufactured in 2003 by Robinson Helicopter Co., based in Torrance. The family-owned companys two-seat R22 and four-seat R44 are popular among flight schools, police departments, sightseeing companies, ranchers and recreational pilots.

Fry writes for Times Community News.An Alhambra man who authorities say fatally beat a housemate and left his bloodied body in the backyard has been charged in the killing.

Heping Gan, 51, was charged with murder on Tuesday and is facing a special allegation that he used a pipe as a weapon during the beating, according to the Los Angeles County district attorneys office.

On Jan. 25, authorities found the body of Jinguo Jiang, 55, behind a house in the 1200 block of South Sierra Vista Avenue in Alhambra. His head was badly bloodied and covered with cardboard, and his body was crammed between a concrete step and a water heater.

Homicide detectives suspect that Gan killed Jiang because he believed Jiang was having an affair with his wife, Lt. John Corina of the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department said Friday.

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Alhambra police were called to the house at about 4:40 p.m. Thursday. Someone had called 911 reporting that a womans body was in the backyard, authorities said.

Jiang was found face-down, and it was difficult to see his face since he was wedged in such a small space. A cardboard box had been placed over his head.

Corina said Gan tried to kill himself nearby after the crime. He survived the suicide attempt and was soon found by investigators.

Gan was taken to a hospital and was in police custody. Corina said detectives spoke with his wife.

Shes upset, he said.

When investigators entered the house last week, they found cramped living quarters. The single-family home had been divided into eight small bedrooms, with three more in the garage.

The house was being rented to people of Chinese descent, four of whom were found at the residence Thursday night, according to the Sheriffs Department. Those residents agreed to be taken to the Alhambra police station to be interviewed with the help of a translator.

Gan has been charged with three other felony counts in connection with a domestic dispute: forcible oral copulation; criminal threats; and injuring a spouse, cohabitant, fiance, boyfriend, girlfriend or childs parent, according to the district attorneys office.

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If convicted as charged, Gan faces a maximum possible punishment of life in state prison.

hailey.branson@latimes.com

Twitter: @haileybransonA man was killed and a teenager was injured in South Los Angeles on Tuesday evening after a construction lift basket hit a power line, leaving it electrified, authorities said.

Shortly before 7 p.m., the 17-year-old boy jumped out of the basket about 15 to 20 feet onto a corrugated metal building, said Amy Bastman, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Fire Department. He was in fair condition.

For almost two hours, authorities were unable to reach a 22-year-old man who was still on the boom because of the live electrical lines.

About 8:40 p.m., the Fire Department said that he died in the lift.

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Its not clear whether the pair were working, but the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health was notified.

The incident was originally reported in the 8600 block of South San Pedro Street. Officials later said it occurred in the 300 block of 87th Place.

alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com

Twitter: @AleneTchek

UPDATES:

9 p.m.: This article was updated with information about a fatality.

This article was originally published at 8:15 p.m.A hiker found a dead body Tuesday morning in Malibu Bluffs Park, authorities said.

Detectives opened an investigation after the call came in about 9:10 a.m., said Los Angeles County Sheriffs Deputy Juanita Navarro.

Based on the condition of the body, investigators were unable to determine the persons identity, gender or cause of death, Navarro said. She would not elaborate.

Coroners officials are working to determine the cause of death.

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alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com

Twitter: @AleneTchekLos Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is on the verge of filling one of the most important posts in the city, one with huge influence over how much money is available for police patrols, street repairs, park programs and other basic services.

In recent weeks, Garcetti has narrowed his search for city administrative officer to two people, both with deep ties to his administration: Rich Llewellyn, who has worked as Garcettis lawyer at City Hall, and Matt Szabo, currently the mayors deputy chief of staff, according to four officials with knowledge of the decision-making process.

Ian Thompson, spokesman for Councilman Paul Krekorian, said his boss and a handful of other council members are scheduled to interview Llewellyn and Szabo on Wednesday afternoon. Three other officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly, also identified Llewellyn and Szabo as the mayors top two picks.

Garcetti plans to make his selection by 5 p.m. Wednesday, which has been described by the mayors staff as the deadline for acting. In the run-up to that announcement, some at City Hall have begun questioning the thoroughness of the recruitment effort.

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Councilman David Ryu, who first called for Garcetti to conduct a national search in 2016, said the process should have been as robust as any effort to recruit a new police chief. He issued a letter Monday asking for more explanation of how the process was conducted.

I have seen no evidence that a comprehensive search was done to find a new city administrative officer, Ryu said in an emailed statement to The Times. This is concerning to me.

Wendy Macy, who heads the citys Personnel Department, said the city received 35 applications for the job, which is currently filled by Llewellyn on an interim basis. Ten of those applications, she said, came from out of state.

Garcetti, for his part, said in an interview that the recruitment process had produced job applicants who know how the city works, and can start on Day One.

Its been very exhaustive, he said, and I know Im very satisfied with the quality of candidates.

Garcetti declined to reveal the number of people he had interviewed for the post, saying only that it was more than one, less than 100. Meanwhile, one high-level analyst at City Hall confirmed that he sought the job and never heard from anyone in Garcettis office.

Ben Ceja, who serves as assistant city administrative officer, said he submitted an application but never received a job interview. Ceja is one of the No. 2 executives in the office.

Llewellyn declined to discuss his situation, referring questions about the search to Garcetti and the Personnel Department. Szabo did not respond Tuesday to requests for comment.

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The job of city administrative officer, or CAO, is little known by the public yet essential to the workings of City Hall.

The CAO is chief negotiator for the employment contracts of an array of city unions, including police, firefighters and civilians. Salaries and benefits contained in those agreements have a huge effect on the citys ability to provide other services.

The CAO also oversees the citys yearly budget, recommending cuts when revenues soften and new spending when times are good. The office also produces policy reports on major city issues, such as efforts to house the citys homeless and reduce the amount of garbage on sidewalks, streets and alleys.

Miguel Santana, who served as CAO for nearly eight years and left the position in January 2017, was also heavily involved in the citys efforts to settle long-standing lawsuits, including big-ticket cases involving broken sidewalks and disabled housing.

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During his tenure, Santana built a reputation as someone willing to give the mayor and council unpopular advice. For example, he drew criticism in 2012 from environmental groups and labor unions for opposing plans for an exclusive trash franchise system for commercial businesses  a program later named RecycLA.

Santana wasnt afraid to contradict the council on issues they cared about, said Jack Humphreville, who serves on the Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates, a panel that examines city spending.

He had the courage of his convictions, he added.

Councilman Joe Buscaino, one of the city lawmakers who will participate in Wednesdays candidate interviews, said he wants the next CAO to be upfront and honest and not sugarcoat any issue.

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Im looking for a candidate who will be truly independent and, quite frankly, wont be afraid to tell the council and the mayor things that we may not want to hear, he said.

Llewellyn has served more than once as a high-level aide to Garcetti. During Garcettis first term as a councilman, Llewellyn served as his chief of staff. Before that, Llewellyn was a top advisor to Garcettis father, former Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti.

Szabo, in turn, has advised Garcetti on labor issues and served as one of the mayors appointees on the Board of Public Works, the only city commission whose members receive a full salary.

In 2013, he ran unsuccessfully to replace Garcetti in a council district that stretches from Echo Park to Hollywood. Szabo also is close to Ana Guerrero, Garcettis chief of staff.

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Times staff writer Emily Alpert Reyes contributed to this report

david.zahniser@latimes.com

Twitter: @DavidZahniserWorkers at Happy Hollow Park and Zoo in San Jose are mourning this week after the city-run facilitys miniature horses and donkey were fatally mauled by dogs that managed to get into their pen, officials said.

The attack took place overnight between Jan. 19 and 20 when three dogs dug under the zoos chain-link fence and entered the property, said zoo Director Valerie Riegel.

At least one of the dogs, a Belgian Malinois-shepherd mix, then dug under the fence that housed the parks four miniature horses and donkey and killed them, she said. A maintenance worker found the dog with the slain animals the following morning.

Employees believe at least two other dogs  another shepherd mix and a terrier-Chihuahua mix that were seen on camera entering the park  may have been involved. The second shepherd mix was found in the area a few days later with a torn rope leash, said park spokeswoman Carolina Camarena. The small dog has not been found.

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Its a total loss, Camarena said Tuesday. Were very devastated.

All the slain animals had been at the park for at least a decade, Riegel said.

From left to right: Spice Girl, Luna and Maybelline, were fatally mauled by at least one dog overnight between Jan. 19 and 20 at a zoo in San Jose. (Courtesy of Happy Hollow Park and Zoo )

The donkey, named Maybelline for her long eyelashes, was 21 years old and born in the park.

The miniature horses were Luna, 23; Spice Girl, 16; Sweet William, 15; and Spice Girl and Sweet Williams offspring, Cayenne, 10.

Its hit everybody very hard obviously, but they still have to carry on and care for the rest of the animals, Riegel said. Its been difficult. So were trying to be very respectful of all our staff and our visitors [and] letting everybody process it in a way thats best for them.

On-site counselors have been at the zoo talking with employees, park officials said.

Since the attack, caretakers have opted to move the animals into barns at night while dig-proof fencing and other security upgrades can be installed, officials said. The zoo property is about 16 acres and houses more than 160 animals.

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As for the dogs, the two that were captured are being held by San Jose Animal Care and Services. No one has stepped forward to claim them, likely because of liability concerns, said Animal Care spokeswoman Julie St. Gregory. The agency is asking anyone who recognizes the dogs and may know who the owners are to call (408) 794-7211.

The Belgian Malinois-shepherd mix, left, was found in the pen where the horses were mauled. The other dog was found in the area and suspected of being involved, officials said. (San Jose Animal Care and Services )

Despite the losses, the zoo has remained open.

To me, the biggest takeaway is to help keep your pets safe by keeping them secure, said Riegel, the zoo director. We all love our animals, and responsible pet ownership is the best thing you can do for the animals you love and all the other animals.

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Attacks on zoo animals in California are not unheard of. In 2016, a mountain lion got into the Los Angeles Zoo in the middle of the night and killed a koala in its pen on the ground instead of protected high in the trees.

joseph.serna@latimes.com

For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter.After federal inspectors uncovered what they reported to be serious hazardous waste violations at the Torrance refinery, the incoming Trump administration chose not to pursue them, dismaying the team that visited the facility.

Now, environmental groups are calling on the Environmental Protection Agencys watchdog office to investigate.

Environment California and the Environmental Integrity Project, a Washington group, filed an official request asking the inspector general to undertake an investigation to determine whether enforcement against this facility was improperly or unreasonably deferred.

A Los Angeles Times story published earlier this month featured one of the inspectors who discovered the violations -- which included hundreds of tons of hazardous waste being improperly stored on the site for 26 years -- expressing concern that politics played a role in the EPA inaction. The agency has refused to comment on its decision not to act on the long list of draft violations its staff drew up.

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The EPA says the investigation is still ongoing, nearly a year after the inspection team filed its report. Instead of issuing the violations suggested, the EPA passed the report on to the state, which has significantly less experience identifying and responding to the type of hazardous waste problems the EPA spotted. The state has yet to take action.

The letter the advocacy groups sent to the agencys inspector general says the EPA inaction is particularly concerning in light of the facilitys history. An explosion at the refinery in 2015 was a serious near miss that could have resulted in a potentially catastrophic release into surrounding communities, according to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board.

evan.halper@latimes.comWhite House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly slammed a Pico Rivera teacher and councilman Wednesday, after hearing remarks the educator made in the classroom disparaging members of the military.

In an interview on Fox News Radio, Kelly, a retired Marine general, listened to Gregory Salcidos rant in an El Rancho High School classroom, where he called members of the military the lowest of our low.

Well, I think the the guy ought to go to hell, Kelly said. I just hope he enjoys the liberties and the lifestyle that we have fought for.

Salcido came under fire after video recordings of his rant were posted on social media. The first local media outlet to report on the recordings was Hews Media Group-Community News.

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Weve got a bunch of dumb  over there, Salcido says in the recording, using a expletive. Think about the people who you know who are over there  your freaking stupid Uncle Louie or whatever  theyre dumb. Theyre not like high-level thinkers, theyre not academic people, theyre not intellectual people. Theyre the freaking lowest of our low.

The diatribe appears to have been in reaction to a student wearing a Marines shirt or sweatshirt.

You better not freaking go, Salcido says in one recording. Dont wear that in here.

The videos of Salcido went viral after they were posted on Twitter and Facebook by a woman who identified herself as a friend of the students mother. The Facebook post has garnered more than 94,000 shares and 23,000 comments.

While presenting his opinion on the quality of the military, Salcido also invoked what appeared to be stereotypes in reference to people in the Middle East and Asia.

We havent been able to beat these guys wearing freaking robes and chanclas [flip-flops] for 15 years, he said. We couldnt beat the Vietnamese  theyre a bunch of people this freaking big throwing rice at us.

Salcido, 49, was in New York with his family over the weekend and was scheduled to meet with colleagues and city staff in Washington to lobby for funds to help repair local dams.

After the news broke, Salcido said he and his wife deemed it appropriate to head home under the circumstances.

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Because of the many vulgar and violent threats against my family I do not have any comment on the situation at this time, Salcido said in an email to The Times over the weekend.

Salcido has been criticized by fellow council members and was put on administrative leave by the El Rancho Unified School District, the Whittier Daily News reported.

This is not the first public incident for Salcido, a longtime teacher at El Rancho High and a graduate of the school.

In 2012, according to local news reports, Salcido was placed on leave for striking a student, an incident he characterized at the time as grossly exaggerated. In 2010, he was reportedly temporarily suspended after a parent complained that Salcido had threatened his daughter and made inappropriate comments in summer school.

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Times staff writer Amina Khan contributed to this report.

brittny.mejia@latimes.com

Twitter: @Brittny_Mejia

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UPDATES:

Feb. 1, 9:05 a.m.: This article was updated to attribute the first report of the recordings to Hews Media Group-Community News.

This article was originally published Jan. 31 at 11 a.m.Residents in a Newport Beach neighborhood where a helicopter crashed Tuesday described the terrifying moments when the chopper fell onto their block, killing three.

Four people on board and one pedestrian were involved in the crash, although it was unclear who among them was killed, said Newport Beach police spokeswoman Jennifer Manzella. The two people who were injured were taken to a hospital and trauma center.

Resident Paddi Faubion said she was in her home when she heard helicopter propellers struggling to turn. The aircraft sounded as though it was losing power, she said. She ran to her balcony and watched as the copter clipped one neighbors roof and slammed into the side of anothers house, sending up a plume of dust.

It was like a train hitting a wall, Faubion said. You just knew something horrible had happened.

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 Edward Fernandez witnessed a helicopter that crashed into a Newport Beach home Tuesday, killing three people and injuring two others, authorities said.

The helicopter damaged a bedroom of the home in the crash. A woman was in the homes kitchen at the time, Faubion said.

She was inconsolable, Faubion said.

Several neighbors rushed to the twisted wreckage, and two of them pulled out the pilot, Faubion said. His mouth was bloodied and he looked extremely pale, she said.

Fuel poured from the helicopter onto the street, according to neighbors.

I just put my hands on the side of the helicopter and prayed, Faubion said.

Newport Beach Mayor Marshall Duffy Duffield, who represents the City Council district that includes Bayview Terrace, said he was informed of the crash by his son, a commercial helicopter pilot. Both were in Duffields office afterward listening intently to radio traffic.

Its quite a tight-knit fraternity, Duffield said of copter pilots.

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The four-seat R44 copter crashed under unknown circumstances about 1:45 p.m. after taking off from John Wayne Airport, said Ian Gregor, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman.

Fry and Davis write for Times Community News.San Francisco will retroactively apply Californias new marijuana legalization laws to prior convictions, expunging or reducing misdemeanors and felonies dating to 1975, the district attorneys office announced Wednesday.

Nearly 5,000 felony marijuana convictions will be reviewed, recalled and resentenced, and more than 3,000 misdemeanors that were sentenced prior to Proposition 64s passage will be dismissed and sealed, Dist. Atty. George Gascon said. The move will clear peoples records of crimes that can be barriers to employment and housing.

San Franciscos move could be the beginning of a larger movement to address old pot convictions, though its still far from clear how many other counties will follow the famously liberal citys lead.

Proposition 64 legalizes, among other things, the possession and purchase of up to an ounce of marijuana and allows individuals to grow up to six plants for personal use. The measure also allows people convicted of marijuana possession crimes eliminated by Proposition 64 to petition the courts to have those convictions expunged from their records as long as the person does not pose a risk to public safety.

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They also can petition to have some crimes reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor, including possession of more than an ounce of marijuana by a person who is 18 or older.

While drug policy on the federal level is going backwards, San Francisco is once again taking the lead to undo the damage that this countrys disastrous, failed drug war has had on our nation and on communities of color in particular, Gascon said in a statement. Long ago we lost our ability to distinguish the dangerous from the nuisance, and it has broken our pocketbooks, the fabric of our communities, and we are no safer for it.

About 75% of San Franciscans voted to legalize marijuana, the highest margin among all of Californias 58 counties. But only 23 petitions for Proposition 64 reduction, dismissal or expungement have been filed over the last year, the district attorneys office said, adding that it does not have any active marijuana prosecutions.

As of September, 4,885 Californians have petitioned the courts to have marijuana convictions expunged or reclassified, but many people dont know about the process, which can be difficult, according to the Drug Policy Alliance, which supported Proposition 64.

So instead of waiting for the community to take action, were taking action for the community, Gascon said.

Gascons announcement came with special resonance in the citys Castro District, a center of efforts to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes in California. One of the biggest advocates of medical marijuana, Dennis Peron, died Saturday at 72 after a battle with cancer; Peron was considered a central figure in promoting the use of marijuana for AIDS patients, and in 1991 he co-founded the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club, the first public marijuana dispensary in the country.

God knows how many convictions Dennis had, said San Francisco Supervisor Jeff Sheehy, who represents the Castro. Had Peron lived longer, hed have had many of his convictions expunged.

Sheehy said Gascons plan takes the burden off those convicted of marijuana-related offenses to ask the court to review their case. People recognize that this really is not a crime, Sheehy said.

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Im totally in favor of that, Paul Greenbaum, 72, said of automatic expungement after he walked out of the Apothecarium, a medical and recreational cannabis dispensary in the Castro. If its not a crime now, whats the sense in continuing to stigmatize people?

Greenbaum said he has been regularly smoking pot since he moved to San Francisco when he was 30 years old.

State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) said there is historical meaning in San Francisco taking this step.

The Castro was so deeply impacted by the AIDS epidemic. So many people were getting sick and dying, and medical cannabis was a lifeline for many people living with AIDS  a way for people to help with the side effects of the medication, to help with nausea, to help improve their appetite, Wiener said.

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Some noted that the district attorneys move could help people with prior convictions improve their livelihoods.

Convictions really can hold you back from getting a good job, said Redding-area resident Tom Savasta, 32, adding that the move would help people become more proactive members of society.

A 2016 study by New Frontier Data, a data analytics firm focused on the cannabis industry, found stark racial disparities in Californias marijuana-related jail population. Black, Latino and white people all consume and sell marijuana at similar rates, the research found, but black Californians are jailed for marijuana-only offenses at much higher rates  nearly one-quarter of people jailed for those offenses are black.

In a statement, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom said San Franciscos move provides new hope and opportunities to Californians, primarily people of color, whose lives were long ago derailed by a costly, broken and racially discriminatory system of marijuana criminalization.

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Gascon said the disparities outlined in the study weighed very heavily in his decision to review peoples convictions.

We know there were tremendous failures in the war on drugs, and we criminalized large sections of our community, he told The Times. The African American and Latino communities were the most harmed by this.

The district attorney said he hopes other counties will follow in San Franciscos footsteps. Some lawmakers have already started to pursue or support similar measures, including state Assemblyman Rob Bonta (D-Oakland), who has proposed legislation that would require criminal convictions for marijuana-related offenses to be automatically expunged, placing the burden on the courts.

Proposition 64 was opposed by many law enforcement groups in California, including the California Police Chiefs Assn., the California District Attorneys Assn., the California Narcotic Officers Assn., the California Peace Officers Assn. and the California State Sheriffs Assn. They expressed concern about the impact of legalization and question whether the state was prepared for all the implications the law would bring.

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In Colorado, where voters legalized pot, prosecutors have been reluctant to erase prior marijuana convictions, said Sam Kamin, professor of marijuana law and policy at the University of Denvers Sturm College of Law.

Often, defendants have pleaded guilty to a lesser crime, and prosecutors do not want to wipe their records clean when they may have committed more severe offenses than marijuana possession, Kamin said.

Eric Shevin, a Los Angeles defense attorney who specializes in marijuana law, said many people dont know they can wipe out their convictions or cant afford a lawyer to help with the process.

Shevin has already done a few hundred Proposition 64 petitions, which require preparing a motion and appearing in court several times. He said that process would go much more quickly with prosecutors taking the lead.

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District attorneys certainly have the right to research their own records and dismiss these cases on their own, en masse, Shevin said. I applaud this D.A. for taking the initiative, and I hope others will follow.

Lin reported from San Francisco; Parvini and Chang from Los Angeles.

sarah.parvini@latimes.com

ron.lin@latimes.com

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cindy.chang@latimes.com

UPDATES:

6:45 p.m.: This article was updated with a quote from Supervisor Jeff Sheehy.

4:40 p.m.: This article was updated with additional quotes and reaction.

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3:40 p.m. This article was updated with quotes from locals and additional information from the district attorney.

2:55 p.m.: This article was updated with information from a study by New Frontier Data.

This article was originally published at 1:55 p.m.A traffic stop on what appeared to be a brown UPS truck Monday evening revealed 77 immigrants stuffed shoulder-to-shoulder inside its hot cargo area, authorities said.

Five children were found traveling among the overheated group of Mexican nationals, who admitted to being in the U.S. illegally, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday in San Diego federal court.

The complaint alleged the following sequence of events:

A California Highway Patrol officer pulled the truck over because the vehicle had no tags and was weaving on Old Highway 80, about a mile west of Tierra Del Sol Road. A U.S. Border Patrol agent patrolling the area in an unmarked car passed by the vehicle stop and asked the officer if hed like assistance.

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When the agent approached the truck, he observed it was riding extremely low and had what appeared to be fresh paint on the rear. He could also smell body odor and what was described as the pungent smell of a soap commonly used in Mexico.

The trucks driver, a U.S. citizen who had been placed in the CHP car, said the truck was his and gave permission to search.

When the agent opened the rear doors, he found dozens of people standing inside, sweating excessively.

In an interview with authorities, the driver, Shawn Lee Seiler, admitted to being a human smuggler who was expecting to transport 50 people that evening, the complaint says. He said he was surprised to learn there were 77 inside.

He told investigators he was to be paid $100 for each immigrant he transported, the complaint alleged.

Seiler was arrested on a charge of transporting unauthorized immigrants for financial gain.

Criminal charges were also lodged against two of the immigrants after records checks found they had prior deportations. The remaining people in the group are being held as material witnesses in the smuggling case.

kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com

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Davis writes for the San Diego Union-TribuneDennis Peron, an activist who was among the first people to argue for the benefits of marijuana for AIDS patients and helped legalize medical pot in California, has died in San Francisco.

Peron, who died Saturday at an area hospital, was 72. His death was announced on his official Facebook page. He had been battling cancer.

A longtime pot activist, Peron was a driving force behind a San Francisco ordinance allowing medical marijuana  a move that later aided the 1996 passage of Proposition 215 that legalized medical use in the entire state.

He argued for the benefits of medicinal marijuana for AIDS patients as the health crisis overtook San Francisco. The Chronicle said the epidemic took the life of his partner, Jonathan West, in 1990.

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San Franciscos Board of Supervisors recognized Peron, suffering with late-stage lung cancer, with a certificate of honor last year. The father of medical marijuana, one supervisor called him in the meeting.

RIP Dennis Peron, compassionate warrior and champion of medical #marijuana. pic.twitter.com/FVrXT2rS37  California NORML (@CaliforniaNORML) January 28, 2018

I came to San Francisco to find love and to change the world, Peron said in reply. I found love, only to lose him through AIDS. We changed the world.

A Vietnam War veteran, Peron spent some of his last years on a farm in Lake County, growing and giving away medical marijuana.

Peron wrote in his 2012 book, Memoirs of Dennis Peron, that he was just a gay kid from Long Island who joined the Air Force to get away from home.

The Chronicle said he then moved to a commune in San Francisco where he befriended Supervisor Harvey Milk and began selling marijuana.

In 1991, Peron founded the first public cannabis dispensary in the country during the height of the U.S. drug war.

He and a friend distributed pot to AIDS patients, got busted several times and was shot in the leg by a police officer, the newspaper said.

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The pot club served 9,000 clients before it was closed by a judge.

The city and the country [have] lost a cannabis leader who lived life on the edge, Terrance Alan, a member of the citys Cannabis Commission, told the Chronicle. He lived his whole life on the edge, and thats what allowed us to lead in cannabis.Ukrainian Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman has pointed out the importance of developing the regional Internet networks for digitalizing the economy and he said that he is ready to consider the issue of compensation to operators and providers for development of broadband Internet in the regions, he said at a meeting with business circles and experts of the digital market in Kyiv on Tuesday.

"I think we need to work together with business here. We have a country with different accessibility or a lack of infrastructure. We involve all players in this market. We define common criteria, and we can say that we can create a fund that can be filled with money for compensation a part of the cost of capital expenditures for the development of the networks. The state can take a part of the expenditure on these solutions," Groysman said.

According to him, local authorities that received additional funds through decentralization can also take part in this project.

"Next week, I am ready to hold a meeting with all the key market players, discuss mechanisms of cooperation and common steps. I am ready to work out this decision very quickly. I think that this year we can make the necessary steps," the prime minister said.

Groysman also pointed out the problem of extra regulation of the Ukrainian legislation on access to infrastructure.

"For example, those issues that could be resolved at the governmental level are regulated by the law in the way that every change requires amendments to the law. This situation needs to be changed, and we are now working on it," the prime minister said.

He also pointed out the problem of access to the facilities of energy companies and said that it should also be resolved as soon as possible.Secretary of State Rex Tillerson leaves Thursday on his first multi-nation trip to Latin America, a weeklong effort to ease tensions and improve relations across a continent that views the Trump administration with increasing suspicion and doubt.

As he marks his first year in office, Tillerson has defied foreign policy veterans who predicted he would be gone by now, a victim of his attempts to trim the budget and staff at the State Department, and of repeated differences with the White House over problems around the globe.

With his trip to Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Colombia and Jamaica, Tillerson will try to convince nervous allies that U.S. foreign policy is deeper and more nuanced than the sometimes hostile rhetoric emerging from the White House.

It was widely noted in the region, for example, that when President Trump reportedly complained to several members of Congress of shithole countries sending immigrants to the U.S., he included El Salvador, thus putting Latin America in the mix.

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Similarly, several Latin American governments have expressed concern over Trumps push to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, which has helped raise living standards in Mexico. Senior Mexican officials have hinted they would withdraw support on other issues, such as fighting drug trafficking and slowing the flow of Central American immigrants to the United States, if NAFTA is scuttled.

There are so many ways that Latin American agendas and [Trumps] agenda are out of step with one another, said Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin American program at the nonpartisan Wilson Center think tank in Washington.

What has kept the U.S.-Mexico relationship from imploding has been a string of lower-profile meetings that Tillerson has held with his Mexican counterpart, Luis Videgaray, and Mexicos equivalent of the homeland security chief, Miguel Angel Osorio Chong.

The State Department, not surprisingly, is promoting Tillersons trip as a chance to improve economic and diplomatic ties to a fast-growing region that has seen a consolidation of democratic reforms and the emergence of business-friendly governments eager to work with Washington.

The secretary is engaging with regional partners on this trip to promote a safe, prosperous, energy-secure and democratic hemisphere, said a senior State Department official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity. We stand with the region as a steady, enduring partner.

It may be a hard sell.

New polling indicates that the popularity of the U.S. government, and Trump especially, has plummeted. A recent survey concerning Trumps first year in office by the Latinobarometro opinion researching firm, based in Chile, showed his approval rating in Latin America is similar to President George W. Bushs at the height of the Iraq war.

The speed at which the popularity [of the U.S. government in Latin America] has declined is dizzying, said Benjamin Gedan, former South America director at the National Security Council under President Obama and now a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

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Not surprisingly, the most precipitous fall occurred in Mexico, which has received the brunt of Trumps wrath. A new Pew Research Center poll finds that favorable opinion of the United States has dropped to about 30%. Partly as a result, a leftist populist with strong anti-American views stands a good chance of winning Mexicos presidential election in July.

According to Latinobarometro, U.S. leaders are losing in popularity to senior officials from China and Europe. China has significantly increased investment and involvement in Latin America, stepping into what Beijing sees as a vacuum left by the United States.

China has said it will invest $250 billion, and double trade with Latin America, according to Sean Miner, a associate director of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington. The relative lack of U.S. leadership in Latin America gives China ... an easier path to strengthen its relationships there, he said.

Still, the U.S. still clearly has friends  or carries a big stick  in the region. When the United Nations General Assembly voted 128 to 9 in December to condemn Trumps decision to recognize Jerusalem as capital of Israel, parts of Latin America stood on the sidelines.

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Honduras and Guatemala, who receive large amounts of U.S. aid, backed Washington in the vote. Mexico, Colombia and Argentina  all countries that Tillerson will visit in coming days  abstained.

Tillerson is likely to receive a warm welcome in Argentina, where he will visit Buenos Aires and the mountain resort of Bariloche. President Mauricio Macri had business dealings with Trump dating to the 1980s, and was one of the first foreign leaders to congratulate the U.S. leader after the 2016 election.

But once in office, the Trump administration raised tariffs on biodiesel fuels, making it prohibitively costly for Argentine producers to export such fuels.

In Bogota, Tillerson is expected to hear pleas from Colombian officials who worry that Washington is again defining relations through the prism of security and narcotics. Coca production has surged following a peace agreement that ended Colombias long civil war, and some U.S. lawmakers say former guerrilla fighters are now engaged in the countrys drug trade.

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As he travels, Tillerson also may get an earful about Trumps attempts to curtail legal immigration, including refugees, and his moves to shrink the diplomatic opening to Cuba begun by Obama. Tillerson will argue that the U.S. must protect its borders and that Cubas communist-led government remains an outlier on human rights and political freedom.

The upcoming undemocratic transition of political authority in Cuba is likely to be raised at multiple stops throughout the secretarys trip, the State Department official said, alluding to President Raul Castros decision to step down later this year and be replaced by a handpicked successor.

The Trump administration has gained regional support for its ever-stricter sanctions on the leftist government of Venezuela, which is battling a humanitarian disaster and political chaos. The sanctions target more than 50 Venezuelan officials and businesses that Washington says are subverting the democratic process.

The White House is expected to seek more sanctions, possibly even a ban on Venezuelan oil exports, following President Nicolas Maduros decision to call snap presidential elections by April 30, a process the U.S. has branded as dishonest.

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tracy.wilkinson@latimes.com

For more on international affairs, follow @TracyKWilkinson on TwitterHawaiis state emergency manager resigned Tuesday after officials said a recent false alarm warning of an incoming missile was triggered by an employee who got confused during an unplanned drill and thought the state was really under attack.

State and federal inquiries into the Jan. 13 incident  in which the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency broadcast a missile-attack warning on residents phones, televisions and radios  concluded that the employee did not accidentally click a wrong button on a confusing computer menu, as officials originally said.

Instead, officials said, the unidentified employee had a history of mishaps and apparently did not hear a message that the missile-attack drill was simply a test.

But blame did not fall entirely on the employee. A preliminary investigation by the Federal Communications Commission attributed the false alarm to both human error and inadequate safeguards, finding that top emergency management officials miscommunicated with one another about their plans for a drill, leaving it to be done without sufficient supervision.

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There were no procedures in place to prevent a single person from mistakenly sending a missile alert to the State of Hawaii, James Wiley, an advisor to the FCC, said in prepared remarks to the commission Tuesday. While such an alert addressed a matter of the utmost gravity, there was no requirement in place for a warning officer to double check with a colleague or get signoff from a supervisor before sending such an alert.

The state official who resigned, Vern Miyagi, oversaw Hawaiis efforts to prepare its alert system over the last year as North Korea undertook missile tests that suggested the nation could strike the U.S.

An night-shift supervisor at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency decided to hold a missile drill during the agencys shift change, in order to see how the agency would respond in a challenging situation.

The supervisor then played a recorded phone call to the agencys employees, pretending to be U.S. Pacific Command, which would normally warn the agency of a missile attack.

The recording began by saying exercise, exercise, exercise, language that is consistent with the beginning of the script for the drill, Wiley said. After that, however, the recording did not follow the Hawaii Emergency Management Agencys standard operating procedures for this drill.

Instead, the recording included language scripted for use in an Emergency Alert System message for an actual live ballistic missile alert. It thus included the sentence this is not a drill. The recording ended by saying again, exercise, exercise, exercise. 

The agencys day-shift warning officer heard this is not a drill, but not exercise, exercise, exercise, according to the statement the officer provided to state officials, while declining to answer their questions.

The officer then issued the real-life alert to the public from the agencys alert software, which told Hawaiians that the alert was not a drill.

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Within minutes, state, federal and local officials confirmed with one another that the alert was a false alarm, according to the federal report. The public was unaware, however, and many Hawaiians raced for shelter as officials were caught unprepared for how to address a false alarm.

The state emergency agency canceled the alert, but its software did not include an all-clear message to the public, leading emergency officials to try to notify the public through other media, including Facebook, Twitter and phone calls to media outlets.

Hawaiis governor was unable to tweet sooner because he had forgotten his Twitter password.

It ultimately took state officials 38 minutes to issue an all-clear alert the same way it had issued the initial false alarm.

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Najm Meshkati, a professor of engineering at USC who studies complex system failures, called the Hawaii false-alarm a classic breakdown in which there is not a very good handover from one shift to another shift and the information falls through the cracks.

Meshkati urged officials to look beyond the individuals failure and to look deeper in the system for bigger structural problems that led to the false alarm.

State emergency officials have since revised their polices so that surprise drills for employees are prescheduled with their supervisors and that two officers are now required in order to send an alert, not just one. The agency also added the ability to send a false-alarm message immediately.

matt.pearce@latimes.com

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Matt Pearce is a national reporter for The Times. Follow him on Twitter at @mattdpearce.

More national headlinesAn Arizona man who sold hundreds of rounds of ammunition to Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock said Wednesday he had no idea Paddock might be planning a mass shooting.

Douglas Haig told CBS This Morning that he sold 720 rounds of ammunition to Paddock weeks before the gunman shot into a music festival crowd on the Las Vegas Strip. I couldnt detect anything wrong with this guy, Haig said. He told me exactly what he wanted. I handed him a box with the ammunition in it, and he paid me and he left.

Haigs name surfaced Tuesday when a Nevada district court judge unsealed more than 300 pages of search warrants and the name was mistakenly not redacted from one of the documents.

The error was caught after the Las Vegas Review-Journal was given an unredacted copy and published Haigs name in a story.

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Haig told the news program he sold Paddock tracer ammunition that leaves a streak of light when fired.

He said he was going to go put on a light show. And I cant remember whether he said for or with his friends, but thats what he did say, Haig said.

Paddock, 64, was staying at the Mandalay Bay on Oct. 1, 2017, and, from his room on the 32nd floor, opened fire on a crowd of more than 20,000 at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival. He killed 58 and wounded hundreds. He then turned a gun on himself.

Investigators have been trying to determine a motive for Paddocks shooting rampage, but few clues have emerged that would answer that question  despite hundreds of pages of search warrants being released in recent weeks and a news conference held by Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo this month.

Lombardo sought to dispel conspiracy theories linked to multiple gunmen or ties to Islamic State and took the unusual step of releasing his agencys preliminary investigative report.

Haig said he was at a loss to explain why Paddock did it.

It was unclear from the CBS interview whether Haig was still a person of interest. He has said he was interviewed by law enforcement shortly after the shooting. The FBI didnt return requests for comment and Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department  which opposed unsealing the search warrants  referred questions to the FBI.

I felt that they were hoping that they could find a connection between myself and Paddock, that would go back showing that I supplied him with most of his ammunition, possibly even some firearms, Haig told CBS. Theyre not gonna find it. I talked to the guy three times.

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The only other person of interest named in search warrants was Paddocks girlfriend, Marilou Danley. But she has cooperated with authorities and said after the shooting she had no idea Paddock was going to commit the crime.

Haig denied the search warrants allegation that he may have conspired with Stephen Paddock to commit murder with a deadly weapon.

Haig told CBS he doesnt blame himself for what Paddock did, and he said he shut down his ammunition business after the tragedy.

Im still racking my brain for what did I miss, he said. Why didnt I pick this up?

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david.montero@latimes.com

Twitter: @davemonteroAuthorities were looking into an additional person of interest following the mass shooting in Las Vegas that killed 58 people and wounded hundreds of others, according to search warrants unsealed by a Nevada judge Tuesday.

Though Stephen Paddock has been identified as the lone gunman in the Oct. 1 massacre, and authorities had been looking at his girlfriend, Marilou Danley, the court mistakenly failed to redact another name from the warrants: Douglas Haig.

That is the name of a Mesa, Ariz., ammunition dealer who runs a website called Specialized Military Ammunition, which touts itself as your source for premium, MILSPEC, tracer and incendiary ammunition in popular military calibers, including ammunition that ignites diesel and kerosene. (Officials have said that Paddock shot at aerial fuel tanks during the attack, although they did not ignite.)

We Will Be Closed Indefinitely, the website said Tuesday. Check back to see if / when we are up and running again.

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While it was not certain that the ammunition dealer was the man named in the warrant, there have been reports that Paddock purchased ammunition from a dealer in Mesa, and Haig told reporters from Newsweek in October that agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives spoke with him after the shooting for about 20 minutes.

I have to think that if it was really, really serious or there was something that they thought I did that was wrong, [the agents] would have been kicking my door down, Haig said at the time. He said he had no link to Paddock. I didnt even know who this guy was.

Calls by the Los Angeles Times to phone numbers identified as Haigs were not returned.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal was the only publication to receive the mistaken document, which identified Haig as a person of interest. Its the first public acknowledgment by law enforcement that a third person had been investigated in relation to the crime.

District Court Judge Elissa Cadish apologized for the error and issued a gag order on any publication of the original document that included the name.

I ordered them redacted and thought they were redacted not only to protect the investigation, but because of concerns about possible danger to this individual, Cadish said. Unfortunately, I think the reality is now that its up online and I dont think there isnt a darn thing I can do to take it off.

Earlier this month a federal judge unsealed more than 300 pages of search warrants and affidavits after the Los Angeles Times and other news organizations sued the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department to make them public.

A police spokesman referred all questions about the ongoing investigation to the FBI. The FBI office in Las Vegas didnt respond to a request for comment.

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For almost four months, little had been released about the investigation, deepening the mystery of the motive behind Paddocks attack on a country music festival from his Mandalay Bay hotel room  the largest mass shooting in U.S. history.

But in recent weeks  along with the unsealed warrants  Las Vegas Sheriff Joe Lombardo held his first news conference since mid-October and took the unusual step of releasing an 81-page preliminary investigative report on the crime.

And on Tuesday, a state judge ordered the release of Paddocks autopsy, which Clark County Coroner John Fudenberg said in a statement had yet to be completed.

Fudenberg announced this month that Paddocks cause of death was suicide.

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The lack of information for months fueled conspiracy theories about the shooting. While the FBI continues to investigate, Lombardo this month dismissed theories about multiple shooters or ties to Islamic State.

There was one shooter in the 1 October massacre, Lombardo said. There was only one person responsible, and that was Stephen Paddock.

The investigative report said that Paddock had planned the attack for months, scouted out various locations that included Boston and downtown Las Vegas, and noted that Paddocks girlfriend, Danley, had said hed been acting distant with her over the year leading up to the shooting and that they were no longer intimate.

The report also said Danley observed Paddock behaving strangely during their stay at Mandalay Bay the month before the attack.

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According to the report, she told investigators that 64-year-old Paddock was constantly looking out the windows of the room, which overlooked the site where the Route 91 Harvest country music festival would take place weeks later.

Through the release of the warrants and the report, the picture of Paddock grew a little clearer, but also seemed to raise more questions. Authorities found child pornography on a seized computer. His doctor was interviewed and said Paddock was odd and showed little emotion. He refused to take an antidepressant and was labeled a germaphobe by Danley.

The warrants released Tuesday noted a perplexing item left in his Mandalay Bay room the night of the shooting: A black vase with Styrofoam inserts and fake flowers he bought at a Wal-Mart in Mesquite.

The investigative report said Paddock had been stockpiling weapons over the course of the year. In the 34 years prior to September 2016, Paddock had purchased 29 firearms. In the next 11 months, he purchased more than 55 firearms and more than 100 accessories, including scopes, cases, bump stocks and ammunition. When police raided the room and discovered him dead with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, they found 23 guns.

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Paddock fired more than 1,100 bullets from his room, and investigators found more than 4,000 rounds of unused ammunition. In his parked car at Mandalay Bay, they found Tannerite, which when struck by a bullet explodes.

The Associated Press, citing an unidentified law enforcement official, reported in October that Paddock bought 1,000 rounds of tracer ammunition in September from a private seller he met at a Phoenix gun show. The official said investigators searching Paddocks hotel room found tracer rounds and a document with the name of the Mesa man who sold him the ammunition.

The website for Haig, the Arizona dealer, says: SMA tracer is always bright ignition and bright tracer; that means it lights right out of the barrel and is easily visible in daylight.

It also says: We only accept orders by phone. This is done to protect the customer. Online shopping carts are best suited for mass production items. Our ammunition is hand made and it takes time to fabricated and load. Speaking to us on the phone also allows questions and establishes what the customer really wants to have our ammunition for.

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Montero reported from Las Vegas and Pearce from Los Angeles.

david.montero@latimes.com

Twitter: @davemontero

UPDATES:

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6:55 p.m.: The article was updated to include information about the ammunition dealer Douglas Haig and details from the search warrants unsealed Tuesday.

The article was originally published at 3:35 p.m.Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. Its Wednesday, Jan. 31, and heres whats happening across California:

TOP STORIES

Second chances

After being convicted of political misconduct, former Pico Rivera Mayor Ron Beilke got hired to a $98,000 job at a public water agency. It lasted about seven days  and ended up costing the water district more than $1 million. Should have he been hired to begin with, given his record? A look at a troubling revolving door. Los Angeles Times

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Problematic plan

California has proposed a new method of lethal injection, but the two drugs that could be used to execute inmates are extremely difficult to obtain. The new protocol, slightly revised from a previous proposal, would allow executioners to use a single infusion of Pentobarbital or Thiopental to put condemned inmates to death. Both drugs are barbiturates. Los Angeles Times

Insurance woes

The typical homeowners insurance policy doesnt cover flood damage, which would include some mudslides. Youd need supplementary coverage for that. But the typical home insurance plan does cover fire-related damage. So the case many Montecito residents will be making  as evacuation orders are finally lifted and people get their first up-close looks at their properties  is that the mudslides wouldnt have happened, or been so severe, if not for the catastrophic Thomas fire. Los Angeles Times

Pot bank?

Californias state treasurer and attorney general will study whether the state should create its own publicly owned bank to serve its now-legal cannabis industry. Los Angeles Times

L.A. STORIES

Key budget official: Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is on the verge of filling one of the most important posts in the city  one that has huge influence over how much money is available for police patrols, street repairs, park programs and an array of other basic services. But some are questioning how thorough the search for city administrative officer was. Los Angeles Times

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Deadly crash: A helicopter with four people onboard crashed into a Newport Beach home, killing three people, authorities said. Los Angeles Times

Pedal power: With sea levels rising and the temperatures getting hotter, Long Beach is trying to cool down. And one way is by pushing bikes. Wired

Its complicated: Food critic Jonathan Gold on the Hearth & Hound, a much-anticipated L.A. restaurant that has been swept up in the #MeToo moment. I had difficulty processing my thoughts about the meal. This was only a week or so after the sexual misconduct allegations against the restaurants co-owner, Ken Friedman. Los Angeles Times

In the LAUSD: Two senior administrators have resigned amid allegations that they tolerated a climate of sexual harassment in the procurement division of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Los Angeles Times

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GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Wedge issue: Democrats are divided on immigration reform, and that is giving Trump and the Republicans an opening. Sacramento Bee

In Santa Rosa: A major milestone in the cleanup from the wine country fires: Debris has been cleared in devastated Coffey Park. The Press Democrat

Changing assumptions: At UC Berkeley, older students  including one who is 70 years old  are banding together. East Bay Times

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Charging forward: California is on pace to exceed its goal of 1.5 million electric cars on the streets by 2025. Los Angeles Times

CRIME AND COURTS

Operation Reclaim and Rebuild: More than 500 criminal arrests were made and 56 people rescued in a statewide human trafficking crackdown. Los Angeles Times

Plus: A man who was in the United States under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, and another man whose DACA protections had expired, were arrested on suspicion of human smuggling in two separate incidents last week. Los Angeles Times

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Unequal treatment? A WalMart in Perris puts certain cosmetics behind a glass case, and one African American woman claims its an act of racism. New York Times

Abuse claims: Inside the ugly sexual abuse battle between former TV co-stars Nicole Eggert and Scott Baio. The Hollywood Reporter

HOMELESSNESS CRISIS

Tough question: One of the biggest challenges is what to do with the homeless who dont want our help. A look at fixing the way we deal with the gravely mentally ill. Los Angeles Times

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Tiffanys and tents: San Francisco is supposed to be one of the richest places on earth. But officials are struggling to explain to tourists about the homelessness and misery on the streets. San Francisco Chronicle

Plus: In Sacramento, librarians become key in helping the homeless. Sacramento Bee

Lawsuit: A nonprofit that advocates for the homeless sued Orange County, hoping to stop officials from clearing an encampment with more than 500 people along the Santa Ana River. Los Angeles Times

CALIFORNIA CULTURE

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Roll out the barrel  or not: A major U.S. beer manufacturers decision to build a giant production plant in Baja Californias desert capital has been cause for much celebration in Gov. Francisco Vega de Lamadrids administration. But not everybody is applauding. Opponents are determined to shut it down, saying the plant will use a large amount of water that should go to local farmers. San Diego Union-Tribune

Off with their heads: Several visitors to Disneyland Resort shared images of animatronic ride characters with their heads dangling from their robotic bodies. CBS Los Angeles

Highflying: Inside the strange world of drone racing. The New Yorker

La Casa Pacifica: Richard Nixons Western White House is up for sale. Price: $63 million. Orange County Register

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Not your fathers Olds: There are a lot of distinct cars in L.A. But this 1973 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight is as cocky as they come  and for good reason. Wall Street Journal

He drives a Tesla, but ...: Apple founder Steve Wozniak is not exactly a huge fan of Elon Musk. The Mercury News

CALIFORNIA ALMANAC

Los Angeles area: sunny and 80. San Diego: sunny and 75. San Francisco area: foggy and 61. Sacramento: partly cloudy and 66. More weather is here.

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AND FINALLY

Todays California memory comes from Mark Koppel:

As a lifelong New Yorker, Ive always been jealous of L.A.s warm winters. Movies would show people shopping for Christmas in little jackets. My jealousy was heightened when I was in L.A. for the first time in winter in January 1986. It was 80 degrees and sunny. Perfect, except for that brown haze and strange burning smell. :) I made it worse by driving right to the beach in Santa Monica. Fortunately, the rest of the week was in the 50s and 60s. Still, it was so beautiful.

If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. Send us an email to let us know what you love or fondly remember about our state. (Please keep your story to 100 words.)

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Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to Benjamin Oreskes and Shelby Grad. Also follow them on Twitter @boreskes and @shelbygrad.President Trump has proved all too often that his word is not to be trusted. He makes promises then reneges, seems to agree to deals but then abruptly changes his mind, holds out hope for the so-called Dreamers and then dashes it against the rocks of anti-immigration orthodoxy.

But ever-optimistic that an old dog can learn a new trick, we took a close look at Trumps first State of the Union speech Tuesday night and found a smattering of proposals that would be good for the nation. Is it foolish to think he was serious? Or that a private consult with nationalist senior advisor Stephen Miller wont change his mind? Who knows, but its certainly worth trying to enact them.

Lets start with paid family leave. Prodded by daughter Ivanka, Trump included six weeks of paid maternity leave in his campaign platform, and expanded it to include new fathers as well as mothers in his proposed budget. The proposal  which relied on states making family leave part of their unemployment insurance programs, funded by a tax on employers  appeared to get no further attention from Trump until Tuesdays speech, when the president touted it again. He could easily find Democratic support to translate the rhetoric into policy.

The president also said he wants Congress to draft a bill that generates at least $1.5 trillion for new infrastructure (up from the $1 trillion investment he campaigned on). But he offered no specifics on what he wants built beyond gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways and waterways, and only a vague suggestion for how to pay for it. He called for combining federal money with state and local resources, something that already is routinely done. He also floated  again  the idea of leveraging private investment.

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Theres a lot of room for skepticism about Trumps infrastructure ambitions; his aim could be to shift infrastructure costs to state and local governments and to give sweetheart deals to private business with taxpayers carrying the risk. All the same, investing more in infrastructure has support across the two major parties, so surely something can move forward.

Trump also pushed for more job training programs and vocational schools  good ideas, although they come with a fraught history. A reinvention might be called for, but it must address the persistent problem that such programs train workers in skills that quickly become outdated in a technology-heavy economy, or that dont match hiring needs where they are located.

Investing more in infrastructure has support across the two major parties, so surely something can move forward.

Similarly, the president endorsed prison reform to help former inmates who have served their time get a second chance at life. Thats a good idea too, but Trump gave no clues about what shape the reform would take. Nor are all members of the administration rowing the same direction on this issue. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions already has moved to undo Obama-era reforms in sentencing, seeking to lengthen prison terms  effectively making it harder for less-serious offenders to reenter society successfully. But more humane and practical approaches to sentencing, better reentry programs and other smart-on-crime changes to the justice system have strong support from Democrats and Republicans alike  well, except for Sessions.

Trumps call to protect citizens of every background, color, religion and creed is a bipartisan interest as well, though the president framed it too narrowly. The government has a responsibility to protect everyone in the country, regardless of status. Leaving aside those living here illegally, does the president not believe he has a responsibility to protect tourists, green card holders or foreign students? The government does not protect minority communities by rolling back federal oversight of misbehaving police departments, which is what Sessions is doing. Trump can work with Democrats to reinstate oversight where needed.

Finally, Trump pledged again to bring down the cost of prescription drugs, an item high on the wish list of voters across the political spectrum. But while candidate Trump called for allowing Americans to import more of their prescription medicines from cheaper foreign suppliers, President Trump has focused mainly on such free-market solutions as cutting the cost of new drug approvals and speeding the availability of generic versions of costly brand-name drugs. His speech Tuesday didnt say how Trump would fix the injustice of high drug prices, so theres no telling whether he actually has a plan and, if so, its one Democrats could embrace. In fact, the president had little concrete to offer about almost everything on the agenda he laid out that night. But Democrats should try to force his hand regardless.

UPDATES:

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2:37 p.m.: This editorial was re-edited for clarity.Remember Soarin Over California? It was a cheesy flight simulator at Disneys California Adventure that took riders above the Mouses version of the Golden State. Napas wineries, Half Domes majesty, Camarillos  whatever, Soarin was California boosterism at its most blatant. The attraction even occasionally blasted quintessential state scents like orange blossoms and ocean mist to further the dream.

I rode it once with a friend, about a decade ago, and enjoyed it. But we agreed that Soarin Over California didnt go far enough. What about Soarin Over Bakersfield? she cracked.

Soarin Over Stockton, I replied.

And we went back and forth, naming cities and regions that the Californian psyche associates with blight and bad vibes. El Centro. Fresno. Richmond. Menifee. The Salton Sea. Cowschwitz, off Interstate 5. Hemet. We hadnt visited most of the areas we named at the time, but we knew enough about their reputations to use them as a punchline  Soarin Over Salinas!  again and again.

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Disney rebranded Soarin Over California as Soarin Around the World in 2016, in the companys eternal attempt to salvage its lesser Anaheim theme park. But I thought about it recently when friends in San Bernardino sent me a viral video that bashed their hometown.

A college student from the city had brought her roommate home for a visit over winter break. They drove down Base Line Street, one of San Berdoos main thoroughfares and one that has seen better days. Within 30 seconds of driving down Baseline, the student wrote on Twitter, we saw 5 prostitutes & 10+ crackheads. To me it was normal, to her it was a whole new world.

Accompanying the tweet was a video (viewed more than 150,000 times) of the girls laughing about what they saw. The student defended her mockery in a subsequent tweet, telling haters, do yall even live in San Bernardino? Cuz if you do, tell me youve never laughed at the crazy [stuff] you see down here!!

San Bernardino  yes, even San Bernardino  has a lot to offer. And its worth publicizing that fact.

Locals know the good and the bad where they live and so can love and hate with authority; theyve earned the right to criticize themselves. But the problem with trash-talking Californias hard-times cities is that the negative too often becomes the dominant narrative.

And  heres my theory  the decline of local news exacerbates the problem.

Community papers and websites are the plankton in the media ecosystem; regional outlets frequently pick up their stuff because they are too lazy or distant to do any original coverage. In turn, even bigger national outlets swoop in to amplify a story. Because local publications often care about highlighting the positive in their towns, this gradual food chain improves the public perceptions of a place. But remove those small-fry chroniclers, and none of the bigger fish bother with the good  and then it becomes all about the bad. Prostitutes. Crackheads. Maybe throw in a few crazy murders.

(Think about that when you read about all the headaches plaguing Southern California newspapers  layoffs, clueless new leadership or outright shutdowns.)

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In 2015, for example, this paper ran a multipart series titled San Bernardino: Broken City, which happened to publish the same month as the terror attack where 14 people were killed. I wrote a personal letter to The Times then-editor that pointed out the package was little more than ghetto porn that did nothing to uplift the lives of residents.

But San Bernardino  yes, even San Bernardino  has a lot to offer. And its worth publicizing that fact.

In my 2012 book, Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, I told the story of San Bernardinos Mitla Cafe, the oldest Mexican restaurant in the Inland Empire. Its delicious hard-shell tacos, served from a historic diner off Route 66, were the inspiration for Glenn Bell to create Taco Bell. After the books release, papers from the San Bernardino Sun to the New York Times retold Mitlas story, which drew more customers.

The good press continues to pay off. A couple of years ago, Mitlas current management  in its fourth generation of the same family  opened a long-shuttered banquet hall they now use for comedy nights and Sunday brunches. They soon will appear in a Netflix special, which will bring even more business, which will allow Mitla to remain in San Bernardinos West Side, hard-hit during the Great Recession but slowly coming back.

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Places like La Jolla and Elk Grove dont need more love. In 2018, lets turn our attention and dollars to spots like San Ysidro and Tracy. Find the businesses and activists who fight for their neighborhoods. Swoop in not only to drop some cash into local coffers but to further anchor our collective California identity.

Or let the city without sin cast the first stone. Some of our wealthier burbs have problems more serious than San Bernardinos. Disturbingly high concentrations of anti-vaxxers live in wealthy South Orange County; the Bel-Air fires started thanks to a homeless encampment near the enclaves. Prostitutes and crackheads? Sounds like a pre-#MeToo Hollywood party to me  and those folks are all rich, rich, rich.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook

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mexicanwithglasses@gmail.com

Twitter: @gustavoArellanoA rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but that logic doesnt apply to immigration-related rhetoric. Political leaders and activists have weaponized specific words in an ongoing battle for the hearts and minds of the American public.

Take chain migration, an academic term that has recently been overlaid with negative connotations.

Chain migration is not the only academic concept or demographic reality manipulated to sound threatening in public discourse about immigration.

Chain migration has, since the 1960s, referred to the process by which migrants from one city or town follow each other to a new destination, possibly in another country. Thanks to chain migration, even low-income families can create or maintain social networks and access a wealth of social capital. Early arrivals support newcomers with a place to stay, resources and information about the local labor market, schools and culture. Chain migration facilitates cultural integration.

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Chain migration happens in part because we allow immigrants into the country on the basis of family ties. (The other common means into the country is employment.) Lest we romanticize family reunification, it entails a great deal of responsibility and not everyone is willing to assist family members by serving as a sponsor. It can take years, even decades for family applications to work their way through the system.

But the slow, deliberate means through which we allow families and communities to stay together doesnt sound particularly threatening to the American way of life. Thats perhaps why, in the Trump era, we hear so much about chain migration.

Imagine if, in early January, President Trump had said: Family reunification is a total disaster that threatens our security and our economy, and provides a gateway for terrorism. That wouldnt have made much sense.

He used the term chain migration for a reason. If uttered in a context already hostile to immigrants, it may evoke unwashed masses invading the country  one person after another in an unbroken chain.

Chain migration is not the only academic concept or demographic reality manipulated to sound threatening in public discourse about immigration.

For example, it is well known that the United States has an aging workforce and a relatively low fertility rate, leading to a demand for immigrant labor. In the last few decades, many of the immigrants responding to that demand have come from Latin America and Asia. Post-1965 immigration policies, moreover, have also led to higher numbers of Latin Americans and Asian Americans, who are generally younger compared with Americans of European descent.

As a result of these trends, demographers project that European Americans will become an increasingly smaller part of the population. Demagogues have latched on to that nugget of information to lament the browning of America,which may trigger fears of displacement and scare white America into wanting to close our borders.

At this point in our history, we should have learned not to fall for rhetoric that collapses processes of change into simple tropes of good and evil.

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Anti-immigration activists have also tried to vilify birthright citizenship through insulting language. The 14th Amendment provision that anyone born on American soil is automatically a citizen is part of what makes the United States exceptional: Being American is not just about blood. But some have demonized the U.S.-born children of non-citizens as anchor babies, as if they were part of some nefarious plot to, say, brown America.

Of course pro-immigration activists bend language to their ends as well. Perhaps the most significant example of late is the term Dreamer, which emerged to counter the rhetoric that immigrants in the country illegally are all criminals who bleed the safety net at the expense of honest natives. Dreamer, used to refer to those brought to this country as children, evokes a young person ready to make positive contributions to society despite his or her lack of documentation.

At this point in our history, we should have learned not to fall for rhetoric that collapses processes of change into simple tropes of good and evil. Instead of obsessing over whos worthy to become an American, whatever that means, we need to refocus the immigration debate on how best to include and integrate newcomers. Inclusivity and integration: the very values on which chain migration is based.

Leo R. Chavez is a professor of anthropology at UC Irvine.

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Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or FacebookHow healthy can the state of any union be when its leader doesnt have the moral authority to address one of the most significant cultural issues roiling his nation?

It wasnt a surprise that President Trump didnt mention the #MeToo movement in his State of the Union speech Tuesday night. The leader of the free world has his own issues with sexual misconduct. About 20 women have accused him of groping or sexual assault over the decades, which he categorically dismisses as fake news. Even so, the now-infamous Access Hollywood recording, in which he boasts about of grabbing women in their crotches and kissing them against their will, would make any acknowledgment of sexual harassment highly suspect and politically tricky, to say the least.

What could Trump have said Tuesday night with any credibility other than: Harvey Weinstein, Al Franken, Garrison Keillor, Mario Batali. And, oh, #MeToo?

Its not likely that Trump would have mentioned the #MeToo movement in his first State of the Union address even without the groping accusations hanging over his head. Republicans dont seem to understand that sexual misconduct is a real problem for working women and even seem unconcerned about misbehavior among their own ranks. Trump and his party went so far as to back Roy Moore, who faced allegations that he molested young teens, last year in a race for U.S. Senate against a moderate Democrat.

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Still, it was disappointing that a topic so important to fully half of the population was conspicuously absent from the chamber of the House of Representatives on Tuesday night. Democrats did at least mention the #MeToo movement in their State of the Union response, delivered by Rep. Joe Kennedy of Massachusetts, who said of Americans: You bravely say, me too. You steadfastly say, black lives matter.

But really: Democrats couldnt find a woman for the job of delivering the rebuttal? There seems to be a lot of that going around.

Kennedy is an eloquent speaker, and he gave a good counter-speech. But it would have been a much more powerful rebuke to Trump and Trumpism if the words had come from a strong woman leader and not another white man.

mariel.garza@latimes.com

Follow me @marielgarzaLATTo the editor: While I support your position that the Dreamers should be legalized and given a path to citizenship in a timely manner, I believe that several of your points about immigration in general should be examined more closely. (This isnt an immigration plan, its a ransom note, editorial, Jan. 26)

You mention that Trump administration nationalists want to cut the flow of people into this country significantly. There are many of us who are not nationalists but also want to limit immigration.

Since immigration is a major driver of population growth in the U.S., we must consider its impact on the environment and our quality of life. The bulldozing of our wild lands, traffic-jammed freeways, housing shortages, pollution and overcrowded recreational facilities are all the result of continued population growth.

You repeat the argument that immigration has made America what it is today. True, but so did the slaughter of Native Americans and the institution of slavery. Occasionally we should reevaluate policies to see whether they still make sense going forward, and we need to have that discussion about immigration now.

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John La Grange, Solana Beach

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To the editor: Your editorial points out the lack of a comprehensive immigration proposal from the governing Republicans.

The GOP has competing immigration constituencies: businesses that want cheap workers without rights, and working citizens who want immigrants out of our country and our job market. Republicans are protecting their business constituency and conning their working constituency.

Trump insults immigrants and publicizes raids that deport a handful of workers, but he fails to penalize businesses that hire undocumented workers, and neither Trump nor the GOP Congress plans to deport or legalize the millions of people here without authorization.

Deporting them would make their jobs available to citizens. Legalizing them, so theyd have rights to equal pay and payment for all hours worked, would level the playing field with citizens. Either would end the gravy train for businesses that underpay illegal workers.

The Republicans are loyal to businesses, not workers.

Bob Gerecke, Claremont

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Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and FacebookA consortium of Canadian companies seeks to support the creation of a joint project with Ukraine to install "green" power units in Luhansk region, which would allow stabilizing supply of electricity in this region, Head of the Verkhovna Rada committee for foreign affairs MP Hanna Hopko has said.

Hopko wrote on her Facebook page on Tuesday that with support of the Canadian government representatives of Canadian companies visited Kyiv and eastern Ukraine.

She said that the arrival of foreign investors in Donbas is also the compelling argument in restoring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine.

"We believe in Luhansk region. Our investment is a reference project to achieve the strategic goal  to show investment opportunities of the region in the renewable energy sphere," Hopko said, citing representatives of Canadian Commercial Corporation and business companies she heard at the meeting.

She said that a top priority project is the creation of a joint venture in Ukraine to support power independence in Luhansk region.

"The initiative we are supporting would allow stabilizing supply of electricity and the operation of power lines in Luhansk region via the implementation of a project on the installation of alternative "green" units," the lawmaker said.

The solution for reconstruction of infrastructure would be presented by the consortium of Canadian companies consisting of S2E Technologies, DAI, GoldLeaf EGF and Capital Hill Group using solarcell arrays made in Canada, Hopko said.To the editor: The president of the United States stood before Congress and peddled his disgusting lie that immigrants are violent criminals and that cutting back on immigration is the only way to protect this country. (In State of Union, Trump calls for unity in hopes of altering a threatening tide, Jan. 30)

President Trump drew a sharp distinction between Americans (by which he presumably means native-born citizens) and Dreamers. He implicitly criticized as somehow being anti-veteran and anti-police those individuals (mostly citizens with a somewhat darker skin tone) who have had the courage to protest against police brutality and murder.

This was not, as your headline put it, a call for unity. And Trump did not, as the lead paragraph of the article proclaimed, try to shed [his] polarizing image. Instead, he doubled down on his dog-whistle bigotry in a campaign speech designed to rile up his base.

Steve Ellis, Los Angeles

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To the editor: One can learn a lot from just watching the Democratic and Republican reactions during the State of the Union speech. Here are some of the noteworthy takeaways:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) will not stand for an appeal for cooperation.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus will not stand for the lowest African American unemployment rate in history. The Democratic Party apparently wont even stand for a strong Detroit. They wont stand for lower drug prices. They wont stand to support victims of the gang MS-13.

And finally, the Democrats will not stand for reasonable immigration reform.

Without cooperation, I think the Democratic Party is playing a dangerous game with the American people. It is a sad day when we are this polarized.

Rick Kern, Incline Village, Nev.

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To the editor: Did the Los Angeles Times reporters watch the same speech as I did? There was no olive branch extended to anyone, only a shameless self-promoting and self-congratulatory campaign speech.

I heard Trump once again disparaging past administrations and misstating the facts. Trump has divided this great country with relish, and his State of the Union speech was truly no call for all Americans to work together.

What I saw was Trump stating that only he knows whats best for the country.

Gary Reyes, Van Nuys

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To the editor: If all his opponents cave and follow the Trump agenda, that will be unity, apparently.

Are we unified in thinking we should expand the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, protect assault weapons and speak of immigrants only as MS-13 killers and not those who work our fields and other hard jobs? Should we increase deficit spending on nuclear and other weapons and add to the millions of people who have lost health insurance under Trump?

Scott McKenzie, La Canada Flintridge

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To the editor: It should come as no surprise that on the same evening as Trumps bizarre and ominous State of the Union address, there was a super blue blood moon total eclipse.

The eclipse was best viewed from California, where the irony would be most appreciated.

Ross Rudel, Los Angeles

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Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and FacebookGavin Newsom releases ad that highlights his push to allow same-sex couples to marry By Phil Willon A new ad from Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom features Phyllis Lyon, who with her partner, Del Martin, received the first marriage license after Newsom vowed to allow same-sex couples to marry when he was mayor of San Francisco in 2004. The current lieutenant governors push for marriage equality thrust him into the national spotlight and he has emphasized that effort to portray himself as a bold, progressive leader. Facebook

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Failed California housing bill was not a bad idea, Gov. Jerry Brown says By Liam Dillon Gov. Jerry Brown (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Earlier this month, high-profile housing legislation that would have allowed for four- to five-story apartments and condominiums near transit stops failed to advance in the state Legislature. But had it reached his desk, would Gov. Jerry Brown have signed it? Maybe. I think that was not a bad idea, Brown said of Senate Bill 827 at a meeting with business leaders from the Bay Area Council on Monday afternoon. The bill, written by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), attracted national attention and a maelstrom of opposition in part because it would have eliminated single-family zoning near transit stops in favor of apartments or condominiums. Brown said that a relative of his who lives in West Portal, a low-density neighborhood in San Francisco, told the governor he was horrified by the bill. Brown also lamented dramatically rising housing costs. He said he bought his first house in Los Angeles in 1973 for $75,000 at a time when his salary as secretary of state was $35,000. Now, he said, buying a house for a little over twice ones annual salary is virtually impossible anywhere in the state. FOR THE RECORD

May 1, 9:32 a.m.: This post originally misstated the year Brown purchased his house as 1970. It was 1973. Facebook

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John Cox begins California barnstorm with the delivery of gas tax repeal signatures By Javier Panzar Gubernatorial candidate John Cox, left, and Assembly candidate Bill Essayli load boxes of signatures for the gas tax repeal initiative. (Francine Orr) GOP gubernatorial candidate John Cox strolled up to the stack of 12 boxes in front of the Los Angeles County registrar-recorders offices in Norwalk on Monday and placed his hands on top of his partys hope for success in 2018. The boxes, stacked four across and three high, contained 211,000 signatures for an initiative to repeal recent increases in Californias gas tax and vehicle fees. Cox says the effort has gathered more than 940,000 signatures from registered voters to put the measure on the ballot  far more than the 585,407 signatures that are required. The aim: to bring out the partys base to the polls this November and help candidates in tough congressional and legislative races down the ticket. A USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll in November found 54.2% of registered voters surveyed said they would repeal the tax and fee hike, but a survey a month earlier by another group said a majority would vote to keep the higher taxes. Cox was flanked by Bill Essayli, a former federal prosecutor who is challenging Democratic Assemblywoman Sabrina Cervantes of Riverside in the June primary. Cervantes voted for the gas tax and Essayli plans to use that vote against her. He even launched his campaign at a 76 gas station in Norco. This is a central issue in my campaign, he said. Cox also submitted signatures in San Diego on Monday and is headed to Bakersfield, Fresno and Sacramento, as well as Shasta and Butte counties in coming days. We are going all across the state, Cox said. The whole state is paying this tax and the whole state wants it gone. Facebook

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All Californians would be able to serve on state boards  even people in the U.S. illegally  under new bill By Jazmine Ulloa Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) State lawmakers on Monday introduced legislation that would allow all Californians to serve on state boards and commissions regardless of immigration status. Senate Bill 174, by Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) and Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo (D-Los Angeles), comes as the state is locked in a broader legal battle with the Trump administration over state immigration laws and his call for mass deportations. Lawmakers point to what they say is the states own discriminatory history as their basis for introducing the legislation. The proposal would amend an 1872 provision that was first adopted to exclude Chinese immigrants and other transient aliens from holding appointed civil positions. At the time, antipathy toward the Chinese had been building in California, though, Chinese immigrants opened hundreds of businesses across the state and would play a critical role in building the transcontinental railroad. The Senate bill would delete the phrase transient aliens from the government code and make clear that any person, regardless of citizenship or immigration status, can hold an appointed civil office if they are at least 18 years old and a resident of the state. That would allow any Californian to serve on hundreds of boards and commissions that advice in an array of policy areas, including farm labor, history and employment development. Californias two million undocumented immigrants are a source of energy for our state, Lara said in a statement. It is shocking to read the words of fear and exclusion that are still in California law but belong in historys trash can. Facebook

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Tony Mendozas fundraising dries up after resignation amid harassment inquiry By Patrick McGreevy Former state Sen. Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia). (Steve Yeater / Associated Press) Political contributions to Tony Mendoza, who resigned from the state Senate under pressure amid sexual harassment allegations, have nearly dried up. New documents he filed with the state in his bid to reclaim the seat he once held show that his support has eroded. As a result, five other candidates for the 32nd District senate seat in the June 5 election have raised more than Mendoza so far this year. With the June 5 election approaching, Mendoza has reported raising just $7,750 in cash from six supporters during the nearly four-month period from Jan. 1 to April 21. Mendoza, a Democrat from Artesia, went on a leave of absence from the Senate Jan. 3 and resigned a month later under the threat of expulsion from colleagues. An investigation ordered by the Senate found a pattern of unwanted flirtatious or sexually suggestive behavior based on testimony from six women. Mendoza has denied wrongdoing. Last year, Mendozas reelection campaign raised $412,600, or an average of about $34,000 per month, from more than 350 supporters. Most of Mendozas 2018 total was contributed by the political arm of the Southern California Pipe Trades District Council 16 on Jan. 22, a month before Mendoza resigned. Mendoza also reported that his campaign loaned $125,000 this year to his legal defense fund. That left him with $446,600 in his campaign account at the end of April. Mendoza is running against eight Democrats and two Republicans. Democrat Bob J. Archuleta, a Pico Rivera city councilman, raised the most, $210,000, during the period. On Monday, Mendoza suffered another setback when the State Legislative Womens Caucus endorsed Democrat Vicky Santana, a member of the Rio Hondo College Board. Facebook

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Newsom and Villaraigosa affairs coming to TV ads in California By Phil Willon An independent political committee backing Republican John Cox for governor released an ad blasting both Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa for their past sexual affairs. The California Deserves Better ad, which was first reported by Politico, criticizes Newsom for having an affair with a woman on his staff in 2005 while he served as mayor of San Francisco. It also goes after Villaraigosa for having an extramarital affair with a television reporter in 2007 while he was mayor of Los Angeles. The ad, which begins airing on Fox stations in the states top media markets Monday, links Newsom and Villaraigosa to the men accused of sexual impropriety in the #MeToo movement, including movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and disgraced Today show veteran Matt Lauer. Powerful men are finally being held to account, punished for inappropriate sexual conduct with women over whom they exercise power, the ad begins. Newsom and Villaraigosa think the rules shouldnt apply to them. The independent campaign committee, called Restore Our Values, already has raised more than $100,000, said Leigh Teece of Emeryville in Northern California, co-founder of the group. Teece, the CEO of a nonprofit that helps line up students with professional mentors, said the campaign will actively support Cox. She called him a true conservative and noted that he supports cutting taxes and opposes Californias sanctuary state policy. John is a business person who has demonstrated integrity, Teece said. Facebook

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Was that Cisneros in the voicemail? Dispute is latest espisode of Democratic infighting in crowded primary races By Christine Mai-Duc Gil Cisneros speaks during a forum at Fullerton College in January. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) With less than five weeks to go before Californias primary, insults and accusations are flying with abandon in the most crowded races Democrats hope to ultimately win. The latest example of this is in the 39th Congressional District, where a half dozen Democrats are vying for a chance to replace Rep. Ed Royce, whos retiring. Its one of several California contests where Democratic leaders are already worried that divisions could ultimately split votes and shut Democrats out of key pickup opportunities. In that race, millionaires Gil Cisneros and Andy Thorburn are going negative  about going negative. Cisneros was recently elevated to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committees Red to Blue program in hopes it would serve as a signal to Democratic activists and donors that his campaign was the most viable. But both Cisneros and Thorburn have poured millions into the race, which promises to be a knock down, drag out fight through June 5. At the center of the latest controversy is a voicemail, allegedly left by Cisneros on Thorburns home answering machine earlier this month. The recording, which the Thorburn campaign turned over to media outlet The Intercept, lasts less than 10 seconds. Hi Andy, its Gil Cisneros. Im gonna go negative on you, a mans voice is heard saying. Cisneros campaign manager Orrin Evans denied the candidate made the call, posting a cease and desist letter to The Intercept on Twitter. The letter, sent by a Cisneros campaign attorney, called the voicemail fabricated and demanded that the story be taken down, calling it defamatory. It gave the publication until 3 p.m. Friday to take down the story before they pursue all legal rights and remedies. An attorney for The Intercept, in a letter to Cisneros, said the publication confirmed with multiple sources familiar with Mr. Cisneros that his voice was on the recording, and that it stands by its reporting. Thorburns camp says it flatly rejects Cisneros denial, and that the timing of a negative website filled with unflattering background on Thorburn, released three days later, suggests it was him. Track the California races that could flip the House According to The Intercepts report, Cisneros campaign manager did not respond to initial inquiries about the voicemail, calling its questions ridiculous. In a follow-up statement Friday, Evans said called the episode a dirty, desperate trick by the Thorburn campaign and said they are readying to pursue legal action for defamation and false light against both him and the publication. It sounded like him to me! said Thorburns wife, Karen, in a statement released by the campaign. She was the one who first heard the voicemail, they said. Thorburn campaign manager Nancy Leeds called Cisneros threats Trump-like tactics and accused the candidate of trying to harass and intimidate anyone who stands in his way. Its not the first time candidates from the same party have clashed in the lead-up to the June 5 primary, and its all but certain to not be the last. Cisneros sued two of his opponents, Thorburn and Sam Jammal, over their ballot descriptions until they had to change them. Earlier this month, Democrat Bryan Caforio asked his opponent, Katie Hill, to sign a pledge rejecting the use of independent expenditure committees, entities that neither of them can legally coordinate with, in the race to unseat Rep. Steve Knight (R-Lancaster). Hill refused and called the attempt hollow and likened it to political theater, while Caforio accused her of empty campaign promises. Facebook

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California Politics Podcast: The money raised in the race for governor hints at a race thats now red hot By John Myers With less than six weeks before election day, the cash raised in the California governors race mirrors the overall dynamics: one major front-runner and a heated race for second place. This weeks podcast episode offers a glimpse into those cash reports and how the Republican field seems more settled in a new statewide poll than the battle between Democrats. We also examine the reasons why a nationally talked-about housing bill in Sacramento was killed by the Democratic authors own allies. Im joined by Times staff writers Melanie Mason and Liam Dillon. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud and Stitcher. Facebook

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L.A. County politician sexually assaulted woman when she was 16, lawsuit claims By Dakota Smith A woman sued an unnamed politician in Los Angeles County on Friday, alleging the man sexually assaulted her when she was a teenager after he gave her an unusual-tasting drink. The politician, identified as John Doe, was in his early 40s and a public figure at the time of the 2007 assault, according to the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. The man is an elected official today and lives in Los Angeles, said attorney Lisa Bloom, who is representing the woman identified in the lawsuit as Jane Doe. Bloom declined to say what branch of government the man represents. Read More Facebook

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Villaraigosa touts his working-class upbringing, accomplishments as mayor in first TV ad By Phil Willon Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa released his first TV ad in the governors race Friday, touting his record and accomplishments as mayor of Los Angeles when up against the economic downturn during the recession. The 30-second television spot opens with a sweeping shot of Los Angeles and cuts to Villaraigosa sitting on a bus. In kindergarten, my sister and I took three buses to get to school. As mayor, I remembered that, Villaraigosa says into the camera. And despite the recession, we built more new schools and rail lines than any city in America, added 200,000 living wage jobs, built 20,000 units of affordable housing and nearly doubled graduation rates. Campaign spokesman Luis Vizcaino said the ad will air statewide over the next week at a cost of approximately $1 million. The commercial will being airing Saturday. Two Democratic rivals in Californias race for governor, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Treasurer John Chiang, also launched ads this week, signaling the biggest ramp-up of the campaign as the June 5 primary approaches. Newsom is the front-runner, while Villaraigosa is battling for second place with Republican John Cox. One recent poll has Villaraigosa trailing both Cox and Republican Assemblyman Travis Allen of Huntington Beach. Chiang has been stuck in the single digits in almost all polling in the race. Last week, an independent expenditure group called Families and Teachers for Antonio Villaraigosa for Governor, funded largely by a trio of wealthy charter school backers, launched a spot in support of the former mayor of Los Angeles. That ad campaign is focused on increasing Villaraigosas chances of coming in second in the June 5 primary and moving on to the general election. Villaraigosas ad, titled Three Buses, emphasizes the struggles he faced growing up in East Los Angeles and addresses one of his central campaign themes  that hes the candidate best suited to help working-class Californians. I know how far a bus can take you, Villaraigosa says in the ad. Facebook

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Sen. Dianne Feinstein wont participate in pre-primary debate By Sarah D. Wire (Tom Williams / CQ Roll Call) California Sen. Dianne Feinstein will not participate in a proposed pre-primary debate because there are too many candidates in the race, her campaign spokesman said Thursday. Political activists with the group Indivisible Los Angeles said they had a venue and date  May 5  reserved for a debate with four of the Senate candidates. But they said if Feinstein does not participate, it will be canceled. Feinstein faces 31 primary opponents in her bid for a fifth full term representing California in the Senate. Feinstein staffers initially said she had a prior commitment on May 5 in San Francisco. When organizers offered to let her campaign pick another date, her campaign said it wasnt fair for the group to invite only some of the candidates when there is such a big field, said Tudor Popescu, volunteer community organizer with Indivisible Los Angeles. The invited candidates, all Democrats, were Feinstein, state Sen. Kevin de Leon, political action committee director Alison Hartson and lawyer Pat Harris. They were selected based on fundraising and poll numbers. There are 11 Republicans, 10 Democrats, nine independents and 2 third-party candidates running for Senate on the June ballot. Indivisible Los Angeles is still hoping Feinstein will pick another date, Popescu said. Feinstein spokesman Jeff Millman pointed to a San Francisco Chronicle endorsement of Feinstein, which indicates that she told the editorial board she would be willing to have a debate ahead of Novembers general election. Senator Feinstein looks forward to debating her opponent in the general election, Millman said in an email. Feinstein holds a substantial lead in both fundraising and in the polls. Front-runners in statewide races have routinely declined to debate their challengers, knowing that its free publicity for candidates who dont have the cash to increase their name recognition on their own. De Leon spokesman Jonathan Underland said the state senator has done candidate forums before, but planned to attend the May 5 debate only if Feinstein did. We basically said well clear his calendar 100%, well clear his calendar if Feinstein shows up, Underland said. Wed love to make it happen, but we want her to be there. Facebook

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NRA, Olympic shooter sue California over its restrictions on ammunition sales By Patrick McGreevy Olympian Kim Rhode is a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by the NRA and its state affiliate against California. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) The National Rifle Assn. and its state affiliate have filed a fourth lawsuit against California over its gun control laws, this time challenging new restrictions on the sale and transfer of ammunition. The NRA and the California Rifle and Pistol Assn. filed a challenge in federal court to a requirement that ammunition sales and transfers be conducted face to face with California firearms dealers or licensed vendors, ending purchases made directly from out-of-state sellers on the internet. The lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California also challenged a requirement starting next year for background checks for people buying ammunition. The lawsuit was filed in the name of Kim Rhode, a six-time Olympic medal-winning shooter, and others. It challenges Californias new ammunition sales restrictions as a violation of the 2nd Amendment and the commerce clause of the United States Constitution. Restrictions on ammunition purchases were included in Proposition 63, approved by voters in 2016, and in bills approved by the Legislature. As a result of these laws, millions of constitutionally protected ammunition transfers are banned in California, Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRAs Institute for Legislative Action, said in a statement. Californias law-abiding gun owners are sick of being treated like criminals and the NRA is proud to assist in this fight. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is running for governor, defended his initiative and vowed to fight the NRA lawsuit. We wrote Proposition 63 on solid legal ground and principle: If youre a felon banned from possessing guns in California, then you should not be able to purchase the ammunition that makes a firearm deadly, Newsom said in a statement. California voters said loudly and clearly that guns and ammunition do not belong in the hands of dangerous individuals  but once again, the NRA has prioritized gun industry profits over the lives of law-abiding Californians. Facebook

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Republicans hope to ride a gas-tax repeal to victory By Patrick McGreevy In a Central Valley barn decked out in red, white and blue, dairyman and state Senate candidate Johnny Tacherra drew cheers from a crowd of fellow farmers when he said he opposes the California Legislatures hike on gas taxes and vehicle fees. I would not have voted for that. It is not the time to be voting on (raising) the gas tax, said Tacherra, a Republican running against Democratic Assemblywoman Anna Caballero, who voted for the tax increase last year. Three hundred miles away the same week, a campaign mailer arrived at homes in Orange County from an Assembly candidate with a message blaring from the cover in bold type: Republican Greg Haskin  tough enough to stand up to Jerry Brown and repeal the gas tax. Read More Facebook

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Treasurer John Chiang launches ad in governors race touting his record as a fiscal steward By Seema Mehta In his first television ad in the governors race, state Treasurer John Chiang touts his record on fiscal issues as California faced the recession. Some thought we were done, Chiang says in a voiceover in the 30-second spot he released Thursday, with images of him standing seriously at a lectern and complimentary headlines about his work as controller and treasurer. But I knew better. I made the tough calls. And brought California back from the brink of financial disaster because you trusted me to manage our economy. Chiangs campaign is spending about $500,000 to air the ad in Los Angeles and San Diego in coming days. That buy is dwarfed by seven-figure purchases for ads supporting Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Newsom is the front-runner, while Villaraigosa is battling for second place with Republican businessman John Cox. Chiang has been mired in the single digits in almost all polling in the race. His ad, called Quiet Storm, tries to portray Chiang as a progressive who is effective and can move policy in Sacramento. Chiang points to his work challenging Wells Fargo before arguing that he could accomplish what doubters say is impossible to improve the states healthcare, housing and schools. I say, we got this, Chiang concludes. Facebook

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Been ignoring the race for California governor? Thats OK, in some ways its just starting By Mark Z. Barabak On a recent trip to Iowa, Eric Garcetti  the mayor of Los Angeles and a possible 2020 White House contestant  raised eyebrows with a bit of exuberant outreach. Los Angeles and Iowa, Garcetti insisted, have a ton in common, and he didnt simply mean both are inhabited by carbon-based life forms needing oxygen to survive. Urban or rural, farmer or fashion plate, all of us harbor the same hopes and dreams, the mayor suggested, and if it wasnt a terribly original thought it also wasnt the most egregious sort of political pandering  like, say, ordering that every home in Los Angeles be powered by Iowa-produced ethanol. Read More Facebook

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California voters should expect to decide on an $8.9-billion water bond in November By Liam Dillon (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) A proposal to borrow $8.9 billion for improvements to Californias water quality systems and watersheds and protection of natural habitats is eligible for the statewide ballot in November, Secretary of State Alex Padilla announced in a press release Wednesday. Padilla said the measure, which is backed by agricultural interests, had exceeded the 365,800 valid signatures it needed to qualify for the general election ballot. The bond measure will appear on the ballot unless proponents withdraw it by June 28, the release said. The bond is one of many voters could decide on in 2018. A $4-billion bond for parks and water infrastructure improvements will appear on the June 5 ballot. State lawmakers approved it last year. Facebook

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They came for Darrell Issa. They stayed with their inflatable chicken, blue wall and signs for political therapy By Christine Mai-Duc (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune) A mother of two turned ringleader of the resistance and more than a hundred of her faithful followers gathered on Tuesday morning outside Rep. Darrell Issas office in a northern San Diego County suburb. Across the street was her foil, a wedding DJ in a red Make American Great Again cap, setting up hefty speakers for an upcoming war of words. For about 65 weeks the deep divide in America played out along this 100-yard stretch of road in Vista. Here, at 10 a.m. every Tuesday, passersby found signs, chants, songs and, if they were lucky, sometimes a 20-foot-tall inflatable chicken with a Trump-esque coif. Theyd also glimpse the state of the body politic in 2018, a time when shock has turned to anger and post-2016 calls for reconciliation have morphed into grudging acceptance that each side might be better off in their respective corners. Or in this case, their sides of the street. On Tuesday, the anti-Issa, anti-Trump contingent fought this particular battle for the last time, declaring it their final protest at the congressmans office. They said they planned to use their energy to knock on doors and get out the vote, with an occasional protest on the side. Their pro-Trump rivals vowed to show up wherever they do. Read More Facebook

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Efforts to regulate bail companies have some unlikely allies: bail agents By Jazmine Ulloa Jane Un, chief executive and founder of Abba Bail Bonds, works with a client. ( Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) In recent years, the seriousness and number of official complaints related to the bail industry in California have significantly increased while bail agents and bounty hunters face limited oversight, putting vulnerable communities at risk of fraud, embezzlement and other forms of victimization. This year, as Gov. Jerry Brown has pledged to work with lawmakers in a push to overhaul how courts assign defendants bail and to better regulate bail agencies, even some who profit from the court practice admit its time for regulation. These bail and bail-recovery agents could become unlikely allies, saying they advocate for change because theyve seen the system abuse the poor. Read More Facebook

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California voters: Get ready for an onslaught of television ads By Seema Mehta After a sleepy campaign, California voters are now being bombarded with television advertisements in the governors race, an onslaught that is expected to ramp up in coming weeks. The ads most frequently seen on television are those promoting Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the front-runner in the race, and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is trying to secure the second spot in the June primary. Newsoms campaign and an outside group backing Villaraigosa are spending seven figures weekly on these efforts, according to filings with the California secretary of states office and a media buyer who asked not to be identified in order to freely discuss the ads. Other gubernatorial candidates are expected to hit the airwaves soon, the media buyer said. State Treasurer John Chiang has reserved a half-million dollars in the coming days in the Los Angeles and San Diego markets, and Villaraigosas campaign has requested availability in at least five of the states biggest TV markets. The GOP candidates in the race, who will be seeking the state Republican Partys endorsement at its convention next weekend, have been much less active. Businessman John Cox in recent weeks has been spending about $90,000 per week, but doubled that this week in Los Angeles and added small buys on KFI-AM radio and cable in markets including Fresno, Bakersfield and Salinas. State Assemblyman Travis Allen of Huntington Beach, who has been scooping up Republican Party endorsements across the state, has yet to make a notable television or radio buy, though he and Cox have received some attention as commentators on Fox News. Facebook

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Republicans ready to turn in signatures for ballot measure to repeal California gas-tax increase By Patrick McGreevy A Chevron gas station in Sacramento shows prices last year. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) Republican activists said Tuesday that they have collected at least 830,000 signatures for an initiative to repeal recent increases in Californias gas tax and vehicle fees, more than enough to qualify the measure for the November ballot. The activists need 585,407 signatures of registered voters to qualify the ballot measure. Because signatures are still being processed and counted by the campaign, backers hope to have 900,000 by the time they begin turning them in to the counties on Friday, according to Carl DeMaio, a former San Diego City Council member and organizer of the drive. The breadth and depth of voter anger over the car and gas tax hikes is just amazing, said DeMaio, who hosts a radio talk show. We are seeing Democrats, independents and Republicans sign the petition and volunteering to carry the petition, people from all walks of life. The initiative targets a law approved in April 2017 by the Legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown that is expected to raise $5.4 billion annually for road and bridge repairs and improvements to mass transit. The money comes from a recent 12-cents-per-gallon increase in the gas tax, a 20-cent increase in the diesel fuel excise tax and a new annual vehicle fee ranging from $25 for cars valued at under $5,000, to $175 for cars worth $60,000 or more. The petition drive raised more than $2 million with significant contributions from the California Republican Party and Republican members of Congress from California, including House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield and Reps. Ken Calvert of Corona and Mimi Walters of Irvine. Republicans hope the issue will help their candidates for office in this years election and hurt Democrats who support the higher taxes. I think this is going to put Democrats in real bad spot, DeMaio said. A spokesman for Brown declined to comment until the signatures are filed. DeMaio said there were approximately 20,000 volunteer petition circulators who brought in more than 250,000 signatures, with the rest collected by paid circulators who received $1 to $2.50 per signature. Its a pretty comfortable margin [of signatures] that we have been able to hit here, DeMaio said. Opposition will grow, he said, as more Californians get their annual vehicle registration notice. The repeal campaign hopes to raise $5 million for the campaign to pass the constitutional amendment, which would not only repeal the increase in the gas tax and vehicle fees but require future increases to be submitted to voters. We know that Gov. Brown and his cohorts are going to spend an amazing amount of money to mislead voters, DeMaio said. But I feel pretty confident that we will repeal the gas tax. Read More Facebook

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Rep. Duncan Hunter sets up trust to raise money for legal expenses amid ongoing criminal investigation By Morgan Cook Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, has filed paperwork to establish a legal expense fund amid an ongoing federal criminal investigation into misused campaign cash. Hunter filed the required paperwork March 27, seeking a rarely granted Legal Expense Fund through which members of Congress under investigation or being sued in connection with doing their jobs or running for office can raise money for their legal expenses. Such funds are administered by an independent trustee and allow donors to give above the maximum amount they can contribute a candidates campaign. Hunter has spent more than $600,000 of campaign money on lawyers. Read More Facebook

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Kamala Harris says she wont take corporate donations anymore By Sarah D. Wire (Jose Luis Magana / Associated Press) California Sen. Kamala Harris says she will no longer accept money from corporate political action committees. In an interview with WWPM-FMs The Breakfast Club, in New York that aired Monday, the senator said she wasnt expecting a question at a town hall this month about whether she would accept money for corporations or corporate lobbyists. At the time, Harris said it depends, but she said on Monday that she had reflected on the matter and changed her mind. Money has had such an outside influence on politics, and especially with the Supreme Court determining Citizens United, which basically means that big corporations can spend unlimited amounts of money influencing a campaign, right? Harris said. Were all supposed to have an equal vote, but money has now really tipped the balance between an individual having equal power in an election to a corporation. So Ive actually made a decision since I had that conversation that Im not going to accept corporate PAC checks. I just  Im not. You can watch the video of the interview here. (Harris corporate money comments come about 30 minutes in.) Harris wouldnt be on the ballot for a second Senate term until 2022, though its widely believed that she is planning a presidential bid in 2020. Other potential 2020 presidential candidates, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), have also ruled out taking corporate PAC money. Soon after Mondays show aired, Harris campaign sent out a fundraising request noting her new stance. As corporate PACs continue to corrupt our politics and twist Congress priorities at your expense, were going to focus on raising money from small-dollar, individual donors like you, the email says. Facebook

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With money tied up in court, California lawmakers try again with new plan to spend $2 billion on homeless housing By Liam Dillon A man sleeps on the sidewalk in front of the Union Rescue Mission in the skid row neighborhood of Los Angeles. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) A measure to spend $2 billion on housing homeless Californians could be on the November statewide ballot. State Sen. Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) is pushing the idea to deal with what he said was a burgeoning humanitarian crisis whose epicenter is here in California. De Leons new measure is a do-over for a 2016 plan passed by the Legislature to redirect $2 billion toward building homeless housing from a voter-approved 1% income tax surcharge on millionaires that funds mental health services. A Sacramento attorney sued over that decision, arguing that the move violated constitutional rules on approving loans without a public vote and that lawmakers shouldnt take money away from mental health treatment. The case remains active in Sacramento Superior Court and its unclear when, or if, the state will be able to spend the $2 billion. De Leons Senate Bill 1206 would put the $2-billion loan on the ballot in November, freeing up the money if voters approve the measure. De Leon said had he been able to predict the 2016 plan would end up in court, he would have sought a ballot measure at the time. We thought this was like apple pie and baseball and puppies, De Leon said. Who would oppose the idea of repurposing the dollars to build immediate housing as a permanent solution for homelessness? Obviously with a crystal ball, had I anticipated the litigation, I would have worked to place it on the ballot. De Leon noted that the 2016 plan had bipartisan supermajority support in the Legislature, something his new bill also will need to get on the ballot. Sen. John Moorlach (R-Costa Mesa) is a coauthor of the plan. SB 1206 is scheduled for its first hearing in the Legislature on Wednesday. Should De Leons measure be approved, it will join a crowded list of housing issues before voters in November. Californians will decide on a separate $4-billion bond to help finance new low-income housing and home loans for veterans. De Leon said hes not worried those two measures will compete against each other because voters are aware of the scale of the states housing problems and the proposed homeless housing bond redirects existing dollars instead of raising taxes. Once [voters] know that the impact on their pocketbook is not existent, Im confident that theyll join me and my colleague John Moorlach in support of this measure, De Leon said. Facebook

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California lawmakers say too many former felons are being denied professional licenses By John Myers Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco) along with supporters of bills to allow more former felons to receive professional licenses. (John Myers/Los Angeles Times) A trio of California Assembly members urged colleagues on Monday to pass legislation that would prohibit state commissions and agencies from rejecting a professional license for those who were once convicted of less serious crimes. We cant say we want to rehabilitate people, and then block them from getting the jobs that they need when theyre released, said Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco). That leads to more recidivism and to more crime. The bills, scheduled to be heard in Assembly committees Tuesday, would ban the use of arrest or conviction records as the reason for denying a professional license. The bill would not apply to Californians who served time for any of the offenses on the states list of violent crimes. The authors, all Democrats, said that a government-issued professional license is required for some 30% of all jobs in the state. Their bills would change the licensing process at the California departments of Consumer Affairs and Social Services and agencies that certify emergency medical technicians. The bills would block prior convictions from leading to the delay or denial of a license unless that crime is directly related to the profession the person intends to pursue. Two of the bills also specifically say convictions less than 5 years old could continue to play a role in licensing decisions. Last year, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law that keeps private sector employers from inquiring about a job applicants conviction history prior to an offer of employment. Advocates joined the lawmakers at a press conference in Sacramento to point out that limits on awarding licenses should focus only on those whose prior criminal activity could pose a threat to consumers. Continuing to hold people back for crimes that are 6, 7, 8, 10, 20 years old does not actually make sense if youre looking at public safety, said Jael Myrick of the East Bay Community Law Center. One of the proposals, Assembly Bill 2293, seeks to make it easier for ex-felons to get a license allowing a job with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection  the same agency that often uses prison inmates to battle blazes around the state. If a person is good enough to risk their life fighting fires for the state of California as an inmate, said Assemblywoman Eloise Gomez Reyes (D-Grand Terrace), their previous actions should not prevent from having a job utilizing the skill set that they learned. Facebook

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Assembly speaker rebukes building trades union after it targets Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia By John Myers ( (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)) The decision by a politically powerful labor group to openly campaign against an embattled Los Angeles-area lawmaker drew a sharp rebuke on Friday from Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon. The Lakewood Democrat lashed out hours after the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California filed paperwork for a political action committee to defeat Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens). Garcia, whos seeking her fourth term, took an unpaid leave of absence in February following allegations of sexual misconduct. She has denied the reports and an Assembly investigation remains underway. Rendon didnt criticize the labor group by name, insisting instead that the decision was driven by oil and gas industry interests. This is a thinly veiled attempt by Big Oil and polluters to intimidate me and my members. It is an affront to my speakership, Rendon said in a statement. We are proud of the work that the Assembly has done to increase jobs and wages while defending our environment. We will vigorously defend the members of our caucus from any ill-advised political attack. A statement from the labor group, which sparred with Garcia last year on her effort to link new climate change policies with a crackdown on air pollution, said it had decided to reverse past support for her. The Trades have thousands of hard working members in Garcias district, and we look forward to lifting up another Democrat in the 58th Assembly to better represent them and their families, said the statement. The political action committees campaign finance filing on Friday listed nonmonetary in kind contributions from Erin Lehane, a public affairs consultant aligned with the building labor group. Lehane said she had begun researching Garcia in November. In January, a former legislative staffer accused her of groping him in 2014. Lehane, who identified herself as a spokesperson for the labor groups political action committee, said on Friday that she believed Garcias hypocrisy threatened a movement that will dictate how much harassment and abuse my daughter will face in her work life. Garcia, who has been an outspoken advocate for women in the #MeToo movement, has complained that her political opponents helped fan the flames of the accusations. Through a campaign consultant, she declined to comment on Friday. Rendons critique came on the heels of a full-page ad in The Times on Friday, partly paid for by the Trades Council, that criticized well-funded ivory tower elites who push proposals that hurt the oil and gas industry. We are the real jobs that fuel the real California economy, read the advertisement. Facebook

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Legal tiff breaks out over independent committees ad backing Antonio Villaraigosa for governor By Phil Willon An attorney representing Gavin Newsoms campaign for governor is demanding that California television stations cease airing an ad by an independent political committee supporting his Democratic rival Antonio Villaraigosa. Attorney Thomas A. Willis, in a letter to the stations, said the ad is false and misleading and violates California law because it uses snippets of video footage from Villaraigosas own campaign ads. Willis called that illegal coordination between the campaign and PAC. Under California law, advertisements made by entities other than a candidate are presumed to be coordinated  and thus not independent expenditures  when the advertisement replicates, reproduces or disseminates substantial parts of a communication, including video footage, created and paid for by the candidate, the letter states. A representative for the independent expenditure committee  Families & Teachers for Antonio Villaraigosa for Governor  fired back. Attorney Brian T. Hildreth says those allegations have no merit and accused the Newsom campaign of being misleading. Hildreth sent a letter to the television stations in response, urging them to ignore the Newsom campaigns accusations. He said the Newsom camp appears to intentionally misrepresent the law and that the video use was permissible. He said only six seconds of video from Villaraigosas campaign ads was used, which is well within the legal limits. The independent committee is sponsored by the group California Charter Schools Assn. Advocates, according to the California secretary of states office. The ad is airing on broadcast and cable stations statewide. The committees ad is focused on Villaraigosas record as Assembly speaker and as mayor of Los Angeles when there was a drop in crime. Facebook

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Governors race snapshot: Californians are generally upbeat but not focused on the campaign By Mark Z. Barabak Armand Werden, a 29-year-old community college student who works the taps at Dust Bowl Brewery in Turlock, said the state is on the upswing. (Phil Willon / Los Angeles Times) As California chooses a new governor  one of just a handful in the last 40 years not named Jerry Brown  the state seems to be enjoying something unusual in these tumultuous political times: a feeling of relative contentment. Not to say things are perfect. Still, more than 100 random interviews conducted over the length and breadth of the state  from Redding in the north to Santee in the south, from the Pacific coastline to the edge of the Sierra Nevada  found most saying things are looking up, at least so far as Californias direction is concerned. Read More Facebook

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Sierra Club backs Gavin Newsom for California governor By Phil Willon Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks with members of the public following a debate at USC in January. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) The Sierra Club endorsed Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom in the race for California governor, with officials in the established environmental group praising the Democrats record on climate change and clean energy. He has a proven record for leading on environmental protection, public health and clean energy, Kathryn Phillips, director of Sierra Club California, said in a statement released by the Newsom campaign. He understands that we are feeling the effects of climate change and that California must reduce carbon emissions and reach 100% renewable energy to achieve our climate goals. Phillips said the Sierra Clubs extensive network of volunteers will campaign for Newsom as the June 5 primary approaches. Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune also praised the Democrat, saying he will protect California from Donald Trumps attacks on our clean air and water. The Sierra Club joins a series of other influential groups in California that have backed Newsom. The California Medical Assn., the powerful state doctors lobby, announced its endorsement of Newsom on Thursday. The California Nurses Assn. and the Service Employees International Union, one of the most powerful labor unions in the state, also support Newsom. Newsom is the races front-runner in polls and fundraising. A poll released earlier this month by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found that 26% of likely voters backed Newsom. John Cox, a Republican from Rancho Santa Fe, was favored by 15% of likely voters and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat, by 13%. Facebook

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Californias GOP House members are taking their challengers more seriously and the numbers show it By Christine Mai-Duc For much of last year, consultants and campaign managers for some of Californias most vulnerable Republican incumbents maintained a bullish tone on the prospect that the GOP would hold the House in this years midterms. The National Republican Congressional Committee insisted that longtime Republican incumbents in California had built up reputations as effective champions of local issues that would help them weather a flood of Democratic enthusiasm. Since then Rep. Ed Royce (R-Fullerton) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) have decided not to seek reelection and the NRCC has opened a West Coast headquarters in Orange County. Read More Facebook

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California officials say Pentagon has confirmed National Guard funding despite Trump threat By John Myers (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) The awkward dance between Gov. Jerry Brown and the federal government over the National Guard jerked back toward discord on Thursday, when Trump said he would refuse to pay for a new deployment of troops  just hours after his administration said otherwise. And a few hours later, California officials said they had received written confirmation from the Pentagon that the mission would indeed be funded. Trump had earlier called Browns decision to approve 400 troops for a mission focused on combating transnational crime and drug smuggling a charade in a tweet. We need border security and action, not words! the president wrote. Governor Jerry Brown announced he will deploy up to 400 National Guard Troops to do nothing. The crime rate in California is high enough, and the Federal Government will not be paying for Governor Browns charade. We need border security and action, not words!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 19, 2018 A spokesman for Brown pointed to a tweet written Wednesday night by Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, thanking the California governor for his efforts. Trump was meeting on Thursday with Nielsen at his Mar-a-Lago estate not long after his tweet was posted. A tweet later posted by the California National Guard said that almost three hours after Trumps comment, the state received written confirmation from the Pentagon to fund the mission as outlined by Brown the day before. In short, nothing has changed today, said a subsequent Guard tweet. Just spoke w @JerryBrownGov about deploying the @USNationalGuard in California. Final details are being worked out but we are looking forward to the support. Thank you Gov Brown!  Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen (@SecNielsen) April 19, 2018 Brown was the last of the nations border governors to respond to Trumps insistence earlier this month that National Guard troops were needed to assist with immigration-related duties at the U.S.-Mexico border. And he has consistently refused to allow California troops to engage in any mission related to federal immigration law. This will not be a mission to build a new wall, Brown wrote last week to Nielsen and Defense Secretary James N. Mattis. It will not be a mission to round up women and children or detain people escaping violence and seeking a better life. Exactly what the California operations will cost remains unclear, as state officials have said it will depend on decisions made once the mission begins. The funds would not be transferred to the state, but instead would be paid directly by the Department of Defense. Trump has critiqued California several times over the past few days, often writing tweets that embrace the actions by some cities and counties to join his administrations lawsuit against the states sanctuary immigration law. He made similar comments to reporters on Thursday afternoon. If you look at whats happening in California with sanctuary cities  people are really going the opposite way, Trump said. They dont want sanctuary cities. Theres a little bit of a revolution going on in California. 2:26 p.m.:This article was updated with additional information from the California National Guard and with remarks from Trump. This article was originally published at 9:51 a.m. Facebook

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Gay conversion therapy services would be banned under measure advancing in California By John Myers (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) The California Assembly voted Thursday to add gay conversion therapy to the states list of deceptive business practices, following a debate that focused on the personal experiences of several lawmakers and hinted at potential lawsuits to come. It is harmful and it is unnecessary, Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell), the bills author and one of the Legislatures most vocal LGBTQ members, said of the practice. Low, who told Assembly members that he explored conversion therapy as a teenager and suffered depression over his sexual orientation, insisted that the bill would be limited to efforts that involve the exchange of money. Theres nothing wrong with me, he said in an emotional speech on the Assembly floor. Theres nothing that needs to be changed. The bill, which now heads to the Senate, has become the focal point of intense debate on social media. Some religious groups have said that such a law would be a violation of their constitutional rights, while advocates insist the provisions are narrow and theres no credible evidence that the services work. One key part of the debate centers on whether Assembly Bill 2943 would stretch beyond businesses that charge for these programs and extend to printed documents, even Bibles. An analysis by the Assembly Judiciary Committee says the bill would apply only to services that purport to change a persons sexual orientation and offered on a commercial basis, as well as the advertising and offering of such services. Lawmakers who spoke in support of AB 2943 also made clear that they believe those kinds of services have been discredited. This is fraudulent, it should not be occurring, said Assemblywoman Susan Eggman (D-Stockton). But you can still try to pray the gay away, if you like. Assemblyman James Gallagher (R-Yuba City), who said the bill addresses a difficult issue, nonetheless said that its important to ensure laws dont tamper with religious freedom. We have to think about the legitimate experience of people who have gone through conversion therapy and said this was a good thing for them, Gallagher told his colleagues. California law already bans the use of conversion therapy by mental health professionals on those under age 18. Lows bill would expand the states efforts beyond minors. It would join a list of commercial activities deemed unfair or deceptive acts or practices and therefore banned under state law. Facebook

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Gavin Newsom gets backing from doctors group, despite differences over single-payer healthcare By Melanie Mason Gavin Newsom speaks at the California Democrats State Convention in San Diego on Feb. 24. (Kent Nishimura) Californias doctors are siding with Gavin Newsom in the governors race, even though they dont see eye-to-eye on a defining issue of the campaign: single-payer healthcare. The California Medical Assn., the state doctors lobby and a political heavyweight, announced its endorsement of the lieutenant governor on Thursday. Gavin is a lifelong champion for health care in California, and we know he will continue to fight for pragmatic solutions to our most crucial health care challenges, including working to achieve universal access and tackling our states physician shortage, CMA President Theodore M. Mazer said in a statement. Newsom has made his support for state-financed healthcare a centerpiece of his campaign, and he earned the early backing of the most ardent single-payer supporters, the state nurses union. The doctors, meanwhile, oppose the nurses bill, SB 562, which emerged as a flashpoint in the healthcare debate last year. The CMA said the bill would dismantle the healthcare marketplace and destabilize Californias economy. Newsom has said SB 562 should advance in the Legislature, but also said it has open-ended issues that still need to be addressed. The doctors group is also battling with another prominent Newsom endorser, the Service Employees International Union, over a new measure that would impose price caps on an array of medical services paid for by commercial health insurers in the state. The SEIU is a leading sponsor of the proposal; the doctors fiercely oppose it. Newsom and the physicians group have a history of political alignment. Newsom was the first statewide official to support Proposition 56, a 2016 tobacco tax pushed by the CMA that raised revenue in part to increase money for doctors who saw Medi-Cal patients. That year, the association also endorsed two initiatives championed by Newsom: Proposition 63, which imposed new gun control measures, and Proposition 64, which legalized recreational marijuana. Facebook

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Independent committee backing Antonio Villaraigosa for governor hits the airwaves with first ad By Phil Willon Antonio Villaraigosa speaks at the 2018 California Democratic Party Convention in San Diego in February.. (Denis Poroy / Associated Press) A well-financed independent committee backing Antonio Villaraigosas bid to be Californias next governor released its first television ad Thursday, praising his record for working with Republicans and as a candidate for all of California. The ad, which is to air statewide on broadcast and cable stations, is focused on Villaraigosas record as Assembly speaker and mayor of Los Angeles, including on education and a drop in crime while he was at City Hall. To move California forward, we need to help more Californians get ahead, the ad says. Thats why Antonio Villaraigosa brought both parties together to balance the state budget with record investments in public schools and new career training programs. The independent expenditure committee behind the ad campaign, Families & Teachers for Antonio Villaraigosa for Governor 2018, is sponsored by the California Charter Schools Assn. Advocates, according to the California secretary of states office. The committee is spending seven figures per week on the ad buy, said Josh Pulliam, a political consultant for the committee. As mayor of Los Angeles, Villaraigosa clashed with teachers unions, starting with his failed attempt to take political control of the Los Angeles Unified School District. His fight with those unions continued after he left office in 2013. Money has poured into the committee this month from wealthy charter schools supporters: Reed Hastings, chief executive of Netflix, donated $7 million, and Los Angeles billionaire and philanthropist Eli Broad donated $1.5 million. On Wednesday, former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan donated $1 million. The independent expenditure committee is expected to provide a boost to Villaraigosas campaign. Democratic front-runner Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom has a major advantage in fundraising over all other candidates in the race and has received the backing of the California Teachers Assn. and other education unions. A recent Public Policy Institute of California poll also showed Villaraigosa lagging in third place in the race, trailing Newsom and Republican businessman John Cox. The candidates who finish in the top two in the June 5 primary will advance to the November general election, regardless of their party affiliation. Facebook

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Gov. Jerry Brown says Trump administration will fund his National Guard mission  without immigration duties By John Myers (Alex Wong / Getty Images) Gov. Jerry Brown formally mobilized 400 California National Guard members Wednesday for transnational crime-fighting duties, thus preventing any effort by President Trump to have the troops focus on immigration enforcement on the Mexican border. The governor announced that federal officials have agreed to fund the plan he announced last week  a mission to combat criminal gangs, human traffickers and illegal firearm and drug smugglers in locations around California, including near the border. The order Brown signed makes clear that the troops will not be allowed to perform a broader set of duties as envisioned by Trumps recent comments. California National Guard service members shall not engage in any direct law enforcement role nor enforce immigration laws, arrest people for immigration law violations, guard people taken into custody for alleged immigration violations, or support immigration law enforcement activities, the order read. The cost of the mission, a spokesman for Brown said, will be paid directly by the federal government. No initial estimate has been made, as the exact amount will depend on exactly how the troops will be used. Though the duties of California Guard members were outlined last week, the state had been waiting for an agreement by federal officials to pay for the operations. Since that time, the president has taken Brown and the state to task over its decision to avoid any immigration-related duties at the border. On Wednesday morning, Trump tweeted, Jerry Brown is trying to back out of the National Guard at the Border, but the people of the State are not happy. Want Security & Safety NOW! There is a Revolution going on in California. Soooo many Sanctuary areas want OUT of this ridiculous, crime infested & breeding concept. Jerry Brown is trying to back out of the National Guard at the Border, but the people of the State are not happy. Want Security & Safety NOW!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 18, 2018 Looks like Jerry Brown and California are not looking for safety and security along their very porous Border. He cannot come to terms for the National Guard to patrol and protect the Border, Trump tweeted Tuesday. There was no immediate reaction from the White House to Browns announcement. On Tuesday, Brown told reporters in Washington that his plan was consistent with a safer border. That sounds to me like fighting crime, the governor said. Trying to catch some desperate mothers and children, or unaccompanied minors coming from Central America, that sounds like something else. The order Brown issued Wednesday after returning from a brief trip to talk climate change in Toronto and to speak to a national trade union and visit with reporters in Washington is set to expire at the end of September. It specifically says no Guard service member may participate in a mission that would exceed the mission scope and limitations related to transnational crime activity. It also says troops cannot help build any new border barrier. 5:27 p.m.: This article was updated with information related to the cost of the Guard mission and Browns trip to Washington. This article was originally published at 5:13 p.m. Facebook

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California bill aims to end practice that keeps workplace misconduct cases out of court By Melanie Mason A California bill would prohibit employers from requiring workers to use private arbitration to settle disputes, a practice that critics say shields improper workplace conduct from public view. The bill by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (D-San Diego) would bar businesses from making employees, when they are hired, waive their future rights to take any harassment, discrimination or other claims to court. Arbitration can be a highly effective dispute resolution method when both parties can choose it freely, when both parties are equal, Gonzalez Fletcher said at a news conference on Wednesday. It is far less successful when the more powerful party forces the other to accept those terms, especially as a condition of employment. Forced arbitration has come under increasing scrutiny since the #MeToo movement, with high-profile figures such as former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson pointing to the practice as shielding workplace abusers from public disclosure because arbitration resolutions often include nondisclosure agreements. Last year, a bipartisan bill was introduced in Congress to end mandatory arbitration in employment agreements. Gonzalez Fletcher said she was pursuing an unusual tool to draw attention to the issue  a subpoena issued by the Legislature to compel testimony from a worker bound by a nondisclosure agreement as a result of arbitration. The Legislature has subpoena power but it is rarely used. The bills sponsors believe lawmakers last issued a subpoena in 2001 while investigating price manipulation by Enron. Gonzalez Fletcher said she has requested Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) to issue the subpoena to require Tara Zoumer, who sued the company WeWork in 2016 for overtime pay, to testify before the Assembly Judiciary Committee next week. Zoumers suit was moved to arbitration and resolved. She is now subject to a nondisclosure agreement and could face a financial penalty for speaking publicly about her case. A spokesman for Rendon said the subpoena request is under consideration. Business groups oppose the bill, AB 3080. The California Chamber of Commerce has dubbed it a job biller, claiming it would dramatically increase legal costs for businesses. Banning such agreements benefits the trial attorneys, not the employer or employee, the group said. The bill must first advance from the Assembly Labor Committee on Wednesday. Facebook

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At least 240 House lawmakers want a vote on immigration. California supporters say they arent ready to force one By Sarah D. Wire Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Turlock), flanked by Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Redlands) and Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) speak about DACA legislation (Bill Clark / CQ Roll Call) Rep. Jeff Denham says at least 240 of the 430 current House members have signed onto his resolution to hold votes on four immigration bills, and he hopes House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and President Trump are paying attention to the show of support. But, the Republican from Turlock and his allies said Wednesday that they are not yet willing to commit to forcing Ryans hand through a little-used procedural move called a discharge petition; they acknowledged theres no guarantee that all of 47 Republicans and 193 Democrats House co-signers will back them up if they try to force the issue. Im sure that it is something that will be discussed in the coming weeks. You should not need a discharge petition. When you can show the overwhelming majority of the House, the support of it, you should not need a discharge petition, but it is something we would talk about in the future, Denham said. It is far too early to talk about next steps. Ryan said last week that he opposes Denhams effort, saying its a waste of time for the House to vote on bills the president might veto. Denhams resolution would prompt debate and votes on four very different immigration bills: one favored by the Trump administration, one preferred by Democrats, one bipartisan proposal and another immigration bill of Ryans choice. Whichever got the most votes would move forward to the Senate. All four bills would help Dreamers to differing degrees and include varying levels of border security or immigration enforcement. For example, the Trump-backed bill would also dramatically reduce legal immigration, while the Democrats would only deal with legal status for Dreamers. Democrats say they dont expect the show of support will sway Ryan. Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairwoman Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.) said Tuesday night she expects Ryan will have to be forced into allowing a vote. It doesnt matter how many signatures we get. We could have every signature, technically, except his, on the floor of the House and... if he doesnt want to, it doesnt happen, Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.) said. Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Redlands), who gathered the Democratic co-sponsors for Denham, also wouldnt give a deadline for House leaders to act, but said the co-sponsors are only willing to wait weeks not months. We do want to give them an opportunity to bring up the rule and to use whatever process they want, Aguilar said. They do have options, but I think they need to understand that we have options too. Facebook

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Billionaire Democratic activist Tom Steyer endorses Kevin de Leon in his insurgent bid against Sen. Dianne Feinstein By Seema Mehta Tom Steyer, left, and California state Sen. Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles). (Getty Images; Los Angeles Times) Billionaire Democratic activist Tom Steyer is endorsing state Sen. Kevin de Leon in his insurgent challenge to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and did not rule out funding an outside effort to boost De Leons chances. I think hes the kind of young progressive that reflects California and would be a very strong advocate for our state nationally, Steyer said in an interview on Tuesday, pointing to De Leons efforts on issues such as immigration, climate change and gun control while he was the state Senate leader. I know him well and hes a friend. We share a lot of values. Steyer, who flirted with running for the Senate seat, did not criticize Feinstein as he has in the past. Sen. Feinstein has been an outstanding public servant who has dedicated the bulk of her adult life to the service of our state and the country, he said. These are two strong, very good Democrats. I just believe Kevin is the true progressive and he reflects something we need representing California going forward. I have nothing bad to say about Dianne Feinstein. I have a lot of good to say about Kevin de Leon. De Leon faces enormous odds as he tries to oust Feinstein, who has served in the Senate for a quarter-century, is well known to the states voters and has daunting leads in polls and fundraising. But De Leon has gained notable endorsements, most recently from the 2.1-million-member California Labor Federation last week. Campaign finance reports released this week show that Feinstein has more than $10 million in the bank, while De Leon has just more than $670,000. Feinstein, a multimillionaire and one of the wealthiest members of the Senate, has already lent her campaign $5 million and could easily write another check. But Steyer, a billionaire former hedge fund manager, could write a larger one. He is among the largest Democratic donors in the nation and has already committed more than $50 million to push for the impeachment of President Trump and to register young voters. He was noncommittal when asked if he would fund an independent expenditure group on behalf of De Leon. I dont have any concrete plans for that, he said. Read More Facebook

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Californias largest pension fund sends next years invoice to state government: $6.3 billion By John Myers The California Public Employees Retirement System building (Max Whittaker / Getty Images) As part of a shift toward less optimistic expectations for investment returns to pay for government worker pensions, board members of the California Public Employees Retirement System voted Tuesday to require an almost $6.3-billion payment from the state budget in the fiscal year that begins on July 1. The action, which could receive final approval on Wednesday, reflects a gradually higher annual contribution to public employee pensions by the state and from local governments across California. In 2016, CalPERS approved a half-percentage point decrease in its official estimate of the long-term investment return on its $353.3-billion portfolio. That shift was designed to happen over several years, in hopes it would lessen the financial shock of shifting more of the costs onto government employers. The highest costs are also, in part, a reflection of increases in the size of the states payroll. The states CalPERS payment will be about $450 million more than the total paid in the current fiscal year and more than double what it was only a decade ago. CalPERS board members voted on Tuesdays staff proposal with little discussion, save for a question about the increase in contributions also required from workers hired after a pension overhaul that took effect in June. It seems like it will be a ding on peoples salaries, said Theresa Taylor, the chairwoman of CalPERS finance committee and a member of SEIU Local 1000, the union that represents some 96,000 state employees. The $6.299-billion payment required from Californias state government must now be factored into the budget crafted by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown in late June. Brown had already assumed a similarly sized payment in his budget proposal unveiled in January. In February, a coalition representing city governments warned about the effects of rising pension costs under the expectations of less money from Wall Street investments. The report issued by the League of California Cities projected an average increase of more than 50% in annual pension payments made by the states largest cities over the next seven years. A CalPERS staff report notes that the net return on all of the funds investments for the fiscal year that ended in July was 11.2%. But expectations on profits over the next 30 years remain significantly more modest, and theres long been a robust debate about how to properly set those future expectations. The lower the rate of projected investment return, the larger the share of pension costs that must be covered by taxpayers and some employees. Overall, CalPERS officials believe the system has assets to cover 71% of its long-term obligations. Facebook

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California warns legal pot sellers not to participate in unlicensed 4/20 events By Patrick McGreevy Marijuana on display at a dispensary in Los Angeles. ( (Frederic J. Brown / AFP/Getty Images)) The state issued a warning Tuesday that businesses holding licenses to sell marijuana could face penalties if they participate in unlicensed temporary events away from their stores, including on Friday, April 20, which has become an annual celebration for counterculture groups. The warning was issued ahead of 4/20 by the state Bureau of Cannabis Control. Since Jan. 1, the bureau has issued more than 700 state licenses to sell marijuana for medical or recreational use. The bureau has issued 47 temporary event licenses to groups that are limited to holding the marijuana celebrations on county fairgrounds that have authorized such events with city approval. Any bureau licensee participating in an unlicensed cannabis event may be subject to disciplinary action, the warning said, adding that lawful participation by bureau licensees in any temporary cannabis event that allows sales and/or consumption is dependent upon issuance of the appropriate licenses from the bureau. While many Californians have been issued medical approval to sell or use marijuana, the law does not allow them to participate in unlicensed events, also referred to as Proposition 215 events after the ballot measure that legalized medical pot two decades ago in the state. Participation in such events may lead to civil penalties for unlicensed commercial cannabis activity, the warning said. Meanwhile, a survey of some 1,000 marijuana users that was released Tuesday by the firm LendEDU found that the average 4/20 participant plans to spend $71 on marijuana to celebrate the unofficial holiday, and about 35% of respondents are planning to take off work Friday. Facebook

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California police groups shift position on officer discipline records, now consider support for making some of them public By Liam Dillon Los Angeles Police Department recruits at a graduation ceremony in April (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) Some major law enforcement groups signaled Tuesday they are willing to support making part of police officer disciplinary records public, a dramatic departure from their past positions. Local and national attention on police shootings and misconduct has led law enforcement organizations to reconsider their blanket opposition to proposals that would give public access to some internal disciplinary investigations of officers. Were going to be open to supporting efforts that would allow for some records to be released, said Ryan Sherman, a lobbyist with the Riverside Sheriffs Assn. Debate over secrecy provisions in officer disciplinary files came during a legislative hearing on Senate Bill 1421 from Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley). Skinners bill, which advanced out of the Senate Public Safety Committee on Tuesday, would require public disclosure of all internal officer shooting investigations and confirmed cases of sexual assault and lying while on duty. Currently, all police discipline information is confidential outside of a courtroom in California, which has some of the nations strictest standards against public disclosure. Unfortunately, the fact that we have such strict restrictions on any access to public records has affected certain communities trust towards our law enforcement, Skinner said during the hearing. Prior to Skinners effort, other have tried to loosen these rules, some of which date back 40 years. Most recently in 2016, a bid by then-Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) failed in a Senate committee. In debate two years ago, no major law enforcement groups indicated they would accept changes to state laws that would make individual internal investigations public, saying they were essential to protect officer privacy and safety. But Tuesday, Sherman and other lobbyists including those representing the states largest police labor organization, signaled they might be willing to entertain changes. They said they were negotiating with Skinner on the bills details. Law enforcement groups still have major concerns about SB 1421 as written. Ed Fishman, an attorney for the Police Officers Research Assn., told legislators that the bill would wrongfully expose police officers who acted within departmental policy to invasions of their privacy. It has unintended consequences that are extreme and will hurt the public, Fishman said. Tuesdays hearing featured testimony from many who have had relatives killed by police officers in recent years advocating for the bill. Senators on the Public Safety Committee also gave public rebukes to law enforcement lobbyists, criticizing them for a lack of diversity and insensitivity to concerns raised by communities of color. I think that you are completely and utterly out of touch with the realities of how those you are representing are perceived by major segments of California, said Sen. Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles). You are not going to be able to continue to lobby your way out of it. The bill faces at least one more committee hearing in the Senate before reaching the floor. It will have to pass both houses of the Legislature by the end of August. Facebook

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Newest member of the California Assembly arrives ready to work on criminal justice issues By John Myers Assemblywoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove prepares for the oath of office from Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon with her husband, Austin Dove. (California Assembly Democrats) Two weeks after winning a Los Angeles special election, the newest member of the California Assembly says she hopes to focus on reforms to the states criminal justice system during her time in Sacramento. Assemblywoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles) took the oath of office on Monday, filling one of three vacant seats representing Los Angeles County in the lower house. The Democrat, a former community college trustee and legislative staffer, thanked her mentors in remarks from the Assembly rostrum. So many women, and in my life so many black women, have paid in giving me the kind of morals and integrity and grit that is required to fight on behalf of people that you know, and people that you dont know, she said. Kamlager-Dove won handily on April 3, receiving 70% of the votes cast in the 54th Assembly District which encompasses communities west of downtown Los Angeles, from Crenshaw to Culver City and as far north as Westwood. She will serve the remaining eight months of the term of former Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, who resigned last year citing health concerns. She has said she hopes to focus her attention on poverty issues and on reform of the states criminal justice system. I think we have an opportunity to really push the needle in terms of how we look at rehabilitation, how we look at incarceration, and how we look at changing the lives oftentimes of poor men and women of color, Kamalager-Dove said on Monday in a video released by Assembly Democrats. Facebook

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Survivors of violent crime raise their voices in California to call for a new approach to criminal justice By Jazmine Ulloa Aaliyah Smith marches with her cousins. (Jazmine Ulloa / Los Angeles Times) Her father, uncle, a cousin and two older brothers. Those are some of the family members 16-year-old Aaliyah Smith has lost to gun violence. Then there are her friends. Jermaine Jackson Jr., 27, was shot and killed in 2016 while he painted over graffiti in San Francisco. Toriano Tito Adger, 18, was shot there a year later at a bus stop. He called Smith, who was nearby, and warned her to run. She made it inside a library moments before the crack of gunfire. Last week, Smith was among hundreds who gathered in Sacramento for annual National Crime Victims Rights Week events, where calls were issued for a new approach to criminal justice and public safety in California, one that puts survivors at the center of policy. But a debate is brewing over what that entails. Read More Facebook

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California expects $14 billion in tax payments this month By John Myers State workers handle income tax returns at the California Franchise Tax Board offices. (Laura Morton / For The Times) Gov. Jerry Browns proposed state budget is built on what taxpayers might find an audacious assumption: almost $14 billion in tax payments in the month of April, an average of $83 million collected per hour on every business day of the month. Most of that money will come from the taxes Californians pay in advance of Tuesday nights filing deadline for income tax returns. If history is any guide, the rate of payment could quadruple by weeks end. While tax rules have shifted some of the payment schedules to other months, April remains a vitally important month to the fiscal health of state government. The state controllers office reports more than 15% of all personal income tax revenues in 2017 were collected in April. In the recession years of a decade ago, tax revenue predictions were frequently off the mark by hundreds of millions of dollars. The last two state budgets have seen significant windfalls of personal income tax revenue, thanks in part both to an improving economy and to the continuation of a temporary surcharge on the wealthiest taxpayers  extended by voters in 2016. In the budget plan he sent to lawmakers in January, Brown projected a $6.1-billion windfall and proposed using a sizable amount to top off Californias rainy-day fund ahead of schedule. The independent Legislative Analysts Office reports that through the end of last week, the months income tax tally stood at $3 billion, slightly ahead of projections. By the end of the current week, a single days total could be almost that large. Lawmakers began reviewing the governors $190.3-billion spending plan during the winter, but few decisions are made until they get a look at Aprils tax revenues. The governor will release a revised plan based on the new data next month; lawmakers are required to send him a completed budget no later than June 15. Facebook

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Feinstein war chest tops $10 million while Kevin de Leon struggles to keep pace By Sarah D. Wire Sen. Dianne Feinstein widened her already-massive fundraising advantage in the run-up to Junes primary, raising twice as much in the first quarter than her strongest Senate challenger has sitting in the bank. Feinstein raised $1.3 million between January and March, bringing her war chest to just over $10 million as Californias U.S. Senate race begins in earnest, according Federal Election Commission reports. Former state Senate leader Kevin De Leon, the best known of the more than 30 people who will appear with Feinstein on the June primary ballot, raised just $575,991 in that same period, bringing his cash on hand to $672,331, according to his quarterly FEC report. Read More Facebook

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Trump has met his match, says Gov. Jerry Brown in promoting climate action on a quick trip to Canada By John Myers (Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press) Gov. Jerry Brown told a Canadian audience Monday that he believes President Trumps efforts to reverse course on climate change policy are a momentary deviation as others in the United States seek limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Thats very temporary, I can assure you, Brown said at a joint event in Toronto with Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne. The governors quick international trip, announced only late last week, comes as Wynnes Liberal Party faces a stiff challenge in Junes election from the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario and its leader, Doug Ford. Critics of Wynnes party have called for Ontario to pull out of the Western Climate Initiative, a cooperative agreement between three Canadian provinces and California on efforts to limit greenhouse gases. Brown sought to link the efforts of Canadian conservatives with Republicans in the United States who oppose existing climate change programs. In contrast, he told the audience, several GOP lawmakers voted last summer to renew Californias cap-and-trade program. I would say to the conservatives of Canada, wake up and see what your friends in California are doing, he said. The Democrat took particular notice of Trumps efforts to shift away from climate change policies from the administration of former President Obama, as well as a push by the Environmental Protection Agency to cancel Californias strict limits on automobile emissions. If Trump tries to change that, well have litigation well beyond his term in office, Brown said while also noting Chinese government efforts to produce more low-emissions vehicles. Between California and China, Trump has met his match. What hes saying is not going to happen. Many of the governors remarks, though, were aimed at the tough political situation in which Wynne finds herself with seven weeks to go before Ontarios parliamentary elections. Dangers abound, but success is right in our hands, Brown said. So dont blow it! Facebook

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California voters are getting to know the states attorney general through his aggressive stance challenging Trump By Patrick McGreevy Less than two months from his first statewide election, California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra has become adept not only at challenging President Trump but at using the bully pulpit of his office to raise his profile with voters. The aggressive effort may help boost the former Los Angeles congressmans chances at winning a full term in office this fall, almost two years after he was appointed to replace Sen. Kamala Harris in 2017. Appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown, Becerra took office as attorney general four days after Trumps inauguration. Thats afforded him an opportunity to get in front of Californians  and potential voters  on an array of issues including immigration, healthcare and the environment. Read More Facebook

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Gov. Jerry Brown forms commission for 2020 census outreach By Melanie Mason In an effort to make sure California has a strong showing in the next national census, Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday established a state commission to prepare outreach for the decennial count. It is vitally important for California to do everything it can to ensure that every Californian is counted in the upcoming census, Brown said in a prepared statement. The commissions formation comes on the heels of a Trump administration plan to ask about citizenship status as a part of the census. State officials fear that such a question, which has not been asked in a census since 1950, could chill participation among California residents. That could result in the state losing billions of dollars in federal funds and a seat in Congress. The 23-member panel, appointed largely by Brown as well as picks by legislative leaders, comes from private- and public-sector backgrounds, including civil rights groups, religious institutions and educational institutions. Facebook

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Garcetti kicks off Iowa visit with 2020 on his mind and a hardhat on his head LA Mayor - and 2020 prospect - Eric Garcetti makes his Iowa debut at the Carpenters Union Training Center. Fearlessly flaunts the never be photographed in head gear/safety glasses rule. pic.twitter.com/14bUOPXMvF  Mark Z. Barabak (@markzbarabak) April 13, 2018 Facebook

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Asm. Rocky Chavez takes the lead in race to replace Issa, while Doug Applegate slips By Joshua Stewart A new poll shows that Republican Assemblyman Rocky Chavez has taken a clear lead over 15 other candidates running to replace Rep. Darrell Issa in Congress and has overtaken Democrat Doug Applegate, the previous frontrunner. In a SurveyUSA poll by 10News and The San Diego Union-Tribune, Chavez, R-Oceanside, has support of 16 percent of likely voters, putting him ahead of Applegate, a lawyer, who was favored by 12 percent of voters and is in second place. The top two vote-getters in June, regardless of party, will proceed to a November runoff election. Competing with Applegate for the No. 2 spot is Democrat Mike Levin, also a lawyer, with support of 9 percent of voters. Several other candidates were right at his heels. Democratic Businessman Paul Kerr and Board of Equalization Member Diane Harkey, R-Dana Point, were tied for fourth at 8 percent each. Read More Facebook

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Pro-Kevin de Leon group launches ad castigating Dianne Feinstein By Seema Mehta A group that is supporting Kevin de Leons bid for the U.S. Senate launched a blistering ad against Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Thursday, questioning her progressive principles and tying her to President Trump. The ad buy from A Progressive California is minuscule  $10,000 to air it in Los Angeles for one day on CNN and MSNBC during programming such as The Rachel Maddow Show, Hardball with Chris Matthews and Anderson Cooper 360. The minute-long ad features news clips about Feinstein not getting the California Democratic Party endorsement earlier this year, as well as footage of Feinstein saying that Trump can be a good president and appearing to share a laugh with Trump. That moment actually came during a White House meeting in the aftermath of the Parkland, Fla., school shooting when the president suggested an assault weapons ban should be included in a bipartisan bill to expand gun background checks. It also features extensive clips of de Leons speech at the state partys convention. De Leon, who just ended his final term as leader of the state Senate, announced last year he would run against fellow Democrat Feinstein as she seeks her fifth full term. Feinsteins longtime political advisor dismissed the ad, noting the size of the buy. Its not really a buy, said Bill Carrick. Ten thousand dollars in cable in L.A. Poof, its gone. Still, he said he planned to have the campaigns lawyers review the ad to see if it violates campaign law that limits what outside groups like A Progressive California can do. Such groups cannot coordinate with campaigns or candidates, and are limited in how much their messages can support a candidate. Ann Ravel, the former chair of the Federal Election Commission and the California Fair Political Practices Commission, said if the ad was in a state race, she is certain that the state commission would open an investigation into potential coordination with de Leons campaign because of the messaging and the types of footage in the ad. But the bipartisan federal commission cant agree on how to enforce the federal regulations, she said. The problem is [outside groups] understand that given the lack of very strong enforcement at the federal level, theres the ability to stretch the law, she said. A spokeswoman for the FEC declined to comment. Dave Jacobson, a spokesman for A Progressive California, disputed the suggestion that the ad violated campaign law. This frivolous allegation shows that Sen. Feinstein is afraid of the public seeing an ad which showcases her own words, that Donald Trump can be a good president, he said. Facebook

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Dispute over money emerges in campaign to repeal Californias gas tax increase By Patrick McGreevy A motorist prepares to gas up her vehicle in San Rafael, Calif., in 2015. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images) A proposed initiative to repeal hikes to Californias gas tax has been caught in the middle of a dispute involving Republican rivals in the governors race. Assemblyman Travis Allen, a Republican candidate for governor, decided in January to drop plans for his own initiative and said he would urge supporters to sign a separate petition being supported by several Republican members of Congress. Then last week, the committee Allen formed to finance his ballot measure reported a $300,000 contribution from PISF Inc., a Novato, Calif., real estate firm. Now, an organizer of the still active Give Voters a Voice committee is urging the Allen committee to immediately donate their funds in support of the ongoing signature gathering efforts. There is only one gas tax repeal measure currently in circulation and that is the measure sponsored by the Give Voters a Voice Committee, said Dave Gilliard, a consultant to the group. PISF Inc., he said, gave to repeal taxes aAllies balk at Trump administration bid to block Chinese firm from cutting-edge telecom markets By David S. Cloud Britain and Germany are balking at the Trump administrations call for a ban on equipment from Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, threatening a global U.S. campaign to thwart Chinas involvement in future mobile networks. Both countries are expected to limit Huawei and other Chinese companies from providing core components including routers. But other types of Chinese equipment for next-generation, high-speed communications could still be installed on British and German networks, officials and analysts say. The U.S. push to ban Huawei has provoked a global dispute in recent weeks, with senior U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo, publicly urging NATO allies in Europe to exclude the company and warning that the United States might limit its military presence in countries that did not do so. Read More Facebook

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Confucius Institutes: Do they improve U.S.-China ties or harbor spies? By Don Lee Hanging red lanterns welcome visitors to the University of Marylands Confucius Institute, the oldest of about 100 Chinese language and cultural centers that have popped up over the last 15 years on American campuses, subsidized by millions of dollars from Chinas central government. But last fall, when four U.S. Senate investigators walked into the Confucius offices in Maryland and spent hours questioning staff, they werent looking for an educational exchange. The committee has been seeking detailed information from the university about the program, including contracts, email exchanges and financial arrangements that school administrators have kept under wraps since it started in 2004. American colleges once viewed these jointly funded institutes as an economical way to expand their language offerings  one that could also bring warmer ties with China and, importantly, an influx of Chinese international students paying full tuition. Read More Facebook

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U.S. policy toward China shifts from engagement to confrontation By David S. Cloud For decades, China had no closer American friend than Dianne Feinstein. As San Francisco mayor in the 1970s, she forged a sister-city relationship with Shanghai, the first between American and Chinese communities. As U.S. senator, she dined with Chinese leaders at Mao Tse-tungs old Beijing residence. And in the 1990s, she championed a trade policy change that opened a floodgate of Western investment into China. Today the Democratic senator sees China as a growing threat, joining a broad array of Trump administration officials, national security strategists and business executives who once favored engagement with Beijing and now advocate a confrontational approach instead. Read More Facebook

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Mnuchins attempt to calm markets backfires as Trump takes another shot at the Federal Reserve By Jim Puzzanghera An attempt by Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin to calm plunging financial markets backfired Monday, further rattling investors with new fears about whether major U.S. banks have enough cash on top of worries about interest rates, political instability in Washington and a slowing global economy. Adding to the volatile mix was a fresh attack on the Federal Reserve by President Trump, who declared that the central bank was the U.S. economys only problem and that it didnt have a feel for the market. The Fed is like a powerful golfer who cant score because he has no touch -- he cant putt! Trump said on Twitter. Read More Facebook

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He speaks to Democratic hearts. But is Beto ORourke a serious White House contender? By Mark Z. Barabak Hes a failed U.S. Senate candidate with an undistinguished congressional record who, for the moment, is a blazing-hot 2020 presidential prospect  despite the fact that he may not run and faces long odds if he does. Beto ORourke suggests the will-he-or-wont-he speculation is something he himself cant quite fathom. I think thats a great question, he responded in a Dallas Morning News interview when asked whether his unsuccessful November Senate bid merited a promotion to the White House. I ask that question myself. Read More Facebook

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Russian disinformation teams targeted Robert S. Mueller III, says report prepared for Senate By Craig Timberg, Tony Romm, Elizabeth Dwoskin Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. (Associated Press) Months after President Trump took office, Russias disinformation teams trained their sites on a new target: special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. Having worked to help get Trump into the White House, they now worked to neutralize the biggest threat to his staying there. The Russian operatives unloaded on Mueller through fake accounts on Facebook, Twitter and beyond, falsely claiming that the former FBI director was corrupt and that the allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election were crackpot conspiracies. One post on Instagram  which emerged as an especially potent weapon in the Russian social media arsenal  claimed that Mueller had worked in the past with radical Islamic groups. Such tactics exemplified how Russian teams ranged nimbly across social media platforms in a shrewd online influence operation aimed squarely at American voters. The effort started earlier than commonly understood and lasted longer while relying on the strengths of different sites to manipulate distinct slices of the electorate, according to a pair of comprehensive new reports prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee and released Monday. Read more Timberg, Romm and Dwoskin report for the Washington Post. Facebook

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President Trump announces Mick Mulvaney as acting White House chief of staff By Associated Press President Trump says budget director Mick Mulvaney will serve as acting chief of staff, replacing John F. Kelly in the new year. I am pleased to announce that Mick Mulvaney, Director of the Office of Management & Budget, will be named Acting White House Chief of Staff, replacing General John Kelly, who has served our Country with distinction. Mick has done an outstanding job while in the Administration....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 14, 2018 Facebook

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It aint over when its over: In Michigan, Wisconsin and elsewhere, losers seek to undermine election results By Mark Z. Barabak Democrat Gavin Newsom has yet to become California governor, but already a candidate for state Republican Party chairman is promoting a recall effort. In Michigan and Wisconsin, GOP lawmakers have rushed through legislation to thwart their incoming Democratic governors and hamper others in the opposing party from doing the jobs voters chose them to do. In Congress, GOP leaders have echoed President Trump and sought to undermine the legitimacy of Democrats strong midterm performance, raising unsubstantiated allegations of fraud and political malfeasance. Read More Facebook

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New CFPB Director Kathy Kraninger says she wont be a puppet of Mick Mulvaney By Jim Puzzanghera On her first full day leading the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Kathy Kraninger said she wont be a puppet of Mick Mulvaney, the controversial acting director whom she replaced in the powerful regulatory position. To underscore that point, the former White House aide said she would even reconsider a Mulvaney action that critics saw as a gratuitous jab at Democrats who championed the agencys creation: changing its name to the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. Kraningers declaration during a meeting with reporters Tuesday addressed one of the main criticisms of her selection. She is considered a protege of Mulvaney, her boss at the White House Office of Management and Budget who has executed a dramatic, industry-friendly shift at the watchdog agency. Read More Facebook

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Trumps pick for chief of staff, Nick Ayers, out of running By Associated Press Nick Ayers, right, with Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, at the funeral service for George H.W. Bush on Dec. 3. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Associated Press) President Trumps top pick to replace John F. Kelly as chief of staff, Nick Ayers, is no longer expected to fill that role. Thats according to a White House official who is not authorized to discuss the personnel issue by name and spoke on condition of anonymity. Ayers is Vice President Mike Pences chief of staff. The official says that Trump and Ayers could not agree on Ayers length of service. The father of young children, Ayers had agreed to serve in an interim capacity though the spring, but Trump wanted a two-year commitment. The official says that Ayers will instead assist the president from outside the administration. Trump announced Saturday that Kelly would be departing the White House around the end of the year. Thank you @realDonaldTrump, @VP, and my great colleagues for the honor to serve our Nation at The White House. I will be departing at the end of the year but will work with the #MAGA team to advance the cause.  #Georgia  Nick Ayers (@nick_ayers) December 9, 2018 Facebook

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U.S. hiring slows to 155,000 jobs, unemployment rate holds at 3.7% By Jim Puzzanghera Job growth slowed significantly in November but still was solid, indicating the economy remains in good shape but not expanding so quickly that it will lead to sharply higher interest rates. U.S. employers added 155,000 jobs last month, well below analyst expectations and a steep decline from Octobers strong 237,000 figure, the Labor Department reported Friday. Still, monthly job gains are averaging 206,000 this year, the best since 2015. Even the slower pace of 170,000 over the last three months is close to last years average of 182,000 and well above the amount needed to keep up with population growth. Read More Facebook

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Trump is expected to pick State Department spokeswoman for U.N. ambassador By Associated Press Heather Nauert at a briefing at the State Department on Aug. 9, 2017. (Alex Brandon / Associated Press) President Trump is expected to nominate State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Two administration officials confirmed Trumps plans. A Republican congressional aide said the president was expected to announce his decision by tweet on Friday morning. The officials were not authorized to speak publicly before Trumps announcement. Trump has previously said Nauert was under serious consideration to replace Nikki Haley, who announced in October that she would step down at the end of this year. Trump has been known to change course on staffing decisions in the past. Nauert was a reporter for Fox News Channel before she became State Department spokeswoman under former Secretary Rex Tillerson. Facebook

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Senate confirms new consumer financial protection chief: Kathy Kraninger, protege of industry-friendly Mick Mulvaney By Jim Puzzanghera The Senate, in a party-line vote Thursday, confirmed White House aide Kathy Kraninger to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and experts predicted a continuation of the industry-friendly shift it has taken since President Trump installed an acting director last year. Kraninger is a protege of acting director and White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney, an outspoken critic of the agency that was created in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis to prevent predatory lending and other abuses that led to it. Democrats and consumer advocates have denounced him for sharply departing from the aggressive watchdog role the bureau had pursued under its first director, Obama-appointee Richard Cordray, including scaling back enforcement and moving to reassess tough new rules on payday loans and narrow the definition of abusive practices by banks and other firms. Read More Facebook

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Shutdown postponed by two weeks under plan approved by Congress By Erik Wasson Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), shown at the Capitol on Tuesday, says President Trumps border wall is a waste of money. (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press) Congress passed a two-week stopgap spending bill that will delay the chance of a partial government shutdown until Dec. 22 as lawmakers and President Donald Trump negotiate over his demands to pay for a wall on the southern border. The House and Senate passed the measure Thursday without dissent, and Trump has indicated hell sign the bill before the current shutdown deadline of midnight Friday. Negotiations were delayed by memorial services this week for former President George H.W. Bush. The temporary measure gives Democrats and Republicans more time to find a resolution to their biggest hurdle: funding a wall on the U.S. Mexico border wall. Trump says he wants $5 billion for parts of a concrete wall on the southern border and is willing to shut down the government if he doesnt get it. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York has said Democrats will provide no more than $1.6 billion for border security, because the wall is a waste of money. The presidents demands for wall funding from Congress come after he said during the campaign that Mexico would pay for it. This week he said on Twitter that a $25 billion border wall would pay for itself in two months, without providing evidence. Most of the U.S. governments $1.2 trillion discretionary budget has been appropriated already by Congress for the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1. Departments at a risk of a partial shutdown late this month include the departments of State, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, Treasury and Homeland Security. Talks to resolve the differences have been on hold since a meeting among Trump, Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California originally slated for Dec. 4 was postponed due to Bush memorial events. The three are scheduled to meet on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the matter. Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby of Alabama told reporters the rest of the seven-bill spending package being negotiated is basically done. Shelby in recent weeks had tried to broker a compromise in which Trumps $5 billion request would be split over two years, but Schumer has rejected that. Some Democrats have been willing to trade border wall funding for deportation protections for young undocumented immigrants. Pelosi ruled out such a deal in remarks to reporters Thursday. The stopgap government funding measure also would extend the National Flood Insurance Program, which provides subsidized coverage for homes in flood-prone areas, to Dec. 21. Facebook

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Bipartisan Senate group wants to formally blame Saudi crown prince for journalists killing By Karoun Demirjian Saudi Arabias Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires. (Associated Press) A bipartisan group of senators filed a resolution Wednesday condemning Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as responsible for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, directly challenging President Trump to do the same. This resolution -- without equivocation -- definitively states that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia was complicit in the murder of Mr. [Jamal] Khashoggi and has been a wrecking ball to the region jeopardizing our national security interests on multiple fronts, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said in a statement accompanying the release of the resolution. It will be up to Saudi Arabia as to how to deal with this matter. But it is up to the United States to firmly stand for who we are and what we believe. The resolution put forward by Graham and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who are expected to lead the Judiciary Committee together next year, comes just one day after CIA Director Gina Haspel briefed leading senators about the details of the agencys assessment that Mohammed ordered and monitored the killing and dismemberment of Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. Senators emerged from that closed-door briefing furious not only with Saudi Arabia, but Trump as well for dismissing the heft of the CIAs findings. You have to be willfully blind not to come to the conclusion that this was orchestrated and organized by people under the command of MBS and that he was intricately involved in the demise of Mr. Khashoggi, Graham said following the briefing, referring to Mohammed by his initials. He added that Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo and Defense Secretary James N. Mattis, who briefed senators last week, were at best being good soldiers and at worst were in the pocket of Saudi Arabia for presenting the evidence of Mohammeds involvement as inconclusive. The release of the resolution condemning Mohammed also comes as the Senate is preparing to move ahead with debate on a resolution to curtail U.S. support for the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen. Though the Yemen resolution does not directly address Khashoggis murder, its popularity is a sign of how strained the United States patience with Saudi Arabia is on multiple fronts, including its role in worsening the civilian cost of the war in Yemen, cited by the United Nations as the worlds worst humanitarian crisis. Last week, the Senate voted 63 to 37 to advance the Yemen resolution past an opening procedural hurdle. But Graham and Feinsteins resolution on the crown prince has the potential of drawing broader support, especially from Republicans, who are deeply divided about how fiercely to punish Saudi Arabia over Khashoggis killing. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who has been an outspoken advocate for human rights and is seen as one of the more influential foreign policy voices in the GOP, did not vote for the Yemen resolution last week or sign on to a bipartisan measure last month to sanction Saudi officials and cease weapons transfers to the kingdom. But he is an original co-sponsor of the resolution condemning Mohammed over Khashoggis death. So is Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), who represents the other end of the GOP spectrum in terms of recent Saudi-related votes and endorsements. Young was an initial co-sponsor of the bill Graham wrote with Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) to sanction Saudi officials deemed responsible for Khashoggis killing and stop the sale of anything but exclusively defensive weapons to the kingdom until it ceased hostilities in Yemen. Young also voted to advance the Yemen resolution  something Graham did as well, though Graham has signaled he will not be lending any similar support to the measure, fearing it may establish a precedent of invoking the War Powers Act too broadly. Sens. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) are listed as original co-sponsors of the resolution condemning Mohammed, which also urges Saudi Arabia to negotiate with Houthi rebels to end the Yemen war, work out a political solution to its standoff with Qatar and release political prisoners. But how much sway the resolution has probably comes down to how forcefully the administration decides to heed it -- and thus far, Trump has not shown any interest in condemning the crown prince the way the senators hope he will. Demirjian reports for the Washington Post. Facebook

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Los Angeles County offices and U.S. Postal Service closed Wednesday in honor of George H.W. Bush By Brian Park The Honor Guard carries the casket of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush following his funeral on Dec. 5 in Washington, DC. (Doug Mills - Pool/Getty Images) The U.S. Postal Service will suspend regular mail delivery Wednesday, which President Trump has declared a national day of mourning in honor of former President George H.W. Bush. All retail postal outlets will be closed, and package delivery will be limited. In Los Angeles, all nonessential county departments, offices and libraries will be closed for the day, L.A. County officials said. The Los Angeles County Library said no overdue fines will be assessed for books, and due dates will be moved forward one week. Los Angeles County Department of Public Health offices also are closed Wednesday. The Sheriffs Department, Fire Department, clinics and hospitals will continue to operate, the county said. The Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health clinics are being operated with reduced staffing, and the department asked patients to confirm or reschedule any appointments. All county courts and the disaster recovery centers for the Woolsey fire in Malibu and Agoura Hills will remain open. Larger federal government operations will be closed Wednesday. To honor the life and legacy of President Bush, the Postal Service will observe the National Day of Mourning. Learn how Postal operations will be affected. https://t.co/Mffch7bPCh pic.twitter.com/vG46BsIOpm  U.S. Postal Service (@USPS) December 4, 2018 L.A. County offices and libraries will be closed tomorrow (Dec 5) in observance of the #NationalDayOfMourning for President George H. W. Bush.



The Countys Disaster Recovery Centers in Malibu & Agoura Hills will remain open from 10 a.m. - 8 p.m. pic.twitter.com/Sv1J7GoJ7T  Los Angeles County (@CountyofLA) December 4, 2018 @LAPublicHealth offices will be closed tomorrow December 5 in observance of the national Day of Mourning for President George H. W. Bush. Essential Services including clinics and other services will remain open: https://t.co/tZGoGGHRlg pic.twitter.com/ypXsV6vlYY  LA Public Health (@lapublichealth) December 4, 2018 Facebook

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Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick to skip 2020 White House race, sources say By Associated Press Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick speaks during an interview in Boston on Dec. 15, 2014. (Elise Amendola / Associated Press) Former Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts will soon announce he wont launch a 2020 presidential campaign, according to three sources familiar with his plans. They did not say why the Democrat decided against a run. A formal announcement was delayed as the country observed a day of mourning for President George H.W. Bush, one source said. News of Patricks plans was first reported by Politico. Patrick, 62, served two terms as governor, from 2007 to 2015, was assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Clinton administration and since leaving the governors office has been a managing director for Bain Capital. Patrick traveled the country in support of Democratic candidates in the recent midterm election. Earlier this year, some of Patricks supporters and close advisors started the Reason to Believe political action committee, a grassroots organization dedicated to advancing a positive, progressive vision for our nation in 2018 and 2020. Reason to Believe PAC had been holding meetups across the country, including in early presidential primary states. While Patrick is opting against a 2020 run, dozens of Democrats are considering jumping in, including nearly a half-dozen members of the Senate, several House members, and other Massachusetts politicians. On Tuesday, Michael Avenatti, the attorney for adult film star Stormy Daniels and a vocal critic of President Trump, said in a statement that he would run. Patrick had previously expressed some concerns about breaking through if he sought the nomination, telling David Axelrod, a former advisor to President Obama, that he wasnt sure he could stand out in such a large field. Its hard to see how you even get noticed in such a big, broad field without being shrill, sensational or a celebrity, and Im none of those things and Im never going to be any of those things, Patrick said in a September interview with Axelrod. Facebook

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Former Trump adviser Roger Stone invokes 5th Amendment right and wont testify before Senate Judiciary Committee By Associated Press Roger Stone in 2017. (Joe Raedle / Getty Images) Roger Stone, an associate of President Trump, says he wont provide testimony or documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee. An attorney for Stone said in a letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the committees top Democrat, that Stone was invoking his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination in refusing to produce documents or appear for an interview. Stone has been entangled in investigations by Congress and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III about whether Trump aides had advance knowledge of Democratic emails published by WikiLeaks during the 2016 election. Stone has not been charged and has said he had no knowledge of the timing or specifics of WikiLeaks plans. In the letter to Feinstein, Stone said the committees requests were far too overbroad, far too overreaching and far too wide-ranging. Facebook

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Watch live: Vice President Pence and lawmakers honor George H.W. Bush at the U.S. Capitol before he lies in state Facebook

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Rebuilding crumbling infrastructure has bipartisan support. But who gets to pay for it? By Jim Puzzanghera The grades for major U.S. infrastructure would give any parent indigestion if they were on a childs report card. Roads: D; bridges: C+; dams: D; ports: C+: railways: B; airports: D; schools: D+; public transit: D-. The nations overall grade: D+, which translates to being in fair to poor condition and mostly below standards with significant deterioration and a strong risk of failure, according to an evaluation last year by the American Society of Civil Engineers. Read More Facebook

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Trump calls former lawyer Michael Cohen a weak person who is lying By Associated Press President Trump says his former lawyer Michael Cohen is lying to get a reduced sentence. The president is reacting to Cohens guilty plea Thursday to lying to Congress about work he did on a Trump real estate project in Russia. During a surprise court hearing, Cohen admitted to lying in testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee about a plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Cohen in his guilty plea said he made the false statements to be consistent with Trumps political message. Cohens lawyer says he continues to cooperate with special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIs investigation into Russian election interference and possible coordination with Trump associates. Facebook

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As California Republicans confront a congressional wipeout, GOP leader Kevin McCarthy faces a reckoning By Mark Z. Barabak When the House voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Kevin McCarthy trooped with other Republican lawmakers to a splashy Rose Garden celebration, smiling alongside President Trump as they celebrated the moment. As majority leader, McCarthy had helped round up the votes to narrowly pass the hard-fought legislation, convincing 13 other California Republicans to go along, even though several faced tough reelection fights. Fewer than half will be returning in January. Read More Facebook

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As California Republicans confront a congressional wipeout, GOP leader Kevin McCarthy faces a reckoning By Sarah D. Wire When the House voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Kevin McCarthy trooped with other Republican lawmakers to a splashy Rose Garden celebration, smiling alongside President Trump as they celebrated the moment. As majority leader, McCarthy had helped round up the votes to narrowly pass the hard-fought legislation, convincing 13 other California Republicans to go along, even though several faced tough reelection fights. Fewer than half will be returning in January. Read More Facebook

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Michael Cohen, President Trumps ex-lawyer, pleads guilty to lying to Congress about Trump real estate project in Russia By Associated Press Michael Cohen, President Trumps former personal lawyer, pursued a Russian real estate project on candidate Trumps behalf well into the 2016 campaign, he said Thursday while pleading guilty to lying to Congress. Cohen had previously said that the project was abandoned in January 2016, but he now admits he continued to pursue a deal and says he updated Trump and members of his family about the negotiations, according to a new court document. Read More Facebook

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James Comey says acting Atty. Gen. Whitaker may not be the sharpest knife in our drawer By John Wagner Acting Atty. Gen. Matthew Whitaker speaks at the Justice Department in Washington on Nov. 14. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press) Former FBI Director James B. Comey apparently isnt too impressed with the mental prowess of President Trumps acting attorney general. Matthew Whitaker may not be the sharpest knife in our drawer, Comey said during a radio interview on Monday night in which he sized up the man Trump installed this month to replace ousted Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions. Comey was asked by WGBH News in Boston if he thinks Whitaker could derail the investigation of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Whitaker has spoken critically of the probe, and Trump  as recently as Tuesday  continues to call it a witch hunt. I think its a worry, but to my mind not a serious worry, Comey said. The institution is too strong, and [Whitaker], frankly, is not strong enough to have that kind of impact. He may not be the sharpest knife in our drawer, but he can see his future and knows that if he acted in an extralegal way, he would go down in history for the wrong reasons, and Im sure he doesnt want that, added Comey, who was fired by Trump last year and later wrote a book that portrays the president as an ego-driven congenital liar. Whitaker, a former U.S. attorney in Iowa, was Sessions chief of staff before being picked by Trump to lead the Justice Department. Trump has called Whitaker a very smart man. Earlier this year, Trump called Comey an untruthful slime ball. Wagner writes for the Washington Post. Facebook

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Interior Department watchdog clears Zinke in investigation of Utah national monument By Juliet Eilperin Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, third from the left, and Gov. Jerry Brown tour fire damage in Paradise, Calif., on Nov. 14. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press) The Interior Departments Office of Inspector General has cleared Secretary Ryan Zinke in a probe of whether he redrew boundaries of a national monument in Utah to aid the financial interests of a Republican state lawmaker and stalwart supporter of President Trump. In a Nov. 21 letter to Zinkes deputy, David Bernhardt, Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall wrote that her office found no evidence that the secretary or his aides changed the boundaries of Utahs Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in an effort to help former Utah state representative Mike Noel, who serves as executive director of the Kane County Water Conservancy District. Last December, Trump shrank the monument, first established by President Clinton in 1996, by 46% based on Zinkes recommendation. Noel owns 40 acres that had been surrounded by the monument, but now lies outside its boundaries. The new boundaries also would make it easier to construct the proposed Lake Powell Pipeline, which would deliver water to sites in Kane County that include Noels property. Earlier this year, the Interior Department had proposed selling off 120 acres of federal land from the former monument that lay adjacent to some of Noels land holdings, but later reversed the plan. We found no evidence that Noel influenced the DOIs proposed revisions to the [monuments] boundaries, that Zinke or other DOI staff involved in the project were aware of Noels financial interest in the revised boundaries, or that they gave Noel any preferential treatment in the resulting proposed boundaries, Kendall wrote. Neither the Interior Department nor the inspector generals office would release the actual investigative report. In the letter, Kendall writes that her office will provide the report to Congress no sooner than 31 days from Nov. 21, when it is provided it to Zinkes office. The Associated Press first reported the inspector generals conclusions Monday night, but did not provide details from the report itself. Noel emailed Zinke about the effort to alter Grand Staircase-Escalante, according to emails released by Interior under the Freedom of Informational Act. But those emails do not make references to Noels land holdings. Noel also pushed to rename a Utah highway in honor of Trump, but abandoned that effort in March after some of his fellow Republicans objected to the idea. Noel did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday. The inspector generals office still has at least two ongoing probes of the secretary, including one focused on his real estate dealings in Whitefish, Mont., and another regarding his decision to deny a permit to two Connecticut tribes who were hoping to jointly run a casino after MGM Resorts International lobbied against it. Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift welcomed the watchdogs conclusions. The report shows exactly what the secretarys office has known all along  that the monument boundaries were adjusted in accordance with all rules, regulations and laws, she said in an email. This report is also the latest example of opponents and special interest groups ginning up fake and misleading stories, only to be proven false after expensive and time consuming inquiries by the IGs office. But Kendalls spokeswoman, Nancy DiPaolo, defended the inquiry, even though she said the report has not been publicly released and we will not be speaking specifically about the matter at this time. The OIG opens investigations based on credible allegations and reports our findings objectively and independently, DiPaolo added. Any time or resources spent investigating conduct or activity that may be a violation of law, regulation or policy is a service to the public, Congress and the Department. Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement that he still intended to investigate the way Zinke and his colleague redrew the boundaries for Grand Staircase-Escalante and another Utah national monument, Bears Ears, next year. I have great respect for the inspector general, and I accept these findings, but Secretary Zinke should have known the people he listened to while destroying our national monuments had disqualifying conflicts of interest, he said. Should I chair the Natural Resources Committee in the next Congress, the process he and President Trump used to destroy Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante will be front and center in our oversight and investigations efforts. We need to know why they ignored overwhelming public expressions of support for both Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, why they ignored Native American tribes throughout their decision-making, and why they removed protections on parcels of land with known mineral deposits. Eilperin and Rein report for the Washington Post. Facebook

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Trump advisor Larry Kudlow says China must do more to end trade war By Jim Puzzanghera Larry Kudlow, President Trumps top economic advisor, said Tuesday that Chinas response to U.S. efforts to rework the two economic superpowers trade relationship has been extremely disappointing but the planned meeting this weekend between the nations leaders is an opportunity for a breakthrough. They have to do more. They must do more, Larry Kudlow, director of the White House National Economic Council, told reporters ahead of a Saturday dinner between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 Summit in Argentina. I think the president is exactly right  to show strong backbone when prior administrations did not, to break through these Chinese walls, Kudlow said. Theyre so resistant to change. We have to protect the country. We have to protect our technology, our inventiveness, our innovation. Read More Facebook

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Watch live: White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders holds a media briefing amid tensions at the border By Los Angeles Times Staff Facebook

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Democrat TJ Cox grabs lead over Republican David Valadao in nations last remaining undecided House race By Maya Sweedler Democrat TJ Cox slipped past Republican incumbent David Valadao on Monday to take the lead in the countrys sole remaining undecided congressional race, positioning Democrats to pick up their seventh House seat in California and 40th nationwide. Cox, who trailed by nearly 4,400 votes on election night, has steadily gained as ballot counting continues nearly three weeks after the Nov. 6 election, a pattern consistent with the states recent voting history. On Monday, he pulled ahead by 438 votes after Kern County updated its results. Read More Facebook

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Former CIA director Michael Hayden hospitalized after suffering a stroke By Deanna Paul Then-CIA Director Michael Hayden testifies before a Senate committee in 2008. (Saul Loeb / Getty Images) Former CIA Director and retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden has been hospitalized after suffering a stroke, his family said Friday. He is receiving expert medical care for which the family is grateful, according to a statement issued by his namesake organization. The General and his family greatly appreciate the warm wishes and prayers of his friends, colleagues, and supporters. Hayden, 73, served as director of the CIA and National Security Agency during the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. He retired from the CIA in 2009. Hayden has been a vocal critic of Donald Trumps campaign and presidency. Earlier this year, after Trump decided to revoke the security clearance of former CIA director John Brennan, Hayden was one of several former intelligence leaders who signed a statement in opposition. Criticizing the president for crossing a line, he quickly became one of the individuals whose security clearance Trump threatened to review. Deanna Paul writes for the Washington Post. Facebook

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Trump tells troops hes thankful for what hes done for the U.S. and rails against courts and migrants By Associated Press President Trump talks with troops via teleconference from his estate in Palm Beach, Fla., on Thanksgiving. (Susan Walsh / Associated Press) President Trump used his Thanksgiving Day call to troops deployed overseas to pat himself on the back and air grievances about the courts, trade and migrants heading to the U.S.-Mexico border. Trumps call, made from his opulent private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., struck an unusually political tone as he spoke with members of all five branches of the military to wish them happy holidays. Its a disgrace, Trump said of judges who have blocked his attempts to overhaul U.S. immigration law, as he linked his efforts to secure the border with military missions overseas. Trump later threatened to close the U.S. border with Mexico for an undisclosed period of time if his administration determines Mexico has lost control on its side. The call was a uniquely Trump blend of boasting, peppered questions and off-the-cuff observations as his comments veered from venting about slights to praising troops  You really are our heroes, he said  as club waiters worked to set Thanksgiving dinner tables on the outdoor terrace behind him. It was yet another show of how Trump has dramatically transformed the presidency, erasing the traditional divisions between domestic policy and military matters and efforts to keep the troops clear of politics. You probably see over the news whats happening on our southern border, Trump told one Air Force brigadier general stationed at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, adding: I dont have to even ask you. I know what you want to do, you want to make sure that you know who were letting in. Later, Trump asked a U.S. Coast Guard commander about trade, which he noted was a very big subject for him personally. Weve been taken advantage of for many, many years by bad trade deals, Trump told the commander, who sheepishly replied, Mr. President, from our perspective on the water  we dont see any issues in terms of trade right now. And throughout, Trump congratulated himself, telling the officers that the country is doing exceptionally well on his watch. I hope that youll take solace in knowing that all of the American families you hold so close to your heart are all doing well, he said. The nations doing well economically, better than anybody in the world. He later told reporters, Nobodys done more for the military than me. Indeed, asked what he was thankful for this Thanksgiving, Trump cited his great family as well as himself. I made a tremendous difference in this country, he said. Facebook

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Trump contradicts CIA assessment that Saudi crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi killing By Josh Dawsey | Washington Post (Susan Walsh / Associated Press) President Trump on Thursday contradicted the CIAs assessment that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had ordered the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, insisting that the agency had feelings but did not firmly place blame for the death. Trump, in defiant remarks to reporters from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, defended his continued support for Mohammed in the face of a CIA assessment that the crown prince had ordered the killing. He denies it vehemently, Trump said. He said his own conclusion was that maybe he did, maybe he didnt. I hate the crime .... I hate the cover-up. I will tell you this: The crown prince hates it more than I do, Trump said. Asked who should be held accountable for the death of Khashoggi, who was killed at the Saudi Consulate in Turkey, Trump refused to place blame. Maybe the world should be held accountable because the world is a very, very vicious place, the president said. He also seemed to suggest that all U.S. allies were guilty of the same behavior, declaring that if the others were held to the standard that critics have held Saudi Arabia to in recent days, we wouldnt be able to have anyone for an ally. Trumps remarks came after he held a conference call with U.S. military officers overseas, during which he repeatedly praised his administration and sought to draw the officers into discussions of domestic policy. Facebook

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Former FBI Director James Comey gets subpoena from House Republicans By Bloomberg Former FBI Director James B. Comey said he has received a subpoena from House Republicans, according to a Twitter post on Thursday. Bloomberg News reported last week that Comey would be receiving a subpoena alongside former Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch as part of continuing probes into their handling of investigations into Hillary Clinton and Russian election meddling, according to a top House Democrat. Happy Thanksgiving. Got a subpoena from House Republicans. Im still happy to sit in the light and answer all questions. But I will resist a closed door thing because Ive seen enough of their selective leaking and distortion. Lets have a hearing and invite everyone to see.  James Comey (@Comey) November 22, 2018 Read More Facebook

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Republican David Valadaos lead slips to 447 votes over Democrat TJ Cox in still-undecided Central Valley House race By Mark Z. Barabak Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford), right, finds himself in an increasingly harrowing cliffhanger against Democrat TJ Cox. (Bill Clark / CQ Roll Call) On election night, it looked like Rep. David Valadao had survived a close shave and was destined to return to Washington for his fourth term. But on Wednesday, when Fresno County announced its latest vote totals, the Hanford Republican found himself in an increasingly harrowing cliffhanger against Democrat TJ Cox, with his lead in the Central Valley district shrunken to 447 votes. Thousands remain to be counted. Valadao, a repeated Democratic target, finished election night with a lead of nearly 4,440 votes. Cox, an engineer and a business owner who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2006, has steadily gained ground in the 21st Congressional District ever since. The trend is consistent with historic patterns showing Republicans in California tend to vote early and Democrats later, meaning their mail ballots continue to stream in past election day. Under California law, ballots postmarked up to midnight on Nov. 6 will be counted. Democrats have already picked up six House seats in California. They ousted Reps. Dana Rohrabacher, Mimi Walters, Steve Knight and Jeff Denham and won the seats of retiring Reps. Ed Royce and Darrell Issa. All six represented districts that backed Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in 2016. Valadao was the seventh California Republican in a district Clinton won, though his previous successes  he last won reelection by a 14-point margin  suggested his ouster was a longer shot for Democrats. If Cox prevails, it would give Democrats a 40-seat gain nationwide, far more than the 23 seats needed to take control when Congress reconvenes in January. Facebook

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Trump says no new punishments against Saudi Arabia in Jamal Khashoggi murder By Eli Stokols In this Oct. 25 photo, candles are lit in front of a photo of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. (Lefteris Pitarakis) President Trump made it clear on Tuesday that he does not intend to punish Saudi Arabia or Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, an American resident killed by Saudi officials in Turkey in October. In a remarkable statement replete with exclamation points, Trump cast doubt on the CIAs reported conclusions that it has a high degree of confidence that the crown prince ordered Khashoggis murder and sent his closest allies to Saudi Arabias consulate in Istanbul to carry it out. Read MoreThis article has been updated with staff. Facebook

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Sixteen House Democrats vow to oppose Nancy Pelosi as next speaker By Mike DeBonis | Washington Post House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press) Sixteen House Democrats said Monday that they will vote to deny Rep. Nancy Pelosi another stint as House speaker, a show of defiance that puts her opponents on the cusp of forcing a seismic leadership shake-up as their party prepares to take the majority. Their pledge to oppose Pelosi (D-San Francisco), both in an internal caucus election and a Jan. 3 floor vote, delivered in a letter sent to Democratic colleagues, comes as Pelosi has marshaled a legion of supporters on and off Capitol Hill to make her case. But her opponents said Monday they are convinced it is time to select a new leader. We are thankful to Leader Pelosi for her years of service to our Country and to our Caucus, they wrote. However, we also recognize that in this recent election, Democrats ran on and won on a message of change. Pelosi has expressed complete confidence that she will retake the speakers gavel in January  eight years after she lost it following massive Republican gains in the 2010 midterms and 16 years after she was first elevated to the top Democratic leadership post in the House. Come on in, the waters fine, she said Friday about a potential leadership challenge. The signers might not be able to force Pelosi out themselves. The size of the Democratic majority remains in flux, but Democrats have already won 232 seats, according to the Associated Press, with five races still undecided. All those races have Republican incumbents, but the Democratic challenger is ahead in only one of them. If the leads hold in the uncalled races, Democrats would have won 233 seats, a 16-seat majority. That means Pelosi could lose as many as 15 Democratic votes when she stands for election as speaker on Jan. 3. Read More Facebook

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Democratic senators sue over Whitakers appointment as acting attorney general By Associated Press Acting U.S. Atty. Gen. Matthew Whitaker (Nicholas Kamm / AFP/Getty Images) Three Senate Democrats filed a lawsuit Monday arguing that Acting Atty. Gen. Matthew Whitakers appointment is unconstitutional and asking a federal judge to remove him. The suit, filed by Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, argues that Whitakers appointment violates the Constitution because he has not been confirmed by the Senate. Whitaker was chief of staff to Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions and was elevated to the top job after Sessions was ousted by President Trump on Nov. 7. The Constitutions Appointments Clause requires that the Senate confirm all principal officials before they can serve in their office. The Justice Department released a legal opinion last week that said Whitakers appointment would not violate the clause because he is serving in an acting capacity. The opinion concluded that Whitaker, even without Senate confirmation, may serve in an acting capacity because he has been at the department for more than a year at a sufficiently senior pay level. President Trump is denying senators our constitutional obligation and opportunity to do our job: scrutinizing the nomination of our nations top law enforcement official, Blumenthal said in a statement. The reason is simple: Whitaker would never pass the advice and consent test. In selecting a so-called constitutional nobody and thwarting every senators constitutional duty, Trump leaves us no choice but to seek recourse through the courts. The lawsuit comes days after a Washington lawyer challenged Whitakers appointment in a pending Supreme Court case dealing with gun rights. The attorney, Thomas Goldstein, asked the high court to find that Whitakers appointment is unconstitutional and replace him with Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein. Rosenstein, the second-ranking Justice Department official, has been confirmed by the Senate and had been overseeing special counsel Robert Muellers Russia investigation. Whitaker is now overseeing the investigation. The Justice Department issued a statement Monday defending Whitakers appointment as lawful and said it comports with the Appointments Clause, the Federal Vacancies Reform Act and legal precedent. There are over 160 instances in American history in which non-Senate confirmed persons performed, on a temporary basis, the duties of a Senate-confirmed position, Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said. To suggest otherwise is to ignore centuries of practice and precedent. Facebook

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Gov. Rick Scott says Sen. Bill Nelson concedes Florida Senate race By Associated Press Republican Senate candidate Rick Scott speaks with his wife, Ann, by his side at an election watch party in Naples, Fla., on Nov. 7. (Wilfredo Lee / Associated Press) Floridas Republican Gov. Rick Scott says incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson called him to concede defeat in their extremely tight race. Scott issued a statement Sunday saying Nelson graciously conceded their Senate race shortly after the states recount ended. The final results show Scott defeated Nelson by just over 10,000 votes out of 8 million cast. Nelson is scheduled to release a videotaped statement later Sunday. The defeat ends Nelsons lengthy political career. The three-term incumbent was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2000. Before that he served six terms in the U.S. House and as state treasurer and insurance commissioner for six years. Scott spent more than $60 million of his own money on ads that portrayed Nelson as out-of-touch and ineffective. Nelson responded by questioning Scotts ethics and saying he would be under the sway of President Trump. Facebook

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Orange County goes blue, as Democrats complete historic sweep of its seven congressional seats By Michael Finnegan Gil Cisneros defeated Republican Young Kim on Saturday in the last of Orange Countys undecided House races, giving Democrats a clean sweep of the states six most fiercely fought congressional contests and marking an epochal shift in a region long synonymous with political conservatism. With Cisneros victory, Democrats will constitute the entirety of Orange Countys seven-member congressional delegation, the first time since the 1930s that the birthplace of Richard Nixon, home of John Wayne and spiritual center of the Republican Party will have no GOP representative in the House. Sitting back in the 1960s, I would never have believed this would happen, said Stuart K. Spencer, a party strategist who spent more than half a century ushering Republicans, including President Reagan, into office. Read More Facebook

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Going, going ... with midterm wipeout, California Republican Party drifts closer to irrelevance By Michael Finnegan For a party in freefall the last two decades, California Republicans learned that its possible to plunge even further. The GOP not only lost every statewide office in the midterm election  again, in blowout fashion  but Democrats reestablished their supermajority in Sacramento, allowing them to legislate however they see fit After major defeats in Orange County and the Central Valley, two longtime strongholds, Republicans will have a significantly smaller footprint on Capitol Hill. (Democrats hold both Senate seats.) When the vote-counting is finished, the GOP may not even have enough lawmakers in Californias 53-member House delegation to field a nine-person softball team. Read More Facebook

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Congresswoman-elect Katie Porter says she will support Rep. Nancy Pelosi for speaker By Maya Sweedler Democratic Rep.-elect Katie Porter is congratulated by volunteers at her campaign headquarters in Irvine. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) Congresswoman-elect Katie Porter said she plans to support Rep. Nancy Pelosis bid for speaker of the House and will make campaign finance reform her top priority when she enters the chamber in January. Im going to continue to have conversations, but so far I feel like Leader Pelosi is definitely making the things that were a priority to the families that elected me her priorities, including announcing her support for campaign finance reform and anti-corruption as HR1, Porter said in her first public appearance since being declared the winner in Californias 45th Congressional District on Thursday evening. It means a lot to me that she is a Californian. She understands our state, Porter added. When we talk about environmental protections, this is a person who understands as a Californian how fragile our environment is and whats at risk in things like drilling off our coasts. Porter, a law professor at UC Irvine, defeated two-term Republican Rep. Mimi Walters. The 45th District, covering inland Orange County, has never been represented by a Democrat. Porter became the third Democrat to claim a Republican-held seat in Orange County, following the victories of Harley Rouda in the 48th District and Mike Levin in the 49th. A fourth, Gil Cisneros, is running slightly ahead of his Republican opponent in the race for the open seat in the 39th District, which extends into Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. Porter attributed the massive political shift in the county, for decades a conservative stronghold, to increased levels of political engagement. Folks here care about education, they care about the environment, they believe climate change is real, they want healthcare that protects preexisting conditions, they want a tax system that doesnt punish California, they want our schools and places of worship to be safe from gun violence, she said. Those are the issues we campaigned on, and to the extent that Donald Trump and Mimi Walters were on the wrong side of those issues, the voters have made clear what direction they want us to go. Porter was flying back from the East Coast when her race was called, she said. She turned on her phone to find 167 text messages from friends and supporters. Among them was Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who was one of Porters teachers in law school and with whom she has remained close. The pair spoke via FaceTime this morning, she said. Facebook

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Bitter battle for Senate seat in Florida goes to hand recount By Associated Press Employees look through damaged ballots during a recount Thursday in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Wilfredo Lee / Associated Press) Floridas acrimonious battle for the U.S. Senate headed Thursday to a legally required hand recount after an initial review by ballot-counting machines showed Republican Gov. Rick Scott and Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson separated by less than 13,000 votes. But the highly watched contest for governor between Republican Ron DeSantis and Democrat Andrew Gillum appeared to be over, with a machine recount showing DeSantis with a large enough advantage over Gillum to avoid a hand recount in that race. Gillum, who conceded the contest on election night only to retract his concession later, said in a statement that it is not over until every legally casted vote is counted. The recount so far has been fraught with problems. One large Democratic stronghold in South Florida was unable to finish its machine recount by the Thursday deadline due to machines breaking down. A federal judge rejected a request to extend the recount deadline. We gave a heroic effort, said Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher. If the county had three or four more hours, it would have made the deadline to recount ballots in the Senate race, she said. Meanwhile, election officials in another urban county in the Tampa Bay area decided against turning in the results of their machine recount, which came up with 846 fewer votes than originally counted. Media in South Florida reported that Broward County finished its machine recount but missed the deadline by a few minutes. Counties were ordered last weekend to do a machine recount of three statewide races because the margins were so tight. The next stage is a manual review of ballots that were not counted by machines to see whether there is a way to figure out voter intent. Scott called on Nelson to end the recount battle. Its time for Nelson to respect the will of the voters and graciously bring this process to an end rather than proceed with yet another count of the votes  which will yield the same result and bring more embarrassment to the state that we both love and have served, the governor said in a statement. The recount has triggered multiple lawsuits, many of them filed by Nelson and Democrats. The legal battles drew the ire of U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker, who slammed the state for repeatedly failing to anticipate election problems. He also said the state law on recounts appears to violate the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that decided the presidency in 2000. We have been the laughingstock of the world, election after election, and we chose not to fix this, Walker said during a morning hearing. Walker vented his anger at state lawmakers and Palm Beach County officials, saying they should have made sure they had enough equipment in place to handle this kind of a recount. But he said he could not extend the recount deadline because he did not know when Palm Beach County would finish its work. This court must be able to craft a remedy with knowledge that it will not prove futile, Walker wrote in his ruling turning down the request from Democrats. It cannot do so on this record. This court does not and will not fashion a remedy in the dark. The overarching problem was created by the Florida Legislature, which Walker said passed a recount law that appears to run afoul of the 2000 Bush vs. Gore decision by locking in procedures that do not allow for potential problems. A total of six election-related lawsuits are pending in federal court in Tallahassee as well at least one lawsuit filed in state court. Walker also ordered that voters be given until 5 p.m. Saturday to show a valid identification and fix their ballots if they have not been counted due to mismatched signatures. Republicans appealed the ruling, but an appeals court turned down the request. State officials testified that nearly 4,000 mailed-in ballots were set aside because local officials decided the signatures on the envelopes did not match the signatures on file. If those voters can prove their identity, their votes will be counted and included in final official returns due from each county by noon Sunday. Walker was asked by Democrats to require local officials to provide a list of people whose ballots were rejected. But the judge appointed by President Obama refused the request, calling it inappropriate. Under state law, a hand review is required with races that have a margin of 0.25 percentage points or less. A state website put the unofficial results showing Scott ahead of Nelson by 0.15 percentage points. The margin between DeSantis and Gillum was at 0.41 points. The margin between Scott and Nelson had not changed much in the last few days, conceded Marc Elias, an attorney working for Nelsons campaign. But he said that he expected the vote tally to shrink due to the hand recount and the ruling on signatures. The developments fueled frustrations among Democrats and Republicans alike. Democrats want state officials to do whatever it takes to make sure every eligible vote is counted. Republicans, including President Trump, have argued without evidence that voter fraud threatens to steal races from the GOP. Facebook

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Democrat Gil Cisneros pulls ahead of Republican Young Kim as more votes are tallied in Orange and San Bernardino counties By Michael Finnegan Congressional candidate Gil Cisneros (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times) Democrat Gil Cisneros pulled ahead of Republican Young Kim in one of Californias undecided congressional races Thursday, an ominous sign for a GOP already reeling from its loss of four House seats in the state. In updated vote counts released by the registrars for Orange and San Bernardino counties, Kim fell 941 votes behind Cisneros in the contest to succeed Republican Rep. Ed Royce in Californias 39th Congressional District. The 39th straddles Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Orange counties. In another unresolved House race, Democrat Katie Porter pulled further ahead of Republican incumbent Mimi Walters in the 45th District, which includes Mission Viejo, Tustin, Irvine, Rancho Santa Margarita and Laguna Hills. Porter, a consumer attorney and UC Irvine law professor, is now 6,203 votes ahead. The Nov. 6 midterm election has been devastating to Republicans in California. If Cisneros and Porter win, the party will have lost six of its 14 House seats in the state, essentially a wipeout in every contest that both parties spent heavily to win. The three Republicans already bounced from Congress are Reps. Dana Rohrabacher of Costa Mesa, Steve Knight of Palmdale and Jeff Denham of Turlock in the San Joaquin Valley. Democrat Mike Levin won the seat of retiring GOP Rep. Darrell Issa of Vista in the fourth district flipped so far. Facebook

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Florida Senate race likely headed to second recount By Associated Press A Palm Beach County Sheriffs deputy walks past boxes of ballots before a recount on Nov. 15 in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Wilfredo Lee) Unofficial Florida election results show that the governors race seems to be settled after a machine recount but the U.S. Senate race is likely headed to a hand recount. Republican Ron DeSantis is virtually assured of winning the nationally watched governors race over Democrat Andrew Gillum. Florida finished a machine recount Thursday that showed Gillum without enough votes to force a manual recount. Unofficial results posted on a state website show the margin between U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and Gov. Rick Scott is still thin enough to trigger a second review. State law requires a hand recount of races with a margin of 0.25 percentage point or less. Counties have until Sunday to inspect the ballots that did not record a vote when put through the machines. Those ballots are re-examined to see whether the voter skipped the race or marked the ballot in a way that the machines cannot read but can be deciphered. The election will be certified Tuesday. Read More Facebook

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Pelosi says she has the votes to become the next House speaker By John Wagner Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi speaks during a news conference in Washington on Nov. 14. (Susan Walsh) House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi insisted Thursday that she has the votes to become the chambers speaker despite solid opposition from more than a dozen Democrats who want fresh leadership when the party takes control next year. I have overwhelming support in my caucus to be speaker of the House, the San Francisco lawmaker told reporters. I happen to think at this point, Im the best person for that. A vote within the Democratic caucus is scheduled for Nov. 28. The full House votes on Jan. 3 to elect a new speaker. During her remarks, Pelosi touted the size of the Democratic victory in the midterms, which she called almost a tsunami. With a few races still to be decided, Democrats are poised to pick up close to 40 seats in the chamber. Pelosi called that the biggest victory for the Democrats since 1974, when the Watergate babies came in. Pelosis comments come as she faces solid opposition from at least 17 Democrats, setting the stage for a battle over who will ascend to one of the most powerful positions in Washington. After a campaign in which some Democrats prevailed in competitive districts by promising to oppose her, a coalition of incumbents and newly elected members has denied her a smooth path to the speakership. The defections, if they stand, would leave Pelosi, who has led the Democrats for more than 15 years, several votes short of the 218 she would need when the full House votes for speaker Jan. 3. However, no Democrat has stepped forward to run against her for a job she held from 2007 through 2010. Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) told reporters Wednesday that shes being encouraged to stand for speaker if Pelosi doesnt have the votes. In an interview with the Washington Post on Thursday, she said she has been overwhelmed by the support from many of her colleagues for her possible entry into the race for House speaker. Over the last 12 hours, Ive been overwhelmed by the amount of support Ive received, Fudge said, adding that there are probably closer to 30" Democrats who have privately signaled that they are willing to oppose Pelosi. Things could change rapidly, Fudge said. Fudge, 66, a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said she is building a diverse coalition as she mulls a speaker run, talking with allies in the caucus, moderate Democrats and newly elected members. To this point, Pelosi has enjoyed the strong backing of the Congressional Black Caucus. On Thursday, Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), one of its members, wrote a letter to colleagues praising her insight, fortitude and strategic thinking and urging support for her speakership bid. Former Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., an African American who is contemplating a 2020 presidential bid, also voiced support for Pelosi, praising her in a tweet as an architect of the recent midterm success. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), a leader of the resistance to Pelosi, said during an interview on CNN on Thursday that Fudge is the kind of new leader that we need in this party. Shes in touch with middle America. She understands what the American people want. Shes a next-generation leader that people will look to and say, Thats the future of our party, thats the future of our country, and thats exactly the kind of leader that I want to see as our next speaker. Wagner reports for the Washington Post. The Posts Robert Costa, Erica Werner, Mike DeBonis, Paul Kane and Elise Viebeck contributed to this report. Facebook

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GOP Rep. Jeff Denham concedes to Democrat Josh Harder in Central Valley race By Maya Sweedler Rep. Jeff Denham (Bill Clark / CQ Roll Call) Republican Rep. Jeff Denham has conceded to Democrat Josh Harder in the race to represent Californias 10th Congressional District in the San Joaquin Valley. It has been an absolute honor to serve our community and represent the Central Valley in Congress over the past eight years, the 51-year-old congressman said. The enormity of the responsibility was never lost on me. My wife Sonia and I look forward to starting the next chapter of our lives. Harder said he had spoken with Denham and the two were committed to a productive transition. Denham, an Air Force veteran, previously represented the region in the state Senate for eight years and founded a company specializing in plastic packaging used in agriculture. While a member of Congress, he sat on the Transportation and Infrastructure, Veterans Affairs and Agriculture committees. First-time candidate Harder was born and raised in the district. After graduating from Stanford University, he served as vice president of a Silicon Valley venture capital firm. Since moving back, he has been teaching at Modesto Junior College. Denhams House seat is one of four in California that Republicans lost in the Nov. 6 election, with two contests in Orange County still undecided as of Thursday morning. Jeff Denham called me this morning and we had a very productive conversation. I'm honored that I've been chosen to serve our community in Congress, and we're both looking forward to a productive transition that best serves the people of District 10.  Josh Harder (@JoshHarder) November 14, 2018 Facebook

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Democrat Katie Porter now nearly 3,800 votes ahead of GOP Rep. Mimi Walters By Maya Sweedler Rep. Mimi Walters thanks all of her supporters as she watches election results in Irvine on Nov. 7, 2018. (Alex Gallardo / Associated Press) Democrat Katie Porter opened a 3,797-vote lead Wednesday over Republican Rep. Mimi Walters in Orange Countys 45th Congressional District. In the neighboring 39th, Democrat Gil Cisneros has nearly tied the race against Republican Young Kim. Cisneros now trails Kim by a razor-thin margin of 122 votes. The 39th District straddles Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties; Wednesdays updated ballot counts came from the latter two. There are more than 202,000 ballots left to count in Orange County, which includes parts of seven congressional districts. The 45th is entirely in inland Orange County. In California, the ballots counted first tend to lean Republican and those tallied later skew Democratic. In the Central Valleys 21st Congressional District, Democratic challenger TJ Cox has pulled within 2 percentage points of Rep. David Valadao, who is serving his third term. The Associated Press had projected a win for Valadao on election night, but his 4,839-vote advantage has shrunk to 2,090. Back in CA-21, Valadao (R) wins a batch of ballots from his stronghold in Kings Co., but by a considerably smaller margin (14 points) than his previous ~30-point margin in the county. We're moving to Lean R from Likely R; today a bit scary for Valadao.https://t.co/WqJVUVkqGW  Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 15, 2018 A spokesman for Valadao told the Fresno Bee that the changes were expected and that [s]tatistically, David Valadao has won this race. Democrats in California have already flipped four House seats, defeating three Republican incumbents and claiming an open seat previously held by the GOP. Reps. Steve Knight of Palmdale, Dana Rohrabacher of Costa Mesa and Jeff Denham of Turlock have already lost their races, and retiring Rep. Darrell Issas San Diego County seat was claimed by Democrat Mike Levin. Facebook

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Trump aide departs West Wing after rebuke from Melania Trump By Associated Press First Lady Melania Trump. (Alain Jocard / AFP-Getty Images) Deputy national security advisor Mira Ricardel is leaving the White House, one day after First Lady Melania Trumps office issued an extraordinary statement calling for her dismissal. No replacement was named. Aides said Ricardel clashed with the first ladys staff over her visit to Africa last month. Yet it is highly unusual for a first lady or her office to weigh in on personnel matters, especially the presidents national security staff. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Ricardel would have a new role in the administration. On Tuesday, Stephanie Grisham, the first ladys spokeswoman, released a statement saying, It is the position of the Office of the First Lady that she no longer deserves the honor of serving in this White House. President Trumps White House has set records for administration turnover. Ricardel was the third person to hold the post under Trump. An ally of national security advisor John Bolton, Ricardel began her service in the Trump administration as associate director in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, then moved to the Commerce Department last year. Bolton brought her into the West Wing shortly after taking the job in April. He is traveling in Asia this week alongside Vice President Mike Pence. Facebook

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Race for House Minority Leader is Kevin McCarthys to lose By Associated Press (Bill Clark / CQ Roll Call) House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy is running to take over next years shrunken caucus in closed-door elections that will set the tone for the new Congress. The race for minority leader is McCarthys to lose Wednesday. But the California Republican, who is an ally of President Trump, must fend off a challenge from conservative Jim Jordan of Ohio. Jordan is a leader of the House Freedom Caucus. The two encountered questions and finger-pointing during a private meeting with lawmakers Tuesday night as the GOP sorted through the midterm defeat that put Democrats in the majority next year. Elections Wednesday will also determine party leadership in the Senate. Voting for the biggest race, Nancy Pelosis bid to return as the Democrats nominee for speaker, is later this month. Read More Facebook

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Melania Trump calls for the firing of deputy national security advisor By Justin Sink First Lady Melania Trump arrives at the Chateau de Versailles outside Paris on Nov. 11. (Alain Jocard / AFP/Getty Images ) First Lady Melania Trumps office said she wants Mira Ricardel, the deputy national security advisor, ousted from the White House. It is the position of the Office of the First Lady that she no longer deserves the honor of serving in this White House, Trumps spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, said in a statement in response to a question about reports the first lady had sought Ricardels removal. Ricardel is the top deputy to national security advisor John Bolton. She drew the first ladys wrath after threatening to withhold National Security Council resources during Melania Trumps trip to Africa last month unless Ricardel was included in her entourage, one person familiar with the matter said. Grishams statement comes as several media outlets have reported that President Trump is considering a broader shakeup of his administration, including ousting Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. Sink and Jacobs report for Bloomberg. Read More Facebook

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CNN sues Trump over the suspension of Jim Acostas White House press credentials By Jim Puzzanghera CNN said Tuesday that it is suing President Trump and other administration officials over the decision to suspend the White House press credentials of correspondent Jim Acosta after a conflict at a news conference last week. The suit, to be filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, escalates an ongoing battle between Trump and the cable news outlet that he frequently accuses of disseminating fake news for its aggressive coverage of him and his administration. The wrongful revocation of these credentials violates CNN and Acostas 1st Amendment rights of freedom of the press, and their 5th Amendment rights to due process, CNN said in a written statement. If left unchallenged, the actions of the White House would create a dangerous chilling effect for any journalist who covers our elected officials. Read More Facebook

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Maxine Waters to take aim at Wells Fargo and Deutsche Bank as new head of House Financial Services Committee By Jim Puzzanghera Rep. Maxine Waters plans to zero in on two big banks  Wells Fargo & Co. and Deutsche Bank  when she becomes head of the powerful House Financial Services Committee. The Los Angeles congresswoman, now the committees top Democrat, is widely expected to gain the gavel after her party won control of the House in last weeks elections. While Waters has outlined a wide-ranging agenda, she said her focus on bank oversight will target two large institutions she has been tangling with for a while  including one, Deutsche Bank, that spills into her bitter feud with President Trump. With Trump in the White House, I know that our fight for Americas consumers and investors will continue to be challenging. But I am more than up to that fight, Waters wrote in a letter last week to her Democratic colleagues on the committee that was obtained by The Times. Read More Facebook

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Heres how a controversial voting system will decide a congressional race in Maine By Kurtis Lee For the first time in U.S. history, a controversial voting system known as ranked choice is being used to decide a federal election. Its happening in Maine, which adopted the system in 2016. Rather than marking a single candidate, each voter ranks them all, assigning a first-place vote, a second-place vote and so on down the ballot. Read More Facebook

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ACLU files suit to stop Trumps new asylum limits By Associated Press A group of Central American migrants march to the office of the U.N.'s humans rights body in Mexico City on Nov. 8. (Rebecca Blackwell / Associated Press) The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a legal challenge to President Trumps order denying asylum to migrants if they cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally. The lawsuit was filed Friday in federal court in San Francisco and argues the new rules are against the law. Attorney Lee Gelernt said the regulations will put families in danger. The suit seeks to declare the regulations invalid and wants a judge to stop the rules from going into effect while the litigation is pending. The new rules were spurred in part by caravans of Central American migrants slowly moving north on foot, but officials say they will apply to anyone caught crossing illegally. Officials say about 70,000 people who enter the country illegally claim asylum. The order invoked the same national security powers Trump used to push through his travel ban. Read More Facebook

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Trump on new acting AG: I dont know Matt Whitaker By Associated Press President Trump talks with reporters before departing for France on the South Lawn of the White House on Nov. 9. (Evan Vucci / Associated Press) President Trump is moving to distance himself from Matthew Whitaker as he faces criticism over his choice for acting attorney general. Trump told reporters Friday that I dont know Matt Whitaker and said he didnt speak with Whitaker about special counsel Robert Muellers Russia investigation. Whitaker has made public comments critical of Muellers investigation, and critics have called on Whitaker to recuse himself from oversight of the inquiry. Under former Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, the investigation was overseen by Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein. Of the scrutiny Whitaker is facing, Trump said: Its a shame that no matter who I put in they go after. He also called Whitaker a very highly respected man. Whitaker was Sessions chief of staff before Trump made him Sessions interim replacement. Facebook

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Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg out of hospital after fall By Associated Press The Supreme Court says 85-year-old Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is home after being released from the hospital. She had been admitted for treatment and observation after fracturing three ribs in a fall. The court said Ginsburg was released Friday. Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg says she is doing well and working from home. The court had previously said the justice fell in her office at the court on Wednesday evening and went to George Washington University Hospital in Washington early Thursday after experiencing discomfort overnight. Ginsburg broke two ribs in a fall in 2012. She had two prior bouts with cancer and had a stent implanted to open a blocked artery in 2014. Facebook

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Gun-control activist Lucy McBath defeats GOP Rep. Karen Handel in Georgia By Associated Press Lucy McBath speaks during a rally for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams on Nov. 2 at Morehouse College in Atlanta. (Alyssa Pointer / Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) Democratic gun-control activist Lucy McBath has defeated Republican Rep. Karen Handel of Georgia in a suburban congressional district long considered safe for the GOP. Handel had to seek reelection after winning her seat last year in a close special election race against Democrat Jon Ossoff. McBath became an advocate for stricter gun laws after her son, Jordan Davis, was fatally shot at a Florida gas station in 2012 by a man angry over loud music the teenager and his friends were playing in a car. McBaths margin of victory was narrow enough for Handel to have requested a recount. The Associated Press declared McBath the winner Thursday after Handel conceded. Handel conceded in a statement Thursday morning, stating that after reviewing all of the election data, its clear she came up a bit short in Tuesdays vote. Handel congratulated McBath, offering good thoughts and much prayer for the journey that lies ahead for her. McBath, who is African American, declared victory Wednesday. Facebook

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Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg hospitalized after fracturing 3 ribs in fall By Associated Press Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press) The Supreme Court says 85-year-old Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg fractured three ribs in a fall in her office at the court and is in the hospital. The court says the justice went to George Washington University Hospital in Washington early Thursday after experiencing discomfort overnight. The court says the fall occurred Wednesday evening. Ginsburg was admitted to the hospital for treatment and observation after tests showed she fractured three ribs. Ginsburg broke two ribs in a fall in 2012. She has had two prior bouts with cancer and had a stent implanted to open a blocked artery in 2014. Facebook

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White House suspends press pass of CNNs Jim Acosta after heated exchange with Trump By Associated Press The White House on Wednesday suspended the press pass of CNN correspondent Jim Acosta after he and President Trump had a heated confrontation during a news conference. They began sparring after Acosta asked Trump about the caravan of migrants heading from Latin America to the southern U.S. border. When Acosta tried to follow up with another question, Trump said, Thats enough! and a female White House aide unsuccessfully tried to grab the microphone from Acosta. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders released a statement accusing Acosta of placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern, calling it absolutely unacceptable. The interaction between Acosta and the intern was brief, and Acosta appeared to brush her arm as she reached for the microphone and he tried to hold onto it. Pardon me, maam, he told her. Acosta tweeted that Sanders statement that he put his hands on the aide was a lie. CNN said in a statement that the White House revoked Acostas press pass in retaliation for his challenging questions Wednesday, and the network accused Sanders of lying about Acostas actions. This conduct is absolutely unacceptable. It is also completely disrespectful to the reporters colleagues not to allow them an opportunity to ask a question. President Trump has given the press more access than any President in history.  Stephanie Grisham (@PressSec) November 8, 2018 Contrary to CNNs assertions there is no greater demonstration of the Presidents support for a free press than the event he held today. Only they would attack the President for not supporting a free press in the midst of him taking 68 questions from 35 different reporters...  Stephanie Grisham (@PressSec) November 8, 2018 As a result of todays incident, the White House is suspending the hard pass of the reporter involved until further notice.  Stephanie Grisham (@PressSec) November 8, 2018 Sanders provided fraudulent accusations and cited an incident that never happened. This unprecedented decision is a threat to our democracy and the country deserves better, CNN said. Jim Acosta has our full support. Journalists assigned to cover the White House apply for passes that allow them daily access to press areas in the West Wing. White House staffers decide whether journalists are eligible, though the Secret Service determines whether their applications are approved. Facebook

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Trump spars with reporters at post-election news briefing, ordering several to sit down By Associated Press  President Trump assails CNNs Jim Acosta at a White House news conference. President Trump sparred with reporters at his post-election news conference, ordering several to sit down and telling another hes a rude, terrible person. He told another reporter hes not a fan of yours, either. The presidents mood turned sour Wednesday after reporters pressed him on why he referred to a migrant caravan making its way to the U.S. on foot through Mexico as an invasion. Trump ramped up his anti-immigrant rhetoric against the caravan in the final days of the midterm elections. Trump was also pressed on why his campaign aired an ad featuring a Mexican immigrant convicted of killing American police officers and linking the mans actions to the caravan. Several television networks pulled the ad after airing it or declined to air it at all. Facebook

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Im living one hour at a time at this point By Christine Mai-Duc Republican congressional candidate Young Kim and gubernatorial candidate John Cox campaign in Rowland Heights. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) Republican congressional candidate Young Kim greeted gubernatorial candidate John Coxs giant campaign bus, the words HELP IS ON THE WAY emblazoned across it, as it rolled into the parking lot outside her Rowland Heights field office. Standing beside Cox on Saturday, Kim predicted that a string of GOP victories Tuesday would start with voters repealing the gas tax hike. Can you imagine Gavin Newsom being our governor? Can you imagine Gil Cisneros being your representative? Kim asked the crowd, to loud boos and cries of Nooo! The former state assemblywoman who worked for retiring Rep. Ed Royce (R-Fullerton) is vying for his seat with Democrat Gil Cisneros. She led the crowd in chants of Enough is enough! and, though short-lived, Drain the swamp! Ive served you in Sacramento and Ive seen dysfunction personally, Kim continued. We cannot continue that route. She urged her supporters to stay and help make phone calls or walk neighborhoods. Lets get out there  the 72 hours is really critical. Its all going to come down to a few votes, it could be your vote, she said pointing to her left, then pivoting right, it could be your vote. So dont sit back and do nothing. Every night I go to sleep thinking, OK, how many more votes can I get or how many more people can I call tomorrow? Kim said. It can be physically exhausting but Im mentally, emotionally very energized. She listed off her events so far that day  and the next one she was heading to. Thats just what I can remember, she said. Im living one hour at a time at this point. Kims campaign invited press to two of her events on Saturday. After she was whisked away to her next event  a high tea fundraiser in Walnut, a couple dozen volunteers remained. John Freeman, a statewide field manager for the state Republican Party, tried to pump them up. This is the Super Bowl. Were not in an NFL stadium, were not getting paid millions of dollars, but you know what? Freeman said. Were walking on the field right now. This is that high-stakes-level game. Facebook

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Its going to be tough out there Democratic candidate Katie Porter speaks to volunteers in Mission Viejo. Jon Bauman, Bowzer from the band Sha Na Na, is in the background. (Victoria Kim / Los Angeles Times ) Judging from the cheers in the crowd, about half those assembled at Katie Porters campaign headquarters in Mission Viejo Sunday morning were old enough to remember 70s rock n roll star Bowzer from the band Sha Na Na. Jon Bauman, as Bowzer is known off stage, said it was her position on senior issues including retirement and social security that has him out supporting Porter over her opponent, incumbent Rep. Mimi Walters. I want you to make sure every phone is called and every door is knocked, he told the crowd of about 80 volunteers. There has never been a more important election. Both Bauman and his nephew, California Democratic Party Chairman Eric Bauman, were interrupted by yells from Trump supporters coming from an adjoining hillside. We love Trump, the voice cried out. We love him too, he makes great fodder, the younger Bauman retorted, before introducing Porter. Porter, a UC Irvine law professor and first-time candidate, acknowledged the uphill battle some of her canvassers might face in this more conservative end of the long-red Orange County district. I know its going to be tough out there, she said, motioning to the hillside. But she said the attacks meant the other side viewed her campaign as a significant threat. This election is going to be close, she said. If we dont fight all the way to the finish line, until 8 oclock on Tuesday, this could slip away. Bowzer then took to a keyboard piano to lead the crowd in a reworded rendition of the song Good Night Sweetheart: Good night, Mimi Walters, he crooned. A woman in a black tank top, jeans and flip flops holding a cup of coffee later joined the crowd with her two sons, 17 and 14, the younger one wearing a Trump 2016 T-shirt. She declined to give her name, saying she was concerned about being attacked, but said she lived up the hill and said she had been the one yelling. She said she was encouraging her sons to talk to people on both sides and make up their own minds. We need to have a government that runs the way government teachers are telling kids its supposed to be run, said the woman, a retired registered dental assistant who voted early for Mimi Walters. Referring to Democrats, she said: Theyve had control over all these years and Californias gone to crap. Among those canvassing was Stacie Campbell, 37, who was at the launch with her husband Jerome and three children, the youngest of whom was 2 months old. Campbell, a Mission Viejo resident who runs a business, had never canvassed or volunteered for campaigns before, and her husband is a French citizen and unable to vote. She said they had been talking to their children  the older ones are 5 and 2  about the presidency and the government since Trumps election. Together, they worked on homemade Katie Porter lawn signs and put them up around town. This is the first time its felt like a big deal and there isnt a president up for election, she said. Because her city is a mix of conservatives and liberals  her next-door neighbor is an NRA-supporting Republican  she the race felt mthe State Forest Resources Agency of Ukraine introduces the electronic register of timber and bans its sales not at auctions.

According to a press release of the agency issued on Tuesday, the order was signed by Deputy Head of the Agency Volodymyr Bondar.

The agency obliged heads of state-owned enterprise, managed by the agency, to toughen control over logging and timber sales. The agency obliged to ensure keeping the electronic register of timber at forest enterprises placing the information to the electronic register and ensuring the registration of the signed contracts in the system.

The agency also obliged the enterprises to toughen control over the implementation of the timber sale and purchase agreements signed at auctions and the distribution of wood for technological timber and fuel wood.

The authority also ordered that the enterprises stop selling timber under direct contracts signed with contractors who are involved in logging and do not take part in auctions.

In addition, it is banned to sell oak wood for technological needs to consumers.

In 2017, the agency's enterprises saw UAH 471.9 million of net profit. Net sales revenue grew by 11% in 2017, to UAH 13.69 billion.

According to the assessments of the agency, the volume of unlawful logging is 26,000 cubic meters in 2017. The loss is UAH 157.5 million, and 5% of the loss was repaid.The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has decided to dismiss Roman Nasirov, head of the State Fiscal Service, who had been dismissed from his duties.

The corresponding decision was made at a government meeting on Wednesday.

"We sent a letter to the State Committee on the dismissal of Nasirov. The State Commission gave its opinion. Today we are taking this decision," Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said at a meeting on Wednesday.President Trump will deliver his first State of the Union address Tuesday night. The White House released the following excerpts ahead of the speech.

Trump seeks to set the agenda for his second year, hoping to alter a threatening tide 

Together, we are building a safe, strong and proud America.

We want every American to know the dignity of a hard days work; we want every child to be safe in their home at night; and we want every citizen to be proud of this land that we love.

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Just as I promised the American people from this podium 11 months ago, we enacted the biggest tax cuts and reform in American history.

Our massive tax cuts provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small businesses.

Since we passed tax cuts, roughly 3 million workers have already gotten tax cut bonuses  many of them thousands of dollars per worker.

This is our new American moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American dream.

Tonight, I want to talk about what kind of future we are going to have, and what kind of nation we are going to be. All of us, together, as one team, one people, and one American family.

Americans love their country. And they deserve a government that shows them the same love and loyalty in return.

For the last year we have sought to restore the bonds of trust between our citizens and their government.

In our drive to make Washington accountable, we have eliminated more regulations in our first year than any administration in history.

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We have ended the war on American energy, and we have ended the war on clean coal. We are now an exporter of energy to the world.

America has also finally turned the page on decades of unfair trade deals that sacrificed our prosperity and shipped away our companies, our jobs and our nations wealth.

America is a nation of builders. We built the Empire State Building in just one year. Isnt it a disgrace that it can now take 10 years just to get a permit approved for a simple road?

I am asking both parties to come together to give us the safe, fast, reliable and modern infrastructure our economy needs and our people deserve.

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Struggling communities, especially immigrant communities, will also be helped by immigration policies that focus on the best interests of American workers and American families.

So tonight I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to protect our citizens, of every background, color and creed.

As we rebuild Americas strength and confidence at home, we are also restoring our strength and standing abroad.

Last year, I pledged that we would work with our allies to extinguish ISIS from the face of the earth. One year later, Im proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated almost 100% of the territory once held by these killers in Iraq and Syria. But there is much more work to be done. We will continue our fight until ISIS is defeated.

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Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation. I will not repeat the mistakes of the past administrations that got us into this dangerous position.President Trump tried to shed the polarizing image and words that have stunted his popularity and thwarted his ability to pass bipartisan legislation, recasting himself on Tuesday as a unifying figure in his first State of the Union address.

Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people, he said at the top of his roughly 80-minute speech. This is really the key: These are the people we were elected to serve.

It was a striking difference in tone for a president who came into office decrying American carnage at his inaugural, and since then has often spoken and tweeted in harsh terms about his perceived enemies, including lawmakers of both parties and his vanquished opponent, Hillary Clinton.

Trump continued to warn against what he sees as the scourge of illegal immigration. But he cloaked the warnings with soft descriptions of the American character, describing the nation as one team, one people and one American family, and suggested immigrant communities actually would benefit from his policies.

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He alluded to one frequent target  the mostly black NFL players who have protested police violence and other racial injustice by kneeling for the national anthem  but did so only obliquely, not mentioning them as he usually does but instead emphatically equating reverence for service members with why we proudly stand for the national anthem.

As he reeled off natural disasters and tragedies of the last year, including the shooting at a congressional baseball practice that nearly killed a Republican House leader, he emphasized that we came together, not as Republicans or Democrats, but as representatives of the people.

The speech came in whats become a familiar spot for Trump: at a historic low in polls, furious over the Russia investigation and frustrated that he is not getting credit for a good economy.

But the president put much of that aside, claiming credit for the economy as he sought to lay the groundwork for a bipartisan achievement that has eluded him  on immigration, and a major new infrastructure initiative. He said notably little about three issues that animated his campaign and first year as president: healthcare, trade and the international Iran nuclear deal. Trump also made no mention of China.

Trump, like other presidents facing troubles, is hoping the high-profile, nationally televised speech will help him move past the tumult in his White House and the shadow of the Russia investigation  an inquiry into his campaigns possible collusion with Russias election meddling and his own alleged acts of obstruction  that has clouded his first year. Trump refrained from mentioning the investigation.

This is in fact our new American moment, Trump said, repeating a phrase used by Clinton to describe President Obamas foreign policy when she served as his secretary of State. There has never been a better time to start living the American dream.

Trump hammered the theme of building a safe, strong, proud America; which fits loosely around policy proposals for a $1.5-trillion plan to build a safe, fast, reliable and modern infrastructure our economy needs and our people deserve; an increase in military spending, and an overhaul of the immigration system. His controversial immigration plan would sharply cut the number of legal immigrants while allowing a path to citizenship for young Dreamers who were brought to the country illegally as children.

Trump framed his desire to restrict immigration as a security issue, arguing that a porous border has increased the threat of terrorism and drug trafficking. Immigrant advocates say Trump is creating scapegoats, and deepening racial and ethnic divides.

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The president, however, contended that he wants to be a uniter. Tonight I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to protect our citizens, of every background, color and creed, he said.

Earlier Tuesday, Trump told a group of network television anchors meeting at the White House that his biggest lesson since taking office more than a year ago has been tempering his profit-centered business instinct with the need to show heart in his governing decisions.

What Im doing now, a lot of it is heart, a lot of it is compassion, a lot of it is far beyond money  such as immigration, he said, adding, If I was doing this purely from an economic standpoint, I would sit down and tell you in one second what Id be doing, OK?

1 / 30 President Trump gestures as he finishes his first State of the Union address. (Win McNamee / Associated Press) 2 / 30 President Trump delivers the State of the Union address. (Mandel Ngan / AFP/Getty Images) 3 / 30 President Trump delivers the State of the Union address. (EPA / Shutterstock) 4 / 30 President Trump delivers the State of the Union address. (Nicholas Kamm / AFP/Getty Images) 5 / 30 President Trump delivers the State of the Union address. (EPA / Shutterstock) 6 / 30 President Trump delivers the State of the Union address. (Mark Wilson / Getty Images) 7 / 30 Fred and Cindy Warmbier are acknowledged during the State of the Union address. Their son Otto was imprisoned by North Korea for 17 months, freed and days later died in a coma. (Mark Wilson / Getty Images) 8 / 30 Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) acknowledges President Trumps introduction during the State of the Union address. (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press) 9 / 30 President Trump delivers the State of the Union address. (Nicholas Kamm / AFP/Getty Images) 10 / 30 Rebecca Holets looks up at her husband, Albuquerque Police Officer Ryan Holets, as they stand with First Lady Melania Trump during the State of the Union. The Holets adopted the baby of a heroin-addicted homeless woman. (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press) 11 / 30 President Trump delivers the State of the Union address. (Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images) 12 / 30 First Lady Melania Trump greets Preston Sharp during the State of the Union address. Sharp organized the placement of over 40,000 U.S. flags on soldiers graves. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images) 13 / 30 President Trump shakes hands with Speaker of the House Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.). (Alex Wong / Getty Images) 14 / 30 President Trump delivers the State of the Union address. (Win McNamee / Associated Press) 15 / 30 President Trump, backed by Vice President Mike Pence, left, and Speaker of the House Paul D. Ryan, is welcomed for his State of the Union speech. (Mandel Ngan / AFP/Getty Images) 16 / 30 Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., left, and Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Neil Gorsuch listen during the State of the Union address. (Brendan Smialowski / AFP/Getty Images) 17 / 30 President Trump arrives for the State of the Union address. (Win McNamee / Getty Images) 18 / 30 President Trump arrives for the State of the Union address. (Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images) 19 / 30 President Trump walks into the House Chamber as he arrives for his State of the Union address. (Susan Walsh / Associated Press) 20 / 30 First Lady Melania Trump acknowledges the crowd. (Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images) 21 / 30 Jared Kushner, second from left, and wife Ivanka Trump await the speech in the House chamber. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images) 22 / 30 Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan confer before the speech. (EPA/Shutterstock) 23 / 30 Democratic congresswomen dress in black to show their support for the #MeToo movement at tonights State of the Union address. (Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA/Shutterstock) 24 / 30 House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) stands at the lectern before the State of the Union address. (Mark Wilson / Getty Images) 25 / 30 House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), right, speaks with people as they wait for President Trump to deliver his first State of the Union address. (EPA / Shutterstock) 26 / 30 From left, Republican Sens. Roy Blunt, John Thune, Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn arrive to speak with reporters before the State of the Union. (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press) 27 / 30 Lawmakers wear black clothing and Kente cloth in protest before the State of the Union. (EPA / Shutterstock) 28 / 30 Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, center, Democrat from Florida, awaits the State of the Union address. (Nicholas Kamm / AFP/Getty Images) 29 / 30 Members of Congress arrive for the State of the Union address in the chamber of the House. (Alex Wong / Getty Images) 30 / 30 Dreamers who will be attending President Trumps first State of the Union address take selfies before a news conference in Washington. (Pete Marovich / Getty Images)

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Eleven months ago, Trump addressed Congress and a prime-time TV audience from the Capitol, but by tradition a presidents first report on the state of the union  based on a constitutional requirement  does not occur until after a year in office.

Besides emphasizing immigration and infrastructure, Trump nodded to other priorities, including an undefined plan to reform federal prisons. He talked about solving the opioid crisis, yet called for greater law enforcement rather than new funding or programs to combat the epidemic of addiction.

Trump announced that he would keep open the U.S. military prison camp on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, reversing another Obama administration policy and signaling a return to military detentions for captured terrorism suspects. The once-populous camp now holds just 41 prisoners.

Though presidents traditionally use these speeches to lay out their vision early in the year, they also claim credit for first-year achievements. Trump spoke about the economy and his $1.5-trillion tax cut, boasting about the rising stock market and low unemployment.

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He also repeated his contention that his policies brought black unemployment to a historic low, when that development  like other economic gains  reflects a trend that began in Obamas first term, after the Great Recession.

As Republicans rose and applauded Trumps assertion about black employment, members of the Congressional Black Caucus sat stone-faced; many wore African print shawls in apparent protest of Trumps recent slur calling the nations in Africa shithole countries.

In a recent Pew poll, 41% of Americans rated the economy as excellent or good, one of the strongest such ratings in a decade. Yet many Americans do not give Trump credit. On average, polls show his approval at about 40%, lower than the standing of any of his predecessors in the modern era after a year in office.

Two words I dont think well hear tonight: Thanks, Obama, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said before the speech. Schumer, like most Democrats, sat glum-faced through much of the address.

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The tax cut law has elicited mixed expectations, according to Pew, with about a third of Americans saying they expect it to improve their personal finances, a third saying they expect it to harm them and another third expecting no change.

Other polls have shown a majority of Americans believe the tax cuts favor high-earners, contrary to Trumps claim  repeated in his address  that they mostly benefit the middle class.

Administration officials say the tax cut will grow more popular as Trump sells it and as the large reduction in corporate rates leads to higher middle-class wages. Economists, including at the Federal Reserve, have more modest expectations, predicting a small short-term effect on economic growth.

Trump named the tax cuts, reduced regulations and what he calls an end to the war on American energy  including coal  among promises fulfilled. He credited the tax cuts with prompting businesses to give bonuses for roughly 3 million workers, though he exaggerated the amounts as thousands and thousands of dollars when most are $1,000. Some wage hikes and bonuses were negotiated in union contracts or planned by corporations before the tax cuts became law.

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Trump also trumpeted success in beating back the militant group Islamic State, while conceding that there is much more work to be done.

Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation, he said. I will not repeat the mistakes of the past administrations that got us into this dangerous position.

Trump, like every president since Ronald Reagan, invited guests who reflect aspects of his agenda to sit with the first lady. Among those joining Melania Trump were Americans said to be benefiting from the new tax cuts, parents who lost children to gang violence, a Marine who reenlisted after losing his eyes and legs, and a man who led a volunteer rescue effort for victims of Hurricane Harvey.

Democrats had their own guests, dominated by a number of Dreamers.

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For all the attention paid to them, these prime-time addresses seldom move public opinion much. And Trump has had a particularly difficult time sticking to a message, often creating new controversies within days of a well-received speech  like the one last February, which he followed with an explosive tweet alleging without evidence that Obama had wiretapped his phones.

Times staff writers Joseph Tanfani and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

noah.bierman@latimes.com

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Twitter: @noahbierman

UPDATES:

9:20 p.m.: This article was updated with more quotes from the speech and additional details.

7:15 p.m.: This article was updated with the beginning of the speech.

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4:50 p.m.: This article was updated with excepts from the presidents speech.

This article was originally published at 3:40 p.m.For over an hour Tuesday night, Presidential Trump vied with pugnacious Trump.

The White House had promised a conciliatory and uplifting State of the Union address, which stood to reason. Its one thing to inveigh against the mess Trump said he inherited a year ago and another to laud the job he claims to have done cleaning it up.

FULL COVERAGE: State of the Union 

Gone, then, was the wreckage, the ruin and the dystopian American carnage he deplored in the glowering speech at his inauguration. Instead, Trump offered a vision of hopefulness and light  for a time, anyway.

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This is our new American moment, he said loftily in the early moments of his address. There has never been a better time to start living the American dream.

But those grace notes were soon overshadowed by an increasingly harsh tone, as though the president couldnt or didnt care to contain his more ad-libbed and aggressive self.

He needled Democrats over the partial dismantling of the Affordable Care Act, one of his predecessors proudest achievements. He resurrected the controversy over the national anthem and the dissent of kneeling black athletes.

When he spoke of immigration, perhaps the touchiest issue facing a gridlocked Congress, he placed it in a dark frame, with talk of gang violence, of alien intruders stealing jobs and a suggestion of unending chain migrants  aunts, uncles, cousins and other family members  leaching taxpayer dollars.

In his closest approximation to an olive branch, Trump said he would support a proposal offering a path to citizenship for 1.8 million children  so-called Dreamers  who were brought to America illegally by their parents. But only, he said, if Democrats would agree to a border wall and other changes in legal immigration they consider anathema.

The result was groans and hisses and boos from that side of the House chamber.

The annual speech to Congress is one of Washingtons most carefully choreographed set pieces, and for portions of it Trump hewed closely to a familiar script

He assayed the state of the union, pronouncing it strong. He outlined an ambitious agenda  which lawmakers will mostly ignore  crowed about his achievements, made a feint in the direction of bipartisanship and saluted a large number of invited guests who served as props representing different bullet points (immigration, a strong military, the opioid addiction crisis) of his speech.

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It was all terribly conventional, but only to a point.

There were many long sections that could just have easily been delivered at one of Trumps roisterous Make America Great Again campaign rallies, down to the moment when the ranks of Republican lawmakers broke into a lusty chant of USA! USA! as the president, chin out, approvingly took in the scene.

The contrast to the last time Trump stood in the well of the House was striking.

Eleven months ago, he delivered a more subdued performance, earning plaudits and generating widespread talk of a presidential turning point or, in that most overused expression, a pivot toward a more staid and conformist style of governance.

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Then, days later, Trump was back to tweeting about a bad (or sick) President Obama bugging Trump Tower, a figment that roused his political base but instantly banished any Democratic goodwill or notions of presidential normalcy.

Trump has shattered political convention in so many ways that it is difficult to enumerate them all. One of the most significant is this: Although the economy is perking smartly along and Americans tell pollsters they feel better about their financial well-being than they have in years, the president has gotten very little credit.

Indeed, his approval rating stands at a historical low for a chief executive this early in his term, severing the long-standing correlation between economic good times and voter satisfaction.

His speech Tuesday night, with its prime-time prominence and audience reaching in the tens of millions, offered a chance to address that problem. Over the last year, we have made incredible progress and achieved extraordinary success, Trump said, reeling off a number of favorable economic statistics.

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But much of the address seemed aimed at a far narrower audience.

To a greater degree than any recent president, Trump has used his time in office to appease the relatively narrow slice of the electorate  older, whiter, alienated, aggrieved  that placed him in power, opting not to reach out, bend and seek to broaden that coalition.

His uncompromising performance Tuesday night perfectly encapsulated that approach. Supporters found much to like and detractors plenty to reinforce their contempt.

It is too much to expect any single speech, much less one as politically freighted as the State of the Union, to instantly bridge such a yawning gap. If anything, though, Trumps provocative remarks seemed likely to push warring Democrats and Republicans even further apart.

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mark.barabak@latimes.com

@markzbarabakPresident Trumps very first State of the Union address was unusual in a number of ways  longer than most of those of other presidents, replete with shout-outs to special guests.

It was also striking in its attempt to strike a tone far different from the one Trump relied on during most of his first year in office.

Gone was his inaugural warning of American carnage. In its place, an attempt to call for common ground.

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A SPEECH WITH MANY GOALS

As Noah Bierman writes, the president seemed to be trying on Tuesday night to recast himself as a unifier of the bitterly divided nation.

This is in fact our new American moment, he said. There has never been a better time to start living the American dream.

The reaction shots on television were fascinating, especially those of Democrats struggling to contain their unhappiness with what was being said. You can watch a seven-minute wrap up of the speech here.

Mark Barabaks analysis found that presidential Trump vied with pugnacious Trump during most of the speech.

And heres a stat for the Twitter-loving president: With 4.5 million messages typed and sent, it was the most tweeted-about State of the Union in history.

STATE OF THE UNION ROUNDUP

-- Our Times political team dug down into the numerous backstories for this annotated version of the State of the Union speech.

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-- A group of Times journalists had a real-time conversation on Slack as the evening unfolded.

-- We also found a number of things the president got wrong in his speech.

-- The president cited the depraved character of North Koreas government for its reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons, but stopped short of proposing any new policies.

-- He announced that he would keep open the prison camp at the U.S. Navy station on Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, a 2016 campaign pledge that would reverse a long-held policy of the Obama administration.

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-- He steered clear of any reference to the special counsel investigation of Russian election interference.

-- As he left the House chamber, Trump was caught on camera saying hes 100%" going to release the hotly contested Republican memo alleging secret government surveillance.

-- The Trump doctrine? He asks for a law that foreign aid only go to friends of America.

-- A Republican congressman from Arizona urged law enforcement officers to arrest the Dreamers who showed up at the Capitol for the presidents speech.

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-- Last nights designated survivor in the event of an attack: Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.

-- Barabak looks at how the address, once an inconspicuous written message, has become a pageant of pomp and punditry.

-- A 12-year old boy from the Northern California city of Redding sat next to First Lady Melania Trump and was praised for efforts to decorate the graves of veterans. A California firefighter was also singled out by the president.

CALIFORNIA DEMOCRATS: DREAMERS, DRYING CLOTHES

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Some Californians in Congress seemed conflicted on whether to attend the State of the Union and several bowed out. More than half a dozen brought a California Dreamer as their guest, and many more wore black to recognize sexual harassment and assault.

For one of two Californians who were tapped to be a designated survivor in the event of a catastrophe, Tuesday was just another night of laundry and television.

Others used the State of the Union time to launch television ads for their campaigns  including Tom Steyers impeachment effort; Sara Jacobs, a Democrat running for Rep. Darrell Issas seat; and Republican gubernatorial candidate John Coxs depiction of lobbyists as pigs scurrying through Sacramento.

NATIONAL POLITICS LIGHTNING ROUND

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-- So how is the president doing in the publics eyes at the one-year mark?

-- Senate Democrats expressed outrage Tuesday at reports that the head of Russias foreign intelligence service visited Washington recently despite being on a U.S. government blacklist that prohibits many dealings with him.

-- House Speaker Paul D. Ryan defended special counsel Robert S. Mueller III on Tuesday even as he supported the release of a Republican memo about classified surveillance that could undermine the investigation into Russian interference with the presidential election.

-- Republicans running in Arizonas U.S. Senate primary are trying to outdo one another in embracing Trump and his agenda, heightening the risk of losing the seat to a Democrat.

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-- EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is warning California not to overplay its hand on vehicle mileage standards, suggesting that the EPA could try to block the states waiver of federal law. Its an awkward threat for Pruitt, a supposed champion of states rights.

-- In an abrupt about-face, the U.S. military released data Tuesday showing insurgents in Afghanistan are growing stronger after a Pentagon auditing office complained it had been prohibited from releasing the statistics.

-- The Supreme Court signaled Monday it may be open to blocking a state ruling on partisan gerrymandering at the behest of Pennsylvanias Republican leaders.

GOVERNOR 2018: DEMOCRATS TALK ABORTION RIGHTS

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While the eyes of the political world were on Washington, the four leading Democrats in the race for governor of California were in San Francisco to talk about abortion rights.

As expected, there was very little disagreement on ensuring a womans access to abortion services.

And they all had sharp words for Gov. Jerry Browns decision to veto a bill last year that would have barred employers for firing a woman who had an abortion.

I think Jerry was dead wrong on this, said Delaine Eastin, the former state schools chief. It was one of the worst decisions hes made.

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WHAT EARLY ENDORSEMENTS MEAN FOR CALIFORNIA DEMOCRATS

Rank-and-file delegates to the California Democratic Partys upcoming convention met last weekend in small groups all over the state to cast early pre-endorsement votes for favorite local candidates.

The results give an early glimpse of where the competitive House races stand  whos consolidating strength among the partys grass roots and which races remain wide-open contests. In many of these crowded races the party imprimatur can give candidates a meaningful way to stand out.

TODAYS ESSENTIALS

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-- The California bullet train project will get its first state audit in six years, after the Legislatures joint audit committee gives its approval.

-- Should California start its own bank to serve the cannabis industry? The states treasurer and attorney general announced on Tuesday the launch of a study to answer that question.

-- After federal inspectors uncovered what they reported to be serious hazardous waste violations at the Torrance Refinery, the Trump administration chose not to pursue them.

-- The state Senate on Tuesday deadlocked for a second straight year on a measure that would have banned California restaurants from providing takeout orders in disposable polystyrene containers starting in 2020.

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-- California has proposed a new method of lethal injection, but the two drugs that could be used to execute inmates are extremely difficult to obtain.

-- The ACLU claims Bakersfield police officers unlawfully jailed a black man after they stopped the car he was riding in because the vehicle had an air freshener dangling from its rearview mirror.

-- Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is on the verge of filling one of the most important posts in the city, one that has huge influence over how much money is spent on police, street repairs, parks and other basic services.

-- California is on its way to having 1.5 million electric cars on the road by 2025, a new report says.

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-- Legislation to help Californians evade the effects of Trumps tax overhaul passed the state Senate Tuesday.

-- Federal immigration agents would need warrants to enter schools and courthouses under new legislation introduced in Sacramento.

-- The mayor of Montebello says she is seriously considering a run against embattled state Sen. Tony Mendoza this year.

LOGISTICS

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Essential Politics is published Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

You can keep up with breaking news on our politics page throughout the day. And are you following us on Twitter at @latimespolitics?

Miss Mondays newsletter? Here you go.

Please send thoughts, concerns and news tips to politics@latimes.com.

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Did someone forward you this? Sign up here to get Essential Politics in your inbox.The Democratic field in Californias 2018 governors race joined in political harmony in favor of abortion rights and the empowerment of women in their third debate in as many weeks Tuesday, a departure from the chippy exchanges seen at previous forums.

The top four Democrats in the race, appearing at a debate sponsored by the abortion-rights organization NARAL Pro-Choice California, also joined together to criticize one of their own, Gov. Jerry Brown.



For the record: This story stated that all four Democratic candidates agreed that the morning after pill should be provided on college campuses. Though two of the candidates specifically referred to that medication, the question they were responding to dealt with the availability of abortion pills on campuses.

The candidates blasted the governors veto of a bill last year that would have barred employers from firing workers for having an abortion, or giving birth to a child out of wedlock.

I think this was a terrible decision. It showed a lack of understanding and appreciation of what women go through in this world, said former state schools chief Delaine Eastin, the only woman candidate on the stage. I think Jerry was dead wrong on this. It was one of the worst decisions hes made.

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Eastin joined her Democratic rivals in the race, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Treasurer John Chiang, in saying that she would have signed the legislation.

Chiang, to punctuate his point, noted that the San Diego assemblywoman who sponsored the bill, Democrat Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, endorsed him for governor. It was one of the many attempts by the candidates to differentiate themselves from the others, even though all four aligned on almost every issue.

All agreed that the morning after abortion pill should be provided on college campuses; birth control should be allowed to be sold over the counter and without a prescription; and said the state must do more to crack down on fake healthcare clinics trying to prevent women from acquiring abortions and other reproductive healthcare.

About 200 people showed up for the 90-minute debate at the SOMArts Cultural Center in San Francisco, a turnout that was probably dampened because the event was held at the same time President Trump delivered his State of the Union address Tuesday night.

Unlike the two previous debates held in Los Angeles this month, the forum lacked any big flashpoints or vitriol between the candidates.

Newsom and Villaraigosa previously clashed over enacting a state-sponsored single-payer healthcare system in California. Villaraigosa previously accused Newsom of selling snake oil by advocating for an unaffordable program, while Newsom has implied that Villaraigosa lacks the political courage to tackle the vexing problem of healthcare.

The candidates were not directly asked about the issue Tuesday and avoided attacking each others positions on the subject.

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Organizers of the forum said they invited two of the major Republicans in the race, Assemblyman Travis Allen and Rancho Santa Fe businessman John Cox, but neither responded. Both are staunchly anti-abortion.

The newest GOP candidate in the race, former Sacramento Rep. Doug Ose, said he was not invited.

While serving in Washington, Ose supported abortion rights except for late-term abortion procedures. He was attacked for his abortion record when he ran for Congress, and lost, against conservative Tom McClintock in 2008.

They didnt invite us. Therefore, we have no comment, Ose said in a statement before the debate.

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phil.willon@latimes.com

Twitter: @philwillon

Updates on California politicsThe winnowing process began this weekend for the dozens of California Democrats vying to take control of Republican-held House seats in the midterm elections.

The rank-and-file delegates who make up the states Democratic Party met last weekend in small groups all over the state to cast early votes for their favorite candidates in House races.

These so-called pre-endorsement conferences are the first steps in the process to win the partys endorsement ahead of Junes primary.

The results give an early glimpse of where the competitive House races stand  who is consolidating strength among the partys grass roots and which races remain wide open contests.

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In many of these crowded races the imprimatur of the Democratic Party can give the endorsed candidates a meaningful way to stand out. The partys endorsement does not necessarily mean a candidate is a shoo-in to make it out of the primary  more on that later.

Here are the three possible outcomes from the votes

A candidate needs the vote of at least 70% of his or her district delegates for their endorsement to be placed on the partys consent calendar at the state party convention in San Diego this month  all but guaranteeing an endorsement from the party.

If a candidate doesnt reach the 70% threshold but gets at least 50% of the vote, the decision is made at another conference at the convention this month.

If no candidate receives at least 50% of the vote, the party will not make any endorsement in that district.

The early winners

Here are the four Democrats  all men  who got at least 70% of the vote at the pre-endorsement meetings. That means their candidacies will appear on the convention consent calendar, unless there is a petition effort challenging them at the convention.

Emilio Huerta  challenging Rep. David Valadao in the 21st Congressional District. Huerta was the only person in the race.

Andrew Janz  challenging Rep. Devin Nunes in the 22nd Congressional District. He beat out two others.

Bryan Caforio  challenging Rep. Steve Knight in the 25th Congressional District. One other candidate received votes.

Ammar Campa-Najjar  challenging Rep. Duncan Hunter in the 50th Congressional District. One other person ran

Track the races that matter most in California 

Crowded races where the fight continues

There will be another round of voting for the candidates in these races. The favorites are:

Jessica Morse got 55% in the 4th District vote, running against two other candidates. She is challenging Rep. Tom McClintock.

Marge Doyle got 60% in the 8th District vote, running against two other candidates. She is challenging Rep. Paul Cook.

Hans Keirstead got 65% in the 48th District vote, running against five other candidates. He is challenging Rep. Dana Rohrabacher.

Mike Levin got 57% against four other candidates in the 49th District, an open-seat race in the district represented by Rep. Darrell Issa.

Dave Min got 66% against three other candidates in the 45th District. He is challenging Rep. Mimi Walters.

Updates on California politics 

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Congressional candidates Sam Jammal, Andy Thorburn, Mai-Khanh Tran, Gil Cisneros, Jay Chen and Phil Janowicz speak during a forum at Fullerton College on Jan. 10. The candidates are vying for the seat of outgoing U.S. Rep. Ed Royce (R-Fullerton). (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times )

No dice

The races for these seats are arguably too crowded with no clear front-runner.

Five candidates split the vote in 10th District so no candidate will have the benefit of a party endorsement when facing Rep. Jeff Denham.

Seven candidates split the vote in the 39th District race to replace retiring Rep. Ed Royce.

What does the party endorsement really mean?

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The partys endorsement is certainly a help, but it isnt a guaranteed ticket to success at the ballot box  after all, the grass-roots activists voting at these small party juntas are different than the people who actually decide to cast a ballot on primary day in June.

Caforio failed to capture the partys endorsement when he ran for Knights seat in 2016 but still managed to beat the endorsed Democrat in the primary.

That fact is not lost on Katie Hill.

Though she had a poor showing at the endorsement conference, she has the makings of a strong candidate. Hill is matching Caforios fundraising levels, has secured endorsements from Emilys List as well as Southern California female politicians Rep. Judy Chu and Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl. She also has longer ties to the district than Caforio  who faced criticism for moving into the area to run in 2016.

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But Caforio has consolidated support in the district since his loss and boasts the endorsements of numerous elected officials who endorsed his 2016 Democratic primary opponent.

Going into it there was no doubt that we were underdogs because our opponent had an additional cycle to cultivate relationships in the party, Hill said in a statement. We look forward to taking this to the voters of the district in June.

Some candidates dont even try for the endorsement.

State Sen. Isadore Hall won 100% of his districts delegate vote in 2016 when he was running for an open South Los Angeles congressional seat, and his candidacy came along with wide establishment support.

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But he was defeated in the general election vote by fellow Democrat Nanette Barragan  whose campaign skipped the early endorsement conference altogether, criticizing it as too backroom.

I am not sure whether I should congratulate the senator for amassing a large number of votes from paid staffers and appointees of other Sacramento politicians or go back to watching YouTube clips of cats doing cute things, Barragans campaign manager in 2016, Michael Trujillo, said shortly after the pre-endorsement vote.

For 2018s hopefuls, the real test comes June 5.

javier.panzar@latimes.com

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Twitter: jpanzar

Updates on California politics

ALSO

Track the California races that could flip the House

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Gil Cisneros continues to consolidate Latino support in race for Ed Royces U.S. House seat

UPDATES:

4:59 p.m.: This article was updated with the names of two of the politicians endorsing Hill.Fifty years ago this month, Henry Richter sat in a mosquito-infested Florida marsh, waiting to find out whether America had successfully put its first satellite in orbit.

Tension was high. Just four months earlier, the Soviets had humiliated the United States by launching Sputnik. In December, America's first attempt to catch up to the Russians failed when the Navy's Vanguard rocket blew up on the pad.

"Flopnik," cried the headlines.

In the wake of that embarrassment, the project landed in the lap of a little-known Army research center in Southern California called the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

So on the night of Jan. 31, 1958 -- less than 90 days after being given the go-ahead -- Richter and other scientists waited nervously on a stretch of beach called Cape Canaveral as Explorer 1 lifted off the pad.

RELATED | Blast from the past: How Explorer 1, America's first satellite, launched the space race and NASA 

Confirmation that it had reached orbit took longer than expected.

"It was a sweaty-palms time," recalled Richter, one of a handful of high-ranking scientists and engineers still living who worked on the Explorer program.

He finally got confirmation from an improvised tracking station at the Temple City sheriff's office. "Temple's acquired," it said.

Minutes later, the world learned America had joined the space race.

The launch of Explorer was the first step in a journey of exploration that would culminate a decade later with the Apollo moon landing of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

It also was a coming-out party for JPL, which emerged from its cloak of military secrecy with a reputation for scientific and technical prowess it has maintained for the last five decades. Its robotic spacecraft have visited every planet in the solar system. The two Voyager craft are now poised to become the first man-made objects to reach interstellar space.

The story of JPL's 90-day miracle became the stuff of scientific legend. Single-handedly, it seemed, JPL had proved that American know-how was alive and well at a time when the country badly needed a shot in the arm.

"It's an attractive story," JPL historian Erik Conway said of the crash program that built and launched Explorer in less than three months. "The problem is, it's not true."

The real story of Explorer 1, according to Richter, Conway and other space historians, was of a long and often frustrating journey wrapped in Cold War politics, secret missile tests and White House miscalculations.

All this took place against the backdrop of the race between the United States and the Soviets to develop and deploy the first intercontinental ballistic missiles, capable of carrying nuclear weapons across the globe.

The Explorer 1 launch team works during countdown in Cape Canaveral. Department of Defense / Associated Press

Secret preparations

According to the modest and soft-spoken Richter, now 80 and semi-retired in Palm Springs, his involvement with the Explorer 1 project was mostly a matter of being in the right place at the right time with the right set of skills. The son of respected landscape painter Henry L. Richter, he spent his early years in Long Beach and Rolling Hills.

Always technically oriented, Richter graduated from Caltech in 1955 with a PhD in chemistry and then joined JPL.

At the time, the lab was doing ballistic missile research for the Army under the direction of a low-key New Zealander named William Pickering. The JPL group was also working with German rocket wunderkind Wernher von Braun and his team of German scientists based in Huntsville, Ala.

William Pickering stands with a model of the Explorer 1 satellite in 1958. Associated Press

The Germans had brought their V-2 rocket technology with them when they were whisked out of Germany at the end of World War II.

Working in secret, the two groups were building a missile capable of striking targets thousands of miles away. They hoped to build America's first ICBM, the foundation of the arms race that took off in the 1960s. (The Army version was eventually scrapped in favor of the Air Force's Atlas missile.)

From the first, the marriage of the Germans and the Californians was an odd one, Richter recalled.

"Von Braun was very Teutonic," he said. JPL was "very loose."

Carl W. Raggio, now 79, was a manager of the Explorer design team.

According to Raggio, the German-JPL team was developing a missile capable of striking targets in the Soviet Union. The three-stage rocket, known as the reentry test vehicle, was a combination of Von Braun's Redstone launcher, based on the V-2, and JPL's Sergeant missile.

In 1956, one of the rockets traveled 3,300 miles down the Atlantic test range, Richter said.

Richter, Raggio and Conway said that if a fourth stage had been added, the rocket could easily have reached orbit. All that was needed was the go-ahead from the White House.

"We could have launched, we were ready to go," Richter said. "We had flight-tested three rockets. But we had no permission."

Political factors

The reasons were more political than scientific. According to Conway, President Eisenhower wanted the Navy's Vanguard rocket to carry the first science payload to orbit. Although the rocket was based on a Navy design, its development was under civilian management. Eisenhower didn't want America's first space launch to have a strong military connection.

But Conway said there was another reason: The White House didn't want the Army's military ballistic missile work to leak. "By keeping Von Braun and company working in secret, he could keep the ICBM secret," he said.

The Russians found out about the missile tests in the Atlantic anyway. But in the cloak-and-dagger world of Cold War relations, the Russians mistakenly thought the Americans were trying to reach space but failing, Conway said.

Another part of the Explorer myth held that Sputnik caught the U.S. by surprise. In fact, both countries had announced plans to commemorate the International Geophysical Year, which began in July 1957, with satellite launches.

Richter attended an IGY planning session in Washington shortly before Sputnik's launch on Oct. 4, 1957. One of his Russian counterparts spoke openly about being on the verge of launching a satellite.

"Nobody paid any attention," Richter said.

After Sputnik's launch, Richter, a ham radio operator, was given the job of verifying the Soviet claim. Because of radio interference at JPL's Pasadena campus, he loaded a trailer with radio equipment and set up a makeshift tracking station at the Temple City sheriff's station.

As a crowd of reporters watched, Richter locked onto the famous "beep, beep" signal.

Eisenhower, according to Conway, was unimpressed with the Soviet accomplishment. He considered Sputnik "a stunt," according to Richter.

Opinion-makers in the media were of a different mind and whipped up fears that America was lagging behind the Russians in the race to colonize space.

It took a few weeks for the effect to sink in at the White House. According to Conway, the alarm bells didn't really start ringing on Pennsylvania Avenue until Sputnik 2 was launched on Nov. 3, 1957.

Sputnik 2 was no stunt. It carried a 2,000-pound satellite into orbit that contained a dog named Laika.

"That got people worried," Conway said. It showed the Soviets had the ability to launch heavy payloads, such as weapon systems.

Within days of Sputnik 2's launch, the White House ordered the Navy to speed up its Vanguard program. A test scheduled for early December was reconfigured as a real launch.

Just to be safe, the Pentagon privately passed word to Von Braun and Pickering to prepare their rocket in case the Navy's effort failed.

Vanguard blew up on the launchpad on Dec. 6, 1957. Critics had a field day.

Henry Richter developed the radio and transmission system for Explorer 1. JPL's satellite was fast-tracked after the Navy's Vanguard rocket blew up on the launchpad in December 1957. Alex Gallardo / Los Angeles Times

At that point, "my life drastically changed," Richter said.

Contrary to the myth, JPL's Jupiter-C rocket was pretty much ready to go.

"All we needed to do was put it all together," Raggio said.

Richter got the job of developing the radio and transmission system. The transmitter was tiny, putting out only 0.01 watt. Since this was before the age of solar-powered satellites, Explorer would have to rely on batteries, which would run down in a few weeks.

Taking to the sky

Richter also was involved in the selection of the science package. An instrument to detect charged particles, designed by a University of Iowa physicist named James Van Allen, had already been chosen.

Richter added an instrument to detect micrometeorites, in case the spacecraft should encounter clouds of dust.

The surprise came when it turned out that Earth was not surrounded by space pebbles but by radiation belts, which now bear Van Allen's name.

In late January 1958, Richter flew to Cape Canaveral for the launch. He and the other members of the Explorer team took rooms in the only motel that existed at the time on the central Florida beach.

Though the spacecraft would publicly be known as Explorer, the JPL team had nicknamed it Project Deal, because several of the team leaders were avid gin rummy players. One of their favorite expressions went, "Winners laugh and joke, while losers cry deal."

The application to the space race was intentional, according to Walter Downhower, another ex-JPLer who worked on Explorer.

"We were the losers and the Russians were laughing and joking," he said.

In the end, Project Deal was no loser. It was the rock upon which JPL's reputation, myth and all, was built.

Doug Stevens / Los Angeles Times

Probably the most famous image from that time shows Pickering, Von Braun and Van Allen holding a model of Explorer above their heads in celebration.

All three have since died, most recently Van Allen in 2006, but memories of them are still strong for their colleagues.

"If you look at them," Raggio said, "what made them special was that they were all out in front and they knew exactly where they were going."

And they knew how to push their vision. "Von Braun could sell ice to Eskimos," he said.

The Jupiter-C rocket carrying the satellite Explorer 1 takes off in Cape Canaveral. A service line can be seen falling away from its nose. U.S. Army / Associated Press

Looking back

Richter left JPL a few years later and went into business building emergency communications systems for police and fire departments.

At 80, he continues to do consulting work in a cluttered laboratory, watched over by a portrait of Albert Einstein bearing the quote "I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."

Raggio continued working at JPL until his retirement in 1990. Downhower, now 75, retired in 1995.

All three are among the group of 30 or so JPL employees who will be honored at a Caltech reception this month as part of JPL's Explorer celebration.

"If you look back on it, none of us would trade those experiences," Raggio said. "You had the opportunity to do something that had never been done before."

History was the furthest thing from Richter's mind when he returned to his motel room on the Florida coast after getting confirmation that Explorer 1 had safely reached orbit.

"What I remember is the mosquitoes," he said. "They ate us alive."

He and his colleagues were not ignorant, however, of the implications of what they had just done. Space was Earth's last unexplored realm, and they had just touched their toes on its shore.Wednesday marks the United States 60th anniversary in space with the launch of Explorer 1.

The success of the fast-tracked mission, which carried the countrys first satellite into orbit, helped bring the little-known Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge to scientific prominence and led to the creation of NASA.

I really believe that Explorer 1 was the first landmark of space exploration, veteran JPL engineer John Casani said in a NASA video celebrating the 50th anniversary of the launch. Although it followed Sputnik, Explorer 1 had science instruments on it.

Come along with us on a nostalgia-filled look back at how the U.S. entered the space race.

The anniversary of the Explorer 1 launch marks 60 years in space for the United States. NASA

Flopnik

In 1957, the United States efforts to catch up to the Soviet Union had gotten off to a stuttering start.

The International Geophysical Year, a worldwide scientific project, challenged would-be space-faring nations to put a satellite in orbit. The U.S.S.R. was the first to do so, sending Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2 into space in the fall of that year.

Newsreel footage covering the launch of the Soviet Unions Sputnik 1 on Oct. 4, 1957.

But the United States early effort, the Vanguard rocket, exploded on Dec. 6, just seconds after lifting off. The satellite it was carrying only got as far as the bushes near the edge of the Cape Canaveral launchpad. Newspapers called it Flopnik.

The Navys Vanguard rocket failed upon launch on Dec. 6, 1957.

Luckily, the United States had a backup plan: the Jupiter-C rocket and the Explorer 1 satellite.

JPL to the rescue

Pressure to compete with the Soviets led the government to direct the Jet Propulsion Lab, then operated by the Army, and the Army Ballistic Missile Agency in Alabama to use their Jupiter-C rocket to carry a satellite into orbit. The Jupiter-C rockets were designed to strike distant targets across the globe, so they were deemed more than capable of reaching orbit.

An internal view of the Explorer 1 satellite. NASA / Marshall Space Flight Center Collection

Just 87 days after the order came down, Jupiter-C lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., and sent Explorer 1 into orbit on Jan. 31, 1958, at 10:48 p.m. EST. The satellite, which weighed less than 31 pounds, was equipped with instruments to measure cosmic rays.

Two views of the Jupiter-C rocket launch that carried the Explorer 1 satellite into orbit on Jan. 31, 1958. (U.S. Army and NASA-JPL/Caltech)

Off the blocks in the space race

The minds behind the project  JPL Director William H. Pickering, Wernher von Braun of the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency, and James Van Allen, who developed the cosmic ray detector  described the rocket and satellite at a late-night news conference two hours after the launch. At the medias request, the trio of scientists lifted one of their props above their heads.

William H. Pickering, James A. Van Allen and Wernher von Braun discuss the Explorer 1 launch and lift a model of the spacecraft over their heads.

The artificial moon

The day after the launch, the Los Angeles Times described the satellite as an artificial moon that could spend up to 10 years in space.

The missile was off to a beautiful launching, The Times reported. It rose slowly at first in a huge splash of flame with a roar that could be heard for miles.

Los Angeles Times

There were many stars in the sky and it was difficult to determine which was the missile and which was a star.

Earths newest moon orbited the planet 58,376 times before it ran out of battery power and went dormant on May 23, 1958. It finally fell toward Earth and burned up in the atmosphere on March 31, 1970.

In this historical animation, Explorer 1 was represented by a simple dot moving through space.

sean.greene@latimes.com

@seangreene89

MORE IN SCIENCE

They ran the first lap of a long space race

OK. Lets do it! An oral history of how NASA's Cassini mission to Saturn came to be

Hidden Figures' may feature NASA's history, but it resonates in the presentThe owner of Tonys Darts Away and Mohawk Bend is partnering with Burbank to create a new public amenity in the downtown area where residents and visitors can spend their evenings and weekends.

The Burbank Community Development Department hosted a community workshop in the Community Services Building on Monday and presented the proposed Burbank Common project, a public-private partnership between the city and developer West Magnolia, LLC, with plans to redevelop a 2.4-acre site at 10 W. Magnolia Blvd.

The proposed project would involve demolishing the existing 70,000-square-foot former AmeriCold cold storage warehouse and replace it with 33,000 square feet of event space, a roller rink, 19,000 square feet of restaurant, craft beer pub, cafe and special-event space and about 47,000 square feet of outdoor space where the public can congregate and eat.

The site is located next to the Metrolink downtown Burbank station and behind Burbank Water and Power. Ross Young, a project manager for Burbank, said the project would use the 471 parking spaces currently located around the train station, of which 240 spaces will be adjacent to the site.

Young said Metrolink users use about 65% of the spaces during weekdays.

We know that the greatest demand for this project will be on evenings and weekends, so we think those opposing peak-period demands will accommodate both uses with the implementation of managed parking, he said.

Young said the city, with help from its former Redevelopment Agency, bought the warehouse in 2003 to allow Burbank Water and Power to use the site to finish constructing a portion of its facility, and to use the site as a transit-oriented development.

Burbank tried to demolish the site in 2008 but did not generate enough support from the City Council because of high demolition costs.

After dealing with the dismantling of the Redevelopment Agency, Young said the city owns the property outright and will be working with West Magnolia to redevelop the site.

Developer West Magnolia is looking to replace a 70,000-square-foot warehouse with an event space, restaurants, a brewery and outdoor public space. (Courtesy of the city of Burbank )

The man behind West Magnolia is Tony Yanow, owner of Tonys Darts Away in Magnolia Park and the brewpub Mohawk Bend in Echo Park. Yanow was also one of the original founders of Golden Road Brewing, one of the largest craft-beer breweries in Los Angeles.

One of the reasons why we reached out to Tony and his team is the experiences that weve seen him create in the spaces theyve gone into, said Daniel Villa, an associate planner for Burbank.

Villa added that the property will be owned by the city, but will be operated by Yanow and his restaurant group, the Artisanal Brewers Collective.

Tonys Darts Away used to be an unassuming dive bar in Magnolia Park, but Yanow bought the business almost nine years ago and converted it into a popular brewpub that specializes in craft beer and vegan food. Thats also the case with Mohawk Bend, which was once a Vaudeville theater but is now a thriving restaurant with a focus on craft beer.

Yanow formed the Artisanal Brewers Collective after selling Golden Road to Anheuser-Busch InBev in 2015 and has since been adding more establishments to his brewpub portfolio.

Some of his latest projects include the Stalking Horse Brewery and Freehouse in Los Angeles, Brennans in Marina Del Rey and a new beer-focused eatery in downtown San Diego, Yanow said.

Paige Reilly, a co-founder of the Artisanal Brewers Collective, said Burbank Commons goal is to offer a family-friendly space where craft beer fans can bring their families and socialize with others who have similar interests.

There are some great production breweries that have some great small taprooms, but [theyre] literally... concrete jungle[s] with metal seats and a food truck outside, Reilly said. Youre not able to have a true comfortable experience where you can bring your families and sit for a longer period of time and have genuine conversations with other people that have that same passion [for craft beer].

Though the restaurant and brewpub are the main features of the Burbank Common project, Yanow and his team said that the proposed event space will address another issue that Burbank has had  a lack of space for corporate events.

Cary Berger, a member of the Artisanal Brewers Collective, said the proposed roughly 25,000-sqaure-foot event space on the west side of the site would be ideal for business conferences, expos, trade shows and conventions.

Also, Yanow said that adding a roller derby rink can offer a more permanent and cleaner venue for girls and women who enjoy that activity.

Its a great sport that empowers women, but its generally happening in dark parts of a city, Yanow said.

Young said the project is currently undergoing its environmental analysis and community outreach phase. He expects the project will go before the Planning Board and the City Council by late summer.

anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com

Twitter: @acocarpioThe Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has proposed that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko dismisses Head of the Ukroboronprom State Concern Roman Romanov and expects that the recently reshuffled supervisory board of the concern would present their candidate for the post.

"I recently said that I will not work with the head of the Ukroboronprom Romanov. I made a pause so that maybe the person himself decides to resign, but this did not happen. Today I propose to make a government decision and file a petition to the president for his dismissal," Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said at a government meeting on Wednesday.

An Interfax-Ukraine correspondent has reported that this initiative of the prime minister was backed without objections.

Groysman said that after the president's decision to dismiss Romanov, he will ask the new supervisory board of the Ukroboronprom to submit a proposal to the government regarding a new candidate for the post of the state concern head, which, if approved by the government, will be submitted for approval to the president of the country.

The prime minister said that if he declared that he is not ready to work with some people, these people should be dismissed and transferred to another job, "preferably outside of power authorities."

Recalling that the initiative of Romanov's dismissal is connected with nonpayment of salaries at one of the enterprises of the state concern, Groysman called on other leaders who are "turning over billions" to take a more responsible attitude toward this issue.

As reported, at a government meeting on December 27, 2017, Groysman initaited the dismissal of Romanov for the failure to complete the government's task to repay wage debts at the concern's state-run Mykolaiv shipyard.On Jan. 16, President Donald Trump marked Religious Freedom Day, a custom of U.S. presidents since 1993.

Religious diversity strengthens our communities and promotes tolerance, respect, understanding and equality, the presidents proclamation stated, commemorating the date in 1786 that Thomas Jefferson helped establish the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom.

Trump, like other presidents before him, used the opportunity to comment on international and domestic political issues such as terrorism and forcing people to comply with laws that violate their core religious beliefs without sufficient justification.

As if to underline the presidents words, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced two days later that it would create a division within its Office of Civil Rights granting healthcare workers the right to refuse services based on religious objections.

Never forget that religious freedom is a primary freedom, that it is a civil right that deserves enforcement and respect, the offices director said.

Q. Is religious freedom a primary freedom that supersedes others, including those of patients seeking medical treatment?

Religious freedom is a primary American freedom. It may not be a freedom in other places, but its still hard to imagine that any human conscience could be genuinely controlled by a government, apart from willful compliance. So, here we have some people of faith, whose moral compass commands boundaries, and I think it not unreasonable to try and accommodate them to some measure. There may always be those who test the system by starting contentious religions and making impossible demands upon their employers just to sue or make a point, but surely it wont be the norm.

This weeks question asks whether or not ones religious freedom would supersede the needs of someone elses medical care, but I dont believe this is a legitimate contention. Surely in a medical facility there will be plenty of people who have no qualms with being in charge of the one or two duties a conscientious objector might direct toward them. And in such cases where a job requires some task that would compromise a candidates conscience, then that stipulation should be made up front, before hiring. I dont think it wrong to give a job to someone who is on board with the full program of business, but to unfairly discriminate when some small religious concession could be made for an otherwise perfect employee would be wrong.

There are many evils in this world of which the people have no perception. To kill unborn children is a privilege, some say, and to engage in sexual activity others frown upon is their new normal, and free speech has become something to denounce and a thing over which to riot. However, now there is some measure of reprieve on the rise for the keepers of faith. There will be no more rubbing their noses in the pile and being punished for not loving it; at least, thats the hope. Its all a matter of what Jesus said, Do unto others as you would have others do unto you (Luke 6:31 MEV).

Rev. Bryan A. Griem

Tujunga

..

None of our Constitutional rights take precedence over the others nor does our freedom of religion allow us to impose our beliefs on others. Theist and free thinker Jefferson would in no way have intended the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, which became the Establishment Clause prohibiting an official U.S. religion, to allow healthcare workers to deny needed services that are in their job description to provide.

Taking Trumps vision to its logical conclusion, picture the madness of workers deciding what part of their jobs they can refuse to perform, based on their own religious beliefs. Blood transfusions? Serving hospital meals containing pork? And why limit it to healthcare?

This new division within HHSs Office of Civil Rights is really about allowing workers to refuse to assist with legal abortions and to not treat gay, lesbian and transgender people at all. The Trump administration is seeking to define assist to include scheduling appointments or working as a janitor in the facility. We can only imagine where it could lead.

Roberta Medford

Atheist

Montrose

..

Just as science fiction movies reflect, by accident, as much of the time in which they are made as they do of the future they intend to portray (a nice example is Minority Report, which is set in 2054 but contains many technologies that came into being within 10 years of its 2002 release, though it begins with a man picking up something called a newspaper off his lawn), our laws and our language, as vital, scalable, and structured as they are, are generated as a result of very specific and topical needs. Our Bill of Rights, preceded by Jeffersons and James Madisons remarkably similar legal founding documents of Virginia, was written by people with personal or familial knowledge of specific intra-Christian religious persecution (as well as of occupying soldiers living in colonists homes, carrying weapons that took more than a minute to load and fire a single shot, and thus the basis for the Second and Fourth amendments). To our founders, religious freedom was tied to freedom of assembly and not to specific practices, reflecting their forebears flight from England.

Furthermore, the deist slaveholder Jefferson already knew full well the necessary separation of church and state.

Masquerading discrimination against those seeking abortions or those with non-mainstream gender identities as religious freedom is as clever as it is deceitful, disingenuous and ungodly.

Marty Barrett

President

Unitarian Universalist Church of the Verdugo Hills (UUVerdugo)

..

Religious freedom is indeed a primary freedom. A truly free society does not force its citizens to violate this God-given right as they participate and serve in society according to the dictates of their faith and conscience. The number of practical issues this concept applies to is very limited in real life, the elective procedure of abortion no doubt being the primary one. Frankly, I would prefer to be treated by a medical professional who is guided by a strong internal sense of morality rather than one who is willing to make compromises of conscience to make a buck or just keep his or her job. But even if our government fails to protect working people of faith, I am confident that God will protect them as they put his laws first. Daniels three friends served king Nebuchadnezzar faithfully, but their faith prohibited them from bowing down before the idol he created. When they failed to do so at his command, the pagan king condemned them to be thrown alive into a burning furnace as punishment that they might be executed. They responded: O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and he will deliver us out of your hand, o king. But even if he does not, let it be known to you, o king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up (Daniel 3:16-18). The king threw them into the fire but God was with them, and kept them unharmed. After they were taken out they didnt even smell like smoke. God never changes, and his people will not be overthrown as they obey him before all others.

Pastor Jon Barta

BurbankGood morning. Its Wednesday, Jan. 31. Heres whats been happening around O.C.

Top story

400 celebrate groundbreaking for 405 Freeway expansion project

More than 400 guests recently celebrated the Orange County Transportation Authoritys groundbreaking for a $1.9-billion 405 Freeway expansion project during an elaborate event in Costa Mesa. The project will affect the 16-mile portion of the 405 between the 73 Freeway in Costa Mesa and the 605 Freeway near Rossmoor. It is expected to be completed in 2023. Daily Pilot

Courts

Man accused of killing ex-classmate reportedly trained with neo-Nazi group

The 20-year-old Newport Beach man accused of killing a former high school classmate is an avowed neo-Nazi and trained with a notorious extremist group committed to violent overthrow of the U.S. government, according to a newly published report. Daily Pilot, KTLA

Protesters livid that off-duty LAPD officer wont face prosecution in dispute with teens

As the sky grew dark, about two dozen people gathered in Anaheim to protest the Orange County district attorneys decision not to press criminal charges against an off-duty Los Angeles police officer who fired his gun during a confrontation with a group of teens. Los Angeles Times

Around the county

Founders legacy lives on in 38th annual Black History Parade

In 1980, Helen Shipp of Santa Ana founded and organized Orange Countys first Black History Parade & Cultural Faire. The woman who had been considered a mother to many of her neighbors died Thursday at age 82. TimesOC

O.C. Fair Board to ban marijuana-related events at fairgrounds

Orange County Fair Board members have decided to move forward on a policy that would prohibit marijuana-related events at the Costa Mesa fairgrounds. Daily Pilot

Orange County Blacksmith Guild seeks to preserve the old ways

The Orange County Blacksmith Guild works out of a blacksmith shop at the Heritage Museum of Orange County in Santa Ana. The guilds mission is to educate people about a dwindling 4,000-year-old practice so it doesnt disappear. TimesOC

This nonprofit fights homelessness with burritos

While there are many theories about how to counteract the growing issue of homelessness in Orange County, Garrett Dunbar has employed a particularly unique strategy: burritos. TimesOC

Business & real estate

What $750,000 buys right now in three O.C. communities

Heres a look at what roughly $750,000 buys right now in the Orange County cities of Fullerton and Yorba Linda and the unincorporated Orange Park Acres. Los Angeles Times

Life & arts

Lunafest film festival promotes awareness of womens issues

In an effort to support female filmmakers and promote awareness of womens issues, the Lunafest traveling film festival will screen nine short films on Feb. 3 at Chapman University in Orange. Proceeds from the event will be given to select women filmmakers of the schools Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. TimesOC

Jazz saxophonist Dave Koz visits O.C. School of the Arts, offering feedback and stories

Hes received nine Grammy Award nominations throughout his 25-year career and has collaborated with Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder and Celine Dion. Dave Koz, a smooth jazz saxophonist, stopped at Santa Anas Orange County School of the Arts to teach and perform with music students during a master class. TimesOC

Sports

Vladimir Guerrero will go into the Hall of Fame in an Angels cap

There will be a halo in the Hall. Vladimir Guerrero said he would wear an Angels cap on his Hall of Fame plaque, becoming the first player to do so. TimesOC

Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to dailypilot@latimes.com.Newport Beach is considering a so-called port master plan that would give the city greater control over harbor capital improvements.

City Manager Dave Kiff floated the idea to the City Council at its annual planning session Monday, describing the port master plan as an in-the-water equivalent to a state-sanctioned Local Coastal Program. With a Local Coastal Program  like the kind Newport has had for about a year  a city stands in the shoes of the California Coastal Commission to issue permits for development on land close to shore, Kiff said.

Without a port master plan, projects ranging from dredging of harbor channels to private pier repair must be permitted directly by the Coastal Commission.

Councilman Scott Peotter said that can take well over a year for relatively minor projects like widening a home dock by a couple of feet.

The state permits also are costly, which discourages people from improving their properties, said Mayor Marshall Duffy Duffield.

Its just too expensive. And then it just spirals where there arent any contractors, Duffield said. Since theres no permits theres no work. So if you do want something, you pay through the nose.

Duffield said harborfront properties are the most valuable in the city and that they drive tax revenue and shouldnt deteriorate.

Currently, ports with their own master plans are larger commercial complexes such as the ports of Long Beach, Los Angeles, San Diego and Hueneme in Ventura County.

Newport Beach would need state legislation to get a port master plan, Kiff said.

This is a fairly expensive endeavor to get this legislation through, but I dont recoil from that, because it would save resources in the long run, he said.

hillary.davis@latimes.com

Twitter: @Daily_PilotHDMore than 100 housekeepers and cafeteria workers at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital & Medical Center are expected to strike Thursday and protest outside the facility against what they describe as low wages, costly healthcare coverage and poor staffing levels.

The employees, represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers, plan to don red T-shirts and form a picket line in front of the hospitals southwest entrance off Euclid Street between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. The workers also plan to hold a rally at noon, according to the union.

The workers are employed by Sodexo, a food services and facilities management company that Tenet Healthcare, the hospitals operator, contracts with for housekeeping and food service at Fountain Valley Regional and other medical centers in California.

Food service employees work in the cafeteria, while housekeepers clean and disinfect common areas, surgical areas and patients rooms, according to the union.

Fountain Valley Regional released a statement Wednesday saying the hospital will remain fully operational during the one-day strike. The hospital emphasized that the workers are not employed by Fountain Valley Regional.

We are hopeful Sodexo and NUHW will soon successfully conclude contract bargaining. In the interim, we are working with Sodexo to minimize the inconvenience to patients and visitors, the statement said.

The employees are seeking a contract that would boost hourly wages by about $3. They also are asking that Sodexo address high staff turnover and chronic understaffing that they say put patient safety and infection control at risk.

Most workers make minimum wage  $10.50 per hour  or slightly more, the union said. The group wrote in a statement that many employees collect and recycle cans to help make ends meet.

Its outrageous that Tenet and Sodexo both stand to reap millions from the Trump corporate tax cut but they are cheating taxpayers by having hospital workers make so little they qualify for Medi-Cal, food stamps and other forms of public assistance, Sal Rosselli, president of the National Union of Healthcare Workers, said in a statement.

Sodexos public relations director, Enrico Dinges, said in an email that the company has been negotiating with the union to try to reach an agreement.

We are disappointed that the union has called for a strike in the midst of ongoing collective bargaining and we hope that our employees will not strike as we work with the union to establish a new agreement, he wrote.

hannah.fry@latimes.com

Twitter: @HannahFryTCNThe article regarding the Orange County Fair Boards 7-0 decision to ban pot-related events at the fairgrounds leaves me with great relief (O.C. Fair Board to ban marijuana-related events at Costa Mesa fairgrounds)!

Its good to know that the board members raised concerns with how such events might affect nearby properties or conflict with their mission.

What is the mission? I am a little confused by what board member Ashleigh Aitken said: Just because we can do something doesnt mean we should do something. And I dont feel that this is part ... of how were trying to present ourselves to not just the Costa Mesa community but the larger community.

The article continues to point out that the decision of whether to permit cannabis events is up to individual fairgrounds. The California Department of Food and Agriculture has outlined some general recommendations. Medical marijuana use areas cannot be within 1,000 feet of such facilities, according to the departments guidelines, and it is illegal to smoke or use cannabis within that distance of a school or youth recreational area while children are present.

Another consideration is the surrounding communitys feeling about cannabis. Wasnt this issue voted on and resolved by popular in vote in 2016? Is the O.C. Fair Board aware that in this instance there is no electoral college, and the popular vote represents the majority of the people?

The question is how comfortable did the nearby homeowners, schools, recreational areas, day care centers, senior facilities, etc., feel about the recent, two-day gun show? Or how comfortable and safe do they feel about the additional two-day guns shows scheduled by the Crossroads of the West at the Orange County fairgrounds this year?

There is little doubt that any cannabis event would involve debate, dialogue, study and research with professionals from many fields into cannabis, including the positive pain relief, healing, restoration, etc., that has only been touched on and/or acknowledged. There is so much to be explored.

With the many nearby universities and knowledgeable scientists, researchers, etc., available, who knows what could be learned and accomplished? I urge the board to be affirmative, realistic and optimistic. Allow for a cannabis event (or events) at the fairgrounds. It wouldnt interfere with the six separate gun shows totaling 12 days, which Im sure are financially profitable for the fairgrounds.

Not only could a cannabis event result in a financial positive, but could very well lower the deaths involved with prescription pain drugs.

Kicking the can down the road is not useful. This is an issue that is not going to go away. If all views are heard impartiality, without foregone conclusions and involving professionals who have been studying this issue for years, perhaps a better understanding would facilitate a more-positive result in this vote.

Carolyn Fitz-Gibbon

Newport Beach

Activists sometimes overlook property rights

I would like to speak to the issue of private property rights and remind Newport Beach activists that they are a cornerstone of our republic. When government erodes property rights you get Cuba.

Development opponents unnecessarily demonize developers and anyone who supports development, including City Council members who support private property rights.

For the record, I am a 50-year resident, believe private property rights are good and support quality development. After all, respect for private property rights allowed a developer to build houses in one of Southern Californias most desirable communities, where families flourish.

In the last 20 years Newports population has increased a paltry 6,000 (8%), all from the annexation and build-out of Newport Coast.

Newport Coast is a magnificent addition to our city that shores up our tax base with beautiful homes and amenities.

Quality development creates the value that results in property taxes that pay for our police, fire, parks, streets, and all those services they crave. But opponents can say, theyve got theirs, no one else is allowed.

I will gladly continue to support City Council members who respect private property rights and quality development.

Bob McCaffrey

Volunteer chairman, Residents for Reform

Balboa Island

How to get published: Email us at dailypilot@latimes.com. All correspondence must include full name, hometown and phone number (for verification purposes). The Pilot reserves the right to edit all submissions for clarity and length.A new $140,000 reward is being offered for information in the case of a missing 21-year-old La Crescenta woman who disappeared last year.

The reward was announced Sunday on the one-year anniversary of Elaine Parks disappearance. Jayden Brant, a private investigator hired by Parks family, said the money will hopefully encourage someone to step forward with information that will lead to her whereabouts.

A previous reward of $500,000 was offered in September but failed to generate any concrete leads. That reward expired on Sept. 24.

Relationships change, circumstances change, maybe now is the time for them to come forward, Brant said. If somebody knows something, why not come forward today and not wait six months from now?

While there have been no major developments in the investigation, the case does remain active with the Glendale Police Department. Sgt. Dan Suttles, a spokesman for the department, said detectives have been searching for new leads in Parks disappearance.

Leads have slowed down, but we do follow every one that comes in, he said.

Park was last seen leaving the Calabasas home of her ex-boyfriend on the morning on Jan. 28, 2017. Her car, a gray, four-door 2015 Honda Civic, was found on Feb. 2 parked along a stretch of Pacific Coast Highway, near Corral Canyon Road in Malibu.

Several personal items were found inside the vehicle including her keys, cellphone and laptop.

Authorities conducted an extensive search of the area but were unable to locate any signs of Park or any indication of foul play. The search was eventually suspended after police said there were no new leads or suspects tied to the disappearance.

Instead, the department refocused its investigation on again interviewing Parks friends and family.

A dead body was discovered Tuesday morning by a hiker in Malibu Bluffs Park not far from where Parks car was found, but Brant said it was unconnected to the case.

We were aware of that the moment it happened, he said. Due to [the bodys] location, it was certainly interesting and something we looked into immediately.

Brant said photographs and video footage taken in that area from the morning of Jan. 28, 2017, to the afternoon of Feb. 2, 2017, are being sought to help narrow the timeline of Parks disappearance. He said theres a possibility her car was already in Malibu at least two days before it was found abandoned.

Theres a lot of people around  somebody out there has photos or videos of the moment she arrived, he said. Its just a matter of reaching that person and helping them realize what they have.

Park is described as 5 feet 6, weighing approximately 125 pounds. At the time of her disappearance, she had long brown hair with blonde tips. She has an image of a cows skull tattooed on her upper left arm, as well as a tattoo of an unknown design on the lower part of the same arm.

The deadline to come forward with information and collect the new reward is June 1 at 11:59 p.m. Tips can be left by calling (800) 551-3080 or going online at elainepark.tips.

Glendale police can be contacted at (818) 548-4911.

andy.nguyen@latimes.com

Twitter: @Andy_TrucMichael Dane Ward, a 46-year-old La Canada man charged in 2016 with 10 felony counts related to the molestation of two young children, was sentenced Tuesday to life in state prison, according to a statement released by the district attorneys office.

In August of 2017, jurors found the former Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department psychologist guilty of four counts of lewd acts on a child, two counts of forcible lewd acts on a child under 14, three counts of oral copulation of a child 10 years or younger and one count of sodomy with a child under 10, according to the statement.

The victims, a boy and a girl described as family members, were both under the age of 10 at the time the assaults occurred, between October 2013 and November 2015.

Both victims testified against Ward at a trial prosecuted by Deputy District Atty. Guillermo Santiso of the district attorneys Sex Crimes Division. On Monday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench sentenced Ward to 98 years to life in prison.

Ward, whose work with the Sheriffs Department had involved advising and training law enforcement officers, was relieved of his duty when he was arrested by the departments Special Victims Bureau, the Los Angeles Times reported.

sara.cardine@latimes.com

Twitter: @SaraCardineForget stars homes. These tours visit pot growers and bong makers By Hugo Martin In Napa and Sonoma, tour bus operators ferry oenophiles between tasting rooms and vineyards. In Hollywood and environs, they shepherd the starstruck past the homes of the rich and famous. Now theyre giving customers a mind-expanding look at one of Los Angeles burgeoning industries: pot. Since recreational use of marijuana became legal a year ago, a pot tourism business has emerged, taking visitors behind the scenes of Californias estimated $7-billion cannabis industry. Read More Facebook

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Plans for a state-backed pot bank arent feasible, a study says By Sam Dean Hopes that California might create a public bank to serve the states legal marijuana industry are nothing but a pipe dream, the authors of a new feasibility study told state officials Thursday. In the end we were not able to find any approach to doing this that makes any sense whatsoever, said William Roetzheim, founder and chief executive of Level 4 Ventures, the consulting firm hired to carry out the study for the State Treasurers Cannabis Banking Working Group. California voters approved Proposition 64 in 2016 to legalize growing, possessing and selling marijuana for recreational use. But since cannabis remains illegal under federal law, most banks which are federally chartered and insured by the FDIC  refuse to hold weed money. Read More Facebook

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Santa Cruz marijuana company fined $50,000 for explosion that badly burned employee By Hannah Fry A Santa Cruz-based marijuana manufacturing company is being fined more than $50,000 by state regulators for safety violations after an employee was severely burned in a propane explosion, officials have announced. An employee at Future2 Labs Health Services was working alone inside a 128-square-foot portable storage container in Watsonville on June 19, extracting oil from cannabis leaves with propane, when a spark ignited the tank and it exploded. The worker was hospitalized with severe burns, according to the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health. The process of using a highly flammable gas to extract oil from cannabis leaves is dangerous, Cal/OSHA Chief Juliann Sum said Thursday in a prepared statement. Read More Facebook

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FDA casts shadow on hemp win, calling CBD products illegal By Associated Press The hemp industry still has work ahead to win legal status for hemp-derived cannabidiol, or CBD oil, as an ingredient in food or dietary supplements despite the big farm bill President Trump signed this week designating hemp as an agricultural crop. CBD oils have become increasingly popular in lotions, tinctures and foods, but their legal status has been murky and the Food and Drug Administration has sent warning letters to some companies making health claims for CBD. In a statement following Thursdays bill signing in Washington, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb restated his agencys stance that CBD is a drug ingredient and therefore illegal to add to food or health products without approval from his agency. Read More Facebook

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One year of legal pot sales and California doesnt have the bustling industry it expected. Heres why By Patrick McGreevy When Californians voted in 2016 to allow the sale of recreational marijuana, advocates of the move envisioned thousands of pot shops and cannabis farms obtaining state licenses, making the drug easily available to all adults within a short drive. But as the first year of licensed sales comes to a close, Californias legal market hasnt performed as state officials and the cannabis industry had hoped. Retailers and growers say theyve been stunted by complex regulations, high taxes and decisions by most cities to ban cannabis shops. At the same time, many residents are going to city halls and courts to fight pot businesses they see as nuisances, and police chiefs are raising concerns about crime triggered by the marijuana trade. Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom, who played a large role in the legalization of cannabis, will inherit the numerous challenges when he takes office in January as legislators hope to send him a raft of bills next year to provide banking for the pot industry, ease the tax burden on retailers and crack down on sales to minors. Read More Facebook

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Hemp is about to be legal under the 2018 farm bill. You cant get high from it  but you can wear it By Kurtis Lee Hemp  a close relative of marijuana that can be used to make textiles and other products  has long been classified as a Schedule I drug by the federal government. Thats set to change. President Trump is soon expected to sign a farm bill that includes a section that legalizes the commercial cultivation of hemp nationwide. The bill, years in the making, comes as public support for cannabis legalization has increased over the years, offering a cover of sorts to politicians who see the potential for boosting state tax revenue. Read More Facebook

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Students sent home after Marysville middle schooler brings pot brownies for class to eat By Alejandra Reyes-Velarde Several students at a middle school in Marysville, Calif., were sent home this week after eating marijuana-laced brownies, officials said. Staff at Anna McKenney Intermediate School called police Wednesday morning after learning that a 13-year-old girl had passed out the brownies to her classmates, said Marysville Police Sgt. Jason Garringer. Nine students were sent home, Garringer said, but no one who ate the brownies showed obvious signs of being under the influence. Read More Facebook

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Mistletoke, luxe vape cases and other gift suggestions for the cannabis enthusiast on your nice list By Adam Tschorn Now that some form of cannabis use is legal in 33 U.S. states and the District of Columbia and Californias era of legal adult-use weed is almost a year old (though it remains illegal under federal law), its easier than ever to find a little something special for the cannabis consumer on your nice list. Below are a few items that  with the exception of the first item which is available in L.A. only  are legal, widely available and, if ordered soon, can still be under the tree in the U.S. by Christmas Day. For those who want to do good while feeling good  and score a little holiday decor at the same time  L.A.-based Zoma Cannabis is prepared to send some lucky L.A. residents a limited-edition floral-meets-cannabis Mistletoke arrangement that intertwines sprigs of mistletoe with three trimmed buds (roughly five grams total) of its Santa Cruz-grown True OG and/or Gelato strain cannabis flower all tied up in a big red Santa-worthy bow. No purchase is necessary, but recipients are highly encouraged to make a donation to the charity reforestation group One Tree Planted to aid in the recovery efforts from the 2017 and 2018 California fires. Zoma will match donations dollar for dollar. Each dollar donated means one tree gets planted, and that means the green you donate for its green means a greener Golden State moving forward. Zoma is set to deliver the decor right to your door if you live in L.A., are over the age of 21 and are one of the first 50 folks to fire off an email to info@zomacannabis.com with the word Mistletoke in the subject line. Supplies willing, orders placed as late as Dec. 20 will arrive in time to make your Christmas very merry indeed. Read More Facebook

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3 marijuana businesses win OK in Costa Mesa as another is put on hold By Bradley Zint The Costa Mesa Planning Commission this week approved three new marijuana facilities but postponed a decision on a fourth due to the absence of one commissioner, whose vote likely will decide the fate of the business. After two commissioners expressed support and two expressed opposition for Triiads proposal for a marijuana distribution facility, the panel voted 3-1 on Monday night, with Commissioner Jeffrey Harlan absent, to hold a special meeting Monday to reexamine the matter. Commissioner Carla Navarro Woods dissented. The proposed location at 3525 Hyland Ave., Suite 265, is in Hyland Plaza, north of South Coast Collection in an area identified under city law as permissible for marijuana uses. Read More Facebook

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Marlboro cigarette maker places a $2.4-billion bet on marijuana By Associated Press Altria Group Inc., one of the worlds biggest tobacco companies, is diving into the cannabis market with a $2.4 billion buy-in. The Marlboro cigarette maker is taking a 45% stake in Cronos Group Inc., the Canadian medical and recreational marijuana provider said Friday. Altria will pay an additional $1.4 billion for warrants that, if exercised, would give Altria a 55% ownership stake in the Toronto company. Read More Facebook

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Utah voters approved medical marijuana in November. State lawmakers just passed big changes to the ballot measure By Associated Press Lawmakers in Utah passed sweeping changes Monday to a voter-approved medical marijuana ballot measure under a planned compromise that secured the support of the influential Mormon Church but sparked a backlash from pot advocates. Supporters of the compromise cheered the vote, saying it would help suffering patients while creating safeguards against broader recreational use. I believe this agreement was a landmark day for our state, and we are helping people, said outgoing Republican House Speaker Greg Hughes, who sponsored the legislation and helped bring together the players for talks. Read More Facebook

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Los Angeles County sheriffs deputy, two others arrested on drug charges after heist at pot warehouse By Maya Lau The Los Angeles sheriffs deputy pulled up to the pot-filled warehouse just after three in the morning. He held up an official-looking document to a guard, who promptly unlocked a gate. The deputy and two other men, each of them armed and dressed in sheriffs jackets, got out. After locking the guard and two other employees in the back of the deputys SUV, the men went to work lugging bags of marijuana from the warehouse. Read More Facebook

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Cannary West dispensary to host Higher Standards pop-up shop Saturday through Feb. 28 By Adam Tschorn The Higher Standards X Cannary West pop-up is slated to run from Saturday through Feb. 28. (Higher Standards) Following its successful (and still running) pop-up space inside the Pottery dispensary in L.A.s Mid-City, purveyor of luxury-level cannabis accoutrements Higher Standards has announced plans to take up temporary residence inside the Cannary West dispensary in the Rancho Park neighborhood just in time for the holidays. On track to pop-up on Saturday (with a 20% opening day discount) and run through the end of February, itll serve up a similar curated mix of high-end smoking tools and accessories from brands like Marley Naturals, Grav Labs, Dr. Dabber and Puffco (makers of the futuristic-looking Peak dab rig) as well as home goods for the discerning head by Jonathan Adler, Malin+Goetz and Forestry Wool. Higher Standards X Cannary West Where: 2435 Military Ave., Los Angeles. Entry is restricted to those 21 and older. Hours: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays from Saturday through Feb. 28. Info: cannarywest.com, higherstandards.com Facebook

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I fell off the way. A charismatic pastor-turned-marijuana smuggler heads to prison By Kristina Davis On Easter Sunday 2007, Pastor John Lee Bishop drew about 15,000 worshipers to a sports arena in Portland, Ore. With a flair for showmanship, Bishop  a jeans-clad minister sporting a youthful, moppish haircut  relished building buzz around his Living Hope Church, based in Vancouver, Wash., on the north bank of the Columbia River. One time, it was bringing a Bengal tiger onstage. Another, according to an account in the Columbian newspaper, it was advertising a sermon series with the word sex prominently facing a busy street. Read More Facebook

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For all your weed needs, theres now a pot superstore in Las Vegas By David Montero The employee in the red shirt counseled the two men on what  or what not  to buy. Now, if you start thinking dolphins are talking to you, that might be too much, she explained. The two young men nodded slowly. One stroked his beard. Neither had ever talked to dolphins before. Or even yelled at them on Sundays when they play against the New England Patriots. Above them, the continuous light show on the ceiling was like an electric lava lamp  orbs expanding and dividing in an endless trip. Then it was gone and replaced by flowers and a Saturn-like planet floating in the sky. Read More Facebook

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4 more marijuana permit applications await Costa Mesa Planning Commission review By Luke Money The recent parade of permit applications from marijuana manufacturing and distribution businesses looking to open in Costa Mesa will continue next week, when the city Planning Commission is scheduled to review four more. All the requests on Mondays agenda are for conditional use permits, which are among several approvals required to open a cannabis company in the city. Here is the latest lineup of applicants: Read More Facebook

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With Jeff Sessions out at the Justice Dept., the marijuana movement exhales By Kurtis Lee He described marijuana as a very real danger and has said its effects are only slightly less awful than those of heroin. Once, during a drug hearing when he was a Senator, he said he wanted to send a clear message: Good people dont smoke marijuana. So when Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions was ousted recently, a collective sigh of relief rose up from proponents of legalized pot  activists, politicians, investors  who felt targeted by the nations top law enforcement officer. Sessionss departure has translated into spiking stocks for cannabis companies and a reset of sorts for the legalization movement which, since 2012, has seen nearly a dozen states pass recreational pot measures. Read More Facebook

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This is what a cannabis executives party pad looks like By Kavita Daswani Dont expect to find bongs, water pipes and empty packets of Funyuns at the Los Angeles-area home of Will Htun. When we asked to look inside the home of the CEO of cannabis brand Sherbinskis, we found a sleek and minimal space where he could host chef-catered, cannabis-paired dinners on the rooftop and take meetings in a high-ceilinged front room. Htun, 34, moved into the 2,700-square-foot townhouse in July 2016, after he and brand founder Mario Sherbinski, who is based in San Francisco, decided it would make an ideal live/work space. With its three en-suite bedrooms, Htun opens up the home to associates in town for business instead of housing them in a serviced apartment. Read More Facebook

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First recreational pot shops in Eastern U.S. to open in Massachusetts By Associated Press Two marijuana stores in Massachusetts have been given the green light to begin selling to recreational customers, making them the first commercial pot shops in the eastern United States. Both stores, one located in Northampton and the other in Leicester, said they would open Tuesday morning after the Cannabis Control Commission, the states marijuana regulatory agency, on Friday authorized them to begin operations. The announcement ended a long wait for commercial sales to begin in Massachusetts. The states voters legalized the use of recreational marijuana by adults 21 and older in 2016, but its taken more than two years for state legislators and regulators to reach the point where the first stores can finally open. Read More Facebook

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Heres whats behind Mexicos radical move toward legalizing marijuana during its war on drugs By Kate Linthicum Mexico may soon legalize marijuana, a radical shift for a country whose prohibition on narcotics has been at the heart of its long and violent war against drug traffickers. Legislation submitted to Congress last week by the party of leftist President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador would regulate cannabis, allowing it to be grown, sold and consumed for recreational use. Proponents of legalization say it would reduce bloodshed in Mexico by weakening drug cartels and freeing up police officers and prosecutors to focus on more serious crimes. But the proposal has critics, including the Catholic Church, which holds significant sway in Mexican politics. A poll in Mexico last year showed a majority of respondents opposed legalizing marijuana. Read More Facebook

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Curious about all the CBD-infused products you see? By Kavita Daswani Some chew it, or place a few drops under the tongue or let it soak in through the skin. There are numerous ways to consume cannabidiol  better known as CBD. Its touted for its therapeutic effects, but, unlike its better-known cousin THC, does not get you high. Hemp-derived CBD is increasingly in the limelight these days, at natural products stores and even fashion boutiques, catering to widening demand from consumers who find it helps them with pain, anxiety and insomnia. Despite Californias marijuana-friendly laws, however, the state announced earlier this year it is waiting for the federal government to rule on the use of CBD oils and products before giving the green light to sales. Critics, meanwhile, have been asking for clarity, to help consumers who want options. Read More Facebook

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6 cannabis cookbooks with recipes from basic to gourmet By Amy Scattergood As cannabis is legalized  although it remains illegal under federal law and goes mainstream in California and other states, the cookbook industry has churned into high gear with books on what ways to use jazz cabbage beyond the bong. What to look for? A lot depends on your level of expertise  not just in the kitchen but with cannabis itself. If youve been making batches of pot brownies and want to expand your repertoire to, say, French macarons, there are cookbooks to help you out. Many books have lengthy introductions that outline the specifics of cooking with cannabis, so find one that fits with what you know  or dont know. Bong Appetit: Mastering the Art of Cooking With Weed by the editors of Munchies (Ten Speed Press, $30) This book, based on the Munchies and Viceland television series Bong Appetit, was published in October by Ten Speed Press. (This is in itself notable, as Ten Speed is one of the best cookbook publishers around, and continues the legitimate trajectory of the cannabis cooking genre.) The book has a comprehensive introduction that includes topics such as dosing, techniques, methods of decarboxylation and infusion, cannabis pairing tips, questions to ask your dispensary, tips on equipment and more. The recipes are sourced from the Munchies test kitchen and from many well-known chefs, whose recipes are recalibrated to add cannabis. Thus: Korean fried chicken from Deuki Hong of San Franciscos Sunday Bird; fried soft-shell crab with shishito pepper mole from Daniela Soto-Innes of Cosme and Atla; and (my favorite) Joan Nathans preserved lemons. The Munchies test kitchen also has some fun ones, including herb focaccia with, well, herb; and confit octopus, in which a whole octopus is poached in cannabis-infused olive oil. If that sounds too aspirational, there are instructions for making an apple bong  a hollowed-out apple filled with weed-infused mezcal  at the end of the drinks chapter. Read More Facebook

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Sativa or indica? CBD or THC? What to know before cooking with cannabis By Brette Warshaw Dont know the difference between MSG and THC? Heres a guide to the terminology youll encounter. Cannabis sativa and cannabis indica are two of the three species of cannabis. (The third species, cannabis ruderalis, is less attractive due to its smaller stature and low concentration of THC.) Sativa is a warm-weather species characterized by tall plants and thin leaves. The plant takes 10 to 15 weeks to mature and is known for a cerebral, energetic and invigorating high thats particularly suited for daytime use. Medically, it can be used to help people with depression and chronic pain. Read More Facebook

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California pot tax revenue improves but is still short of projections (Mathew Sumner / Associated Press) The amount of money collected by the state from taxes on cannabis grown and sold legally in California continues to increase but is still falling short of budget estimates, according to figures released Wednesday. Tax revenue reported from the cannabis industry totaled $93.1 million for the three months ending Sept. 30, according to the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration. That is an increase from the $80.2 million collected during the second quarter of the year. If revenue continues to grow by the same 16% per quarter, pot taxes will bring in $471 million during the fiscal year that began July 1, while the budget approved by the governor and Legislature estimates the taxes would bring in $630 million during the fiscal year. Read More Facebook

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Eaze launches (nearly) nationwide delivery of hemp-derived CBD products By Adam Tschorn Eaze Wellness offers non-psychoactive CBD products derived from hemp. (Eaze) Eaze, the San Francisco-based technology platform thats been coordinating dispensary-to-consumer home deliveries of cannabis in Los Angeles since April, has expanded its reach  for CBD-containing products, that is  to most of the United States. (CBD, a.k.a cannabidiol, is a cannabis compound said to have anti-inflammatory and anti-anxiety properties but none of the high associated with THC. These claims have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.) Through the just-launched Eaze Wellness website, consumers over the age of 21 in 41 states and the District of Columbia can order a range of hemp-derived CBD tinctures, tablets, balms, bath bombs, patches, vape pens and pet products for delivery within four to six days. (Shipping is free for orders $50 and up; otherwise, itll cost you $5.) Much like its in-state marijuana-delivery service, which coordinates deliveries with local dispensaries, Eaze isnt doing the shipping itself, but rather working with a third-party partner to get goods from brands such as Plant People, Cannuka, BeTru Wellness and Vital Leaf from point A to point B. Although the laws surrounding the legality of CBD are murky at best (a loophole in federal law has been widely interpreted as making CBD derived from hemp grown for research purposes legal), one point B that Eaze Wellness wont be coordinating shipping to is its home state of California. (The company cites state regulations as the reason.) Yes, California, where cannabis  even the kind that gets you high  has been legal under state law since the beginning of the year. Additional information is available at www.eazewellness.com. Facebook

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What THC-infused edibles are most popular? Fruit-flavored gummies and chocolate-covered coffee beans for starters By Adam Tschorn Nearly a year in to the state-legal cannabis scene, theres no shortage of THC-infused items on the market for 21-and-older consumers, from sachets of herbal tea and cans of citrus-flavored soda to honey mustard pretzels, with analysts and dispensary owners seeing it as a growing side of the business. Since recreational use was legalized in January, edibles have seen a 20%-30% hike in sales, said Nick Danias, managing partner of the Pottery and Cannary West dispensaries in Los Angeles, who added that edibles have proved particularly popular with new cannabis users who might be reluctant to start experimenting by smoking cannabis flower. Edibles companies have been able to offer consumers micro dosing that allows for a controlled amount of THC to be ingested, he said. (State law requires that edibles be portioned or scored into servings that contain no more than 10 milligrams of THC per piece and no more than 100 milligrams of THC per package.) Read More Facebook

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5 more marijuana permit applications await Costa Mesa Planning Commission By Luke Money The torrent of applications from marijuana manufacturing and distribution facilities looking to open in Costa Mesa continues Thursday, when city planning commissioners will review five more during a special meeting. Should the commission grant all the requested conditional use permits, it would bring the total number of marijuana facilities with such approvals to 22  including nine in the past month. The applications up for review this time are: Read More Facebook

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Two shot and killed in Koreatown marijuana dispensary By James Queally Two people were shot and killed early Monday morning after gunfire erupted inside a Koreatown marijuana dispensary, authorities said. Officers responded to reports of a shooting in the 400 block of Western Avenue in Koreatown around 4:20 a.m. Monday, according to a statement issued by the Los Angeles Police Department. There, they found a locked and sealed marijuana dispensary, according to the statement. A female employee told police she and several customers were inside the dispensary when they heard gunshots in the waiting room. They fled through the back of the building, and when officers gained entry, they found two people who were pronounced dead at the scene. Read More Facebook

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Party of Mexicos president-elect wants to legalize marijuana By Associated Press The party of Mexicos president-elect submitted legislation Thursday that would legalize marijuana possession, public use, growing and sales. Sen. Olga Sanchez Cordero presented the measure, saying that everyone should have the right to carry up to 30 grams [1 ounce] of cannabis. People could carry more than an ounce if they obtained a permit to do so under the proposal. From the point of view of negative effects, there is no reason why marijuana should not be legal, if alcohol and tobacco are, according to the bill. Read More Facebook

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Want to grow your own marijuana? This class will show you how By Jeanette Marantos California law lets anyone over 21 grow up to six marijuana plants in their yard or home, as long as the plants are not accessible to the public. (Check your City Hall for any additional local rules.) Unsure how to start? Check out Fig Earth Supplys two-hour workshops, Cannabis Cultivation for the Home Grower, on Nov. 10 or Nov. 17, taught by professional cannabis growers. Attendees must be at least 21. No plants or seeds will be sold. Workshops cost $95 and start at 5 p.m. at 3577 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles. More info: figearthsupply.com Read More Facebook

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Whats that smell? Survey asks Venice Beach denizens if theyre vexed by odor of marijuana By Joseph Serna They descended on free-wheeling Venice Beach with clipboards and questions in hand. Their goal: to gauge humanitys tolerance for the smell and sight of public pot smoking. Akbar Karriem considered them ridiculous. Everybody be smoking, Karriem said as he sat on the boardwalk and lit a marijuana pipe. Its part of the culture here. Its like a religion. Read More Facebook

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Las Vegas newest and biggest pot shop aims to entertain By Jay Jones Prepare to be entertained at Las Vegas newest and biggest cannabis store a mile west of the Strip. Planet 13 combines light shows and fog-making fountains to wow visitors at the shop, which sells recreational pot, cannabis extracts and cannabis-infused products. The idea is to meld a cannabis shop with an entertainment complex. Visitors, who must be at least 21, can change the colors of 13 giant LED-lighted lotus flowers blooming on the roof of the building. Read More Facebook

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CBD-infused products are being sold everywhere in California  but are they legal? By Laura Newberry Greg and Gary Avetisyan make no secret of it: They proudly sell all manner of products infused with CBD, from essential oils to bath bombs to fruity tea-like beverages that promise calming relief in a frantic world. CBD, short for cannabidiol, is a molecule derived from cannabis. But unlike its chemical cousin THC, it wont get you high. What it might do, according to some research, is alleviate anxiety, seizures, chronic pain and dozens of other ailments. The Avetisyan brothers belief in the alleged benefits of the extract is so steadfast that they opened Californias first CBD-only store, Topikal, in Tarzana last year and opened a second along the Venice Beach boardwalk in April. Read More Facebook

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Review: Documentary Weed the People looks at cannabis and pediatric cancer By Kimber Myers An urgent cry for help, Weed the People explores the effects of cannabis on pediatric cancer, as well as the establishments disinterest in researching its efficacy. With the lack of scientific studies available, Abby Epsteins moving documentary primarily devotes its time to five children and their families who are trying to survive using the alternative treatment. Weed the People doesnt ease into its multi-story narrative, wasting no time in sharing the stories of these kids with cancer. With parents desperate for their children to feel better, they turn to medical marijuana to ease the pain, as well as directly addressing the cancer cells. Without studies and lack of nationwide legalization, there is little regulation in the industry. Enter Mara Gordon, a former process engineer who brings precision and rigor to her medical cannabis company, offering the families hope for healing. Read More Facebook

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Denver verdict on pot odor and property values could discourage homeowners from filing RICO lawsuits By Associated Press A Colorado jury likely threw cold water on future legal challenges against cannabis companies by homeowners who consider filing racketeering lawsuits alleging that proximity to pot operations hurts their property values, analysts and industry lawyers said Thursday. A federal jury in Denver on Wednesday rejected claims involving the odor from a pot farm made in a case that was closely watched by the marijuana industry. It was the first such lawsuit to reach a jury. Three others are pending in California, Massachusetts and Oregon. Read More Facebook

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Santa Barbara County Sheriffs Office makes its largest seizure of illegal marijuana plants By Joseph Serna An estimated 400,000 marijuana plants were destroyed by Santa Barbara County sheriffs investigators this week in what authorities are calling the countys largest seizure of pot plants at one site. The plants were hidden among farmland in Santa Maria and discovered by sheriffs investigators on Monday, the sheriffs office said in a statement. The crop belonged to a resident who, authorities said, had applied for a temporary state cannabis license using false information and did not have a valid cannabis license. Investigators found the 400,000 plants in various levels of maturity and tapped state Department of Fish and Wildlife personnel to help in the case. Read More Facebook

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Is Rohrabacher trying to lose Republican voters by caving on marijuana policy? To the editor: I was disappointed to read in a column on voters trying to flip an Orange County congressional district that Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa) wants to weaken federal laws against marijuana. Recently-approved state laws legalizing marijuana have not been beneficial. In Colorado, following the legalization of recreational marijuana, the number of traffic fatalities involving marijuana-impaired drivers more than doubled. Surveys have found a majority of marijuana users in Colorado do not believe driving high is dangerous, leading some to get behind the wheel impaired. As a retired law enforcement officer who has had the opportunity to work with people impacted by drug addiction, and as a lifelong Republican, I feel Rohrabacher is making a mistake. Read More Facebook

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Berners Melrose birthday bash celebrates a new dispensary  and a collaboration with the G Pen Gio By Adam Tschorn The Cookies dispensary at 8360 Melrose Ave. celebrated its grand opening on Saturday. (Grenco Science) On Saturday morning, the lines were stretching around the corner and down the block outside the bright blue Beverly Grove storefront with the word Cookies above the door. The enthusiastic members of the crowd werent queued up for baked goods, though. They were waiting to get into a new cannabis dispensary  and to help celebrate the birthday of its founding partner, Bay Area rapper and entrepreneur Berner (born Gilbert Millam Jr.). Minimalist, awash in natural light and appointed in the brands blue and white color scheme and emblazoned with the cookie-with-a-bite-missing logo, it marks the second Cookies dispensary in Los Angeles County; the first, Cookies Los Angeles, is located in Maywood. Like that one, its stocked with a wide variety of cannabis flower, oils, edibles and the like, with a particular emphasis on the proprietary strains from the Cookie Family collective (the growers who originated the strain formerly known as Girl Scout Cookies as well as other dessert-named strains such as Gelato and Sunset Sherbet). It also stocks three different Cookies-logoed colors (blue, white and black) of the new G Pen Gio ($29.95), a vaporizer pen that uses cannabis concentrate cartridges for a super-simple, draw-activated plug-and-puff experience. The Cookies G Pen Gio from Grenco Science x Berner collaboration officially launched at the Saturday Berner bash, and includes Gio cannabis-oil cartridges filled with Gelato, London Poundcake, Sunset Sherbet or Snowman strains ($60 for 500 mg, which Tim Patenaude, Grencos vice president of marketing, says marks the first time those Cookie strains have been commercially available as concentrates. (Gio pod cartridges are now available at 500 dispensaries across 12 states, according to Patenaude, including MedMen, BARC and the Pottery locally, as well as through the Eaze delivery service.) Shown are Berners blue-and-white birthday cake, left, and vape pens and cartridges from his Cookies G Pen Gio collaboration. (Grenco Science) Patenaude says the partnership with Berner has its roots in Grencos 2014 partnership with another rapper  Wiz Khalifa (Wiz Khalifas weed guy was Berner, Patenaude said, and thats how we first met him.). He calls Berner the most important person in cannabis today, citing not only Berner and his partners wildly successful strains, but the rapper/entrepreneurs brand-building abilities outside of the cannabis space. His Cookies clothing label is sold in every Zumiez in every mall in America, Patenaude said. In a chat with the Los Angeles Times Rolling Paper, Berner said that the Cookies SF streetwear label he launched out of his garage less than a decade ago saw $12.8 million in revenue in 2017 and that hes aiming to open a store next door to the dispensary  hopefully in time for the Black Friday shopping season. (Theres currently a single flagship store in San Francisco.) He also said the dispensary opening bash was a good way to usher in his 35th year on the planet. Man, I couldnt be happier, he said. Were turning [over] customers left and right, theres no holdup anywhere, everyone is super-juiced and there was a line down the block and wrapped around [the corner] at 6 a.m. You cant ask for anything else. Cookies Melrose, 8360 Melrose Ave. (at North Kings Road), Los Angeles. Additional information on the G Pen Gio (including local availability) is at gpen.com. Facebook

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2 Chainz wants to put a THC tiger in your tank with his new cannabis brand Gas By Adam Tschorn Rapper 2 Chainz attends the launch party for Gas, his fuel-themed cannabis line now available in flower and pre-rolled joints. (Adam Tschorn / Los Angeles Times) Rolling into the Friday launch party for his new cannabis brand Gas, the first thing Grammy-winning rapper 2 Chainz did was brandish a joint in one hand and a smartphone in the other to record the rows of boldly packaged cannabis flower and pre-rolled joints in a video to share with his 5.7 million Instagram followers. The second thing he did was stand back and take in the moment. I cant believe it, thats why I was over here just trying to take it all in, 2 Chainz said about seeing all the green, yellow and black plastic pouches filled with marijuana, and a jerrycan converted into a display tray overflowing with green buds. Ive been told for over a year that we were doing this line, so now Im just trying to live in the moment. I dont do that a lot. The launch party took place at the Mid-Wilshire offices of Green Street Agency, a cannabis-focused branding and licensing company that is one of the rappers two Southern California partners in the venture. The other is L.A.-based Mazel Management Group (owners of the Westside Station dispensary in Van Nuys). Before joining the throng of well-wishers, industry friends and employees dressed in logo-emblazoned overalls, 2 Chainz (born Tauheed Epps), chatted with the Los Angeles Times Rolling Paper about his new project, how cannabis branding is like music and what took so long for the project to come to fruition. (Hint: There was lots of taste-testing). The Rolling Paper: Where does the name of your line  Gas  come from and what does it mean? 2 Chainz: Its Atlanta lingo that we use that basically signifies that this is a stronger type of flower  a stronger cannabis. Ive been saying it since I came into the rap game and Ive used it in a few verses of a few songs. At first people were like: What do you mean by [the line] gas in the ashtray? After it caught on and basically went mainstream, I figured why veer off from what got me here? So we started a legal line of cannabis called Gas. TRP: Ive heard that you were pretty picky in the development process. 2C: It took months and months and about 30 different kinds of [cannabis] flower. I think I was looking for that first impression  that first pull  how it made me feel. Were there fireworks or no fireworks? What kind of memory did it create? Thats what I was looking for. TRP: The three different types of flower youre launching with dont have names but numbers  87, 89 and 93  are those supposed to be kind of like octane ratings but for marijuana? 2C: Thats a great way of describing it. The 87, for example [a Petrol OG hybrid, with a THC content of 14%] is for functioning throughout the day, [and for] people who are on the go [or] at work and cant get that whole indica sleepy feeling during the middle of the day. I think 87 will be sufficient. The 89 [a Sour Gas hybrid, 17% THC] is for when people go out for cocktails after work, when they want to get ready for the wind-down  it signifies the medium [strength]. And the 93 [an indica called Gods Fuel No. 2 with a THC level of 20%] Id definitely say is the strongest. Thats for night-night. TRP: How did the fuel theme and octane ratings and all that evolve from the name? 2C: I approached this the way I do in my music  which was come up with the concept and follow all the way through with it. So, when you have Gas, you have to have the gas cans and the imagery that actually represents the gas pumps and things that tie in to the brand itself. I think that gives it legs  gives it a little more substance and sustainability. And I used these colors because I knew they would be very catching and appealing to the eye and I know that I will kind of have to muscle my way in as far as getting where I need to be on [dispensary] shelves these days. I figure I could be on the back of the shelf and you could still see this green, this yellow and this black packaging. Gas prices range from $12 to $14 (for 1-gram pre-rolled joints) and $36 to $48 for 3.5 gram packages of flower. Currently available at Westside Station, 7022 Valjean Ave., Van Nuys. Facebook

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A chemical found in liverwort has surprising similarities to the THC in marijuana By Noga Tarnopolsky Its an amazing plant that produces hypnotic effects, according to online testimonials. Some people who have ingested it or inhaled its smoke say it gave them a mild, marijuana-like high. Now scientists have weighed in. In experiments with more than 100 mice, they found that chemicals in the liverwort plant produced four of the same key effects as THC, the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. An hour after being injected with the experimental chemicals, the mice entered a trance-like state, lost some of their ability to move, became less responsive to pain and experienced a drop in body temperature, according to a study published this week in the journal Science Advances. Read More Facebook

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Hours-long standoff at Tarzana weed dispensary ends after police learn building is empty By Hailey Branson-Potts The police standoff lasted more than six hours, shutting down a busy six-lane stretch of Ventura Boulevard in Tarzana for most of the evening. An armed robbery suspect, authorities said, had barricaded himself inside an illegal marijuana dispensary in a strip mall in the 18300 block of Ventura Boulevard. He was believed to be one of four suspects and was thought to have a female hostage. But when officers searched the building after 8:20 p.m., there was no one inside, said Officer Mike Lopez, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department. Read More Facebook

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State officials decline to drop plan to allow home deliveries of pot in California cities that ban marijuana stores Cities and law enforcement leaders say a state proposal to allow pot delivery to homes would increase crime. (Mathew Sumner / Associated Press) Despite objections from cities and police chiefs, state officials on Friday declined to drop a proposal allowing marijuana firms to deliver to homes everywhere in California, including in areas that have banned pot shops. The proposed rule, which was made public in July, was opposed by the League of California Cities, which represents the states 482 municipalities, and the California Police Chiefs Assn., which said it would jeopardize public safety. But the state Bureau of Cannabis Control announced Friday that it is moving forward with the proposed rule after a series of public hearings and after weighing hundreds of comments from residents and interested parties. Read More Facebook

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San Diego plans to crack down on marijuana ads, especially billboards By David Garrick San Diego officials say they plan to crack down on marijuana advertising, particularly the billboard ads that have become increasingly common with recreational use of the drug now legal in California. Legislation proposed by City Councilman Chris Cate aims to keep marijuana billboard ads out of areas where young people congregate and to prevent illegal marijuana businesses from advertising anywhere. The proposal, which would go beyond relatively new state laws that govern marijuana advertising, will be included in a series of city code updates that Mayor Kevin Faulconers staff plans to present to the City Council next year. Read More Facebook

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Drinking before a flight is common. Now some fliers are turning to pot before takeoff By Hugo Martin Commercial flights can be so stressful  cramped seats, delays, turbulence, loud seatmates  that more than 60% of travelers in a recent survey said they down a drink or two before heading to the airport. But the survey by a drug treatment organization found that nearly as many fliers are now turning to marijuana to relax before getting on a plane. The online survey of 1,137 people who have flown in the past year was taken by Florida-based Delphi Behavioral Health Group. It found that nearly 30% of respondents said they had smoked marijuana and another 25% had consumed pot-infused snacks before arriving at an airport. Read More Facebook

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Marijuana issues dominate Costa Mesa Planning Commission agenda By Luke Money Cannabis-related companies will be front and center in Costa Mesa again Monday, when city planning commissioners will consider four applications for proposed marijuana manufacturing and distribution facilities. Should the Planning Commission OK all the requests, it would bring the number of marijuana businesses with city-approved conditional use permits to 17. First up will be Aureus LLC, which is looking to open in a 5,556-square-foot industrial space at 3505 Cadillac Ave., Building A. The company proposes to manufacture cannabis concentrates, particularly oils intended for use in vaporizer cartridges, according to city planning documents. Read More Facebook

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Canada is now the worlds largest legal marijuana marketplace By Associated Press Ian Power was among the first to buy legal recreational marijuana in Canada but he has no plans to smoke it. He plans to frame it. Canada became the largest country with a legal national marijuana marketplace as sales began early Wednesday in Newfoundland. Power was first in line at a store in St. Johns, Newfoundland. I am going to frame it and hang it on my wall. Im not even going to smoke it. Im just going to save it forever, Power said. Read More Facebook

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Bloom Farms doubles its meal donations on Oct. 16 in observance of World Food Day By Adam Tschorn Bloom Farms Pineapple Single Origin vape cartridge is a World Food Day exclusive that will be available only in October. (Bloom Farms) In recognition of the United Nations designation of Oct. 16 as World Food Day 2018, Oakland-based cannabis company Bloom Farms is doubling its usual meal-donation-per-sale for purchase made through the Eaze delivery service (which is doing its part by offering a day-long 20% discount on all Bloom Farms products) as well as participating dispensaries statewide (including Buds & Roses, Urban Treez and Green Dot locally). The company says that since 2014 it has donated about 1.4 million meals to food banks statewide through its one-for-one program, with a goal of donating 5 million meals. World Harvest Food Bank in Los Angeles and the San Diego Food Bank are among the SoCal beneficiaries of the Bloom Farm donations. Although the double-down on meal donations lasts only one day, Bloom Farms has a couple of slightly less time-sensitive promotions to raise awareness and drive donations in furtherance of the U.N.s mission of a zero-hunger world by 2030. One is a partnership with vaporizer maker Pax  which has pledged $10,000 to fund meal donations  that includes a free Pax Era vape pen (custom-engraved on-site) with the purchase of two Bloom Farms Pax pods at special dispensary events throughout the month, the second is an exclusive, October-only Pineapple Single Origin vape cartridge that, after the purchase of any two Bloom Farms products  can be purchased for just a penny. Additional information  and a calendar of dispensary events and demonstrations  can be found at getbloomfarms.com/events. Facebook

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Screened at U.S. border, Canadians who are honest about using marijuana could be banned from the U.S. By Kurtis Lee Bill Powers flipped through the sworn statement he gave to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the printed pages taking him back to that August afternoon  back to the border checkpoint into Washington state where agents asked if he had ever smoked marijuana. Yes, he answered, not initially thinking much of the question. The 57-year-old Canadian has a license for medical marijuana, and pot had been legal in Washington for six years. Like that, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents turned him away with an extreme decree: He had been banned from the United States. Its absolutely out of control. Here I am being honest with the United States and I get the boot, Powers said on a recent afternoon as he stood in his driveway in this farming town an hour east of Vancouver. I have a license  yet theyre turning people away for pot? It makes not a single bit of sense. Read More Facebook

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Newport mayor says he wants to sell his boat factory site, not grow marijuana on it By Hillary Davis Despite having local and state approvals to cultivate or distribute medical marijuana on the site of his boat factory in San Bernardino County, Newport Beach Mayor Marshall Duffy Duffield says he isnt a pot farmer. Rather, he says, he sought the entitlements to make the property more attractive to buyers so he can move his factory to Utah. Duffield said in a statement emailed to the Daily Pilot on Sunday that he split his 4.7-acre property in Adelanto into thirds and sought a cannabis distribution permit from the California Bureau of Cannabis Control to take advantage of increased property values that followed Adelantos passage of a medicinal cultivation ordinance in 2015 and creation of a cultivation zone in 2016 that later expanded to include the factory site. As a property owner, I am trying to maximize the value to sell the land, not grow pot, Duffield said. I am actively manufacturing electric boats at the plant and there is no room to be growing pot. Read More Facebook

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NHL: Legal pot in Canada wont affect league policy By Associated Press Now a handful of years into retirement from more than a decade of junior and pro hockey, former enforcer Riley Cote is a proponent of cannabis and its oils as an alternative to more addictive drugs commonly used by athletes to play through pain. Marijuana can be detected in a persons system for more than 30 days, is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency without a specific therapeutic use exemption and is illegal in much of the United States. Canada on Wednesday will become the largest country in the world to legalize recreational marijuana. That means it will be available under the law in seven more NHL cities (its been legal to adults in Denver since 2012). The move is a step forward for those who, like Cote, believe marijuana has been stigmatized and should be accepted as a form of treatment. It was so tainted for a long time, Ottawa Senators forward Matt Duchene said. And now people are starting to learn a little bit more about it and there is definitely some positive uses to different elements of it. Read More Facebook

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Costa Mesa council to review marijuana permit decision By Luke Money Costa Mesas review process for marijuana-related businesses will enter uncharted territory Tuesday when the City Council takes a second look at an earlier decision to award a required permit. So far, whats separated this particular application by Pivot Naturals LLC from the dozen other marijuana manufacturing and distribution facilities that previously sailed through City Hall isnt so much the question of whether the business should be allowed to open, but when. City planning commissioners decided last month to grant the business a conditional use permit to operate within a 5,283-square-foot industrial space in Suite 101 at 3595 Cadillac Ave. However, they added a new wrinkle by restricting hours to 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. Read More Facebook

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Business linked to Newport mayor paid councilman to help create marijuana facility in Inland Empire, records show By Hillary Davis A business linked to Newport Beach Mayor Marshall Duffy Duffield paid his City Council colleague Scott Peotter to help convert part of Duffields boat manufacturing facility in San Bernardino County to a medical marijuana cultivation or distribution hub, records show. Peotter made at least $10,000 from DC Developments, a Duffield-associated company, according to Peotters state-required statement of economic interest forms. A string of corporations that financially tie the two together appears to answer a question  has Peotter ever worked for Duffield?  that has dogged them for weeks as they seek reelection in November. Read More Facebook

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Following California, pot legalization campaigns across the U.S. aim to throw out old convictions By Kurtis Lee Rob Jenkins tried for four years to find a job, scouring the internet for anything that seemed at all appealing  a maintenance position at a Chevron refinery, a counselor for foster kids, a clerk at Hertz. Some employers seemed interested, until they found out about his 2008 misdemeanor conviction for growing marijuana. I was stuck, recalled the 37-year-old college graduate. No job opportunities were coming in. Read More Facebook

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Canada is about to legalize marijuana. How did that happen? Justin Trudeau, for starters By Kurtis Lee Politicians herald it as transformative. Residents offer resounding support in the polls. Investors see billions of dollars on the horizon. When Canada legalizes marijuana on Oct. 17, it will join Uruguay as the only countries to allow recreational cannabis nationwide. The South American country became the first in 2013. The effort, years in the making, is unlike the piecemeal approaches to marijuana legalization that have been passed in the United States and the Netherlands. For pot proponents around the world, Canadas implementation of legal marijuana is being closely watched. Read More Facebook

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Can you carry marijuana in LAX? Yes, but its more complicated than that By Chris Erskine LAX wants you to know this about the marijuana you may be taking with you on your trip: Whats legal on the street is also legal in the terminals. Up to a point. Travelers can carry the legal amount of marijuana in California  up to 28.5 grams through the airport areas that are under city supervision, that is up to pre-security checkpoints. Read More Facebook

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Dont you dare light up at Las Vegas new cannabis museum By Jay Jones Inhale  we mean through your nose  in the new marijuana museum in Las Vegas. You wont smell a thing, even though recreational pot is legal in Nevada. Signs in the elevators at Neonopolis, the downtown entertainment, dining and retail center thats home to the immersive Cannabition museum, make it clear that consumption in public is still against the law. Just steps away, a colorful mural covering the museums exterior depicts the changing attitudes toward marijuana, from the scare tactics of the 1930s to strict law enforcement in the 80s to growing tolerance today. That history is depicted in greater detail once youre inside. Read More Facebook

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Costa Mesa Planning Commission awards permit to 13th marijuana business By Luke Money A 13th marijuana manufacturing and distribution facility took a step closer to opening in Costa Mesa after the city Planning Commission decided Monday to grant it a required permit. The 3-2 vote, with Chairman Stephan Andranian and Vice Chairman Byron de Arakal opposed, awards a conditional use permit to Pivot Naturals LLC to operate in an existing 5,283-square-foot industrial space in Suite 101 at 3595 Cadillac Ave. Pivot Naturals intends to process cannabis oils into a powder for use in a variety of products, including tablets, food and beverages. Read More Facebook

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Kindergartner can take cannabis drug to school, judge says By Associated Press A kindergartner can keep bringing a cannabis-based drug used for emergency treatment of a rare form of epilepsy to her public school, a judge ruled Friday. The Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported that a judge sided with the family of 5-year-old Brooke Adams. The Rincon Valley Union School District in Santa Rosa sought to ban the ointment from school grounds because it contains the active ingredient in marijuana. Read More Facebook

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Glendale police seize hundreds of marijuana plants after reportedly discovering elaborate grow operation By Andy Nguyen What started as a routine wellness check by Glendale police officers on Monday led to the alleged discovery of an illegal marijuana grow operation and the seizure of more than 600 plants. Officers with the Glendale Police Department were in the 100 block of Wonderview Drive at around 12:40 a.m. after receiving a call about a person yelling for help from one of the homes in the neighborhood. After speaking with the homes occupant, 38-year-old Rui Yun Guan, officers entered the residence and discovered it had been converted into an elaborate marijuana grow operation, according to Tahnee Lightfoot, a spokeswoman for the department. Read More Facebook

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Tilrays wild ride shows how hyped pot stocks are catching up to the crypto craze By Craig Giammona Tilray Inc. investors could probably use a bit of the companys products right now. The Canadian maker of medicinal cannabis extracts finished a whipsaw session Wednesday with its share price 38% higher. But Tilray was up as much as 94% earlier in the day, peaking at $300. Fifty-three minutes and four trading halts later, it was in negative territory. The closing flourish that added $63 to the share price  it finished up $59.08 to $214.06  took just six minutes. It left a sea of bodies, both longs and shorts, behind in its wake, said Dave Lutz, managing director at JonesTrading. Read More Facebook

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Marijuana industry fights stoner, pot and other words that stigmatizes people By Gary Robbins Theres a badge on her uniform, possibly a gun on her hip, and her arms are spread a little, suggesting shes ready for anything. You might think that youre looking at a police officer walking a beat. But what youve seen on billboards and, more recently, the internet is an effort by MedMen Enterprises of Culver City to remind you that marijuana users come from all walks of life. They can be cops, nurses, teachers, scientists, construction foremen and grandmothers. Read More Facebook

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Police arrest eight people after searching illegal cannabis store in San Fernando Valley By Alejandra Reyes-Velarde Los Angeles police arrested eight people at an illegal cannabis store in the San Fernando Valley after serving a search warrant, officials said Wednesday. About 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, the Los Angeles Police Departments Mission Area Narcotics Unit searched a cannabis retail shop in the 15400 block of Devonshire Street and confiscated several items of evidence and contraband, police said in a news release. The store was operating without proper permits and was considered a nuisance location, authorities said. Read More Facebook

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More than 2 million U.S. middle and high school students have vaped marijuana, study finds By Karen Kaplan Electronic cigarettes are the most popular tobacco product among U.S. teens, but tobacco isnt the only thing theyre vaping. A new report from researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that more than 2 million middle and high school students have used an e-cigarette to vape marijuana. That figure is based on survey results from the 2016 National Youth Tobacco Survey, which polls a representative sample of American students in grades 6 through 12. Among the questions the 20,675 participants were asked in 2016 was, Have you ever used an e-cigarette device with a substance besides nicotine? One of the possible answers was this: Yes, I have used an e-cigarette device with marijuana, THC or hash oil, or THC wax. (THC, short for tetrahydrocannabinol, is the mind-altering chemical that produces marijuanas high.) Read More Facebook

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Police chiefs warn of increased crime if California allows pot deliveries statewide By Patrick McGreevy The prospect of vans loaded with pot delivering to homes in quiet Morgan Hill makes Police Chief David Swing uneasy. Like most cities in the state, the upscale San Jose suburb has banned pot shops. But now, as California considers a proposal to allow marijuana businesses to send home-delivery vans into communities where retail stores are prohibited, Swing and others in law enforcement say they are preparing for the worst. This will make it easier and more lucrative to rob a delivery person than a liquor store, said Swing, who is president of the California Police Chiefs Assn. He notes drivers would be allowed to carry up to $10,000 in cash. Robberies are the tip of the iceberg. They can lead to other crimes, including aggravated assaults and homicides. Read More Facebook

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Tesla erupts in chaos after senior executives leave and Elon Musk tokes up By Dana Hull The turmoil at Tesla Inc. reached a fever pitch Friday, as news emerged that two senior executives will leave Elon Musks electric-car maker a matter of hours after he smoked marijuana during an hours-long interview with a comedian. Chief Accounting Officer Dave Morton gave notice Tuesday that he was resigning less than a month into the job, according to a filing. Teslas stock plunged, then extended declines after Gabrielle Toledano, the head of human resources whos been on a leave of absence, told Bloomberg News that she wont rejoin the company. Morton, a former chief financial officer for computer-drive maker Seagate Technology Plc, joined Tesla the day before Chief Executive Musk tweeted that he was considering buying out some investors at $420 a share and taking the company private. Musk abandoned that take-private effort 17 days later, and in the process drew a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission and a series of lawsuits alleging market manipulation. Read More Facebook

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Elon Musk smokes a blunt live on YouTube with podcaster Joe Rogan By Russ Mitchell Elon Musk apparently smoked dope with comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan live on YouTube late Thursday night, then giggled about turning Mars into a big Jamaica. I mean, its legal, right? Musk said, accepting a lit blunt from Rogan in the Los Angeles studio, where The Joe Rogan Experience is webcast live. Rogan told Musk hed rolled marijuana in tobacco leaves. Musk took a single deep toke. If the pair were joking about what they were smoking, they didnt say so. Read More Facebook

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L.A. launches crackdown on unlicensed marijuana businesses; more than 500 people are charged By Joseph Serna A police crackdown on local unlicensed marijuana businesses has ended with misdemeanor charges against more than 500 people in Los Angeles, the city attorneys office said. In 120 criminal cases filed since May, City Atty. Mike Feuer has charged 515 people in connection with 105 illegal marijuana businesses, grow sites, extraction labs and delivery companies located throughout the city, his office announced Friday. All of the defendants were charged with unlicensed commercial cannabis activity within the city, which carries a potential sentence of six months in jail and $1,000 in fines. Local judges have been hearing the cases since May with arraignments scheduled through the end of October, Feuers office said. Read More Facebook

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12th marijuana business wins permit approval in Costa Mesa By Luke Money Costa Mesa planning commissioners Monday evening gave their blessing to another local marijuana manufacturing and distribution facility, bringing the total number of approvals to 12. On a 4-0 vote  with Chairman Stephan Andranian absent  the commission awarded a conditional use permit to Pure Labs Inc., which is looking to open in a 2,025-square-foot space in Unit M-103 at 3505 Cadillac Ave. The decision is final unless appealed to the City Council within seven days. Read More Facebook

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Former L.A. mayor Villaraigosa joins board of local cannabis firm MedMen By James Rufus Koren Former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is joining the board of publicly traded cannabis company MedMen, marking his return to the business world following a resounding defeat in Junes Democratic gubernatorial primary. MedMen, a Culver City company that operates high-end cannabis shops in California, Nevada and New York and has aggressive expansion plans, announced Villaraigosas appointment Wednesday morning. Villaraigosa adds political and governmental experience to a board made up of branding, entertainment and accounting executives. Other recent additions to the companys board include Stacey Hallerman, a former executive at the conglomerate that owns luxury brands Montblanc and Cartier, and Jay Brown, the chief executive of of RocNation, the entertainment company co-founded by Shawn Jay Z Carter. Read More Facebook

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Newport man accused of operating illegal marijuana dispensary in Costa Mesa By Luke Money A Newport Beach man is accused of operating an illegal marijuana dispensary in Costa Mesa, according to authorities. Omid Delkash, 47, was charged Monday with four misdemeanor counts of unlawful transportation, sale and furnishing of marijuana. He pleaded not guilty and is in custody at Orange County Jail, records show. He is scheduled to appear in court Friday for a pretrial hearing. Costa Mesa law prohibits the retail sale of marijuana or marijuana products anywhere in the city. Read More Facebook

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California lawmakers want the state to collect data on drivers under the influence of pot By Patrick McGreevy After she was injured in a car accident allegedly caused by a driver impaired by pot, state Controller Betty Yee is backing a bill approved Monday by the Legislature that aims to begin addressing the problem of drugged driving on California roads. The measure sent to Gov. Jerry Brown would require the California Highway Patrol to report on how many motorists stopped for impaired driving are allegedly under the influence of marijuana. Its what other states have done  like Colorado and Washington  to at least start collecting state-level data, Yee said. They just want to understand the extent of cannabis-impaired driving. Read More Facebook

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Marijuana use is rising among pregnant patients. Not so fast, doctors warn By Jenny Gold Marijuana may be losing its image as a dangerous drug, but mounting research suggests women should steer clear of it if they are pregnant or breastfeeding, according to new recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics. The advice comes as more than half of the states, including California, have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use. Growing acceptance of the drug has made it seem harmless, or even beneficial. As a result, doctors fret that more and more babies are being exposed to the drug. The march toward legalization has outpaced scientific research about marijuanas health effects. Because it is a Schedule 1 drug  one with potential for abuse and no approved medical use  studies have been limited by federal law. Read More Facebook

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Mormon Church ramps up opposition to medical marijuana effort in Utah, speaking out publicly By Kurtis Lee The Mormon Church has played a quiet role in the fight against an effort to legalize medical marijuana in Utah, releasing measured statements and helping to bankroll lawsuits. But on Thursday, leaders of the powerful Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came out from behind the scenes. We are deeply concerned by the history of other states that have allowed medical and recreational use of this drug  and have experienced serious consequences to the health of its citizens, Elder Jack N. Gerard, flanked by politicians, medical professionals and other church leaders, said at a news conference at the state Capitol. Read More Facebook

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California lawmakers move to help expunge pot-related convictions California lawmakers voted Wednesday to ease the process for clearing the records of those convicted in the past of marijuana offenses. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) With recreational marijuana legalized by the states voters, Californians with past convictions for cannabis-related offenses would get state help in expunging their records under a bill sent by lawmakers to the governor on Wednesday. Proposition 64, which state voters approved in 2016, legalized the sale and use of marijuana for recreational use and permitted those with past convictions for the activity to petition the courts to clear their records. But state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) told his colleagues Wednesday that the process is complicated, and many with pot convictions do not know about the opportunity. Read More Facebook

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By next year, you can buy medical marijuana in Hawaii, but youll still have to jump through some hoops By Jay Jones Out-of-state medical marijuana users next year will be able to buy cannabis products at dispensaries in Hawaii. The only hitches: Visitors will need to apply online and pay $45 (plus a $4.50 processing fee) for a temporary Hawaii medical marijuana card thats valid for 60 days. Weve been fielding a lot of calls daily about reciprocity, said George Bullock, director of the Cure Oahu marijuana dispensary in Waikiki. We really look forward to being able to serve them in the future. The Hawaii Department of Health plans to allow medical marijuana cardholders from other states to make purchases at dispensaries on Oahu, Maui and Kauai. But state officials are not using the word reciprocity because those out-of-state cards wont work. Read More Facebook

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Teen sold weed from her bedroom, with her parents as suppliers, Merced County officials say By Joseph Serna A teenage girl who sold marijuana out of her bedroom was using her gun-toting parents as her suppliers, the Merced County Sheriffs Office said. On Friday, deputies served a search warrant on the home of Jose Reyes Martinez, 44, and his wife in Delhi, Calif., where they found 80 pounds of packaged marijuana and a dozen large plants along with two firearms, officials said on Facebook. The packaged weed was found in the master bedroom closet alongside a loaded AK-47, deputies said. A makeshift greenhouse in the backyard held a dozen large plants, authorities said. Read More Facebook

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Newport Beach sues to halt what city calls a marijuana dispensary at Church of the Holy Grail By Hannah Fry Newport Beach officials are asking an Orange County Superior Court judge to block an operation that identifies itself as a church but the city says is a marijuana dispensary violating local law. Brick-and-mortar marijuana dispensaries are prohibited in Newport Beach under municipal code. Cultivation, processing, distribution and delivery of cannabis have been banned in the city since 2016. A civil lawsuit Newport filed June 25 seeks an injunction to forbid the organization known as Church of the Holy Grail from operating at 2072 Bristol St. It isnt clear how long it has been operating, though the lawsuit states the location has been running without a business license since at least Jan. 24. Read More Facebook

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Proposal to create state-chartered banks for California marijuana industry fails to advance Virgil Grant arranges containers of various strains of medical marijuana in a display case at a dispensary he runs in Los Angeles. (Frederic J. Brown / AFP/Getty Images) California lawmakers on Thursday shelved a proposal to allow the state to license private banks to handle the billions of dollars expected to be generated by the states legal marijuana industry amid questions about the plans feasibility. Voters approved Proposition 64 in 2016 to legalize growing, possessing and selling marijuana for recreational use, but newly licensed pot shops and farms say they cannot put their money in federally chartered banks because cannabis remains illegal under federal law. Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Los Angeles) proposed that the state could license special privately financed banks that would issue checks to the businesses to pay rent and state and local taxes and fees, and to compensate vendors for goods and services provided to their businesses. Read More Facebook

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Parent of Corona beer bets $3.8 billion on U.S. love of marijuana By Bloomberg Constellation Brands Inc., which for seven decades has made its money off beer, wine and whiskey, sees its future in a marijuana leaf. In the biggest (legal) marijuana deal, the Victor, N.Y., beverage company will spend about $3.8 billion to boost its stake in Canadian grower Canopy Growth Corp., betting legalization will gain traction around the world and especially in the United States. This is rocket fuel, Canopy Chief Executive Bruce Linton said on the companys earnings call Wednesday. Were going to be way more global. Read More Facebook

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Marijuana is not really legal in California if residents dont have a reasonable way to buy it By The Times Editorial Board California law allows adults to buy marijuana. It allows licensed businesses to deliver marijuana to customers, and it says specifically that cities and counties cannot prevent delivery services from traveling on public roads. Yet even though cities cant stop deliveries traveling through their jurisdiction, many cities currently ban deliveries to their jurisdiction. That means that unlike deliveries of virtually every other legal, adult-use product  including alcohol and cigarettes, which can be ordered over the internet in California  marijuana deliveries are barred. The practical effect is that residents in some places have little to no access to legal medical or recreational cannabis products because of local regulations  which seems contrary to the intent of Proposition 64. Roughly half of Californians live in cities or counties that prohibit marijuana stores and delivery services form opening in their jurisdictions. An analysis by the Sacramento Bee earlier this year found residents in 40% of the state had to drive 60 miles or more to find a licensed dispensary to buy legal marijuana  medical or recreational. Read More Facebook

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California cities oppose plan to allow pot delivery in areas where sales are banned California cities are objecting to changes in the states rules on marijuana that they say undermine local control. (Mathew Sumner / Associated Press) California cities on Monday objected to a state proposal that would allow marijuana delivery to homes in areas where storefront pot sales have been banned locally. The changes, which are being considered by the state Bureau of Cannabis Control, will undermine a citys ability to effectively regulate cannabis at the local level, Charles Harvey, a legislative representative for the League of California Cities, said in a letter to the bureau. The cities group, which represents the states 482 municipalities, supports other changes to clarify the rules of Proposition 64, which was approved by voters in 2016 and allows the growing and sale of marijuana for recreational use. Read More Facebook

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Cypress Hills B-Real set to open a Sylmar dispensary, as Cannary West takes flight Saturday By Adam Tschorn B-Real, from left, Kenji Fujishima and Rojo Desantis in front of the soon-to-open Dr. Greenthumbs dispensary in Sylmar. (Dr. Greenthumbs) Rapper and marijuana entrepreneur Louis Freese, better known as Cypress Hill frontman B-Real, plans to celebrate the grand opening of his flagship dispensary in Sylmar with a day-long bash next Wednesday. Called Dr. Greenthumbs  a name music fans will recognize as the title of a 1998 Cypress Hill song  the Foothill Boulevard dispensary will be heavy on strains from B-Reals Insane brand of cannabis as well his Phuncky Feel Tips product line (glass tips designed to fit the business end of a hand-rolled joint). It will also serve as the home base for the rappers online BReal.TV network. According to todays announcement, the Wednesday event will be open to the public (though youll need to be at least 21  or 18 with a medical marijuana card) and feature a line-up of BRealTVs DJs as well as a slew of surprise guests [making] appearances throughout the day. A second Dr. Greenthumbs is expected to open in Cathedral City later this year. Dr. Greenthumbs grand-opening party, Aug. 15 from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., 12751 Foothill Blvd., Sylmar (just west of the 210 freeway between Arroyo and Vaughn streets). Cannary West In other dispensary-opening news, a rebooted and relocated Cannary West (this version by the folks behind the stylish, upscale Venice Blvd. dispensary the Pottery), officially opens its doors Saturday. Although parts of the space in the Rancho Park neighborhood are still under construction, its only because plans include adding sustainable on-site cultivation (a process also underway at the Pottery), it does already have one of Los Angeles real estates most enviable features  a dedicated off-street parking lot for customers around back. To mark the grand opening, the first 200 customers who spend $30 or more after the dispensary opens for business at 10 a.m. will receive a little something special for their efforts. Cannary West, grand opening, Aug. 11 from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., 2435 Military Avenue, Los Angeles (just south of Pico and two blocks east of Sepulveda). Facebook

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As budget remedies, Huntington Beach may explore marijuana-related revenue and boosting fines for illegal short-term rentals By Priscella Vega With general-fund revenue increases projected to taper off in coming years, the Huntington Beach Finance Commission this week recommended several potential budget-tightening and revenue-generating solutions. Among them are increasing fines for illegal short-term rentals, reducing city staff and exploring opportunities for marijuana-related revenue. Some recommendations will be unpopular with employees, but at the same time we hope they realize implementing some recommendations may make funding available for salary increases, Finance Commission Chairman Nouha Hreish told the City Council during a study session Monday. Read More Facebook

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High Times rolls out new online video network By Adam Tschorn High Times, which launched as a print magazine in 1974, has added a streaming video service to its offerings. (High Times TV) Los Angeles-based cannabis media brand High Times, which launched as a print magazine in 1974, has added a streaming video service to its offerings. Announced Thursday, the ad-supported web channel High Times TV is both a showcase for the brands own content (behind-the-scenes videos from its Cannabis Cup events, for example, and how-to videos for ganja guacamole) as well as a platform for an assortment of independent cannabis-content creators like the Stoner Mom (a Colorado mother with a family of six who focuses on living a responsible cannabis lifestyle), StrainCentral (a strain review site founded by Joshua Young) and That High Couple (Hollywood-based couple Alice and Clark who chronicle their THC-infused life via social media). While High Times newest venture is hardly a unique move- there isnt a legacy media brand out there that isnt trying to capitalize on streaming video  it could end up being a lifeline for the independents in the stoner space who have seen their traditional social media channels (particularly YouTube) threatened, restricted or suspended in a cannabis-content crackdown that began earlier this year. High Times TV is now available as an app on Android, Roku and Apple TV as well as online at tv.hightimes.com. Facebook

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Newport Beach lawsuit seeks to ban marijuana business that operated in residential neighborhoods By Hannah Fry Newport Beach officials are asking an Orange County Superior Court judge to block a marijuana business from operating in two homes in violation of city law. A civil lawsuit filed May 4 seeks an injunction to forbid the business  known as OC Healing House, Bud Man OC and Bud Man Newport Beach  from operating at a home on Drakes Bay Drive in Corona del Mar and a home on Promontory Drive in Newports Promontory Point community. The city attorneys office says the business was using the homes for marijuana delivery and distribution. The lawsuit calls the business a public nuisance. Read More Facebook

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Marijuana is a gift from God. A battle over pot pits the Mormon Church against an unlikely group: other Mormons By Kurtis Lee Brian Stoll faced a dilemma as his wedding day approached. For more than a year, he had been smoking marijuana to treat severe back pain, but to remain in good standing with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and get married in the temple, he had to stop using pot. Since marijuana was illegal under Utah law, church leaders told him, it was forbidden. Stoll turned to an opioid painkiller and has continued using it since his marriage three years ago, despite unpleasant side effects and its inability to match the soothing qualities of marijuana. This was devastating ... I had to choose between my health and my fiancee, Stoll said recently. It seemed asinine that if I lived in another state, I wouldnt have to make such a difficult decision. Read More Facebook

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Roommates were unaware of drug lab operation in Glendale home, police say By Andy Nguyen Authorities arrested a man on Friday suspected of operating an illegal butane honey-oil lab out of a Glendale home. John Kelly, 52, was taken into custody after the Glendale Police Department received a tip about the suspected manufacturing operation in the 1400 block of Randall Street. The information was derived from an ongoing narcotics investigation, according to Sgt. Dan Suttles, a spokesman for the department. Butane honey oil is a type of concentrated cannabis product made when marijuana is soaked in butane in order to extract the plants essential oils. The process can lead to explosions if the butane gas builds up in an enclosed area and ignites from a spark. Read More Facebook

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Rams guard Jamon Brown says marijuana is reason for suspension By Gary Klein Rams starting right guard Jamon Brown, suspended for the first two games of the season for violating the NFLs substance-abuse policy, said Thursday that the suspension stemmed from a 2017 incident in Kentucky that involved marijuana. Brown still worked with the first-team offense Thursday as the Rams held their first training camp practice at UC Irvine. Brown, a fourth-year pro from Louisville, said that before last season he was pulled over for speeding and that police found marijuana in the car. Read More Facebook

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Democrats still havent figured out that legal weed is a winning issue By Tom Angell Every Democratic U.S. senator rumored to be considering a 2020 presidential run supports marijuana legalization. So do 77% of Democratic voters. The partys 2016 national platform backs states rights on cannabis and calls for a reasoned pathway for future legalization. So why is the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee  the entity charged with winning back control of the U.S. House  attacking a Republican congressman over his support for marijuana reform? And why is it citing a right-wing magazine to make the case? Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa) has a cult-like fixation on marijuana, said a National Review article excerpt the Democratic committee highlighted in a tweet posted Monday. The party organ said the GOP congressmans cannabis advocacy is one reason why [Democratic nominee] @HarleyRouda needs your help flipping this seat...from #RedToBlue. Read More Facebook

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They worked at Apple, Amazon and Lyft. Now theyre working to get you stoned By Tracey Lien For much of her career, Natasha Pecor followed a path well-worn by tech workers. She built her reputation with her first employer in the industry, earning the title head of platform at Yelp. Then she jumped to one of the giants, Amazon, where she worked as a product manager. Most recently she parlayed that experience into a leadership role at a smaller start-up  a common move among techies willing to take a risk for a new challenge and perhaps a big payday. But this start-up wasnt exactly a tech company. Read More Facebook

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Fountain Valley man sentenced to life in prison in kidnapping and torture of marijuana dispensary owner By Hannah Fry A Fountain Valley man was sentenced Friday to spend the rest of his life behind bars for kidnapping a medical marijuana dispensary owner and his roommate in 2012 and torturing the dispensary owner as part of a plot to extort money. Orange County Superior Court Judge Gregg Prickett gave Kyle Shirakawa Handley, 39, the maximum sentence of life in state prison. A Superior Court jury in January swiftly found Handley guilty of of kidnapping, aggravated mayhem and torture, all felonies. Prosecutors contended that Handley, a marijuana grower who supplied the victims dispensary, and three other defendants kidnapped the man and his female roommate from their 25th Street home on the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach on Oct. 2, 2012. Read More Facebook

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More California kids are having pot-related health scares, poison control officials warn By Patrick McGreevy State and local officials say they are alarmed by a spike in calls they have received to report children and teenagers ingesting marijuana products since California legalized cannabis for recreational use by adults in 2016. The number of calls to poison control centers involving people 19 and younger who were exposed to marijuana has steadily risen from 347 three years ago to 588 last year. In the first six months of this year, there have been 386 calls to poison control centers involving marijuana exposure by underage people. If that trend continues, there could be more than double the reports in 2018 as there were 2015. Nearly half of the calls received last year  256  involved children 5 and younger, including 38 children under 12 months old, and 64 toddlers who were a year old, according to Stuart E. Heard, executive director of the California Poison Control System. Read More Facebook

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With marijuana legal, California flooded with dubious health claims about the drug By Gary Robbins Spend a few minutes surfing Twitter and youre likely to encounter a startling claim that comes without proof: Cannabis cures cancer. The online world is awash with such posts, startling scientists and physicians who are urging weeds proselytizers to tap the brakes. Read More Facebook

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Gov. Jerry Brown appoints members to new cannabis permit appeals panel Marijuana on display at the Harborside dispensary in Oakland. (Mathew Sumner / Associated Press) Six months after California began licensing growing and selling marijuana, Gov. Jerry Brown on July 3 appointed the first members of a new Cannabis Control Appeals Panel to consider objections from those denied permits or those facing penalties for violating regulations. The governor gets to name three of the five members of the panel and appointed county prosecutor Sabrina D. Ashjian of Fresno, college lecturer Diandra Bremond of Los Angeles, and a staff attorney for the governor, Adrian Carpenter of Plumas Lake. The other two appointments will be made by the Senate Rules Committee and the speaker of the Assembly. Read More Facebook

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Federal law? State law? Which takes precedence when you want to travel with cannabis? By Catharine Hamm You cant take it with you. Actually, you can. But its not a good idea when youre traveling, especially for the risk-averse. We speak, of course, of cannabis; its use was approved by 57% of California voters in November 2016. Proposition 64, known as the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, allows the recreational use of marijuana in the Golden State; medical marijuana had been legal for about a decade before that. Legal, it should be noted, in California. Not legal according to federal law, although President Trump has signaled his willingness to support legislation that, according to an L.A. Times article, would end the federal ban on marijuana. Read More Facebook

TwitBy the way, they like you to dress fancy (and leave children home, unless youre headed to a weekend brunch). Coat and tie are required for men.

In theory, to attend you must be invited or accompanied by a member of the Academy of Magical Arts. In practice, there are at least two pretty easy ways in. Its not so hard (though the admission charge and dinner and drinks usually add up to a pricey night). If you spend a night at the adjacent Magic Castle Hotel & Suites , youre entitled to go to the club. Or you can email one of the magicians soon to appear and ask for an invite. (More ideas here .)

What: The castle, clubhouse of the Academy of Magical Arts, was built as a private home in 1908. But by the time it opened as a magic haven in 1963, it had undergone a thorough transformation to make it fit for tricks and performances. Since then, it has survived waxing and waning popularity, not to mention a fire in 2011. (The flames flare on the night of Halloween.) Roam room to room and you encounter all manner of deceptions and marvels. Card tricks. Seances. Sleight of hand. Secret passages. And a fancy dinner.

Why: The Magic Castle is the worst kept secret in Hollywood -- a private club in a tricked-out house thats devoted to magic. And if you really want to get in, its not that hard.

See the light at James Turrells Skyspace in Claremont By Elisa Parhad Artist James Hubbells Skyspace is on display at the Pomona College campus in Claremont. (Elise Parhad) Why: This awe-inspiring public art installation brings new beauty to the light of dawn and dusk. What: Dividing the Light (2007), one of several dozen Skyspaces worldwide by artist James Turrell, is an elevated metal frame perched above an outdoor courtyard. A mesmerizing light show begins at dawn and dusk when the frame is illuminated with colored light, enhancing the skys own changing hues. The Skyspace is a part of the Pomona College Museum of Art. For Turrell, an L.A. native and alumnus of Pomona College (65) and Claremont Graduate University (73), this campus installation is a homecoming of sorts, and the only public Skyspace in Southern California. Turrell is an avid pilot and considers the sky his studio, material and canvas, and his Pomona College training in perceptual psychology informs his play of light, space, and human perception. Skyspace programs begin one hour before sunrise and 10 minutes before sunset. The evening program lasts about 40 minutes. Check a listing of current exhibitions and Art After Hours days that may make a Skyspace and museum twofer possible. Where: The Draper Courtyard (between the Lincoln and Edmunds buildings) at 600 N. College Way on the Pomona College campus in Claremont, 34 miles northeast of downtown L.A. How much: Free Info: James Turrell Skyspace Facebook

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Pedal L.A.'s Echo Park Lake, munch a fancy snack and daydream of Sister Aimee and the spiritualists By Christopher Reynolds The swan boats of Echo Park Lake. (Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times) Why: The hotter it gets, the more sense these pedal vessels make. What: The artificial lake in Echo Park goes back to at least 1870. The boathouse and pedal boat operation go back decades. And the place has been dramatically upgraded in the last few years, beginning with a draining and cleaning in 2011-2013. The paddle boats operated by Wheel Fun Rentals are now shaped like swans and the larger ones hold up to five people or 1,400 pounds. (These boats look a lot like the historic swan boats in Boston Common, which also go back to the 1870s.) Head out for an hour of pedaling and drifting, not necessarily in that order, and imagine the early 20th century days when Aimee Semple McPherson was preaching in the Angelus Temple next door and these hills were crawling with communists, socialists and spiritualists. The boat rentals are open daily all year from 9 a.m. until sunset. On the hottest days, try edging right up to the edge of the fountain in the middle of the lake  youll be coated with mist or (if theres a breeze) pelted by diagonal rain. The last rentals go out an hour before sunset. (One night in July, a young man broke in and took a paddle boat for a forbidden ride. It did not end well.) The eatery, Beacon, opened in January 2017 with a menu thats longer, more intriguing and a little pricier than the average public park snack shack. The communists dont live here anymore. Bonus option: Fishing is allowed, with a license. Where: 751 Echo Park Ave., 2 miles northwest of downtown L.A. How much: The swan boats rent for hourly rates of $11 per adult, $6 per minor. Everybody gets a life jacket. A sampling from the Beacon menu: kale and avocado burritos ($7), a crab and gouda sandwich ($13), salmon toast ($10), Beacon Burger ($15), lemonade ($3). Beacon is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Info: Wheel Fun Rentals, Beacon A pedalers view of Echo Park Lake. (Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times) Facebook

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See the Giants, glimpse the bay and duck the gulls at San Franciscos AT&T Park By Christopher Reynolds The Giants have played in AT&T Park since 2000. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times) Why: Whether youre for the Giants or against them, you can root for a home run into the bay here  something you wont see at any other major league baseball stadium. In fact, you can see bits of San Francisco Bay  distant wharves, cargo ships, maybe a few kayaks in McCovey Cove  from many of the 41,915 seats in AT&T Park. And in a city thats not always easy for families, this park is full of kid-friendly features. What: The Giants have been based in San Francisco since 1958, but they only started winning championships here after this ballpark opened in 2000. (Beyond center field youll see banners celebrating the teams World Series victories in 2010, 2012 and 2014, and a few more from the earlier New York years.) Builders worked hard to reduce the winds that made the old Candlestick Park a nightmare for anyone fielding a fly ball  and largely succeeded. In fact, experts often rank this park first or second among the most pleasant in the major leagues. But theres no banishing the gulls. At the end of every game, thousands of the scavenging creatures come swooping in to feast on leavings in the bleachers. Ushers try to fend them off, but the situation is basically Field of Dreams meets Alfred Hitchcock. Hang around for a few minutes to catch the spectacle. Gulls after a day game, AT&T Park, San Francisco. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times) Where: 24 Willie Mays Plaza, San Francisco, 382 miles northwest of downtown L.A. How much: Most tickets $9-$282. Single-game tickets here. Info: San Francisco Giants, San Francisco Travel Facebook

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Fly, roll, float and romp in a Disneys ever-evolving California Adventure By Christopher Reynolds Hollywood Land, Disney California Adventure (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times) Why: If somebody asked you to compress the best of California into 72 acres, make it abundantly kid-friendly and persuade thousands of people to spend long hours and big money there, you might crack under the pressure. (Admit it, youre already uncomfortable.) That was Disneys mission with this park. And Disney failed  at first. But since that awkward debut in 2001, when attendance fell far short of expectations, the park people have been steadily changing and fixing this place. Even if youre skeptical about all things Disney (as some people are), youll probably get a kick out of this cartoon version of our state. What: Most of the parks rides, restaurants and photo ops are all about idealizing California, including Hollywood Land (whos ever seen such clean streets and tidy storefronts in the real Hollywood?); Pacific Wharf (a mix of Cannery Row in Monterey and Fishermans Wharf in San Francisco); and Grizzly Peak (a nod to Yosemite and the tall trees of Northern California). But other features these days reach far beyond state lines. When I dropped in a few days ago, the parks marching bands and mariachis were joined by drummers, dancers and musicians from around Asia, gathered to celebrate Lunar New Year. Rides in A Bugs Land and Car Land were full of grinning guests, as was the Soarin Around the World ride  which replaced Soaring (over California) in 2016  and the Guardians of the Galaxy-Mission: Breakout! ride  which replaced the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror in 2017. This summer, Paradise Pier is scheduled to become Pixar Pier. Meanwhile, California Screamin, Mickeys Fun Wheel and Grizzly River Run were closed for refurbishment. Check before visiting to see whats open and whats not. Where: Right next to Disneyland and Downtown Disney, California Adventure, 1313 Disneyland Drive in Anaheim, is 26 miles southeast of downtown L.A. How much: Passes start at $97 (ages 10 and above; before taxes) for a one-day Value Ticket. Standard parking $20. Info: Disney California Adventure Disney California Adventure (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times) Facebook

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Drive the narrow, winding, spectacular back-door route to Big Sur: Nacimiento-Fergusson Road By Christopher Reynolds On the western slopes (Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times ) Why: Itll quicken your pulse, drop your jaw and demand your full attention. Theres no more dramatic passage from Central Californias blond hills to the Big Sur coast than this 24-mile route. What: Nacimiento-Fergusson Road, a winding, two-lane highway, begins in the Salinas Valley countryside north of Paso Robles, next to the often-overlooked Mission San Antonio de Padua and the Armys Ft. Hunter-Liggett. From there it creeps through forest and chaparral to the crest of the Santa Lucia Mountains, about 2,800 feet above sea level. Then for 7 miles, via dozens of switchback turns, it wends its way down the western slopes to Big Sur. It meets Highway 1 at Kirk Creek, about 4 miles south of Lucia. Mission San Antonio de Padua (Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times ) (Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times) Motorcyclists have loved Nacimiento-Fergusson Road for years. When a mudslide and reconstruction closed Highway 1 at Mud Creek for more than a year in 2017-2018, many more cars found their way to this alternative, as well. In normal times, with Highway 1 open, you can usually count on thin traffic on Nacimiento-Fergusson. The roads westernmost 7 miles, descending via multiple sharp turns to the coast road, are as spectacular as can be  and might start a three-alarm panic attack if youre afraid of heights. (When a route is featured on www.dangerousroads.org, you know its special.) Given the absence of lights or guard rails or cellphone reception, Id never try it after dark. On my midday drive in December, I took care to ignore the views until Id safely pulled into one of the many turnouts along the way. (For a tamer ride with similar scenery, take Highway 46 west from Paso Robles to Cambria.) Where: To reach the eastern end of Nacimiento-Fergusson Road, exit Highway 101 at Jolon Road, about 23 miles north of Paso Robles. Follow Jolon Road west, then turn left onto Mission Road, continue 4 miles, then turn left onto Nacimiento-Fergusson Road. Because the road passes through the Army base, drivers may need to show license, registration and proof of insurance. Give the drive at least two hours from the 101 to the 1. You dont want to be in a hurry here. How much: Free. Info: www.dangerousroads.org Facebook

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Recline, rebel or revel in Grand Park, where downtown L.A. celebrates By Christopher Reynolds Grand Park, Dec. 31, 2015. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) Why: Every real downtown has a park to serve as urban backyard, and Grand Park is more proof that L.A.'s downtown is getting realer by the day. What: The 12-acre park connects the Music Center at the top of Bunker Hill with City Hall at the bottom. (Yes, you can go to City Halls 27th floor observation deck and its free). The park isnt really new -- theres been open space for decades on these blocks between government buildings. But a dramatic redesign in 2012 put a far better spin on the area, and it doesnt hurt that neighboring Cathedral of our Lady of the Angels arrived in 2002, Disney Hall in 2003 and the Broad Museum in 2015. Besides its welcome green expanses and flanking playground and dog-run areas, Grand Park includes a fountain (with splash pad for kids), an adjacent Starbucks, plenty of places to sit and a busy schedule of holiday events and live shows. Picnicking is encouraged. Protesting is permitted. Food trucks come for lunch most Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Theres midday yoga on many Wednesdays and Fridays. In October and November, the park hosts Dia de los Muertos altars and art; in November and December, holiday lights. And on New Years Eve -- well, the 2016-17 party (free and alcohol-free) included three stages, DJs, live music, dancing, inflatable art, and light projections. Expect more of the same this time. Where: between 200 N. Grand Ave. and 227 N. Spring St., at the core of downtown L.A. How much: Free. Its easiest to arrive via Metro. But theres parking nearby in Lot 10 (entrances on Broadway and Hill Street between 1st and Temple streets), priced at $3.50 per 15 minutes up to a $20 maximum per weekday, $10 per day on weekends, evenings and special events. Info: Grand Park Womens March, Grand Park, January 2017. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) Facebook

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Gawk as the waters of McWay Falls plunge from Big Sur to the sea By Christopher Reynolds ( Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times ) Why: McWay Falls, the splashiest attraction in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, roars down 80 feet from granite and redwoods to a creamy Big Sur beach and implausibly turquoise cove. Its the cascade that other waterfalls want to be. Its also a perfectly impossible California destination, because you cant stand under these falls. Theres no safe way to the beach. What: The hike is more of a stroll, really. Its about half a mile, mostly flat. (And the rest of the park remains mostly closed because of mudslides and other damage done by the Soberanes Fire of 2016.) Once youve passed through a short tunnel under Highway 1 and made a right turn, youll soon be standing on a rocky perch where a house once stood, looking south to the beach and falls. This is an invitation to chill. For one thing, the trail has ended. Also, like Yosemite Falls  which led off our California Bucket List project on Jan. 1  McWay Falls is a sort of perpetuity made plain. The water keeps coming, even if its in short supply elsewhere. And the cell reception is so rotten that youll probably never get an Instagram photo posted from here. So have a seat. Notice that theres a great view to the north also. Think about all the writers and composers (beginning with James Joyce, Richard Wagner, Al Green and Teeny Hodges) who have chosen to start and end their works with running water. Or think about nothing. Where: Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, mile marker 35.8 in Big Sur, 37 miles south of Carmel, 286 miles northwest of downtown L.A. Highway 1 is expected to remained closed at Mud Creek (27 miles south of McWay Falls) through September 2018. That means travelers from the south have two options. One is to detour from Highway 101 north of Paso Robles via Jolon Road and the 24-mile, narrow, winding Nacimiento-Fergusson Road (a star on dangerousroads.org). The other choice is driving up to Salinas on the 101, cutting over to Carmel, then coming back south on Highway 1. How much: $10. Info: Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park Looking north from the McWay Falls Trail. ( Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times) Facebook

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Marvel over this San Francisco church inspired by the ideals of the Scandinavian Da Vinci By Catharine Hamm (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times) Why: Simplicity and complexity meet in the Swedenborgian Church of San Francisco, and the marriage is a harmonious celebration of architecture and intellect. What: The 1895 Swedenborgian Church of San Francisco, a national historic landmark in Pacific Heights, is an Arts and Crafts building designed by several architects, including Bernard Maybeck, who created the Palace of Fine Arts at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915 in San Francisco. Inside the walls are rustic redwood, found often in Arts and Crafts buildings and consistent with the Swedenborgian appreciation of natural objects, according to the 1969 book Here Today: San Franciscos Architectural Heritage. The chairs are maple, made by hand, without the use of nails, and their seats were woven of tule rushes from the Sacramento River Delta, the book says. In the fireplace in the back, the andirons become small crosses, and the crackling fire (and recently installed radiant heat) make the church a warm and welcoming spot for quiet contemplation, especially on chilly San Francisco days (which is most of them). (Catharine Hamm / Los Angeles Times) Its also a reminder of the man whose desire to understand Scripture caught fire when he was in his 50s. Emanuel Swedenborg was born Jesper Svedborg in 1688 in Stockholm. In Swedenborg: An Introduction to His Life and Ideas, author Gary Lachman describes Swedenborg as the Scandinavian Da Vinci. He was a scientist, poet, writer, mystic, statesman, inventor and biblical scholar. After Swedenborgs death in 1772 in London, societies took root that were devoted to contemplating his thoughts and works; the Bible is the center of these. These organizations made their way across the pond by the late 1780s, and the New Church (sometimes called New Jerusalem) began to spread in the United States. (Catharine Hamm / Los Angeles Times) Notable Swedenborgian churches include the Wayfarers Chapel in Palos Verdes, designed by Lloyd Wright, son of Frank Lloyd Wright. The younger Wright was said to have taken his architectural inspiration for the chapel, dedicated in 1951, from Northern Californias redwoods. Where: The Swedenborgian Church of San Francisco, 2107 Lyon St , is about 385 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Cost: Free. Services are at 11 a.m. Sundays. Office hours are 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays-Fridays; knock to gain entry to the church. Info: Swedenborgian Church of San Francisco Facebook

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Soak away your stress and join Club Mud at a Corona hot springs that embraces everyone By Catharine Hamm (Courtesy of Glen Ivy Hot Springs) Why: If youre intimidated by the word spa, Glen Ivy is the place for you. It feels accessible, not exclusive, meaning you can sit back and relax. What: Which is what you want to do. There are 19 pools to try, including the mineral pools, the star attraction in the early days of the late 1800s when you could soak in them for 25 cents. Today, you start by getting a locker for your street clothes and putting on your swim suit in a well-appointed area that includes changing rooms, showers and big, lighted mirrors where youll find hairdryers youll want later in the day. Glen Ivys 12 acres include a float pool and a large pool if you want to exercise. But my new favorite features are the hot and cold plunge pools. (Try switching three times between them and stay in each pool for a minimum of 30 seconds. It doesnt sound like long until youre in the cold pool.) The former Cafe Sole has been replaced by the new Ivy Kitchen, offering light but satisfying meals. (No starvation tactics here.) And, of course, you can find the usual spa treatments (extra charge but no pressure; appointments advisable) including the underground Grotto, where skin hydration is the goal ($25 upcharge). Save Club Mud for last. You paint yourself (and your hair) with mud, which is California red clay, then go bake in the sun. Before you turn into tandoori chicken, you brush it off and rinse or wash it off in the outdoor showers if youve used a tad too much. One note: Beware of bees, which are attracted to the mud. Make sure you youre wearing your sandals. The landscaping makes it all very pretty and it feels all very real, which is refreshing if youre weary of L.A. artifice. Where: 25000 Glen Ivy Road, Corona; (888) 453-6489, about 60 miles southeast of downtown L.A. (Set aside at least 90 minutes to get there.) How much: Go on a weekday when its less expensive ($49 for the day Mondays-Fridays, averaging 300 guests). Saturdays, Sundays and holidays its $68 and about 700 people will be there. Through Feb. 28, hours are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Its open an hour later from March through May. Check on summer hours. Info: Glen Ivy Hot Springs Facebook

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See the small world within this Carlsbad museum of miniature engineering By Irene Lechowitzky Midget race car model at the Miniature Engineering Craftsmanship Museum. (Irene Lechowitzky) Why: The Miniature Engineering Craftsmanship Museum in Carlsbad is novel and quirky  and proof that good things come in small packages. What: The collection includes painstakingly crafted, remarkable miniatures, many with moving parts. There are cars, planes, engines of all sorts, ships, thumb-sized guns and knives, and much more. These are not the plastic model car kits from your childhood; for example, theres an eye-popping version of a 1932 Duesenberg SJ that has more than 6,000 custom-made parts and is said to have taken more than 10 years to finish. The folks who built these tiny wonders spent decades perfecting their craft. There are hundreds of works from around the world on display, and docents to describe the intricacies and makers of each. Try to time your visit to coincide with a tour of the machine shop/engine room for a little extra oomph. Although its not geared for the toddler crowd, the museum, a few miles east of Legoland, can be an inspiring second stop for families with kids who like to build things. And while youre in the neighborhood, you could make it a triple play with a bonus stop at the nearby Museum of Making Music, where visitors have the chance to play musical instruments. Where: Miniature Engineering Craftsmanship Museum, 3190 Lionshead Ave., Carlsbad; 95 miles south of downtown L.A. How much: Free. Open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays. Machine shop/engine room demos are at 10 a.m., noon and 2 p.m. Info: Miniature Engineering Craftsmanship Museum A Taj Mahal made of matchsticks. (Irene Lechowitzky) English canal boat model. (Irene Lechowitzky) Facebook

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Start the New Year right with a visit to Pasadenas Rose Parade By Chris Erskine (Los Angeles Times) Why: Like the Grand Canyon or the northern lights, the majestic Rose Parade needs to be seen in person to be really appreciated. On a bright SoCal morning, the colors, detail and craftsmanship come alive. And throughout December, there are some intriguing pre-parade opportunities for volunteers. What: One of L.A.s finest freebies, the Rose Parade steps off at 8 a.m. every New Years morning (unless the holiday falls on a Sunday, in which case it is bumped to Monday). We wont even bother describing it, since like the Wizard of Oz or a Super Bowl, everyone has probably seen it on TV. (Los Angeles Times) In person, though, the parades splendor, precision and pageantry make an early wake-up call worth it. Its almost a rite of passage for Southern Californians, some of whom spend the night along the parade route. The parade has more rules than the Vatican. Do not pass the blue Honor Line painted on the street.

No tents, sofas or boxes.

Unoccupied chairs are not allowed.

No roping off public areas. And thats pretty much just the main stuff. Heres a full list. But dont let them ruin your fun. The parade, after all, is one the best family-friendly events in the area, and theyre just protecting that. To be a part of it all, join in on the float building in the days and weeks before the parade, when the flowers are being supplied and volunteer help is needed. On parade day, get there before sunup to be sure of a place along the route. Tickets in the grandstands are another option. Be sure to dress in layers, because the temperatures will range from frosty to blistering as the day progresses. Heres a little insiders trick that you wont believe until you see it. If you wait till the 8 a.m. start time, the crowd will be in place on the route and there is virtually no traffic. Pay the $20 parking fee at a random gas station along Walnut and join the fun. You wont be in the first row, or maybe even the first 10. But the floats are so high, youll be able to see them well. About an hour into the two-hour parade, the crowds will begin to relax and spots open up for even better viewing. Its a wonderful experience, hassle-free, and a great way to kick off a New Year. Where: Pasadena, about 12 miles from downtown Los Angeles. How much: Free Info: Rose Parade Facebook

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Meander among 5 million lights at Riversides Mission Inn By Christopher Reynolds ( Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times ) Why: The Mission Inn, which dates to the 1870s, stands in the middle of Riverside the way Bruce Springsteen stands in the middle of the E Street band. It fills a city block. And since the early 1990s, the hotel has been putting together an ever-more-lavish Festival of Lights. At last count, about 5 million lights. What: For six weeks at Christmastime, the landmark hotel switches on all those lights and invites visitors to stroll through the property, including a tunnel where faux snow falls. (This years festival runs Nov. 24 through Jan. 6.) The line to walk the property can get very long  and the traffic and parking situation in the blocks around the hotel can seem downright devilish. But most folks are in a good mood, and the festival includes live music, horse-drawn carriages, funnel cakes, Santa Claus photo ops and more. To see more lights and skip the line, book a dinner reservation at the Mission Inn Restaurant (one of several on the property) and you may land at a courtyard table, surrounded by Spanish Revival architecture thats more ornate (and with more Tuscan influence) than youll see at any of Californias 21 actual missions. ( Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times ) And yes, theres a reason the decorations seem to be in motion: Besides lights, the halls and walls have also been festooned with about 200 angels, gnomes, polar bears, many of which move, in the same halting, semi-spooky way that Honest Abe moves in Disneylands Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln. Its a scene. And speaking of presidents, be sure to peek at the hotels Presidential Lounge and its portrait of Richard Nixon, who was a 27-year-old attorney when he married Pat Ryan at the hotel in 1940. (Theres also a tower, a rotunda, spa, all sorts of artworks and artifacts and a museum next door that traces the inns history through expansion, bankruptcy, renovations and resurgence.) Where: 3649 Mission Ave., Riverside, 55 miles east of downtown L.A. How much: Its free to walk the hotel property during the Festival of Lights. Dinner main dishes at the Mission Inn Restaurant run $15-$42. (I can recommend the Italian sausage pasta and the pan-seared salmon.) Rooms for two start as low as $199 in slow months (like January), $329 or more in December. Info: Mission Inn The inns Presidential Lounge. ( Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times ) Theres a gingerbread hotel in the inns lobby. ( Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times ) Facebook

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Peer into a writers head and a valleys soul in Salinas By Catharine Hamm (National Steinbeck Center) Why: John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, Calif., a farming community that lacks the cachet of neighboring Carmel and Monterey. But, then, neither of those towns produced a man who went on to win a Pulitzer, a Nobel and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. To be in in Steinbecks hometown is to be reminded that, as fellow author F. Scott Fitzgerald said, genius is the ability to put into effect what is in your mind. What: Steinbecks birthplace home and the National Steinbeck Center tell the tale of the man whose Grapes of Wrath is often thought to be the Great American Novel. The community of his youth  he was born here in 1902  was this rich, rural farming area in the Salinas Valley, and his labors alongside migrant workers in the sugar beet fields of nearby Spreckels informed many of his works, including Of Mice and Men. (National Steinbeck Center) (Associated Press) He attended Stanford but never graduated, and he struggled to establish himself, but in 1935, his book Tortilla Flat finally put him in the public eye. His subsequent books included Cannery Row, Sea of Cortez and East of Eden and, of course, Grapes of Wrath, about which he wrote, It isnt the great book I hoped it would be. The story of the Joads, fleeing the Dust Bowl of Oklahoma and arriving in not-quite-as-billed California, won the Pulitzer in 1940. You can have lunch at the Steinbeck House, the Queen Anne style home where he grew up, then stroll the two blocks to the National Steinbeck Center, which somehow captures and conveys the challenges of his writing life. One of the central pieces of the center is Rocinante, the 1960 GMC camper pickup he drove on a 10,000-mile road trip as he scoured the country seeking its essence. The resulting book, Travels With Charley (Charley was his poodle), chronicles what Steinbeck saw as a country in sometimes uncomfortable motion. The center, which turns 20 in 2018, also does not shy away from the controversy that arose from the authors portrayal of farm workers lot in life in Grapes of Wrath. His books infuriated growers  some places banned them  and he turned his back on his hometown. But as if to prove you can go home again, Steinbeck, who died in 1968 in New York City at age 66, is buried in Salinas. Where: The Steinbeck House is at 132 Central Ave.; lunch is served 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays; reservations at (831) 757-5806. The National Steinbeck Center is at 1 Main St., about 305 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. The center is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Day. How much: $12.95 for adults; $9.95 for seniors, students, military, teachers and Monterey County residents; $6.95 for children 6-17; children 5 and younger admitted free. Info: National Steinbeck Center (National Steinbeck Center) Facebook

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Treat yourself to Spago in Beverly Hills, and a possible tableside visit from the boss By Chris Erskine (Los Angeles Times) Why: Because Wolfgang Puck, who likes to work the dining room, might stop by and personally sprinkle lemon juice on your perfectly grilled fish. There, better? he asks. Of course it is. What: A meal at Spago is as L.A. as the Hollywood sign  and a tad tastier. The landmark restaurant is where Puck made great food fun again. Originally on Sunset and now in Beverly Hills, Spago is synonymous with creative, attentive and amazing dining. (Mariah Tauger / For The Times) (Mariah Tauger / For The Times) At the original Spago on the Sunset Strip, [Puck] created what later became known as casual fine dining, a movement that 35 years later still dominates the restaurant world, wrote Times restaurant reviewer Jonathan Gold. And thus, a nationwide food craze was born. For food lovers, the menu itself is an adventure. Portions are generous, and the service is perfectly timed. And though the dining room is packed and buzzy, you can have a conversation here, unlike so many restaurants these days. At lunch, the go-to standard is the house-cured smoked salmon pizza topped with dollops of caviar. Also pay attention to the veal wienerschnitzel, so tender you could cut it with your thumb. Grilled fish comes off the grill in that 10-second window when it is neither too swimmy nor too dry. Just dont forget the lemon. Where: 176 N. Canon Drive, Beverly Hills, about 13 miles west of downtown Los Angeles. How much: How much you got? For most of us, this is a special occasion restaurant. Lunches for two start at around $100 and quickly reach $200. Dinners for two will run $150 and up, before wine or cocktails. Info: Spago (Chris Erskine / Los Angeles Times) (Chris Erskine / Los Angeles Times) Facebook

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Frolic amid mai tais, Spam and tiki culture at the Bali Hai on San Diego Bay By Irene Lechowitzky The Goof on the roof. (Irene Lechowitzky) Why: Because two Bali Hais are better than one. Brush up on your Rodgers and Hammerstein (Bali Hai may call you / Any night, any day), then come away to this San Diego tiki icon, the Bali Hai restaurant. What: Tiki bars have been a Southern California phenomenon for generations, and San Diego  with its sunny days, palm trees, ocean views and strong Navy heritage  is a perfect fit for the kitschy fad, tiny umbrellas and all. Starting in the 1930s, faux-Polynesian themed bars and restaurants sprang up in the cross-border region from Tijuana to San Diego. The tiki scene started to dwindle in the 1960s, and despite a resurgence of sorts, most of the old cheeky palaces have faded away. But not Bali Hai. At age 63, its still proudly shaking its hula skirt, aided by a waterfront location, fun ambiance and, yes, seriously powerful mai tais. Bali Hai mai tais (Irene Lechowitzky) Ambiance first: As you approach the restaurant/bar, the first thing youll notice is The Goof on the roof, a playful tiki that stands guard over the domain below. At the front door, Mr. Bali Hai, a large wood sculpture, greets guests. Inside, there are about a hundred Polynesian artifacts on display, including masks, weapons and tools. The large bar and dining room have dark wood columns, a wood-beam ceiling and large windows with great bay and city views. The Pacific Rim-inspired menu features such items as Hawaiian tuna poke, chicken adobo steam buns, Spam carbonara, pork belly katsu and Chinese garlic noodles, and holdovers such as Huli Huli chicken and coconut shrimp. But for my money, the experience isnt complete without a rum-based cocktail. There are plenty to choose from, but my favorite is the World Famous Bali Hai Mai Tai, a potent drink that proudly has No Juice Added and mixes aged light and dark rums, Trader Vics orgeat syrup, a dash of Triple Sec and a splash of sweet and sour. Where: 2230 Shelter Island Dr., on Shelter Island, about 5 miles west of downtown San Diego, 120 miles southeast of downtown L.A. How much: Dinner main dishes from $19 to $30; Sunday brunch, $40. Classic cocktails are under $10. Info: Bali Hai restaurant San Diego Bay, from Shelter Island (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times ) Facebook

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Celebrate at Lawrys in Beverly Hills, where thick slabs of prime rib are sliced right at your table By Jenn Harris (Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times) Why: Since 1938, Lawrys the Prime Rib has been the place for indulgence and celebration. Its where people spend their birthdays, anniversaries, congrats-on-your-promotion dinners and holiday parties. And where football players competing in the Rose Bowl go for the Beef Bowl. What: Walking through the heavy gold doors is like walking into a time machine. Through the other side is a magical place where people still dress up, spotless glasses sparkle on crisp white tablecloths and the plush booths make you feel like the most important person in the world. The idea was to create a version of the English restaurant Simpsons in the Strand, where cuts of meat fit for a giant are served from trolleys. But Lawrys founders Lawrence Frank and brother-in-law Walter Van de Kamp (of the Van de Kamp bakery empire and Tam OShanter Inn) had grander plans for their restaurant, starting with the meat carts. (Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times) Lawrence designed the stainless steel carving carts the restaurant is known for  the ones that glide through the dining room carrying Flintstones-sized cuts of meat  to be, well, impressive. And they are. As are the meat carvers, who don medals showing they are part of the Royal Order of Carvers (a title that requires six months of training). Each prime rib dinner comes with its own show of sorts: Servers wear the same style of brown gown uniforms they wore when the restaurant opened, and they pour dressing from up high into spinning metal bowls of salad tableside. When you order your prime rib, you do it directly from one of the shiny carts, and its sliced to order. There are smaller cuts of meat, but treat yourself to the Diamond Jim Brady (16 ounces), named for millionaire Jim Brady, who was known for eating massive amounts of food. All of the prime rib dinners come with the spinning salad, a scoop of mashed potatoes, a ladleful of gravy and a wedge of Yorkshire pudding. If you dont finish it all  you probably wont finish it all  ask for a doggie bag. The restaurant claims to have initiated the idea, along with valet parking. There are Lawrys the Prime Rib locations in Las Vegas, Chicago and Asia. The original in Beverly Hills is home to a comfortable lounge and excellent bar snacks. This is where you can order a martini kissed with prime rib-stuffed olives and find complimentary snacks that could easily replace your dinner appetizers. Arrive a little early for your reservation, grab a seat in one of the cushy lounge chairs, order a martini, then take turns filling your plate with cocktail meatballs and salty potato chips the size of drink coasters. Go for it. Indulging to your hearts content is encouraged. Where: 100 La Cienega Blvd., Beverly Hills, located on Restaurant Row, about half a mile south of the Beverly Center, about 10 miles west of downtown L.A. How much: Prime rib dinners start at $41, and you can add a lobster tail for $15. Dessert and starters are extra. Drinks in the bar/lounge area are $13 to $17. The restaurant is busier on the weekends, and reservations are recommended. Info: Lawrys Facebook

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Read forbidden words and savor daring artists in Big Surs Henry Miller Library By Thomas Curwen (Thomas Curwen / Los Angeles Times) Why: If Big Sur is a temple to the beauty of the California coast, then the Henry Miller Memorial Library is one of its most endearing altars, a respite from the rigors of navigating the twists and turns of Highway 1 and rubber-necking the vertiginous coastline. Beneath stately redwoods is a quiet repository of wisdom, irreverence and charm. Its proprietors say that it is the place where nothing happens, and yet it is where everything seems to converge. What: Henry Valentine Miller came to Big Sur in the 1940s after nearly a decade in Paris. He was, by then, author of Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, which were banned as obscene in America until 1961. Naturally they sold well, and Miller soon became a hero of renegade literature, a model for William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. After Millers death in Pacific Palisades in 1980, a friend, Emil White, opened a memorial library that bore Millers name. With the help of the Big Sur Land Trust, the library has become a nonprofit cultural space, art gallery, performance space, bookshop and destination for artists, writers, musicians and students. Bust of Henry Miller. (Thomas Curwen/Los Angeles Times) The Henry Miller Memorial Library is a reminder of the pleasures afforded by a curated bookstore. It is a place to celebrate the macho and feminist, the consensual and the iconoclastic through the pages of its eclectic collection of books. Psychedelic cumbias from Peru or the twanging guitar of the Del Tones might be your accompaniment as you browse the tables set with Edward Abbey, Joseph Heller, William Faulkner, John Fante, David Foster Wallace, Jon Stewart, Robert Pirsig and William Least Heat Moon. Strings of paper money from around the world  offerings from international visitors  dangle from the ceiling. Posters celebrate the notable musical performances that have taken place outdoors, including Philip Glass and Patti Smith, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Arcade Fire. Outside, an upright piano falls to ruin off the path from the highway. A typewriter gathers rust on a tree stump, and an effigy made of extension cords is crucified on a cross of computer monitors. In other words, where nothing is sacred, everything is sacred. (Thomas Curwen / Los Angeles Times) Where: 48603 Highway 1 in Big Sur, which is 10 minutes south of Nepenthe, 10 minutes north of Deetjens Big Sur Inn. Also 290 miles northwest of downtown L.A., 152 miles south of downtown San Francisco. Open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesdays through Mondays, closed Tuesdays. How much: Its free to browse. Donations eagerly accepted. Books for sale. Tickets prices vary for performances and programs. Info: Henry Miller Memorial Library Facebook

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Roam the San Luis Obispo canyon full of architectural daydreams and wandering horses By Christopher Reynolds Poly Canyon, San Luis Obispo. (Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times) Why: Architects usually keep their daydreams to themselves. But among these hills on the back side of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, some students have allowed their boldest notions to romp free. And horses romp with them. What: Cal Poly is routinely ranked among the nations top schools of architecture, and its students and professors started testing ideas in this canyon as early as the 1960s. Lately, theres a spring Design Village event (April 20-22 in 2018) that brings students out to test temporary structures and sometimes sleep in them. Luckily for the rest of us, those nine acres and the rest of the canyon are generally open to the public, including dogs and mountain bikes (on the dirt road). Its a hike of about 2.5 miles from campus to the farthest structure, but your mileage (and elevation gain) will depend on how tempted your are to probe the structures and stalk the horses. (Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times ) ( Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times ) I wandered around on a December day when the hills were the color of straw, and at first I wasnt so happy about all the horse turds. But once the horses themselves showed up, that changed everything. They sidled up to a water tower, then struck heroic poses on the ridge line while I prowled around assorted unconventional houses and bridges, including a geodesic dome. Yes, there was some graffiti and vandalism, but many structures have been reconditioned in more recent years. (The university calls it an experimental construction laboratory.) Id call it a great spot for photo experimentation as well. There are about 20 projects, and plenty of tree shade in the lowlands along Brizzolara Creek. After a rain, Ill bet those grassy slopes light up neon green. Where: The Cal Poly campus is 195 miles northwest of downtown L.A. Enter the campus via Grand Avenue (and beware of dorm construction near the entrance). Follow the campus map to the corner of Village Drive and Poly Canyon Road, then walk northeast on Poly Canyon Road, which is a gate dirt rout that follows Brizzolara Creek. After about 3/4 of a mile, youll see a stone arch. Step through and the canyon will open before you. How much: On weekends, parking is free at lot H4 at Village Drive and Perimeter Road. On weekdays, its $5 for a parking pass at the checkpoint at the campus entrance. (I showed up on a weekday and parked at lot K-1.) Info: Cal Poly College of Architecture & Design, Hikespeaks trail description. (Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times) Facebook

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Step into the vast, strange spectacle of Kenny Irwins Robolights in Palm Springs By Christopher Reynolds ( Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times ) Why: Youll never see another holiday display quite like it. And it sits on 4 acres in the middle of an upscale Palm Springs neighborhood. What: The Coachella Valley, with its 80-degree December days, is a quirky place to celebrate winter holidays to begin with. And the quirks multiply once you enter Palm Springs Movie Colony neighborhood and approach the Irwin house, about two blocks from the old Frank Sinatra Estate. Since at least 32 years ago, when he was 12, Kenny Irwin has been driven to create epic displays from cast-off items  dreamscapes that suggest robots, space aliens and more obscure spectacles that defy description. With his fathers support (and a corps of seasonal workers to handle logistics and crowd control), Irwins compulsion has grown into Robolights, a seasonal landmark that combines Santa Clauses, reindeer, sleighs and gingerbread houses with little green men, skulls, dolls, hybrid creatures, reclaimed consumer electronics, half-melted toys and at least one coffin. At Robolights there are no clear lines between Halloween, Christmas and science fiction. ( Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times ) From Nov. 22 through Jan. 8, the scene is lighted by thousands of bulbs and visitors are ushered along a path that leads from the front yard through a forest of fantasy in the back, then out again. A thousand visitors in a night is not uncommon. On my visit in early December, Irwin was out and about, a soft-spoken man with a skullcap, caftan, long beard and gentle smile. (Did I mention that the artist converted to Islam many years ago?) Ill bet the hardware store totally loves him, I heard one visitor say. This is insane, said another. Many families pose for pictures amid the luminous chaos. Where: 1077 E. Granvia Valmonte, Palm Springs, 107 miles east of downtown L.A. But while the Robolights are lighted, the city bans nonresident parking on many streets nearby, so youll need to park a few blocks away. Try Ruth Hardy Park. And be careful as you walk  there isnt a lot of streetlight illumination in the neighborhood. How much: Free. But theres a receptacle for donations at the entrance. From 4 to 9:30 p.m. daily. Info: Robolights The Robolights yard includes a pond. ( Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times ) Worker Alex Sanchez checks bulbs at Robolights. ( Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times) Facebook

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Get down, dawg, with a $15 beach yoga class in Santa Monica By Chris Erskine (Beach Yoga With Brad and Friends) Why: Beach yoga is good for the bod, and the spirit, in ways that no cramped, sweaty studio can match. What: All sorts of beach yoga classes are held up and down the California coast, but few are as affordable and easy as Beach Yoga With Brad and Friends in Santa Monica. No reservations required. Just drop in with $15 and a beach towel (or a yoga mat if you prefer). Instructor/owner Brad Keimach is a Juilliard-trained classical music conductor who moonlights  or sunlights  with these yoga classes every Saturday and Sunday from 10:30 till noon. He also holds Wednesday sunset classes starting at 3:45 p.m. and lasting an hour. When the days are longer and the clocks change, he adds more weekday sunset classes. (Chris Erskine / Los Angeles Times) For almost 10 years, his beach-based classes have appealed to first-timers as well as advanced yoga buffs. They are held on the water side of Guard Tower 29, roughly on the border between Venice and Santa Monica. Paid parking is plentiful at the public lots at the end of Ocean Park or on Main Street. Like many yoga instructors, Keimach emphasizes breathing as well as the moves and poses. He also incorporates the setting, sending students to get their toes wet at one point for a bit of spiritual spritzing. The classes pass quickly, without pain, and without Keimach putting his hands all over the students (a too-common yoga studio experience). Looking out over the sparkly Pacific, his classes combine ocean breezes, a relaxing pace and Keimachs soothing instructions, at a venue where space is never an issue. Where: Lifeguard Tower 29, Santa Monica, 16 miles west of downtown Los Angeles. How much: $15 Info: Beach Yoga With Brad and Friends Facebook

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Shop with Victorians on San Franciscos Union Street By Christopher Reynolds Boulangerie de San Francisco, 1909 Union St. ( Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times ) Why: Sometimes you just want to shop in a strange city. Not in the middle of a grand scene like Union Square or the Ferry Building, but along a street that feels like a neighborhood just a bit beyond your means. With Victorian mansions here and there. Hello, Union Street. What: Union Street has had its great-shopping reputation since the 1950s. The eight-block stretch between Van Ness Avenue and Steiner Street, surrounded by the Marina and Cow Hollow residential neighborhoods, is the prime retail portion. Many of the shops (which tilt toward apparel and beauty products) and restaurants are housed in Victorian mansions that survived the quake of 1906. One even older mansion, the pale blue Octagon House at Gough and Union, went up in 1861 and has been preserved in its residential state by the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America (so it would be wrong to knock on the door and ask if this is the weed dispensary youve heard so much about). The society opens the house a few days a month for tours. Among the restaurants, I can vouch for the Belgian food and beer at Belga (on Union near Buchanon Street). But there are more than two dozen. And theres plenty to peruse at Chronicle Books (on Union between Octavia and Laguna streets). Where: The corner of Van Ness and Union is a good place to start. Its 1.5 miles northwest of Union Square, 383 miles northwest of downtown L.A. How much: Free to browse, of course. Oysters at Belga, $3 each. Median home price in Cow Hollow and the Marina: about $1.8 million. Info: Union Street Facebook

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Find yourself in a yogis seaside Encinitas gardens By Irene Lechowitzky (Irene Lechowitzky) Why: Where else can you spend an hour and feel like youve been on a soul-replenishing spiritual retreat? At the Self-Realization Fellowship Meditation Gardens in Encinitas, you can be fully present in the moment and get in touch with your inner yogi  and do it surrounded by gorgeous gardens on a bluff overlooking the ocean. What: The goal of the Meditation Gardens, part of a large complex at the southern end of downtown Encinitas dedicated to the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda, is to inspire you to a greater realization of the Divine Presence that lies within. Walking up the stone steps into the lush, eclectic gardens imparts an instant feeling of serenity. (Irene Lechowitzky) There are koi ponds and many quiet nooks with benches where you can sit. At the top of the ocean bluff is a plaque that marks the location of the Golden Lotus Temple. The temple, built in 1937 to take advantage of the incredible views, only stood for five years before the ground gave way and it had to be dismantled. Wander past the old, empty swimming pool up the tree-shrouded path to the dry area featuring native plants and succulents overlooking the famed surf spot Swamis. (The beachs name was a nod to Yogananda.) Some visitors pray, others meditate. I like to watch the surfers below and imagine them praying for good waves. And dont miss the Hermitage at the opposite end of the gardens, where Yogananda spent many years writing and teaching. The Hermitage, preserved as a shrine, draws followers from around the world; it is open on the first and third Sundays of the month. It was moving to see the study where he wrote his most famous work, Autobiography of a Yogi, which has been translated into dozens of languages. Where: 215 W. K St., Encinitas, 100 miles southeast of downtown L.A. (Look for the three large golden lotus towers as you come down South Coast Highway 101.) How much: Free. Info: Self-Realization Fellowship Self-Realization Fellowship Meditation Gardens. (Irene Lechowitzky) Facebook

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Hoot and holler in UCLAs Pauley Pavilion, the hoop heaven that honors John Wooden By Chris Erskine (Chris Erskine / Los Angeles Times) Why: John Wooden was the Elvis of college basketball, a mythic, once-in-three-lifetimes figure. Pauley Pavilion was his Graceland. Along with Lambeau Field and Fenway Park, it belongs on any sports fans must-see list. What: Updated and comfortable, Pauley sits on the sweeping and shady UCLA campus in Westwood. It is one of the easiest L.A. sports venues to park near ($12) and navigate. Reopened in 2012 after a two-year renovation, the stadium now offers modern concessions, more room to roam and 1,000 more seats. Most significantly, it added a concourse, improving comfort and flow. Be ready for a lot of blue. After Dodger Stadium, this is L.A.s second blue heaven. (Photos by Chris Erskine / Los Angeles Times) But youre here for the lore, in a place that has produced 38 All-Americans. Wooden started it all, taking over as head basketball coach at UCLA in 1948 and leading the Bruins to a record 10 national championships. Renowned for his disciplined, values-driven approach, he created a basketball dynasty that won seven straight championships in the late 60s and early 70s, including 98 successive victories at Pauley. Wooden, who died in 2010, is the first person to be inducted to the Basketball Hall of Fame both as a player and a coach. Though he resembled a gentleman banker more than a rock star, Woodens legacy lives on in the stadium he made famous. The corridors are lined with photos, timelines and a version of Woodens Pyramid of Success, a set of principles formed to help students and teams reach their potential. Where: Pauley Pavilion, on the UCLA campus, 15 miles west of downtown L.A. How much: Prices vary. Seats generally start at $8 for less-attractive games and $25 for popular ones. Info: UCLA Facebook

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Drive through In-N-Out Burgers flagship restaurant in Baldwin Park for a double-double, animal-style By Christopher Reynolds (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times ) Why: For certain carnivorous Californians, a visit to this burger chain is like church, but with more calories. At the flagship In-N-Out location just south of the 10 Freeway in the eastern L.A. County suburb of Baldwin Park, of course you can drive through, as most customers do. But you could eat inside, then browse a company store, then (on the north side of the freeway) admire a non-functioning replica of chains first burger shack. What: Harry and Esther Snyder founded the first In-N-Out burger shack in 1948, which puts them among the first to try a drive-through restaurant. Now their granddaughter runs the company. To taste what the fuss is all about, order a double-double, animal-style  two beef patties cooked with mustard, two slices of cheese and a choice of hand-leafed lettuce and tomato, plus pickles, extra spread and grilled onions. Its the appeal of these burgers and fries (no heat lamps, freezers or microwaves) that has fueled the companys growth to more than 300 outlets. (But unlike its Southern California cousins McDonalds, Jack in the Box, Taco Bell and Wienerschnitzel, In-N-Out has never expanded beyond the American West.) (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times ) Though the companys first home at San Francisquito and Garvey avenues has been leveled, the current restaurant is joined by not only a store (open 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Mondays through Saturdays) but a regional distribution center, the two-story campus of In-N-Out University and the replica shack, which went up in 2014. (The online store does have wider inventory than the brick-and-mortar one, including socks and surfboards.) Where: 13850 Francisquito Ave., Baldwin Park. The company store is at 13800 Francisquito. The replica shack (free and open for selfies Thursdays through Sundays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.) is at 13752 Francisquito. The restaurant is 16 miles east of downtown L.A. How much: Double-double, animal-style, $4.27. Info: In-N-Out (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times ) Facebook

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Light up your life at the Museum of Neon Art in Glendale By Catharine Hamm The Museum of Neon Art in Glendale showcases the once wildly popular light form. (Catharine Hamm / Los Angeles Times) Why: Decorative and delightful, the works that light up our lives at Glendales Museum of Neon Art are part art and part science and all fascinating. What: In 2015, the museum moved from downtown Los Angeles, where it had lived since 1981, to Glendale and has been lighting up lives ever since. Pep Boys grace the entry. (Catharine Hamm / Los Angeles Times) For this you can credit the founder of the feast, Georges Claude, a Parisian who invented the neon light in about 1910. L.A. became a hotbed of neon-ness, thanks to its desire to be the capital of the next big thing and its desire to look the part, beginning in the Roaring 20s. The neon at this museum, where exhibits change often enough to encourage repeat visits, is more amusing than unsavory. And as a reminder that nothing lasts forever, Manny, Moe & Jack (the Pep Boys) are not on permanent display, although the museum doesnt have any plans to move the fellows. Eve de Haans pink neon Love Dont Pay the Bills is part of the She Bends exhibit, featuring works by women neon artists. (Catharine Hamm/Los Angeles Times) Through Feb. 11, an exhibit called She Bends: Women in Neon, takes you inside a creative funhouse of the art form, some works based on words (Eve de Haans pink neon Love Dont Pay the Bills), some on objects (Michie Hongos faces on skateboard remnants). Where: 216 S. Brand Ave, Glendale, about eight miles north of downtown L.A. How much: Museum entrance is $10 for adults ($5 if you live in Glendale), $8 for those 65 and older, and free for those 12 and younger if accompanied by an adult. Info: Museum of Neon Art Facebook

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Forage with top chefs at the Santa Monica Farmers Market By Christopher Reynolds Wednesday morning, pluots and persimmons. ( Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times ) Why: Some of the states most accomplished farmers rise before dawn on Wednesday mornings and drive as much as 200 miles, just so they can set up and sell at this market. One reason: The Santa Monica Farmers Market draws some of Southern Californias most decorated (and discriminating) chefs. And the market venue happens to be a tomato toss away from the beach, a cucumber roll from the scores of shops and restaurants along the Third Street Promenade. What: About 75 farmers set up stalls along a few blocks of Arizona Avenue, which is closed to vehicles on market mornings. If youre coming by car, youll have to cope with nasty traffic and parking, even at 8:30 a.m., but once youre afoot, life is good. In late fall, youll likely find dates from Mecca, apples from Cuyama, persimmons from Fallbrook, pluots from Kingsbug, oranges from Ojai, mushrooms from La Habra Heights. Consider this a reminder that for all its glitz, California remains an agricultural powerhouse. And even if youre not going to bite into that persimmon, youll feel the sea breeze and hear the banjo player at Arizona and 2nd, or maybe the guitarist a block to the east. ( Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times ) The market was born in 1981, and the stampede of kitchen professionals began soon after. Noting that close relationship between growers and chefs, Saveur magazine in 2016 labeled this L.A.s best farmers market. Still, its good to remember that other markets operate on Santa Monicas Main Street (Sundays) and in the citys Virginia Avenue Park (Saturdays). If youre farther east, or youd like more street musicians and more nonproduce merchants, theres the Hollywood Farmers Market on Sundays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Ivar and Selma avenues. Where: The market happens on Wednesdays along Arizona Avenue, Santa Monica, between Ocean Avenue and 4th Street from 8:30 am to 1:30 pm. On Saturdays, a smaller version occupies Arizona Avenue between between 2nd and 4th streets from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. The corner of Arizona Avenue and 4th Street is 17 miles west of downtown L.A. -- which could take an hour to drive, depending on the hour and day. How much: In late November, organic pitted Medjool dates from Mecca were $9.50 per pound. Granny Smith apples from Cuyama were $3 a pound. Fuyu persimmons from Fallbrook were $3.50 per pound. Valencia oranges from Ojai were $1 per pound. Info: Santa Monica Farmers Markets ( Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times ) ( Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times ) Facebook

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Drift in a balloon over northern San Diego County By Christopher Reynolds Aloft near Fairbanks Ranch. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times) Why: Heres your chance to climb into a wicker basket and rise 3,000 feet above Fairbanks Ranch, to stand just below a fire-belching burner (which makes your balloon rise), to see sunset from high up, and maybe even to throw shade onto one of Bill Gatess houses. What: A balloon ride is a 19th century sort of thrill, and as Californias open spaces get filled in, ballooning options are decreasing. The Napa and Temecula vineyard areas still feature plenty of balloons (which usually launch in early morning, when winds are calmer and temperatures are lower). The Palm Springs and Santa Barbara wine country areas have some too. But balloons are a rare sight along the California coast, so I grabbed a chance to soar above northern San Diego County. Though balloon pilots strive to keep their aircraft above land, the views from on high include miles of ocean and the red tile roofs of countless Mediterranean-style mansions. Rides typically last 45 to 60 minutes (depending on which way the wind blows), pilots are permitted by the Federal Aviation Administration, and its traditional to celebrate afterward with a glass of Champagne. In northern San Diego, its often a sunset operation flown by a team that started their day with a flight in Temecula. My ride in late November, operated by Compass Balloons, featured seven passengers and a pilot. (Minimum age: 5.) We launched near the Vegetable Shop at Chino Farm, (which sells produce to some of the regions most admired restaurants). We inflated, climbed aboard, drifted over the Morgan Run golf course, and gazed down on Fairbanks Ranch, Rancho Santa Fe, Black Mountain and Carmel Valley. As our round shadow crept across fields, hills and exclusive neighborhoods, pilot Matt Downing pointed out one of Bill Gates houses and another that once belonged to philanthropist Joan Kroc. We touched down smoothly about 3 1/2 miles east of where we took off. Im glad I did it when I did. Compass Balloons owner Evan Munnelly warns that flights in this area may cease within a year because take-off and landing spaces in the area are vanishing so rapidly. Where: Though several companies, including Compass, Skys the Limit and California Dreamin, mention Del Mar in promoting their balloon flights, the vessels usually take off and land farther inland. For my Compass Balloons flight, we met in an Encinitas park-and-ride lot (1969 Villa Cardiff Drive, Encinitas), then the crew drove us to the launch spot. Our meeting spot was 97 miles southeast of downtown L.A., 24 miles north of downtown San Diego. How much: A shared ride (with other passengers in a basket that typically holds eight to 10 people) typically costs $150 to $300 per person. Info: Besides the San Diego companies above, many balloon companies operate in Napa Valley, Temecula and around Palm Springs. . Compass Balloons pilot Matt Downing adjusts burners. Facebook

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Drink dessert over an ocean view at La Jollas La Valencia Hotel By Christopher Reynolds Terrace, the Med, La Valencia. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times ) Why: Life can be seriously sweet at this hotel, which was built in 1926 with a big La Jolla Cove view and anchors a neighborhood of ultra-spendy shops and glitzy galleries. Since the days when Gregory Peck hosted other La Jolla Playhouse luminaries in the hotels Whaling Bar, La V (as many locals know the place) has offered a frothy concoction known as a Whaler. Picture a milkshake, enlivened by Kahlua, brandy, coffee, whipped cream and various mystery ingredients. What: The 114-room hotel has long been known for its pink paint job and Spanish Mediterranean style. In the course of ownership changes, expansions and renovations, the Whaling Bar has slipped away. But its frothy legacy remains. Grab one of the 15 or so tables on the terrace of the hotels signature restaurant, The Med, order a Whaler for dessert, and dont plan on operating any heavy machinery for some hours. (If you think you see a Kardashian, it may not be a hallucination; members of the family have been dropping by for years.) Where: 1132 Prospect St., La Jolla, 112 miles southeast of downtown L.A., 14 miles northwest of downtown San Diego. How much: A Whaler costs $14. Main dishes in The Med are priced at $15 to $24. (I can vouch for the snapper ceviche.) Rooms for two typically rent for $289 and up. Info: La Valencia Hotel The Whaler (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times ) Facebook

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Find deep-fried pleasure at a roadside farm stand near Palmdale By Jenn Harris (Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times) Why: Maybe youve finished a hike through the Devils Punchbowl and youre hungry. Or youre looking for unexpected holiday gifts. Or youve been hit by a craving for deep-fried fair food and its not fair season. For all these reasons and more, seekers like you end up at Charlie Brown Farms near Palmdale, where all your snack/drunk food fantasies, and your dreams of owning life-size replicas of the Blues Brothers, collide and come true. What: What started as a fruit stand in 1929 is now a six-acre hodgepodge of stores, a restaurant and a snack shop. The main building is a hokey cabin with advertisements for the various tchotchkes and snacks inside. From the road, its impossible to miss with signs that scream collectibles, funnel cake, smoothies, jerky, Dole whip. And just off the side of the building, an enclosed area with dinosaur statues. You may get whiplash trying to take it all in. (Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times) Once through the front door you experience sensory overload. Directly in front of you is a rack of jerky (the store boasts more than 60 kinds, including elk and ostrich). To the right is a counter where you can order milkshakes, fried candy bars, Texas-style barbecue, funnel cakes, ice cream and a host of other foods any decent doctor would advise you stay away from. To the left, packaged nuts, candy, a room where you can fill your own honey jar, a room devoted to pickles, a room devoted to soda, a fudge counter, and all that food is mixed in with things like raccoon figurines and coffee mugs. This is also where you can find raw frog legs for that stew recipe youve been dying to try. And alligator meat too. But past the fudge counter is where things really start to get weird. There are rooms completely lined with dolls from all over the world. A little creepy, but if youre in need of a doll (seriously, any doll), this is the place to find it. The life-size Blues Brothers statues I mentioned earlier? Theyre on the way to the doll rooms. Out back is a patio with tables and chairs, where you can break open that package of elk jerky or come down from that sugar rush of deep-fried Oreos. You could wander around this place for hours and not see everything. But its sure fun to try. Where: 8317 Pearblossom Highway, Littlerock, a 17-minute drive from downtown Palmdale and about 65 miles northeast of downtown L.A. How much: Depends on what youre in the mood for. Barbecue plates start around $11.50, the deep fried Oreos and Snickers are around $4 for each order, the jerky is around $8 a bag depending on the size, and the knick-knacks will range in price. If youre not a fan of lots of people in tight spaces, plan accordingly. Info: Charlie Brown Farms Facebook

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Soak in the view of Californias Grand Canyon in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park By Elisa Parhad Fonts Point. (Bill McIntire / Anza-Borrego Foundation) Why: Perched at the end of the rising desert floor, Fonts Point gives

onlookers a majestic view of Californias badlands, several hundred

feet below. Though far flung, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is an expansive feast of nature well worth the time it takes to get there. What: Fonts Point is part of a remote and sculptural landscape that was millions of years in the making. The vistas ridge yields to a maze of sinuous channels, razorback ridges and sandy, sun-baked hills. Bring a chair, a picnic and perhaps some friends. The scene is best at sunrise and sunset when the rock formations glow with honey-dipped hues. Even better is a visit during a full moon. The accumulation of photographers at these times is a testament to the spectacle. The brackish waters of the Colorado River and the Gulf of California

converged here long ago, making the area a dumping ground for

sediment. Today, the windswept and eroded rock is flush with the

fossils of animals and marine life that inhabited this once verdant

terrain. Four miles of soft dirt road leads up to Fonts Point, so check the

road conditions before your departure. Depending on the roads status,

a high clearance or 4WD vehicle may be necessary. Closer to the park visitor center, the Borrego Palm Canyon Trail is a popular 3-mile round trip that begins with a trailhead at the end of the main campground road. Where: In the heart of the Borrego Badlands, outside of Borrego

Springs, 168 miles southeast of downtown L.A. How much: Free until recently. On Nov. 3, the state parks system started collecting a day-use fee of $10 per vehicle on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays at the Anza-Borrego visitor center. Info: Anza-Borrego Desert State Park Fonts Point. (Darren Sleat / Anza-Borrego Foundation) Facebook

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Rent a Duffy for a glittery tour of Newport Harbor By Chris Erskine (Chris Erskine / Los Angeles Times) Why: Newport Bay seems made of glitter. Rental boats are plentiful and the harbor is easy to navigate and full of nautical eye candy. Board an electric boat and take a breezy tour. What: Newport Beach is the Beverly Hills of Orange County. The setting for multiple TV shows, it represents much of the California dream  giant homes and sensational yachts. The harbor, home to 9,000 vessels, is a recreational wonderland. The Duffy, a popular brand of rental boats, is an excellent way to see it all. Available at a half dozen rental places around the harbor, the slow-moving vessels are as easy to operate as a golf cart. (Chris Erskine / Los Angeles Times) (Chris Erskine / Los Angeles Times) A popular route is around Lido Island, the thumb-shaped isle on the western side of the harbor, where the bridge leaves plenty of space. Note that many of the bridges surrounding neighboring Balboa Island are too low to accommodate the surrey-topped electric boats. A lap around Lido takes about an hour, a typical rental period. Or, head east past the Fun Zone on Balboa Peninsula, past Balboa Island and toward the mouth of the harbor. Youll be warned not to go near the outlet, since the electric boats arent built to handle bigger waves. Pontoons, kayaks, paddle boards and powerboats are also available at rental locations around the harbor. Boat Rentals of America, on the peninsula near the Fun Zone, offers walk-up rentals, but recommends reservations for weekends, no matter the time of year. Where: Newport Beach is in Orange County, 46 miles, or 90 minutes, from downtown L.A. How much: Duffy electric boats that accommodate up to eight passengers rent for about $85 an hour. Info: Boat Rentals of America or Newport Beach Boat Rentals Facebook

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Connect with artisans (and beer) at Crafted, a makers market in a San Pedro port warehouse By Christopher Reynolds (Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times) Why: Its a vintage warehouse down by the port, full of artists, designers and makers, neighbored by a craft brewery. And youre not done with your holiday shopping yet. What: Crafted was born five years ago, as the maker movement began to bloom nationwide. Its open Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and the first Thursday night of every month in the L.A. Ports Warehouse 10, built in the 1940s. When I stopped by in mid-September, there were about 50 vendors in place, hawking iPhone photo prints, snacks, sculptures, succulents, textiles, vintage reconditioned furniture, soap, you name it. Outside, the San Pedro Festival of the Artists was in full swing-- one of many special events that use picnic tables and patio space between the old warehouses. Pop Kustom Shoppe, Crafted. (Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times) Since 2016, the artisans have been joined by Brouwerij West, a craft beer operation and tasting room that fills about half of Warehouse 9. On weekends, theres usually a food truck (or two or three) on hand, and often live music. Coming eventually: a food hall in the other half of Warehouse 9. Where: Warehouse No.10, 112 E. 22nd St., San Pedro, 26 miles south of downtown L.A. How much: Parking and admission are free. Info: Crafted Brouwerij West. (Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times) Facebook

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Salute General Grant (the tree) in Kings Canyon National Park By Mary Forgione Ranger wreath ceremony, 2014. (Dick Sheppard/Sanger Herald) Why: Any way you look at it, General Grant stands tall. First of all, its a massive sequoia, one of the largest living things in California. Moreover, the White House has named this the nations Christmas tree. What: General Grant is 268 feet high, the base of its trunk is 107 feet around. In 1925, Central Valley resident Charles E. Lee (an officer of the Sanger Chamber of Commerce) asked President Coolidge to have this giant sequoia in the Grant Grove area of Kings Canyon designated the national Christmas tree. In 1926 the president complied. Ever since, the Sanger Chamber has staged an annual Trek to the Tree, drawing hundreds of people each year for a winter program that typically includes songs and prayers. No tinsel, no lights. Just the tree as it has stood for about 2,000 years, and a wreath contributed by park rangers. This years event will be Sunday, Dec. 10, at the base of the tree. and its a free admission day in the park. For reservations or information on shuttle buses to the site, contact the Sanger Chamber of Commerce by phone at (559) 875-4575 or by e-mail at sangerchamber@gmail.com. Whether you reach General Grant in holiday season or not, you can impress the other tree-lovers by pointing out that in 1956, Congress gave General Grant another distinction, naming it the nations only living national shrine in honor of the men and women of the Armed Forces. And if you really love the idea of big trees with high ranks, make a bonus stop at the General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park. Its bigger, about 275 feet high. In fact, it might be the worlds largest living thing, depending on how you quantify coral reefs, fungus networks and redwoods. Where: General Grant stands along a 0.8-mile paved loop trail from the General Grant Grove parking lot in Kings Canyon National Park. The grove is 245 miles north of downtown L.A. And its more than 6,000 feet above sea level, so snow is common in winter. Be sure to check weather and road conditions before driving into the area. How much: Admission to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks (which operator jointly, as if they were single unit) is $30 per car for up to seven days. Info: Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks (Dick Sheppard/Sanger Herald) Facebook

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Ski in the morning in the San Bernardino Mountains, surf in the evening, using these slopes as your launch point By Chris Erskine Snow Summit (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) Why: SoCal offers the chance to ski and surf on the same day. This would be the snowy part of such a mountains-to-the-beaches day. What: Bear Mountain and Snow Summit are two slices of the same cake. Two miles apart, the sister resorts are the crown jewels of the town of Big Bear, a couple of hours from the bustle of the big city. Big Bear is three hours away from downtown Los Angeles, and a world apart from the strip malls and gas stations that muck up much of Southern California. Spring, summer or fall, this alpine lake resort town offers plenty of activities, including boating, hiking and zip-lining. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times) But in winter, its twin ski resorts really come alive. If you think of Southern California as all palm trees and bikinis, visit Big Bear after a winter storm, when the place is buried in several feet of snow and looks like a Christmas card. In what they offer, the two resorts are very similar, though Summit has the better terrain park. Lift tickets are good for both resorts, and buses run between the two resorts all day. Combined, the resorts offer 27 lifts and four high-speed chairs serving almost 60 runs. The resorts are just a few minutes from the village, where restaurants, shops and a movie theater await visitors. The resorts have begun making snow and opened Dec. 8. As with all mountain visits, note that conditions can change quickly, and chains are usually required on the twisty roads during any significant snow fall. Where: Big Bear Lake is in the San Bernardino Mountains, in San Bernardino County. It is 97 miles east of Los Angeles. How much: Advance purchase lift tickets start around $75. Info: Big Bear Mountain Resorts Facebook

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See the Klamath River flow into the Pacific from this dramatic overlook in Redwood National Park By Christopher Reynolds (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times) Why: Rugged coast. Big sand spit. Half-forgotten road. Blufftop perch. Despite all these assets, this dramatic corner of Northern California doesnt get that many visitors. So youll probably have it to yourself. What: Your gateway to the Klamath River Overlook is Requa, a hamlet -- the memory of a town, really -- along the Highway 101 south of Crescent City in Del Norte County. Its main landmark is the Historic Requa Inn, a rustic riverside lodging and restaurant that dates to 1914. If you can work out a way to eat dinner and spend a night there, do it. But dont stop there. Continue west 1.5 miles (no RVs!) on ramshackle Requa Road (which becomes Patrick J. Murphy Memorial Road on some maps) until theres no more road, and no more land. That will put you at the Klamath River Overlook. Drink it in. And if its May or June, scan the ocean for gray whales. Rangers say they often linger to feed in the waters spilling from river to sea This bluff is part of Redwood National and State Parks and it includes a modest picnic area. Theres a steep Lower Overlook Trail that will take you about a quarter-mile down the slope, exposing further views. Theres also a Coastal Trail to the north -- follow it for 2.7 miles and youll reach Hidden Beach. But the wide view from the picnic tables may well be plenty for you. Theres something mesmerizing about it -- maybe its the moving water. Theres also a good chance of a stiff, cold breeze or fog, just about any time. Bring layers. Where: Klamath River Overlook, 61 miles north of Arcata, 339 miles north of San Francisco, 713 miles northwest of downtown L.A. How much: No entry fee. Info: Redwood National and State Parks (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times) Facebook

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Pile the kids in the car, head to Riverside and catch a drive-in movie while you still can By Chris Erskine A drive-in theater in 2014 (Associated Press) The entrance at the Van Buren Drive-In. (Chris Erskine / Los Angeles Times) Why: What could be more of a California experience than a Hollywood double-feature viewed from the comfort of your car? What: In the 1950s, drive-in movies were a staple of American pop culture. These days, they are a novelty. One of the last remaining hot spots lives on at the Van Buren Drive-In in Riverside. Put the kids in their PJs and pack up the lawn chairs for a fine family getaway at the Van Buren. Opened in 1964 on the site of former orange groves, the three-screen drive-in remains a vibrant local hangout at half the price of your local multiplex. You can even bring your own food. On weekends, arrive 45 minutes before show time to ensure a decent spot, especially if youre going to sit outside in your lawn chairs. By showtime, the three lots serving the three screens resemble tailgate parties, with families wrapped in blankets and settled in for a double feature. (Chris Erskine / Los Angeles Times) SUVs or pickups often pull in with the tail hatch facing the screen, so kids with blankets or sleeping bags can turn the experience into a slumber party. Theres the traditional snack bar, and prices are fair, at least by movie theater standards. But waits can be 20 to 30 minutes on weekends. Check here for express pickup. Keep in mind that youre experiencing a rare phenomenon these days. Once numbering 4,000 across the country, drive-ins are now down to 400 or so. Catch one while you can  not just for the sense of nostalgia, but for a memorable evening at a very fair price. Where: 3035 Van Buren Blvd., Riverside, 55 miles southeast of downtown L.A. Plan on a drive of 90 minutes to two hours in evening traffic. How much: Admission is $9 per person; children ages 5 to 9, $1. Major credit cards and debit cards accepted. Open seven days a week. No pets. Info: Van Buren Drive-In Theatre Facebook

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Taste-test the Thomas Keller restaurant empire in Yountville, Napa Valley By Christopher Reynolds Chocolate tart, Ad Hoc, Yountville (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times) Why: Yountville is a sleepy, genteel little town in the heart of Napa Valley, population about 3,000. And Thomas Keller, one of this nations most admired chefs, has three restaurants in Yountville, on the same street. Or four. Or five, depending on how you count. What: Keller, raised and trained in Florida and New York and renowned for his high standards, has also cooked in acclaimed kitchens in France and Los Angeles, and he has operations in New York and Las Vegas as well. (His Bouchon in Beverly Hills is scheduled to close Dec. 31.) But since he opened the French Laundry in 1994, Yountville has been the seat of his California empire. With three Michelin stars and a nine-course chefs menu, The French Laundry may be the most celebrated restaurant in the state, and its surely one of the priciest. Ad Hoc, Yountville (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times) But the chef has give us options. Bouchon opened in 1998, offering French bistro fare. The Bouchon Bakery followed in 2003. In 2006 came Ad Hoc, devoted to American comfort food in a casual setting. (Its humble-brag slogan: for temporary relief from hunger.) Ad Hocs menu changes daily to take advantage of fresh ingredients, but its all built around the chefs choice for a four-course family-style meal, which includes favorites like pot roast and barbecue. I came before 6 p.m. on buttermilk fried chicken night (a Monday), and found myself in a happily clamorous dining room, surrounded by families, confronting more food than I could eat. (I enjoyed the casual feeling, and I liked the chicken well enough. But I actually enjoyed the salad and cheese courses more  livelier flavors.) Bouchon Bakery, Yountville ( Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times ) Either before or after eating in Yountville, stroll Washington Street. At 6640 youll find the French Laundry, fronted by an unassuming, two-story, stone-walled building with minimalist kitchen addition and its gardens across the street. You can even peek through the kitchen window, a long slit that reveals the team laboring fiercely over that evenings dishes. Next, at 6534 Washington, you pause by Bouchon (French bistro fare) and the yellow awning of Bouchon Bakery (6528 Washington), whose snacks are the most affordable way to sample Kellers empire. A few blocks farther south at 6476 Washington, you reach Ad Hoc, which has nine seats at the bar in addition to its many tables (open Thursday through Monday). And behind Ad Hoc, neighbored by picnic tables, is Addendum, an auxiliary space that serves box lunches to go on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Where: Ad Hoc, 6476 Washington St., Yountville, Ca., 55 miles north of San Franciscos Ferry Building, 411 miles northwest of downtown L.A. How much: The nine-course dinner at the French Laundry: $310-$325 each. The four-course dinner at Ad Hoc: $55.A box lunch from Ad Hoc Addendum: $16.50. Info: Thomas Keller Restaurant Group, Yountville Chamber of Commerce The French Laundrys kitchen window ( Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times ) Facebook

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Storm a Tuscan castle in Napa Valley By Christopher Reynolds ( Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times) Why: Napa Valley has close to 500 wineries. Castello di Amorosa is the only one housed in a 107-room castle that was built in accordance with 13th century Tuscan aspirations. What: Owner/designer Dario Sattui completed this spectacle, a 15-year project, in 2007. Besides its five towers and the barrel-vaulted retail and tasting area (which never seems to end), its got a great hall and chapel, each with evocative murals. Theres said to be a torture chamber below. Depending on your mood, you might expect a Da Vinci Code villain to round a corner at any moment, or Orson Welles in mid-soliloquy. Or one of the Monty Python guys, clopping coconuts together. Not surprisingly -- given the Tuscan blueprint of the place -- the Castello di Amorosa wines are made in the Italian style. The winery suffered no damage in the wine country fires of October. Where: 4045 St. Helena Hwy., Calistoga, Calif., 70 miles north of San Franciscos Ferry Buidling, 425 miles northwest of L.A. City Hall. How much: Adult admission (which includes wine-tasting) begins at $25. For children the rate is $15-$20 (and theres grape juice to taste). Tours (which include rooms you cant reach just wandering around) cost $40-$95. Info: Castello di Amorosa ( Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times ) ( Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times ) Facebook

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Soak in Calistoga spring water By Christopher Reynolds Fountain, Indian Springs, Calistoga (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times) Why: Calistoga is the answer to the question of what to do in the Napa Valley when youve had enough wine. Its a little, old resort town full of hot springs, so between wine-tasting excursions (and maybe the occasional bike ride) you can float listlessly in a steaming pool, untroubled by the faint scent of sulfur because you can feel the stress evaporating from your body. What: Samuel Brannan, a brash, controversial figure who became one of Californias first millionaires in the Gold Rush, founded Calistoga in the 1860s, counting on the areas springs to draw tourists from San Fancisco. (In fact, he built a rail route from Vallejo to Calistoga, and the current Napa Valley Wine Train rolls on the Napa-St. Helena portion of that old route.) It was a clever impulse. The town (population: about 5,300) lives on as a resort escape, with hideaways like Calistoga Ranch, Dr. Wilkinsons and Indian Springs (perhaps the oldest continuously operating pool and spa facility in the state) all relying heavily on their hot springs. Though the Napa/Sonoma wildfires of October drew near, they never reached the town of Calistoga, and it remains handsome as ever. In early November, I spent a night and stepped from the chilly morning air into the Olympic-sized, 102-degree, steam-cloaked pool at the 17-acre Indian Springs resort. It was pleasant. In 2015, the resort added a restaurant (Sams Social Club, which has fascinating, colorful mural over the counter) and grew from about 40 rooms to 115. Many of the interiors still have that just-upgraded, ready-for-the-magazine-photographer look. Where: Indian Springs, 1712 Lincoln Ave., Calistoga, 73 miles north of San Franciscos Ferry Building, 427 miles northwest of downtown L.A. How much: In winter, Indian Springs rooms for two usually start at about $239 per night. Info: Visit Calistoga, Indian Springs The main pool, Indian Springs, Calistoga (Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times) Facebook

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Board the Napa Valley Wine Train, recall discord and disaster, then roll in splendor past miles of vineyards By Christopher Reynolds (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times ) Why: If youre going to fully appreciate this valley and its globally admired vineyards, its better that youre not driving. And on the Napa Valley Wine Train, you have the chance to dine in style while the miles and wineries roll past. What: The train covers about 18 miles, running north alongside Highway 29 from the city of Napa through Yountville and Oakville to St. Helena. Along the way, depending on what you sign up for, you may stop to taste at one to three wineries, eat a three-course meal on board, and be back where you started in three to six hours. Its expensive but so very comfortable. And its got complicated history. The rail route, first laid in the 1860s, had fallen idle by the 1980s. To get the new wine train rolling in 1989, its owners had to outmaneuver many Napa locals who feared a tourist invasion would ruin the affluent communitys character. Skip forward now to 2015, when the trains management drew a storm of criticism for ejecting a group of guests, mostly African American, who were accused of being too loud. The view from the train, near Yountville, in early November. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times ) In late 2015, new owners took over the train. Then wildfires flared in October. They missed the train track, Highway 29 and the wineries along the route, but killed at least 41 people and destroyed thousands of homes and scores of businesses in Napa and Sonoma counties. By the time I showed up in early November, almost none of the damage was visible from the train. Napa was still in the early stages of recovery and the train was about half-full  unusual for the time of year. As for my journey, it was a sunny day, the countryside was gorgeous, the meal pleasant. The distant, fire-blackened hills to the east were barely discernible beyond the green and red vineyard rows, the shade trees and the nearby slopes. Where: McKinstry Street Station, 1275 McKinstry St., Napa, 46 miles north of San Francisco, 402 miles northwest of downtown L.A. How much: Most day trips run $206-$329 per person, which includes lunch and wine-tasting. Info: Napa Valley Wine Train (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times ) (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times) Facebook

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Taste China (Live) in San Francisco By Christopher Reynolds Dim sum counter, Market Restaurant, China Live. (Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times) Why: Nobody likes to say so, but a lot of San Franciscos Chinatown looks tired these days. And many of the areas best Chinese restaurants are scattered among the outer suburbs where so many affluent Chinese American families live. So its a happy surprise to see China Live bring new energy and higher style to the neighborhood with a combination of design-intensive eating and shopping options. Its mission: to demystify Chinese ingredients and recipes while educating guests on the rich history and influence. What: China Live opened in March 2017, near the frontier between Chinatown and North Beach. The main downstairs space, the Market Restaurant and Bar, is full of long wood tables under a semi-raw concrete ceiling. Picture an Apple Store with steaming, edible merchandise, neighbored by open cooking areas, beckoning counters, a bar and adjacent retail rooms stocked with artisan teas, kitchen tools, condiments, shapely candles, jewelry and such. The restaurants menu is mostly based on sharing small dishes, so you might wind up with a medley dinner of fire-roasted sweet white corn, Dungenes crab spring rolls and Sheng Jian Bao (SJB) pan-fried pork dumplings. Market Restaurant, China Live. (Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times ) Near the entrance is the casual Oolong Cafe. Upstairs waits a more exclusive restaurant offering private, pricey dining in elegant rooms befitting a royal in hiding. Its called Eight Tables by George Chen (dinner only; tasting menu: $225). There are also a pair of bars upstairs, including the Gold Mountain Lounge and one called Cold Drinks -- one of those hip hideaways that seeks to be popular by maintaining quasi-secrecy. Where: 644 Broadway, San Francisco, 380 miles northwest of downtown L.A.. How much: Together, the three dishes above cost about $40. Most cocktails $13-$15. Info: China Live ( Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times ) Facebook

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See, sniff and taste Napa Valleys bounty at the Oxbow Public Market By Christopher Reynolds A 1,033-pound pumpkin on display at Oxbow Public Market in Napa. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times ) Why: This market and food hall, set above a fetching bend in the Napa River, is a short stroll from downtown Napa, a block from the headquarters of the popular Napa Valley Wine Train, a block from the COPIA center for wine and food education. Much smaller than San Franciscos food-centric Ferry Building but placed near the starting point of many popular Napa adventures, this foodie acre (about two-thirds the size of a football field) is a point of convergence for locals and tourists and a one-stop reminder that this wine country does more than make wine. What: The Oxbow Public Market opened in 2007, just in time to suffer from a national recession, the closure of COPIA (since rethought and reopened by the Culinary Institute of America) and construction-related disruptions of local traffic. Now those troubles are in the rear-view mirror, and a stroll around the marketplace introduces you to plenty of wine products but also duck tacos (at C Casa); American comfort food (Gotts Roadside); local seafood (Hog Island Oyster Co.); and assorted local fruits and vegetables (Hudson Greens & Goods). On my early November visit, Hudson was showing off a 1,033-pound pumpkin. There were also plenty of signs thanking the first-responders for their work fighting that regions wildfires in October. (Though many homes and about two dozen wineries were lost or damaged in those fires, the vast majority of the areas 500 wineries had reopened by Nov. 8.) Besides browsing at the market, you can also rent a bike at the automatic Spinway stand just outside and pedal seven miles along the Napa River to Kennedy Park and back; or just toodle down 1st Street in downtown Napa, where the new, 183-room Archer Hotel is expected to open in December. Where: 610-644 1st St., Napa, 46 miles north of the San Francisco Ferry building, 4The surplus of Ukraine's balance of payment in 2017 doubled compared with 2016, reaching $2.566 billion ($1.346 billion in 2016), according to preliminary data posted on the official website of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU).

According to the central bank, the current account deficit for the past year increased by 11.16%, to $3.835 billion, which was caused by the negative impact of suspension of trade with the uncontrolled territories and lower than expected crop yields.

At the same time, the National Bank clarifies that the EU remains the largest trading partner of Ukraine, the share of which in total exports of goods for 2017 in comparison with 2016 rose to 35.4% from 31.9%, in total imports to 37.4% from 36.9%. The total trade turnover with the EU countries grew by 26.5%, to $32.458 billion, in particular exports by 31.9%, to $14.106 billion and imports by 22.7%, to $18.352 billion.

In 2017, trade turnover with Russia rose by 28.9%, to $10.543 billion, in particular exports by 10%, to $3.375 billion and imports by 40.3%, to $7.168 billion due to imports of coal, oil products and fertilizers.

Total exports of goods for the past year were up by 18.82%, to $39.876 billion, imports by 21.07%, to $49.034 billion.

The NBU also notes that last year exports of services increased significantly - by 13.11%, to $14.080 billion, primarily due to IT services, pipeline and air transportation services. Imports of services also rose by 7.23%, to $11.77 billion due to a significant increase in imports of transportation services and Ukrainians' increased spending on "travelling."The big celestial event when you can see a blue moon, supermoon and red moon from a full lunar eclipse will start around 3:45 a.m. Wednesday in Southern California. If you arent planning to go out to watch, no worries. Live streams from NASA and observatories in the West can take you there.

NASA Television will broadcast views of what it calls a super blue blood moon from telescopes at the agencys Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base near Lancaster, the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, and the University of Arizonas Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter near Tucson.

The changing moon will be best seen, provided skies are clear, along the West Coast, Alaska and Hawaii.

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You can watch NASA TV starting at 2:30 a.m. Pacific time at moon.nasa.gov and follow the space agencys Twitter feed too.

Griffith Observatory TV also will stream the moons changes from 3:45 to 7 a.m. Totality begins at 4:51 a.m. and ends at 6:07 a.m.

On Jan. 31, 3 lunar events will come together in an unusual overlap thats being called a super blue blood moon. See how this celestial rarity will help @NASAMoon scientists observe what happens when the lunar surface cools quickly during a lunar eclipse: https://t.co/5keRakwhUk pic.twitter.com/x9jhb5foVY  NASA (@NASA) January 28, 2018

Blue moon, blood moon, supermoon and lunar eclipse, all on one day this week 

Look up! Tonights lunar eclipse is special in at least three ways 

If you want to watch somewhere thats not in front of your computer or tablet, the grounds of Griffith Observatory will be open starting at 3:30 a.m. for those who want to watch from L.A.s high point.

In Big Bear Lake, the Baldwin Lake Ecological Reserve at 44999 North Shore Drive provides a good viewing spot around 7,000 feet in elevation. In Hawaii, travelers can visit Hawaii Volcanoes National Park for a free viewing with astronomer Dean Regas of the PBS show Star Gazers. It begins at 8:30 p.m. local time at the Kilauea Overlook.

Sky gazers can expect to see a full lunar eclipse during which the moon takes on a red or copper cast, known as a blood moon. The full moons closest position to Earth makes it a supermoon, making it seem brighter. And the blue moon means its the second full moon of the month.

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The next total lunar eclipse that will be seen in North America will happen Jan. 21, 2019.

travel@latimes.com

@latimestravelExperience East Africas wildlife on a 10-day safari that includes three of Tanzanias 16 national parks.

The itinerary includes two days of game drives in Serengeti National Park, home to the annual migration of wildebeests and zebras.

Next is Lake Manyara National Park, known for its tree-climbing lions, baboons and bird life. Also on the itinerary is lesser-known Tarangire National Park, popular with bird-watchers.

Other highlights include day trips to view wildlife in Ngorongoro Crater and to visit the Hadzabe and Datoga tribes at Lake Eyasi.

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Optional post-trip extension to Zanzibar.

Dates: July 23-Aug. 1

Price: $7,295 per person, double occupancy; single supplement available. Includes nine nights accommodations, most meals, transportation, sightseeing, admission and park entry fees, and domestic flights. International airfare not included.

Info: Geoffreys Tours & Cruises, (310) 266-9879, geoffevans@earthlink.net

travel@latimes.com

@latimestravelA bitter war of words erupted within the British government Tuesday over a leaked analysis that reportedly shows the government expects withdrawal from the European Union will dramatically hurt the economy.

The analysis was written by officials in the Department for Exiting the European Union and reportedly predicts that growth would be significantly lower than if Britain were to remain a member of the 28-nation bloc.

Government officials acknowledged the existence of the document but have not released it.

The leak to BuzzFeed sparked a heated debate within the House of Commons and more infighting within the ranks of Prime Minister Theresa Mays government, which continues to be deeply divided over how the country should negotiate its departure from the EU.

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Some lawmakers said the leak was an attempt to derail the process by those who cannot come to terms with the decision by voters in June 2016 to leave the EU.

There is clearly a campaign to overturn the referendum result, Steve Baker, a Conservative Party minister in the Department for Exiting the EU, said Tuesday in Parliament.

But he was also forced to defend the governments decision not to make the leaked document public, saying it was preliminary and should therefore not be taken too seriously.

Pro-EU members of Parliament denounced that explanation, saying the government was trying to bury bad news and should publish the analysis in full. Stop pretending this is something to do with protecting our negotiating position, said Ken Clarke, a member of the Conservative Party, during a particularly heated exchange.

The assessment, as described by BuzzFeed, which reported its existence late Monday, is dated January 2018 and analyzes three of the most likely scenarios by which Britain could sever its ties to the EU.

The no deal option would see Britain revert to World Trade Organization rules and decrease growth by 8% over the next 15 years.

If a free-trade deal is brokered, growth would drop 5%.

And if Britain opts for a so-called soft Brexit, whereby it remains in the EU single market, growth would still fall 2%.

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This month, the Scottish government published an analysis showing that a so-called hard Brexit  in which Britain would leave the European Union single market entirely  would cost Scotlands economy $18 billion a year. That led some opposition figures to accuse the government of scaremongering.

Thanks to this leak, we now know the U.K. government is sitting on analysis which comes to precisely the same conclusion, Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon said.

The leaked report comes a month after May and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker finally agreed to a deal that brought a close to phase one of the Brexit negotiations.

Those talks centered on the rights of EU citizens living in Britain and British citizens living in the remade EU, the relationship between Northern Ireland, which will leave the EU, and the Republic of Ireland, which will remain, as well as the so-called divorce bill that Britain has to pay to cease membership.

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The next round of talks turns to trade, which many have warned could prove fraught and potentially do major harm to the British economy.

To help mitigate any such damage, May has already discussed future trade deals with President Trump and headed to China on Tuesday with her husband and a delegation of 50 British business leaders.

But Peter Iosif, a senior analyst at the online trading firm IronFX, said the expectation is that [any deal she strikes with other countries] may not be able to fill the gap.

In the run-up to the 2016 referendum, Brexit opponents warned that a split from the EU would lead to job losses and financial collapse.

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Brexit supporters pointed out that in the aftermath of their victory  with 52% of the vote  the economy has proved to be remarkably robust.

Iain Duncan Smith, a Conservative member of Parliament, said the doomsday scenarios in the leaked report would not come to fruition.

I think the answer is we should take this with a pinch of salt, he said.

Boyle is a special correspondent.Interfax-Ukraine to host press conference ' In Black and White. Tender Fraud of Municipal Enterprise Kyivdorservice'

On Wednesday, January 31, at 12.00, the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency's press center will host a press conference entitled: "In Black and White. Tender Fraud of Municipal Enterprise Kyivdorservice." The participants will include co-owner, director general of Plastics-Ukraine Ireneusz Derek, managing partner of EUCON International Legal Center, lawyer Yaroslav Romanchuk (8/5a Reitarska Street). Registration requires press accreditation.Russia's hybrid military forces have mounted three attacks on Ukrainian army positions in Donbas in the past 24 hours, with one Ukrainian soldier reported as killed in action and another two as wounded in action, the press center of the Anti-Terrorist Operation Headquarters reported on Facebook on Wednesday morning.

"In general, during the past day, there have been three attacks on ATO forces by militants. Unfortunately, there are casualties again among our servicemen. As a result of enemy shelling, one Ukrainian soldier was killed, two more were injured," the ATO staff said on Facebook.

In the Donetsk sector, the enemy fired 82mm mortars and grenade launchers at our defenders stationed near the village of Pisky. In the Mariupol sector, the militants used 82mm mortars near the village of Lebedynske, as well as heavy machine guns and small arms near the village of Vodiane.There will be no bagpipes and kilts parading down Main Street in Bethlehem for St. Patrick's Day this year.

The annual Parade of Shamrocks, typically held on a March weekend around the holiday, has been cancelled for 2018, according to an announcement on the Celtic Cultural Alliance website. The organizers say it had nothing to do with the green.

"This was not a financial decision," the brief statement says. "It has become difficult finding interested participants and the number of volunteers needed to present the parade properly and safely."

The cultural alliance said it hopes to bring the tradition back in 2019.

(PHOTOS: 2017 Celtic Classic festival)

Bands and other performers from local schools and organizations have participated in the parade, which starts on West Broad Street and continues down Main Street in Bethlehem. It was started in 2011 and was canceled only once before, in 2015 due to weather.

The Celtic Cultural Alliance puts on the Celtic Classic Highland Games and Festival in the fall, a large event that takes over the Main Street area.

Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @type2supernovak and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.Prosecutors thought they had their man, after making an arrest last fall in a 1993 killing in Allentown.

But on Wednesday Lehigh County's district attorney announced he was dropping the charges in the case.

Marcello V. Morales, 46, was accused of stabbing to death 30-year-old Edwin "Eddy" Torres early on the morning of June 26, 1993, in the 200 block of North Seventh Street, according to Allentown police.

Two days later a warrant was issued for Morales' arrest on homicide and possession of an instrument of a crime charges, but he was on the lam for 24 years until last November.

Members of the Allentown Police Department's Cold Case Team and the Lehigh County Homicide Task Force learned Morales was living in Fuquay Varina, North Carolina, under the name Roberto Tomas Mendez.

Morales was arrested, with the assistance of Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Marshals Service.

Morales has been held without bail while awaiting his preliminary hearing in the case.

"After much further investigation and interviews with available witnesses, the Commonwealth has determined that it cannot prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," District Attorney Jim Martin said in a released statement. "Therefore, the Commonwealth is withdrawing all charges."

Morales' attorney, Michael van der Veen, lauded the prosecutor's office for dropping the case after a new investigation.

"I don't think they had the evidence to prove who was involved," he said.

Van der Veen said he would not be making any statements about the allegations against his client, and would not say if Morales knew the victim.

Morales was released on Wednesday, and van der Veen said he believed Morales's intention was to go home to North Carolina and work hard.

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.The passenger killed in an early morning Wednesday car crash in Lehigh County was a 27-year-old man from Catasauqua, the Lehigh County Coroner's Office said.

Terrance Ramnarine was pronounced dead by Deputy Coroner Cassandra Schiffner at 2:58 a.m. at the crash scene in the 800 block of East Susquehanna Street, Salisbury Township.

He died of injuries suffered in the crash, and the death was ruled an accident, the coroner's office said following an autopsy Wednesday morning.

Ramnarine was a passenger in a vehicle that hit a retaining wall about 2 a.m.

Authorities did not immediately release further information about the incident.

An investigation was continuing by the coroner's office and Pennsylvania State Police with assistance from the Lehigh County District Attorney's Office.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.A Pennsylvania state trooper wounded in a November shootout on Route 33 will be a guest at Tuesday night's State of the Union Address.

U.S. Rep. Tom Marino, a Republican whose district covers far northeast Pennsylvania, invited Cpl. Seth Kelly and his wife Philomena to be his guests at President Donald Trump's first State of the Union Address at 9 p.m. in Washington, D.C., the congressman says in a statement.

Kelly, a 13-year state police veteran who lives in Upper Nazareth Township, as shot in the neck/shoulder area last Nov. 7 after backing up Trooper Ryan Seiple at the traffic stop Nov. 7 in Plainfield Township. Kelly underwent multiple surgeries and spent time in intensive care before being discharged Dec. 1 from St. Luke's University Hospital.

He's been recovering and attended a Saturday fundraiser hosted by Upper Nazareth Fire Department.

"Our men and women in uniform deserve the upmost respect and I am grateful for State Trooper Kelly's service to the state of Pennsylvania," Marino says in a statement. " ... Kelly's service is an inspiration to us all and I am glad that he and his wife are in Washington, D.C. for this unique day in United States history."

Daniel Khalil Clary, 22 and from Effort in Monroe County, but with ties to Easton, is accused of opening fire on the two troopers after initially being released with a speeding ticket. Clary was also wounded and drove himself to Easton Hospital, where he was taken into custody. Seiple was not hit by the gunfire.

Nick Falsone may be reached at nfalsone@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @nickfalsone. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.In a shocking turnaround, the U.S. Justice Department has dropped its case against Sen. Robert Menendez.

In a court in Newark today, federal prosecutors moved to dismiss the corruption indictment against the New Jersey Democrat.

On Jan. 24, a federal judge acquitted Menendez and his co-defendant, Salomon Melgen, of seven of the 18 counts against them after a deadlocked jury could not reach a verdict in the high-profile case in November.

"Given the impact of the court's Jan. 24 order on the charges and the evidence admissible in a retrial, the United States has determined that it will not retry the defendants on the remaining charges," said Department of Justice spokeswoman Nicole Navas Oxman.

In a statement, Menendez said he never wavered in his innocence and his belief that justice would prevail.

"I am grateful that the Department of Justice has taken the time to reevaluate its case and come to the appropriate conclusion," he said. "I thank God for hearing my prayers and for giving me strength during this difficult time. I have devoted my life to serving the people of New Jersey, and am forever thankful for all who have stood by me. No matter the challenges ahead, I will never stop fighting for New Jersey and the values we share."

The decision will have significant political consequences for Menendez, who is seeking re-election to the Senate this year and faced the possibility of a retrial on the eve of that campaign.

It also marks a surprising turnaround for the Justice Department, which had announced that prosecutors would pursue a retrial.

The government had argued that Menendez, 64, traded the power of his office in exchange for six-figure campaign contributions, luxury hotel stays and private jet flights.

They claimed that Melgen, an ophthalmologist and long-time friend of Menendez, had sought the senator's intervention on the doctor's behalf in an $8.9 million Medicare billing dispute, as well as visa applications of Melgen's foreign girlfriends and a contested port security contract in the Dominican Republic that would benefit one of Melgen's companies.

Menendez was also accused of making false statements on Senate disclosure forms by intentionally concealing Melgen's gifts.

He still faces a Senate ethics probe on failing to list those gifts on his disclosure forms.

The defense argued that the gifts came out of 20 years of friendship and that Menendez's staff mistakenly believed they were exempt from disclosure requirements.The senator's lawyers also argued that Melgen's campaign contributions followed years of financial support for political campaigns outside his home state of Florida.

But after a seven-week trial, jurors in Newark said they could not reach a verdict and told reporters they had been deadlocked 10-2 for acquittal.

Just over a week ago, prosecutors said they intended to seek a retrial.

"The conduct alleged in the indictment is serious and warrants retrial before a jury of citizens in the District of New Jersey," said a spokesman following that filing. "The decision to retry this case was made based on the facts and the law, following a careful review."

But last week, U.S. District Judge William Walls unexpectedly acquitted Menendez and Melgen on seven major charges against the two men, in connection with political contributions involving hundreds of thousands of dollars by Melgen that went to several political committees with ties to the senator. He said, "There is no there there."

Walls, in his opinion, said the government "failed to produce evidence of facts either direct or circumstantial" to prove a quid pro quo and that from the evidence, a rational juror could not find that Menendez and Melgen were aware of the terms of the alleged quid quo.

Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL. Facebook: @TedSherman.reporter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.When Andrew McCabe "stepped aside" as deputy director of the FBI this week, America was not made greater. Remember that McCabe's office was involved in bringing Michael Flynn, Trump's national security advisor, to justice for lying about his contacts with Russia.

Earlier, Trump tried to get FBI Director James Comey to ignore Flynn's crime. Then Trump brought McCabe into his office to grill him about who he voted for, and harass him about his wife's political career.

This is vintage Trump. Intimidate, threaten, manipulate. "Those who don't blindly praise me are my enemies, and must be destroyed." The basic rules of democracy are trashed, and the basic rules of human decency are shredded.

Judges who rule against Trump are "so-called" judges, and anyone who dares question his honesty is "fake."

Meanwhile, Trump insists there was "no collusion," despite multiple contacts between his campaign, his family members, and Russians with direct ties to Vladimir Putin.

Trump threatened special counsel Robert Mueller with removal if Mueller investigated Trump's finances, a sure sign Trump has something to hide. At the same time, evidence mounts that Trump has had significant financial dealings in Russia. It is entirely possible there is evidence of money-laundering yet to come to light.

As the evidence against Trump mounts, he and his confederates in Congress desperately undermine America's premier law enforcement agency, manipulating the facts to create doubt about the FBI. There seems to be no depth to which Trump will not sink in his efforts to save himself and gut the democratic process.

Michael Kenney

EastonFour people were displaced Tuesday night after a fire destroyed their second floor apartment in Hackettstown, town police said.

No injuries were reported in the blaze, which was called into emergency personnel at 11:41 p.m. as smoke from an outlet at 312 Church St., police said.

When officers arrived, the apartment was engulfed in flames and the residents -- two adults and two children -- got out safely, police said.

The cause of the fire is undetermined, but police said there is no evidence it was intentionally set. The investigation was conducted by Hackettstown Police detectives and the Mount Olive fire marshal.

The Red Cross is assisting the displaced residents.

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.The National Agency for Corruption Prevention (NACP) has adopted a decision, by which it approved and sent to the police seven substantiated conclusions on the identification of corruption signs committed against former officials of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine.

"So, monitoring the timeliness of the submission of declarations, the National Agency found that former officials of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine, as well as district inspections of the Main Directorate of the State Fiscal Service in the city of Kyiv had not filed declarations after their dismissal," the press service of NACP said on Wednesday.

The Agency, in turn, notified the relevant officials about the need to file declarations within the time period stipulated by law. However, despite receiving such reports, they neither submitted declarations, nor provided explanations or objections as to the validity of the reasons for their failure to submit.

"Conclusions, approved and grounded at the meeting will be sent by the National Agency to the Main Directorate of the National Police in the city of Kyiv," the report says.

At the same time, the National Agency notes that the approval of a reasoned conclusion and sending it to a specially authorized entity in the field of combating corruption is not evidence of a criminal offense committed by a subject of declaration, but is the basis for a pretrial investigation.UPDATE: 2 dead after fire tears through home in Warren County

Multiple fire departments are at the scene of an early morning house fire in Warren County.

New Jersey State Police would only confirm crews and troopers were on the scene of the blaze in Allamuchy Township.

Emergency radio broadcasts indicate the fire is on Mallard Drive. Questions about the fire to Warren County emergency dispatch were referred to state police.

The fire was called in at 4:01 a.m. and by 7:30 a.m. firefighters were still battling the active blaze, state police said.

The fire is under investigation.

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.No one was injured Wednesday afternoon after a car drove onto the side of the Easton-Phillipsburg free bridge on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River.

The crash closed the lanes from Phillipsburg into Easton about 1:45 p.m., and then closed the the lane from Easton into Phillipsburg by 2 p.m.

A blue Chrysler sedan with just the driver inside balanced precariously on the concrete barrier on the north side of the bridge, right in front of the booth for the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission workers.

A truck, also with just the driver inside, was stopped next to the crashed sedan, but the two vehicles were not touching.

Crews worked to get the driver out of the sedan, eventually having the driver climb out of the driver's side door.

A New Jersey State Police trooper said there were no injuries, and referred additional questions to the state police headquarters in Trenton.

Police on the scene discussed seeing the crash caught on surveillance camera on top of the commission's booth.

Inch by inch, two tow truck drivers worked to dislodged the car from the barrier and a traffic sign pole. By 3 p.m. the car was on the back of a tow truck and by 3:50 p.m. the bridge was open to traffic.

Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.Education & Career Should I learn everything in Digital Marketing or only SEO, SEM or Social Media Marketing?



31.01.2018 06:48:57 - Digital Marketing is helping to promote and create branding for a product by using the various modules like SEO, Social Media Optimization, Social Media Marketing, PPC, Adwords, Google Analytics. So Learn Digital Marketing Courses and all modules.



(live-PR.com) - What is digital marketing?

Digital marketing is a term that is used to refer to the marketing of products or services by means of digital technology, mainly search engines, social media and mobile phones.

Learn Digital marketing Courses in Bangalore and know more tactics in online marketing.

There are so many reasons why digital marketing is preferred over traditional means of marketing. - What is digital marketing?Digital marketing is a term that is used to refer to the marketing of products or services by means of digital technology, mainly search engines, social media and mobile phones.Learn Digital marketing Courses in Bangalore and know more tactics in online marketing.There are so many reasons why digital marketing is preferred over traditional means of marketing. Some of them include 

Digital media strategies are becoming one of the most important aspects of marketing. It is the newest, best and fastest way to reach out to new customers and make it easy for them to find you. Digital media marketing is more cost-effective.

 An advertisement someone sees on a mobile application can sometimes be so influential, that it can convince them into purchasing a product.

 Digital marketing includes proof from customers who have earlier purchased the product or service, so it earns peoples trust.

 it gives you the right strategies to drag people towards your business



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Both SEO and SEM are used to create and spread brand awareness and also to boost web traffic, but on the whole, they are totally different.

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Search Engine Marketing or SEM involves placing advertisements in search engines to make your brand visible. It uses paid tools like Pay-per-click advertising so you only pay depending on how many times your ad was clicked. That makes it the most efficient way of advertising.

Social Media Marketing or SMM is a type of marketing through social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter. Having active profiles that you frequently update helps you build brand reputation.

Digital marketing and SEO, SEM, SMM

SEO, SEM, SMM are subsects of and are very important aspects of digital marketing, so it is important to acquire knowledge of all of them to build a successful marketing career. Being proficient in only one field with no knowledge of others can cause risks to the brand reputation and cause a decline in brand value. So, it is advisable to retain proficiency in one field, but also have adequate knowledge of other fields for developing the right strategies and to give a boost to your business.

Conclusion- Learn digital marketing as a whole

Best suggestion would be to learn the subject digital marketing as a whole. With so many subsets to it, a digital marketing aspirant has to stay up to date with all the changes every single tool in order gain brand recognition and reputation online. Since all of these are subsets of digital marketing, you need to have basic understanding of the other to gain proficiency in one. And to start off gaining knowledge of these, basic knowledge of digital marketing is required.

So, all in all, learning everything in Digital Marketing Courses in Bangalore is very important and highly necessary and not just SEO, SEM or Social Media Marketing.

Some of them include Digital media strategies are becoming one of the most important aspects of marketing. It is the newest, best and fastest way to reach out to new customers and make it easy for them to find you. Digital media marketing is more cost-effective. An advertisement someone sees on a mobile application can sometimes be so influential, that it can convince them into purchasing a product. Digital marketing includes proof from customers who have earlier purchased the product or service, so it earns peoples trust. it gives you the right strategies to drag people towards your businessSEO, SEM and SMM- what is the difference?Both SEO and SEM are used to create and spread brand awareness and also to boost web traffic, but on the whole, they are totally different.Search Engine Optimization or SEO utilizes special techniques that increase your webpage visibility through search engines. It improves the chances of your webpage coming up as one of the top search result when customers are searching for the products or services you offer.Search Engine Marketing or SEM involves placing advertisements in search engines to make your brand visible. It uses paid tools like Pay-per-click advertising so you only pay depending on how many times your ad was clicked. That makes it the most efficient way of advertising.Social Media Marketing or SMM is a type of marketing through social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter. Having active profiles that you frequently update helps you build brand reputation.Digital marketing and SEO, SEM, SMMSEO, SEM, SMM are subsects of and are very important aspects of digital marketing, so it is important to acquire knowledge of all of them to build a successful marketing career. Being proficient in only one field with no knowledge of others can cause risks to the brand reputation and cause a decline in brand value. So, it is advisable to retain proficiency in one field, but also have adequate knowledge of other fields for developing the right strategies and to give a boost to your business.Conclusion- Learn digital marketing as a wholeBest suggestion would be to learn the subject digital marketing as a whole. With so many subsets to it, a digital marketing aspirant has to stay up to date with all the changes every single tool in order gain brand recognition and reputation online. Since all of these are subsets of digital marketing, you need to have basic understanding of the other to gain proficiency in one. And to start off gaining knowledge of these, basic knowledge of digital marketing is required.So, all in all, learning everything in Digital Marketing Courses in Bangalore is very important and highly necessary and not just SEO, SEM or Social Media Marketing. Press Information:

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31.01.2018 06:48:57 -

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Centamin annual profit falls 16% 31-01-2018 08:42



Stock News headlines are gathered from financial news sources around the web. Views and opinions on each item are from their respective authors and website. They are not opinions of LiveCharts.co.ukStock Market News

Commodities: Energy, metal prices softer on Trump's address, China PMI 31-01-2018 07:11



Stock News headlines are gathered from financial news sources around the web. Views and opinions on each item are from their respective authors and website. They are not opinions of LiveCharts.co.ukStock Market News

Flybe focuses on costs as passenger numbers rise 31-01-2018 08:48



Stock News headlines are gathered from financial news sources around the web. Views and opinions on each item are from their respective authors and website. They are not opinions of LiveCharts.co.ukStock Market News

FTSE 100 movers: Housebuilders weigh but JMAT gains on subsidiary sale 31-01-2018 14:40



Stock News headlines are gathered from financial news sources around the web. Views and opinions on each item are from their respective authors and website. They are not opinions of LiveCharts.co.ukAriev to talk in PACE about fake news as part of report on editorial independence

The head of the Verkhovna Rada delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the assembly's vice-president, Volodymyr Ariev, has initiated the preparation of a PACE report on the hybrid war and also plans in April to talk about disinformation in the media (fake news) in a report on editorial independence, according to the website of the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko party.

"On my initiative, with the support of many PACE delegates, a report is being prepared on the hybrid war and the current conditions of its conduct. In addition, I will be a rapporteur on editorial independence and we will also touch on fake news in this report, which I will present in April," Ariev said.

He said that Europeans note a threat of untruthful news.

Ariev noted that a debate was held at a meeting of the Standing Committee of the PACE in Copenhagen that Russia influences democratic processes in Europe through fake news and spread of disinformation.

"Europe is fully aware of what is happening," the politician said.Stock Market News

London alone 'could generate 166m per year' from taxing cannabis 30-01-2018 16:42



Stock News headlines are gathered from financial news sources around the web. Views and opinions on each item are from their respective authors and website. They are not opinions of LiveCharts.co.ukStock Market News

UK parliamentary committee flies to Washington for fake news inquiry 31-01-2018 11:57



Stock News headlines are gathered from financial news sources around the web. Views and opinions on each item are from their respective authors and website. They are not opinions of LiveCharts.co.ukLeonid Kadeniuk, the first and only Ukrainian cosmonaut, died in Kyiv on Wednesday at 67.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman offered his condolences to Kadeniuk's relatives and loved ones. "Leonid Kadeniuk has died. A truly legendary man. My condolences to his relatives and friends," Groysman wrote on his Facebook page on Wednesday afternoon.

The State Space Agency of Ukraine told Interfax that Kadeniuk seems to have died of a heart attack.

"According to the information provided by relatives, Leonid Kostioantynovych had a heart attack during his traditional jog in the park on Wednesday morning. He was hospitalized, but the doctors could not save him," the source told the agency.

Kadeniuk was born on January 28, 1951 in the village of Klishkivtsi in the Khotynsky district of Chernivtsy region. His parents were village teachers. In 1995, Kadeniuk was selected to become a cosmonaut of the National Space Agency of Ukraine. After training at NASA between November 19 and December 5, 1997, he took part in the STS-87 mission of the United States' Space Shuttle Columbia. He performed biological experiments on plants during the flight.Tbilisi expects a response from Kyiv on the issue of extraditing Georgia's ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgian Prosecutor General Irakly Shotadze said.

"We have commented on this matter more than once. We have made relevant demands to the relevant Ukrainian authorities, and it is now up to them which legal procedures they will undertake," Shotadze told reporters on Wednesday.

The Georgian Justice Ministry and the Main Prosecutor General's Office said earlier that several requests for Saakashvili's extradition have been sent to Ukraine.

Several criminal cases have been opened against Saakashvili in Georgia.KYIV. Jan 31 (Interfax-Ukraine) - Municipal enterprise Kyivdorservice conducts tenders in violation of competition, while its representatives threatened the employees of Plastics-Ukraine LLC trying to participate in tenders, a Plastics-Ukraine representative has stated.

"Kyivdorservice conducts discriminatory tenders, and we demand equal competition," Plastics-Ukraine Director General Ireneusz Derek said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine.

According to him, the company took part in three tenders from Kyivdorservice for the purchase of film for the manufacture of traffic signs, and all three times submitted the best price offer, however each time Kyivdorservice refused them.

Derek noted that in the current situation Plastics-Ukraine three times appealed to the Antimonopoly Committee, which each time confirmed the validity of the complaint.

The company director explained that the first time the offer of Plastics-Ukraine was discarded because the extract from the state register of companies did not correspond to the required form of certificate, while Geoinformation Systems of Ukraine won the tender with an offer of UAH 998,000, which is UAH 350,000 exceeded the company's price.

Plastics-Ukraine LLC (Kyiv) is part of Plastics Group and has been operating in the Ukrainian market for over 20 years. The company is engaged in distribution of polymer materials from European and international manufacturers. According to the company, its turnover in 2017 increased by 24.4%, to UAH 872,760. The number of employees is 214 people.

Kyivdorservice is engaged in servicing land transport.Trade, immigration, infrastructure and direct flights to Washington, D.C.s Reagan National Airport are high on the list of priorities as the San Antonios largest-ever SA to DC delegation takes to the halls of the U.S. Capitol this week.

More than 150 San Antonians braved the cold to pass through Capitol security Tuesday, the same day as President Donald Trumps first State of the Union address to Congress. The annual sojourn, now in its 40th year, is led by the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce.

They represented a number of organizations with a unified set of talking points for meetings with congressional bigwigs, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., as well as Texas lawmakers, chamber CEO Richard Perez said.

He said Ryan and others spoke of being impressed to hear from such a large group.

Leo Gomez, SA to DC committee chairman and CEO of Brooks, on Tuesday said the representation included the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, as well as the chambers from the citys South and North sides, the Free Trade Alliance, the City Council and several other entities.

When (San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg) welcomed folks to the reception last night, he said, Welcome to San Antonio because the room was full of San Antonians, Gomez said. I think people feel the need to be engaged and speak up.

The schedule included a State of the Union watch party at the Renaissance Hotel. Gomez said he was anxious to see Trump make an announcement on funding for transportation infrastructure, though he expected talk on the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, to dominate the night.

The drafts and the information that has come out to date has been pretty vague, he said. Nothing that gives us confidence theres going to be any real sort of real shot in the arm in terms of federal funding to complement local projects.

Perez said the delegation was glad to hear a change in tone on NAFTA 2.0, which has been a boon to San Antonio and Texas border trade.

If youll remember on the campaign trail the president talked about getting out of NAFTA completely, he said. Its a year later from his inauguration and were still negotiating.

Perez last week was in Montreal, signing a declaration in favor of continuing NAFTA along with chambers of commerce from the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

Its all positive because the doors still open, he said. They were all very positive that we could make a deal.

He said there seemed to be a light at the end of the tunnel on immigration, as Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, as well as Democratic congressmen, including Joaquin Castro of San Antonio and Henry Cuellar of Laredo, seemed ready to move forward.

The bones of this deal have been laid on the table, so now its just up to Congress to try to negotiate something, Perez said. Having been a former elected official myself, I know that you dont only get what you want but you know you can find a deal.

This years itinerary also included meetings with congressional members outside of Texas, such as Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, the first Latina elected senator from Nevada, and Sen. Cory Booker, the first black elected to the U.S. Senate from New Jersey.

Perez said that even if they werent from Texas, both had promising futures and compelling stories.

They dont necessarily fit in, but they vote, he said. So at the end of the day theyre either going to vote for or against the things that were looking for.

lbrezosky@express-news.netAround the time state Sen. Carlos Uresti was pitching potential investors on a new startup in mid-2014, he was overdrawn on his personal and work bank accounts while the CEO of the company was more than $32,000 behind on child-support payments, according to new evidence introduced Wednesday in the criminal fraud trial of the San Antonio Democrat.

To avoid jail time, FourWinds Logistics CEO Stan Bates cut a $5,000 check to the state attorney general  paid out of the companys operating account, the new evidence shows. Uresti, who was a 1 percent owner in the company and its general counsel, was also Bates personal attorney in the child-support case that summer, prosecutors said Wednesday during the eighth day of the trial in San Antonio federal court.

RELATED: Funeral home called lawyer after Mott's body disappeared

Uresti apparently never disclosed his own financial difficulties or Bates legal troubles to those investors. Uresti instead vouched for Bates and called him an honorable person and a former Marine who you can trust, two investors testified Tuesday.

Uresti is fighting 11 felony charges, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering, over his involvement with FourWinds, which bought and sold sand used in fracking at the height of the oil boom.

Prosecutors say the company was a Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors. Co-defendant Gary Cain, a FourWinds consultant, was indicted on nine felony charges and is on trial with Uresti. Both have denied the charges.

Four company officials already have pleaded guilty, including Bates, accused of misspending investors money to support his lavish lifestyle and to pay child support and his sons college tuition, among other expenses. Bates pleaded guilty to eight felony charges on Jan. 8 rather than stand trial with Uresti and Cain.

RELATED: Rally held for man turned over to ICE after driving without a license arrest

Prosecutors have painted Uresti as someone under substantial financial distress who was regularly incurring overdraft charges before and during the time he was involved with the now defunct company. Uresti was regularly shuffling money between bank accounts, based on a review of his personal bank records and his law firms accounts from 2012 to 2015, Carol Mace, a criminal investigator with the Internal Revenue Service, told jurors Wednesday.

She said Uresti incurred more than $5,400 in overdraft fees between his personal and law firms bank accounts from 2012 through 2015. The fees generally were $30 per transaction.

The financial stress became more and more over that time period, Mace said. We started to see more and more negative balances in the accounts.

Uresti also upgraded his lifestyle during those years, moving from a house valued at about $300,000 in San Antonio to a new home appraised at $2 million in Helotes, she said, adding that he also purchased a $77,000 Porsche.

Urestis attorney Michael McCrum noted that Uresti had overdraft protection. He also directed questioning to show jurors that banks still loaned Uresti money after doing their own independent analysis of Urestis finances and ability to pay the money back  to counter the governments claim that Uresti was in financial stress.

Bates sent an email to several people, including Uresti, that appeared to show FourWinds operating balance at less than $88,000 on May 31, 2014, Mace said. That evidence, as offered by prosecutors, appeared to suggest that Uresti knew early on that FourWinds had little money on hand.

Mace said Uresti  some time after May 31, 2014  forwarded to investor Denise Cantu a bank statement from Bates that falsely claimed that FourWinds had more than $18 million in its account. Mace suggested Uresti knew Cantu was being provided false information.

McCrum asked Mace if agents had searched Uresti's emails, too.

Mace said that the agents only searched Urestis law firm email account, and didnt find the email containing the sheet showing FourWinds balance was $88,000.

You dont even know if (that email) was actually sent out, do you? McCrum pressed.

No, Mace responded.

Mace also reviewed FourWinds operating account at Chase Bank, telling jurors that the company was never funded with capital from any of the principals or Uresti. The first infusion of money into the account came from the companys initial investor, Dr. David Zehr, who invested $1.4 million on May 1, 2014.

Soon after, money started flowing out, including to Bates and his business partner Shannon Smith. None of the money was used to buy sand, Mace said.

Zehr received a roughly $1.5 million payment from FourWinds in July 2, 2014, but Mace said the company couldnt have made that payment had it not been for receiving Cantus investment.

The Harlingen woman was referred to FourWinds by Uresti. He was part of the legal team that represented her in a wrongful-death case involving two of her children in 2010. Cantu invested about $900,000 from the settlement, and ended up losing about $800,000 with FourWinds.

Uresti received $946,000 in fees from the settlement of that litigation in 2012, which Mace said was significantly more than what had come into his law firms operating account at Chase than in the previous two years.

Retired investor Dan Swannie, first on the stand Wednesday, said he lost $2.1 million of the $3 million he invested in a joint venture with FourWinds.

Swannie, a retired logistics specialist based in Pearland, told jurors that Bates said he personally invested $2 million of his own money in FourWinds.

I wouldnt have invested with a person who didnt have his own funds in the business, Swannie said.

Mace is slated to be back on the stand Thursday morning to continue with cross-examination by McCrum.

pdanner@express-news.net | gcontreras@express-news.netROBIN WEINER/SFC

An inmate in California State Prison in Corcoran stabbed two correctional officers with a manufactured weapon on Monday, prison officials said.

In a statement, prison officials said that John Nieto, 28, began stabbing a correctional officer around 4 p.m. with a weapon made in prison. When another correctional officer intervened and Nieto allegedly stabbed that officer as well. Staff were able to subdue Nieto with pepper spray, batons and physical force before shackling him and placing him in an isolated cell.The vicious beating of a man last fall led San Francisco police to arrest a motorcycle gang member whose home had a trove of guns and drugs, as well as $275,000 in cash, authorities said Wednesday.

San Francisco police arrested Nicholas Adam, 25, on Tuesday in connection with an assault that took place Oct. 1, when police responded to reports of man on the 1000 block of Ocean Avenue being repeatedly punched in the head and face. The victim, a 58-year-old Burbank man, was treated for life-threatening injuries at the hospital and has since been released, police said. He was allegedly attacked by two men.The first weekend of February offers open studios at area museums, a chance for families to make and experience art that ties to art institutions' current exhibits.

Houston Center for Contemporary Craft hosts the free Hands-On Houston event the first Saturday of every month. With this weekend's art project, guests will learn how to make a monoprint from current artist in residence Angel Oloshov. Oloshov is a ceramicist who often uses an ombre color technique; print is also part of her process. Guests will see inside Oloshov's studio and get a glimpse of the projects she's working on before getting instruction from her on their monoprint.

"A lot of craft is explored through materials and process, so we like to open up our institution to families so they can learn through the physical making," says education director Natalie Svacina.

On Saturday, with provided paper, scissors and paint, guests will learn about color theory and the color wheel and, with complementary colors in mind, get to work. They'll then add layers and textures "inspired by works on view," Svacina says.

The monthly projects are "meant to be worked on as a family," she says. "We try to give them a lot of freedom. It gives the opportunity for self expression by experiencing a new technique or material and to have a little bit of imagination with it."

Meanwhile, over at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston on Saturday, kids can make Valentine's Day cards during the free Open Studio in the education room.

More Information 'Hands-On Houston' When: 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday Where: at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, 4848 Main Details: Free; 713-529-4848, crafthouston.org 'Open Studio' When: 2-4 p.m. Saturday Where: Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, 5216 Montrose Details: Free; 713-284-8250, camh.org 'Sunday Family Studio' When: 2:30-3:30 p.m. Sunday Where: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1001 Bissonnet Details: $8, children 12 and older receive free museum admission but need tickets for this event; 713-639-7300, mfah.org See More Collapse

The project is tied to the current exhibition "Christopher Knowles: In a Word" on view in the museum's main upstairs gallery. Knowles creates drawings with a typewriter. Using his work as inspiration, guests will be asked to participate in "surrealist parlour games," like Exquisite Corpse, to begin their projects, says Michael Simmonds, who coordinates the museum's public programs.

Employing the technique used by artists such as Salvador Dali and Max Ernst to create a surrealist human form, a family will come up with an abstract shape together. The first member of the group draws an open-ended shape then folds the paper to hide it. Without looking at the first drawing, the second person adds his own drawing, folds the paper, and so on.

Another prompt for creative card-making involves pulling a random word or phrase from an envelope. For example, a young artist might need to find a way to include both "coffee mug" and "solar system" in a valentine's message on a card.

The project prompts lead to visitors "being creative within the limits of what you've already been given," Simmonds says.

While local artists attend Open Studios like this one, the themes also are "geared toward people who aren't artists to come in and respond to the exhibitions using materials that are familiar to them."

Paper, markers, lace, ribbon, sequins and faux flowers will be on hand to make the unconventional cards.

And on Sunday, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, hosts a Family Studio that focuses on a vase in the museum's permanent collection created by German artist Max Laeuger. Families will use stained-glass shards and air-dry clay to make their own vessels.You will never, ever hear "The Fireman" by George Strait being played at Goodnight Charlie's.

It's not that the King of Country is verboten in the recently opened Montrose honky-tonk. In fact, he's something of a deity around these parts. But co-owner David Keck just doesn't want his new labor of love to burn down.

"On our first night open, Aaron McDonnell and his band were on their second encore playing "The Fireman" with a full dance floor and bar," Keck says. "By complete fluke, our beautiful, new custom speakers  caught fire."

The fire was quickly put out, and no one was harmed, thankfully.

But "We've decided that as good as that song is, it can't be played in this space ever again," Keck laughs. "To add to the legend, the last tab closed out before the fire occurred was for someone with the last name Burns. You just can't make this stuff up."

Even without "The Fireman," Goodnight Charlie's appears to be the country bar that Montrose never knew it needed but has nonetheless embraced.

It helps that there is no cover charge, but the bands that play here aren't your standard, good-ol'-boy acts. These are guys such as Jonathan Terrell, an Austin artist covered in tattoos and sporting a Reba McEntire back patch on his jean jacket. He plays swaggery country that would make the ghost of Gary Stewart tap his toe.

Terrell, for one, feels like he's found a home at the bar.

More Information Goodnight Charlie's Greatest Hits The Montrose honky-tonk won't play George Strait's "The Fireman," but Goodnight Charlie's is all about the country classics. Some of its favorites: "Whiskey River," Willie Nelson "Texas (When I Die)," Tanya Tucker "Turn It On, Turn It Up, Turn Me Loose," Dwight Yoakam "Walking The Floor Over You," Ernest Tubb "All My Rowdy Friends (Have Settled Down)," Hank Williams Jr. "Small Town Saturday Night," Hal Ketchum "Cherokee Fiddle," Johnny Lee "I Like Beer," Tom T. Hall "Song Of The South," Alabama "Chattahoochee," Alan Jackson See More Collapse

"It makes you feel real good as a band that's slugging it out to play a venue that takes the extra steps to make me and my guys comfortable and appreciated," he says while taking a recording break in Austin. "The folks that come out to Charlie's expect to see a good band. You step up your game a little more because you want to give back to the folks that are taking care of you."

He's back at Goodnight Charlie's on Feb. 24.

The dance floor on the weekends is a mash-up of clean-cut guys breaking in their new Luccheses while learning how to two-step with gals dressed like Miranda Lambert. Bemused neighborhood regulars in worn denim sit on the sidelines sipping ranch waters, a simple but potent cocktail of tequila and Topo Chico. The drinks pair well with the duros, puffed wheat snacks that come served with Valentina hot sauce and lime by the basketful.

At least one or two guys looking like a Sam Elliott stunt double will usually appear and hold court at the middle of the bar, scoping out the scene.

"I've seen people from 25 to 85," Keck says of the age range.

The Master Sommelier formerly of Camerata, Keck knew that the closing of the historic West Alabama honky-tonk Blanco's in late 2013 left a hole that needed to be filled in this part of Houston.

"The idea first was sparked by a trip to Hunt and experiencing Crider's Rodeo and Dancehall, an amazing place with so much history," Keck says. "When Blanco's closed right here in the Loop, I got to thinking about how amazing a place in Montrose would be."

He wasn't alone.

Word about the bar named for famous Texas cattle rancher Charles Goodnight began leaking out nearly a year ago.

But, as with anything new, there has been mixed feedback. Folks sometimes complain that it looks "too new" or that it smells "too clean." Authenticity takes time. It also has to be earned.

Keck is excited for what the future holds for his bar with one cowboy boot planted in the past.

"I think we have an opportunity to take one of the most interesting and sincere parts of Texas culture and help it come to life in an area of tremendous diversity," Keck says. "If we can work toward creating a place where musicians really want to play and where people of all ages and walks of life can dance and mingle, then we're moving in the right direction."Data released on January 29 showed exports rose by 33.1% to US$19 billion in January, while imports surged by 47.4% to US$19.3 billion as a result of greater demand for manufacturing input and consumer goods ahead of the Lunar New Year.

The GSO said that domestic enterprises ran a deficit of US$2.4 billion while the foreign sector recorded a surplus of US$2.1 billion.

China was the largest buyer of Vietnamese goods at a value of US$4.5 billion, 2.5 times higher than the same period in 2017, while Vietnams exports to the US and the European Union were US$3.5 billion and US$3 billion respectively.

The worlds second largest economy led the way as the largest source of Vietnams imports at US$5.7 billion, up 45.6% on the previous year.

Imports from the Republic of Korea and ASEAN followed in second and third places, at US$4.2 billion and US$2.6 billion respectively.Courtesy of Center for Visual Music

"Twenty-Five"

Jaime Fruge-Walne's interactive dance theater experience inspired by personal accounts of the effects of mass incarceration in the American prison system, presented by the Pilot Dance Project

When: 7 and 8:30 p.m. Thursday-Friday; 2, 3;30, 7 and 8:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: The Interchange, 1815 Cleburne

Information: $20; facebook.com/pilotdanceproject

The Fab Four: The Ultimate Tribute Concert

Beatles cover band The Fab Four will perform their Ultimate Tribute Concert.

When: 7 p.m. Friday

Where: Revention Music Center, 520 Texas

Information: $30-$45; reventionmusiccenter.com

"color 2.0"

Choreographer Jacquelyne Jay Boe's intimate contemporary dance performance conceived through conversations of color theory and the science behind prisms.

When: 7 p.m. Friday-Saturday

Where: Flatland Gallery, 1709 Westheimer

Information: $10-$20; jjboe.com

Billy Gardell

Emmy-nominated actor and comedian Billy Gardell starred in the hit CBS TV series "Mike & Molly."

When: 8 p.m. Friday, 7 and 9:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Joke Joint Comedy Showcase, 11460 Fuqua

Information: $25; jokejointcomedyshowcase.com

First Saturday Arts Market in the Heights

Outdoor market with fine art, eclectic goods, live music and delicious fare from some of the area's best gourmet food trucks.

When: 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday

Where: 530 W. 19th

Information: facebook.com/events/388781811580342

HeART Stroll

View a vast selection of jewelry, sculptures, paintings, photography, mixed media and more while you enjoy sweet treats, live music and a photo booth at Silver Street.

When: 2-7 p.m. Saturday

Where: 2000 Edwards

Information: facebook.com/events/296382524217517

Fresh Mardi Gras Gumbo Cook Off

A fun afternoon of gumbo tasting, drinks and music at Sterling House.

When: 2-5 p.m. Saturday

Where: 3015 Bagby

Information: facebook.com/events/148973225759538

Wine Walk

Houston Boxer Rescue will host its annual Wine Walk, offering a taste of Spanish wines alongside live music, snacks and local art from the artist workshops of Winter Street Studios.

When: 3-5:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: 2101 Winter

Information: $35; houstonboxerrescue.org

"Seeing Sound: Mary Ellen Bute Retrospective"

Mary Ellen Bute made a series of visual music films, which she called "Seeing Sound." This program features her short, abstract films, including some rarely seen films on 16 mm.

When: 7-8:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston , 1001 Bissonnet

Information: $7-$9; mfah.org

"In(di)visible"

An exhibition hosted by Station Museum of Contemporary Art that examines immigration, the residual effects of war and the implications of assimilation, integration and invisibility for Asian-Americans.

When: 7-10 p.m. Saturday

Where: Station Museum of Contemporary Art, 1502 Alabama

Information: facebook.com/events/

1774518169278630

"Passage: A Preview"

A new work in progress by choreographers Susan Blair, Roxanne Claire, Leslie Scates and Sophia Torres.

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: JoMar Gallery, 5247 Langfield

Information: $15; roxanneclaire.com

Open Meditation

A self-guided meditation in the historic and serene Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern.

When: 11 a.m.-noon Sunday

Where: 105 Sabine

Information: $5; buffalobayou.org

Super Boil at Revolver Houston

Watch the Super Bowl while enjoying delicious crawfish. There will be prizes, raffles, games and drink specials.

When: Noon-10 p.m. Sunday

Where: 6502 Washington

Information: facebook.com/events/

1557627974333699

Super Bowl Watch Party

Watch the big game at Karbach Brewing with beer and an all-you-can-eat spread.

When: 4:30 p.m. Sunday

Where: 2032 Karbach

Information: $35; facebook.com/events/160051184635456

Bingo Night

The Cactus Cove Bar & Grill hosts a fun night of bingo and drinks.

When: 7 p.m. Wednesday

Where: 3333 W. 11th

Information: facebook.com/events/

1526553367436521

Patricia Bernstein

Houston's Patricia Bernstein, author of "Ten Dollars to Hate: The Texas Man Who Fought the Klan," will take part in a free lecture and book signing at Holocaust Museum Houston.

When: 6:30-8 p.m. Tuesday

Where: 9220 Kirby

Information: hmh.org/RegisterEvent.aspxThe piece: "The Stop"

The artist: Roy Vinson Thomas

Where: In the show: "Proteges: The Legacy of Dr. John Biggers as Viewed Through the Art Works of Thirteen Students," on view through Feb. 10 at William Reaves | Sarah Foltz Fine Art

Why: Some of John Biggers' former Texas Southern University students from the 1970s have themselves become legends - Kermit Oliver, for instance, and Biggers' most obvious apostle, TSU professor Harvey Johnson.

Roy Vinson Thomas is one of several in this show who more or less disappeared into the world of secondary education - a place Biggers would have appreciated. Thomas taught high school art for 40 years in Galena Park, a career that apparently consumed most of his art-making energy. He has begun to resurface in recent years, thanks partly to a surge of interest in Houston's 20th-century art world.

All five of the paintings he contributed to this show are from the 1980s, yet look as if they could have been made a few decades earlier. Thomas has said that Biggers and his other mentor, Caroll Simms, were both demanding technically, but with different approaches. "Biggers would require a personal solution," he writes. "Simms would require a simple solution."

Biggers famously implored his African-American and Hispanic students to explore the history of their people. In the 1980s, Thomas also clearly looked hard at paintings by Midwestern master Thomas Hart Benton.

"The Stop" has Benton's sense of motion, with bodies bent into what appear to be gale force winds in an austere environment. They are waiting at a bus stop in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by brown grass. But this is also clearly Houston in the 1980s, maybe out somewhere beyond Fannin and Loop 610, since the Astrodome hovers dimly in the background.

Disconcertingly, the bus stop post splits the composition almost in half, partially obscuring a female figure. Perhaps the pole is a metaphor for cultural barriers blacks face; or whites, looking at pictures of blacks. (From either side, we can have empathy, but we can't fully grasp what we have not personally experienced.)

The nearly silhouetted arm and hand of another partially seen figure balances the image from an ominous perspective, like something you might see in a noir or Western comic.

Vinson's sweeping, expressionistic strokes - concentric rings that form the folds in his figures' garments, blades of brown grass or whispy clouds - set him apart from his dozen classmates, all of whom are still active. The show includes works by Oliver, Johnson, Charles Criner, Gerry Crossland, Karl E. Hall, Earlie Hudnall, Earl S. Jones, Josie Mendoza Postel, Robert Meyers, Elizabeth M. Shelton, Jesse Sifuentes and Charles L. Thomas.

Most artists build in some way on what has come before, but developing one's own voice under the wing of a teacher as powerful as Biggers was probably not easy. Even viewers who walk into the gallery unaware of what this show is about might recognize the Biggers spirit infusing its paintings and sculptures. The fun lies in how these artists were able to define themselves, as many of them did.

Thomas still thinks of himself as an "emerging newcomer." He retired from his teaching gig in 2016; hopefully, that has given him a chance to return to his studio and keep it coming.Strap on your dress bow tie, Bill Nye the Science Guy is headed to the State of the Uniom  er, Union. And folks are not happy.

Despite being CEO of The Planetary Society and an household name from his years hosting the children's science show, Nye actually didn't receive his own invitation to President Trump's first State of the Union. He'll be attending as a guest of Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., the congressman nominated to take over NASA.

As with most Trump nominees, Bridenstine comes with some baggage: Historically a staunch denier of climate change, he has reversed course and acknowledged that it has contributed to global warming (although he has yet to admit that it's a primary cause).

That and the "Trump effect" is what's causing people to take to an online poteition for the Science Guy to skip the address.

"President Donald Trump is a bigoted climate denier. So is Congressman Jim Bridenstine," the petition, which surpassed its goal of 35,000 signatures, reads. "So why is Bill Nye "very pleased" to be Bridenstine's guest at Trump's first State of the Union address? Bill, please be the Science Guy, not the Bigoted Climate Denial Guy. Cancel your plans to attend Trump's State of the Union."

Nye, however, has stuck to his guns on attending, making it explicit that his intention was to further the agenda of The Planetary Society, which was founded by Carl Sagan to promote human exploration of the cosmos, and not as an endorsement of climate change denial, tacit or otherwise.

"While the Congressman and I disagree on a great many issues  we share a deep respect for NASA and its achievements and a strong interest in the future of space exploration," Nye wrote on his Twitter.

"My attendance tomorrow should not be interpreted as an endorsement of this administration, or of Congressman Bridenstine's nomination, or seen as an acceptance of the recent attacks on science and the scientific community."

Nye hasn't minced words with climate change-deniers and anti-science officials, and in his recent documentary he expressed some regret about having (inadvertently) helped spotlight those who don't support scientists' conclusions on climate change.

So there's a sense that he may be shooting for the moon by attending the address to Congress and hoping for substantial dialogue around science education and advancement in the U.S. But either way, Nye will be one of the attendees carrying a political message for Tuesday's speech, and he's plugging hard for more support of NASA.

"The congressman is the nominee to be the next Administrator of NASA, and as I often say, NASA is the best brand the United States has," Nye said in a statement to Quartz.

"At the State of the Union address, I hope to hear the President present plans for an ambitious, science-driven space exploration agenda. Space exploration brings out the best in us. It brings the nation together as we solve problems that have never been solved before and learn more about the cosmos and our place within it."

SeattlePI reporter Zosha Millman can be reached at zoshamillman@seattlepi.com. Follow Zosha on Twitter at @zosham. Find more from Zosha here on her author page.Local students are gearing up for an annual children's race to help others.

For the sixth year, Kids Running for Kids will raise funds for the Conroe Independent School District reading initiative "Read for a Better Life." Area students in kindergarten through eighth grade will compete in a 1-mile race beginning a 7:30 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 3, at Town Green Park.

According to the race website, "Kids Running for Kids encourages our kids to adopt active lifestyles through both physical health and community involvement."

All race participants will receive an official T-shirt and a commemorative medal. The first and second place winners in each grade level will be given a trophy.

Nicole Luca, race director, said all proceeds of the event will benefit "Read for a Better Life," which provides reading books to low-income families in the school district. Luca added that the event is the largest children's race in the state of Texas.

"It's an honor to be involved in something so major right here in The Woodlands," she said.

U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady and Conroe ISD Superintendent Dr. Don Stockton will be in attendance.

Luca said Stockton has been instrumental in helping to raise more than $40,000 since the race's inception in 2013.

"(Stockton)'s a pillar for this race, so he'll be there, and we do have a special award we'll be giving to him," Luca said.

The check presentation is scheduled to begin at 7:10 a.m. and warm-up for the race is set for 7:20 a.m. Runners are asked to arrive at Town Green Park by 7 a.m.

Each year participants are encouraged to donate a book for the "Read for a Better Life" program. This year sponsors are also asking for $10 gift card donations so that Hurricane Harvey victims in the school district can obtain school supplies. It's recommended that the cards be to WalMart, Target or grocery stores.

To learn more, visit kidsrunningforkids.com.WASHINGTON - On Oct. 28, 2016, James Comey made a decision that I soon labeled "unavoidably horrible": to disclose that the FBI was reviewing more Hillary Clinton emails. This disclosure, 11 days before the presidential election, is now routinely blamed for her narrow loss, including by Clinton herself.

And now we may be learning more about just how unavoidably horrible that decision was.

The Post's Devlin Barrett and Karoun Demirjian report that a Justice Department inspector general has been looking into why Andrew McCabe, who stepped down Monday as deputy director of the FBI (its No. 2 role), didn't appear to examine those emails for three weeks before Comey disclosed them in a letter to Congress. This investigation was reportedly discussed by McCabe and current FBI Director Christopher A. Wray shortly before McCabe stepped down two months earlier than previously indicated.

It's not clear exactly when Comey became aware of the emails. But the timeline here (with an assist from Philip Bump) is instructive:

- Late September/Early October: McCabe becomes aware of the new emails, which were recovered from a laptop belonging to disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., the husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

- Oct. 23: Barrett, who was then reporting for the Wall Street Journal, reports on McCabe's wife having received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from then-Virginia Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a close Clinton ally, for her Democratic campaign for Virginia state Senate in 2015. McCabe is already facing internal questions about whether he had slow-rolled a separate investigation into the Clinton Foundation. Then-candidate Donald Trump soon begins attacking McCabe via Twitter and on the campaign trail.

- Oct. 28: Comey discloses the additional Clinton emails in a letter to Congress.

After Comey's disclosure, I wrote about how he was damned if he did and damned if he didn't. As any Clinton backer will tell you, disclosing the existence of the emails violated the usual Justice Department protocols about disclosing details of investigations so close to an election. But what if Clinton won the election - as the vast majority of us wrongly assumed she would - and it came out that the FBI had discovered the emails and didn't say anything about them? It risked looking like a coverup, especially given that Comey had angered Republicans just a few months prior by making a very public spectacle of not recommending criminal charges for Clinton in the email probe. And imagine further if Comey didn't say anything and then something significant came out of those emails (which it ultimately didn't, as Comey announced just a few days before the election).

Exactly why Comey decided to err on the side of disclosure may be coming even more into focus. McCabe knew about the emails for three weeks. We knew, to some degree, about the public political pressure on Comey and McCabe. But now we know more about apparent questions within the bureau about McCabe's handling of the Clinton investigations. And again, if all of this came out after an election Clinton had won, it's not difficult to surmise how it would have been cast by Trump, who was already warning that the election would be "rigged" against him. It would have been nothing short of a scandal.

Whether McCabe actually did anything wrong is one question, and one that we have no answer to right now. We also don't know when Comey became aware of the new emails, a key element of the timeline that is in dispute. But it's not difficult to see how the whole thing may have made Comey hugely uneasy on the eve of the 2016 election - hugely uneasy and reluctant to sit on his hands.

His decision still reverberates, and given today's news, it seems it'll be a long while before it stops.Chinese people in Canada are demanding an apology as they feel insulted by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's handling of a Toronto Muslim girl who lied that she was attacked by an "Asian" man, and experts said the incident showed the Chinese community needs a greater voice in Canada.

A group of Asian protesters converged on Queen's Park Sunday to demand an apology from Trudeau for his handling of the hijab hoax. The protesters say they feel insulted that a girl lied that she was assaulted by an Asian man and say Trudeau needs to make amends to their community, the Toronto Sun reported.

"There is always discrimination, visible or not, against Chinese people in Canada. Among the ethnic minorities in the country, the Chinese have been suppressed," Yao Peng, deputy director of the Canadian Studies Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

Chinese people in Canada tend to obey the law and mind their own business. They are not good at participating in politics, which makes them the target of attacks, Yao noted.

Even in the past decade, Canada has never adjusted its discrimination policies and attitude against Chinese people, Yao added.

An 11-year-old girl wearing a hijab was repeatedly cut on her way to school on January 12, Reuters reported.

"Police are asking for the public's help to identify the attacker described as Asian," CBC reported. Some people claimed the attacker was Chinese.

After it conducted an investigation, Toronto Police said the incident did not occur and their investigation had concluded. In a statement, the prime minister said he was relieved that the incident hadn't taken place, CBC reported.

"We are a country that defends the freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and people's right to go to school without being fearful or harassed," he said. "This is fundamental to who we are."

Trudeau's remarks sparked protests among Chinese people in Canada.

The Chinese community feels angry that Canadian society targets Asians, mainly Chinese people. The incident shows a disregard for the Chinese community, Liu Dan, an expert at the Center for Canadian Studies of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

The Chinese community has been steadily growing in Canada, but not many Chinese participate in politics. In recent years, the Canadian media has been unfriendly toward Chinese parliamentarians, Liu said.With tensions running high ahead of President Trump's first State of the Union speech, it was unclear what kinds of outbursts or demonstrations the evening might produce.

It's considered gravely disrespectful for lawmakers to disrupt presidential addresses, but some - such as Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., who yelled "You lie!" at President Obama in 2009 - have done it anyway.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told House Democrats Tuesday not to interrupt Trump and instead "let the attention be on his slobbering self." She said that if Democrats want to protest, they should join the group that will not attend at all.

"If you want to walk out, don't come in," Pelosi told Democrats during a closed-door caucus meeting.

The comments, first reported by Politico, were confirmed by a person familiar with the meeting.

Pelosi also suggested Trump will benefit from low expectations.

"If his nose isn't running and he isn't burping, he did a great speech," she predicted.

Democratic lawmakers plan to bring Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients to the speech as a way to highlight their cause. Congress is working to negotiate an immigration deal that would protect "dreamers," children who were brought to the United States illegally or who overstayed their visas, after the Trump administration announced an end to the program in September.

Pelosi, who will bring DACA recipient Melody Klingenfuss as a guest Tuesday night, said Tuesday afternoon that Trump will "see the dignity, courage and patriotism of dozens of dreamers" when he looks into the House gallery during his speech.

Klingenfuss, a professional organizer with California Dream Network, was born in Guatemala and joined her mother in Los Angeles at age nine. She holds a bachelor's degree from California State University, Los Angeles and a Master's degree from the University of South California, according to a memo from Pelosi's office.

Pelosi also plans to bring Virginia Del. Elizabeth Guzman, who will deliver Democrats' Spanish-language response to the speech, as well as AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and former Virginia Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe.

Meanwhile, an Arizona congressman known for his hard-line views on immigration called on the U.S. Capitol Police to arrest any undocumented immigrants who attend the, after at least two dozen Democratic lawmakers said they would bring "dreamers" as guests to Tuesday night's address.

Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., asked the Capitol Police and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to "consider checking identification . . . and arresting any illegal aliens in attendance" as well as detaining anyone using "fraudulent social security numbers and identification to pass through security." His tweets on the subject caused a wave of online outrage roughly seven hours before the speech was scheduled to begin.

The young people protected by the DACA program would not be affected by an ID check because they have social security numbers and legal work status, according to aides who helped organize their attendance. But some lawmakers might have invited immigrants without these documents to attend the speech, said the aides, who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the legal status of some guests.

"Of all the places where the Rule of Law needs to be enforced, it should be in the hallowed halls of Congress," Gosar wrote on Twitter. "Any illegal aliens attempting to go through security, under any pretext of invitation or otherwise, should be arrested and deported."

Requests for comment from Pelosi and the Capitol Police were not immediately returned.EDWARDSVILLE  A brush fire occurred on Route 143 Tuesday night.

The Edwardsville Fire Department responded to the fire, which took place near the 7000 block of Route 143, close to Saint Marys Drive, at approximately 6:17 p.m.

Deputy Chief James Whiteford, of the EFD, said the fire was likely caused by a malfunction in a nearby Ameren utility pole.

We dont know specifically what caused it, but it was related to the power pole and the transformer. We couldnt tell if the line shorted out and that caused the transformer to blow or if the transformer blew and that caused the lines to drop down. Something to do with the utility pole is what caused it, Whiteford said.

The EFD had the road shut down for quite some time and Whiteford said it remained closed even after the department cleared the scene.

We had (the road) shut down for about a half hour before we left and it continued after that for some time, Whiteford said. When our guys left the scene, the road was still closed because they had Ameren coming in to work on the poles.

No injuries or significant damages were reported. However, a few nearby houses and the Edwardsville Nursing and Rehabilitation Center lost power for a short while until the pole was back in use.

Whiteford said despite the power outages, the nursing home did have a backup generator and were still able to operate.

The nursing home was out of power for about four hours. They have an emergency backup generator, which gave them enough power to keep operating. There was no need to evacuate the nursing home or anything like that. But they were impacted, along with some other houses in the area, he said.

No mutual aid assists from other departments were needed, as Whiteford said the EFD had the flames under control in less than a half hour.

(The fire) started to get into some taller brush, so the flames got pretty big before they were able to get it under control. It took them about 20 minutes to get it under control, he said.

The EFD departed the scene and was back in service at 7 p.m.Did you hear what Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt said?

Not what grabbed all the headlines yesterday: back during a February 2016 radio interview Pruitt, then Oklahoma's attorney general, said, "Donald Trump in the White House would be more abusive to the Constitution than Barack Obama." The watchdog group Documented timed the release of audio from the interview with Pruitt's trip to Capitol Hill for an oversight hearing, lending rhetorical ammunition to Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Back then, Pruitt (who was at the time a Jeb Bush supporter) argued a potential President Trump would take "unapologetic steps to use executive power to confront Congress in a way that is truly unconstitutional" - a sentiment shared by some congressional Democrats today.

The EPA administrator joins a sizable list of repentant Trump administration officials, including his own No. 2 at the agency, who balked early in the 2016 race at the thought of Trump becoming president. Minutes after the hearing ended, Pruitt sent out a statement saying that he has changed his mind: "After meeting him, and now having the honor of working for him, it is abundantly clear that President Trump is the most consequential leader of our time."

However, there was something less headline-grabbing but more significant that Pruitt did in his rare appearance before lawmakers yesterday that should be of greater import to those concerned about climate change. The EPA chief left the door open to reconsidering a landmark 2009 finding from agency scientists that the warming caused by buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is a danger to human health.

"We have not made a decision or determination on that," Pruitt said when asked by the committee's top Democrat, Sen. Tom Carper, Del., whether he wants to leave th "endangerment finding" alone.

The remark stands in stark contrast to what Pruitt told the same committee one year ago this month - when he was still seeking the votes in the Senate to become EPA administrator.

In January 2017, Pruitt told the same Senate committee that "the endangerment finding is there and needs to be enforced and respected."

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., pressed Pruitt to ensure he had a firm commitment. "You will not review that scientific finding?" the senator asked last year.

"There is nothing that I know that would cause a review at this point," Pruitt responded.

Ruling in 2007 on a lawsuit Massachusetts brought against the George W. Bush administration, the Supreme Court found the EPA has the authority to regulate carbon dioxide if it determined to have endangered human health. So, one of the first things President Barack Obama's EPA set out to do was to study the issue, finding in 2009 that the atmosphere-warming effects of greenhouse gases do indeed pose a threat to people.

That 2009 scientific document gives the EPA legal justification under the Clean Air Act to regulate atmosphere-warming emissions such as carbon dioxide and methane. Undermining that Supreme Court-backed determination would pull the rug out from any future effort to regulate those gases, even in the future. As such, getting rid of the finding is the Holy Grail of environmental policy for some conservative critics who question the consensus among climate scientists that humans do warm the globe.

"The endangerment finding is the root of all global warming evil at the EPA, Steve Milloy, an attorney and frequent EPA critic, told the Heartland conference in November, "and we're trying to figure out here what is the best way to get that thing reconsidered and undone."

A few months earlier, Pruitt raised the hopes of those conservative critics by floating the idea of starting a "red team-blue team" exercise, akin to those used in strategic military planning, to debate the role that carbon dioxide plays in the Earth's climate system.

"What the American people deserve, I think, is a true, legitimate, peer-reviewed, objective, transparent discussion about CO2," Pruitt told Breitbart in June.

Such a debate, which Pruitt has yet to stage, raised questions among government and industry officials about whether Pruitt intends to try to roll back the endangerment finding.

But as outside legal experts say - and as Pruitt probably understands - unwinding a scientific finding on man-made climate change that has the backing of 97 percent of scientific studies that took a stance on the issue will be a tough task for the EPA. It's one with no guarantee of success.

In the Senate this week, Pruitt just gave a hint that he may be up for the challenge.WASHINGTON - Four months after Puerto Rico was devastated by a pair of hurricanes, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it will stop distributing food and water on the island beginning Wednesday, angering some who say Puerto Rico is far from recovered and in desperate need of more federal help, not less.

FEMA said it will turn over all remaining supplies on the island to the Puerto Rican government and nonprofits for allocation, part of a transition from emergency response to recovery. The agency said that grocery stores and other businesses that sell supplies are now open and sufficiently stocked. Banks, ATMs and gas stations are also functional, agency officials said.

The announcement angered many who said they believe FEMA has not provided a sufficient response to an island where about one-third of residents still lack power and, in rural areas, have difficulty obtaining clean water and food.

The government of Puerto Rico said it was not forewarned about the change.

"We were not informed that supplies would stop arriving, nor did the Government of Puerto Rico agree with this action," said Hector Pesquera, state coordinating officer for the Puerto Rican government, in a statement.

He added that discussions about a transition period have not been finalized.

Puerto Rico was devastated when Hurricane Maria struck in September, just a couple of weeks after it was hit by Hurricane Irma. Officials condemned the Trump administration for what they called a slow and inadequate aid response in the immediate aftermath, and President Donald Trump drew widespread condemnation when he tweeted that the administration could not keep FEMA employees and first responders on the U.S. territory "forever."

FEMA said it will continue to support municipalities that have needs and nonprofits "who are working with households in rural, outlying areas to address ongoing disaster-related needs as power and water is gradually restored."

Luis Vega Ramos, a member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives, said many rural communities still lack basic necessities.

"Electricity is still needed so they can get water, because the power is needed to raise the supply of water. Electricity is still needed for the refrigeration of food, for the refrigeration of medicines," he said.

"You're still in desperate need in ofhumanitarian aid. And not to see this from FEMA, it is at best an act of neglect, and at worst it comes creepingly close to criminal negligence," he said.

Vega Ramos worries that the Puerto Rican government will not be able to adequately fund aid distribution because a billion-dollar emergency loan approved by Congress to help the island with hurricane recovery has been temporarily withheld by FEMA and the Treasury Department. Agency officials argue that the island, which declared a form of bankruptcy last year, is not as cash-strapped as it cautioned it would be after the storms.

Other Puerto Rican officials said they have not received promised reimbursements from the federal government, making it difficult for municipalities to fund schools and medical facilities and to provide basic services such as trash pickup.

FEMA said there are 3,000 agency employees on the island, and it "will continue to support the Government of Puerto Rico to meet the needs they identify."

A spokeswoman for the Puerto Rico Emergency Management Agency could not be reached for comment.

FEMA said it has distributed more than $1.6 billion in food and $361 million in water in Puerto Rico. More than 46 million liters of water, 2 million ready-to-eat meals and 2 million snack packs are on the island and ready for distribution, if needed, the agency said. They are housed at nine regional staging areas that remain open for mayors to obtain supplies.

FEMA believes those supplies should fulfill the need, given that the commercial food and water supply chain "is reestablished and private suppliers are sufficiently available that FEMA provided commodities are no longer needed for emergency operations."

If the FEMA emergency supplies run out, officials will reevaluate, the agency said.

There is concern that the economy isn't nearly as recovered as FEMA says it is. Carmen Yulin Cruz Soto, the mayor of San Juan, said that she is still waiting for millions of dollars in federal reimbursements and that the spotty electrical grid is it difficult to run businesses and for people to work.

"It's amazing that they say they want to help the economy, but what are people going to use to buy food? Bitcoin?" she said. "If the electricity isn't stable enough, it means that job stability isn't stable enough."

Cruz said FEMA started backing out of San Juan in December because things improved in the capital city. Rural areas, however, are a different story. Cruz said she sent powdered milk and water that were privately donated and no longer needed in San Juan to a school in the town of Morovis that still lacks electricity.

Cruz praised FEMA's diesel program, which she said provided much-needed fuel for generators, but said pulling emergency food and water aid is "really appalling."

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., spoke about the situation on the Senate floor on Tuesday, urging the administration to continue aid to the island.

"Almost a third of them, still, who do not have electricity," Nelson said. "It's unconscionable and it's a travesty. I urge the administration to reverse this disastrous decision immediately and to continue providing the people of Puerto Rico with the help that they need as they are trying to recover from two disastrous hurricanes."RICHMOND, Va. - A House committee voted Tuesday to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients, something Republicans are seeking as a precondition to expanding the healthcare program to more low-income, uninsured Virginians.

It was not clear how many of the state's 1 million Medicaid recipients would be affected if the bill becomes law since the majority are children, the elderly, pregnant women and people with disabilities, all of whom would be exempt under the plan because they are considered to face some barrier work.

But one category of able-bodied adults - single parents with young children would be required to find employment.

House Speaker M. Kirkland Cox, R-Colonial Heights, said Tuesday that he thinks the work requirement would apply to about a third of current Medicaid recipients.

Whatever the number, the proposal has stimulated a conversation about Medicaid expansion between Cox and Gov. Ralph Northam, D, after years of fierce GOP opposition. In a letter to Northam Monday, Cox suggested a willingness to consider expansion if work requirements or other reforms are part of the deal.

"Work brings dignity," Cox said Tuesday before the House Rules Committee vote. "I think work is a good thing. Not only that, I think it really helps people with self-sufficiency. And we have got to be about helping people, not just being concerned about how many people we can put on the Medicaid rolls."

Earlier this month, the Trump administration invited states to apply for a waiver that would clear the way for work requirements for Medicaid recipients. Kentucky is the first state to win a waiver; eight other states have requests pending.

Northam has said that he does not favor work requirements but could support a "work search" program. The distinction might be mostly semantics. Under the bill approved Tuesday, Medicaid recipients would be required to spend at least 20 hours per week working - or seeking employment. Participating in job-training, educational programs or public service would also count.

The bill passed on a 14-to-3 vote, with three Democrats voting for it and three against. The measure now heads to the House Appropriations Committee.

Expansion of the federal-state healthcare program was one of Northam's marquee campaign promises in last year's election. He is seeking to expand access to Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act to an additional 400,000 low-income Virginians.

Republicans in the state legislature fought expansion for the past four years under Northam's Democratic predecessor, Terry McAuliffe, questioning whether Washington could afford to keep its promise to pick up most of the $2 billion-a-year tab.

But opposition has softened a bit since Washington has failed to repeal the ACA under a Republican-controlled White House and Congress. Add to that the Democrats' stronger-than-expected showing in Virginia elections in November, in which pro-expansion Democrats swept three statewide offices and picked up 15 seats in the House.

Cox, whose party has a paper-thin 51-to-49 majority in the chamber, warned in his letter to Northam that expansion could hinge on the Medicaid work-requirements bill. Northam greeted the letter as good news even though Cox framed the letter as an ultimatum.

Cox voiced more concerns Tuesday ahead of the committee vote because of the pricetag - $10.5 million in the first year - that Northam's Department of Planning and Budget had put on administering the work requirement. He said the "ridiculous" estimate, released Monday night, had been inflated to derail GOP reforms.

Because the department concluded that no current enrollees would be required to work, it based the estimate on the additional 400,000 who would be added under expansion.

"I will tell you the fiscal impact statement - that late, that ridiculous - gives me pause about whether we can get anything done or not," Cox said. "Ten million dollars' worth of administrative costs - that just does not pass the smell test."

Hours later, Northam spokeswoman Ofirah Yheskel issued a statement acknowledging that the cost estimate "was unintentionally based on incomplete information. We have communicated that to the speaker's office and will submit a revised fiscal impact statement in response to changes that have been made to the legislation."

It was not clear if the revised estimate was expected to go up or down. Yheskel declined to elaborate.

"We appreciate the administration admitting the initial fiscal impact statement was completely wrong," said Cox spokesman Parker Slaybaugh. "We would like to see a commitment to basic reforms such as requiring able-bodied people to work before receiving Medicaid benefits."MOSCOW - Russian officials and business executives on Tuesday reacted with anger and ridicule to a Treasury Department list of influential Russians who could face U.S. sanctions for their proximity to the Kremlin.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday called the list, which includes 114 government officials and 96 business executives, a "hostile act" that would harm U.S.-Russian relations but added that Russia did not have plans to retaliate.

The list, submitted to Congress under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017, was highly anticipated in Russia. Some wealthy business executives were reported to have hired lobbyists in Washington, D.C., to stay off the list or to have applied for foreign passports to sidestep possible sanctions.

In the end, the list appeared to have been copied and pasted from two sources widely available to the public: the Forbes rankings of the wealthiest Russians and the Kremlin's directory of officials, which is available on its English-language website. The 96 business executives listed by the Treasury Department are the same as those indicated to have a net worth of more than $1 billion, according to Forbes.

"One does not have to be very smart to make this list," Mikhail Fedotov, the head of the Kremlin Human Rights Council, said in remarks to journalists. He was also on the list. "It would suffice to visit the Kremlin website and take a look at the names of the administration heads, presidential advisers, presidential aides, et cetera. This is not a great piece of work."

There is also a classified section of the Treasury Department report that was not released to the public.

In emailed remarks, a Treasury Department spokesman said the unclassified portion of the report "was derived from open sources, including Russian sources, such as kremlin.ru, Forbes, and others." Since there is no definition of an oligarch, the spokesman said, $1 billion was chosen as "a reasonable number, which is the criteria contained in the U.S. Forbes list of Russian individuals with a net worth of at least $1 billion."

He said that the Treasury Department would not comment on the classified portion of the list, which draws attention "to certain other individuals who we deemed to be significant, but about which classified information was necessary to explain their role and activities."

Adam Smith, a former Treasury official who worked on sanctions against Russia, said what was released to the public was no more than a "mechanical" fulfillment of a legal requirement. Not everyone on the oligarchs list still lives in Russia. And not everyone is close to Putin.

"There seems to be nothing subjective or interpretive about either the senior political figures or the oligarchs list," he said of the people named publicly. "If you are in the Putin administration, you are on the list; if you are worth $1 billion or more, you are on the list."

Those who are will not necessarily have sanctions imposed on them, though some already are under previous sanctions.

Many Democrats were angered that the named oligarchs were not sanctioned. Nor did the administration impose sanctions under another part of the legislation, which aimed to punish Russia for interfering in the 2016 presidential election. "There should be outrage in every corner of this country," tweeted Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

Even Republicans were concerned. "I'd like to know why they're not doing more," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. "There may be a good reason but I don't want to send anything that could be a signal of weakness."

The list is not without bite, however. Erich Ferrari, a Washington lawyer who specializes in sanctions, said that those named may face delays in some financial transactions as international banks subject them to more scrutiny. He said some British banks already have included them among "politically exposed" clients, and the list may be fodder for legal challenges.

But many minimized the significance of the public list, which appears to have been assembled in haste for release 11 minutes before the midnight deadline.

Daniel Fried, who coordinated sanctions policy at the State Department in the Obama administration, likened it to a "cut and paste job" that duplicated an error in the Forbes list of rich Russians, suggesting that its compilers did not bother to check the magazine's work.

"The public list is so broad and inclusive and so undiscriminatory that it undercut the purpose" of the law, he said, "which was not to go after all rich Russians or all corrupt rich Russians, but to go after the Putin power structure. . . . I don't know why the administration thought it was to its advantage to go another route and simply slap something together."

Fried said that professionals within the administration were preparing a more-carefully curated list of Russians who are not only rich but close to Putin. Those names may be on the classified list.

As is, he added, "this was a missed opportunity by the administration," but Putin and his inner circle have no cause to chortle. "If Russia is wise, it will understand the United States has little tolerance left for Russian aggression, and will back off," Fried said.

Many Russians made light of the list. Even Putin joked that he felt "slighted" by being left off.

"The importance of this list is null," said Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who then added a joke: "I believe in this case not being included on this list provides grounds for resignation."

Also on Tuesday, Russian state media reported that Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia's foreign spy service, who has had sanctions imposed on him under U.S. law but can visit the country on official business, had met for discussions in the United States with American officials regarding the war on terrorism.

---

Morello reported from Washington.The Taiwan authorities' refusal to approve extra flights across the Straits at Chinese New Year will harm the interests of the people, the Civil Aviation Administration of China said on Tuesday.

China Eastern Airlines and Xiamen Airlines added 176 flights to the M503 flight route to meet the demand for people returning home during Chinese New Year holiday, but the Taiwan authorities blocked them using the excuse of flight safety, according to a notice released by the administration on Tuesday.

The administration condemned the Taiwan authorities' disregard for people's livelihood and said the move harmed the interests of people across the Straits, especially those living in Taiwan.

China Eastern Airlines and Xiamen Airlines both complained on Tuesday about being forced by Taiwan authorities to cancel flights.

An estimated 50,000 travelers will be affected by the decision, China National Radio (CNR) reported.

"I may as well swim back to Taiwan to celebrate New Year," Li Zhenghong, head of Shanghai's Taiwan merchant association, was quoted as saying by CNR.

An official from the International Air Transport Association spoke out in support of the Chinese mainland.

The M503 route was launched to ease flight congestion on the A470 route and has made flying safer as the sky over the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta continues to get busier, the association official said, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Tuesday.

The M503 route, which has been in use since March 2015, is not a new route, he said. Its position and design were approved by the International Civil Aviation Organization, the official said.

The association's response, dated January 19, was relayed by an authoritative source, Xinhua said.WASHINGTON - The parents of a pregnant teacher slain last year are pushing for a law that would allow prosecutors to charge anyone who kills a fetus with murder or manslaughter, regardless of the viability of the fetus.

Mark and Gwen Wallen spoke Tuesday at a news conference in Annapolis, Maryland, in favor of Laura and Reid's Law, named for their 31-year-old daughter and the baby she was hoping to deliver.

Its sponsors say the bill could become tangled up in the public debate over abortion rights, even though it would not apply to pregnancies terminated through abortion.

Laura Elizabeth Wallen was 14 weeks pregnant when Tyler Tessier, her longtime on-again, off-again boyfriend, allegedly shot her in the back of the head and left her in a shallow grave in suburban Howard County, Maryland. Her death highlighted a grim statistic: Homicide is the second leading cause of death among pregnant women.

Tessier, 33, who had made a dramatic plea to the public for help in finding Wallen, was indicted in October on one count of murder.

Maryland currently permits a murder or manslaughter charge only when a fetus is viable, usually considered around 23 or 24 weeks.

If the proposed legislation passed, the state would join at least 23 others where fetal-homicide laws apply to the earliest stages of gestation, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

"It would mean that we honored Laura," Gwen Wallen said with tear-filled eyes when asked what it would mean to her for the bill to become law. "And it would mean that we used the gifts that we have to make something positive out of a very, very tragic death of two people."

The legislation is assigned to the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee but has not yet been scheduled for a hearing.The bill sponsors, Sen. Justin Ready, R, and Del. Trent Kittleman, R, say they expect a battle because of concerns about viability and how the legislation could affect the debate over abortion.

The proposal strikes "a viable fetus" from the current law and replaces it with "unborn child," which is defined as a "fetus at any stage of development that is carried in the womb."

Mark Wallen, who said he is pro-choice, said the measure isn't about a woman's right to end a pregnancy, but instead about protecting women and their babies from domestic violence.

A spokesperson for Planned Parenthood said the agency had no one available to comment on the legislation.

Also Tuesday, Democratic leaders in Annapolis announced legislation that would require the state to gradually increase its education spending by about $500 million above current funding formulas, using money would come from casino revenue, much of which goes toward the state's education trust fund.

Voters would have to approve the measure during November elections if it is adopted by the legislature.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael Busch, who are among several dozen Democrats supporting the measure, described the plan as a way to ensure that casino revenue is used to increase education spending, especially in poor jurisdictions.

"It's about promises that were made to the people," Miller said.

Before Maryland voters approved slot-machine gambling in 2008 and table games in 2012, advocates pitched both as a means to boost education funding. But elected leaders have increasingly relied on casino revenue to cover the state's basic education-funding formula rather than to exceed the mandated amount.

Hogan spokesman Doug Mayer said the governor is "generally supportive" of the Democrats' proposal but will not take a stance before seeing the legislation.

The Maryland Senate on Tuesday unanimously approved a bill that allows for the termination of parental rights of rapists. A similar measure received initial approval in the House and could receive final approval as early as Wednesday.

The measure has failed to pass out of the General Assembly for the past nine years, but was deemed a top priority this year after a conference committee failed to reach an agreement on the final day of the 2017 session.

Sen. Robert Zirkin, D, chair of the Senate Judicial Proceeding Committee, said the bill is "not without its complications." He said he expects the General Assembly to revisit some of the legal issues the bill raises in coming years.The Holocaust Museum Houston's expansion project that will double its size began officially Monday with the relocation of two of their most valuable historical artifacts, the rescue boat "Hanne Frank" and a World War II-era railcar of the type used by Nazis to transport their victims to concentration camps.

In what was a slow and careful operation using a high capacity crane, the two museum pieces were relocated from their place in the Museum's patio, where they were previously on display, to another area 120 feet away to protect them from the risk of being damaged during the construction project.

TNT Crane and Rigging, the company hired by the museum to move the artifacts, took about two hours to finish the work the began shortly before noon.

"There is so much safety and calculations involved," said Cody Viteritto, a technician working with the TNT crew. He noted that while moving heavy objects of this size involve roughly the same kind of procedures, the historical artifacts required special attention. "Critical consideration, in this case, was the value of the items," he said.

"Hanne Frank" is one of the fishing boats that were used by Christians in Denmark who risked their lives during three weeks in 1943 while ferrying to Sweden more than 7,200 Jews - along with roughly 700 people from other population groups - and evading Nazi occupation troops who were intent on deporting them to Germany.

According to the museum, although the name of the boat resembles that of Holocaust victim and writer Anne Frank, there isn't a known relation with the author of The Diary of a Young Girl. The ship was initially called "Jrn Finne" but later re-registered in 1985 with the Royal Danish Register of Shipping.

The Houston museum is the only one in the U.S. that has a Danish rescue boat from World War II.

The railcar, a historical piece weighing 10.5 metric-tons, also represented a challenge during the move.

"It took years for us to be able to acquire that railcar," recalled Peter N. Berkowitz, a former member of the Museum's board that managed that acquisition.

Berkowitz, currently the Chairman of the Texas holocaust and Genocide Commission, said that one of the characteristics of that railcar is that it has a design that was produced in small quantities during the Nazi era in Germany. It was also designated as a historical artifact by Alfred Gottwaldt, the worldwide authority in World War II's German railroad history, who died in 2015.

Transferring the artifacts "is very important because now they will literally be inside the museum for the first time," said Kelly J. Zuniga, the Museum's CEO. It will allow for better preservation of these historical artifacts, as construction has already started around the old building at 5401 Caroline St.

The construction project, with a projected cost of $49.4 million, will more than double the museum's space to a total of 57,000 square feet. At its scheduled completion in Spring 2019, it will become the fourth largest Holocaust museum in the country, according to the spokesperson Robin Cavanaugh.

"We think this is going to be the most beautiful Holocaust museum in the United States," Zuniga said. "We have the unique aspect that we teach the stories of the Holocaust through the eyes of our Houston survivors. So it's very personalized from the Houston perspective. It's our story, and that makes us extremely unique."

Chaja Verveer, a Holocaust survivor who lives in Houston, was at the site observing the moving operation of the artifacts.

It was one of those times when "those memories" came to her mind. She was three-years-old when she was transported, without any family member, from the Westerbork to the Bergen-Belsen Nazi camp in Germany in a railcar just like the museum's.

In reality, "the memory is more physical than anything else; you are too little to know what is going on or to articulate," Verveer said. The memory is "like a lump in my stomach."Tuesday night, President Donald Trump indicated once again that he views the nation's opioid abuse crisis as more of an issue to be dealt with by law enforcement than by medical professionals.

In his State of the Union address, the president correctly described the toll overdose is taking on the country -- noting deaths from drugs caused 64,000 deaths in 2016 -- and promised to go after the problem in the coming year. But while he mentioned in passing a need for better addiction treatment, Trump offered no new details on that front. He instead emphasized the need for law enforcement to stem the supply and distribution of illegal drugs.

"We must get much tougher on drug dealers and pushers if we are going to succeed in stopping this scourge," Trump said.

The U.S. drug supply has only gotten bigger and deaths from overdose have steadily increased over the past several decades. But during that period, U.S. officials focused mainly on waging a "war on drugs" that mostly failed. Many experts have always argued the problem of drug addiction has more to do with demand than supply, and it could be better tackled by providing better treatment and support to people struggling with addiction.

But ever since Trump declared opioid abuse a public health emergency last fall, most of the action has been taken by the Department of Justice, not the Department of Health and Human Services. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has announced several initiatives targeting drug trafficking, announcing in November a new division of the Drug Enforcement Agency to unify trafficking investigations in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.

Tuesday, Sessions said DEA agents will conduct a "surge" operation over the next 45 days to focus on pharmacies and prescribers who are dispensing unusual or disproportionate amounts of opioids, the Post's Sari Horwitz and Scott Higham report. The agency will check data from about 80 million reports it collects every year from prescription drug manufacturers and distributors.

"My administration is committed to fighting the drug epidemic and helping get treatment for those in need," the president said in his speech. "The struggle will be long and difficult - but, as Americans always do, we will prevail."

Now, any increased focus on opioid abuse seems like a good thing considering it's a multi-faceted problem. Pretty much everyone agrees on that. Where advocates have gotten is frustrated is in the lack of much new funding for tackling the epidemic and a dearth of details from HHS on how it might address the issue from a prevention and addiction treatment perspective.

HHS did release a list of actions it says it has taken over the past year to address the crisis, although some of them were before Trump made his emergency declaration. The agency said it has:

--Disbursed more than $800 million in grants, more than any previous year.

--Developed a five-point strategy, encompassing better treatment, prevention, and recovery services; better targeting of overdose-reversing drugs; better data on the epidemic; better research on pain and addiction, and better pain management.

--Approved new Medicaid waivers for two states to expand access to substance-abuse treatment and outlined a streamlined process for more such approvals.

--Started to release monthly provisional data from the CDC on drug overdose deaths, shortening what had been up to a two-year lag.

--Clarified privacy regulations to inform hospitals and doctors they can share information with patients' families during crisis situations.

--Approved through FDA the first monthly formulation of buprenorphine, a key option for medication-assisted treatment of opioid addiction.

Trump didn't share any further details Tuesday night, instead highlighting a New Mexico family - Ryan and Rebecca Holets -- who adopted a baby born to a woman addicted to heroin.

"Ryan and Rebecca: You embody the goodness of our nation," Trump said. "Thank you, and congratulations."

Alex Azar, newly instated HHS secretary, said in a statement Tuesday night that Trump deserves "tremendous credit for his leadership" on the opioid issue.

"During his first year in office, President Trump has brought a new level of awareness and commitment to this cause, and I look forward to expanding and enhancing our aggressive approach to this scourge of addiction and overdose," said Azar, who was just sworn in on Monday.

Yet Trump stopped short of asking Congress to appropriate any more funding toward the opioid epidemic, even though Democrats and even some Republicans are pouring on the pressure. Earlier in the day, Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., urged the president to address the crisis in his speech and stressed the need for certainty on the resources available to fight it.

"We need his leadership, we need to know how many resources we have to spend and get busy trying to make a difference in the lives of people who have been devastated by this epidemic," Blunt said.

---

Health care didn't get a ton of airtime during Tuesday night's SOTU -- certainly not as much as in years past. Yet besides talking about opioids, Trump touched briefly on prescription drugs and the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate. A few key points:

--Trump promised to bring down the high cost of prescription drugs, pointing to recent major strides by the FDA in speeding approvals of generic drugs. "To speed access to breakthrough cures and affordable generic drugs, last year the FDA approved more new and generic drugs and medical devices than ever before in our history," he said.

Last week, HHS released a report that the FDA approved 1,027 generic drugs in one year, more than any other single year in the agency's history, including the previous record of 800 approvals in 2016. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb has pointed to more generic drugs as a way of lowering prescription drug prices in the United States, where medications cost more than in any other developed country.

But Trump didn't mention a much more controversial idea, one championed by Democrats: Allowing Medicare to negotiate down the price of drugs with the private companies that manufacture them. On the campaign trail, Trump bucked his party in calling for such negotiations, but has backed away from the idea since becoming president. Instead, Trump said only that he plans to focus on drug prices in the coming year - and vowed they'll get less expensive.

"One of my greatest priorities is to reduce the price of prescription drugs," he said. "That is why I have directed my administration to make fixing the injustice of high drug prices one of our top priorities. Prices will come down."

--Trump also told lawmakers to pass a federal version of so-called "Right to Try" laws, already passed by multiple states to allow terminally ill patients access to potentially lifesaving medications not yet fully approved by the FDA. Vice President Mike Pence recently tweeted support of a federal Right to Try law, and the idea appears to be gaining momentum in Congress although some experts question how useful it would be.

"People who are terminally ill should not have to go from country to country to seek a cure - I want to give them a chance right here at home," Trump said. "It is time for the Congress to give these wonderful Americans the 'right to try.'"

--Trump skirted one of his biggest losses: failing to repeal and replace the ACA. Instead, he pointed to how Congress did repeal the law's individual mandate to buy health coverage in its tax overhaul. "The individual mandate is now gone," he said.TOKYO - South Korea's progressive government was already nervous about President Donald Trump's intentions when it came to North Korea, fearing that he might press ahead with military action without Seoul's consent.

The sudden withdrawal of the candidate for ambassador to Seoul - apparently because he argued against striking North Korea - coupled with the president's tough language in the State of the Union has now only exacerbated those fears.

Trump described North Korea's pursuit of nuclear missiles as "reckless" and said there is a campaign of "maximum pressure" to prevent that from happening. The administration has also put forward the idea of a targeted strike to respond to missile launches to give the regime a "bloody nose" that would - hopefully - not escalate into a wider conflict.

"This puts Moon Jae-in between a rock and a hard place," said Lee Chung-min, professor of international relations at Yonsei University in Seoul, referring to the South Korean president.

Now, the Moon administration will be trying to talk down a Trump administration that is apparently more serious about giving North Korea a "bloody nose" than analysts realized - at the same time as North Korea is preparing for a huge military parade.

The Pyongyang regime suddenly moved its army foundation day, celebrated for the last 30 years on April 25 back to the original date of Feb. 8. This just happens to be the day before the opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics being held just over the border in South Korea.

Satellite photos show preparations for a large parade in Pyongyang and South Korean officials have said it is shaping up to be "intimidating" in both size and weaponry - a display that will likely further heighten fears about the regime's intentions.

Then, once the Olympic Games are over and joint military exercises begin in South Korea, many analysts think North Korea will protest with a provocative action like launching another missile.

All this is taking place without a U.S. ambassador in Seoul.

"The role of an ambassador is not nearly as important as it once was, but we will have been more than a year without an ambassador in one of the United States' most important alliances and at a very sensitive time in the region," Lee said.

The Trump administration has abruptly ditched Victor Cha, an academic who served in the George W. Bush administration and is known for his hawkish approach to North Korea, as its candidate for U.S. ambassador to South Korea.

Although his views are sharply divergent from the South Korean government's engagement-centered approach, Cha, a Korean-American who teaches at Georgetown and runs the Korea department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is well known and well connected in Seoul.

Moon's government had signed off on Cha's nomination after Washington last month sent formal notice of intent to nominate him as ambassador, a process known as agrement.

Cha was suddenly withdrawn, however, partly because he raised concerns about the "bloody nose" idea of a limited strike to send a message without sparking a wider war.

Political analysts across the spectrum generally think this is an ill-advised strategy that could put at risk the 25 million South Koreans - and tens of thousands of Americans - living within North Korean artillery range.

The South Korean president has repeatedly said that Trump cannot launch a strike on North Korea without his approval - a statement of hope more than of fact, since the United States calls the shots in their military alliance.

South Korean news sites were on Wednesday full of headlines about the "mystery" of Cha's sudden withdrawal from the position - literally "falling off a horse" in Korean. Media commentary noted how unusual it was for an ambassadorial candidate to be withdrawn after the host government had signed off.

The South Korean government has not been informed of the Trump administration's decision to withdraw Cha as its candidate for ambassador, according to two senior officials.

Having completed the agrement process, Seoul is expecting an explanation from Washington, said one of the officials, asking for anonymity to discuss diplomatic issues.

"It's not desirable to not have a fully-fledged ambassador at this very sensitive time," said the other senior official. He questioned whether the administration would be able to find a candidate who was even more hawkish that Cha. "Victor is seen as rather conservative," he said. "Some people here were wondering if he, as a Korean American, was trying to prove that he was loyal to President Trump."

Trump doubled down Tuesday with his tough language against North Korea, saying that only heavy-handed measures would work against the regime in Pyongyang.

"Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation. I will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got us into this dangerous position," he said.

Trump's omission of diplomacy as an option for dealing with North Korea stood out to Duyeon Kim, a fellow at the Korean Peninsula Future Forum in Seoul.

"It almost sounds like he is selling a future war with North Korea much the same way Bush did in his State of the Union on Iraq," she said. "If he is indeed marching the U.S. and the region into a war, this time it would be with a country that actually has nuclear weapons. So that could quickly get out of hand."

For its part, North Korea released its own damning condemnation of Trump Wednesday. This is a standard regime tactic to try to divert from its own treatment of its citizens.

In a report on its "White Paper on Human Rights Violations in U.S. in 2017," North Korea's state media laid out a litany of complaints against the American president, starting with his choice of billionaires for cabinet posts and his policies to help the rich.

"In the U.S. the absolute majority of the working masses, deprived of elementary rights to survival, are hovering in the abyss of nightmare," the report said, citing youth unemployment and homeless numbers, and the "hell" of student loans.

It continued through the lack of paid maternity leave and sexual assault to gun crimes and marijuana use.

"The U.S., 'guardian of democracy' and 'human rights champion,' is kicking up the human rights racket but it can never camouflage its true identity as the gross violator of human rights," the report said.A resident of the Maharin nursing home of Anglet, Southwestern France, protests with care workers on January 30, 2018. Photo: AP

Paris (People's Daily) - Nursing home workers in France rallied today across the country, citing a lack of funding and poor working conditions, among many other concerns, as the quality of elderly care continues to crumble.

In cities like Paris, Bordeaux, Nantes, Lyon, and Strasbourg, nursing home employees were in union over issues that the government continues to ignore.

Prior to todays strike, the movement had already collected 400,000 signatures and mobilized tens of thousands of employees from the public and private nursing home sectors.

The strike received support from other unions, including the Association of Directors for the Service of the Elderly (AD-PA).

Nurses and staff of retirement homes and residential care facilities take part in a nationwide strike and protests, asking for more means to take care of the poorest elders. (Photo: VCG)

One issue has to do with how French tariff reforms from 2017 wont align the public and private elderly care sectors until 2023.

The Hospital Federation of France felt the new budget calculations would create a 200 million euro loss over the course seven years and force public institutions to lower their number of employees.

Deemed untenable from the outset, the movement claims a rate of one agent for each resident against an average of less than 0.6 today.

Furthermore, the Great Age Solidarity Plan for 2007-2012 recommended 0.65 caregivers for a resident and up to one-on-one one for those in need of high dependence.

A third of Frances care provider institutions lack a coordinating physician, thus failing to comply with current regulations.

Staff shortages not only hurt the well-being of the elderly, but also cause a surge in budget expenses for Ehpad, which sends their residents to the hospital in times of emergency.

Another issue is how the elderly care sector in France has experienced an increase in work-related accidents and is the only work sector to do so.

Accidents at work and occupational disease stand at a troublesome 9.4 percent. In the construction industry, it is 6 percent.

Frances Health Insurance industry considers the situation alarming, especially when accidents and occupational disease climb 2 percent in one year and 45 percent in a decade.

The work comes with a high level of tension and can be the source of significant health deterioration, said a health insurance spokesperson, and added, At Ephand, we call it institutional abuse.

Contrary to issues surrounding staff shortages, the majority of those in need of care are getting older.

Last July, the Directorate of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics (Drees) released a report that found at least half of those who needed care were 87-years old at the end of 2015, up a full year from 2011.

As people get older, they become more dependent. In 2015, 83 percent were no longer independent, compared to 81 percent five years earlier.

The increase in dependency from elderly residents at Ehpad has created heavier workloads, making work conditions particularly worrying for caregivers, both physically and psychologically," said the report.

Last but not least, by 2060 the French are expected to live seven years longer, which would increase tension for both nursing homes and public finance.

A third of Frances population will be over the age of 60, while today the same age demographic is roughly 25 percent.

Funds needed to care for the elderly could double as a share of GDP from 1.4 percent to 2.78 percent, according to the Drees report.

Agnes Buzyn, French Minister of Solidarity and Health pledged that the tariff reform would have no losers, and that there would be no post cuts.

Last week Buzyn announced that in addition to the 100 million euros already planned for the 2018 budget, 50 million euros would be dedicated to elderly care services. But her promise failed to ease industry tension.

Analysts have said that out of the 728,000 elderly, 10 percent are over 75 years of age, while a third are over the age of 90. Of the 7,200 elderly living at Ehpad, and 400,000 work there.

For months, even years, professionals in have been alerting authorities about the work and living conditions at the nursing homes, which have considerably deteriorated.

AD-PA Chairman Pascal Champvert said todays strike was the very first one because it involved all unions, and later added, The indignations found at Ehpad and within home care services have been increasing for years, and today the system is running out.

This is not the first time Frances nursing home workers have gone on strike due to poor working conditions and employee shortages.

Last year, hundreds of strikes hit nursing homes all over the country. One strike, in Opalines located along the Eastern Jura department lasted three months.Liberian President George Weah announced plans to cut his salary and change parts of the country's consitition on Janaury 31, 2018. Photo: AFP

Johannesburg (Peoples Daily)  Newly-elected Liberian President George Weah announced on Monday his intention to revise the nations constitution while giving himself a 25 percent pay cut.

While addressing Liberias parliament, Weah said, In view of the very rapidly deteriorating situation of the economy, I am informing you today, with immediate effect, that I will reduce my salary and benefits by 25%. He plans to give the money to a Liberian development fund.

The former FIFA all-star also announced he would remove unnecessary, racist and inappropriate clauses from Liberias national constitution, a country that reserves citizenship to only people of color.

As Africas oldest republic, Liberia only permits people of color to become national citizens, and only Liberians can own property.

Weah also denounced the ban on foreigners owning property, which dissuades foreign investors from settling in Liberia.

Such constitutional reform could directly affect him as it was revealed during his presidential run he had at least one or two foreign passports.A 19-year-old man fatally shot by police last week on a North Side highway was identified Tuesday evening by the Bexar County medical examiners office.

Dustin Gonzales Castillo died from a gunshot wound Thursday evening on Loop 410 near McCullough Avenue, according to the medical examiner.

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San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said previously that Castillo had stolen a bicycle from Target at the Park North shopping center and evaded attempts by security to stop him.

Nearby police spotted him moments later and were behind him as he rode onto Loop 410 East, McManus said.

After an officer pulled him off the bicycle, three officers attempted to subdue him, police said. They said he then pulled out a knife and slashed Officer Paul Armendarizs finger.

Armendariz then backed off, pulled out his gun and fired a single shot into Castillos abdomen, McManus said.

Castillo was pronounced deceased at 6:25 p.m., according to the examiners office.

Armendariz was to be placed on administrative duty following the incident, according to police.

jbeltran@express-news.net | Twitter: @JBfromSAThe owner of Mission Park Funeral Chapels and Cemeteries testified Wednesday that he called his lawyer right after hearing a body was missing from Cherry Ridge facility and confirmed that the codes to activate the security system hadnt changed in 20 years.

Robert Dick Tips, owner, and his wife, Kristin, who is president of the San Antonio-based funeral business, are being sued in civil court by the family of Julie Mott, 25, who died from cystic fibrosis in August 2015. Relatives learned her body went missing from a damaged casket the day after her memorial service, held at the Cherry Ridge facility on the Northwest Side, and before she was to be cremated. The body has not been found.

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Under questioning by plaintiffs attorney Alex Katzman, representing parents Timothy and Sharlotte Mott, Tips acknowledged that once he heard that their daughters body was missing, he contacted one of his corporate lawyers before he alerted the Motts of the disappearance.

So the first thing you do is call your lawyer, Katzman said before Tips attorneys objected to the question, citing attorney-client privilege, which the judge sustained.

Tips also acknowledged that the security code to the facility  the last four digits of a phone number that hadnt been changed in 20 years  was common knowledge among at least 22 employees, others who used to work there and the staff of Beyer & Beitel Mortuary Service, third-party contractors Tips used to transport bodies.

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The keys to locks that hadnt been changed in at least 10 years were not the type that could be considered secure and could be copied anywhere, Tips acknowledged under questioning.

When Katzman asked Tips if any of those methods could be considered a security risk, he replied, No sir.

So its not a security risk to have one code for the the alarm system for 20 years, Katzman again asked Tips.

Weve never had a body stolen, Tips said, adding that the Motts told him their daughters former boyfriend stole the body when he spoke to them after the incident.

Katzman spent several hours with Tips, focusing on which one of his employees was responsible for locking and securing the facility at the end of the day and whether the ADT alarm system had been engaged.

A taped conversation between an ADT representative and Mission Park employee indicated the alarm was not engaged that night and that the company was not paying for the opening and closing of doors to be monitored.

The Mott family has accused the couple of hiding the use of third-party contractors who had keys, security codes and unrestricted access to all of the Mission Park funeral homes seven days a week, 24 hours a day, and that they never knew the company used Beyer & Beitel to transport bodies to be prepared for burial or cremation.

Tips and his lawyers dispute those assertions, stating that the couple saw the Motts as family, since Timothy Motts had previously worked for Tips, and allowed them to live on a property they owned because Julie Mott liked horses.

They maintain that the third-party company they have done business with, Beyer & Beitel, has long represented their company and that using them does not mean they outsource funeral services. They also allege that Julie Motts former boyfriend stole her body because the family told Tips he was obsessed with her and did not want her cremated.

Shortly before the trial resumed Wednesday, Judge Norma Gonzales granted a motion from the defendants attorneys to prevent television and print journalists from taking video and still photography in the courtroom because TV stations live-streamed the trial Tuesday.

The civil trial, in its second day, is being heard in the 131st Civil District Court and is expected to last for three weeks.

The Motts are seeking unspecified monetary damages.MOSCOW - The Trump administration managed the unusual feat this week of outraging both Russia's leaders in Moscow and Russia's biggest critics in Washington with its handling of a new sanctions law intended to punish the Kremlin for interference in the 2016 U.S. elections.

The State Department angered members of Congress by announcing Monday that it did not plan to impose new sanctions called for in a measure that President Donald Trump reluctantly signed into law last year. And the Treasury Department angered Moscow later in the day with a new name-and-shame list identifying 210 senior Russian political and business figures.

'An unfriendly act'

The twin announcements left a muddled impression of how Trump plans to approach the Kremlin in his second year in office even as investigators search for evidence of collaboration between his campaign and Russian agents. His domestic opponents complained that once again Trump seemed to be in thrall to Russia, while the Kremlin complained that he was a captive of what it described as the American deep state.

"This is definitely an unfriendly act," President Vladimir Putin said about the Treasury Department list. "It is complicating Russian-American relations, where the situation is already hard, and is definitely harming international relations in general."

Putin said Moscow had pondered virtually breaking ties with Washington over what is known in Russia as the "Kremlin report," but decided against it. "We were prepared to undertake retaliatory steps, and quite serious ones too, which would cut our relations to zero," he said. "But we will refrain from such steps for the time being."

Under the new law, Trump faced two deadlines Monday. The law required him to impose sanctions on large purchasers of Russian military equipment but granted exceptions. The State Department cited those exceptions in announcing that it would not take new punitive actions, arguing that the law itself was already deterring such purchases.

More Information Dems rip visit by Russian spy chief Senate Democrats expressed outrage Tuesday at reports that the head of Russia's foreign intelligence service visited Washington recently despite being on a U.S. government blacklist that prohibits many dealings with him. The Russian Embassy in Washington said via Twitter that Sergey Naryshkin, who heads the Russian intelligence agency known as the SVR, was in Washington last week for "consultations" with his American counterparts "on the struggle against terrorism." "This is a serious national security issue," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said. "Russia hacked our elections. We sanctioned the head of their foreign intelligence. Then the Trump administration invites him to waltz through our front door." Naryshkin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin's, is one of several senior Russian military and intelligence officials who have been sanctioned by the Treasury Department as punishment for Russia's actions in Ukraine, cyberattacks and meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections. Tribune News Services See More Collapse

The law also required him to produce a list of "senior political figures and oligarchs" in Russia. No actions were to be taken against those identified on the list, but it was seen as a way of sending a signal to those close to Putin that they had much to lose if Moscow does not pull back from its intervention in Ukraine and its interference in Western elections.

Responding to criticism, the Trump administration insisted Tuesday that it was not finished taking action under the new legislation. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin rejected suggestions that the administration was delaying action on Russia.

"I don't think in any way we're slow-walking the report that we delivered last night," he said at a Senate Banking Committee hearing on financial stability.

Senator: Trump 'afraid'

Mnuchin insisted that the legislation required only that his department produce a report by Monday, and that additional action would be taken. "There will be sanctions out of this report," he said.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the Democratic minority leader, said Tuesday that Trump was "afraid to sanction Putin."

"If President Trump wishes to save his presidency from the shame of having failed to address one of the gravest threats facing our country, he would announce this evening in no uncertain terms that he was sanctioning President Putin," Schumer said on the Senate floor.China's Ministry of Education holds a press conference to introduce National Standards on Teaching Quality in Colleges and Universities on January 30, 2018. (Photo: moe.gov.cn)

China's Ministry of Education on Tuesday released the first National Standards on Teaching Quality in Colleges and Universities, as part of Chinas efforts to meet the global trend of improving the quality of talent.

The ministry said the standards are important to build a high-level system with Chinese characteristics.

The report involves 587 majors and over 56,000 colleges and universities.

The report was developed by the ministrys Teaching Advisory Board after a four-year study involving more than 5,000 experts and academicians from the Chinese Academy of Science and Chinese Academy of Engineering.

The ministry said that through the standards, China hopes to raise its universities to world-class levels.PUERTO CABELLO, Venezuela - The cab of Carlos Del Pino's big rig gave him a nerve-rattling front-row seat to a surge in mob attacks on Venezuela's neighborhood markets, cattle ranches and food delivery trucks like his.

Shortly after pulling away from the docks at Puerto Cabello, the country's biggest port, he witnessed 20 people swarm a truck ahead of him and in a frenzy fill up their sacks with the corn it was carrying to a food-processing plant. The driver was held at gunpoint.

"It fills you with terror," Del Pino said.

He has hauled cargo for 14 years, and on a good month earns the equivalent of about $100, enough to support his wife and two daughters. Yet, despite his fears, he sympathizes with his impoverished countrymen, who are becoming desperate.

"They have to loot to eat," he said.

Sporadic looting, food riots and protests driven by the hungry poor have surged in Venezuela, a country that's no stranger to unrest. But the uprisings playing out recently have a different face than the mostly middle-class protesters who took to the streets for months last year in political demonstrations trying to oust President Nicolas Maduro.

"These protests are coming from people of the lower classes who simply cannot get enough to eat," said David Smilde, a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America, who has spent decades researching Venezuela. "They want relief, not necessarily to force Maduro from power."

Venezuela holds the world's largest oil reserves, but after nearly two decades of socialist rule and mismanagement of the state-run oil company, it is being battered by the worst economic crisis in its history.

The surge in violent food protests began in poor neighborhoods across the country around Christmas, when Maduro had promised that holiday hams were coming in government food baskets distributed to his supporters.

But many didn't arrive, sparking protests with small groups burning garbage in the street and looting. Opposition pundits called it the "pork revolution." Trying to bring calm, Maduro ordered hundreds of supermarkets to slash prices to the previous month's level - a tall order in a country where prices have been doubling every few weeks.

Repeating a common refrain, the government blamed the absence of hams on sabotage by its foreign critics, in this case Portugal, which it said was taking orders from the U.S.

Cattle ranchers say at least two farms have been raided by people who slaughtered cows. A video on Twitter shows a dozen men in the state of Merida killing a cow with rocks and a machete, one shouting: "We are hungry."

In the first half of January, there were at least 110 incidents of looting, more than five times than in the same period a year earlier, says the Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict, a non-governmental group that tracks unrest.

When the mob recently waylaid the truck in front of him, Del Pino rolled up his cab windows and locked the doors in fear.

"Here the problem is just that - hunger. Hunger is killing people," Del Pino said.WASHINGTON  Capping a chaotic first year in office that has upended political norms and divided Americans even within his own party, President Trump at his first State of the Union on Tuesday night claimed credit for a booming economy, while calling for a huge new effort to rebuild the nations infrastructure and legalize young immigrants under a plan that has infuriated opponents and allies alike.

Trump promised that providing legal status for 1.8 million young immigrants  well over twice the number currently enrolled in a program protecting them  in exchange for a great wall on the nations southern border and limits on legal immigration would help all struggling communities, especially immigrant communities, by limiting wage pressure on workers.

Years of open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities, and forced millions of low-wage workers to compete for jobs and wages against the poorest Americans, he declared to the joint session of Congress.

As Democrats began to rustle in displeasure, Trump, in a powerful moment, pointed to two weeping couples in the gallery whose daughters had been murdered by six members of the savage MS-13 gang. Many such gang members, he said, had taken advantage of immigration rules to enter the country as illegal unaccompanied alien minors.

As president of the United States, Trump said, my highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, my constant concern is for Americas children, Americas struggling workers, and Americas forgotten communities.

Americans are dreamers too, he said, a pointed reference to young immigrants who arrived in the country illegally as children, dozens of whom were in the audience as guests of Democrats who sat stone-faced.

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., afterward accused Trump of fearmongering by linking gangs and immigration. While Trump called for restrictions on family visas, Democrats strongly oppose any limits.

During an address that lasted an hour and 20 minutes, Trump noted some big victories he has notched during his first year in office, starting with a $1.5 trillion tax cut that slashed taxes for corporations and wealthy individuals. He noted that the bill also doubled the standard deduction for everyone, while eliminating the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act, which he called the core of disastrous Obamacare.

The stock market took an inconvenient dive hours before his speech, but has soared since he took office, smashing, he said, one record after another, gaining $8 trillion.

Trump boasted that the nations unemployment rate is at a 17-year low, and expressed pride in an unemployment rate that, among African Americans, he said, has reached the lowest levels in history.

Taking a page from Democrats, he said Congress should increase government investment in job training, vocational schools and paid family leave.

Notorious for insulting opponents on Twitter, Trump said he was extending an open hand to work with members of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to protect our citizens, of every background, color and creed.

I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve, Trump said.

A record 14 members of Congress, all Democrats, boycotted the speech, including Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland, who said she could not in good faith attend an address by a president whom she believes has launched an all-out assault on our democracy.

Trump addressed a Republican-controlled Congress that has, with few exceptions, rallied around his presidency even at its rockiest moments. Campaigning as a populist, the president has governed by and large as a conservative Republican in line with the antiregulatory, low-tax orthodoxies of his party, even as he rattled some GOP-allied business groups such as the Business Roundtable and U.S. Chamber of Commerce who pushed back on his calls for tougher trade pacts and demanded immediate legalization of the young immigrants.

Yet the presidents unorthodox style and 39 percent approval rating, the lowest of any modern president at this point in his term, have helped create stiff political headwinds for GOP lawmakers going into this years mid-term elections. Still, Trump maintains a loyal following of supporters, and red-state Democratic senators facing re-election have tread lightly with him, while their partys base has lurched into full resistance.

During his address, Trump took credit for eliminating more regulations in our first year than any administration in the history of our country, and, in fact, has shocked environmental organizations by the aggressiveness of his administrations effort to dismantle protections for public lands, pollution controls, public safety and other regulations.

Trump said a big priority will be reducing the price of prescription drugs and called on Congress to allow patients access to experimental drugs. Prices will come down substantially, watch, Trump vowed. He promised to end unfair trade deals, saying the era of economic surrender is over.

Indeed, in asking Congress to approve a $1.5 trillion effort to rebuild the nations roads, bridges and other public infrastructure, Trump, a New York real estate developer, called for stripping down legal constraints on the permitting process. We built the Empire State Building in just one year, Trump said, calling it a disgrace that it can now take 10 years just to get a permit approved for a simple road.

Trump said where appropriate, the effort should include state participation and private-sector investment, leading to a charge by Democrats that Trump wants state and local governments and the private sector to put up the vast majority of the money.

He also claimed he had carried out his promise to extinguish the Islamic State terrorist group known as ISIS whose territorial gains in Iraq and Syria had plagued the Obama administration. Trump declared that the United States and its allies have freed very close to 100 percent of the territory that the group had held.

Trump announced that the prison at Guantanamo Bay would remain open and that he has eliminated artificial timelines in Afghanistan, saying, We no longer tell our enemies our plans, a swipe at the previous administrations announced efforts to withdraw from the nations longest war.

On North Korea, where his past saber-rattling has raised alarms of nuclear war, Trump said North Koreas reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland.

Complacency and concession only invite aggression and provocation, he said. He outlined no further strategy on how to deal with the regime other than vowing not to repeat the mistakes of prior administrations.

Trump faced a sea of Democrats in symbolic protest. Many brought young immigrants as guests. Some wore black  at the suggestion of Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough  to protest sexual harassment before a president who has faced dozens of charges of sexual misconduct.

First lady Melania Trump watched from the gallery, near her guests, including small-business entrepreneurs, MS-13 gang victims and an immigration agent who investigates gangs, and Santa Maria Forest Service technician David Dahlberg who helped rescue 62 children from a wildfire near Santa Barbara.

Rep. Joe Kennedy, D-Mass., the great-nephew of President John F. Kennedy, delivered the formal Democratic response, proclaiming the partys Better Deal agenda of a living wage, paid leave, child care, affordable education and a health care system that offers mercy.

Bullies may land a punch, Kennedy said, but they have never, not once in the history of our United States, managed to match the strength and spirit of a people united in defense of their future.

Carolyn Lochhead is The San Francisco Chronicles Washington correspondent. Email: clochhead@sfchronicle.comThe Democratic response to President Donald Trump's address will follow the State of the Union in the live stream above.

WATCH THE STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS LIVE HERE

A year into his presidency, President Donald Trump stands before the nation Tuesday night to account for his promise to "make America great again" amid talk of a rising threat of nuclear war and special counsel Robert Mueller's probe of Trump's 2016 campaign.

Addressing a deeply divided nation, Trump called upon lawmakers to "summon the unity" to make good on long-standing promises to fix the nation's crumbling infrastructure and fractured immigration systems, infusing his presidency with a sense of optimism, for at least one high-profile night.

"To every citizen watching at home tonight, no matter where you have been, or where you come from, this is your time," Trump declared in his State of the Union address. "If you work hard, if you believe in yourself, if you believe in America, then you can dream anything, you can be anything, and together, we can achieve anything."

Despite his calls for bipartisanship, Trump spoke with tensions running high on Capitol Hill. An impasse over immigration prompted a three-day government shutdown earlier this year, and lawmakers appear no closer to resolving the status of the "Dreamers"  young people living in the U.S. illegally ahead of a new Feb. 8 deadline for funding operations. The parties have also clashed this week over the plans of Republicans on the House intelligence committee to release a classified memo on the Russia investigation involving Trump's presidential campaign  a decision the White House backs but the Justice Department is fighting.

The controversies that have dogged Trump  and the ones he has created have overshadowed strong economic gains during his first year in office. His approval ratings have hovered in the 30s for much of his presidency, and just 3 in 10 Americans said the United States was heading in the right direction, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. In the same survey, 67 percent of Americans said the country was more divided because of Trump.

At times, Trump's address appeared to be aimed more at validating his first year in office than setting the course for his second. He devoted significant time to touting the tax overhaul he signed at the end of last year, promising the plan will "provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small businesses." He also highlighted the decision made early in his first year to withdraw the U.S. from a sweeping Asia-Pacific trade pact, declaring: "The era of economic surrender is totally over."

He spoke about potential agenda items for 2018 in broad terms, including a call for $1.5 trillion in new infrastructure spending and partnerships with states and the private sector. He touched only briefly on issues like health care that have been at the center of the Republican Party's policy agenda for years.

Tackling the sensitive immigration debate that has roiled Washington, Trump redoubled his recent pledge to offer a path to citizenship for 1.8 million young immigrants  as part of a package that would also require increased funding for border security, including a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, ending the nation's visa lottery method and revamping the current legal immigration system. Some Republicans are wary of the hardline elements of Trump's plan and it's unclear whether his blueprint could pass Congress.

Trump played to the culture wars, alluding to his public spat with professional athletes who led protests against racial injustice by kneeling during the national anthem, declaring that paying tribute to the flag is a "civic duty."

Republicans led multiple rounds of enthusiastic applause during the speech, but for the opposition party it was a more somber affair. Democrats provided a short spurt of polite applause for Trump as he entered the chamber, but offered muted reactions throughout the speech. A cluster of about two dozen Democrats, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus, remained planted firmly in their seats, staring sternly at the president and withholding applause.

After devastating defeats in 2016, Democrats are hopeful that Trump's sagging popularity can help the party rebound in November's midterm elections. In a post-speech rebuttal, Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy, the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, was seeking to undercut Trump's optimistic tone and remind voters of the personal insults and attacks often leveled by the president.

"Bullies may land a punch," Kennedy said, according to excerpts from his remarks. "They might leave a mark. But they have never, not once, in the history of our United States, managed to match the strength and spirit of a people united in defense of their future."

On international affairs, Trump warned of the dangers from "rogue regimes," like Iran and North Korea, terrorist groups, like the Islamic State, and "rivals" like China and Russia "that challenge our interests, our economy and our values." Calling on Congress to lift budgetary caps and boost spending on the military, Trump said that "unmatched power is the surest means of our defense."

The president also announced that he had signed an executive order directing the Department of Defense to keep open the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay. The order reverses the Obama-era policy of the executive branch, long stymied by Congress, to close the prison.

First lady Melania Trump, who has largely stayed out of the spotlight following the latest allegations of Trump infidelity, arrived at the capitol ahead of her husband to attend a reception with guests of the White House. Those sitting alongside the first lady included an Ohio welder who the White House says will benefit from the new tax law and the parents of two Long Island teenagers who were believed to have been killed by MS-13 gang members.U.S. President Donald Trump delivered his first State of the Union address on Tuesday. In it, according to a transcript released by the White House, Trump mentioned the word China a total of three times. On Americas strength abroad, he called China a rival and said that unmatched [hard] power is the surest means of security.

Around the world, we face rogue regimes, terrorist groups, and rivals like China and Russia that challenge our interests, our economy, and our values. In confronting these dangers, we know that weakness is the surest path to conflict, and unmatched power is the surest means of our defense, Trump said.

It should go without saying that further enhancing Americas military might is a recipe for disaster. A bigger, stronger military force does indeed increase Americas strength, but it also has the unintended consequence of heating up competition, because the best defense for other countries is to dramatically increase their military power in response to the military buildup.

In this new era, there is no need for competition to be the biggest and strongest actor on the world stage. The United States should abandon its zero-sum mentality and use its great strength to help foster an international environment that encourages dialogue rather than confrontation and partnerships rather than alliances.

Rather than promote malicious rivalry, the United States should join hands with China in building a new model of major-country relations, featuring non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation.

Trump paid a successful state visit to China last year, strengthening the relationship between the two countries. Although the United States and China do not see eye to eye about everything, the common interests far outweigh the differences. If Trump Administration really wants to restore Americas strength and standing abroad, then Washington should join efforts with the global community to build a world of lasting peace and common security together.WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said in his first State of the Union address on Tuesday that he had signed an order to reexamine the U.S. military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

"In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds of dangerous terrorists, only to meet them again on the battlefield -- including the ISIS leader, al-Baghdadi," Trump said. "So today, I am keeping another promise."

"When possible, we annihilate them. When necessary, we must be able to detain and question them. But we must be clear: Terrorists are not merely criminals. They are unlawful enemy combatants. And when captured overseas, they should be treated like the terrorists they are," he said.

Hundreds of detainees were transferred to sites in the United Statesor sent to their home countries under President Barack Obama, who failed to close the prison center.

Critics accused the center of having been plagued by crimes of torture.Trump demands U.S. foreign assistance money "only go to friends of America"

WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump asked Congress to pass a legislation to "help ensure American foreign-assistance dollars always serve American interests, and only go to friends of America" in his first State of the Union address Tuesday.

Citing the vote of UN General Assembly against his highly controversial Jerusalem decision, Trump noted "American taxpayers generously send those same countries billions of dollars in aid every year."

On Dec. 21, 2017, the UN General Assembly voted 128-9 with 35 abstentions to refute U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, revealing the isolation of Washington on the issue.

The vote came on the heels of Trump's announcement on Dec. 6 that he decided to recognize Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel, and to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

In his speech, Trump also lashed out at Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, which he termed as "adversaries."

The president not only urged the Congress to address the "fundamental flaws" in the Iran nuclear deal, but also defended his so-called "maximum pressure" campaign against Pyongyang's nuclear development project in the speech.[File photo]

Following the successful operation of Chinas first high-throughput communication satellite the Shijian-13 in January, there are now over 170 Chinese satellites working in outer space, a number that marks the countrys progress towards becoming a space superpower.

Serving as Chinas space debut in 2018, the high-orbit satellite has finished a two-way high-speed laser communication test between the satellite and the ground station, the first of its kind in the world. The satellite is also able to provide 26 user beams covering Chinas remote areas, which provides services for long-distance learning, medicine, and emergency communications.

Weve been conducting research on the new generation of the Shijian satellite. We want to build a high-throughput satellite with a capacity of 500G, helping China to achieve its national strategy to build a broadband country, Li Feng, chief designer of Shijian-13, told Peoples Daily.

China has been making great efforts to become a space superpower. During the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, space experts noted that the country will become a world space power by 2045 in an all-round way, catching up with the US in some key aerospace projects, a claim that echoes the strategic goal on aerospace capabilities put forward by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The country has also made great achievements in space technologies in recent years. In 2016, the worlds first quantum satellite, nicknamed Micius after an ancient Chinese scientist, lifted off from a Long March 2-D rocket to establish hack-proof quantum communications by transmitting uncrackable keys from space to the ground.More Cambodians are celebrating the Chinese New Year: Prime Minister

Hun Sen on the Great Wall (File photo)

On Tuesday, Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen said on his Facebook page that the number of people celebrating Chinese Lunar New Year in Cambodia is increasing.

Cambodians now celebrate three New Year celebrations annually, including New Years Eve, Chinese Lunar New Year, and Cambodian New Year, the Prime Minister said.

Hun Sen said the fact that more and more people are celebrating the Chinese New Year is a gift of peace in Cambodia, which gives people the freedom to choose the celebration of festivals according to their traditions.

The Prime Minister also posted a 27-year-old picture of himself and his spouse on the Great Wall in Beijing.Kalifornia Open Warfare on Business

The People's Republic of Kalifornia is a prime example of centralized technocratic planning under the protection of a monolithic legislature that is entirely rooted in a Marxist "global warming" climate of totalitarian collectivism. Business in this cage of redistribution exists to support the extortion demands of the Sacramento commissars. Decades of reporting definitively conclude that the Golden State has depleted their wealth creation resources because of persistent disincentives and outright penalties for conducting legitimate business. The citadel of punitive regulations has been claimed by California, the undisputed champion of anti-capitalism.

Roger Niello reports in The Sacramento Bee, Need to improve Californias business climate? Good luck with this Legislature. "Ask any business to rank the challenges of doing business in California and most will tell you that high taxes are a problem but our regulatory burden is the worst. You will not hear that we should have no regulations, but in California we carry the excessive burden on business to an art form."

The inevitable consequences from this unfriendly business posture is outlined in the article, Misguided State Policies Lead To More Companies Leaving California. "From 2007 through 2015, as many as 9,000 companies have left California, according to Joe Vranich, president of Spectrum Location Solutions in Irvine. And no one should wonder why. Just by simply putting California behind them, these companies are saving 20 percent to 35 percent a year in operating costs, Vranich says."

Next hear the struggle from the agricultural perspective, Kawamura, Cameron: Regulations threaten California agriculture's sustainability.

A.G. Kawamura shares his experience:

"While California has a California Agricultural Vision document to set a purpose, vision and goals for the state's multi-billion farming industry it might be a moot point, according to Kawamura.

Its as if agriculture is unwanted in this state by the current administration and even more by this legislature, the former Ag Secretary says."

Don Cameron chimes in:

"Restrictive regulations and dozens of different agencies affecting his cropping decisions continue to make him less of a farmer and more of a water manager, human resources expert, and record keeper - a few of his daily tasks.

We know were going to have more regulations as we go forward; thats a given, Cameron says. We know that the California Legislature will pretty much tell us what to farm and how to farm it.

NFIB/CA opposes doubling down on bad environmental policies with AB 398 and AB 617, Cap and Trade Lite, NFIB California State Executive Director Tom Scott issued the following statement on behalf of our 22,000 dues-paying small business members:

If enacted, AB 398 and AB 617 would put us on track for one of the most regressive and expensive legislative sessions for small businesses and all taxpayers. California has been experimenting with Cap and Trade policies for a decade, and now we have the opportunity to step back and ask if we should be standing alone in the nation on aggressive environmental policy when jobs are moving to neighboring states with much more relaxed laws. We cannot attack our business climate in exchange for little to zero net benefit to our environmental climate."

Some believe Cap and Trade only impacts big businesses that buy and sell carbon credits, but the truth is that small businesses and consumers all pay the ultimate price of higher energy costs to produce and deliver goods. We should be doing everything in our power to lower the cost of doing business and the cost of living in this state, but AB 398 and AB 617 double down on bad environmental policy and make us even less competitive for good-paying jobs."

This political hostility, especially towards small businesses has a long history of destructive government policies and is presented in a study issued by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC); California's Anti-Business Policies Impoverishes The 75%

"The resolve to turn California against business started with Governor Jerry Brown in 1974. Brown saw governments job as restraining growth, limiting development, and expanding environmental regulations. In 1977, Time Magazine declared the California of the 60s, a mystical land of abundance and affluence, vanished sometime in the 70s. Fifteen years later Gray Davis, Browns chief of staff during the 1970s, became Governor in 1999. Davis signed 33 bills that the states Chamber of Commerce called job killers. Perhaps the most devastating was a restructure of workers compensation, which drove an increase in payments per worker from $2.30 per $100 of payroll to $6.44; tripling the annual employment costs to business from $9 billion to $25 billion. Three years later, voters recalled Davis and elected Arnold Schwarzenegger. Unfortunately, in 2006 the Governator signed the Global Warming Solutions Act that critics mourn will raise electricity rates in California by another 20%."

CalChamber Releases List of New Employment Laws Affecting Businesses in 2018 illustrates some of the new mandates that will take an ever greater toll on businesses. Add to this list, 2018s new laws: California businesses brace for changes that expand a slew of new laws that address unpaid parental leave, new hiring restrictions and other workplace issues that will have an impact on California businesses in the coming year.

The pattern of placing roadblocks in the way of entrepreneurship is the legacy of the California bureaucratic culture. Each year it just gets worse. California's budget deficit is back, Gov. Jerry Brown says, "the state is projected to run a $1.6-billion deficit by next summer." In a desperate attempt to sidestep a key provision of GOP tax overhaul, "California state Senate leader Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) has introduced a bill that would give residents a dollar-for-dollar charitable tax credit for state income tax payments into a new California Excellence Fund."

Such gimmicks are not a sound foundation for a fiscally responsible administration. Business confidence will continue to erode further when big government spenders refuse to reduce state budgets. California is in a death spiral of their own making. Only a business friendly government can change this tragedy.

James Hall

Source: http://batr.org/merchantry/013118.html

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Photo: Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying answered questions from the media at a regular press conference on Jan. 30.

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying Hua showed her wit again at the Tuesday press conference when responding to the false report of an association of foreign journalists in Beijing.

Rather than give a direct response, she threw questions back after a foreign journalist asked for Huas comment on the accusations in the annual report issued by The Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC), which claimed not-so-favorable working conditions for foreign journalists in China, including denied and restricted access and pressure from the visa renewal process.

Before Hua called the accusations unreasonable, she first asked the foreign journalists in the room if they are members of the so-called organization and whether or not they approved of the reports content.

She then asked them how they feel about the working conditions in China, and whether they know that the Ministrys Information Department provided all the necessary convenience and assistance for them.

During Huas reply, no foreign journalist at the press conference raised his or her hand in approval of the FCCCs report; in fact, all the media remained silent.

In December, the FCCC surveyed correspondent members about their experiences during the calendar year of 2017 and reported that journalism in China has grown more difficult. The FCCC keeps the routine of issuing an annual report of working conditions for foreign reporters, while most of the reports criticize China for obstructing reporters coverage.

FCCC members in no way reflect the genuine opinion of the almost 600 foreign journalists in China, said Hua, adding that China will continue to assist and facilitate the work of foreign journalists as always.When the Catalan government declared a republic, the Spanish regime answered by sacking it, dismissing the Catalan Parliament and calling fresh elections on 21 December. That election was another defeat for the Spanish regime as it delivered, again, a pro-independence majority. Unable and unwilling to respect the democratic will of the Catalan people, the Spanish regime is now using all means at its disposal to prevent Carles Puigdemont from being elected as Catalan president. In the process it is revealing the profoundly undemocratic nature of the regime that was established in 1978.

The behaviour of the Spanish government is reaching farcical levels. Puigdemont was legally elected as a member of Catalan parliament. He has been charged with rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds for his part in the 1 October Catalan independence referendum and the 27 October declaration of the Catalan Republic.

Carles Puigdemont, currently in exile in Brussels / Image: Flickr, Salvador Garcia Bardon

Quite apart from the fact that rebellion and sedition are in the Spanish penal code as relics of the old Franco-era penal code, there are no real legal grounds for either charge. Lets take rebellion. The Spanish penal code is clear in that rebellion means a violent and public rising [my emphasis]. The High Court Judge Llarena, in charge of the case, has admitted that the Catalan government did not call for violence nor organise it. In fact, the only violence on 1 October took place when the Spanish state sent thousands of police officers to Catalonia to crack the heads of those at the polling stations, leaving 1,000 people injured and costing one person an eye due to the impact of a rubber bullet.

To get around this small detail, Judge Llarena has built a convoluted argument that goes like this: the Catalan government in calling a referendum on self-determination must have known that the Spanish state which has the monopoly on violence would use it to prevent the referendum from going ahead, therefore the Catalan government is responsible for violence carried out by the Spanish state. Yes. Read this paragraph again. It is Kafkian. Still, this is the official line of reasoning used to keep two members of the Catalan government in custody, without bail.

The leaders of the two main pro-independence mass organisations (Jordi Sanchez from the Catalan National Assembly and Jordi Cuixart from the Omnium) are also being kept in custody, without bail, pending trial for sedition. Charges against them are equally baseless. During a mass demonstration on 20 September against a police search of the Catalan Economy Department in Barcelona, the two Jordis argued with the crowd, which had been peaceful at all times, to go back home and allow the police to leave the building. They are charged with sedition, which is described in the Spanish penal code as publicly and tumultuously to prevent, by force or outside of the legal channels, the application of the law [my emphasis]. There was clearly no force used on that day (or any other day for that matter) and certainly the two Jordis rather than encouraging the crowd to prevent the action of the agents of authority, were strenuously arguing for them to go back home to allow the police to leave the premises. These details do not bother the Spanish regime, which is using the judiciary in a politically motivated, vengeful campaign against those who have dared to defy the Spanish 1978 Constitution, which denies the democratic right of self-determination.

Jordi Sanchez & Jordi Cuixart - in custody without bail / Image: public domain

The Spanish High Court initially issued a euro-arrest warrant against five members of the Catalan government, which moved to Belgium after the 27 October declaration of the Republic, including President Puigdemont. Then it realised that the Belgian justice was probably not going to accept the request for the charge of rebellion but only for the lesser charges. So the euro-arrest warrant was withdrawn. The Spanish justice system is therefore not attempting to arrest Puigdemont in Brussels, nor in Denmark where he went to deliver a lecture, but the minute he sets foot on Spanish soil he will be arrested and probably remanded in custody without bail.

This obviously poses a problem as the speaker of the Catalan parliament, Roger Torrent, after consultations with all political parties, determined that Puigdemont is the only candidate to command a majority and asked for him to be voted as president at a session of the Catalan Parliament which was to take place on 30 January.

The Spanish regime was afraid Puigdemont would try to sneak in and attend the session, which was scheduled to take place on 30 January. So it reinforced security at the border, setting up search and control checkpoints, checking private airfields and even sending a specialised unit of the police to search the sewers of the Catalan Parliament building!

The Spanish government panicked. That is the last thing it wants. It cannot allow this to happen. It then decided to ask the Constitutional Tribunal to pre-emptively suspend that session of the Catalan Parliament. This is the stuff of Minority Report, where people are arrested for crimes they have not yet committed! Even the Council of State issued a legal opinion telling the government that there were no grounds to request the suspension of the session.

Rajoy went ahead anyway and subjected the Constitutional Court judges to enormous pressure to rule in his favour. Reasons of state demand it, he said, there would be dramatic consequences if the session was allowed to go ahead. Never mind the fact that the president of the government is not supposed to exercise pressure on the Constitutional Court judges!

Finally, the Spanish Constitutional Tribunal ruled that the session could go aheadbut only on their terms: Puigdemont cannot participate in the session of Catalan parliament, which has to elect him as a president via a teleconference from Brussels. Furthermore he cannot not attend the session in person either, unless he presents himself in front of the judge first. This is a Catch-22 situation. If he stayed in Brussels he would not have been able to participate in the session. If he returned to Spain to take part in it he would be arrestedand prevented from taking part.

In ruling on the conditions of the session of Catalan parliament, the Constitutional Tribunal was overstepping its remit, as no-one has asked it to rule on that question, just on whether the session should be preventatively suspended or not. The problem was that the CT knew full well it could not agree with the government request, as there were no grounds for it. A session of parliament that has not yet taken place cannot be suspended on the basis that a violation of the constitution might take place. So, instead, it made a ruling on a separate matter which it had not been asked to rule on. The Spanish regime is stretching and bending its own rules and regulations to the point of rupture.

Rajoys PP came last in the Catalan election, yet abrogates the right to decide who can be president / Image: Flickr, EPP

The aim of the Spanish government is clear and publicly expressed: they will not allow Puigdemont to be sworn in as Catalan president. According to Spanish law, since he has not yet been tried, he is presumed innocent and he retains his full political rights, increased by the fact that he is now an elected member of parliament. None of this matters. The Spanish regime will not allow a democratically elected representative who has a majority of votes in the Catalan chamber to be elected as Catalan president. They have made it clear that if by any chance Puigdemont was to be elected, they would not recognise the decision and keep article 155, direct rule in Catalonia.

The situation is made even more scandalous by the fact that the ruling party in Spain, Rajoys PP, came last in the Catalan election and does not even have enough deputies to form its own group in the Catalan chamber. Yet, it abrogates the right to decide who can be the Catalan president.

Scandalously, the main leaders of Podemos & United Left asked Puigdemont to withdraw his candidacy / Image: public domain

This is extremely serious, as these methods that are used against the Catalan republican movement will set a precedent and be used tomorrow against anyone challenging any of the tenets of the Spanish regime. The deafening silence of the Spanish left on this question is staggering. In fact, the main leaders of Podemos and United Left have made statements asking Puigdemont to withdraw his candidacy. Instead of exposing the scandal of the Spanish regime interference with the democratic rights of the Catalan Parliament, they blame the victim!

One does not have to support Puigdemont becoming a president, and he has not yet explained the program of his government, but any consistent democrat is duty-bound to support his right to be considered as a candidate.

Catalan Parliament session suspended

Finally, Roger Torrent, conscious of the fact that if he defied the ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal and went ahead with the session to elect Puigdemont as president he would probably be immediately charged, arrested and remanded in custody without bail, decided to suspend the session on the day it was supposed to take place. The day before, a spokesperson for the ruling Popular Party had threatened Torrent in no uncertain terms: he has two kids, he should know what he exposes himself to. Do as we tell you or you will end up in jail. The threat is very real as four people are already in jail without bail.

The decision by Torrent also reveals a deep rift amongst the two main independence parties. On the one hand Puigdemont needs to be appointed as president at all costs, otherwise he will become an irrelevant figure in Brussels, prevented from ever coming back home. The main leaders of ERC (to which Torrent belongs) have already intimated that the way forward is not to defy Spanish law but rather work within it. This is a de facto surrender of any struggle for a Catalan Republic, as the Spanish regime will never allow a referendum to take place. Furthermore, what Puigdemont was asking Torrent to do, to go ahead with the session and somehow make him a Catalan president defying the ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal, would have led immediately to his arrest and jailing, while Puigdemont remains free in Brussels.

The main leaders of both ERC and Puigdemonts own party PDeCAT would rather have someone else from the pro-independence majority become Catalan president, but that is not something Puigdemont will accept.

While the leaders of ERC and PDeCAT descended into mutual recriminations, thousands of people gathered outside the parliament perimeter to support the voting in of Puigdemont as president, called by the ANC and the Committees for the Defence of the Referendum (CDR). Angry at the decision taken they broke through police lines and went right to the doors of the building.

URGENT: des dizaines de manifest parviennent a entrer ds le parc du Parlement. Les mossos essaient de les repousser

//

URGENTE: decenas de manifesstantes independentistas consiguen entrar en el Parc de la Ciutadella. Los Mossos no consiguen retenerles pic.twitter.com/OS4AI9Rm7K  Elise Gazengel (@EliseGaz) January 30, 2018

Again, the ANC played a role in de-mobilising by calling people to go home rather than stay and keep the pressure. It was down to the CDR activists present to organise an impromptu assembly, which decided to stay and camp outside the building. Only after several brutal police charges by the Catalan Mossos police were protesters finally removed, by midnight (see below).

Imatges de les dures carregues dels Mossos aquesta tarda a les portes del Parc de la Ciutadella #ElPoderDelPoble #Parlament #perlarepublica pic.twitter.com/XKsd8Td4Zm  Jordi Salvia ? (@jordisalvia) January 30, 2018

A new strategy required

What these events reveal, once again, is the fundamentally anti-democratic nature of the Spanish regime. This confirms what we have said all along: the only way to achieve the right of self-determination is by revolutionary means. The current leaders of the main pro-independence parties (ERC, PDeCAT and Puigdemonts list JxCAT) are not prepared to go down that road.

Carles Riera (CUP) / Image: own work

In a very angry intervention on Catalunya Radio this morning, Carles Riera, the head of the CUP parliamentary group, did not mince his words: what happened yesterday was a piss-take. Its the third time and it will be the last one: on 10 October with the suspended declaration of independence, on 27 October when the government ran away and then yesterday. Yesterday the Catalan Parliament was not strengthened, because the rhythm of events was marked by the Constitutional Tribunal and Catalan parliament abided by its ruling.

He is absolutely correct. Now all the conclusions must be drawn from this. A new strategy is required, one that is based on mass mobilisation, that relies on the Committees for the Defence of the Republic, and that links the struggle for independence to the struggle to end capitalist austerity.Chinas prestigious Tsinghua University has come under fire recently after it released a set of admissions requirements for foreign applicants, with many Chinese netizens criticizing the school for offering preferential admissions, Southern Metropolis Daily reported on Jan. 31.

According to the universitys 2018 requirements for international bachelors degree applicants, foreign citizens may apply if they have a high-school diploma and are proficient in Chinese.

Some critics argue the new rules have made it much easier for foreigners to get into Tsinghua University, especially those who are originally Chinese. However, education experts say they do not lower standards for international applicants.

According to the new rules, applicants must pass two hurdles before receiving an admission offer from Tsinghua University: the online application and a comprehensive evaluation that is used by domestic universities to examine overseas applicants.

For those who have given up their original Chinese citizenship and have become foreign citizens, they should have lived overseas for at least two years during the last four years before April 30 in the year they are admitted by the university.

Peking University, Renmin University, Xiamen University, and other prestigious universities have also adopted the online application and comprehensive evaluation mechanism to examine undergraduate applicants.

Tsinghua says that the number of domestic students wont be affected by international student recruitment.

Xiong Bingqi, an education expert, says the threshold has not been lowered for international students, and the online application and comprehensive evaluation mechanism eliminate some of the candidates, as the school only chooses the best.

Some experts suggest that more attention should be paid to how to strengthen the schools ability to attract more exemplary overseas talents from across the world.

According to the countrys plan to internationalize its education, by 2020, some 500,000 foreign students will be admitted by all levels of schools, and a yearly growth rate of 6.94 percent in the number of foreign students will be achieved.SPRINGFIELD - The Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield announces its Annual Catholic Appeal most years at a community-based organization it helps fund through the appeal, and this year was no different.

Bishop Mitchell Rozanski made the announcement of the 2018 appeal and its target of $2.7 million at Gray House, the social and educational center in the city's North End that provides the neighborhood with an after-school program for kids, education classes for adult learners and a food pantry on Thursdays.

However, an historical narrative was added Tuesday by the presence of two of the five Sisters of St. Joseph of Springfield who opened the center 38 years ago. Their witness as women religious at a center that has relied greatly on lay volunteers highlighted its legacy of people gifting both time and money.

Sisters Jane Morrissey and Catherine Homrok continue to live in the restored Victorian house on Sheldon Street, and the ministry they helped established there continues to serve needy adults and children under the guidance of its newest lay director - Teresa Spaziani.

"When I look over this neighborhood from my room upstairs, I think, 'What a wonder it is. I moved here 40 years ago onto this street. I have been able to be familiar with this neighborhood and the Church in this neighborhood.' It has indeed shaped my understanding of what the Church is in the modern world - alive and well," said Morrissey, pausing to thank Rozanski for Gray House's allocation of $22,000 from the 2017 appeal.

Morrissey said that the neighborhood was designated as the poorest in the state about 20 years by the Boston Globe, something she said the Sisters at Gray House had not realized in moving there and following Vatican II's directive for those in religious vocations to minister more out in communities.

"We want to go to God with all our joys and sorrows, and I have seen the people in this neighborhood with their joys, and sorrows which have become my joys and sorrows, too. We have gotten to know one another whether it is in good times or bad and so many friends from churches in this diocese have come to help us here too," said Morrissey, who speaks fluent Spanish, and spent time doing ministry in Central and South America.

"So, we have gotten to know who the Church is through their eyes. We have seen their hands in actions stocking the shelves of the food pantry, or giving the food to the poor or helping with the kids in the summer program. Our community of Sisters of St. Joseph has really reached out to others no matter where they may be and all these wonderful laypeople, whatever their age, and their friends, whatever their faith, have come here."

Homrok called Morrissey the "visionary" for seeing the possibility, back in 1976, of a neighborhood center in the derelict house adjacent to their now razed apartment building on Sheldon Street.

"I remember her saying we could use it for the neighborhood and we thought about it - there were like 5 or 6 of us living in a little apartment across the way - and we got it when there was an auction, and people started to contributing for it. They saw the possibility that we could turn it into something very useful," said Homrok who recently retired as diocesan director of pastoral ministries.

"We continue to live here and see how it continues to develop. We participate now mainly as members of the board. It has been wonderful to come home from work and see the kids in the after-school program. People trust the Gray House. It is a wonderful place. We have started this and we have given it over, but we are thrilled that it is flourishing. It is carrying on the ministry of the SSJs."

The ongoing involvement of the laity was echoed by Spaziani who said the support of the Annual Catholic Appeal from the diocese and the many parishioners who donate was "greatly appreciated," as well as what many parishioners do in addition to the appeal.

"Thousands of people come through our doors from all walks of life and are at risk for or are living in poverty, and the services we provide are all thanks to support of the diocese," Spaziana said.

"We from the Gray House receive so much individual support from the parishes. Many of them will reach out to us around the holidays in terms of purchasing gifts for the children in our community. This past year we were able to give gifts to 640 children. People also collect food and participate as volunteers. They are very generous throughout the year."

Rozanski added that the work being done at Gray House is "repeated in many corners of the diocesan community," and cited Take and Eat, a non-profit that provides hot meals on weekends and three-day holidays to the home-bound elderly.

The organization received $24,000 in funding from the 2017 appeal to help provide meals for such isolated elderly who rely on the Meals on Wheel's program Monday through Friday, but are at risk for food insecurity on the weekends.

"Many of our parishes participate in the Take and Eat program sharing food that is donated (to prepare the free meals). They provide the kitchen services and the people generously use their own cars to deliver these meals to the homebound," said Rozanski during the press conference in which a list of allocations from the 2017 appeal was provided.

While the diocese provides funds to two dozen community-based organizations, the bulk of the money raised by the annual appeal from parishioners' cash donations and pledges funds diocesan ministries and their administration.

The largest allocation from the 2017 appeal is $679,400 to support the diocese's 12 elementary schools and two high schools, in addition to $157,900 to the diocesan schools office, followed by $370,750 to Catholic Latino ministries and $219,500 to Catholic Communications.

"For more than half a century, each year the Catholic community comes together to help those in our community who are most in need, we do so not just through diocesan services and ministries but also through the partnership with community-based agencies," Rozanski said.

"Last year, we were successful in raising more than $2.7 million which is now being put to good use. I sincerely hope to achieve that goal for this year. I respectively ask in all our communities to help in this important effort."

The appeal officially begins Feb. 14, Ash Wednesday, in the diocese's 87 parishes.SPRINGFIELD -- A seasoned prosecutor with the Hampden district attorney's office says he was unaware a spa leasing space in a building he owns was an alleged hub of prostitution, money laundering and sex trafficking -- and that he will work to evict the tenant.

Assistant Hampden District Attorney Henry L. Rigali on Tuesday said he has owned 78 Maple St. as a real estate investment for 25 years, after The Republican reviewed public records associated with the property.

The converted home was one of two sites raided by state police on Jan. 23 and identified by investigators as sex shops that exploited Asian women.

Rigali said he was unaware of any alleged illicit business practices at his property. There is no indication he had any role in the alleged schemes, based on discussions in open court since the defendants' arrests.

"I have zero tolerance for the activities that are alleged here. I am more than happy to cooperate with the state police and attorney general's office," Rigali said Tuesday evening.

"Eviction proceedings will begin immediately or as soon as the law allows," Rigali said of his tenant of about two years, The Day Spa, raided along with another business on Belmont Avenue.

Liu Yang, 61, of Springfield, and Steven C. Forsley, 65, of Bernardston, each pleaded not guilty in Springfield District Court on Jan. 24 to five charges including trafficking of persons for sexual servitude, deriving support from prostitution and money laundering.

Assistant Attorney General Amy Karangekis told a judge the "spas" raked in about $100,000 from an all-male clientele over the six months they were under investigation. In addition to massages, they sold sex acts, Karangekis said.

In 2016, Hampden County District Attorney Anthony Gulluni, then-U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz and Attorney General Maura Healey's office announced a state, local and federal task force to crack down on human trafficking.

Rigali has been among Gulluni's top prosecutors since 2015. Rigali was a defense lawyer in private practice before that, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Springfield office prior to that, and an assistant prosecutor under late Hampden District Attorney Matthew "Matty" Ryan for a decade before that.

James Leydon, spokesman for Gulluni's office, said no disciplinary action has been taken regarding Rigali's ownership of the building but declined further comment, citing the pending criminal investigation.

A spokeswoman for state Attorney General Maura Healey's office, which conducted the investigation, declined any comment.

Yang is the owner of both spas, and routinely transported Asian women from Flushing, New York, to Springfield to work in her businesses, Karangekis said.

Rigali does not own the second property, the Health and Relaxation Spa at 803 Belmont Ave. Women often slept at that spa and rarely were seen unaccompanied by Yang, according to investigators.

"I'm glad the police caught them. This is totally, totally inappropriate," Rigali said.

Rigali's Maple Street building has other tenants including one man who bills himself as a "world traveler," according to a placard on the exterior.

Asked when he knew anything was amiss at the business, Rigali declined comment.

"I have to respect another agency's investigatory process," he said.

Yang and Forsley have been released on bail and are due back in court for pretrial hearings on Feb. 23.Three out of every 1,000 babies born in 15 states, including Massachusetts, in 2016 had a birth defect possibly linked to the Zika virus infection in the mother, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The virus is spread by infected mosquitoes as well as through unprotected sex.

The report, "Population-Based Surveillance of Birth Defects Potentially Related to Zika Virus Infection -- 15 States and U.S. Territories, 2016," also said that areas with local transmission of Zika - southern Florida, a portion of south Texas, and Puerto Rico - saw a 21 percent increase in births with outcomes most strongly linked to Zika virus in the last half of 2016 compared with births in the first half of that year.

According to a CDC statement released Jan. 25, the report reviewed nearly one million births in the 15 states and territories in 2016, including Florida (select southern counties), Georgia (select metro-Atlanta counties), Hawaii, Iowa, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York (excluding New York City), North Carolina (select regions), Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas (select regions), Utah, and Vermont.

Zika virus can be transmitted through the placenta leading to complications of pregnancy and birth defects.

A total of of 2,962 infants and fetuses met the criteria for having birth defects potentially related to Zika virus infection. They were summarized as follows:





CDC researchers are said to anticipate that there could be another increase in possible Zika-related birth defects when 2017 data are analyzed because many pregnant women exposed to Zika virus in late 2016 gave birth in 2017.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has issued clinical guidance and testing recommendations for infants born to mothers with possible Zika virus exposure and infants with congenital Zika virus syndrome.

According to the department, data from the U.S. and its territories indicates that five to six percent of pregnancies associated with maternal Zika virus infection result in a possible Zika related birth defect.

Massachusetts had about 100 confirmed cases of travel exposure to Zika between January 2016 and June 2017, with the highest number of cases - about 28 - in the month of June 2016, according to state health department.

The CDC release said the current report underscores the "importance of surveillance for birth defects potentially related to Zika virus infection and the need for continued monitoring in areas at risk for Zika."

According to the CDC, the number of pregnant women with any laboratory evidence of possible Zika virus infection, between 2015 and 2018, in the United States and District of Columbia is 2,395, though many pregnant women with possible exposure were likely never tested.

According to the World Health Organization, the rise in the spread of Zika virus has been accompanied by a rise in cases of microcephaly - a condition where a baby is born with an unusually small head - and Guillain-Barre syndrome. In this syndrome, a person's immune system attacks the peripheral nerves.

An outbreak of the virus in Brazil in 2014 quickly spread.FALMOUTH -- Following an investigation, the U.S. Coast Guard has identified the vessel responsible for a Jan. 21 Cape Cod oil spill that killed 29 seabirds.

The Ocean King, a tugboat owned by the Boston-based Patriot Marine, was deemed the responsible party for the incident that left a large petroleum sheen in Great Harbor near the Woods Hole Aquarium, officials said Tuesday.



Patriot Marine was ordered to pay the cost of the cleanup and response, and may be responsible for additional penalties. At a Jan. 25 community forum, members of the public suggested the Ocean King was behind the spill, according to the Falmouth Enterprise.

The spill, determined to be equal parts diesel and engine oil, was contained with booms and absorbent materials. The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection responded to the scene.

The marine assistance provider Sea Tow, hired for the cleanup, will be paid from the federal Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which is funded by a tax on crude oil imports, according to the Martha's Vineyard Times. The money will be recouped from Patriot Marine.

The Ocean King, with its home port of Boston, is a 95-foot tugboat built in 1950, and was not towing anything around the time of the spill, reports the Cape Cod Times.

Officials said they did not believe the spill would cause long-term damage.An executive editor for a group of Western Massachusetts publications that includes the Daily Hampshire Gazette was fired this week as discussions are ongoing about gender pay disparity in their newsrooms.

In a letter sent to staff on Wednesday, Jeffrey Good addressed the matter. "Publisher Mike Rifanburg informed me this week that I am being fired," the letter began. "The reason: I advocated for transparency and fair pay for our female colleagues at the Daily Hampshire Gazette and its sister publications."

Rifanburg, in a statement shared with MassLive, disagreed with Good's statements, calling them "negative characterizations."

In conversations, Good said Rifanburg referred to the female staff members - reporters Lisa Spear and Emily Cutts and photojournalist Sarah Crosby - as "girls" and "selfish young ladies."

Good joined Newspapers of New England - the parent company of the Daily Hampshire Gazette, Greenfield Recorder, Amherst Bulletin and the Valley Advocate - in 2000. He was promoted to executive editor of the company's Pioneer Valley newspaper group in 2014.

In an interview with MassLive on Wednesday, Good said pay disparity has been an ongoing issue in the newsrooms after pay raises were requested by several female reporters during their annual reviews during the fall of 2017. He named the three reporters who brought the issue to his attention in the all-staff letter.

The reporters, Good said, had joined the company at lower starting salaries than some of the company's more recent hires and sought raises to match the salaries of newer, male reporters.

While the company offers annual 2 percent raises, Good said, "Two percent doesn't amount to much when you're starting at $30,000 or in the low 30s."

Both in his letter to staff and while speaking to MassLive, Good held himself accountable, saying it was overlooked while he was managing several dozen employees.

Good said he brought the requests to Rifanburg, who initially was open to the raises, but became "resistant" as more staffers came forward to request raises.

Rifanburg disputed Good's timeline, saying Newspapers of New England has been "actively engaged at the Gazette and Recorder in reviewing pay" since 2016, prior to Good's involvement.

He stated, "We started this review, not Mr. Good."

Rifanburg was named publisher in May of 2016, replacing Dennis Skoglund, who worked for the family-owned company for more than 25 years.

The letter, which states the disparaging names the female members of the newsroom were allegedly called, was sent to staff Wednesday morning.

Rifanburg said Wednesday that the three reporters mentioned by name in Good's letter have been "very helpful" in addressing pay concerns, adding that the company appreciates them.

The three female employees released a joint statement on the matter. "Our job as journalists is to ask tough questions and to tell the truth. That charge does not stop when we walk through the doors of our own newsroom. Pay parity is a complicated and important issue and we look forward to continuing the conversation."

Good said his firing was a shock, adding that "there was absolutely no warning." He also said he will look back on his time with Newspapers of New England with pride despite the abrupt exit.

"I walk out of here with my head held high, proud of the work that we've done together over the years," Good ends the letter. "I won't yield to bullying, and I know you will not, either. Every day, you make me proud."

Publisher Mike Rifanburg statement about letter by mnwillia on ScribdUPDATE, Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018, 10:37 p.m.: Holyoke residents, leaders, activists buoyed by listening session with governor's Latino Advisory Commission; press barred from attending

HOLYOKE -- The Latino Advisory Commission formed last year by Gov. Charlie Baker barred members of the press from its listening session Tuesday night at Holyoke Community Charter School.

The listening session, one of six scheduled across the state, began at 6 p.m. Members of the public can attend the sessions to discuss their concerns about issues facing the Latino community.

A sign on the front door of the school reads, "To promote authentic sharing all of the Governor's Latino Advisory Commission statewide listening sessions are CLOSED TO THE PRESS."

Anthony W. Richards, II, director of community affairs for the state, would not comment on the commission's decision, but informed a reporter from The Republican and a reporter from a Chicopee television station they would not be able to attend the session.

The session was listed publicly on Holyoke's city website. It was also included in an email sent to the press last week from the state Executive Office of Housing & Economic Development listing the following week's events.HADLEY - Police have traced the license plate of the vehicle used in the theft of an ATM from the Hampshire Mall to a closed used auto dealership in Everett, Washington.

"So we are assuming this plate was illegally attached to the vehicle," Officer Jesse Green said in an email.

Two thieves on Jan. 24 made off with the ATM and several thousand dollars inside. The machine was found a day later by a woman walking her dog on Mill Lane. The back of the machine was smashed.

Green said Hadley police are waiting on state police to provide information about fingerprints on a clipboard left behind by the suspects.

Police said two men were seen entering the Hampshire Mall and then using a handcart to remove the bank machine around 3 p.m. Hampshire Mall security notified police right after it happened.

Green said the men placed the 500-pound machine into a black Audi A6 sedan. Mall security gave police the license plate number. The car has not been found.

The machine is owned by Paramount Management Group, which provides ATM service to malls and shopping centers.SPRINGFIELD -- Hampden District Attorney Anthony Gulluni said Wednesday a judge's verdict finding Jeffrey Lovell not guilty of manslaughter "regrettably" gives 15-year-old Dylan Francisco's family neither answers nor justice.

Hampden Superior Court Judge Constance M. Sweeney on Tuesday found Lovell not guilty of manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Francisco, who Lovell believed was a burglar.

Lovell, 44, of Chicopee, shot Francisco as the teen banged on the door of his home -- breaking a pane of glass in the top of the door -- on July 16, 2016.

"My thoughts and sympathy remain with Dylan's family, who will forever struggle with the senseless loss of a child," Gulluni said. "I would like to thank the Chicopee Police Department, the Massachusetts State Police Detective Unit assigned to my office and Assistant District Attorney Karen Bell for their professionalism and excellent work with this case."

Francisco, of Springfield, had gone with two other teens to Lovell's home, thinking it was the nearby home of a friend.

Lovell said he thought Francisco was trying to break into his house when he shot the teenager through a door with a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol. He said he kept the gun, loaded with one round chambered, in a safe by his bed.

Sweeney did not discuss her verdict from the stand, but some lawyers were willing to comment on the law which governs situations such as the one in Chicopee in July 2016.

Jared Olanoff, a lawyer practicing in Hampden County, said it is clear from this verdict that the judge found that Lovell's use of self-defense or defense of his family was reasonable.

"This tells us four things: (1) that Mr. Lovell actually believed he was in immediate danger of death or serious bodily harm, (2) that a reasonable person in his position would have believed he was in immediate danger, (3) that Mr. Lovell did not have a duty to retreat, and (4) that he was justified in using deadly force," Olanoff said.

"It's very possible that Mr. Lovell was mistaken in his belief that he was in immediate danger when he actually wasn't. But he was still entitled to use self-defense if his mistake was reasonable under the circumstances," Olanoff said.

Joseph Franco, a longtime defense lawyer in Hampden County, said it appears the verdict found Lovell had a reasonable belief he was defending himself and his family.

"Given all the circumstances of this case, it's tragic but there wasn't a crime, there was no illegal conduct," Franco said. He said Lovell was well defended by defense lawyer Frank Flannery.China Feather and Down Industrial Association (CFDIA) recently defended China-produced down jackets following the buying spree of Canada Goose among Chinese citizens.

CFDIA Chairwoman Yao Xiaoman on Jan. 17 said that Canada Goose has set a good example for Chinese enterprises, but the domestic industry is not in a poor condition.

Canada Goose, a Canadian manufacturer of winter clothing with only $3 million annual revenue 12 years before, has transformed into a listed company with a market value of $9 billion, partially because of Chinese customers.

According to Yao, China is the worlds largest producer of feather and down, accounting for 70-80% of the global market share. In addition, it is also in a leading position in terms of feather and down manufacturing.

International Down and Feather Testing Laboratory and the Guangzhou Fibre Product Testing and Research Institute jointly conducted a test on 13 feather samples from China, France, Hungry, and Poland last August. The result may surprise you: the Chinese sample was the best quality.

In recent years, over 90% of domestically produced down jackets on the market meet high standards, Yao noted.

She attributed the high price of Canada Goose down jackets to its market position and Canadas retail tradition. The brand never offers discounts in order to keep its image, Yao explained.

Compared with their Canadian competitors, Chinese manufacturers are not doing well in branding and marketing. Domestic brands need to abandon price competition and focus on high-quality development, Yao pointed out.

Currently, the domestic industry is still on a fundamental level, with a lack of power in general development, she said. To take the high-end market is not practical for Chinese manufacturers, but they can keep improving the quality to win more market share, the chairwoman suggested.HOLYOKE -- City Clerk Brenna Murphy McGee has achieved the designation of master municipal clerk from an international professional association.

The International Institute of Municipal Clerks Inc. grants the designation "only to those municipal clerks who complete demanding education requirements, and who have a record of significant contributions to their local government, their community and state," association president Mary J. Kayser said in an email Monday.

Such ongoing learning is necessary for clerks to keep pace with changes that affect residents such as with technology and changing statutes, she and other officials have said.

"Your city can take immense pride in Brenna's educational accomplishments and achievement of this milestone," Kayser said.

Murphy McGee began her second, four-year term in January as city clerk, an elected position here. She is a former city councilor.

She earned the designation certified municipal clerk in 2016 after taking courses for months that included a week at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire. She followed a similar course of work in pursuing the master municipal clerk certification, she said.

"I am proud to join the other 24 master municipal clerks in the state of Massachusetts in achieving this designation not only for the city of Holyoke and the residents that have elected me to my second term but also to the clerk industry. This designation shows the important role that city and town clerks play in local government," Murphy McGee said in a text message.

The institute was founded in 1947. According to its website, "The International Institute of Municipal Clerks (IIMC) is a professional, nonprofit association that promotes continuing education and certification through university and college-based institutes and provides networking solutions, services and benefits to its members worldwide."

The organization has 14,000 members in the United States, Canada and 15 other countries, Kayser said.

Municipal clerks are not required to obtain such certification. With the city clerk in Holyoke being elected, the support of voters ultimately is the only condition for attaining the seat. But Murphy McGee has said that such training helps her and the city in the areas of government finance, media relations, municipal procedures, creative thinking, time management, computers and introduction to law.

Courses she has taken dealt with ethics, creating resolutions, ordinances, paperless agendas and government transparency and early voting, she said.A judge has dismissed former Pittsfield City Council candidate Craig Gaetani's $50 million defamation lawsuit against the Berkshire Eagle, ruling that the newspaper's coverage of an encounter between Gaetani and a bystander outside an October candidate forum was accurate.

In his ruling, Berkshire Superior Court Judge John Agostini wrote that Gaetani's suit had failed to meet the legal standard for defamation, which is that the reporting was false, and that it was published with "actual malice."

"The only real issue is whether it was false or in the street vernacular 'fake news,' " Agostini wrote. "Given that the plaintiff admitted that the newspaper account was accurate, no claim of defamation will lie and the complaint must be dismissed."

The suit, in which Gaetani accused the newspaper of "character assassination," named the Eagle, its publisher Fredric Rutberg and reporter Amanda Drane as defendants.

The dispute stemmed from the Eagle's coverage of an Oct. 23 forum, in which Drane described an encounter between Gaetani and a man who suggested he could smell alcohol on Gaetani's breath.

"Out in the parking lot, a man tried to convince Gaetani not to drive home, saying that he smelled alcohol on his breath. Gaetani said the man didn't know what he was talking about and drove away, prompting the man to report the incident to police," the Eagle reported. "A desk officer confirmed receiving the call, but said they'd been unable to locate Gaetani and likely would not have another chance to follow up."

In an interview, Rutberg, a former judge who bought the Eagle in 2016 along with a group of local investors, described the suit as a "burden" that cost the paper thousands of dollars in legal fees.

That burden has now been lifted, he said.

"I was relieved that the case was over," Rutberg said. "We knew from the get-go that the case had no merit. It was reassuring to have that confirmed by the court."

Reached by phone, Gaetani continued to dispute the Eagle's reporting, despite the judge's ruling that the story was true. He said he intends to file another lawsuit -- this time for $100 million -- based in part on the Eagle's account of "a man" who confronted him outside the forum.

It was actually two men, he said.

"All I can say to you is I will be filing a lawsuit again very shortly," Gaetani said. "I don't want this to happen to anyone else."

Gaetani said he intends on attending a Pittsfield City Council hearing tonight to advocate for ways to save the city money on wastewater and sewage treatment.

Any additional suit may face an uphill battle, given Agostini's firm ruling in the case.

"Simply stated, the Berkshire Eagle accurately reported the events in the parking lot," Agostini ruled.

Gaetani, an engineer who campaigned on his experience building efficient and cost-saving wastewater treatment plants, said in his lawsuit that the story was a "vicious attack" that would likely cost him the election. He finished last of six candidates in Pittsfield's at-large city council race.

He also has a history of recent criminal convictions involving threats and erratic behavior, though he has said the cases against him were political motivated.

In May, Gaetani was convicted of threatening to shoot a city employee during a phone call during his unsuccessful run for mayor in 2015, the Eagle reported. Gaetani had called the fire department to ask about removing junk vehicles from his property; unsatisfied with the employee's response, he allegedly threatened to fire her once he was elected mayor, burn her house down and come to her office with a gun.

Gaetani received a six month suspended sentence in the case.

In June, he was sentenced to another two and a half year suspended sentence after he was convicted of breaking into a car he had sold to another person and stealing the title. In both cases, Gaetani dismissed the prosecutions as politically motivated and said he would continue to seek office.HOLYOKE -- Residents, political leaders and social activists left Holyoke Community Charter School on Tuesday night with a sense of hope that things will change for the better for the Latino community.

They voiced the concerns of the Latino community at a listening session of the Latino Advisory Commission formed last year by Gov. Charlie Baker. The meeting was one of six statewide listening sessions the commission has scheduled.

"I felt like we were able to express many of the concerns that have been the same in this community for 40 years," said Holyoke City Councilor Gladys Lebron-Martinez. "Now we have to see if these sessions will bring about real change."

Lebron-Martinez spoke with a reporter from The Republican outside the school after the meeting because the commission barred members of the press from the listening session.

"I think it's important to get the message out to as many people as possible," she said. "A lot of times, concerns for the needs of the people of Western Massachusetts are not a priority. The funding and the concern stops somewhere around the Worcester line."

A sign on the front door of the school read, "To promote authentic sharing all of the Governor's Latino Advisory Commission statewide listening sessions are CLOSED TO THE PRESS."

Anthony W. Richards II, director of community affairs for the state, would not comment on the commission's decision, but informed reporters they would not be able to attend the session.

Michael Knapik, director of the governor's Western Massachusetts office, attended the meeting but said he would not comment on the decision to bar the press.

State Rep. Aaron Vega, D-Holyoke, said he felt the meeting was productive and he was puzzled as to why the media was not allowed to attend.

"If anything, this is a good thing for the Baker administration," Vega said. "It shows that there is an interest in hearing the needs of the Latino community in Western Massachusetts."

During the meeting, Vega said, the public expressed their frustration with many of the social and economic issues facing the Latino community and the region, which have been compounded with the arrival of hundreds of Puerto Rican evacuees since Hurricane Maria decimated the island last fall.

"The issues of transportation, education, housing, employment were all talked about," the legislator said. "There were times when people were critical of things the state has done or not done, and maybe that's why the press was not allowed, but I think that's an important message to get out to a larger audience."

Longtime social activists and Latino leaders Orlando Isaza and Miguel Arce said they read a formal statement to the commission touching on issues of poverty, racism, education and more.

"As individuals, as families and as a community, Latinos face extremely distressing life circumstances and events," they wrote in the statement. "Being born Latino in Hampden County creates a life trajectory with a profound and detrimental effect on overall quality of life."

Isaza said while he is grateful the commission has been created, he hopes it will bring about real policy change.

"The demographics demand that Latinos become intimately included in all political processes and be represented everywhere in the most significant organizations and institutions, and that of course is still a problem that we face today," he said.

Isaza said having the media present would have expanded the message to a larger audience.

"I think it would just provide more awareness and a better understanding of the problems facing the Latino community here in Holyoke," he said.

Community member, mother and lifelong Holyoke resident Gloria Urbina said she was proud to see a council made up of Latinos from across the state listening to the concerns of Latinos in Holyoke.

"There were people here tonight who have been fighting for this community and dealing with issues of injustice, poverty, food insecurity, transportation -- all of it -- for 40 years, and oftentimes they feel defeated," she said. "It's great to take notes and listen to our ideas, but if we are not allowed to see what's being made into reality through policy, then it will be like us looking in from the outside once again, so I hope we will be part of that process going forward."

As for the media being barred, she said sometimes people are more comfortable when they feel they are among family.

"You speak your mind more freely, I think, knowing that your words aren't going to be changed or omitted or for lack of time in a newsreel, the message is skewed a certain way," she said.Gambling investigators plan to speak with the Massachusetts Gaming Commission after a Wall Street Journal report on sexual misconduct allegations against Steve Wynn, the man behind a $2.4 billion casino being built just outside of Boston.

The meeting is set to start at 2 p.m.

A livestream is available below.

According to a commission spokeswoman, members of the commission's Investigations and Enforcement Bureau will provide an update on their ongoing regulatory review.

The Wall Street Journal, citing dozens of people who they interviewed, said they alleged a "decades-long pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Wynn." In a statement to the newspaper, Wynn said allegations that he assaulted someone were "preposterous."

But if the allegations are true, he fails the suitability standards laid out as a condition of a Massachusetts casino license, according to Gov. Charlie Baker.

Baker said earlier this week that decisions and actions, such as revoking the casino license, are up to the independent Gaming Commission, but the governor added he hopes the agency moves quickly.A Massachusetts man with plans to kill former Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley and federal judge Dennis Saylor was found guilty Tuesday in a New Hampshire federal court of receiving firearms with intent to commit murder.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in New Hampshire said Edward McLarnon, 69, of Malden, was found guilty after a six-day jury trial. He was found guilty on the receiving firearms with intent to commit murder charge and three related weapons and explosives charges.

At the beginning of the trial, a federal prosecutor said McLarnon told an undercover FBI agent he wanted to kill Coakley, according to WCVB News.

He told the agent, "I want her dead," the television station reported.

McLarnon planned to use hand grenades to kill Saylor inside the garage at the federal courthouse in Boston, WCVB News reported.

In October 2015, McLarnon made contact with a person he believed to be an arms dealer, who was actually an undercover FBI agent. The two met at a store in Chichester, New Hampshire for the purpose of buying illegal weapons, authorities said.

McLarnon paid $700 to get the weapons.

"On November 6, 2015, the defendant took possession of a .22 caliber pistol with a silencer, an AK-47-style semi-automatic rifle, ammunition, and two hand grenades containing high explosives at a rest stop in Seabrook," authorities said. "He was taken into custody shortly after taking possession of these items."

McLarnon also planned to kill his ex-wife's husband, authorities said.

Federal court records show Saylor ruled against McLarnon in a case where it appears the Malden man sued a bank over the foreclosure of his home.

"I am grateful to the jury for rendering this swift and just verdict," said Acting U.S. Attorney Farley. "The evidence at trial demonstrated that the defendant devised a frightening plan to use weapons to kill several individuals to express his frustration with the legal system. Thanks to the hard work of the brave law enforcement officers who participated in this investigation, the defendant's violent plan was stopped before anyone was hurt."

McLarnon was found guilty of receiving an unregistered silencer; receiving firearms with the intent to commit murder; receiving explosive materials; and receiving an explosive with the intent to harm persons or property.

He will be sentenced on May 10, 2018.A murder suspect police believe held a leading role in the Lynn-based Young Bloods gang was arrested in the city on Tuesday after years on the lam, reports Massachusetts State Police.



Working on concert with Lynn and Revere officers and members of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, state troopers raided a residence at 108 Empire St. around 7:30 p.m.



Steven C. Touch, 28, of Lynn, wanted in connection with a 2012 fatal home invasion in Lynn, was found inside, "hiding inside a drawer built into a bed frame," according to state police.



Although Touch remained local despite being a wanted man, he was said to be "moving from address to address fairly frequently," according to intelligence developed by MSP.



Last July, the FBI offered a $10,000 reward for information if it lead to Touch's arrest.







"Very recently, police developed information that (Touch) was at the Empire Street address, and obtained a warrant," a press statement on the arrest said. "The successful conclusion of the search was the result of dedicated and coordinated work by several law enforcement agencies."



According to the statement, Touch has been transferred into the hands of the Billerica Police Department, and will face murder charges in Middlesex Superior Court on Wednesday.



Touch had been added to the MSP list of most wanted fugitives in Septembers and was considered armed and dangerous.



Two others, Sophan Keo and Gabrial Arias, were also suspected to have participated in the 2012 Billerica home invasion, which ended in the death of 22-year-old Quintin Koehler.



According to an earlier press release from Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan, "The death of Quintin Koehler in his own home was the result of a plan allegedly put together by six men to force their way into a home, terrorize the residents and enrich themselves with money and marijuana."



Two of Touch's alleged accomplices have already been sentenced to life in prison in connection with the murder, the other two await sentencing.NORTHAMPTON - The Northampton City Council will be discussing several pieces of legislation Thursday night, including a resolution that asks the Department of Homeland Security to reconsider changes it recently made to its immigration enforcement policies.

The resolution, which was introduced by Ward 6 Councilor Marianne LaBarge, Ward 3 Councilor James Nash and Councilor at-Large Bill Dwight, asks that the DHS continue to provide temporary protected status (TPS) to individuals who cannot return to their homelands due to safety concerns.

TPS was created in 1990 and is a program that provides temporary refuge to foreign nationals whose home countries have been greatly affected by natural disasters or war.

However, over the past year, the Trump administration has announced numerous cutbacks to the program. Earlier this month the White House announced changes to U.S. TPS policy that will end protections for some 200,000 Salvadorans, many of which have lived in America for many years.

In January, the Trump administration also ended TPS for Haitians who had come to the U.S. in 2010--leading some 60,000 to be deported.

Changes have also affected people from Sudan and Nicaragua.

The Northampton resolution criticizes the White House for its escalation of immigration enforcement "through executive orders, funding requests, and policy guidance," and expresses concern how ending TPS might affect social benefit programs in the U.S., including an alleged "$6.9 billion reduction to Social Security and Medicare contributions over a decade."

It also states its support for "the overwhelmingly positive contributions of TPS holders and their families to the economy, social fabric, diversity and well-being" to the city's community. "Northampton is a Sanctuary City and we maintain a long and proud history as a community that supports, values, and respects immigrants, regardless of their status of documentation," the resolution states.

Copies of the resolution are to be sent to President Trump, as well as to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Neilsen.

The Council will also be holding a 2nd reading for a resolution that supports the goal of achieving 100 percent renewable energy for the community.

The resolution asks that the community work towards divesting entirely from fossil fuels while investing in renewable energy.

It's a goal that's been championed by a number of other Massachusetts communities. Six other municipalities have already signed resolutions supporting the goal--one of which is Amherst, which recently voted in favor of a resolution that supports the goal of using 100 percent renewable energy resources by the year 2050.

The resolution was initially sponsored by Councilor At-Large Bill Dwight and Ward 7 Councilor Alisa Klein.

It passed unanimously during its first reading on Jan. 18.HOLYOKE -- Police resumed a search Wednesday morning for a man who ran from a traffic stop on Interstate 91 north Tuesday night.

State police spokesman David Procopio said the man, a suspect in a drug investigation, was still at large as of noon. Police have not released the man's name, and did not confirm a description of him posted to a Holyoke Facebook group.

Officers arrested two other people in the vehicle -- both teenage girls from Vermont -- on drug charges, Procopio said.

The manhunt began around 9 p.m. Tuesday after troopers stopped the vehicle about a mile north of exit 17B. The man fled, prompting city and state police to flood the neighborhoods around Bemis Road.

As a state police helicopter circled overhead, officers with a K-9 swept through yards on Claren and Robert drives. A wooded area in the neighborhood runs from the highway to Route 5.

Speaking around 11:15 p.m. Tuesday, a trooper at the Northampton state police barracks said the air wing had been called off.

On Facebook Wednesday morning, residents said the helicopter was back in the neighborhood.

"The Air Wing and ground units resumed their search this morning," Procopio said.

This is a developing story that will be updated after further reporting.SPRINGFIELD -- A Springfield man is facing an assault charge after confronting a teenage relative at her school and knocking a piercing from her nostril.

Quaseem Carter, 37, pleaded not guilty Tuesday in Springfield District Court to one count of domestic assault and battery.

The charge was filed after Carter drove to the 15-year-old's school on Jan. 16 and confronted her during cheerleading practice. Screaming and cursing, he pushed the girl into a boys restroom and "smacked a nose piercing out of her nostril," according to the arrest report.

Carter, a cab driver, forced the girl into his cab and drove her home, where he ordered her to pack up her belongings. Later, he dropped her off at Union Station with a packed suitcase and no ticket, "telling her there was a 7 p.m. bus," the report said.

Springfield police were dispatched to the bus station and the girl was eventually placed with a relative.

In addition to booking Carter on a domestic assault charge, police submitted a report of suspected child abuse with the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families.

On Tuesday, Assistant District Attorney Cary Szafranski said Carter has been arrested on a variety of charges, from assault and battery and illegal firearms possession to violating restraining orders.

He has been named in four restraining orders, and served sentences ranging from 90 days to three years, according to the prosecutor, who requested $2,500 cash bail.

Defense lawyer Erin O'Connor said most of the charges on Carter's record date to 15 or more years ago, and he has avoided new legal trouble since 2011.

Until this week, Carter was a driver for Yellow Cab of Springfield, and is now seeking new employment, O'Connor said.

Judge John Payne set bail at $2,500 personal surety and ordered Carter to not abuse the girl and report once a week to his probation officer.

Carter is due back in court for a pretrial hearing on March 15.SPRINGFIELD -- Robert Loranger, 68, said he remembers going to Taco Bell on Sept. 9, 2016.

But he doesn't remember fatally striking pedestrian Harry Fernandez a short time before his visit to the fast food drive-thru.

Loranger pleaded guilty Wednesday in Hampden Superior Court to motor vehicle homicide while operating under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

As Fernandez's family members sat in the courtroom, Loranger pleaded guilty under a provision of the law that allows a defendant to admit the prosecution has evidence to prove him guilty even though he doesn't remember what happened.

Asked by Judge Daniel A. Ford if it was alcohol that caused him not to remember, Loranger said it was.

Ford sentenced Loranger, of Springfield, to four to six years in state prison.

The judge said even though Loranger's personal story may be sad, the facts of the case are outrageous. Loranger killed someone and "then he goes to get a taco," Ford said.

Assistant District Attorney James M. Forsyth asked Ford to sentence Loranger to eight to 10 years. Defense lawyer Scott Skolnick asked for a sentence of 2.5 years to the Hampden County Correctional Center in Ludlow with one year to be served and the rest suspended with five years probation.

Loranger also pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident causing injury or death, driving under the influence of liquor (second offense), leaving the scene of a property damage accident and reckless operation of a motor vehicle.

Fernandez, 51, of Springfield, was struck and killed crossing Page Boulevard near Stewart Glen Drive at about 10:40 a.m.

Loranger had a blood alcohol content of 0.098, Forsyth said, above the legal limit of 0.08. Loranger also had benzodiazepines and cocaine in his system, Forsyth said.

Among the things he remembers is drinking a fifth of vodka in a hotel room, stopping at about 1 a.m., Loranger said. He was staying in a hotel because his Springfield house was being renovated.

Jasmine Fernandez, daughter of the victim, wrote an impact statement which she asked Forsyth to read aloud in court.

"Unfortunately this individual was able to walk away breathing. I can't say the same for my father," she wrote.

"I want him to feel loneliness because that's probably exactly how my father felt, alone and afraid as the car drove off, leaving his lifeless human body lying on the side of the road."

Loranger, who said he retired at age 65 from working 26 years as director of facilities at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, spent 116 days in jail awaiting trial until he was able to raise $100,000 to post as bail, Skolnick said.

In asking for a jail, rather than state prison, sentence, Skolnick said Loranger is in poor health due to his age and being a long-term alcoholic.

"Alcohol has ruined his life," Skolnick said, saying Loranger's alcohol use has also ruined the lives of his family, friends and strangers.iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Recy Taylor is finally getting the attention she deserved.



A black woman raped by six white boys in 1940s Alabama, Taylor long sought justice but never got it. Two different grand juries failed to bring an indictment against the young men, although the Alabama Legislature later issued her an apology in 2011.



But with Oprah Winfrey's lifetime achievement award speech at the Golden Globe Awards and a new documentary focused on her story, Taylor, who died on Dec. 29 at the age of 97, is about to become a household name.



At Tuesday's State of the Union address, members of the Congressional Black Caucus wore red pins with her name, while her niece, Rose Gunter -- a guest of Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey -- sat in the gallery to watch the speech.



"I know that black women will be telling this story for years to come. Recy Taylor is out in the world now," Nancy Buirski, the director of "The Rape of Recy Taylor," told ABC News. "I dont claim the story, Im just very proud that I had the opportunity to be part of telling it."



The film made its debut last fall at the Venice and New York film festivals, followed by a limited release in theaters. But ever since Winfrey brought up Taylor's story, placing it in the larger national conversation about sexual assault, Buirski said she has been inundated with screening requests.



"I was jumping up and down," Buirski said about the moment she heard Taylor's name in Winfrey's speech. "I knew that Recy Taylors family was going to be thrilled. This is what Recy Taylor deserved."



What sets Taylor's story apart from the staggering number of black women who were raped throughout slavery and the Jim Crow South is that she spoke up.



"She spoke up way before the #MeToo movement," said Buirski, who uses footage from "race films," made by black directors for black audiences in the 1920s, as a metaphor for the hundreds of women who were violated.



The director, who also made the award-winning documentary "The Loving Story," was fortunate that Taylor's brother, Robert Corbitt, and sister, Alma Daniels, were eager to talk too.



"Robert has been making it his life's mission to reveal this story and expose this story," Buirski said. "And even though Recy got an apology in 2011, he wanted people to know what happened to her and that she didnt get justice."



In the film, Taylor's relatives tell the story of how the 24-year-old married mother of one was kidnapped at gunpoint while walking home from church, raped by six white boys and later left at the side of the road. Although she told the local sheriff what happened and even identified the men, two grand juries failed to bring charges against them despite one of them confessing to the crime.



The film then shows how the story gained national attention through the help of the NAACP's chief rape investigator -- a woman named Rosa Parks. Parks would, of course, become famous a decade later for her role in the Montgomery bus boycott, but, as the film shows, she was a budding activist who felt a personal connection to Taylor's story and helped organize a committee of women to seek justice for Taylor.



Buirski called their relationship the "heartbeat" of the film.



"Recy is very reluctant hero," the director said. "She understood she had to speak up if she wanted to help other women. People like Rosa convinced her it was a crime."



Buirski not only salutes Taylor's courage in the film, but she hopes that the documentary will be used to "champion African American women who have been looking for justice for years and years."



Information on upcoming screenings and the digital release can be found on the film's Facebook page.



Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.Six people were killed on Tuesday evening after an elevator in which they were riding collapsed at Banha University Hospital in Egypt's Qalyubia governorate.

In statements to Al-Ahram Arabic news website, a hospital source said two other people were seriously injured in the collapse.

Banha University head El-Sayed El-Qady said that among those killed were members of patients' families who were visiting the hospital.

He added that the facility has 15 elevators, stressing that the collapsed elevator had undergone routine maintenance only two days prior to the incident.

According to El-Qady, a committee has been established to investigate the reasons behind the collapse.

Families of the deceased attempted to storm the hospital after receiving the news, but security forces were deployed and were able to regain control of the situation.

The hospitals management board decided to suspend the operation of ten elevators in the surgery and internal medicine departments until an inspection is concluded to ensure the safety of visitors and staff.

Eleven people have died in elevator-related accidents in Egypt since December 2017.

Experts argue that accidents are mainly due to a lack of routine maintenance.

Short link:

SPRINGFIELD -- A federal judge sentenced a city man to five years behind bars for selling a loaded pistol to an undercover trooper in a Friendly's parking lot in 2015.

Kenneth Finch Jr., 31, a.k.a. "Junior," appeared in U.S. District Court on Wednesday, nearly two years after his arrest on an illegal gun possession charge. He pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Katharine Wagner told District Judge Mark Mastroianni that Finch was previously convicted of the same crime in North Carolina and served a short jail term.

Wagner asked for Finch to be sentenced to 71 months in prison, arguing he is a chronic, unapologetic street criminal.

"This is someone who has been out on the streets, selling drugs for years," Wagner told Mastroianni, adding that Finch is a "master manipulator."

Defense attorney Thomas J. O'Connor said Finch has invested in prison programming and has worked toward rehabilitation since his arrest.

This story will be updated after further reporting.SPRINGFIELD - The city's new Fire Commissioner, Bernard J. Calvi, begins his tenure at the Springfield Fire Department with a 5-year contract but a 3-year deadline.

Under terms of the contract provided by the city's Department of Human Resources, Calvi has until Jan. 24, 2021 to complete the requirements for a bachelor's degree in fire sciences.

Sworn in last week, Calvi begins with a starting salary of $145,000, which is $15,000 less than what his predecessor Joseph Conant earned in 2017.

Calvi's contract stipulates he gets 30 vacations days a year, a $750 clothing allowance, plus a marked vehicle, and cellphone and laptop.

The contract also notes that he must live in Springfield, any raises will be based on an annual performance review conducted by the mayor, and he is not allowed to engage in "outside employment," with the exceptions of teaching, writing or consulting.

And while the contract notes he may communicate, either in writing or in person, with other city officials, it is clear that he reports directly to the mayor. He is required to meet regularly with the mayor "to review status reports, discuss issues and obtain direction."

When the post was advertised last summer, it stipulated several requirements in suitable candidates.

Among them were 10 years experience as a firefighters, including 5 years at the rank of district chief or higher, be a resident of Springfield, and either have completed a bachelor's degree in fire science or be enrolled in an undergraduate program and able to earn a degree within 3 years of appointment.

Calvi qualifies for most of criteria -- he's been a firefighter since 1992, a deputy chief in Agawam since 2012, and a resident of Springfield. The only part lacking is the education requirement, and he's working on that, officials said.

He earned an associate's degree with Springfield Technical Community College in Fire Services Administration in 1998. For the last year, he has been enrolled in Waldorf University majoring in fire services administration.

Waldorf University, based in Forest City, Iowa, offers its fire sciences program online. The program is a 4-year, 120-credit undergraduate program .

Fire Department spokesman Dennis Leger, Calvi's aide, said Calvi has seven courses remaining and expects to be finished with the program by the end of the year.

Leger said he had enrolled in it prior to his candidacy for the fire commissioner post.

Calvi also has numerous professional certifications related to firefighting including arson investigations and hazardous materials cleanup.

The allowance to complete his undergraduate work is not new with Calvi's contract. The same was offered to Conant when he was appointed fire commissioner in 2013.

At the time, Conant, a deputy chief with the Springfield Fire Department was midway through a bachelor's degree program at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.

He earned his degree in business administration and management in 2016.

Conant was not reappointed fire commissioner at the end of his 5-year-contract. He has returned to the post of deputy chief.

The city had to modify its requirements for fire commissioner in 2013 prior to Conant's appointment. The post used to require a master's degree.

Other items in the contract:

As part of his 5-year appointment, Calvi may not be removed from the post except for reasons other than "performance, moral character or any other just cause."

If he steps down "following a formal suggestion by the city that he resign," the city must pay him the equivalent of nine months salary. If the formal suggestion were to come in the final year of his contract, the city would pay him the remainder of that year's salary.

If Calvi were to resign on his own without any formal suggestion by the city, he needs to give 90 days notice and would be entitled to no severance pay.

If in the 5th year, the city opts not to renew his contract, it needs to give him 6 months notice. Failure to do this, would result in another 6 months added to his contract.

Springfield contract with Fire Commissioner Bernard J. Calvi uploaded by Patrick Johnson on ScribdThe head of investigations for the Massachusetts Gaming Commission said Wednesday they were unaware of a $7.5 million settlement reported by the Wall Street Journal as part of the newspaper's look into alleged sexual misconduct by casino mogul Steve Wynn.

Karen Wells, the head of the commission's investigations and enforcement bureau, said she spoke with the commission's investigators who in 2013 reviewed whether Wynn met the suitability requirements for the lone eastern Massachusetts casino license.

The lead investigator and the Massachusetts State Police detective confirmed that the allegations and settlement agreement were not disclosed to the commission before Friday's Wall Street Journal report, and Wynn's legal counsel corroborated that, Wells said.

"This was a private agreement and steps were taken to keep it from the public domain," Wells told commissioners at a meeting in Boston as part of an update on investigators' review of Wynn, launched after the Wall Street Journal report.

The settlement was not disclosed on advice of Wynn Resorts' counsel, and was not part of court action or litigation, according to Wells.

"The circumstances around this $7.5 million settlement and the decision not to disclose it to investigators remain a critical element of this review," she added in her remarks.

Members of Gaming Commission said they were disturbed the allegations and asked investigators to move with speed and accuracy in their review of Wynn's suitability for holding a casino license.

Gaming Commissioner Gayle Cameron said the agency will be watching how the Wynn Resorts board of directors handles the situation while the commission works on its own investigation to verify the allegations.

Wynn won the Massachusetts casino license in 2014 and is building a $2.4 billion gambling facility, called Wynn Boston Harbor, on the Mystic River just outside of Boston.AMHERST -- A University of Massachusetts student accused of rape in his dorm room last month was released from jail Wednesday on $7,500 surety.

Ryder Chilcoff, 21, of Villa Park, California, is charged in Eastern Hampshire District Court in Belchertown with three counts of rape because three sex acts were allegedly performed. The alleged incident happened Dec. 9.

According to court documents, police were investigating vandalism to the door Chilcoff's room at John Quincy Adams Hall. During that investigation, UMass Officer Derek Napoli spoke to a 19-year-old UMass student who, when asked if she knew Chilcoff, started to cry.

She told police that she woke up in his residence, "specifically in his bed," without pants or underwear on. She told police "she had been taken advantage of," according to the report. She said she didn't know how she got into the room or what happened there.

The victim told police she drank at least four nips of 99 proof vodka within 30 minutes and "shotgunned" a beer. She told police she had been playing drinking games "and described herself as drunk."

According to the police report, Chilcoff initially told investigators he met a woman at a party but then said, "So I guess I just kinda made that part up. So just cross all that out. Sorry."

Chilcoff then told police he was watching a movie with two friends when "an unknown female walked into his room." She left and came back and went to Chilcoff's bed and fell asleep, he said.

Later that night, Chilcoff told police, the woman made sexual advances. He said he eventually "gave in" and had intercourse with her, describing the woman "as an active participant."

Napoli in his report stated he believes Chilcoff did have intercourse "without her consent as the female was unable to consent based on her level of intoxication."

The federal law known as Title IX defines consent as "informed, freely, and actively given, mutually understandable words or actions which indicate a willingness to participate in mutually agreed upon sexual activity. Consent may be withdrawn."

Chilcoff, who denied charges at his arraignment Tuesday, is due back in court March 1. He was ordered to surrender his passport and have no contact with the alleged victim, who does not live in his dorm.

"The university is taking immediate and appropriate steps in the student conduct process to address the matter," said Mary Dettloff, deputy director of the UMass Office of News and Media Relations. "Based on federal privacy law, the university cannot share further details about the case."

The university's annual Clery report, which looks at multiple crime categories, counted 16 on-campus rapes in 2016.It was initially called "Wynn Everett." Then they changed its name to "Wynn Boston Harbor."

The planned $2.4 billion casino is not on Boston Harbor - if completed it'll overlook the Mystic River in the city of Everett -- and by the time it's built the massive building may not carry the "Wynn" name at the top, either.

But that depends on multiple things, including what actions the Massachusetts Gaming Commission takes after the bombshell Wall Street Journal report on casino magnate Steve Wynn's alleged sexual misconduct; what the Wynn company's board of directors does as part of its response; and the distance local elected officials seek from the man who has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the economy, the housing market and the remediated site that once had a chemical plant on top.

Wynn has denied the misconduct allegations and his company, which holds the lone casino license for eastern Massachusetts, has said they're committed to cooperating with the commission's review. Its board of directors is also investigating the allegations.

There's been no talk of delaying the opening.

Steve Wynn is closely associated with his casinos and restaurants and he is tightly overseeing the construction of Wynn Boston Harbor. Addressing members of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce last year, he said the design of the Boston area casino, complete with a floral carousel and a $28 million Popeye sculpture, is influenced by the "primordial sources of life."

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission's investigators plan on Wednesday to offer an update on the ongoing regulatory review spurred by the Wall Street Journal report. No votes are expected to take place and the discussion appears limited to agency staffers and its commissioners.

The five-member Gaming Commission has previously looked into Wynn's suitability, since the state gambling law that authorized up to three Bay State resort casinos calls for license applicants for show integrity, honesty and good character. The commission has the authority to revoke licenses.

"Based upon the comprehensive investigation of Stephen Wynn, the investigation did not reveal any information that would preclude a finding that he possesses the requisite integrity, honesty and good character that are statutorily mandated," its 2013 report said.

The report, totaling about 200 pages, said there should be one condition to granting the license: that Wynn talk about his business practices in Macau. Alleged sexual misconduct did not surface in the report.

The Wall Street Journal story, published Friday, led with a manicurist who was allegedly paid a $7.5 million settlement after allegations that he demanded sex.

The newspaper said that broadly came up in a lawsuit filed by Wynn's ex-wife, Elaine Wynn, over stock sale restrictions.

Steve Wynn told the newspaper he blamed his wife for the surfacing of the allegations and he is in a "terrible and nasty lawsuit" with her.

The Gaming Commission's 2013 report also looked into Elaine Wynn. "Elaine Wynn is described by her references as being incredibly smart, thoughtful and warm hearted," the report said. "She is further characterized as someone who is straight forward and honest with an impeccable reputation."

As for the company, the Wall Street Journal noted that Wynn Resorts, having lost $3 billion in market value after the newspaper's original report, may have to "sell, or to break up, regardless of whether Mr. Wynn stays."

And the elected officials? Gov. Charlie Baker has said he is appalled by the allegations, and if they are true, Wynn does not meet the suitability standard laid out by the state's gambling law.

Others have been quieter.

In 2016, after Wynn bantered with reporters at a 2016 press conference where he delighted in showing a model of the Wynn Boston Harbor casino, Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria was exuberant.

As Wynn turned to leave and his entourage started to clear the room, DeMaria shouted, "Wynn for president!"

On Tuesday, a day before the Gaming Commission was set to meet, DeMaria's office did not respond to a request for comment.WORCESTER -- A Worcester man faces accusations that he married six women and accepted money from some to allow them to gain U.S. immigration benefits.

An indictment charging Peter Hicks, 57, of Worcester, with immigration fraud was unsealed in U.S. District Court in Worcester yesterday. He was released following a brief hearing.

Prosecutors allege that Hicks married at least six women from sub-Sahara African countries between 2003 and 2013, and that he didn't necessarily obtain a divorce from each before marrying the next.

Leading up to his indictment, federal law enforcement investigators said, Hicks admitted arranging still more marriages of undocumented African women to other American citizens for pay.

During an interview with immigration officials to obtain benefits for one woman he had married, Hicks said he married three woman solely to obtain immigration benefits for them, according to a press release from the office of U.S. Attorney Andrew E. Lelling.

In an interview with federal agents on Jan. 8, 2015, Hicks said he had been involved in the scheme for approximately 13 years, prosecutors allege.

Hick also lied to immigration officials about the number of women he married and how many he had sought benefits for, prosecutors said.

Hicks was charged with a single count of marriage fraud, which carries a potential sentence of up to five years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000.Looking to deepen connections with General Electric and other Boston-based companies, Worcester Polytechnic Institute officials on Wednesday opened an "innovation space" with a ground-floor view of the city's Fort Point Channel.

"It's our wormhole to Worcester," said Laurie Leshin, WPI's president.

The 6,400-square-foot space, located at 303 Congress Street in Boston's Seaport District, will function as an "embassy" to introduce companies to WPI students, alumni and faculty, according to Leshin. WPI entered into a seven-year lease for the space in August 2017.

Leshin was joined by Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, and Worcester Mayor Joe Petty, among others who received tours of the "tech suites" in which students showed off what they're working on, from an augmented reality interface to a robot that burns through brain tumors.

Leshin urged attendees to speak with WPI students and faculty. "Their work is fascinating and world-changing," she said, pointing to spinach leaves supporting beating heart cells and robots performing specialized surgeries.

Technology is rapidly changing the world, she added, noting the car she took to the "innovation space" was an Uber, a ride-hailing service that is ordered through an app.

"Institutions of higher education need to innovate now more than ever," she said.

Worcester Mayor Joseph Petty said he anticipates that the "innovation space" they were standing in could host the next founder of Amazon, the online retail behemoth.

"At times, there is no substitute for proximity," Petty said, pointing to General Electric being located a block away.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals a few blocks in the other direction, Mayor Walsh said.

Addressing the WPI students and faculty in the room, Walsh added, "We know your home base will always be Worcester."The former supervisory pharmacist at the New England Compounding Center in Framingham was sentenced to eight years in prison for his role in a fungal meningitis outbreak that killed 64 people and sickened hundreds.

A U.S. District Court judge on Wednesday sentenced Glenn Chin, 49, of Canton, to eight years in prison, two years of supervised release and restitution in an amount to be determined.

Chin was convicted in October of 77 counts, including racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, mail fraud and introduction of misbranded drugs into interstate commerce with the intent to defraud and mislead. He and his colleagues were convicted of ignoring safety precautions and allowing contaminated drugs to be manufactured and shipped.

"Mr. Chin was a pharmacist, but again and again he acted with complete disregard for the health and safety of patients," said U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling in a statement. "Mr. Chin will now be held responsible for producing contaminated drugs that killed dozens and grievously harmed over 750 people across the country. No patient should suffer harm at the hands of a medical professional, and we will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to combat fraud and abuse in the health care system."

Chin was accused of ignoring the pharmacy's standard operating procedures, improperly sterilizing a drug, called MPA, and improperly testing it. He manufactured three lots of the contaminated drug, enough for 17,000 vials, and allowed the drug to be shipped. The CDC found 18 types of fungi in the drug.

Chin directed staff to mislabel drugs and forge cleaning logs and directed drugs to be compounded using expired ingredients, according to Lelling's office. He ignored mold and bacteria in clean rooms.

Congress passed new laws to improve FDA oversight of compounded drugs after the scandal.

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement, "We're committed to the efficient, timely and robust implementation of that framework to help make sure patients can trust the reliability and safety of compounded drugs, recognize the benefits of pharmacy compounding, and that we protect consumers from harm."

The pharmacy's former owner and head pharmacist Barry Cadden previously was sentenced to nine years in prison.The Massachusetts Department of Transportation will hold a hearing on its rail plan in Western Massachusetts.

The hearing will be held Friday, Feb. 2 from 3-4:30 p.m. at the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission in Springfield.

"It is critically important to provide the people of Western Massachusetts with an opportunity to be heard on the state-wide rail plan, and to provide input that will be helpful in both developing and implementing that plan," Sen. Stan Rosenberg, D-Amherst, said in a statement.

The Department of Transportation recently released a draft of its 20-year plan for a statewide rail system. The plan includes a commitment to study the potential for high-speed rail between Springfield and Boston.

It lists as a priority implementing Springfield to Greenfield pilot rail service.Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo, D-Winthrop, drew a direct comparison with President Donald Trump and the Republican-led Congress from the first moments of his formal speech on the House floor on Wednesday.

"I promise this will be a little shorter than the president's remarks last night," DeLeo quipped, referring to Trump's 80-minute State of the Union address.

The Democratic speaker, in an address laying out his priorities for the coming legislative session, stressed the differences between Massachusetts and Washington on topics including health care, bipartisanship and civics education.

As representatives, "We hear the concerns of our constituents directly and we stand up for those in need," DeLeo said. "That may not be flashy, and it's certainly not what we heard about last night in Washington, but it is at the core of what we do."

Most immediately, DeLeo said the House on Wednesday plans to take up a $15 million supplemental budget bill to help school districts that have accepted large numbers of students fleeing hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico.

Springfield has accepted more Puerto Rican students than any other Massachusetts city. "This extra money is certainly going to go a long way in making sure we're able to provide top quality education," said State Rep. Angelo Puppolo, D-Springfield.

The supplemental budget being voted on by the House also will provide $250,000 for the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination to hire two new staffers for training and one new investigator. DeLeo said MCAD is seeing an increase in requests for sexual harassment training and also expects to see an increase in sexual harassment complaints, following the renewed national attention on the issue.

The bill also includes more money for public defenders.

One major priority DeLeo stressed is the House's commitment to health care reform.

"I am proud that with all of the challenges coming from Washington, we've kept our eye on the ball: advancing Massachusetts' leadership while remaining true to our values," DeLeo said, focusing specifically on health care reform.

The Senate already passed a comprehensive bill addressing health care costs. The House is expected to take up its own version of the bill this session.

DeLeo said the House bill will address supporting community hospitals and community health centers; shielding patients from rising health care costs and giving them the necessary information to make health care decisions; giving more tools to businesses; and increasing transparency in pharmaceutical spending.

DeLeo reiterated his commitment to include no new broad-based taxes in the fiscal 2019 budget.

Other priorities DeLeo mentioned include providing more money for the life sciences sector; creating a workforce development system for early education; investing in children's mental health; providing more support services in schools; and expanding civics education in schools.

"One cannot look at the roiling national political climate of the last 24 months and not realize that too many are unaware of our basic political tenets and traditions," DeLeo said, in discussing the bill that would require civics education. "In the void, pernicious beliefs and basic untruths can take hold."

Notably, DeLeo did not mention criminal justice reform. Two major criminal justice bills are pending in a committee of House-Senate negotiators, and many lawmakers consider that a top priority this session.Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi inaugurated on Wednesday the first stage of production at the super-giant Zohr gas field, which the country predicts will help achieve its goal of self-sufficiency in the supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

El-Sisi praised the collaborative effort between several Egyptian companies, including Belayim Petroleum Company (Petrobel), a joint venture between the Italian-Egyptian Oil Company (IEOC) and the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC), for achieving the project's development goals.

In attendance at the ceremony were various Egyptian state officials and Claudio Descalzi, CEO of the Egyptian company Eni, which discovered the field.

In a speech, Descalzi said he was honored to attend the ceremony, calling the Zohr field a "fantastic discovery."

Located 180km (110 miles) off the coast of Port Said and 1,500m deep, the gigantic gas field is the largest in the Mediterranean Sea.

The CEO highlighted upcoming development plans agreed upon by Eni and the Egyptian government, noting that the Egyptian president had requested the Italian company come up with plans to expedite the project's conculsion.

Two years is a short period to execute such a giant project, and was not imaginable, however the Egyptian governments cooperation through providing labor needs and facilitations contributed to achieving this, he said, asserting that carrying out the presidents requests was the company's greatest challenge.

As a joint force, I was stunned, he said, adding that the projects first phase was only the beginning. "What we did is good, but there is more thinking in front of us... Lets celebrate today, but lets think of the future and the next step, Descalzi concluded.

From his side, Egyptian Petroleum Minister Tarek El-Molla shed light on the industry's difficulties before the 2015 Zohr discovery, saying that the country witnessed a suspension gas exploration due to political instability in 2011.

We saw a crisis in availability of petroleum products. In reality this was witnessed through lines [of cars] in front of gas stations, he said, adding that the 30 June 2013 uprising was a turning point in terms of stability in Egypt's economic sector.

According to the minister, an subsequent intensification of gas discovery and inspection took place between Egypt and its international partners.

Egypt signed around 83 agreements for exploration and development since then, he added.

"As of June 2017, we paid $2.4 billion in arrears owed to the international companies, he stated.

El-Molla pointed out that other recently discovered Egyptian gas fields, Nooros and North Alexandria, also offer opportunities to close the gap between Egypt's production and consumption.

According to the minister, 16,000 direct job opportunities have already been provided, with 850 more expected by the end of the project.

The inauguration comes nearly a month after experimental production began at the field at an initial 350 million cubic feet per day (mcfd), a test which had been planned shortly after the fields discovery by Eni in August 2015.

Field production would rise to 2.7 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) by the end of 2019, transforming Egypt into a regional power hub.

Total reserves of the field are estimated at 30 trillion cubic feet, according to El-Molla in earlier press statements.

Production will increase to 1 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) by June 2018, marking the end of the first production stage and granting Egypt self-sufficiency in LNG supply.

The second stage is due to be finalised by the end of 2019 when production reaches 2.7 bcfd.

According to Al-Ahram daily newspaper, investments in the first and second stages are estimated at $15 billion.

Six wells are currently in use for production in stage one. That number is set rise to 20 wells by stage two, according to the minister.

Eni currently holds 60 percent stake in the Shourouk Concession, which includes the Zohr field. Russia's Rosneft holds 30 percent, while British Petroleum (BP) holds ten.

The Italian company will take up 40 percent of the fields output for the recovery of development and exploration costs.

Any excess production will be split between Egypt and Eni.

Egypt was a net exporter of LNG until 2014. However, the country became a net importer in recent years due to declining output and power shortages amid political turmoil.

In October, El-Molla announced that $27.3 million would be invested in three Egyptian natural gas fields  Zohr, North Alexandria, and Nooros  in the year 2018.

The three fields are expected to increase Egypt's natural gas output by 50 percent in 2018 and 100 percent in 2020, according to the ministry.

Short link:

President Donald Trump delivered his first State of the Union Address before a joint session of Congress Tuesday.

Trump, who centered his joint congressional address around the theme of "building a safe, strong and proud America," used the speech to unveil his long-awaited infrastructure plan, call for a bipartisan approach on immigration and tout his administration's accomplishments.

Read the president's remarks, as prepared for delivery:

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, the First Lady of the United States, and my fellow Americans:

Less than 1 year has passed since I first stood at this podium, in this majestic chamber, to speak on behalf of the American People -- and to address their concerns, their hopes, and their dreams. That night, our new Administration had already taken swift action. A new tide of optimism was already sweeping across our land.

Each day since, we have gone forward with a clear vision and a righteous mission -- to make America great again for all Americans.

Over the last year, we have made incredible progress and achieved extraordinary success. We have faced challenges we expected, and others we could never have imagined. We have shared in the heights of victory and the pains of hardship. We endured floods and fires and storms. But through it all, we have seen the beauty of America's soul, and the steel in America's spine.

Each test has forged new American heroes to remind us who we are, and show us what we can be.

We saw the volunteers of the "Cajun Navy," racing to the rescue with their fishing boats to save people in the aftermath of a devastating hurricane.

We saw strangers shielding strangers from a hail of gunfire on the Las Vegas strip.

We heard tales of Americans like Coast Guard Petty Officer Ashlee Leppert, who is here tonight in the gallery with Melania. Ashlee was aboard one of the first helicopters on the scene in Houston during Hurricane Harvey. Through 18 hours of wind and rain, Ashlee braved live power lines and deep water, to help save more than 40 lives. Thank you, Ashlee.

We heard about Americans like firefighter David Dahlberg. He is here with us too. David faced down walls of flame to rescue almost 60 children trapped at a California summer camp threatened by wildfires.

To everyone still recovering in Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, California, and everywhere else -- we are with you, we love you, and we will pull through together.

Some trials over the past year touched this chamber very personally. With us tonight is one of the toughest people ever to serve in this House -- a guy who took a bullet, almost died, and was back to work three and a half months later: the legend from Louisiana, Congressman Steve Scalise.

We are incredibly grateful for the heroic efforts of the Capitol Police Officers, the Alexandria Police, and the doctors, nurses, and paramedics who saved his life, and the lives of many others in this room.

In the aftermath of that terrible shooting, we came together, not as Republicans or Democrats, but as representatives of the people. But it is not enough to come together only in times of tragedy. Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve.

Over the last year, the world has seen what we always knew: that no people on Earth are so fearless, or daring, or determined as Americans. If there is a mountain, we climb it. If there is a frontier, we cross it. If there is a challenge, we tame it. If there is an opportunity, we seize it.

So let us begin tonight by recognizing that the state of our Union is strong because our people are strong.

And together, we are building a safe, strong, and proud America.

Since the election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs, including 200,000 new jobs in manufacturing alone. After years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages.

Unemployment claims have hit a 45-year low. African-American unemployment stands at the lowest rate ever recorded, and Hispanic American unemployment has also reached the lowest levels in history.

Small business confidence is at an all-time high. The stock market has smashed one record after another, gaining $8 trillion in value. That is great news for Americans' 401k, retirement, pension, and college savings accounts.

And just as I promised the American people from this podium 11 months ago, we enacted the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history.

Our massive tax cuts provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small businesses.

To lower tax rates for hardworking Americans, we nearly doubled the standard deduction for everyone. Now, the first $24,000 earned by a married couple is completely tax-free. We also doubled the child tax credit.

A typical family of four making $75,000 will see their tax bill reduced by $2,000 -- slashing their tax bill in half.

This April will be the last time you ever file under the old broken system -- and millions of Americans will have more take-home pay starting next month.

We eliminated an especially cruel tax that fell mostly on Americans making less than $50,000 a year -- forcing them to pay tremendous penalties simply because they could not afford government-ordered health plans. We repealed the core of disastrous Obamacare -- the individual mandate is now gone.

We slashed the business tax rate from 35 percent all the way down to 21 percent, so American companies can compete and win against anyone in the world. These changes alone are estimated to increase average family income by more than $4,000.

Small businesses have also received a massive tax cut, and can now deduct 20 percent of their business income.

Here tonight are Steve Staub and Sandy Keplinger of Staub Manufacturing -- a small business in Ohio. They have just finished the best year in their 20-year history. Because of tax reform, they are handing out raises, hiring an additional 14 people, and expanding into the building next door.

One of Staub's employees, Corey Adams, is also with us tonight. Corey is an all-American worker. He supported himself through high school, lost his job during the 2008 recession, and was later hired by Staub, where he trained to become a welder. Like many hardworking Americans, Corey plans to invest his tax-cut raise into his new home and his two daughters' education. Please join me in congratulating Corey.

Since we passed tax cuts, roughly 3 million workers have already gotten tax cut bonuses -- many of them thousands of dollars per worker. Apple has just announced it plans to invest a total of $350 billion in America, and hire another 20,000 workers.

This is our new American moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American Dream.

So to every citizen watching at home tonight -- no matter where you have been, or where you come from, this is your time. If you work hard, if you believe in yourself, if you believe in America, then you can dream anything, you can be anything, and together, we can achieve anything.

Tonight, I want to talk about what kind of future we are going to have, and what kind of Nation we are going to be. All of us, together, as one team, one people, and one American family.

We all share the same home, the same heart, the same destiny, and the same great American flag.

Together, we are rediscovering the American way.

In America, we know that faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, are the center of the American life. Our motto is "in God we trust."

And we celebrate our police, our military, and our amazing veterans as heroes who deserve our total and unwavering support.

Here tonight is Preston Sharp, a 12-year-old boy from Redding, California, who noticed that veterans' graves were not marked with flags on Veterans Day. He decided to change that, and started a movement that has now placed 40,000 flags at the graves of our great heroes. Preston: a job well done.

Young patriots like Preston teach all of us about our civic duty as Americans. Preston's reverence for those who have served our Nation reminds us why we salute our flag, why we put our hands on our hearts for the pledge of allegiance, and why we proudly stand for the national anthem.

Americans love their country. And they deserve a Government that shows them the same love and loyalty in return.

For the last year we have sought to restore the bonds of trust between our citizens and their Government.

Working with the Senate, we are appointing judges who will interpret the Constitution as written, including a great new Supreme Court Justice, and more circuit court judges than any new administration in the history of our country.

We are defending our Second Amendment, and have taken historic actions to protect religious liberty.

And we are serving our brave veterans, including giving our veterans choice in their healthcare decisions. Last year, the Congress passed, and I signed, the landmark VA Accountability Act. Since its passage, my Administration has already removed more than 1,500 VA employees who failed to give our veterans the care they deserve -- and we are hiring talented people who love our vets as much as we do.

I will not stop until our veterans are properly taken care of, which has been my promise to them from the very beginning of this great journey.

All Americans deserve accountability and respect -- and that is what we are giving them. So tonight, I call on the Congress to empower every Cabinet Secretary with the authority to reward good workers -- and to remove Federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.

In our drive to make Washington accountable, we have eliminated more regulations in our first year than any administration in history.

We have ended the war on American Energy -- and we have ended the war on clean coal. We are now an exporter of energy to the world.

In Detroit, I halted Government mandates that crippled America's autoworkers -- so we can get the Motor City revving its engines once again.

Many car companies are now building and expanding plants in the United States -- something we have not seen for decades. Chrysler is moving a major plant from Mexico to Michigan; Toyota and Mazda are opening up a plant in Alabama. Soon, plants will be opening up all over the country. This is all news Americans are unaccustomed to hearing -- for many years, companies and jobs were only leaving us. But now they are coming back.

Exciting progress is happening every day.

To speed access to breakthrough cures and affordable generic drugs, last year the FDA approved more new and generic drugs and medical devices than ever before in our history.

We also believe that patients with terminal conditions should have access to experimental treatments that could potentially save their lives.

People who are terminally ill should not have to go from country to country to seek a cure -- I want to give them a chance right here at home. It is time for the Congress to give these wonderful Americans the "right to try."

One of my greatest priorities is to reduce the price of prescription drugs. In many other countries, these drugs cost far less than what we pay in the United States. That is why I have directed my Administration to make fixing the injustice of high drug prices one of our top priorities. Prices will come down.

America has also finally turned the page on decades of unfair trade deals that sacrificed our prosperity and shipped away our companies, our jobs, and our Nation's wealth.

The era of economic surrender is over.

From now on, we expect trading relationships to be fair and to be reciprocal.

We will work to fix bad trade deals and negotiate new ones.

And we will protect American workers and American intellectual property, through strong enforcement of our trade rules.

As we rebuild our industries, it is also time to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure.

America is a nation of builders. We built the Empire State Building in just 1 year -- is it not a disgrace that it can now take 10 years just to get a permit approved for a simple road?

I am asking both parties to come together to give us the safe, fast, reliable, and modern infrastructure our economy needs and our people deserve.

Tonight, I am calling on the Congress to produce a bill that generates at least $1.5 trillion for the new infrastructure investment we need.

Every Federal dollar should be leveraged by partnering with State and local governments and, where appropriate, tapping into private sector investment -- to permanently fix the infrastructure deficit.

Any bill must also streamline the permitting and approval process -- getting it down to no more than two years, and perhaps even one.

Together, we can reclaim our building heritage. We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways across our land. And we will do it with American heart, American hands, and American grit.

We want every American to know the dignity of a hard day's work. We want every child to be safe in their home at night. And we want every citizen to be proud of this land that we love.

We can lift our citizens from welfare to work, from dependence to independence, and from poverty to prosperity.

As tax cuts create new jobs, let us invest in workforce development and job training. Let us open great vocational schools so our future workers can learn a craft and realize their full potential. And let us support working families by supporting paid family leave.

As America regains its strength, this opportunity must be extended to all citizens. That is why this year we will embark on reforming our prisons to help former inmates who have served their time get a second chance.

Struggling communities, especially immigrant communities, will also be helped by immigration policies that focus on the best interests of American workers and American families.

For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities. They have allowed millions of low-wage workers to compete for jobs and wages against the poorest Americans. Most tragically, they have caused the loss of many innocent lives.

Here tonight are two fathers and two mothers: Evelyn Rodriguez, Freddy Cuevas, Elizabeth Alvarado, and Robert Mickens. Their two teenage daughters -- Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens -- were close friends on Long Island. But in September 2016, on the eve of Nisa's 16th Birthday, neither of them came home. These two precious girls were brutally murdered while walking together in their hometown. Six members of the savage gang MS-13 have been charged with Kayla and Nisa's murders. Many of these gang members took advantage of glaring loopholes in our laws to enter the country as unaccompanied alien minors -- and wound up in Kayla and Nisa's high school.

Evelyn, Elizabeth, Freddy, and Robert: Tonight, everyone in this chamber is praying for you. Everyone in America is grieving for you. And 320 million hearts are breaking for you. We cannot imagine the depth of your sorrow, but we can make sure that other families never have to endure this pain.

Tonight, I am calling on the Congress to finally close the deadly loopholes that have allowed MS-13, and other criminals, to break into our country. We have proposed new legislation that will fix our immigration laws, and support our ICE and Border Patrol Agents, so that this cannot ever happen again.

The United States is a compassionate nation. We are proud that we do more than any other country to help the needy, the struggling, and the underprivileged all over the world. But as President of the United States, my highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, and my constant concern is for America's children, America's struggling workers, and America's forgotten communities. I want our youth to grow up to achieve great things. I want our poor to have their chance to rise.

So tonight, I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties -- Democrats and Republicans -- to protect our citizens of every background, color, religion, and creed. My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans -- to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream. Because Americans are dreamers too.

Here tonight is one leader in the effort to defend our country: Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Celestino Martinez -- he goes by CJ. CJ served 15 years in the Air Force before becoming an ICE agent and spending the last 15 years fighting gang violence and getting dangerous criminals off our streets. At one point, MS-13 leaders ordered CJ's murder. But he did not cave to threats or fear. Last May, he commanded an operation to track down gang members on Long Island. His team has arrested nearly 400, including more than 220 from MS-13.

CJ: Great work. Now let us get the Congress to send you some reinforcements.

Over the next few weeks, the House and Senate will be voting on an immigration reform package.

In recent months, my Administration has met extensively with both Democrats and Republicans to craft a bipartisan approach to immigration reform. Based on these discussions, we presented the Congress with a detailed proposal that should be supported by both parties as a fair compromise -- one where nobody gets everything they want, but where our country gets the critical reforms it needs.

Here are the four pillars of our plan:

The first pillar of our framework generously offers a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants who were brought here by their parents at a young age -- that covers almost three times more people than the previous administration. Under our plan, those who meet education and work requirements, and show good moral character, will be able to become full citizens of the United States.

The second pillar fully secures the border. That means building a wall on the Southern border, and it means hiring more heroes like CJ to keep our communities safe. Crucially, our plan closes the terrible loopholes exploited by criminals and terrorists to enter our country -- and it finally ends the dangerous practice of "catch and release."

The third pillar ends the visa lottery -- a program that randomly hands out green cards without any regard for skill, merit, or the safety of our people. It is time to begin moving towards a merit-based immigration system -- one that admits people who are skilled, who want to work, who will contribute to our society, and who will love and respect our country.

The fourth and final pillar protects the nuclear family by ending chain migration. Under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives. Under our plan, we focus on the immediate family by limiting sponsorships to spouses and minor children. This vital reform is necessary, not just for our economy, but for our security, and our future.

In recent weeks, two terrorist attacks in New York were made possible by the visa lottery and chain migration. In the age of terrorism, these programs present risks we can no longer afford.

It is time to reform these outdated immigration rules, and finally bring our immigration system into the 21st century.

These four pillars represent a down-the-middle compromise, and one that will create a safe, modern, and lawful immigration system.

For over 30 years, Washington has tried and failed to solve this problem. This Congress can be the one that finally makes it happen.

Most importantly, these four pillars will produce legislation that fulfills my ironclad pledge to only sign a bill that puts America first. So let us come together, set politics aside, and finally get the job done.

These reforms will also support our response to the terrible crisis of opioid and drug addiction.

In 2016, we lost 64,000 Americans to drug overdoses: 174 deaths per day. Seven per hour. We must get much tougher on drug dealers and pushers if we are going to succeed in stopping this scourge.

My Administration is committed to fighting the drug epidemic and helping get treatment for those in need. The struggle will be long and difficult -- but, as Americans always do, we will prevail.

As we have seen tonight, the most difficult challenges bring out the best in America.

We see a vivid expression of this truth in the story of the Holets family of New Mexico. Ryan Holets is 27 years old, and an officer with the Albuquerque Police Department. He is here tonight with his wife Rebecca. Last year, Ryan was on duty when he saw a pregnant, homeless woman preparing to inject heroin. When Ryan told her she was going to harm her unborn child, she began to weep. She told him she did not know where to turn, but badly wanted a safe home for her baby.

In that moment, Ryan said he felt God speak to him: "You will do it -- because you can." He took out a picture of his wife and their four kids. Then, he went home to tell his wife Rebecca. In an instant, she agreed to adopt. The Holets named their new daughter Hope.

Ryan and Rebecca: You embody the goodness of our Nation. Thank you, and congratulations.

As we rebuild America's strength and confidence at home, we are also restoring our strength and standing abroad.

Around the world, we face rogue regimes, terrorist groups, and rivals like China and Russia that challenge our interests, our economy, and our values. In confronting these dangers, we know that weakness is the surest path to conflict, and unmatched power is the surest means of our defense.

For this reason, I am asking the Congress to end the dangerous defense sequester and fully fund our great military.

As part of our defense, we must modernize and rebuild our nuclear arsenal, hopefully never having to use it, but making it so strong and powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression. Perhaps someday in the future there will be a magical moment when the countries of the world will get together to eliminate their nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, we are not there yet.

Last year, I also pledged that we would work with our allies to extinguish ISIS from the face of the Earth. One year later, I am proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated almost 100 percent of the territory once held by these killers in Iraq and Syria. But there is much more work to be done. We will continue our fight until ISIS is defeated.

Army Staff Sergeant Justin Peck is here tonight. Near Raqqa last November, Justin and his comrade, Chief Petty Officer Kenton Stacy, were on a mission to clear buildings that ISIS had rigged with explosives so that civilians could return to the city.

Clearing the second floor of a vital hospital, Kenton Stacy was severely wounded by an explosion. Immediately, Justin bounded into the booby-trapped building and found Kenton in bad shape. He applied pressure to the wound and inserted a tube to reopen an airway. He then performed CPR for 20 straight minutes during the ground transport and maintained artificial respiration through 2 hours of emergency surgery.

Kenton Stacy would have died if not for Justin's selfless love for a fellow warrior. Tonight, Kenton is recovering in Texas. Raqqa is liberated. And Justin is wearing his new Bronze Star, with a "V" for "Valor." Staff Sergeant Peck: All of America salutes you.

Terrorists who do things like place bombs in civilian hospitals are evil. When possible, we annihilate them. When necessary, we must be able to detain and question them. But we must be clear: Terrorists are not merely criminals. They are unlawful enemy combatants. And when captured overseas, they should be treated like the terrorists they are.

In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds of dangerous terrorists, only to meet them again on the battlefield -- including the ISIS leader, al-Baghdadi.

So today, I am keeping another promise. I just signed an order directing Secretary Mattis to reexamine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay.

I am also asking the Congress to ensure that, in the fight against ISIS and al-Qa'ida, we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists -- wherever we chase them down.

Our warriors in Afghanistan also have new rules of engagement. Along with their heroic Afghan partners, our military is no longer undermined by artificial timelines, and we no longer tell our enemies our plans.

Last month, I also took an action endorsed unanimously by the Senate just months before: I recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Shortly afterwards, dozens of countries voted in the United Nations General Assembly against America's sovereign right to make this recognition. American taxpayers generously send those same countries billions of dollars in aid every year.

That is why, tonight, I am asking the Congress to pass legislation to help ensure American foreign-assistance dollars always serve American interests, and only go to America's friends.

As we strengthen friendships around the world, we are also restoring clarity about our adversaries.

When the people of Iran rose up against the crimes of their corrupt dictatorship, I did not stay silent. America stands with the people of Iran in their courageous struggle for freedom.

I am asking the Congress to address the fundamental flaws in the terrible Iran nuclear deal.

My Administration has also imposed tough sanctions on the communist and socialist dictatorships in Cuba and Venezuela.

But no regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally or brutally than the cruel dictatorship in North Korea.

North Korea's reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland.

We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from happening.

Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation. I will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got us into this dangerous position.

We need only look at the depraved character of the North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose to America and our allies.

Otto Warmbier was a hardworking student at the University of Virginia. On his way to study abroad in Asia, Otto joined a tour to North Korea. At its conclusion, this wonderful young man was arrested and charged with crimes against the state. After a shameful trial, the dictatorship sentenced Otto to 15 years of hard labor, before returning him to America last June -- horribly injured and on the verge of death. He passed away just days after his return.

Otto's Parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, are with us tonight -- along with Otto's brother and sister, Austin and Greta. You are powerful witnesses to a menace that threatens our world, and your strength inspires us all. Tonight, we pledge to honor Otto's memory with American resolve.

Finally, we are joined by one more witness to the ominous nature of this regime. His name is Mr. Ji Seong-ho.

In 1996, Seong-ho was a starving boy in North Korea. One day, he tried to steal coal from a railroad car to barter for a few scraps of food. In the process, he passed out on the train tracks, exhausted from hunger. He woke up as a train ran over his limbs. He then endured multiple amputations without anything to dull the pain. His brother and sister gave what little food they had to help him recover and ate dirt themselves -- permanently stunting their own growth. Later, he was tortured by North Korean authorities after returning from a brief visit to China. His tormentors wanted to know if he had met any Christians. He had -- and he resolved to be free.

Seong-ho traveled thousands of miles on crutches across China and Southeast Asia to freedom. Most of his family followed. His father was caught trying to escape, and was tortured to death.

Today he lives in Seoul, where he rescues other defectors, and broadcasts into North Korea what the regime fears the most -- the truth.

Today he has a new leg, but Seong-ho, I understand you still keep those crutches as a reminder of how far you have come. Your great sacrifice is an inspiration to us all.

Seong-ho's story is a testament to the yearning of every human soul to live in freedom.

It was that same yearning for freedom that nearly 250 years ago gave birth to a special place called America. It was a small cluster of colonies caught between a great ocean and a vast wilderness. But it was home to an incredible people with a revolutionary idea: that they could rule themselves. That they could chart their own destiny. And that, together, they could light up the world.

That is what our country has always been about. That is what Americans have always stood for, always strived for, and always done.

Atop the dome of this Capitol stands the Statue of Freedom. She stands tall and dignified among the monuments to our ancestors who fought and lived and died to protect her.

Monuments to Washington and Jefferson -- to Lincoln and King.

Memorials to the heroes of Yorktown and Saratoga -- to young Americans who shed their blood on the shores of Normandy, and the fields beyond. And others, who went down in the waters of the Pacific and the skies over Asia.

And freedom stands tall over one more monument: this one. This Capitol. This living monument to the American people.

A people whose heroes live not only in the past, but all around us -- defending hope, pride, and the American way.

They work in every trade. They sacrifice to raise a family. They care for our children at home. They defend our flag abroad. They are strong moms and brave kids. They are firefighters, police officers, border agents, medics, and Marines.

But above all else, they are Americans. And this Capitol, this city, and this Nation, belong to them.

Our task is to respect them, to listen to them, to serve them, to protect them, and to always be worthy of them.

Americans fill the world with art and music. They push the bounds of science and discovery. And they forever remind us of what we should never forget: The people dreamed this country. The people built this country. And it is the people who are making America great again.

As long as we are proud of who we are, and what we are fighting for, there is nothing we cannot achieve.

As long as we have confidence in our values, faith in our citizens, and trust in our God, we will not fail.

Our families will thrive.

Our people will prosper.

And our Nation will forever be safe and strong and proud and mighty and free.

Thank you, and God bless America.U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III, D-Brookline, offered a drastically different take on Donald Trump's first year in the Oval Office Tuesday, as he delivered the Democratic Party's response to the president's first State of the Union address.

Kennedy, who led Massachusetts Democrats in questioning points raised in Trump's prime time address to Congress, argued that while the president painted a rosy picture of the United States, "many have spent the past year anxious, angry (and) afraid."

Contending that the Trump administration is "turning American life into a zero-sum game," the congressman raised concerns about the impact such an approach could have on things like, health care, immigration, taxes and other policies.

"We are bombarded with one false choice after another: Coal miners or single moms. Rural communities or inner cities. The coast or the heartland," he said in a televised speech from Fall River. "As if the mechanic in Pittsburgh and the teacher in Tulsa and the daycare worker in Birmingham are somehow bitter rivals, rather than mutual casualties of a system forcefully rigged for those at the top."

Kennedy argued that Democrats, unlike their GOP counterparts, are committed to fighting for all Americans "because the strongest, richest, greatest nation in the world shouldn't leave any one behind."

"We choose a health care system that offers mercy, whether you suffer from cancer or depression or addiction. We choose an economy strong enough to boast record stock prices and brave enough to admit that top CEOs making 300 times the average worker is not right," he said. " We choose Fall River."

"We choose the thousands of American communities whose roads aren't paved with power or privilege, but with honest effort, good faith, and the resolve to build something better for their kids," the congressman continued, adding that "the state of our union is hopeful, resilient and enduring."

Responses from other Massachusetts Democrats:

Several other members of the state's congressional delegation also spoke out against issues raised in Trump's State of the Union address.

U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts, said although the president called for unity in his speech, his rhetoric on immigration "was rife with the politics of division, targeted squarely at placating the extreme right of his party."

The senator further took issue with Trump's suggestion that his adminsitration's policies account for for the current state of the U.S. economy.

"President Trump spent a good deal of his remarks taking credit for the progress our country has made as a result of President (Barack) Obama's economic agenda, but his tax law and larger economic agenda would only gut the investments we've made in working-class families and the most vulnerable in our society," he said in a statement.

Markey, however, offered some support for the president's proposed infrastructure plan, saying it represents "an opportunity to invest in America's future and create jobs, but not if it undermines environmental laws, erodes worker protections and only benefits hedge funds and Wall Street investors."

Congressman Richard Neal, D-Springfield, lauded the president for discussing the opioid epidemic during his speech, but stressed that the administration and Congress must do more to address the issue.

"We clearly have work to do this year," he said in a statement. "We must stop undermining the programs that provide coverage and treatment for those who need it and instead strengthen and improve access to care and coverage."

Neal further questioned the president's commitment to bipartisanship, contending that such pledges have "proven to be an empty promise," thus far.

"I continue to stand at the ready to join my Republican colleagues to make real bipartisan changes that will help every American throughout every stage of their life," he said. "We simply cannot have an 'America First' agenda that does not lift up all Americans from all corners of our country."

U.S. Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Melrose, contended that after one year under the leadership of the Trump administration and congressional Republicans, "all we have to show for it is a government that keeps the lights on four weeks at a time, a Republican Congress whose singular achievement is a tax scam benefiting their rich friends and daily meltdowns and threats from the White House."

Clark urged her GOP colleagues to "reverse course" and work with Democrats on bipartisan solutions to issues like immigration, opioid abuse and job creation, among other things.

Congresswoman Niki Tsongas, D-Lowell, meanwhile, raised concerns about the president's lack of details or "concrete proposals" when it came to addressing the opioid epidemic, immigration and infrastructure investments.

Despite those "deep misgivings," Tsongas sais she was "encouraged and heartened" by those who attended the president's speech as Democratic members' guests.

"The House gallery was filled with people from across this country who this administration has failed by abandoning DREAMers, undermining our economy with devastating consequences for middle class families, perpetuating a culture that disparages a woman's experience, discriminating against people for their sexual orientation, or offending and damaging relationships with our allies and eroding our moral authority in the world," she said in a statement."Their presence at this speech serves as an imposing counterweight to the president's attempt to put a positive spin on his first year in office."Montana has fallen behind other states in the region in its support for technology startups, though one group of angel investors is looking to grow its network in hopes of influencing state policy to close the gap.

Pat LaPointe, managing director of Frontier Angels http://www.frontierangels.com/, said the organization and its members have already emerged as a major investor, capable of directing large sums of seed capital to upstart tech companies to help accelerate their growth.

But while Frontier Angels has its eyes on Montanas upstart tech scene, the states policies, or lack there of, has made it difficult for state-based companies to access capital, while also deterring investors who might otherwise be interested in providing startup funding.

By Martin Kidston

***

Looking to Join Frontier Angels?

Frontier Angels is a private membership group open to accredited investors only. If you believe you fit the definition of Accredited Investor, like our investment focus, and you bring business/technical experience and a passion for helping entrepreneurs find the path to success, then wed love to talk to you.Rick Nash was acutely aware of Zip Autos http://zipautoservice.com/ historical significance when he acquired the building, and decided in 2006 to restore the deteriorating structure to its former glory. Above all, Nash was determined to retain its historic usage.

With a distinctive beige and baby blue color palette and the words "SERVICE," "LUBRICATION," and "ALINEMENT" [sic] displayed on its north facade, Zip Auto is a difficult building to miss when cruising through downtown Missoula, Montana. But without the preservation efforts of its owner, turning a blind eye to the Art Moderne-style auto repair shop might have become all too easy.

Zip Auto was constructed just as the automobile craze was sweeping through Missoula. Car enthusiasts began offering automobile tours of western Montana based out of Missoula, and according to Paul Filicetti, project architect of the Zip Auto renovation, Missoulas Main Street became something of an "Automobile Row," with dealerships and repair shops springing up at a remarkable rate.

Nick Som

https://savingplaces.org/stories/restoring-a-montana-auto-shop-with-a-one-track-mind#.WnITOK6nHIXImagine a police car that issues tickets without even pulling you over.

What if the same car could use artificial intelligence to find good hiding spots to catch traffic violators and identify drivers by scanning license plates, tapping into surveillance cameras and wirelessly accessing government records?

What if a police officer tapping on your car window asking for your license and registration became a relic of transportations past?

By Peter Holley

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2018/01/30/ford-submitted-a-patent-for-an-autonomous-police-car-the-u-s-government-just-approved-it/?hpid=hp_hp-cards_hp-card-business2%3Ahomepage%2Fcard&utm_term=.b878ea6e3e3eA Giza criminal court handed preliminary death sentences to 10 people on Wednesday after they were convicted of joining an outlawed group that aims to obstruct state institutions from carrying out their duties, as well as attacking state institutions from 2013 to March 2015.

The preliminary death sentence has been referred to the countrys grand mufti for a consultative non-binding opinion as per Egypts penal code. A final verdict will be issued on 10 March for all 16 defendants in the case, three of whom were tried in absentia.

The defendants were also charged with targeting Christians in terrorist attacks, destabilising society and planning to attack police and military personnel.

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2021 Fortuna Award Winners Series: The Multicultural Genealogical Society Escape Room Audio Article Editors Note: The Morgan Community Fund (MCF), in partnership with the Im A Child of Appalachia Fund, recently announced the winners of the 2021 Fortuna Awards. The MCF distributed a total of $20,000 across several businesses and community organizations in the area, to show appreciation for those who contribute greatly...

Morgan County Sheriffs Office Daily Call Reports Audio Article Editors Note: The following are initial incident reports from callers to a Morgan County Sheriffs Office Dispatcher. Any details, charges or situations may have been distorted by the caller, or perhaps may have been found to be different after the officer further investigated the incident. Sunday, June 13, 2021 ...

HINDSIGHT 2021 Audio Article 10 Years Ago (2011)  Despite being plagued with rain and mud resulting in dip in attendance from the previous year, the Morgan County Fair concluded with many successes. Jim Rex, longtime Fair Board member, and treasurer, said the 159th Fair had more 4-H exhibits than last year; goat, hog,...

Malta Council approves Don Larrick to fill empty council seat Audio Article RESOLUTION 21-24, to appoint Don Larrick to council was presented. A motion was made by Terry McGrath to adopt Resolution 21-24, seconded by Joe Williams. Roll call vote was all yeas. Councilman Larrick will finish out the term of Bryon Griffin, who resigned due to his move out of Malta....

United Way of MPM invest $447,881 to improve health, education, and financial stability of the community Audio Article United Way of Muskingum, Perry, and Morgan Counties (UWMPM) has committed $427,000 in community funding for 2021. UWMPM has announced their Phase Two funding. UWMPM will broaden the impact on the community by investing in initiatives that foster empowerment and independence for individuals and families during the Phase Two funding...

Morgan County Sheriffs Office Daily Call Reports Audio Article Editors Note: The following are initial incident reports from callers to a Morgan County Sheriffs Office Dispatcher. Any details, charges or situations may have been distorted by the caller, or perhaps may have been found to be different after the officer further investigated the incident. Thursday, June 17, 2021 ...Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said that if the situation necessitates it, he would be willing to call on the Egyptian people to take to the streets in demonstrations that would serve as a mandate for him to face evil forces that threaten the country.

The president made the comments during a ceremony in Port Said to inaugurate the first phase of operations at the giant gas field Zohr off Egypt's Mediterranean coast.

El-Sisi gave a warning against those who would attempt to "tamper with the security of Egypt."

No one can mess with the countrys security. What has been accomplished in terms of security and stability will not be impinged upon by anyone again, El-Sisi said, stressing that he will not allow a "repetition of what happened eight years ago."

The president warned citizens not to allow anyone to "lead you astray."

The security of Egypt is worth my life and that of the army, he said.

The Egyptian President also spoke about Italian student Giulio Regeni, who was found murdered in Cairo in February 2016 with his body bearing signs of torture.

El-Sisi asked Claudio Descalzi  the CEO of Italian gas company Eni, which is tasked with extracting gas from Zohr  "do you now know why they wanted to drive a wedge between us and Italy? [It was] so that we would not achieve this," referring to operations at Zohr.

El-Sisi said that the Regeni murder was an attempt to "cut the friendship between Italy and Egypt.

I will not forget Italy standing by us despite the Regeni incident. I will not forget it and neither will Egypt, El-Sisi said.

The president reiterated condolences to Regenis family, and pledged that he will bring the culprits behind the murder to justice.

Last month, El-Sisi stressed in a meeting in Cairo with the Italian Minister of Interior Marco Minniti Egypt's "sincere determination" to reach final conclusions in the ongoing probe into Regeni's murder.

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Related Egyptian Christian clerics praise decision to allow worship at unlicensed churches pending formal recognition

A Cairo misdemeanour court sentenced on Wednesday 19 people to a one-year suspended sentence and handed each an EGP 500 fine over an attack on a Coptic Christian church in Giza's Atfih.

Last month, dozens of Muslims in Atfih's Kafr El-Waslin village vandalised the church over a rumour that church officials were planning to install a bell at the building, according to church officials.

The court has also fined the Christian owner of the building EGP 360,000 (around $20,370) for using the building as a religious site without a permit.

A senior Christian cleric in Atfih said at the time of the incident that the diocese had applied to obtain a permit for the church after the country's new church building law was passed in 2016. The cleric added that the church had been holding prayer services for 15 years.

Christians make up around 10 percent of Egypt's 96 million people.

Before the 2016 church building law was passed, Egyptian Christians had long struggled to obtain permits to build churches, with the process at times taking years.

Some congregations were forced to build unlicensed churches or carry out their religious rites in buildings that were not officially designated for religious use. The presence of these unlicensed churches has occasionally sparked sectarian violence between Muslims and Christians in rural areas.

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Egypt's Army Chief-of-Staff Mohamed Farid inspected on Wednesday the security status and Second Field Army units deployed in North Sinai, as well as the implementation of tactics and plans to counter terrorism in the governorate.

Farid reviewed a report on the technical and administrative efficiency of the forces and discussed the implementation of military tactics and ways of addressing emergency situations.

The chief-of-staff praised the high morale of the forces, stressing that the Armed Forces will always serve as Egypt's protective shield.

The Egyptian military has been fighting in North Sinai against Islamist terrorists that have regularly carried out attacks over the past few years, mostly against security personnel.

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Advertisement

Nicholas J. Wald, Joan K. Morris and Colin Blakemore. Public Health Failure in The Prevention of Neural Tube Defects: Time to Abandon The Tolerable Upper Intake Level of Folate, Public Health Reviews https:doi.org/10.1186/s40985-018-0079-6

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A total of 81 countries, including the USA since 1998, have introduced mandatory folic acid fortification of cereals, which has been found to reduce the prevalence of neural tube defects, without any evidence of harm. In countries that have introduced fortification, the number of neural tube defects has decreased by up to a half.Despite successive recommendations, the UK has not introduced mandatory fortification. One reason given is that this might lead to more people having a folate intake above an 'upper limit' suggested by the US Institute of Medicine2 (IOM). However, the study claims that the IOM analysis was 'flawed' and there is no need for an upper limit.The IOM analyzed the results of studies, mainly conducted half a century ago, on individuals with B12 deficiency who had been wrongly treated with folic acid, and claimed that neurological damage tended to occur more frequently in patients treated with higher doses of folic acid. The IOM concluded that treating individuals with vitamin B12 deficiency with higher doses of folic acid might lead to an increased risk of neurological damage.The new re-analysis of the data finds no relationship between the dose of folic acid and the development of neurological damage. The neurological damage was not caused by folic acid - it arose by not treating B12 deficiency with vitamin B12. As a result there is no need for a folate upper limit (just as there is no upper limit for other B vitamins such as B1, B2, B5 or B12).Lead author Professor Sir Nicholas Wald from the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine at Queen Mary, who also led the original 1991 randomized trial, said: "With the upper limit removed there is no scientific or medical reason for delaying the introduction of mandatory folic acid fortification in the UK and other countries that have not yet adopted this proven public health intervention.""Failing to fortify flour with folic acid to prevent neural tube defects is like having a polio vaccine and not using it. Every day in the UK, on average two women have a termination of pregnancy because of a neural tube defect and every week two women give birth to an affected child."Women who could become pregnant are advised to start taking a daily folic acid supplement, but most do not do so, emphasizing the need for fortification. Even with fortification, women should still be advised to take folic acid supplements to achieve a greater level of protection than that afforded by fortification alone. The importance of fortification is that it provides a protective population safety net.In the UK, white flour is already fortified with iron, calcium and other B vitamins (niacin and thiamin).Co-author Professor Joan Morris from the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine at Queen Mary said: "From 1998, when the United States introduced mandatory folic acid fortification, to 2017,. It's a completely avoidable tragedy."Co-author Colin Blakemore, former head of the Medical Research Council, said "Spina bifida is one of the most common disabling birth defects, but British research has shown that this tragic condition is a vitamin deficiency that can easily be prevented. Eight-one other countries have benefited from this research, which was funded by the British taxpayer. It's time for the British public to reap the full benefits of that research."Source: EurekalertAdvertisement

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"The frequency of fruit and vegetable consumption of the participating children increases significantly", says Julia Ha, doctoral student at the Institute for Food and Resource Economics (ILR) of the University of Bonn.The study also provided initial indications that participation in the school fruit scheme can have a positive long-term influence on children's nutritional habits. "The participating students consumed fruit and vegetables much more frequently, even on days without school fruit distribution", reports Prof. Dr. Monika Hartmann from the ILR.Overall, the two scientists from the University of Bonn interviewed more than 800 third- and fourth-graders at twelve elementary schools in North Rhine-Westphalia.The data of 664 children could ultimately be included in the evaluation, which was supported methodically by Prof. Dr. Tanja Lischetzke from the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Koblenz-Landau.The students were divided into three groups: Some of the children received school fruit and vegetables three days a week, another group on two days and the control group did not participate in the school fruit program at all. Students completed questionnaires about the food and drink consumed the previous day and their nutritional knowledge before the study began and again after one year. In order to reliably measure the average frequency of fruit and vegetable consumption, the survey was repeated twice at each time of measurement.With three days, but also with two school fruit days a week, the frequency of fruit and vegetable consumption of children increased significantly after one year."There was a tendency for children who use the voluntary after-school care program to benefit more from school fruit deliveries", says Julia Ha. However, this effect applies only to the implementation form with two school fruit days per week and can be explained by the fact that the leftover fruit and vegetables from the morning are passed on to the after-school care program.Students spending all day at school therefore had more opportunity to access the fruit and vegetables. With three school fruit days a week however, all children benefit on a comparable scale as the schools distributed leftover fruit and vegetables in the classes the following morning."In principle, the EU School Fruit and Vegetable Scheme is a useful nutritional measure to increase the fruit and vegetable consumption of elementary school children", concludes Julia Ha. The distribution of school fruit on only two days a week appears attractive at first, as more children could be reached with the same budget. Nevertheless, this option must also be considered critically, as not all participating children are supported to the same extent.The scientists emphasize that a further reduction in the distribution frequency should in any case be considered carefully. In order to be able to make reliable statements on the long-term effects of school fruit schemes, further studies would have to be carried out. With regard to the prevention of obesity, the overall nutritional behavior beyond the consumption of fruit and vegetables should be taken into account, according to the researchers.The European Union has been providing financial support for school fruit schemes since 2009. The aim is to increase children's fruit and vegetable consumption and thereby contribute to the development of a healthy lifestyle. North Rhine-Westphalia is one of seven federal states that have been participating from the beginning and also support the scheme with state funds.The strategy for the state's schools initially envisaged the distribution of school fruit and vegetables five times per week. In order to enable more schools to participate, it was decided from the school year 2012/13 onwards to reduce the distribution to three days per school week.The exact implementation of the scheme is up to the schools, but accompanying nutritional education measures are required.Source: EurekalertEgyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry met on Tuesday evening with Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Al-Hamdallah to discuss the latest developments in the occupied Palestinian territories, according to a statement by Egyptian foreign ministry spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid.

The meeting came on the sidelines of an urgent meeting of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee in Brussels, which is tasked with coordinating international assistance provided to the Palestinian Authority.

Al-Hamdallah briefed Shoukry on the outcome of the recent Palestinian efforts to maintain the historical and legal status of Jerusalem, and the two discussed international stances on the Palestinian issue, the spokesman added.

The Egyptian foreign minister affirmed to Al-Hamdallah Cairo's firm stance in supporting the Palestinian cause, which is in line with international legitimacy resolutions.

The Palestinian prime minister expressed his appreciation for Cairos support of the Palestinian cause, including its efforts to achieve national reconciliation.

The two officials also discussed means of empowering Palestinian institutions and improving the economic situation in the Gaza Strip, as well as enhance the standard of living for Gazans.

Al-Hamdallah affirmed the Palestinian Authority's keenness to enhance coordination with Egypt in the coming period to push forward reconciliation efforts.

The Ad Hoc Liaison Committee meeting is being held under a European initiative in light of the recent developments in Jerusalem, and mainly aims to discuss Palestinian-Israeli peace prospects and ways to maintain a coherent and unified international stance regarding the Palestinian cause.

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The US State Department placed on Wednesday two Egyptian terrorist groups, Hasm and Lewaa Al-Thawra, on its terror list, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement.

The US also put the head of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, Ismail Haniya, on its terror blacklist and has hit him with sanctions.

The US government also placed sanctions on Harakat Al-Sabireen, a small Iran-affiliated militant group that splintered from the Islamic Jihad and operates in Gaza, according to the US Secretary of State.

"These designations target key terrorist groups and leaders  including two sponsored and directed by Iran  who are threatening the stability of the Middle East, undermining the peace process, and attacking our allies Egypt and Israel," Tillerson said in a statement.

The Egyptian government has linked Hasm and Lewaa Al-Thawra with the Muslim Brotherhood group, which is banned and designated a terrorist organisation in Egypt.

Hasm and Lewaa Al-Thawra have claimed responsibility for several terrorist attacks in Egypt that have killed dozens of police and army personnel.

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U.S. President Donald Trump signed an order on Tuesday to keep open the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay after his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, tried unsuccessfully to close the prison that has drawn international condemnation.

In his first State of the Union address to Congress, Trump made clear he was fulfilling a campaign promise to keep operating the prison for foreign terrorism suspects at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo, Cuba.

"I just signed, prior to walking in, an order directing (Defense) Secretary (Jim) Mattis ... to re-examine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay," Trump said.

The executive order authorized the U.S. military to add detainees and suggested the possibility that captured Islamic State militants could be sent there for the first time.

Obama signed an order on his first full day in office in 2009 ordering efforts to shutter Guantanamo within a year, but his plan was thwarted by mostly Republican opposition in Congress. Instead, his administration reduced the inmate population to 41 from 242 during his eight years in office.

The prison, which was opened by President George W. Bush to hold suspected militants captured overseas after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, came to symbolize harsh detention practices that opened the United States to accusations of torture.

As a presidential candidate, Trump vowed "to load it up with some bad dudes." Since he became president a year ago, there is no indication any new prisoners have arrived.

"In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds and hundreds of dangerous terrorists, only to meet them again on the battlefield - including the ISIS leader, (Abu Bakr) al-Baghdadi, who we captured, who we had, who we released," Trump said in the speech, referring to the Islamic State militant group.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in July that Baghdadi had been killed. Americans captured him in the beginning of the war in Iraq, and released him a year later, thinking he was a civilian agitator rather than a military threat.

Civil liberties groups immediately denounced the executive order, and the Center for Constitutional Rights said it would file a legal challenge.

"In trying to give new life to a prison that symbolizes America's descent into torture and unlawful indefinite detention, Trump will not make this country any safer," said Hina Shamsi, a director at the American Civil Liberties Union.

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Related US defends role of Lebanon army as Israel threatens to attack it

Lebanon vowed to protect its maritime borders from Israeli threats, Energy Minister Cesar Abi Khalil said on Wednesday.

"Lebanon will use all available methods to fend off the Israeli aggression that was announced today," he said in televised comments.

Israel described as "very provocative" a Lebanese offshore oil and gas exploration tender in disputed territory on the countries' maritime border, and urged international firms not to bid. Lebanese President Michel Aoun described the comments as "a threat".



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Clashes raged between Turkish-backed forces and Kurdish militia in Syria's Afrin region on Wednesday, as wounded civilians fled intense Turkish air strikes.

Turkey and allied Syrian rebels have pressed on with Operation Olive Branch in the Kurdish-controlled Afrin enclave despite mounting international concern and reports of rising civilian casualties.

An AFP correspondent in Afrin heard warplanes flying overhead, and Kurdish officials said rocket fire on the town wounded 12 civilians.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said heavy bombardment and Turkish air strikes were accompanying ground fighting around Jandairis and Rajo, two areas to the west of Afrin near the Turkish border.

The Britain-based war monitor reported that Turkish-backed forces had seized control of the border village of Shinkal to the northwest.

"Turkish forces dispatched new military reinforcements overnight, including fighters and equipment, to Shinkal in an attempt to consolidate their control over several points and support attacking forces," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.

Turkey and its Syria rebel allies launched Operation Olive Branch against the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), on January 20.

The group has been a key ally of Washington in its fight against the Islamic State (IS) militant group, but Ankara says it is an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a deadly insurgency in southeastern Turkey since 1984.

On Wednesday, the Turkish army said it destroyed 22 YPG targets overnight.

Ankara has denied hitting civilians in its military operations, but hospitals in Afrin say they are receiving civilian casualties on a daily basis.

At the region's main hospital on Tuesday, a heartbroken family carried out the body of their father, killed in shelling several days earlier.

A sobbing woman touched her head to the casket.

Nearby, an elderly man was yelling to anyone who would listen.

He had survived heavy Turkish bombardment of his neighbourhood, but 12 of his family members -- including two infant grandchildren -- had not.

"The whole world knows what's happening here. Everyone know that civilians are dying," he screamed.

"A four month old and a nine month old -- as if we're the Daesh of Afrin," he said, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

The Observatory says the Turkish operation has left 67 civilians dead so far, 20 of them children.

Turkish Defence Minister Nurettin Canikli insisted on Tuesday that Ankara's forces and its rebel allies "have not harmed any civilian" during the operation.

But the offensive has come under growing global pressure, with French President Emmanuel Macron warning Ankara against a full-blown "invasion" on Wednesday.

"If the operation became more than fighting a potential terrorist threat on the Turkish border and turns out to be an invasion operation, we would have a real problem with that," Macron told Le Figaro daily.

In reaction, Turkish Prime Minister Binaldi Yildirim said any suggestion that Ankara had broader designs in Syria beyond pushing the YPG back from the border, was "totally wrong".

Since launching the assault, Turkey and rebel allies have captured 11 villages and the strategic Barsaya hill, according to the Observatory.

Barsaya overlooks both the rebel-held Syrian town of Azaz, and Kilis across the border in Turkey.

Advancing fighters were facing "fierce resistance from YPG fighters holed up in the mountains, in spite of Turkey's massive firepower," said Abdel Rahman.

The Observatory said that 91 YPG fighters and 85 pro-Ankara rebels had been killed in the fighting so far.

Turkey says seven of its soldiers have been killed.

On Wednesday, rockets launched from Syria killed a 17-year-old girl and wounded another resident of a Turkish border town, officials said.

The US and France have repeatedly expressed concern over the cross-border offensive, which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week threatened to expand.

Erdogan has vowed to "clean up" the YPG-held city of Manbij east of Afrin, where the US has troops as part of its operations against IS.

Syria's conflict erupted in 2011 with anti-government protests but has morphed into a tangled war pitting rebels, Islamist militants, Kurds, and government forces against each other.

On Wednesday, a pair of missiles fired by rebels outside Damascus hit the capital's civilian airport without causing damage, state news agency SANA said.

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Yemeni ministers were holed up in Aden's presidential palace on Wednesday after separatist forces seized effective control of the southern port city, dealing another blow to the country's embattled government.

The United Nations agency for humanitarian affairs reported a "cautious calm" in the city, but damage to aid distribution channels and donor nation confidence had already been inflicted.

Kuwait's deputy foreign minister Khaled al-Jarallah said the infighting in Yemen's de facto capital had prompted his country to halt multi-million dollar development programmes.

In Aden, pro-separatist forces backed by the UAE known as the "security belt" fanned out across the city after three days of fighting that left 38 people dead.

The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have backed the beleaguered government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi since intervening against Shia Houthi rebels in Yemen's civil war in March 2015.

But the Arab allies, whose military coalition was launched to roll back rebel gains and restore Yemen's "legitimate" government to power in Sanaa, have not intervened to prop up Hadi against his separatist rivals.

The coalition has instead urged the separatists to exercise restraint and called on the government to weigh up the demands of its rivals.

While Yemen's president resides in the Saudi capital, the power struggle in the anti-Houthi camp has left Prime Minister Ahmed bin Dagher and a number of senior government figures holed up in the Aden presidential palace.

A high-ranking military source said the separatists had also taken over bin Dagher's office chief overnight.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, said staff were able to work a half day Wednesday, citing a "cautious calm" after separatists seized most of the city from government loyalists.

"Some shops have re-opened in the city and civilians have been able to move out of their homes to stock up on essential supplies," it said, adding however that most schools remained closed and entry points for aid cut off.

"There are still no humanitarian flights or vessels into or out of Aden. The VOS Apollo is still anchored in international waters off the Aden coast," OCHA said.

At least 38 people have been killed and 222 wounded in Aden since Sunday, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The UN earlier Wednesday raised alarm bells over the impact of the violent standoff on more than 40,000 Yemenis recently displaced to Aden, saying planned aid distributions had been postponed with cargo stuck at Aden port.

Since 2015, Aden had served as a refuge for tens of thousands of Yemenis fleeing conflict in their hometowns across the country, as the Saudi-backed government battled Houthi rebels allied with Iran.

Kuwait -- which according to its deputy foreign minister has pledged $100 million to UN aid agencies in Yemen and another $400 million through its own development fund -- has suspended its contributions in light of the recent fighting.

"What is happening in Aden is regrettable and painful," Khaled al-Jarallah told the Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

"Meaningless and unjustified fighting will only worsen Yemen's wounds," he said, calling on all parties to restore calm.

Separatists, mainly based in Aden, have gained traction since April in their push for self-rule, accusing Hadi's government of corruption and demanding the reinstatement of South Yemen under a Southern Transitional Council.

In his first public appearance since the clashes erupted, STC chief Aidarouss al-Zoubeidi stressed the separatists were still fighting alongside the Arab military coalition, which has staunchly backed Hadi for three years against the Houthi rebels.

"We have warned this failure of a government time and again that the economic situation in the south in particular, and Yemen in general, was unbearable and that they had no choice but to heed the demands of the people of Aden, and of Yemen," Zoubeidi told France24 via satellite link.

He declined to confirm the STC had its sights set on forming its own government, saying: "the people of south Yemen have the right to determine their own future when the international community responds".

The clashes have sparked fears of a repeat of South Yemen's 1986 civil war, a failed socialist coup which killed thousands in just six days and helped pave the way for the 1991 unification of South and North Yemen.

The separatists, who enjoy popular support and are backed by some regular troops, rapidly gained control over all but one district in Aden since Sunday.

The UAE -- a pillar of the coalition -- has close ties to separatist leader Hani bin Breik while its "security belt" force backs the STC.

More than 9,200 Yemenis have been killed since the coalition intervened in the war three years ago, triggering what the UN has called the world's largest humanitarian disaster.

The coalition's original mission of rolling back Houthi gains has expanded to include fighting Islamist militant groups that have flourished during the war, and now keeping the peace between its allies on the ground.

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The United States on Wednesday put the head of Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, Ismail Haniya, on its terror blacklist and slapped sanctions on him -- a move sure to raise tensions, after Washington recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

The 55-year-old Haniya, who was named head of Hamas in May 2017, represents the movement's more pragmatic wing.

"Haniya has close links with Hamas' military wing and has been a proponent of armed struggle, including against civilians," the State Department said in a statement.

"He has reportedly been involved in terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens. Hamas has been responsible for an estimated 17 American lives killed in terrorist attacks."

Haniya is now on the US Treasury sanctions blacklist, which freezes any US-based assets he may have and bans any US person or company from doing business with him.

Hamas -- which has controlled the Gaza Strip for more than a decade -- had already been on the US terror blacklist since 1997.

The US government also slapped sanctions on Harakat al-Sabireen -- a small militant group that splintered away from the Islamic Jihad, is close to Iran and operates in Gaza -- and two other groups active in Egypt: Liwa al-Thawra and HASM.

"These designations target key terrorist groups and leaders -- including two sponsored and directed by Iran -- who are threatening the stability of the Middle East, undermining the peace process, and attacking our allies Egypt and Israel," Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement.

"Today's actions are an important step in denying them the resources they need to plan and carry out their terrorist activities."

Haniya replaced Khaled Meshaal, who now lives in Doha in exile, atop the Hamas movement. Unlike Meshaal, Haniya will remain in the Gaza Strip.

Also known as Abu Abed, Haniya was born in Gaza's Shati refugee camp in January 1963 to parents who fled when Israel was created in 1948.

Relations between Washington and the Palestinians have been severely strained since US President Donald Trump broke with decades of policy in December to name Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

The Hamas leader voiced rage over the decision, saying it "crosses every red line," and called for a new intifada, or uprising.

"This Zionist policy supported by the US cannot be confronted unless we ignite a new intifada," Haniya said.

Days of sometimes violent demonstrations in the Palestinian territories and other parts of the Middle East ensued. Washington says the new embassy will open in Jerusalem in 2019.

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Accusations of Trump's 'racist' comment dubious

To the Record Patriot:

Friends and neighbors; recently, we witnessed extreme perfidy on the part of our representative to the U.S. Senate.

After a supposedly confidential negotiating session among Republicans, Democrats and President Trump, Dick Durban came out and accused the POTUS of "despicable, racist" language.

Numerous attendees at the meeting have testified that they did not hear Mr. Trump say what Mr. Durbin claims. Mr. Trump denies the allegation. But of course, the liberal mainstream media has jumped on the allegation in their obvious, leftist efforts to undermine our POTUS.

Mr. Durbin has done this before. To quote the Daily Wire: "In a negotiation meeting with the president, one GOP House Leader told [President Barack Obama]: 'I cannot even stand to look at you,' Durbin wrote in a post on his Facebook page. However, both the White House and the House speaker's office denied Durbin's account of events.

Asked about the post in the White House daily briefing, press secretary Jay Carney said he checked with a participant of the meeting in question. 'I looked into this and spoke with somebody who was in that meeting and it did not happen,' Carney said."

Most informed Americans agree that the countries supposedly referred to as s***holes are, in fact, awful places. Which is not a "racist" statement. Haiti and the Dominican Republic occupy the same island in the Caribbean; but Haiti is a mess, and the DR is a place Americans flock to for vacations. No differences in resources or racial makeup. So, it is duplicitous to claim that referring to Haiti as a horrible place is "racist."

Durbin is clearly employing the standard Democrat, leftist response to statements of reality they don't like as "racist" in an effort to deflect truthful observations. Democrats never answer direct questions about why most jurisdictions under their control - e.g. Detroit - are economic and cultural disasters. Rather they accuse the questioners of "racism."

Meanwhile, media attention on who said what is a distraction: the fact is that a Democrat came out of a confidential negotiating session and mounted his soapbox to poison the well. The DACA negotiations imploded, leading to the Schumer Shutdown of the federal government. Our very own senator triggered this fiasco.

Mr. Durbin has been in the Senate for over 20 years, and he is in his 70s. Perhaps senility or arrogance or stupidity has affected his judgment. More likely he harbors such a burning desire to torpedo the Republicans that he is willing to jeopardize critical legislation in the Senate. More likely he is a vicious partisan more interested in politics than what's best for America. Which means he is unfit to serve the citizens of Michigan.

He is up for re-election in 2020. I will be rooting to see Mr. Durbin retired to the benefit of Michigan and America. I recommend that my fellow Benzie County voters do the same.

Ted Greene

Frankfort100 years ago 1-31-1918

The State High School Debating League, organized under the auspices of the State University, is debating this year the question of government ownership of interstate railroads. The first debates in the series were scheduled for last Friday night and Benzonia Academy was to have met the Manton High School. The latter team forfeited the debate so the Academy was advanced to the second debate in the series, which comes next week. The Academy team will support the affirmative side of the question against the Pellston High School, the debate to be held at Pellston. The members of the Academy team are Lewis Stoneman, Franklin Scott, and Donald Bicknell, with Lyman Baker as alternate.

Editor Strang's parting word -- Last week the announcement was made that a bargain was about completed by which Mr. Saunders would return to the ownership and publication of the Banner and Record. The bargain was completed Monday afternoon, and the transfer made Tuesday morning. The editorial work is not laid down without some regrets. The coming of war has made the work hard financially, but there has been joy in the sacrifice involved. There is no business exempt from this regret. There is a kind of good-bye feeling with reference to the many friends who have stood by, appreciated and helped; but the regret for the severance of fellowship in this service has its compensation in the fact that these fellowships may continue and be enlarged in the larger work it is expected may follow. The country publisher is very much tied to his business; the freedom from this condition will be appreciated and possibly utilized in the fellowship of personal presence. In this anticipation the quill is handed to Mr. Saunders.

Clement J. Strang

There hasn't been a prisoner in the county jail for five weeks. A tramp was county guest overnight because the public heart could not bear to see him try to sleep in a snow bank. Not a bad record for dry Benzie County.

Miles Simpson of Bannister was an overnight guest Friday at the home of Otto Heinse. While here he purchased fifteen head of registered Shropshire sheep from the Bardette farm. They were expressed this morning. Too bad to have any sheep leave our county for we are woefully in need of them.

-- Compiled by Jerry Heiman from Benzie newspaper archives for the Benzie Area Historical Society. To learn more about the museum's collections, call (231) 882-5539 or visit benziemuseum.org.BAY CITY - Three new faces recently joined the Michigan Sugar Company Board of Directors and two outgoing directors were honored for their service.

New to the board are Adam Herford of Elkton, who serves the Central District, and William Meylan of Auburn and Clay Crumbaugh of St. Louis, who both serve the West District.

Meylan joined the board in September and is completing an open two-year term.

Crumbaugh and Herford were elected to the board during Michigan Sugar Company's annual meeting at Saginaw Valley State University. They are serving four-year terms.

Following the annual meeting, officers were elected to serve this year. They are: Chairman Richard Gerstenberger, Vice Chairman Charles Bauer, Secretary Clark Gerstacker and Treasurer Mark Richards.

The Michigan Sugar Company Board of Directors is now composed of:

 Chairman Richard Gerstenberger, Snover

 Vice Chairman Charles Bauer, Reese

 Secretary Clark Gerstacker, Midland

 Treasurer Mark Richards, Dresden, Ontario

 Warren Bierlein, Vassar

 Clay Crumbaugh, St. Louis

 Tom Gettel, Sebewaing

 Adam Herford, Elkton

 Kent Houghtaling, Reese

 Kenneth Kousky, Freeland (outside director)

 William Meylan, Auburn

 James Roggenbuck, Harbor Beach

 Thomas Wadsworth, Sandusky

During the annual meeting, outgoing directors William "Bill" Herford and Jeff Gulick were honored for their years of service to the board. Herford served on the board from 2002 to 2018 and Gulick from 2014 to 2018.UPPER THUMB  The saying when one door closes, another opens is proving true  at least in regard to the possibility of a grocery store coming to Cass City.

Last week, it was announced Texas businessman Mark Molters plan to open a grocery store in the soon-to-be former Baker College didnt work out, and college official offered the campus for $1 to Cass City Schools.

However, this week, an unexpected update was given on the process of Jim Zyrowski efforts to open a Bens Neighborhood Market in the former Erlas Food Center and Packaging.

The Bens team has been busy researching the right size and format for this location. This work has been completed and final floor plans and architectural drawings are near completion, stated a letter from Zyrowski that was presented at the village meeting. Financing has been approved and we currently have verbal agreements with our partnering tenants, and will have written agreements soon.

Although the stores announcement wasnt on the agenda for Mondays council meeting it was welcome news in the community of about 2,375 residents who have been without a local grocery store since Erlas closed about five years ago. The Erla store, which is located at 6233 Church St., Cass City, is about 21,380 square feet.

This is very exciting news. We (the village) have been in contact with him and working on developing the store, said Village Manager Deboria (Debbie) Powell. This is great news for the community.

Besides being exciting news from a village managers standpoint, Powell also has a personal interest.

I just recently moved into Cass City and it will be good to have a local grocery store, Powell said.

Zyrowski owns the Marlette-based Bens Supercenter Inc.

We are pleased with the progress we have made and are confident that the citizens of Cass City and the surrounding area will be pleased with the variety and selection of fresh and smoked meats, produce, deli, bakery and grocery that we will be offering, Zyrowski explained.

According to Powell, Zyrowski will be bring his stores plan before the village planning commission soon for review.TUSCOLA TOWNSHIP  A 48-year-old Saginaw man died from injuries sustained in a two-vehicle crash that took place on M-15 near Atkins Road.

According to the Tuscola County Sheriff's Office, deputies were called to the scene around 11:30 a.m. Monday, where Robert Haller was traveling south bound on M-15 when he lost control of his vehicle on the icy, snow covered roadway.

The vehicle then crossed the center line and struck a northbound vehicle head-on. The northbound vehicle was being driven by 18-year-old Vassar man Timothy Crooks.

Haller was transported to Covenant Hospital by MMR and later died from his injuries. Crooks was transported to Covenant Hospital in Saginaw for non-life threatening injuries.

Airbags were deployed on both vehicles. Crooks was wearing a seatbelt at the time of the crash. It is unknown if Haller was wearing a seatbelt.

Speed and road conditions are considered factors in the crash, which remains under investigation.

Deputies were assisted on scene by an MSP Motor Carrier Officer, Vassar Police Department, Vassar and Richville fire departments and MMR.LANSING -- When thinking about Michigan's important, valuable landscapes, many of us first think of the Great Lakes, northern forests and sandy beaches. Wetlands might not immediately come to mind.

They certainly didn't for early Michigan settlers, who were less than impressed with the state's abundance of swamps and marshes - more than 10 million acres of wetlands before European settlement.

The banks of the Detroit River are handsome, but nine-tenths of the land in the Territory is unfit for cultivation," said General Duncan McArthur, stationed at Fort Detroit, in 1814.

The 1816 Tiffin Report by Edward Tiffin, surveyor general of the United States, had equally disparaging things to say about Michigan's land and agricultural potential, including: "Michigan apparently consisted of swamps, lakes, and poor, sandy soil not worth the cost of surveying. Not more than one acre in a hundred, or perhaps a thousand, could be cultivated."

In the two centuries that followed, about half of Michigan's original wetlands have been drained and filled.

"Michigan was once considered a mosquito-infested, godforsaken swamp, and wetlands were drained to establish roads and agriculture and build communities," said Steve Shine, who coordinates wetland mitigation banking - the process of establishing new wetland areas before development or other projects impact existing wetland areas - for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. "This historic conversion of wetlands has made Michigan what it is today, but now we're focused on restoring wetlands to replace those impacted by agriculture, public works projects and development that are also important to the state."

Today, we recognize the value of wetlands, even celebrate them with observances like American Wetlands Month in May, and the need to conserve them.

"Michigan residents, whether they know it or not, have a strong connection to our state's wetlands and the waterfowl that rely on them," said Barb Avers, DNR waterfowl and wetland specialist. "Some go duck hunting every year, while others sit on their back porches and watch the annual fall waterfowl migrations. And many citizens get clear drinking water from groundwater purified by Michigan's wetlands."

In 1979, the Michigan legislature passed the state's wetlands protection statute, which recognizes the benefits and important functions and values provided by wetlands. Administered by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, Michigan's wetlands protection statute requires permits for construction activities in wetlands.

What exactly is a wetland?

Michigan law defines a wetland as "land characterized by the presence of water at a frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances does support, wetland vegetation or aquatic life, and is commonly referred to as a bog, swamp, or marsh."

More simply put, wetlands are areas where land and water meet.

They are characterized by the presence of water that saturates the soil or covers the land for some or all of the year, which leads to the development of plant and animal communities adapted to these conditions.

The three major types of wetlands are marshes, which have standing water from less than an inch to several feet deep and might be called flooded grasslands; swamps, dominated by woody plants and best described as flooded woodlands or shrublands; and bogs, which occur where accumulations of decaying vegetation form mats that eventually cover and then fill in old ponds or lakes.

Wetlands play a critical role in managing Michigan's water-based resources, providing flood storage, groundwater recharge, wildlife habitat, pollution treatment, erosion control and nutrient uptake.

Wetlands are a significant factor in the health and existence of Michigan's other natural resources, such as inland lakes, groundwater, fisheries, wildlife and the Great Lakes.

Wetlands are "like nature's kidneys," Avers said, in that they filter pollutants from surface runoff, trapping fertilizers, pesticides, sediments and other contaminants, helping to break some of them down into less harmful substances, improving water clarity and quality.

They also replenish surface and underground drinking water sources.

"Wetland soils help to filter pollutants and excess nutrients out of the water to create a cleaner water supply for all of us," said Holly Vaughn, DNR wildlife communications coordinator. "They also provide important flood control, acting like sponges to soak up extra rain and storm water."

Wetlands are vital to Michigan's wildlife as well. Acre for acre, they produce more wildlife and plants than any other Michigan habitat type.

"About 25 percent of mammals, 50 percent of birds, nearly all reptiles, and every amphibian in Michigan use wetlands," said Avers.

Avers added that, although wetlands make up only 5 percent of the area of the contiguous U.S., more than a third of threatened and endangered species live only in wetlands.

"Wetlands provide excellent benefits to wildlife, including important migratory stopover habitat for waterfowl and migratory songbirds too," Vaughn said.

While many wildlife species find homes in Michigan's wetlands, many people find recreation destinations there.

This includes waterfowl hunting - Michigan regularly ranks in the top three states for Canada goose harvest and hunters in the nation, and in the top 10 for average annual sales of federal duck stamps - and a variety of other outdoor pursuits.

"Michigan has exceptional wetland recreation opportunities," Vaughn said. "Among the best of them, our Wetland Wonders (the DNR's managed waterfowl areas) offer great waterfowl hunting, wildlife viewing, trapping, hiking, fishing and boating."

Those recreation opportunities lead to significant economic impact.

"Wetlands are important for the state's economy," said Avers. "Waterfowl hunting trips, which take place largely in wetland areas, generate $22 million each year in Michigan. Fish, wildlife and recreational activities related to Michigan's coastal wetlands generate $52 million annually."Waterfowl hunting trips, which take place largely in wetland areas, generate $22 million each year in Michigan.

Avers added that renowned waterfowl and coastal wetland areas like Saginaw Bay, St. Clair Flats and the Detroit River have built and supported local economies and communities with industries such as duck decoys, boats and hunting clubs.

"Great Lakes coastal wetlands are highly productive and rare ecosystems, and are widely recognized as vital to the overall Great Lakes ecosystem, providing habitat for migratory waterfowl, wading birds, sport and forage fish, amphibians and reptiles, and many other native wildlife," said Anne Garwood, DEQ Great Lakes coastal wetland ecologist. "In some parts of the state, where up to 90 percent of Michigan's coastal wetlands have been lost, the protection and restoration of coastal wetlands is especially critical."

Although now recognized for their importance to wildlife, people, the environment and the economy - and with laws in place that have helped slow their loss - wetlands still face threats.

These threats include invasive species, climate change and declining Great Lakes water levels, and demand for development on existing wetlands.

"More than 50 percent of Michigan's historic wetland base has been lost, and the rate of wetland loss in key waterfowl landscapes exceeds 90 percent," said Avers. "We need to do more to conserve Michigan's wetlands and our great waterfowl heritage."

The DNR, along with many other organizations, has undertaken efforts to conserve and restore wetlands in Michigan.

Take, for example, Michigan's Wetland Wonders, the seven premier managed waterfowl hunt areas in the state, scattered across the southern Lower Peninsula.

The DNR created these areas in the 1960s to generate exceptional waterfowl hunting opportunities and still manages them today to provide habitat for waterfowl and other species of wetlands wildlife.

But Michigan's wetlands successes don't end there.

"We've been very successful across Michigan in protecting and restoring wetland habitat, primarily driven by partnerships with other organizations," said Avers. "Our best success story is the collection of North American Wetland Conservation Act grants that we've received."

The North American Wetland Conservation Act program, which began in 1989, supports on-the-ground wetland conservation efforts by providing matching grants for projects in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

In Michigan, the 50 NAWCA projects either completed or under way have conserved a total of 56,762 acres of wildlife habitat. The program's funding of more than $18 million has stimulated partner contributions of more than $62 million for Michigan wetlands conservation.

Recently the DNR has partnered with the Michigan Municipal Wetland Alliance on a new wetland mitigation banking program that will preserve and restore wetland habitat on public lands to offset unavoidable impacts to existing wetlands. Look for a future "Showcasing the DNR" story about this effort.

While there is still much work to do on the wetlands conservation front, Michigan has come a long way from the days of treating these vital assets as godforsaken swamps.

To learn more about Michigan wetlands, visit michigan.gov/wetlands.French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Tunisia Wednesday on a visit intended to "support the democratic transition" of a country still battered by economic stagnation and social unrest seven years after its revolution.

His visit comes after several hundred people were arrested in Tunisia this month in protests fuelled by unemployment, corruption and austerity measures in the 2018 budget.

The French presidency said Macron hopes "to support the Tunisian democratic experience, the only successful transition experience after the Arab Spring" of 2011.

Macron has talked up ties between France and its former colony, hosting his Tunisian counterpart Beji Caid Essebsi in December and declaring that "the relationship with Tunisia is a priority".

But analysts say the Tunisian public is sceptical towards pledges of overseas aid.

"They are not expecting much from foreign officials' promises of support, which they only half believe," said Tunisian political scientist Selim Kharrat.

"In 2011, we were promised a Marshall Plan and exceptional aid, which never arrived."

More recent promises "were rarely followed by facts that were palpable on the ground", he added.

Macron was scheduled to head directly to Tunisia's presidential palace to sign a series of economic, security, academic and cultural accords with his counterpart Beji Caid Essebsi, before meeting Prime Minister Youssef Chahed.

He is then set to attend a state dinner with senior Tunisian politicians.

Macron is to address the People's Assembly on Thursday as well as meeting officials, civil society leaders and members of the public.

The French president told Tunisian daily La Presse he would use his visit to announce "an additional effort in at least three areas: the reduction of inequalities, social and territorial, the employability of young people... and increased investment" in sectors including renewable energy and new technologies.

He said Tunisia needed to push ahead with reforms in order to attract more foreign investment.

Successive governments have struggled to revitalise Tunisia's economy since 2011, especially after deadly jihadist attacks in 2015 dealt a major blow to the key tourism sector.

Tunis did secure a 2.4-billion-euro ($2.9-billion) IMF loan in return for a reduction in its budget deficit and other financial reforms.

But employment has remained stubbornly high, and an austerity budget and hikes in value added taxes sent demonstrators onto the streets in early January.

France has said it wants to help Tunisia tackle joblessness, which remains above 15 percent overall and over 30 percent among the young, despite a slight uptick in economic growth last year.

Paris has also called on French firms to "invest massively" in Tunisia.

Arabic-language newspaper Assabah said Tunis wanted to use the visit "to find a solution to Tunisia's debt to France", which stood at around 800 million euros at the end of 2016, according to official figures.

Assabah said 30 million euros of debt would be converted into investment projects, something France has not confirmed.

Macron is set to sign a deal on closer counter-terrorism cooperation and to visit the National Bardo Museum, the site of a deadly Islamic State group attack in 2015.

He is travelling with his wife Brigitte, senior officials including Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, and business executives.eg

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Contributed photo

OLD SAYBROOK  The boys are back when the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center welcomes Will and Anthony Nunziata with their show From Broadway with Love on Friday, February 9 at 8:00 pm.

Celebrate Valentines Day early with Will and Anthony, twin brothers and acclaimed recording artists, actors and songwriters. The concert will bring their high-energy, powerful tenor voices and witty improvisational banter for a special one-night-only performance. Selections include When I Fall In Love, Somewhere, Some Enchanted Evening, Unchained Melody, and many others ranging from Broadway, the Great American Songbook, Italian classics and original pop songs from their new album The New Classics.3 1 of 3 Contributed photo Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Copyright Robert Pruitt, Logan Bellew for Tamarind Institute Show More Show Less 3 of 3





MIDDLETOWN  A New Subjectivity: Figurative Painting After 2000, an exhibition composed entirely of paintings by women that attempts to categorize Expressionism in new terms, will be on view in the Main Gallery at Wesleyan Universitys Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, located at 283 Washington Terrace on the Wesleyan campus in Middletown, through Sunday, March 4. New extended gallery hours are Tuesdays, 12-7 p.m. and Wednesdays through Sundays from 12-5 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public. The guest curator is Jason Stopa, Visiting Assistant Professor, Fine Arts, Pratt Institute.

The exhibition features works by Gina Beavers, Katherine Bernhardt, Katherine Bradford, Jackie Gendel, Liz Markus, and Rose Wylie. Although this group is loosely defined as figurative artists, their work is equally invested in the language of abstractionthe drip, the gesture, and color as experience. Some have made paintings from subject matter that has been historically considered unfit. This exhibition attempts to categorize Expressionism in new terms. Their work, and arguably the role of Expressionism itself, is often to create divisive space within painting, leaving gaps for the audience to create structure and meaning. Referencing cartoons, fashion spreads, and personal narratives, the artists address the fragmentation of individual subjectivity in a technological world. The new figuration is thereby performative, rather than prescriptive, and both absurd and sincere approaches to the subject matter are embraced by the artists.More than 80 plumbers were aboard Norwegian Flight DY1156 on Saturday, but their pipe savvy was useless in the face of a faulty airplane toilet.

Their flight took off from Oslo for Munich shortly after 9:30 a.m., Swedish news site Dagbladet reports. The plane got as far as the Swedish border before it was forced to return to Oslo due to "a problem with the toilets on board," a Norwegian Air spokesperson told the Independent.PORTLAND  Asked to describe what its like to be town clerk, Ryan J. Curley smiled and said, I actually work in a place that makes a difference.

Relaxed and easygoing, Curley said he is both pleased and excited about the job. He is halfway through his first four-year term as clerk, a position he took over after serving on the Board of Selectmen for four years.

Curley recently turned 31. As far as he knows, he remains the youngest town clerk in the state. The Portland native graduated from Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island, with a degree in accounting.

But growing up, he also had an acute interest in government.

I always liked politics, he said.

Even when he was in high school, I always gravitated toward political issues.

Then, when he was 24, I heard the (Republican) Town Committee needed to find a candidate for the Board of Selectmen. It seemed like a good time to get active in town politics.

So Curley met with Selectman John Anderson and then Town Committee Chairwoman Cindy Varricchio. Soon after that, he got a call saying the town committee wanted a candidate who was willing to make a six-year commitment, he said.

Curley paused in the retelling of the partys summons, and with a laugh said, That would be one-fifth of my time on this earth.

Undeterred, he took the plunge and was elected. He found the board at turns interesting and engaging. Sometimes, It was bit of a strange ride, Curley said of his two terms on the board. Most of the time, however, it was fun.

Curley acknowledged he benefited hugely  both personally and professionally  from his close association with fellow Republican, Selectman Carl A. Chudzik. But that evaporated when Chudzik abruptly died in March 2016.

Curley wanted to stay involved in politics on the local level, so he began casting about doing so in a different venue  hence his decision to run for clerk, a race he won with relative ease.

As he made the transition to his new post, Curley relied in part upon his immediate predecessor, Mary D. Dickerson, and through her, on Dickersons mother, the legendary Bernadette Dillon, who was clerk for 37 years.

When he took office, Curley made a statement by rearranging the office and giving it a new coat of paint. We altered our original countertop and put a work station on the counter to increase residents access to a plethora of files contained in the clerks office and vault.

The efforts paid off in increased work space in the basement office.

Curley wasnt done, however. He upgraded the office website with links so this could become a one-stop shopping experience. You come into register to vote and you can view land records, he said.

Assistant Clerk Paula Lee helped to digitize and scan all the Board of Selectmen meeting records from 1944 to the present. He and Lee have also worked to protect and preserve 600 of the oldest maps in the towns possession and which can be key in settling property line disputes.

He continues an effort that has been my focus since I took office: protecting and backing up land records going back to 1963.

Curley shares office space with the registrars of voters. Working with Pauline Neumann and Athena Neville, he was able to change the voting location from the senior center to the middle school/high school complex.

Even as he mentioned the shift of location, Curley also paid tribute to residents for their 86 percent turnout in the 2016 election.

Curley is a man of many parts, with a wide range of interests beyond his work. He plays guitar, competes in a dodge-ball league and is a self-described gym rat.

Considered a catch throughout Town Hall, Curley said, Im still single, and Im not officially dating anyone at this time.

Returning the focus to his position as clerk, Curley said, One of the benefits of working in a small town is you get to see your friends and neighbors and the part they play in making this a very special community.

He is surprised at the speed by which his first two years in office have passed. Curley expressed pride that Ive been able to care of the residents of Portland.

He hopes to create a record of achievement that will earn their votes in the next election.

Ultimately, Im here for the town and to help the residents. Every decision Ive made in this office is made with the intent to maximize convenience for our residents, he said.

Reporter Jeff Mill covers East Hampton, Portland and Cromwell. Contact him at jeff.mill@hearstmediact.com.Related US puts Hamas chief Haniya on terror blacklist

The US decision to put the head of Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on its terror blacklist on Wednesday will not deter the group's "resistance" to Israel, the movement said.

"The American decision to include (Ismail) Haniya on the terrorist list is a failed attempt to pressure the resistance," said the group that runs the Gaza Strip.

"This decision will not deter us from continuing the resistance option to expel the occupation," it said in a statement.

Hamas, which has fought three wars against Israel since 2008, receives support from Iran.

In a separate statement, Hamas said the decision "demonstrates the American bias in favour of the Israeli occupation," while calling on the US to reverse its "hostile policies and decisions" on the militant group.

The designation announced in Washington puts Haniya on the US Treasury sanctions blacklist, which freezes any US-based assets he may have and bans any US person or company from doing business with him.

Nathan Sales, the US State Department coordinator for counter-terrorism, played up Iran's support at a conference for an Israeli think-tank in Tel Aviv on Wednesday.

Iran "continues to support a rogues' gallery of terrorist organisations, including Hezbollah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and others", he said in a speech.

"Iran gives (Lebanon's) Hezbollah about $700 million a year," Sales told the Institute for National Security Studies conference.

"As for the Palestinian terrorist groups, it gives them potentially up to $100 million annually."

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Toyota announced a massive worldwide recall of about 645,000 vehicles due to an electrical issue that could result in the air bag not deploying during a crash.

The Associated Press reports the recall covers the Toyota Prius and Lexus RX and NX SUVs, and other models such as the Alphard, Vellfire, Sienta, Noah, Voxy, Esquire, Probox, Succeed, Corolla, Highlander, Levin and Hilux. These were all produced between May 2015 and March 2016.

Toyota says an open electrical circuit could form over time, which could keep the air bags from deploying. The automaker says the air bag warning light will illuminate if the condition occurs. Affected owners should receive notification by late March, and then dealers will make repairs as necessary free of charge.

The A.P. report does not specify how many of the affected cars are stateside, but the Japanese automaker issued a news release Wednesday, Jan. 31 that said it was recalling 49,000 2016 Prius and Lexus RXs, and 2015 and 2016 Lexus NX models in the U.S.

North of the border, Toyota reports that there are 4,570 of the aforementioned models recalled on Canadian roads.

Toyota's release details the same potential issues and information when compared to the news organization's report.YPSILANTI, MI - A new Mexican restaurant in downtown Ypsilanti is opening its doors after almost five years of renovations and setbacks.

Dolores, 6 S. Washington, was set to officially open for dinner from 5 to 11 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 30, serving up authentic cuisine inspired by the favorite dishes of owners Andrew Epstein and Marcela Rubio-Orozco.

The husband-and-wife team purchased the building in 2013 for $50,000, Epstein said, and have spent the last few years renovating the 3,000-square-foot space dedicated to the restaurant and bar area.

"We changed everything from the ground up," Epstein said, adding that you'd be hard pressed to find a sombrero at Dolores.

"It does not look and feel like a Mexican restaurant."

The influence of Mexico can be found on the menu, with an assortment of tequila and mezcal complementing the tacos, tostadas and salsas Epstein and Rubio-Orozco have developed over the past few years.

The restaurant includes a stage, where Epstein plans to highlight local bands and incorporate his love of music, and seats around 117 people. Dolores employs 20 kitchen and serving staff, including a full-time kitchen manager and front-of-house manager.

It is named after Dolores Park in San Francisco, where Epstein proposed to his then-girlfriend.

"This is our baby," Epstein said. "It's a representation of she and I, and so we wanted to name it something that was Latin, but not hard to pronounce."

There's also the double entendre of the translation of Dolores, Epstein said, as it means pain or sorrows, a common occurrence while opening a restaurant and juggling other commitments like family.

"We had no idea what we were getting into. We had never done a rehab or done a construction project of that size," Epstein said. "It was just difficult, even for someone who had done it before, it was very challenging. There were points along the way we weren't sure exactly what we were going to do."

Some of the challenges stemmed from the second floor, which is now framed for three-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments filled with natural light. Epstein said they already have interest from potential tenants.

"It's been incredibly extensive, the work we've done," Epstein said,

He estimated the apartments may not be move-in ready for another 10 months, and joked that the lease may include a discount at Dolores.

There are already some fans of Dolores after the restaurant hosted a soft opening Friday, Jan. 26.

"It's a little surreal, because we've been on that other side for so long, there was some doubt we would ever get to this side. So we're excited to show off Dolores," Epstein said. "Things have all fallen into place and it was meant to be."

Dolores is open 5 to 10 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 5 p.m. to midnight Saturdays and 12 to 8 p.m. Sundays.

Lunch and carryout service is on the way, Epstein said, but the initial focus is opening the restaurant and making an impression on the community with the cuisine that Epstein said he fell in love with even before meeting his wife.

"We're making stuff real, with love," Epstein said. "We're trying to show a better representation of what we like to eat."

That also means some changes along the way, especially at the beginning.

"We're unveiling new items each day," Epstein said. "What's on the menu next week is different from what's on the menu this week."ANN ARBOR, MI - Noted author and humorist David Sedaris is returning to Ann Arbor for an upcoming performance at the Michigan Theater.

The author will speak at 7:30 p.m. April 18, in promotion of his new book, "Theft By Finding Diaries (1977-2002)," a collection of his diaries. Tickets start at $52 and can be purchased online.

Sedaris, whose works regularly appear in the New Yorker, can often be heard on the public radio show "This American Life." He has been nominated for three Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word and Best Comedy Album.

Sedaris has earned a reputation as one of America's preeminent humorists as the author of the collections of personal essays "Naked," "Me Talk Pretty One Day," "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" and "Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls," all of which have become bestsellers. His pieces appear regularly in The New Yorker and have twice been included in "The Best American Essays."

According to his bio, a forthcoming book of essays entitled "Calypso" is set to be published June, with a second volume of his diaries is expected for summer 2019.

The author is no stranger to Ann Arbor, previously appearing at an intimate reading at Ann Arbor's Literati Bookstore in June 2014. He returned in 2015 for an event at the Michigan Theater.ANN ARBOR, MI - A group of artists and human rights activists hope to bring a global street art project to Ann Arbor and Detroit.

The project - called Education is Not a Crime, or #NotACrime - uses murals to draw attention to people who are denied access to education in Iran because of their Baha'i faith. The Baha'i Institute for Higher Education, founded in 1987, formalized an underground education system formed in the wake of the Islamic revolution in Iran.

A series of murals in Harlem in New York City and other major cities around the world pay tribute to the Baha'i quest for education, promote equality in education and protest religious persecution.

Inequalities in education exist in America too, said Saleem Vaillancourt, a coordinator for #NotACrime, and he hopes a series of murals in Detroit and Ann Arbor will spark more conversation on the topic locally.

"What's important for us in the Education is Not a Crime project is the promotion of the principle of universal education and the transformative power of education," Vaillancourt said. "We're just at the beginning of what we're planning in Michigan. We're looking for partners, we're looking for support and we're looking to learn from the people here."

The murals in Detroit and Ann Arbor will feature Detroit native Robert Hayden, the first black writer to serve as the U.S. Poet Laureate. He died in 1980 at 66.

Hayden attended Detroit City College (later named Wayne State University) and the University of Michigan, researched black history for the Federal Writers' Project and taught at Fisk University and UM, according to the Poetry Foundation.

Given Hayden's Baha'i faith and dedication to higher education, he is a natural fit for the #NotACrime's murals in Michigan, Vaillancourt said. The group is looking for potential locations for a few murals in Detroit and a mural on or near the UM campus in Ann Arbor, he said.

A documentary called "Changing the World, One Wall at a Time" offers more insight on the project, with interviews from artists, Baha'is denied access to higher education and human rights activists involved in the Civil Rights movement and the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa.

Tickets are now on sale for a screening of the documentary at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 6, at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor. After the screening, attendees can participate in a question-and-answer session with Maziar Bahari, founder of Education Is Not A Crime and one of the executive producers of the film.U.S. President Donald Trump vowed on Tuesday to protect American intellectual property, but made no mention of China, which his administration has accused of trade abuses, in his first State of the Union speech to Congress.

Trump had been expected to deliver strong warnings to countries about unfair trade practices, including stealing intellectual property and providing state aid to their industries.

Instead, his comments on trade during the speech were restricted to three sentences in which he repeated that "fair and reciprocal" trade were necessary, but did not elaborate.

"We will work to fix bad trade deals and negotiate new ones," Trump said, adding: "We will protect American workers and American intellectual property, through strong enforcement of our trade rules."

Trump has threatened to walk away from trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, and the U.S-South Korean Free Trade Agreement, unless they bolster U.S. manufacturing and American jobs.

Last week, he imposed tariffs on imported washing machines and solar panels in his first major trade actions since withdrawing the United States from the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement within weeks of taking office last year.

Trump is considering broad tariffs or quotas on steel and aluminum following investigations by the U.S. Department of Commerce into whether rising steel and aluminum imports represent a threat to national security.

The Alliance for American Manufacturing, a group representing steel and other basic industries, welcomed Trump's remarks on trade in his speech but called for actions to combat Chinese imports.

"This speech wont change China's behavior and defend American jobs. Only action will," said AAM President Scott Paul, "It's time for the president's policies and actions to match his talk."

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ANN ARBOR, MI - Sij Hemal settled in his seat aboard a trans-Atlantic flight on Air France, ready to kick up his feet, relax and enjoy a glass of champagne from a first class seat for the first time in his life.

The relaxation was short-lived for Hemal, 27, who graduated from the University of Michigan in 2012 with a degree in biomedical engineering. Flight officials announced they needed a doctor to help a pregnant woman as the plane flew at 35,000 feet.

While Hemal's practice is urology as a second-year resident at Cleveland Clinic's Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute, he had previously delivered six babies during medical school. He put his skills to use in flight to deliver the baby of 41-year-old Toyin Ogundipe, who resides in both the United Kingdom and Nigeria.

"We were just hoping that any complications that did occur we were able to manage," Hemal said, reflecting on the Dec. 17 delivery. "Obviously, if there was something life-threatening, we would have to divert the plane, but she did so excellent. The delivery was picture perfect. Luckily, everything went well, thanks to God."

After about 30 minutes of pushing, Ogundipe gave birth to a boy named Jake in first class aboard the flight.

Hemal spoke with The Ann Arbor News about the emergency delivery, the cooperation of the flight staff and the unlikeliness of being seated next to a pediatrician, Dr. Susan Shepherd, who helped him deliver the baby. Some answers have been edited for clarity and length.

Q: This was your first time flying first class, but the luxurious experience was short-lived. How did you initially realize there was an issue?

A: By happenstance, I was sitting next to a pediatrician that was American-trained and she was doing Doctors Without Borders in Senegal. They announced in French on the flight that they needed a doctor, so I went and responded to the emergency. I saw a lady who was initially complaining of abdominal pain and flank pain. I initially realized she might be having contractions or she might be starting her labor on the flight. She was 39 weeks in, and we needed more space, so we decided to move her to first class, where we were able to position her properly.

Her contractions started worsening - they went from every 10 minutes to every 7 minutes, every 5 minutes, every 3 minutes and every 2 minutes. It accelerated so fast that we would not have been able to make an emergency landing. So then we made the decision to deliver the baby at 35,000 feet.

Q: Was there a discussion about whether you were going to continue on the flight's path or if you were going to turn around?

A: JFK (airport) was four-and-a-half hours away from the point they made the emergency call. The closest place we could have landed was about two hours away. Imagine if you touched down (in an emergency landing) in two hours and then you have to take the patient to the hospital. That would have been about three hours to the time she gets medical care.

Because of that and how fast her contractions were progressing, she would not have made it (to the hospital). Given all of those constraints that we had, we decided to deliver the baby. I brainstormed with Dr. Shepherd, who is a pediatrician, and that's when we went for doing the delivery on the flight.

University of Michigan alum Sij Hemal, now a second-year urology resident at the Cleveland Clinic, recently helped deliver a baby on a trans-Atlantic flight to New York.

Q: How did you collaborate with the people on the flight to deliver the baby at that point?

A: I think it was a collective team effort with the Air France crew. It was me and Dr. Shepherd, and we were kind of managing how we were going to do this, so we kind of decided to divide-and-conquer responsibilities. The crew was all very supportive and helpful and they did an outstanding job.

Q: Your practice area is urology, but you previously delivered six babies during medical school. Did you feel prepared?

A: In medical school we had a graduation requirement that we had to deliver babies. We were also trained in simulators how to deliver babies, so I had some experience doing that.

Q: Were there any certain things you were trying to remind yourself of as you were helping deliver the baby?

A: You sort of know the cardinal movements of labor. In order to graduate from any medical school, you need to know the basics of OB/GYN. The other thing is, birth has been happening for thousands of years and OB/GYN as a specialty has only come about in the last 200-300 years, so birth has been a natural process. Essentially, I was there to make sure that the delivery happened, that we were able to deliver properly, and if there was any complication with her, that we were prepared for that.

I think that's where (having) a residency comes into play. I know this is the case at the Cleveland Clinic - you have to be innovative and creative in coming up with solutions and think outside the box. I think that was the same approach I used in this situation. We didn't have a lot of the equipment you would have in a normal delivery room.

Q: What were the reactions from the people sitting around you during that time?

A: Everyone trusts you. It's a good Samaritan principle at that point in time. Everyone is working together. No one is trying to criticize you, it's just a collaborative effort. People were coming together from different walks of life. I'm an Indian-born, American naturalized citizen; Dr. Shepherd is American born and does Doctors Without Borders and you had the Air France crew, who were all of French descent. Everyone was coming together for one common goal - to help this Nigerian lady deliver her baby. The credit goes to everyone, to be honest.

Q: Have you been in contact with the family since the flight and delivery?

A: Yes, they're doing excellent. Mom is doing great. Jake, the baby, is doing amazing. No complaints, no complications - everyone is in great shape.

Q: You've delivered seven babies now. Do you think you'll ever experience a delivery as unique as this one?

A: I hope not (laughs). If there is ever a situation that is emergent like that, then yes. But I would rather not.ANN ARBOR, MI - Police are investigating after a University of Michigan student awoke to find a stranger in her dorm room early Wednesday, Jan. 31.

The incident occurred about 5:25 a.m. Wednesday at Markley Residence Hall, 1503 Washington Heights, according to a crime alert sent by the University of Michigan Division of Public Safety and Security.

A woman told police she awoke to find an unknown man standing in her room, police said in the alert. She screamed, and the man left.

There were no signs of forced entry and no property was taken.

Further information was not immediately available.

Those with information on this incident are asked to contact university police at 734-763-1131.WASHINGTON, D.C. - As Donald Trump spoke about what he called his "righteous mission to make America great again," including being tougher on immigration enforcement, the U.S.-citizen wife of a recently deported Michigan man listened.

"He is proposing a deal that would end family immigration in exchange for rich people being able to come to this country with no problem," Lincoln Park resident Cindy Garcia said afterward, criticizing Trump's proposed merit-based immigration system.

"This would strand my husband and millions like him."

Cindy Garcia joined U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn, as the congresswoman's guest for Trump's first State of the Union address as president Tuesday night, Jan. 30.

Cindy Garcia's husband - 39-year-old Jorge Garcia, the father of their two U.S.-citizen children - was deported two weeks ago after living here for the last 30 years as an undocumented immigrant.

The family is now fighting to try to bring him back, and Cindy Garcia says the ordeal has been a nightmare for the family.

In a statement issued Tuesday night, Dingell said she plans to work with Trump where she can and fight him where she considers his positions deeply concerning. She agrees the president and Congress must work together on comprehensive immigration reform, but she said Americans want immigration policy that secures the nation without tearing families apart.

"This is about real people's lives," she said. "I was joined at the speech by Cindy Garcia, an American citizen born in Royal Oak, Michigan - a UAW working mom who is trying to do the right thing, but whose family has been ripped apart by our broken immigration system.

"Cindy's husband Jorge was brought to this country at 10 years old and has never received so much as a traffic ticket," Dingell said. "He was not a criminal or a gang member. He was a respected member of our community, a hard worker who paid taxes, helped many and was loved by all. Yet he was deported to Mexico, a country he doesn't know and his family is devastated. America was his home."

Jorge Garcia had been trying to find a way to stay with his wife and children in the U.S. for several years.

Facing deportation, he was granted stays of removal under the Obama administration, but that changed under Trump.

"I want him to see what he is doing to my family. I want him to be able to put a face to the tragedy that is going on," Cindy Garcia told Michigan Radio ahead of attending Trump's speech.

"And I don't know if he will feel any compassion at all, but I want him to realize that I am a person, I am an American citizen, and so are my children, and he's tearing us apart."

In a speech that lasted more than an hour, Trump spent more than 15 minutes Tuesday night talking strictly about immigration matters, laying out a plan for reforms he called a "down-the-middle compromise" to create a safe and modern immigration system.

In broad strokes, he described those being targeted by his administration's immigration crackdown as threats to society - threats to American safety and to American workers.

"For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities," Trump said.

"They've allowed millions of low-wage workers to compete for jobs and wages against the poorest Americans. Most tragically, they have caused the loss of many innocent lives."

Trump said Washington has failed to fix the nation's immigration system for decades and Congress now has a chance to do so.

At one point during his speech, Trump addressed the parents of Nisa Mickens and Kayla Cuevas, two teenage girls who were killed on Long Island in September 2016 by alleged MS-13 gang members.

MS-13 is an international criminal gang whose members are said to be mostly of Central American origin, principally El Salvador.

"Six members of the savage MS-13 gang have been charged with Kayla and Nisa's murders," Trump said.

"Many of these gang members took advantage of glaring loopholes in our laws to enter the country as illegal, unaccompanied, alien minors and wound up in Kayla and Nisa's high school."

Trump told the girls' parents who were in attendance Tuesday night, "Everyone in America is grieving for you."

"While we cannot imagine the depths of that kind of sorrow, we can make sure that other families never have to endure this kind of pain," he said. "Tonight I am calling on Congress to finally close the deadly loopholes that have allowed MS-13 and other criminal gangs to break into our country. We have proposed new legislation that will fix our immigration laws and support our ICE and Border Patrol agents."

ICE stands for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has been more aggressive under Trump.

Trump said the House and Senate will be voting on an immigration reform package in the next few weeks. He said his administration has met extensively with both Democrats and Republicans to craft a bipartisan approach to immigration reform.

"Based on these discussions, we presented the Congress with a detailed proposal that should be supported by both parties as a fair compromise - one where nobody gets everything they want, but where our country gets the critical reforms it needs," he said.

Trump outlined the four pillars of his plan, the first being a path to citizenship for 1.8 million undocumented immigrants known as the "Dreamers" who were brought to the U.S. at a young age.

"Under our plan, those who meet education and work requirements, and show good moral character, will be able to become full citizens of the United States over a 12-year period," he said.

Trump said the second pillar fully secures the border, which means building a wall along the southern border between the U.S. and Mexico and hiring "more heroes" to keep communities safe.

"Crucially, our plan closes the terrible loopholes exploited by criminals and terrorists to enter our country - and it finally ends the horrible and dangerous practice of catch and release," Trump said.

Trump said the third pillar ends the visa lottery, which he described as "a program that randomly hands out green cards without any regard for skill, merit or the safety of American people."

"It's time to begin moving toward a merit-based immigration system - one that admits people who are skilled, who want to work, who will contribute to our society, and who will love and respect our country," Trump said, going on to describe the fourth pillar of the plan, which he said would end what's known as chain migration.

"Under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives," he said. "Under our plan, we focus on the immediate family by limiting sponsorships to spouses and minor children. This vital reform is necessary, not just for our economy, but for our security and our future."

Trump said the nation's immigration officers who are on the front lines are great people who work hard in the midst of danger. He said it's his duty to defend Americans and to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream.

"Because Americans are dreamers, too," he said.

Trump called specific attention to Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Celestino "C.J." Martinez, who was in attendance.

The president called him a leader in the effort to defend America, serving 15 years in the Air Force before becoming an ICE agent and spending the last 15 years fighting gang violence and "getting dangerous criminals off our streets."

"At one point, MS-13 leaders ordered C.J.'s murder and they wanted it to happen quickly," Trump said. "But he did not cave to threats or to fear. Last May, he commanded an operation to track down gang members on Long Island. His team has arrested nearly 400, including more than 220 MS-13 gang members."

Trump said immigration officers have sent thousands of gang members either out of the country or into prison.

He congratulated Martinez for his work on that front, calling him a "brave guy" and urging Congress to send him reinforcements.YPSILANTI, MI - Two years after the first group of Ypsilanti Cub Scouts earned the top Science, Technology, Engineering and Math award, their peers have finished the long process of claiming the award again.

Five members of Pack No. 283, based in Ypsilanti, were recognized for their efforts at an awards ceremony on Jan. 24 at Estabrook Elementary School. Over the past two years, they completed 21 STEM activities to earn the Charles H. Townes Supernova Award, named for the 1964 Nobel Prize-winning physicist.

The Supernova Award was established in 2012, and it's the highest STEM award given in Cub Scouts.

The following members of Pack 283 contributed to the award: Raymond Gorzen, 11, homeschooled; James Archer Keller, 11, Fortis Academy; Connor Lenhardt, 10, Huron Valley Catholic School; Waylan Shope, 10, Erickson Elementary School; and Ranier Welker, 11, Huron Valley Catholic School.

In addition to the Supernova STEM activities, the scouts also met the requirements for Webelos II rank, "Arrow of Light" rank and the prerequisite Nova awards.

Former Cub Scouts Pack 283 members who earned the pack's first Supernova Award in 2016 helped present the latest award to the current recipients on Jan. 24. Den Leader Marnia Hardy and Assistant Den Leader Marie Lenhardt guide Pack 283. Rod Foster is the Boy Scouts of America Supernova mentor who assisted the scouts in earning the award.BAY CITY, MI -- An elementary principal in the Bay City Public Schools district has been put on administrative leave while officials investigate complaints made by staff members.

Washington Elementary Principal William Tithof, who has held several other roles in the district since the early 1990s, was put on leave Tuesday, Jan. 30, said Superintendent Stephen Bigelow. Staff members were informed of the decision Wednesday morning, Bigelow said.

Bigelow said Tithof is not being accused of any criminal activity, but declined to comment on specifics of the decision to put him on leave.

"Obviously, there are always a lot of questions... but this doesn't involve anything criminal," he said.

Bigelow said he received complaints about Tithof from staff members at Washington Elementary that are now being investigated.

"This is not all that uncommon," he said. "If we have concerns from staff that warrant being investigated, we can't have that administrator there during that period."

Bigelow said parents would be notified this week once an interim principal is put in place.

The Bay City Times-MLive was unable to reach Tithof for comment.BAY CITY, MI -- A 63-year-old man is facing two felonies for reportedly stealing electricity to illicitly grow marijuana plants in rural Bay County.

In July 2017, Consumers Energy received an anonymous tip that Earnest W. Deplanty was stealing power and growing pot at his home at 2449 E. Almeda Beach Road in Fraser Township. A Consumers investigator went to the house and found an unauthorized lock on its electrical box. On cutting the lock and looking inside the box, the employee found wiring had been tampered with in an apparent attempt to acquire electricity without being charged, court records show.

Deplanty was not home at the time of the employee's inspection. On smelling the aroma of marijuana emanating from the house, the employee called police.

In the presence of a Michigan State Police trooper, the Consumers employee removed the house's electrical meter, yet the structure visibly still had power.

"A telltale sign that electrical power is being stolen is when the power is still on after the meter has been removed," the trooper wrote in a report, contained in court files.

As this was happening, Deplanty drove onto the property, then drove off without stopping. The trooper pulled him over a short ways away and Deplanty came back to his house.

Deplanty let the trooper and Consumers employee into his house, where they saw a room containing a marijuana grow operation. Deplanty told them he is a medical marijuana patient, although it appeared he was growing more plants than legally permissible.

The Consumers employee confirmed the purloined power was going to this room, court records show. Deplanty had been stealing power since about March 2014, court records indicate.

On Aug. 14, the Bay Area Narcotics Enforcement Team (or BAYANET) followed up by executing a search warrant on Deplanty's house. Officers found 27 plants and about 723 grams -- or 25.5 ounces -- of usable pot.

According to the state's Medical Marihuana Act, patients can have 2.5 ounces of usable marijuana. Caregivers can grow up to 12 plants producing 2.5 ounces of usable marijuana for each of their five patients and themselves. If a caregiver is a patient and has five registered patients, he or she can grow 72 plants.

Deplanty told police that he wasn't a caregiver and knew he was only to grow 12 plants. He said once the plants are mature, he gives two-thirds of them to his landlord, who lives in Florida, so he can reside at the house for free, court records show.

On Monday, Jan. 29, Deplanty appeared in Bay County District Court for arraignment on single counts of delivering or manufacturing marijuana and fraudulent use of a public utility more than $500. Both charges are punishable by up to four years' incarceration.

Deplanty was freed on a personal recognizance bond. He is to appear for a preliminary examination at 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 13.David A. Schwartz

BAY CITY, MI -- An ex-con is facing a heap of new charges after allegedly going on an unsuccessful robbery spree in Bay City's South End.

David A. Schwartz, 34, on Wednesday, Jan. 31, appeared before Bay County District Judge Timothy J. Kelly for arraignment on two counts of unarmed robbery and single counts of attempted unarmed robbery, unlawfully driving away a motor vehicle, and assaulting, resisting or obstructing police. Unarmed robbery is the most serious, being a 15-year felony, while attempted unarmed robbery and unlawfully driving away a motor vehicle are both five-year felonies and assaulting police is a two-year felony.

Schwartz's criminal record, which includes four felony convictions, increases the maximum potential penalty on each charge. The unarmed robbery charges are punishable by up to life imprisonment for Schwartz.

Kelly also arraigned Schwartz on an unrelated 93-day misdemeanor charge of third-degree retail fraud, stemming from a Nov. 3 incident at the Meijer at 595 N. Pine Road in Hampton Township. The judge also arraigned Schwartz on a count of probation violation. In the fall, Schwartz was sentenced to eight months' probation on a conviction of entering without permission, but he last had contact with his probation officer on Oct. 10.

Schwartz told the judge he resides at 1205 Michigan Ave., located in the South End relatively near all the robbery sites. Kelly asked Schwartz what level of education he has received.

"I have no education," Schwartz replied.

"You've never gone to school?" the judge asked.

"Not for very long," Schwartz said. "Sixth or seventh grade or so."

Police have said Schwartz at about 11:30 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 29, entered the 7-Eleven at 1510 Kosciuszko Ave. After receiving an undisclosed amount of money, he ran outside and stole a vehicle that been idling in the parking lot.

Police later recovered the vehicle.

The following day at 7:31 a.m., Schwartz entered King's Party Store, 1029 S. Madison Ave., and demanded cash, but left empty handed. He then went to the McDonald's at 2200 Broadway St. and stole an undisclosed sum.

On spotting a responding officer, Schwartz took off running. The officer chased after him, eventually catching him and placing him under arrest.

The pilfered money from McDonald's was still in Schwartz's possession, police report. Schwartz later made admissions to police that he was indeed the guilty party, Kelly said.

Schwartz has a lengthy rap sheet, dating back to a juvenile adjudication in 1998.

A Bay County judge in September 2014 sentenced Schwartz to 25 months to 10 years in prison on a conviction of larceny from a person. The Michigan Department of Corrections discharged Schwartz on Aug. 18, 2016.

Schwartz's record also includes another conviction of larceny from a person, as well as convictions of larceny in a building, domestic violence, receiving and concealing stolen property, drug possession, and delivering or manufacturing marijuana.

Judge Kelly set Schwartz's bond at $100,000 cash-surety. Schwartz's preliminary examination is set for 10 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 15.BAY CITY, MI -- In its simplest form, the annual Bay City St. Patrick's Day Races is a jaunt down and back Center Avenue.

But to those organizing and sponsoring the race, it's so much more than that. It's about the memories made at the starting line, the cheers during that final stretch and the sweaty selfie you snap after crossing the finish line and slinging a medal around your neck.

Now in its 45th year, race officials want to see the race grow and truly become an event that kicks off the road racing season for veteran runners and introduces new runners to the sport.

"We do believe it can get bigger and better and more people can participate in it," said Bridget Looby Staffileno, vice president of community relations for Catholic Federal Credit Union, the title sponsor of this year's race. "This race is all about creating memories. If you look on Facebook or Instagram and all of these people share their moments from the race -- it brings tears to your eyes. It's just awesome. This race is something people always remember."

This year's Bay Area Runners Club's Bay City St. Patrick's Day Races is Sunday, March 18. It again features a 5-kilometer run and walk, 8k run and the popular Irish Double, where runners can compete in both the 5k and 8k events and receive a special medal for their accomplishment.

The individual runs and walks are $25; the Irish Double is $35. All prices increase on Feb. 28. Those interested can register online at RunSignup.com.

This year's festival of races also includes the popular Leprechaun Runs at 2 p.m. Saturday, March 17, at the Dow Bay Area Family Y, 225 Washington Ave. This year's event features 1/8-mile, 1/4-mile, 1/2-mile and 1 mile runs. All finishers receive a medal.

Also on March 17, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., the Bay Area Runners Club hosts its annual Fitness Expo at the Y.

Last year's race saw about 6,000 participants, said Andy Brady, race manager with Tri To Finish. This year, race organizers are hoping to attract even more people with flashy new medals and a team of ambassadors who are sharing their stories on social media on why they run St. Pat's.

The medals for 5k and 8k finishers are silver and feature a green shamrock. The Irish Double medal is a bronze caller and features an extra shamrock.

"Medals are a big deal to road racers," Brady said. "This race has had the same medals for years and we've gotten a lot of questions from people saying, 'Hey, are you guys going to ever change the medals?'"

There are 13 race ambassadors who will be sharing their training stories across social media using the hashtag #CFCUStPats: Katelyn Trepkowski, Adam Pike, Laura Mithcell, Megan Hammis, Michele Sanchez Reynolds, Carlos Orosco, Sonia Severin, Angela Smith VanNostrand, Aidalys Cruff, David Johnson, Chris Girard, Kasey Neetz and Maggie Rettell.

Trepkowski, one of the ambassadors, ran the 5k for the first time last year and plans to tackle the Irish Double this year.

"It's about training and about the process," she said. "The one thing I've learned is that it's not about your race time or the number on the board. It's all about the time you have there and the memories you make.

"Ultimately, it's about the fun you have that day."FLINT, MI - A 75-year-old Flint man has been found guilty of murder after fatally shooting another man outside a social club on the city's north side.

On Friday, Jan. 26, a 12-person jury found Edward Lee Hilton guilty of second-degree murder, assault with intent to murder, carrying a concealed weapon and felony firearm for the 2016 shooting death of 56-year-old James Boaz, Sr. and shooting at his son - 34-year-old James Boaz, Jr. - outside the Old-Timers Social Club.

He faces the potential of a life sentence in prison.

Court records show that Hilton wrote multiple letters to Genesee Circuit Judge Judith Fullerton requesting that he represent himself in court, but the requests were denied. Hilton's attorney, Barry Wolf, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Police responded around 5 p.m. on Jan. 26, 2016 to the club on the 3200 block of North Saginaw for a report of a shooting. When they arrived, they discovered Boaz suffering from a gunshot wound to the abdomen. He was transported to the hospital where he died.

According to prosecutors, the father and son fled the club after Hilton shot them. Boaz Sr. fell to the ground while his son called 911.

Hilton has a lengthy criminal record dating back to a bank robbery conviction in Michigan in 1966 for which he served a prison sentence. He has also served multiple prison sentences for various other crimes in Arkansas, Alabama, Michigan and New York, prosecutors said.

"Edward Hilton's long life of crime may have just come to an end," said Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton after the jury rendered its verdict. "While there is nothing that can bring back James Boaz, Sr., we can be assured that legal justice is being dealt against the man who took his life," he said.

Hilton is slated for sentencing in Fullerton's court on Monday, Feb. 26 at 2 p.m.GENESEE COUNTY, MI - White Horse owner Steve Poulos' family has owned a 155-acre swath of densely-forested property along the north side of Hegel Road for more than 40 years.

They've gone deer hunting, duck and goose hunting on the land, as well as fished in the Kearsley Creek along its eastern border.

"It's been a great piece of property," he said. "We've had a lot of fun out there. I'm glad the parks (system) is taking it over."

Amy McMillan, Genesee County parks director, confirmed the $700,000 deal was finalized on Monday, Jan. 29, between the Pouloses and the county, with 75 percent of the cost being paid for by way of a Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund grant awarded in December 2016.

The county has chosen a new name for the facility across the street from Goodrich High School: Atlas County Park.

Three portions of unused property along the Holloway Reservoir were sold, McMillan said, to help pay for the 25 percent local match along with $7,300 from the Poulos family.

The parks system has been searching for a location in the southeast portion of the county, McMillan said, but they were not aware the property was for sale until the Six Rivers Land Conservancy contacted them about the land.

Poulos said the family had initially looked at a conservancy for the property, but they later had a change of heart.

McMillan lauded over the "significant natural features" on the property, including diverse plant life, small inland ponds, wildlife, and the Kearsley Creek running through sections of the property that could lend itself to kayaking.

The Detroit United railroad line previously ran through the property, which McMillan said established some walking paths.

Initial work is set to include signage, a road into the park, benches, but larger projects will wait until the public has time to make input and officials get a better feel for the land.

"People are going to love walking their dogs there," said McMillan. "There's just so many places to sit and be, be peaceful."

For-Mar Nature Preserve employees will offer formal programs on the property beginning in the spring.

Board of Commissioners Chairman Mark Young said the project involved cooperation between the parks and recreation department and Atlas Township, where another trust fund grant aided in the construction of a walking path last fall that will connect to the Iron Belle Trail.

He said having a strong parks system is important as officials move to bring new industry into Genesee County.

"These (parks) are going to be some of the best places to go to," said Young.

The park will open in the next 90 days, with an opening ceremony in the works.

"I just think it will be really fantastic," McMillan said. "We are just so lucky that we kind of fell into this piece of property."Not since former president Bill Clinton had gone to Davos in 2000 has an American president participated in the annual gathering of the worlds plutocrats at the World Economic Forum, a yearly encounter that brings together statesmen and world business leaders to discuss and debate the state of the world from the perspective of globalists and free traders. President Trump, a few days before his much-expected first State of the Union address, Tuesday 29 January, made the journey to the Swiss Alps to present to the mighty CEOs of multinationals his vision on the major questions of todays world  in particular, free trade and multilateralism.

On the campaign trail, and in his first year at the White House, Trump spoke of America First, withdrew from some important multilateral agreements  for instance, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris Climate Accord  and promised to renegotiate the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico. These decisions and trends raised alarm bells around the industrialised nations and question the very essence of globalisation.

Last year, Chinas President Xi Jinping was warmly received by the Davos crowd and revealed himself as an ardent supporter and defender of the age of globalisation. His speech had come a few days after Trump had been sworn into office, on 20 January 2017, and the warm welcome and applause given to the Chinese president an implicit rejection of Trumps positions concerning multilateralism, free trade and the world order of today. So, this time around, the US president wanted to reassure the club of plutocrats at Davos that the United States under his watch remains part of this world order. However, it wants a more balanced approach to free trade, and that America First does not mean America alone  a line adopted earlier by Trumps Chief Economic Adviser Gary Cohen.

In his remarks delivered 26 January, President Trump wanted to send a message that the United States was not against free trade, and he even said that he would be willing to re-join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). However, he reiterated that he wants free trade to be fair and balanced by insisting that it needs to be reciprocal.

He added that there has never been a better time to hire, to build, to invest and to grow in the United States. America is open for business and we are competitive once again  words that are meant to reassure that the United States still believes in multilateralism. He further reaffirmed that Washington is committed to building a better world, without providing concrete proposals to this effect.

On his way back to Washington, President Trump tweeted, 26 January, Heading back from a very exciting two days in Davos Speech on Americas economic revival was well-received. Many of the people I met will be investing in the USA.

Others had a different point of view on Trumps performance at Davos. Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, told a press gaggle that, Every president and prime minister when they come [to Davos] tries to sell their country. The sad news is that if you grade them, I think Frances president and the Indian prime minister wind up at the top, and unfortunately Americas winds up at the bottom. French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had already given their respective remarks before the arrival of the US president. Both defended globalisation and criticised protectionism and populism.

According to The Washington Post  not a very friendly American daily towards the Trump administration  the speech of the US president at Davos was an anti-climax preceded by what it described as a lavish lunch with the Saudis. From a strictly Arab perspective, this should not be a surprise. Relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia have never been warmer, save in the 1960s when their common enemy had been Nassers Egypt. Today, their common adversary is Iran and pro-Iranian forces in the Levant, the Gulf and the Arab Peninsula in Yemen.

On the other hand, John Negroponte, a former US diplomat, told the Washington Post that there were few surprises, if any, in what President Trump told his audience at Davos, adding that there are two Trumps: the Twitter Trump and the teleprompter Trump. This was definitely the latter. He could be right.

It was not lost on those who heard the US president that back home he is facing strong political winds, and that US mid-term elections in November could bring Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress. Let alone the Mueller investigations on Russian meddling in the US presidential campaign in 2016. Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor in this thorny and explosive affair, is scheduled to question the Trump himself, who said that he would give his testimony under oath.

The world heard good and reassuring words from Trump at the World Economic Forum. However, there is still a long way to go before the Trump administration translates the promises the US president made at Davos into action. The statement by the US Treasury secretary that the administration is not against a weak dollar was not well-received, either by the International Monetary Fund, governments of the developing world, and emerging markets. If the world wanted predictability from Washington at the World Economic Forum, it didnt get it.

*This article was first published in Al-Ahram Weekly

Short link:

GRAND RAPIDS TOWNSHIP, MI -- A Grand Rapids area drug recovery doctor is accused of inappropriate sexual conduct with patients and charged with three criminal counts.

Steven Scranton is charged with one count of second-degree criminal sexual conduct and two counts of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct.

Kent County sheriff's investigators say they began investigating the 64-year-old Scranton on Nov. 29 after management at West Brook Recovery Center in Grand Rapids Township contacted police to report possible inappropriate conduct.

As detectives investigated, several of Scranton's patients made allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct against Scranton.

Deputies executed a search warrant at Scranton's home in Rockford on Jan. 29 and he was arrested following the search, police said.

An attorney for West Brook Recovery Center said Scranton had been an independent contractor with the center for several years.

The attorney said that in mid-November, an employee came to management about Scranton. Patients had told the employee about possible inappropriate statements and conduct from Scranton.

Management at West Brook reviewed the information and decided it was credible, the attorney said. Scranton's contract was then terminated and police were called, he said.

West Brook management then filed a complaint with the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs against Scranton.

Anyone with further information about Scranton can call Detective Andy Hinds at 616-632-6192 or Detective Jason Russo at 616-632-6136.

According to the state Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, Scranton is licensed as a medical doctor and drug treatment prescriber.HUDSONVILLE, MI - Hudsonville Public Schools has changed how it educates and communicates the First Amendment to teachers and administrators

The change comes after a civil rights group complained a Hudsonville teacher's religious activities violated the U.S. Constitution.

The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits government, including taxpayer-funded public schools, from establishing religion. Public schools cannot endorse or appear to be endorsing or sponsoring religious activities.

Last fall, the district launched an investigation when Baldwin Street Middle School teacher Jeff Henderson was accused in November of holding Bible study in his classroom prior to school and engaging in faith discussions during school hours.

Mitch Kahle, spokesman for the Michigan Association of Civil Rights Activists (MACRA), said the group lodged the complaint on behalf of parents concerned about Henderson's repeated "proselytizing of students." He said other school parents have since come forward.

School attorney Catherine Tracey's investigation confirmed that Henderson, who is youth ministry director at his church, had engaged in religious interactions with students during the school day. He also solicited prayer requests through a Prayer Mail/Care Mailbox in his classroom, which he was instructed to remove along with other messages.

But the Bible study was not deemed a violation of district policy or the Establishment Clause for various reasons, including because it does not occur during school hours.

"We want to make sure our actions and programs are in line with school board policy and the U.S. Constitution,'' Assistant Superintendent Scott Smith said regarding the changes triggered by the findings of the investigation.

"Simultaneously, we want to make sure we are honoring and respecting the rights of our students and staffs.''

On March 1, Smith said attorney Katie Broaddus with the Thrun Law Firm will lead principals and central office administrators in a two-hour Establishment Clause workshop that is open to other administrators within the Ottawa Area ISD.

Smith said principals will then be required to engage teachers and other employees in a conversation regarding religious interactions at their next staff meetings to ensure there is a clear understanding of what crosses the line.

He said handouts are also being developed with Thrun defining the Establishment Clause, explaining how it specifically relates to school employees, when an action is in violation, and providing examples of court cases.

"We agree that the school district needs to provide better training and information to the staff, but we strongly disagree with the findings and recommendations concerning the Bible study,'' said Kahle, who said Tracey's findings are subjective and loyal to her client.

"It is our opinion that any teacher-led Bible study that involves public school students is a violation the U.S. Constitution.''

Kahle said he is in conversations with his attorneys and the complainants about potential legal action.

He also said no public school teacher or employee should be displaying religious materials or messages in the classroom or engaging students religious conversations.

Nelson Miller, professor and associate dean of the Cooley Law School's Grand Rapids Campus, told MLive when the complaint was made that while there is some gray area about engaging in Bible discussions on campus before or after school, the courts have generally discouraged that practice.

On Nov. 6, the district terminated faith-based discussions during the lunch hour by a fifth-grade Alward Elementary teacher Christopher Karel, following a MACRA complaint.

During the investigation,the Bible study was not stopped and students were still meeting with Henderson as of this month, according to the district.

Tracey's investigation into Henderson determined there was insufficient evidence the Bible study violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, as alleged.

The reasons cited included: the religious activity occurs entirely outside of school hours, the Bible study is not sponsored by the school or given preferential treatment by the district, and is not advertised by Henderson.

However, Tracey said the district should take additional measures to further show that it is not endorsing the Bible study and that it is simply being neutral toward religion.

Tracey found that Henderson, hired in 1988, had engaged in numerous religious communications and activities with students during the school day without consulting the administration, despite being warned in 2007 about similar actions.

She said the evidence also suggests Henderson, on occasion, encouraged students who previously participated in the Bible study to attend future meetings. She said he would also pray with students who asked him, and at least one witness said he initiated prayer with students known to be religious.

Kahle said the Bible study speaks to the relationship to teachers and students and students being taught to obey their teachers within and outside of school hours, on an off campus.

Henderson is described as deeply religious and having engaged in actions without any malicious intent, according to Tracey. She suggested some level of formal discipline only because he had been warned a decade earlier about religious engagement.

However, she said the district may not have provided enough guidance about the responsibilities of teachers under the Establishment Clause.

"We are thankful for this work because it is making us better," said Smith, who said the Establishment Clause will be incorporated into the orientation of the 30 teachers coming on board next year.

Henderson received a letter of reprimand and was told if found in violation again disciplinary action could include termination of his employment.

"Given Mr. Henderson's history of violation, another slap on the wrist is the equivalent giving him the greenlight to continue his actions, if there are no consequences," Kahle said.

At this time, Henderson has declined comment. The parents who raised the initial concerns have chosen to remain anonymous for fear of community backlash.

"In the future, the district expects you to refrain from any actions that could cause an observer to believe that the district endorses religion, and if you are unsure whether your action would meet that standard, to seek clarity from your building administrator,'' according to the district's December letter to Henderson.

In the past, Smith verbally shared information with administrators about boundaries regarding religion in schools. This is the first time a workshop has been held or information on the topic disseminated, and the first directive for discussions at staff meetings.GRAND RAPIDS, MI - An orthopedic surgeon says the new chief at Spectrum Health Medical Group conducted a "sham peer review" of her work while she underwent treatment for breast cancer.

Dr. Susan Day, 53, says she was ultimately fired despite having strong skills and a large patient base.

She has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Spectrum Health Medical Group, or SHMG, alleging age discrimination, sex discrimination and violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

"In this instance, SHMG used a sham peer review procedure to further the agenda of (Dr. Peter Jebson, department chief) and one or two other surgeons, who stood to financially benefit from Dr. Day's absence, in order to unlawfully push Dr. Day out of practice at SHMG and at SHH (Spectrum Health Hospitals)," attorney Sara Riley Howard wrote in the lawsuit.

She said doctors are paid for production so other surgeons benefited by treating Day's patients.

Spectrum Health has not yet filed a response to the lawsuit but denied the allegations.

Spokesman Bruce Rossman provided this statement: "While it is not our practice to comment on pending or active litigation, we deny the allegations of this lawsuit and will vigorously defend against these untrue claims.

"Spectrum Health does not tolerate or engage in discrimination, harassment or retaliatory behavior and strives to maintain compliance with all federal and state laws, including those pertaining to patient billing. Our Code of Excellence requires our employees to follow good business practices to avoid fraud, waste and abuse and to conduct themselves in accordance with only the highest ethical standards."

Day says she was "constructively terminated" on Jan. 1.

She has worked in Grand Rapids since completing her internship and residency at the former Blodgett Memorial Medical Center in 1996. She also taught at Michigan State University's College of Human Medicine and Grand Valley State University.

Day worked in the office at 4100 Lake Drive SE.

"Dr. Day was one of the busiest providers in SHMG's Orthopedics Department, with one of the highest patient satisfaction scores, until she went on medical leave for the treatment of breast cancer in October 2016," the lawsuit said.

She contended that Jebson, who took over the department about a year earlier, did not like criticism "but he particularly did not like ideas, criticism or respectful opposition from Dr. Day, who was the lone female surgeon in the Department."

Day raised concerns about how physician assistants were being used, and said she found a "serious violation" of Medicare rule's for billing by some colleagues, including Jebson, the lawsuit said.

Two days after she texted the officer manager about billing, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She took a leave of absence and underwent multiple surgeries and chemotherapy over the course of several months.

The lawsuit said Jebson then showed the file of one of Day's patients, who underwent total hip replacement, to another physician, Kevin Anderson, to determine if Day's work was done incompetently, the lawsuit said.

Anderson found no problems. The entire six-doctor internal peer review panel also found Day performed competently, the lawsuit said.

Jebson and another doctor, Charles "Chris" Sherry, then sought out other files of Day's patients that resulted in unexpected outcomes or complications, or differences of opinion among doctors.

Jebson and Sherry compiled files of 16 of Day's patients for external review by SHH's Medical Executive Committee rather than the standard internal peer-review committee, the lawsuit said.

Dr. Hassan Alosh refused to provide any such files because "Dr. Day would be unable to offer her opinions or explain her position on the medical facts in the file to other orthopedic experts because she was enduring breast cancer treatment and on leave of absence without any access to her files, even if she were well enough to participate in a review," Howard wrote in the lawsuit.

Day, still on leave, was not allowed access her patients' files or to speak to staff while under investigation, the lawsuit said.

Day contended she properly treated the patients whose files were under review. She asked to end her medical leave on April 16, but was told she was suspended with pay pending the investigation. She was accused of operating on patients when it was "not medically necessary or advisable," an allegation she considered "false and malicious," the lawsuit said.

The Medical Staff Executive Committee, or MEC, proposed Day agree to a Focused Professional Practice Evaluation, with a surgeon of her choosing reviewing her first 50 surgery cases before the operations took place. It was considered a typical step for a surgeon returning from extended leave.

Day, a widow with two children and needing health insurance, agreed, but the investigation continued.

Spectrum Health in May then reimbursed six insurers for surgeries by Day considered "not 'medically necessary,'" the lawsuit said.

Day wasn't immediately provided information about the cases but later contended surgery was justified. Her attorney said that another surgeon told the investigation panel that the probe was "mean-spirited and politically motivated," while another said Day was a "caring physician who is well-liked by (her) patients," the lawsuit said.

She refused to sign "Last Chance" agreements which required her to agree that she had put patients at risk. SHMG tried to reached a settlement and have Day resign but she refused, the lawsuit said.

In late September, Spectrum Health filed a report with the National Practitioner Database, or NPDB, alleging complaints, and reported that Day agreed to the 50-patient proposal. The NPDB forwarded the report to Michigan's State Medical Board for investigation, the lawsuit said.

Day disputes that she reached a binding settlement and had resigned. She said she was essentially fired.

Last month, the state Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, or LARA, told her that she was under investigation by the medical board.

She is seeking return to her job, damages for lost wages and benefits, and "compensatory damages for mental anguish, emotional distress and damage to her patient base."

State records showed she is licensed as a medical doctor through Jan. 31, 2019.

Howard, her attorney, declined to comment beyond what's contained in the lawsuit.ZEELAND, MI -- An investigation into a spree of larcenies in the Holland and Zeeland areas has led to the arrest of two Ottawa County teens.

Police said they took two teens -- ages 17 and 18 -- into custody Tuesday, Jan. 30, after determining they were responsible for 50-70 garage break-ins and larcenies from vehicles over about a three-week span.

The arrest was initiated after a Zeeland police officer located three bicycles, which had recently been reported stolen, outside an area residence.

Police have not released the names of the two suspects, but said they are friends. A police report was sent to the Ottawa County Prosecutor's Office on Wednesday, Jan. 31, and the two teens were expected to be arraigned later that afternoon.

The larcenies involved stolen bicycles from garages as well as money and other items of value from vehicles, police said. Other victims reported to police that someone had entered their vehicle but didn't take anything.SAUGATUCK, MI -- Man's best friend indeed.

Michael Haddock was puzzled when he went to the mailbox last weekend and saw a letter from the Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency addressed to Michael Ryder. When he opened the letter, Haddock learned that Ryder had been approved for $360 a week in unemployment benefits from his time working at a Detroit-area restaurant.

The problem is Ryder is a German Shepherd.

According to the Associated Press, the letter was sent by the state computer system but was eventually flagged as suspicious and denied.

WZZM-TV reports that Haddock reached out to the state about the letter to inform them there was no Michael Ryder at his home. The claim appears to have been a fraud attempt.

Although the mistake was made, investigations administrator Tim Kolar wrote in a email sent to Haddock that he knows "first-hand it is rare for 'man's best friend' to contribute financially to the household and that will continue in this instance."Southwest Michigan Congressman Fred Upton was among dozens of lawmakers on a train in Virginia when it struck a garbage-hauling truck Wednesday, killing one.

Upton tweeted about the crash, confirming he and his wife Amey were both OK.

"The train carrying GOP members to our retreat had a collision," Upton wrote on Twitter. "Amey and I are both OK. Docs and security on board are helping secure the scene."

The White House said one person was killed and another was seriously injured in the crash. The chartered train was carrying dozens of GOP lawmakers and aides to a policy retreat in West Virginia, the Associated Press reported.

An Amtrak spokesperson said there were no injuries among the train's passengers or crew after the collision, which occurred south of Charlottesville, Va.

Lawmakers indicated the injury and the fatality were people in the garbage truck.

"We're fine, but our train hit a garbage truck. Members with medical training are assisting the drivers of the truck," Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., wrote on Twitter.

Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., said the garbage truck had been ripped in half and he saw one person wrapped in a tarp, the AP reported. Cole said emergency workers appeared to be "putting a body away."

Several people got off the train to assist those in the truck, witnesses said.

The lawmakers are heading to the Greenbrier resort in White Sulfur Springs for a three-day retreat. President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are slated to join them for part of the session.KALAMAZOO, MI - Kalamazoo Pallet Co. faces state safety code penalties of $21,000 in connection with an Aug. 1 explosion that took the life of one of its workers.

It also faces a civil lawsuit brought on behalf of the children of the worker who was killed, Christopher Hugh Murdock, 45, of Kalamazoo.

Kalamazoo Public Safety said Murdock was working to mount a tire on a large front end loader in a work area outside the 2215 Palmer Ave. business when the tire exploded, fatally injuring him.

The lawsuit, which was filed Oct. 27 in Kalamazoo County Circuit Court, charges that the company was negligent in providing safety practices and procedures and, among other things, negligent in supervising employees in the process.

Among other things, the lawsuit accuses the company of "failing to provide the necessary equipment and materials to be used for the process of changing the tractor tire."

Emergency responders were called to Kalamazoo Pallet Co. on Kalamazoo's Edison Neighborhood at shortly after 2 p.m. on Aug. 1. Kalamazoo Public Safety Chief Jeff Hadley said the process that Murdock was using to mount a large tire on a rim involved ether and "There was some indication that he used too much."

Ether can be used around the rim of a rubber tire and -- when ignited with fire -- creates a fast, small explosion that fills and instantly seats the tire on the rim of a wheel. A worker at the scene following the explosion said ether had been used to mount one of the tires on a large General Motors/Terex front end loader.

The General Industry Safety & Health Division of the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration conducted an investigation of the incident on Nov. 8, and issued four citations with total penalties of $21,000.

One citation was for using a flammable chemical and a propane torch "to set the tire on a bead instead of following manufacturer's instructions." The other three citations were for violations of automotive service operations.

MIOSHA found that the company:

-Did not ensure that employees working on tire rims can demonstrate and maintain the ability to do so safely;

-Did not furnish a clip-on air chuck with a sufficient length of hose to permit the employee to stand clear of the potential trajectory;

-Did not require such tires to be inflated in a restraining device except when the wheel assembly is on a vehicle.

The case is being appealed, according to information provided by Jeannie Vogel, public information officer for the Michigan Department of Public Information of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs.

John Breslin, owner of Kalamazoo Pallet, did not respond to telephone messages left with the company. A day after the incident in August, he said, "We feel terrible for the family, completely terrible." But he otherwise declined to comment.

Murdock had been working as a maintenance worker for Kalamazoo Pallet LLC for less than three months when the incident occurred.

"Chris went to work one day and just never came home. He was 45 years old," said Jill Mattimore, who was Murdock's life partner for 24 years and the mother of three of his four children. "That is something that you just don't think of when you say goodbye in the morning."

She is named as the representative of Murdock's estate in the lawsuit, which does not seek a specific amount of money. But a court filing notes that the amount associated with the incident is expected to be in excess of $25,000, excluding such things as court costs and attorney fees.

Mattimore said Murdock began working for Kalamazoo Pallet after working as a machine operator for 16 years at bag maker Stewart Sutherland Inc. in Vicksburg.

Of the lawsuit, Mattimore said, "I want to do what's right for my children. It has nothing to do with me because he and I were never married. But I would like to have justice for Chris' children."

They are: C.J. (Christopher James) Murdock, age 22; Caleb Murdock, age 19; Elisha Smith, 19; and Laci Murdock, 14.

Mattimore said the children will be deprived of Murdock's earnings as well as his care and companionship. The family had been living in Kalamazoo and were looking for a house when Murdock was killed. They struggled for a time, which included finding enough money to cover Murdock's funeral costs, but they have found a residence in Vicksburg.

Mattimore is a former corrections officer who works part-time as a hotel desk clerk but is disabled as a result of a back injury. She met Murdock as a young teen but they did not become a couple until she was about 19. Both attended Loy Norrix High School in Kalamazoo.

She said Murdock was one of the hardest working people she ever met and he enjoyed playing cards in his spare time.

"He was also a really nice guy," she said. "He always held doors for women and he always carried bags for women."

She said his children are having trouble coping with his loss. It has been particularly difficult for his son C.J., with whom he had worked at Stewart Sutherland.

Of the incident that took Murdock's life, she said, "I was told he was working on a front end loader to pump it up and it exploded on him."

She said she did not learn the extent of his injuries until she read a copy of his autopsy report.

"It still takes my breath away," Mattimore said. "It's very hard to live with somebody for all those years and then learn to live without them."KALAMAZOO, MI -- Gold Company, Western Michigan University's acclaimed vocal jazz ensemble, is celebrating its 40th anniversary with concerts this weekend.

"GC40: Something Gold, Something New," is scheduled for Friday, Feb. 2 at 8 p.m. and Saturday, Feb. 3 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. in the Dalton Recital Hall at WMU.

"The show pays homage to the music of the last 40 years and the amazing voices who make up the Gold Company family," said Greg Jasperse, Gold Company director.

Gold Company puts on an annual show every February and this one will feature numerous special guest and alumni of the program. They include former Gold Company director Duane Davis, April Arabian-Tini and KellyAnn Nelson, as well as some of the company's "celebrity alum," Jasperse said.

The celebrity alumni include Hollywood vocalist Nayanna Holley, American Idol finalist Matt Giraud, Grammy Award-winning John Prouix and jazz recording artist Kate Reid.

Also coming back to Kalamazoo for the 40th anniversary celebration are two of the company's "most accomplished" sound and lighting alums, Jasperse said. Bryan Farina traveled around the world with groups like Manhattan Transfer and Straight No Chaser. Kurt Elling "turned down an opportunity to work with Sting" to be in Kalamazoo, Jasperse said.

Gold Company alumni are working all over the country, including on Broadway in New York City and in Chicago, Nashville and Hollywood.

Current students in Gold Company "want to make the last 39 years of alum proud when they come home to celebrate this milestone," Jasperse said of this weekend's show.

Tickets cost $25 for adults and $15 for seniors and students. They can be purchased online at www.millerauditorium.org or by calling 269-387-2300.

Gold Company began under the direction of Elwyn Carter as the Varsity Vagabonds, a performing group that made 12 United Service Organization tours. Steve Zegree, former longtime director, changed the name to the Gold Company in 1977.

Jasperse said alums from Gold Company are involved in studio work, music production and teaching in London and Canada. "The Gold Company vocal jazz program is truly one of the best in the world," he said.

After for future projects, Gold Company will be touring to Los Angeles in March, opening for Kurt Elling on March 22 and hosting the New York Voices at the annual Gold Company Jazz Festival on March 24.SOUTH HAVEN, MI -- Gov. Rick Snyder is rallying leaders of Great Lakes states to support a proposal to stop invasive fish from entering Lake Michigan by upgrading defenses in a Chicago waterway system.

The Michigan governor on Wednesday, Jan. 31 announced the creation of a partnership with states and Canadian provinces bordering the Great Lakes to commit strategic and financial resources to secure federal approval of a plan to block the entry of invasive carp species.

During a press conference in South Haven, the Republican governor supported a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plan to upgrade the Brandon Road Lock and Dam on the Des Plaines River near Joliet, Ill.

"It is the key central place where additional efforts would significantly improve the opportunity to keep these carp out of the Great Lakes," Snyder said. "This project has taken years. We need to move to action mode."

The lock and dam is a bottleneck for all five potential pathways Asian carp could use to move from the Mississippi basin into the Great Lakes. Studies suggest Asian carp have the potential to become a dominant species in portions of the Great Lakes Basin if breeding populations are established.

Environmentalists and state representatives have said a solution should have been reached years ago.

Snyder shared these frustrations Wednesday, saying there has been too much talk around the issue and not enough action. He said it's time to push federal representatives to approve improvements to the lock and dam.

Part of the delay was due to the Trump administration holding the $8.2 million study. White House blocked the report for a six-month review after barge operators and shipping interests expressed concern about the impact to shipping navigation.

"It was frustrating to all of us, how long it took to get this study going and get information out," Snyder said. "The good thing is, now we're making progress."

The Army Corps estimated it would cost $275 million to place a new electric barrier, a "flushing lock" meant to deter fish with noise cannons, and a re-engineered shipping channel with water jets.

Construction on a the improvement project could start 2022, with the system becoming operational by 2025. Congressional authorization is required to move forward with the plan.

The study needs to be finished first, Snyder said, which could occur in the next year.

The Army Corps would pay 65 percent of total project, with the rest coming from a "non-federal sponsor," according to the report. Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago is a possible partner to help cover capital costs.

Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and Ontario are the founding members of a partnership to push the plan. Together, the jurisdictions represent more than 90 percent of Great Lakes surface area.

"The idea is, to move this forward with the federal government, they need sponsors to come in both for the capital cost and the operating cost," Snyder said.

In an attempt to show solidarity, Snyder proposed the Great Lakes states cover $8 million in annual operating costs. Sharing the cost proportionally, based on the surface area of the Great Lakes in each partner's jurisdiction, is the fairest way to split the bill, he said.

Michigan would pay the largest share; $3.2 million for its 40 percent of the surface area.

The pressure for action increased when a live silver carp was discovered nine miles from Lake Michigan last June. It was found upstream of a series of electric barriers, causing concern that invasive bighead and silver carp could overwhelm native fish.

It was the second invasive carp found beyond the barrier -- a bighead carp was discovered in 2010.

Bighead and silver carp are considered established and abundant in the Illinois Waterway, the Army Corps report states. A detectable population is approximately six miles downstream of Brandon Road Lock and Dam and approximately 47 miles downstream of Lake Michigan.

The Army Corps plan incorporates a variety of strategies to keep invasive species out.

Water jets would remove small fish that could hide in-between barges that move through the lock. This strategy addresses a weakness of existing downstream electric barriers, which aren't considered enough deterrent by other Great Lakes states and environmental groups.

Three new electric barriers would be located 37 miles downstream from Lake Michigan in the man-made Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. Steel electrodes would be secured to the bottom of the canal and connected to electrical equipment in a land-based control building.

A low-voltage, pulsing DC current would be sent through the electrodes to create an electrical field in the water. This causes discomfort in the fish, deterring them from swimming across it.

A coalition of 50 sportsmen and conservation organizations, including the National Wildlife Federation and Michigan United Conservation Clubs, submitted a letter of support for the plan, which advocated for full federal funding.

Opponents of the plan worry it could harm commercial traffic flowing between the Mississippi River and Chicago waterway system. An evaluation of possible impact to commercial navigation will be conducted as part of the Brandon Road analysis, including construction phase impact.

But inaction would be much worse, Snyder warned.

Experts say the entrance of invasive carp would irreparably damage the Great Lakes ecosystem and the $7 billion fishing and $16 billion recreational boating industries.

Action is needed now to prevent the spead of invasive species, said Molly Flanagan, vice president of policy for the Alliance for the Great Lakes.

"We are in a race against the clock to keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes," she said.

Illinois governor Bruce Rauner's administration does not support the plan. Illinois Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti has previously said the project will hurt the commercial navigation industry.

An evaluation of possible impacts to commercial navigation will be conducted as part of the Brandon Road analysis, including impacts during the construction phase.

"I would encourage them to get onboard," Snyder said of the Illinois leaders.

A second option was supported by three attorneys general for Great Lakes states.

Michigan attorney general Bill Schuette and attorneys general Lori Swanson of Minnesota and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania supported permanently blocking the shipping conduit with concrete.

This move would hydrologically separate the Great Lakes from the Mississippi basin, but would only cost $5.9 million.

"That's a simple answer in many respects, but what about all the commerce, all the things going on in the Chicago waterway and the Indiana piece of this?" Snyder said. "To them, that's a big economic issue. I thought it was a better idea to say, 'Here's an opportunity to still allow commerce to happen, but let's do it in a smart way.'"

The three attorneys general released a letter arguing that the $275 redesign plan disregards the cheapest, quickest and most effective means of halting the migration of invasive fish.

They acknowledged that the closure would cause some disruption to shipping, but argued that the economic impact is much lower than estimated by the Army Corps.SOUTH HAVEN, MI -- The son of a Southwest Michigan sheriff will serve jail time for his role in a Van Buren County homicide.

Nikolas Abbott, 23, was sentenced Tuesday, Jan. 30, to one year in the Berrien County Jail by Berrien County Trial Court Judge Scott Schofield. Schofield also ordered Abbott to serve four years of probation.

Abbott pleaded guilty Nov. 22 to three felonies: accessory after the fact to a felony; operating while intoxicated causing serious body injury; and receiving and concealing a firearm.

Abbott is the son of Van Buren County Sheriff Daniel Abbott.

Police say Abbott supplied the gun used in the Feb. 3 homicide of Eddie "E.J." Holland in Bangor. Police say Abbott sold the gun in Benton Harbor the day after the homicide. It was later recovered by police.

"Prior to our recovery, actually the day after the homicide, Nikolas Abbott decided to report that his gun has been stolen and knowing full well through our investigation that he was actually the one that took possession of the gun and then got rid of it and then reported it stolen," Michigan State Police Det. Sgt. Brian DeWyse testified during a probable cause hearing on June 27.

Thurman Fletcher is serving at least nine years in prison for manslaughter and felony firearm in Holland's death.

A witness at Fletcher's March 16 preliminary examination, Matthew Eide, said he met Abbott for the first time at a party at a friend's residence at Apple Tree Apartments in Bangor the night Holland was killed. Eide said he heard Holland was mad at Fletcher because Fletcher used counterfeit money to buy marijuana from him.

Eide said he first saw a handgun in the pocket of Abbott's hoodie then saw Abbott pull out the gun and hand it to Thurman.

"He said, 'Use it if you have to,'" Eide testified at Fletcher's preliminary examination.

In the operating while intoxicated case, Abbott seriously injured a woman in a crash Nov. 25, 2016. Abbott told police he was looking at his cell phone just prior to the crash. He said he may have crossed over the center line on C.R. 681 in Van Buren County's Arlington Township when he hit another car head-on, according to probable cause testimony. Abbott admitted to using Xanax, for which he did not have a prescription. The driver of the other car reported had wrist injuries, bruising and whiplash from the crash.

In exchange for Abbott's pleas, felony charges of reckless driving causing serious impairment of a body function, felony firearm, false report of a felony, and a second count of receiving and concealing a firearm were dropped.Consider the map and consider the players. Try to gather data and contradictory political statements and to keep track of political moves. Do not forget chronology. Try to define each players interests and the strategies he might adopt. You will need to assess economic and financial resources and willpower. Try to figure out other players reactions, reactions to the reactions, and the development of the perceptions of each.

Then write a memo considering many scenarios, but not too many, and providing some advise to a leader of a country with limited resources. Concentrate on one or two issues, but do not forget the rest, and keep yourself informed of how the broader picture develops. Be sure you properly understand your own countrys policies and abilities.

You do not have much time, and you only have limited resources. A lot of data is available on the Internet, but much of it costs money, and money is scarce. What is available is contradictory. What you find can be both illuminating and misleading. You have to guess or to learn how to construe the data and each analysts sources and biases.

Access to diplomats and security officials from many countries, or to the middle-ranking staff of militias, is difficult at best. You can never be sure if a player who launches a move foresaw its expected (the one you expected) outcome. Understanding the political culture of a country is no guarantee: it is necessary, but not sufficient, for understanding each player, though each has his own idiosyncrasies. In most cases, and in ordinary times, being an old hand who has met the relevant players many times and monitored the same countries for years is an asset. However, sometimes previous experience can blind you, as you may fail to understand how radically new the situation is.

The job of a foreign policy expert or diplomat is incredibly difficult even when things are normal. At difficult times, things get much worse. You have to do more homework, and you have to be both flexible and humble. You have to accept the fact that you are going to make mistakes.

Consider the Mashreq, meaning the east of the Arab world, the Gulf, the Red Sea, Libya, the Horn of Africa and Ethiopia as main playing fields. None of these is quiet. None is following well-established patterns. Consider the players. First, there is Iran, a tough player with considerable expertise that has clear policies, competent staff and willpower. It has mastered the art of managing a hostile neighbourhood, as well as international hostility, and it knows how to win asymmetrical wars. It knows when waiting is appropriate and when striking is opportune. It has influence in four Arab countries, though its financial resources and its regimes stability may be problematic.

It has to think about its relations with Russia, as things could go in either of two ways: the two countries could remain close allies, or they could become mortal foes. Second, there is Israel, which is competent, strong-willed and accustomed to dealing with a hostile neighbourhood. However, it has yet to decide how to deal with the demographic bomb of its Palestinian population and the Palestinian Occupied Territories.

Some Western colleagues have recently said that Israeli leaders have been hesitating and having second thoughts: isolationism, an alliance with the conservative Sunni Arab countries, or a grand bargain with Iran were three different possible strategies. On paper, the last option is attractive, but it would mean one of the two countries having to accept the others view on the nuclear issue, and this is very far from being the case. It also assumes the US no longer has a say, or is no longer interested in the region, and we are not there yet either.

Third, there is the Sunni Arab alliance consisting of a conservative coalition of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. The first two face tough challenges and a difficult transition. One has financial influence and the other a powerful army, but despite a close strategic relationship the two often disagree. Egypt has problems in Sinai, Libya and Africa, and this limits what it can do in the Mashreq and the Gulf. Despite some improvements, its financial situation is a serious concern.

The Saudis have their own problems, and Riyadh seems to think patience is no longer an option. Nevertheless, with such huge stakes at play, gambling should not be an option either. Many commentators in Western capitals think this set of players is no longer relevant, except on the Libya issue. This is probably a miscalculation, but it affects their room for manoeuvre. The positive side is that this coalition seems solid enough, despite occasional tensions between one member and the others.

There is also the Islamist axis consisting of Turkey, Qatar and maybe also Sudan and Hamas, although the latter two play a complicated game due to their poor condition. Turkey is a key actor and an unpredictable one. Its blend of nationalism and Islamism is especially aggressive, and Turkish President Recep Tayyep Erdogan has been bullying everyone. Defining Turkeys national interests seems to be terribly difficult. It could focus on ending the Kurds ambitions, but Erdogan seems to be sticking to a broader agenda.

A year ago, it seemed that this axis was trying to draw a distinction between Egypt, which it could criticise, and the Gulf monarchies, which had to be placated. This distinction may still be valid, but it is clear that Turkeys decision to side with Qatar has lastingly compromised its relations with the other Gulf countries. Relations with Iran are another delicate topic. Qatar has moved closer to Iran, but Ankara and Tehran are potentially on a collision course in the Mashreq. The decision by US President Donald Trump to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel may push Hamas closer to Iran.

Then you have the jihadists, both local and international, and the large number of militias that have different relations with the regional powerhouses. There is a kind of competition between the Islamic State (IS) group and Al-Qaeda, and the latter is growing more political.

The relations between the two are developing, and their relations with both the Islamist axis and Iran oscillate between antagonism, cooperation and being a stooge. The non-jihadist/non-Shia militias often shift alliances and engage in paralegal and even criminal economic activities. Finally, yet still importantly, there are the multiple Kurdish factions, each one having its own networks, strategies and calculations. This list of the regional players is illuminating but not exhaustive. Moreover, at least two great powers have troops on the ground in the region, and others, including China, have been showing interest.

*This article was first published in Al-Ahram Weekly

Short link:

MUSKEGON COUNTY, MI - A convicted murderer pleaded to an assault charge in the stabbing of another inmate in return for the dismissal of an attempted murder charge.

Douglas Lamont Williams, 34, was accused of using a shank - a makeshift knife - to stab another inmate multiple times in the face and head in a common area of the Earnest C. Brooks Correctional Facility in Muskegon. The assault occurred in February 2017.

He had been charged with assault with intent to murder, but the prosecutor's office agreed to the lesser charge of assault with intent to do great bodily harm in return for Williams' guilty plea on Tuesday, Jan. 30. He also pleaded guilty to being a prisoner in possession of a weapon.

Muskegon County Circuit Judge Annette Smedley agreed to a maximum sentence of 66 months - five years and five months - to be served consecutive to any other prison sentence.

Williams is serving 23 to 40 years for a 2006 second-degree murder conviction out of Wayne County, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections website. Following the assault, Williams was transferred to the Bellamy Creek Correctional Facility.SAGINAW, MI -- Police have arrested a suspect in connection with Saginaw's first 2018 homicide just days after the slaying.

The 20-year-old man was booked Tuesday, Jan. 30, in the Saginaw County Jail. He is expected to be arraigned on murder charges before the weekend, said Saginaw County Assistant Prosecutor Mark Gaertner.

The man's name is being withheld pending arraignment.

Gaertner said the man is suspected of killing 26-year-old Antonio Parham, who was gunned down Saturday afternoon, Jan. 27, in the driveway of his home in the 500 block of South Bond.

Officers and MMR personnel administered emergency care to Parham at the scene. He was transported to Covenant HealthCare in Saginaw where he was later pronounced dead.

Prosecutors are meeting with Saginaw Police Department detectives as early as Wednesday, Jan. 31, to discuss the case, Gaertner said.

He said the investigation is ongoing and that more evidence is being collected.

The suspect remains lodged in the Saginaw County Jail, according to jail records.UPDATE: Links to other stories of lawmakers around the state who have checked in as safe have been added to this story

CROZET, VA -- Michigan congressmen were onboard a train that collided with a trash truck, killing one person.

One of them is from the Great Lakes Bay Region.

U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Midland, was among a train full of Republican lawmakers and their staff headed to a GOP retreat in West Virginia on Wednesday, Jan. 31.

Congressman Moolenaar was onboard the train this morning and was unharmed in the accident.

-Staff https://t.co/HWZBGlIdRE  Rep. John Moolenaar (@RepMoolenaar) January 31, 2018

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders reported that one person died and one was seriously injured, but no lawmakers or their staff were harmed, according to media reports.

Two other Michigan congressmen were also on the train when the collision occurred and have also confirmed they are safe through their Twitter accounts.

Rep. Mike Bishop, R-Mich, who represents the 8th congressional district tweeted that he was OK and asked that everyone "keep those in the truck and all those who were injured" in their prayers.

Staff of U.S. Rep. Paul Mitchell, R-Dryden, also confirmed through his Twitter account that he was OK.

We have spoken with Rep. Mitchell and he is okay. - Staff  Rep. Paul Mitchell (@RepPaulMitchell) January 31, 2018

It is not known how many more Michigan lawmakers were aboard the train, however more are checking in as safe around the state.NASA has confirmed an amateur astronomer's claim that he made contact with the space agency's IMAGE satellite that had been missing for more than 12 years.

The IMAGE spacecraft launched back in March 2000 and was "unexpectedly lost" on Dec. 18, 2005.

The U.S. space agency said that it successfully collected data from the satellite Tuesday afternoon, Jan. 30 from its Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in Maryland. NASA reports it has been able to read some "basic housekeeping data" from IMAGE, which suggests its "main control system is operational."

"Scientists and engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, will continue to try to analyze the data from the spacecraft to learn more about the state of the spacecraft," the space agency says in the release.

CONFIRMED! The satellite re-discovered on Jan. 20 is IMAGE, a NASA mission we lost contact with in Dec. 2005!  Full details: https://t.co/IrD4ruLeds pic.twitter.com/zpI5lpXxOp  NASA Sun & Space (@NASASun) January 31, 2018

"This process will take a week or two to complete as it requires attempting to adapt old software and databases of information to more modern systems."

The astronomer who said he discovered the still broadcasting IMAGE, Scott Tilley, told Science Magazine he was looking for a classified U.S. satellite, but instead picked up the one labeled "2000-017A" which belongs to NASA's long-lost $150 million mission's spacecraft.

NASA said in its Wednesday release that it received a signal ID of 166, which is the ID for IMAGE.

The IMAGE spacecraft was originally launched to study the magnetosphere, which is the invisible magnetic field that surrounds the Earth. Science reports the mission was considered a success by NASA before it went missing.

"IMAGE was designed to image Earth's magnetosphere and produce the first comprehensive global images of the plasma populations in this region," NASA reports in the release.

"After successfully completing and extending its initial two-year mission in 2002, the satellite unexpectedly failed to make contact on a routine pass on Dec. 18, 2005. After a 2007 eclipse failed to induce a reboot, the mission was declared over."

IMAGE was lost when NASA couldn't "establish a routine communication" with the Deep Space Network. The space agency's official report on the failure cited an unexpected error within the power system as the reason for its disappearance.The White House said one person was killed and another was seriously injured Wednesday when a garbage-hauling truck collided with a chartered train carrying dozens of GOP lawmakers and aides to a policy retreat in West Virginia, the Associated Press reported.

An Amtrak spokesperson said there were no injuries among the train's passengers or crew after the collision, which occurred south of Charlottesville, Va.

Lawmakers indicated the injury and the fatality were people in the garbage truck.

"We're fine, but our train hit a garbage truck. Members with medical training are assisting the drivers of the truck," Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., wrote on Twitter.

Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., said the garbage truck had been ripped in half and he saw one person wrapped in a tarp, the AP reported. Cole said emergency workers appeared to be "putting a body away."

Several people got off the train to assist those in the truck, witnesses said.

A handful of Michigan congressmen were on board, including Reps. Bill Huizenga and Fred Upton from West Michigan, John Moolenaar from Midland, Mike Bishop from Rochester, and Paul Mitchell of Dryden.

The lawmakers are heading to the Greenbrier resort in White Sulfur Springs for a three-day retreat. President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are slated to join them for part of the session.We have an announcement, Detroit Pistons fans: Blake Griffin will be in the building.

Not in the Little Caesars Arena building, mind you, but at the Pistons' old building, The Palace.

The Pistons announced via news release that Griffin will meet with the media this afternoon at the Pistons' former arena in Auburn Hills.

The 6-foot-10 power forward, a superstar who spent the previous seven-plus seasons with the Los Angeles Clippers, will be joined by a couple of other Detroit newcomers in center Willie Reed and forward Brice Johnson.

Griffin, along with Reed and Johnson, was acquired on Monday in a blockbuster deal as the Pistons sent the Clippers guard Avery Bradley, forward Tobias Harris, center Boban Marjanovic, a future protected first-round draft choice and a future second-round pick.

Follow MLive.com for continued coverage on Griffin and his introduction to the Pistons.live bse live

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Bharat Electronics Ltd has informed BSE that the Board of Directors of the Company in their meeting held on January 30, 2018, inter alia, has unanimously:1. Declared interim dividend of Rs. 1.60/- per equity share of Rs. 1/- each fully paid-up for the financial year 2017-18.2. Approved the proposal to buyback of not exceeding 2,03,97,780 (Two Crore Three Lakhs Ninety Seven Thousand Seven Hundred Eighty) equity shares of the Company (representing 0.83%) of the total number of equity shares in the paid-up share capital of the Company) at a price of Rs. 182.50/- (Rupees One Hundred Eighty Two and Fifty Paise only) per equity share payable in cash for an aggregate consideration not exceeding Rs. 3,72,25,94,850/- (Rupees Three Hundred Seventy Two Crore Twenty Five Lakhs Ninety Four Thousand Eight Hundred and Fifty only), representing 5.00% of the aggregate of the fully paid-up equity share capital and free reserves as per the audited standalone financial statements of the Company for the financial year ended March 31, 2017 (the last audited financial statements available as on the date of Board meeting recommending the proposal of the Buyback) and is within the statutory limits of 10% (Ten Percent) of the aggregate of the fully paid-up equity share capital and free reserves under the Board of Directors approval route as per the provisions of the Companies Act, 2013 from all the equity shareholders of the Company, as on the record date, on a proportionate basis through a Tender Offer route in accordance with the Companies Act, 2013, the Companies (Management and Administration) Rules, 2014, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Buy Back of Securities) Regulations, 1998, as amended (the "Buyback Regulations"), subject to all other applicable statutory approvals.The Board of Directors noted the intention of the Promoter of the Company to participate in the proposed Buyback.The Board of Directors has constituted a Buyback Committee and delegated its powers to the Buyback Committee to do all such acts, deeds, matters and things as it may, in its absolute discretion, deem necessary expedient, usual or proper in connection with the buyback.Source : BSE

Read MoreThe divestment of Air India is expected to find a special mention in the 2018 Union Budget. It's not just because the ball has finally started rolling on the sale of the national airline, but also because it will give a fillip to the Government's divestment target for the next financial year.

The NDA government has collected about Rs 55,000 crore in the present fiscal, against its target of Rs 72,500 crore. Reports say that the target for FY19 may rise sharply. The government is looking to divest its stake in nearly 40 companies in the next financial year.

Surely, Air India's sale will make up for a major chunk of that divestment target. During a recent aviation summit in Mumbai, experts said that Air India might get a valuation of up to $5 billion, or over Rs 30,000 crore.

Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian also said in an interview to a daily on Tuesday that privatising Air India is one of the reforms that needs to be completed in the next fiscal.

A start

Up to six players may put in their bids for Air India. According to Kapil Kaul, South Asia chief of aviation consultancy firm CAPA, four domestic airlines have shown interest in the government airline. These include IndiGo, SpiceJet, Jet Airways and Vistara.

Apart from them, Kaul said two non-aviation companies may also join the race. "These companies are looking for partners for funding," Kaul said.

Air India operates a fleet of Boeing and Airbus aircraft, and serves more than 90 domestic and international destinations. Apart from its real estate assets, potential bidders will also be interested in the airline's units specialising in ground handling and engineering.

Reports also say that the government is looking at the option to break-up Air India into four separate companies. While Air India and its low-cost arm Air India Express might be sold together, the airline's regional arm, ground handling unit and engineering operations would be divested separately.All eyes are on the Budget 2018 which is expected to strike a fine balance between credible fiscal math and strike the right balance between populism and fiscal prudence.

The government might not be able to meet the fiscal deficit target for FY18 but analysts expect the government to revert to fiscal consolidation roadmap with a target of 3.2 percent for 2018-19.

Fiscal slippage in 2017-2018 with a revised figure for the gross fiscal deficit at around 3.5 percent as against the estimate of 3.2 percent given in the budget. However, the government is likely to revert to fiscal consolidation roadmap with a target of 3.2 percent for 2018-2019.

The Union Budget 2018-2019 on increased spending on affordable housing, infrastructure, and rural economy along with no major changes in the direct taxation structure would be sufficient to sustain momentum in the markets, suggest experts.

Given the expected focus areas and stated policy priorities of the government, the sectors and companies that clearly stand to gain from the Union Budget 2018-2019 are: consumer (rural demand-driven and consumer discretionary), construction companies, retail and defence companies, said a Sharekhan report.

The preferred Budget picks for the domestic brokerage firm include names like Bharat Electronics, Ashok Leyland, Arvind, Sadhbhav Engineering, Birla Corp and Emami.

JK Jain, head of equity research at Karvy Stock Broking expect the government to focus on infrastructure and increase the spending in that segment to bolster building of proper roads, power generation, and boost irrigation.

Other sectors which we will be eyeing would be Consumer Durables as a reduction in GST on household items will be a positive for this industry and also Logistics would benefit indirectly if spending on Infrastructure goes up, he said.

We have collated a list of top 20 stocks which will remain in focus on the Budget Day across these 5 sectors:

Sector: Automobile

Stocks to track: M&M, Hero MotoCorp, TVS Motor Company, M&M, Ashok Leyland, Ashok Leyland, Bosch

Demand recovery is underway across segments, after experiencing multiple shocks such as demonetization, BS3 to BS4 transition, and GST, among others over the last 12 months.

We do not expect any changes in indirect taxes. However, we expect higher allocation toward rural-focused schemes, Motilal Oswal said in a report. Focus on rural markets could place the 2-wheeler industry back on the growth path.

This, coupled with the benefit of normal monsoon and 7th Pay Commission, could drive 2W.

Volume CAGR of 10-12 percent over FY17-19E. Stocks which are likely to remain in focus include stocks like Hero MotoCorp, TVS Motor Company, M&M, said the Motilal Oswal report.

The brokerage firm also expects the introduction of a scrappage scheme, which would incentivize scrapping of trucks older than 10 years. This move would be positive for stocks like Ashok Leyland, and Bosch.

Sector: Capital Goods & Infrastructure

Stocks: Bharat Electronics, L&T, Bharat Forge, Sadbhav, Ashok Buildcon, Cummins India, KNR Construction, Siemens, ABB India, Crompton Greaves

Companies in the defense sector await an increase in orders from the government post the thrust toward "Make in India". FY18 budgetary allocation at Rs 865 billion for capital spending.

The analyst expects an increase in allocation towards capital spending in the budget. An increase in budgeted spending would be positive for companies as it implies higher ordering and execution.

The news will be positive for companies like Bharat Electronics, L&T, Bharat Forge, Motilal Oswal said in a report.

Railway Budget will not be presented as a different Budget but analysts expect the government to increase budgetary support and, in turn, spending by the Indian Railways.

Motilal Oswal expects the allocation to increase by 10 percent for FY19.

The Government is taking steps to decongest the existing network, improve the safety of passengers and return the railways to profitability. It will be positive for companies like L&T, Siemens, ABB, Crompton Greaves, and KEC International.

Increased budgetary support for the road is expected to help maintain continuity in ordering and execution. Motilal Oswal expects an increase of 10-15% in budgetary allocation. Stocks which are likely to benefit the most include names like L&T, Sadbhav Engineering, KNR Construction, Ashok Buildcon, and Cummins India.

Sector: Agriculture

Stocks to Watch: Dhanuka Agritech, PI Industries, Chambal Fertilisers, Coromandel International, Kaveri Seeds

Brokerage houses expect the short-term farm loan limit to be increased to Rs 5 lakh from Rs 3 lakh currently which would be positive for stocks like Dhanuka Agritech, PI Industries, and Kaveri Seeds.

The recommendations are that Natural gas should also be brought under GST and will attract 5 percent GST rate which would be positive for fertilizer manufacturers such as Chambal Fertilizers and Coromandel International, said a Sharekhan report.

There are also talks about reforms which are targeted at improving farm income/farm yields such as electronic linkage of mandi's under e-NAM, higher MSPs and the likely increase in rural allocations.

The move is likely to be positive for agri-chem companies such as Dhanuka Agritech, Insecticides, and PI Industries.

Sector: Cement

Stocks in focus: Grasim, UltraTech, Shree Cement, The Ramco Cements and Mangalam Cement

Analysts are expecting to levy basic customs duty on cement imports in India or import duties on raw material such as coal, petcoke, limestone, and gypsum be abolished. The move will be positive for companies like Grasim, UltraTech, Shree Cement, The Ramco Cements and Mangalam Cement, said a Sharekhan report.

Higher allocation in the infrastructure sector especially roads, ports, and metros will also be positive for the cement sector.

: The views and investment tips expressed by the investment experts on moneycontrol.com are their own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.Vishal Jain

The Union Budget announcement of 2017 boosted the influx of digital operations and transactions within the government processes, corporations, as well as the public utility domain. After the demonetization drive, promotion of a digital economy featured high on the governments agenda as part of the strategy to create a more transparent payments ecosystem. Further, the endeavor towards a secure digital enablement in the country witnessed a major thrust with the announcement of setting up of a Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-Fin) to strengthen security of the financial sector especially in the aftermath of major incidents of cyber-related attacks and frauds.

While there have been significant efforts towards achieving the state of effective, efficient, and secure cyber capabilities, there is much ground to be covered. The government must capitalize on the existing momentum and aggressively leverage the key initiatives to realize their true economic potential, and an encouraging Budget 2018-19 would be the best catalyst to achieve the objectives.

In order to address the risks to digital adoption and implementation in the country, the government must invest in fortifying the fundamental links of the entire digital value chain. We are expecting an enhanced focus on digital awareness and cyber-skilling at the school and college levels through appropriate educational programs, facilities, and suitable budgets being allocated. This will induce, if not assure, a culture of cyber cognizance and resilience in the country. Cyber issues must evolve from being seen as a mere IT-specific concern. When a cyber-attack happens, it impacts the consumers, the businesses, as well as the governments at large. Hence, awareness of the challenges and risks to digital operations must be reckoned as an information imperative for every section of the society that may get impacted.

At a macro-economic level, we must invest in producing talent and proficiencies that could act as the defense mechanism to safeguard critical information, processes, and machineries from any theft, breach, attack, or fraud having the potential to affect national productivity. In this regard, it would be encouraging to see specific budget allocation for the foundation of a cyber-military that could dedicatedly work on making our systems more secure and vigilant. One of the key tasks in developing as a cyber-conscious economy would be to adopt a sustainable, future-proof national prowess that not only reacts to cyber mishaps quickly but is also proactive in anticipation of the potential threats.

Another expectation from the Budget this year from a Digital risk perspective would be the formalization of an inter-State information sharing agreement in order to leverage and synergize the digital expertise of various governments and their institutions in terms of knowledge, talent-pool, infrastructure, research and development, and experiences. The government could also consider investing in the establishment of dedicated cyber-security centres/programs for each state as an impetus to the Digital India drive.

Digitalization of processes has been very promising in India with the eKYC giving a major momentum to the banking and financial services sector, e-learning addressing the big gaps in our education system, DigiLocker ending document-fraud to a large extent, and Aadhaar-based Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) making consumers of the countrys poor section more empowered through subsidies and benefits. If India as an economy is also able to tackle the menace of cyber-threat through smart investments, intelligent strategies and resilient infrastructures, the potential and scope of Digital India can be augmented several time over.

Now that, we are moving towards digitalization of most of the citizen services & government operations, there is large connected systems generating various sets of data. On one aspect, this increases the attack surface and therefore, needs special attention from National Security perspective, so in all such large projects, a percentage should be mandatorily allocated for security measures. The other aspect is to invest in setting up of infrastructure to analyse these data points to gauge the risk exposure of the country on various fronts.

To conclude, till date budgets always had focus on securing future of the India, but now we should have also have focus to Secure Digital India.

The author is a Partner at Deloitte India.Amit Gupta of ICICIdirect told CNBC-TV18, "Hindustan Unilever (HUL) is trading at a life high levels of around Rs 1,400. So this lower leverage means the people are still sceptical on these upsides what is happening in HUL and they are not available to go very aggressive long positions and that generally goes very good for the stock in the short term."

"Whenever it is declining, it is immediately reversing, from September there was a fall from almost Rs 1,300 to Rs 1,150. It immediately recovered that particular fall and recently again we had a fall from Rs 1,400 to Rs 1,330 and it is recovering that particular fall also."

"So, my sense is HUL is on the run way towards Rs 1,500 levels. If you can buy HUL and go short in Nifty I think it may be a good pair strategy and 7.9 where the price ratio of Nifty upon HUL is right now it has started declining. So, that will also go well if you are going long in the stock and short Nifty right now at this junction," he said.live bse live

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Benchmark indices have been climbing all wall of worries in the month of January to hit their respective record highs but the momentum was fizzling out which most investors fail to take note off.

The mid & smallcap stocks which rose to fresh record highs in the year 2017 are witnessing some bit of profit booking. The rise in liquidity, both domestic, as well as global, led to a strong rally in the broader market which pushed valuations for most of these stocks beyond long-term averages.

Data suggests that as many as 135 stocks have fallen over 10 percent from their respective 52-weeks high recorded in the month of January 2018, and 20 stocks have fallen between 20-30 percent in the same period.

Stocks which have fallen in the range of 20-30% include names like Reliance Naval and Engineering Ltd, Unitech, Reliance Power, Bajaj Hindustan, Aban Offshore, Jai Corp, Motilal Oswal, Adani Power, Jindal Stainless, JustDial, BF Utilities, Praj Industries, and Time Technoplast among others.

Investors prefer to go light in the Budget, suggest experts. There could be a possibility that traders are booking profits or squaring up their leverage bets to avoid getting caught up at the wrong end of the bargain.

In case of no negative surprise in Budget, Nifty would continue to form base near 11,000 and this uptrend should continue. However, there has been some weakness seen in the midcap space which is not visible looking at the Nifty prices, Amit Gupta, head of derivatives at ICICIdirect told Moneycontrol.

The reason being the market participants were quite overboard on the midcaps instead of largecap stocks. This is where profit booking is quite visible in this space before the major Budget announcement, he said.

Apart from midcaps, smallcap stocks have suffered the most in the run-up to the Budget. Some of the stocks in the S&P BSE Smallcap index which plunged up to 60 percent include names like Orient Paper, followed by Yamini Investments, Jaypee Infratech, Gujarat NRE Coke, Monnet Ispat, Jaiprakash Power Ventures, and Electrosteel Steels Ltd among others.

However, analysts are not too worried about the correction in the small and midcap space. They feel that it is routine profit taking but the tide should reverse soon because the way Economic Survey projects the growth path for the economy, small and midcap companies stand to gain the most.

There is euphoria in some section of the market, but, by and large, we think it is in the normal course of the market. The cyclical or some high beta stocks did very well responding to improvement in underlying businesses with global growth picking up & Chinese curb on the production of certain commodities, Atul Bhole, Vice President and Fund Manager, DSP BlackRock Investment Managers told Moneycontrol.

Such stocks were also at oversold levels to start with, many of them were trading at below book values. Some of these companies also deleveraged their balance sheets at a decent pace with improvement in profitability, asset sale or fresh fund raise, he said.

Bhole further added that this has resulted in big returns from such stocks with concern on existence going away. Most of these things actually are linked to starting of a fresh business cycle and hence is in course of the normal market.Coal power plant (Representative Image: Getty)

The Maharashtra government has given an in-principle approval to convert 2,140 hectares of the Navi Mumbai Special Economic Zone (NMSEZ) into an 'integrated industrial area'.

The decision to this effect was taken yesterday at the state cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis.

With this, the NMSEZ can apply for denotification of its special economic zone status.

The Centre had already started the denotification process of the SEZ. However, the state government had requested the Centre to put the process on hold, a release from the Chief Minister's Office said.

The cabinet decision will help the promoters use 15 percent of the total leased land - around 1,842 hectares - for residential uses, while the rest will have to be utilised for industrial purposes, the release said.

The Navi Mumbai SEZ has been proposed to be developed in three phases on 2,140 hectares of land in Dronagiri, Ulwe and Kalamboli areas of the township.Ajay Piramal, Chairman, Piramal Enterprises

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Piramal Group, one of Indias largest and diversified conglomerates, plans to look at newer products and ideas through innovative solutions as it continues to invest in assets in the businesses they operate in, in the financial services, realty, healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors, says Chairman Ajay Piramal.

Piramal, 62, has a net worth of USD 5.6 Billion, up from USD 1 billion in seven years as per Forbes. He is also one of the best dealmakers in the country. With private equity firm Bain Capital, he has been actively looking at buying good quality distressed assets.

The Groups flagship company, Piramal Enterprises, reported 21 percent rise in consolidated net profit to Rs 490.47 crore for the quarter ending December 2017. The cash and cash equivalents of the firm stood at Rs 1,699 crore at the end of the quarter.

In an interview with Moneycontrol post the results announcement on Tuesday, Piramal said that in his capital raising plans of nearly Rs 7,000 crore, of which Rs 4,996 crore has been raised already, up to Rs 2,000 crore will be raised through rights issue.

Exuding promoters confidence in the group, Piramal said the stock of Piramal Enterprises has appreciated by on a CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) basis by 45 percent as compared to the NSE Nifty rise of 14 percent.

According to him, quarter on quarter for the last 10 quarters, it has grown both in topline and net profits in excess of 20 percent and hence the fund raising will allow the group to play an instrumental role in achieving ambitious growth plans across our businesses operating in financial services and pharmaceutical sectors.

Excerpts from the interview:

With the fund raising of Rs 7,000 crore, what more expansion would you look at in the finance and pharma sector?

We will continue to look at more products in the finance space. We have entered home finance, also set up a subsidiary for housing finance in the previous quarter, we have started a fund for stressed assets with Bain Capital and we will see some outflow of funds in this quarter now from January to March. So we are continuously looking at newer ideas depending on where we think we have innovative solutions because finance and providing funds is a commodity business and we have to be able to find something that is innovative.

Coming to pharma, your non-competing agreement with US-based Abbot Laboratories is due to end in September. Any new acquisition plans or interesting assets you see in the market?

We are still examining whether we want to get into this space or not. Piramal is still a recognisable brand name in this space. We have to see whether we want to get into this space or not. Things have changed a lot since we started eight years ago. The market, profitability and growth has changed. So we have to see if it makes economic sense to get into this space.

Global growth in the pharma space has seen some slowdown, there is a lot of inorganic growth happening in the US and a lot of fluctuation in the currency market as well. How do you see this?

Our growth in the global pharma market is in complex generic products. Hence pressure in pricing is not as much as in the standard generic products. So we make, for instance, drugs for morphine based drugs for acute pain during oncology. So thats a very niche market and it doesnt have that many competitors. Thats what our strategy has always been and the focus will be on complex to manufacture and distribute.

You are actively bidding the insolvency assets. What are the gaps and challenges in terms of asset buying, pricing or any other concerns?

There is a fair amount of interest in the first few assets. Banks may not have to take too much of hair-cuts in that as there is a lot of interest. My concern is that when you go down the line, I dont know how much interest there would be and will banks be in a position to take huge write-offs, because they will have to. The first few accounts which are now on the block, many of them have good assets, fixed assets, etcwe will have to see what the banks do.

We have bid for quite a few assets both in the first and second list. We will have a value in mind and let us see if we get the valuation.

You have been an active investor in realty, finance and pharma space. Why is it that we havent seen you evince interest in startups?

We are focused on what we are doing. We are not a venture fund and that is not the mandate for Piramal Enterprises.

We are seeing some stress in the housing finance space. Being a new entrant, do you think this is a concern for you?

We dont think so because ewe are using technology and analytics to ensure that those we lend to are going to repay. This is the first quarter so we will see how it goes ahead. But we would not have entered if we saw stressSo, we are good.Tata Motors Ultra

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Tata Motors, India's largest commercial vehicle maker, has bagged an order for supply of 3,000 trucks worth Rs 600 crore from logistics company Rivigo.

"The order is for 3 axel truck which we bagged recently," said Girish Wagh, head, commercial vehicle business unit, Tata Motors, in an interaction with Moneycontrol.

The announcement comes a week after rival Ashok Leyland said it had bagged an order for supplying 1,200 trucks for Rs 350 crore to one of the biggest transport and logistics companies in the country -- VRL. VRL is one of the oldest patrons of Ashok Leyland trucks and buses.

Wagh also said that the company is working towards de-bottlenecking manufacturing operations at its three plants - Pune, Jamshedpur, and Lucknow - where it is running at 100 percent capacity utilisation.

The last time the company witnessed full capacity utilisation was in March last year, which is when it scaled up production of Bharat Stage 3 products before the onset of Bharat Stage 4 norm from April 1, 2017.

"We have witnessed some supply related constraints for our medium and heavy commercial vehicles (MHCV) because of which we saw a decline of 2.3 percent in market share in that segment by end of December. But we have started the process of de-bottlenecking manufacturing processes which will help us in increasing production," added Wagh.

At the overall level, Tata Motors ended December with a market share of 44.5 percent in the commercial vehicle market, while Ashok Leyland commanded a share of 20 percent by end of December.

In the MHCV segment, Tata Motors enjoys a share if 51.7 percent. Till the end of last quarter, the company had completed launches of more than 35 products. By the end of the current quarter, a further 20 products will be launched.

Tata Motors has been under fire from investors for the past several quarters for losing its iron-clad grip over the commercial vehicle market. Rivals such as Ashok Leyland, VE Commercial Vehicles, Mahindra & Mahindra and Daimler India have snatched market share from the company following numerous launches and aggressive marketing techniques.

But Tata Motors has vowed to regain the share before end of next financial year and bring it back to the 50 percent plus range, which it had operated at historically.

The company will end the year with Rs 1,500 crore spent on product development. According to Wagh, investments will rise further in the next two years, which is when it will have to incur Bharat Stage 6-related product development expenses.

Through a strict cost reduction programme, Tata Motors will end the year with a saving of more than Rs 1,000 crore, which will help it witness an overall improvement in margins at the standalone level, despite a steady rise in commodity costs.

The savings come on the back of discounts given on trucks and buses, which have surprisingly remained rigidly high and become a regular feature in business operations, Wagh said.

Two new engines, both of which are Bharat Stage 6 compliant, will be showcased by the company at the Auto Expo. Tata Motors has developed both these engines in-house, having spent around Rs 300 crore on the development.live bse live

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JSW Steel, the biggest Indian steelmaker, plans to bid for eight mines in Karnataka that have been opened up for auctions. The last day for putting in the bids is March 12.

"We already have five mining leases in the State. While production in one mine will begin next week, the second mine will be commissioned in this quarter," said Seshagiri Rao, Jt Managing Director & Group CFO.

Production in rest of the three mines will begin in the first half of the next financial year, Rao said in a conference to announce the company's third quarter results.

The five mines collectively will have a capacity of nearly 5 million tonne of iron ore a year.

Backed by its best ever performance in crude steel production (up 7% YoY to 4.11 million tonnes) and steel sales (up 12% to 4.03 million), JSW Steel reported a 140 percent surge in its net profit at Rs 1,774 crore.

Its revenues increased by 17 percent to Rs 17,861 crore in the quarter ending December 2017.

The company also saw its exports surging 56 percent in the third quarter. Exports made up for 30 percent of the total volumes.

Rao though clarified that the net profit numbers were propped up by tax credit gains in its US operations. The company also had a provision of Rs 264 crore for surrendering one of its iron ore mines in Chile.

"Even without the exceptional items, revenues would have increased by 96 percent year-on-year," said Rao.

Outlook

The company said it's on track to meet its guidance on sales and will achieve the 15.5 million tons target by the end of this year.

"A sharp increase in raw material prices has put a tremendous pressure on costs. However, increase in steel prices should alleviate the cost impact to an extent," the company said in a statement.

Shares of the company closed 0.3 percent higher while the NSE index fell 0.2.The newest entrant to the insurance sector, Toffee Insurance, is looking to simplify products and get individuals below the age of 30 years to buy their first policy. In an interaction with Moneycontrol, Rohan Kumar, CEO and co-founder of Toffee Insurance said that they are looking to raise USD 1 million to grow their business.

"We have started off a few weeks ago with six insurance partners. Our idea is to have products that are simple to understand and easy on the wallet," said Kumar. They will act as the corporate agent for the insurers.

Toffee, he said, was built to bring the younger population into the insurance fold, especially since the mainstream insurance companies were not doing much on this space. He added that the thrust will be to have a complete digital sales process without any assisted sales.

The team which consists of 10 members could go upto 20 as the volume of the business increases, said Kumar.

In the initial stage, Toffee Insurance has launched a dengue-care product from Apollo Munich as also a globetrotter travel insurance for medical emergencies. They also have a StayFit product that will incentivise healthy behaviour like exercising.

Even those who are traditionally charged a higher premium will be encouraged to buy their first product, said Kumar. Toffee Insurance has a smoker's insurance which is essentially a cancer cover for individuals who smoke. This has a lock-in premium as well.

"We have made it clear that pre-existing conditions will not be covered. To ensure that customers are able to understand the terms and conditions properly, we have simplified the product brochures as well," he explained.

In the next few weeks, Toffee Insurance will be launching insurance covers for backpackers including outpatient expenses as well as renters cover that will cover the personal belongings of the individual on rent for upto Rs 1 lakh.

Kumar said thar the premiums for their products will remain between Rs 500-1300 so as to inculcate a behaviour of buying insurance. The company is entering into partnerships with several digital entities in the next few weeks and will promote its products through their platforms.Flipkart

Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world's largest retailer, is in talks to buy 15 to 20 percent stake in Indian e-commerce major Flipkart.

Walmart Global CEO Doug McMillon was in India recently and during the visit he also spent time at Flipkart's Bengaluru office, two executives said.

They did not wish to be named as the deal is yet to be finalised.

The US retailer may be looking to invest up to USD 1 billion in Flipkart, sources said.

When contacted, a Flipkart spokesperson declined to comment.

"For Walmart, India is an exciting and priority market. Our Global CEO Doug McMillon was in the country for India Business Review for its all three entities - India Cash & Carry business, Global Technology Centre and Global Sourcing," a Walmart India spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added that the company is "deeply committed" to the Indian market but declined to comment on "market speculations".

A deal with Walmart could help SoftBank-backed Flipkart to not only add financial muscle but also strengthen supply chain and enhance efficiency in procurement and product assortment.

For Walmart, the investment would allow the company to grab a foothold in India's booming e-commerce industry that is estimated to touch USD 33 billion this fiscal.

With investment from large corporates like SoftBank and potentially Walmart, if the deal happens, Flipkart will have more firepower for its battle with US-based Amazon.

Both Amazon.in and Flipkart have been aggressively ramping up presence in the Indian market, pumping in billions of dollars into their operations in the country.

Flipkart has beefed up its kitty with funding of about USD 4 billion this fiscal. Japanese conglomerate SoftBank infused about USD 2.5 billion, while Tencent, Microsoft and eBay pumped in about USD 1.4 billion into the Bengaluru-based firm.

On the other hand, Amazon Seller Services has received over Rs 8,000 crore (about USD 1.28 billion) during this financial year from its US parent. Most recently, Amazon infused fresh capital to the tune of Rs 1,950 crore into the Indian unit, Amazon Seller Services.The Delhi High Court has ruled allowing the Daiichi Sankyo's plea which sought Rs 3,500 crore arbitral award against the Singh brothers who allegedly concealed details on selling Ranbaxy Laboratories products in 2008.

The Singh brothers  Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh  are the chiefs of Fortis Healthcare, Religare and former Ranbaxy promoters. In 2013, the firm had pleaded guilty in the US to charges which alleged them to distributing degraded medicines and manipulating and furnishing wrong data. The firm had to pay USD 500 million.

In 2016, Daiichi Sankyo, a Japanese drugmaker, had filed the petition to apply for an arbitral award and had won in the Singapore tribunal.

The Delhi High Court holds that the amount is payable to Daiichi by the Singh Brothers. This means that the award, which was granted in the Japanese drugmaker's favour, has to paid by the Singh brothers. The actual amount for the arbitral award was for Rs 2,500. The remaining Rs 1,000 crore comes after summing up the interest and litigation costs.

Along with this, the apex court had barred the Singh brothers from selling any of their assets in Fortis Healthcare, in accordance to another petition filed by the same drugmaker.

Two remedies are available for the brothers. The brothers had earlier challenged the award in the Singapore Court of Appeal and the case is still pending there. The Delhi High Court order is the first case of litigation. The brothers are expected to challenge the order in the near future.Somany Ceramics posted a weak set of earnings in Q3 which makes it the third straight quarter of earnings disappointment. In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Abhishek Somany, MD of the company spoke about the results and his outlook for the company.

The reason behind weak Q3 numbers was that post Q2 results, there was a hangover for Diwali and after Diwali, we had goods and services tax (GST) rate cut from 28 percent to 18 percent, so up till mid-November 2017, we had no sales, he explained.

Also, the company has an issue with the gas in the Haryana plant. All of India has reduced the taxation on gas but Haryana continues to be stubborn and is not reducing the rates, he added.

In Q3, tile segment grew by about 6 percent in volume, he said.

FY18 has been an aberration for the company. We have had issues with GST, SAP implementation and now the GST rate reduction, so going forward the margins would bounce back to what we had earlier, said Somany.

Sanitaryware business is doing well. Non-tile business contributes 10 percent to the revenue in Q3 and is growing fairly substantially, he further mentioned.

The company has added around 66 new dealers and 20 new showrooms in Q3.

Margins next year are looking good, he said.

GST implementation has not been as smooth as we thought, Somany said.IDBI Bank reported its third and it looks like the pain is now stabilising for the bank, the gross non-performing assets as a percentage of total loans were slightly low at 24.72 percent versus 24.98 percent quarter on quarter (QoQ). Similarly Net NPAs also fell about 20 basis points from Rs 29,489 crore to Rs 29,353 crore.

To know further details of the Q3 numbers and the outlook going forward, CNBC-TV18 spoke to Mahesh Kumar Jain, MD & CEO, IDBI Bank.

He said the bank is on a trajectory to reducing losses and could take one-two quarters more the losses could continue because of the ageing provision and higher provision requirements and some identification of slippages into the NPL category.

On recapitalization, he said along with the capital whole list of reforms have also come in  reforms focused on differentiated banking, reforms on governance structure, digitization and customer reach and customer service, said Jain.

Below is the verbatim transcript of the interview.

Q: There is incremental progress being made in reducing the losses. Are we one or two quarters away from black in the bottomline?

A: First of all, let me briefly touch upon it that what we talk about the turnaround strategy of the bank to focus on the core business, we are on the lines. If we see, our net interest income (NII) numbers have grown, not only quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) basis, even nine month to nine month basis. The operating profit grew by 679 percent on QoQ basis, but on nine month basis also, there is an improvement of 60 percent.

Even if we exclude the extraordinary items, which is basically sale of non-core assets, still in the operating profit from core business, 341 percent growth on QoQ basis and 15 percent growth on nine month to nine month basis. Despite of the fact that there was a provision, one time provision because of mark-to-market (MTM) losses, which was to the extent of Rs 474 crore in Q3, which was not there in previous quarter or the previous year respective quarter, so, that is an improvement. Operating expense also we have reduced by the extent of 11 percent. We have increased the other income as well.

So these are the key business parameters where we are focusing to improve our operating profit and it is consistently going to improve upon. As far as these numbers are concerned, we are in the trajectory of reducing our losses but it may take another one or two quarters more where the losses will continue because of the aging provision and the higher provisioning requirement and because of certain identification of these slippages into the non-performing loans (NPL) category as well.

Latha: I wanted to ask you what you will do with the capital. You have got more than Rs 10,000 crore of capital, what will it do to your capital adequacy ratio and are you therefore likely to more aggressively provide and bring down your net non-performing assets (NPA)?

A: That is what basically is our objective. If you look into it, our common equity Tier 1 (CET1) has improved from 5.64 percent to 6.62 percent because of the capital infusion by the government as well as we have reduced our risk weighted assets (RWA). RWA in last 10 months decreased by 24 percent and over March it has reduced by Rs 20,000.

Apart from that, whatever additional capital infusion is, definitely we will provide because there will be aging provision and our provision coverage ratio (PCR) which has improved to 57 percent, will further improve in this quarter, in Q4 as well.

Q: Any ballparks figure at all in terms of how much the net NPA can come down to?

A: Net NPA, it depends up on certain resolution. Earlier we were expecting that whatever National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) cases in Q4, there may be some resolutions, but now probably these resolutions actual money may come in the Q1 of next financial year. By that time we will be able to substantially reduce our net NPA. However, in Q4, our estimate is again, 16 percent we may reduce to around 12-13 percent.

Q: The big positive news is that the aggregate NPA number has been brought down from Rs 51,000 crore to Rs 50,000 crore odd. Is this now a trend, can we expect lower and lower gross NPAs?

A: It should be in Q4, there should be some reduction in Q4 definitely, but to what extent we have to wait and watch because our watchlist is also little bit heavy. However, we have to recognise because our mantra is we need to recognise, we need to resolve, and then we need to recover, if it is not resolution. So there is no point to push the issues at the back.

Q: Can you tell us what have been the fresh slippages and how they compare with the Q2 number, fresh slippages, and if you have any recoveries and write-offs?

A: Fresh slippages during this quarter was Rs 4,127 crore against the previous year quarter of Rs 4,700 crore. There are upgradation and recovery to the extent of Rs 973 crore.

Q: Your deposits and advances have been inching lower, when can we see a growth, I mean both QoQ and year-on-year (YoY) there has been a fall in advances, right?

A: That is right, actually that is because of the strategy. If you see our current account, saving accounts (CASA), CASA improvement is 36.14 percent CASA, against previous year of 28.39 percent, and even on March 31.46 percent. So, 5 percent increase in nine months as far as CASA percentage is concerned. We are shedding our bulk deposits and that is the reason why we are able to increase our NII despite of having substantial portion of assets generating lesser income.

On advances side, again there was a strategy that we have to come down in corporate book and we have to increase our retail book. Retail book YoY growth is 10 percent against the previous year growth of 5 percent and the corporate book we have brought down by extent of 24 percent. So that is part of our strategy.

Q: Anything from Reserve Bank of India (RBI) at all in terms of a divergence that you have to report?

A: Yes there are certain divergences which we have to report because the cycle is over and we got the list and out of that, around Rs 2,000 crore is left out which will be there in this quarter out of the total divergence. Remaining we have already factored up to December quarter.

Q: It is not more than 15 percent so you do not have to declare it.

A: It will be more than 15 percent.

Q: The divergence is around Rs 2,000 crore you said?

A: Divergence is Rs 2,000 crore to be recognised in Q4. Remaining we have already recognised.

Q: Would you be able to give us the overall number of divergence?

A: As of now immediately I am not having those numbers. However, divergences are more than 15 percent.

Q: Is there any change in strategy because when the Finance Minister announced the allocation of money, allocation of recapitalisation bonds, he said, the Department of Financial Services (DFS) Secretary said that each bank will follow its own strategy, its own core strengths. So should we expect anything in terms of a change, anything in terms of consolidation or privatisation for IDBI Bank?

A: As far as the strategies are concerned, there are a whole list of reforms which have come along with the capital and really we appreciate the reforms which have come in. Those reforms are focusing on the differentiated banking, reforms are focusing on the governance structure and they are focusing on the digitalisation and the customer reach and customer service. These all four areas are on the top of our mind and next board meeting we are going to deliberate upon each and every point and definitely it will help the bank in working out and carving out a differentiated strategy that where we would like to be placed ourselves keeping in view our strength.FISCAL DEFICIT: All eyes will be on the fiscal consolidation roadmap and the governments borrowing plans. Will Jaitley stick to the 3 percent (of GDP) fiscal deficit target for 2018-19 set last year? Or will he signal a move to fiscal deficit range from fixed target. There is heightened expectation that he may announce a new framework suggesting a fiscal deficit range from 2018-19 setting the stage for replacing the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act with a new law, giving the government more flexibility on borrowing and spending.

LTCG: Will he bring back the long-term capital gains tax (LTCG) in stock markets? Or will he change the definition of long-term, raising the time limit for tax relief to a minimum of 2-3 years from one year at present. Or will it be a status quo? Markets and investors will be hoping for the third option, for either a changed definition of long-term or a tax on gains from stock trading could trigger correction in markets as it will force many individuals and institutional funds to shuffle their stocks portfolio.

CORPORATE TAX: Will Jaitley cut the headline corporate income tax rate from 30 percent? In 2015, the finance minister had said that main corporate income tax rate will be progressively brought down to 25 percent by 2019. He may well chose his fifth, and the NDA governments last full budget, in its current term to overhaul of Indias corporate tax structure by slashing the statutory rate and removing layers of exemptions

India Union Budget Live: News, updates and highlights from FM Arun Jaitley's Budget speech, announcements

INDIVIDUAL INCOME TAX: Will the finance minister have some good news for the salaried and the middle class? There is speculation that he may announce a restructuring of tax slabs and increase the income tax exemption limit from the existing Rs 250,000 to about Rs 300,000 a move that would leave more money in the hands of people. It is also speculated that the budget may reinstitute the concept of standard deduction to provide some relief to tax-payers.

80 (C) BENEFITS: Will the Finance Minister raise the income tax deduction limits for money parked in specified savings instruments? There is speculation that Jaitley may raise the deduction limit on investments in specific mutual funds, national savings certificates and public provident fund (PPF) among others made under the popular Section 80(C) scheme of the Income Tax Act from Rs 1,50,000 to Rs 200,000. The deduction limit under Section 80C has been at the current Rs 1.5 lakh since 2014-15.

Will the budget contain measures to address concerns of rural distress and lift farm income? There is speculation that Jaitley may announce a new agricultural exports policy in the Budget for 2018-19 to help arrest the slide on farm product prices induced by domestic gluts. He may also announce a Price Deficiency Payment Mechanism for those crops where procurement cannot be ensured. This could be on the lines that the Madhya Pradesh government is currently implementing through its Bhavantar Bhugtan Yojana.Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in Budget 2012-13 proposed to amend the Income Tax Act, 1961 with retrospective effect.

The proposal was to allow the country to retrospectively tax cross-border transactions in which the underlying assets are located in India. Under the proposed amendment, all persons, whether resident or non-residents, having business connection in India, will be required to deduct tax at source and pay it to the government even if the transaction is executed on a foreign soil.

Following are the sections which were amended:

Section 2(14) - This provision defines a capital asset. - it is hereby clarified that property includes and shall be deemed to have always included any rights in or in relation to an Indian company, including rights of management or control or any other rights whatsoever

Section 2(47) - This provision defines a transfer. - it is hereby clarified that transfer includes and shall be deemed always to have included disposing of or parting with an asset or any interest therein, or creating any interest in any asset in any manner whatsoever, directly or indirectly, absolutely or conditionally, voluntarily or involuntarily, by way of an agreement (whether entered into in India or outside India) or otherwise, notwithstanding that such transfer of rights has been characterised as being effected or dependent upon or flowing from the transfer of a share or shares of a company incorporated outside India.

Section 9 - This provision defines when income is deemed to accrue or arise in India. - it is hereby clarified that an asset or a capital asset being any share or interest in a company or entity registered or incorporated outside India shall be deemed to be and shall always be deemed to have been situated in India, if the share of the interest derives, directly or indirectly, its value substantially from the assets located in India.

The amendments had implications for British telecom giant Vodafone, which won the Rs 11,000-crore tax case in the Supreme Court.

In view of the implications of the proposed amendments on overseas deals, several global organisations had appealed to the Indian government not to go ahead with the retrospective amendment of the IT Act arguing that the decision would hurt foreign investments.1997-98 || The media termed P Chidambarams 1997-98 as the Dream Budget because of a roadmap for economic reforms in India including lowering income tax rates, removal of the surcharge on corporate taxes, and reduced corporate tax rates. This budget is also known for launching a major anti-black money scheme. What was the scheme? Ans: Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme (VDIS), where people were given an opportunity to disclose hidden income by paying 30 percent tax on the value of undeclared money. (Image source: Reuters)

1998-99 || Finance minister Yashwant Sinhas first full budget had launched two specific schemes to woo NRIs to park funds in India. What were these schemes? Ans: The Unit Trust of Indias (UTI) India Millennium Scheme by open for subscription in dollars only by NRIs. The money collected was invested in Indian schemes. The other scheme was the State Bank of Indias (SBIs) Resurgent India Bonds denominated in foreign currencies for subscription by NRIs. The funds collected under these bonds were poured into infrastructure projects. (Image source: Reuters)

2000-01 || An additional 5 percent surcharge imposed on people with an annual income of more than Rs 1.5 lakh in this budget soon came to be described by a different name. What was it? Ans: It came be known as the Kargil Tax, as it was essentially aimed to partly offset the cost of the Kargil War incurred in 1998-99. (Image source: Reuters)

2001-02 || This budget introduced a widely used global concept aimed to plug tax evasion by companies using sister concerns. Which is this concept? Ans: Transfer Pricing Regulations. This regulation played a big role in the prevention of erosion of the tax base in India.

2002-03 || Yashwant Sinhas last budget also is known for a not-so-famous distinction. What is it? Ans: It has the distinction for maximum rollbacks in the Union Budget. (Image source: Reuters)

2003-04 || Finance minister Jaswant Singh referred to Albert Einstein stating that he endeavoured to make easy something that which Einstein found so difficult. What was he referring to? Ans: Income tax. Albert Einstein had ruefully observed that he found Income Tax the most difficult thing upon Earth to understand. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

2004-05 || While launching a raft of new rural development programmes, Finance minister P Chidambarams first budget of the UPA 1 government used the name of a famous programme under US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Which scheme is this? Ans: New Deal for Rural India. President Franklin D. Roosevelt launched a group of US government programmes called the New Deal to help the country recover from the economic problems of the Great Depression in the 1930s. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons)



2005-06 || The second budget of the UPA 1 government was famous for the launch a famous welfare scheme as well as two controversial tax proposals. One of the tax proposals forced companies to restructure salaries of their employees, while the other was an anti-black money measure. What is the welfare scheme and what are the tax proposals? Ans: The government launched the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, which is now the worlds largest rural job guarantee scheme. Finance minister P Chidambaram also announced a Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) that made perquisites (perks) taxable. He also announced a banking cash transaction tax (BCTT) that made cash withdrawals from banks above a certain threshold on a single day taxable. Both these taxes were withdrawn after a few years. (Image source: Reuters)

2006-07 || This budget, for the first time, set a roadmap for a systemic tax overhaul by 2010. The reform billed as the most ambitious in independent India, was eventually rolled out seven years after the first target date. Which reform is this? Ans: Goods and Services Tax2008-09 || The last full budget of the UPA 2 government was famous for an unprecedented bailout move that cost the government Rs 60,000 crore. What was the measure? Ans: The government announced a loan waiver cum relief programme under which it waived off outstanding loans of thousands of farmers worth more than Rs 60,000 crore. (Image source: Reuters)

2009-10 || The first budget of the UPA 2 government announced the setting up of a new organisation that has evolved into a defining institution for delivery of most services. Which is this institution? Ans: Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) that launched the Aadhaar project to give a unique identification number/card to each Indian containing biometric and other personal details. (Image source: Reuters)

2010-11 || This budget announced a plan that eventually made India enter an elite group comprising the US, the UK, Japan and the European Union (EU). What was the plan? Ans: The government announced plans to formalise a symbol for the Indian Rupee, joining the select club of currencies such as the US Dollar, British Pound Sterling, Euro and Japanese Yen that have a clear distinguishing identity.

2011-12 || Pranab Mukherjee invoked the name of two Hindu deities in budget speech seeking their blessings for two unknown events that could affect the economy. Whose name did he invoke? Ans: Lord Indra, praying for timely and plentiful monsoon rains, and Goddess Lakshmi for a bountiful harvest. (Image source: Reuters)

2012-13 || Pranab Mukherjees last budget had a one-off peculiarity in presentation and also lasting fiscal legacy that roiled the investor community? Which are these? Ans: The budget was presented on March 16, 2012, and not in the last week of February. It was delayed because of the UP Assembly elections. The 2012-13 budget is also known for the controversial Retrospective Tax that allowed made companies pay taxes even on previous merger and acquisitions (M&A) affecting deals like the Vodafones purchase of Hutchison Whampoas telecom assets in India. (Image source: Reuters)

2013-14 || Finance minister P Chidambarams last full budget introduced a new taxation concept for individuals on the higher income scale? What was the measure? Ans: For the first time he introduced a so-called super-rich tax in India. Relatively prosperous" persons with a taxable income of more than Rs 1 crore  and there are supposedly only 42,800 of them in India in 2013  were made to pay an additional surcharge of 10 percent.

2014-15 || Finance minister Arun Jaitleys first budget, among other things, also stood out for two unique characteristics. What are these? Ans: It was the longest budget speech that lasted two and a half hours long and included a ten-minute break. It also came to be known as the Rs 100-crore budget speech because it included 12 schemes for which Rs 100 crore each were allocated. (Image source: Reuters)

2015-16 || What exception did the stock markets make for this budget speech? Ans: The budget was presented on a Saturday. Markets made a budget-day exception to remain open on Saturday.

2016-17 || This budget launched a programme to revitalize Indias public sector bank through a massive capital infusion programme. The programme is named after a Hindu mythological weapon. What is the name of the programme? Ans: Project Indradhanush (Image source: Reuters)Just four years after fighting a bloody war with arch rivals Pakistan and surviving through the aftermath of the partition Indias economy was quick on its feet. The budget of 1951, that came only a few months after the nation became republic, was presented by Chintaman Dwarakanath Deshmukh.

CD Deshmukh, who was conferred knighthood in 1944, was the first Indian to be appointed the governor of the Reserve Bank of India under the British Raj. He was also one the five members of the Planning Commission that was constituted in 1950. He succeeded John Mathai as the Finance Minster after Mathai resigned in 1950.

Under Deshmukh the period was marked by high demand for home-made goods such as jute goods, raw cotton, cotton waste and raw wool. Import regulations were gradually relaxed to allow essential commodities into the country. This period also witnessed a marked reduction in expenditure compared to revenue receipts unlike the previous years. The budget for 1950-51 provided surplus of Rs 71 lakhs.

The total expenditure for 1951-52 was estimated at Rs.375.43 crores of which Defence Services will account for Rs.180.02 crores and civil expenditure for Rs.195.41 crores.

The exchange receipts during the year ending September 1950 amounted to Rs 638 crores and payments to the tune of Rs.572 crores, showing a net surplus of Rs.66 crore. This was the first time that the country showed a surplus after gaining independence.

In the rapidly changing conditions all over the world he will indeed be a rash man who can hazard a guess as to the future. But I have little doubt myself about the inherent strength of our financial position and I have every confidence in the ability of our people to sustain and support the Government in whatever measures may be necessary to maintain the finances of the country in a sound position, Deshmukh had said.Uttar Pradesh is on track to become an electronics hub as more than Rs 26,000 crore investment is expected in the sector during the UP Investors Summit next month, a senior government official said.

"UP will be getting new identity as electronics hub during the Investors Summit. Besides IT companies, electronic manufacturing units have also expressed their desire to invest in the state. We are expecting investment of about Rs 26,000 crore in this sector during the summit," Additional Chief Secretary IT and Electronics department, Sanjiv Saran told PTI.

"We have signed MoUs for investment worth Rs 14,000 crore with 12 companies. Talks are on with 23 companies, which are expected to sign MoUs worth Rs 13,000 crore during the summit", he said.

Claiming that the new IT and electronics policy is attracting investors from all over the country and abroad, the official said, "This feedback was received during recent roadshows in different cities of the country for the Investors Summit."

"Positive change in law and order and decrease in crime rate in UP is also attracting investors," he said.

According to government officials, companies like Samsung, Vivo, Oppo and LG have already invested in the state.

"After the Investors Summit, Samsung will start a new facility in the state in which 12 lakh mobile phones will be made per month. Besides this, some LED manufacturing plants are also expected to be established in the state. It will not only generate revenue but also create job opportunities," an official said.

The state government is expecting most of the investments in NCR, but Lucknow has also come as another choice of investors.

Saran stated that many companies had shown interest in IT city being developed in the state capital. In past three years, 106 companies have invested in the country of which 47 are in UP.

"Besides Lucknow, we are also working on making IT hubs in Meerut and Agra. Soon, IT parks will be coming up in Bareilly, Varanasi, Kanpur and Gorakhpur and approval for the same has been given," he added.

The Investors Summit, scheduled during Feb 21-22, is expected to witness participation from across the country and by several international delegates.

"The event will focus on 14 key areas including textiles, MSME, IT, electronics, dairy, pharma, logistics. The focus will be to generate employment and create a conducive business environment in the state, said Anup Chandra Pandey, Commissioner, Infrastructure and Industrial Development, Uttar Pradesh.

The state is looking at signing memorandums of understanding to the tune of Rs 1 lakh crore at the upcoming summit.The logo of Hyundai Motor Co. is seen on a wheel of a car at a Hyundai dealership in Seoul January 22, 2015. South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co on Thursday reported a fourth straight quarterly profit decline, pulled down by a plunge in the Russian rouble and increased buying incentives in the United States. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji (SOUTH KOREA - Tags: TRANSPORT BUSINESS LOGO) - RTR4MEH9

South Korean auto major Hyundai plans to invest over USD 1 billion (around Rs 6,300 crore) in India in the next three years on new products, development of powertrain and setting up of a new office building.

The company, which operates here through its wholly-owned arm Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL), plans to launch an electric vehicle next year and is also gearing up for the possible comeback of its popular model Santro around Diwali this year.

HMIL has lined up nine products to be introduced between 2018 and 2020.

"Our total investment till 2020 will be over USD 1 billion," HMIL Managing Director and CEO Y K Koo told PTI in an interview here.

He further said, "The investments will be on nine new products to be launched between this year and 2020, powertrain development and setting up of our new office building in Gurugram," he said.

Elaborating on the new products to be introduced, he said, "Two will be completely new models, one will be an electric vehicle, two facelifts and four will be full model changes of existing products." Electric vehicle

Commenting on the company's foray into electric vehicles (EV), Koo said, "Our first EV in India will be launched next year. At the moment we are yet to finalise whether it will be the Ioniq EV sedan or the full electric version of SUV Kona." Currently, the company is doing a market study on customer preference which would help in deciding which model to launch. In the meantime, he said the company is awaiting clarity from the government in the form of an EV policy so that it can plan the road ahead keeping in view the 2030 target of 40 per cent of all personal vehicles being EVs.

"We will import our first EV as CKD (completely knocked down) units and assemble at our Chennai plant. Later on, depending on market response, we will consider manufacturing here in India but that will take time," Koo said.

Stressing on the need for government support for EVs, he said the current GST rate of 12 per cent must be reduced to 5 per cent in order help popularise the eco-friendly technology.

With battery being an important component for success of EVs in India, Koo said HMIL is keeping the option open of partnering with local firms for sourcing of electric vehicle battery, besides considering other alternatives like importing from China or South Korea. Possible return of Santro brand

Koo said among the two completely new products its plans to launch, one is a compact family oriented car codenamed AH2.

When asked if it would be launched as 'Santro', Koo said that "is a possibility" but the company is yet to take a final call on the matter.

"It would be launched near Diwali this year. So we will take a final call on the Santro badge at around that time. However, I must admit that we are under a lot of pressure from dealers, customers and market to bring back the Santro brand," he added.

If Santro had continued in the market, he said this year would have marked completion of 20 years of the model in India. The car was launched in the country in September 1998.

Sharing details about the product, he said the hatchback would be wider and taller than the i10 model. The car will be powered by a petrol engine with options for factory-fitted CNG engines. It will also have automated and manual transmission options.

Koo also said HMIL is preparing for the introduction of its compact SUV codenamed Qxi sometime next year. The vehicle will be powered by a 1-litre turbocharged petrol engine. Production plans

On plans to set up a new manufacturing plant in the country, Koo said the company can manage with the current facility till the next three years.

He added that with exports to some big markets like Algeria not doing well, more units from the Chennai plant could be adjusted for the domestic market.

"We can increase the current production capacity at Chennai plant to 7.13 lakh units. Even with domestic market growing at 7-8 per cent, with flexible production at the plant, we can manage by 2020," Koo said.

He, however, declined to comment when asked if HMIL would use group firm Kia's upcoming plant in Andhra Pradesh.

The company, which is completing 20 years in the Indian market, sold 6.78 lakh units last year in the country with a market share of around 16.5 per cent in the passenger vehicle segment.

"We would like to have a market share of around 17 per in the domestic market by 2020," Koo said.Banks have decided that they will only negotiate with the highest bidder while resolving cases of insolvency, according to a report by The Economic Times.

According to the report, the decision was taken at Indian Banks' Association meeting after consultation with the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India and the resolution professionals.

The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) has not specified any rules on this matter. Traditionally, the creditor negotiates with the top bidders in an attempt to get the best value for the insolvent company.

A senior official aware of the development told the newspaper, "Since the IBC code did not specify that negotiations can be held with only the highest bidder, clarity was required given that in some cases resolution professionals and lenders entered into talks with multiple players," said a senior official aware of the developments."

Banks will now be following guidelines laid down by the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), which favours the highest bidder in such cases.

The Bank's Association has decided that the creditors will negotiate with the next highest bidder only if top highest bidder is found ineligible or backs out.

A senior bank executive told the newspaper, "This is expected to streamline the process. We also expect that serious players will up their bid, which ultimately helps in fetching a better price for the asset".3:30 Market at Close: After trading through the session on a weak note, the market staged a mild recovery in the final hour, as indices trimmed some of their losses.

The Sensex was down 68.71 points or 0.19% at 35965.02, while the Nifty was down 22.00 points or 0.20% at 11027.70. The market breadth was negative as 1084 shares have advanced, 1729 shares declined, and 236 shares are unchanged.

Kotak Mahindra Bank, Reliance, and Bharti Infratel gained the most on both indices, while Tata Steel and Dr Reddys Laboratories were the top losers.

3:25 pm Hiring news: South Korean tech giant Samsung today said it would be hiring 1000 engineers from top institutes for its three research and development (R&D) facilities in India.

It would be hiring the talent from IITs, NITs, Delhi College of Engineering, BITS Pilani, Manipal Institute of Technology and IIITs among others. "Samsung is extremely bullish on R&D in India. We have been here for over 22 years. The three R&D centres in India work on several cutting edge technologies," Samsung global senior vice-president and MD Samsung R&D Institute India Bengaluru Dipesh Shah said.

3:15 pm Order win: Tata Motors, India's largest commercial vehicle maker, has bagged an order for supply of 3,000 trucks worth Rs 600 crore from logistics company Rivigo.

"The order is for 3 axel truck which we bagged recently," said Girish Wagh, head, commercial vehicle business unit, Tata Motors, in an interaction with Moneycontrol.

The announcement comes a week after rival Ashok Leyland said it had bagged an order for supplying 1,200 trucks for Rs 350 crore to one of the biggest transport and logistics companies in the country -- VRL. VRL is one of the oldest patrons of Ashok Leyland trucks and buses.

3:00 pm NBCC to consider stock split: The meeting of board of directors of NBCC would be held on February 13, for approval of the standalone and consolidated un-audited financial results of the company for the quarter & nine month ended December 31, 2017.

The board also consider splitting of equity shares of Rs 2 each into 2 equity shares of face value Re 1 each and declaration of interim dividend for the FY 2017-18, if any.

2:50 pm Market Update: Benchmark indices recovered some of its losses with the help of banking stock.

The Sensex was down 69.10 points at 35964.63, and the Nifty was down 21.70 points at 11028. About 913 shares have advanced, 1766 shares declined, and 229 shares are unchanged.

1:45 pm Buzzing Stock: Shares of Foods and Inns gained 20 percent intraday Wednesday as company to consider stock split at board meeting.

A meeting of the board of directors of the company is scheduled on February 08, to consider and to take on record the un-audited financial results for the quarter ended December 31, 2017.

The board will also consider the proposal of sub-division of equity shares of the company.

1:25 pm Results: Multiplex chain firm, PVR, reported 21 percent increase in the December quarter net profit at Rs 29 crore against Rs 24 crore reported during the same quarter last year.

The consolidated revenue grew 5 percent at Rs 557.2 crore against Rs 531 crore.

At the operating level, the EBITDA grew 26 percent at Rs 100.3 crore against Rs 80 crore year on year.

1:18 pm Market Check: The market has extended losses.

The Sensex is down 150.95 points or 0.42% at 35882.78, and the Nifty down 46.90 points or 0.42% at 11002.80. About 925 shares have advanced, 1654 shares declined, and 221 shares are unchanged.

Kotak Mahindra Bank, RIL, Hindalco and Tech Mahindra gained the most, while DRL and Tata Steel lost the most.

12:55 pm FPI registrations: As many as 1,235 fresh foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) were registered with SEBI in April-December of the current fiscal, mainly due to their continued interest in the Indian capital markets, latest data from the regulator showed.

In comparison, close to 3,500 new FPIs registered with SEBI in the entire 2016-2017 fiscal.

The number of FPIs with the markets regulator climbed to 9,042 at the end of December from 7,807 at March-end, resulting in an addition of 1,235, according to SEBI data.

12:35 pm Management Speak: JHS Svendgaard Laboratories posted a strong set of Q3 numbers. In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Nikhil Nanda, MD of the company discussed the results and his outlook for the company.

The company makes a range of oral and dental products.

The order book for most of our customers are looking good, he said.

In Q4 we will have the launches of our own brand with all the characters like Chhota Bheem, Pokemon, that we have leased out recently from the various brand owners, he added.

12:15 pm Order win: Highway developer Dilip Buildcon (DBL) today said it has bagged a road project worth Rs 565.02 crore from National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) in Maharashtra.

"The company has been declared L-1 bidder for a new engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) project valued at Rs 565.02 crore by the NHAI in Maharashtra," Dilip Buildcon said in a BSE filing.

The project is for four/six laning of Karodi to Telwadi road section of NH211 (new NH52) in Maharashtra, the company added.

Here are the top headlines at 12 pm from Moneycontrol News' Anchal Pathak

11:55 am Product approval: Pharmaceutical company Strides Shasun today said its wholly-owned subsidiary has received approval from the US health regulator for Piroxicam capsules and anti-fungal cream Nystatin and Triamcinolone Acetonide ointment.

In a BSE filing the company said, Strides Pharma Global Pte. Limited has received approval for Piroxicam capsules 10mg and 20mg from the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA).

Piroxicam is indicated for the symptomatic relief of rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis or ankylosing spondylitis.

11:35 am Management Outlook: Intellect Design Arena posted a poor set of earnings in Q3 as margins took a hit while revenue growth remained flattish. In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Arun Jain, Chairman and Managing Director of the company spoke about the results and his outlook for the company.

We have grown 25 percent year-on-year crossing Rs 1,000 crore mark, he said.

We have demonstrated over 20 percent growth in the last four quarters, he added.

The company has a healthy pipeline, said Jain.

11:20 am Deal Street: Tea producers Dhunseri Group and MK Shah Exports are in talks with Tata Global Beverage Ltd to buy its stake in Amalgamated Plantations (APPL), according to a Mint report citing three sources.

Tata Global is valuing 25 estates at about Rs 1,300 crore, one of the sources told Mint.

APPL, formed after Tata Tea divested its plantation business, is Indias second largest tea producer and supplier. It has tea plantations in West Bengal and Assam.

11:05 am Market Check: Selling pressure is back on the market, with the Sensex falling over 100 points, while the Nifty is testing 11,000.

The Sensex is down 122.48 points or 0.34% at 35911.25, and the Nifty down 31.00 points or 0.28% at 11018.70. The market breadth is negative as 1176 shares have advanced, 1183 shares declined, while 219 shares are unchanged.

Kotak Mahindra Bank, BHEL, and Hindalco have gained the most on both indices, while Dr Reddys Labs, Coal India, and Lupin are the top losers.

Here are the headlines at 11 am from Moneycontrol News' Anchal Pathak

10:55 am Budget Expectations: The final countdown to the Budget 2018 has begun. Ahead of key elections, the big expectation is that it could largely be farm focussed. In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Anil Jain, Vice Chairman and MD of Jain Irrigation shared his expectations from the upcoming Budget for the sector.

A farm-focused Budget should mean three things. One is how much infrastructure the government is going to make in agriculture side. Second is what is the mechanism to put more money in the hands of the farmers and third is how do you tackle the risk mitigation in terms of whether it is climate change or sudden infestation of the disease like happened in cotton in Maharashtra, he said.

According to him, the recent insurance scheme for farmers has been much better than the earlier ones but it is still not effectively getting implemented.

10:41 am Market Check: Cautiousness has crept into D-Street as it awaits cues from the big bang event, the Union Budget, tomorrow. The Sensex and Nifty are trading almost flat with a negative bias. In fact, the Sensex has breached 36,000-mark and is trading below that.

However, the market breadth favours the advances. Among sectoral indices, pharmaceutical index is trading lower, along with IT and FMCG. Midcaps, too, are trading lower.

Bharat Electronics is down about 4 percent after the firm reported weak earnings for December quarter.

10: 30 am Management Outlook: Prataap Snacks has posted a stellar set led by operating leverage and a favourable base. In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Amit Kumat, MD and CEO of Prataap Snacks spoke about the results and his outlook for the company.

The company grew by 16 percent in H1 and expect to achieve similar growth in H2, he said.

See good growth in Q4 and a better H2 than H1, he added.

We are looking at the margin between 8 percent and 10 percent going forward, said Kumat.

On new launch, he said we have just launched Yum Pie two months back. The initial response was very good and we are looking for a revenue growth of around Rs 40 crore from Yum Pie.

10:20 am Crypto crimes: South Korea has uncovered cryptocurrency crimes worth 637.5 billion won ($594.35 million), which includes illegal foreign exchange trading, a statement released by the country's customs service said on Wednesday.

The statement said domestic investors bought 1.7 billion won worth of cryptocurrencies, which they sent to overseas partner companies through virtual wallets. The transfers were then converted back into fiat currencies, which amount to unrecorded capital outflows.

The customs office added that it would continue to monitor the use of cryptocurrencies in cases like illegal currency trading or money laundering.

10:05 am Buzzing Stock: Share price of Steel Strips Wheels added 2.5 percent intraday Wednesday as company received an order for truck wheel from USA.

The company bagged another export order from US truck and trailer aftermarket for its truck steel wheels plant in Chennai.

The said order includes 4200 truck wheels to be shipped from company's Chennai plant in nest 2 months.

Here are the headlines at 10 am from Moneycontrol News' Anchal Pathak

9:55 am MF news: Mahindra Mutual Fund has sought SEBI's approval to launch Mahindra Rural Bharat Yojana, as per the draft offer document on SEBIs website.

The open-ended equity scheme will deploy at least 80 percent of its corpus in equity and equity related instruments in companies having exposure towards rural India, while up to 20 percent can be deployed in companies other than having exposure to rural

India.

The scheme also has the provision to deploy up to 20% in debt and money market instruments collaterised borrowing and lending obligation, reverse repo. It can also invest up to 10 percent in real estate investment trusts and infrastructure investment trusts.

9:35 am Buzzing Stock: Shares of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) gained 3 percent intraday on Wednesday as investors cheered the companys stellar financial results for the December quarter.

The oil marketing companys third quarter earnings beat analyst expectations on Monday as standalone profit during the quarter more than doubled to Rs 7,883 crore, from Rs 3,696.3 crore in previous quarter.

The bottomline was far ahead of CNBC-TV18 poll of Rs 5,222 crore for the quarter.

9:25 am Nifty rejig: The National Stock Exchanges (NSE) benchmark index, Nifty, will be undergoing a fresh round of rebalancing, effective April 2018.

Based on a few parameters, the index undergoes changes, wherein some stocks get replaced by others.

Brokerage house IDBI Capital believes that there is a high probability of names such as Ambuja Cements, Aurobindo Pharmaceuticals as well as Bosch being included in the frontline index. Meanwhile, stocks such as Grasim, Bajaj Finserv and Titan are likely to be excluded from the list.

9:15 am Market Opens: The market began the session on a mildly lower note, with the Nifty holding 11,000-mark.

The Sensex is down about 25.75 points or 0.07% at 36,007.98, while the Nifty was down 9.90 points or 0.09% at 11039.80. The market breadth still continues to be negative as 413 shares advanced, against a decline of 639 shares, while 140 shares are unchanged.

Bharti Airtel, Tata Steel, and Indian Oil gained the most on both the indices, while Hindustan Unilever, Dr Reddys Laboratories and Indiabulls Housing were the top losers.

Midcaps continued to be weak, with the Nifty midcap index trading around 0.40 percent lower.

The Indian rupee opened lower at 63.67 per dollar on Wednesday versus previous close 63.60.

Pramit Brahmbhatt of Veracity said, "On the back of negative cues from domestic equity market, the rupee will remain under pressure."

"We expect the USD-INR pair to trade in a range of 63.50-64," he added.

Asia stocks eased on Wednesday, pulling further back from record highs, as the recent rise in global bond yields weighed on equities.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan added to the previous day's losses and dipped 0.1 percent, after reaching a record high on Monday.

Australian stocks shed 0.4 percent, South Korea's KOSPI lost 0.3 percent and Japan's Nikkei dropped 0.3 percent.

US stocks fell for a second straight day on Tuesday, with the Dow registering its biggest two-day drop since September 2016, pressured by healthcare stocks and rising bond yields.

The Dow also had its biggest daily percentage decline since May 2017 and the day's 1.37-percent fall was the second-biggest single-day drop since the election of Donald Trump, slated to give his first State of the Union speech later Tuesday.

US Treasury yields climbed to multi-year highs after the start of the Federal Reserve's two-day meeting, which could shed light on the central bank's economic and rate hike outlook.Just a day ahead of the Union Budget, the market showed signs of nervousness as it traded lower for the larger part of the day. But there was a recovery in the last hour, helping indices trim some of their losses before ending the day on a mildly lower note.

The session began on a flat note with a negative bias, with cuts in midcaps and some pharma names. However, the Street soon extended the fall, with the Sensex shedding almost 200 points, while the Nifty too breached 11,000-mark. The trend continued till the last hour before the said recovery.

The Dow overnight corrected sharply on the back of an Amazon, Buffet and JP Morgan partnership entering the health sector. A partnership among these behemoths could revolutionize the medical industry and take away market share from the incumbents. Pharma was the worst performing sector for the session on the back of this news, Nikhil Kamath, co-founder and head of trading, Zerodha said in a statement.

The Sensex has ended over 60 points lower and below 36,000-mark, while the Nifty has managed to end above 11,000-mark. Midcaps cracked over 1.5 percent, while pharmaceutical names too were hit. Banks outperformed though, with Nifty Bank recovering 270 points from lows.

Kotak Mahindra Bank & HDFC Bank were the top banking gainers. Meanwhile, on the index level, Reliance & HDFC gained, while Infosys and ITC dragged the market.

Among midcap stocks, Fortis Healthcare cracked over 5 percent after Delhi HC upheld the arbitration award asking the Singh brothers to pay Rs 3,500 crore to Daiichi. Kajaria Cements has ended over 7 percent lower.

Meanwhile, fertilizer stocks were in focus ahead of announcements in the Budget. Stocks such as RCF as well as Chambal Fertilizers were up 3-4 percent.

Among the stocks that stood out, shares of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) ended flat after gaining 3 percent intraday as investors cheered the companys stellar financial results for the December quarter.

European stocks were higher as investors monitored the release of economic data and corporate earnings.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 was up 0.25 percent during early morning deals, with most sectors and major bourses in positive territory.

Most Asian indexes closed lower despite earlier shrugging off the declines seen on Wall Street overnight.

The Nikkei 225 closed lower for the sixth straight session after reversing slight gains late in the session. The index declined 0.83 percent, or 193.68 points, to end at 23,098.29 as automakers, financials and trading houses saw losses. Among index

heavyweights, Fanuc Manufacturing closed lower by 0.66 percent, Toyota fell 1.95 percent and Fast Retailing gained 0.74 percent.

The technology sector was mixed, with Sony adding 0.5 percent and SoftBank lower by 0.73 percent by the end of the day.

Meanwhile, in the precious metals space, gold firmed up by Rs 160 to Rs 31,400 per ten gram today, tracking a firm trend overseas amid sustained wedding season buying by local jewellers.

Silver also gained Rs 150 to Rs 40,200 per kg, backed by increased offtake by industrial units and coin makers.

Marketmen said apart from a firm trend overseas, persistent buying by local jewellers for wedding season kept gold prices higher.

With the Union Budget in focus, the Street is on its feet ahead of the big event

The government is likely to present a balanced budget, wherein more focus is expected on rural and infrastructure sectors. Traders and investors would keenly watch how it manages to restrict its fiscal deficit target and deliver on the rising expectations. We would see high volatility throughout the trading session. Thus, we would advise traders to remain hedged, while investors should use any dip as a buying opportunity after some healthy correction seen in the Smallcap and Midcap spaces in the last few days, Jayant Manglik, President, Religare Broking said in a statement.Archit Lohia

The off-late discussions on removing Long-Term Capital Gains Tax (LTCG) exemption on sale of listed company shares, through the Exchange platform, have taken centre stage and in my opinion, it may also need to be accompanied by removal of Securities Transaction Tax (STT). This avoids Double Taxation. This is where Tax Expectations of the Alternative Industry differs, because I hope government to introduce STT!

Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs)classified into 3 Categories, have grown significantly over the past 11 quarters. No. of Registered AIFs have grown from 158 Funds as on March 31, 2015 to 315 Funds as on March 31, 2017. Investments made by AIFs have crossed Rs. 43000 crore as on September 30, 2017, with major investments being in Category II Funds.

However, AIFs still remain optimistic for the necessary stimulus required from the Government to boost growth and size of the industry, compared to the global industry.In my opinion, major tax expectations of the Alternative Investments industry, from Budget, 2018 are:

Introduction of STT



At the time of entry, when investor purchases units



When income is distributed during the unit holding period



When the investor exits by the transfer of units





There should be no withholding of exempt income, like Dividend and Long Term Capital Gain



Make Pass-through structure available to Category III AIFs, which are efficient Pooled Investment Vehicles for investors not willing to invest directly in securities



Profits made by AIF on transfer of unlisted securities should be treated as Capital Gains, and not Business Income



Any Loss made by the AIF should be allowed for set-off against Income of Investors, instead of Future Business Profits of the Fund, as no taxable income is earned by the AIF in its account



Allow management expenses for AIF investments to be capitalized as cost of improvement



Given the similarities in the structures of Mutual Funds and AIFs, STT should apply to transactions in units of AIFs.I believe if STT is introduced, it can reduce compliance and litigation costs and also help government increase tax collection on a continuous basis. STT can be collected at all the three stages of investment:

Unit-based Taxation:



Distribution tax on income distributions



Capital gains tax on unit redemptions/transfers



Hedge Funds in India have AUM of USD 1.4 Billion, as compared to the Global Hedge Fund AUM of USD 3.4 Trillion. To ensure AIFs have a level playing field with Mutual Funds, Registered AIFs should be exempt from tax and tax should be charged to investors as:

Tweaking Safe-Harbour Provisions:



Certain conditions of the Section do not apply to Category I and Category II FPIs



Investment Manager definition is broadened and restrictions on investor diversification are removed



In order to promote Investments by Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) and ensure Onshore Fund Management of AIFs in India, safe harbour provisions in Section 9A should be suitably amended, such that:

Indirect Transfer Provisions



Transfer/redemption by reason of transfer of capital assets situated in India



Transfer/redemption of shares does not alter the ownership structure of any company in the transaction.



FPIs invest in different stakeholders and at different stages in the Indian Start-up Ecosystem, which fosters growth and creates jobs in the economy. Considering the growth opportunities, Indirect Transfer Provisions should not prove to be a dampener (Ex: Vodafone Case). Hence most foreign entities and PE Funds, typically those having a multi-layer structure expect that indirect transfer provisions should not be applicable in cases where:While announcing his budget 2018 Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced various benefits for students and education sector in India. The finance minister proposed to launch Revitalising Infrastructure and Systems in Education (RISE) by 2022 with a total investment of Rs 1,00,000 crore in next four years. This will aim at step up investments in research and related infrastructure in premier educational institutions, including health institutions. This is in line with imparting quality education to the students in the country.

The Union Budget 2018 further mentioned that the Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA) would be suitably structured for funding the RISE initiative.

To enhance education of the tribal children, the Finance Minister proposed that by the year 2022, every block with more than 50% ST population and at least 20,000 tribal persons, will have an Ekalavya Model Residential School on the lines of Navodaya School.

The Budget 2018 made it clear that the government will initiate an integrated B.Ed. programme for teachers. Training of teachers during service is extremely critical. The government has amended the Right to Education Act to enable more than 13 lakh untrained teachers to get trained.

The Finance Minister aims at using the technology to improve the quality of the education. Technology will also be used to upgrade the skills of teachers through the recently launched digital portal DIKSHA.

The Finance Minister also proposed significant investments in the higher education. The government would launch the Prime Ministers Research Fellows (PMRF) Scheme this year. The scheme would identify 1,000 best B.Tech students each year from premier institutions and provide them facilities to do Ph.D in IITs and IISc, with a handsome fellowship.

The Union Budget 2018 also proposes to set up 24 new Government Medical Colleges and Hospitals by upgrading district hospitals in the country.

The students also expected the Budget 2018 to extend the tax exemption available on interest of education loan to the principal repayment. However this expectation was not fulfilled.

Intitiatives such as Ease of Doing Business and boost to SME along with other initiatives of the government should create more employment opportunities for the graduating students.Budget

Sanjiv Bajaj

It has been estimated that India has nearly 17 percent of the worlds population but when it comes to protection gap, it is huge. As it is India accounts for less than 1.5 percent of the worlds total insurance premium and inspite of the growing insurance market in the country, India is still both under-penetrated and inadequately insured. A transformation is needed and the government need to play the role of a catalyst in this direction.

In the upcoming Budget 2018, we expect the government to announce certain measures that would not only create awareness about life insurance but will also incentivise people to get them adequately insured for the sake of the surviving family members.

The life insurance penetration has always been denoted in terms of premium-to-GDP of a country. This has possibly led to the current insurance penetration rate in India but is still extremely low as compared to the rest of the world. It is only 3.42 percent in India, while the global average is 6.2 percent.

However, the true measure of life insurance coverage is derived from the sum assured (the amount that insurer is legally bound to pay on the occurrence of an event like maturity or death) of an insurance contract. Traditional endowment plans are the mainstay of the industry where the premium to sum assured ratio is low. On the other hand, term insurance plans are still not the first choice for many buyers. By shunning the latter, they heavily fall short of the actual requirement as most financial planners suggest life insurance cover of at least ten times of ones annual income with a review every five years.

Less than 10 percent of protection need is met by savings and insurance. Under-insurance and the means to meet an unexpected financial event is therefore at a high in India.

Term insurance plans are low-cost, high-premium plans. Individuals lack awareness and clarity on term plans and view them as something where its premium lost, on surviving the term of the plan. Most insurers have therefore been using the online channel and promoting the purchase of term plans from their websites. Interestingly, persistence on such policies is high compared to non-term policies.

Premium paid towards life insurance including term insurance plans qualifies for tax benefit under section 80C of the Income Tax Act, 1961. However, this section which has a cap of Rs 1.5 lakh a year, is already overcrowded and comprise of even certain expenses such as tuition fees and home loan principal repayments in case of a self-occupied house.

Recognising the need for term insurance plan will not only create awareness for it and make people realise its importance but also make them buy adequate protection amount.

Budget 2018 need to recognise the importance and need for term insurance plans and we expect the Finance Minister to announce a separate limit for the term insurance plans. The move could benefit in increasing awareness of these plans and also help the surviving members of the families to maintain their standard of living after the death of household earner. A separate limit of Rs 50,000 per annum for life insurance within the section 80C or as a separate section under the IT Act, will give an impetus to the industry that already serves over 35 crore consumers, perhaps the largest retail financial industry, apart from banks.

Be it the term plan, health insurance, critical illness plans or riders like term rider and critical illness rider, the Government of India should fully exempt these from GST. A significant reduction in premium will go a long way in creating a secure nation where every household will have the ability to overcome financial stress caused by unforeseen events of life.A man processes tannery wastes to make poultry feed at Hazaribagh along the polluted Buriganga river in Dhaka June 5, 2014. Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina warned the tannery owners at Hazaribag of serious consequence if they failed to relocate their tanneries in Savar within the stipulated time, during a World Environment Day observance program, local media reported. According to the United Nations Environment Programme website, World Environment Day is celebrated annually on June 5 to raise global awareness and motivate action for environmental protection. REUTERS/Andrew Biraj (BANGLADESH - Tags: ENVIRONMENT TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY BUSINESS EMPLOYMENT) - RTR3SDFL

Ramky Enviro Engineers, a city-based Ramky Group company, expects to double its revenue to Rs 3,500 crore over the next two years, on the back of growing business opportunities.

The company also plans to nearly double revenue from international operations in the next two years to over Rs 1,100 crore from Rs 600 crore now, Goutham Reddy, managing director and chief executive said.

"Currently international operations contribute about one-third of overall sales. This year we expect it to be around Rs 600 crore. Once international projects we have on hand start at full scale, revenue from these operations will be Rs 1,000-1,100 crore in the coming two years," Reddy said here today.

According to him, the waste management company expects to clock Rs 1,800 crore revenue this year against Rs 1,550 crore last year.

"We will be investing Rs 900-1,000 crore during the next two years in both domestic and international operations. The overall business may scale up to more than double to Rs 3,400-3,500 crore in two years from now," he said.

The company recently acquired 50 per cent stake in the US-based Nems-Marpol, a marine pollution management facility. Ramky will also explore the opportunity to acquire the balance stake in future.

Besides, Ramky also has won a solid waste management transportation and disposable operations contact from the Al Batinah municipality in Oman and four other projects in Gulf countries.

When asked about plans to go public, Reddy said he has no such plans near term.

The company's upcoming Rs 340 crore-20 mw waste-to- energy project is expected to commence operations by the end of next fiscal, he said.Providing the much-needed relief to Amrapali homebuyers, the Supreme Court on Wednesday restrained the NCLT-appointed resolution professional (RP), Rajesh Samson of Deloitte Touche Tohmastu India in the case of Amrapali Silicon City, not to demand additional money from homebuyers stuck in the project and also sought for a comprehensive plan from the realty firm on how and by when it plans to deliver over 40,000 units.

The next date of hearing has been fixed for February 21

The apex court also directed the real estate firm to install fire and electrical safety equipments at all the residential towers of the project located in sector 76, Noida, within four weeks, legal sources said.

The process should begin within two weeks, the bench comprising Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Amitava Roy said.

Terming the resolution professionals demand to buyers for additional money as open cheating, the Supreme Court bench said they are worried only about the home buyers, their money should not be diverted anywhere else.

It said financial creditors cannot take over homes belonging to buyers.

The resolution professional, through his counsel, had told the court that it needed Rs 21 crore to install fire and electrical safety equipment in 21 towers of the Silicon City project where more than 1000 families are already residing.

The real estate developer has also been asked to submit a report of all projects to indicate the costs applicable for each project and the time frame required to complete them, legal sources who were part of the hearing said.

The court also directed that the Committee of Creditors, the resolution professional and all the parties are at liberty to provide their views in the report that is to be submitted by the builder within a week or ten days. Copy of the report should be submitted to all concerned parties, it said.

In another development, a local developer, Galaxy, through its counsel filed an interlocutory application stating that it has a corpus of Rs 500 crore which it wants to invest and that the said amount will take care of five projects of Amrapali and 31,000 homebuyers, sources said.

Commenting on the three directions given by the Supreme Court on the Amrapali matter, legal sources said that The direction not to raise any demand from homebuyers is a positive one as buyers would have been declared defaulters if they did not pay up the amount raised."

Hundreds of buyers had received demand letters from the IRP, especially those who had booked units as per the slab wise plan.

The restriction on the IRP to raise demand is a positive development because none of buyers have to pay anything until possession is granted, lawyers representing buyers said.

As for the direction to ensure safety of residents, lawyers said that this too is a major direction because thousands of buyers are already living in the projects and their lives are at risk. The court indicated to the IRP that it cannot demand money from buyers without there being any certainty of granting possession, legal sources said.

As for refunding the amount to buyers who have opted for it, the court did not give any direction. It, however, observed that since Amrapali did not have any money and considering that Galaxy and other builders had evinced interest in completing the projects refund may not be the viable option today.

The builder has no money for refund today. Refund option should only be considered once it is determined that the project is not viable at all, the bench observed.

The court was responding to amicus curiae Pawanshree Agarwal who indicated that he had received some refund claims. He has been asked by the court to file an affidavit to the court providing the status of people who have sought refund.

As per the November 22 order, Amrapali was expected to deposit 10 per cent of the outstanding amount (Rs 650 crore) due with the Greater Noida Authority. There was confusion over which authority is entitled to collect the dues. Legal sources had pointed out the project Amrapali Silicon City falls under the jurisdiction of Noida Authority, and not Greater Noida.

As per legal sources, the counsel for the builder today said that the amount has already been paid by it to Greater Noida because the order had inadvertently stated that the 10 per cent amount had to be paid to Greater Noida Authority.

Noidas counsel, who was present in court today, mentioned that the payment had to be made to them but had been to Greater Noida Authority. The Supreme Court therefore directed both Noida and Greater Noida Authorities to tender an affidavit in court about the status of payments made by the developer

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in September ordered initiation of insolvency proceedings against Amrapali Silicon City, on a plea by Bank of Baroda. The builder had defaulted on an outstanding loan of Rs 56 crore taken from the bank.

NCLT appointed Rajesh Samson of Deloitte Touche Tohmastu India LLP as the interim resolution professional (IRP) in the case of Amrapali Silicon City Pvt Ltd.

Bank of Baroda, the lead bank of the consortium comprising Oriental Bank of Commerce and Bank of Maharashtra who are the other lenders, had signed a term loan agreement with Amrapali Silicon City in February 2012. The consortium of lenders sanctioned a loan of Rs 100 crore to Amrapali Silicon City. Amrapali Silicon City has defaulted on total repayment of Rs 71.15 crore, which comprise Rs 59.38 crore of principal overdue and Rs 11.77 crore of interest and penal interest.Arun jaitley_Startup

Even as Budget 2018 is expected to be announced this week, startups and small businesses in India are asking for relaxation in compliance, reduction in GST rates and exemptions of tax on their employees. Here is what India's startup CXOs are demanding from the government in Budget 2018:

Hospitality Sector:

Puneet Gupta, co-founder, and COO, icanstay:

Startups are very important part of economic growth, innovation, and worldwide competitiveness because we provide eccentric service and in doing so, we are producing great employment opportunities. A startup is all about a new idea, new concepts, and innovation said "Gupta.

As per the government new tax slabs now, hotel rooms of Rs 7,500 and above will have to submit a luxury tax of 28 percent. It means that for a 24-hour hotel stay, one will pay minimum Rs 2,100 as GST only. We believe that 28 percent GST is high for a single night stay. It should be decreased to 12 percent, he added.

Fintech

Jose Thattil, co-founder, and CEO of Phi Commerce:

The year of 2017 has seen a consistent growth of digital payment transaction. The government has done a laudable work by empowering citizens of the country to transact digitally by equipping them with bank accounts and payment instruments, said Thattil.

However, 30 lakh POS terminal and few lakh QR codes for a billion plus say a lot on the scope for building the acceptance infrastructure and the upcoming budget must take steps in this direction. One such step would be the creation of acceptance development fund. This is akin to any market development fund set up by new businesses to create awareness, build a loyal customer base. On similar lines acceptance development fund will incentivize merchants, banks, payment processor to enable digital payments to the grassroots levels and conduct mass education campaign to promote the awareness and benefits of digital payments, he added.

Robin Raina, CEO, Chairman, and President at Ebix:

Today, the basic electronic blocks for digital transactions to take off are in place  UPI, eKYC, and Aadhaar  and they are all talking to each other. The introduction of the Goods and Services Tax will go a long way in bringing the so-called `black economy into mainstream GDP. Citizens should now realize paying taxes has long-term advantages over unaccountable and untaxed wealth, said Raina.

Gaurav Hinduja cofounder of Capital Float:

For the Budget 2018-19, we hope that the government will continue to push digitization of financial services and encourage consumers to use digital platforms for transactions. Initiatives such Aadhaar and UPI provide a good opportunity for banks, insurers, and fintech players to expand Indias efforts towards financial inclusion. Another area of focus should be reducing the cost of capital for the MSMEs by improving lenders access to low-cost funding sources such as MUDRA and SIDBI and relaxing securitization norms, said Hinduja.

Sanjay Sharma, MD, and CEO, Aye Finance:

"As we approach for the budget this year, one of the primary suggestions would be that the government should continue its firm stand on not allowing unnecessary loan freebies to the agro or MSME sector. Passing on such freebies destroys the credit discipline and rewards the offenders, and thus indirectly punishes the diligent loan repayers. Further, the regulatory rules governing the fintech businesses need to be finalized on priority. Last year has seen these go through discussions and consensus building. This year should see the rules formalized into policy pronouncements. The focus of the regulators should be to enlarge the reach of organized lending, especially in bringing the excluded parts of the economy into the fold of organized lensing. Fintechs are, and will, play an important part in achieving this objective," said Sharma.

Manish Chaudhari, Co-Founder, and CRO, CoinTribe:

Given the growth in fintech, it will be a welcome move if the government also creates some schemes to encourage budding fintech entrepreneurs e.g. creation of fintech parks where space, high-speed internet, basic admin facilities can be provided," said Chaudhari.

Ranjit Punja, CEO, and Co-Founder, Creditmantri:

As a fintech service which has data and technology in its core, the GST did not impact us directly but this unified tax with and the recent systemic changes would bring about a much-needed digital push and increased accountability. We hope in the year ahead that the Digital India initiatives along with the GST which functions entirely online would bring about a shift in mindset and increased digital adoption, said Punja.

Satyam Kumar, Co-founder, and CEO, Loantap:

Start-ups are doing a great service to the Nation. Besides obvious things like job creation, FDI & innovation, they are bringing consumer-centric approach to the business. This is pushing well entrenched old-world companies to look after customers as individuals with varying needs, unlike a production belt approach which they presently have towards the customers. Naturally startup ecosystem needs soft-hand approach from government & regulators. Of course, the authorities also need to differentiate based on good and bad intentions of the startup, said Kumar

Alok Mittal, an active angel investor, and Co-founder, Indifi Technologies:

We hope that the budget will announce concrete measures for continued push and incentive for digital payments. Expanding the coverage of Mudraa and other credit guarantee schemes to cover new age business models and fintech platforms will help the sector to get more access to credit and digital existence. Secured API access to customer information using GST system and simplification around GST will be an additional benefit, said Mittal.

Yashish Dahiya, Co-Founder, and CEO, Policybazaar :

Introduce a separate tax deduction of Rs 20,000 for Pure Life Insurance Cover Beyond Section 80C Rs 1.5 lac Deduction: In India, death of a family member can destroy that familys future and development. We hope no one ever faces such a situation, but the truth is millions of people do, as they are highly dependent on the income of the earning member(s), said Dahiya.

Nikhil Arora, Vice-President, and, Managing Director, GoDaddy India:

The governments push to sensitize and encourage MSMEs towards the adoption of new IT technologies has promoted the growth of MSMEs in recent years. The announcement and focus on digital MSME scheme and monetary support stands to benefit a large number of MSMEs coming from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. We anticipate that the Digital India theme is expected to continue its run in the 2018-19 budget, embarking on a new economic growth model aligned with global technological and developmental trends, providing opportunities for further growth for MSMEs to move into digital technologies, said Arora.

Health-Tech

Amit Munjal, founder, and CEO, Doctor Insta:

The telemedicine or virtual healthcare market in India has witnessed significant growth, owing to its potential of providing the world-class clinical and medical services to distant and rural locations as well as to large cities where People have time constraints and telemedicine provides Instant access addressing the health needs anytime, anywhere. Though the industry has garnered the good support of both the government (SEHAT Program) and private organizations that are investing religiously in telemedicine industry, infrastructure issues still remain an impediment albeit less than earlier in unleashing the growth of this sector. Even though the market is poised for an upswing, it is still currently constrained by the slower than expected adoption and engagement of users, said Munjal.

Meena Ganesh, MD and CEO, Portea Medical:

Critical care equipment like a ventilator, oxygen concentrator, BIPAP, CPAP are under 12 percent GST and 7.5 percent customs duty. Since these are life-saving equipment, these should be made tax free. Mobility Assist equipment like wheel chair/walking stick/crutches is under 5-7.5 percent GST. Under VAT they were tax-free. The mobility assist equipment should be made tax free. Spare parts for all Medical Equipment is being taxed at 28 percent GST. This is too high and should be taxed at a lower rate as the original equipment, said Ganesh.

Rekuram Varadharaj, Co-founder and COO and Krishna Ulagaratchagan, Co-founder and CEO of healthi:

Health insurance is a big area of concern and healthcare expenses are also on the rise. We hope to see more allocations towards this end in this budget. Statistics indicate that while 85 percent people are covered by private medical insurance, about two-thirds of medical expenses are self-funded in India. About 15 percent of the population is neither covered by private nor government insurance schemes. A positive step in this direction would be to increase the exemption on medical reimbursement, said Varadharaj and Ulagaratchagan.

Satish Kannan, CEO and Co-Founder, DocsApp:

"We require more clarity with regard to the laws governing telemedicine, online consultations, and medicine delivery. The directives are limited and do not cover the vast scope and alternatives prevalent in the digital healthcare space. We are considered an IT company which delivers healthcare, and therefore it's mandatory to pay GST. On the other hand, health care providers do not fall under the GST umbrella. It would be great to have a clear, and uniform, policy for all businesses operating in the healthcare space, said Kannan.

E-commerce

Hari Menon, Co-Founder and CEO, Bigbasket:

We are very happy the way GST has been implemented. Players like bigbasket have accrued a lot of benefits. It has brought a definite relief from a key issue faced by the e-commerce segment that of cascading taxes; ensured seamless movement of goods across the country and brought in efficiency and transparency in the manufacturing sector. The implementation of GST has helped us in effectively selling unique products of one state at same price across the nation. For most of the products, prices have come down. If the rates are lowered further, it would be great. The customers will benefit more. But beyond GST, I am not expecting any major reforms in this years budget from the business side, said Menon.

I feel that the budget should focus on the following two sectors: skill development and job creation; and infrastructure. Though there has been a lot of work going on in these sectors, a further fillip to these in the upcoming budget would be a positive step, he added.

Ameen Khwaja, CEO and Founder, LatestOne.com:

The e-commerce sector has been showing a growth-promise as few other industries have shown in the past few years. Its growth has not only generated employment but has also helped improve the supply chain processes in the country. However, this growth is largely limited to urban parts of the country, said Khwaja.

The hinterland continues to suffer power outages, poor data connectivity and road infrastructure that leaves a lot to be desired. Incidentally, these three are crucial for the success of e-commerce industry. If the government focuses on developing infrastructure in rural areas, then e-commerce industry can make a substantial contribution to bring about more inclusive growth in the nation as a whole. Also, we live in a time where mobile phones have become a very important part of our lives, our social interactions, and our safety. However, keeping the batteries charged is a challenge. Power banks, hence, have become an essential accessory. Power banks are currently listed under 28 percent slab. If it is brought under a lower slab of 18 percent, we would have taken a big step towards realizing the dream of a truly digital India, he added.

Mitesh Shah, Head of Finance, BookMyShow:

Given the NDA governments strong intent to drive reforms, we definitely anticipate some rationalisation in tax structures and strengthening of related infrastructure. While the GST council has already taken some proactive measures, we hope the government will reemphasize on a roadmap for simple and business-friendly GST compliance and administration systems. More importantly, over the course of next few months, initiate all necessary constitutional amendments to ensure that there are no other state or local body taxes, as they defeat the very purpose of bringing uniformity in tax structure while ensuring proper input credit for taxes, said Shah.

Sandipan Mitra, CEO, HungerBox:

As we have been witnessing, India is going through a digital revolution and would continue to see through this for the coming years. Technology Hardware is a primary necessity to enable this digital revolution. The current costs and regulatory hurdles hurt startups a lot, especially during the early years. A relief on the customs duty on imports and the applicable taxes and easier regulatory measures would be a very good step in helping startups to focus more on enabling the digital economy of the country. We pay an 18 percent import duty on the IoT device, referred to as the Vendor Terminal. In addition, we pay another 18 percent GST tax on it (these are the multiple vendor terminals that are placed in the 75+ digital cafeterias we manage for clients). Import duties could be removed and taxes could ideally be in the low single digits. This will significantly boost our business. Another step to aid the digitization would be to reduce the MDRs for the merchants even for the other mode of digital payments like Credit cards, Net banking, etc, said Sandipan Mitra, CEO, HungerBox.

We are expecting that the income tax slabs are revised so that people have more in-hand cash as compared to the in-hand component with the current tax slabs. This would increase the disposable income of the employees and hence allow them to spend more on HungerBox platform, he added.

Edutech

Dhiraj Agarwal, Cofounder, Campus Sutra:

"While ease of business ranking of India has improved in the recent index lot needs to be done in reducing the procedural delays. Procedural delays, especially in import, can be detrimental to early start-ups. Recently we had an incident where a sample set was stuck in customs for close to 21 days. This delay had a huge impact on our SS18 season launch. The launch was delayed by almost 2 weeks due to this. The government needs to take steps in easing importing of goods, said Agarwal.

Co-working space

Sudeep Singh, Co-founder, and Chief Evangelist, GoWork:

The Indian co-working industry has seen a phenomenal growth in the year 2017. Co-working has become a thriving ground for start-ups and is encouraging their growth within its ecosystem. To make this growth upbeat and continuous, we look forward to furthering developments in governments smart cities initiative, as occupiers are looking for improvement in infrastructure in these cities to be able to make a move towards Tier II and Tier III cities. Also, keeping in mind that startups do not make a profit in their primary years, the government can rather lower the income tax slabs for startup employees which will aid startups to reduce costs. This year, we look ahead to some important tax exemptions that would give an enhancement to all existing and upcoming startups," said Singh.

Agritech:

Sandeep Sabharwal, CEO, SLCM Group:

India has improved its ranking in global index for ease of doing business as the government continues to work on providing enabling environment. However, one area where the government can do more in Budget-2018 is the agriculture and the allied sectors. The government can take a cue from last Economic Survey that has put an ambitious target of 4% growth rate for the sector that accounts for 40-45% of Indias workforce. However, for achieving this, the government needs to lend helping hand to the agriculture financing arms and warehousing service providers, by rationalizing the tax burden on them. It will not only help achieve growth targets and food security but it may also attract investment and newer technology in the sector," said Sabharwal.

Tourism

Jayanth Sharma, Co-founder and CEO, Toehold:

Tourism is a particularly beneficial industry for a country, as it brings revenue to the exchequer by allowing people to experience its beauty and culture. It provides an incentive for people to preserve their heritage, both historical and ecological, and finds ways to bring joy and happiness to many. India's tourism industry is at an inflection point, with the amount of domestic and international tourists spending in India on the rise. Investment in tourism from Budget 2018, especially in building much-needed infrastructure, would be a welcome shot in the arm for Indian tourism. While Indias brand as a tourist destination has become more globally prominent than ever before, investing in tourism-centric infrastructure could help make our countrys beauty more accessible to its citizens and international tourists. Countries like Kenya have created a wonderful travel-friendly ecosystem, and the focus and prominence it receives as an industry could be a guide to Indian authorities, " said Sharma.Jain Irrigation Systems' share price has gained 97 percent from March 23, 2020. Close Price as on May 27, 2020: Rs 6.99 and on March 23, 2020: Rs 3.55.

live bse live

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Shares of Jain Irrigation Systems declined 3 percent intraday Wednesday on the back of selling pressure despite strong December quarter numbers (Q3FY18).

The company's consolidated net profit rose 875 percent at Rs 67.3 crore against Rs 6.9 crore in a year ago period.

Revenue of the company increased 30.8 percent at Rs 1,889.6 crore versus Rs 1,445 crore. Other income also rose 831 percent at t Rs 38.2 crore.

Consolidated EBITDA was up 17.9 percent at Rs 222.1 crore and EBITDA margin was down at 11.7 percent.

Brokerage house Deutsche Bank has reiterated sell rating on the stock as the company premised on expectation of margin erosion due to weaker revenue mix.

We are 12-36 percent below consensus on FY18-20 EPS; kept target at Rs 82 per share, it added.

Morgan Stanley kept an overweight rating on the stock with target raised to Rs 187 from Rs 143 per share.

According to the firm, the larger order book implies better earnings visibility and valuation are looking attractive even after 40 percent rally since October, it said.

At 11:56 hrs Jain Irrigation Systems was quoting at Rs 142.20, down Rs 2.40, or 1.66 percent on the BSE.

Posted by Rakesh PatilThe interim and final Budgets of 1991-92 were presented by two ministers of two different political parties. Who were they?

Independent Indias first ever Budget was presented by RK Shanmukham Chetty, the finance minister of the free country, on November 26, 1947. A poverty-stricken country that India was at that time, the Budget as expected focused on food grain production, civil expenditure and defence.

Wearing a dark, pin-striped, three-piece suit, and carrying a leather bag, Chettys first words were thus, I rise to present the first Budget of a free and independent India. This occasion may well be considered an historic one and I count it a rare privilege that it has fallen to me to be the Finance Minister to present this Budget.

Partition, a destabilised economy and political upheavals formed the core factors that determined the budgetary provisions.

The Budget, which was for a period of just seven-and-half months, had a targeted budget revenue of Rs 171.15 crore. Indias fiscal deficit was estimated at Rs 26 crore at that time with the revenue expenditure at about Rs 197 crore.

The increase in expenditure was on account of expenses allocated for stabilisation, refugee relief and rehabilitation. As independent India fought its first war with Pakistan that started in October that year, allocation for defence stood at Rs 92.74 crore, a staggering 47 percent of the total chunk.

The strength of the army of undivided India at that time stood roughly at 410,000 troops. After the completion of the reconstitution of the Army, India had roughly 260,000 troops and a civilian population of 300 million, the second largest in the world.

Food production was low and, therefore, self sufficiency in food grain production was accorded the second highest priority. Since independence, India has had 25 finance ministers who have presented and passed 87 budgets so far.

The partition of the country has cut across its economic and cultural unity and the growth of centuries of common life to which all the communities have contributed. The long-term effects of the division of the country still remain to be assessed and we are too near the events to take a dispassionate view. When the ashes of controversy have died down, it will be for the future historian to judge the wisdom of the step and its consequences on the destiny of one fifth of the human race, had said Chetty.Girish Vanvari

The healthcare sector in India is plagued by a plethora of challenges which include lack of proper infrastructure, spread of communicable and non-communicable diseases, and low government spending on the sector. As per the World Bank, Indias public health outlay is less than 1.5 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP), which is far below the global average of 5.95 per cent as of 2014[1]. The number of hospital beds currently available per thousand persons is far below the recommended average as per the World Bank bringing to light the stark requirement of medical infrastructure in the country.

The public spending on healthcare remains lacking to meet the ever rising needs of the country. While public outlay on healthcare has been increased by 23% from Rs 39,688 crore to Rs 48,853 crore in Budget 2017, a vast majority of the incremental outlay has been allocated towards human resources and medical education. This has resulted in an enlarging gap in the current healthcare infrastructure requirements in the country.

The private sector has stepped in to bridge the gap and contributes enormously towards meeting the healthcare requirements of the country. As per the World Bank, the private sector expenditure on healthcare is close to 3.3 per cent[2] of the GDP, more than double the government outlay as of 2014.

In order to boost capital expenditure on healthcare infrastructure, the government introduced a weighted deduction of 150 per cent on capital expenditure on select infrastructure segments, including healthcare during the 2012 Budget. Section 35AD of the Income-tax Act, 1961 was amended from providing a 100 per cent deduction on capital expenditure, to provide the 150 per cent weighted deduction for building and operating a minimum 100 bed hospital anywhere in India.

However, in 2016, the Finance Minister, while making a commitment to reduce corporate tax rates to 25 per cent across the board decided to remove all weighted deductions available to tax payers significantly impacting the incentives provided to healthcare sector. In line with the Ministers stance, Budget 2016 reduced the weighted deduction on capital expenditure to 100 per cent from financial year 2017-18. However, the corresponding reduction in the corporate tax rates is not yet effected creating a mismatch of sorts.

The healthcare sector is highly capital intensive which involves significant real estate and construction costs, and constant investments for improvements and upgrading of existing facilities apart from the long gestation period which results in significant blockage of capital. The tax incentives provided by the government crafted a push towards the creation of quality medical infrastructure by the private sector. However, the subsequent roll back of the investment-linked weighted incentives provided has dampened the investment sentiment within the private sector.

In order to re-incentivise the private investment, the government should reconsider their stance on the tax incentives provided. Reinstating the weighted deduction on capital expenditure for 100 bed hospitals for the next five years will provide the fiscal boost required to the private sector to increase capital outflow to the sector.

However, corresponding amendments or exemptions need to be provided for such companies falling under the ambit of the minimum alternative taxes (MAT) regime as the levy of MAT essentially negates any benefits received on the accelerated depreciation or weighted deduction granted to the healthcare sector.

These measures will accelerate growth and build scale for establishing increased number of hospitals in the country which will not only meet the need of the hour, but benefit the economy in the long term. The boost to the entire healthcare sector will not only benefit from the foreign exchange inflows with the growing popularity of India as a medical hub for foreign tourists but will also facilitate greater access to quality and affordable healthcare facilities for the public.

(The writer is National Head, Tax, KPMG in India. Inputs from Chirag Shah and Aafaq Bhatri, Chartered Accountant)Thanks for staying with us in the run-up to the Budget. Moneycontrol will bring you live updates, highlights and analysis from Budget 2018.

18:36 Need to lay down roadmap for higher non-tax revenue, says Rashesh Shah

Edelweiss Group chairman Rashesh Shah, who also heads the industry lobby Ficci as its president, has called for laying down a strategic road-map in the

Budget to ensure higher non-tax revenue.

In an extensive interview ahead of the Budget, Shah urged the finance minister to unveil a road-map for continuous and steady growth in non-tax revenues in a strategic manner.

Shah, who has spent over quarter of a century in the corporate and financial markets and is one of the leading industry spokespersons, started Edelweiss in 1996 which has since grown into one of the leading diversified financial services conglomerates with presence in broking and investment banking, MF, ARC thats the largest today, NBFC etc.

18:07 SMEs Budget wishlist: More projects, lower taxes

Ahead of the Budget, a survey has revealed that 87.5 per cent small and medium enterprises from the transport sector expect more projects to be announced such as Bharatmala road building programme, while 54 per cent of retail and e-commerce SMEs want a national retail policy.

The Dun & Bradstreet SAP SME Survey on the Budget expectations of SMEs across various segments also found that 43 per cent respondents from the metal and mining sector want the government to expand profit-linked incentives to include capital-intensive industries. However, 88 per cent feel the government is likely to maintain a protectionist mindset, promoting indigenous manufacturing.

According to the survey, 56 per cent SMEs from the automotive sector expect reduction in GST rates on ancillaries as suggested by Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India, whereas 88 per cent expect encouraging steps towards Bharat Stage adoption.

17:38 Here are highlights from what to expect from the upcoming Budget. The expectations are from experts, reports and surveys.

>Many reports and experts have suggested that the Budget 2018 will have in store a tax slab rejig. The expectations come to play as it will give more purchasing power to the common man and small entrepreneurs and the experts suggest that minimum exemption limit will be may be increased from the current level of Rs. 2.5 lakh to Rs. 3 lakh per annum. Calculate your Income Tax here.

> Reports and experts have suggested that house rent charges in major Southern cities - Bengaluru or Hyderabad - are not less as compared to Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai. Keeping this in mind, the government should also include many other cities in the category of the higher exemptions for HRA in cities.

>The revenue from the RCS air fares, which are already economical, so to say and are controlled. It is, however, not enough to cover the expenses airline incur and the VGF is important for the operations to continue. Last year, the exemption was ordered to be valid for a year. The sector is expecting Jaitley to extend the exemption for at least another year. Read our story here.

>A LocalCircles Survey, conducted in 200 cities and with a sample size of more than 1,25,000 citizens, points that 38% citizens want agriculture, 34% want infrastructure, 12% want healthcare and 16% want education to be the top priority in the Budget tomorrow. This, the survey points, that the majority is more keen on agriculture benefitting from the efforts by the government.

Hello and good evening everyone! With the Budget 2018 scheduled to be presented tomorrow, here's a round-up of key expectations, stories and updates.The Border Security Force (BSF), which guards the country's volatile border with Pakistan, will raise six new battalions comprising around 7,000 personnel, official sources said today.

The Ministry of Home Affairs also sanctioned an amount of Rs 2,090.94 crore to the force. The new battalions will also be deployed along the smuggling and infiltration prone India-Bangladesh border.

The troops will be recruited fresh by the force, to be deployed as part of the six battalions. They will be on the ground in over an year's time, the sources said.

Each BSF battalion has over 1,000 jawans and officers.

The home ministry, the sources said, had on January 19 approved the proposal of the force to raise these fresh battalions and asked the BSF headquarters here to quickly initiate the process of operationalising them.

Four battalions, as per the order, will be raised as part of the forces' task of guarding eight Integrated Check Posts (ICPs) along Pakistan and Bangladesh, while the rest two will supplement the working units on the ground and help in the replacement of the tired troops.

The Press Trust of India (PTI), had on January 14, first reported that the government was planning to raise 15 new battalions in the country's two important border guarding forces-- the BSF and ITBP-- to better dominate and secure the frontiers guarded by these two paramilitary forces.

The Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) is tasked to guard the 3,488 km long Indian frontier with China.

Sources said the home ministry's sanction to allow the ITBP to raise new battalions was in the "final stages".

The BSF had last year projected for enhancement of its manpower, from the about 2.5-lakh personnel, by sanctioning of new units so that they could be deployed in the Assam and West Bengal flanks of the 4,096-km long Indo-Bangla border to better check smuggling, infiltration and other cross-border crimes.

The border guarding force had wanted a similar addition in numbers to effectively guard the Indo-Pak International Border (IB), especially in Punjab and Jammu regions where it faces frequent instances of unprovoked firing and ceasefire violations from the other side.

The BSF is responsible for providing security to eight ICPs at Attari in Punjab (India-Pakistan border), Petrapole, Chandrabangha and Hili in West Bengal, Dawki (Meghalaya), Akhaura (Tripura), Sutarkhandi (Assam) and Kawarpuchiah (Mizoram) along the Indo-Bangla border.

Sources said the sanction of new battalions to the BSF would also help it better rotate troops from forward locations to comparatively lesser tasked units in the mainland.

The ITBP has similarly pushed its case saying it wants to reduce the inter-BoP (border out post) distance along the icy Himalayan frontier that it is tasked to guard.

The frequent instances of transgressions and confrontations with the Chinese army at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) is also seen as the major reason for the ITBP seeking to enhance its numbers.

The mountain-trained force had recently got sanctions to set up at least 47 new BoPs along the border for effective control of the Himalayan border area.

The home ministry has three border guarding forces under its command, the third being the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) that is tasked with guarding Indian borders with Nepal and Bhutan.The Information and Broadcasting Ministry is planning to set up more than 60 media units across the country before 2019 general elections to strengthen government's outreach to smaller cities and rural areas, according to a report in The Economic Times.

The new media units, which will be set up in Bhuj, Rohtak, Siliguri, Kochi, Korba and Muzaffarnagar among other places, are likely to become operational in the next few months, a government official told the newspaper.

During a structured eight-month campaign, these units would highlight the government's efforts to fine-tune GST regime, tackle non-performing assets of banks and quicken the pace of electrification and so on.

The Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting Ministry, Smriti Irani, has already spoken to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Jharkhand CM Raghubar Das, among others, to allot space for the proposed media units, the officials told the paper.

According to the plan, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Karnataka will have two centres each for the Centre's media units, while nine centres will come up in states in the Northeast.

Uttar Pradesh is likely to have seven media units places including Bareilly, Moradabad, Aligarh, Agra, Muzaffarnagar and the PM's constituency, Varanasi, besides state capital Lucknow.

The funds has been allocated for the same, the official said.

Each media unit will function as an electronic media monitoring centre that will look at the content in local newspapers and TV channels and send updates to the head office in Delhi.

Seven senior officers of Director General level will be stationed in Chandigarh, Lucknow, Kolkata, Bhopal, Mumbai, Chennai and Imphal to monitor flow of information in their respective zones.

Until now, five meetings have been held with officers involved in government communication to know their location preferences. However, one's flow of communication in regional languages will be taken into consideration.

Seven senior officers have been chosen to head the new media units and oversee dissemination of the government's communication to the remotest areas.

The ministry is also planning to set up a social media communication hub in every state to track local events and report to ministry officials.Rajnath Singh

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today slammed Pakistan for continuously violating the ceasefire agreement with India despite giving assurance not to do so, saying Islamabad should not misinterpret "powerful" India's "decency".

Pakistani shelling along the border in Jammu and Kashmir has increased over the past two weeks. Fourteen people, including eight civilians, have been killed in the shelling since January 18, according to the state police.

Today, Pakistani troops opened fire and lobbed mortars on forward and civilian areas along the LoC in Rajouri district.

No casualties have been reported.

"Three-four days ago, Pakistan Rangers held a flag meeting with our BSF DG. (The Rangers) assured that the ceasefire violation would not take place. But despite this, Pakistan has been violating ceasefire," Singh said.

"Not saying much, I just want to say our politeness and decency has a limit and we want to maintain good relations with all and also with our neighbours. But our decency should not be wrongly interpreted," he said.

"India is no more a weak country. India has now become a powerful country."

Singh said Pakistan, being a neighbour, should have a friendly attitude towards India, but added that the fencing of the Indo-Pak border was underway at a rapid pace.

Singh was in Chandigarh to address members of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha. He was accompanied by Chandigarh MP Kirron Kher and Chandigarh BJP unit chief Sanjay Tandon.

Asked about the case registered against Army personnel following the death of two civilians in firing in Kashmir's Shopian district last week, the minister praised the Army.

"I can say that the situation in Jammu and Kashmir has turned far normal compared to what it was. Our security forces and Army personnel were working effectively. J&K is ours, it will always be ours and people of J&K are also ours," he said.

To a question related to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, he said the Supreme Court recently gave a verdict and an SIT was being formed to follow the order.

On January 11, the court ordered to set up a three-member special investigation team to supervise further probe into 186 anti-Sikh riot cases in which investigations were closed.

Asked about the incidents of violence over caste and religion, he said all people in India are safe irrespective of their caste, creed and religion.

Asked to comment on a reported statement of J-K's deputy grand mufti Basher-ud-din that Muslims of India should demand a separate nation for themselves, Singh said: "I also want to appeal to those plagued with mentality of casteism, religion and minority should come out of it and they need to ponder over it. All should believe that we are Indian.Rahul Gandhi

With over 100 members resigning over allotment of tickets in Meghalaya, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi asked partymen to work together and ensure the party's victory in the February 27 assembly polls.

Gandhi's appeal assumed significance as former cabinet minister A L Hek had joined the BJP while five others including veteran leader and former deputy chief minister Rowell Lyngdoh had switched over to the National People's Party.

Hundred party members of Chokpot assembly seat in South Garo Hills district resigned on January 28 in protest against Lazarus Sangam's nomination while another 15 Congress members from Jirang seat in Ri Bhoi district quit over ticket allocation to Witness Syngkli.

"I am here to tell you that the Congress party is going to work together. We will protect your languages and tribal customs. We are not going to allow the imposition of one idea," a senior Congress leader quoting Gandhi as saying at the party meeting here.

Gandhi also lauded the Mukul Sangma government in the state for launching the social audit bill and stated that Meghalaya is one of the few states that provides universal healthcare.

He accused the BJP and the NPP of using money power ahead of the assembly election.

"I am very sad to hear that the BJP offered money to our churches. No amount of money can buy the people of Meghalaya," Gandhi was quoted as saying.

Union minister K J Alphons had announced a Rs 70 crore package for development of places of worship across the state under the 'Swadesh Darshan' scheme.

The Congress president also criticised the BJP for destroying the right to information and weakening the Lokayukta in BJP-ruled states.Sitting halfway across the world he can still control the fridge in his home, turn the boiler on and off, or just open the door for his guest, through systems built by him! As Chief Technology Officer at Rolls-Royce, Paul Stein is at the forefront of several technology innovations. So it is no surprise that he casually mentions 'flying cars' as a viable alternative for public transport in the near future for planet earth.

After all, Rolls-Royce is leading the pack in outselling its peers in innovation in aerospace technologies. The company's latest product  'UltraFan'  is by far the most advanced gas turbine for aircrafts built in the world. Moneycontrol's Durba Ghosh, had an exclusive chat with Rolls-Royce CTO Paul Stein to know more about innovations that can potentially mirror a sci-fi movie. Excerpts from a candid conversation:

Q. Rolls-Royce has broadened its purview to innovate with emerging technologies from just being a mechanical engineering company. How will you prepare the company for future growth?

A. We have gone all out to embrace rapid technology changes, with special focus on digitisation and electrification.

Our partnership with Tata Consultancy Services harbours these very tenets. We have set up a research capability called R2 data labs, which was recently launched. Here we are working on new tech innovations such as AI and data visualisation.

The TCS platform will provide a robust base for data visualisation so that we have a firm cyber protected, cloud-based platform to start rapid innovation.

AI, in particular, has several business cases for industrial-level ventures.

It can be used to stitch together design, manufacturing, and supply chain capabilities. In each of these areas we see a sea of change happening in terms of improving digital technology.

We have already started to use some examples of AI to look for solutions to problems that were too big to handle earlier. In manufacturing, the main thrust is to digitise supply chain management.

Then we can use blockchain to interact with supply chain, but we are not really there as yet.

Then there is IoT for factory environment to create new visualisation methods, such that we see before we built it.

That is a technique we have been using quite extensively.

In services, most prominently in aviation, we are monitoring products as they are being used through these technologies, creating huge pool of data for analysis to see where service intervention is needed.

Q. Rolls-Royce has particularly been a winner in the aerospace technology. Can you throw light on innovations related to aviation?

A. We are proud of our product family in aerospace, which essentially makes large civil aviation products such as engines powering wide-body jets. We are outselling our competitors in this space.

We have got to this position through continuous application of technologies. In fact, we have 14 identified categories. Its to make sure we spend wisely across areas of design, new materials, exploring new geometries for turbines, and so on.

The whole spectrum of things is very complex. But beyond current family of engines, we have a very exciting new engine architecture called UltraFan. It will now be the next leap in performance in gas turbine technology.

We are in the process of testing major functions of UltraFan now. Its the single big shift in engine architecture since the RB211 of 1970s.

We are hoping it to power airlines somewhere in 2025 and beyond. Beyond that we are now seeing for the first time electrification starting to impact aviation.

Beyond aviation, we are also excited about marine. We are working on ship intelligence leading to a time when we can remotely man ships using AI and situational awareness.

Some innovations in nuclear is leading us to more modular power stations, designed to reduce the cost of zero carbon electricity. It is competitive with wind. In power systems business we are working on micro grids, which is a smart way to connect generators to meet energy demands at a granular level compared to big power stations.

The whole world of telematics that has changes automotive industry can be paralleled into aviation. We are using telematics to obtain data for flight scheduling, manage fuel, all the things that are parallel to automotive.

On top of that we are electrifying. Electrification of civil aviation is impacting a whole new area called personal mobility.

A flying taxi, for instance, that can carry passengers 20 kilometres across the city center.

A new type of regional craft is also being conceived on the back of hybrid electrification to create an alternate mass transportation system. Another type of electrification being used is for long-haul aircrafts. It uses electrification to change the airflow around the aircraft to improve fuel use.

Q. AR/VR technology has been around for long but hasnt made a mass impact as yet. Do you see any use case for it in solving real-world problems?

A. Its fair to say that VR and AR have very limited applications as of now. Apart from gaming, theres not much to talk about. I personally feel there are very good applications that we havent looked at as yet.

For example, our marine division is using VR for training crews who have to handle ships at sea in a difficult environment.

We have used AR for manufacturing, for assembling a complex component that we are developing, where we want to make sure we will be able to assemble it in the right order.

We use VR environment to let a manufacturing engineer pretend to be in a real-time environment to assemble parts in order to make sure we do it right. But, these are fairly isolated examples.

I would lay a challenge to the AR/VR community for this to be less of technology chasing application, and more of applications chasing tech so that it engages more with real world challenges. IoT, on the other hand, is totally different.

Its growing rapidly and is finding application in various functions  deducing the state of parts, history of parts, directly communicating with the machines, and so on. We are hungry for this technology because we can conceive lots and lots of applications that can save us a lot of money. With IoT it is applications chasing technology.

Q. How are you leveraging resources in India to drive innovation?

A. We are leveraging a lot of resources in India. We have centres all over India, and the biggest concentration is in Bangalore with 600 design engineers and digital team as well. We have manufacturing capabilities, catering to the globe from here.

Now we are saying how we can build up activity in India.

If we want to sell in India, how we can create a closed ecosystem so that we can work with the Indian government on developing indigenous defence capability using a team here made of domestic talent, to design new things that India can make and export. But it needs to move quickly because other countries are talking on the same lines.

Q. Why do you think India lags behind in technology innovation?

A. Government of India has done a fantastic job in terms of policies. But the pace is not fast enough and not enough. We have proven to the world that we can make quality components for the world, in India.

We have done very well on exports and we have a big supply chain here.

But the market needs to come up with big programs or big orders for companies to contribute. Also, big programs need to have co-creation opportunities. This country must leverage skills and talent available here to create an innovate products for the globe.

It will be extremely critical in the next five years. All along we have said lets design elsewhere and then manufacture in India, increasing blue collar jobs.

But a more sustainable and scalable way will be to have our own IPs. We have to start creating those IPs.

India has got a rapidly evolving ecosystem of small, medium, large, and very large companies in digital space who are able to manage digital knowledge. Companies like TCS have a world-class platform that can help in data visualisation.

When I think of Indian universities, however, I dont know if any ranks in the top institutions for emerging tech education. In Singapore, for example, we work closely with Nanyang Technological University, which is now number 11 in world ranking.

China is also investing heavily on AI, while most of the top 10 are US universities. In this scenario, if India wants to leap frog in the digital space from simply being a platform provider to be a leader in tech innovation, it will need a strong science base to create that capability.

It is all about graduating to the next level. Skilling is key to reach that next level. India has a fantastic talent pool, so it is now about how national science is funded. Its true for any technology.

Q. How do you think India can be in the leadership position of tech innovation?

A. By pulling together a coherent ecosystem! I would want to compare India with Singapore here. Why are they so successful, why are we there?

Singapore has managed to join their systems through research, govt grants, planning mission for new buildings, attractive system of bringing foreign people into the companies, no trade barriers, or bureaucracy in the way business is done, available finance, and a big customer base which is within the country. They pull it together and present it as a package.

It accelerates what we can do there and what it can do for itself. UK has a world-class science base but has been suffering for many years because it has not been able to pull through that science into actual products. India needs to model itself on such examples and be more agile.

India has a lot to offer but it got to learn that companies do not have infinite patience and the world is moving very quickly. Companies that are looking to set up world-class centres, if things are taking too long, competition will take over and the benefit will go someplace else. India has a golden opportunity, every other country gives India the first right of refusal. India produces half a million STEM graduates a year. Its a starting point. But, it is a case of agility and a system that puts pace above bureaucracy.President Donald Trump today warned that North Korea's "reckless pursuit" of nuclear missile could threaten American cities, asserting that he will not "repeat the mistakes" of past administrations that got the US into "dangerous position".

Trump, in his first State of the Union Address, said no regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally or brutally than the cruel dictatorship of Kim Jong-un.

"North Korea's reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland. We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from happening," he said, indicating that he will take preventive measure to stop North Korea from gaining a nuclear weapon.

In his speech, he highlighted the stories of two victims of North Korea to emphasise the "depraved character" of the North Korean regime.

"We need only look at the depraved character of the North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose to America and to our allies," he said.

Trump shared the story of American student Otto Warmbier, who was held prisoner in North Korea for 17 months and died at a hospital in the US last year, just days after he was released from captivity in a coma.

"Otto Warmbier was a hardworking student at the University of Virginia. On his way to study abroad in Asia, Otto joined a tour to North Korea. At its conclusion, this wonderful young man was arrested and charged with crimes against the state," Trump said.

"After a shameful trial, the dictatorship sentenced Otto to 15 years of hard labor, before returning him to America last June -- horribly injured and on the verge of death. He passed away just days after his return," he said.

Trump then pointed out his parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, and his brother and sister, Austin and Greta, who were in the gallery.

"Incredible people. your strength truly inspires us all," Trump sai. The parents received two standing ovations as they wept at Trump's telling of their son's story.

"You are powerful witnesses to a menace that threatens our world, and your strength inspires us all. Tonight, we pledge to honour Otto's memory with American resolve," he said.

Trump also highlighted audience member Ji Seong-ho, who defected from North Korea to South Korea in 2006. Ji lost his left hand and foot after he passed out on train tracks from hunger. He was later tortured by the North Korean regime after he crossed the border into China to look for food.

"Today he lives in Seoul, where he rescues other defectors, and broadcasts into North Korea what the regime fears the most -- the truth," he said.

"Today he has a new leg, but Seong-ho, I understand you still keep those crutches as a reminder of how far you have come. Your great sacrifice is an inspiration to us all. Seong-ho's story is a testament to the yearning of every human soul to live in freedom, said the president.

As Trump honoured Warmbier and Ji, he took a veiled swiped at his predecessors for failing to stop North Koreas progress on its nuclear programme.

"Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation, Trump said. "I will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got us into this very dangerous position.09:15 President Trump: As long as we as long as we are proud of who we are, and what we are fighting for, there is nothing we cannot achieve.

09:03 US President Donald Trump has ended his first State of the Union address.

08:57 President Donald Trump: My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to

defend Americans, to protect their safety, their families, their communities and their right to the American Dream because Americans are dreamers, too.

08:48 President Donald Trump, has said that he has signed an order directing Secretary Jim Mattis "to reexamine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay."

08:41 President Trump: We must rebuild our nuclear arsenal.

08:37 "In the end, we will succeed, we will prevail," President Trump says as audience applauds him at the Capitol Hill.

08:33 President Trump has outlined 4 pillars of his immigration plan:

> Path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants brought here at a young age> Fully secure the border> End green card visa lottery

> End chain migration

08:30 "For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities. They have allowed millions of low-wage workers to compete for jobs and wages against the poorest Americans," President Trump has said at the Capitol Hill.

08:28 "The United States is a compassionate nation. We are proud that we do more than any other country to help the needy, the struggling and the underprivileged all over the world," President Trump has said in his SOTU address.

08:25 President Trump: We want every American to know the dignity of a hard day's work. We can lift our citizens from welfare to work, from dependence to independence, and from poverty to prosperity.

08:19 President Trump: We will work to fix bad trade deals and negotiate new ones. And we will protect American workers and American intellectual property, through strong enforcement of our trade rules.

08:18 Tonight, I am calling on the Congress to produce a bill that provides USD 1.2 trillion to work on the infrastructure we so desperately need: President Trump.

"We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways and waterways across our land. And we will do it with American heart, American hands and American grit," Trump has added.

08:16 President Trump has said that one of his "greatest priorities is to reduce the price of prescription drugs."

08:12 President Trump: We are totally defending our Second Amendment and have taken historic action to protect religious liberty.

08:10 Earlier in his address, US President Donald Trump honoured 12-year-old Preston Sharp who started a movement that has placed 40,000 flags on the graves of soldiers.

08:08 In America, we know that faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, are the center of the American life: President Trump

08:06 We repealed the core of disastrous Obamacare. The individual mandate is now gone: President Trump

08:00 "This is our new American moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American Dream," says President Trump in his SOTU address, amidst applause from the audience.

07:55 "Since the election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs," President Trump has said in his address.

07:52 "African-American unemployment stands at the lowest rate ever recorded. Hispanic rate of unemployment has also reached the lowest level in history," Trump has said in his State of the Union Address.

07:50 Donald Trump: "Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve".

United States President Donald Trump is making his first State of the Union address.January 31, 2018

Sleuthhound Puppy Takes 'Deep Dive' Into MoA - (Funny)

This is funny.

The Twitter conservation below started when Borzou Daragahi, a main stream scribe and gullible simpleton, asked about Moon of Alabama. He had been made aware of and disliked the head scarf piece which was posted here yesterday. One Jett Goldsmith volunteered to respond.



Jett Goldsmith (left)

Borzou Daragahi @Borzou - 10:36 PM - 30 Jan 2018

Whos or whats behind Moonie Alabama? Jett Goldsmith @JettGoldsmith - 10:48 PM - 30 Jan 2018

Replying to @borzou

Moon of Alabama is an American conservative/quasi-conspiracy theorist forum. It's run by a German Vietnam veteran named Billmon. Jett Goldsmith @JettGoldsmith

Replying to @JettGoldsmith @borzou

Out of curiosity, I dived rather deep into his story a few weeks ago. I found a bunch of articles from mutual friends who served with him in Vietnam, referencing his life. Let me try and find them. Jett Goldsmith @JettGoldsmith

Here we go. Bernhard Horstmann, the founder of Moon of Alabama, is a dual national current resident of Germany who opted to serve in the US Army Corps of Engineers during Vietnam. He's written about at length here. http://www.tombutt.com/pdf/letters%20home.pdf  Jett Goldsmith @JettGoldsmith

Here's Horstmann pictured in 2012 with local Richmond, CA community member Tom Butt, who served with him in Vietnam. Butt later became mayor of Richmond. pic Moon of Alabama @MoonofA - 11:22 PM - 30 Jan 2018

You made 9 factual claims in the above of which 8 are completely wrong. That's an F.

Jett Goldsmith @JettGoldsmith

Though an 89% inaccuracy rate may be correct for the average @MoonofA article, I can assure you, Mr. Horstmann, absent my previously addressed inaccuracies, everything below is quite true and openly verifiable. Moon of Alabama @MoonofA

Ah! "Bellingcat" quality!

@moonofa is not Billmon, Billmon is not running Moon of Alabama, I am. I am not American, never been U.S. military, never been in Vietnam, never been in Richmond, don't know Tom Butt and am not conservative. Pic isn't of me. Jett Goldsmith @JettGoldsmith

This is rather characteristic, Mr. Horstmann, of someone who would use quotation marks around a term for no discernible reason. Safe to say you're in the rather unfortunate position of being unable to dispute the above 2 separate accounts of your identity without doxing yourself. Jett Goldsmith @JettGoldsmith - 11:49 PM - 30 Jan 2018

Nor, it seems, are you able to read; roughly half of the claims you've attempted to dispute in your above comment, Mr. Horstmann, were never asserted in the first place.

A screenshot of the above conversation.

The Twitter profile of Mr. Goldsmith links to an author-page at the notorious amateur sleuthing site Bellingcat.com. It says:

Jett Goldsmith is a journalist from Denver, Colorado. He currently serves as a freelance editorial columnist/essayist for Middle East Eye, and formerly co-founded the investigative reporting and geopolitical analysis outlet Conflict News. He is currently an undergraduate student in International Affairs and Middle Eastern Studies.

The "editorial columnist/essayist for Middle East Eye" published a total of two pieces for that Qatari/Muslim Brotherhood propaganda outlet. They criticized the Syria policy of Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders for not being bloody enough. The above picture is from his MEE profile. Over the last three years Jett Goldsmith produced a total of nine stilted posts for Bellingcat.com. Some are facile speculation based on the wrong data, others follow the typical scheme of that site: "Putin and/or Assad did it! And here is the pseudo science I use to make up that story." Jett publicly claims that he "co-founded" ConflictNews. That is "total bullshit," says Gissur Simonarson, the founder of ConflictNews. Until May 2015 Jett likely co-edited The View, the student paper of the Castle View High School in Castle Rock, Colorado.

One probably has to excuse such an experienced investigative journalist, a highly productive writer, for making some minor mistakes in his 'deep dive' googling research about this site and its proprietor.

Posted by b on January 31, 2018 at 18:50 UTC | Permalink

CommentsWelcome to Morningstar.co.uk!

You have been redirected here from Hemscott.com as we are merging our websites to provide you with a one-stop shop for all your investment research needs.To search for a security, type the name or ticker in the search box at the top of the page and select from the dropdown results.Registered Hemscott users can log in to Morningstar using the same login details. Similarly, if you are a Hemscott Premium user, you now have a Morningstar Premium account which you can access using the same login details.Spencer Platt/Getty Images

ExxonMobil announced that it plans to triple total daily production to more than 600,000 oil-equivalent barrels by 2025 from its operations in the Permian Basin in West Texas and New Mexico. Tight oil production from the Delaware and Midland basins will increase five-fold in the same period.

Recent changes in the U.S. corporate tax rate create an environment for increased future capital investments, including ExxonMobils plan to spend more than $2 billion on transportation infrastructure to support its Permian operations.FlexMR Promotes Four and Hires Six

In the UK, online research specialist FlexMR has promoted Dorota Rewinska to Chief Research Officer, Amy Eborall to Head of Research and Insight, Iulia Ghindeanu to Senior Research Associate, and Neil Bartley to CTO. The firm has also appointed six new members of staff.



Headquartered in the Lake District, with an additional office in the US, FlexMR was launched by research company Intersperience in 2013, and offers a fully integrated qual and quant SaaS online and mobile research platform, and a multi-language software product supported by its insight professionals.



After beginning her career at Intersperience, Rewinska moved to FlexMR in 2013 as Insight Manager, and most recently served as the firm's Head of Research and Insight. In her new position, she will assume overall responsibility for client services, research and insight, and insight innovation. Eborall, who also began her MR career at Intersperience, joined the firm in 2013 as an SRA, and most recently served as Insight Manager. She now takes over from Rewinska, overseeing research for the company's DIY, bespoke, community and panel clients.



Ghindeanu has been with the firm for the past eighteen months, initially joining as a Research Associate, responsible for end-to-end management of research projects. Former FlexMR Senior Developer Bartley has been with the company since summer 2016, and has been developed its SaaS MR platform, which offers access to seventeen DIY research tools. With nearly two decades' experience in the field, he will now head the Software Development department, and lead a team which has tripled in size during the last twelve months. New Developers in the team are Eligijus Petkus, Brian Crocker, Robert Newbould and Nana Akwah.



In addition, Patrick Foley and Freddie Blackburn join as Research Associates with a BA in Business Administration and Management and BSc in Psychology respectively. CEO Paul Hudson (pictured) comments: 'We congratulate our senior appointments and welcome our new recruits. Together, they will ensure that we continue to deliver the highest quality research and technology'.



Web site: www.flexmr.net .



Quantcast Expands into Seven New Asia-Pacific Markets

Audience measurement and digital advertising firm Quantcast has announced plans to offer its solutions in seven new markets across Asia - Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand.



Quantcast helps publishers to understand audiences and how content resonates with the consumers they want to attract; and helps marketers to understand online behavior and target ads. Headquartered in San Francisco, the firm employs more than 750 employees in 22 offices across eleven countries.



Through the expansion, clients in the seven new markets will be able to access Quantcast's live data insights drawn from more than 100 million online destinations. Andrew Double (pictured), Australia and New Zealand Managing Director, will be taking on an enlarged role to lead the company's growth in the Asia-Pacific region, while the expanded team will join Quantcast's existing engineering center in Singapore and be led by Sales Director for the Asian markets, Chris Scudder.



Commenting on the news, Double said: 'Since we launched in Australia and New Zealand three years ago, we've seen increasing demand from brands across Asia to grow by tapping into Quantcast's unique AI-driven targeting ability. I'm proud of the work the team has done so far, and I'm excited to bring our strong audience understanding to more brands as they seek to engage consumers in the region'.



Web site: www.quantcast.com .



In Focus with Allison Walker is a 30-minute public affairs program, featuring a roundtable of newsmakers representing a range of perspectives, including local officials and expert analysts as they tackle topical issues of importance to Floridians.

In Focus airs Sundays at 11:30 a.m. and 8:30 p.m., right after Political Connections.Muslim activists called on the Florida Legislature's Republican leaders to reconsider a proposed 'sanctuary cities' crackdown Tuesday, deriding the measure as a discriminatory attempt to score political points.

Muslim activists condemn proposed sanctuary city crackdown



Activists say political systems has turned against Muslim community

House Speaker Corcoran releases controversial TV ad

The activists traveled to Tallahassee from across the state for Capitol Muslim Day, an annual advocacy event during the two-month regular legislative session.

This year's gathering, however, was underscored by an especially urgent tone.

"Islamophobia's up by 500 percent, the highest it's ever been," one of the organizers, Rasha Mubarak, told a rally in the Capitol rotunda.

Between the sanctuary cities legislation and President Trump's controversial attempts to ban travelers from predominantly Muslim countries, the activists described a political system they say has turned against the Muslim community in the nation's third-largest state.

Counteracting that shift, they argued, should begin with changing hearts and minds in Tallahassee.

"We went through Muslim ban 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, but what's amazing is the community that grew from it and the community togetherness that grew from it, and I can't emphasize that enough," said Aida Mackic, a Tampa-based organizer for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "It created a platform for us to unite."

But if the day's exhortations were designed to sway critics, they largely fell on deaf ears.

Hours before Tuesday's rally, House Speaker Richard Corcoran (R-Land O'Lakes), a would-be gubernatorial contender, released a television ad championing the sanctuary cities crackdown that passed the House earlier this month.

"A young woman, gunned down by an illegal immigrant who should have been deported but was protected by a sanctuary city," Corcoran said in the ad, produced by his Watchdog PAC. "I'm Richard Cocroran. When I heard about Kate Steinle's story, I thought about my own daughter, Kate."

Echoing the concerns of the Muslim activists, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum, mayor of Tallahassee, one of two cities Corcoran has urged the Department of Homeland Security to investigate for maintaining "sanctuary policies," held an afternoon press conference to denounce the speaker.

"Someone who demeans and divides us, in my opinion, disqualifies themselves for the highest office in this state," Gillum said, demanding that Corcoran pull the ad.

Regardless of the policy implications, polls have shown the politics of sanctuary cities sanctions work well for Republicans, especially those facing primary contests.

For many of the Republican members of a legislature that is significantly more conservative than Florida's down-the-middle statewide electorate, supporting the crackdown could be imperative to their political futures.

Giving the activists reason for optimism, however, was a decision Tuesday by the sponsor of the Senate's sanctuary cities bill to withdraw it from consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

With two moderate Republicans on the panel announcing their opposition, the legislation would have failed.

"As much as we want to ban certain people from coming from different countries, there is a large number of our local communities supporting one another and saying we're not going to allow this, not in our America," Mackic said.A man's body was discovered by the side of the road early Wednesday, leaving investigators to piece together what happened and why.

Body found in wooded area in Orlando, police say

Man reportedly had his hands tied behind his back

OPD says incident appears to be a murder



Around 1:48 a.m. on Wednesday, a driver found a body of a male in a wooded area by Andros Place and Avenue C in Orlando, the Orlando Police Department told Spectrum News 13. The man also reportedly had his hands tied behind his back.

Investigators have yet to identify the man who died or reveal how it happened.



OPD is not saying much, but officials are saying that it does appear to be a murder. They also called this case "extremely active" and noted that the location is generally not a high-crime area.

The roadway where the body was found leads to a quiet Southport neighborhood, which sits in the shadow of Orlando International Airport.

It's one where resident Becky Anderson has lived in since 1999, a few years after the Orlando Naval Training Center closed.

We all have to kind of keep an eye on each other, and thats what good neighbors do," she said.

Anderson often walks her dog around the pastel-colored neighborhood. In the past, she's seen homeless camps in and around the woods but never any suspicious activity.

That changed in November 2017, when investigators found a badly decomposed body just outside the neighborhood's chain-link fence.

I think the biggest concern is what happened to the person, then we never got any end results," said Anderson.

Investigators identified the man as 28-year-old Paul Andrew Witaszek. They shared today that the coroner determined the cause of death to be a drug overdose. While suspicious, police say they do not think it's connected to Wednesday's crime.

Yet, the latest discovery  a homicide victim  has neighbors wary.

Anderson's roommate was one of several people in the neighborhood who heard gunshots. Suddenly, the road into the neighborhood, which always seems to be busy come sundown, was a crime scene once again.

I not feel good, nighttime I never go there. Six, seven oclock at nighttime, never come this way," said Ivica Ondlj, who also lives in the neighborhood.

Anderson said that she doesnt think upped patrols are necessary, simply more vigilance on the part of fellow neighbors helping police.

If theres ways as citizens that we can get information to them when we hear, smell, see things that seem suspicious," she said.An Amtrak train carrying Republican members of Congress to a retreat struck a garbage truck in Virginia on Wednesday morning.

Amtrak train crashes in Virginia with GOP lawmakers aboard

Train struck garbage truck  1 dead, at least 1 other hurt

Lawmakers were headed to annual Republican retreat

Speaker Paul Ryan, Florida representatives not hurt

The White House said one person was killed in the crash but no lawmakers or staff were seriously injured. The fatality was someone inside the truck. Another person was airlifted.



An aide confirmed that House Speaker Paul Ryan was on the train but is fine.

President Donald Trump was in the Oval Office when he was briefed on the situation by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.

Emergency workers were on the scene.

We're fine, but our train hit a garbage truck. Members with medical training are assisting the drivers of the truck. pic.twitter.com/0I9jOwHTmb  Rep. Greg Walden (@repgregwalden) January 31, 2018

Florida Reps. Daniel Webster, Gus Bilirakis and Ted Yoho all confirmed on Twitter they were on the train but said they're OK.

Due to media stories, just wanted to confirm that myself and the GOP conference are traveling on a train that has been involved in an accident. While I am fine, some people have sustained injuries. First responders are on scene and I am praying for everyones quick recovery.  Gus Bilirakis (@RepGusBilirakis) January 31, 2018

The chartered Amtrak train was taking lawmakers to an annual GOP retreat at the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. It crashed with the garbage truck at about 11:20 a.m. in Crozet, Virginia. Crozet is about 15 miles west of Charlottesville.

"Senior administration officials are in regular contact with Amtrak and state and local authorities. Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone that has been affected," the White House said in a statement early Wednesday afternoon.



Trump was expected to travel to West Virginia to address members of Congress at this retreat on Thursday.

Twitter Moment: Republican lawmakers in train crash

Republican lawmakers in train crashDNA has helped solve a nearly decade-old rape case that investigators had dubbed a cold case, according to Volusia County Sheriff's Office.

Adam Gregory Shuman has been charged with sexual battery

Shuman has been a registered sex offender since 1998

He is to face the judge at 8:30 a.m., Wednesday

RELATED: Sex offender charged in cold rape case, thanks to DNA testing

Now a man is behind bars in Indian River County and expected to face a judge Wednesday morning.

With the help of the Indian River County Sheriffs Office, investigators say that it took nine years to solve a cold rape case.

Adam Gregory Shuman, 41, is charged with sexual battery and he is being held at the Indian River County Jail on $50,000 bond. He is accused of sexually assaulting a 47-year-old woman along the sand dunes State Road A1A, according to a news release.

Deputies say the woman was visiting Ormond Beach nine years ago when she went for a walk at night.

The arrest affidavit described how the woman was stalked and then attacked by a man she did not know. The Volusia County Sheriff's Office stated that the man, who would have been 33 on Sept. 14, 2008, allegedly said that he was "into older women".

The woman begged him to stop, but he refused, stated the Volusia County Sheriff's Office.

Physical evidence and a rape kit from the womans forensic exam in the Sheriffs Office evidence unit was finally tested after a push from the state Attorney Generals Office in 2015 to ease sexual assault evidence kits backlog.

Attorney General Pam Bondi pushed for funding to test rape cases that had been backlogged. When that happened, evidence gathered from the Ormond Beach woman returned a hit.

Indian River County Sheriff's Office deputies caught Shuman on Tuesday. Shuman, a Vero Beach resident, is a registered sex offender since 1998.

"They told me the flood of emotions that just came back to her, you could just feel it on the other end of the phone. That just everything came back to her, that what happened to her in 2008. And now we are able to bring closure and that is what this is all about," said Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood.

Shuman is scheduled to go before an Indian River judge at 8:30 a.m. No word yet on when he will be brought back to Volusia County.After months of investigating the death of a young boy who washed up on the Galveston shoreline in October, the police department released a photograph of the boy on Tuesday in a last-ditch effort to identify him.

*Scroll down and click into the slideshow to view the graphic image released by authorities.

The 3- to 4-year-old boy, nicknamed "Little Jacob," was found dead on October 20 on the beach in front of the 700 block of Seawall Boulevard.

A reverse drift analysis conducted by the U.S. Coast Guard and National Weather Service -- which looked at currents and tidal patterns based on Galveston's topography -- indicated that the boy died sometime between October 17 and 18, and it is believed that Little Jacob's body was put in the water somewhere in the Galveston County area. An autopsy indicated the boy had been in the water for 12 to 48 hours before he was found.

The Galveston medical examiner have not yet determined a cause of death, but the boy had signs of abuse and neglect, including possible malnourishment, as he weighed somewhere between 26 and 30 pounds, half the weight of a normal boy his age. The medical examiner ruled out drowning, as there was no water found in his lungs or respiratory system.

The police department's decision to finally release a photo was made in consultation with the FBI, Coast Guard and Texas Child Protective Services.

Searches were also conducted in local, state and national databases looking for report of missing children matching the boy's description, but produced no promising results. These agencies had pursued and exhausted hundreds of leads, and DNA samples did not give any information that would identify the boy.

Detective Jeff Banks of the Galveston Police Department said he had been working the case non-stop since the boy was found and said the decision to release the photo was painful but necessary in trying to solve this case.

"We really have no other options," Banks said. "The most important thing is we get him identified. I hate to release that photo. It's terrible. But I think at the end of the day the objective of identifying him outweighs it."

The FBI is offering a $10,000 award for successful identification and location of the family members caring for the boy at the time of his disappearance. If the public has any information regarding the identity or circumstances surrounding the death of Little Jacob, they are encouraged to call 1-800-CALL FBI.

"We continue to believe that someone out there knows this child," said Capt. Joshua Schirard, spokesman for the Galveston Police Department. "Someone has seen him. That child deserves to be identified and properly laid to rest but for this to happen, input from the public is absolutely crucial."WALLINGFORD  Two Democrats have announced their intention to run against Senate Republican Leader Len Fasano in the 34th district this fall, meaning Fasano will likely have his first opponent since 2012.

AiliMcKeen, of Wallingford, and Josh Balter, of East Haven, will compete for the Democratic nomination, a race that may not be decided until Augusts primary.

Fasano, a North Haven resident, defeated Democrat Steve Fontana in 2012, receiving 58 percent of votes. He was first elected to the seat in November 2003.

McKeen works as a inventory specialist for a public insurance adjuster and has been an advocate for several causes over the last decade or so, including labor and workers rights issues, environmental conservation and farmland preservation.

After serving 20 years in the U.S. Navy, Balter began a career as a lawyer in Branford, specializing in family law.

Both Democrats, who are running for public office for the first time, said they were compelled to run by their own displeasure with the state legislature.

Ive seen an increasing dysfunction in the legislature and its really crippling our government, McKeen said.

I said, I can't take it anymore. It's time to put up or shut up, Balter said.

If elected, Balter and McKeen both said they would look to solve the states financial woes.

There are some things I want to cut, but mostly I want to raise revenue in ways that do not hurt the residents of Connecticut, Balter said.

Balter, who served as a medical specialist in the Navy, said he almost 100 percent supports the legalization of marijuana. Marijuanna offers medical benefits, Balter said, but added he wants to make sure it doesnt get in the hands of childrens.

I want it to be regulated like alcohol, he said. I want to tax the heck out of it, but I would give tax breaks for medical use.

McKeen said she would promote industrial growth of hemp, which currently cant be grown in Connecticut because marijuana is illegal.

Hemp is great for fiber and hemp is great for oil and biofuel, she said. We can't make use of this great crop that actually built America because marijuana is illegal.

Balter also wants to add highway tolls in ways that pose the lowest cost to Connecticut residents, while McKeen said she would probably support tolls.

While the federal government prohibits states from implementing border tolls, Balter said he would look to concentrate the tolls as much as legally possible along the borders at interstates 95 and 84, while putting the bare minimum amount of tolls along (interstates) 95 and 84 within the state. Balter also wants to give Connecticut residents a steep discount.

Fasano questioned how much revenue tolls would produce.

Nobody knows whether the tolls can make money or not, and anyone that tells you differently hasn't read the material, Fasano said.

Fasano also said he doesnt support legalization of marijuana, citing studies that show alcohol sales and alcoholism rates rose in Colorado after the state voted to legalize marijuana.

While Fasanohasnt made a formal announcement about his bid for re-election, he said he has filed paperwork and plans to run again. Fasano did announce last August that he wont join the crowded field looking to run for governor.

mzabierek@record-journal.com

203-317-2279

Twitter: @MatthewZabierekState Treasurer John Chiang laid out a plan Tuesday to create a public bank for marijuana merchants in open defiance of what he called an out of step Trump administration fixing to take the hose to Californias sizzling new herbal trade.

Chiang said he and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra have initiated a methodical and disciplined cost-benefit analysis to determine whether a public bank would work in California amid the threat of a federal crackdown.

The move comes 30 days after Californias recreational market officially began, creating a financial windfall for marijuana merchants and illuminating a serious problem. Store owners, growers and distributors are being forced to use cash because most banks wont open accounts for them while the federal government still considers marijuana illegal.

The lack of banking also complicates the states efforts to collect taxes from the industry. Every month, thousands of business owners head to the tax collectors office with piles of cash in shopping bags and suitcases.

We are contending with the emergence of a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry that needs banking services, and a private banking industry that is stymied by federal law in meeting the needs of the new industry, said Chiang, who is running for governor. The current administration is out of step with the will of the people, not only those in California, but the 29 states that have legalized either or both medicinal and recreational-use cannabis.

Industry leaders estimate that 70 percent of the more than 1,600 recreational and medical dispensaries in the state are still paying employees, suppliers and Californias new 15 percent cannabis tax in cash.

As revenues inevitably increase, they will be lugging larger stacks of 50s and 100s to the tax collector, a situation that everyone agrees makes businesses vulnerable to thievery, violent crime, money laundering and extortion.

The plan, recommended by an 18-member Cannabis Banking Working Group that Chiang set up last year, is to conduct a feasibility study. The treasurers office would figure out the costs, benefits and risks of such a system while the attorney generals office would determine legal and regulatory ramifications.

The studies would make recommendations by the end of the year on the structure and funding of such a bank as well as issues like lending standards, the clearing of checks, insurance, interbank transfers, and whether the bank would be brick-and-mortar or entirely online.

Chiang said his goal is to make sure the industry is fully above board and regulated to prevent sales to minors, to protect the publics health and safety, and ensure cannabis businesses behave as legitimate, tax-paying members of our economy.

The move comes less than a month after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded an Obama administration request not to prosecute cannabis businesses in states where the drug is legal. The decision would allow federal prosecutors to override state marijuana laws and file criminal charges.

The recent action taken by Attorney General Sessions threatens us with new national divisiveness and casts into turmoil a newly established industry that is creating jobs and tax revenues, Chiang said. Until the slow, clunking machinery of the federal government catches up with the values and will of the people it purportedly serves, states like California will continue to both resist, and more importantly, to lead.

Chiang, who is working with 19 other states that have legalized medicinal or recreational marijuana, said the feasibility study could provide a framework for other jurisdictions.

Its not known whether a single public bank can solve a problem that affects so many in the recreational cannabis industry, which is expected to top $5 billion in sales this year.

I am not convinced that a public bank in California will solve the problems, but it definitely wont hurt, said Hezekiah Allen, executive director of the California Growers Association, an advocacy group for more than 1,000 marijuana farmers, business owners and patients around the state. The problem is antiquated laws at the federal level. Congress must solve that issue, and it is incumbent on everyone who cares about public safety here in our state to call on our government on Washington, D.C., to provide relief.

California wouldnt be the first to establish a public bank. Chiang said the first public bank was established in Genoa, Italy, in the early 15th century to eradicate certain bad practices of bankers.

North Dakota founded one in 1919 after private banks failed to properly promote agriculture, commerce and industry, he said.

Chiang isnt the only one trying to solve the cash-only problem. Oakland and San Francisco also have brought up the idea of a public bank. Last week, state Sen. Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, introduced legislation that would allow state-chartered banks, credit unions and other financial institutions to open accounts and issue checks for marijuana retailers.

Chiang urged California in November to hire armored cars to help pick up the taxes, which industry experts predict will top $1 billion a year. But many courier services are fearful of being targeted by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, and nothing has been done.

Peter Fimrite is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @pfimriteThe Consumer Financial Protection Bureaus director can only be fired by the president for cause, a federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday, restoring security to a job that has become a political lightning rod.

When Congress created the bureau seven years ago, it specified that the director  after being nominated to a five-year term by the president and confirmed by the Senate  could only be removed for inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance. That standard differs from those in effect at most other federal agencies, whose leaders can typically be removed at will by a president.

Last year, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found the bureaus setup to be unconstitutional. On Wednesday, the full circuit court issued a ruling that vacated the earlier decision and upheld the constitutionality of the consumer bureaus structure.

There is no constitutional defect in the unusual independence that lawmakers granted to the bureaus director, the ruling issued on Wednesday said. The court added: Congresss decision to provide the CFPB director a degree of insulation reflects its permissible judgment that civil regulation of consumer financial protection should be kept one step removed from political winds and presidential will.

The Trump administration had argued in a court brief that the president should have the power to remove the agencys leader at will. A Justice Department official said, We are disappointed in the decision and reviewing our options.

The ruling, which can be appealed to the Supreme Court, stems from a lawsuit filed by mortgage lender PHH Corp. challenging the scope of the bureaus authority and a $109 million fine levied against the company. PHH did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the ruling, which left in place an earlier decision throwing out the fine.

The appeals court decision came too late to protect the suits initial target, Richard Cordray, who resigned in November. Cordray, a Democrat appointed by President Barack Obama, took an aggressive approach to regulation that made him unpopular with the financial industry.

Cordrays departure allowed President Donald Trump to install his own acting director at the agency, Mick Mulvaney, the White House budget director. Mulvaney has dropped some of his predecessors lawsuits and investigations, delayed new rules from taking effect and called for more humility and prudence at the bureau.

A spokesman for the bureau said, We are analyzing the decision.

Mulvaneys appointment is also the subject of a continuing court battle that the Trump administration has prevailed in so far.

Cordray, who is now running for governor of Ohio, praised the appeals courts ruling.

Much more to be said, but todays decision is all about maintaining independent law enforcement free from politics, he wrote on Twitter.On his first day as the new editor in chief of the Los Angeles Times, Jim Kirk held a meeting. His newsroom had suffered through several months of turmoil  and staff members had many questions.

One of the most poignant came from a columnist, Robin Abcarian: Had Kirk ever been a defendant in a sexual harassment lawsuit?

No, he replied, which Abcarian said prompted a round of applause.

Her question, Abcarian said in a telephone interview on Tuesday, was an earnest one. It came less than two weeks after Ross Levinsohn, who was named The Times publisher in August, was put on leave after a National Public Radio article detailed sexual harassment allegations made against him while he worked at other companies. (The New York Times reported this week that Tronc  the parent company of the Los Angeles Times  vetted Levinsohn before he was hired, but the company was not aware that he had twice been a defendant in sexual harassment lawsuits.)

Kirk, who had recently served as the interim executive editor of the Los Angeles Times, replaced Lewis DVorkin.

During his brief tenure as executive editor, DVorkin had sown widespread distrust and discontent among members of the newsroom. Some at the Los Angeles Times feared he would focus more on pageviews and advertising than on quality journalism.

In a statement announcing the changes on Monday, Justin C. Dearborn, the chief executive of Tronc, sought to reassure the staff, saying, We are continuing to invest in high-quality journalism, which will always be the companys top priority.

For his part, Kirk, 52, conveyed a willingness to improve morale and calm tensions in an interview with the The New York Times media reporter Sydney Ember.

My message to the newsroom will be that we will be working together as one team starting tomorrow to do the best work we can, he said one day before assuming control.

Many members of the newsroom seemed to welcome Kirks conciliatory attempts to move forward. And media experts, who have watched the drama unfold at the Los Angeles Times, have noted the importance of its reporters continuing to produce watchdog journalism.

As a New York Times article published on Tuesday noted, some believe that Los Angeles has, at times, lacked strong institutions that can bind it together. For decades, the newspaper has been one such cohesive force.Rackspace Hostings former Chief Technology Officer John Engates is leaving to pursue other opportunities after 17 years at the local tech company, Rackspace confirmed Wednesday.

Engates lost his title as CTO when the company announced in November that Datapipes Chief Technology and Security Officer Joel Friedman was going to take over that role at Rackspace. Engates was given the same role with a new title: Chief Evangelist, the company said. Rackspace officially closed last year its acquisition of Datapipe.

RELATED: Creepy photos of the old Windsor Park Mall before Rackspace bought it

A year after Rackspace was founded, in 2000, Engates joined the company as vice president of operations, according to Rackspaces website. He was named CTO in 2002.

John plans on staying in San Antonio to pursue other opportunities for the next phase of his career and plans to explore beginning a startup, the company said in an emailed statement. His last day is Feb. 2.

Engates sent to a note to his fellow Rackers announcing his departure:

Rackspace has been a tremendous opportunity for me, and I hope it will be for all of you. There are not many places where you can have as much fun and learn so much from so many smart, engaged, passionate people. I am proud of how big and successful Rackspace has become and Im excited to see where Rackspace will go next. Rackspace is in great hands for the next phase of its journey and there is so much opportunity to leverage the power and strength of Rackers to solve the challenges that companies face in their IT transformation and cloud journeys.

The news was first reported by the San Antonio Business Journal.It began with a fistfight in the middle of busy Third Street, deep in the Bayview neighborhood at Palou Avenue on Monday afternoon. The punches between two young men went on for about 20 minutes while a crowd gathered.

Then came the gunshots.

In a matter of seconds, one of the fighters was hit in the leg as between five and 10 bullets bit the air. A 60-year-old woman who had the bad luck to be driving by on Third Street at that moment took two rounds to her passenger door, and was apparently injured by one of them.

The crowd scattered as officers patrolling nearby pulled up, and for the next three hours crime-scene tape cordoned off the area while investigators hunted for bullet casings, witnesses and other clues that might lead to a suspect. But long before then, most of those nearby went back to whatever they were doing before the fight began.

On a downscale block dominated by two check-cashing places and a couple of quick-stop markets, there were more important things to tend to.

Its nothing new here, Ali Saheed, who minds the counter at the nearby Palou Market, said with a shrug. This block? There are always people fighting here. Theres a shooting every three or five days. Its life here.

Police said the two victims were taken to San Francisco General Hospital with non-life threatening wounds. Their names were not released. Witnesses told The Chronicle that the gunshots erupted around 2:30 p.m. and came from within the crowd on Palou Avenue, but no suspect was reported apprehended by nightfall.

Investigators were trying to determine the motives for the shooting and the fight, and police Sgt. Tracy McCray said footage from several video cameras in the area might be of help.

But frustration was written on her face as she stood near the crime scene not long after the shooting, the bullet-pocked gray sedan of the female victim parked a few feet away and a large crowd of youths across the street chatting amiably in front of a convenience store. Most of the youths were trying not to pay attention to a man on the sidewalk quietly offering packets of heroin for sale.

We try so hard to make life better, said McCray, who volunteers with a community group helping disadvantaged youth better their education and job prospects. Then something like this happens. Luckily this time nobody got killed.

But look at this, she said, pointing to the victims car. The woman who was in this  innocent, just driving down the street, and this? I mean... its just disheartening.

Not many at the scene wanted to be named, for fear of reprisal. One longtime resident named Howard said, I dont know what the fight was about, but when the shots came they were like, boom boom boom, that quick, and then it was over.

The bullets never have your name on them, but they find you anyway, he said. If youre lucky, youre not dead when they do.

One man who runs a business on the block held up a 9mm bullet he plucked off the pavement after a shooting a few months ago. Windows nearby got shattered in another shooting around then, he said. I stay inside when I hear the shots, and I keep to my own business, he said.

I wish they could make it safer here, Saheed said. Innocent people get hurt all the time. Its not right. There are a lot of good people here. Were just trying to live our lives and run our businesses.

Chronicle Staff Writer Josh Koehn contributed to this report.

Kevin Fagan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kfagan@sfchronicle.comLeshi Internet Information and Technology, the listed arm of technology conglomerate LeEco, expects about 11.6 billion yuan (1.84 billion U.S. dollars) in net losses last year.

The net loss for 2017 includes operation loss, bad debt provision for account receivable and provision for impairment of long-term assets, the Shenzhen-listed firm said in a statement Tuesday.

Leshi attributed its operation loss to the financial strain of related parties, liquidity issues, shrinking advertisement revenue and rising financing costs.

The company saw its shares plummet by the daily limit of 10 percent for five consecutive days since it restarted trading last week.

The plunge came after a suspension from April last year when the company said in a filing on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange that it was contemplating capital restructuring.

The planned deal to acquire a film arm from the troubled LeEco was finally dropped due to LeEco's financial woes.

The company warned investors of risks in light of its current operation.Contributed / Contributed

Bridgeport is hosting a one-day free adult flu clinic from 1 to 3 p.m. Friday at the Margaret E. Morton Government Center, 999 Broad St. The clinic is in response to the recent flu outbreak in Connecticut, which has already led to at least 32 flu-related deaths, including that of a 10-year-old boy.

In light of all the hubub surrounding the flu, Bridgeport Health Director Bond is encouraging residents to get vaccinated. The flu vaccine causes antibodies to develop that provide protection from different strains of the flu so that if you do get infected, the symptoms and impact will be lessened, said Bond in a news release.STAMFORD  A former Norwalk car dealer has been accused of using a mans credit card to pay off his own debt and fund a vacation to the Bahamas.

Anthony Boskello, 41, of Shelton, has been charged with first-degree larceny, money laundering, falsely procuring a credit card and charging more than $500 on a revoked credit card. He was released after posting a $50,000 court appearance bond.

According to Boskellos four-page arrest affidavit, New York City Police alerted Stamford authorities about $56,000 of illegal charges made to a local mans credit card.

Stamford police investigator Michael Stempien determined some of the money paid off credit card debt of Anthony Bochile.

Stempien could not find Bochile, but one of the credit card accounts that was paid down was traced to Euro Motors owned by Boskello on Main Street in Norwalk, the affidavit said. Investigators also determined about $11,000 of the charges were made directly to Boskellos car business, the affidavit said.

Stempien also determined charges in the Bahamas made to the Stamford mans credit card coincided with Boskello vacationing on the island, the affidavit said.

Police said Boskello racked up $22,000 worth of charges on the credit card and a second man is responsible for $34,000 worth of charges.

Boskello was charged last year with falsely reporting an incident after police say he claimed one of his cars that was involved in an accident had been stolen. Boskello, who says hes now a trainer at a fitness gym, pleaded not guilty to the charge, which is still pending at the Norwalk courthouse.

jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.comBRIDGEPORT  Tuesday nights shooting victim is still alive, despite incorrect information from city officials saying it was a homicide.

Police spokesman Av Harris said Wednesday afternoon that the 19-year-old shot Tuesday is still hooked up to life support.

Neurologists are doing final checks of vital signs to determine if hes brain dead, Harris said. If that determination is made, Harris said the breathing tube will be removed at some point.

It will end up as a homicide, he added.

Around 8:10 p.m. Tuesday, police Capt. Roderick Porter was en route to the scene and said the shooting victim was a 19-year-old who had been shot in the head.

Porter said Wednesday though theyre hoping for a miracle, his condition is very grave.

An officer called in hearing about eight gunshots around 5:40 p.m. Tuesday in the area of Palisade Avenue and Birdsey Street, according to dispatch reports. Several officers responded to the area and found a male shot on Price Street, Harris said Tuesday.

Medics were called to the scene as soon as officers discovered the victim. Roughly five minutes after the shooting, one officer with the victim said he was still breathing, but the officer asked that medics be expedited.

Police remained on Price Street for several hours Tuesday evening investigating the shooting.

We need the communitys help to help us stop this violence, Porter said Tuesday.Greater Danburys Congressional delegation was critical of what it called President Donald Trumps partisan rhetoric and divisive tone in his first State of the Union speech Tuesday night.

The President ... was more a Divider-in-Chief than a unifier, said U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, in a prepared statement. After the lofty rhetoric, tonights speech was mostly red meat partisan applause lines. There were vacuous promises but few specifics on issues like infrastructure, opioid addiction, veterans and other key issues.

The Associated Press characterized the Republican presidents speech as self-congratulation and calls for optimism amid a growing economy with dark warnings about deadly gangs, the scourge of drugs and violent immigrants living in the United States illegally.

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat, said Trumps extended focus on the criminal danger posed by immigrants was particularly hard to sit through.

If you were hoping for a unifying speech tonight, you got the opposite, Murphy said in a prepared statement. Between the long victory lap with Republicans over tax reform to the over-the-top demonization of immigrants, President Trump picked at pretty much every political scab that exists in Washington today.

Murphy said he was encouraged but only up to a point about Trumps call to spend $1.5 trillion on infrastructure over 10 years, and to fight the opioid epidemic.

I was glad to hear the president propose major new initiatives in drug pricing, infrastructure, opioid treatment, and job training, but by now Im used to the presidents rhetoric never resulting in actual policy proposals. Murphy said. I doubt we will see him follow through on any of these promises, but I reserve the right to be pleasantly surprised if he proves me wrong.

U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty, a three-term Democrat who represents greater Danbury and Connecticuts Fifth District, said she was encouraged by opportunities for bipartisanship, such as passing an infrastructure bill. But she said the presidents actions needed to match his words.

[W]e need to make sure that were all focused on working, not tweeting in the year ahead, Esty said in a prepared statement. Four a.m. tweets arent serving the American people well. At the end of the day, the public will judge the president and Congress on what we do, not what we say.Islamic State may have used its access to Twitter to spread its message of terrorism and recruit new members, but that doesnt make the social media company legally responsible for the deaths of two Americans in an ISIS-linked attack in Jordan, a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled Wednesday.

Lawyers for the widows of the two men argued in their lawsuit that Twitter had been essential to the emergence of the terror group and bore some responsibility for the deadly consequences.

Without Twitter, the explosive growth of ISIS over the last few years into the most-feared terrorist group in the world would not have been possible, the suit said.

The Americans, Lloyd Fields Jr. and James Creach, were former police officers working for U.S. companies training law enforcement officers in Jordan. They were among five people shot to death in November 2015 by a Jordanian police captain, later identified as a member of an Islamic State terror cell. Islamic State said it was responsible for killing the American crusaders.

Their wives, Tamara Fields of Florida and Heather Creach of Virginia, sued Twitter in its home city of San Francisco, saying the instant-messaging company had knowingly allowed ISIS to thrive through its service and should be held responsible for attacks it could have foreseen.

As an example of the Twitter activity, the womens lawyers showed a snapshot of an undated tweet, allegedly from Islamic State, that declared there is no life without jihad. As of December 2014, the suit said, the terror group had 70,000 Twitter accounts, of which 79 were official Islamic State accounts. Only recently, the lawyers said, had Twitter changed its rules to prohibit threats of violence or terrorism and ordered the suspension of accounts promoting terrorism.

But the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the suit failed to show a direct connection between Islamic States use of Twitter and the fatal attack.

At most, the (suit) establishes that Twitters alleged provision of material support to ISIS facilitated the organizations growth and ability to plan and execute terrorist acts, Judge Milan Smith said in the 3-0 ruling, which upheld a federal judges dismissal of the suit earlier.

But the (suit) does not articulate any connection between Twitters provision of this aid and (the womens) injuries from their husbands deaths or any connection between the gunman and Twitter, Smith said. He said a federal law allowing suits against those who aid in terrorist acts does not apply to a communications network whose use might make such attacks foreseeable.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online privacy organization in San Francisco, filed arguments supporting Twitter, saying that Internet users have a First Amendment right to receive information, including speech about terrorism.

Joshua Arisohn, a lawyer for the two women, criticized the ruling.

Twitter knowingly provided social media accounts to ISIS, and ISIS used those accounts to recruit thousands of new members, to fundraise millions of dollars and to spread its vile propaganda around the world, he said.

Requiring proof of a more direct connection to a particular attack, he said, contradicts the laws goal of holding enablers of terrorists accountable.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko1 Gymnastics ranch: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered a criminal investigation into claims that former doctor Larry Nassar abused some of his victims at a Texas ranch that was the training ground for U.S. womens gymnastics. Abbott ordered the Texas Rangers, the states top criminal investigations unit, to look into the Karolyi Ranch. It hosted training camps for more than a decade until earlier this year. Several gymnasts have said Nassar abused them at the ranch. Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison last week. More than 150 women and girls have said he had molested them under the guise of medical treatment.

2 Missile alert: A mistaken missile alert that caused widespread panic and confusion in Hawaii has led to the resignation of the states emergency management leader and the firing of the worker who sent the false warning. Maj. Gen. Joe Logan, the state adjutant general, says Hawaii Emergency Management Agency administrator Vern Miyagi resigned Tuesday. The employee who has been fired mistakenly sent an emergency alert to mobile devices and TV and radio stations warning of an incoming missile strike on Jan. 13.It all started when John Mims searched Google for franchises in pursuit of a business he and his wife, Susie Mims, could not only own, but truly enjoy.

There were several options, including hotels and restaurants, but those didn't really pique their interest. Then, they came across Wild Birds Unlimited, a franchise John Mims learned was listed as one of the top in the country.

Since John and Susie Mims share a deep love of nature, they decided Wild Birds Unlimited was the perfect fit for them.

The business opened its doors in December, and the Lake Houston Area Chamber of Commerce joined Wild Birds Unlimited for a grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony in Kingwood on Friday, Feb. 2.

The store primarily focuses on the hobby of backyard bird feeding, selling bird food, feeders, and birdhouses. They also sell other nature-related gifts.

"This looked like something fun," John Mims said. "The idea was to work in the franchise and teach others how to enjoy the natural world in their own backyard."

John Mims said backyard bird feeding is one of the most popular hobbies in the United States and the nature-related product industry is a much larger market than he had envisioned.

Wild Birds Unlimited divides its stores' regions into relatively large areas, explained John Mims, and there was already a location near their home in the Willowbrook area.

When the company suggested the Kingwood area for their location, the couple jumped at the opportunity.

"We jumped on Kingwood because we knew it was an excellent market for this and from the first time we came here, we fell in love with the area - the atmosphere and feeling of community," John Mims said. "Kingwood has been great. Kingwood is the 'Livable Forest,' so nature and bird feeding fit right in."

Susie and John Mims already give informative presentations at the library and community center, and he is scheduled for multiple presentations to be delivered outside of the store.

However, in-store educational presentations will be a regular part of what the business in Kingwood offers for the community.

The couple plans to invite specialists from wildlife rehabilitation groups and local parks to discuss a variety of nature-related topics, from backyard birds to which native plants will attract specific wildlife.

Wild Birds Unlimited of Kingwood is at 4523 Kingwood Drive, Suite 130.

For more information, visit www.facebook.com/wildbirdsunlimtedofkingwoodtx/ or https://kingwood.wbu.com/.Organizers are preparing for the quickly approaching 10th Annual Memorial Park Conservancy Brunch Run.

This year Clay Development & Construction, Inc., has signed on as the title sponsor. Clay is one of the largest land developers in Houston, having grown since its founding in 1998. The company has contributed to the development of streets, utilities and business parks across the city, and now they are contributing to the Brunch Run.

"With their continued service to our community, Clay is the perfect sponsor for the Brunch Run," said Shellye Arnold, MPC President & CEO. "We serve to support the day-to-day care of Houston's most beloved greenspace and this partnership works towards that goal."

The MPC Brunch Run is scheduled for March 10 and features a 4-mile run, Kids K, and a post-race brunch-themed party. With race day quickly approaching, Memorial Park Conservancy releases their 2018 Packet Pickup Schedule with their newest Packet Pickup Sponsors. Dicks Sporting Goods and Memorial Park Vision will each host a packet pickup event at their respective locations. The schedule can be found on the Brunch Run at www.brunchrun.org/packetpickup.

New this year is also the "I Just Wanna Brunch" registration option, which allows runners who like to sleep in/doing a long run, or non-runners who want to attend the post-race party to support the cause.

Funds raised from the MPC Brunch Run will be used to support the ongoing care and maintenance of Memorial Park, including maintenance of its extensive trail network, care of the urban wilderness, upkeep of restrooms, and de-littering. Registration is available online at www.brunchrun.org.

More Information At a glance What: MPC Brunch Run When: 8 a.m. Saturday, March 10 Where: Memorial Park Cost: 4-mile - $30; Kids Dash - $15; I Just Wanna Brunch - $15 (&$5 for the 2018 MPC Brunch Run shirt) Information: Facebook: www.facebook.com/pg/MPCBrunchRun; www.brunchrun.org Registration site: https://raceroster.com/events/2018/14702/brunch-run Race Day Schedule: 6:30 a.m. - Race Day Registration Opens; 7:30 a.m. - Kids 1K Start; 8 a.m. - 4-Mile Start; noon - Post Race Party Closes See More Collapse

For more information about registration, volunteering, or general race inquiries, please email support@irunproductions.com. For information about sponsoring or being a vendor at the post-race party, contact giving@memorialparkconservancy.org.EDWARDSVILLE  Southern Illinois University Edwardsvilles Arts & Issues program, in coordination with the SIUE Department of Physics Shaw Lecture Series, presents the next Arts and Issues program, Dr. Guion Guy Dr. Bluford Jr., the first African-American to fly into space, as he discusses The Future of the Space Program and International Space Station.

This event, which is sponsored by the SIUE Graduate School and the Dr. William Shaw Lectureship Endowment, begins at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 19 in the Meridian Ballroom located in the Morris University Center on campus.

Dr. Bluford has achieved many firsts in his aeronautical career. Hes not only the first African-American to fly into space, but is also the first African-American to be awarded NASAs coveted Astronaut Pin as well the U.S. Air Forces Command Pilot Astronaut Wings. He was also the first African-American to return to space four times.

A Philadelphia native, Dr. Bluford obtained his bachelor of science degree in aerospace engineering from Pennsylvania State University in 1964, a masters degree in aerospace engineering with distinction for the Air Force Institute of Technology in 1974, a doctor of philosophy degree in aerospace engineering with a minor in laser physics from the Air Force Institute of Technology in 1978 and a master in business administration from the University of Houston, Clear Lake, in 1987.

After graduating from Penn State, Dr. Bluford earned his Air Force pilot wings and flew 144 combat missions in southeast Asia as an F-4C fighter pilot. Sixty-five of those missions were over North Vietnam.

He served as a T-38 instructor pilot at Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas from 1967 to 1972 where he trained future Air Force and German fighter pilots.

After graduating from the Air Force Institute of Technology in 1974, Dr. Bluford was assigned to the Air Force Flight Dynamics Laboratory as Deputy for Advanced Concepts for the Aeromechanics Division and then as branch chief of the Aerodynamics and Airframe Branch until his selection to the astronaut program in 1978.

According to Dr. Blufords biography on APBspeakers.com, he flew as a mission specialist and flight engineer aboard STS-8 on the first night launch and landing of the Space Shuttle. He assisted the commander and pilot in developing techniques for night time operations. He also deployed the Indian National Satellite and operated the Continuous Flow Electrophoresis System.

In 1985, Dr. Bluford flew as a mission specialist on STS-61A, and led the international on-orbit payload team in the training and on-orbit operations of 76 experiments in the German D-1 Spacelab, his biography further states. In 1991, Dr. Bluford flew on STS-39, managing the operation of several experiments in support of the DOD Strategic Defense Initiative Office and then flew in 1992 on STS-53, a classified Space Shuttle flight.

He was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1997, in the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2010, and he has logged more than 5,200 hours in high performance jet aircraft. In addition, Dr. Bluford has flown 688 hours in space on four space shuttle missions.

Dr. Bluford resigned from the Air Force and NASA in 1993 to become the Vice President/General Manager of the Engineering Services Division of NYMA Inc, in Greenbelt, Maryland. In 1997, he became Vice President of the Aerospace Sector of Federal Data Corporation, and in 2000 he became Vice President of Microgravity R&D and Operations for the Northrop Grumman Corporation.

Dr. Bluford has served on numerous boards including the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Board (AIAA), the National Research Councils Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board, the Aerospace Corporation Board, the Space Foundation Board, and the ENSCO Corporation Board. In 2003, he was the Executive Director of Investigative Activities for the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. Dr. Bluford is currently the President of the Aerospace Technology Group in Cleveland, Ohio.

He has been awarded numerous awards including the Department of Defenses Superior Service, and three Meritorious Service Medals; the Air Forces Legion of Merit, Meritorious Service, Commendation and ten Air Medals; NASAs Distinguished Service, Exceptional Service and four Space Flight Medals; the State of Pennsylvanias Distinguished Service Medal and fourteen honorary doctorate degrees.

Dont miss this opportunity to hear personally about Dr. Blufords experiences and his thoughts on The Future of the Space Program and International Space Station on Feb. 19.

Tickets range in price from $20 for general admission, $18 for SIUE staff, faculty, retirees, alumni and those 55 and older or $13 for students at any school or university.

Arts & Issues tickets can be ordered online at artsandissues.com or in-person at the Morris University Center (MUC) Welcome Desk. The MUC Welcome Desk is open Monday through Friday 7:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. and Saturday 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. The Welcome Desk is closed on Sunday. To place your order by phone call 1-866-698-4253.For anyone who has ever arrived late to work, an apology will usually suffice. But for one British lord, it was too late to just say sorry.

It took less than 60 seconds for Michael Bates to arrive late, apologize profusely, offer his resignation and then leave the House of Lords on Wednesday.

"I want to offer my sincere apologies to Baroness Lister for my discourtesy in not being in my place to answer her question on a very important matter at the beginning of questions," the international development minister said, standing up in front of his peers.

"During the five years in which it's been my privilege to answer questions from this dispatcher box on behalf of the government, I've always believed that we should rise to the highest possible standards of courtesy and respect in responding on behalf of the government to the legitimate questions of the legislature," he continued.

"I am thoroughly ashamed at not being in my place and therefore I shall be offering my resignation to the prime minister . . . with immediate effect."

"I do apologize," said Bates as he gathered his belongings and swiftly exited the chamber.

Witnessing an apology turn into a resignation in a matter of seconds was simply too much for Bates' stunned peers.

In the dramatic video, other politicians can be heard exclaiming "No!" from their seats. While some laughed in disbelief, others attempted to reach out and pull Bates back to the chamber.

After Bates' resignation, Baroness Smith of Basildon interrupted the beginning of another speech to say: "An apology from Lord Bates is perfectly sufficient. It was a minor discourtesy of which any of us can be guilty of on occasion."

Talking to the Guardian, Baroness Lister said she has asked Bates to reconsider his decision.

"Of all the ministers I'd want to cause to resign, he'd be the last," she said.

It is still not known where Bates went after leaving the House of Lords or if he'll ever be back.The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention resigned her position on Wednesday after only half a year because of "complex financial interests" that repeatedly forced her to recuse herself from the agency's activities and kept her from testifying before lawmakers on public health issues.

According to a statement from the Health and Human Services department, Secretary Alex Azar, who was sworn in just two days ago, accepted Brenda Fitzgerald's resignation because she could not divest from those interests "in a definitive time period."

Fitzgerald, 71, a physician who served as the Georgia public health commissioner until her appointment to the CDC post in July, said in an interview late last year that she already had divested from many stock holdings. But she and her husband were legally obligated to maintain other investments in cancer detection and health information technology, according to her ethics agreement, requiring Fitzgerald to pledge to avoid government business that might affect those interests.

In Congress, some lawmakers had become increasingly concerned over Fitzgerald's ability to do her job effectively.

"It is unacceptable that the person responsible for leading our nation's public health efforts has, for months, been unable to fully engage in the critical work she was appointed to do," Sen. Patty Murray, Wash., the senior Democrat on the Senate committee that oversees the CDC, said in a statement Wednesday.

"Dr. Fitzgerald's tenure was unfortunately the latest example of the Trump Administration's dysfunction and lax ethical standards," Murray continued. "I hope the incoming Secretary of Health - nominated because his predecessor resigned for using taxpayer dollars for his personal luxury travel - will encourage President Trump to choose a new CDC Director who is truly prepared to focus on families and communities."

Murray repeatedly raised concerns about Fitzgerald's financial investments and the broad recusals necessary to avoid conflicts of interest. In December, the senator sent Fitzgerald a letter saying those recusals prevented her from fully engaging on public health issues including cancer and the opioid epidemic.

Fitzgerald had dismissed those concerns, saying that she was following ethics rules laid out by HHS and that her recusals were "very limited."

About three hours after HHS announced Fitzgerald's resignation, the CDC's chief operating officer, Sherri Berger, sent an agencywide email that announced Fitzgerald's resignation and said Anne Schuchat, the principal deputy, will be acting director effective Wednesday.

"The leadership team remains committed to CDC's mission of saving lives and protecting people," the email informed staff. Schuchat, an agency veteran who is highly regarded within the agency, on Capitol Hill and in the public health community, served as acting director after Fitzgerald's predecessor, Tom Frieden, stepped down a year ago.

A former HHS official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters, said that Azar and Schuchat overlapped at the department during the George W. Bush administration, when he was general counsel and she was already at CDC. "He knows her and interacted with her," the former official said, noting that Azar was in touch extensively with the CDC during the creation of the department's Office of Preparedness shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the anthrax attacks.

The ethics issues were part of a broader set of questions about Fitzgerald's general leadership at the agency, which Trump has targeted for deep budget cuts. Since her appointment, she had made few public statements. She waited 133 days before holding her first agencywide staff meeting, on Nov. 17. And she was scheduled several times to testify before Congress - on opioids and other issues - but had to cancel each appearance. Deputies were sent instead.

On Tuesday, Politico reported that Fitzgerald had purchased shares in a tobacco company shortly after becoming CDC director. An HHS spokesman confirmed "the potentially conflicting" stock purchases. He said they were handled by her financial manager.

"During the divestiture process, her financial account manager purchased some potentially conflicting stock holdings," spokesman Bill Hall said. "These additional purchases did not change the scope of Dr. Fitzgerald's recusal obligations, and Dr. Fitzgerald has since also divested of these newly acquired potentially conflicting publicly traded stock holdings."

Former CDC director Frieden said in two morning tweets Wednesday that Fitzgerald had impressed him as "someone who was committed to supporting public health and protecting Americans." He said he had spoken with her and believed her "when she says that she was unaware that a tobacco company investment had been made."

He added: "She understands that any affiliation between the tobacco industry & public health is unacceptable, & that when she learned of it she directed that it be sold."

Fitzgerald's departure took nearly all of the agency's staff and the nation's public health leaders by surprise. She was scheduled to give the keynote address on Friday at the International Society for Disease Surveillance's annual meeting in Orlando.

Her sudden exit at CDC comes at a precarious time for the agency.

"CDC is on the front lines of the worst outbreak of flu in nearly a decade," noted John Auerbach, president and chief executive of Trust for America's Health and a former CDC official. In addition, CDC personnel are still involved in hurricane recovery efforts in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. And theirs is the lead agency working with hospitals and doctors nationwide to guarantee that opiates are appropriately prescribed and that opioid-related deaths are accurately recorded, he said.

CDC programs around the world are at risk of losing their funding. A key source of funding - a prevention and public health fund - was just cut by $100 million as part of the tax bill Congress passed in late December.

"Who is going to protect CDC so that CDC can protect Americans?" Frieden asked.

An obstetrician-gynecologist for 30 years, Fitzgerald served as a major in the Air Force and ran unsuccessfully for Congress twice in the 1990s. Named Georgia's public health chief in 2011, Fitzgerald championed early child development, tobacco control and obesity prevention. She has been criticized for accepting funds from the Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Foundation for a childhood obesity program.

- - -

The Post's Amy Goldstein contributed to this report.A Maryland lawmaker has introduced a bill named for President Trump's son-in-law that is intended to stop judges from ordering the arrest of tenants who owe their landlords up to $5,000 in unpaid rent.

Del. Bilal Ali, D-Baltimore City, the bill's sponsor, called the measure the Jared Kushner Act, because Kushner's apartment management company has aggressively used the controversial debt-collection tactic.

A Baltimore Sun investigation last year found that corporate entities affiliated with Kushner Cos.' 17 apartment complexes in Maryland sought the civil arrest of 105 former tenants - the most of any Maryland company between 2013 and 2017. All had allegedly failed to appear in court to respond to charges of unpaid rent.

"It's like being jailed because you're poor," Ali said.

Under the bill, civil arrests for unpaid rent, known as body attachments, would be prohibited if the amount of debt is $5,000 or less.

Ali said he decided to name the bill after Kushner - a senior adviser at the White House - because "he has reaped a lot of wealth off of the backs of poor people. . . . He owns these properties and has to take ownership of that. . . . He just happens to be No. 45's son-in-law."

Christine Taylor, a spokeswoman for Kushner Companies, said the bill is "politically motivated."

Taylor said in a statement that the firm's attorneys in Maryland have handled "these matters consistent with other attorneys in similar situations there and in accordance with Maryland law. A body attachment is issued by a court for the failure to abide by two court orders, and is not in any way related to the ability or failure of a debtor to pay a debt. Also, it is not a process limited to landlord/tenant matters. . . . For a couple of local politicians to sponsor a bill called the Jared Kushner Act when neither Kushner Companies nor Jared Kushner, when he worked at Kushner Companies, had anything to do with these issues is petty."

Similar legislation - but without the catchy title - was proposed last year by state Sen. William Smith, D-Montgomery. Smith withdrew it after judges, the state bar association and several members of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee argued that some form of civil arrest still was necessary in unpaid rent cases.

Judges need to be able to compel tenants who are delinquent to provide information about their assets, these critics said, so the court can determine what they should have to pay. Smith said Wednesday that he plans to file another bill that would allow for that process, but would prohibit the practice of jailing those who cannot come up with relatively small amounts of unpaid rent.

Under Smith's proposal, which he said he developed in consultation with the office of Maryland's attorney general, Brian Frosh, D, and consumer advocacy groups, a renter who owes back rent would still get arrested. But instead of going to jail, the renter would fill out paperwork about their assets. Once the paperwork is completed, the renter would be let go. Ali's bill does not include that option.

"The problem we are trying to solve is people getting sent to jail because they're poor," Smith said. "Our approach is a more tailored approach to the problem of real people sitting in jail. Under this bill, that wouldn't happen."A leading official from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has spoken in support of the Chinese mainland operating an air route to ease traffic congestion.

The M503 route, which has been used since March 2015, is not a new route. Its position and design have been approved by the International Civil Aviation Organization, the official said in a response to concerns from the Taiwan civil aviation authority.

The response, dated Jan. 19, was relayed to Xinhua recently by an authoritative source who declined to be named.

The M503 route was launched to ease flight congestion on the A470 route and has made flying safer as the sky over the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta continues to get busier, the IATA official said.

The aviation industry considers operating the M503 route a "positive" move to ease congestion in Shanghai airspace, the official said.

Airlines from Hong Kong, Macao and southeast Asian regions began flying north to south on the M503 route in March 2015.

The Taiwan aviation authority, however, expressed concerns over the start of the south-to-north operation on the route on Jan. 4 this year.

The Chinese mainland insists that there is no ground for concerns.

The Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council said the south-to-north operation of the M503 route is close to the mainland in the Taiwan Strait and in the Shanghai Flight Information Region.

"It involves no Taiwan flight route or destination and will not affect Taiwan flight safety," said Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, at a recent press conference.Paleontologist Matthew Lamanna can still remember the day in 2014 when a colleague, Hesham Sallam, emailed him detailed pictures of fossils that had just been unearthed by his team in Egypt.

From one photo, depicting the remains of a large lower jaw bone, Lamanna knew right away that Sallam had found a dinosaur.

"No pun intended, my jaw did almost literally hit the floor when I saw that," Lamanna, the principal dinosaur researcher at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, told The Washington Post. "When you stare at dinosaur bones for a lot of your life, you learn to recognize parts of dinosaur bones pretty instantaneously."

But this wouldn't just be any dinosaur. Sallam and his team at Egypt's Mansoura University had discovered a new species from the late Cretaceous Period, between 100 to 66 million years ago, an era sometimes referred to as the end of the "Age of Dinosaurs."

ALSO READ: Top places to see the 'super blue blood moon' in the Bay Area

Even nearly four years after the discovery, the giddiness in Lamanna's voice is evident as he talked about the importance of the initial pictures. (In fact, his excitement was so palpable that he was later asked to join the team, he added.) The newly discovered dinosaur, formally named Mansourasaurus shahinae, was part of the Titanosauria group of sauropods - long-necked plant-eaters that include "some of the largest animals known to science," according to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, which announced the finding Monday.

The Mansourasaurus would have been roughly the length of a school bus and weighed about the same as an African bull elephant, with bony plates embedded along its back.

But more important, "late Cretaceous" dinosaur fossils in Africa had long eluded paleontologists, partly because vegetation covers much of the land where they might be found there, the museum stated. This skeleton, however, would ultimately be surprisingly complete, including the skull, the lower jaw, neck and back vertebrae, ribs, most of the shoulder and forelimb, part of the hind foot and pieces of dermal plates.

"These things evolved 220 million years ago and went extinct about 66 million years ago," Lamanna said. "Even like part of a tail from one of these sauropods would have been great. . . . The fact that Hesham [Sallam] had found a dinosaur from the end of the Age of Dinosaurs and it was a sauropod that had part of a head, it was just completely bonkers."

He paused.

"It was - I don't really exaggerate - it was like seeing the Holy Grail of dinosaurs," Lamanna said.

ALSO READ: New dinosaur looks like odd mix of duck, croc, ostrich, swan

The research team published their findings on the Mansourasaurus shahinae Monday in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Scientists said the fossils will help fill in important gaps about how dinosaurs evolved in Africa during a period when the continents had neared the end of their shift from a single giant land mass to where they are, more or less, today.

"Africa remains a giant question mark in terms of land-dwelling animals at the end of the Age of Dinosaurs," Eric Gorscak, a postdoctoral research scientist at the Field Museum, said in a statement. "Mansourasaurus helps us address long-standing questions about Africa's fossil record and paleobiology - what animals were living there, and to what other species were these animals most closely related?"

As it turns out, Gorscak added, analyzing the Mansourasaurus's fossils have revealed that it was more closely related to dinosaurs from Europe and Asia than those in southern Africa or South America.

"Africa's last dinosaurs weren't completely isolated, contrary to what some have proposed in the past. There were still connections to Europe," Gorscak said. But he added that there was far more to be discovered from the Mansourasaurus fossils. "It's like finding an edge piece that you use to help figure out what the picture is, that you can build from. Maybe even a corner piece."

ALSO READ: California's most famous trees and where to find them

The scientific name Mansourasaurus shahinae is not only a nod to Mansoura University but also to Mona Shahin, who helped develop the school's vertebrate paleontology initiative. The Mansourasaurus fossils have been moved to the fossil collection at the university, about 75 miles north of Cairo, and will stay there to be studied. Lamanna also hopes the finding will be a boon to paleontology in Africa, where field research has lagged compared with that in North America, Europe and Asia.

"That's not because the southern hemisphere continents have fewer dinosaurs or less interesting dinosaurs," Lamanna said. "It's just the simple fact that paleontology has occurred for longer in (Europe and America)."

Sallam, who led the Mansourasaurus expedition, agreed.

"What's exciting is that our team is just getting started," Sallam said. "Now that we have a group of well-trained vertebrate paleontologists here in Egypt, with easy access to important fossil sites, we expect the pace of discovery to accelerate in the years to come."Chicago business executive Todd Ricketts is expected to accept the role of Republican National Committee finance chair, according to four people familiar with the matter.

A formal vote was expected to happen Tuesday. Ricketts is working closely with the White House and RNC leaders on the appointment, these people said, requesting anonymity to describe private conversations.

Casino mogul Steve Wynn, a friend of President Donald Trump's, stepped down Saturday as the party's finance chair after dozens of people told the Wall Street Journal that Wynn engaged in sexual misconduct for decades. The newspaper reported that he paid one manicurist a $7.5 million settlement over claims that he forced her to have sex. Wynn has denied the claims.

Ricketts, who last year was Trump's pick to be deputy secretary of the Commerce Department, withdrew over a dispute with the Office of Government Ethics, citing his financial portfolio as too difficult to entangle.

One of his brothers is Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, R, who was elected in 2014.

Todd Ricketts also was recently a finalist to become president of the influential Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Ricketts, a son of TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, is also on the board of the Chicago Cubs and TD Ameritrade. The Ricketts are large donors in Republican politics and have long-standing relationships with GOP congressional leaders.

In the past five years, Todd Ricketts has given more than $493,000 to federal candidates and super PACs, according to federal filings. His parents contributed $28.4 million to federal political committees in the same period.Every now and again, President Donald Trump chooses to embrace the office of the presidency, with all its pomp and power, if only to prove that he can.

The moments rarely last long, but they are notable when they arrive - at an international gathering in Switzerland, during a Medal of Honor ceremony or in an address to a joint session of Congress.

Trump's first State of the Union address, Tuesday night, was designed to be one such moment. He offered a message of national unity and optimism, one that touched on the just-passed Republican tax plan, his new immigration proposal, and trade, infrastructure and national security.

"No people on earth are so fearless, or daring, or determined as Americans," he said, playing rhetorical notes that president's have long employed in the speech. "If there is a mountain, we climb it. If there is a frontier, we cross it."

The question was whether the swirl of conflict and diversion that monopolized so much of his first year in office would distract from the message he was trying to deliver.

After a year as president, Trump has proved himself capable of reading words from a teleprompter. When he chooses, the former reality-TV star can summon a performance to rival that of Martin Sheen as the aspirational President Jed Bartlet on "The West Wing."

What is less clear, however, is whether he has the ability - or even the interest - to turn his well-delivered words into tangible results without self-sabotaging or undermining his and his team's best intentions.

"There's no question that President Trump can deliver a speech," said Michael Steel, a Republican strategist. "The question is whether he has the discipline to turn his words into policies that help the American people - and when he'll set off another counterproductive Twitter firestorm about something like Russia, the NFL, or Bruno Mars at the Grammys."

Like the campaign that elected him, Trump's time in office has been built around the idea that what the nation needs now is a citizen-leader, not another politician, and that his primary role is one of disruption.

"It's so easy to act presidential, but that's not going to get it done," Trump said at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, in July.

Yet one of the reasons Trump is able to credibly elevate both his rhetoric and the stature of his office on certain, scripted occasions is that he has a willing audience that is desperate to believe.

Congressional Republicans, for instance, are so worried privately about the impetuous leader of their party that they cling to any grain of normalcy - repeating it like a mantra to reassure themselves that Trump is, in fact, able to rise to the occasion of commander in chief.

Many Trump supporters, too, say they wish he would not tweet as much as he does or would act more presidentially. And even many Democrats yearn for a return to normalcy of sorts, where a reported $130,000 payoff to a porn star who allegedly had an affair with Trump - a surefire scandal in any other administration - is not dismissed as a C-list sideshow.

Much of the public appears to anticipate these fleeting moments in which Trump seems to understand and channel the gravity and import of the presidency, playing the role of a traditional leader.

The problem, however, is that Trump so far has proved himself less a method actor than one able to briefly inhabit a role before slipping back into his more comfortable self.

His policy positions are often only temporary notions, his calls for unity and bipartisan cooperation can be contradicted in the same day, and his ideological vision is often undermined by the laws that he ultimately signs. The facts he uses to defend his positions are also regularly proved to be false.

And none of this lends itself to the traditional role of the State of the Union, which voters, legislators and foreign governments look to as a guide to the nation's political agenda.

But Trump embraced many of the tropes that have long defined the event. He repeatedly turned to the gallery to tell the stories of regular people he had invited to attend - law enforcement officials, workers who had benefited from his policies, the parents of crime victims, and even a 12-year-old who put flags on the graves of fallen veterans.

He warned American enemies of the nation's might, detailed the economic successes of the last year and ticked off a raft of future initiatives, including $1.5 trillion in infrastructure spending, a new prisoner training effort and a goal of lowering prescription drug prices.

It was not the first time Trump demonstrated he can play the role when necessary.

He delivered a similar address before a joint session of Congress last February. He began by praising Black History Month and denouncing threats at Jewish community centers. He painted a soaring vision of American renewal and economic optimism. And he laid out a series of carefully fact-checked arguments for his big policy pushes - for a tax overhaul, trade policy and infrastructure spending.

"If we are guided by the well-being of American citizens, then I believe Republicans and Democrats can work together to achieve an outcome that has eluded our country for decades," he said at one point about his plans for immigration.

Immediately after that address, in which Trump also honored the widow of a slain Navy SEAL - a moving moment that led to a sustained standing ovation - Van Jones, a liberal commentator on CNN, declared, "He became president of the United States in that moment, period."

Within days, Trump's unifying message was a distant memory. He accused former President Barack Obama, without evidence, of having Trump's "wires tapped" in Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign. The FBI's director later said there was said there was "no information" to support Trump's accusation.

"The real problem is that people just do not listen to his words and treat them with the seriousness that they afford other presidents," said Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian. "He has been on so many sides of so many issues that even if it is a good speech, people will figure that it is not going to last long."

Republican leaders in Congress have nonetheless embraced the idea that Trump would stick to his broadly palatable script. Republican polls in many key swing districts showed the president continues to poll below GOP incumbent members of Congress.

That is not the only concern in a midterm election year in which the fortunes of the president's party typically hinge on his popularity. In 2017 elections in Alabama, Virginia and the suburbs of New York and Philadelphia, concern about the president's behavior proved to be a drag for Republican candidates by turning off suburban voters and driving Democratic turnout.

Republicans are hopeful that Trump will stay focused over the coming months on selling GOP tax cuts as a boon to the middle class. "Success in the midterms hinges on selling the tax bill to the American people," said one senior Republican strategist. "To do that successfully, we need the president and the White House making the case every day instead of every sixth day."

Tuesday night in front of Congress was a good place for Trump to start. In the pecking order of public presidential events, the State of the Union remains perhaps the most powerful platform, usually attracting between 30 million and 50 million television viewers, including a broad cross-section of Americans who do not follow day-to-day politics.

For nearly 90 minutes, Trump performed in the tradition of his office, praising the notion that he oversees a single nation with a single goal. "All of us, together, as one team, one people, and one American family can do anything," he said.

Now the clock starts, testing how long he can stick with that message of unity.

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Video: President Trump gave his first State of the Union address on Jan. 30. Here are the highlights from his speech to Congress. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

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Video: President Trump gave his first State of the Union address on Jan. 30. Here are the highlights from his speech to Congress.(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

Embed code:China's relationship with the UK after it leaves the European Union will come under focus, with British Prime Minister Theresa May set to begin a three-day visit to China on Wednesday.

May will aim to build on the "golden era" of relations between the two countries forged when President Xi Jinping made a state visit to the UK in October 2015.

May, who will go to Shanghai and Wuhan as well as Beijing, will lead a delegation of leading business figures including senior executives from the HSBC and Standard Chartered bank groups and the London Stock Exchange. Britain is trying to promote its expertise in financial services.

Her visit follows that of another leading European politician, French President Emmanuel Macron, to Beijing earlier this month. It will be May's first visit to China since attending the G20 Summit in Hangzhou in September 2016.

Lady Barbara Judge, chair of the Institute of Directors, one of the UK's leading business organizations, who was visiting Beijing ahead of the British prime minister's arrival, said May coming to China was particularly important for Britain, with Brexit looming. The UK is scheduled to leave the EU in March 2019.

"No one is yet sure of what the ultimate outcome of the Brexit negotiation will be, but, whatever happens, both the friendship and trade relations between the UK and China will be paramount," Judge said.

"The fact the prime minister has chosen to come here with a big business delegation is evidence of the fact that our government and investor and trade establishment feel that China is of prime importance as a trading partner for the UK."

Liu Xiaoming, China's ambassador to Britain, said it was important to build on the success of Xi's trip to the UK and to cement cooperation in other areas, including China's Belt and Road Initiative.

"The forthcoming visit is a chance for the UK and China to show they have well in mind the larger picture of the international landscapes as their bilateral relations and respect each other's core interests and major concerns," he said.

During Xi's trip to the UK, some 30 billion pounds (.07 billion, 266.7 billion yuan) of trade agreements were reached between the two countries, including a 6 billion pound investment in the new Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant in Somerset as well as investment in the UK's new HS2 high-speed rail network.

The UK had a trade deficit with China of 25.4 billion pounds in 2016, but this is likely to be reduced, with China in the future expected to have a huge appetite for the country's services.

Britain's services exports to China in 2016 were 3.3 billion pounds, 35 percent of which comprised travel services with the UK being a major destination for Chinese tourists, according to official UK data. Overall it had a trade surplus in services of 1.7 billion pounds.

Motor vehicles were Britain's largest export category, making up 3.7 billion pounds of the 16.8 billion pounds in total exports. China was the UK's eighth-largest export market and fourth-largest source of imports in 2016.

One of May's priorities will be to lay the groundwork for a free-trade agreement between Britain and China after Brexit, although because of still being a EU member no specific terms can be discussed.

"The UK can't do any bilateral agreements now because it is still a member of the European Union, but they can talk in general about how things can work and indicate a desire to go forward when the time is right," Judge said.

Liam Halligan, the economist and commentator, said leaving the European Union will create an opportunity for the UK to sell more of its services to China with its historic links to Hong Kong giving it an advantage.

"The UK is the world's biggest exporter of financial services and none of the other EU countries are anywhere near us on financial services," he said.The Houston ISD has announced the appointment of Joseph Williams, a 22-year veteran educator, as the new principal of Wheatley High School.

The district said in a news release Tuesday that Williams is "known for transforming underperforming schools into thriving campuses."5G, the next-generation wireless network, is an emerging technology that many believe will have major implications for business, the military and national security.

5G's profile was raised after the news outlet Axios reported that a National Security Council official suggested that the US government take over the deployment of a 5G network to counter cybersecurity fears about China.

But the top US communications regulator, wireless companies and some lawmakers oppose such a move.

"Any federal effort to construct a nationalized 5G network would be a costly and counterproductive distraction from the policies we need to help the United States win the 5G future," Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai, a Republican appointed by Trump, said in a statement on Monday.

Basically, 5G offers extremely fast wireless communication that will dramatically increase the speed at which data is transferred. 5G will make it easier to download and upload Ultra HD and 3D video and connect thousands of internet-connected devices.

"(The) first generation was the very first, analog, mobile networks in the 1980s and 1990s, and 2G was the first digital mobile in the 1990s and early 2000s," said Aija Leiponen, a professor at Cornell University's Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management.

"The core idea regarding 5G is to enable the 'Internet of Things' (like) automated machine-to-machine communication between devices and appliances, the smart electricity grid and home appliance networks, in addition to industrial networks," Leiponen said. "A key consumer application may be augmented reality that requires much more bandwidth than current telecom networks can provide."

She said American companies like Cisco, Verizon, Intel and Qualcomm are investing in the technology together with European and Asian partners like Nokia, Ericsson, Samsung and LG. "IBM is also doing significant R&D (research and development) in this area," Leiponen said.

As two major US telecommunication companies (AT&T Corp and Verizon) said they intend to offer limited 5G service this year, China is also busy developing super-fast 5G.

A report from the China Academy of Information and Communication Technology predicted that 5G will drive 6.3 trillion yuan (0 billion) of economic output in the mainland by 2030.

Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and ZTE Corp are two of the companies working to develop 5G and related technologies.The Midland County Sheriffs Office has released photos from the crime scene where remains were discovered Sunday.

The photos posted on the MCSOs Facebook page were released to show the difficulty in this crime scene, according to the post.

The discovery of a skeletal foot was made in a pit in the area of the 5000 block of West County Road 116 at about 6:20 p.m. Sunday.

The skeletal remains, which are believed to be female, were discovered after investigators were led to the WCR 116 area after receiving information in reference to a possible homicide. A K9 team on Saturday began searching an 18-acre area, and the dogs made hits on two locations in a pit that was mostly filled in.

RELATED: Painter: Skeletal remains discovered in Midland County

MCSO investigators and Texas Rangers uncovered mostly intact skeletal remains, according to a press release. The remains will be sent to a forensic anthropologist in Tarrant County to determine the cause of death and identification.

The discovery could be tied to the case of two missing teenagers from October 2015, according to a previous Reporter-Telegram article.

During a press conference on Monday afternoon, Midland County Sheriff Gary Painter didnt release information about the missing teenagers hometowns.

We started searching, and we found an individual in a house that had some of their property, Painter said. We could not find the teenagers. We had nothing further to go on, and we pray that this case will tie back to that and that we will be able to positively identify.

Right now, were back to excavating, Painter said. We believe theres another body.

The sheriff said the case will be worked seriously and that arrest or search warrants could come in the future. The property owner isnt considered a person of interest, he said.

Information the MCSO received a few weeks ago revealed a suspect was no longer in the county, according to the press release.

The search efforts for a possible second set of remains continued on Tuesday.The Trump administration is planning to build 250 miles of border fence in South Texas, according to the office of U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Laredo.

The construction is proposed in the presidents request for $25 billion for border security, which hes asked for as part of a package to legalize nearly 2 million young immigrants who are in the country illegally.President Trump gave his first State of the Union address in Washington, D.C. Tuesday night and Texas lawmakers had quite a bit to say about it.

Several posted photos from the event with Sutherland Springs hero Stephen Willeford. He and his wife, Pam Willeford, were guests of U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, and spent time with lawmakers before the speech began, according to social media posts.WASHINGTON - In an abrupt reversal, the U.S. military on Tuesday said it made a mistake when it ordered an independent federal auditor to stop providing the public with information about U.S. war efforts in Afghanistan that help to measure how the 16-year-old stalemated war is going.

Just hours after the report was publicly released, the U.S.-led NATO coalition in Afghanistan issued a statement blaming "human error" for the order, and provided a few segments of the data that has been restricted. The newly released information revealed that 44 percent of Afghanistan is contested or under the control of insurgents.

Other previously available information on the size, attrition and performance of the Afghan forces continue to be unavailable.

President Donald Trump has announced a new Afghanistan strategy aimed at breaking a battlefield stalemate by accelerating Afghan-led operations against the Taliban and other insurgent groups in the country. On Monday, Trump railed against the recent string of attacks in Afghanistan, and ruled out any U.S. discussions with the Taliban as part of the effort to seek peace talks between the Afghan government and the insurgents.

The auditing agency, established by Congress and known as the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, revealed the new gag order in a three-month assessment of conditions in Afghanistan released overnight.

The restrictions seemed to contradict previous Pentagon assertions that it was striving to be more transparent about the U.S. war campaigns.

In response to the release of the report, Navy Capt. Tom Gresback, coalition spokesman, said Tuesday that about 56 percent of the country's 407 districts are under government control, 30 percent are contested and 14 percent are under insurgent control.

"It was NOT the intent of Resolute Support to withhold or classify information which was available in prior reports," Gresback said in an email. "A human error in labeling occurred."

Late last year, a Pentagon report said the Afghan government has control or influence over 60 percent of the population, while insurgents had control or influence over approximately 10 percent of the population, with the remainder contested.

In November, Gen. John Nicholson told Pentagon reporters that about 64 percent of the population was controlled by the government, 24 percent live in contested areas, and the Taliban control the remaining 12 percent.

John F. Sopko, head of the auditing organization, expressed disappointment that the Pentagon initially had forbidden release of the data.

"The number of districts controlled or influenced by the Afghan government had been one of the last remaining publicly available indicators for members of Congress - many of whose staff do not have access to the classified annexes to SIGAR reports - and for the American public of how the 16-year-long U.S. effort to secure Afghanistan is faring," he added.China did not and cannot force foreign enterprises to transfer technology to the country, and any cases of technology transfers are enterprises' own choices driven by the market, Miao Wei, head of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), said at a press conference on Tuesday, adding that China has been taking steps to better protect intellectual property rights.

"China couldn't even force State-owned companies to hand over their technology during China's planned economy era. Now it's impossible for the Chinese government to do that to any foreign firms," Miao said.

The comments came after U.S. President Donald Trump's accusations on January 18 that China had forced U.S. companies to hand over their intellectual property in order to operate in the domestic market.

Lu Kang, spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, responded to the accusations at a press briefing later on the same day, saying that China had never done this, and that if such practices had happened, it was without any government intervention.

China will further open up its market and will welcome foreign capital, including those from the US, to invest in China and share the benefits of China's development, Miao noted.

Separately, the MIIT also denied reports that China will block virtual private networks (VPNs), saying that the regulations only target companies and individuals who conduct illegal cross-border operations without government approval and will not affect people's normal visits to foreign sites.It seems another day, another headline about a new sexual assault or sexual harassment allegation against a public figure. The fallout from these allegations has been swift for the most part, as many of the accused men  Louis C.K., Charlie Rose, Tavis Smiley and Sen. Al Franken to name a few  have either been fired, resigned or stepped down from the various positions of power they occupied.

The allegations also sparked #MeToo, a social media movement through which people across the country share their stories of sexual harassment and assault.

We are having a long overdue public conversation about sexual assault and harassment, and at least some who have abused their power are having to face consequences for their actions. However, this isnt enough to make long-lasting changes to our misogynistic culture. Boys need to be taught better about how to interact with girls in an appropriate and respectful manner from a young age.

RELATED: The #MeToo movement is starting to show generational divides

Allegations of sexual harassment and assault need to be adjudicated. Girls need to be nurtured from a young age to believe in their self-worth, a belief that must be shared by men and women. More women need to be promoted and elected to positions of power. Norms need to change without the pendulum swinging too far toward hypersensitivity.

The phrase boys will be boys and is he behaving himself? are often thrown around without much thought. These words exemplify male privilege and excuse the ways society devalues and objectifies women while making it clear that this is a mans world.

Male privilege is everywhere: in television and movies and gaming, where women are portrayed in a certain light and relegated to certain roles; in the lyrics of the most popular songs; and in the demeaning language that may be used when women are being pursued in a bar or harassed on the street.

Educating boys about male privilege has the potential to be life changing. Imagine a world where men ask for permission before they walk into a womans personal space and start dancing with her at a party.

Or where boys are more conscious of the words they use to describe the girl they have a crush on.

Or where musicians use more tasteful adjectives to describe women in their songs.

Or where men are checked by their friends when they treat women as objects of ownership.

OPINION: The #MeToo movement is at a dangerous tipping point

The list goes on and on. Most guys dont realize they live in a world full of male privilege, and therefore lack awareness that their behavior or words may be disrespectful and demeaning.

Boys have to be taught from a young age, by both men and women, how to respectfully interact with girls.

This can be done in many ways: We as individuals can all call out and correct misogynistic language and actions when we see them.

Parents and youth programs can give young people examples of double standards that exist between girls and boys, and between women and men in society.

And teachers can engage youths to work and collaborate with peers from all genders and races, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds in safe and supporting classroom environments.

Of course, there are entrenched power dynamics at work that may have to be addressed so nobody is put in a compromising situation by a boss or anyone with power over them.

But educating young boys and adolescents about the importance of respecting women, about the value women bring to the table, and about their own male privilege will go a long way in fixing a misogynistic culture that has been long overdue for change.A new report warns of at least 1.8 million job losses if the North American Trade Agreement ends. This includes the loss of 154,000 jobs in Texas.

Those bleak numbers come courtesy of Trade Partnership Worldwide, which prepared the report on behalf of Business Roundtable, a Washington D.C.-based association of top U.S. executives.

The report studied two scenarios of a U.S. withdrawal from NAFTA, which was signed in 1994.

Under the first scenario, the U.S. reverts to most-favored nation tariffs with Mexico and Canada while the other two nations resume their free trade. Thats the better scenario of 1.8 million job losses.

RELATED: 7 San Antonio companies that could suffer if NAFTA ends

The second scenario has Mexico raising tariffs to maximum rates  known as bound tariffs. Under that scenario, the job losses balloon to 3.6 million, including more than 300,000 in Texas.

Prices rise. Jobs would grow in China and manufacturing would falter in Michigan.

This type of forecast is hardly surprising. Most economists agree NAFTA has been beneficial to the U.S. economy. The Congressional Research Service has estimated NAFTA boosted GDP by 0.5 percent.

While NAFTA critics have derided the agreement as outsourcing manufacturing jobs, it more than likely has preserved manufacturing jobs in North America  and the U.S.  that otherwise would have gone to Asia, mainly China.

In fact, the study forecasts that if NAFTA is terminated, employment would increase in China, Japan, Germany and South Korea.

While there are aspects of NAFTA that merit updating and review, terminating this agreement is not in the national interest, let alone the interests of Texas.

READ MORE: San Antonio Chamber of Commerce joins 24 supporting NAFTA

Lets remember that in 2016, the Lone Star State led the nation with $232 billion in exports, according to the International Trade Association.

Our top export destination? Mexico.The owner of the Lone Star Brewery is facing foreclosure again  this time, on an abandoned industrial site on the western border of the brewery, which remains vacant after plans for a $300 million redevelopment project fell through.

The 3.1-acre property on Probandt Street will be sold on the steps of the Bexar County Courthouse on Tuesday morning, county property records show. It is owned by Lone Star Brewery Development Inc., a subsidiary of Houston investment company Parkview Capital Credit.1 Sex crimes probe: Pope Francis is sending the Vaticans most respected sex crimes expert to Chile to investigate a bishop accused by victims of covering up for the countrys most notorious pedophile priest. The Vatican said Tuesday that Maltese Bishop Charles Scicluna would travel to Chile to listen to those who have expressed the desire to provide elements about the case of Bishop Juan Barros. The Barros controversy dominated Francis just-ended trip to Chile and exposed Francis blind spot as far as clerical sex abuse is concerned. Even one of his closest advisers, Cardinal Sean OMalley, publicly rebuked him for his treatment of victims and tried to set him straight.

2 Fugitive leader: Catalan separatist lawmakers who want to re-elect their fugitive ex-president suffered a setback Tuesday when the house speaker postponed a planned parliament meeting, saying it would not take place until there were guarantees Spanish authorities wont interfere. The decision by Roger Torrent came after Spains top court ruled Saturday that Carles Puigdemont, who fled to Belgium three months ago and faces arrest if he returns, could be re-elected only if physically present in the parliament in Barcelona. The court also ordered that he must obtain permission to appear at parliament from the judge investigating him over Catalonias independence bid.The U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are investigating whether Apple Inc. violated securities laws in its disclosures about a software update that slowed down older iPhone models, according to a media report Tuesday.

The government has requested information from the company, said the people, who asked not to be named because the probe is private, according to the Bloomberg report.

It said that the inquiry was in early stages and it was too soon to conclude any enforcement would follow.

In December last year, Apple confirmed the long-held suspicion of some users that it is deliberately limiting the iPhones' processing speed as they age.

Apple said that it planned to release a new software update that would allow iPhone users to turn off the feature that diminished performance later this spring.

In response to harsh criticism from users, Apple also offered users a discount on replacement batteries.

Apple's share fell by about 1 percent Tuesday afternoon in New York.Drain the Oceans dives deep into the unknown; a truly epic, truly original series that exposes hidden evidence of the most amazing undersea mysteries, as never seen before. The first episode is the Great Barrier Reef.

Thursdays from 9:30pm AEST.Canada at the Crossroads: Live debate over the critical issues in the federal election

Canada at the Crossroads: Live debate over the critical issues in the federal election

Register for free>American companies in China are enjoying growing sales and are more confident China will further open up to foreign investment in coming years, despite concerns about the regulatory environment, a business lobby said yesterday.

Some 64 percent of the member companies reported revenue growth in 2017, up from 58 percent in 2016 and 55 percent in 2015, according to a survey released yesterday by the American Chamber of Commerce in China in partnership with Bain & Co.

Those figures reflect China's booming economy which last year grew 6.9 percent, accelerating for the first time since 2010. For 2018, the average forecast for GDP growth from respondents was 6.3 percent, up from the 2017 prediction.

The survey was conducted in October and November, and was sent to 849 member company representatives, of which 411 completed a significant portion.

The outlook on sustainable economic growth in China was "generally positive," with 46 percent of respondents expressing confidence that the government would further open China's market to foreign investment within the next three years, up from 34 percent in the previous survey.

Nearly six in 10 companies rank China among their top three investment priorities, up from the previous year but still below the historical average.

"Regarding the economy, there is cautious optimism that the 'new normal' rate of growth is sustainable for the foreseeable future, providing opportunities for business to expand," said William Zarit, chairman of AmCham China.

A third of members plan to expand their investment in China by over 10 percent in 2018.

Asked about the report, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said China's door would only open wider and the government would provide an even better investment environment for foreigners.

Some 36 percent of respondents believe relations between China and the United States will improve this year, compared with 17 percent last year.

After U.S. President Donald Trump's visit in November, China announced it would liberalize foreign investment access to its financial services market, a key industry for American firms worldwide.

Regulation remains a concern for many, the survey found. Respondents cited inconsistent regulatory interpretation, unclear laws and enforcement as the top challenge to doing business in China.By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: In the first public comments after four senior Supreme Court judges addressed a Press conference and raised concerns over the functioning of the top court, Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra on Tuesday said everyone can have an opinion and express themselves.

Everybody has a right to say he is opinionated and has (a) right to express. I am happy to be here, CJI Misra said at the launch of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) newsletter on Tuesday.

He praised the journal and said it carries recognition and recollection. The CJI added that the journal was focussed on the basic aspect of every individual, like a health camp, which was recently organised in the apex court and also emphasised diversified ideas.

Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who was also present at the launch, said: There is a need for a debate on simultaneous state and general elections since conducting separate elections entails huge expenditure. High costs are paid for security, arrangements, and once the model code of conduct kicks in, a lot of decisions cant be taken, he added.

ALSO READ: Supreme Court berth to Justice K M Joseph and senior lawyer Indu Malhotra put on ice

Can your journal provoke a debate in the country on whether we should have simultaneous elections? Prasad asked, adding that 2018 alone would see elections in Tripura, Meghalaya, Karnataka and Chhattisgarh, and would be followed by the Lok Sabha polls in 2019.

He, however, did not mention the upcoming Assembly elections in Nagaland, scheduled for February 27.

Only few judges attended the event, and among those who gave it a miss were Justices Chelameswar and Ranjan Gogoi.

Justice Madan B Lokur and Justice Kurian Joseph attended the function and greeted the Chief Justice as well.

SCBA president Vikas Singh termed the launch of the journal historic and said it would take up social and cultural issues of lawyers, besides national issues.

On Monday, President Ram Nath Kovind pitched for simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and state assemblies in his address to both Houses of Parliament, saying that frequent elections impede the speed of development as officials have to assist in conducting polls.With the largest-ever trade delegation in her entourage of any overseas trip made by a British prime minister, Theresa May's three-day visit to China certainly means business.

The 50 or so business leaders, who May said represent all parts of the UK economy, are expected to garner a sizable bunch of deals during the visit. Something the embattled UK leader will be glad to return with.

But while business deals are essential for enriching and consolidating relations, the more important part of the visit for May will be in what way, and to what extent, the visitor and her hosts can advance the theoretically fine agreement to make the UK China's closest partner in the West, which was one of the outcomes of President Xi Jinping's visit to the United Kingdom in 2015.

Then, the two governments pledged to build a "global, comprehensive partnership oriented at the 21st century", in anticipation of which, her predecessor David Cameron predicted a "golden era" for China-UK relations. May's visit is thus being viewed as an opportunity to reboot that golden era in the wake of the UK's changed circumstances.

Thus May's first formal visit to China as prime minister carries special significance because as the visit by a British leader since the country voted to leave the European Union, it is being viewed as determining what the "golden era 2.0" the two countries attempt to formulate will be like.

The UK is expected to terminate its EU membership on March 29, 2019, and upgrading China-UK relations and securing Chinese investments would effectively help to ease the ensuing withdrawal pains the UK is expected to suffer.

As the first major Western power and European country to join the China-proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the UK is still regarded in Beijing as a potentially meaningful international partner.

And since Downing Street has its eyes on the "huge trade opportunities" in China's market of more than 1.3 billion consumers for UK businesses, there is no reason for it not to take advantage of China's pro-globalization efforts, those under the Belt and Road Initiative in particular. UK exports to China have grown over 60 percent since 2010. UK businesses will be rewarded even more handsomely given the worldwide reach of the Belt and Road.

Although it remains to be seen how May's visit plays out, fostering a closer partnership would undoubtedly be rewarding for both parties.By Linda Conner Lambeck

HARTFORD  Lawmakers share some of the same questions and concerns as faculty and students about a plan to merge the states 12 community colleges.

Can they even be called community colleges, asked Sen. Mae Flexer, D-Killingly, vice chairman of the Higher Education Committee of the state Legislature, during an afternoon long forum held at the state capital.

Its a little bit of an oxymoron, state. Rep. Terrie Wood, R-Norwalk, said and questioned whether the consolidation will benefit the state.

When you go to this big, top-down structure, you lose that autonomy, you lose that grass-roots investment, you lose that individual voice, Wood said.

Mark Ojakian, president of the Connecticut State University and College system that includes the 12 community colleges, came to the committee to explain a plan called Students First he said was forced largely by dwindling state support.

Something has to give, Ojakian told the lawmakers.

Rather than close campuses or drastically raise tuition, Ojakian said a plan to create one accredited college with three regions and 12 campuses will best preserve services for some 52,000 students. Some 200 positions would be eliminated, none of them teaching faculty, Ojakian pledged.

The plan has the approval of the states Board of Regents for Higher Education which oversees four state universities, an online degree program and the 12 community colleges  including Norwalk, Gateway in New Haven and Housatonic in Bridgeport.

The plan is the largest consolidation the New England Association of Schools and Colleges has ever seen, according to Patricia OBrien, senior vice president of NEASCs Commission on Institutions of Higher Education.

OBrien addressed the committee, saying the association would base its decision on whether or not the plan meets its standards and protects students.

The plan will be formally presented to the accrediting body in March for review. NEASC can either approve the plan, reject it or ask for more information.

Ojakian hopes to have a decision as early as April and flip the switch on the merger in July 2019.

State Rep. Pam Staneski, R-Milford, wondered if staff would be left on the campuses to help students with financial aid and counseling.

Ojakian said they would.

Will foundations share donations? Staneski asked. Foundations now exist on all 12 campuses to raise money for not only scholarships but positions that otherwise would be lost to budget cuts.

Ojakian said they would not.

State Rep. Gregory Haddad, D-Mansfield, house chair of the committee, said he sees benefits to consolidation but asked for more details about the proposed $28 million cost savings.

I want to make sure savings are there, Haddad said.

Haddad questioned logistics and the timing. He wondered who students caught in the middle would get diplomas from, who new hires will be working for and if the state was putting existing accreditations at risk.

It sounds to me like a lot of work has to take place, he said. We are sort of a system in limbo.

OBrien said NEASC will determine if the plan and the proposed time frame is realistic. It could be delayed past July 2019.

If we dont get accreditation with NEASC, we dont move forward, Ojakian added.

Paul Broadie, president of Housatonic and Gateway community colleges, said viewing the two institutions through a single lens has allowed for stronger collaborations and helped better shepherd fiscal resources.

Students ... should not have barriers that impede movement, he said.

When the public got its chance to testify, Michelle Barber, a Norwalk Community College biology professor, led a number of speakers who challenged the idea a plan to strip community colleges of individual accreditations and identities will save money or leave students better off.

There are ways to do this without taking away accreditation, Barber said. We are not going to be better off in my opinion. At the end of all of this, (the state) will still be in debt.

Stuart Weismiller, president of the Norwalk Community College Foundation, said her organization already puts Students First, and worried consolidation will undermine the foundations work.NEW FAIRFIELD  A day before he was scheduled for deportation, Guatemalan-born Joel Colindres learned that immigration officials had denied his emergency request to stay in the U.S.

Colindres, 33, was ordered in December to leave the country by Jan. 31 after winning a temporary stay of an earlier deportation order last summer.

Since learning of the second order, his American-born family, federal lawmakers and other supporters throughout the state have been scrambling with vigils, rallies and online campaigns  in an effort to keep him in the country until his request for asylum is processed.

But on Tuesday morning, the family received a letter stating that immigration officials had denied his request for a temporary stay, according to the Save Joel Colindres Facebook page, run by his wife, Samantha Colindres. The letter was dated Jan. 24, the post said.

Devastation, anger and frustration don't even begin to explain how we feel, the post read. There's nothing left, the fight is over. They finally won, leaving us broken and displaced.

When he first came to the United States in 2004, Colindres has said, a mix-up with paperwork led him to miss a court date, resulting in an order for his removal. The order has created a barrier in seeking legal residency based on his 2010 marriage to Samantha.

Colindres has an appeal pending with the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on his request to revisit the order of removal. The request argues that his life would be in danger should he return to Guatemala, where three of his family members were murdered in the last year.

Erin ONeil-Baker, his attorney, has said Colindres will comply with the order to leave the country if his stay is denied and that his appeal would continue even if he is out of the country.

The family has created a second GoFundMe page to help pay for expenses created by his deportation, including his international phone bill, moving expenses and additional child care for the Colindres two young children. Another GoFundMe page has been raising money for the familys legal fees.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn), who accompanied Colindres to his final check-in with immigration officials last week, wrote to Immigration Customs Enforcement on Tuesday requesting a stay on the deportation.

I will not stop fighting to keep the Colindres family together, Blumenthal said in statement accompanying the letter. There is absolutely no reason to proceed with deportation tomorrow, recklessly destroying a family and sending Joel to a country where he faces immediate risk to his life. My heart is breaking, but I will not give up. This deportation is a betrayal of American valuesan immoral decision that history will judge in the harshest of lights.

aquinn@newstimes.comThe battle between Chinese internet companies escalated this week as Beijing-based news and information content platform Toutiao announced it will sue search engine Baidu Inc.

This move shows major industry players are eager to take control over access to the internet, an expert said.

Toutiao said on Monday it will sue Baidu for "attempted unfair competition." The Haidian District People's Court in Beijing took the case on Tuesday, Toutiao said in a statement on its WeChat account.

When users searched on Baidu for Toutiao, the search engine deliberately returned negative results, according to Toutiao. For instance, the first result about Toutiao showed that some content had been compiled by unofficial sources.

The second result led to the official website of Toutiao; however, upon clicking on the link, it generated a warning that "this website could not be visited because of an unstable server," Toutiao's statement claimed.

Toutiao, the news aggregator, was valued at about billion last year, Reuters reported on Friday.

The company uses algorithms and artificial intelligence to select news, online books, video and other content for readers, the media report said.

Toutiao said in a separate statement on Monday that it has undergone a site safety test via a third-party website and the result showed that its website is functioning normally. "This outcome proves that Baidu's search results and warnings are misinformation," it said.

Making claims of "attempted unfair competition is just an excuse to fight for access, which has become a new battleground for taking a larger share in the internet sector," Liu Dingding, a Beijing-based veteran industry analyst, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

Baidu's search engine has for a long time operated as major gateway to the internet for users, he noted. "As Toutiao has been distributing more content to users in recent years, it has become a strong rival to Baidu."

In recent years, Baidu has lost a large number of technical staff, according to Toutiao's statement.

However, the abnormal search results were probably not caused by this outflow, nor were they the result of work by interns, Toutiao claimed.

"We believe that it's a malicious effort to smear Toutiao's reputation," it said.

Baidu said in a statement sent to the Global Times on Tuesday that Toutiao faces a dilemma in its corporate development, and should not divert public attention to this "PR fight."

Toutiao's claim that Baidu has lost a large number of technical experts is untrue and has damaged the company's reputation, the search engine noted.

Baidu's natural search results are related to user needs, relevance, timeliness and the user's click behavior, Baidu added.

"The competition will become more and more intense in the near future," Liu predicted, noting that the rivalry, however, will prompt the companies to provide better services to users.Columnist

Tom Kacich is a columnist and the author of Tom's Mailbag at The News-Gazette. His column appears Sundays. His email is tkacich@news-gazette.com, and you can follow him on Twitter (@tkacich).Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Sunshine to start, then a few afternoon clouds. High 88F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies. Low around 70F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph.People walk on ice in frozen sea waters off Dalian in Liaoning province on Saturday. (Lyu Wenzheng/For China Daily)

The North China Sea Marine Forecasting Center of the State Oceanic Administration has issued blue alerts for sea ice in Liaodong Bay three times since Friday, warning of potential threats to offshore oil drilling, waterway safety and fishery industries.

The latest satellite images showed ice in the bay reached 17,088 square kilometers on Sunday, accounting for 56 percent of the bay's total area, with ice in some parts up to 40 centimeters thick.

Located in the Bohai Sea, Liaodong Bay has some of China's lowest coastal seawater temperatures and the heaviest sea ice coverage.

The center predicted the growth of ice in the bay will slow over the next three days with warming temperatures.

With interior portions of China experiencing heavy snowfalls, the past week saw the coldest temperature in Hulunbuir League, Inner Mongolia autonomous region, with an extreme low of -50 C on Jan 25.

Yuan Benkun, a researcher at the center, said: "The continued cold temperature is responsible for the sea ice expanding. This means the melting process will take more time."

The 13.5-sq-km Juehua Island is the largest island in Liaodong Bay, and is home to 3,000 residents.

Waterborne traffic to Juehua Island typically does not begin until late March, according to Zhang Guihui from the local marine traffic office.

A local marine forecasting and disaster center urged relevant departments to strengthen ice-breaking efforts and provide basic necessities to island residents while ensuring the safety of shipping and marine operations.

The sea ice alerts are classified into four levels: red, orange, yellow and blue. The blue alert in Liaodong Bay means ice thickness is reaching 30 cm and the sea ice's outer margin has expanded to 130 km from shore.Twitter on Tuesday announced a collaboration with the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) to launch several features for the upcoming "Auto Expo-The Motor Show 2018,' including the first-ever emoji for an automotive show in Asia. As part of the collaboration, Twitter will host a special BlueRoom pop-up show onsite, livestream highlights from the event and make available a custom "Auto Expo" emoji for fans.

"Twitter is where people come to see what's happening in India and the world. We're excited to partner SIAM on the Auto Expo, to bring car enthusiasts with the opportunity to follow all the fast and furious car launch action in real-time," Taranjeet Singh, Country Director, Twitter India, said in a statement. The "Auto Expo" emoji is available from Tuesday till February 28. The special Twitter emoji will appear when users include the following hashtags in their tweets -- #AETMS, #AETMS18, #AUTOEXPO18, #AUTOEXPO2018, #BTNR and #AECompShow18.

Also Read: Tata Motors to Showcase 6 Electric Vehicles at Delhi Auto Expo 2018

In addition, several automotive brands engage with their audiences on Twitter.

Hero Moto Corp, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Motors and Maruti Suzuki will livestream their brands at the Auto Expo on Twitter.

"Tata Motors will also feature live Q&A interaction with artistes rock band and guitarist Dhruv, a live performance onsite and video highlights on Twitter," the micro-blogging platform said.

In addition, Kia will launch their presence in India with a Direct Message automation feature on Twitter.

Also Read: Kia to Make its Indian Debut with SP Concept at Auto Expo 2018

"This edition of the Auto Expo will feature a branded custom Twitter emoji, which has been created for the first time for any motor show in Asia and will be available to all users across the globe using the Auto Expo hashtag in their tweets," said Sugato Sen, Deputy Director General, SIAM.

The "Auto Expo-The Motor Show 2018" is scheduled to be held at the India Expo Mart in Greater Noida from February 9-14.

More than 100 companies are expected to participate in the event.

Also Watch: 2018 Maruti Suzuki Swift Review (First Drive) | Cars18Mumbai: The launch of low-cost, long-haul flights by Indian airlines will boost outbound leisure travel and open a multi-billion dollar opportunity for carriers, a report released on Wednesday showed.

The analysis by aviation consultant CAPA India and online travel agent Expedia Inc comes as large budget airlines IndiGo and SpiceJet Ltd draw up plans to fly as far as Europe and the United States.

The carriers have so far focused on shorter-range destinations such as Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Only 0.3 percent of Indians currently travel abroad for a holiday every year, a fraction of the estimated 100 million who could potentially afford to do so, CAPA's analysis of household income shows. Most Indians travel for education, business or to visit friends and relatives.

Tourism spending by Indians could rise to as much as $40 billion by 2027 from about $16.4 billion in 2016, CAPA said, ranking it sixth in the world ahead of Canada, South Korea and Australia.

"If there is any market where low-cost, long-haul can work it is India," CAPA India CEO Kapil Kaul said at an aviation conference in Mumbai on Tuesday, citing its geographic location and a large order pipeline for new long-range narrowbody jets.

SpiceJet Chairman Ajay Singh said on Tuesday low-cost long haul flights will be introduced as early as this winter.

IndiGo is exploring long-haul operations and seeking rights to routes, parent InterGlobe Aviation Ltd told analysts last week.

The low-cost flights would compete against full-service Indian carriers Air India and Jet Airways as well as global rivals such as Emirates and Lufthansa.

BUDGET GROWTH

Low-cost carriers, launched in the early 2000s, already dominate domestic air travel with a two-thirds market share.

The share of budget airlines in the international market rose to about 23 percent in the fiscal year 2016/17 from 14.5 percent five years earlier, CAPA estimates.

That is expected to rise as Indian airlines have placed orders for nearly 800 re-engined aircraft, such as Airbus A320neos and Boeing Co 737 MAX narrowbodies.

The jets, with longer ranges than predecessors, will enable low-cost carriers to launch non-stop routes to Asian destinations such as Phuket, Manila, Hong Kong, and Hanoi that are otherwise unviable today.

By 2025, Indian budget carriers will operate close to 40 wide-bodied aircraft, which could deliver an additional 2 million annual outbound leisure travellers to places such as New York and Sydney, CAPA said.

Low-cost carriers AirAsia India and Vistara, a full-service joint venture between Singapore Airlines and India's Tata Group, are expected to launch their first international flights later this year.New Delhi: In 1969, the United States Department of Defence (DOD) started funding a communications network called Advanced Research Projects Agency Network or ARPANET. The project, which started as a military one, was decommissioned in 1990. But not before it became the technological foundation upon which one of the biggest breakthroughs of the modern age was built. ARPANET was a precursor to the internet.

Since then, the US has invested heavily in Defence Research and Development (R&D) and other nations, such as China, have been quick to catch on. But India, the sixth-largest defence spender in the world and the largest arms importer, has been slow. As the Modi government aggressively pushes its Make in India doctrine in the Defence sector, is 2018 the year to go big on R&D investment? Experts say yes.

The ARPANET is one such example. There have been numerous examples of how defence sector R&D has benefitted humanity at large. Several military technologies have also been used in the field of medicine and energy generation. Management techniques devised by militaries across the world became the bedrock of top business schools. It was military research that triggered the space race and today, humanity has reached planet Mars. The benefits of R&D in the technological space are undisputed. India has already been left behind in this and now would be the right time to go big on R&D, said air defence expert Air Vice Marshal (retired) Manmohan Bahadur.

Indias investment in R&D is woefully short when compared to other nations. The 2018 Economic Survey report, which was released on Monday, outlines how far behind India is falling. In 2015, India spent $48.1 billion on R&D. This was 0.8% of the GDP and the country has 156 researchers per million of the population.

These numbers are paltry when compared to the US, which invested $479 billion in 2015 on R&D, which was 2.8% of the GDP, and has 4,231 researchers per million of the population. China, too, has outperformed India on this front. China in 2015 spent $371 billion, which was 2% of its GDP, and has 1,113 researchers per million of the population. While Israel, which invested only $12.2 billion on R&D spends significantly less than India in absolute terms, it is 4.8% of Israels GDP. One area in which Israel outperforms India, USA and China is the number of researchers per million of the population, with the number at 8,255.

Another issue plaguing Indian research is that a disproportionate amount of money is spent on government R&D. Of $48.1 billion India spent on R&D, $29 billion, or over 60% of the total, was invested in the government sector. According to Bahadur, that is what is holding Indian research back.

The government is pouring tons and tons of money into the DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organization), where a kind of Sarkari lethargy has always existed. There is no result-oriented approach in DRDO, where scientists break for Idli-Vada at 11 am and then again for lunch. Instead, the private sector should be encouraged to take over, said Bahadur.

He added, In all other countries, private investment into R&D far outstrips those by the government. Take the example of Saab, the Swedish arms manufacturer. Around 15-16% of their profits are pumped into their R&D wings. All other big players, from Lockheed Martin to Boeing, do the same thing. If Indian manufacturers like Tata and Adani are to grow, the government must encourage private investment. The Defence Procurement Procedure 2016 (DPP 2016) eased this process but more needs to be done.

The Make in India doctrine in the defence sector is in its infant stage as of now, but if it is to progress, India cannot depend solely on Transfer of Technology (TOT) from foreign defence firms. US-firm Lockheed Martin is partnering with Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL) to produce the F-16 fighter jet in India. But a handover of technology from LM to Tata may not materialize as the Indian government hopes.

Abhay Paranjape, Lockheed Martins National Executive for India, said, Every company will have proprietary issues that will need to be addressed between two companies. We are confident that we will be able to resolve that. What we need to protect, we will protect. What Indian companies need to protect, they will also protect. Technology transfer is not just a one-way handover of technology. Indian companies already have a lot of technology that theyve developed. But how do we take it to the next level, to being a global player? That is where LM has excelled in the past. We have built F16s in the past in multiple countries. We will continue to bring in industries from around the world into India and will continue to expand industries from India into this global supply chain. And Indian industries will become an integral part of the global supply chain for F 16s.

This imbalance in R&D spending, believes Bahadur, has led to a technological asymmetry between India and its rivals. China has a stellar military industrial complex and we are still struggling to figure out what aircraft we want for our aircraft carrier. It is because China invested in research and we did not. If we are to fix this technological asymmetry, we need to start investing in R&D now. I believe this is the year that we can start, said Bahadur.Even as the winter is coming to an end, Rahul Gandhi made sure the netizens furiously looked up for jackets' prices online. Nope, not for purchasing purposes.

It all started when the Congress president Rahul Gandhi sported the "expensive" apparel while attending a concert in Shillong.

Soon, BJP took potshots at Gandhi over his jacket, which they claim cost nearly Rs 70,000.

"So @OfficeOfRG , soot(pun intended!)-boot ki sarkar with 'black' money fleeced from Meghalayan State exchequer by rampant corruption? Instead of singing away our woes, you could have given a report card of your inefficient govt in Meghalaya! Your indifference mocks us! (sic)" wrote the Meghalaya BJP Twitter handle with pictures of the jacket's original price and photo.

So @OfficeOfRG , soot(pun intended!)-boot ki sarkar with black money fleeced from Meghalayan State exchequer by rampant corruption? Instead of singing away our woes, you could have given a report card of your inefficient govt in Meghalaya! Your indifference mocks us! pic.twitter.com/sRvj5eoyRb BJP Meghalaya (@BJP4Meghalaya) January 30, 2018

The national party's tweet was in retaliation to Rahul Gandhi's "suit boot" jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had worn a monogrammed suit during a meeting with then US President Barack Obama in 2015.

The base price of the suit at an auction was Rs 11 lakh, and it was sold for Rs 4.31 crore.

Twitterati was quick to join the party and reminded Gandhi of his apparent hypocrisy.

Rahul Gandhi in a thousand dollar Burberry quilted jacket. Reminds me of Sonia Gandhi's sable coat which was refitted by Fendi. Self-validation by @OfficeOfRG of his cheesy "1% of India's population gets 73% of its wealth" comment. #PakoraTales pic.twitter.com/xJ0eRcjsX5 Kanchan Gupta (@KanchanGupta) January 31, 2018

Fata Kurta to 60,000 worth jacket. Poverty is a state of mind. - Shri Rahul Gandhi. pic.twitter.com/DecY3zzgMi Maithun (@Being_Humor) January 30, 2018

Pic 1: When Modi wears Burberry scarfPic 2: When Rahul Gandhi wears Burberry jacket pic.twitter.com/YGJk3Vw7WV PhD in Bakchodi (@Atheist_Krishna) January 31, 2018

Congress who always cry @narendramodi ki sarkar tosuit aur boot ki sarkar but their leader Rahul Gandhi is wearing Burberry's $995 (64000RS approx) jacket. @TajinderBagga @PMOIndia pic.twitter.com/5OyM1Mn3UA Priya Kulkarni (@priyaakulkarni2) January 30, 2018

Pic1: Rahul Gandhi during odd days. Wearing torn kurta to Project himself as GAREEBON KI SARKAAR Pic2: Rahul Gandhi during even days. Wearing jacket costing around 65000. @Shehzad_Ind pic.twitter.com/eU7l71xlTe Mitesh Jain (@MK7786) January 31, 2018

Senior Congress leader Renuka Chowdhury came to Gandhi's defence saying that she could get a similar jacket for Narendra Modi for a mere Rs 700.

Congress' Renuka Chowdhury reacts to BJP's allegation stating that Rahul Gandhi wore a jacket worth Rs.70,000, laughs and says, 'I can show you the same jacket for Rs 700.' pic.twitter.com/1Al6EUG7b7 News18 (@CNNnews18) January 31, 2018

"Did they go to see the bill when Rahul Gandhi was buying the jacket?How do they know? I have never seen a man like Rahul Bhai who lives such a simple life while sitting on such important post," Navjot Singh Siddhu defended his party chief.

Did they went to see the bill when Rahul Gandhi was buying the jacket?How do they know? I have never seen a man like Rahul Bhai who lives such a simple life while sitting on such important post: Navjot Singh Sidhu on Rahul Gandhi allegedly wearing jacket of Rs 70,000 in #Shillong pic.twitter.com/KG06le4KV2 ANI (@ANI) January 31, 2018

 People who defended a monogrammed 10 lakh rupee suit of poor and humble Narendra Modi making drama over 68000 rupee jacket of Rahul Gandhi who has declared assets of 10 crore  TheComicProject (@thecomicproject) January 31, 2018

After the social media uproar, Rahul Gandhi has now reportedly cleared the air, saying he borrowed the jacket, reported India Today.

Earlier at the concert, while addressing the crowd, Gandhi said, "We are strongest when we stand together in our diversity. India's strength is our diverse culture and different languages, different ways of thinking."

Gandhi urged the youths to love and respect each other to make the country strong. "When we fight each other and spread hatred, we are not strengthening our country but weakening it and disrespecting our people, our past and our future," he said.New Delhi: Over 1,200 graduates from premier institutions like IITs and NITs have been selected to teach in 53 state-run engineering colleges in backward areas across 11 states and Union Territories for three years, Union minister Prakash Javadekar said on Wednesday.

"This is the first time such a measure has been taken to improve the quality of education in backward areas. With the initiative, more than one lakh engineering students in the most backward areas would be benefited with better quality education," he told reporters in New Delhi.

Each of the faculty will be paid Rs 70,000 per month with the government spending about Rs 375 crore for the move. The HRD minister said up to 60 per cent of faculty strength was lying vacant in these colleges, which failed to attract qualified teachers.

"A public appeal was given to M Tech and PhD students from the premier institutions to work in the backward areas and serve the nation. There was an overwhelming response to the call and more than 5,000 highly-qualified persons applied," the ministersaid.

The initiative is part of the Technical Education Quality Improvement Project (TEQIP-III) for improving the quality of engineering graduates at a cost of Rs 2,300 crore, to be implemented during the three-year period till 2020.

Javadekar said 86 per cent of 1,225 teachers were selected from premier institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), National Institutes of Technology (NITs), Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs), and Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIITs), with 24 per cent of them holding PhDs.

As many as 301 teachers will head to 11 institutes in Rajasthan, 210 to seven institutes in Bihar, 194 to seven institutes in Madhya Pradesh and 191 to six institutes in Jharkhand.

Other institutes for which the faculty has been selected include Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Odisha, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the minister added.Hyderabad: The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), which manages the Tirumala Venkateswara Temple, has issued a show cause notice to 44 non-Hindu employees of the religious site. The workers have been given three weeks time to reply why their services should not be terminated, stating that their appointment was contrary to the rules.

The move comes after objections were raised over non-Hindu individuals working at the temple.

One such employee, who does not wish to be identified, was shocked after receiving the notice. He says he is disappointed with the decision as the entire family has been following Hinduism for quite a few years now.

On verification of service record, it is found that you belong to Christian community and the appointment is contrary to TTD service rules and not permissible. You are hereby directed to give an explanation within three weeks as to why further action should not be initiated since you are not eligible for appointment in TTD, said the notice.

Speaking to News18, the employee says that he is not sure if his name has come up by mistake. I have served the TTD for years. I have proof to show that I am a Hindu. My marriage was in accordance with Hindu rituals. All ceremonies of my children were performed as per Hindu traditions. I will reply to the notice with all these facts.

The controversy erupted after a video of a TTD employee visiting a church in her official car and praying went viral. It led to an outcry questioning non-Hindu employees in TTD.

The notice copy, dated January 11, also informs the employees about the rules and why action is being initiated against them. "GO 1060 of year 1989 stipulated that appointment to any categories, except in the case of teaching institutions shall be made only from persons professing Hindu religion. Subsequently, the rule was amended in 2007 vide GO 1372, that appointment to any of the posts to any of the category in any of the institutions administered or funded by TTD shall be made only among persons professing Hindu religion," it said.

The TTD, however, is giving assurance that the employees, if terminated, will be relocated to other state government departments.Srinagar: The Army on Wednesday filed a counter-FIR in the Shopian firing case after its personnel, including a Major, were charged with murder by the police on the directions of the Mehbooba Mufti government in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Army had opened fire on a stone-pelting mob in the south Kashmir district on January 27. The army said in its FIR that its soldiers were forced to open fire in self defence and in the face of "ultimate provocation" after seven of its personnel were injured.

Two youths were killed in the firing, while another succumbed to his injuries on Wednesday. Eight more civilians were injured in the incident.

Responding to public anger in Kashmir, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti had announced that the police would register a case against the army soldiers involved in the firing. Despite pressure from coalition partner BJP to withdraw the case, she had said it would be taken to its logical conclusion.

Police filed an FIR under sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) against the personnel of 10, Garhwal unit, of the Army. J-K Police chief S P Vaid said on Monday that registration of the FIR in the Shopian incident is just the beginning of the investigation and the Army's version would be taken into account as well.

Northern Army commander Lt General Devraj Anbu said that he is confident the truth will come out. He also said that it was premature to put the name of army officers in the FIR before a preliminary enquiry.

A defence spokesman said in Srinagar that the troops opened fire when a mob tried to lynch a junior commissioned officer and snatch his service weapon.

"An Army administration convoy was passing through Ganovpora when it came under unprovoked and intense stone-pelting by a group of 100-120 stone-pelters. Within no time, their number swelled to 200-250 persons," the spokesperson said.

"The crowd surrounded an isolated portion of the convoy consisting of four vehicles," he said, noting that the stone- pelters caused extensive damage to these vehicles and tried to set them on fire.Middle-aged women enjoy their time of dancing with background music in their wireless headsets on a square in Chongqing municipality.

A documentary chronicling the culture of public square dancing, a favorite pastime of middle-aged and elderly Chinese women, has started filming in north China's Tianjin Municipality.

The documentary will be split into 100 episodes and will be filmed over three years, according to director Cui Yongshi.

"The documentary will be about square dancing, and the film crew will go to 31 provincial regions in China to tell the stories of people who enjoy dancing," Cui said.

The documentary will use buildings in public squares as a backdrop to show the rapid development in Chinese cities, Cui said.

Square dancing has become a favorite activity among aging Chinese people, mostly women. But when these "dama" -- as the older women are called in China -- bust their moves in public, conflicts sometimes arise.

In 2014, residents in a district in eastern China's Zhejiang Province went toe-to-toe with a noisy group of square dancers by using loudspeakers to blast music and drown out the dancing women.New Delhi: A Delhi sessions court on Wednesday maintained that not letting a child enter the class room or have lunch with friends will amount to mental cruelty, as it upheld the conviction of principal and director of a private school under the juvenile justice law.

Additional Sessions Judge Vikas Dhull held the duo guilty under Section 23 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000, and asked them to pay a compensation of Rs 2.5 lakh each.

Even as it affirmed the conviction order by a magistrate, the sessions judge set aside the two-month jail term for Kavita Chandra, who was the director, and Romi Chawla, who was the principal of Dwarka-based OPG World School, when the incident happened in 2012.

The sessions judge allowed their release on probation with the condition that they will mark their attendance in the court once every month for the next six months. The judge accepted a report submitted earlier by the probation officer, who had favoured their release on a bond of good conduct. Chandra and Chawla were released by the court on Wednesday after furnishing a surety bond of Rs 30,000 each.

In an unprecedented judgment which had acknowledged a non-violent act as an offence punishable under the juvenile law, the magistrate had underlined that not allowing the child to sit in the classroom amounts to wilful neglect.

"The act of not allowing the child to sit in the classroom amounts to willful neglect which caused unnecessary mental suffering to her, and the trauma that a child undergoes is immense  once the child goes to school and is not allowed to sit in the classroom," the magistrate had noted while convicting the two top management officials of the school.

In his complaint, father of the student Dr N Raghuram had alleged that his seven-year-old daughter was "ill-treated", not allowed to enter the class room and was even not permitted to eat her lunch with her class mates when she went to the school on April 24, 2012.

According to Raghuram, the school authorities were getting back at him through the child since he had been raising questions over the whimsical prices of the educational accessories and the fee hike, and in their bid to pressure the parents to withdraw the child, they confined her throughout school hours on April 24, 2012.

The school authorities, on the other hand, had said that the student was given a transfer certificate on April 23, and when she turned up the next day, she was sent to infirmary because she was apparently "not feeling well".

The magistrate trashed the defence by the school and held the principal and director guilty under the juvenile law. When it sentenced them to jail for two months, it stayed the order to enable the duo file an appeal before the sessions court.

Speaking to CNN-News18 after the order today, Raghuram said he had mixed emotions.

"We, as parents, are happy that the legal precedent has not been disturbed and that the excellent judgment, which had recognised mental harassment as a criminal offence, has been retained. But at the same time, since the jail term has been completely set aside, it can be questioned whether the case succeeded in bringing about an adequate deterrent in terms of the punishment. The school officials has to pay Rs 2.5 lakh each and they would be pretty happy to get away after paying money."

Raghuram's lawyer Chandra Suman expressed hope that other private schools will take a cue and will be wary of ill-treating a child in future. "A clear signal has been given that a child cannot be ill-treated, nor just physically but also mentally," he said.New Delhi: India and Pakistan on Tuesday decided to extend the Thar Link Express/Thar Express that connects Jodhpur in Rajasthan with the provincial Karachi capital of Karachi. The train will now continue to connect both nations till January 31, 2021.

The rail links in the Indian subcontinent have an undeniable colonial legacy. The British Raj established the Indian Railways not for the convenience of Indians but to ease the transport of raw materials from the hinterlands to ports. It was a matter of time, therefore, that a railroad link was established between the two major port cities of Bombay and Karachi. In 1900, the Sind Mail (as the train was known back then) chugged along from Bombay to Karachi via Ahmedabad, Palanpur, Marwar, Pali, Jodhpur, Lun, Barmer, Munabao, Khokhrapar, Mirpur Khas and Hyderabad (Sindh) Railway Stations. The Sind Mail continued to ferry passengers from one country to another for 65 years.

In 1965, India and Pakistan fought their first major war and during the war, Pakistan Air Force bombed the Munabao-Khokkhrapar rail link. After this, the rail link was disrupted and remained shut for 41 years. But for those who had family ties across the border, not travelling to the other side was not an option. Imdad Khan, a resident of Padmana village, which is hardly a kilometer from the border, says, "My aunt lives in Pakistan. My father has always been close to her. So he had to go see his sister. Back when the Thar Link Express was not functioning, people from this region had to travel to Amritsar, cross over to Lahore and then make the long journey into Sindh."

Munabao and Khokhrapar are just 10-kilometre away from each other. But before the train began, a round trip would mean people would have to travel a staggering 4,000 kms. All this for a distance that could easily be covered on foot.

In February 2006, the train once again made its journey from Jodhpur to Munabao. An old British-era rail link was revived and the Sind Mail was rechristened the Thar Link Express in India and Thar Express in Pakistan. It leaves from Jodhpur at 1 am every Saturday and chugs into Munabao at 7 am. At Munabao, the passengers are asked to de-board. After hours of immigration formalities, the train moves from Munabao and covers the remaining 500 meters of Indian Territory before entering Pakistan.

When the Sind Mail ran before 1965, Pakistani custom officials used to conduct formalities at Khokhrapar station. In 2006, ahead of the grand reopening of the rail link, Pakistan constructed the brand new Zero Point Railway Station, which is just 50 meters from the pillars demarcating the International Boundary. For six months, the Thar Link Express crosses over to Zero Point Railway Station, where passengers alight and board the Thar Express, run by Pakistan Railways. For the other half of the year, it is the Pakistani train that crosses from Zero Point to Munabao. Passengers are only allowed to board at Jodhpur. Pakistani citizens who travel to India, are not allowed west of National Highway 68.Bhopal: In an election year, the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh has cleared a proposal allowing construction of a "Bharat Mata" temple near the state capital.

A Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan today approved the proposal moved by the Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) seeking land to build the temple of the "Mother India", which will come up in Singarcholi area near Airport Road.

"The Cabinet cleared the land proposal for building the Bharat Mata Parisar in Bhopal," state minister and government spokesman Narottam Mishra told reporters. The government has sanctioned the allocation of 5.046 hectares of land to the BMC for the construction of the Bharat Mata Mandir Parisar (temple complex) at Singarcholi, a close aide of Mishra told PTI.

The development came nearly a month after RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat unveiled a 16-feet tall statue of Bharat Mata in MP's Ujjain district.

"While worshipping the 'motherland', we have to consider the entire society as ours. We should be free from barriers of 'ours versus theirs' and 'big versus small'. Where there are cordial ties, there is no ego," Bhagwat had said.

The Sangh chief also said that the undivided image of Mother India should be worshipped. Clearance of the proposal may give rise to the temple politics in the poll-bound state.

According to sources in the Congress, party president Rahul Gandhi might visit temples during run-up to elections like he did in Gujarat last year.For this story, News18 partnered with Khabar Lahariya, a digital media organisation working out of Bundelkhand with an all-women network of reporters, most of whom are Dalit.

Uttar Pradesh may be known for a lot of things, but from a woman's point of view - it is the worst place to be alive.

The recent National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, detailing crimes in the country  types, kinds, numbersrevealed quite a few disturbing findings concerning crimes against women and other marginalized groups in India. In the 2016 NCRB report, the countrys most populous state has topped the list of crimes against women.

The general crime rate witnessed a spike of 83%  from 21 in 2007, the sheer number of crimes against women reported every hour jumped to 39. Juxtaposed against this statistic is the shocking fact that conviction rate in 2016 dipped to an all-time low.

In 2016, UP accounted for 9.5% of the total IPC crime reports in the entire country. It also recorded 14.5% of the total cases of crimes against women, and for 12.4% of the total number of rape cases in all of India, second only to Madhya Pradesh, which recorded 12.5%.

Reporting from the badlands of Bundelkhand, one of the most intensely patriarchal and regressive regions of Uttar Pradesh, we know that these are only the reported figures. More often than not, the deeply oppressive culture of silence, shame, and humiliation  so familiar to women around the world in one form or the other ensures that most acts of violence and cases of rape, harassment, torture, are stifled for good in the hinterland.

These are places untouched by the global #MeToo revolution.

We have seen and reported on the sinister reflections of those NCRB findings in the districts of Mahoba, Lalitpur, Chitrakoot, Banda, among others, in rural Bundelkhand. There are cases after cases of dowry deaths, molestations, rapes, gangrapes, and brutal torture  women who were beaten up, murdered and even burnt alive.

We reported on several cases of horrific rapes. The perpetrators were family members, spiritual healers and people who wanted to seek revenge.

One such spine-chilling case came to light from Lalitpur earlier this year, when a woman who had been raped by five men continuously for months in 2016, was tried by the village panchayat and deemed guilty.

The matter came to light when the perpetrators attempted to orchestrate an abortion for the woman who had become pregnant, but failed. The news spread across the village, after which the panchayat decided to weigh in, in the name of gaon ki izzat  they ordered an abortion too. And there followed not one or two or five, but 21 panchayat sessions to decide on the fate of the woman and her family  a pronouncement of virtual excommunication. The woman and her family were subjected to nothing short of being socially ostracized.

They didnt give us access to food, water, anything. We couldnt even walk on the streets, the womans family member told Khabar Lahariya.

He said that he wanted to clear their names in the village. Thats very important for us. After all, its a matter involving over 1,000 people, he saidthe desperation apparent in his voice.

At the end of their tether, the family finally sought the aid of the police. They filed charges against the accused rapists, who have since been arrested and booked for rape. But, there is no legal respite for what the family is facing every day.

According to the Commanding Officer at the police station, Himanshu Gaurav, since it is a matter involving a panchayats decision, the police cannot take any action unless the family approaches them with that specific complaint. If they do, he promises strict action against the panchayat for making such an unconstitutional decision.

When KL tried to contact the village pradhan, who is meant to look after the best interests of his village folk, he refused to open the door, let alone comment.

Amind the grave and dreary silence, what the woman said to us, off-camera, still echoes in our ears, When they would rape me, they would threaten me non-stop, saying they would kill me and my family if I ever spoke up. She pauses, and adds, They forced themselves on me multiple times.

It comes up regularly  this mention of force. Another woman speaks of the torture, with her face covered with a pallu, her voice soft. Nankua just barged into the house. I was alone that night. He tore off my clothes and forced himself on me, she said.

The woman from Chitrakoot, recounts the horrors when an acquaintance of her family raped her.

Another woman in Chitrakoot who had been visiting the holy site of Ram dham  it is worshipped as the place where Ram spent his 14-year exile with Sita and Lakshman  was gangraped by a local spiritual healer who goes by the name of Arjun Baba and his accomplices. He shoved me to the ground, and called his friend when he was done, she said.

In a case that mirrored the horrific Badayun case of 2014, a minor was raped when she went to relieve herself in the fields in Bandas Mahui village.

There are more, too many more. Reports of crimes against women have been relentless, their frequency going up feverishly in the last year. And, the worst part is, nothing is changing.Mumbai: In a much-needed boost to the naval prowess of India, the third of the Scorpene-class submarine, Karanj, was launched from the Mazagon Dock on Wednesday.

The vessel will undergo two years of rigorous sea trials before it is inducted into the Indian Navy. While the submarines superior stealth capability and state-of-the-art acoustic features will add to Indias conventional fleet, it still leaves many questions about her critical weaponry unanswered.

Despite the Prime Ministers Officer rapping the Ministry of Defence over the inordinate delays in the ambitious Project 75, it is likely that the delivery of remaining three Scorpene-class submarines might be delayed. Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Sunil Lanba was silent on questions about the timeline of the remaining vessels. The learnings from the process are with us. I think the rest of the three boats will be delivered on time, he told reporters in Mumbai.

Senior sources in the Navy, though, told News 18 that delays have impacted the timely delivery of the remaining three boats.

"There have been delays earlier. MPM items from Europe were delayed as they couldn't conform to commercial standards of Indian requirement. It took us a while to put all requirements together. On the remaining three boats, there have been certain delays which have impacted. We are still trying to expedite that. By the end of 2020, these three boats should be delivered. For that to happen, all the material has to be provided to us by the middle of this year. Our collaborators have promised us that. The timely delivery of the three boats will depend on this," Commodore Rakesh Anand, Chairperson and Managing Director of Mazagon Dock Limited (MDL), told News18.

Under Project 75, which has been delayed by at least eight years, six Scorpene-class submarines were to be manufactured in India by Mazagon Dock Limited, in collaboration with the French company Naval Group (formerly DCNS).

While INS Kalvari was commissioned in the Indian Navy by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on December 14, 2017, Khanderi and Karanj have been launched in the last one year.

Three more boats  Vela, Valgir and Vagsheer  are under construction. They are expected to be completed by the end of 2020.

However, ambiguity over the critical Black Shark torpedoes continues to haunt the Indian Navy. Despite postponing the induction of INS Kalvari for a brief period due to the lack of availability of the torpedoes, the submarine had to be fitted with another set of torpedoes.

What MDL has done right now is fantastic. They have taken another set of torpedoes, modified them and have fitted them in INS Kalvari, a senior official of the Indian Navy told News18.

When asked about the Black Shark torpedoes, he said, As you know, the manufacturer has been blacklisted. We cannot buy anything from a blacklisted manufacturer.

KARANJ, A MILESTONE

Karanj is a milestone in indigenous defence manufacturing. This is the first time that the third submarine of a series has been manufactured indigenously. MDL has crossed a milestone by doing this," the companys CMD, Commodore Rakesh Anand, told News18.

He further added, Karanj has impressive stealth features and one of the lowest noise signatures. The enemy wont be able to detect it. It is a huge force multiplier and is miles ahead of submarines that our neighbours have. Our enemies entire resources would get divided in hunting our submarine. On the other hand, thanks to her strong sonar capability, she will be able to detect the enemy much faster. Karanj is equipped with state-of-the-art torpedoes and surface-to-surface cruise missile launch capability. The enemy won't come to know from where the missile was launched.

Answering questions on the Scorpene data leak, Commodore Anand said that the leak had not affected the entire project by even a bit.

Alain Gullou, Senior Executive Vice President of Naval group, said it was a proud moment for them as well. Answering questions on delay in Project 75, he said, When you are managing such a project, there are always challenges. There are techniques and technology to be acquired  a lot of training and experience, loads of work to do. Today, we are confident we will stick to schedule. There will be no delays.

During his address, Admiral Sunil Lanba said that the launch of Karanj marked a significant departure from the manning and training philosophy that was adopted for the first two submarines and added that from the third submarine onwards, the Navy would be fully self-reliant in training and certification processes.

The state-of-the-art technology utilised for construction of the Scorpene-class submarines has ensured superior stealth features such as advanced acoustic silencing techniques, low radiated noise levels, hydro-dynamically optimized shape and the ability to launch a crippling attack on the enemy using precision-guided weapons. The attack can be launched with both torpedoes and tube launched anti-ship missiles, whilst underwater or on surface. The stealth of this potent platform is enhanced by the special attention given to various signatures, he said.

Admiral Lanba further added that the stealth features give the submarine a kind-of invulnerability, unmatched by most others.

Scorpene submarines can undertake multifarious types of missions i.e. anti-surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare, intelligence gathering, mine laying, area surveillance etc. The submarine is designed to operate in all theatres, with means that provide to ensure interoperability with other components of a Naval Task Force. It is a potent platform, marking a generational shift in submarine operations, he said.New Delhi: Dragged in the controversy after the four senior-most judges accused the Chief Justice of India of sending cases of national importance "selectively" to some benches of preference", Justice Arun Mishra has since appeared quite vocal about his disgruntlement for making his court room a point of contention.

"This is a small court we are small people... junior judge. Are you sure you want us to hear your case?" Justice Mishra asked a lawyer on Tuesday while hearing a case.

Similarly, when bunch of petitions filed by aggrieved home buyers of Amrapali Group were listed before him a few days back, he remarked that he was a "junior" judge.

Why is so much crowd here? I am a junior judge. Why don't people go to some senior judges' court?" Justice Mishra, who occupies Court No. 10, had asked some advocates.

Again on another occasion, the judge told a senior advocate that if the latter was of the view that it was a very important case, he should also be prepared for a decision by a junior" judge.

After the unprecedented press conference by Justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph on January 12, Justice Mishra, during an informal gathering of the judges in the Supreme Court, had expressed his dismay over questioning of his competence and his portrayal as a junior judge in the press.

According to the sources, Justice Mishra had told the gathering of 25 judges that he felt he was being unnecessarily targeted in the controversy when he was only performing his duty as a judge and deciding cases that are posted before him on the orders of the CJI since July 2014.

But as the controversy lingered on and questions were raised why the petitions relating to death of CBI judge BH Loya was listed before Court No.10, he pulled himself out of this matter.

The plea for independent probe into death of Loya is considered to be a highly sensitive case, as Loya was hearing Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter killing case.

Justice Mishra is ninth in seniority after the CJI and has a tenure till September 2, 2020.

As far as judicial powers are concerned, all judges of the apex court hold equal authority and the CJI is 'first among equals' only in terms of his administrative authority.

While in the past, several important cases, such as Coal block allocation scam, 2G scam, Bofors, Babri demolition, Rajiv Gandhi assassination, Gujarat's Best Bakery, have been heard by the judges not in the first five courts, the charge against the CJI has been that many of the high-profile cases have been sent to "select" benches, including the one headed by Justice Mishra.

Justice Mishra was a part of the bench that dismissed two PILs, which had questioned the role of CJI Dipak Misra in the medical college admission scam, and sought an independent probe. One of these petitions was dismissed with a penalty of Rs 25 lakh.

Justice Mishra's bench had earlier dismissed a petition for investigation into Sahara-Birla diary and the alleged pay-off. A 2G scam related case was also shifted to Court No.10 from a bench led by Justice Chelameswar.Kasganj: On the evening of January 20, a boy from Kasganj wrote a Twitter post sharing a Facebook status, which has now been deleted, and tagged UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and UP police. He wrote: "Please look into the matter. This could turn into huge Hindu Muslim (sic)."

This warning was issued almost a week before the communal clashes broke out in Kasganj, killing one and injuring over a dozen.

The above post was followed up by three other posts on Twitter, tagging other official UP police handles. In one of the three subsequent posts, he tagged Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, with the same message: Pls look into the matter. This can be a Hindu Muslim here [sic].

He also messaged SP Sunil Kumar Singh on his Facebook account. Singh has now been transferred to Meerut. Had I known that all my warnings on Facebook and Twitter wouldnt be taken seriously by the administration, I would have penned a letter to the authorities.

But what had prompted him to send out these alert messages? That now deleted Facebook post.

Earlier during the day, a local Hindu boy had written this on his Facebook account: Yogiji ne mussalmaano ko keh diya, Pakistan jaana hai to chale jao. Agar bhaada nahi hai to main de dunga. Jai Yogiji. (Yogi Adityanath has told the Muslims that they can go to Pakistan if they want. I will give them the travel fare if they can't afford it.)

The post immediately instigated a local Muslim man to respond, Ye Hindustan kya tumhare baap ka hai?

Communally charged commentary flowed from both sides. More than a thousand comments were eventually exchanged. The volley of abuses ended with a Muslim man issuing a challenge, Chamunda Gate pe aakar bata (come to Chamunda Gate and say it), to which the Hindus responded with aayenge, zarur aayenge (we will come, for sure).

A bus set on fire in Kasganj during last week's violence. (PTI Photo)

This is not the first time that such provocative messages have been shared on Facebook. Over the past few months, several such provocations have been made but they never flared up and ended on the social media platform itself. This time, however, Abhishek Gupta alias Chandan and his friends decided to respond in person.

I got members of both the communities to talk to each other. But I knew that this was just a stop-gap arrangement. I knew that the heat hadn't dissipated, he told News18.

He is the vice-president of a local NGO, Sankalp foundation, and 22-year-old Chandan was one of its members.

But why was the Facebook post taken so seriously? Doesnt this sort of communal sloganeering happen on social media platforms often? What prompted the Hindu boys to respond to a mere challenge issued in a Facebook post?

See you people in Delhi may tend to ignore or block such objectionable posts. But here, the new generation is made of different stuff. Har gali mein se ladke Modi aur Yogi banna chahte hain. Har koi neta banna chahta hai.

Police personnel deployed in violence-hit Kasganj. More than 100 people have been arrested so far. (PTI Photo)

His fears were confirmed when on the night of January 25, he got a call from one of the Hindu boys informing him that they were planning to go to Chamunda Gate to take up the challenge. Hum jaa to rahe hain kal, lekin koi diqqat to nahi hogi? He says he asked the boys to not go.

On the morning of January 26, around 80 boys carrying the tricolour and saffron flags, reached Baddu Nagar near Chamunda Gate  an area densely populated by Muslims  and asked them to chant objectionable slogans.

There are two versions of what followed this encounter. While the Hindu community claims they had just asked the Muslims to chant Vande Mataram and were beaten up and fired upon by the Muslims, which resulted in Chandans death; the Muslims claim their Republic Day celebrations were mobbed by Hindus, who beat the local Muslims and clashed with the police, which led to Chandans death.

What is not disputed though is the fact that it was communal violence partly provoked by a war of words on Facebook, which makes the Kasganj clashes one-of-its-kind in the country.

Yet, Facebook isn't the only culprit here.

CHANDAN AND THE MAKING OF RIOTS

Abhishek Gupta, popularly known as Chandan, came from a lower middle class family or Ekdum nyuunatam varg, as his father Sushil Gupta put it. Unemployment, which affects nearly 40% of the local youth, played its part in shaping the social and political life of youngsters like Chandan.

Chandan lived in Kasganjs Shivalay Gali, in a two-room ground-floor apartment in an unauthorised colony. His 51-year-old father is a compounder at a private hospital and his brother is studying pharmacy to follow his fathers footsteps. Apart from this small house, the family owns almost nothing.

Chandan used to travel outside Kasganj, had come to Delhi and Ghaziabad between January 20 and 22 but had little hopes of finding employment in the Capital, while in Kasganj there was little to do. After finishing his BCom from KA College in Kasganj, he did not have much to look forward to.

But he had ambition and lots of time to himself. Seven months ago, Chandan and his friends, some of whom spoke to News18 on condition of anonymity, decided to invest their time elsewhere. Most of these friends, who have gone underground following a police crackdown, describe themselves as politicians or political workers on social networking websites.

They found an NGO called Sankalp Foundation. The idea being to provide blood and clothes to needy people in the area. Sankalp foundation, which operates from a single room office, had begun to generate a lot of goodwill in the area. The NGO members, including Chandan, often posted photographs of themselves donating clothes to the areas poor. The NGO has around 85 members, most of who are Hindu.

Chandan and his friends also revived the little-known Baba Sher Nath temple, part of the Gorakhpanth sect, of which UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is the chief priest.

The Baba Sher Nath temple in Kasganj. (Image: Suhas Munshi/News18)

It was around seven months ago that the boys told me they wanted to help with kirtans and bhajans. We welcomed them and every Tuesday, the boys would hold kirtans here and invite people from across the town to visit. Over the past few months, we gathered a huge following and the boys had become patrons of the temple, temple priest Mahant Somnath told News18.

On January 21, the boys decided to celebrate the foundation day of the temple and took the idol of Gorakhnath Baba around the city. The Muslims were really perturbed for some reason. The boys had a scuffle with Muslims there. They had also invited Yogiji [the CM] to visit the temple and had some big plans in mind. But probably for the violence here Yogiji has decided to stay away, Somnath said.

In less than seven months, Chandan and his friends were the toast of the areas Hindu community and quite unsurprisingly, they managed to create a rift with the Muslims.

Some of these boys even held a protest against Padmaavat in Kasganj.

Haal filhaal mein yahan ke ladkon mein deshbhakti ki bhaavna kuch zyada hi bad gayi thi. Yahan ke Mussalmaan deshbhakt hote hue bhi paraye ho gaye (In the past few months, the boys grew a little too patriotic and the Muslims here became enemies despite being quite patriotic themselves), said a close friend of Chandan, who did not wish to be named.

Chandan and his friends, while running the NGO and the local temple, also started discussing the objectionable behaviour of the Muslims. One of the problems we had was that while Yogiji had asked for loudspeakers to be taken down from mosques, the Muslims still continued to announce the azaan at full volume. We had a serious problem with this, said another friend of Chandan.

REACTIONARY PATRIOTISM

The events of January 26 and communal violence that later broke out happened in context of recent phenomenon in Kasganj  an in-your-face kind of nationalism, a reactionary and identity based patriotism, which the town has never seen.

It was for the first time on August 15 that Chandan and his friends from Sankalp Foundation decided to carry out a march across the town with the tricolour. Fearing a backlash in their maiden venture, the boys sped through the Muslim-dominated Baddu Nagar area and ended the event quietly.

However, on January 26, they had bigger plans in mind and everyone in the town knew about it and tempers were also running high after the Facebook post.

Shops were burnt, houses vandalized in the violence ensuing a war of words on Facebook and Republic Day events. (Image: Suhas Munshi/News18)

According to some, the Muslims, fearing a bigger outrage against them, decided to hoist the tricolour by themselves in Baddu Nagar before Chandan and his friends arrived.

The local Muslims claim that they have been hoisting the flag for past several years. Curiously though, they say they had never invited a social worker or politician who could vouch for these past events.

According Asif Khan, who runs an HIV awareness NGO and lives in Baddu Nagar, locals always hold two small ceremonies  one on Republic Day and the other on Independence Day  to salute the national flag and honour some children studying in a government school. We hoist the tricolour and distribute sweets to the homeless children who study in the school nearby.

WHAT HAPPENED ON THE 26TH?

Everyone is saying we hoisted the Pakistani flag, laments Hashim, a local businessman, as he shows some CCTV footage from the Republic Day events in which two men can be seen erecting a pole with the tricolour on it.

Though the scuffle between Hashims friends and the Sankalp Foundation boys cant be seen in the footage, he claims that while they were peacefully celebrating the Republic Day, scores of boys came on motorcycles and initiated violence.

Reiterating Hashims claims, Asif Khan says that the motorcycle rally was carried out by an ABVP outfit.

We love India more than the ABVP people and we hate Pakistan more than they do. We will live and die here in India and they are nobody to teach us patriotism, Khan thundered as people around him broke into a loud round of applause.

A Hindu boy, who was part of this rally, claims there were two rallies, one conducted by the ABVP and the other by Sankalp Foundation, which had merged into one. It was a peaceful rally but we were angered by their chants of Pakistan Zindabad. I can show you the video where they said it.

However, despite spending a lot of time rummaging through his gallery, he couldnt find it. He promised to Whatsapp it later.

BROKEN FAMILIES

Chandans father Sushil Gupta, who refused to accept a cheque of Rs 20 lakh issued by the Chief Minister as compensation, claims that it were the Muslims who killed his son.

His wife, daughter and sister chased the District Magistrate out of the colony when he reached the house on Sunday to hand over the cheque. They asked for a memorial in Chandans honour and wanted the state to declare him a martyr.

Kin of Chandan Gupta along with locals participate in a dharna in Kasganj on Tuesday. (PTI Photo)

Police didn't kill my son, the Muslims did. They fired 50-60 rounds and pelted stones at him. Every year on January 26 and August 15, the boys have been carrying out rallies for past 15 years. How would he have known that he would be killed for carrying out national service?

His family claims that it was a Muslim boy named Waseem, son of local businessman Barkatullah Barki, who shot Chandan fatally.

But Waseems cousin Dilshad  whose own house has been vandalised  claims Waseem was in a seminary for the past one-and-a-half months. As hes talking, his friend  Musfaqeen - who owns Prince shoe company gets flooded with calls and messages. Hes repeatedly informed that his shop near the city square is being looted right now. There is nothing I can do. I cannot go there or Ill be killed.

Communal clashes in Kasganj have consumed a life, resulted in near-fatal injuries to dozens, mass loot and arson. They have also chained people to their religious identities. Muslims and Hindus no longer dare to venture into each others colonies. The riots have also begotten possibilities of more clashes.

One of Chandans friends further claims that the violence will not stop here. We have lost a brother. They havent till now. Kasganj will not rest in peace for a long time.New Delhi: On Wednesday morning, Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba launched the third of Indias locally manufactured Scorpene-class submarines. INS Karanj is expected to be inducted into the Indian Navy latest by 2019. But what was meant to be a time of relief for the Indian Navy, which is desperately trying to expand its submarine fleet, was also a time of worry and concern.

The Navy chief rapped Mazagaon Docks Limited (MDL), the Indian manufacturer of the submarines, for the delay in manufacturing.

As India readies herself to play a more active role in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and the Indo-Pacific with an aggressive China expanding its String of Pearls, a powerful, new-age and well-equipped Navy is essential to not only guard the over 7,500 kms coastline, but also secure Indias interests in the IOR.

While the Indian Navy received some relief with the commissioning of INS Kalvari, it still has to make do with a fleet of 13, mostly ageing, submarines.

Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba had earlier said that India planned to have a fleet of 22 submarines by 2020-21. Already, sources indicate that there may be a further delay of two years and all six Scorpene-class submarines may still not be inducted till the end of 2023.

Project 75 (P-75), Indias project worth Rs 70,000 crore for the indigenous manufacturing of stealth submarines, has been getting off to a low start ten years after it actually started.

P-75 was approved in 2005 and according to the original schedule, the first of the six submarines, the INS Kalvari, was scheduled to be delivered to the Navy by 2012.

However, it was only by December 2017 that the submarine was inducted into the Navy. INS Khanderi, the second submarine which is named after Chattrapati Shivajis island fortress, was launched in January 2017. INS Karanj, the third, was launched on Wednesday.

The project is already late by six years. Even if all the delays are smoothed out, the Navy worries, the project has already been pushed back two years and this has not gone unnoticed at the highest of levels.

Earlier this week, reports suggested that the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) had rapped the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for the delay. The MoD, in turn, has made its displeasure clear to MDL.

Defence expert Comodore (retd.) C Uday Bhaskar said, These delays have taken place across the board. (This starts) from the highest level of decision-making in the government, which is the Cabinet led by successive Prime Ministers. And this is not just the story of Indias submarine platform. Across the board, the Indian Military has been plagued by deficiencies and inventory gaps which are very alarming.

Part of the reason is that we have not been able to introduce an appropriate level of efficiency and swiftness in decision-making about acquiring major military platforms and once the decision is made, we are not able to implement the process of induction with the kind of urgency that is required. As a result, the Scorpene, as a programme, had started almost two decades ago and they were delayed in the acquisition process and finally, when we had signed the contract and the French were on board, we still had some delays due to some contractual issues. We lost almost five years in delays.

Meanwhile, the INS Karanj joined its sister submarines INS Kavlari and INS Khanderi as the third Scorpene Class submarine.

A submarine has to be undetectable. The acoustics, propulsion and ordnance such as torpedoes etc on INS Karanj have been designed keeping in mind the latest practices of submarine design. This would be valuable for the Indian Navys submarine arm, said Commodore (retd.) C Uday Bhaskar.Fashion and politics have always been intertwined, as has been made evident from history, whether it was Indira Gandhi's powerful bob cut or Jawahar Lal Nehru's jacket. Clothing and the personal style of politicians have had a remarkable impact in the way they are critiqued by the people.

Sporting a casual emsemble while kickstarting the campaign for Meghalaya Assembly elections came at a cost for Rahul Gandhi. Rahul was seen donning a black jacket paired with blue denim while attending a musical performance called Celebration of Peace in Meghalaya. He looked suave and confident in the jacket, which had chequered detailing on the inside, paired with a basic grey T-shirt and a washed pair of blue denims. The Bharatiya Janata Party took a potshot at him by mentioning the price of his jacket in a quick tweet.

The jacket is two-in-one down puffer jacket from Burberry. On the Bloomingdales website, the cost of the jacket was listed as Rs 68,145. Burberry, which is a British luxury fashion brand is a high-end fashion favorite for many celebrities. An icon of outerwear, puffer jackets are a must-have jacket staple which provides comfort and style at the same time.

When Gandhi showed up to the concert looking dapper as ever to woo young voters for the February 27 elections, his style failed flat with BJP as they turned it into a retaliation moment for his "suit boot" jibe at the prime minister. The BJP was quick to grab the opportunity to attack the young Congress chief, who has been ridiculing the Narendra Modi government over GST, rising unemployment and slow economic growth. The BJP, however, had its own variation of what it meant by 'soot-boot jibe it took at the Congress chief.

"So @OfficeOfRG , soot(pun intended!)-boot ki sarkar with 'black' money fleeced from Meghalayan State exchequer by rampant corruption? Instead of singing away our woes, you could have given a report card of your inefficient govt in Meghalaya! Your indifference mocks us!" wrote the Meghalaya BJP below the picture which was paired with the jacket's original photo and price.

So @OfficeOfRG , soot(pun intended!)-boot ki sarkar with black money fleeced from Meghalayan State exchequer by rampant corruption? Instead of singing away our woes, you could have given a report card of your inefficient govt in Meghalaya! Your indifference mocks us! pic.twitter.com/sRvj5eoyRb BJP Meghalaya (@BJP4Meghalaya) January 30, 2018

The celebration of peace event didn't go well with Rahul Gandhi this time.Actress Vaani Kapoor truly seems to be living up to one of her recent photo's caption, 'Go Bold or Go Home'. The Befikre star, who was in Mumbai to attend an awards ceremony, went bold and glamorous in a black, bare-it-all Nikhil Thampi number.

Vaani looked like a diva in a risque cut out gown that featured a shimmery trail, plunging neckline and an open-back, left onlookers gasping for breath, when she stepped out in the uber chic and daring avatar. Styled by celebrity stylist Mohit Rai, Vaani nailed the look to perfection while flaunting her svelte figure shedding all inhibitions. Minimal makeup with a dash of soft pink on the lips, tresses left open and minimal accessories, only rings so to say, by Misho designs rounded off the B-town beauty's look.

In a set of photos shared by Vaani and Nikhil Thampi, we can see the actress ooze oomph, sexiness and confidence as she poses for the shutterbugs flaunting her well-toned figure and back.

Take a look.

Credit: @ VK Credit: @ VK Credit: @ Nikhil Thampi Credit: @ VK

Vaani is slaying it in this bold black outfit. What do you of her look? Tell us in the comments section below.Hina Khan and Luv Tyagi gave fans some major friendship goals during their stay inside the Bigg Boss house. Though Luv entered the house as a commoner, after weeks of persisting, he managed to form a strong alliance with Hina. The duo often strategised together and stood as support in time of need.

Recently, Hina was spotted with former co-contestants Vikas Gupta and Priyank Sharma in a mall, where the trio had a blast along with the Ye Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai actor's boyfriend Rocky Jaiswal. Vikas, who was the second runner-up on the show, also shared a photo of him with the two and wrote "Jab We Met."

During a chat with an online portal, when Hina was asked about not meeting Luv, she said the Delhi boy is keeping busy and has no time to meet her.

"I am so angry at Luv, I want to slap him right now. In fact, yesterday only when I was talking to him, I told him that you are very busy and you've become a celebrity and all, ha? But he said I am actually trying to become a commoner again from the celebrity that I've become," Hina was quoted as saying Pinkvilla.Mumbai: Superstar Shah Rukh Khan, known for his chivalrous attitude, says nobody has dared to misbehave with a woman on his film sets.

The actor, who was feted with a Crystal Award at the World Economic Forum summit in Davos along with Hollywood celebrities Cate Blanchett and Elton John, spoke to BBC World News at length on gender equality in Bollywood and the cultural differences in India.

In the midst of the raging debate over sexual misconduct allegations against powerful men in Hollywood, Shah Rukh was asked if he has witnessed sexual misconduct in the Hindi film industry and done anything about it.

"At a level when I'm making films or working in films, we are very clear about the attitude to women. Even the smallest aspects, of the names coming first in title, which is not going to do anything, but the kind of respectability," Shah Rukh said on the "HARDtalk on BBC World News" show.

"Even this small thing needs to be done just to bring about the equality... Just see what we've reduced ourselves to. You know, to put a girl's name in front just to show what little guys we are, thinking of them as equals. And that is sad and that is strangely dichotomous when you're talking about creativity, and you have boys and girls working together.

"I have never personally, first hand and nobody, if I may say, nobody dared misbehave with a woman on my set, I am very clear on that," he added. A transcript of the interview was provided to IANS by BBC.

On inter-communal tensions and divisions that the world has been observing in modern-day India, the actor said: "There will be dissent for everything and I think, like you would also believe and we all believe, there has to be a discussion on it."

Shah Rukh believes there cannot be a radical standoff when there is dissent.

"I think you can have a discussion and then you can talk about it in our country - we are the biggest democracy - and if you are the biggest democracy, dissent is a part and parcel of that and as much is a discussion.

"So, when you have a story and you know when you go out sometimes, there's dissent, but as a filmmaker, as a citizen of a country and the world, you know when there's dissent, can we just have a little bit of discussion about it and sort it out instead of you know taking standoff positions... So it is possible," he added.

Questioned if there is a kind of Hindu nationalism that is not fostering good inter-communal ties, Shah Rukh said: "Because of social media, whenever a certain thing, when small factions or fractions of things happen now, they seem a little bigger. But the beauty of all this is that within all this trolling and anger and people expressing themselves, they're all also connecting.

"I just see it on social media. I don't see it live anywhere and I would be wrong to comment on it that way, but I think if you have this kind of dissent or whatever if people claim it, I think just a bit of discussion especially, finally, if it's not going to be inclusive, everybody will suffer. But I think we're not at that stage at all in our country," he added.Mumbai: Shahid Kapoor believes playing Maha Rawal Ratan Singh was the biggest risk of his career as people did not know much about the character's journey but he is glad that "the hero" of Padmaavat is rightfully getting his due. The 36-year-old actor said there were many people who questioned him for taking up the role, as Padmavati (Deepika Padukone) and Sultan Alauddin Khilji (Ranveer Singh) were already popular.

"It was one of the biggest risks of my career to take a role like this where for one-and-a-half years nobody knew what it is... So many people had told me why are you doing this film. I knew my character is an underdog in the film, I'm happy that the hero of the film is getting so much love."

"Out of the three characters, people know a lot about Padmavati, about Alauddin Khilji, but nobody knows about Rawal Ratan Singh. Now you know his journey was also so spectacular," Shahid said in a group interview. The actor said he felt "validated" with the praise that the film, which released after delays and controversies, has received.

"Everyone is talking about it being the top grosser but it's a great film. We have come a long way, journey of a year and a half... There was a point we were wondering will it be able to release properly. It's been a turbulent and emotionally draining journey."

"... I feel validated that the film has come out and people have said so many beautiful things about it," Shahid said. Padmaavat, earlier titled 'Padmavati', was in the eye of the storm as several Rajput groups and politicians were up in arms against the film over an alleged dream sequence between Khilji and Padmavati, a claim repeatedly denied by the director and the team.

The film was stuck with the censor board for a while and had to miss its December 1 release last year. It arrived in the theatres on January 25, minus the 'i' in the title, and several disclaimers and modifications.Behind all the debates on election funding, electoral bonds and black money, we often ignore one simple fact  the increasing role of money power in elections. Those who fund politicians and parties, ultimately control the government and its policies. So it is not the voters who call the shots, except for that one time in five years, but the donors.

We are currently publicly debating only one of the aspects of the finances of elections  ruling out black money through electoral bonds.

However, the more important aspect of controlling undue influence on the government is by putting a cap on funding apart from making it not only transparent, but widely known to the voters and these are not being discussed. Such laws are there in several other democracies but not in India.

There are many technical details, and politicians have made several statements on these issues. All of these tend to make things even more confusing for the so called ordinary voter.

So, it is important to look at the essential details shorn of rhetoric and interpretation. The previous government allowed the setting up of Electoral Trusts that can donate funds to political parties. They are required to donate at last 95% of their funds to political parties, while the donors get a 100% tax exemption, as do the political parties. NGOs, trusts and so on almost always get only 50% tax exemption.

With the introduction of electoral bonds, Electoral Trusts are no longer required to reveal the name(s) of the party to which donations are given. If a government makes policy, budget allocations or tax rules that favour donors over the public, we will not even know who the donors were.

The publicly stated logic of introducing electoral bonds is to remove black money and protect donors from harassment. Apparently, those who donate to political parties have complained that they are harassed by other political parties and even Income Tax authorities.

However, voters are not responsible for the actions of rival political parties or that of the authorities. Their right to know has been done away with and so far, not one person has been jailed for black money.

It is impossible that the government does not know who has black money. It is a well known fact that after demonetisation, black money continues to flow in state Assembly elections. In any case, these electoral bonds do not prevent black money donations.

Currently, the Opposition is against these bonds because 90% of the donations from Electoral Trusts have gone to the ruling party.

The Opposition fears that with these bonds, even this information would not be available and they are not fighting for the citizens right to know, but for their political results.

It is to be noted that all political parties favour less transparency. When the Central Information Commission (CIC) ruled that political parties come under the RTI Act, they unanimously defied the CIC, irrespective of their being in power or opposition.

Earlier, all political parties came together to try and overturn a Supreme Court judgment mandating disclosure of financial and criminal records by candidates in elections. Later, all of them fought tooth and nail to prevent the CIC from directing Income Tax authorities to release the audited financial statements of political parties.

The source of information of various reports on Electoral Trusts, including the ADR report is partly based on that CIC ruling. Of course the political parties refuse to give more details of their finances  except what they have to file with the Income Tax authorities.

On the other hand, citizens need bank accounts, land khatas, property documents, ration cards, driving licenses, credit cards and so on. There is a move to digitalize all of these and link everything to their Aadhaar numbers. It gives the government (and Google) full knowledge of all activities of an individual. Yet, political parties refuse to follow the RTI and are making funding more and more opaque and unknowable, and regularly flout the spending limits in elections. Hardly anyone is ever prosecuted.

There are long queues for citizens while politicians get VIP privileges at every public facility. The citizen has little protection from harassment by authorities  whether Income Tax, police or other inspectors. On the other hand, both the UP and Karnataka governments recently withdrew thousands of cases against politicians saying they were motivated.

The government continues to flout the Supreme Court directive that there is no need for government permission to investigate and prosecute senior civil servants and politicians. This means they do not trust the courts to deliver justice to them but expect citizens to depend on the court system. This is a British colonial law and does not exist in other countries.

In short, the government has the power to know everything about the voter and punish him, but the voter cannot know everything about political parties who keep themselves a little above the law.

Shades of Animal Farm? Surely this is no democracy.

However, the remedy is very simple. Political parties can simply declare to voters that they will not accept black money, will keep to the spending limits and make their accounts transparent.

After all, most citizens do the right thing, not because of the law but because they want to do what is right. In the absence of intent, we need to follow the best international practices and laws not only in market reforms, FDI, FII, Davos and international diplomacy, but also in elections and campaign funding reforms.

This clearly means full transparency and accountability in funding of political parties and candidates.

It also means that conflict of interest should be addressed meaningfully. For example, in the US, both the public prosecutor and special counsel  Kenn Starr and Preet Bharara  took on the rich and powerful fearlessly, because they are independent and protected by the law. In India, the conviction of politicians is very rare and happens only when he/she is not in power.

So, will electoral bonds address these issues? Surely not. In fact, it is a regressive step. We have miles to go before we sleep.

 Author is Chairman and Founder of Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). He teaches at IIM Bangalore.It is a rare event in history when the future of a nation is tied to that an unborn child. I can say this without fear of contradiction that we have one such individual in Pakistan  Bilawal Bhutto Zardari  earmarked by nature to play a larger than life role.

Unfortunately, not many have thought of the fact that this child was destined to be the leader of the nation much before he was born.

I would like to emphasise the role stars play in determining the future course of a nation or individuals life. People who are associated with Pakistan politics would recall certain turn of events preceding the general elections in November 1988. One can co-relate it to the Geneva Accord on the Soviet withdrawal of troops from Afghanistana major decision taken by Prime Minister Muhammad Khan Junejo in consultation with PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto and other senior leaders.

Ominous was the blowing up of the huge Ohjiri Arms Depot at Faizabad, appointment of General Aslam Beg as Vice Chief of Army Staff by Junejo without consulting President Zia-ul-Haq. This forced Zia to dismiss the PM, one had chosen himself, that led to rebellion by generals resulting in the mysterious crash of C-130 on August 17, 1988.

General Zia was so confident of his grip on power, hold on the army and ISI that he did not understand that time and tide wait for none and, as Roman philosopher Cicero said, certain signs precede ominous events.

Instead of calling it a day, Zia preferred to buy extension by sacrificing black goats every week. I remember the group interview he gave us two months before his fall from the sky, reiterating boisterously that he would not give up his army uniform and would die with his boots on. How prophetic!

Benazirs tumultuous return to Pakistan in April 1986 and the global environment opening floodgates of democratic change assured the inevitability of elections, especially after Prime Minister Junejos dismissal. Zia was scared of Bhutto and the landslide electoral victory waiting for her. He designed the polls to be held at such a time when she was pregnant. And as the incredible story goes, Zia assigned ISI, MI and IB to find out when she was due for delivery so that she could not carry out a vigorous election campaign.

Much to the machinations and planning by ISI apparatus, Bilawal was born earlier and Zias plans didnt materialise. When I look back, I am amused how poorly our intelligence agencies performed. Whether Bilawal would like to share this story with a wild smile on his face or not, I fondly remember how our dearest Bibi used to narrate instances of intelligence failure, about her pregnancy and her being a graduate.

Many of his narrow-minded critics continue to be uncharitable in assessment of the enormous potential Bilawal has lately shown following his very pragmatic and objectively loaded sense of direction in December last year at the time of the 50th foundation anniversary of the party.

As he rightly said recently in his Davos speech and an interview, Pakistan needs a progressive voice to eliminate politics of hate and mudslinging by major political parties. PPP has always been a progressive party. Thats the way forward. Thats the kind of politician I want to be, he said.

Bilawal also said that his mothers mission to serve the people motivated him to choose politics. My mother was assassinated for opposing extremists. I did not choose a life in politics. It chose me, he added.

Bilawal also put to shame senior politicians and their lack of understanding of the art of diplomacy when he dilated about the relationship between India and Pakistan. He assured that a one-way approach would not solve issues and that reservations of both the countries should be discussed in order to break the impasse through pragmatism and statesmanship.

India and the rest of the world think that they can just dictate Pakistan and thats not how a partnership works or is built. We need to have a discussion over reservations of both countries with each other, he said.

Bilawal is not the continuation of the politics of status quo like PML-N and PTI leadership. Whenever there is a grim situation, or an occasion that demands a forthright stand against retrogressive force, he has not hesitated in taking the bull by the horn. He has the dare of his mother and her dauntless determination too, to face the extremists and to take tough decisions when challenges are onerous.

Tall, handsome, educated with the magical touch of his late mother and the flair of his grandfather, the emergence of Bilawal is indeed the most important political development in Pakistan and will have far reaching impact.

His heart warming speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos has made the nation proud.

Bilawal is definitely a new star on Pakistans political horizon that Bhutto supporters and PPP voters had been anxiously waiting for. Each and every line of his speech got full endorsement from a roaring crowd in the Golden Anniversary public meeting in Islamabad and plaudits in Davos. His popularity is a reminder of the old glory days of PPP when Zulfikar Butto and Benazir would regale crowds with their oratory.

Notwithstanding the fact that times have changed and there are growing security constraints, Bilawal will have to shed that status quo tag and must expand his attempt to connect with the voters. Like his grandfather and mother, he should venture into populist activities such as organising and participating in sporting activities or breaking bread with the common man. His preference should be to be seen with younger elements rather than be surrounded and discard the political ruins.

The author is the former High Commissioner of Pakistan to UK and a veteran journalistShillong: The BJP took potshots at Congress president Rahul Gandhi over his jacket, which they claim cost nearly Rs 70,000. Rahul was attending a concert in Shillong when he was seen sporting the apparel.

"So @OfficeOfRG , soot(pun intended!)-boot ki sarkar with 'black' money fleeced from Meghalayan State exchequer by rampant corruption? Instead of singing away our woes, you could have given a report card of your inefficient govt in Meghalaya! Your indifference mocks us! (sic)" wrote the Meghalaya BJP Twitter handle with pictures of the jacket's original price and photo.

So @OfficeOfRG , soot(pun intended!)-boot ki sarkar with black money fleeced from Meghalayan State exchequer by rampant corruption? Instead of singing away our woes, you could have given a report card of your inefficient govt in Meghalaya! Your indifference mocks us! pic.twitter.com/sRvj5eoyRb BJP Meghalaya (@BJP4Meghalaya) January 30, 2018

The national party's tweet was in retaliation to Rahul Gandhi's "suit boot" jibe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had worn a monogrammed suit during a meeting with then US President Barack Obama in 2015.

The base price of the suit at an auction was Rs 11 lakh, and it was sold for Rs 4.31 crore.

Just before the concert, organised by the Congress party to reach out to young voters, Rahul addressed the crowd and said, " We are strongest when we stand together in our diversity. India's strength is our diverse culture and different languages, different ways of thinking."

Gandhi urged the youths to love and respect each other to make the country strong. "When we fight each other and spread hatred, we are not strengthening our country but weakening it and disrespecting our people, our past and our future," he said.

Asking the people to be proud of their heritage, language and religion, the Congress president said, "We are all proud of you and we will defend your way of thinking."

Stating that every single person from all states has a space in the country, he noted, "Their dreams and aspirations are equally important, no matter how small or big a state is."

The Congress, which has been in power for nearly 15 years in the state, organised the concert to woo young voters for the February 27 elections.Bhopal: Claiming that the Bharatiya Janata Partys downfall in Madhya Pradesh has begun with Congress victories in Ater and Chitrakoot bypolls, former Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has claimed that the ruling partys farewell would begin from February 24.

The constituencies of Kolaras and Mungaoli are going to bypolls on February 24. Both seats, which are part of Shivpuri and Ashoknagar respectively, fall into the Scindia bastion.

Speaking to the media during a roadshow in Guna, the Member of Parliament tried to present a united face of the Congress, claiming it to be the first time that the party was wholly together. We (the party leaders) are connected at heart and have pledged to uproot the BJP government, he said.

Scindia has been hard at work trying to project himself as the partys chief ministerial face ahead of the assembly polls later this year.

Senior Congress leader Kamal Nath also made allegations against the government and said CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan has betrayed the public. The government machinery was widely misused in the bypolls.

Senior party leaders Kamal Nath, Suresh Pachauri, Kantilal Bhuria and party state in-charge Deepak Babaria, were led by Scindia as they began their roadshow from Badarvas in Shivpuri.

The purpose of the roadshow is to file the nomination papers of the partys candidate from Kolaras, Mahendra Singh Yadav. The rally would then move to Ashoknagar to file the nomination papers for Brijendra Yadav.Bengaluru: For skywatchers and astronomers, it will be a rare occasion to witness a Supermoon, a blue moon and a total lunar eclipse on Wednesday evening. This rare combination of lunar events will be a treat for most people across the world, including India. But for the politicians in poll-bound Karnataka, it is nothing close to a triple treat or celestial event.

For them, watching the blue moon, Supermoon and blood moon on the same day may not be good for their political future. And to ward off the evil powers of the rare lunar eclipse, many of the top Karnataka politicians are conducting special poojas and rituals at their houses and temples.

The cautious bunch of politicians also includes former Prime Minister and JDS supremo HD Deve Gowda, who performed a Sathyanarayana Pooja at his house in Bengaluru on Wednesday.

Gowda and his wife Chennamma offered ahuthi (offerings) to the fire god and sought protection from the evil eyes of Wednesdays lunar eclipse.

Speaking to News18, Gowda said that it was a routine Sathyanarayana Pooja on poornima (full moon) and that there was nothing special about it. He said, We perform Sathyanarayana Pooja on every full moon day and lunar eclipses happen only on full moon nights. I am a believer in god and Hinduism, I perform poojas with great belief and dedication.

Not just Gowda, his son and former minister HD Revanna is also performing special poojas at several temples in neighbouring Tamil Nadu.

Along with his wife Bhavani, Gowdas elder son reached Tamil Nadu on Tuesday night. According to his close aides, Revanna will be offering prayers at various temples in Tamil Nadu. He is known for his immense faith in astrology, Vaastu and Vaidic rituals.

A month earlier, the Gowda family had conducted a special Havan for 11 days, called Athi Rudra Yaaga at Shringeri, one of the four most ancient temples founded by Adi Shankaracharya.

Meanwhile, like his close aides say, it is just another day for Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. The chief minister who has now started wearing the Hindu identity on his sleeves was in office, holding official meetings. Even though Siddaramaiah never claimed that he was an atheist, he is not known for conducting religious events. His wife Parvathi Siddaramaiah, who is otherwise a recluse, is a firm believer and regularly conducts special poojas on behalf of her husband. She is also likely to offer special prayers once the lunar eclipse ends at night.

Another believer in mantra and tantra is BJPs chief ministerial candidate BS Yeddyurappa, who is now busy with political engagements. His family claims that he is not conducting any specials poojas to please the moon god on Grahana day. There are no special pooja or anything. Some local news channels are running a false news that he is busy performing poojas, said his aide.

Wednesdays rare combination of a Supermoon, blue moon and total lunar eclipse will be visible in most parts of the world, including India. The Supermoon is a full moon that takes place when the moon is at its closest distance to the Earth in the orbit and the eclipse itself is expected to last about an hour and a quarter.

Karnataka Cabinet meeting ends at 4 pm. A senior minister says #LunarEclipse begins after 5 pm, not good! DP SATISH (@dp_satish) January 31, 2018

The historic temples like Gavi Gangadhareshwara in Bengaluru, Kukke Subramanya at Kukke, Chennakeshava at Belur, Mahabaleshwara at Gokharna, Chamundeshwari at Mysore have been closed for public till the lunar eclipse is over.

Temple authorities claim politicians from across all parties are expected to visit them in the night. A priest at Gavi Gangadhareshwara temple said, It is an election year. Politicians are worried about the results. Naturally they go to temples on days like these. We are expecting many city politicians to visit tonight.

State Congress campaign committee chairman and Power Minister DK Shivakumar, state Congress president Dr. G Parameshwara, JDS state chief H D Kumaraswamy and over a dozen cabinet ministers are expected to offer special prayers in the night.

Because no politician wants his career to be eclipsed!New Delhi: Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje is facing a test on her home turf as two Lok Sabha seats and one assembly seat in Rajasthan went to polls on Monday. As the results come in on Thursday morning, Raje will not be the only one anxious for a victory in the all-crucial bypoll. Rajasthan Pradesh Congress Committee (RPCC) President Sachin Pilot, too, will be hoping for a favorable result.

Punters in Rajasthan favour the Congress in both Alwar and Ajmer parliamentary seats and the state Congress unit is also confident of a victory. "We are very confident of a victory in not only Alwar and Ajmer but also in the Mandalgarh assembly bypoll. If you look at it, there are 17 out of 200 assembly seats where voting has taken place - eight seats each in Alwar and Ajmer plus the Mandalgarh seat. This is a mini-election, a kind of a semi-final and we are confident the Congress will win," said Gopal Singh Shekhawat, Rajasthan Congress Vice President.

When asked if this is a prestige battle for Pilot, Shekhawat said, "Sachin Pilot has worked very hard for these bypolls. He has been in constant touch with the party workers on the ground and built their morale. Congress workers, under the leadership of Sachin Pilot, have gone to each and every village in the two Lok Sabha seats."

A senior leader in the Rajasthan Congress said Pilot had spent the last few months reworking the caste equations in Ajmer and Alwar. "A few decades ago, Gujjars used to vote for the Congress but had slowly shifted to BJP. But during these bypolls, when they saw Rajesh Pilot's son come to them, they started shifting to Congress en masse. Sachin has also taken great care to reach out to the Rajput community, which forms a substantial chunk of voters in both places," he said.

It's not just the Padmaavat issue, the leader said, claiming that Rajputs across the state are feeling ignored by the BJP. "Together, the Rajputs and Gujjars will drive Congress to victory in these bypolls," he said.

While some leaders want to portray Pilot as the chief architect of the Congress campaign in the event of a victory on both seats, particularly Ajmer, which Pilot represented in the Lok Sabha from 2009 to 2014, in other sections, the knives have already been drawn if Pilot fails this crucial test.

Sources indicate that the camp led by former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot is eager to have him declared the CM candidate months ahead of the polls. A loss in the bypolls will give Gehlot ammunition with which to approach Congress President Rahul Gandhi and it is something, sources said, Sachin Pilot is mindful of.

"Sachin Pilot is a young leader, but he does not have the kind of mass appeal that Gehlot does. Gehlot has decades-old links with workers across Rajasthan's districts and they will be ready to go to war for him," said another Rajasthan Congress leader.

He said the Gujarat result is also something that helped Gehlot earn Rahuls trust. "We may not have won the Gujarat assembly elections but we surely gave the BJP a fright. And Ashok Gehlot was the architect of the campaign. Pilot has a lot to learn and I think the Congress can gain from a steady hand in this election. Raje's popularity is at an all-time low and this is a golden opportunity for us to bounce back," he said.

A source close to Pilot said the 40-year-old is playing his cards cautiously. "He is not desperate to be declared the CM-face of the party. The sole aim is to increase the Congress's base and win a majority in the upcoming elections. A victory in the bypolls will surely give a fillip to his standing," the source said.Bengaluru: It seems all is not well between film actress-turned-politician Ramya Divya Spandana and Karnataka state Congress leaders. Ramya, a former MP from Mandya was invited to the first meeting of Congress campaign committee in Bengaluru on Wednesday.

The committee chairman and Power minister D K Shivakumar had convened the meeting to chalk out partys poll strategy. Chief minister Siddaramaiah, KPCC chief Dr. G Parameshwara, AICC general secretary and Karnataka in charge K C Venugopal and several other top leaders of the party were present at the meeting.

Ramya who is also head of the AICC social media cell was one of the special invitees to this all important meeting held at a private hotel. A seat was reserved for her in a row meant for Kannada cinema stars who are campaigning for the party. According to insiders Ramya was miffed at this indiscretion and refused to sit with other film stars. Famous stars like Malashree, Sadhu Kokila and others seated there. She took a seat in one of the last rows.

When all top leaders including Siddaramaiah rose to sound the traditional bugle to announce the beginning of formal campaigning, Ramya was also invited on the stage. After some persuasion from D K Shivakumar, she climbed onto the stage and reluctantly sounded the poll bugle.

Even though Ramya was not available for a comment, sources in the state Congress believe that former actress was upset over not being treated like a leader of the Congress and still being treated like a film personality.

After she won the 2013 by-poll from Mandya Lok Sabha seat, Ramya has stopped acting in movies. She lost the 2014 Lok Sabha polls by a slender margin of 5,000 votes. When her mentor and former chief minister SM Krishna quit the Congress to join the BJP early last year, Ramya stayed with the Congress and was made head of AICC Social Media Cell a few months later.

She is credited with energizing the social media engagement of the Congress party changing Rahul Gandhis public image in the virtual world. Ramya is likely to contest in the upcoming Assembly polls from one of the seats in Mandya district.Legal services provided online or through artificial-intelligence platforms will quickly become more specific and diverse, the head of a Chinese startup has predicted.

Many companies using AI in legal products and services are still at the primary stages, "basically collecting big data in legal fields", said Wang Fengmei, CEO of lvxinweb.cn, China's first law-focused social media.

However, the basic work is important "because only when we better understand the judicial data can we use them to provide accurate and effective services or help people solve lawsuits", she said.

Wang made the remarks on Monday at a seminar in Beijing organized by King and Capital Law Firm and the China University of Political Science and Law.

She encouraged startups to do more research in technology and law. "We will give better answers to our clients' specific questions, such as how to solve traffic disputes, instead of general replies," she said.

The adoption of AI and other technologies in the legal industry will quickly lead to more specific products across a diverse range of areas, she added.

A report by Capital Law Firm on Monday supported her prediction. It showed a boom in AI legal products and services in 2016 and a slow increase in 2017.

Although the number is not rising quickly, the quality of products and services is improving, according to Chen Yu, a lawyer who contributed to the report.

"More legal entities will start to use technology, so how to make full and better use of big data in these companies seems important," he added.New Delhi: Miffed over opposition's threat that it will not let the House function unless the picture of Tipu Sultan is removed from the gallery, Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel on Wednesday dared Delhi BJP leaders to first remove page number 144 from the Constitution of India and accused them of habitually stoking controversies where there aren't any.

"...first remove page number 144 from the Constitution of India and then I will think about this (removing the portrait of Tipu Sultan). ...they (BJP) talk like a two-faced snake," Goel said.

Page 144, chapter 16, of the original copy of the Constitution bears the pictures of Rani Jhansi on one side and Tipu Sultan on the other. BJP, which has four members in the Delhi Assembly, has objected to the portrait of Tipu Sultan being displayed in the Assembly.

BJP MLA Majinder Singh Sira has allegedly threatened to physically tear down the portrait of the 18th century ruler of Mysore while leader of opposition, Vijender Gupta, rued that AAP government chose to stoke controversy as it did not consult him before installing Tipu Sultan's portrait in the assembly.

Clarifying the issue, Goel said that it was the nine General Purposes Committee led by the Speaker which had chosen the 70 revolutionaries who would find a place of honour in the Delhi Assembly. The General Purposes Committee did not have any members from the opposition and the names it chose were not shared either with the ruling party or the opposition.

It is not necessary that the opposition four members would be repeated in every committee. Opposition members have been included in committees where there is a need for them but not in this one, he added.

Goel urged Sirsa and Gupta to read the Constitution carefully and listen to President Ram Nath Kovind. The President, in his address to the Karnataka legislature on October 25 last year, had reserved high praise for Tipu Sultan.

"Tipu Sultan died a heroic death fighting the British, he was also a pioneer in the development and use of Mysore rockets in warfare. The Technology was later adopted by the Europeans," the President had said.

"If anyone wanted to raise an objection, they could have raised objections before they were formally unveiled. Though the list was not formally shared, the pictures were there for everybody to see", said Prassana K Suryadevara, Secretray of Delhi Assembly.

The Speaker also pointed out that one member had moved a motion of thanks in the sixth session of the Delhi Assembly on the same issue, but that not one member, not even Sirsa had raised any objection to the inclusion of Tipu Sultan.

On 26th January, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had formally inaugurated the gallery of revolutionaries which has seventy portraits, among them the 18th century Adivasi leader Tilka Majhi and the 18th ruler of Mysore, Tipu Sultan.New Delhi: After the shock defeat in 2004 General Elections, the RSS and the BJP top brass met at former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayees residence in Delhi. The meeting saw some heated discussions with some leaders questioning the raison detre for calling early polls when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) could have continued in office for a good six months more.

The BJP calls itself a party with a difference. In power or without, it tries to do things differently. Once again, as the party approaches the last lap of its first full-majority government in power, the spectre of early polls looms large.

This time though, the common refrain on One Nation-One Election is spun around the need to save valuable resources and wring the country out of a perpetual election mode.

There are two aspects to this debate. One legal or constitutional and other political. Former Finance Minister and Congress leader P Chidambaram avers holding simultaneous Assembly and Lok Sabha elections would entail constitutional amendments.

Politically, there is a common perception building around the Lok Sabha elections slated for the summer of 2019 may be advanced to coincide with four state Assembly elections  Mizoram, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan  whose term expires later this year or early 2019.

Going by the past experiences that may not be the option the ruling dispensation may be exploring.

The government may, on the contrary, hold the Lok Sabha elections on time in April-May 2019 and complete its full term. As it is six states  Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Sikkim  will hold their Assembly polls to coincide with the General Elections.

If the BJP takes a political decision to prepone or bring forward elections to the assemblies of say Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Delhi by 6 to 8 months  10 state elections would coincide with Lok Sabha polls.

If elections to Mizoram, Rajasthan, MP and Chhattisgarh are advanced by six months, the country may see nearly half of the states in the Union concurrently voting for the state Assembly and the lower house of Parliament.

To postpone elections, the central government in the current constitutional scheme of things will have to impose Presidents Rule for six months in these states. Though the ratification of any such move would have to be approved by both Houses of Parliament in six months. It will require political consensus amongst big players.

Politically, this arrangement suits the BJP. Most of the states going to the polls in the span of 13 months beginning December this year are held by the BJP. Some BJP chief ministers are facing anti-incumbency of 10 to 15 years in power.

Common elections help the BJP build a national campaign spun around Prime Minister Narendra Modi

No prizes for guessing, One Nation-One Election finds resonance at all levels within the ruling dispensation. President Ramnath Kovind underscored the idea in his customary address before joint session of Parliament earlier this week. PM Modi has mentioned it more than a couple of times.

Even Minister of State for Law PP Chaudhary at a function organised by Jind District Bar Association in Haryana urged association to conduct extensive deliberations on the crucial subject of simultaneous elections of Lok Sabha and state legislatures which has the potential to substantially reduce the burden on state exchequer!Guwahati: At a time when three northeastern states of India  Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura  are election-bound, the BJP and RSS lost little time in hitting back at Congress president Rahul Gandhi for his controversial remark on the status of women within the RSS. Rahul, during a visit to Shillong, claimed that RSS is an organisation which is based on the idea of disempowering women.

The RSS believes that men and women are like a railway track. A train cant operate on one without the other. Without women, the society is incomplete. Indian women have been leading this nation for ages. What Rahul Gandhi said was his ignorance speaking, responded RSS Spokesperson, Ranjib Sharma, in Guwahati.

Sharma claimed that the organizations womens wing, Rashtra Sevika Samiti, comprising the worlds largest number of women volunteers has been working towards the empowerment of Hindu women since inception.

The retort came barely hours after Rahul Gandhis comment during his address at St. Edmund's College in Shillong on Wednesday, where he was quoted by news agency ANI as saying, RSS idea is aimed at dis-empowering women. Does anyone know how many leadership positions are with women in RSS? Zero. If you see pictures of Mahatma Gandhi youll find women on this side (right), this side (left) but if you see pictures of Mohan Bhagwat, hell be alone or surrounded by men.

Sharp reactions came from the BJP unit of Meghalaya as well where the party took to Twitter to vent out its anger. In a statement re-tweeted by BJP general secretary Ram Madhav, the party said: We take offence to the insult hurled by @OfficeOfRG on Bapus legacy with his comment! We take offence to Cong Prez outraging the modesty of women power, reducing their relevance to physical proximity to senior leaders! Congress dared to insult matrilineal society of Meghalaya!

In his speech, Rahul further said, "In our society, women have a very large space. They play a crucial role in decision making and running things. However, the RSS does not believe in women's rights and give more power to men to dominate without fear in the society".

The Congress leader alleged that the BJP and RSS were attempting to undermine the culture, language and way of life for people across India, particularly in the North-East.

Elections to the 60-member Meghalaya Assembly are scheduled to take place on February 27. The results would be declared on March 3.Jowai (Meghalaya): With over 100 members resigning over allotment of tickets in Meghalaya, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday asked partymen to work together and ensure the party's victory in the February 27 assembly polls.

Gandhi's appeal assumed significance as former cabinet minister A L Hek had joined the BJP while five others including veteran leader and former deputy chief minister Rowell Lyngdoh had switched over to the National People's Party.

Hundred party members of Chokpot assembly seat in South Garo Hills district resigned on January 28 in protest against Lazarus Sangam's nomination while another 15 Congress members from Jirang seat in Ri Bhoi district quit over ticket allocation to Witness Syngkli.

"I am here to tell you that the Congress party is going to work together. We will protect your languages and tribal customs. We are not going to allow the imposition of one idea," a senior Congress leader quoting Gandhi as saying at the party meeting in Jowai.

Gandhi also lauded the Mukul Sangma government in the state for launching the social audit bill and stated that Meghalaya is one of the few states that provides universal healthcare.

He accused the BJP and the NPP of using money power ahead of the assembly election.

"I am very sad to hear that the BJP offered money to our churches. No amount of money can buy the people of Meghalaya," Gandhi was quoted as saying.

Union minister K J Alphons had announced a Rs 70 crore package for development of places of worship across the state under the 'Swadesh Darshan' scheme.

The Congress president also criticised the BJP for destroying the right to information and weakening the Lokayukta in BJP-ruled states.Google removed over seven lakh malicious apps from Play Store in 2017 that violated its policies - 70 percent more than the apps it took down in 2016 -- the company said on Wednesday. "Not only did we remove more bad apps, we were able to identify and take action against them earlier," Andrew Ahn, Product Manager, Google Play, said in a blog post.

Also read: Earnings Surge For Samsung Electronics on Huge Chip Profit

In fact, 99 percent of apps with abusive contents were identified and rejected before anyone could install them, he added. Google has developed new detection models and techniques that can identify repeat offenders and abusive developer networks at scale. Google also took down 100,000 bad developers in 2017.

"This was possible through significant improvements in our ability to detect abuse -- such as impersonation, inappropriate content, or malware -- through new Machine Learning models and techniques," the post read. "Copycats" apps attempt to deceive users by impersonating famous apps. They do this by trying to sneak in impersonating apps to the Play Store through deceptive methods such as using confusable unicode characters or hiding impersonating app icons in a different locale.

Also read: Facebook Bans Ads For Bitcoin And Other Cryptocurrencies on Its Platforms

"In 2017, we took down more than a quarter of a million of impersonating apps," Google said. When it came to inappropriate content such as pornography, extreme violence, hate and illegal activities, Google's improved machine learning models sifted through massive amounts of incoming app submissions and flagged them for potential violations.

"Tens of thousands of apps with inappropriate content were taken down last year as a result of such improved detection methods," the company noted. Potentially Harmful Applications (PHAs) are a type of malware that can harm people or their devices - like apps that conduct SMS fraud, act as trojans or phishing user's information. "With the launch of Google Play Protect in 2017, the annual PHA installs rates on Google Play was reduced by 50 percent year over year," the post said.

Watch: Smartron t.phone P Review | A Tough Budget Player With a Massive BatteryThe U.S. Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating whether Apple violated securities laws concerning its disclosures that it slowed older iPhones with flagging batteries, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. The government has requested information from the company, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Also read: Earnings Surge For Samsung Electronics on Huge Chip Profit

The chairman of a U.S. Senate committee overseeing business issues asked Apple to answer questions about its disclosures, Reuters reported this month. Apple did not respond to a request for comment. Representatives for the SEC and Justice Department declined to comment. Apple admitted in December that iPhone software could slow down some phones with battery problems. Aging lithium batteries deliver power unevenly, which can cause iPhones to shut down unexpectedly to protect the delicate circuits inside, it said.

Apple posted a public apology over its handling of the issue and lowered the price of iPhone battery replacements from $79 to $29. Consumers so far have filed some 50 proposed class action lawsuits over Apple's latest iPhone software update, which they allege caused unexpected shutdowns and hampered the performance of iPhone models of the SE, 6 and 7 lines. They claim the company tricked consumers into believing their phones were close to the end of their life cycle, forcing them to buy new phones or pay up to $80 for a replacement battery.

Most of the lawsuits have been filed in federal court in San Jose, California, but litigation over the software updates is also pending in other federal courts across the country. Lawyers for the consumers, who began filing their complaints in early January, have asked a federal judicial panel to consolidate the litigation in California. Consumers are asking judges to issue orders that would prevent future modifications to the iPhone's operating system which intentionally degrade performance and battery life. They also demand an undisclosed amount in compensation and damages.

Watch: Smartron t.phone P Review | A Tough Budget Player With a Massive BatteryU.S. retailer Wal-Mart Stores is in advanced talks to buy a minority stake in Indian e-commerce firm Flipkart, Indian financial daily the Economic Times reported on Tuesday. Walmart could buy a 15 percent to 20 percent stake in Amazon.com's main competitor in India, the newspaper said, citing two anonymous sources. A deal could be finalised as early as March and may involve primary and secondary sales by longstanding Flipkart investors, the paper added.

Also read: Earnings Surge For Samsung Electronics on Huge Chip Profit

"We dont comment on rumours and speculation," Walmart spokesman Randy Hargrove told Reuters via email. Bengaluru-based Flipkart was not immediately available for comment outside regular business hours. The news comes nearly two years after Reuters reported that Walmart was looking to invest between $750 million and $1 billion in Flipkart.

Watch: Smartron t.phone P Review | A Tough Budget Player With a Massive BatteryHawaii: The Hawaii civil defence employee who issued the false missile alarm that stirred panic across the state last month mistook an alert drill for an actual attack, confused by conflicting messages used in the simulation, investigators said on Tuesday.

The employee has since been fired, and the top two civilian officials at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency (HEMA), administrator Vern Miyagi and executive officer Toby Clairmont, resigned in a shakeup stemming from the scare, it was announced at a news conference in Honolulu.

There were also proceedings to suspend without pay a mid-level agency manager who played a major role in devising the procedures and checklists for HEMA's missile alerts and drills, said Bruce Oliveira, a retired National Guard general who led a review of the Jan. 13 mishap.

The investigation found the system for activating a missile alert and conducting emergency drills was deeply flawed, lacking sufficient clarity, fail-safe controls or even a pre-programmed way of issuing a false alarm notice to the public.

Those shortcomings came into play the day a supervisor decided to initiate a drill during a weekend shift change, leading a warning system officer to errantly transmit a live missile alert to mobile phones and broadcast stations statewide.

The message, issued amid heightened tension over North Korea's nuclear weapons program, stated: "EMERGENCY ALERT BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL."

It went uncorrected for 38 minutes and triggered hysteria and confusion across the Pacific island state.

Oliveira said the employee who activated the false alarm was a 10-year veteran of HEMA with a history of job performance issues, including twice confusing drills with real emergencies.

He acknowledged the employee, who had been "counselled and corrected" for past issues, had remained assigned to the warning system team despite misgivings by co-workers over the years.

During December's failure, according to the employee's written account, he misunderstood a simulated missile notice recorded by a supervisor and played over a speaker phone to mimic an actual call from the US military's Pacific Command.

Following procedures he thought were correct, he activated the state's missile launch alert from a "drop-down" computer menu and, believing an attack was imminent, clicked "yes" when a system software prompt asked, "Are you sure that you want to send this Alert?"

The simulated missile warning played over the phone included the words: "This is not a drill," and the repeated phrase, "Exercise, exercise, exercise."

Five others in the centre said they heard the "exercise" phrase, which came at the start and end of the message, Oliveira said. The system officer at the terminal said he only heard "This is not a drill."

Moments later, realizing he had done the wrong thing, he "became confused, he froze, and other employees had to take over his responsibilities," Oliveira said.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which oversees all US wireless alert systems, issued its own report on Tuesday, concluding the false alarm stemmed from human errors, confused wording in the drill and lack of adequate supervision.

Hawaii Governor David Ige, whose response to the incident was called into question, said changes had been implemented so there would be no repeat of the Jan. 13 incident.Bandung: An Indonesian family lived with the bodies of two dead relatives in the hope that keeping their corpses could bring them back to life, police said on Wednesday.

The bizarre discovery came after a medical officer on a routine visit tipped off authorities after 77-year-old Neneng Hatidjah refused to let the officer inside the house, which was emitting a strange smell.

When local authorities forced their way into the home in Cimahi, West Java, they found the nearly skeletal bodies of Hatidjah's deceased husband and daughter covered with cloth and laid out in a bedroom.

She had sprinkled powdered coffee around the remains and police said they also found dozens of perfume bottles in the home, about a three-hour drive from the capital Jakarta. The remains were identified as Hatidjah's husband, who died in December at the age of 85, and her 50-year-old daughter, who had been dead for two years.

Hatidjah, whose two other children were living in the home, told police that the pair both died of illness, but she did not bury them in the hopes they could be resurrected. "She said she heard whispers that if she took care of the dead bodies, they would come back to life," local police spokesman Hari Suprapto told AFP Wednesday.

The septuagenarian was not charged but police said they're investigating whether foul play may have been involved.

Black magic, which is outlawed, and faith healing are common in Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation in Southeast Asia where many people remain deeply superstitious.Islamabad: A Pakistani government ministry recommended on Wednesday that Afghan refugees be given a five-month extension of their stay, dispelling fears that a large-scale repatriation back to violence-plagued Afghanistan was imminent.

Pakistan is home to the world's second-largest refugee population, with a total of 2.5 million Afghans, many of whom been living there since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

But relations between the neighbours have deteriorated in recent years and took another turn for the worse this week after bloody Taliban attacks in Kabul.

Afghanistan and the United States say Taliban and other militants plot carnage in safe havens on the Pakistani side of the border and have repeatedly called on Pakistan to do more to rein them in.

The tense relations led to concern that Pakistan might retaliate by pushing back Afghan refugees, particularly since official permission to stay was only extended for 30 days at the beginning of this month.

But a spokesman for Pakistan's Ministry of States and Frontier Regions said it had decided that permission to stay should be extended for another five months.

"The main reason for the extension is that it isn't possible humanly to ask over one million people to leave at once," the spokesman, Aqdas Shaukat, told Reuters.

"Our understanding is that another five months will give the refugees a good time to leave gradually."

The cabinet would decide on the recommendation next week, he said.

Pakistan complains that the large number of refugees are a burden, and says that Islamist militants often hide among them, but humanitarian agencies say Afghanistan could not cope with an influx of repatriated refugees at this time.

It is already struggling to help those refugees who have come back over recent years as well people displaced internally by fighting.

In 2017, fighting forced 360,000 people from their homes, the United Nations said in a recent report, while more than 17,000 people were displaced over the past week, the U.N. Organisation for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Assistance said.

On the outskirts of Kabul, refugees who have come back from Pakistan and internally displaced people eke out a living on a windswept, muddy plain and wait for help.

"We returned from Pakistan and have nothing here," said one woman called Shazia, who came back three years ago.

"Our children collect plastic and paper to keep us warm."

Another returnee from Pakistan, Etibar Gul, also worried about his children.

"There is no food or clothing," he said. "Our children have nothing to wear in this cold."Washington: President Donald Trump, during the State of the Union speech, on Wednesday said that the US would end the visa lottery method and revamp the current legal immigration system.

Trump redoubled his recent pledge to offer a path to citizenship for 1.8 million young immigrants  but only as part of a package that would also require increased funding for border security, including a wall along the US-Mexico border.

Addressing a deeply divided nation, the President called for a "new American moment" of unity and challenged lawmakers to make good on long-standing promises to fix a dangerously fractured immigration system, warning of evil outside forces seeking to undermine the nation's way of life.

The address blended self-congratulation and calls for optimism amid a growing economy with dark warnings about deadly gangs, the scourge of drugs and violent immigrants living in the United States illegally. Trump cast the debate over immigration  an issue that has long animated his most ardent supporters  as a battle between heroes and villains, praising the work of an immigration agent who arrested more than 100 gang members and saluting the families of two alleged gang victims.

He also spoke forebodingly of catastrophic dangers from abroad, warning that North Korea would "very soon" threaten the United States with nuclear-tipped missiles.

"The United States is a compassionate nation. We are proud that we do more than any other country to help the needy, the struggling and the underprivileged all over the world," Trump said. "But as president of the United States, my highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, and my constant concern is for America's children, America's struggling workers and America's forgotten communities."

Trump spoke with tensions running high on Capitol Hill. An impasse over immigration prompted a three-day government shutdown earlier this year, and lawmakers appear no closer to resolving the status of the "Dreamers"  young people living in the US illegally ahead of a new Feb. 8 deadline for funding operations. The parties have also clashed this week over the plans of Republicans on the House intelligence committee to release a classified memo on the Russia investigation involving Trump's presidential campaign  a decision the White House backs but the Justice Department is fighting.

The controversies that have dogged Trump  and the ones he has created have overshadowed strong economic gains during his first year in office. His approval ratings have hovered in the 30s for much of his presidency, and just 3 in 10 Americans said the United States was heading in the right direction, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. In the same survey, 67 percent of Americans said the country was more divided because of Trump.

At times, Trump's address appeared to be aimed more at validating his first year in office than setting the course for his second. He devoted significant time to touting the tax overhaul he signed at the end of last year, promising the plan will "provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small businesses." He also highlighted the decision made early in his first year to withdraw the US from a sweeping Asia-Pacific trade pact, declaring: "The era of economic surrender is totally over."

He spoke about potential agenda items for 2018 in broad terms, including a call for $1.5 trillion in new infrastructure spending and partnerships with states and the private sector. He touched only briefly on issues like health care that have been at the center of the Republican Party's policy agenda for years.

Trump played to the culture wars, alluding to his public spat with professional athletes who led protests against racial injustice by kneeling during the national anthem, declaring that paying tribute to the flag is a "civic duty".

Republicans led multiple rounds of enthusiastic applause during the speech, but for the opposition party, it was a more sombre affair. Democrats provided a short spurt of polite applause for Trump as he entered the chamber, but offered muted reactions throughout the speech. A cluster of about two dozen Democrats, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus, remained planted firmly in their seats, staring sternly at the president and withholding applause.

After devastating defeats in 2016, Democrats are hopeful that Trump's sagging popularity can help the party rebound in November's midterm elections. In a post-speech rebuttal, Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy, the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, was seeking to undercut Trump's optimistic tone and remind voters of the personal insults and attacks often levelled by the president.

"Bullies may land a punch," Kennedy said, according to excerpts from his remarks. "They might leave a mark. But they have never, not once, in the history of our United States, managed to match the strength and spirit of a people united in defense of their future."

On international affairs, Trump warned of the dangers from "rogue regimes," like Iran and North Korea, terrorist groups, like the Islamic State, and "rivals" like China and Russia "that challenge our interests, our economy and our values." Calling on Congress to lift budgetary caps and boost spending on the military, Trump said that "unmatched power is the surest means of our defense."

The president also announced that he had signed an executive order directing the Department of Defense to keep open the US prison at Guantanamo Bay. The order reverses the Obama-era policy of the executive branch, long stymied by Congress, to close the prison.

First lady Melania Trump, who has largely stayed out of the spotlight following the latest allegations of Trump infidelity, arrived at the capitol ahead of her husband to attend a reception with guests of the White House. Those sitting alongside the first lady included an Ohio welder who the White House says will benefit from the new tax law and the parents of two Long Island teenagers who were believed to have been killed by MS-13 gang members.London: British Prime Minister Theresa May today fought back amid a rebellion within her Conservative party ranks, refusing to quit while Brexit negotiations are ongoing after a leaked report warned of dire consequences in the wake of the country leaving the EU.

"I am not a quitter and there's a long-term job to be done. I am doing what I believe is important for the sake of the country," she told reporters at the start of her three-day visit to China.

May has been under mounting pressure from all sides, with some of her party MPs questioning her leadership and the Opposition demanding more details of a leaked economic study which warns of disastrous consequences in the wake of Britain's exit from the European Union (EU).

"We are in government. The next general election is not until 2022. What we're doing now is doing the job that the British people asked the government to do, which is to deliver on Brexit," May said, adding that Britain's vote in favour of Brexit in the June 2016 referendum meant that things will have to change.

She sought to play down the leaked impact assessments drafted by UK civil servants, showing a hit to the UK economy in all end-state scenarios with the EU post-Brexit.

She said, "It would be wrong to describe this as 'the Brexit impact assessment'. There is analysis being done. This is very preliminary.

"What has been seen so far is a selective interpretation of a very preliminary analysis, which ministers have not signed off, have not approved, and which doesn't actually even look at the sort of deal that we want to deliver in terms of the future relationship with the European Union."

The leaked study, published by the 'Buzzfeed' news website on Monday, suggested that in three different scenarios the UK economy would grow more slowly than it would if it stayed in the European Union.

The Labour party had called for the report to be fully released since its existence is now public knowledge and several MPs of the ruling Conservatives also joined ranks with the Opposition demanding that the material be made public.

The issue continued to play out in the House of Commons today, with Downing Street saying the UK government would not "contest the vote" being held by the Opposition Labour party over the issue.

"If the House decides it wants to see the provisional analysis then we will abide by the will of the House," a Downing Street spokesperson said.

Labour's shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, hailed the move as a "significant win for democracy". UK Brexit minister Robin Walker told MPs a copy of the report would be given to Hilary Benn, the Labour chairman of the Commons Brexit Committee, and a confidential reading room will be provided for other MPs and peers to view the material on a "confidential basis".

This approach also came under attack by some MPs, who said it was a "farce" for the document to be released confidentially for only a few hundred people to see when it was likely to end up all over the Internet.

Meanwhile, May announced new education links with China during her visit to boost post-Brexit trade and investment.

She is leading a 50-strong trade delegation of UK-based companies, including Tata Motors-owned Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), and is expected to raise concerns from UK industry about the over-production of steel by China.

The British premier has also refused to endorse China's Belt and Road Initiative, over concerns that the infrastructure projects under the initiative lack financial transparency and rely heavily on Chinese contractors.Police have declared that the damage to the world's first solar-power highway, in eastern China, was caused by vehicles, not vandals.

Authorities in Jinan, Shandong province, said the photovoltaic road, which extends for intervals of 100 meters, was damaged by car suspension systems hitting the surface on a downhill section.

The initial belief that the problem was caused by vandals or thieves has been rejected, as the surface is too tough and the damage is not consistent with it being cut by a machine, the city police said on Monday.

The 1.12-km solar expressway, in the southern part of Jinan's ring road, was opened for testing on Dec 28. The road has three layers: transparent and weight-bearing concrete on top, solar panels in the center, and insulation on the bottom.

Jinan police were notified of the damage just five days after the highway opened. Part of the protective layer of a solar panel, measuring about 1.85 meters by 10 centimeters, was discovered missing during a routine check.

The highway is designed for public transportation and electricity generation, Zhang Hongchao, a project designer and transportation engineering expert with Tongji University, told China Central Television.

Zhang said it can handle 10 times more pressure than a standard asphalt road and is expected to annually generate 1 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, helping to power streetlights and melting snow.

The road is also designed to supply power to charge electric vehicles.

United States-based scientists Scott and Julie Brusaw first raised the idea of solar roads in 2006. Eight years later, the Netherlands built the first pedestrian and bike path embedded with solar panels.

In 2016, a French village opened the world's first solar-panel road, stretching 1 kilometer.The central government has allocated a total of 27.07 billion yuan (about 4.27 billion U.S. dollars) to northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to improve local people's livelihoods this year, the regional government announced Wednesday.

Of the total, about 7.4 billion yuan will be used to pay for health care and medical cost for people that cannot afford treatment, and 3.84 billion yuan will be used to support people facing financial difficulties, according to the regional department of finance.

Another 2.29 billion yuan will be used to finance renovation of unsafe homes in rural areas, while 1.16 billion yuan will go for helping unemployed people. The remaining 12.39 billion yuan will be used to cover other social security causes, such as supporting pensions and helping people with disabilities.

The funds will reach cities and autonomous prefectures across the region in early February, the department said.

The central government allocated 21.1 billion yuan to Xinjiang to improve people's livelihoods in 2017.CONTROVERSIAL businessman Wicknel Chivayo said Zimbabweans who were criticising him for posting paternal results of his son online were ignorant of the world trends.



Two weeks ago, Sir Wicknel, as Chivayo is known, shared pictures of his child John Chenjera soon after his wife Sonja gave birth in America.



Congratulatory messages clogged his post with some people urging him to do a DNA test to confirm paternity of the child.





Last week he gave in to the pressure and underwent a DNA test and then shared the results on his Facebook and Instagram accounts.





This did not go down well with some people who accused him of humiliating his wife.

On Monday evening Sir Wicknel responded in the typical Sir Wicknel fashion, with insults saying Zimbabweans were a confused broke people.





I posted a picture of my handsome baby boy and insulting comments and inbox messages came in thousands  heee haasi wako, tarisa maoko ayo baba vemwana iyeye mukaradhi, iwe 37 years usina mwana saka chimbo mira nyaya yako tinoiziva hauzvare (The child isnt yours. Look at his hands, the fathers race is coloured. You are 37 years, youve no child and we know that you are impotent) and many more you know just how lethal broke people are, said Sir Wicknel





He said when he did what people wanted they went on to condemn him.

Then I decide to post the DNA results. Again you (Zimbabweans) scream at me again, wanyadzisa mukadzi (youve humiliated your wife), why were you doubting in the first place, this and that. Zimbabweans I cant deal, said Wicknel.





He said it was interesting that it was women who were fussy about the paternity test, showing that their men were raising children who are not theirs.





Its only in Zimbabwe where people make a big issue about paternity tests but otherwise it has become common practice the world over. Especially madzimai emu Zimbabwe, haadi kunzwa nyaya dze ma DNA because maka jaira ku chengetesa varume vana vasiri vavo (women in Zimbabwe dont want to undergo DNA tests because they are used to having men raising children who arent theirs.) Anyway case closed kana paine arwadziwa (whoever feels pained) tough luck.The Zimbabwe National Army has dismissed claims by some online publications that it deployed soldiers who were causing terror in Nkayi.



In a statement on Monday, Director Army Public Relations Lieutenant Colonel Alphios Makotore said the claims were false.





Reference is hereby made to a story Soldiers causing terror, havoc in Nkayi which was published in an online edition on 23 January 2018.





In the story, it is stated that Zimbabwe National Army members have been accused of abusing villagers in Gwelutshena area, Nkayi, ahead of this years elections, he said.





The ZNA would like to state that no members of the army are deployed in the Nkayi area or any of its surroundings. None of its members are therefore involved in the aforementioned activities, he said.





Lt Col Makotore said the ZNA does not engage in Zanu-PF politics. Furthermore, the organisation is not involved in any Zanu-PF political campaigns as suggested by the article, he said.

Lieutenant Colonel Makotore said the media must contact the ZNA to verify facts before their publication.



Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Dr Joram Gumbo has given officials from the Vehicle Inspection Department (VID) a 100-day ultimatum to stop corrupt activities or risk prosecution.





Speaking at a Press conference in Harare yesterday, Dr Gumbo said if VID officials do not heed Governments exhortation, senior managers will have to face the chop while the remaining officials risk being rotated on a weekly basis around the countrys various depots.

Dr Gumbo, who said he had in his possession a list of allegedly corrupt VID officials, indicated that he expected VID director Mr Joseph Pedzapasi to deal with corrupt officials, failure to which Government would have to act.





The Zimbabwe drivers licence is an internationally-recognised document. We are a signatory to the 1968 United Nations Convention and that is why one can obtain an International Driving Permit upon production of our drivers licence.





My ministry does not tolerate any form of corruption in the issuance of such a valuable document as this damages its reputation. Incompetent drivers have no business on our roads as they are an ingredient to road accidents, said Dr Gumbo.





He warned driving school owners and their staff  most of whom are believed to be conduits of corrupt activities together with VID driving examiners  that allegations of corruption will be fully investigated and the long arm of the law will catch up with them.





In cases where a driving instructor or assistant instructor has been found guilty, they will be de-registered and handed over to the police, he said.

Driving schools that will be caught on the wrong side of the law will also be closed.

The same warning was extended to VID driving examiners. The new Government, Dr Gumbo said, has a zero tolerance to corruption.





We have also heard of VID driving examiners who corruptly issue certificates of competency and even provisional drivers licences. May I remind them that I am not going to tolerate such indecorous behaviour from public officials who betray the trust bestowed upon them as Government employees





I would like to appeal to the Director Vehicle Inspection Department and all depot managers to inform their staff that in this new dispensation, we will not accept any form of corruption, said Dr Gumbo.





What has been disheartening in this episode has been the defensive approach that the top echelons within the VID have chosen to adopt and in the process harbouring criminal behaviour that is prevalent in their depots, he said.





Government says if the VID top officials fail to act on errant subordinates, then heads will roll.

Within the context of the 100 days action programme, I would like to see tangible action being taken on errant officers by the director responsible for VID and his depot managers. If nothing happens, we will retire the top officials to demonstrate seriousness, he said.





The current skewed system, Dr Gumbo said, ensures that potentially good drivers who cannot afford bribes are not issued with licences, while incompetent and half-baked corrupt applicants easily get licences.





There are also plans to rope the Ministry of Home Affairs to assist in fishing out corrupt officials.

Dr Gumbo jokingly said, Kana zvanetsa tokumbira maGunners, ndozvisinganetsi. (If it becomes difficult, we will rope in the army, which is easier).





Similarly, Dr Gumbo sounded a warning to corrupt officials from the Central Vehicle Registry

(CVR), a department that is responsible for issuing metal drivers licences and provisional drivers licences, saying it is criminal to produce fraudulently acquired documents.





It is believed that Government will make an effort to speed up the processing of the vital documents.

Dr Gumbo also urged the Traffic Safety Council of Zimbabwe (TSCZ) to enforce driving school regulations that were gazetted in Statutory Instrument 309 of 1985.





The press conference was attended by senior Government officials, senior representatives from VID, CVR and TSCZ, including representatives from driving schools and transport associations. HeraldHe Spent Weeks

on the Pile After 9/11.

What Did It Do to His Brain?Tourists visit the Antarctic. (File photo/China News Service)

(ECNS) -- Chinese overseas tourists will spend 9,580 yuan (,510) on average during the Spring Festival holiday, led by the most expensive trip, a journey to the Antarctic at 160,000 yuan, according to a report by China's online travel agency Ctrip.

Ctrip said the report was based on Big Data from hundreds of thousands of groups or DIY tours on its website as well as orders from brick-and-mortar stores.

The 10 most expensive destinations are the Antarctic, Argentina, Brazil, Tahiti, Norway, Tanzania, Iceland, Mexico, New Zealand and Finland. Families and lovers form the majority of tourists, with the average family spending 100,000 yuan.

The number of tourists who have booked Antarctic trips nearly doubled over last Spring Festival, the biggest festival in China, said the report.

Travel routes that cost less than 10,000 yuan are mainly to destinations in Southeast Asia that can be as low as 5,000 yuan in the case of Laos.

Chinese tourists are expected to flood the coastal cities of Da Nang and Nha Trang in Vietnam again during the holiday, accounting for over 80 percent of foreign tourists. Phuket Island and Koh Samui in Thailand and Boracay Island in the Philippines will continue to be favorite destinations among Chinese tourists.

The Ctrip report also lists 10 cost-effective destinations such as Italy, the United States, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia, Russia and Sri Lanka. Spending by tourists to visit these countries is expected to change only slightly from last year.(Newser)  A murder trial began this week for a woman accused of deliberately driving off a cliff in Hawaii and killing her identical twin sister. The 2016 crash was a tragic accident, Alexandria Duval's defense attorney, Birney Bervar said in his opening statement Monday. There's reasonable doubt of any criminal behavior, he said. Authorities described the 2016 crash as a hair-pulling fight over the steering wheel. The sisters, who were 38 at the time, were seen arguing on the narrow, winding Hana Highway on the island of Maui before their SUV plunged 200 feet over a cliff. Anastasia Duval was in the passenger seat and was killed, and her sister Alexandria Duval was arrested, the AP reports.

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A judge later ordered Alexandria Duval released after finding no probable cause for a murder charge. She traveled to upstate New York and was arrested again months later in Albany after a grand jury indicted her. Duval, who was extradited to Hawaii, opted to have a judge instead of a jury decide the case. The judge is expected to reach a verdict this week. Maui resident Chad Smith testified that while the women were passing him on the highway he could see them arguing. Smith, who was headed to a church, said he couldn't hear anything but the women looked angry. He had to swerve out of their way, he said. Duval isn't expected to testify, Bervar said.

(Read more Hawaii stories.)(Newser)  The US has its Florida crimes and Canada has ... this. Two suspects accused of robbing a bank in New Brunswick were caught at a Tim Hortons drive-thru, reports the CBC. For those unfamiliar, the coffee chain is virtually a national institution in its native country. The incident began when an unarmed man robbed a bank in Moncton, then fled in a car driven by a woman. An officer spotted the car soon after on a highway and began pursuit, and other officers joined in. The suspects got off at an exit and proceeded to the drive-thru, perhaps in an attempt to elude the cops. Whatever the case, the 26-year-old man and 24-year-old woman were nabbed before they could even place an order. Cops recovered several thousand dollars. (Read more Canada stories.)(Newser)  President Trump drew boos from Democrats Tuesday in his State of the Union address as he discussed his immigration proposals. The jeers came as Trump talked about trying to end "chain migration." The president complained that "under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives," per USA Today. "Under our plan, we focus on the immediate family by limiting sponsorships to spouses and minor children." Trump also called for ending the visa lottery system, which "randomly hands out green cards without any regard for skill, merit, or the safety of our people." Conservative Michelle Malkin tweeted that Democrats were "hissing and booing like Oberlin undergrads."

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As the Los Angeles Times notes, "chain migration" has long been an issue for Trump. After last year's attack in New York City in which a driver plowed through people in a bike lane, Trump claimed that the alleged driver brought in more than 20 relatives through the system. "CHAIN MIGRATION must end now!" he tweeted at the time. "Some people come in, and they bring their whole family with them, who can be truly evil." (Read more State of the Union Address stories.)(Newser)  "You believe these guys are the heroes," a former Humane Society employee says, that "they're going to be compassionate because they're speaking up for animals and you trust them." That trust was allegedly broken by at least two high-level animal-rights activists, including CEO Wayne Pacelle, at the nonprofit, reports Politico, which via emails, paperwork, and interviews with past and current workers exposes a reported pattern of sexual misconduct there. The Washington Post also digs in, specifically on allegations against Pacelle reaching back to 2005 that have surfaced as part of an outside law firm's investigation that began in December at the behest of the HS. Sources say the firm has uncovered three complaints of sexual harassment against Pacelle and offers of settlements to three other individuals who claim they were demoted or let go after they spoke up about his alleged transgressions.

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Among the allegations: that he once asked an employee if he could masturbate in front of her and give her oral sex, and that a subordinate he'd had a relationship with said he became "abusive and controlling" after she ended things. He's also alleged to have had consensual sex with donors and volunteers. Meanwhile, Politico dives deeper into accusations against Paul Shapiro, a former HS VP. Shapiro is accused by at least a half-dozen women of trying to have sex with employees, emailing porn around the office, and making sexual jokes. Pacelle mostly denies the complaints, while Shapiro tells Politico "I've taken responsibility for inappropriate behavior years earlier in my career"; he says he's already been held accountable for the valid complaints and the rest are unfounded. (Read more Humane Society stories.)(Newser)  Another "person of interest" authorities wanted to talk to after the Las Vegas mass shooting was identified Tuesday when his name was accidentally left unredacted in case records released to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The October document named Douglas Haig as somebody "who may have conspired with Stephen Paddock to commit murder with a deadly weapon." At his home in Mesa, Az. Tuesday evening, Haig told reporters that he was "the guy that sold ammunition to Stephen Paddock." He told the Arizona Republic that he was"horrified" by the shooting and it made him want to leave the business because he couldn't tell Paddock "had evil in him." After police arrived at the home, reporters were told to leave, though a sign placed on Haig's door said he would hold a press conference Friday.

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The newly released documents from early in the investigation also name Paddock's girlfriend, Marilou Danley, as a person of interest, though authorities now say she is not considered a suspect in the Oct. 1 massacre of 58 people and is unlikely to be charged. The New York Times reports Haig operated a company called Specialized Military Ammunition, which is now closed indefinitely, according to its website. Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said last week there was only one shooter responsible for the attack, though the FBI is still investigating a person of interest who could face federal charges not directly related to the shooting. Police declined to confirm Tuesday whether that person is Haig. (Read more Las Vegas shooting stories.)Authorities monitor ports of entry as workers return from infected area

The risk of the ongoing plague being transmitted from Madagascar to China will rise as large numbers of Chinese workers return from the African country for the Spring Festival holiday, which this year falls in mid-February, authorities said on Tuesday.

China's port authorities have been closely monitoring the plague in Madagascar and have taken measures to prevent the disease from entering the country. So far, no case has been reported in China, according to the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

However, the authority warned that the risks could be rising since the plague is continuing to spread in the Indian Ocean nation.

A plague, mainly pneumonic, broke out in Madagascar in August, and 2,603 cases were reported as of Jan 7, according to data shared by the administration and the World Health Organization. A total of 225 fatalities have been reported.

The WHO predicted that the plague will continue until April.

"About 100,000 Chinese laborers and other overseas Chinese are in Madagascar, and many of them will come back for Chinese New Year next month, which will make the risk much higher," the administration said. "The authority has called on experts to evaluate the situation and has taken multiple measures to fight the plague."

The authority ordered exit-entry inspection and quarantine authorities across the nation to join efforts on disease prevention and control.

Port authorities have intensified health inspections on people and cargo from areas affected by the plague, taking steps such as measuring body temperature and sterilizing containers and parcels from these areas, the administration said.

Between Oct 9 and Jan 22, the authorities examined 4,203 people who entered the country from Madagascar, 3,763 of whom arrived via direct flights. Three were found with fevers that proved to be pernicious malaria after lab tests.

Cases of the plague have been reported in big cities in Madagascar and the highly communicable disease may spread globally. The WHO has specified nine countries and regions, including South Africa, Mozambique and Kenya, as having high risks of getting infected, the administration said.(Newser)  Jonathann Daval wore his wedding jacket to his wife's funeral and delivered a tearful tribute to her at a memorial event, appearing the perfect image of a grieving husband, per the BBC and Guardian. Months after 29-year-old Alexia Daval's partially burned body was found in a wooded area near the French town of Gray, however, he's now been painted a killer. Daval, 34, was detained by police on Monday and admitted under questioning to killing his wife, though "he says it was an accident, that he did not want to do it, and that he regrets it," his lawyer, Randall Schwerdorffer, told reporters, per the AFP. Alexia's strangled body was found hidden by tree branches miles from her usual jogging route two days after Daval reported her missing on Oct. 28, telling police she had apparently disappeared while out for a run.

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Details linking Daval to the killing are now trickling out. Per AFP, a neighbor heard a car leaving the couple's home on the night of Oct. 27, and tire tracks from Daval's work vehicle matched those found near Alexia's body, which was reportedly covered with a sheet believed to be from the couple's home. Tensions between the pair were high as they struggled to conceive a child, sources add, per the Local. Daval had earlier told police that bite marks and scratches on his hands resulted from an argument the pair had the day before Alexia vanished, per the BBC. "Alexia had an overwhelming personality, so he felt diminished," Schwerdorffer says. "At one point too many words were said, a fit of anger proved too much, and he couldn't control himself." He says Daval maintains he didn't burn his wife's body. (Read more France stories.)(Newser)  President Trump made some tangible news during his State of the Union address Tuesday: He announced that Gitmo is staying open indefinitely. In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds of dangerous terrorists, only to meet them again on the battlefield," said the president. With that in mind, he said that earlier on Tuesday he signed an order directing defense chief James Mattis to "keep open the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay. The decision reverses a 2009 order by President Obama calling for the facility to be closed, notes the Washington Post.

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Trump made the case that the move is necessary for national security in the fight against terrorists. "When necessary, we must be able to detain and question them," he said. "But we must be clear: Terrorists are not merely criminals. They are unlawful enemy combatants. And when captured overseas, they should be treated like the terrorists they are." The group Physicians for Human Rights criticized the decision, reports NBC News, asserting that "the facility is a symbol of US torture and injustice known around the world." (Read more State of the Union Address stories.)(Newser)  The CEO of surfwear brand Boardriders, which recently changed its name from Quiksilver, was declared missing at sea Tuesday after he went fishing off the coast of Franceand only his boat came back. The French coast guard says it has launched a search and rescue operation for 54-year-old Philip Agnes, whose 36-foot boat was found washed up on a beach on the country's Atlantic coast near the surfing resort of Hossegor, reports Reuters. After he set off early Tuesday, he sent a message to port authorities saying his return would be delayed because of thick fog, the Guardian reports.

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French authorities are trying to determine whether Agnes was alone on the boat when he set out from the Bay of Biscay port, the BBC reports. Authorities say three helicopters and two boats are searching for the CEO in rough seas. Agnes, an experienced surfer, worked at Quiksilver for almost 30 years and became CEO in 2015, reports Surfer magazine. The company said earlier this month that it was planning to buy Australian rival Billabong, creating a surfwear empire with 630 stores in 28 countries. (Read more France stories.)(Newser)  A Sydney Seaplanes aircraft carrying six people "should not have been where it was" when it crashed in Australia on New Year's Eve, leaving no survivors, the company's CEO says. The DHC-2 Beaver carrying Compass Group CEO Richard Cousins and family members, along with pilot Gareth Morgan, veered half a mile off the designated flight plan after departing a waterfront restaurant, taking it over Jerusalem Bay, 30 miles outside of Sydney, according to a preliminary report released Wednesday by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. The plane then made a steep 80- to 90-degree turn to the right at low altitude, reports the Sydney Morning Herald. Sydney Seaplanes CEO Aaron Shaw describes the turn as "totally inexplicable," noting Jerusalem Bay is "surrounded by steep terrain and has no exit" and Morgan had "intimate knowledge of the location."

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Transport safety director Nat Nagy says investigators are trying to determine why the plane went off courseShaw says Morgan had flown the correct route "hundreds of times," per the BBCand whether its sudden movement was "an attempt to turn around." Pilots do occasionally turn around in that spot, per the Guardian. But Nagy says the pilot's intentions aren't clear as the plane wasn't required to have a voice or flight data recorder. The ATSB report did find the plane's flaps were in a climb position. Investigators found no evidence of "flight control issues" or any other issue with the plane. The report adds that Morganwho had more than 10,000 hours of flying experience, including 9,000 hours on float planeswas in a "high standard of health" at the time of the crash. Regarding Morgan's mental health, Nagy says there's no sign of "any concern in that area." (Read more plane crash stories.)(Newser)  The Democratic response to this year's State of the Union address was delivered by a Kennedy for the first time since Ted Kennedy joined a group of senators responding to Ronald Reagan in 1982. Speaking at a vocational high school in Fall River, Mass., Rep. Joe Kennedy III accused President Trump of dividing the country, NBC News reports. "Many have spent the last year anxious, angry, afraid. We all feel the fractured fault lines across our country," he said. He said the last year has been far bigger than politics or partisanship. "This administration isn't just targeting the laws that protect us," said Kennedy, the 37-year-old grandson of Robert F. Kennedy. "They're targeting the very idea that we are all worthy of protection."

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Kennedy didn't mention Trump by name, though he attacked his administration for believing that dignity can be measured by your "net worth, your celebrity, your headlines, your crowd size," as well as "the gender of your spouse, the country of your birth, the color of your skin, the God of your prayers," the Boston Globe reports. "We are bombarded with one false choice after another: coal miners or single moms, rural communities or inner cities, the coast or the heartland," Kennedy said. "So here is the answer Democrats offer tonight: We choose both. We fight for both." He said that while bullies "may land a punch," they have never, in the history of the US, "managed to match the strength and spirit of a people united in defense of their future." Click for the full text of his speech. (Read more Joe Kennedy III stories.)(Newser)  Toronto police arrested a suspected serial killer out of fear for a young man's life, sources say. The manwho was seeking a sexual encounter, per the CBCwas found restrained but unharmed in Bruce McArthur's apartment on Jan. 18; police had the 66-year-old landscaper under surveillance and observed the young man entering the 19th-floor unit, police sources tell the Toronto Star. McArthur is now charged with the murders of five men, aged 44 to 58, who disappeared between 2012 and 2017; three people's remains ended up in two concrete planters at a client's home. Police are reportedly probing some 30 properties linked to McArthur's landscaping business as part of what the Star says is "poised to become the most ambitious homicide investigation in Toronto's history."

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Toronto police Det. Sgt. Hank Idsinga says the investigation is "unprecedented" in scale, with the CBC reporting properties visited by McArthur are located across the Greater Toronto Area. "I have seen large-scale investigations before with dozens and dozens of officers working on them. We've never seen anything quite like this," Idsinga tells the Star. The Global News quotes him as saying on Monday that authorities will excavate "at least two sites ... where people might be buried." It's not clear how McArthur knew all of his alleged victims, but investigators say he was in a relationship with one of the men and was known in Toronto's Gay Village. He'll next appear in court Feb. 14. (McArthur also worked as a mall Santa.)(Newser)  During President Trump's State of the Union address, Ji Seong Ho waved his crutches. Those crutches have borne witness to an incredibly journey. The New York Times has Ji's story, which it dubs "remarkable even by the standards of North Korean defectors." It begins in 1996 with a starving 13-year-old Ji. He says the hunger was so extreme it caused his family to hallucinate and left them eating rats and grass, per the Washington Post. Coal could be stolen from passing freight trains in the middle of the night and traded for corn, and one night in March 1996, a weakened Ji tried to do just that. But he fainted from atop the cars, fell between them, and woke up missing a left hand and foot. He was saved by having his limbs amputated in a brutal, anesthesia-free surgery.

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He managed to get around using the wooden crutches, which the Guardian reports his father made for him. It wasn't until 2000 that he crossed into China, returning a month later with food for his family, and into the hands of secret police, who he says beat him for nearly three weeks. Six years later he left for South Korea, nearly drowning while crossing the Tumen River into China. He says when he reached the South Korean Embassy in Bangkok, diplomats there had never before seen a defector on crutches. And that fits a pattern of complete disregard for the disabled in the North, he says: "I had never seen people with Down syndrome until I came to South Korea. In the North, they gather such people and keep them from public view." He received prosthetic limbs, and his mother, brother, and sister ultimately made it to South Korea, too; his father was captured and died in prison. (Read more North Korea stories.)(Newser)  If the toilet had been on solid ground, it likely would've been fixed in a jiffy. But there was no quick fix for the toilet trouble that plagued a Norwegian flight over the weekenddespite scores of plumbers being on board. After departing Oslo, Norway, for Munich, Germany, on Saturday, a Boeing 737 carrying roughly 85 plumbing tradesmenall but 20 employed by the same plumbing companyhad to do a U-turn at the Swedish border because of a toilet issue, reports the Independent.

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"We would have liked to fix the restrooms, but unfortunately it had to be done from the outside and we didn't risk sending a plumber to work at 10,000 meters," a plumber aboard the flight says, per the Independent. Another saw "good humor" in the situation. The problem was eventually rectified back in Oslo without the plumbers' help. The flight then departed again for Munich, arriving about 3.5 hours later than scheduled, per the Telegraph. (This remains one of the craziest toilet stories Newser has covered.)(Newser)  FEMA's plans to halt hurricane relief supplies to Puerto Rico effective Jan. 31 drew criticism Tuesday from members of Congress and the mayor of the island's largest city. San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz said many people in the US territory need the water and food they've been getting from FEMA more than four months after Hurricane Maria devastated the island, per the AP. The mayor said that in recent days, officials have had to deliver powdered milk and water to some parts of the island, where about 35% of the population still has no power. "There is need still," she told reporters in Washington, where she was attending President Trump's State of the Union address as a guest of New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

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A letter to FEMA Administrator Brock Long signed by 30 members of Congress said the plan to end deliveries of food and water Wednesday would especially hurt people in remote parts of Puerto Rico. "Many Puerto Rican localities still face significant challenges accessing basic needs, and FEMA has played a critical role," the letter states, per the Orlando Sentinel. "Now is not the time to remove this life-sustaining assistance." FEMA says it's ending the food and water shipments because private supplies are available; NPR reports that whatever FEMA-related supplies remain will be given to the local government to distribute. The agency says it distributed more than 65 million liters of bottled water and more than 58 million meals and snacks, worth nearly $2 billion.

(Read more Puerto Rico stories.)(Newser)  The details of an arrest at Virginia Tech is causing plenty of alarm online, though school officials are emphasizing that the campus was never believed to be under threat. Still, the arrest of a freshman who possessed an assault rifle and allegedly tried to buy 5,000 rounds of ammunition was fueling lots of speculation online at a campus that was home to a mass shooting in 2007, reports Richmond.com. Police arrested 19-year-old freshman Yunsong Zhao on felony charges of possessing an assault rifle illegally as a foreign national. Zhao is a native of China who has been in Blacksburg, Va., about six months, reports WDBJ7.

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Other details of the arrest drawing attention: Police say Zhao researched bulletproof vests and bought a former police car on which he placed special bumpers, according to court records cited by the TV station. Zhao, arrested without incident, is being held in the Montgomery County Jail. Virginia Tech has been taking criticism for not sending out an alert about the arrest, but the school says it didn't do so because "at no time  did police believe there was any threat to our community, nor is there one now." The statement also took note of online rumors about somebody "stockpiling weapons on or near campus" and said the arrest of Zhao was unrelated. The arrest followed a weeks-long investigation. (Read more Virginia Tech stories.)CAIRO, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian troops have arrested two terror suspects and destroyed 14 hideouts in the central part of North Sinai province, the Egyptian army announced Tuesday.

"The forces also destroyed half an acre of marijuana plant and seven storehouses of marijuana seeds," Egyptian military spokesman Tamer al-Refaay said in a statement.

The raid came while North Sinai is under the recently renewed partial three-month curfew, along with a nationwide state of emergency that was recently extended.

North Sinai used to be the center of Egypt's terrorist attacks that have killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers following the military's removal of former Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

The attacks later extended to several other provinces including the capital Cairo, and started to target the Coptic minority via church bombings and shootings.

To break a taboo, terrorists even attacked a mosque in North Sinai's Arish city last November, killing at least 310 Muslim worshippers and injuring more than 120 others.

The is the deadliest terror attack and the first against a mosque in Egypt's modern history. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the mosque attack.

Most of the terror attacks were carried out by the so-called Wilayat Sinai (Sinai state or province), a Sinai-based group affiliated with the Islamic State (IS), a regional terrorist group.

Following the mosque attack, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi ordered the army to restore security and stability in the restive northern part of the Sinai Peninsula within three months.

Egyptian security forces have so far killed hundreds of terrorists and arrested thousands of suspects during the country's anti-terror war declared by Sisi, then the army chief, following Morsi's ouster in 2013.(Newser)  The CDC will be needing a new leader. Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald resigned on Wednesday as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after some dicey financial conflicts came to light. The big one: Fitzgerald bought stock in a major tobacco company just a month after assuming her position at the CDC last year, according to a report in Politico on Tuesday that may have sealed Fitzgerald's fate. Details and developments:

The details: Fitzgerald's financial manager bought stock in Japan Tobacco, one of the world's biggest tobacco companies, as well as in food and drug companies such as Merck, Bayer, Humana, and US Food Holding Co. (The full story is here.) The CDC has a stated mission to reduce smoking, and it oversees the food and drug fields.

Fitzgerald's financial manager bought stock in Japan Tobacco, one of the world's biggest tobacco companies, as well as in food and drug companies such as Merck, Bayer, Humana, and US Food Holding Co. (The full story is here.) The CDC has a stated mission to reduce smoking, and it oversees the food and drug fields. The perception: "You don't buy tobacco stocks when you are the head of the CDC," Richard Painter, who served as chief ethics lawyer for George W. Bush, told Politico. "It's ridiculous" and "tone deaf." Japan Tobacco sells various brands of cigarettes in the US, including Winston and Camel, notes New York.

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The conflicts: Health and Human Services chief Alex Azar said he had accepted Fitzgerald's resignation Wednesday, citing her "complex financial interests," reports the Washington Post. In a statement, the HHS said that Fitzgerald "could not divest from them in a definitive time period," which limited her ability to act as CDC chief.

Health and Human Services chief Alex Azar said he had accepted Fitzgerald's resignation Wednesday, citing her "complex financial interests," reports the Washington Post. In a statement, the HHS said that Fitzgerald "could not divest from them in a definitive time period," which limited her ability to act as CDC chief. Recusals: Politico reported previously that Fitzgerald had to repeatedly recuse herself from testifying before Congress on the CDC's activities because of wide-ranging financial conflicts. Those recusals were on issues such as the nation's opioid crisis and cancer detection.

Politico reported previously that Fitzgerald had to repeatedly recuse herself from testifying before Congress on the CDC's activities because of wide-ranging financial conflicts. Those recusals were on issues such as the nation's opioid crisis and cancer detection. Murray's concern: Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, had publicly expressed her concerns about Fitzgerald's situation, and she called the resignation "another example of this administrations dysfunction and questionable ethics," per STAT. (The previous HHS secretary, Tom Price, resigned over his use of private planes at taxpayer expense.)

Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, had publicly expressed her concerns about Fitzgerald's situation, and she called the resignation "another example of this administrations dysfunction and questionable ethics," per STAT. (The previous HHS secretary, Tom Price, resigned over his use of private planes at taxpayer expense.) Bad timing: Vox notes that the CDC is currently busy dealing with a serious flu outbreak, after a busy summer dealing with hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. At the same time, the Trump administration is proposing $1.2 billion in cuts to the CDC's 2018 budget.

Vox notes that the CDC is currently busy dealing with a serious flu outbreak, after a busy summer dealing with hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. At the same time, the Trump administration is proposing $1.2 billion in cuts to the CDC's 2018 budget. Interim chief: Dr. Anne Schuchat, the agencys principal deputy director, is the new acting director. She previously served in the role before Fitzgerald's appointment in July.

(Read more CDC stories.)(Newser)  A train carrying Republican members of Congress to a retreat in West Virginia struck a garbage truck on Wednesday. One person aboard the truck is dead and another seriously injured, reports NBC Washington. No lawmakers were believed to be seriously hurt, though one was taken to the hospital, according to NBC. Among those on the train was House speaker Paul Ryan, who was uninjured.

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Politico reporter Rachael Bade tweeted a photo of the truck and said that doctors-turned-congressmen Roger Marshall and Larry Buschon were helping attend to the injured. Sen. Jeff Flake says he helped move an injured person to a stretcher, but he said another person died at the scene. "They worked on him for quite a while but they could not revive him," Flake said. The accident occurred in Crozet, Va., near Charlottesville, as the Amtrak train was ferrying the lawmakers to a retreat in White Sulphur Springs, W. Va., per Bloomberg. (Read more train accident stories.)(Newser)  Benjamin Petty, a cook at a Baptist church camp in Oklahoma, pleaded guilty to tying up a 13-year-old camper, raping her, sodomizing her, and threatening her if she told anyone, the Oklahoman reports. Despite pleading guilty to three felonies, Petty was sentenced to 15 years probation with no prison time earlier this month. While Petty's attorney says his client "certainly is being punished"he must wear an ankle monitor for 24 months and register as a sex offenderothers find the sentence issued by Judge Wallace Coppedge on Jan. 19 lacking, according to the AP. "Failure to hold perpetrators accountable ... sends the wrong message to victims of crime," says the executive director of the Oklahoma Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault.

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Assistant district attorney David Pyle says he didn't push for prison time because of the state of Petty's vision. "The big thing is Mr. Petty is legally blind and the parents (of the victim) live out of state and this little girl lives out of state and didn't want to make all the travels back and forth," he says. "The plea was negotiated with their permission." The victim's family has filed a civil suit against three churches involved in the campthe largest youth camp in the USalleging they didn't run background checks, KFOR reports. In the civil case, one of the churches is pushing for the victim's "prior history of voluntary sexual activity" to be introduced. An attorney for the victim says they "are saddened to see that the church has stooped to victim-blaming." (Read more rape stories.)(Newser)  South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy says he will not run for re-election and will "instead be returning to the judicial system," the AP reports. Gowdy is chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee and previously chaired a highly partisan panel investigating the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. He is a former federal prosecutor. In a statement, he said "whatever skills I may have are better utilized in a courtroom than in Congress, and I enjoy our justice system more than our political system."

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The Benghazi panel revealed the existence of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's private email server and controversies involving it proved to be damaging to her failed 2016 presidential campaign. Gowdy was elected in the 2010 tea party wave that returned control of the House to Republicans.

(Read more Trey Gowdy stories.)(Newser)  The Washington Post calls it a "rare and remarkable standoff," and CNN says it's a "striking signal." Two days after House Republicans voted to release a memo regarding FBI surveillance and one day after President Trump was overheard saying he would release it, the FBI publicly came out opposing that plan. "We have grave concerns about the material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memos accuracy," the FBI said in a statement Wednesday. The memo prepared by staffers for Rep. Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, concerns the role of the so-called Steele dossier in federal surveillance of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

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Last week, the Justice Department warned the House Intelligence Committee that releasing it would be "extraordinarily reckless." The intelligence community worries making the classified document public would inform foreign targets how to avoid surveillance. FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein met with Chief of Staff John Kelly on Monday in an attempt to prevent the memo from being released. And Democrats say the memo picks and chooses information to cast doubt on Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference and possible collusion by the Trump campaign. Regardless, Kelly told Fox News Radio on Wednesday that the memo will be released "pretty quick." (Read more FBI stories.)DAMASCUS, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- An explosion targeted a Turkish military convoy in the western countryside of Aleppo province in northern Syria on Tuesday, a monitor group reported.

The blast rocked the town of Atareb in western Aleppo, as a Turkish military vehicle was targeted, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Turkish driver of the vehicle was killed, it added.

The UK-based watchdog group said the Turkish military convoy was on standby awaiting orders to move toward the Eis area in the southern countryside of Aleppo, where Turkey is working to consolidate positions.

Earlier in the day, the Observatory, which says it relies on a network of activists on ground, said pro-Syrian government forces have targeted the path of a Turkish military convoy in southern Aleppo.

The Turkish military convoy was moving toward the town of Eis when the pro-government forces hit the convoy, prompting the Turkish military vehicles and accompanied forces to withdraw to the western countryside of Aleppo, according to the Observatory.

The convoy is the largest Turkish military convoy to enter that part of the country since the Turkish forces and allied Syrian rebels unleashed an offensive to dislodge the Kurdish militias in northern Syria 10 days ago.

There was no confirmation from Damascus about the targeting of the Turkish convoy in Aleppo, but the Syrian government has warned that it would respond to the Turkish offensive against the Kurdish-held Afrin region in the northern countryside of Aleppo.

Other activists suggested that the Turkish convoy of 55 vehicles is still stuck in the western countryside of Aleppo by the pro-Syrian government forces.Now, more than ever, the world needs trustworthy reportingbut good journalism isnt free. Please support us by subscribing or contributing today.Let us know what you're seeing and hearing around the community.

Submit hereWASHINGTON - The US State Department said on Monday that a Russian SU-27 engaged in an "unsafe interaction" with a US EP-3 aircraft in the international airspace over the Black Sea earlier on the same day.

Washington notes "with the highest level of concern" the latest incident of "unsafe" Russian military practices, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said.

She added that the US Naval Forces Europe has confirmed that the Russian pilot was close to within 1.5 meters and crossed directly in front of the EP-3's flight path.

However, the encounter was first reported by Russia's RIA news agency on Monday, which cited the Russian Defence Ministry as saying that the Russian fighter jet intercepted a US Navy EP-3E Aries II and prevented it from violating the Russian airspace.

"The Russian Su-27 fighter jet conducted the entire flight in strict accordance with international rules of the use of airspace. No extraordinary situations occurred during the intercept," the ministry said in a statement, denying allegations of "unsafe" maneuvers.

"After the surveillance plane of the US Navy had changed its course to move away from the border, the SU-27 returned to its base," it added, defending its rights to launch military operations over the neutral waters.

Russia and the US have exchanged words several times over the last year about midair encounters between the two countries' planes, including above the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea.At least 130 people turned out for a meeting on air quality and wood burning restrictions held by Fairbanks North Star Borough Mayor Karl Kassel at the North Pole Branch Library. It was standing room only inside the conference room, and many more people stood outside craning to see and hear the conversation. Jan. 30, 2018. Robin Wood/News-Miner.Bengaluru:

Anand Singh, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA from Vijayanagar Assembly Constituency of Bellary District had tendered his resignation from his post on Saturday, joined the Congress on Wednesday in the presence of Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) chief G Parmeshwar at KPCC office in Bengaluru.

Anand Singh had contested elections twice from Vijayanagar Assembly constituency of Bellary District on BJP ticket and won both the times. He was also the Tourism Minister of Karnataka during the BJP government in the state.

Singh had met Speaker KB Koliwad at the Inspection Bungalow at Ranebennur in Haveri district and submitted the resignation letter.

Singh said he had resigned since he was fed up with the internal bickering in the BJP and the step-motherly attitude of the party leaders.

The elections for the Karnataka Legislative Assembly will be held tentatively in May for 224 constituencies.Bengaluru:

Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Deputy Chief Minister in the Jagadish Shettar led BJP government in Karnataka KS Eshwarappa has made a controversial statement which has gone viral.

Reacting to accusations of political understanding between the BJP and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) President Asaduddin Owaisi Eeshwarappa said, The Muslims who are with the Bharatiya Janata Party are not killers but the Muslims associated with Congress are killers.

Speaking to reporters in Tumakuru on Tuesday, he said that Muslims who have killed 22 RSS and BJP activists are with the Congress and those who are good Muslims are with the BJP.New Delhi:

Popular reality show Bigg Boss 11 has turned out to be a major launchpad for several contestants. With the enormous success BB11, the contestants have become a household name, especially the commoners.

And looks like their stint in BB11 has paved way for a Bollywood debut for some of the commoners.

While Arshi Khan is all set to share the screen space with Baahubali star Prabhas, another dive from BB11 will be seen setting the silver screen on fire.

We are talking about Bandi Kalra.

According to the media reports Bandgi Kalra, who had entered the reality show as a commoner is all set to make her big debut on the silver screen.

Also Read | THIS Bigg Boss 11 contestant to work with Baahubali star Prabhas in his next

Excited about her new journey, Bandgi told Spotboye, Yes, I am doing a film with an established actor. Can't disclose my character right now as I am not allowed to talk about it, but yes, I am excited for it".

Notably, Bandgi caught the headlines for her sizzling affair with Puneesh Sharma on Bigg Boss 11.

While there were reports about the couple faking their relationship, Puneesh and Bandgi continued to go strong post BB11.

On being quizzed about Puneesh's reaction to her Bollywood debut, Bandgi asserted that Sharma is supportive of her decision as he always wanted her to work and grow.

So far not much details have been revealed about Bandgi Kalra's Bollywood debut but it will be interesting to see if the former BB11 contestant will be able to leave a mark in the industry.Mumbai :

Sanjay Leela Bhansalis magnum opus Padmaavat is running successfully at the theatres and the movie is being loved by the audience and critics as well.

The director of the film finally opened up after his film faced nation-wide protests by Rajput group led by the Karni Sena. The movie was earlier schedules to release on December 1.

Padmaavat was released on January 25 and the cast and crew are happy with the response the movie is receiving despite facing tremendous hardships.

Also Read | Disha Patani and Tiger Shroff show-off their hot bodies under the sun

In an interview, Bhansali told PTI "It is just an answer to the anguish that we all went through including me, the actors and the technicians. All of us were not being heard even after repeatedly saying that there is nothing wrong in the film. I realised that the best way of going ahead and fighting this is to make the film that is in my mind.

He also said that he was troubled, distracted but deep inside he found the strength to make the film and not let the anguish and disturbance reflect on the screen.

"The protests were illogical, they had no reasoning and there was nothing to be discussed. It had reached an obnoxious level with people sitting with swords on national television and giving death threats, Bhansali was quoted as saying.

Padmaavat features Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor in lead roles.

For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.Hyderabad :

Hyderabad Police on Tuesday arrested Tollywood actor Samrat Reddy on a complaint filed by his wife for trespassing and stealing household items.

In her complaint, wife Haritha Reddy accused Samrat and his sister for trespassing her house and stealing several items including CCTV cameras.

The couple got married in the year 2015 but got separated after Samrat harassed her for dowry.

R Kalinga Rao  Inspector of Madhapur said, Harshitha was staying at Samrats flat based on the agreement they had after they got estranged. On January 13, when she went on a vacation, he and his sister came to the flat and took away CCTV cameras and other valuables...the case was booked at Madhapur police station on January 25, a day after the court granted Samrat anticipatory bail in the dowry harassment case.

A case was filed against the complaint under sections 380(theft) and 448(trespassing). Samrat filed a bail petition in the court and the hearing is scheduled on Wednesday.

Reddys wife also accused him for harassment and torturing her in the past for dowry. She said, He also demanded a car and an expensive watch. He used to beat metorture me physically and mentally. Subsequently, he forced me to arrive at a compromise and got the case withdrawn.

Last year, Samrat played a role in Kittu Unnadu Jagratha. He is popularly known for his work in Panchakshari in which he played the role of Anushka Shettys husband.

For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.New Delhi:

An Indian Air Force (IAF) official has been taken into custody by the force for allegedly spying, a senior officer of an intelligence department said.

According to the intelligence department officer, the IAF officials was under scanner of the force from last few weeks.

He was found of indulging in certain unwanted activities through an unauthorised electronic devices, added the officer.

The officer denied revealing the name of the detained IAF officer but said he is a group captain of the Indian Air Force - equivalent to a Colonel of the Indian Army.

"The detained was posted in New Delhi and he was possibly spying for Pakistan," added the intelligence officer.

According to him, the detained IAF officer came in contact with his handlers in Pakistan via Facebook and was in regular conatct via Whatsapp and other social media.

The intelligence agencies also believe that he was also in touch with a local connect in the national capital.

The IAF had discovered the detained officers involvement in unwanted activities during routine counterintelligence surveillance, added the officer.

The officer confirmed that the IAF officer was taken into custody around a week back and is being questioned by the forces central security and investigation officer along with investigative agencies and intelligence departments.

Also read: IAF's air warriors summit 7 major peaks across 7 continents



The force and intelligence agencies are trying to figure out if any sensitive information have been leaked or not.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.New Delhi:

Pakistani troops violated the ceasefire along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmirs Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday.

A senior officer of Jammu and Kashmir Police said, Pakistani troops started unprovoked firing at the Indian forward posts in Poonch district.

He added, Indian troops are giving befitting reply to the Pakistani side.

India has witnessed a total of 881 ceasefire violations in 2017 along the international border in Jammu and Kashmir.

According to officials, Pakistan has violated the ceasefire along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir 771 times till December 10, and 110 times along the IB till November-end.







For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.Shopian:

The Indian Army on Wednesday filed a counter-FIR in response to the one lodged by Jammu and Kashmir Police over the killing of two civilians in Shopian district last week.

The Jammu and Kashmir Police on Sunday had filed an FIR under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 302 murder and 307 attempt to murder against the Indian Army personnel of 10, Garhwal unit, of the Army.

The Indian Army Major who led the Army personnel at the time of the incdent has been named in the FIR.

The Indian Army has claimed that they were forced to open fire in self-defence after seven of its personnel were injured in the mob attack at Shopian.

The Indian Army in its statement claimed that the forces had to open fire in self-defence to prevent lynching of a junior commissioned officer by a mob.

Indian Army spokesperson in its statement had said, Administrative convoy was passing through Ganaupura chowk in Shopian when it came under intense stone pelting by a group of at least 100 people.

Also read| Jammu and Kashmir: Two stone pelters killed, 7 Indian Army jawans injured in clash at Shopian

Within no time, the numbers increased to 250 people. The huge mob surrounded an isolated portion of the convoy consisting of four vehicles. They tried to set the vehicle on fire, read the statement.

The statement further added that a junior commissioned officer accompanying the convoy got hit and fell unconscious. The mob tried to lynch the individual and snatch his weapon. The crowd further closed in towards the vehicle and attempted to set them on fire, read the Army statement.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.Lucknow:

The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh was left red-faced on Tuesday as one of its cabinet ministers, Om Prakash Rajbhar, claimed that corruption had increased under the current government.

A BJP spokesperson, however, rubbished the minister's claim as an attempt to "garner cheap publicity" adding that if Mr Rajbhar had any grievances, he should air them at an appropriate forum.

"There is more corruption prevailing under the BJP regime as compared to the previous SP and the BSP regimes. Though I am a part of this government, this is not my government...We have an alliance with the BJP," Mr Rajbhar told Press Trust of India over the phone.

Mr Rajbhar, who leads BJP ally Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP), also said that his party was not getting the due respect under the present government.

"I have talked to the chief minister on these issues," he said.

Asked whether his party would contest the 2019 Lok Sabha polls with the BJP, Mr Rajbhar said it depended on the BJP.

"It depends on the BJP whether it wants an alliance with us or not. Like local body polls, if the BJP does not forge an alliance with us, we will contest the Lok Sabha polls alone," he said.

On the violence in Kasganj, Mr Rajbhar said the incident was unfortunate and claimed some officers were defaming the government.

Reacting to the charges about corruption levelled by Mr Rajbhar, state BJP spokesperson Rakesh Tripathi said that it was not the tradition of his party to break pre-poll alliances.

"The statement by Om Prakash Rajbhar, who is a Cabinet minister in the Yogi Adityanath government, is simply to garner some cheap publicity," Mr Tripathi said.

Mr Rajbhar is a responsible minister and if has some grievances with the government, then he should air them at an appropriate forum, and not publicly declare them, he said.

"It seems that he is behaving as an Opposition leader. And, if he has some serious problems with the BJP, then he can leave the government," Mr Tripathi said.

The SBSP, which has four MLAs in the 403-member UP Assembly, had contested the Uttar Pradesh civic polls separately. It had even contested a few seats in the Gujarat Assembly elections on its own, asserting that its alliance with the BJP was not at the national level.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

Singapore hosted the ASEAN Senior Officials' Meeting Retreat in mid-January. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong attended the celebrations after the meeting, highlighting the determination of the current chair of ASEAN to promote the unity of this Southeast Asian bloc.

Singapore is not only the rotating chair of ASEAN in 2018, but also serves as country coordinator of the ASEAN-China Dialogue Relations. Its dual role is key to the further development of China-ASEAN relations this year.

In recent years, the relationship between China and Singapore has been somewhat bumpy. Last fall, Singapore took the initiative to improve ties with China, with Lee's visit before the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in October 2017. He met with the Chinese leadership and bilateral relations have gradually returned to normal. Singapore is expected to help deepen China-ASEAN ties in 2018. But at the same time, this small city state may face some challenges.

First, will Singapore walk a fine line between major powers? For years, Singapore has adopted the balancing act as its diplomatic approach. But given its strategic position and values, its diplomacy actually leans toward the US, especially in military matters. Can Singapore treat China and the US on an equal footing in 2018?

Second, will Singapore balance its ties with China and ties with India and Australia? Two months ago, Singapore and India signed the revised Defense Cooperation Agreement to boost cooperation in maritime security. It allows Indian naval warships to enter Singapore's port, a major breakthrough in bilateral defense ties.

Meanwhile, Singapore is planning an ASEAN-Australia Special Summit to be held in Sydney in March. Does Singapore have any motivation to counterbalance China?

Last but not least, will Singapore adjust its South China Sea policy? The chill in China-Singapore relations was attributed to Singapore's South China Sea policy which infringes upon China's core interests.

Singapore grants US military forces access to its Changi Naval Base and allows US Navy littoral combat ships to be based there. It even grants the US permission to fly sophisticated surveillance aircraft out of its territory to monitor China's activities in the South China Sea.

As many ASEAN countries, especially the Philippines, have started to adjust their South China Sea policies, will Singapore do the same?

We believe Singapore has the wisdom and ability to walk out of its diplomatic dilemma. We also expect it to contribute to better China-ASEAN ties.

First, as a mutual friend of both China and the US in the Asia-Pacific, Singapore should be good at coping with its relationship with both. Singaporean officials, including Prime Minister Lee, have all spoken of the importance of Singapore maintaining good relations with China and the US. Only when Singapore does not attach itself to either China or the US can it truly exercise its balancing act.

Singapore is also expected to cope well with its relations with India and China. We support Singapore to act independently when engaging with countries in and outside the region. But meanwhile, it should be cautious about the US Indo-Pacific strategy. The strategy is still in its infancy. Before Singapore finds its own place in this strategy, it should balance its ties with China and India.

Singapore should promote the signing of the South China Sea code of conduct (COC). With years of efforts, China and ASEAN countries in August adopted a negotiating framework for the COC in the South China Sea. China has proposed actual COC negotiations to take place and to make it a stabilizer of peace in the South China Sea.

This year marks the 15th anniversary of the establishment of a strategic partnership between China and ASEAN. At the 20th China-ASEAN leaders' meeting in the Philippine capital of Manila in 2017, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang proposed formulating a vision for the strategic partnership between the two toward 2030 to upgrade cooperation. Some ASEAN countries are actively promoting this vision that can help stabilize China-ASEAN ties. During this process, Singapore is expected to play a vital role.

The author is a research fellow at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.New Delhi:

Building on the theme of a safe, strong and proud America, President Donald Trump delivered his first State of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday, which among others was attended by Sunayana Dumala, the widow of an Indian engineer who was shot dead in a hate crime.

The State of the Union address is a traditional annual speech of the US president to a joint session of the Congress where he gives an account of the situation in the country.

In his hour-long address, Trump spoke about the American's economy and the tax cuts undertaken by his government.

Here are Highlights:

# Our warriors in Afghanistan also have new rules of engagement. Along with their heroic Afghan partners, our military is no longer undermined by artificial timelines, and we no longer tell our enemies our plans.

# They work in every trade. They sacrifice to raise a family. They care for our children at home. They defend our flag abroad.They are strong moms and brave kids. They are firefighters, police officers, border agents, medics, and Marines.

# A people whose heroes live not only in the past, but all around us -- defending hope, pride, and defending the American way.

# Were a people whose heroes live not only in the past, but all around us - defending hope, pride, & the American way.

# And freedom stands tall over one more monument: this one. This Capitol. This living monument to the American people.

# Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation. I will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got us into this very dangerous position.

# A top the dome of this Capitol stands the Statue of Freedom. She stands tall and dignified among the monuments to our ancestors who fought and lived and died to protect her.

# It was that same yearning for freedom that nearly 250 years ago gave birth to a special place called America.

# No regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally&more brutally than the cruel dictatorship in North Korea.Its reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland.We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from ever happening.

# "Finally, we are joined by one more witness to the ominous nature of this regime. His name is Mr. Ji Seong-ho."

 The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 31, 2018

# You are powerful witnesses to a menace that threatens our world, and your strength inspires us all. Tonight, we pledge to honor Otto's memory with total American resolve.

# Otto's Parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, are with us tonight -- along with Otto's brother and sister, Austin and Greta



# Otto Warmbier was a hardworking student at the University of Virginia.

# We need only look at the depraved character of the North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose to America and our allies

# I am asking the Congress to address the fundamental flaws in the terrible Iran nuclear deal.

# America stands with the people of Iran in their courageous struggle for freedom.

# Last month, I also took an action endorsed unanimously by the Senate just months before: I recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

# I also took an action endorsed unanimously by the US Senate just months before; I recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel

# As we strengthen friendships all around the world, we are also restoring clarity about our adversaries

# Our warriors in Afghanistan also have new rules of engagement. Along with their heroic Afghan partners, our military is no longer undermined by artificial timelines, and we no longer tell our enemies our plans.

# I just signed, prior to walking in, an executive order directing Secretary Mattis...to re-examine our military detention policy, & to keep open the detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay.

# Terrorists are not merely criminals. They are unlawful enemy combatants. And when captured overseas, they should be treated like the terrorists they are

# Im proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated almost 100% of the territory once held by these killers in Iraq & Syria

# Thank you Staff Sergeant Justin Peck for joining us at tonight. While serving in the Middle East, SSG Peck instinctively rushed to save a fallen officer after an IED blast. His presence tonight is a wonderful symbol of the strong & brave members of our armed forces.

# Nearly 6 million jobs open in the United States today. @USDOL is working to expand #apprenticeships to help Americans bridge the #skills gap and find family-sustaining

# For this reason, I am asking the Congress to end the dangerous defense sequester and fully fund our great military.

# I am asking the Congress to end the dangerous defense sequester and fully fund our great military.

# My Administration is committed to fighting the drug epidemic and helping get treatment for those in needfor those who have been so terribly hurt. The struggle will be long and difficultbut, as Americans always do, in the end we will succeed. We will prevail

# As we rebuild America's strength and confidence at home, we are also restoring our strength and standing abroad.# Thank you Officer Ryan Holets & Rebecca for joining us at tonights SOTU. Thank you for your service in protecting and caring for the American people.

# We must get much tougher on drug dealers and pushers if we are going to succeed in stopping this scourge.

# It is time to move towards a merit based immigration system, one that admits people who are skilled, who can contribute to our society, who can love and respect our country: US President Trump

# These reforms will also support our response to the terrible crisis of opioid and drug addiction.

# So let us come together, set politics aside, and finally get the job done.

# It is time to reform these outdated immigration rules, and finally bring our immigration system into the 21st century.

# The 1st pillar...offers a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants...the 2nd pillar fully secures our border...the 3rd pillar ends the Visa Lottery...the 4th & final pillar...ends extended family Chain Migration,.

# The fourth and final pillar protects the nuclear family by ending chain migration

# The third pillar ends the visa lottery -- a program that randomly hands out green cards without any regard for skill, merit, or the safety of our people.

# The second pillar fully secures the border. That means building a wall on the Southern border, and it means hiring more heroes like CJ to keep our communities safe

# The first pillar of our framework generously offers a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants who were brought here by their parents at a young age

# US President Donald Trump claims his administration has created 2.4 million jobs and undertaken the biggest tax cut.

# Donald Trump calls for $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan

# US President Trump said that "together, we are building a safe, strong and proud America. The state of our union is strong, because our people are strong."

# Struggling communities, especially immigrant communities, will also be helped by immigration policies that focus on the best interests of American workers and American families.

# President Trump on infrastructure: "As we rebuild our industries, it is also time to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure America is a nation of builders.



# Trump also calls for paid family leave. That was not in his prepared remarks.



# Trump is obsessed with the size of his tax cut, can't admit it's not the biggest

# I will not stop until our veterans are properly taken care of, which has been my promise to them from the very beginning of this great journey.

# "The era of economic surrender is over. From now on, we expect trading relationships to be fair and reciprocal."

# "I am asking both parties to come together to give us safe, fast, reliable, and modern infrastructure our economy needs and our people deserve."

# As we rebuild our industries, it is also time to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure

# President Trump is standing up for American interests and protecting American economic and national security by taking tough enforcement action against countries that break the rules.

# "One of my greatest priorities is to reduce the price of prescription drugs."

# This President says well support veterans, and he means it. DOE supercomputers will help VA, HHS and DoD take veteran care to the next level

# We have ended the war on beautiful clean coal

# Donald Trump calls on Democrats, Republicans to 'set aside' differences in his first State of the Union address

# "We are now, and very proudly, an exporter of energy to the world.

# The President has undertaken significant reforms at the VA, increasing accountability for veterans and providing them with the benefits they truly deserve.

# Trump has signed an executive order to keep Guantanamo Bay prison open - White House

# "Since its passage, my Administration has already removed more than 1,500 VA employees who failed to give our veterans the care they deserve..."

# There has never been a better time to start living the American dream. No matter where you have been, or where you come from, this is your time. If you work hard then you can dream anything, be anything and together we can achieve absolutely anything: US President Trump

# Trump calls on Democrats, Republicans to 'set aside' differences in his first State of the Union address

# There has never been a better time to start living the American dream. No matter where you have been, or where you come from, this is your time. If you work hard then you can dream anything, be anything and together we can achieve absolutely anything: US President Trump

# "To every citizen watching at home tonight  no matter where you've been, or where you come from, this is your time. If you work hard, if you believe in yourself... you can be anything, and together, we can achieve absolutely anything.

# I call upon all of us to set aside our differences to seek common ground and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people, this is really the key, these are the people we are elected to serve: Donald J Trump

# A new tide of optimism already sweeping our land, each day since we have gone forward with a clear and righteous vision to make America great again for all Americans: US President Donald J Trump

# Washington D.C. : President of the United States Donald J Trump arrives to deliver 2018 State of the Union Address.

# President of the United States Donald J Trump to deliver 2018 State of the Union Address at shortly.

WATCH DONALD TRUMP'S ADDRESS:

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.The first session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) will commence in Beijing on March 5, according to a decision made by the 12th NPC Standing Committee on Tuesday.

The decision was adopted by a vote at an NPC Standing Committee session on Monday and Tuesday.

The session's agenda included a review of the government work report, examining reports on the implementation of the annual plan on national economic and social development in 2017, the draft plan on national economic and social development in 2018, examining reports on the implementation of the central and local budgets in 2017 and the draft central and local budgets in 2018.

NPC deputies will deliberate on a draft revision to the Constitution, a draft law on supervision, and the work reports of the NPC Standing Committee, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

On Tuesday, Xi Jinping was elected deputy to the 13th NPC by a unanimous vote at the first session of the 13th regional people's congress of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The first session of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference will start on March 3.The U.S. Treasury Department has released a congressionally mandated list of Russian politicians and business figures who are close to President Vladimir Putin's government, along with their relationship to top leaders and their net worth.

The list of more than 200 people does not carry any new sanctions, though a number of the figures are already subject to earlier U.S. sanctions.

Last August, U.S. President Donald Trump reluctantly signed a bill that was passed almost unanimously by Congress aimed at penalizing Russia for its interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Trump said at the time the bill "improperly encroaches on executive power, disadvantages American companies and hurts the interests of our European allies."

The measure gave the Trump administration 180 days to produce the list, which includes Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and top spy agency officials. Among the business figures are aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, Sberbank CEO German Gref and Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who also appears on the list, called the U.S. move "unprecedented" and said it labeled everyone a de facto adversary of the United States. He said the Russian government would take time to analyze the list.

The same August law ordered the Trump administration to impose sanctions on anyone who engages in a "significant transaction" with the defense or intelligence sectors of the Russian government.

On Monday, the U.S. State Department announced it had informed Congress it would not impose any such sanctions.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement the administration estimates "foreign governments have abandoned planned or announced purchases of several billion dollars in Russian defense acquisitions."

The Tokyo High Court on Tuesday upheld a lower court ruling that sentenced a 29-year-man to 26 years in prison for killing a 2-year-old boy he baby-sat in 2014.

The high court dismissed an appeal by Yuji Motte, who argued that the boy's death was accidental and sought a seven-year prison term, while also rejecting an appeal from prosecutors who demanded life confinement.

According to the ruling by the Yokohama District Court in July 2016, Motte took the boy and his baby brother from Yokohama to his apartment in Fujimi, Saitama Prefecture for the purpose of molestation, and suffocated the boy to death by covering his nose and mouth.

The district court also ruled in a lay judge trial that the defendant failed to give any milk to the baby brother, then eight-months old, causing the infant to suffer serious hypoglycemia.

Motte was also found guilty of producing child pornography by taking photos of around 20 naked children he looked after. The brothers from Yokohama were among the victimized children.

His defense counsel had claimed that the 2-year-old boy drowned while taking a bath and that Motte should have been charged with professional negligence resulting in death.A 29-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of abusing his two sons, aged 5 and 6, at their residence in Fujinomiya, Shizuoka Prefecture.

According to police, Hisato Inato, a company employee, allegedly burned his children after pressing a heated piece of metal on the boysa stomach and back between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. on Sunday, Fuji TV reported.

The boys' kindergarten notified a child consultation center which contacted police.

Police said Inato, who was arrested on Monday, has admitted to the charge. His wife was out at the time of the incident.A UN special envoy urged Greece and Macedonia on Tuesday to seize on momentum in talks to resolve a name dispute straining relations for a quarter of a century, saying the two sides now appeared "energized" to reach an accord.

Athens says Skopje's use of "Macedonia" as its name could imply a territorial claim over the northern Greek province of the same name, and a claim to its national heritage. Skopje counters that Macedonia has been its name dating to the now defunct Yugoslav federation of which it was part.

The 25-year-long dispute has posed an obstacle to Macedonia's ambition to join both the EU and NATO. "Everyone knows what the issues are. There is a time for decision-making, and I think we are there," said Matthew Nimetz, UN special envoy on the "Macedonia" dispute since 1999.

"I know the [Greek] government is very sincere and energized to reach a solution to the problem... I think there is a will here, and I think also in Skopje, to try to reach a settlement," he told reporters in Athens."It is possible he has them, so we have to place the bet that he might have them, but he hasn't demonstrated them," Selva, the second highest-ranking U.S. military official, added.

"What he has not demonstrated yet are the fusing and targeting technologies and survivable re-entry vehicle," Selva said, referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Air Force General Paul Selva's remarks confirmed an assessment by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis in December that North Korea's ICBM did not pose an imminent threat to the United States.

North Korea's nuclear program has made strides in recent months but the country has not yet demonstrated all the components of an intercontinental ballistic missile, including a survivable re-entry vehicle, the vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Tuesday.

In November, North Korea said it had successfully tested a new type of ICBM that could reach all of the U.S. mainland and South Korea. U.S.-based experts said data from the test appeared to support that.

Selva said that if conflict were to break out, it was unlikely the United States would be able to get an early indication of North Korean launches.

"It is very unlikely that in a tactical situation, we would get any of the indications and warning that would precede a launch other than if we got lucky and saw the movement of the launch mechanism to the launch platform," Selva said.

He added that by using mobile-erected launchers, the warning time for the United States had decreased from up to an hour to about a dozen minutes.

The Trump administration has said all options are on the table in dealing with North Korea, but debate on military options has lost some momentum in recent weeks after North and South Korea resumed talks ahead of next month's Winter Olympics in the South.

Selva said the Pentagon's upcoming nuclear posture review, expected to be released on Friday, would lay out the future of nuclear modernization and may include new missiles on submarines.

A leaked draft policy document posted online this month, said the United States would pursue development of a new nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile.Plans for cross-border events coinciding with the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang were in disarray Tuesday, little more than a week after the two Koreas agreed on them.

Up-and-coming skiers from North and South Korea will still train at the North's Masikryong Ski Resort, even though Pyongyang a day earlier called off a cultural performance at Mt. Kumgang scheduled for Feb. 4. By late Tuesday night the government was still unable to get official confirmation.

The Unification Ministry sent a message to North Korea earlier in the day calling the cancellation of the Mt. Kumgang performance "very regrettable." A ministry official said the message urged the North to follow through on the agreed terms as the two sides "take the first step toward improving inter-Korean relations."

Get a briefing of all the latest stories from The News Record, delivered right to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.NEW FAIRFIELD  Joel Colindres, who was ordered to leave the country by the end of the month, has boarded a plane back to his native Guatemala.

Colindres attorney, Erin ONeil-Baker, said Wednesday evening that he had left the country earlier that day in compliance with a deportation order issued last month. Colindres was ordered by immigration officials to leave the country by Jan. 31 after winning a temporary stay of an earlier deportation order last summer.

ONeil-Baker said she and his family including his wife, Samantha, a U.S. citizen and two young American-born children  will continue working on the appeals Colindres has pending in court to reopen his original order for removal.

Samantha, his family and all of his supporters continue to fight to get him back as soon as possible, ONeil-Baker said.

Colindres had requested a stay on the second deportation order but learned Tuesday that it had been denied. His attorney, federal lawmakers and supporters had rallied over the last month to keep Colindres in the country while his request for asylum moves through the courts.

The family has created a second GoFundMe page to help pay for expenses created by his deportation, including his international phone bill, moving expenses and additional child care for the Colindres two young children. Another GoFundMe page has been raising money for the familys legal fees.

When he first came to the United States in 2004, Colindres has said, a mix-up with paperwork led him to miss a court date, resulting in an order for his removal. The order has created a barrier in seeking legal residency based on his 2010 marriage to Samantha.

Colindres has an appeal pending with the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on his request to revisit the order of removal. The request argues that his life would be in danger should he return to Guatemala, where three of his family members were murdered in the last year.DANBURY  The Danbury High School band will be among 200 to play at the 50th annual Berklee High School Jazz Festival on Feb. 10 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston.

The festival is the largest high school jazz competition in the country and will host more than 3,000 high school students competing for $175,000 in scholarships to Berklee summer programs.NEW MILFORD  A former rector at St. Johns Episcopal Church died last week, leaving behind a legacy of advocating for the homeless, immigrants and others who are disenfranchised.

Rev. Gail Keeney-Mulligan died Jan. 24 of Picks Disease, a rare form of progressive dementia. She was 61.

We grew spiritually and by numbers while she was there, said Kim Polhemus, the senior officer at St. Johns. She taught us to look outside of our four walls to our town, country and world and to the needy among us.

Polhemus described Keeney-Mulligan as thoughtful, forward-thinking, loving and caring, especially of the less fortunate and those on the margins.

Keeney-Mulligan was ordained more than 30 years ago and joined St. Johns in 2002. She left in June 2009 to be the chaplain at Seabury, an active life community in Bloomfield.

While at St. Johns, Keeney-Mulligan helped organize the New Milford Shelter Coalition, started a Spanish service that evolved into a bilingual worship shared with Northville Baptist Church and served as president of the New Milford Clergy Association Family.

She was active in protesting the arrest of illegal day laborers in Danbury in the early 2000s, Polhemus said.

Immigration was a big part of her life, Polhemus said. Having a path to citizenship was important to her.

New Milford Mayor Pete Bass said he was always impressed by Keeney-Mulligans passion for helping children and how she and her husband adopted two of their own: Katie from Peru and James from Panama. He also admired her dedication to the community.

She was always there with a lending hand, he said.

One of Keeney-Mulligans most notable accomplishments was how she rallied the congregation to rebuild the parish hall after it burned down in 2004. The new building was completed in 2006 and has been used by those in the community and local organizations, including the Community Culinary School of Northwestern CT and Literacy on the Green.

It was very important to her to let our doors be open to nonprofits to use our space, Polhemus said. It was important we be multicultural and open.

Keeney-Mulligan also opened the church to the homeless so they would have a place to stay. She loved the idea of being a safe place for the homeless in New Milford, Polhemus said.

Polhemus said these are principles that all Episcopalians live by, but Keeney-Mulligan truly embodied the message.

I learned more from her than anyone on how to be an Episcopalian, she said.

In an interview in 2009, Keeney-Mulligan said she drew on her strengths of social activism' and desire to create worship meant to feed people, while working with the congregation to find the churchs purpose.

God is the master builder,'' Keeney-Mulligan said of her ministry plan before leaving New Milford. I've done what I can do here. What comes next is for the next builder.

kkoerting@newstimes.com; 203-731-3345Hyundai revealed its latest Santa Fe SUV in Seoul on Tuesday ahead of its release next month.

With the release of the totally revamped version after about six years, the automaker aims to drive up sales to reclaim its lead in the midsize SUV market.

Its sales fell 33 percent last year, with just 51,661 units sold, widening a gap with Kia's top-selling Sorento SUV. Hyundai hopes the revamped version will entice customers.

Full text of President Trump's State of the Union address as prepared and released by the White House shortly before the delivery to a joint session of Congress on January 30th, 2018. Note this is not a verbatim account of the live remarks or ad libs:

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, the First Lady of the United States, and my fellow Americans:

Less than 1 year has passed since I first stood at this podium, in this majestic chamber, to speak on behalf of the American People -- and to address their concerns, their hopes, and their dreams. That night, our new Administration had already taken swift action. A new tide of optimism was already sweeping across our land.

Each day since, we have gone forward with a clear vision and a righteous mission -- to make America great again for all Americans.

Over the last year, we have made incredible progress and achieved extraordinary success. We have faced challenges we expected, and others we could never have imagined. We have shared in the heights of victory and the pains of hardship. We endured floods and fires and storms. But through it all, we have seen the beauty of America's soul, and the steel in America's spine.

Each test has forged new American heroes to remind us who we are, and show us what we can be.

We saw the volunteers of the "Cajun Navy," racing to the rescue with their fishing boats to save people in the aftermath of a devastating hurricane.

We saw strangers shielding strangers from a hail of gunfire on the Las Vegas strip.

We heard tales of Americans like Coast Guard Petty Officer Ashlee Leppert, who is here tonight in the gallery with Melania. Ashlee was aboard one of the first helicopters on the scene in Houston during Hurricane Harvey. Through 18 hours of wind and rain, Ashlee braved live power lines and deep water, to help save more than 40 lives. Thank you, Ashlee.

We heard about Americans like firefighter David Dahlberg. He is here with us too. David faced down walls of flame to rescue almost 60 children trapped at a California summer camp threatened by wildfires.

To everyone still recovering in Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, California, and everywhere else -- we are with you, we love you, and we will pull through together.

Some trials over the past year touched this chamber very personally. With us tonight is one of the toughest people ever to serve in this House -- a guy who took a bullet, almost died, and was back to work three and a half months later: the legend from Louisiana, Congressman Steve Scalise.

We are incredibly grateful for the heroic efforts of the Capitol Police Officers, the Alexandria Police, and the doctors, nurses, and paramedics who saved his life, and the lives of many others in this room.

In the aftermath of that terrible shooting, we came together, not as Republicans or Democrats, but as representatives of the people. But it is not enough to come together only in times of tragedy. Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve.

Over the last year, the world has seen what we always knew: that no people on Earth are so fearless, or daring, or determined as Americans. If there is a mountain, we climb it. If there is a frontier, we cross it. If there is a challenge, we tame it. If there is an opportunity, we seize it.

So let us begin tonight by recognizing that the state of our Union is strong because our people are strong.

And together, we are building a safe, strong, and proud America.

Since the election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs, including 200,000 new jobs in manufacturing alone. After years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages.

Unemployment claims have hit a 45-year low. African-American unemployment stands at the lowest rate ever recorded, and Hispanic American unemployment has also reached the lowest levels in history.

Small business confidence is at an all-time high. The stock market has smashed one record after another, gaining $8 trillion in value. That is great news for Americans' 401k, retirement, pension, and college savings accounts.

And just as I promised the American people from this podium 11 months ago, we enacted the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history.

Our massive tax cuts provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small businesses.

To lower tax rates for hardworking Americans, we nearly doubled the standard deduction for everyone. Now, the first $24,000 earned by a married couple is completely tax-free. We also doubled the child tax credit.

A typical family of four making $75,000 will see their tax bill reduced by $2,000 -- slashing their tax bill in half.

This April will be the last time you ever file under the old broken system -- and millions of Americans will have more take-home pay starting next month.

We eliminated an especially cruel tax that fell mostly on Americans making less than $50,000 a year -- forcing them to pay tremendous penalties simply because they could not afford government-ordered health plans. We repealed the core of disastrous Obamacare -- the individual mandate is now gone.

We slashed the business tax rate from 35 percent all the way down to 21 percent, so American companies can compete and win against anyone in the world. These changes alone are estimated to increase average family income by more than $4,000.

Small businesses have also received a massive tax cut, and can now deduct 20 percent of their business income.

Here tonight are Steve Staub and Sandy Keplinger of Staub Manufacturing -- a small business in Ohio. They have just finished the best year in their 20-year history. Because of tax reform, they are handing out raises, hiring an additional 14 people, and expanding into the building next door.

One of Staub's employees, Corey Adams, is also with us tonight. Corey is an all-American worker. He supported himself through high school, lost his job during the 2008 recession, and was later hired by Staub, where he trained to become a welder. Like many hardworking Americans, Corey plans to invest his taxcut raise into his new home and his two daughters' education. Please join me in congratulating Corey.

Since we passed tax cuts, roughly 3 million workers have already gotten tax cut bonuses -- many of them thousands of dollars per worker. Apple has just announced it plans to invest a total of $350 billion in America, and hire another 20,000 workers.

This is our new American moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American Dream.

So to every citizen watching at home tonight -- no matter where you have been, or where you come from, this is your time. If you work hard, if you believe in yourself, if you believe in America, then you can dream anything, you can be anything, and together, we can achieve anything.

Tonight, I want to talk about what kind of future we are going to have, and what kind of Nation we are going to be. All of us, together, as one team, one people, and one American family.

We all share the same home, the same heart, the same destiny, and the same great American flag.

Together, we are rediscovering the American way.

In America, we know that faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, are the center of the American life. Our motto is "in God we trust."

And we celebrate our police, our military, and our amazing veterans as heroes who deserve our total and unwavering support.

Here tonight is Preston Sharp, a 12-year-old boy from Redding, California, who noticed that veterans' graves were not marked with flags on Veterans Day. He decided to change that, and started a movement that has now placed 40,000 flags at the graves of our great heroes. Preston: a job well done.

Young patriots like Preston teach all of us about our civic duty as Americans. Preston's reverence for those who have served our Nation reminds us why we salute our flag, why we put our hands on our hearts for the pledge of allegiance, and why we proudly stand for the national anthem.

Americans love their country. And they deserve a Government that shows them the same love and loyalty in return.

For the last year we have sought to restore the bonds of trust between our citizens and their Government.

Working with the Senate, we are appointing judges who will interpret the Constitution as written, including a great new Supreme Court Justice, and more circuit court judges than any new administration in the history of our country.

We are defending our Second Amendment, and have taken historic actions to protect religious liberty.

And we are serving our brave veterans, including giving our veterans choice in their healthcare decisions. Last year, the Congress passed, and I signed, the landmark VA Accountability Act. Since its passage, my Administration has already removed more than 1,500 VA employees who failed to give our veterans the care they deserve -- and we are hiring talented people who love our vets as much as we do.

I will not stop until our veterans are properly taken care of, which has been my promise to them from the very beginning of this great journey.

All Americans deserve accountability and respect -- and that is what we are giving them. So tonight, I call on the Congress to empower every Cabinet Secretary with the authority to reward good workers -- and to remove Federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.

In our drive to make Washington accountable, we have eliminated more regulations in our first year than any administration in history.

We have ended the war on American Energy -- and we have ended the war on clean coal. We are now an exporter of energy to the world.

In Detroit, I halted Government mandates that crippled America's autoworkers -- so we can get the Motor City revving its engines once again.

Many car companies are now building and expanding plants in the United States -- something we have not seen for decades. Chrysler is moving a major plant from Mexico to Michigan; Toyota and Mazda are opening up a plant in Alabama. Soon, plants will be opening up all over the country. This is all news Americans are unaccustomed to hearing -- for many years, companies and jobs were only leaving us. But now they are coming back.

Exciting progress is happening every day.

To speed access to breakthrough cures and affordable generic drugs, last year the FDA approved more new and generic drugs and medical devices than ever before in our history.

We also believe that patients with terminal conditions should have access to experimental treatments that could potentially save their lives.

People who are terminally ill should not have to go from country to country to seek a cure -- I want to give them a chance right here at home. It is time for the Congress to give these wonderful Americans the "right to try."

One of my greatest priorities is to reduce the price of prescription drugs. In many other countries, these drugs cost far less than what we pay in the United States. That is why I have directed my Administration to make fixing the injustice of high drug prices one of our top priorities. Prices will come down.

America has also finally turned the page on decades of unfair trade deals that sacrificed our prosperity and shipped away our companies, our jobs, and our Nation's wealth.

The era of economic surrender is over.

From now on, we expect trading relationships to be fair and to be reciprocal.

We will work to fix bad trade deals and negotiate new ones.

And we will protect American workers and American intellectual property, through strong enforcement of our trade rules.

As we rebuild our industries, it is also time to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure.

America is a nation of builders. We built the Empire State Building in just 1 year -- is it not a disgrace that it can now take 10 years just to get a permit approved for a simple road?

I am asking both parties to come together to give us the safe, fast, reliable, and modern infrastructure our economy needs and our people deserve.

Tonight, I am calling on the Congress to produce a bill that generates at least $1.5 trillion for the new infrastructure investment we need.

Every Federal dollar should be leveraged by partnering with State and local governments and, where appropriate, tapping into private sector investment -- to permanently fix the infrastructure deficit.

Any bill must also streamline the permitting and approval process -- getting it down to no more than two years, and perhaps even one.

Together, we can reclaim our building heritage. We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways across our land. And we will do it with American heart, American hands, and American grit.

We want every American to know the dignity of a hard day's work. We want every child to be safe in their home at night. And we want every citizen to be proud of this land that we love.

We can lift our citizens from welfare to work, from dependence to independence, and from poverty to prosperity.

As tax cuts create new jobs, let us invest in workforce development and job training. Let us open great vocational schools so our future workers can learn a craft and realize their full potential. And let us support working families by supporting paid family leave.

As America regains its strength, this opportunity must be extended to all citizens. That is why this year we will embark on reforming our prisons to help former inmates who have served their time get a second chance.

Struggling communities, especially immigrant communities, will also be helped by immigration policies that focus on the best interests of American workers and American families.

For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities. They have allowed millions of low-wage workers to compete for jobs and wages against the poorest Americans. Most tragically, they have caused the loss of many innocent lives.

Here tonight are two fathers and two mothers: Evelyn Rodriguez, Freddy Cuevas, Elizabeth Alvarado, and Robert Mickens. Their two teenage daughters -- Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens -- were close friends on Long Island. But in September 2016, on the eve of Nisa's 16th Birthday, neither of them came home. These two precious girls were brutally murdered while walking together in their hometown. Six members of the savage gang MS-13 have been charged with Kayla and Nisa's murders. Many of these gang members took advantage of glaring loopholes in our laws to enter the country as unaccompanied alien minors - and wound up in Kayla and Nisa's high school.

Evelyn, Elizabeth, Freddy, and Robert: Tonight, everyone in this chamber is praying for you. Everyone in America is grieving for you. And 320 million hearts are breaking for you. We cannot imagine the depth of your sorrow, but we can make sure that other families never have to endure this pain.

Tonight, I am calling on the Congress to finally close the deadly loopholes that have allowed MS-13, and other criminals, to break into our country. We have proposed new legislation that will fix our immigration laws, and support our ICE and Border Patrol Agents, so that this cannot ever happen again.

The United States is a compassionate nation. We are proud that we do more than any other country to help the needy, the struggling, and the underprivileged all over the world. But as President of the United States, my highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, and my constant concern is for America's children, America's struggling workers, and America's forgotten communities. I want our youth to grow up to achieve great things. I want our poor to have their chance to rise.

So tonight, I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties -- Democrats and Republicans -- to protect our citizens of every background, color, religion, and creed. My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans -- to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream. Because Americans are dreamers too.

Here tonight is one leader in the effort to defend our country: Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Celestino Martinez -- he goes by CJ. CJ served 15 years in the Air Force before becoming an ICE agent and spending the last 15 years fighting gang violence and getting dangerous criminals off our streets. At one point, MS-13 leaders ordered CJ's murder. But he did not cave to threats or fear. Last May, he commanded an operation to track down gang members on Long Island. His team has arrested nearly 400, including more than 220 from MS-13.

CJ: Great work. Now let us get the Congress to send you some reinforcements.

Over the next few weeks, the House and Senate will be voting on an immigration reform package.

In recent months, my Administration has met extensively with both Democrats and Republicans to craft a bipartisan approach to immigration reform. Based on these discussions, we presented the Congress with a detailed proposal that should be supported by both parties as a fair compromise -- one where nobody gets everything they want, but where our country gets the critical reforms it needs.

Here are the four pillars of our plan:

The first pillar of our framework generously offers a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants who were brought here by their parents at a young age -- that covers almost three times more people than the previous administration. Under our plan, those who meet education and work requirements, and show good moral character, will be able to become full citizens of the United States.

The second pillar fully secures the border. That means building a wall on the Southern border, and it means hiring more heroes like CJ to keep our communities safe. Crucially, our plan closes the terrible loopholes exploited by criminals and terrorists to enter our country -- and it finally ends the dangerous practice of "catch and release."

The third pillar ends the visa lottery -- a program that randomly hands out green cards without any regard for skill, merit, or the safety of our people. It is time to begin moving towards a merit-based immigration system -- one that admits people who are skilled, who want to work, who will contribute to our society, and who will love and respect our country.

The fourth and final pillar protects the nuclear family by ending chain migration. Under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives. Under our plan, we focus on the immediate family by limiting sponsorships to spouses and minor children. This vital reform is necessary, not just for our economy, but for our security, and our future.

In recent weeks, two terrorist attacks in New York were made possible by the visa lottery and chain migration. In the age of terrorism, these programs present risks we can no longer afford.

It is time to reform these outdated immigration rules, and finally bring our immigration system into the 21st century.

These four pillars represent a down-the-middle compromise, and one that will create a safe, modern, and lawful immigration system.

For over 30 years, Washington has tried and failed to solve this problem. This Congress can be the one that finally makes it happen.

Most importantly, these four pillars will produce legislation that fulfills my ironclad pledge to only sign a bill that puts America first. So let us come together, set politics aside, and finally get the job done.

These reforms will also support our response to the terrible crisis of opioid and drug addiction.

In 2016, we lost 64,000 Americans to drug overdoses: 174 deaths per day. Seven per hour. We must get much tougher on drug dealers and pushers if we are going to succeed in stopping this scourge.

My Administration is committed to fighting the drug epidemic and helping get treatment for those in need. The struggle will be long and difficult -- but, as Americans always do, we will prevail.

As we have seen tonight, the most difficult challenges bring out the best in America.

We see a vivid expression of this truth in the story of the Holets family of New Mexico. Ryan Holets is 27 years old, and an officer with the Albuquerque Police Department. He is here tonight with his wife Rebecca. Last year, Ryan was on duty when he saw a pregnant, homeless woman preparing to inject heroin. When Ryan told her she was going to harm her unborn child, she began to weep. She told him she did not know where to turn, but badly wanted a safe home for her baby.

In that moment, Ryan said he felt God speak to him: "You will do it -- because you can." He took out a picture of his wife and their four kids. Then, he went home to tell his wife Rebecca. In an instant, she agreed to adopt. The Holets named their new daughter Hope.

Ryan and Rebecca: You embody the goodness of our Nation. Thank you, and congratulations.

As we rebuild America's strength and confidence at home, we are also restoring our strength and standing abroad.

Around the world, we face rogue regimes, terrorist groups, and rivals like China and Russia that challenge our interests, our economy, and our values. In confronting these dangers, we know that weakness is the surest path to conflict, and unmatched power is the surest means of our defense.

For this reason, I am asking the Congress to end the dangerous defense sequester and fully fund our great military.

As part of our defense, we must modernize and rebuild our nuclear arsenal, hopefully never having to use it, but making it so strong and powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression. Perhaps someday in the future there will be a magical moment when the countries of the world will get together to eliminate their nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, we are not there yet.

Last year, I also pledged that we would work with our allies to extinguish ISIS from the face of the Earth. One year later, I am proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated almost 100 percent of the territory once held by these killers in Iraq and Syria. But there is much more work to be done. We will continue our fight until ISIS is defeated.

Army Staff Sergeant Justin Peck is here tonight. Near Raqqa last November, Justin and his comrade, Chief Petty Officer Kenton Stacy, were on a mission to clear buildings that ISIS had rigged with explosives so that civilians could return to the city.

Clearing the second floor of a vital hospital, Kenton Stacy was severely wounded by an explosion. Immediately, Justin bounded into the booby-trapped building and found Kenton in bad shape. He applied pressure to the wound and inserted a tube to reopen an airway. He then performed CPR for 20 straight minutes during the ground transport and maintained artificial respiration through 2 hours of emergency surgery.

Kenton Stacy would have died if not for Justin's selfless love for a fellow warrior. Tonight, Kenton is recovering in Texas. Raqqa is liberated. And Justin is wearing his new Bronze Star, with a "V" for "Valor." Staff Sergeant Peck: All of America salutes you.

Terrorists who do things like place bombs in civilian hospitals are evil. When possible, we annihilate them. When necessary, we must be able to detain and question them. But we must be clear: Terrorists are not merely criminals. They are unlawful enemy combatants. And when captured overseas, they should be treated like the terrorists they are.

In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds of dangerous terrorists, only to meet them again on the battlefield -- including the ISIS leader, al-Baghdadi.

So today, I am keeping another promise. I just signed an order directing Secretary Mattis to reexamine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay.

I am also asking the Congress to ensure that, in the fight against ISIS and al-Qa'ida, we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists -- wherever we chase them down.

Our warriors in Afghanistan also have new rules of engagement. Along with their heroic Afghan partners, our military is no longer undermined by artificial timelines, and we no longer tell our enemies our plans.

Last month, I also took an action endorsed unanimously by the Senate just months before: I recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Shortly afterwards, dozens of countries voted in the United Nations General Assembly against America's sovereign right to make this recognition. American taxpayers generously send those same countries billions of dollars in aid every year.

That is why, tonight, I am asking the Congress to pass legislation to help ensure American foreign-assistance dollars always serve American interests, and only go to America's friends.

As we strengthen friendships around the world, we are also restoring clarity about our adversaries.

When the people of Iran rose up against the crimes of their corrupt dictatorship, I did not stay silent. America stands with the people of Iran in their courageous struggle for freedom.

I am asking the Congress to address the fundamental flaws in the terrible Iran nuclear deal.

My Administration has also imposed tough sanctions on the communist and socialist dictatorships in Cuba and Venezuela.

But no regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally or brutally than the cruel dictatorship in North Korea.

North Korea's reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland.

We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from happening.

Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation. I will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got us into this dangerous position.

We need only look at the depraved character of the North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose to America and our allies.

Otto Warmbier was a hardworking student at the University of Virginia. On his way to study abroad in Asia, Otto joined a tour to North Korea. At its conclusion, this wonderful young man was arrested and charged with crimes against the state. After a shameful trial, the dictatorship sentenced Otto to 15 years of hard labor, before returning him to America last June -- horribly injured and on the verge of death. He passed away just days after his return.

Otto's Parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, are with us tonight -- along with Otto's brother and sister, Austin and Greta. You are powerful witnesses to a menace that threatens our world, and your strength inspires us all. Tonight, we pledge to honor Otto's memory with American resolve.

Finally, we are joined by one more witness to the ominous nature of this regime. His name is Mr. Ji Seong-ho.

In 1996, Seong-ho was a starving boy in North Korea. One day, he tried to steal coal from a railroad car to barter for a few scraps of food. In the process, he passed out on the train tracks, exhausted from hunger. He woke up as a train ran over his limbs. He then endured multiple amputations without anything to dull the pain. His brother and sister gave what little food they had to help him recover and ate dirt themselves -- permanently stunting their own growth. Later, he was tortured by North Korean authorities after returning from a brief visit to China. His tormentors wanted to know if he had met any Christians. He had -- and he resolved to be free.

Seong-ho traveled thousands of miles on crutches across China and Southeast Asia to freedom. Most of his family followed. His father was caught trying to escape, and was tortured to death.

Today he lives in Seoul, where he rescues other defectors, and broadcasts into North Korea what the regime fears the most - the truth.

Today he has a new leg, but Seong-ho, I understand you still keep those crutches as a reminder of how far you have come. Your great sacrifice is an inspiration to us all.

Seong-ho's story is a testament to the yearning of every human soul to live in freedom.

It was that same yearning for freedom that nearly 250 years ago gave birth to a special place called America. It was a small cluster of colonies caught between a great ocean and a vast wilderness. But it was home to an incredible people with a revolutionary idea: that they could rule themselves. That they could chart their own destiny. And that, together, they could light up the world.

That is what our country has always been about. That is what Americans have always stood for, always strived for, and always done.

Atop the dome of this Capitol stands the Statue of Freedom. She stands tall and dignified among the monuments to our ancestors who fought and lived and died to protect her.

Monuments to Washington and Jefferson -- to Lincoln and King.

Memorials to the heroes of Yorktown and Saratoga -- to young Americans who shed their blood on the shores of Normandy, and the fields beyond. And others, who went down in the waters of the Pacific and the skies over Asia.

And freedom stands tall over one more monument: this one. This Capitol. This living monument to the American people.

A people whose heroes live not only in the past, but all around us -- defending hope, pride, and the American way.

They work in every trade. They sacrifice to raise a family. They care for our children at home. They defend our flag abroad. They are strong moms and brave kids. They are firefighters, police officers, border agents, medics, and Marines.

But above all else, they are Americans. And this Capitol, this city, and this Nation, belong to them.

Our task is to respect them, to listen to them, to serve them, to protect them, and to always be worthy of them.

Americans fill the world with art and music. They push the bounds of science and discovery. And they forever remind us of what we should never forget: The people dreamed this country. The people built this country. And it is the people who are making America great again.

As long as we are proud of who we are, and what we are fighting for, there is nothing we cannot achieve.

As long as we have confidence in our values, faith in our citizens, and trust in our God, we will not fail.

Our families will thrive.

Our people will prosper.

And our Nation will forever be safe and strong and proud and mighty and free.

Thank you, and God bless America.CHESHIRE  A limited liability company that sells casual-wear clothing via the Internet is being cited by Connecticuts Better Business Bureau for having been the subject of 87 formal complaints since mid-November.

The complaints against Ultra Rare Apparel earned the business an F, the lowest letter grade in the BBBs ranking system.

The company claims to operate out of 125 Commerce Court, Suite 10. But a visit to that address Monday found a valet parking company now operating out of that space.

Municipal property records identify the owner of 125 Commerce Court, Suite 10, as 11125C LLC; records filed with the Connecticut Secretary of the States office list Garret Neff as a principal of 11125C LLC.

Neff has an unlisted home phone number in Cheshire. Calls to Ultra Rare Apparels phone number were picked up by an answering machine with a voice mailbox that was full.

Howard Schwartz, executive communications director for the Connecticut BBB, said Ultra Rare Apparel charged for products it did not ship, failed to provide transaction confirmation or tracking numbers, ignored consumers phone calls and emails, and neglected to respond to the organizations complaints. Some customers complaints reported losses in the hundreds of dollars, according to Schwartz.

The BBB received an average of nine complaints per week, he said.

Of the 87 complaints received, 41 were closed after consumers told the BBB that they had received their merchandise, Schwartz said. Another 46 still are going through the complaint process, he said.

Businesses are obliged to deliver merchandise within 30 days of receiving payment unless otherwise expressly stated or the consumer agrees to a later shipping date, according to the Federal Trade Commissions Mail, Internet, or Telephone Order Merchandise Rule, Schwartz said. If the delivery does not arrive in the stated time frame, consumers have the right to cancel the order and receive a full refund within one credit card billing period, he said.

luther.turmelle@hearstmediact.comThere is growing concern that North Korea is playing games with South Korea over its participation in the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, apparently under the impression that the South Korean government desperately needs the publicity coup.

Kim Jae-chun at Sogang University said, "North Korea thinks it's doing us a big favor by sending athletes to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics and thinks the government is indebted by the gesture."

In a telegram Monday night, North Korea said that it had "no choice but to cancel" a joint cultural performance at its Mt. Kumgang resort since the South Korean media "continues to propagate popular opinion that insults the sincere measures we are undertaking in relation to the Pyeongchang Olympics."

The South Korean press has been largely hostile to measures taken to accommodate the North and has denounced a massive military parade in Pyongyang on the eve of the Olympics.

But one former Unification Ministry official said, "Even North Korea knows that the government can't control what the media reports. It's just trying to bully us by making unreasonable demands."

But earlier, a high-ranking Unification Ministry official had already asked the press to refrain from publishing "speculative and critical articles." That meant the go-ahead for a planned visit by Hyon Song-wol, a high-profile bandleader-cum-apparatchik who was to inspect concert venues here for her Samjiyon Orchestra.

"North Korea probably realized that its pressure tactics are working," a researcher with a state-run think tank said. "North Korea could well overturn other agreements unless the government here acts deferentially."

Jonathan Gonzalez-Cruz prepared himself to feel anger and frustration as a Dreamer watching the State of the Union address.

And President Donald Trump did not surprise the 21-year-old college student from Wallingford.

Trump didnt utter a single empathetic word for Gonzalez-Cruz and others of the 800,000 who were brought into the United States illegally as children before mid-2007 and gained some protection under former President Barack Obama in 2012.

What Trump did say  equating the Dreamers to gang criminals  sparked ire across the country. But for Gonzalez-Cruz, Trumps insult wasnt just about the Dreamers fight to stay in the land where they were raised and the political showdown over it.

It was about his family; his mother and father who brought him and his brother from Mexico when they were ages 4 and 5.

It was about who he is, nearly 18 years later as an honors student on a merit scholarship at Southern Connecticut State University, joining a workforce that needs him.

It was about Trumps sadly narrow view of America.

It is frustrating to me because the State of the Union is something a lot of people watch, Gonzalez-Cruz said to me seconds after Trump ended his speech. A lot of people are uninformed and for him to use that exact language in that context is completely misleading and it is only going to affect how people view immigrants.

Trump turned outrage over the killings of two teenagers into outrage that open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities.

Right off the bat he used the example of MS-13, Gonzalez-Cruz said, referring to the gang that started in Los Angeles and El Salvador, which is overwhelmingly not populated by Dreamers.

Trump had invited two families from Long Island, whose teenage girls were murdered by MS-13 gang members in 2016.

Gonzalez-Cruz had taken notes during the 80-minute speech. Now he grew agitated.

His only purpose was to make it appear that all undocumented immigrants are criminals, rapists and murderers, Gonzalez-Cruz said. For him to use that family as a prop to only perpetuate the notion that all undocumented immigrants are killers and are violent, that is a complete fallacy and a lie ... that is complete nonsense.

Gonzalez-Cruz and another Dreamer, Carolina Bortolleto in Danbury, described the deceptive comparison with a sharper edge but words like those we heard from elected Democrats, including both of Connecticuts U.S. senators.

What Gonzalez-Cruz said next could only come from a child, now grown, who had watched his parents go through hell  including his fathers deportation when Gonzalez-Cruz was in 10th grade.

The fact that hes criminalizing a parents love, where they are choosing to uproot their entire life for their children, is completely unacceptable to me, he said. I cant even find the words for it. ... Hes trying to criminalize my parents decision to bring me over here and provide a better life for me.

Its something I wont stand for. I wont stand for someone who is criminalizing my parents.

Some Dreamers  participants in the DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program are willing to accept the compromise plan that Trump rolled out last week and tried Tuesday night to sell to the American public. A path to citizenship for 1.8 million undocumented immigrants, including most of the DACA Dreamers; stepped-up enforcement including a Mexico border wall; and elimination of the immigration visa lottery and the the ability of naturalized citizens to sponsor visas for extended family members.

Gonzalez-Cruz and Bortolleto are not among those who accept the plan.

My safety means nothing if my parents and the rest of my family live in fear, said Bartolleto, 29, who came from Brazil at age 9 and directs Connecticut Students for a Dream with her twin sister.

I couldnt live with myself, said Gonzalez-Cruz, whos on the groups policy board and played an active role in two recent occupation trips to the U.S. Capitol. An economics and math major, hes graduating this year, works at an immigration law firm in Stamford and hopes to go to law school.

That broad view led him to show anger toward Trumps claims  we love you, and we will pull through together  about helping Puerto Rico recover from Hurricane Maria, which hit four months ago.

Right now 33 percent of Puerto Rico is still without power and FEMA is going to be pulling out their food and water aid, he said, referring to the U.S. emergency management agency, which disputes charges its leaving people behind.

Trumps promise, for lack of a better term is complete bulls**t ... because they are brown citizens, for that reason he doesnt view them as a typical American.

Quickly, Gonzalez-Cruz apologized for that language slip and for losing his cool  something Trump didnt do when he called Haiti and other countries s**tholes.

I asked what he says to people who tell him the Dreamers parents illegally cut in line ahead of millions of foreign residents who, too, would like better lives for their chldren. He sees an immigration system that discriminates against poor, Hispanic and nonwhite countries. He sees the vast difference between visa policies for Canadians and Mexicans.

The current immigration system doesnt allow for us to enter in the legal way and that is the problem, he said. It drives people to come here illegally.

That explains why Gonzalez-Cruz was so upset over Trump treating border-patrol agents as heroes fighting dangerous criminals. Who theyre really encountering is parents with their children to try to provide them with a better life, he said.

Many economists say immigration must increase for the country, and especially Connecticut, to reach optimal growth. Thats partly why it would have been nice to see at least one member of the states delegation bring a Dreamer as a guest at the speech, as about two dozen members of Congress did.

The Trump line, Americans are dreamers too drew wide controversy; as Bortolleto said, Hes pitting Americans against immigrants, which is a false narrative.

Gonzalez-Cruz explained why he didnt mind Trump stealing the label, revealing a complex world view that belies his age and stands in contrast to Trumps black-and-white vision.

The whole Dreamer narrative I find troubling, he said. I disapprove of the narrative of perfect human beings.Joel Colindres spent what will likely be his last full day in the country, for at least five years, playing with his children.

This man, whos outside playing in the snow with his two blessings (children) after learning the news our fight is over, does not deserve this. We dont deserve this, Samantha Colindres, his wife, posted on her Facebook page Tuesday after learning his latest request for a stay of deportation was denied.

Colindres, 33, came here in 2004 after being robbed and held at gunpoint several times in Guatemala, and turned himself into Immigration and Customs Enforcemert officials in Texas.

A request to appear in immigration court sent to the wrong address and in the wrong name never reached him, but resulted in an order of deportation. He found out in 2010, the year he married Samantha, and they have been trying since then to get an asylum hearing.

Devastation, anger and frustration dont even begin to explain how we feel. To see others get stays with less in their case infuriates me. Theres nothing left, the fight is over. They finally won, leaving us broken and displaced. Now we are faced to plan for the next five years and what our future holds, Samantha Colindres, 35, wrote on Facebook.

The New Fairfield couple and their children, 6-year-old son Preston and 2-year-old daughter Lila, accompanied Joel Colindres to the airport in August waiting for the plane to take him to Guatemala when he was first ordered deported.

Less than an hour before he was scheduled to leave, the court granted an administrative stay that is in effect until Wednesday when he is scheduled to fly to Guatemala at 4 p.m. Samantha Colindres, at the most recent rally held for the family, vowed to never put her children through that again.

I am disgusted in this administration, immigration system and DHS (Department of Homeland Security.) I am done. Done with media, social media, fighting ... everything. To send my husband back to a country he has not been to in 14 years, where there is massive evidence of three recent murders of his cousins ... with their bodies laying stabbed to death in fields ... terrifies me, she wrote.

The Department of State issued new warnings for Guatemala this month. It is ranked at Level 3, due to serious risks to safety and security.

Picturing my childrens faces tomorrow as they say goodbye to their daddy again rips my heart out and brings so much pain I cant even express. ... We dont deserve this. I guess this is what happens when you speak up and take a stand. They make an example out of us and leave our innocent children to suffer to let the world know: stop fighting. Message received and I officially give up, she wrote.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., asked ICE this week to reconsider its denial of Colindres I-212 application on both a factual and legal basis.

He said Samantha Colindres suffers from many medical issues and needs her husbands help in caring for their children.

Colindres has been a carpenter supervisor for a construction company for the past 13 years and has paid taxes. Blumenthal said he does not have a criminal history and it does not appear he poses a threat to the integrity of the immigration system.

Joel Colindres also is the beneficiary of an approved 2015 petition by his wife, to sponsor his citizenship. The senator said there are documented claims that three of his relatives have been murdered in the last year and Colindres life is in danger.

I do not understand how needlessly separating a U.S. citizen family from their husband and father would be a benefit to our country or to Connecticut especially when there is good ground for his appeal of the I-212 decision, Blumenthal wrote.

mary.oleary@hearstmediact.com; 203-641-2577ANSONIA  Downtown Ansonia soon will get a whole lot brighter.

The existing light poles along Main and Kingston streets will undergo a much-needed facelift come springtime.

According to Mayor David Cassetti, the city recently approved installation of 25 double-bracket lights to sit atop the existing antique-style light poles, which will double the current lighting capacity. The lights will be outfitted with energy-efficient LED bulbs, as well.

When the new lighting installation is completed by early spring, Cassetti said the Main Street corridor will be noticeably brighter. Adding the double-bracket lights was a good solution to brightening up Main Street, which is dimly lit when night falls, according to Cassetti.

Cassetti said a lack of sufficient lighting downtown goes several years back, before he took office, when the current vintage-style lamp poles were installed courtesy of a grant some 150 feet apart, rather than the recommended 75 feet apart. So instead of a costly option to install more poles, Cassetti said the city opted to go for the double-bracket lighting as a creative solution.

In addition to downtown becoming much brighter, Cassetti said the new lights, brackets and installation will come at no cost to taxpayers. The only cost the city will incur is an estimated $6,000 annual increase in electricity costs.

Cassetti said costs will be offset by an estimated $125,000 in annual electricity savings the city has just begun to realize from a recently completed city-wide installation of more than 1,600 streetlight bulbs in all existing light poles to brighter, energy-saving LEDs, also which came at no cost to taxpayers.

The city partnered with United Illuminating to make the switch to the energy-efficient bulbs.

This past December, the city had UI install one of the new double-bracket lamps on a pole outside City Hall as a test to see what residents thought of the new look. City Director of Constituent Services Greg Martin said City Hall received plenty of favorable feedback , and decided to replace all the existing single lamps.

jean.sos@snet.net.WEST HAVEN  West Haven Fire Department Fire Marshal Keith Flood has been honored by a national fire safety organization for his work to try to put fire sprinklers in more West Haven and Connecticut homes.

Flood, chairman of the Connecticut Fire Sprinkler Association, was awarded the Bringing Safety Home Award by the Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition and the National Fire Protection Associations Fire Sprinkler Initiative, said Stephanie Kolisch, spokeswoman for the NFPA.

This honor is awarded to individuals making meaningful progress to protect families in their homes by pushing for fire sprinklers as a simple, viable solution to reduce home fires, Kolisch wrote in an e-mail.

Flood is coordinating efforts for the Connecticut Fire Sprinkler Association, which he founded in 2014, to spur state regulators to finally adopt the current model safety and building codes in Connecticut, Kolisch wrote.

Nationally developed model codes already require fire sprinklers in all new one- and two family homes, she said.

Flood, 51, who was nominated by Dave LaFond of the National Fire Sprinkler Association, said Tuesday that hes pleased to get the award, which he said acknowledged the work being done throughout the country.

When they gave me the award at a national conference in November, I was kind of shocked because I didnt know it was coming, Flood said. I accepted it on behalf of the coalition because we all work together to try to make things better in Connecticut.

Everybody working together gets it done, he said.

Last year, the effort to get the General Assembly to require sprinklers in all new one- and two-family homes fell short in a vote of the legislative Code and Standards Committee.

But the Connecticut Fire Sprinkler Association was able to get the legislature to require sprinklers in all townhouses of three or more attached units, said Flood  and hes hoping to eventually convince legislators to require it in all new one- and two-family homes, as well.

The goal is to get this on board and to just show people that its not that hard, said Flood, who has been a firefighter for 23 years. He was promoted to acting fire marshal in 2010 and got the job on a permanent basis in early 2011.

The West Haven Fire Department is one of three fire departments that serve different sections of West Haven.

Were happy that he received this honor, said WHFD Fire Chief Jim OBrien. Its a pretty big deal in our profession to get the honor and its well-earned.

Flood has been very active in the sprinkler coalition, doing on-site demonstrations ... to prove the point that home sprinklers will and do save lives, OBrien said.

Quite honestly, we didnt expect him to get it ... but he got selected, he said. Its a tribute to his work educating the public.

Getting sprinklers into more homes would be a life-saver, OBrien said.

Smoke detectors are great and they save lives, OBrien said, but sprinklers really are the wave of the future.

mark.zaretsky@hearstmediact.comCheong Wa Dae will officially invite former President Lee Myung-bak to the opening and closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang and receptions for foreign leaders, according to a spokesperson on Tuesday.

Lee has a corruption investigation hanging over his head but has been convicted of nothing.

Han Byung-do, the senior presidential secretary for political affairs, is to visit President Lee's office in Gangnam on Wednesday afternoon to deliver two letters of invitation, the spokesperson said. The first, to the opening and closing ceremonies and major Olympic events is from the International Olympic Committee, and the second to receptions and dinners from President Moon Jae-in.

A Lee aide said the ex-president decided to "accept the invitation from a broad point of view, because it's not right for a former president to decline the invitation over political disagreement."GUILFORD  A 15-year-old freshman at Guilford High School died Wednesday afternoon after suffering a gunshot wound inside a house on Seaside Avenue, according to Chief of Police Jeffrey Hutchinson.

Hutchinson identified the shooting victim Wednesday evening as Ethan Song of Guilford, and said Ethan did not live in the house in which the shooting took place but was there with one other youth. He did not identify the other youth, saying he was a juvenile, and didnt discuss the circumstances under which Ethan was fatally injured.

The other youth was not injured, Hutchinson said. No parents or other adults were at home at the time of the shooting, he said. Police and firefighters were dispatched to the house at about 3:30 p.m.

The house is owned by Robin and Kellie Kessel, according to town assessors records; it is opposite Chittenden Park, a stones throw from Jacobs Beach.

Hutchinson, who has been a police officer in Guilford for 28 years, said he couldnt remember the last time the town had a deadly shooting. Shootings are very uncommon in Guilford, he said.

As you can imagine, this is a very tragic event for the town, Hutchinson said. Were going to ask that people respect the families that are involved in this incident right now. We still have a lot of investigating to do. We still have a lot of answers to come up with, as to how this happened and what happened.

I will say that weve been in close contact with the superintendent of the Guilford school system, Dr. Paul Freeman, Hutchinson said. Hes asked me to indicate to everybody that there will be school counselors available in the morning for the students.

In addition, Hes asking also that news media refrain from showing up at the school there, Hutchinson said. As you can imagine, its going to be a very difficult day for the kids and he thinks its important that their healing comes before that.

In a subsequent press release, police asked that the privacy and security of our students be respected, and that they be allowed to grieve and deal with this tragic event without interruption at or around school grounds.

The Guilford Police Department also requests that any posting on social media applications regarding this incident consider the privacy of the victim and the integrity of the investigation and be limited to supportive messages, the release read.

As Hutchinson spoke, just after 8 p.m., We havent even been able to process the crime scene yet, he said. We still have some work to do on that. ... Process-wise, before we go in that house we need to get a search warrant signed. It takes a lot of work to put that paperwork together. We need prosecutors and judges to sign it.

When police arrived after getting a call at 3:25 p.m., they found the victim and the other youth, Hutchinson told the New Haven Register.

Were just literally in the beginning of the investigation, he said.

Hutchinson told television crews at the scene that the boy was transported to Yale New Haven Hospital and police were notified shortly thereafter that he had died.

Guilford police requested the assistance of Connecticut State Police investigators to process evidence at the scene, although Guilford police will handle the investigation, Hutchinson said.

An autopsy is expected to be performed on Thursday, Hutchinson said.

mark.zaretsky@hearstmediact.comBRANFORD  Everyone loves a bedtime story it seems.

Books in hand, readers, young and old, are creating a calm and comforting bedtime ritual for the four-legged occupants at the Dan Cosgrove Animal Shelter.

Guest readers flock to the shelter on Thursday evenings for the Reading to the Animals program, sit comfortably on blankets and read quietly to the dogs, cats and rabbits just before lights out.

The one dog that I read to fell asleep, said Michelle Cox, of East Haven. I think it calmed them, which is nice.

The program is so popular that in its first year about 190 people participated, filling every Thursday, from January through May. Interested participants can email the shelters Reading Program Coordinator Chris Barbaro at cbarbaro@branford-ct.gov to participate in this years program, held Thursdays from 6 to 6:45 p.m.

Usually its the children finding out and telling the parents they want to come in, said Barbaro. They come in and they light up. Its an amazing difference. They get all excited, theyre ready to go and its just a great experience for them.

Michelle Cox was reading Wheres Spot and Harry the Dirty Dog to a Puggle named Sal. While she said she doesnt read to her dog at home, maybe I should, she added.

I think its definitely something worth doing, if you have the free time, she said. Just to spend time with the dogs. Theyre probably in not such a great state right now, so its good for them to feel comforted and try and calm them.

Along with Michelle Cox was her mother, Gina Cox, who said she also has a dog at home that she talks to during the day.

I feel bad that the dogs are lonely, they have nobody to talk to said Gina Cox. I talk to my dog all the time at home, so I just thought that they needed to hear a friendly voice.

Gina Cox read Find Momo and Spot to her newest friend, a mixed breed dog named Blue.

While this may be the two womens first time they say they will definitely be back.

Makes me feel good, Gina Cox said.

I think whats so important is that people see them (the animals) in a different light when they come in and sit down and read to them, said Shelter Director Laura Burban.

Corey Hill, of New Haven, has been coming since the programs inception. As he sat in front of the kennel, cross-legged, he read Peter Rabbits Happy Easter Little Fur Family and Winnie-the-Pooh and Some Bees to Brooke, a 6-month-old female Golden Retriever.

It a great time to bring out your creativity, bring it out to the dogs, said Hill. Growing up, when I was young, my parents used to read to me and I just thought it would be a good idea to come here and read to the animals.

For the Novaco family of Branford this experience is the perfect introduction to the shelter.

It was kind of like a good practice to see how the two of them would do, volunteering, said Julia Navaco, referring to her daughters, Aubree, 6, and Noelle, 11.

Aubree read Pet Rabbits Up Close and The Pigeon Needs a Bath! to Moe, the rabbit, while her mother, Julia, helped her when she came across a difficult word.

As the two sat on a brown blanket, Aubree reclining a bit to be more comfortable, Moe sat quietly in a back corner of his cage listening intently to the soothing voice.

The John B. Sliney School first grader had just come from reading to the cats and said she could tell the animals were enjoying it because, they were acting calm.

Still in the cat room was her sister, Noelle, reading Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children.

As she read the chapter book to Sasha2, the domestic short-haired tabby cat was trying to connect to the young reader.

She kept hopping down here, said the Francis Walsh Intermediate School fifth grader. She kept trying to stick her paws out.

Reading to the animals is a unique way to bond with them, she said.

I think its good because we get to interact with the animals, but its not how you usually would, she said.

Burban said she hopes more people will take advantage of the opportunity.

When you spend the time to sit with them and read to them or just talk softly to them, they appreciate that and you see kind of the best side of them come out, whether its a dog, a cat or a bunny, Burban said. Its just calming for everybody.

Dan Cosgrove Animal Shelter, 749 East Main St., Branford, 203-315-4125; www.branfordanimalshelter.org; Reading Program Contact cbarbaro@branford-ct.gov; Facebook Dan Cosgrove Animal Shelter; Instagram dancosgroveanimalshelter

Contact Sarah Page Kyrcz via email at suzipage1@aol.com.DERBY  Putting tolls back onto Connecticuts highways and regionalizing school districts could be part of a solution to help the state climb out of massive debt.

Those were the main points raised this week during a town hall-style meeting with local lawmakers and the public. The meeting was hosted by Mayor Richard Dziekan at City Hall Tuesday night and drew about 35 people.

The panel of Valley lawmakers, House Republican Leader Themis Klarides, R-114; state Rep. Linda Gentile, D-104; state Rep. Nicole Klarides-Ditria, R-105 and state Sen. George Logan, R-17, fielded questions during the hour-long forum that mainly focused on what can be done about the states money woes.

Gentile said she recently drove from Connecticut to Florida, hitting tolls along the highways, noting the roads outside of Connecticut are in much better condition, as toll revenues are used to upgrade transportation infrastructure.

I favor electronic tolls, Gentile said. Connecticut roads, bridges, and highways are deteriorating from old age and overuse. The bottom line is that the Special Transportation Fund will be insolvent in two to five years and we are in desperate need of additional funding. In order to ensure the safety of our residents, we need to invest in our transportation infrastructure now. Since the federal government requires that the revenue from electronic tolls be used towards transportation, Connecticut residents can be reassured that the investment in electronic tolls will pay off.

Gentile said a study commissioned by the state Department of Transportation in 2016 estimated over 25 years, electronic tolls could raise $37 to $62 billion depending on the toll-rate used.

Klarides said shes in favor of a responsible proposal regarding electronic tolls, and not a previous proposal calling for a ridiculous 72 tolls in the countrys third smallest state.

Klarides-Ditria said current figures show 30 to 40 percent of toll revenue would come from out of state drivers, leaving Connecticut residents to pay the rest.

This essentially would be another tax on residents, Klarides-Ditria said.

Resident Ray Bowers, who serves on the citys tax board, asked the panel what else is being done to close the states $5 billion gap.

Klarides believes there are places in state government where we can consolidate and downsize, but with a recent state employee contract leaving our hands tied until 2027, she said other options in Hartford are being discussed, including legalization of recreational marijuana, regionalization, tolls and gambling, but there are ramifications with all of these.

Ansonia resident John Izzo, who serves on the Ansonia Board of Education, inquired about regionalization and asked the panel if they think the states 152 school districts would be decreased over the next five to 10 years.

I firmly believe that will happen, said Gentile, who favors shared services and regionalization.

One of Dziekans first orders of business as Derbys leader has been starting a conversation with neighboring Ansonia about regionalization, and at the least, sharing more services to cut costs.

Im not for mandating regionalization, but towns with similar connections, especially in the Valley, should look into it, Klarides said. In Connecticut, theres too much of everything  too many new high schools, too many sewage plants and this is just not sustainable anymore.

Logan said hes absolutely in favor of regionalization, and towns that join forces have a much better shot at incentives from the state by pairing up.

We are coming to a point where towns need to share services, sewage plants, schools ... and we have to figure out a way where it will work for everyone, Logan added.

jean.sos@snet.net.The North Korean regime is making frantic preparations for a military parade in Pyongyang on the eve of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

Thousands of unfortunates have been practicing a Soviet-style mass-choreographed card performance in Kim Il-sung Square for the parade on Feb. 8, Voice of America reported on Tuesday.

VOA published a satellite image of the plaza shot by Planet, an American private Earth imaging company, on Sunday morning that shows the center of the plaza a sea of red from the cards the masses are holding up.

Three straggler yellow letters loom up dimly among them.Lauretta Onochie, President Muhammadu Buharis Special Assistant on Social Media has declared that they are not confused as to who will lead Nigeria come 2019.Lauretta Onochie on her Twitter handle asked those who are opposed to President Muhammadu Buharis 2019 bid to name and promote the alternative option to Buhari saying: We are not confused as to who we want to continue to lead this nation.If you dont agree with us, no need to curse, abuse and insult.Name and promote your alternative to our optionYou are within your rights.So are we.Onochie in another tweet said: The guilty are afraid and will be hounded till they give up all that they have stolen from Nigerians.Their supporters will swallow shame and disgrace as they sell ethnic and religious bias.Innocent Nigerians irrespective of tribe and religion, have nothing to fear.Former President Olusegun Obasanjos proposed political movement, Coalition for Nigeria, CN, has been launched in Abuja.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjos proposed political movement, Coalition for Nigeria, CN, has been launched in Abuja.





The launch held at the YarAdua Centre, Abuja.





Former Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Governors, Olagunsoye Oyinlola and Donald Duke were in attendance.





In a letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, Obasanjo had said neither the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) nor the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) could give Nigeria the leadership it deserves.

We need a Coalition for Nigeria, CN. Coalition to salvage and redeem our country. You can count me with such a movement, the elder statesman had said.

Last time, we asked, prayed and worked for change and God granted our request. This time, we must ask, pray and work for change with unity, security and progress. And God will again grant us. Of course, nothing should stop such a Movement from satisfying conditions for fielding candidates for elections.

Coalition for Nigeria must have its headquarters in Abuja.





Speaking at the event, Oyinlola said the group is not yet a political party.





Oyinlola said for it to make electoral impact in the manner described by the former President, they would need to follow the constitution and register it as a political party.





He said, If and when we come to an agreement that we must metaphose into a political party, then we will.





Were not a political party, at least, for now.The Forum of Non-Governmental Organisations in Nigeria, which claims to be a coalition of 200 groups, has lambasted former President Olusegun Obasanjo for asking President Muhammadu Buhari not to contest in 2019.Addressing supporters during a meeting in Abuja on Tuesday, the National Coordinator of FONGON, Mr. Wole Badmus, asked the President to ignore Obasanjo, whom he described as an attention seeker.Badmus said Obasanjo could have met Buhari to advise him in private but because he had a hidden agenda, he decided to make the issue public.He said, Obasanjo, with due respect, whether he has good intentions for the country or not, we cannot really say but we know if you want to identify the problems of Nigeria, 50 per cent can be attributed to Obasanjo.Letter writing is not new to the man either. In his book titled, My Command, you will see that Obasanjo blamed all the actors in the Civil War from Murtala Muhammed to Benjamin Adekunle. The only person he exonerated was himself.In My Watch, he claimed the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo was not the leader of the Yoruba and even attacked him. He castigated his Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar.Badmus said Obasanjo should stop trying to impose his will on Nigerians, adding that the former President lacked the right to act as the conscience of the nation.He said the former President, who attempted to perpetuate himself in power, lacked the moral right to tell another person not to contest for a second term.Badmus said, You spent eight years and attempted to get four more years. You dont have the moral right to tell someone who has not spent up to four years not to spend an additional four years. It is not done, we will not allow that.The FONGON coordinator said Buhari must be re-elected for fighting corruption, increasing power generation, reducing imports, creating jobs, building quality infrastructure and getting the nation out of economic recession.A patriotic Nigerian, Patriot Dickson Onah, has made a passionate appeal to Nigerians to have and sustain faith in Nigeria and President Muhammadu Buhari, saying they should not to allow vein glory seekers take advantage of the skirmishes the nation has experienced to cause disaffection between the government and the led.Onah who is a member, Faith in Nigeria, in a letter to his fellow countrymen titled, A Clarion Call for Faith in Nigeria, urged Nigerians to consider the strides the government of President Buhari has made to return the nation on the path of growth and not allow the flaws becloud their judgments.According to him, when supposed leaders decide to write letters to public officers enjoying the mandate of the people, the masses should also find a common ground to communicate one another since they are the proverbial ground that suffers when two elephants fight each other.We entered the New Year on a very sad note with renewed tempo of crises in some parts of the country, particularly the herders/farmers conflicts in parts of the North.He regretted that the elements of opposition have taken advantage of the security breaches and are working tirelessly to politicise the issue.Even on the same insecurity he is been harshly scolded, President Buharis battling of Boko Haram terrorists in the Northeast has received acclaims both locally and globally. They pour accolades on him for defeating the worlds most dreaded extremists sect, Boko Haram and halting its spread as well as other allied terrorism threats around the country.President Buhari has brought relief to us in multiple ways. Apart from ending the regime of mindless pilfering with public resources, he is saving in the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) and Nigerias foreign reserves for posterity and capital projects like roads construction across the country and the reintroduction of rail transportation by the revival of the railways supervised by Minister of Transport, Hon. Rotimi Amaechi.The letter partly reads thus:I salute you in the New Year and wish all the people of Nigeria, especially, the poor and vulnerable masses, Gods blessings. Life is full of vagaries, but the strong-willed shall always wither the storm.No doubt, we entered the New Year on a very sad note with renewed tempo of crises in some parts of the country, particularly the herders/farmers conflicts in parts of the North. There has been loss of precious lives, destructions to properties, displacements of indigenous populations and terrifying dislocation of social and communal existence in once peaceful communities.We mourn with the bereaved and victims of these crises in Benue, Adamawa, Nasarawa, Plateau, Zamfara, Southern Kaduna and Taraba states among others. We feel the exactitude of the pains and the unbearable hardships imposed on everyone, including the families of the victims.At such difficult times, there is every reason to talk to ourselves, reason together and act in unison, to inspire the patriotic spirit in us to weaken and cripple the common enemy of our people and the nation. This is certainly not the time to speak in discordant voices or hurl vituperations at our leaders or ourselves. It would rather widen the cracks and do us more harm. The leaders need our support and prayers now more than ever to overcome these challenges of nation-building.Let it not be lost on any mind and soul that nations of the world face these difficult times at intervals. But they do not last forever. They emerge stronger and more focused. The case of Israel is apt. The collective efforts by leaders and backed by the citizenry have always surmounted these challenges.We all wish to have peace in our homes, communities and villages. We need peace in our places of works and worship centres. Any such disruption has far-reaching consequences. But we also know that there are people among us who feel we dont deserve the peace or right to life. We should resolve not to dance to their macabre dance anymore. Lets reject them and their satanic proposals. Lets cover their faces with mud and ask them to go and spit in hell, but not on the throne of our ancestors.Our dear President Muhammadu Buhari has found himself in these unfortunate circumstances. He is one Nigerian leader who has the country at heart. But all over the world, leaders have supporters and friends as well as enemies or foes. The political enemies rather dig pitfalls for him to exploit its outcomes in furthering their personal political nests. This is the time we need to be watchful, prayerful, conscious and alert. Or else, we are bound to be misled by the antics and machinations of evil opponents who are after plunging us into deep mess.We can attest that some reactions to the prevailing crisis in Nigeria are tailored towards politics and the struggle for the political soul of Nigeria in 2019. The opposing camps are singing melodies of destruction and evil against President Buhari in order to oust him out of power and reverse the gains of democracy under his watch in the last two years. The masses of Nigeria must stand firm to resist such unholy interference from these political hawks and power mongers, who see nothing good in the leadership of others except themselves, but offer little or nothing when they are honoured with the privilege to serve.The simmering crises around the country are regrettable and efforts are being made by the Presidency to contain it. Every leader has shortcomings. And that one problem could not be solved expeditiously or dexterously should not constitute blanket condemnation and nullification of a leadership. Every day, new experiences, teach fresh lessons. There is certitude that Nigeria will again emerge from these crisis triumphantly.Even on the same insecurity he is been harshly scolded, President Buharis battling of Boko Haram terrorists in the Northeast has received acclaims both locally and globally. They pour accolades on him for defeating the worlds most dreaded extremists sect, Boko Haram and halting its spread as well as other allied terrorism threats around the country.President Buhari has brought relief to us in multiple ways. Apart from ending the regime of mindless pilfering with public resources; he is saving in the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) and Nigerias foreign reserves for posterity and capital projects like roads construction across the country and the reintroduction of rail transportation by the revival of the railways supervised by Minister of Transport, Hon. Rotimi Amaechi.His administration has impacted numerously. The N-Power jobs are putting smiles on the faces of families and power generation has appreciated to over 7,000 megawatts from the 2,300 megawatts of national grid by May 2015. This was after successive governments, including the one headed by the letter-writer, squandered billions of dollars to fix electricity, but no positive results for 16 years.Look at his anti-corruption war. He has recovered looted commonwealth in quantums, no single leader of Nigeria has ever approximated since the establishment of the EFCC. Even though corruption is fighting back to regain its position of prominence in public affairs, but he has remained undaunted. Corruption is rightly the greatest enemy of Nigeria. And owe Buhari moral obligation to support him scuttle monster to a standstill.We can only sufficiently appreciate the forces massed against President Buhari for blocking all sources of revenue leakages and corrupt acts of public officials. But now they make a mountain out of a molehill when they hear about the embezzlement of N200 million. But we all are living witnesses to the jamboree or the free feasting on national resources during the period these veiled forces held forth at Aso Villa.But today, they are claiming better knowledge. However, before their watchful eyes, the likes of Sen. Stella Oduah alone, as Aviation Minister could loot far more than this amount by a government midwifed by former President Olusegun Obasanjo. When his protege Femi Fani Kayode is grilled for embezzlement of public funds, he does not even feel remorseful.This is the time to stand up for President Buhari. We cannot afford to sacrifice him to these vermin in power. We must look at the Nigerian Project and interest as larger as and bigger than any individual. We should not hesitate to troop out en masse to demonstrate our support for Mr. President, anytime, it is necessary. The battle line has been drawn between light and darkness and the die is cast.We must insist in our actions and support that President Buhari must continue beyond 2019 to lead Nigeria to the Promise land. We should say No and reject any Coalition to backwardness, proposed by any self-cantered leader, who oppressed and enslaved us for the 16 years of the PDPs misrule. This is a clarion call for us to rise up in defence of our democracy against retrogressive forces before they return us to another phase of an inglorious history.The clock is fast ticking and its 2018 already and the best time that the hawks usually come out to perfect our backwardness. Lets avoid them like plaques. Lets tell them in clear dictions that #WeStandWithNigeria and cannot go back again to the dungeon of darkness. #WeStandWithBuhari because of our implicit confidence in him to resolve all the emerging problems orchestrated by these masked forces and the latter-day prophets of doom. Disillusionment is not the solution now, but positive thoughts and actions.Once again, I appreciate your patience, endurance and support to these twin projects- standing to be counted for Nigeria and the Buhari Presidency.Mahwah officials agreed Tuesday night to settle with an Orthodox Jewish group and two New York residents who sued the township after it said their religious boundaries could not be installed on utility poles.

The Bergen Rockland Eruv Association filed a federal lawsuit in August after a religious group was instructed to remove "lechis" -- or white PVC piping attached to utility poles -- that would form an eruv, or a symbolic religious boundary.

An eruv allows Orthodox Jewish persons to carry out everyday activities outside of the home on the Jewish Sabbath that are otherwise forbidden in public, such as carrying keys or pushing a stroller.

The town claimed at the time that the "lechis" violated a zoning law that banned signs from utility poles.

Council members Tuesday decided to move forward with the settlement despite multiple urgings from residents to not agree to it and to continue fighting the litigation.

The council agreed to the settlement, if the group is willing to accept a modification the council requested, the town's attorney, Brian Chewcaskie, said at the videotaped meeting on Tuesday. The settlement details were not immediately available.

The town, over its stance on the eruv and other issues, was put on blast by the State Attorney General's Office in October last year when the state filed a scathing complaint against them.

The state, under then-Attorney General Christopher S. Porrino, cited an ordinance the town considered (but never passed) that would have expanded what was banned on utility poles -- effectively disallowing an eruv, the state claimed -- and a town rule that was put in place to stop non-New Jersey residents from using its parks, as tactics to keep out Orthodox Jewish people who were coming to the town from New York.

Porrino at the time likened the "hateful" conduct of Mahwah officials to "white flight" suburbanites who tried to keep out black people from their neighborhoods in the 1950s.

"To think that there are local governments here in New Jersey, in 2017, making laws on the basis of some archaic, fear-driven and discriminatory mindset, is deeply disappointing and shocking to many, but it is exactly what we are alleging in this case," Porrino said in a statement at the time. "Of course, in this case we allege the target of the small-minded bias is not African-Americans, but Orthodox Jews. Nonetheless, the hateful message is the same."

In December, Mahwah reopened its parks to out-of-state visitors and dropped the proposed law about expanding what is banned on utility poles.

There are 22 places in the state, including Tenafly and Paramus, that have an eruv.

Mahwah Council President Robert Hermansen and Mahwah Mayor Bill Laforet did not comment, citing the pending settlement.

A representative from the Bergen Rockland Eruv Association did not immediately return a request for comment.

Sara Jerde may be reached at sjerde@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SaraJerde.

Have information about this story or something else we should be covering? Tell us: nj.com/tipsA methodical burglar at work.

Don't Edit

By Joe Brandt | For NJ.com

Camden County detectives investigating dozens of burglaries at local businesses were astonished at how methodical their burglar operated.

He left no fingerprints, set off no alarms and was disguised on surveillance video, yet was able to steal sometimes thousands of dollars from about 70 businesses, detectives said. This was unusual, they said, because typical burglars usually rush like bulls into a business and grab any cash they can find, usually to feed a drug habit.

But police said that while this burglar was methodical at the scene, he had a significant lapse when it came to one aspect of the crime.

Here's how they caught him.

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Joe Brandt | For NJ.com

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A methodical burglar

In most burglaries, someone who needs money quickly grab something from the cash register if they can get in, and leave it at that, said Haddon Township Police Capt. Scott Bishop, a former detective in the department.

But as some available surveillance videos showed, this burglar had no problem remaining at scenes for long periods of time, and would often go for the biggest prize possible: the safe. Bishop, a former detective in the department, has hardly ever seen a burglar so deliberate, so careful. "This guy was way more methodical," Bishop added.

About 70 times over the past few years, the departments detectives --Sgt. Joseph Johnston, Mark Pagano and Timothy Hak -- found a man concealing his face as he forcibly entered businesses in South Jersey.

He wore gloves to prevent leaving fingerprints, he cut alarm wires, unscrewed lightbulbs and redirected video cameras.

Police havent yet determined the total amount of money taken, but said the largest theft was $26,000 from a safe at a business.

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Patterns arose

After noticing that the 2016 burglaries at Giumarellos and The Taproom & Grill were similar, the departments detectives began looking for similar burglaries across South Jersey.

Hak, Bishop said, had a three-ring binder where he kept the details of each case he believed to be connected. It filled up with papers about the dozens of cases they believe to be related.

But without DNA or a clear view of the mans face, they had to treat him as they would any serial criminal.

You need to wait for them to strike again, Bishop said.

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01/26/2018 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Subject: Multi-County Serial Burglary Suspect Arrested - Responsible for at least 70... Posted by Haddon Township Police on Friday, January 26, 2018

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An opportunity presented itself

An opportunity for authorities to nab the burglar came around 2 a.m. this past Christmas Eve.

A store owner at the Laurel Hill Plaza in Gloucester Township was playing video games with friends in a back room when he called police to report strange sounds coming from the roof, said Lt. Jason Gittens, who oversees the departments criminal investigations unit.

Police arrived and saw a man on the roof, and called for him to come down.

Then he starts running around, hiding behind air conditioners, Gittens said.

A group of officers showed up to build a perimeter around the shopping center. They were there to get him when he tried to jump off the roof, breaking his foot, Gittens added.

Who would expect someone to be inside one of the stores in a shopping center at 2 a.m.?

"You would think they're at home wrapping gifts or something, Gittens said. We had a little luck there.

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A screengrab of surveillance video from one of several crime scenes.

Haddon Township Police Department

An arrest is made

Police arrested 56-year-old Dennis M. Niceler of Galloway Township in Atlantic County, who has previously been convicted on burglary charges.

Not your average burglar, Niceler is a historian who worked for the Egg Harbor City Historical Society, authoring a book for the "Images of America" series about the history of the city.

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Not as methodical at home

When Haddon Township Police heard about an arrest in a burglary with the same M.O. theyd been tracking for a year, they reached out to Gloucester Township.

After some coordination, Haddon Township detectives got warrants and combed through Niceler's home and his devices.

They found that he conducted extensive online research on businesses that had been burglarized. They found Facebook photos, stops on restaurant websites and online stops on sites where he took virtual tours to get the layout of business and to determine where doors and windows were located, along with alarm panels and occasionally the safe.

He would focus on restaurants, particularly ones that sold liquor, Bishop said. He figured those were likely to have more money.

Nicelers internet history also showed that he would examine publicly available earnings reports or tax filings to determine if a business was doing well and if it might be worth his time, Bishop added.

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What's next

Niceler will have his first appearance in court on Feb. 6 in the Camden County Hall of Justice regarding charges in the Camden County burglaries, the county prosecutors spokeswoman Alexandra McVeigh said.

It was not clear Wednesday when he might appear in other county courts.

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MORE FROM NJ.COM

Police looking for robbers who keep cutting the power before taking the cash

Police looking for burglars filmed by home security camera

Serial burglar, teen accomplice, stole middle school safe, police say

Don't Edit

Joe Brandt can be reached at jbrandt@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JBrandt_NJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tipsA 27-year-old Winslow Township man has been charged with murder after authorities found his aunt dead in the apartment they shared, authorities said.

Police suspected Shane Whipple of the crime after learning that he may have fought with his aunt, Jennifer Whipple, on Thursday, according to a statement from the Camden County Prosecutor's Office.

Shane Whipple

Jennifer Whipple, an information technologist who worked for the business consulting company Navigant, was found dead by Winslow Township police on Saturday, the office said. She had "extensive trauma to her body and face," the statement said.

Her father had asked police to check on her at her Taylor Woods apartment. "The request came when Jennifer's father had been unable to reach his daughter for almost two days after he spoke with her Thursday evening about a fight that occurred between her and Shane Whipple earlier that day," the release said.

Police learned that he had been inside the apartment he shared with his aunt Friday and left later that evening, the release said.

The prosecutor's office released Shane Whipple's photograph Monday, asking anyone who saw him to call 911 because investigators were looking to speak with him. Police took him into custody Route 70 and North Locust Street in Evesham Township shortly after noon Monday.

He was charged with first-degree murder Tuesday. He is being held in the Camden County Correctional Facility until a hearing to determine whether he will be detained or released pending trial, the prosecutor's office said.

Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Find NJ.com on Facebook.Three houses in Irvington were seriously damaged and five families displaced after a fire that started in a vacant house spread to surrounding residences.

None of the occupants of the houses were hurt, but one firefighter was treated for a minor injury, according to Irvington Public Safety Director Tracy Bowers. The blaze is believed to have been started by squatters, who fled.

The fire on the 400 block of 20th Street broke out in the second-floor around 7:20 a.m. It was brought under control at around 10 a.m.

At the height of the fire, flames shot out of the roof of the home and smoke could plumes could be seen for miles.

Arson investigators are looking into the cause of the fire. The Red Cross of New Jersey said it's assisting the affected families.

Irvington U/D 2nd Alarm Plus 487 21st Street Had Heavy Fire in three 2.5 Story Wood Frames Ext to garages In rear on the 20th St Side. Main fire bldg collapsed. Primary Search in Both Exposures are NEG. Request Red Cross for 6 so far. pic.twitter.com/E1DQARUvJN  NorthJersey FireNews (@NJFires) January 31, 2018

Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Find NJ.com on Facebook.As Iyonah Fard delivered remarks during her cousin's funeral last September, she looked up and saw an awful piece of her past seated in the pews at an Irvington church.

It was her aunt's ex-boyfriend, a man, Fard says, who molested her when she was 6 years old while two cousins and a younger brother slept beside her.

"I choked up," said Fard, now 23, of Newark. "I didn't expect to see this person."

She asked a family member to make the man leave.

MORE: Recent Barry Carter columns

The request was not honored. And that, said Fard, has been the big problem since the alleged incident happened in 2001. Except for her mother, many relatives ignored what happened, swept it under the rug, Fard says.

Disgusted that the man not only was permitted to attend the church service but also the repast, Fard took matters into her own hands.

She angrily confronted him, videotaping the encounter on her smartphone, and posted the clip on Instagram the same day. It didn't go viral, however, until December, three months after the funeral.

"I don't know what happened," Fard said. "It just took off."

More than 1.4 million people have viewed the 60-second video at a time when the #MeToo movement is on the rise to highlight sexual assault and harassment.

The video begins with Fard saying, "Hey everybody. There's a time and a place for everything, so I'm trying to be strong. But I want to introduce y'all to somebody." Then, she trains her smartphone on the man she says she hadn't seen in 17 years.

"This guy right here, when I was 6 years old, he molested me in the bed when I was with my cousins,'' Fard says as the man continues to eat.

He does not respond, looking up once, as she goes on talking.

"Remember when you was touching on me. ... You remember that?"

Fard goes on to say that he didn't want her aunts to know what happened, and recounts how he told her not to tell them, thinking money might keep her quiet.

"And you put a quarter in my pocket," she says, her voice rising. "You remember what you did?"

The video ends shortly after that with the man still silent, looking down and wiping his hands on a napkin.

Fard said the assault happened only once, but there had been several other failed attempts until that morning when she slept over at an aunt's house because her mother had to work.

"I woke up to it," Fard said. "I was hoping one of my other cousins in the bed would wake up."

Fard said her mother, Tykie Fard, filed charges, but it's unclear what happened after. Several attempts to contact the man recently were unsuccessful.

Time passed, and Fard's mother, whom she adored and was close to, died in 2008. Her father, Yusef Fard, and mother were separated. He was in North Carolina at the time of the alleged incident and said he didn't find out in a timely manner.

"It was a hard pill to swallow'' Mr. Fard said.

He applauded his daughter's courage, and like many, was surprised to learn what she had done on social media until a friend from Egypt told him about the video clip.

"Iyonah is the type of person who doesn't back down from a fight," he said. "I totally have her back."

The man in the video is not a stranger to the criminal justice system. He is a registered sex offender. According to court records, he was convicted in 1987 for an attempted rape in Maplewood and was sentenced to seven years. In 2000, he was convicted of endangering the welfare of a child.

He had also been charged with sexual assault of a victim younger than 13, but those charges were dismissed in a 2002 plea deal. In 2006, he pleaded guilty to distributing heroin. He violated parole four times between 2009 and 2012, and was also charged with resisting arrest in 2010.

GOING VIRAL

Since posting her video, Fard has been interviewed on podcasts, internet radio, and a New York City radio station. Websites have picked up the post, and her Instagram followers jumped from 5,000 to 12,000. Her Facebook page has maxed out at 5,000 friends, and she's started a group page for newcomers. Twitter has blown up, too.

MORE CARTER: Newark residents not on board for proposed homeless veteran shelter | Carter

Fard said that the comments and support she has received has helped her push back against family denial. Posting the video was her testimony to what she couldn't say as a child.

Even as Fard shared her story with me over breakfast last Friday at Kings Family Restaurant in Newark, a customer, who said that she, too, had seen the video, stopped at the table when she realized who was talking.

"Thank you. Keep telling your story," said Delores Davis of Newark.

Davis had to leave, but contacted later that day, she said Fard, "opened the door for more women and young girls to come out. She stood for them."

Fard said growing up was difficult, and she spent a lot of time confused and off-track. She was just 14 when her mother died. Her last year of formal education was as a freshman at University High School. She was sent to live with her dad in North Carolina, but she ran away. Sent to live with another relative in Georgia, she left home again.

Eventually, she found her way back to Newark.

"I felt like this was the only way I could feel her," she said, referring to her mother. "She was ripped out of my life so early."

After seven years of instability, moving from place to place, staying with friends and acquaintances, she earned a General Educational Development diploma from Youth Build, a community development agency.

Today, Fard, who has a 3-year-old son, is a bartender and plans to enroll in community college to become a paralegal. She sees herself helping children, letting them know that it's OK to tell their truth, just as she did.

She knows young people out there have seen her story. Several of them --more males than females who've had her experience -- reached out, writing to her on Instagram at 5buttaball; Facebook at Iyonah Irene and Twitter @5ButtaLOVE_

On the day Fard exorcised her demons, she made sure the man understood the scope of her anger. On her way out from the repast, Fard picked up a plate of food and smashed it in the man's face, she said.

Too bad that part didn't make the video.

Barry Carter: (973) 836-4925 or bcarter@starledger.com or

nj.com/carter or follow him on Twitter @BarryCarterSLBAYONNE -- The city has reached a $400,000 settlement with a local Muslim group that will allow the organization to build its community center in its original location on the east side of the city.

By settling with the nonprofit Bayonne Muslims, who filed a federal lawsuit against the city in May, Bayonne will avoid what could have been a long and costly legal battle. As a result, the Bayonne Muslims will have the green light to convert a vacant industrial property they purchased on East 24th Street two and a half years ago.

"We are so grateful for the support of so many of our fellow Bayonne residents through this long struggle and we commend the City of Bayonne for moving now to correct the wrong that was done to Bayonne's Muslims," said Abdul Hamid Butt, the organization's president. "We look forward to welcoming Bayonne residents of all faiths to the City's first mosque."

Per the settlement, the Bayonne Muslims will be permitted to establish their community center on the site after a public meeting is held within 30 days of the agreement being struck. State law requires a revised application and full public hearing before a settlement agreement between the Zoning Board and the applicant can be ratified with a public vote.

The city, facing the lawsuit and an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Justice Department, moved quickly to settle the case filed by the plaintiffs, who were represented by Adeel A. Mangi and Muhammad Faridi of Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP in Manhattan.

The attorneys represented an Islamic society in Bernards Township in a similar case, where a mosque was denied by the city's planning board.

"Our lawyers came back and said 'Listen, it would almost behoove you to settle this case and not take it to trial unless you're prepared to pay millions of dollars,'" said Mayor Jimmy Davis. "'And have your taxpayers on the hook for millions of dollars.'"

The Bayonne Muslims had been searching for a permanent home in the city while it rented out the basement of the St. Henry's School for prayer services since 2008.

The group purchased the property at 109 East 24th St. in 2015 for $1 million, and had applied for zoning consideration later that year. However, the organization's plan for the community center and mosque was met by vociferous push-back from a segment of the community that did not want the facility built in that location.

It all culminated in a roughly five-hour meeting on March 6 when the city Zoning Board denied the group's application to build a community center on the city's east side.

The zoning board voted 4-3 in favor of granting the group's variances, but the plan ultimately failed to pass it required a five-vote super majority.

The group filed its federal lawsuit on May 25, 2017, asserting that the zoning board violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) by denying approval for the plan based on factors board members were not legally permitted to consider.

The city Zoning Board meeting on March 6, 2017.

The suit asserted that the three dissenting votes on the zoning board did not cite sufficient evidence of testimony related to the setback and buffer issues.

The suit alleged that the mosque application also received the requisite number of votes -- four -- in regard to a parking variance for the area, but was nonetheless denied by the board, according to the complaint.

Less than a week later, the U.S. Justice Department confirmed that it had opened its own investigation into the city zoning board's denial of the Muslim community center.

The city faced a particularly daunting legal fight, considering the lawsuit cited two similar approvals the zoning board made in 2011 and 2012 for houses of worship.

In 2011, the zoning board granted a variance to the Virgin Mary and St. John Coptic Orthodox Church at 22 West 20th St. despite observing that the applicant did not satisfy any of the three requirements for a conditional use variance, according to the lawsuit.

And in 2012, the board granted Iglesia Ni Cristo church at 280 Ave. E. a variance similar to the one the Bayonne Muslims sought, the lawsuit said.

Bernards Township in August 2017 settled two federal lawsuit for $3.25 million, while Bridgewater settled a similar suit for $7.75 million.

The $280,000 of the settlement will go toward attorneys fees, while the remainder will be made payable to the Bayonne Muslims.

"American Muslims around the country are standing up for their constitutional rights in the face of discrimination and bigotry and winning," said Adeel A. Mangi and Muhammad U. Faridi, counsel for Bayonne Muslims. "Municipalities that give in to local hatred and treat Muslims unequally should know that they will be held accountable and will face the full weight of the law."

Corey W. McDonald may be reached at cmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @coreymacc. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.UNICEF : 80% adolescents reported low levels of learning during the pandemic

At least 80 per cent children in India between the age group of 14-18 years reported lower levels of learning during COVID-19 pandemic than when physically at school, according to a UNICEF reportBAYONNE -- Police have arrested a Jersey City man connected to three different robberies this month in the area of 18th Street, authorities said.

Lamont C. Wiggins Jr., 19, of Jersey City, was arrested and charged with three counts of theft and robbery on Tuesday for his role in several robberies in Bayonne's Second Ward using an online Facebook marketplace, police said.

On Jan. 15, a victim told police that he was robbed of $147 after responding to an advertisement on Facebook to purchase a used iPhone. He met the seller, now identified as Wiggins, near 18th Street and Avenue A at 9 p.m. to make the transaction, but was robbed of the phont once he handed Wiggins the money, police said.

One week later, on Jan. 22, Wiggins met with another victim he met through Facebook on West 18th Street and Avenue A to try and sell him an iPhone 8, authorities said. Just before 10 p.m., he duped $450 out of the victim when he gave him an LG Touch Screen in an iPhone 8 box and fled the area, police said.

And then on Monday, Wiggins and an accomplice robbed another man he had connected with via Facebook of $300 after threatening him with a gun, police say, although it is unclear if they were actually armed.

A subsequent investigation conducted by the Bayonne Police Detectives identified Wiggins as the seller of the phones in all three incidents, authorities said.

He was arrested on West 16th Street and Country Village Court on Tuesday, and was charged with 3rd degree theft from a person for the Jan. 15 incident; 4th degree theft for the Jan. 22 incident; and robbery for the incident on Monday, police said.

He was remanded to Hudson County jail in Kearny. Police are still investigating the identity of the unknown male with Wiggins on Monday.

The police department is advising people who use such means to buy and sell goods to meet in a public location and bring a friend.

Corey W. McDonald may be reached at cmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @coreymacc. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.UPDATE: 19-year-old charged in Rose Avenue homicide

JERSEY CITY - No arrests have been made in connection with the fatal shooting of a Lincoln High School student Monday night.

Police responded to Rose Avenue at about 9:35 p.m. by residents who heard shots being fired in the neighborhood. Officers arrived and found Angel Cruz, 18, inside a home with multiple gunshot wounds to his torso, Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez announced.

Cruz was rushed to Jersey City Medical Center for treatment. He was pronounced dead just after 3:20 a.m., officials said.

His death has been ruled the city's second homicide for the year.

Cruz attended Lincoln High School. Students at the Crescent Avenue building were mum at dismissal. A family member said the 18-year-old was lured to his death.

Anyone with information about the fatal shooting is asked to call the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office at 201-915-1345 or leave an anonymous tip on the Hudson County Prosecutor's website. All information will be kept confidential.

Caitlin Mota may be reached at cmota@jjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @caitlin_mota. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.JERSEY CITY -- The state moved to detain the 19-year-old man charged in Monday's fatal shooting on Rose Avenue in Jersey City, adding that probable cause for the charges include the defendant's own statement to detectives.

Kahsaun Bell of Roselle made his first court appearance today on the charge of murder and firearm offenses in connection to Monday night's homicide of 18-year-old Angel Cruz, and pleaded not guilty.

At the hearing, Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Keith Travers said the state has moved to detain Bell through the course of his prosecution and a detention hearing has been scheduled for Monday before Hudson County Superior Court Judge Paul DePascale.

Jersey City police officers responding a home on Rose Avenue at 9:38 a.m. found Cruz in a first-floor hallway suffering from apparent gunshot wounds to his torso, according to the criminal complaint charging Bell.

Cruz, a Lincoln High School student, was rushed to the Jersey City Medical Center where it was determined he had been struck in the chest, abdomen and side. He was immediately sedated and rushed into surgery but succumbed to the gunshot wounds at 3:23 a.m., according to the complaint.

The victim was then transported to the state Regional Medical Examiner's Office in Newark where it was determined he died as a result of the gunshot wounds and the manner of death was homicide, the complaint says.

A family member told The Jersey Journal that Cruz had received a phone call from a "friend" asking for some water and when he went to meet the person, gunshots rang out. The complaint describes Cruz and Bell as "friends."

In court today, Travers said probable cause for the charges against Bell include the defendant's statement, the statement of an eyewitness, surveillance video and cellphone data.

Bell appeared in Criminal Justice Reform Court in Jersey City this afternoon via video link from Hudson County jail in Kearny. He was represented by the Public Defender's Office. His next court hearing is scheduled for Feb. 9 before DePascale.A Jersey City high school student was lured out of an apartment and shot to death Monday night, according to a family member.

Authorities said that no arrests have been made in connection with the fatal shooting of Angel Cruz, 18, a Lincoln High School student.

Police responded to Rose Avenue at about 9:35 p.m. by residents who heard shots being fired in the neighborhood. Officers arrived and found Cruz inside a home with multiple gunshot wounds to his torso, Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez announced yesterday.

Cruz was rushed to Jersey City Medical Center for treatment. He was pronounced dead just after 3:20 a.m., officials said.

His death has been ruled the city's second homicide of the year.

Cruz attended Lincoln High School. Students at the Crescent Avenue building were mum at dismissal yesterday.

A family member said Cruz was lured to his death.

Cruz was inside his relatives' Rose Avenue apartment with his girlfriend when he received a call around 9:30 p.m. from a "friend" asking for a cup of water, a family member told The Jersey Journal.

The family member said the suspect slowly walked from the scene to disguise himself. A security camera outside the home captured the entire shooting, he said.

"That's the problem," the man said, as he looked for bullet holes outside of his house. "It's kids killing kids."

Cruz's girlfriend called police after the shooting before calling his relative.

The family member said blood stained the hallway inside the two-story home, while blood could still be seen on the sidewalk outside the building more than 12 hours after the fatal shooting.

The section of Jersey City is considered one of the most violent. Last month a 28-year-old father was killed and three others were injured in a shooting just two blocks away.

Anyone with information about the fatal shooting is asked to call the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office at 201-915-1345 or leave an anonymous tip on the Hudson County Prosecutor's website. All information will be kept confidential.

Caitlin Mota may be reached at cmota@jjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @caitlin_mota.Trenton Mayor Eric Jackson has reached an agreement with a civil engineering company to hep run the city's municipal water utility, amid escalating concerns about water quality and infrastructure.

The state Department of Community Affairs has approved the proposed 12-month emergency contract with Wade Trim to aid Trenton Water Works.

Wade Trim is headquartered in Detroit and has offices in nine states.

Asked about the agreement, city spokesman Michael A. Walker said, "This is all part of Mayor Jackson's plan to bolster Trenton Water Works and ensure that it continues to deliver services that meets and exceeds state and federal standards."

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed and is not clear when Wade Trim would arrive in Trenton, or whether the company's assistance at the utility was already underway.

DCA spokeswoman Tammori Petty said Tuesday that Trenton is allowed to proceed due to the exigent circumstances, but that the City Council would need to eventually ratify the contract.

Council President Zachary Chester did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The agreement with Wade Trim is aimed at satisfying a directive last fall from the N.J. Department of Environmental Protection.

Following a long-running litany of problems -- including an incident in June, in which about 35,000 customers were told to boil their tap water after a drop in chlorine levels was detected at the city's water treatment plant -- the DEP told the city to award an emergency contract, in order to buy time while developing a request for proposals for a long-term agreement for maintenance and operations.

After the city missed a Nov. 30 deadline, then-DEP Commissioner Bob Martin sent a follow-up letter Jan. 12, just four days before Gov. Phil Murphy took office, and reiterated concerns about the management, operations and maintenance of the 159-year-old utility.

Martin, in his letter, said the city's "inability or unwillingness to act with the urgency the current situation requires potentially puts at risk the health" of those relying on the utility.

On Jan. 19, the Trenton City Council sent a letter to DEP, requesting a review of the "conditions and needs" at Trenton Water Works.

Established by Trenton in 1859, the utility provides water to approximately 225,000 customers in Trenton and parts of Hamilton, Ewing, Lawrence and Hopewell. It provides for sewer services in Trenton but not in the four neighboring municipalities.

Walker said that the city's public works director, Merkle Cherry, will discuss the agreement when the City Council meets Thursday, and raised the possibility that the council will hold a vote at that time.

The troubles at Trenton Water Works are expected to be among the big issues in the May 8 election for mayor.

Jackson, on Friday, announced that he will not be seeking a second, 4-year term, stating there was no one issue that led to his decision.

Rob Jennings may be reached at rjennings@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @RobJenningsNJ. Find NJ.com on FacebookA New Jersey man who owned a Jersey City jewelry store that played a central role in a credit card fraud scheme that stole about $200 million by creating more than 7,000 false identities was sentenced Tuesday to a year in prison.

Sat Verma, 65, of the Iselin section of Woodbridge, will also be subject to three years of supervised release and was ordered to forfeit $270,000, the U.S. Attorney's Office said in a statement Tuesday. He previously pleaded guilty to access device fraud.

U.S. District Judge Anne E. Thompson handed out the sentence in federal court in Trenton. The case is one of the largest credit card fraud schemes ever prosecuted by the federal government.

Verma was sentenced in the case along with Qaiser Khan, 53, of Valley Stream, New York. They are the last of 22 defendants to be sentenced. Khan got six months in prison, five years of supervised release and a $1,000 fine. Khan earlier pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

The operation spanned 28 states and eight countries and involved three jewelry stores in Jersey City, including Tanishq Jewels, which was owned by Verma.

Federal agents and Jersey City police raided the stores in April 2011.

The ring allegedly created around 25,000 fake credit cards by using thousands of false identities and hundreds of fake driver's licenses and other fraudulent materials to open the accounts.

The ring would then build up the credit rating and borrowing limit of the cardholder by using various fraudulent methods before maxing out the cards and leaving the credit card companies stuck with the unpaid balances.

The scam artists used more than 1,800 "drop addresses," including houses, apartments and post office boxes as the mailing addresses for the false identities.

Khan helped get the credit cards and then arranged to have them mailed to those addresses, authorities said. Verma admitted he allowed other members of the ring to conduct sham transactions using credit card terminals set up with alternate business names .

Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Find NJ.com on Facebook.Two men were arrested Tuesday and charged with committing a string of burglaries in New York and New Jersey.

James Buccanfuso, 41, of New York, New York, and Sergey Demidenko, 38, of Brooklyn, New York, are accused of committing or attempting to rob six banks in the two states between Jan. 16 and Jan. 26, authorities said.

The robberies include the Chase bank and the Wells Fargo in Stafford Township, and a Wells Fargo in Galloway, according to authorities.

*CAUGHT!! Press release posted* Attempt To ID - more of our Chase Bank Robbery suspect Posted by Stafford Township Police Department on Saturday, January 20, 2018

Detectives found Demidenko would enter the bank, wearing a hooded sweatshirt and dark aviator sunglasses, and would hand a note to the teller demanding cash, authorities said. He would then receive the cash, leave the bank and then hop in a getaway car driven by Buccanfuso, authorities said.

They did not disclose how much money Demidenko and Buccanfuso allegedly stole from the banks.

Authorities said the two men would split the proceeds and travel back and forth from New York to Atlantic City.

In the Wells Fargo robbery attempt, authorities said, Demidenko fled without any cash after the teller asked him to remove his sunglasses and sweatshirt hood.

The alleged robberies were captured on surveillance video, authorities said.

After the incidents in Stafford, detectives contacted the New York Police Department and learned that robberies had been reported at several locations in New York City involving a suspect that matched Demidenko's description, authorities said.

It was determined that the pair robbed a Capital One Savings bank in Park Slope, New York, a Roslyn Savings bank in Massapequa, New York, and a Chase bank on 18th Street in Brooklyn.

Detectives said they began tracking the two men after they located the getaway vehicle in a parking garage at an Atlantic City casino.

Demidenko and Buccanfuso were both arrested in Manhattan with the help of the NYPD, authorities said.

They were both brought to jail and are facing federal bank robbery charges.

Alex Napoliello may be reached at anapoliello@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexnapoNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.Former Gov. Chris Christie made his debut as a "civilian" yesterday, appearing on

as a political contributor.

Though Christie was invited on the show, there was a lot of talk about Donald Trump. ABC apparently hired him for his close relationship with the president.

The two-term Republican governor of New Jersey delved into the Russia investigation, saying Trump shouldn't make mention of it during last night's State of the Union address, and that he should not sit down with special counsel investigator Robert Mueller.

Christie, who served as the U.S. attorney for New Jersey before he was elected, says he doesn't think there have been any credible allegations against Trump. But Christie says Mueller is not someone "to be trifled with."

He also says that anyone who speculates about what Mueller may know is "throwing darts at the wall with a blindfold on."

This week's news that FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was stepping down ahead of his planned retirement this spring also came up during his talk with George Stephanopoulos. He said FBI Director Christopher Wray, who was once Christie's personal attorney, was the one who made the decision to push McCabe out, not Trump.

He also suggested that the GOP's war against the FBI will be a "long-term problem" for the party if it continues.

After Christie's debut, an opinion piece in The Washington Post said Christie may be a pundit worth watching.

Did Christie ace his first appearance as a political pundit?

Vote in our informal, unscientific poll and tell us how you voted in the comments.

Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.Just when you dreamed you were done with Gov. Blowhard, ABC News goes and puts his mug back on the screen.

The network big-shots must have decided they can live without their New Jersey audience. Because now, relief from his bloviation is as close as your remote.

For Americans who don't know Chris Christie as well as we do, a warning: If he stumbles across the truth, it's purely random chance.

A few entertaining examples from the tall stock of lies:

Remember the claim of "friendship" with the King of Jordan that justified all those expensive gifts? He later couldn't remember his name.

How about his claim that he wasn't on the beach that day during last summer's shutdown? Until we showed him those infamous photos.

But here's one directly on point: At a breakfast in Cleveland during the GOP's 2016 convention, a high-school girl asked him what he intended to do after he left his job as governor. When he vowed to remain a silent observer of politics, those of us who knew him choked on our bagels.

"My role model for how I'm going to conduct myself after I leave office is President Bush 43, who despite unrelenting attacks by the president and his allies ... has never risen to the bait," Christie said. "He conducted himself with honor and dignity ... If people want my opinion on things I'll be happy to give them privately."

Oh, also, he'll share them on national TV.

Granted, the man is funny and smart, and he'll get his share of viewers. But for most of us in New Jersey, the answer to this nuisance is just a click away.

Hello, CBS and NBC!

More: Tom Moran columns

Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com or call (973) 836-4909. Follow him on Twitter @tomamoran. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.By Eric Schoenberg

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo threw down the gauntlet in his State of the State address this month - promising that he would close the carried interest loophole if Congress wouldn't.

It's time for Gov. Phil Murphy to do the same in New Jersey.

The carried interest loophole is a piece of the tax code that allows investment managers - some of the richest people on Earth - to cut their tax bill in half, so much so that they pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries and janitors.

Simply put, carried interest fees are performance-based bonuses. When an investment fund does well, fund managers make more money. When it does poorly, they make less. It's no different than any other job with performance incentives - but because of the carried interest loophole, fund managers are able to classify their income as capital gains, cutting their tax rate by as much as twenty percent.

When arguing for their tax break, fund managers claim that their earnings are capital gains because they come from investments, neglecting to mention that they come from other people's investments. The entire reason capital gains tax rates are lower than income tax rates is to encourage people to invest and risk their own money, but the beneficiaries of the carried interest loophole are just managing other people's money - with none of the risk.

Closing the loophole shouldn't be considered a tax increase, but a tax correction. Fund managers have gotten by with paying an absurdly low rate for years, and now they should be required to pay taxes at the same rate as their secretaries or janitors.

Of course, the finance industry will argue that closing the loophole will impact job creation and economic performance, but the loophole doesn't impact investment - just the taxes on the fees that fund managers charge. In an industry as competitive as private equity, managers can't suddenly start charging higher fees to compensate, because they'd just drive their investors away. They also wouldn't be able to just move to another state to avoid New Jersey taxes, because the law to close the loophole would go into effect only after a similar law is passed in all neighboring states with significant private equity footprints, including New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Millionaire Reveals Taxes To Show How GOP Tax Plan Favors Wealthy This millionaire is revealing his taxes to show just how much the GOP tax plan favors the wealthy Posted by NowThis Politics on Friday, December 15, 2017

New Jersey would benefit immensely if the loophole was closed. Closing the carried interest loophole could raise over $100 million dollars a year for New Jersey, nearly all of which will come from millionaires who can most afford to pay higher taxes. That's $100 million every year for job creation, better schools, affordable housing, and infrastructure - all from closing just one loophole to raise taxes for the ultra-wealthy.

This is a no-brainer tax decision.

Murphy said multiple times on the campaign trail that New Jersey should close the carried interest loophole. In fact, he made it a major part of his tax policy proposal. If Governor Murphy is serious about following through on his promises, this is a perfect opportunity for him to put his money where his mouth is and make 2018 the year New Jersey closes the carried interest loophole.

Eric Schoenberg is a Chairman of CampusWorks, Inc., a provider of technology leadership services to universities and colleges and member of the Patriotic Millionaires.

Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.When we last checked in with Sen. Mike Doherty, he was lamenting how hard it is to be a white man in America.

"Just because I'm a member of a certain group doesn't mean that I can be denigrated over and over again," he said. "It's got to stop at some point."

This was during a New Jersey Senate debate over how to bring women's pay into parity with that of men. Another senator had the insensitivity to share some pay statistics comparing the income of various demographics to that of white men. It was "almost bullying," Doherty said.

Now, in a Record column by Mike Kelly that profiles him as President Trump's lonely cheerleader in New Jersey, Doherty says the U.S. shouldn't take any more immigrants from certain countries: "non-European" nations that are not part of a "Judeo-Christian culture."

Get his drift?

"People want to feel comfortable with their culture," Doherty said. "You can only change a community so much before people start feeling uncomfortable."

He elaborated: "People don't say it publicly, but why wouldn't you be able to have a homeland that you feel comfortable in -- one that has a common culture, a common language? I think that's what it's all about."

Why don't people say this publicly? Maybe because they don't want to be revealed as bigots. Thank you, Sen. Mike Doherty, for just admitting it.

Of course, many decent people want to limit immigration and step up enforcement, and that's a legitimate view. But this sort of ethnic bigotry is part of it, too, as Doherty is good to remind us - much like Rep. Steve King did when he said, "We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies."

Or Trump did, when he talked about you-know-what countries like Nigeria or Haiti, saying the U.S. shouldn't take anyone from there; that Haitians all have AIDS, and Nigerians would never go back to their "huts."

Doherty later backed off his comments when we called him, saying he opposes all immigration, from anywhere. His words had been misconstrued, he claimed. What he was really talking about were "economic issues." You know -- that "economic anxiety" that made so many white people vote for Trump.

"You give interviews, and you say comments, and certain things end up in articles and certain things don't," Doherty said. Right.

Another thing that ended up in the Record article: Doherty's idea that Democrats are just trying to drum up votes by supporting immigration from certain places - "I said nothing about people that were white or non-white," or "Latin America" - which is crazy conspiracy theory stuff, regardless.

You'd think an Irish guy would recognize that the same know-nothing, anti-immigrant words were once used against his own people, and learn a lesson from this. But no. Doherty has no clue what really makes America great.

When asked directly, he wouldn't say whether he has people in his 90-percent-white district who make him feel uncomfortable. He wouldn't say whether his neighbors have expressed this discomfort too. But certainly, he's not the only one who feels this way.

"The basic culture of this country is European and Christian and I think that if we lose that, we lost America...I don't think we should suppress other races, but I think if we lose that white -- what's the word for it -- that white dominance in America, with it we lose America."

That's David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

People do want to feel comfortable in their homeland, Sen. Doherty. So what about the rest of us, who feel uncomfortable around this kind of bigotry?

Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.Last May, Donald Trump acknowledged in a TV interview that he fired FBI Director James Comey just to stonewall a criminal investigation.

One month later, the president ordered the firing of Robert Mueller, while the Special Counsel was busy securing two guilty pleas and two indictments of the president's senior staff.

Last week, it was reported that Trump is preparing to sack Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein - the only man who can sack Mueller - by using cherry-picked facts from a classified memo produced by the House Intelligence Committee.

And on Monday, after one year of relentless taunting from Trump, Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe was forced out.

That's two down with two in the crosshairs, which means the president has fired or tried to fire four people in charge of the Russia investigation - essentially, a Saturday Night Massacre that has spilled into Sunday, a purge of tormentors by a man who hears the branch creak.

But this is not only about the human temper tantrum in the Oval Office.

It is about his useful idiots in Congress, and how deeply they feel about the rule of law.

Spoiler alert: not so much.

As the president corrupts the justice system, Republicans in Congress continue to torpedo the Mueller investigation with mendacity and zeal. And no matter what it exposes about Trump - whether it's collusion with Russia to rig an election, an affection for freshly laundered money, or an obstruction of justice - the president's enablers are committed to discrediting Mueller and the FBI until the bitter end.

This is what your government looks like when it's being dropped into the wood chipper. The majority party no longer cares about a foreign adversary manipulating our democracy; instead, it undermines the investigation trying to prevent it from recurring.

This is why Mueller needs protection from further Trump interference, and it looks less likely that it will come from a Republican majority that has as many traitors as patriots.

Two bipartisan bills that would shield Mueller from Trump were drafted last fall, including one cosponsored by Sens. Cory Booker and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) that would require judicial review to fire Mueller, but both have stalled.

Graham, whose budding devotion for Trump has a Stockholm Syndrome vibe to it, has lost his enthusiasm for it. He said last weekend that "it's pretty clear to me that everybody in the White House knows it would be the end of President Trump's presidency if he fired Mr. Mueller," which was assuring, before concluding that he sees "no evidence that Mr. Trump wants to fire Mr. Mueller now."

Just like the captain of the Titanic saw no evidence of an encroaching iceberg.

Meanwhile, Trump has brain-jacked the rest of the party.

He trots out Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) to rail about some anti-Trump "secret society" within the FBI - which is, as Joe Scarborough describes it, "a reckless slur from a pathetic lackey."

He uses Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), whom the hometown Fresno Bee calls an "embarrassing stooge," to hyperventilate about the memo that details alleged FISA abuse by Rosenstein - which the Justice Department resists making public despite a growing #ReleaseTheMemo Twitter campaign driven by, what else, Russian bots.

Rosenstein may not last the week, and since Mitch McConnell or Paul Ryan show no interest in exercising any Article 1 authority, anything goes after that.

You'd think they would at least notice that this administration announced it would not impose sanctions against Russia Monday, after CIA Director Mike Pompeo predicted more meddling in the 2018 midterms.

They simply have other priorities. A nation of laws is having its skin peeled off, with the ruling majority in lockstep stooge-ism - protecting the president from scrutiny, exposure, and consequences.

Are your interests being served in Congress? Use this tool to keep track.

Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.A Passaic County Superior Court judge on Wednesday dealt a major blow to the state's case against a Wayne woman charged with killing her newborn.

The decision was based upon at least one member of the Wayne Police Department failing to follow proper legal procedures.

Judge Joseph A. Portelli ruled on a motion to toss evidence obtained from the Alps Road home of Keri Barry, now 30, who allegedly gave birth in a bathroom to a full-term baby boy on Dec. 11, 2009.

Barry's sister, who returned home from school a few minutes after she gave birth, found her in a bathtub. She was taken to Chilton Memorial Hospital in Pequannock by an aunt. Doctors there determined that Barry had given birth. Hospital workers called police, who went to Barry's home and the hospital.

In a recorded conversation between Corporal Kevin Kearney and Det. Alfonse Stromolo, Kearney tells Stromolo that "her parents don't know we're involved yet," Portelli said, reading excerpts of transcripts in the case while delivering his opinion.

Stromolo told Kearney, "Oh my god, we should secure the house. We should go get a search warrant for the house. It sounds like we have something criminal if the baby was flushed down the toilet," Portelli said.

Stromolo testified that he called his superior officer, Detective Sgt. John Loertscher and suggested getting a search warrant, Portelli said

Loertscher told him, "No, I got this," Portelli said, quoting Stromolo.

Meanwhile, at the hospital, Loertscher spoke to Barry's father who described cleaning up blood and towels in a downstairs bathroom after his daughter went for medical help. He threw the items in a plastic garbage bag and placed it in the shed behind his house, Barry told Loertscher, according to the judge.

Dave Barry, in a statement, said Loertscher told him that he wanted to go get the bag. Barry said he offered to go with Loertscher to get it but was told, "no, no, no, no. I'll just get the bag."

Defense Attorney John Bruno and Keri Barry in court Wed., Jan 31, 2018

At 9:40 p.m. Loertscher went to the home and got the bag, which he placed in a police shed outside headquarters. It was not searched, Portelli said, "because Detective Loertscher believed the bag was going to be filled with evidence of a miscarriage."

Portelli said Loertscher "blatantly disregarded" the opinions of medical professionals when he concluded at the hospital that nothing criminal had happened, since a doctor had told him Barry delivered a full-term baby after examining her.

Three days later on Tuesday, Dec. 15, at 11:10p.m. Loertscher opened the bag and found the deceased baby, bloody towels and other items. The bag was not searched immediately, Portelli said, because Loertscher testified that he was busy and knew it would be a messy job.

"Considering all the testimony," Portelli said, "I cannot rule that the confiscation of the plastic trash bag and or the delay in opening the bag are in conformance with our federal and state constitution."

Loertscher's opinions, conclusion and investigation "defy logic, reason and objectivity," Portelli said.

Barry was taken to the Passaic County Prosecutor's office for questioning on Dec. 16, where she signed a consent to search form allowing police to enter her home and retrieve a lap top computer from the living room, pregnancy tests from her closet and "any other items relating to the investigation."

The judge ruled that the "any other items" was too broad and that Barry didn't fully understand her rights in granting police permission to do the search.

The computer, which allegedly contained messages between Barry and a friend where she discussed positive pregnancy tests, the cost of an abortion and her wishes for a miscarriage, was obtained without properly notifying Barry that she had the right to refuse the search, the judge ruled.

Portelli also found that the woman's father, Dave Barry, didn't realize his daughter was under investigation when he allowed a Wayne Police detective to go to the family's home and take the garbage bag from the shed.

Defense attorneys argued that the baby could have still been alive when the bag was removed from the shed.

"This is a huge victory," Bruno said, outside the courtroom. "She's been waiting eight years for this ruling. We felt all along that the bag should have never been seized without a warrant. And the entire Wayne Police Department, I believe, agreed with that proposition."

The case is set to go to trial March 6 after a nine-year wait due to appeals.

Passaic County Assistant Prosecutor Jorge Morales asked Portelli for a stay in the case while he pursues an interlocutory appeal. Portelli denied that request.

Morales could be reached immediately for comment.

Allison Pries may be reached at apries@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AllisonPries. Find NJ.com on Facebook.In a shocking turnaround, the U.S. Justice Department has dropped its case against U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez.

In a court in Newark on Wednesday, federal prosecutors moved to dismiss the corruption indictment against the New Jersey Democrat after a federal judge last week acquitted Menendez and his co-defendant, Salomon Melgen, of seven of the 18 counts against them.

Both were facing a retrial after a deadlocked jury could not reach a verdict in the high-profile case in November.

"Given the impact of the court's Jan. 24 order on the charges and the evidence admissible in a retrial, the United States has determined that it will not retry the defendants on the remaining charges," said Department of Justice spokeswoman Nicole Navas Oxman.

Hours later, Chief Judge Jose Linares signed an order of dismissal.

In a statement, Menendez said he never wavered in his innocence and his belief that justice would prevail.

"I am grateful that the Department of Justice has taken the time to reevaluate its case and come to the appropriate conclusion," he said. "I thank God for hearing my prayers and for giving me strength during this difficult time. I have devoted my life to serving the people of New Jersey, and am forever thankful for all who have stood by me. No matter the challenges ahead, I will never stop fighting for New Jersey and the values we share."

From the very beginning, I never wavered in my innocence and my belief that justice would prevail. I am grateful that the Department of Justice has taken the time to reevaluate its case and come to the appropriate conclusion.  Senator Bob Menendez (@SenatorMenendez) January 31, 2018

Defense attorney Kirk Ogrosky, who represents Melgen, said the case began five years ago when "FBI agents started this ill-fated adventure that destroyed my client's life," when they raided his office in West Palm Beach.

Melgen was later convicted on separate Medicare fraud charges.

"Dr. Melgen is now and has always been innocent of the charges brought in New Jersey," said Ogrosky. "He did not ever give anything to his best friend of over 20 years with an expectation that he would get something in return. We take no pleasure in seeing justice done at this stage in a case that should never have been brought."

The decision to dismiss the charges will have significant political consequences for Menendez, who is seeking re-election to the Senate this year and faced the possibility of a retrial on the eve of that campaign.

It also marks a surprising turnaround for the Justice Department, which had announced that prosecutors would pursue a retrial.

Menendez and Melgen were charged in April 2015, in a case brought out of Washington by the Justice Department's anti-corruption unit. The government had argued that Menendez, 64, traded the power of his office in exchange for six-figure campaign contributions, luxury hotel stays and private jet flights.

They claimed that Melgen, an ophthalmologist and long-time friend of Menendez, had sought the senator's intervention on the doctor's behalf in an $8.9 million Medicare billing dispute, as well as visa applications of Melgen's foreign girlfriends and a contested port security contract in the Dominican Republic that would benefit one of Melgen's companies.

Menendez was also accused of making false statements on Senate disclosure forms by intentionally concealing Melgen's gifts.

He still faces a Senate ethics probe on failing to list those gifts on his disclosure forms.

The defense argued that the gifts came out of 20 years of friendship and that Menendez's staff mistakenly believed they were exempt from disclosure requirements.The senator's lawyers also argued that Melgen's campaign contributions followed years of financial support for political campaigns outside his home state of Florida.

But after a seven-week trial, jurors in Newark said they could not reach a verdict and told reporters they had been deadlocked 10-2 for acquittal.

Just over a week ago, prosecutors said they intended to seek a retrial.

"The conduct alleged in the indictment is serious and warrants retrial before a jury of citizens in the District of New Jersey," said a spokesman following that filing. "The decision to retry this case was made based on the facts and the law, following a careful review."

Last week, however, U.S. District Judge William Walls unexpectedly acquitted Menendez and Melgen on seven major charges against the two men, in connection with political contributions involving hundreds of thousands of dollars by Melgen that went to several political committees with ties to the senator. He said, "There is no there there."

Walls, in his opinion, said the government "failed to produce evidence of facts either direct or circumstantial" to prove a quid pro quo and that from the evidence, a rational juror could not find that Menendez and Melgen were aware of the terms of the alleged quid quo.

Joseph Hayden of Pashman Stein Walder Hayden, a prominent New Jersey defense attorney, was not surprised by the decision of the Justice Department to seek dismissal.

"Given the overwhelming number of the jurors in favor of acquittal, and the decision by Judge Walls entering a judgment of acquittal for insufficient evidence to prove the political contribution counts, it was clear the government had no choice but to dismiss the counts," Hayden said. "They did not have a provable case."

Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor and now a criminal defense attorney at McCarter & English, said the decision by Walls had knocked out a major part of the government's case. At the same time, he said it was a political corruption case built entirely on circumstantial evidence.

"With no cooperating witness, no tape recordings and no videotapes, this was always going to be a challenging case for the government," observed Mintz. "The judge's decision to dismiss the bribery charges involving political contributions left prosecutors with an even more difficult case and less evidence with which to prove it."

Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL. Facebook: @TedSherman.reporter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.So the big question was: Would ABC's newest political pundit and now ex-governor of New Jersey praise or pan his pal President Donald Trump's first State of the Union address?

Turns out former Gov. Chris Christie didn't have much to say about the substance of Trump's speech. Instead, he went after congressional Democrats.

"The Democrats were not standing for anything -- nothing. Even the things that everybody could be unified on they didn't' stand," Christie said shortly after Trump finished.

"The fact of the matter is that they're in 2018 midterm election war footing," he said. "The president maybe could have done some things differently -- could of shortened it, got a bigger and more unified theme. But in the end, I don't know if they would have even stood up then."

Christie added: "That was a pretty glum looking group of Democrats all through the evening."

The former governor gave his take on ABC News, where he was hired as a contributor because he's close to the president and the players inside the White House.

What did he think of the president's speech?

"(It was a) traditional State of the Union," Christie said, adding, "I thought it was too long."

He focused on the Democrats after nearly a half dozen ABC News reporters and analysts reacted to Trump's speech, with some saying they thought he would make a greater effort to unite a divided nation.

Christie's quick take concluded his first day on the job for the network. His State of the Union analysis came hours after his debut appearance earlier in the morning -- two weeks to the day after he left office.

Earlier, Christie talked briefly about Trump's upcoming speech and the federal probe led by special counsel Robert Mueller investigating possible coordination between the Kremlin and the Trump presidential campaign.

"The one thing I can tell you for sure, and one of the things I loved about being a prosecutor, was only I knew what I knew," Christie told ABC's George Stephanopoulos .

"Only Bob Mueller really knows what he knows, and we won't know it for a while," he said, "So everybody who speculates about this stuff, George -- they're throwing darts at the wall with a blindfold on. Bob Mueller knows what's going on."

Christie is expected to be an occasional contributor to the network.

He was succeeded by Gov. Phil Murphy on Jan. 16.

Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewArco or Facebook.A 47-year-old New Jersey man allegedly forced two 18-year-old women into prostitution, authorities said.

Milton Valentine (Union County Prosecutor's Office)

Milton Valentine, of Elizabeth, is charged with 10 counts of first-degree human trafficking, sexual assault and promoting prostitution, the Union County Prosecutor's Office said in a statement Wednesday.

Valentine ordered the 18-year-olds to have sex with paying customers at hotels and give him the money they collected, authorities said. The hotels were in Elizabeth and Sayreville.

He used intimidation and threats to control the women, according to officials.

Valentine's arrest Tuesday in Elizabeth followed a three-month investigation. The investigation began after a tip was called into a hotline. He was taken into custody and is due in court Wednesday afternoon.

Anyone with any information about Valentine is asked to call Special Victims Unit Sgt. Sofia Santos of the prosecutor's office at 908-866-8007.

Jeff Goldman may be reached at jeff_goldman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffSGoldman. Find NJ.com on Facebook.Rick Haase, president of Latter & Blum Inc., will step down in February after eight years with the New Orleans-based real estate firm.

Haase confirmed his planned departure Wednesday morning (Jan. 31) after Latter & Blum real estate agents and other employees were notified via email. In a statement, Haase said he and Chairman and CEO Bob Merrick have "been a great team and accomplished a great deal together over the last eight years."

Haase, who has spent more than three decades in the real estate industry, added Latter & Blum is "well positioned for new leadership to take it into its very bright future."

Haase joined Latter & Blum in 2010 to helm its residential real estate division. Prior to that, Haase was general manager at Prudential Gardner Realtors Inc.

In recent years, Latter & Blum has grown its reach across the Gulf South, inking more than a dozen mergers, including its 2015 acquisition of Houston-based Realty Associates, which more than doubled its network of agents.

Latter & Blum now has 30 offices and a network of roughly 3,400 real estate agents, and ranks in the top 50 firms nationwide by unit sales.

Haase said he will be spending time with his family before shifting his focus to other projects following his departure from the company. He serves on a variety of local civic boards, including United Way of Southeast Louisiana and the New Orleans Police & Justice Foundation.

Haase's final day with Latter & Blum will be Feb. 15.Two men who both go by the name "Moe" are accused for the third time of attempted murder in three separate shootings, according to court documents.

Markee Edwards, 21, and Maurice Hicks, 19, were both booked into Orleans Justice Center jail Friday (Jan. 26) on one count each of attempted second-degree murder in connection to a shooting in New Orleans East two days earlier.

The victim, a 20-year-old man, told police that about 7:15 p.m. Wednesday he was walking home in the 20 block of Marywood Court when a car pulled up, according to the warrants for Edwards and Hicks. The victim said he recognized both the passenger and the driver of the car as two men named Moe who live in the neighborhood, the warrant states.

According to the warrant, the passenger of the car pulled out a semi-automatic handgun and began shooting at the victim. The victim told police he also was carrying a gun but was unable to defend himself because his weapon was jammed, the warrant states.

When the victim tried to run away, the car followed and continued to shoot at him, according to the warrant. He was able to made it back to his backyard and banged on the backdoor of his home until his mother let him inside.

According to the warrant, when the victim saw his mother he collapsed on the floor and said, "the Moes shot me."

The warrant states the victim, "believed he was going to die." He was brought to University Medical Center with six gunshot wounds - three on his right arm, one on his chest, one on his right shoulder and a graze wound on his right hand.

While at the hospital, the the victim's cousins told detectives Edwards and Hicks were both known as Moe.

Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

The victim later identified both Edwards and Hicks from photographic lineups, the warrant states. The victim told detectives Edwards was the man who shot him, and Hicks was driving the car.

The warrants for Edwards and Hicks were signed by Orleans Parish Magistrate Commissioner Robert Blackburn Thursday and the two men were arrested the next day, court records show.

In addition to the attempted second-degree murder charge, Hicks was booked with one count each of illegal possession of stolen things, illegal possession of a stolen vehicle and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. Edwards was booked on one count of illegal possession of a stolen firearm and attempted second-degree murder, according to online court records.

According to the warrants, "the Moes" were accused in two separate New Orleans East shootings in April 2017.

Court records show both men were previously booked on attempted murder charges, but the District Attorney dropped the charges in both cases.

Edwards and Hicks were accused in a shooting on April 7, 2017 and a double shooting on April 9, 2017, but the charges against them were dropped in June 2017, court records show.

Both men appeared in court Friday (Jan. 26) where Blackburn set their bonds for $110,000 and assigned a public defender to represent them. As of Tuesday, both men appear to still be in custody of the Orleans Justice Center jail, according to online court records.Malcolm Alexander was just 20 years old when he was wrongfully convicted of aggravated rape and sent to Angola to serve a life sentence, leaving behind his 2-year-old son and namesake.

Almost 38 years later, Alexander's son, Malcolm Stewart Sr., now 40, was waiting for him in Gretna Tuesday afternoon (Jan. 30) when a Jefferson Parish judge vacated his father's rape conviction and ordered the elder Malcolm immediately released.

Alexander stepped out of the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center, a free man, and embraced his family, including Malcolm Stewart Jr., his 20-year-old grandson. The three Malcolms stood together, Alexander beaming in the center. The feeling was indescribable, he said.

"Like a newborn baby," Alexander smiled.

Judge June Darensburg of the 24th Judicial District Court vacated Alexander's 1980 conviction after the Innocence Project alleged ineffective assistance of counsel, said attorney Vanessa Potkin. The effort was also bolstered by DNA testing that excluded Alexander as a suspect, Innocence Project New York Co-Director Barry Scheck said.

"Thank you from the bottom of my heart for getting my child out of that place. He's been there for so long," Alexander's mother, Maudra Alexander, 82, told Potkin, Scheck and attorneys from The Innocence Project New Orleans, who helped handle the case.

Alexander was accused in the Nov. 8, 1979 rape of a 39-year-old woman who was working at an antique shop on Whitney Avenue in unincorporated Jefferson Parish. The woman told authorities her attacker twice raped her in a bathroom while armed with a gun, according to the court record.

The victim identified Alexander on March 24, 1980, in a photo line-up after looking through "hundreds of photos" and at least five other photographic lineups, according to a court document.

"She had a very limited opportunity to view the person who committed the assault," Potkin told Darensburg during the hearing Tuesday morning, explaining that the rapist approached her from behind.

The victim only "tentatively" identified Alexander, who lived in Avondale at the time, in the photo lineup. The woman was still uncertain that he was the right suspect when she did an in-person lineup, according to Potkin.

During his one-day trial, Alexander's attorney, Joseph Tosh, didn't make an opening statement and didn't call any witnesses, court records said.

"His trial lawyer did virtually nothing to defend him," Potkin said, noting that Tosh didn't bring out the fact the victim was unsure of her identification. "That was really pivotal because this entire case rested on a single identification."

Tosh was permanently disbarred in 1999 for a number of infractions including engaging in deceit, dishonesty and fraud and lack of competence and diligence, the court record said.

Alexander was convicted of aggravated rape and sentenced to life in prison on Dec. 10, 1980.

Alexander, the oldest of three children, always maintained that he was not guilty, his sister, Wendy Alexander, 55, said. Every other week, the family, including his mother and father, Edmund Alexander, would visit, bringing little Malcolm along.

Edmund Alexander passed away in December 2004, long before his son would be exonerated.

"I wish he could be here to see this," Wendy Alexander said.

As it became more difficult to care for their aging mother, the visits to Angola began to slow and then stop. Tuesday was the first time she'd seen her brother in three years.

"He'd always encourage me to keep going," Wendy Alexander recalled. "He'd say he'll be home to help me."

Alexander reached out to the Innocence Project in 1996, but the case was closed when attorneys were told the clerk of court had accidentally destroyed all the evidence a decade earlier. Alexander was undeterred, according to Potkin. He continued writing motions, asking for evidence and the chance to prove his innocence.

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"Then, the miracle happened," Potkin said.

In 2013, the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office located hairs collected from the rape crime scene. DNA testing showed the three hairs belonged to same person. But that person was neither the victim nor Alexander, Scheck said.

"Anybody can see that Malcolm did not get a real defense," Scheck said.

But the DNA evidence "gives everybody great confidence that if this case had been tried appropriately, there would have been a just result," Scheck continued, thanking the Sheriff's Office for its assistance.

Although the DNA evidence had been located, Alexander still had to wait patiently for it to be tested and for his lawyers to handle the legal maneuvering necessary to gain his freedom. Though he sometimes grew frustrated, Alexander never lost faith because he believed in the truth.

"Somebody is honest, and I was able to find The Innocence Project. That they're willing to help a person to prove that they are innocent, that's what really motivated me," he said.

With one January hearing already continued, Alexander said he wasn't sure whether he'd actually be set free on Tuesday.

"I've been up all night anticipating, wondering if this is really happening," he said

The Jefferson Parish district attorney's office dimissed the indictment against Alexander.

"After an extensive investigation during the past two and a half years, I agreed with Mr. Alexander's post-conviction attorneys that the defense attorney during the daylong trial 37 years ago provided ineffective representation in violation of his constitutional rights," District Attorney Paul Connick Jr. said in a written statement.

Alexander's elated family members crowded two rows in the courtroom Tuesday, buzzing with happiness and smiles once they received word that he would go free. Scheck delivered the news to Alexander as he sat just feet from his relatives in a jury box, still shackled. He began smiling, nodding his head and making eye contact with family members.

"It was unreal," said Malcolm Stewart Sr., who mused that he had to see his father grow up behind bars. "I've been waiting for this moment my whole life. When I finally saw it come to pass, it was unbelievable, overwhelming. I'm filled with joy."

The case illustrates the critical and constitutional importance of public defenders in the criminal justice system, a lesson Louisiana must learn, Innocence Project New Orleans Director Emily Maw said. Public defenders take on extraordinary caseloads on almost no money.

"As Louisiana continues to force public defenders to do far more than Constitutionally or ethically or morally or just factually, they should be able to do, we will have more and more and more Malcolm Alexanders," she said.

Even if the public isn't moved by the need for fair trials - which they should be, Scheck said, -- the Alexander went to prison in place of a rapist who may have continued on to attack again.

"If we don't get it right the first time, not only do the innocent go to jail, but it really is a threat to public safety," Scheck said.

Despite losing almost 38 years that could have been spent raising his son, hugging his mother and laughing with family, Alexander said he's not angry.

"This isn't the time for anger," he said.

Instead, it was time to eat. Alexander was off for shrimp and fish with relatives and slice of his mother's homemade bread.Surveillance video caught a man stealing a gun from inside an unlocked vehicle in the Little Woods area of New Orleans East early Sunday (Jan. 28), according to the NOPD.

About 2 a.m. Sunday, the unidentified man entered the victim's vehicle in the 7200 block of Wayside Drive and stole a 38-caliber revolver before leaving the scene. The gun, a Smith & Wesson snub-nosed revolver, has three distinct scratches on its barrel, police said.

In the video released Tuesday, the suspected burglar appears toward the beginning of the clip, in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. He can be seen walking along a sidewalk opposite the driveway where the break-in occurred, stopping near a vehicle, before eventually crossing the street.

The break-in occurs about 45 seconds into the video. Nearly a minute later, at the 1:35 mark, the man can be seen getting out of the vehicle, holding what appears to be the stolen gun.

Citing a police report, NOPD spokesman Aaron Looney said the burglar got into the vehicle via an unlocked door.

The video illustrates a public-safety concern at the center of a new Crimestoppers campaign: the frequent theft of firearms from unlocked vehicles.

Throughout the year, in the midst of public meetings on various topics, NOPD commanders have asked residents to lock vehicle doors to prevent burglaries, especially when leaving guns inside.

Last week, Crimestoppers of Greater New Orleans launched a "Lock It or Lose It" campaign focused on urging locals to keep their vehicles locked.

The campaign--which involves televised public-service announcements, print ads, yard signs and online social-media messages--emphasizes the importance of locking doors in efforts to prevent gun thefts.

"Criminals are opportunists," NOPD Superintendent Michael Harrison said in a Crimestoppers news release, and leaving an unlocked vehicle creates a "highly preventable crime of opportunity."

In the New Orleans area, nearly 70 percent of last year's car burglaries involved a burglar taking advantage of unlocked vehicles. In Gretna alone, all 97 burglaries reported in 2017 were the result of unlocked vehicles, according to the Crimestoppers release.

"We are making it harder for criminals to get into cars by just locking them, and that's powerful," Crimestoppers GNO President and CEO Darlene Cusanza said in a news release. "With another Carnival season upon us, it can be easy to get distracted; and before you know it, you've become part of a scary statistic."

Last year in Orleans Parish, 216 guns were reported stolen out of 3,144 burglarized vehicles, according to Harrison.

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"Many would have been preventable, had the doors simply been locked," he said.

In Jefferson Parish last year, 230 guns were reported stolen out of 1,981 burglarized vehicles, according to JPSO interim Sheriff Joseph Lopinto. For example, one man pleaded guilty to about 60 auto burglaries in Jefferson Parish, where he targeted cars for guns, Lopinto said.

"We want locals to know they can absolutely be a part of the solution to get illegal guns out of the wrong hands - while keeping the rest of their belongings safe and secure as well," St. Charles Parish Sheriff Greg Champagne said in the news release.

Crimestoppers' tips for protecting your vehicle from burglary:

* Do not store guns in your vehicle. Instead, store guns securely in your home or business.

* Hide valuables in the trunk of your vehicle before arriving at your destination.

* Always roll up all windows and lock your vehicle doors.

* Never leave keys inside your vehicle.

* Activate your vehicle's alarm system.

* Always try to park in well-lit areas.

In the release, St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff Mike Tregre advised anyone whose car has been burglarized to take photos and document the scene. When filing a police report, the vehicle owner should have photos of the damage as well as their driver's license, car registration, and insurance information; and an itemized list of stolen items.

Anyone with information on the New Orleans East auto burglary or stolen gun is asked to call the NOPD's 7th District Investigative Unit at 504-658-6077 or submit an anonymous tip to Crimestoppers by calling 504-822-1111 or toll-free at 1-877-903-7867.The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, resigned from her position on Wednesday, according to several news outlets.

On Tuesday Politico reported that Fitzgerald had purchased stock in a tobacco company after she had assumed her role at the CDC on July 7, 2017. The investment represented a conflict of interest with the CDC's mission to reduce deaths from cigarette smoking.

"You don't buy tobacco stocks when you are the head of the CDC. It's ridiculous; it gives a terrible appearance," Richard Painter, the chief ethics attorney during George W. Bush's administration from 2005 to 2007, told Politico in their original report.

According to the report, Fitzgerald bought between $1,001 and $15,000 of stocks of Japan Tobacco in August, which sells four tobacco brands in the U.S. A day later she toured the CDC'S Tobacco Laboratory, where researchers look at how the chemicals in tobacco harm human health.

To read Politico's full report click here.

Maria Clark covers healthcare and immigration for NOLA.com | The Times Picayune. Reach her at mclark@nola.com or 504.258.5306. .The fifth circuit court of appeals reversed a decision in a March 2016 Medicare fraud case where the owner of a New Orleans' home health service and its medical director of health care fraud where charged with conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud.

The conviction against Dr. Pramela Ganji, 68, and Elaine Davis, 61, the owner of Christian Home Health, Inc. was reversed on Tuesday (Jan. 30) citing "insufficient evidence" to show that the women had "knowingly executed a scheme to defraud Medicare."

Davis was sentenced to 96 months in jail and Ganji of Harahan was sentenced to 72 months in prison on Oct. 19, 2016. Both were convicted in a jury trial in March 2016.

"It is very dangerous to be a doctor these days. If you are a doctor billing Medicare or Medicaid you have a big target on your back," said David Oscar Markus, the appellate attorney who represented Ganji along with Mona Markus, the appellate attorney who wrote the brief citing the lack of evidence presented against Ganji.

The case originally brought against Ganji and Davis claimed that both had knowledge of the $34 million Medicare fraud scheme through Christian Home Health Inc. accompany that used elderly and disabled Medicare recipients in New Orleans and nearby communities to fraudulently bill Medicare for home health services, according to the U.S. Attorney Kenneth Polite's office. Ganji was the medical director of the company from 2010 to 2015. The government argued that Ganji had falsely claimed that patients she had never examined were qualified under Medicare to receive services they did not need.

The court determined that Medicare guidelines do not prohibit treating physicians who are not primary care physicians from beginning the home health care process and therefore Ganji could not be held "liable for fraudulence as a result of activity that is legal."

In their opinion the court added that the "government had based the fraud case against Davis completely on the actions of Ganji. There was not sufficient evidence to show an agreement to commit health care fraud, and the government did not otherwise attempt to show that Davis individually committed the fraud."

Davis was represented by New Orleans' attorney Herbert V. Larson in her appeals case.

Markus said that Ganji has been serving time at a prison camp in Aliceville, Alabama since March 27. Her attorneys are currently working on her release.According to a story on the AL.com website, braggartly billboards have appeared in New Orleans, Slidell and points east, crowing that the first American Mardi Gras took place in Mobile, Alabama. The Slidell sign says "You are 114 miles from America's Original Mardi Gras."

The claim, made by the Sweet Home Alabama Travel bureau, reinforces the notion that Mardi Gras was first celebrated in Mobile in 1703, while ignoring evidence that the French Canadian explorer Iberville pitched camp in what is now Plaquemines Parish on Mardi Gras day in 1699, noting the holiday in his log book.

How exactly Iberville and his fellow sailors marked the occasion, if at all, is unknown. They were probably somewhat distracted by survival and not inclined toward elaborate celebration. But who knows? Everyone can agree that it is not unusual for Mardi Gras celebrants to remain mum about their behavior afterward. So a lack of detail in the expedition log does not mean the explorers didn't rock a party as best they could.

Doug MacCash has the best job in the world, covering art, music, and culture in New Orleans. Contact him via email at dmaccash@nola.com. Follow him on Twitter at Doug MacCash and on Facebook at Douglas James MacCash. As always, please add your point of view to the comment stream.Actor Scott Baio took to the airwaves Wednesday morning (Jan. 31) to defend himself against allegations that he molested his "Charles in Charge" co-star Nicole Eggert when she was underage back in the 1980s.

"How any of this could have happened is absolutely impossible," Baio said Wednesday morning during an extended interview with host Amy Robach on ABC's "Good Morning America."

While he admitted to having a sexual relationship with Eggert after she turned 18, Baio vehemently denied having any inappropriate contact with her on the "Charles in Charge" set -- or anywhere else -- while she was a minor. In fact, he said, the two were never alone on the set of the sitcom, which aired from 1984 to 1990.

"When a child is on a set, they are either in school or they're on the set with the teacher and their parents, that's it. ... It's impossible," he said.

Eggert, now 46, first raised claims against Baio, 57, on Saturday, when she wrote on Twitter: "Ask @scottbaio what happened in his garage at his house when I was a minor. Creep." She followed that up with claims that Baio molested her regularly from the time she was 14 until she was 17.

On Tuesday, Eggert took her story to NBC's "Megyn Kelly Today," where she said she and Baio had sex when she was 17.

During his "GMA" appearance, Baio -- as he said in a Facebook Live video posted earlier in the week -- insisted his sexual relationship with Eggert took place after she had turned 18. He added: "She aggressively sought me out because she wanted me to be her first so she could be good for her boyfriend -- those are her words."

Baio also stressed that the version of events shared by Eggert on "Megyn Kelly Today" differ from those she shared during an interview with radio host Nik Richie for the gossip site "The Dirty." (Eggert initially told Richie she was 18 when she had sex with Baio but has since said she was lying to Richie to protect "Charles in Charge.")

"So I'm trying to figure out which time she's lying and which time she's not lying, because the story seems to change quite a bit. I can't keep up with it, quite honestly," he said on "GMA."

Asked by Robach whether he was concerned that Eggert might take her story to police, Baio said he wasn't. "No, why would I have concerns about something I didn't do?," he said.

Watch Baio's full "Good Morning America" video below.

Correction: An early version of this story misspelled the last name of Scott Baio's accuser. She is Nicole Eggert.President Donald Trump delivered his first State of the Union address Tuesday night (Jan. 30), stressing growth in the economy during his first year in office, his stance on immigration and ramping up the battle against terrorism. He rarely strayed from his script and made a point to praise several individuals he deemed "the best of America."

NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune placed text of the Trump's address in a word cloud generator, which filtered out articles, pronouns, as well as common and modal verbs to determine the 100 most frequently used words in his speech. It generated the following image -- the bigger the word appears, the more often it was used:

Trump's 10 most used words:

American - 30

After all forms of "America," the proper nouns used the most:

Congress - 12

Ryan is Albuquerque police officer Ryan Holets, who with his wife adopted the baby of a homeless woman he confronted as she was about to inject herself with heroin.

Army Chief Petty Officer Kenton Stacy accompanied Staff Sgt. Justin Peck on a mission in Raqqa, Syria, to clear explosives from buildings that ISIS had placed so that residents could return to the city. Stacy was injured in an explosion at a hospital, and Peck kept him alive -- with 20 minutes of CPR and two hours of artificial respiration -- until Stacy could undergo emergency surgery. Trump recognized Peck, who was awarded the Bronze Star for valor and attended the address.Nuria Rodriguez Sadurni, the Director of Special Projects at the Cultural Cooperation Office of the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs, spoke at the opening reception of the exhibit of the works of seven contemporary Mexican artists at the Newcomb Art Museum(NAM), about Mexican art and the role of the government of that country in promoting it overseas

Rodriguez-Sadurni coordinates exhibits that are shown in 80 Mexican Embassies and 68 Consulates around the world. This particular exhibit at NAM entitled Clay in Transit/ Tierras Ambulantes opened first in Washington, D.C. in May of 2017.

"We are interested in contemporary art as a medium for debate and reflection", she said. "Art is a very powerful tool to show problems", she added and emphasized that it is a privilege to showcase the works of so many contemporary artists who are also interested in having an impact in other areas, such as urban renewal.

Rodriguez-Sadurni also addressed the importance of finding galleries with ample space for the exhibits and independent entrances such as the Newcomb Art Museum which she described as "a great space" and the collaboration of the embassies or consulates.

The exhibit is on view through March 25. Other activities planned by the Consulate and Tulane University are film screenings at Freeman Auditorium.

The first will be Sergei Eisenstein's Que Viva Mexico (1931) with an introduction by Fabiola Ramirez Gutierrez, from the Stone Center for Latin American Studies, on Tuesday, February 6, at 7 p.m.

Followed by Santo vs. Blue Demon in Atlantis (1970), the 22nd film of the classical Mexican pop culture icon, on Wednesday, March 7, at 7 p.m.

Finally, on Wednesday, March 14, there will be a discussion in Spanish at 6 p.m., between Tulane Assistant Professor Yuri Herrera, author of "Senales que precederan al fin del mundo" and NAM's director Monica Ramirez-Montagut.

Expose yourself to Latin American art

The work of several Latin American artists is being featured at Prospect.4, a citywide exhibition that includes the work of 73 artists from around the world shown in museums, galleries and installations in public spaces and parks around the city until Feb. 25.

One of the artists is Maria Berrio, born in Bogota, Colombia and now living in Brooklyn, New York. Her work, entitled Aluna,at the CAC, is a colorful collage combining the Colombian jungle with mythologies involving women and animals. Other Latin American artists exhibiting at the CAC are Margarita Cabrera, born in Monterrey, Mexico; Minerva Cuevas and Pedro Lasch, born in Mexico City; and Cuban-born Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons.

At the New Orleans Museum of Art, you can see the work of Cuban artist Alexis Esquivel; at the Ogden Museum, the collaborative work of Donna Conlon and Jonathan Harker (from Quito, Ecuador) and at the Ace Hotel, the work of Puerto Rican artist Beatriz Santiago Munoz.

Hispanic Chamber

The Hispanic Chamber of Louisiana's planned Baton Rouge Business Luncheon featuring the Honorable John Bel Edwards, Governor of Louisiana, has been postponed to a soon to be announced date in February 2018, due to the inclement weather of the past weeks.

Mardi Gras Mambo

Cervantes Fundacion Hispanoamericana de Arte will hold its Carnival Ball named Mardi Gras Mambo 2018, on Friday, February 2nd, from 6 to 11 p.m., at the New Orleans Jazz Museum at the Old U.S. Mint in New Orleans.

Tickets are available at Eventbrite.com by searching Mardi Gras Mambo 2018. Tickets at the door will be $60. All the proceeds of the evening will go to Cervantes Fundacion Hispanoamericana de Arte to help it continue its mission of promoting the Hispanic arts and cultural traditions in Louisiana.To help combat the recent flu outbreak, the state is offering free flu vaccinations on Wednesday (Jan. 31) in locations across the state.

In St. Tammany Parish, the shots will be given at the Health Unit on Old Spanish Trail in Slidell. The vaccinations will be given from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in St. Tammany.

The Health Unit is located at 520 Old Spanish Trail, Suite 2A.

Health officials have urged people to get flu shots.

The state Department of Health is offering the free vaccinations at 61 locations across the state.Westbound I-10 remains closed near the Louisiana-Mississippi state line Wednesday morning (Jan. 31) in St. Tammany Parish as officials deal with the aftermath of a series of crashes, State Police said.

"It's quite a mess,'' said State Police Trooper Dustin Dwight.

No one was seriously injured in the crashes, he said.

Dwight said eight vehicles were involved in the crashes, including three 18-wheelers. One of the 18-wheelers was carrying a cargo of live honey bees, which is making the cleanup a little more delicate.

Dwight said the bee cargo was damaged, but added of the people clearing the scene, "They've got their hands full to say the least.''

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Dwight said at 10:10 a.m. that the goal is to get the roadway opened as soon as possible, but he didn't have an estimate on when that would happen.

The roadway was closed around 8 a.m.

Authorities have said traffic is backed up across the state line into Mississippi for several miles.

Dwight urged drivers to use U.S. 90 as a detour around the crash site.Louisiana law forbids people convicted of domestic abuse or who are under certain protective orders to possess a gun.

But legislators refused to include a process in the law for relinquishing the weapons, so many abusers are allowed to keep their guns by default. That leaves victims unprotected and at risk of being injured or killed by a vengeful spouse or partner.

Lawmakers ought to pass legislation to close that loophole and set up rules for every sheriff and court to follow. The state's Domestic Violence Commission, which was created as part of a 2014 domestic violence law, is working on recommendations on relinquishment to present to the Legislature.

A statewide law would be the best approach. State Rep. Helena Moreno of New Orleans tried for two years to get that done, but lawmakers wouldn't agree to it because of resistance from sheriffs and other criminal justice officials. Basically, opponents didn't want to have to handle more paperwork or hold additional hearings, victim advocates said.

The fact that lawmakers went along with the opposition shows how few of them are really committed to protecting victims.

But sheriffs and judges don't have to wait on the Legislature to act. All they have to do is enforce state law requiring abusers to give up their guns, Rep. Moreno said. "Individual parishes can do this on their own," she said.

Lafourche Parish is leading the way. Sheriff Craig Webre has developed a process for tracking offenders who fall under the prohibition, notifying them of the law and working with them to give up the weapons.

He made a detailed presentation on his strategy to the Louisiana Judicial College in 2015. There's a copy online for any sheriff who wants to do the right thing.

Judge Bernadette D'Souza, who was elected in 2012 as the first judge in New Orleans' family court, also is enforcing the relinquishment provision in the domestic violence laws. Rep. Moreno, who is moving to the City Council in May, said she will push to expand enforcement in the city.

Other parishes should follow the lead of Sheriff Webre and Judge D'Souza.

Louisiana is a dangerous place for victims of domestic violence. The state ranks third in the nation for murders of women, according to the Violence Policy Center. Louisiana has 2.22 deaths of women per 100,000 residents, which is twice the national average.

One reason for that high rate is the easy access abusers have to guns, Mariah Wineski, executive director of the Louisiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said in a statement released in September.

"Although state and federal law prohibit many abusers from possessing firearms, our state lacks any consistent process for actually implementing these prohibitions," she said. "This means many people convicted of domestic abuse battery -- and therefore prohibited from possessing a firearm -- nonetheless retain access to their guns." Sixty-four percent of the women in Louisiana killed by men in 2015, were shot to death, the Violence Policy Center found.

The lack of a relinquishment process could lead to more deaths. According to a report in the Annals of Internal Medicine, states with relinquishment laws have 14 percent fewer domestic violence homicides than states without those laws.

There was a restraining order in place in November when Krystle Landor, a 28-year-old mother of three, was shot to death near Lacombe by her ex-boyfriend. Her family said Ms. Landor had done everything possible to protect herself, but the criminal justice system didn't help her enough. "A convicted felon with a gun, and a mental patient; four days he's back out on the streets. A couple weeks he comes back out and killed my daughter," Ms. Landor's father told WWL-TV.

That is what Rep. Moreno has tried to prevent. It's time for every sheriff and judge to follow the law and take guns out of abusers' hands.What distinguishes the United States of America from a police state? According to a 1987 ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, one of the most important distinctions is that people in the United States can verbally "oppose or challenge police action without risking arrest." Louisiana is a part of the United States. Therefore, it should be clear and obvious that people in Louisiana are allowed to verbally challenge the police without fear that challenging them will be deemed a crime.

But in a couple of fairly recent cases, suspects being placed under arrest in Louisiana have been saddled up with extra offenses because of what they said to the officers arresting them. Travis Seals, a Hammond man who was being arrested on the suspicion that he threatened to shoot his neighbor, says he told the deputies who handcuffed and pepper-sprayed him that he would make sure they were fired for how they handled him. A Denham Springs man says he objected to a Livingston Parish deputy calling him a vulgar term as the deputy investigated a reckless driving complaint. According to police reports, William Aubin Jr. told the deputy, "I'm calling your supervisor; I'm going to have your job; I'm gonna get you fired."

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, the state's top law enforcement officer, believes that the Louisiana law which allowed those men to be booked with public intimidation is perfectly fine. In a 2016 response to Seals' federal lawsuit, Landry told the court, "Attorney General Landry specifically denies any and all allegations that La. R.S. 14:122 is unconstitutional."

In an August 2017 ruling, U.S. District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo disagreed. She said "the Court finds that the particular provision of La. R.S. 14:122 identified herein violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution." Milazzo found that the law "is unconstitutionally overbroad in that the statute criminalizes a substantial amount of speech protected by the First Amendment."

But because Landry has appealed her ruling to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Milazzo has allowed law enforcement officials to keep enforcing that law. Milazzo's ruling for the plaintiff and Landry's motion to appeal both occurred in August. This week, The Advocate wrote about Seals' case and Aubin's.

In Aubin's case, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Brian Jackson referred to the 1987 Supreme Court ruling mentioned above. He said, "The right to criticize police without risk of arrest distinguishes a democracy from a police state."

Indeed. Which makes it disturbing that Landry is defending the statute.

"A nonviolent threat communicated to a public employee in order for the offender to receive something to which he is not entitled as a matter of right will, almost always, be indistinguishable from extortion," Landry has argued.

So it's extortion to tell police officers that you're going to tell their supervisors that they did wrong?

That makes as much sense as the January 2017 interview where St. Martinville Police Chief Calder Hebert says the state's new "Blue Lives Matter" law allows him to book a person resisting arrest with a hate crime. The law is awful, no doubt, but it wasn't as awful as all that. Similarly, it's troubling that Landry accuses people who threaten to report police to their supervisors as extortionists.

The only people who can make such an argument are the "Police are always right" crowd. But it's impossible for the police to always be right in any other setting than a police state.

Are we in a police state?

Here's hoping the appellate court reaffirms that we're not. Or, at least, that we shouldn't be.

Jarvis DeBerry is deputy opinions editor for NOLA.COM | The Times-Picayune. He can be reached at jdeberry@nola.com or at twitter.com/jarvisdeberry.The state will soon be pushing the locally elected officials of Powhatan out of the way to administer the finances of the northwest Louisiana village that in mid-July had only $105 in its general fund and is hiring a cop to drum up some money fromDrew Brees told one of his biggest fans he will forever be connected to the New Orleans Saints.

While on the television talk show hosted by Ellen DeGeneres that aired Wednesday, Brees told the New Orleans native he will be a "Saint for life" when she asked about his contract status for 2018 and beyond.

When asked if he would be back for the 2018 season: "Of course I'm coming back," Brees said.

Brees, 39, is due to be an unrestricted free agent when his contract officially expires in March, but he and the Saints both say they plan to have a deal worked out that will keep him in New Orleans.

Brees also recounted the playoff loss to the Minnesota Vikings -- "The highest of highs and the lowest of lows," he said about the spoiled comeback from 17-0 down -- and talked about having his three young sons on the sidelines during the Pro Bowl last weekend.

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The boys drew attention for fighting while on television during a sideline TV interview.

"They can't keep their hands off each other," Brees said. "They're just constantly doing all this stuff, and so they just start going at it while I'm talking to (ESPN sideline reporter) Lisa Salters and (oldest son) Baylen. I'm just watching them and this fight goes onto the field while the AFC offense is trying to drive down the field."

The video clip ended with Ellen saying "I bet they're good boys."

"They are very good boys," Brees said.Sheriff's deputies in St. Charles Parish broke through the door of a burning house in Luling to rescue a woman whose home was engulfed in smoke, according to the St. Charles Herald-Guide newspaper. The woman was unconscious and witnesses told the deputies that her three children might be trapped inside as well, the newspaper reported.

After carrying the woman to safety, the deputies attempted to re-enter the house through a front door, but were driven back by fire, according to the report.

Firefighters soon arrived on the scene and were able to extinguish the fire.

Authorities learned later that the children were not at home at the time of the fire, but were with a relative, according to the news report.

Read The Herald-Guide's entire story.The Sons of the American Legion Chapter 336 spend the entire year raising funds for children who are in desperate need for organ transplants, and once again the time is drawing near for one of its big fundraisers.

The Sons of the American Legion is a program of the American Legion whose members exist to honor the service and sacrifice of Legionnaires. Chapter 336, which is located at the Ralph Sparks American Legion Post 336 at 5770 Bayshore Road, is looking to do a fundraiser in February for COTA (Childrens Organ Transplant Association).

John Mammano, second vice commander of the SOL chapter, said the group plans on holding an all-day event on Saturday, Feb. 24, including a prime rib dinner, a Chinese auction and a 50/50 raffle.

We got involved with them two years ago when we went to a convention in Orlando. We had other charities to choose from, but we picked that one and did as much as we can for it, Mammano said.

In its first year, the SOL raised $8,000 and last year it raised around $15,000. Mammano said he would like to raise at least as much this year and, since June, has raised $4,000 through smaller raffles and events.

S.A.L. members include males of all ages whose parents or grandparents served in the U.S. military and were eligible for American Legion membership. Many Legionnaires hold dual membership in SAL.

Rod Parker, a director of marketing at COTA, will be there. In the past he has sent them calendars and other materials the SOL can sell and donate the proceeds back to COTA.

COTA helps children who are in need of a life-saving transplant by providing fundraising assistance and family support.

Everything we raise stays in the state of Florida. The money pays for everything, the transplant, the parents to stay with them, it costs them nothing, Mammano said.

The organization is accepting donations to benefit the Childrens Organ Transplant Association.

Those interested in making a monetary donation or providing an item or items for the raffle, can call the American Legion at 543-1919.The annual crafts fair at Merchants Crossing always seems to be a hit, with thousands of people showing up over the weekend to browse, snack and even buy some unique pieces from crafters from all over.

Sally Mere, who promotes the 15 regional shows from Ellenton to Naples, from November to March, had a partner who helped her for about 25 years. As of last year, though, Mere has been on her own.

This created some challenges.

The partner did all the advertising and promotions, Mere said.

I had to learn that and when you dont know what youre doing, people will take advantage of you. I got help, though, she added.

To complicate matters more, Hurricane Irma forced Mere to switch locations. When your advertising consists of signage put out just days beforehand, that adds even more to the challenge.

Were really not allowed to put out signs. We take them out a week before, sometimes even on Friday night, and pick them up when it ends, Mere said. All things considered, things have not been bad.

The crowd and wind did not keep the people away on Saturday (Sundays threat of rain was another matter). More than 60 vendors were there to sell their wares, well up from those who take part every week for Sallys Road Show.

I have a base group of about 15 to 20. The rest are new vendors for each show, Mere said. We have a dip vendor, an iron person the kettle corn person and a few others who have been with us all season.

That dip vendor, John Allison of Simply Savory, had by far the busiest tent in the lot, with people trying out all sorts of dips, from dessert style to five-alarm.

Allison said he works on the flavors in the kitchen in Orlando so they can be packaged and sent to all the craft shows in Florida. All told, there are about 80 flavors, 40 of which were up for sample with people carrying cups full of skinny pretzels.

We get a lot of visitors who come by for a quick snack or even see what we have, Allison said. People are very interested and have never seen anything like this before. They come from all over the country.

Nearby, Chuck Robertson, of Tampa, was selling his work using driftwood cedar in which he creates amazing artwork. Depending on the work the pieces sell for anywhere between $100 and $500.

I see a piece of wood and I have a gift where I know what that piece of wood can be. When I take it home, I know what it will be, Robertson said. It takes as much as three days to make one. The finish is three-fourths of the work.To the editor:

I read in the Miami Herald that there is legislation pending to require In God We Trust to be displayed on every school and administration building in Florida. I strongly oppose this religious advertising on or in our public schools and buildings. It is an abridgment of the separation of church and state doctrine and is particularly odious because it is aimed at impressionable children.

A belief and trust in God is something to be taught at home, not plastered all over our schools. It is not the states place to provide religious education and impose God on every one, especially through the public schools. I urge our legislators to respect the spirit of the Constitution and vote NO.

loria Garber

NaplesTo the editor:

Interesting letter accusing Trump of being racist, using sexual harassment, and unethical business conduct! The writer also accused Trump of misconduct. Of course she did not detail any examples. The left often makes accusations out of thin air while ignoring gross misbehavior by Obama and Hillary.

Of course racism to a Democrat is a fallback position when all else fails. If you cant swim grab a lifeline. The Democrats lifeline is the accusation of racism. It is inevitably used when other arguments fail. Obama majored in racism and the relationship between the races went downhill. Murders in Democratic governed cities have increased while under a black president aided by BLM. Those who see racism in every event are racists by definition.

Sexual harassment (to the point of being criminal) is best exemplified by Bill Clinton. Nobody will ever outdo Bill. Hillary supported his sexual aggressiveness and defended him every step of the way. We are talking about sexual activities so common and frequent that he lost a lawsuit and his law license.

Business conduct is best compared to Hillary and Bill with the Clinton Foundation. Can you imagine they left the presidency broke and now have a net worth around $150 million. During that time, Hillary was working for the government and Bill was unemployed. What kind of business conduct did that take? How about netting millions of dollars to help walk the sale of 20 percent of our uranium to Russia through our political system? How would you describe using a charitable organization to get rich?

Egregious misconduct! The writer must be listening to Morning Joe. I have never turned to his show when he wasnt beating up on Trump with the most unverified, speculative accusations anyone could invent. The man is obsessive. It would help to describe what the writer means by egregious misconduct.

And what about a commander in chief who steps aside to open up Iraq for the most horrific terrorist ISIS and then does nothing, calling ISIS the JV team? He helps unseat Qaddafi, opening up another territory for ISIS and sends no help to our embassy as it is attacked. He does nothing as Russia takes over Crimea and invades Ukraine. His only weapon against North Koreas eight years of developing atomic bombs and missiles are his innocuous speeches. Then there is the red line he draws in Syria using invisible ink.

Finally he cuts back on defense funds disarming America making us more vulnerable than any time since Carter. I wonder if Captain Mack was happy with Obama, a fake commander in chief.

People in glass houses shouldnt throw stones.

John Benedict

Cape CoralGlobal Health Studies: A model for campus internationalization

Global health faculty member Sera Young in western Kenya in 2017 on a go-along interview to explore and understand consequences of water insecurity.

Global health faculty member Sera Young in western Kenya in 2017 on a go-along interview to explore and understand consequences of water insecurity. Global health student Julia Yeam with peers of the Young Research Group at the Household Water Insecurity Experiences (HWISE) Scale conference at Northwestern in 2017. Global health faculty member Noelle Sullivan with Northwestern student Willow Pastard in 2017 on the Field Research in Public Health: Tanzania program. Global health faculty Peter Locke and Northwestern students on the Comparative Public Health: Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina program in 2017 visiting Sarajevos Addiction Institute to learn about PTSD.

Popular undergraduate program honored for advancing curriculum development, fostering international opportunities

Northwestern Universitys Program in Global Health Studies is among a select group of university programs awarded with the 2018 IIE Andrew Heiskell Awards for Innovation in International Education, the Institute of International Education (IIE) announced today.

The awards honor the most outstanding initiatives in international higher education, highlighting programs that remove institutional barriers and broaden the base of participation in international teaching and learning.

This is the second time Northwestern has received this prestigious award. In 2016, the university was highlighted for its multidimensional partnership with the elite French institution Sciences Po.

This year, Global Health Studies is being recognized by IIE with an honorable mention as a successful model for internationalizing the campus by advancing curriculum development and fostering international opportunities for both students and faculty.

Global Health Studies: a program grounded in interdisciplinary teaching and research

The interdisciplinary program was established as an academic minor in 2004 by now-Vice President for International Relations Devora Grynspan and Abraham Harris Professor of Anthropology William Leonard, who serves as the program director.

Since then, the program has greatly expanded and now draws students from all six undergraduate schools and colleges. With a consistent average of close to 300 students in the program each year, the demand for classes and research is high.

This past year, the university added an adjunct major and the Accelerated Public Health Program (APHP), a combined five-year bachelors degree/masters of public health (MPH) curriculum, to its portfolio of offerings.

The Global Health Studies program teaches students the skills needed to engage critically with current global health challenges, and sets itself apart from many others in unique ways: it employs faculty with a diverse set of academic backgroundsfrom anthropologists and biomedical engineers to rehabilitation specialists and health officialsand requires a study abroad experience.

Over the years, students have been able to fulfill this requirement through Northwestern-administered public health programs at partner institutions in Chile, China, Cuba, Mexico, Israel, France, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The program also provides financial support for domestic and international student research, and offers many extracurricular activities, such as local health community involvement and an alumni mentorship program.

Broadening the scope and participation of students and faculty in research and study abroad

Global health faculty teach a variety of topics, including global bioethics, social determinants of health and Native American health. They also serve as supervisors for student research. Many of them lead or support public health experiences abroad, sometimes in collaboration with one of Northwesterns international partners.

Our program couldnt offer all of these wonderful engagement opportunities outside the classroom if it wasnt for an extraordinary group of faculty who challenge students with thoughtful and critical perspectives on a diverse range of topics, Leonard said.

Over the last four years, Noelle Sullivan, assistant professor of instruction in global health and anthropology, has taken student cohorts to Tanzania for hands-on field research in public health. The undergraduate researchers worked with students from the University of Dar es Salaam to investigate health issues relevant to the Arusha region.

According to Sullivan, the benefits of field research for students are immense.

"In high school, students learn from standardized testing that there are right and wrong answers, she explained. In global health studies, we teach them about the complexities of the world and challenge the attractive simplicity of right and wrong. In the field, they learn the different opportunities and constraints people face and can use these insights to start to conceptualize the world they want to build."

Peter Locke, assistant professor of instruction in global health and anthropology, takes students to Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina each summer to study post-conflict mental health and policies in a region that was tormented by war in the 1990s.

Spending time in both Serbia and neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina helps students to build a comparative, critical perspective of the regions history and current challenges, and to reflect deeply on the place of health in processes of post-war recovery, policy-making and transitional justice, Locke said.

Another group of students traveled to London in 2017 to conduct archival research on maternal health in the 20th century at the Wellcome Library. Led by medical historian Sarah Rodriguez, who has appointments in both Global Health Studies at Weinberg and Medical Humanities and Bioethics at Feinberg, the group looked at the historical roots of contemporary maternal health problems. Students travel, accommodations and programming were covered in full by the John & Martha Mabie Fund, which was set up to provide public health research opportunities for Northwestern students.

Other faculty members engage students in global health research on campus and in the community, such as medical and psychological anthropologist Rebecca Seligman, who regularly oversees student research projects. Beatriz Reyes, a postdoctoral fellow in the program, works on the development of evidence-based programs in addressing health disparities and teaches classes on community-based participatory research and Native American health. Michael Diamond, adjunct lecturer in the program, has taken many students into the local community over the years to help them understand the intersection of global and local health, or glocal health, and how closely these two areas are related.

While faculty and students have primarily benefitted from Global Health Studies international opportunities, the program has also contributed to internationalizing Northwestern staff: Greg Buchanan, assistant program director for Global Health Studies, recently received a Fulbright Administrators Award. In the spring, he will travel to India to meet with representatives from Indian universities, private-sector agencies, research institutions and government agencies.

Training future researchers early on

Meaningful global health student engagement is a top priority for Sera Young, assistant professor in anthropology and global health and a fellow at the Institute for Policy Research. Currently, she leads a research group that consists of postdocs, PhD students and nearly 20 undergraduate students.

The overarching question that we ask is how to best help mothers in the vulnerable period of the year prior to delivery and the two years postpartum, known as the first thousand days, Young said. Specific research areas of focus include food insecurity, water insecurity, HIV and micronutrient deficiencies.

Studies have shown that food insecurity and water insecurity are tightly correlated with one another, and we look at nutrition through this slightly indirect, but extremely important aspect of nutrition, which is water, said Weinberg senior Julia Yeam, an undergraduate member of Youngs research group and one of the first students who enrolled in both the new global health adjunct major and the APHP.

What our research group is trying to do, and what a lot of other collaborators around the world right now are trying to do, is validate a scale to measure and quantify water insecurity at the household level, Yeam added. The group has water insecurity research sites in 24 countries and is adding two more sites in the coming weeks.

The scale has already been validated in western Kenya and will now be adapted to understand how water security works in different settings, to compare, contrast and understand national and regional prevalence, Young said.

Assisting with faculty research helps undergraduate students develop a skill set they will need moving forward in their academic and professional careers, no matter their ultimate field, according to Young. Her students are all involved in primary research and take on many responsibilities, including literature reviews, data entry, data cleaning, data analysis and presentation.

She considers these research collaborations a great method of engaging with students.

Teaching in a classroom is only part of my teaching job. Working with undergraduate students directly on primary research helps train the next generation of researchers and helps us to answer the scientific questions more quickly, she said.

Providing students with the tools to engage with todays global health challenges

Yeam, who came to Northwestern specifically to study global health, was surprised by all the offerings available to studentsin global health, and also at the university as a whole.

I dont think I really understood how many opportunities we had here until two years ago when I started looking for study abroad opportunities and met Dr. Young. That opened up so many other doors. Now there are opportunities for me to present posters, go to different conferences and ideally get papers published, she said. But also, I realized just how many resources there are on campus in terms of people to help you navigate your career and your research goals.

As she continued through the global health program, she became determined to pursue an MPH after graduation. As if it were meant to be, in the midst of her planning, Global Health Studies made an announcement to all its students: The five-year APHP was slated to start in fall 2017. Yeam immediately applied and was accepted, along with five other students. The program combines a four-year global health bachelors degree with a one-year masters degree in public health.

Not having to study for the GRE and being able to earn credit towards the MPH during her senior year allows Yeam to focus on her global health studies, while tying in her public health interests early on.

For Yeam, the Global Health Studies program has already had an impact.

It really helped me grow a lot to expand my view on health and the role we play in it both our individual roles and our collective role as part of a global community, because were all affected by it, whether we blatantly realize it or not, she said.

Yeam is just one of many students who have participated in the various opportunities offered through the Global Health Studies program over the years. These students and their faculty mentors exemplify what the Heiskell award is all about: reducing barriers to broaden the base of participation in international teaching and learning on campusand abroad.

Program director William Leonard will accept the award on behalf of Northwestern and Global Health Studies, and he will showcase the program with a presentation on Best Practices in Internationalizing the Campus at the IIE Best Practices Conference in New York City on March 16, 2018.by Christopher Grismer

The iconic sculpture known popularly as The Bean sits silently at the heart of Chicagos Millennium Park. But if you listen closely, you can hear the sculpture declare, I am not a bean. I am Cloud Gate.

The voice of Cloud Gate is David Schwimmer 88, one of 10 Northwestern alumni who contributed to Statue Stories Chicago, which gave voice to 30 Chicago-area statues, including Abraham Lincoln, Bob Newhart and even Dorothy and Toto.

Sing London, an arts and events production company, created Statue Stories Chicago in 2015. To hear what a statue has to say, visitors can swipe a nearby tag with their smartphone to receive a call from the statue.

Alumni contributed to the project as scriptwriters and voice actors. When Sing London contacted Lydia Gartin Diamond 92 to write the script for the statue of Chicago founder Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, she was intrigued.

I cant imagine anyone whos an artist who hasnt looked at a statue and wondered what it would sound like, the playwright says. (The DuSable statue is in Pioneer Court on North Michigan Avenue.)

Just as she does for play scripts, Diamond thoroughly researched her subject. Learning more about DuSable was fulfilling for her, and she was pleased that Harry J. Lennix 86 would voice Chicagos first non-native resident.

I thought Harry was perfect for DuSable because hes got that low, booming voice, she says. Just knowing that he is a fine actor was inspiration in and of itself.

David Catlin 88 and Schwimmer took inspiration from Lewis Carrolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland when writing the script for Cloud Gate. Carrolls stories refer to a mirror as a looking-glass. Cloud Gate reminded Catlin of a mirror, so he and Schwimmer chose to make identity the focus of the script.

Whats the identity of this statue? Its kind of you, says Catlin, but as you get closer to it, you realize that its not really you, and once youre underneath it, you realize that its hundreds of yous.

For Statue Stories Chicago, Catlin and Schwimmer  two of the co-founders of Chicagos Lookingglass Theatre Company  worked in tandem, revising the script until they got it just right. It was a fun, quirky kind of project that doesnt come along very often, says Catlin, a lecturer in the theater department at Northwestern.

Funded by the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation and developed in collaboration with the City of Chicago and the Chicago Park District, Statue Stories Chicago will run until August 2018.



Illustration by Peter HoeyKomfie Manalo, Opalesque Asia:

Artificial intelligence is the next big thing in finance and China "will be a podium finisher here if not the outright winner," claims Singapore-based fund management firm APS Asset Management.

In his latest note to investors, APS Asset Founder and CIO Wong Kok Hoi, said that China's recent rise has been led by champions in the areas of e-commerce, artificial intelligence (AI), and FinTech that stretch beyond household names such as Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu. However, the trio to account for a quarter of China's AI talent today. China is already globally competitive in consumer electronics, mobile handsets, and telecom equipment.

Wong stated, "We believe that China's growth engine for this coming decade will be innovation in the high technology space, especially in artificial intelligence. China's national strategy is to combine it with the internet of things as well as big data, to modernize the economy, improve productivity and pull away from other countries. Powered by government policy support, an abundance of capital, a huge domestic market, a large pool of seasoned entrepreneurs, and the gigantic pool of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) graduates every year, China's odds of success are very high."

The hedge fund noted that for the first time, Chinese telco equipment manufacturers like Huawei are participating in the formulation of international 5G tr......................

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Important! This article is written by orangesmile.com editors and is protected by copyright law. The article can only be re-used with a direct link to www.orangesmile.com

NEWS BLOCKS:

More Tourists from Germany and Spain Prefer to Travel to the UK

While more and more foreign tourists prefer to visit continental Europe, German and Spanish tourists spend their euro outside the continent  in the UK. London hotels were not the only beneficiaries of the increased popularity. In the first nine months of 2017, a record number of tourists visited the countrys regions  12.7 million visitors. That is 4% more than during the same period of 2016. Foreign guests spent more than 6 billion in England, that way helping local economies and communities.



Only hotels in Wales greeted as many as 990,000 foreign visitors in the period from January to September 2017, showing the growth of 6%. The total spending of overseas guests was 337 million during this period. Scotland had 14% more guests or 2.6 million international tourists in total in the first nine months of 2017. In this part of the UK, tourists spent 1.8 billion.



The UKs Tourism Minister has expressed his delight with the good news, underlining that it is particularly important to attract foreign tourists to regions of the country, rather than make them stay in London only. The country has been promoting itself as a must-visit destination and plans to continue these activities as nowadays its not a secret for anyone that tourism sector is a significant booster of countries economy in general.



That is particularly true for the United Kingdom as tourism remains one of the most valuable export industries for the country. According to forecasts, more than 41 million foreign tourists will visit the UK in 2018, spending more than 27 billion during their stay. The West Midlands and the North West Midlands experienced the biggest growth in the number of overseas visitors  the year on year increase estimated more than 10% for them. In absolute numbers, these regions greeted 1.8 million and 2.4 million foreign guests respectively.



Visitors from Germany spent record 1.3 billion in the first nine months of 2017 in the UK. The number of visits from this European country was also growing by 2% to 2.6 million. There was also a record number of tourists from Spain in the UK  up by 11% to 1.9 million visits. In total, visitors from this country spent 861 million from January to September 2017, achieving the growth of 14%. The significance of Chinese tourists is also growing for the UK. More than 260 thousand visits or 33% up from this country within nine months of 2017 is a good result for the United Kingdom. Travelers spent 557 million, reaching a year-on-year increase of 48%. In total, the UK enjoyed 30.1 million inbound visits, which is 7% higher than a year ago.

31.01.2018Stay in touch with the latest news of a worldwide hotel industry. All up-to-date analytics, reports , and news about hotel business trends on OrangeSmile.com.A weekly collection of new hires, transitions, promotions and award winners in Oregon and southwest Washington:

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Oregon Arts Commission

Matthew Stringer, the executive director of The Four Rivers Cultural Center in Ontario, Oregon, has been appointed to the Oregon Arts Commission by Gov. Kate Brown. Stringer fills the position previously held by Libby Unthank Tower, who completed her second four-year term in December.

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Eastern Oregon Border Economic Development

Gov. Kate Brown has named eight people to serve on the newly formed Eastern Oregon Border Economic Development Region Board. The panel will look for ways to promote workforce and economic development; recommend educational and training strategies to promote a qualified workforce; and identify specific laws and regulations that put local economic development efforts at a competitive disadvantage.

The board includes:

Shawna Peterson (chair), managing partner, Yturri Rose, LLP

Tiffany Cruickshank , transportation manager, Snake River Produce

Bill Johnson , owner, Loft Property Management and former Microsoft executive

Ralph Poole , CEO of Campo and Poole Distributing, and Energy Transport LLC

Stuart Reitz , professor, OSU Malheur County Extension Office

Priscilla Valero , director, Eastern Oregon University Ontario Regional Center

Dana Young , president, Treasure Valley Community College

Chris Harder, director, Business Oregon

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Emanuel Medical Center Foundation

Emanuel Medical Center Foundation has announced that (pictured left to right) Ernest E. Cooper, Michael E. Lewellen and Frank B. Piacentini have been elected to its board of trustees. The foundation advocates and raises funds for Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, part of Legacy Health -- the largest area nonprofit health care provider in Oregon and Southwest Washington.

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Denny Gainer

Oregon Business & Industry

Oregon Business & Industry has hired Abbie Laugtug as a vice president of legislative affairs. Laugtug will manage the energy, environment and natural resources policy portfolio as well as being the point person on manufacturing policy. She spent six years representing the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association as the team leader on federal appropriations issues, the federal budget and NRECA's international program.

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Regional Arts and Culture Council

The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC), which provides grants for artists, nonprofit organizations and schools in Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties; manages an internationally acclaimed public art program and other arts stewardship programs, has elected three new board members (pictured left to right):



Bob Geddes , retired from US Bancorp where he worked in legal and corporate services.

Octaviano Merecias-Cuevas is a trainer for the Center for Diversity and Inclusion at OHSU. He has more than 15 years of experience in intercultural communication, community engagement and facilitation.

Alejandro Queral leads the community investments team at United Way of the Columbia-Willamette.

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KEENE STUDIO

Farleigh Wada Witt

Farleigh Wada Witt, an Oregon business law firm, has elected Kim McGair president. McGair held a number of leadership positions in the firm during her 10 years with the company. She assumes the role of president from Hal Scoggins, who will continue his regulatory compliance practice.

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ROBERT KNAPP

Emergency Nurses Association

Portland nurse, Jeff Solheim has been named president of the Emergency Nurses Association. The emergency nursing organization represents more than 42,000 members worldwide. As president, Solheim's goal is to bring the world of emergency nursing together to share ideas and commonalities through cultural exchange trips meant to develop closer ties with international counterparts.

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Nautilus, Inc.

Nautilus, Inc., a fitness equipment company based in Vancouver, has hired Chris Quatrochi as senior vice president, of innovation. Quatrochi will be responsible for all facets of product development and innovation process. Prior to joining Nautilus, Quatrochi was group vice president for product operations at Broan-Nutone where he managed product development and marketing.

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Oregon State Marine Board

The Oregon State Marine Board has announced the agency's new director is Larry Warren. Warren comes to the agency from the Oregon Department of Administrative Services. He is an avid boater and will focus on the mission of serving Oregon's recreational boating public through education, enforcement, access, and environmental stewardship for safe and enjoyable experiences on the water.

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Standard TV and Appliance

Glenda McAdam has retired after 17 years as a sales professional with the Hall Boulevard location of Standard TV and Appliance in Beaverton.

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Salem First Citizen Award

The Salem Chamber nomination committee has selected an elected official for the 68th annual First Citizen Award for 2018. Senator Jackie Winters, (R) Salem, was elected to the Oregon State Legislature in 1998 as the state's first African-American Republican. Winters was nominated for the award as an individual "who has dedicated her life to service, not as a politician," said Nick Williams, CEO of the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce. The awards ceremony is scheduled for March.

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Contact us

Have a new hire, promotion or business award to share? Email us at business@oregonian.com, and put Attention: Business Movers in the subject line.Mike Rogoway | The Oregonian/OregonLive

By

The Oregonian/OregonLive

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By | The Oregonian/OregonLive

These are some of the best times on record for Portlands economy.

Yet voters in the region feel worse about their community than they have in years.

Homelessness, income inequality and bad traffic have soured the public mood, according to a new poll commissioned by the Portland Business Alliance. The PBA issued its annual "Economic Checkup" on Wednesday.

For the first time since the Great Recession, a majority of poll respondents (55 percent) say the region is moving in the right direction. But half say the quality of life in the Portland area is getting worse.

The findings mirror, in some respects, national sentiment -- in that voters acknowledge economic progress but are dissatisfied with the ways the world around them is changing.

People are a little more optimistic about their own economic opportunities, which is good, said Su Embree, president of DHM Research, which polled 506 voters in the Portland area for the PBA report.

However, Embree said that Portlanders wont overlook the cost of some of those gains, as the region wrestles with how to cope with economic disruption thats leaving a growing number of people homeless and others scrambling to find an affordable place to live.

In Portland, a lot of if you could point to whats going on around some of our social issues that you really cant ignore, she said. Portlanders are caring people.

First, the good news: Oregon unemployment was at its lowest point on record last year, and joblessness in the Portland area was even lower (3.6 percent at last count).

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While Portland remains below the national average in per-capita income (its $50,489 in the Portland area, nearly $700 below the national level), wages are rising and the region has become a major draw for young, highly educated migrants who are boosting the regions economic prospects.

The flip side, though, is that economic growth is in some ways making things worse.

There are a few reasons for that. One is that Portlands economic gains arent evenly distributed. While household incomes are rising across the region, wages continue to lag for African Americans, Latinos and others. That means many peoples incomes arent keeping up with the rising cost of housing.

And the region has a lot of work to do on the housing front. Population growth has outpaced increases in housing stock every year since 2010, creating an accumulating deficit in regional housing. And that shortage inevitably triggers higher prices.

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Further, the combination of a growing workforce and more people moving to the region means the roads are getting more crowded. That makes commutes longer, and more frustrating, because the region has added very little capacity to its roads and transit systems.

Every year the PBAs poll asks voters an open-ended question about their biggest issues. In 2011, and again in 2014, jobs topped the list of concerns, but in 2017 that issue wasnt among voters top five.

Instead, homelessness shot to the top of the list of biggest concerns (affordable housing was No. 3).

Embree said that the crisis has become pervasive, so even as many residents grow more comfortable economically the homeless population is growing more visible.

Theyre seeing it now in their neighborhoods, Embree said. Thats different than when theyre seeing it on a street corner downtown.

Traffic congestion and taxes were also new to the list of top issues, while concerns about educational funding  a top issue in both 2011 and 2014  fell out of the top five altogether.

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Portland continues to draw from elsewhere because of its reputation as a fun, friendly city with lots of activities, says John Tapogna, president of ECONorthwest, the Portland research firm that conducted the economic analysis for the PBAs report.

But the region is at risk of stratifying, he said, because of the unequal way its economic growth is distributed and because of restrictive development policies that have restricted construction of new, affordable housing.

You could imagine this ultimately trending toward an exclusive, amenity (filled) region that is squeezing out the lower and middle classes, Tapogna said.

-- Mike Rogoway; twitter: @rogoway; 503-294-7699A licensed trapper in Union County discovered a gray wolf in a foothold trap in December, according to Oregon State Police, then shot and killed it.

Trooper say the 58-year-old Elgin man told wildlife investigators that he discovered the gray wolf in a trap he had placed in rural Union County in mid-December. But upon finding the animal, police say, David Sanders shot the wolf "in the spinal column" and left it in the trap.

Wildlife enforcement officers subsequently discovered the wolf and subsequently found their way to Sanders.

The incident is the latest illegal killing of a wolf in Oregon.

Four wolves have been inadvertently caught by licensed trappers since the animals returned to the state in the late 200s. The animals were reintroduced in the Rocky Mountains in the mid-1990s and returned to Oregon after being exterminated in the mid-1940s.

In each of the previous four cases, the trapper contacted state officials. Wildlife biologists then were able to save the wolves and place a tracking collar on their necks.

Sanders was arraigned Jan. 23 in Union County Circuit Court on multiple misdemeanors, including illegally killing a "special status game animal." Sanders was a licensed trapper, but his foothold traps were not marked or branded, according to authorities.

Wolves have been removed from the state's endangered species list and from federal protection in parts of Eastern Oregon, including the area around Union County, but the canids remain protected under federal law throughout much of the state.

In Eastern Oregon, wolves can be legally killed in specific circumstances, such as if a rancher finds a wolf attacking its livestock or if the animals are determined to have repeatedly killed livestock in the area.

During the investigation, officials determined the wolf was a 64-pound juvenile female born in April 2017. Because of the location of the animal's death, state wildlife officials believe the wolf was related to a new breeding pair in the Mt. Emily area in Union County. More information about Oregon's wolf population is expected to be released in March when the wildlife department releases its annual wolf report.

Rob Klavins, the nonprofit Oregon Wild's coordinator in Northeast Oregon, described the incident as poaching. Poaching is a serious problem in Oregon," he said in an email. "For far too long, wolf poachers have been able to escape justice. We are grateful to Oregon State Police for finding and charging this poacher."

Klavins said he hoped Sanders gets "more than a slap on the wrist."



-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheenBy Ruben Navarrette Jr.

SAN DIEGO -- Judging from the most memorable line in President Trump's first State of the Union address, it turns out that "Americans are dreamers, too."

As Trump sees it, it's his duty -- and that of Congress -- to "defend Americans, to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream." All by keeping out immigrants.

Co-opting the phrase "dreamer" and applying it to Americans was a slick move. It was also a cheap pandering pitch to folks who think that those undocumented young people -- who pop up on television and get invited to attend the State of the Union -- are having all the fun. In fact, you might say that they're living the dream.

Here I thought that many Americans were free to live their own version of the American Dream because they rely on illegal immigrants to do their household chores at cut rates. When people hire illegal immigrants, or use goods and services produced by companies that hire them, they owe part of their standard of living to illegal immigration.

The president doesn't agree. Yet he has repeatedly shown that -- while immigration is his signature issue -- he doesn't understand the subject.

Trump proved that again Tuesday night when he demanded an end to what he calls "chain migration" -- a policy that worries many on the cultural right who think there are too many Latinos in the United States. As Trump put it -- to groans from lawmakers -- "under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives."

That's a lie. Over the years, I've spoken to many immigration lawyers who have assured me that there are only two viable categories for immigrants who have become U.S. citizens to bring in relatives. The first is spouses and children. The second is siblings and parents. And that's about it. So much for "distant relatives."

The president is also wrong that the main purpose of the U.S. immigration system is to serve "the best interests of American workers and American families." The current setup, according to the president, allows for "millions of low-wage workers to compete for jobs and wages against the poorest Americans."

Not so. American workers shouldn't look to government to protect them from competition just because they're afraid that -- without government intervention -- they would lose a head-to-head contest. Besides, those jobs don't belong to the "poorest Americans" but rather to anyone who can claim them.

The president also incorrectly believes that America's borders are "open" and that this allows "drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities." Maybe the U.S.-Canadian border is open, but the U.S.-Mexico border is militarized and fortified. There are walls, fences, sensors, armed guards, checkpoints, cameras, even drones. Is this what Trump means by "open"?

Finally, what would a Trump speech be without a gratuitous reference to MS-13? The Salvadoran street gang is the Trump era's version of Willie Horton, the African-American rapist and murderer who entered the political lexicon in the 1988 presidential race when Republicans used Horton to bludgeon Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis. Trump's default to MS-13 as a symbol of the crimes committed by Latino immigrants is just another cynical call out to fear.

Yet Trump has done one thing right with regard to immigration: He has come up with a fair and generous deal that deserved more of a hearing than it was given by the Democratic leaders who quickly came out against it.

And why did that happen?

It's all politics. It's because the deal comes from Trump, and Democrats don't want to help his agenda along, give him any wins, or help him get the credit for giving 1.8 million Dreamers a path to citizenship. It's because Democrats never really cared about Dreamers as much as they claimed. And it's because Trump's accommodation for the undocumented gets in the way of Democratic attempts to demonize the president, and the GOP, as "racist" and anti-immigrant.

You see, Democrats also have a dream. They aspire to get something for nothing. They want the votes of Latinos without the nuisance of actually earning them.

Trump challenges all that -- and, in the process, upends the entire immigration debate.

-- Ruben Navarrette's email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com. His daily podcast, "Navarrette Nation," is available through every podcast app.

(c) 2018, The Washington Post Writers GroupThe Oregon District Attorneys Association will abandon its plan to lead a ballot initiative campaign aimed at repealing the state's unusual system of allowing non-unanimous jury verdicts, effectively ending the fight before it could even begin.

The announcement, issued in a news release Tuesday night, comes less than three weeks after the powerful organization said it wanted to assume a primary role in reversing the decades-old law  a move that would require voters to approve an amendment to the state's constitution.

But the effort hit an immediate snag as criminal justice reform advocates learned that the district attorneys group planned to also target a rule that allows defendants in Oregon the right to waive a jury trial in favor of having a judge hear their case.

Prosecutors claim that rule, also enshrined in the state constitution, prohibits them from providing input before a case is moved from a jury and decided by a judge alone. A recent analysis by the Multnomah District Attorney's office found that 30 states, including California, allow prosecutors some role or input in the jury waiver process.

"The ODAA reached out to potential partners to solicit their support for an initiative to address both issues which have been basically unchanged for more than 80 years," the group's executive director Tim Colahan said in the statement. "Unfortunately, the potential partners for this effort have declared their unwillingness to support the reform of both issues in a balanced approach."

The group never got beyond the early planning stages of the proposed initiative and never produced draft language of a constitutional amendment.

Oregon juries  and those in only one other state, Louisiana  are allowed to convict most felony defendants with a 10-2 vote, though Oregon still requires a unanimous vote to find defendants guilty of murder.

The federal government and all other states require a 12-0 verdict for crimes such as manslaughter, rape and arson.

Critics have long argued that non-unanimous juries are deeply flawed and punitive toward nonwhite defendants and have petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review their constitutionality, though the high court hasn't taken up the cases.

Oregon voters adopted the state's non-unanimous jury system in 1934.

Many in the state's criminal justice community expressed surprise  and cautious optimism  when the district attorneys association, which represents all 36 elected prosecutors in Oregon, expressed its desire to repeal the current jury system in early January.

Groups like the ACLU of Oregon and the Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyers Association became less supportive when the district attorneys association later made it clear that it also wanted to repeal the law allowing defendants the right to a trial before a judge. Both provisions are in Article 1, Section 11 of Oregon's constitution.

"From a defense perspective, it's important that a defendant maintains the ability to a bench trial if they believe they can't get a fair trial with a jury," said Aliza Kaplan, a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, where she directs the Criminal Justice Reform Clinic.

The district attorneys association, however, said that coupling a repeal of the state's non-unanimous jury system with a reversal of the bench trial rule would provide a "fair balance" that protects "the rights of victims of crime as well as honoring the rights of criminals charged with crimes."

"It is the position of Oregon's prosecutors that both sides should have an equal right to assert or waive the right to a jury trial, just as both sides would have the right to a unanimous jury under their proposal," Colahan said in the statement.

-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh

skavanaugh@oregonian.com

503-294-7632 || @shanedkavanaughA former high-level official at the embattled Oregon Military Department has filed suit against the agency, claiming she was fired for blowing the whistle on wasteful spending, sexual discrimination and officials' dishonesty with regulators.

Laurie Holien, deputy director of the Oregon Office of Emergency Management from 2013 to 2016, is seeking a $4 million judgment, according to her suit. The Oregon Military Department has denied all her claims in its own court filings.

In response to questions about Holien's suit, Maj. Gen. Michael Stencel, head of the Oregon Military Department, told The Oregonian/OregonLive he is taking measures to improve his department and "enhance our culture," but did not offer specifics. Asked about the allegations within Holien's lawsuit, Stencel, the commander of all state defense forces, said, "We take them all seriously."

Holien is the second former official to claim whistleblower retaliation by top Oregon Military Department employees in recent years.

In 2016, a jury awarded former emergency management director Martin Plotner nearly $1 million after he claimed his 2013 firing was retaliation for his whistleblowing on misspending and sexual harassment by Brig. Gen. Mike Caldwell. Caldwell was deputy director of the Military Department in 2013; he resigned that year after accusations of his sexual advances toward a female subordinate went public.

Though it is little-known, the Oregon Military Department has a broad and important mission. Its military and civilian staff oversee the Oregon National Guard and the Oregon Office of Emergency Management, which runs a statewide disaster preparedness and terrorism prevention network.

As The Oregonian/OregonLive first reported Tuesday, the agency faces a possible $3 million debt because it misspent federal anti-terrorism grants, according to federal documents. State auditors also found the agency is woefully underprepared to deal with a major disaster.

In her suit against the Oregon Military Department, Holien claims she and other Office of Emergency Management staff were relieved of job duties, kept out of important meetings and undermined because they are women.

Holien also claims top Oregon Military Department officials gave "evasive and/or untruthful actions and statements" in response to auditors. And she says agency officials engaged in "obstruction of public records requests" by local press, including requests made by The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Her suit says Military Department deputy director David Stuckey was in charge of the Office of Emergency Management when misspending took place and that he engaged in sex discrimination by making "offensive, dismissive, degrading and/or demeaning" remarks.

Asked about Holien's claims of sexism, Military Department spokesman Bomar said, "Obviously any sort of behavior like that is completely not tolerated." Bomar confirmed that Stuckey remains on the job.

Asked about the Military Department's procedures for handling claims of sex discrimination, Bomar said agency officials "err on the side of caution" and generally "bring in outside investigators if there's any sort of claims." Bomar said he is unsure if the Military Department has conducted an internal investigation in response to Holien's allegations.

Holien claims she was forced out of her job in part as retaliation for complaining about the alleged discrimination and misspending, according to court filings.

Holien, who now works as director of homeland security within the Concordia University School of Management, was not immediately available for comment.

Attorneys with the Oregon Department of Justice have filed a response to Holien's suit on behalf of the Military Department. Filings show the Military Department denies Holien's allegations and may rely on a defense that the agency was justified in pushing her out. Those filings say any harms she complained of were a result of her "own actions, inactions or participation in the activities complained of." A trial date has not yet been set.

-- Gordon R. Friedman

503-221-8209; @GordonRFriedman(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

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By EDER CAMPUZANO

The Oregonian/OregonLive

Its long been rumored that Jeff Merkley would run for president in 2020.

The junior Democratic senator from Oregon didn't rule out a White House run when he spoke with CNN last year. He also penned an op-ed in an Iowa newspaper last year, adding fuel to the fire. And if the tweetstorm from Merkley's official account denouncing and fact-checking President Donald Trump's first State of the Union address is any indication, yeah, the guy is definitely eyeing the Democratic nomination in two years.

The senator's posts were handled by Chief of Staff Mike Zamore, who stuck to many facts and figures Merkley often employs during media appearances and meetings with constituents.

He matched the presidents claims almost one-to-one with a tweet or retweet disputing Trumps figures and policy proposals, almost as if the two were engaging in a debate during an election year. (An admittedly one-sided debate, but a debate nonetheless.)

Trump began his oration in part by expressing reverence for the American flag and troops, singling out in particular Preston Sharp, a 12-year-old boy who set up a crowdfunding campaign to decorate the graves of fallen veterans with miniature flags.

Then, he expressed much the same for police across the country and the Merkley snark began in earnest:

Follow @edercampuzano

--Eder Campuzano | 503.221.4344

ecampuzano@oregonian.com

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Police deserve unwavering support... unless they're investigating Russian attacks on our democracy. #SOTU  Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) January 31, 2018

Then, Trump touted the GOPs dissolution of the individual mandate, a key component of the Affordable Care Act that imposed tax penalties on folks who go without health insurance, to which Merkley responded with:

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Yes, individual mandate is gone and now 13 million will lose their insurance, premiums will go up 10% more than they were going to otherwise. #SOTU  Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) January 31, 2018

(The numbers are a bit inflated  the 10 million figure and others often touted by Democrats also include people who would opt to go without insurance, not exactly "kicking them off.")

When the president bragged about the regulations his administration has done away with in the last year:

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Lots of asthmatic kids are at home not cheering for the evisceration of regulations. #SOTU  Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) January 31, 2018

This is Merkleys response to Trump touting automakers opening new plants in the United States:

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Auto industry's growing in America. Thanks, Obama! #SOTU  Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) January 31, 2018

(The president was referring to Fiat Chrysler's new $1 billion plant in Michigan, while Merkley touted the Obama Administration's bailout of the auto industry in the years since the 2008 housing crisis.)

And then the president said he planned to drastically cut the price of prescription drugs, to which Merkley tweeted:

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Trump's HHS secretary was a senior Pharma exec while his company jacked up prices. #SOTU  Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) January 31, 2018

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Trump just called on Congress to let Medicare negotiate drug prices, right? Right? #SOTU  Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) January 31, 2018

When Trump announced his desire for infrastructure funding, pledging to bolster American production with the incentive:

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We'll build with American grit and all -- but what about American jobs? Why won't @realDonaldTrump stand behind Buy American? #SOTU  Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) January 31, 2018

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We'll build with American grit and all -- but what about American jobs? Why won't @realDonaldTrump stand behind Buy American? #SOTU  Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) January 31, 2018

(That tweet is a reference to findings that Trump products, including vodka and menswear, were not made in the U.S. The president's infamous "Make America Great Again" hats, however, are crafted in the country. Rumors about the caps being made in China have repeatedly been debunked by fact-checking agencies.)

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Trump's infrastructure plan is designed to encourage new #TrumpTolls in order to line pockets on Wall Street. We need a plan that puts middle class jobs and the needs of our communities ahead of his developer friends. #SOTU  Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) January 31, 2018

When the president announced his intent to close loopholes in immigration law that he said allowed violent gang members to enter the country, Merkley countered with a retweet of New York Times columnist  and former Yamhill resident  Nicholas Kristoff, who posted about a PBS report that dives into numbers that show immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born U.S. citizens.

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Trump is insinuating that immigrants cause violent crime. In fact, research is overwhelming that immigrants commit substantially fewer crimes than native-born Americans: https://t.co/z6zCy9ifeH  Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) January 31, 2018

And when Trump said he wanted Congress to act on immigration reform, Merkley replied with the following:

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If after ending #DACA and threatening to deport 800k members of our communities, @realDonaldTrump actually had second thoughts and wants to fix the problem he created, he should be calling on Congress to pass the #DREAM Act now, not issuing ransom demands. #SOTU  Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) January 31, 2018

(Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the Trump Administration's move to end DACA in September. In response, Democrats have stalled funding legislation in hopes of securing a deal for "Dreamers," the group of undocumented immigrants whose parents brought them to the U.S. as children who were granted temporary deportation protections and work permits under the Obama Administration.)

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Americans are dreamers and DREAMers are Americans! #CleanDreamActNow #SOTU  Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) January 31, 2018

(Merkley and Oregon's other five Democrats on Capitol Hill invited six Oregon Dreamers to the president's address.)

Although much of the State of the Union focused on policy proposals the Trump White House would take to Congress, the president did offer at least one action he'd take on himself. Trump announced that he would keep the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay open, a shift from his predecessor's proposal.

He also announced opposition to North Korea's nuclear ambitions and the conduct of a few other countries.

And Merkley had a tweet for that, too:

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North Korea is everything Trump says it is. But blustering threats are not going to make us safer. #SOTU  Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) January 31, 2018

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Bragging on sanctions against Cuba and Venezuela, however yesterday he declined to sanction the dictatorship in Russia that attacked the U.S. Curious. #SOTU  Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) January 31, 2018

Merkley, by all accounts, has done much of the legwork to test the waters for a 2020 White House bid throughout 2017. And his series of tweets Tuesday evening can only serve to survey the landscape should he seek the Democratic nomination in a couple of years.

But although the junior senator from Oregon was one of the states most vocal representatives as the president delivered his State of the Union address, he certainly wasnt the only one doing so.

Sen. Ron Wyden, another Democrat from Oregon, fired back at Trump throughout his speech, much as he does during town hall meetings when he travels back to the Beaver State:

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Massive increases in defense spending will make defense contractors rich and do nothing to make America safer. We cant afford to waste money on Republicans cronies while neglecting schools and roads.  Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) January 31, 2018

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.@realDonaldTrump has replaced one disgraced Health Secretary who worked to undermine health care with another who made a fortune raising drug prices. #SOTU  Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) January 31, 2018

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Throwing taxpayer dollars at Trumps wealthy buddies to privatize our roads, bridges and highways is not the formula for fixing Americas infrastructure. #SOTUhttps://t.co/Ih9qejYILO  Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) January 31, 2018

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Remember when the Trump Administration told Americas steelworkers to get in line and wait until after Republican tax cut? They are still waiting. #SOTU https://t.co/51DnUGPQVu  Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) January 31, 2018

So, what do you think?

Is Jeff Merkley readying a White House run in 2020? Will these tweets and stances help thrust him into the spotlight if he seeks the Democratic nomination?

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By EDER CAMPUZANO

The Oregonian/OregonLive

President Trump's first State of the Union address was met with skepticism and wariness by Oregon's Democratic senators and representatives while the state's lone Republican on Capitol Hill said the commander-in-chief said the right things on the opioid epidemic, veterans services and the economy.

Oregon Democrats were especially critical of the president on the issue of immigration  all six had invited "Dreamers" to the capitol as their guests for the speech, voicing their support for the estimated 11,000 Oregonians who stand to lose deportation protection and work permits if Congress doesn't extend or figure out a permanent fix for the Obama Administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Here's how Oregon's senators and representatives reacted to Tuesday's speech:

(This post will be updated as Oregon's elected officials release statements and responses to the president's first State of the Union address.)

Follow @edercampuzano

--Eder Campuzano | 503.221.4344

ecampuzano@oregonian.com

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President Lincoln said, you can fool some of the people all the time - and @realDonaldTrump is counting on that. #SOTU #RonReport pic.twitter.com/400FbqtS28  Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) January 31, 2018

Sen. Ron Wyden

Oregon's senior senator on Capitol Hill passed off the president's boasting as "fancy promises," countering by saying "the record says something else" and citing Trump's appointment of former pharmaceutical executive Alex Azar as his next Secretary of Health and Human Services as an example.

Trump has spent the past two years making grandiose promises to put workers and families first, but he and congressional Republicans are frantically working to reward corporations and the politically powerful, Wyden said in a statement.

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Reminder: this guy talking about people yearning for freedom wants to shut out refugees. #SOTU pic.twitter.com/kTd1pXquJa  Senator Jeff Merkley (@SenJeffMerkley) January 31, 2018

Sen. Jeff Merkley

Merkley's response to the president's first State of the Union address took the form of a live rebuttal of Trump's points in real-time.

The senator's chief of staff seemed as if it was engaging in a debate, perhaps setting up for what we could expect if he chooses to run a bid for the White House in 2020.

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Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, 1st Congressional District

Bonamici, whose district includes Yamhill, Washington, Clatsop and Columbia counties in addition to part of Portland and Multnomah County, called on the president to cease what she called "hateful, racist rhetoric."

You can read her full statement above.

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My reaction to President Trump's State of the Union: pic.twitter.com/8O6bA4NZiM  Rep. Greg Walden (@repgregwalden) January 31, 2018

Rep. Greg Walden, 2nd Congressional District

Oregon's lone Republican on Capitol Hill represents vast swathes of Central and Eastern Oregon and southwest regions of the state. Walden said Trump properly addressed the economy, veterans affairs, border security and the opioid epidemic.

"All in all, I thought it was a very good speech," he said.

You can watch Walden's full response above.

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Another performance by the reality TV star president doesnt matter. His destructive actions and divisive rhetoric over the last year, and their impacts on Americansthats what matters. #SOTU  Earl Blumenauer (@repblumenauer) January 31, 2018

Rep. Earl Blumenauer, 3rd Congressional District

Blumenauer, whose district includes much of Multnomah County and a portion of Clackamas County, opted to stay in Oregon during the president's address. Instead, he invited Dreamer and Portland Community College student Aldo Solano to attend in his stead.

Still, Blumenauer blasted the Trump's speech, calling it "another performance by a reality TV president."

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I was disappointed with President Trump's pandering, platitudes and props in tonight's #SOTU. You can read my full statement here: https://t.co/VvlxCYNd25  Rep Peter DeFazio (@RepPeterDeFazio) January 31, 2018

Peter DeFazio, 4th Congressional District

DeFazio, who represents Lane, Coos, Curry, Douglas and Linn counties and portions of Benton and Josephine counties, said the president's address was "short on policy and long on platitudes and props," criticizing Trump's approaches on immigration, infrastructure and the GOP tax bill.

We need to invest in rebuilding America, not sell it off. If the President is serious about developing a bipartisan plan to invest in infrastructure, he needs to forward a plan that both Democrats and Republicans can support.

You can read his full statement here.

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Rep. Kurt Schrader, 5th Congressional District

Schrader said he focused less on the president's words and more on the funding mechanisms Congress has used to pass federal budgets in the last few months.

"I thought about the dire need to update our roads and bridges throughout Oregon, the community health centers which my rural neighbors rely on that still dont have funding, and the billions of dollars in student loans that are keeping our kids and grandkids under water," he wrote, followed by a few words supporting Dreamers and his guest, Juan Carlos Navarro. "It is our responsibility as the legislating body  not the responsibly of the President  to write our laws and there is still so much work to be done."

You can read his whole statement here.Witnesses saw birds "falling from the sky" and the Audubon Society has launched an investigation after at least 10 crows have been found dead in Northeast Portland since Tuesday.

The Portland Audubon Society, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service were all called in after the birds were discovered in the area of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Northeast Jessup Street, the Audubon Society said in a statement.

"While it cannot be confirmed until the birds have been tested, the deaths are consistent with some sort intentional or unintentional exposure to toxic substances," Bob Sallinger, conservation director for the Audubon Society, said.

Crows flock to urban settings in great numbers during the winter months, seeking warmth, food and safety in numbers. They often gather in groups that can number in the thousands, and the noise and mess that accompanies the flocks can be a nuisance.

A similar die-off of crows, in which at least 30 birds perished, was reported in downtown Portland in 2014.

While 10 birds have been found dead in this most recent spate of deaths, Salligner said he fears the problem could be more widespread.

"We're picking up the ones that are easily visible from the street," he said. "But we're only able to see a fraction of what's out there. Our concern is that this could be much bigger."

Sallinger said if the birds are indeed being poisoned, it could be dangerous for more than just crows.

"We advise the public to NOT handle dead or sick crows," he said in a statement. "If this is a poisoning event, there is potentially a risk to both pets and wildlife that might scavenge the crows as well as to humans that may handle the crows."

As a protected species under the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act, killing crows is illegal except under specific circumstances and the Audubon Society offered a $1,000 reward for information "that leads to identifying the cause of this crow mortality event."

Anyone with information was asked to call 503-292-0304.

-- Kale Williams

503-294-4048When his drug customer wouldn't pay up, Pryce Lampkin forced the man at gunpoint to become his "personal Uber" driver so he could repay his $40 debt and collect money from others, prosecutors said.

Lampkin had the 20-year-old nephew of his girlfriend with him at the time and the two of them and their "driver" got stopped by Gresham police about 2 a.m. on Jan. 16, 2017.

Officers found a black .45-caliber pistol underneath the car. The Oregon State Police Crime Lab found the fingerprints of the nephew, Kelly Brister, on the gun's magazine of ammunition. The gun came back as stolen.

Kelly Brister, 20, (on left) and Pryce Lampkin, 32

Brister, 20, was sentenced Tuesday for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

U.S. District Judge Marco A. Hernandez was struck by Brister's age.

"Most of the time in federal court I don't see 20-year-olds,'' Hernandez said, adding that many defendants who come before him are in their 30s or 40s.

Brister, a convicted felon for an earlier gun offense, "has no business possessing firearms or being around firearms,'' said Assistant U.S. Attorney Leah Bolstad. She sought a sentence of three years and one month for Brister.

Brister's defense lawyer Ernest Warren argued that Brister held the gun briefly, as Lampkin tossed it to him, and then Brister threw it under the car.

"I want to talk about where you were and who you were with,'' Hernandez said, addressing Brister.

Brister's lawyer interjected, saying he had asked his client the very same questions just before the hearing. Lampster is dating Brister's aunt. The aunt had invited Brister to her home for dinner. After dinner, Lampster walked to a convenience store to buy some beer.

Brister went with him to get cigarettes, Warren said. Outside the store, Lampster spotted someone who owed him money for drugs and directed Brister to come with him. They both got in the silver Ford Focus, and Lampster held a gun to the driver's head and directed him to make several stops to pick up cash from other drug customers, according to court records. Lampster admitted he sold methamphetamine.

"Mr. Lister put a gun to somebody's head and you were there,'' the judge told Brister. He then asked Brister what he should do when Lampkin is sentenced.

Brister hestitated, then replied, "I would say put him away for a long time.''

The judge told Brister there are three things that continually get people in trouble: people, places and things.

"You've got to put it in your head, because it's so important for your freedom and your liberty, that you can't be around people like Mr. Lampkin,'' the judge advised Brister.

Hernandez asked Brister if he could think of one location that he should try to avoid in the future.

"190th and Stark,'' Brister said. "That's where I got arrested two times.''

The judge urged Brister to change the way he lives or he'll continue to find himself behind bars.

He sentenced him to one year and one month in prison.

"I believe your involvement in this case was minor,'' Hernandez said. "While you possessed the firearm, I don't believe you possessed it for anything other than a few moments.''

The judge promised that his sentencing of Lampkin next week will sound much different.

Lampkin, 32, pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking. Prosecutors will seek a five-year sentence for Lampkin, who has prior domestic violence assault and attempted robbery convictions.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonianAn Iraqi national who misrepresented himself as an U.S. intelligence officer in a letter to the prime minister of Iraq pleaded guilty Tuesday to unlawfully using the official insignia of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Wathiq Al-Ibraheemi, 34, entered the plea to the misdemeanor during his first appearance in U.S. District Court in Portland.

Al-Ibraheemi had served as an interpreter for the U.S. Armed Forces in Iraq about 10 to 12 years ago.

In 2009, he immigrated to the United States, sponsored by an Army officer with whom he had worked in Iraq, under the U.S. Significant Public Benefit Parole Program. The program allows the secretary of homeland security to temporarily admit foreign nationals into the United States for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit.

Al-Ibraheemi lived with the U.S. officer and his family. In 2012, he moved with the officer to Oregon, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Gabriel.

On Nov. 8, 2015, Al-Ibraheemi either wrote or caused to be written a letter to the Iraqi prime minister using a false letterhead that contained the insignia of the national intelligence office, the prosecutor said.

Al-Ibraheemi, appearing with defense lawyer Colin Hunter, initially told U.S. District Judge Michael A. Mosman that he "didn't know at the time'' that possessing the official insignia was illegal.

"Now I do know it, and am taking full responsibility,'' Al-Ibraheemi told the judge.

But that statement wasn't sufficient under the plea agreement, the prosecutor said. An element of the crime is that the defendant knew the offense was illegal at the time he committed it, Gabriel said.

Al-Ibraheemi quietly conferred with his defense lawyer.

The judge asked the defendant again if he knew what he did was illegal.

"I know at the time I shouldn't have downloaded it, possessed it, yes,'' Al-Ibraheemi said. "I'm not an expert in the law, even close.''

Mosman continued, "But you understand you were not authorized to have it?

"Yes sir,'' Al-Ibraheemi replied.

The prosecutor declined to say why Al-Ibraheemi sent the letter to the Iraqi prime minister or divulge its contents.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created after 9/11 to coordinate 17 foreign, military and domestic intelligence agencies in defense of the country and United States interests abroad.

Al-Ibraheemi will be sentenced on March 13. The maximum penalty is six months in prison, a $5,000 fine and five years of probation. He remains out of custody.

Under the plea deal, both sides will recommend Al-Ibraheemi face one year of probation.

He's currently a legal permanent resident of the United States and has taken steps to minimize any potential consequence to his immigration status, his lawyer told the court.

The judge, though, sought to make it clear to Al-Ibraheemi that there's still a "remote possibility'' that his plea could affect his immigration status.

"I hope not,'' Al-Ibraheemi replied, " but yes sir.''

An unrelated state case in Pennsylvania, in which Al-Ibraheemi is expected to enter a diversion program, will be resolved with this global plea, his lawyer said. In Luzerne County Courthouse in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Al-Ibraheemi was charged with falsely incriminating another, reporting an offense that did not occur and making a false statement to authorities. He was arrested on July 25, 2016, court records show.

He has prior addresses from Eagle River, Alaska; and Elkton and Eugene, Oregon. Most recently, he's been living in Beaverton, Oregon.

Al-Ibraheemi waived his right to an appeal in the federal case.

Oregonian news researcher Lynne Palombo contributed to this story.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonianOne of Portland's broadcasting pioneers died this month at age 92.

He wasn't a household name, but Larry Caramella's voice helped launch three Portland television stations and provided the soundtrack to countless commutes in the 1950s.

From her home in Oregon City, his daughter, Janice Leonetti, laid out a collection of memorabilia from her his nearly 40-year career, which ended with his retirement from KATU in 1985. She still has the puppet he used on a morning kids show, the 45 record box he used to host sock hops, and the advertisements for his rock n roll radio shows.

Lorenzo Caramella was born in northern Italy in 1925. He came to America as a toddler when his parents, who didn't speak English, fled Benito Mussolini's growing fascist party. They arrived in Oregon as farm workers dreaming for a better life.

Larry, as he'd come to be called, didn't learn English until he started first grade.

"At a very early age he was the vocal person, he was the translator for the family," Leonetti said. "He had a very good ear and so he really listened to his voice and started working with his voice quite early so he didn't have the accent."

Caramella attended Portland's Benson Polytechnic High School, but joined the Army in 1944 before graduating. Leonetti said he enlisted because he was suffering from pneumonia, and it was the only way the impoverished family could get him medical care.

The U.S. government healed him, then sent him to war.

When Caramella returned home, he went to a technical school and got a radio operator's license. His smooth voice and Italian heritage helped him land his first gig at KYJC in Medford.

"Evidently, there was an opera show where the DJ would introduce different operas," Leonetti said. "Well, my dad knew how to properly pronounce all of those Italian operas, so that was his entrance into KYJC. They hired him the day he came in to the first interview."

Caramella worked for several stations throughout the 1950s. When he moved to Portland, he hosted "Tune Shop" on KXL and the commuter-themed "Cara-melodies" program on KPOJ.

Advertising promoted Caramella as the guy "who loves everybody!" with "one big smile and a thousand voices." He was called KXL's "director of missing and stolen jokes."

"Lots of one liners," recalled Leonetti. He filled notebooks with joke ideas and tried them out on everyone he met. A trip to the doctor's office was a chance to work on new material, she said.

That comedic ability came in handy in the new world of television broadcasting. His family said he was the sign-in voice at the inception of three Portland television stations: KGW-TV in 1956, the now-defunct KHTV in 1959 and KATU in 1962. A photo from The Oregonian at the time shows Caramella, chief of the engineering crew, in his announcer booth during KGW's initial sign-on in 1956.

"In those days, the FCC required that you had to have a live person on the air and they had to be a certified licensed FCC engineer," said Les Badden, who worked with Caramella at KATU.

Caramella would announce the station name and introduce shows throughout the day. And since KATU didn't have a morning news show, he would push a camera over to the booth, put on a tie, and read the stories straight from the news wire.

"At that time in television, a lot of people did a lot of different things and nobody would pigeonhole you to say you can't do this or that," Badden said.

Which is how Caramella ended up appearing on various children's programs.

"At that time practically any station of any size had a kid's show, and they were really the personality of the station," said Dave Alexander, who produced and played the title character for KATU's Paul Bunyan Jr. Show in 1962. Caramella was the unseen voice and puppeteer behind Babe Junior the Blue Ox.

"Larry was a hoot," Alexander said. "It was basically ad lib but we would do things, like he had a hole in the back in of (the puppet's) mouth and it would chew gum." The two would play tug-o-war with the gum, made from a giant rubber band. "And we left it up to the kids whether he should chew gum or not."

In response, children from across Portland mailed the station packets of gum.

The Paul Bunyan show was cancelled after just a year and a half, but Caramella did character cameos on other kids programs hosted by Rusty Nails the clown and Heck Harper. In the 1960s, he dressed up as Count Boris Ghoulinov to introduce KATU's late night Nightmare Theater.

Leonetti has a few snippets of footage from her father's TV days, including an episode of Nightmare Theater. Caramella, caked in black and white grease paint and fake sideburns, wisecracks with his Igor sidekick.

At one point the Count brags about his career as a boxer, then picks up a rubber mallet, turns to hammer the corners of a prop coffin, and deadpans to the camera, "When I boxed them, they stayed boxed."

Leonetti's mementos recall a different time in Portland and in the TV and media landscape. We remember the news anchors and the beloved clowns, but it was guys like Caramella who made the magic happen.

-- Samantha Swindler

@editorswindler / 503-294-4031

sswindler@oregonian.comPolice are searching for a man who reportedly robbed a Northwest Portland bank Tuesday afternoon.

Around 5:25 p.m., officers responded to a report of a robbery at a Home Street Bank branch near NW 23rd Avenue and Burnside Street.

Employees told police that the suspect walked in and showed a note demanding money. They handed over some cash  police didn't say how much  and the man left the bank without incident.

Police looked for the suspect in the neighborhood but couldn't find him. The suspect is described as a thin man in his late 30s, 5-foot-7 to 5-foot-9.

Police are asking anyone with information about the robbery to contact Detective Brett Hawkinson at 503-823-1080 or brett.hawkinson@portlandoregon.gov, or the Portland FBI office at 503-224-4181.

-- Anna Marum

amarum@oregonian.com

503-294-5911

@annamarumParents determined to send their 9-year-old boy to the coveted Riverdale School District have filed a $55,000 lawsuit against their former landlords for allegedly providing a substandard rental home.

Scott Silbaugh and Shelli Greenslade snapped up the $3,950-per-month, Willamette River waterfront home in September 2016 because of the extremely limited pool of rentals within the school district's boundaries, according to the lawsuit filed last week.

But after moving in, the couple soon learned why there were 10 air fresheners plugged in around the 3,300-square-foot rental: The septic pump was malfunctioning and allowing raw sewage to seep into the homes crawl space, according to the suit.

Sewage gurgled up through the pipes of their bathroom sinks, shower and bath tub, the suit says. At times, the stench was so bad, they stayed with relatives or at a motel, according to the suit.

The suit lists landlords Joshua Falakassa and Bahram Falakassa as defendants. Joshua Falakassa, who is a Los Angeles attorney who specializes in real estate, didnt respond to requests for comment for this story. Bahram Falakassa couldnt be reached for comment.

The suit claims that after wrangling with their landlords and finding no permanent fix, the family was forced to move out last August. The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality declared the home uninhabitable a few weeks later, according to the suit.

The suit says the school district will let the couple's son remain enrolled through June, but he won't be allowed to attend any longer unless the family moves back in district.

Silbaugh and Greenslade are seeking $5,000 for their expenses moving out of the rental home, $5,000 for their future expenses moving into a new rental home within the district, a return of some of the rent money they paid and a monetary penalty for the landlords.

The lawsuit says Silbaugh and Greenslade moved from Chicago and chose Riverdale because their son would benefit from an array of specialists on staff.

The public school district has an enrollment of about 650 students and is nestled between Southwest Portland and Lake Oswego. Many out-of-district parents seek it out because it has some of the highest test scores in the state and relatively small class sizes, between 17 and 24 students.

Community members also pour money into the district, substantially boosting its resources. The districts charitable foundation asks families with students living in the district to give a nonmandatory $3,500 per a child.

If there arent enough school-age children living within its boundaries, the district accepts out-of-district students. Out-of-district tuition is set between $11,000 and $13,000 per year.

For this school year, 300 students applied for 50 available spots, said communications director Heather Crow.

Due to limited space, the district is now accepting only out-of-district students who are entering kindergarten, ninth grade and 10th grade.

Based on district policy, it appears that if Silbaugh and Greenslade continue to live outside the district's boundaries, their son wouldn't be offered the chance to re-enroll next school year because he's not entering kindergarten or the first two years of high school.

Portland attorney Pete Meyers, who is representing the couple, declined to elaborate on the details of the family's situation.

According to Silbaugh and Greenslades lawsuit, they're planning to move back into Riverdale to secure a spot for their son. But they will be fighting a tough real-estate market.

The website Zillow.com shows just one rental home on the market in the district, at $5,300 per month. Among houses for sale, only two are listed below $1.1 million.

The suit was filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court. Read the lawsuit here.

-- Aimee GreenVancouver commuters heading southbound on Interstate 5 this morning will have a slow go as a crash is blocking a lane on I-5 near Marine Drive. Back up, as of 6:30 a.m., extends to SR 500 in Vancouver.

Update 7:25 a.m.; The crash at I-5 and Marine Drive has been cleared. The backup into Vancouver has not. Expect slowing through the bulk of the morning commute.

Heads up for six nights of closures on the St. Johns Bridge beginning next week (Feb. 5). Inspections will close the bridge to vehicle traffic 8 p.m.-5 a.m. each night through Feb. 11. Pedestrians and bicyclists can still use the bridge during the closure.

Alternate routes for vehicles include U.S. 30, Interstate 5 and Interstate 405.

***

SHERWOOD 8:39 a.m.; Crash at Southwest Roy Rodgers Road and Borchers Drive.



***

VANCOUVER 7:55 a.m.; Crash blocking the right shoulder I-5 southbound at 78th Street overpass.



Update 8:25 a.m.; Cleared to right shoulder.

***

MARQUAM BRIDGE 7:34 a.m.; Stall about midspan on I-5 southbound on the Marquam. Watch for slowing.



Update 7:43 a.m.; Cleared.

***

TIGARD 7:04 a.m.; Crash I-5 northbound at Carmen Drive blocks the right lane.



***

BEAVERTON 6:47 a.m.; Crash on OR 8 (Canyon Road) eastbound at the onramp to OR 217. Use caution and expect delays.



Update 6:57 a.m.; Cleared.

***

The State of Oregon Transportation Commission is seeking public input on transportation issues and is looking for interested Oregonians to be part of the "Continuous Improvement Advisory Committee." This committee was created by the Oregon Legislature in the recent transportation funding bill, HB 2017. The committee will advise the commission on how to improve ODOT by recommending ways to make the agency more efficient, recommending measures to gauge the agency's performance, and addressing audits.

For information on how to join this committee, visit the ODOT website

The Historic Columbia River Highway bridge of the Sandy River (U.S. 30) is closed to vehicle traffic 6 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 4 for pressure washing. Bicyclists can still use the bridge during the work. Vehicles will be directed to an alternate route.

Check back throughout the morning for the latest commuting updates and follow us on Twitter: @trafficportlandWASHINGTON -- Addressing a deeply divided nation, President Donald Trump summoned the country to a "new American moment" of unity in his first State of the Union address, challenging Congress to make good on long-standing promises to fix a fractured immigration system and warning darkly of evil forces seeking to undermine America's way of life.

Trump's address Tuesday night blended self-congratulation and calls for optimism amid a growing economy with ominous warnings about deadly gangs, the scourge of drugs and violent immigrants living in the United States illegally. He cast the debate over immigration -- an issue that has long animated his most ardent supporters -- as a battle between heroes and villains, leaning heavily on the personal stories of White House guests in the crowd. He praised a law enforcement agent who arrested more than 100 gang members, and he recognized the families of two alleged gang victims.

He also spoke forebodingly of catastrophic dangers from abroad, warning that North Korea would "very soon" threaten the United States with nuclear-tipped missiles.

"The United States is a compassionate nation. We are proud that we do more than any other country to help the needy, the struggling and the underprivileged all over the world," Trump said. "But as president of the United States, my highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, and my constant concern is for America's children, America's struggling workers and America's forgotten communities."

Trump addressed the nation with tensions running high on Capitol Hill. An impasse over immigration prompted a three-day government shutdown earlier this year, and lawmakers appear no closer to resolving the status of the "Dreamers" -- young people living in the U.S. illegally ahead of a new Feb. 8 deadline for funding operations. The parties have also clashed this week over the plans of Republicans on the House intelligence committee to release a classified memo on the Russia investigation involving Trump's presidential campaign -- a decision the White House backs but the Justice Department is fighting.

The controversies that have dogged Trump -- and the ones he has created-- have overshadowed strong economic gains during his first year in office. His approval ratings have hovered in the 30s for much of his presidency, and just 3 in 10 Americans said the United States was heading in the right direction, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. In the same survey, 67 percent of Americans said the country was more divided because of Trump.

At times, Trump's address appeared to be aimed more at validating his first year in office than setting the course for his second. He devoted significant time to touting the tax overhaul he signed at the end of last year, promising the plan will "provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small businesses." He also highlighted the decision made early in his first year to withdraw the U.S. from a sweeping Asia-Pacific trade pact, declaring: "The era of economic surrender is totally over."

He spoke about potential agenda items for 2018 in broad terms, including a call for $1.5 trillion in new infrastructure spending and partnerships with states and the private sector. He touched only briefly on issues like health care that have been at the center of the Republican Party's policy agenda for years.

Tackling the sensitive immigration debate that has roiled Washington, Trump redoubled his recent pledge to offer a path to citizenship for 1.8 million young immigrants -- but only as part of a package that would also require increased funding for border security, including a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, ending the nation's visa lottery method and revamping the current legal immigration system. Some Republicans are wary of the hardline elements of Trump's plan and it's unclear whether his blueprint could pass Congress.

"Americans are dreamers too," Trump said, in an apparent effort to reclaim the term used to describe the young immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

A former New York Democrat, the president also played to the culture wars that have long illuminated American politics, alluding to his public spat with professional athletes who led protests against racial injustice by kneeling during the national anthem, declaring that paying tribute to the flag is a "civic duty."

Republicans led multiple rounds of enthusiastic applause during the speech, but for the opposition party it was a more somber affair. Democrats provided a short spurt of polite applause for Trump as he entered the chamber, but offered muted reactions throughout the speech. A cluster of about two dozen Democrats, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus, remained planted firmly in their seats, staring sternly at the president and withholding applause.

After devastating defeats in 2016, Democrats are hopeful that Trump's sagging popularity can help the party rebound in November's midterm elections. In a post-speech rebuttal, Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy, the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, was seeking to undercut Trump's optimistic tone and remind voters of the personal insults and attacks often leveled by the president.

"Bullies may land a punch," Kennedy said. "They might leave a mark. But they have never, not once, in the history of our United States, managed to match the strength and spirit of a people united in defense of their future."

The arc of Trump's 80-minute speech featured the personal stories of men and women who joined first lady Melania Trump in the audience. The guests included a New Mexico policeman and his wife who adopted a baby from parents who suffered from opioid addiction, and Ji Seong-ho, a defector from North Korea and outspoken critic of the Kim Jong-un government.

On international affairs, Trump warned of the dangers from "rogue regimes," like Iran and North Korea, terrorist groups, like the Islamic State, and "rivals" like China and Russia "that challenge our interests, our economy and our values." Calling on Congress to lift budgetary caps and boost spending on the military, Trump said that "unmatched power is the surest means of our defense."

Trump's biggest foreign policy announcement of the night concerned the Guantanamo Bay detention center, which former President Barack Obama tried but failed to close. Reversing Obama's policy, Trump said he'd signed an executive order Tuesday directing the Pentagon to keep the prison open while re-examining the military's policy on detention.

Trump said he was also asking Congress to ensure the U.S. had needed powers to detain Islamic State group members and other "terrorists wherever we chase them down," though it was unclear whether he was referring to a new war powers authorization or some other mechanism. Trump also said he wanted Congress to pass a law ensuring U.S. foreign aid goes only "to America's friends" -- a reference to his frustration at U.S. aid recipients that voted at the U.N. to rebuke his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Mrs. Trump arrived at the Capitol ahead of her husband to attend a reception with guests of the White House, but she rode back to the White House with him. It was the first time she was seen publicly with the president following a report that his lawyer arranged a payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, to prevent her from talking about an alleged affair. Daniels denied the affair in a new statement released hours before the speech.

By Julie Pace and Zeke Miller, Associated PressPresident Donald Trump said Tuesday he wants to work to unite the country, citing "tremendous divisiveness" - though perhaps not as bad as during the days of former President Bill Clinton's impeachment.

Trump's comments came during a lunch in advance of his State of the Union address with network television anchors.

"There's been tremendous divisiveness," Trump said, according to excerpts released by the White House. "Not in the last year, there's been tremendous divisiveness for many years. I would consider it a great achievement if we could make our country united."

Trump said the divisiveness stretched back to the presidencies of George W. Bush as well as Clinton.

"You take a look at that impeachment of Bill Clinton," Trump told the anchors. "I actually asked a longtime senator - happened to be a Democrat - 'Is this the worst you've ever seen it?' He said, 'Absolutely not. During the impeachment of Bill Clinton was much worse than this.' "

Trump added that many in the room were probably too young to remember the events that played out in late 1998.

"I feel too young to remember it, but I guess I'm not," Trump said, prompting laughter in the room, according to the transcript.

Asked for something he's learned during his first year in office, Trump said that a president needs to govern with heart.

"Having a business background and a successful business background is great, but oftentimes you do things that you would never do in business because you have to also govern with heart," said Trump, a former real estate developer and reality television star.

"You have to - you govern with all of the instincts of a business person, but you have to add much more heart and soul into your decisions than you would ever have even thought of before," he said, citing immigration as an example.

-- The Washington PostThe family of Sara Zghoul spoke for the first time Tuesday, mourning the 28-year-old Aloha woman whose body was found dismembered Thursday and thanking community members for their compassion.

"We have lost our daughter, mother, sister, and friend; beautiful soul who will remain in our hearts forever," it said. "Please continue to keep us in your prayers. May God bless you all."

They family has experienced a "generous outpouring of love, support and prayers sent our way," the statement said.

The family also thanked the detectives working on the case.

Jeremiah "Jeremy" Johnston, 35, was taken into custody Thursday night after authorities found Zhgoul's body in two suitcases in the trunk of a black BMW parked in a Aloha neighborhood.

Authorities haven't identified the suspect by name, but law enforcement sources say Johnston slit his throat and wrists and was found in a ravine 2 1/2 miles away from where Zghoul's body was found.

Washington County sheriff Deputy Jeff Talbot said investigators intend to arrest the suspect once he's out of the hospital. He declined to release information about the suspect's condition.

The statement from the Zghoul family comes after Jordanian news outlets published a statement that claimed to be written on behalf of the family. That statement contained false information, the Zghoul family said, and was published without their "corroboration or consent."

The Zghoul family's statement in its entirety.

-- Anna Marum

amarum@oregonian.com

503-294-5911

@annamarum

Oregonian reporter Shane Dixon Kavanaugh contributed to this story.Adapted from a recent online discussion.

Hi, Carolyn:

I got married two years ago. Neither of us changed our last name. Now I would like to change my last name to my spouse's. I'd like to tell my family before I do this.

My family hasn't been supportive of our relationship until very recently. We're a lady couple and the 'rents had big problems adjusting to that. I don't talk to them often. Part of the reason I am changing my name is because I am more connected to my spouse's family.

I guess I'm worried my family will take this personally and it will be seen as me disconnecting from my family at a time when we are working on being more connected. Thoughts?

-- Last Name

It is personal, though, so they would be right to take it personally. Yes?

lowellgordon/Getty Images

You have every right to take your spouse's last name, of course, with or without justification. It's just that actions always have consequences and there appear to be some foreseeable consequences to what you plan to do.

Are you ready for those consequences? If your family does take offense, and they respond by undoing your recent progress, will you regret the name change -- or at least your decision to do it now, amid "very recent" progress?

If you're ready to proceed now and to accept the consequences, then I suggest just telling your family in a declarative way. "I've decided to take Spousie's name. I just wanted to let you all know before I started the process."

Your phrasing suggests you want both to do something upsetting and not upset anybody -- i.e., detach cause from effect -- and the answer to that is, always, you can't. You can only choose your priorities and hope for the bets.

Dear Carolyn:

Is there a way to tactfully encourage one's spouse and siblings-in-law to start looking at moving their parents into assisted living? Both parents are around 90 and have had multiple falls already, with associated broken bones. Both have other health problems and neither should be driving (but they do). Their house requires several steep steps to get into and out of, although the building itself is a single story. The upkeep on their home is getting to be beyond them, but neither parent wants to admit they are unable to do what they used to. If we lived nearer, I'd certainly move them in with us if they were willing. Do I just bite my tongue? Do I suggest things to my spouse? Do I just hope they don't have any more accidents?

-- Anonymous

Why can't you just state the facts to your own spouse?: "Because of [this], [this] and [this], I think it's time to face that your parents aren't able to live on their own anymore."

If you can't, then that's as big an issue as the parents' infirmities. Tact is something most families stop needing after the second bone-breaking fall.

Maybe you need more appealing options, too. Depending on your in-laws' budget and insurance coverage, finding a caregiver to live with them might be worth exploring as an alternative to assisted living.

Stepping in on the driving isn't optional, though. Call their DMV to research your legal options.A chance encounter at the Beaverton Activity Center's Sweet B Cafe led to the development of the new BAC's Cedar River Room themed Think Big.

Bryan Locey, former Beaverton Rural Schools teacher and BAC founding member, didn't know Howard Weaver, a former BRS business teacher. The pair met eight months ago when Weaver sat down in the cafe and identified himself. Locey, who was volunteering in the cafe, later took Weaver upstairs to Weaver's former business classroom that he had in 1961-62. The visit inspired Weaver, as he proposed remodeling the room and made note for the committee to "think big" when doing so. He proposed a room that would encourage growth in the business, education, innovation and community development fields.

When the planning committee returned, their plan included a high-tech room featuring historical displays that would demonstrate the evolution of business education, combining the past, present and future.

The former classroom debuted recently. It is equipped with a 70-inch touchscreen webcam monitor with condenser microphone. Locey said the system provides a Bluetooth connectivity opportunity allowing participants to make creative use of graphics and information. The room features a high-tech conference table and a smaller breakout space.

Weaver was born and raised in Gladwin and now lives in Southeastern Michigan. He owns ATS Education Consulting Services. His business focuses on giving students a second chance for an education in the classroom and online. The schools serve more than 12,000 students in 43 different states.

"I had Mr. Weaver as a typing teacher, he was just a great teacher," said Sharon Clark, of Beaverton.

Weaver began his education in Gladwin's two-room Smith Creek School. When his family moved to another Gladwin County location, it could have forced Weaver to quit school. But, teacher Virginia Ross went out of her way to get Weaver to school. Twenty-one years later, Ross, then a Beaverton English teacher, welcomed Weaver as a colleague when he began teaching business.

Ross's daughter, Nancy Macklem, also a former Beaverton teacher and student, listened as her mother's memory was celebrated.

Guests also included Beaverton teachers spanning from the 1950s to present day, representatives included BHS business teachers Weaver, Sam Bagnieski, Macklem, Mary Erwin, Jennie Ewert, Michelle Roe and Clarence Metzger (represented by his son, Tom). BRS Superintendent Susan Wooden was also present for the room's debut.

Many memories were shared during the reception.

Tom Metzger said his dad made him take typing, despite his reluctance. However, the younger Metzger said the class served him well.

Macklem said she had her mother for English in the classroom.

Organizers tried finding a relative of typing teacher Norm Bertolli, who died a year after retirement in his Upper Peninsula home; yet, were not able to. But it was almost like he was there when founding BAC member Scott Govitz did an impersonation of Bertolli's distinctive voice and teaching manner.

"Eyes on your book. Stop, stop, stop, too early," Govitz said, recalling Bertolli.

Gwen Tweed and Jennifer Milks, recalled their memories of business teacher Erwin. Milks is now an accountant and Tweed owns her own photography studio. Milks said she thinks of Erwin every time she writes a check, because Erwin repeatedly told students never to write dollars because it is already written. Tweed said she really should have taken more business classes.

"Nancy Macklem, that's the reason I became a teacher," said Ewert, a former Beaverton student and now a teacher in the district. "I wanted to be her."

The pair later became colleagues and are now dear friends.

"I still have a hard time calling her Nancy," Ewert said.

Macklem recalled teacher Metzger, and meeting him for the first time. She said she never recalled such an influential man.

Some student's comments were included in visual displays throughout the room, accompanied by photos of students and their thoughts on their respective business teachers, vintage typewriters and older text books in the mix of a newly painted, carpeted and equipped room.

Guests at the room unveiling also were greeted by animator and former student David Rowe, of Portland, Oregon. Rowe, IT Tech manager at Laika Studios and formerly of Disney, gave those present an idea of how the two-way video equipment can be used.

Rowe was eager to be a part of the development of the room when Locey mentioned the renovation to him during a conversation.

"It feels like I'm in the room," Rowe said live from his office 2,400 miles away. "Hey Mr. B" he said to Bagnieski.

Rowe attended Beaverton High School from 1985 to 1987 before moving to California senior year. Since that time, he has been part of production teams for 19 animated films, including Walt Disney and Lasik Studio projects. His animated credits include "The Little Mermaid."

Rowe, who said Beaverton is part of his DNA, said just because you are from a small town, doesn't mean you can't go far in life. His philosophy fits in with Weaver's "Think Big" attitude.

"Thank you, Mr. Weaver, for bringing this to fruition," Rowe said.

Rowe also promoted the April 2018 kickoff of THINK BIG -- an ongoing series of informal and interactive lectures focusing on creativity. Rowe will be on site in April as the first guest speaker for the series.

The room shouts innovation, complete with a hanging "Think Big" wall mural. The mural was designed by BAC project members and Mitch Art.

As of Feb. 2, the room will be available for use for conferences and special presentations. State Sen. Jim Stamas R-Midland, visited the room last week before the unveiling and suggested he would be interested in using it in the future.

"The room will be used for business and educational presentations encouraging our small community to think large," Locey said. "It all ties in to the original mission statement of the Activity Center, linking the community's past and present with a promising future."

Lance Rynearson, a business owner ever since his days at Beaverton High School, served as one of the project's committee members, along with Mike and Carol Brown, Julie French, Scott Govitz and Bryan Locey. Rynearson formed his own disc jockey business while in high school and has since expanded his entrepreneurial endeavors in web design and app development companies. Rynearson installed the room's communications technology, noting his interest in "giving something back to the community."

Also helping with installation of carpet and room painting were BAC volunteers Brian Govitz, Glen Smith, Joe Swanton and Gary Clark.

Beaverton High School 1997 graduate Adam Woodruff, of Chicago, wasn't able to attend. But the relationship banking professional and customer account manager shared this, "In some cases, people don't expect too much from a small town. I've chosen to use that pre-conception to my advantage.

"It has inspired me to reach further and work harder for bigger things," Woodruff added. "Oftentimes, when you witness something exceptional from the unexpected, it is even more extraordinary."

Weaver said he does not want the project to be about him. He said for him, the endeavor was about giving back and encouraging those in smaller communities to think big and not put restrictions on your dreams.

"I'm a believer when you give, you teach others to give," BAC Treasurer Jane Rowley Smith said.A "global action project" aimed at helping a village in Nepal rebuild its school has led to a new international connection for Midland Public Schools  and a life-changing journey for two MPS teachers.

"It never would have been on my radar in a million years," Kim McMahan, Spanish teacher at Adams and Central Park elementary schools, said Tuesday. "It's one of the defining moments of my life."

McMahan and Karen Staley, a 6th grade science and reading teacher at Jefferson Middle School, traveled to Nepal Jan. 11-21 to attend the opening and dedication ceremony of the Saraswati School in Wana, Nepal, along with Midlanders Dave and Marcia Shannon, who first approached Staley and McMahan with the idea of a "Nepal Project" last September. The trip was made with the help of the Midland Area Community Foundation.

The Shannons had previously been to Nepal and knew about the village of Wana and its school, which was in serious disrepair from a 2015 earthquake. What started as an effort to raise $5,000 to rebuild the K-8 school ended up raising $14,000.

McMahan and Staley each lead a "culture club" at their schools, aimed at broadening the global understanding of students. Staley said the Midland students were able to see that they "literally changed the life of these students and teachers and parents in this village ... Now they're the envy of those around them."

An interactive Google page allowed Staley to answer her Jefferson students' questions while she was in Nepal (although not in live interactions  there is an 11-hour, 15-minute time difference).

The teachers have established a relationship with the teachers in Wana, and plans for further help to the village are being discussed.A theme spanning local talks on opioid abuse is lessening the amount of prescription medications in the community, and how to do it.

Dr. Robert Kuzel serves as president of the Midland County Medical Society, which hosted an opioid symposium for community members late last week. After that meeting, the medical society hosted a symposium covering responsible prescribing practices for medical professionals.

"We want to be able to educate the medical community," to treat pain and avoid sending people home with so many pills, he said at a roundtable meeting the next day.

Midland County Sheriff Scott Stephenson explained many people become hooked when they suffer an injury and are prescribed too many pills, then move to other drugs.

"I think the answer is to restrict the people who can prescribe these things," Stephenson said.

State Rep. Roger Hauck also was on hand and listed things on tap in the Legislature, including limiting prescriptions to seven days and requiring patients to go back to their doctors for additional medication, as well as requiring a face-to-face relationship with the doctor. Another item on the to-do list is requiring all doctors to use MAPS, the state's prescription monitoring program.

"Seven days seems to be the magic number," with the risk of addiction skyrocketing after that point, Kuzel said.

Dovetailing with changing prescribing practices are numerous actions being taken at MidMichigan Health.

"There is a lot of training that is happening," Kathy Dollard, director of behavioral health for MidMichigan Health, said.

Those include rules on the number of pills that can be given at one time, parents signing information sheets and waivers for their children to have prescription medications, as well as the creation of an information sheet on prescription medications and how to dispose of them safely.

Another item to help in the fight is a new pain scale to help doctors judge patient pain levels, she said.

Midland Police Chief Clifford Block asked those at the community symposium for a show of hands on who keeps their prescription medications in their drug cabinets at home to make his next point in how simple it is to keep pills from being abused.

"Come drop it off in our Dump Your Drugs box," at the Midland Law Enforcement Center, he told those who lifted their hands.

Kathryn Tate, community integration leader at The Legacy Center for Community Success, added the statistics for Dump Your Drugs program: In 2017, the collaborative program netted 3,674 pounds of prescription drugs.

From 2009 to 2017, the amount is even more staggering: 20,648 pounds of unused or unwanted medications were collected, she said.

Lori Ziolkowski, vice president of Families Against Narcotics Great Lakes Bay Region Chapter and professor at Delta College, said the misconception is opioids are safe because they are prescribed, and presented some additional facts about medications in Michigan.

Using the website ProPublica.org, Ziolkowski -- who once worked as a pharmaceutical sales representative -- found Vicodin is the most often prescribed medication in the state in the Medicare Part D program. She said the site shows the doctor who prescribes the most Vicodin is located in Bay City; sixth on the list is a doctor in Rose City, a situation she labeled a red flag since the city's population is only 633.

"Prevention is key," she said, later adding education is her mission.

Also working on prevention is Attorney General Bill Schuette, who attended the community symposium.

He said he is a part of a group of attorney generals across the nation that are investigating the production and distribution chains of drug companies, and part of a separate group that is calling on more than a dozen health care companies that provide pharmacy benefit management services to implement programs to reduce prescription drug abuse.

This is the third in a series of Daily News articles examining the topic of drug addiction.On Monday, recode reported that the Trump Administration denied that they would be rolling out a "nationalized 5G" network, stating that the document in question was "outdated." Regardless, seeing as this conversation happened right after the FCC's controversial decision to gut net neutrality, and the recent boom in cryptocurrency public interest, a new question lingers: What does it mean to have privacy online in 2018, when the government has proven itself more interested in fiscal development than the well-being of its citizens?

First, let's discuss what a nationalized 5G network would have meant...

Right now, most of our cellphone networks are connected to 4G (LTE) networks, with no companies offering any true 5G, which would make our current cellar connections look pathetic. Though debunked, if the Trump Administration's rumors were real, then America controlling a centralized ultra-Internet network would be terrifying. With approximately 77% of Americans using cellphones, companies like Verizon and T- Mobile would likely jump on the bandwagon, either selling their own 5G networks, or working in conjunction with the government. This would make the possibility of a Big Brother State a potential future, similar to China's new social credit system in 2020.

Internet anonymity has never been more relevant in 2018. In China alone, approximately 29% of Internet users utilize VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) to access websites which the government bans (i.e Facebook, Instagram, Google), while that percentage falls to 16% for America; a nationalized 5G network would probably have changed that. Another figurehead in the pursuit of free browsing, though straddling a legal gray-zone, is the infamous browser Tor.

Utilizing a complex system of volunteer-operated servers which sends encrypted connections through various relays on their network. This makes it nearly impossible for government officials to track where the user is at, since the location is constantly being moved. Well you might be wondering, who would need that much security?

Simple: Dark-net browsers. The dark-net, different than the deep-net, is a portion of the unsearchable net which is inaccessible by average browsers like Google Chrome and Firefox. In the underbelly of the Internet, various folk offers visitors a plethora of content, many of it highly illegal. There are tons of YouTube videos which talk about sites that you can visit. (Viewer discretion is advised: Lots of the content will make your stomach churn).

Currently, the dark-net is primarily the black market for anything and everything you could think of: prescription drugs, firearms, and of course drugs. Bitcoin itself, the hottest cryptocurrency now, was originally utilized on the Silk Road between dealers and customers to purchase substances without being traced using blockchain technology. This allows for all sorts of business transactions to happen, while many horrible, do set an example for what many folk want today: freedom to control their own wealth without the surveillance of corporations whom only have their own interests at heart.

With no true centralized bank to monitor the transferring of funds whether domestically or internationally, blockchain systems like Etherium, Neo, and Blockchain give people the freedom to spend and trade freely without being taxed or controlled, though the IRS is trying to change that. With no true centralized bank to monitor the transferring of funds whether domestically or internationally, blockchain systems like Etherium, Neo, and Blockchain give people the freedom to spend and trade freely without being taxed or controlled, though the IRS is trying to change that. Cryptocurrency went from an underground tech-nerd obsession to something that Wall Street bros talk about over Old Fashioneds, and apps like Coinbase are readily available for both iOS and Android's app stores.

If the average teenager knows about blockchain technology, it's officially left the underground.

The basic notion of a virtual presence is being challenged once again. Just like when the Internet went from something vague to becoming a staple in everyday life, tools for Internet privacy will become common knowledge once people's fundamental rights are threatened. No longer is it enough to simply set your Instagram profile to "private," or only allow friends of friends on Facebook to add you, the fundamentals of daily browsing are at jeopardy. Sooner or later, we're going to see something similar to the nationalized 5G network spawn in the States, thanks to the FCC.

The Republican majority has already taken anonymity from us; it's only a matter of time before the next bomb drops. Administration keeps the conversation around anonymity going, and we're all just praying for just a sliver of certainty.

Photo via GettyPatently Apple posted a report on January 17 titled "As the Dow Closes above 26,000, Apple Announces Mammoth Investments in the U.S. while Promising to Create 20,000 Jobs." Apple's contribution to the US economy over the next five years is to amount to $350 billion plus invest an additional $5 billion in an advanced manufacturing fund while hiring 20,000 new workers.





In one segment of the President's State of the Union speech before Congress last night he talked about the Republican tax cuts, plants coming back to America, and companies making huge investments in the country such as Exxon and Apple. The President specifically noted at the 16:20 mark of his address: "Apple has just announced plans to invest a total of $350 billion in America and hire another 20,000 workers." The news deservingly got a standing ovation.







On the same day that Apple made their investments in the U.S. over the next five years, they also announced in a second press release that they would give most of their employees a bonus of $2,500 in stock because of the tax cuts that will allow Apple to bring back most of their money that has been parked outside the U.S. due to the high U.S. taxes.





About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Those using abusive language or negative behavior will result in being blacklisted on Disqus.Rod Dreher has not been Catholic for a decade, but like so many ex-Catholics, he continues to hang around the Church and like many ex-Catholics, he seems to have a total expertise in everything about the Church at the drop of a hat, especially when attacking it. Its kind of like when there is some news report about some aspect of legal or scientific arcana and within minutes, people are online with total competence in Argentinian import/export law or are a dab hand at everything you need to know about climate science or relativity. It astonishes me how quickly people instantly master such matters and are totally qualified to hold forth on why Pope Francis is an absolute moron and traitor to the faith should he say or do something about Argentinian politics or write Laudato Si.

At any rate, last week was the story of Rome and the Church in China. I myself know nothing about the Church in China and Im inclined to think most Combox-Americans sounding off about the Church in China dont really know much either. The actual news article says the situation is complicated. But since American conservativesincluding those who abandoned the Church a decade agohave appointed themselves the defenders of all that is holy from traitorous Pope Francis, that did not stop Rod Dreher from excoriating him. The situation is simple: Francis is terrible and we should all hate him for at least 15 minutes Because China. As one of my readers magisterially declared, citing Drehers piece as her encyclical:

[Francis] has a great deal for which to apologize. How is this for a not-quite-unforgiveable  nothing is that  but its getting there. story: http://www.asianews.it/news . According to Rod Dreher of The American Conservative, asianews is an official Vatican news agency. Pope Francis is not a good pope. The Church will survive; we are promised that she will; but this is a major betrayal, not to be excused on the grounds that it will protect Catholics, because its much more likely to discourage them. The unchanging belief in this Pope shared by most people here astounds me.

Yes. Betrayal! Nearly unforgiveable betrayal! Francis is the *worst*. Combox-American conservatives say sopractically from the moment he was electedand since when have they ever been wrong in their encyclopedic knowledge of the Church in China, or unjust war, or torture, or refugees, or capital punishment, or building a wall, or a host of other issues?

Still and all, I dont know anything about the Church in China and Im highly skeptical that the people who already are filled with loathing for Francis and looking for any excuse to call him a traitor know anything either. So I wrote a reader who actually does have massive first hand experience with the Church in Chinaboth patriotic and undergroundand asked them what they made of Drehers piece and Romes actions. This is their reply:

This is such a horribly slanted article! it was actually Pope Benedict XVI who wrote an open letter to Chinas Catholics in 2008 encouraging those from the underground church to join the official church. His reasoning being that the Church in China stands strongest when it is unified, not split apart. After the initial shock from the popes letter died down, many from the underground church were willing to accept this. In fact, there were reports many Protestant church leaders who expressed they wished that their extremely splintered church in China could have the same opportunity for unification that the Catholics have set before them right now in China. The historic 2008 letter from Pope Benedict XVI was also a sign that the Vatican recognizes that the state registered church has come along way in 30 years in terms of formation, teaching, and service to the spiritual needs of the people of God. Priests, sisters and seminarians have the opportunity to study abroad and receive formation, a growing number of books on catechesis and the Christian life are available in translation, outreach activities are growing, and tens of thousands of Chinese are baptized into the Church each year. The state run church is growing, the teachings are orthodox, the Sacraments are valid, parishioners are growing by leaps and bounds. Yes, there is still censorship, oppression, politicking, and persecution that exists in various forms. But it is a Church whose people and clerics are very much heart and spirit members of the universal Catholic Church, even though not on paper or in an official sense. They pray for Pope Francis at every Mass and many of the popes written works are available in translation (through an official Chinese Catholic publishing house), his speeches and homilies often available online in Chinese within days if not hours for the Chinese faithful to read. Ive even been to some state registered churches that proudly display their official papal blessings for all to see. This is not a dissident church, but one that is very much alive in seeking after Jesus and His Truth. But yeah, the ppl who wrote that article dont know anything really about the Church in China and are still treating it like the 1980s. This is just another excuse to try to blast Pope Francis. The irony is that it was Pope B16 who actually wrote the 2008 letter that their unjustified moral outrage should extend to. This is not a black and white thing. The situation in China is a very complex matter with well balanced diplomatic efforts happening behind the scenes. Nothing here is being done lightly by either the Vatican or Beijing. And the Vatican does report persecutions and abuses by China. You can read it yourself. Its online. Pope Francis himself knows the wisdom of refraining from calling out China too harshly in order to create a healthy dialogue. He knows who hes dealing with. And he stands his ground behind the Chinese people. But if he gets into a Twitter storm with Beijing, then he knows China will only crack down harder on the Church, because weve seen it happen in the past under lesser circumstances. So these armchair pundits have no idea what theyre talking about. Im really pissed about that article. It is so one-sided and misleading. If you want to look up a good moderate who really understood China well and worked hard for improved relations to help the Church in China, look up Vincent Lebbe. Several of my trusted friends who have served the Church in China for many years are greatly inspired by his great and humble example.

I think I will trust somebody with a bunch of actual experience over the sudden expertise of Combox-Americans.Patna: While the response to the call for formation of yet another human chain in Bihar by Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) leader and Union Minister Upendra Kushwaha was anything but successful, the entire event resembled a political exercise designed to feel the pulse of other parties in the hope of formation of new alliances in Bihar.

Giving rise to speculations of a possible rift in the NDA in Bihar and murmurs of new alliances emerging in the wake of the collapse of Mahagathbandhan, all key members of the NDA including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Janata Dal  U, Lok Janshakti Party (LJP), and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) refrained from joining Kushwaha in his human chain on Tuesday saying the event was organized without any consultation with other members of the alliance and while they were indeed invited by Kushwaha himself, they chose not to join him since he had invited both Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress, the two arch enemies of the BJP, to be a part of the human chain.

"How can Kushwaha expects us to share the platform with him where RJD and Congress leaders are also present?" asked senior BJP leader Prem Kumar.

The RLSP President and Central Human Resources Minister for State had called for the formation of a human chain, an idea he borrowed from Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, to spread awareness about the right to education and improving quality of education in Bihar.

Kushwaha, who kicked off the event at the Miller High School ground in Patna at 11:30 am, was flanked by RJD leaders Shivanand Tiwari, Ramchandra Purvey, and other RJD leaders who said they supported the minister's cause that was meant to improve education in Bihar.

Incidentally, Kushwaha had participated in both human chains called by Nitish Kumar in Bihar  one in favor of prohibition and the second one just days ago to promote eradication of dowry and child marriage system in the state.

As reported, RJD national Vice President Raghuvansh Prasad Singh on Monday had said that the NDA was about to lose some of its partners as both Kushwaha and former Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi were looking a way out of it so they could join hands with the RJD.

Talking to the reporters, Kushwaha denied any rift within the NDA saying he had support of the BJP who were working behind the scene to make today's event successful.Iranian-American Zoroastrian Denounces 27-Year "Unjust" Prison Sentence in Letter From Prison

01/31/18

Source: Center for Human Rights in Iran

In a letter from Evin Prison obtained by the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), Iranian-American dual national Karan Vafadari has denounced the unjust and tyrannical 27-year prison sentence he was issued in Tehran along with his Iranian wife, Afarin Neyssari, who was sentenced to 16 years in prison.



Karan Vafadari and his wife Afarin Neyssari

The charges against Vafadari and Neyssari (who has US permanent residency) have not been officially publicized. But in a letter dated January 21, 2018, Vafadari said he was sentenced last week at a Revolutionary Court in Tehran for being a Zoroastrian dual national.

The court has granted me the honor of being the first Iranian to be convicted under Article 989 of the Civil Penal Code... It means my wife and me, and every one of you dual national Zoroastrians who returned to your country to invest in the homeland you love are always going to be in danger of losing your assets and being forced to leave the country, wrote Vafadari.

According to Article 989: In case any Iranian subject acquired foreign nationality after the solar year 1280 (1901-1902) without the observance of the provisions of law, his foreign nationality will be considered null and void and he will be regarded as an Iranian subject. Nevertheless, all his landed properties will be sold under the supervision of the local public prosecutor and the proceeds will be paid to him after the deduction of the expenses of sale.

The law also exempts these dual nationals from running for public office.

Unfortunately, my international activities [in the art world] raised the suspicions of the IRGCs Intelligence Organization, added Vafadari. Fortunately, the initial, baseless security accusations that led to our arrest were dropped, but our gallery, office, warehouses and home remained locked and our cars, computers and documents were confiscated, followed by accusations and interrogations that indicated a deeper plot.

Vafadari wrote that his sentence, issued at Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran by the notoriously hardline Judge Abolqasem Salavati, includes 124 lashes and a fine of nine billion rials ($243,000 USD).

Being a dual national is no longer a source of pride but a liability that could lead to your prosecution under the obsolete Article 989, added Vafadari, who lives in Tehran with Neyssari.

Iranian attorney Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaee told CHRI on January 30 that Article 989 only applies to individuals who have renounced their Iranian nationality. Vafadari and Neyssari have not renounced their citizenship.

In my 25 years of experience I have never encountered a single such case, said Tabatabaee.

Property Confiscations

Vafadari belongs to a prominent Zoroastrian family known in Tehran for their endowment to the citys Firoozgar Hospital. Recognized in the Constitution, followers of the ancient, pre-Islamic Zoroastrian faith have lived in Iran for thousands of years but are subject to discrimination.

In his letter, Vafadari wrote that before he was arrested, he was actively trying to regain some of his familys confiscated assets through the Iranian legal system.

Despite the chaos in the early days of the [1979] revolution, and even though my mother spent nine months in the same ward I am being kept in now, our familys love for the land of our ancestors was so strong that they did not leave the country when more than half of our agricultural lands were confiscated in the name of khoms [Islamic tax] and more assets were taken away from us for different reasons, he wrote.

In a letter to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei dated December 2, 2016, Karan Vafadaris sister, Kateh, noted that the couple had been arrested to fabricate a case for the purpose of extortion and property seizure.

The Islamic Republic has a documented history of unlawfully confiscating private property.

We should talk about this case and reveal what has happened to Vafadari, Koorosh Niknam, a former representative of the Zoroastrian community in Irans Parliament, told CHRI on January 30, 2018.

His assets have been confiscated. What was his crime? They say they found wine in his home and he was in contact with foreign ambassadors. That cannot be the basis of such a heavy sentence, he added.

Dual Nationals in Iran

Vafadari and Neyssari, art gallery owners in Tehran who are prominent in the Iranian artistic and cultural community, were arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Intelligence Organization at Tehrans Imam Khomeini International airport on July 20, 2016.

Two weeks later, Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi stated that two Iranian dual nationals had been charged with organizing mixed-gender parties for foreign diplomats and their Iranian associates and serving alcohol at their home.

According to the Constitution, Zoroastrians in Iran are not subject to Islamic laws on alcohol and mixed gatherings.

In March 2017, new charges were brought against the couple, including attempting to overthrow the Islamic Republic and recruiting spies through foreign embassies.

In recent months, the issue of dual nationals living in Iran has become a matter of public discussion in the Iranian Parliament.

The Iranian nationality of people with dual nationalities will not be nullified, rather, their foreign nationality will not be recognized, said Hossein Naghavi Hosseini, the spokesman for the Parliamentary Committee for National Security, on January 7.

Vafadaris Warnings to Iranian Zoroastrians

Writing about the discrimination suffered by Zoroastrians in Iran, Vafadari pointed to the case of Zoroastrian council member Sepanta Niknam, who was suspended from the city council in the city of Yazd in September 2017 for his faith.

Irans Guardian Council has declared that religious minorities should not be allowed to run for office in Muslim-majority districts. Despite this, one of its members has stated that in some ways, religious minorities in Iran have it better than the countrys Muslim-majority population.

According to [Guardian Council member] Ayatollah Modarresi Yazdi, the benefits granted to minorities by the Islamic state have no precedent in the world and, for their private use, they can enjoy some the things that are banned for Muslims, wrote Vafadari.

Vafadari, who as a Zoroastrian is allowed to keep alcohol in his home, added: I dont recommend that you make wine at your own home. I thought this was not illegal for the Zoroastrians who have had wine in their culture for more than 5,000 years. For this, I have been given a year and a half in prison, condemned to 74 lashes and fined 140 million tomans ($38,000 USD).

Secondly, dont accept alcoholic drinks as gifts from your friends and foreign diplomats, even if they brought them into the country from legal customs channels, because you could also be sentenced to three years in prison and a six billion rial ($162,000 USD) fine, like I have, he added.

Thirdly, with the approaching festivities such as the new year [March 21], I implore my fellow Zoroastrians to act cautiously for their own good, continued Vafadari. The reason is that holding mixed [gender] gatherings, which are very normal for us... will be seen as promoting indecency and they will sentence you to 15 years in prison for so-called corruption and depravity like I have.

Vafadari also criticized Zoroastrian MP Esfandiar Ekhtiari for failing to prevent his prosecution.

He wrote: In the end, I should say that if you get entangled in a legal misunderstanding, or if you refuse to cooperate with the authorities and are chosen for a hot branding, in the words of a judicial official, aimed at discouraging others, do not have expectations from anyone, not even Mr. Ekhtiari, the honorable representative of the Zoroastrian community in Parliament.

Unfortunately, he is overlooking the violations of my rights as a citizen during the judicial process under interrogation and after, he added.The Ghana National Gas Company (Ghana Gas) has announced the company will shut down the Atuabo Gas Processing Plant to allow for a routine maintenance on the facility.



The plant shutdown will commence on Thursday, February, 1, 2018 to help improve upon the plants capacity and also prolong its lifespan.



In a statement signed by the Head of Communications for Ghana Gas, Ernest Kofi Bempah and copied to Peacefmonline.com, the scheduled temporary shutdown, which would last February 1st, 2018 and February 25th, 2018 is to allow our team of engineers to undertake a planned routine maintenance on the facility to help improve upon plants capacity as well as prolong its lifespan. All key stakeholders including Ghana Gas, Tullow Oil, ENI, Volta River Authority (VRA) and Marinus have put in place the necessary mechanisms to reduce the shutdown duration which would have taken a total of 55 days to 25 days.



The Board of Directors, Management, Operations team, together with all our partners are working together to ensure that there is minimal disruption to power supply during the period, the statement further read.



Read full statement below:



PLANNED MAINTENANCE SHUTDOWN OF ATUABO GAS PROCESSING PLANT



The Ghana National Gas Company (Ghana Gas) wishes to inform all stakeholders including gas producers, power consumers and the general public that it has scheduled a planned maintenance shutdown of the Atuabo Gas Processing Plant starting February 1st, 2018. This outage is consistent with other shutdowns planned by our upstream and downstream partners.



The scheduled temporary shutdown, which would last February 1st, 2018 and February 25th, 2018 is to allow our team of engineers to undertake a planned routine maintenance on the facility to help improve upon plants capacity as well as prolong its lifespan. All key stakeholders including Ghana Gas, Tullow Oil, ENI, Volta River Authority (VRA) and Marinus have put in place the necessary mechanisms to reduce the shutdown duration which would have taken a total of 55 days to 25 days.



The Board of Directors, Management, Operations team, together with all our partners are working together to ensure that there is minimal disruption to power supply during the period.



During the shutdown, expansion works would be carried out on our Regulating and Metering Station (RMS) infrastructure at Takoradi which would help increase gas handling capacity from the current 135mmscf/d to 405mmscf/d. The increased capacity would add an additional 270mmscf/d capacity to the facility.



Upon completion of the maintenance works, major planned government projects such as the railways expansion project and the fertilizer production plants and other key government industrialization projects are expected to benefit.



The following key benefits are also expected from the remediation and expansion works:



a) Increased supply of 200mmscf/d together with the ENIs compressor.

b) A tie-in at Sanzule would allow ENI to transport about 170mmscf/d of lean gas from the Western power enclave and to the Eastern power corridor via the West African Gas Pipeline.

c) A tie-in with Marinus would also be undertaken for the delivery of Isopentane which would be used for power production and also minimize environmental impact.

d) Tullow Ghana would also undertake necessary remediation works on the turret bearing of the Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO).



The Board and Management of Ghana Gas wish to assure all stakeholders that we will be working with our partners to ensure system stability during the shutdown period and minimize the impact on power supply.







Signed



Ernest Kofi Owusu-Bempah

Head of Communications





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured VideoGhana Cocoa Board (Cocobod) is vigorously exploring prospects in the Chinese market for the countrys premium cocoa products, for which reason meetings have been ongoing between the two sides.



Cocobod also plans to make a good showing at the maiden China International Import Exposition to be held in Shanghai from November 5, 2018 to November 10, 2018.



A team from the Cocobod has already met officials at the Chinese Embassy; we have, again, met in Accra and our officers have started putting things together and it is because Cocobod wants to enter and explore the huge Chinese market for the cocoa products, Noah Kwesi Amenyah, Cocobods Public Affairs Manager, told the B&FT.



We want to send into that market value added cocoa products and not just raw beans; it will be good for us to get the Chinese public to know that Ghanas cocoa is the best and it has a lot of nutritional and health benefits and therefore they have to patronise it, he said.



Although Chinas individual chocolate consumption is considered still low, less than 5% of what major lovers munch in the west, market research firm Ebrun reports that the market for chocolate in China is expected to grow in value to 40 billion yuan (US$6.2 billion) by 2020.



Ghanas main export destinations are the Netherlands, with a market share of 12.88%, France 11.6% and USA 10.9%.



France and USA grew significantly during 2012-2016. Exports to France, especially, reached high growth rates. With an average annual growth of +23% over 2012-2016, the country became the second largest Ghanaian export destination.



Exports to Spain and Belgium remained quite stable during 2012-2016, with export values between US$5-40 million.



Total exports of cocoa products from Ghana amounted US$542 million in 2016.



Exports to the Dutch market dropped from US$205 million in 2012 to only US$70 million in 2016, a decrease of-24% on average per year.



Ghanas exports to China, on the other hand, is dominated by traditional or primary exports, such as unprocessed cocoa, raw metals, wood products, and petroleum oils, which account for 96 per cent of exports to the Asian nation, statistics from the Ministry of Trade show.



China International Import Expo



The China International Exposition is expected to attract over 100 countries and regions with various products. It is also expected that thousands of enterprises from these countries will attend the event, bringing up to a million commodities and services to the Chinese market.



China is therefore inviting Ghanaian manufacturers to enter its vast market to exhibit their products and to take advantage of the opportunity.



At a joint media briefing, Mr. Chai Zhijing, Economic and Commercial Counselor at the Chinese Embassy, explained that the exhibition is an opportunity for local business owners to woo foreign investors into Ghana.



He said: At the moment, as far as biological trade is concerned, Ghana is one of our top 10 trading partners in Africa.



But at the moment, Ghanas trade with China is in a deficit. So, that means that Ghana buys more from China than it exports, Mr.Zhijing said.



So, I think this Import Expo will be a very good opportunity for Ghana to show its potential  what it can offer to the Chinese consumers, he added.



Deputy Trades Minister, Carlos Ahenkorah, confirmed governments commitment to supporting local manufacturers and business owners in this regard, adding that the ministry is considering a proposal to acquire a pavilion in China to aid Ghanaian exhibitors.



We want to take advantage of the early bird offer and have a whole pavilion to ourselves outside the individual enterprises that are going to have their own, he said.



If our request is accepted; if our one-month moratorium is given, I can assure you that within the month of February we would be able to affirm our commitment to take a pavilion for Ghana in the expo, he stated.



Over the past decade, Chinas annual growth rate of retail sales have stayed above 10%. While Chinese consumers are now starting to value quality over price, imported goods are gaining popularity.



In the past, importing market was dominated by large overseas companies. Nowadays, small and medium-sized businesses are selling huge amounts of products into China via new channels, such as shopping agents, supermarkets, and E-commerce.



Chinas food and agricultural imports keep growing in recent years. In 2016, total import of food reached US$50 billion, and import of agricultural products were more than $110 billion. 







Source: B&FT









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Germanys top diplomat has just informed the United States that they no longer see the United States as the ally they once were, saying that the leadership under President Donald Trump has led Europe on a path toward nuclear war.



German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel told the Berlin Foreign Policy Forum that Germany would start to go after its own agenda, whether the U.S. likes it or not because the West was losing influence around the world now that Trump is president.



Read Full Story .... groopspeak.com >>> :

















Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured VideoThe government of Ghana wants a consortium to build and operate a 330kilometre narrow gauge rail link that will connect the new port development at Tema with Accra, the countrys capital, and the city of Kumasi in the centre of the country.



With only around 13% of its railway network currently operating, Ghana has issued a request for expressions of interest, with a deadline of 23 February for receipt of applications.



The project will include the financing, construction, operation and maintenance of the line, as well as the provision of rolling stock, station upgrades, signalling and communication equipment. The line will have a speed of around 150km/h for passengers. As yet, no budget has been suggested for the scheme, although if the cost per kilometre is similar to Nigerias coastal railway, the cost will be something like $1bn.



The railway is vital if Ghana is to make its $1.5bn scheme to triple the capacity of Tema worthwhile. This project is presently being undertaken by a joint venture between French operator Bollore and its Dutch counterpart APM Terminals, with US giant Aecom on board to manage the construction works.



Tema will be complemented by the Boankra dry port at Kumasi. Work on this was begun in 1990, but the scheme was never completed.



The Eastern Railway project is part of the Ghana Railway Development Authoritys railway masterplan. This programme of works, which will unfold in six stages, is intended to modernise the countrys network and add another 4,000km to its length.



According to the government of Ghana, only 130km of the 947km network is operational at present. Most of the network was built in the 1920s or before; no new development has taken place since 1956. In most rural areas, the tracks are overgrown with weeds.



In December last year, the government held an international conference in Accra to get an idea of whether international firms were interested in the scheme.



One of the attendees, Donald Kress, chief executive of US company Railnet International, commented at the time: One reason why we are here is that Ghana wants to build the rail system. They have realized the economic viability of having a solid rail system.

Source: Daily Graphic









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured VideoMaverick member of parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong, has refuted claims that he was prevented from seeing Vice-President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia at his London hospital.



It was reported in the Herald newspaper that Mr. Agyapong, who was in London to attend a memorial service of Joseph Ayi Ankrah, father to Ray Ankrah, the Financial Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the United Kingdom (UK) tried to see Vice-President Bawumia, but was not allowed.



According to the paper, an angry Ken Agyapong, has been expressing his displeasure to some of his partys executives in the UK over the matter.



A release from the Flagstaff house last Friday indicated that the Vice President of the Republic, Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia was feeling unwell and thus had undergone some medical tests and observation.



The release which was signed by Eugene Arhin, Director of Communications at the Presidency, was later followed by another release from the Chief of Staff, Frema Opare, who stated that the Veep had left the country for UK in the company of his wife, Samira Bawumia, on the advice of his doctors.



Later reports suggested that Mr. Kennedy Agyapong was prevented from seeing the Vice President for fear that he might go public with on his medical condition to embarrass the Akufo-Addo government which has been controlling the situation.



However speaking on Adom TV Tuesday, the NPP MP said he did not know that the Vice President had even been flown to the UK for treatment or anything of its kind until he run into the Second Lady, Hajia Samira Bawumia at Landmark hotel while having his breakfast.



I was at the Landmark hotel and as I got down to take my breakfast I was informed by Yoofi Grant that the Veep had collapsed and has been rushed to the hospital.



We were still sitting at the restaurant when we saw Samira who was also around and told us about Bawumias health but added that he is doing well to which I asked her to send my regards to him.



He explained that he wanted the Vice President to have enough rest and therefore never bothered to visit since Hajia Samira Bawumia had told him everything he needed to know.



He continued that The following day we saw Samira again and she told us she has delivered my message to him and we laughed he explained.



I never visited the hospital. In fact, I didnt know the route to the hospital. I only told Samira to wish him well and so I dont understand why people are claiming I was prevented from seeing him.



When I learned he was sick, I just told myself it was fatigue and therefore he needed to rest so where from that baseless report? I never went there. Even his bodyguards respects me and always bow to me and would never sack me he quizzed.



Meanwhile, the Minister of State in charge of National Security, Bryan Acheampong has revealed that Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia is expected to return to Ghana from the United Kingdom (UK) latest by Friday, February 2, 2018.

Source: adomonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured VideoWashington: President Donald Trump, during the State of the Union speech, on Wednesday said that the US would end the visa lottery method and revamp the current legal immigration system.



Trump redoubled his recent pledge to offer a path to citizenship for 1.8 million young immigrants  but only as part of a package that would also require increased funding for border security, including a wall along the US-Mexico border.



He said his administration presented a four-pillar proposal "that should be supported by both parties as a fair compromise."



"The third pillar ends the visa lottery  a program that randomly hands out green cards without any regard for skill, merit, or the safety of American people," Trump said Jan. 30.



Addressing a deeply divided nation, the President called for a "new American moment" of unity and challenged lawmakers to make good on long-standing promises to fix a dangerously fractured immigration system, warning of evil outside forces seeking to undermine the nation's way of life.



The address blended self-congratulation and calls for optimism amid a growing economy with dark warnings about deadly gangs, the scourge of drugs and violent immigrants living in the United States illegally. Trump cast the debate over immigration  an issue that has long animated his most ardent supporters  as a battle between heroes and villains, praising the work of an immigration agent who arrested more than 100 gang members and saluting the families of two alleged gang victims.



He also spoke forebodingly of catastrophic dangers from abroad, warning that North Korea would "very soon" threaten the United States with nuclear-tipped missiles.



"The United States is a compassionate nation. We are proud that we do more than any other country to help the needy, the struggling and the underprivileged all over the world," Trump said. "But as president of the United States, my highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, and my constant concern is for America's children, America's struggling workers and America's forgotten communities."



Trump spoke with tensions running high on Capitol Hill. An impasse over immigration prompted a three-day government shutdown earlier this year, and lawmakers appear no closer to resolving the status of the "Dreamers"  young people living in the US illegally ahead of a new Feb. 8 deadline for funding operations. The parties have also clashed this week over the plans of Republicans on the House intelligence committee to release a classified memo on the Russia investigation involving Trump's presidential campaign  a decision the White House backs but the Justice Department is fighting.



The controversies that have dogged Trump  and the ones he has created have overshadowed strong economic gains during his first year in office. His approval ratings have hovered in the 30s for much of his presidency, and just 3 in 10 Americans said the United States was heading in the right direction, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. In the same survey, 67 percent of Americans said the country was more divided because of Trump.



At times, Trump's address appeared to be aimed more at validating his first year in office than setting the course for his second. He devoted significant time to touting the tax overhaul he signed at the end of last year, promising the plan will "provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small businesses." He also highlighted the decision made early in his first year to withdraw the US from a sweeping Asia-Pacific trade pact, declaring: "The era of economic surrender is totally over."



He spoke about potential agenda items for 2018 in broad terms, including a call for $1.5 trillion in new infrastructure spending and partnerships with states and the private sector. He touched only briefly on issues like health care that have been at the center of the Republican Party's policy agenda for years.



Trump played to the culture wars, alluding to his public spat with professional athletes who led protests against racial injustice by kneeling during the national anthem, declaring that paying tribute to the flag is a "civic duty".



Republicans led multiple rounds of enthusiastic applause during the speech, but for the opposition party, it was a more sombre affair.



Democrats provided a short spurt of polite applause for Trump as he entered the chamber, but offered muted reactions throughout the speech.



A cluster of about two dozen Democrats, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus, remained planted firmly in their seats, staring sternly at the president and withholding applause.



After devastating defeats in 2016, Democrats are hopeful that Trump's sagging popularity can help the party rebound in November's midterm elections. In a post-speech rebuttal, Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy, the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, was seeking to undercut Trump's optimistic tone and remind voters of the personal insults and attacks often levelled by the president.



"Bullies may land a punch," Kennedy said, according to excerpts from his remarks. "They might leave a mark. But they have never, not once, in the history of our United States, managed to match the strength and spirit of a people united in defense of their future."



On international affairs, Trump warned of the dangers from "rogue regimes," like Iran and North Korea, terrorist groups, like the Islamic State, and "rivals" like China and Russia "that challenge our interests, our economy and our values." Calling on Congress to lift budgetary caps and boost spending on the military, Trump said that "unmatched power is the surest means of our defense."



The president also announced that he had signed an executive order directing the Department of Defense to keep open the US prison at Guantanamo Bay. The order reverses the Obama-era policy of the executive branch, long stymied by Congress, to close the prison.



First lady Melania Trump, who has largely stayed out of the spotlight following the latest allegations of Trump infidelity, arrived at the capitol ahead of her husband to attend a reception with guests of the White House. Those sitting alongside the first lady included an Ohio welder who the White House says will benefit from the new tax law and the parents of two Long Island teenagers who were believed to have been killed by MS-13 gang members.

Source: www.news18.com









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Featured VideoAviation Minister, Cecilia Dapaah has been voted the 'Best Minister' for the month of January 2018.



This comes as no surprise after Ghanaians both home and abroad heaped praises on the former Bantama Legislator and first woman to head the newly created Aviation Ministry.



A total of five hundred (500) questionnaires were distributed to 500 respondents from different fields of endeavor by the Centre for Transport Security Dialogue (CETSED).



In all a whooping 375 representing 75% voted to adjudge Cecilia Dapaah as the Best Minister.



Majority of the respondents cited her honest and blunt comments over the substandard services of British Airways leading to a review of the airlines operations.



January 18, 2018 will forever remain indelible in the minds and hearts of Ghanaians after the Minister blasted the supposed almighty British airways with decades of experience in the airline business.



The Minister of Aviation is on record to have issued a strong warning over the unacceptable and poor standards by British airways in recent times.



The Minister hinted that government will take drastic action against the airline if it continues to provide substandard treatment to passengers flying its routes to Ghana.



The caution follows an incident that occurred on a bedbug-infested British Airways plane, bound for the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) from Heathrow.



The passengers of the aircraft after seeing the bedbugs few minutes before takeoff protested, and subsequently staged a walk off, leading to delays in the flight.



The motive behind the monthly ministerial survey is to motivate and inspire hardworking officials rather than condemn and lambast.



Respondents are optimistic that should the Minister continue like this, achieving our dream status in the aviation sector will be a reality.



Some of the respondents also advised the Ministry to work towards completing the projects and policies inherited while initiating more viable ones to justify that government is indeed a continuous process.



In all majority of the respondents interviewed believe that, the current minister has what it takes to make the sector more attractive to investors.



It will be recalled that, during the swearing in of the Board of Directors of Ghana Civil Aviation Authority the hardworking Minister reminded members of the President's vision to re-brand Kotoka International airport as the hub of aviation industry in West Africa in order to position Ghana as the preferred destination of choice.



This vision encouraged the Nana Akufo-Addo led administration through the Finance Minister to remove the 17.5% VAT on domestic airfares to help boost competition and growth in the sector.



CETSED is by this piece congratulating the Aviation Minister for the excellent leadership role exhibited and the measurable results shown.



Centre for Transport Security Dialogue (CETSED) is a Non-Governmental Organization, working with stakeholders in the transport sub sectors through advocacy for safer, secured and transparent transport systems.



The center focuses on research, capacity building and dialogue to advocate for policies that enhance the development of the transport sector.



CETSED is of the view that after a year in office, the public can be engaged to help in measuring the performance of ministers based on not just utterances but real actions.







Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured VideoThe Hill recently reported on a number of states where 2018 will see raises in the minimum wage. Indiana, of course, was conspicuously absent from their list.

The lowest wage workers in 18 states will get a boost in their paychecks starting on New Years Day, as minimum wage hikes take effect. Many of the wage hikes are phased-in steps toward an ultimately higher wage, the product of ballot initiatives pushed by unions and workers rights groups over the last few years. The minimum wage in Washington state will rise to $11.50 an hour, up 50 cents and the highest statewide minimum in the nation. Over the next three years, the wage will rise to $13.50 an hour, thanks to a ballot measure approved by voters in 2016. Mainers will see their minimum wages rise the most, from $9 an hour to $10 an hour, an 11 percent increase. Voters approved a ballot measure in 2016 that will eventually raise the wage to $12 an hour by 2020. Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont will see their minimum wages increase by at least 50 cents an hour. Smaller increases take effect in Alaska, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, Ohio and South Dakota.

Our overlords at the Indiana Statehouse like to brag that keeping Indiana a low wage right to work state means we are attractive to businesses looking to relocate. What they dont seem to understand is the flip side of the equation, beginning with the states inability to provide the quality of life amenities (not to mention smooth highways) that appeal to businesses proposing to relocate. Higher wages would generate more tax dollars. Higher wages would also reduce the number of people whodespite working full-timemust depend upon social welfare programs funded by tax dollars simply to make ends meet.

I have posted before about the ALICE study, conducted a couple of years ago by Indianas United Ways. That study found

More than one in three Hoosier households cannot afford the basics of housing, food, health care and transportation, despite working hard.

In Indiana, 37% of households live below the Alice threshold, with some 14% below the poverty level and another 23% above poverty but below the cost of living.

These families and individuals have jobs, and many do not qualify for social services or support.

The jobs they are filling are critically important to Hoosier communities. These are our child care workers, laborers, movers, home health aides, heavy truck drivers, store clerks, repair workers and office assistantsyet they are unsure if theyll be able to put dinner on the table each night.

Here in Indiana, we dont seem to find ALICE poverty problematic or immoral, despite the fact that virtually all of us who are more privileged depend upon the services these people provide.

Even more immoral, in my humble opinion, is having my tax dollars effectively paying a portion of the wages of Walmart, McDonalds and other big employers workers. As I have previously posted,

Walmart generates nearly $500 billion in revenue annually; over the past five years, its yearly profits have averaged $15.5 billion dollars, and the family that owns it has a net worth of $129 billion dollars. Despite its obvious ability to do so, the company declines to pay its employees a living wage, instead relying upon government programstaxpayer dollars to make up the difference between its workers paychecks and what they need to make ends meet. In essence, when a Walmart employee must rely on food stamps or other safety-net benefits, taxpayers are paying a portion of that employees wages. Walmart (including its Sams Club operation) is currently the largest private employer in the countryand one of the largest recipients of corporate welfare. Walmart employees receive an estimated $6.2 billion dollars in taxpayer-funded subsidies each year. Money not paid out in salary goes directly to the shareholders bottom line.

The Indiana legislature declines to offer even a modicum of help to the third of Hoosiers who are working for below-subsistence wages, but they are evidently happy to continue subsidizing the wealthy.

The Hoosier bottom line.

[Originally published at SheilaKennedy.net on January 31, 2018]

Peacock Panache readers:

Sheila Kennedy is a former high school English teacher, former lawyer, former Republican, former Executive Director of Indianas ACLU, former columnist for the Indianapolis Star, and former young person. She is currently an (increasingly cranky) old person, a Professor of Law and Public Policy at Indiana University Purdue University in Indianapolis, and Director of IUPUIs Center for Civic Literacy. She writes for the Indianapolis Business Journal, PA Times, and the Indiana Word, and blogs at www.sheilakennedy.net. For those who are interested in more detail, links to an abbreviated CV and academic publications can be found on her blog, along with links to her books..

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We hope you enjoyed reading this article! If you would like to support our ongoing work, please consider buying us a cup of coffee. It's not much, but we don't do this for the money. We do, however, need caffeine to keep going some days!If you do donate, send us a message through our Contact Us page or via social media so we can thank you!Writer, businesswoman and lifestyle TV series host Martha Stewart made a recent stop in Lancaster County.

The creator of "Martha Stewart Living" magazine and the corresponding television series visited Scratch Bakes at 3 West Main Street in Ephrata this week, according to a January 30 post on her Instagram account.

Stewart's visit was "like a full circle moment" for Scratch Bakes owner Laura Will, according to Lancaster Online.

"I grew up watching her shows and my mother always had her magazine," Will told Lancaster Online. "For her to come in my tiny little bakery, that's amazing."

Scratch Bakery also shared Stewart's Instagram post, adding their own excitement about her visit:

WHEN MARTHA STEWART COMES TO EAT AT YOUR BAKERY!!!!!!!!!  @marthastewart48 Sooooo honored to have you visit us!! #marthainephrata #marthastewart #scratchbakes #somuchyum #lancastercountypa #lancasterpa Posted by Scratch Bakes on Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Stewart also visited central Pennsylvania over the summer of 2016, where she bought produce at the Harvest Lane Farm Market in Lititz.

For more info on Scratch Bakes, check out their website or visit their Facebook page.You can't bring full-size shampoo on a plane. Apparently, you can't bring your emotional support peacock either.

United Airlines turned away Brooklyn artist Ventiko and her big bird Dexter, after she tried to bring the service peacock onboard her flight from Newark Liberty International Airport to Los Angeles.

Ventiko even bought the colorful bird -- which has its own Instagram account --its own seat, but it was still denied entry past the ticketing area of the airport, United Airlines spokesperson Andrea Hiller said.

"The animal did not meet guidelines for a number of reasons, including its size and weight," Hiller said. "We explained this to the customer on three separate occasions before they arrived at the airport."

It was a six-hour ordeal, according to the bird's Instagram. Dexter typically travels through New York via Uber or subway, just like any other New Yorker, according to The Cut.

Peacocks have a wingspan of up to five feet, can weigh up to 13 pounds and grow between 35 and 50 inches long, according to Wildlife Waystation.

In January 2016, a turkey boarded a Delta flight as an emotional support animal, USA Today reported. And in October 2016, Daniel, an emotional support duck, flew from Charlotte to Asheville, N.C., according to the Washington Post.

The airline has seen a 75 percent year-over-year increase in customers bringing emotional support animals on flights, as well as an uptick in onboard incidents involving those animals, Hiller said.

"We know that some customers require an emotional support animal to assist them through their journey," she said. "In our effort to better balance protecting our employees and customers while accommodating passengers with disabilities, we are reviewing our existing policy and plan to share more soon."

The entry denial comes on the heels of Delta Airline's announcement to crack down on service or support animals, citing an 84 percent increase in animal incidents including urination, biting and an attack by a 70-pound dog.

Effective March 1, Delta will require passengers traveling with service or support animals to show proof of good health and up-to-date immunizations with 48 hours notice, according to a statement.

A signed document confirming the animal is trained and can behave for the duration of flight will also need to be presented prior to boarding.A chartered Amtrak train carrying Republican members of Congress to a retreat has crashes in Virginia after hitting a truck, according to reports from news sites and Twitter.

No lawmakers were believed injured in the accident, the Associated Press reports.

Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry was on the train but not hurt, according to a message on his verified Twitter account.

Fox News reports:

It appears the train collided with a dump truck, which may have been stuck on the tracks.

Some members were thrown from their seats, Fox News is told.

A GOP source said the accident took place near

. Members were on a special chartered Amtrak train.

From The Washington Post:

"We appear to have hit a garbage truck," said Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who was reached by telephone on board the train.

"It looks like it's been maybe cut in half. We can see garbage strewn around and we can see the back half of the truck. There was a feeling of an impact and you could feel we had hit something. It took us maybe a quarter mile to stop."

Lee said there are a few people "roughed up. Most of us hit a knee or a head on the seat in front of us but nothing too serious on board. I'm not sure about the driver of the truck yet."

People on the train have been tweeting about the situation:

NOW: Amtrak train collides with garbage truck in Crozet. Nurse on scene reports at least one fatality and at least one in critical condition. NBC29 is on scene and will bring you more details as we get them. pic.twitter.com/eU0uYL0JQx  NBC29 (@NBC29) January 31, 2018

Im on the train w/members of Congress that was just involved in a crash. Im ok. Most members are ok but serious injuries on the ground.  James Comer (@KYComer) January 31, 2018

Local news outlet reporting a fatality in GOP's train crash with truck https://t.co/H1OIE9YkoK  Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) January 31, 2018

BREAKING: I'm on the scene of a train crash with a tractor trailer in Crozet. More at noon on @CBS19News pic.twitter.com/KuyJMVpRRG  Laura Perrot (@LauraCPerrot) January 31, 2018

The train carrying GOP members to our retreat had a collision, but Rebecca and I are both okay. Security and doctors on board are helping secure the scene and treat injuries.  Rep. Bradley Byrne (@RepByrne) January 31, 2018

---> Congressman Roger Marshall, who is also a doctor, is helping people injured in the train crash  Trey Yingst (@TreyYingst) January 31, 2018

Sources say @SpeakerRyan is fine. He was not injured in the train crash with a truck as GOP lawmakers travel to WVA retreat.  Kelly O'Donnell (@KellyO) January 31, 2018

Just learned of the crash involving the train carrying Republican Members of Congress to their retreat today. Praying that all are well both on the train and off.  Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) January 31, 2018

Crash at train crossing involving AMTRAK and garbage truck. Courtesy WCAV, Charlottesville. pic.twitter.com/cLHg1uhz68  Mark Knoller (@markknoller) January 31, 2018

Rep. John Faso is on the train, and tells me there was a "loud crash" and he can see the truck that the train collided with. Worry currently is that there may have been injuries of people in the truck.  MJ Lee (@mj_lee) January 31, 2018

This story has been updated.A 74-year-old Mount Joy man will serve at least 19-and-a-half years in prison after pleading guilty to stabbing an employee during a 2016 Elizabethtown bank robbery.

Harvey C. Fitz III was recently sentenced to 19-and-a-half to 54 years on felony robbery and aggravated assault and related charges connected to the Dec. 14, 2016, robbery at M&T Bank on South Market Street.

Fitz stabbed a female employee, the blade barely missing her liver, during the robbery, prosecutors said.

Fitz, who was convicted of killing his ex-wife, Connie Fitz, in 1997, was on supervised state parole until 2037 for the killing of his ex-wife.

Prosecturos say the note he presented to bank employees said:

"This is a bank robbery Get an overdraft or an override and know (sic) one will get hurt! If not I will kill someone Don't take more than 1 min and 30 sec. more than that and someone gets killed killed"

Fitz, wearing a mask and camouflage pants, fled with a bag of money, and was stopped in his Jeep Cherokee a few minutes later by Northwest Regional Police, not far from the bank. Inside the Jeep was a bag of money and a straight-blade fillet knife.

Fitz admitted to robbing the bank, and charges were filed by Elizabethtown police.The Dauphin County treasurer is seeking the Republican nomination for the 105th District state House seat being vacated by the retiring Rep. Ron Marsico.

Janis Creason

Janis Creason of Lower Paxton Township, who has served as county treasurer for more than 10 years, is a lifelong resident of Dauphin County.

During her tenure she said she has modernized the treasurer's office and introduced technology to improve its efficiency, saving taxpayers "tens of thousands of dollars each year."

She said she will not accept a state pension or per diem during her time in office.

Prior to election as county treasurer in 2008 she was president and CEO of Outsource Services Inc., a receivables management firm in Lower Paxton Township.

In 2005 she sold the business to her employees and cofounded the volunteer organization Inspired Recreation, which spearheaded the building of Possibility Place, an accessible playground in George Park in Lower Paxton Township.

She is a member of the Dauphin County Pension Board, vice chair of Lower Paxton Township Republican Committee, and a member of the state Dog Law Advisory Board, Pa. Association of Public Employee Retirement Systems Board and Pa. Drug, Device and Cosmetics Board.

She graduated from Central Dauphin High School and Northeast Bible College, and she and her husband Jim have raised four daughters in their 37 years of marriage.

The 105th District includes Lower Paxton, West and South Hanover townships.

Rep. Ron Marsico announced Jan. 18 he is retiring when his term expires Nov. 30. Marsico, longtime chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has served for almost three decades.

Another candidate who has announced for the seat is Democrat Eric Epstein, a citizen activist who was elected to Central Dauphin School Board last fall.HARRISBURG - Do no harm.

That is the cornerstone of the medical practice, and it's an oath the Dauphin County commissioners say some in the profession have violated, costing many lives and millions of dollars.

The commissioners announced today they have filed a lawsuit against 11 drug manufacturers and three doctors they say ignored the addictive and debilitating effects of opioids and aggressively marketed the painkillers to make a profit.

They hired the law firm of Young, Ricchiuti, Caldwell & Heller from Philadelphia to file the suit on a contingency basis, meaning the firm will fund all upfront costs of litigation and only receive payment upon successful resolution, county officials say.

Commissioner Jeff Haste said the county has contemplated this action for some time and held a series of town hall meetings, hearing gut-wrenching stories from recovering addicts and family members. Many in law enforcement, government, and the medical and treatment professions have joined forces to fight the epidemic, he said, except for one group.

Those named in the suit.

"Everybody seemed to be coming to the table to try to fight this drug-addiction problem," Haste said. "The folks who were still not at the table were the manufacturers, and in some cases doctors."

The suit, filed in Dauphin County Court, names the following drug manufacturers:

Purdue Pharma LP,

Purdue Pharma Inc.,

The Purdue Frederick Company Inc,

Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc,

Cephalon Inc,

Johnson & Johnson,

Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc,

Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmacueticals Inc,

Janssen Pharmaceutica Inc,

Endo Health Solutions Inc,

And Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc,

And it names the doctors:

Perry Fine, of Utah,

Lynn Webster, of Utah,

And Scott Fishman, of California.

All three were instrumental in promoting opioids for sale nationally and in Dauphin County, the suit states.

Haste pointed out that none of the doctors sued were from Dauphin County, or even Pennsylvania, which he was pleased to see.

But the real reason behind filing the suit comes down to one simple thing.

"To save lives," Haste said.

The county saw 102 overdose deaths in 2017, which is up from 85 in 2016.

"With the horrendous human toll comes increasing costs to counties, which not only provide drug and alcohol treatment and prevention services but also handle child welfare, corrections and court cases," Commissioner Mike Pries added.

Dauphin County spent $19.6 million to help 2,859 people suffering from addiction - an 860 percent increase in treatment dollars and a 400 percent increase in the number of those seeking help from five years ago, county officials say.

All recovered money will go toward paying for drug abuse treatment and prevention programs within the county.

"Making treatment readily accessible is the only way we are going to turn the tide, and we need the drug companies to start helping to pay for that treatment instead of forcing taxpayers alone to foot the bill," Commissioner George P. Hartick III said.

Sixteen counties in Pennsylvania have filed similar suits, including York and Franklin counties.

Dauphin County's suit is seeking a jury trial. It alleges the named defendants knew the addiction that comes with long-term opioid use, but misrepresented the dangers, minimized the risk, and encouraged the use of the drugs.

The defendants actions have cost billions nationwide and millions in Dauphin County for treatment, law enforcement, medical care, homeless services, children and youth services and more, according to the suit.

In the suit, the county is seeking an unspecified amount of damages, but asks the court to award "an amount sufficient to fairly and completely compensate the county."

They are also asking for the judge to require the manufacturers to "abate the public health nuisance."

This story has been updated to add more information.Carl Rodgers, 62, of Shermans Dale, has been charged with homicide in connection with the 1983 killing of his wife, Debra Rodgers.

Nearly 35 years after the death of his wife, Carl Edward Rodgers was ordered to stand trial in connection to the homicide.

Rodgers, 62, of Shermans Dale, was bound for trial after a preliminary hearing before District Judge Michael Schectery. Rodgers is charged with criminal homicide in connection to the April 22, 1983 death of his wife, Debra Jane Rodgers.

According to the attorney general's office, the incident and investigation unfolded like this:

Debra Rodgers returned home from work late at night on April 22, 1983, and she and her husband got into an argument.

It was the next day that Carl Rodgers told her family that his wife had been depressed about her job and had gone missing. He led them on a search through the state forest about eight miles away. Going down a narrow access road into a heavily-wooded area, they found Debra's car, but she was nowhere in sight.

As night fell, they called off the search, but Rodgers refused to leave the car out in the woods. Despite the family's pleas to leave it there in case she returns looking for it, he drove the car back to their farm.

The following day, April 24, the search resumed, and Rodgers suggested he search a ridge line with his brother-in-law while the rest of the family trudge through woods below. That's where Debra's mother made the discovery.

Debra Rodgers body was lying just a few hundred yards from where her car had been parked, her shirt was pulled halfway up her torso, as if she had been dragged. A knife was found nearby. The sheath bore the name "Carl."

Though her wrists had been slashed deeply to appear she had committed suicide, investigators say it is unlikely that those wounds were self-inflicted. The coroner's report backed this up, saying Debra died of blunt force trauma to the head and torso and ruled her death a homicide.

No one was charged, though, and her death went unsolved.

Cold cases are periodically reviewed, but it wasn't until last year when senior deputy attorneys general Kelly Sekula and Heather Castellino met with the state police to review this referral from the Perry County District Attorney's Office. Among the evidence they reviewed were inconsistent stories Rodgers had made throughout the investigation, such as the mood his wife had been in. He also knew some facts about the case that only the killer would know.

Online court records did not indicate when Rodgers would appear in Perry County Court.A man accused of stabbing his cousin in the neck in Lancaster has surrendered to police.

Adrian DeJesus-Montes, 27, surrendered at the Lancaster police station around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, police say. He was charged with aggravated assault and placed in Lancaster County prison in lieu of $50,000 bail.

DeJesus-Montes is accused of stabbing his 19-year-old cousin in the neck at 8:18 p.m. Monday after a dispute at a home in the 700 block of North Cherry Street, police said.

After the victim was stabilized at Lancaster General Hospital, police say he was transported to Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia for an assessment for possible paralysis.

No update was yet available on the condition of the victim, police said.HARRISBURG - He has burned a combined Confederate-Nazi flag on courthouse steps around the state, and even at NASCAR events, and today, activist Gene Stilp did so in Harrisburg.

At noon on a frigid Wednesday, as cars whizzed by on Front Street, Stilp and a small group of supporters held the flag above a metal trash can.

They turned it over, showing the orange and blue of the Confederate flag on one side and the sharp red emblazoned with a swastika on the other. They're sown together, he said, because the two flags stand for the same thing, which he said are, "misguided values that include hate, racism, bigotry, white supremacy, enslavement and death."

Live: Activist Gene Stilp burns Nazi-Confederate flag in Harrisburg. Posted by PennLive.com on Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Only a handful of people gathered in the cold on the sidewalk outside of the Dauphin County Courthouse to watch his brief demonstration, but Stilp said the low turnout was fine. He doesn't want to draw a crowd. He wants to spread a message. Some in Pennsylvania will fly the Confederate flag without fully knowing what it represents, he said.

"We're hoping to make people think about racism," Stilp said. "By focusing on this and equating the Nazi flag and the Confederate flag, we'll make people think about what they're flying."

He hopes these events go a long way to "take the racism out of Pennsylvania."

He has already burned flags in Perry, Adams, Luzerne, Union and Northumberland counties, and he hopes to do so at more courthouses, including those in Cumberland and Franklin counties.

Stilp has a federal lawsuit pending against York County, where he said officials interfered with his right to burn the flag.U.S. Rep. Scott Perry said he felt "one heck of a jolt" when the Amtrak train he was on hit a trash truck today in Virginia.

Perry, R-4th District, said he was not injured. He said he was talking with colleague U.S. Rep. Keith Rothfus, R-12th District, when the accident happened.

"From my standpoint, I knew it was not ordinary. I saw a flash go by on the left side of the train, which the truck, parts of it, and the train starts moving to a halt," Perry said.

He made sure those around him were okay, and reports came in pretty quickly that they had struck a truck.

"The truck driver - that's the concern now," Perry said.

Rep. Keith Rothfus, R-12th District, was also not injured, said his staff.

The only other Pa. Congressman on the train was Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-8th District, who was also not injured, said his staff.

The White House has confirmed there was one fatality and one serious injury.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says there are no serious injuries among members of Congress or congressional staff. Amtrak spokeswoman Kimberly Woods says there are no reported injuries to passengers or crew members.

The truck was a full-size trash truck, with the part holding the trash ripped from the cab and frame, Perry said.

The train backtracked to Charlottesville, Va., where they were transferred on buses to the retreat destination in West Virginia. Perry said he had gotten on the train in Washington, D.C.

The retreat at the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, W. Va. is for members of Congress to work on policy and to try to find "common ground," Perry said.The White House is confirming one fatality and one serious injury after a chartered train carrying Republican lawmakers to a retreat in West Virginia hit a garbage truck.

The train carrying the lawmakers hit a garbage truck around 11:20 a.m. south of Charlottesville, Va.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says there are no serious injuries among members of Congress or congressional staff. Amtrak spokeswoman Kimberly Woods says there are no reported injuries to passengers or crew members.

NBC29 in Virginia reports:

A nurse on the scene told NBC29 that there was one fatality and at least one person in critical condition. Congressional Institute spokesperson Jessica Twohey said both of those people were inside the inside the garbage truck.

According to Twokey, one congressional member was sent to the hospital, and two other people were examined. Minor first aid was also offered to those who were on the train.

Some Pennsylvania lawmakers were on the train, and others weighed in on the crash:

Rep Brian Fitzpatrick, R-8th District, was on the train but was not injured, said a staff member. "He's doing all right," said his staff.

Rep. Keith Rothfus, R-12th District, was on the train but was not injured, said his staff.

U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, R-9th District was not on train.

U.S. Rep. Charles Dent, R-15th District, said: "I chose to drive out and am not on the train."

Regret to hear about the incident involving my GOP colleagues on the way to our retreat. I chose to drive out and am not on the train.  Charlie Dent (@RepCharlieDent) January 31, 2018

U.S. Rep. Tom Marino, R-10th District was also not on the train.

U.S. Sen. Patrick Toomey was not on the train, said his staff.

U.S. Rep. Scott Perry was on the train but is fine, said his staff. He tweeted that he is praying for the truck driver's family.

Congressman Perry was on the train but is fine  and is praying for the truck drivers family. Well continue to monitor the situation. https://t.co/dOa0hKopnr  RepScottPerry (@RepScottPerry) January 31, 2018

U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, R-11th District, was not on the train, said his staff.

U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-16th District, was also not on the train, said his staff. He is attending the retreat, but went home to Lancaster this morning first before heading out to West Virginia, said Bill Jaffee, his spokesman.

Passengers watch as emergency personnel operate work at the scene of a train crash involving a garbage truck in Crozet, Va., on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. An Amtrak passenger train carrying dozens of GOP lawmakers to a Republican retreat in West Virginia struck a garbage truck south of Charlottesville, Va. No lawmakers were believed injured.

Lawmakers were heading to their annual legislative retreat at the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.

One lawmaker who was aboard the train, Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., said the truck had been ripped in half and said he saw a person wrapped in tarp and that emergency workers appeared to be "putting a body away."

Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said about 100 Republican lawmakers were on the train when the crash occurred, which made him jump out of his seat.

"I looked out the side of the window and then I could see a truck, just in pieces out the side of the window," Comer said. "It was a garbage truck that was apparently, I would assume, trying to cross the tracks."

Comer said Capitol Police quickly jumped off the train, but came back and asked for any doctors to help. Comer said medical doctors rushed to help, including performing CPR on one person.

A GOP aide said the train seemed partially derailed.

It was not clear when lawmakers would resume their trip to their retreat.

PennLive's Barbara Miller contributed to this report.A heavy hauler trucks transports material from Suncor's North Steepbank Mine in the oil sands in Fort McMurray Alta, on Monday June 13, 2017. Suncor today announced it will proceed with the phased implementation of autonomous haulage systems (AHS) at company-operated mines, starting with the North Steepbank mine. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason FransonLongtime Sen. Colin Kenny is calling it quits months before his scheduled retirement. Sources say Kenny officially notified the Governor General this morning that he will leave the Senate ahead of his mandatory retirement date in December. Kenny is shown in Ottawa, Thursday April 13, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian WyldB.C. Liberal leadership candidates Todd Stone, from left to right, Andrew Wilkinson, Sam Sullivan, Mike de Jong, Dianne Watts and Michael Lee participate in the first leadership debate in Surrey, B.C., on October 15, 2017. A sometimes bruising leadership campaign ends today in Vancouver for British Columbia's Liberals as they elect a new leader who will be tasked with returning the party to power after a 16 year term in office that ended last summer.An estimated 60,000 party members were eligible to vote online and by phone to replace Christy Clark, who resigned after the New Democrats formed a minority government with the support of the Green party following a non-confidence vote that brought down the Liberals. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl DyckA worker prepares to remove the statue of Edward Cornwallis, a controversial historical figure, in a city park in Halifax on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. Cornwallis, the military officer who founded Halifax in 1749, offered a cash bounty to anyone who killed a Mi'kmaw person. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew VaughanThe statue of Edward Cornwallis, a controversial historical figure, is seen in a city park in Halifax on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. Cornwallis, the military officer who founded Halifax in 1749, offered a cash bounty to anyone who killed a Mi'kmaw person. City council is debating whether to remove the statue. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew VaughanThis undated photograph released and made available by the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran shows Iranian-American art dealer Karan Vafadari and his Iranian wife, Afarin Neyssar. Vafadari was sentenced to 27 years in prison, while Neyssar, who has permanent residency in the U.S., received a 16-year sentence, the Center for Human Rights in Iran said Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (Center for Human Rights in Iran via AP)FILE - In this Sept. 11, 2017, photo, U.S. Rep. Robert Brady, D-Pa., speaks at a news conference in Philadelphia. Brady and his lawyer revealed Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018, that the lawmaker won't seek another term in Congress, giving up the seat he's held for two decades. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)File-This March 9, 2017, file photo shows Ravi Ragbir, executive director of the New Sanctuary Coalition, being escorted by supporters after his annual check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in New York. U.S. Rep. Nydia Velazquez has invited the wife of detained immigrant rights activist Ravi Ragbir to President Donald Trump's State of the Union address. Ragbir was in federal custody Saturday, several weeks after he was arrested during a routine check-in with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. On Saturday, Velazquez, a Democrat, joined Ragbir's wife, Amy Gottlieb, and other elected officials at a rally in front of the Manhattan office building that houses ICE. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)Family of the crash victims react upon speaking to a Newport Beach police officer and seeing the scene where several people were killed and others injured when a helicopter crashed into a home in Newport Beach, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. The four-seat Robinson R44 went down in a gated community in Newport Beach, about 45 miles southeast of Los Angeles. Revolution Aviation, which is based at the airport and operated the helicopter, offers helicopter and airplane classes, the use of aircraft for photography and video production as well as sightseeing flights. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via AP)Indians take advantage of miscues to claim first victory St. Vincent found itself down two scores midway through the third quarter, and despite the deficit, coach Tim Schumer was calm.The game was not over at that point, you have to play four 

Rushing attack leads Pirates to win over Owls The Perryville football team is quickly turning into a M.A.S.H. unit. With several players already nursing injuries from the previous week, they also threw in other players who were in quarantine. Guyana to pay for all cost incurred for litigation brought against ExxonMobil By kaieteur MEXICO CITY

Petroleumworld 01 31 2018 Should ExxonMobil be taken before the courts in Guyana or even before a regional or international court for any reason that has direct relations to the company's operations in Guyana, the cost incurred for all legal fees or judgment handed down will be paid by Guyana.



This is stipulated in the 2016 Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) that Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman signed with ExxonMobil Vice President, Erik Oswald.



Under Annex C of the contract, there is a vast area that deals with cost recovery. This is the range of items the cost for which will be recovered by ExxonMobil before Guyana can see profits.



Annex C has a subheading Legal expenses. This states that all legal expenses incurred by ExxonMobil for any matter in direct relation to operations in Guyana shall be included in cost recovery.



The PSA specifies, All costs and expenses of litigation and legal or related series necessary or expedient for the procuring, perfecting, retention and protection of the contract area and in defending or prosecuting lawsuits involving the contract area or any third party claim arising out of the activities under the agreement or sums paid in respect to legal services necessary or expedient for the protection of the interest of the parties are recoverable. Where legal services are rendered in such matters by salaried or regularly retained lawyers of the contractor or an affiliated company of the parties comprising contractor, such compensation will be included instead under sub-section 3, 1 (B) or 3.1(D) above as application

Subsection 3, 1(B) speaks to labour and associated labour costs and 3, 1 (D) speaks to third party contracts.



If there is an oil spill and ExxonMobil is sued, Guyana will pay the price. This annex in the contract harmonizes with what environmentalists have been saying about the provisions of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).



It was earlier reported that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accepted an EIA from the oil giant that is weak compared to that given to some other countries.



The impact of an oil spill could be major for Guyana and its neighbours.

Environmentalists noted that there is nothing in the EIA that speaks to how Guyana's neighbours will be compensated. What was clear is that ExxonMobil did not commit to bearing the legal or financial responsibility in the event of a disaster.



There is a possibility that neighbouring countries, when environmental damage occurs, can move against Guyana. If the burden is left to bear by Guyana, the country may have to pay damages equivalent to years of oil revenues.



Reporting from kaieteur news.



kaieteurnewsonline.com/01 30 2018

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'98,ME,XP, Vista, Windows 7,8,10 +/ 800x600 pixelsMexico's energy reform a bost for hard-hit oil service firms

Reuters

Mexico will on Wednesday hold its most important auction since a 2013 reform ended the 75-year monopoly on the energy sector held by state-run oil firm Pemex.

By Marianna Parraga and Adriana Barrera

HOUSTON/MEXICO CITY

Petroleumworld 01 31 2018

Oil service and mapping firms still emerging from an industry recession have received a boost from about $800 million of data sales to energy firms considering bidding for Mexican oil and gas blocks.

Mexico will on Wednesday hold its most important auction since a 2013 reform ended the 75-year monopoly on the energy sector held by state-run oil firm Pemex.

The government of President Enrique Pena Nieto hopes the deepwater sale will attract tens of billions of dollars of investment to turnaround a slump in the country's oil output. Seven previous auctions drew investment pledges of $61 billion. [Link to Graphic on offered areas: tmsnrt.rs/2DGpgnB ]

International oil firms will this week bid for blocks on the Mexican side of the Gulf, which they expect to hold large reserves. The same companies have pumped billions of barrels of crude from fields in U.S. waters nearby.

Mexico has done little deepwater exploration, so not much is known about the energy reserves.

That has created strong demand for whatever data oil service and seismic firms can offer. Mexico has given survey companies all the information it has in an effort to build appetite for the auctions.

Because there is less information about reserves there, and more risk that there are not big reserves, companies are willing to pay for data, said an executive from one of the registered bidders who could not be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

Companies including Schlumberger, France's CGG SA, Ion Geophysical and Seitel Inc have spent $2 billion undertaking their own seismic surveys since 2015. They have also reprocessed Pemex's old data on the region.

Schlumberger said it was fully committed to its customers in Mexico, but declined to elaborate on its business. The other three companies did not respond to requests for comment.

Among companies bidding at Wednesday's auction are China Offshore Oil Corp, ExxonMobil and Total SA.

More data sales, which are tracked by Mexico's energy regulator, are expected for further rounds and joint ventures this year as the country puts some 66 percent of its prospective oil reserves on the block.

Some energy firms only pay for detailed data packages after they win areas, two executives involved in exploration work in the Americas said.

The geological data business in Mexico has been good, not spectacular, but good, said a source at Schlumberger on condition of anonymity.

The seismic industry was hit hard by the crash in oil prices in 2014 and ensuing recession. International oil firms cut back on exploration, especially in areas considered expensive to develop such as deepwater.

Even with the Mexico data sales, the sector continues to struggle. Schlumberger this month announced the closure of its marine and land seismic acquisition business, two of four units at its WesternGeco subsidiary.

PUSHING PEMEX

In its efforts to break Pemex's monopoly and attract international oil firms, the Mexican government has charted a more aggressive reform than others Latin American countries.

To encourage oil service and mapping firms to work quickly and extensively, the government gave them licenses for up to 12 years to sell data they collect.

On the American side (of the Gulf of Mexico), there is a tonne of information. On the Mexican side, very little. So they had to have a solution, a way to speed it up, Marcio Felix, Brazil's oil and gas secretary, said on Monday.

The Mexican regulator, the National Hydrocarbon Commission (CNH), opened all of Pemex's data to seismic firms, licensing them to reprocess and sell it.

In countries including Brazil and Venezuela, state-run oil companies have kept most of their seismic data from rivals, giving them an advantage in areas where they are considered strong.

Pemex has had to give up a lot to make the reform work, said Luis Vierma, exploration and production consultant and former vice-president of Venezuela's PDVSA.

The CNH has said the data, which includes information from 30,000 oil and gas wells, belongs to the country, not Pemex.

For Pena Nieto's government, the stakes are high. Energy reform was one of its top economic priorities, and the administration wants to show progress ahead of a presidential election in July.

Mexico faces stiff competition from other Latin American countries keen to attract investment from energy firms. Brazil, Ecuador, Uruguay and Argentina are set to auction oil and gas blocks this year.

That has Mexico determined to make the auctions successful - even if it means giving up Pemex's secrets.The Barnes Foundation has agreed to lease its Lower Merion Township arboretum and its vacant former art gallery to neighboring Saint Joseph's University, which plans to add classes on the 12-acre site Read more

Saint Joseph's University has agreed to lease the Barnes Foundation's next-door arboretum and former art gallery in Lower Merion Township. The price: $100 a year, plus maintenance and security services. The Catholic university has also pledged to spend at least $5 million on capital improvements to the site over the next 15 years.

St. Joe's plans to offer its students art and horticultural classes on the property, effectively adding the 12 acres south of Latchs Lane to its neighboring 114-acre City Avenue campus, though Barnes will remain the owner.

The pact bars the university from adding new buildings on the property with its "living collection" of 2,500 groups of trees and flowers.

The deal, signed in November by Saint Joseph's president Mark C. Reed and Barnes executive director Thomas "Thom" Collins, will run for 30 years, and can be renewed after that in 20-year installments, until 2107.

It "will ensure the long-term preservation of the Barnes' campus in Lower Merion" and its use for teaching purposes, as the founder ordered, Collins noted in a memo to Barnes staff.

Among area schools, Temple also has an arboretum, and landscaping and horticultural classes, at its Ambler campus.

What's in it for the Barnes? With Saint Joseph's moving in, the Barnes "gets to wipe out what could be a negative line in their budget, without losing" the site, Otten added.

Even when St. Joe's has moved programs onto the site and takes over day-to-day care, "the Barnes will retain overall responsibility" for the trees and plants, and will continue to "be involved" with horticulture classes, said Barnes spokeswoman Deirdre Maher. The pact reserves an office and five parking spaces on site for Barnes staff.

Terms allow St. Joe's to hang its own art in the nearly 20,000-square-foot gallery, which has been used for crate storage since the famous collections formed by its late founder, drugmaker Albert C. Barnes, were taken to their new home on Philadelphia's Benjamin Franklin Parkway in 2012.

The deal has the blessing of the Montgomery County court that oversees wills and trusts, and the state Attorney General's office. St. Joseph's is preparing proposals for its use of the property for Lower Merion zoning officials.

Plans could include an event entrance from City Avenue, which would ease passage on Latchs Lane and other nearby streets where residents complained of traffic during the art-museum years.

The university plans to start a minor in horticultural studies. The Barnes' three-year horticultural certificate program will continue, though "registration and administration of the program may shift" to the university, Maher added. Around 40 students are enrolled at the Barnes Horticulture Education Certificate Program. The Barnes started horticultural classes on the site in 1940. Its art classes moved with the paintings to the Parkway museum.

Although more than half of St. Joe's 5,000 undergraduate students are enrolled in its Erivan K. Haub business school, studying accounting, insurance, food marketing, entrepreneurship and other dollar-based subjects, all students are required to take a core of liberal-arts courses, including at least one fine-arts course, university spokesman Joseph Kender said.

These courses are a "foundation of the university," helping students grow as "engaged citizens, imaginative and inventive thinkers," he added. To expand those classes, "we couldn't think of a better partner than the Barnes," in walking distance of the Hawk campus.

The arboretum, which is opened several days a week from mid-spring into the fall, has drawn about 2,000 visitors a year in recent years, less than 1 percent of the visitors recorded at its Parkway art museum, according to Barnes federal tax records. Saint Joseph's has agreed to keep the arboretum open to the public for those same days, at least.

St. Joe's has added the former Episcopal Academy and Cardinal's Residence properties to the campus in recent years thanks to gifts from insurance magnate James Maguire and other donors. Zoning officials are awaiting information from the school on its proposed use, and will review what approvals St. Joe's might need before it can move in, said township zoning officer Michael Wylie.

Nonprofit-watchers note there's been a wave of affiliations and mergers among longtime cultural and educational institutions lately, including the 2016 union of Philadelphia University (formerly Textile) with Thomas Jefferson University.

Nonprofits seek collaborators and "co-location" so they can "further their missions, reduce expenses, or benefit from leadership and other expertise," with benefits ranging from space-sharing to joint programming, said Laura Solomon, whose Philadelphia law firm represents donors and philanthropists. The best deals give "clear benefits, to each party."

(Note: The SJU-Barnes deal runs for 30 years and is renewable in three 20-year installments, to 2107. An earlier version of this story wrongly said 2207. The story has also been updated to make clear that the Barnes courses will continue.)Stephen Zarrilli is president and chief executive of Safeguard Scientifics, which laid off around half of its staff in early January Read more

Safeguard Scientifics, a Radnor-based investment firm that buys minority stakes in emerging health-care and software companies, should sell its positions and fire chief executive Stephen Zarrilli and his team, Philadelphia investors Darren C. Wallis and Joseph M. Manko told Robert J. Rosenthal, the Hudson, N.Y., biotech executive who chairs what the investors called Safeguard's "underperforming board," in a pointed letter Monday.

The share price at Safeguard, which owns minority stakes in Radnor-based digital-ad system MediaMath, Old City cloud-services developer WebLinc, and two dozen other firms, has fallen from around $22 in early 2014 to around $12 lately, despite the stock market's gains in those years, the investors noted. Wallis' firm, Maplewood Global Partners LP, and Manko's Horton Capital Partners LLC together own about 5.1 percent of Safeguard through a joint venture, Sierra Capital Investments LP.

In an unsigned reply statement the company posted Monday, Safeguard noted it had already announced plans on Jan. 17 to lay off roughly half its 30-member staff, cut costs by at least one-quarter, and consider selling its remaining businesses, giving the proceeds to shareholders.

A spokesman for the company was not immediately available for comment Tuesday afternoon.

But those promises lack a timetable, and rely on Zarrilli and his team, all of whom got the company into its current depressed position and have little incentive to fix things while they still have well-paid jobs at the company, according to Wallis and Manko. Zarrilli was paid $2.4 million in cash and stock last year. He is also the board chairman of LaSalle University, which is selling off part of its art collection to raise cash.

The investors say Safeguard, which is in selloff mode, no longer needs a large staff. They also called on the firm to replace its board members, who have shown, they wrote, "a compete dearth of management experience." The company has spent around $20 million a year on operations, mostly staff costs, in recent years.

Wallis and Manko say Safeguard trades at a discount of at least $100 million below the $350 million value reported in its own debt documents  its assets may be worth much more, they added  "because [Safeguard] is opaque, hard to value, and its leaders lack credibility."

The investors say they have proposed replacement directors. Reached by phone, Wallis declined to identify those directors, or comment on whether his group will formally challenge Rosenthal and his board for reelection this year.

Has Safeguard's time passed? The company, run for much of its history by Warren "Pete" Musser, a father figure to a generation of aspirational venture capitalists in the Philadelphia area, was briefly worth as much as $7 billion during the dot.com bubble of the late 1990s. But now it suffers from "bloated corporate overhead" and "misaligned incentives," and has "lagged behind" closed-end funds, asset managers, business-development corporations and other "nimble" investment groups that also invest in emerging companies, according to a confidential proposal the insurgent investors sent Safeguard in December.Ilya Babiner, a Bucks County dentist with offices in Feasterville and Philadelphia, faces felony charges for allegedly submitting $1.5 million in fraudulent bills to Medicaid, the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General said Wednesday.

Over a period of at least two years, Babiner, 63, of Langhorne, submitted claims for crown restorations and repeated dental services for a high percentage of patients, setting off alarms in the state's Fraud Abuse Detection System, the attorney general's office said. Babiner allegedly used an alphabetical billing system to bill for work that he did not perform.

Between August 17 and 24, 2015, for example, Babiner claimed that his practice treated 120 patients, 107 of whom had a last name beginning with "G," the prosecutors said.

"When people commit Medicaid fraud, they're stealing tax dollars from people who are in real need of these services," Pa. Attorney General Josh Shapiro said in a news release. "These charges are part of a renewed focus by my office on this kind of criminal activity."

Babiner's alleged fraud stopped in May 2016, when his records were subpoenaed. His attorney, Mark Sheppard, of Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads LLP, declined to comment.Bryan Lentz, a Philadelphia lawyer and former prosecutor, chairs the Pennsylvania Civil Service Commission. He says a plan to move key powers to the governor's office risks returning hiring for more than 50,000 state jobs to old-fashioned political patronage Read more

A struggle over who controls hiring for more than 50,000 Pennsylvania state jobs pits the independent Civil Service Commission, set up in 1941 to guarantee the hiring of qualified state workers, against an alliance of Republican senators and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf's administration, who want to transfer key powers to the governor's control.

If that sounds like a strange alliance, that's because it is. Yet, public hiring has inspired struggles and unusual coalitions for much of the state's history.

Sens. Mike Folmer (R., Dauphin) and Randy Vulakovich (R., Allegheny) posted their plan last week for a law that would move merit-based hiring, Civil Service job applications, and job certifications, examinations, and promotions from the Civil Service Commission to the Office of Administration, whose secretary, Sharon P. Minnich, serves at the governor's pleasure. The commission would be reduced to a hearing and appeal board.

The attempt follows the Wolf administration's recent moves to centralize information-technology contracting review in Minnich's department, after a series of embarrassing state IT failures that began long before Wolf took office in 2015.

Minnich, a former Deloitte Consulting executive, supports the moves to enhance her office's powers. To fill state jobs, "we need to look like a private-sector employer when we are competing in the talent marketplace," she told me. That means letting candidates apply via smartphone, "not go to a [state] test center to take a written exam for a position that might not be open."

"We are trying to bring the whole system into the 21st century," Folmer told me. He said discussions with the Civil Service Commission have not led to speedy change, so it's time for legislators to act.

Not so fast, say the commissioners: Bryan Lentz, a Philadelphia lawyer and former prosecutor appointed by Wolf; Gregory Lane, a Harrisburg accountant appointed by Republican Gov. Tom Corbett; and Odelfa Smith Preston, a Pittsburgh banker first appointed by Gov. Ed Rendell and reappointed by Corbett and Wolf.

Stripping the commission won't improve hiring; more likely it would mean "the reintroduction of hiring decisions based on patronage and cronyism," the commissioners warned in a letter to Folmer.

"It's definitely a power grab. I'm shocked at the Wolf administration," said Marwan Kreide, a former Civil Service Commission chairman. "If they have a problem getting millennials to apply to IT jobs in Harrisburg, the state should open IT centers in Philadelphia, where college graduates want to work. But if we open up more state jobs to patronage, governors will put their own people in," instead of hiring the most qualified.

State agencies are already in the process of implementing online written job-application systems built by NeoGov, an El Segundo, Calif., state-government contractor founded in 2000 by a couple of ex-Accenture Consulting partners.

Lentz told me that the two dozen state agencies where the commission oversees hiring have met with his staff and are implementing NeoGov applications for written tests. "But this cannot handle performance-based tests," for corrections, probation, and other law enforcement roles in which state agency staff physically observe candidates' reactions to potentially dangerous situations, Lentz added. (The State Police has a separate hiring system.) "So we cannot convert everything to NeoGov. Some jobs will still require performance-based or interview-based evaluation."

Minnich said in-person tests could still be allowed for law enforcement, but "the goal is to move away from those."

It's the latest iteration of a long debate. According to a history of Pennsylvania public hiring by the late scholar Ari Hoogenboom, Philadelphia industrialists and reformers, including abolitionist Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, campaigned for federal and state "merit hiring" systems as an antidote to post-Civil War corruption.

By the 1880s, the U.S., New York, and Massachusetts had civil service systems in place. But in Pennsylvania, it was resisted by upstate representatives who believed their election gave them a mandate to put handpicked supporters in public jobs. Merit selection was finally instituted by Gov. Gifford Pinchot in the 1920s, and the independent Civil Service Commission to oversee it was set up under Gov. Arthur James in 1941. Pinchot and James were Republicans.

In the current struggle, both sides insist their program would be better for veterans, who enjoy special preference for public jobs under state law. Despite that requirement, Lentz, a former Airborne Ranger in the 82nd Airborne who served as a reserve officer in Bosnia and Iraq, says a modest 13 percent of newly hired Pennsylvania state employees are veterans, compared with around one-third of federal government hires.

Lentz says state agencies need to be watched and audited to ensure veterans get their due, and he's afraid that, if the commission loses its hiring powers, there will be no independent review of veteran hiring. "It waters down enforcement by taking away the possibility of independent enforcement," he told me.

Minnich promised that Lentz's commission will retain its auditing, investigative, and interview powers. Folmer and Minnich said that merit hiring of qualified applicants will continue.

Last Monday, Minnich defended the changes in a letter to her fellow Wolf cabinet officers.

"We'll have a hearing. There may be some tweaks," Folmer said. "But I was getting tired of the back and forth. I'm trying to speed up the process."First lady Melania Trump attends the State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. (Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/TNS Read more

First lady Melania Trump faced quite the fashion conundrum when it it was time to pick out the perfect outfit for her husband's first State of the Union.

There was no way Trump could wear everyone's go-to hue black; it had already been claimed by the Democratic women as a show of solidarity with the #TimesUp movement.

Republican women were slated to wear red, white and blue to represent love of country  see Ivanka's striking red, white, blue (and black) plaid Oscar de la Renta dress.

But our classically-inclined first lady understands to a perfect fashion T that she looks best in monchromatic tones.

So what's a first lady to do?

Wear white, of course.

On Tuesday night, Trump was her usual flawless self in a straight Dior winter white pantsuit featuring flat-front trousers that stopped just above the ankle, like longish-culottes. Her blazer didn't hug her willowy frame. And her blouse was a simple silky button down.

White is one of Trump's proven staple shades. Her inaugural gown was unforgettable, one-shouldered white crepe Herve Pierre. And she's the queen of the exquisitely cut, hip-hugging white skirt suit as evidenced by her decision to wear them to several meetings with world dignitaries.

White is her color. It's crisp. It's clean. It's neutral.

But remember, the only way our silent first lady communicates with America is through her clothing. And Tuesday night, as usual, she clearly had something to say.

This white pantsuit makes quite the different fashion statement from the kind of white outfits Trump has worn in the past. Through its boxy shape and loose silhouette  a look she rarely wears  it states, "I am more than the president's perfect wife."

The message is telegraphed these days in large part thanks to Hillary Clinton, whose take on this style of white pantsuit has turned it into the modern-day suffragette uniform. (See: Kesha's performance of "Praying" at Sunday night's Grammys.)

Sometimes Trump's outfits are an extension of the president's "Make America Great Again" platform, like when she wore the powder blue Jackie O-inspired inaugural suit. Other times she's practicing diplomacy, like when she attended the state banquet dinner of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in a floor-grazing, red gown. There are times when her style reminded us she was a bit of a maverick herself, hence the belted, sequined Michael Kors skirt suit she donned to her husband's first televised speech last March. Some thought it was too flashy. I loved it. But most of the time she's telling us she need not bother herself with the dilemmas of common folk  the stilettos for the August trip to Houston after Hurricane Harvey.

So this, her first appearance since it became known that Donald Trump's attorney arranged a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about an alleged affair between them, may be the first lady's visual way of telling us that frankly, she's not having it anymore. She didn't accompany President Trump on his recent trip to Davos last week. And Tuesday the first couple rode in separate cars from the White House to the Capitol for last night's address breaking a long-standing tradition.

When the suffragettes wore white back at the turn of the 20th century, it was the beginning of the women's movement. Maybe in wearing this particular white pantsuit, Trump is also on the verge of expressing something new.

Time will tell.One of many piles of trash and needles in the gulch that runs along Gurney Street in Kensington and Fairhill that is home to anywhere from 75 to 125 heroin addicts. Read more

In the early 2000s, when I first wrote about the influx of young white heroin users into our city, the purveyors of political correctness had not yet coined the term "opioid crisis." Nor had America realized that the drug war had created collateral damage beyond black and brown communities.

These are places where intravenous drug users would be allowed to inject illegal drugs in private facilities with the city's blessing. I am adamantly opposed to that strategy. Not only because coddling mostly white addicts amplifies the racism that criminalized black and brown crack users in the '80s and '90s, but also because I have personally experienced addiction. And after 21 years clean, I'm certain that if someone had enabled me to use drugs without fear of consequence, I would still be trapped in a blinding cloud of crack smoke.

Proponents of safe injection facilities point to reams of research that say such facilities save lives by preventing overdoses in Europe and Canada. But I have been trapped in the throes of addiction, and while I wholeheartedly support the prevention of overdoses, I know in my core that an existence as a slave to a drug is no life at all.

Mayor Kenney, in a statement, said he believes just the opposite. "I am supportive of CUES because I believe that creating an environment where people are safe and can get the help that they need can help them get their lives on track," said the statement. "It's difficult to do that when you're kneeling next to somebody on a mattress under a bridge.

"This is the most humane way to do it and a way that we will hopefully save lives. Most drug users eventually get treatment and recover. But recovery can take many years, and most who suffer from addiction have to try many times before they ultimately succeed. CUES is designed to engage drug users and encourage them to go into treatment, and also to help them stay alive until they do recover. We know that CUES will not end this crisis, they are just one part of our long term strategy to fight this epidemic."

Of course, not every public official agrees.

"It presents significant public safety concerns," Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro told me in an interview on Praise 107.9 FM. "And you would need changes to state and federal law in order for these sites to operate legally. Furthermore, there is absolutely no safe way for a drug addict to inject him or herself with heroin.  People are dying from this every day.

"These are dangerous drugs with devastating consequences," Shapiro told me. "Not just on the individual users, but also on the community. And I also fear that the negative impact of a site like this will likely be held by communities that are already suffering, communities that already face serious economic and educational challenges and hardships. So I guess while some studies show that the sites may offer some benefit to those facing addiction, I don't think there's clear evidence. And I'm focused less on creating pathways to safe injection sites, and more on creating pathways to effective treatment for those who are in need."

City Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez, who represents Philadelphia's Seventh District, where the hard-hit Kensington neighborhood is located, also has questions about the implementation of the Kenney administration's plan.

"I never say no to anything that has the potential to save lives," Sanchez told me. "What I'm saying is, don't do a top-down decision without a discussion about the impact  What happens to the person selling the drugs? Does he get a pass if he doesn't have any other job? What happens to the public safety strategy? We don't have a public safety strategy. We've allowed the occupation of  we have four [heroin] encampments going on right now in the neighborhood."

And therein lies the problem. Safe injection sites are most often placed in communities like the one Sanchez represents. Black and brown communities that are trapped beneath the weight of poverty and have never experienced the compassion suddenly heaped upon young, white addicts who come here from other places.

"This is about race, and this is about economics," Sanchez told me. "We have a system that is racist in its approach, in its treatment, in its practices, and we've got to own that."

Then we have to come up with a comprehensive strategy to fix it.

Solomon Jones is the author of 10 books. Listen to him weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon on Praise 107.9 FM.President Donald Trump gestures as he delivers his first State of the Union address in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol to a joint session of Congress as Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Paul Ryan applaud. Read more

The State of the Union is strong. I mean, President Trump didn't trip and tumble off the platform in a real life homage to Chevy Chase, or press a red Staples button on the podium and announced that he'd just launched a fleet of cruise missiles toward North Korea, or order special counsel Robert Mueller led into the House of Representatives blindfolded and in handcuffs, or gaze out toward Melania and ask for a divorce (since the state of his union is reportedly weak). As one cable TV pundit solemnly declared afterwards, "Donald Trump became president tonight." OK, actually I wrote that at 7:39 p.m., 81 minutes before the speech even began  but we all know someone must have said that.

The truth? A teleprompter just rolled off the best speech of Donald Trump's presidency, a sniffle-punctuated litany of praise for God, the troops and mythical clean coal from America's first reality-show president. And Teleprompter Trump certainly said  some of the right things.

He promised Democrats that he's ridiculed, such as Cryin' Chuck Schumer and Sen. Elizabeth "Pocahontas" Warren, that he is now "extending an open hand to work with members of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to protect our citizens, of every background, color and creed." That statement explicitly excluded 800,000 "Dreamers" facing imminent deportation to nations they barely know, but the president did pledge to work for some kind of deal on immigration and to finally do something about America's crumbling infrastructure.

He also hailed the heroes of Houston's flood and the Las Vegas and congressional softball shootings  a splendid and praiseworthy moment that nonetheless allowed the president to address those topics without mentioning climate change or America's lax gun laws, two of the many real-life problems that don't exist in Trump World. And any would-be immigration deal was undercut by his shameful willingness to demagogue a handful of murder cases to stir up xenophobia against all migrants, especially brown ones.

This, he called this "a New American Moment"  but it sounded like an old American moment. In his speech to Congress in 2017, after all, Trump also vowed to work for an immigration deal, saying "I believe Republicans and Democrats can work together to achieve an outcome that has eluded our country for decades." Two paragraphs later in that 2017 speech, he declared solemnly that "I will be asking Congress to approve legislation that produces a $1 trillion investment in infrastructure of the United States."

To quote the late great John Lennon: We'd all love to see the plan.

The empty repetition of things that never seem to actually happen on "Real World: Trump" seems to beg the question of whether the State of Union speech even matters. Spoiler alert: It doesn't, and that problem certainly predates the arrival of Donald Trump. Mostly, these TV events are a 1-hour litany of things that remain unattainable in the age of gridlock. The most memorable moment in my lifetime came in 1975 when Watergate had stripped away so much American pretense that Gerald Ford actually declared the State of the Union is "not good."

Forty-three years later, the real news was not what was in the speech but what was swirling all around it.

The aggrieved First Lady went to the Capitol in a separate limo, the ship that launched a thousand wagging tongues. Some members of the Congressional Black Caucus boycotted the speech, not too surprising considering the president's "shithole countries" slam on Africa or his Charlottesville moral fumble, and other Democrats stayed away, like Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky who told CNN she didn't want to listen to "a sexual predator." And an adult-film star allegedly paid $130,000 not to talk about her affair was Trump was teed up to give a rebuttal on ABC's Jimmy Kimmel.

Did I mention that the State of the Union is not good, not at all? In the hours before the speech, CNN and other news outlets were reporting that Trump may refuse to give Mueller an interview about alleged campaign collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice, that he might actually fire Mueller, and that the president is about to release a slanted, classified memo aimed at tarnishing the FBI and taking down Mueller's probe. Meanwhile, the White House is refusing to implement a Russia sanctions law that passed Congress nearly unanimously  his latest and most serious dictator move. Sen. Claire McCaskill pegged the moment for what it is: A constitutional crisis.

You didn't hear anything about that constitutional crisis from the flag-draped podium last night. That would cut way too close to the truth, and we haven't had that spirit here since 1975. Where's Gerald Ford when you need him?Gina Maiorana (left) a member of Alpha Omicron Pi at Penn State, who is from Blue Bell, celebrates Bid Day last week with new member, Emma Scalora (right), of West Orange, N.J. Courtesy of Lauren Eskin Read more

STATE COLLEGE, Pa.  Hundreds of young women filled the student center at Pennsylvania State University one day last week, excited and hopeful that they would leave with what they came for: an invitation to join the sorority of their choice.

"Bid day" had arrived on the university's flagship campus. There were photo booths, confetti cannons, balloon arches, loud singing and chanting, as young women clutching yellow envelopes with offers rushed to meet their new sisters.

"Everyone is so excited to have these new members," said Lauren Eskin, 20, a finance major from Horsham and president of Alpha Omicron Pi sorority. "People are, like, breaking down the door to get in to meet them."

By the time it was over, Penn State sororities had welcomed 1,000 new members into the sisterhood, a path that includes philanthropic endeavors and community service, and brings a built-in set of friends, some of whom will last a lifetime if prior experience is any indication.

But this year, sororities at Penn State and on other campuses are being called on by their national conference to do more: Drive critical change in the Greek community, as schools crack down on out-of-control drinking, hazing, and other unruly behavior at fraternities. The very preservation of the Greek-life experience could be at stake, said Carole Jones, chair of the National Panhellenic Conference, which oversees 26 member sororities with more than 418,000 undergraduate members.

"We just feel it's time that our women become more engaged in the fight against hazing and alcohol abuse," said Jones, a retired journalist and member of Alpha Omicron Pi. "If women decide as a group that they are going to stand up against something or decide they want to change a culture, I think they have strength in numbers, and the men will follow them."

Sororities most often aren't the ones getting in trouble. Their members aren't the ones dying in high-profile hazing and alcohol-related deaths, and, at least at Penn State, they tend to be much better academic performers.

But sororities still feel vested, because they often co-host parties with fraternities, partner on projects, and see themselves as part of the same community.

"Solving these issues is not just for the men's groups in a vacuum," Jones said. "We have to be part of the solution. A lot of times our women are bystanders, and they need to stand up and report if something is happening."

Members of the national conference, along with outside experts and university staff from schools including Texas Christian University, the University of Alabama, and the University of Illinois, plan to come up with recommendations for the full board to consider in May.

Sorority members on local campuses, including Molly Bankuti, 21, a member of Zeta Tau Alpha at Lehigh University, like the proposal. She also serves as president of Lehigh's Panhellenic Council, which includes nine sororities.

"We could do more to hold people accountable," said Bankuti, a finance and accounting major from Sudbury, Mass. "It's our community, so it's also our responsibility. People see Greek letters, they don't know if they are a sorority or a fraternity, so we inherently have to feel responsible for that."

The North American Interfraternity Conference also is working on improvements, including a pilot program launched this month to remove hard liquor from fraternity events, provide safer social gatherings, and emphasize a "more balanced, academic-centered fraternity experience," said Heather Kirk, chief communications officer.

It's been nearly a year since Penn State sophomore Tim Piazza died after an alleged booze-fueled hazing ritual at the Beta Theta Pi house during his bid acceptance party. In the aftermath, the university made several changes, including prohibiting freshmen from joining sororities or fraternities until they earn 14 credits and have a 2.5 GPA; for most that means waiting until second semester.

At Penn State, 13 fraternities are under suspension for violations, including hazing and alcohol-related infractions. In comparison, only one sorority  one that is not under the National Panhellenic Council  has been banned for hazing.

"It is uncommon for us to receive reports related to allegations of misbehavior for sororities," said Danny Shaha, Penn State's interim assistant vice president for student rights and responsibilities.

Fraternities are more prone to sanctions because they have private off-campus houses where socials, sometimes serving alcohol, are held, Shaha acknowledged. No sororities have houses; they each have a suite and a floor in a campus residence hall where some members live.

But reasons for the difference run deeper.

Sorority advisers and alumnae generally play a more hands-on role, and the national sorority offices "are much more involved with the activities of the local chapters, setting expectations, following through with those expectations, and holding accountable chapters that may not live up to those expectations," Shaha said.

Alpha Omicron Pi wouldn't consider hazing or mistreating new members, Eskin said.

"If you're mistreating someone during their first two weeks in the chapter, they're not going to be loyal to you for the rest of their life," she said.

The group doesn't even have a pledge process. The day members receive their bid, they are allowed to wear the sorority's letters, she said.

"We consider you part of our chapter, one of our sisters," Eskin said.

Sorority women also tend to be stronger academic performers than their fraternity counterparts. Of the 22 Panhellenic sororities, 19 groups, or 86 percent, had an average GPA higher than  or in one case equal to  the overall average for female students at Penn State of 3.27, according to the university's Greek report card for fall 2017.

The 150 members in Alpha Omicron Pi scored an average GPA of 3.54, making it one of 10 sororities with a 3.5 or higher.

In comparison, 22 of 39 fraternity chapters  a little more than half  had a GPA higher or in one case equal to the overall average for male students of 3.1, according to the university's data.

None had an average GPA of 3.5 or higher.

Kirk, of the national fraternity conference, said the average GPA for all their fraternities is higher than the overall male GPA.

At Penn State, sororities tend to stress academics and have built-in standards, said Evan Ditty, assistant director for training and development in Penn State's fraternity and sorority life office.

"Many of them require a 2.7 or 2.8 to get into the chapter," he said, "and they have to maintain certain GPAs to remain a member in good standing."

Teresa DiGioia, 19, a sophomore and president of Kappa Alpha Theta, said members are held to high academic standards.

"We have a GPA requirement, and girls can't hold offices if they fall below that," said DiGioia, whose 155-member sorority had an average GPA of 3.53 last semester.

Members who struggle also are required to meet with a scholarship adviser, who steers them toward peer mentors and other help.

The emphasis on academics was part of the appeal for DiGioia, a marketing major from Rockville, Md.

"I wanted to become part of something bigger than myself at college," she said, "and I knew right off the bat a sorority could be that thing for me."

Eskin knew, too. Her mom, a Penn State graduate, was in one and still has many of her sorority friends.

"Seeing that it's a lifelong thing, I grew up wanting that," she said.

Both Eskin and DiGioia said they also enjoy being part of a group that helps others. Alpha Omicron Pi donates to arthritis research, participates in Penn State's Thon, which raises money for pediatric cancer research, and raises money for the community's homeless. Kappa Alpha Theta, also in Thon, helps provide support for children in foster care.

Eskin welcomes the national initiative to improve Greek life and sees the need for it.

"There is a lot of room for improvement on this campus and nationwide," she said. "I would hope that something like this would work, and people would stop the call to end Greek life. I would hope people could see all the immense benefits that are coming from it."The strangest thing about Nick Millevoi's new bimonthly gig at the West Philly bar Booker's is how not strange it is.

On Thursday evening, the guitarist and his trio the Stardusters  bassist Matt Stein and drummer Mike Szekely  played repertoire ranging from Hank Williams to Duke Ellington, with classics like "Red River Valley" and "Caravan" rendered as Americana-tinged jazz with a surf-guitar flair. But the melodies were played straight, lovely enough to serve as happy hour background music (or, in Millevoi's preferred term, "social music") if you didn't pause at your bar stool to tune in to the band's obvious virtuosity.

"The idea of the band," Millevoi says, "is to play music from the '50s and '60s that you can google and find a million different versions of, but they're not necessarily jazz standards. They might be both  'Autumn Leaves' is a jazz standard that also would have fit into this other canon of music  but aesthetically, songs that were recorded as pop instrumental covers or in exotica versions."

Musical influences don't typically pass through Millevoi's hands quite so unaltered. The Philly guitarist has co-led the power trio Many Arms, which parlayed blistering riffs and mathematical complexity into rigorously brutal prog-metal workouts; with frequent collaborator Dan Blacksberg, he formed the avant-garde trombone/guitar duo Archer Spade and played Hasidic doom metal and radical klezmer music; of late, he's played in psych-experimentalist Chris Forsyth's Solar Motel Band and performed pieces from uncategorizable composer John Zorn's extensive catalog alongside Cleric guitarist Matt Hollenberg.

If each of those projects thrives on a collision of styles, Millevoi's Desertion Trio is a traffic-stopping, multi-genre pileup. Given the band's vigorous sound, free jazz freakouts can emerge from a haze of Crazy Horse distortion, or a free-floating country twang can suddenly sharpen into surf-rock riffery. One track may conjure a scene of secret agent skulduggery while another offers a glimpse of a fantasy landscape constructed from Les Baxter exotica and soft-focus cinematics.

On Thursday night, Millevoi and the Desertion Trio will celebrate the release of their second album, Midtown Tilt, at Johnny Brenda's, with jazz harpist Brandee Younger opening the show, presented by the Ars Nova Workshop. The band, which also includes Many Arms bassist Johnny DeBlase and drummer Kevin Shea of Mostly Other People Do the Killing, will be joined by the adventurous (and impressively bearded) keyboardist Jamie Saft, who appeared on and recorded both of the trio's albums in his New York studio.

You can rattle off a laundry list of names from Neil Young to the Ventures as touchstones, but the main influence behind Midtown Tilt is not an artist but a place: Wildwood. Raised in Northeast Philly, Millevoi has been frequenting the Shore town since childhood, discovering inspiration in its uniquely nostalgic aesthetic in recent years.

"I started thinking about what Wildwood has meant to me," he says, "but also what the city of Wildwood means as a cultural object. It's a unique place, and so much of it is preserved intact. That idea of Wildwood being a time capsule relates to my feeling of music, that these tunes are frozen in time. There's a personal nostalgia, but then there's a nostalgia for a place that is nostalgic."

Millevoi's adoration of the look of Wildwood feels untainted by irony; even his guitar, a custom seaside green Jazzmaster-style Creston, looks like something that could be mounted on a spinning neon sign a block or two from the beach. He and his wife frequent the city, on and offseason, usually staying at the well-preserved Caribbean Motel.

"It looks exactly the same as it does in pictures from the '50s," Millevoi says. "Each one of these themed motels  the Shalimar, the Singapore, the Malibu  is supposed to evoke a place that the people that built it probably had no idea about. It's like listening to exotica music: It's fake culture. You go down one street and you have all these places evoking other places in other time periods. I wanted to explore that musically, with each track on the album having its own feeling and its own sound, so you can have a cowboy track next to a spy track next to a surf track."

As opposed to the recognizable renditions of classic tunes he plays with the Stardusters (whose name refers simultaneously to a jazz standard, a Wildwood motel, and an early Neil Young band), his music with the Desertion Trio is more exploratory, distorted, and warped. Conceptually, that might suggest the decay that many of these Shore town landmarks have suffered in the intervening decades, but Millevoi says that's not his intention. "That's my lens, how I feel music. That's not conceptual; that's just me."Sonia Margolis (right), 77, of Warminster, Pennsylvania had her vision tested by Dennis Magrann, a certified driver rehabilitation specialist at MossRehab Driving Program in June during evaluation for driving. She hoped to regain her license. WILLIAM THOMAS CAIN / For The Philadelphia Inquirer) Read more

Figuring out how to stop older drivers with dementia from driving before they hurt someone has proven challenging for state leaders, and a new study aims to help guide those efforts.

Research from the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health casts doubt on one approach that makes intuitive sense  requiring doctors to report patients with dementia to licensing authorities  but provides some evidence that other rules can help seniors in certain age groups avoid accident-related injuries.

>> Read more: The best ways to get older drivers to give up the keys.

The study, published Wednesday in the journal Neurology, analyzed data from 136,987 drivers across the nation aged 60 and up who were hospitalized after a motor vehicle accident. Of those, 5,564 were diagnosed with dementia. The study looked at whether states with certain driving rules had a lower proportion of drivers with dementia who had been hurt badly enough in accidents to require hospitalization. The data covered 2004 to 2009.

In those years, three states  Pennsylvania, Oregon, and California  required doctors to report patients with dementia. In addition, 27 provided legal protection for doctors who reported patients. In New Jersey, doctors are required to report certain health problems but not necessarily dementia.

Contrary to what the researchers expected, required reporting had no impact on hospitalization rates for drivers with dementia. Two things made a difference for drivers aged 60 to 69: requiring drivers to renew licenses in person, and to take vision tests. Hospitalized drivers in states with in-person renewal were 37 percent to 38 percent less likely to have dementia. They were an additional 23 percent to 28 percent less likely to have dementia in states that required vision testing at in-person renewal. Road testing also helped, but only for drivers age 80 and older.

About 10 percent of people over 65 have dementia, but it is much more common among people over 80, so reducing rates among people under 70 likely affects only a small part of the problem.

New Jersey drivers renew their licenses every four years. They can renew by mail every other time. Vision tests are not routinely required. Pennsylvania does not require in-person renewal, but about 1,900 drivers a month over 45 are randomly told to take an eye exam.

The study is only one piece of the puzzle. It examined one type of available data in a realm where data are fragmented and difficult to obtain, said Yll Agimi, who worked on the study while he was a doctoral student at Pitt and is now a health data scientist at Salient CRGT Inc.

Some researchers may care more about the total number of accidents, injuries to other drivers or pedestrians, or deaths. Other studies have found that in-person renewals and vision tests reduced traffic fatalities among the oldest drivers  those 85 and up. One study found that insurance claims declined after Illinois required drivers over 75 to take a driving test when they renew their licenses.

The researchers were most surprised by the results on physician reporting. It's possible that physicians aren't actually following the law or that licensing authorities aren't following through often enough on reports.

"The enforcement piece is a big issue," Agimi said.

Steven M. Albert, chair of the department of behavioral and community health sciences at Pitt, said that taking the keys from an aging driver is one of the most difficult issues that doctors and families face. The study shows how difficult it is to affect those decisions.

It also shows, he said, that "we're not getting the extra bang out of the buck in requiring physicians to report patients with dementia to the department of motor vehicles."

Keeping unsafe drivers off the road likely will require greater cooperation between families and health care providers.

"I don't think we can expect physicians alone to be the gatekeepers to safe driving and licensing. It's probably an unrealistic demand," he said. "It's a general public-health education issue that people need to know, that cognitive disorders affect driving."Global Leadership Academy Charter School student Kionna Biuens, 12, was one of hundreds who rallied for charter schools Tuesday. MICHELLE GUSTAFSON Read more

Amid an ongoing standoff with the Philadelphia School District, hundreds of people rallied for Philadelphia charter schools at City Hall on Tuesday.

For nearly two years, some charter schools have refused to sign their operating agreements, saying the terms demanded by the district's charter school office threaten "our existence and our autonomy," said Scott Gordon, CEO of Mastery Charter Schools, the city's largest charter network.

Tension between charters and traditional public schools is nothing new, but Tuesday brought the feud over accountability and perceived overreach into sharp public relief.

Flanked by several City Council members, parents, students and officials from 15 charter networks and schools called on the School District to soften its stance on charter renewals. They also urged Mayor Kenney to consider charter interests as he prepares to form a new school board.

"We are for charter schools," Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell told a crowd so large it spilled out of the Mayor's Reception Room into an overflow space. "We know how the parents in the community feel about them  they love them, and they feel they are safe there. They deserve their bite of the apple, too."

Seventeen charters have refused to sign their renewal agreements, saying the district wants them to agree to permit the school system to change policies at any time for any reason, to allow it to take away payments with no recourse. They also object to what they say are unfair academic standards  comparing charters not to peer schools but a group of schools that includes magnet schools.

School officials say those are incorrect characterizations: that they are only requiring charters be subject to the same school board policy changes all public schools must adhere to. They also note that for the purposes of renewal decisions, charters are compared only to neighborhood nonselective schools.

Lee Whack, a spokesman for the school system, said the charter school office's goal is to make sure all Philadelphia schoolchildren are served equitably.

"We will continue to work directly with every charter school to ensure they are providing the highest possible quality options for students and families," Whack said in a statement. "The standards we want are aligned to national standards and best practices for accountability and quality charter school authorizing, and similar to what these charter schools agreed to and signed in prior years."

For parent Crystal Morris, showing up at City Hall was crucial. She represented many parents in the city who choose charters  people who feel that their local traditional public schools just aren't options.

Morris' older son graduated from Boys Latin of Philadelphia Charter School in 2016, and her younger son is still a student there. The family's neighborhood high school is Overbrook, where just 3 percent of students scored proficient on state math exams and 53 percent of students graduated on time. Morris has sat outside of the school when classes dismiss, watching police try to keep order.

"Going there isn't even a discussion," Morris said. "That's not the appropriate place for him. Who deserves to go to a substandard school? Certainly not my children, or the children of anybody I know."

Pennsylvania's charter structure sets up an odd situation: Local school boards are charged with authorizing and regulating the charter schools that take students  and resources  away from traditional school systems. But those who rail against charters as harming public schools often have other choices for their children  magnet schools, private schools, even suburban schools, said Larry Jones, CEO of Richard Allen Preparatory Charter School in Southwest Philadelphia.

"My zip code and, if we're going to be real, my color should not be a barrier to the choice that I have," Jones said.

Parents and charter officials also emphasized they'll be watching as the new school board is constituted to see if the nine people chosen have their interests at heart.

Toya Algarin, a board member and parent at KIPP Philadelphia Charter School, sent her son from Germantown to West Philadelphia, for a chance at a charter school education, and she said it has made all the difference. She wants board members who will make sure schools like KIPP continue to exist  and expand.

"It's important," Algarin said, "that all voices have a seat at the table."Sen. Bob Menendez became emotional speaking to reporters after a federal jury said it was hopelessly deadlocked in his corruption trial. Read more

Nearly three years after a 69-page indictment first threatened Sen. Bob Menendez's political career and freedom, and two months after a jury deadlocked over his guilt or innocence, the Justice Department said Wednesday it would drop the bribery case.

Prosecutors, citing a judge's decision last week to acquit Menendez of some of the charges, said they would move to dismiss the grand jury indictment of the senator and his codefendant, Florida eye doctor Salomon Melgen.

Menendez (D., N.J.), who has served in the Senate since 2006, will now seek reelection with the full support of his party  and without the cloud of a retrial hanging over him.

That's a dramatic shift in just a couple of months with impact beyond New Jersey. In the fall, as Menendez was on trial, national Democrats worried that a conviction could force the senator to resign  a crucial loss in a nearly evenly divided chamber  and pave the way for a Republican appointment by then-Gov. Chris Christie. And some New Jersey Democrats were maneuvering to run for the seat.

Menendez, 64, said Wednesday he was grateful prosecutors had reevaluated their case. "I never wavered in my innocence and my belief that justice would prevail," he said in a statement.

"I have devoted my life to serving the people of New Jersey, and am forever thankful for all who have stood by me," the senator said. "No matter the challenges ahead, I will never stop fighting for New Jersey and the values we share."

Mike Soliman, Menendez's top political adviser, left no doubt about the senator's intention to seek reelection in November. "Senator Menendez is 100 percent running for reelection, and will run a strong campaign, leaving no stone unturned in communicating with New Jerseyans and fighting Donald Trump on their behalf," Soliman said.

The news, announced almost five years to the day after federal investigators raided Melgen's South Florida office, is a major defeat for the Justice Department. Menendez was the first sitting U.S. senator to face public corruption charges since Alaska's Ted Stevens, who was convicted in 2008 but later exonerated because of prosecutorial misconduct.

Prior to U.S. District Judge William H. Walls' ruling last week, prosecutors had said they would retry the case. The first trial in Newark, which lasted 11 weeks, ended with a hung jury and mistrial in November. Although the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict on any of the 18 counts, jurors later told reporters that the vote was 10-2 in favor of acquittal.

Walls granted the defendants' motion for acquittal on seven of the charges, ruling that prosecutors had failed to introduce evidence demonstrating an explicit quid pro quo  that is, an exchange of something of value by the gift-giver for an official act by the senator.

That ruling applied to bribery charges that were based on Melgen's contribution of more than $600,000 to political committees affiliated with Menendez during his 2012 reelection campaign.

Prosecutors had argued that Melgen made those donations with the intention of influencing Menendez's advocacy on his behalf. They pointed to pressure they said the senator applied to top officials in the Obama administration, including the health and human services secretary, to resolve Melgen's $8.9 million billing dispute with Medicare.

"There is no there there," the judge wrote, quoting Gertrude Stein.

Menendez was also accused of accepting free trips on Melgen's private jet, vacations at his villa in the Dominican Republic, and a three-night stay at an upscale Paris hotel. In exchange, the government said, Menendez used the power of his office to advance Melgen's personal and financial interests.

In their announcement, prosecutors didn't elaborate on the reasons they chose to abandon the case, beyond citing the judge's ruling.

But they apparently didn't think they had enough evidence to move forward. Defense attorneys argued at trial that prosecutors were trying to criminalize the senator's friendship with Melgen.

Scott Resnik, a former federal prosecutor in New Jersey, said the ruling made it harder for the government "to weave together a convincing narrative that you can prove the illegality at issue."

"I think what this really speaks to is the difficulty in general of bringing a public corruption case based almost entirely on circumstantial evidence," said Resnik, now a criminal-defense attorney with Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP in New York. He noted there was no direct evidence such as recordings or testimony from a cooperating witness.

Menendez may waltz to his party's nomination in June, but Republicans, who haven't won a U.S. Senate race in New Jersey in more than 40 years, say they're eager to run against a wounded candidate.

The Republican nominee is likely to point to Melgen's conviction in a separate criminal case last year on Medicare fraud. Prosecutors in that case are seeking a 30-year prison sentence.

Thirty-six percent of New Jersey voters disapprove of Menendez's job performance, compared with just 29 percent who approve, according to a November Rutgers-Eagleton poll that was conducted after the mistrial. But a big chunk of voters didn't provide any opinion of the senator.

"Senator Menendez's real judge and jury will be voters who have already indicated they overwhelmingly find his behavior unacceptable," said Doug Steinhardt, chairman of the New Jersey GOP.

Among those considering running is Robert Hugin, who recently retired as executive chairman of Celgene Corp., a pharmaceutical company.

"Party leaders are enthusiastic" about Hugin's potential candidacy and are "urging him to run," said Bill Palatucci, a Republican national committeeman in New Jersey and adviser to Christie. Hugin hasn't yet made a decision, Palatucci said.Marvels Black Bolt writer Saladin Ahmed has a new comic, Abbott, about a black female tabloid journalist. (And I love it.) The comic is set in 1972 Detroit, but is vividly culturally and socially relevant. Read more

I called Amalgam Comics just in time. There was one copy left of the new comic book Abbott. If I came soon, it was mine.

Taxi! (Actually, it was an Uber, but that just doesn't have the same ring to it.)

For reasons that should be obvious, I was eagerly awaiting the release of Saladin Ahmed's new series about  get this  a female tabloid journalist of color dealing with racism, sexism and the supernatural  which, if you've ever dealt with some of Philadelphia's departments, isn't as far-fetched as you might think.

The series, which debuted Jan. 24, is set in 1972's "two Detroits: one white, one black," a place where "the former would rather leave the city than truly share it with the latter."

The lead character, Elena Abbott, is a black, bisexual badass investigative reporter writing the stories that sometimes make her white bosses and colleagues squirm. She (righteously, of course) argues with her editor and unapologetically fights for respect and representation for herself and the community of color she writes for.

"We all read that article you wrote about what the police did to that boy," the black owner of a local diner tells her. "We were real proud you got them to print the truth in the white man's paper."

Published by Boom! Studios, the debut comic introduces us to Abbott just as she's angered the police department with a story she's done and just as she begins to investigate a chain of grisly crimes ignored by the cops and perpetrated by "a dark magical force" that 10 years before murdered her husband.

It's gritty and real and socially and culturally relevant. It rings true, even here in Philly.

"You're lucky you still have a job, dammit, people weren't happy with that article about the cops and the boy," her editor  who actually has her back  roars after he stands up for her with the higher-ups.

She answers: "If the truth agitates people, Fred, does that mean we shouldn't publish the truth?"

Like I said, badass.

Her story is probably a lot more relevant in 2018 than it should be, especially when it comes to issues of race and representation.

Representation matters, which is why I love this local #BlackPantherChallenge to help Philly kids see the recently released Black Panther movie. And few know that better than Philly's own Ariell Johnson, who founded Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse in 2015, and who happens to be the East Coast's first black comic book store owner to have her own Marvel Comics cover alongside Marvel superhero RiRi Williams.

Johnson's told this story before, but I love it: how her 11-year-old imagination took off after seeing Storm of the X-Men. How before setting her girlhood eyes on the white-haired, white-eyed black woman flying around shooting lightning at people, she "felt like I was watching other people's adventures but never imagining myself as being a part of it."

How that empowerment played a big part in who she is today and the importance she places on inclusivity in comics and her Kensington comic book store.

"It is really important to see yourself," she said. "I don't want the next generation of children to have to wait that long to see someone who looks like them. You can't be what you can't see." And what they can see when they come to her store on Frankford Avenue is a young black woman in charge, titles where girls are the leads. The heroes.

"That's powerful,"Johnson said.

I liked comic books fine when I was younger. I liked the superheroes like everyone else. I was an unapologetic Archie fan. But like many people, I aged out of them. And then along came Abbott, and she spoke to me in adulthood in a way that Storm spoke to Johnson in childhood.

And not  I repeat, not  because she's "a black Lois Lane"  a comparison that makes me roll my eyes so far back in my head that I'm afraid I'll lose one.

Abbott is not a black Lois Lane. She's a black Elena Abbott, which is exactly the point and power of the comic. As journalist Charles Pulliam-Moore put it, Abbott also would have taken one look at Clark Kent and scooped Lois Lane with an expose about Superman's secret identity.

At a time when newsrooms are still struggling with inclusion and diversity, when newsrooms are still mostly white and male and there aren't nearly as many Abbotts as there should be, there is something truly magical about imagining a little girl of color walking into a comic store and coming across Abbott and thinking:

"Oh, hell yeah, that's who I'm going to be."One of the owls that participated in educational programs at Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic. Read more

Dozens of animals have been removed  and reported stolen  from the animal clinic at Philadelphia's Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education in the midst of a dispute between the organization's executive director and the former head of wildlife rehabilitation.

For months, tensions over personnel matters have been escalating at the Roxborough center, which is one of the few facilities in the region that could accept orphaned or injured wildlife until they were healthy enough for release. Animals that could survive, but were disabled, had become permanent fixtures used for educational programs at the center, in schools, or for children's programs.

Now Jackson, the great horned owl, and Maiden, the turkey vulture, are among the animals taken. Whether the animals were actually stolen or legally transferred to other facilities is unclear.

It's no mystery who was behind the disappearance of the animals. Rick Schubert, who was fired last week as the center's wildlife rehabilitation director, said he coordinated with others who still had access to the clinic to move the animals to other wildlife centers where there were licensed professionals who would administer appropriate care.

Schubert's dismissal, according to the center's executive director, Mike Weilbacher, was the result of "serious complaints" by volunteers and visitors. Citing legal concerns, Weilbacher declined to provide details of the complaints.

Schubert called the complaints "baseless," and said he was unfairly fired after providing an affidavit regarding discrimination and harassment complaints filed by another employee. Weilbacher said that is not true. Although Schubert was good at his job handling animals, he said, the complaints by others were serious enough to warrant dismissal.

With Schubert gone last week, problems emerged at the center, including what is now a bitter custody dispute over the animals, and how they were secretly smuggled out of the facility over the weekend.

Schubert, a respected rehabilitation officer, has garnered support from coworkers and volunteers. On Monday, about a dozen people picketed at the center on Hagys Mill Road, with signs that said the clinic was underfunded. One sign read, "No Schubert, no clinic, very sad."

Lisa Gruber, a volunteer who organized the picketing, described Schubert as a "beloved rehabber" who did his best to give new life to animals. "Our reason to protest was the unfair firing of Rick."

While the protesters were outside the clinic, Weilbacher discovered that all of the animals had been taken  a surprise, he said, because when he was there over the weekend, everything seemed fine. He did see Frankie the goat and another goat being taken, but he was told they were going for routine vet care, he said.

Then on Monday, he discovered that a litter of squirrels that were to be released were missing, along with Jackson and Maiden, the goats, and some chickens. Loki, one of the owls, and Russell Crow also were gone. In all, Weilbacher said he was trying to determine what happened to about 40 animals, and he called police to report them stolen.

A police spokesman said Wednesday that the department is investigating the complaint.

"We intend to press all charges," Weilbacher said.

Schubert said the animals were not stolen, but taken because the center was being "unreasonable" and operating illegally without a licensed professional.

It was his responsibility, he said, to make sure the animals continued to receive good care or to place the animals with another licensed professional.

Weilbacher said that he appointed another employee as the acting director for wildlife rehabilitation and that he was working with the Pennsylvania Game Commission to ensure that the animals received proper care. The acting director needs to renew her license, he said. And, the center is searching for another licensed wildlife rehabilitation worker as well.

Philadelphia-based Game Commission Officer Jerry Czech said that had the animals not been taken, the state would have allowed them to stay at the center as long as a licensed professional was hired in the near future. The center had the staff to care for the animals but would not have been allowed to take in new ones.

"Rick was the rehabber," Czech said. Without him, the center does not have the needed licensed worker to take in new animals. Technically, the animals that were there also needed a licensed worker, but there were people capable of providing care. "If they wanted to take in a raccoon today, that would be illegal," he said.

The commission does not oversee farm animals such as the goats and chickens. The commission will not get in the middle of the fight between Weilbacher and Schubert, Czech said. Its only interest is to make sure all the animals have proper care. It appears they were placed in appropriate facilities, he said.

It may be up to the police to decide whether some or all of the animals were stolen or whether there is a basis for criminal charges, Czech said.THE PARENTS: Lou GrowMiller, 38, and Michael GrowMiller, 40, of Glenside

THE KIDS: Gabriella, 6; Mason, 4, adopted November 1, 2017

HOW LOU WON MICHAEL'S HEART: It was a tuna fish sandwich  Michael's first  made by Lou the afternoon Michael arrived in Rehoboth to visit Lou and some friends; they'd only just started to date. "It was so comforting," Michael says. "I knew right away."

Even through his tinted sunglasses  Michael was wearing them at 8 p.m. at Bump, the now-defunct gay/lesbian lounge, as a way of avoiding unwanted contact  he could tell Lou's eyes were green.

And although Michael's an emphatic pragmatist, something about this man felt meant-to-be. "I walked up to him. He said, 'I can't talk to you. You have sunglasses on.' I thought: Do I know him already? It was a familiar feeling."

They had a few dates, but Lou felt guarded. "I purposely took my time getting to know him." Then Michael mentioned that he was going to be featured in the newspaper soon, as one of the Philadelphia Daily News' 2005 "Sexy Singles."

"I kind of felt like: Wow. I've upgraded," Lou recalls with a laugh. After the publication, which included Michael's email address, men deluged him with requests for dates. "I thought: I'd better put my claws in him now."

It was on a brief business trip to Las Vegas  Michael was attending a conference, and Lou went along for the ride  that Michael proposed, pulling out a ring version of the hooked metal bracelet that he often wore and that Lou had admired. Lou's response: "Let's have a long engagement."

That gave them time to work out the kinks of living together in a Roxborough duplex  Lou favored hot showers; Michael preferred cold ones; Lou's cat and Michael's dog had to learn to coexist  and plan an April 2007 wedding at Valley Green.

Their first dance, to "I Found My Everything," was a little clumsy, and a close look at the photos reveals the cover-up caked under Lou's eye to mask a brush burn from a fall the previous evening, and their union wasn't legal in Pennsylvania, but the ceremony still meant an opportunity to put their relationship on the map.

"It was a lot of guests' first same-sex wedding," Michael says, "a celebration for us and our family and friends to say, 'This is serious.' "

Michael, one of six siblings, had a passel of nieces and nephews; Lou worked with foster kids at a social service agency. There were plenty of children in their orbit. But one day, after a foster mother was brusque with one of Lou's young clients, he thought, "Why aren't we foster parents? I think we can do it."

Two months later, they began classes: CPR, effective communication, positive parenting. A home study. Police and child abuse clearances. Character references. Four months after they were certified to be foster parents, they got a call: a month-old girl who'd been in the NICU since birth  on steroids, in a warm, darkened room, with no blankets because her skin was so sensitive, withdrawing from the opiates her mother had used during pregnancy.

Lou had never babysat a child for more than two hours, and Michael, despite his "favorite uncle" status, was nervous about holding an infant. "It was like a test: Can we be parents?" Lou recalls.

For six weeks, both worked part-time, scrambling up the learning curve of new parenthood: the right way to burp a baby, the exasperating buttons on those onesies. Lou, who'd always hated coffee, began gulping it daily to stay alert.

Friends and family helped, sending food and toys and diapers. Michael's mother came from Duluth, Minn., for a long visit. And after 27 exhausting months, they adopted Gabriella.

"My last name was Grow. Michael's was Miller. We didn't want to have different last names," Lou says. So the men changed their names legally and gave their daughter the new, hybrid surname. "It made everything feel like, 'We're a family now,' " Lou says.

At home, he became "Daddy L," and Michael was "Daddy M." When Gabriella began asking for a sibling, they decided to try fostering again; this time, a 6-month-old boy was with them for three months before being reunited with his birth family. Michael felt undone by the loss, but Gabriella offered a wise-child perspective: "Why can't we be happy for the time he was with us?" she asked.

The experience confirmed that they wanted a second child, but not an infant. In March 2016, while Lou was attending a conference in Austin, Texas, a caseworker called: Could she drop off a 2-year-old named Mason? How about tomorrow?

Lou raced around a Texas airport, trying to find a tiny cowboy outfit to match the cowgirl duds he'd bought for Gabriella. Michael remembers his first glimpse of Mason the following day: "This little kid, kind of limping in our driveway. He came in and petted the cat. You can tell that how kids are with animals, that's how they are as a person. Gabriella ran right in and grabbed his hand. These two acted like they'd known each other their whole lives."

Now, they've jostled into new rhythms: Lou has become an expert hair-braider. Michael is the parent who fixes broken toys. Lou tries to curb his workaholic tendencies. With kids, he says, dinner can't just be a slapped-together peanut butter sandwich eaten while checking email. "You're forced to think of somebody else besides yourself. It's really taking a step back and putting yourself second, or third. And being OK with that."

Both men read their kids the children's book Daddy, Papa and Me and talk frankly about adoption. "We tell them, 'Your parent was sick  brain-sick  and couldn't take care of you. Your daddies always wanted to care for children. We're very lucky,' " Lou says. "As they get older, we'll tell them more about their history."

Maybe Michael will tell the story of the first time he glimpsed Gabriella, a tiny, long-lashed infant in a car seat the caseworkers had plunked on their dining room table. "She looked at me and smirked," he says. "Right then, there's a piece of you that's always going to be her. It was a wake-up call: I'm going to give you the best life I can."To mark Black History Month, the Museum of the American Revolution will offer a lecture by historian Judith Van Buskirk, who wrote the book Standing In their Own Light: African American Patriots in the Revolutionary War. This tableau tells the story of London Pleasants, an African-American teenager in Virginia in 1781, who, lured by the promise of freedom, joined the British forces. Blacks were torn over whether to risk taking a chance at freedom with the British, or staying on the side of the American colonies. Read more

Peter Jennings and Philip Rodman, two free African American men from Rhode Island regiments, were among the Revolutionary War troops who crossed the icy Delaware River on Christmas night 1776.

The ice kept two other generals from making the trip, but it didn't stop the pair's victory: Gen. George Washington was able to capture enemy Hessian forces at Trenton. Two years later, those men's bravery inspired a group of Rhode Island officers to solicit Washington's support at Valley Forge to use enslaved men to fill their state's quota, shorthanded as they were. It worked: The Slave Enlistment Act reimbursed owners for freeing their slaves for the war effort.

The lives of Jennings and Rodman are two of about 500 men of color whose stories are told in historian Judith Van Buskirk's 2017 book Standing in Their Own Light: African American Patriots in the American Revolution.

Van Buskirk, a professor at the State University of New York, Cortland, will talk about the role black men played in the war at the Museum of the American Revolution at 6:30 p.m. Thursday to mark Black History Month.

It's part of what the museum's mission "to cast light on the stories of people who have not traditionally been included in the narrative of the American Revolution and the founding of the nation," said R. Scott Stephenson, vice president of collections, exhibitions and programming.

Roughly 5,000 men of African descent have been documented as serving in the forces of the Continental Army, Stephenson said. Even more  an estimated 20,000  joined the British war effort; enslaved black men were enticed with promises of freedom.

But it turns out little else was documented about the black men who served in the war, something Van Buskirk discovered after speaking to two veterans at a Fourth of July lecture she gave to an African American community in Mount Vernon, N.Y., in 2002.

On her ride home, she thought about her own Uncle Bud, William Raymond Hendricks, who had joined the Marines at age 16 and served in World War II.

Her uncle survived the Battle of Okinawa but was later killed by a sniper when he was 19. His military records were lost in a fire and her mother had destroyed his letters.

"The forgotten vets, these guys from Mount Vernon, my Uncle Bud  they had put their lives on the line for this country," said Van Buskirk, who took 14 years to research and write the book.

She found most of the histories of the Revolution mention black and American Indian soldiers as groups, rather than individuals. So Van Buskirk went about searching through muster records, which noted when men enlisted in the army and listed their regiments or militias.

Black men were motivated by a number of reasons to join the war: adventure, money, possible freedom. When enslaved men joined the army, "they chose last names that spoke of their new status: Freeman, Freedom, Liberty," Van Buskirk wrote. Those who were already free before the war earned money to purchase the freedom of their wives and children still held in slavery.

They were wagon drivers, servants, fifers and drummers. Some carried muskets and engaged in battles. Most of the black revolutionaries were in New England and southern units; Pennsylvania had relatively few.

After the war, some of those fighting on the British side moved to Canada, especially Nova Scotia, and a few, disappointed in the continued discrimination they endured by white loyalists who also fled to Nova Scotia, resettled in Africa.

Van Buskirk found that pension records painted a more fully developed story of the black soldiers.

In depositions for war pensions, aging veterans had to recount the dates and places where they served and the names of officers they served under.

Often, it was a veteran's widow, children or grandchildren, who gave testimony on what they had heard about the veteran's service. And in many cases, black veterans like William Johnson, who otherwise had no proof they were in the war, found white soldiers or officers to vouch for them.

Johnson, who spent his youth in Boston, where he joined the Third Massachusetts, was 66 when he provided answers for his affidavit for his pension in Vermont in 1822. He said he enlisted in 1781. While he named his officers, he couldn't name any battles, the book recounts.

Without witnesses for his application, Van Buskirk wrote, he "took to the road to find supporters."

That led to the affidavit of William Hull, the lieutenant colonel in Johnson's unit, who noted that although Johnson was in poor health and deaf, he had walked "hundreds of miles" to find him.

Tickets are $15 general admission and $5 for members. Call 215-253-6731.In this Jan. 7, 2016, image made from a video provided by the Philadelphia Police Department, a gunman runs toward a police car driven by Philadelphia Police Officer Jesse Hartnett in Philadelphia. Read more

When Philadelphia police disclosed two years ago that the man accused of shooting an officer claimed to do so "in the name of Islam," the already shocking crime received international attention  and led to questions about whether the gunman had been inspired or directed by a terrorist organization.

For the first time Wednesday, Edward Archer's own words after the crime were aired publicly and in full  leaving little doubt that in his own mind at least, Archer's faith motivated the ambush-style attack on Officer Jesse Hartnett in West Philadelphia.

"I pledge my allegiance to the Islamic State," Archer told a detective hours after he allegedly shot Hartnett in January 2016, according to a video recording of his interrogation shown to jurors at Archer's trial. In the same interview, the defendant told the detective that he needed to "fight the disbelievers" of Islam, and that when he pulled the trigger, he "thought about Allah."

Excerpts of the three-hour-long interrogation video, shown during the seventh day of Archer's criminal trial, marked the final piece of the prosecution's case against him.

The was-it-or-wasn't-it-terrorism question has lingered in the background of the case almost since its outset.

In the weeks after the crime, then-FBI Director James Comey said authorities had not discovered any evidence linking Archer to foreign terrorist organizations. The Delaware County man, now 32, has never been charged with a terrorism-related count. And the day after the crime, Archer's mother said her son had been "talking to himself" and hearing voices  leaving open the potential that Archer may have been affected by mental illness.

But his court-appointed lawyers were denied in their bid to have him declared incompetent to stand trial, and he has routinely refused to cooperate with them  at times refusing even to respond to questions from the judge and court staff. The recorded interrogation therefore stands as his most expansive explanation of the night's events.

Recorded beginning around 4:30 a.m. on Jan. 8, 2016, at Police Headquarters, it showed a calm and seemingly aloof Archer repeatedly citing his religion when discussing the shooting with Detective John Harkins  but often mumbling or refusing to answer more basic questions, such as what type of gun he fired or what he was wearing at the time of the crime.

Harkins, for his part, seemed skeptical that Archer's actions were motivated by dogma. Pressing Archer on his claimed motive, Harkins pointed out that surveillance video had captured the incident and showed Archer covering his face, wearing gloves, opening fire, then running away  steps taken by gunmen in even the most unremarkable shootings.

"It just doesn't strike me as religious conviction," Harkins told Archer in the video. "It's more angry criminal violence that happens every day."

But Archer only seemed interested in discussing his religious inspiration. At one point, after Harkins asked why Archer was outside late on a January night, Archer responded: "The main thing I want to be clear is: I pledge my allegiance to the Islamic State."

Because Archer has refused to cooperate with his attorneys, Trevan Borum and Michael Coard, in forming a defense strategy, the defense rested Wednesday without offering any witnesses or further explanation about his motives.

Closing arguments are expected to begin Thursday before Common Pleas Court Judge Leon W. Tucker. If convicted of counts including attempted murder and aggravated assault, Archer could spend the rest of his life behind bars.Monday, January 29th, 2018. At Broad and Bigler police look onto a scene where a driver who allegedly had struck a pedestrian was fatally shot by an off-duty officer. Read more

Police on Tuesday identified the 31-year-old Virginia man fatally shot by an off-duty officer early after he allegedly drove a car into a pedestrian in South Philadelphia and then attacked the officer.

Khalil Lawal, of the 1000 block of South Frederick Street in Arlington, Va., was shot early Monday morning by the officer in the face, torso, and legs, police said. Lawal was taken to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 10:15 a.m.

At a news conference late Monday afternoon, Police Commissioner Richard Ross said he had reviewed surveillance video of the shooting and had "some concerns" about "whether all the shots were necessary."

Police earlier in the day said the officer, whose name was not released, had fired at least 10 shots.

Lawal allegedly was driving a 2012 Honda Accord south on Broad Street just after 7:30 a.m. when the vehicle turned left onto Bigler Street and hit a man exiting a parked car. Ross said that Lawal's action appeared to be intentional.

The Honda continued east on Bigler, then turned back toward the intersection. There, a truck blocked the Honda's path and the driver of the truck got out and attempted to detain Lawal. The off-duty officer was driving a 2016 Dodge pickup west on Bigler approaching Broad when he saw Lawal running after the other truck driver.

The officer exited his vehicle, drew his firearm, identified himself as police and ordered Lawal to the ground, police said. Lawal allegedly then began assaulting the officer, who responded by firing his service weapon.

The man struck by the Honda was treated and released at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania for minor injuries. The officer was treated and released at Methodist Hospital for minor injuries. He will be assigned to administrative duties while the shooting is investigated by Internal Affairs.State Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati (R., Jefferson) said Wednesday he would not turn over any data requested by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the wake of the gerrymandering ruling that Republicans have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review.

Last week, the state high court ruled that Pennsylvania's congressional map was the product of unconstitutional gerrymandering and ordered the General Assembly to submit files "that contain the current boundaries of all Pennsylvania municipalities and precincts" by noon Wednesday.

In a letter to the court, Scarnati's lawyers said he would not do so, repeating an argument they have made in the petition to the U.S. Supreme Court: The state court is overstepping its authority.

"In light of the unconstitutionality of the Court's Orders and the Court's plain intent to usurp the General Assembly's constitutionally delegated role of drafting Pennsylvania's congressional districting plan, Sen. Scarnati will not be turning over any data identified in the Court's Orders," the lawyers wrote.

While Scarnati's lawyers said in a footnote that the senator does not actually have the requested data, the refusal signals that Scarnati will not comply with any future requests that could help the court draw its own map, said Drew Crompton, Senate Republicans' top lawyer.

"They are trying to ready themselves to draw maps," Crompton said, "and Sen. Scarnati believes they don't have the power to do that and we shouldn't help them in that effort."

Republican lawmakers, including Scarnati, have said the court order does not give them enough time to draw a new map, especially because the justices did not provide a full opinion when they released the order overturning the map. By imposing a tight timeline with little guidance, the Republicans argue, the court sets them up to fail, clearing the way for the justices to draw their own map.

By late Wednesday, nine days after its order overturning the map, the court had not yet released a promised opinion explaining what makes the current map unconstitutional. Without it, Republican lawmakers say, they are wary of drawing new congressional districts that could be struck down.

Scarnati's letter was one of several filed Wednesday as the parties responded to a court order requesting maps and data.

In a separate filing, a lawyer for the General Assembly wrote that lawmakers do not have the requested map files showing the current municipal boundaries because they are produced only once a decade as part of the redistricting process.

"The General Assembly and its Legislative Data Processing Center do not maintain ESRI shape files that contain current boundaries of all Pennsylvania municipalities and precincts," the letter reads, directing the court instead to the state website that hosts files with the 2011 boundaries.

House Speaker Mike Turzai (R., Allegheny) did not have any data to submit, his lawyer said.

In declaring the state's congressional map an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander, the state high court ordered a new map redrawn in time for the primary election in May. It gave the General Assembly less than three weeks to approve a new map, then have it signed by Gov. Wolf. If that does not happen, the justices said in their order, they would adopt their own boundaries.

Days later, the court issued another order, announcing it had retained Stanford University professor Nathaniel Persily as an adviser and requesting the current municipal boundaries from the General Assembly. It also requested the parties submit maps and technical data used in expert testimony. Lawyers for the plaintiffs  18 Democratic voters from across the state  submitted their maps and data Wednesday, as did a lawyer for Lt. Gov. Mike Stack. Other parties, including Wolf, said they did not have any data to provide.

Scarnati and Turzai have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block the state court ruling, arguing that the U.S. Constitution gives state legislatures the power to run elections. By saying it would intervene and draw its own map, the lawmakers wrote, the state high court takes that power from the legislature. The court has not officially agreed to consider the case, but U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. has requested a response from the plaintiffs by 4 p.m. Friday.

In the meantime, lawmakers have taken the initial steps toward drawing new lines.

A "shell bill," essentially an empty document that repeals the previous map, passed the state Senate this week and was moved to the House. Legislators hope to amend it later to insert a new map, but they moved the empty bill because of the tight deadline and rules requiring that bills be considered for a certain amount of time.

On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman said caucus leaders had not yet had productive discussions about a new map because legislators still are awaiting the court's opinion. The current map was adopted in 2011, and Republican lawmakers have said they are wary of redrawing it without receiving guidance on what the court found specifically to be unconstitutional.

"Until we do, there's no sense sitting down having discussions," Corman said Monday, "or else we could be just drawing another map that they think is unconstitutional."

The court order gives lawmakers until Feb. 9 to pass a new map and send it to Wolf, who has until Feb. 15 to sign it. Wolf has been holding "listening sessions" this week to gather public input on redistricting.

Staff writer Liz Navratil contributed to this article.Over the last decade, nearly 21 million prescription painkillers have been shipped to a tiny town in West Virginia, a state where more people have overdosed on opioids and died than in any other in the nation.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has been investigating the opioid epidemic, revealed that 20.8 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills have been delivered to Williamson, W.Va., a town with a community college, a rail yard  and fewer than 3,200 residents, according to the most recent Census figures.

That's more than 6,500 pills per person  though not all of the painkillers stayed in Williamson.

As the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported, committee leaders sent letters to two regional drug distributors, asking why the companies oversupplied this town, among others, with painkillers.

"These numbers are outrageous, and we will get to the bottom of how this destruction was able to be unleashed across West Virginia," Reps. Greg Walden (R., Ore.) and Frank Pallone Jr. (D., N.J.) said in a statement, according to the Gazette-Mail. Walden is chairman of the committee, and Pallone is the ranking Democrat.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday announced a nationwide crackdown on pharmacies and prescribers that are oversupplying opioids amid a deadly epidemic sweeping the United States. A 2016 Washington Post investigation found that a number of drug companies and pharmacies have failed to report narcotics flooding small towns.

A 2016 investigation by the Gazette-Mail shed light on the issue in West Virginia  and the Post reported last year that a new legal front has opened in the war against the opioid crisis, as attorneys in the state began to file federal lawsuits targeting some of the nation's largest distributors of prescription painkillers. The lawsuits, filed on behalf of various West Virginia counties, are seeking billions of dollars in reimbursements for the devastation the drugs have caused in communities across the country.

In the letters, dated Jan. 26, the congressional committee noted that between 2006 and 2016, drug distributors shipped large quantities of hydrocodone and oxycodone to two pharmacies in Williamson, which is in Mingo County, on the Kentucky border.

During that time, Tug Valley Pharmacy received more than 10.2 million pills and Hurley Drug Co. received more than 10.5 million pills, according to Drug Enforcement Administration data that was provided to the committee.

The pharmacies are 0.2 miles apart.

Tug Valley Pharmacy declined to comment. Nicole McNamee, the owner of Hurley Drug Co., said that while the numbers may seem disproportionate, the two pharmacies have to cover a large service area: They are, she said, the only drugstores in Williamson, the county seat and the hub for surrounding rural communities, including parts of nearby Kentucky.

"All the prescriptions we filled were legal prescriptions written by a licensed provider," she said Wednesday.

The committee said in a letter to distributor Miami-Luken that from 2008 to 2015, the company had supplied more than half of all the prescription pain pills shipped to Tug Valley Pharmacy.

And distributor H.D. Smith, the committee said, provided the pharmacies with nearly 5 million pills between 2007 and 2008. "West Virginia court documents suggest that at one point, H.D. Smith provided the two pharmacies with 39,000 hydrocodone pills over a two-day period in October 2007," committee members wrote in the letter to the company.

Richard Blake, an attorney representing Ohio-based Miami-Luken, said the committee has questions about distributions from a number of drug companies. He said Miami-Luken, a small supplier that ships to parts of Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia, is "fully cooperating" with the committee, "providing them with all the information they're requesting."

Asked about whether the number of pain pills sent to Williamson were representative of shipments to other towns, Blake said he did not have that data on hand.

H.D. Smith, in a statement to the Post, said the company in Springfield, Ill., "operates with stringent protection of our nation's healthcare supply chain. The company works with its upstream manufacturing and downstream pharmacy partners to guard the integrity of the supply chain, and to improve patient outcomes. The team at H.D. Smith will review the letter and will respond as necessary."

The House committee also noted extensive shipments from the two companies to pharmacies elsewhere in West Virginia, including Beckley, Kermit, Mount Gay-Shamrock, and Oceana.

"The committee's bipartisan investigation continues to identify systemic issues with the inordinate number of opioids distributed to small town pharmacies," Walden and Pallone said in their statement. "The volume appears to be far in excess of the number of opioids that a pharmacy in that local area would be expected to receive."

In 2016, more than 42,000 people in the United States overdosed on opioids and died; 40 percent of those deaths were attributed to prescription painkillers, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. West Virginia, which has the highest opioid overdose rate in the nation, recorded 52 deaths per 100,000 people that year, according to the data.

Hydrocodone and oxycodone are semisynthetic opioids used to treat pain. But hydrocodone (commonly known by brand names such as Vicodin) and oxycodone (OxyContin) can be highly addictive.Paul Mango,, left greets Pennsylvania Sen. Scott Wagner, R-York County, and Laura Ellsworth, right, after a debate of candidates seeking the Republican Party's nomination to challenge Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf's re-election bid, Saturday, Jan. 20, 2018, in Pittsburgh. Read more

Two wealthy Pennsylvania Republicans seeking their party's gubernatorial nomination have already invested a total of more than $10 million in their campaigns, newly released records show.

State Sen. Scott Wagner (R., York), owner of a waste management firm, has lent his campaign $5.6 million and donated an additional $1.6 million, according to a report he filed with state campaign-finance regulators. He raised $2.5 million from other donors, his campaign said.

Paul Mango, a retired Pittsburgh-area business consultant, has donated $6.7 million to his campaign. That accounts for about 80 percent of the $8.4 million he raised.

Mango also reported a $1 million loan from private equity executive Patrick Hampson, who lives in the same town north of Pittsburgh. Mango's campaign had $5.5 million on hand as of last Dec. 31.

Wagner, who spent about $3 million in 2017, ended the year with nearly $6 million in campaign funds.

The candidates' annual reports were due Wednesday. The primary is scheduled for May 15.

Also running are House Speaker Mike Turzai (R., Allegheny), who reported having $1 million in cash, and Pittsburgh-area lawyer Laura Ellsworth. She reported ending the year with more than $400,000.

The Republicans are competing to challenge Gov. Wolf, a Democrat, in November. Wolf's campaign had $11 million on hand at the end of 2017.Hours before a scheduled appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to follow President Trump's nationally televised State of the Union address on Tuesday night, porn star Stormy Daniels issued a signed statement addressed "To Whom It May Concern" that denied an alleged affair with Donald Trump.

"The fact of the matter is that each party to this alleged affair denied its existence in 2006, 2011, 2016, 2017 and now again in 2018," the signed statement reads. "I am not denying this affair because I was paid 'hush money' as has been reported in overseas owned tabloids. I am denying it because it never happened."

The alleged affair came to prominence in early January when the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump's longtime attorney Michael Cohen negotiated a secret $130,000 payment to secure Daniels' silence shortly before the 2016 presidential election.

The White House dismissed the story as "old, recycled reports." Cohen also released a statement signed by "Stormy Daniels" denying there had been an affair and calling reports of a payment "completely false."

The celebrity magazine In Touch subsequently published a transcript of an interview it said Daniels gave in 2011. The reporter, Jordi Lippe-McGraw, who spoke with Daniels according to In Touch, confirmed to the Washington Post that the transcript was an accurate reflection of their May 2011 phone interview.

Tuesday's statement came as Daniels has been cashing in on her new-found notoriety, with sold-out shows at strip clubs, an appearance at the AVN awards show in Las Vegas known as the "Oscars of Porn," as well as on national media including Inside Edition in addition to Jimmy Kimmel Live! Daniels is also scheduled to appear Thursday on The View.

The new denial also came in the wake of reports that first lady Melania Trump was upset by stories about the affair, which allegedly began soon after she gave birth to their son, Barron. The first lady recently canceled plans to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, with her husband and retired instead to their Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago. Melania Trump attended the State of the Union address Tuesday night.

The authenticity of the signed statement was confirmed Tuesday by Daniels's representative Gina Rodriguez.

The statement ends abruptly. "I will have no further comment on this matter," it reads and then concludes with a promotional message: "Please feel free to check me out on Instagram at @thestormydaniels."President Donald Trump pauses as he finishes his first State of the Union address in the House chamber of the U.S. Capitol to a joint session of Congress Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018 in Washington. Read more

WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump told a member of Congress on Tuesday night that he would "100 percent" allow the public release of a GOP-drafted memo alleging surveillance abuses by the FBI and the Department of Justice, effectively ending speculation about whether he would back the campaign to declassify the document.

Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., approached Trump as he exited the House chamber following the State the Union address, and asked him to "release the memo."

"Don't worry, 100 percent," Trump responded, with a wave of his hand.

The exchange was caught by television cameras filming the president after he delivered the address. The president's comments also come as Congress is sharply divided over the fate of the Republican-written memo, which the House Intelligence Committee voted along party lines to release to the public. Trump has up to five days to block their plans, though with his endorsement, once official, lawmakers can move quickly to make the document public. Republicans support its release, but Democrats are opposed.

A White House spokesman confirmed early Wednesday that the administration's official position is now that Trump will release the memo.

The memo deals primarily with the role that intelligence passed along to the FBI by British ex-spy Christopher Steele played in efforts to conduct surveillance on Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser, according to people familiar with the four-page document. The memo suggests that Steele, the author of a now-famous dossier alleging Trump has ties to Russian officials, provided bad information to the FBI  although people familiar with it say the memo does not conclude whether Steele intentionally passed along suspect information or simply made a mistake. Steele's dossier work was paid for by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign, and Trump has denied the allegations in it.

Democrats have charged that the GOP memo is a thinly veiled attempt to cast doubt on the underpinnings of special counsel Robert Mueller III's Russia probe, as well as the federal law enforcement agencies behind it. Those on the House Intelligence Committee have prepared a rebuttal memo of their own, which the panel voted Monday to make available to members, but not release publicly.

Republican leaders have defended the decision to release their party's memo, citing a process that puts their document, which has been out for almost two weeks, ahead of the Democrats' document. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Tuesday that the memo is an effort to determine if "there may have been malfeasance at the FBI by certain individuals" and to get the FBI and the Justice Department to "clean their own house."

He stressed that the memo should not interfere with Mueller's probe, or compromise Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees that investigation, in any way.

"This is a completely separate matter from Bob Mueller's investigation, and his investigation should be allowed to continue," Ryan said. He added that he thinks "Rosenstein's doing a fine job," and that he has "no reason to see why he should" step down.U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, leader of Philadelphia Democratic Party announcing that he will not run for reelection during a Wednesday afternoon news conference. JOSE F. MORENO / Staff Photographer Read more

Bob Brady, the larger-than-life leader of Philadelphia's Democratic Party, announced Wednesday that he is not running for reelection to the U.S. House.

After a year in which he was under the cloud of a federal investigation, he revealed the news in a way that seemed all too perfect for the decades-long party boss: Wearing a long-sleeve Eagles shirt, Brady told ward leaders at a meeting at the Democratic City Committee's headquarters that he was calling it quits. A platter of hoagies from DeNofa's in Northeast Philadelphia was served for lunch.

Brady's announcement could reduce the political clout of Philadelphia's delegation, which besides Brady has two congressmen with little to no seniority in an election year in which many observers think Democrats could take back control of the House.

It will also likely push more candidates to jump into the race to succeed Brady. In fact, a new contender joined just hours after Brady's announcement: Pastor Kevin Johnson. Another, State Rep. Joanna McClinton, told radio station WURD that she was considering a run. And though Brady said he is going to continue as party chairman, some will likely see his announcement as a sign the city's Democratic machine is weakening.

In an interview hours before the party meeting, Brady, 72, said his family, as well as his concerns about how a new district map may affect his fellow city congressmen, factored into his decision.

"I've been married for 21 years," Brady said. "For 20 of those years, I've been going to Washington four days a week. I need to come back home."

At a news conference after the ward leaders' meeting, Brady reiterated that he wants to spend less time inside the Beltway. "All you can do after 4 or 5 o'clock [in Washington] is eat or drink. I don't drink, and I certainly don't look like I need something to eat."

Though several candidates announced in recent months that they would challenge Brady in the Democratic primary, he said that wasn't a concern: "I am not afraid of winning." He was also adamant that last year's federal investigation into his campaign finances, which snared two of his closest political aides, played no role in his choice.

Brady spent the second half of 2017 under intense scrutiny after it was disclosed that his campaign had given $90,000 to Jimmie Moore, an African American Democratic challenger in the 2012 primary who then dropped out of the race. One of Brady's aides, Don "DA" Jones, has pleaded guilty in federal court. Another, Ken Smukler, has said he will fight the charges.

"I've got a complete bill of health from the federal government," Brady said. "They told my attorney I am not being charged. They told my attorney in November. No deal was made."

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia declined Wednesday to comment on Brady's characterization of its investigation.

Brady's lawyers  Ronald Levine and James Eisenhower  were more circumspect and sought to clarify. The statute of limitations expired in January on almost all of the charges that Brady may have faced.

"Based on our review of the status on the case and the fact that the statute of limitations has run we advised him that we don't believe he will be charged," Eisenhower said.

Still, the investigation took a financial toll. Brady's latest campaign-finance report, filed Wednesday, showed that he paid $256,799 to three law firms in the last three months of 2017.

While the cases wend through the courts, the First District that Brady represents could change. A recent order from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court requires the Republican-controlled state legislature to redraw the 2011 map that set boundaries for congressional districts.

Brady said he did not want his status as a local party chairman to influence that process in his favor, to the detriment of his fellow Democratic congressmen from Philadelphia, Brendan Boyle and Dwight Evans. "I don't want to be disingenuous and wait for the lines to be drawn and then decide not to run," Brady said. "To be honest with you, are they trying to favor me? Absolutely they're trying to favor me. There's a lot of [potential] maps that have just two congressmen in Philadelphia."

Brady's alleged role in influencing the state's 2011 map was already a headache. Former Deputy Mayor Nina Ahmad, who announced last year that she was challenging Brady, said it was "disgusting" that he had "rallied Democrats to support" the GOP map. Brady, however, said, "I didn't have any input."

Wednesday's announcement came as a surprise to many insiders.

Former City Controller Alan Butkovitz, who represents the 54th Ward Democrats on city committee, said there was much uncertainty in Brady's district because of the gerrymandering case.

"I think the redistricting was the last straw," Butkovitz said, adding there were several strong potential challengers. "Then to top it off you have redistricting and you're going to have [decennial] redistricting in another two years. It's almost like a message from God."

State Sen. Anthony H. Williams, a ward leader in West Philadelphia, said Brady told him before the meeting that he has served a long time and that he considered the toll of another term.

"He talked about his wife, his children, his grandchildren that he wants to have an opportunity to spend time with them without the stress of public office," Williams said. "One of his kids is expecting and he's stuck in Washington, D.C."

Brady, a deal-maker with a leadership post on the House Committee on Administration, was not a policy wonk with a long legislative record of accomplishment.

He has also been criticized over the years for serving as party chairman as numerous Philly Democrats, including former District Attorney Seth Williams, were convicted of crimes.

But Brady has also been celebrated for helping avert labor strikes, bringing home money, and voting against authorization of the Iraq war. At Wednesday's news conference, Brady highlighted an estimated $15.5 billion  with a "b"  in federal funding that flowed to Philadelphia since he first went to Washington in a 1998 special election.

"Those are things that nobody in here knows," he said to the room full of reporters. "Maybe it's my fault that I don't profess it or brag about it."

Brady also said he was proud of his recent efforts to help rewrite House rules on dealing with sexual-harassment cases. Those changes, which Brady referred to as the "Me Too Act," would pay for legal representation if a congressional staffer accused a lawmaker of harassment as well as prevent members of Congress from paying settlements with taxpayer dollars, as Rep. Patrick Meehan, a Delaware County Republican, did in a recently disclosed case.

Before getting into politics, Brady worked as a union carpenter. He got involved in the Democratic Party after a friend suggested that he do remodeling work for then-Council President George Schwartz.

Schwartz mentored Brady, who became Council sergeant-at-arms and a committee person. When Schwartz resigned after being charged in the Abscam scandal, he picked Brady to take his spot as leader of the 34th Ward. Brady became party chairman in 1986.

Brady said he would leave it up to the city party to decide if it wants to support a candidate in the primary election for his seat. "We will get together and we will pick the person they think is best to serve," he said.

But Brady did not think that selection would be any of the previously declared candidates: Lindy Li, Willie Singletary, Michele Lawrence, or Ahmad.

Instead, he suggested Richie Lazer might be a good fit for the job. Lazer, who serves as Mayor Kenney's deputy mayor for labor, has been strongly rumored to be interested in seeking the seat since November.

Brady said reclaiming the chairmanship of the Administration Committee if Democrats retook the House was not a strong enough lure.

"How much blood do you need?" he asked. "I'm 72 years old. Am I going to be 82 years old? I don't know."

Staff writer Jeremy Roebuck contributed to this article.ABCNews.com(NEW YORK) -- Two sisters met for the first time in South Florida -- after 47 years.

When Jennifer Braica, 47, was born, she was adopted before she and her sister, who was two years older, ever met.

April Kreppel, 49, said she was never told as a child about her sister. And Braica did not know about her sister, either.

They both lived on Long Island in New York for some time.

When Kreppel was 19, her mother explained that she had given birth to her sister and given her up for adoption. Though Braica was told she was adopted at 10.

"I always wanted to find my biological parents," Braica said, "not to replace my adoptive family but out of curiosity, to see where my roots were."

She did not learn about her sister until she was 27 when she said some of the adoption details were released to her from the state.

After they learned about each other, Braica and Kreppel kept searching. After at least 20 years, neither was successful.

But then when Jennifer tried the website ancestry.com, she finally got a break. Distant relatives gave her some key information that eventually helped her track down April.

When Jennifer and April finally met at a Florida airport, both women had tears in their eyes as the hugged. They said they spent a week together and promised each other to speak every day and one day live near each other.

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), left, and House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) Last week, at Davos, Wasserman Schultz said she is not sure that $1,000  goes very far for almost anyone. And Pelosi, who described a $40-per-paycheck Obama-era tax cut as a victory for America, said thousand-dollar bonuses are just crumbs. Read more

What a remarkable contrast: President Donald Trump was in command at Davos talking about economic growth and prosperity, while House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and disgraced former Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.. were babbling and belittling thousand-dollar bonuses and increased take-home pay for American workers.

Specifically, in case you missed it, Wasserman Schultz actually said she is "not sure that $1,000  goes very far for almost anyone." And Pelosi, who described a $40-per-paycheck Obama-era tax cut as a "victory for America," said thousand-dollar bonuses are just "crumbs."

These comments are gifts that will keep on giving. I can imagine the campaign ads this fall that will feature their quotes. But Wasserman Schultz and Pelosi are just the tip of the iceberg. Democrats are coming unhinged over the Trump economy.

At first glance, I thought reports saying Democrats had ridiculed thousand-dollar bonuses brought about by the Republican tax cuts were from the Onion. But they aren't. Democrats are flustered and can't deal with Trump's economic success. When is the last time Democrats had a plan for anybody to get a $1,000 raise from the private sector without compelling an employer to just hand it over? Maybe they planned for more food stamps, but never to unleash the private economy and power of profits.

The esteemed Larry Summers seems nostalgic for the low-growth Obama years. Writing in The Washington Post this week, Summers claims that "while Trump will probably try to take credit for all the economic good news, it is unlikely that he deserves it." Summers is right  up to a point. President Barack Obama's economy did produce stabilization after a traumatic recession.

But it's Trump's pro-business policies and attitude that have turbocharged the economy. Trump and Republicans in Congress are responsible for the economic boost that at least 3 million Americans and counting are receiving in the form of tax-reform bonuses. Not Obama, not the Democrats.

Summers implies that Trump's "populist nationalism eventually produces bad economic results, leading to more pressures for antiestablishment leadership and extreme policies." I guess "eventually" can't get here quick enough to suit liberals. And oh, by the way, the crowd of pro-growth, business-minded participants at the World Economic Forum in Davos would probably beg to differ with Summers. I am writing from Davos, and Trump's presence gave the entire conference an energy and buzz of positive excitement.

But don't just take my word for it. According to CNN Money's Alanna Petroff, "Davos loves the Trump tax cuts." The business leaders here are upbeat to say the least, and the political leaders can barely contain their secret yearning for Trumpian economics to come their way.

With that said, Trump's finale speech was pretty low-key. But by any measure, his visit to Davos was a solid success. I hope he attends Davos every year that he is president. The World Economic Forum is a venue that suits him.

The president didn't come out guns blazing, as many thought he would. Instead, he offered reassuring language and a measured tone. Maybe Trump without Stephen Bannon really is different. Maybe that is what the Democrats fear most.

Anyway, the midterm elections are headed toward a contest of anti-Trump, pro-impeachment Democrats vs. Republicans who are leading a booming economy. It will be interesting to see how the Democrats' message will evolve away from the Pelosi/Wasserman Schultz comments and toward a message that promises to not take away what Trump's policies have produced.

Ed Rogers is a contributor to the PostPartisan blog, a political consultant and a veteran of the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush White Houses and several national campaigns. He is the chairman of the lobbying and communications firm BGR Group, which he founded with former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour in 1991. @EdRogersDCThe Calusa Land Trust held its 42nd annual meeting Sunday at Fishers of Men Lutheran Church.

After land trust business was taken care of, out-going president John Kendall announced a special recognition to two people: Nancy Rogers and Rubye Woodhead.

Theres a small parking area at Wigert Barron Preserve, Kendall said. From the parking area you can follow the trail where there are a colony of gopher tortoises. When you head north along the trail you come to a pond. Neither Ed Chapin nor I even knew there was a pond at the end of the trail until the invasives were cleared. Im happy to announce the Calusa Land Trust has named the trail Nancy Rogers Nature Trail and the pond after long-time Calusa Land Trust member Rubye Woodhead Pond. Signs will be posted.

The Wigert Barron Preserve is a 33-acre preserve located in Bokeelia at the east end of Barrancas Avenue at the corner with Aura Lane. Acquired in 2014 and 2015, principally through the generosity of Jon and Annette Wigert, the preserve boasts a rare coastal scrub environment and a freshwater pond teeming with wildlife.

The land trust recently completed a major invasive plant removal project at the preserve.

We have named Rubyes Pond after Rubye Woodhead, Judy Ott said. Rubye has not only been an outstanding member of the Calusa Land Trust but an outstanding member of the Pine Island community for a very long time .. .I wish you would stand with me and give her a standing ovation. This will be leaving the island for northern Florida and will leave a big hole in our hearts.

The new CLT Board of Directors was elected. Continuing Board of Directors members are Jaren Cernicky, Ed Chapin, Rad Hazen, Cathy House, Bill Hummer, Robert Ballard and Sonny Koutsoutis. Members up for re-election are Brian Cotterill, John Kendall, Carolyn Murphey, Judy Ott, Fran Potter and Joan Rosenberg. Nominees for election are Russell Costa and Marty Kendall.

The Calusa Land Trust presently holds title to about 2,100 acres to be preserved and maintained in perpetuity, Kendall said. In addition, CLT has donated $170,000 to Lee County to stimulate its purchases. 20/20 acquisition formulas give priority to local financial support and, thus, the reason CLT has caused a disproportionate amount of its purchases to be on Pine Island.

Upcoming events include the Great Calusa Duck Race in March. Check the CLT website for details: calusalandtrust.org/

Lunch was provided by Winn-Dixie and Frank Tuma provided the music.As Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Joseph Perri filled out paperwork on the shoulder of a highway, a speeding sedan slammed into his patrol car, reports the Miami Herald. But what seemed like an accident was actually done on purpose, and the man behind the wheel is facing charges, according to FHP officials.

After ramming into Perri, the Daytona Beach driver got out of the car, approached the trooper, and told him he "struck the patrol car on purpose," said FHP spoksperson Sgt. Kim Montes.

A speeding sedan slammed into this Florida Highway Patrol car, reportedly on purpose.

"The allegations that someone would intentionally target a Florida Highway Patrol Trooper as they were working in the name of safety is absolutely horrific," Terry L. Rhodes, executive director of the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, said in a statement that was posted on Twitter.

On Monday afternoon, Perri was parked on the eastbound shoulder of I-4 at mile marker 103 near Sanford when 38-year-old Ryan John Hithersay drove his 2005 Hyundai sedan into his car, FHP says.

The Hyundai ended up in a muddy ditch, according to Montez, and the patrol car had side and tire damage.

Perri, 42, was not badly injured but was taken to a nearby hospital. Hithersay faces a charge of aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer, Seminole County jail records show.Orlando Police Officer Adam Gruler the first officer at the scene of the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre  will join Rep. Val Demings as a guest to the State of the Union address on Tuesday.

Gruler, a 17-year veteran of the force, was working security at the club and was the first officer to encounter the gunman that morning. Hell be joined by his wife Jaimi, a teacher.

Demings, who has known Gruler since her time as Orlandos police chief, in a statement said she is deeply proud of the courage he showed during the mass shooting at Pulse, which claimed 49 lives June 12, 2016, the Orlando Sentinel reports.A gunman fires into the car of Philadelphia Officer Jesse Hartnett on Jan. 7, 2016. Hartnett was hit three times and is still recovering. He testified at the trial of the suspect Monday. (Photo: Surveillance video screen shot)

At times, Philadelphia Police Officer Jesse Hartnett had to stop and collect his thoughts. More than once, he sighed and wiped away tears while recalling how he had managed to stay alive during an unprovoked attack two years ago this month. The gunman had fired 13 bullets into his patrol car on Jan. 7, 2016, striking him three times.

Still in recovery mode 11 surgeries later, Hartnett appeared fit and walked to the stand on his own power as the first witness to testify Monday to start the second week of the trial of his accused shooter, Edward Archer, 32.

He testified about feeling his left arm go limp and fall like dead weight between the car seat and door after three bullets tore into the limb. He explained that after he managed to open the door with his right hand and get out of the car, he heard a loud splashing sound that turned out to be his blood hitting the street. He said the sound of the bullets hitting his car was ingrained in his memory.

Archer sometimes smiled during Hartnetts testimony. He is charged with attempted murder, assault on a law enforcement officer, and related counts. He has not cooperated with his two court-appointed lawyers and is not expected to testify, Philly.com reports.

After his arrest near the scene of the shooting, Archer allegedly told a detective he was motivated by devotion to Allah and the Islamic State  a claim that drew national attention, although authorities found no proof of a connection to any terror group.509 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard

By Brendan Pierson

NEW YORK (Reuters)  A U.S. judge on Tuesday said he could not ignore what he called vicious comments about Latinos made by President Donald Trump as he considers whether to block the presidents decision to end a program that protects immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children from deportation.

U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis said at a hearing in Brooklyn that the Republican presidents comments could be evidence that his September decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, was motivated by Trumps animus toward Latinos, violating the U.S. Constitutions guarantee of equal protection under the law.

In this country, in over 230 years, this is not ordinary, Garaufis said, referring to Trumps comments on Twitter and elsewhere. Its extreme. Its recurring. Its vicious.

The judge did not specify the Trump remarks with which he was taking issue. But Trump critics often point to his claim that Mexico was sending rapists and murderers into the United States, his disparaging words about a U.S. judge of Mexican-American heritage and other comments.

U.S. Justice Department lawyer Stephen Pezzi told Garaufis it would be going too far to conclude that, because Trump had commented about Latinos in the past, any action by his administration that disproportionately affected Latinos was unconstitutional.

Karen Tumlin, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, argued that the administration had violated federal law by abruptly cutting off DACA with little explanation. Pezzi countered that the administration had ordered an orderly wind-down of DACA. Under Trumps action, DACA is set to expire in March.

Often called Dreamers, hundreds of thousands of young adults, mostly Hispanics, have been granted protection from deportation and given work permits under DACA, which was created in 2012 under Trumps Democratic predecessor Barack Obama.

Garaufis is presiding over a lawsuit brought by several DACA recipients and by states including New York, Massachusetts and Washington. They are asking Garaufis to issue an injunction preserving DACA. Garaufis did not issue a ruling on Tuesday or say when he would.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco issued a Jan. 9 order keeping DACA in place, which Trump is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman told a news conference on Tuesday that the plaintiffs in the New York case were seeking an order covering people who became eligible for DACA since Trumps September action, while Alsups order covered only people already with DACA protection.

Trump said last week he was open to a deal offering a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants eligible for DACA protections in exchange for curbing some legal immigration programs and providing funding for a U.S.-Mexican border wall.

(Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)Trump is going to spin a web of fantasy where everything is fine and that the Russia investigation doesnt exist during the State Of The Union.

Video:

Jeff Zeleny of CNN reported, The memo is hanging over much of the conversation in the back room discussions even as the president is working on that speech. The president, I am told, will not talk about the Russia investigation during the speech. That is something he does not want to be part of the speech. He wants it to be an uplifting speech, were told, optimistic speech, were told.

By optimistic this White House means that Trump is going to stand there and take credit for things that he had nothing do with. Donald Trump is incapable of laying out a positive and forward-thinking vision for the country. His SOTU will consist of Trump telling the country what a great job he is doing and why we should all be thankful for him.

Trump isnt going to offer the country anything. Instead, he is going to demand love from every American. The insecure president will tout his imaginary accomplishments instead of offering real policies, as he pretends that the political Grim Reaper known as the Russia scandal isnt gaining ground with each passing minute.355 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard

At least one Republican thinks it would be a massive mistake for the president to stop special counsel Robert Mueller from completing the investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to sway the 2016 election.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine appeared on CNNs New Day on Tuesday and discussed the possibility of Mueller being fired.

It would be a devastating development if Mr. Mueller were in any way impeded in completing his investigation, she said.It is absolutely essential that he be allowed to complete it. He is a person of great experience, impeccable integrity, whose appointment was praised by both sides of the aisle, and he has to be allowed to finish his work.

The New York Times recently reported that Trump tried to have Mueller fired last June and only gave up on after White House lawyer Donald McGahn threatened to quit rather than carry out Trumps order.

Collins isnt the only Republican who recognizes the impact that terminating Mueller would have  South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham has also spoken out on the matter.

Its pretty clear to me that everybody in the White House knows it would be the end of President Trumps presidency if he fired Mr. Mueller, he said on ABCs This Week.1.6k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard

Democratic House Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) ripped Trumps delusional and self-congratulatory State Of The Union to shreds as she hammered Trump for taking credit for things that he had nothing to do with.

Video:

Nancy Pelosi is going off trashing Trump's SOTU as empty congratulations for things that he had nothing to do with. #SOTU #p2 #ctl pic.twitter.com/8SL5ainLus  Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) January 31, 2018

Pelosi said:

This is a very transformative speech for some of us last night because our expectations for greatness and vision with the president are not high. He stooped to a new low in terms of how he dealt with issues. For example, the immigration issue and what it has meant to our country and how he characterized it. The opioid epidemic, which is in every district in the country a challenge. Many families, a tragedy, the president treated it in such a disdainful way. It is one of the items on the agenda we are fighting for, increase funding for opioids in the discussion we are having on the parity issue and on the budget.

Last night, the president threw a speech of unwarranted self-congratulatory comments beautiful to acknowledge the courage, the sacrifice of the people in the audience as if he had something to do with the successes they had achieved. Of course, we all salute them. It is an interesting story, and more importantly, it is about the fabric of America that his speech was not about. Again, devoid of vision. It is so sad. The president presents himself and his GOP tax scam as something to help the middle class. At the same time, it calls for 86 million middle-class families as he lies the top  pockets of the top 1%. The president presents himself as generous toward dreamers, but he is holding them hostage, the most extreme anti-immigrant agenda in generations. We heard more insulting words of ignorance and prejudice to our patriotic immigrant families last night.

Pelosis disgust was obvious at the State Of The Union. The camera caught her shooting Trump a death stare as he called for national unity while demonizing immigrants and dividing the country. Pelosi was right. Trumps speech was an empty waste of time. There was no vision going forward for the country. He repeated the same worn out campaign promises on infrastructure and trade but offered no path to turn these ideas into legislation and law.

It was a Trump campaign speech and not a very good one. The White House cant get out of campaign mode. Their job is to govern, not promise, and as Pelosi so accurately put it, Trump spent the night congratulating himself for things that he had nothing to do with.

If Nancy Pelosi becomes the next Speaker of the House, all hell will be unleashed on Trump, as Pelosi is already gearing up to deliver a massive reality check to Trump.Compassion is a single word that stretches far beyond its 10 letters, something that cannot easily be defined by a single phrase.

It means something slightly different to each and every person, but one thing should remain constant between whomever the definition passes: It is something that every person should exhibit. Compassion is an integral part of everyday life, even in the smallest scale. Even just sharing an umbrella in the middle of a downpour with someone who does not have one is compassion, and something simple that requires little effort.

One of the most compassionate people I have met is Rochester Mayor Ardell Brede, who will be serving his final term as mayor this year. He goes out of his way to help others, and is a very kind person.

I feel very fortunate to have been given the opportunity to interview Mayor Brede recently. Upon entering his office, one of the first things one will notice is the large amount of teddy bears that adorn the shelves on the wall. There are over 100 bears in that office, most of them given to him as presents and very few bought himself.

As this year is his last year in office, he is planning to donate the majority of them to the Ronald McDonald House here in town, which is a large act of compassion in itself.

Another specific act of compassion that Mayor Brede has performed was supporting a small business while the owner was away in the military, and his wife was keeping shop. He requested that they inscribe small wooden coins with his name, a teddy bear, and geese in front of the Rochester landscape, and now hands them out as gifts, as a sort of business card.

As for his own thoughts on compassion, Mayor Brede said that one of the most important things is to follow the golden rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It is so important to him that he has a framed replica of the United Nations 'Golden Rule' mosaic hanging on the wall behind his office desk.

Other than this important message, Mayor Brede has similar thoughts about compassion as I do: that it is something one would find difficult to define in words, but can be defined by one's actions.

In closing, I return to the general topic of compassion, particularly in the city of Rochester. We are an official Compassionate City, possibly the first in Minnesota to be named as such, filled with compassionate people who are the reason we earned such a title. We as a public reach out to help our friends and neighbors, and are a giving community.

Now I turn to you to ask: What have you done to make Rochester a more compassionate city? I would love to hear from you: Send me an email care of my editor at life@postbulletin.com.

Everyone likes to hear about random acts of kindness, because even the smallest acts of compassion can make a big difference.Grandparents who live near their grandkids get the call for assistance quite often. Today's parents have their plate full. Reinforcements are often needed.

Recent SOS calls to me have been to attend to a sick granddaughter and to pick up and deliver our grandson to and from high school.

A couple of pleas of late have also been to transport my granddaughter to confirmation and stay with her during her Wednesday evening class. I have been the one to handle that appeal.

I am the elder statesman at these gatherings and I get a few puzzling looks from some of the middle schoolers. A few might wonder, "Who is this ancient guy at my table?" For me personally, I never experienced this confirmation process.

Numerous boomers may remember their confirmation process. My wife with her Swedish Lutheran roots was confirmed in 1968. Her memories of friends in her church and confirmation classes are positive.

It is a course of instruction and lessons that explores faith and life. In discussion with my wife, I learned her experience was a traditional one, focusing on texts such as Luther's Small Catechism, the Lord's Prayer, the Apostle's Creed, and the Ten Commandments.

Showing, not telling, 'why'

In my attendance at two sessions of the confirmation process, called Metamorphosis at our church, it seems interactive, group-focused, about relationship-building and the bigger picture. It's how your faith can help and work in the present. The kids currently going through this teaching are expected to assist in the community as well as the church and the world.

Pastor Paul Moody of Mount Olive Lutheran, who worked to develop the curriculum, told me, "We really try to show them why they are learning these things, rather than simply telling them why." I'm pretty confident that this curriculum today does not follow the model of 50 years ago.

The first class I sat in on was an exercise where several adults on a rotating basis sat down at each table of confirmands for a few minutes and told them how they are serving, or had served, others. The kids would write the adults' names down, take notes and ask questions.

I was blown away by a friend and fellow congregation member as he sat down and told the kids of his experience in the Peace Corps. Terry Krieger said his work as a math teacher for two years in Swaziland was truly a defining moment in his life.

Into Africa

If there is an organization that really rings the bell with baby boomers, it's the Peace Corps. I always have had great admiration for those who took this call. I asked Terry about his experience.

When he was 12 years old, an individual at his school gave a presentation about his work among the people in Fiji. Right then and there Terry made the decision that volunteering for the Peace Corps was something he wanted to do.

He applied near the end of his senior year in college. Part of this adventure was that he had no idea where he was going to be sent. He received word that he was heading to Swaziland to teach. Swaziland is in southern Africa.

During his two years, from 1988-1990, he found a remarkable spirit in these communities. Clean water and food was a priority. This experience gave Terry a perspective on life that he carries today. Terry said in a way you gain accelerated wisdom.

He is convinced that Peace Corps volunteers have made a difference in the lives of many in a peaceful way. This work transforms how America is perceived. Peace Corps workers make a progressive and positive impact in education, farming, medical care, technology and the ability to have clean water.

Helpful path

He recalls one of his students who had little support and no parents. Terry provided a helpful path to this hard working learner and the last he heard the student had become a nurse.

Terry was delighted to speak to the kids in the Metamorphosis class. This exercise revealed faith in action to these young adults. Although Terry has been home for over 25 years, the Peace Corps experience is still joyful to reflect on.

Terry now is a full time author of mathematical textbooks. His profession, his family and his faith bring him happiness. His rich experience and the lessons of perspective he learned in Swaziland never leave him.

Others came to each table that evening and exhibited to these students that everyday people who live on their block or sit next to them at church make a difference.

Volunteering or acts of hospitality opens us up to caring for all; it can break down stereotypes or barriers. As grandparents we imagine our words of wisdom about doing the right things will have an impact on our grandkids.

Deep down we know they need examples, they need role models. We need to open their eyes to the examples that are all around them. Like the pastor said, our youth need to be shown, not just told.Minnesota Supreme Court Justice David Stras had essentially the entire Minnesota professional community supporting his nomination by President Trump to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. Thanks to Al Franken, however, the nomination sat in limbo for six months. Mistah Frankenhe dead. He revealed his true jerkhood in the matter of Justice Stras. The single blue slip veto applicable to federal appellate court nominees was interred with his bones.

Today Justice Stras was confirmed to the Eighth Circuit by the Senate on a 56-42 vote. The Star Tribune reports the story here. Even Amy Klobuchar supported his confirmation (while Franken successor Tina Smith opposed it).

I dont think anyone outside Justice Strass immediate family supported Justice Strass confirmation more ardently than I did. His ordeal is over. I am thrilled for him, for his family, and for the Eighth Circuit. He has a great contribution to make.

On the home front, Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton will continue his makeover of the Minnesota Supreme Court. For those keeping track of such things, however, chalk the Stras confirmation up as another Trump win on the merits with the backing of Senate Majority Leader McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Grassley.It may be hard for readers to believe thisand I do advise sitting downbut Gov. Jerry Brown isrelatively speaking, mind youabout the only adult in the room in Sacramento among Democrats. If you doubt me, just wait till we have a governor named Gavin next year (which California richly deserves), and youll see what I mean.

Governor Moonbeam has actually vetoed a lot of bad bills that any other liberal in the state would have signed, and he actually holds the line on spending a little bit (except for crazy high speed trainsI did say relatively speaking up above). Recently Brown warned that in some time in the future California public employee pensions will need to take a serious haircut. This is heresy for a Democrat.

Im thinking it may play out something like this installment from Yes, Prime Minister about public pension calculations:Today is the 50th anniversary of North Vietnams Tet offensive that is largely credited with finally breaking the back of American resolve to prevail in Vietnam. As Peter Braestrup demonstrated in copious detail in his terrific book Big Story: How the American Press and Television Reported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington, the media and most historians got the story completely wronga story recounted well today in the Wall Street Journal by William Luti. It was, Luti points out, a massive example of what we now call fake news.

Tet was a massive military defeat for North Vietnam, but a political victory because it was portrayed as defeat for the United States here at home. That is not to say that the Johnson Administration, our military leaders, and especially our intelligence community at the time dont bear some culpability for their own counterproductive self-delusions that contributed to the left-liberal media narrative. Heres some of my account of Tet from chapter 5 of the first volume of The Age of Reagan:

On January 30, in the middle of the Tet new year holiday, North Vietnamese regular army troops and Viet Cong troops struck in a coordinated attack on 36 of South Vietnams 44 provincial capitals, and 70 other towns in the country. The North Vietnamese also unleashed a ferocious attack on the U.S. base at Khe Sanh that lasted two months. The North Vietnamese stormed the coastal city of Hue; it required some of the hardest fighting of the war over the next month for U.S. Marines to retake the city. The most stunning blow of the surprise attack was the guerrilla raid on the U.S. embassy in downtown Saigon. Nineteen Viet Cong commandos blasted a hole in the perimeter wall of the embassy compound at 3 a.m., and killed five U.S. GIs upon storming the embassy grounds. (Four South Vietnamese policemen assigned to guard the embassy fled when the shooting started.) U.S. forces killed all of the commandos within a few hours, but the episode, occurring amidst an unexpected and widespread offensive, was a severe embarrassment for the U.S. . .

The Tet offensive proved to be the turning point of the war, delivering a fatal blow to political support for the war in the United States. Even though Tet was a disappointing defeat for North Vietnam in strictly military terms, it exposed the bankruptcy of U.S. war policy and aims in Vietnam, and prepared the way for Americas eventual humiliation. The most surprising aspect of the Tet offensive was that it was not really a surprise at all. Yet the episode shows how even a superior force can be taken by surprise both militarily and politically when it lacks the initiative in war. Since the North Vietnamese had the initiative instead of the U.S., it was possible for their elaborate campaign of deception to succeed in maintaining the element of surprise, even though the U.S. discovered numerous details of the attack to come. . .

Throughout the Fall the signs of a major attack continued to accumulate. In October the number of trucks observed heading south on the Ho Chi Minh trail jumped from the previous monthly average of 480 to 1,116. . . In November the number of southbound trucks spotted on the Ho Chi Minh trail jumped again, from 1,116 counted in October to 3,823an eightfold increase over the previous years monthly average of 480. A series of documents were captured that outlined the battle plan in general terms (including the notebook released to the media on January 5 mentioned above). North Vietnam began conducting a swift and brutal purge of officials who urged negotiations with the U.S. rather than a military offensive. Over 200 officials, some of them very senior in the Communist party and the government, were arrested and given long prison sentences. Some were executed. There would be no doves in Hanoi. Near the end of November a CIA analyst named Joseph Hovey circulated a memorandum to U.S. leaders including President Johnson that predicted a major North Vietnamese offensive against South Vietnamese cities in the coming months. Hoveys analysis was dismissed as unrealistic.

In December the signs intensified. The number of trucks seen on the Ho Chi Minh trail nearly doubled again, from 3,823 spotted in November to 6,315. On December 20 Gen. Westmoreland cabled a warning to Washington, explaining that the signs suggested that North Vietnam had decided to undertake an intensified country-wide effort, perhaps a maximum effort, over a relatively short period. . . .

With the memory of Dien Bien Phu prominently in mind, Westmoreland and U.S. leaders cast their eyes up to the large U.S. base at Khe Sanh, located in a northern province of South Vietnam not far from the De-Militarized Zone (DMZ). Four divisions of North Vietnamese regular army troopsover 40,000 troopswere massing near Khe Sanh, where 5,000 U.S. and South Vietnamese troops were stationed, in what looked like a repeat of the Dien Bien Phu strategy. Westmoreland and U.S. intelligence thought that all this Viet Cong talk of an uprising in the cities was a diversion away from Khe Sanh, where the main attack was expected to fall. They had it exactly backward: Khe Sanh was the deception, intended to draw U.S. attention and resources away from the cities, and the U.S. largely fell for it. The U.S. calculation actually made good sense. U.S. intelligence knew that there was little prospect for a spontaneous uprising of the South Vietnamese populace, and couldnt believe that the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong believed it. (It turned out that many VC cadres on the ground in the South didnt believe it either, but never told their higher ups. Several VC officers captured during Tet told interrogators that they never expected an uprising in their assigned area, but carried out their attack in hopes that it would stir an uprising in other cities.) In an ironic way the blinders of Communist class struggle ideology helped serve the purpose of deception.

So even as more intelligence accumulated in January that an attack on South Vietnamese cities was a serious prospect, U.S. war planners continued to downplay the threat and misjudge the timing. On January 9 U.S. intelligence received a captured document that described a reorganization of the command structure of Viet Cong forces. At the present time, U.S. analysts wrote, no explanation is available as to the reason for this reorganization. Caches of weapons and propaganda leaflets calling for an uprising were found near Saigon throughout January. Well-equipped VC sapper teams were caught infiltrating areas near U.S. bases. The National Security Agency, which collects and analyzes signals intelligence (SIGINT), reported that radio intercepts indicated preparations for attacks on cities in the central coast region of South Vietnam, and increased enemy activity near Saigon. But based on the predominance of radio traffic near the borders and the DMZ, the NSA still thought, along with Westmoreland, the main blow would come at Khe Sanh. Only General Fred Weyand thought that the action elsewhere might be significant. On January 10, Weyand, the commander for the southern region of South Vietnam including Saigon and the Mekong River delta, canceled plans to move troops in his sector toward the Cambodian border, and ordered 15 battalions to be redeployed near Saigon, a fortuitous move that greatly aided the defense of Saigon during Tet. But neither Weyand nor anyone else in high command thought that the attack would come during the Tet holidays, and over half of U.S. combat forces were detailed for the northern provinces, away from the cities. . .

The Tet offensive was a military failurefor the North Vietnamese. North Vietnam failed to take any major South Vietnamese city except for Hue, from which they were ejected within a monthbut not until after massacring over 3,000 South Vietnamese civilians, an episode only lightly reported by the media. Except for Khe Sanh, Hue, and one or two other locations, the enemy offensive was spent within a few days. By the end of February Hanoi was ordering a general retreat, which ironically happened to coincide with the moment of maximum pessimism in Washington. Out of a total attack force of 84,000 troops, nearly 50,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong were killed in Tet. These losses decimated the Viet Cong, destroying their command structure and morale among troops. Viet Cong offensive capabilities suffered and dwindled for the next three years; much of the rest of the war was fought by North Vietnamese regular army troops. Viet Cong defections increased dramatically in the aftermath of Tet. The U.S. suffered 1,100 dead; the South Vietnamese lost 2,300. Indeed it can be argued that General Giap botched the attack; having achieved tactical surprise, the attack was dispersed too widely, with not enough troops in any one location to score decisively.

Theres much more, including the role played by the North Korean seizure of the U.S.S. Pueblo around the same time, but this is enough for today. Youll just just have to get the book to read the rest!Did you know that you have a fundamental constitutional right to say goodbye? You do according to Federal District Court Judge Katherine B. Forrest (an Obama appointee). I guess that right was another one of those rights hiding in the emanations and penumbras of the 14th Amendment, or something.

On Monday Judge Forrest ordered the release from custody Ravidath Ragbir, an alien who ICE had detained and was preparing to deport. Judge Forrest twice notes that the government was in complete conformity with statutory law: The Court in fact agrees with the Government that the statutory schemewhen one picks the path through the thicket in the corn mazeallows them to do what was done here. And: The Court agrees that the statutory scheme governing petitioners status is properly read to allow for his removal without further right of contest.

This should be the end of the matter then, shouldnt it?

Not to Judge Forrest, who offers us this flourish of legal reasoning:

There is, and ought to be in this great country, the freedom to say goodbye. That is, the freedom to hug ones spouse and children, the freedom to organize the myriad of human affairs that collect over time. It ought to beand it has never before beenthat those who have lived without incident in this country for years are subject to treatment we associate with regimes we revile as unjust [you mean like the Obama Administration arresting and jailing an obscure video producer after Benghazi??], regimes where those who have lived long in a country may be taken without notice from streets, home and work. And sent away.

Methinks Judge Forrest is angling for this years Anthony Kennedy Award for Most Emotive Judicial Writing. Prof. David Bernstein of Scalia Law School calls Judge Forrests opinion the most lawless judicial decision I think Ive ever read.

By the way, who is Ragbir? The Washington Post yesterday filled in some of the blanks:

Ragbir is the director of the immigrant advocacy group New Sanctuary Coalition in New York, a collection of 150 faith-based organizations. He became a lawful U.S. resident in 1994. In 2000, he was convicted of wire fraud and conspiracy for accepting fraudulent loan applications while working at a mortgage lender. [Yet Judge Forrest says Ragbir has lived in the country without incident.] After serving a prison sentence, he was ordered deported based on his conviction. He spent about two years in detention but was released under supervision in 2008 while his case moved through immigration courts. Over the following decade, he became a prominent voice in New Yorks immigrant community, testifying before the city council and once meeting with President Barack Obamas transition team to discuss immigration policy, according to his attorneys.

In other words, Ragbir has been slated for deportation for nearly 10 years. Seems like that was plenty of time to arrange to say goodbye and get his affairs in order.President Trumps State of the Union pageant last night made a powerful impact on me. The White House has posted the text of the speech here. If a speech can help President Trump, this one should help for the moment. The speech ran for an hour and 20 minutes, but it can be read quickly. It was extraordinarily well done.

According to the CBS News poll on the speech, viewers approved. According to CNNs instant poll, the speech drew the least positive reaction of any such speech in 20 years. We report, you decide. John Hinderaker is with the viewers as surveyed by CBS.

Watching the Trump cabinet enter the House chamber, we saw what amounts on average to a conservative dream team. They have done much to advance the policies that have already improved the economy at home and confronted reality abroad. The Trump administration has accomplishments to talk up at the end of year one and President Trump put some of them at the top of his speech.

Attorney General Sessions and Secretary of State Tillerson is each in his own way an outlier in this respect. President Trumps disapproval of his own attorney general reminds us of the relentless effort to have the president removed from office without the benefit of an election. Democrats cant wait. The attorney general should be a key player in related matters. Somethings gotta give.

Secretary Tillerson seems a throwback to the likes of William Rogers in the Nixon administration. The real foreign policy work of the administration was to be done elsewhere. This seems to be the case now as well.

Speaking of Democrats, I found the broadcast gave us frequent shots from different angles of the Democrats comprehensively rejecting all things Trump. They frowned. They sat on their hands. they hissed. The speech briefly hit a few themes that dont ring my chimes  lowering drug prices, promoting fair trade, enacting a family leave entitlement, undertaking an infrastructure program, regularizing Dreamers  on which Democrats should be able to find common ground with Trump. I dont support these themes or proposals, but they serve the Democrats interests.

The Democrats, however, have staked their future on resistance to Trump. That is where the Democrats are, that is where their supporters are, that is where their media adjunct is, that is where the heart of the party is. The Democrats are all in on identity politics in every jot and tittle, right down to supporting resistance to standing for the national anthem because, well, because Trump supports it.

If their hearts are full of hate, as indeed they are, this is one case in which I completely support reciprocal trade.

The speech was long on heroes in the crowd. They made the speech a memorable and emotional event. They constituted the heart of the speech. They also served the thematic purposes of the speech.

Why were these stories so powerful? The speech skillfully knit the heroes stories to policies advocated by the Trump administration.

The first year of the Trump administration has been marked by the natural disasters with which it has had to contend. President Trump focused on the heroism manifested in the face of disaster: Over the last year, the world has seen what we always knew: that no people on Earth are so fearless, or daring, or determined as Americans. If there is a mountain, we climb it. If there is a frontier, we cross it. If there is a challenge, we tame it. If there is an opportunity, we seize it. President Trump also paid tribute to the faceless heroes in our midst: We saw strangers shielding strangers from a hail of gunfire on the Las Vegas strip.

First up was Coast Guard Petty Officer Ashlee Leppert, a rescuer in the case of Hurricane Harvey: Through 18 hours of wind and rain, Ashlee braved live power lines and deep water, to help save more than 40 lives.

Next came firefighter David Dahlberg. He is here with us too. David faced down walls of flame to rescue almost 60 children trapped at a California summer camp threatened by wildfires.

President Trump dubbed House Majority Whip Steve Scalise the legend from Louisiana. He survived the crazed Bernie bro who sought to massacre House Republicans. With us tonight is one of the toughest people ever to serve in this House  a guy who took a bullet, almost died, and was back to work three and a half months later: the legend from Louisiana, Congressman Steve Scalise.

Scalise survived through his own mettle but also through the heroism of first responders who went unnamed last night: We are incredibly grateful for the heroic efforts of the Capitol Police Officers, the Alexandria Police, and the doctors, nurses, and paramedics who saved his life, and the lives of many others in this room. It was a powerful moment.

Then Trump turned to talking up the effects of the tax reform enacted at the end of last year. He saluted an Ohio family business and previously unemployed welder: Here tonight are Steve Staub and Sandy Keplinger of Staub Manufacturing  a small business in Ohio. They have just finished the best year in their 20-year history. Because of tax reform, they are handing out raises, hiring an additional 14 people, and expanding into the building next door.

Corey Adams illustrated the frequently derided trickle down effect: One of Staubs employees, Corey Adams, is also with us tonight. Corey is an all-American worker. He supported himself through high school, lost his job during the 2008 recession, and was later hired by Staub, where he trained to become a welder. Like many hardworking Americans, Corey plans to invest his taxcut raise into his new home and his two daughters education.

President Trump introduced the youngest of his heroes with the acknowledgement that we celebrate our police, our military, and our amazing veterans as heroes who deserve our total and unwavering support. The war on cops has ended for the duration of the Trump administration.

President Trump turned to Preston Sharp, a 12-year-old boy from Redding, California, who noticed that veterans graves were not marked with flags on Veterans Day. He decided to change that, and started a movement that has now placed 40,000 flags at the graves of our great heroes. Preston sets an example: Young patriots like Preston teach all of us about our civic duty as Americans.

President Trump took up the costs of illegal immigration that has fostered the growth of gangs and their drug trade. Here he presented a case study he had drawn on during the campaign: Here tonight are two fathers and two mothers: Evelyn Rodriguez, Freddy Cuevas, Elizabeth Alvarado, and Robert Mickens. Their two teenage daughters  Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens  were close friends on Long Island. But in September 2016, on the eve of Nisas 16th Birthday, neither of them came home. These two precious girls were brutally murdered while walking together in their hometown. Six members of the savage gang MS-13 have been charged with Kayla and Nisas murders. Many of these gang members took advantage of glaring loopholes in our laws to enter the country as unaccompanied alien minors - and wound up in Kayla and Nisas high school.

His point  and he did have one  was this: Tonight, I am calling on the Congress to finally close the deadly loopholes that have allowed MS-13, and other criminals, to break into our country. Good luck, Mr. President.

Democrats have their Dreamers. President Trump noted: Americans are dreamers too.

One more hero illustrated the problem of illegal immigration: Here tonight is one leader in the effort to defend our country: Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Celestino Martinez  he goes by CJ. CJ served 15 years in the Air Force before becoming an ICE agent and spending the last 15 years fighting gang violence and getting dangerous criminals off our streets. At one point, MS-13 leaders ordered CJs murder. But he did not cave to threats or fear. Last May, he commanded an operation to track down gang members on Long Island. His team has arrested nearly 400, including more than 220 from MS-13. CJ: Great work. Now let us get the Congress to send you some reinforcements.

President Trump prefaced the incredible story of the Holets family with the observation that the most difficult challenges bring out the best in America. The Holets family is in a league of its own here: We see a vivid expression of this truth in the story of the Holets family of New Mexico. Ryan Holets is 27 years old, and an officer with the Albuquerque Police Department. He is here tonight with his wife Rebecca. Last year, Ryan was on duty when he saw a pregnant, homeless woman preparing to inject heroin. When Ryan told her she was going to harm her unborn child, she began to weep. She told him she did not know where to turn, but badly wanted a safe home for her baby.

What happened next? In that moment, Ryan said he felt God speak to him: You will do it  because you can. He took out a picture of his wife and their four kids. Then, he went home to tell his wife Rebecca. In an instant, she agreed to adopt. The Holets named their new daughter Hope.

President Trump returned to martial valor: Army Staff Sergeant Justin Peck is here tonight. Near Raqqa last November, Justin and his comrade, Chief Petty Officer Kenton Stacy, were on a mission to clear buildings that ISIS had rigged with explosives so that civilians could return to the city. Clearing the second floor of a vital hospital, Kenton Stacy was severely wounded by an explosion. Immediately, Justin bounded into the booby-trapped building and found Kenton in bad shape. He applied pressure to the wound and inserted a tube to reopen an airway. He then performed CPR for 20 straight minutes during the ground transport and maintained artificial respiration through 2 hours of emergency surgery.

Justin Pecks martial valor supported our military success: Kenton Stacy would have died if not for Justins selfless love for a fellow warrior. Tonight, Kenton is recovering in Texas. Raqqa is liberated. And Justin is wearing his new Bronze Star, with a V for Valor. Staff Sergeant Peck: All of America salutes you.

The North Korean miasma accounted for the final two stories. President Trump first told the story of the lonesome death of Otto Warmbier as he pointed out his parents: Otto Warmbier was a hardworking student at the University of Virginia. On his way to study abroad in Asia, Otto joined a tour to North Korea. At its conclusion, this wonderful young man was arrested and charged with crimes against the state. After a shameful trial, the dictatorship sentenced Otto to 15 years of hard labor, before returning him to America last June  horribly injured and on the verge of death. He passed away just days after his return. Ottos Parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, are with us tonight  along with Ottos brother and sister, Austin and Greta. You are powerful witnesses to a menace that threatens our world, and your strength inspires us all. Tonight, we pledge to honor Ottos memory with American resolve.

His concluding story presented the almost unbelievable case of one more witness to the ominous nature of this regime. His name is Mr. Ji Seong-ho.

His story: In 1996, Seong-ho was a starving boy in North Korea. One day, he tried to steal coal from a railroad car to barter for a few scraps of food. In the process, he passed out on the train tracks, exhausted from hunger. He woke up as a train ran over his limbs. He then endured multiple amputations without anything to dull the pain. His brother and sister gave what little food they had to help him recover and ate dirt themselves  permanently stunting their own growth. Later, he was tortured by North Korean authorities after returning from a brief visit to China. His tormentors wanted to know if he had met any Christians. He had  and he resolved to be free.

President Trump drew what struck me as a Reaganite and/or Bushian point from the story: Seong-hos story is a testament to the yearning of every human soul to live in freedom. If you havent seen this excerpt, please take two minutes to watch it (video below).

President Trump then brought it all back home with a tribute to American freedom. He didnt say it, but I will. It is in better condition at the end of Trump year one than at the end of Obama year eight.( Read 4999 Times)

Source :

Mumbai ( Bhayander): Khatik Sena, the social organization has been founded to protect the interests of Khatik Samaj and also taking Dr. BabasahebAmbedkars mission and fighting for the rights of Dalits, Tribals and Backward caste people.The Maharashtra State Executive committee meeting was held on 27 January 2018 at its office situated on Indralok Building on Phase 6, Bhayander (East),Thane organised by Maharashtra State-in-charge Kiran Titoriya was concluded successfully. Member of Parliament Dr. Udit Raj in the Lok Sabha and representing the North-West Delhi who is also the National Chairman of the All India Confederation of SC/ST organization, and the patron of Khatik Sena, Sanjay Raj Khatik - National President of Khatik Sena and Ram Kumar  Vice President of Khatik Sena had come from Delhi to attend this meeting in Mumbai and made it a grand affair. All the office bearers including the Maharashtra State In-Charge welcomed the honourable guests. Special discussion was made about the organizations promotion and awareness amongst their Khatik Samaj people and others. Sanjay Raj Khatik  National President of Khatik Sena appraised the members about the undertaking of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar. Speaking on the occasion Sanjay Raj said, People run to avail the facilities of reservation. But Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar has given us these facilities in his constitution. But people tend to forget him and his thoughts. We should not forget it and be thankful for his contribution. The Khatik Samaj people in the twelve states are being awarded in the scheduled caste category. We want this category to be provided for our people in remaining states too and avail its facilities. We want our people to grow, prosper and make progress in this society. And that is the main mission of Khatik Sena.Kiran Titoriya  Maharashtra State In-Charge of KhatikSena expressed his vote of thanks to all those who were present at the meeting. Social activist Suraj Ingole was appointed the President of Bhayander (East) in the meeting. Also present in the meeting were Vinod Gaikwadji from Pune, Harshad Khatik  Mumbai President, Dharmendra Sonkar Khatik  Maharashtra State President, Shushant Pawar, Mithlesh Kumar Khatik, Shyam Lal, Subhasha Chand Khatik, R. D. Sonkar, S. G. Patil, Suraj Gajanan Ingole and many other office bearers made their presence felt at this meeting.The annual FT Global MBA Ranking is renowned for its strict evaluation standards, independence and objectivity. World famous business schools such as Harvard Business School, London Business School and Yale School of Management are also evaluated in the list. Stanford Graduate School of Business topped the 2018 ranking.

ACEM topped the latest ranking in terms of employment rate for the fifth consecutive year. Salary increases of ACEM graduates also ranked first at 182 percentage points. The FT's 2018 figures show that the average annual salary for alumni three years after graduation is $121,635.

This year, Antai is ranked No. 24 for value for money. The total tuition fee for its full-time two year MBA courses is 268,000 yuan ($42,076). "The rising global ranking of ACEM's MBA course reflects our strong comprehensive strength in training high-caliber people," said Zhou Lin, dean of ACEM. "We are proud of our achievements," he added. "China's rapid developing economy, efforts made by all students and professors in our faculty and support from the partners from both home and abroad are key factors that support our development."

In recent years Antai's MBA team has been committed to promoting its internationalization. In 2018, ACEM ranked No. 49 regarding international course experience. The school has launched three types of overseas programs - dual-degree programs, overseas study tours and foreign exchanges to offer international opportunities. Nearly 80 percent of ACEM's MBA students will take part in overseas studies. Meanwhile, Antai's MBA courses are attracting foreign students. Figures provided by ACEM show that 43 students from countries such as Canada, the US and Japan, enrolled in its MBA courses in 2018.

ACEM has also been rated one of China's leading business schools by other major ranking publications. ACEM's business administration course has been ranked among the top 50 for two consecutive years in the QS World University Rankings by Subject. It's also the only Chinese business school to enter the top 100 list in the QS University Rankings: Global MBA Rankings 2018.

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20180129/2043054-1

SOURCE Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityConsolidations, Process Automation and Emphasis on Interoperability Drive Greater Standardization and Integration of Imaging in Clinical Care Pathways

SANTA CLARA, California, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Independent analysis from the Transformational Health Team at Frost & Sullivan reveals that the United States (US) medical imaging market is transforming from a "get bigger" approach that emphasizes quantity to a "get better" approach that emphasizes quality, safety, and improvements in workflow efficiency. For this transformation to be successful, multiple stakeholders across the ecosystem need to work more closely to create a coherent strategy to address the issues the industry is currently facing, such as regulatory, reimbursement, and other challenges unique to the industry itself.

Frost & Sullivan's analysis, The Transformation of the United States Medical Imaging Industry, analyzes how stakeholders are going beyond the modality and looking to new products, technologies and solutions to enhance interoperability and bring about automation and analytics-based solutions to make the industry more process driven.

For further information on this analysis, please visit: http://frost.ly/25q

"The effect of both internal and external challenges has already taken its toll on the industry. The way for stakeholders to not only address these challenges but also succeed will be to judiciously use products, services, and solutions that improve the efficiency of the imaging process, reduce costs, and improve efficiency without compromising quality," said Tanvir Jaikishen, Senior Research Analyst.

Areas with the greatest growth opportunities include:

Creation of strategies to help small and medium-sized care providers improve workflow productivity, automate processes, offer new service lines, attract more patients, and increase revenues;

improve workflow productivity, automate processes, offer new service lines, attract more patients, and increase revenues; Use of deep learning to shift away from episodic-based care to population health-based solutions;

to shift away from episodic-based care to population health-based solutions; Analytics providers can create custom tools for medical imaging that analyze thousands of images to improve the imaging process and the patient experience; and

can create custom tools for medical imaging that analyze thousands of images to improve the imaging process and the patient experience; and Partnerships with radiologists and regulators to develop custom quantitation and reporting tools to help radiologists report on quality metrics, enabling them to qualify for reimbursements.

"The US medical imaging industry is in the process of transforming itself to address the challenges of the present and the demands of the future. Stakeholders across the imaging ecosystem are increasingly collaborating with each other to make the imaging process safer and more efficient. This transformation provides unprecedented opportunities for market participants to address the challenges of care providers and develop new products and solutions that help make the imaging workflow more productive," said Jaikishen.

The research further identifies the companies best positioned for growth in the US Medical Imaging industry. While GE Healthcare is in the process of developing tools that help radiologists improve workflow productivity, Philips Healthcare is the current market leader in healthcare enterprise partnerships with over a billion dollars' worth of contracts signed in the US since 2013. However, Arterys has recently received FDA approval for a deep learning cardiovascular cloud computing tool to enhance interoperability and reduce errors.

For further information on the US Medical Imaging Industry, click here to watchour complimentary webinar On Demand:The Picture Perfect Future of the US Medical Imaging Industry.

The Transformation of the United States Medical Imaging Industry is part of Frost & Sullivan's Transformational Health Growth Partnership Services program.

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today's market participants. For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community. Contact us: Start the discussion

The Transformation of the United States Medical Imaging Industry

K1FC-50

Contact:

Mariana Fernandez

Corporate Communications  North America

P: +1 (210) 348 1012

E: [email protected]

http://ww2.frost.com

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LinkedIn: Transform Health

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SOURCE Frost & SullivanPORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Angostura Global Cocktail Challenge 2018 competition, which takes place on February 11th, 2018, at the House of Angostura, will see eleven (11) gifted bartenders demonstrate their inventiveness and skill as they find creative uses for world-famous ANGOSTURA aromatic bitters, ANGOSTURA orange bitters, Angostura Rums and Amaro di ANGOSTURA in a Cocktail Competition like no other.

The Competitors, representing Australia, USA, Canada, Latin America, United Kingdom, Europe, Middle East & Africa, New Zealand and Trinidad and Tobago, will make two cocktails in seven minutes:

An Amaro Cocktail using Amaro di ANGOSTURA as a key ingredient, and ANGOSTURA aromatic bitters and/or ANGOSTURA orange bitters

A "Rum Cocktail" using Angostura's International rums and ANGOSTURA aromatic bitters and/or ANGOSTURA orange bitters

Cocktails will be judged on the taste of the drink, presentation, appearance and aroma, charm and storytelling and category knowledge.

The winner of the Finals will be awarded the coveted title of "Angostura Global Cocktail Challenge Champion," a cash prize of US$10,000 and a two-year contract to serve as the Angostura Global Brand Ambassador, representing world-famous ANGOSTURA aromatic bitters, ANGOSTURA orange bitters, Angostura Rums and Amaro di ANGOSTURA.

Judging the competition will be a world-famous panel led by renowned drinks personality Mike Ryan (Kimpton's Director of Bars). Mike's experience in the culinary and bar industry spans 15-plus years. Mike's primary responsibilities on the core beverage team involve training and educating on-the-ground bartenders.

Monica Berg is one of the leading bartenders to come out of Scandinavia, with a background from Oslo, Norway. She is highly praised for her innovative flavor combinations and experimental techniques, as well as her minimalistic and elegant style when it comes to cocktails.

A globally recognized personality and thought-leader in the world of mixed drinks, JJ Goodman is the Founder and Owner of The London Cocktail Club bar group, Craft Cocktail Co. bottled cocktails and Keystones Cocktail Club. Infatuated with bartending from a young age, JJ firmly established himself as an innovator in the drinks industry before opening his first bar at the age of 24 in 2008. Since then he has opened seven cocktail bars across London, pioneered revolutionary cocktail trends and through a series of accolades is now looked upon as one of the globe's greatest drinks' minds.

Trinidad & Tobago's very own Neal Ramdhan, winner of the Angostura Global Cocktail Challenge 2016, and; Carol Homer-Caesar, Angostura's Senior Manager - Quality Assurance, at Angostura Limited will join our judges panel.

Visit www.AngosturaGlobalCocktailChallenge.com for more information!

CONTACT: Vitra Deonarine, Contact Number: 868-623-1841 ext 290

Related Links

http://www.angostura.com



SOURCE House of AngosturaNew Appointment Brings Top-Flight Leadership to Help Organizations Deliver Exceptional Customer Experiences with Field Service and Workforce Management Solutions

PETACH-TIKVA, Israel and BURLINGTON, Massachusetts, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- ClickSoftware, the leading provider of field service management software, today announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Mark Cattini as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), effective February 1, 2018.

Cattini brings decades of proven experience leading and growing software and SaaS companies. Most recently, he was CEO of Autotask Corporation, which has since merged with Datto, a global leader in pure-cloud based solutions for technology service providers. At Autotask, Cattini was responsible for leading the company's dramatic growth and expansion of its global IT business management solutions. Earlier in his career, Cattini was president and CEO of MapInfo Corporation, a publicly traded company and provider of location-based intelligence solutions, integrating software, data and services around the world. Cattini transformed the company strategy from a technology provider to a vertically-focused solutions provider, resulting in its successful sale to Pitney Bowes in 2007. Prior to MapInfo, he spent eight years at Lotus Development, leading sales organizations in the UK and EMEA.

"With more than three decades of experience, Mark has made a career out of leading and accelerating software businesses and we are very fortunate to be adding him to ClickSoftware's leadership team," said Matt Spetzler, partner at Francisco Partners. "Today, almost every sizeable organization is facing a field service and workforce management transformation due to changing customer expectations. I believe Mark has the experience and industry knowledge needed to increase confidence, trust and adoption of ClickSoftware's solutions."

"There's never been a better time to be at the center of the industry helping service organizations take advantage of the next great wave of cloud-based intelligent automation," said Cattini. "I'm confident that my previous experience leading other successful companies will allow me to foster this unique opportunity. I could not be more excited and fortunate to join ClickSoftware and to have the opportunity to join the field service market leader."

The appointment of Cattini by ClickSoftware comes at a time when the company is seeing extremely strong market acceptance for Field Service Edge, its cloud-based comprehensive service management solution.

About ClickSoftware

ClickSoftware is a leading provider of field service management software. ClickSoftware enables customers with intelligent, automated decision making delivered in real time. The cloud-based Click Field Service Edge platform is a cutting-edge solution for optimizing the scheduling and management of a mobile workforce and mission-critical service operations.

For more information, please visit https://www.clicksoftware.com/. Follow us on Twitter.

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Related Links

https://www.clicksoftware.com



SOURCE ClickSoftware(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140911/647229 )



Request Sample Report at: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/request-sample/4537

Presently, North America dominates this market. In 2016, China registered the highest growth in Asia-Pacific. Similarly, the UK led the overall market in the European region. Presently, the U.S. is dominating the North American market.

Rise in smartphone penetration has driven the demand for memory chips. Furthermore, high-density storage capability, quick read & write cycle, and availability of different shapes & sizes of memory chips fuel their adoption in the digital domain. However, easy corruption of memory chip hampers the growth of the market.

For Purchase Enquiry: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/4537

In 2016, the nonvolatile segment dominated the global memory chips market, in terms of revenue. However, based on application, laptop/PCs dominated the global market, followed by smartphone in 2016.

Key Findings of the Memory Chip Market:

Laptop/PCs generated the highest revenue in 2016.

In 2016, the nonvolatile memory chips segment accounted for the highest revenue in the memory chip market.

Asia-Pacific is anticipated to exhibit a highest CAGR during the forecast period.

The key players profiled in the report include Samsung Group, Sony Corporation, Toshiba, ADATA Technology, SK Hynix, Micron Technology, Intel, Kingston Technology, Transcend Information, and Fujitsu Microelectronics Inc.

Ask for discount before buying: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/get-discount/4537

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Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of "Market Research Reports" and "Business Intelligence Solutions." AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain.

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SOURCE Allied Market ResearchNEW DELHI, January 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

'Kalpavriksha - the wish fulfilling tree', a stainless steel installation by International Award-winning artist and designer Vibhor Sogani, was recently completed, becoming the largest public art installation in the state of Gujarat and the second-largest in India.

Photograph: http://bit.ly/2GxxaRX

Vibhor Sogani, born in Jaipur, Rajasthan, specialised in Industrial Design from the prestigious National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India. Given his diverse interests, he engaged in a wide range of creative projects in the areas of exhibition, graphic, retail and product design, for top global brands. Famous for India's largest and most visible public art installations, the 'Sprouts', a 40 ft. high stainless steel installation spread over 6 acres of greens surrounding the AIIMS flyover in the heart of Delhi, Vibhor Sogani's creations are recognised globally.

In October 2016, his solo exhibition titled 'Mahatma in Me', a tribute to Mahatma Gandhi, travelled to Australia to mark the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti. In August 2017, the exhibition was invited to Zimbabwe to mark the celebration of 70 years of India's independence and beginning of the Indian festival 'India in the Sunshine City'. The exhibition travelled to Tanzania in December 2017 and the works were displayed in the National Museum. Recipient of many honours, Vibhor Sogani has been awarded 'Indian Art Icon of the Year 2014' in Singapore and has been nominated by the Government as a member of Governing Council of the India Design Council.

Sogani's 'Kalpavriksha' takes its name from Hindu mythology and stands for a wish fulfilling tree. The 35 ft. high installation stands in the centre of a 100 ft. roundabout, in the upcoming residential development Arvind Group's Uplands, Ahmedabad. Drawing inspiration from the surrounding landscape, the installation is an abstraction of a tree, blending into the serene, flowing greens around it. Crafted from mirror-finished steel balls, the dynamism and versatility of the Kalpavriksha contributes to the manifestation of the whole roundabout as a point of visual focus for the community.

Embracing the nature of life and constancy of change, the installation transforms itself with the changes in the environment: on a bright, sunny day, the installation sparkles, and appears soft and diffused when the sky is overcast. In the evenings, an amber glow on the inside and a cold white glow on the outside adds another element of drama to it. As a result of its mirror-finish and high reflectivity, it stands out beautifully at night. Owing to its public nature, the installation offers an engaging experience to get different perspectives from the masses - from a child to an adult, from a local to a tourist.

SOURCE Vibhor SoganiSEOUL, Korea, Jan. 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- SEMICON Korea 2018 opens at COEX in Seoul today with its largest-ever exhibition and an expected 50,000 attendees at the premier event for the Korean semiconductor and electronics manufacturing supply chain. January 31 to February 2, SEMICON Korea features a sold-out exhibition with 1,913 booths, the most in its history, 436 exhibitors from 20 countries, and forums on Smart Manufacturing and Smart Automotive, two key industry drivers.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/633558/SEMICON_Korea.jpg

SEMICON Korea kicks off with Korea, logging the highest semiconductor capital expenditures of any region in 2017, at the top of the semiconductor market. Last year, Korea-based Samsung and SK Hynix were ranked the number one and three semiconductor suppliers, respectively, and together accounted for more than 20 percent of total semiconductor revenue. Additionally, Samsung's semiconductor investment totaled $27 billion in 2017 and is expected to reach $28 billion in 2018  both records.

In a press conference this morning, SEMI, the global industry association representing more than 2,000 companies in the electronics manufacturing supply chain and organizer of SEMICON Korea, reported that strong semiconductor industry growth will continue. Dan Tracy, Senior Director Industry Research & Statistics of SEMI, revealed that 2017 was a record-setting year with semiconductor revenues increasing more than 20 percent and equipment spending over 30 percent. Positive growth is expected in 2018, with high-performance computing, Internet of Things (IoT) and automotive as key drivers. In 2018, the Korea market is expected to win the largest share in equipment spending and remain the largest region in terms of installed 300mm capacity and memory production.

Highlights of SEMICON Korea:

At today's opening ceremony, Ajit Manocha , SEMI president of CEO, and Yong-Han Lee , member of SEMI's Board of Directors, will address the gathering before joining HD Cho, President of SEMI Korea; HK Kang, Program Chairman of SEMICON Korea STS; Tetsuo Tuneishi, Chairman of SEMI Board; and Korean industry leaders to cut the ceremonial ribbon.

, SEMI president of CEO, and , member of SEMI's Board of Directors, will address the gathering before joining HD Cho, President of SEMI Korea; HK Kang, Program Chairman of SEMICON Korea STS; Tetsuo Tuneishi, Chairman of SEMI Board; and Korean industry leaders to cut the ceremonial ribbon. Four industry thought leaders  from Samsung Electronics, IBM, Xilinx and imec  will present keynote insights on the future of the global semiconductor industry, immediately following the opening ceremony.

SMART Automotive Forum  New at SEMICON Korea this year is the Smart Automotive Forum, highlighting the new market opportunities for semiconductors. The forum will explore how smart automobiles are changing the driving experience and examine how chips will power connected cars and autonomous driving systems. Close collaboration with semiconductor manufacturers is essential as automobile manufacturers expect to introduce fully autonomous cars before 2030.

SMART Manufacturing Forum  Top experts will share their insights on the latest trends and emerging technologies in Smart Manufacturing areas such as IoT, Cloud Computing, Big Data, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The experts will also examine how the industry can realize the promise of Smart Manufacturing through the adoption of new methods, systems and solutions.

The Industry Leadership Dinner, an exclusive VIP networking event tonight, will gather more than 450 global industry executives to connect and build relationships.

Through the Supplier Search Program, expanded this year to 90 meetings, eight of the world's leading companies (Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, Intel, Micron, SONY, Toshiba and Lam Research) will look for new suppliers.

SEMICON Korea attracts top companies to connect with customers and decision makers and to demonstrate product and technology leadership. The exposition includes deep technical networking and business programs that give insight into the full Korean electronics manufacturing ecosystem.

SEMICON Korea 2018 is the leading semiconductor technology event for market trends and breaking technology developments, featuring technical forums, business programs and standards activities. The event is an opportunity to meet and learn from more 100 global experts.

For more information on SEMICON Korea, visit www.semiconkorea.org/en/.

About SEMI

SEMI connects over 2,000 member companies and 1.3 million professionals worldwide to advance the technology and business of electronics manufacturing. SEMI members are responsible for the innovations in materials, design, equipment, software, devices, and services that enable smarter, faster, more powerful, and more affordable electronic products. FlexTech, the Fab Owners Alliance (FOA) and the MEMS & Sensors Industry Group (MSIG) are SEMI Strategic Association Partners, defined communities within SEMI focused on specific technologies. Since 1970, SEMI has built connections that have helped its members prosper, create new markets, and address common industry challenges together. SEMI maintains offices in Bangalore, Berlin, Brussels, Grenoble, Hsinchu, Seoul, Shanghai, Silicon Valley (Milpitas, Calif.), Singapore, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.semi.org and follow SEMI on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Association Contacts

Ji-won Cho

SEMI Korea

Email: [email protected]

Phone: +82.2.531.7804

Michael Hall

SEMI Headquarters

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 1.408.943.7988

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/469944/Semi_Logo.jpg

Related Links

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SOURCE SEMIMUMBAI, January 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

RBI's much awaited official guidelines for Peer to Peer (P2P) lending platforms to bring them into the ambit of non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) is set to boost online lending. It is fast emerging as an investment option for retail lenders. The NBFC-P2Ps will act as an intermediary to provide an online platform to lenders and borrowers to transact on mutually agreeable terms. RBI has defined P2P lending as a form of crowdfunding that entails issuing unsecured loans to borrowers via an online portal in its 2016, 'Consultation Paper on Peer to Peer Lending'. However, P2P lending is different from other crowdfunding activities in being a purely debt product, in which multiple lenders fund borrowers as personal loans or small business loans. Most of the P2P platforms in India such as IndiaMoneyMart curate their borrowers after conducting KYC checks, credit assessment, and due diligence before listing them on their loan exchanges.

Speaking about the regulations, Mr. Mahendra Agrawal, Director IndiaMoneyMart remarked, "RBI guidelines are quite encouraging to enable P2P businesses to scale and grow. This will help in addressing the access and affordability of credit products to the customers not served by traditional financial institutions such as banks or NBFCs. In the long run, the regulations are likely to reduce the risk of loan defaults and offer steady returns to lenders."

Mr. Agrawal further adds, "This move has brought more confidence to P2P lenders. It will enable greater co-operation between P2P and BFSI players to make the credit market deep, accessible, transparent and customer friendly. The regulation gives credibility to P2P lending as an asset class to diversify and gain returns on their investments." As per a PwC report, the P2P lending market is likely to grow to USD 5 billion by year 2020.

On the positives, the regulation has made P2P lending platforms accountable to furnish credit repayment/non-repayment information to all 4 credit bureaus, thereby increasing transparency in the credit rating system. The credit rating agencies have records on about 150 million population but P2P lending platforms are also going to bring customers hitherto relying on private money lenders. This presents a huge opportunity to close the credit information gap. It will also reward sub-prime borrowers with a better credit score for showing improvement in loan repayment behaviour.

As many first time or retail borrowers take loans from money lenders or payday companies which charge interest as high as 5% to 20% per month, P2P platforms like IndiaMoneyMart are bridging the gap by making credit not only accessible but affordable. Bangalore-based IT consultant, Tanmay Thorat* (name changed) was paying over 300% interest to payday loan companies and approached IndiaMoneyMart for a small ticket size loan of INR 1 Lakh secured at rate of 13% annualized interest in March 2016 required to settle his credit card debt and pay rent deposit. He says, "IndiaMoneyMart has helped me secure a cheap loan and enabled me to emerge from a debt spiral. I am grateful to its lenders. I am expecting to be completely debt free by September this year." He further intends to become a lender on this platform once he is debt free.

The expectation from the Union Budget 2018 is immense in the BFSI segment, especially after RBI regulation. Experts hope that essential financial services will have GST rates revised from 18% to 5% or nil. By virtue of limiting the maximum investment across all P2P platforms to INR 10 Lakhs, small investors are likely to drive the industry. P2P investors are lending to credit hungry masses devoid of access to services offered by traditional channels or altogether not served by them. In return, investors have an opportunity to earn handsome returns up to 25% annually.

Though by putting restrictions on the amount lent has distributed the risk across multiple lenders, still participating in such retail loans has its own limited risk. It has been mooted that lenders should be exempt from paying tax on interest income from P2P platforms. They are agents-of-change that enable and empower borrowers to access credit services at reasonable rates. Each lender is positively contributing to power India's consumption story where banks and traditional channels have failed to serve the aspirations of borrowers at affordable terms with prompt service, especially first time borrowers or those struggling with credit card or payday debt.

Pawan Modi, a Mumbai-based active P2P investor remarks, "It is a heartening to see RBI recognize P2P lending as a legitimate asset class. I have funded over 33 borrowers in last one year. The returns are better than many mutual fund schemes. The regulations will help us identify more credible borrowers in coming times and make us more confident with lending decisions if government were to exempt taxation from P2P interest earnings."

About IndiaMoneyMart

IndiaMoneyMart, (a FairVinimay Services Pvt. Ltd. initiative) is an easy, convenient and hassle free lending/borrowing marketplace where Lenders and Borrowers interact directly and strike a deal amongst themselves. Primarily, the Lenders and Borrowers interested in providing/seeking a loan, completes a simple application on IndiamoneyMart to lend or borrow as an Individual or as a Corporate member through this platform.

Media Contact:

Priyanka Singh

[email protected]

+91-9540068937

Fair Vinimay Services Private Limited



SOURCE IndiaMoneyMartMUMBAI, January 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Strata Geosystems, a global leader in the soil reinforcement industry, began construction for its newest state-of-the-art manufacturing facility aimed at meeting the growing demand for geotechnical products.

Since inception, Strata's journey has been driven by innovation. Whether it is using StrataGrid with coal-based pond ash or to reinforce a vertical landfill, Strata's out-of-the-box thinking has solved infrastructure challenges around the world. A vision for manufacturing superior quality products and building high performance structures inspired the creation of the new Rs. 100-Crore ($15M) manufacturing plant in Gujarat. This reaffirms the company's loyalty towards the 'Make in India' initiative.

To put things in perspective, Strata currently has a dominant share of the geogrid market in India. At current capacity levels, Strata will already contribute 8 million sqm of the estimated 17 million sqm domestic volume in 2017. However, under Prime Minister Modi's leadership, the infrastructure sector in India has accelerated significantly. Geogrid demand is expected to reach nearly 19 million sqm in 2018. Strata's new facility is being designed with a capacity of 20 million sqm in its first phase, which will be seamlessly scaled up to 30 million sqm by 2020. The new facility will help strengthen Strata's existing value offering of providing integrated solutions in India including geogrid supply, design, and construction.

The 150,000 sq.ft. modern facility will house the next-generation of wide-width machines, adopt an advanced coating technology, and automate several material-handling activities. The grounds will also include a world-class field-testing facility and an advanced laboratory to mimic site conditions. Maintaining its long history of environmentally responsible operations, Strata's newest facility will implement a variety of renewable energy sources, such as solar power and rain-water harvesting.

The opening of this plant in Q2 2018 is a milestone for the country's technical textile sector and a key step towards global expansion for Strata. Being partners with the technical textile veteran in the U.S., Glen Raven Inc., the promoters in India - Narendra Dalmia and Ashok Bhawnani are proud of this next big step and look forward to the exciting new beginnings.

About Strata Geosystems:

Strata Geosystems is a leader in the geosynthetics market across the globe. Strata provides end-to-end solutions for soil reinforcement challenges including the supply, design, and construction with our world-renowned StrataGrid (geogrid) and StrataWeb (geocells). In addition to the ISO and CE mark, the testing for our products are conducted in GAI-LAP accredited labs across the U.S., U.K., and India. We are also a proud member of the International Geotechnical Society (IGS) promoting advancements in geosynthetics.

For more information, please visit - http://www.strataindia.com.

Follow them on Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.

For any enquiry, please write to [email protected].

Media Contact:

Richika Bhawnani

[email protected]

+91-22-4063-5100

Manager - International Business, Strata Geosystems



SOURCE Strata Geosystems India Pvt LtdNew research from Cornell University Professor Alan Hedge finds the optimal amount of daylight reduces eyestrain and headaches of office workers by 84 percent

MILPITAS, California, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a new study conducted by Alan Hedge, a professor in the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis at Cornell, workers in daylit office environments reported an 84 percent drop in symptoms of eyestrain, headaches and blurred vision symptoms, which can detract from productivity.

"The study found that optimizing the amount of natural light in an office significantly improves health and wellness among workers, leading to gains in productivity," said Hedge. "As companies increasingly look to empower their employees to work better and be healthier, it is clear that placing them in office spaces with optimal natural light should be one of their first considerations."

With Americans, on average, spending more than 90 percent of their time indoors, providing the optimal amount of natural light is vital. Unfortunately, office environments introduce a number of challenges. Most notably, uncontrolled natural light can cause unwanted heat that can lead to intra-office "thermostat wars" and excessive glare on occupants' eyes and computer screens. Consequently, windows are often covered with blinds or shades, contributing to poorly daylit spaces.

To conduct the study, Hedge compared the experiences of workers in offices with traditional windows to workers in offices with auto-tinting "smart" windows that adapt to and control the sun's energy to optimize natural light and reduce glare. The smart windows were manufactured by View Dynamic Glass.

Key findings of the study include:

Controlled daylight unlocks significant health and wellness benefits for office workers. Workers in office environments with optimized natural light reported an 84 percent drop in symptoms of eyestrain, headaches and blurred vision symptoms, which often result from prolonged computer and device use at work and can detract from productivity.

Workers in office environments with optimized natural light reported an 84 percent drop in symptoms of eyestrain, headaches and blurred vision symptoms, which often result from prolonged computer and device use at work and can detract from productivity. More natural light translates to more alert employees. Workers in offices with smart glass reported a 10 percent decrease in drowsiness.

Workers in offices with smart glass reported a 10 percent decrease in drowsiness. Enhanced individual performance is tied to access to natural light. Workers sitting close to a window that optimized daylight exposure reported a 2 percent increase in productivity  the equivalent of an additional $100,000 /year of value for every 100 workers or around $2m over the window's lifetime.

Workers sitting close to a window that optimized daylight exposure reported a 2 percent increase in productivity  the equivalent of an additional /year of value for every 100 workers or around over the window's lifetime. Natural light creates a better indoor experience. Workers in offices with smart glass reported a 40 percent increase in daylight quality. Lack of daylight and access to views decreases the ability for the eye to relax and recover from fatigue. Additionally, workers in proximity to windows report 80 percent higher daylight satisfaction.

"Despite their best intentions, companies are unwittingly detracting from their employees' health and performance by limiting their access to natural light," said Dr. Brandon Tinianov, chair of the U.S. Green Building Council's Advisory Council and vice president of industry strategy at View. "These findings are a wake-up call to every executive who wants to maximize the wellness and productivity of their workforce."

To read the Cornell study report, visit http://go.viewglass.com/daylight-workplace-study.

Methodology

In November 2017, Hedge conducted a study of 313 office workers from five different locations who worked in either a View Dynamic Glass or traditional glass office environment. Located in a combination of open and private offices, workers were situated within 10 feet of windows and surveyed on daylight and its impact on their productivity, wellness and health. Hedge conducted the study independently and had full autonomy over all aspects, including the survey design, and data analysis.

About Alan Hedge

Alan Hedge is a professor in the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis, Cornell University. He directs the Human Factors and Ergonomics teaching and research programs. His research and teaching activities have focused on issues of design and workplace ergonomics as these affect the health, comfort and productivity of workers.

He has edited a book on "Ergonomic Workplace Design for Health, Wellness, and Productivity," co-authored a book on "Healthy Buildings," co-edited "Advances in Ergonomics Modeling and Usability" and also the "Handbook of Human Factors and Ergonomics Methods," published 41 book chapters, 74 peer-review journal articles and 164 refereed proceedings articles, 42 other conference proceedings, 15 technical reports, 13 legislative reports, 15 technical reports, and 151 additional conference presentations on ergonomics and related topics. He is extensively cited in the national and international media and has appeared on several TV and radio programs.

About View, Inc.

Situated at the intersection of human wellness, smart connectivity, and energy efficiency, View manufactures View Dynamic Glass, a new generation of architectural glass that intelligently transitions through multiple tint states to control the sun's energy, providing an enhanced occupant experience and optimum natural light and thermal comfort. View is the market leader in smart glass, with installations across 25 million square feet of real estate in a variety of commercial markets, including corporate offices, healthcare, government, higher education, airports and multifamily residential.

For more information, visit: www.viewglass.com.

Press Contacts

Cameron Craig

[email protected]

408-514-6494

Megan Gregorio

[email protected]

415-849-1310

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/437200/View_Inc_Logo.jpg

Related Links

http://www.viewglass.com



SOURCE View, Inc.(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160303/792302 )



Browse 56 market data Tables and 39 Figures spread through 105 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Telecom System Integration Market"

https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/system-integration-market-1304.html

Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report

Increasing complexities in the cloud and network migration encountered by in-house IT departments have led the communication service providers to adopt telecom system integration services. The rapid pace of technological advancements in the ICT arena have driven the adoption rate of innovative technologies in the telecom industry. Changing customer expectations and intense competition in the telecom market have driven the rapid adoption of new technologies and services among telcos.

Network management application is expected hold the largest market share during the forecast period.

Network infrastructure plays a vital role in the core operations of telecom industries. The continual advancements and developments around networking technologies has encourage telecom industries to embrace new technologies and upgrade their existing network infrastructure to meet the latest standards. Upgrading and migrating network infrastructure requires expertise to cope with the complexities in integrating and upscaling their existing infrastructure with new network technologies. Telecom industries are inclined to adopt professional system integrators to efficiently integrate network security and network monitoring solutions with an existing network infrastructure. Professional system integrators facilitate telecom industries by reducing the risks associated with integration and offer stability to the network infrastructure. Migration from wired to wireless network and IPv4 to IPv6, and evolution of 5G are expected to contribute to the growth of network management market.

Cloud deployment is expected to grow at a higher CAGR during the forecast period.

System integration services for cloud-based solutions are expected to gain high traction during the forecast period. This can be majorly attributed to the increasing demand for cloud-based solution due to the high flexibility, scalability, and cost efficiency offered by these solutions. Factors such as increasing data storage needs and mobility are the driving forces that are likely to aid the growth of cloud-based services market in the coming years.

Make an Enquiry @ https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Enquiry_Before_Buying.asp?id=1304

North America accounts for the largest market share in the global Telecom System Integration Market.

North America projected to be the largest contributor to the global Telecom System Integration Market by region. The US is holds the major share of the Telecom System Integration Market in North America, while Canada expected to present potential opportunities for telecom system integration in the region. The Telecom System Integration Market in North America expected to grow at a slow rate by 2022 compared to that of other regions, as the market in the region is well-established and stagnant.

North America comprises major telecom and communication service providers, such as AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint Corporation. The presence of major telecom and communication service providers in the region contributes to the demand for telecom system integration services.

Major telecom system integration service providers include IBM (US), Ericsson (Sweden), Nokia Networks (Finland), Tech Mahindra (India), Huawei (China), Wipro (India), Infosys (India), DXC Technology (US), Cognizant (US), HCL (India), Syntel (US), and Stixis Technologies (US).

Browse Related Report

Operation & Business Support System Market by OSS Solutions (Network Planning & Design, Service Delivery), BSS Solutions (Product/Service Management, Customer Management, Revenue Management), End-Users and by Geography - Analysis & Forecasts to 2020

https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/operation-business-support-system-market-135217668.html

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SOURCE MarketsandMarketsHawker Pacific's 33% year-on-year growth in business aviation and MRO

Hawker Pacific lines up top-level business delegation for Asia's premier aviation show

SINGAPORE, Jan. 31, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Hawker Pacific, the leading aviation solutions provider in Asia, Pacific and the Middle East, is proud to support the remarkable growth of business aviation in the Asian region with attendance at the Singapore Airshow. Exhibiting at the biennial show since its inception in 2008, Hawker Pacific is proud to be part of the growth in the region.

"For over 40 years, Hawker Pacific has been serving the region from our Singapore base. We will be at the airshow to share our wealth of expertise and experience in MRO, Aircraft Sales, Fleet Services, Special Missions and Spare Parts with new customers and existing partners," said Mr. Alan Smith, Chief Executive Officer, Hawker Pacific.

The 2018 Singapore Airshow at the Changi Exhibition Centre runs from 6  11 February 2018. Hawker Pacific's chalet will be located at CD43.

Through their network of strategically placed support facilities in Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, China and the United Arab Emirates, Hawker Pacific is well positioned to meet the growing demands of the fast-expanding aviation market.

Singapore is highly regarded as a key business aviation hub in Asia and is well respected for its heavy maintenance and MRO activities. It is estimated that MRO spending from the region including commercial airlines accounts for approximately 30% of global annual spend.

Hawker Pacific Singapore, has experienced substantial year-on-year growth in business aviation and MRO. Singapore's aerospace industry has seen an average of seven percent growth in value-add over the past 20 years.1

Having established a presence in Singapore in the 1970's, Hawker Pacific upgraded its facility in 2012 to meet the growing demand of customers in the region.

The purpose built 9,400m2 hangar and office complex at Seletar Aerospace Park provides maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO), retrofits, modifications and upgrades, including an environmentally friendly paint shop capable of up to Falcon 8X, Global Express or Gulfstream aircraft. The facility also offers a variety of support services including aircraft sales, aircraft management, FBO and aircraft handling services.

"Hawker Pacific is at the forefront of state-of-the-art maintenance and support services in Asia and Australasia. As demand increases, so do the challenges. As aviation's trusted choice, Hawker Pacific has always provided quality, innovative and customised solutions to meet the diverse needs of our customers  high net-worth individuals, corporations and government," concluded Mr. Alan Smith. "We are also the gateway for North American and European companies seeking to venture into the region which represents immense opportunity."

Notes to Editor:

Hawker Pacific is a market leader in integrated civil and military aerospace sales and product support in Asia Pacific and Middle East. It operates established businesses in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, China and the United Arab Emirates. It supports a wide range of fixed wing aircraft and helicopters for corporate, charter, defence and special mission operators.

For more information, visit www.hawkerpacific.com

For media enquiries and high-resolution images, please contact:

Mr. Blake Irwin

Senior Marketing Manager

T: +61 2 9708 8560

M: +61 466 564 025

E: blake.irwin@hawkerpacific.com

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/635698/Hawker_Pacific_Logo.jpg

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SOURCE Hawker PacificExhibition runs until Saturday 17 February 2018 at Mall Galleries, The Mall, London SW1

Ana Schmidt has been announced as the winner of the 2018 Columbia Threadneedle Prize, Europe's leading open competition for figurative and representational art, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Ana receives a cash prize of 20,000 and a solo exhibition for a wider body of work in the Threadneedle Space at Mall Galleries.

To view the Multimedia News Release, please click: https://www.multivu.com/players/uk/8264051-winner-2018-columbia-threadneedle/

Ana Schmidt is a 'realist' painter based in Bilbao, where she works as an urban planning architect and figurative painter. Her work focuses on depictions of urban landscapes and how they appear in our everyday experience. Finding inspiration from her immediate surroundings, Ana is especially interested in painting the territorial changes brought on over the last decades by the process of urban transformation and sprawl.

Her winning work, Dead End, is one of a series of gritty cityscape works that document in fine detail the abandoned urban spaces, spaces that normally escape our awareness, as the periphery, the fringes, where cities become blurred.

Ana has previously won major awards in the USA, Italy and Spain and has exhibited her paintings and drawings extensively in group exhibitions in Germany, the USA, Italy and, most recently, in Spain at Figurativas 2017 in Barcelona.

Chairman of the Selection Panel and Director of Mall Galleries, Lewis McNaught said, "It is always a difficult task to select just one winning work from all those entered for the Prize - but with Ana's painting, the selectors were all struck by the macabre and melancholic beauty that she has conjured up with her extremely skilled brushwork. With this large canvas, Ana is calling on us to wake up to the increasing levels of inequality, unemployment and poverty rife in modern cities. It's a powerful work."

Alison Jefferis, Head of Corporate Affairs, Columbia Threadneedle Investments said: "The Columbia Threadneedle Prize has grown in strength and reputation during our 10 years of support. Congratulations to this year's finalists and to Ana for winning the prestigious Prize. We hope it inspires visitors to Mall Galleries during the course of the exhibition."

Five Finalists each receive a Prize of 1,000. The Finalists are:

Emily Allchurch, Babel Britain (After Verhaecht), Digital collage as a transparency on bespoke LED lightbox

Caroline Burraway, Samuel, The Jungle Calais, Charcoal

Serena Curmi, Bedlam' Case Studies, Oil on board

Cathy Lewis, Nowhere near Gotham, Cast marble and digital print

Lois Wallace, Perfect Day, Oil on copper

Visitors to the exhibition are invited to vote for The Visitors' Choice Award, a further prize worth 10,000 to the winning artist. The Visitors' Choice Award winner will be announced at the end of the exhibition.

The Columbia Threadneedle Prize: Figurative Art Today

Mall Galleries, The Mall, London SW1

31 January to 17 February

10am to 5pm (closes 1pm on final day)

Admission Free

http://www.columbiathreadneedleprize.com

Share your photos and thoughts on the exhibition with us and let us know who you voted for with #MyArtChoice #ColumbiaThreadneedlePrize @mallgalleries

For more information, please visit http://www.columbiathreadneedleprize.com

There are several talks and events taking place during the exhibition.

Where does the gallery model go from here?

Wednesday 7 February, 6:30pm to 8pm

Leading Industry figures discuss where the traditional gallery model goes from here, offering valuable advice for artists, art lovers and collectors.

Free, but book your place at http://www.mallgalleries.org.uk

In the Studio: Short Film Screening

Thursday 8 February, 2pm to 4pm

An afternoon of artists' film screenings exploring the different notions of creative spaces.

Free, but book your place at http://www.mallgalleries.org.uk

Figurative Art Today: A panel discussion

Tuesday 13 February, 6pm to 8pm

Our panel discusses the ways in which contemporary artists chose to reflect the world around them.

Free, but book your place at http://www.mallgalleries.org.uk

Notes to Editors

Established in 2008, the number of entries for The Columbia Threadneedle Prize (formerly The Threadneedle Prize) continues to increase as the Prize gains momentum: 4,118 submissions were received from 2,097 artists through an open entry submission for the 2018 Prize and exhibition, compared to 3,828 entries from 1,973 artists in 2016. The Columbia Threadneedle Prize encourages debate about the growing relevance of figurative and representational art by hosting visitor events throughout the three-week exhibition in London. http://www.columbiathreadneedleprize.com

More than 2,000 artists entered 4,118 works to this year's exhibition. Over 100 works, comprising painting, sculpture, drawing and print, were selected by a panel of judges, chaired by Mall Galleries Director Lewis McNaught, the judges were:

Jennifer McRae , award-winning portrait artist

, award-winning portrait artist Helen Pheby , Senior Curator at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

, Senior Curator at Yorkshire Sculpture Park Pippa Stockdale , Managing Director at The Fine Art Society.

Previous winners of The Columbia Threadneedle Prize include:

Nina Murdoch

Shelia Wallis

Patricia Cain

Henrietta Simson

Ben Greener

Clare McCormack and Lisa Wright - Joint winners

and - Joint winners Tina Jenkins

Lewis Hazelwood-Horner RBA

About Mall Galleries

Mall Galleries is a major contemporary gallery space in the heart of Central London, and is a national focal point for contemporary figurative art. For over 40 years Mall Galleries has played a crucial role in diversifying the practice of figurative art, exploring its boundaries while inspiring and educating audiences with new exhibitions and interpretations of the contemporary world. See http://www.mallgalleries.org.uk

About Columbia Threadneedle Investments

Columbia Threadneedle Investments is a leading global asset management group that provides a broad range of actively managed investment strategies and solutions for individual, institutional and corporate clients around the world. With more than 2000 people including over 450 investment professionals based in North America, Europe and Asia, we manage 366 billion[1] of assets across developed and emerging market equities, fixed income, asset allocation solutions and alternatives. Columbia Threadneedle Investments is the global asset management group of Ameriprise Financial, Inc., a leading US-based financial services provider. As part of Ameriprise, we are supported by a large and well-capitalised diversified financial services firm.

See http://www.columbiathreadneedle.com

Source: Columbia Threadneedle Investments as at 30 Dec 2017

[1] Source: Ameriprise Financial Q4 2017 earnings release.

Past performance is not a guide to future performance. The value of investments and any income is not guaranteed and can go down as well as up and may be affected by exchange rate fluctuations. This means that an investor may not get back the amount invested. This material is for information only and does not constitute an offer or solicitation of an order to buy or sell any securities or other financial instruments, or to provide investment advice or services.

For images and further press information about the Prize and Exhibition please contact:

Liberty Rowley, Mall Galleries, T: +44-020-7968-0955, E: press@mallgalleries.com

(Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/635094/Ana_Schmidt_Dead_End.jpg )



Video:

https://www.multivu.com/players/uk/8264051-winner-2018-columbia-threadneedle/



SOURCE Mall GalleriesIf you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this





Got news tips, gossip, suggestions, complaints?E-mail us: progressivecharlestown@gmail.com We strive to avoid errors in our articles. Our correction policy can be found hereWashington, Jan 29 : The world's leading ATM makers have warned of "jackpotting" attacks against US cash machines in the wake of the country's first confirmed hacks.

ATM "jackpotting" is a sophisticated hack in which thieves gain physical access to the machine and, with the help of malware or specialised electronics, force ATMs to spit out huge volumes of cash.

NCR Corp., a leading ATM manufacturer, said in a advisory sent to its customers that it had received reports about "jackpotting" attacks, also known as "logical attacks", against US ATMs, but its equipment had not been affected in the recent attacks, security news website KrebsOnSecurity reported.

"This represents the first confirmed cases of losses due to logical attacks in the US," read the NCR alert.

"This should be treated as a call to action to take appropriate steps to protect their ATMs against these forms of attack(s) and mitigate any consequences."

However, NCR did not identify any victims or the amount of money stolen, Xinhua reported on Monday.

Meanwhile, ATM maker Diebold Nixdorf said in a separate alert that they were informed by US authorities about potential "jackpotting" attacks moving from Mexico to the US within the next days.

A confidential US Secret Service alert sent to banks said the hackers have been attacking stand-alone cash machines routinely located in pharmacies, big box retailers and drive-thru ATMs.

"During previous attacks, fraudsters dressed as ATM technicians and attached a laptop computer with a mirror image of the ATMs' operating system along with a mobile device to the targeted ATM," said the confidential alert.

Cyber criminals remotely attacked cash machines in more than a dozen countries across Europe in 2016, media reported, citing statistics from Russian cyber security firm Group IB.

According to Kaspersky Lab, a Russian cyber security firm, outdated computer hardware and software are among the reasons for ATMs vulnerability to hacks.

"It is quite possible that no exceedingly 'hi-tech' efforts are needed" to hack an ATM, wrote the company in a blog post in 2016.

The vast majority of today's ATMs still use Windows XP operating system, whose developer Microsoft had dropped its support since early 2014, said the company.

To reduce the risk of attack on cash machines, Kaspersky Lab suggested measures including updating ATM's journaling file system and implementing authenticated dispensing and cryptographic protection.

Olga Kochetova, security expert at Kaspersky Lab's penetration testing department, noted that it is the long-time disbelief that cyber criminals are only interested in cyber attacks against Internet banking that causes banks and their customers huge financial losses.

"They are interested in these attacks, but also increasingly see the value in exploiting ATM vulnerabilities, because direct attacks against such devices significantly shortens their route to real money," she said in the blog post.New York, Jan 29 : Star performer Bruno Mars ensured he thanked his inner circle -- his co-writers -- when he took the stage with them to receive the Record of the Year honour at the 60th Grammy Awards ceremony.

In his acceptance speech, the hip-hop star thanked The Recording Academy as well as his co-writers including Christopher Brody Brown, James Fauntleroy, Philip Lawrence, Ray Charles McCullough II, Jeremy Reeves, Ray Romulus and Jonathan Yip, reported eonline.com.

"I've known these guys for over a decade. All the music, the music business horror stories you see in the movies, we've been through all of it. And this is the first time on this album that we all came collectively as a group and put this song together and put the album together.

"So fellas, it is an honour to share this with you tonight. These are my brothers," he said.

Mars won Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Best R&B Album and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical for "24K Magic", Song of the Year and Best R&B Song and Best R&B Performance for "That's What I Like" -- taking home not just major awards but also those in the R&B genre.

The Grammy Awards, held here on Sunday night, were aired in India on Vh1.Ramallah, Jan 31 : A Palestinian teenager was killed on Tuesday by Israeli troops during clashes in West Bank, officials said.

Haytham Abu Ne'eem, 16, succumbed to his wounds from a gunshot in the head, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said.

The clashes erupted between the Israeli troops and some Palestinian youths in the village of al-Mughayar, north of Ramallah, Xinhua reported.

No more casualties were reported, Palestinian sources said.

Violent clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinian protesters have been on the rise in recent months, especially after the US government announced in last December to recognize the disputed holy city of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.New York, Jan 31 : In a speech bubbling with patriotism and economic policy of America First, President Donald Trump has reiterated the US' commitment to strengthen its military, protect its borders and reset its trading relationships and appealed to a divided Congress for support.

"The era of economic surrender is over," Trump declared in his first State of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday night in Washington and said, "We will work to fix bad trade deals and negotiate new ones."

"We will protect American workers and American intellectual property, through strong enforcement of our trade rules," he said.

Trump spoke for an hour and 20 minutes in the House chamber of Congress against the backdrop of a large American flag, with Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker Paul Ryan seated behind him.

The Republicans and their supporters repeatedly cheered Trump, while the Democrats, who did not boycott the speech, sat stoically.

The speech, mostly devoted to domestic issues, was punctuated with spectacles for television with Trump calling out to crime victims, business people, beneficiaries of his economic programmes, soldiers, a crippled North Korean refugee and others seated in the audience with anecdotes about them as the cameras zoomed on them amid audience applause.

In a manouevre that mirrors the Congress Party in India, the Democratic Party brought out Representative Joe Kennedy, who is the grandson of the late Robert Kennedy and grandnephew of John F. Kennedy, to deliver the party's response to Trump.

In outlining his strategic perspective, Trump lumped China and Russia with rogue regimes and terrorist groups that "challenge our interests, our economy, and our values".

"In confronting these dangers, we know that weakness is the surest path to conflict, and unmatched power is the surest means of our defence," Trump said, calling on the Congress to fully fund the military.

He included the nuclear arsenal in discussing his defence agenda.

"We must modernise and rebuild our nuclear arsenal, hopefully never having to use it, but making it so strong and powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression," he said.

In fighting terrorism, Trump recalled his pledge "to extinguish IS from the face of the Earth" and said that the US and its allies have "liberated almost 100 per cent of the territory once held by these killers in Iraq and Syria".

To combat the Islamic State and the Al Qaeda, Trump asked Congress to ensure "we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists -- wherever we chase them down".

"Our warriors in Afghanistan also have new rules of engagement," Trump said, repeating a dig at former President Barack Obama's administration, saying, "Along with their heroic Afghan partners, our military is no longer undermined by artificial timelines, and we no longer tell our enemies our plans."

Trump recalled the UN General Assembly resolution criticising Washington's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move its embassy there.

He used it to push another aspect of his America First policy, Trump asked the Congress to enact laws to ensure that "American foreign-assistance dollars always serve American interests, and only go to America's friends".

Iran and North Korea came in for special attention. He criticised the nuclear deal made by the US, the other permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany with Iran to end its nuclear proliferation and also accused it of destabilising the region.

"North Korea's reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland," Trump acknowledged. "We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from happening."

In another criticism of his predecessors, Trump said, "Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation.

"I will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got us into this dangerous position."

(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)New Delhi : Title: Buried Seeds: A Chef's Journey -- The Story of Vikas Khanna; Author: Karan Bellani; Publisher: Wisdom Tree; Pages: 155; Price: Rs 345 He never gave up, rose from the ashes like a phoenix every time life tried to bury him. Chef Vikas Khanna, also called Vikku by his near and dear ones, was a buried seed that was meant to bloom.

"Buried Seeds" traces the journey of the Michelin star chef from the boy who helped his grandmother in their kitchen in Amritsar while other children played outside, to the man who worked with influential chefs like Gordon Ramsay, Bobby Flay and Jean-Georges Vongerichten, to presenting his book "UTSAV: A Culinary Epic of Indian Festivals" to the former US Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

Interestingly, before the book emerged, Andrei Severny released a documentary on the chef titled "Buried Seeds: A Life Journey of Chef Vikas Khanna" which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival last year.

The author describes how the phrase "when life gives you lemons, make a mojito" is something Khanna has adhered to literally in his roller-coaster of a life and has remained free of arrogance.

Bellani comes across as extremely loyal to the chef, but at a personal level, having interviewed him myself once, the adjectives penned for the chef are certainly believable. The read, however, tends to get too mushy at times.

The author has tried his best to squeeze in all the key memories of Khanna, but they run a bit helter-skelter, confusing the reader as to which turning point came first in the chef's life -- especially the phase after he shifted base to the US.

Nevertheless, the journey is an inspiration not just for a commoner who aspires to touch the sky but also for a physically challenged person. Khanna was himself born with misaligned feet and wasn't able to run until he was 13.

Yet, he scaled the heights. He is also counted among "The Hottest Chef of America" and was once listed as one of the "Sexiest Men Alive" by People's magazine.

"There's no shortcut to success" is a key fact Khanna never forgot, and the author has shed light on instances when he fought against the odds to rise and shine.

"Buried Seeds" is a must read if you want to know more about the success recipe of this down-to-earth chef.

(Kishori Sud can be contacted at kishori.s@ians.in)New Delhi, Jan 31 : US sanctions on Russia have been a "test of strength" for its industry, but have also led to new approaches in business, the CEO of Russia's Rostec Corporation, Sergey Chemezov, has said.

A number of sanctions, primarily pushed by the US, were imposed on Russia after it annexed the Crimea, which was a part of Ukraine, and for military incursions in Ukraine in 2014. The sanctions were also approved by the European Union (EU) and certain other countries and international organisations.

"The issue of working under sanctions for us is a kind of test of strength. I will not hide that the introduction of American sanctions affected our interaction with foreign partners," Chemezov, who is also the Chairman of Rosoboronexport, told IANS.

"Certain markets and opportunities have been closed to us. To say that we did not notice the imposition of sanctions would be dishonest. On the other hand, sanctions have served as a signal for the formation of new approaches to doing business, which we did not think about earlier," he said.

The sanctions led to collapse of the Russian rouble and resulted in a financial crisis -- and also caused economic damage to a number of EU countries.

Chemezov said the Russians felt the sanctions were an attempt to limit the country's competitive advantages and drive it from the markets.

"By and large, it's no secret to anyone that Russian technology is more reliable than American, and we usually offer a more favourable price. It's hard to compete with us honestly," he said.

"Sanctions are a typical example of unfair competition when American and European competitors use these tools to force us out of the international market," he said.

However, Russia has worked on reorienting its markets and focused on South and Southeast Asia, and Latin America.

"First we were closed by the markets of North America, Australia and the European Union. We reoriented to other markets, entered into new agreements and strengthened our positions in South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Latin America," he said.

"The revenue of our enterprises has only grown. But now the US is trying to punish our partners. In fact, anyone who buys weapons from us can have problems working with the Americans. Is this a civilised approach to doing business," he questioned.

Talking about the Rostec Corporation, which comprises over 700 organisations and is celebrating its 10th anniversary, Chemezov said when the group was formed, around a third of the enterprises were in a pre-crisis and crisis stage and 28 were bankrupt.

He said in the beginning, the volume of exports was about $6 billion, which over the last 10 years has doubled to over $12 billion.

He also said that Rosoboronexport at present has orders worth more than $40 billion.

(Anjali Ojha can be contacted at anjali.o@ians.in)Sydney, Jan 31 : Hundreds of secret and classified documents were found in locked file cabinets at a second-hand furniture store, leading to an investigation into "one of the biggest breaches of Cabinet security in Australian history".

The Australian government on Wednesday ordered the probe into how hundreds of exclusive documents relating to national security, immigration, welfare, communications and controversial racial discrimination laws ended up at the shop in Canberra.

The documents were obtained by the Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC). It said the files had been found in filing cabinets purchased by an unidentified person from the shop where ex-government furniture is sold cheaply.

Later, the buyer broke the locks and found thousands of official documents that were eventually handed over to the ABC, which named the treasure as the "Cabinet Files".

The broadcaster published a series of exclusive reports earlier this week, citing Cabinet files from current and previous governments.

"The deals can be even cheaper when the items in question are two heavy filing cabinets to which no-one can find the keys," the ABC said in its report.

"They were purchased for small change and sat unopened for some months until the locks were attacked with a drill."

Australian Cabinet documents are normally sealed and kept confidential until they are released to the public 20 years later. The documents reported this week were said to delve into the workings of five previous governments over the last decade.

The second-hand shop is open to any individual, so in a hypothetical case the documents could have ended up in the hands of "foreign agents or governments", said an official.

According to a file among the recovered documents, the Australian Police lost 400 security documents between 2008 and 2013, of which the whereabouts of a large part remain unknown.

The files revealed that former Prime Minister Tony Abbott's government had considered denying welfare to people under 30.

One of the file stated that Former Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard were warned about risks of a home insulation scheme that later claimed four lives.

It also mentioned that former Prime Minister John Howard's administration had debated removing the right of people to remain silent under police questioning.Chennai, Jan 31 : Drastic pruning of discretionary powers of Ministers and bureaucrats as well as transparent political funding are among the steps that will reduce corruption in governance, said panellists at the K.S. Narayanan Oration 2018 on "Doing business in India today -- Does it call for compromises?"

Uday Kotak, founder CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank, said late on Tuesday: "As part of economic liberalisation India should have created strong regulators and taken out the discretionary powers. What is needed is less discretionary power."

According to him, India has a weak institutional framework and is still individual-driven.

"Corruption found a new form post-liberalisation. Businesses that need lots of clearances from the government will breed corruption. Unless there is transparent funding of political parties, there will be corruption," Anu Aga, former Chairperson of Thermax Ltd, said.

She said honest companies can be harassed by politicians and bureaucrats and it is difficult to fight corruption in India by an individual company.

Aga said industry bodies like the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and others can take collective steps to deal with this menace.

Referring to the awards given to corporates by various organisations for top and bottom line performances and not for ethics, Aga wondered as to the kind of role model being set up for the younger generation to emulate.

Recalling a city-based former real estate development company, she said the company as a policy did not pay any bribe to any official.

She said the company's failure over a period of time sent out a wrong message that business cannot be done without corruption.

A top official of a real estate company had told IANS that when attempts were made to help out that firm, the lenders, instead being flexible to help out an honest company, stuck to their stand, resulting in the company going down.New Delhi, Jan 31 : The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought the Centre's response on a plea that the BSF was stopping Rohingya refugees from entering India.

Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud sought the response as counsel Prashant Bhushan complained that the Border Security Force was preventing them from crossing the Myanmar border by "sprinkling chilli powder".

Appearing for the Centre, Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta urged the court that it should not interfere in the matter as the "constitutionally empowered executive was seized of the matter and the diplomatic process is on to deal with the situation".

Appearing for the National Human Rights Commission, senior counsel Gopal Subramanium initially told the court that he was in agreement with what Mehta was saying and that the NHRC was only concerned with the Rohingyas present in India.

The next hearing of the matter is on March 7.Mumbai, Jan 31 : Superstar Shah Rukh Khan, known for his chivalrous attitude, says nobody has dared to misbehave with a woman on his film sets.

The actor, who was feted with a Crystal Award at the World Economic Forum summit in Davos along with Hollywood celebrities Cate Blanchett and Elton John, spoke to BBC World News at length on gender equality in Bollywood and the cultural differences in India.

In the midst of the raging debate over sexual misconduct allegations against powerful men in Hollywood, Shah Rukh was asked if he has witnessed sexual misconduct in the Hindi film industry and done anything about it.

"At a level when I'm making films or working in films, we are very clear about the attitude to women. Even the smallest aspects, of the names coming first in title, which is not going to do anything, but the kind of respectability," Shah Rukh said on the "HARDtalk on BBC World News" show.

"Even this small thing needs to be done just to bring about the equality... Just see what we've reduced ourselves to. You know, to put a girl's name in front just to show what little guys we are, thinking of them as equals. And that is sad and that is strangely dichotomous when you're talking about creativity, and you have boys and girls working together.

"I have never personally, first hand and nobody, if I may say, nobody dared misbehave with a woman on my set, I am very clear on that," he added. A transcript of the interview was provided to IANS by BBC.

On inter-communal tensions and divisions that the world has been observing in modern-day India, the actor said: "There will be dissent for everything and I think, like you would also believe and we all believe, there has to be a discussion on it."

Shah Rukh believes there cannot be a radical standoff when there is dissent.

"I think you can have a discussion and then you can talk about it in our country - we are the biggest democracy - and if you are the biggest democracy, dissent is a part and parcel of that and as much is discussion.

"So, when you have a story and you know when you go out sometimes, there's dissent, but as a filmmaker, as a citizen of a country and the world, you know when there's dissent, can we just have a little bit of discussion about it and sort it out instead of you know taking standoff positions... So it is possible," he added.

Questioned if there is a kind of Hindu nationalism that is not fostering good inter-communal ties, Shah Rukh said: "Because of social media, whenever a certain thing, when small factions or fractions of things happen now, they seem a little bigger. But the beauty of all this is that within all this trolling and anger and people expressing themselves, they're all also connecting.

"I just see it on social media. I don't see it live anywhere and I would be wrong to comment on it that way, but I think if you have this kind of dissent or whatever if people claim it, I think just a bit of discussion especially, finally, if it's not going to be inclusive, everybody will suffer. But I think we're not at that stage at all in our country," he added.

The episode will air on Wednesday night.Agartala, Jan 31 : There is no doubt that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would form government in Tripura after the February 18 assembly polls, its state chief Biplab Kumar Deb said here on Wednesday.

"BJP would come to power in Tripura ousting the CPI-M-led Left Front government in the February 18 assembly elections. People of Tripura have become fed up with the 25 year rule of the Left parties," he said after filing his nominations from the prestigious Banamalipur assembly constituency here.

He claimed that young voters, employees and women would not vote for the Communist Party of India-Marxist due to the "serious unemployment, non-payment of salaries to the government employees and security forces as per the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission and rising crime against women, besides corruption and misrule".

Wednesday was the last date for filling nominations, which began on January 24 when the notification was issued. Scrutiny would be done on Thursday and the late date for withdrawal is on Saturday. Counting of votes will take place on March 3.

Many other BJP candidates also filed their nominations on Wednesday in constituencies across the state.

BJP state Vice President Subal Bhowmik, who earlier expressed his anger at being fielded from Sonamura constituency which he had won in 2008 as a Congress candidate, also filed his papers.

A party leader said this followed Assam Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is BJP's in-charge of Tripura elections, summoning him to Guwahati on Sunday night and arranged a telephonic talks with national BJP President Amit Shah.

Seven former Congress MLAs -- Sudip Roy Barman (Agartala), Ratan Lal Nath (Mohanpur), Ashish Kumar Saha (Town Bordowali), Dilip Sarkar (Badharghat), Pranajit Singha Roy (Rakishorepur), Dibachandra Hrangkhwal (Karamchhara) and Bishwa Bandhu Sen (Dharmanagar), who joined BJP last year, also submitted their nominations after holding huge procession in their respective areas.

About the party candidates, Deb said that if one sees the list, it will be found that BJP has nominated all sections of people including from the Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes, women, scientists, doctors, lawyers, academicians, and former bureaucrats.

He also said that from next week, a host of central party leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, Nitin Gadkari, Smriti Irani, Nirmala Sitharaman, and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi among others would come to campaign.

Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, his Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh counterparts N. Biren Singh and Pema Khandu as well as Uttar Pradesh's Yogi Adityanath are scheduled to come, he added.

Sarma and Amit Shah would also camp in the state for a week.

Despite criticism, the BJP has forged alliance with Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT), which has been agitating to divide the state to form a separate state containing the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council areas.

Of the 60 assembly seats out of which 20 are reserved for tribals and 10 for Scheduled Castes, the BJP has allotted nine tribal reserved seats to IPFT.Brasilia, Jan 31 : The Brazilian Supreme Court of Justice has rejected a motion by the defence team of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to avoid his arrest for a graft conviction that was upheld last week.

Justice Humberto Martins denied the request filed on Tuesday in a statement published on the court's website, saying such petitions are only applicable when there is a "concrete threat of imminent imprisonment".

Judges said the former President should be arrested as soon as the court explains details of the ruling to the defence, a process that usually takes a month, Xinhua news agency reported.

Lula, who was Brazil's President from 2003 to 2011, was found guilty of corruption and money laundering last year.

Earlier, a three-judge panel of a Brazilian appeals court voted unanimously to ratify his conviction and to extend his original sentence from nine and a half years in prison to 12 years.

Under the country's law, a convict can be put into jail following verdicts from the second trial, even if he still has the right to appeal for a final judgement.

According to Lula's defence team, imprisoning the former President before the final judgment is a violation to the presumption of innocence.

Moreover, given that Lula is the frontrunner for this year's October presidential election, the early imprisonment would damage the democratic process in the country, they claimed.

A federal judge on Monday ordered the public auction of a beachfront apartment allegedly used to bribe the former President in exchange for his help with engineering company OAS to get contracts from state oil company Petrobras.

However, Lula's team argued there was no evidence that linked him to the promise of receiving the apartment where he never lived and visited only once.Kathmandu, Jan 31 : Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj arrives here on a two-day visit on Thursday as the Left alliance in Nepal prepares to form a new government most likely to be led by former Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli.

Sushma Swaraj will first meet Oli, who has had strained relations with the Indian leadership, before taking up other engagements.

Her visit will be the first diplomatic engagement after elections in Nepal catapulted the alliance of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) and CPN (Maoist Centre) to power.

The Indian minister will also call on outgoing Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba and Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda'.

The timing of the visit ahead of the government formation underlines India's attempts to improve its ties with Oli, who is seen as close to China, and the CPN-UML, diplomats say.

Relations between India and Nepal became acrimonious in 2016. Oli was sharply critical of New Delhi's policy towards Nepal after his government was toppled in July that year.

Oli also turned against India following the 2015 blockade in Nepal that triggered an economic and humanitarian crisis.

The Indian government said on Monday that Sushma Swaraj's visit would be "in keeping with the tradition of regular high-level political exchanges between India and Nepal" which it added reflected "the importance the two countries attach to further strengthening it across diverse sectors".

Oli, as Prime Minister in 2015, signed several agreements with China, including trade and transit deals, with a view to end India's monopoly over the Nepali market.

The diplomatic engagement is taking place though the new Prime Minister is yet to be sworn in Nepal.

Soon after the election results were announced, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached out to Oli and showed eagerness to welcome him in India.

Experts believe that the Sushma Swaraj trip was a "conciliatory" move by New Delhi to mend ties with Kathmandu.

(Anil Giri can be contacted at girianil@gmail.com)Kolkata, Jan 31 : A man and his wife and mother were arrested on Wednesday on charge of killing his drunkard elderly father and burying the body outside their house in West Bengal's Cooch Behar district, police said.

Both women were arrested for abetment to the crime, police said.

"A middle-aged man was arrested from Dinhata for hacking his father to death on January 23," a police officer said.

The accused often quarrelled with his father over his binge drinking.

"On January 23, the man's father came home drunk and started shouting. He has not been seen ever since. The neighbours came to us, suspecting the old man has been murdered," the officer said.

The accused confessed to killing his father and burying the body in front of the house.New Delhi, Jan 31 : Domestic bus manufacturers Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland on Wednesday told the Delhi High Court that that the claim of the Delhi government they are quoting unrealistic and exorbitantly high price are "baseless".

The two companies told a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar that the Delhi government has not floated any tender for procurement of low-floor buses since 2014.

The counsel of Tata Motors said that the company is not opposed to any initiative, but the government should at least meet them.

The court, however, asked the two companies to file an affidavit explaining the factual position with regard to supply of buses in past and the Delhi government explaining the reason for not floating any tender to procure low floor buses and posted the matter for further hearing on February 7.

The court was hearing a petition filed by Nipun Malhotra, who had challenged the Delhi government's move to procure 2,000 standard-floor buses at a cost of Rs 300 crore.

Malhotra had claimed that these were not equipped for wheelchair access and thus will directly and substantially affect about 2.34 lakh disabled people in the national capital.

The court had earlier refused to stay the procurement but slammed the Delhi government for not buying low-floor disabled-friendly CNG buses due to high cost.New Delhi/Bengaluru, Jan 31 : The much awaited "Supermoon" became visible in India a little later than expected on Wednesday but when it did, millions of stargazers across the country relished the rare celestial triple delight with a sense of awe.

The January 31 sighting of a "Blue Moon" and a total lunar eclipse occurred in India for the first time after 1982.

While the Moon was in the Earth's shadow, it took on a reddish tint known as a "Blood Moon".

During the eclipse, the Moon was just a day past perigee which is the closest point to Earth in its orbit -- making it appear very large and bright (about 14 per cent) -- and so a "Supermoon".

Lastly, it is also the second full moon of the month, commonly known as a "Blue Moon". The last full Moon of the month was on January 2.

Many organisations across the country stepped in to enhance the show which was also visible to the naked eye.

View more pictures of this spectacular lunar experience here

SPACE India, a start-up focused on astronomy education and astro-tourism services, organised several events at various locations across the country to observe the phenomenon from 6 p.m.-9.30 p.m.

At India Gate, SPACE India used the Dobsonian telescope which gave a very clear and crisp view of the "Supermoon".

The instrument allowed skywatchers to view the Moon 20 times bigger than it appears to the naked eye.

"Apart from Delhi, Space India organised the event in five other cities -- Chennai, Bengaluru, Surat, Dehradun and Meerut - and also at DAV school in Gurgaon. Over 500 people gathered at India Gate to watch this phenomenon," Dr. Mila Mitra, Scientific Officer, Head, Research and Publications, told IANS.

Yashwe, a 7th class student from St. Thomas School at Mandir Marg, said: "It's a rare opportunity and being a member of an astronomy club, I feel delighted after watching the eclipse live."

In Bengaluru, thousands of stargazers gathered at the Nehru Planetarium in the city and other open spaces to catch a glimpse of the celestial spectacle.

"This lunar eclipse is special because a Supermoon (when Moon appears larger than usual when its closest to Earth), blue Moon (second full Moon of each month) and blood Moon (Moon appears red during eclipse) will all coincide at once," its Director Pramod G. Galgali told IANS.

The planetarium in the city centre had hundreds of children, students and adults queuing up to view the once in a Blue Moon event clearly through telescopes and binoculars.

The Indian Institute of Astrophysics in Bengaluru had also set up few telescopes in open spaces for public viewing of the eclipse.

Not just a visual treat, but the celestial spectacle was an opportunity for astronomers to study Earth's natural satellite, the Moon.

"The lunar eclipse would give scientists a special opportunity to study the Moon using the astronomer's equivalent of a heat-sensing, or thermal camera," NASA said in a statement earlier.

The Moon, which goes around the Earth in an elliptical orbit, gets closest to the Earth at one point -- known as perigee.

Several Hindu temples were shut across the state on Wednesday, with many devout Hindus staying away from eating till the end of lunar eclipse, as it is feared to be inauspicious.

Renowned Hindu worship places in Karnataka like Manjunatheshwara Temple in Dharmasthala, 300 km from Bengaluru and Krishna Mutt in Udupi, about 400 km from Bengaluru, were shut till the end of the eclipse at about 9.30 p.m.

-- With inputs from IANSBhubaneswar, Jan 31 : Odisha has bagged 'Geospatial World Excellence Award-2018' for successful IT application for tracking of mineral production, dispatch and value accrued on real-time basis through its i3MS web-based software.

The award was presented by Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Y.S. Chowdary in the Geospatial World Forum Meeting held at Hyderabad recently, said a government release on Wednesday.

The event was attended by more than 3,000 geospatial experts from 90 different countries.

Dr Pradipta Mishra, Senior Scientist - Odisha Space Application Center (ORSAC), received the award on behalf of the Odisha government.

The GPS-linked web-based software named i3MS has been designed by the scientists of ORSAC, Bhubaneswar, under the guidance of Steel and Mines Secretary Raj Kumar Sharma, ORSAC CEO Sandeep Tripathy and Mines Director Deepak Mohanty.

Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi has congratulated the ORSAC scientists, along with officers of Steel and Mines Department, for successfully designing, applying and using this IT model.

Currently, the Steel and Mines Department is watching the live movement of 43,000 vehicles carrying minerals from production point to ports, railway sidings and end-user industrial units.

The union government also applauded the outcomes of this IT intervention by Odisha and has recommended the model to be followed in other states. All the stakeholders like lessees, dealers and government departments have been brought on to this portal.

It has also been integrated with the Regional Transport Office (RTO), Indian Railways, Commercial Tax Department, ports and treasury. The daily production and dispatch are being recorded on real-time basis through this software.

All the mineral transporting trucks have been put under GPS surveillance and the roads as well as mines have been geo-referenced.

Geospatial scientist Mishra said: "This is for the first time in India that GPS devices have been fixed on a large number of moving objects in the mining sector."

Director of Mines Deepak Mohanty said: "Till now, 392 electronic weighbridges in 136 mines and 699 weighbridges in 325 end-user industries have been integrated with the system. All e-permits and dealer licences are being issued online through this software and issuing of manual licences has been abolished."Shillong, Jan 31 : Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "unilateral" decisions for the situation prevailing in Nagaland vis-a-vis Assembly elections as several civil society groups and political parties have sought deferment of the February 27 polls.

He said the Prime Minister did not take into confidence various stakeholders when the Naga Framework Agreement was signed between separatist National Socialist Council of Nagalim -- Isak Muivah (NSCN-IM) and the central government in 2015.

Several Naga groups under the banner of Core Committee of Nagaland Tribal Hoho and Civil Organisations (CCNTCHOC) and political parties have demanded postponement of the state polls to facilitate early resolution to the protracted Naga insurgency issue.

"Nobody has understood what the Prime Minister had signed, (or) whether he had signed. This is his style. This (Naga accord) is similar to (November 8, 2016) demonetisation and implementation of Goods and Services Tax at midnight," Gandhi told journalists.

"Modi called up then Congress President Sonia Gandhi one evening and told her we have solved the Naga problem and signed an accord. Soniaji called me and told what Modi conveyed to her. She told me to check with the then Congress Chief Ministers of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and Manipur to find if they were aware of the accord and were consulted by the Prime Minister," Gandhi recalled.

"They (Chief Ministers) called the MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs) and were told that the MHA had no idea about the deal. Then they wrote to the Union Home Minister, and he too informed them that he had no idea what exactly the accord was," he said.

Reacting to the crisis in Nagaland, Gandhi said: "The style of functioning of the Prime Minister has led to Nagaland's reaction. It shows a large number of people do not believe in the Prime Minister because he has got credibility problem."

Congress General Secretary in charge of Nagaland affairs of the party, C.P. Joshi, said that the party will take decision on the Nagaland elections soon.

On Monday, 11 political parties, including ruling Naga People's Front, and the Bharatiya Janata Party, had issued a joint declaration not to give party tickets or file nominations for the Assembly polls after calls by various tribal groups for a "Solution before Election".

The joint declaration was also signed by the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party, the Janata Dal-United, the Lok Janshakti Party, the Aam Aadmi Party, the Nagaland Democratic People's Party, the Nagaland Congress, the United Naga Democratic Party and the National People's Party at a meeting convened by the CCNTCHOC, which cautioned that any candidate or party defying the call will be treated as "anti-Naga".

However, Nagaland BJP President Visasolie Lhoungu said that the party state unit will "abide by the directives of the party high command" and its state Vice President Kheto Sema has been suspended for signing a declaration without consulting senior party leaders.Rome, Jan 31 : Italy must not be France and Germany's "jealous cousin" but should aim to play a leading role in Europe too by coming up with its own "proposals and ideas", Premier Paolo Gentiloni said on Wednesday.

"The relationship between France and Germany is connected to the way in which World War II ended and the European Union was born," Gentiloni told public broadcaster Rai's 'Uno Mattina' talkshow.

"Italy has always been a major player (in Europe). It must not play the jealous cousin but be a protagonist by putting forward its proposals and ideas," he added.

"Italy must have the intelligence to have confidence in its relations with France and Germany," Gentiloni stressed.New Delhi, Feb 1 : The Congress on Wednesday said that the CPI-M's suggestion for an impeachment motion against Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra was a "serious issue" and the party was discussing the issue with other parties too.

"This is very serious issue. Left leaders have talked to us. We are also talking with others. These decisions are not taken in a hurry," Congress leader Kapil Siibal told reporters here.

He was responding to a question about CPI-M General Secretary Sitaram Yechury's remarks about the possibility of an impeachment motion against the CJI after four senior-most judges complained about arbitrary allocation of cases in the Supreme Court.Rome, Feb 1 : Italy's Interior Ministry on Wednesday rejected a report that 50 Tunisian fighters from the Islamic State jihadist group may have entered Italy aboard migrant ships, saying there was "no evidence" for such claims.

"There is no evidence that 50 ISIS fighters have come to Italy on board migrant ships as reported by Interpol," the ministry's Public Security Department said in a statement.

"Constant and deep" collaboration between Italy and Tunisia had enabled Italian police to identify "a tiny number of people" flagged by Tunis authorities, and they had already been deported, the statement said.

The department stated that Italy pays "maximum attention towards all those who arrive illegally on national territory".

"The immediate expulsion of certain suspects provides incontrovertible proof of this," it added. A total 243 alleged extremists have been expelled from Italy since 2015, according to the Interior Ministry.

The Tunisians on the Interpol list are believed to have arrived in Sicily between July and October last year on fishing boats or small vessels that were then abandoned on the beach, Britain's Guardian newspaper quoted a European counterterrorism officer as saying.

The migrants reportedly disappear into the countryside, a few miles from the coast, avoiding the Italian Coast Guard and police controls. Around 3,000 Tunisians are believed to have secretly landed in southern Sicily since last July of whom only 400 were stopped and identified by police, the Guardian said.

Many Tunisians who arrive in Italy are categorised as economic migrants and are issued with orders to leave the country within seven days, but often authorities lose track of them.

The Interpol list was sent on November 29 to the Italy's interior ministry which distributed it to national anti-terrorism agencies across Europe, according to the Guardian report.

Interpol believes the suspects may be attempting to reach other European countries, the Guardian said.

Around 5,500 Tunisians were believed to have travelled to IS territory in Syria and Iraq to fight for the terror group, according to UN estimates.New York, Feb 1 : The US Department of Justice on Wednesday refused to seek a new trial on corruption charges for Democratic Senator Bob Menendez after the judge last week dismissed some of the charges against him.

In a written statement, the government on Wednesday asked US District Court Judge Jose Linares to drop the rest of the charges and dismiss the indictment against the senator in a federal court in New Jersey, Efe reported.

The Justice Department earlier this year had sought a second trial for Menendez after the first one ended in a hung jury.

However, the judge's decision on Jan. 24 to drop seven of the 18 charges against the 63-year-old politician due to insufficient evidence led US authorities to rethink their stance.

Menendez, who is of Cuban origin and one of the Democratic Party's most influential lawmakers, had been accused of accepting bribes, fraud and criminal conspiracy.

The accusations were linked to his relationship with Florida ophthalmologist Salomon Melgen, whom he had allegedly helped using his Senate influence, in exchange for gifts and significant contributions to his election campaigns.

According to the Justice Department, which filed charges against Menendez in 2015, the senator had accepted perks and gifts from the doctor valued at more than $1 million.

Menendez, in turn, allegedly tried to help Melgen get US visas for his girlfriends, brought his influence to bear in an $8.9 million billing dispute with Medicare and helped out with a port security contract in the Dominican Republic.

According to the government, Menendez enjoyed luxury vacations paid for by the doctor, accepted private jet flights and other gifts, although both men have said that these were simply signs of their longstanding friendship.

The decision comes as Menendez is seeking re-election in 2018, with federal primaries in June and the election in November. Three Republicans are vying to oust the Democrat from his seat.In a time when technological advances are quicker than ever and an unfathomable wealth of information is accessed in one touch, it is necessary for institutions and individuals alike to keep a finger on the pulse of the digital world in order to stay on top.

Kicking off Enderun and Global Chamber Manilas Digital Transformation Series 2018 is the Fintech & Blockchain Innovation Summit on March 21-22, 2018 at the SMX Convention Center, SM Aura Premier, Taguig City, Metro Manila, Philippines.

Fintech is where money meets technology. With this theme in mind, the Fintech & Blockchain Innovation Summit aims to provide businesses and individuals alike with knowledge to keep up with the fast-changing digital world of finance. The summit will also shed light on Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Blockchain, a technology that allows for safe transfer of digital merchandise and services, and how this is strategically used in various industries.

Keynote speakers and panelists from the financial services sector will bring the attendees up-to-speed with Financial Technology advances in the local and international scenes. The two-day summit will include informative talks on the Digital Transformation of the Philippine Finance Sectors, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies and Initial Coin Offerings, Blockchain Technologies in Major Industries, Artificial Intelligence, Fintech Ecosystem Building, Digital Transformation of Insurance and Financial Technology for Small and Medium Enterprises. It will also hold intensive panel discussions on 21st Century Wealth Management in an Era of Data, Fintech Privacy and Security, Digital Banks, Transforming Compliance, Regulatory and Legal Roles to Stay Relevant, Local and Regional Fintech Success Stories, and Reshaping the Insurance Landscape.

The Fintech & Blockchain Innovation Summit will provide participants the opportunity to learn the key drivers and identify the obstacles of the finance industrys digital transformation; a good venue to gain and share insight while building a network of contacts in the Fintech space. Further information about the Fintech & Blockchain Innovation Summit can be found on https://conferences.enderunextension.com/conferences/dts2018

ABOUT ENDERUN COLLEGES

Enderun Colleges offers four-year undergraduate courses with a full range of bachelors degree and non-degree courses in the fields of Business Administration, Economics, Entrepreneurship, Hotel Administration and Culinary Arts. The academic institution is committed to achieving the highest international standards of academic excellence.

ABOUT ENDERUN EXTENSION

Enderun Extension is Enderun Colleges resource for continuing education. The Enderun Extension School offers an open and comprehensive curriculum with courses and programs to meet the interests and needs of a diverse public. For those who want a competitive edge in the international job market, Enderun offers certificate programs in the fields of culinary, pastry arts, hospitality management, business administration, entrepreneurship and economics. The certificate programs will help you stand out in your current role, advance in your career, or change careers completely. Enderun Extension also offers a variety of workshops, short courses and conferences. The school also offers courses for children who are budding chefs, hoteliers, engineers or entrepreneurs. Whether you are a foodie, a working professional or an entrepreneur, Enderun Extension invites you to explore its different short courses.

For more details, please contact:

YNA OCENAR

Public Relations & Events Executive

T: (632) 856 5000 loc. 574

M: +639 998 972 4210

E: louise.ocenar(at)enderuncolleges(dot)comIntroducing the Beanstalk Roofing & Restoration CRM This new roofing and sales CRM has many features and functions the industry has desired but has not been available from other software suppliers until now.

Genesis Contractor Solutions has added another offering to its portfolio of services and products for the roofing and restoration industries. Located in Englewood, Colorado, Genesis has developed a proprietary Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform. The product is now live and available for a 30-Day Trial.

Were turning the materials ordering and cash flow problem on its head and allowing our contractors to experience exponential growth, said CEO and Founder Jeff Posey. The CRM known as Beanstalk Solutions, is the platform that brings it all together, allowing the contractor to do everything he needs all from one convenient app location. Beanstalk Solutions CRM was built with the salesperson in mind. Its ease of use and automation is a refreshing change. Owners will find great benefit in its flexibility and reporting capabilities.

Numerous features and functions never before offered by other software solutions are now available. With just the click of a button, users can request capital received in just 48 hours and initiate the claims management process to maximize claims. Additionally, users can unlock unlimited credit lines to purchase materials and take advantage of large discounts and rebates. Powerful integrations planned for the CRM include the EagleView Roof Measurement & Aerial Measurement Service, Intuit QuickBooks, Google Maps, HailTrace and more.

Mobile app functions are usable in the field even where there is no cellular or WIFI service. Salespeople enjoy the convenience of uploading photos and documents with no impact to their smartphone storage. A particularly innovative feature of the app is the ability to use Optical Character Recognition (OCR). With OCR, you can take a picture of the insurance loss sheet allowing the data to auto-populate into the app. No more human errors or time needed to manually input data.

Another important feature highlights communication. Text customers, management, salespeople or subcontractors directly from the mobile app or desktop. Beanstalk CRM automates fast and efficient information distribution to selected recipients. Documents are professionally formatted and reproduced with clarity and consistency from any device. On site credit card processing available through the app eliminates loss of payments for deductibles and allows for upgrade selling and extended warranty offerings. It also reduces the need for multiple trips to the job location.

Genesis Contractor Solutions is the industry leader in innovation and technology. Persistently driving the growth, success and satisfaction of its contractors and their customers, the homeowners, is the ultimate goal. Since its inception in 2014, Genesis Contractor Solutions is always striving to take the industry from archaic to modern and beyond. We strive to raise the industry bar in a variety of ways, both through our services and also through our non-profit arm known as StormScamHelp.com, said Posey. Officially launching Feb. 1, 2018, Beanstalk Solutions CRM is the latest tool in its revolutionary tool box.

Go to http://www.genesiscontractorsolutions.com and http://www.beanstalksolution.com for more information.San Jose Corporate Rentals For some people who have to travel for business, leaving a dog behind may not be an option. Studies show that pets can help relieve stress for people too, so it may be better to bring a dear pet along.

Key Housing, the leading short term and corporate rental provider in San Jose and other cities in Northern California, is proud to announce its featured property for February, 2018. Among the winning attributes for February is something unique: dog-friendly status. It should be noted that this is Bella Villagio's second time achieving the coveted "featured property" status.

For some people who have to travel for business, leaving a dog behind may not be an option. Studies show that pets can help relieve stress for people too, so it may be better to bring a dear pet along, explained Robert Lee, President of Key Housing. Its tough to find a long-term stay place as exceptional as Bella Villagio that accepts pets. This is why we choose to feature it once again for February, 2018.

Bella Villagio, a San Jose furnished rental community has been awarded as an exceptional San Jose furnished apartment and as a property offering a pet policy. Persons searching for corporate housing or extended-stay apartment units in San Jose, California, including a pet policy can go to the following link to learn more at http://www.keyhousing.com/rightside.asp?action=form3&ID=868.

Those who would like to review more about finding the best corporate housing in Silicon Valley, should visit the lively blog at http://blog.keyhousing.com/. Details of the original selection regarding Bella Villagio, an extended-stay community in San Jose can be found at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/11/prweb14860781.htm

SAN JOSE FURNISHED RENTALS, BELLA VILLAGIO DOES DOUBLE DUTY FOR PET OWNERS

Here is background on this release. Persons planning a long-term stay may not be aware that only a few San Jose furnished rentals include a pet-friendly animal policy. Corporate employees or visitors searching for serviced apartments in Silicon Valley may be concerned about leaving pets behind. A pet policy could help Silicon Valley visitors lower stress levels by bringing a pet on the visit.

Visitors to San Jose may consider pets family members. If a corporate employee is expected to work in the Bay Area for a long-term stay, a board and care back home might not be an option. Securing San Jose furnished rentals for an employee can be a difficult task for a company. Certain amenities may be required such as a clubhouse for informal meetings and WiFi throughout the complex. If the visiting employee does not wish to leave a pet behind, it could become impossible to find a clean and cozy San Jose furnished rental. Pets may be well-behaved yet, a corporate rental might not allow dogs for extended stay situations. Finding a clean San Jose furnished rental offering business amenities and a pet policy may be a challenge.

Managers seeking corporate housing for visiting VIPs may struggle to find San Jose furnished rentals offering the proper amenities. If a visiting employee refuses to leave a small dog back home, the task can be twice as difficult.

For these reasons, Key Housing has recognized Bella Villagio in San Jose as a featured property for a second time. A pet policy combined with professional accommodations could be the answer to housing a visiting employee. Small well-behaved dogs can stay in units offering breezy patio areas. After hours, owners can take pets to nearby parks and walking trails. If a long-term corporate visit requires a dog policy, San Jose furnished rentals at Bella Villagio could make the stay twice as nice.

ABOUT KEY HOUSING

Based in Folsom, California, Key Housing Connections Inc. specializes in corporate housing and corporate rentals in large cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles or San Jose as well as smaller cities like San Mateo, Pasadena and Walnut Creek. Key Housing is a leader in affordable, friendly, short-term and corporate housing rentals in places like Redwood City, Santa Monica, Newport Beach and just about every city in California. Whether it's a San Jose corporate apartment or a San Francisco short-term stay rental, just search, click or call today!Though author Edna Hong has passed away, editor Ingrid Williams has thrust this inspirational book back into print and into national dialogue. Bright Valley of Love, ($13.49, paperback, 9781545615911; $6.99, e-book, 9781545617854) tells Gunthers story as a neglected and handicapped boy taken to Bethel charitable institutes in Germany where he finds love, worth, and purpose. His harrowing tale is set against the backdrop of post-WWI depression and the rise of the Nazi party. When Hitlers euthanasia program against the feeble in WWII is uncovered, Bethel and Gunther enter into a great struggle for survival and triumph of the value of all life.

Bright Valley of Love is critical for the educator, the policy maker, the social worker and everyone that draws breath in a culture sold out to political correctness, states Williams. Since no one likes to be lectured and a picture is worth a thousand words, this true story is worth a thousand debates in the public square to communicate truth that can lead to self-awareness. The application for today is that altruistic liberal policies promoting abortion, euthanasia, and physician-assisted suicide are just the old Nazi agenda of oppression under nicer-sounding labels. All men have value because they are created by God in the image of God, the rejecting of which idea will destroy not just the weak, but our whole social fabric.

As a teenager and college student, Ingrid Williams was an atheist and worshiped science.

At age twenty-four, she became a Christian because she was persuaded by many infallible proofs of its truth. After her education and beginning career in biochemistry and biomedical science, she had the privilege of living and serving thirty-five years in a Christian communitya mini-Bethelwalking with the weak, handicapped, and distressed.

Xulon Press, a division of Salem Media Group, is the worlds largest Christian self-publisher, with more than 12,000 titles published to date. Retailers may order Bright Valley of Love through Ingram Book Company and/or Spring Arbor Book Distributors. The book is available online through xulonpress.com/bookstore, amazon.com, and barnesandnoble.com.The Italian Touch cover art I love to remix and perform songs that I think will make people smile, dance and have fun singing along.

Starlite Productions is proud to release the debut album from Biagio titled The Italian Touch. Produced by Giuseppe D., the recording will be released everywhere digitally on January 26, 2018.

The Italian Touch is considered to be the ultimate Italian/American dance party album featuring well-known songs chosen to appeal to young and old alike, and created by combining styles made famous by artists ranging from Joe Dolce and Angelo Venuto to many of the EDM artists heard today.

Growing up in a traditional Italian household, the love of family, food and music was instilled in Blaise Biagio Benevenga at an early age. He began to take piano lessons and started performing at many family functions. Music became a big part of his life, and eventually he started an Italian/American band called The Vibrations where they performed weddings and dinner dances all over the Tri-State Area. We also had an opportunity to tour and perform concerts in many of the beautiful regions of Italy opening up for many top artists, said Biagio.

Having released a successful CD previously with his band titled Viva Italiano (now available as Festival Italiano), they redid many classic Italian songs with a modern sound which can still be heard today at many Italian festivals such as the world-famous Feast Of San Gennaro in New York City. So in making this solo album, I love to remix and perform songs that I think will make people smile, dance and have fun singing along, said Biagio. This is how I came about redoing these beloved songs for my album while adding a few different elements to give it more energy, but yet keeping some of the original feel of the song that made them what they are.

Biagio has released singles and music videos for Shaddap You Face, Eh, Cumpari! (Italiani Remix) and Dominick The Donkey prior to this albums release, and is now getting ready to tour across the country to promote this album for 2018.

TRACK LISTING:

1. Ce La Luna (Mamma Mia Mix)  The traditional favorite extended to get that festa started!

2. Eh, Cumpari! (Italiani Remix)  Julius La Rosa cover... with a twist.

3. Guilty  Lime cover.

4. Non So Perche  Milky cover.

5. Felicita  Al Bano & Romina Power cover.

6. Dancing In The Moonlight  King Harvest cover.

7. Pizza Pizza  Joe Dolce cover.

8. Shaddap You Face (Video Edit)  Joe Dolce cover that started it all.

On LIMITED EDITION CD available exclusively on biagiomusica.com and selected outlets:

9. Dominick The Donkey  Lou Monte cover for the Christmas season.

Starlite Productions is the New Jersey based record label home for Biagio and The Vibrations distributed by The Orchard.

For more information about Biagio, please contact Giuseppe Di Caccamo Jr. at trinaent[at]gmail[dot]com or (201) 453-3880."Expanding north into Canada was a natural fit for us."

StevenDouglas is pleased to announce the firms expansion into Canada with the opening of an office in Toronto. Navinder Binning, who joined the firm as Vice President, will lead the Executive Search business in the Canadian region. Navinders focus will be to further develop the firms presence by delivering high caliber talent within Canadas leading industries including industrial and mining, energy, real estate and life sciences.

We are extremely excited to announce the opening of our first Canadian office and the addition of Navinder to our leadership team, said Matt Shore, President at StevenDouglas. With Navinders reputation and breadth of experience across a broad array of industries and disciplines, we will better be able to serve our existing clients and expand our footprint in North America. He went on to comment, Expanding north into Canada was a natural fit for us after our incredibly successful expansion south into Latin America, as many of our mining clients in LATAM are headquartered in Canada.

Navinder began her retained search career over a decade ago and honed her skills at a boutique executive search firm. Navinder specializes in Board, C-Suite, operational and technical search mandates and has successfully completed engagements globally.

StevenDouglas, a leading boutique search and interim resources firm, has been a recognized leader in identifying and providing access to top talent for corporate clients since 1984. Our client base is industry agnostic and ranges from start-ups and emerging middle market companies to Fortune 500 companies and public and private equity-owned firms. StevenDouglas was recognized by Hunt Scanlon Media as the largest Executive Search firm based in Florida and the second largest firm based in the Southeast US.A celebration of the recent Smart Rural Community award and Open House was held at Webster-Calhoun Cooperative Telephone Association (WCCTA) on Tuesday, January 30th.

In September, the NTCA-The Rural Broadband Association honored Webster-Calhoun Cooperative Telephone Association (WCCTA) with the title of Smart Rural Community. WCCTA  located in Gowrie, Iowa  was just one of 13 other providers and their communities that NTCA recognized in 2017.

At a gathering of more than 1,000 leaders of rural telecommunications providers hosted by NTCA, WCCTA was honored with an award for deploying advanced technologies and leveraging those technologies to enable innovation in the areas of economic development and commerce, education, enhanced health care, government services, security and energy use. WCCTAs efforts were judged against those of dozens of other communities nationwide by a panel of experts from the fields of telecommunications, software and technology services, education, health care and economic development.

A ribbon cutting held in the lobby of the WCCTA office in Gowrie was attended by various businesses, economic development organizations, county supervisors and community leaders. It was followed by a short program and special sign presentation to the communities served by WCCTA.

WCCTA provides a Fiber driven network and services including landline telephone, Internet and digital television to 16 area communities. Each of these communities was honored during the ceremony and received a sign that can be displayed in their community designating them as a Smart Rural Community.

The NTCA Smart Rural Community initiative recognizes and celebrates the efforts of rural telecommunications providers and their communities to deliver technologies that make rural communities vibrant places in which to live and do business. The goal of the initiative is to foster the development of Smart Rural Communities throughout rural America by recognizing trailblazers and providing resources to assist broadband providers and connected industries.

WCCTA works hard to ensure that our members have access to advanced communications and the many benefits those services enable, said Marcie Boerner, WCCTA Office Manager. This designation supports the economic development of the communities we serve, and we look forward to building on this success for many years to come.

Webster-Calhoun Cooperative Telephone Association is located at 1106 Beek Street, Gowrie, IA 50543. It has a Fiber driven network and provides landline telephone, Internet and digital television service to the Iowa communities of Gowrie, Pilot Mound, Vincent, Paton, Thor, Churdan, Knierim, Somers, Barnum, Duncombe, Farnhamville, Badger, Clare, Moorland, Boxholm, and Lanyon. Additional information is available on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and WCCTA website http://www.wccta.com.The fastest growing brokerage in Asia, Fullerton Markets, today announced that they have received several awards from Global Banking and Finance Review (GBFR).

Fullerton Markets bagged Best STP Broker in Asia Pacific 2017, Best ECN Broker in Asia Pacific 2017 and Best Trade Execution in Asia Pacific 2017 using a wide range of criteria from the judging panel of GBFR.

Fullerton Markets demonstrates a commitment to quality and innovation, providing clients with the technology, infrastructure and market news needed to be competitive in the online trading market, said Wanda Rich, Editor of Global Banking and Finance Review. We look forward to seeing further growth and industry-leading solutions from them in the years to come.

Added CEO of Fullerton Markets, Mario Singh: I am truly honoured and grateful to receive these awards from Global Banking and Finance Review. This huge recognition will certainly motivate the entire team to work ever harder as we continue to push boundaries and deliver everyday with passion, excellence and commitment.

Other high profile institutions award recipients include Standard Chartered Bank, DBS, BNP Paribas and ICBC.

The Global Banking and Finance Review Awards honour institutions that stand out in their particular area of expertise in the finance industry. They recognise achievement, challenge, progress and inspirational change in finance all around the globe.Mobile, On-site Lice Treatment & Prevention Services LTC has helped more than 250,000 families successfully treat annoying head lice infestations."

Liz Solovay, president and co-founder of Lice Treatment Center, joined staff members at the LTC headquarters to celebrate three company anniversaries. The first marked the founding of its highly-successful mobile in-home lice removal treatment service. The second celebrated the start of its Lice Insurance Program for Camps and Schools, and the third marked the opening of its second drop-in center in Darien, CT. Present at the Monroe event were some of the 125 LTCs certified professional Lice Technicians and staff as well as LTC Medical Director and co-founder, Dr. Elin Cohn. Ms Solovay praised everyone in attendance, I am so proud to tell everyone that, to date, that you have successfully treated and/or screened more than 250,000 families for head-lice. Quite a record. I thank you and so do all those families!

LTCs mobile service now provides in-home and on-site lice removal treatments for families in more than 18 statesfrom Georgia and the Mid-Atlantic states to California, Illinois and throughout the Northeast and New England. LTCs professional lice technicians, all of who are LTC certified in the proprietary protocols designed by Dr. Cohen. Additionally, the well-tested lice removal products used for LTC treatments were formulated to be all-natural, non-toxic and safe for use on children by Dr. Cohen. As Ms Solovay said, LTC does not rely on 'gimmicky' lice vacuums and irritating and often toxic products to treat clients. In fact, there a many companies advertising the use of a gadget like the AirAlle (formerly LouseBuster) vacuum as a one-time treatment. What they dont tell you is that the lice eggs and nits still have to be removed by human 'Nit Picking' after an AirAlle treatment. As you know, LTC doesnt depend on a vacuum because our technicians carefully remove live bugs and nits manually so that aftercare is minimized. Our procedure is shorter because we don't spend time on less effective gadgets. LTC technicians begin manual lice removal immediately, which is much more effective in successfully defeating lice infestations.

Ms Solovay also congratulated the LTCs teams of mobile technicians who conduct the scores of School and Camp Lice Insurance programs. The Lice Insurance teams travel throughout the Northeast year-round conducting periodic head check sessions designed to keep, students, campers and staff lice-free during school terms and camp seasons. Should a lice infestation be discovered during one of the scheduled lice check sessions, LTC technicians are on-hand to perform lice removal treatments immediately at the request of parents and camp administrators.

One of LTCs client families sent an email thanking for sparing everyone at home a full-blown, all-family infestation. If my 8 year-old hadnt been screened at school and sent home for you to treat, I am sure everyone in the family would have had lice. So, thank you so much. I am going to be a much more vigilant 'lice police' from now on!!!

As Ms Solovay said to her technicians, I get lots of email, phone calls and texts from grateful clients you all have helped. I am so proud of how professional, considerate and successful you are.

For more information about Lice Treatment Center and its services, visit http://www.licetreatmentcenter.com or call (888) LICE AWAY/(888)542-3292I look forward to presenting to this premier group of lawyers and will point to the specific nuances that require careful consideration when financing a plaintiffs practice. It is important to remember that you are running a business in conjunction with fighting for your clients rights.

Counsel Financial, the nations largest law firm financing company, is pleased to announce its sponsorship of the upcoming National Trial Lawyers Summit (NTL) and the American Association for Justice Winter Convention (AAJ).

The company is proud to be the Diamond Sponsor of the AAJ Winter Convention, taking place this year in Maui, Hawaii. Counsel Financial earned the exclusive endorsement of AAJ in 2006 for its law firm financing program, available only to plaintiffs attorneys, and continues to pride itself on being the premier choice for contingent-fee firms. AAJ hosts two conferences annually which bring together a preeminent group of plaintiffs lawyers from across the country to participate in the over 200 educational and networking sessions that take place during each seminar.

Vice President of Business Development, Steve Mingle, stated, Weve built a great relationship with AAJ over the years and look forward to networking with the prominent group of attorneys that the conventions draw.

Representatives from the companys business development team will be available at booth #110 or the Super Cabana located at the Hibiscus pool at the Grand Wailea Resort & Spa, where the convention will take place beginning February 3, 2018.

Counsel Financial is also set to sponsor the Super Bowl LII welcome reception party at the Trial Lawyer Summit, hosted by The National Trial Lawyers organization. The event will take place on Sunday, February 4 at 6pm on the Americana Lawn at the Loews Miami Beach hotel. The Summit attracts some of the nations top trial attorneys and has consistently welcomed over 700 lawyers each year since inception in 2012. Counsel Financials founder and director, Joseph DiNardo, Esq., will speak on Monday, February 5 about how to rise to the financial challenges of running a contingent-fee practice and the unique set of obstacles faced by plaintiffs attorneys.

Of the opportunity, Mr. DiNardo stated, I look forward to presenting to this premier group of lawyers and will point to the specific nuances that require careful consideration when financing a plaintiffs practice. It is important to remember that you are running a business in conjunction with fighting for your clients rights.

If you will be traveling to the National Trial Lawyers Summit next week, please visit Counsel Financial at booth 51 to learn more and to speak to a member of our team.

About Counsel Financial

Counsel Financial is the largest provider of working capital lines of credit to plaintiffs attorneys in the industry, having loaned over $1.5 billion exclusively to plaintiffs attorneys since inception. Counsel Financial sets the standard for innovation and flexibility in its loan offerings, structuring terms that are conducive to the unique demands of contingency-fee practices. Leveraging 200+ years of internal legal experience, Counsel Financial has financed the growth of firms in every area of plaintiffs litigation, including personal injury, mass torts, class action and labor and employment. The company is exclusively endorsed by multiple national and state trial organizations, including the American Association for Justice and The National Trial Lawyers.Janet Wackrow Having spent a large part of her career with major engineering firms such as AECOM and Parsons Brinckerhoff, Janet Wackrow brings a well-rounded knowledge of marketing concepts, tools, and techniques to Lochmueller Group's Chicagoland office.

Lochmueller Group, Inc. is proud to welcome Janet Wackrow as the companys new Client Service Manager for Chicago and Northern Illinois. Based out of the companys Downtown Chicago office, Janet will focus her efforts on fostering Lochmueller Groups relationships with both existing and potential clients throughout Chicagoland, its collar counties, and other various municipalities in Northern Illinois.

Janet is a seasoned Marketing Executive with more than 30 years of experience in the transportation consulting industry where she has served in similar capacities with firms both large and small. Having spent a large part of her career with major engineering firms such as AECOM and Parsons Brinckerhoff, she brings a well-rounded knowledge of marketing concepts, tools, and techniques to Lochmueller Group. Additionally, she spent nearly 14 years with Collins Engineers, Inc. as Vice President  Business Development and three years with AES Services, Inc. as Vice President, where she played a large part in the growth and success of those firms focusing largely on pursuit management and marketing team leadership.

Wackrow recently completed her 3-year role as Chair of the ACEC-Illinois Engineering Excellence Awards Committee and is an active member of numerous other ACEC Committees. She served for many years as Director at Large of the WTS Wisconsin Chapter and is also an active member of WTS Chicago and the Illinois Road and Transportation Builders Association.

Lochmueller Group opened their Chicago office in 2012 and offers a full range of transportation engineering services ranging from traffic analysis and right-of-way acquisition to preliminary and final highway and bridge design.

Initially founded as an infrastructure planning firm in 1980, today Lochmueller Group serves clients nationwide from ten offices across the Midwest. With more than 170 employees, they provide clients a comprehensive range of services for all of their planning, engineering, and environmental needs.It is obvious through your interaction with Dr. Walters how much he cares about his patients, says Dr. Liliana Gandini. Its only been a few weeks and he has already made a positive impact within the practice. We make a great team.

Dr. Douglas Walters, an experienced periodontist has joined the NC Periodontics & Implant Center in Chapel Hill, NC at the beginning of this year. Walters joins Drs. Craig Dorion, Liliana Gandini, Waka Kadoma, and Alice Wu to complete the largest and most experienced team of periodontists in the Triangle area.

Dr. Walters has spent the past 5 years working locally in the Triangle area including the cities Raleigh, Fuquay-Varina and Cary. Moving into this practice allows me to treat patients how they deserve to be treated, with comprehensive personalized care and detailed follow up, says Walters. The team in the office and the dental community have been very welcoming to me. I am happy to call NC Periodontics & Implant Center my new home.

Dr. Walters is a very talented surgeon with over 15 years of experience doing all types of surgeries including dental implants, gum grafts, and the laser treatment for gum disease called LANAP, says Taylor Marianakis, Regional Director for the practice. I have a high-level of confidence in his ability to serve our patients right away.

Doug Walters is a native of Missouri. He has been a North Carolinian since enrolling at Duke University where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science in 1987. Following graduation, Dr. Walters worked in corporate finance with Wachovia Bank and Trust Co. in Asheville, N.C.

Heeding a call to serve others, Doug Walters attended dental school at the University of Missouri, graduating with honors in 2000. Walters also completed his residency in Periodontics and dental implant surgery at the University of Missouri. He opened his own practice in Missouri which he ran for 9 years. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Periodontology (Board Certified). This certification is held by only a small percentage of periodontists and represents achievement beyond the mandatory educational requirements for the specialty. His findings on research regarding the effects of sonic tooth brush energy on the microbiology of the mouth were published in the highly respected Journal of Clinical Periodontology.

Walters continues to advance his clinical knowledge to provide the most appropriate therapy options for patients. His practice focuses on surgical and non-surgical treatment of gum disease, including laser periodontal therapy (LANAP), esthetic gingival treatment, periodontal bone regeneration, dental implant site development and placement, treatment of ailing implants, and diagnosis and treatment of oral lesions.

It is obvious through your interaction with Dr. Walters how much he cares about his patients, says Liliana Gandini. Its only been a few weeks and he has already made a positive impact within the practice. We make a great team.

ABOUT NC PERIODONTICS & IMPLANT CENTER

NC Periodontics & Implant Center provides personalized, comfortable care and is serving families in Chapel Hill, Apex, Raleigh, Cary, and Durham, NC. Dr. Liliana Gandini DMD, Dr. Waka Kadoma DDS MS, Dr. Alice Wu DDS MS, Dr. Douglas Walters DDS MS, and Dr. Craig Dorion DDS MPH have a combined 65 years of practice experience and developed expertise in dental implants, sedation, and periodontal disease management. They are board certified periodontists certified in LANAP, sedation, and experts in dental implant surgery. They have dedicated their professional careers to providing patients with the best care dentistry has to offer. For more information, call (919) 336-5068 or visit http://www.ncimplantcenter.comTrident Systems is pleased to announce the award of a $17.9M five-year contract from the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center to provide software sustainment for the National Capital Region  Integrated Air Defense System (NCR-IADS) Enhanced Regional Situational Awareness (ERSA) System.

This contract follows a one-year contract awarded to Trident in December 2016 in support of the transition of ERSA software support from MIT Lincoln Laboratory. During this initial contract, Trident stood up a Fusion Center at their corporate headquarters and commenced system support.

ERSA is one of the major systems that protects the National Capital Region at the Joint Air Defense Operations Center (JADOC). Under the new contract, Trident will be responsible for supporting the sustainability needs of ERSA, the operationally fielded software, system upgrades to expand capabilities, and the ERSA Support Center located at Tridents headquarters. Additionally, Trident will be responsible for establishing, developing and maintaining an ERSA Technical Data Package.

The ERSA effort leverages many of Tridents core competencies including software design and development, cross-domain, and technical support, says Steve Santonicola, Director of Integrated Systems Engineering Group. Trident is proud to provide operational support of this critical mission in defense of our Nations Capital.

About Trident:

Trident Systems is a veteran-owned small business that delivers innovative and affordable technology solutions for critical government and commercial needs. Founded in 1985, Trident continues to harness technology and provide leading-edge solutions to every Military Service, the Intelligence Community, and a broad spectrum of government and industry partners. Trident develops products in three primary focus areas: Integrated C4I Systems, Radar & RF Systems, and Assured Collaboration Systems. Trident provides a full range of design / build services for state-of-the-art facilities, including support of the Joint Air Defense Operations Center in the National Capital Region. Tridents headquarters is located in Fairfax, Virginia. For more information, visit http://www.tridsys.com/.

###Chinas Modern Lily Brand Chooses Centric PLM Choosing Centric is a crucial part of our digitalization strategy that will optimize merchandise management and product design.

Centric Software announces that Lily Brand, the fast-growing womenswear brand from China, has selected Centric Software to provide its Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution. Centric Software provides the most innovative enterprise solutions to fashion, retail, footwear, outdoor, luxury and consumer goods companies to achieve strategic and operational digital transformation goals.

Lily Brand opened its first shop in Shanghai in 2000. The brand is known for clothing that fuses workwear with fashion, creating ranges for young, urban working women in a fresh, lively, modern and simple style. Today, more than 700 Lily Brand stores are in business in China, covering 300 cities. There are also almost 70 Lily Brand retail outlets in international markets including Russia, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Singapore and Kuwait.

This rapid growth brought organizational challenges, and Lily Brand started looking for a PLM system to standardize merchandise management and improve efficiency across the brand.

There were a few key reasons we wanted a PLM system, explains Mr. Liu, CIO at Lily Brand. First, we needed to set up a well-coordinated management platform for our business colleagues that could cover planning, design and R & D. With the implementation of projects, we wanted to transform our R & D process. Second, we wanted the process of R & D to become more visible and controllable. We wanted to manage the whole workflow to minimize risks. Finally, it is important for us to retain and pass on our core ideas by establishing a basic library. We believed that PLM platform would help keep the identical standard throughout the business scope and boost our internal and external coordination efficiency.

After an in-depth consideration of several PLM solution providers, Lily Brand selected Centric Software.

As Mr. Liu says, The Centric team are very professional and understand the fast-changing fashion industry. Most importantly, they know Lily Brands business requirements and pain points deeply. Centric PLM is a dedicated fashion PLM solution rather than a universal PLM, and we are confident it will help to ensure success for us.

Lily Brand will begin implementing Centric 8 PLM in 2018 and expects to see significant benefits across a variety of areas.

Centric PLM is not just a normal IT program  choosing Centric is a crucial part of our digitalization strategy that will optimize merchandise management and product design, continues Mr. Liu. We need a real digital transformation, not directly moving the current workflow from offline to online systems, but optimizing our business processes and organizational structure to achieve internal and external coordination and efficiency.

Well be able to do this with the support of the Centric teams profound business knowledge, and were looking forward to conducting a long-term cooperative business relationship with Centric Software, concludes Mr. Liu. We anticipate that Centric will help address our business targets with a successful PLM implementation, and furthermore, we want to set a good example for the fashion industry with a win-win situation for both the fashion business and the PLM provider.

We would like to welcome Lily Brand as our latest customer in China, says Chris Groves, President and CEO of Centric Software. Lily Brand is a fast-growing and exciting brand producing clothing in the competitive young womens fashion sector, and we are proud to be part of their future plans. We look forward to working with the team from Lily Brand as they begin implementing Centric PLM and seeing a positive impact on data access and efficiency.

Lily Brand

Lily Brand is a brand of female fashion. Integrating fashion and business, Lily Brand is devoted to designing formal wear perfectly suitable for urban young working women in a fresh, lively, modern and simple style.

Centric Software (http://www.centricsoftware.com)

From its headquarters in Silicon Valley and offices in trend capitals around the world, Centric Software provides a Digital Transformation Platform for the most prestigious names in fashion, retail, footwear, luxury, outdoor and consumer goods. Centric Visual Innovation Platform (VIP) is a visual, fully digital collection of boards for touch-based devices like iPad, iPhone and large-scale, touch-screen televisions. Centric VIP transforms decision making and automates execution to truly collapse time to market and distance to trend. Centrics flagship product lifecycle management (PLM) platform, Centric 8, delivers enterprise-class merchandise planning, product development, sourcing, business planning, quality, and collection management functionality tailored for fast-moving consumer industries. Centric SMB packages extended PLM including innovative technology and key industry learnings tailored for small businesses.

Centric Software has received multiple industry awards, including the Frost & Sullivan Global Product Differentiation Excellence Award in Retail, Fashion, and Apparel PLM in 2016 and Frost & Sullivans Global Retail, Fashion, and Apparel PLM Product Differentiation Excellence Award in 2012. Red Herring named Centric to its Top 100 Global list in 2013, 2015, and 2016.

Centric is a registered trademark of Centric Software. All other brands and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Media Contacts:

Centric Software

Americas: Jennifer Forsythe, jforsythe(at)centricsoftware(dot)com

Europe: Kristen Salaun Batby, ksalaun-batby(at)centricsoftware(dot)com

Asia: Lily Dong, lily.dong(at)centricsoftware(dot)comPMO Advisory is presenting a 1 day workshop titled, Project Management Essentials to help professionals excel in completing projects on time, on budget, and on target! The date is Friday, March 16, 2018, 9:00 a.m.  4:00 p.m. at the PMO Advisory Training Center in Cedar Grove, New Jersey.

Project Management knowledge has become a critical business skill because it can help control costs, reduce risk, and improve outcomes. Project Management is important because it can help to ensure the right thing is delivered, on time and within budget, thats going to deliver real value. Great project management matters because it delivers business success. However what makes Project Management work for many is a mystery. In response to this PMO Advisory, New Jerseys leading Project Management and PMO training firm, is presenting a 1 day workshop titled Project Management Essentials, on March 16, 2018, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. in Cedar Grove, New Jersey. Visit PMO Advisory to received a $50 early bird discount coupon bringing the final fee for this workshop to $149/person. Parking and lunch is included in the fee for this workshop. Click here to learn more.

Delivered in one day this workshop will demystify Project Management distilling it to whats known as the four P's of Project Management (used to describe the culture that exists within project teams): 1) P for Plan: this refers to all activities that involve planning and forecasting. 2) P for Processes: as well documented in the PMBOK (Project Management Book of Knowledge), projects consist largely of a series of predetermined and well-structured processes; 3) P for People: People are an essential component of the project's dynamics and a number of studies show that people are at the heart of some projects' endemic problems; and 4), P for Power which describes all lines of authority, decision-makers, policies for implementation and so forth.

Target Audience: The general framework of project management is common but nuances differ as per the industry. The principles of project management are the same and this workshop will enhance job performance across all industries including, Engineering and Construction, Healthcare, Financial Services, Law, Technology, Government, Education, and Pharmaceuticals:

-Business management and executives

-Practicing and aspiring project professionals

-Upcoming and coming project professionals

-Talent managers, training managers, and human resource managers

-Anyone who works within a Project Management environment or PMO.

This workshop will help professionals excel within a Project Management environment or PMO and complete projects on time, on budget, & on target! The date for Project Management Essentials is Friday, March 16, 2018. 9:00 a.m.  4:00 p.m. at the PMO Advisory Training Center in Cedar Grove, NJ (20 miles outside of NYC). Visit PMO Advisory to receive a $50 early bird discount coupon bringing the final fee for this workshop to $149/person. Parking and lunch is included in the fee for this workshop. PMO Advisory is a PMI Global Registered Education Provider (PMI R.E.P. #4172). As such, for participants with a PMI certification (e.g., PMP, PgMP, PfMP, etc.), course recipients will receive 8 PDUS. For aspiring project professionals who are considering CAPM or PMP, you will receive eight hours toward fulfilling the educational requirement for the PMP and CAPM certifications.

This workshop is developed by Prof. Dr. Te Wu, the founder and CEO of PMO Advisory, who is among the few people in the world certified in Project (PMP), Program (PgMP), Portfolio (PfMP), and Risk Management (PMI-RMP). In addition to twenty-five years of professional experience from shop floor to being the Director of a global project service organization with one of the Big 4, Dr. Wu has also been teaching in universities around the world for fifteen years. In addition, he is a core committee member on multiple PMI Global standard teams (Portfolio and Risk), a voting member on ANSI TAG 258 representing the United States on the International Standard Organizations Technical Committee (ISO TC258), an advisory board member on the project management program at Stevens Institute of Technology, and the leader professor at Montclair State University.Zoola Analytics andRemote-Learner Partnership Announcement We are excited to partner with Lambda Solutions, solidifying a long history of collaboration between our firms. Their Zoola Analytics solution enhances an already strong suite of offerings that provide insights needed to make effective decisions."

Zoola Analytics, powered by Lambda Solutions, and Remote-Learner today announced they are forming a strategic technology partnership. The companies will work together to deliver the best-in-class reporting solutions for Remote-Learners clients. The partnership merges these two prominent companies respective visions to deliver market-leading complete technologies for organizations to better realize the return on their investment in learning as a core to their business.

Zoola Analytics provides complete and secure access to all of an organizations learning data and allows users to quickly and easily create actionable reports and executive dashboards. Zoola Analytics uniquely enables reporting and analytics capabilities for Moodle, Totara Learn and xAPI learning data and helps organizations realize the outcomes of the business of learning.

As the the first and only analytics and reporting solution of its kind, with the most robust functionality of any other solution on the market, Zoola Analytics is forging the future of learning management, says Shevy Levy, CEO of Lambda Solutions. We are thrilled to have Remote-Learner join our partnership program and work together to continue to innovate, inspire and, most-of-all, realize the value of a true data-driven learning experience.

Headquartered in Denver, CO, and providing services throughout North America, Remote-Learner designs and delivers tailored, fully integrated digital learning environments powered by the Totara Learn and Moodle learning platforms. Remote-Learners deep roots in instructional and persuasive design strategy development and implementations are enhanced by greater data integration and data analysis, two key areas of focus for the company in 2018.

"Remote-Learner is committed to providing our clients with digital learning environments that make an impact, and we believe quality reporting and analytics to be critical to that effort," said Ron Olsen, CEO of Remote-Learner. "We are excited to partner with Lambda Solutions, solidifying a long history of collaboration between our firms. Their Zoola Analytics solution enhances an already strong suite of offerings that provide insights needed to make effective decisions."



About Zoola Analytics (Powered by Lambda Solutions):

Zoola Analytics powered by Lambda Solutions, is the market-leading reporting and analytics solution for Moodle, Totara Learn, and xAPI learning technologies. Zoola provides secure access to all of your LMS data and empowers users to quickly and easily create actionable reports and customizable dashboards. Gain real insights from your learning data in minutes, instead of days and have the latest information at your fingertips. Zoola is backed by Lambda Solutions decades of expertise in the Learning Management space. Our complete solution includes a full range of training and services to give you the support you need now and in the future. For more information: https://www.lambdasolutions.net/products/lmsreporting.

About Remote-Learner:

Remote-Learner designs and delivers tailored, fully integrated digital learning environments that drive impact. Remote-Learners team of experts embraces a hybrid best-of-breed approach, partnering with industry-leading providers to accelerate delivery in key functional areas, while employing proprietary persuasive design strategies, tools and techniques to deliver solutions uniquely tailored to the needs of its clients. Learn more about how Remote-Learner partners with academic institutions, businesses, government, and non-profit organizations to deliver results that have made a positive impact for over nine million learners at http://www.remote-learner.com.

###

Media Contact for Zoola Analytics and Lambda Solutions:

Heidi King Director of Marketing

(604)398-3396 heidi.king(at)lambdasolutions.netMany people mistakenly believe that infertility is solely caused by the female partner. The reality is that 40 to 50 percent of all infertility cases are due to male factor infertility.

With 1 in 8 couples experiencing infertility, Shady Grove Fertility remains dedicated to its core mission to reach and teach the community about overcoming infertility. This month, Shady Grove Fertility will host eight seminars and six webinars on topics such as what your menstrual cycle says about your fertility, diagnosing male factor infertility, insurance and financial programs, and what to expect when meeting with a fertility specialist. Each event concludes with a question and answer session so that attendees have the opportunity to get their questions answered by the practices physician and specialist experts.

Many people mistakenly believe that infertility is solely caused by the female partner. The reality is that up to 40 to 50 percent of all infertility cases are due to male factor infertility, says Dr. Cori Tanrikut, one of Shady Grove Fertilitys in-house reproductive urologists. During the webinar, Dr. Tanrikut will cover male and female reproduction and the role it plays in a couple's ability to conceive, simple tests used to evaluate male fertility, and effective treatment options designed to overcome male factor infertility. To learn more about getting pregnant and male factor infertility, attend the webinar on Tuesday, February 27th at noon.

What to Expect When Youre Not Expecting is a seminar series that covers a variety of topics and walks attendees through the different touchpoints of the fertility journey. Not knowing what to expect when seeing a fertility specialist is what prevents many people from scheduling that first consultation. What this event is intended to do is alleviate that fear by arming attendees with information so they can feel confident in taking that first step, says Dr. Melissa Esposito who will be hosting the event on Tuesday, February 6th at 6:30 p.m. in Harrisburg, PA.

If you want to learn more about how a fertility specialist can help you conceive, find a seminar near you in one of the practices five regions: Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, or sign up for a virtual webinar. Visit the Shady Grove Fertilitys calendar of events. All events are complimentary but interested parties must register to attend.

If you are struggling to conceive, it may be time to see a fertility specialist. Contact the Shady Grove Fertility New Patient Center at 1-877-971-7755 or complete a brief online form and get started on your path to parenthood.

Upcoming February Seminars

February 1 | Rockville, MD | What to Expect When Youre Not Expecting | Dr. Lauren Roth

February 6 | Harrisburg, PA | What to Expect When Youre Not Expecting | Dr. Melissa Esposito

February 6 | Columbia, MD | What to Expect When Youre Not Expecting | Dr. Stephanie Beall

February 7 | Warrington, PA | Open House | Dr. Ryan Martin

February 7 | Fair Oaks, VA | What to Expect When Youre Not Expecting | Dr. Shruti Malik

February 7 | Atlanta, GA | Fertility Options | Dr. McCarthy-Keith

February 21 | Towson, MD | What to Expect When Youre Not Expecting | Dr. Eugene Katz

February 21 | Atlanta, GA | LGBT Family Building | Dr. Anne Namnoum

Upcoming February Webinars

February 8 | Online | Getting Started | Dr. Naveed Khan

February 15 | Online | Financial Options | Patient Financial Team

February 20 | Online | Navigating Infertility | Dr. Isaac Sasson

February 22 | Online | Egg Freezing | Loretta Trumble, CRNP

February 27 | Online | Male Factor Infertility | Dr. Cori Tanrikut

February 28 | Online | What Your Menstrual Cycle Says about Your Fertility | Dr. Stephen Greenhouse

About Shady Grove Fertility (SGF)

SGF is a leading fertility and IVF center of excellence with 50,000 babies born and counting. With 41 physicians and 28 locations throughout MD, PA, VA, D.C., and GA, we offer patients individualized care, accept most insurance plans, and make treatment affordable through innovative financial options, including treatment guarantees. More physicians refer their patients to SGF than any other center. Call 1-888-761-1967 or visit ShadyGroveFertility.com.SPRYTEs consumer PR program for Crossroads Hospice includes earned media strategies for its Gift of a Day program. At Comic Con the media covered a patient meeting Green Lantern artist Neal Adams. SPRYTE Communications is truly anchored by our depth in healthcare.

SPRYTE Communications is celebrating its first anniversary today. Thats the word from CEO Lisa Simon, who said the agency is marking the milestone with an employee team building exercise at the firms offices in The Bellevue in Center City Philadelphia.

A robust and varied healthcare industry is providing plenty of opportunity, according to Simon. Business is solid and were very encouraged by the growing marketplace, she said.

Simon said the agencys repositioning from a general, regional firm known as Simon PR, to a specialized one focused exclusively on healthcare was the inspiration for the name change.

"Rebranding and relaunching were excellent moves for the firm. Healthcare had always been a cornerstone of our business, but its not what we were known for, Simon said. SPRYTE Communications is truly anchored by our depth in healthcare.

Included is a niche expertise in hospice and home care companies within the provider space and many years serving hospitals, health systems and physician practices. SPRYTE is also actively seeking corporate communications opportunities with pharmaceutical companies and health insurers.

About SPRYTE Communications

SPRYTE Communications specializes in healthcare and industries touched by healthcare. Its seasoned team of professionals have years of institutional and agency healthcare experience. SPRYTE actively seeks bright new opportunities with provider organizations, pharmaceutical companies, health insurers, foundations, health advocacy groups, healthcare associations, healthcare law firms, social service agencies, healthcare educators and government. The firm is known for its creativity, tenacity and drive in the areas of media relations, reputation management, public affairs, referral marketing and digital content and social marketing. For additional information, visit http://www.sprytecom.com or call 215-545-4715.The KLAS report reinforces EBSCO Healths commitment to providing the top clinical reference tools to meet the needs of its users.

Two EBSCO Health clinical resources were named among the top performing point-of-care reference tools in the 2018 Best in KLAS: Software and Services report. KLAS, a research firm that specializes in monitoring and reporting the performance of healthcare vendors, found that Nursing Reference Center Plus and DynaMed Plus were among the top performing clinical decision support  point of care clinical reference tools, with Nursing Reference Center Plus ranked number one and DynaMed Plus coming in as a close second.

KLAS interviews thousands of healthcare professionals and uses the responses to rate point-of-care Disease Reference and Diagnostic Support tools. Evaluation questions cover several areas, including Sales and Contracting, Implementation and Training, Functionality and Upgrades, and Service and Support.

Nursing Reference Center Plus is EBSCO Healths point-of-care resource, designed by nurses for nurses. With Nursing Reference Center Plus, users get instant access to the most current evidence-based answers to their clinical questions, high-quality continuing education modules, tools to develop and improve nursing skills and more. DynaMed Plus is EBSCO Healths flagship evidence-based information resource designed to reduce time to answer for clinicians and provide the most useful information to healthcare professionals at the point of care.

EBSCO Healths Senior Vice President of Product Management, Betsy Jones, says the KLAS report reinforces EBSCO Healths commitment to providing the top clinical reference tools to meet the needs of its users. Clinicians need to access the most accurate information at the point of care to foster a successful patient experience and meet the needs of their patients. Were encouraged to hear that healthcare professionals place these resources at the top of their list, from service to technology to support.

More information about EBSCO Healths clinical decision support solutions is available at https://health.ebsco.com.

About KLAS

KLAS is a research firm on a global mission to improve healthcare delivery by enabling providers and payers to be heard and counted. Working with thousands of healthcare professionals, KLAS gathers insights on software, services and medical equipment to deliver timely reports, trending data and statistical overviews. KLAS data is accurate, honest and impartial. The research directly represents the voice of healthcare professionals and acts as a catalyst for improving vendor performance. To learn more about KLAS and the insights we provide, visit http://www.KLASresearch.com.

About EBSCO Health

EBSCO Health, part of EBSCO Information Services, is a leading provider of clinical decision support solutions, healthcare business intelligence, and medical research information for the healthcare industry. EBSCO Health users include professionals in medicine, nursing, and allied health. Flagship products include CINAHL, DynaMed Plus, Nursing Reference Center Plus, clinical e-books and e-journals, EBSCO Discovery Service, licensed databases (such as MEDLINE), plus EBSCONET. EBSCO Health databases are powered by EBSCOhost, the electronic resource favored by libraries around the world.

For more information, please contact:

Jessica Holmes

Communications Director

978-356-6500 ext. 3485

jmholmes(at)ebsco(dot)comThe Integrative Healthcare Symposium is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2018 Leadership and Visionary awards, which will be presented at the conference, taking place February 22-24 at the New York Hilton Midtown.

Each year, the Symposium honors two integrative healthcare professionals whose forward-thinking contributions have advanced their fields of practice and their communities.

The Leadership Award recognizes a pioneer whose contributions have shaped integrative healthcare and paved the way for other practitioners. This year, that honor will go to Joe Pizzorno, ND. Notable past recipients include Mark Hyman, MD; Mehmet Oz, MD; and Tieraona Low Dog, MD.

The Visionary Award recognizes a thought leader who has moved the integrative healthcare community forward through their leadership and vision. That honor will be given to Deepak Chopra, MD. Notable past recipients include Daniel G. Amen, MD; Daniel Kraft, MD; Wayne Jonas, MD; and James Gordon, MD.

Both honorees will play an active role in the three-day conference, each leading an educational session on their area of expertise.

About the 2018 Honorees:

Leadership Award Joe Pizzorno, ND

Joe Pizzorno, ND, is a naturopathic physician, researcher, author, and international authority on science-based natural medicine. When patients, professional colleagues, academic institutions, and even two former U.S. Presidents have needed integrative healthcare advice, theyve all looked to Dr. Pizzorno. And through 12 published books, Dr. Pizzorno has expanded his sphere of influence to the general public.

His latest book, The Toxin Solution, published in early 2017, uses insights from his four decades of clinical experience to illuminate the links between environmental toxins and autoimmune disease, cancer, obesity and more, and then posits solutions in practical, actionable terms.

Dr. Pizzornos commitment to sharing knowledge began as early as 1978, when he founded Bastyr University. Since then, he has become the editor-in-chief of PubMed-indexed Integrative Medicine: a Clinicians Journal (IMCJ), and currently serves on several prestigious boards including the Institute for Functional Medicine (as treasurer); American Herbal Pharmacopeia; Hecht Foundation; Gateway for Cancer Research; and Bioclinic Naturals. He has also served on two Presidential commissions focused on the integration of natural medicine into the U.S. healthcare system.

On Thursday, Feb. 22, at 8:45 a.m., just following the Leadership Award ceremony, Dr. Pizzorno will lead an educational session titled Environmental Toxins and Neurodegeneration.

Visionary Award  Deepak Chopra, MD

Deepak Chopra, MD, FACP is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. Dr. Chopra is author of more than 85 books, including 25 New York Times bestsellers. In 1999, Time magazine named him one of the Top 100 heroes and icons of the century, calling him the poet-prophet of alternative medicine.

Hes also the founder of The Chopra Foundation, co-founder of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing, and a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. His most recent work, The Healing Self, heralds a paradigm shift in medical science toward more personal responsibility for ones health and well-being, including evidence-based connections between higher consciousness and physical healing.

On Friday, Feb. 23, at 10:30 a.m., Dr. Chopra will be presented with the Visionary Award prior to delivering the Integrative Healthcare Symposiums keynote, The Future of Wellbeing.

In addition to Chopra and Pizzorno, symposium attendees will have the chance to learn from and network with dozens of other thought leaders, published educators, and like-minded peers. Agenda items include dozens of valuable CME-eligible sessions as well as insight-packed non-CME sessions and symposia, an optional pre-conference program, networking events, book signings, daily yoga, an exhibit hall, and more.

Registration for the 2018 Integrative Healthcare Symposium is open and includes the awards presentations, Chopra and Pizzornos educational sessions, and all other Thursday, Friday, and Saturday sessions and events. Exhibit hall passes are included with the conference passes or can be purchased separately. Pre-conference workshops are ticketed separately, but can be bundled with a full conference pass for a discounted rate. Full details are available at ihsymposium.com/register.

Qualified members of the press employed by accredited consumer or trade news organizations are invited to attend, but must pre-register for a press pass at ihsymposium.com/press.

About Integrative Healthcare Symposium: The Integrative Healthcare Symposium brings together multi-disciplinary practitioners and healthcare professionals dedicated to improving patient outcomes and defining the future of integrative healthcare. Attendees return to the annual conference each year to attend CME sessions, symposia, roundtable discussions, and networking events. During the three-day live event, practitioners connect with peers, synthesize findings, and ultimately take new insights and approaches back to their practices. The conferences official media is Integrative Practitioner, the leading online community for integrative practitioners and professionals, providing its users with access to the most up-to-date information in integrative health news, events and resources. Integrative Healthcare Symposium is produced by Diversified Communications. For more information, visit ihsymposium.com.

About Diversified Communications: Diversified Communications is a leading international media company providing market access, education and information through global, national and regional face-to-face events, digital products, and publications. Diversified serves a number of industries including healthcare, food and beverage, natural and organic, commercial marine, technology and business management. Based in Portland, Maine, USA, Diversified has divisions in the Eastern United States, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit: http://www.divcom.com.Top 100 Spas of America 2017 New Lifes formula for creating a comfortable, rewarding, affordable and exciting health experience is a favorite with health and fitness consumers across North America. For 2018, we anticipate the experience will only improve, with a move to the newly renovated Killington Mountain Lodge.

New Life Hiking Spa was recently named the number one spa and wellness experience in 2017 by Spas of America. It is the fourth time New Life has been listed in the #1 spot and is one of the most established destination spas on the list.

New Life Hiking Spa was founded 40 years ago in the Green Mountains of Vermont when health and fitness retreats were just beginning. Founded by Jimmy LeSage, M.S. in 1978, New Life Hiking Spa has been considered one of the pioneer wellness retreats that shaped the spa and wellness tourism industry to what it is today. Mr. LeSage is the author of 40 Years of Authentic Wellness and is still actively involved with New Life Hiking Spa to this day.

New Life Hiking Spa spent many decades on Killington Mountain at the Inn of the Six Mountains. The property was acquired by Innisfree Hotels in 2014 and New Life operated for the past three seasons at a nearby hotel. Just in time for the 40th anniversary, New Life Hiking Spa will return to its Killington location. A major renovation has taken place over the past few years and this beautiful hotel is now the Killington Mountain Lodge.

Were very proud to announce New Life Hiking Spa was Spas of Americas #1 spa and wellness experience in 2017," says Craig Oliver, president of Spas of America. New Lifes formula for creating a comfortable, rewarding, affordable and exciting health experience is a favorite with health and fitness consumers across North America. For 2018, we anticipate the New Life Hiking Spa experience will only improve, with a move to the newly renovated Killington Mountain Lodge.

New Life Hiking Spas 2018 season will run from May 17  October 1. It offers a 21-night extended-stay wellness retreat, an 11-night weight loss retreat, a 5-10 night jump start vacation and a 2-4 night mini-wellness getaway. Reservations are now being accepted for the upcoming season.

All-inclusive packages include a private room with a private bath, guided hikes along the Appalachian Trail and Long Trail, three freshly prepared meals a day, all fitness and yoga classes, wellness lectures and one massage for each three-night stay.

In addition to New Life Hiking Spas #1 ranking on the Spas of America list for 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017, New Life was listed as the #1 Destination Spa in America for the 2016 Travel + Leisure Magazine Awards and USA Todays 10 Best Health & Wellness Vacations for 2016 & 2017.

ABOUT NEW LIFE HIKING SPA

New Life Hiking Spa's mission for the past four decades has been to give guests the opportunity to immerse themselves in a vacation that offers complete wellness programming and the tools to continue on a healthy path once they return home. Authentic, affordable and all-inclusive, New Life Hiking Spa is one of the country's original wellness retreats. Located in the Green Mountains of Vermont, New Life is open for 20 weeks a year when hiking is at its peak in the Killington Region. Three levels of hiking are offered each day to accommodate all guests' fitness levels. More information can be found at http://www.newlifehikingspa.com.

ABOUT INNISFREE HOTELS

For more than three decades, Innisfree Hotels has expertly managed and developed dozens of hotels in partnership with many of the worlds most recognized hotel brands. Today, the company owns or manages 2,935 hotel rooms, with approximately 2,000 employees. Innisfree is the largest beachfront hotel owner-operator on the Gulf Coast, with 14 Gulf front properties totaling 2,128 rooms. Innisfree is a triple bottom line company, measuring success not only in profits, but also through its impact on people and the planet. To these ends, Innisfree strives to promote a culture of responsibility and service to humanity. A value-driven corporate culture enables the company to have a deeper understanding of the needs of its guests, partners and clients, thus delivering service that is synonymous with creating fun and memorable experiences. More information can be found at http://www.innisfreehotels.com.Nestor Daniel Can Jones has been named head Mixologist of the "Beyond All Inclusive, Beyond All Compare" Grand Velas Los Cabos. In his new position, he oversees the AAA Five Diamond resort's craft cocktails and signature beverage offerings at its four bars, including the new Tequila & Mezcal Bar opening in March. The appointment is effective immediately.

Jones has spent over 18 years in mixology, most recently as Beverage Manager at The Cape, a Thompson Hotel in Cabo San Lucas. Prior to that, he acted as Corporate Mixologist for Karisma Hotels & Resorts heading up the beverage program and new openings in Riviera Maya, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Croatia and Colombia. During his career, he has trained under Master Mixologist, Sommelier and Diageo Ambassador Steve Olson and Master Tequilier Ricardo Cisneros. In 2017, he was a semifinalist in Bacardi's Legacy Cocktail Competition and Tequila Patron's Perfectionists, which bring together the best bartenders from around the world in pursuit of the perfect cocktail. Additionally, he was a semifinalist in Diageo's World Class Cocktail Competition in 2014 and 2015. Jones is originally from Mexico City.

For reservations or additional information on Grand Velas Los Cabos, please call 1-888-407-4869 or visit http://loscabos.grandvelas.com/.

About Grand Velas Los Cabos:

The new Grand Velas Los Cabos on Mexico's Baja Peninsula is the fifth property of Velas Resorts. Located between Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo, the $150 million beachfront property offers the next generation of all-inclusive amenities and facilities with dramatic ocean views and unique spaces infusing every area of the resort. All 304-ocean view suites are over 1,180 sq. ft. with private terraces and some personal plunge pools while duplex wellness suites have designated wellness amenities and in suite juice bars. Grand Velas Los Cabos features five gourmet restaurants with an extensive beverage program and wine based features inspired by the proximity to the region producing Mexico's fine wines. A staff ratio of 3 to 1; 16,370 sq. ft. convention center with the capability for 20 breakout rooms; 35,000 sq. ft. Se Spa with 16 treatment rooms and hydrotherapy facility; three pools; and pool and beach concierges are available. Rounding out the list of amenities and services are a Technogym Fitness Center with personal trainers, exercise programs, yoga, Pilates and meditation; recreational activities program; separate teens' and kids' club facilities and activities program; 24-hour personalized butler concierge service; and 24-hour in-suite service. Opening soon, a gallery of contemporary art will continue the company's commitment to bringing the art, fashion and culture of Mexico to guests. The curved, half-moon design of the hotel catches eyes along the corridor with an iconic grand entrance that's open air, three stories high and over 300 ft. above sea level. All of this beachfront, just 35 minutes from the Los Cabos International Airport which directly services over 40 destinations in the United States, Canada and Latin America. Eduardo Vela Ruiz, founder and president of Velas Resorts, operates Velas Resorts, with brother Juan Vela by his side, vice president of Velas Resorts. For reservations or additional information, please call 1-888-407-4869 or visit http://loscabos.grandvelas.com.

# # #WHAT:

Future Stores Miami 2018 is the leading in-store experience event that reimagines the physical store as the key to growth in todays retail environment. The conference will bring together retail leaders and executives to discuss in-store experience, design, innovation and technology.

At the conference, Stefan Midford, president and CEO of Natural Insight, a leading provider of a cloud-based advanced retail execution and workforce management platform, will deliver a keynote address titled, From Brilliant Plans to Excellent Execution: Creating a Single View of The Customer Experience. During his address, Midford will provide practical tips on creating a better in-store shopping experience and achieving seamless execution in retail stores. Attendees will learn how to create a centralized view of store conditions, collect and consolidate store execution data across locations, vendors and brands, as well as how to lift sales through better in-store experiences. Midford will also chair a series of intimate, retailer-only interactive track sessions at the conference titled, The Future of In-Store Innovation.

WHERE:

Future Stores Miami 2018

J.W. Marriot Miami

1109 Brickell Ave

Miami, FL 33131

WHEN:

Keynote: From Brilliant Plans to Excellent Execution: Creating a Single View of The Customer Experience

Date: Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Time: 11:05 a.m.  11:25 a.m. EST

Track Session B: The Future of In-Store Innovation

Date: Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Time: 1:50 p.m.  2:55 p.m. EST

For more information about Future Stores Miami 2018 and to register, https://futurestoreseast.wbresearch.com/

WHO:

As president and CEO of Natural Insight, Stefan Midford has over 30 years of experience in information technology, operations and workforce management. His extensive business background includes leadership roles at major credit, retail and marketing businesses in the U.S. and Canada, with assignments at Discover Financial Services, Sears Roebuck & Co., Sears Canada Inc. and as COO at Intersections Inc. Mr. Midfords management experience gives him insight into the strategic challenges facing organizations with distributed workforces, as well as the specialized logistical issues that go with them. He is a member of the Institute for Global Work at Boston University, and a Board Member of the World Alliance for Retail Excellence and Standards. In addition, Mr. Midford is an active proponent of the need for continued advancement of Science and Technology in schools and works as a mentor for a Northern Virginia high school robotics team. He is an avid photographer and a member of Mindshare, an invitation only group of Washington, D.C. area CEOs leading high growth technology companies.

About Natural Insight

Founded in 2003, Natural Insight provides a cloud-based advanced retail execution and workforce management platform for consumer brands, retailers and merchandising and marketing agencies. With Natural Insight, all players across the retail ecosystem are empowered to improve in-store experience, grow sales, increase ROI of distributed workforce and capture and report on field data to power continuous improvement. Natural Insight is headquartered in Sterling, Va., with multiple international offices around the world. To learn more about Natural Insight visit, https://www.naturalinsight.com/ and follow on Twitter, @naturalinsight.

###NWEA "The greatest benefit that I have seen from using MAP Growth is that conversations about student achievement have moved from achievement to growth," said Dr. Brenda Tanner, Superintendent of Orange County Public Schools, Orange, Virginia.

MAP Growth from the not-for-profit assessment solutions provider NWEA has been approved for the fifth year in a row as a "Student Growth Assessment" by the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE). VDOE awarded a contract to NWEA, enabling all Virginia public school districts to select MAP Growth as an approved assessment for measuring student growth.

Tightly aligned with VDOE's Standards of Learning, MAP Growth is the most precise measure of a K-12 student's academic growth. A computer-adaptive assessment, it adjusts to each student's responses to provide personalized results about what each student knows, can do, and is ready to learn next-whether on, above, or below grade level. Teachers receive immediate and actionable information in easy-to-use reports to help differentiate instruction for students in need of remediation and high performers requiring additional enrichment. Because MAP Growth tracks individual student growth over time, it can help predict each student's proficiency and college readiness.

MAP Growth has proved a valuable tool for Virginia educators by illuminating students' learning needs, helping teachers to differentiate instruction, and enabling administrators to make well-informed decisions. Today, MAP Growth is a leading assessment of student academic growth in Virginia, taken by approximately 150,000 students in 46 school districts throughout the state.

"The greatest benefit that I have seen from using MAP Growth is that conversations about student achievement have moved from achievement to growth," said Dr. Brenda Tanner, Superintendent of Orange County Public Schools, Orange, Virginia. "Gone is the reliance on single point-in-time assessments that limit students by the grade level to which they are assigned. By using MAP Growth, students are provided with the opportunity to show us what they know outside the narrow grade-level confines of local and state tests. Over time, we have been able to measure growth, adjust teaching to address specific areas of need, build on areas of strength, and communicate this work to parents and to students."

MAP Growth is noted for its stable equal-interval vertical scale and the accurate, valid, and reliable data it provides. It is the only interim assessment that provides school-level norms based on data from more than 1.5 million students and 5.5 million test events over a three-year period. Through partnerships with the industry's most extensive array of curriculum and instructional providers, teachers have the flexibility to use MAP Growth results with their current curricula and instructional tools.

VDOE approved MAP Growth K-2 in Mathematics and Reading, MAP Growth in Mathematics, Reading and Language Usage for grades 2-12, and MAP Growth Science for grades 3-10. The state renewed the contract with NWEA after a rigorous review of MAP Growth's alignment to the state's Standards of Learning. In addition, VDOE evaluated the assessment for validity and reliability; its ability to measure growth for all students; clear test administration, scoring and reporting procedures; accommodations for students with disabilities and English Learners; student data security; and comprehensive training support.

MAP Growth was the sole assessment awarded in the 2017 THE Journal Readers' Choice Awards best assessment category. The awards recognize the best education technology products and services used by teachers throughout the country. MAP Growth also was named a winner of the Tech & Learning 2017 Awards of Excellence, which recognize the best new and upgraded education tools that help educators in teaching, training and managing with technology.

MAP Growth is available for purchase and use by all Virginia local education agencies (LEAs), including Virginia public school districts, public schools, and consortia of Virginia public school districts. For additional information on MAP Growth, visit https://www.nwea.org/map-growth/.

About NWEA

NWEA is a mission-driven, not-for-profit organization that supports students and educators worldwide by creating assessment solutions that precisely measure growth and proficiency-and provide insights to help tailor instruction. For 40 years, NWEA has developed innovative Pre-K-12 assessments, professional learning that fosters educators' ability to accelerate student learning, and research that supports assessment validity and data interpretation. Educators in 140 countries and more than half the schools in the US rely on our flagship interim assessment, MAP Growth; our progress monitoring and skills mastery tool, MAP Skills; and the OECD Test for Schools (based on PISA). Visit NWEA.org to find out how NWEA can partner with you to help all kids learn.

####BTS BTS, Chris Martin talk meaning of 'Permission to Dance Challenge,' fame K-pop sensations BTS sat down with Coldplay front man Chris Martin to talk about the recent "Permission to Dance Challenge" and what it means to be famous. In a video posted Fri...Manufacturing has recently jumped to number two on the list of industries most vulnerable to cyber-attack.

eMazzanti Technologies Vice President and Co-founder, Carl Mazzanti, will be the featured speaker at a Manufacturing Cyber-Security Program organized by the New Jersey Manufacturing Extension Program (NJMEP) on Thursday, February 1, 2018.

The Manufacturing Cyber-Security Program is scheduled to run from 9:30 to 11:30 am at NJMEP Headquarters, 2 Ridgedale Ave., Suite 305 in Cedar Knolls, New Jersey. Mazzantis topic will be, Secure the Manufacturing Product Line.

Manufacturing has recently jumped to number two on the list of industries most vulnerable to cyber-attack, stated Mazzanti. As industrial technology advances, manufacturers are increasingly using cloud, data analytics and mobile to improve their connectivity and infrastructure. This means a larger attack surface from which cyber criminals can infiltrate.

Manufacturing Cyber-Security Lacking

For seasoned cyber-criminals, hacking a manufacturing company is easy money because:



Manufacturing is not held to the same security standards as business-to-consumer (B2C) industries such as eCommerce.

Manufacturers tend to rely on outdated cyber-security measures.

Hackers can use older viruses, such as Heartbleed and Shellshock, as well as classic email phishing scams to penetrate manufacturings weak walls of defense

According to Mazzanti, hackers who attack manufacturing companies are usually after intellectual property. In contrast, with the healthcare industry, cyber-criminals are generally looking for social security numbers.

Manufacturing Cyber-Security Tips

Many small business manufacturers lack sufficient resources to manage cyber-security risks. The shortage of cyber-security professionals and the evolving nature of the risks make effective cyber-security a challenge for organizations of all sizes.

eMazzanti Technologies offers these simple manufacturing cyber-security tips as a place to start:

Do not open attachments or click email links unless positive its from a known sender.

Always use up-to-date antivirus software and firewalls.

Do not access public Wi-Fi connections unless using VPN encryption.

Use a browser extension that will detect malicious websites.

Update to the latest version of Windows or iOS when available.

Always use the most recent browser release.

Back up data every day.

Fortunately, the experts at eMazzanti Technologies, a managed security services provider (MSSP), make it their business to understand the fast-changing cyber-security landscape. They provide cyber-security technologies to detect and block attacks.

In addition, eMazzanti designs multi-layered proactive cyber defense solutions to mitigate manufacturing cyber-security risk, including a variety of managed services solutions and 24/7 network monitoring.

Related resource information:

3 Tips for Stronger Supply Chain Cyber-Security

eMazzanti Technologies Offers Updates to Patch Meltdown and Spectre Security Flaws

About NJMEP

NJMEP is a private, notfor-profit organization that improves the profitability and competitiveness of New Jerseys manufacturers. Backed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), NJMEP enables organizations to enhance their productivity and efficiencies, reduce costs, and improve employee performance.

About Carl Mazzanti

Carl Mazzanti is the Co-founder and Vice President of eMazzanti Technologies, Microsofts 2015, 2013 and 2012 Partner of the Year, and 8X Inc. 5000 list honoree. His company specializes in manufacturing cyber-security and cloud solutions, outsourced network management, remote monitoring, and support for small and mid-sized manufacturers. Carl is frequent business conference speaker and technology talk show guest on the topic of cyber-security.

About eMazzanti Technologies

eMazzantis team of trained, certified IT experts rapidly deliver manufacturing managed IT, digital marketing services, cloud and mobile solutions, multi-site implementations, 247 outsourced network management, remote monitoring and support to increase productivity, data security and revenue growth for clients ranging from small manufacturers to high-end global retailers.

eMazzanti has made the Inc. 5000 list eight years running, is a 2015, 2013 and 2012 Microsoft Partner of the Year, 2016 NJ Business of the Year, 5X WatchGuard Partner of the Year and one of the TOP 200 U.S. Microsoft Partners! Contact: 1-866-362-9926, info@emazzanti.net or http://www.emazzanti.net Twitter: @emazzanti Facebook: Facebook.com/emazzantitechnologies.PAI translates heart rate data into a simple, meaningful score that guides people on how much activity they need to live a longer, healthier life.

The American College of Lifestyle Medicine has announced the addition of health technology leader PAI Health to its Lifestyle Medicine Corporate Roundtable, a group of individuals and organizations whose collective vision is sustainable human health, a sustainable healthcare system and a sustainable world.

PAI Health (formerly Mio Global) is a Vancouver-based health technology company with proprietary science-based algorithms including PAI (Personal Activity Intelligence), the first evidence-based activity metric for personalized exercise guidance that is scientifically proven to extend lives by an average of five years. The PAI algorithm has been validated by researchers from the Nobel Prize-winning medical faculty of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology using data from the HUNT study, a unique database containing personal and family medical histories of more than 45,000 people over 25 years.

PAI translates heart rate data into a simple, meaningful score that guides people on how much activity they need to live a longer, healthier life. A PAI score is calculated based on a persons profile data as well as their heart rate data from the past seven days and it assigns a value to their physical activity based on the health effect.

Research showed that those who maintain a PAI score of 100 or above can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and other lifestyle-related disease by up to 25 percent. The PAI study has been published in The American Journal of Medicine.

PAI provides insurers, employers and health care providers with behavioral data and health insights on population trends so they can better assess risk, monitor progress, guide their people and manage costs. PAI has received recognition within the industry as being a groundbreaking metric that can give wearables greater purpose by providing meaning to heart rate data.

PAI Health is a new cloud-based software company under the same management as Mio Global, continuing to leverage its expertise in biometric sensing and algorithm development for the health and wellness industry, but with a broader market strategy to extend PAI to all wearables and health platforms in order to realize its full potential impact on global healthcare.

We are honored to be joining ACLMs Corporate Roundtable, as it will give us an incredible opportunity to collaborate with other like-minded companies on a cause that we are all so passionate about, said Peter Taylor, CEO of PAI Health. We are excited to share our unique approach to prescribing exercise that can prevent and treat a large number of diseases through lifestyle changes.

"An evidence-based activity metric that is actionable and motivational in real time is a very positive step forward which has the potential of improving the lives of many people, said ACLM President George Guthrie, MD, MPH, FACLM. We are pleased to add PAI Healths expertise to the growing Lifestyle Medicine Corporate Roundtable body of knowledge.

The Corporate Roundtable of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine convenes healthcare and lifestyle thought leaders, with a keen focus on the power of Lifestyle Medicine to transform health and healthcare. Roundtable members explore effective Lifestyle Medicine clinical applications, strategies for accelerating reimbursement and adoption and analysis of potential business-related opportunities. The Roundtable launched in 2015 and has grown to include more than 25 active member organizations.

###

ABOUT THE AMERICAN COLLEGE OF LIFESTYLE MEDICINE: ACLM is the professional medical association for those dedicated to the advancement and clinical practice of Lifestyle Medicine as the foundation of a transformed and sustainable healthcare system. More than a professional association, ACLM is a galvanizing force for change. ACLM addresses the need for quality education and certification, supporting its members in their individual practices and in their collective desire to domestically and globally promote Lifestyle Medicine as the first treatment option, as opposed to a first option of treating symptoms and consequences with expensive, ever increasing quantities of pills and procedures. ACLM members are united in their desire to identify and eradicate the cause of disease. Join today at http://www.LifestyleMedicine.org.

ABOUT PAI Health: PAI Health, formerly known as Mio Global, is an innovative pioneer in health technology. Its proprietary technology, PAI (Personal Activity Intelligence), is the first scientifically validated metric that empowers people with personalized insights on how much exercise they need to live a longer, healthier life. PAI allows organizations to assess, monitor and guide their people to better health to reduce risk and costs, and provides individuals with motivational guidance on recommended physical activity levels for better health. PAI Healths mission is to optimize anyone's path to being healthier by making PAI available world-wide through partnerships with corporate wellness and health platforms, insurers, employers, wearable manufacturers, health providers and other industry partners. For more information, please visit http://www.PAIhealth.com.Bookmap version 7 Together with the high quality market data provided by Devexperts, Bookmap offers excellent value to all traders at an affordable price. This solution leads a new era in charting software and sets new standards for market data visualization.

Bookmap and Devexperts are proud to announce the release of Bookmap version 7, a financial visualization and trading platform. Bookmaps data visualization offers complete depth of market transparency. The platforms heatmap allows traders to monitor the auction, observe and interpret the evolution of the order book, the market microstructure and the volume traded with amazing clarity. With the power to execute trades directly from the chart, Bookmap is the first independent software vendor (ISV) enabling to trade Futures, Stocks and Digital currencies simultaneously. In addition, Bookmap also includes advanced order flow analytics, indicators and automated strategies.

With Bookmap v7 traders can now benefit from:



A unique approach to visualizing the dynamic in the order book on the fly, further enhanced with a new colored heatmap supporting a wider color range.

Trade stocks with fast action directly from the chart. It is now possible to trade stocks on Interactive Brokers while connecting via Devexperts to Nasdaq Totalview full market depth data.

Access to crucial price information by comparing the current and historical liquidity in the market. This became available with the support of historical market depth data for any instrument subscription. Devexperts launched a unique dxFeed orderbook charting service for Bookmap, specially designed to minimize bandwidth requirements for heavy FOD data delivery used for visualization.

Enhanced trading opportunities in multiple security types. Added connectivity and trading to the GDAX exchange, enabling the trade of Digital Currencies such as Bitcoin and Etherium.

Eugene Kuznetsov, Director of Product Management, Devexperts, said: At Devexperts were passionate about investigating new ideas and transforming them into innovative software products that are built on Devexperts technologies. We have applied our experience in historical data aggregation technologies to provide a unique orderbook charting service for its visualization in Bookmap 7. Historical depth data has never been so accessible. Together with Bookmap we now have an amazing solution which leads a new era in charting software and sets new standards for market data visualization.

In Bookmap 7 we have incorporated several innovative features, and addressed many requests from our users, such as access to historical depth data, stated Tsachi Galanos, Bookmap CEO. Together with the high quality market data provided by Devexperts, Bookmap offers excellent value to all traders at an affordable price.

Mr. Galanos comments echo the trend in recent years where more professional traders demand precise high quality data visualization. The combination of Devexperts data with Bookmaps visualization meet the demand of these traders and offer them competitive trading advantages.

About Bookmap

Bookmap is an innovative data visualization and trading platform, which visualizes order book using a colored heatmap. Bookmap provides traders an enhanced ability to assess the liquidity at different price levels, detect order book & flow patterns and analyze the market microstructure. Bookmap can be used in real time for analysis, fast execution and monitoring or in offline mode for debriefing and development of new strategies. Bookmap displays every tick in the order book and allows zooming in to the highest possible resolution to analyze a single trade or order changes.

For more information please visit:

Bookmap at bookmap.com

Devexperts at bookmap.dxfeed.com

About Devexperts

Headquartered in Munich, Germany, Devexperts was founded in 2002 and specializes in the development of highly sophisticated software solutions and services for the global Capital Markets industry. Our clients are retail and institutional brokerage houses, exchanges and buy-side firms. We have over 200 engineers in offices in North America, Europe and Asia.

The high performance, scalability and integration capabilities of our products and services, along with 24x7 monitoring and support, result in some of the global financial industrys most recognized and reliable technology applications (e.g. the thinkorswim platform). Millions of people trade daily through the use of Devexperts technology.

The data solutions from Devexperts are marketed under dxFeed brand and include direct low-latency normalized data feeds and value added services like AR/VR data visualization, deep learning, market analysis, surveillance, historical data and market replay.

For more information please visit: devexperts.com

Contacts

Devexperts

Alex Kariagin, CMO

pr(at)devexperts(dot)com

+1 (773) 570-8155

Bookmap

Tsachi Galanos, CEO

galanos(at)bookmap(dot)comYomo CEO, Gavin Shields, sums up how many Brits feel as he's buried in debt outside the Royal Exchange in London

At the centre of Yomo's campaign, is a compelling Petition to Make Financial Education for young children at primary level compulsory in all schools across the UK.

Research commissioned by the Money Advice Service, revealed that money habits are formed by the age of seven. Yet there are no requirements on primary level schools to provide any form of Financial Education to their students.

A study carried out by the Gambling Commission found that 450,000 children in the UK, as young as age 11 are gambling weekly, illustrating that children are not getting the Financial Education they require at a pivotal moment in their cognitive development.

Society must interject to combat this relentless debt trap. Our future generations must learn how to manage their finances, be aware of the dangers associated with unsecured loans and know the importance of saving for their future.

Extensive research highlights the severity of the UKs debt crisis:



2015 OECD figures show UK households are the second most indebted of the G8 nations, at 150% of net disposable income.

Research from the Money Advice Service shows that 8.3 million people in the UK are currently living with problem debts.

Research from Comparethemarket.com revealed that the average person in the UK owes 8000, not including mortgage debts.

Bank of England figures show that unsecured consumer credit jumped 4.9% in 2017, and now stands at 201.5bn.

The Office of Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) predicts unsecured household debt will reach 47% of income by 2021.

307,000 - the estimated number of homeless people in the UK.

Gavin Shields, CEO and Co-Founder of Yomo, comments: We want to protect our future generations from potential poverty created by poor financial decisions and provide them with a foundation of financial knowledge.

The government needs to intervene to help tackle this destructive debt crisis, responsible for crippling some of the most vulnerable consumers in Britain.

Primary school pupils should receive compulsory Financial Education lessons to promote positive attitudes towards saving, encouraging a financially secure future.

But we need your help to make a change. If you agree that our children are overexposed to debt and lack sufficient survival skills to cope financially in their adult lives, please join us in signing the Petition. Our aim is to drive as much support as possible so we can deliver the Petition to Parliament.

Immediate Action

Financially educating our future generations is essential and a long-term strategy in combating the UKs debt-ridden culture.

However, a more immediate solution targeted at the millennial generation, is the Yomo app.

Yomo is an influential Savings and Investments App, focused on educating and empowering young adults to take control of their finances to create not only security but wealth for their future.

The premise is simple, Yomo takes something that is often considered somewhat monotonous and complicated, and makes it simple and enjoyable.

Through a strong rewards system, along with straightforward and engaging content, Yomo gives users the knowledge and confidence they need to move from saving to investing. Since launching in December 2017, the app has already acquired more than 5,000 active UK users.

Shields further states, Flat wages, rampant debt-driven consumerism and out-of-reach house prices make financial freedom a distant dream for most of us. But it doesnt have to be this way. By making personal finance fun and rewarding, we can show users that debt isnt their only option."

The Yomo app is free to download and is available for iOS on the App Store.

To sign the Petition to help Make Financial Education Compulsory in all UK Primary Level Schools, visit: http://chn.ge/2DhtAtjAlita Care, LLC I am excited to join a dynamic behavioral healthcare company backed by a sponsor with a proven track record.

Donahue comes to Alita Care with more than 18 years of experience in the financial field, with substantial time committed to the healthcare industry, at companies including Ernst & Young, Banc of America Securities, Civitas Solutions, and most recently, Active Day. Donahue received his undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame and MBA from the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Virginia. He is licensed as a Certified Public Accountant in Massachusetts.

Jed has proven himself to be a tremendous CFO and organizational leader in a variety of settings. He brings with him a remarkable set of skills and experiences that I believe will benefit Alita Care as we continue to evolve our programs for treating addiction and other behavioral health disorders, said Dredge. I look forward to working with Jed to create more high-quality treatment options for patients and their families, clinical referral sources, and payors across the country in the rapidly changing behavioral health environment.

Donahue has served on Boards of Directors for the non-profits X-Cel Education and Network Angels in Boston, MA.

I am excited to join a dynamic behavioral healthcare company backed by a sponsor with a proven track record, Donahue said. From the preeminent trauma-based addiction treatment at The Meadows, to the coast-to-coast footprint of Sunspire, to the 130+ year history of Bournewood, Alita Care is uniquely positioned to serve the growing needs of communities and families. I am energized to join Jim and his strong team of divisional CEOs.

About Alita Care

Alita Care, LLC is a management organization that provides leadership and oversight to Meadows Behavioral Healthcare, Sunspire Health, LCC, and Bournewood Health Systems. Founded in 2016, the company is headquartered in Arizona and maintains 16 facilities in seven states across the U.S. Alita Care offers a wide range of behavioral health services to those struggling with emotional trauma, drug and alcohol addiction, sex addiction, eating disorders, and other behavioral disorders. Alita Cares programs are guided by experienced behavioral health experts and thought leaders who bring the latest neurobehavioral research and proven methodologies to our personalized, multifaceted, and holistic approach to recovery.

About Meadows Behavioral Healthcare

Meadows Behavioral Healthcare is the industry leader in providing treatment for people struggling with addiction, eating disorders, trauma, and related mental health conditions. The companys programs  The Meadows, Claudia Black Young Adult Center, Gentle Path at The Meadows, Willow House at The Meadows, Remuda Ranch at The Meadows, The Meadows Outpatient Center, and a variety of intensive workshops offered at Rio Retreat Center  are the premier choice for patients, families, and behavioral health professionals. For more information, please visit http://www.themeadows.com.

About Sunspire Health

Sunspire Health is a leading provider of behavioral health services for the treatment of substance abuse, eating, and other co-occurring disorders. The company operates a national network of independently branded treatment centers, currently comprising eight locations in California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Oregon, South Carolina, and Texas. Utilizing evidence-based clinical interventions, Sunspire offers treatment with respect for patients specific needs and diverse lifestyles. Sunspire delivers improved patient outcomes by offering a full continuum of care and individualized treatment plans in intimate settings in residential and outpatient facilities across the nation. For more information, please visit http://www.sunspirehealth.com.

About Bournewood Health Systems

Bournewood, a well-recognized leader in the field of mental health, is fully accredited by The Joint Commission, and has been offering psychiatric and substance abuse treatment services since 1884. The company offers a broad range of treatment options, including inpatient programs, partial hospitalization, and adolescent services. Their highly trained expert staff takes a personalized approach to providing high-quality clinical services to their clients in a nurturing and supportive environment. For more information, please visit http://www.bournewood.com.Intellitec Solutions announced today that they have renewed their corporate alliance membership in LeadingAge, an association of 6,000 not-for-profit organizations dedicated to expanding the world of possibilities for aging. LeadingAge advances policies, promotes practices and conducts research that supports, enables and empowers people to live fully as they age.

"We are pleased to support this exceptional organization that is critical to the success of the long term care organizations we support on Microsoft Dynamics GP and Sage Intacct." said Rick Sommer, president of Intellitec Solutions. "Our involvement with LeadingAge is a great way for us to stay in touch with the issues facing our clients and the industry as a whole."

LeadingAge offers a strong and distinct voice to their members that strive to expand the word of possibilities for aging. Working together, they innovative practices that transform serving the aging population, and help meet older adults needs and preferences to advance the interest of the aging consumer.

About Intellitec Solutions

Intellitec Solutions is a leading ERP and CRM provider strategically located along the influential business corridor between Washington and Philadelphia. Specializing in Microsoft Dynamics GP, Dynamics SL, Dynamics 365 and Sage Intacct, they have conducted thousands of engagements helping companies in diverse industries choose and implement software solutions to improve financial or customer relationship management. Using a proven system designed to maximize efficiency and business insight, Intellitec Solutions team of seasoned professionals provides value-added expertise to their clients. For more information or to schedule a demo of our solutions, please visit http://www.intellitecsolutions.com or call 866-504-4357

# # # #

All products mentioned in this release are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.Travel someplace new with the go-today WANDERLUST promotion. Now's the perfect time to book a vacation! You can save up to $500 per person.

Leading travel provider go-today is offering the chance to travel to a new destination for less. They launched their Wanderlust sale with deals on all vacations available until the end of February.

Travelers can make the most of their vacation time by traveling to five of Europes most famous cities in one vacation with our Best of Europe itinerary. Those searching for something more tropical can relax on islands of Bali and Gili Island or the Greek Islands. Travelers looking for something more adventurous can journey to South Africa for a safari trip searching for the Big Five.

Heres a list of the deals:

Spend $500 or more and save $50 with the promo code WANDERLUST50

Spend $1,000 or more and save $100 with the promo code WANDERLUST100

Spend $2,000 or more and save $100 with the promo code WANDERLUST200

Spend $3,000 or more and save $100 with the promo code WANDERLUST300

Spend $4,000 or more and save $100 with the promo code WANDERLUST400

Spend $5,000 or more and save $100 with the promo code WANDERLUST500

These discounts are only valid on vacations over $499. Offer expires February 28th, 2018 at 11:59PM PST. Promotion not valid on existing reservations or group reservations. Promotion cannot be combined with any other discounts or promotional packages.

For a complete list of packages and the full promotion details visit go-today.

About go-today:

Go-today is a travel company based in Bothell, WA. They specialize in custom itineraries to destinations in Europe, Latin America, South America, Africa, Asia and the South Pacific. The team at go-today is always ready to help plan the perfect trip from flights and hotels to sightseeing and transfers.

For media enquiries, please contact:

Ariel Opelt

Go-today

(800) 227-3235

marketinggt(at)go-today(dot)comEconomic Group Pension Services, Inc. (EGPS), a national retirement consulting and administrative firm, is proud to announce the growth of its actuarial team. These individuals offer a wealth of expertise and are the latest additions in the expansion of EGPS in the retirement planning arena.

Daniel Liss, Chief Executive Officer stated, I am thrilled to have two newly qualified Enrolled Actuaries (EA) and an Associate of the Society of Actuaries (ASA) on the team. Each of these individuals brings with them extensive knowledge regarding defined benefit and cash balance plans.

Katie Brown, a Consulting Actuary with EGPS since 2015, became an Enrolled Actuary in 2017. She has worked in the pension actuarial industry for over 10 years and excels in working on large defined benefit plans. In addition to her EA, she is also a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries and has a bachelors and masters degree in Mathematics. Katie is currently working in EGPS New York office.

Charity Westphal, the newest Enrolled Actuary to join the team, passed her EA exam in January 2018. She brings to the team her knowledge of traditional/tiered defined benefit plans, cash balance hybrid plans, and defined benefit/defined contribution combo plans. Charity will work in EGPS Orange County, California office. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of California, Berkley.

Based in the San Diego, California office, Jon Hopkins joins EGPS with prior experience working on both small and large pension plans. During his five years in pension actuarial services, Jon has successfully obtained an ASA credential with The Society of Actuaries and is a Member of The American Academy of Actuaries. Jons educational background includes a Bachelor of Economics from University of California, San Diego as well as a Master of International Economics and Business from The Corvinus University of Budapest.

About Economic Group Pension Services

Founded in 1971, Economic Group Pension Services, Inc. is a national independent consulting firm that designs and administers qualified retirement plans. With plan administration offices in New York, Alabama, Louisiana, and California, the company manages over 3,400 employee benefit plans for business owners and their employees across the country. For more information about the company, please visit https://egps.com/Leading Corporate Wellness Platform Trusted by Global Wellness Providers The wellness industry will implement artificial intelligence and machine learning to better evaluate data with the ultimate goal to help people realize how wellness programs are helping them succeed with their health goals. Past News Releases RSS CoreHealth Technologies Elected to...

CoreHealth Technologies Partners...

CoreHealth Launches the Wellness...

Ambitious goals of improved health and wellness are top priority for North Americans as we begin the New Year. The good news is more employers are realizing the role they can and should play in improving their employees health and well-being. Helping employees to achieve their health goals requires ongoing creativity and innovation to be successful.

A growing body of research shows that a workplace of healthy, happy employees boosts productivity and contributes to its overall success. According to Anne Marie Kirby, founder and CEO of CoreHealth Technologies, a leading corporate wellness platform trusted by more than 1,000 organizations, ranging from medium-sized businesses to Fortune 500 enterprises, The most successful wellness programs are at those companies making a concerted effort to stay ahead of the curve. These companies continue to evolve their wellness programs to support their employees goals and aid in retention efforts.

Like any industry, wellness needs to constantly be changing and innovating to deliver better results and increase engagement, says Kirby. However, one of the unique challenges with the wellness industry is the illogical nature of prevention within the healthcare industry, as its difficult to measure a return on investment for events that dont take place. Worse yet, well people circumvent revenue accruals. Fortunately, we are starting to see a change with employers focusing on prevention and are waiting for the healthcare system to follow suit, Kirby asserts.

This key mind shift is an important driver and an underlying principle of successful wellness programs. Following are Kirbys five predictions that will drive wellness innovation in 2018:

1. Greater Senior Management Involvement in Wellness Programs

Senior Management will realize their involvement and support in wellness programs is vital to employee engagement and other results, such as performance in the workplace. Further, senior management will focus less on ROI and more on actions taken to make their program successful. Kirby points to the occupational health and safety industry as an example of an industry that has taken this approach. You will never hear a manufacturing leader say after a workplace accident that their occupational safety program isnt working. Rather, they will examine the actions they took to implement their programs instead of the results, and evaluate its success from this perspective. In line with greater involvement, senior leadership, particularly in companies with a global presence, as well as government and banks, will continue to focus on assuring privacy and security with employees personal information.

2. More Sophisticated Technology to Illustrate Metrics

Companies will implement more sophisticated technology to illustrate performance and progress metrics. These tools will be key in eventually achieving return-on-investment, and the benefits of wellness programs resulting in less absenteeism and presenteeism by employees, will become clearer, says Kirby. Also, Kirby predicts the metrics will grow from those that are currently performance and productivity-based to include new metrics such as employee happiness and job satisfaction, and whether they would recommend their company to their friends.

3. Increased Use of Gamification and Social Engagement

Engagement tools such as Gamification and social networking will increase as they provide the key elements for employees to feel success with their wellness programs. Having a purpose will continue to be the main driver in wellness programs with an increased focus on games and peer support to engage participants and help them find their purpose. My prediction is that there will be a more personalized approach to what drives employees to succeed, similar to those in games: like a sense of community, and tapping into a social connection, or personal goals, says Kirby.

4. Implementation of Tools to Personalize Wellness and Motivate Participation according to Personal Drivers

Greater personalization will be necessary to drive more successful employee wellness programs. Marketers have been using consumer segmentation models (also known as psychographics) for years to help track buying behavior and shape the customer experience. The same approach to classification of people - based on their personality, values and lifestyle - is also increasingly popular in the health care and benefits industries as a way to influence and motivate both patients and employees.

PatientBonds psychographics model identifies five main health personality segments in which employees can be categorized: Self-achievers, Balance seekers, Priority jugglers, Direction takers and Willful endurers. These categories are then used by organizations to increase response rates to benefit surveys, as well as enrollment into under-utilized plans such as HDHP, telehealth and onsite or near-site clinics, by tailoring the messaging with the language each of these health personality segments want to hear. For wellness programs, the notifications about the program features can be custom developed according to their individual preferences or triggers, says Kirby. CoreHealth has partnered with PatientBond to incorporate their psychographic model into corporate wellness programs to encourage employee behavior change.

5. An evolution of intelligence and machine learning

"Like other industries, wellness will implement artificial intelligence and machine learning to evaluate data with the ultimate goal being to help people realize how wellness programs are helping them succeed in their health goals, says Kirby. I see a greater role of artificial intelligence being used to make conclusions on the data. Kirby predicts that wearables will not die and will continue to become more sophisticated. For example, wearables may soon be able to monitor health functions such as metabolism which can tell people whether eating a banana will continue their fat burning mode, or put them into a fat gain mode. This will obviously help with engagement.

Beyond these predictions, Kirby believes the most important factor to ensure a wellness programs success is to be able to adapt to changes within the wellness industry, technology industry and market. And if Kirbys predictions come true, there will be a lot of change coming within the wellness industry, all with a very positive outcome for employees.

Listen to the National Wellness Institute podcast and their interview with Anne Marie Kirby discussing the latest in health and wellness innovations.

About CoreHealth Technologies

CoreHealth Technologies Inc. is the leading corporate wellness platform trusted by wellness providers for 2+ million employees worldwide. At CoreHealth, we believe that developing the best employee wellness programs is all about giving wellness companies the right code, design and access to the latest innovations. With the most customization, integrations and reliability of any software in its class, CoreHealths powerful platform lets users focus on growing great companies. For more information, visit the CoreHealth website or their Workplace Wellness Blog.LIfeLearn Sofie

LifeLearn, Inc. has expanded its ability to help elevate veterinary practices' information and technology capabilities with the launch of its fully-automated digital reference library, plus a new partnership with the NAVC that will dramatically expand the content it provides to veterinary teams.

Introducing LifeLearn Sofie

A Decision Support Tool for veterinary practices, Sofie is the next generation of digital access to current and trusted veterinary information. With more than 40,000 pages from the best veterinary textbooks, journals, and conference proceedings housed within one powerful online database, Sofie provides veterinary teams with search capabilities across multiple credible sources at once, finding only the most relevant information to inform and support diagnosis and treatment decisions.

Mark Stephenson, DVM, Chief Veterinary Officer, LifeLearn, shares that during clinical studies, veterinary teams using Sofie reported a number of benefits. "Participating practitioners experienced faster access to more current information, cited significantly reduced time spent manually scanning through textbooks, and most importantly, felt that they were checking references more often because of the ease of use of Sofie at point of care."

He adds that these benefits were completely intentional, since Sofie puts the power of cutting edge technology at the veterinary team's fingertips. "The tool leverages Watson - IBM's innovative and leading cognitive computing system - to search across its closed yet considerable knowledge base. This helps practice teams to access the most current, credible, and trusted veterinary textbooks and published material from key journals and conferences."

More information about Sofie is available at http://www.lifelearn.com/educate/sofie.

NAVC Partnership

The launch of Sofie is further enhanced by LifeLearn's announcement that it has signed a multi-year agreement with North American Veterinary Community (NAVC), a non-profit organization that has been providing world-class content to the global veterinary healthcare community since 1982.

"Industry partnerships are a critical component of the NAVC's success and we are excited to see the results of the Sofie technology partnered with the content of the veterinary industry's largest publisher!" says Tom Bohn, CEO, NAVC.

Some of the leading conference's highly-valued content has already been incorporated within Sofie. "We're already in receipt of the last three years of the NAVC Small Animal Conference's proceedings, and will add each new year's content going forward for the term of our agreement," said Randy Valpy, President and CEO, LifeLearn. "Sofie will also feature all issues of Today's Veterinary Practice, one of NAVC's most popular and best regarded journals."

Valpy feels that these kinds of partnerships are important to LifeLearn because they advance the company's mission of helping veterinary teams and animal health organizations to realize the value of knowledge. "One of our strengths is our innate ability to partner with like-minded organizations like the NAVC, who share our vision for innovation, passion for information and who can complement our offering through their unique expertise," he said.

"All this contributes to the ultimate goal of improving animal health outcomes -something else our two organizations share," Valpy says.

"Through Sofie and our partnership with the NAVC and others, we can not only enhance the information available to practice teams, but also ensure they are leveraging the knowledge they have on hand. Ultimately, this means we're able to make a real, positive and tangible difference in animal health."

About LifeLearn

Founded in 1994, LifeLearn, Inc., is a Guelph-based technology company dedicated to helping animal health organizations realize the value of knowledge, by building and delivering solutions that advance animal health worldwide. LifeLearn's Animal Health ECOsystem is a comprehensive suite of custom digital solutions designed to help veterinary teams and animal health companies in the areas of education, communication, and ultimately, optimization of their business. Visit LifeLearn.com for more details.

About the NAVC

Founded in 1982, the North American Veterinary Community (NAVC) is a non-profit organization providing world-class professional development to the global veterinary healthcare community. Its largest initiative, VMX, formerly known as the NAVC Conference, hosts more than 17,000 attendees each year. Other offerings include VetFolio, an online CE platform in conjunction with AAHA; the NAVC Institute; the Veterinary Innovation Council; an Industry Services Division, an online news and lifestyle channel Spark! and its official journals: Today's Veterinary Business, Today's Veterinary Practice, Today's Veterinary Technician and Veterinary Advantage. Visit NAVC.com for more details.All of these celebrations bring attention to February, and all are strong focuses for Franklin County PA.

Franklin County Visitors Bureau is highlighting February as National Black History Month, Library Lovers Month, and Great American Pie Month. Of course, on the surface, it may seem there is nothing that these celebrations have in common. But, all of these celebrations bring attention to February, and all are strong focuses for Franklin County PA.

Black History Month is an annual focal point of the Franklin County Visitors Bureau. In 2018, the visitor bureau recommends viewing its Road to Freedom video to understand how important the area was as a route for escaping enslaved. The video can be viewed here. In addition, Franklin County Visitors Bureau recommends the Franklin County Historical Societys presentation by author, pastor, and teacher Ed Maliskas on his book, John Brown to James Brown  The Little Farm Where Liberty Budded, Blossomed, and Boogied on Saturday, February 24 from 1-3pm. Maliskas will discuss the story of a small farm in Washington County from which John Brown led his famous raid. The property was later purchased by the Black Elks and hosted dances featuring James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and many other famous artists. Appropriately, the event will take place at the John Brown House on 225 East King Street in Chambersburg, which was the northern headquarters of John Browns Raid on Harpers Ferry. Maliskas will have copies of his book for sale.

Library Lovers Month is a must-celebrate for Franklin County PA. The county is home to more than a dozen librariesfrom county-supported libraries, community libraries, bookmobiles, college libraries, and Little Free Libraries. It is a good month to visit libraries, support with donations, and volunteer time. For Franklin County, the newly renovated Coyle Free Library in downtown Chambersburg is an asset to local residents and a welcome destination for visitors to Franklin County.

Finally, with the fresh fruit of Franklin County, celebrating February as Great American Pie Month is easy to understand. Throughout February, Franklin County Visitors Bureau plans to offer its favorite pie recipes on Facebook.com/FCVBen, incorporating the fresh fruits of Franklin County such as peaches, apples, blueberries, raspberries, pears, and even a delicious milk pie to recognize Franklin County cows are the second highest producers of milk in PA.

The Franklin County Visitors Bureau invites all to explore Franklin County PA and celebrate Black History Month, Library Lovers Month, and Great American Pie Month. Enjoy trails of history, arts and architecture, recreation, natural beauty, fresh foods, and the warm hospitality of communities like Chambersburg, Greencastle, Mercersburg, Shippensburg, and Waynesboro. Franklin County PA is located just north of the Mason Dixon Line and is an easy drive to Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. Discover more plan a visit soon at ExploreFranklinCountyPA.com or by contacting 866.646.8060.Elite Steel & Supply, a Temple, Texas-based company announced today that it is moving to a new, bigger location, giving the company the ability to serve customers better than ever before.

Our new building is larger than the space we have now, said Garry Smith, owner for Elite Steel & Supply. Were really excited about the increase in space at our new location. This will allow us to go to the next level of success by improving on our reputation for providing excellent customer satisfaction.

Elite Steel & Supplys mission, according to Smith, is to provide premium metal roofing and metal building supplies direct from its mill to customers, while maintaining its focus on quality and customer service. As for the companys new location, Smith revealed that the land is increasing from two acres to ten acres.

Elite Steel & Supply is known for being a one stop shop for customers with one location for all of their metal and steel building needs. With the quickest turnaround in Central Texas, 24 hours in most cases, and a large variety of inventory on hand for will-call pickup, Smith stressed that Elite Steel & Supply, is the perfect destination for metal buildings, steel buildings, steel barns, metal garages, metal roofing, metal building supplies, metal carports, metal sheds, and more.

We will continue to be easily accessible being right off I-35, Smith pointed out. Plus, were adding new equipment, a standing seam form roller, which is also a portable machine for large jobs to roll on site. Smith went on to note that this family owned and operated company, is also implementing state-of-the-art software. Top view 3D is a 3-D CAD software for residential roofing diagrams, Smith said.

For more information, please visit elitesteelandsupply.com/about-us and elitesteelandsupply.com/products-and-services.

About Elite Steel & Supply

Family owned and operated. We are committed to offering personal service and superior-quality products, direct from our mill to you. We are your one-stop shop for metal and steel buildings and supplies in Temple, Texas. Elite is pleased to offer the fastest turnaround time in central Texas.

Contact Details:

Garry Smith

7575 Pegasus

Temple, Texas 76501

USA

Phone:

(254) 773  4300

(254) 913- 2345

Source: Elite Steel & Supply

###ChopChop Kids is a wonderful magazine that provides fun, creative and healthy recipes for the entire family to enjoy!

ChopChop Kids, the non-profit behind the award-winning ChopChop: The Fun Cooking Magazine for Families has partnered with Bobs Red Mill, the leading provider of whole grain and gluten-free foods, to expand its ability to inspire and teach children and families to cook real food together. Through this partnership, Bobs Red Mill is joining ChopChop in its belief that cooking and eating together is critical to every familys health and happiness, as well as a vital component in resolving the widespread problems of obesity, hunger and poor nutrition.

We are pleased to partner with ChopChop Magazine as their mission aligns with ours in encouraging people to take the time to prepare and eat whole foods resulting in healthier, more productive lives, explains Lori Sobelson, Bobs Red Mill Director of Corporate Outreach. This is especially true with children for proper development during their adolescent years. ChopChop Kids is a wonderful magazine that provides fun, creative and healthy recipes for the entire family to enjoy!

Through this partnership, ChopChop will be able to reach more families with its healthy cooking and eating message through distribution of ChopChop Magazines to communities in need. Bobs Red Mill will also provide copies of ChopChop Magazine to several Oregon-based organizations dedicated to promoting childhood nutrition. In addition, ChopChop will share tips and recipes featuring whole grains at cooking classes at the ChopChop Test Kitchen, local events and on social media channels throughout the year.

We are thrilled to be partnering with Bobs Red Mill to educate families about the benefits of cooking and eating real food together, said Sally Sampson, ChopChop Founder. Bobs Red Mill commitment to providing quality ingredients and taking care of one another is evident in everything they do. And we are honored to be a part of it.

About ChopChop

Endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, ChopChop, The Fun Cooking Magazine for Families, is a nonprofit quarterly food magazine. Published by ChopChopKids, Inc., a 501(c)(3), ChopChops mission is to inspire and teach kids to cook and eat real food with their families. ChopChop was named the 2013 Publication of the Year by the James Beard Foundation, and is the only non-profit publication to win the award. ChopChop is also the recipient of a coveted gold award from the Parents Choice Foundation, the nations oldest nonprofit guide to quality childrens media and toys the only cooking magazine ever to win this designation. To learn more about ChopChop's mission, and to support the organization by subscribing to ChopChop Magazine or by donating to its cause, please visit http://www.chopchopmag.org. Follow ChopChop on Twitter at @ChopChopMag, on Facebook at facebook.com/ChopChopMagazine or on Pinterest at pinterest/ChopChopMag.

About Bobs Red Mill

Bobs Red Mill Natural Foods, a distinctive stone-grinding miller of whole grains, was founded in 1978 with the mission of moving people back to the basics with healthy whole grains, high-fiber and complex carbohydrates. Bobs Red Mill, an employee-owned company, offers a diverse line of more than 400 all natural, organic and gluten free flours, cereals, meals and mixes for pancakes, breads and soups that are available throughout the U.S. and the world. With its dedicated gluten free manufacturing facility, strict organic protocols and dedication to meeting the highest food safety standards in the country, the company has obtained its HACCP certification and is a leader in providing safe and delicious natural, organic and gluten free products. For more information, please visit http://www.bobsredmill.com. Additional information is available at http://www.Facebook.com/BobsRedMillNaturalFoods, https://twitter.com/BobsRedMill and http://www.bobsredmill.com/blog/.Locally owned and operated businesses are an important part of the fabric of the Greater Hartford business community. Last evening, movers, shakers and business leaders from across the region gathered at the Hartford Yard Goats Club to celebrate these enterprising companies.

Local businesses play an important role in the economy and the community, said Joe Zwiebel, president and publisher of the Hartford Business Journal. The Best of Business Awards are an opportunity for customers to recognize their favorite companies and commend them on their excellence and success.

The winners of the 2017 Best of Business Awards (honored in 2018) are as follows:



Best Happy Hour Spot  City Steam

Best Spot to Grab a Coffee- Sarahs Coffee House

Best Restaurant for Business Lunch  Max Downtown

Best Restaurant for Business Dinner- Max Downtown

Best Caterer for a Corporate Event- Cafe Louise

Best Outdoor Dining- Salute

Best Accounting Firm- CohnReznick LLP

Best Advertising Firm- Cronin & Company

Best Architecture Firm- S/L/A/M Collaborative

Best Law Firm- Halloran & Sage LLP

Best Engineering Firm- BETA Group, Inc.

Best Employee Benefits Company- OneDigital

Best Public Relations Firm- Cronin & Company

Best Health Insurance Provider- Connecticare

Best Commercial Real Estate Brokerage- CBRE

Best Credit Union- American Eagle Federal Credit Union

Best Bank- Webster Bank

Best Commercial Lender- Webster Bank

Best Financial Planning Services- Connecticut Wealth Management

Best Insurance Agency- Smith Brothers

Best Private Wealth Management- Connecticut Wealth Management

Best Corporate Event Venue- Dunkin Donuts Park

Best Public Golf Course- Keney Park Golf Course

Best Hotel- Hartford Marriott

Best Business Meeting Venue- Dunkin Donuts Park

Best Employee Outing Venue- Dunkin Donuts Park

Best Tourist Attraction- Mark Twain House

Best Private Golf Course- Hartford Golf Club

Best Commercial Landscape Company- E.A. Quinn Landscape Contracting, Inc.

Best Commercial Movers- Woodland Moving and Storage

Best Commercial Interior Design Firm- Ridgewood Designs

Best Electrical Contractors- McPhee Electric

Best Plumber/HVAC Contractor- Avon Plumbing

Best Office Furniture- OFI

Best Energy Company- Eversource

Best Commercial Property Managers- R&M Property Management

Best Audio/Visual Production Company- Powerstation Events

Best Web Design Firm- ImageWorks LLC

Best Internet Services- Comcast

Best IT Services- Whittlesey Technology

Best Printing Company- Allied Printing

Best Limousine Company- Lindsey Limousine

Best Luxury Auto Dealer- Hoffman Auto Group

Best Mens Business Clothier  Morneaults Stackpole Moore Tryon

Best Womens Business Clothier- Morneaults Stackpole Moore Tryon

Best Jeweler- Lux Bond & Green

Best Continuing Education Program- Manchester Community College

Best MBA Program- UConn

Best Nonprofit Fundraiser Event- Hartfords Camp Courant Buddy Bash

The Best of Business Awards were presented by Hartford Business Journal and sponsored by UConn School of Business, WFSB-3 Eyewitness News, and Hartford Yard Goats (presenting sponsors) and Express Strategies (event sponsor). Event Partners include J. Fiereck Photography, Merritt Graphics, Rider Productions and Co-Communications, Marketing & Public Relations.

####

About Hartford Business Journal

Hartford Business Journal is the only audited weekly, subscription-based business publication in Connecticut. Whether its market trends, the latest merger news or an update on state government, this award-winning weekly is the must read for area business leaders. Hartford Business Journal has a total readership of 31,000 affluent and educated business decision makers in the 61 towns that make up Metro Hartford. For more information, please visit http://www.hartfordbusiness.com or call 860.236.9998.Posted Tuesday, January 30, 2018 7:00 pm

Peter Joseph describes the following incident as ironic. I think it may have been fortunate for a 67-year-old woman.

Peter and Jeanne had a recent visit from Caroline, their 25-year-old granddaughter. She is from Virginia and went to Virginia Tech and James Madison University to be trained as a physicians assistant. A week ago last Friday, she was in town and found out that she had passed the boards exams and now could legally practice as a PA. They all decided to celebrate by going over to Snoqualmie Falls for lunch and enjoying the falls. After all, it has been raining 89 out of the past 90 days, so that water was running fast and big.

After enjoying lunch they headed back, coming through Seattle heading home via the Bainbridge Island ferry. Shortly after the ferry left the dock in Seattle, Peter noticed that the engines had suddenly stopping. He is a retired Coast Guard captain so he knows these things.

Caroline headed aft to see what the excitement might be, and it turns out a 67-year-old woman had jumped overboard in an apparent suicide attempt. The rescue crew on the ferry jumped into action and retrieved the woman. Then the call went out seeking anybody on board the ferry who might have some medical training.

On her first day of being a physicians assistant, Caroline stepped forward and helped save the womans life. Ironic? I think not. Caroline is now heading to her first job as a PA in a pediatric emergency room in Loudon County, Virginia, and she is welcome back anytime.

EXCHANGE FROM CROATIA

The East Jefferson Rotary Club foreign exchange student this year is JJ Klaric from Zagreb, Croatia. We try to give each student at least two families to live with during the school year. JJ just finished the first semester with one family and moved in with a second one. It is in my neighborhood here in Port Ludlows North Bay, and he is surrounded by Rotarians from the club.

Within walking distance are Pete Leenhouts, Brad Martin, Tim Jablonski, Quentin Goodrich, John Erickson, Pat Cooper, Harold Brunstad and me. Poor JJ. If he so much as jaywalks, we will know. And we worry about satellites watching us.

ON SATELLITES

Speaking of satellites, I am reminded of my time in the Navy on the USS Belmont, an intelligence-gathering ship, in the late 1960s. The ship was decommissioned shortly after my tour, given that our satellites began doing all that surveillance work instead of something as obvious and susceptible as a U.S. Navy ship.

You may have heard that the 50th anniversary of the capture of the USS Pueblo by the North Koreans was last week. The Pueblo was similar to but smaller than the Belmont.

In the same vein, as I mentioned last week, BJ and were looking forward to seeing the new movie The Post, which deals with secret information released to the press concerning the Vietnam War. Living in Washington, D.C., and working in the intelligence community, we were again struck by how little we realized was going on and yet we were in the middle of the story.

I happened to go to a couple of breakfast meetings recently, one in Sequim and one in Port Angeles. It is really dark out on Highway 104 at 6:30 in the morning!

Ned Luce writes this column monthly from his home in Port Ludlow, where he is active in the community. He can be reached at nedluce@sbcglobal.net.Posted Tuesday, January 30, 2018 7:00 pm

Jefferson Community School has received a $90,000 grant  the largest grant in the schools history  from an anonymous source.

The grant was announced Jan. 26 at an Evening of Gratitude event, honoring many of the private nonprofit schools supporters.

The grant comes at a crucial time for the school. Enrollment has declined this year from a high of 34 students in 2016 to 17, said board president Nat Jacob.

Were not yet out of the weeds, but this gift has given us a great foundation for marketing the school and building our fundraising capacity, said Jacob.

JCS has already received $45,000. The remaining $45,000 from the grant must be matched by donors from the community.

Stan Cummings, board vice president, explained that the $45,000 matching grant could ultimately bring in as much as another $45,000 within the year for a total possible funding of $135,000.

The anonymous source has given the school a year to match the funding, but Cummings said the goal is to achieve that sooner for budgeting purposes.

APRIL 26 DEADLINE

Our deadline is April 26, when the school will host its annual spring event. We are ramping up an effort to meet the challenge by reaching out to past supporters and welcoming new ones, said Jacob.

Despite the extraordinary educational opportunities, our school is not well known, even within Jefferson County. We need to get the word out, said Jacob.

The grant is to be used in marketing the school and expanding its reach, school officials said.

For example, links have been established with several Asian countries, and the school has two students from China this year. School officials hope to expand that number and broaden the reach to other countries. JCS has been approved through the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP), which allows the school to accept non-immigrant students.

The school also has established bus service to Sequim and will be expanding its reach into that community.

In addition, the school has partnered with the online curriculum provider eCampus. Students have access to more than 120 accredited high school level courses and still receive the benefit of the structure, support and guidance of a JCS classroom and teacher.

A tea for prospective families is planned for February, and a spring open house is scheduled for March 8.

Students interested in enrolling may shadow the activities and classes of another JCS student for a day.

JCS has expanded its financial aid program to 20 percent of current students, which officials say is well beyond that offered by other Washington state independent schools.

The school is considering the expansion of its offerings to students in grade 6.

Currently, we serve grades 7-12, said Rita Hemsley, head of school. Many students entering sixth grade in Port Townsend are facing a gap in their education. For some, JCS might fill that gap, she said.

This grant will allow us to grow all these initiatives and more, said Hemsley.

SCHOOL HISTORY

The school, founded in 2005, is housed in a historic building at 280 Quincy St. in Port Townsend.

The building was purchased by the school in 2007, but the school was in existence before then, when teachers and students were meeting in homes and other spaces around Port Townsend, said Cummings.

School officials estimate 93 percent of graduates go on to a four-year university. The school has a goal of serving as many as 40 students.Even if you think it sounds like a stretch, it is possible to become a millionaire at a young age. These are five ways young Ghanaians are using to become millionaires.

READ ALSO: These fabulously rich Ghanaians are all under 40

Developing own products

In todays environment, its way possible to invent a product prototype or concept and get a funding to begin manufacturing and distributing. There are several ways to making your ideas come into reality.

READ ALSO: Resigned Bank of Ghana governor lands a new job

2. Take Over an Existing Business

Why start a business from a scratch when you can take over an existing business? Find out a business owner who may be retiring or who is actually ready to move on.

Remember to work with the business for some time before deciding to take over. If you are finding it difficult to locate one, a business broker can help you identify the correct business.

READ ALSO: Meet the 5 richest women in Ghana and their net worth

3. Start Your Business

It is always a good idea to start your own business. It is the best way of becoming a millionaire in the future but success is not guaranteed. Having a winning mentality is the best and important factor.

You have to find ways to improve your chances of success. In all be prepared to put up hours of hard work and overcome obstacles.

READ ALSO: Inside the exclusive cemetery in Ghana where the rich and powerful are laid to rest

4. Investing

Investing is one of the best ways to get a return on the money you currently have. If you want to get quick money, youll need to take a lot of risks.

That means, willing to lost your money you put in the investment. Start by investing a fair amount of money. Find the sectors that you find comfortable and concentrate on investments in those spaces.

READ ALSO:7 successful Ghanaian celebrities without a University degree

5. SavingIn a lengthy Facebook post on Tuesday evening, Hillary Clinton addressed controversy surrounding her newly revealed decision to keep her faith adviser, Burns Strider, on her 2008 presidential campaign after he was accused of sexual harassment by a female subordinate.

The New York Times first reported the story last Friday and Clinton responded with a tweet late Friday night saying that she had been "dismayed" to learn of the allegations against Strider in 2008, but that she believed the woman's concerns had been "With Kenya's position as the regional headquarters of several multinational corporations as well as the largest UN office outside of New York, it was no surprise that journalists from hundred of agencies were present at Uhuru Park to cover the event.

Business Insider SSA takes a look at some of the headlines that stood out.

China's state outlet CGTN went with "Kenya opposition leader sworn-in at mock inauguration".

US based CNN stuck with the plain facts of the day.

The powerful Wall Street Journal focused on the closure of local media houses that broadcast live the ceremony.

The Washington Post ran with the declaration of the opposition's National Resistance Movement (NRM) as a criminal group by the Interior ministry of Kenya.

The Guardian also stayed conservative with a straight forward headlineThe sale of poisonous drugs on the market remains one of the major challenges for the FDA.

According to the FDA, all the enlisted drugs have been banned from marketing, sale and distribution hence the need for consumers to stay away from them or risk suffering severe health complications.

These drugs include:

1. Rockman Capsules manufactured by Rockman Capsules Limited

2. Mars for men imported by Joe D. Ventures

3. Tinatett Be4 Be4 herbal capsules manufactured by Tinatett Herbal manufacturing and Marketing Co. Ltd

4. Angel Natural Capsules manufactured by Dependable Pharmacy Ltd

5. Laud P Capsules manufactured by Dependable Pharmacy Ltd

6. Laud P. Capsules manufactured by Stephen Gyan Herbal Centre

A statement released by the FDA explained that these sexual boosters contain a poisonous chemical called Vardenafil and it has the potential of causing severe health complications like bleeding in the brain, heart attack, kidney disease, issues with sight and hearing.J. Crew is trying to win back customers with lower prices, but it's backfiring.

Furious customers are complaining that J. Crew is destroying the quality of its clothing. This could help explain why so many customers are fleeing the brand.

"J. Crew is turning into H&M," one customer wrote on the store's Facebook page. "Generic, cheap, and wannabe trendy. Quality has slipped a lot," she said.

J. Crew is struggling  8% in 201610% decrease12%ast fashion retailers such as Zara, on the other hand, have dominated the market by luring customers in with cheap prices and a constant turnover of products. Zara's parent company, Inditex, reported a 9% increase in gross profit during the first nine months of 2017.

To fight back, J. Crew has made a push to lower prices. Former CEO Mickey Drexler, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in May 2017, that they would be lowering prices on around

When will J. Crew understan... @ Felicia C. Sullivan

Some are claiming they won't shop in the store again.

I bought nearly a dozen soc... @ Nicolas

@CaitlinKellyNYC @SmarterRe... @ Neil Saunders

J. Crew did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

During the early to mid-2000's, at its peak and under the creative direction of Jenna Lyons, J. Crew became a stylish and desirable brand but it also became more expensive.

Former CEO Mickey Drexler said that the biggest mistake the company made in the past few years was raising prices at a time when customers were increasingly cost-conscious.

Now, as the company tries to execute a turnaround, it may be experiencing an identity crisis. Customers don't want to fork out $300 for a sequined blazer like the old days but they also want to know that they are shopping at a premium brand.In 2014, Rosalia Cefalu had a wild idea.

A diehard Justin Timberlake fan, she wanted to follow him on his year-long, nationwide tour. But she also had a full-time job, as an associate marketing manager at HubSpot, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

One of the oft-touted benefits of working at Hubspot is the flexibility to tweak your workday so it suits you better  but Cefalu wasn't talking about coming in late one morning. She wanted to be out of the office for a full year.

Understandably, she was trepidatious about asking her manager for permission. She'd be working odd hours, often from a train.

But Cefalu was "baffled," she told me, when her manager said, "Cool. Have so much fun. Send some pictures. You'll get your work done."

Cefalu, now 27 and a sales productivity manager at HubSpot, said, "That always blew my mind that I was able to do something that made me really happy and still be able to be a productive employee."

That support and flexibility is part of what makes HubSpot one of the best companies to work for in the US.

This year, HubSpot ranked as the third-best tech company to work for, behind only Google and Facebook, according to Glassdoor's annual Employee Choice Awards. Job-hunting and employee review site Comparably, meanwhile, ranked HubSpot the second-best large company in the US, again just behind Google (but outranking Facebook).

Both Glassdoor and Comparably rank companies based on how many reviews the company has received and whether those reviews are positive.

HubSpot, which makes inbound marketing and sales software, is headquartered in Cambridge, with offices all over the world. In total, over 1,960 employees work at the company.

I recently spoke to a number of HubSpot staffers, including the company's chief people officer, to find out what makes the organization such an enviable place to work.

HubSpots culture isnt for everyone

When I set out reporting, one of the only things I knew about HubSpot was that it was the subject of "Disrupted," a 2016 book by Dan Lyons. After getting laid off from Newsweek, Lyons, a seasoned journalist in his 50s, joined Hubspot in a marketing role and found it to be a somewhat ageist, cultish, and mismanaged organization.

Then, before "Disrupted" was even published, HubSpot's chief marketing officer was fired for trying to snag an advance manuscript of the book.

Lyons' account  and the controversy surrounding it  doesn't seem to have dissuaded hundreds of current and former HubSpot employees from leaving glowing reviews on Glassdoor. For example, from a review titled "BEST job I've ever had": "I'm surrounded all day by brilliant, thoughtful, and ambitious people."

Were a team, not a family

HubSpot borrowed much of its company culture from Netflix (No. 9 on Comparably's list). In fact, Patty McCord, Netflix's former chief talent officer who now runs her own consulting business, has advised HubSpot in developing its culture.

Where Netflix has a culture deck on SlideShare, HubSpot has a "culture code" on SlideShare that's also available on its website. One slide reads, "We're a team, not a family. We hire, develop and cut smartly so we have stars in every position," attributed to Neftflix.

When I spoke with McCord in January, she told me more about what it means to be a team and not a family. If someone is no longer needed at the company  either because of their worsening performance or because the company's needs have changed  they're out. The flip side is that managers don't expect their employees to stick around forever in a show of loyalty.

Cefalu, who started at HubSpot as an intern in 2012 and now manages a team of three, said something similar, but nicer: "I had the most amazing managers and mentors that really, really elevated me. And so I want to pay that forward and be able to bring my team to the next level  whether they continue to grow through my team, or at another at HubSpot, or even if they ever leave HubSpot."

She added: "I would like everyone that I work with to be happy and successful in their careers"  even if that means quitting her team.

Theres really no established way of making something happen

Katie Burke, HubSpot's chief people officer, said Netflix had also influenced HubSpot to emphasize employee autonomy. "We give people a lot of clear direction on our end goals," she said. "We tell them where we want them to end up, we give them the destination, but we don't prescribe Google Maps style or Waze style exactly how they should actually get there."

Marcus Andrews noticed right away how much freedom he was given when he joined HubSpot in 2015, as a principal product marketing manager.

Andrews, 32, previously worked at Google  and while he said the two companies are "more similar than some people might think," he cited autonomy as one of the biggest differences between them.

Andrews said: "There's as much help from your managers or teams as you want and guidance, but you really have autonomy to take [a project] in the direction that you want. So if you feel strongly that something should be done a certain way, if you can build a case for it, present the data, and make a strong argument, there's really no established way of making something happen."

Meanwhile, some of HubSpot's management practices are taken directly from Google.

Christian Kinnear is the managing director of Europe, Middle East, and Africa at HubSpot; he's based in Dublin. Before joining HubSpot in 2015, Kinnear worked in Google's Dublin offices, where he said he learned about the importance of thinking big. You start by assuming something is possible, and then work backwards to figure out how to achieve it. The idea, Kinnear has taught his HubSpot coworkers, is to "zoom out" and see the greater picture in order to get excited about what they're working on.

My entire social network is HubSpot

One of HubSpot's recent initiatives is becoming a more supportive environment for working parents, Burke said.

Loe Lee, 32, had her first child in August 2017, just under a year after she'd moved from the San Francisco Bay area and started as a senior product designer at HubSpot.

"HubSpot's been a super stable force throughout all this change," Lee said, referring to the whirlwind process of getting pregnant, having a child, taking maternity leave, and going back to work.

Lee thinks it has to do with the company's willingness to learn. "It can be about a product, or a team, or the way the organization is structured, or how do you grow families and nurture mothers on the product team?" Whatever it is, she said, HubSpot is curious and "open to feedback."

Still, one of the reasons why HubSpot may be a desirable place for 20-somethings to work is the strong bonds that develop between employees. When you're relatively young, and especially if you haven't yet married or had kids, you may be more inclined to see your coworkers as friends or even extended family.

Burke told me about a storytelling event the company hosted recently, that was modeled on The Moth, a live storytelling event in cities around the world. HubSpot employees volunteered to stand up and share personal experiences about topics like a troubled relationship with a parent or adopting a child.

"If we want to get more empathetic as a business, we have to understand each other more," Burke told me.

Empathy was recently named one of HubSpot's five core values (you can remember them by the acronym HEART: humble, adaptable, empathetic, remarkable, transparent). In fact, new employees have the option to take an empathy test and get tailored resources based on their score.

One of the more intriguing tidbits I heard during my interviews with HubSpot employees was this: Cefalu is about to take a one-month sabbatical, which she earned after being at the company for five years. (HubSpot gives employees $5,000 to spend on their sabbaticals.) She's traveling to Southeast Asia  with a coworker who started at HubSpot around the same time she did.Some of these planes can hold hundreds of people, but mainly transport just the president and his entourage. While governments argue that presidents need expensive planes for safety, the public often criticizes these jets as unnecessary government spending.

Republic of Ghana Falcon 900EX takeoff

Talk of luxury and speed all packaged together and President Akufo Addos plane comes to the foresight. The three engine supersonic jet enjoys an extended range of 9000 kilometers which simply means that it can stay airborne for up to 13 hours.

READ ALSO: Here is how much the new Liberian president will be paid every year

According to local news agency, Ghanaweb the presidential jet which was acquired in 2010 cost $37 million.The 33-year-old self-acclaimed King of Ghana Dancehall has become the 6th musician to join the record label.

Here are the details of his contract;

1. The contract was reportedly sealed for a fee of 1.5million

According to reports, the contract was sealed for a fee of 1.5million dollars (GHC 6.7million equivalent). If this is true, Shatta Wale will become the first Ghanaian artiste to ever land a record deal at that price.

2. He will get a brand new Rolls-Royce Phantom plus an apartment

Early reports have said Zylofon Media will hand him a brand new Rolls-Royce Phantom worth about $450,000 (GHC 2,047,230.00). Aside from that, Shatta Wale will be given an apartment where he will live until the contract is over.

3. Its a 3-year contract

According to the Public Relations Officer of Zylofon Media, Samuel Atuobi Baah Sammy Flex, the deal will last for 3 years and may be extended depending on the satisfaction on both sides.

4. Management

Zylofon Music will be solely in charge of the management of Shatta Wale. In this case, they may work hand in hand with Wales current management. I am not sure if Shatta Wale will have to wipe his current management to allow them to operate.

5. Marketing

The record label will be in charge of Shatta Wales brand marketing. This means selling of the Shatta Wale brand and contents will be solely the duty of Zylofon Music.

6. Distribution

Zylofon Music will distribute Shatta Wales contents. Sammy Flex stated that Its no doubt Shatta Wale has conquered Ghana so Zylofon Media will focus distributing his content across the globe.

READ MORE: Zylofon Music signs Dancehall star

7. Recordings

When it comes to recording songs in Ghana, no one has done it more than Shatta Wale. In 2016, he recorded over 100 songs and repeated the same thing in 2017.

This time, Zylofon Music will pay for all his recordings  even if they are 200 plus songs.

8. and everything artiste managementDorcas Akonga is quoted as saying, One of the girls gave her child akpeteshie she bought at 50 pesewas so that the child could sleep for longer hours to allow her enough time to search for food before the child would wake up. The baby did not wake up. The girl told me she buried the baby herself secretly. And now she has run to Kumasi. There are several areas in the region where there is no house without a single teenage mother.

Dorcas Akonga further revealed that wealthy people in the communities who could extend helping hands to the poor teenage mothers rather demand sex in exchange, and end up infecting the single mothers with sexually transmitted diseases.

She said Nobody can be as wild as a mother whose child is hungry. At that point, there is nothing like reasoning. And the man, knowing what he's carrying, would opt for unprotected sex. He wants to spread the disease. The girl is hungry. Her baby is hungry. All she wants is money. It's happening in offices. It's an agreement. They say, 'Use what you have to get what you want'. There are worse things happening.

One of the single mothers, Regina Akugre narrated her ordeal to Starr FM saying, My parents were jobless at the time. So, I hardly got any food to eat in the morning before I set off for school. I thought going for a man would help me. But in the end, I got pregnant. I was 17 years. I didn't even know I was pregnant until my mother noticed some changes in me and asked me the last time I menstruated. I said four months ago.

Then, she told me I was pregnant. The man responsible for it called me and gave me some medicines. They were about four medicines. He said I should take them to abort the pregnancy. And I said I would not do it because I didn't know if it was safe for me to abort a pregnancy that was already four months old. He vanished after I gave birth.

Dorcas Akonga who has dug out this disturbing development has therefore warned that the future for Ghana looks bleak if immediate steps are not taken by the state to rescue the innocent babies being born and subjected to inhumane treatments for lack of source of livelihood.

If these children are not well catered for, in the end they would be the people pulling the gun on us. If we choose to ignore the reality today and the babies become armed robbers tomorrow, the authorities who ignored them would be the first to face their guns.The report mainly looks at the movement of high net worth individuals (HNWI) across the world and it is not pretty reading for oil rich Nigeria which is home to two of the top five richest people in Africa.

The West African country recorded an outflow of 1,000 HNWIs leaving the country in 2017, a situation that will worry an economy that is recovering from an economic recession and needs its richest people operating within the economy .

Causes of such migration include financial concerns,fear for children's future and crime including kidnapping and robbery.

Lagos was not the worst hit city though with major cities like London,Moscow,Paris and Sao Paulo also experiencing large outflow of its HNWI.

New World Wealth said it focused only on HNWIs who truly moved -- that is, those who stay in their new country for more than half the year.

China and India continue to dominate countries that the rich are moving out of, but once the standard of living improves several wealthy people will probably return, according to the report.The 51-year-old farmer at Assin Nyarme Bebu in the Assin South District of the Central Region hanged himself with a sponge in his bedroom where a bottle of alcohol was found beside him.

READ MORE: Security personnel who lost their lives in line of duty in 2017

Assin South District Police Commander, ASP Okyere Andam said the deceased Anthony Acquah, has always threatened to kill himself anytime he's drunk.

The incident, according to the police Commander happened on Monday evening, January 29.

He said when the police got to the scene, the deceased was lying in a pool of blood, dead.Reading his tribute at the funeral of the jazz great, President Akufo-Addo said he has known the late Masekela for the past 50 years.

He recalled how both of them used to party at clubs around the world, whiles also looking after each other.

we became firm friends, and looked out for and saw each other at various clubs across the world  New York, London, Paris, Lagos, Abidjan, Lome  wherever we were together, we would meet and party. Nobody partied like Masakela, Akufo-Addo said.

He added that the legendary jazz musician was one of the most prominent of the South African exiles, who kept the struggle alive before the eyes and conscience of the world, and he did it largely through his wonderful music. Trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn, his voice  he made beautiful music out of each of them.

Read Akufo-Addos full tribute below:

I had to come, and came from the AU Summit in Addis Ababa on my way back home to Accra, so I could express my condolences to Barbara and his family in person.

Coming here, it was difficult to believe the news. But being here, at this service, it is clear to me that the news is, indeed, true. Masakela is gone, Masakela is no more. All that energy, all that vitality, all that zest for life, (what the French call joie de vivre), all that infectious sense of humour, all that loud laughter, all that love of beauty in all its forms, all that passion and belief in a higher destiny for mankind, especially for the African people, all that charisma  they have all been extinguished. That is the way of mortal man. We each have our beginning, we each have our ending. It is what you do in between that matters.

What an amazing life he lived, and did virtually everything he wanted to do. We met a long time ago, nearly 50 years ago. Predictably, for both of us at the time, it was at the bar of Keteke, then the hottest nightclub (or disco, as they were then being called) in Accra. He was already a legend  King Kong, and Grazing in the Grass had seen to that. But, he wore none of that. Simple, straightforward, he exuded fun and warmth. Many drinks later, we became firm friends, and looked out for and saw each other at various clubs across the world  New York, London, Paris, Lagos, Abidjan, Lome  wherever we were together, we would meet and party. Nobody partied like Masakela.

From the beginning, that is what I called him  Masakela  and he called me Nana. It never changed. For some reason, I could never come to terms with Hugh or Bra Hugh. He was Masakela, unique and compelling.

He bore his exile with dignity. He never lost his belief that the inhuman system of apartheid would be dismantled, and that South Africa would, one day, be free. And he did his best to ensure that happened. He was one of the most prominent of the South African exiles, who kept the struggle alive before the eyes and conscience of the world, and he did it largely through his wonderful music. Trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn, his voice  he made beautiful music out of each of them. And when his idol, the iconic Nelson Mandela, greatest of all Africans, walked out of prison, his joy was without end. I came here to visit with him when he returned home, and that was my first experience of South Africa. He took me to the recording studio in downtown Johannesburg, where he had recorded in the old days with Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim), and the others. In fact, on the day we went, the new diva, Sibongile Khumalo, was actually in the studio, and he introduced me to her.

I was fortunate in my friendship with him and his great friend, that other great figure of African music, Fela Anikulapo Kuti (Fela Ransome Kuti of earlier years). They made an exhilarating company and left me with marvellous memories. One such was at dawn, in Lome, capital of Togo, when, after leaving the nightclub Z, we went to the beach, behind the Sarakawa Hotel, and, sitting on the shores of the Gulf of Guinea, looking out across the Atlantic, Masakela played for us for one hour. It was like a song of praise to all that was beautiful on our African continent. Even Fela was moved, and every time I think of it, it brings tears of joy to my heart.

His love of Ghana was such that he became a Ghanaian, and, for me, a member of my family. My wife Rebecca, my sister Mamaa, her daughter Khadija, my brother Bumpty, his wife Irene, our mutual friend Sabah Bedwei Majdoub, Joe Ampah, his widow Rosalind, and the talented Accra musicians  Francis Fuster, The Todd brothers, Frankie and Stanley Todd, Sol Amarfio, the late Faisal Helwani, the outstanding Ghanaian music producer  we were all his family, to whom he remained faithful to the end. He even married, for a time, the lovely Ghanaian woman, Elinam Cofie. South Africa will always have to share Masakela with us in Ghana, and, indeed, with the rest of Africa.

There are some people who cross your life, and you know that it is a privilege to share the same time and space with them. Masakela was one such. I feel truly privileged to have lived at the same time as him and to have been blessed by his friendship.

Last year, he did what we had both talked and dreamed of for decades  he played at my inauguration, as President of the Republic of Ghana, on January 7, 2017. He played on two occasions that day  at the official lunch, and at the wonderful party my brother gave for me and my wife, Rebecca, that evening, both, unforgettable occasions. Indeed, several diplomats told me, on the news of his death, that that was the first and only time they heard him in flesh, a memory they would always cherish.

I am reluctant to quote Shakespeare  he wrote some 500 years ago, and has since been extensively quoted. But the reason for that is his mastery of the English language, which allows him to find the appropriate words for each occasion. This is how Mark Anthony described Brutus, one of the conspirators against Julius Caesar:

Thiswas thenoblestRoman of themall. All therestof theconspiratorsactedout of jealousyof greatCaesar. Only he acted from honesty and for the general good. His lifewas gentle, andtheelementsmixedso well in himthatNaturemightstand upandsaytoall theworld, Thiswas a man.

Masakela, you were the man. Rest in perfect peace. God bless.

Damirifa Due.

Nana.It offered "to agree to a new and better bilateral ceasefire," it said in a statement read in Quito by its chief negotiator, Pablo Beltran.

President Juan Manuel Santos on Monday declared the suspension of the peace talks after three bomb attacks on police stations in Colombia killed seven officers and wounded dozens.

He also ordered his security forces to act with "maximum determination" against the rebel group.

Peace deal out of reach

The developments threatened to re-ignite an armed conflict that had been on the path to peaceful resolution following a historic November 2016 peace deal with Colombia's biggest insurgent group, the FARC.

A similar deal with the smaller ELN -- estimated to number 1,800 fighters -- has remained out of reach, however.

A previous ceasefire with the ELN expired on January 10 without any breakthrough, leading the government to say it was suspending talks.

The ELN then returned to targeting security forces and oil installations, and Colombia's military retaliated with an offensive resulting in dozens of deaths and arrests.

The three weekend bombings targeted police stations in three locations: two in the Caribbean port city of Barranquilla and one in Santa Rosa, in the department of Bolivar.

The ELN claimed responsibility for the worst of the attacks, which killed five officers and wounded 41 in Barranquilla on Saturday as police were assembling for roll-call.

Santos' government put the blame for all three on the ELN.

The United States condemned the attacks and another, apparently unrelated one, near the border in neighboring Ecuador that left 28 police and civilians wounded.

Tuesday's ELN statement did not refer directly to the bombings, but said the rebels were "responding to the military offensive."

'Gloomy' outlook

Santos, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016 and who is due to step down in August after serving two mandates, had sought peace deals with the FARC and the ELN to end a half-century conflict.

His government opened talks with the ELN a year ago in Ecuador after reaching the peace agreement with the FARC, which has now disarmed and transformed itself into a political party.

But the ELN, unlike the FARC, has a federated structure with autonomous military units, which experts say makes a settlement more difficult.

"The scenario is really gloomy for a continuation of the negotiations," Camilo Echandia from the Externado University of Colombia told AFP on Monday."As long as people love the culture of Islam and love their Iran and safeguard their national unity, no superpower can change the path of this nation," he said, taking a jab at the United States.

But he said that popular support was at risk if his fellow elites did not listen to protests that have swept the country in recent weeks, and heed the lessons of the 1979 revolution that toppled shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

"All officials of the country should have a listening ear for people's demands and wishes," Rouhani said at the shrine of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in southern Tehran.

"The previous regime thought monarchical rule would last forever, but it lost everything for this very reason -- that it did not hear the criticism of the people," he added, flanked by Khomeini's grandson, Hassan Khomeini, a prominent reformist.

Days of angry protests hit dozens of towns and cities over the new year, leaving at least 25 people dead and hundreds in detention.

Recent days have also seen unprecedented protests by a handful of women, posing in public without their headscarves to show their rejection of mandatory Islamic clothing rules.

Rouhani has allied himself with reformists and called for greater civil liberties, including the release of political prisoners, but has achieved little against an entrenched conservative elite that sees protests as subversive attacks orchestrated by foreign enemies.

"No one can stop the great people of Iran from expressing their views, criticism and even protest," he said.

The shah's regime "did not hear the voice of reformers, advisors, scholars, elites, and the educated," said Rouhani.

"It only heard the voice of revolution... and by then, it was too late."

His comments echoed the sharp criticism a day earlier from jailed reformist Mehdi Karroubi, who has been under house arrest for the past seven years for leading protests in 2009.She said that the statistics were gotten from World Health Organisation (WHO) and United Nations Children Educational Fund (UNICEF) data of 2016 saying it was in line with the above that the Federal Government had organized a National Measles Campaign to immunize children from nine to 59 months.

Nigeria has the highest number of children who have not immunized against measles globally ahead of India and Pakistan, she said. Ortom informed the stakeholders that Benue State was going to commence its exercise from Feb. 8 to 20.

The Executive Secretary, Benue State Primary Healthcare Board, Dr. Bem Ageda, urged the stakeholders to supervise the exercise so as to boost the morale of health workers.

Ageda further encouraged mothers to visit the nearest vaccination post with their children for immunization adding that the exercise would be done in two phases beginning from February 8 to 13 and February 15 to 20.

On her part, Mrs. Rosemary Shawon who spoke on behalf of the Wives of Local Government Councils (LGC) Chairmen pledged their unalloyed and unflinching support to enable the exercise to succeed while Mrs. Mwuese Ubebe, Chairman, Konshisha LGC said that they would supervise the exercise in order to realize its optimum aim.Airtels spokesman told Reuters that unavailability of needed information in the contract of such nature made Airtel to pull out of the process. This is despite it being one of the final five prospective buyers shortlisted by Barclay UK  the deal adviser.

In the absence of key information, key contracts and other requested data, all of which is ordinarily made available during bids of this kind, we have been unable to participate in this process, the spokesman said.

9Mobile, formerly Etisalat Nigeria, is seeking new investors after its main shareholders  Etisalat International, pulled out of the business in 2017 as a result of the $1.5 billion loans crisis.

In 2015, Emerging Market Technology Services Limited (EMTS) took a $1.5 billion loan from a consortium of commercial banks in Nigeria. Due to the forex crisis in Nigeria and other operational challenges, Etisalat Nigeria was unable to repay this loan. As a result, the creditors threatened to take over the company after several failed talks on the loan.

However, it took the intervention of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to halt the takeover. An interim board and management team were formed for the company.It was a harmless line, designed to show affluence to his love interest who he was threatening to kill with enjoyment. But as the record grew, and the line spread, Davido and his team members, his record label, Davido Music Worldwide (DMW) knew that they had struck gold.

While 30 Billion became the pop standard for wealth, at home, the creators of the line branded themselves with it. The name DMW might have a nice ring to it, but since Davido packed his bags and left HKN Gang, hes never had a catchy term to describe the movement that he and his team had created.

But all thanks to If, the name 30 Billion Gang was created, and it quickly became a strong rallying banner for OBO and all who contribute to the success of his business. The name was catchy and fitting because of what it connotes: strength, wealth, affluence, opulence, pride, happiness, and success.

It was perfect.

[No available link text]

Within the coming months, everyone associated with Davido became a member, from de factor branding, a logo was born. As the success of If continued to astound people, the name grew.

The real use of the name came during his long-running fight with Wizkid. As fans of Nigerian music split themselves between OBO and Wizkid, while they battled on social media, the name transitioned into a movement not only for Davidos team, but inclusive of every fan who openly supports and shows Davido love.

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But who are the members of the 30 Billion Gang? They are mostly comprised of Davido, his family members, employees, friends and key assistants who ensure that the movement continues to grow and attain more success. Check out the list below.

N/B: This isn't an exhaustive list, and we will keep updating as we go along.

Davido - Head

[No available link text]

Asa Asika - Manager

[No available link text]

Sir Banko  President, Davido Music Worldwide

[No available link text]

Adewale Adeleke  Chairman HKN, Affiliate Consultant

[No available link text]

King Spesh  Hypeman, Head Of Client Relations

[No available link text]

Sam Olofofo Frank  Talent Management, Digital Strategy

[No available link text]

Mayorkun  Musician

[No available link text]

Dremo  Musician

[No available link text]

Ichaba  Musician

[No available link text]

Yonda  Musician

[No available link text]

DJ E-Cool  Disc Jockey

[No available link text]

Kiddominant  Producer

[No available link text]

Fresh VDM  Producer

[No available link text]

Sna Rambo  Musician, Affiliate

[No available link text]

B-Red  Musician, Affiliate

[No available link text]

Peruzzi  Artist

[No available link text]

Kayode Umarudeen - Head of Security

Eric - Promotions

[No available link text]The suspect was apprehended alongside eight accomplices on Saturday, January 27, 2018, at the home of the deceased located at First Ugbor Road, Oredo.

According to reports, the suspect who is a Hausa man stabbed Ajuya severally before proceeding to burn her body in a bid to distance self from crime.

As part of his carefully laid out plan to feign innocence, the security guard reportedly went on to announce to neighbours that the home of his boss was on fire but suspicion was raised when the suspect was found moving items owned by the deceased to a nearby building.

The latter, described as a major in the Nigeria Army had shortly just returned from a trip when she was attacked by the trusted guard.

ALSO READ: Serial killer faces death sentence for triple homicide

Ajuya whose children reside in a foreign country reportedly lived alone.Olaadura, who has no fixed address, is facing a two-count charge of conspiracy and stealing.

The Prosecutor, Sgt. Lucky Ihiehie, told court that the accused allegedly stole the phone from one Adekunle Sabitu on Jan. 20 at Ketu Bus Stop in Ketu, near Lagos.

Ihiehie said that Sabitu reported the theft at the Alapere Police Station on the same date.

He told court that Sabitu was in a bus at about 10:30 p.m. at ketu when the accused snatched the phone from him through the window of the bus and ran away.

He said that some onlookers pursued the accused until he was caught but that Olaadura had allegedly given the phone to an unknown person.

The prosecutor reminded the court that the offences contravened Sections 287 and 411 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Section 287 prescribes three years imprisonment for stealing, while Section 411 stipulates two years jail term for conspiracy.

The accused, however, pleaded not guilty.

The Magistrate, Mrs O. Sule-Amzat, granted him bail in the sum of N50, 000 with two sureties, one of whom must be a parent of the accused.She reportedly lost her life at a tent city on Friday, January 26, 2018, in San Ferdinando, inspiring protests from over 100 immigrants.

La Repubblica reported that two women were badly injured from the inferno while a non-specific amount of people are receiving treatment.

During the protest, fellow migrants held out pictures of the deceased who died within few days of residing at the camp.

She was previously living in Riace according to reports. Moses started living at the location shortly after having her request for a political asylum denied.

Local authorities have however offered others who reside in the camp to register as occupants of the community.The spoken language of Wakanda will be isiXhosa, a South African language known for its rhythm and distinctive click sounds.

"Black Panther" is presently all the rave in Hollywood, after a highly publicised worldwide premiere. Most of the reactions have been positive and fans are looking forward to a movie that finally attempts to depict an African nation, or kingdom as the case may be, in a positive light.

The story is built around the lead character, TChalla who has to take over the throne in the resource-rich, technologically-advanced African country after his father is murdered.

Chadwick Boseman plays the role of TChalla, the new king and Black Panther who made his first appearance in the Marvel Cineverse in "Captain America: Civil War".

Sounds like home

TChaka, the old king is played by Tony-Award winning actor, John Kani. He is the one who is most responsible for adding some true African flavour to the movie.

There are words used to indicate that those peoples indigenous language is not English, said Kani. But you know this is an American major blockbuster, therefore it will be 99.9% English. However, youll hear some isiXhosa words being dropped.

Kani told journalists at the movies premiere that he introduced the language into the script with the line, I miss you my son, I havent seen you in a long time,.

I asked the directors Why am I speaking English to my son? We are supposed to be from Africa, Kani said he told Captain America director Joe and Anthony Russo.

As he said the use of the African language will only happen for a brief moment in the movie, but it is a big step that Kani hopes will introduce the different African, an African that is a global figure, he told Variety.

Africa Rising?

Marvel is one of the first major media conglomerates to pay attention to Africa and this has brought a lot of excitement and speculation.

Africa has been ignored by Hollywood for the most part, so fans are excited about what the movie will do, particularly in portraying the lesser known aspects of African culture and people.

In Black Panther, director Ryan Coogler described the moment you hear a father and son on screen speaking a real African language in a Hollywood blockbuster as emotionally moving.

It is a feeling that will hit many Africans when the movie finally hits cinemas.

It also indicates that Hollywood might finally be paying attention to the African market, which would make sense considering the story is set on the continent.

It is why Nigerians were excited when a list of the cast members for Avengers: Infinity War which included Funke Akindele was found on IMDB, the Internet Movie Database. Funke has won hearts over the years while making a name with roles in "I Need to Know", a hit television series and her self-produced movie and television franchise, Jenifa.

That profile has since been replaced with Genevieve Nnajis suggesting some sort of mischief.

Why was Yoruba not chosen?

The choice of IsiXhosa may have been influenced by John Kani.

Kani worked with Coogler, the movies director, to make sure the moment felt authentic, also playing the role of language consultant.

You may wonder that considering the influence of Nigerian pop culture and our slang, it would be a no-brainer to use a Nigerian language.

Nigeria may have the energy and Twitter presence, but South Africa has the cinemas and the people who are willing to pay for a movie and merchandise.

In the end, its a case of following the money.

Regardless of this, Nigerian fans are looking forward to the release of Black Panther on February 15.

On social media, couples and friends have been asked to dress in traditional attire to honour this milestone and show their love of Africa.

Many have high expectations of the movie and a character who is supposed to portray the African as a strong, tenacious individual beyond regular stereotypes.David Ukesone was on a flight slated to land in Chicagos OHare airport when a dispute started over whether he was in the wrong seat and ended with him getting assaulted by a flight crew who must have been trained to do better.

ABC News reports that the dispute started after Ukesone left his seat, 30D to use the restroom and returned, mistakenly, to the wrong seat.

Ukesone says he was very confused as he believed he was in the right seat. The situation might have been made worse by the fact that although the father of two speaks and understand English, he has some difficulty understanding it when its spoken by someone who isnt Nigerian", as he told ABC News.

A simple mistake

He was asked to move and he wants to take his bag in the overhead compartment with him, said his attorney Howard Schaffner. They told him he was in the wrong seat and they laid hands on him to move him and thats when everything escalated, he continued.

Ukesone reported that a member of the flight crew hit him in the face, leaving a welt in place of the blow. The 71-year-old also sustained injuries on his wrists and ankles from being forced to move and change seats.

After the spat, Ukesone claims he was left to ride out the rest of the trip without water or food or any form of refreshment.

He was supposedly on the Emirates flight to reunite with his family, after his wife had left 4 months prior while he fought to get a Visa.

According to ABC, Ukesones family had spent hours waiting for his arrival at the airport. But when he landed, going home was an option.

ALSO READ: 5 weapons Nigerian women can use to protect themselves against assault

The injuries were so severe that the he was moved to University of Chicago Medical Center where he stayed for several days getting treatment.

Emrates' insensitive response

Emirates has since acknowledged that there was an incident on the flight. But their response suggests that Ukesone was a troublemaker who had to be restrained for the safety of the flight.

Emirates can confirm that a passenger on flight EK235 from Dubai to Chicago on 23 January had to be restrained by cabin crew due to unruly behavior during the flight. The passenger was handed over to the authorities on arrival in Chicago. The safety of our passengers and crew is of the utmost importance and will not be compromised. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the other passengers on the flight for their understanding, in particular, the individuals who had assisted our crew during the flight.

Schaffner, the mans lawyer, has since refuted these accusations.

The man did nothing more than sit in the wrong seat, he said. Even if hes in the wrong seat you dont have to beat the guy.

Schaffner has also confirmed that the family plans to sue the airline. The success of that action will be based on how much of Ukesones side can be proved so the family has urged other passengers to come forwardwith information.

Respecting persons

As absurd as this entire debacle sounds, it is not new.

Last year, a video which went viral on social media showed a distraught passenger being dragged on the floor of a United Airlines flight in a manner best described as inhumane and debasing. His crime was that he had refused to surrender his seats to members of a partner airline.

One day, we will also have the politically-incorrect conversation about how Nigerians and Africans in general are treated in the West.

The first barrier you face when living in Europe and North America is usually the colour of your skin. The next one is where you're actually from, being from Africa doesn't win you any point.

There's also the disregard of cultural difference. Even though Ukesone was literate, he claims he had trouble understanding non-Nigerians and their accents.

There is little chance that the guys at the airline considered this and made an effort to communicate with him without escalating a tense situation.

Even in the chance that Ukesone was being difficult, there is nothing that warrants that a passenger is assaulted by airline staff, not less a septuagenarian.

Emirates response to the scenario should also be put under intense scrutiny. Rather than suggest it was looking into the situation, the airline wrote down Ukesones grudges.

As if that was not insulting enough, it tried to explain the assault of his person as a necessary measure.

It will be interesting to see how this turns out, especially it will be one mans case on how he was assaulted versus the perceived safety standards of an airline that doesnt see a problem with beating old Nigerian men and leaving them in the hospital just so they can go to their seats.This is long before trading with Europe began in the 15th century. Glass beads have long been thought to be made from glass imported from Europe. But a recent archaeological discovery of glass in Igbo Olokun, Ile-Ife in southwestern Nigeria, proves otherwise.

ALSO READ: Visit this African country relatively free of corruption

We have strong evidence that they were making glass beads, says Abidemi Babatunde Babalola, referring to the use of glass which was locally made in the region. Babalola led the research which was published in Elseviers Journal of Archaeological Science. From theexcavation we recovered almost 13,000 black beads and most of them are not in their finished stage which shows that they were still being made at the time of abandonment of the site.

Babalola and his team were encouraged to look into it after determining that glass composition found in this region did not match with glass composition found in other parts of the world. The percentage of the elements of the glass determines where it came from, he says.

While many other kinds of beads have been determined to be produced in Sub-Saharan Africa, glass beads are generally presumed to have been imported. Babalolas research involves both archaeological and scientific research that determines the origins of the glass particlesa combination he says is lacking in previous research.

Using a method called mass spectrometry, which measures the concentration of all elements in the glass, they were able to determine the origins of the glass by looking at the signature elements and matching them with geological elements of the region where it came up. Each of these ingredients leaves a signature in the glass, says Babalola. Not only the signature of the material but also the signature of the location where the material was actually collected from.There's this sense of beauty that comes to the mind of an onlooker whenever a people display their cultural heritage with pride.

This beauty is usually experienced during traditional activities, especially festivals. And notable among the numerous festivals held across the country, is the Osun Oshogbo Festival.

Oral tradition has it that the early history of the Oshogbo people is founded on mythical and spiritual beliefs as credit is forever given to Osun, river goddess, as the founding mother of Oshogbo town.

Thus, the Osun Oshogbo festival, which has been celebrated for over six centuries, was built around the relationship between the river goddess, Osun and this first Monarch of Oshogbo kingdom- Oba Gbadewolu Laroye.

It is this bond which was established six centuries ago that fosters the Oshogbo people to gather annually and celebrate what is being observed as their Founders Day.

The festival, which is celebrated annually, is held in August, in a grand and colourful style at the "Osun" sacred groves in Oshogbo.

And over time, the festival has succeeded in attracting tens of thousands of believers and tourists from within and outside the country.

Until her demise in 2009, Susan Wenger, a German-born, was the custodian and priestess of this grove. She was popularly called Aduni Olorisa or Iya Osun by the believers of Osun's truth.

During the festival, the Osun devotees dress in charming white cloths: Strong is the belief they have in the River goddess to be a bringer of divine favour, as well as having a healing and fertility powers.

It is, however, important to state here that owing to the international status of the Osun Oshogbo festival, it has become a major tourist attraction.

And over the years, it has been observed that the festive period is about the best time to see the city as people parade the streets in the spirit of beauty and celebration.

Undoubtedly, both the people of Oshogbo and interested tourists look forward to the festival with great expectation. And during the period of the event, procession, dance, art exhibition, and colourful carnivals are major attractions of the festival.

The festival which is a two weeks event starts with the traditional cleansing of the town known as Iwopopo, followed by the lighting of 500 years old sixteen points lamp three days later, called Olojomerindinlogun.

This is followed by Ibroriade, which is the assemblage of the crowns of the past ruler (Ataojas) for blessings and it's being led by the Ataoja who is the ruler and votary maid (Arugba) propelled by Yeye Osun, and a committee of priestesses.

There is also the Arugba ritual which is can be said to be one of the major highlights of the festival: Here a calabash containing the sacrifice materials that would be used to appease and worship the goddess is carried across town by a votary virgin, on her head.

As she leads the procession to the river, the people, seeing her as a representative of the goddess, cast their problems on her and say prayers.

Admittedly, the Osun Oshogbo Festival has not only given residents and tourists the opportunity to recreate socially and culturally, as they re-enact one of their renowned age-long spiritual and communal feast, it has also proven to be one of the most unique and outstanding festivals in the world."Ohimai Atafo @maiatafo left a 7 figure paying job as Brand Manager of Guinness Stout to chase a fiery, burning passion in Fashion In 2010. When he called me that year to say he wanted to freelance as Genevieve fashion editor, I told him we couldnt afford to pay him. He said it wasnt about the money .. I realised that if I didn't make a move to follow my heart and make a living out of my passion I probably wouldn't have another chance. This was because if i got a promotion at work I most probably wouldn't be able to push on with both careers and one would definitely suffer. I also figured that after over 8 years in marketing if the fashion dream failed I could always get a job in brand management with my experience. He explained. So Mai came on board as the Fabulous Fashion Editor of Genevieve on a monthly allowance of N250k. Some of his fashion ideas were too crazy for us but hey we probably needed some crazy in our fashion editorials. We hit some and missed some. And that was ok too. At Genevieve, he was just another regular member of the GTEAM and not the boss guy from the corporate world although he was cruising into the office in a Merc Jeep! He ate mama putwith his team and ran errands when called to do so. By the time Mai left two years later, he was well on his way to becoming who he set out to be in 2010. He knew what his end game was and he didnt leave anything to chance, he worked towards it and knows that even now he is still work in progress. So how intentional are you in the attainment of your goals?? Still standing by the poolside and testing the waters with your big toe or still Praying without actions or Waiting for the mountain to come to you and Blaming everyone for your lack of drive? Wont or cant take a risk?? Ok, heres the thing; Nothing moves until you move! How badly do you want IT? Then what are you waiting for. Go on, stir things up..you have wasted enough time already!Some of them told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that the management of EKEDC should give them pre-paid meters instead of estimated billing system- analogue.

Mr Dokubo Ndeomia, who led the protesters, alleged that EKEDC officials had cut off their electricity cables and put the whole area in darkness.

Ndeomia said that the EKEDC officials were serving them outrageous bills which they still paid in spite of irregularity in power supply.

We have been on this issue since 2012; we went to the Ijora Office of EKEDC where they directed us to Marina to meet their director.

What we need is prepaid meters and adjustment of our bills, Ndeomia said.

Also, Mrs Lanre Duzi, urged EKEDC to supply the area with pre-paid meters and stop the outrageous bills.

They are making life uncomfortable for us.

The cut electricity supply to our areas and put us in darkness and they did not consult any of our community leaders.

I am living in a room and parlor apartment and they are billing me N22, 000 monthly without electricity; this is outrageous, Duzi said.

In his remarks, Mr Michael Omeje, another resident, said that the area was residential not commercial area and EKEDC brought a bill of N60, 000 in December.

A fashion designer, Mr Tunji Savage, said he had been finding it difficult to meet the taste of his customers due to erratic power supply to the area.

We have not been having electricity and they are still giving us ridiculous bills; we are just paying for what we do not consume since 2012.

The EKEDC is given us analogue billing which increase our bills on monthly basis without electricity supply, Savage said.

In his reactions, the EKEDC General Manager, Corporate Communication, Mr Godwin Idemudia, told NAN that the protesters grievances would be resolved by the management.

Some residents of Apapa Road West came to protest in our office today; they are demanding for more transformers and prepaid meters.

From my records, the transformer serving the area is not over-loaded,so there is no need for additional transformer.

Invariably, they said they want pre-paid meters, we are going to give them form individually.In a letter to the Senate read at plenary on Wednesday, January 31, 2018, by the Senator Bukola Saraki, President Buhari said it was incorrect to say that the government was not working to address the matter.

Heres a timeline of President Buharis actions on the killings in Benue state according to the letter.

1. Interior Ministers visit to Benue

On Thursday 4th January, I sent the minister of interior and the deputy inspector-general of police in charge of operations for an on-the-spot assessment of the situation," President Buhari said.

On Friday 5th January, the inspector-general of police briefed me verbally on the latest situation, calm had then been restored," he added.

2. Security meeting

On Monday 8th, the minister of interior met with the following, governors of Adamawa, Kaduna, Niger, Benue Taraba and Nasarawa together with the DG of the , inspector-general of police, CG civil defence, minister of agriculture and rural development and police commissioner of the six aforementioned states," he said.

3. Meeting with the Benue state governor

After the meeting instructed the minister of interior to brief you on the information gathered so far and steps taken. On Tuesday, 9th of January, at a session with governor Samuel Ortom of Benue state during which in informed of police arrests of some suspects. In addition, I told him that have instructed to speed up trial of the suspects and give wide publicity of the police efforts," he announced.

At the instance of the governor, a meeting was held in the presidential villa on 15th with a wide cross-section of Benue personalities and frank and open discussions were held. Everybody appreciated the difficulties of this farmers-herders strife. I assured all of my commitment and assured justice would be done.

To infer therefore that nothing has been done, is incorrect. The police are strenuously working to apprehend the rest of the culprits of these heartless killings," the President declared.

4. IGP relocation to Benue state

Furthermore, I have instructed the IGP to relocate to Benue state and redeploy forces to the most sensitive towns. The federal government is initiating measures to address these and other security challenges, alleviate the consequence of these attacks and forestall re-occurrence, the President said.

5. Buhari received Senate report on the Benue killings.

On December 19, 2017 to be precise, while of the committee that was set up to review the technical and administrative structure of the NIA, I underscored the need review the entire national security architecture as I promised in my inaugural address on the 29th May 2015, action is being initiated to receive maximum cooperation from the senate in line with paragraph three of the senate resolutions, the President stated.

Fulani herdsmen had launched a series of attacks on Benue communities of Guma and Logo local government on January 1, 2018.

The attacks led to the killing over one hundred Benue indigenes early January 2018.The Coordinator, Abuja Metropolitan Management Council (AMMC), Umar Shuiabu, made this disclosure while briefing the newsmen in Abuja.

Shuaibu said spending over N900 million on street lightening bills alone from January to December 2017, came against the background of the incessant power shortage in some parts of the city that has continued to create blackouts at many districts of Abuja.

May I disclose that FCT Administration has released the sum of N914, 741,886.00 million to AEDC as payment for electricity bills.

In our determination to sustain and to illuminate major streets of the nations capital, the Council has engaged AEDC to jointly make a road map towards resolving the issue of incessant power shortage in the City, he said.

The coordinator expressed worries that the efforts of the Council have continued to be jeopardized by activities of some criminal elements within the city.

These criminals were always involved in vandalism of public utilities, especially street lighting cables and other equipment.

The administration is working to ensure that all the leakages being exploited by the vandals were blocked, he added.

On the issue of illegal dumping of refuse in some parts of the city, AMMC boss also noted that the Council has engaged 27 cleaning contractors to manage 27 districts of the city.

While bemoaning the indiscriminate dumping of refuse in some parts of the city, he said more contractors will come on board for other 48 districts yet to be covered for effective environmental sanitation.

In the past, refuse are left unattended for weeks.

In some cases, when evacuating refuse, especially along the Airport Road and other strategic parts of the city, refuse splash around the streets as a result the waste not properly disposed.

The 27 contractors will also undertake cleaning of 27 districts within the FCC to rid the city of all solid waste and ensure sweeping of the streets and the expressways.

They are to take care of the inner roads and also the enforcement of charge on all and sundry human nuisances.Daily Trust reports that the incidents occurred at Dalori quarters general area in Maiduguri on Wednesday night, January 31, 2018.

It was also reported that a rescue worker confirmed that the attackers wreaked havoc in Dalori IDP camp and Dalori quarter at about 8:15pm.

"One inside the camp while the other outside at Dalori quarters," rescue worker said

"Two female suicide bombers killed two and injured many in Dalori 1 IDP Camp, outskirts of Maiduguri," Rapid Emergency officer said.

ALSO READ: Five dead in suicide bombing in Nigerian mosque

Female suicide bombers

In November 2017, five children were killed when a female suicide bomber detonated an explosive device on the Cameroon/Nigeria border.To this end, decisive military force will now be fully engaged to deal with the bandits believed to be behind the killings in parts of the country especially regarding the crisis often associated with herdsmen, a highly placed presidency official told Pulse.

The role of bandits and suspected mercenaries in what has become known as has provoked the need for a fresh approach to dealing with the crisis, sources close to the Working Group formed recently by the National Economic Council (NEC) disclosed on the condition of anonymity; because they haven't been authorized to speak on the subject.

States taking charge

The view in official circles is that the reported killings and violence recorded are the work of bandits and mercenaries; since in many cases, the herdsmen are often well-known in the communities where their cattle normally graze.

Deploying the military to clampdown on the criminals masquerading as herders was one of the resolutions of the Working Group.

The Working Group was formed a little over a week ago by the National Economic Council.

It has nine Governors and is chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State who read out highlights and decisions of the NEC to reporters alongside his Ebonyi counterpart after the Council meeting, said the Working Group will work in accordance with the Presidents commitment to ensuring that all perpetrators of violence are brought to book.

Governors from Zamfara, Kaduna, Adamawa, Benue, Taraba, Edo, Plateau, Ebonyi and Oyo States are also members of this Working Group.

They commenced their work with a meeting presided over by the VP immediately after NEC at the presidential villa last week.

Religious undertone

Close watchers of government business indicated that the "crisis also required a political solution considering the that could easily become further exacerbated and possibly worsen the situation if proper and timely care is not taken".

Other law enforcement and intelligence units like the police and DSS will also be deployed to the northern States of Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, Kaduna and Taraba to deal with the problem headlong, our presidency sources added.

According to one of our presidency sources; The Working Group resolved to work with the federal government to strengthen law enforcement and all security and intelligence agencies in the country so they can coordinate better in dealing with, checkmating, and preventing the crisis from further escalation.

On how to permanently address the basis of the herdsmen and farmer clashes, the Working Group is of the view that every State should by a rigorous consultative process with all stakeholders design its own solutions.

The federal government will not impose any solution on any State. The Vice President assured all that the federal government would certainly not impose its ideas on the States and noted that fears being expressed on cattle colonies are misplaced.

Mass graves

Herdsmen believed to be of Fulani extraction, have been blamed for the spate of killings across Nigeria.

On January 11, 2018, 73 persons killed by herdsmen were buried in mass graves in Benue State, with State Governor Samuel Ortom declaring a three day mourning period for residents.The assailants killed one of the NNPC officials while others were wounded.

The incident reportedly occurred at Tse Torkula which is a border community between Nasarawa and Benue state in Guma local government area of the state.

The oil workers were said to have come under heavy fire while working on a pipeline.

According to Vanguard, the state commissioner of police, Fatai Owoseni confirmed the attack but said the killers could have been bandits operating in the area.

ALSO READ: On killer herdsmen, Buhari failed the good people of Benue

Meanwhile, the Nigerian Army on Wednesday said it has uncovered the base of the militias carrying the killings in Benue, Nasarawa and Taraba states in the past weeks.The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the newly promoted officers were on Wednesday decorated with their new ranks by Mr Odeje Usman, the Assistant Comptroller-General (ACG), NIS, Lagos Airport Command.

Usman commended the Comptroller- General NIS, Mohammed Babandede and the board of immigration for granting the approval for the elevation of the officers.

According to him, this is the highest number of officers promoted at the command in a singular exercise.

He charged the officers to continue to be good ambassadors of Nigeria and shun acts capable of portraying the country in a bad image.

Usman said the NIS and the entire country were expecting a lot from them, adding that they should uphold the confidence reposed in them at all times by being dedicated to their duties.

This promotion signifies that you have consistently performed your duties as expected of you, but to whom much is given, much more is expected.

Promotion is additional responsibility. The government still expects some levels of improvement from you. We should always strive to represent this country well through our conducts.

You know at the airport, you have the first contact with foreigners and the image you create in their minds lasts longer. This command will not tolerate any act of indiscipline from anyone, Usman warned.

Responding on behalf of the officers promoted, Mr Abiakam Maduabuchi, who was elevated from Assistant Comptroller of Immigration (ACI) to Deputy Comptroller of Immigration (DCI), commended the Federal Government for promoting the officers.

He promised that the newly decorated officers and others within the command would continue to discharge their duties to the best of their abilities.

NAN reports that the breakdown of the promoted officers showed that one officer was promoted to the position of Deputy Comptroller of Immigration, 11 to the post of Assistant Comptroller of Immigration, and three as Chief Inspector of ImmigrationThe resolution was sequel to a Point of Order raised by Sen. Joshua Lidani at plenary.

The Senate had clearly resolved that the Inspector-General of Police be given two weeks to identify and arrest all those who perpetrated the killings in Benue on New Year Day.

This resolution was passed and transmitted to the Inspector-General of Police.

But, to the best of my knowledge and information, I believe no arrest has been made and no information has been brought to the Senate concerning the resolution that was passed to the Inspector-General of Police.

I therefore, will like the Senate President to, in line with this resolution, compel the Inspector-General of Police to appear before the Senate and explain why he has not complied with the resolution, Lidani said.

Similarly, Sen. Kabiru Marafa (APC-Zamfara) reported that security situation in Zamfara was getting worse by the day.

I want to bring to the notice of this Senate the unfortunate kidnapping of a young girl of 19 years, a week to her wedding in a village in my senatorial district on the 26th of January, 2018.

Three people were kidnapped in the same village, and as I am talking to you, they are still in the hands of the bandits. Two weeks ago, another four were kidnapped but released after payment of ransom, he said.

The lawmaker explained that the state government was very antagonistic against anybody trying to bring the issue in Zamfara state to the front burner.

There are two groups moving around in Zamfara today with guns; one group says it is supporting the people and the government, and they move in military and police uniform.

The other group is made up of the bandits and they also move in military and police uniform.

The only thing the government could do is that they instructed the party to invite me for comments made on the floor of the Senate.

I am not afraid of their invitation but they have left a precedence of inviting people and arranging people to attack them, Marafa said.

In his remarks, President of the Senate, Dr Bukola Saraki, said I remember very clearly when we passed this ultimatum; there was very great concern by some of us that such resolution of this chamber must be taken seriously.

And, I think it goes beyond the two weeks ultimatum. I think the integrity of the institution on issues as important as this must be taken seriously.

Saraki, therefore, directed the Committees on Police and Intelligence to summon the IGP to appear before it on Thursday to make an explanation.

We should be told the exact situation where we are. We must make it very clear to the security agencies that those kinds of ultimatum must not be taken for granted.

If by Tuesday we are not happy with the report submitted, we can take a decision to summon the IG.Heres a summary of what transpired:

Olujimi was taking an elevator at the national assembly to an investigative hearing on the lingering petrol scarcity, when she spotted a staff of the national assembly getting on the same elevator.

As the story goes, staff of the national assembly under the aegis of Parliamentary Staff Association of Nigeria (PASAN) and ordinary Nigerians, usually do not ride in the same elevator with distinguished lawmakers. They use a separate one designated for them. The idea is not to get in the way of a senator who may be in a hurry to keep a parliamentary date or a public hearing.

However, there are no hard and fast rules to the elevator trips. You can actually take any of the available elevators as an ordinary Nigerian if its free at the time.

Elevator wars

An argument broke out in the elevator and Senator Olujimi who is ironically the deputy minority chief whip in the senate,asked her aide to slap the PASAN member, one source told Pulse.

The PASAN member was having none of it, so he slapped the senator in retaliation, instead of the aide who was ordered to slap him.

At this point, a melee ensued in the elevator with punches flying everywhere. A roughened Senator Olujimi, the story goes, thereafter threatened to bring the police into the equation.

Class wars

Its bad enough that a senator of the federal republic of Nigeria couldnt stand an ordinary Nigerian occupying the same elevator space with her. To now instruct an aide to dish out a slap on that same Nigerian, is simply beyond the pale.

Two wrongs do not make a right. The national assembly staff who slapped the senator should never have raised his hand against her as well.

In the final analysis, the entire episode underscores the disdain the political class or serving government officials have for the rest of the people they are supposed to be serving. This is just a sad commentary on the abominable class war that goes on in Nigeria daily and it is disgusting, to say the very least.

It is a shame on Senator Olujimi that she would allow herself to become so irate because someone is breathing the same air as her. Lawmakers in Nigeria love to be addressed as 'honorable'. Well, there's nothing honorable about a senator engaging in a rofo-rofo fight with another Nigerian over an elevator trip.Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia described Ekwueme as a brilliant scholar and astute professional.

Ikpeazu said that the commitment of the late former vice president to the unity of the country was unwavering.

We have come with heavy hearts to pay our last respects to our leader. We shall remember him for his doggedness and fight to unify `Ndi Igbo and the country.

These virtues that are righteous and sterling, we will copy, and the ones he did not do, we will accomplish, Ikpeazu said.

Also, Gov. Willie Obiano of Anambra described the late Ekwueme as a man who came before his time and ahead of his peers.

Obiano, represented by his Deputy, Chief Nkem Okeke, said that the deceased was a man of integrity and honour, who played politics of inclusion.

If we can take one attribute of his life, then the country will be better for it, Obiano said.

The Chairman of the South-East Governors Forum, Gov. Dave Umahi of Ebonyi, said that the late Ekwueme was a rallying point for Ndi Igbo.

Umahi described his death as a great loss, adding that his wisdom would be missed at this point in the history of the country.

Ekwueme is a man of great character who left many legacies. We pray that the peace of God reigns in his family.

Umahi said that the deceased was being sorely missed by management and students of Ebonyi State University, where, until his death, he was the Chancellor.

Gov. Rochas Okorocha of Imo, in his tribute, said that the deceased represented the character of a patriot.

Represented by Mr Eze Madumere, his Deputy, Okorocha said that the deceased sacrificed so much in politics and gained little.

He did all those so that Nigeria may work. He conquered in all endeavours that Nigeria might be united and respected in the comity of nations,.

Okorocha said that the former vice president lived a selfless life of emulation, adding that they were happy to have been associated with him.

Also, Gov. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State, in his tribute, described the late octogenarian as a man of immeasurable honour, humble and unassuming.

Ugwuanyi said that the legacies of the deceased would remain a beacon of hope to them.

NAN further reports that the late Ekwueme who was the first elected vice president of Nigeria between 1979 and 1983, died on Nov. 19 in a London hospital after a brief illness.

His remains were driven in a motorcade after the commendation service to Anambra for the continuation of the burial rites.

Prominent among dignitaries who attended the event were former Vice President Atiku Abubarkar, Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu and Gov. Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto, who represented former President Shehu Shagari.

Others were the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Dr Chris Ngige, and the Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu.

The roll-call included Chief Anyim Pius Anyim, a former Senate President and Secretary to the Government of Federation, and a former Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo.Here are the major talking points from that interview:

1. Fulani herdsmen

Bakare says the president has handled the herdsmen crises poorly.

With all the powers at the disposal of the federal government, to allow Nigerians to be killing each other this way is unfortunate,Bakare says.

"Some of this could be avoided. You are now preaching peaceful coexistence to farmers to fold their hands and watch the people who are coming to take their lands, he adds derisively.

2. Cattle colonies

One way the federal government proposes to deal with the herdmen/farmer clashes is to establish cattle colonies across the States in order to curtail open grazing.

Bakare says colony as a word is offensive and repugnant.

"Im hearing one minister say you need cattle colonies. For Gods sake, is that leper colony or what is it? The word colony used here is so unfortunate and absolutely insensitive", says Bakare.

3. The Buhari I dont know

Pastor Bakare who was Buharis running mate on the CPC platform during the 2011 presidential election, says the man is almost unrecognizable these days.

I once did a video called the Buhari I know. I hope I wont be pushed into doing a video called the Buhari I dont know.

So many things have happened that I couldnt figure out. You must know that I must have been pushed to the wall before I spoke during my state of the nation address,Bakare says.

4. Buhari receives Bakares recommendations but doesnt implement them

Bakare is a regular Aso Rock visitor and in this interview, he commends Buhari for always opening the villa doors to him.

However, the clergyman says he doubts if Buhari takes his adviceonce hes left the presidential villa.

I have gone with different recommendations, Bakare says. I do not know whether at implementation stage.to believe the theory of a cabal or theory of wicked around the throne of the righteous because he alone cannot deliver all these things. A tree doesnt make a forest.

5. Bakare doesnt think Buhari has shown leadership

In the Pastors words; the type of leader you are will determine the kind of people you attract to yourself.

Benue crisis and Buhari didnt go there as servant of the people. You are not a king, you are not a monarch. You are not pope, my friend! You are servant of your people!

6. Bakare says Buhari has failed Nigerians

According to Bakare: No matter how you look at it, this is not the government we all hoped for. This is not what we thought the government that promised change in the beginning will perform so woefully.

Any right thinking Nigerian will agree with that. They could have done better than what they have done so far. They themselves know that.

7. Nepotism

One of the charges levelled against President Buhari by Chief Obasanjo is that the Nigerian leader favours people from his region of the countrywhen it comes to appointments.

Having worked closely with Buhari, Bakare was asked if Buhari is nepotic.

"I had no reason at the time I ran with him to ever believe he was nepotic. There was no reason because he did say to me he will assemble the best and the brightest from the East, West, North and South of our country to fix the nation.

"But when I read what Obasanjo wrote, and I saw the list of key appointments made, one would begin to think whether they just put the things on his table to sign or is this just what he did deliberately? That is food for thought".

What do you make of Bakares assessment of the Buhari administration?The INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, said the same mechanism will be used in the Ekiti and Osun governorship elections in July and September 2018, respectively.

Yakubu disclosed this in Abuja on Tuesday, January 30, 2018, when he visited the Executive Vice-Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Danbatta.

Yakubu said, "We are planning for full deployment (of electronic and manual transmission) this year in governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun. Thereafter we intend to deploy the system in the 2019 general elections.

"INEC has developed the hardware and software. However, we rely on the operators for the transmission of both the figures and scanned images of result sheets. We wish to assure Nigerians that while we transmit the raw figures from polling units, scanned images of the result sheets will also be transmitted electronically in addition to physical copies given to party agents at polling units."

The INEC boss urged telecoms service providers to assist the Commission in ensuring the process is as smooth as possible.

ALSO READ: Lawmaker advises INEC to prepare for new challenges in 2019 elections

Yakubu also appealed to the NCC, as the regulator, to facilitate a meeting between INEC and the telecommunications operators to discuss modalities ahead of the elections.

The INEC boss added, "Similarly, we would like the NCC to facilitate discussions with operators on ways of enhancing their corporate social responsibility to Nigerias electoral process. An immediate area of interest to INEC is how the operators can help in voter education and publicity.

"Towards the 2019 general elections, we would like the operators in collaboration with INEC, to send bulk SMS and possibly voice messages as well on the imperative of peaceful elections, the collection of Permanent Voter Cards by registered voters and directional information on the location of polling units for easy access to voters."The lawyer and MP who swore Odinga in -- TJ Kajwang -- was arrested on Wednesday afternoon and was being investigated for his role in the ceremony, according to a senior police officer speaking on condition of anonymity.

After initially vowing to block the gathering, police kept their distance, but a furore broke out after the Communication Authority shut down three of the country's main private television channels who were covering the ceremony.

"What was witnessed at Uhuru Park was a well-choreographed attempt to subvert or overthrow the legally-constituted government of the Republic of Kenya," Interior Minister Fred Matiangi said in a statement.

"Some elements in the media fraternity participated in furtherance of this illegal act," he charged.

Matiangi said the authorities had information that "criminal elements operating under the banner" of the National Super Alliance (NASA) opposition coalition had planned to "shed blood" at the event and "blame it on the police".

That was why police had withdrawn from the venue, he said.

Matiangi said the outlets -- among them NTV, Citizen TV and KTN -- would remain shut until an investigation was finished.

The Media Council of Kenya said in a statement it was "shocked at the recent turn of events."

"A political contest has turned into the greatest threat and assault on freedom of expression and media in Kenyas recent history," it said.

The shutdown came after media organisations were summoned to State House last week for a meeting.

'Intimidation' of media

During the meeting, Kenyatta, his deputy William Ruto and other senior officials warned editors against live coverage of the ceremony and threatened to revoke their licenses if they failed to comply, according to Linus Kaikai, chairman of the Kenya Editors' Guild.

Rights groups on Wednesday criticised the gagging of the media.

"Kenyan authorities have restricted media coverage at a critical moment, and violated the public's right to information about important events," said Otsieno Namwaya, Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW).

HRW said the shutdown "underlines a trend since 2013, when Kenyatta took office for the first time" of intimidation, harassment and threats aimed at the media.

"Kenya is on a very slippery trajectory in regard to human rights, and president Kenyatta urgently needs to reverse this trend," Namwaya said.

'Anarchy and mayhem'

Matiangi said Odinga's swearing-in itself was also under investigation and that "appropriate legal action" would be taken.

Authorities had repeatedly warned that such an inauguration would be treasonous and that Odinga could face arrest.

However, as the wording of the oath was different to that in the constitution, the consequences of Odinga's act of political theatre remain unclear.

Three of Odinga's co-leaders of NASA failed to show up at the event, including Kalonzo Musyoka who was to be sworn in as his deputy, raising speculation of a rift in the opposition.

Kalonzo said they did not attend after their bodyguards were withdrawn.

Then, on Wednesday he said his home had been attacked in the early hours of the morning, with shots and a stun grenade fired at his house.

Police said they were investigating.

Odinga has refused to accept Kenyatta's victory, which came after last year's deeply-divisive election season in which rights activists say at least 92 people were killed.

First was an election on August 8 that was won by Kenyatta then annulled in a historic decision by the Supreme Court, which ordered a re-run on October 26.

Odinga boycotted the second vote and Kenyatta won with 98 percent.

Since boycotting the re-run poll, citing a lack of reform at the election commission, NASA's strategy has been to challenge Kenyatta's legitimacy by seeking to establish parallel government structures.

Matiangi on Tuesday denounced the opposition's National Resistance Movement wing, tasked with implementing a threatened programme of boycotts and civil disobedience, as an "organised criminal group".

"It is a group of individuals who are bent on causing anarchy and mayhem," he added on Wednesday.

"We will not accept subversion and criminal acts disguised as political activities. This will not be tolerated."According to a report by Premium Times, the launching of the movement is taking placing at the Yar'Adua Centre, Abuja, with the notable absence of Obasanjo himself.

According to Oyinlola, the group is not yet a political party as it only wants to create a platform for Nigerians to break away from the status quo.

He said, "We're not a political party, at least, for now. We recognise the facts that by the dictates of the Constitution, you can only contest on the platform of a political party."

He also denied that the group is an attempt to legitimise the legacy of Obasanjo, saying that the allegation is "a bit off the mark."

The former Osun governor reassured that the old guard in the coalition will serve in a laid-back role while young Nigerians are allowed free rein to advance it.

"What we are trying to do is like a guardian angel, it is you that must decide who is to do what and at what level. That is why we are having this meeting today and putting it back to you," he said.

This was also reinforced by Duke who insisted that the younger generation needs mentorship to improve the fortunes of the country.

He said, "What they are doing is seeking office not implementing a thought. But we also aware that a new generation is at the vanguard of taking over and why our own generation is stepping back as Governor Oyinlola said. The new vanguard will lead but we step back and perhaps guide and share our experiences which may serve as guide to the new generation.

"We hope this clarion call will resonate throughout the length and breadth of our nation and we hope everybody in this hall and those of you streaming live will be party to this movement."

What is Coalition for Nigeria?

In a statement issued by Obasanjo on January 23, 2018, titled, "The Way Out: A Clarion Call for Coalition for Nigeria Movement", he pointed out major failings of the Buhari administration and urged him to not consider reelection in 2019.

He also expressed his lost hope in the ability of the ruling All Progressives' Congress (APC) and the People's Democratic Party (PDP) in providing Nigeria with the initiative it needs to progress.

The former president's solution to being free of the dominance of both parties was what he called the Coalition for Nigeria movement.

According to him, the coalition will be a movement of all well-meaning Nigerians that will engage in democratic practices that will drive Nigeria forward and be a source of hope for all Nigerians for speedy, quality and equal development, security, unity, prosperity and progress.

He said, "Coalition for Nigeria must be a Movement to break new ground in building a united country, a socially cohesive and moderately prosperous society with equity, equality of opportunity, justice and a dynamic and progressive economy that is self-reliant and takes active part in global division of labour and international decision-making.

"The Movement must work out the path of development and the trajectory of development in speed, quality and equality in the short, medium, and long-term for Nigeria on the basis of sustainability, stability, predictability, credibility, security, cooperation and prosperity with diminishing inequality.

"What is called for is love, commitment and interest in our country, not in self, friends and kinship alone but particularly love, compassion and interest in the poor, underprivileged and downtrodden.

"It is our human duty and responsibility so to do. Failure to do this will amount to a sin against God and a crime against humanity."From religious leaders across the country to business owners (especially on the internet), to so-called social media influencers, and opposition leaders, the clamour for Nigerians to get their PVC is unprecedented.

At the root of this clamour is an ugly reality that has chipped away at the Nigerian consciousness for the past three years (or longer, depending on who you ask).

Many of the leading advocates for citizens to be more involved in the country's politics have relentlessly pointed fingers at the arguably disastrous tenure of President Muhammadu Buhari.

It is this gnawing exasperation with the status quo that has led to former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili's Red Card and former President Olusegun Obasanjo's deliberately vague Coalition for Nigeria which are desperate to 'change the change'.

When you strip the "Get your PVC" movement bare to the bones, it is undoubtedly a drive to kick out President Buhari from the top of the country's political chain and install a friendlier, more tender, and more effective leader to lead the country out of its perpetual state of mediocrity.

Despite what many, especially the ruling All Progressives' Congress (APC), might consider a mean-spirited campaign to kick the president and his party out of power after only four years, the clamour for Nigerians to be more involved in politics cannot be seen as anything other than well-intentioned, as a democracy should be.

However, this campaign still leaves a wide gulf for a familiar disaster to fill come 2019.

Deja vu

Argue about the circumstances and the little grey areas all you want, but the truth is Nigerians have been here before.

Heading into the 2015 general elections, there was almost the same level of feverish clamour for Nigerians of voting age to unleash the power of their PVC and bring sweeping change against the country's unrepentant political class.

It's only been three years since that supposed revolution happened, but many have already voiced their chronic struggle with buyer's remorse and want to trade in their terrible purchase for something shinier next year.

There's no doubt that Nigerians are not exactly thrilled with the calibre of candidates churned out by the APC or People's Democratic Party (PDP) anymore. The only problem is that these two remain the biggest in the country and no 'third force' has come close to mounting a serious challenge with just over a year to the 2019 general elections.

The painful truth is that with the structures these parties have put together over the years, they'll still control a majority of electoral victories in 2019.

With that in mind, if 2015 taught Nigerians anything, it is that merely choosing whoever is the opposite of 'incompetent' is not necessarily 'competent'.

It is widely acknowledged that President Buhari rode into Aso Rock on the back of the outrage a majority felt against the indolent administration of then-president, Goodluck Jonathan.

Despite the reservations that were expressed by many regarding his past, Buhari was voted in because he was the biggest candidate at the 2015 polls that wasn't Jonathan.

From all indications, this might be about to unfold again in 2019, and the "Get your PVC" movement proves it.

Again, despite the good-natured objective driving this campaign, it's merely a half-measure against a varied monster.

Voter education

Spitefully casting votes for "the opposite of X" is not a well-informed decision. Casting a vote for someone because they're from the same locality, or tribe, or share the same religion as you is not a well-informed decision. Casting a vote for someone because they're young and daring to topple the political class is not a well-informed decision. At least, not when these are the most important considerations that sway your votes.

There are decidedly too many factors that can represent a well-informed decision when it comes to casting a vote that it'd be impossible to start listing them all; but, the most important one has to be that you reach that decision through a meticulous, selfless method of examination.

Even if it turns out you made a terrible choice, it'll be hard to feel as much repulsion at yourself for making what you believed was the best decision at some point.

Don't make decisions based on what other people tell you, make them based on what you know for yourself to be closest to the truth.

That's if you deign to make any decision at all as the voter turnout for the 2015 general elections showed.

Out of the total of 67,422,005 voters registered, only 29,432,083 (43.65%) cast their votes in the presidential election.

That's 56.35% of Nigerians of voting age who might as well not have bothered to get their PVC because they failed to utilise it for its most basic function.

All votes matter

Most crucially, one conversation that's always found wanting in Nigerian politics, and is mostly missing in this "Get your PVC" movement, is how crucial grassroots politics is to revamping the country's entire political structure.

By and large, most of Nigeria's elections have always focused on the biggest prize which is the presidency.

This is borne out of the grand expectation that the country can be saved when an honest good-intentioned leader seizes the mantle of leadership and effects the sort of remarkable change Nigeria needs to make significant leaps in progress.

However, the reality is that before Nigeria can reach such dizzying heights of progress that the average Nigerian can only dream about, the country needs more than one honest good-intentioned leader in elective positions to make it happen.

Such positions are hiding in the guise of elections that determine who'll be state governors, state and federal lawmakers, Local Government Chairpersons, and Councillors.

Voting for these positions get less fanfare than for presidential elections, but they're just as pivotal to reconfiguring the country in a totally different light that turns the table in the favour of the majority.

Other than for governorship positions, a good portion of the electorate doesn't particularly know or care about their legislative representatives, or the kind of role they fulfil in the grand scheme of things.

This means that while Nigerians can make an absolutely perfect choice in who becomes president, a terrible choice in the other organs of government will definitely impact on whatever good intention such a president might have.

Merely putting great icing on a terrible cake is not going to prevent it from producing a terrible eating experience.The volunteers were made up of people "in good health, as well as those who are sick, such as those who are been treated by cardiologists".

The emissions are similar to those breathed in every day in a busy town or close to motorways, added Cassee, a researcher at the institute which often carries out assignments for the Dutch government as well as other public bodies.

"We've been doing it for years, and there is nothing extraordinary about it," he stressed, adding the situation was the same in "many countries".

According to the New York Times, US researchers in 2014 locked 10 monkeys into airtight chambers and made them breathe in diesel exhaust from a VW Beetle while the animals were watching TV cartoons.

Separately, it emerged that a research group funded by VW, Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler and BMW had ordered a study in Germany measuring the effects of inhaling nitrogen dioxide on 25 human volunteers.

Casse said the controversial German experiments had been "ordered by industry and private research organisations," whereas everything done by the RIVM "is public" with a focus on "what we are doing, how we do it and what will come out of it."

Volkswagen on Tuesday suspended its chief lobbyist Thomas Steg as outrage mounted over monkey and human experiments.

Dutch researcher Nicole Janssen told the Dutch daily NRC that between 2010 and 2015 a large research project into air pollution was carried out in which a group of volunteers was exposed to the fumes on two busy highways, one in central Rotterdam.

"I myself have carried out tests for the RIVM. Sometimes with mice, sometimes with rats, and yes occasionally with people," another toxicology professor, Paul Borm, told NOS, the Dutch public broadcaster.

Such tests are carried out under strict conditions and each experiment must be approved by a medical ethics committee, Cassee said, adding that in the case of animals the project must first be get a green light from an animal welfare charity.

In most cases, a combination of methods is used, with tests on animals, stem cells as well as human beings who remain "the most pertinent" for deciding how best to protect people.The Head, Information Technology, NCC, Mr Abraham Oshadami, told newsmen in Lagos at the presentation of the awards won by the commission for its strong online presence.

Oshadami said winning the award a second time indicated that the commission had to do more to increase its visibility online.

He said that it was fascinating to receive such an award and the commission would do all it could to improve on its service delivery in all aspects.

On behalf of the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC and the entire staff, we appreciate Phillips Consulting Web Jurist for the recognition.

We recognise that our website is the window to the rest of the world. The first contact many people will have in NCC is through the website.

So, we will try as much as possible to keep the websites in a way that it will be portraying the image of the NCC.

We are really working at ensuring that all animations, presentations are localised and easy for everybody to understand.

We want to make sure our website is very attractive and informative, Oshadami said.

The Senior Partner, Phillips Consulting Nig, Mr Oluwaseun Ngonnase, said that the firm had been assessing organisations websites in the last 16 years.

Ngonnase said that the Web Jurist rating and award was an initiative of Phillips Consulting aimed at measuring the effectiveness of websites in organisations.

He said that the assessment was to ensure continuous enhancement of electronic business activities and encourage better web communications practice.

Ngonnesa said for the 2017 awards, the consulting firm carried out a detailed evaluation of the websites of 210 organisations.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the 210 organisations include 20 commercial banks, 103 federal government parastatals, 29 state governments, 47 insurance companies, four telecommunication companies and seven indigenous airlines.

He said that winners were selected in categories that included aesthetics; technical aspects, website content, e-financial services, customer experience and performance.The French presidency said his visit, starting Wednesday afternoon, aims "to support the Tunisian democratic experience, the only successful transition experience after the Arab Spring" of 2011.

Macron is to address the People's Assembly on Thursday as well as meeting officials and civil society leaders and members of the public.

Macron has talked up ties between France and its former colony, hosting his Tunisian counterpart Beji Caid Essebsi in December and declaring that "the relationship with Tunisia is a priority".

But analysts say the Tunisian public is sceptical towards pledges of overseas aid.

"They are not expecting much from foreign officials' promises of support, which they only half believe," said Tunisian political scientist Selim Kharrat.

"In 2011, we were promised a Marshall Plan and exceptional aid, which never arrived."

More recent promises "were rarely followed by facts that were palpable on the ground", he added.

Macron is set to sign a series of economic, security, academic and cultural agreements during his talks with Essebsi and Prime Minister Youssef Chahed.

The French president told Tunisian daily La Presse he would use his visit to announce "an additional effort in at least three areas: the reduction of inequalities, social and territorial, the employability of young people... and increased investment" in sectors including renewable energy and new technologies.

He said Tunisia needed to push ahead with reforms in order to attract more foreign investment.

Economic woes

Successive governments have struggled to revitalise Tunisia's economy since 2011, especially after deadly jihadist attacks in 2015 dealt a major blow to the key tourism sector.

Tunis did secure a 2.4-billion-euro ($2.9-billion) IMF loan in return for a reduction in its budget deficit and other financial reforms.

But employment has remained stubbornly high, and an austerity budget and hikes in value added taxes sent demonstrators onto the streets in early January.

France has said it wants to help Tunisia tackle joblessness, which remains above 15 percent overall and over 30 percent among the young, despite a slight uptick in economic growth last year.

Paris has also called on French firms to "invest massively" in Tunisia.

Arabic-language newspaper Assabah said Tunis wanted to use the visit "to find a solution to Tunisia's debt to France", which stood at around 800 million euros at the end of 2016, according to official figures.

Assabah said 30 million euros of debt would be converted into investment projects, something France has not confirmed.

Macron is set to sign a deal on closer counter-terrorism cooperation and to visit the National Bardo Museum, the site of a deadly Islamic State group attack in 2015.Months later, during fierce fighting for the city of Fallujah west of Baghdad, his left calf was ripped open by a blast and Karrar lost the leg.

The Hashed sent him for treatment to both Iran and Lebanon, and he returned with a prosthesis from the knee down.

This gave him enough mobility to allow a return to the front.

In 2015, Karrar was fighting in Baiji city, north of the capital, when he was hit again.

This time two bullets shattered his right knee, putting him out of action once and for all.

Iraq declared victory over IS in December 2017, after a gruelling three-year onslaught that also wounded tens of thousands of fighters.

The Hashed says it lost 8,000 men in the war on IS, and 26,000 were wounded.

Iraq's government, which mobilised tens of thousands of members of the security forces for the campaign, has not given its own toll.

Karrar, a father of three small children, has been left incapacitated.

Unemployed and now unable to drive, he spends his days at home trying to figure out how to provide for his family on a monthly pension of 500,000 Iraqi dinars ($400).

This amount represents a bit less than a medium salary in Iraq, but for Karrar it is not enough to buy medicine for his injuries as well as food for his wife and three children.

He says the ointment he needs to rub on his skin to avoid chafing from the prosthesis "costs $800" and lasts for 10 months.

Karrar would like to work, "but with my legs I can't even drive a taxi" or carry anything heavy.

Abu Mehdi al-Mohandis, second-in-command in the Hashed, says hospitals run by the paramilitary unit provide free medical care for 60,000 fighters and 300,000 civilians.

Dhia Hussein runs Al-Razi hospital for the Hashed in Baghdad, where he says 1,450 amputees have received treatment over the past six months alone.

Iraq has a long history of bloody conflict, from the 1980-1988 war with its neighbour Iran to the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein and to the later struggle against IS.

Each conflict has resulted in a heavy toll of casualties, many of whom are amputees.

Tahssin Ibrahim has been making prosthetic limbs in Baghdad for more than 30 years.

He says the number of amputees has risen since the 2003 conflict, and the number of workshops specialising in prostheses and shops selling medical equipment has increased tenfold over the past 15 years.

Most of Ibrahim's clients are war wounded, and he says many are forced to borrow money to pay for their artificial limbs.

The most rudimentary prosthesis costs around $1,000 in Iraq -- more than twice the average monthly wage.

Ahmed, 32, was deployed with the federal police to second city Mosul, one of the jihadists' main hubs before they were driven out by a fierce offensive that lasted for months.

An IS mortar blast tore through his right leg, and Ahmed says his pension of 575,000 Iraqi dinars is simply inadequate.

Every month, half of this goes towards "paying for medical treatment", including doctor's visits and medicine, leaving him with just half to buy food for the family. That "is not enough".

A doctor's visit also means a taxi fare, he said.

"The bus is not adapted for handicapped people so I have to take a taxi," said the father of four.

One doctor who spoke to AFP, Ghassan al-Alussi, believes that the pensions allocated to war veterans are "insufficient".The populist-conservative FP began proceedings in December against Kenji Fujimori for having criticized his sister's position on President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.

Fujimori refused to support the president's impeachment, which was debated December 21. The FP has the biggest group in the legislature.

But votes by Kenji and eight other lawmakers stopped Kuczynski, who the FP accuses of lying about matters related to the Brazilian multinational Odebrecht, from being removed from office.

Kuczynski had pledged not to pardon Alberto Fujimori. But he did so just days after Kenji Fujimori's vote in his favor, sparking speculation the pardon was a political quid pro quo.

The 79-year-old elder Fujimori was until recently serving a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses. He was hospitalized late last year and treated for various ailments. He left hospital January 16.

Kuczynski -- who defeated Keiko for the presidency in 2016 -- said he had pardoned the ex-president for humanitarian reasons.

The pardon has drawn heavy criticism from victims of his 1990-2000 rule, as well as their relatives and human rights advocates.

But he also earned respect from many Peruvians for his ruthless and unflinching campaign to defeat leftist guerrillas during his presidency.

Relatives of victims of those killed under Fujimori's rule are appealing the pardon to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which sits in Costa Rica and will hear their case on February 2.

Odebrecht, which was investigated by the US Justice Department, agreed to pay a $3.5 billion fine after admitting to giving $788 million in bribes across 12 countries to secure contracts.The driver ignored warning signs as he entered the Nazca archaeological zone on January 27, the Ministry of Culture said in a statement.

The truck "left deep prints in an area approximately 100 meters long," damaging "parts of three straight lined geoglyphs," the statement read.

Security guards detained the driver and filed charges against him at the local police station, the statement added.

Entering the area is strictly prohibited due to the fragility of the soil around the lines, and access is only allowed wearing special foam-covered foot gear, according to Peruvian authorities.

The lines criss-cross the Peruvian desert over more than 500 square kilometers (200 square miles).

Created between 500 BC and AD 500 by the Nazca people, they have long intrigued archaeologists with the mystery of their size and their meticulously drawn figures.

Some of the drawings depict living creatures, others stylized plants or fantastical beings, others geometric figures that stretch for kilometers (miles).

This is not the first time the Nazca lines have been damaged in recent years.

In September 2015 a man was detained after he entered the site and wrote his name on one of the geoglyphs.

In December 2014, Greenpeace activists set up large letters beside one of the designs, known as the Hummingbird, that read: "Time for change! The future is renewable."At the same time, the report said, the sentence "This is not a drill" was mistakenly included in the recorded message which prompted the officer to issue a warning of an imminent ballistic missile attack.

Mobile phones across the Pacific islands received the emergency alert around 8:07 am and it was also transmitted by television and radio stations.

"In the minutes that followed, panic-stricken citizens called their families to say what they believed were their last words, and some even resorted to jumping into manholes to find shelter," FCC chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement accompanying the report.

The erroneous message came amid tensions with North Korea, which has claimed to have successfully tested ballistic missiles that could deliver atomic warheads to the United States.

It took the authorities 38 minutes to send out a message cancelling the false alert and the FCC report looked into why it took so long to do so.As a result of some information received recently regarding the case, the Vatican said in a statement Tuesday, the church will send to Chile the Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna, who has been called the Vaticans Eliot Ness in fighting clerical sex abuse. There, the statement continued, he will hear those who have expressed the desire to provide elements in their possession.

By elements in their possession, the Vatican apparently means the testimony and painful stories of victims the pope had previously dismissed as slanderous accusations.

The popes belief of a powerful bishop over victims outraged advocates for the survivors of sexual abuse both outside and inside the church. The outcry over the popes blind spot to clerical sexual abuse, and his tin ear to the anguish of its victims, threatened to indelibly stain the pontificate of a usually politically astute pope.

The popes supporters on Tuesday quickly embraced the decision as an important course correction.

It is a positive development in so far that it makes clear that the Holy See is interested to learn from and hear the testimonies of witnesses, said the Rev. Hans Zollner, who served as a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. It was clear Francis had listened to the questions that some journalists have put to him, Zollner added. He has learned from the reactions.

But victims in Chile said that while the news was welcome, they hoped it was not a public relations gambit.

Nobody has said anything to us, said Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean who says he was sexually abused by the Rev. Fernando Karadima. He has said that Barros witnessed the abuse and did nothing about it.

He said he would be willing to testify, as victims have been doing to church law tribunals since 2005, and added, We are encouraged.

Francis trip to Chile in mid-January was overshadowed by his brusque remarks to a Chilean reporter that the claims against Barros amounted to slander. The pope said he would weigh in on the matter if there were proof against the bishop.

Cardinal Sean OMalley, the archbishop of Boston and the leader of the popes commission on the protection of minors, called the popes remarks a source of great pain for survivors that relegated them to discredited exile.

In a clumsy attempt at damage control, the pope made a contradictory statement on the flight back to Rome. He apologized for demanding proof from alleged victims, saying the word was insensitive, but then reiterated that there was no evidence against the bishop, who he again said was the victim of slander.

Some victims of Karadima, a powerful priest convicted by the Vatican in 2011 for sexually abusing minors, have accused Barros of standing by as the priest kissed and abused them in the El Bosque Catholic parish.

On the plane, Francis said he had twice refused to accept the resignation of Barros, and in January 2015 he moved the bishop from leading Chiles military ordinariate to the diocese of Osorno. The installation fractured the faithful and clergy of the city, with many opposing a bishop they considered complicit in sexual abuse.

The popes response mystified observers and vexed his supporters. Possible explanations tumbled out. Was he getting bad advice from his cardinal advisers? Was he protecting a friend? Was he a member of a Vatican faction that believes in zero tolerance or one that considers the abuse issue finished business? Was the pope, someone who faced accusations of supporting a violent regime as a cardinal in Argentina, loath to give into public pressure?

Tuesdays statement suggested that public pressure had forced the pope to act and that far from infallible, Francis had perhaps spoken in Chile without knowing what he was talking about.

By contrast, Scicluna has in the last decade emerged as the Vatican prelate who most gets it when it comes to the issue of sexual abuse.

Scicluna, who declined to comment for this article, acted as a prosecutor during his time at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Pope Benedict XVI. He took on the powerful Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado of Mexico, the founder of the influential Legionaries of Christ, who was considered untouchable because of his close ties to and protection under Pope John Paul II.

For years, Vatican prelates dismissed the accusations of Degollados victims as slander, but Scicluna listened to them and, after John Pauls death, convinced the Vatican that Degollado had abused seminarians in his own order.

Benedict sentenced Degollado to a life of penance and prayer in 2006. Degollado died in 2008, and was later shown to have been a serial molester who fathered children by two women.

Scicluna subsequently explained that Benedict, previously John Pauls chief doctrinal watchdog, had undergone a conversion on the issue as he sat at his desk reading horrific dossier after horrific dossier.

Advocates for Francis hope that Scicluna will now figure in opening up the eyes of another pontiff.

It is good that he has now looked anew and taken this step, Marie Collins, an abuse survivor who last year resigned in frustration from the popes Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, wrote on Twitter.

Despite Francis early promises to rid the church of abuse, many Vatican watchers consider him far less effective than Benedict, who removed many priests. Francis has mostly disappointed those who hoped he would bring accountability to the church hierarchy.

Last year, he instead recalled a Vatican diplomat accused of possession of child pornography back to Rome, despite efforts by U.S. authorities to strip the priest of his immunity. Last month, the terms of the members of the Vatican commission on abuse expired. The pope has called the delay in restarting the commission normal.

Zollner, himself a member of that commission, said he had witnessed meetings between Francis and victims. In Chile, he said, the pope, like any leader, found himself in an ethical dilemma in which he wanted to believe victims but needed to be sure that their allegations were true.

And given the intense attention on the issue now, he said, Sciclunas mission to get to the bottom of it will be especially challenging.

He needs to get as much evidence as possible now, he said. One way or the other.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.City officials, former officer named in case.

A mediation hearing is scheduled for Friday in Albuquerque federal district court in a civil case against Tucumcari city and police officials filed by owners of the Payless Inn, which was destroyed in an arson fire in 2014 started by former Tucumcari police officer Dustin Lopez while he was still on the police force.

Last Thursday, the Tucumcari City Commission approved $25,000 allocation for the deductible portion of the settlement of this case, indicating a settlement might be near.

In the case, Maggie Ventures, L.L.C. of Nevada, the motels owner, alleged the city and police department officials improperly hired Lopez despite his known problems with alcoholism and other disorders.

Larry and Marla Phillips, the corporations owners, live in Las Vegas, Nevada, Nevada Secretary of States office records show.

Named as defendants in the federal case are the city by and through then-Mayor Robert Lumpkin, then-Police Chief Jason Braziel, Assistant Police Chief Pete Rivera, then-Police Sgt. Paul Bell, Police Sgt. Patricia Lopez and Police Sgt. Bryan Holmes.

The suit was originally filed in Tenth Judicial District Court on Aug. 31, 2016 but was moved to federal court on Oct. 14, 2016, due to federal constitutional issues at the request of the defendants, court documents show.

The lawsuits complaint of the plaintiffs states that Lopezs hiring in March 2009 violated the departments anti-nepotism rule, because his aunt, Sgt. Lopez, was also on the police force.

Further, the complaint cited several instances in which Dustin Lopez allegedly broke department rules and even the law without consequences before he was convicted of arson in the burning of the Payless Inn.

In a response to the complaint, the defendants denied all these allegations, court documents show.

Ron Childress of Albuquerque, attorney for the defendants, could not be reached Monday.

Richard Queener of Clovis, attorney for the plaintiffs, said he stands by the allegations of the complaint.

The incidents cited in the complaint started under former Police Chief Roger Hatcher. Then-City Manager Bobbye Rose, the lawsuit said, prohibited then Police Chief Roger Hatcher from issuing Lopez a written reprimand for insubordination.

Later, Officer Dennis Garcia, who is currently assistant County Sheriff, reported Lopez for disturbing the peace at a party while associating with known felons, but no disciplinary action was taken.

In summary, the suit said, Lopez had not been disciplined for violations of uniform policy, drinking alcoholic beverages on the job, insubordination, disorderly conduct, aiding and abetting a known felon to avoid arresting her for probation violations, and other conduct unbecoming a police officer.

In Lopezs hiring and failing to discipline him for infractions or crimes, the city and police acted beyond their legal power and authority, the complaint says, thus denying Maggie Ventures their U.S. Constitutional rights to due process and equal protection under the law.

In fact, the complaint says, there was an unwritten policy from the time Lopez was hired until his resignation, that he would not be disciplined.

Oct. 6, 2014, Lopez and Sandoval surrendered themselves to the Quay County Detention Center after state police searched his home and he resigned from the police force.

Lopez and Sandoval are serving probation sentences, according to the New Mexico Department of Corrections website. Tenth Judicial District Judge Albert Mitchell suspended 4-1/2-year prison sentences for both in September 2015 after they entered guilty pleas.February 1961

 Tucumcari Assistant Postmaster Albert Lawrence demonstrated the new stamp machine that was installed in the lobby of the post office. The machine made stamps available anytime the lobby was open.

 The Tucumcari Education Association honored Mary Wilms for 25 years of teaching and Mrs. Freddie Ratcliff for 20 years of teaching.

 Kenneth Humphries was named the new manager of the Tucumcari Safeway groceries stores.

 The Tucumcari Fire Department battled a blaze at the Addington Grain Company. Firefighters were unable to contain the blaze but the building was loss.

 Tom L. Lawson was recognized by the Tucumcari Rotary Club for 20 years of perfect attendance.

 The National Guard completed construction on its repair and storage garage located just east of the National Guard Armory.The Great Taos Bank Robbery is a gem of an essay by the late Tony Hillerman, who captured the essence of New Mexico in that and many other essays and novels.

Sadly, he could have had a field day writing about the bait-and-switch repeal in 2005 of the gross receipts tax on food that to this day is costing the people it was supposed to help millions of dollars. It was the equivalent of a government heist pulled off in broad daylight  and one that anybody paying attention knew was coming.

Hillermans bank robbery piece begins with a telephone call on the morning of Nov. 12, 1957, from the manager of the Taos Chamber of Commerce to the city editor of The New Mexican newspaper in Santa Fe to inform him that the Taos Bank was going to be robbed that morning  and promises to call him back with detailed eyewitness accounts.

Hillerman, acknowledged as one of the great American writers, tells the story without revealing that he was The New Mexican city editor from 1954 to 1963, but his character in the essay never doubts the report because  well  in this part of the world, anything is possible no matter how absurd on its face.

So as Hillerman recounts the story, Taos residents gather to watch a man dressed as a woman with a gun under his purse try to rob the bank. To find out how it ends, you need to read the collection of essays  which is still a big hit today.

Suffice it to say that the story in some ways parallels what has happened to New Mexicans after they got a break and the Legislature repealed the gross receipts tax on food and medicine.

That break has turned out to be a robbery on a far grander scale than anything the would-be Taos bank robber could have hoped to accomplish, taking hundreds of millions of dollars out of the pockets of New Mexicans.

As Albuquerque Journal editorial page editor DVal Westphal reported in her UpFront column, the Legislature repealed the tax on food and medicine but agreed to ease the pain of local governments by giving them hold harmless money  making up for 100 percent of the loss until 2016 and then tapering off through July 1, 2029. And, it allowed counties and municipalities to impose up to 3/8 percent GRT locally to make up for the money when the hold harmless provision phased out.

But it didnt require them to wait. So Bernalillo County, for example, missed out on $16.5 million in 2017 because the food tax had been repealed. But it is still getting hold harmless money ($8.064 million last year) along with $43.347 million in revenue from the additional taxes it has imposed to make up for losing the food tax revenue.

Bottom line: consumers in Bernalillo County got a tax break of $16.5 million in 2017 that only cost them $51.411 million.

Bernalillo County isnt alone. For example, the city of Las Cruces is collecting an extra $20.051 million a year to make up for $6.6 million in lost revenue.

Not all local governments have taken to double- and triple-dipping. For example, the city of Albuquerque has not imposed the additional tax increments, living with the hold harmless money from the state.

But for those who rushed to the trough  and many did, fearing the Legislature might at some point wake up and put out a robbery in progress call  they could have earned a place in the New Mexico lore of Tony Hillerman and the Great Taos Bank Robbery.

 Albuquerque JournalHere are two questions I wish Christian citizens would learn to ask their public servants and political candidates. Then, listen to the answers.

A new believer who has been reading the Bible for a month could give the right answers. Politicians either cannot or will not, and what they do say will be highly instructive with regard to what they intend to do to you.

The first is, What is the purpose of government?

The Bibles answer is that civil government is ordained by God to punish the bad guys and reward the good guys. (See Romans 13:1-7.) If you get an answer that involves proactive government initiatives aimed at doing the most good for the right people, be very afraid. And, hold onto your wallet.

Remember, government has no resources of its own. The only way it can give good things to one person is by first forcibly removing them from another person. This is a practice known as theft, and the fact that many people might vote in favor of it doesnt change the morality of the action.

The second question to ask your public servant is, Where do rights come from?

Currently in America, we have lots of noisy groups demanding this and that, and that they receive whatever it is for free, because its their right. Is it? Whos to know?

The signers of The Declaration of Independence affixed their names and thus pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to the idea that rights come from the Creator.

Politicians are terrified of that answer. They have no better one, however, and if they did, they wouldnt risk anything for it.

This is why the arguments about who has a right to what will continue, and will eventually come down to who has the power to enforce their own will. Historically, the scarier, more intimidating group always gets to say what rights it has. Funny how that works.

From a Scriptural standpoint, God gives certain rights to his creatures. We can see this primarily from his commandments. You have a right to life because God commands everyone not to kill you. (Exodus 20:13) You have a right to private property, and we know this because God outlaws stealing your stuff. (Exodus 20:15) No one has a right to lie to you, because God has told them not to bear false witness. (Exodus 20:16)

Recalling the first question, another way to state the purpose of government is to say that God has established it to protect the rights of its citizens. If our elected officials cant even tell us for sure what rights we have, in what universe would it be logical (or even reasonable) to trust them to protect those rights?

Gordan Runyan is the pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Tucumcari. Contact him at:

[email protected]Ive been trying to get a handle on whats going on with Trump and Russia, Hillary and Russia and all the dossiers, secret meetings and bipartisan obfuscation.

I did a little research and came up with this possible guide to the apparent components of what may be going on, maybe:

Trump-Russia

The key question: Did the Donald Trump campaign get illegal help from the Russian government in the process of electing Trump our president?

Robert Mueller is the special counsel in charge of the official investigation into that question. Hes not saying much while dodging the rocks thrown at him, but the probe keeps getting closer to the White House.

Hillarys emails

Yes, they are still with us.

The question now is whether Russian government agents illegally sent Wiki-Leaks all those Hillary Clinton emails sent from her own server instead of the State Departments when she was secretary of state.

Strzok-Page

A senior FBI agent named Peter Strzok and an FBI attorney named Lisa Page exchanged some texts that were sharply critical of President Trump. Strzok had worked the Hillary email case and was also working the Trump-Russia case. When the texts were discovered, Strzok was immediately pulled off Trump-Russia. The Republicans say this proves the FBIs Trump-Russia probe is hopelessly biased.

The Democrats say no. Strzok was pulled to keep it honest.

The Steele dossier

The Steele dossier is a series of memos authored by former British secret service agent Christopher Steele, who now freelances. He was hired by the Democrats to investigate Trump and Russia. Some say you couldnt grow a desert weed in the dirt he found. They say his findings were shaky and cant be corroborated. Others, however, say it presents excellent reasons to continue the Trump-Russia probe.

Fusion GPS

This intelligence-gathering firm worked for never-Trumpers on both sides of the aisle. First, Fusion GPS worked for a conservative publication called the Washington Free Beacon to gather dirt on Trump and other Republican candidates. After the 2016 Republican primary, however, Fusion was hired by the Clinton campaign to continue mining for Trump dirt. Fusion then hired Steele and  voila  the Steele dossier.

FBI secret society

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Tennessee, charged last week there was a secret society in the FBI that was out to get Trump, and they had meetings off-site.

What does that mean? For all we know, it could be that a couple of agents continued a discussion on Trump-Russia over lunch at a Schlotzskys a few blocks from Quantico.

Johnson himself has softened that charge, but not before right-wing radio ran with it and made it sound like a nefarious (of course), sweeping, high-level conspiracy.

The FISA memo

The FISA memo, authored by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-California, may expose allegedly illegal intelligence work that President Barack Obama authorized and prove that Trump-Russia began on shaky ground. Or not.

Its so secret it can only be seen by select Republican Congress members who all unsurprisingly say its ugly.

The Democrats, however, call it a smoke screen without knowing whats in it.

FISA is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, Through FISA, Congress sought to provide judicial and congressional oversight of foreign intelligence surveillance activities while maintaining the secrecy necessary to effectively monitor national security threats, a federal Office of Justice Programs website says.

Overall, I think there are two bottom line questions:

1. Does the Steele dossier properly constitute even partial grounds for the Trump-Russia investigation?

2. Did Trump or his campaign collude with the Russian government to get Trump elected?

The above examination may or may not be helpful. I tried. With our unconventional current president, however, we cannot shrug this off as politics as usual. It bears watching from all sides.

Steve Hansen writes about our life and times from his perspective of a retired Tucumcari journalist. Contact him at:

stevenmhansen

@plateautel.net20 Years Have Not Diminished The Pain

It is hard to believe 20 years have passed since the September 11 attacks on our country. For many, the wounds are still open, and...

Letters to the Editor

LICP Can Help To The LIC Community: We want to make sure that you are aware of assistance opportunities regarding damages caused by last nights...New BNSF bridge in place in Okla. Written by Mischa Wanek-Libman , Editor, Railway Track & Structures; and Engineering Editor, Railway Age









Oklahoma Department of Transportation (OKDOT) successfully moved two BNSF bridge spans into place the weekend of Jan. 26-28 in a complicated maneuver that was part of a highway expansion project.

OKDOT said the move was the first of its kind in state history, took two years to plan and required a 60-hour work window where all lanes of I-235 in Oklahoma City were shut down for the move.

On Saturday morning, OKDOT says self-propelled mobile transporters began inching the first of two 45-foot tall truss bridge spans weighing a total of 4 million pounds from their assembly site in the work zone to their final location about a quarter-mile, just south of N. 50th Street. The second span began moving mid-Sunday morning and was fully installed by early Sunday evening. Northbound I-235 re-opened to traffic Sunday night and southbound lanes opened early Monday in time for the morning commute, which was a full day ahead of schedule.

The amazing teamwork between the project designers, Allen Contracting and American Bridge and [OKDOT] workers to get all this in place over a weekend was truly a modern engineering marvel and something Oklahomans will long remember, said OKDOT Chief Engineer Casey Shell.

This marks the first time this type of bridge movement and installation has taken place in Oklahoma. Building the bridge truss structures near the highway and moving the fully assembled spans into place over the weekend greatly reduced the impact to traffic, requiring the interstate to be closed for a few days rather than several months if traditional bridge construction methods had been used.

The new bridge is one element of the nearly $88-million reconstruction and widening project on I-235 between N. 36th Street and I-44. There is still a year left in the more than two-year-long project on I-235.

In the coming weeks, BNSF crews will begin laying track to connect the existing railroad line to the new structure, allowing for later removal of the old railroad bridge by OKDOTs contractor.EUROPE: Tenders have now been called for the detailed technical design of sections of the Rail Baltica standard gauge railway project in all three Baltic States.Rantoul, IL (61866)

Today

Mainly sunny to start, then a few afternoon clouds. High 87F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy. Low around 70F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph.Moscow court dismisses appeal against sentence of Vneshprombanks ex-head

 RIA Novosti, Kirill Kallinikov

10:59 31/01/2018

MOSCOW, January 31 (RAPSI)  The Moscow City Court has refused to review an appeal filed by former president of Vneshprombank Larisa Markus sentenced to 8.5 years in a penal colony for embezzlement of 113.5 billion rubles (about $2 billion), the court documents read on Wednesday.

In December, the Ninth Commercial Court of Appeals included a 113.5- billion-ruble debt of ex- Markus in the list of creditors' claims on the banks request.

In October, the Moscow Commercial Court dismissed the claim lodged by Vneshprombank. The appeals court therefore overturned the ruling.

In May, Markus was sentenced to 9 years in prison for embezzling 113.5 billion rubles and later was declared bankrupt on the request of VTB24 bank. In August, her sentence was reduced by 6 months.

Investigators believe that Markus along with her brother Georgy Bedzhamov, who once co-owned Vneshprombank, created an organized crime group to siphon money from the bank. The group including former vice-president of the bank Yekaterina Glushakova allegedly granted loans to sub-companies and did not refund money to Vneshprombank. Allegedly, from May 2009 to December 2015, conspirators managed to embezzle about 114 billion rubles.

Glushakova has been sentenced to 4 years in prison. Bedzhamov has been put on the international wanted list. An arrest warrant has been issued for him in absentia.Russian courts convicted 13 persons of divulging state secrets in first half of 2017

 RIA Novosti, Alexey Filippov

11:59 31/01/2018

MOSCOW, January 31 (RAPSI)  Russian courts have convicted thirteen persons of divulging state secrets in the first half of 2017, a report prepared by the Judicial Department of the Supreme Court reads on Wednesday.

According to the report, over the same period one person was convicted of treason and another one was convicted of espionage.

In 2016, courts convicted 42 persons of these crimes, whereas in 2015 there were registered 28 similar verdicts.

Overall, in the first half of 2017 courts convicted 274 persons of crimes against the fundamentals of the Constitutional system and state security. There were registered no acquittals with respect to such criminal cases. At the same time, thirteen persons were convicted of public calls for changing Russias constitutional system, while 36 persons were convicted of the same crime committed with the use of media. One person was convicted of online calls to violate Russias territorial integrity.Russian mathematician charged with calls for terrorism released from house arrest

 RIA Novosti, Valery Melnikov

12:45 31/01/2018

MOSCOW, January 31 (RAPSI)  Former teacher of mathematics Dmitry Bogatov, charged with calls for terrorism and preparation of riots, has been released from the house arrest, attorney Sarkis Darbinyan told RAPSI on Wednesday.

According to the lawyer, the charges have not been lifted yet, and Bogatov is prohibited from leaving Russia.

Earlier, Darbinyan told RAPSI that a computer examination did not produce evidence that the defendant called for terrorism and extremism. Experts examined Bogatovs electronic devices and did not find any illegal materials there, they also did not find any evidence of his involvement in the crimes charged, the attorney said.

Bogatov is charged with public calls for carrying out terrorist activity with the use of the Internet and organization of mass riots. The Presnensky District Court of Moscow initially put the mathematician in detention. Later, the defendant was placed under house arrest on the request of investigators.

Investigators believe that on March 29, 2017, a person hiding identity behind a pseudonym published texts calling for radically extremist actions. Law enforcement agencies involved in the case say it was Bogatov, who published calls for mass riots using special computer programs.High Court in London says Russia's DIA may sell assets of ex-Russian senator Pugachev

 Yandex photo

13:30 31/01/2018

MOSCOW, January 31 (RAPSI)  The High Court of Justice in London ruled that trust assets owned by ex-Russian senator Sergey Pugachev may be sold by Russias Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA), according to the agencys statement published on Wednesday.

The ruling says that DIA is entitled to invest the proceeds for replenishment of the banks bankruptcy estate in the interests of its creditors. Besides, the court ruled to register DIAs claims as to two valuable properties in London.

The court also extended the validity of arrest warrant issued with regard to Pugachev for two next years.

Proceedings over trust assets have been initiated in Londons court by the Deposit Insurance Agency in the capacity of the bankruptcy supervisor of Mezhprombank formerly owned by Pugachev. DIA claimed that Pugachev used these trusts to conceal his property.

On April 30, 2015, the Moscow Commercial Court ruled in favor of the Deposit Insurance Agency (DIA) in a lawsuit filed to declare Pugachev and other Mezhprombank executives guilty of knowingly bankrupting the bank, primarily through the transfer of liquid assets. The court decided to debit 75.6 billion rubles ($1.3 billion) from former managers of the bank.

The Moscow Commercial Court in late October of 2017 granted DIA the right to forcibly collect 75.6 billion rubles from former Mezhprombank staff, including 68.5 billion rubles from Pugachev and Marina Illarionova, the last CEO of Mezhprombank, and 7.16 billion rubles from two former chief executives, Alexander Didenko and Alexey Zlobin.

In 2014, DIA filed a lawsuit with a UK court to collect the assets which Pugachev allegedly embezzled from Mezhprombank. In July 2014, Londons High Court granted an injunction to seize $2 billion worth of Pugachevs assets in various countries. Pugachev appealed the decision, but in December 2014 Londons High Court refused to release his assets.

In September 2015, Pugachev filed a lawsuit against Russia within Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague demanding $12 billion. The plaintiff said that the lawsuit is filed because of the alleged violations of obligations under bilateral investment contract with France by Russia. According to the ex-senator, from 2009, he has lost some of his assets without receiving compensation for them. Such assets include Middle Trading Rows" on the Red Square in Moscow as well as the Yenisei Industrial Company.

The Moscow Commercial Court declared Mezhprombank bankrupt in November 2010 after the bank defaulted and received a 40 billion rubles ($710 million at the current rate) bailout from Russias Central Bank. DIA was appointed as the liquidator of Mezhprombank assets.

Investigation into the bankruptcy was launched in January 2011 on suspicion of illegal operations in the process of filing for bankruptcy and premeditated bankruptcy.

Pugachev was charged with embezzlement and arrested in absentia. In November 2014, he was put on the international wanted list. In January 2015, Russia sent a request for extradition to the UK.Russian doctors ask Human Rights Council to intervene in notorious case against hematologist

 RIA Novosti

15:47 31/01/2018

MOSCOW, January 31 (RAPSI)  Over 600 doctors have asked the Russian Presidents Council for Human Rights to intervene in the notorious case of well-known hematologist Elena Misyurina, sentenced to two years in prison, the Councils official website reads on Wednesday.

In 2013, Misyrina conducted a diagnostic procedure, bone marrow trephine biopsy, for a patient, who died soon afterwards. The court found the doctor guilty of violating safety regulations that led to the patients death. Misyrina denied wrongdoing and her defense insists that the procedure was not related to the tragedy.

Misyrinas case caught public attention with many medical professionals expressing support for the defendant and saying that the procedure could not cause the patients death.Prosecutors seek to cancel prison sentence in controversial case of Russian hematologist

 RIA Novosti, Alexey Kudenko

17:34 31/01/2018

MOSCOW, January 31 (RAPSI)  Prosecutors had filed an appeal with the Moscow City Court seeking to overturn a two-year-long prison sentence of well-known hematologist Elena Misyurina, the press-service of the Prosecutor Generals Office stated on Wednesday.

Prosecutors ask the court to return the criminal case back to them because of numerous violations committed in the course of the investigation. According to the Offices statement, the conclusions of a lower court contradict the facts established during the hearings. Moreover, the medical expertise reports in the case contradict one another, whereas testimony provided by witnesses and experts has not been adequately assessed. The evidence in the case does not prove Misyurinas guilt beyond reasonable doubt, the statement reads.

In 2013, Misyrina conducted a diagnostic procedure, bone marrow trephine biopsy, for a patient, who died soon afterwards. The court found the doctor guilty of violating safety regulations that led to the patients death. Misyrina denied wrongdoing and her defense insists that the procedure was not related to the tragedy.

Misyrinas case caught public attention with many medical professionals expressing support for the defendant and saying that the procedure could not cause the patients death.

Earlier today, the Russian Presidents Council for Human Rights stated that over 600 doctors asked it to intervene in this case.Bills extending timeline for capital amnesty reach Russias State Duma

 Fotolia/ Irochka

14:59 31/01/2018

MOSCOW, January 31 (RAPSI)  A package of bills extending the timeline for capital amnesty in Russia has reached the State Duma, the website of the lower house of the Russian Parliament reads on Wednesday.

The bills are related to an initiative of Russian President Vladimir Putin suggesting this policy should be continued in 2018.

According to the documents, during the second phase of the amnesty, set from January 1, 2018, till February 28, 2019, the applicants would be able to declare their bank accounts and deposits with foreign banks by January 1, 2018. They would also be able to declare their accounts and deposits opened before that date, but closed before filing the application. The latter may be filed with any tax office or the Central Department of the Federal Tax Service.

The authors of the bill propose to extend the timeline for the liquidation of foreign companies until March 1, 2019.Bill criminalizing threats to destroy property reaches Russias State Duma

 RAPSI

16:55 31/01/2018

MOSCOW, January 31 (RAPSI)  Deputies representing A Just Russia political party in the lower chamber of the Russian Parliament have introduced a bill criminalizing threats to destroy property, the database of the State Duma reads on Wednesday.

The authors of the bill propose to add the respective article to the Russian Criminal Code, where the crime is to be defined as a threat to destroy property owned by other persons by arson, demolition, or by any other act injurious to the public in case there are grounds to apprehend the threat may be delivered on.

According to the document, the punishment for the crime is proposed to be a fine in the amount of up to 100,000 rubles ($ 1,770 at the current rate), compulsory community service for up to 240 hours, or remedial work for up to one year, or penal custody for up to six months.

The bill is aimed to mitigate social tensions caused by the activities of debt collectors using such threats to force debtors to repay the loans they have taken.

As the statistics presented in the bill show, at present the number of people with outstanding debts in Russia makes about 39 million, whereas the amount of such loans is registered at 10.1 trillion rubles.Property details:

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Nearby FLORIDANow you can check your Aadhaar authentication history online to track if anyone has misused your unique identity.

Tinesh Bhasin reports.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com

To improve the security of Aadhaar, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) recently started offering a service that lets a user check the history of Aadhaar authentication.

The account holder can check if any anyone tried to authenticate his Aadhaar using biometric, one-time password (OTP) or demographic details.

The service lets you keep a track of authorised and unauthorised verifications on your account.

"Think of this service like debit and credit entries on your bank passbook that helps to keep a tab on the money in your bank. If you see an unauthorised authentication on your Aadhaar account, you can raise a red flag," says Prashant Mali, an advocate and international cyber law and cybersecurity expert.

Take the example of the recent misuse of Aadhaar by a payments bank, which is a subsidiary of a telecom company.

When customers linked their Aadhaar with their mobile number, allegedly retailers also used the details to open payments bank accounts without 'informed consent' of the telecom customers.

While the service helps users to know the history of authentication, it's not user-friendly.

The service doesn't mention who tried to authenticate records.

Instead of the name, it gives a code of the institution/service provider that tried to authenticate your account.

To access the record, you need to go to the 'Aadhaar Authentication History' under 'Aadhaar Services' section on the UIDAI Web site.

You can check either biometric, OTP or demographic authentications individually or select 'All' to see them on one page.

The service allows you to check up to 50 transactions over the last six months.

In the record, you can see the date and time of transactions and also whether they were authorised or not.

Also, there are no details of the institution that attempted to verify the details. Instead of the name, it gives an alphanumeric 'response code'.

So, how do you know if the authorised transactions were initiated with your consent?

One way is to go to your inbox and check if there were corresponding emails from UIDAI for Aadhaar authentication if your email is registered with them.

You can use the 'response code' from the history to match it with the one mentioned in the email from UIDAI.

While the OTP and biometric authentications are limited and easy to check, some users may see a lot of failed entries for demographic authentication.

"Don't be alarmed with the number of failed entries. It is possible that if someone has linked Aadhaar with bank or wallet, their servers can try to authenticate you for KYC (know your customer)," says Mali.

An individual should be concerned only with authentications that 'passed'.

If there are successful transactions that you don't recognise, contact UIDAI by calling 1947 or by forwarding the details to help@uidai.gov.in.

"When it comes to Aadhaar, there are limited grievance redressal mechanisms. You can only do it by phone or by sending an email to UIDAI. There's no other way or next level authority in case your grievance is unresolved," said Gopal Krishna, convener, Citizens Forum for Civil Liberties, which campaigns against surveillance technologies.

To prevent misuse of Aadhaar, the best way is to lock your biometrics.

While an individual can do it online on the UIDAI Web site, it's much easier to do it on the Aadhaar app.

You can unlock biometric verification whenever you need to.Trump said that his proposal should be supported by both parties (Republican and Democratic) as a fair compromise -- one where nobody gets everything they want, but where the country gets the critical reforms it needs.

Image: US President Donald J Trump with Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker of the House US Representative Paul Ryan at his maiden State of the Union address. Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters.

American President Donald Trump on Tuesday urged the US Congress to pass a legislation that promotes merit-based immigration, a move that would benefit hundreds of thousands of Indian professionals.

He proposed a pathway to citizenship for almost 1.8 million illegal immigrants who were brought in the US by their parents at a young age.

"It is time to begin moving towards a merit-based immigration system -- one that admits people who are skilled, who want to work, who will contribute to our society, and who will love and respect our country," Trump said in his first State of the Union address.

The State of the Union address is a traditional annual speech of the US president to a joint session of the Congress where he gives an account of the situation in the country.

Trump proposed four pillars of his immigration reform.

This includes building a wall, and ending chain migration and diversity visa.

Trump said that his proposal should be supported by both parties (Republican and Democratic) as a fair compromise -- one where nobody gets everything they want, but where the country gets the critical reforms it needs.

"The first pillar of our framework generously offers a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants who were brought here by their parents at a young age  that covers almost three times more people than the previous administration.

"Under our plan, those who meet education and work requirements, and show good moral character, will be able to become full citizens of the United States," Trump said.

The second pillar fully secures the border, that means building a wall on the southern border, and it means hiring more people to keep the communities safe.

"Crucially, our plan closes the terrible loopholes exploited by criminals and terrorists to enter our country -- and it finally ends the dangerous practice of 'catch and release'," Trump said.

Trump said the third pillar ends the visa lottery -- a programme that randomly hands out green cards without any regard for skill, merit, or the safety of Americans.

The fourth and final pillar protects the nuclear family by ending chain migration, he said, ruing that under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives.

"Under our plan, we focus on the immediate family by limiting sponsorships to spouses and minor children. This vital reform is necessary, not just for our economy, but for our security, and our future," he said.

Trump said in recent weeks, two terrorist attacks in New York were made possible by the visa lottery and chain migration.

In the age of terrorism, these programmes present risks we can no longer afford, he said.

"It is time to reform these outdated immigration rules, and finally bring our immigration system into the 21st century," Trump said.

"These four pillars represent a down-the-middle compromise, and one that will create a safe, modern, and lawful immigration system. For over 30 years, Washington has tried and failed to solve this problem. This Congress can be the one that finally makes it happen.

"Most importantly, these four pillars will produce legislation that fulfils my ironclad pledge to only sign a bill that puts America first. So let us come together, set politics aside, and finally get the job done," Trump urged the lawmakers.

Also, in a stern warning to countries like China, President Donald Trump today said the era of America's "economic surrender" is over and the US is seeking to enter into new trade agreements with nations that commit to fair and reciprocal trade.

In his first State of the Union address, Trump said his administration will work to fix bad trade deals and negotiate new ones to protect American workers.

"We will protect American workers and American intellectual property, through strong enforcement of our trade rules, he said.

"The era of economic surrender is over. From now on, we expect trading relationships to be fair and to be reciprocal. We will work to fix bad trade deals and negotiate new ones, Trump said.

Trump had earlier criticised the one-sided and unfair trade relationship between the US and China and asserted that America must address the unfair trade practices that drive the trade deficit.

Trump said his economic policies were resulting in new confidence in the country.

"Since the election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs, including 200,000 new jobs in manufacturing alone. After years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages, he said.

"Unemployment claims have hit a 45-year low. African-American unemployment stands at the lowest rate ever recorded, and Hispanic American unemployment has also reached the lowest levels in history," he said.

"Small business confidence is at an all-time high. The stock market has smashed one record after another, gaining USD 8 trillion in value. That is great news for Americans' 401k, retirement, pension, and college savings accounts, he said.

Referring to his tax cuts and reforms, Trump said the massive tax cuts provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small businesses.

"To lower tax rates for hardworking Americans, we nearly doubled the standard deduction for everyone. Now, the first USD 24,000 earned by a married couple is completely tax-free. We also doubled the child tax credit. A typical family of four making USD 75,000 will see their tax bill reduced by USD 2,000 -- slashing their tax bill in half, he said.

Trump said he slashed the business tax rate from 35 per cent all the way down to 21 per cent, so American companies can compete and win against anyone in the world. These changes alone are estimated to increase average family income by more than USD 4,000.

Small businesses have also received a massive tax cut, and can now deduct 20 per cent of their business income, he said.

Since we passed tax cuts, roughly 3 million workers have already gotten tax cut bonuses -- many of them thousands of dollars per worker. Apple has just announced it plans to invest a total of $350 billion in America, and hire another 20,000 workers, said the president as he described this as a "new American moment".

"There has never been a better time to start living the American Dream, he said.

Trump said in his drive to make Washington accountable, his administration has eliminated more regulations in the first year than any administration in history.

We have ended the war on American Energy -- and we have ended the war on clean coal. We are now an exporter of energy to the world, he said.

He said many car companies are now building and expanding plants in the United States -- something not seen for decades.

Chrysler is moving a major plant from Mexico to Michigan; Toyota and Mazda are opening up a plant in Alabama.

"Soon, plants will be opening up all over the country. This is all news Americans are unaccustomed to hearing -- for many years, companies and jobs were only leaving us. But now they are coming back, he said.'Vijay Gokhale's appointment as foreign secretary can be regarded as a certain 'adjustment' that could make a difference to the poor climate of India-China relations,' says Ambassdor M K Bhadrakumar.



IMAGE: Vijay Gokhale, the outgoing Indian ambassador to China, pays a farewell call on Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, October 21, 2017. Photograph: Kind courtesy Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China

The Indian media failed to take note that the Chinese foreign ministry Web site featured a rare account of the meeting between Foreign Minister Wang Yi and an 'outgoing' foreign envoy in Beijing last October.

The envoy happened to be the then Indian ambassador Vijay Gokhale who was being reassigned, and leaving China.

It is customary for departing envoys to pay farewell calls on the foreign minister of the host country before taking the voyage home. But it is unusual that Beijing selectively highlighted the meeting.

This was more so, since the meeting between Wang and Gokhale took place barely weeks after the denouement to the Doklam faceoff that had apparently brought the two countries to the brink of war.

The Chinese foreign ministry account flagged Beijing's high appreciation of Gokhale's assignment in China. Both Wang and Gokhale were 'forward-looking' in their remarks, stressing in particular the 'consensus reached by the leaders of two countries as guidance.'

Wang once again stressed the importance of strengthening 'mutual strategic trust'.

In sum, the exchange between China's top diplomat and the departing Indian envoy was anything but routine.



IMAGE: Vijay Gokhale presents a copy of his credentials as India's ambassador to China to China's director general of protocol. Photograph: Kind courtesy: MEA

Two months later, when the announcement came in the first week of January that Gokhale would be India's next foreign secretary, the Global Times newspaper devoted a full commentary to analyse the importance of the news.

The commentary was authored by a noted Chinese strategic analyst of Indian foreign policies and economy, Liu Zongyi.

Liu cast Gokhale as a 'hardliner' on China. Actually, no surprises here, because foreign service officers do fight like lions to defend India's national interests even if the style may vary from person to person.

However, what gave food for thought was the assessment by Liu that Gokhale's appointment 'demonstrates that his diplomatic skills appeal to Modi.'

'It also indicates that India will continue its hardline stance toward China, except slight adjustments in keeping with the international situation.'

That was a startling assessment, because it was predicated entirely on the notion that India's prime minister is the 'final arbiter of diplomatic policy' on Raisina Hill while three agencies cook up the policy options for him -- the prime minister's office, the national security advisor and the ministry of external affairs.

Of course, that is a simplistic notion of a complex situation that often borders on the absurd.

If things were that simple and straightforward, Manmohan Singh would have fulfilled his agenda to find an enduring solution to the Kashmir dispute latest by 2010; the Siachen region in those tangled mountains would have been 'demilitarised' long ago; and Delhi wouldn't have messed up its Nepal policies so badly.

In reality, foreign policymaking has become incredibly complex as India continued to grow and become more demanding. Interest groups have spawned and foreign policy ceased to be a esoteric subject best left to Nehru and Secretary-General N R Pillai ICS.

It is difficult to quarrel with an article in the National Herald newspaper last week that the Washington establishment finds it more convenient and productive to leverage its contacts in the RSS to get their job done in Delhi in recent years rather than waste time negotiating with the mandarins in the foreign policy establishment.

However, there is really no contradiction between Wang's appreciation on the one hand of Gokhale's contribution in promoting India-China relations during a particularly difficult period and Liu's assessment on the other hand that India's hardline China policies will remain on track without any significant shift under the new Indian foreign secretary, apart from some 'slight adjustment in keeping with the international situation'.



IMAGE: Vijay Gokhale with Xia Baolong, then Communist party secretary, Zhejiang. Photograph: Kind courtesy The Indian Consulate, Shanghai

But the point is, even 'slight adjustment' in diplomacy can make a world of difference. For a start, an ambassadorship in Beijing alone doesn't make a diplomat a China expert. A diplomat needs more than a single tenure to begin to understand countries as complex as China (or Russia).

And all accounts uniformly praise Gokhale as an authentic 'China hand'. Hopefully, therefore, there won't be such appalling blunders like the hoisting of the flag of 'independent Tibet' on China's border with India or consorting with the Taiwanese lobby. This is one thing.

Secondly, the only good thing while surveying the wasteland of India-China relations today, it is that the past three years' diplomatic track pursued by the government took India to ground zero.



IMAGE: Vijay Gokhale, then India's ambassador to China, with Han Zheng, then Communist party secretary, Shanghai, now a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, China's highest decision-making body. Photograph: Kind Courtesy: The Indian Consulate, Shanghai

Now that the 'hardline' proved futile (and even counterproductive), a different approach is needed.

In the meanwhile, the international situation has also phenomenally changed, necessitating 'adjustment' in our policies.

Arguably, Gokhale's appointment as foreign secretary itself can be regarded as a certain 'adjustment' that could make a difference to the poor climate of India-China relations.For successive governments the Election Commission remains a holy cow, where unhealthy precedents are allowed to be nurtured since Independence, says N Sathiya Moorthy.

Image: President Ram Nath Kovind with Chief Election Commissioner OP Rawat during the 8th National Voters Day celebrations in New Delhi on January 25, 2018. Photograph: PTI Photo.

The appointment of Om Prakash Rawat as the chief election commissioner and another veteran civil servant, Ashok Lavasa, as election commissioner, has once again kick-started a muted discourse and animated accusations about the very process behind such appointments.

Stung by the disqualification of 20 of its MLAs, the Aam Aadmi Party has also turned the gun on the Election Commission.

As if this was not enough, Prime Minister Narendra Modi added a new dimension to all talks on electoral reforms by reviving an old suggestion for simultaneous polls to Parliament and state assemblies, on the pleas of cost-cutting, time wastages and policy distractions.

He has since followed it up, asking his Bharatiya Janata Party chief ministers and others to kick-start a national debate on the subject. President Ram Nath Kovind too flagged the point in his maiden address to Parliament, since.

Coming as it does from the incumbent government at the Centre, PM Modis suggestion needs to be debated on merit, and debated for merit, as there are minor aspects of electoral reforms that hit at the root of ECs accountability and, more so, credibility. It relates to the very appointment of election commissioners and the chief election commissioner.

Truth be told, no party or leader wants to question the EC or the appointment or impartiality of commissioners in a nation where periodic elections in some state or the other has become the order of the day. The last time the EC and the government had a quarrel, Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao went on to expand the commission to make it a three-member affair from the existing one-member scheme since the nation became a Republic. Offended incumbent EC, T N Seshan, went to court, challenging this change, but even he did not contest the mode and norms of appointments per se, lest his appointment too would have been questioned, ab initio.

At a time when governments and prime ministers, especially incumbent Modi and immediate predecessor Manmohan Singh, were talking tall on administrative reforms and also the possibilities of professionalising sector-wise administration of government departments and public corporations through the induction and/or elevation of domain experts and in-house technocrats, for successive governments the Election Commission alone remains a holy cow, where unhealthy precedents since Independence are allowed to be nurtured.

While the Election Commission is a constitutional body, with a permanent staffing pattern internally at higher levels, and massive part-time induction/diversion of public servants at all levels for election-time duties, starting with door-to-door enrolment of voters to the actual conduct of balloting, most Election Commissioners and Chief Election Commissioners have come invariably from the civil service. Of the 22 CECs (or one-man ECs before them) including incumbent Rawat, only three -- S P Sen Verma, R V S Peri Sastri and V S Remadevi  were/are not civil servants.

None of them have had much experience in Election Commission work, other than while serving as district magistrates/district collectors, or as the home secretary, among others, in their parent state. Invariably, accusations of political appointments have flown thick and fast almost on every occasion. Neither the Janata Parivar (1977-80), nor the National Front (1989-90/91), or the later day United Front (1996-98), all of which swore to reform the nations administration, including electoral administration, did anything different from the corrupt and corrupting influence of the Congress.

Two BJP prime ministers, Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1998-2004) and now Narendra Modi were happy talking reforms until coming to power, but have not followed up on their promises afterward -- when alone it matters.

The Election Commission is not the only institution that is crying for reforms at the very induction stage of the Election Commissioners and the elevation of one among them (thus far) as CEC. The Comptroller and Auditor-General is another constitutional office, which has a huge network of officials auditing the accounts of every paisa spent from the Consolidated Fund of India and the rest, and yet incumbents are all ad-hoc appointees, giving room for flexibility and possible partiality in the choice, accompanied by avoidable controversies. At least since the Bofors scam and HWD submarine deal expose by T N Chaturvedi, the CAG has been in the news more than ever. At present, the 2G scam has continued to keep the media and national focus on then CAG, Vinod Rai.

Thankfully, barring ex-telecom minister A Raja, no one has pointed an accusing finger at Rai. But Chaturvedis political colours got exposed when the Opposition BJP made him a Rajya Sabha member on retirement and the Vajpayee government elevated him further as the governor of Opposition-ruled Karnataka. Post-retirement, M S Gill went on to become a minister of state in UPA-I and II regimes of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Navin Chawla, another UPA appointee, first as EC and later CEC, set off a controversy even when he was in office.

While Seshan made the nation and the world sit up and take note of his reforming the election processes across the country, his quarrels with then Prime Minister Rao were equally well-known, though thankfully less remembered and even less frequently recalled in comparison to the good work he had done/initiated. He blotted his copy-book even more by first contesting the presidential polls, and later against the BJPs L K Advani from Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency in Gujarat -- and on a Congress party ticket.

The democratic dictum, Caesars wife should be above suspicion, does not seem to apply to political parties, leaders and governments at the Centre. Coming at a time when the government is tied down in a never-ending battle with the judiciary over the appointment of judges, questions about the need for reformation in one unaffected area of democratic governance while the executive wants to bring others under its control, smacks of controversy and worse.

When state governments are being blamed for over-politicising their State Election Commissions, created under the Constitution 74th and 75th Amendments pertaining to panchayati raj, the Centre alone does not seem to want to either create an independent mechanism, or accommodate the existing EC structure in the choice of election commissioners and chief election commissioners.

A concept has thus allowed to germinate and fester that all that is done by the Union is right and correct, and whatever initiatives taken by state governments (especially those run by Opposition parties to the one in power at the Centre) cannot be anything but wrong, improper and inadequate. Such an approach, which is coming to pervade other areas of governmental policy-making, including education and healthcare, for instance, intelligence-sharing and terrorism investigation, all have a tendency to weaken the nations democratic structure, and thus the much-maligned unity in diversity of the Indian nation and State, which has remained the bedrock of our national and nation-State experiment and experience.

It is another interesting aspect of Indian democracy that whenever a single political leader is seen to stand taller than all the rest put together, his party starts talking about a presidential form of government through direct elections. The Emergency era options that the ruling Congress explored for Indira Gandhis permanency in power are too well known for repetition.

When Vajpayee was in power, the BJP was talking about the presidential form of governance. Now, PM Modi, possibly seeking to cover up for the inadequacies of his regional satraps and their ability to deliver at Election 2019, even when the political Opposition continues to be weak and divided, is talking about simultaneous polls, which means the BJP-NDA could continue to count on his personal popularity to win assembly polls, without having to fight another poll battle of the nerve-racking Gujarat kind in every other state, whether his BJP is in power there or not.

Likewise, it is yet another irony of Indian democracy that political parties that blame the rulers of the day for misusing and abusing constitutional offices such as the judiciary and the Election Commission, the CAG and now the CVC, have done precious little to de-politicise the appointments, elevations and transfers. Individual MPs who take time off to present private members bill on a host other issues and concerns, knowing full well that they would not pass muster, have never ever attempted one on reforming the EC in particular -- even if it pertained only to future appointments of ECs and the CEC.

N Sathiya Moorthy, veteran journalist and political analyst, is director, Observer Research Foundation, Chennai chapter.'Many of the biggest events at such lit fests have nothing to do with books or authors, but about current events and the changing nature of society,' points out Aakar Patel.



IMAGE: A performer at the Jaipur Lit Fest. Photograph: Chandra Mohan Aloria

I am writing this from Kolkata, where I am speaking at the literature festival.

In the last 10 years, many such events have sprung up across India and we have more lit fests (as they are called) than any other country.

I find this remarkable because as a culture generally we may be drawn to writing and literature but the writer has not much influence on Indian society.

There is no chance that someone like Vaclav Havel, a writer who became the first president of the Czech Republic, could emerge in India.

Writers, like teachers, are respected, but not emulated in our parts.

So why do we have so many literature festivals, to each of which tens of thousands of people, many of them young, throng?

My observation is that such a gathering offers the space to discuss things that cannot be discussed elsewhere, especially in public.

This is one reason why many of the biggest events at such lit fests have nothing to do with books or authors, but about current events and the changing nature of society.

One panel I was in this week was about fake news.

This phenomenon can be described in two different ways. One is the way the US President Donald J Trump understands it. His reference is to mainstream media, like the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN.

The rest of the world, especially global journalists, might find these newspapers and channels admirable and authoritative, but for Trump what they produce is 'fake news' because they often report material critical of him.

The other way of describing fake news is material that is mischievously introduced, mainly through social media, though it is patently false and made up.

An example of this is a photograph showing a violent event in one part of the world and representing it as being from another part.

Or it could be a set of 'facts' that purport to explain a situation or profile an individual, but these are not facts at all and are totally made up.

All of us receive such material as WhatsApp forwards and so on and I don't want to delve into this further.

The panel I was on also included a man called Pratik Sinha, from Ahmedabad.

Sinha runs a Web site called altnews.in, where he looks at such material being spread maliciously and either authenticates it or shows that it is false.

It does very good work, particularly in exposing fake news that is meant to polarise Indians through unconfirmed and wild reports.

One such fake news report about child kidnappers in Jharkhand led to the lynching of seven people in May last year.

Sinha offered some interesting numbers, such as the fact that data consumption in India had gone up more than five times in only a couple of years.

This showed that many people had moved to smart phones and so such WhatsApp forwards were becoming even more widespread with time.

As media becomes more and more fragmented, meaning as more independent and small organisations and individuals become publishers, it is vital that Indians also have access to more such authentication sources.

However I wonder if our larger problem is not so much fake news, but our lack of interest in real news.

For example, we spend 10 times as much on defence as we do on health (about Rs 4 lakh crore versus about Rs 40,000 crore). This is not a recent development: We have always spent far too much on buying new tanks and planes and ships than we have on hospitals, doctors and medicines. All governments have done this and no party opposes it.

This year, 2018, will mark 60 years since the armed forces have been deployed on internal security duties in the North East.

Should we not ask why Indian citizens are being subjected to military rule for so long?

And let us not mince words, any population that is forced to live under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act is under military rule.

But again, this is not seen as something that interests either political parties or Indians who are not from the North East.

A third example, this one more recent. We have a ruling party that claims it stands for nationalism, but is practising political apartheid.

In states that the Bharatiya Janata Party is ruling, the number of its Muslim MLAs is: In Gujarat: 0. In Uttar Pradesh: 0. In Maharashtra: 0. In Madhya Pradesh: 0. In Chhattisgarh: 0. In Jharkhand: 0.

Elsewhere, it has done the same tokenism that it accuses other parties of.

This division of Indians by religion is happening in front of us, but it is ignored and not discussed.

It is not news. Why? It happens because the voices of dissent are not heard, and are raised only at gatherings like lit fests.

For Trump and the West, the problem of fake news is not as important, meaning as consequential, as it is for us.

Fake news can get you killed in India. However we should accept that even in the total absence of fake news our problems would remain.

Aakar Patel is Executive Director, Amnesty International India. The views expressed here are his own.Donald Trump delivered his maiden State Of The Union address, an annual message presented by the United States President to a joint session of the congress.

Trumps State of the Union address was originally slated to last an hour, but the president went substantially longer. The longest SOTU address was Bill Clintons 2000 speech, which lasted 1 hour, 28 minutes, 49 seconds.

Here are the highlights of the speech:

Image: US President Donald Trump delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of the US Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters

>> Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve

>> Over the last year, the world has seen that no people on earth are as daring and fearless as Americans. Lets begin tonight by recognising that the State of Union is strong because our people are strong

>> Together we are building a safe and strong America. Since the election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs

>> A proud moment -- Unemployment has hit a 45-year low. African-American unemployment, hit the lowest levels ever recorded

>> Retirement pension and college saving accounts have gone through the roof. We have enacted the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history

>> We nearly doubled the standard deduction for everyone. We also doubled the child tax credit

>> We eliminated a especially cruel tax. We repeal the disastrous Obamacare

>> There has never been a better time to start living the American Dream. If you believe in yourself and America, you can dream anything, be anything. Together, we can achieve absolutely anything

>> All of us together as one people, can do anything. We all share the same home, heart, destiny and the same great American flag

>> Together we are rediscovering the American ways. Here, faith and family, not the bureaucracy, are the centre of American life

>> Americans deserve a govt that shows them love and loyalty. Working with the Senate, we are appointing judges who will interpret the Constitution as written

>> We are defending our second Amendment and taking actions to protect religious liberty. We are serving our brave veterans, giving them a choice in their healthcare decisions

>> I will not stop until our veterans have been properly taken care of. All Americans deserve accountability and respect

>> We are now, very proudly, an exporter of energy to the world

>> People who are terminally ill should not have to go from country to country, looking for treatment. I want to give Americans the Right to Try - immediate experimental treatment

>> One of my main priorities is to reduce the cost of prescription drugs

>> The era of economic surrender is over. From now, we consider trading relations to be fair and reciprocal

>> We will work to fix bad trade deals. We will protect American workers and intellectual properties through strong enforcement of our trade rules

>> It is time to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. We are a nation of builders - we built the EmpireStateBuilding in only a year

>> As POTUS my constant concern and compassion is for Americas children, struggling workers and forgotten communities

Image: US President Donald J Trump with Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker of the House US Representative Paul Ryan at the State of the Union address. Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters

>> My duty is to defend Americans, to protect their families and their right to the American dream

>> Its time to move towards a merit based immigration system

>> Currently, one immigrant can bring in unlimited number of distant relatives. Under our current plan, we restrict it to immediate family. This reform is necessary for our security and for the future of America

>>The US will continue to fight until ISIS is defeated

>> Perhaps someday in the future there will be a magical moment when countries of the world will get together to eliminate their nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, we are not there yet, sadly

>> As part of our defence, we must modernise and rebuild our nuclear arsenal, hopefully never having to use it, but making it so strong and powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression

>> No regime has oppressed its citizens more brutally than cruel dictatorship in N Korea. Its reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could soon threaten our homeland. We are waging a campaign of max pressure to prevent that from happening

>> As long as we our proud of our achievements, faith in our citizens and trust in God, we will never fail

>>Thank you and Gob bless AmericaA Group Captain, posted at the Indian Air Force's headquarters in New Delhi, has been taken into custody by the force for alleged involvement in espionage and possible attempt to access sensitive documents, official sources said on Wednesday.

The investigators are also probing whether the officer was a victim of honey trap.

It is also being probed whether he was part of a larger espionage ring being run from Pakistan, the sources said.

The officer was indulging in certain 'unwanted activities' through unauthorised electronic devices which is against existing orders, the sources said.

Apparently, he was in touch with a woman through social media whose identity has not yet been established.

A team of the IAF's central security and investigation took the officer into custody, and currently he is being interrogated, said the sources.

The 'unwanted' activities by the officer were discovered during routine counter intelligence surveillance, the sources said, adding he attempted to posses sensitive documents.

The IAF officially did not comment on the matter.

The identity of the officer has been kept secret as investigation into the case was going on, the sources said.

The investigators are also examining whether the officer has passed on any sensitive information to anyone.

Image used only for representation. Photograph: Amit Gupta/ReutersThe Centre has zeroed in on Kovalam village in Kanyakumari district for a new port, but fishermen's protests could derail this plan.

A Ganesh Nadar reports.

There seems to be no end to India's woes in locating a deep water port in Kanyakumari, the southern-most point of the country, to challenge Colombo's status as the premier harbour located on one of the major shipping routes of the world.

In 2015 the central government zeroed in on Colachel, in Kanyakumari district, which has been a port since time immemorial, but when fishermen from Enayamputhanthurai and neighbouring villages gathering under the Kanyakumari District Fishermens Federation and staged a protest in the Saint Lanemmal church complex in Enayamputhanthurai in November 2015, the Centre beat a hasty retreat.

They next zeroed in on Enayam further down the coast towards Kanyakumari town where some 20,000 families in eight villages could be affected adversely by the project.

However, when 40,000 fishermen turned up to protest against the port in 2016, the central government had to turn away once again.

Next the choice fell on Kanyakumari town itself, but this plan was abandoned on the ground that a harbour there would destroy the bustling tourism industry.

Finally, goaded on by Union Minister and the Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Parliament from Kanyakumari, Pon Radhakrishnan, the Centre finally decided on Kovalam village in the district (not to be confused with the resort of the same name in Kerala) as the perfect spot for the port.

But public opposition is building up slowly, but surely.

Asks Jyoti, from nearby Manakudi, "Why is the government behaving like this?"

"We protested at Colachel and Enayam and still they are trying to destroy our livelihood."

Asked why she is protesting, she says, "The village head sent out a diktat that all women had to attend or they would have to pay a fine. We would have come anyway."

Asks Jesurani, another resident of the fishing community, "Do you think the fishermen of Colachel and Enayam are different from the fishermen of Kovalam? We are all the same."

"If it is not good for Colachel, it is not good for Kovalam or any other place in the district."

"According to the coastal zone regulations this area falls under CRZ-1 as there are mangroves, corals and coral reefs, sand dunes, mud flats here," says Prabha, the co-ordinator behind the January 12 protest.

"Moreover, turtles come here to lay eggs. This is an ecologically sensitive area. Apart from that, it was also hit by the tsunami in 2004."

"Moreover, their first notification shows there are no villages here, which is a blatant lie," says Prabha.

"There are eight villages here. The ocean is not deep here so they will have to dredge for 30 metres. If so, why not do it in the existing port in Tuticorin?" asks Prabha.

"The major import in southern ports is coal to feed the thermal stations here," says S P Udayakumar, who spearheaded the agitation against the Koodankulam nuclear power plant.

"This coal will lead to an ecological disaster, fish will start avoiding the area and the sea will be filled with coal dust," adds Udayakumar.

"The minister (Pon Radhakrishnan) is adamant to go against the people's wishes, and we will not allow that to happen."

Photographs: A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.comBanerjee feels that as long as Sonia Gandhi is the leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party, she should be the undisputed leader of a united front of opposition parties, reports R Rajagopalan.

IMAGE: From left, expelled JD-U leader Sharad Yadav, NCP chief Sharad Pawar, CPI's D Raja, Patidar leader Hardik Patel and TMC's Dinesh Trivedi at a rally in Mumbai on January 26, 2018. NCP's Praful Patel is also seen in the background. Photograph: Mitesh Bhuvad/PTI Photo.

New Delhi's political circles are agog with speculation that the internal problems of the Bharatiya Janata Party will start surfacing as the Narendra Modi government enters its final year in office ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

It is also expected that public opinion about the government will start to change and the BJP wave will reach a saturation point, at least in the Hindi belt.

Many leaders feel that February onwards is the right time for the Opposition to consolidate and occupy the centre-stage.

The launch of 'Rashtra Manch' by disgruntled BJP leader Yashwant Sinha, which was joined by another BJP dissident Shatrughan Sinha, and several other leaders of different parties has opened up new opportunities for the Opposition.

Some within the BJP feel that party veteran L K Advani is behind Sinha taking a rebellious path.

However, even as its future is hazy, a united front of opposition parties already has a few claimants for its leadership.

Conversations with Communist Party of India's D Raja, Nationalist Congress Party's Praful Patel and T K Rangarajan of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, indicate that Sharad Pawar is the most prominent among these names.

But, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is not ready to accept Pawar as the leader of a united Opposition.

She feels that as long as Sonia Gandhi is the leader of the Congress Parliamentary Party, she should be the undisputed leader of a united front of opposition parties.

Banerjee claims that her Trinamool Congress will be the largest opposition party after the Congress in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, winning the maximum number of seats in West Bengal.

And, therefore, she is already negotiating for important positions within the united front, if it becomes a possibility.

Banerjee is also opposed to Sharad Yadav being given the responsibility of main coordinator of Opposition unity.

While Sharad Pawar feels that opposition parties should meet regularly till November 2018, Banerjee is of the view that they should not list out priorities right now.

Pawar also wants a common view on the idea of holding of simultaneous elections, triple talaq bill and the impeachment motion proposed by the CPI-M against the Chief Justice of India.

But Banerjee is clear that political parties should maintain distance from the judicial crisis so as not to divert the public attention from more immediate issues.

Plus, she is opposed to any impeachment motion against the CJI.

A meeting of opposition parties called by Pawar in New Delhi on Monday to discuss efforts to mobilise a secular front received a setback as the TMC stayed away, along with the Samajwadi Party, the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.

Although TMC leader Dinesh Trivedi had attended the Pawar-led 'Samvidhan Bachao Rally' in Mumbai earlier -- where the other three parties were absent -- he was not present at Monday's meeting.

"There was no one from the DMK, TMC, Samajwadi Party and the BSP. It could be because many MPs are not in Delhi, even though Parliament is in session, because of the intervening holidays till February 1. Or maybe they were not properly informed about the meeting," said the NCP's Tariq Anwar.

But the TMC reportedly gave a miss to the meeting as, in a protocol slip, the NCP directly invited Trivedi, instead of sending an invitation to Mamata.

This is said to be the reason why Banerjee may not have allowed Trivedi to attend the meeting.

Why did the DMK keep out?

Pawar had spoken to DMK working president M K Stalin, but the latter did not send any representative. Stalin could have easily deputed T K S Elangovan, who was in New Delhi, to attend the event, even if he did not want Kanimozi to be there.

But the DMK did not want to cross the line of informal understanding with Congress president Rahul Gandhi.

Till the time Stalin meets Rahul to iron out certain issues between the two parties, he would not seriously involve himself in national politics.

Though, last year, Stalin wanted to be the focal point of a united opposition during the mega event at Karunanidhi's birthday in June, the situation has now changed.

The DMK feels left out in New Delhi's political spectrum.

Pawar has made it clear that his party wants to work with the Congress, while the Shiv Sena should contest the polls alone.

He has also underscored the need for arch-rivals Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party to bury their differences and come together.

However, Opposition unity is still a far cry, with meetings of leaders remaining largely inconclusive. They still have lots of differences among themselves, which is the fact of the matter, and this alone will prove to be the BJP's biggest strength in the days to come.Unveiling his second year agenda to a deeply divided Congress and nation, a bullish United States President Donald Trump on Wednesday used his first State of the Union address to appeal for bipartisanship on issues like immigration while pledging to tackle the Islamic State and a nuclear-armed North Korea.

IMAGE: US President Donald Trump delivers his first State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress inside the House Chamber on Capitol Hill. Photograph: Win McNamee/Pool/Reuters

During his 80-minute prime time address, Trump laid out a four-pillar immigration plan, one of the major debates that loomed over his first year in office, and sought the backing of the Congress for a merit-based immigration system that admits skilled people, a proposal that could benefit technology professionals from countries like India.

He also outlined a plan that would allow up to 1.8 undocumented immigrants to remain in the country while funding a border wall with Mexico, ending the visa lottery system and reforming family immigration rules.

In one of the longest-running State of the Union speeches in US history, the 71-year-old businessman-turned politician heralded the economic successes of his administration, including a soaring stock market and low unemployment.

While keeping mum on the ongoing investigations into his his election campaigns ties to Russia, Trump appealed to the Democrats and Republicans to look past deep national divisions in order to do good by the American people.

In his speech, laced with American stories of triumph and tragedy, Trump said it was not enough to come together only in times of tragedy.

Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve.

I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties -- Democrats and Republicans -- to protect our citizens of every background, colour, religion, and creed, Trump said as US First Lady Melania Trump and other dignitaries watched.

IMAGE: Trump's address was one of the longest-running State of the Union speeches in US history. Photograph: Win McNamee/Pool/Reuters

Unlike his apocalyptic American carnage inaugural speech of just a year ago, Trump said his administration is building a safe, strong and proud America.

This is our new American moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American Dream, he said.

Unemployment claims have hit a 45-year low, the president said, adding that small business confidence is at an all-time high. The stock market has smashed one record after another, gaining $ 8 trillion in value, Trump, who is facing historically low approval ratings, said.

Trumps overall job approval number nationwide was never over 50 per cent in Gallup polling at any point in 2017, CNN reported.

IMAGE: Trump stands at the podium as US Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker of the House US Rep Paul Ryan look on during his first State of the Union address. Photograph: Win McNamee/Pool/Reuters

In his speech, Trump called on lawmakers to approve a $1.5 trillion infrastructure package and touted his work on health care.

He said his administration has slashed the business tax rate from 35 per cent to 21 per cent, so American companies can compete and win against anyone in the world.

US President Trump warned that North Koreas reckless pursuit of nuclear missile could threaten American cities, and asserted that he will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got the US into dangerous position.

He said no regime has oppressed its own citizens more brutally than the cruel dictatorship of Kim Jong-un.

North Koreas reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland. We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from happening, he said, indicating that he will take preventive measure to stop North Korea from gaining a nuclear weapon.

IMAGE: First lady Melania Trump waves ahead of the address. Melania broke tradition as she arrived at the Capitol separately from her husband, Donald Trump. Photograph: Carlos Barria/Reuters

He also said that rivals like China and Russia are challenging Americas interests, economy and values.

As we rebuild Americas strength and confidence at home, we are also restoring our strength and standing abroad. Around the world, we face rogue regimes, terrorist groups, and rivals like China and Russia that challenge our interests, our economy, and our values, he said.

As part of our defence, we must modernise and rebuild our nuclear arsenal, hopefully never having to use it, but making it so strong and powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression, he said.

Perhaps someday in the future there will be a magical moment when the countries of the world will get together to eliminate their nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, we are not there yet, he said.

IMAGE: White House senior advisors Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump arrive for the address. All of Donald Trump's children, barring his youngest Barron were present for the speech. Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters

Trump said last year he pledged that he would work with US allies to extinguish the Islamic State terror group from the face of the Earth.

One year later, I am proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated almost 100 per cent of the territory once held by these killers in Iraq and Syria. But there is much more work to be done. We will continue our fight until ISIS is defeated, he said.

He said he was also asking the Congress to ensure that, in the fight against ISIS and Al Qaeda, the US should have all necessary power to detain terrorists -- wherever we chase them down.

On Afghanistan, he said the American forces in the war-torn country have new rules of engagement.

Along with their heroic Afghan partners, our military is no longer undermined by artificial timelines, and we no longer tell our enemies our plans, he said.United States President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order to keep open the controversial US prison at Guantanamo Bay, paving the way to transfer new terror detainees to the infamous facility in Cuba.

IMAGE: A US Army soldier closes the gate at maximum security prison Camp Delta at Guantanamo Naval Base. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Reuters

Trump announced the move during his first State of the Union address, reversing his predecessor Barack Obamas decision to close the controversial site as soon as practicable.

The prison on the American military base at Guantanamo Bay has been used for years to detain high-profile terror suspects and enemy combatants. The facility has been criticised for its grim conditions.

IMAGE: The interior of an unoccupied communal cellblock is seen at Camp VI, a prison used to house detainees at the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay. Photograph: Bob Strong/Reuters

Terrorists who do things like place bombs in civilian hospitals are evil. When possible, we annihilate them. When necessary, we must be able to detain and question them, Trump said.

But one must be clear: Terrorists are not merely criminals. They are unlawful enemy combatants. And when captured overseas, they should be treated like the terrorists they are, he said.

IMAGE: A 'restraint chair' and other equipment of the type used in force-feeding detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military prison. Photograph: Matt Spetalnick/Reuters

Trump rued that in the past the US has foolishly released hundreds of dangerous terrorists, only to meet them again on the battlefield -- including the Islamic State leader Al-Baghdadi.

So today, I am keeping another promise. I just signed an order directing (Defence) Secretary (James) Mattis to reexamine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Trump said.

IMAGE: The interior of an unoccupied cell showing standard issue clothing given to prisoners is seen at Camp VI, a prison used to house detainees at the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay. Photograph: Bob Strong/Reuters

The facility has been used since the 9/11 attacks to detain what Washington calls enemy combatants, but only 41 prisoners remain there.

I am also asking the Congress to ensure that, in the fight against ISIS and Al Qaeda, we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists -- wherever we chase them down, he said.A powerful 6.1 magnitude earthquake struck northern Afghanistan on Wednesday, with the tremors felt as far away as India and Pakistan, where one girl was killed and several others injured.

The quake hit at 12:37 IST near Afghanistan's northern border with Tajikistan in the Hindu Kush mountains at a depth of 191 kilometres, the US Geological Survey said.

The epicentre was in Jurm district of Afghanistan's Badakhshan Province, TOLONews reported.

In Kabul, at least two heavy tremors were felt  which sent people running out on the streets.

Three persons were injured in Afghanistan's Jurm district, an official said.

Jurm is the same area which was the centre a devastating 7.5 magnitude quake in October 2015 that triggered landslides and flattened buildings, killing more than 380 people across the region, news agencies said.

Across the border in Pakistan, homes, offices and schools were quickly evacuated in Islamabad, Peshawar and Lahore.

Mild tremors were also felt in New Delhi.

In Pakistan's Quetta town, one girl was killed after the roof of her house collapsed during the earthquake.

Deputy Commissioner Shabir Mengal said some villages in the Balochistan province also felt the tremors.

"The injured have been rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment. Emergency has been declared in all hospitals," he said.

At least 10 people were injured in Khyber Pakhtuhwa in earthquake-related incidents, Geo news reported.

Rescue teams were also dispatched to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province to assess reports of damage.

A school building was collapsed in Peshawar and several children are feared to be injured. The rescue operation has been started.

However Pakistan's National Disaster Management Authority did not expect serious losses, a spokesman said.

Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, which lies near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates.

Pakistan is also among the most earthquake-prone regions of the world with high vulnerability to earthquakes as the country lies in the same junction.

In October 2005, a high intensity earthquake measuring 7.4 magnitude hit parts of Pakistan, killing over 80,000 people and leaving hundreds of thousands others homeless.The death toll in the alleged army firing on a mob in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday rose to three after a critically injured youth succumbed to injuries.

Rayees Ahmad, who was among the nine persons injured in the army firing last week, succumbed to injuries at a hospital on Wednesday morning, police said.

With this, death toll in the firing incident at Ganovpora area of Shopian has risen to three.

The army opened fire on a stone-pelting mob on January 27. The army claimed it had opened fire in self defence after seven of its personnel were injured.

The state government has ordered a magisterial probe into the incident.

The state police filed an FIR under sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) against army personnel, including a Major, involved in the incident.

Image: Security forces patrol a street after a clash with the protesters who were agitating against the alleged killing of two youth in army firing in Shopian district of south Kashmir, in Srinagar. Photograph: S Irfan/PTI PhotoOAKVILLE  Cliffhanger, a play by James Yaffe, opens at the Phoenix Stage Company in Oakville on Saturday, Feb. 10 through Feb. 23.

The story: Henry Lowenthal, after a long tenure as professor of philosophy at a small western college, is looking forward to being appointed to an endowed chair so he and his wife can enjoy their golden years with honor and dignity.

But their plans are given a rude jolt when his successor, a vindictive and ruthlessly ambitious young woman, informs him that she is not recommending him for the chairan act of such calculated cruelty that the usually gentle professor seizes a bust of Socrates and strikes his tormentor a fatal blow. Thereafter, as Henry and his wife plot a foolproof way to dispose of the body, complications arise in the form of a rather sinister young student who is about to flunk out of school (unless his grade is changed) and who happened to witness the professors violent action.

Add in a suspicious police lieutenant and all the ingredients for a series of suspenseful, unexpected and frequently funny developments, lead to a denouement that will catch everyone by surprise.

Tim Phillips takes on the role of Henry Lowenthal, Helen Adams plays Polly Lownethal, Lieutenant David DeVito is being played by Chris Evans. Making their Phoenix Stage Company debuts are Kristin Moresi as Edith Wilshire and Justin Torres as Melvin McMullen. The play is directed by Ed Bassett with stage manager Amber-Lynn Dunphy.

Performances are at the theater located at 133 Main Street, Oakville, on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. Tickets are available by calling 860-417-2505 or online at www.phoenixstagecompany.org . Tickets are $22 for general admission seating and $19 for seniors, students and teachers. Group rates and special fundraiser rates are available upon request.BRIDGEPORT  A webcam installed in the Amur tiger cubs nursery at Connecticuts Beardsley Zoo began streaming images in real time on Tuesday.

The cubcam is set up in the nursery in the zoos on-site Animal Health Care Center, where the playful tiger babies have been cared for since their birth. To view the cubs, visit the zoos website at http://www.beardsleyzoo.org/tiger-cam/.

The cubs, both females, were born on Nov. 25 and theyve been raised by zoo staffers since then. Two of the four cubs in the litter died from a combination of very low birth weight and rough handling by the mother. The cubs were revealed to the media at a press conference on Jan. 11 and theyll be on public view this spring.

The cubcam had crashed when it first began operating on Tuesday, but those issues have been resolved said Lisa Clair, zoo spokeswoman.

Viewers are be able to watch the cubs live from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week. Its made possible by the pet food company Blue Buffalo, one of the zoos sponsors.

The Amur tiger cubs have received worldwide attention and national coverage since they were born because of their endangered status and the rarity of Amur tiger births. They are among the most valuable big cats in the world, according to Zoo Director Gregg Dancho.

The zoo has launched a fundraising campaign through the website The Impact Vine for the planning and design of a renovated tiger habitat. This campaign has raised more than $5,000 in a record six days. Donations are still being accepted for enlargement and enhancements to the habitat, which can be made through a link on the cubcam page. There has been intense interest in the cubs, which has helped to raise awareness about endangered species around the world.

Amur tigers are a critically endangered species that is rapidly disappearing from wild areas. Their home range is in extreme eastern Asia, near the boarders of North Korea, China and Russia. Over the last century, tiger numbers have fallen by about 95 percent, and tigers now survive in 40 percent less of the area they occupied just a decade ago. Poaching, habitat destruction and climate change have all taken a toll on the tiger population.

jburgeson@ctpost.comPlaywright Hiram Marina thought he saw something special in Terryville actress/model Yarianly Castro when he noticed her in a Christmas program at his church.

He believed she had talent and that he could bring those talents to the forefront in the staging on a one-woman play Frida Kahlo: Long Live Life, about the celebrated Mexican painter who died in 1954.

Marina is an accomplished playwright in Mexico who moved to Southington, from his native country last year with his wife, Lauren. They translated and adapted a 1998 script by Mexican playwright Humberto Robles about the life of Kahlo, with the show eventually involving Castro playing the part of Kahlo, along with a musician, and Marina as narrator. The 75-minute long play (including intermission) was first staged in the 80-seat Carriage House Theater on Farmington Avenue in Hartford. Subsequent shows were held in Raleigh, N.C. and Southington. A fourth show is planned for this spring in Boston.

Long Live Life, Marina explained, is a biographical play based on the artists diaries. The play touches on some political issues, but is more about culture and social issues. It is set with Kahlo in her kitchen, preparing food for dead friends, included among them Nelson Rockefeller and surrealist writer Andre Breton.

While thrilled to play Kahlo in the shows, the 23-year-old Castro, who attended the Waterbury Arts Magnet School and has three classes remaining toward a degree from Floridas Southeastern University, also found it educational, for her and her audiences.

My performance was educational on the person of Frida, her life, and art. Many people recognize her face and paintings, but not many know of her. The script is derived from her personal diaries, so it is extremely personal. And the feedback from the people who have come to see the performance who are fans of Fridas has been that we have captured her true essence.

She continued, After our first performance at the Carriage House in Hartford, someone suggested that we include more of her actual paintings in the performance. For our show in Southington, we displayed her paintings through a projector throughout the play. I think that added another layer of depth to our production and people responded really positively to it.

These are Castros first major performances. She is also adept at playing numerous musical instruments and painting.

I became interested in the performing arts at a relatively young age, she said. I remember the first group performances I began doing were pantomimes that could be considered more like interpretive dance. My first play was in the eighth grade when I starred as Jasmine in Aladdin. As a little kid, I always dreamed of starring in my own show, but it was that play that ignited my love for acting. The first thing I wanted to do when I grew up was perform on Broadway.

But it wasnt until her sophomore year of high school when she began seriously studying the art, the same year she was accepted into the Waterbury Art Magnet School.

I attended the Waterbury Arts Magnet School for theater originally, she observed, it was what I was most interested in at the time. But I quickly found that I loved all things art. I went to Southeastern University to pursue a career in social work because ultimately, I think my calling is to help people.

For now, she is reveling in her opportunity to perform on stage, and to portray a powerful woman.

What I find most interesting about it is the opportunity to portray someone who could be completely different from you as a person. I love that theater has the ability to create an entirely different world. Like reading a book, or watching a movie, but its different from both of those things because its tangible in a way that a movie cant be.

The role as Kahlo has its challenges, The character of Frida pushed me to be a little crazy, and not in a good way. I needed to dig really deep to find the emotions for some of the scenes because it was far beyond what I had experienced as a person. However, in moments like that things can be really easy too. Im an emphatic person, so all I really had to do was envision myself in her place. After that, identifying the emotion is easy. Performing it, not as much.

Despite finding stage success at a young age, Castro believes she has ample room to grow as an artist. I dont believe anyone really ever arrives to their full potential. If one is always willing to learn, then there is always room to grow.

Will she take this opportunity and run with it on a new career path? Im not really sure. I cant say that Ive considered seriously pursuing acting as a career up until now. I never thought I was good enough to make it in the theater world. But as we perform Long Live Life and I receive such encouraging feedback, I think I could have a shot. I have a lot of different passions though. I think if I were to pursue something artistically it would be music.

Castro, who is bilingual, also plays the guitar, and has dabbled with a few different instruments. I also paint and I used to dance when I was younger. I also currently sing on the worship team at my church.

Castro points to the support she has received from friends and family as key to her developing as a person and performer. They always supported me in everything that Ive done and this is no different. Lauren and Hiram Marina have given me an enormous opportunity to do something that I only ever dreamed of doing. They believed in my ability as an artist and they trusted me with their vision. They opened a door for me that I never thought Id walk through. I have been beyond blessed to have this opportunity and I am honored to have the platform on which to portray the life of such a strong and courageous woman who never let anyone or anything stop her from pursuing her passions.

Now Yari Castro is inspiring other women to follow their dreams, to take advantage of opportunities when they come calling, and to not be afraid to grow as a person and artist.An amateur astronomer recently stumbled onto an 18-year-old NASA satellite that scientists lost contact with more than a decade ago.

IMAGE, or the Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration, was launched in 2000 to study the impact of solar weather on Earth's magnetosphere. It did its job dutifully until December 2005 when NASA scientists were suddenly unable to communicate with the satellite.Largo, FL -- (ReleaseWire) -- 01/31/2018 --Caring for parents is a concern that comes genuinely to everyone. There is however very little that anyone can do about the same. That is where the need for skilled and professional home health care in Tampa Florida comes into the picture. There is one home health agency in Clearwater Florida who answers the need for the same, and they are known by the name of Bayshore Home Care. Bayshore Home Care has been in this industry for long and through their excellent work and professionalism have been very successful in being the favorite of people. Their good track record and positive client reviews have helped them get new clients, and they have continued to grow strong.



At Bayshore Home Care the home health care in Tampa Florida providers somewhat understand the concern of those who have to leave their parents alone. The safety of their aged parents is indeed a concern for many. As they approach Bayshore Home Care for assistance, they receive the help in the form of skilled and trained home health caregivers. They not only assist senior members in their daily chores, but they also provide companionship. One can trust the in-home caregiver from Bayshore Home Care at all costs. They promise to take good care of those dependent on them. The various services that home caregiver provides includes exercise planning and assistance, nutritionally based meal planning and preparation, personal hygiene assistance and in-home spa services, and more.



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The goal is to make the employee feel comfortable so that he or she can deliver at ease. Keeping this aspect in mind, many offices now order for special ergonomic chairs that provide such an approach, featuring adjustable armrests, lumbar support, and tilt tension. Thus, small or large persons alike will be safely and comfortably seated. Same goes true with tables, cubicles, or other furniture. This does not mean that one will have to invest a huge amount of brand new office furniture, especially when there is an opportunity to buy used office furniture in Boca Raton and Hollywood, Florida.



Those who are on the lookout for used office furniture cubicles can visit Direct Office Solution for assistance. According to one of the spokespeople of the company, investing in used furniture does not mean that clients have to compromise on quality. While working with Direct Office Solutions, one can be assured that they do not have to worry about quality and pricing.



Spending 50 years in the industry, they have a massive warehouse that is spaced over 60,000 square foot. Over the years, they have gained recognition as one of the industry-leading names in office furniture. One can be assured that quality will never be a concern. Moreover, with more than one brand present, clients have the option to take a pick according to their preferences, requirement, and budget.



The best part of dealing with Direct Office Solutions is that the clients can visit and take a look at what the company has to provide. Among used office cubicles, they have a lot of offers including Haworth Remanufactured Cubicle with Glass, Haworth Unigroup 48x24x66 High Telemarketing Workstations with Glass, and more.



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Direct Office Solutions is a recognized company that offers a wide range of office furniture in Fort Lauderdale Florida. They deal in both new and used office cubicles, workstations, chairs and more.HIGH speed rail line protestors are demanding answers to why HS2 bosses are pursuing a route which bears striking similarities to one rejected six years ago.

An East of Rotherham route, which was put forward and thrown out in 2012, largely follows the current preferred M18 route through Aston, Bramley up to Mexborough.

Protestors said that if the former route was rejected on environmental grounds in 2012, they had doubts how the M18 option could be better, as it cuts through housing developments which have begun since, such as Mexboroughs Shimmer estate.

They want HS2 to either axe the high speed rail scheme entirely or revert to an option via Meadowhall, which was thrown out after Sheffield City Council failed to support it.

Chris Matthewman (pictured), chair of the Bramley HS2 Action Group, said the two lines were broadly the same and that HS2 had given it a different name to try and hide the fact that this route was previously rejected.

Mr Matthewman said: Arguably, the M18 route takes a more central path  very slightly more westerly through Mexborough, hence the devastation at Shimmer.

So the routes are the same but, since its rejection in 2012 on the grounds that the impact on people residing along the route would have been too severe, the M18 route now has additional impacts.

Mr Matthewman said it was clear more people would now be affected as the Shimmer and Pastures developments at Mexborough had been built since 2012, and the scrapping of plans for a tunnel at Hickleton would cause greater noise problems.

Mr Matthewman added: HS2 seem to be denying that these two routes are broadly the same and I believe they, and the Department for Transport, are claiming that it wasnt rejected  yet clearly they are the same, and it was rejected.

Jonathan Pile, group coordinator of Yorkshire Against HS2, said he had a Freedom of Information reply from HS2 that confirms East of Rotherham is identical with the M18 Eastern Route except for the abandoned 2km tunnel at Hickleton.

A HS2 spokeswoman would not be drawn on the similarities between the two routes but insisted: HS2 will deliver major benefits to the Yorkshire region.



The M18 route remains the best way to serve the region, meeting customer demand, providing fewer impacts, supporting Northern Powerhouse Rail, as well as being both less technically challenging and more cost effective.correction: corrects the trading price of Bitcoin in the first paragraph

Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency, is gaining again, reversing its early loss when it traded below $10,000 mark on Tuesday. Other major digital currencies also were in the positive territory early Wednesday.

Bitcoin had touched $9,972.29 early Tuesday morning, but jumped to cross $11,000 late in the day. As of this writing, the digital currency major is trading at $11,098 with a market cap of $186.72 billion, according to coinmarketcap.

Ethereum, the second major digital currency, was also gaining 4.26 percent and was at $1,001.44, with a market cap of $97.32 billion. Ripple, which is in the third place based on market cap, was trading at $1.37, up 8.3 percent, with a market cap of $53.08 billion.

In a latest development in the crypto market, the South Korean Financial Services Commission announced that the country will ban the use of anonymous bank accounts in cryptocurrency trading from January 30.

"Those who do not have their real-name accounts at the same bank with the exchanges will not be allowed to make new deposits into the exchanges' accounts. They will be only allowed to make withdrawals," a release said.

The agency also announced guidelines for financial institutions to prevent cryptocurrency-related money laundering.

Bitcoin, which was launched in 2009, had plunged more than 30 percent last week, briefly falling below $10,000 after concerns about increased regulation in South Korea and China, as well as some prominent banks in India suspended accounts of certain Bitcoin exchanges

Ray Dalio, founder of hedge fund giant Bridgewater Associates, reportedly told CNBC Tuesday from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, "It was a bubble. It is a bubble... A perfectly good market can be in a bubble."

Dalio added, "I don't know how to value it. I believe in the blockchain . I think it's great, but that notion of how to trade it and how to value it is not my expertise."

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Technology NewsWarnings against cryptocurrencies continue from traditional finance, the latest coming from UBS Bank Chairman Axel Weber at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. In a setback for Bitcoin's popularity, an online and mobile payment processing company, Stripe, has ended support for Bitcoin transactions, citing high fees and excessive processing times.

Here is a wrap up of the main news from the crypto space over the past 24 hours

1. UBS Chairman Weber Warns Against Bitcoin As Investment

Bitcoin is a speculative investment and clients, especially retail clients, are advised not to invest in the digital currency, UBS Bank Chairman Axel Weber told CNBC Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. His bank makes a clear distinction between institutional and retail clients when it comes to investing in Bitcoin, Weber said. While UBS allows institutional clients to trade Bitcoin, the bank would not advise it as an investment, he added. "Clearly with bitcoin, this is a speculative investment; I don't call it currency and retail clients do not have the risk bearing capacity nor the knowledge to invest in that," he warned.

2. Stripe Ends Support For Bitcoin Payments

Mobile and online payment processor Stripe announced that it will stop processing Bitcoin transactions on April 23, citing excessive processing time and high fees. "Empirically, there are fewer and fewer use cases for which accepting or paying with Bitcoin makes sense," the company said in a blog on its website. The process of winding down support for Bitcoin payments has already started. However, Stripe remains optimistic regarding cryptocurrencies and indicated that it may provide support for Stellar digital currency in future.

3. Coinbase Revenue Crossed $1 Bln Last Year, Warns Shareholders Against Selling Stock

Digital currency trading platform Coinbase saw its revenue cross $1 billion last year amid the boom in prices of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which has attracted huge investor interest, news website Recode reported. Consequently, venture capitalists and private brokers are scurrying around to acquire the stocks of Coinbase. However, Coinbase told Recode that it does not allow its shareholders to trade stocks on the secondary for a variety of reasons, including the fact that there is not full and equal information available to the market. "We will take appropriate action if we find people have sold Coinbase shares in violation of our agreements not to do so," Recode reported.

4. bitFlyer Starts Operations In Europe

Japanese Bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange bitFlyer started operations in Europe after it secured payment institution license for EU. It is now the world's first virtual currency exchange regulated in Japan, the US and the EU, the company said in a statement. bitFlyer EUROPE S.A. obtained a Payment Institution License from the Luxembourg regulator, Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier.

5. OKCoin To Launch In South Korea

China-based cryptocurrency platform OKCoin is set to launch its operations in South Korea, another leading market for digital currencies, reports said. Undeterred by the crackdown measures on cryptocurrency speculation by the South Korean government, OKCoin has already created a website for the South Korean market and has accepted over 150,000 pre-order registrations since last Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported. Before the Chinese government banned cryptocurrency exchanges, OKCoin ran one of the biggest exchanges in the country.

6. U.S. Senators Voice Concern Over Venezuelan Cryptocurrency Plans

US senators Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez have written a letter to U.S. Treasury Department Secretary Steven Mnuchin expressing concerns that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro could be utilizing the planned oil reserves-backed cryptocurrency "Petro" to circumvent sanctions imposed by the U.S. "We have serious doubts about whether Venezuela has the capacity to launch a cryptocurrency, but regardless, it is imperative that the U.S. Treasury Department is equipped with tools and enforcement mechanisms to combat the use of cryptocurrency to evade U.S. sanctions in general, and in this case in particular," the senators wrote in the letter.

7. SEC Warns Against Companies Renaming As Blockchain-related

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is closely watching public companies, which change their name or model to something blockchain-related in a bid to cash in on the ongoing cryptocurrency mania, SEC Chairman Jay Clayton said. The watchdog is scrutinizing suspect name changes, he said. In recent months, the share prices of many little-known companies have surged after announcing that they are planning to enter the bitcoin industry or that they are something related to the blockchain technology.

Current Prices

As of 03.27 am ET on Wednesday, Bitcoin was up 5.17 percent at $10,969.79 and Ethereum was higher by 4.36 percent at $1000 on coinbase.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business NewsCheckout the few notable companies that are scheduled to release quarterly financial results on Wednesday, January 24, 2018.

Global healthcare company Abbott Laboratories (ABT) will publish its Q4 results before the bell today.

Q4 Guidance:

* Abbott expects Q4 GAAP EPS from cont. ops. of $0.28 - $0.30.

* Sees Q4 adj. EPS from cont. ops. to be $0.72 - $0.74; Consensus - $0.73/Shr.

* Sixteen Wall Street analysts have a consensus revenue estimate of $7.39 bln.

Year-Ago Numbers:

* Net sales - $5.3 bln

* Income from cont. ops. - $765 mln

* EPS from cont. ops. - $0.51

* Adj. Income from cont. ops. - $971 mln

* Adj. EPS from cont. ops. - $0.65.

Narrows FY17 EPS Outlook:

* Now sees GAAP EPS from cont. ops. to be $0.97 - $0.99.

* Now expects adj. EPS from cont. ops. to be $2.48 - $2.50, an increase at the mid-point of guidance range; Consensus - $2.50/Shr.

The company beleves it is well-positioned to achieve the upper end of its initial full-year EPS guidance range.

**

Comcast Corp. (CMCSA) is slated to release its Q4 results before the bell today, with analysts polled by Thomson Reuters estimating earnings of $0.47 per share and revenue of $21.82 billion.

Year-Ago Numbers:

* Revenue - $21.0 bln

* Net income - $2.3 bln

* EPS - $0.95

* Adj. net income - $2.15 bln

* Adj. EPS - $0.89.

**

Ford Motor Co. (F) is due to publish its Q4 financial results after the market closes on Wednesday, Jan. 24. Wall Street analysts are looking for earnings of $0.43 per share and revenue of $36.98 billion for the quarter.

Year-Ago Numbers:

* Revenue - $151.8 bln

* Net income - $4.6 bln

* EPS - $1.15

* Adj. net income - $1.22 bln

* Adj. EPS - $0.30.

FY Guidance:

* Tightens adj. EPS target to high end of the range, now at $1.75 - $1.85; Consensus - $1.81/Shr.

**

When the industrial conglomerate General Electric Co. (GE) report its Q4 financial results, analysts expect the company to report earnings of $0.29 per share and revenue of $34.06 billion for the quarter.

Year-Ago Numbers:

* Revenue - $33.1 bln

* Net income - $3.5 bln

* EPS - $0.39

* Non-GAAP net income - $4.1 bln

* Non-GAAP EPS - $0.46.

Mid-January, the company said it has taken an after-tax GAAP charge of $6.2 billion and that would be reflected in its fourth-quarter financials.

GE Capital noted that it will make a $3 billion statutory cash contribution to its insurance subsidiary in the first quarter of 2018 and about $2 billion annually from 2019 to 2024, for a total of about $15 billion. The company also said GE Capital will also hang up its dividends "for the foreseeable future."

FY Outlook:

Sees FY17 EPS in range of $1.05 - $1.10.

Expects FY17 adj. EPS of $1.04 - $1.12; Consensus - $1.06/Shr.

Expects FY17 revenue of about $125 bln; Consensus - $124.92 bln.

Projects FY18 adj. EPS of $1.00 - $1.07; Consensus - $1.00/Shr.

**

Home appliances maker Whirlpool Corp. (WHR) will release its Q4 results before the bell today, with analysts expecting earnings of $3.93 per share on revenue of $5.86 billion.

Year-Ago Numbers:

* Net sales - $5.7 bln

* GAAP Net income - $180 mln

* GAAP EPS - $2.36

* Ongoing EPS - $4.33.

Global Cost-Based Pricing & Cost Reduction Initiatives To Reflect In Q4

In 2017, the company experienced significantly elevated raw material prices which are now expected to further increase through 2018. In addition to its pricing action, the company has announced a new $150 million fixed cost reduction initiative that largely impacted its overhead cost including salary headcount and third-party services.

FY17 Guidance:

Now expects GAAP EPS of $11.10 - $11.40

Now sees ongoing EPS of $13.60 - $13.90; Consensus - $13.61/Shr.

**

Amphenol Corp. (APH), Aspen Technology Inc. (AZPN), Cohen & Steers Inc. (CNS), DST Systems Inc. (DST), F5 Networks Inc. (FFIV), Legg Mason Inc. (LM), Teradyne Inc. (TER), United Technologies Corp. (UTX), and W W Grainger Inc. (GWW) are also scheduled to report their financial results today.

***

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business NewsEricsson (ERIC) reported a fourth-quarter net loss attributable to stockholders of the parent company of 18.85 billion Swedish kronor compared to a loss of 1.60 billion kronor, prior year. Loss per share was 5.68 kronor compared to a loss of 0.48 kronor. Reported operating loss was 19.8 billion kronor compared to a loss of 0.3 billion kronor, prior year, negatively impacted by write-down of assets of 14.5 billion kronor, additional provisions and customer project adjustments of 3.2 billion kronor and lower sales. Adjusted operating income declined to 0.4 billion kronor from 4.4 billion kronor due to lower sales and higher R&D expenses. On a non-IFRS basis, loss per share was 1.19 kronor compared to profit of 0.62 kronor.

Fourth-quarter sales as reported decreased by 12% year-over-year to 57.2 billion kronor. Sales adjusted for comparable units and currency decreased by 7% partly due to lower LTE sales in Mainland China.

The Board will propose a dividend of 1.00 Swedish kronor per share to the AGM. The Annual General Meeting of shareholders will be held on March 28, 2018.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business NewsWhile reporting its fourth-quarter financial results today, Xerox Corp. (XRX) provided its financial outlook for fiscal 2018. The company also announced a deal with Japan's Fujifilm Holdings Corp. (FUJIF.PK, FUJIY.PK) to combine Xerox and their longstanding Fuji Xerox joint venture.

The companies noted that the combined company will be a global leader in innovative print technologies and intelligent work solutions, with annual revenues of $18 billion and leadership positions in key geographic regions. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of calendar year 2018.

For fiscal 2018, Xerox forecast reported earnings from continuing operations of $2.30 to $2.50 per share and adjusted earnings per share of $3.50 to $3.70.

The company expects its full-year revenue trajectory to improve, declining 2 to 4 percent at constant currency. 2018 adjusted operating margin is expected by the company to expand and be in the range of 13 to 14 percent.

On average, analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect the company to report earnings of $3.52 per share for the year on revenues of $9.8 billion. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Xerox noted that the proposed combination with Fuji Xerox joint venture will provides Xerox shareholders with significant cash at closing, as well as a substantial interest in the significantly enhanced combined company.

Under the terms of the agreement, Xerox shareholders will receive a $2.5 billion special cash dividend, or approximately $9.80 per share, funded from the combined company's balance sheet. Xerox shareholders will own 49.9 percent of the combined company at closing.

Fujifilm will own 50.1 percent of the combined company, and provide important operational support as well as transformational leadership.

The transaction has been unanimously approved by the Boards of Directors of both Fujifilm and Xerox. The combined company will be named "Fuji Xerox" and trade on the NYSE under the ticker "XRX".

The new Fuji Xerox will have dual headquarters in Norwalk, Connecticut, U.S. and in Minato, Tokyo, Japan, with presence in over 180 countries. The combined company will go to market and maintain the "Xerox" and "Fuji Xerox" brands within its respective operating regions.

The companies expect the combination to deliver at least $1.7 billion in total annual cost savings by 2022, with approximately $1.2 billion of the total cost savings expected to be achieved by 2020.

The targeted cost savings represent approximately 10 percent of the total cost base of the new Fuji Xerox and will drive significant margin expansion over the next four years.

Upon close of the transaction, Jeff Jacobson, chief executive officer of Xerox, will serve as chief executive officer of the new Fuji Xerox.

The combined company's Board of Directors will include 12 members, seven of whom will be appointed by the Fujifilm Board. Five independent directors will be appointed from the Xerox Board. Shigetaka Komori, chairman and chief executive officer of Fujifilm, will serve as chairman of the board.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business NewsJapan's LINE Corporation announced a new subsidiary that will launch a cryptocurrency exchange on its popular mobile messaging app and promote research and development of the blockchain , even as safety concerns are rife after the recent massive hack of the Coincheck crypto exchange.

The new company, LINE Financial, is a follow-up to its mobile money transfer and payment service LINE Pay, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

The Tokyo-based LINE Corp is the Japanese unit of the South Korean internet search giant Naver Corporation.

LINE Pay, with 40 million users, saw its global annual transaction volume exceed JPY 450 billion in 2017.

LINE Financial will be key to the preparations to provide a variety of financial services, including a place to exchange and transact virtual currencies, loans, and insurance - all from the LINE app, the company said.

The application process for registration as a virtual currency exchange has already been started with Japan's Financial Services Agency, and it is currently under review, LINE said.

Japan reportedly has 16 licensed cryptocurrency exchanges and several are awaiting approval.

The LINE messaging service already has a virtual currency or coin that is used in games and to buy content, mainly attractive and expressive stickers.

Banking on the high-level of security that it has cultivated for use in its messaging app, LINE aims to actively promote research and development of technologies such as blockchain and to provide a safe financial service to its users.

Japanese regulators are monitoring the cryptocurrency space closely after it emerged on January 26 that 523 million NEM coins were stolen from Coincheck, a leading cryptocurrency exchange.

Coincheck said it will repay the nearly 260,000 affected users in Japanese yen.

The FSA ordered Coincheck to study the security flaws and beef up its protective measures, and report back by February 13.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.comBitcoin's largest price changes coincide with major news events about the cryptocurrency, according to a research brief published by the American Institute for Economic Research or AIER.

The paper, published at AIER by Senior Research Fellow Max Gulker, takes into account the causes of Bitcoin's largest daily changes in price, with focus from the beginning of 2016 through the end of November 2017.

The institute joined with Missouri University to examine the connection between major changes in bitcoin pricing and newsworthy events.

"While the nature of the news events does not necessarily explain the magnitude of Bitcoin's price changes or its daily volatility, it does suggest that the market is not being driven entirely by manipulation or the behavior of small numbers of traders," the paper noted.

AIER noted that the volatility of the Bitcoin/dollar exchange rate is frequently discussed in the media. Often, this volatility is cited as the primary reason for not treating Bitcoin as a reliable store of value and medium of exchange, which are generally accepted requirements for something to count as a money.

They presented seven largest daily price changes of Bitcoin in terms of absolute value during the period, with each coinciding with a new event or piece of information that investors may have found important.

The largest daily increase in Bitcoin's price occurred on July 20, 2017, about 25.4 percent, when an agreement appeared to be reached regarding the scaling of Bitcoin's blockchain-based payment system. Meanwhile, the largest daily price decrease was on September 14, 2017, when the Chinese government announced plans to shut down domestic cryptocurrency exchanges.

The researchers also examined the 50 largest price changes in absolute value during the period.

"If Bitcoin trades in an efficient market with enough buyers and sellers, theory holds, its price should reflect all publicly available information about it, and changes in price should reflect new information. However, Bitcoin might not yet meet this standard," the paper noted.

In the research brief, AIER noted that if the number of market participants is relatively small, the idiosyncratic behavior of a few individuals may significantly impact the price. They also noted that there have been accusations of market manipulation by traders of Bitcoin, and that many observers believe Bitcoin to be in a speculative bubble, which may or may not imply large price changes not driven by newly revealed information.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Technology NewsVenezuela's president has announced the pre-sale of the country's national cryptocurrency, the petro, which he claims will help ease the economic crisis, and circumvent U.S.-led sanctions.

At a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Nicolas Maduro said Petro will be available for sale from February 20.

He also signed the official petro white paper that details "the functions, vision, and conditions" of the petro, and unveiled the Petro Container for mining the new digital currency.

A number of "mining farms" are being developed at schools and universities, Maduro said.

"All the savings banks in the country can have their mining farms and participate in el petro."

Previous drafts of the White paper had said that the government would issue 100 million "oil-backed" tokens, each valued at the equivalent of one barrel of Venezuelan crude, though they can not be exchanged for oil.

The Opposition-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly had declared the petro illegal and cannot be backed by oil, but the Constitutional Assembly stripped the National Assembly of its legislative powers.

Venezuela's has been reeling under pressure of the US sanctions, falling oil revenue and the plunging value of its currency, the bolivar.

Venezuela's ability to move money through international banks is limited due to the sanctions.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Forex NewsPresident Donald Trump has called on Democrats and Republicans to move beyond the partisan divide to a path of bipartisan co-operation in his first State of the Union address to Congress.

"In the aftermath of that terrible shooting, we came together, not as Republicans or Democrats, but as representatives of the people. But it is not enough to come together only in times of tragedy. Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve,"Trump told a joint sitting of the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The president, who had been opposing citizenship for some younger undocumented immigrants, offered an olive branch Tuesday night.

"Tonight I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to protect our citizens, of every background, color and creed."

He called for bipartisan support in the House and Senate when they vote over the next few weeks on an immigration reform package.

He explained that the first pillar of the framework generously offers a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants who were brought to the US by their parents at a young age. "Under our plan, those who meet education and work requirements, and show good moral character, will be able to become full citizens of the United States," he told the lawmakers.

In a stern warning to countries like China, Trump announced that the era of economic surrender is over, and made it clear that Washington expects trading relationships to be "fair and to be reciprocal."

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Political NewsReport: 5 civilians killed in 21 coalition airstrikes over Tuesday [31/January/2018]



SANAA, Jan. 31 (Saba)  Five Yemeni civilians were killed and other five seriously wounded when Saudi-led aggression coalition launched 21 airstrikes on several province of Yemen during the past 24 hours, officials and medics told Saba News Agency on Wednesday.



In Sanaa province, five civilians were killed and two injured in four Saudi aggression airstrikes hit government complex in Bait-Maran of Arahab district.



In northern province of Saada, a child was injured after a cluster bomb dropped by a Saudi-led coalition warplane went off in Bani-Ma'en area of Razeh border district.



Also in Saada, a civilian was injured when aggression airstrike hit Hafsain area of Suhar district.



In Suhar district, an airstrike hit Alaf valley, while in Kutaf district,the aggression warplanes launched an air strike on Shajea area, four airstrikes on Boqea area and three airstrikes were waged on Qahzah area.



Meanwhile, a civilian was seriously injured when Saudi-led aggression coalition missile and artillery force shelled Shada border district, causing damage to residents' material properties.



Furthermore, missile and artillery shelling targeted several areas of Razeh, Munabah and Ghamer border districts.



In Taiz province, the warplanes of aggression waged an air strike on Hail hill, and another one on Salal hill in Salh district.



In Jahmalia area, the fighter jet of aggression launched an air strike.



In the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, 3 Saudi-led aggression coalition airstrikes were waged on Luhaia district and an airstrike hit east of Qutaba area of Khukha district.





Sameera H.-Zak



SabaReport: Report: Army, committee carry out ground attacks against Saudi soldiers, mercenaries over Tuesday [31/January/2018]

SANAA, Jan 31 (Saba) - The army and popular forces have launched military operations, including artillery, missiles and snipping attacks to frustrate US-backed Saudi-led aggression coalition mercenaries and soldiers infiltration attempts over the past 24 hours, according to military reports combined by Saba on Wednesday.



In Saudi capital of Riyadh, the Yemeni Rocketry Forces fired a long-range ballistic missile, Burkan H-2, toward King Khaled International Airport.



In Jizan Saudi border province, three Saudi soldiers were sniped beyond Hamidha village.

Also in Jizan, artillery shelling bombed Saudi soldier's gatherings beyond Kamer village, Qais mountain, Mahjer site, and beyond Faridhah site.



In border province of Najran, dozens of Saudi-paid mercenaries were killed and wounded during repelling their infiltration toward Aleeb mountains, destroying two military vehicles.



In Boqea front, a Saud-paid mercenary, commander of the 103 Brigade, was injured by the fire of the army and popular forces.



Also in Boqea, Saudi-paid mercenaries' gatherings were shelled by artillery in the desert.



In Asir border province, artillery shelling targeted mercenaries' gatherings in Sabahtal mountain and in front of Alab crossing.



Also in Asir, Saudi soldiers' gatherings, fortifications and military vehicles were shelled by rockets and artillery beyond Alab crossing.



Furthermore, missile and artillery shelling targeted gatherings of Saudi soldiers in Hadhar site, Hanjer censorship, and Air Defense camp.



In Bayda province, dozens of mercenaries were killed in an ambush targeted on foot patrol east of Shabakt Sabah of Thi-Na'em district.



In Taiz province, the army and committees repelled mercenaries' infiltration toward Jara area ,and another infiltration in Habashi mountains, killing and wounding dozens.



Alsi in Taiz, the commander of the fifth sector in the 22nd Brigade, Nabeel al-Adeemi, was injured in the north of the city.



In Makha district, a military vehicle of Saudi-paid mercenaries was destroyed by a guided rocket east of Yakhtel, killing all its crew.

In Salw district of Taiz, mercenaries' gatherings were shelled by artillery, killing and wounding dozens.

In Nehm district, artillery of the army and popular forces targeted Saudi-paid mercenaries' gatherings in Ayani hill of Nehm front.



In Lahj province, a military vehicle, loaded with mercenaries, was smashed by a guided rocket in Karsh, killing all its crew.



In Yemen province of Jawf, a military vehicle, loaded with Saudi-paid mercenaries, was bombed by



an explosive device in Mahamisha front of Khub-washaaf district, killing all its crew, while another explosive device blasted during repelling mercenaries' infiltration toward Ham-Asfal mountain east of Mutun district, killing dozens of them.



In Marib province, eight of Saudi-paid mercenaries were sniped in several areas of Serwah district, while artillery of the army and popular forces targeted Saudi-paid mercenaries' gatherings in Dhaiq valley and Salb mountain of Serwah district.



Writing By Sameera al-Mahdi, Editing by Zak

SabaAnother youth injured in security force firing in Shopian district on Saturday succumbed to injuries on Wednesday taking the toll of civilian deaths in the incident to three.

Sources in the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) here said 19-year-old Rayees Ahmad admitted in the hospital on Saturday succumbed on Wednesday morning.

With this the death toll in Ganowpora village firing rose to three. Javaid Ahmad and Suhail Ahmad were killed in the army firing when a stone pelting mob attacked an administrative convoy of 10 Garhwal unit on Saturday.

Army said its personnel had fired in self-defence after a junior level officer fell unconscious following the mob attack.

Police has registered an FIR of murder against the soldiers of the unit.

The BJP has demanded withdrawal of the FIR while the Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said the investigation into the killings of the civilians would be taken to its logical conclusion.Mexico City, Jan 31 (IANS) Four people burned to death inside a vehicle and at least three others were wounded in a series of shootouts in Mexico, police said on Tuesday.

State police found the four bodies in the community of Rincon de la Via after receiving a call from a local police precinct chief about a shootout, Efe quoted state security spokesman Roberto Alvarez as saying.

Antonio de Dios Navarrete, the 32-year-old commander of the UPOEG community self-defense group, died in the shootout.

UPOEG, whose members are armed, was created in January 2013 in the cities of Ayutla de los Libres, Teconoapa and San Marcos to protect residents.

The self-defense group controls access to communities and polices them to fight drug traffickers and other criminals.

Investigators found numerous 7.62-mm and .223-caliber bullet casings in the community, as well as the vehicle, which was riddled with bullet holes.

About 70 Rincon de la Via residents set up checkpoints to force the UPOEG to leave the community, and they demanded the release of several people kidnapped on Sunday, the state security spokesman said.

Residents of the communities of Buena Vista de la Salud and Ocotito, meanwhile, said three people were wounded in an attack and taken to the General Hospital in Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero.

Residents said members of the Los Ardillos gang killed the four men found in Rincon de la Via and shot the three people in the other communities, Alvarez said.

The UPOEG and FUSTEG vigilante groups, which are battling each other, as well as gangs, such as Los Ardillos, operate in this part of Guerrero, the state security spokesman said.Gentle ripples stream in the wake of an ulu as a lone paddler sets out in the gray light of early morning. By the time the sun has inched above the horizon, a dozen more dugout canoes have joined this one to fish the reef off Anachucuna village. Meandering to pass near Totem, fishermen offer a smile and greeting. By the time its light enough to see woodsmoke from kitchen fires hanging in a layer over thatched homes and to hear intermittent braying from a donkey on shore, the day is in full swing. Placid water and friendly faces are just what we need on our first morning in Panama after a trying series of hops from Colombia.

Departing Santa Marta on the 24th, Jamie steered downwind through challenging seas and wind from 25 gusting to 40 knots when a loud POP proclaimed a break in the steering cable. Steering from the helm was gone, but the autopilot still did the job. This a point we knew well from Seychelles in 2015: another cruising boat boat made much of steering failure drama, refusing to believe what Jamie told them  that they could probably still steer with autopilot.

Squarefaced breaking seas of 3 to 5 meters required steering, and what followed was an autopilot driven trial shared by Niall and Jamie for nearly eight hours. Plus ten degrees, plus ten degrees... minus 20, now! Steering poorly meant a possible roundup, not a good thing in these conditions. Steering well meant working the autopilot hard, risking gear failure. As a backup, Totems emergency tiller was in place as soon as steerage was in hand with the autopilot. We have a big rudder, so driving Totem by emergency tiller in those conditions would be like steering a loaded dumptruck with the steering wheel removed. This was not a boring day!

The cause was a failed link in the chain portion of the steering cable. To enable repairs, we anchored that evening near Barranquilla: the same Barranquilla where three nights later a series of police station bombings began, killing at least five and injuring more than 40. Feverishly working to put a repair in place (Dyneema to the rescue again!), Jamie was interrupted by the arrival of marine police and a firm but friendly boarding. What followed was the most thorough search weve ever had, at least until the officer seemed to get bored; but meanwhile, most lockers were opened,even some headliner removed to peer into potential hiding spaces. Upon learning Mairen was 15, once officer lit up, exclaiming Quinceanera! (Latin American ritual celebrating female fifteenth birthdays, traditionally a presentation of her transition from child to woman) and with simple words and gestures, suggested he should be her boyfriend. The police vessel departure was a relief, but sleep did not come easily as every sound made me question the possibility of unwelcome visitors.

Day two saw the fix in place holding well. Again steep seas chased Totem to the southwest, but they abated by midday as we sailed in progressively sheltered waters. We heard from friends back in Santa Marta that wed gotten out just in time, as 40 knot winds again blew just outside the marina! Our original plan had been to carry through overnight to Panama, but exhaustion from the prior days effort took a toll. The easy decision was turning into Cartagenas Boca Chica, and anchoring overnight behind the stone fortifications of the 18th century Fort San Fernando to evaluate the steering repair and get a good nights sleep.

The following morning we felt sufficiently rested to continue overnight for the remaining 150 nautical miles. Our destination: Puerto Obaldia, a Panamanian pueblo just over the border from Colombia. Windspeed drops further in the lee of Colombia, although seas were still sloppy; eventually we fired up Totems Yanmar to make more comfortable and timely progress. It was important to arrive no later than midmorning, as advance information suggested that Puerto Obaldias exposure to swell made the anchorage difficult, and unsafe overnight. Clearance can take several hours, and departure by 2pm was necessary to reach the tranquil protection of Puerto Perme with decent light.

Our conditions in the anchorage were nearly untenable. The swell rolled in, waves stacked short and steep; Totem was hooked well enough but pitching uncomfortably. No conditions for launching the dinghy from our bow, much less successfully dropping the outboard on the back; instead I shuttled in with a buddy boat, their dinghy more readily dropped from davits with a lightweight outboard.

All reports indicated the entire crew must go ashore here. We could not imagine leaving the boat unattended in these conditions: it was simply too dangerous. The police were our first line of clearance: without pleading the case too hard, I pointed out the plain truth of this problem. Thankfully officials allowed a single representative to complete clearance on behalf of our crews on Totem and a buddy boat.

Its a good thing we arrived around 8:00 in the morning, as it literally took right up until our self imposed 2pm deadline to complete clearance and still reach a safe anchorage with daylight. There are three officials processing entry in Puerto Obaldia: military police, immigration, and port captain. At each step is a ponderous analog process of varying durations while details for the boat and crew are handwritten in a register or multipart forms (there were seven layers to the port captains). Had the process run smoothly, it would have taken between two and three hours. It took us about six. The snag: while waiting for Migracion to receive our visa registration number from some central authority, the internet connection went down. No registration number, no clearance. Andrew or I would periodically walk from the officina to where we could see the boats in the anchorage, and my stomach lurched right along with our vessels watching them buck in the waves.

Noon. No reply from Panama City, and now everything is closed for lunch. Andrew and I got lunch in the small restaurant across from Migracion. Soup, fried fish, plantain, rice, onion/tomato salad: four dollars of deliciousness! The proprietress locked up and left before we were finished, unconcerned that we hadnt paid. I guess in a town with no roads out, she figured shed catch up with us (we paid someone, who made our $2 change with the Migracion officers, and presumably later paid her).

We ticked closer to 2pm, and caught a break. The officials were humans first and bureaucrats second. They knew we needed to move; they didnt have central approval. It was Saturday afternoon, and unlikely to come before Monday. So they gave us our passport stamps, exacting the promise that wed follow up at the next available port with a Migracion office for the missing registration numbers. Gratefully we headed out to anchor in Puerto Perme, the placid anchorage from which to begin adventures in Panamas semiindependent indigenous province of Guna Yala.

Totem is in the disconnected eastern reaches of Guna Yala! This post is sent through a satellite connection. Pictures to follow when internet allows.A lot has been said about Samoas debt, aid and why we shouldnt be panicking about the state of the economy during the recent past.

Take for example last week in Parliament where Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, his Cabinet Ministers and certain Members of Parliament made a concerted effort to drum up the countrys financial position and how each and every one of us should be grateful to the government for where we are today.

Hardly surprising of course! Its not as if we would expect them to say anything differently, would we? You see one of the best things about being free as Laauliolemalietoa Leuatea Schmidt alluded to last week is being able to speak your mind without any fear.

Which makes sense. In his position where you can perhaps say he has fallen from grace, youve got nothing else to lose except to tell it as it is. And he did not disappoint, repeatedly warning the government against running the country on a deficit.

He also cautioned against borrowing and the need to be more prudent with finances, calling on government officials to use public resources wisely and avoid abuse.

The warning is not new. But hearing it from a different voice, especially someone who has been there all those years, he would have known something about the abuse and everything else that goes on at the halls of power.

He also would know a lot about the growing uneasiness about Samoas debt to China, which has become the subject of much discussion on these pages and other media forums  including the social media.

Two weeks ago, Prime Minister Tuilaepa vehemently rubbished claims that Samoas debt to China has reached unsustainable levels.

Its wrong, its totally wrong, he said. Look for a report issued by the Central Bank that is where the accurate information is found. It also indicates the amount (owed) to China.

Wouldnt it be nice if he just gave us a ballpark figure rather than referring us to another report that probably wouldnt tell us a thing? In any case, the Prime Minister again gave us a story we have heard time and time again.

There is no need to be concerned over the totality of the debt, because its not important. What is more important is the annual repayment that is how a country should address its debt, he said.

It is stupid to look at the totality of the loan, the assumption the loans are to be paid next week. That is ridiculous. There are loans that have a grace period of 30 years and that is why it is important to distinguish the totality of the loan and the ability to pay the loan.

Thirty years or a hundred years it doesnt matter. The fact is we still have to pay it. Period.

Now we also had Chinas Ambassador to Samoa, Wang Xuefeng, who swiftly assuaged fears over Samoas debt to China. Pressed on how much China has given to Samoa in terms of grants and loans, Mr. Xuefeng said: I dont have any specific statistics at hand to give a very good comment.

The Prime Minister answered that he believes Samoa has the capability to repay the loans and has ample capacity to pay on an annual basis.

Now, as far as I know, all Chinese projects offered at this time are in the form of grants. In the past two and a half years that I have served here, it has all been grants.

Again, it would be wonderful to get some real numbers, how much of the aid is grant and how much is the loan.

The truth about Samoa is simple enough. When you get past all these diplomatic and political garbage, the problem for Samoa today is that by continuing to sing this tune that there is nothing to worry about, this government is creating a false sense of security for our people. People think they are okay, they are swayed by these big impressive developments  some they dont need and the sweet talk.

The reality is that they are suffering. There is emptiness; there is a big void you can see in peoples eyes. They are desperate. And they need help.

Weve said this before and we will say it again today. Everything happening in Samoa, from tax laws, redefining the role of the sao in families, pulenuu, customary land consultations, to the review of taxes and charges, opportunities for employment overseas and more are geared towards paying a foreign debt created by this government that has ballooned uncontrollably over the years.

And everyone will have to pay. One way or another. Its not just money; its going to cost us everything we have, including our inheritance. We are seeing it already with the massive influx of Asians in Samoa.

The reality is; give the current leadership another 15 years or even less to continue their defiance and they will pass on eventually. At six feet under, they wouldnt have to worry about anything.

The worst part is they cannot be held accountable then.

And many of us might not even be around then when the chickens come home to roost. It is the future generations of this country who will suffer. They are the ones we should be concerned about. Today.

Have a wonderful Thursday Samoa, God bless!The future is exciting for the Information Communication Technology (I.C.T.) in Samoa.

Thats the belief of the Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Afamasaga Rico Tupai, who provided an update about the state of the Tui Samoa Cable as well as other key I.C.T. related developments during a press conference yesterday.

He also spoke about the Governments objective to capitalize on Samoas central position in the Pacific and the agreements they have entered into in a bid to attract more business from overseas.

We are launching to Samoa next week on Friday, he said.

The launch is to officiate that the work of the government is complete in building the submarine cable and bringing it on to land and its ready for service to the private sector and the communication operators like internet operators, he said

The Minister acknowledged that there would be some teething problems during the transition but that's to be expected.

We wont be 100 percent in realizing the supersonic powers of this cable immediately after its officiated on the 9th according to the operators, he said.

But this is the nature of the submarine work because immediately after, theres been talk that the cable is coming but like I said its the nature of the work  nobody believes anything until it actually reaches land.

Part of the delays in the initial stages of operation has to do with communication operators finishing out their contracts with satellite service before they begin switching to the cable.

These operators they have contracts with satellite companies, he said.

Our communication at the moment is based on the satellite service so they are trying to finish off satellite services before they can fully load their services onto the cable.

The services will slowly be going onto the cable so you may still find that when you wake up on the 10th that your internet is still slow but eventually it will improve.

This is the work of the private sector and the telecommunication operators to slowly get their service onto the cable. Its an opportunity also for them once we give the cable out to them to start realizing what needs to be upgraded within their systems. Its only then they can find out what needs to be and what can be done to improve services.

The Minister also announced that this week, they would officially put a tender for a supplier to build the Manatua cable.

The Manatua Cable is an initiative of the government of Tahiti, government of the Cook islands, Niue and we are talking with Tonga also to connect and Samoa government as well. Theres help from the government of New Zealand and Asia Development bank. Our target is for June 2019 to reach our shores before the South Pacific games.

According to the Minister, last week the Samoan government signed an official contract between the government of Samoa through the Samoa Submarine cable company and also a company from the United States called TEsub.com. The agreements purpose is to maintain cables around the Pacific

Our part in the contract is to build a warehouse on the wharf in Matautu. The warehouse is about 4000 square metres in Matautu.

This warehouse will house all the submarine cable spare parts for not only the Pacific region but for the whole of the Oceania region. Having this warehouse on the wharf will also attract the maintenance vessel, currently it based in New Caledonia.

He outlined the financial benefits that Samoa will gain.

The main reasons why the government wants the company here is of course the benefits to the economy. We are estimating to have a financial injection per annum of about 3 million U.S dollars into our economy and our services.

Not only will this come from rental fees on the wharf but also rental fees of the docking of the vessel. Also the services in terms of hotels and restaurants as well as the use of our petrol and fossil fuel.

There will be opportunities for employment particularly for crew members needed to work on the vessel which the government hopes to ensure that a fully Samoan crew will be operating in the next five years.

The Minister also revealed that the government will be working with the National University of Samoa to include the skills of cable maintenance, cable manufacturing and skills in the syllabus of the marine school at the university.

He outlined the Governments vision in making the most out of Samoas location in the Pacific.

Its in the nature of communications that when you have a first gig then you need to have a second gig, he said.

Pointing to the map of the Pacific behind him, the Minister said: Samoa is right in the center of the Pacific region so the objective of government is to take advantage of this central location, not only in terms of communication, submarine cables and connectivity but also in terms of on air traffic.

In terms of vessels carrying containers we are in a very central position and we are now moving towards taking advantage of where we are.

We can say that in the next 5-10 years we are looking for a completely different Samoa than at the moment.Life is challenging but without a job, things become even more difficult.

Just ask Aeti Tulafono, 26, from Faleasiu-uta and he will tell you all about the pain. The young man is looking for a job to support his family.

I am currently working on my plantation for now to support my family while I wait for a job, he said.

Im doing the best that I can by providing food for every day from the crops at the plantation.

But that is hardly enough, he said.

Money is needed for everything these days and thats why it is not enough, he said.

Mr. Tulafono was heading to his plantation for work yesterday morning when he caught up with the Village Voice.

Mr. Tulafono said he used to work but he stopped because of family circumstances.

I attended the National University of Samoas Media and Journalism Programme and then I observed at the Talofa FM, he said.

I was also working at the Mr. Burger place as well then I stopped working because my father was too old to look after our plantation.

So right now theres only one person here in my family that is working today while I am here at home working our plantation.

Mr. Tulafono said he would be grateful if someone could offer him some work.

I have a brother who is coming from American Samoa soon to look after my parents and that is why I am on the search for a job.

I am good at office work and also cooking, I am looking at those fields of work to secure a job for me to support my family.

Mr. Tulafono added that in the interim, he would continue to work hard at the farm.

I cant wait to find a job so I can work and earn money from it.

I havent been selling any of the crops here because we are only using it for our familys food and that is it.

But hopefully if I get a job, I am sure that I will still make time to come here and continue on my work here because this will help me save money.

I do not have to buy other peoples crops because I have the same crops here in my plantation.

For anyone that is willing to help Aeti Tulafono of Faleasiu-uta, he can be contacted on this number +685 7587358.The Government has launched a nationwide effort to help Samoa become a leading country in protecting people from the harms of tobacco.

The launch of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (F.C.T.C.) 2030 Project, which has kicked started with a Tobacco Needs Assessment, was held on Tuesday.

The launch follows the decision to choose Samoa as one of the countries to receive dedicated international support from the United Nations to take action on smoking.

The F.C.T.C. 2030 project will support Samoa to accelerate implementation the W.H.O. F.C.T.C., with a focus on protecting children from harmful use and effects of smoking.

The Needs assessment mission is being conducted jointly by the Government and a team from the United Nations from 30 January to 2 February 2018 in Apia.

This will provide a baseline of the countrys status in implementation of the W.H.O. F.C.T.C., and will enable an assessment of the impact of this international contribution on tobacco control in Samoa after five years.

This is the second needs assessment exercise with the first conducted six years ago from 26 February to 3 March 2012.

Andrew Black, visiting Samoa from the Secretariat of the W.H.O. F.C.T.C, said All governments that have ratified the W.H.O. F.C.T.C. have committed to implement policies to improve public health through strong tobacco control.

Through the F.C.T.C. 2030 project, Samoa will get a support to become leading country in protecting people from the harms of tobacco.

Tobacco use is extremely harmful for health and is one of the worlds leading causes of premature death. Tobacco causes many life-threatening diseases, including cancer, heart and lung diseases.

Tobacco is not only a health hazard but is also a significant barrier to national development as a cause of many social, economic and environmental problems.

Tobacco control will contribute to Samoas efforts to achieve the government of Samoas leading policy document Strategy for the Development of Samoa 2016/17-2019/20 (SDS). Its vision is An Improved Quality of Life for All: Accelerating Sustainable Development and Broadening Opportunities.

The SDS outlines the Governments plan to strengthen economic resilience through increasing investment in the productive sectors of the economy, including agriculture and manufacturing.

Key Outcome 6 of the SDS is A Healthy Samoa and Wellbeing Promoted, emphasizing prevention, health protection and inclusive people-centred health through increased focus on primary health care, revitalization of traditional roles in village health care, and quality in services delivery. Addressing NCDs remains a top priority for Samoa, as does protecting the wellbeing of women and children. Tobacco Control is one of its main priorities addressing NCDs.

Samoa will receive special assistance from the international community to fully implement the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (W.H.O F.C.T.C.), the Worlds only Health Treaty which is dedicated to ending the global tobacco epidemic.

The W.H.O. F.C.T.C. is a comprehensive blueprint for governments to stop tobacco use in their countries, and 181 countries have ratified the treaty.

Through the F.C.T.C. 2030 project, Samoa will receive assistance to undertake a government-wide programme of work to strengthen tobacco control. The project, to run for five-years, will bring international support to Samoa from the United Nations, including the Secretariat of the W.H.O. F.C.T.C., United Nations Development Programme (U.N.D.P.) and W.H.O. This will include expert advice, technical assistance and peer support to strengthen tobacco control action.

The Governments of the United Kingdom and Australia have generously provided funds under the new project to promote the accelerated implementation of the WHO FCTC in low- and middle-income countries. Samoa is one of 15 countries that will receive dedicated assistance to strengthen tobacco control.

Since Samoas ratification of the W.H.O. Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2005, the government has signed into law the Tobacco Control Act 2008 and the Tobacco Control Regulations 2013. These two key pieces of legislation regulate all aspects of tobacco control such as smoke-free public areas and workplaces, advertising, promotion and sponsorship, and pictorial health warnings on packaging.Samoans must never forget the benefits of the land.

Yesterday, a 54-year-old father of four shared with the Village Voice team the importance of working the land.

It is another source of income for our families, especially in todays struggles, Falefa Ioane explained.

The man from the village of Lotosoa Saleimoa says locals today are too lazy to return to their land for source of sustenance.

The life we have today in Samoa is a really tough one, and to me I think the best way to tackle it is through hard work, he said.

There is nothing to hide about the high cost of living and our people suffer because they rely too much on the exported goods.

Some other people in Samoa today have plantations, but they spend money to buy crops from others rather than working on their plantations.

Mr. Ioane was on his way home from his plantation when he shared with us how his family copes with the standard of living in Samoa today.

Our family comprises seven people, my wife and I, and our four children, including my elderly mother.

Two of Mr. Ioanes children work

I have two children who work to support us financially, and the other two are still in school.

So to me, even though my kids have had jobs, it doesnt stop me from coming here to the plantation and working here, this is my contribution.

Mr. Ioane mentioned some of the benefits of working the plantation.

Working the plantation is another way to earn money apart from spending them on other people, so it saves you money.

Plantation is also the best exercise for old people my age because right now some people in their mid 20s and 30s cant walk that much anyways, so this is a good exercise.

Mr. Ioane added there are also other families in Samoa with members working regular jobs, but they cant still support their families.

In Samoa, we also have to support church and village matters and our family obligations.

He explained: When all our money is gone towards supporting obligations, then we get our crops from our plantation to cover for our food.

Life in Samoa is slowly developing and progressing, our people need to know that we have things to rely on so that we can be able to deal with whatever life throws at us.With President Donald Trump proposing a $1.5 trillion infrastructure program in his State of the Union address, San Diego agencies and institutions have billions of dollars on their wish lists that some of the money could underwrite.

Why should we care? Construction and repairing roads, public transit lines, sewer and water systems, port improvements, parks and libraries, civic buildings and other public works is what makes American civilization work. But the debate always comes down to priorities and who pays for what.

How much will San Diego County get? Too early to tell. The county represents roughly 1 percent of the nations population, so mathematically it should be able to count on getting $15 billion if the money is dispersed strictly on the basis of population. But areas often get more or less than the per capita amount would suggest. [Corrected from earlier $1.5 billion figure]

Who will decide? Also unknown at this point. Traditionally, the federal government, states and localities disperse public funds by formula and on a competitive basis with the winners making the best case for getting their share. But politics, need and urgency usually play a part in the final accounting.

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How much do we need? The wishlist is endless, from that broken sidewalk out your front door to that aging bridge and poses a hazard to motorists. Its easy to rack up billions, even trillions of dollars of need but supplicants at the federal funding trough have to justify their requests.

So, what about the city of San Diego? The largest local government estimates its infrastructure needs for just the next five years at $4.4 billion. The biggest category is water recycling, nearly $1.1 billion and smallest is $750,000 for SDCCU Stadium repairs, even though the facility is due to be closed at the end of this year. Other big numbers include $687.8 million for streets, roads, streetlights and traffic signals; $596.4 million for water lines; $563 million for storm water systems; and $372.9 million for wastewater and sewer systems. The sewer, water and transportation items are usually covered by user fees and others by federal and state grants, hotel room taxes and sales and property taxes.

Wasnt there a big federal infrastructure plan a while back? Youre thinking of the 2009 American Recovery and Reconstruction Act signed by then-President Barack Obama. It was designed to stimulate the economy during the Great Recession. Of the $787 billion originally earmarked, about $105.3 billion was set aside for infrastructure.

What did San Diego County get? The San Diego Association of Governments compiled a $7.5 billion list of public projects that were shovel ready. That total included $2.6 billion in highways, $1.3 billion in public transit, $1.1 billion in local transportation projects and $2.5 billion in local public works. In the end, the region received nearly $1 billion. SANDAGs latest projections for transportation needs for the next 40 years total $203.8 billion, about half for transit, a quarter for highway improvements, 13 percent for local streets and roads and the remainder for smart-growth incentives, traffic management and debt service.

What was built? Among the big-ticket items: SANDAG received about $300 million for transportation projects. The U.S. Marine Corps got $451 million for a new hospital at Camp Pendleton. The U.S. Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla got $102 million for a new research complex and research vessel.

Whats next? Congress has to write a bill and appropriate an unknown amount of public funds. If private-sector funds are also involved, it will be up to investment banks and big corporations to ante up. Since this is an election year, its not a sure bet that new infrastructure spending will make the cut.

Will it matter? The American Society of Civil Engineers said last year the U.S. needs to spent $4.6 trillion to bring roads, dams, airports and water and electrical systems up to snuff. Its 2017 report card on 16 categories of infrastructure included 13 Ds, 3 Cs and one lonely B (for rail systems). So even a few billion dollars will be a welcome investment  if spent wisely.

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roger.showley@sduniontribune.com; (619) 293-1286; Twitter: @rogershowleySupporters of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau might have just won the war over the future of the controversial watchdog even as they are losing battle after battle over its operations under President Trump.

A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that the bureaus structure is constitutional, dealing a blow to opponents of the independent agency created in the aftermath of the financial crisis.



For the record: An earlier version of this story said the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia was 6-3. The ruling was 7-3.

Although the Supreme Court could have the ultimate say, Wednesdays ruling upholds the broad powers granted to the bureaus director by Congress to oversee mortgages, credit cards and other financial products.

Republicans and business groups have fought aggressively to reduce the bureaus authority, arguing its aggressive actions have restricted access to credit.

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But the calculus has changed since President Trump took office, said Alan S. Kaplinsky, head of the consumer financial services group at law firm Ballard Spahr.

The bureaus first director, Democrat Richard Cordray, resigned in November and Trump named Republican Mick Mulvaney, the White House budget director, to be the acting chief.

An outspoken opponent of the bureau, Mulvaney has moved quickly to make it more business-friendly and scale back enforcement actions even as his appointment is the subject of its own litigation.

Before Cordray resigned, the Trump administration wanted the [structure] to be held unconstitutional so they could appoint their own director, Kaplinsky said. The way things stand right now, Trump doesnt need that. Hes got his man Mulvaney in charge.

The changing dynamic was clear in the reaction to the court decision by Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), the chief congressional antagonist of the bureau during the Obama administration. He has argued the bureaus structure was unconstitutional and pushed legislation through the House last year that would gut the agencys authority.

While Hensarling said he was deeply disappointed in the ruling, he added that he took great solace in the fact that Mick Mulvaney can use his unchecked, unilateral powers to continue the agencys transformation.

Democrats and consumer advocates hailed the ruling as guaranteeing the future of the bureau as a powerful watchdog of the often perilous financial marketplace.

The court decision affirming the constitutionality of the CFPB demonstrates once again that the right wings hysteria over the consumer bureau is baseless, said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who first conceived of the agency and helped set it up as an Obama aide.

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The president should follow the law and nominate a permanent director who has a track record of standing up for consumers and can garner bipartisan support in the Senate, she said.

The Republicans have just a one-seat Senate majority, and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), was one of the few in her party to vote for the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act that created the bureau.

The Mulvaney experience is a mess, but were hoping we get out of it soon, said Ed Mierzwinski, consumer program director at the nonprofit U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

In a 7-3 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled Wednesday that Congress acted appropriately in mandating that the bureaus single director  who serves a five-year term after being nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate  can only be removed by the president for inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.

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Most presidential appointees can be removed at will and usually depart when a new president takes office.

The bureau also is funded directly by the Federal Reserve instead of having to get an annual appropriation from Congress, which limits the ability of lawmakers to influence policy by threatening to withhold money or limit its use.

Congresss decision to provide the CFPB Director a degree of insulation reflects its permissible judgment that civil regulation of consumer financial protection should be kept one step removed from political winds and presidential will, Judge Cornelia T.L. Pillard, an appointee of President Obama, wrote for the majority in the 250-page ruling.

The decision reverses a 2-1 ruling in 2016 by a three-judge panel of the court that found that the bureaus structure violated the Constitutions separation of powers because it limited the presidents authority.

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That earlier ruling said the solution was to strike down the laws for cause provision, meaning that the president could remove the bureaus director for any reason, as with other executive branch appointees.

The CFPB appealed the 2016 ruling, backed by the Obama administrations Justice Department.

After Trumps election, the Justice Department reversed its position and told the full court that the president should be able to fire the bureaus director at will.

A bureau spokesperson said Wednesday that officials were analyzing the ruling. A Justice Department official said, We are disappointed in the decision and reviewing our options.

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Cordray, an Obama appointee who stepped down in November, said Wednesdays ruling that the bureaus structure was constitutional was historic and may be soon on its way to the Supreme Court.

The courts decision is all about maintaining independent law enforcement free from politics, tweeted Cordray, a Democrat now running for governor of Ohio.

We fought this case against the naysayers and the critics, the financial industry and the Congress, as well as the Administration, which changed sides to oppose the independence of this new peoples agency, he said in his Tweet. We were right to do so.

In practice, though, the bureau already is being transformed under Mulvaneys leadership.

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On Jan. 18, Mulvaney requested zero funding from the Fed for the second quarter of the fiscal year. He said the bureau had enough money on hand to cover its anticipated $145 million in expenses and that he planned to slash a reserve fund.

Mulvaney has launched a review of the bureaus entire operation as a first step in an overhaul. He has said he would consider revising or repealing regulations that were designed to protect consumers against harmful payday lenders.

And he has scaled back the bureaus enforcement efforts, including dismissing a suit filed in April under Cordray against four online payday lenders affiliated with a Northern California Native American tribe.

The case the appellate court ruled on Wednesday was brought by PHH Corp., a New Jersey mortgage services company, which had challenged the bureaus authority after being fined $109 million in 2015 for alleged mortgage kickbacks.

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The 2016 ruling tossed out the fine, saying the bureau exceeded its authority in enforcing the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, which covers mortgage closures. The court said the bureau applied a new interpretation of the law retroactively to PHH and then improperly contended that a three-year statute of limitations did not apply.

The appellate court upheld that portion of the lower courts ruling. PHH said that was an important and gratifying outcome. Shares of PHH rose 2.2% Wednesday.

The court decision came amid an ongoing battle over who should lead the CFPB until a permanent director is chosen.

In a last-minute move before his resignation, Cordray appointed Leandra English, his chief of staff, to deputy director. Cordray said she would be the acting director under a Dodd-Frank provision.

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Trump then appointed Mulvaney to be the agencys acting chief under the Federal Vacancies Act of 1998.

English filed suit to be installed as the rightful acting director, but her requests for a temporary restraining order and then a preliminary injunction were rejected by Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

English is appealing the denial of the restraining order by Kelly, a Trump appointee, to the same court that ruled on the bureaus constitutionality.

jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com

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Twitter: @JimPuzzanghera

UPDATES:

2:20 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from Alan S. Kaplinsky of Ballard Spahr, Ed Mierzwinski of U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Rep. Jeb Hensarling, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and additional details from the ruling.

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11:15 a.m.: This article was updated with comment from the Justice Department and additional background about the decision and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

9:20 a.m.: This article was updated with additional details about the ruling and reaction from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and former director Richard Cordray.

This article originally was published at 8:20 a.m.Qualcomm posted mixed financial results on Wednesday as it makes its case to shareholders to reject a hostile takeover bid from rival Broadcom.

The San Diego smartphone chip giant beat Wall Street analysts estimates for adjusted sales and earnings for its fiscal first quarter ended Dec. 24.

But its forecast for the current March quarter lagged analysts projections  as a sluggish smartphone market weighed on guidance.

Its unclear how these results will be viewed by Qualcomms shareholders  particularly big mutual and hedge funds that own 78 percent of its stock -- as the company tries to fend off Broadcoms efforts to take control of its board of directors.

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Stockholders will vote to support either Broadcoms 11 alternative board candidates or Qualcomms existing directors by the San Diego companys March 6 annual meeting.

Broadcom is attempting to gain control of Qualcomms board after it rejected a $103 billion buyout offer  the largest ever in tech.

Broadcom offered $70 per share in cash and stock for Qualcomm, which its board declined for being too low.

There was a lot to unpack from Qualcomm earning call  including a new patent licensing deal with Samsung and an update on its slow moving acquisition of automotive chip maker NXP Semiconductors.

For its first quarter, Qualcomm reported sales of $6 billion and adjusted earnings of $1.5 billion, or 98 cents a share, on the strength of its chip business.

That beat Wall Street analysts estimates of $5.9 billion in revenue and adjusted earnings of 86 cents per share.

Our first quarter results reflect continued strong performance in our semiconductor business, as well as continued strength in 3G/4G handset average selling prices, said Chief Executive Steve Mollenkopf in a statement.

For the March quarter, Qualcomm predicts sales of $5.2 billion and adjusted earnings of 70 cents per share at the midpoint.

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Analysts were looking for earnings of 84 cents per share on sales of $5.5 billion in the March quarter.

The weak March quarter stems from a slowdown in smartphone sales in China, as well as Apple reportedly cutting production of iPhone X amid soft demand for the $1,000 smartphone.

Meanwhile, Broadcom said Wednesday that it expects to continue to hit its financial targets  with strong demand in data center and storage chips offsetting weakness in its wireless business.

Our first quarter results are tracking towards the higher end of our expectations as we continue to execute on our business model, said Broadcom Chief Executive Hock Tan.

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Broadcom has not increased its offer for Qualcomm. But Wall Street analysts say Broadcom has the flexibility to boost the price and still book an increase in profits.

We wont be surprised to see Broadcom raise its Qualcomm offer and believe that a Qualcomm deal will be meaningfully accretive even at $80 a share, said Macquarie Research Analyst Srini Pajjuri in a research report.

Qualcomms share price has been under pressure as lawsuits from Apple and fines from global antitrust regulators. Since 2015, the company has been fined a total of nearly $4 billion by regulators in China, South Korea, Taiwan and Europe.

In addition, Apple has stopped paying patent royalties to Qualcomm, which has trimmed revenue by roughly $500 million a quarter.

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Qualcomm argues that its patent licensing battles are temporary. Legal hearings slated this year could help spark negotiations between Apple and Qualcomm.

We value Apple as a customer and would like to continue that relationship into the future, but it is in our stockholders best interest that we ensure Apple pay a fair and reasonable royalty and operate on a level playing field with other smartphone makers, said Mollenkopf in a conference call with analysts.

In a rare bit of good news for its patent licensing business, Qualcomm said Wednesday that it reached a new royalty agreement with Samsung.

While exact terms werent disclosed, Qualcomm said the deal calls for charging royalties based on the total price of the smartphone, rather than the price of the chip that Qualcomm supplies.

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The Korea Fair Trade Commission called for Qualcomm to institute chip level patent licensing when it fined the company more than $850 million in October 2016. Qualcomm is appealing. As part of the new agreement, Samsung will withdraw its objections to Qualcomms appeal in the Seoul High Court.

Mollenkopf said the Samsung agreement provides a good indication that we are headed in the right direction with its licensing business.

The fines and a one-time tax charge related to repatriation of Qualcomms offshore cash stockpile resulted in the company posting a loss for the quarter under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.

Qualcomms $38 billion pending acquisition of Dutch chip maker NXP Semiconductors  a key piece of its strategy to diversify beyond smartphones -- has gained global regulatory approval everywhere but China.

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As soon as the deal is cleared there, Qualcomm could wrap up a tender offer in as little as three weeks, said Chief Financial Officer George Davis.

Qualcomm may have to pay more than the current $110 per share price, however. Elliott Capital, a large NXP shareholder, contends the company is worth $135 per share. The fund is lobbying other shareholders to refuse to pledge their shares at the current price.

Under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, Qualcomm reported a $4.03 per share loss for the quarter. It stemmed from a $6 billion tax charge related to repatriation of billions of offshore cash following recent tax reform. The company also booked a $1.2 billion accrual for a fine imposed last week by the European Commission over an expired exclusive chip supply deal with Apple. Qualcomm is appealing.

The company released results Wednesday after markets closed. Its shares ended trading up nearly 2 percent at $68.25 on the Nasdaq. The stock dipped 7 cents in early after-hours trading.

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mike.freeman@sduniontribune.com;

Twitter:@TechDiego

760-529-4973Just four San Diego county hotels made it onto AAAs newest Five-Diamond list of luxury properties, released on Wednesday.

They all retained their place in the prestigious ranking, which in San Diego has changed little over the last few years.

Five-diamond honorees are: the Fairmont Grand Del Mar, Lodge at Torrey Pines, Rancho Valencia and Park Hyatt Aviara. They are among just 13 hotels in all of Southern California that were accorded the top ranking.

In order to receive five diamonds, hotels are subject to in-person inspections, anonymous overnight stays and lastly, a review by a panel of experts. Fewer than half of 1 percent of the more than 27,000 AAA inspected hotels receive the five-diamond rating.

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Michael Petrone, director of AAA Inspections & Diamond Ratings, said that hotels that aspire to the highest rating must stay far ahead of the curve to differentiate themselves through advanced design concepts, highest quality furnishings and scrupulous attention to guests expectations.

An additional 24 San Diego County hotels were awarded four-diamond rankings.

Business

lori.weisberg@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-2251

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Twitter: @loriweisbergJapanese carmakers Mazda and Toyota announced this month a joint-venture plan to build a manufacturing plant in Huntsville, Ala. The partnership represents a $1.6 billion investment for the facility that will employ up to 4,000 and open in 2021.

The new plant will have the capacity to build 300,000 vehicles annually, with production split evenly between two lines for each company to produce Mazdas crossover model that will be newly introduced to the North American market and the Toyota Corolla.

The joint venture represents a $1.6 billion investment, with equal funding contributions from each carmaker. The facility is expected to create up to 4,000 jobs with production expected to begin by 2021.

With this announcement, our world changes overnight, said Tommy Battle, mayor of Huntsville.

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Mazda Motor Corp. President and Chief Executive Officer Masamichi Kogai and Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda joined Alabama Governor Kay Ivey and Mayor Battle for the Jan. 10 announcement in Huntsville.

For Mazda, the plant comes on line in a significant year that will mark the start of the companys second century of operation and second half-century of sales in the U.S.

For Toyota, this joint-venture plant will be its 11th U.S. manufacturing facility and is in addition to a $10 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing over the next five years that was announced in January 2017.

Toyota bought a 5 percent slice of Mazda last fall with the plan to focus on affordable electric vehicles. Mazda also provides the iA sedan for Toyota

The State of Alabama is the fifth largest producer of cars and light trucks nationally with a strong automotive manufacturing presence including Toyotas engine plant in Huntsville, where Toyota employs 1,400 team members. With more than 150 Tier 1 and 2 automotive suppliers in the state as well as automakers, there are approximately 57,000 automotive manufacturing jobs in Alabama.PHOTO: The Lake San Marcos Kiwanis Club recently hosted Tony Stewart, president of Mission Hills High Key Club, and Krista Nguyen, secretary of the San Marcos High Key Club. Stewart discussed some of the community service efforts of the club, ranging from providing food for the needy and helping with an Eagle Scout kiosk project to fruit picking and gleaning for the food bank. Nguyen described her clubs efforts including volunteering at city cleanups and city events. The club also honored Kiwanian of the Week Margo Dutton, who has been a member of Kiwanis for 31 years and is known as the Do It All Kiwanian. From left: Dutton, Stewart, Nguyen and President Tom Kumura. Lake San Marcos Kiwanis members will hold the clubs 52nd Annual Pancake Breakfast and Silent Auction from 7 to 11 a.m. Feb. 3 at St. Marks Catholic Church, in Healy Hall, 1147 Discovery St. Tickets are $8 per person. Proceeds go toward college scholarships and charities and local Marine families. Visit lsmkiwanis.org.

CARDIFF

Volunteer at Book Nook, get free gift

The Friends of the Cardiff-by-the-Sea Library used bookstore, The Book Nook, is looking for book lovers to volunteer in the store inside the library, 2081 Newcastle Ave. Prospective volunteers must fill out an application and undergo a background check. Bookstore hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays and Saturdays. Volunteers work a three-hour shift, either from open to 1 p.m. or 1 p.m. to close. Volunteers will receive a free book each time they work. Stop by the Book Nook during operating hours and see one of the librarians for an application form, or email volunteers@friendscardifflibrary.org.

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CARLSBAD

Chess group meets Tuesdays at center

The Carlsbad Senior Centers weekly Chess Group meets from 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesdays. Play is informal and all skill levels are welcome. The atmosphere is relaxed and friendly, and there is no charge. Participants need not be a Carlsbad resident. The center is at 799 Pine Ave. Visit carlsbadca.gov/parksandrec or call (760) 602-4650.

ENCINITAS

Volunteers sought

at hospices shop

Hospice of the North Coast seeks volunteers to work at its resale shop at 278-B N. El Camino Real, in the Homegoods shopping center. Volunteers are required to work one four-hour shift per week. Tasks include assisting with customer purchases, pricing, sorting and processing donated merchandise. Proceeds directly support the hospice. Call (760) 943-9921.

Multiple sclerosis support group to meet

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The Encinitas Multiple Sclerosis Connection Group will meet from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday at the San Diego County Credit Union, 501 N. El Camino Real. This is a support group for those with multiple sclerosis as well as their families and their caregivers. Call (760) 944-4549 or (760) 805-6390, or email melindabrizendine@gmail.com.

ESCONDIDO

Workshop to explore health, lifestyles

A free 55+ Solutions for Real Life Issues Staying Healthy workshop will be held from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. Friday at the Escondido Adult School, 220 W. Crest St., Room 111. The class will examine ways to reduce health risks by taking charge of ones heath and creating a healthy lifestyle. Topics include ways to reduce cholesterol and blood pressure; improving cardiovascular health; fall prevention; and tips on getting a better night sleep. Call (760) 739-7300.

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Library celebrating Lunar New Year

The Escondido Public Library will celebrate the Lunar New Year with a Second Saturday Concert Series performance by the Lunar New Year Bohua Youth Group from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Saturday at 239 S. Kalmia St. This instrumental ensemble is composed of middle and high school students whose traditional performances inspire appreciation for Chinese art and culture. For more information about Lunar New Year programs, visit library.escondido.org, email dan.wood@escondidolibrary.org or call (760) 839-4827.

NORTH COUNTY

Blood drives set to honor Father Joe

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MiraCosta College, in partnership with the San Diego Blood Bank, is holding mobile blood drives from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday at both campuses: San Elijo, 3333 Manchester Ave., Cardiff, and Oceanside, 1 Barnard Drive. Donors can donate blood in honor of Father Joe Carroll, founder of Father Joes Villages. Father Joe will have surgery Thursday because of complications due to his diabetes. The blood drive is being held in his honor to ensure that there is enough blood to meet his needs and the needs of the community. Blood donations will be tracked until Feb. 14 (Valentines Day). Donors can use FJOE when donating in support of Father Joe. Donors must be ages 17 and older (age 16 requires a parental consent); weigh at least 114 pounds; and be in a general state of good health. It is recommended that donors consume an adequate meal and plenty of fluids prior to giving. Photo identificatoin must be presented. Donors are encouraged to schedule an appointment; walk-ins are also welcome. To schedule an appointment, call 1-800-469-7322 or visit sandiegobloodbank.org.

OCEANSIDE

MiraCosta Horticulture Club meets Saturday

The MiraCosta Horticulture Club will meet at 12:30 p.m. Saturday at MiraCosta College, 1 Barnard Drive, Building 3400, Azatlan Rooms A and B on the second floor. The workshop features a demonstration by Wendy Butler of how to create shell-covered birdhouses. The birdhouses are made using shells and shell fragments she collects from beaches here and in Mexico. The main program features Mary Matava, president-agronomist of Agri Service, which operates Oceansides El Corazon compost facility. The facility processes more than 60,000 tons of yard trimmings, food discards and wood waste into high-quality compost and mulch. Her presentation will be on improving San Diego soil fertility. Call (760) 721-3281 or visit mchclub.org.

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RANCHO BERNARDO

Speaker to discuss library upgrades

The featured speaker at the annual meeting of the Friends of the Rancho Bernardo Library will be Patricia Trish Jenkins, library branch manager, at 10 a.m. Saturday in the second-floor community room, 17110 Bernardo Center Drive. Jenkins will discuss new services at the library; new additions to library programs, such as the Memory Lab and Creative Writing Group; and classes for children. She will also introduce the new Youth Services Librarian, Steven Roman, who will discuss the librarys STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) program. Computer services, such as adding Ancestry.com volunteers to assist patrons, will also be addressed. Visit friendsoftheranchobernardolibrary.org.The Vista Community Clinic received a $2.6 million grant to bolster its efforts to fight tobacco-related disease among area Hispanic and Latino residents in North County and in neighboring Orange County.

The five-year grant from the California Department of Public Healths Tobacco Control Program is slated to support the nonprofit clinic in its efforts to promote programs that help community members stop smoking and activities that discourage youths from smoking.

The funds are also earmarked for programs that educate the community about the dangers of secondhand smoke and how to reduce exposure to secondhand smoke in places such as apartment complexes and trade schools. As part of the pilot project, clinic staff will receive training to help them educate the public on ways they can improve their health by quitting smoking.

The project is slated to include California Smokers Helpline materials and services.

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Over the past 20 years, the clinic has been working with community members to stop smoking to improve overall health and to advocate smoke-free policies.

The clinic is partnering with two other nonprofits on the project: SAY (Social Advocates for Youth) San Diego and America on Track based in Santa Ana, which provides resources and mentors for disadvantaged families.

The Vista Community Clinic operates out of seven locations in Vista and Oceanside, serving more than 57,000 North County residents. The clinic also runs two facilities in Riverside and Orange counties. Many of its community health education programs are free and open to all community members.

Visit vcc.clinic.State officials have opened an investigation to determine whether a home in Chula Vista is operating as an unlicensed residential care facility.

The single-family house on E Street was the site of a licensed care facility for the elderly  AM Boarding Home  for more than a decade before the state revoked its license in 2012 following a slew of violations, according to records obtained by The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Residential care facilities provide care and assistance to people who require help with everyday needs, such as managing their medications and bathing. Staff is on hand 24 hours a day.

The four-bedroom home under investigation, near Beech Avenue, came to the states attention in the wake of a kitchen fire earier this month.

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Chula Vista fire officials said the residents were outside the home when firefighters arrived. The blaze was quickly put out, and no one was hurt.

Michael Weston, deputy director of public affairs and outreach programs for the state Department of Social Services, said the agency received a complaint of unlicensed care.

In the aftermath of the Jan. 14 fire, Lou El-Khazen, code enforcement manager for the city of Chula Vista, said his office would inform the state department of the blaze and check on the status of the community care license.

Weston said details about the complaint, including who filed it, are confidential.

El-Khazen said the code enforcement department plans to inspect the home to ensure there are no building or fire code violations. The city shares oversight of residential care facilities if the city imposes a conditional use permit on homes that include more than six bedrooms.

Records show that Amparo M. Betita  referred to as Amparo Morales Betita Hayes in at least one instance  ran AM Boarding Home, which was licensed by the state in 1999. In a brief interview outside the home, a woman who identified herself as Amparo Morales told the Union-Tribune last week she runs an independent living home.

Independent living homes, which provide basic services and minimal assistance, do not require a state license to operate.

If I am independent living, I am free, Morales said, referring to state oversight. If you are with the license  too much hassle.

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Morales, 77, said three residents live in her independent living home, which she said she runs to help pay her mortgage.

Life in America is quite complicated, she said. If you dont work hard, you cannot save your house.

Weston said the social services department will interview the administrator, as well as the residents at the home to determine their needs and what type of care and services are or are not being provided.

Based on that information, the state agency will determine whether the residence has been operating as a care facility that requires a license. If that is the case, the department will issue a cease-and-desist order, Weston said.

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Records show that before AM Boarding Home was shut down in 2012, the facility amassed a number of violations. A document filed when the state took administrative action lists violations dating to 2009. According to the document:

In 2009, the home cared for a resident who was not able to walk. However, the facility was not licensed and did not have fire clearance to care for residents who could not walk on their own.

From about April 2010 to January 2011, the home, which was licensed to care for a maximum of five residents, provided care to six residents.

Over years, the residence was not well kept. There was a strong odor of urine in 2010 and clutter in the facility backyard, kitchen and living areas in 2009.

In 2011, Betita made comments about a resident peeing her bed and being fat and difficult to care for.

Weston said it is unknown how long the states investigation will take to complete.

Skid row activists on Tuesday aimed what they called their alternative state of the union address squarely at President Trump, blaming him for the homeless tents that flanked them as they spoke.

Five speakers from various agencies, speaking outside the Los Angeles Community Action Network headquarters on skid row, turned many of Trumps catchphrases against him as they ticked off safety net cutbacks they said forced 58,000 L.A. County residents, and 550,000 people nationwide, into the streets.

I ask the president to tear down this wall...that puts many separate from housing, said Janet Denise Kelly of Sanctuary of Hope, which serves homeless former foster children. America is not back, America is backward.

Mark Casanova, executive director of Homeless Health Care Los Angeles, assailed the president and Congress for failing to declare an emergency over the opioid epidemic he said is killing 100 people a day, including many of his groups clients.

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Silvia Hernandez said drugs were a symptom, not a cause, of homelessness.

Its not drugs, its not addiction, its lack of housing, said Hernandez, a member of the downtown Womens Action Coalition. And also the lack of services focused on women.

Speakers said Trump had widened the income gap that led to widespread homelessness. They said Trump spoke only for what Margaret Prescod, the event moderator, called the gilded cage sector of Americans, not the people they see living on sidewalks around them.

Prescod produces and hosts the Sojourner Truth radio broadcast on the Pacifica Foundation network.

He doesnt see the most vulnerable among us homeless individuals who are mentally or physically disabled huddled in doorways for a bit of warmth, sleeping on our sidewalks, said Jerry Jones, director of public policy for the Inner City Law Center.

Prescod criticized television and other media for failing to cover their alternative take on the State of the Union.

gholland@latimes.com

Twitter: @gehollandA man who once advised former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was one of four alleged johns arrested by police in Citrus Heights, Calif., as part of a statewide human trafficking crackdown.

Daniel Pellisier was arrested by the Citrus Heights Police Department, in Sacramento County, as part of Operation Reclaim and Rebuild, a three-day sweep led by the Los Angeles County Regional Human Trafficking Task Force. The crackdown led to more than 500 arrests, including 30 suspected traffickers and 178 alleged johns.

Pellisier, 57, served as deputy secretary for energy and environment, where he advised Schwarzenegger and oversaw Californias Natural Resources and Environmental Protection agencies, according to a biography on UC Berkeleys Institute of Government Studies. He later became president of an advocacy group called California Pension Reform.

Citrus Heights police used the internet and other tactics, including undercover operations, to make 10 arrests. The arrests were for prostitution and probation violations, as well as felony and misdemeanor warrant arrests, the Police Department said in a statement.

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Our efforts were focused on identifying and arresting the pimps (those who were coordinating the services of victims) and johns (those seeking to take advantage of those victims) and rescuing the victims of human trafficking, police said. The city of Citrus Heights and the community of Citrus Heights do not tolerate human trafficking and will continue to detect, deter, and hold those accountable for their involvement in prostitution and victimizing others.

Other arrested johns included 39-year-old Hamel Yan of Elk Grove; 19-year-old Darrick Chavis of Vacaville; and 42-year-old Steven Birdsong of Antelope.

brittny.mejia@latimes.com

Twitter: @Brittny_MejiaMayor Kevin Faulconer was overshadowed in Washington last week by fellow mayors when they boycotted a White House meeting with the president.

That act of protest over the administrations latest salvo against sanctuary cities was pretty much the only big news out of the U.S. Conference of Mayors convening in the capital.

But Faulconer engaged in his own act of defiance, albeit subtly, by carrying the banner for the North American Free Trade Agreement, along with supporting the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

While he didnt ignite social media buzz or generate headlines, Faulconers positions are contrary to those currently espoused by President Donald Trump.

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The mayor has extolled the benefits of NAFTA and its impact on local and national cross-border commerce with Mexico for some time now.

Under normal circumstances, there would be nothing remarkable about him bringing that message to Washington.

But when a Republican mayors support for free trade clashes with a Republican presidents more restrictive policy, its clear these are not normal times.

Faulconer has been a leading defender of NAFTA in the face of President Donald Trumps relentless criticism of the 24-year-old pact and his threats to end it.

Those differences came into sharper focus last week because of a confluence of events. During the course of the mayors conference, Faulconer and others discussed the fate of the trade agreement at various times. He participated on a panel that foreshadowed A World Without NAFTA at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars. Around the same time, the United States, Mexico and Canada entered into the latest round of negotiations over the pact.

Before leaving for Washington, Faulconer said the goal was to show, on the local level, why free trade works.

On the panel, he appeared once again with Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum. Their tag-team routine is a familiar one. They get together regularly  both in the San Diego-Tijuana region and in their nations capitals  to underscore cross-border cooperation.

Faulconer recently took to social media to emphasize his support for DACA and protecting so-called dreamers, the unauthorized residents who were brought to the U.S. as children and were granted temporary legal status under President Barack Obama.

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Most #Dreamers are living in the only country they have ever known, Faulconer said on Twitter. They are our neighbors, small business owners, students and veterans. They need our support. The time is now for Congress to act.

Its not a new position for Faulconer, who has joined the #IStandWithDreamers campaign. Trump has moved to phase out DACA beginning March 5. He has proposed a new DACA deal that requires border wall funding and restrictions on future immigration. The plan has drawn sharp criticism from many Democrats and some Republicans.

What ultimately happens with NAFTA and the dreamers will be a big deal, but the immediate news out of the mayors conference was the boycott. As the mayors arrived in Washington, the administration applied its latest pressure against sanctuary jurisdictions that restrict local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

The administration threatened to subpoena cities if they dont relinquish documents showing whether or not they are withholding information on the immigration status of people in custody. This comes after threatening to strip public safety money from sanctuary cities and potentially prosecute municipal leaders.

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The notable boycotting mayors  including those from New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New Orleans  are Democrats and some have criticized Trump on a number of issues.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors is proud to be a bipartisan organization, said New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. But an attack on mayors who lead welcoming cities is an attack on everyone in our conference.

Perhaps.

That didnt stop Faulconer, a Republican who has steered clear of directly criticizing the president, from attending the White House meeting with about 100 other mayors.

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Still, the San Diego mayor has not backed away from positions that are not in line with the presidents.

Lets face it. If Faulconer and other Republicans are going to get anywhere on NAFTA and DACA, theyre going to do so through the GOP-controlled Congress and administration. So while it was noted in some news coverage that Faulconer didnt join the boycott, that really was no surprise. Making a scene over that meeting wouldnt have done him any good on policy or political grounds.

Besides, the Democratic base loves it when their leaders take on the president, so theres been a bit of one-upmanship in publicly going after Trump. Twitter was pretty hot the day of the boycott.

Thats not to say those mayors didnt have a legitimate beef. They viewed the administrations timing of the latest move on sanctuary cities as a deliberate slap while they were in town.

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San Diego has never called itself a sanctuary city and officials say they have been working with immigration authorities to an appropriate degree, while complying with state sanctuary rules restricting such coordination. Its a dispute Faulconer tends to avoid.

In all, it was a relatively low-key trip for the mayor. In past visits to Washington and almost anywhere, Faulconer typically attracted major media attention, especially when he was viewed as a potential gubernatorial candidate and the moderate that some thought might be able to lead the California Republican Party back to prominence.

Those days are gone. Problems back at the ranch, particularly the hepatitis A outbreak, have taken the sheen off Faulconers standing.

He is now focused on tackling local challenges facing the city  homelessness, a police staffing shortage, budget pressures and infrastructure funding to name a few. Thats not exactly fodder for national reporters.

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If he can eventually turn things around, and present San Diego as a success story, maybe theyll be back.Immigration advocates are accusing the San Diego-area Border Patrol of politicizing two human-smuggling arrests by publicizing the suspects participation in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program  even though one of the arrestees was not actively enrolled in DACA.

The DACA program, which provides protections for certain immigrants who were brought into the country as children, has been the subject of fierce controversy since President Donald Trump announced last September that he would end the program  which was championed by his predecessor  in March.

Negotiations for a new DACA deal, which would affect roughly 800,000 immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children, were also at the center of the recent federal government shutdown.

In a news release issued Monday, the Border Patrol San Diego Sector office announced the arrests last Wednesday and Thursday of seven people, including a U.S. citizen and four others in the country illegally. The release highlighted the arrests of a 22-year-old DACA recipient and a 20-year-old man whose DACA protections expired. The news release header read: Agents arrest 2 DACA recipients for involvement in human smuggling.

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It wasnt politically motivated, Border Patrol public information officer Theron Francisco told City News Service Tuesday. It was just a news release about human smuggling events  two in a short period of time.

Court records show there were several other human-smuggling incidents reported along the border in San Diego during the same period that did not merit news releases.

Francisco said the decision to release the information was made by local officials in San Diego and not at the direction of higher-ups at the Department of Homeland Security or Customs and Border Protection.

Andrea Guerrero, executive director of Alliance San Diego, said such releases vilify all DACA recipients, known as dreamers.

Human smuggling is a global problem that puts migrants in vulnerable situations where they can be abused and exploited, and we should all work together to address the conditions that force people to migrate, she said in a statement. However, to vilify entire groups of people based on isolated incidents is irresponsible and unhelpful.

Authorities are pursing criminal charges against only one of the DACA men  Alejandro Castro, the one with the expired status. The other man is being held in immigration custody on suspicion of violating the terms of DACA.

According to a criminal complaint filed in San Diego federal court, Castro was spotted driving a Pontiac Aztec with his 22-year-old cousin and a man who had crossed the border the day before and evaded Border Patrol. An SUV with a similar license plate had been seen picking up several suspected unauthorized immigrants the night before at Torrey Pines State Beach.

Agents stopped the Pontiac on Interstate 5 near Dairy Mart Road.

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In an interview, Castro said he got a phone call the night before from someone known as El Vaquero who said to pick up the unauthorized immigrant.

He said he was directed to rent a motel room and stay there with the man before driving to Los Angeles the next day. He could leave the man with his family once hed gotten confirmation that his smuggling fee had been paid, he told authorities.

Castro and the cousin admitted they had also both picked up a group of unauthorized immigrants who had come in by boat and landed at the beach the night before.

In the other case, agents on Thursday morning arrested two unauthorized immigrants in Campo and spotted suspicious vehicles near Buckman Springs Road. In one was a Mexican man from Riverside County who was enrolled in DACA. His name was not released.

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He admitted to acting as a scout and helping coordinate human smuggling operations in the area, according to the news release.

Staff writer Kate Morrissey contributed to this report.

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kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @kristinadavisA Lemon Grove man is the latest to be convicted in connection with a child pornography ring that live-streamed children being raped and molested to pedophiles around the globe.

Dylan Heatherly, 34, was convicted in federal court in Harrisburg, Penn., last week, along with William Staples, 57, of Harrodsburg, Ky., after a seven-day jury trial.

They are among 14 people charged in 2016 with several child exploitation crimes for their involvement in the ring, according to U.S. Homeland Security Investigations.

According to evidence presented at trial, from 2014 to 2016 the group set up a secure video conference website where users could either stream pre-recorded child porn films or molest young victims live as other viewers watched.

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On July 22, 2015, an undercover detective constable in Toronto, Canada, gained access to the website and observed a 5-year-old boy being sexually abused in real time, according to investigators. Viewers were commenting on and encouraging the abuse, including requests to smack him around a couple times, court records say.

Investigators say both Heatherly  using the screen name Daniel Sotherland  and another local man, San Diegan Moises Marquez, 30, watched the live abuse and commented on it.

The next day, law enforcement in Pennsylvania arrested William Augusta, 21, on suspicion of abusing the child and producing pornography involving two different underage victims. The boy from the previous day was also rescued.

Investigators discovered that Augusta had told others that hed been abusing the victim since he was 1 year old, according to court records.

Augusta pleaded guilty and was sentenced in October to 60 years in prison.

The defendants hail from around the U.S., from Georgia to Florida to Arizona to Ohio, and the investigation shows viewers were watching from other countries, as well.

Marquez, 30, a Mexican citizen with permanent residency in the U.S., was the first in the case to plead guilty in 2016 to conspiracy to produce and advertise child pornography. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

A sentencing date for Heatherly has not yet been set.

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In an interview with law enforcement, Heatherly said he had used the Sotherland alias for 10 years in child-pornography trading and would invite other like-minded people to his home to watch such videos, according to prosecutors.

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kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @kristinadavisA man who fatally shot a neighbor in the Bostonia neighborhood near El Cajon after the accusing the victim of stealing bicycles was sentenced Tuesday to 25 years to life in state prison.

Vincent Frank Pedersen, 44, was convicted of second-degree murder in the Nov. 4, 2016, death of 34-year-old Richard Chartier.

Deputy District Attorney Kristina Trocha said Pedersen and Chartier lived about a mile from each other on Oro Street and had been feuding.

About a month before the murder, Pedersen accused Chartier of stealing a bicycle from him and Chartier in turn threatened to kill the defendant and his dog, according to the prosecutor.

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Over the next month, the defendant and the victim would see each other and exchange profanities, Trocha said.

The day of the murder, Pedersens girlfriend confronted Chartier on the street and accused him of stealing another bicycle and threatened to have someone ``get him if he didnt give it back, the prosecutor said.

The girlfriend went to get Pedersen and they, along with a third person, drove to the victims home, according to Trocha.

Pedersen, armed with a .45 caliber handgun, called out to Chartier from the driveway. When the victim appeared from the back yard and walked toward the defendant, he shot Chartier once in the chest and fled in his girlfriends car.

Sheriffs deputies arrested Pedersen several hours later at his home.

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pauline.repard@sduniontribune

Twitter: @pdrepardA woman who was caught with four unauthorized immigrants hiding in the back of her SUV on Monday claimed the men had jumped into her car and threatened to harm her and her young son, who was found riding in the back, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday in San Diego federal court.

Alejandra Velazquez Gurrola was arrested on a charge of transporting unauthorized immigrants.

Her red Dodge Nitro was first spotted in the Boulevard area about 11:15 a.m. exiting westbound Interstate 8 and then re-entering the freeway at a high rate of speed, according to the complaint. The Border Patrol agent who saw her was in an unmarked vehicle.

The agent said he saw an empty child seat in the front passenger side of the Dodge and a child sitting in the back seat. He recognized the vehicle as one that had been recently suspected of being involved in human smuggling.

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The woman behind the wheel was driving under the speed limit and constantly checking her mirrors, causing her to veer onto the the freeway shoulder, according to the complaint. He called for a marked unit to stop her.

A uniformed agent who arrived to pull her over said the driver appeared to be avoiding his Border Patrol vehicle by switching lanes frequently and not allowing the agent to pull behind her, the complaint states.

When the agent stopped the car, he saw two men laying in the cargo area and two more laying across the back seat. The boy, later identified as Velasquezs son, was also in the back seat. His age was not given.

Velasquez began yelling at the agent that the four men had grabbed her son and threatened him if she didnt drive them somewhere, according to the complaint. An agent had to unlock the door and pull her out because she was not following orders to get out of the SUV.

She said she had stopped to show her son some birds, and she had no idea what was going on, and that the four men jumped into the SUV and threatened her and her sons lives, the document states.

At one point during the arrest, as she struggled with the agent, she dropped to her knees saying she wanted her son.

She later told authorities in an interview that she and her son drove down from San Bernardino to sightsee, and that the men got into her car when they had stopped to admire some scenery. She said the men gave her a phone and told her to follow the directions on it.

She said she drove erratically hoping Border Patrol would stop her.

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The four men admitted they were from Mexico, according to the complaint. They said they were going to pay $4,000 to $7,000 to be smuggled into the U.S.

They are being held as material witnesses in the case against Velasquez.

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kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @kristinadavisA traffic stop on what appeared to be a brown UPS truck in Boulevard on Monday evening revealed 77 unauthorized immigrants stuffed shoulder-to-shoulder inside its hot cargo area.

Five children were found traveling among the overheated group of Mexican nationals, who admitted to being in the U.S. illegally, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday in San Diego federal court.

A California Highway Patrol officer pulled the truck over before 5 p.m. because the vehicle had no tags and was weaving on Old Highway 80, about a mile west of Tierra Del Sol Road.

A U.S. Border Patrol agent patrolling the area in an unmarked car passed by the vehicle stop and asked the officer if hed like assistance.

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When the agent approached the truck, he observed it was riding extremely low and had what appeared to be fresh paint on the rear. He could also smell body odor and what was described as the pungent smell of a soap commonly used in Mexico.

The trucks driver, a U.S. citizen who had been placed in the CHP car, said the truck was his and gave permission to search.

When the agent opened the rear doors, he found dozens of people standing inside, sweating excessively, the complaint states.

In an interview with authorities, the driver, Shawn Lee Seiler, admitted to being a human smuggler who was expecting to transport 50 people that evening, the complaint says. He said he was surprised to learn there were 77 inside.

He told investigators he was to be paid $100 for each unauthorized immigrant he transported.

Seiler was arrested on a charge of transporting unauthorized immigrants for financial gain.

A UPS spokesman said the truck was not a real UPS vehicle, and the driver has never worked for the company.

Criminal charges were also lodged against two of the unauthorized immigrants after records checks found they had prior deportations  one on January 9 through San Ysidro and one on May 14, 2015, through El Paso.

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The remaining people in the group are being held as material witnesses in the smuggling case.

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kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @kristinadavisWith moans, sighs and quietly tense moments, San Diego dreamers listened with growing frustration Tuesday night as President Donald Trump delivered a State of the Union address reiterating his recently proposed framework for immigration legislation.

Nine young unauthorized immigrants who are currently protected from deportation through an Obama-era program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, hoped that Trumps speech might provide answers to a question thats been on their minds since Sept. 5 when he ended the program  what would happen to them now.

They said they were disgusted with Trumps rhetoric which continued to emphasize a narrative of immigrants as criminals.

They have always painted us as criminals when we contribute so much, said Luis Tinoco, a 35-year-old DACA recipient from Mexico who owns an auto mechanic shop. Were all here. Were educated. We come from families with moral characters.

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What were asking for is not much, said Pedro Aguilar, a 28-year old DACA recipient from Mexico who works as a site planner. I think by demonizing us, he really does a disservice to America. Were here to improve the lives of everyone.

Ali Torabi, a 27-year-old DACA recipient from Iran who hosted the watch party at his home in Torrey Highlands, was angry that Trump didnt acknowledge the DACA recipients who were there as guests of many members of Congress. Karen Bahena, who works as a research coordinator at UC San Diego, attended with Rep. Scott Peters.

Not once did he point out to them. Not once were they put on camera. Not once were they acknowledged in any capacity, Torabi said.

Trumps statement that Americans are dreamers, too, was met with particularly harsh objections.

Oh no he did not! yelled Fernanda Madrigal, a 29-year-old DACA recipient from Costa Rica.

Thats like saying all lives matter, said Dulce Garcia, a DACA recipient and immigration attorney.

Stop taking our message! Madrigal added.

The group was appalled with what they saw as Trump and other politicians using painful stories from particular families  notably two families whose daughters were killed by MS-13 gang members  as optics for their agenda.

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I still cant get over it, Torabi said. You parade peoples hardships for your own political advantages.

They rejected Trumps proposal that would give them a path to citizenship in 12 years while getting rid of a diversity visa program, restricting family-sponsored green cards and ramping up border enforcement.

My moms dreams count just as much as mine, Garcia said. She sees any increase in border enforcement as a threat to her family.

They pointed out that some people had supported Trump because of opposition to people who immigrate without authorization but that the proposal makes big changes to legal immigration as well.

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Dreamers are like the canary in the coal mine, said Francisco Peralta, a 31-year-old DACA recipient from Mexico. When we go belly up, they should take that as a warning that theres danger coming their way because they could be next.

Aguilar said that hes the only one in his family who is unauthorized to be in the U.S.

If concessions are to be made, my family is not hurt at all, yet I stand here with you guys because I dont want anyone elses families to suffer, Aguilar said.

They snapped and applauded when Rep. Joe Kennedy gave his rebuttal, particularly when he listed groups who do not feel protected under the Trump adminstration.

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Some appreciated his gesture to address DACA recipients directly in Spanish, and others criticized it because not all DACA recipients are from Spanish-speaking countries.

The group ended the evening by resolving to fight harder for a bill that would protect them without adding any additional enforcement measures.

They planned to hold a public rebuttal to Trumps State of the Union address on Wednesday at 6 p.m. outside the Federal Building in downtown San Diego.

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Immigration Videos On Now New developments in family separation case 9:53 On Now A San Diego woman volunteered as a medic in Texas helping migrant families 2:35 On Now Immigration policy protests in Carlsbad nearly cancelled after permit issue 1:38 On Now When children are separated from their parents at the border, here is where they go next On Now Prospects of a deal for 'Dreamers' may hinge on separating Trump from hard-liners on his staff On Now What is DACA? On Now Border wall prototype contractors selected On Now Video: Ukrainian boxer wins asylum in U.S. On Now 30 apprehended after Border Patrol agents discover tunnel On Now Video: Kurdish diaspora prepare to vote on independence

Follow me on Facebook for live updates about immigration news

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kate.morrissey@sduniontribune.com, @bgirledukate on TwitterPresident Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to keep the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in operation indefinitely, suggesting that he may use the facility to house new terrorism suspects for the first time in a decade.

The order, issued as Trump delivered his first State of the Union address, solidifies the presidents well-known intention to keep suspected militants locked up at the military facility, part of his promise to take a hard line on terror.

But it also sheds new light on his administrations approach to thorny detainee issues, indicating a willingness to end a decade-long moratorium on growing the prisoner population at Guantanamo.

In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds and hundreds of dangerous terrorists, only to meet them again on the battlefield, Trump said in his address. So today, Im keeping another promise, making reference to the new measure.

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The order rescinds key portions of a measure issued nine years ago by Trumps predecessor, Barack Obama, who promised to close Guantanamo but was unable to overcome political opposition to bringing detainees to the United States.

Sixteen years after the prison opened, 41 detainees remain at Guantanamo. Of the more than 700 who have been held there since 2002, only a small minority have been charged with a crime, and fewer still have completed trial in a military court.

Although the order may have little immediate effect, given that Obama was unable to close the prison even after making it a central presidential goal, it may intensify criticism from those who have argued that the prison is a stain on Americas global reputation.

The Trump administration is making a signature departure from the political and diplomatic consensus that once existed, that its necessary and, indeed, imperative to the national security of the United States to close Guantanamo said Wells Dixon, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents some of the prisons detainees.

Even close allies have voiced concern over the years about a facility that has kept prisoners locked up without trial.

It is sure to irritate allies and partners who feel strongly that this facility should be closed - and certainly not increased in its population, Joshua Geltzer, senior White House counterterrorism director in the Obama administration, said of the new measure.

The announcement caps a year-long discussion within the Trump administration about the proposed order. While some of Trumps top advisers advocated for a tough detainee policy that might expand the prisons use, many other officials have argued that Guantanamo has proved cumbersome and problematic.

The military commissions that were set up to try Guantanamo inmates, in particular, are seen as flawed. Suspects in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have been stuck in pretrial proceedings for years.

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But the move also had influential allies, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has long been an advocate of detaining terrorism suspects at Guantanamo and of trying them in military commissions.

Last March Sessions told radio show host Hugh Hewitt that he was in favor of bringing new enemy combatants to Guantanamo. Its just a very fine place for holding these kinds of dangerous criminals, he said.

He added, In general, I dont think were better off bringing these people to federal court in New York and trying them in federal court, where they get discovery rights to find out our intelligence and get court-appointed lawyers and things of that nature.

Other officials favor trial for terrorism suspects in federal courts. Since 2001, federal prosecutors have obtained hundreds of convictions in international terrorism cases.

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Trumps order breaks with not only Obamas policy but the intentions of his Republican predecessor, who opened the prison in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

By the end of his presidency, President George W. Bush concluded that Guantanamo was doing more harm than good, said John Bellinger, legal adviser to the National Security Council and the State Department in the Bush administration, although in the end, he decided keep it open.

President Trump is throwing more political bones to his base rather than making a determination based on what is best for U.S. national security, Bellinger said.

The new order instructs Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to develop recommendations within 90 days for handling suspected militants captured overseas, including procedures for possibly bringing them to Guantanamo.

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Some legal experts have argued that bringing recently captured detainees to Guantanamo, particularly those associated with the Islamic State, could expose the Trump administration to challenges to the law that forms the basis for U.S. counterterrorism operations overseas.

Congress passed the post-9/11 Authorization for the Use of Military Force to be used against al-Qaida and its affiliates, but it is also used more than a decade later as a basis for operations against the Islamic State and other militant groups. The U.S. government has been seeking to avoid court challenges to the law as a basis for detaining members of the Islamic State.

The Washington Posts Anne Gearan, Joshua Dawsey and Ed OKeefe contributed to this report.The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention resigned Wednesday following reports that she traded in tobacco stocks despite being the nations top public health official and heading an agency that has led U.S. anti-smoking initiatives for decades

Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald, whom President Trump tapped in the summer to head the CDC, purchased shares in Japan Tobacco International as well as stocks in a number of healthcare companies after taking office, according to a report this week by Politico.

The stock trading echoes the behavior of Trumps first Health and Human Services secretary, Tom Price, who was forced to resign last year amid questions about his frequent use of charter aircraft at taxpayer expense.

While a congressman, Price also traded extensively in healthcare companies even as he pushed legislation and took other actions that affected many of those same companies.

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It is not clear whether Fitzgerald, a former OB-GYN doctor and Georgia health commissioner, took any official actions that may have affected the value of her stocks.

But she had recused herself from various duties as CDC director, citing potential conflicts.

A spokesman for the Health and Human Services Department said Wednesday that Fitzgerald offered her resignation after raising the recusal issues with the incoming HHS secretary, Alex Azar.

Dr. Fitzgerald owns certain complex financial interests that have imposed a broad recusal limiting her ability to complete all of her duties as the CDC director, said Matt Lloyd in a statement. Due to the nature of these financial interests, Dr. Fitzgerald could not divest from them in a definitive time period.

Among the companies whose stock Fitzgerald purchased last year after taking office were pharmaceutical giants Merck & Co. and Bayer, and health insurer Humana, according to financial disclosures first reported by Politico.

The stock in Japan Tobacco, a multinational that sells Winston and Camel cigarettes around the world, was valued at between $1,001 and $15,000.

Fitzgerald, though praised by some in public health after she was appointed, has maintained a relatively low profile as CDC director, particularly compared to many of her predecessors who have been outspoken champions for issues such as smoking cessation.

Dr. Tom Frieden, for example, who headed the CDC under President Obama, already was a leading national champion for cutting tobacco use and tackling obesity, both of which he had done as commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

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Fitzgerald, in contrast, canceled her first scheduled appearance before Congress last fall to discuss the opioid epidemic, citing potential conflicts of interest because she continued to hold investments in companies involved in the public health crisis.

Those conflicts began to attract criticism last year, and the revelations about Fitzgeralds trading in tobacco companies drew strong condemnation from consumer advocates, public health experts and others.

There is an untenable conflict between seeking to personally profit from tobacco use and being a credible voice on tobacco and other public health issues, said Vince Willmore, a spokesman for Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. The nations top public health official simply shouldnt be investing in products that are the number one cause of preventable death.

Fitzgeralds resignation also fueled new criticism about lax ethics in the Trump administration.

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It is unacceptable that the person responsible for leading our nations public health efforts has, for months, been unable to fully engage in the critical work she was appointed to do, said Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the senior Democrat on the Senate health committee. Dr. Fitzgeralds tenure was unfortunately the latest example of the Trump administrations dysfunction and lax ethical standards.

UPDATES:

9:35 a.m.: This article was updated with additional information about Fitzgerald and reaction from Murray and Willmore.

8:52 a.m.: This article was updated with staff reporting.

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7:40 a.m. This article was updated with a statement from the Department of Health and Human Services.

This article was originally published at 6:55 a.m.The Nevada board that regulates gambling announced Tuesday that it was opening an investigation into sweeping claims of sexual misconduct by casino mogul Steve Wynn.

The announcement by the powerful Nevada Gaming Control Board came four days after the Wall Street Journal published a story that chronicled decades of sexual harassment allegations against Wynn.

Becky Harris  who became chairwoman of the board a week ago and is the first woman to hold that job  said Friday that the board was reviewing the information about the allegations. Now it is taking the next step.

After completing our review the Nevada Gaming Control Board is conducting an investigation with regard to the allegations of sexual misconduct involving Steve Wynn, Harris said in a statement Tuesday. The Nevada Gaming Control Board will conduct its investigation in a thorough and judicious manner.

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The board could take a variety of steps once it completes its investigation, including levying heavy fines against Wynn and holding an open or closed hearing to determine whether he should lose his gaming license.

Wynn, 76, has two high-profile properties on the Las Vegas Strip  Wynn and Encore  with the former bearing his famous signature as its emblem. He also plans to build West Wynn across the street from those two properties, adding 2,000 to 3,000 rooms to his empire.

Wynn and Encore count more than 4,700 rooms between them and have about 186,000 square feet of casino space.

The allegations sent the stock price of his company tumbling from about $200 a share before the revelations came out to about $171 Tuesday. The Wynn Resorts board of directors has announced that Patricia Mulroy  a member of the board and former member of the state gaming commission  would lead an investigation against its chairman.

The board is deeply committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of all of the companys employees and to operating with the highest ethical standards, it said in a statement.

Wynn also resigned as the Republican National Committees finance chairman.

But he has been defiant about the allegations and in a statement accused his ex-wife, Elaine Wynn of orchestrating the campaign against him amid a bitter divorce.

The idea that I ever assaulted any woman is preposterous, the statement said. We find ourselves in a world where people can make allegations, regardless of the truth, and a person is left with the choice of weathering insulting publicity or engaging in multiyear lawsuits. It is deplorable for anyone to find themselves in this situation.

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Elaine Wynns lawyers have said she was not behind the Wall Street Journal report, which the newspaper said was the product of interviews with 150 people.

The Gaming Control Boards investigation could lead to a complaint process that involves the state attorney general. It could also hold a deposition-like process, with witnesses called for a hearing to determine Wynns fate.

Wynn is also being investigated by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission in light of the sexual misconduct allegations. It is meeting Wednesday to discuss Wynns future, including his companys $2.4-billion Wynn Boston Harbor project, currently under construction.

The commission is profoundly aware of the gravity of this matter and will proceed with the appropriate sense of urgency and rigor, spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said in a statement.

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Wynn is one of the most powerful casino owners in Las Vegas, moving to the city in the late 1960s from the East Coast and renovating the Golden Nugget. Decades later, he built the Mirage and Bellagio before selling Mirage Resorts to MGM Resorts International.

david.montero@latimes.com

Twitter: @davemonteroPresident Donald Trumps address was intended to inspire unity. So far, it doesnt appear to have worked.

Rep. Juan Vargas, D-San Diego, as well as several other Democrats, boycotted the speech.

San Diego Republican Party Chairman Tony Krvaric said Trumps goals are sensible.

President Donald Trump intended for his first State of the Union address to encourage unity in a divided legislature, but in the wake of his speech, his intentions did not seem to have the desired effect among San Diego and California Democrats.

(W)hile I am always willing to work with my colleagues across the aisle, the Presidents call for bipartisanship and unity rings hollow, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., said in a statement. You cannot reject bipartisan plans to improve health care and protect Dreamers or sow hate and divisionand then turn around the next day and say you want to work together.

San Diego and California Republicans were largely quiet. Local GOP House members and the state party did not publicly respond to the presidents speech. One of the few mentions of the address from the local GOP was in a Facebook post by the county party and a tweet from the groups chairman, Tony Krvaric, that said the presidents goals are sensible.

Every issue mentioned has 70%+ support, Krvaric tweeted. This is straight down the middle, common sense lane. And delivered well. Democrats who oppose will find it hard to demonize. Not that they wont try, sadly. Now whos out of the mainstream? Krvaric said.

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Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, later released a statement on Wednesday morning where he celebrated household wage increases.

The President is right: this is our new American moment. And lawmakers Republican and Democrat alike must to come together and seize it, Issa said in a statement.

But Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego, said the president undermined his own attempt for unity.

Sadly, things took an ugly turn pretty fast last night when he tried to paint all DREAMers as gangsters and thugs. It was insulting, hurtful, and beneath the dignity of the President of a nation built on the backs of immigrants, Peters said in a statement released Wednesday afternoon.

And Rep. Susan Davis, D-San Diego, said she recently surveyed her constituents to see what they hoped the president would discuss and health care was at the top of their list. The president, however, didnt spend much time discussing the issue, she said.

There was little mention of healthcare tonight. Nothing about lowering premiums. Nothing about expanding coverage, she said in a statement.

Trump did, however, discuss prescription medicines.

One of my greatest priorities is to reduce the price of prescription drugs. In many other countries, these drugs cost far less than what we pay in the United States. That is why I have directed my administration to make fixing the injustice of high drug prices one of our top priorities. Prices will come down, he said.

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Eric Bauman, chairman of the state Democratic Party said Trumps address was delusional.

With the possible exception of the last days of Richard Nixons administration, the American people have never been saddled with a leader so completely disconnected from reality, or with a White House and Congress so willing to flagrantly lie to the American people, he said in a statement.

While Trump has often said America first does not mean America alone, Bauman said the country is behind the rest of the world in addressing climate change, is provoking a trade war with China, and is dealing with North Koreas nuclear threats with macho posturing.

Trump said his administration has ended the war on clean coal, a reference to efforts to reduce the use of fossil fuels that create greenhouse gas emissions.

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On North Korea, Trump didnt talk about the countrys ambitions for a nuclear arsenal as much as he focused on its ongoing human rights abuses, and recounted the experiences of Seong-ho, a young man from North Korea who, while on crutches, fled thousands of miles. He now lives in Seoul but broadcasts messages into North Korea.

Seong-hos story is a testament to the yearning of every human soul to live in freedom, Trump said.

Rep. Juan Vargas, D-San Diego, didnt attend the speech, and in a tweet said Trump continues to disrespect women, insult people of color, and attack our immigrant communities. I will not be attending the State of the UnionI stand in solidarity with all the people he has and continues to disrespect.

In a Friday interview with KPBS, Vargas said he didnt want to pretend that he supports the president, but said he would happily go to the address if Trump was acting presidential. Approximately 12 Democrats didnt attend the speech.

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Vargas also skipped last years inauguration.

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Twitter: @jptstewart

joshua.stewart@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1841

UPDATES:

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This article was updated Wednesday morning with comments from Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, and again in the afternoon with comments from Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego.A large water main burst in Coronado Tuesday afternoon, flooding several blocks around B Street and First Avenue.

The water rose almost to the tops of curbs and into some driveways. No structure damage was immediately reported.

A Coronado police officer noticed water bubbling up through the asphalt about about 3:30 p.m. and alerted the Fire Department, Battalion Chief Jason Clements told reporters.

Officers closed off B Avenue between First and Second streets and First between Orange and C avenues, near the ferry landing.

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The 16-inch water main is owned by the Navy, which was conducting repairs that were expected to take several hours. The line serves North Island Naval base.

Clements said fire crews were helping business owners to place sandbags where they would divert the water flow.

pauline.repard@sduniontribune

Twitter: @pdrepardSoon after word got out that San Diego police Officer Art Calvert needed a new kidney, he got a call on his cellphone.

In an extraordinary act of kindness, Debra Ballard, a San Diego police dispatcher and a longtime friend casually explained she had gotten tested. She was a match, and she wanted to be his donor.

Out of the blue, my guardian angel came along and tested without even telling me, he said. When she called, she told me, So when do you want to do this? She was that calm. I almost buckled. It was overwhelming.

The two were all smiles on Tuesday when they announced in front of San Diego Police Headquarters that, after months of waiting, the transplant surgery would take place next Wednesday.

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Both of Calverts kidneys first failed in the 1990s soon after he graduated from the police academy. Doctors mused that medication Calvert took when he was an outfielder with the New York Yankees in the late 80s might have been to blame, Calvert said.

His mother was the first donor to come to his rescue. It took 15 years for his body to chew through her gift. His sister was next to donate. That kidney failed in seven years.

He was put on a waiting list, and started undergoing dialysis. But the procedure that kept him alive also took its toll. Hes spent four years hooked up to a dialysis machine for 11 hours everyday.

It takes a lot away from you, especially when it comes to your kids, he said. I have a 15-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter. Thats the hard part. I just want to run around with them. Be a dad again.

He put himself on a list for a new kidney, but it can take years to find a donor. Last April, a number of news outlets picked up his story.

Ballard said she saw the story on Facebook.

It kept nagging at me. Something was pushing me to go (get tested,) Ballard said. I decided if I was a match, then it was meant to be. If its supposed to be, it will work itself out. And lo and behold, here we are.

Ballard was a new dispatcher and Calvert was a rookie cop when the two met nearly 25 years ago. Although they had never been particularly close, an unshakable bond formed as they worked alongside each other all those years, they said.

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Ballard went on to become a lead dispatcher. Calvert, now a detective, was a longtime member of the mayors personal detail, and has guarded four San Diego mayors, including Mayor Kevin Faulconer. Calvert is set to retire in October.

As a dispatcher, you form a sort of maternal instinct over the police officers you work with, Ballard said. So you just become this tight-knit family. You just want to protect them.

Although Ballard was identified as a match last summer, it took months for Calvert to get healthy enough for the operation. Ballard has been by his side the whole way, waiting patiently for her friend to be ready.

The officer said although hes cautiously optimistic, hes saving his true excitement for the day of the operation.

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If you catch me on Wednesday morning, Im going to be a total wreck, he said. Im going to be worried about her and its finally coming true. Inside, Im jumping for joy. Just before the gas goes on, Im going to be boohooing.

Ballard said shes not nervous, believing deeply that God has a plan for her. Even though her friends and family worry for her health, and what she will do if she needs a kidney of her own one day, she said she feels its meant to be.

Most people wouldnt do it, I guess, unless it was for a close family member, but, I dont know  these are my family members, she said in reference to the police department. How could I not save someones life if I know I can?

With tears in his eyes, Calvert said that Ballard would forever be a part of his family.

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Whoever thought that a white girl from Louisiana and a black guy from California would be a match, he said with a smile. Im overwhelmed by her generosity She can come and visit her kidney any time.

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Twitter: @LAWinkley

(619) 293-1546

lyndsay.winkley@sduniontribune.comThe campaign for Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, paid $178,168 for legal services from five law firms in the last quarter of 2017  more than three times the $50,703 it raised.

Most of the spending paid off the $148,539 in debt to law firms the campaign was carrying as of Sept. 30, 2017.

The campaign has reported some $567,656 in legal expenses since its spending first came under scrutiny in April 2016, and contributions have declined significantly in the last half of 2017 amid an ongoing federal criminal investigation into Hunters political expenditures.

The campaign for Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, spent more than three times as much on legal fees as the total amount it raised in the last three months of 2017, amid an ongoing federal criminal investigation into his political spending, according to a report filed Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission.

His latest campaign report, for Oct. 1 through Dec. 31 of last year, shows $178,168 in payments to five law firms, and no outstanding debt. The campaign reported expenditures of $264,255.

Hunters campaign reported $50,703 in receipts during the most recent filing period, the disclosure shows. It had $290,904 in cash on hand as of Dec. 31, 2017.

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Most of the campaigns legal spending in the filing period appeared to satisfy debt reported in the third quarter, which covered July 1 to Sept. 30 of last year, according to the spending reports on file with the FEC. The campaign had been carrying $148,539 in debt  all of it to law firms  as of Sept. 30, 2017.

The $29,629 in new legal spending during the last three months of 2017 brings to about $567,656 the campaigns total payments for lawyers since the FEC and then The San Diego Union-Tribune began questioning the campaigns expenditures in April 2016.

Hunter can use his campaigns funds to pay for legal fees for himself, his family, campaign staff and volunteers as long as the alleged crimes stem from his position as an officeholder or candidate, experts have said.

A criminal investigation into Hunters political spending came to light in March 2017, when the U.S. House Ethics Committee announced that it would hold off on its own probe into allegations against Hunter at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The FEC and then The San Diego Union-Tribune began questioning Hunters campaign spending on apparently-personal purchases including video games and tuition for his childrens private school in April 2016.

Since then, he has reimbursed his campaign more than $60,000 for personal, mistaken and inadequately documented expenditures, including oral surgery, a garage door for his home and trips to Hawaii and Italy.

In August 2017, an FBI search warrant for the offices of Hunters campaign treasurer became public, shedding light on federal investigators interests including any evidence of personal spending of campaign funds and a possible bank fraud scheme involving video game purchases.

Hunter has denied involvement in any criminal action and his attorneys have said he is cooperating with the FBI investigation.

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Earlier this month, the Union-Tribune obtained a copy of a subpoena, dated Dec. 21 and issued by the U.S. District Court in San Diego to a business in Hunters congressional district. The subpoena commanded the witness to appear before a grand jury in downtown San Diego this month.

Federal grand juries hold secret proceedings in which jurors hear evidence and testimony to decide if the accused should face criminal charges. If it decides there is sufficient evidence of crimes, it will hand down indictments.

Also last month, Hunter gave interviews on radio and television in which he criticized the Department of Justice and the FBI as biased and accused them of intentionally dragging out their investigation of his campaigns spending to inflict political harm.

Most of the money received by Hunters campaign was donated by businesses and government contractors in the marine and defense industries. Hunter serves on committees overseeing the Coast Guard and maritime transportation, in addition to the House Armed Services Committee.

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The American Maritime Officers Voluntary Political Action Fund gave $5,000. Dyncorp International PAC, an aerospace company that does business with the federal government, gave $2,000.

Another $2,500 came from Honeywell International Political Action Fund, a diversified technology and manufacturing company which was awarded a $409-million defense contract in July 2017.

The individuals who contributed to his campaign were mostly lobbyists and business executives. Van Scoyoc Associates, a lobbying firm, contributed catering and a venue worth $1,299. The firm represents clients including the County of San Diego, SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment, Lockheed Martin and Thrustmaster of Texas, a manufacturer of marine propulsion thrusters.

There was one individual contributor from an address in Hunters district. The donor, Molly Sylvester, is listed in Hunters spending reports as chief executive officer of Vapin The 619, a small business with a location in El Cajon and another in Clairmont. She gave Hunters campaign $2,500 in the 2016 election cycle and $2,000 in the last quarter of 2017.

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Previously: Hunter

morgan.cook@sduniontribune.comPlant owners and consumer attorneys have struck a bargain in the long-running dispute over who pays for the failure of the San Onofre nuclear plant.

The agreement would save consumers $775 million through February 2022.

The deal, which requires California Public Utilities Commission approval, would end a federal lawsuit filed in 2014 by San Diego law firm Aguirre & Severson.

Years of outrage and legal persistence on multiple fronts paid off Tuesday for a San Diego law firm that challenged what it considered an unfair California Public Utilities Commission decision and secured a concession for consumers worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric agreed to shave $775 million from the multibillion-dollar pact that allowed them to charge millions of ratepayers for the plant north of Oceanside, which shut down in January 2012 amid a radiation leak.

For 6.4 million customers across Southern California, the savings will total $121 on average over four years.

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The agreement was announced after a settlement conference in San Francisco between utility and consumer attorneys. It would supersede a 2014 plan approved by regulators that imposed $3.3 billion of the estimated $4.7 billion in costs related to the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station failure on customers, as opposed to utility shareholders.

The utilities will cease collecting in rates the revenue requirement associated with all costs and amounts authorized to be recovered under the existing 2014 agreement, states the stipulation, which covers 18 pages.

State regulators must sign off on the settlement before it goes into effect.

The primary negotiators  utility lawyers and the Aguirre & Severson law firm in San Diego  signaled their agreement to more favorable terms for customers three weeks ago, when they notified the commission they planned to schedule settlement talks in the long-running dispute.

The specific terms were not disclosed until the meeting concluded late Tuesday afternoon.

In short, Edison and SDG&E agreed to forsake any further collections related to the broken nuclear plant from Dec. 19 through February 2022, when the assessments were scheduled to stop under the original 2014 agreement. Edison agreed to reimburse SDG&E for $151 million that wont be collected from customers.

This is great news for ratepayers, said attorney Maria Severson. It was the courage of the federal-court plaintiffs and their willingness to go to court that made this happen.

Edison owns almost 80 percent of the plant, and SDG&E is a minority owner.

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We are pleased to be able to bring closure to this issue, Edison President Ron Nichols said in a statement. The parties undertook extensive efforts over many months to reach agreement, and SCE looks forward to timely regulatory approval.

One of the key elements driving a settlement was a federal court hearing scheduled next month.

Michael Aguirre, a former federal prosecutor and San Diego city attorney, sued the commission and Edison in 2014, claiming the initial deal amounted to an illegal taking of property. The argument was rejected in U.S. District Court but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals took up the case.

Michael Aguirre (Robert Durell / Los Angeles Times )

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The original agreement was approved by the utilities commission in November 2014, and revelations soon thereafter called its fairness into question  including reporting by The San Diego Union-Tribune on an undisclosed meeting in Poland in 2013 that shaped the terms. Edison disclosed the meeting days after the Union-Tribune report and was fined $16.7 million for related violations.

Making a deal in a Warsaw hotel is among the most absurd and unlawful conduct thats been disclosed in years, said Aguirre, who filed multiple lawsuits and dozens of demands for public records in his quest to overturn the 2014 settlement. Thank God the 9th Circuit was willing to protect the public interest.

Aguirre & Severson will collect attorney fees of just over $5.4 million  the first time the firm will receive compensation for its litigation challenging the San Onofre costs.

Other consumer advocates hailed the agreement as an historic win for ratepayers.

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It is a boatload of disgorgement, said attorney John Geesman of the nonprofit Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, using the legal term for the act of giving up illegal profits. It represents a pragmatic compromise on both sides. Its not a do-over but it is a disgorgement.

Notes from the March 2013 meeting in Poland spelled out a series of deal points, most of which made their way into the settlement that was approved unanimously in November 2014.

One of the terms negotiated between regulators and an Edison executive at the Hotel Bristol Warsaw  $25 million from the utilities to pay for greenhouse gas research at the University of California  was disavowed in the latest agreement.

Instead, the two utilities will contribute a total of $12.5 million to support climate-change research conducted at California State University campuses. Edison shareholders will donate $2 million a year over the next five years and SDG&E will give $500,000.

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Parties to the settlement also agreed not to besmirch the utilities or assign any liability to the plant owners in public discussions.

Parties may make public statements regarding this agreement, provided that they do not characterize the agreement as constituting an admission or other indication of wrongdoing or imprudence by the utilities, the agreement states.

Charles Langley of the group Public Watchdogs, not a party to the settlement, criticized the new deal for being struck much the same way as the old one  out of the publics view.

This settlement is an outrageous sellout, Langley said. Ratepayers should not have to pay anything. The failure of San Onofre was caused by Southern California Edisons failure to deploy equipment that was approved by the (Nuclear Regulatory Commission). This failure was 100 percent the fault of Edison, and it is an abortion of justice to ask ratepayers to pay anything.

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The San Onofre nuclear plant was a mainstay in the regional power supply for decades, generating some 2,200 megawatts of electricity.

Six years ago Wednesday, the facility was closed after newly installed replacement steam generators wore thin and leaked radiation. The $680 million upgrade was supposed to add up to 40 years to the life of the plant.

Edison has always blamed the plants failure on Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, maker of a replacement steam generators. Edison was awarded $125 million in an arbitration case with the manufacturer.

SCE is focused on safely decommissioning the nuclear plant, guided by core principles of safety, stewardship and engagement, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

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jeff.mcdonald@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1708 @sdutMcDonaldThe San Diego Zoo has live web cams for apes, baboons, condors, elephants, koalas, pandas, penguins, polar bears, and tigers.

To that list, add giraffes.

The new Giraffe Cam at the Zoos Safari Park went live last week. Tune in at sdzsafaripark.org/giraffe-cam.

And its not just giraffes. In the words of the zoo, you may also see rhinos, African crowned cranes, gazelles and other inhabitants that may mosey across the lens.

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With its spacious vistas, the Safari Park showcases the vertically enhanced plant-eaters in a 60-acre setting. Its the fourth live cam from the Safari Park; the others show tigers, condors and elephants.

To see all the animal cams, mosey on over to j.mp/sdzoocams.

Giraffe Cam has a larger purpose. San Diego Zoo Global, the zoos worldwide conservation arm, says the cam could encourage giraffophiles to help giraffes and other wildlife in northern Kenya.

From their computers, citizen scientists can help WildwatchKenya.org monitor motion-activated trail cameras to identify animals that cross their paths. All thats needed is a computer or smartphone with Internet access.

Citizen scientists are asked to join the 1 Million Photo Challenge, which seeks 20,000 online volunteers to review and submit to researchers 1 million trail cam photos by this June. This will help giraffologists to learn more about giraffe hotspots, areas frequented by the even-toed ungulates. Theyll also look for areas with no signs of giraffes. (Are those giraffe deserts?).

Volunteers sign up by visiting WildwatchKenya.org. Theyre to identify which animal among a list is present in the photos, or whether none of them are present. Multiple volunteers will view each photo.

Conservationists list giraffes as vulnerable to extinction. While they are widely found throughout Africa, their habitat has been broken up into many smaller areas, each of which is at heightened risk of depopulation. Total giraffe population has fallen from about 155,000 to 97,000 in 2015, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Last year, an international conservation team including San Diego Zoo Global fitted 11 reticulated giraffes in Kenya with solar-powered GPS tracking devices, made by Savannah Tracking. This provides real-time tracking of giraffe mobility. That information could help land management planning, so giraffes are less affected by human activity.No State of the Union speech should be oversold on its value and importance. Presidents for the most part dont use the event to announce dramatic policy changes and historically havent been able to use the speeches to dramatically improve their reputations. That was the case again with President Donald Trumps speech on Tuesday night.

But Trumps State of the Union speech still mattered in that it was an opportunity to show if he could be the best possible version of his impulsive, vindictive, emotionally needy self  an eager deal-maker ready to tackle problems that have gone unaddressed for far too long. So how did he do?

The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board will let others play the role of theatrical critics and assess how well Trump delivered his speech. Well focus on his substantive proposals and bypass his laundry list of accomplishments, real or claimed.

The first policy proposal he brought up  a long-term infrastructure program that generates at least $1.5 trillion to build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways, leveraged with matching funds from state and local governments and public-private partnerships  has great potential to be a bipartisan success. These are crucial to the U.S. economy, not make-work projects. How bad is U.S. infrastructure now? Congested roads and airports alone cost an estimated $155 billion a year. Some fiscal hawks will squawk at the cost, but theres a reason that governors of both parties  including Californias Jerry Brown  want to work with the White House on its plan.

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One of his next policy proposals also has potential to be a bipartisan success: emphasizing job training to help U.S. workers succeed in an economy in which new technology routinely wipes out whole industries. One of the federal governments greatest failings over the past quarter-century has been to respond in any meaningful way to internet-fueled job destruction. Too many Americans have lost good jobs in mid-career with no clear path back to stability. Government should create such paths.

But then thoughtful Trump went back to being duplicitous Trump. In launching into an extended discussion of immigration, he could have begun by talking about his negotiations with Democrats on a compromise that would create a path to citizenship for up to 1.8 million young unauthorized immigrants in return for border security improvements and a harder line on immigration. Yes, some of Trumps requests were blasted by Democrats as outrageous. But his willingness to let far more young immigrants gain citizenship than are now in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program matters. It hints at the deal-maker Trump that many voters hoped theyd get.

Instead, Trump put off talk of his deal-making until later in the speech. He chose to frame immigration first and foremost as being about protecting Americans from criminals, presenting murderous MS-13 gang members in Long Island, New York, as the face of unauthorized immigration  not the DACA Dreamers he has so effusively praised. This framing has a core problem: It is dishonest. Studies consistently show that immigrants, unauthorized and authorized alike, are less likely to commit crimes. This is why Trump is so disliked by tens of millions of Americans. Presidents are supposed to be inspiring and uplifting. He is a president who chooses demonizing over truth-telling.

But the problem for these millions of Americans and the nation itself is that the impassioned anti-Trump Resistance movement will continue to generate constant stalemates when the U.S. cant afford them. Trump is likely to be president until Jan. 20, 2021, and if the economy continues its expansion, he may well hold the job until Jan. 20, 2025. If Americans want helpful infrastructure and job-training programs; if they want a health care system that is better, cheaper and more accessible; if they want a federal government that is not crippled by crushing debt  the president and his political enemies must work together. Somehow out of this maelstrom of mutual loathing, our leaders need to find a constructive path forward. Without such a path, Americas problems wont solve themselves.

Twitter: @sdutIdeas

Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & OpinionMore than a dozen members of Congress, mostly Democrats but at least one Florida Republican, are bringing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program recipients with them to President Donald Trumps first State of the Union address Tuesday night to call attention to the Obama-era immigration program, which is in jeopardy now.

Seven of the congressional leaders doing so are from California, including Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego.

We expect this to be the largest number of Dreamers to ever attend a State of the Union, said Carlos Paz Jr., communications director of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Democrats held a press conference on Tuesday ahead of the speech sharing why they invited the DACA recipients and calling for legislation to permanently protect them. People who are part of the DACA program were brought to the U.S. by immigrant parents when they were children and have obtained two-year work permits and protection against deportation. Program participants cant have serious criminal histories or have arrived in the United States before 2007, when they cant have been older than 16.

They come expressing beautifully their dignity and their courage and respect for our institutions, said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco.

These are the California members of Congress bringing DACA recipients to the State of the Union Address.

Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego

Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Los Angeles

Rep. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach

Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-San Bernardino

Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Carmel

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-San Francisco

Rep. Judy Chu, D-Monterey Park

The DACA recipients faced some risk in traveling to Washington for the State of the Union address and anti-immigration advocates, including Rep. Paul Gosar, were extremely unhappy to see them. The Arizona Republican called for the guests to be arrested on site.

Want to watch the 2018 State of the Union address? Click here for information:

Email: abby.hamblin@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @abbyhamblin

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State of the Union: Trump to honor California firefighter for daring summer camp rescue

State of the Union: Watch first speeches from Obama, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43As millions of people across the U.S. tuned in Tuesday to watch President Donald Trumps first State of the Union address on television, one San Diego viewing party stood out from the rest and garnered emotional reactions on social media.

A viewing party titled Noche de Chanclazos, or evening of slipper-throwing, brought dozens of San Diegans together to watch Trumps speech. They were actively encouraged to throw flip flops at the screen whenever you feel Trump disses you or your community, according to the Facebook page of the group who organized it.

Watch as people hurl their flip flops and boo at a projection of Trumps speech on a wall.

 Watch San Diegans hurl flip flops, or chanclas, at Trumps State of the Union address. Video courtesy of American Friends Service Committee.

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The American Friends Service Committee organized the viewing party. Its director Pedro Rios said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that 60 to 70 people showed up. He said the idea was to express their objections to Trumps immigration policies in a comedic way.

We felt it was an effective event that pokes fun but does not minimize the seriousness of the issues, Rios said.

NBC affiliate KNSD-TV also captured video of the event and shared it on social media, sparking strong reactions to the flip-flop-hurling, including comments from many who saw it as disrespectful.

Disrespectful or comedic? At this San Diego State of the Union community watch party, the chanclas were flying https://t.co/r5pguNtgE5 pic.twitter.com/zbsiIjDkwO  #NBC7 San Diego (@nbcsandiego) January 31, 2018

Sad! Imagine if we did this for Obamas SOTUS! America First! Love it or leave it!  Steve Davis (@oldcdfchief) January 31, 2018

When asked about the reaction the group has gotten from their event, Rios said its been mostly positive. He said he has heard criticisms that the sandal-throwing was disrespectful but he countered that it was harmless criticism.

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Were having fun throwing sandals at a wall, Rios said. His policies, on the other hand, are devastating immigrant communities. It doesnt measure to the type of disrespect that our communities are feeling considering this is just an event that were having fun with.

On social media, others thought it was benign activity and a healthy way for Americans to exercise their right to free speech and to protest.

Its good therapy. This orange idiot POTUS has made life miserable for so many this past year, its helpful to express ones anger and frustration in a harmless fun way. Kudos!!  Nancy O'Leary (@floweroleary) January 31, 2018

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On its Facebook event page, the group called their gathering a success, saying that the Chanclazos were heard throughout the borderlands and that border wall prototype pinatas were smashed, we ate tacos, and let out our aggression in the most creative way.

What do you think  was the event disrespectful to the office of the president of the United States? Was this a healthy way for people to show their opinion? Would you attend a viewing party like this? Share your thoughts on this.

Have some thoughts to share?

Join me in a conversation: Shoot me a private email with your thoughts or ideas on a different approach to this story. As always, you can also send us a tweet.

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Email: luis.gomez@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @RunGomez

Read The Conversation on Flipboard.President Donald Trump has long said he wants to protect America, but in his first State of the Union address on Tuesday he articulated a number of ways he wants to ensure the nations security abroad through military and diplomatic means.

What does he have in mind? Lets take a look at five ways Trump wants to improve national security.

1. Modernize and rebuild Americas nuclear arsenal

As he has mentioned in the past, Trump reiterated in his speech his wish to see Americas nuclear arsenal modernized and rebuilt. He said he wants to make it so strong and powerful that it will deter any acts of agression by any other nation.

Perhaps someday in the future there will be a magical moment when the countries of the world will get together to eliminate their nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, we are not there yet, sadly, Trump said.

2. Defeat ISIS

Fighting terrorism, specifically ISIS, abroad was one of Trumps key promises in his campaign. As president, he said at his address, he said the U.S. and its coalition have made progress.

One year later, I am proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated almost 100 percent of the territory once held by these killers in Iraq and Syria and in other locations as well. But there is much more work to be done, Trump said. We will continue our fight until ISIS is defeated.

3. Keep Guantanamo Bay open

Unlike former President Barack Obama, who pledged but failed to close the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Trump vowed to keep the facilities open and that terrorists should not be released.

In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds of dangerous terrorists, only to meet them again on the battlefield  including the ISIS leader, al-Baghdadi, Trump said. So today, I am keeping another promise. I just signed an order directing Secretary Mattis  who is doing a great job, thank you  to reexamine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities in Guantanamo Bay.

4. Reallocate American foreign-assistance dollars

Last month, Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a move that was widely disapproved by members of the general assembly of the United Nations. But at his speech Tuesday, Trump doubled on his pledge to back friends of America like Israel.

Tonight, I am asking the Congress to pass legislation to help ensure American foreign-assistance dollars always serve American interests, and only go to friends of America, Trump said. As we strengthen friendships around the world, we are also restoring clarity about our adversaries.

5. Address nuclear threats in Iran and North Korea

Trump continued his criticism of the Iran nuclear deal, asking Congress to address the fundamental flaws in the deal, and he added more warnings about North Koreas nuclear provocations, adding that he will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations.

North Koreas reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland. We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from happening, Trump said. We need only look at the depraved character of the North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose to America and to our allies.

Have some thoughts to share?

Join me in a conversation: Shoot me a private email with your thoughts or ideas on a different approach to this story. As always, you can also send us a tweet.

Email: luis.gomez@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @RunGomez

Read The Conversation on Flipboard.

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Two Californians special guests at State of the Union addressThese are the prepared remarks the White House released after President Donald Trump gave his first State of the Union address on Tuesday night.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, the First Lady of the United States, and my fellow Americans:

Less than one year has passed since I first stood at this podium, in this majestic chamber, to speak on behalf of the American people  and to address their concerns, their hopes, and their dreams. That night, our new administration had already taken swift action. A new tide of optimism was already sweeping across our land.

Each day since, we have gone forward with a clear vision and a righteous mission  to make America great again for all Americans.

Over the last year, we have made incredible progress and achieved extraordinary success. We have faced challenges we expected, and others we could never have imagined. We have shared in the heights of victory and the pains of hardship. We endured floods and fires and storms. But through it all, we have seen the beauty of Americas soul, and the steel in Americas spine.

Each test has forged new American heroes to remind us who we are, and show us what we can be.

We saw the volunteers of the Cajun Navy, racing to the rescue with their fishing boats to save people in the aftermath of a devastating hurricane.

We saw strangers shielding strangers from a hail of gunfire on the Las Vegas strip.

We heard tales of Americans like Coast Guard Petty Officer Ashlee Leppert, who is here tonight in the gallery with Melania. Ashlee was aboard one of the first helicopters on the scene in Houston during Hurricane Harvey. Through 18 hours of wind and rain, Ashlee braved live power lines and deep water, to help save more than 40 lives. Thank you, Ashlee.

We heard about Americans like firefighter David Dahlberg. He is here with us too. David faced down walls of flame to rescue almost 60 children trapped at a California summer camp threatened by wildfires.

To everyone still recovering in Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, California, and everywhere else  we are with you, we love you, and we will pull through together.

Some trials over the past year touched this chamber very personally. With us tonight is one of the toughest people ever to serve in this House  a guy who took a bullet, almost died, and was back to work three and a half months later: the legend from Louisiana, Congressman Steve Scalise.

We are incredibly grateful for the heroic efforts of the Capitol Police officers, the Alexandria Police, and the doctors, nurses, and paramedics who saved his life, and the lives of many others in this room.

In the aftermath of that terrible shooting, we came together, not as Republicans or Democrats, but as representatives of the people. But it is not enough to come together only in times of tragedy. Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve.

Over the last year, the world has seen what we always knew: that no people on Earth are so fearless, or daring, or determined as Americans. If there is a mountain, we climb it. If there is a frontier, we cross it. If there is a challenge, we tame it. If there is an opportunity, we seize it.

So let us begin tonight by recognizing that the state of our Union is strong because our people are strong.

And together, we are building a safe, strong, and proud America.

Since the election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs, including 200,000 new jobs in manufacturing alone. After years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages.

Unemployment claims have hit a 45-year low. African-American unemployment stands at the lowest rate ever recorded, and Hispanic American unemployment has also reached the lowest levels in history.

Small business confidence is at an all-time high. The stock market has smashed one record after another, gaining $8 trillion in value. That is great news for Americans 401k, retirement, pension, and college savings accounts.

And just as I promised the American people from this podium 11 months ago, we enacted the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history.

Our massive tax cuts provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small businesses.

To lower tax rates for hardworking Americans, we nearly doubled the standard deduction for everyone. Now, the first $24,000 earned by a married couple is completely tax-free. We also doubled the child tax credit.

A typical family of four making $75,000 will see their tax bill reduced by $2,000  slashing their tax bill in half.

This April will be the last time you ever file under the old broken system  and millions of Americans will have more take-home pay starting next month.

We eliminated an especially cruel tax that fell mostly on Americans making less than $50,000 a year  forcing them to pay tremendous penalties simply because they could not afford government-ordered health plans. We repealed the core of disastrous Obamacare  the individual mandate is now gone.

We slashed the business tax rate from 35 percent all the way down to 21 percent, so American companies can compete and win against anyone in the world. These changes alone are estimated to increase average family income by more than $4,000.

Small businesses have also received a massive tax cut, and can now deduct 20 percent of their business income.

Here tonight are Steve Staub and Sandy Keplinger of Staub Manufacturing  a small business in Ohio. They have just finished the best year in their 20-year history. Because of tax reform, they are handing out raises, hiring an additional 14 people, and expanding into the building next door.

One of Staubs employees, Corey Adams, is also with us tonight. Corey is an all-American worker. He supported himself through high school, lost his job during the 2008 recession, and was later hired by Staub, where he trained to become a welder. Like many hardworking Americans, Corey plans to invest his taxcut raise into his new home and his two daughters education. Please join me in congratulating Corey.

Since we passed tax cuts, roughly 3 million workers have already gotten tax cut bonuses  many of them thousands of dollars per worker. Apple has just announced it plans to invest a total of $350 billion in America, and hire another 20,000 workers.

This is our new American moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American Dream.

So to every citizen watching at home tonight  no matter where you have been, or where you come from, this is your time. If you work hard, if you believe in yourself, if you believe in America, then you can dream anything, you can be anything, and together, we can achieve anything.

Tonight, I want to talk about what kind of future we are going to have, and what kind of nation we are going to be. All of us, together, as one team, one people, and one American family.

We all share the same home, the same heart, the same destiny, and the same great American flag.

Together, we are rediscovering the American way.

In America, we know that faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, are the center of the American life. Our motto is in God we trust.

And we celebrate our police, our military, and our amazing veterans as heroes who deserve our total and unwavering support.

Here tonight is Preston Sharp, a 12-year-old boy from Redding, California, who noticed that veterans graves were not marked with flags on Veterans Day. He decided to change that, and started a movement that has now placed 40,000 flags at the graves of our great heroes. Preston: a job well done.

Young patriots like Preston teach all of us about our civic duty as Americans. Prestons reverence for those who have served our nation reminds us why we salute our flag, why we put our hands on our hearts for the pledge of allegiance, and why we proudly stand for the national anthem.

Americans love their country. And they deserve a government that shows them the same love and loyalty in return.

For the last year we have sought to restore the bonds of trust between our citizens and their government.

Working with the Senate, we are appointing judges who will interpret the Constitution as written, including a great new Supreme Court Justice, and more circuit court judges than any new administration in the history of our country.

We are defending our Second Amendment, and have taken historic actions to protect religious liberty.

And we are serving our brave veterans, including giving our veterans choice in their healthcare decisions. Last year, the Congress passed, and I signed, the landmark VA Accountability Act. Since its passage, my Administration has already removed more than 1,500 VA employees who failed to give our veterans the care they deserve  and we are hiring talented people who love our vets as much as we do.

I will not stop until our veterans are properly taken care of, which has been my promise to them from the very beginning of this great journey.

All Americans deserve accountability and respect  and that is what we are giving them. So tonight, I call on the Congress to empower every Cabinet Secretary with the authority to reward good workers  and to remove Federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.

In our drive to make Washington accountable, we have eliminated more regulations in our first year than any administration in history.

We have ended the war on American energy  and we have ended the war on clean coal. We are now an exporter of energy to the world.

In Detroit, I halted government mandates that crippled Americas autoworkers  so we can get the Motor City revving its engines once again.

Many car companies are now building and expanding plants in the United States  something we have not seen for decades. Chrysler is moving a major plant from Mexico to Michigan; Toyota and Mazda are opening up a plant in Alabama. Soon, plants will be opening up all over the country. This is all news Americans are unaccustomed to hearing  for many years, companies and jobs were only leaving us. But now they are coming back.

Exciting progress is happening every day.

To speed access to breakthrough cures and affordable generic drugs, last year the FDA approved more new and generic drugs and medical devices than ever before in our history.

We also believe that patients with terminal conditions should have access to experimental treatments that could potentially save their lives.

People who are terminally ill should not have to go from country to country to seek a cure  I want to give them a chance right here at home. It is time for the Congress to give these wonderful Americans the right to try.

One of my greatest priorities is to reduce the price of prescription drugs. In many other countries, these drugs cost far less than what we pay in the United States. That is why I have directed my Administration to make fixing the injustice of high drug prices one of our top priorities. Prices will come down.

America has also finally turned the page on decades of unfair trade deals that sacrificed our prosperity and shipped away our companies, our jobs, and our Nations wealth.

The era of economic surrender is over.

From now on, we expect trading relationships to be fair and to be reciprocal.

We will work to fix bad trade deals and negotiate new ones.

And we will protect American workers and American intellectual property, through strong enforcement of our trade rules.

As we rebuild our industries, it is also time to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure.

America is a nation of builders. We built the Empire State Building in just 1 year  is it not a disgrace that it can now take 10 years just to get a permit approved for a simple road?

I am asking both parties to come together to give us the safe, fast, reliable, and modern infrastructure our economy needs and our people deserve.

Tonight, I am calling on the Congress to produce a bill that generates at least $1.5 trillion for the new infrastructure investment we need.

Every Federal dollar should be leveraged by partnering with State and local governments and, where appropriate, tapping into private sector investment  to permanently fix the infrastructure deficit.

Any bill must also streamline the permitting and approval process  getting it down to no more than two years, and perhaps even one.

Together, we can reclaim our building heritage. We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways across our land. And we will do it with American heart, American hands, and American grit.

We want every American to know the dignity of a hard days work. We want every child to be safe in their home at night. And we want every citizen to be proud of this land that we love.

We can lift our citizens from welfare to work, from dependence to independence, and from poverty to prosperity.

As tax cuts create new jobs, let us invest in workforce development and job training. Let us open great vocational schools so our future workers can learn a craft and realize their full potential. And let us support working families by supporting paid family leave.

As America regains its strength, this opportunity must be extended to all citizens. That is why this year we will embark on reforming our prisons to help former inmates who have served their time get a second chance.

Struggling communities, especially immigrant communities, will also be helped by immigration policies that focus on the best interests of American workers and American families.

For decades, open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities. They have allowed millions of low-wage workers to compete for jobs and wages against the poorest Americans. Most tragically, they have caused the loss of many innocent lives.

Here tonight are two fathers and two mothers: Evelyn Rodriguez, Freddy Cuevas, Elizabeth Alvarado, and Robert Mickens. Their two teenage daughters  Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens  were close friends on Long Island. But in September 2016, on the eve of Nisas 16th Birthday, neither of them came home. These two precious girls were brutally murdered while walking together in their hometown. Six members of the savage gang MS-13 have been charged with Kayla and Nisas murders. Many of these gang members took advantage of glaring loopholes in our laws to enter the country as unaccompanied alien minors - and wound up in Kayla and Nisas high school.

Evelyn, Elizabeth, Freddy, and Robert: Tonight, everyone in this chamber is praying for you. Everyone in America is grieving for you. And 320 million hearts are breaking for you. We cannot imagine the depth of your sorrow, but we can make sure that other families never have to endure this pain.

Tonight, I am calling on the Congress to finally close the deadly loopholes that have allowed MS-13, and other criminals, to break into our country. We have proposed new legislation that will fix our immigration laws, and support our ICE and Border Patrol Agents, so that this cannot ever happen again.

The United States is a compassionate nation. We are proud that we do more than any other country to help the needy, the struggling, and the underprivileged all over the world. But as President of the United States, my highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, and my constant concern is for Americas children, Americas struggling workers, and Americas forgotten communities. I want our youth to grow up to achieve great things. I want our poor to have their chance to rise.

So tonight, I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties  Democrats and Republicans  to protect our citizens of every background, color, religion, and creed. My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans  to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream. Because Americans are dreamers too.

Here tonight is one leader in the effort to defend our country: Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Celestino Martinez  he goes by CJ. CJ served 15 years in the Air Force before becoming an ICE agent and spending the last 15 years fighting gang violence and getting dangerous criminals off our streets. At one point, MS-13 leaders ordered CJs murder. But he did not cave to threats or fear. Last May, he commanded an operation to track down gang members on Long Island. His team has arrested nearly 400, including more than 220 from MS-13.

CJ: Great work. Now let us get the Congress to send you some reinforcements.

Over the next few weeks, the House and Senate will be voting on an immigration reform package.

In recent months, my Administration has met extensively with both Democrats and Republicans to craft a bipartisan approach to immigration reform. Based on these discussions, we presented the Congress with a detailed proposal that should be supported by both parties as a fair compromise  one where nobody gets everything they want, but where our country gets the critical reforms it needs.

Here are the four pillars of our plan:

The first pillar of our framework generously offers a path to citizenship for 1.8 million illegal immigrants who were brought here by their parents at a young age  that covers almost three times more people than the previous administration. Under our plan, those who meet education and work requirements, and show good moral character, will be able to become full citizens of the United States.

The second pillar fully secures the border. That means building a wall on the Southern border, and it means hiring more heroes like CJ to keep our communities safe. Crucially, our plan closes the terrible loopholes exploited by criminals and terrorists to enter our country  and it finally ends the dangerous practice of catch and release.

The third pillar ends the visa lottery  a program that randomly hands out green cards without any regard for skill, merit, or the safety of our people. It is time to begin moving towards a merit-based immigration system  one that admits people who are skilled, who want to work, who will contribute to our society, and who will love and respect our country.

The fourth and final pillar protects the nuclear family by ending chain migration. Under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited numbers of distant relatives. Under our plan, we focus on the immediate family by limiting sponsorships to spouses and minor children. This vital reform is necessary, not just for our economy, but for our security, and our future.

In recent weeks, two terrorist attacks in New York were made possible by the visa lottery and chain migration. In the age of terrorism, these programs present risks we can no longer afford.

It is time to reform these outdated immigration rules, and finally bring our immigration system into the 21st century.

These four pillars represent a down-the-middle compromise, and one that will create a safe, modern, and lawful immigration system.

For over 30 years, Washington has tried and failed to solve this problem. This Congress can be the one that finally makes it happen.

Most importantly, these four pillars will produce legislation that fulfills my ironclad pledge to only sign a bill that puts America first. So let us come together, set politics aside, and finally get the job done.

These reforms will also support our response to the terrible crisis of opioid and drug addiction.

In 2016, we lost 64,000 Americans to drug overdoses: 174 deaths per day. Seven per hour. We must get much tougher on drug dealers and pushers if we are going to succeed in stopping this scourge.

My administration is committed to fighting the drug epidemic and helping get treatment for those in need. The struggle will be long and difficult  but, as Americans always do, we will prevail.

As we have seen tonight, the most difficult challenges bring out the best in America.

We see a vivid expression of this truth in the story of the Holets family of New Mexico. Ryan Holets is 27 years old, and an officer with the Albuquerque Police Department. He is here tonight with his wife Rebecca. Last year, Ryan was on duty when he saw a pregnant, homeless woman preparing to inject heroin. When Ryan told her she was going to harm her unborn child, she began to weep. She told him she did not know where to turn, but badly wanted a safe home for her baby.

In that moment, Ryan said he felt God speak to him: You will do it  because you can. He took out a picture of his wife and their four kids. Then, he went home to tell his wife Rebecca. In an instant, she agreed to adopt. The Holets named their new daughter Hope.

Ryan and Rebecca: You embody the goodness of our Nation. Thank you, and congratulations.

As we rebuild Americas strength and confidence at home, we are also restoring our strength and standing abroad.

Around the world, we face rogue regimes, terrorist groups, and rivals like China and Russia that challenge our interests, our economy, and our values. In confronting these dangers, we know that weakness is the surest path to conflict, and unmatched power is the surest means of our defense.

For this reason, I am asking the Congress to end the dangerous defense sequester and fully fund our great military.

As part of our defense, we must modernize and rebuild our nuclear arsenal, hopefully never having to use it, but making it so strong and powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression. Perhaps someday in the future there will be a magical moment when the countries of the world will get together to eliminate their nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, we are not there yet.

Last year, I also pledged that we would work with our allies to extinguish ISIS from the face of the Earth. One year later, I am proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated almost 100 percent of the territory once held by these killers in Iraq and Syria. But there is much more work to be done. We will continue our fight until ISIS is defeated.

Army Staff Sergeant Justin Peck is here tonight. Near Raqqa last November, Justin and his comrade, Chief Petty Officer Kenton Stacy, were on a mission to clear buildings that ISIS had rigged with explosives so that civilians could return to the city.

Clearing the second floor of a vital hospital, Kenton Stacy was severely wounded by an explosion. Immediately, Justin bounded into the booby-trapped building and found Kenton in bad shape. He applied pressure to the wound and inserted a tube to reopen an airway. He then performed CPR for 20 straight minutes during the ground transport and maintained artificial respiration through 2 hours of emergency surgery.

Kenton Stacy would have died if not for Justins selfless love for a fellow warrior. Tonight, Kenton is recovering in Texas. Raqqa is liberated. And Justin is wearing his new Bronze Star, with a V for Valor. Staff Sergeant Peck: All of America salutes you.

Terrorists who do things like place bombs in civilian hospitals are evil. When possible, we annihilate them. When necessary, we must be able to detain and question them. But we must be clear: Terrorists are not merely criminals. They are unlawful enemy combatants. And when captured overseas, they should be treated like the terrorists they are.

In the past, we have foolishly released hundreds of dangerous terrorists, only to meet them again on the battlefield  including the ISIS leader, al-Baghdadi.

So today, I am keeping another promise. I just signed an order directing Secretary Mattis to reexamine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay.

I am also asking the Congress to ensure that, in the fight against ISIS and al-Qaida, we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists  wherever we chase them down.

Our warriors in Afghanistan also have new rules of engagement. Along with their heroic Afghan partners, our military is no longer undermined by artificial timelines, and we no longer tell our enemies our plans.

Last month, I also took an action endorsed unanimously by the Senate just months before: I recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Shortly afterwards, dozens of countries voted in the United Nations General Assembly against Americas sovereign right to make this recognition. American taxpayers generously send those same countries billions of dollars in aid every year.

That is why, tonight, I am asking the Congress to pass legislation to help ensure American foreign-assistance dollars always serve American interests, and only go to Americas friends.

As we strengthen friendships around the world, we are also restoring clarity about our adversaries.

When the people of Iran rose up against the crimes of their corrupt dictatorship, I did not stay silent. America stands with the people of Iran in their courageous struggle for freedom.

I am asking the Congress to address the fundamental flaws in the terrible Iran nuclear deal.

My administration has also imposed tough sanctions on the communist and socialist dictatorships in Cuba and Venezuela.

But no regime has oppressed its own citizens more totally or brutally than the cruel dictatorship in North Korea.

North Koreas reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland.

We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from happening.

Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation. I will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got us into this dangerous position.

We need only look at the depraved character of the North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose to America and our allies.

Otto Warmbier was a hardworking student at the University of Virginia. On his way to study abroad in Asia, Otto joined a tour to North Korea. At its conclusion, this wonderful young man was arrested and charged with crimes against the state. After a shameful trial, the dictatorship sentenced Otto to 15 years of hard labor, before returning him to America last June  horribly injured and on the verge of death. He passed away just days after his return.

Ottos Parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, are with us tonight  along with Ottos brother and sister, Austin and Greta. You are powerful witnesses to a menace that threatens our world, and your strength inspires us all. Tonight, we pledge to honor Ottos memory with American resolve.

Finally, we are joined by one more witness to the ominous nature of this regime. His name is Mr. Ji Seong-ho.

In 1996, Seong-ho was a starving boy in North Korea. One day, he tried to steal coal from a railroad car to barter for a few scraps of food. In the process, he passed out on the train tracks, exhausted from hunger. He woke up as a train ran over his limbs. He then endured multiple amputations without anything to dull the pain. His brother and sister gave what little food they had to help him recover and ate dirt themselves  permanently stunting their own growth. Later, he was tortured by North Korean authorities after returning from a brief visit to China. His tormentors wanted to know if he had met any Christians. He had  and he resolved to be free.

Seong-ho traveled thousands of miles on crutches across China and Southeast Asia to freedom. Most of his family followed. His father was caught trying to escape, and was tortured to death.

Today he lives in Seoul, where he rescues other defectors, and broadcasts into North Korea what the regime fears the most  the truth.

Today he has a new leg, but Seong-ho, I understand you still keep those crutches as a reminder of how far you have come. Your great sacrifice is an inspiration to us all.

Seong-hos story is a testament to the yearning of every human soul to live in freedom.

It was that same yearning for freedom that nearly 250 years ago gave birth to a special place called America. It was a small cluster of colonies caught between a great ocean and a vast wilderness. But it was home to an incredible people with a revolutionary idea: that they could rule themselves. That they could chart their own destiny. And that, together, they could light up the world.

That is what our country has always been about. That is what Americans have always stood for, always strived for, and always done.

Atop the dome of this Capitol stands the statue of freedom. She stands tall and dignified among the monuments to our ancestors who fought and lived and died to protect her.

Monuments to Washington and Jefferson  to Lincoln and King.

Memorials to the heroes of Yorktown and Saratoga  to young Americans who shed their blood on the shores of Normandy, and the fields beyond. And others, who went down in the waters of the Pacific and the skies over Asia.

And freedom stands tall over one more monument: this one. This Capitol. This living monument to the American people.

A people whose heroes live not only in the past, but all around us  defending hope, pride, and the American way.

They work in every trade. They sacrifice to raise a family. They care for our children at home. They defend our flag abroad. They are strong moms and brave kids. They are firefighters, police officers, border agents, medics, and Marines.

But above all else, they are Americans. And this Capitol, this city, and this nation, belong to them.

Our task is to respect them, to listen to them, to serve them, to protect them, and to always be worthy of them.

Americans fill the world with art and music. They push the bounds of science and discovery. And they forever remind us of what we should never forget: The people dreamed this country. The people built this country. And it is the people who are making America great again.

As long as we are proud of who we are, and what we are fighting for, there is nothing we cannot achieve.

As long as we have confidence in our values, faith in our citizens, and trust in our God, we will not fail.

Our families will thrive.

Our people will prosper.

And our Nation will forever be safe and strong and proud and mighty and free.

Thank you, and God bless America.

Email: abby.hamblin@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @abbyhamblin

ALSO

Who is the 'designated survivor' for tonight's State of the Union address?

California members of Congress invite DACA recipients to State of the Union address

State of the Union: Watch first speeches from Obama, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43Online dating can be rough, but this is just cold-hearted.

A California state appeals court lit up Twitter on Tuesday with a written opinion in which it ruled that the dating app Tinder unlawfully discriminated against users over 30 years of age in charging them more than younger users for a premium service.

Accordingly, we swipe left, and reverse, a judge wrote in the courts opinion, applying terminology used by the apps users to express disapproval.

Though that one brief and rare flash of judicial humor is displayed on page three of the 26-page document, the Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles ruled on a case that seriously addresses age discrimination in todays modern dating scene.

Call it a case where things just weret meant to be. Heres how it all unfolded.

Who sued Tinder?

A man by the name of Allan Candelore filed the class-action suit on behalf of himself and others over the age of 30 who felt discriminated by the apps premium service, Tinder Plus.

What was the beef with Tinder?

The dating app is generally free but, for an additional fee, users can access other features. Tinder Plus charges $19.99 a month for users over 30 years of age, and $9.99 to $14.99 for those under 30.

Candelore alleges that the Tinder Plus pricing model engages in unfair competition and in violation of the Unruh Civil Rights Act, a state law meant to prevent age discrimination.

How did Tinder defend itself?

Tinder argued that its research shows that younger users had less money and therefore were less likely to pay a steeper fee for additional features.

What exactly did the court say?

The court ruled 3-0 siding with Candelore saying that Tinders pricing model is arbitrary. Heres what Judge Brian Currey wrote in his opinion for the court:

No matter what Tinders market research may have shown about the younger users relative income and willingness to pay for the service, as a group, as compared to the older cohort, some individuals will not fit the mold. Some older consumers will be more budget constrained and less willing to pay than some in the younger group. We conclude the discriminatory pricing model, as alleged, violates the Unruh Act and the [Unfair Competition Law] to the extent it employs an arbitrary, class-based, generalization about older users incomes as a basis for charging them more than younger users.

How did Twitter respond?

The courts ruling and its cold-shouldered response to Tinder did not go unnoticed on social media.

Do you agree with this California court? Is Tinder engaging in age discrimination by charging people over 30 more for Tinder Plus?

Have some thoughts to share?

Join me in a conversation: Shoot me a private email with your thoughts or ideas on a different approach to this story. As always, you can also send us a tweet.

Email: luis.gomez@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @RunGomez

Read The Conversation on Flipboard.Artistic Rancho Bernardans of all ages are being sought to design a community flag.

Designs for the 16-inch-by-24-inch flags are to be submitted by March 2. They must include the RB logo  backwards R connected to a B  or the words Rancho Bernardo. No other words are permitted.

The designs must represent the community, but cannot promote any race, color, creed, individual, group or religion, per contest rules.

There will be five flags selected, based on age group  preschool, elementary school, middle school, high school and adult. The winning flag in each age group will be displayed in the community and the designers invited to ride in the Spirit of the Fourth parade. Each winning designer will also receive a gift card to a local business, said Robin Kaufman, RB Community Council president.

The council is organizing the contest suggested by former student member Leily Rezvani as a way of bringing the Rancho Bernardo community together, celebrating the creativity of our community and raising awareness of the Rancho Bernardo Community Council among Rancho Bernardo residents, according to a press release.

Its just a nice way to recognize the community and have it stand out on the different holidays, Kaufman said. It is another aspect to the welcome sign.

The flags will be displayed at their designers school or community center during the first two weeks of April, she said. The flags will then go on display in the Rancho Bernardo Library for the last two weeks of April.

Starting the first week of May, the flags will be displayed in the Rancho Bernardo Road median between Acena and Bernardo Center drives. They will also be displayed at the councils RB Alive! booth during the street fair on June 3 before being included in the Spirit of the Fourth parade. After that the flags will be given to their designers, Kaufman said.

She added that the plan is to hold the contest again next year, but during its second rendition to only select one design as that flag will be displayed on the median along with the American flags the council installs on select holidays. They are typically Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day and Veterans Day.

Per contest rules, only Rancho Bernardo residents may enter. The designs will be judged by a non-RB Community Council member. Entries in the form of colored artwork must be submitted via postal mail or in JPEG format via email. Complete contest rules and the entry form are posted at RBCommunityCouncil.com.

Email: rbnews@pomeradonews.comTwenty-three years after a National City woman disappeared from her apartment and two years after her boyfriend admitted killing her, Jovita Collazos remains have been identified.

I didnt ever think I would see the day, her husband, Michael Collazo, said in a telephone interview from his home in Washington on Tuesday. Im in shock, with a little bit of relief. Ive been dealing with this for so many years.

Jovita Collazo

Events surrounding Jovita Collazos death spanned more than two decades and included good and bad police work, a North Carolina prison escape, developing science and some dumb luck.

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It was fate, suggested National City police Sgt. David Bavencoff. It was really timing.

He said he returned from vacation one day in 2010 to find a stack of newspapers, cold homicide cases and missing persons files on his desk. He read the papers, including news that Michael Eugene Richardson of Chula Vista was charged with murdering his wife and mother-in-law.

Michael Richardson, left, pleaded guilty to three murders in Superior Court on Monday. He is shown here with Deputy Public Defender Richard Gates during victim impact statements. (K.C. Alfred)

Then Bavencoff grabbed a missing persons file on Jovita Collazo, who was 38 when she disappeared from her apartment on May 1, 1992.

Her husband, now 57, said at that time, he and his wife had been separated but were renewing their relationship and even planning to leave San Diego County together. He said she was doing laundry at his apartment one evening, returned to her own place to get something, and never returned. Their daughter was with him at his home.

The next day he reported Collazo missing and fetched his daughters belongings from the apartment his wife and Richardson had shared.

He said police first viewed him as a suspect in Collazos disappearance, and never looked into Richardsons background.

I eventually gave up, he said. No one was doing anything.

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He later learned that in 1975 Richardson was convicted of robbery after shooting a cabdriver in North Carolina. He got a 30-year sentence, but after six years he escaped from an inmate road crew. It isnt clear when he reached San Diego County.

Bavencoff said he was surprised that hed never seen the Collazo case before. He found out later it had been deleted accidentally from a missing persons database in 2008. He was also surprised to read that Collazos boyfriend was Richardson.

We opened the case, Bavencoff recalled. We had never had DNA samples before, so I coordinated with the DAs office to bring Mr. Collazo and their daughter in and I got (DNA) swabs.

He submitted the swabs for testing, a process that often takes years to produce a result.

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Meanwhile, in 2011, then-Deputy District Attorney Enrique Camarena (now a Superior Court judge) charged Richardson with Collazos murder. He had no evidence of her body or a cause of death, but built a circumstantial case.

We tore apart his apartment and searched for blood, but we never found anything, National City police Lt. Robert Rounds said Tuesday.

Richardson also faced murder charges in the death of his wife, Thao Richardson, and her mother, Than Lyi. Their bodies were found in the wreckage of their car at the bottom of a Lakeside ravine on June 29, 2010. Autopsies showed, however, that his wifes throat had been cut and his mother-in-law appeared to have died of strangling or smothering.

Richardson pleaded guilty to all three murders in 2013 to avoid the death penalty, and was sentenced to six consecutive life sentences. He is currently housed in Centinela state prison in Imperial County. He never told authorities how or why he killed Collazo.

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Michael Collazo said he thinks the motive was that his wife was going to leave Richardson and possibly reveal that Richardson had been molesting Collazos daughter. He also had been charged with statutory rape on his own wifes teenage niece, but those charges were dropped in the plea agreement.

He lived on the run for 20 years, Michael Collazo said. Who knows what else this guy has done? I think hes got other bodies out there in the desert. He never gave up what he did with my wifes body.

The DNA samples from him and his daughter served to ultimately answer that question.

On Oct. 31, 1994 - 18 months after Collazo disappeared - a rock hunter from Victorville found a skeleton in a shallow grave in Apple Valley, two and a half miles off Interstate 15 and Stoddard Wells Road. It was open desert and scrub back then.

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The San Bernardino County Sheriffs Department unit assigned solely to investigate bodies buried in the desert could find no leads to identify the skeleton, Rounds said. DNA was fledgling science at that time, and not widely used in police work. The remains were buried in a county cemetery.

Then in 2006, the unit started exhuming all the John Doe and Jane Doe bodies to take DNA samples. They got around to the Apple Valley skeleton in 2008. But there was no DNA in the computer system to match with it until Bavencoff submitted the family samples in 2010.

It took five more years for the match to be confirmed.

San Bernardino sheriffs investigators contacted Bavencoff at the end of June with the news. Bavencoff tracked down Michael Collazo to tell him.

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You could have knocked me over with a feather, Michael Collazo said. Im a little happy now that he didnt get away with it. But Im going to go to my grave angry over it.All those years of wondering, he said. At least we know, now.The two ships offer four- to 14-day itineraries to Cuba, the western and southern Caribbean and Panama Canal.

On its weeklong cruise program, Carnival Miracle will sail Saturdays or Sundays to Cozumel, Grand Cayman, Roatan's Mahogany Bay and Belize City. These voyages offer 'Cozumel Plus' extended time in port.

The ship also will operate some recently added six- to 14-day sailings, with the shorter voyages stopping at Cozumel, Belize City and Costa Maya or Mahogany Bay, and eight-day cruises featuring a partial Panama Canal transit and stops at Limon (Costa Rica) and Grand Cayman. An eight-day, five-port cruise that departs Nov. 17, 2019, visits Cozumel, Costa Maya, Mahogany Bay, Belize and Grand Cayman.

Carnival Miracle's 14-day 'Carnival Journeys' Panama Canal cruise round-trip from Tampa Dec. 2-16, 2018, features Cozumel and Limon prior to a partial Panama Canal transit followed by visits to Cartagena (Colombia), Aruba, Curacao and Montego Bay.

Carnival Miracle and Carnival Paradise together are expected to carry 320,000 passengers per year from Tampa.Every terminal registered growth - two of them with double digit- with only PSA-Panama with cargo volume decreasing by 48.4% because of its ongoing expansion to increase capacity to 2m teu. PSA-Panama will begin operation of its expanded terminal in March.

Commenting on the results, Jorge Barakat, Minister of Maritime Affairs said that the Panamanian port system is seen with greater sustainable development in the coming years.

On the Atlantic side, Evergreens Colon Container Terminal (CCT) posted growth of 10.9% with 701,516 teu, while SSAs Manzanillo International Terminal (MIT) increased volume by 2.6% to 1.88m teu, failing to match its 2015 mark of over 2m teu. Cristobal, administrated by Hutchisons Panama Ports, saw a growth of 65.2% to 1.31m teu mainly because it benefited from transhipment from the Caribbean in the wake of various hurricanes that damaged the islands.

On the Pacific side, Balboa, also administrated by Hutchisons Panama Ports registered increase of 2.6% to 2.91m teu. PSA-Panama handled 81,568 teu.

The increase in moves through Panamas ports during 2017 appears to have been attributed mainly to the hurricanes in the Caribbean and the need to divert transhipment cargo, specifically from Freeport, said Manzanillo International Terminal (MIT) gm Stacy Hatfield.

Regarding MIT, there have been a few service realignments already this year that may bring additional cargo. We are only projecting marginal growth in 2018, as more changes and uncertainty is on the horizon. With a current capacity utilisation of only 55%, MIT is ready to receive additional volume, he added.AFRICA

Burundi

Expected Council Action

In February, the Secretary-Generals Special Envoy, Michel Kafando, will brief the Council on the Secretary-Generals latest report and on the situation in Burundi.

Key Recent Developments

The security and political situation in Burundiwhich deteriorated sharply after April 2015 when Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza announced that he would run for a controversial third term later that yearremains unsettled. The Burundian government, for its part, maintains that the security situation is good throughout the country.

At the same time, serious human rights abuses continue to be committed daily with impunity, and oppression and state control over Burundian societyincluding the opposition and the mediaremain high, exerted mainly by the government and the Imbonerakure, the youth group of Nkurunzizas party. House search operations, arbitrary arrests and other abuses have reportedly become the norm. Thus, while the security situation may not have deteriorated, many fear it is untenable and masks a serious risk of violent escalation between the government and those that oppose it.

On 24 October 2017, the government adopted recommendations by the Commission nationale de dialogue inter-burundais (CNDI) to amend the constitution. The amendments remove references to the Arusha Accord, which in 2000 put an end to civil war and ethnic violence and formed the basis for the current constitution. They extend the presidential term from the current five to seven years and suggest that presidential terms are to be counted from their adoption, thus allowing Nkurunziza to run for re-election in 2020 andsince two terms may be served consecutivelypotentially remain in power until 2034, pending further changes. Among other things, the amendments also replace the current two-thirds majority necessary to pass basic bills in parliament with a simple majority, and restructure the government by creating a prime ministerial post and eliminating the current system of two equal vice presidents, one of whom is from the opposition.

The amendments will be put to a referendum in May. Jean Minani, Chairman of the opposition platform in exile, the Conseil National pour le respect de lAccord dArusha (CNARED), has called on Nkurunziza to refrain from amending the constitution, saying that the referendums objective is to break the Arusha Accord and to undermine democracy. He further opined that its results are predetermined in favour of the amendments and called on people to boycott the polls.

Burundi law only allows for public partisan campaigning regarding the amendments in the two weeks prior to the vote. However, Nkurunziza launched a campaign of explanation regarding the constitutional amendments on 12 December 2017, warning that those opposing it are crossing a red line. On 18 January, the opposition claimed that 42 activists had been arrested since 12 December 2017 for illegally contesting the referendum.

Meanwhile, the fourth session of the Inter-Burundian dialogue, led by the East African Community (EAC) and facilitated by former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa, took place in Arusha between 27 November and 8 December 2017. The Secretary-Generals latest report notes the absence of progress and deplores the lack of commitment of the government and the opposition to compromise. It further calls on the government to engage in the process without any preconditions and for the region to support the process.

Kafando last visited the region from 11 to 14 December 2017. He met with the Minister of External Relations, Alain Aime Nyamitwe; with Edouard Nduwimana, the Ombudsperson, an official elected by the National Assembly to investigate violations of civil rights by state officials; and with diplomats.

Kafando held consultations with the Chairperson of the AU, Moussa Faki, and AU Commissioner for Peace and Security Smail Chergi in Addis Ababa on 10 January. They discussed the crisis in Burundi and reviewed UN and AU support for the EAC-led Inter-Burundian Dialogue.

Key Issues and Options

The pressing issue is ensuring that the situation in Burundi does not descend into chaos and further violence, particularly in light of the referendum expected in May. The Council could consider a visiting mission to the region, possibly timed ahead of the referendum.

A general issue is for the Council to find a new avenue for reengagement with Burundi in order to address the political crisis, likely one that is not based on resolution 2303 of 29 July 2016, which authorised the deployment of a police component to Burundi but has not been implemented because of Burundis opposition.

Finally, a major issue is the lack of accountability for potential international crimes over the last few years in Burundi, particularly in light of the magnitude of the findings presented in the 11 August 2017 report of the Commission of Inquiry into grave human rights violations established by the Human Rights Council.

One possible way to address these issues would be to impose targeted sanctions against those obstructing a genuine political dialogue, those responsible for human rights violations, and those who are blocking the implementation of resolution 2303.

Council Dynamics

Burundi remains entrenched in its opposition to the involvement of the international community in the countrys political affairs. The Council, meanwhile, is at an impasse with respect to its engagement with the country. Some Council members have increasingly challenged the need for Council involvement as they view the situation as an internal issue lacking a pressing security dimension. They further note that Burundi is not different from several states in the region that have amended their constitutions or laws to allow incumbent leaders to continue to run and serve for several terms. Other Council members see the situation as volatile and a threat to the viability of the 2000 Arusha Accord, which ended ethnic-based violence and a civil war.

With the Council divided, the current state of affairs in Burundi seems to have become a tolerable status quo for the international community as its attention shifts elsewhere. However, some members view the constitutional amendment process as a key event that may potentially destabilise Burundi further, similar to events that unfolded in April 2015.

France is the penholder on Burundi.

UN DOCUMENTS ON BURUNDIAFRICA

Central African Republic

Expected Council Action

In February, the Special Representative to the Central African Republic (CAR) and head of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), Parfait Onanga-Anyanga, will brief the Council on the latest developments and the most recent MINUSCA report, due on 15 February. Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Bintou Keita is expected to participate in the consultations after the briefing.

Key Recent Developments

The security situation outside of the capital, Bangui, is dire. Self-proclaimed self-defence groups, loosely connected to some members of the anti-Balaka movement, have continued to operate in the south-east of the CAR and are targeting Muslims. Ex-Seleka factions continue to establish illegal parallel administration and taxation structures in areas under their control, preying on the population.

An acute crisis situation has also developed in the north-west of the country where more than half the population has been displaced. Since the end of December 2017, two armed groups, the Revolution and Justice (RJ) and the Mouvement de la liberation de la Centrafrique (MNLC) have clashed to the north of Paoua, in the north-west. Both are trying to control lucrative road checkpoints where large herds of cattle pass through on their way to neighbouring Chad. According to UNHCR, local authorities report that as of 23 January some 15,000 houses have been burned and 487 people killed. The fighting has displaced more than 65,000 people who are now seeking refuge in Paoua, which previously had only 40,000 inhabitants. An additional 17,000 have fled to Chad since the beginning of the year due to the recent violence. An unknown number of people have sought refuge in the bush.

According to UNHCR, the total number of internally displaced people increased from 400,000 in May to 688,700 at the end of 2017, in addition to 542,380 refugees hosted in neighbouring countries.

On the political front, various national and regional peace and reconciliation initiatives have failed to gain momentum. The government, led by President Faustin Archange Touadera, has minimal control outside Bangui, which is relatively calm. Disarmament efforts have made only limited progress, and factions of the ex-Seleka and anti-Balaka groups remain armed and in control of large areas of the country.

Armed groups continue to target humanitarian workers and MINUSCA peacekeepers, resulting in the death of 14 peacekeepers in 2017. Most recently, anti-Balaka elements killed a Mauritanian peacekeeper and wounded three others on 4 December 2017 in Bria in the east.

The Council adopted resolution 2387 on 15 November 2017, renewing the mandate of MINUSCA until 15 November 2018. The priority tasks of the mission include the protection of civilians, support for the peace process, and the delivery of humanitarian assistance. In addition, the resolution increases MINUSCAs troop ceiling by 900 troops to a total of 11,650 military personnel. In his regular reporting on MINUSCA, the Secretary-General is to include the outcome of a performance review of MINUSCAs contingents no later than the end of the first quarter of 2018.

The Secretary-General is also to keep the Council informed through his reports on MINUSCA about the missions progress in implementing a zero-tolerance policy on sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) and on reviews pursuant to resolution 2272 of 11 March 2016. The resolution requests the Secretary-General to replace a troop-contributing country (TCC) when it has not taken appropriate steps to investigate allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse or when the particular TCC has not held the perpetrators accountable.

An independent special investigation appointed by Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, to look into attacks on civilians that occurred between 1 May and 31 August 2017, announced its main findings on 24 January. It found that while MINUSCA has a well-established protection of civilians strategy and functioning early warning mechanisms, these did not translate into preventive actions and there were deficiencies in civil-military-police planning, and operations. Additionally, gaps were identified with regard to contingents training and understanding of protection of civilians.

French magistrates decided on 15 January to end proceedings against French soldiers accused of allegedly abusing children in the CAR, citing insufficient evidence. The Guardian reported that an internal UN investigation recorded detailed testimony from children in the CAR who said they were sexually abused between December 2013 and June 2014 by French troops deployed in the CAR as part of the Council-authorised French intervention force and by soldiers from the Chad and Equatorial Guinea contingents of the AU peacekeeping mission before it was re-hatted into MINUSCA.

Sanctions-Related Developments

On 4 December 2017, the 2127 CAR Sanctions Committee met with its Panel of Experts to discuss the final report of the panel and hear briefings by the UN Mine Action Service and UN Institute for Disarmament Research on weapons and ammunition management in the country. The report recommended that the committee encourage MINUSCA to report any acts of incitement to ethnic or religious violence and hatred, and to identify the perpetrators or instigators. It further recommended that in the next resolution extending the sanctions regime, the Council include designation criteria for individuals and entities inciting ethnic or religious violence and hatred, as well as justifying such acts. Also, the panel recommended that the committee encourage neighbouring states to take effective action to counter the illicit flow of weapons and ammunition into the CAR. In a press release on 28 December 2017, the committee emphasised the recommendation of the panel that it was important that states ensured that all funds, financial assets, and economic resources of listed individuals and entities be frozen without further delay. The committee met for the first time under the chairmanship of Ambassador Bernard Tanoh-Boutchoue (Cote dIvoire) on 26 January in an open briefing. The Coordinator of the Panel of Experts, Romain Esmenjaud, briefed the Council. The Council adopted a resolution on 30 January 2018, renewing the sanctions regime until 31 January 2019 and the mandate of the Panel of Experts until 28 February 2019. On top of the existing designation criteria, the resolution decided that individuals who commit acts of incitement to violence, in particular on an ethnic or religious basis, and then engage in or provide support for acts that undermine the peace, stability or security of the CAR may also be sanctioned. Key Issues and Options

The need to respond to the increased fighting between rebels, attacks against civilians along sectarian lines, and the targeting of MINUSCA personnel and other UN and humanitarian personnel is of key concern to the Council.

The Council could consider acting through the 2127 CAR Sanctions Committee, listing those with links to recent attacks and civilians, in an effort to curb violence, and including individuals who have incited ethnic or religious violence.

The performance of MINUSCAs contingents has not been uniform, with some contingents accused of being overly passive and ill-equipped, while others are alleged to have committed SEA. Council members could consider reports from the Secretariat on the performance of MINUSCAs contingents, including in the context of sexual misconduct.

Council and Wider Dynamics

The deteriorating security situation and the governments inability to project law and order beyond Bangui continue to worry all Council members. During the negotiations over MINUSCAs mandate renewal, all Council members agreed that an increase in troop numbers and streamlining MINUSCAs mandate to focus on a few priority tasks was necessary.

However, there continues to be a rift in the Council with respect to the Councils involvement in oversight of specific contingents generally, and with respect to SEA in particular, and the publicity of such oversight. The US, with the support of other Council members, has been pushing for closer scrutiny of contingents and greater accountability, while TCCs and those supporting them on the Council view this approach as an attempt to shame and blame them for the more general shortcomings of the mission.

France is the penholder on the CAR, and Cote dIvoire chairs the 2127 CAR Sanctions Committee.

UN DOCUMENTS ON THE CARIn Hindsight: The Security Council in 2017

In 2017, the Council held the highest ever number of public meetings since it was created. It was also a year that saw the most vetoes cast since 1988, but among the resolutions that were adopted, there was a drop in non-consensual decision making. There was a fall in the total number of decisions takenresolutions and presidential statements. There were five vetoes on Syria, all connected to chemical weapons. The sixth veto in 2017 was on Israel/Palestine. The Council continued to pay regular attention to several volatile places in the world, including the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya, Mali and South Sudan. It devoted considerable time to addressing the heightened tensions in the Korean Peninsula and the testing of missile and nuclear technology by the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK), both through resolutions strengthening sanctions on the DPRK and thematic meetings on non-proliferation. Terrorism continued to be a focus in country-specific situations such as Mali, Iraq and the Lake Chad Basin countries. The Council also addressed it as a thematic issue through meetings on foreign terrorist fighters, trafficking of people, particularly by ISIL/Daesh and Boko Haram, and trafficking of cultural heritage.

The Council adopted 88 decisions, a decrease from last years 96, which had been the highest since 2008. It adopted 61 resolutions, a decrease from the 77 in 2016. Presidential statements, on the other hand, rose from a 27-year low of just 19 in 2016, to 27 in 2017. The majority of resolutions continued to be mandate extensions and sanctions renewals, but there were also several resolutions on counter-terrorism related thematic issues such as migrant smuggling; preventing terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction; protection of cultural heritage; and protection of critical infrastructure. The Council, furthermore, adopted resolutions on UN police, mine action and small arms. One resolution which attempted to address a potential crisis was that on The Gambia, which was adopted in January, following the deterioration in the political situation.

The Council chose to address potential volatile political situations and the implementation of political agreements in a number of situations, including Burundi, DRC, CAR, Guinea-Bissau, South Sudan and Libya, through presidential statements. Presidential statements were also adopted on thematic issues such as sustaining peace and on famine. Press statements, which are not a formal decision of the Council but do require consensus, continued to fall. In 2017, there were 93 press statements issued, a slight drop from 2016 from the 106 issued in 2016 (the height was in 2014, with 138 press statements produced). Council members have been using press statements to condemn terrorist-related activities, and attacks on civilians, as well as attacks on UN personnel; these were the focus of over 64 percent of press statements.

The Council held 296 formal meetings: 282 public and 14 private. This highest number of public meetings in the Councils history can be largely attributed to a push from some members to encourage greater transparency of positions. Regarding informal meetings, there were 137 consultations, a drop from the 169 held in 2016. The issues taken up most frequently in consultations were: Syria (33 times), South/South Sudan (19 times) and the Middle East, including the Palestinian question (ten times). The drop in the number of consultations may be partly attributed to the fact that some discussions that might otherwise have taken place in consultations were held as public meetings in 2017. Any Other Business, often used for more discreet discussion of issues, was employed on 39 occasions, a slight drop from 2016.

While the Council still spent considerable time in formal meetings and consultations, in 2017 the average number of hours per month dropped from 62 to 56. This may partly be due to fewer open debates in 2017. There were 18 open debates, (where the larger UN membership can participate) compared to 23 in 2016. The number of debates also fell from 14 in 2016 to 10 in 2017. Conversely, there were 44 more briefings in 2017. The debates included a number of regular thematic issues, including children and armed conflict, women, peace and security, and counter-terrorism, as well as newer issues such as trafficking. For the first time the issue of threats against critical infrastructure was discussed in the Council.

Trends in 2017

High Number of Vetoes on Specific Issues, but Overall Greater Unanimity

Six resolutions were vetoed in 2017, the highest number since 1988. They were, with one exception, all on the use of chemical weapons in Syria, with four focused specifically on the renewal of the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the UN. Russia vetoed all five Syria resolutions, with Bolivia also voting against all five. China vetoed, jointly with Russia, a resolution that would have imposed sanctions for the use of chemical weapons and abstained on all the other vetoed Syria draft resolutions. Egypt, Ethiopia and Kazakhstan were among those that abstained on a number of the Syria resolutions. As a result of the Russian vetoes on the renewal of the JIM, this mechanism, which was tasked to determine responsibility for the use of chemical weapons in Syria, was terminated. Following US president Donald Trumps declaration in December that the US would recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move its embassy there from Tel Aviv, the US vetoed a resolution that called upon all states to refrain from the establishment of diplomatic missions in Jerusalem pursuant to resolution 478 (1980) of the Council.

There were two non-consensual resolutions, compared to eight in 2016. Three members (Bolivia, China and Russia) abstained on a vote on a resolution renewing the authorisation for cross-border and cross-line humanitarian access to Syria. There were difficult negotiations on this resolution as Russia argued strongly that given the establishment of de-escalation areas and the need to work with the Syrian government, changes were needed in the UN cross-border delivery process of humanitarian aid. The other non-consensual resolution was on the renewal of Somalia-Eritrea sanctions where Bolivia, China, Egypt and Russia abstained. These members believed that the Council should reconsider sanctions measures against Eritrea and wanted this reflected in the resolution. There was also one resolution on Syria chemical weapons related to the efforts to renew the JIM which was not adopted due to insufficient affirmative votes.

Unlike in 2016, it seems that there were more attempts to obtain consensus on a draft text before putting it to a vote. The vetoes and abstentions were a response to substantive concerns, rather than a reaction to the process. Although negotiations were rarely easy, it seems that members were more willing to compromise, particularly on mission mandate renewals. In general, mandate renewal resolutions were adopted unanimously, in contrast to 2016 where members were not united on the mandates of a number of missions.

Unity Over a Serious Threat

There was significant activity in the Council as a result of the DPRK missile activities. There has been an increase this year in the pace of missile tests conducted by the DPRK, with signs of significant technological advances in the development of intermediate-range and submarine-launched missiles. In response, the Council increased the intensity of its attention to the DPRK, holding briefings shortly after a missile test and agreeing to an outcome in a shorter timeframe than in the past. In 2017, the Council held 12 meetings on DPRK (including one on human rights), and adopted one presidential statement and five resolutions. Four of the resolutions imposed stronger sanctions on the DPRK, while one renewed the Sanctions Committees panel of experts. The Council responded more swiftly to the missile launches than in previous years, particularly towards the end of 2017. In the past, negotiations on a resolution would take four to five months, whereas in 2017, resolutions were often adopted just weeks after a missile launch. China, which in the past had been reluctant to impose stronger sanctions, appears to have been more open to stronger measures in the face of the increasing threat from the DPRK, as well as possible concerns over US retaliation.

E10 Activism

Last year elected members found their voice on a number of issues. The E10 voice got stronger in 2017 as elected members as a group continued to meet regularly. The E10 also began meeting with the Secretary-General. The 2017 elected members, in spite of their political differences, were united in wanting to play a substantive role in the Councils work during their terms on the Council. On issues where the P5 were divided, such as Syria chemical weapons, the E10 more than once offered alternative texts in an attempt to break the impasse. As humanitarian leads on Syria, Egypt, Japan and Sweden played a pivotal role in getting the resolution on cross-border and cross-line authorisation renewed. In general, elected members have been particularly active on humanitarian issues, often exerting pressure on the penholder to pay attention to these issues, such as in relation to Myanmar and Yemen. Within the E10, the African members (A3) were also a cohesive force in 2017, in spite of having different positions on a number of issues. This was an important factor in getting agreement on a number of African issues. Elected members who were also troop- and police-contributing countries were actively engaged in negotiations on mandate renewals and were able to contribute substantively to draft texts.

Over the last few years, elected members have increasingly shown that they can play an important role, particularly on issues where there are deep P5 divisions. In negotiating texts they have been able to achieve compromises that would have been more difficult if proposals had come from a P5 member.

High Number of Council Visiting Missions

The Council continued its trend from 2016 of a high number of visiting missions. There were five Council visiting missions in 2017: to the Lake Chad Basin region (Cameroon, Chad, the Niger and Nigeria); Colombia; Haiti; Addis Ababa for the annual meeting with the AU; and the Sahel region (Burkina Faso, Mali and Mauritania). Most of these visits were proposed by the president of the Council for the month of the visit. Unlike in 2016, the visits did not focus on specific potentially volatile political situations, but had a variety of different objectives. Two of the visits focused on the impact of terrorism on a region. The visit to the Lake Chad Basin region was undertaken during the UK presidency and a key objective was to give members an understanding of Boko Harams operations and their impact on the region. The mission afforded Council members an appreciation of the link between climate change and the rise of Boko Haram, and shortly after their return, the Council adopted a resolution on the Lake Chad Basin region.

The visiting mission to the Sahel during Frances presidency allowed members to assess the situation in the affected countries regarding the level and nature of the threat posed by terrorism and transnational crime, as well as to assess the status of the operationalisation of the joint force of the Group of Five for the Sahel (consisting of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger). This visit also gave the Council an opportunity to deliver a message to parties in Mali regarding the implementation of the 2015 Peace and Reconciliation Agreement.

The Council visited Haiti during Bolivias presidency as the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti was about to be replaced by its successor mission, the UN Mission for Justice Support in Haiti. The visit allowed Council members to assess the progress made and steps taken toward closing down MINUSTAH and the transition between the old and new missions.

The Colombia mission, undertaken during Uruguays presidency, was used to show the Councils commitment to the peace process in Colombia and took place at a sensitive moment for the process.

The mission to Addis Ababa, held during Ethiopias presidency, was solely for the annual AU-UN meeting, and unlike similar visits in the past did not include visiting other countries in Africa.

Compared with previous years, the 2017 visiting missions were organised faster and often planned strategically ahead of the Councils consideration of the situation in the Council, allowing for a better understanding of the issues and challenges.MIDDLE EAST

Iraq

Expected Council Action

In February, the Special Representative and head of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), Jan Kubis, will brief the Council on the Secretary-Generals report on UNAMI and the most recent developments.

The mandate of UNAMI expires on 31 July 2018.

Key recent Developments

On 9 December 2017, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced a victory over the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) after government forces gained control of the remaining territory held by ISIL on the border with Syria. At the peak of its power in 2015, ISIL controlled around one-third of the country, including the major population centres Fallujah, Mosul and Ramadi. Iraqi government forces, together with Kurdish troops, Sunni tribal fighters, and the air support of the US-led coalition, engaged in a campaign against ISIL for more than three years. Although deprived of territory, ISIL has continued terrorist attacks against civilians and security forces, particularly in Baghdad.

Two people were killed and dozens injured in a 13 January attack in northern Baghdad. Two days later, ISIL claimed responsibility for the deadliest attack since the declaration of the groups defeat. In a double suicide bombing in Tayaran Square in Baghdad, close to 40 people were killed and another hundred wounded.

The tensions between Baghdad and Erbil continue after the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) held a referendum on independence in September 2017. The central government has since retaliated by taking control of Kirkuk and the surrounding areas in the disputed territories, while imposing a ban on international flights from two major airports in Kurdistan. During a 20 January meeting with KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, al-Abadi reiterated the central governments conditions for scaling back restrictions on the KRG. Al-Abadi said that the KRG must surrender control of its airports and border crossings to the central government and stop independent oil exports.

In its decision issued on 31 October 2017, the Council of Ministers set 15 May 2018 as the date for the parliamentary elections. However, in December the Council of Ministers moved the election date to 12 May after the Independent High Electoral Commission requested the change in order to prevent an overlap with the beginning of Ramadan. The Federal Supreme Court of Iraq ruled on 21 January that parliamentary elections must be held within the timeframe set by the constitution and without delay. The next day, the Iraqi parliament approved a decision to hold the elections on 12 May. Since the initial elections date was first announced in October, Sunni lawmakers have called for their postponement amid concerns that some 3 million Iraqis, displaced as a result of the fight against ISIL, will not be able to return to their homes in time. Both al-Abadi and his predecessor, Nouri al-Maliki, have announced that they will run in the elections.

From 21 to 23 January, Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Miroslav Jenca visited Iraq and held meetings with al-Abadi and other high-ranking government officials. Among the issues discussed during the visit was how the UN can assist Iraq in the upcoming elections, and improving relations between the central government and the KRG. He also visited Mosul and areas recently liberated from ISIL and said that the UN will continue to assist in the rebuilding and stabilisation of Iraq.

In September 2017, the Council adopted a resolution that requested the Secretary-General establish an investigative team to support Iraqs domestic efforts to hold ISIL accountable by collecting, preserving and storing evidence of war crimes. The Secretariat is still working on terms of reference for the team that will be acceptable to the government of Iraq. The initial deadline for their submission was 21 November 2017. However, the Secretary-General has requested an extension of the deadline on several occasions. He has informed the Council that the main unresolved issue remains sharing of evidence by the team in respect of any criminal proceedings in which capital punishment could be imposed or carried out. The next deadline for submission is 9 February.

On 15 November 2017, the Secretary-General submitted to the Council the executive summary, recommendations and observations from a report conducted by an independent external assessment team focusing on a review of the structure and staffing of UNAMI and related resources. In its general recommendations, the assessment team noted the need for the mission to have clearly defined objectives, a strategy to achieve them, and a performance measurement framework. The report also recommended increasing the capacity to deliver mandate-related results by adding political, human rights and analytical capabilities, especially outside Baghdad. The assessment teams recommendations are likely to be considered in the discussions on the renewal of UNAMIs mandate in July.

Human Rights-Related Developments

The special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Agnes Callamard, visited Iraq from 14 to 23 November 2017. She met with victims of ISILs violence, visited camps housing people forced to flee their homes, and talked to expert teams working to identify the thousands of Iraqis buried in mass graves. In a statement at the end of her visit, she noted that the Iraqi people have been subjected to inconceivable suffering at the hands of ISIL. Justice for victims demands that the possible crimes against humanity be investigatedBut hasty judgment and execution of ISIL members for acts of terrorism is a disservice to the country. The special rapporteur will submit a report to the Human Rights Council at its 38th session in June. In a 15 December 2017 press briefing, the spokesperson for the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Liz Throssell, expressed concern over the mass execution of 38 men at a prison in southern Iraq on 14 December 2017. The spokesperson added that it appears extremely doubtful that strict due process and fair trial guarantees were followed. This raises the prospect of irreversible miscarriages of justice and violations to the right of life. In the same briefing, the spokesperson also raised concerns about the situation in Tuz Khurmatu, in Salah al-Din Governorate (part of the disputed areas), where residential areas were reportedly shelled on 9 and 12 December, with casualties among civilians. According to the spokesperson, UN human rights officers visited the area on 7 and 14 December 2017 to investigate reports that homes had been burned and businesses looted.

Sanctions-Related Developments

On 24 November 2017, the 1518 Iraq Sanctions Committee removed one entity from the sanctions list in an ongoing effort to wind down the committee. On 22 December, the committee published its annual report, which provided an overview of the committees activities. Four entities were removed from the sanctions list during 2017. At press time there were still 169 entities and 86 individuals on the list. On 8 December 2017, the Council adopted a resolution that ended the oil-for-food programme and indicated that the sanctions measures imposed under Chapter VII of the Charter in this regard have been fully implemented. Iraq still remains under sanctions imposed by resolution 1518, which include an arms embargo and asset freeze on individuals and entities associated with the Saddam Hussein regime.

Issues and Options

With ISIL defeated militarily, the Councils attention is likely to shift towards other troubling issues, mainly the human rights and humanitarian situation and the continuing terrorist threats.

In addressing these issues, the Council could consider requesting more briefings by the representatives of the UN agencies with a field presence regarding the humanitarian and human rights situations, in view of reports of violations committed by pro-government forces. The Council could also adopt a resolution that would call for accountability for crimes committed by all armed groups.

The Council continues to follow closely developments related to the parliamentary elections planned for 12 May, especially because UNAMI will play a role in this process by providing electoral assistance to the government of Iraq. To this end, the Council could consider inviting Kubis to brief on the preparation process and the readiness of the Iraqi government to hold the elections.

The Council continues to monitor the situation in Kurdistan after the conflict between the Iraqi government and the KRG escalated in October 2017. With the exception of one meeting under any other business in October, the Council has not held any further discussions on this specific issue. Given that the situation in Kurdistan remains tense, the Council could consider holding an informal interactive dialogue with the participation of both Iraqi government and KRG representatives to get their perspectives on this issue.

Another increasingly difficult issue is the elaboration of the terms of reference for the investigative team on accountability for crimes committed in Iraq by ISIL. The numerous executions of captured ISIL fighters carried out by the government since the declared defeat of the terrorist group only exacerbate concerns raised by the Secretariat in the process of drafting the terms of reference. Once the draft is submitted to the Council, one option is to hold a discussion in consultations with relevant Secretariat officials to review the substance of the document and allow these officials to answer any questions or respond to any concerns that may arise.

Council Dynamics

Council members support UNAMI, and some subscribe to the view held by the US and Iraq, as well as by Kubis, that the missions mandate is sufficiently broad and flexible to support the missions good offices role. Other Council members believe that UNAMI would benefit from a resolution that updates and prioritises its tasks, given that the mandate has not changed since resolution 1770 was adopted more than ten years ago. Some members have previously expressed interest in incorporating stronger language in the mandate renewal resolution on such issues as the promotion of national reconciliation; accountability; security sector reform; deeper political and economic reforms; women, peace and security; children and armed conflict; and the right of internally displaced persons to return to their homes. It seems that the US, the penholder, and Iraq, the host country, are reluctant to make any substantial changes to UNAMIs mandate.

The US is the penholder on Iraq issues in general, and the UK is the penholder on Iraq-Kuwait issues. Poland is the Chair of the 1518 Iraq Sanctions Committee.

UN DOCUMENTS ON IRAQEUROPE

Kosovo

Expected Council Action

In February, the Council is expected to hold its quarterly briefing on the situation in Kosovo. The Special Representative and head of the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), Zahir Tanin, will brief on recent developments and the latest report by the Secretary-General. As on several previous occasions, Serbia is likely to participate at a high level, while Kosovo will probably be represented by its ambassador to the US.

Key Recent Developments

The special court based in The Hague that will investigate crimes committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the conflict in Kosovo became fully operational in July 2017 after it adopted its rules of procedure and evidence. Although the court has yet to issue its first indictments, former KLA members have already expressed their discontent with the court. In December, KLA veteran groups pressured representatives in Kosovos parliament to review the law that established the court. They allege the court will be discriminatory given that it focuses solely on crimes committed by the KLA.

On 22 December 2017, 43 representatives from the political parties that compose the ruling coalition signed a petition that called for a vote in the parliament on a law that would revoke the special court. On 17 January, the push to initiate a vote on the law failed because a quorum in the parliaments presidency was lacking. However, on 22 January the parliaments presidency formally sent the draft law to revoke the special court to the government, which will have to provide its opinion on the matter within 30 days. Given that the court was established by constitutional amendment, the law to revoke the court would require the support of two-thirds of the representatives in the 120-seat parliament. Kosovos leadershipincluding President Hashim Thaci, Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, and the president of the parliament, Kadri Veselihave publicly expressed criticism of the court. All three held high-ranking positions in the KLA during the Kosovo war in the 1990s.

The tensions in Kosovo heightened on 16 January after the assassination of Oliver Ivanovic, a prominent Serb politician from northern Mitrovica, a Serb-dominated part of Kosovo. He was gunned down by unknown assailants near the offices of his political party, Citizens Initiative, in North Mitrovica. Haradinaj and Thaci condemned the murder of Ivanovic and called for law enforcement authorities to bring those responsible to justice. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic described the murder as an act of terrorism and announced that Serbia had made a formal request to UNMIK and the EU Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo to allow its authorities to participate in the investigation.

On 20 January, Vucic visited Kosovo and held a series of meetings with the local Serb population including political and religious leaders. He urged Kosovar Serbs to remain living in Kosovo and stated that Serbian government will assist them in this regard. He repeated his calls for accountability for those responsible for Ivanovics murder, no matter what ethnic group they belong to. Although the Kosovo authorities rejected Serbias offer to participate in the investigation, on 22 January the prosecutors from Serbia and Kosovo reached an agreement on sharing information pertaining to Ivanovics murder.

In December 2017, Haradinaj was formally removed from the list of Interpols International Wanted Notices, which enables him to travel freely outside Kosovo. Months before becoming prime minister in September, Haradinaj was detained in France on an Interpol arrest warrant issued by Serbia for alleged war crimes against Kosovo Serbs in the 1990s. Haradinaj was later released when the French court rejected Serbias extradition request.

Human Rights-Related Developments

The special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Nils Melzer, visited Kosovo in November 2017. In a 27 November 2017 statement, Melzer commended Kosovo for improving its treatment of prisoners but said it still must do more to fight arbitrary detention and police impunity. Melzer interviewed numerous inmates held in police stations, remand prisons and high-security penitentiaries, as well as residents of psychiatric and social care institutions and migrants accommodated in reception and transit centres. According to the statement, Melzer received numerous allegations of ill-treatment during police interrogation. The special rapporteur will submit a report to the Human Rights Council at its 37th session in March.

Issues and Options

In light of the recent events surrounding the special court and murder of Ivanovic, maintaining stability in Kosovo remains the main priority of the Council. Related to this is what role UNMIK can play in facilitating the implementation of the existing agreements between Belgrade and Pristina.

The ongoing efforts in the Kosovo legislature to repeal the law that permits the prosecution of former KLA members for war crimes in the special court in The Hague is an issue that the Council will follow closely. Should the tensions within the legislature affect cooperation by the Kosovo authorities with the court, the Council could consider issuing a statement calling on the authorities in Kosovo to adhere to its commitments to the court.

During the past several briefings, some Council members, especially the P3, have expressed their view that the Council should consider lengthening the reporting cycle and possibly downsizing the UN mission, given the relative stability in Kosovo. An option for the Council would be to consider specific proposals to this end or request the Secretary-General to conduct a strategic review of the mission in order to explore ways to increase its efficiency.

Council Dynamics

Over the years, Kosovo has become a low-intensity issue for the Council followed closely by several members that have a particular interest in the region. Another factor that has contributed to lowering the Councils priority to this issue has been the growing role of regional organisations, including the EU, NATO and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

The permanent members remain deeply divided over Kosovo. France, the UK and the US recognise Kosovos independence and are inclined to support the Kosovo government, while China and Russia do not recognise its independence and strongly support Serbias position. During the past several briefings, P3 members, and the US in particular, have become more outspoken in advocating a lengthening of UNMIKs reporting cycle and thus reducing the frequency of meetings on Kosovo. Some members, including the UK and the US, have called for significant changes to the mandate of the mission, including its possible drawdown and eventual withdrawal, citing the changing circumstances on the ground and overall stability in Kosovo. During the November briefing, the US representative said that the missions resources could be used for more critical issues and called for recognition of Kosovo, expressing support for Kosovos full membership in the UN.

Looking ahead, it seems likely that the issue of modifying UNMIKs mandate in the context of reviewing the UN peacekeeping operations will gain more traction as the P3 continue to pursue these objectives. Because UNMIKs mandate is open-ended and thus not renewed periodically, any attempt to change the current status of the mission would require a new resolution. Russia continues to oppose any such attempt, and at the moment, would likely block a resolution that would alter the status quo.

UN DOCUMENTS ON KOSOVOTHE SECURITY COUNCIL

Lead Roles within the Council in 2018: Penholders and Chairs of Subsidiary Bodies

The charts in this Forecast provide an update on Security Council penholders and chairs of subsidiary bodies as of January 2018. The charts do not cover all the agenda items of which the Council is currently seized; rather, they focus on items with regular outcomes or those for which a subsidiary body has been established. For the full names of agenda items, please refer to the latest summary statement by the Secretary-General of matters of which the Security Council is seized (S/2018/10). The list of chairs of subsidiary bodies is contained in a 2 January note by the Council President (S/2018/2).

Under Japans leadership as the chair of the Informal Working Group on Documentation and Other Procedural Questions (IWG), the Council reached agreement on 30 August 2017 on a new version of the compendium of its working methods, commonly referred to as Note 507. In the updated Note 507, particular attention was paid to the penholder system and the appointment of chairs of subsidiary bodies.

The penholder system emerged around 2010 but was not mentioned in a Council document other than meeting records until a 2014 presidential note (S/2014/268). The updated 2017 Note 507 stated, as previously articulated in the 2014 note, that [a]ny member of the Security Council may be a penholder and also added language reiterating that [m]ore than one Council member may act as co-penholders, when it is deemed to add value, taking into account as appropriate the expertise and/or contributions of Council members on the subjects. While both notes specify that any member of the Council can be a penholder, the P3 (France, the UK and the US) continue to dominate the penholder list. However, this is only an informal system, with no process for Council members to decide or review penholderships, and seemingly nothing prevents other Council members from drafting outcomes on any given issue.

The updated Note 507 provides guidelines regarding the processes leading up to the adoption of Council outcomes in the current penholder system, including stressing the desirability of at least one round of discussions with all members of the Council on all drafts. It emphasises the need for providing reasonably sufficient time for consideration, referring to silence procedure, a common practice that had never been articulated in writing, whereby a draft is circulated by email with a deadline for raising objections, in the absence of which the draft becomes final, recognising that any Council member may request extension of and/or break silence if further consideration is required. Furthermore, the Note acknowledges that for certain open debates, the adoption of an outcome might take place at a later date to allow the outcome to more fully reflect matters raised during the debate.

New Council members who, as of press time, have assumed the role of penholders for 2018 include: Cote dIvoire, penholder on Guinea-Bissau and co-penholder with Sweden on West Africa, including the Sahel; Kuwait, penholder on Working Methods; the Netherlands, penholder on Afghanistan; and Peru, penholder on international tribunals.

In contrast to the penholder system, the many subsidiary bodies established by the Council are all chaired by non-permanent members. The appointment process is largely controlled by the P5, although non-permanent members have long been pushing for a more inclusive and transparent process that takes into consideration to a greater extent the priorities and preferences of all Council members. As a result of these efforts, modifications to the appointment process of chairs of subsidiary bodies were agreed in Notes by the President S/2016/170 and S/2016/619. These notes focused on improving the transparency of the subsidiary bodies and preparing newly elected council members, respectively. In particular, note S/2016/619 stated that the process of appointing chairs will be facilitated jointly by two members of the Security Council working in full cooperation, with the unwritten understanding that the two members would be one permanent member and the chair of the IWG. It also expressed the desirability of appointing the chairs by 1 October.

The 2017 Note 507 incorporated the key elements from both of these notes, and further stated that the members of the Council should also consult informally with the newly elected members in the process. In 2016, the Council did not reach agreement on the selection of chairs for 2017 until 31 October, but in 2017, the Council agreed on the selection of chairs by the end of the first week of October.

Because the selection of chairs for 2018 was completed in the first week of October 2017, it gave the incoming elected members Cote dIvoire, Equatorial Guinea, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Peru and Poland considerably more time to prepare for their new responsibilities than was the case in the past. Cote dIvoire chairs the 2127 Central African Republic Sanctions Committee and the Working Group on Peacekeeping Operations; Equatorial Guinea, the 1636 Lebanon Sanctions Committee and the 2048 Guinea-Bissau Sanctions Committee; Kuwait, the 1533 Democratic Republic of the Congo Sanctions Committee; the Netherlands, the 1718 Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea Sanctions Committee; Peru, the 1373 Counter-Terrorism Committee, the 2140 Yemen Sanctions Committee, the Informal Working Group on International Tribunals, and the Working Group on Counter-Terrorism; and Poland, the 1518 Iraq Sanctions Committee, the 1591 Sudan Sanctions Committee, and the 2206 South Sudan Sanctions Committee.

Country-Situation Chair of the Relevant Council Subsidiary Body Afghanistan Kairat Umarov (Kazakhstan),

1988 Taliban Sanctions Committee Bosnia and Herzegovina N/A Burundi N/A Central Africa (UNOCA/LRA) N/A Central African Republic Bernard Tanoh-Boutschoue (Cote dIvoire),

2127 CAR Sanctions Committee Central Asia (UNRCCA) N/A Colombia N/A Cote dIvoire N/A (The 1572 Cote dIvoire Sanctions Committee was dissolved on 28 April 2016.) Cyprus N/A Democratic Republic of the Congo Mansour Alotaibi (Kuwait),

1533 DRC Sanctions Committee DPRK (Non-proliferation) Karel J. G. van Oosterom (the Netherlands),

1718 DPRK Sanctions Committee Golan Heights (UNDOF) N/A Guinea-Bissau Anatolio Ndong Mba (Equatorial Guinea),

2048 Guinea-Bissau Committee Haiti N/A Iran (Non-Proliferation) N/A Iraq Joanna Wronecka (Poland),

1518 Iraq Sanctions Committee Lebanon Anatolio Ndong Mba (Equatorial Guinea),

1636 Lebanon Sanctions Committee Liberia N/A (The 1521 Liberia Sanctions Committee was dissolved on 25 May 2016.) Libya Olof Skoog (Sweden),

1970 Libya Sanctions Committee Mali Olof Skoog (Sweden),

2374 Mali Sanctions Committee Middle East (Israel/Palestine) N/A Somalia Kairat Umarov (Kazakhstan),

751/1907 Somalia-Eritrea Sanctions Committee Sudan and South Sudan Joanna Wronecka (Poland),

1591 Sudan Sanctions Committee

Joanna Wronecka (Poland),

2206 South Sudan Sanctions Committee Syria N/A Ukraine N/A Yemen Gustavo Meza-Cuadra (Peru),

2140 Yemen Sanctions Committee West Africa, including the Sahel N/A Western Sahara N/A Thematic Issues Children and Armed Conflict Olof Skoog (Sweden),

Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict Counterterrorism (1267 1989 and 2253) Kairat Umarov (Kazakhstan),

1267/1989/2253 Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) (Daesh)/Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee Counterterrorism (1373) Gustavo Meza-Cuadra (Peru),

1373 Counterterrorism Committee Counterterrorism (1566) Gustavo Meza-Cuadra (Peru),

1566 Working Group ICTY and International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals Gustavo Meza-Cuadra (Peru),

Informal Working Group on International Tribunals Non-proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (1540) Sacha Sergio Llorentty Soliz (Bolivia),

1540 Committee Peace and Security in Africa Tekeda Alemu (Ethiopia),

Ad Hoc Working Group on Conflict Prevention and Resolution in Africa Peacekeeping Bernard Tanoh-Boutchoue (Cote dIvoire),

Working Group on Peacekeeping Operations Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict UK, Protection of Civilians Informal Expert Group Women and Peace and Security Peru and Sweden co-chair the 2242 Informal Expert Group on Women, Peace and Security Working Methods Mansour Alotaibi (Kuwait),

Informal Working Group on Documentation and Other Procedural QuestionsPEACEMAKING, PEACEKEEPING AND PEACEBUILDING

Purposes and Principles of the UN Charter

Expected Council Action

In February, there will be a ministerial-level briefing on the purposes and principles of the UN Charter in the maintenance of international peace and security. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is expected to brief.

Background

Kuwait is organising the briefing this month, which coincides with the 27th anniversary of the expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait by a broad international coalition, authorised by the Security Council through resolution 678 of 29 November 1990. This is often viewed as a highpoint for the Council, an example of how the collective security machinery outlined in the UN Charter was used to address a breach of the peace.

The briefing will be an opportunity for members to discuss in depth the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, with a focus on Chapters VI (Pacific Settlement of Disputes), VII (Action with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace and Acts of Aggression), and VIII (Regional Arrangements), and article 99 of Chapter XV, which says that the Secretary-General may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.

A number of long-standing and fundamental issues related to the implementation of the Councils Charter mandate may feature in the discussion. These could include issues such as:

how the Council can strengthen its approach to conflict prevention, including through the use of tools such as negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement and other peaceful means highlighted in Chapter VI;

how sanctions (i.e. article 41 of Chapter VII) can be used to pressure parties to a conflict to engage constructively in peace processes;

how relationships between the Council and regional and sub-regional organisations can be strengthened to prevent and resolve conflicts; and

how the Council can best support the Secretariats good offices efforts.

The briefing may also offer the Secretary-General an opportunity to update the Council on his proposals to reform the UNs peace and security architecture. It builds on ministerial-level open debates that the Council held in 2015 and 2016 that focused on the UN Charter, in both cases featuring briefings by then Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

On 23 February 2015, a ministerial-level open debate was convened at the initiative of China on the UN Charter, with the intention of reaffirming commitment to the purposes and principles of the UN Charter at the time of the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and the founding of the UN. The meeting was chaired by Chinas foreign minister, Wang Yi, and 79 member states participated, including those on the Council. Ban underscored that at the heart of the Charter is a commitment to the prevention of armed conflict through the peaceful settlement of disputes and the protection of human rights. He also referred to the importance of sovereignty to the international order, but emphasised that sovereignty comes with responsibilities and that timely action to prevent conflict and protect human rights helps to strengthen sovereignty, rather than challenge or restrict it, given that human rights violations kill and displace people, divide communities, undermine economies and destroy cultural heritage.

Venezuela initiated a ministerial-level open debate on 15 February 2016 in which 64 member states participated, including Council members. The meeting focused on the topic Respect for the principles and purposes of the Charter of the United Nations as a key element for the maintenance of international peace and security. Venezuelas foreign minister, Delcy Rodriguez Gomez, presided. In his briefing, Ban reiterated his emphasis on prevention through both early warning and early action. While he noted the importance of respecting sovereignty and of cooperation in engaging with states, he maintained that it is violence and conflictand not our attempt to help member states prevent themthat threaten state sovereignty, a point he made in the 23 February 2015 debate. Ban also referred to the importance of article 99 during the meeting, underscoring the importance of alert[ing] the Council when we see situations that we feel require its engagement, positing that [w]hether or not Article 99 is formally invoked may be secondary.

Key Issues and Options

The key issue for the Council is linking the principles and tools of the Charter to concrete situations related to international peace and security. One possible option is for a chairs summary of the briefing to be produced. This could serve as a useful reference to highlight the instruments at the Councils disposal and how they have been used to promote international peace and security. In recent years, such summaries have been helpful in capturing the key issues raised in Council meetings. Most recently, Kazakhstan announced that it would produce a summary of the 18 January high-level briefing on the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Given that the Charter is the overarching document guiding the work of the Council (and the UN system), it could be helpful for Council members to continue to engage in dialogue regarding ways in which the Charter has been applied in maintaining international peace and security. One possibility is for an Arria-formula meeting to be held with current and former senior Secretariat officials and UN scholars to discuss creative applications of the Charter in the past and how these examples could serve as a model for the Council in other situations.

Underlying Problem

A significant challenge is how to manage the contrasting world views and political challenges that often come with efforts to apply the tools outlined in the Charter. Differing views on the nature of state sovereigntyas well as political divisions among the P5 and other influential member stateshave frequently made it difficult for the Council to decide when, how and even whether to intervene at early stages of crises.

Council Dynamics

Different interpretations of the Charter will most likely be discussed following the briefing. There is a tension in the Charter between state sovereignty and human rights that is evident when the Council addresses a number of country situations, as reflected in recent years by deliberations on Burundi, Iraq, Syria and South Sudan, among other cases. Some Council members tend to emphasise elements of the Charter related to political independence, territorial integrity and non-interference in the domestic affairs of states. Such views have been most strongly expressed by Bolivia, China, and Russia in the Council. Other members, such as France and the UK, among others, have maintained that state sovereignty should not be a shield against actions to protect civilians from massive human rights violations, while highlighting the need in some instances for coercive measures to fight impunity, promote accountability, and combat the violence of actors undermining international peace and security. Some Council members may express views somewhere between these two positions.

UN DOCUMENTSTHE SECURITY COUNCIL

Security Council Working Methods

Expected Council Action

Kuwait, the 2018 chair of the Informal Working Group on Documentation and Other Procedural Questions, is planning an open debate on the Councils working methods during its presidency in February. This will be the first such open debate since July 2016. No outcome is expected at this stage.

Key Recent Developments

On 30 August 2017, the Council issued its most extensive compendium to date of agreed working methods (S/2017/507). The document was produced under the leadership of Japan in its capacity as the 2016-2017 chair of the Informal Working Group on Documentation and Other Procedural Questions (IWG), the venue for most discussions regarding the Councils working methods. During its two previous terms as an elected Council member, Japan also led elaborations of the comprehensive document on working methods, the 2006 and 2010 versions of Note 507. The document number 507 has been used on all three occasions to make it easier to find the papers in the UN documents system, and the implementation of Note 507 has been the agenda item under which the Council has discussed working methods since 2008. Open debates on working methods have been held regularly since 2008 and have always attracted high interest from member states. The 2017 Note 507 highlighted members commitment to continuing to provide opportunities to hear the views of the broader membership on the working methods of the Council, including in any open debate on the implementation of the present note, and to welcoming the continued participation by the broader membership in such debates.

In organising the debate, Kuwait aims to receive from the UNs broader membership practical proposals for how to enhance the Councils working methods in a way that would enable the Council to improve its effectiveness and better fulfil its mandate of maintaining international peace and security.

Key Issues and Options

With the debate taking place soon after the most extensive compendium of Council working methods was published, a key issue for the Council is how to achieve full implementation of the agreed practices. An option for individual Council members would be to prioritise particular aspects of the agreed practices for follow-up while on the Council.

Another issue would be to identify areas of working methods that have not yet been articulated in writing, either because of a lack of agreement among members to do so or because of their new and emerging nature. An option in this context would be to include these elements in the work plan of the IWG for 2018.

While no outcome is expected from the open debate, one option for the chair of the IWG would be to produce an analytical summary of the views presented by member states during the debate and issue it as a letter to the Secretary-General with a request to circulate it as a document of the General Assembly and the Council (as done by Spain following the open debate on working methods it held during its October 2015 presidency).

Council and Wider Dynamics

The dynamics related to Council working methods have evolved over the years. One particularly visible area of change is the attitude toward publicly discussing working methods and inviting the membership at large to present their views and suggestions. After the first such discussion was held in 1994 at the initiative of France, no further public debates occurred for over a decade, despite considerable interest in the topic from outside the Council. In the final document of the September 2005 World Summit held at UN headquarters, world leaders said, We recommend that the Security Council continue to adapt its working methods so as to increase the involvement of States not members of the Council in its work, as appropriate, enhance its accountability to the membership and increase the transparency of its work. In response, the Council undertook a considerable amount of work focused on the matter, including the elaboration of the first Note 507, but there was reluctance, largely on the part of permanent members, to hold an open debate.

After unsuccessful attempts in 2007 and months of efforts by elected members Belgium and Costa Rica in 2008, an open debate was held during Belgiums presidency in August 2008. Japan was successful in organising an open debate during its presidency in April 2010. From that point on, holding an annual debate became an accepted practice, eventually acknowledged in a 2015 presidential statement (S/PRST/2015/19) and in the most recent Note 507. All but one of the nine open debates on working methods were held at the initiative of an elected member, and an elected member presided over all of them. This pattern will continue with the upcoming debate during Kuwaits presidency.

New Report on Working Methods from Security Council Report

In late January, Security Council Report issued its fourth report on working methods, Security Council Working Methods: Provisional Progress. The report examines the most recent procedural developments in the Security Council and the IWG and takes a longer-term look at the role of the elected Council members in shaping and codifying Security Council working methods. Covered in the report is the history of the IWG and its transformation from a sometimes ephemeral entity with a chairmanship that rotated monthly into an active and firmly established subsidiary body since 2006, when it started to be chaired by a single elected member throughout the year.

While focusing more closely on the 2017 version of Note 507 and the negotiating process that led to its issuance last August, the report also examines its 2006 and 2010 predecessors. Two aspects of working methodsthose related to sanctions and to the Councils engagement with troop- and police-contributing countriesare examined in greater detail in case studies.

Some themes recur in all three Notes 507, for example, reiterating the Councils resolve to make consultations more substantive and interactive, and its stated determination to use descriptive formulations for agenda items. One conclusion from analysing various Council documents related to working methods is that even though a tremendous amount of work and energy often goes into negotiating agreement on many of the working methods, some are never implemented. In some cases, the agreed practices tend to be followed for a period but later their implementation begins to falter, and a new, similarly focused initiative is undertaken by a different member or group of members.

UN DOCUMENTS ON WORKING METHODSAFRICA

South Sudan

Expected Council Action

In February, the Council is expected to receive a briefing on the Secretary-Generals monthly assessment of the deployment and future requirements of the Regional Protection Force (RPF) and impediments to the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) in carrying out its mandate. The Council also expects to receive the recommendations of the Secretary-General on the strategic review of UNMISS.

The mandate of UNMISS expires on 15 March.

Key Recent Developments

As the conflict in South Sudan enters its fifth year, the political, security, humanitarian, human rights and economic situations remain dire. Nearly four million peopleabout one in three South Sudanesehave been displaced both inside South Sudan and in neighbouring countries, including 2.4 million children. According to OCHA, nearly 700,000 people fled South Sudan and became refugees in neighbouring countries in 2017. Some 5.1 million people are severely food-insecure with more than a quarter of a million children severely malnourished and at imminent risk of death in 2018, UNICEF said in a 19 January statement.

In this context, deployment of the RPF, which was initially authorised in August 2016 and is expected eventually to comprise 4,000 troops, continues, with 759 troops currently in the country, less than a quarter of the authorised number. At a press briefing on 24 January in the capital, Juba, UNMISS Head David Shearer said the arrival of RPF troops in Juba is enabling UNMISS to extend its presence to more remote parts of the country. Shearer announced the official opening of a new permanent peacekeeping base in Yei, and said that a new light and nimble peacekeeping presence is being deployed to the remote town of Akobo in the north-east of the country. UNMISS continues to encounter violations of the Status of Forces Agreement, including among other things, restrictions of movement by government forces, the arrest and detention of UNMISS personnel, and the seizure of UN property.

On 21 December 2017, the parties attending the first phase of the High-Level Revitalization Forum (HLRF) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, organised by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), signed an agreement on cessation of hostilities, protection of civilians, and humanitarian access. Signatories included all parties to the 2015 peace agreement as well as new parties to the conflict. Among other things, the agreement required parties to cease all hostile military actions on 24 December 2017. According to the agreement, the Chairperson of Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (JMEC) is expected to report any serious breaches of the agreement to the government, the IGAD Assembly of Heads of State, the AU Peace and Security Council (PSC), and the UN Security Council for their action. The Chairperson of the IGAD Council of Ministers and the JMEC receive this information from the Ceasefire and Transitional Security Arrangements Monitoring Mechanism (CTSAMM), which is the body mandated to monitor violations of the agreement. The agreement also includes provisions requiring the parties to cooperate with UNMISS in the discharge of its mandate to protect civilians and to fully support the full and rapid deployment and operations of the RPF. Since the 24 December 2017 deadline, there have been numerous allegations of ceasefire violations. As of press time, CTSAMM had released two reports, finding that both the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) and the SPLA-In Opposition had violated the ceasefire agreement.

On 12 January, the Chairperson of the AU and the Secretary-General released a joint statement that strongly condemn[s] the recent violations of the agreement, and affirm[s] their intent to support the imposition of consequences, consistent with the AU PSC communique of 20 September 2017, should the parties continue to violate their own agreement. The communique said that if the parties continue to delay the full implementation of the August 2015 peace agreement, the PSC will consider the necessary steps, including sanction measures. An AU PSC Summit is scheduled to take place on the margins of the 30th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the AU in Addis Ababa on 27 January. IGAD is expected to convene phase two of the HLRF on 5 February in Addis Ababa to focus on governance issues, transitional security arrangements, and a permanent ceasefire.

On 24 January, the Council was briefed on South Sudan by Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix who urged members to speak out clearly against violations of the 21 December 2017 agreement and to take the decisive actions necessary to impose real consequences. JMEC Chairperson Festus Mogae briefed (via VTC) and said that three signatories had so far violated the agreement; he similarly urged the Council to impose consequences. Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Ursula Mueller also briefed and said civilians continue to be killed and forcibly displaced, including in Yei River State, Central Equatoria and Greater Upper Nile, with several thousand people fleeing to Ethiopia and Uganda in January. Humanitarian access remains highly complex and unpredictable despite President Salva Kiirs decree of 9 November 2017, which ordered free, unimpeded and unhindered movement for humanitarian aid convoys, she said.

Key Issues and Options

An immediate issue for the Council is how to support IGADs efforts to revitalise the political process in South Sudan and what consequences it should impose on those who undermine the process, including implementation of the recent agreement on cessation of hostilities, protection of civilians, and humanitarian access, concluded by the parties at the HLRF on 21 December 2017. The Council will also need to determine what role it can play in curbing the collapse of South Sudan, as the crisis gripping the country has entered its fifth year, and in addressing the extraordinarily difficult circumstances UNMISS is forced to operate under.

In an effort to reduce the level of violence and exert leverage on the parties, Council members could decide to revisit the proposals for an arms embargo and targeted sanctions.

The Council could also consider holding a briefing on ways to combat hate speech and incitement to ethnic violence in South Sudan, inviting the participation of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, international NGOs with a presence in South Sudan, and key South Sudanese religious figures, among others.

Council Dynamics

Council members share deep concern about the political and humanitarian situation in South Sudan, as set out in the presidential statement adopted on 14 December 2017. While Council members expressed strong support for IGADs efforts in the presidential statement, differences still exist over potential consequences for undermining the peace process. These differences are in line with the long-standing divide in the Council over whether to impose an arms embargo and further targeted sanctions. In this regard, while the presidential statement refers to the need for cost and consequences for those who undermine the HLRF process, it remains to be seen whether and how Council members will take this forward. The likelihood of potential Council action will reflect assessments of the extent of ceasefire violations committed and the respective outcomes of the AU PSC Summit at the end of January and the second phase of the HLRF in February.

All Council members made statements at the 24 January briefing, as has been the case in the previous two Council briefings on South Sudan in November and December 2017. Council members were unanimous in welcoming the first phase of the HLRF and condemning violations of the 21 December 2017 agreement. In its statement, the US said the Council is at a crossroads and it is long past time to establish an arms embargo. The UK reiterated its call for an arms embargo, as did France, which also expressed the need for individual sanctions. The Netherlands also expressed its support for an arms embargo. Equatorial Guinea said [a]lthough sanctions could serve as a deterrent and break the deadlock between the parties, it is also important for the Council to consider other pragmatic approaches.

The US is the penholder on South Sudan. Poland chairs the 2206 South Sudan Sanctions Committee.

UN Documents on South SudanStatus Update

Afghanistan

On 5 January, Council members issued a press statement condemning the ISIL terrorist attack on Kabul the day before in which at least 15 people were killed and 25 injured (SC/13153). From 13 to 15 January, the Council conducted a visiting mission to Afghanistan. The main purpose of the mission was to reiterate the Councils support for Afghanistan and its governments efforts to restore peace and stability, and to provide the Council with better understanding of the situation on the ground. During the visit, the Council met with a wide range of stakeholders in the country. These included the President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani; Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah; and other senior government officials, including Minister of Foreign Affairs Salahuddin Rabbani, Chairman of the High Peace Council Mohammad Khalili, and several other ministers. The Council also held meetings with representatives of womens NGOs, civil society, electoral management bodies, UNAMA and NATOs Resolute Support Mission. The Council held a briefing on the mission on 17 January (S/PV.8158). On 19 January, Kazakhstans Minister of Foreign Affairs, Kairat Abdrakhmanov, chaired a ministerial-level debate on Building Regional Partnership in Afghanistan and Central Asia as a Model to Link Security and Development (S/PV.8162). Rabbani and representatives of the Central Asian countries also addressed the Council. During the debate the Council adopted a presidential statement which emphasised the importance of advancing regional, interregional and international cooperation to achieve stability and sustainable development in Afghanistan and the Central Asian region (S/PRST/2018/2). On 22 January, council members issued a press statement condemning the terrorist attack at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, which resulted in 22 people killed and nine injured (SC/13172). On 25 January, Council members issued a press statement condemning the terrorist attack in Jalalabad targeting international humanitarian organisation which resulted in at least five people killed and numerous injured (SC/13180).

Iran

On 5 January, the Security Council held a public meeting, requested by the US, on the recent protests in Iran (S/PV.8152). Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Taye-Brook Zerihoun briefed and Council members gave statements. A number of members expressed the view that the situation did not meet the criterion for Council consideration as a threat to international peace and security. While referring to the recent demonstrations, several members stressed the importance of upholding the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on the Iran nuclear deal. Irans Permanent Representative Gholamali Khoshroo also addressed the Council.

Liberia

On 8 January, Security Council members issued a press statement congratulating Liberia for the peaceful conduct of the 26 December 2017 presidential runoff election (SC/13154). While referring to the upcoming withdrawal at the end of March of UNMIL, the statement encouraged the international community and donors to remain engaged and to assist Liberias continued efforts to achieve sustainable peace, including in support of the commitments made in the Liberia Peacebuilding Plan.

Democratic Republic of the Congo

On 9 January, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix briefed the Council on recent developments in the DRC (S/PV.8153) and on the latest MONUSCO report (S/2018/16). The briefing was followed by consultations, in which Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Andrew Gilmour also participated. Council members issued a press statement on 16 January, calling on all stakeholders to remain committed to the 31 December 2016 Agreement, which remains the only viable path out of the current political situation (SC/13163). The DRC Sanctions Committee held a briefing open to all UN member states on 26 January.

Sudan (Darfur)

On 10 January, the Council was briefed by Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix on the 60-day report of the Secretary-General on UNAMID (S/2017/1113) and on the joint assessment by the Chairperson of the AU Commission and the Secretary-General of phase one of the reconfiguration of UNAMID (S/2018/12) (S/PV.8155). As UNAMID moved towards the implementation of phase two, he recommended that a review should take place to consider a new mission concept.

Colombia

On 10 January, the Council received a briefing on the UN Verification Mission in Colombia from Special Representative Jean Arnault (S/PV.8154), focusing on the Secretary-Generals recent report on Colombia (S/2017/1117). The briefing was followed by consultations. On the same day, members issued a press statement (SC/13160) in which they urged continued momentum towards full implementation of the peace agreement with the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejercito del Pueblo (FARC-EP) and hoped that the Colombian government and the Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (ELN) would resume work to agree a renewal and strengthening of the ceasefire.

West Africa and the Sahel

On 11 January, Mohamed Ibn Chambas, the Special Representative and head of UNOWAS, briefed the Council (S/PV.8156) on the Secretary-Generals latest report on the region (S/2017/1104). Several Council members made public statements before continuing discussions in consultations. On 30 January, the Council adopted a presidential statement on the West Africa and Sahel region and activities of UNOWAS (S/PRST/2018/3). The statement, inter alia, looked forward to ongoing activities undertaken by UNOWAS in the areas of conflict prevention, mediation and good offices, welcomed the regional countries efforts to address terrorism and transnational crime, and reiterated that the Secretary-General include assessing implementation of resolution 2349 on the Lake Chad Basin in his regular UNOWAS reporting, with specific attention in his next report on the region in July.

Libya

On 17 January, the Council was briefed by Ghassan Salame, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and head of the UNSMIL, and Hajer Sharief, co-founder of the civil society organisation Together We Build It (S/PV.8159). Irina Schoulgin Nyoni, Deputy Permanent Representative of Sweden, briefed the Council on the work of the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee.

Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction

On 18 January, the Council held a high-level briefing on non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction focused on confidence-building measures (S/PV.8160). President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan presided, and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres briefed. Guterres highlighted information-sharing on military budgets, strategic outlooks and troop movements as measures that can help to decrease tension and avert conflict. He expressed concern that Global anxieties about nuclear weapons are at the highest level since the Cold War.

Conflict Prevention

On 18 January, the Council adopted a presidential statement on conflict prevention (S/PRST/2018/1) that states that a comprehensive conflict prevention strategy should include early warning, preventive deployment, mediation, peacekeeping, non-proliferation, accountability measures, and post-conflict peacebuilding, recognising that these components are interdependent, complementary and non-sequential (S/PV.8161).

Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict

The Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict held a formal meeting on 22 January to discuss its conclusions on the Secretary-Generals report on Children and Armed Conflict in Myanmar (S/2017/1099).

UNRCCA (Central Asia)

On 22 January, the Council held consultations on UNRCCA. Special Representative and head of the UNRCCA Natalia Gherman briefed Council members in consultations on key regional issues, including the threat of terrorism and extremism, the impact on the region of the situation in Afghanistan, drug trafficking, trans-boundary water management, and tensions linked to border-related disputes. On 25 January, Council members issued a press statement on UNRCCA in which they welcomed further cooperation and coordination between UNRCCA, the Central Asian States, and relevant regional organizations, including those organisations of which the Central Asian States are members (SC/13179). This is the first time since January 2015 that Council members were able to agree on a press statement on UNRCCA.

Mali

On 23 January, the Council was briefed by Jean-Pierre Lacroix, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations (S/PV.8163), who presented the 26 December 2017 report of the Secretary-General on Mali (S/2017/1105). The Foreign Minister of Mali, Tieman Hubert Coulibaly, also participated in the meeting. On 24 January, Council members issued a press statement welcoming the renewed commitment of the government of Mali and the coalitions of armed groups to the expeditious implementation of all of their remaining obligations under the Agreement on Peace and Reconciliation in Mali by the end of March 2018 (SC/13177).

Somalia

On 24 January, Special Representative of the Secretary-General Michael Keating and Special Representative of the Chairperson of the AU Commission Francisco Madeira briefed the Council on the situation in Somalia (S/PV.8165) and the 26 December 2017 report of the Secretary-General (S/2017/1109). On 25 January, Council members issued a press statement that welcomed Somalias political commitment to security sector, economic and political reforms and the progress made to date, and in which the members of the Security Council agreed that all parties should make 2018 a year of implementation (SC/13181).

Israel/Palestine

On 25 January, the Council held its quarterly open debate under the agenda item, the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question (S/PV.8167). Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nikolay Mladenov briefed via video teleconference from Jerusalem.MIDDLE EAST

Syria

Expected Council Action

In February, the Council expects to receive the monthly briefings on political and humanitarian developments in Syria and on chemical weapons.

Key Recent Developments

Council members continue to put forward divergent narratives regarding the humanitarian situation in Syria. On 9 January, Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Ursula Mueller briefed Council members under any other business. The briefing had been requested by Russia to focus on the humanitarian situation of Raqqa and to call for the US-led coalition involved in liberating the city from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant to play a role in its reconstruction.

In early January, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock visited Syria. In remarks to the press in Damascus on 11 January he highlighted five areas where progress is needed. These were conveyed to Council members in a briefing under any other business on 22 January:

The finalisation of the UN humanitarian response plan for 2018 to meet the needs of more than 13 million people in Syria.

Reaching an agreement to allow for the medical evacuation for hundreds of people trapped in Eastern Ghouta.

Ensuring consistent and regular cross-line access.

Agreeing on UN-supported aid convoys from Damascus to the remote area of Rukban (the berm) in south-eastern Syria.

Developing more effective arrangements to allow the UN to support the work of Syrian and international NGOs.

On 25 January, Kuwait and Sweden circulated a draft presidential statement calling for progress on these issues. The situation in Eastern Ghouta, where nearly 400,000 people are besieged by government forces and their allies, continues to be dire. Even though 29 critically ill persons were allowed to evacuate, along with some family members, more than 500 remain in need of urgent medical care. A government offensive in December 2017 targeting Al Nusra Fronts-affiliate Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham in Idlib has led to the displacement of some 200,000 civilians. On 18 January, the UN special advisers on the prevention of genocide and the responsibility to protect, respectively Adama Dieng and Ivan Simonovic, issued a statement expressing concern about the devastating impact of escalating hostilities in both places. They highlighted how even though these are designated as de-escalation areas, civilians are regularly and directly targeted in a violation of fundamental principles of international humanitarian law. On 30 January, Mueller briefed the Council on the 23 January report of the Secretary-General on the humanitarian situation in Syria.

The intra-Syrian talks held under UN auspices have failed to yield progress on the agenda established by resolution 2254governance; constitutional issues; elections; and counter-terrorism, security and confidence-building measures. The UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura has repeatedly expressed his disappointment at the government delegations refusal to engage in direct talks and the establishment of preconditions. De Mistura convened a special meeting of the parties in Vienna on 25-26 January in order to discuss the constitution-drafting process. A Russian initiative, with the support of Iran and Turkey, to hold a conference of Syrians in Sochi on 29-30 January, also to address constitutional issues, was boycotted by key opposition groups. Ahead of the meeting, de Mistura emphasised that final agreement on any constitutional committee that may come out of Sochi is to be reached in the UN-led Geneva process, including on the mandate and terms of reference, powers, rules of procedure, and selection criteria for its composition. Russian officials have repeatedly emphasised coherence between the initiative and the intra-Syrian talks in Geneva.

On 20 January, Turkey launched Operation Olive Branch, a military offensive into the territory held by the YPG, a Kurdish militia that is part of the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and that Turkey considers a terrorist organisation. That same day, Turkey justified the operation in a letter to the Council on the grounds of article 51 of the UN Charter (self-defence) in order to respond to an increase in rocket attacks and harassment fire against the provinces of Hatay and Kilis from the Syrian region of Afrin. The operation was launched after the US announced plans to establish a 30,000-strong force to secure the area controlled by the SDF near the border with Turkey. The offensive was discussed at the 22 January briefing under any other business, for which France requested information on the situation in Afrin. The Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman, who briefed Council members along with Lowcock, described the potential impact of the offensive and its ramifications in the conflict dynamics.

Despite the failure to renew the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the UN in November, the Council continues to receive information regarding the chemical weapons dossier on Syria. On 9 January, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu briefed Council members in consultations on the efforts to eliminate Syrias declared arsenal. She told Council members that 25 of the 27 chemical weapons production facilities declared by Syria had been verified by the OPCW Technical Secretariat as having been destroyed. Initial inspections had been carried out in the two remaining facilities and their destruction is expected. Nakamitsu told Council members that the OPCW fact-finding mission is expected to submit its next report to the Council in late February.

The polarisation among Council members on the chemical weapons file has continued even as indications of ongoing attacks emerged on 13 and 22 January in Eastern Ghouta. On 10 January, the US circulated a letter challenging Russias criticisms of the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission and the JIM. On 22 January, Russia responded, circulating a letter criticising the US assessment of Russias stance regarding the use of chemical weapons in Syria. On 23 January, Russia called for a Council meeting in order to address the accusations made by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson the same day that Russia was responsible for shielding the Syrian government on this issue. At the meeting, Russia circulated a draft resolution aimed at establishing a new investigation mechanism to identify facts beyond a reasonable doubt that could lead to the attribution by the Council of the use of chemical weapons.

Also on 23 January, France convened in Paris the first meeting of an international partnership against impunity for the use of chemical weapons. A declaration of principles was signed by 24 member states (including Council members Cote dIvoire, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Peru, Poland and Sweden in addition to the P3).

Human Rights-Related Developments

In a 10 January statement, High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein condemned the upsurge in civilian casualties in Eastern Ghouta amid the recent escalation in airstrikes and ground-based attacks. The High Commissioner noted that the suffering of the people of Syria knows no end. In Eastern Ghouta, where a crippling siege has caused a humanitarian catastrophe, residential areas are being hit day and night by strikes from the ground and from the air. According to the statement, since 31 December 2017, at least 85 civilians, including 21 women and 30 children, have been killed and at least 183 injured in Eastern Ghouta.

Key Issues and Options

Almost seven years since the start of the war, P5 divisions have limited the options at the disposal of Council members. However, the Council could tackle some of the issues that could contribute to building trust among the parties. At a 21-22 December 2017 meeting in Kazakhstan, Iran, Russia and Turkey established a working group to address the issue of detainees, abductees and missing persons in Syria. Council members could hold an informal meeting to discuss with them, as well as other relevant actors, how confidence-building measures can be effectively implemented in order to support progress in the political process.

Following the circulation of the Russian draft to establish a new investigative mechanism for the use of chemical weapons, Council members could negotiate in an effort to achieve consensus. If reaching an agreement proves impossible, Council members could request options from the Secretary-General in order to devise such a mechanism taking into account the positions expressed by Council members in the failed negotiations to renew the JIM.

Council and Wider Dynamics

The divergent perspectives among Council members continue to limit the Councils work on Syria. The exchanges of letters and statements at the 23 January meeting show how Council members still blame each other for the demise of the JIM. Tensions over the characterisation of the humanitarian situation in Syria, the limited traction of the UN-led process in Geneva, and the emergence of initiatives that may provide an alternative platform to discuss political matters frame discussions in the other two tracks of the Syria dossier. Military escalation between Turkey and the SDF risks opening a new front in the conflict and further worsening the dire humanitarian situation.

In January, the US administration made several statements regarding its new policy on Syria. In a speech on Syria at Stanford University on 17 January, Tillerson stated that [a] total withdrawal of US personnel at this time would restore Assad and continue his brutal treatment of his own people and explained how [a] stable, unified and independent Syria ultimately requires post-Assad leadership in order to be successful. With its political engagement on Syria beyond counter-terrorism efforts, the US is also expected to aim to limit the regional influence of Iran.

Kuwait and Sweden are the penholders on humanitarian issues in Syria.

UN DOCUMENTS ON SYRIAPress Release

January 31, 2018 Sen. Bam calls for Senate probe on slow cash transfer program A senator has filed Senate Resolution No. 597, urging the appropriate Senate committee to scrutinize the implementation of the unconditional cash transfer under Tax Reform Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN), which was enacted into law on December 19, 2017. Sen. Bam Aquino wants to ensure that the cash assistance for 10 million poor Filipino families under the TRAIN Law is sufficient to cover the increase in prices of goods and other services. "Siguraduhin natin na makakarating nga ang financial assistance sa mga pamilyang nangangailangan. Bantayan natin ang proseso at suriin natin kung sapat na ang 200 pesos kada buwan," said Sen. Bam. "The government must prioritize the poor and ensure that its policies benefit them rather than impose even more financial burdens," Sen. Bam added. Republic Act No. 10963 mandates financial assistance to 10 million poor Filipinos to counter the expected increase in prices of goods. In 2018, they will receive P200 monthly followed by a P300 monthly cash subsidy in 2019 and 2010. However, the government said it cannot implement the cash transfer program at the same time as the tax reform and expected price increases due to lack of proper infrastructure. The government intends to use the Department of Social Welfare and Development's (DSWD) system for the Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program (4Ps) to distribute funds to the existing 1.8 million beneficiaries with cash cards by January 31, 2018. But the remaining 2.6 million recipients without cards would have to wait. Sen. Bam also said that the cash transfer for the additional 5.6 million households is still in limbo with no actual date of release set. "The failure of the government to implement an effective financial assistance program in time for the projected price increases will burden Filipino families," stressed Sen. Bam. During the measure's period of amendments in the Senate, Sen. Bam pushed for the immediate implementation of the financial assistance program to help poor Filipinos absorb the expected increase in the prices of goods and services. However, Sen. Bam's proposal was not accepted, prompting the senator to vote against its ratification. "Without a cash transfer program in place, poor Filipinos will bear the brunt of the increase in prices of goods and services due to the fuel taxes and sweetened beverage tax. Without the necessary safeguards for the poor, I cannot support this measure," Sen. Bam emphasized.What happened?

NANCY TO DOTr: TIME TO DELIVER ON MRT-3 PROMISES

Senator Nancy Binay today called on the transportation department to walk their talk and deliver on the promises they made regarding the improvement of the Metro Rail Transit Line-3 (MRT3).

"Dalawang taon na pong nangangako ang Department of Transportation, sa pangunguna ni Secretary Arthur Tugade, na gaganda ang serbisyo ng MRT-3. Anyare?" Binay said.

"Tama na po ang mga salita, gawa po ang kailangan ng ating mga kababayan ngayon. Hindi ho talaga makakarating sa kanilang paroroonan sa kasalukuyang estado ng MRT-3 ang ating mga kababayan," she added.

Binay made the statement after the DOTr on Monday promised an improvement of MRT-3 services by the end of February this year. Sec. Tugade said that the DOTr has already ordered spare parts for the train system.

"Ilang taon na pong nagtitiis ang ating mga commuters sa mababang kalidad ng serbisyo, at lalo pang lumala ang estado nito sa nagdaang mga araw," the solon said.

Around 800 passengers were offloaded yesterday morning when an electrical failure caused by worn out components happened in a southbound MRT train.

The MRT suffered another breakdown last Friday, as a southbound train emitted smoke and forced passengers to walk along the tracks.

Long queues also affected many passengers last week especially during the rush hours, as the MRT had only seven to eight running trains to ferry commuters.

In July 2016, Tugade promised to increase to 20 trains with 60 cars the MRT's capacity from the then existing 16 trains with 48 cars, as part of his first 100 days in office. The secretary also aimed to increase the MRT's speed 50 kilometers per hour (kph) from the then 40 kph.

As of 9 AM today, the MRT announced that there are eight trains running in the system.

The Department of Transportation (DOTr) terminated its maintenance contract with Busan Universal Rail Inc. (BURI) last November 2017, saying that the provider failed to comply with its obligations and store needed spare parts.

A maintenance transition team created by the department took over the railway's maintenance and procurement of parts pending the arrival of a new maintenance provider.

Binay noted that the MRT suffered almost daily breakdowns this month alone, while waiting for the necessary spare parts.

"Maaasahan ba na dadami ang aandar na tren, mababawasan na ang mahabang pila, ang siksikan papasok ng mga istasyon, pati na rin ang mala-sardinas na kundisyon sa loob ng mga bagon pagdating ng February 1?" Binay said.

"Our commuting public cannot wait any longer for a better and commensurate service for the fare they pay," she added.Press Release

January 31, 2018 Dispatch from Crame No. 233

Sen. Leila M. de Lima's statement on the suspension of Deputy Ombudsman Carandang 1/31/18 In 2014, the Supreme Court reversed a 2012 ruling in the case of Gonzales v. Office of the President. The 2012 decision affirmed the President's disciplinary powers over the Deputy Ombudsman. In reversing its 2012 decision, the Court said that Section 8 (2) of the Ombudsman Act granting the President disciplinary authority over the Deputy Ombudsman violates the independence of the Office of the Ombudsman, and is thus unconstitutional. Malacanang knows this. Despite this proscription on its power over the Deputy Ombudsman, Malacanang nevertheless proceeded to ignore the Court's decision when it exercised disciplinary authority over Deputy Ombudsman Melchor Arthur Carandang and suspended him. The rationale of the Court in the Gonzales case is precisely to protect the independence of the Deputy Ombudsman from the President's control and influence in the event that the subject of the Ombudsman investigation is none other than the President himself. Precisely, the Court decision seeks to prevent the firing of the Deputy Ombudsman by the President when he is investigating the latter. Malacanang's action in suspending Carandang for investigating the President is the most illustrative lesson on why the 2014 Court decision is correct. Giving the President disciplinary authority over the person empowered to investigate him engenders conflict of interest scenarios, like the present one. In this case, in order to protect himself and his family from further investigation by the Deputy Ombudsman, Duterte orders his suspension. This is of course convenient for Duterte who continues to hide his ill-gotten wealth and is preventing its exposure by the AMLC and the Ombudsman. Carandang's suspension only shows that he is hot on the President's money trail, and that Malacanang has to stop him before he uncovers the whole truth about the President's ill-gotten wealth. This is all about protecting the President and hiding his corruption. And Malacanang has no qualms defying the Court's 2014 ruling to do this. Malacanang's action is the best reason why the Court should maintain the independence of the Deputy Ombudsman from the President. If the Court allows Ombudsman deputies to be controlled by Malacanang, the Ombudsman will no longer be able to perform its constitutional mandate as the only public official empowered by law to investigate the President. As if his government's impunity in the exercise of power is not yet enough, Duterte still seeks to control the Office of the Ombudsman and make himself immune from investigation and accountability. The Supreme Court must not allow this. Otherwise, it might as well crown Duterte and declare him King of the Philippines.Press Release

January 31, 2018 De Lima warns vs state-sponsored fake news Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima today urged the public to be more vigilant against the official purveyors of fake news across social media platforms, especially those who target critics of the present administration. De Lima's statement came after Rappler Chief Executive Officer Maria Ressa revealed the existence of the so-called "patriotic trolling," a state-sponsored online hate and harassment campaign "to silence and intimidate." "These fake news stories are being encouraged by the President and his lackeys in an attempt to silence dissent and to intentionally defame the reputation of people critical of the administration, thus making the reputation of critics questionable," she said. "As responsible social media users, people are expected to always validate the authenticity of the information they read online, much less, if the information is published and shared by people with malicious intentions and shadowy accounts," she added. In a recent hearing conducted by the Senate Committee on Public Information and Mass Media last Jan. 30, Ressa underscored how De Lima has been systematically victimized and demonized by fake news peddlers across social media platforms. Exposing three deliberate steps on how these sinister groups operate their evil ploy in the context of De Lima, Ressa shared the first move is by attacking the credibility of the target. "You allege corruption. And then you repeat that exponentially. Because if you say a lie 10 times, truth can catch up. But if you say a lie a million times, that becomes the truth," Ressa told Senate probers. Ressa, a veteran journalist, pointed out that the said step is followed by using sexual violence as a weapon which "enflames biases, fuels misogyny, and then degrades the target as a sexual object." Finally, Ressa shared, "the last step before taking it into the real world--because there have been four waves of these types of attacks, #ArrestLeiladeLima." De Lima, who has been constantly targeted by fake news stories by some sinister quarters, said it is impossible under the present administration to openly express one's societal and political beliefs without being subjected to harassment. "The attacks can be worst if you're a woman like me standing up to Duterte's bullying," she said. She further advised the public to "not allow the cowards who hide behind fake accounts and paid trolls to stop us from speaking our minds in pursuit of truth, justice and the rule of law." De Lima, who was recognized by Amnesty International as one of the notable Women Human Rights Defenders Under Threat, vowed to continue fighting against injustices while in detention despite the vicious gender-based attacks against her by the President and his lackeys.Press Release

January 31, 2018 De Lima: Carandang's suspension to cover up Duterte's ill-gotten wealth Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima today deplored Malacanang's unlawful suspension order against Overall Deputy Ombudsman Melchor Arthur Carandang for purportedly disclosing the bank transactions of President Duterte and his family. De Lima, a former justice secretary, said Carandang's suspension was meant to protect Duterte and his family members from further investigation by Deputy Ombudsman Carandang. "This is of course convenient for Duterte who continues to hide his ill-gotten wealth and is preventing its exposure by the AMLC [Anti-Money Laundering Council] and the Ombudsman... This is all about protecting the President and hiding his corruption," she said in a Dispatch from Crame 233. "Carandang's suspension only shows that he is hot on the President's money trail, and that Malacanang has to stop him before he uncovers the whole truth about the President's ill-gotten wealth," she added. The Office of the Executive Secretary has formally charged Carandang with grave misconduct and grave dishonesty for his supposed premature disclosure of "unauthenticated" documents showing the purported multimillion-peso transactions of Duterte's family. Carandang, who is now facing a 90-day suspension, was accused of misusing confidential information and disclosing false information, and at the same time releasing them ahead of the authorized release date. The Senator from Bicol pointed out that the suspension of Carandang is unconstitutional as it clearly violates the 2014 ruling by Supreme Court removing the President' disciplinary authority over the Deputy Ombudsman. "Malacanang knows this. Despite this proscription on its power over the Deputy Ombudsman, Malacanang nevertheless proceeded to ignore the Court's decision when it exercised disciplinary authority over Deputy Ombudsman Melchor Arthur Carandang and suspended him," she said. De Lima cited the Supreme Court ruling in 2014 which reversed a 2012 ruling affirming the President's disciplinary powers over the Deputy Ombudsman in the case ofGonzales v. Office of the President. She explained that in reversing its 2012 decision, the Court said that Section 8 (2) of the Ombudsman Act (Republic Act 6770) granting the President disciplinary authority over the Deputy Ombudsman violates the independence of the Office of the Ombudsman, and is thus unconstitutional. "The Court decision seeks to prevent the firing of the Deputy Ombudsman by the President when he is investigating the latter," she said. De Lima urged the Court to not allow the Ombudsman deputies to be controlled by Malacanang, underscoring the latter's constitutional mandate as the only public officials empowered by law to investigate the President. "As if his government's impunity in the exercise of power is not yet enough, Duterte still seeks to control the Office of the Ombudsman and make himself immune from investigation and accountability. The Supreme Court must not allow this. Otherwise, it might as well crown Duterte and declare him King of the Philippines," she said. Carandang is the one leading the investigation into the Duterte family's alleged ill-gotten wealth after Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales has inhibited from the case. In his earlier revelation, Carandang said the Duterte family's transactions amount to hundreds of millions of pesos from different banks between 2006 until 2016.Press Release

January 31, 2018 Drilon wants govt to rethink expanding functions of OSG, abolishing PCGG, OGCC Alarmed over a staggering 730,000 cases pending before the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon stressed the need to strengthen the government's principal legal defender. But Drilon, a former justice secretary, doubted the proposal to abolish the Presidential Commission on Good Government and the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel (OGCC) and transfer their powers to the OSG would serve the purpose. "We agree on streamlining and right-sizing as a matter policy but we should look at the efficiency. The OSG has its both hands full," Drilon said. The minority leader said the government and the Congress should take a second look at the proposals to abolish the PCGG and OGCC and transfer their functions to the OSG. At present, there are about 730,000 cases that are pending before the OSG and 374,424 of which are active cases, which Drilon described as "staggering and worrisome". Per Drilon's estimate, a lawyer in the OSG would have to attend to about 1,400 cases. It was revealed that there are only 240 lawyers in the OSG at present. The OSG has 390 authorized plantilla positions but has yet to fill the vacancies. "I can't imagine a lawyer handling 1,400 cases," Drilon said. "The efficiency and batting average of the OSG would suffer if we do not address it." "Should we burden the OSG even more by giving it more responsibilities than what it could handle, because it is obvious the agency is overwhelmed and understaffed?" Drilon said. "I doubt that transferring the functions of the PCGG and OGCC to the OSG would solve the problem," he added. Instead, Drilon said the functions of the OSG should be reviewed. He cited in particular the OSG's mandate to intervene in marital cases. The OSG is tasked to represent the state's interest in preserving the institution of marriage. It determines whether there is collusion between the parties - a function that Drilon believes the judge can already perform in the course of the proceedings. At present, there are approximately 145,000 marriage-related cases pending in the OSG, he noted. Drilon said that legislation should also remove the burden of intervening in marital cases from the OSG and allow it "to focus on more critical cases involving the government." Drilon said that he would submit a proposal to remove from the OSG the burden of intervening in marital cases, leaving the responsibility to the judiciary.SEN. PACQUIAO'S BILL ON OFW MANUAL HURDLES 2ND READING

SENATE -- Sen. Manny Pacquiao has authored a bill seeking further protection by the government of our so-called modern-day heroes - the overseas Filipino workers.

Senate Bill 192, which was recently passed during the second reading, mandates the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) to publish, disseminate and update a handbook on the rights and responsibilities of OFWs.

The proposed bill seeks to provide migrant workers with a guidebook that contains pertinent information vital in helping them address their problems and concerns abroad.

The handbook also aims to serve as ready reference if and when OFWs need to assert their rights while working overseas.

The handbook will be written in simple language with translation in vernaculars readily understand by the OFWs.

Sen. Pacquiao hopes the measure can help address the miserable plight of many migrant Filipino workers particularly in Middle East countries where physical and even sexual abuses of our OFWs have been rampant.

No less than President Duterte had issued a warning to ban deployment of OFWs in the Middle East countries unless their respective government will do something to curb the abuses.

The neophyte senator is taking the cudgel not just to protect OFWs but including victims of human trafficking.

In 2010, while still serving as Sarangani congressman, he declared an all-out war against human trafficking, sending a strong message across that Filipinos are not for sale.

He supported legislations seeking to combat, if not abolish, modern-day slavery. Shortly afterward, the government heeded his call for action, highlighted by the prosecution and conviction of human trafficking offenders.

This accomplishment prompted the United States government to remove the Philippines from its Tier 2 Watch List in 2011.

He was also instrumental for the passage of the expanded Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2012 (RA 10364).

Pacquiao, together with former Reps. Walden Bello and Mel Senen Sarmiento, championed the measure that strengthens the State's policies in ending all forms of human trafficking during the previous Congress.

He vowed to continue the crusade for the protection of migrant workers and the less fortunate.Press Release

January 31, 2018 Koko calls for proper implementation of laws on motorcycle safety Senate President Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III on Wednesday said that government agencies with jurisdiction over traffic should implement all laws of the Philippines relating to motorcycle safety. A study conducted jointly in 2017 by the University of the Philippines School of Urban and Regional Planning and the National Center for Transportation Studies found that existing motorcycle safety laws and regulations adequately address the important aspects of motorcycle safety, but they are not consistently enforced. "For government agencies, enforcing the law is mandatory and not optional. They must enforce these motorcycle safety laws firmly and consistently. Otherwise, why do they exist in the first place?", said Pimentel. The Senate President is alarmed at the increasing rates of motorcycle fatalities in the country, as figures from the Metro Manila Development Authority showed that motorcycles constituted 35% of all vehicles involved in fatal accidents. Pimentel said, "People die when you don't enforce traffic laws. This matter must be addressed urgently." However, Pimentel also understood that logistical issues can curb enforcement. The Senate chief said, "If these agencies cannot fully enforce traffic safety laws, they should come to me and tell me why. If the problem is equipment and infrastructure, I will help them get the funding." At the same time, Pimentel made it clear he will not allow gaps in mandate and resources to be used as a catch-all excuse by traffic regulatory agencies. Pimentel said, "We all know corruption exists in the enforcement of traffic laws. These corrupt individuals must be rooted out and excised from the agencies they serve in as soon as possible." The Senate President emphasized that severe penalties await those who abuse their position of trust for personal gain. Pimentel said, "We also have laws on corruption, and I will see they are enforced on those who compromise the safety of our citizens for a few more pesos in their pockets." The country's third-highest official also assailed the culture of ningas-cogon among enforcers. Pimentel said, "Sometimes a law is passed, enforced vigorously, and then conveniently forgotten by both the people and enforcers. That is not how things should work. Laws do not have an expiry date. Until repealed or amended, we all have a duty to uphold them."Having successfully campaigned to push San Francisco Supervisor London Breed out of the mayors office, her rivals in the June election are turning their attention to her friend and financial backer Ron Conway.

Their goal: Make the tech titan the leading issue in the mayoral sweepstakes.

Reacting to news that Breeds allies had formed a political action committee on her behalf  the first to jump into the June campaign  mayoral candidate and former state Sen. Mark Leno declared in a statement that weve had enough of billionaires throwing money around in San Francisco politics.

Leno didnt cite Conway by name in adding that deep-pocketed donors have enough power, but it was hardly necessary. The early investor in such high-flying tech firms as Google and PayPal has funded campaigns and causes going back to the mayoral days of Gavin Newsom, and he was a major financial backer of tech-friendly former Mayor Ed Lee.

But in case anyone missed the point, Lenos campaign manager, Erin Mundy, said in a news release that Conway frequently utilizes super PACs to run nasty and expensive campaigns.

This, despite the insistence of both Conway and the new groups backers that he has no connection to the super PAC.

Leno has the most to lose if big-time money starts flowing to Breed, the Board of Supervisors president who lost her temporary mayors job last week to Mark Farrell. Leno got a jump in May on what everyone thought would be a 2019 election, until Lee died in December and a June vote suddenly became necessary.

Now Leno has amassed $400,000 for the campaign  far more than Breed or any other candidate. But tech or real estate interests, both of which far prefer moderates such as Breed to Leno, could flip the switch in no time.

Hence, Lenos blast at billionaires  and a call for candidates to reject outside money, like the cash that the newly formed PAC, In Our Time, S.F. Women Supporting London Breed for Mayor 2018, will raise. Such committees can spend unlimited amounts on a candidates behalf, as long as they dont coordinate with her.

I sincerely hope Supervisor Breed will join me in rejecting the corrupting influence of super PACs, Leno said.

Julie Edwards, campaign spokeswoman for progressive mayoral candidate Supervisor Jane Kim, echoed the anti-PAC stand.

This is our city, and it shouldnt just be run by a handful of billionaires, Edwards said. Of course, we knew the billionaires would fight back.

Theres just one problem, the super PACs backers say: Ron Conway has zero to do with this committee.

That was the word Tuesday from longtime activist Andrea Shorter, a member of the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women and an officer for the newly created money group.

Shorter said the committee was formed because women were outraged and stunned by the Board of Supervisors decision to oust Breed as acting mayor  she was the first African American woman to hold the post  and replace her with Farrell, a white investment banker who represented the Marina district on the board.

The filing shows that this is a group of women who have formed in support of board President Breed, said Maggie Muir, a consultant to Breeds campaign. Why would Mark Leno tell this group of women supporters to sit down and be quiet?

Asked about the committee, Conway told us Tuesday, I dont know about it, and have no involvement with it.

Shorter and another committee member, Andrew Sinn, have worked to elect Conway-backed candidates in the past, including state Assemblyman David Chiu.

So even though Conway says hes got no connection to the group, to the Leno campaign its all the same.

Ron Conway has jumped the shark, and gone from bullying ... supervisors in back rooms to armed robbery in broad daylight, said Leno campaign consultant Jim Stearns.

Its clear that making tech cash  and its political personification, Conway  the big issue is the logical play in a city where the fear of being priced out is pervasive.

That means trying to paint Breed as the agent of more of the same at City Hall.

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.

Roller coaster: First came a poll showing Breed holding a 2-to-1 lead in San Franciscos mayoral race. Now theres a new survey that shows the contest as being much closer.

This one, however, was commissioned by Lenos mayoral campaign  so take it for what you will. It shows Leno at 20 percent of first-place votes in the ranked-choice election, just behind Breed and her 21 percent. The poll has Kim at 13 percent and former Supervisor Angela Alioto at 8 percent.

More than a third of the 312 voters surveyed by phone from Jan. 20-23 were undecided. The surveys margin of error was 5.5 percentage points.

The polls ranked-choice simulation showed Leno picking up enough support from other candidates voters to nose out Breed at the end. However, as pollster David Binder noted, theres no way to guess how all those undecided respondents would affect the final count.

Oddly enough, Binder was the same pollster who did a survey a few days earlier for the Chamber of Commerce that showed Breed way ahead. He explained that the chamber poll question was a toss-in on a broader survey geared toward the November election, when more young and minority Breed voters would be likely to turn out than in June.

Binder also said Breed appeared to be receiving a significant bounce as acting mayor when that poll was taken  a bounce she wont be getting now that shes back to being a full-time Board of Supervisors president.

San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX TV morning and evening news. He 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 matierandross@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matierandrossThousands of Bay Area kids took their first onstage bows because of Matilda Manning Kunin, who knew how to make a child actor feel just like Pinocchio or Peter Pan or Pooh.

Kunin, founder of the acclaimed Young Performers Theatre and former head of the theater program at San Franciscos Town School for Boys, loved getting children as hooked on drama as she was.

She thought the arts complete the child, said her son, Gregory. She felt theater was a way to learn about life and about working together in an ensemble. She brought that passion to everything she did.

Kunin, a tireless stager of scores of shows and a determined fundraiser for the nonprofit groups that put them together, died Jan. 9 at California Pacific Medical Center following a stroke. She was 83.

A native of Cleveland and a graduate of Northwestern University, where she acted in countless college productions, Kunin came to San Francisco in 1960 and organized a program for volunteers in San Francisco public schools.

In 1983, she founded the Young Performers Theatre, the first childrens theater company in Northern California, as a memorial to her son Anthony, who had died the year before in an accident. The group stages seven shows a year and conducts acting classes for children aged 3 to 14 of all economic backgrounds.

Over the years, her shows told the stories of Pippi Longstocking, the Wizard of Oz, Bartholomew Cubbins, Ichabod Crane and Christopher Robin, among others.

In a 1989 profile in the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle, Kunin was praised for providing a profoundly civilizing influence (that is) fun and entertaining.

Following Kunins retirement in 2016, her successor, Stephanie Holmes, called her a phenomenal mentor (who) stayed true to her vision of making theater arts accessible to all children.

Her son said Kunin was adept at making a child understand his or her character rather than memorize lines.

Her gift was being able to get a child to stop fixating on the script and to understand the story, Gregory Kunin said. As long as you believe it, the audience will believe it. The audience wont notice a missed line if the child has become the character.

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.

Kunin was a fundraiser for the San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Opera, and also was active in the San Francisco Boys Chorus and Meals on Wheels.

In her spare time, she enjoyed traveling and seeing shows in New York City and in Ashland, Ore.

She is survived by her husband of 56 years, Richard, and her son, both of San Francisco.

A private service will be held Friday in San Rafael. A public memorial celebration will be held in San Francisco in the spring.

Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SteveRubeSFTraffic at Bay Area airports is surging along with the overall economy. San Francisco International Airport reported this week that a record 55.8 million passengers passed through its gates last year, up 5 percent from 2016.

Mineta San Jose International Airport said this week that its passenger traffic for 2017 rose to 12.5 million, up 15.6 percent over the prior year. The airports all-time record, 13.1 million passengers, was set in 2000, and it expects to get back up to that number sometime this year, according to a spokeswoman.

At Oakland International Airport, passenger numbers for 2017 reached 13.1 million  the most since 2007, and up 8.3 percent from 2016, the airport said Wednesday.

Although the number of passengers has been increasing, some travelers have yet to feel the squeeze. At SFO on Wednesday afternoon, the security lines were short and swift, the baggage carousels clear of huge crowds.

Regular fliers said that if traffic is growing, the airport is handling it in stride. Tim Williams, who lives in San Francisco and flies at least eight times a year, said that nothing seemed too different during his latest trip.

I mean, it was even less crowded this time, he said. No delays, either.

Mohammed Idrissi, who was in San Francisco for a biomedical conference and on his way back to Eugene, Ore., had no complaints. SFO did not seem too different from the last time he was there a year ago, he said, despite the reported increase in traffic.

It was probably more crowded at the airport in Eugene, he said.

SFO, which is one of the countrys largest airports, is encouraging airlines to use bigger planes when possible, instead of adding flights. Last year, SFO flights held 158 seats on average, up from 134 seats in 2011.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

The airport is also adding a number of routes this year. Some are from airlines not currently serving SFO. The new carriers include Hong Kong Airlines (to Hong Kong, starting in March); Interjet (to Cancun and Guadalajara, Mexico, also starting in March); Iberia Airlines (to Madrid, starting in April); and Icelandair (to Reykjavik, Iceland, starting in June).

Southwest plans 80 new weekly flights from San Jose, starting this spring.

Oakland is adding Southwest service to four destinations this year: Orlando, San Antonio, Indianapolis and Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Kate Galbraith and Annie Ma are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: kgalbraith@sfchronicle.com, ama@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kategalbraith, @anniema152 1 of 2 Michael Macor/The Chronicle Show More Show Less 2 of 2 Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle 2018 Show More Show Less



Teslas already major presence in Fremont is about to get bigger.

The company confirmed Tuesday that it will open an office for roughly 1,500 employees near the eastern base of the Dumbarton Bridge, about 10 miles from the companys bustling auto factory. The plant employs more than 10,000 people, and Tesla is in the process of expanding it.The sun has quietly set on the Gangway, San Franciscos oldest continuously operating gay bar.

Bookending an ownership saga that started two years ago, the transfer of the bars liquor license became final on Friday, according to the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. On Sunday, the historic establishment hosted its final night of revelry.

Sam Young, the owner of the sometimes controversial bar Kozy Kar only a few blocks away, will take over the space at 841 Larkin St., according to the filing.

The cumbersome name for his new venture is Kung Fu Action Theater & Laundry, which Young last year said would be a place where people can do laundry and watch kung fu movies. It wont be a bar, he said, despite the locations liquor license. Young has also cast doubt on whether hed keep the name Kung Fu Action Theater & Laundry.

The beginning of the Gangways end can be traced to January 2016, when a similar license transfer showed the bar was being sold to a group called Breaking Chad LLC, which planned to open a concept called Daddy Bones. Gangway owner Jung Lee at the time was selling the bar after a wage-related lawsuit and the death of one of his longtime managers. That deal never came to fruition.

Theres a lengthy bar history at 841 Larkin St. The address has been home to a drinking establishment of some kind since 1910, 51 years before the Gangway began publicly identifying as a gay bar.

Now Playing: Would you try cheese tea? The owner of STEAP Tea Bar in San Francisco shows us what the new fad is all about. Video: SFGATE

With its shuttering, the Gangway joins a long roster of now-closed gay bars in the city, a trend some attribute to changing San Francisco demographics, gentrification and, even more simply put, acceptance of LGBT people in the wider community.

While it was open, the Tenderloin haunt was treasured by the citys older gay crowd. Filling seats at the bar were working-class patrons from diverse backgrounds.

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.

Though details about the replacement venue are scant, given the projects curious name and Kozy Kars infamous reputation  a sign seen in 2015 made a joke about date rape, and 70s porn plays on a loop  it seems unlikely that the Gangways old-school vibe will remain intact.

Young did not respond to requests for comment.

Justin Phillips is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jphillips@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JustMrPhillips

The Gangway

841 Larkin St.Just in case you missed Januarys big burger news, Shake Shack is coming to the Bay Area. As for the logistics, the New York chains original plan was to open this fall in Palo Alto at the Stanford Shopping Center before moving on to Larkspur and eventually San Francisco.

While the exact San Francisco location has yet to be confirmed (though theres plenty of speculation), Shake Shack does have specifics for its Marin address  the Marin Country Mart at 1401 Larkspur Landing Circle.SACRAMENTO  State lawmakers on Tuesday questioned retired state Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno over why an investigation he conducted last year did not find University of California President Janet Napolitano responsible for her offices interference with a state audit.

Lawmakers told Moreno it was clear to them he had evidence that Napolitano did intentionally and improperly interfere with the state auditors review of her offices spending and business practices in 2016.

But Moreno told lawmakers that as a former trial judge, he just didnt think there was enough there to conclude that Napolitano should be held accountable. His probe pinned the blame on her two top staffers, who resigned.

The grilling by lawmakers at the state Capitol came during a nearly four-hour joint committee hearing on Morenos report, which was commissioned by the UC Board of Regents to determine whether Napolitano meddled in the state auditors 2016 review of her office. Lawmakers had ordered the state audit over concerns that spending had dramatically increased at the UC presidents office.

Morenos report found that a furious Napolitano phoned UC Santa Cruzs chancellor because the campus had submitted a confidential survey to the state auditor without first allowing the presidents office to see it.

It does appear very clear that she was involved in the surveys and involved in providing instruction as to how the surveys should turn out, said Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco. Why wasnt that enough evidence?

Moreno told lawmakers: We reported the facts and conclusions. I submit you can probably argue differently, but this is the best that I can do.

Lawmakers also grilled Napolitano about her honesty last year when she told lawmakers at a May Capitol hearing that her office did not interfere with the audit and merely helped campuses who had sought her offices help.

Morenos report found that Napolitanos aides actively initiated the contact with the campuses with the intent to change campus responses to the auditors confidential survey to make UC headquarters look better.

Napolitano apologized repeatedly during the committee hearing Tuesday, saying, I made a mistake, and I am sorry for it.

UC regents publicly admonished Napolitano in November after releasing Morenos report. That report found that Napolitanos chief of staff, Seth Grossman, and his deputy, Bernie Jones, directed the audit interference and then tried to cover their tracks. Grossman and Jones both resigned shortly before the report was made public. They denied any wrongdoing.

As part of her punishment, the regents ordered Napolitano to apologize for approving the scheme. Napolitano said her intention was only to have her office review the answers for accuracy and ensure they were within the scope of the audit and reflected the views of the campus leadership.

Had I known what they were doing, I would have intervened and stopped it, Napolitano said Tuesday. I didnt know the full extent of their activities until I received the Moreno report. All I can say is it happened on my watch, it was my staff, and I accept responsibility for that.

COVID Resources Coronavirus Map Tracking COVID-19 cases across the Bay Area and California.

UC Regents Chair George Kieffer told lawmakers necessary changes were made to UC policies to ensure future audits are not obstructed and that a firm was hired to review whether there is administrative bloat in Napolitanos office to address the original intention of the surveys.

Its not going to happen again, Kieffer said.

Assemblywomen Catharine Baker, R-San Ramon, and Sharon Quirk-Silva, D-Fullerton (Orange County), called for Napolitano to resign after Morenos report was made public and again pressed for her to step down on Tuesday.

Baker said Napolitano was not forthright when she testified before the Assembly joint committee last year about whether she knew survey responses were being intercepted and ultimately sanitized.

I flat-out asked were surveys recalled at your direction, and the answer was no, Baker said.

Melody Gutierrez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mgutierrez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MelodyGutierrezSalesforce Tower is open.

You cant see it from the outer, outer, outer, outer Excelsior unless you get to that right angle, like the rock at the top of McLaren Park. But just about everywhere else in the city you can see it.

Its not as tall as the Wilshire Grand Center in L.A., thus relegating it to the second-tallest building in California, but its our little skyscraper. Thats right. The thing on the top that looks like an unfinished crown? Thats actually a nine-story art project, designed by Jim Campbell, making it the worlds highest work of art.

Im Irish, and so Ive had years defending the small. At times like this I quote Teddy Roosevelt, who said, Its not the size of the dog in the fight, its the size of the fight in the dog. I grew up in Ozone Park, on the edge of Queens in New York, when the 102 stories of the Empire State Building still made it the tallest building in the world. And as the World Trade Center got built, Nurse Vivian scoffed that there would always be something a little bit bigger, a little bit flashier.

No one in the neighborhood seems to have noticed Salesforce Tower, all 61 stories, 1.4 million square feet, 1070 feet high above 415 Mission St.

But they do notice Johns cow.

One of our neighbors placed a full-size statue of a bovine on his roof. And each year on Halloween, Zane and Aidan and a hundred neighbors circle his house to see all the skeletons and pumpkins that gallivant as a gargoyle rides her. It wears turkey feathers in November and a red and white cap in December, when the skeleton gets re-purposed into a candy cane. This month, Bessie has a glowing red heart on her buttocks in preparation for Valentines Day.

John talks to me, maybe because I leave up the blow-mold, electric nativity scene until the Feast of the Magi. He has, in fact, offered to buy me a disco ball to act as the Star of Bethlehem, so I asked him about his own decorations. Its not art, he insisted, Its a cow.

Salesforce Tower was designed by Pelli Clarke Pelli to be a modern obelisk, but thats San Francisco shorthand for phallus, an architectural tradition dating back to when Lillie Hitchcock Coit financed her Art Deco tower on Telegraph Hill to resemble a firemans hose. Protesters against the Transamerica Pyramid yelled, Stop the shaft. Sutro Tower was called a sword of Damocles hanging over the city.

There is also a long history of snarky remarks made by Chronicle reporters about great works of architecture in San Francisco. Even though Herb Caen did say the Golden Gate was the greatest bridge ever built, he also called it the car-strangled spanner.

He dismissed Sutro Tower, saying that it would stalk down the hill and mate with the Central Freeway.

He said that the Transamerica Pyramid resembled a ketchup bottle, but eventually he made it bend to his will. Or at least his logo, long before The Chronicle depicted me in my purple tie.

And Jon Carroll made no friends when he compared Nordstrom to a bordello.

My boys remain unimpressed by Salesforce Tower. Aidan calls it the big un-yellow banana, and Zane insisted that it looked better when it premiered in Big Hero 6.

My husband, Brian, calls it a missed opportunity. What makes an edifice unique is not its size, he insists, but its majesty. San Francisco doesnt need another undone warehouse. Someday, he says, Salesforce Tower will become part of our history, but it will always be a hard sell.

Im no expert on architecture. I truly couldnt tell a Julia Morgan from a Maybeck. But I do love words, this column not withstanding. And Salesforce Tower is a name devoid of poetry, unlike the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, the Parthenon, the Flatiron or the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Or in our case, the Sinking Tower of Millennium.

Maybe Ill call the new building Pierre. Thats at least got a little rhythm to it.

But still, we live in Wonderland. We might not have fast-growing ivy, but we do have a fog bank that can cloud even the ugliest of buildings. And so we decorate as we please, either nine stories of perforated aluminum, or an effigy of a cow.

Frank Lloyd Wright, whose ghost bridge still haunts the bay, once said, San Francisco is the only city I can think of that can survive all the things you people are doing to it and still look beautiful.

Kevin Fisher-Paulsons column appears Wednesdays in Datebook. Email: datebook@sfchronicle.comThe year in Bay Area beer was eventful, to say the least.

San Francisco stalwart Speakeasy Ales & Lagers shut down, reopened and sold to an East Bay investor for a measly $2.5 million. For about the same price, Haight Streets beloved Magnolia Brewing, embroiled in bankruptcy proceedings, sold to Colorados New Belgium and Belgiums Oud Beersel. 21st Amendment gave an equity stake to Brooklyn Brewery. Lagunitas founder Tony Magee handed over the remaining half of his brewery to Heineken (and followed it up with a now-famous Tumblr post).

And then there was Anchor, Americas original craft brewery, which Japanese brewer Sapporo purchased in August. Anchors sale may not have been a surprise, exactly  longtime owner Fritz Maytag had sold it to investors in 2010  but to many locals it still felt like a punch in the gut.

If these established, cherished, widely distributed beer brands couldnt make it, does it mean were in trouble? All signs point to that proverbial bubble bursting, right?

Not necessarily. Theres always a lot of pain when a company struggles to the extent of Speakeasy and Magnolia, says Tom McCormick, executive director of the California Craft Brewers Association. But its a natural and healthy stabilization of the industry.

While the legacy players may be struggling to stabilize, the little guys  the small craft breweries who increasingly define Bay Area beer culture  are doing just fine. In fact, the attractiveness of craft brands to global beer companies is a sign of the industrys maturity and anticipated growth. (Look at North Carolinas Wicked Weed, purchased this year by AB InBev, and Floridas Funky Buddha, by Constellation.)

Twenty-nine new brewery licenses were issued in the nine-county Bay Area between December 2016 and December 2017, while the total number of breweries in California topped 900  triple what it was in 2012. Growth at that rate cant continue forever, McCormick says: I do think that were going to see fewer breweries starting up, and I do think were going to see more breweries closing their doors.

Thats because Bay Area craft beer has gotten a lot more competitive  a reason some established companies have foundered. A lot of the bigger breweries are struggling to adapt to a rapidly changing beer world, says Jesse Friedman, owner of San Franciscos Almanac Beer Co. Theres a real changing of the guard happening in the Bay Area.

John Storey/Special to the Chronicle

This new guard is characterized by a commitment to staying local, eschewing global (or even statewide) expansion; theyd rather distribute their beers themselves than submit to a wholesale network increasingly controlled by AB InBev. Thats a reality that Friedman and his business partner Damian Fagan could scarcely have imagined when they first launched Almanac in 2010 with the goal of producing nationally distributed beer. Now, although a small portion of Almanacs sour beers  much more stable and ageable than IPAs  are sold in other states, the lions share of sales comes from local accounts and from Almanacs Mission District taproom. A second taproom, attached to a new brewery in Alameda, opens this month.

I think we could really use more small breweries, Friedman says. (There are over 220 brewery licenses in the Bay Area.) Like Almanac, many of our new-guard success stories are content to stay small, focusing on taprooms (often, multiple taprooms) and on producing new beers practically every week. Think of such breweries as Fieldwork or Cellarmaker: You dont know them for a flagship product  an Anchor Steam, a Speakeasy Prohibition Ale, a Lagunitas IPA but for a constantly changing cast of tap handles.

Calling a beer year-round is almost like marking it for death now, says Friedman. If you tell people a beer is regularly available theres a drop in interest immediately. People want the special, the one-time.

Fresh. Original. Personal. Above all, local. These principles are responsible for craft beers rise. Now, some brewers are asking: Have we taken this fetishization of local too far?

I do think the dominant trend right now is localization, says Collin McDonnell, CEO of Petalumas HenHouse Brewing. It would be a misstatement to say people care more about quality than they do about locality.

The data support that claim. Ultimately, consumers are still often looking to their own communities when they think about buying craft beer. By the end of 2017, according to the Brewers Association, 83 percent of American adults lived within 10 miles of a brewery. The proliferation of brewery taprooms actually may be replacing other watering holes: As of 2015, Nielsen data showed that neighborhood bars were closing at a rate of six per day, while the number of craft breweries just crested 6,000 nationwide.

Alvin Jornada/Special to The Chronicle

But as Sam Calagione, the influential founder of high-profile East Coast craft brewery Dogfish Head, said, local does not mean good; local just means local. From his perspective, brewing nationwide is on the precipice of a shakeout moment where the local breweries producing quality beers will hang on, and those that dont will shutter.

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

That moment hasnt quite arrived. But it is coming. McDonnell has been running an almost daily Twitter campaign since late October reminding brewers to take responsibility for your beer. He believes that consumers are beginning to wise up to what constitutes a well-made brew.

I definitely think the consumer is coming around, he adds. Theyre checking dates, they care more about cold storage and theyre trying to buy beer from breweries who are investing in quality. It makes me proud when I go to the grocery store and see our beer on the shelf and people checking the dates on the bottom of the beers.

By the same token, drinkers loyalty to their local breweries also means theyre willing to give just about any beer a shot, as long as they trust the brewer. Thats helped funky and sour beers, for example, proliferate around the Bay Area. Now sours have become something of a status symbol for a successful beer company, since theyre expensive, labor-intensive and difficult to produce. Cellarmaker, Moonraker and Russian River are all building new accommodations specifically for funky beer production.

The popularity of sours  much like the New England-style IPAs that have flooded menus this year  is not unique to the Bay Area. What is unusual about our local beer culture, however, is newfound attention to an oft-overlooked ingredient in brewing: malts. When made in small batches, malts like barley, oat, rye and wheat have the power to define the backbone of a beer while imparting the terroir of where they were grown. Unlike hops, whose variety and source are advertised on practically every bar menu, malts are for the most part available only from massive producers, and little attention has traditionally been paid by the public to their provenance.

The recent arrival of Admiral Maltings, a brand-new artisan malting facility in Alameda, stands to redefine that aspect of craft beer. Admiral has finished about 130 tons of barley so far, and most of the 10 collaboration beers brewed for this years San Francisco Beer Week were made with their malts. Expect to see more local brews utilizing the product.

After all, what place pays closer attention to ingredient sourcing than Northern California, where the farm-to-table movement was born? Thats just one example of the indelible mark that Bay Area beer has made on craft beer at large.

Its really thrilling to know that we in California have revolutionized beer culture in America, and to a certain extent around the world, says McCormick. Whatever the re-juggling of mergers and acquisitions, the bottom line is that the new era of beer going forward is flavorful and authentic.

Esther Mobley is The San Francisco Chronicles wine, beer and spirits writer. Email: emobley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: esther_mobley Instagram: esthermob

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGate staff writer covering pop culture and beer. Email: apereira@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @alyspereira Instagram: @alyspereiraThe Trump administrations latest attempt to pressure local and state governments to aid in immigration enforcement is under attack from police officials and prosecutors, including district attorneys in San Francisco and Contra Costa County, who say the Justice Departments demands are potentially dangerous.

In a filing Monday in federal court in Los Angeles, 33 current and former prosecutors, police chiefs and sheriffs condemned the Justice Departments requirement that cities and counties provide information about immigrants in their custody, and access to their jails, in order to receive grants from the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS.

The funding, $14 billion nationwide since 1994, goes to hire and train officers to work with community members on promoting public safety.

When people believe that contacting police or cooperating with prosecutors could lead to deportation for themselves and others, community policing breaks down and the entire community is harmed, the officers lawyers said. They said the new requirement would force them to sacrifice building trust with immigrant communities and enhancing public safety in order to receive vital federal funds.

Already, they said, cities are reporting that many Latinos have become more reluctant to report crimes to police. And studies show that crime is lower in statistically significant ways in counties that limit local involvement in federal immigration enforcement, the filing said.

Now Playing: The U.S. Department of Justice sent out letters to 23 different government agencies Wednesday, warning them to turn over records on immigration enforcement or potentially lose millions of dollars in funding for adopting "sanctuary policies." The State of California and Sacramento County are on the list and now face the full scrutiny, including potential subpoenas from the federal government. Many cities have been openly defiant in the face of the threats, with lawsuits pending in Chicago, Philadelphia and California over whether the administration has overstepped its authority by seeking to withhold grant money. Video: KCRA

Signers included District Attorneys George Gascon of San Francisco and Diana Becton of Contra Costa County; William Lansdowne, a former police chief in Richmond and San Jose; and another former Richmond police chief, Chris Magnus, who now holds that position in Tucson.

In a separate filing Monday, a group of local governments, including Oakland and the counties of Santa Clara, Monterey and Santa Cruz, said the administrations attempt to coerce them to enforce immigration laws undermines the very goal COPS grants are supposed to promote  trust between communities and local law enforcement entities.

The Justice Department did not immediately reply to a request for comment. But Attorney General Jeff Sessions has repeatedly denounced the hundreds of cities, like San Francisco, with sanctuary policies that limit police cooperation with immigration officers. A California law that took effect this year likewise restricts local authority to hold immigrants in custody for delivery to federal agents.

Protecting criminal aliens from federal immigration authorities defies common sense and undermines the rule of law, Sessions said last week in demanding immigration policy documents from 23 local governments, including San Francisco, Fremont, and Sonoma and Monterey counties.

Federal law requires state and local governments to allow their police to inform federal agents about the immigration status of inmates in their custody. The conditions the Justice Department has attached to federal grants go further and require local governments to give immigration agents access to their jails, and 48 hours notice before releasing an undocumented immigrant from custody.

Federal judges in Chicago and Philadelphia have blocked the Justice Department from enforcing those conditions to withhold another set of federal grants that fund local crime-prevention programs. A federal judge in San Francisco has barred President Trump from enforcing a January 2017 order that spoke of withdrawing all federal funding from sanctuary cities.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelkoJessica Christian, The Chronicle

As president of the Handlery Union Square Hotel, part of Jon Handlerys job is to scour travel websites to find out what tourists are telling one another about his hotel and San Francisco.

He tries to respond, thanking his customers for their patronage and acknowledging their gripes. But hes stopped even trying to explain the No. 1 complaint: the citys miserable street scene thats made all the more stark against the backdrop of so much wealth and luxury.

Tiffanys and tents. Neiman Marcus and needles. Macys and mental illness.

This month, for example, Handlery noticed a review on TripAdvisor that praised the hotels location, its pool, its proximity to the cable cars and the easy walk to the Ferry Building. But it ended with a jolt.

Seeing homeless men in wheelchairs without shoes in the winter, women with infants on the streets, young men and women on the streets doing drugs, it was painful, wrote the commenter.

Handlery used to assure his visitors the city was doing all it could to combat rampant homelessness, but he no longer makes those claims.

I am sorry about the street scene, Handlery responded to the commenter. But unfortunately our city has failed to address the issue.

Police confront homeless campers and discuss the challenge of enforcing quality of life laws. Media: San Francisco Chronicle

San Franciscos hotel owners and managers are increasingly frustrated that their gorgeous city, with its many museums, fine restaurants and scenic vistas, has an ever-deteriorating, dismaying flip side to the postcard. In a city that spends $305 million a year to combat homelessness, those who serve as San Franciscos hosts struggle to explain why the problem isnt getting any better.

I actually think its the worst its ever been, said Handlery, whos been in the San Francisco hotel business for 38 years.

Kevin Carroll is the executive director of the Hotel Council of San Francisco, which advocates for 110 hotels. Among hotel managers and owners, everybodys talking about it, he said.

You see things on the streets that are just not humane, he said. People come into hotels saying, What is going on out there? Theyre just shocked. ... People say, I love your city, I love your restaurants, but Ill never come back.

Carroll has taken stacks of printed comments from tourists to City Hall to show politicians how the rest of the world views us. He pulled some of the comments for me. Yes, a man charged with promoting the citys hotel industry offered up to The Chronicle the worst things visitors are saying about their visits. Thats how desperate the industry is for change.

Tons of prostitution and fighting every night ... you couldnt pay me to stay here again, read one comment. Another said, We felt unsafe walking across the street, and we live in New York City! And: Homeless man tried to stuff drugs in my pockets outside and tried to sell them to me.

Jessica Christian, The Chronicle

You may ask, Who cares what some dad from a flyover state or some businessman from another country thinks of us? But consider this: The tourism industry in San Francisco supports 80,000 jobs, many of them filled by the diverse, working-class people we profess to want to keep here.

Tourism brings an eye-popping $9 billion into the city every year, $725 million of which comes in the form of local taxes going straight to City Hall. Thats the money helping to fund our police officers, parks, libraries  and, yes, homeless services.

Another reason to pay attention to what tourists have to say about San Francisco? Theyre fresh eyes on a problem thats so familiar to us, we just shrug and keep walking.

Kelly Powers, associate director of the Hotel Council, said she recently saw an aggressive homeless man approach a little boy walking with his family in Union Square and grab and shake him from behind. What struck Powers most was the horror, the look of surprise on the faces of the tourist family  and the fact that nobody but her tried to help them.

These people are suffering in the street, and youre watching it, Powers said of San Franciscans being totally unfazed by the homeless and mentally ill. Its just not right.

Every day from their perch on the fourth floor above Powell and Geary streets, Carroll and Powers hear horns honking, cable cars clanging and a crazed woman screaming. Shes a regular fixture, shouting every day, and throwing bottles and trash into the street. Carroll said hes called 311 many times to get help for her, but is told that if shes not hurting anybody, theres nothing to be done.

Jessica Christian, The Chronicle

Wes Tyler, general manager of the Chancellor Hotel near Union Square, can relate. Just in the past few weeks, three clearly mentally ill people have come into his hotel to pull the fire alarm, threaten staff and even start a physical altercation with a bellman.

Any time you call the police for a person thats causing a problem, they show up and just basically send them on their way, Tyler said. Theres no question its a turn-off for people.

Carroll stressed that he thinks the citys Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing and the Police Department really are trying, but thats cold comfort to a tourist whos just been screamed at or followed down the block by a stranger.

He also noted hotel owners and managers arent just complaining without trying to help. He said that in the last fiscal year, the citys hotels donated 20 tons of furniture and fixtures to 25 community organizations. Their workers regularly volunteer at Project Homeless Connect.

So is it hurting the bottom line of one of our most important industries? Not in any significant way in this booming economy, but hotel owners and managers say theyre already noticing some worrying signs.

Handlery said hes lost a lot of regional customers  couples and families from other parts of the Bay Area who used to treat themselves to weekends in the city, but no longer do because of the misery on the streets. The daily revenue in his hotel garage, which is open to the public, has dropped.

Anna Marie Presutti, general manager of Hotel Nikko, said people are already coming to San Francisco to scout locations for conventions in 2019 and 2020. During inspections of her Union Square hotel, they regularly say, Wow, from our hotel to Moscone Center, my folks are going to have to literally walk through this? ... People are saying, Id rather go somewhere else.

And other cities trying to lure that same business cite San Franciscos quality-of-life problems to argue against it in their pitches, Carroll said.

I do believe its hurting our business, he said. The brand of San Francisco is whats at risk. Anything that would tarnish that, we should be concerned about. And we are.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight appears Sundays and Tuesdays. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsfShes dismissive during public meetings, peering through the eyeglasses propped on the bridge of her nose like a derisive schoolmarm.

She exudes contempt for people who dare offer an opinion that conflicts with her own.

She seems to speak only to her base supporters, those who agree with her messages no matter how unreasonable she sounds from her pulpit.

Oakland City Councilwoman Desley Brooks, some say, is the citys version of Donald Trump.

Shes a bully who is known to people who work in City Hall for minacious shoulder bumps in hallways, a politician who bum-rushes incautiously crafted ordinances past diffident City Council colleagues.

In May 2016, she hijacked Oaklands proposed cannabis law by tacking on an equity program that initially benefited only residents of her and ally Councilman Larry Reids districts. It took the council months to rewrite the legislation, and equity program participants are now left figuring out the new terrain without much help from the city.

Brooks repeatedly tossed up roadblocks to the citys cannabis business permitting system without explanation  or challenges from her colleagues on the council. One preposterous proposal would have required every cannabis business to fork over 25 percent of its profits and at least one seat on its board of directors to the city.

And earlier this month, my colleague Kimberly Veklerov reported that Brooks wanted to funnel public funds from voter-approved projects like street repairs and park improvements and give them to the Cypress Mandela Training Center, a community organization in her district.

Several people I talked with for this column didnt want their identities revealed because they fear Brooks wrath.

How can you be an elected official and have a reputation of being a bully? said James Moore Jr., who ran unsuccessfully against Brooks for her District Six seat in 2014. She is our local, female Donald Trump, if you will.

If youre a representative of the city, you cant go around knocking people out or talking down to people.

Moore was referring to the Brooks body check that sent Elaine Brown, a former Black Panther leader who was 72 at the time, tumbling over a table and chairs in 2015. Last month, an Alameda County jury handed down a $3.77 million verdict against the city and Brooks. This month, a jury ordered Brooks to pay Brown $550,000 in punitive damages.

Chronicle columnists Matier & Ross reported that the knockdown came during an argument at Everett and Jones BBQ, a Jack London Square barbecue spot, over city funding for a Brown-linked nonprofits housing and commercial development. Brooks threatened to kill the funding, reportedly telling Brown the project was of no benefit to black people.

The city is likely to appeal, but if the judgment stands, Oakland may have to raid its general fund to pay more than $3 million to Brown. Only $750,000 would be covered by the citys liability insurance.

Its impossible to justify supporting an elected leader whose bad behavior is costing nearly $4 million in public dollars. Nothing Brooks has done in her 16 years as a councilwoman outweighs the cost to Oakland.

Still, a recent editorial in the Oakland Post, an African American weekly newspaper, praised Brooks  without mentioning the incident or the verdict. Wheres the outrage for such disrespect of a pillar of Oaklands black community? Paul Cobb, the publisher of the Oakland Post, couldnt be reached for comment.

The public deserves better representation.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

In 2013, Brooks faced censure for circumventing a bidding process in hiring a contractor and buying music equipment in opening the Rainbow Teen Center in her East Oakland district.

In 2015, Brooks called Councilwoman Lynette Gibson McElhaney a hanky-head, a racially insensitive insult delivered publicly.

In 2016, Brooks disrupted a Rules Committee session as her colleagues attempted to unravel absurd new marijuana business permit rules Brooks had pushed. Brooks histrionics, backed by supporters, forced the session to end early. Since when are council members elected to stall city business?

Brooks didnt respond to my request for an interview.

District Six, where 59 percent of registered voters are black, needs a bridge builder, not a separatist, to address affordable housing, homelessness and the lack of career opportunities for many residents.

Just because you black doesnt mean you get my vote, Moore, a District Six resident, told me. I want this city to be represented in the best way possible by whoever it might be.

Brooks has positioned herself as a gatekeeper for black and brown residents, and I dont doubt her passion. The problem is that shes better at talking about issues than engineering solutions.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjrLos Angeles is not Latin America.

Such a statement should be as uncontroversial as a North America map. But in L.A., elite conventional wisdom runs the other way.

Lewis DVorkin, the editor in chief of the Los Angeles Times, recently promoted L.A. as the northern capital of Latin America. Organizers of L.A.s bid for the Olympics used a similar formulation.

And in its Pacific Standard Time series, the Getty Foundation supported 70-plus exhibitions  from Santa Barbara to San Diego  under the title: LA/LA  for Latin America and Los Angeles. L.A., the Getty said in its publicity, is a Latin American city of long duration.

The impulse to pump up L.A. is understandable, but, cmon, its not even the capital of California. Los Angeles isnt a part of Latin America  or of anyplace else.

Yes, L.A. has a Spanish colonial and Mexican past. Yes, half of Angelenos either are Latin American immigrants or their descendants.

But Los Angeles, for almost its entirely history, has been a walled-off and peculiar place. When L.A. has bothered to define itself, it has done so in opposition to the world  and to Latin America in particular.

When whites built Los Angeles as a city of the future, they whitewashed, in the term used by historian William Deverell, its Mexican history and Mexican American people. That whitewashing left a permanent separation. In The Labyrinth of Solitude, Mexican author Octavio Paz described L.A. as having a vaguely Mexican atmosphere that felt distant, like it was floating in the air.

I say floats because it never mixes or unites with the other world, the North American world based on precision and efficiency, Paz wrote, adding: It floats, never quite existing, never quite vanishing.

It still floats. Todays L.A. prides itself on its diversity, but its culture is still ruled by predominantly white Hollywood. The center city and Westside  the most familiar parts of L.A. worldwide  are far whiter than the United States as a whole.

While L.A is not a Latin American city, it is a profoundly Latino one. But as immigration diminishes, its Latinos are becoming less Latin American. Today, more than 60 percent of L.A. Countys Latinos are native-born. If you want to see a truly Latin American U.S. city, visit Miami.

Los Angeles population trends work against Latinization. One of the two biggest demographic stories in Los Angeles in this century has been the rapid decline in the number of children, including Latino children. The other big story is the increase in the number of whites  up nearly 40,000 from 2010 to 2014  outpacing the rise in the number of Latinos.

Since the 1990s recession, Latin American immigration has dramatically declined, while the regional economy has tilted away from Latin America. International trade in L.A. is dominated by East Asia. Mexico is the third-largest trading partner of the United States, and the top destination for California exports, but ranks 10th as an L.A. trading partner, behind Germany.

The weakness of ties between L.A. and Latin America now seems like a real vulnerability, as the California-hating Trump administration deports immigrants and retreats from the world. Leon Krauze, a Mexican journalist who is an anchor for Univision in L.A., said the Trump threat may force closer ties, as Angelenos and Latin Americans realize they must be allies in protecting immigrants from the U.S. government.

At the same time, there is something cynical about the L.A. is Latin America messages of L.A.s elites. Many Southern California institutions have celebrated prominent Latin Americans while being slow to include L.A.s own Latinos. Take the motion picture academy, which has been giving Oscars to film directors from Mexico  Alfonso Cuaron, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and, perhaps soon, Guillermo del Toro  while doing little for Latino filmmakers.

Still, it would be wiser to embrace the Latin America  Los Angeles narrative as aspirational. After all, Los Angeles would have much to gain from deeper ties to a region that has seen gains in democracy and in its middle class over the past two generations.

But building those ties would take sustained work, including creating more spaces for preservation and learning of the Spanish language. More broadly, making L.A. a Latin American city would require the same freedom of movement in the Western Hemisphere that the European Union enjoys, so that Latin Americans could visit, study and live here with ease.

But, first, L.A. would have to obliterate the walls that have long surrounded it.

Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zocalo Public Square. To comment, submit your letter to the editor at SFChronicle.com/letters.J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press

Its not purely coincidental that Republican lawmakers voted to release a classified memo attacking a federal investigation on the day that a ranking FBI official was forced out under pressure from President Trump. Both developments reflect an escalating campaign to discredit officials investigating the relationship between Trumps campaign and Russia.

Cheered on by Russian robots and House Speaker Paul Ryans disturbing call to cleanse the FBI, the House Intelligence Committees Republican members took the unprecedented step Monday night of voting to declassify the memo over Justice Department objections. Written by aides to committee Chairman Devin Nunes, a Central Valley Republican and noted administration apologist, the memo apparently argues that federal surveillance of Trump campaign aide Carter Page was inappropriate. Not surprisingly, the committee hasnt agreed to release a dueling Democratic memo.Just about one year ago, the collapse of two spillways at Oroville Dam forced the frantic evacuation of 188,000 people, caused millions of dollars in property damage and triggered hundreds of lawsuits. Earlier this month, an independent forensic team found that decades of reckless mismanagement by the California Department of Water Resources caused the crisis. Instead of making needed changes, Sacramento has responded by increasing the departments control.

Whats needed instead is to transfer Oroville Dam and Californias 43 other state-owned dams to private ownership and operation.

This is not a radical idea; 64 percent of the 90,580 dams in the Army Corps of Engineers national inventory are privately owned. Even here in California, the figure is 43 percent.

Dam safety experts faulted the Department of Water Resources for ineffective and possibly detrimental repairs, inadequate procedures to identify risks and manage safety, and for being overconfident and complacent, conducting very little actual research. The problems persist.

Cracks were detected in sections of the newly reconstructed main flood-control spillway. Predictably, department spokeswoman Erin Mellon downplayed the cracks as something you expect to see.

Not according to UC Berkeley civil engineering Professor Emeritus Robert Bea, an expert on dams, who said, Cracking in high-strength reinforced concrete structures is never to be expected and can be deadly, allowing water to corrode steel embedded in the concrete.

Indeed, Such corrosion was responsible for the ... ultimate failure of the steel reinforcing in parts of the original gated (Oroville Dam main) spillway, Bea said.

The department also estimates the reconstruction costs at $500 million, nearly double the initial estimate of $275 million, after workers discovered they must dig deeper than expected to reach bedrock.

Department of Water Resources mismanagement is not new. During Oroville Dams relicensing more than 12 years ago, environmental groups filed a motion with federal regulators to require the department to armor with concrete the emergency spillways earthen hillside. Despite the warnings and precautionary recommendations, regulators and the department failed to act.

Safety experts also found that the department allowed the dams main spillway to be built on faulty bedrock, used thin layers of concrete around vital spillway joints, and tolerated a flawed drainage system and cracks, allowing water to seep into the chutes interior. Shoddy maintenance was commonplace during 50 years of preventable decay.

In response to the debacle, Gov. Jerry Brown issued a weak four-point plan, and the department created three deputy directors. But more layers of bureaucracy wont solve the problems that bureaucracy helped create. Institutional reform is needed.

Currently, more than half (53 percent) of the 1,585 California dams monitored by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are categorized as having a high hazard potential, where loss of human life is likely if the dam fails. Nationally, the figure is 17 percent. Having the Department of Water Resources at the helm, with its opaque patch-and-pray approach to maintenance and public safety, is not reassuring.

Government ownership of infrastructure such as the Oroville Dam comes with little accountability and the automatic assumption of taxpayer bailouts when problems arise, which increases the likelihood that they will.

The Clinton administration, in its reinventing government initiative, provided a blueprint for how this transfer process can work. The administration sold 19 federal water projects to nonfederal owners by 2006.

Do private dams of similar size and age as government-owned dams have a better safety record? There appear to be no studies. Private ownership of dam assets, however, concentrates accountability and the costs of failure, which properly incentivizes more effective maintenance, timely repairs, increased innovation and efficiency. In the case of Oroville Dam, private ownership would mean putting responsibility for reservoir and outlet maintenance, and flood control, in the hands of individuals whose interests revolve around ensuring public safety and the function of the dam.

Total dam failure in California is not speculation. In 1928, the government-owned St. Francis Dam north of Los Angeles collapsed from a defective foundation, destroying towns and killing 450 people.

Californians deserve safe and professional management of state dams through responsible private ownership.

Lawrence J. McQuillan is director of the Center on Entrepreneurial Innovation at the Independent Institute. Hayeon Carol Park is a policy researcher.President Trump to global CEOs and financiers in Davos, Switzerland, last week: America is open for business. Were now a great place for you to make money. Weve slashed taxes and regulations so you can make a bundle here.

Trump to ambitious young immigrants around the world, including those brought here as children: America is closed. We dont want you. Forget that poem affixed to the Statue of Liberty about bringing us your poor yearning to breathe free. Dont even try.

In Trumps America, global capital is welcome, people arent.

Well, I have news for the so-called businessman. America was built by ambitious people from all over the world, not by global capital.

Global capital wants just one thing: A high return on its investment.

Global capital has no obligation to any country or community. If theres another place around the world where taxes are lower and regulations laxer, global capital will move there at the speed of an electronic blip.

Global capital doesnt care how it gets a high return. If it can get it by slashing wages, outsourcing to contract workers, polluting air and water, defrauding investors or destroying communities, it will.

People are different. Once theyve rooted somewhere, they generally stay put. They develop webs of connections and loyalties.

If theyre ambitious  and, lets face it, the one characteristic that almost all immigrants to America have shared for more than two centuries is ambition  they develop skills, educate their kids and contribute to their communities and their nation.

My great-grandfather arrived in America from Ukraine. He was 19 years old and penniless. What brought him here was his ambition. He built a business. He started a family.

Then he invited his brothers and sisters from Ukraine to join him. He put them up in his home and gave them some of his savings to start their own lives as Americans.

You may call it chain migration, Mr. Trump, but we used to call it family reunification. We believed it wasnt just humane to allow members from abroad to join their loved ones here, but also good for America. It made the nation stronger and more prosperous.

By the way, Mr. Trump, global capital doesnt create jobs. Jobs are created when customers want more goods and services. Nobody invests in a business unless he expects consumers to buy what that business will produce. Those consumers include immigrants.

Consumers are also workers. The more productive they are and the better theyre paid, the more goods and services they buy  creating a virtuous circle of higher wages and more jobs.

They become more productive and better paid when they have access to good schools and universities, good health care and well-maintained transportation systems linking them together.

This combination  people rooted in families and communities, supplemented by ambitious young immigrants, all aided by good education and infrastructure  made America the economic powerhouse it is today.

Along the way, regulations proved to be necessary guardrails. We protected the environment, prevented fraud and tried to stop financial entities from gambling away everyones savings, because we came to see that capitalism without such guardrails is a mudslide.

We didnt accomplish what weve achieved by cutting taxes and slashing regulations so global investors could make more money in America, while preventing ambitious immigrants from coming to our shores.

We raised taxes  especially on big corporations and wealthy individuals  to finance good schools, public universities and infrastructure. We regulated business. And we welcomed immigrants and reunited families.

Global capital came our way not because we were a cheap place to do business but because we were a fabulously productive and innovative place to do business.

Now Trump and his rich backers want to undo all this. No one should be surprised. When they look at the economy, they only see money. Theyve made lots of it.

But the real economy is people. America should be open to ambitious people even if theyre dirt-poor, like my great-grandfather. It should also be open to their relations, whose family members here will give them a start.

It should invest in people, as it once did.

America didnt become great by global capital seeking higher returns, but by people from all over the world seeking better lives. And global capital wont make it great again.

 2018 Robert Reich

Robert Reich, former U.S. secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at UC Berkeley. He blogs at www.robertreich.org. To comment, submit your letter to the editor at SFChronicle.com/lettersOn Tuesday night, something odd happened at a debate of gubernatorial candidates in San Francisco: They didnt disagree on anything.

Thats because only the four leading Democrats accepted the invitation from NARAL Pro-Choice California, which held the hour-long forum as a fundraiser for the organization that supports abortion rights. So do the Democrats who showed up before a crowd of 250 people.

None of the top three Republican candidates  Assemblyman Travis Allen, R-Huntington Beach (Orange County), San Diego County businessman John Cox and former Sacramento-area Rep. Doug Ose  attended. Allen and Cox oppose abortion rights. Ose favors them except for some late-term procedures.

Cox didnt attend for the same reason Gavin Newsom wont be at an NRA-hosted debate, said Cox campaign manager Tim Rosales. Cox has been endorsed by the California Pro-Life Council. Allen and Ose said they werent invited.

There was such unanimity among the Democrats that there were at least three jokes about how much better it was to be here than watching President Trump deliver the State of the Union address, which was happening at the same time.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa conceded that all four of us ... would be the strongest defenders of a womans right to choose.

Yet, each agreed that there are battles to be fought. Even though California offers some of the strongest abortion rights protections in the country, according to NARAL state ratings, there is still room to improve, particularly when it comes to access to health care services. Nearly half of California counties dont have a clinic where abortions are performed.

Nationally, abortion rights activists are concerned about changes coming at the federal level, with the GOP controlling Congress and Trump having said he is with the pro-life movement all the way at the March for Life in Washington, D.C., this month.

This week, the Senate voted 51-46 not to advance a Republican measure that would have banned abortion at 20 weeks of pregnancy. But even though the measure failed, antiabortion rights advocates said it was intended to force a tough vote on Democrats up for re-election in red states like Indiana and North Dakota.

So with little to disagree upon over the core issues, the Democrats sought to win style points on who could best defend womens reproductive rights.

If youre looking for timidity, Im not your guy, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom said, pointing to his support for a single-payer health care system that would help provide better services to women. I will have your back.

Villaraigosa sought to cast many reproductive rights issues as economic justice issues, as poor women  particularly poor women of color  often cant afford services. This state cant leave so many people behind, he said. My entire life Ive stood up for those people.

Each of them said they disagreed with Gov. Jerry Browns decision last year to veto a bill that would have banned employers from firing or disciplining a worker for their reproductive health decisions.

I think Jerry was dead wrong about that, said former Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin.

And each of them supports a bill before the Legislature that would allow student health centers at public university campuses to provide abortion pills.

State Treasurer John Chiang said he has long been a leader on reproductive rights issues, like fighting to secure funding to keep clinics open. California needs someone who can also take on Washington, he said.

The question, Chiang said, Is who is best positioned to take on President Trump?

While no Republican attended the forum, one did make news elsewhere. Cox released the first TV ad of the campaign, a 30-second spot called Bacon. It was scheduled to air statewide Tuesday on Fox News before Trumps address to Congress.

Over footage of pigs eating from a trough, it bemoans how special interest lobbyists buy influence and are sticking it to the middle class. Without offering specifics, the ad says Cox has a plan to deal with the corrupting influence of the special interests  then cuts to an image of bacon cooking.

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoliWASHINGTON  Capping a chaotic first year in office that has upended political norms and divided Americans even within his own party, President Trump at his first State of the Union on Tuesday night claimed credit for a booming economy, while calling for a huge new effort to rebuild the nations infrastructure and legalize young immigrants under a plan that has infuriated opponents and allies alike.

Trump promised that providing legal status for 1.8 million young immigrants  well over twice the number currently enrolled in a program protecting them  in exchange for a great wall on the nations southern border and limits on legal immigration would help all struggling communities, especially immigrant communities, by limiting wage pressure on workers.

Years of open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to pour into our most vulnerable communities, and forced millions of low-wage workers to compete for jobs and wages against the poorest Americans, he declared to the joint session of Congress.

As Democrats began to rustle in displeasure, Trump, in a powerful moment, pointed to two weeping couples in the gallery whose daughters had been murdered by six members of the savage MS-13 gang. Many such gang members, he said, had taken advantage of immigration rules to enter the country as illegal unaccompanied alien minors.

Now Playing: In his State of the Union address, President Donald Trump asked the American people to work together as "one American family." He pledged to bring back trust between citizens and government by making a government that works for the citizens. (Jan. 30) Video: Associated Press

As president of the United States, Trump said, my highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, my constant concern is for Americas children, Americas struggling workers, and Americas forgotten communities.

Americans are dreamers too, he said, a pointed reference to young immigrants who arrived in the country illegally as children, dozens of whom were in the audience as guests of Democrats who sat stone-faced.

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., afterward accused Trump of fearmongering by linking gangs and immigration. While Trump called for restrictions on family visas, Democrats strongly oppose any limits.

During an address that lasted an hour and 20 minutes, Trump noted some big victories he has notched during his first year in office, starting with a $1.5 trillion tax cut that slashed taxes for corporations and wealthy individuals. He noted that the bill also doubled the standard deduction for everyone, while eliminating the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act, which he called the core of disastrous Obamacare.

The stock market took an inconvenient dive hours before his speech, but has soared since he took office, smashing, he said, one record after another, gaining $8 trillion.

Trump boasted that the nations unemployment rate is at a 17-year low, and expressed pride in an unemployment rate that, among African Americans, he said, has reached the lowest levels in history.

Taking a page from Democrats, he said Congress should increase government investment in job training, vocational schools and paid family leave.

Notorious for insulting opponents on Twitter, Trump said he was extending an open hand to work with members of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to protect our citizens, of every background, color and creed.

I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve, Trump said.

A record 14 members of Congress, all Democrats, boycotted the speech, including Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland, who said she could not in good faith attend an address by a president whom she believes has launched an all-out assault on our democracy.

Trump addressed a Republican-controlled Congress that has, with few exceptions, rallied around his presidency even at its rockiest moments. Campaigning as a populist, the president has governed by and large as a conservative Republican in line with the antiregulatory, low-tax orthodoxies of his party, even as he rattled some GOP-allied business groups such as the Business Roundtable and U.S. Chamber of Commerce who pushed back on his calls for tougher trade pacts and demanded immediate legalization of the young immigrants.

Yet the presidents unorthodox style and 39 percent approval rating, the lowest of any modern president at this point in his term, have helped create stiff political headwinds for GOP lawmakers going into this years mid-term elections. Still, Trump maintains a loyal following of supporters, and red-state Democratic senators facing re-election have tread lightly with him, while their partys base has lurched into full resistance.

During his address, Trump took credit for eliminating more regulations in our first year than any administration in the history of our country, and, in fact, has shocked environmental organizations by the aggressiveness of his administrations effort to dismantle protections for public lands, pollution controls, public safety and other regulations.

Trump said a big priority will be reducing the price of prescription drugs and called on Congress to allow patients access to experimental drugs. Prices will come down substantially, watch, Trump vowed. He promised to end unfair trade deals, saying the era of economic surrender is over.

Indeed, in asking Congress to approve a $1.5 trillion effort to rebuild the nations roads, bridges and other public infrastructure, Trump, a New York real estate developer, called for stripping down legal constraints on the permitting process. We built the Empire State Building in just one year, Trump said, calling it a disgrace that it can now take 10 years just to get a permit approved for a simple road.

Trump said where appropriate, the effort should include state participation and private-sector investment, leading to a charge by Democrats that Trump wants state and local governments and the private sector to put up the vast majority of the money.

He also claimed he had carried out his promise to extinguish the Islamic State terrorist group known as ISIS whose territorial gains in Iraq and Syria had plagued the Obama administration. Trump declared that the United States and its allies have freed very close to 100 percent of the territory that the group had held.

Trump announced that the prison at Guantanamo Bay would remain open and that he has eliminated artificial timelines in Afghanistan, saying, We no longer tell our enemies our plans, a swipe at the previous administrations announced efforts to withdraw from the nations longest war.

On North Korea, where his past saber-rattling has raised alarms of nuclear war, Trump said North Koreas reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland.

Complacency and concession only invite aggression and provocation, he said. He outlined no further strategy on how to deal with the regime other than vowing not to repeat the mistakes of prior administrations.

Trump faced a sea of Democrats in symbolic protest. Many brought young immigrants as guests. Some wore black  at the suggestion of Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough  to protest sexual harassment before a president who has faced dozens of charges of sexual misconduct.

First lady Melania Trump watched from the gallery, near her guests, including small-business entrepreneurs, MS-13 gang victims and an immigration agent who investigates gangs, and Santa Maria Forest Service technician David Dahlberg who helped rescue 62 children from a wildfire near Santa Barbara.

Rep. Joe Kennedy, D-Mass., the great-nephew of President John F. Kennedy, delivered the formal Democratic response, proclaiming the partys Better Deal agenda of a living wage, paid leave, child care, affordable education and a health care system that offers mercy.

Bullies may land a punch, Kennedy said, but they have never, not once in the history of our United States, managed to match the strength and spirit of a people united in defense of their future.

Carolyn Lochhead is The San Francisco Chronicles Washington correspondent. Email: clochhead@sfchronicle.comSteely whites and light roses arent the only wines appearing in cans these days. You can find everything from Champagne-method Pinot Noir to tannic Petite Sirah. Fuller-bodied red wines might not seem like theyd be fit to pop in the cooler, but delicate examples like the Sans Zinfandel, Alloy Pinot Noir and Antipasto Sangiovese prove otherwise. Keep in mind that 375 milliliters  the size of many of these wine cans  is half the size of a standard 750ml wine bottle.

-E.M.

Companion Riesling Arroyo Seco Zabala Vineyard 2016 (11%, $9/375ml): From Riesling master Ryan Stirm comes this tropical, chuggable wine thats full of guava, honeysuckle and peach flavors, hinting at diesel. So aromatic youll want to pour it into a glass, but resist the urge.

Ferdinand Albarino Lodi Vista Luna Vineyard 2016 (13%, $9/375ml): Winemaker Evan Frazier has proven his talent with Albarino from Markus Bokischs Vista Luna Vineyard in bottles; now he shows how well-suited the wine is to the can. Its racy and quenching, mingling a little bit of funk with a little bit of richness. Pineapple and basil notes lead the palate.

Sans Zinfandel Mendocino County Poor Ranch Vineyards 2016 (14%, $10/375ml): Jake Stover and Gina Schobers Zinfandel is light in color but intense in flavor; it would satisfy a Beaujolais craving. Earthy with garrigue, terra-cotta and brambly blackberry notes and dusty tannins. Look, too, for Sans herbaceous Sauvignon Blanc and gingery rose of Carignan.

Porch Pounder Rose Paso Robles 2016 (13.5%, $6/375ml): Among the more delicate roses in this tasting. Floral, perfumed and crisp, recalling watermelon juice. Like the brands super-tart Central Coast Chardonnay, a perfectly refreshing, easy-drinking option. From Paul Quinn and James Schreiner, also of Pasos Opolo Vineyards.

Scribe Una Lou Rose of Pinot Noir Carneros 2017 (11.5%, $10/375ml): 2017 marks the second vintage of canned rose for Sonomas Scribe Winery. Its pleasant and light, showing nut skin, blanched almond, underripe strawberry, sunshine.

Dos Cabezas Wineworks Sparkling Rose Cimarron Vineyard Arizona NV (12%, $48/1L): Todd and Kelly Bostock are leading Arizona winemakers, and they call their bubbly blend of Grenache, Tempranillo and Riesling methode canpenoise. Like Champagne, the wine undergoes its secondary fermentation in the vessel; unlike Champagne, it isnt riddled or disgorged. The wine is beautiful, showing the nutty, brioche-like elements youd expect from lees contact, with fresh lanolin and red berries. Dos Cabezas also produced an attractive (and, at $20, more attractively priced) can of force-carbonated rose.

Alloy Wine Works Methode Aluminum 2015 (11.9%, $8/500ml): Andrew Jones of Field Recordings has become a canned-wine star, producing new cuvees with astonishing frequency. Like Dos Cabezas, Jones follows a variation on the Champagne method, putting this Pinot Noir through secondary fermentation in the can. The wine, from San Luis Obispos Greengate Ranch, shows fresh red berry and biscuit notes. Not Champagne-precise, but still zippy and refreshing.

Alloy Wine Works Antipasto 2017 (13.1%, $6/375ml): Originally conceived as a one-off experiment, this carbonic Sangiovese will become a permanent fixture of the Alloy canned wine portfolio. It shows typical carbonic-maceration characters of bubblegum and red cherry. Lean and simple, with almost no tannin, it demands a deep chill.

Alloy Wine Works Everyday Rose 2016 (12.5%, $8/500ml): A mainstay of Andrew Jones Alloy canned wine program, the 2016 rose tastes like grapefruit, strawberry candy and jasmine. Its soft and creamy, not searingly acidic. Alloys other consistently produced cans include a very serviceable Pinot Noir, which in 2016 tastes of red cherry, trailed by vanilla; and a Chardonnay from the musque clone, aromatic and floral, landing somewhere between leanness and richness.

Food Guide Top 25 Restaurants Where to eat in the Bay Area. Find spots near you, create a dining wishlist, and more.

Scarpetta Frico Frizzante Italian Sparkling White Wine NV (10%, $3/187ml): Master sommelier Bobby Stuckey and chef Lachlan Mackinnon Patterson met while working at the French Laundry, and together launched Scarpetta, a wine brand that sources its fruit from Italys Friuli region. This carbonated blend of Trebbiano, Glera and Chardonnay is bright with honeydew and lemon, recalling a focused, precise expression of Prosecco.

Mancan Fizz NV (12.5%, $5/375ml): Fisk Biggar and Graham Veysey launched this canned-wine company in their native Cleveland, but source their fruit from California. Mancan takes a novel sales approach: marketing fruity, spritzy white wine to men. This Chardonnay-Viognier blend is creamy and lightly buttery, tasting of sweet pineapple. Mancan also makes a still white blend and a red blend; the fizz is the best. Their first rose will be released soon.

Tangent Rose Edna Valley Paragon Vineyard 2016 (12.9%, $7.99/375ml): The Tangent brand belongs to the Niven Family portfolio, along with wineries like True Myth and Zocker. In addition to this pink blend of Albarino, Viognier, Pinot Noir, Syrah and Grenache, Tangent also cans a Sauvignon Blanc. The rose is a fruity, bright style, fairly extracted, showing tart strawberry and raspberry.

Simpler Wines White Italian Sparkling Wine NV (10%, $1/187ml): The surprise of this tasting was the white frizzante can from Simpler Wines, the Trader Joes house brand. Fairly neutral in flavor, the wine is dry and quite tart, and maintains its carbonation across the palate. Totally drinkable. The Simpler rose and peach cans are not recommended.

Underwood Pinot Gris NV (13%, $7/375ml): From Oregons Union Wine Co., Underwood is perhaps the most widely recognized brand of premium canned wine. Though it certainly represented a big improvement over competitors like Sofia when it launched in 2013, in this tasting its wines came across as incomplete and overprocessed. Better canned wines are available for the same price or cheaper. The Pinot Gris is the best of Underwoods current offerings, suggesting lemon verbena; it tastes off-dry.Jake Diehl rode his scooter to the Benicia waterfront on Sunday with a friend and waded into the water to look for fishing lures and crabs.

Instead, the 11-year-old found a vintage grenade.

When Jake came home, he told his father he rode seven blocks with the grenade before setting it down on the lawn of the historic old state Capitol building on First Street. Bob Diehl, 53, figured his son was wrong and maybe it just looked like an explosive.

All the same, he told Jake to take him the nearly mile-and-a-half route from their house to where he left the grenade. When they got there, Diehl recalled saying, Holy moly, that thing looks like it could be a real grenade.

Then he called the Benicia Police Department, which confirmed: It was a real grenade.

Officers met Diehl and his son to examine Jakes discovery, and luckily the pin was still intact, said police spokeswoman Irma Widjojo.

The ridge lines of the grenade were apparently hard to discern after being worn down by time and the elements.

ALSO Benicia police investigate possible live grenade

Its been in the water long enough for barnacles to cover it, Widjojo said.

Officers cordoned off the area with caution tape, and a bomb squad from Travis Air Force Base was called in to investigate. Businesses were told to lock their doors, and customers were led out of back exits as a precaution.

Within hours, the street was reopened and the bomb was taken to an unspecified firing range to be detonated, police said.

We were kind of in shock, Diehl said. Later on, it kind of sank in a little bit like, Oh my god, this could have been the worst day ever.

The next day he questioned Jake on why he would even bother to pick up a grenade.

I told him hes not playing in the mud down there no more, Diehl said. Hes an adventurous little sucker, so I dont know.

The grenade turned out to be a foreign explosive, according to a spokeswoman from Travis Air Force Base.

But the appearance of such an explosive in Benicia is not that unusual, Widjojo said.

Benicia was an arsenal back in the day, she said. We would get this from time to time. Its not an every week kind of thing, but from time to time we would get calls from people uncovering munition or things of that nature.

For nearly a century, the arsenal in Benicia served as the primary U.S. Army Ordnance facility on the West Coast, said Elizabeth dHuart, executive director of the Benicia Historical Museum.

The nearly 300-acre arsenal reached peak activity during World War II, when it was responsible for manufacturing, repairing, packaging and shipping munitions and weapons, she added.

The arsenal is now known as Benicia Industrial Park  a 2-minute walk from where Jake found the grenade, 54 years after all military operations there ceased.

They didnt get hurt, and hopefully its a good lesson, Diehl said. Now, its just a good story that hell have the rest of his life.

Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavaniButte College in Chico has announced a new program beginning at the school in Fall 2018 allowing first-time, full-time students to go to their community college for free for two semesters.

The new program, called The Butte College Promise Scholarship Program, is being funded by a mix of private and public funds, but was just "jump-started" by a substantial donation from Ken Grossman, the founder of Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, and his wife Katie Gonser. Both Grossman and Gonser, as well as their children, attended Butte.Nothing could keep Christopher Rampoldts feet on the ground.

When an airline told him that he was too old at 34 to be hired as a pilot, Rampoldt became a flight attendant to stay up in the clouds. Later in life he would pilot his own plane.

On Tuesday, Rampoldt, who had been in the air in one way or another for 50 years, was identified as the pilot of the two-seat plane who died Monday in a crash near the Military Ocean Terminal in Concord. He was 69.

Born in Loma Linda (San Bernardino County) in 1948, Rampoldt first took to the air while studying at UC Riverside, said his wife, Vickie Dawes. Rampoldt and a group of friends would tie glider planes to the back of a car, catching the heat thermals over salt flats to get their planes in the air.

Les Goldner, who flew with Rampoldt for 15 years as part of the Liberty Field Flyers club, called him a perfect pilot. Goldner said that he believed the crash was caused by a mechanical breakdown in the plane or a medical issue while Rampoldt was flying.

He was one of the worlds greatest pilots, Goldner said. If he crashed and died, it was no fault of his.

Rampoldt moved to Alaska after school, where he flew bush planes and worked on earning instrument ratings to his pilot license that would qualify him to fly jets for commercial airlines.

With his license in hand, Rampoldt returned to Southern California and applied to be a pilot with Western Airlines. He was undeterred when they rejected him for his age.

So that old man, that 34-year-old, took a job as a flight attendant because he just loved to fly, Dawes said.

The job took Rampoldt all over the world, Dawes said. For a few months in the 1970s, Rampoldt worked for a charter airline in Kano, Nigeria, that ferried people for the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca that Muslims are expected to make at least once in their lifetime.

Dawes and Rampoldt met in Tilden Park in the East Bay during a hike put together by the Sierra Clubs subgroup for singles. The couple settled down in Martinez but shared a love for travel  Dawes said they had just returned from a trip to Vietnam in November.

After he retired from being a flight attendant, Rampoldt liked to take his two-seat plane out on the weekends. Sometimes, Dawes said, shed take the second seat in the plane and he would point out the landmarks in the distance.

He mastered every aspect of flying, she said, from his knowledge of the terrain to bringing the craft gently back to the ground.

No bumps, no bounces in the hundreds of flights they took together, she said.

Annie Ma is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ama@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @anniema15A San Jose park and zoo is mourning the loss of its beloved miniature horses and donkey. The animals were mauled by dogs that broke into the stables of Happy Hollow Park and Zoo this month, officials said.

Cayenne, Luna, Spice Girl, Sweet William and donkey Maybelline were mainstays of the childhoods of many Bay Area residents, who could pet and visit with the gentle creatures in their hay-covered slice of Happy Hollow. The animals ranged in age from 10 to 30. Three were born at the San Jose zoo decades ago.

"This was a tragedy," said Carolina Caramena of San Jose Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services. "They were our only miniature horses; that was our herd."

Caramena said a pack of three dogs dug under two six-inch chainlink fences to reach the communal animal enclosure on the night of Jan. 19. Happy Hollow staff members found the slaughtered equines covered in bite marks the following morning.

A Belgian Malinois mix, a medium-size canine resembling a German Shepherd, was captured at the scene, according to Animal Care and Services spokesperson Julie St. Gregory.

Another Malinois mix was nabbed two days later near the zoo. Animal Care and Services identified the dog from security footage from Happy Hollow, St. Gregory said. The animal had a rope tied around its neck, leading authorities to suspect it has an owner.

Related video: WildCare's craziest rescue stories. Story continues below.

The third canine, a chihuahua, has not been caught but is "not considered a threat" because of its size, according to St. Gregory.

The Malinois will likely be euthanized because they are considered dangerous, although an owner could file an appeal.

"If an owner comes forward and they wanted to try to keep their dog, they would have to go to a 'dangerous dog hearing,'" said St. Gregory. "It would be up to the judge to deem the dog dangerous, vicious or order it to be euthanized."

If no owners come forward, both dogs will be euthanized regardless.

"We can't adopt them out with the knowledge that they did this," St. Gregory said. She added that both animals are "friendly with people," though even the friendliest of canines can become frenzied when in a pack.

Happy Hollow and Animal Services are monitoring the fence line and will continue to patrol the area while permanent solutions are researched. The park and zoo remains open to the public.

In the comments on a Facebook post on the Happy Hollow page, community members expressed their sorrow and condolences. Many called the deaths "heartbreaking." Some shared fond memories of visits with the horses and shared photos.

"I'm so sadden(ed) to hear of this news," said Letty Ramirez Galindo on Facebook. "They really were the sweetest."

Michelle Robertson is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at mrobertson@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @mrobertsonsf.The principal of Palo Alto High School reportedly decided to erase a campus mural painted by graduate James Franco after allegations of sexual misconduct were raised against the actor, writer and director.

The Paly Voice, the high schools student newspaper, reported that workers began painting over Francos mural in the student center Monday at the direction of Principal Kim Diorio. The decision comes on the heels of five women accusing Franco of sexual misconduct and sexually exploitative behavior. Franco has denied these allegations.

The schools most famous graduate still has multiple other paintings being shown on campus, though. Diorio told The Paly Voice she plans to leave them hanging for the time being.

I made the decision well take down the mural on the student center, because I think thats the one thats most visible to the outside community, Diorio told The Paly Voice.

Accusations against Franco have come out as the widespread #MeToo movement calls attention to sexual assault, harassment and misogyny in American culture, regardless of the industry.

Diorio told The Paly Voice that she has been struggling with how to treat Francos campus artwork, as he has not been found guilty of any crimes or indecent behavior.

These are still allegations, Diorio told The Paly Voice. I cant even say it [the decision to replace the mural] is based on fact, because hes denied those allegations and hasnt been charged with a crime.

Diorio, along with the superintendent of Palo Alto Unified School District, did not respond to requests for comment from The Chronicle.

Franco graduated from Palo Alto High School in 1996 and loaned his paintings to the school in 2014. He also taught a weekend film class during the 2015-2016 school year, according to The Paly Voice.

A publicist for Franco did not respond to requests for comment on the murals removal.

Sophie Haigney is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sophie.haigney@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SophieHaigneyA marble statue of Christopher Columbus in San Jose is on the verge of moving into a basement or a closet.

In a vote late Tuesday night, the City Council set a six-week deadline for removing the controversial statue of the Italian explorer and colonizer from the lobby of City Hall, and the city is looking for a new home.For a generation of Americans, Daniel Ellsberg was a household name. The intrepid former defense policy analyst has reemerged in the nations eye on the heels of his new book Doomsday Machine and following the portrayal of the frenzy caused by his release of the Pentagon Papers in Steven Spielbergs The Post.

In Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner (Bloomsbury; $30), the Bay Area resident details his thwarted plans to release another batch of secret documents, these recounting details of our nations nuclear program. The book fuses memoir with sharp analysis to express a timely cautionary tale about the alluring danger of nuclear arsenals.It began almost three decades ago with a container of frozen camel blood in Belgium, took a detour through Morocco and progressed to a stock listing in New York last year. The latest chapter in Ablynxs story: a takeover worth about $4.8 billion.

The biotech company  which agreed this week to a bid from Frances Sanofi, snubbing a lower offer from Danish diabetes-drug maker Novo Nordisk  stemmed from an accidental discovery. A group of students at the Free University of Brussels in the late 1980s needed animal tissue for a project and found a sample of camel blood in the freezer, said Serge Muyldermans, a researcher who helped found Ablynx.

Muyldermans and his colleagues noticed something unusual that sparked their curiosity. The animals immune-system proteins were noticeably simpler and smaller  and therefore able to squeeze into tighter spots  than the human version. Yet as the group zeroed in on the antibodies of camels and llamas, few of their peers took them seriously, Muyldermans recalled.

Instead of going to animals closer to humans, we went to animals further away, said the scientist, who still owns a small number of shares and isnt involved in running Ablynx. In the beginning, people were laughing at us.

Determined to continue their studies, the researchers found a Moroccan university willing to procure a camel, Muyldermans said. When that animal inexplicably disappeared, a lab worker in Belgium who had ties to the North African country began traveling back and forth, bringing samples from an uncles camel, he said.

The persistence paid off when Ablynx engineered a new kind of antibody treatment, called nanobodies. Based on a discovery by Raymond Hamers, then a Free University professor, nanobodies are just one-tenth the size of the human protein. Formed in 2001, the biotech is awaiting approval to release its first product, a treatment for a rare bleeding disorder.

Since October, when Ablynx published results of a late-stage clinical trial, the share price has tripled. The company burst into the limelight this month when Novo went public with its offer, which Ablynx refused. On Monday, the Belgian company agreed to a bid from Sanofi.

Van Herk Investments, the targets top owner with more than 10 percent of the stock, said the nanobody technology deserved more than Novos bid.

The concept is very innovative, Dharminder Chahal, a biotech adviser to Van Herk, said in an interview this month. Its a platform also that has the promise of delivering a whole line of new drugs.

Novo was preparing a sweetened bid, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Meanwhile, Ablynx reached out to other potential suitors including Sanofi, Roche and Merck to gauge interest, the people said.

Ablynx is creating nanobodies for a range of conditions including inflammation, respiratory disorders and cancer. Its lead drug candidate is caplacizumab, developed to treat a rare and life-threatening disorder called acquired thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura. The disease causes clots to form in small vessels that can block blood flow to the brain and heart, according to the U.S. National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

About 7,500 people are struck annually in North America, Europe and Japan, according to Ablynx. Untreated, the condition kills about 90 percent of patients. The current therapy, a form of blood exchange, can reduce the death rate to less than 20 percent.

The recent rise of Ablynxs stock price began when the Belgian company released results in October from a clinical trial called Hercules showing that caplacizumab, when added to standard therapy, was superior to the conventional approach alone, with an overall reduction in deaths related to purpura, recurrences and clots. Novo has said it began bidding for the biotech in early December.

Sanofi ultimately distinguished itself with an interest that went well beyond Ablynxs main treatment, while Novo seemed focused on caplacizumab, Ablynx CEO Edwin Moses said. After meeting with Sanofi at a conference in San Francisco earlier this month, Ablynx delivered a five-hour presentation in Paris last week to CEO Olivier Brandicourt and his team. The final details were hammered out over the weekend, Moses said.

This nanobody platform is in very safe hands with someone who recognizes the wide applicability of the technology, Moses said.

Ablynx has a range of partnerships with companies including Novo, Sanofi, Novartis and Merck, and has opened an office in Philadelphia to lead the roll-out of caplacizumab. The company has filed for approval from the European Union, and said it intends to file in the U.S.

Ablynx fits well within Sanofi, which has already made significant investments in Belgium, and strengthens its platform for expansion in rare blood diseases, Brandicourt said. Sanofi should be able to accelerate development of the biotech companys pipeline, he said.

Ablynx, which went public in 2007 in Brussels, raised $230 million in October in a U.S. share sale.

Muyldermans said before the Sanofi deal was announced that he wouldnt be surprised if Ablynx, born by chance from a Belgian freezer, were sold.

If youre growing, sooner or later you are going to be taken over by a larger company, he said. As long as they pay a good price, its fine.

James Paton is a Bloomberg writer. Email: jpaton4@bloomberg.netHes on fire

Anyone tracking the number of businesses Elon Musk is involved with can add one more to the list: merchandise. Specifically, a flamethrower. His tunneling startup, Boring Co., has started selling the branded weapons online for $500. Thanks to the Tesla billionaires promotional efforts, Boring Co. had taken orders for more than 10,000 flamethrowers by Monday. If youre counting, thats worth at least $5 million. Musk joked online about the weapons usefulness against the undead and changed his Twitter bio to Zombie Defender. Boring Co. says the sales not in jest, though, and plans to sell 20,000 flamethrowers.

Number of the day

$300 million

Thats how much Wag, an on-demand dog-walking service, raised from SoftBank. The startup also has a new CEO, Hilary Schneider, who just sold ID-theft protection service LifeLock to Symantec for $2.3 billion. Before that, she oversaw several dot-com disasters, so if things go awry, she will be in familiar territory.

Ready to rumble

Four years after it unveiled a prototype, Harley-Davidson said Tuesday that it will produce an all-electric motorcycle. If it is anything like its precursor, the new bike will have a 50-mile range and go from 0 to 60 mph in four seconds. Rival electric models can hit 60 mph in less than three seconds. Analysts expect electric sales to grow even though conventional sales have been dropping.

Daily Briefing is compiled from San Francisco Chronicle staff and news services. See more items and links at www.sfgate.com. Twitter: @techchronicleWhile continuing to navigate the fallout of sexual harassment allegations against its founder Jeremy Tooker, Four Barrel recently decided to move its Oakland roastery to San Francisco.

Owners Tal Mor and Jody Geren addressed the decision earlier this week, in a post on the Four Barrel website, saying the process of relocating the equipment  which includes a 1957 Probat thats been with the company for nine years  to the flagship Mission location (375 Valencia St.) will take a few weeks.San Francisco prosecutors and public defenders have agreed to disagree on whether a transient man was trying to remove stolen candy from his pants or playing with his penis in public.

Eugene Childs, 59, was found not guilty Friday of indecent exposure and committing a lewd act in public following an Oct. 4 incident outside of a Walgreens in the Castro neighborhood, according to the public defenders office.

Childs reportedly tried to steal M&Ms, chocolate bars and Skittles, and he managed to avoid the detection of Walgreens employees by stuffing the candy down his shirt. The sweets eventually slipped into his trousers, said Tamara Barak Aparton, a spokeswoman for the public defenders office.

A disabled veteran who uses a wheelchair, Childs then left the store and set up outside a nearby AIDS clinic, where he lay on the ground beside his wheelchair, unzipped his pants and took stock of his candy, Aparton said.

Two employees of the business photographed and videotaped Childs as they asked him to leave, setting off an argument. In a cell phone video, Childs buttocks are briefly visible as he pulls up two pairs of baggy pants while clutching his candy, according to the public defender.

Childs avoided charges for the stolen candy but was accused of indecent exposure and committing a lewd act, as well as battery for spitting on one of the women. The latter was the only charge in which he was convicted.

A spokesperson for the San Francisco district attorneys office, who declined to go on record by name, noted that jurors relied on testimony from a witness who did not have a proper angle to see the alleged lewd act, while another woman testified that Childs masturbated for about a minute.

In a news release titled Man with Sweet Tooth Handling Candy, Not Penis,  the public defenders office celebrated the verdict and accused police of asking witnesses leading questions to arrest Childs on charges that could have required him to register as a sex offender every 30 days because he is homeless.

If you are convicted of something where you have to register as a sex offender, a misdemeanor can essentially turn into a life sentence, Aparton said. Its great the jury looked into all the evidence.

She added, in an interview, We did not employ any kind of chocoholic defense.

Childs was sentenced to six months in jail on the battery conviction. His scheduled release date is March 6.

Jenna Lyons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jlyons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JennaJournoFacing a room full of TV news cameras at the Oakland Marriott on Tuesday at 10 a.m., nine former employees of Oakland chef Charlie Hallowell held a news conference calling on him to divest completely from his restaurants in the wake of allegations of serial sexual harassment.

An hour later, the same TV crews carried their cameras to a law office a half a block away for a news conference by the Hallowell restaurant group  which includes Pizzaiolo, Boot & Shoe Service and Penrose in Oakland  announced the evening before. There, Hallowell lawyer Yasmeen Omidi said the company had just hired a new chief operating officer who would take over all company operations for six months while Hallowell steps away.

In December, The Chronicle reported that 17 women had said Hallowell had been harassing female employees for years.

During the first press conference, the alleged victims stood in a row while three of them took turns speaking.

If you are asking why now its because you are only now listening, said Jessica Moncada, a former Boot & Shoe Service bartender.

Through tears, she added, Please know that this process has been terrifying and invasive and time consuming. There have been attempts to bully and smear us, but we will not be intimidated.

The group prepared their statement with civil rights attorney Mika Hilaire, who said the women made claims of Hallowells repeatedly making sexual advances and inappropriately touching as well as making disgusting and sexually lewd comments about women.

Hilaire added, This type of conduct is not new in the restaurant industry. We are hoping that this case not only helps the current employees at Hallowells restaurants but also helps the restaurant industry as a whole.

Later, at the law offices of Wendel Rosen Black & Dean, Omidi announced that the restaurant companys new chief operating officer, Donna Insalaco, would eventually become part owner, taking over some of Hallowells shares in the company. Insalaco was previously vice president of operations at Rubicon Bakery.

Omidi said that attorney Maureen Bogue had completed a sexual harassment investigation that involved interviews with 55 employees, the results of which would be put into a report in the future. She also said that when Hallowell returns, he will take on a creative capacity at the company rather than a management role.

Charlie has acknowledged that his behavior was hurtful and inappropriate, said Omidi. When asked whether he acknowledged that he had sexually harassed employees, Omidi only repeated that Hallowell acknowledged that he behaved in an inappropriate way.

This is not to diminish any pain that any employee has experienced or felt in this process, Omidi said. But what Charlie is doing is also a difficult process, and I think its one that should be encouraged.

Part of that process, Omidi said, was to take part in restorative justice, a nonpunitive way of seeking reconciliation between victims and those they say have wronged them.

We have no understanding what restorative justice means to Charlie, said Molly Surbridge, who spoke for the group of eight to 10 women that Hilaire represents. We believe that typically the restorative justice process is a lengthy one where counselors work with victims for months before having them confront their harassers. Since we have zero understanding of the process, timeline or who the facilitators would be, we would have to pass.

Tara Duggan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tduggan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @taradugganA San Francisco elementary school teacher who allegedly held a student over the edge of a second-floor balcony on campus was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of child endangerment, officials said.

Andres Tobar, a teacher at Marshall Elementary School on 15th Street in the Mission District, turned himself in to police around 11:30 a.m., police said in a statement.A woman armed with a shotgun called 911 twice Monday and said shed shoot officers if they arrived at her home before a San Jose police officer shot her, authorities said.

Chief Eddie Garcia on Tuesday released additional details on the officer-involved shooting that occurred on the 800 block of Feller Avenue in east San Jose a day earlier.

The suspect, 55-year-old San Jose resident Terese Haddox, suffered non-life-threatening injuries. Upon her release from the hospital, she will be booked into Santa Clara County jail on suspicion of threatening a police officer, brandishing a firearm on a police officer and assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer, Garcia said.

One of Haddoxs neighbors called 911 at 2:53 p.m. to report she told him she had suicidal thoughts and was armed with a gun, Garcia said. Another person called 911 to also report the woman was armed and suicidal.

Three minutes later, Haddox called police and said she would shoot officers if they came to her house. She hung up then called back, this time threatening to commit suicide, Garcia said.

When police arrived outside her home, she raised the shotgun and pointed it at officers, which prompted one officer to fire at her. The bullet injured both of her hands then ricocheted off the shotgun to hit her torso, Garcia said.

Police later found that the shotgun was not loaded, he added.

The name of the officer involved was not released. He is a 19-year veteran of the department and was placed on routine administrative leave, Garcia said.

He said Haddox was going through a very acute mental crisis.

Its one of the most difficult situations we have to handle, Garcia said at a news conference. This is an unfortunate incident not only for the person suffering from mental crisis but for our officers as well placed in these situations time and time again.

The Santa Clara County district attorneys office and the San Jose Police Department are conducting a joint investigation into the shooting.

Jenna Lyons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jlyons@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JennaJourno3 1 of 3 Charlie Riedel/AP Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Al Bello Show More Show Less 3 of 3





The Giants are cornering the market on Blancos, signing outfielder Gregor Blanco to a minor-league deal Monday and doing the same Tuesday with infielder Andres Blanco.

Andres Blanco, 33, signed for $1.1 million, and he can earn another $400,000 in incentives, according to Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports. He has an out in his deal if not on the big-league team by an undisclosed date.The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra came to Davies Symphony Hall this week for two concerts as part of the San Francisco Symphonys Great Performers series. Happily for the audiences, and for the general principle of truth in advertising, they brought their great performers with them.

That would be cellist Gautier Capucon  who filled the hall with a resplendent and stylish account of Haydns C-Major Cello Concerto as the centerpiece of the orchestras first offering, on Sunday, Jan. 28  and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, who followed up the next night with an account of Liszts Second Piano Concerto that was every bit as suave.

Between them, the two Frenchmen provided a tag-team demonstration in how to make music sound both exciting and subtle, both extroverted and thoughtful, and masterful throughout. The orchestra, meanwhile, mostly stood by and helped out around the edges.

Perhaps its not fair to be too hard on the Royal Philharmonic, which is in the throes of some organizational upheaval. It was just last month that disturbing allegations of sexual assault were leveled at conductor Charles Dutoit, the orchestras chief conductor. Dutoit, who had been scheduled to conduct the current tour, resigned abruptly, and Thierry Fischer  the Swiss-born music director of the Utah Symphony  stepped in to lead the San Francisco dates and others.

So lets be generous and assume that the interpretive bluntness and technical unsteadiness that characterized too much of the orchestras playing in works by Debussy, Respighi and Stravinsky were the result of institutional disorientation. Its not easy to get your mind right when charges of bad behavior are flying thick and fast.

But lets also remember that it was just two years ago that the Philharmonic, playing then under Principal Guest Conductor Pinchas Zukerman, came through with an equally undercooked pair of concerts. Clearly there is talent aplenty in this orchestra, and just as clearly it is going to require new leadership and focus to have it playing at full capacity.

In his last-minute assignment, Fischer managed that only in fits and starts. Debussys Petite Suite, in the orchestral version by Henri Busser, made an ingratiating opener for Sundays concert, and on Monday, Respighis Fountains of Rome opened and closed with limpid, fluid orchestral textures (concertmaster Duncan Riddell brought shimmery grace to his solos in the final movement).

But in the two Stravinsky ballets that took up the concerts respective second halves  The Firebird on Sunday, Petrushka on Monday  neither Fischer nor the ensemble consistently capitalized on the opportunities for instrumental display or dramatic vigor. Firebird came off as a flat-footed sequence of directionless episodes, and Petrushka, after a vivacious opening, started to come apart at the seams. The brass in particular jabbed and blared through both works, putting more emphasis on volume than integration.

Fortunately, the concertos served as artistic high points for both concerts. Capucon, who can sometimes let his prodigious energy run away with him, channeled his gifts perfectly in the Haydn, and joined with the orchestras cellists and basses for a luminous encore of Pablo Casals Song of the Birds.

Thibaudets Liszt was equally rewarding, a virtuosic combination of full-bodied showmanship and tender introspection, and the latter trait came to the fore in a gorgeous encore of Liszts Consolation No. 3. The orchestras encores were a movement from Bizets LArlesienne and Chabriers Espana.

Joshua Kosman is The San Francisco Chronicles music critic. Email: jkosman@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JoshuaKosmanNEW YORK  The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention resigned because of financial conflicts of interest, government officials announced Wednesday.

Dr. Brenda Fitzgeralds complex financial investments presented conflicts that made it difficult to do her job, according to a statement from the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC.

Alex Azar, who was sworn in as head of the department Monday, accepted her resignation.

Fitzgeralds investments have imposed a broad recusal limiting her ability to complete all of her duties as CDC Director, HHS spokesman Matt Lloyd said in the statement. Due to the nature of these financial interests, Dr. Fitzgerald could not divest from them in a definitive time period.

Fitzgeralds resignation follows a news report Tuesday that her financial manager bought tobacco and drug stocks after she took the job in July, while selling other stocks that posed a conflict of interest.

She had owned a range of stocks, including holdings in beer and soda companies, the tobacco company Philip Morris International, and a number of health care companies. She said she sold the stocks, but in December U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) wrote Fitzgerald saying she was concerned about unresolved financial holdings.

Government documents showed that Fitzgerald was unable to sell certain long-term investments in companies that could prevent her from talking about cancer and prescription drug monitoring programs, wrote Murray.

The stock trading echoes the behavior of Trumps first Health and Human Services secretary, Tom Price, who was forced to resign last year amid questions about his frequent use of charter aircraft at taxpayer expense. While a congressman, Price also traded extensively in health care companies even as he pushed legislation and took other actions that affected many of those same companies.

It is not clear if Fitzgerald took any official actions that may have affected the value of her stocks.

On Tuesday, Politico reported that a month after becoming CDC director, Fitzgeralds financial manager bought shares in Japan Tobacco and the drug companies Bayer and Merck & Co. Those stocks were later sold, Politico reported.

Fitzgerald could not be reached immediately for comment. Her predecessor, Dr. Tom Frieden, said in a statement that Fitzgerald told him she didnt know about the purchase of the tobacco stocks.

Fitzgerald, 71, was a long-time OB-GYN in the Atlanta area, a former major in the U.S. Air Force, and campaigned twice, unsuccessfully, as a Republican candidate for Congress in the 1990s.

She led Georgias state health department for six years before being tapped for the CDC job by Trump.BALTIMORE  A Democratic state lawmaker from Baltimore has introduced a bill that would prohibit Maryland judges from issuing civil arrest warrants for tenants being sued for less than $5,000 in unpaid rent  a proposal called the Jared Kushner Act.

Delegate Bilal Alis proposed legislation comes five months after the Baltimore Sun reported that the apartment management company owned by Kushner, son-in-law and top adviser to President Trump, was the most aggressive landlord in Maryland in obtaining civil arrest warrants called body attachments against tenants.

Alis bill seeks to curb the controversial debt-collection tactic that other lawmakers failed to limit last year even with the support of Attorney General Brian Frosh. The bill proposes that courts may not issue a body attachment for a tenant who is a defendant in a landlord-tenant action in which the amount of rent claimed does not exceed $5,000, exclusive of interest and costs.

Kushner affiliates had filed at least 1,250 legal actions in the state from 2013 through August last year, The Suns analysis showed. Judges awarded a total of $5.4 million in judgments against tenants who owed an average of $4,400, according to the analysis. That included the original debts, plus lawyers fees, court costs and interest.

Since 2013  the first full year in which the Kushner Cos. Westminster Management began managing 17 apartment complexes in Maryland  corporate entities affiliated with the firm sought the civil arrest of 105 former tenants for failing to appear in court to face allegations of unpaid debt. The company now manages 13 apartment complexes.

At the time, that was more than any other landlord in the state over that time, according to a data analysis of Maryland District Court data showed. Court records show that 20 former Kushner tenants have been detained.

Landlords have said that body attachments are often the only way to get tenants to come to court to answer claims about money they allegedly owe. Kushner Cos. officials have said the New York firm employs the tactic as a last resort, and follows industry standards and state law.

Our local counsel in Maryland handled these matters consistent with other attorneys in similar situations there and in accordance with Maryland law, said Christine Taylor, a spokeswoman for the Kushner Cos.

It is clear that this proposed bill with its proposed name is politically motivated, she added. For a couple of local politicians to sponsor a bill called the Jared Kushner Act when neither Kushner Companies nor Jared Kushner, when he worked at Kushner Companies, had anything to do with these issues is petty.

Kushner was CEO of the Kushner Cos., the parent company of Westminster Management, from 2008 until Jan. 19, 2017, when he stepped down to join the Trump administration. He retains ownership of the firm.

Tenants are not arrested for owing money, but for missing at least two court hearings about the alleged arrears, landlords say. Judges approve body attachments to compel tenants to show up at civil proceedings. When a landlord wins a judgment against a tenant, he or she may ask the judge to order the tenant to appear in court to answer questions about assets and employment to determine garnishments.

Critics say the practice amounts to jailing people for being poor  and can interfere with their livelihoods, making it more difficult to pay the money they allegedly owe. Moreover, at least some tenants who have been targeted say they did not receive proper notice of the court appearances they were accused of missing.

Doug Donovan is a Baltimore Sun writer.State residents have filed 45,000 insurance claims to recoup close to $12 billion in losses from the wildfires in Northern and Southern California in October and December, state Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones said Wednesday.

The claims illustrate the extent of the devastation in what are the costliest fires in state history, Jones said.

Whole neighborhoods were wiped out, as wind-driven flames destroyed thousands of homes, upended tens of thousands of residents lives and tragically killed more than 45 people across the state, Jones said.

The claims reflect the loss of more than 32,000 homes, 4,300 businesses, and 8,200 cars and trucks, watercraft, farm vehicles and other equipment, Jones said.

The claims include those from the Wine Country fires in October as well as the Los Angeles and Santa Barbara county fires in December.

From the October fires, there are nearly 30,000 claims for a total value of $10 billion. In Southern California, the December fires have resulted in 13,300 claims totaling nearly $1.8 billion.

The number does not include losses from the Jan. 6 Montecito mudslide, in which at least 21 people died. The claims process for that disaster is still in early stages, Jones said.

Jones said the state is asking insurers to waive requirements that disaster claimants submit a detailed home inventory to recoup their losses. The requirements force victims to relive the emotionally grueling loss of their most cherished possessions, he said.

Jill Tucker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jtucker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jilltuckerYour dream of restoring a crumbling stone home in a postcard-worthy Italian village might be possible.

The town of Ollolai, tucked in the mountains on the island of Sardinia off Italy's southwest coast, is selling homes for $1.San Francisco will retroactively apply Californias marijuana-legalization laws to past criminal cases, District Attorney George Gascon said Wednesday  expunging or reducing misdemeanor and felony convictions going back decades.

The unprecedented move will affect thousands of people whose marijuana convictions brand them with criminal histories that can hurt chances of finding jobs and obtaining some government benefits.

Proposition 64, which state voters passed in November 2016, legalized the recreational use of marijuana in California for those 21 and older and permitted the possession up to 1 ounce of cannabis. The legislation also allows those with past marijuana convictions that would have been lesser crimes  or no crime at all  under Prop. 64 to petition a court to recall or dismiss their cases.

Rather than leaving it up to individuals to petition the courts  which is time-consuming and can cost hundreds of dollars in attorney fees  Gascon said San Francisco prosecutors will review and wipe out convictions en masse.

The district attorney said his office will dismiss and seal more than 3,000 misdemeanor marijuana convictions in San Francisco dating back to 1975. Prosecutors will also review and, if necessary, re-sentence 4,940 felony marijuana cases, Gascon said.

Instead of waiting for people to petition  for the community to come out  we have decided that we will do so ourselves, Gascon said. We believe it is the right thing to do. We believe it is the just thing to do.

He made the announcement at a news conference at which he was joined by city Supervisors Malia Cohen and Jeff Sheehy, along with Nicole Elliot, director of the citys Office of Cannabis, Laura Thomas of the Drug Policy Alliance reform group, and the Rev. Amos Brown, president of the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP.

Advocates for poor and minority communities have long complained that marijuana laws are applied disproportionately to the impoverished and people of color. A 2013 study by the American Civil Liberties Union found that African Americans were more than twice as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession as whites, despite similar levels of use.

In San Francisco, African Americans were four times as likely as whites to be arrested for possession, the study found. A marijuana conviction can affect whether a person qualifies for federally subsidized housing, student loans and disability insurance.

This is a giant step for justice, Brown said Wednesday. And it is a step toward setting black people free to live in the community, to have jobs, to have health care, to have a decent education, and we just need to keep this good thing a-rollin.

According to the Drug Policy Alliance, nearly 5,000 people statewide have petitioned courts to have their marijuana convictions expunged since Prop. 64 took effect. In San Francisco, however, fewer than two dozen people have done so, Gascon said.

His office is believed to be the first in the state to move to clear old marijuana convictions, Gascon said. Most of the work will be done outside of courtrooms, and those affected wont be required to show up for court.

Misdemeanor clearances will begin immediately, but felony cases will take a little more time, Gascon said.

Those who were convicted of felony marijuana counts that were tied to other offenses may not be eligible to have their cases expunged under Prop. 64. Gascon said he will have a limited number of attorneys and paralegals going over such cases at first, but may assign more depending on the workload.

Its evolving, he said. It will be a lot of clerical work, and we will evaluate as we start reviewing felonies.

Prosecutors will also have to coordinate with the state attorney generals office to make sure cases are updated in the state system.

Gascon said he hopes his undertaking will prompt other jurisdictions to follow suit.

Were hoping what we are doing here will not only benefit San Francisco, he said. Were hoping other elected officials around the state will say this is the right thing to do.

On Jan. 9, Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Alameda, introduced a bill that would make it easier for many people statewide to have marijuana convictions expunged. The legislation, AB1793, would allow automatic expungement or reduction of a prior cannabis conviction.

However, the number of such convictions throughout California over the years runs into the millions. Opponents of the bill have said ordering courts to expunge them on a broad scale could cost millions of dollars.

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffskyAt some point this year, Waymo plans to roll out a ride-hailing service using driverless cars. It just bought more vehicles to make that happen.

The car unit of Google parent Alphabet has made a deal to purchase thousands more minivans from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles equipped for autonomous driving, the companies said. Its the third such deal between the Italian American carmaker and the search giant: Waymo scored 100 Chrysler hybrid minivans in 2016 and another 500 last year.OAKLAND (BCN)

Two Southern California men whose lawyers told jurors that they were completely innocent have pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter for the shooting death of a man in a home invasion robbery in East Oakland in December 2014, prosecutors said.

The pleas by Ruben Anthony Cortez, 42, and Brian Martinez, 36, both of San Bernardino, on Monday call for them to be sentenced to 11 years in state prison when they're sentenced on Feb. 28.

Their plea agreement came about three months after a mistrial was declared in their case on Oct. 31 when jurors said they were deadlocked 9-3 in favor of acquitting them following three days of deliberations.

Alameda County prosecutor Peter McGuiness alleged in his opening statement in the lengthy and contentious trial for Cortez and Martinez that they participated in the fatal shooting of 39-year-old Michael Owens inside his home in the 1000 block of 92nd Avenue on Dec. 14, 2014, during a marijuana deal that went wrong.

McGuiness said Owens and his partner, 49-year-old Kevin Lamar White, had done business with Cortez and Martinez before but on this occasion Cortez and Martinez, along with a third man only identified as "Michael" who has never been arrested, decided to take their money instead of selling them marijuana as planned.

McGuiness said the man known as Michael told Owens "just be cool or you'll get one to the head" and Owens was shot three times after he cursed at Cortez, Martinez and Michael.

The prosecutor said it isn't clear who fired the shots that killed Owens but he said all three suspects are guilty of felony murder because all three were armed with guns and participated in the robbery, in which $14,000 in cash was taken.

But Cortez's lawyer Annie Beles told jurors, "This case is about Kevin White and his statements to authorities and their believability and the lack thereof."

Beles said White's statement to police that the suspects put duct tape over his mouth and eyes and secured his hands in zip ties is "a little unusual" because she finds it hard to believe White's claim that after the suspects fled Owens' house with the cash, he was able to quickly free himself in a few seconds "like the Incredible Hulk or Superman."

In addition, Beles said it strains credulity to believe White's statement that the suspects rifled through Owens' house but left an additional $25,000 in cash behind as well as several other guns that had been stashed there.

Martinez's lawyer Jeff Chorney alleged that White made up a story about what happened because "he's afraid of being blamed or prosecuted" for Owens' death.

Chorney admitted that Martinez, Cortez and the third suspect were planning to do a marijuana deal with Owens and White but he alleged that Owens and White had a separate arrangement to buy or sell cocaine from a different group of people that same day and that Owens was killed during that deal.

"At the cocaine meeting, someone shot and killed Michael Owens," Chorney said.

Martinez and Cortez weren't present when Owens was fatally shot at his home, Chorney said.

Martinez has a prior conviction for assault with a deadly weapon and domestic violence in Riverside County in 2010, according to prosecutors.

Beles and Chorney didn't respond to requests for comment on the plea agreement.

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Annie Beles, Cortez's lawyer (510) 836-0100

Jeff Chorney, Martinez's lawyer (510) 272-6600Two suspects disguised as clean-up workers were arrested Monday on suspicion of stealing metal from a residential lot in the Mark West Springs burn area of Sonoma County, according to the county sheriff's office.

Deputies arrested Verda Rosa, 47, of San Francisco, and Allyn Sullivan, 57, of Forestville. Both were booked into Sonoma County Jail on suspicion of felony grand theft and conspiracy.OAKLAND (BCN)

Three Nevada residents have been sentenced in federal court in Oakland to terms ranging from home confinement to three and one-half years in prison for their roles in running guns from Reno to Oakland.

Richard Straight, 27, of Reno, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam on Monday to three years and six months in prison.

Straight pleaded guilty in September to one count of dealing in guns without a license and one count of aiding interstate travel to promote illegal gun trafficking.

His wife, Jenna Allec, 26, of Reno, who pleaded guilty to one count of selling guns without a license, was sentenced to two years of home confinement and ordered to perform 200 hours of community service.

Straight's half-brother, Kenneth Kemp, 32, of Elko, who pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to sell guns without a license, was sentenced to one year and two months in prison.

Prosecutors said in a sentencing brief that Allec and Kemp bought guns in Nevada which they then transferred to Straight, who acted as a middleman to resell the guns to two Oakland men who were allegedly the central figures in the scheme. Straight had a previous felony conviction and it was illegal for him to buy guns.

One of the Oakland residents, Edgar de la Cruz, 20, pleaded guilty to four charges in August and was sentenced by Gilliam in November to 10 years in prison.

De la Cruz's four convictions were for robbing an Oakland gas station in 2015, using a gun to do so, conspiring to traffic in firearms without a license, and traveling interstate to promote illegal firearms trafficking.

The other Oakland man, Andre Winn, 32, is awaiting trial.

Prosecutors allege the two men traveled to Nevada to pick up the guns and brought them to Oakland in duffel bags on Greyhound bus trips, on which they would not have security inspections. The men allegedly sold the guns in Oakland for money or drugs.

U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman Abraham Simmons said Straight admitted in his plea agreement to being responsible for the sale of about 39 guns and rifles for a profit of $50 to $100 per firearm. Kemp admitted to trafficking in 21 guns and Allec to 19.

Prosecutors said 10 of the guns have been recovered and most were seized during investigations of robbery, drug dealing and murder.

"These guns help perpetuate violent crime and drug trafficking," prosecutors wrote in their brief.

"The damage that this organization has caused to the community will only be fully realized in the years to come as law enforcement continues to recover the guns and link them to criminals and completed crimes," the federal prosecutors alleged.

Both prosecution and defense lawyers recommended that Allec should be sentenced to home confinement with conditions that would allow her to continue working at her job and caring for her young son.

436-7264

Jessica Nall, attorney for Straight (415) 954-4400

Brian Berson, attorney for Allec (415) 788-2707The California Highway Patrol has identified a driver who was arrested after a fatal head-on collision with a big-rig Monday afternoon in Marshall as Lucas McFadden, 23, a resident of Petaluma or Tomales.

The collision killed Ricardo De Santiago, 18, of Marshall, a passenger in McFadden's Honda Prelude.

McFadden suffered major injuries and was flown to a hospital. He was allegedly impaired at the time of the collision and was arrested at the hospital on suspicion of DUI, CHP Officer Andrew Barclay said.

The collision was reported at 4:38 p.m. in the area of 18863 Shoreline Highway. The Prelude collided with a northbound Peterbilt dump truck-trailer that was towing a small excavator, Barclay said.

McFadden allowed the Honda to drift off the right side of the road on a left curve, Barclay said. He then tried to turn back into the lane and crossed the center of the road into the path of the big-rig, Barclay said.

De Santiago was extricated from the vehicle at the scene and was pronounced dead by Marin County sheriff's deputies around 5 p.m.

The 54-year-old driver of the big-rig was not impaired or injured, Barclay said.

The collision closed Shoreline Highway until around 9:30 p.m.

De Santiago's Facebook page indicated that he went to Tomales High School. A GoFundMe page set up Tuesday on behalf of his family had already raised more than $20,400 as of this morning for funeral expenses and other costs.

The page can be found at https://www.gofundme.com/ricardo-de-santiago-memorial-fund.

924-1100

Marin County Chief Deputy Coroner Roger Fielding (415) 473-6043SAN JOSE (BCN)

The San Jose City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved the creation of a heavily debated advisory board that will provide input on the proposed Google development near the Diridon Station.

San Jose's local community organizations, faith leaders and residents spoke against the Station Area Advisory Group proposed to regulate terms between the corporation and the city described by the San Jose's City Manager's Office.

Despite the speakers' efforts, the Council decided to approve the group, which will consist of more than 30 organizations to start moving along the development.

Deputy city manager Kim Walesh and the city manager's office chief of staff Lee Wilcox discussed the community engagement plan for the proposed development, for which a resolution was adopted on June 20, 2017.

The city manager's office executed an exclusive negotiation agreement in order to begin a planning process estimated to take three to four years.

Walesh and Wilcox said that the first phase of the development process is to have the city, as well as Santa Clara County, engaged with appraisers and Google to determine a fair purchase price for the public land parcels that the city will sell to Google.

The city manager's office proposed a community engagement plan including the advisory group, citywide public forums and regional meetings and online information and engagement.

The advisory group will be made up of representatives of local organizations like the North Willow Glen Neighborhood Association and corporate interests like Adobe Systems.

Dozens of members of the community came to specifically protest the organizations listed in the group, especially the ones that they felt were missing.

Members of groups like People Acting in Community Together spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting on how they felt that the advisory group did not reflect what the community looked like, but rather only the interests of organizations with Google ties.

Nearly all of these speakers opposing the advisory group said they supported the opposing memorandums of Councilmember Sergio Jimenez and the organization Silicon Valley Rising.

Jimenez's memorandum offered the options of either seating agency staff in the group as non-voting members who provide technical assistance to voting stakeholders or removing the agency staff from the roster altogether and seating them in a new separate committee.

Jimenez named Santa Clara County, Caltrain, the California High Speed Rail Authority, Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, the Santa Clara County Water District and the San Jose Unified School District as the agencies to include.

Jimenez suggested that The Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, PACT, Friends of Caltrain, TransForm, Sierra Club and Silicon Valley Minority Business Consortium be appointed in the place of those agencies if that option was indeed selected.

Silicon Valley Rising, in partnership with the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, PACT and Sacred Heart Community Center, submitted a letter from the public that called on the City Council to review the backgrounds of proposed members for conflict of interest and remove organizations that work for or lobby for Google.

The letter alleges that the proposed advisory board had industry associations paid to lobby on behalf of Google, organizations where Google staff serve on the board of directors, organizations where employees of industry associations paid to lobby on behalf of Google serve on the board of directors and organizations where Google has significant financial ties.

"Allowing Google membership to an advisory group advising the city on its negotiations with Google is preposterous and a direct conflict of interest," the letter says.

Ultimately, the coalition of nonprofits called for further amendments to include tenants who would be impacted by rising rents and evictions as a result of the deal, community members from areas at greatest risk of displacement and gentrification, a resident to represent the homeless or those at risk to become homeless, and a better scope of racial and ethnic diversity that echoes that of the community.

The organizations also requested that the Council consider impact on small businesses and environmental impacts to the surrounding area.

Sandy Perry, a representative of the Affordable Housing Network of Santa Clara County, echoed the sentiments of the public letter, saying the group should contain more voices of those who are underserved.

"There's an old saying that goes, 'if you're not at the table, you're on the menu,'" Perry said.

Public comment on the item went on for nearly three hours.

The City Council did vote to add several groups that residents and community organizations felt would exhibit the voices of religious groups and people of color missing from the advisory group, such as PACT and the Silicon Valley Minority Business Consortium.SAN JOSE (BCN)

The San Jose City Council on Tuesday decided on a six-week deadline to remove the 9-foot-tall statue of Christopher Columbus in City Hall and find a new location for it.

The statue has been subjected to security issues since 2001 when a member of the public entered the building and proceeded to vandalize the 2,000-pound marble statue with a sledgehammer, city officials said.

After that vandalism shattered portions of the statue's legs, right arm, left hand and torso, another member of the public entered the City Hall lobby and smeared red and black ink on the front side of the statue on Sept. 21, 2017.

A curtain was installed behind the statue on Oct. 5 in an effort to block the exterior window view of the statue and minimize potential acts of vandalism to the statue or the building's infrastructure, city officials said.

On Oct. 12, a handful of protesters entered City Hall and confronted visitors and city staff with their opposition to the statue. Security staff and police dispersed the protesters.

Councilmember Raul Peralez recommended in a September memo that the statue be moved "to a more appropriate location, with input from the community."

The Council's rules committee accepted Peralez's memo with direction for the item to return to the committee in November, following a San Jose State University forum in October at which the speakers all favored removing the statue from City Hall, city officials said.

In late November, San Jose public works officials said in a memo that complexities and sensitivities surrounding relocation options, as well as the upcoming holidays, would delay further action on the issue until this month.

The public works memo provided to the City Council at Tuesday's meeting listed four proposed new locations.

The first option that the Council considered was storing the statue at the History San Jose Collection Center located at the city's Central Service Yard and then donating and relocating the statue when an accepted recipient is identified.

City officials said the statue would be protected from further vandalism, but acknowledged it could likely be in storage for a long time, possibly years.

The second option is to relocate the statue to the Mineta San Jose International Airport at Terminal A beyond the security checkpoint.

City officials said that location would be heavily secured and would highlight the exploration of Columbus, but it would also be in a public place where some visitors may have a negative reaction to it, similar to the reaction at its current location in City Hall.

The third location proposed for the relocation was the Bank of Italy at History Park on the south end of Kelley Park.

City officials said the statue would be in a locked and "somewhat secured location" in an Italian-themed facility.

However, they said this location comes with the most negatives since History Park can be easily broken into during non-operational hours because of the secluded location, large perimeter and adjacent location to Coyote Creek, city officials said.

The Bank of Italy building is also not routinely open to the public, and the executive director of History San Jose, which oversees the park, does not want the statue displayed at the Bank of Italy because it does not fit in with "the historic nature of the bank," city officials said.

Vice Mayor Magdalena Carrasco wrote a memo in support for this option, noting that both the San Jose City Hall and the international airport serve as places to welcome travelers.

"I do not believe we should welcome our family, friends, and strangers with a statue of a man who lost his way and never stepped foot on our soil," Carrasco said in the memo.

Carrasco did note the contributions Italian-Americans have made to San Jose and how San Jose continues to try to honor those accomplishments. Therefore, she thinks that moving the statue to the Little Italy area would be most fitting.

The final option proposed was keeping the statue in its current location, with the acknowledgement of continued security concerns and community protests resulting in permanent damage to the statue and distraction from official city business.

All options but the last require at least $12,000 of funding to crate, transport, store, dismantle or reassemble the statue, public works officials said.

The City Council voted to eliminate the last option, meaning that the $12,000 will be spent.

Mayor Sam Liccardo advised the Council to connect with the Italian-American community about the statue's new home. However, if no compromise is found, the statue will be put in storage.

The city was originally given the statue on Oct. 12, 1958, by the San Jose Civic Club and the Italo-American Societies of San Jose. The Milani Marble Company commissioned the statue in Italy. It originally sat in the old City Hall but was moved to the current location after construction was finished.SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)

San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon today said that his office has begun working to expunge the records of people convicted of marijuana-related offenses.

Around 3,038 misdemeanor convictions dating back to 1975 will be dismissed and sealed automatically, Gascon said.

An additional 4,940 felony marijuana convictions will be reviewed to determine if they qualify for possible reduction and resentencing.

Proposition 64, the 2016 state ballot measure that legalized the possession of recreational marijuana for adults 21 and older, includes a provision allowing people with past marijuana convictions to petition the court for reduction or dismissal of old convictions.

However, that process can be expensive and time-consuming, requiring a lawyer and court hearings. The process launched in San Francisco will not require any action on the part of those who are eligible.

Gascon said he hopes that other district attorneys will follow his lead and take the initiative to review and dismiss or reduce past convictions. While state legislation that would require such action is currently being developed, Gascon said there was no need to wait.

"A criminal conviction can be a barrier to employment, housing and other benefits, so instead of waiting for the community to take action, we're taking action for the community," Gascon said. "We believe that it's the right thing to do and the just thing to do."

Enforcement of cannabis laws has had a disproportionate impact on black and Latino communities over the years. In San Francisco, black people have typically made up 40 to 50 percent of all cannabis arrests since 2000, according to city figures.

Supervisor Malia Cohen said the effort to expunge convictions was a case of San Francisco living up to its progressive values, and went hand in hand with efforts to ensure that those with marijuana-related convictions would be able to work in the city's budding cannabis industry.

"There are thousands of cases that are going to be dismissed at no cost," Cohen said. "That means those people who have been most affected by the war on drugs get a little bit of a break," Cohen said.

California law enforcement made an estimated 2.75 million cannabis arrests between 1915 and 2016. However, only 4,885 people statewide have petitioned courts to have their convictions expunged since Prop 64 was passed.OAKLAND (BCN)

A defense lawyer admitted today that a man who was 17 at the time fatally shot his 16-year-old friend in East Oakland in 2012 but said the shooting was an accident and he shouldn't be convicted of murder.

In her opening statement in the trial of Kejuan Hill, who's now 23, for the fatal shooting of Charles Hill III of Hayward, defense attorney Christina Moore said Kejuan is "responsible for the death" of Charles, who wasn't related to him.

The shooting occurred in the 2500 block of Church Street, near the Eastmont Town Center, shortly after 10 p.m. on March 23, 2012.

Moore said the shooting "was a tragic death that was not planned and was not intentional."

Instead, Moore said, the shooting was "a dumb joke, a prank by a teenager who was known to play around too much."

The defense attorney said Kejuan Hill was at a party that night but left with a small group of friends, which didn't include Charles Hill, after they heard that there would be a shooting at the party.

Two of Kejuan Hill's friends got into an argument because one of the friends was armed with what appeared to be a non-functioning gun and the other friend said that was stupid because it would leave them defenseless if there was a shooting, Moore said.

She said one of the friends gave the supposedly non-functioning gun to Hill, who she said believed it was "incapable of firing" because it felt light, as if it didn't have any bullets in it.

Moore said Hill decided to "walk up to his friends and play a prank" and jokingly asked Charles Hill if he had been talking about him.

Moore said, "Charles thought it was a prank," told Kejuan Hill to "stop playing" and didn't even look up while he was rolling a joint of marijuana.

She said Kejuan Hill then pulled the gun out and it suddenly discharged and struck Charles Hill, killing him almost immediately.

Kejuan Hill didn't go to the police after the shooting because "he grew up in East Oakland, where distrust of the police is part of life," Moore said.

She said that at the urging of his parents, Hill fled to Kansas City, Missouri, where he got a job at a Denny's restaurant using his brother's name.

Acting on a tip, a U.S. Marshals Service-Kansas City Police Task Force arrested Hill at the Denny's on Oct. 26, 2015, three-and-a-half years after the fatal shooting.

The Alameda County District Attorney's Office is prosecuting Kejuan Hill as an adult even though he was only 17 at the time of the fatal shooting.

Prosecutor Patrick Moriarty told jurors that he thinks the shooting was intentional and they should convict him of murder.

But Moore said they should only convict him of the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter.

272-6213

Defense attorney Christina Moore (510) 272-6600OAKLAND (BCN)

Nine women who formerly worked for Oakland restaurant group owner Charlie Hallowell accused him of workplace sexual harassment today and called on him to divest from the group.

Los Angeles attorney Mika Hilaire, who represents the women, said at a news conference at a downtown Oakland hotel that she doesn't plan to file a lawsuit against Hallowell at this time but that if the restaurant group doesn't meet the women's demands they will meet to discuss their next steps.

Hallowell, 44, stepped aside from the day-to-day operations at his restaurant group after a group of women who worked at Boot & Shoe Service, Pizzaiolo or Penrose accused him of sexual misconduct and sexual harassment.

But Hilaire said, "We demand divestment of ownership (by Hallowell). A 6- or 12-month leave won't do."

Hilaire said the nine women who participated in the news conference want "the implementation of policies that have teeth" and counseling for what she described as "harassment, battery and intimidation."

At a separate news conference at a law office a block away, Yasmeen Omidi, an attorney who represents Hallowell, said his restaurant group decided that he should take an unpaid leave of absence for at least six months.

Omidi said Hallowell, who didn't attend the news conference, has acknowledged that his behavior has been inappropriate and said he's "taking responsibility for any complaints."

She said Hallowell "had a blind spot and he's working on it."

Omidi said that during Hallowell's leave of absence he's been "giving employees space to deal with what happened."

Omidi said outside attorney Maureen Bogue has just completed an investigation in which 55 of the 150 employees at Hallowell's restaurants were interviewed. She said the results of that investigation will help the restaurant group develop policies to improve its treatment of its employees in the future.

Omidi also said the restaurant group has hired a new female chief operating officer, Donna Insalaco, who will take control of the three eateries.

She said Hallowell will give up part of his stake in the company to Insalaco.

Omidi said that if Hallowell does return to work, he won't serve as a manager but instead will only work in "a creative capacity."

Insalaco is a chef and consultant whose firm advises restaurant management on operational, menu, and financial issues.

She's based in Oakland and most recently was vice president of operations at Rubicon Baking Company in Emeryville.

Sydni Skorich, a former server at Boot & Shoe who spoke at the former employees' news conference, said that in order to survive at Hallowell's restaurants female employees had to avoid him.

Skorich said, "We escaped into other rooms when he entered the restaurant, warned new female hires about his handsy ways and confided in each other."

Former Boot & Shoe bartender Jessica Moncada said the process of bringing allegations against Hallowell "has been terrifying, invasive and time-consuming."

Molly Surbridge, another former employee, said female employees suffered "inequality and oppression."

Surbridge said, "We have a right to fair treatment."

290-7240

Mika Hilaire, attorney for female employees (213) 330-4260SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)

A teacher suspected of dangling a student from a second-floor balcony at a Mission District elementary school turned himself in this morning, according to San Francisco police.

Andres Tobar, 47, of South San Francisco surrendered around 11:35 a.m. and was booked into jail on an arrest warrant for felony child endangerment/abuse.

Tobar works for the San Francisco Unified School District as a teacher for Marshall Elementary at 1575 15th Street.

"Tobar was seen cradling a student and holding the student over the balcony on the second floor," Gentle Blythe, a spokeswoman for the district, said today in a statement.

Tobar has been placed on administrative leave while the district investigates the allegations.

Investigators are asking anyone who believes Tobar may have victimized them or anyone who had suspicious contact with him, to call the special victim's unit at (415) 558-5500.A man who pleaded no contest to charges that he stabbed someone in East Palo Alto over a batch of fake heroin last year was sentenced Monday to four years in prison, according to San Mateo County prosecutors.

John Epperson, a 60-year-old man described as a transient, allegedly drove to East Palo Alto with his girlfriend and her adult son Zachary Padgett to buy heroin May 9.

The group found a dealer near the Eastside Market on Clarke Avenue and bought $20 worth of what prosecutors called "alleged heroin."

They discovered the substance was not heroin after leaving the scene and returned later to confront the dealer.

During the subsequent encounter, Epperson stabbed the dealer in the abdomen twice. The victim fought back, pulled out his own knife and cut Epperson's hand. The exchange was captured on video by a nearby surveillance camera.

The victim was transported to a hospital with his intestines protruding from his torso, but was listed in stable condition after a surgery to repair the wound, prosecutors said.

The suspects were apprehended three hours later when they returned to the area to buy more heroin, and Epperson was allegedly found to be in possession of the bloody knife.

Prosecutors initially charged Epperson with attempted murder, but he pleaded no contest to felony assault with a deadly weapon with special enhancements and admitted to a prior felony strike in exchange for a maximum sentence of four years in prison.

He remains in custody on $10 million bail, with 305 days credit for time served.

His co-defendant Padgett pleaded no contest to felony assault with a deadly weapon charge on Oct. 6 and was sentenced to one year in jail with 341 days credit for time served. He was also sentenced to three years of probation.

San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said that homicides over the sale of "bunk dope" in East Palo Alto were a major challenge for law enforcement in the 1990s, and this case is an indicator of how the city has changed over the years.

"I'm pleased to say what we had here wasn't a murder," Wagstaffe said. "And this is now a rare occurrence."

Defense attorney John May could not immediately be reached for comment on his client's behalf.

363-4752

Defense attorney John May (650) 827-9992A "super blue" total lunar eclipse will be viewable to residents of the Bay Area early Wednesday morning and is exciting NASA researchers, a retired professor and a NASA scientist said.

A partial eclipse will begin at 3:48 a.m. Pacific time and will become a total eclipse at 4:52 a.m., according to Andrew Fraknoi, a retired Foothill College astronomy professor.

The "super" in "super blue" means that the moon during its earthly orbit is closest to the earth while "blue" means it's the second full moon of the month.

The moon will take on a reddish tint during the eclipse, prompting some to call it a "blood" moon.

Fraknoi said that an eclipse occurring during a super blue moon is "pretty unusual."

The U.S. has not seen a blue moon eclipse in 152 years, he said. Another will occur in 2028.

Fraknoi emphasized that it's important for residents and visitors planning to watch the eclipse to find a place where it's not foggy and the western horizon is visible.

National Weather Service meteorologist Steve Anderson said it's expected to be clear in the morning across most of the Bay Area except in San Francisco, in the North Bay valleys and on the coast.

NASA scientists are excited about the eclipse because as the moon gets covered in the earth's shadow, the temperature on the surface of the moon will change, allowing them to gauge how hard or soft the surface is at places no one has been before.

"That's the main thing we're going after," NASA planetary scientist Rick Elphic said.

Scientists are able to judge the hardness of surface material, whether in the American desert or on the moon, because materials with different hardness cool at different speeds.

Scientists will evaluate the hardness of material on the moon's surface from observatories on the earth and with reconnaissance spacecraft.

Elphic called the work "great science" and "interesting science" and also engineering because it will help scientists know, for example, where to land a NASA spacecraft.

The agency has a lunar mission planned for 2022 or 2023 to prospect for resources at the moon's poles.

Elphic said no one has been to the poles.

"It may be fluffier there," he said, adding that a lot of places especially at the poles haven't seen the sun in at least 2 billion years.

Fraknoi said unlike a solar eclipse, a lunar eclipse can be seen with the naked eye.

Bay Area residents and visitors can watch the eclipse from the flight deck of the USS Hornet Sea, Air and Space Museum docked off the coast of Alameda.

Museum visitors ages 6 and up can stay overnight on the aircraft carrier and get up to view the eclipse or visitors can arrive in the early morning hours to view it.

Overnight visitors should arrive between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Others should arrive between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m.

The cost to stay overnight is $35 and reservations should be made as soon as possible.

The cost to simply view the eclipse at the USS Hornet is $15. Museum officials will have 10 telescopes on deck for visitors. Visitors can bring their own equipment too.

People who choose to sleep on the USS will hear an announcement over the public address system at 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. to wake them up.

604-2457

USS Hornet Sea, Air and Space Museum spokeswoman Rainie Lao (510) 521-8448, ext. 234SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)

Newly appointed San Francisco District 2 Supervisor Catherine Stefani declared her candidacy and pulled papers to run for the seat in November immediately after being sworn in this morning.

Mayor Mark Farrell appointed Stefani to fill the vacancy on the Board of Supervisors left by his appointment as interim mayor last week.

Stefani, a Cow Hollow resident, spent nine years serving as a legislative aide for Farrell and Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier before being appointed county clerk in 2016.

She has also worked as a deputy district attorney for the Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office and as a policy analyst and aide for San Jose Vice Mayor Cindy Chavez and state Assemblyman Herb Wesson.

She is the spokesperson for the San Francisco Chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and serves on the board of directors for the Homeless Prenatal Program.

"For nearly a decade, Catherine has been working inside and outside of City Hall to make District 2 safer, stronger and healthier for everyone," Farrell said in a statement. "Her track record speaks for itself."

Farrell was expected to term out of his District 2 seat in January 2019 before his appointment as mayor, and several candidates have already filed to run for the board seat this November, including Kat Anderson, Schuyler Hudak and Nick Josefowitz.

Farrell's early departure and Stefani's appointment are likely to dramatically change the dynamics of the election.

Prior to Farrell's announcement, Supervisor Malia Cohen had said she planned to introduce a resolution at today's board meeting calling for the appointment of a "caretaker" supervisor to the District 2 seat, meaning someone who is not seeking election, so that the appointee would not have the advantage of incumbency.

The resolution echoes similar language used by the board's progressive supervisors when they voted last week to oust Board President London Breed as acting mayor and replace her with Farrell. Cohen voted in support of keeping Breed as mayor and against Farrell's appointment.

Supervisor Aaron Peskin and other supervisors in the progressive faction argued that Breed would have too much power as both mayor and board president and would have an unfair advantage as the incumbent in the mayoral election.

Breed is running for mayor against progressive candidates Mark Leno and Supervisor Jane Kim, while Farrell, who usually sides with the board's more moderate faction, had already said he would not be running.

Following Stefani's appointment, Cohen said the proposed resolution was moot and withdrew it.

Cohen praised Stefani herself, saying that she had at one point hoped the county clerk would run for office in her own right.

However, she expressed strong reservations about the process for appointing supervisors and mayoral candidates, which she described as the "politics of opportunity," and said the board should be consistent in applying concerns about the advantages of incumbency to both.

"To me it really does look like a backroom deal and it really does fly in the face of everything that was discussed last week," Cohen said.

Supervisor Hillary Ronen in turn offered legislation reviving a 2016 ballot measure that would have made all appointments to the Board of Supervisors temporary, prohibiting appointees from running.

Farrell today said his decision to appoint Stefani was driven primarily by his desire to find someone who would best serve the district, whether or not that person planned to run.

That said, Farrell said Stefani had his support as a candidate.BELMONT (BCN)

A vehicle crashed into a utility pole in Belmont on Tuesday, knocking out power to about 500 people nearby, police said.

The crash was reported at about 2:30 p.m. on Alameda de las Pulgas at Monroe Avenue.

Officers arrived and found that a black 2014 Honda CR-V had struck a utility pole, shearing it off at the base. Paramedics treated two women in their 30s who were in the car for minor injuries, police said.

Police determined the Honda was traveling south when it left the roadway, went up an embankment and hit the pole. The cause of the crash remains under investigation, but alcohol and drugs do not appear to be factors.A female was struck and killed by a Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit train in Santa Rosa this morning, according to a Sonoma County fire and emergency dispatcher.

The collision was reported at 7:36 a.m. near railroad tracks in the Hearn Avenue area of south Santa Rosa.

The Santa Rosa Fire Department responded to the collision, Battalion Chief Mark Basque said.

The California Highway Patrol has identified a driver who was arrested after a fatal head-on collision with a big-rig Monday afternoon in Marshall as Lucas McFadden, 23, a resident of Petaluma or Tomales.

The collision killed Ricardo De Santiago, 18, of Marshall, a passenger in McFadden's Honda Prelude.

McFadden suffered major injuries and was flown to a hospital. He was allegedly impaired at the time of the collision and was arrested at the hospital on suspicion of DUI, CHP Officer Andrew Barclay said.

The collision was reported at 4:38 p.m. in the area of 18863 Shoreline Highway. The Prelude collided with a northbound Peterbilt dump truck-trailer that was towing a small excavator, Barclay said.

McFadden allowed the Honda to drift off the right side of the road on a left curve, Barclay said. He then tried to turn back into the lane and crossed the center of the road into the path of the big-rig, Barclay said.

De Santiago was extricated from the vehicle at the scene and was pronounced dead by Marin County sheriff's deputies around 5 p.m.

The 54-year-old driver of the big-rig was not impaired or injured, Barclay said.

The collision closed Shoreline Highway until around 9:30 p.m.

De Santiago's Facebook page indicated that he went to Tomales High School. A GoFundMe page set up Tuesday on behalf of his family had already raised more than $20,400 as of this morning for funeral expenses and other costs.

The page can be found at https://www.gofundme.com/ricardo-de-santiago-memorial-fund.

A man who was found dead Tuesday morning after crashing his Mercedes-Benz into a dirt embankment in the unincorporated Pescadero area of San Mateo County has been identified as 49-year-old Jose Alfredo Peters of Redwood City, according to the county coroner's office.

The crash was reported around 6:30 a.m. Tuesday on Pescadero Creek Road east of Stage Road.

Investigators believe Peters crashed his vehicle Monday night or early Tuesday morning. He appears to have been speeding east on Pescadero Creek Road when he lost control of the vehicle on a curve, according to the California Highway Patrol.

The vehicle rolled over, coming to rest on its roof, and Peters was ejected. His body was found roughly 30 feet away.

CHP officials said Peters was not wearing his seatbelt, and drugs or alcohol may have been factors in the crash.

A man who died in a fight late Saturday night in San Jose near Lairon College Preparatory Academy has been identified by the Santa Clara County medical examiner's office as 56-year-old Gary Lombardo.

Officers responded at 11:37 p.m. to a call of a disturbance in the 4000 block of San Simeon Way. When they arrived, they found Lombardo suffering from injuries from a fight.

San Jose police said Lombardo was taken to a hospital where he later died.

The motive and the circumstances around the fight are still under investigation.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call Detective Sgt. Mike Montonye or Detective Brian McDonald of the department's homicide unit at (408) 277-5283. Those who wish to remain anonymous can call Crime Stoppers at (408) 947-7867.

The San Jose City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved the creation of a heavily debated advisory board that will provide input on the proposed Google development near the Diridon Station.

San Jose's local community organizations, faith leaders and residents spoke against the Station Area Advisory Group proposed to regulate terms between the corporation and the city described by the San Jose's City Manager's Office.

Despite the speakers' efforts, the Council decided to approve the group, which will consist of more than 30 organizations to start moving along the development.

Deputy city manager Kim Walesh and the city manager's office chief of staff Lee Wilcox discussed the community engagement plan for the proposed development, for which a resolution was adopted on June 20, 2017.

The city manager's office executed an exclusive negotiation agreement in order to begin a planning process estimated to take three to four years.

Walesh and Wilcox said that the first phase of the development process is to have the city, as well as Santa Clara County, engaged with appraisers and Google to determine a fair purchase price for the public land parcels that the city will sell to Google.

The city manager's office proposed a community engagement plan including the advisory group, citywide public forums and regional meetings and online information and engagement.

The advisory group will be made up of representatives of local organizations like the North Willow Glen Neighborhood Association and corporate interests like Adobe Systems.

Dozens of members of the community came to specifically protest the organizations listed in the group, especially the ones that they felt were missing.

Members of groups like People Acting in Community Together spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting on how they felt that the advisory group did not reflect what the community looked like, but rather only the interests of organizations with Google ties.

Nearly all of these speakers opposing the advisory group said they supported the opposing memorandums of Councilmember Sergio Jimenez and the organization Silicon Valley Rising.

Jimenez's memorandum offered the options of either seating agency staff in the group as non-voting members who provide technical assistance to voting stakeholders or removing the agency staff from the roster altogether and seating them in a new separate committee.

Jimenez named Santa Clara County, Caltrain, the California High Speed Rail Authority, Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, the Santa Clara County Water District and the San Jose Unified School District as the agencies to include.

Jimenez suggested that The Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, PACT, Friends of Caltrain, TransForm, Sierra Club and Silicon Valley Minority Business Consortium be appointed in the place of those agencies if that option was indeed selected.

Silicon Valley Rising, in partnership with the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, PACT and Sacred Heart Community Center, submitted a letter from the public that called on the City Council to review the backgrounds of proposed members for conflict of interest and remove organizations that work for or lobby for Google.

The letter alleges that the proposed advisory board had industry associations paid to lobby on behalf of Google, organizations where Google staff serve on the board of directors, organizations where employees of industry associations paid to lobby on behalf of Google serve on the board of directors and organizations where Google has significant financial ties.

"Allowing Google membership to an advisory group advising the city on its negotiations with Google is preposterous and a direct conflict of interest," the letter says.

Ultimately, the coalition of nonprofits called for further amendments to include tenants who would be impacted by rising rents and evictions as a result of the deal, community members from areas at greatest risk of displacement and gentrification, a resident to represent the homeless or those at risk to become homeless, and a better scope of racial and ethnic diversity that echoes that of the community.

The organizations also requested that the Council consider impact on small businesses and environmental impacts to the surrounding area.

Sandy Perry, a representative of the Affordable Housing Network of Santa Clara County, echoed the sentiments of the public letter, saying the group should contain more voices of those who are underserved.

"There's an old saying that goes, 'if you're not at the table, you're on the menu,'" Perry said.

Public comment on the item went on for nearly three hours.

The City Council did vote to add several groups that residents and community organizations felt would exhibit the voices of religious groups and people of color missing from the advisory group, such as PACT and the Silicon Valley Minority Business Consortium.

The San Jose City Council on Tuesday decided on a six-week deadline to remove the 9-foot-tall statue of Christopher Columbus in City Hall and find a new location for it.

The statue has been subjected to security issues since 2001 when a member of the public entered the building and proceeded to vandalize the 2,000-pound marble statue with a sledgehammer, city officials said.

After that vandalism shattered portions of the statue's legs, right arm, left hand and torso, another member of the public entered the City Hall lobby and smeared red and black ink on the front side of the statue on Sept. 21, 2017.

A curtain was installed behind the statue on Oct. 5 in an effort to block the exterior window view of the statue and minimize potential acts of vandalism to the statue or the building's infrastructure, city officials said.

On Oct. 12, a handful of protesters entered City Hall and confronted visitors and city staff with their opposition to the statue. Security staff and police dispersed the protesters.

Councilmember Raul Peralez recommended in a September memo that the statue be moved "to a more appropriate location, with input from the community."

The Council's rules committee accepted Peralez's memo with direction for the item to return to the committee in November, following a San Jose State University forum in October at which the speakers all favored removing the statue from City Hall, city officials said.

In late November, San Jose public works officials said in a memo that complexities and sensitivities surrounding relocation options, as well as the upcoming holidays, would delay further action on the issue until this month.

The public works memo provided to the City Council at Tuesday's meeting listed four proposed new locations.

The first option that the Council considered was storing the statue at the History San Jose Collection Center located at the city's Central Service Yard and then donating and relocating the statue when an accepted recipient is identified.

City officials said the statue would be protected from further vandalism, but acknowledged it could likely be in storage for a long time, possibly years.

The second option is to relocate the statue to the Mineta San Jose International Airport at Terminal A beyond the security checkpoint.

City officials said that location would be heavily secured and would highlight the exploration of Columbus, but it would also be in a public place where some visitors may have a negative reaction to it, similar to the reaction at its current location in City Hall.

The third location proposed for the relocation was the Bank of Italy at History Park on the south end of Kelley Park.

City officials said the statue would be in a locked and "somewhat secured location" in an Italian-themed facility.

However, they said this location comes with the most negatives since History Park can be easily broken into during non-operational hours because of the secluded location, large perimeter and adjacent location to Coyote Creek, city officials said.

The Bank of Italy building is also not routinely open to the public, and the executive director of History San Jose, which oversees the park, does not want the statue displayed at the Bank of Italy because it does not fit in with "the historic nature of the bank," city officials said.

Vice Mayor Magdalena Carrasco wrote a memo in support for this option, noting that both the San Jose City Hall and the international airport serve as places to welcome travelers.

"I do not believe we should welcome our family, friends, and strangers with a statue of a man who lost his way and never stepped foot on our soil," Carrasco said in the memo.

Carrasco did note the contributions Italian-Americans have made to San Jose and how San Jose continues to try to honor those accomplishments. Therefore, she thinks that moving the statue to the Little Italy area would be most fitting.

The final option proposed was keeping the statue in its current location, with the acknowledgement of continued security concerns and community protests resulting in permanent damage to the statue and distraction from official city business.

All options but the last require at least $12,000 of funding to crate, transport, store, dismantle or reassemble the statue, public works officials said.

The City Council voted to eliminate the last option, meaning that the $12,000 will be spent.

Mayor Sam Liccardo advised the Council to connect with the Italian-American community about the statue's new home. However, if no compromise is found, the statue will be put in storage.

The city was originally given the statue on Oct. 12, 1958, by the San Jose Civic Club and the Italo-American Societies of San Jose. The Milani Marble Company commissioned the statue in Italy. It originally sat in the old City Hall but was moved to the current location after construction was finished.

A defense lawyer admitted today that a man who was 17 at the time fatally shot his 16-year-old friend in East Oakland in 2012 but said the shooting was an accident and he shouldn't be convicted of murder.

In her opening statement in the trial of Kejuan Hill, who's now 23, for the fatal shooting of Charles Hill III of Hayward, defense attorney Christina Moore said Kejuan is "responsible for the death" of Charles, who wasn't related to him.

The shooting occurred in the 2500 block of Church Street, near the Eastmont Town Center, shortly after 10 p.m. on March 23, 2012.

Moore said the shooting "was a tragic death that was not planned and was not intentional."

Instead, Moore said, the shooting was "a dumb joke, a prank by a teenager who was known to play around too much."

The defense attorney said Kejuan Hill was at a party that night but left with a small group of friends, which didn't include Charles Hill, after they heard that there would be a shooting at the party.

Two of Kejuan Hill's friends got into an argument because one of the friends was armed with what appeared to be a non-functioning gun and the other friend said that was stupid because it would leave them defenseless if there was a shooting, Moore said.

She said one of the friends gave the supposedly non-functioning gun to Hill, who she said believed it was "incapable of firing" because it felt light, as if it didn't have any bullets in it.

Moore said Hill decided to "walk up to his friends and play a prank" and jokingly asked Charles Hill if he had been talking about him.

Moore said, "Charles thought it was a prank," told Kejuan Hill to "stop playing" and didn't even look up while he was rolling a joint of marijuana.

She said Kejuan Hill then pulled the gun out and it suddenly discharged and struck Charles Hill, killing him almost immediately.

Kejuan Hill didn't go to the police after the shooting because "he grew up in East Oakland, where distrust of the police is part of life," Moore said.

She said that at the urging of his parents, Hill fled to Kansas City, Missouri, where he got a job at a Denny's restaurant using his brother's name.

Acting on a tip, a U.S. Marshals Service-Kansas City Police Task Force arrested Hill at the Denny's on Oct. 26, 2015, three-and-a-half years after the fatal shooting.

The Alameda County District Attorney's Office is prosecuting Kejuan Hill as an adult even though he was only 17 at the time of the fatal shooting.

Prosecutor Patrick Moriarty told jurors that he thinks the shooting was intentional and they should convict him of murder.

But Moore said they should only convict him of the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter.

A man who was found mentally incompetent last year to be prosecuted for a murder and an attempted murder in Santa Rosa was found competent this month and now faces prosecution on the charges in Sonoma County Superior Court.

Delonte Anthony Hart, 25, is scheduled to appear in court Thursday morning to possibly enter a plea and set a date for a preliminary hearing on the charges.

Hart was charged with the stabbing murder of Cirak Mateos Tesfazgi, 22, on June 26, 2016, in Santa Rosa and the attempted stabbing murder of Adam Lucero, 21, in the Roxy Stadium 14 movie theater in Santa Rosa on June 29, 2016.

Santa Rosa police said Hart stabbed Tesfazgi more than 50 times with a large chef-style knife outside a business in downtown Santa Rosa. Police said they found the knife at the scene.

Hart allegedly stabbed Lucero several times from behind in the theater during a movie and discarded the knife in a garbage can, according to Santa Rosa police.

Police said Hart took the knives from a Macy's store in the Santa Rosa Plaza.

Hart was deemed incompetent to stand trial on the charges in March 2017 and was ordered by a judge to take anti-psychotic medication. He was placed in a mental health facility until his competency was deemed restored.

A fire damaged a home in unincorporated Los Altos early this morning, according to the Santa Clara County Fire Department.

Firefighters responded at 5:35 a.m. to a report of a structure fire in the 10500 block of Creston Drive.

They arrived to find flames in the living room of the home and extending to the garage. Firefighters were able to contain the fire within about 15 minutes with no injuries reported, fire officials said.

One occupant was displaced from the home because of the fire, which remains under investigation.

A vehicle crashed into a utility pole in Belmont on Tuesday, knocking out power to about 500 people nearby, police said.

The crash was reported at about 2:30 p.m. on Alameda de las Pulgas at Monroe Avenue.

Officers arrived and found that a black 2014 Honda CR-V had struck a utility pole, shearing it off at the base. Paramedics treated two women in their 30s who were in the car for minor injuries, police said.

Police determined the Honda was traveling south when it left the roadway, went up an embankment and hit the pole. The cause of the crash remains under investigation, but alcohol and drugs do not appear to be factors.

Novato police, with help from the U.S. Marshals Service, arrested a woman who allegedly made thousands of dollars worth of purchases using stolen identities.

Last September, several Novato residents reported being victims of identity theft. Police investigated and identified 44-year-old Kimberly Allen of Novato as the suspect.

Police learned that Allen opened lines of credit at various businesses in Marin County using the victims' personal information. She allegedly made more than $10,000 worth of purchases, police said.

Police also learned that Allen was on federal probation for fraud-related offenses. She was also wanted on a federal warrant related to a separate investigation, police said.

Earlier this month, police referred the case to the Marin County District Attorney's Office for prosecution and obtained an arrest warrant for Allen.

On Tuesday, police received information that Allen was possibly staying at a hotel in Petaluma. With help from Petaluma police and the Marshals Service, Novato police took Allen into custody.

Police are reminding residents to check their personal credit and bank accounts for unauthorized use. Additional resources and information about identity theft is available online at www.novatopolice.org.Authorities this morning canceled a shelter-in-place order for parts of Richmond due to a fire that broke out Tuesday evening at a scrap metal yard.

Just before 4 a.m. today, Contra Costa County sheriff's officials announced that the shelter-in-place order was lifted. Residents can resume normal activities, sheriff's officials said.

The fire was reported at 5:08 a.m. at Sims Metal Management at 600 S. Fourth St. That's where a pile of scrap metal about 20-feet high caught fire, according to Richmond fire Capt. Rico Rincon.

Due to concerns about air quality from the fire, residents in the area were ordered to shelter in place and close doors and windows.

Information about the cause of the blaze was not immediately available.

A woman shot by a San Jose police officer after threatening officers on Monday afternoon is being treated for injuries that are not considered life-threatening, San Jose police Chief Eddie Garcia said Tuesday.

At 2:53 p.m. Monday, police received a 911 call from a neighbor that San Jose resident Terese Haddox had said she was having suicidal thoughts and was armed with a gun. Haddox banged on the neighbor's front door while holding a shotgun, Garcia said.

At 2:56 p.m., Haddox called police herself and said that if police came to her home, she would shoot them, Garcia said.

According to Garcia, Haddox hung up and called back a short time later when police had arrived to the residence in the 800 block of Feller Avenue. She said that if they did not leave, she would use her firearm to harm them.

After San Jose officers had surrounded the area, Haddox walked out of her front door and was holding a shotgun. Haddox advanced toward officers and raised her shotgun at them in a firing position, the police chief said.

A 19-year male veteran of the department with no crisis intervention training fired at Haddox, at which point she fell to the ground. Garcia said that she got up and went back into her home and shut the door, but police were aware that she was hurt.

The round hit the shotgun itself, injuring both of Haddox's hands, Garcia said. From there it ricocheted into her torso, he said.

San Jose police's Special Operations Unit was called to the scene and helped coax Haddox outside, at which point she was taken into custody.

There was body-worn camera footage of the shooting. The officer involved has been placed on routine administrative leave, Garcia said.

Two shotguns were recovered from the residence. From further investigation, police know that the shotgun Haddox was using to arm herself was not loaded.

Investigators have yet to determine whether the shotgun was hers, according to Garcia.

The chief said that Haddox is at a hospital recovering, and she will eventually be transferred to Santa Clara County Jail.

She will be booked on suspicion of seven counts of threatening a peace officer, brandishing a firearm at a peace officer and assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer, Garcia said.

The Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office and the San Jose police Homicide Unit are doing a joint criminal investigation into the incident.

The San Jose police Internal Affairs Unit and the San Jose City Attorney's Office are monitoring the case. The independent police auditor was on scene.

"When someone threatens a police officer on a 911 call and then steps outside their house with a shotgun and points it at one of my police officers, the options are limited," Garcia said.

Garcia said that mental health crisis training begins for officers at academy, and the Police Department is actively working to cycle veteran officers through the program so the entire department can be trained for "situations in which you have time."

Garcia said he did not believe that this case was one of those situations.

"We try to assess situations and get people the help they need, but often times, they need to want the help," the chief said. "Certainly in this case this individual was suicidal, and was trying to take her life at the hands of law enforcement."

The pilot and sole occupant of a small single-engine plane that crashed near Concord late Monday morning has been identified as 69-year-old Christopher Rampoldt of Martinez, according to the Contra Costa County coroner's office.

The Cessna 152 took off from Buchanan Field Airport around 9:35 a.m., according to spokesman Peter Knudson with the National Transportation Safety Board.

Rampoldt crashed on federal land at Military Ocean Terminal Concord, but it's not clear when that happened. Nobody witnessed the crash, according to Knudson, until the wreckage was found by a person on the ground in a debris field estimated to be roughly 150 feet long.

Federal firefighters on base responded to the crash and reported the fatality to the coroner's office, according to Contra Costa County Fire Protection District Marshal Robert Marshall.

NTSB personnel are planning to remove the wreckage of the plane and transport it to a secure location where they can continue to investigate the crash.

Knudson said the agency will release a preliminary accident report in roughly two weeks, but that document probably won't address the cause of the crash.

A La Honda man died when he was ejected after crashing his Mercedes into an embankment sometime Monday night or early Tuesday morning in unincorporated San Mateo County, California Highway Patrol officials said.

Someone called the CHP at 6:31 a.m. to report a crash on Pescadero Creek Road east of Stage Road.

When officers arrived they found a 49-year-old man lying in a field adjacent to Pescadero Creek Road.

CHP officials said that it appears the driver was speeding east on Pescadero Creek Road when he lost control of the Mercedes on a curve.

The vehicle went off the road and into dirt embankment. CHP officials said the Mercedes overturned and came to rest on its roof.

The force of the crash ejected the man from the vehicle and he was found about 30 feet away.

CHP officials said the man was not wearing a seatbelt and it appears alcohol and drugs may have played a role in the crash.

After the crash one-way traffic controls were in place until about 8:30 a.m. but traffic was unaffected.

Any witnesses to the crash are asked to call Officer Brian Del Rosario at (650) 369-6261.

A "super blue" total lunar eclipse will be viewable to residents of the Bay Area early this morning and is exciting NASA researchers, a retired professor and a NASA scientist said.

A partial eclipse will begin at 3:48 a.m. Pacific time and will become a total eclipse at 4:52 a.m., according to Andrew Fraknoi, a retired Foothill College astronomy professor.

The "super" in "super blue" means that the moon during its earthly orbit is closest to the earth while "blue" means it's the second full moon of the month.

The moon will take on a reddish tint during the eclipse, prompting some to call it a "blood" moon.

Fraknoi said that an eclipse occurring during a super blue moon is "pretty unusual."

The U.S. has not seen a blue moon eclipse in 152 years, he said. Another will occur in 2028.

Fraknoi emphasized that it's important for residents and visitors planning to watch the eclipse to find a place where it's not foggy and the western horizon is visible.

National Weather Service meteorologist Steve Anderson said it's expected to be clear in the morning across most of the Bay Area except in San Francisco, in the North Bay valleys and on the coast.

NASA scientists are excited about the eclipse because as the moon gets covered in the earth's shadow, the temperature on the surface of the moon will change, allowing them to gauge how hard or soft the surface is at places no one has been before.

"That's the main thing we're going after," NASA planetary scientist Rick Elphic said.

Scientists are able to judge the hardness of surface material, whether in the American desert or on the moon, because materials with different hardness cool at different speeds.

Scientists will evaluate the hardness of material on the moon's surface from observatories on the earth and with reconnaissance spacecraft.

Elphic called the work "great science" and "interesting science" and also engineering because it will help scientists know, for example, where to land a NASA spacecraft.

The agency has a lunar mission planned for 2022 or 2023 to prospect for resources at the moon's poles.

Elphic said no one has been to the poles.

"It may be fluffier there," he said, adding that a lot of places especially at the poles haven't seen the sun in at least 2 billion years.

Fraknoi said unlike a solar eclipse, a lunar eclipse can be seen with the naked eye.

Bay Area residents and visitors can watch the eclipse from the flight deck of the USS Hornet Sea, Air and Space Museum docked off the coast of Alameda.

Museum visitors ages 6 and up can stay overnight on the aircraft carrier and get up to view the eclipse or visitors can arrive in the early morning hours to view it.

Overnight visitors should arrive between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Others should arrive between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m.

The cost to stay overnight is $35 and reservations should be made as soon as possible.

The cost to simply view the eclipse at the USS Hornet is $15. Museum officials will have 10 telescopes on deck for visitors. Visitors can bring their own equipment too.

People who choose to sleep on the USS will hear an announcement over the public address system at 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. to wake them up.

Four miniature horses and a donkey are dead after two attacks earlier this month by two or three dogs that dug under two fences at Happy Hollow Park & Zoo in San Jose, a park spokeswoman said Tuesday.

One horse was found dead at about 7 a.m. Jan. 15 while the other three and the donkey were found dead at about 7 a.m. Jan. 20, Carolina Camarena, spokeswoman for the city's Department of Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services, said.

One of the dogs suspected in the attacks was captured at the zoo while the other was found near the zoo about three days after one of the attacks.

The dog found outside the zoo resembles a dog seen in a video walking around the zoo, but the video is grainy so it's unclear whether the correct dog has been captured.

The third dog, a Chihuahua, is at large but not believed to be a threat to anyone.

Julie St. Gregory, spokeswoman for the city's Animal Care & Services, said the Chihuahua was probably not involved in the attack other than watching it occur.

St. Gregory said if the owners of the two captured dogs, which are both domesticated dogs, do not come forward the dogs will be euthanized.

"They will not be released," St. Gregory said.

But if the owners do come forward, the dogs could be released if the owners go to a "dangerous dog" hearing, though that may be prohibitively expensive.

St. Gregory identified one dog as a Belgian Malinois mix and the other was a similar mix.

Camarena said crews have reinforced zoo fencing, increased patrols and set traps for dogs or wildlife. Zoo officials will continue to take steps to protect the animals, she said.

"Our priority is to ensure all of our zoo animals are safe," Camarena said.

Dead are a Sicilian donkey named Maybelline and four horses named Luna, Spice Girl, Sweet William and Cayenne. The animals were part of the petting zoo.

"We are grieving here at the zoo," Camarena said.

Community members have offered support and sympathy for zoo staff and the equines.

Camarena said zoo officials are going to have a memorial service for the animals but no date has been set.

The Maui Police Department has released the names of three Alameda County men who drowned while snorkeling in separate incidents in Hawaii this month.

Berkeley resident Alexander Tsukerman, 71, was found floating face-down off the coast of Maluaka Beach on Saturday, according to police. He was transported to a hospital and pronounced dead.

Bryan Beyer, a 50-year-old resident of Oakland, died Jan. 18 at Kamaole Beach Park. His death was followed shortly after by the drowning of Michael Mellin, a 67-year-old resident of Castro Valley, at the same beach on Jan. 20.

Both sites are on the southwest coast of the island.

A high-surf advisory was in place for Maui's north coast on Jan. 18, but forecasters with the National Weather Service in Hawaii said water conditions have not been out of the ordinary on the island's south and west coasts.

That part of Maui is typically sheltered from big surf during the wintertime unless there's a swell from the west, which hasn't happened in the last two weeks.

Newly appointed San Francisco District 2 Supervisor Catherine Stefani declared her candidacy and pulled papers to run for the seat in November immediately after being sworn in Tuesday morning.

Mayor Mark Farrell appointed Stefani to fill the vacancy on the Board of Supervisors left by his appointment as interim mayor last week.

Stefani, a Cow Hollow resident, spent nine years serving as a legislative aide for Farrell and Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier before being appointed county clerk in 2016.

She has also worked as a deputy district attorney for the Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office and as a policy analyst and aide for San Jose Vice Mayor Cindy Chavez and state Assemblyman Herb Wesson.

She is the spokesperson for the San Francisco Chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and serves on the board of directors for the Homeless Prenatal Program.

"For nearly a decade, Catherine has been working inside and outside of City Hall to make District 2 safer, stronger and healthier for everyone," Farrell said in a statement. "Her track record speaks for itself."

Farrell was expected to term out of his District 2 seat in January 2019 before his appointment as mayor, and several candidates have already filed to run for the board seat this November, including Kat Anderson, Schuyler Hudak and Nick Josefowitz.

Farrell's early departure and Stefani's appointment are likely to dramatically change the dynamics of the election.

Prior to Farrell's announcement, Supervisor Malia Cohen had said she planned to introduce a resolution at Tuesday's board meeting calling for the appointment of a "caretaker" supervisor to the District 2 seat, meaning someone who is not seeking election, so that the appointee would not have the advantage of incumbency.

The resolution echoes similar language used by the board's progressive supervisors when they voted last week to oust Board President London Breed as acting mayor and replace her with Farrell. Cohen voted in support of keeping Breed as mayor and against Farrell's appointment.

Supervisor Aaron Peskin and other supervisors in the progressive faction argued that Breed would have too much power as both mayor and board president and would have an unfair advantage as the incumbent in the mayoral election.

Breed is running for mayor against progressive candidates Mark Leno and Supervisor Jane Kim, while Farrell, who usually sides with the board's more moderate faction, had already said he would not be running.

Following Stefani's appointment, Cohen said the proposed resolution was moot and withdrew it.

Cohen praised Stefani herself, saying that she had at one point hoped the county clerk would run for office in her own right.

However, she expressed strong reservations about the process for appointing supervisors and mayoral candidates, which she described as the "politics of opportunity," and said the board should be consistent in applying concerns about the advantages of incumbency to both.

"To me it really does look like a backroom deal and it really does fly in the face of everything that was discussed last week," Cohen said.

Supervisor Hillary Ronen in turn offered legislation reviving a 2016 ballot measure that would have made all appointments to the Board of Supervisors temporary, prohibiting appointees from running.

Farrell Tuesday said his decision to appoint Stefani was driven primarily by his desire to find someone who would best serve the district, whether or not that person planned to run.

That said, Farrell said Stefani had his support as a candidate.

A teacher suspected of dangling a student from a second-floor balcony at a Mission District elementary school turned himself in Tuesday morning, according to San Francisco police.

Andres Tobar, 47, of South San Francisco surrendered around 11:35 a.m. and was booked into jail on an arrest warrant for felony child endangerment/abuse.

Tobar works for the San Francisco Unified School District as a teacher for Marshall Elementary at 1575 15th Street.

"Tobar was seen cradling a student and holding the student over the balcony on the second floor," Gentle Blythe, a spokeswoman for the district, said Tuesday in a statement.

Tobar has been placed on administrative leave while the district investigates the allegations.

Investigators are asking anyone who believes Tobar may have victimized them or anyone who had suspicious contact with him, to call the special victim's unit at (415) 558-5500.

An increase in domestic violence incidents involving weapons has highlighted the need for a program to make sure offenders prohibited from owning firearms surrender them to authorities, San Francisco city officials said Tuesday.

A report on family violence released Tuesday by the Department on the Status of Women found that domestic violence homicides had reached a three-year low in San Francisco in 2016, with only one such death reported, but domestic violence incidents involving weapons rose sharply.

City data shows that the number of 911 calls reporting domestic violence incidents involving a gun increased 53 percent in 2016, from 15 to 23, while incidents involving a knife increased 87 percent from 46 to 86, according to the annual report.

The findings highlight the need for a protocol for the surrender of guns by people who are prohibited from owning weapons, either temporarily or permanently, city officials said Tuesday.

Sheriff Vicki Hennessy said her department is working to develop a procedure for obtaining firearms from offenders who are temporarily or permanently prohibited from owning them for reasons including criminal convictions or restraining orders against them.

Until recently, sheriff's deputies notified offenders they weren't allowed to possess firearms but gave them 24 hours to turn them in.

There was no mechanism, however, to make sure that the gun was actually turned in. Local law enforcement and state law enforcement officials would go house to house to enforce the laws as resources allowed, but the process was expensive, slow and potentially dangerous.

In 2016, however, voters approved Prop. 63, a gun control measure that took effect this year. The law includes a process for ensuring that criminals surrender their firearms immediately when they are convicted, by requiring probation officers and the courts to verify that the weapons were sold or transferred within a specific time.

Failure to comply will delay the resolution of the defendant's case and trigger further enforcement.

The sheriff's office is now working with the Office on the Status of Woman and others to develop a comprehensive plan for making sure everyone required to surrender their guns does so in a manner that's safe for officers, according to Suzy Loftus, assistant chief legal counsel for the sheriff's office.

That effort includes working out the places where offenders might fall through the gaps due to procedural or clerical issues, Loftus said.

"A lot of the shootings that have happened, it's like one clerk didn't check one box," Loftus said. "These details matter. They seem mundane but they directly impact the safety of people who are vulnerable."

The report released Tuesday also found a 42 percent increase in 911 calls reporting stalking since 2014, with 539 such calls in 2016 and 44 for domestic violence stalking. By comparison, as recently in 2008, there were no 911 calls about stalking, a change the report said might be due to increasing recognition of stalking as a form of domestic violence.

Domestic violence also continues to disproportionately affect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and people of color.

LGBT high school students were three times more likely to experience sexual dating violence than their heterosexual peers, while 12 percent had experience physical dating violence as compared to 6 percent of their heterosexual peers, the report found.

And while blacks make up only 5.6 percent of the population, they made up 26 percent of the domestic violence victims served by District Attorney Victim Services and 12.4 percent served by 27 community-based organizations. Latinos are 15.2 percent of the population but make up 28 percent of District Attorney Victim Services clients and 22.8 percent of the community-based organization clients.

The annual report is intended to provide data that guides policy recommendations for the city in its efforts to address domestic violence, child abuse and elder abuse. The full report can be found online sfgov.org/dosw.

Today will be sunny in the morning, then becoming partly cloudy. Highs will be in the lower 60s. North winds will be between 5 and 10 mph, becoming west winds in the afternoon.

Tonight will be partly cloudy in the evening, then becoming mostly cloudy. Lows will be in the upper 40s. West winds will be between 5 and 10 mph.

Thursday will be mostly cloudy with highs in the mid 60s. North winds will be between 5 and 10 mph, becoming west winds between 5 and 15 mph in the afternoon.SAN JOSE (BCN)

A woman shot by a San Jose police officer after threatening officers on Monday afternoon is being treated for injuries that are not considered life-threatening, San Jose police Chief Eddie Garcia said today.

At 2:53 p.m. Monday, police received a 911 call from a neighbor that San Jose resident Terese Haddox had said she was having suicidal thoughts and was armed with a gun. Haddox banged on the neighbor's front door while holding a shotgun, Garcia said.

At 2:56 p.m., Haddox called police herself and said that if police came to her home, she would shoot them, Garcia said.

According to Garcia, Haddox hung up and called back a short time later when police had arrived to the residence in the 800 block of Feller Avenue. She said that if they did not leave, she would use her firearm to harm them.

After San Jose officers had surrounded the area, Haddox walked out of her front door and was holding a shotgun. Haddox advanced toward officers and raised her shotgun at them in a firing position, the police chief said.

A 19-year male veteran of the department with no crisis intervention training fired at Haddox, at which point she fell to the ground. Garcia said that she got up and went back into her home and shut the door, but police were aware that she was hurt.

The round hit the shotgun itself, injuring both of Haddox's hands, Garcia said. From there it ricocheted into her torso, he said.

San Jose police's Special Operations Unit was called to the scene and helped coax Haddox outside, at which point she was taken into custody.

There was body-worn camera footage of the shooting. The officer involved has been placed on routine administrative leave, Garcia said.

Two shotguns were recovered from the residence. From further investigation, police know that the shotgun Haddox was using to arm herself was not loaded.

Investigators have yet to determine whether the shotgun was hers, according to Garcia.

The chief said that Haddox is at a hospital recovering, and she will eventually be transferred to Santa Clara County Jail.

She will be booked on suspicion of seven counts of threatening a peace officer, brandishing a firearm at a peace officer and assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer, Garcia said.

The Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office and the San Jose police Homicide Unit are doing a joint criminal investigation into the incident.

The San Jose police Internal Affairs Unit and the San Jose City Attorney's Office are monitoring the case. The independent police auditor was on scene.

"When someone threatens a police officer on a 911 call and then steps outside their house with a shotgun and points it at one of my police officers, the options are limited," Garcia said.

Garcia said that mental health crisis training begins for officers at academy, and the Police Department is actively working to cycle veteran officers through the program so the entire department can be trained for "situations in which you have time."

Garcia said he did not believe that this case was one of those situations.

"We try to assess situations and get people the help they need, but often times, they need to want the help," the chief said. "Certainly in this case this individual was suicidal, and was trying to take her life at the hands of law enforcement."Deputies on Tuesday arrested a 49-year-old man after they said he killed his wife in an alleged drunk driving crash on a rural road in East Bexar County.

Carl Lee Morrison was charged with intoxication manslaughter. He was booked into the Bexar County Jail on a $35,000 bond.Memes and jokes abounded after CNN reported first lady Melania Trump arrived at the State of the Union separately from her husband.

The pair have not been seen together this month, CNN reported. Earlier this month, Melania Trump was reportedly scheduled to travel to Davos with the president, but instead took a trip to the Holocaust memorial in Washington and to Florida, where she went to a spa.LONDON  This is not a metaphor: Britains Parliament is a mess.

The 19th-century building is crumbling, leaky, infested with vermin and riddled with asbestos.

After years of dithering, lawmakers voted Wednesday to move out of the building to allow several years of major repairs. The plan will cost billions, but experts say the alternative could be catastrophic.

This debate arguably should have taken place about 40 years ago, House of Commons leader Andrea Leadsom told lawmakers, adding that the building is in dire need of repair.

Legislators voted to back a call for lawmakers and staff to leave the building by the mid-2020s  a plan known as a full decant of Parliament. Its estimated the repairs will take six years and cost about $5 billion.

The decision came after warnings about the risks of delaying.

It might be an exaggeration to say that Parliament is a death trap, Conservative lawmaker Damian Green said. But its not a wild exaggeration.

Experts have issued increasingly urgent warnings about the state of the neo-Gothic Parliament building, one of Londons most famous landmarks and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Reports have sounded alarm bells about leaky roofs, temperamental steam heating, antiquated plumbing, crumbling stonework and ventilation shafts clogged with old pipes, wires and asbestos.

Wednesdays vote backed a 2016 report commissioned by parliamentary authorities which said the building is at risk of a flood or fire that could leave it uninhabitable. The issue still has to be considered by the House of Lords, Parliaments upper chamber.

Caroline Shenton, former director of the parliamentary archives and author of The Day Parliament Burned Down, said that without major repair work, Britain could lose the most iconic, famous building in the country.

It could just simply be a utilities failure that brings the whole thing to a halt  the electricity goes, the water stops working, the loos stop flushing, she said. But something more catastrophic could happen.

Shenton said she hoped todays lawmakers would remember history.

The current Parliament building, designed by architect Charles Barry, was built after fire destroyed its predecessor in 1834.

Shenton said authorities had debated what to do about their aging building for years before the 1834 blaze.

Nobody could make a decision, she said. In the end, the decision was made for them.

Jill Lawless is an Associated Press writer.MOSCOW  The Trump administration managed the unusual feat this week of outraging both Russias leaders in Moscow and Russias biggest critics in Washington with its handling of a new sanctions law intended to punish the Kremlin for interference in the 2016 U.S. elections.

The State Department angered members of Congress by announcing Monday that it did not plan to impose new sanctions called for in a measure that President Trump reluctantly signed into law last year. And the Treasury Department angered Moscow later in the day with a new name-and-shame list identifying 210 senior Russian political and business figures.

The twin announcements left a muddled impression of how Trump plans to approach the Kremlin in his second year in office even as investigators search for evidence of collaboration between his campaign and Russian agents. His domestic opponents complained that once again Trump seemed to be in thrall to Russia, while the Kremlin complained that he was a captive of what it described as the American deep state.

This is definitely an unfriendly act, President Vladimir Putin said when asked about the Treasury Department list. It is complicating Russian-American relations, where the situation is already hard, and is definitely harming international relations in general.

Putin said Moscow had pondered virtually breaking ties with Washington over what is known in Russia as the Kremlin report, but decided against it. We were prepared to undertake retaliatory steps, and quite serious ones, too, which would cut our relations to zero, he said. But we will refrain from such steps for the time being.

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers criticized Trump for not imposing additional sanctions on Russia as envisioned in the legislation passed over his objections by veto-proof bipartisan majorities in both houses last August.

It is a grave breach of President Trumps responsibilities to reward President Putin by inaction for his intervention in an American election  it represents nothing less than appeasement for an attack on our countrys democracy, said Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. It is time for us to stand up for our country. We cannot let these actions to continue to go unpunished.

Responding to criticism, the Trump administration insisted Tuesday that it was not finished taking action under the new legislation.

And Trump got support from an unlikely quarter, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee who has broken with the president before.

On the whole, it is clear the administration is working in good faith and I am committed to applying pressure, as needed, Corker said.

Neil MacFarquhar and Peter Baker are New York Times writers.Opposition leader Bill English quashed speculation members of the National Party's caucus want to change leadership, with rumours surfacing just ahead of his first major speech of the year.

English's State of the Nation speech was overshadowed by reports his leadership and the positions of his deputy Paula Bennett and finance spokesman Steven Joyce were under threat. Speaking to media after the speech, English shot down those claims, saying he has enjoyed more support in caucus and the broader party membership than ever.

"We're getting on with the job, we're not going to be derailed by a bit of gossip," English said.

National won 58 seats in the 120-seat Parliament at the Sept. 23 general election but was unable to secure the Treasury benches during negotiations with New Zealand First, which chose to back a Labour-led administration instead.

English today said he took responsibility for failing to form a government, but since then he's "had stronger indications of support for my leadership than I can recall".

It's the second time English has been leader of the opposition, the first in 2001 when he replaced Jenny Shipley and led National to its biggest defeat the following year before being ousted by Don Brash.

English said his party's caucus was very disciplined and that had been behind its success as a political entity and said the leadership speculation has probably hardened up his support.

He's committed to performing strongly enough to retain the backing of his caucus, saying to keep the leadership, he needs their support, broader public support, and success in moderating some of the government's policies.

Opposition leader "is a more tenuous position than being a prime minister - you have to meet expectations of your supporters and if you don't that raises some questions," he said.

Workplace relations spokeswoman Amy Adams said English had her full support, saying she had "absolutely zero interest in changing the leaders or the leadership team."

(BusinessDesk)

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New Zealand is out of step with its trading partners in fully accepting possible changes to its Double Tax Agreements (DTAs) under an OECD framework that's meant to stamp out rorts by multinational corporations intent on minimising their tax, Parliament's finance and expenditure select committee heard yesterday.

The committee is dealing with two related pieces of work on cross-border tax reform - the Taxation (Neutralising Base Erosion and Profit Shifting) Bill (BEPS) and the Multilateral Convention to implement tax treaty-related measures to prevent base erosion and profit shifting. Submitters were appearing before the committee yesterday on the latter, the Multilateral Convention, or MLI.

New Zealand has some 40 DTAs  bilateral tax treaties which are open to abuse by multinationals intent on reducing or eliminating their worldwide tax bill. Of those, the most significant may be the relationship with Australia, where 'dual resident' companies are worried they will face more red tape for little gain. Taking into account all the signatory nations to the MLI, the number of DTAs run into the thousands and changing them all to cut down on BEPS could take years.

The MLI was devised under the auspices of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development "to quickly and efficiently amend a significant number of double tax agreements around the world to take into account new treaty standards relating to treaty abuse and dispute resolution," IRD says.

But KPMG partner John Cantin told the committee that other countries "have taken a more partisan approach to what is in their national interest" and New Zealand's national interest assessment (NIA) should, at a minimum, "assess the economic cost and benefits of adopting particular articles of the MLI."

The Corporate Taxpayers Group (CTG), which represents 42 companies and generates some $2.2 billion a year of tax for the state coffers, includes a table comparing New Zealand's position on what it says are the eight articles of the MLI that are of high importance to the country. Of the seven, Australia and Japan have signed up to the most, at five apiece, with the UK next on saying yes to four articles in the MLI. But China and Hong Kong have only said yes to two and Singapore to one. The US position isn't available.

While the table is generated by "high level/simplistic information", it does highlight "just how out of step New Zealand is with our major trading partners," CTG said in its submission.

The work started on the law change and associated positioning on the Multilateral Convention under the previous National-led administration, and made progress with support from Labour. Former Finance Minister Steven Joyce put it to KPMG's Cantin that New Zealand was a bit of a price taker because given its small size "we don't get to set the rules" on international agreements and that it was "appropriate we cling pretty closely to international treaties."

Cantin replied that the question was what New Zealand would actually achieve against taking an alternative pick-and-choose approach.

Committee chair Michael Wood told BusinessDesk the committee was just kicking off on hearing from submitters on the Multilateral Convention. He expected the committee would maintain its bipartisan approach to the measures, which "comes out of quite a robust piece of work."

He said the position of a number of submitters may reflect their relationships with multinationals including the suggestion that New Zealand "is racing out in front."

"We're checking that out now," he said. In some instances, some countries had domestic legislation in place covering the issues. What was perhaps new from some submitters was the idea that New Zealand take more of a tactical approach to the Multilateral Convention so that it wasn't disadvantaged in the ensuing negotiations over DTAs, he said.

"The reality is we're dealing with international tax law and dealing with people with a range of views on that," he said. "There are issues we need to look at more closely, particularly the treatment of people operating between Australia and New Zealand."

The bill and convention are part of a global push being championed by the OECD, which has estimated global losses through tax avoidance amount to US$240 billion a year.

(BusinessDesk)

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8th September 2021 Morning Report

Actor Dileep attended a meeting of the Film Exhibitors United Organization of Kerala (FEUOK) in Kochi on Jan 30. The actor was the key person who was behind the forming of the organization, following the theatre strike that brought Mollywood into a standstill, a year back.

Dileep became the President of the organization but soon he had to opt out of the post following his arrest in the actress molestation case.After all those Blackleaf threads too....Theresa May is so weak her ministers are now publicly suggesting that Brexit wont happenPhillip Lee, the Justice Minister, suggested last night that Britain could stay in the European Union after all  and he is still a member of the Government.He commented on the leak of the official assessment that all Brexit scenarios would result in lower national income in 15 years, saying on Twitter: If these figures turn out to be anywhere near right, there would be a serious question over whether a government could legitimately lead a country along a path that the evidence and rational consideration indicate would be damaging.Dr Lee  he was a hospital doctor who still practises occasionally as a part-time GP  is a refreshing politician who says what he thinks. He got into trouble at the Conservative Party annual conference in October when he described the welfare state, including the NHS, as a Ponzi scheme that was about to collapse.His Twitter account is a welcome break from the usual robo-minister platitudes. But yesterdays comments come close to disagreeing with Government policy on Brexit. Lee is commendably honest. Instead of pretending, as Theresa May did on her way to China, that the leaked assessment could be ignored because it did not cover the special partnership scenario that she is trying to negotiate, he accepts that any form of Brexit would have a negative effect.The Prime Minister insults the voters intelligence, because her special free trade agreement would still reduce long-term GDP by more than one of the scenarios that was modelled, namely staying in the single market. This would still cut GDP by 2 per cent after 15 years, according to the leaked assessment.The only way round the assessment is to say economic forecasts are uncertain, and that there are other benefits to leaving the EU. But the ambitious Lee, who voted Remain in the referendum, has decided to say what he thinks.If he continues to think it, he will have to resign or be sacked. No doubt Phillip Lee will issue some kind of clarification shortly, or else No 10 will once again have to begin a small reshuffle of the junior ranks.The University of Madrashas declared the results of the undergraduate, postgraduate and professional courses examinations soon. Candidates who have appeared for these exams can check their results from their official websites  results.unomac.in, ideunom.ac.in, egovernance.unom.ac.in.

The university had conducted the semester examinations for students for UG, PG and professional courses in November 2017.

How to check Madras University UG results 2018

- Visit the official website of the university, unom.ac.in or ideunom.ac.in or egovernance.unom.ac.in.

- Click on the link that says results or under the page, click onUG/PG/Professional Degree Examination Results 2017

- Enter your details in the spaces provided and click on submit

Once the results are displayed, make sure to take a print of the same for future reference.

Candidates would be allowed to apply for revaluation through an online link starting February 2. The application for revaluation will end on February 8, 2018. Candidates would need to pay Rs. 1000 per paper. For reconsideration candidates would need to pay Rs. 300.

Professor Rama Senunawasan, Registrar of Madras University said that the students can apply for the revaluation from February 2 onwards and the last date to submit the application online is February 8.STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A small portion of Amboy Road was still closed Tuesday night after a car crashed into a utility pole.

Traffic was being diverted between Buffalo Street and Hopkins Avenue at around 8 p.m., as crews from Con Edison continued work on the pole.

A spokesman for the utility could not provide a timetable for when repairs would be complete.

Traffic was barely affected by the repairs Tuesday night, and there were no power outages in the area.

One person suffered injuries when the black Chevy Camaro crashed into the pole in front of a strip mall.

Police could not provide information on the cause of the accident Tuesday night, or if there were any arrests in connection to the incident.Police are asking for the public's help identifying a man sought for questioning in connection to a Meiers Corners burglary. (Courtesy: NYPD)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Police are asking for the public's help identifying a man sought for questioning in connection to a daytime burglary of a Meiers Corners home last Friday.

Someone broke into a home through an unsecured window near the intersection of Bradley and North Gannon Avenues at around 1 p.m. and took the victim's jewelry, laptop, tablet, cell phone, sneakers and approximately $3,200, according to a written statement from the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner of Public Information.

The individual, who is described by police as a dark-complexioned male with eye glasses and a gray goatee, then fled the home in an unknown direction.

Police said he was seen wearing a gray hooded sweater, a blue and gray coat, dark colored pants and yellow gloves.

Police have provided surveillance footage of the individual sought for questioning, which was taken from a nearby home.

Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), or, for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or by texting tips to 274637 (CRIMES), then entering TIP577.

All calls are kept strictly confidential.Blue denim ribbons provided by Global Genes.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- One young Staten Islander is working hard to spread awareness of those affected by lesser-known diseases.

Ava Garnett, a fifth-grade student at the Michael J. Petrides School, was joined by Girl Scout Troop 5116 at PS 30 on Tuesday to make denim ribbons for Rare Disease Day (Feb. 28).

"Rare Disease Day is a day that we celebrate people who have diseases that no one really knows about," said Ava.

Participants are asked to dress in denim and wear blue denim ribbons provided by Global Genes, an organization that works to eliminate the challenges of rare diseases.

Last year, Ava organized a school-wide event at the Michael J. Petrides School to educate her classmates about those affected by these conditions.

Though she's already received more than 500 ribbons from Global Genes for this year's event, Ava has decided to create even more ribbons with the help of her friends, in hopes of spreading awareness to over 1,000 people on Rare Disease Day.

As one of the 350 million people worldwide affected by over 7,000 rare diseases, Ava has made it her mission to bring awareness to these often-overlooked conditions.

"Rare Disease Day is really important to me because it helps people understand my disability and others," Ava said.

Ava has Nail Patella Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder involving the bones, joints and connective tissue that occurs in approximately 1 in 50,000 newborns, according to Nail Patella Syndrome Worldwide.

"I have Nail Patella Syndrome, which affects my arms; they don't extend fully, and my nails are different," said Ava.

Now a student of the Michael J. Petrides School, Ava was once a student of PS 30, where her former classmates remain as supportive as ever.

"I'm very thankful that they're helping me because that shows me that they're really good friends," Ava said.

Last June, Ava participated in the Runway of Dreams Foundation's Second Annual Gala and Runway Show in Manhattan.

The Runway of Dreams Foundation is a non-profit organization working towards a future of inclusion, acceptance and opportunity in the fashion industry for people with disabilities.

Ava has since signed a modeling contract with Stellar NYC modeling and talent agency.

In addition, SheLift, an organization dedicated to offering adventurous experiences for young women with physical differences, has invited Ava and her mother, Heather, to their first-ever Mother + Daughter Ski Retreat this March in Park City, Utah.STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Every year on Groundhog Day, people around the world watch famous groundhogs predict if we will have an early spring or six more weeks of winter.

On Staten Island, we focus on our very own Charles G. Hogg, aka Staten Island Chuck. He is scheduled to make his prediction around 7:30 a.m. Friday at the Staten Island Zoo in West Brighton.

If Chuck sees his shadow, winter will continue for six more weeks; if he doesn't see his shadow, spring will come early.

Here are some things you need to know about groundhogs with the big day on the horizon.

1. They are considered rodents.

Groundhogs are considered a type of rodent known as a marmot, which is closely related to squirrels. They can be found all over North America, according to National Geographic.

2. They fill in for hedgehogs to predict the weather.

The origins of Groundhog Day can be linked to Candlemas Day, a holiday that was brought to the United States by the Germans. In Europe, hedgehogs or badgers were used to predict what the weather would be.

When German immigrants arrived in Pennsylvania, they found a large number of groundhogs, which resemble the European hedgehog.

3. They build large burrows.

A groundhog's burrow can be anywhere from eight to 66 feet long, complete with multiple exits and several chambers, according to National Geographic.

Some burrows may have several levels. One section of a burrow can be made for hibernating, while another section can be used during the warmer months.

4. They are also nicknamed "woodchuck."

Groundhogs have many nicknames such as land beavers, whistle pigs and woodchucks.

The origin of the name woodchuck is thought to be derived from the Algonquian name for the animals: Wuchak.

Watch the video above to learn more interesting facts about groundhogs!STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Joseph Brefo-Sarpong seemed surprised Wednesday when informed the eight-and-a-half-year prison sentence about to be imposed on him for drug-trafficking also included a five-year period of post-release supervision.

"I was never told anything about post-release supervision," Brefo-Sarpong, a Manhattan resident, told state Supreme Court Justice Alexander Jeong.

But the judge told the defendant, he was, in fact, advised of the parole component when he pleaded guilty two weeks ago to operating as a major drug-trafficker.

Jeong said he was bound, by law, to impose a period of post-release supervision, and asked Brefo-Sarpong if he wanted to rescind his plea.

"No," said the defendant, who's also known as "Q."

The judge then sentenced Brefo-Sarpong, as a second felony offender, to the agreed-upon prison term and period of post-release supervision.

In August 2016, Brefo-Sarpong and Louis Caraballo, a Queens resident, were among five defendants arrested and accused of running a distribution ring that sold large quantities of heroin throughout Staten Island. Both men are 36.

The takedown was the culmination of a two-year probe that began in October of 2014. It was dubbed "Broken Boulevard," in reference to the numerous locations along Hylan Boulevard where the dealers operated.

The defendants peddled their wares like a delivery service. Dispatchers would receive calls from customers and direct a dealer to meet them at a predetermined location, according to District Attorney Michael E. McMahon and police.

The defendants were known to deal outside of fast food restaurants, shopping centers and stores, as well as on residential streets and near train stations around the borough, said authorities.

Six additional suspects were arrested during search warrant executions that yielded 948 bags of heroin, about $28,000 in cash and two firearms, officials said.

"This joint action between my office and the NYPD is a major step in returning a safe and secure Hylan Boulevard to the people of Staten Island," McMahon said then.

Two weeks ago, Caraballo also pleaded guilty in state Supreme Court, St. George, to operating as a major drug-trafficker. It was the top charge against Caraballo and Brefo-Sarpong.

Caraballo is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 13.

Under state law, a person is guilty of operating as a major drug trafficker, if he knowingly and unlawfully possesses, on one or more occasions within six months, a narcotic drug with intent to sell it, and the drugs have a total value of at least $75,000.

Kevin McKernan, Brefo-Sarpong's lawyer, called the disposition "fair and reasonable," adding his client has "taken responsibility for his actions."

Brefo-Sarpong previously served a prison sentence of five to 10 years for a felony drug-possession conviction in 2003, according to statements made in court.STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - It's not often that the State of the Union is must-see TV.

But this is President Donald Trump we're talking about, so none of the old rules apply.

So Trump took to the biggest stage in American politics on Tuesday night, delivering his first State of the Union to a joint session of Congress and all the movers and shakers who make up the Washington establishment that he ran through to get to the White House.

And the country was watching. And yes, Trump, so often erratic on Twitter, stuck to the script. He was clear-eyed and forceful about his vision of "America first."

Some watched in triumph as "their president" stood where the naysayers said he never would, as president of the United States. For Trump fans, the speech was a celebration of promises kept. For them, applause lines abounded: Respect for the flag, the military, veterans and police. And, just a few days from the Super Bowl, proudly standing for the National Anthem. He left the podium to chants of "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!"

Others out there hate-watched, zeroing in on everything Trump said so that they could fact-check it in real time. Some protested the speech before they even heard it. Trump will never be their president. Trump's calls for unity fell on deaf ears, much like President Barack Obama's did on different ears.

Others, of course, didn't watch at all. More than a dozen Democratic lawmakers decided to boycott the event entirely. Not the first time that's happened in U.S. history, but it could be the largest number of stay-aways that a SOTU has seen. And many of those who did attend wore black in protest of Trump. That's OK. First Lady Melania Trump wore white. Hollywood has nothing on these folks.

And in true Democratic fashion, the party had at least five responses to the speech, one by Rep. Joseph Kennedy III (yes, of those Kennedys), another by Rep. Maxine Waters of California. Hey, every demographic must have their say.

As you'd expect, Trump trumpeted the tax cut law that the he credits for putting jet fuel into the economy and leading one big company after another to shower workers with bonuses and raises. He touted how companies like Apple were investing billions here.

But the proof in the economic pudding won't be seen until we all file our tax returns in April 2019. The standard deduction and the child tax credit have been doubled, as Trump said. But not all is rosy in states like New York, where state and local tax deductions have been eliminated.

Thanks to lowered tax rates, Trump pledged that all Americans would see more take-home pay, "a lot more," starting next month. That's a big promise, Mr. President. Americans won't forget it if it doesn't come true. American politics is pocketbook politics first and foremost.

Then there's Trump's proposal on DACA and immigration and the border wall, a proposal the Democrats have rejected out of hand. On Tuesday, Trump's message was direct, and no doubt scalding to Dems: Americans are Dreamers too. And it's Americans, legal Americans, that Trump is concerned with first. Still, he's looking to deal on immigration. It going to be a steep climb.

As part of a $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan, Trump also called for a streamlining of the permitting process, to get projects completed faster. Which might be just as important as spending the money. Just ask any elected official who's ever dealt with New York City red tape.

Left unsaid in the speech is the backdrop to everything going on in Washington these days: The Russia investigation, including the House GOP surveillance memo, the allegations surrounding the FBI, the ongoing controversy over just what happened during the 2016 campaign.

Another undertone that went unsaid: Democrats feel that they've got a shot to retake the House this year, which would give the party control of the first step in the impeachment process, something that so many in the Resistance want.

The state of the union is strong, Trump said in his speech, because the American people are strong. But their Washington lawmakers are still divided. Democrats for the most part kept to their seats in the chamber last night.

We've still got a long way to go.Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has proposed eliminating cash bail for misdemeanor defendants as well as those charged with nonviolent felonies. It's an irresponsible idea that removes a major incentive for defendants to appear in court and places victims at risk, especially those most reliant on judicial protection, such as women who've suffered domestic violence. The fact that liberal advocacy groups across the country, and some district attorneys politically beholden to them, are endorsing this radical action doesn't make it any less dangerous or objectionable. In fact, the proposal belongs right up there with some of their other harebrained schemes such as forcing taxpayers to post bail for criminal defendants; barring landlords from inquiring about the criminal backgrounds of proposed tenants; lavishing video games and other gifts on young truants to induce them to attend school; and, most absurd of all, paying cash stipends to persistent felony offenders if they stop committing violent crimes.



In the type of fawning headline employed for causes it endorses, the New York Times trumpeted Cuomo's bail-elimination proposal as a "bid to help the poor." What it actually does, however, is benefit persistent criminal offenders by rescuing them from the consequences of multiple arrests. This is because, absent extraordinary circumstances, bail is virtually never required of first offenders charged with misdemeanors, rarely sought from second offenders, and often waived for third and even fourth offenders if sufficient time has elapsed since their preceding arrests.



Jurisdictions with high caseloads, such as New York City, are even more inclined to release repeat arrestees without bail.



For Cuomo, it's really about pandering to his left-wing base, a political tactic he hopes will catapult him to the White House. Note, in that regard, his stentorian declaration that doing away with bail will be among "the most progressive set of reforms in the nation."



The purpose of bail is to secure a defendant's appearance on future court dates. Which is why appeals to the presumption of innocence when discussing it are inapposite. Whether a judge will require bail and, if so, in what amount, depends on multiple factors.



Bail criteria



A defendant's roots in the community is among the most important of them. So, too, is his criminal history and his track record of appearing in court as required. The charge of which he now stands accused is an obviously important consideration because the risk of a defendant fleeing increases in direct proportion to its severity and potential penalty. The fact that a defendant faces a new misdemeanor count can very definitely make the fixation of bail appropriate if he's had prior convictions on low-level offenses but avoided jail on them.



Cuomo's call to ditch bail for nonviolent felonies summarily ignores the common-sense reasoning behind these criteria. A conviction on many of such felonies could put a defendant behind bars for decades, a fact that tends to make him a flight risk and, as such, a candidate for the imposition of significant bail. To eschew reasoned judicial analysis of the relevant facts in favor of a mandated release without bail is recklessly irresponsible.



Absent a financial incentive to return to court as scheduled, many defendants would simply fail to do so. Consider, for example, that last July, the district attorneys of all the city's boroughs except Staten Island voluntarily agreed to vacate over 700,000 warrants that had been issued for defendants who had skipped their court dates. All of the warrants were over 10 years old. These defiant defendants thus scoffed at the legal process and got away it, sending a terrible message to their communities. And that was under the current bail system. Imagine how many more will skip court if Cuomo has his way and there's no financial incentive for them to appear in court. Imagine, too, the cost to taxpayers as law enforcement is forced to expend countless time and money tracking them down. This, of course, with no guarantee that their efforts will be successful, as those 700,000 vacated warrants graphically illustrate.



Eliminating cash bail is a terrible idea. Cuomo, the lawyer, knows this. Cuomo, the politician, however, simply doesn't care.



Daniel Leddy's column appears each Tuesday. Email him at column@danielleddylaw.com. Follow him on Twitter @LegalHotShots.STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A 49-year-old man was accused of raping a woman in her home in Bulls Head early Sunday morning.

Victor Catala, 49, of South 12th Street in Newark, N.J., was arrested in connection with the alleged sexual assault that occurred at about 2 a.m. in the vicinity of Graham Avenue and Commerce Street, according to a spokeswoman for the NYPD's Deputy Commissioner of Public Information.

The victim, a 33-year-old woman, told police that she and a man went to her home.

Without her consent, the suspect laid on the bed next to the victim, pressed his body against her despite requests to stop, then had sexual intercourse with her, according to allegations in the criminal compliant.

In order to escape, the woman said she had to use the bathroom. While she was in the bathroom, the man left the house, according to police.

Catala was apprehended by police at about 4 a.m. on street in the vicinity of where the alleged rape occurred, according to police.

He has been charged with third-degree rape, a felony, and misdemeanor sexual misconduct, according to police and public records.

Catala, who stands about 6'2" tall and weighs about 180 pounds, is being held at the Brooklyn Detention Center. His bail has been set at $30,000 cash/$10,000 bond and he is due back in Criminal Court on Thursday, according to public records.By clicking Agree, you consent to Slates Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and the use of technologies such as cookies by Slate and our partners to deliver relevant advertising on our iOS app to personalize content and perform site analytics. Please see our Privacy Policy for more information about our use of data, your rights, and how to withdraw consent.

AgreeCanberra students Matthew Browning and Holly George have urged drivers to slow down in school zones after their friend got hit by a speeding car last year.

"We actually had a mate, a car clipped his back tyre on his bike and he got hit by a car," Matthew said.

Marcus Borman teaching Radford College student Holly George how to use the radar gun. Credit:Dion Georgopoulos

The boy was approaching a school zone where cars should be slowing when he was hit, escaping with minor injuries.

The students were speaking as authorities warned motorists to slow down in school zones when young people return to school next week.If you've been driving around Civic or the inner suburbs it's hard to miss cyclists with oversized backpacks emblazoned with the colourful logos of food delivery apps, but new figures show these riders are likely to be underpaid and missing out on workplace rights like superannuation and insurance.

The Transport Workers Union released survey results of riders in Melbourne and Sydney this week showing half of riders have either been injured while riding, or know someone who has, and 75 per cent of riders were getting paid below the minimum wage.

A new survey shows delivery riders are being underpaid, and unions say ACT riders are affected.

Secretary of the ACT branch of the Transport Workers Union Klaus Pinkas says that although traffic congestion in the capital isn't as bad as the cities surveyed, riders here still face the same dangers without protection that other workers expect.

"We don't have any reason to doubt that [the survey figures] don't apply to Canberra as well," he said. The local branch of the union has been in touch with riders over issues like chronic underpayments and insurance he said.There is no doubt Canberra is a regional centre, serving the needs of not only the local population, but NSW communities surrounding it.

The Canberra Hospital, for a start, is the largest public hospital in the region, supporting a population of almost 540,000, well above the estimated ACT population of 400,000.

In the same way, ACT schools cater to students living in NSW.

About 4500 ACT students live in NSW, about 1800 of whom attend public schools. The figure is expected to grow thanks to large residential developments close to the border.Former Sirtex Medical CEO Gilman Wong. Credit:Michael Amendolia Mr Mawhinney said there were "a number of aspects to the trials that were positive" and the company had a "potentially bright future". "I think this is a reasonably compelling price and would be inclined to accept it, absent a superior offer," he said. "Shareholders get chance to vote on this and the board has done right thing here." On a conference call on Monday Sirtex chief executive Andrew McLean declined to speculate on whether there would be other bids for the company, but confirmed that Varian's bid was the highest from a range of non-binding bids for the liver cancer treatment developer. Sirtex shares had taken a battering for most of last year after a run of bad news, including the sacking of its former chief executive Gilman Wong.

Mr Wong is being investigated by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission over trades he made in the troubled biotechnology group's shares ahead of a profit downgrade. The company last year paid a penalty of $100,000, without any admission of liability, after being issued with an infringement notice from ASIC for allegedly breaching its continuous disclosure obligations to shareholders. Separate to the ASIC investigation, the company is the focus of a class action for breaching its obligations. A mediation date is set for August. Asked by analysts during a teleconference on Wednesday morning whether the board had sought to offload the company during this volatile period, Mr McLean said: "The Sirtex board did not put the business up for sale. There was no outward bound process. These were unsolicited bids that came in for Sirtex." He said the premium was "attractive" and the risk that the transaction would not complete was "very low".

"Sirtex is a wonderful business with strong prospects," Mr McLean said. "We presented our strategic plan moving forward, and they have got all the data as to current performance and past performance." Mr McLean was repeatedly asked to give an update on the class action, but said there was none and that: "we continue to defend the allegations". "If hypothetically there was some form of payout before the transaction concludes, that would be Sirtex paying that, but this proposed transaction does not impact Sirtex's defence on the allegations made against it in any way," he said. When asked by a private investor if the class action was not settled before the sale whether Varian would pay the costs, Mr McLean said: "I would presume so, yes." Vairan, which has it headquarters in Palo Alto, California, employs about 6500 people around the world. The company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and has a market capitalisation of about $US11.8 billon.

Mr McLean has previously stated that Sirtex has just 5 per cent penetration of the accessible market for its key product, SIR-Spheres Y-90 resin microspheres. The technology releases a type of radiation directly to inoperable liver tumours, increasing survival time for patients. "Varian is the global leader in radiation oncology," Mr McLean told Fairfax Media. "As a consequence of that they have extremely solid relationships across the radiation oncology domain, and in particular with radiation oncologists." He said Sirtex had medical oncologists, "but one of the gaps in our approach has been the radiation oncologists and that's an area where I think Varian are going to help us, in a significant manner, grow the business." He said Varian also had leading software tools, which allow better treatment planning of radiation doses. Mr McLean said he would stay on until the deal had been completed. "What happens after that is completely up to Varian," he said.David Jones will open its first mini-supermarket in Melbourne's swanky South Yarra next year, as it bets food can counterbalance lagging sales in its department store business.

The 500-square metre store will open in 2019 at the Capital Grand apartment building currently under construction on the corner of Toorak Road and Chapel Street.

Most products will be from David Jones' private label food line.

David Jones said it would be the first of several standalone food stores it will open nationally, alongside the rollout of its food concept inside a number of department stores.

The standalone stores will focus on top-end fresh produce and pre-prepared meals, vegetables and salads targeting the suburb's affluent and time-poor residents.Domino's Pizza workers have voted in favour of a new wage deal after the workplace tribunal threw out previous agreements struck between the fast food giant and the shop workers union.

But the new agreement will be tested when it is sent to the Fair Work Commission for approval, with a rival union set to challenge it on the grounds of being no better for workers than the default award conditions.

Just under 30 per cent of workers took part in the vote, the SDA said.

The Shop and Distributive Allied Employees Association (SDA) said 89 per cent of the 5418 ballots cast were in favour of its new agreement and 11 per cent were against.

Just under 30 per cent of Domino's 18,000-strong workforce took place in the ballot, the SDA said.When Ikea's Ingvar Kamprad died last Saturday at age 91, he was ranked No. 8 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, thanks to his control of a global retail fortune valued at $U58.7 billion ($73.8 billion).

His wealth will now be dissipated because of a unique structure put in place by Kamprad to secure the long-term independence and survival of the Ikea concept.

Kamprad had always disputed his status as one of the richest men on the planet, having decades earlier placed control of the world's largest furniture seller into a network of foundations and holding companies.

His heirs now won't have direct control of the firm. Instead, they will have a more meagre fortune derived from family-owned Ikano Group, a collection of finance, real estate, manufacturing and retail businesses which had total assets of about $US10 billion in 2016.The report said Switzerland, the United States and the Cayman Islands were the world's biggest contributors to financial secrecy.

Australia is ranked at 45th position in this year's index, one place down from its 2015 position , 44.

Switzerland is the one of the world's biggest contributors to financial secrecy.

Australia continues to host significant quantities of illicit funds from outside the country, according to the 2018 Financial Secrecy Index.

"Switzerland, the global capital of bank secrecy, retains the worst ranking, and the US has moved up to second [place]," the Tax Justice Network said.

"The top two countries in this year's FSI are the two that have been most resistant to the key policy of automatic information exchange between tax authorities.

"The US refuses to take part altogether. Instead, it has set up its own parallel system (FATCA) which seeks information on US citizens abroad, but provides little, if any, data to foreign countries."

It said despite a greater push for more transparency after the global financial crisis a decade ago, such as a demand for public registers of company owners, "progress has been difficult, as powerful vested interests working with friendly governments seek to frustrate change".

"The UK government, for example, continues to insist on the right of its satellite tax havens to maintain the secrecy of company ownership, and the German government, with others, have sought to impede attempts to make progress on the beneficial ownership issue within the European Union."Kingsley Abbott, a senior international adviser with the International Commission of Jurists, says it is significant that Ricketson's alleged activities were referred to in the legal action against the CNRP.

"As those proceedings had all the hallmarks of being politically motivated, there is real concern as to whether Ricketson will receive a fair trial before an independent and impartial court in light of the government's track record of interference in high-profile, politicised cases," he says.

Since Ricketson's arrest, some advisers have urged him to remain quiet and deferential to his accusers and jailers in the hope that efforts behind the scenes could secure the dropping of the charge before the case goes to court.

That seems to have been the advice from Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs, whose spokespeople publicly insist that Australia cannot intervene in the legal system of another country and that staff at Australia's embassy in Phnom Penh are continuing to provide consular support "while ensuring we do not prejudice in any way his current situation".

The other way for Ricketson to go was to scream from the rooftops to build public pressure on the Turnbull government to intervene as it did in the case of Australian journalist Peter Greste when he was jailed on trumped-up charges in Egypt.The summer break has various political consequences. Political leaders have a chance to recharge their batteries. The momentum gathered by political parties is temporarily halted. Political operatives reflect on the past year and plan for the new one. The public opinion polls cease to dictate the news. And most importantly voters get a chance to put politics out of their mind and put political arguments in perspective.

In that sense the new year is a new start with fresh possibilities. My own view is that for that reason 2018 has a sense of mystery about it with political outcomes uncertain.

The next election is Bill Shorten's to lose. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

But as we all emerge from our summer daze we remember that one of the defining characteristics of 2017 was that many issues were left unfinished.

Controversy continues to swirl around the future of asylum seekers and refugees on Manus Island and Nauru. The reputation of the New Zealand Prime Minister has now been besmirched. The religious freedom elements of the same-sex marriage decision will reignite when the Ruddock committee reports in March. Conservative elements in cabinet and Coalition party rooms will be watching closely. The redistributive aspects of the Gonski 2.0 federal school funding decisions refuse to settle down. Public school advocates are particularly unhappy. Energy policy has not been put to bed either in terms of short-term power reliability and pricing or in terms of the bigger conflict between coal and alternative energy sources. The forthcoming South Australian election will inevitably draw federal comment in this regard. The long-running distraction of the dual citizenship quandary among federal MPs should have been resolved but has not been. The High Court will report again as a Court of Disputed Returns on the David Feeney and Katy Gallagher cases. Social issues like euthanasia were put firmly on the national agenda by the Victorian State Parliament decision to legalise assisted dying.Australia's climate policies are "a decade behind" other rich nations, according to a United Nations investment official, leaving the country exposed to risks of a so-called "green paradox" when carbon emissions will have to make a precipitous retreat.

A phasing out of coal and other fossil fuels is the centrepiece of four recommended investor goals to be unveiled by the UN's Principles for Responsible Investment unit in New York on Thursday morning, eastern Australian time.

The sun must set for coal, but what happens before the carbon curtain falls?

Fiona Reynolds, UNPRI's managing director, said investors needed to take the lead in forcing companies to reveal their exposure to fossil fuels and to step up pressure on governments to meet their Paris climate commitments.

"Investors have a huge, huge role to play on climate change," Ms Reynolds told Fairfax Media, citing their ability to influence the companies they own, including steering them away from fossil fuels to renewable energy. "This a really urgent issue."Officers from intelligence agency ASIO entered the ABC's offices in Canberra and Brisbane early on Thursday to secure classified and top secret cabinet documents recently obtained by the public broadcaster under extraordinary circumstances.

At about 1am AEDT, ASIO agents delivered safes to locations in Parliament House and at South Bank in Brisbane to store the thousands of pages of sensitive documents, accessed by the ABC after they were discovered in locked government filing cabinets at a used furniture store.

The ABC still has access to the files and its lawyers are negotiating with the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) regarding the future of the information.

PM&C launched an urgent investigation on Wednesday into how the papers - which are supposed to be kept secret for 20 years - ended up being sold to a member of the public.A growing majority of Australians now oppose the construction of Adani's huge Carmichael coal mine, while environmental groups are ramping up pressure on Bill Shorten and federal Labor to rule out support for the project.

A poll of 3312 people, conducted by pollsters ReachTEL on January 25 and commissioned by the Stop Adani Alliance, found 65.1 per cent of Australians opposed or strongly opposed Indian mining company Adani building the new coal mine in Queensland.

The figure represents a 13.2 per cent rise - from 51.9 per cent - in opposition to the project compared to March 2017. Significantly, the latest poll found an outright majority of Nationals (55.3 per cent), One Nation (52.9 per cent), Labor (75.6 per cent) and Greens (94.2 per cent) voters all oppose the mine.

More Liberal voters (43.2 per cent) said they opposed or strongly opposed the project compared to 34.7 per cent who said they supported or strongly supported it.

The findings come a day after Mr Shorten told the National Press Club the project had to stack up commercially and environmentally for federal Labor to support it, and that more needed to be done to protect the Great Barrier Reef, which environmental groups warn will be negatively impacted by the project.Senior Labor figures are lobbying former treasurer Wayne Swan to throw his hat into the ring to become ALP president, in a move that could blow the race wide open and create a potential headache for Opposition Leader Bill Shorten.

The position is held by shadow cabinet member Mark Butler, who delivered a scathing attack on the party's factional warlords last week. It's understood he now plans to run for a second-term unless another strong pro-reform candidate emerges ahead of the ALP National Conference in July.

Mr Butler's decision to highlight Labor's consistently low primary vote - and contrast it unfavourably with that of former leaders Kim Beazley, Mark Latham and Kevin Rudd, who all polled in the 40s - has also been interpreted as thinly veiled swipe at Mr Shorten, and has infuriated supporters of the opposition leader.

Transport Workers Union secretary Tony Sheldon is already in the mix as a candidate for the Right faction; however, Mr Swan is also being discussed as an alternative candidate as the Right weighs how to seize the influential role from the Left, which typically holds the post.Federal education minister Simon Birmingham is standing by Julia Gillard's NAPLAN tests but has stressed critics of the school assessment system have overstated its influence.

The minister was responding to criticisms of the program by world-renowned Finnish education expert Pasi Sahlberg, who said systems of standardised testing skew education systems towards the test and away from the broader skills that children need to develop, such as play.

Senator Birmingham said some principals took pride in improving their school's NAPLAN scores, however he agreed the emphasis put on the results can be overblown.

"One of the unfortunate things around NAPLAN is that the debate around it overstates its importance as it's only one assessment tool," he said.The key watchdogs for Australia's intelligence and security agencies have warned that spies may be more reluctant to give them information because they fear possible prosecution under the governments proposed foreign interference laws.

The Office of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security and the Commonwealth Ombudsman on Wednesday joined human rights groups and media companies in raising concerns about unintended consequences of the new laws.

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Their evidence to a high-powered parliamentary inquiry adds to the likelihood the complex legislation to crack down on foreign interference in Australian government and democracy will need to be changed.

Shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus, who sits on the inquiry, told the ABC ahead of Wednesdays hearing that Labor was not yet convinced and that concerns already expressed show the government hasnt properly achieved the intention these bills need.State and territory governments have cut their budgets for private schools for the first time in at least 10 years, as Gonski funding deals begin to redirect spending towards needy public schools.

For the first time since 2012-13, total government spending on public school students grew faster than for their private school counterparts, according to a Productivity Commission analysis.

The amount spent on public schools by all governments increased 2.8 per cent in 2015-16, the second full year of the Gonski model, compared to 1.7 per cent for non-government schools.

Overall, expenditure on each public school student rose $203 to $17,275 in 2015-16, while total government expenditure on each private school student rose just $62 to $10,147.Former First Lady Michelle Obama has opened up about the awkward moment the current First Lady, Melania Trump, tried to gift her with a large, rectangular box on Inauguration Day last January.

Mrs Obama's appearance on the Ellen Show marks the first interview she has given since her husband, Barack Obama left office.

When DeGeneres asked her what she thought of the Tiffany and Co. box, replete with white ribbon, being handed to her by Melania on the steps of the White House in front of millions of viewers, Obama, 54, inhaled deeply, saying "Oh yeah, the box" while a tape of the tense scene played out behind them for the Ellen Show's audience.

DeGeneres made the point that President Trump did not wait for his wife or escort her up the White House steps, appearing instead to walk briskly to meet the Obamas. Several seconds pass before Melania Trump is able to join him, appearing from behind their car with the Tiffany box.Hundreds of women will let their body hair grow this month, with all funds going towards fighting domestic violence against women.

Get Hairy February is a month-long campaign against gendered violence.

Paula Abul, ambassador for Get Hairy February stopped shaving her body hair when she was 14 years old Credit:Alexis Desaulniers-Lea

Now in its second year, it encourages women to stop shaving their underarms and legs during February to challenge beauty expectations, and raise funds for a good cause.

"This campaign is not about walking down the street and seeing hairy legs on women everywhere  I mean great if that's what happens, awesome  but it's actually more about women experimenting with their natural bodies and allowing this choice to be something which they make for themselves because it doesn't come with fear," said Alex Andrews, the campaign's founder.A majority of voters would prefer the date of Australia Day to remain unchanged, but there is strong support for the introduction of a formal ceremony on the national day to recognise Indigenous people and their history and culture, polling conducted over the Australia Day weekend shows.

The survey, carried out amid national debate about the "change the date" movement, found 62 per cent of respondents said "no" when asked if they wanted the date of Australia Day changed. The share of voters who support a date shift for Australia Day has climbed from about one in six to one in five during the past year.

Once survey respondents were presented with a short statement explaining the rationale for changing the date of Australia Day, support for a date shift rose from 19 per cent to 29 per cent, while the share wanting the date to stay the same fell to 58 per cent.

The share who "don't really care" what date Australia Day is held has shrunk from one in four to one in five during the past year.The widow of murdered police accountant Curtis Cheng says he was heartlessly robbed of a life he'd worked so hard to build when a teenager shot him dead as he left work more than two years ago.

Selina Cheng spoke on Wednesday at the sentence hearing of 20-year-old Raban Alou, who the Crown says provided the gun used to kill Mr Cheng in a terrorist act outside NSW Police Headquarters in Parramatta in October 2015.

Selina Cheng (left), the wife of NSW Police accountant Curtis Cheng. Credit:Peter Rae

With her adult son and daughter by her side, an emotional Ms Cheng said she and her husband toiled for years to make a good life for themselves in Australia, only for it to be "senselessly torn away".

"This heartless murder has robbed Curtis of a life he has worked so hard to build and this has created immense pain for us as a family," Ms Cheng said in the NSW Supreme Court.One of the AMI signs after it was censored. Credit:Danielle Smith One former employee told the Herald he was horrified when a blind, 90-year-old man was refused a refund. AMI insisted he honour his contract by having his 86-year-old wife, who had Parkinson's disease, administer his penile injections. Former employees also admitted that AMI staff lied to customers about the effectiveness of treatment, using words such as "guaranteed to work". From the ashes of AMI, Mr Vaisman started a new business known as NRM. In April 2015, the Federal Court found that AMI and its successor NRM engaged in unconscionable conduct and used unfair contract terms in the way it promoted and supplied medical services and medications to consumers.

"It is immoral to seek to harness the fears and anxieties of men suffering from ED [erectile dysfunction] or PE [premature ejaculation] for the purpose of selling medical treatments," said Justice Anthony North in his 2015 judgment. The court found that, in the three years to 2010, AMI reaped almost $150 million from patients, after signing them up to contracts that ranged from $2500 to $4500. The same medication was available from GPs at a fraction of the cost. When the ACCC raided AMI's premises in 2010, an estimated 3 million recordings of patients' calls were seized. These showed that the doctors failed "to meet the standards of proper practice established by the medical profession" and put the commercial interests of AMI above the medical interests of their patients. Justice North also found that salespeople used high-pressure selling techniques, telling men that their penises would shrink and they would suffer psychological impotence if they did not undertake AMI's treatment programs. As well as the finding that AMI engaged in unconscionable practices, Mr Vaisman was banned from operating the business for seven years.

Mr Vaisman subsequently appealed against the court ruling and lost again, incurring further costs, which he again failed to pay. ACCC Commissioner Sarah Court said, "We took action against Mr Vaisman and his former companies for their roles in unconscionable conduct and use of unfair contract terms in promoting or supplying male sexual dysfunction products to vulnerable consumers." As NRM is under external administration and no longer trading, the ACCC enforced the costs order against Mr Vaisman alone. After Mr Vaisman's failure to pay the ACCC's legal costs amounting to $3,679,359, the ACCC took bankruptcy action against him. Mr Vaisman, who calls himself a doctor despite not being registered in Australia, claims to have been an associate professor of gynaecology at the Donetsk State Medical University in Ukraine when he became a political prisoner in the Soviet Union.

According to corporate affairs records he is known as Jack/Jacov/Jakov/Javov Vaisman/Vaysman/Waterman and was born in Moscow/Ovruch/Odessa/Kiev/Ukraine on August 23 and 28, in 1945 and 1946. His companies have a bad record when it comes to misleading and deceptive conduct. Mr Vaisman was prosecuted in 1996 by the ACCC for claiming his was "the only impotence treatment ever proven to work". He was ordered to offer refunds and to publish ads regretting misleading impressions his company had given, In the same year, his earlier incarnation of AMI - On Clinic Australia - was prosecuted for illegally importing $500,000 worth of unregistered drugs, which Mr Vaisman's brother had sourced from Israel. The charges were proved, but no conviction was recorded.

In December 2003, AMI agreed to repay unsatisfied customers and publish six weeks of corrective newspaper advertisements after the Federal Court declared, by consent, that AMI had engaged in misleading or deceptive advertising. The ACCC said newspaper advertisements and promotional material between February 2001 and April 2002 contained many misleading and deceptive statements, including that results were guaranteed, no needles were used, doctors had a minimum of six years' experience (some had not), and that refunds would be provided if the treatment was ineffective. In fact, refunds had not been paid to all dissatisfied patients. Mr Vaisman had to refund unhappy customers and was ordered not to make false representations in future. But just a year later, he was back in court, having breached the court's order. No further action was taken after he agreed to publish further corrective statements. Former game show host Ian "Turps" Turpie, who died in 2012, was forced to admit his ringing endorsement that his impotence had been cured by AMI's nasal spray was a "complete fabrication" after his son dobbed him in to the ACCC.Police have released CCTV footage of a hit-and-run smash they called "a clear case of road rage" inside the M5 tunnel at Arncliffe last year, and are appealing for help to locate the culprits.

The attack began when an 18-year-old man, with two male passengers aged 18 and 16, stopped his Holden Astra on Seventh Avenue near the intersection of Qantas Drive at Mascot, about 8.45pm on October 15.

A black BMW X5, with four men on board, stopped next to the Astra, and one of the passengers in the BMW threw a crowbar at the victims' car, police said.

Police described the attacker as of Caucasian appearance, approximately 20 years old, with blond/brown hair, and wearing a black jumper and black shorts.For the second time in a week Premier Gladys Berejiklian has been forced to declare support for Transport Minister Andrew Constance, who, fresh from being embroiled in a crisis enveloping the train network, is now alleged to have misled the public over a gimmicky ferry name.

"Absolutely," said Ms Berejiklian when asked if Mr Constance retained her support after he was forced to deny misleading the public over a controversial decision to name a Sydney ferry Ferry McFerryface.

It was only seven days ago that Ms Berejiklian was forced to issue a similar declaration of unqualified support for her minister after days of transport chaos following a timetable overhaul and ongoing union pay battle.

It comes as Greens transport spokeswoman Mehreen Faruqi requested the Governor of NSW, David Hurley, convene a special commission of inquiry into major transport projects in Mr Constance's portfolio, following what she alleged were systemic cost blowouts of billions of dollars and secrecy surrounding tender processes.An Uber driver and his two passengers have escaped injury after a truck driver collided with their car in a bizarre incident caught on camera.

The incident, which happened around 5:30pm on Monday, was filmed on a mobile phone and showed the Direct Freight Express truck shunting the car with three people on board for 30 metres along the Princes Highway in Sydenham, before it was forced into a side street and just in front of a power pole.

A NSW Police spokeswoman confirmed Traffic and Highway Patrol Command are investigating the incident.

Assistant Commissioner Michael Corboy said police were only made aware of the collision after the footage began circulating on social media.Former Auburn deputy mayor Salim Mehajer's defence team has abandoned his case in which he is accused of assaulting and robbing a taxi driver.

Mr Mehajer is accused of stealing driver Nazir Syed's phone, throwing it out of the taxi and hitting him with an Eftpos machine in an altercation outside The Star casino in Sydney in the early hours of April 2, 2017.

The 31-year-old property developer denies the allegations and has pleaded not guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm, larceny, destroying or damaging property and common assault.

On Wednesday, the matter was listed for a rescheduled hearing at Downing Centre Local Court, after Mr Mehajer was involved in a car crash on the way to the original trial in October 2017.Queenslanders may be in for more flooding due to abnormally high tides expected in the coming days  for the second time in January.

Brisbane City Council has warned residents by the river, along low-lying areas and on the bayside to prepare for minor localised flooding.

Motorbike riders travel through saltwater flooding in Scarborough, north of Brisbane.

Higher than normal tides are predicted for coastal and riverside locations across the state from Wednesday to Friday, due to a confluence of the super blue blood moon and increasing swell from a likely cyclone forming in the Coral Sea.

The Bureau of Meteorology predicted tide peaks of around 2.7 metres, exceeding the highest tide of the year by about half a metre.When Shendon and Simon Ewans' retired father clicked a link on a fraudulent bill that was emailed to him, and then became infected with malware that cleared out his bank account to the tune of $8300, his sons knew there had to be a way to prevent it from happening in the future.

"Eventually I recovered the money and I reclaimed my bank account and phone number," says their father Stephen, 69, whose mobile was also hijacked in the process.

Simon and Shendon Ewans, of Gobbill.

"[But] it took almost six weeks. The stress, anxiety and inconvenience was terrible."

Having already built a platform to ensure people paid bills on time in order to avoid late fees and secure on-time payment discounts, the two siblings put their heads together to devise a plan to conquer the problem their father had fallen victim to.A Melbourne man was found cold, stiff and foaming at the mouth in his pyjamas after he was allegedly fatally poisoned with cyanide by his wife and her lover.

Sofia Sam, 33, and Arun Kamalasanan, 35, are on trial in the Supreme Court for murdering Sam Abraham at the Epping family home in October 2015.

Sofia Sam is accused of murdering her husband. Credit:Joe Armao

On the morning of the death, Ms Sam telephoned her sister Sonia who, along with a friend, rushed to the Epping home.

An emergency call was made after the pair arrived, and the trial jury was played the raw and emotional audio recording in court on Wednesday.Melbourne City Council is preparing to ask the state opposition and the Greens to axe the Andrews governments contentious plan for an Apple "flagship" store at Federation Square.

The council is set to vote on Tuesday on a motion that would see it write to all Victorian upper house MPs asking them to revoke Planning Minister Richard Wynnes approval of the Apple mega-store.

Labor does not control the upper house so a concerted push to derail the plan could succeed.

The Andrews government announced the Apple store before Christmas, triggering an angry community backlash.The off-duty police sergeant who grabbed the driver alleged to have deliberately ploughed into pedestrians in Flinders Street in December, was called upon to restrain a dangerous passenger on a domestic flight two years earlier.

The sergeant was one of nearly 270 passengers on board a Qantas flight from Perth to Brisbane on October 17, 2015 when a drunken passenger confronted the plane's crew after a minor dispute.

Police drag a man from the scene of the Melbourne CBD Flinders Street crash in December. Credit:SEVEN NEWS

When the crew flight could not control the man, the sergeant identified himself as an off-duty Victoria police officer and offered to help. He got some other passengers to move and managed to drag the offender into the empty row of seats they'd vacated.

According to subsequent statements, the policeman had to restrain the offender alone while he continued to lash out because the plane had begun its descent into Brisbane and the crew were already buckled in.A terminally ill mother has chased a group of teenage thieves who allegedly tried to steal her car out of the driveway of her north-west home.

Kellie McElligott, 48, woke to find three teenagers raiding her Ascot Vale home for her car keys in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Kellie McElligott Credit:Channel Nine

The mother of three, who has ovarian cancer, said her dream had always been to own a Mercedes Benz.

Three months ago, her husband bought one for her.The state government has flagged a possible ban on the sale of caged eggs in Western Australia unless animal welfare standards for laying hens are improved.

Agricultural minister Alannah MacTiernan confirmed the move on Wednesday morning which would require producers to provide more room to caged hens.

The state government has flagged a ban on caged eggs. Credit:Warwick Blackler

Revised national poultry welfare standards, currently under review by the Federal government, propose cages be higher than a chicken's height and each chicken have a minimum floor area of 550 centimetres squared.

Ms MacTiernan said the revised measures were not enough.A Mandurah man has pleaded guilty to pointing two guns at a local construction worker and stealing his work ute.

Jared Shayne Mitchell pleaded guilty to 18 charges when he appeared in Mandurah Magistrates Court, including obstructing public officers and reckless driving to escape pursuit by police.

Chad Mitchell's nephew has pleaded guilty to firearms charges in Mandurah.

Mitchell, 24, is the nephew of missing Parmelia woman Iveta Mitchell's husband, Chad.

Prosecuting sergeant Nev Palmer told the court Mitchell drove a stolen Toyota Hilux to Wormal Civil in Madora Bay on August 9, 2017 about 5pm.This is a short timelapse of four LEGO Master Builders at the company's US headquarters in Enfield, Connecticut constructing a giant 10-foot, 1,200-pound, 133,000 piece replica of a 2 X 4 brick to celebrate the LEGO Group's 60th anniversary. It took over 350 hours to complete, although I'm not sure if those are people-hours or total hours. Whatever the case, I'd love the opportunity to run and tackle that thing as full speed. Do you think I'd break it, or do you think it would break me? "It would break you." Trick question, I'm unbreakable. One time I got hit by a garbage truck, you know what happened? Trash went everywhere. That garbage truck lives in a landfill now.

Keep going for the video.

Thanks to Dunc, who agrees they should have made a bunch of those bricks and built a skyscraper out of them!Residents north of the Augusta town site breathed a sigh of relief on Tuesday morning as a huge bush fire was downgraded after burning through Monday night.

The Shire of Augusta Margaret River confirmed several buildings were lost in the blaze.

The efforts of firefighters have been applauded as the threat from the fire eases, but remains extremely dangerous. Credit:Wallcliffe Volunteer Fire Brigade.

Property damage from the bushfire emergency includes one losing a vacant/disused house and vehicles, sustaining some damage to the main dwelling, while a second property lost a number of sheds and general goods

The fire broke out on Monday afternoon and was quickly whipped out of control by strong winds.Police have revealed they don't know what happened to a 57-year-old father of two who was found unconscious in the middle of a Perth street with critical head injuries earlier this week.

The family of 57-year-old Romauld Menezes made an emotional plea for help outside the Kensington Police Station on Wednesday morning, and asked anyone with information about what happened to come forward.

Rommy Menezes. Credit:WA Police

"All I want is some answers for my daughters and myself, [is] to really just know what happened... that's all we want to know," wife Rochelle said.

Mr Menezes was last seen by his family on Saturday afternoon.A WA fisher has pulled what he calls a "marronasaurus" out of a South West fishing spot during the species annual season.

According to Recfishwest's fact sheet marron can grow up to 38.5 centimetres and weigh up to 2.2 kilograms.

That's not a marron - these are marron... Credit:Marron Matters

The specimen, caught by Ryan Bradley, stretches lengthways across a carton of Iron Jack beer - and he caught four of similar size all up.

Marron fishing is one of the most popular seasons in WA with 11,366 licenses issued in 2016 alone, and Harvey Dam and Wellington Dam and he most popular spots.A demolition contractor in South Perth has sprayed a member of the public in the face with water in an effort to stop her taking photos while she stood on public land.

Vicki Redden, who has been passionately advocating for sustainable and well-designed infill in South Perth, said she was used to copping sprays from people who disagreed with her but she'd never copped one full in the face.

"The woman who was helping demolish the trees told me to stop taking pictures or she would hose me. I didn't think for one minute she was serious," Mrs Redden said.

"I laughed ... said 'oh yeah, good one' and she picked up the hose and did it."The City of Subiaco held a special meeting behind closed doors on Tuesday evening in order to vote on the State Government's plans for a new high school next to Subiaco Oval.

The special meeting was called in order for councillors to vote on the McGowan government's Kitchener Park inner-city high school development.

Artist impressions of the new school near Subiaco Oval.

The move to a Kitchener Park development came after the McGowan government bowed to public pressure and dumped its plan to move Perth Modern, Perth's only academically-selective school, to a high-rise city building.

Premier Mark McGowan and Education Minister Sue Ellery proposed to re-locate WA's sole academically-selective high school from its Roberts Road site to a 16-floor high rise in the CBD during WA Labor's election campaign.Sochi: Syrian peace talks got off to a rocky start on Tuesday, with key opposition figures refusing to take part and the main Kurdish party absent, but the conference agreed to move ahead with plans to draft constitutional reforms.

The conference called for the reform process to take place through the United Nations, which is the host of the so-called Geneva process for a final settlement to end the brutal war plaguing the country since 2011.

"I will be indicating as soon as possible - because Syria cannot wait - how I intend to proceed," UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said at the close of the conference, adding that this would be a "delicate job" that required further consultations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu talk to each other after visiting an exhibition at the Russian military's headquarters as part of a conference on the Russian campaign in Syria. Credit:AP

A list of about 150 people was prepared as possible candidates for the constitutional committee, of whom two-thirds are government and so-called moderate opposition. It is unclear how armed groups on the ground will react.Phnom Penh: Cambodias government has for the first time named Australian filmmaker James Ricketson a foreign spy, saying in a previously unpublished court submission that he had been collecting information that could jeopardise the countrys national defence.

The submission obtained by Fairfax Media reveals the country's Interior Ministry named Ricketson in Cambodias Supreme Court late last year when it was arguing to dissolve the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP).

The submission linked 68 year-old Ricketson with protest rallies the CNRP staged in 2013 and 2014.

Australian filmmaker James Ricketson is escorted by prison guards while walking at the Cambodian Supreme Court in Phnom Penh. Credit:ap

Ricketson, from Sydney, has been demanding to know for months who he has been accused of spying for and what he was supposedly spying on.Stockholm: The man who mowed down pedestrians with a truck, killing five people, in Stockholm last April wanted to punish Sweden for its part in the global fight against radical group Islamic State, prosecutors said in charges filed on Tuesday.

Uzbek-born Rakhmat Akilov, who was on the run from Swedish authorities after his asylum application was turned down, said in online conversations cited by the prosecutor that he wanted to "run over unbelievers".

A view of the scene as emergency services work in the area after a truck crashed into a department store in central Stockholm, Sweden, in April, 2017. Credit:AP

"His motive is that he wanted to punish Sweden because we are part of the global coalition against IS," Deputy Chief Prosecutor Hans Ihrman of the National Security Unit told a news conference.Washington: One person was killed when an Amtrak train carrying Republican lawmakers to an annual party conference in West Virginia collided Wednesday with a truck near Crozet, Virginia.

The White House confirmed the fatality. One person was seriously injured.

"The President has been fully briefed on the situation in Virginia and is receiving regular updates," White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said. "There are no serious injuries among members of Congress or their staff."

Passengers watch as emergency personnel work at the scene of a train crash involving a garbage truck in Crozet, Virigina. Credit:AP

Sanders said White House officials were in touch with Amtrak, state and local officials. "Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone that has been affected by this incident," she said.Las Vegas: Authorities were looking into an additional person of interest following the mass shooting in Las Vegas that killed 58 people and wounded hundreds of others, according to search warrants unsealed by a Nevada judge Tuesday.

While Stephen Paddock has been identified as the lone gunman in the October 1 massacre, and authorities had been looking at his girlfriend, Marilou Danley, as a person of interest, a new name emerged when the court mistakenly failed to redact a name from the warrants: Douglas Haig.

Stephen Paddock Credit:AP

Douglas Haig is the name of a Mesa, Arizona, ammunition dealer who runs a website called Specialised Military Ammunition, which touts itself as "your source for premium, MILSPEC, tracer and incendiary ammunition in popular military calibers," including ammunition that "ignites diesel and kerosene." (Officials have said that Paddock shot at aerial fuel tanks near the concert during the attack, although they did not ignite.)

"We Will Be Closed Indefinitely," the website said Tuesday. "Check back to see if / when we are up and running again." Haig did not immediately respond to messages for comment, and it was not certain that he was the man named in the warrant, although there have been reports that Paddock purchased ammunition from a dealer in Mesa.PHILIPSBURG:--- Local author and university student Ralph Cantave recently took part in the Caribbean Regional Youth Councils advocacy and policy workshop in Trinidad & Tobago on January 26 to 27th. St. Maarten was one of the 10 plus islands that were represented. Cantave was among the 40 youth leaders that were accepted out of over 200 applicants. He saw the need to attend as an active youth on the island and will be sharing his experience and the knowledge gained with interested groups that want to further empower St. Maartens youth.

The two days consisted of practical trainings and presentations geared towards enhancing skills for effective activism, developing youth policies, monitoring and evaluation, advocacy strategies, position paper writing, advocacy methodologies, lobbying and professional development. The workshops were mainly geared towards youth council representatives, in order to help them find innovative ways of getting connecting and communicating with the youth of their islands, the wider public, and governments. Facilitators of the workshops consisted of some of the regions best and brightest young professionals, U.N and governmental policy experts, activists, business leaders and the former Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Basdeo Panday.

Having received a wealth of knowledge from the program, Cantave will be writing a letter to the new Minister of Education, Youth, Culture, and Sport, to share his ideas on ways St. Maarten can move forward with its national recovery and development through youth engagement. He believes that more can be done to include them in the decision-making process and all organizations must not only improve the quality of work but collaborate more in achieving common goals. Cantave will also suggest that St. Maartens Youth Council seek membership with the Caribbean Regional Youth Council and so that an ambassadors program be created for students and young professionals.

He closed by saying, Having visited several countries in recent years, I realized the need for us to tell our story, especially now, as a developing nation, by allowing our youth who are involved in various sectors, whether academia, arts or business, to develop new skills, networks, and experiences which can be used to empower their peers.PHILIPSBURG:---Thirty-three young men and women showed their interest by registering on Friday, January 26th for the Building Construction Trades (BCT) training program. The initiative, a joint collaboration between the Division of Study Financing, the Department of Youth and the Department of Labor and Social Services, was held at the Government Administration Building (in conference room 2). Applicants varied in ages (19-37), with educational backgrounds of a mixture of mostly GED, CXC and secondary school graduates who have a broad assortment of working experiences ranging from manual labor and warehouse workers to sales and administration workers. All applications are being evaluated by a committee and qualified candidates will be identified for the trades training program, a six-month tailored made course at the MIC Institute of Technology in Trinidad. The Institute, an agency of the Ministry of Education in Trinidad, was established in 1974 as a joint venture of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, the United Nations Development Programme / United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNDP/UNIDO) and a number of private local industries. Once complete, students will leave with MIC certification with the option for formal Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ) level one certification.

Financing for this project is secured via the Studying in the Region initiative subsidized by the Dutch Government (MIN OCW). One of the goals of this initiative is to give talented youth and young adults who may not meet the regular study financing guidelines a chance to enhance their marketable competences and become skilled laborers poised to enter the local workforce. With unemployment figures prior to Hurricane Irma at approximately 26%, the Studying in the Region program was expanded by the Council of Ministers in February 2017 to include unemployed persons wanting to pursue a technical vocational education. The training is just one avenue of the overall short, medium and long-term vision of the Department of Education. That will however take some time to properly plan and execute via the necessary allocation of funds.

This program will be evaluated and as is the case with all recipients of study financing from the Government of St. Maarten the academic process and progress will be monitored and controlled to ensure that recipients successfully complete this training program.

Minister of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, Jorien Wuite, was happy to note that four females were among those that registered. In such a strongly male dominated field, I was impressed that four ladies came in. I applaud them for not letting traditional gender roles stop them from pursuing their goals and I wish them, along with all the other applicants, success. The Minister added, As I indicated last week when I first encouraged persons to participate in the registration drive, these kinds of initiatives are critical to ensuring that St. Maarten successfully recovers from the setbacks caused by the passing Hurricane Irma. GREAT BAY (DCOMM):--- The Collective Prevention Services (CPS), a department of the Ministry of Public Health, Social Development and Labour, is calling on the community to hit germs where they live.

Germs like to hide out in places and stay there for a while. For example, flu viruses live on some surfaces for about 24-hours.

The Norovirus, that causes a stomach ailment, can hang around for days or even weeks. Both of these germs are very contagious and therefore it is very important to clean surfaces of germs after illness.

CPS advises to clean first and then disinfect. Wiping down the kitchen counter and other surfaces with soapy water can get rid of some germs.

When the person has the flu or diarrhea and has been throwing up, you should use a disinfectant to clean surfaces in order to stop the spread of germs. You can mix a quarter-cup of chlorine bleach with a gallon of hot water.

Germs like to live in moist places and this makes your kitchen and bathroom a perfect hiding spot especially in a sponge. Try using a microfiber cloth instead for cleaning as it soaks up bacteria and other germs better.

Wear gloves, and wash your hands in order to prevent germs from hitching a ride on your hands while you clean. Using disposable gloves also protects your skin from harsh cleaning products. Always wash your hands thoroughly after cleaning surfaces after illness.

Use separate cleaning cloths/sponges when cleaning the kitchen and the bathrooms. If you use the same for both, you can transfer germs from one location to the next.

The bathroom when a person is ill has the most germs. This should be priority number one when it comes to cleaning. Make sure to disinfect the toilet lever, shower faucets, cabinet handles, doorknobs, and light switches.

When preparing food in the kitchen and you are sick, you should disinfect all the things you touch, like the refrigerator handle and inside drawers, coffeepot/kettle, faucets, stove knobs etc.

Pillowcases should be changed every day. Bed linens can remain on the bed unless the sheets get soiled. Dont shake them out because that spreads germs. Disinfect night stands, bedposts, and other surfaces. Other rooms in the home where the family spends time such as the living/dining rooms, all surfaces should be disinfected.

The aforementioned advice is to protect family health from germs and therefore you must take action and hit germs where they hang out after illness.PUERTO RICO:--- Destination Sint Maarten is being represented at the Caribbeans largest and most important marketing event this week in San Juan, Puerto Rico, namely the Caribbean Travel Marketplace.

Acting Minister of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transportation & Telecommunications (Ministry TEATT) Cornelius de Weever on Wednesday said, the Caribbean Travel Marketplace affords tourism suppliers the opportunity to meet face-to-face with wholesalers from around the world selling Caribbean vacation travel.

The Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA) is holding its Caribbean Travel Marketplace at the Puerto Rico Convention Center in San Juan from January 30 to February 1.

Minister De Weever on Wednesday morning briefed the regional/international travel media about the status of the destination. He started off his presentation by describing the destination as Magical, Sensational, Captivating and Amazing.

Minister De Weever told the media that, We are open for business! He went on to give a detail update that the country is steadily recovering and rebuilding, and showing viable and visible signs of progress.

He added that the country is serene and safe, the road network is clean of any debris; Bars and restaurants are open; Beach access is free and clean; the countrys cruise sector is a step ahead with the main cruise lines having returned to the destination, adding that its not too late for those who would like to book a cruise.

Minister De Weever also pointed out the importance of the Mega Yacht sector and the vessels have also returned to the destination; marine service sector businesses are open to cater to the needs of the rich and famous.

Visitors can also experience watching planes land at SXM Airport down at Maho Beach; the destination is receiving daily flights out of Miami and New York, and there will be a phased reopening of the terminal building in the second half of 2018.

The Minister also provided an update about electricity, water, and telecommunications; a number of boutique hotels and guesthouses are open; several of the larger hotel properties are scheduled to be open throughout the latter half of 2018; the Caribbeans #1 shopping area, Philipsburg is 95 percent open; and one of the destinations newest attractions is Rockland Estate Zipline which is open to visitors.

Minister Cornelius de Weever also updated the international media bout the St. Maarten Heineken Regatta which is scheduled for the beginning of March and the countrys main cultural event Carnival where preparations are in full swing for several weeks of jamming, partying and parading during the month of April.

The Minister of Tourism, Economic Affairs also spoke about the resiliency of the people, their persistence, and being a beacon of hope during the recovery and rebuilding of the country, and that they are upbeat and serving visitors every day as they arrive to enjoy their Sint Maarten holiday on the Friendly Island.

The CHTA Marketplace brings together hotel and destination representatives, online travel agents, tour operators, meetings incentives, conventions and exhibitions (MICE) planners, and members of the media.

Close to 500 supplier delegates from more than 200 companies across 30 countries have joined another 100-plus media representatives at this years event, according to CHTA.

More than 200 delegates from close to 100 buyer companies, 19 of which are new to the conference, including four new MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) companies, have registered.

Buyer companies hail from Argentina, the Bahamas, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States and Uruguay.

Caribbean Travel Marketplace, produced by the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association in collaboration with the Puerto Rico Convention Center District Authority, the Puerto Rico Tourism Company, Meet Puerto Rico, and the Puerto Rico Hotel and Tourism Association, is hosted by Interval International, JetBlue Vacations and Mastercard.

Platinum Sponsors include ADARA, AMResorts, Cable & Wireless, CaribbeanWE, Conde Nast Traveler, Expedia, Figment Design, Hotels.com, Marketplace Excellence, OBMI, Orbitz, Sojern, STR, Travelocity and Travelzoo.

American Airlines, ARDA-ROC, Best Western, Brides, Delta Air Lines, Destination Travel Network, Duetto, Northstar Meetings Group, Lexicon Travel Technologies, Martha Stewart Weddings, Prevue Meetings, Rainmaker, Recommend Magazine, Simpleview, Symova, The New York Times, Time Inc., TravelClick and Travel Channel have joined the event as gold sponsors.

Besides the Minister, representatives from the St. Maarten Tourist Bureau are also in attendance.PHILIPSBURG:--- Last week the World Bank team started its preparatory activities for the recovery and reconstruction of Sint Maarten. The Ministry of General Affairs and especially the Department of Foreign Relations has worked tirelessly to assist and facilitate the World Bank team.

Over the next couple of weeks the World Bank team will continue with various preparatory activities. The Ministry of General Affairs will continue to assist in organizing meetings and preparing the relevant legal documents. It is expected that the first draft of the National Recovery Plan 2.0 will be sent to the Council of Ministers in the week of February 12th.

The 2nd step is that the Netherlands and the World Bank will conclude a RAS (reimbursable advisory services) contract. This contract formalizes a number of roles of the World Bank. Legal experts of the Netherlands, Sint Maarten and the World Bank are currently discussing the structure of this contract including the possibility of a subsidiary agreement / formal letter in which Sint Maarten acknowledges specific obligations vis a vis the World Bank.

Meanwhile, Sint Maarten has provided input on the terms of reference for the RAS. The TOR has been approved by the Council of Ministers on January 18th. Based on the TOR the World Bank is currently fulfilling its roles. Parts of the RAS will be executed before the establishment of the Trust Fund, whereas other activities such as capacity building can continue after the Trust Fund is operational. The establishment of the Trust Fund will happen on the basis of three important documents.

Administrative Agreements between the Netherlands and the World Bank; this legally binding agreement between the World Bank and the Netherlands that establishes the conditions under which the funds are accepted and executed. The Netherlands will provide funds to the World Bank in stages/portions.

The Netherlands intends to pay everything out of the 550 million euros that is reserved for the reconstruction of Sint Maarten. This includes the different stages to the World Bank, the costs of the additional border control, the setting up of the Integrity Chamber, existing and future budget /liquidity support, early recovery projects (outside of the Trust Fund) and possible additional projects.

In conclusion, I want to thank all the ministries, civil servants and persons that have made a contribution in one way or another thus far in this process with the World Bank and the Netherlands to ensure that the recovery and reconstruction of Sint Maarten takes place in the proper manner.DEN HAAG, The Netherlands:--- On January 30th, 2018, the deputy Minister Plenipotentiary, H.E. Mr. Hasani Ellis, was one of the guests of honor at the French Embassy where a reception was held at the residence of the French Ambassador in The Netherlands. During this reception, the deputy Minister Plenipotentiary co-signed a declaration acknowledging the handing over of documents for the Status of Forces Agreement between the French Republic and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, for St Maarten.

With the exchange of signatures, the agreement formalizes and regulates the presence of French military forces on the Dutch part of St Maarten in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma. The agreement further regulates the use of the airport, the territorial waters and the airspace of Dutch St Maarten by French militaries and other designated French entities. It also includes an obligation for the French to respect St Maartens laws and regulations when on the Dutch part of the island with the obligation to be escorted by the Dutch police.

The presence of the Deputy Minister Plenipotentiary, was well received by the French Ambassador, who in his address emphasized the shared history and future interests between the French Republic and the Kingdom of the Netherlands in general and on Sint Maarten in particular.The growth in renewable energies, however, varies greatly from country to country / Greenhouse gas emissions rose slightly last year / Agora Energiewende and Sandbag present annual evaluation of the European energy transition

In 2017, wind, sun and biomass, in the European Union have for the first time delivered more electricity than hard coal and lignite combined. Electricity generation from these new renewables, which only really saw large-scale uptake beginning in 2000, grew by 12 percent last year. Since 2010, the share of wind, solar and biomass electricity in the EU has more than doubled. However, because hydropower production fell sharply in 2017, renewable electricity only achieved a slightly higher share in the EU than in the previous year, rising from 29.8 to 30.0 percent of electricity production. This is shown by analysis of two think tanks: Sandbag from Great Britain and Agora Energiewende from Germany. The authors of the study have compiled and evaluated public data from numerous sources.

The analysis also shows that the share of renewables in the various EU countries is growing very unevenly. In the past three years, for example, the United Kingdom and Germany have contributed to more than half of the increase in renewables  wind energy in particular is playing a major role here. In Germany, in 2017, 30 percent of the electricity was generated from wind, solar and biomass, and 28 percent in the United Kingdom. The strongest percentage growth was recorded in Denmark: in 2017, 74 percent of the electricity produced there came from wind, solar and biomass, a rise of seven percentage points. The strong growth in a few countries is contrasted with very low growth in many other EU countries: anaemic growth throughout the decade can be observed in Slovenia, Bulgaria, France, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Other countries had good growth at the start of the decade, but then gave up on renewables with almost no growth in the last three years, like Spain, Italy, Portugal, Belgium and Greece. Exceptions are Croatia and Romania, where the share of power from wind, solar and biomass has been growing since 2011 from low single digits to 18 (Croatia) and 16 percent (Romania), respectively. Six countries still had less than 10 percent of their electricity production from wind, solar and biomass in 2017: these are Slovenia (4%), Bulgaria (7%), France (8%), Slovakia (8%), Czech Republic (8%) and Hungary (10%).

On fossil energy, the development is mixed. Hard coal power generation fell by 7 percent because of higher wind generation, and with coal phase-outs announced in Netherlands, Italy and Portugal, hard coal generation will continue to fall. However, lignite generation rose slightly, and retirements are scant; meaning the route away from lignite is far from assured.

Despite the increase in wind and solar energy, the CO 2 emissions of the European electricity sector did not fall in 2017, remaining stable at 1,019 million tonnes. A combination of three factors has led to this: Firstly, the production of electricity from hydropower has fallen to a Europe-wide low, mainly due to low rainfall and snowfall. Second, nuclear power plants in France and Germany delivered less electricity than in previous years. And thirdly, electricity consumption in the European Union has grown for the third year in a row: It rose by 0.7 percent in 2017. As CO2 emissions have even risen beyond the electricity sector, the authors forecast emissions within the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) rose for the first time since 2010, from 1,750 million tonnes in 2016 to 1,756 million tonnes. However, oil and gas consumption outside the EU ETS also rose, so Sandbag and Agora Energiewende forecast a rise in total EU greenhouse gas emissions of around 1 percent.

Progress on renewables has been increasingly reliant on the success story of wind in the UK and Germany, which has been inspiring. They demonstrate that if all countries in Europe engage in the energy transition, 35 per cent renewable energy by 2030 is entirely feasible. Solar deployment, however, is surprisingly low, and needs to increase in line with the massive fall in costs, says Matthias Buck, Director of European Energy Policy at Agora Energiewende. And with electricity consumption rising for the third year, countries need to reassess their efforts on energy efficiency,  adds Sandbag analyst Dave Jones. But to make the biggest difference to emissions, countries need to retire coal plants. We forecast Europes 258 operational coal plants last year emitted 38 percent of all emissions under the Emissions Trading System, or 15 percent of total EU greenhouse gases.  In 2017, Netherlands, Italy and Portugal added their names to the list of countries to phase-out coal. This is great. We need a fast and complete coal phase-out in Europe: the thought of charging electric cars in the 2030s with coal just doesnt compute , says Jones.

In order to achieve the EUs 2030 renewable energy target, the EU will need to increase its efforts in deploying renewables in the coming years compared to recent trends. Especially in Central and South-Eastern Europe, but also in Spain and Greece, much more is possible because the climatic conditions favour renewable energies, says Buck. Agora Energiewende has recently proposed a guarantee program to significantly reduce the financing cost for renewable energy projects in these countries.

The analysis from the report The European Power Sector in 2017 was presented today in Brussels. An extensive data set with all numbers used in the publication has been compiled as an Excel file. Both the report and the Excel file are available for free download further below.

SourceThe Punjab State government in India has announced plans to set up a dedicated help desk facility for Non-Resident Indians (NRIs), especially those residing in Canada, wanting to invest in their homeland.

The plans were announced as Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, prepares for a state visit to India from February 17 to 23 at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

It also comes amidst increasing tensions between the Punjab political leadership and Canadian MPs, over the issue of Khalistan separatists operating in Canada, who want a separate homeland in Punjab.

While trade and investment will be the top line on the agenda there are several issues that will be underlining the visit, said an India-Canada geo-political analyst.

The most sensitive issue will be in Punjab, where a large segment of Canadas Indo-Canadian population hail from.

We dont know at this time if Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh will be even invited to the event at the Golden Temple, which Trudeau will be visiting, said the analyst.

Trudeaus state visit includes stops in Agra, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, New Delhi and at Sikhism holiest shrine, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab.

Raveen Thukral, media adviser to the Punjab chief minister, said the state government still has not received any official word on Trudeaus visit to India. We have only seen media reports. As the CM has stated earlier, if the Canadian PM comes to India and does choose to visit Punjab, hes most welcome to do so. And if theres an official request for a meeting, the same will be treated on par with any such request from dignitaries at the same level, he said.

Thukral said the Punjab government will use such opportunity to raise its concerns over hardline Sikhs and pro-Khalistani elements using the Canadian soil to instigate trouble in Punjab.

The Amarinder Singh government has over the years cold-shouldered visiting Canadian defence minister of Indian-origin Harjit Singh Sajjan as he travelled to various places in Punjab.

The CM refused to meet Sajjan, the first Sikh to be the defence minister of a Western country, accusing him and other ministers of Punjab origin in the government of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of links to radical elements demanding a separate Sikh state of Khalistan.

Amarinder Singh has also been annoyed with the Canadian government since April last year when he was denied permission to visit Surrey, B.C , which has a sizeable Punjabi diaspora, in the run-up to the Punjab assembly elections. A radical organisation, Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), had complained to the Canadian government against the visit.

More recently, Federal Canada NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and two Liberal Sikh cabinet ministers have joined a chorus of international complaint against the arrest of British Sikh activist Jagtar Singh Johal who has been accused of involvement in the killings of prominent Hindu figures.

There are many issues involving Punjab and Canada that will play a role when Trudeau goes to India, said the analyst.

But thing to improve trade and investment ties between the Punjabi diaspora in Canada can help soothe the tensions, he said.

The Canada-Punjab NRI-help desk initiative was announced after a recent meeting between the Punjab Chief Minister and members of Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce.

Singh directed Rakesh Verma, Secretary, Industries and Commercecum-CEO Invest Punjab, to explore the possibility of setting up a dedicated help desk to facilitate Indians settled abroad, especially those in Canada, who wanted to invest in Punjab.

The Chief Minister called upon the visiting Canadian delegation to harness the positive industrial environment prevailing in the state, where his government had created a conducive environment for promoting industry. He assured them of his governments complete support and cooperation in this regard, stated an official release of the Punjab government.

The visiting Canadian delegation led by Kanwar Dhanjal said that, as the sons and daughters of the Indian soil, it was their moral duty to contribute something tangible for the growth and prosperity of Punjab.

Quick facts on the state visit to India

This state visit will build on a number of recent meetings held between Prime Minister Trudeau and Prime Minister Modi and ministers from both countries.

This will be the fourth meeting between Prime Minister Trudeau and Prime Minister Modi. The two leaders met previously in November 2017 during the East Asia Summit in Manila, Philippines; in July 2017 during the G20 in Hamburg, Germany; and in April 2016 during the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, D.C. Prime Minister Trudeau also met him in his capacity as Leader of the Liberal Party in Toronto in April 2015 during Prime Minister Modis official visit to Canada.

Since September 2016, there have been eleven ministerial visits to India, including, most recently, a trade mission led by Minister of International Trade Francois-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Navdeep Bains, and Minister of Transport Marc Garneau, in November 2017.

Canada is home to a large Indian diaspora. Over one million  approximately 3.6 per cent  of Canadians are of Indian heritage. India is Canadas second largest source of immigrants (approximately 40,000 in 2016).

In 2016, two-way merchandise trade between Canada and India totalled $8 billion. Bilateral trade in services reached $2.1 billion in the same year, an increase of 1.9 per cent over 2015.

Canada is a leading education destination for Indian students, and India is the second largest source of international students for Canadas universities, colleges, and schools. Approximately 124,000 Indian students had a valid Canadian study permit in 2017, an increase of over 60 per cent compared to last year.

India is also a major source of international tourists for Canada, with 215,000 Indians visiting in 2016.Kazan, Russia (SPX) Jan 30, 2018





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A cosmic event not seen in 36 years - a rare "super blood blue moon" - may be glimpsed January 31 in parts of western North America, Asia, the Middle East, Russia and Australia. ... more

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Dutch 'ill-prepared' for cross-border nuclear accident: probe



The Hague, Jan 31 (AFP) Jan 31, 2018



The Netherlands must boost cooperation with neighbouring Belgium and Germany to better prepare for any cross-border nuclear power accident, Dutch safety officials warned Wednesday.

That was the conclusion of an investigation by the Dutch Safety Board (OVV), amid rising Dutch concerns over Belgium's ageing Doel and Tihange nuclear reactors, which lie in a densely-populated area just across the southern Dutch-Belgian border.

The OVV also included the Borssele nuclear power plant, in the Netherlands, and Germany's Emsland nuclear power plant in its 19-month probe.

"Cross-border cooperation in a number of areas has to be improved, so that parties are better prepared for the eventuality of a nuclear accident," the report concluded.

Authorities also needed to "pay greater attention to society's concerns," said the 193-page report published in Dutch and English, along with shorter summaries in French and German.

It was "remarkable that the Dutch central government has until recently paid very little attention" to providing "information to the public about the potential consequences of a nuclear accident," the OVV added.

In June 2016, the Tihange 2 nuclear reactor was automatically shut down following a motor failure in a non-nuclear part of the plant.

That was just one in a series of incidents including cracks and unsolved sabotage, which led Dutch MPs to demand the government push for the closure of the two Belgian plants, backing similar calls from Germany and Luxembourg.

The OVV insisted, however, that the risk of any nuclear accident was "small" due to "stringent safety requirements".

The investigation "did not focus on whether the nuclear power plants are safe", but on how all the countries worked together, the final report stressed on Wednesday.

It found the three neighbours are "not well prepared for dealing with bottlenecks that might result from linguistic and cultural differences".

Proper communication between all three countries in the event of a nuclear accident "is paramount" to prevent "conflicting information," it warned.

They also needed to align their crisis management to "reflect the transboundary nature of nuclear accidents," OVV said, insisting current Dutch government plans needed to be overhauled.

It also called for joint emergency exercises and drills to be stepped up, warning that so far only a "limited" number had been carried out.

Even though the Doel 2 and Tihange 3 reactors are now over 40 years old, their operational life was prolonged in 2015 for another 10 years.TORONTO, Jan. 30, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Camille Rabay of Ottawa, Ontario announced today that he has received a grant of options (the Options) from Wombat Investment Trust (Wombat) to acquire common shares (Common Shares) of Carpincho Capital Corp. (the Company) owned by Wombat. The Option will only become exercisable if the Company completes an approved merger or acquisition transaction (M&A Transaction) by a specified deadline date. The number of Common Shares that may be acquired upon the exercise of the Option (the Option Shares) is determined by formula and based on the value of the Common Shares implied in a completed M&A Transaction, subject to a maximum of 4,500,000 Option Shares. The Option may not be partially exercised. Immediately prior to grant of the Option, Mr. Rabay did not own any securities of the Company. Following completion of the exercise of the Option, assuming the maximum number of Option Shares are acquired, Mr. Rabay would own 4,500,000 Common Shares representing approximately 75% of the Companys outstanding Common Shares (following the concurrent exercise of 1,000,000 outstanding special warrants for 1,000,000 Common Shares).



The Option was acquired by Mr. Rabay in order to acquire a potential interest in the Company in the event the Company completes an M&A Transaction. The Option will only become exercisable if the Company completes an approved M&A Transaction by a specified deadline date.

Mr. Rabay has no present intention to acquire or dispose of any further securities of the Company however, Mr. Rabay may, in the future, acquire additional Common Shares or dispose of Common Shares through, among other means, the purchase or sale of Common Shares on the open market or in private transactions or otherwise, on such terms and at such times as Mr. Rabay may deem advisable.

The Options acquired by Mr. Rabay are being acquired in reliance on the private agreement exemption set out in subsection 4.2 of National Instrument 62-104  Take-Over Bids and Issuer Bids (NI 62-104). The acquisition of the Options by Mr. Rabay is being made from not more than 5 persons in the aggregate, including persons located outside the local jurisdiction, and there are less than 5 security holders of the Options. There is a reasonable basis for determining that the value of the consideration paid for the Options, and the underlying Common Shares, is not greater than 115% of the value of the Options or the underlying Common Shares, as the case may be.

Further Information

For more information, including to obtain a copy of the early warning report filed in respect of this news release, contact: Camille Rabay at 613.224.6116.Optimization

Are you frustrated with a slow pc or a hard disk not performing as it should?

Try SLOW-PCfighter to speed up boot time on a slow PC, or try a free scan of FULL-DISKfighter to recover space on a full disk. The latest offering is DRIVERfighter to update your driver updater. Get complete PC optimization and extend the life of your PC with these must-have software tools.Plans to create a new Northern Forest have been kick-started by the Government, as part of its 25 Year Environment Plan. It is providing 5.7 million to support the project, which will see trees planted in a belt spanning north and south of the M62 corridor.

NSA is interested in the concept of the project, being developed in partnership with the Woodland Trust and Community Forests. But feels its calls on farmers, land owners and other key stakeholders to identify and target areas most suitable for, and likely to benefit most from, tree plantations could be met with reservations if plans to release lynx into Kielder Forest, Northumberland were to be approved.

Phil Stocker, NSA Chief Executive, says:

NSA is very interested in the concept of a joined up, large scale approach to indigenous and integrated woodland plantations which could collectively be identified as a forest habitat. We know of many farmers who, under normal circumstances, may engage with planting more trees and integrating them within their farming system.

A woodland planting on this scale could create a great habitat for passive, non-invasive wildlife such as pollinating bees and other insects, small mammals and birds which all play their part in a healthy ecosystem and live in harmony with sheep farming. At the same time, we also recognise the ecological value of large scale open grassland areas which is why we need integration to provide a balance of agricultural productivity alongside habitat provision for highly valued, open land species.

I would be highly concerned that with an impending decision on the proposed lynx release still hanging over us, a plantation of this scale could be perceived as a habitat for this highly dangerous, opportunistic hunter to expand into and this could not provide greater disincentive for farmers to engage with the idea.Previous research has mainly focused on identifying different factors that contribute to the development of laminitis. This new study, being conducted by a team at the Royal Veterinary College, seeks to investigate horse carers current knowledge of laminitis to understand factors influencing what horse carers do to prevent and manage the condition. It will also explore the challenges people face in accessing the best information and adopting appropriate prevention measures.

The study is being conducted by epidemiologist and PhD student Chantil Sinclair, supervised by Dr Jackie Cardwell and Dr Nicola Menzies-Gow from the Royal Veterinary College, and Dr Carrie Roder from Anglia Ruskin University. The team will be working in collaboration with equine feed company SPILLERS and WALTHAM, who provide the science underpinning the brand.

Chantil Sinclair said:

My key objective is to understand the decision-making process surrounding caring for horses. In order to improve equine welfare, we first need to establish the level of existing knowledge that horse owners have about how the risk of laminitis can be reduced. We can then hope to build on this and identify the specific barriers which prevent awareness and implementation of best practice.Mornings aren't for everyone: Some people say they're at their most creative or effective in the early morning hours, while others perform better at night. However, it's no secret that executives tend to get up before dawn to start their day, and have a routine that helps them get through the day more efficiently.

Related: 6 Secrets to Success Only Early Birds Know

According to a Nature Communications study, the women who were surveyed were more likely than the men to be early risers (48.4 percent of the women, versus 39.7 percent of the men). Also, people who described themselves as "morning people" were less likely to need more than eight hours of sleep. A University of Barcelona study, meanwhile,fond that the "morning" people it looked at tended to be more persistent and be less likely to experience "fatigue, frustrations, and difficulties."

But, can someone's morning routine have a direct correlation to how the rest of ther day goes? Personally, I'd say yes.

I'm an early riser, myself. To be productive, I need only five to six hours of sleep each night. Once I get up, I check my email and start communicating with my team what needs to get done that day (my team teases me because of the many messages awaiting them when they get up themselves).

I'm usually in the office around 7:30 or 8 a.m. I may need up to four espressos (lots of milk) or,sometimes, Red Bull, to get started (not the best thing, but it gets me ready for the day). I'll print out the day's schedule, with meetings, conference calls, interviews, etc. and determine any actions needed, then write down five big things I must do that day. I'll also write five things I want from my team, whether they need reminding and any new assignments they've got.

Overall, I like to start the day with an empty mailbox, though that doesn't always happen.

At that point, I'll start my calls and meetings, and maybe put out a few fires along the way.

While my routine isn't all that revolutionary, it works for me. I've had conversations with countless c-suite executives I about their routines. I find the results fascinating for the sneak peak it gives into their lives and into their formulas for success. Here are several I've talked to:

Luther Garcia -- CEO, ECS Global Solutions

"I wake up about 6:30 a.m. and the first thing I do is walk my beagles. During this time, I usually think about what I want to accomplish during the day. I mentally play out any potentially important conversations, or transactions, that I know I need to have during the day. I try to anticipate what the other people are going to say or do and what questions they are going to ask; and then I come up with answers to those questions.

It sounds kind of crazy, but the truth is it's a form of visualization, and it's something I have done naturally, even as a kid."

Related: The Bedtime Routines of 4 Exceptionally Successful People

Jason Forrest -- CEO and chief culture officer, Forrest Performance Group

"One thing that stays the same on my calendar every day, no matter how hectic the schedule gets, is my morning workout. My Friday morning workout, the longest of the week, includes a note that says 'Never cancel.' I feel strongly about pre-framing my day with a good sweat.

"Starting my day with a beneficial endorphin rush is the best way to charge into my day. A quick, high-intensity, 30-minute workout to rev up my engine for the day means that the second I walk through my office doors, I'm fired up for my first action."

Matthew Lanfear -- CEO, Great Eastern Energy

"My morning doesn't really start until I've had my coffee. From there, I have two lists that set my day: my list of incomplete to-dos from the previous day and my list of to-dos for the day ahead. These lists really help me make the most significant impact at the quickest pace possible.

"By prioritizing the most urgent issues, I can be a better leader and agent for change in the company. They allow me not only to accomplish more throughout the day, but I can also set an example of accountability by showing my commitment to my team's opinions and concerns."

Marc Cohen -- co-founder and CEO, Wrinkl

"I guess I'm a dreamer, in more ways than one. That is, I often dream at night; and sometimes my dreams are quite literal and help me solve a problem. I dream of ways to approach business issues I'm dealing with, or ways a product might accomplish a particular function. I keep a pad of paper by my bed and usually wake up and write a note when I dream something that seems possibly helpful.

"I spend the first moments of many such mornings reading those notes and thinking about them. Sometimes, what I've written is quite funny or preposterous, but on more than a few occasions, I've solved a problem or thought of a product improvement that might actually work, with refinement."

Joshua DeWitt - CEO, CoinLion

"I am out of bed by 5 to 6 a.m. I have an unwritten rule with myself that once I wake up in the morning, no matter how early it is, I get out of bed and start the day. I will work from my home office and try to accomplish tasks that I need to get off my plate right away; this is typically from 5 to 9 a.m. This time allows me to focus 100 percent on the task at hand. My mornings are focused on being proactive and my afternoons tend to be much more reactive to tasks like meetings and emails.

"Usually, between 8 and 9 a.m. I head to the office. I often stop at a local coffee shop and sit for about 20 minutes reviewing emails and planning my time at the office. I may write down a small list, but typically I have been thinking about important tasks the night before so they are top of mind."

Getting up early is one routine that successful people have in common. They feel their most productive during the early morning hours, partly because there are fewer distractions. Other things "early worms" have in common are productivity, self-discipline, more energy, a greater sense of satisfaction, a distraction-free environment, more family time and the ability to stay ahead.

If this list sounds good, there are ways there are ways you too can become an early riser, though it won't happen overnight. Try getting up a couple of minutes earlier each day until you get to where you want to be. One thing that seemed to work when my kids were younger was having an alarm clock at a distance.

Related: Successful Entrepreneurs Have These 5 Traits in Common

This forced me to get out of bed, the first step to becoming the early riser that I am today.

What's your morning routine?

Related:

Are Early Risers More Productive?

The Amazing Side Benefit of Writing a Daily To-Do List

10 Secrets to Sleeping Better -- And Being More Productive the Next Day



Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com

Weve been hearing for years about the digital transformation of multiple business sectors. And the technology sector is hardly alone in this regard: For the past decade, legacy industries have been making the transition, too,and the result has been massive opportunities for entrepreneurs.

Related: How Tech Is Becoming an Integral Player in Energy Solutions

Moreover, as each new age group has increasingly gone "digitally native," the overall workforce has demanded higher workplace technology standards.

Entrepreneurs have left their fingerprints all over the resulting current digital landscape, creating brand new technologies and updating antiquated processes. Such innovations are being driven by the younger generation, whose members have stepped up to become the new leaders in the field. With this millennial management has come an openness to adopting new technologies, and a knack for solving old problems with new approaches.

One of the biggest industries opting for digital efficiency and subsequently thirsty for young, entrepreneurial leadership? Oil and gas.

Why oil and gas?

One reason this particular sector is ripe with entrepreneurial opportunities is that oil is projected to stay below $60 a barrel throughout 2018. With this booming market and its eagerness for innovation, the industry is ripe for disruption to existing business models, and for real growth.

Companies that are willing to innovate and invest can unlock tremendous value and may remain financially strong regardless of what happens to global supply and demand trends, Deloitte executiveJohn England wrote in a 2018 Energy Outlook white paper.

So, the digital cavalry is coming," continued England, who is vice chairman, U.S. energy and resources leader, and U.S., and Americas oil and gas leader for Deloitte."But it likely wont rescue everyone -- possibly only those who are brave enough to embrace it.

What might seem like yesterdays technology headlines are headlines only now making a splash in the oil and gas industry. This means that technology experts from entrepreneurial companies should be watching the horizon for opportunities in energy. Here are four innovations transforming that sector:

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to have the biggest technological impact on the oil and gas industry over the coming years, according to Omar Saleh, Microsoft's oil and gas director for the Middle East and Africa, who spoke to CNBC.

ExxonMobil, ranked No. 1 in the industry by Forbes' 2017 Global 2000 ranking of the worlds biggest public companies, is spearheading AI exploration through a partnership with MIT to explore the oceans using AI software. With the biggest names in oil and gas investing in AI ventures, its clear that the technology will have a major impact in the coming years.

Cloud computing

Oil and gas giants have long been wary of cloud technology because of security risks. While adoption may be low as of today, there is still a strong future for cloud computing. A forecast by the U.K.-based Oil & Gas Council explains that, due to the many commercial benefits and the world of possibilities, cloud computing is becoming a popular model for the IT savvy business that has growth on its agenda.

Some of the most complex organizations from banking to government, have fully embraced the computing power and agility of cloud, Shiva Rajagopalan, CEO and founder of Seven Lakes Technologies said during her remarks for my podcast scheduled for next month. Theyve been rewarded with a competitive edge to respond to markets faster and incubate transformational ideas within the organization at unprecedented speed.

"The faster information is available," Rajagopalan added, "the more quickly large corporations spin up new ideas, initiatives and innovations. The oil and gas industry should be afforded exactly the same competitive edge, not confined by their own data centers.

3D-scanning technology

3D printing has moved beyond the hype phase, and we are now seeing practical uses in play. For oil and gas, 3D printing means fast, cost-effective representations of assets that can be used for maintenance planning and execution.

According to LaserDesign, 3D printing allows oil and gas companies to reverse-engineer and measure oil and gas tools in virtually every shape and size. Scan data can confirm whether the replacement part will fit existing equipment and also provide a clear documentation of tooling erosion to improve product design and reproduce tooling components.

Related: How Startups Can Be Invited to the Big IoT Party

The internet of things

The value of the internet of things (IoT) becomes apparent when companies can demonstrate new applications for information gleaned from these technologies. Paul Turner, CMO of Cloudian, said he believes that the promise of IoT lies in creating a set of standards to guide how devices are structured, and a common language that can be understood . . . " Such standards, Turner said, "are critical for IoT companies looking to sell their technology to oil and gas.

Startup companies looking to sell IoT solutions to the oil and gas sector should also adhere to standards, Turner told RigZone. Value is derived not only from the data collected and aggregated, but data being in a well-known format.

He added: "A service model that features one data repository that can be used by many companies is needed.

Advanced robotics

One of the biggest challenges in the oil and gas sector is how to mitigate risk. One of the best ways deploying sophisticated robotics that humans can operate, keeping themselves out of harms way. Earlier this year, Chevron announced a partnership with OC Robotics to inspect offshore oil and natural gas pressure vessels in the North Sea. The robotic P100 snake arm, is built to operate in confined spaces, deploying an arm into the inspection area, using wire ropes and software.

There is real potential to improve inspection outputs and extend asset life by characterizing vessels and assessing fitness for service without human entry into dangerous and confined spaces, Rebecca Smith, project manager at OC Robotics, was recently quoted as saying by JWN.

Exciting advances in AI, cloud computing, 3D printing, IOT and robotics are transforming the future of the oil and gas industry. The upstream oil and gas companies have survived turbulent markets, fine-tuned lean teams and know exactly where to drill," Rajagopalan told me. "In spite of all that transformation, meeting production targets remains a blindfolded, high-wire act. This must change."

Raising "an army of people" to solve the problems ahead isn't enough, she said. What may be, she said, is adoptable predictable technologies, which give time back to the field "so that they can shrink unplanned down time."

Related: From Corner Office to Field Ops: 4 Ways to Make Data Actionable

Entrepreneurs and startups looking to be a part of the next generation of technologies should explore this billion dollar industry because that rig drilling away down in Texas or out in the Gulf is no longer working your fathers oil field; it's the digitally driven oil field of the future, powered by disruptive tech.

Related:

T

h

2



Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com

PORTLAND, Ore., Jan. 30, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Act-On, the leading provider of Adaptive MarketingTM solutions for fast-growing businesses, welcomed today Ms. Nina Church-Adams as its new Senior Vice President of Marketing.



Ms. Church-Adams has held progressively more leadership roles at Nike and American Express and most recently holding multiple head of marketing roles at Finastra, the third largest FinTech company in the world. Church-Adams brings her significant experience leading global, cross-functional, marketing organizations in fast-growing companies to further drive Act-Ons go-to-market strategies.

I am honored to join the Act-On team in its journey to help marketers anticipate, automate, and accelerate their engagement efforts, said Ms. Church-Adams. As a marketer myself, Im passionate about the idea of empowering marketers to do their best work, and am excited that Act-On is poised to be the leader in the next generation of digital marketing engines.

Act-On continues to attract the best and the brightest in the industry as it expands its Portland presence, hiring up to fifty new employees in the first half of 2018. This is an exciting time where Act-On is actively transforming the marketing automation industry through its new Adaptive Marketing platform, said Kate Johnson, Act-On CEO. We are delighted to have someone of Ninas caliber join the Act-On team, bringing her deep branding, product marketing and strategic go-to-market expertise to meaningfully accelerate our market impact.

About Act-On

Act-On Software is the leader in Adaptive Marketing solutions that enable marketers to create Adaptive Journeys using customer behaviors, preferences and data to intelligently guide the engagement strategy. With Act-On, marketers can drive better business outcomes and see higher customer lifetime value. For more information, visit Act-On Software.

Contact:

Kim Blomgren

InRoadsPR

503-347-4234

kimb@inroadspr.comRemembering 9/11: Ogden exhibit gives students detailed glimpse of tragedy

OGDEN  The 9/11 attacks may be seared in the memories of those alive at the time. Those born later are also well aware of what happened. "They've always had teachers that talk about it. They hold a moment of silence," said Kylie White, a history teacher at Bonneville High School in Washington Terrace. Still, living in the moment when the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, occurred and learning about them after the fact are very different things. "It's something we know happened, but it's something we don't fully understand," said Cache Littrell, a Bonneville High School ...

ENDEAVOUR MINING CORPORATION PRICES PRIVATE OFFERING OF USD 300 MILLION OF CONVERTIBLE SENIOR NOTES DUE 2023

View News Release in PDF Format

George Town, January 30, 2018 - Endeavour Mining Corporation (TSX: EDV) (the "Company") announced today that it has priced the private placement of convertible senior notes due 2023 (the "Notes") for an aggregate principal amount of USD 300 million. The Company has also granted to the initial purchasers a 30-day option, post pricing date, to purchase additional Notes in an aggregate principal amount of up to USD 30 million.

The Notes, with a minimum principal amount denomination of USD 200,000 each, will be issued at par with a coupon of 3.00 per cent per annum. The initial conversion rate is 41.8363 of the Company's ordinary shares ("Shares") per USD 1,000 principal amount of Notes, or an initial conversion price of approximately USD 23.90 per Share, representing a conversion premium of approximately 32.5 per cent to today's VWAP on the Toronto Stock Exchange, converted at the fixed exchange rate of USD 1.00 = CAD 1.23280 determined at 4 p.m. on the date of this press release.

The Notes will bear interest semi-annually and will mature on February 15, 2023, unless earlier redeemed, repurchased or converted in accordance with their terms. The Company may, subject to certain conditions, elect to satisfy the principal amount due at maturity or upon redemption through the payment or delivery of a combination of Shares and, if applicable, cash.

Settlement is expected on or around February 5, 2018. The Company has applied for the Notes to list and trade on The International Stock Exchange (formerly the Channel Islands Securities Exchange) and undertakes to have the Notes listed on such exchange, or another internationally recognized, regularly operating, regulated or non-regulated stock exchange or securities market, as soon as reasonably practicable but no later than April 30, 2018.

The Company estimates that the net proceeds from this Offering will be approximately $296.3 million (or approximately $325.9 million if the Initial Purchasers fully exercise their option to purchase additional Notes), after deducting the Initial Purchasers' transaction fees but before the Company's other expenses from the Offering. The Company expects to use the net proceeds for refinancing of indebtedness and other general corporate purposes. Lenders in respect of the indebtedness being refinanced may include the Bookrunners.

In the context of the Offering, the Company has agreed to a lock-up undertaking for a period of 90 calendar days from the date of this press release, subject to customary exceptions.

Endeavour Mining Corporation

27 Hospital Road, George Town, Grand Cayman KY1-9008

ISIN: KYG3040R1589

Toronto Stock Exchange

IMPORTANT NOTE

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy the Notes or any Shares issuable upon conversion of the Notes, nor shall there be any offer or sale of the Notes or any such Shares in any state or other jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or other jurisdiction. Any offers of the Notes will be made only by means of a private offering memorandum. The Notes being offered have not been approved or disapproved by any regulatory authority, nor has any such authority passed upon the accuracy or adequacy of the applicable private offering memorandum.

The offer and sale of the Notes and the Shares, if any, due upon conversion have not been, and will not be, registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or the securities laws of any other jurisdiction, and the Notes will be offered and sold:

(i) outside the United States in reliance on Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act ("Regulation S"); or

(ii) to qualified institutional buyers ("QIBs") in reliance on the exemption from registration provided by Rule 144A under the U.S. Securities Act ("Rule 144A").

In member states of the European Economic Area, this press release is for distribution only to and directed only at persons who are "qualified investors" within the meaning of Directive 2003/71/EC (and amendments thereto, including Directive 2010/73/EU) (the "Prospectus Directive"). In relation to each member state of the European Economic Area that has implemented the Prospectus Directive (each, a "Relevant Member State"), the investment contemplated by this press release is not being made, and will not be made, to the public in that Relevant Member State, other than to any legal entity that is a "qualified investor" as defined in Article 2(1)(e) of the Prospectus Directive. Each potential investor located within a Relevant Member State of the European Economic Area will be deemed to have represented, acknowledged and agreed that it is a "qualified investor" within the meaning of Article 2(1)(e) of the Prospectus Directive.

Within the United Kingdom, this press release is for distribution only to and directed only at persons who (a) have professional experience in matters relating to investments falling within Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005 (as amended, the "Financial Promotion Order"), (b) are persons falling within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) ("high net worth companies, unincorporated associations, etc") of the Financial Promotion Order and (c) are persons to whom an invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity (within the meaning of section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000) in connection with the investment may otherwise lawfully be communicated or caused to be communicated (all such persons together being referred to as "relevant persons"). The investment is not being offered to the public in the United Kingdom. This press release is directed only at relevant persons and must not be acted on or relied on by persons who are not relevant persons. The investment or investment activity to which this press release relates is only available to, and will only be engaged in with, relevant persons and any person who receive this press release who is not a relevant person should not rely or act upon it.

Solely for the purposes of the product governance requirements contained within: (a) EU Directive 2014/65/EU on markets in financial instruments, as amended ("MiFID II"); (b) Articles 9 and 10 of Commission Delegated Directive (EU) 2017/593 supplementing MiFID II; and (c) local implementing measures (together, the "MiFID II Product Governance Requirements"), and disclaiming all and any liability, whether arising in tort, contract or otherwise, which any "manufacturer" (for the purposes of the MIFID II Product Governance Requirements) may otherwise have with respect thereto, the Notes have been subject to a product approval process, which has determined that: (i) the target market for the Notes is eligible counterparties and professional clients only, each as defined in MiFID II; and (ii) all channels for distribution of the Notes to eligible counterparties and professional clients are appropriate. Any person subsequently offering, selling or recommending the Notes (a "distributor") should take into consideration the manufacturers' target market assessment; however, a distributor subject to MiFID II is responsible for undertaking its own target market assessment in respect of the Notes (by either adopting or refining the manufacturers' target market assessment) and determining appropriate distribution channels.

The target market assessment is without prejudice to the requirements of any contractual or legal selling restrictions in relation to any offering of the Notes

For the avoidance of doubt, the target market assessment does not constitute: (a) an assessment of suitability or appropriateness for the purposes of MiFID II; or (b) a recommendation to any investor or group of investors to invest in, or purchase, or take any other action whatsoever with respect to the Notes.

The Notes are not intended to be offered or sold and should not be offered or sold to any retail investor in the European Economic Area ("EEA"). For these purposes, a retail investor means a person who is one (or more) of: (i) a retail client as defined in point (11) of Article 4(1) of MiFID II; or (ii) a customer within the meaning of Directive 2002/92/EC (as amended, the "Insurance Mediation Directive"), where that customer would not qualify as a professional client as defined in point (10) of Article 4(1) of MiFID II; or (iii) not a qualified investor as defined in Directive 2003/71/EC (as amended, the "Prospectus Directive"). Consequently, no key information document required by Regulation (EU) No 1286/2014 (as amended, the "PRIIPS Regulation") for offering or selling the Notes or otherwise making them available to retail investors in the EEA has been prepared and therefore offering or selling the Notes or otherwise making them available to any retail investor in the EEA may be unlawful under the PRIIPS Regulation.

Notes sold in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec will be subject to further restrictions as described in the Canadian Offering Memorandum. Please refer to the Offering Memorandum for additional information regarding resale restrictions applicable to the Notes.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release contains forward-looking statements including, among other things, statements relating to the timing of the proposed offering and expected use of proceeds from the offering. These forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbour provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including, but not limited to, whether or not the Company will offer the Notes or consummate the offering, the final terms of the offering, prevailing market conditions, the anticipated principal amount of the Notes, which could differ based upon market conditions, the anticipated use of the proceeds of the offering, which could change as a result of market conditions or for other reasons, and the impact of general economic, industry or political conditions in the United States or internationally. Readers should carefully review this release and should not place undue reliance on the Company's forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements were based on information, plans and estimates as of the date of this release.

The Company assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.

ABOUT ENDEAVOUR MINING CORPORATION

Endeavour Mining is a TSX-listed intermediate gold producer, focused on developing a portfolio of high quality mines in the prolific West-African region, where it has established a solid operational and construction track record.

CONTACT INFORMATIONLithuanian English

AB Klaipedos nafta (hereinafter  KN, the Company) announces the unaudited condensed financial statements for the financial year 2017. A summary of the results accompanied with management comment is provided below.

AB Klaipedos nafta sales revenue for the year 2017 comprise of Eur 106.5 million, which is 2.6% higher compared to the same period of 2016,  Eur 103.8 million. The net profit for the year 2017 amounts Eur 17.0 million or 23.2% larger compared to the same period of 2016,  Eur 13.8 million. Profit before tax, interest, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) for 2017 conclude Eur 31.3 million, or 9.5% more, compared to the year 2016 when EBITDA reached Eur 28.6 million.

Management comment on the results of the year 2017

According to the management of the Company, AB Klaipedos nafta financial and operating activity results are delighting, despite the influence of strong external factors, which had a significant impact on the decrease of oil product transshipment, compared to the record breaking transshipment quantity for the year 2016. KN managed to stabilize the flow of the cargo and to ensure decent yearly ratios.

Good results of the year 2017 were achieved with a help of a remarkable effort made and concentration of internal resources for the management of the risks, creating of competitive and attractive conditions of oil terminal and both technological and commercial decisions made in a timely manner.

During the year 2017 AB Klaipedos nafta reloaded 7.2 million tons of oil products into its storage tanks located in Klaipeda and Subacius oil terminals, i.e. less by 1.4 per cent compared to the year 2016, when 7.3 million tons were handled. Despite the negative impact on the transshipment results of the year 2017 due to unfavorable geopolitical situation in the first half of the year, Companys ability to make timely decisions enabled KN to offer more flexible infrastructure utilization possibilities and to point out the advantages of newly operated infrastructure objects to the present and potential customers in the second half of the year. All of this enabled the Company to build the competitive advantage among the other oil terminals, operating in Baltic region nearby.

AB Klaipedos nafta managed to re-gasify and reload total of 12,646 thousand MWh of the natural gas in 2017 (during 2016  14,611 thousand MWh). Klaipeda LNG terminal enabled Lithuania and other Baltic countries to acquire natural gas from the suppliers providing the most competitive market price. This is perfectly illustrated by the fact that during the year 2017 gas, handled via LNG terminal, operated by the Company, was delivered from 4 different continents and reached household and commercial users from 7 different countries.

During the year 2017, AB Klaipedos nafta continued to consistently pursuit its determined objectives, which include the increase of the economic value generated by the Company and implementation of national strategic objectives. Accomplishment of mentioned objectives is attained with the help of highly motivated and skilled personnel and by implementing transparent and efficient management structure of the Company and permanently improving operating efficiency. LNG reloading station, which was symbolically opened last year, is one of the main examples of successful improvement of KN operating efficiency. This object has strengthened LNG logistics chain, developed by the Company, and herewith is integrated into the operating processes of functioning oil terminal. On the other hand, during the year 2017 AB Klaipedos nafta accelerated the realization of specific LNG related knowledge in order to gain additional income by consulting LNG terminal developers operating in other markets.

The efficiency of Companys operating activities is also proved by the financial results of the year 2017, which ensures significant financial return to the shareholders of the Company. Return on Companys own capital for the year 2017 reaches 8.7%, EBITDA margin  29.4% and gross profit margin  16%.

The key factors that had a positive impact over the Companys financial results for the year 2017 include one-off realization of oil products accumulated over time in Klaipeda oil terminal (Eur 1,2 million), additional revenue for the adjustment of consumption capacities for the year 2016 (Eur 2,2 million) and finally, financial corrections due to the change in profit tax law (Eur 1 million positive impact from the change in deferred tax asset calculation).

Approved budget and objectives for the year 2018

As to the financial year 2018 budget, approved by the Board of the Company, oil transshipment shall remain at the similar level as during the year 2017  7.2 million tons, meanwhile, 10.6 million MWh is planned to be re-gasified at LNG terminal. Projected income for the year 2018 should comprise Eur 102.6 million, which would lead to Eur 10.2 million net profit. Earnings before interest, tax and depreciation (EBITDA) should comprise Eur 26.9 million.

Companys budget for the year 2018 is based more on conservative operating assumptions considering all potential risks that might occur in KN operating market. Essential threats, which were taken into account during the budgeting process, are dynamic global geopolitical situation, which is the main factor that causes deviation of oil transshipment quantities and constant change in crude oil market price. Also, one-off items, as mentioned earlier, that are able to improve financial results of the Company, were not taken into account during the preparation of budget for the year 2018.

Undoubtedly, one of the essential long term strategic objectives and aims for the Company during the year 2018 is environmental safety. AB Klaipedos nafta is seeking to assure sustainable growth of the business, therefore, environmental and social aspects are one of the Companys top priorities. The goal of the management of the Company is to conciliate the aims of KN shareholders with society or other stakeholders.

Enclosed:FORM 8.3

PUBLIC OPENING POSITION DISCLOSURE/DEALING DISCLOSURE BY

A PERSON WITH INTERESTS IN RELEVANT SECURITIES REPRESENTING 1% OR MORE

Rule 8.3 of the Takeover Code (the "Code")

1. KEY INFORMATION

(a) Full name of discloser: Majedie Asset Management Limited (b) Owner or controller of interests and short positions disclosed, if different from 1(a):



The naming of nominee or vehicle companies is insufficient. For a trust, the trustee(s), settlor and beneficiaries must be named. (c) Name of offeror/offeree in relation to whose relevant securities this form relates:



Use a separate form for each offeror/offeree



TESCO PLC (d) If an exempt fund manager connected with an offeror/offeree, state this and specify identity of offeror/offeree: (e) Date position held/dealing undertaken:



For an opening position disclosure, state the latest practicable date prior to the disclosure 30 January 2018 (f) In addition to the company in 1(c) above, is the discloser making disclosures in respect of any other party to the offer?



If it is a cash offer or possible cash offer, state "N/A" No





2. POSITIONS OF THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE

If there are positions or rights to subscribe to disclose in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 2(a) or (b) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security.

(a) Interests and short positions in the relevant securities of the offeror or offeree to which the disclosure relates following the dealing (if any)

Class of relevant security:



ORD 5P



Interests Short positions Number % Number % (1) Relevant securities owned and/or controlled: 313,566,650 3.83 (2) Cash-settled derivatives:



(3) Stock-settled derivatives (including options) and agreements to purchase/sell:



TOTAL:



313,566,650



3.83

All interests and all short positions should be disclosed.

Details of any open stock-settled derivative positions (including traded options), or agreements to purchase or sell relevant securities, should be given on a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions).

(b) Rights to subscribe for new securities (including directors' and other employee options)

Class of relevant security in relation to which subscription right exists: Details, including nature of the rights concerned and relevant percentages:

3. DEALINGS (IF ANY) BY THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE

Where there have been dealings in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 3(a), (b), (c) or (d) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security dealt in.

The currency of all prices and other monetary amounts should be stated.

(a) Purchases and sales

Class of relevant security Purchase/sale



Number of securities Price per unit ORD 5P Buy 1,798,583 209.1536 ORD 5P Buy 1,053,438 208.9771

(b) Cash-settled derivative transactions

Class of relevant security Product description



e.g. CFD Nature of dealing



e.g. opening/closing a long/short position, increasing/reducing a long/short position Number of reference securities Price per unit





(c) Stock-settled derivative transactions (including options)

(i) Writing, selling, purchasing or varying

Class of relevant security Product description e.g. call option Writing, purchasing, selling, varying etc. Number of securities to which option relates Exercise price per unit Type



e.g. American, European etc. Expiry date Option money paid/ received per unit

(ii) Exercise

Class of relevant security Product description



e.g. call option Exercising/ exercised against Number of securities Exercise price per unit





(d) Other dealings (including subscribing for new securities)

Class of relevant security Nature of dealing



e.g. subscription, conversion Details Price per unit (if applicable)





4. OTHER INFORMATION

(a) Indemnity and other dealing arrangements

Details of any indemnity or option arrangement, or any agreement or understanding, formal or informal, relating to relevant securities which may be an inducement to deal or refrain from dealing entered into by the person making the disclosure and any party to the offer or any person acting in concert with a party to the offer:



Irrevocable commitments and letters of intent should not be included. If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state "none"



None





(b) Agreements, arrangements or understandings relating to options or derivatives

Details of any agreement, arrangement or understanding, formal or informal, between the person making the disclosure and any other person relating to:



(i) the voting rights of any relevant securities under any option; or



(ii) the voting rights or future acquisition or disposal of any relevant securities to which any derivative is referenced:



If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state "none"



None





(c) Attachments

Is a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions) attached? NO

Date of disclosure: 31 January 2018 Contact name: James Tanqueray Telephone number: 0207 618 3900

Public disclosures under Rule 8 of the Code must be made to a Regulatory Information Service.

The Panel's Market Surveillance Unit is available for consultation in relation to the Code's disclosure requirements on +44 (0)20 7638 0129.

The Code can be viewed on the Panel's website at www.thetakeoverpanel.org.uk.LOS ANGELES, CA, Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Green Cures and Botanical Distribution Inc. (OTC PINK: GRCU), an innovative hemp-infused nutrition, botanical, sports, and body care products company, has engaged a web application development firm to begin work on OriginalHollywoodHempStore.com in addition to beginning work on new packaging and product development.

The company has hired SlatePeak, LLC, to build a new e-commerce site that will be used to sell Hollywood Hemp products online. The website is expected to launch before March 1st, 2018. The new website will allow customers to purchase GRCUs products directly, and a cryptocurrency payment processing solution is being evaluated for implementation post-launch. The new website will feature new branding, with a more minimalistic look and feel.

In addition to the web presence expansion, the company is hard at work on revamping its packaging to appear more minimalistic and professional. In addition to expected cost savings, the new packaging designs are anticipated to appeal more to professionals and celebrities.

As the company strives to update its brand image, it is also looking to add new products. The company is in negotiations with several companies and individuals, to co-develop hemp-infused product lines and cross-market them. As progress is made in these negotiations, the company will provide updates.

Mr. Pitsicalis added, We are working hard to take our brand to the next level, and this means creating luxury in minimalism. The worlds leading brands let their products speak, rather than flashy and distracting packaging. We are headed in that direction, and our new website, packaging, and products will reflect those values moving forward.

About Green Cures & Botanical Distribution Inc. (OTC PINK: GRCU)

Green Cures & Botanical Distribution Inc., is revenue-generating company that wholesales and retails hemp-infused nutritional, botanical, sports, and body care products. The company is currently Web-based and focuses on online retailing. Green Cures & Botanical Distribution Inc., operates a diverse portfolio of products and services within the botanical and cannabis industry, as permitted by law. From concept to production and distribution, Green Cures & Botanical Distribution Inc., is continuously creating and introducing products that promote a healthy life style. For more information visit: http://www.grcustock.com/.

Visit us at Investors Hangout: https://investorshangout.com/Green-Cures--Botanical-Distribution-Inc-GRCU-67874/

Investors Hangout is the only authorized investors blog page for Green Cures & Botanical Distribution Inc.

Forward-Looking Statements Disclaimer:PERTH, Australia, Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bannerman Resources Limited (ASX:BMN) (NSX:BMN) (Bannerman or the Company) is pleased to report on an excellent December quarter during which the Etango Project was strongly progressed while uranium market fundamentals also substantially improved.

HIGHLIGHTS

 Processing Optimisation Study completed

US$73m estimated Etango processing-related capital cost savings (+/-30%)

Operating costs reduced, with DFS Update to target improvements of US$3+/lb U 3 O 8

 Membrane Study initial test work successfully completed

Preliminary results ready for evaluation, with early indications of positive results

Secondary testwork and economic evaluation underway

DFS Update to incorporate any confirmed cost savings

 Positive developments in uranium sector during quarter

Cameco Inc announced suspension of MacArthur River, worlds largest uranium mine

KazAtomProm, worlds largest uranium producer, announced 20% reduction in forecast production

Bannermans Chief Executive Officer, Mr Brandon Munro, said, The December quarter yielded excellent improvements to the Etango Projects projected economics with the Processing Optimisation Study confirming significant reductions in estimated capital costs and opportunities for operating cost reductions. The Bannerman team immediately built on this progress with an innovative Membrane Study that has delivered strong preliminary results. The timing of these achievements could not be better, with both Cameco and KazAtomProm announcing substantial curtailments in uranium supply for 2018.

The full report is available on Bannermans website at www.bannermanresources.com and on SEDAR (www.sedar.com).

Brandon Munro

Chief Executive Officer

31 January 2018

For further information please contact:HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Immunovaccine Inc. (TSX:IMV) (OTCQX:IMMVF), a clinical stage immuno-oncology company, today announced the publication of a preclinical study using magnetic resource imaging (MRI) to follow cancer peptide uptake in tumor models, and to correlate this immune activation to the resulting anti-cancer T cell activity. The Journal of Biomedical Science study, titled Unique Depot Formed by an Oil Based Vaccine Facilitates Active Antigen Uptake and Provides Effective Tumour Control, compared the mechanism of action (MOA) of Immunovaccines platform for immunotherapeutic stimulation with other technologies.i

In the study, published on January 27, 2018, researchers tracked how the cancer peptides were trafficked from the injection site to immunogenic activation in the lymph nodes. Researchers correlated this to both activation of T cells and the ensuing efficacy to control tumor progression. They concluded that Immunovaccines delivery technology had a fundamentally unique MOA. This MOA enabled active and prolonged immune stimulation, as well as better tumor control, as compared to other technologies examined in the study.

These findings demonstrate why were able to generate sustained immune system activation, and also why measuring the level of immunogenicity at a single point in time is often not predictive of anti-cancer activity, said Marianne Stanford, Immunovaccine Vice President, Research and senior author of the study. Our approach to generating immune responses did not follow the pattern described for classical vaccines, in which a peak primary immune response rapidly subsides and requires secondary stimulation for protection. Instead, T cell activation induced by our technology is correlated with both prolonged traffic to lymph nodes, and enhanced efficacy in preventing tumor progression.

One of the key findings of the study is the fundamentally unique method by which Immunovaccines technology delivers immune-activating agents, such as cancer peptides, to the immune system. Unlike other technologies that rely on a slow release of antigens at the site of injection, Immunovaccines delivery formulation entraps the immuno-stimulating agents at the injection site. This depot effect forces an active uptake by immune cells, rather than a passive diffusion at the injection site. Hence, the immune-stimulating components are protected from degradation, are delivered over a prolonged period of time to antigen-presenting cells, and are actively transported to the lymph nodes.

In this publication, we have shown that enhanced tumor control can be correlated with our unique MOA in tumor models, which provides insight as to why our technology may be able to provide anti-cancer responses that have not yet been associated with other approaches, said Frederic Ors, Immunovaccines Chief Executive Officer. Effective T cell responses have been linked to clinical benefits of successful cancer immunotherapies. We believe that by generating a prolonged in vivo T cell targeted attacks on cancer cells, our technology represents a promising alternative to ex vivo programming of T cells, such as those associated with CAR T therapies.

Immunovaccine conducted the study in collaboration with BIOTIC, a hospital-based medical imaging research centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Immunovaccine previously announced findings from its BIOTIC collaboration in 2015.

About Immunovaccine

Immunovaccine Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to making immunotherapy more effective, more broadly applicable, and more widely available to people facing cancer and infectious diseases. Immunovaccine is developing T cell-activating cancer immunotherapies based on its patented immuno-stimulating technology platform, which provides controlled and prolonged delivery of immuno-stimulating agents to the immune system.

Immunovaccine has advanced two T cell activation therapies for cancer through Phase 1 human clinical trials, and is currently conducting multiple Phase 1b and Phase 2 studies with Incyte Corporation and Merck. These studies assessing lead candidate, DPX-Survivac, as a combination therapy in ovarian cancer and diffuse large B cell lymphoma. The Company is also exploring additional applications of its platform for infectious diseases and other therapeutic areas. DPX-RSV is an innovative vaccine candidate for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which has recently completed a Phase 1 clinical trial. Connect at www.imvaccine.com.

Immunovaccine Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking information under applicable securities law. All information that addresses activities or developments that we expect to occur in the future is forward-looking information. Forward-looking statements are based on the estimates and opinions of management on the date the statements are made. However, they should not be regarded as a representation that any of the plans will be achieved. Actual results may differ materially from those set forth in this press release due to risks affecting the Company, including access to capital, the successful completion of clinical trials and receipt of all regulatory approvals. Immunovaccine Inc. assumes no responsibility to update forward-looking statements in this press release except as required by law.

Contacts for Immunovaccine:

MEDIA

Mike Beyer, Sam Brown Inc.

T: (312) 961-2502 E: mikebeyer@sambrown.com

INVESTOR RELATIONS

Pierre Labbe, Chief Financial Officer

T: (902) 492-1819 E: info@imvaccine.com

Patti Bank, Managing Director, Westwicke Partners

O: (415) 513-1284

T: (415) 515-4572 E: patti.bank@westwicke.com

___________________________

i Published online, January 27, 2018. DOI: 10.1186/s12929-018-0413-9iStock/Thinkstock (TACOMA, Wash.) -- A Tacoma Washington soldier was shocked when his brand new 2018 Jeep Cherokee Trailhawk erupted in flames Saturday evening.



Staff Sergeant Joseph Lewis was driving around Saturday morning when he noticed the volume and temperature controls were not working. He didnt think much of it until Saturday evening when he was driving around Joint Base Lewis-McChord about 10:15 p.m. when the cars controls started to malfunction again.



It was like a light show on the dashboard with different lights turning on and off and the stereo strobing, Lewis said. Then the car sputtered and shut off.



The car made a cranking noise when Lewis tried to restart the car. Concerned, he got out of the car and called for help.



While Lewis was on the phone, he noticed a flame between the hood and the front windshield of the car. Panicked, Lewis popped the hood of the car, but flames started blazing on both sides of the hood.



At this point, I knew there was nothing I could do, Lewis said. It was unbelievable how fast the flames spread. In less than five minutes the whole hood of the car was engulfed in flames.



The Joint Base Lewis-McChord Fire Department responded and was able to put the flames out in about 30 minutes.



After the flames were extinguished, the car was melted to the pavement.



It took a while to load the car onto a tow truck because the car had to be scraped from the pavement, Lewis said.



The Jeep was purchased just this month, Lewis said. At the time of the incident the vehicle only had about 1,000 miles on it.



Lewis said he has started an insurance claim and has spoken with the dealership. It gave him a loaner vehicle and said that they would get back to him.



Lewis said he was in disbelief when the dealership was trying to sell him another car after his last vehicle went up in smoke.



He said the silver lining, if there is one, is that his family was not in the car when it caught on fire.



I have two small kids and Im lucky they werent in the car, Lewis said. It would have been hard to get them out of their car seats with flames coming out of the car.



Chrysler-Fiat said in a statement to ABC News that it is investigating the incident.



Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.PITTSBURGH, Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- United States Steel Corporation (NYSE:X) President and Chief Executive Officer David B. Burritt announced today that Senior Vice President - Tubular Business and President of Tubular Products David J. Rintoul has informed the company of his plan to retire effective February 28, 2018 after 10 years with the company.



Rintoul began his career with U. S. Steel in 2007 as general manager of Granite City Works, bringing 30 years of steel industry experience to this role. He went on to serve as general manager of Great Lakes Works and as president of U. S. Steel Canada. In 2011, Rintoul was elected vice president - European operations and president - U. S. Steel Kosice, overseeing operations in the Slovak Republic and in the Republic of Serbia. He has maintained leadership responsibility for the companys tubular products business since 2014.

Commenting on Rintouls career, Burritt said, Dave has provided a wealth of expertise and leadership during his tenure with the company. We are grateful for his many contributions to our flat-rolled and tubular businesses and congratulate him on his retirement.

A native of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Rintoul earned an associates degree in mechanical engineering technology from Sault College of Applied Arts and Technology. He graduated with a bachelors degree in business administration from Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan and received a master's degree in business administration from the University of Notre Dame.

An interim successor for the Tubular segment will be named shortly.

-oOo-

CONTACT:

Meghan Cox

Manager

Corporate Communications

T  (412) 433-6777

E  mmcox@uss.comPINE BROOK, N.J., Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- AngelSense, an award-winning GPS & Voice-Monitoring solution designed to protect children with special needs, announced today that following the huge demand in Canada its GPS solution can now be purchased by families and agencies across the country. Since its release in the US in 2016, AngelSense has saved lives, and on countless other occasions, has helped stop wandering, bullying, and mistreatment.



The unique solution includes a sensory-friendly, tamper-proof GPS device for the child and a mobile and web app for the parents or caregivers.

AngelSenses sophisticated, patent-pending technology allows parents to know their childs whereabouts at all times by automatically creating a personalized timeline of the childs daily visited locations, routes, and transit speed. Parents are alerted if the child deviates from the planned schedule or if the child is at an unexpected location, and at any time can zoom-in to see the childs route on a map in real-time. Additional features unique to AngelSense include the ability to listen in to the childs environment and surroundings to ensure he or she is safe, and a two-way voice option allowing parents to talk to their child at any time without the child needing to pick up or click anything.

AngelSenses First Responder Alert is without a doubt the products flagship feature, allowing parents to alert a predefined group of trusted people, including family members, friends, caregivers, school officials and local law enforcement in the case of a lost or wandering child. At a click of a button, parents initiate a highly effective search, and their entire search team receives continuous real-time updates of the childs location on a map view. As a result, the search and rescue efforts become highly effective, time to find a lost child is drastically reduced, and most importantly, tragedies are prevented.

Unlike other emergency tracking systems in place by many local law enforcement, which require a person to first notice the child is missing before the tracking is activated, AngelSense proactively alerts the parent as soon as there is a deviation from the childs routine. When every minute is critical to bringing a child home safely, this is crucial.

Autism afflicts approximately 1 in 68 children in the United States according to the CDC with nearly half wandering and potentially going missing at least once before their 17th birthday, according to a study by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Another recent study by researchers at Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York shows that more than 250,000 school-age children with autism or other developmental disorders wander away from adult supervision each year, risking their safety.

Wandering is ranked as one of the most stressful behaviors parents have to deal with. We have therefore made it our mission to prevent, or at the very least limit the potentially disastrous effects of this behavior, said Doron Somer, co-founder of AngelSense and an autism dad. During an emergency, every minute is crucial, and the first hour is often critical in determining whether the child will be found. To reduce the time and facilitate the coordination of people and locations, the First Responder Alert immediately push-notifies a predetermined rescue team that includes local law enforcement, with the click of a button, to ensure that the best efforts can be made to locate the child as quickly as possible.

Almost every day we hear from a parent that AngelSense has given them immense peace of mind with the knowledge that if their child was ever in danger, they would be able to help them right away,  said AngelSense co-founder Nery Ben-Azar. We are honored to be able to now help many more parents safeguard their children, commented Ben-Azar about the products launch in Canada. This new year, it is our key focus to make the product available in more countries and for many more families.

About AngelSense

Headquartered in Pine Brook, New Jersey, AngelSense puts its award-winning patented GPS & Voice-Monitoring solution to use to create a safer world for children with special needs while bringing peace of mind to their families. AngelSense was built from within the special needs community to answer the needs of the community. Every product feature was carefully designed to help prevent cases of wandering, mistreatment and bullying, which special needs children are highly prone to.

With AngelSense, parents have a full view of their child's day in both a schedule and map format, and can easily monitor their safety and wellbeing. Some key features include: immediate app notifications sent to the parent for every unexpected location, transit monitoring for bus route including unexpected stops, route changes and transit speed; tamper-proof GPS wearables and accessories designed to adapt to sensory sensitivities of children with special needs; ability to listen in to the childs environment and surroundings; a time-saving ETA feature for buses or carpools; a unique diary that captures the child's route and locations throughout the day; and a proven "Wandering Child" solution in case of a lost child or elopement.

To learn more about AngelSense, watch the video here.

For more information, please contact:

pr@angelsense.com

1-888-999-2023

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/8966888d-b473-468b-8041-83f33d69944d

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/12a28442-43fc-43cf-9a73-8d37f03810daNEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- LifeSci Advisors, an investor relations and corporate communications firm focused on the life sciences sector, today announces the 12th appointment of a female executive to a life sciences company board as part of its Board Placement Initiative (BPI). LifeSci Advisors launched BPI in the summer of 2016 with the goal of connecting female executives in the life sciences industry with companies looking for board candidates.



LifeSci is pleased to share that Dr. Carol L. Brosgart has joined the Board of Directors of ABIVAX, a biotechnology company harnessing the immune system to develop a functional cure for HIV and treatments for inflammatory/autoimmune diseases and cancer. Dr. Brosgart is a Clinical Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Institute for Global Health, Department of Medicine, University of California in San Francisco, CA.

I am pleased to join the board of ABIVAX and help this progressive company continue to advance their clinical pipeline forward, said Dr. Brosgart. I look forward to contributing to the strategic and clinical development oversight of the company, and I am thankful to LifeSci for facilitating this placement.

Dr. Brosgart has served as an independent director on the Boards of both public and privately-held biotechnology companies, as a member of the Federal US CDC/HRSA Advisory Committee on HIV, Viral Hepatitis, and STD Prevention and Treatment, and was the Senior Advisor on Science and Policy to the Division of Viral Hepatitis at the CDC. She has held numerous senior management positions within biotechnology and health care. Dr. Brosgart was the Chief Medical Officer for Alios BioPharma (now Johnson & Johnson), a biotech company developing therapies to treat viral diseases. Dr. Brosgart joined Alios from Childrens Hospital & Research Center in Oakland, California, where she served as Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer. For eleven years Dr. Brosgart held a number of senior management positions at Gilead Sciences. While Vice President of Clinical Research at Gilead she was responsible for the clinical development and approval by the FDA and by regulatory authorities worldwide of two antiviral therapies  Viread for the treatment of HIV, and Hepsera for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B.

Prior to Gilead, Dr. Brosgart worked for more than 20 years in public health, clinical care, research, and teaching. She was among the first physicians in the United States to recognize and treat patients with HIV/AIDS. Dr. Brosgart was the founding Medical Director of the East Bay AIDS Center. She led NIH clinical trials as a member of the Community Programs for Clinical Research on AIDS (CPCRA), chaired the CPCRA Scientific Advisory Committee, and contributed to HIV antiretroviral drug development, and to the development of prophylactic and treatment agents for opportunistic and malignant complications of HIV. Dr. Brosgart received her B.S. in community medicine from the University of California, Berkeley (UCB), her M.D. from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and her residency training in Pediatrics (UCSF) and Public Health and Preventive Medicine (UCB). She has published extensively in the areas of infectious diseases, focusing on antiviral therapy for HIV, HBV, CMV and related public health policy.

We are confident that Carols insights and experience will be a huge asset to ABIVAX as they continue to develop their clinical programs, said Michael Rice, President and Co-Founder, LifeSci Advisors. Were very happy to have made the introduction and look forward to announcing more successful appointments through our Board Placement Initiative in the near future.

We are thrilled that Carol is bringing her expertise and deep industry knowledge to our board, said Dr. Hartmut J. Ehrlich, Chief Executive Officer, ABIVAX. Her vast wealth of experience and passion for treating patients with HIV/AIDS will be invaluable to the companys clinical strategy, and we are pleased to have found Dr. Brosgart through LifeScis Board Placement Initiative.

LifeSci Advisors Board Placement Initiative (BPI) was launched with the goal of helping companies in the life sciences industry diversify and strengthen their company boards. Introductions between companies and eligible board candidates are made after LifeSci has met with a companys management team or Board regarding the skills and expertise they are seeking in a candidate, and after the LifeSci team has properly vetted the board candidates. BPI now has helped to place 12 women on corporate boards and is looking to continue this success. With a proprietary network comprised of board-ready women, LifeSci Advisors hopes that BPI can become a valuable platform where both female executives and life sciences companies are able to network and to grow.

BPI is accepting resumes from interested candidates and referrals on an on-going basis. To find out how you can use the BPI network for your next board candidate search, visit www.lifesciadvisors.com/board-diversity-initiatives. Inquiries, resume submissions, and open board seat referrals can be sent to boarddiversity@lifesciadvisors.com.

LifeSci Advisors, LLC (www.lifesciadvisors.com) is the largest investor relations consultancy in the life sciences industry, founded to provide companies with a multi-faceted approach to investor communications and outreach. With a global focus and reach, the firm provides the highest quality service for its clients through its deep sector specialization. LifeScis team of MDs and PhDs enables the firm to better understand clients' R&D, regulatory and commercial strategies, and its team of financial services, investor relations and public relations specialists helps clients effectively communicate to the marketplace. This combination of life sciences, financial services, and investor relations competencies allows LifeSci Advisors to provide an invaluable and unique service offering to clients.



LifeSci Partners (www.lifescipartners.com) is the leading provider of consulting services in the areas of investor relations, public relations, corporate communications and capital markets advisory. Combining deep domain expertise in the life sciences with decades of experience in capital markets and public relations, LifeSci Partners delivers unparalleled services to life sciences companies globally.

For further information, please contact:

Ann Kaiser

The TASC Group

212-337-8870

ann@thetascgroup.com

www.thetascgroup.comUNIBAIL-RODAMCO SE : FULL-YEAR RESULTS 2017

Paris, Amsterdam, January 31, 2018

Press release

FULL-YEAR RESULTS 2017

A year of exceptional achievements for Unibail-Rodamco

Recurring Earnings per Share (recurring EPS) of 12.05 exceeds guidance of 11.80 - 12.00 announced in February 2017.

Recurring EPS grew +7.2% to 12.05 from 11.24 in 2016

to from 11.24 in 2016 Net Rental Income (NRI) like-for-like growth in Shopping Centres: +4.3%, + 360 bps above indexation

+ Cost of debt at an all-time low of 1.4% , average debt maturity of 7.2 years

, average debt maturity of years Total portfolio value of 43.1 Bn , up +6.3%

, up Net asset values per share:

Going Concern NAV: 219.20 , up +8.8%

EPRA NNNAV: 200.50 , up +9.1%

EPRA NAV: 211.00, up +7.9%

Development pipeline (7.9 Bn) refuelled with new projects, after 0.9 Bn of deliveries in 2017

refuelled with new projects, after 0.9 Bn of deliveries in 2017 Cash dividend of 10.80 per share (1)

of per share Announcement of the Westfield acquisition

2017 2016 Growth Like-for-like growth Net Rental Income (in  Mn) 1,583 1,529 +3.5% +4.2% Shopping Centres 1,346 1,273 +5.8% +4.3% France 610 581 +5.0% +3.7% Central Europe 172 156 +10.4% +4.2% Spain 161 146 +10.3% +4.6% Nordics 146 140 +4.2% +7.6% Austria 103 99 +4.6% +3.9% Germany 93 90 +2.9% +3.2% The Netherlands 62 62 +0.2% +3.8% Offices 141 153 -8.1% +13.5% Convention & Exhibition 95 103 -6.9% -6.9% Recurring net result (in  Mn) 1,202 1,114 +7.9% Recurring EPS (in ) 12.05 11.24 +7.2% Dec. 31, 2017 Dec. 31, 2016 Growth Like-for-like growth Total portfolio valuation (in  Mn) 43,057 40,495 +6.3% +3.9% Going Concern Net Asset Value

(in  per share) 219.20 201.50 +8.8% EPRA Triple Net Asset Value

(in  per share) 200.50 183.70 +9.1% EPRA Net Asset Value

(in  per share) 211.00 195.60 +7.9%

Figures may not add up due to rounding

"Thanks to the exceptional performance of the teams, 2017 was an outstanding year for Unibail-Rodamco, with very strong opeRating results, the successful delivery of five major retail developments and the agreement to acquire Westfield Corporation. Recurring earnings per share were up by +7.2%. Like-for-like NRI growth of +4.2% was strong, driven by continued solid leasing activity in retail and a record leasing year in offices. One year after the launch of Better Places 2030, the Group made excellent progress in its CSR strategy. Unibail-Rodamco is very well positioned to deliver on its proven growth strategy in 2018 and in the medium and long term, with its best in class portfolio and development pipeline, the secured low cost of debt, its talented professionals and clear strategic focus. We also look forward to closing the Westfield acquisition and creating the world's premier developer and operator of flagship shopping destinations." Christophe Cuvillier, CEO and Chairman of the Management Board

2017 RECURRING EPS OF 12.05, UP +7.2%

Recurring EPS came to 12.05, an increase of +7.2% from 2016. The Group exceeded its recurring EPS guidance of 11.80 - 12.00 announced in February 2017.

STRONG OPERATING PERFORMANCE

Shopping Centres

Tenant sales(2) increased by +3.7% compared to 2016. Through November 2017, tenant sales outperformed the national sales indices(3) by +180 bps. France (+410 bps), the Nordics (+300 bps) and Central Europe (+160 bps) performed particularly well.

In 2017, Shopping Centre like-for-like NRI grew by +4.3%, +360 bps above indexation, equalling its best performance since 2008. The Group signed 1,350 leases on consolidated standing assets with a Minimum Guaranteed Rent uplift of +14.7%, of which +16.8% for flagship assets(4). The tenant rotation rate was 11.0% and the EPRA vacancy rate was 2.4% (including 0.2% of strategic vacancy). The Group accelerated its push to directly connect with visitors. Unibail-Rodamco signed up +1.8 million new customers to its loyalty program in 2017, of which 85% through its digital channels, to reach a total of 4.2 million members.

Offices

With 2.6 million m of office space let, the 2017 take-up in the Paris region was at the highest level of the last 10 years. 67% of transactions were in new or refurbished-as-new buildings.

The Group leased more than 72,000 m in standing assets in the Paris region. Like-for-like NRI increased by +13.5%. In addition, the Group has entered into exclusive negotiations with Nestle to prelet the entire 44,566 m Shift building, to be concluded during Q1 2018, more than one year prior to delivery. The Group also disposed of So Ouest Plaza for a Net Disposal Price of 473.8 Mn(5).

Convention & Exhibition

On November 22, 2017, the Group inaugurated the new Paris Convention Centre, concluding the first phase of the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles refurbishment project. With a total capacity of 35,000 participants, it can now host world-class congresses: 15 large scale congresses have already booked the venue for the coming years. Recurring NOI decreased by -2.1% compared to FY-2015(6), the last comparable period, which was favourably impacted by COP 21 held in Paris Le Bourget.

BETTER PLACES 2030

In 2017, the Group made significant progress in its ambitious CSR strategy: as at December 31, 2017, 146 partnerships were signed with tenants (15.6% of total retail GLA(7)) to use LED lighting. Following the contracts signed in 2017 for France and Central Europe, all the Group's regions are now supplied with Green Electricity(8). 719 employees volunteered in the Group's annual Solidarity Days and the UR for Jobs programme, which fosters employment of disadvantaged youth by tenants and suppliers in the Group's shopping centres.



VALUE CREATION OF 27.14 PER SHARE

The Gross Market Value (GMV) of the Group's assets as at December 31, 2017, amounted to

43.1 Bn, up +6.3% in total, and +3.9% on a like-for-like basis, from December 31, 2016.

The Shopping Centre division GMV grew by 7.0% in total and by +3.9% on a like-for-like basis, driven by the rent effect. The average net initial yield of the retail portfolio stood at 4.3% (vs. 4.4% as at year-end 2016).

The GMV of the Office division reached 4.2 Bn, representing a +10.1% increase on a like-for-like basis. The valuation of the office portfolio benefitted primarily from a yield effect of +6.5% driven by reference transactions in Paris CBD and La Defense.

The GMV of the Convention & Exhibition division decreased -2.4% on a like-for-like basis.

Going Concern NAV per share stood at 219.20 as at December 31, 2017, an increase of +17.70 (+8.8%) compared to December 31, 2016. This increase was the sum of (i) the value creation of 27.14 per share, (ii) the impact of the dividend paid in March and July 2017 of -10.20, and (iii) the impact of the +0.76 mark-to-market of the fixed-rate debt and derivatives.

7.9 Bn PIPELINE REFUELLED AFTER SUCCESSFUL DELIVERIES

The Group delivered five major retail projects for a total GLA of 172,395 m and a Total Investment Cost (TIC) of 0.9 Bn: the new shopping centre Wroclavia in Poland, the extensions and renovations of Centrum Chodov, Carre Senart and Parly 2, and the full redevelopment of Glories. 99% let at opening, these projects generated an aggregate yield on cost of 7.7%.

The pipeline was refuelled with the Vitam project, a 69,621 m leisure and retail redevelopment in France, near Geneva, and the extension of Fisketorvet.

As at December 31, 2017, the aggregate TIC of the development pipeline amounted to 7.9 Bn.

AVERAGE COST OF DEBT AT 1.4% AND A 7.2-YEAR AVERAGE MATURITY

The financial structure of the Group is strong with a Loan-to-Value ratio of 33% and an interest coverage ratio of 6.7x (5.9x in 2016). The average cost of debt of the Group in 2017 was 1.4%, an all-time low, while the average debt maturity as at December 31, 2017, was 7.2 years.

ASSET ROTATION DISCIPLINE

In 2017, the Group divested 710 Mn of assets for an aggregate NIY of 4.6% and a 15% premium to the last unaffected appraisal values.

The proceeds of the divestments were partly reinvested in asset acquisitions (364 Mn), including the remaining 50% stake in Polygone Riviera(9) and a 50% stake in the Metropole Zlicin shopping centre in Prague.

WESTFIELD ACQUISITION

On December 12, 2017, the Group announced that it had entered into an agreement to acquire Westfield Corporation, to create the world's premier developer and operator of flagship shopping destinations. Since announcement, Unibail-Rodamco has obtained the unanimous positive opinions of its works councils regarding the proposed acquisition. The Transaction Documentation is expected to be published in March / April 2018. The closing is expected to take place in Q2-2018 upon approval of shareholders of both companies and satisfaction of the conditions precedent.

OUTLOOK

The Group expects to grow its recurring EPS in 2018 to between 12.75 and 12.90 on a standalone basis.

For the medium term and on a standalone basis, Unibail-Rodamco expects to grow its recurring EPS at a compound annual growth rate of between +6% and +8%. This medium-term outlook is derived from the annual business plan exercise for Unibail-Rodamco. This results in annual growth rates which vary from year to year. The key inputs in the Group's business plan, which is built on an asset by asset basis and based on economic conditions as at year-end 2017, are estimates and assumptions relating to indexation, rental uplifts, disposals of approximately 3 Bn over the next several years, timely delivery of pipeline projects, cost of debt and taxation. Variations in these assumptions will also cause growth rates to vary from one plan to the next. The Group's current business plan does not assume any acquisitions, nor the Westfield transaction.

DIVIDEND

For the fiscal year 2017, the Group will propose a cash dividend of 10.80 per share for approval by its Annual General Meeting (AGM). Further to the announcement of the agreement to acquire Westfield Corporation, the Group will reschedule this AGM, originally planned on April 18, 2018, to a date expected to be in May 2018.

The dividend payment schedule will be as follows:

an interim dividend of 5.40 per share on March 29, 2018 (ex-dividend date March 27, 2018); and

a final dividend of 5.40 per share(1). The final dividend will be paid to Unibail-Rodamco shareholders of record prior to the closing of the Westfield acquisition.

FINANCIAL SCHEDULE

The next financial events on the Group's calendar will be:

April 23, 2018: 2018 1st Quarter Revenues (after market close)

July 25, 2018: 2018 Half-year results (after market close)(10)

For further information, please contact:

Investor Relations

Paul Douay

Marine Huet

Maarten Otte

+33 1 76 77 58 02

maarten.otte@unibail-rodamco.com

Media Relations

Caroline Bruel

+33 1 76 77 57 94

caroline.bruel@unibail-rodamco.com



Subject to approval by the AGM Tenant sales data include shopping centres accounted for using the equity method (Rosny 2, CentrO and Paunsdorf) but not Jumbo, Zlote Tarasy and Metropole Zlicin as they are not managed by the Group. Tenant sales performance in Unibail-Rodamco's shopping centres (excluding The Netherlands) in portfolio of shopping centres in operation, including extensions of existing assets, but excluding deliveries of new brownfield projects, newly acquired assets and assets under heavy refurbishment. For 2017, shopping centres excluded due to delivery or ongoing works were Carre Senart and Carre Senart Shopping Park, Galerie Gaite, Les Boutiques du Palais, La Part-Dieu, Parly 2, Glories, Bonaire, Centrum Chodov, Wroclavia, CH Ursynow and Gropius Passagen. Primark sales are based on estimates. Based on latest national indices available (year-on-year evolution) as at November 2017: France: Institut Francais du Libre Service (IFLS) - excluding food; Spain: Instituto Nacional de Estadistica; Central Europe: Cesky statisticky urad (Czech Republic), Polska Rada Centrow Handlowych (Poland) (as at October 2017), Eurostat (Slovakia); Austria: Eurostat; the Nordics: HUI Research (Sweden), Danmarks Statistik (Denmark); Germany: Destatis-Genesis, excluding online only operators and fuel sales (Federal Statistical Office). Including online only sales for France, Spain, Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia and excluding online only sales for Germany, the Nordics and Poland. Flagship assets: Les Quatre Temps, Aeroville, Parly 2, Velizy 2, Carre Senart, Rosny 2, Le Forum des Halles, Carrousel du Louvre, CNIT, Confluence, La Part-Dieu, Villeneuve 2, Euralille, Polygone Riviera, La Vaguada, Parquesur, Bonaire, Splau, La Maquinista, Glories, Donau Zentrum, Shopping City Sud, Centrum Cerny Most, Centrum Chodov, Wroclavia, Galeria Mokotow, Zlote Tarasy, Arkadia, Aupark, Jumbo, Fisketorvet, Mall of Scandinavia, Taby Centrum, Stadshart Amstelveen, Leidsenhage, Ruhr Park, Gropius Passagen, CentrO, Pasing Arcaden. Including the cinema. Restated for the Intermat triennial show. Total owned and managed retail GLA. Common parts of owned and managed shopping centres. On December 29, 2017, the Group acquired a 45% stake in the companies holding the shopping centre Polygone Riviera from its joint-venture partner. As at December 31, 2017, the Group owned a 95% interest in this asset. On January 4, 2018, the Group acquired the remaining 5% stake in the asset. Subject to the date of Westfield acquisition completion.

About Unibail-Rodamco

Created in 1968, Unibail-Rodamco SE is Europe's largest listed commercial property company, with a presence in 11 Continental European countries, and a portfolio of assets valued at 43.1 billion as of December 31, 2017. As an integrated operator, investor and developer, the Group aims to cover the whole of the real estate value creation chain. With the support of its 2,011 professionals, Unibail-Rodamco applies those skills to highly specialised market segments such as large shopping centres in major European cities and large offices and convention & exhibition centres in the Paris region.

The Group distinguishes itself through its focus on the highest architectural, city planning and environmental standards. Its long term approach and sustainable vision focuses on the development or redevelopment of outstanding places to shop, work and relax. Its commitment to environmental, economic and social sustainability has been recognised by inclusion in the FTSE4Good and STOXX Global ESG Leaders indexes.

The Group is a member of the CAC 40, AEX 25 and EuroSTOXX 50 indices. It benefits from an A rating from Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings.

For more information, please visit our website: www.unibail-rodamco.com





This announcement is distributed by Nasdaq Corporate Solutions on behalf of Nasdaq Corporate Solutions clients.

The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.

Source: UNIBAIL-RODAMCO SE via Globenewswire

Shares is the leading weekly publication for retail investors. It is packed with investment ideas, news and educational material to help build and run portfolios and get more from your money.

Shares puts on free Investor Events throughout the year across the country. They provide an opportunity for investors to learn more about companies on the stock market and hear from a range of investment experts including fund managers and Shares journalists.RADNOR, Pa., Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP reminds Qudian Inc. (NYSE:QD) (Qudian or the Company) investors that a class action lawsuit has been filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of investors who purchased the Companys securities between October 18, 2017 and November 20, 2017, inclusive (the Class Period).



DEADLINE REMINDER: Investors who purchased Qudian securities during the Class Period may, no later than February 12, 2018, seek to be appointed as a lead plaintiff representative of the class. For additional information please visit www.ktmc.com/new-cases/qudian-inc#join.

Investors who wish to discuss their legal rights or interests with respect to this action are encouraged to contact Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check (Darren J. Check, Esq., D. Seamus Kaskela, Esq. or Adrienne Bell, Esq.) at (888) 299  7706 or (610) 6677706, or via e-mail at info@ktmc.com.

Qudian operates online consumer finance platforms in the Peoples Republic of China. The Company offers small-sized cash credit products and merchandise credit products. On October 18, 2017, Qudian completed an initial public offering (IPO) of its securities, selling over 43 million shares to investors at $24.00 per share, for gross proceeds of over $1 billion.

The stockholder class action complaint alleges that Qudians IPO documents were negligently prepared, contained untrue statements of material fact, and were not prepared in accordance with the rules and regulations governing their preparation. Among other things, the complaint alleges that Qudians IPO documents failed to disclose that: (1) Qudian engaged into unethical business and accounting practices, (2) Qudian failed to maintain adequate control to ensure the protection and safety of its users personal information, and (3) consequently, Qudian was exposing detailed user data to leakages and online resale.

On November 21, 2017, Bloomberg published an article entitled Chinese Online Lender Qudian Reportedly Suffers Data Leak Related to Millions of Student Users. Following that news, shares of the Companys securities declined to as low as $12.22 per share on November 24, 2017.

Qudian investors may, no later than February 12, 2018 , petition the Court to be appointed as a lead plaintiff representative of the class through Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check or other counsel, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member. A lead plaintiff is a representative party who acts on behalf of all class members in directing the litigation. In order to be appointed as a lead plaintiff, the Court must determine that the class members claim is typical of the claims of other class members, and that the class member will adequately represent the class in the action. Your ability to share in any recovery is not affected by the decision of whether or not to serve as a lead plaintiff.

Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check prosecutes class actions in state and federal courts throughout the country. Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check is a driving force behind corporate governance reform, and has recovered billions of dollars on behalf of institutional and individual investors from the United States and around the world. The firm represents investors, consumers and whistleblowers (private citizens who report fraudulent practices against the government and share in the recovery of government dollars). The complaint in this action was not filed by Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check. For more information about Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, please visit www.ktmc.com.

CONTACT:

Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check, LLP

Darren J. Check, Esq.

D. Seamus Kaskela, Esq.

Adrienne Bell, Esq.

280 King of Prussia Road

Radnor, PA 19087

(888) 299-7706

(610) 667-7706

info@ktmc.com



World-renowned Future of Work & Technology event to host second U.S. show in Las Vegas May 15-16, 2018

Las Vegas, NV - January 31, 2018 - Following the critical acclaim of its first U.S. event in San Francisco last year, UNLEASH America (formerly HR Tech World), the fastest-growing international show on the Future of Work & Technology will be welcoming back North America's industry insiders, entrepreneurs and innovators in Las Vegas, May 15-16, 2018 at the Aria Resort & Casino. From companies such as Walgreens, Cisco, Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, and GE Digital to name a few - speakers will share knowledge about the latest challenges and trends on how new technology is disrupting the world of work.

For the first time ever, Mo Gawdat, Chief Business Officer from Google X will take to the stage with strategies and ideas to help you on your way to building a successful innovation factory. In his step-by-step approach, he will deliver critical insight into what works and what can change the world.

UNLEASH America will deliver its unique content via 100+ sessions and keynotes across 10 stages, including its Main Stage, Startup Stage, 2 demo stages as well as the HR Tech, Smart Data, Talent Management, Recruitment, Learning & Development, Wellbeing & Inclusion, Think Tank, Adoption and HR Tech Analysts tracks.

Other highlights from the first round of speakers are:

Jill Larsen, SVP Human Resources & Talent Acquisition, Cisco

Josh Bersin, Founder and Principal, Bersin by Deloitte

Jason Averbook, CEO & Co-Founder, LeapGen

Candice Morgan, Head of Inclusion & Diversity, Pinterest

Curt Burghardt, VP HR Shared Services & HR Systems, Walgreens

Jennifer Waldo, Vice President, Chief Human Resources Officer, GE Digital

Kathleen Hogan, Chief People Officer, Microsoft

Sjoerd Gehring, Global VP of Talent Acquisition & Employee Experience, Johnson & Johnson

Jim Hazboun, CHRO, Hyundai Capital America

Michael Kim, Head of HR, APAC, Spotify

Katelin Holloway, VP of People, Reddit

"UNLEASH has been the fastest growing HR Show in the World on the Future of Work and Technology over the last five years and following the success at our inaugural U.S. show in San Francisco last year, we're excited to bring UNLEASH America to Las Vegas for the next two years!" said China Gorman, Managing Director, UNLEASH America. "The show will give attendees a platform to meet not only with vendors, but also the decision makers, visionaries and innovators shaping the way we work and get work done. I am thrilled to be part of this journey as we plan to scale the show to the next level."

UNLEASH America is proud to be working with the biggest global market leaders who are sponsors of this year's show including SAP SuccessFactors, IBM, WalkMe, Crossknowldge, CultureAmp, Smartrecruiters, O.C.Tanner, iCIMS and CareerBuilder.

For more information about the first lineup of speakers visit

http://www.unleashgroup.io/lasvegas/speakers

About UNLEASH

Unleash Your People! UNLEASH (previously HR Tech World) is much more than just business events; we are in the change-the-world-for-the-greater-good business. We are passionate creative people on a mission to inspire and transform the world of work & technology. Our shared vision is that by 2020, UNLEASH will be the platform of choice on the Future of Work across the globe. More than half of our community includes CEO's, CHRO/CPOs, EVPs, and SVPs from the most exciting brands and leading organizations, located in 120+ countries worldwide.

The world's fastest growing community on the Future of Work, UNLEASH is ranked as the largest Corporate Network focused on the interface between people, technology, organizations and the future. Our events attract the world's leading entrepreneurs, visionaries, disrupters and doers, including Sir Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington, Sir Ken Robinson, Rachel Botsman, Gary Vaynerchuk and many more. Past and future show locations include Amsterdam, London, San Francisco, Paris and Las Vegas and have welcomed over 9,000 attendees in 2017.

In 2018, UNLEASH will scale significantly to become the world's leading marketplace and community on the future of the workplace and technology. Join the community and find out more at www.unleashgroup.io

#UNLEASH18

In 2018:

UNLEASH Conference & Expo, London ExCeL, 20-21 March 2018

UNLEASH America, The Aria Resort and Casino, Las Vegas, 15-16 May 2018

UNLEASH World Conference & Expo, Amsterdam RAI, 23-24 October 2018

For more information or any media inquiries, please contact Andi Lustak on pr@unleashgroup.io.ENDEAVOUR PROVIDES INFORMATION ON CONVERTIBLE NOTE OFFERING

View News Release in PDF Format

George Town, January 31, 2018 - Endeavour Mining Corporation (TSX: EDV) (the "Company") provides information concerning the planned issuance of its US$300 million convertible senior notes (the "Notes") announced yesterday.

The Notes will bear a 3% annual coupon maturing in February 2023. The conversion price has been set at CAD29.47 (US$23.90) based on a 32.5% premium and the Company has the option to settle its obligation through the payment of cash, the delivery of shares, or any combination of cash and shares (subject to certain conditions).

The Notes will be used as the Company's primary source of long-term funding due to its associated lower coupon rate in comparison to the cost of the Company's revolving credit facility ("RCF"). The Company intends to repay the US$300 million drawn portion of the RCF and reduce the RCF available commitment from US$500 million to US$350 million, and thereby minimize commitment fees on undrawn amounts. The offering will therefore not have a material impact on the Company's net debt or net leverage.

Following this Note offering, the Company will:

Extend its debt maturity profile as the Notes mature in 2023, compared with 2021 for the RCF.

Increase its available liquidity in connection with the Company's growth project pipeline.

Reduce its overall financing costs.

IMPORTANT NOTE

This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy the Notes or any Shares issuable upon conversion of the Notes, nor shall there be any offer or sale of the Notes or any such Shares in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction.

The offer and sale of the Notes and the Shares, if any, due upon conversion have not been, and will not be, registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or the securities laws of any other jurisdiction, and the Notes will be offered and sold:

(i) outside the United States in reliance on Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act ("Regulation S"); or

(ii) to qualified institutional buyers ("QIBs") in reliance on the exemption from registration provided by Rule 144A under the U.S. Securities Act ("Rule 144A").

In member states of the European Economic Area, this press release is for distribution only to and directed only at persons who are "qualified investors" within the meaning of Directive 2003/71/EC (and amendments thereto, including Directive 2010/73/EU) (the "Prospectus Directive"). In relation to each member state of the European Economic Area that has implemented the Prospectus Directive (each, a "Relevant Member State"), the investment contemplated by this press release is not being made, and will not be made, to the public in that Relevant Member State, other than to any legal entity that is a "qualified investor" as defined in Article 2(1)(e) of the Prospectus Directive. Each potential investor located within a Relevant Member State of the European Economic Area will be deemed to have represented, acknowledged and agreed that it is a "qualified investor" within the meaning of Article 2(1)(e) of the Prospectus Directive.

Within the United Kingdom, this press release is for distribution only to and directed only at persons who (a) have professional experience in matters relating to investments falling within Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005 (as amended, the "Financial Promotion Order"), (b) are persons falling within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) ("high net worth companies, unincorporated associations, etc") of the Financial Promotion Order and (c) are persons to whom an invitation or inducement to engage in investment activity (within the meaning of section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000) in connection with the investment may otherwise lawfully be communicated or caused to be communicated (all such persons together being referred to as "relevant persons"). The investment is not being offered to the public in the United Kingdom. This press release is directed only at relevant persons and must not be acted on or relied on by persons who are not relevant persons. The investment or investment activity to which this press release relates is only available to, and will only be engaged in with, relevant persons and any person who receive this press release who is not a relevant person should not rely or act upon it.

Solely for the purposes of the product governance requirements contained within: (a) EU Directive 2014/65/EU on markets in financial instruments, as amended ("MiFID II"); (b) Articles 9 and 10 of Commission Delegated Directive (EU) 2017/593 supplementing MiFID II; and (c) local implementing measures (together, the "MiFID II Product Governance Requirements"), and disclaiming all and any liability, whether arising in tort, contract or otherwise, which any "manufacturer" (for the purposes of the MIFID II Product Governance Requirements) may otherwise have with respect thereto, the Notes have been subject to a product approval process, which has determined that: (i) the target market for the Notes is eligible counterparties and professional clients only, each as defined in MiFID II; and (ii) all channels for distribution of the Notes to eligible counterparties and professional clients are appropriate. Any person subsequently offering, selling or recommending the Notes (a "distributor") should take into consideration the manufacturers' target market assessment; however, a distributor subject to MiFID II is responsible for undertaking its own target market assessment in respect of the Notes (by either adopting or refining the manufacturers' target market assessment) and determining appropriate distribution channels.

The target market assessment is without prejudice to the requirements of any contractual or legal selling restrictions in relation to any offering of the Notes

For the avoidance of doubt, the target market assessment does not constitute: (a) an assessment of suitability or appropriateness for the purposes of MiFID II; or (b) a recommendation to any investor or group of investors to invest in, or purchase, or take any other action whatsoever with respect to the Notes.

The Notes are not intended to be offered or sold and should not be offered or sold to any retail investor in the European Economic Area ("EEA"). For these purposes, a retail investor means a person who is one (or more) of: (i) a retail client as defined in point (11) of Article 4(1) of MiFID II; or (ii) a customer within the meaning of Directive 2002/92/EC (as amended, the "Insurance Mediation Directive"), where that customer would not qualify as a professional client as defined in point (10) of Article 4(1) of MiFID II; or (iii) not a qualified investor as defined in Directive 2003/71/EC (as amended, the "Prospectus Directive"). Consequently, no key information document required by Regulation (EU) No 1286/2014 (as amended, the "PRIIPS Regulation") for offering or selling the Notes or otherwise making them available to retail investors in the EEA has been prepared and therefore offering or selling the Notes or otherwise making them available to any retail investor in the EEA may be unlawful under the PRIIPS Regulation.

Notes sold in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec will be subject to further restrictions as described in the Canadian Offering Memorandum. Please refer to the Offering Memorandum for additional information regarding resale restrictions applicable to the Notes.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release contains forward-looking statements including, among other things, statements relating to the timing of the proposed offering and expected use of proceeds from the offering. These forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbour provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including, but not limited to, whether or not the Company will offer the Notes or consummate the offering, the final terms of the offering, prevailing market conditions, the anticipated principal amount of the Notes, which could differ based upon market conditions, the anticipated use of the proceeds of the offering, which could change as a result of market conditions or for other reasons, and the impact of general economic, industry or political conditions in the United States or internationally. Readers should carefully review this release and should not place undue reliance on the Company's forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements were based on information, plans and estimates as of the date of this release.

The Company assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.

ABOUT ENDEAVOUR MINING CORPORATION

Endeavour Mining is a TSX-listed intermediate gold producer, focused on developing a portfolio of high quality mines in the prolific West-African region, where it has established a solid operational and construction track record.

CONTACT INFORMATIONCLEVELAND, Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Innovest Global Inc. (OTC PINK:IVST) welcomes Bank CFO and former financial institution regulator Jason Painley, to its Board of Directors.



Innovests goal to grow significantly by acquiring operating companies in a select few industries, and get new customers in cost effective ways, has been made clear in the last few months. Their plan to do so with a focus on reduced risk became clearer today with the announcement of Jason Painley as a member of the Board of Directors.

Every company at our stage, when its getting momentum, says it plans to grow rapidly, said Innovest CEO, Dan Martin. The real question is, at what level of risk are they willing to do it - is it responsible? That risk profile is what truly defines the level of likelihood that the aggressive growth strategy is valid, and sustainable.

Painleys experience is a perfect fit for the Innovest board. Hes not only a bank officer, CPA, and risk expert, but also an expert in the best-practices, structures, and reporting nuances of various holding companies.

From 2001 to 2011, Painley was an Examiner and Accounting Policy Specialist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, with responsibilities at the national Federal Reserve System level. While there, he was charged with monitoring, analyzing, interpreting, and proactively addressing a wide variety of factors related to ensuring that financial institutions were operating in a safe manner, and in compliance with banking laws and regulations. He also led onsite examinations of institutions ranging from small, to over $250 billion assets, and worked constructively with financial institution executives and boards of directors.

Since then, until last month he was Senior Vice President and Chief Risk Officer of Park National Corporation (NYSE:PRK), which has over $7 billion in assets and employs nearly 2,000 associates. His job spanned all functional areas of the bank, and was to constantly evolve a risk-aware culture in order to avoid, proactively minimize, and immediately address all forms of potential and manifested risks, financial and otherwise. Now, he has taken on greater functional responsibility becoming the Chief Financial Officer of Ohio based Mechanics Bank.

Risk needs to be understood by everyone in the organization, and everyone needs to understand what their roles are as far as identifying risk and reporting that risk to the right people, said Mr. Painley. Im extremely excited to see an entrepreneurial and aggressive holding company like Innovest, place such a high level of importance on managing risk. I dont hear that frequently. This is one of many foundational principles I see that give me a lot of faith in their model, and Im excited to join the board and be there for the team.

Innovests diversified holding company model, and their focus on efficient customer acquisition and reduced risk, are the core tenets of what the company hopes will create significant value for their shareholders.

Follow us on Twitter @innovestglobal for important company updates! For more information on Innovest contact info@innovestglobal.com, or call Innovest investor Relations Matt Rego at 216.815.1122.

http://www.innovestglobal.com

Safe Harbor Statement: This news release contains "forward-looking statements", which are statements that are not purely historical and include any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. Such forward-looking statements include, among other things, the development, costs and results of new business opportunities. Actual results could differ from those projected in any forward-looking statements due to numerous factors. Such factors include, among others, the inherent uncertainties associated with new projects and development stage companies. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and we assume no obligation to update the forward-looking statements, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Although we believe that any beliefs, plans, expectations and intentions contained in this press release are reasonable, there can be no assurance that any such beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions will prove to be accurate. Investors should consult all of the information set forth herein and should also refer to the risk factors disclosure outlined in our annual report on Form 10-K for the most recent fiscal year, our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and other periodic reports filed from time-to-time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

For more information on Innovest Investor Relations, Spotlight Growth, please visit http://www.SpotlightGrowth.com and http://www.Corporate.SpotlightGrowth.com.

You can also follow on social media:

Innovest Twitter: https://twitter.com/InnovestGlobal

Spotlight Growth Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpotlightGrowth

Spotlight Growth Facebook: https://facebook.com/Spotlight-Growth-103630363712364/

Spotlight Growth LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/spotlight-growth-732ba1147

Spotlight Growth Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spotlight_growth/TORONTO, Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Platinex Inc. (CSE:PTX) (the "Company" or "Platinex") announces that it has closed its previously disclosed acquisition (the Acquisition) of a 51% interest in Intergalactic Foods, LLC (IGF) and its previously announced investment (the Investment) into a marijuana infused edibles brand company, Daves Space Cakes, LLC (DSC).



IGF is a Marijuana Infused Products (MIPs) company that is currently in the final stages of obtaining a Processor License with the Oregon Liquor Control Commission ("OLCC") to manufacture MIPs. The Acquisition remains subject to OLCC approval and licensing which is expected to occur in Q1 2018. IGFs facility is located in Eugene, Oregon and comprises a 2,000 ft2 fully built-out commercial MIPs kitchen capable of producing a wide range of infused products including brownies, cookies, gummies and various other confectionary foods. IGF is focused on partnering with brands in the infused edibles segment of the Oregon cannabis market, which continues to be underserved in the craft segment. With excellent infrastructure and MIPs know-how, IGF is well positioned to provide turn-key manufacturing solutions to the growing list of edibles brands in search of a cost-effective approach to getting their products to market.

Platinex has also made a royalty investment in DSC which holds the rights to Daves Space Cakes - a brand of marijuana infused brownies that is well known in the state of Oregon. Established in 2014, Daves Space Cakes is one of the first edible companies in Oregon and is focused on producing a line of gluten-free chocolate cake bites which are a modern-day twist on the classic pot brownie. Daves Space Cakes are available in a variety of unique flavors (Double Chocolate, White-Chocolate Mint, Chai-Hazelnut Crunch, Chipotle Spice, etc.) and several combinations of cannabinoids (High Dose THC, Low Dose THC, Indica, Sativa, CBD-Only, and strain-specific options). Upon receiving OLCC approval, Daves Space Cakes will be the flagship brand of edible products produced using IGFs MIPs manufacturing facility.

Both IGF and DSC were founded by David McNicoll, a strong advocate for the cannabis plant for the past 16 years. A vocal member of the Oregon cannabis industry, Mr. McNicoll is also the founder and president of the Oregon Responsible Edibles Council  an advocacy group seeking to educate the public on safe and responsible edible marijuana consumption.

The Oregon cannabis market continues to grow, with the Oregon Department of Revenue estimating that cannabis sales have already generated more than $100 million in tax revenue for the state. The Company has identified a significant gap in the Oregon craft edibles market which remains starved for capital and lacking a reliable supply of premium quality and consistently dosed products.

Jim Trusler, CEO of Platinex commented: "Were excited to announce this key milestone in Platinexs cannabis strategy which validates our efforts to date and establishes our presence in the Pacific North West. Oregon is the 4th largest cannabis market in the U.S. and has a thriving consumer base for infused edible products. Through these strategic investments, Platinex has aligned itself with an established cannabis operator who can drive operational excellence in our co-packing and brand development cannabis operations."

David McNicoll, founder of DSC and IGF commented: Investment in the Oregon cannabis industry is alive and well. A partnership with Platinex will allow Daves Space Cakes to penetrate the recreational market in Oregon and achieve the long-term vision I have always had for the brand. Once fully-licensed, IGF will be a state-of-the-art edibles processing facility with the ability to launch new brands of innovative edible products into the Oregon marketplace. I look forward to working with the Platinex team as we pursue and expand our vision of becoming a leading cannabis company in Oregon and beyond.

FMI Capital Advisory Inc. (FMICA) acted as an exclusive financial advisor to Platinex in connection with the Acquisition and the Investment and continues to provide advisory services to the Company on an ongoing basis.

About Platinex Inc.

Platinex is currently focusing efforts on developing various strategies to capitalize on the lucrative growth of the cannabis sector in North America. At the same time Platinex has been focusing its mining business efforts in assembling a very large property in the Shining Tree gold camp, which has received little modern exploration compared to other gold camps in the Abitibi greenstone Belt. Shares of Platinex are listed for trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the symbol "PTX".

For further information, please contact:

David Posner

647-985-6727

Email: dposner44@gmail.com

To receive Company press releases, please email lparadis@platinex.com and mention Platinex press release on the subject line.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS:

This news release may contain forward-looking statements and information based on current expectations. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements. Such statements include submission of the relevant documentation within the required timeframe and to the satisfaction of the relevant regulators, completing the acquisition of the applicable assets and raising sufficient financing to complete the Company's business strategy. There is no certainty that any of these events will occur. Although such statements are based on management's reasonable assumptions, there can be no assurance that such assumptions will prove to be correct. We assume no responsibility to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances.

Investing into early stage companies, inherently carries a high degree of risk and investment into securities of the Company shall be considered highly speculative. Furthermore, the Company seeks to enter the cannabis market in the United States, where some states have legalized cannabis for medical or adult recreational use, while cannabis remain illegal under United States Federal law. As such, the Company may become subject to additional government regulation and legal uncertainties that could restrict the demand for its services or increase its cost of doing business, thereby adversely affecting its financial results.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any province in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. The securities issued, or to be issued, under the Private Placement have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from registration requirements.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.In February 2008, Elaine Fisher joined a team of volunteers in the search for Siegfried Newman, the 49-year-old father of two young boys, who had gone missing from his Katikati home.

Ten years on, no trace of Siggy has been found and the case still haunts her.

Elaine tell us below about her experience.

I feel for his sons Thomas, who at the time was 10, and his brother Oliver, then 8.

I know they have been well cared for by their aunt and uncle in Wellington, but they have grown up without both their mother Vicki-Lee, who died of cancer in 2007, and without answers as to why their father went missing on Monday February 25, 2008 after dropping them at school.

My husband Graham and I joined the search on the Wednesday after Siggy went missing. Graham and several other men were tasked with searching the properties around the Newman home in rural Lund Rd, Katikati.

They were instructed to search high and low, and call for Siggy, as well as look for any footprints or other clues that he had been or was in the area. They found nothing.

My initial job was to help search inside the house for clues as to where Siggy might have gone. Later I joined another volunteer and we went door knocking right to the end of Lund Road, asking if residents had seen or heard anything which might help the search. No one had.

After the official search was over, friends continued to look for Siggy, many doing so even a decade later. In October 2009, Tauranga Police resumed the hunt, going over the same area as part of a search and rescue exercise.

Right from the start Graham and I, and many members of the search teams, were uncomfortable that the Newman home was used as search headquarters. It seemed an invasion of privacy and on reflection, if the home was a crime scene, all that activity would have destroyed any potential evidence. Police later agreed using the home in that way was not appropriate.

Many of Siggys friends and associates strongly believe Siggy did not walk out on his sons, nor that he took his life.

Senior Sergeant Rob Glencross, the officer in charge of the case at the time, has told SunLive the missing persons case regarding Siggy (Siegfried) Newman is still open but is not under active investigation.

The case remains a missing person matter. There is no evidence of foul play.

Although Siggys car was still at his Lund Road home on Tuesday February 26, police say statements from two witnesses that they saw Siggy at Pahoia School that day indicate he was still alive.

Police havent been able to explain how he got to the school at least 10km away on State Highway 2 when his car was at Lund Rd, nor how he disappeared again without being seen by anyone else.

I am comfortable with the witness information regarding the sighting of Mr Newman on the 26th, says Senior Sergeant Glencross.

While the female witness was unsure of the day, her statement supported that of the male witness who was confident of the day. They both described activities taking place at the school when they reported seeing Mr Newman which the school were able to confirm took place on that 26th.

The use of the home and garage of Mr Newman as the search base wasnt appropriate which has previously been acknowledged to the media and the family of Mr Newman. Having said that, the scene was visited on the first day when Mr Newman was reported missing and nothing untoward was noted by the attending Police staff.

There has been no activity on any of the bank accounts identified as being linked to Mr Newman. While the case is currently classified as a missing person file, that is open to review should further information come to light.

Should anyone have any new information regarding Mr Newmans disappearance they can contact the Tauranga Police on (07) 5774300 or they can do so anonymously via Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.Bay of Plenty

You will be operating the Roller and also required to help out the team hands on. You will be working near Bayfair for a...



View or Apply on GoodWork.co.nzBudget 2018 will be delivered on 17 May, Finance Minister Grant Robertson announced today.

The Budget will build on the priorities outlined in the December 2017 Budget Policy Statement (BPS), which set out the Governments economic strategy.

Work is already well under-way in bringing together the various Budget bids from Ministers to support the Governments priorities for the next three years, Grant Robertson says.

Budget 2018 will make progress on a wide range of priorities, including:

 Building quality public services for all New Zealanders and improving access to core services, such as health and education.

 Taking action on child poverty and homelessness.

 Supporting families to get ahead and sharing the wealth generated by our economy with a wide range of New Zealanders.

 Sustainable economic development and supporting the regions.

 Managing our natural resources and taking action against environmental challenges, such as climate change.

It became clear during the last years of the previous Government that New Zealands social and infrastructure deficits had widened to such an extent that inequality was growing and not all New Zealanders were sharing in the benefits of economic growth, Grant Robertson says.

The Labour-New Zealand First Coalition Government, with support from the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand, has set out to fix that with our wide-ranging, three-year policy platform.

The BPS outlined that Budget 2018 will have an operating allowance of $2.6 billion per annum, which is larger than the previous Governments operating allowance of $1.7 billion for new operating spending at Budget 2018.

Meanwhile, the capital allowance at Budget 2018 will be $3.4 billion. Again, this is larger than the previous Governments capital allowance  $2.0 billion  for desperately needed funding for public infrastructure such as hospitals, schools and public transport in Budget 2018.

While making these investments, we will remain responsible fiscal managers, with the Governments Budget Responsibility Rules ensuring net debt falls to 20 per cent of GDP within five years of taking office, expenditure is controlled, and surpluses are delivered across the economic cycle.

Budget 2018 will be a turning point for New Zealand, with policies designed to help close the social and infrastructure deficits which emerged in recent years. The new Government will make sure it properly funds essential public services like health and education, while boosting regional economic development, skills training, and putting the settings in place for New Zealands economy to transition to being more productive, sustainable and inclusive, Grant Robertson says.New Zealanders lucky enough to have been under clear skies overnight watched a blue moon turn into a rare super blood moon.

Between 1am and 4am the moon passed through Earths shadow, first causing a total eclipse and then giving it a reddish tint, also known as a blood moon. The reddish tint is caused by light being bent in the atmosphere.

The eclipse was visible from the western United States and Canada across the Pacific Ocean to New Zealand Australia and China - wherever there were clear skies - as well as northern polar regions.

In Tauranga, photographer Amit Kamble battled sleep and clouds to capture some shots of the Super blue blood moon.

Above are the best five images from a roughly 3.5 hour "Cloud-Lapse".

"Ok, Whats so special about this lunar eclipse?: 1) Its a Super Moon: This is when the moon is at its closest to the earth.

"2) Its a Blue Moon: This is when there is a 2nd full moon in the same month. Ever heard the phrase "Once in a blue moon"?

"3) Its a Blood Moon: A total lunar eclipse is referred as a blood moon, due to the colours resemblance when the moon is in earths shadow.

"You put it all together and you get a Super Blue Blood Moon," says Amit.

Blood moon at 2am in Tauranga. Photo: Bridget London.

Astronomers use the term blue moon because of the rarity of a second full moon occurring in a month - as is the case in North America where it was still 31 January. The small technicality of Pacific time zones meant that in New Zealand it tipped a few hours into February.

Some New Zealanders around the country managed to catch a glimpse.

A couple of photos of the #SuperBlueBloodMoon this morning pic.twitter.com/VUdW89NjZJ  Jaime M (@eljimmymtz) January 31, 2018

Although some others were disappointed and werent able to see the moon because of the cloudy skies.

The overlap of a blue moon with a lunar eclipse while the moon is at its closest approach to the earth is the first such celestial triple bill since 1982, said Noah Petro, a scientist at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Centre. A blue moon occurs every two-and-a-half years or so - but its very unusual that it falls in conjunction with the super blood moon.

Noah Petro said the eclipse was also a scientific opportunity for researchers in Hawaii, who would study what happens to the moons surface when it quickly drops from 100C in sunlight to minus 153C in darkness. The speed of cooling can show what the surface is made of, such as rock or dust, he said.

LIVE NOW: #LunarEclipse2018! The Earth is directly between the Sun and Moon, making the lunar surface appear red. You can watch views of the #SuperBlueBloodMoon from multiple telescopes live online! Take a look: https://t.co/r6X6SoMfLn pic.twitter.com/TBtNOKd5Yw  NASA (@NASA) January 31, 2018

Additional reporting by RNZ.Lori Hartzler, widow of Michael S. Hartzler Jr., along with Mikes parents, Mike Sr. And Gladys Hartzler, presented a check of $2,200 to the Boothill Committee. Mike passed away Nov. 2, 2017. "Mike was a history buff and liked what the Boothill Committee had accomplished" said Lori. The memorial money will go to furnishing a conference room in Camp Lookout as a memorial to Mike. Both Mike and Lori are Sidney natives. Lori currently resides in Fort Worth Texas.

In the mid to late 1800s, the western plains were wild and the men and women who tried to tame them were wilder still.

Camp Lookout was established as one of many outposts to help ensure the safety of people moving into the west.

The Boot Hill Committee is working to restore the Camp Lookout building to historical significance.

Since its construction in 1867, the building went from being a military outpost, to a brothel, then into private ownership before it was purchased by the City of Sidney. It was built to house soldiers from Fort Sedgwick in Colorado who were sent to set up an outpost along Lodgepole Creek to protect railroad workers constructing the Union Pacific railroad west.

The late 1800s in Sidney was a time of lawlessness, a time when the community earned the name "Sinful Sidney" for number of vice businesses along Main Street, later renamed Hickory Street. Historians estimate the number of bars and brothels along Main Street numbered in the 80s. Violence was so rampant trains would not stop in Sideny, choosing instead a siding a few miles east of Sidney.

Nestled just below the bluffs to the north of Sidney, Camp Lookout could guard the railroad parallel to Hickory Street, the officers quarters east and the gold exchange just south of Camp Lookout.

The Boot Hill Committee is working to restore Camp Lookout to represent its early rustic charm. The work has taken a building that may have looked almost hopeless and is turning it into something representative of the 1860s. Artifacts found nearby are on display behind glass in a main floor room. Furniture is placed and arranged to represent the military period and a bedroom set and waiting room in recognition of the time the building was a brothel.

One of the rooms leads out to the balcony with a view south to the railroad, gold depot and the rest of Sidney. The room is a conference room, a strategic center where soldiers could make plans and be at the ready from the same vantage point. It is also the newest point of focus for renovation.

Lori Hartzler, widow of Michael S. Hartzler, Jr., and his parents Mike Sr. and Gladys Hartzler recently donated $2,200 toward the committee improving the conference room.

Kathy Wilson, a member of the Boot Hill Committee, said the donation will go toward acquiring a historically accurate conference table and chairs, kerosene lamps and maps.

Restoration of Camp Lookout is a long and complicated process, from the 2009 purchase for $3,200 to replacing the roof and remodeling rooms to be as historically accurate as possible. Some pieces are reproductions. The original furnishings, if they could be found, can be cost-prohibitive.Pictured from left are Meghana Nakkanti of Sidney Middle School, and Aadhav Krishna of West Elementary. Meghana won the Cheyenne County Spelling Bee and Aadhav came in second. Meghana advances to the Midwest Spelling Bee in Omaha in March.

The sweat on the foreheads told of competitive stress. Each call to the front was a chance to move ahead or take your place in the audience.

The prize, the goal of every contestant, was the honor of being the best and the opportunity to compete at the next level.

On Thursday, Jan. 25, students from West and Middle Schools, Potter-Dix and Leyton competed for the title of top speller in Cheyenne County. The winner is invited to the Midwest Spelling Bee to be held in Omaha in March. The final round of the Cheyenne County started with 26 students and 37 rounds later a winner was decided.

"We h...Merging a traditional seafaring looking with numerous distinctive details, the 1999 Invader is a champion of the Pacific Northwest and is now signed over to a proud new owner.

This 49.90-metre motor yacht offers lifestyle par excellence for up to 14 guests on board with a highly skilled team of 10 crew.

Open deck spaces and intimate interior areas shrouded in meticulously updated opulence flow seamlessly together, creating an atmosphere of escape, no matter how long the journey.

The Della Role Design, hand-crafted and in-house interior style is a surrounded which uses the home as its core, and brings the numerous facilities on board to life; from the intricately inlaid marble bathrooms to the full gym.

Ideal for the Bahamas, all the way back up to Seattle and beyond, Invader is the latest American success story and we look forward to bringing you more from her ongoing career on the water.Felipe VI celebrated his fiftieth birthday this week with a ceremony in the Palacio Real in which he awarded his twelve-year-old daughter, Leonor, the Collar del Toison de Oro (the Chain of the Order of the Golden Fleece), which once belonged to Juan de Borbon.

I have chosen to share this special day with you to emphasise , with the utmost solemnity and symbolism, our personal and institutional commitment to Spain, he said.

Following the political turmoil in Catalonia, the king drew attention to the Spanish Constitution of 1978 and reaffirmed his support for the country in the face of its current problems.

His commitment was symbolised by the figure of Leonor, who with this action will now begin her official activity as heir apparent to the Spanish throne.

Today there might seem to be a lot of demands and responsibilities, explained Felipe to his eldest daughter, but you should remember that you have the support of many people who want the best for Spain, for the Crown and for you.

The king expressed his hope that the princess will learn little by little, the traditions and duties of the Crown and begin to understand the responsibilities that will stem from her position as the future queen.

It is a task that she has been prepared for from birth and for which she will be supported by King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia, who were also present in the Salon de Columnas where the ceremony took place, and where nearly four years ago Juan Carlos abdicated the throne and Felipe became king.

The Spanish royal family in the Salon de Columnas. / EFE

Always stand by the Constitution

The king, with an acknowledgement to recent events in Catalonia, reminded his daughter of the importance of the Constitution in modern democratic Spain.

All of your actions should be guided by the greatest sentiment of dignity and exemplariness, by honesty and integrity, Felipe told Leonor, who listened attentively to her father.

In his speech, the king discussed the lessons he had learnt both as a father and as head of state, advising his daughter to be guided always by the constitution, implementing and observing it and taking the concerns and feelings of Spains citizens into her heart.

He also praised his fathers pivotal role in the transition to democracy.Vista, Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- - Flux Power Holdings, Inc. (OTCQB: FLUX), a developer of advanced lithium-ion batteries for electric powered forklifts and airport ground support equipment, has received Energy Storage System compatibility approval from Toyota Material Handling USA with respect to Toyota truck model 8HBW23 and from Raymond Corporation with respect to Raymond truck model 8210. Each of these distinct models have been tested to be electrically compatible with Flux Powers UL Listed S8 series, 24 Volt, lithium power packs, available in 95, 135 and 250 Ahe offerings.



For new or aftermarket installs, please contact your local Toyota or Raymond Sales and Service Centers for assistance in complying with applicable government regulations and proper tagging.

Toyota Material Handling USA and Raymond Corporation are part of Toyota Material Handling North America, operating as separate brands with distinct products and distribution channels.

Compared to traditional lead-acid batteries used in forklifts, Flux LiFT Packs deliver longer run times, superior performance and increased life cycles. They also require no regular maintenance and provide lower total cost of ownership over the batterys lifetime.

Flux Power CEO, Ron Dutt, commented, Toyota and Raymond are leaders in researching and commercializing new technologies to improve power and performance in the electric lift truck market. These approvals represent another step for Flux in achieving industry acceptance and expanding awareness for a lithium-ion battery pack that will benefit customers through lower operational costs and improved fleet efficiencies.

Toyota Material Handling USA (TMHU) (www.toyotaforklift.com)

Proudly built in Columbus, Indiana, Toyota Material Handling USA offers a full line of material handling solutions including forklifts, pallet jacks, port equipment, aerial work platforms, tow tractors, and fleet services. Toyotas commitment to quality, reliability, and customer satisfaction, has made it the top-selling forklift manufacturer in North America since 2002. There are more than 70 authorized Toyota Industrial Equipment dealers and more than 220 dealership locations offering comprehensive service and support, including one-stop shopping for both new and used forklifts, rentals, parts and service, and financing.

The Raymond Corporation (www.raymondcorp.com)

The Raymond Corporation is a global provider of end-to-end warehouse solutions, fleet management, forklift training and support to increase efficiency and lower costs throughout material handling operations. Raymond forklifts are engineered to achieve higher performance, enhance operator comfort and increase efficiency. Raymond manufactures a full line of forklift trucks  including reach trucks, pallet jacks, pallet stackers, sit-down and stand-up forklifts, orderpickers and turret trucks. The iWAREHOUSE fleet management and warehouse optimization system provides solutions to manage industrial vehicle fleets, labor efficiencies and warehouses. Additionally, flexible automation, customized solutions and industry-leading consultation from Raymond further enhance and streamline processes while helping customers to drive down costs. Raymond is a recipient of the 2015 and 2016 Manufacturing Leadership Award from Frost & Sullivan.

About Flux Power Holdings, Inc. (www.fluxpwr.com)

Flux Power develops advanced lithium-ion batteries for industrial uses, including its first-ever UL 2271 Listed lithium-ion LiFT Pack forklift batteries. Flux solutions utilize its proprietary battery management system (BMS) and in-house engineering and product design. Flux batteries deliver improved performance, extended cycle life and lower total cost of ownership than legacy lead-acid solutions. Flux sells primarily to lift equipment OEMs, their dealers and battery distributors. Current products include advanced battery packs for motive power in the lift equipment and airport ground support markets.

Flux Blog: Flux Power Currents

Facebook: FLUXPower

Twitter Company: @FLUXpwr Investor Relations: @FluxPowerIR

LinkedIn Flux Power

This news release may contain certain "forward-looking" statements (as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 or by the SEC in its rules, regulations and releases) representing our expectations or beliefs regarding our company. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements concerning our operations, economic performance, financial condition, and prospects and opportunities. For this purpose, any statements contained herein that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, words such as "may," "will," "expect," "believe," "anticipate," "intend," "could," "estimate," "might," or "continue" or the negative or other variations thereof or comparable terminology are intended to identify forward looking statements. These statements, by their nature, involve substantial risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond our control, and actual results may differ materially depending on a variety of important factors, including factors discussed in this and other of our filings with the SEC. Undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements and Investors should refer to the risk factors outlined in our Form 10-K, 10-Q and other reports filed with the SEC and available at www.sec.gov/edgar. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and Company assumes no obligation to update these statements or the reasons why actual results could differ from those projected.

Flux, Flux Power and associated logos are trademarks of Flux Power Holdings, Inc. All other third party brands, products, trademarks, or registered marks are the property of and used to identify the products or services of their respective owners.Zhauntina Hayes

Syracuse, NY -- An Onondaga County Court judge, concerned about a conflict of interest, today removed the local district attorney's office from prosecuting a student accused of stabbing a Corcoran High School teacher.

Judge Stephen Dougherty's ruling came despite protest from the DA's office, which said its handling of the case was not biased despite the fact the victim was a part-time DA's employee.

A plea offer that would send 17-year-old Zhuantina Hayes to state prison for 8 years was not "unduly harsh" given the circumstances, prosecutor Anthony Copani said today. Hayes was already facing five felony charges before the stabbing arrest.

The victim permanently lost 20 percent of use of one arm and hand due to the stabbing, Copani added, arguing that was clearly a "serious injury."

Dougherty didn't argue.

But the judge, a former homicide prosecutor for DA William Fitzpatrick, challenged anyone in the courtroom to recall a previous time the office hadn't recused itself from a case involving a staffer or a staffer's family member.

"You won't be able to," the judge continued, suggesting it was unprecedented.

With that, he signed the order for the area's top judge to appoint an out-of-town prosecutor to handle Hayes's case. That prosecutor, when named, will be able to start from ground zero, offering whatever plea he or she feels is appropriate under the law.

Hayes, a former Corcoran student, is accused of stabbing substitute teacher Ryan Elsenbeck in the arm during a fight May 25 in a school hallway. Hayes, then 16, was fighting with at least one other student when Elsenbeck intervened. Hayes's lawyer, Kerilyn Micale, says her client may have acted in self-defense.

Elsenbeck is a part-time process server for the DA's office. He's called upon to track down and serve legal paperwork to individuals in person, which is often required in court proceedings.

Despite the stabbing, Elsenbeck has told Syracuse.com he's committed to continuing to teach in city schools.

Dougherty made it clear today he wasn't accusing the DA's office of acting with any favoritism in the case. But he said it was fair for the defendant to be concerned.

"Isn't it a reasonable for the defendant to have the fear" that the case is being handled differently? the judge asked.

Yes, Copani acknowledged, but that wasn't reality.

A grand jury had voted to raise Hayes' charge from second-degree assault to first-degree assault, he noted, refuting accusations that the enhanced charge was "unsubstantiated" by the facts. (That change could significantly raise Hayes's potential prison sentence from 7 to 25 years.)

But the judge noted that a different prosecutor, who handled Hayes's original arraignment, had acknowledged that a special prosecutor might be warranted.

The judge read from the court transcript:

"Your honor, I ask that you appoint a special prosecutor," Hayes's lawyer said at arraignment.

After some discussion, the earlier prosecutor said: "There may be one forthcoming. A special prosecutor may very well be warranted in this matter," according to the transcript read in court today.

That suggested that the office knew an outside prosecutor was needed early on, the judge said. He added he didn't understand the DA's position now.

With that, Dougherty signed the order taking the DA's office off the case. Chief local administrative Judge James Tormey will now name a special prosecutor -- much the same way Oswego County DA Gregory Oakes was named to handle ex-investigator Peter Rauch's case.

Dougherty's perception of Hayes's case has changed since Hayes first appeared before him a year ago. His initial reaction was amazement that Hayes had five pending felonies at age 16, then brought a knife to school.

But more recently, the judge commended Hayes for completing her GED in jail and seemingly trying to better her life. The judge earlier this month lowered her bail, though it still remains at $15,000 cash or $30,000 bond.

That's far out of reach for Hayes's family, her lawyer, Micale, has indicated. Hayes remains jailed as the case proceeds.SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- While some Catholic dioceses have suspended the practice of distributing wine from a shared cup during Mass to protect against the flu, the Syracuse diocese is letting pastors decide what precautions to take during the epidemic.

Syracuse Bishop Robert Cunningham recently asked pastors to remind parishioners who are sick to not drink from the cup or shake hands with others during the "sign of peace" at Mass, said Danielle Cummings, director of communications for the diocese.

"Pastors are raising awareness about the flu from the pulpit," Cummings said. "We want regular Mass-goers to know it's OK to stay home when you are sick."

Cunningham is letting pastors decide whether to suspend the distribution of wine and the practice of shaking hands during Mass in their parishes, she said.

The Buffalo diocese has temporarily halted the distribution of wine and physical contact during the "sign of peace." The Brooklyn diocese also has suspended wine distribution at Mass.

The flu is contagious and can spread when infected people cough and sneeze.

New York state has been experiencing record levels of flu activity and hospitalizations in recent weeks.

The worse than usual flu season is being blamed in part on the most prevalent version of the flu going around: influenza type A (H3N2).

That strain is particularly hard on the elderly and children. The flu vaccine is typically less effective against H3N2 than other flu strains.

Contact James T. Mulder anytime: Email | Twitter | 315-470-2245SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Syracuse lawmakers spent a half-hour Wednesday rehashing a debate that consumed the city council for months in 2016.

Councilors weighed the pros and cons of a change to the rental registry, which would mandate code inspections on one- and two-family rental properties every other year.

Councilor-At-Large Khalid Bey proposed the amendment, which is nearly identical to one he tried to pass in 2016.

Bey came up short in 2016. He said Wednesday he was more confident he'd have the votes he needs this time around with a new council in place. Still, the new body will first hear all the old arguments.

At one point, for example, the conversation shifted to lead paint and how the law could help the city deal with it. Bey interjected.

"This conversation is doing what it did two years ago," he said. "This legislation is not specifically about lead. We made that mistake two years ago..."

Bey's latest proposal doesn't include an increase in the rental registry fee -- the only major difference from the law he tried to pass two years ago. It's based on Rochester's rental registry program.

First Assistant Corporation Counsel Joseph Barry said the city would discuss how to defend against legal action from landlords, which would be likely. An attorney for a group of property owners sent the city a letter threatening legal action when the council raised the issue in 2016.

Those landlords expressed concerns that the law amounted to an unlawful search. They also cited the city's failure to comply with state inspection law on rental properties with three or more units.

The state requires interior inspections of those properties every three years. The city inspects them every five years. Landlords argued the city shouldn't be passing new inspection rules when it can't even follow the ones already on the books.

Code Enforcement Director Ken Towsley said Wednesday the city will be compliant with that state law by the end of this year.

Councilors discussed all those concerns -- like they did two years ago.

Bey said he was ready to vote on the law next Monday, but agreed to hold off. He will hold a committee meeting and enter an executive session first to discuss the city's legal defense.

The introduction of the amendment caught city officials off guard.

Towsley said he only learned of Bey's proposal Tuesday afternoon, when the city clerk distributes the council agenda.

Bey said it's not his responsibility to alert the administration of council legislation. But he said "everyone knew" the proposal was coming. He spent most of last year talking about it and is responding to pressure from groups like Syracuse United Neighbors that want the law.

Bey also said he spoke to Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens about the registry changes last week.

Towsley said he would need some time to set up a process to conduct the inspections. He supports it, though, since it would help get access to run-down properties.

Towsley said he would use the law to target health and safety violations, not to nickel and dime landlords on minor infractions.

"The key is to have the trust with the landlords," he said. "Right now we're writing up landlords for every little violation. I want to look more at the health and safety issues."

He said his department wants to make sure houses have working smoke detectors, windows that open and carbon monoxide detectors.

Several councilors, including Joe Carni, Tim Rudd and Steve Thompson, asked about the efficacy of the law, questioning how it is different from what's currently on the books.

Already, the city needs a warrant to inspect a rental property when a landlord is being uncooperative. This law wouldn't change that.

But inspections are primarily complaint driven. A tenant or neighbor needs to complain about living conditions, providing probable cause for the city to conduct an inspection.

Mandating inspections would take that burden off the tenant. Bey said tenants are sometimes afraid to file a complaint because they fear a landlord might punish them for it.

Towsley said regular inspections would also minimize the number of complaints the city has to respond to, since violations would be addressed periodically.

The council won't hold a vote until a committee meeting is scheduled, sometime in the coming weeks.English Danish

Enclosed please find a convening to the Extraordinary General Meeting of RTX to be held on Tuesday 27 February 2018 at 2.00 pm at the Companys address: Stroemmen 6, Noerresundby. The Extraordinary General Meeting is called for final adoption of some of the proposals approved at the Companys Annual General Meeting on 25 January 2018.

Best regards,

RTX A/S

Peter Rpke

CEO

Questions and further information:

Peter Rpke, CEO, tel. +45 96 32 23 00

Please visit RTXs website at: www.rtx.dk





Extraordinary General Meeting

to be held on Tuesday 27 February 2018 at 2.00 pm

at the Companys address Stroemmen 6, DK-9400 Noerresundby

The agenda for the General Meeting is as follows:

1. Final adoption of the proposal approved at the Annual General Meeting on 25 January 2018 to reduce the Companys share capital with an amount of nominal DKK 1,000,000 from DKK 45,714,190 to DKK 44,714,190 by annulment of 200,000 treasury shares acquired by the Company in the share repurchase programme and that article 4.1 of the Articles of Association is consequently amended.

The Board of Directors proposes that the Companys share capital is reduced with an amount of nominal DKK 1,000,000 from DKK 45,714,190 to DKK 44,714,190 by annulment of 200,000 treasury shares acquired by the Company in the share repurchase programme and that article 4.1 of the Articles of Association is consequently amended to:

The Companys share capital amounts to DKK 44,714,190 divided in shares at DKK 5 or multiples hereof.

2. Final adoption of the proposal approved at the Annual General Meeting on 25 January 2018 that the Companys provisions regulating the powers to bind the company is amended and that article 14.1 of the Articles of Association is consequently amended.

The Board of Directors proposes that article 14.1 of the Articles of Association is amended to:

 The company is subscribed by two directors together or by one director in association with a member of the Board of Directors or by 5 members of the Board of Directors in association or by the entire Board of Directors.

3. Final adoption of the proposal approved at the Annual General Meeting on 25 January 2018 that Attorney Henrik Mgelmose is given authorization.

The Board of Directors proposes that Attorney Henrik Mgelmose is authorized to inform the Danish Business Authority of any decisions taken at the Annual General Meeting and in this connection to make any changes and addendums to the decisions and the Companys Articles of Association that the Danish Business Authority may require to register the decisions.





Share capital

The share capital amounts to DKK 45,714,190. Only one share class exists. The capital is divided on shares at DKK 5. Each share of DKK 5 gives one vote.

Agenda and documents

No later than Wednesday 31 January 2018, the convening, agenda and complete proposals will be made available at the Companys website www.rtx.dk as well as sent to all shareholders having so requested. Necessary information and documents for the General Meeting are available from the same date at the Companys website www.rtx.dk.

Adoption requirements

Adoption of the proposals under agenda items 1 - 3 can be adopted without regard to the amount of capital represented by such qualified majority as required by the companies Act, ref. Articles of Association, article 10.4.



Shareholders right to attend the Annual General Meeting and to vote

A shareholders right to attend the General Meeting and to vote is determined on the basis of the shares held by the shareholder at the date of registration, which is Tuesday 20 February 2018. A shareholder must take out an admission card for him or herself as well as for any advisor on Friday 23 February 2018 at the latest. Admission cards shall be issued to any such person who, according to the register of shareholders, is recorded as shareholder on the date of registration or for whom the Company at the date of registration has received an adequate request to be recorded in the register of shareholders.

Admission cards with voting slips can be obtained from VP Investor Services A/S on tel. +45 43 58 88 91 on Friday 23 February 2018 at 11.59 pm at the latest. Admission cards with voting slips can also be obtained at VP Investor Services A/S website www.vp.dk/gf or RTXs website www.rtx.dk on Friday 23 February 2018 at 11.59 pm at the latest.

Voting shareholders, who are unable to attend the General Meeting, may grant a power of attorney. Power of attorney form is available at www.rtx.dk or can be obtained from VP Investor Services A/S on tel. +45 43 58 88 91. Power of attorney must be filled in, signed and sent by e-mail to vpinvestor@vp.dk or to VP Investor Services A/S, Weidekampsgade 14, DK-2300 Copenhagen S. The power of attorney must be sent to RTX A/S or VP Investor Services A/S no later than Friday 23 February 2018 at 11.59 pm.

Voting shareholders, who are unable to attend the General Meeting, may vote by post. Postal voting form is available at www.rtx.dk or can be obtained from VP Investor Services A/S on tel. +45 43 58 88 91. Postal votes must be received by RTX A/S, Stroemmen 6, DK-9400 Noerresundby no later than Monday 26 February 2018 at 11.59 pm.

At the General Meeting the Board of Directors will answer questions from the shareholders on conditions important to the evaluation of questions to be addressed at the General Meeting. Prior to the General Meeting questions may be sent to the Board of Directors by e-mail to ir@rtx.dk or by post to RTX A/S, Att. Investor Relations, Stroemmen 6, 9400 Noerresundby.

Noerresundby, Denmark, 31 January 2018

Board of Directors

RTX A/S

Notice to EGM with agendaMcConnellsville, N.Y. -- Harden Furniture has suspended operations, at least temporarily, after its assets were sold to Big Shoulders Capital, a specialty lender in Northbrook, Ill., the company said Wednesday.

"At this time, operations at Harden have been suspended and a WARN Act Notice announcing a closure of the entire facility has been circulated to employees and to the NYS Department of Labor," the company said in a statement following completion of a foreclosure auction, known as an Article 9 proceeding, by Gemcap Solutions. "It is not known at this time when, or if production will resume. That decision will be made at some point in the future by Big Shoulders Capital."

"Several local investors expressed interest in acquiring, or in various other manners participating in a bid to acquire Harden, but the tight auction deadline precluded any competing bids at the auction," the company added. "Efforts to organize a local bid continued up to the bid deadline."

The sale could mean the end of one of the oldest manufacturers of residential and commercial furnishings in North America. Harden has been making furniture on the banks of Fish Creek in the Oneida County hamlet of McConnellsville since 1844.

"The commitment and talent of our employees is truly exceptional, ironically that comes at a time when consumers see less value in hand-craftsmanship and superior quality," company CEO Gregory Harden said in a statement. "As the economy has improved, so have our results and our commercial business in particular has been growing well above plan. January orders will be nearly double our 2017 result."

Harden employs 175 people in McConnellsville, down from approximately 500 before the Great Recession of 2008.

The recession cut the company's annual furniture sales from $40 million to $20 million and caused it go into the red for the first time in 52 years.

Adding to the company's woes was a leveraged buyout of 75 percent of the company by Miramar Capital Partners, a private equity firm, in June 2016. Gregory Harden has said the sale was a big mistake because it saddled the company with heavy debt that it could not pay off even though sales have begun to recover.

"Ultimately, it was not the popularity of the brand or a shortfall in sales that triggered the Article 9 auction, but rather an unsustainable capital structure that followed the June 2016 acquisition of the company by Miramar Capital Partners," Harden said in his statement Wednesday. "Funding for that acquisition had been provided by Gemcap Solutions and eventually the onerous terms of the loan, combined with a lack of investment on the part of Miramar Capital Partners, resulted in a default."

Harden's offices will be closed the balance of this week pending the transition to new ownership, he said.

Gregory Harden, who still owns the company's factory buildings and the land they sit on, had said he hoped to be part of a local investor group that planned to place a bid for the company.

The company is known for making heirloom-quality solid-wood and upholstered furniture, both for the residential market and for commercial and government clients.

Big Shoulders Capital did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday afternoon.

Terms of the sale were not disclosed. Formerly known as Revere Finance LLC, Big Shoulders Capital funds small and middle-market businesses across a variety of manufacturing and construction industries in the U.S., according to its website.

The company said it specializes in helping companies in transitions, turnarounds and restructurings, with a focus on finding "innovative solutions to financing challenges."

"We quickly and creatively lend against and lease machinery and equipment in amounts ranging from $1 million to $15 million," the company says.

A WARN notice of a company's shutdown is required under the state and federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification laws.

Contact Rick Moriarty anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-3148WASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. Claudia Tenney is struggling to raise money for her 2018 election campaign against State Assemblyman Anthony Brindisi in what is expected to be one of the most competitive House races in the nation, new disclosure reports show.

Brindisi, D-Utica, raised about $100,000 more than Tenney, R-New Hartford, in the last quarter, and now has more campaign cash than the first-term congresswoman, according to reports filed today with the Federal Election Commission in Washington.

Brindisi raised about $308,000 in the last quarter of 2017, compared to $208,000 for Tenney, the FEC reports show. As a result, Brindisi began the year with $581,851 in his campaign bank account, while Tenney had $563,538.

Democrats and Republicans have identified the 22nd Congressional District race as one of their top priorities in the 2018 mid-term election, and the national parties and special-interest groups are expected to spend millions on the race.

Political analysts in Washington are closely watching the race, and have listed Tenney as one of the 10 most vulnerable House members.

Brindisi's campaign said today his early success at fundraising is an indication of the strong support he has built over the past six months since kicking off his congressional bid in late June.

Tenney has said she expects that Brindisi will raise more money for the election, noting she has been outspent in all of her previous campaigns, including her three terms in the state Assembly.

In the third quarter of 2017, Brindisi raised about $412,000 compared to $212,000 for Tenney.

Brindisi has refused to accept contributions from corporations through political action committees, or PACs, but he has accepted money from non-corporate PACs including labor unions.

The 22nd Congressional District covers all of Madison, Oneida, Cortland and Chenango counties and portions of Oswego, Broome, Herkimer, and Tioga counties.

Contact Mark Weiner anytime: Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751WASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. John Katko says he was unharmed today when a train carrying Republican members of Congress to a retreat in West Virginia derailed in an accident with a truck.

Katko, R-Camillus, said in a text to syracuse.com that he was safe, along with other members of Congress and staff who were in the derailed train in Crozet, Va.

Amtrak said there were no reported injuries to passengers or crew members on the train. Two people in the truck were injured.

Video from the scene showed none of the train cars had overturned. It appeared the accident occurred near the locomotive in the front of the train.

I am safe and was not on board the train in West Virginia. Thank you to those who have reached out and please pray for the safety of all involved.  Rep. Elise Stefanik (@RepStefanik) January 31, 2018

Two other Republican members of Congress from Upstate New York -- Reps. Claudia Tenney, R-New Hartford, and Elise Stefanik, R-Willsboro -- were not on the train.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that there is one confirmed fatality and one serious injury as a result of the accident.

"There are no serious injuries among members of Congress or their staff," Sanders said. "Senior administration officials are in regular contact with Amtrak and state and local authorities. Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone that has been affected by this incident."

Members of Congress from both parties attend annual retreats each January to plan their agenda for the year. Republicans were headed on the chartered train to their retreat at the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia.

Contact Mark Weiner anytime: Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751NEW YORK CITY -- An FBI agent today testified that a Cor Development Co. executive told two different accounts in two separate interviews with federal officials.

Steven Aiello is standing trial in a bribery and corruption case alongside fellow Cor executive Joseph Gerardi and former top governor's aide Joseph Percoco.

The Syracuse developers are accused of obtaining favors from Percoco with bribes, paid through a "shell company" set up by lobbyist Todd Howe. Aiello and Gerardi are also charged with lying to federal officials.

Read our continuing coverage of the trial

Howe has pleaded guilty in the case and is cooperating with the prosecutors. He might take the stand this afternoon if witness testimony moves quickly.

FBI Agent Kathleen Garver said today that when agents initially interviewed Aiello about the case in April 2016, he said he'd barely heard of Potomac Strategies, the "shell company" used by Howe.

Garver said she and her partner showed up to Aiello's Fayetteville home unannounced around 9 a.m. the day other agents executed search warrants in the case.

Garver said she showed Aiello checks that he had signed from Cor to Potomac.

He told her at the time to talk to Gerardi, Cor's top lawyer. He said he signed dozens of checks and didn't always have details.

A couple months later, in June, Aiello and Gerardi were interviewed by investigators and prosecutors in New York City.

During this interview, Aiello said he had learned about Potomac Strategies years ago, when he first met Todd Howe and hired him as a lobbyist for Cor.

He said Cor paid Potomac about $5,000 a month for work Howe performed on labor financing (which is not a part of the charges against the men). The executives said they paid Howe through Potomac because the work was "outside the scope" of what they had originally hired him to do.

Both Aiello and Gerardi adamantly denied authorizing Howe to pay Percoco in connection with the work. They insisted in interviews with police that they never paid him, either directly or indirectly, though they acknowledged he helped them with certain projects.

According to Garver, they told investigators Howe had asked about retaining Percoco for Cor in approximately 2013. But Gerardi and Aiello both insisted they didn't think it was necessary to hire Percoco.

Defense lawyers for Gerardi and Aiello have portrayed their clients as unsuspecting victim's of Howe's. Attorneys have characterized Howe as a "congenital liar" and tried to show that Howe acted on his own to pay Percoco.

On cross-examination, they had Garver acknowledge that Aiello was cooperative throughout the investigation.

Testimony last week from the governor's chief-of-staff, Linda Lacewell, also offered a slight glimpse into the arrangement.

Lacewell said Percoco told her and Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a phone call that Cor didn't want to pay him, so Howe paid him through Potomac Strategies.

"He's cute that way," Lacewell recalled Percoco saying.

Public Affairs Reporter Julie McMahon covers courts, government and other issues affecting taxpayers. She can be reached anytime: Email | Twitter | 315-412-1992NEW YORK CITY -- Former top governor's aide Joseph Percoco moved projects along for Syracuse-based Cor Development, another state official testified.

Andrew Kennedy, a former economic development aide to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, was called to the witness stand today in Percoco's corruption trial. Cor executives Steven Aiello and Joseph Gerardi are also accused in the elaborate bribery scheme.

Read our continuing coverage of the trial

The prosecution tried to use Kennedy's testimony to show how Cor executives bought Percoco's influence to help advance their Inner Harbor and Central New York Film Hub projects.

The defense examined the witness for twice as long. Lawyers tried to show how Kennedy and other state officials wanted the eventual outcomes for the projects, and had been trying to help Cor all along.

Percoco lawyer Barry Bohrer described Kennedy as "the most critical witness we have seen."

His testimony focused on a central issue of this case: Whether Percoco helped Cor fight through bureaucratic red tape -- or acted inappropriately on the company's behalf in exchange for a bribe.

Film Hub

Prosecutors say Percoco used his influence to hurry along delayed payments owed to Cor for the Film Hub, in exchange for the bribes.

Kennedy helped move the payments along.

He said in 2015 there were "substantial delays" in payments to Cor "for work that was already performed." Kennedy said workers at the hub were threatening to walk off the job.

Kennedy agreed with a defense lawyer's characterization that this was a "pressing" issue -- one that he had previously looked into, and took time out of an August 2015 vacation to address.

When Kennedy learned Percoco was asking about the payments, he wrote an email to Todd Howe, a lobbyist for Cor. He asked Howe, "What gives with Cor? ... now JP is stirring the pot..."

Kennedy then heard from Percoco multiple times throughout September 2015.

"We needed to find out what the issues were so the funds could be released," Kennedy said.

Kennedy appeared to grow weary on the witness stand, where he sat for more than three hours today.

At times, he described Percoco as applying pressure on him to get things done. At others, he described it as more about Percoco's expectations of Kennedy to "do my job."

Either way, he acknowledged Percoco's involvement "complicated" an already frustrating situation.

Evidence today showed that Kennedy himself was at times frustrated with the bureaucratic process.

In an email to a colleague about the late payments, he attached a cartoon reading, "Nobody Listens to Andrew" and remarked, "so glad I can make things happen as deputy director."

Kennedy said he felt powerless to move the payments along, though he knew the Film Hub was an "important project for this administration."

Cor had a "history of difficulty" getting paid on public-private ventures, Kennedy said. He attributed that to a "combination of things," including problems with submitting documentation, "bureaucratic hurdles" and state finances.

Inner Harbor

According to Kennedy, Cor's Inner Harbor project was "very visible" and "important" to state and local officials.

So, multiple governor's staff members and higher-ups at the agency Empire State Development didn't want a "peace labor agreement" to get in the way of Cor's construction.

At least one lawyer at ESD, however, raised the issue in summer 2014 that Cor would need the agreement in order to qualify for $1.5 million for a hotel parking lot.

Cor didn't want the agreement. Kennedy said Aiello, Gerardi and Howe expressed concerns about the agreement causing additional costs, delays and negative publicity.

Kennedy himself believed the agreement was unnecessary, an impediment he wanted to "get around."

He said he told Howe that summer Cor could apply for a waiver. It never did.

Three months later, the issue came up again. Kennedy said he was surprised to learn it hadn't already been resolved.

This time, he heard directly from Percoco, who called to ask why an ESD attorney was holding up the Inner Harbor project. This was the only time Kennedy recalled hearing directly from Percoco on a labor agreement for an economic development project, he said.

Kennedy said he told Percoco, "that I would get it done," "that I would check on it and move it."

Kennedy and others have testified that ESD reversed its decision and never required the agreement. Cor has also never sought the $1.5 million that triggered the whole debate.

Kennedy said he does not know who reversed the ESD decision on the agreement. Other witnesses have suggested lawyer Maria Cassidy was the decision-maker. So far, the prosecution has not indicated that she will testify.

Public Affairs Reporter Julie McMahon covers courts, government and other issues affecting taxpayers. She can be reached anytime: Email | Twitter | 315-412-1992Central New York native Alexandria Duval pretended to be her twin sister Anastasia after killing her, Anastasia's boyfriend claimed in court Tuesday.

Anastasia Duval was dating Federico Bailey at the time of her death in 2016, when Alexandria drove a white SUV off the road in Hawaii, killing Anastasia in the passenger seat. Alexandria was in critical condition but survived the plunge and recovered in time for Anastasia's funeral in their hometown of Utica.

Bailey claims Alexandria began dressing up as Anastasia shortly after her death, and began acting like her.

"She began cuddling up on me, it seemed like she was flirting with me ... she sat down beside me really close and lay her head on my shoulder," Bailey testified in Maui Tuesday, according to The New York Post. "She put on Anastasia's clothes... When I saw her in Anastasia's dress it was disturbing. Anastasia had just worn that dress a few nights earlier."

Bailey, who lived with the twin and Alexandria's boyfriend, said the sisters had been fighting because Alexandria had shown up uninvited on their camping trip.

Later that day, witnesses said the two women were in a SUV on the narrow Hana Highway, and appeared to be enraged and fighting before the vehicle went over a 200-foot cliff. Testimony Tuesday said there was hair-pulling, punching and yelling; one witness said they heard Anastasia call out "I need a psychiatrist."

The Palm Beach Post reports a police traffic investigator said there was no evidence that Alexandria had tried to brake her SUV, and even hit the gas pedal just before they went off the cliff.

Alexandria Duval's defense attorney Birney Bervar described the 2016 crash as a "tragic accident, not murder" in his opening statement Monday.

Alexandria was initially released in Hawaii after a judge found no probable cause for a murder charge, but further investigation led to her arrest months later in Albany after a grand jury indicted her. In the months between her sister's death and her arrest on second-degree murder charges, Alexandria was reportedly also arrested and charged with drunk driving in the Village of Stamford in Upstate NY.

Alexandria and Anastasia were born Alison and Ann Dadow and grew up in the Utica area. They later moved to Florida, where they owned and operated the popular Twin Power Yoga studios in Palm Beach, but reportedly struggled with alcohol addiction, business failures, debts, and a failed attempt at a reality TV project.

The sisters then changed their names and moved to Utah, where they opened a yoga studio in the high-end ski town of Park City in 2014. In two years there, they had several run-ins with police including charges of drunken driving, intoxication and leaving the scene of an accident; they were also reportedly kicked out of a restaurant when their drinking got out of hand, leading to a hair-pulling fight.

They moved to Hawaii in 2015 from Utah, and planned to start over with another yoga studio.Imad al-Alami, one of the founders of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, died today about three weeks after suffering a gunshot wound to the head.

A Hamas spokesman said at the time that al-Alami accidentally fired his weapon while inspecting it on Jan. 9, according to The Times of Israel.



Some experts have questioned that account, according to The Jerusalem Post, and speculated that a rival Hamas member may have shot him.



Al-Alami was 62, the Post said. He was regarded as a hard-liner and a supporter of Hamas' ties to Iran. He was trained as an engineer and was Hamas' first representative in Tehran, Iran.



He later spent time in Damascus, Syria before returning to Gaza in 2012. He was elected as deputy Hamas chief in Gaza in 2013, according to the Post.



Hundreds took part in a funeral procession for al-Alami in Gaza City, including several Hamas leaders, according to the Post.



The Times of Israel reported that al-Alami generally stayed out of the spotlight and was not active on social media, unlike some other Hamas leaders.



He was arrested by Israeli security forces for carrying out terror activities in 1991 and deported from Gaza, according to the Times. Hamas now controls Gaza.



Al-Alami died at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, where he had been receiving treatment since the shooting, the Post said.

Contact Kevin Tampone anytime: Email | Twitter | Google + | 315-454-2112SAN RAFAEL, Calif., Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- PAC Machinery, a leader in the heat sealing and flexible packaging industry, announced today that they have completed their initial plans for exhibiting at WestPack in Anaheim, California, February 6-8, 2018  booth #5221. PAC Machinery VP of Marketing, Greg Berguig remarked: Celebrating over two decades of continuous participation, our presence at WestPack 2018 will be one of our most important marketing initiatives of the year. The exhibit provides an unmatched opportunity to showcase our newest and most advanced packaging solutions  including a large number of machines that are engineered specifically for the medical device packaging industry. WestPack invites inquisitive packaging professionals to enjoy three days of packaging design and manufacturing innovation. Show organizers anticipate 20,000 engineers and executives who seek to learn from industry luminaries who will present their products, insights and observations.



The PAC Machinery family of companies and brands (Packaging Aids, Clamco, Vertrod, Rollbag Systems, and Converting Technology) will be demonstrating nearly a dozen packaging equipment solutions including an automatic bagger for e-Commerce and order fulfillment, a flow wrapper, industrial vacuum sealers, validatable medical bag and pouch sealers, shrink packaging systems, bags on a roll, coex mailer bags and more. We want to offer a means by which customers can enjoy a hands-on experience with the extensive number of solutions we can provide. In many cases, the customer has a unique requirement, and at WestPack, we have the opportunity to discuss the application details face-to-face, adds Berguig. More about PAC Machinery at WestPack 2018 may be found at the following: https://www.pacmachinery.com/visit-pac-machinery-westpack-2018-anaheim-ca

See the Rollbag Magnum HS Med fitted with an integrated UDI printer in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=codPFXW4M7Q&t=13s

About PAC Machinery

PAC Machinery is a privately held company headquartered in San Rafael, California. The company manufactures equipment and materials that are used in the flexible packaging industry. Products include bag sealers, vacuum sealers, shrink packaging systems, automatic baggers, and pre-opened bags on a roll. The company has had its roots in the packaging industry since the early 1950s, and now designs, manufactures and markets products through its family of companies and brands: Packaging Aids, Vertrod, Clamco, Rollbag Systems, and Converting Technology. PAC Machinery is the exclusive, North American distributor for Audion Elektro bag sealers. Manufacturing facilities are located in San Rafael, CA; Berea, OH; and Milwaukee, WI. Contact PAC Machinery at 25 Tiburon Street, San Rafael, CA 94901. Telephone 1 (234) 222-1000 x125.

For more information on the Rollbag Magnum HS Med, email bobg@pacmachinery.com

Media contact:

Robert Goldberg

Marketing Director

1 (234) 222-1000 x125

bobg@pacmachinery.com

www.pacmachinery.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/f1a67e69-4e92-4039-992f-653ef1e794deMary Strain

Mary Strain, 77, of Le Grand, Iowa, went to be with her Lord and Savior on the evening of September 3, 2021 in the comfort of her home surrounded ...HENDERSON, Nev., Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via OTC PR WIRE--Legends Business Group, Inc. (OTC Pink:LGBS) announced that the Company has acquired the Companys first leases on four existing oil wells in Oklahoma.



The leases are for wells already existing, each produce approximately 20 barrels per day with about 1,000 cubic feet of oil. J. P. Morgan recently raised its forecast for Brent crude oil prices (the international benchmark for prices) to $70 a barrel on J.P.s belief that growth in economies around the world could boost demand for energy.

Brian Estrada, CEO stated, I believe that the Companys entry into the field of oil and gas is well-timed. Support for oil prices have the potential to last into early summer and the fact that we have obtained leases on existing wells puts the Company to work sooner as opposed to merely having lease rights on an undeveloped property. I look forward to updating shareholders as we pursue the future business and operating growth of the company.

About Legends Business Group, Inc.

Legends Business Group, Inc. is a publicly traded company (OTC PINK:LGBS).

Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements in this news release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of Rule 175 under the Securities Act of 1933 and Rule 3b-6 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and are subject to the safe harbor created by those rules. All statements, other than statements of fact, included in this release, including, without limitation, statements regarding potential future plans and objectives of the company, are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Technical complications, which may arise, could prevent the prompt implementation of any strategically significant plan(s) outlined above. The Company undertakes no duty to revise or update any forward- looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this release.

Brian Estrada

405-464-0694



TAMPA, Fla., Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ConnectWise continues to reinforce its strategy to build a comprehensive open platform for technology teams with lots of choices. Today, the company is rolling its popular IT Nation conferences into its open strategy. ConnectWise has open APIs, an open platform and now open conferences. The recent acquisition of HTG is evidence of ConnectWises belief that an open ecosystem includes an open exchange of ideas and business best practices, as well as software.



Arnie Bellini, CEO, ConnectWise, said, A completely open ecosystem is essential in this world of digital transformation. Every technology team is unique, so a one-size-fits-all stack of solutions makes no sense. Technology teams, whether as an MSP or internal IT, need to tailor their services and solutions to meet the unique needs of their customers. They must have choices.

Bellini went on to say, Taking an open approach to our conferences is a natural extension of our open philosophy. Our conferences are growing quickly and attract over 5,000 technology workers each year. They are becoming the go-to event for tech operators and business operators around the world.

The strategy is designed to connect technology teams to the solutions, services and people that allow them to thrive, which is achieved by providing choices and allowing participation from every solution in the ecosystem. This gives technology teams access to a wide menu of choices for backup, disaster recovery, security, networking, monitoring, collaboration and cloud computing solutions.

Some of the changes that the industry can expect to see in 2018 are:

IT Nation Europe (April) and IT Nation (November) will be completely open to customers, prospects and all interested vendors, and will be the premier conferences for business and technology team leaders who are looking for insights on how to run their operations more efficiently as well as grow their businesses.

Automation Nation (June) will be focused on tech operators, including, but not limited to, service managers, technicians and developers. Attendees will receive deep technical training of the ConnectWise platform. Developers will gain insights on using the Developer Kit to integrate any solution to the ConnectWise platform.

As weve talked to partners about their experiences and looked at who attended, we found that technical operators loved the product training, labs and hands-on learning. On the other hand, the business operators attending Novembers IT Nation conference were more interested in a deep-dive into how they could meet their business goals. Better separation of the content between the two events allows attendees to determine which event is the best investment for their employees and for themselves, Bellini said.

Gregory Zolkos, CEO of Atlas Professional Services, said he and his colleagues are especially excited about ConnectWises plan to incorporate training for more solutions at Automation Nation. Every year, my technical team returns from Automation Nation with great new ideas about how to better use ConnectWise Automate to increase efficiency and provide better customer service to our clients. I am so pleased that they will have access to the same level of training for additional ConnectWise solutions, while I can concentrate at IT Nation on learning best practices to grow our business.

ConnectWises major industry conferences this year include:

IT Nation Europe 2018: This conference, which is in its second year, takes place April 18-20 in London. Registration for IT Nation Europe is open now.

This conference, which is in its second year, takes place April 18-20 in London. Registration for IT Nation Europe is open now. Automation Nation 2018: The June 18-20 conference in Orlando, Fla., is now in its seventh year as a standalone event. Visit the Automation Nation website for more information about the upcoming conference, which had more than 1,000 attendees last year. Registration for Junes event is now open.

The June 18-20 conference in Orlando, Fla., is now in its seventh year as a standalone event. Visit the Automation Nation website for more information about the upcoming conference, which had more than 1,000 attendees last year. Registration for Junes event is now open. IT Nation 2018: Approximately 3,500 attendees came to IT Nation 2017. This years conference is Nov. 7-9 in Orlando, Fla. Sign up for updates about the agenda and registration as it becomes available.

In addition to these conferences, ConnectWise also conducts more than 50 User Groups and meetup events across the globe each year. For more information about User Group meetings, visit the online ConnectWise Event page.

Follow ConnectWise

LinkedIn

ConnectWise Blog

Twitter

Facebook

YouTube

About ConnectWise

ConnectWise transforms how technology teams deliver their services and solutions and successfully build, manage and grow their businesses. Our award-winning business automation platform provides a fully integrated, seamless experience to companies in more than 50 countries, giving them the ability to increase their productivity, efficiency and profitability. When combined with our relentless commitment to innovation, powerful network of ideas and experts, unparalleled passion for our users, and more than 35 years of experience, ConnectWise software solutions deliver the support companies want at each step of their business journey. For more information, visit www.ConnectWise.com.

Press Contacts

Elizabeth Bassler

EBassler@ConnectWise.com

Diane Rose for ConnectWise

diane@dkrcomms.com

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at:

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/bf812cc2-1ac5-4f71-b71a-fdce9d5d20bb

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/cf92717a-7b1c-4e43-b934-2be71b408569Ford has filed a patent for an autonomous Robocop police car, which aims to catch traffic law violators. Ford's autonomous police car will use machine learning tools to take action and catch those who break the speed limit or run red lights and issue tickets remotely.

Taking in information, the robot car can determine what law was violated and take action.

Autonomous Car That Can Give Out Tickets

How is Ford's autonomous Robocop car different from regular police cars? The autonomous police car would be outfitted with cameras, road sensors, license plate readers, touch-sensitive panels, speakers, LIDAR, ultrasound sensors and microphones, satellite connectivity, and radar detectors.

Also mentioned in the patent are machine learning and neural networks. The use of artificial intelligence in the car can raise caution from privacy advocates regarding surveillance. In order for the car to work, it would have to be connected to a network that has a record of drivers.

In the diagrams provided with the patent application, it shows scenarios that demonstrate the capabilities of the car. Using machine learning through deep neural networks, the car finds hiding places to appear inconspicuous.

Another diagram shows the way that it is able to detect a vehicle that is not following the law. This would require the offending car to have wireless technology to communicate with the robot car. It would follow the car, communicate with the vehicle wirelessly to get the driver's information, and then issue a warning or give that person a ticket.

Using the same wireless technology, the car could also use a speed camera or connect to another sensor to prove what the driver was up to.

This patent may not actually lead to the technology it is showing. It just may be a way for Ford to cover itself legally if another company comes up with it before they do. Having the patent for a police car that can do all those capabilities may come in handy when the current technology catches up to the concept.

Ford filed this patent back in 2016. If there was any movement on the robot police car, there's a good chance that the carmaker would be showing it off. Lucrative government contracts for advanced technologies that can help police would put them ahead of other carmakers.

There is also the problem of automated technology still not being as accurate as humans. Red light cameras and speed cameras can help cops, but there are times when towns and municipalities have taken advantage of people with the automated technology to cover a budget shortage.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.Ride-hailing company Uber is selling its Xchange Leasing business to Fair, a digital car marketplace, in an effort to focus more on its core business.

Uber had a tough year in 2017 peppered with various scandals, lawsuits, disappointing financial results in some areas, and more. As the company tries to make its on-demand transportation service more profitable in the future, it's looking to shed peripheral units that haven't brought it much so far.

Uber Selling Xchange Leasing To Fair

Xchange Leasing is not part of Uber's core businesses or its big plans for the future, so the company has decided to sell all vehicles and the lease portfolio. Uber had founded Xchange Leasing back in 2015, aiming to lease vehicles to drivers who wanted to join Uber without bringing their own cars to the service.

Startup Fair has now agreed to acquire Xchange Leasing' active leasing portfolio, but the companies have not disclosed any financial terms for the deal. Xchange had a fleet of 30,000 cars, and recent reports pegged its value to roughly $400 million. However, it remains unclear how much Fair agreed to pay for the business.

Uber Will Keep Leasing Vehicles

Although it's selling Xchange Leasing to Fair, Uber will also continue leasing vehicles to drivers who can't bring their own car to the platform. As part of this deal, Fair will be Uber's exclusive partner for leasing in the United States, for drivers who need a vehicle for 30 days or more.

Fair's business that deals directly with consumers will keep going as it is, coexisting with the deal with Uber. When it comes to other potential partnerships with companies offering transportation-on-demand services rivaling Uber in the United States, Fair will stay out of it.

Scott Painter, who co-founded Fair and is the company's CEO, tells TechCrunch that for now, Uber is enough and it will not strike other such partnerships in the United States.

The series of scandals and troubles that rocked Uber in 2017 prompted Travis Kalanick to step down from his position as the company's CEO. The new Uber CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, said that she would like to take the company public in 2019.

If Uber is indeed to go public next year, it would need to sort out its financials and boost profitability wherever it can, so getting rid of peripheral businesses such as Xchange Leasing makes sense. SoftBank also made a major investment in Uber recently, making the ride-hailing company notably richer.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.Three of the largest companies in the United States are teaming up to improve healthcare for their employees. Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase are in early talks to start a healthcare company for employees of these companies.

Using technology, all three want to cut down the costs of healthcare and reduce expenditures for employees.

Hungry Tapeworm On The American Economy

There still aren't any details available on how the new company will be structured and how it would work among the three giants. This move could disrupt the healthcare market in the United States as after the announcement was made, healthcare companies had dropped in the stock market.

The three companies employ more than 1.1 million people. Amazon reported in October that it has 541,900 employees worldwide. Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway employed 367,000 by the end of 2016. JPMorgan Chase employs more than 240,000 people.

"The ballooning costs of healthcare act as a hungry tapeworm on the American economy. Our group does not come to this problem with answers. But we also do not accept it as inevitable," said Warren Buffett in a statement announcing the new company. "Rather, we share the belief that putting our collective resources behind the country's best talent can, in time, check the rise in health costs while concurrently enhancing patient satisfaction and outcomes."

The statement says that the three companies will be working to come up with a company that is free from "profit-making incentives and constraints." The new company would be focused on providing the U.S. employees and their families a more transparent healthcare experience with the aid of technology.

Amazon Healthcare Disruption

For some time now, Amazon has been rumored to be stepping into the healthcare arena. This is the company's most aggressive move yet.

In May 2017, the company was looking for a general manager to strategize its move into the pharmaceutical business.

Amazon then acquired pharmaceutical licenses in several states in the United States but said it only did so to sell medical supplies. While the licenses Amazon acquired wouldn't sell or store drugs, it has been in discussions with generic drugmakers.

There are also reports saying that Amazon's bullish move motivated the CVS-Aetna merger as a preemptive strike to Amazon stepping into the healthcare market.

In a statement about the new healthcare company, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos says that one of the reasons for starting the company is to reduce healthcare's burden on the economy. In 2017, healthcare spending has accounted for about 18 percent of the U.S. economy.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.Google closed its $1.1 billion acquisition of a portion of HTC's smartphone division, bringing about 2,000 engineers and designers into the fold.

With the move, Google has set its sights on chasing Apple and the iPhone in the premium smartphone market. However, it remains to be seen whether the acquisition will indeed pay off.

Google Welcomes 2,000 HTC Engineers To The Fold

In a blog post, Senior VP for Hardware Rick Osterloh announced that the company has closed its deal with HTC, and welcomed about 2,000 engineers into Google. According to Osterloh, this is the same team that worked with Google for the development of the Pixel and Pixel 2 smartphones.

Osterloh also said that with the addition of the 2,000 engineers from HTC, Taiwan becomes the company's largest engineering site in the Asia Pacific region. The new Googlers will help design more consumer hardware, and eventually lead to Google making its own chips like Apple.

Qualcomm currently provides the system-on-chips for most Android smartphone manufacturers, and Osterloh said that Google will work with the supplier for the foreseeable future. However, a plan for Google to design and manufacture its own chips is certainly in the company's long-term plans.

For now, the obvious application for the influx of talent into Google would be on its Pixel smartphones, especially since the new Googlers are familiar with the devices. This represents a major expansion of Google's initiatives into hardware, but also poses as an additional challenge for high-end Android smartphone manufacturers. Companies are already having a hard time going up against Apple's iPhone in the high-end smartphone market, but now, they will also have Google as a competitor.

Osterloh, however, noted that other Android device manufacturers "know why we're doing this," he said. "Quite honestly, Apple is doing really well in developed markets."

To better compete with the iPhone, Google will need to replicate the hardware and software integration of Apple. With 2,000 HTC engineers on board, it may well be on its way to achieving that.

What's Next For HTC?

The deal between the two companies does not only benefit Google though, as it also provides HTC with an influx of cash at a time when it is financially struggling.

HTC will proceed with the development and launch of its next flagship smartphone, perhaps because it is too far along to be canceled. The company's plan after that remains unclear, but with the success of its Vive VR business, HTC may shift its focus entirely to the virtual reality industry.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.The Earth's magnetic field is due for a flip and is showing signs of shifting at a rate of 5 percent every century. A full reversal could happen in 2,000 years, according to scientists.

It is usual for the north and south magnetic poles to flip over the course of the planet's history. For the past 20 million years, the pattern of pole reversals take place every 200,000 to 300,000 years. The last time a full reversal took place was approximately 780,000 years ago based on paleomagnetic research.

In between swaps, the poles sometimes attempt to flip and then go back to its original position.

The European Space Agency said the Earth's poles are preparing for a shift, and the impacts could be devastating.

What Are Magnetic Fields For?

We are aware of the north and south geographic poles of the Earth. There are two other poles looping out of them, known as the geomagnetic poles of the planet.

Magnetic fields originate from magnetic dipoles, which are swirling magnetic currents of molten iron located deep in the Earth's core. The fields extend more than 10 Earth radii, or 63.7 million meters, out into space on the side facing the Sun extending all the way to the Moon's orbit at 384.4 million meters on the opposite side.

"Most of the field is generated at depths greater than 3000 km by the movement of molten iron in the outer core. The remaining 6% is partly due to electrical currents in space surrounding Earth, and partly due to magnetised rocks in the upper lithosphere  the rigid outer part of Earth, consisting of the crust and upper mantle," according to ESA.

Magnetic fields protect the planet from high levels of charged particles and solar and cosmic radiation.

For example, ultraviolet rays from the ozone layer and solar rays from the Sun do not hit us directly because the Earth's magnetic fields deflect them and forces them to move around.

Pole Shifting

Depending on how the magnetic poles gain or lose strength over time, a shift is always due to happen.

Based on information and satellite imageries from ESA's Swarm Trio, the north magnetic pole indicates turbulence and unpredictability.

In 2014, Swarm satellites started monitoring the most difficult layers of Earth's magnetic fields.

In the last 50 years, the North magnetic pole has shifted, causing charged particles from the Sun and interstellar space to damage the satellites orbiting right above the South Atlantic.

Devastating Effects

While a full pole switch is not due anytime soon in this lifetime, the possibility of its occurrence could lead to devastating results and can even render parts of the planet inhabitable.

When the poles flip or at least try to flip, the protective shields are weakened by at least ten times its normal protective capability. When this happens, increased levels of radiation will reach the surface of the Earth.

Charged particles can also interfere with satellites, aviation, and ground-based electrical infrastructure. A weakened magnetic field would also likely impact orbiting satellites.

The switching process can also expose the entire planet to radiation for centuries. Scientists have tried to link previous pole shifts to the mass extinctions of species on Earth.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.WASHINGTON, Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Radiant.Earth today announced its partnership with OpenAQ to bring together a diverse group of individuals in Ghana and Kenya who are deeply concerned about poor air quality in their community and are looking for solutions.



Radiant.Earth, a non-profit advocating for open geospatial data for positive impact and improved decision-making, will provide OpenAQ with institutional support to organize two workshops focusing on air inequality.

Air pollution, one of the biggest global health threats of our time, kills more people in Africa each year than unsafe water or childhood malnutrition. However, despite the fact that it is a stealthy killer, the development of public policy to address this problem remains complicated. OpenAQ, established specifically to fight air inequality worldwide, approaches this policy problem by opening up air quality data and convening around it a diverse global grassroots community of people from multiple sectors.

This collaborative community approach is impactful, says Dr. Christa Hasenkopf, Co-founder of OpenAQ. To date, we have opened up more than 150 million air quality measurements from 8,174 locations in 64 countries. We worked with community members across the world, who have launched policy-relevant field studies and petitioned their parliaments for action. Members of our community have collaborated on articles for the general media, written a joint science and policy commentary, developed apps and bots, conducted research, and built open-source tools.

The workshops in Ghana and Kenya will focus on identifying overarching goals and strategies shared among participants to fight air inequalityzeroing in on tangible, attainable, and specific actions that participants can take. The plan is also to connect workshop participants with the larger OpenAQ Community, so as to exchange community wins and open-source resources to have a larger impact.

This project is funded in part by The Godley Family Foundation, which backs innovative solutions that address health and environmental issues. We are pleased to partner with Radiant.Earth, OpenAQ, and local communities in finding creative ways to address the global air inequality problem, says Frederick Godley, MD, President of the Godley Family Foundation.

Help from The Godley Family Foundation and Radiant.Earth will allow us to expand the OpenAQ community, and to learn and share with the communities in Ghana and Kenya, says Dr. Hasenkopf. We are enormously grateful.

Open data are essential to unmasking problems and finding solutions to global challenges, says Ms. Anne Hale Miglarese, CEO of Radiant.Earth. We are pleased to support OpenAQ with this project as they work to empower the public to fight air pollution through open data, open-source tools, and cooperation.

Scheduled to take place in the second quarter of 2018, the OpenAQ workshops in Accra, Ghana and Nairobi, Kenya are an opportunity for local tech, science, policy, government, media, open data, software, art, and other air inequality-related sectors to interact with each other and the global OpenAQ Community and Platform.

ABOUT OpenAQ

OpenAQ is a non-profit that fights air inequality by opening up air quality data and connecting a diverse global, grassroots, multi-sectoral community.

ABOUT Radiant.Earth

Radiant.Earth is a non-profit organization committed to aggregating the worlds open Earth imagery and providing access and education on its use to the global development community.

Media Contact

Christa Hasenkopf

Co-Founder

OpenAQ

Info@openaq.orgVICTORIA, British Columbia, Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sendwithus, the innovative communications management company, today announced it is expanding its local footprint and moving into the newly renovated British American Trust Company Building to support its growing team. The 5,364 square foot headquarters will serve as the companys new technology hub.



We are delighted to have Sendwithus choose the British American Trust Company Building in Victoria for its new headquarters and expanded engineering operations, said Dan Gunn, Executive Director, Victoria Innovation, Advanced Technology and Entrepreneurship Council (VIATEC). Greater Victoria's tech sector is now contributing more than $4 billion to our local economy due to its over 900 tech companies and their 15,000+ direct employees. Thanks to companies like Sendwithus there is no sign of the growth slowing and we believe the local tech scene will eclipse $10 billion in annual revenues by 2030. As evidenced by its momentum, Sendwithus is on the path to being Victorias next big success story, joining the ranks of MetaLab and MediaCore.

The new headquarters, which is on the Canadian Register of Historic Buildings, boasts a modern, open office environment well suited for collaboration. Sendwithus chose the British American Trust Company Building because of its prime location in Victorias Central Business District and its historical legacy as a hallmark of Victorias burgeoning gateway economy. Built in 1912, the two-story, Edwardian-era Beaux-Arts commercial building provides ample space for the companys innovation center as well as a multi-purpose area that affords the opportunity to host local technology and startup events in the future.

With our recent $5 million Series A funding round, a critical component of our growth strategy is to attract top talent and thinkers as we expand our offering to enterprise customers, said Brad Van Vugt, Co-Founder, Sendwithus. Together with Will Warren, our newly appointed Vice President of Engineering, we intend to grow the Sendwithus Victoria team by another 30 to 40 percent in 2018. Our new headquarters will unite our rapidly expanding workforce to provide an environment that inspires innovation and development for our customers. We are committed to the Victoria market as it demonstrates a shared vision for a new Digital Age, with a vibrant tech community that is very much aligned with our customers requirements.

Already utilized by innovative companies including Microsoft, Autodesk, Zillow, and Blue Apron, Sendwithus has realized exponential customer growth since its inception in 2013, with its product supporting over 10 billion emails sent to date. Sendwithus streamlines email creation by providing a powerful API, an intuitive, visual editor, and built-in device testing that allow for truly collaborative email strategy and execution. A centralized hub for content approval, the cloud-based solution eliminates the need for multiple touch points with an organization's already strapped developer teams and empowers marketers and product managers to quickly and easily create meaningful, dynamic emails that engage customers, drive growth, and increase revenue.

To join the Sendwithus team, visit https://www.sendwithus.com/careers. For more information about Sendwithus, visit www.sendwithus.com.

About Sendwithus

Sendwithus is a cloud-based communications management platform that enables enterprises to maximize their email potential. The easy-to-use visual editor, built-in device testing, and proven API allow marketers and communication administrators to collaborate and deliver powerful communications strategies that engage customers, drive growth, and increase revenue. Sendwithus helps over 200 leading brands craft exceptional communications experiences at scale. For more information, visit www.sendwithus.com

Media Contact

Megan Tobin

Vice President of Marketing

megan@sendwithus.comSANTA MONICA, Calif., Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Advanced Design and Manufacturing (ADM) Cleveland, Ohios only comprehensive design and manufacturing event, today announced that Emmy-nominated actor and one of Hollywoods most dedicated advocates for American manufacturing, John Ratzenberger, will keynote this years event. In his presentation, Ratzenberger will discuss the importance of American manufacturing and how we can continue to advance the industry. Taking place March 7-8, 2018 at the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland, ADM Cleveland will showcase the latest in automation, design engineering, packaging, plastics, robotics and more. To register as press for ADM Cleveland, please visit: cleveland.am.ubm.com/2018/registrations/Media .



We are thrilled to have a respected industry figure and manufacturing advocate such as John Ratzenberger headline ADM Cleveland, said Nina Brown, vice president of events, UBM. Our organization is a major proponent of the manufacturing industry and the companies within it, and we hope that this keynote presentation will further solidify the importance of the manufacturing industry in the United States and shed light on the significance of skilled labor and trades.

Ratzenbergers presentation further complements the robust line-up of advanced manufacturing-centric programming at this years event. Other highlights include a free educational conference with a Smart Manufacturing focus and an expo floor featuring over 250 leading suppliers.

About John Ratzenberger:



Ratzenberger is a celebrated screenwriter, director, producer and multi Emmy-nominated actor. Best known for his role as Cliff on the hit show Cheers, and as the only actor to voice a character in every Pixar film, Ratzenbergers true passion is to advocate for American manufacturing and the skilled tradesman that are the foundation of our country.



As Hollywoods most outspoken advocate for American manufacturing and skilled labor, Ratzenberger has delivered multiple speeches to Congress detailing the crushing regulations on American enterprise and the fact that we are running out of skilled tradesman to fill the hundreds of thousands of available jobs. He speaks to groups across the country and works with legislators on both sides of the aisle to bring back trades training in schools and build apprentice programs for students, returning veterans and out-of-work Americans while supporting the reshoring of American companies.

Ratzenberger also created Nuts Bolts and Thingamajigs, a foundation that creates and funds manufacturing summer camps and scholarships nationwide - inspiring the next generation of inventors and entrepreneurs. The program took off and John eventually handed it over to the Fabricators and Manufacturers Association to run it. Most recently, he was appointed to the Presidents Task Force on Apprenticeship Expansion with the mission of filling the skilled trades gap in America.



Register as Press for ADM Cleveland: cleveland.am.ubm.com/2018/registrations/Media

Connect with ADM Cleveland: #AdvMfgExpo

Media Contacts:



Brooke Matthews, advmanufacturingpr@ubm.com, (310) 773-1655

Rich Trunzo, advmanufacturingpr@ubm.com, (424) 316-7169

About Advanced Manufacturing Expos & Conferences

UBM's Advanced Manufacturing portfolio is the leading B-to-B event producer, publisher, and digital media business for the world's $3 trillion advanced, technology-based manufacturing industry. Our print and electronic products deliver trusted information to the advanced manufacturing market and leverage our proprietary 1.3 million name database to connect suppliers with buyers and purchase influencers. We produce more than 50 events and conferences in a dozen countries, connecting manufacturing professionals from around the globe. The Advanced Manufacturing portfolio is organized by UBM plc. UBM is the largest pure-play B2B Events organizer in the world. Our 3,750+ people, based in more than 20 countries, serve more than 50 different sectors. Our deep knowledge and passion for these sectors allow us to create valuable experiences which enable our customers to succeed. Please visit www.ubm.com for the latest news and information about UBM.SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Umbo Computer Vision, the leading provider of autonomous video security technology, today announced the release of Umbo SmartBullet. Umbo SmartBullet is the bullet-style variant of its learning cameras for businesses, integrators and governments looking for autonomous video security capabilities and a simple end-to-end user experience.



Approximately 119 million professional video cameras were sold globally in 2017*, said Jon Cropley, principal analyst, video surveillance and security, for IHS Markit, a global business information provider. This major surge in camera deployments has caused a significant increase in hours of footage to be monitored. As a result the need for faster processing and higher quality resolution has never been stronger.

With real-time video security capabilities and AI-based technology, SmartBullet enables facilities managers at businesses in high crime areas, critical infrastructure installations, school campuses, transportation systems and other public venues to record, track and receive more accurate notifications when intruders have entered a property, climbed a wall, crossed a border, etc. This higher rate of accuracy means alerts that security managers will actually want to see and pay attention to, creating a safer environment for customers, employees, civilians and students.

To date, the majority of security cameras on the market are lacking high video resolution, data processing capabilities or have weak exteriors. SmartBullet is the perfect solution to this market-wide problem, said Shawn Guan, CEO at Umbo Computer Vision. It is capable of processing more streams at better resolutions and adaptive, transformative design makes it right for all sorts of different environments. Additionally, SmartBullet seamlessly integrates with Umbo SmartCloud and Umbo Light services for the best user experience in the industry.

SmartBullet features and capabilities include:

Full Metal Body Armor

 SmartBullet is built with distinctive full-metal armor displaying a powerful look that deters potential crime on sight. The stunning design is as tough as it looks, rated IK10 for high impact resistance. Users can also enjoy the designs IP66 dust and water rating for protection from the elements.

SmartBullet is built with distinctive full-metal armor displaying a powerful look that deters potential crime on sight. The stunning design is as tough as it looks, rated IK10 for high impact resistance. Users can also enjoy the designs IP66 dust and water rating for protection from the elements. 3x More Powerful

 SmartBullet takes video quality up a notch, delivering better resolutions and higher frame rates than the SmartDome. Higher quality streams mean better results when Umbo Light, the companys visual intelligence computer vision service, is active. SmartBullet will also has two-way audio and zooming capabilities to improve overall data capture.

SmartBullet takes video quality up a notch, delivering better resolutions and higher frame rates than the SmartDome. Higher quality streams mean better results when Umbo Light, the companys visual intelligence computer vision service, is active. SmartBullet will also has two-way audio and zooming capabilities to improve overall data capture. Adaptive Design

 Featuring an industry-first transformative design, SmartBullet can be configured for different customer needs. Available configurations at launch include an LED torch for floodlight illumination and infrared (IR) for visibility up to 160 feet.

Pricing and Availability

SmartBullet is shipping now. Pricing is available on request. More details can be found on umbocv.ai/smart_bullet.

*Information based on IHS Markit, Technology Group, Video Surveillance Intelligence Database, August 2017. Information is not an endorsement of Umbo Computer Vision. Any reliance on these results is at the third party's own risk. Visit www.technology.ihs.com for more details.

About Umbo Computer Vision

Umbo Computer Vision is an artificial intelligence company developing autonomous video security at enterprise scale. Our mission is to create a system that can understand human behavior, protect critical assets and keep people safe. The company was the recipient of the Best in Video Analytics award from SIA in 2017 and Best in Show from Nvidia GTC 2016 ECS. Learn more at https://umbocv.ai

Press Contact:

Laura Asendio

Merritt Group

asendio@merrittgrp.com

(703) 390-1512

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/64aaad2e-83f7-4d90-a11e-364918e46150GONZALES  The head of a key Ascension Parish Council policy-making committee will remain in the position despite the parish president's request that Daniel "Doc" Satterlee not be reappointed due to what the parish leader said was the councilman's reckless behavior and actions.

The decision on Satterlee was part of Council Chairman Bill Dawsons overall strategy not to make major changes to the leadership of the Parish Councils committee structure. Made up of some of the 11 council members, the front-line committees vet most major policy changes, contracts and projects before they head to the full council.

Parish President Kenny Matassa had accused Satterlee of hosting a personal attack forum from the Strategic Planning Committee. Satterlee, who chairs the committee, is a frequent critic of Matassa, his election bribery indictment and his administrations policies on new development.

+4 Move to consolidate Ascension Parish council meetings in Gonzales leads to heated exchange GONZALES  Ascension Parish President Kenny Matassa has called for the removal of Councilman Daniel "Doc" Satterlee as a committee chairman af

The complaint to Council Chairman Bill Dawson came less than 24 hours after Satterlee had proposed in committee that the bimonthly council meeting now held in Donaldsonville, the parish seat, be shifted to Gonzales, where the other bimonthly meeting is already held.

Satterlee and some supporters argued the change would be more efficient, transparent and closer to most parish residents. The proposal, which failed, would also have meant, though, that western Ascension would lose its only council or other parish government meeting of any kind on that side of the Mississippi River, besides a drainage board specifically dedicated to western Ascension.

+2 Ascension Parish panel rejects plan to end Parish Council meetings in Donaldsonville GONZALES  A plan to eliminate the Ascension Parish Council's monthly meeting in Donaldsonville and move it to more centrally located Gonzales

The complaint also came as Dawson, whom the council had just re-elected council chair, was setting committee appointments for 2018, a power he solely controls as chairman.

In the end, Dawson kept a largely status quo lineup on the council's various committees, including Satterlee as head of Strategic Planning, according to a breakdown of his appointments. Dawson said he shared the breakdown with council members late last week.

In explaining his decision, Dawson provided an answer that hewed closely to his earlier, careful response to Matassas request.

I took everything into consideration, and it didnt turn out that, that was the best thing, I thought, Dawson said of Matassas request.

Dawson added that there are six council committees, which means six chairs and six vice-chairs to appoint.

So its a whole matrix of things that I have to  take into account, and when I took all of that into account  and there have been some things that have been accomplished on Strategic Planning  I decided more or less, if you looked at the whole committee structure, not to make a lot of changes, he said.

Strategic Planning, for instance, was the origin of a recent change to the zoning code that ended what Satterlee and some development critics saw as a loophole around potentially politically tough zoning changes. The body has also played a role highlighting and sometimes pushing forward major growth policy changes like road impact fees.

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Satterlee welcomed the reappointment.

"I am pleased that Chairman Dawson chose to put the betterment of Ascension Parish above politics," Satterlee said. "Our indicted parish president would be better served by concentrating on his defense of the criminal bribery charges he faces than making ridiculous and unfounded claims against me."

The Matassa administration did not respond to requests for comment by Tuesday. Matassa and his co-defendant, Olin Berthelot, have pleaded not guilty to the bribery charge.

+2 Attorney General's Office considers motion to recuse remaining judges in Ascension for Matassa bribery case GONZALES  The Louisiana Attorney General's Office is "strongly considering" seeking the recusal of all judges in the 23rd Judicial District f

All other committee chairs also retained their positions, including Councilwoman Casso as chair of the key Finance Committee, Councilman Lawler as chair of Transportation Committee and Councilman Randy Clouatre as chair of the Utilities Committee.

Committee chairs hold significant power by setting the agenda and often what has a chance to end up before the council for a final binding vote, especially committees with a more open-ended, long-range focus like Strategic Planning. Often, much of the public debate happens at the committee-level.

Despite Dawson's attempt to maintain the status quo, some changes were made and they have displeased other members. Councilman Todd Lambert, for example, noted that for the last two years under Dawson, the number of committee positions has dwindled. Though Lambert was moved up as Transportation Committee vice chairman this year  a committee on which Lambert already had served and once was chairman  he lost a spot this year on the Recreation Committee.

Also, while Satterlee remained chairman and Councilman Aaron Lawler vice chairman of Strategic Planning, Dawson replaced Councilmen Benny Johnson and John Cagnolatti with Councilwoman Teri Casso and Dawson himself.

Dawson explained that changed committee membership by pointing out that he tries to rotate people in and out of committees.

And thats a sensitive committee, and I decided to take one of the slots, he said.

One of Matassa's complaints about Satterlee's chairmanship had been that Satterlee could not maintain a quorum because "your fellow council members do not want to serve with Satterlee and be subjected to his temper tantrums and grandstanding."

Satterlee said he looks forward to working with Dawson and Casso.

Council Vice-Chairman Oliver Joseph, who was critical of Satterlee's proposal to change council meeting locations, also remains on Strategic Planning.Flu season arrived early this year in Louisiana, and two months later, it is looking like it will stay for weeks, maybe months longer. It also could prove one of the deadlier seasons in recent memory.

Dr. Nichole Miller, a family medicine doctor at a Lafayette urgent care clinic affiliated with Lafayette General Medical Center, said the clinic typically sees about 40 to 45 patients a day this time of year. Not this year.

Patient volume began rising soon after Thanksgiving, spiked around Christmas at 112 patients one day, and is continuing at about 75 people a day. Almost all of them have had the flu, Miller said.

We were going down last week, but its been coming back up this week, Miller said.

Louisiana sees major uptick in flu cases; here's how to prevent, treat illness, experts say The flu hit Louisiana in a big way in December, and medical professionals are worried that the early weeks of 2018 may prove just as bad or worse.

The early onset and continued severity of this years flu season prompted the Louisiana Department of Health to offer a new round of free flu vaccinations at 62 parish health units across the state from 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.

In a statement, Dr. Frank Welch, state immunization medical director, described this year as a severe flu season.

In more severe seasons, the flu causes approximately 700 deaths and nearly 8,000 hospitalizations each year in Louisiana," Welch said. "We are already on track to meet and possibly exceed these statistics for the 2017-18 flu season.

Dr. Raoult Ratard, the state epidemiologist, said past research suggests flu seasons kill between 600 and 1,000 people each year, and he expects the final tally this year will be closer to 1,000. He said those figures come from after-the-fact estimates that include deaths attributed to other ailments at the time of death but tied to the flu later. That is particularly true for elderly patients suffering from chronic diseases who then contract the flu, he said.

If you have chronic condition like congestive heart failure, you can still get vaccinated, Ratard said. It may help prevent you from having serious complications and death.

The message is get the vaccine. Its not too late.

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

All but one state is seeing higher-than-normal numbers of patients seeking care for flu-like symptoms, and in most states, unlike Louisiana, the rates are rising. So far this flu season, nearly 12,000 people have been hospitalized with confirmed cases of flu, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

School flu vaccinations in Baton Rouge downscaled in wake of criticism of FluMist Even as Louisiana is in the middle of a busy flu season, a promising avenue to limit the spread of the virus, school-based vaccination drives,

Baton Rouge General Medical Center has seen a 450 percent increase in the number of positive flu tests this flu season compared to the same point in last years flu season, as well a 50 percent increase in patients hospitalized with both the flu and pneumonia, spokeswoman Rebekah Maricelli said.

Dr. Catherine ONeal, an infectious disease specialist at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge, offered even more dramatic numbers. In December 2016, the hospital had 98 people test positive for flu; last month, it had 1,300. And so far, 13 of the hospital's patients have died due to the flu, three of them in their 30s or late 20s, she said.

Flu activity peaked around Christmas, O'Neal said, earlier than the normal peak time for the flu in February. And the rates have remained high through January, with big events this month having little evident effect.

The snow days didnt affect it, the back to work (after the holidays) didnt affect this, she said. Its just been a steady stream.

The best way to prevent more infections, ONeal said, is that those who are sick need to stay home until they are fully recovered. Unfortunately, too many people continue to go to school and work and are infecting others, she said.

Theres a little bit of a badge of honor to being sick and still going to do your job, she said. Its very commendable for a lot of reasons, but not when it comes to the flu.

Miller in Lafayette said those who recover from the flu should take one more step: Get the flu shot. She said her clinic has had multiple cases of patients this year who were treated and recovered from one strain of the flu only to contract yet another strain a week later. A belated flu shot may head that off, she said.

It may help prevent them from getting a round two, she said.

Editor's note: This article was changed on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018, to note that Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center had 1,300 people test positive for the flu in December 2017, compared to 98 the same month a year earlier.Louisiana leaders on Tuesday came one step closer to finding common ground in tense ongoing negotiations about how to address the state's looming $1 billion budget shortfall.

House Republicans, who have been the major opposition to Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, in the state's seemingly never-ending financial crises, provided to Edwards an overview of the cost-saving measures that they want to link to any efforts to raise revenue: An enhanced budget transparency website, a new way of calculating the state's spending cap and co-pays and work requirements for some Medicaid recipients.

The ideas have sparked considerable discussion in recent weeks, but the outline House Speaker Taylor Barras, R-New Iberia, presented to Edwards on Tuesday was met as a step toward Edwards possibly calling a special session in February to shore up the state's finances.

Edwards, who has called five special sessions since taking office in January 2016 to address budget issues, has said he won't call another before the regular session starts March 12 unless he has more details from House Republican leaders. Edwards said Tuesday that he views the proposal overview from Barras as "a positive development" in ongoing negotiations, but he still wants more information from House leadership.

"I remain confident that we can come to an agreement to avoid the fiscal cliff that will include responsible reforms that will allow us to fund the type of government the people of Louisiana deserve in the most efficient way possible," Edwards said in a statement.

+4 OhioCheckbook.com? Government transparency website moves to forefront of Louisiana budget discussion As Louisiana politicians try to find solutions for the state's seemingly never-ending financial struggles, a website that sheds light on anoth

In the letter to Edwards, Barras asked the governor to include the proposals in any special session call he issues, as the governor's call sets the agenda.

"House members feel strongly about coupling these reforms to revenue measures being proposed in an effort to achieve a balanced solution to the existing shortfall," Barras wrote, though he didn't identify which revenue measures are gaining traction among the Republican-controlled House. "We will continue to evaluate options that we can offer support to with these reforms included."

Some Republicans continue to question the actual size of the shortfall, with the ultimate impact of Congress' recent federal tax rewrite still unclear and the state's first year of revenue collections outpacing projections in nearly a decade.

Edwards has acknowledged that state revenue collections will increase when the federal tax overhaul takes effect, because it will reduce the amount that people can deduct from what they pay in state taxes.

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Additionally, Republicans have shown some resistance to covering the full projected shortfall, expressing interest in a combination of revenue and cuts. Barras shared that sentiment in his letter Tuesday.

"It is critical that we start stretching hard-earned tax dollars further, and using our experience, knowledge, technology, leadership and innovative thinking to do more with less money," he wrote.

In the overview of their proposed budget reform package, Republicans propose that the existing LaTrac state budget website is outdated and doesn't go far enough toward providing access to state spending data.

OhioCheckbook.com has been hailed as a national model for such a site, since it went live in 2014. The Ohio site features specifically mentioned by Louisiana Republicans are the site's interactive charts and graphs, the ability to export data, cellphone and tablet reader compatibility and the ability to easily share findings on social media.

Their proposed spending cap would add a growth factor based on population, the consumer price index, state revenue collections and personal income growth. Currently, the state Legislature's spending limit is based on revenue projections.

The House Republican proposal for a Medicaid work requirement would exempt people younger than 19 or older than 64, those who are physically or mentally unfit for employment, pregnant women, parents of newborns or children with disabilities and people in drug or alcohol rehab programs. Edwards, who expanded the state's Medicaid program under the federal Affordable Care Act shortly after taking office, has said his administration is already working toward implementing a work requirement component to Medicaid.

The Republican overview also proposes that co-pays be required when a Medicaid recipient uses an emergency room for a non-emergency and for some prescription medications, and urges the state to consider requiring some Medicaid enrollees at the higher end of income eligibility to pay premiums.

Edwards said in a recent meeting with The Advocate editorial board that he's not outright opposed to any of the proposals, but he wants more information about potential costs to implement versus the savings they would reap.A panel charged with coming up with ways the state can fortify its popular Taylor Opportunity Program for Students will formally reveal its slate of recommendations Wednesday, Feb. 7.

The TOPS task force met Wednesday to discuss ideas formed after months of review, but no vote was taken on which, if any, will be sent to the full state Legislature for consideration.

State Sen. Blade Morrish, R-Jennings, who is chairman of the task force, said he wanted to give members a chance to contemplate the proposals and receive public feedback.

During the hearing that stretched beyond two hours Wednesday, lawmakers still had key disagreements on proposals and what ultimately should be TOPS' priority. Sentiment over the program has long been torn between those who view it as aid for needy students versus those who say it should prioritize better performing students, regardless of income.

The state Legislature would have to ultimately agree to any changes.

"These are just some proposals we're going to talk about," said Sen. Bodi White, R-Central. "Anything we do, there has to be legislation proposed and passed."

Among the potential recommendations that were discussed are measures that aim to encourage lower-performing students to attend less costly community college programs before transferring to four-year universities and proposals that would tweak how much money students get based on their academic achievements.

Also discussed was Morrish's preferred plan, which would create merit-based tiers to determine the size of grant awards students receive. Under his proposal, the state could save about $20 million annually on TOPS.

"I think the most important thing is to recognize those are the best and brightest students. They're regularly being picked off by Baylor and the University of Alabama and others," he said.

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Meanwhile, Rep. Gary Carter, D-New Orleans, has proposed that the Legislature split the difference: When cuts are made to TOPS funding, give preference to students whose families make below $60,000 a year and to students who scored higher than a 30 on the ACT standardized test.

"I don't want to lose those kids to go to Texas or Alabama or any other states, but at the same time, I don't want to hurt those kids who come from a tough financial background," he said.

Plan to overhaul TOPS gains traction, sparks arguments ahead of final report The chairman of the legislative task force studying TOPS said Friday his plan to overhaul the program is gaining political traction.

Time for change to TOPS may be around the corner: task force plan spells out huge changes The Taylor Opportunity Program for Students would undergo sweeping changes under a plan unveiled Thursday by the chairman of a legislative tas

TOPS was created as an incentive to keep Louisiana high schoolers, who meet certain benchmarks, in the state when they go to college. To qualify, they have to take an outlined high school curriculum and earn at least a 2.5 GPA, as well as score at least a 20 on the standardized ACT test  the state average.

The TOPS review comes amid recent funding threats and the program's ballooning costs to the state, to about $300 million today.

TOPS awards were drastically scaled back in 2016 for the first time in the program's history as legislators attempted to shore up the state budget.

Gov. John Bel Edwards' executive budget proposal released last week would eliminate state funding for TOPS because of a looming $1 billion budget shortfall. Edwards, a Democrat, has said he prefers no changes made to the program and that it be fully funded.Everett Bexley of Garden District Book Shop, left, helps Walter Isaacson, right, author of bestselling books about Steve Jobs, Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin, sign copies of his latest book, a biography of Leonardo da Vinci, before a presentation at The New Orleans Advocate office in New Orleans, La., Monday, Dec. 11, 2017. Isaacson, a university professor of history at Tulane, has been CEO of the Aspen Institute, chairman of CNN and editor of Time magazine.VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- North American Nickel Inc. (TSX VENTURE:NAN) (OTCBB:WSCRF) (CUSIP: 65704T 108) (the "Company" or NAN) announces the retirement of Ms. Patricia Tirschmann as VP Exploration effective February 2, 2018. Ms. Tirschmann will remain as Technical Advisor to the Company and will continue to offer guidance to the technical team. The Companys Chief Geologist, Peter Lightfoot will assume the role of Qualified Person and provide technical leadership to NAN.



Ms. Tirschmann joined the Company in 2014 and has been the VP Exploration since 2015. With over 29 years of experience specializing in magmatic nickel-copper sulphide deposits, she successfully led the companys exploration programs and was instrumental in the progression of the Maniitsoq project in southwest Greenland.

NAN CEO, Keith Morrison commented: On behalf of the Board, management and shareholders of the Company I would like to express our sincerest thanks to Patti for her years of dedication and leadership. Patti has earned the trust and respect of our employees, shareholders, partners and industry leaders. We wish her all the best as she begins retirement and we are pleased that she will be continuing with the Company as a Technical Advisor.

About North American Nickel

North American Nickel is a mineral exploration company with 100% owned properties in Maniitsoq, Greenland and Sudbury, Ontario.

The Maniitsoq property in Greenland is a Camp scale project comprising 2,985 square km covering numerous high-grade nickel-copper sulphide occurrences associated with norite and other mafic-ultramafic intrusions of the Greenland Norite Belt (GNB). The >75km-long belt is situated along, and near, the southwest coast of Greenland accessible from the existing Seqi deep water port with an all year round shipping season and abundant hydro-electric potential.

The Post Creek/Halcyon property in Sudbury is strategically located adjacent to the past producing Podolsky copper-nickel-platinum group metal deposit of KGHM International Ltd. The property lies along the extension of the Whistle Offset dyke structure. Such geological structures host major Ni-Cu-PGM deposits and producing mines within the Sudbury Camp.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information under applicable securities laws concerning the business, operations and financial performance and condition of the Company. Forward-looking statements and forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the timing and completion of the Offering, the availability of financing, the availability of regulatory approvals for the Offering and the anticipated use of proceeds from the Offering. Except for statements of historical fact relating to the Company, certain information contained herein constitutes forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as plan, expect, project, intend, believe, anticipate, estimate and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions may or will occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the statements are made, and are based on a number of assumptions and subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Many of these assumptions are based on factors and events that are not within the control of the Company and there is no assurance they will prove to be correct.

Factors that could cause actual results to vary materially from results anticipated by such forward-looking statements include the inability to obtain adequate financing, the inability to obtain regulatory approvals required in relation to that financing. The Company cautions that the foregoing list of important factors is not exhaustive. Investors and others who base themselves on forward-looking statements should carefully consider the above factors as well as the uncertainties they represent and the risk they entail. The Company believes that the expectations reflected in those forward-looking statements are reasonable, but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct and such forward-looking statements included in this press release should not be unduly relied upon. These statements speak only as of the date of this press release. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if circumstances or managements estimates or opinions should change except as required by applicable securities laws.

Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be anticipated, estimated or intended. Statements concerning mineral reserve and resource estimates may also be deemed to constitute forward-looking statements to the extent they involve estimates of the mineralization that will be encountered if the property is developed.

Statements about the Company's future expectations and all other statements in this press release other than historical facts are "forward looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and as that term defined in the Private Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Company intends that such forward-looking statements be subject to the safe harbours created thereby. Since these statements involve risks and uncertainties and are subject to change at any time, the Company's actual results may differ materially from the expected results.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Mark Fedikow

President

North American Nickel Inc.

For more information contact:

North American Nickel Inc.

Jaclyn Ruptash

Corporate Communications

604-770-4334

Toll free: 1-866-816-0118

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.After you watch President Trump's State of the Union address on Tuesday night, there's another television-watching appointment you might want WASHINGTON  Addressing a deeply divided nation, President Donald Trump summoned the country to a "new American moment" of unity in his first State of the Union, challenging Congress to make good on long-standing promises to fix a fractured immigration system and warning darkly of evil forces seeking to undermine America's way of life.

Trump's address Tuesday night blended self-congratulation and calls for optimism amid a growing economy with ominous warnings about deadly gangs, the scourge of drugs and violent immigrants living in the United States illegally. He cast the debate over immigration  an issue that has long animated his most ardent supporters  as a battle between heroes and villains, leaning heavily on the personal stories of White House guests in the crowd. He praised a law enforcement agent who arrested more than 100 gang members, and he recognized the families of two alleged gang victims.

He also spoke forebodingly of catastrophic dangers from abroad, warning that North Korea would "very soon" threaten the United States with nuclear-tipped missiles.

"The United States is a compassionate nation. We are proud that we do more than any other country to help the needy, the struggling and the underprivileged all over the world," Trump said. "But as president of the United States, my highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, and my constant concern is for America's children, America's struggling workers and America's forgotten communities."

+2 Skepticism from both sides of Trump's immigration proposal points to tough road for any deal WASHINGTON  After weeks of failed immigration negotiations with members of Congress, President Donald Trump last week offered up his own loos

Trump addressed the nation with tensions running high on Capitol Hill. An impasse over immigration prompted a three-day government shutdown earlier this year, and lawmakers appear no closer to resolving the status of the "Dreamers"  young people living in the U.S. illegally ahead of a new Feb. 8 deadline for funding operations. The parties have also clashed this week over the plans of Republicans on the House intelligence committee to release a classified memo on the Russia investigation involving Trump's presidential campaign  a decision the White House backs but the Justice Department is fighting.

The controversies that have dogged Trump  and the ones he has created have overshadowed strong economic gains during his first year in office. His approval ratings have hovered in the 30s for much of his presidency, and just 3 in 10 Americans said the United States was heading in the right direction, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. In the same survey, 67 percent of Americans said the country was more divided because of Trump.

At times, Trump's address appeared to be aimed more at validating his first year in office than setting the course for his second. He devoted significant time to touting the tax overhaul he signed at the end of last year, promising the plan will "provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small businesses." He also highlighted the decision made early in his first year to withdraw the U.S. from a sweeping Asia-Pacific trade pact, declaring: "The era of economic surrender is totally over."

He spoke about potential agenda items for 2018 in broad terms, including a call for $1.5 trillion in new infrastructure spending and partnerships with states and the private sector. He touched only briefly on issues like health care that have been at the center of the Republican Party's policy agenda for years.

Tackling the sensitive immigration debate that has roiled Washington, Trump redoubled his recent pledge to offer a path to citizenship for 1.8 million young immigrants  but only as part of a package that would also require increased funding for border security, including a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, ending the nation's visa lottery method and revamping the current legal immigration system. Some Republicans are wary of the hardline elements of Trump's plan and it's unclear whether his blueprint could pass Congress.

"Americans are dreamers too," Trump said, in an apparent effort to reclaim the term used to describe the young immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

A former New York Democrat, the president also played to the culture wars that have long illuminated American politics, alluding to his public spat with professional athletes who led protests against racial injustice by kneeling during the national anthem, declaring that paying tribute to the flag is a "civic duty."

Republicans led multiple rounds of enthusiastic applause during the speech, but for the opposition party it was a more somber affair. Democrats provided a short spurt of polite applause for Trump as he entered the chamber, but offered muted reactions throughout the speech. A cluster of about two dozen Democrats, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus, remained planted firmly in their seats, staring sternly at the president and withholding applause.

After devastating defeats in 2016, Democrats are hopeful that Trump's sagging popularity can help the party rebound in November's midterm elections. In a post-speech rebuttal, Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy, the grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, was seeking to undercut Trump's optimistic tone and remind voters of the personal insults and attacks often leveled by the president.

"Bullies may land a punch," Kennedy said. "They might leave a mark. But they have never, not once, in the history of our United States, managed to match the strength and spirit of a people united in defense of their future."

The arc of Trump's 80-minute speech featured the personal stories of men and women who joined first lady Melania Trump in the audience. The guests included a New Mexico policeman and his wife who adopted a baby from parents who suffered from opioid addiction, and Ji Seong-ho, a defector from North Korea and outspoken critic of the Kim Jong-un government.

On international affairs, Trump warned of the dangers from "rogue regimes," like Iran and North Korea, terrorist groups, like the Islamic State, and "rivals" like China and Russia "that challenge our interests, our economy and our values." Calling on Congress to lift budgetary caps and boost spending on the military, Trump said that "unmatched power is the surest means of our defense."

Trump's biggest foreign policy announcement of the night concerned the Guantanamo Bay detention center, which former President Barack Obama tried but failed to close. Reversing Obama's policy, Trump said he'd signed an executive order Tuesday directing the Pentagon to keep the prison open while re-examining the military's policy on detention.

Trump said he was also asking Congress to ensure the U.S. had needed powers to detain Islamic State group members and other "terrorists wherever we chase them down," though it was unclear whether he was referring to a new war powers authorization or some other mechanism. Trump also said he wanted Congress to pass a law ensuring U.S. foreign aid goes only "to America's friends"  a reference to his frustration at U.S. aid recipients that voted at the U.N. to rebuke his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Mrs. Trump arrived at the Capitol ahead of her husband to attend a reception with guests of the White House, but she rode back to the White House with him. It was the first time she was seen publicly with the president following a report that his lawyer arranged a payment to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, to prevent her from talking about an alleged affair. Daniels denied the affair in a new statement released hours before the speech.A record 1.2 million cruise ship passengers traveled through the Port of New Orleans in 2017, officials said Tuesday.

The official tally  1,150,172  marked the fourth straight year of hitting the coveted 1 million passenger mark at the port's cruise terminal facilities on Julia and Erato streets.

These year-end results validate the continued appeal of cruising from the Crescent City and reflect our commitment to excellence, port President and CEO Brandy Christian said in a statement. We expect additional growth in 2018 and will continue to provide high-level service that complements New Orleans natural hospitality and vibrant energy."

For local hospitality leaders, rising passenger numbers mean big business: 80 percent of local cruise ship guests are from out-of-state, and 60 percent spend an average of two days in the city either before or after their cruise, which accounts for more than 112,000 room nights in area hotels, according to the port.

As demand for cruises out of New Orleans grows, the local port is preparing to welcome several different ships in the year ahead.

In November, Norwegian Cruise Line will replace its Norwegian Pearl by deploying the 4,000-passenger Norwegian Breakaway, the largest occupancy cruise ship to sail from New Orleans. It can accommodate almost twice as many guests. Additionally, Norwegian is poised to offer a new cruise experience in 2019, when it replaces the Breakaway with the similarly-sized Norwegian Getaway.

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Royal Caribbean International will return to New Orleans and homeport its 2,500-passenger Vision of the Seas, which will sail seasonal seven-night itineraries beginning in December.

Next year, Carnival Cruise Line will swap out its two New Orleans-based passenger ships. Carnival plans to deploy its 2,974-passenger Carnival Valor to New Orleans, replacing the 2,754-passenger Carnival Triumph on year-round four- and five-day cruises out of the Crescent City.

Additionally, the 2,980-passenger Carnival Glory will replace the 3,646-passenger Carnival Dream, sailing year-round seven-day cruises out of New Orleans.

Homeporting newer and larger cruise ships in 2018 adds to our citys excitement as we celebrate our 300th birthday, Christian said. This is great news for tourists, residents and the regions hospitality industry.

The Port of New Orleans is the sixth-largest cruise port in the nation, according to research by Cruise Lines International Association, an industry trade group.A federal court jury has rejected a series of civil-rights claims against three State Police troopers accused of racially profiling and unlawfully detaining a black student while he was visiting the French Quarter.

Following a four-day trial in New Orleans, the jury late Monday awarded no compensation to the plaintiff, Lyle Dotson, even though it found that one of the troopers violated the young man's Fourth Amendment rights during the 2015 arrest.

Despite the lack of damages, an attorney for Dotson, Jim Craig, said the verdict vindicated "Dotson's right not to be seized by a Louisiana state trooper for the purpose of taking his picture."

"We are studying the verdict and plan to seek further review," Craig said. "The people of New Orleans should be alarmed that the State Police are a threat to the constitutional rights of law-abiding residents of  and visitors to  New Orleans."

A State Police spokesman declined to comment Tuesday.

The trial stemmed from a sweeping civil-rights lawsuit that claimed troopers routinely use excessive force against black people in the French Quarter. The plaintiffs, represented by the MacArthur Justice Center, alleged that State Police condone the "unjustified harassment of African-Americans in New Orleans, including the detention and arrest of African-Americans without probable cause."

The lawsuit cited several controversies involving troopers assigned to New Orleans, including the violent traffic stop of trumpet player Shamarr Allen in 2014 and the later arrest of a barber who claimed he was racially profiled and beaten by two troopers who mistook him for a black suspect.

A significant part of the case was decided before the trial even began, when U.S. District Judge Susie Morgan ruled the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate a pattern of civil-rights violations and dismissed Dotson's claims against Mike Edmonson, the former longtime State Police superintendent. Edmonson had been accused of failing to properly train his troopers and turning a blind eye to their aggressive tactics.

But the proceedings opened a window into the disparate rule books governing the State Police and the New Orleans Police Department. The NOPD is subject to a strict federal consent decree that forbids racial profiling and allows officers to make investigatory stops only when they have "reasonable suspicion that a person has been, is, or is about to be engaged in the commission of a crime."

The State Police began patrolling the French Quarter on a regular basis in 2014 following a high-profile shooting on Bourbon Street that killed one woman and wounded nine people. Since then, troopers have assisted the NOPD in seizing weapons and drugs and investigated a host of other crimes at a time when the NOPD has struggled to recruit new officers.

"We were never told not to do our job," Edmonson said in a recent deposition. City officials, he added, "clearly knew what we brought to the table" when they requested assistance patrolling the French Quarter.

One of troopers named in the lawsuit, Sgt. Huey McCartney, said in a deposition last year that his NOPD counterparts have become afraid to perform basic aspects of their job that are "totally legal." He blamed the consent decree for the killing last year of Marcus McNeil, a New Orleans police officer who used his stun gun on a suspect before being fatally shot.

"It seems like the NOPD officers were afraid of getting in trouble based on the consent decree," McCartney said. "There's going to be part of me that's always going to wonder if that man would have been alive if it weren't for the consent decree."

Craig, the plaintiff's attorney, called upon the New Orleans City Council and the new city administration to reassess the State Police presence in New Orleans.

"The people of New Orleans should be alarmed that the state troopers patrolling the streets of New Orleans refuse to acknowledge or abide by the basic protections outlined in the NOPD consent decree," Craig said.

The civil trial turned on the question of whether the troopers violated Dotson's rights when they booked him on battery of a police officer, a count that was later dismissed and expunged from the Indiana man's record.

The arrest happened shortly after Dotson arrived in New Orleans with his father, a Ball State University professor who was leading an architecture field trip. Dotson, who was 18 at the time, became separated from his group on Bourbon Street and was on the phone with his father when he was detained by three uniformed troopers  McCartney, Calvin Anderson and Tagie Journee.

The troopers said Dotson met the description of another black man who appeared to be "shadowing" an undercover drug transaction that State Police were conducting in the French Quarter.

They grabbed the iPhone out of Dotson's hand, questioned him and, according to Dotson, refused to give their names or badge numbers. The lawsuit claimed the troopers pushed Dotson against a building, handcuffed him and searched him in an effort to identify him.

The confrontation escalated when McCartney tried to take a picture of Dotson, who told the troopers they did not have his permission to take his photograph. McCartney claimed Dotson kicked him twice, while the young man insisted he only "raised his knee" to avoid the camera.

The jury rejected Dotson's claims that he was detained without "reasonable suspicion" and that he was arrested without probable cause. Without awarding any damages, it found that McCartney violated his rights "by continuing to detain (him) after any reasonable suspicion for the stop had dissipated."Sircaria Coleman deserted her post as a U.S. Army private more than five years ago, but her run from the law ended when she walked onto a cruise ship dock in New Orleans this week, authorities said.

Coleman was arrested Monday morning when the Carnival Triumph set sail on a five-day Caribbean cruise. While documents don't specify whether the Shreveport native was going on the trip, cruise passengers with outstanding arrest warrants are occasionally captured when they check in for boarding.

According to authorities, Coleman posted bond on Aug. 15, 2012, following an arrest somewhere in Louisiana on unspecified allegations. She never returned to her post in Fort Carson, Colorado, and the Army issued a warrant to arrest Coleman on a charge of military desertion several months later.

Coleman turned 30 four days before her arrest. She was working at a cellphone dealership when she was captured, court records said.

Orleans Parish Criminal Magistrate Court Judge Harry Cantrell ordered Coleman held without bail. She waived extradition proceedings and as of Wednesday was awaiting to be transferred out of New Orleans.

It is not all that common for the military to prosecute charges of desertion. Only once since the Civil War has the maximum punishment for desertion during a declared war, execution, been carried out.

Five years' imprisonment is the second-worst punishment.

This post corrected Coleman's rank after it was first published.English Danish

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, January 31, 2018 - Bavarian Nordic A/S (OMX: BAVA, OTC: BVNRY) today announced that Ole Larsen, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer will depart from the Company to pursue new opportunities. The planned transition will take place within 2018 once an appropriate candidate has been identified. Until such time, Mr. Larsen will continue in his current capacity. Mr. Larsen joined Bavarian Nordic in 2008.

"On behalf of the entire Company, I want to thank Ole for his significant contributions over the past 10 years. Ole has been instrumental in growing Bavarian Nordic into a well-diversified, fully integrated company, currently in one of its strongest financial positions in our history," said Paul Chaplin, President and Chief Executive Officer of Bavarian Nordic. "We thank him for his dedication and his willingness to work through a smooth transition to an appropriate replacement. We wish him all the very best in his future endeavors."

The Company is now initiating a search for the position of Chief Financial Officer.

About Bavarian Nordic

Bavarian Nordic is a fully integrated biotechnology company focused on the development of innovative and safe therapies against cancer and infectious diseases. Using our live virus vaccine platform technology, MVA-BN, we have created a diverse portfolio of proprietary and partnered product candidates intended to improve the health and quality of life for children and adults. We supply our IMVAMUNE non-replicating smallpox vaccine to the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile and other government stockpiles. The vaccine is approved in the European Union (under the trade name IMVANEX) and in Canada. Registration studies are currently underway in the U.S. In addition to our long-standing collaboration with the U.S. government on the development of IMVAMUNE and other medical countermeasures, our infectious disease pipeline comprises a proprietary RSV program as well as vaccine candidates for Ebola, HPV, HBV and HIV, which are developed through a strategic partnership with Janssen. Additionally, in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute, we have developed a portfolio of active cancer immunotherapies, designed to alter the disease course by eliciting a robust and broad anti-cancer immune response while maintaining a favorable risk-benefit profile. Through multiple industry collaborations, we seek to explore the potential synergies of combining our immunotherapies with other immune-modulating agents, e.g. checkpoint inhibitors. For more information visit www.bavarian-nordic.com or follow us on Twitter @bavariannordic.

Forward-looking statements

This announcement includes forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside of our control, that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning our plans, objectives, goals, future events, performance and/or other information that is not historical information. All such forward-looking statements are expressly qualified by these cautionary statements and any other cautionary statements which may accompany the forward-looking statements. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances after the date made, except as required by law.

Contacts

Rolf Sass Srensen

Vice President Investor Relations (EU)

Tel: +45 61 77 47 43

Seth Lewis

Vice President Investor Relations (US)

Tel: +1 978 341 5271

Company Announcement no. 02 / 2018Doctors are concerned access to codeine - which is only available by prescription from today - has been cut off with no viable alternative.

Canberra emergency doctor David Caldicott said the use of medicinal marijuana was an obvious solution for pain relief, which he believes is safer and more effective.

Over the counter products containing codeine will no longer be available from today. Credit:Dion Georgopoulos

But the territory's acting chief health officer said there was a good availability of alternative medicines, denying there would be an influx of people attending GPs or emergency departments.

Nationwide changes mean drugs containing codeine will only be available by prescription, a move that came in response to a rise in deaths at the hands of opioids.Treasury Wine Estates is continuing to ride the wave of growing enthusiasm in Asia for wine, with the companys revenue from the region helping drive a 37.4 per cent jump in first half net profit to $187.2 million.

Revenues from the Asia region surged 36.4 per cent to $297.5 million for the half year, compared with the first half of fiscal 2017. The company said earnings momentum in Asia was expected to continue in the second half of fiscal 2018, and that the fundamentals of Asian wine market continue to be attractive.

As well as the profit boost, Australia's biggest wine company lifted its interim dividend payments by 15 per cent and signalled that it expected growth to accelerate in coming years.

Treasury Wine announced a healthy first half profit and unveiled significant changes to its distribution in the US.

Sales revenue for the Australia and New Zealand region rose by 3.4 per cent to $339.4 million, while Treasury's sales revenue from Europe declined by 9.6 per cent to $160.2 million.The Commonwealth Bank's board of directors will consider whether to set aside money in the bank's accounts to cover any fines it may face over a money laundering compliance scandal.

Ahead of its half-year results next week, CBA on Wednesday said its board would consider possible fines when determining whether it would be "appropriate" to recognise a provision in its accounts in relation to the legal case brought by Austrac, the financial intelligence agency.

Financial markets expect CBA will ultimately pay a penalty over the Austrac allegations.

The comment followed a report in The Australian Financial Review that CBA had received legal advice that it would be commercially sound to pay up to $500 million to settle the blockbuster case, which is set to be fought in the courts this year.

In CBA's previous statement on the matter, in November, the bank said it had already made provisions for costs from efforts to beef up its anti-money laundering compliance, but it was not possible at the time to estimate the size of any possible penalties.Shares in biotech firm Sirtex have climbed almost 50 per cent after a proposed $1.6 billion takeover by US cancer care company Varian.

Sirtex chief executive Andrew McLean would not speculate on whether there would be other bids for the company, but confirmed that Varian's all-cash takeover offer of $28 for each Sirtex share was the highest from a range of non-binding bids for the liver cancer treatment developer.

The offer is a 49 per cent premium to Sirtex's closing share price of $18.83 on January 29. Sirtex shares soared on Wednesday morning, following Tuesday night's takeover announcement. It was trading up almost 50 per cent at $27.49 just before noon.

Sirtex shares had taken a battering for most of last year after a run of bad news, including the sacking of its former chief executive Gilman Wong.CBD-based RMIT University is shifting its administration staff into new digs at 222 Lonsdale Street, part of the nearby QV development owned by Dexus.

The move further cements Melbournes reputation as the education capital of Australia. While RMIT already controls a $2 billion-plus property portfolio, it is leasing a further 10,634 square metres of space across levels five, six and seven of the tower currently occupied by Sensis.

Sensis lease expires in July 2019 shortly before RMITs 15-year lease starts in March 2020.

Dexus will refurbish the amenities and fit-out of the 15-year old building before RMIT moves in, including new end-of-trip facilities.In his speech on Tuesday to the National Press Club, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten attempted to set his agenda for the coming year. It is a familiar political technique  define yourself and your program before your opponent has the chance to do it for you.

In the long run-up to the next federal election, it is probably a wise move, because even though the poll is not due for more than a year, the federal opposition is likely to struggle for attention amid the series of state polls that are due beforehand.

Bill Shorten addresses the National Press Club on Tuesday. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Mr Shorten's pitch to middle Australia on wages and health costs no doubt owes much to opinion polling, but that is no criticism. The sluggish growth in wages already concerns voters; it should genuinely concern governments.

It is not class warfare to point out the obvious  that wage growth in a growing economy is part of the process that spreads wealth to the whole community. The argument also neutralises, by implication, the government's predictable attack on Mr Shorten, that he is little more than a union bovver boy.But CVS can't guarantee that the brands they sell in their shops won't feature models who have been digitally altered, so they're getting around this by providing a "CVS Beauty Mark." This watermark (a little heart broken by straight lines) will be used to shame those brands that won't quit the air-brushing game. It's a quick warning for customers, a way of telling us that what we're seeing isn't real. This idea is wonderful in the abstract, but my own research and studies conducted by others suggest that it is unlikely to be effective. It may even backfire.

Last month, executives at US pharmacy chain, CVS announced a plan to make over their beauty aisles. The lipsticks, mascaras and bottles of beauty ephemera aren't going anywhere, but the images used to sell those little jars of hope are in for a change. This is the rough equivalent of Australia's Priceline deciding to change the way their brands advertise. In other words, it's a big deal. The first component of CVS's two-part plan to celebrate "authenticity and diversity" is a commitment to new standards for all CVS-generated beauty imagery. By 2020, "material alteration" of these images will no longer be allowed.

Researchers have known for decades that exposure to overly perfected beauty images can lead to body dissatisfaction, depression, anxiety and even eating-disordered behaviours in girls and women. These images trigger a simple but destructive comparison process. Step 1: See image. Step 2: Compare yourself to the model in the image and come out on the losing end of that comparison. Step 3: Feel the shame that comes with that sense of falling short. Step 4: Repeat this process countless times a day until your heart breaks just like the one in CVS's new warning logo. (As marketers well know, there's another step that often follows: Buy a product to inch yourself closer to that unreachable beauty ideal.)

The general idea behind the types of disclaimer labels CVS has proposed is that they will interrupt this comparison process. After all, if you know an image isn't real, why compare yourself to it? Unfortunately, research shows that warning labels don't appear to disrupt this process. Instead, they have the potential to increase the potency of beauty images.

One eye tracking study conducted at Flinders University in Adelaide demonstrated that women do notice these warning labels, but the labels often direct women's attention precisely to the areas of the image that were airbrushed. Without a "before" picture to go along with the label, you can't know how, exactly, the image was altered. So you're left with a curiosity that can drive you to pay more attention to the image. In other words, women may focus more on the potentially harmful components of these images after being warned about them.

Two additional studies from Flinders University found that among women already prone to comparing themselves to media images, viewing an image with a warning label increased body dissatisfaction relative to seeing an image without a warning. Likewise, research out of the University of Michigan showed that making adolescents aware of retouching in beauty images left them feeling worse about how they look and more objectified.

One could argue that even if these disclaimers don't interrupt the comparison process, they could have the benefit of teaching women to be more critical about media images of female beauty. Maybe that critical stance could be protective. Once again, the data aren't as clear as you might guess.As the state government considers its policy response to rising deaths on country roads, it threatens to be split by Nationals MPs who oppose greater use of sophisticated speed-camera technology network on rural roads which they say would break a promise to rural voters.

Members of the NSW cabinet were last week briefed on a range of possible changes to road safety policy weeks after the most recent holiday road toll more than doubled to 28 compared to the previous year.

The point-to-point cameras in use. Credit:Jeffrey Chan

After decades of steady decline, NSW's road toll has risen over the past three years, with a near-20 per cent increase from car crashes and 85 per cent from light trucks.

More than 50 per cent of fatal crashes in NSW occur on high-speed country roads, according to the most recent government statistics. But speed-related fatal crashes in Sydney, Newcastle and greater Wollongong remain unchanged since 2010.The plane took a marked detour from its approved route before crashing. Mr Cousins had planned to retire in March from his position as head of the world's largest catering company, Compass, and wed Ms Bowden midyear. "The key question arising from the report is why the plane crashed approximately halfway down Jerusalem Bay, which is surrounded by steep terrain and has no exit," Sydney Seaplanes managing director Aaron Shaw said. The victims of the New Year's Eve crash. "It is not a route we authorise in our landing and take-off area register and the plane simply should not have been where it was."

Flying over Jerusalem Bay, the plane piloted by Mr Morgan took a steep 80- to 90-degree banking turn to the right before falling. The wreckage from the de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver transported to land for investigation. Credit:Wolter Peeters "A turn of this nature at low altitude by a pilot with Gareth's skills, experience and intimate knowledge of the location is totally inexplicable," Mr Shaw said. Witnesses have told investigators the seaplane was flying over Jerusalem Bay at an altitude below the height of the surrounding terrain. Several people reported the sound from the aircraft's engine was constant and appeared normal.

Nat Nagy, an executive director of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, appealed for more witnesses to come forward, especially any who saw the plane taxi and then turn into the bay. "One of the main lines of inquiry for us now is to try to work out exactly what was happening throughout that time," Mr Nagy said. "Firstly, why the pilot turned that way and then whether it was an attempt to turn around." The ATSB's investigators will not comment on what caused the plane to plunge into Jerusalem Bay until they complete their investigation and release a final report in about 12 months. Their preliminary report provides few clues but confirms the bureau investigated a fatal accident involving the same aircraft in 1996. It was later repaired before re-entering service in 2000. Sydney Seaplanes bought the aircraft six years later and has flown it thousands of times since.

As recently as last November, an inspection of the seaplane was carried out and a new maintenance release issued. A scheduled engine change was carried out at the time. Police divers helped retrieve almost all of the wreckage and while the bureau has kept the engine and propeller for further analysis, it was yet to find any problem with the plane. The ATSB found no evidence that a collision with a bird or other object might have led to the crash. Mr Morgan had spent years working for Sydney Seaplanes with total flying experience of more than 10,000 hours, of which about 9000 were on float planes. He was "an extremely experienced float plane pilot who had all the required qualifications and licences", Mr Nagy said.

Asked whether mental illness might have been a factor in the crash, Mr Nagy said "we have received no information or facts that there was any concern in that area". The pilot was reported to have "a high standard of health" but investigators are set to examine autopsy results when they become available from the NSW coroner. Mr Nagy said he did not know which of the Cousins-Bowden family had been sitting in the passenger seat at the time of the crash but investigations routinely look at possible passenger interference. He said investigators were trying to retrieve information from personal electronic items found amidst the wreckage, which may shed light on what was happening in the cockpit. The plane was not required to have any voice or flight data recorder.The Law Society of NSW will lobby for more resources for Legal Aid and look at "alternatives to imprisonment" as part of a list of priorities revealed at NSW Parliament on Wednesday night.

In a speech to mark the opening of the law term, Doug Humphreys  who became president of the professional body of solicitors in January  said there is "much more" to be done to reduce lengthy waiting times in courts.

Law Society of NSW President Doug Humphreys. Credit:Twitter/@LawSocietyNSW

He called for greater focus on local courts, where "the vast majority of criminal justice is dispensed within our justice system", funding for "crucial" legal aid, and for a large court complex to be quickly built in south-west Sydney.

"Delays in the trial courts as well as the Family Court because of a backlog in matters and the increasing workloads of the judiciary are symptomatic of a justice system that is struggling to keep up with the needs of the community," Mr Humphreys said.NEW YORK, Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via OTC PR WIRE -- Costas Inc. (OTC MARKETS:CSSI) Costas Inc. (CSSI or the Company) and its subsidiary AuthentaTrade Inc. (AuthentaTrade) are pleased to announce the Company has now placed the AuthentaTrade trade platform on Amazon Web Services to assist in the onboarding of its 75,000 KYCd client list, acquired in the Companys full acquisition of AuthentaTrade and its assets earlier this month. In addition, this robust and secure solution provided by the worlds largest cloud service provider will enable onboarding as many as 100,000 new clients per hour.



The upgrade to a cloud solution was needed to service the expected demand for AuthentaTrades anticipated launch mid March 2018. Costas, through AuthentaTrade, will now have the ability to support the onboarding of as many as 100,000 clients hourly. Based on the backlog of existing client account applications on several industry leading exchanges, AuthentaTrade has secured the infrastructure to capitalize on the flood of pending clients waiting to open accounts elsewhere. AuthentaTrade has also built out its own proprietary KYC verification system that starts by accepting a clients credit card, by then verifying the identity of the applicant against a number of confidential parameters including past transactions, and by creating a Distributed Asset Technology style verification of a potential clients previous activity. This provides a very robust and efficient onboarding process.

About COSTAS (CSSI): http://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/CSSI/profile

AuthentaTrade: http://authenta.trade/

COSTAS INC. is a publicly traded company on the OTC Markets under the symbol CSSI. Costas Inc. invests in early stage Digital Currency projects. We believe strongly in the growth of Distributed Asset Technology and its integration into Financial Technologies (FINTech. Distributed Networks are the next massive internet investment market, as social media was 10 years ago. Costas Inc. strongly believes that a Distributed Asset Technology product will be the next Facebook or Twitter. The current US market of FINTech is approximately $1.24 Trillion.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS:

This press release and the statements of representatives of Costas, Inc. (the "Company") related thereto contain, or may contain, among other things, "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical fact included herein are "forward-looking statements," including any other statements of non-historical information. These forward-looking statements are subject to significant known and unknown risks and uncertainties and are often identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "guidance," "projects," "may," "could," "would," "should," "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "estimates," "intends," "plans," "ultimately" or similar expressions. All forward-looking statements involve material assumptions, risks and uncertainties, and the expectations contained in such statements may prove to be incorrect. Investors should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. The Company's actual results (including, without limitation, Costas ability to advance its business, generate revenue and profit and operate as a public company) could differ materially from those stated or anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, including factors and risks discussed in the periodic reports that the Company files with OTC Markets (Pink Sheets). All forward-looking statements attributable to the Company or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these factors. The Company undertakes no duty to update these forward-looking statements except as required by law.

For further information contact:



ir@costasinc.com



Costas Corporate Phone Number



702-448-2911



Fewer people are being arrested, while more offenders are being released on parole, new custody statistics show.

Figures from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research reveal the two trends caused an unexpected and "unusual plateauing" of the state's prison population in the past year.

A cell in the recently opened 400-bed prison in Cessnock, which was built in 54 weeks. Credit:Simone De Peak

The BOCSAR figures, released on Tuesday, show that the NSW prison population grew by just 0.7 per cent in 2017, with the adult population reaching 12,989 in December.

The population slowdown followed a period of rapid growth between December 2011 and December 2016, when the number of prisoners grew by 33 per cent (3150 prisoners).Melbourne City Council staff have been accused by an anonymous employee of engaging in "profoundly sexual commentary and harassment", in a leaked internal survey produced just four weeks before explosive allegations against Lord Mayor Robert Doyle emerged.

The survey of 800 staff  marked confidential  contains almost 300 anonymous comments from workers at the city council, including that there is "a culture of fear".

The City Council survey results were given to some senior staff and councilllors in November. Credit:Justin McManus

The results of the Fraud and Improper Conduct Survey were given to some senior staff and councillors in November, a month before Cr Doyle was accused of sexually harassing fellow councillors.

"People who feel protected by [the council's] anti-bullying and harassment policy engage in profoundly sexual commentary and harassment," one staff member said in the survey.Melbourne got a rare triple celestial treat when a super moon, blue moon and a full lunar eclipse coincided to illuminate the sky on Wednesday night.

And all you had to do to see the three lunar phenomena coincide was stay up and look at the night sky.

Stargazers were rewarded with a spectacular show over about three hours, and took many photos to prove it.

Delighted Melburnians flooded social media with pictures and expressed their excitement and awe as the rare event unfolded.Internal squabbling has disrupted the Greens' bid to win a second Victorian seat in the federal Parliament's lower house, before the contest has even begun.

Some Greens' members are pushing for Alex Bhathal, their candidate in the seat of Batman, to be booted out of the party before she even gets a chance to challenge Labor incumbent David Feeney .

Unhappy colleagues want Batman candidate Alex Bhathal thrown out of the Greens. Credit:Facebook

A byelection is expected in the coming months for the inner-north electorate as Mr Feeney faces a High Court examination of his eligibility for Parliament and the Greens look to be in a strong position to finally wrest the seat from Labor.

But Ms Bhathal is now the target of an effort by unhappy colleagues to revoke her preselection, which she won unopposed last year, and kick her out of party, with her enemies alleging the candidate has been unsupportive of Greens' colleagues serving as councillors for the City of Darebin.Police have been lifted into the air in the jaws of a logging tractor as they tried to break up a blockade by environmental activists who have camped out in the remote East Gippsland highlands to obstruct plans to log old-growth forest there.

Officers with the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources joined local police in the removal of the group of about 12 protesters on Wednesday so that logging machinery could enter the forest.

A police officer attempts to remove an anti-logging protester from the treetops.

The protesters, who had camped out for more than a week, had forced the suspension of plans to harvest native timber from a previously untouched area of state forest at Granite Mountain near Buldah, in one of the most remote corners of the state.

The police action involved an officer being lifted several metres into the air by a logging tractor to remove a protester who has spent the past 10 days strapped to the top of a wooden tripod structure.The full findings of the independent report into allegations of sexual harassment against Melbourne lord mayor Robert Doyle may never be made public, or shared with alleged victims.

Acting lord mayor Arron Wood told ABC radio host Jon Faine on Wednesday morning that delivery of the final report was absolutely imminent.

Robert Doyle has denied all the allegations made against him Credit:Eddie Jim

Council chief executive Ben Rimmer has been keeping councillors up-to-date on the status of the investigation but some aspects had remained confidential, Cr Wood said.

Asked why it was being handled that way, Cr Wood said the council was in uncharted territory and needed to provide natural justice to all parties. He said he would stand by the investigation, being undertaken by Dr Ian Freckleton, QC.The man had been on remand on armed robbery charges when he was let go.

"I have demanded that Corrections Victoria conduct a full investigation into how this could have occurred and how to prevent this from happening again," she said.

Acting Corrections Minister Jenny Mikakos has called for an investigation after the accidental release. Credit:Mathew Lynn

A serious criminal's accidental release from custody has sparked a state government investigation.

A Corrections Victoria spokesman said the prisoner had been "incorrectly released from custody on January 23, 2018".

"The prisoner was remanded back into custody the next morning (January 24) after handing himself into police.

"Corrections Victoria is taking this matter extremely seriously and is conducting a thorough investigation into the release," he said.

The opposition's shadow minister for Corrections Edward O'Donohue said the bungle was an example of a crisis in Victoria's corrections system under Premier Daniel Andrews.Two sexual assaults were reported at the five-day Rainbow Serpent music festival in regional Victoria.

The electro-music festival was held at Lexton, about two hours' drive north-west of Melbourne, and finished on Monday with two sexual assaults reported, five people arrested for drug possession, five evictions and 44 people testing positive for drug driving.

The reported assaults came after an incident at the festival in 2017 when a woman was allegedly grabbed by the throat, bitten and then sexually assaulted.

Acting Superintendent Graham Banks said it was concerning to see so many people making dangerous choices at the festival, despite repeated warnings from police.

"Every year police deal with serious crimes such as sexual assaults and drug trafficking at this event," he said.His New Zealand based parents Alan and Wendy Marshall have told WAtoday that without knowing all the relevant facts, it was difficult for them to feel strongly one way or another about Schmidt's possible early release. "However, the prospect of our son's killer walking free is very confronting and it is a harsh reality we have to face," they said in a statement. "What we know is that there is nothing to be gained by being bitter. "That would add to our pain and make life worse, not better and that's not the legacy we want for ourselves or our family. "Because of that, we have chosen to forgive Stefan Schmidt.

"It's a conscious decision but not an easy one... but it is the path we have chosen and we know that we cannot rebuild our lives without it." The Marshall's said from a personal point of view, they missed their son Andy more than ever before. "Whether its seven years or 20 years, (it) makes no difference, the pain and loss is never far away," they said. "While there has been no apology to our family, we haven't been waiting for one or expecting one either. It wouldn't make life any easier for us and it wouldn't change how we have dealt with Andy's death." In 2015 a plaque was unveiled outside the OBH in Mr Marshall's memory:

It reads: "My name is Andy Marshall. On 8 May 2011, 29 years of age, my life was ripped away. "An act of senseless violence that has no place in this world. "It's a matter of choice. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Love is the greatest power of all." The Marshall's family statement in full: Without knowing all the relevant facts it's difficult (to) feel strongly one way or another about the early release of Stefan Schmidt, however the prospect of our son's killer walking free is very confronting, and it is a harsh reality we have to face.

We have not received any apology from him or are aware of him showing any remorse for what he has done, but the review board will have all the facts and the right information in front of them to make the best assessment of risk, so we will trust their judgement. Whether it is now or in 12 months or in two years, the truth is he will walk free. Our main concerns are first and foremost for the safety of others and what sort of message is being sent about the impact and consequences of violence. From a personal perspective we all miss Andy more deeply than ever, if that is possible. Whether its 7 years or 20 years (it) makes no difference the pain and loss is never far away. While there has been no apology to our family, we haven't been waiting for one or expecting one either. It wouldn't make life any easier for us and it wouldn't change how we have dealt with Andy's death. Loading What we know is that there is nothing to be gained by being bitter. That would add to our pain and make life worse not better, and that's not the legacy we want for ourselves or our family. Because of that we have chosen to forgive Stefan Schmidt.BELIZE CITY, BELIZE, Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- GoldCrypto.io (through its Service Operator Crypto Investor, Inc.) advises as follows:



The GoldCrypto ICO has been rescheduled to commence on April 16, 2018.

The rescheduling will allow GoldCrypto to incorporate a number of cryptocurrency security measures that are seen as highly desirable, especially as the incidence of cryptocurrency hacking is on the increase. The deferral will also provide time for the overall cryptocurrencies market to stabilize.

To provide for a better market positioning and broader base for a gold-backed cryptocurrency, the base AuX Coin valuation has been changed from US$1.00 to US$0.20. In this regard all early participants will have their respective AuX Coin issue adjusted by a factor of five to reflect this change.

Going forward the Pre-ICO will continue with new discounts applicable. Until February 28, 2018 the Pre-ICO discount will be 30% and from March 1 through to March 31, the pre-ICO discount will reduce to 20%. From April 1 to April 15 the final pre-ICO discount will be 15%.

To secure its AuX Coin gold backing, GoldCrypto has a gold pre-purchase agreement with Scottsdale, Arizona based Key Capital Corporation (OTC PINK: KCPC), which has a mining team with extensive experience and expertise in all facets of mining. Key Capital will monitor mine performance and the production of all pre-purchased gold (see: www.keycapitalgroup.com ).

The GoldCrypto Gold Standard is backed by pre-purchased gold to be delivered as bullion following traditional mining operations. Significantly, the initial AuX Coin gold backing of circa US$0.34 following the ICO closing is positioned to continuously and autonomously increase to the direct benefit of the GoldCrypto economy and its AuX Coin holders.

The pre-purchase, or streaming, of gold and other precious metals is a well-accepted industry practice. Significant publicly listed companies, including Franco-Nevada, Silver Wheaton, Royal Gold, Sandstorm, and Osisko Royalties, acquire gold through pre-purchase or streaming agreements. Similarly, GoldCrypto interest in gold starts while it is still in the ground and continues as it is mined, processed, and stored as bullion in recognized depositories.

For further information:

See: https://goldcrypto.io



President Donald Trump's first State of the Union address is wrapped up and media analyses are well underway, meaning it's time to turn attention to the corresponding social media ruckus.

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With Trump sure to land on the front page of every major paper in the United States tomorrow, here is a look at some of the early headlines floating around the Twittersphere.

The Daily News in New York is going with a spin on Trump clapping himself, and presumably a close look into the economic victories President Trump claimed as his own.Washington: The head of Russia's foreign intelligence service, who is under US sanctions, met last week outside Washington with American intelligence officials, two US sources familiar with the matter said, even as relations between the US and Russia have been at their iciest since the Cold War over a slew of issues.

Sergey Naryshkin, head of the service known by its acronym SVR, consulted with Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and other officials, the sources said, but they did not disclose what was discussed.

Russia's state-run ITAR-Tass news agency, quoting from an interview given to Rossiya-1 television by Russias ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, also said the officials had met and that Naryshkin and his American counterparts discussed the "joint struggle against terrorism."

Antonov did not identify the US intelligence officials with whom he met.Beijing: Theresa May said Britain was a natural partner for Chinas ambitious Belt and Road global infrastructure program, but she did not formally sign up on her first state visit to China.



Britain is eager to strike a free trade agreement with China, the world's second largest economy, after it leaves the European Union.

Theresa May dots the lion's eyes during a traditional lion dance ceremony outside the British embassy in Beijing. Credit:Bloomberg

Just 3 per cent of British exports went to China in 2016, compared to 43 per cent of exports to the European Union.



Mrs May said that, as Britain left the EU, it would "become ever-more outward-looking, and as China continues to reform and open up, we are committed to deepening our strong and vital partnership".

if the people of Biafra want Republic of Biafra, it will be a reality during my administration. ----Donald Trump Donald Trump I wi...The incomparable activist and writer Kenyon Farrow used to write a blog called Non-Shock of the Week, and it came to mind when I read yet another analysis of the interplay between hormonal contraception (HC), HIV, and the long-term impact on women's health in Africa.

This paper, published by the journal Global Health: Science and Practice, uses models to explore what would happen if the injectable contraceptive DMPA, or Depo-Provera, was withdrawn from the parts of the world where it is most widely used.

Why ask this question? Because there is a possibility that DMPA (and other injectable contraceptives that contain the same synthetic hormone) could increase women's risk of HIV. The World Health Organization (WHO) identifies this "theoretical or possible risk" in its current classification of three products: DMPA, NET-EN (another injectable that uses a different hormone from DMPA) and DMPA-SC, also known as Sayana Press, which is the same hormone as Depo but uses a different, simpler delivery method. (More background information is available here.)

DMPA is the mostly widely used contraceptive in East and Southern Africa, so my non-shock of the week was its key finding: Taking away DMPA without offering a comparable method would increase women's risk of dying from pregnancy-related outcomes (e.g., unsafe abortions, complications from pregnancy), and that more women would die than would be protected from HIV.

Well, yes. That's not news. Various models have drawn the same conclusion, and an updated systematic review of epidemiological evidence on hormonal contraceptive methods and HIV acquisition was published in 2016. At least one of the authors of the recent analysis knows this, having participated in forums where civil society have implored "experts" to stop promoting these false choices. No responsible funder, government, activist or advocate would ever suggest that DMPA should be pulled off the shelf without a replacement. Maternal mortality claims too many lives; contraceptives are essential; and DMPA is the right one for many women.

So why do we keep on being told how bad it would be if DMPA were to vanish, in the event it turns out to increase women's risk of HIV? A cynical analysis is that these publications are preparing the ground in advance of data due in 2019 from the ECHO trial, which is expected to yield an answer to these questions. (ECHO is measuring whether DMPA administered through an intramuscular injection (IM) and two other HC methods-the Jadelle implant and the non-hormonal copper intrauterine device (IUD)-impact women's risk of HIV.)

The ECHO trial is designed to provide clarity where there hasn't been any-by using a randomized clinical trial design that aims to eliminate the potential for bias, which could be influencing observational data available thus far. If DMPA does increase women's risk of HIV, there will be an imperative to change the status quo and do things that are costly, hard and largely avoided by many countries for many years. Things like: increasing the number of choices that women have for contraception; integrating HIV prevention and contraceptive provision services into one clinic; and providing oral PrEP as part of comprehensive HIV prevention options.

Does this sound far-fetched? Consider this:

The article concludes, "In countries with the highest maternal mortality rates, an unrealistically large proportion of the women would need to transition from progestin-only injectables to another effective method in order to reach net neutral mortality thresholds." (Emphasis added)

In fact, the authors found (except in South Africa) 80 to 90 percent of women now using DMPA would need to switch to something just as effective to net more lives saved than lost. This calculation seems to be borne out by the available facts, but it also puts the problem in a vacuum. If a contraceptive method impacts a woman's HIV risk she should be given the option to switch methods; she should be provided the means to make different choices about HIV prevention.

The modeling paper could have suggested that now is a moment to intensify efforts to give African women access to oral PrEP along with other methods of HIV prevention-at the same places where they choose their contraceptives. This has been the refrain of advocates working on this issue all along: Women must be able to protect themselves from HIV and access safe and effective contraception. There is no time for programs or modeling papers that, however inadvertently, put forward a false dichotomy between women's HIV prevention needs and their contraceptive needs.

Instead of issuing papers and arguments about how hard and risky it will be to change anything if ECHO does indeed find that a given method impacts risk, global and national decision makers need to send the message: This is an opportunity to advance women's health via integration of HIV prevention and contraceptive programs and expanding the method mix of both. There's consistent evidence that women want this and that it's good for individual and community health. So why not do it at scale now, irrespective of the ECHO trial? Send money with the message. Fill the shelves with options for women to choose from and provide counselors skilled in explaining the risks and benefits of different methods. This is not impossible.

Another article published recently, which sits behind a paywall, looked at possible explanations for why DMPA might increase women's risk of HIV. It's dense, but the bottom line is that the specific progestin in DMPA acts differently than other progestins. Some of those differences could increase women's risk of HIV. It's all inference-there's no direct measurements of DMPA use and HIV risk. The authors looked at the available data: different kinds of cells, immune substances, other markers that the body produces and how DMPA affects them. The authors say that there could be a rational explanation for why DMPA may increase women's risk and other methods don't. But their research doesn't supply an answer, just more information in a murky space that might-or might not-be cleared up by the ECHO result.

In the meantime:

WHO should clarify their course of action if the ECHO study shows that DMPA does impact HIV risk, including how they will engage stakeholders and convene a guidelines review. WHO should contribute further models, other literature and resources that will lead to clear communication and policy guidance.

All stakeholders working in both HIV and reproductive health need to plan, ideally together and not in silos, now for the range of potential results from the ECHO trial.

Programs, policies and messages need to be developed and evaluated to understand how best to honor and uphold women's right to know all available information on the contraceptive method(s) they are being offered.

Investment is needed now in programs that provide women with broader choices in contraception and HIV prevention.

Ongoing engagement with women affected by these issues is essential. Their perspectives and experiences must guide policy, programs and messaging.

Additional Information

Emily Bass is AVAC's director of strategy and content.

[Note from TheBody.com: This article was originally published by AVAC on Jan. 30, 2018. We have cross-posted it with their permission.]According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 45% of all people living with HIV in the U.S. are over 50 years of age. Some of them are people who are living longer due to advances in treatment, but some of them are people who are either contracting HIV later in life or were not diagnosed for many years.

Providers need to consider many issues when treating older patients who are living with HIV, whether it's drug interactions with HIV medications and treatments for other illnesses a patient may have or what it means to be HIV positive and living in an assisted living facility. At the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care Conference in November 2017, Sony Salzman sat down with Kristine Erlandson, M.D., an assistant professor of medicine with the University of Colorado, to discuss significant issues related to caring for elderly HIV-positive patients.

Sony Salzman: I wanted to talk to you about what clinicians should keep in mind or know about caring for the elderly.

Kristine Erlandson: Yeah. I have my interest areas, so there are things that I think are more important that other people will disagree with. But I think probably one of the most important issues is polypharmacy.

We pile medications on people to try to treat every comorbidity they have and don't stop and think whether each medicine's adding additional benefit.

Patients are on so many different medications that they start to have all these side effects from their medications. And then, we get them more medications to treat the side effects from their medications -- and then they don't take any of them.

I think [we should] try to decrease medications, or come up with the priority medications, and eliminate medications that potentially are high risk in the older population.

Related: Frailty, Nerve Injury and Falls in Middle-Aged and Older HIV-Positive People

SS: Right. Well, that's really interesting. When it comes to the HIV population, the one thing that you can't eliminate is the HIV med.

KE: This is your priority. And it automatically adds basically three more medications to everyone's regimen. We have polypharmacy in the geriatric population. I think, as people start to get older, trying to avoid the HIV meds that, like cobicistat [Tybost] or ritonavir [Norvir], have these huge drug interactions is probably more of an issue in that population.

SS: It's kind of twofold. As the HIV doc, you're doing the work to make sure that your patient is on the best regimen for his or her other conditions; but then, at the same time ...

KE: ... Trying to minimize harm with the treatment you're giving them.

SS: Right. And negotiating with their other clinicians. And by negotiating, it's like putting your foot down.

KE: Well, I think some of it's having a central provider, making sure that if you're the primary provider for your patient, that if you send them to a cardiologist, their cardiologist is discussing it with you before they add more medications, and empowering the patient to really say, "Hey, let me check with my [HIV] doc and make sure this is OK."

We get patients that get admitted for chest pain, and cardiology loves to stick people on 80 mg of atorvastatin, which in the HIV patient on a boosted PI, it's like 200 mg of atorvastatin. It's like whopping doses higher because of that drug interaction. But they're just -- that's kind of their protocol. You come in with chest pain; you get this drug. And they just don't necessarily think about those drug interactions.

So, trying to make sure the patients are really empowered to say, "No, I need to talk to my doc first," and then trying to minimize the potential that a drug interaction might even happen, so potentially avoiding some of those high drug interaction ART [antiretroviral treatment] regimens, if possible, in the older population.

SS: OK, polypharmacy is a big one.

KE: I think multimorbidity is kind of along that same line. It's the idea that people have multiple conditions, and they all kind of interact -- and the more you have, they probably build synergistically. So, you have diabetes and you have cardiovascular disease, and it's not just that you're treating one or the other; it's how they interact. It's a big concept in aging.

From my bias, I think one of the most important things to address is someone's physical function, and functional abilities.

Some things that might go into that might be nutrition. I think, particularly as people get older, they don't have a good system to get food.

SS: Oh, my gosh. I know. All my grandmother eats is peanut butter, literally.

KE: I know. Poor education about what they should eat, particularly as our nutrition knowledge has improved over the years; we realize how important some things are. But nutrition, I think, is huge.

And then, people can't get to the grocery store to get food. And then, along that same line for mobility is exercise and trying to get people active, whether or not it's just walking.

I think the other big issue is socialization.

SS: I was going to say loneliness.

KE: Yeah. I think, along that whole line of depression, loneliness, social isolation -- and probably fitting into that, cognition, too -- and how the more engaged people can stay in the community, the more it probably helps their cognition over time.

I think another important issue is advance directives and end-of-life planning. A lot of our patients tend to have fractured social networks. Depending on the state they live in, they maybe have a same-sex partner that is not recognized by their legal system if they aren't married.

And, unless they have an advanced directive, their family, who they haven't talked to in 30 years, gets called to handle the end-of-life decisions. So, I think making sure patients have a trusted decision maker that's going to help them make those decisions [is important].

And then, also, what are they going to do? Can they stay in their own home? Do they need to go to a facility? Can they utilize geriatric resources -- or home care, skilled care, stuff like that -- to help them get the services they need to stay out of a nursing home? Or do they need skilled care? But there's a lot of stigma, still, in the nursing homes.

SS: Around HIV?

KE: Yeah.

SS: Why?

KE: I think that -- somebody was just telling me a couple weeks that they had a patient who got sent to a nursing home, and the nursing care staff insisted the patient use plastic silverware, because they thought their HIV would be contagious.

SS: That's bonkers.

KE: I know. It's crazy what people don't know, still, about HIV. I was just at my husband's grandma's 90th birthday party in her little nursing home in rural Illinois. There's nobody gay in her nursing home. They would freak out if there were. It's just such a foreign concept, still, in these very conservative communities. So, I think people that need that care just struggle when they try to go into a community like that.

I think the other big issue is falls.

SS: Falls!

KE: Falls. I think that we under-recognize falls in our population. They have a high risk of falls.

SS: What do you mean, under-recognize falls? I mean, everybody's always talking about how old people fall.

KE: Old people fall. But I don't think we appreciate how much middle-aged HIV people fall and how they're starting to fall at an earlier age. We don't necessarily ask them about a fall unless they're getting injured. And then, I don't know that a lot of people know what to do if their patient is falling.

SS: What do people do?

KE: You can -- I mean, exercise is a big thing, to try to improve their muscle strength. You can send them for physical therapy and balance training. You could send out an occupational therapist to their home. Or there's this nice check sheet patients can download from the CDC website and go through.

SS: What do you mean that HIV patients fall more? Did you say they fall more often?

KE: They do -- we think. Most of the data with falls in the older population is in, like, 65 year olds. We looked in our clinic population. In the 65 year olds, there's around a 30% fall risk starting at about age 65. In our HIV clinic, of 45-to-65 year olds, we found that there was a 30% fall risk in that middle-aged population.

SS: Hmm. That seems young.

KE: Yeah.

SS: Why? What's going on?

KE: It could be neuropathy, pain medications, substance use, sedatives, antidepressants that have a lot of those dizzy side effects, lack of muscle mass. People may have weak muscles; they don't control their balance, as well. Neurologic -- other neuro diseases -- from HIV.

SS: That's interesting. Yeah. I've never heard that before. Fascinating.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Precious Investments, Inc. (OTC Markets PNIK) (the Company or Precious) announces that it completed the acquisition of American Freight Xchange, Inc., and American Freight Xchange, Inc.s wholly owned subsidiary, KRG Logistics, Inc., of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, a third-party logistics provider focusing on e-commerce fulfillment and transportation for over twenty years.



Ronald Schapps, our Chairman, stated, We are very excited about our change in direction for the Company. This is step one in building a fully integrated end-to-end logistics and fulfillment company.

The new Corporate offices for Precious are located at 170 Trader Blvd. East, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada L4Z 1W7.

In addition, Precious has retained new Independent Auditors, the firm of BMKR, LLP, of Hauppauge, NY, a PCOAB member firm, as described in the Companys 8-K filing, of January 12, 2018, with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Precious is working aggressively with the Auditor to complete the Companys missing filings, including the audit for the fiscal year 2107, and get the Company current as quickly as possible.

American Freight Xchange, Inc.s subsidiary, KRG Logistics, is an integrated 3PO and logistics company. KRG Logistics is engaged in the business of the fulfillment of e-commerce transportation and logistics for third parties. American Freight Xchange, Inc. manages the entire logistics process. The Companys freight management program obtains the most effective combination of rates, carriers, tracking and service points to pick up returned products from store and distribution center levels with centralized billing, auditing and claims capabilities.

American Freight Xchange, Inc., through our wholly owned subsidiary KRG Logistics, Inc. ( www.krglogistics.com ) has the expertise to manage and provide North American Manufacturers and Retailers a true SINGLE SOURCE Supply Chain Solution. Due to our strategic placement in the supply chain relative to the manufacturers, retailers and distributors position, the Company is best suited to provide these services. American Freight Xchange, Inc. customizes freight management and fulfillment programs that provide manufacturers and retailers with the most cost-effective end-to-end services from the moment the shipment authorization is issued to the time the product is shipped and received.

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS

The information contained herein includes forward-looking statements. These statements relate to future events or to our future financial performance, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance, or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements since they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which are, in some cases, beyond our control and which could, and likely will, materially affect actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. Any forward-looking statement reflects our current views with respect to future events and is subject to these and other risks, uncertainties and assumptions relating to our operations, results of operations, growth strategy and liquidity. We assume no obligation to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.



SAN MATEO, Calif., Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Franklin Templeton Investments today announced the hire of Manraj S. Sekhon, CFA, as chief investment officer (CIO) of Emerging Markets Equity, overseeing the emerging markets equity teams across the organization. Sekhon will join on February 19, 2018, and will be based in the firms Singapore office. He will report to Stephen Dover, head of Equities for Franklin Templeton Investments.



Manraj Sekhon brings more than two decades of industry experience in emerging markets and is a proven global investment leader, said Dover. As part of the next phase in the evolution of our emerging markets teams, we are pleased to bring on a leader who I am confident will best leverage the breadth of our investment talent across emerging markets equities to deliver the high quality investment strategies and performance that our clients expect.

In the course of his more than 20-year career in global investment, Sekhon has managed portfolios on behalf of pension plans, sovereign wealth, endowments, insurance, family offices and private wealth clients. Prior to joining Franklin Templeton, Sekhon served as the chief executive, CIO and director of Fullerton Fund Management, a Singapore-based asset manager. In that role, he was responsible for driving the strategy and growth of the business globally as well as overseeing all investment capabilities. Prior to that, Sekhon served as director and head of International Equities at Henderson Global Investors, where he led a team managing Global and EAFE (Europe, Australasia & Far East) portfolios for clients around the world.

Sekhon will oversee Franklin Templetons more than 80 experienced emerging markets equity investment professionals based in 20 offices around the world and representing over $45 billion in assets under management. The investment philosophies and disciplined approaches of each distinct strategy within the emerging markets equity groups will remain intact.

As one of the first emerging markets investment managers, Franklin Templeton has a long history of investing in emerging and later frontier markets. Throughout the past 30 years, we have built a global team of true local experts in these countries, where on-the-ground research is paramount. We remain committed to bringing high quality emerging markets investment options to our retail and institutional clients under Manrajs capable leadership, said Jenny Johnson, president and COO of Franklin Templeton Investments.

Sekhon added, Templeton is known as a pioneer in emerging markets investing. I am honored and excited by this opportunity to join the firm to build on the legacy of renowned investors Sir John Templeton and Dr. Mark Mobius. The emerging markets expertise that Franklin Templeton has built, with a deep bench of experienced investment professionals embedded across the countries they research and invest in, is renowned in the industry. I am privileged to be leading this talented group.

About Franklin Templeton Investments

Franklin Resources, Inc. (NYSE:BEN) is a global investment management organization operating as Franklin Templeton Investments. Franklin Templeton Investments provides global and domestic investment management to retail, institutional and sovereign wealth clients in over 170 countries. Through specialized teams, the company has expertise across all asset classesincluding equity, fixed income, alternative and custom solutions. The companys more than 650 investment professionals are supported by its integrated, worldwide team of risk management professionals and global trading desk network. With offices in over 30 countries, the California-based company has 70 years of investment experience and over $753 billion in assets under management as of December 31, 2017.

For more information, please visit franklintempleton.com . Connect with Franklin Templeton at @FTI_US or access perspectives from Franklin Templeton emerging markets investment professionals around the world at @FTI_emerging or the Investment Adventures in Emerging Markets blog .

Copyright  2018. Franklin Templeton Investments. All rights reserved.

From: Franklin Templeton Investments

Corporate Communications:

Rebecca Radosevich, (212) 632-3207, rebecca.radosevich@franklin.templeton.com

Lisa Gallegos, (650) 312-3395, lisa.gallegos@franklintempleton.com

franklintempleton.comGaithersburg, MD, Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- RealBiz Media Group, Inc. (OTCQB: RBIZ), currently operating as Verus Foods (the Company), is pleased to announce that Verus has received an unrestricted one-year promissory note in the sum of $530,000 from Monaker Board Member Don Monaco. This note greatly enhances the Companys financial position and will be used for corporate purposes, both to create growth and to retire debt. The use of these funds will depend upon working capital discussions currently ongoing with other entities.



In addition, the Company is reporting the return of a portion of the shares issued in conjunction with the recent Monaker settlement. Following that agreement in December 2017, Verus CEO Anshu Bhatnagar requested indemnification on behalf of RBIZ shareholders in the form of 50% of the 8,326,630 RBIZ shares awarded to NestBuilder by Monaker. In conjunction with todays announcement, NestBuilder has agreed with that request and has returned 4,163,315 shares of common stock to RealBiz.

These actions signify a final resolution and end to all existing litigation, share disputes, and other disagreements between Monaker Group, NestBuilder, RealBiz and related parties. As a reminder, current RealBiz shareholders of common stock will receive an equivalent number of shares in NestBuilder following the upcoming spin-off, which is in final review with the SEC.

This marks a major milestone in becoming a fully-independent company as Verus Foods, commented Verus CEO Anshu Bhatnagar. We have operated under the cloud and expense of the RBIZ legacy lawsuits during our entire time as a public food company, so to have those layers of litigation finally end goes beyond a sense of relief. Coupled with this influx of funding, we now have the chance to manage both our growth and debt on our own terms. The events of the last year were not something we expected at our starting point in January of 2017, and we have some remaining challenges to overcome, but our vision to create a global food business remains the same.

With all litigation and share-count issues now settled, the remaining scheduled corporate actions include a spin-off timetable (dependent on the SEC), followed by a name and symbol change.

About RealBiz Media Group, Inc.

RealBiz Media Group, Inc. consists of two business segments: an international food subsidiary (Verus Foods) that sells products to customers worldwide; and a real estate digital media and technology company. RealBiz Media Group, Inc. (OTCQB: RBIZ) trades on the OTCQB venture stage marketplace for early stage and developing U.S. and international companies. Investors can find Real-Time quotes and market information for the company on www.otcmarkets.com .

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are identified by the use of the words could, believe, anticipate, intend, estimate, expect, may, continue, predict, potential, project and similar expressions that are intended to identify forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Although we believe that our plans, objectives, expectations and intentions reflected in or suggested by the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we can give no assurance that these plans, objectives, expectations or intentions will be achieved. Forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties (some of which are beyond our control) and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from historical experience and present expectations or projections. Actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements and the trading price for our common stock may fluctuate significantly. Forward-looking statements also are affected by the risk factors described in the Companys filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, after the date on which the statements are made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.



BOSTON, Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Podium Data, Inc., creator of the Podium Data Marketplace will discuss on a live webinar the challenges businesses face in achieving fast and actionable business insights from data lakes.



When implemented as part of an integrated data management process, data catalogs are essential to managing big data at scale, making possible business-ready data to users for self-service on-demand access.

WHEN: Wednesday, February 21st at 1:00pm (EST)

PRESENTERS:

Chris Ortega, Sr. Dir. Customer Success

Barbara Petrocelli, V.P. of Marketing

REGISTRATION: http://tinyurl.com/y98ypdo7

SESSION OVERVIEW:

In this live event, Podium presents seven powerful examples of how data catalogs enable improved data on-boarding, organization, governance, and end user access in enterprise-scale data lakes. Presenters will also address the pros and cons of integrating metadata across point products vs. taking a platform approach to enrich data in the lake.

Discussion Topics:

Data catalogs vs metadata

Building an enterprise data directory

Making data business ready

Protect data at scale

Automating data workflows

Point products vs platform approach

About Podium Data

Podium Data is radically simplifying and accelerating the way companies manage, prepare and deliver business-ready data  the lifeblood of the modern enterprise. The Podium Data Marketplace is a turnkey big data management platform that goes beyond data lakes to give business analysts self-service, on-demand access to trusted data while ensuring quality and control. More information is available at www.podiumdata.com and follow us on Twitter at @PodiumData.

Media Contact

Glen Zimmerman gzimmerman@podiumdata.comBy Mohammed Hammoud

New Canadian Media

On Saturday, January 20, millions took to the streets to protest unjust legislative policies against women in the U.S. and Canada. Originally organized as a rally against the Trump administration in 2017, in its second year, the Womens March is quickly becoming a voice for human rights advocacy.

In Toronto, thousands of women and men alike joined forces in the march which took place at Nathan Phillips Square with Defining our Future as this years theme. Starting at noon, many speakers including former Ontario MPP Zanana Akande addressed the crowd to demonstrate support for one another.

Marginalized voices need to be heard, and what better time than now? The fact that 2018 is an election year in Ontario, the fight for gender equality and social change is at the forefront, especially with policy makers who want to keep their positions.

As a man of faith, I feel that it is important to support this movement, by speaking out and taking action. After all, remaining silent only condones the injustice.

This year, the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements reinforced the momentum behind the Womens March by exposing the widespread prevalence of sexual assault and workplace harassment. Numerous, almost daily revelations of sexual misconduct allegations have been brought into the public sphere, exposing abusive men in powerful positions. Yet, it seems as though the focus is on exposing individuals, rather than the system that enables them to abuse their power and get away with it.

Abusive systems led by tyrannical men is nothing new. History is mired with countless stories of human rights abuse and social injustice. At our home, we draw personal inspiration from strong women in history as examples. Asiya bint Muzahim, wife of the Pharaoh, denounced her husband in support of Moses. Mariam, mother of the Messiah, who, in spite of being falsely accused of adultery, remained firm in her resolve. Zainab bint Ali, granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad, who confronted the tyrant of her time after he had commanded the murder and beheading of her brother, Hussein ibn Ali, and 72 of his companions.

After 1400, Zainabs speech still resonates today as it calls out from Karbala, a small town in central Iraq, to over 23 million visitors who flock there for the largest human gathering, the Fortieth, to stand up against tyranny and abuse of power and call for social justice.

By highlighting these powerful women as role models, we are emboldened as sons, brothers, husbands and fathers, to ensure that we do not abuse our positions. Womens voices are heard, and they play an active role in our homes, as well as our communities.

I personally draw inspiration to vocalize from the brave women of the #MeToo movement who spoke out and started the wave of allegations against abusive men of power. Their cause is a call to action for similar offenses and radicalization. Yet, while there have been hints of rampant sexual abuse in the movie industry for almost 30 years, the topic did not receive the needed attention since.

A 2016 TED Talk from Naomi McDougall Jones hinted at the exploitation by going straight to the heart of the issue and addressing the abusive and sexist nature of Hollywood. Jones explains how 95 percent of all the films you have ever seen were directed by men. Somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of all of the leading characters that you have ever seen were men. And even if we just talk about the last five years, 55 percent of the time that you have seen a woman in a movie, she was naked or scantily clad. That affects you. That affects all of us.

It is not just the movie industry, but an entire system that typecasts woman as a commodity, radicalizes groups and labels them as criminals, drunkards or terrorists based on the colour of their skin or religious beliefs. When this system intensifies its hold on our institutions, it is enabled to establish deep roots in our society and our legislative policies. This systemic racism is further legitimized when it silences the victim and empowers the aggressor. The result: a silent discrimination that ends up robbing us of our voice, our courage and our identity, leaving us to feel nothing but shame and guilt.

So, as we march united with these movements, we need to challenge our blind financial support of such industries. For them, #TimesUp. As Jones recommends, we need to fund alternative mechanisms that share our causes, where we are empowered and celebrated, rather than mocked and shamed to feel inferior. Only then, when we can find what makes us great again, can we define our identity and reclaim our what is rightfully ours.

Mohamed Hammoud has been involved in various public speaking engagements focusing on interfaith as well as training on leadership, diversity and inclusion. This piece is part of a series titled, "Ethnic Women as Active Participants in Ontario".

This piece was originally appeared in New Canadian Media.

See http://eb.newcanadianmedia.ca/component/k2/43067-united-we-marchTORONTO, Jan. 31, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) President Chris Buckley commended yesterdays appeal decision for Metron Construction Project Manager Vadim Kazenelson, calling it a confirmation of a historic decision that sends a strong message to every employer in the province.



In January of 2016, Ontario Court Judge, the Honourable Ian MacDonnell, sentenced Kazenelson to three and a half years in jail for each of the four counts of criminal negligence causing death and one count causing bodily harm, following the tragic collapse of a swing stage at a Toronto high-rise on December 24, 2009. The sentences will be served concurrently.

A panel of three judges issued their decision on the Kazenelson appeal yesterday dismissing it.

The message from the original Ontario court decision and this appeal decision echoes the campaign of the Ontario Federation of Labour: if you kill a worker, you will go to jail, said Buckley. No prison term or financial penalty can bring back the workers who died or undo the pain felt by their families, but this sentence has the power to prevent other workers from suffering a similar fate.

The OFL launched its Kill a Worker, Go to Jail campaign immediately following the Metron tragedy in 2009, to demand jail time for bosses whose criminal negligence results in a workers death. The campaign saw success in 2012 when Metron Construction received Ontarios first criminal conviction since the Criminal Code of Canada was amended in response to the 1992 Westray Mine Disaster. While the company was fined over a million dollars, the companys sole owner and director, Joel Swartz, escaped criminal conviction altogether. In June 2015, an Ontario Superior Court found the Metron Project Manager, Vadim Kazenelson, guilty of five counts of criminal negligence. At the January 2016 sentencing hearing, Judge MacDonnell made clear that his decision to apply a significant term of imprisonment was meant to denounce the Metron managers failure to prevent manifestly dangerous conditions and carry a strong message of general deterrence to other employers in the province.

This jail sentence was a historic verdict and marked the first time an Ontario employer faced criminal consequences for negligence causing the death of a worker, said Buckley. This has meant that employers cant simply chalk up a workers life as a cost of doing business. The OFL will not stop campaigning until employers who put workers lives at risk, find themselves doing hard time in jail.

The Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) represents 54 unions and one million workers in Ontario. For information, visit www.OFL.ca and follow @OFLabour on Facebook and Twitter.

For further information contact:

Rob Halpin, Executive Director

Email: rhalpin@ofl.ca

Phone: 416-707-9014 (cell)Franchise owners face unique challenges: Some have several stores and locations and couldnt participate in daily operations even if they wanted to. Others struggle to run a nearly one-man (or woman) show: providing both the financial capital and the day-to-day management.

Related: The Top Traits of Successful Franchise Owners

In fact, owners can't do it alone. Those who try to play both sides, as investor and manager, eventually let something slip, piling up small mistakes that turn into big problems. In the wake of McDonalds decision to terminate the franchise agreements of 169 stores in India -- citing broken contract terms and unpaid royalties -- franchise owners should step back and reconsider which role they should actually be in.

As a trampoline park franchise owner and operator, I know what its like to need more hands, eyes and hours in a day. I also know how easily those 12-hour days can lead to burnout, which is why I delegate most of the day-to-day work to a team of employees I trust.

Not every franchise owner needs a dozen people to keep the ship running, but owners who serve as the primary manager of their stores must recognize their physical limitations. Owners must set clear expectations on reporting, scheduling and training metrics. They must follow up weekly to stay on top of issues before they get out of control.

Personally, this is the approach I take, and it allows me to work on growing my business without losing sight (through my managers) of the ground-level operational efficiencies that drive daily revenue.

Investors and managers play different parts.

I'm close to other franchisees in my sector, so Ive seen others struggle to wear the hats of both investor and operator. Theyd find more success, I believe, if they knew how to separate working in the business from time working on it.

For instance, you may want to manage small details, but this can prevent business growth. When guests call to inquire about birthday parties at my trampoline business, sure, I'd love to take the call; but its better delegated to a trusted, able employee so, as investor, I can focus on other tasks.

To serve as your staff's gatekeeper of key information, you need to keep a consistent on-site schedule, but if you provide the tools needed to operate your business,you need not be involved in day-to-day details. Instead, you should tackle the big-picture projects.

Certainly, I recognize that I don't have a monopoly on good ideas. According to a blog post from the Indiana Small Business Development Center, citing a University of Tennesee survey, 46 percent of businesses studied failed because the people running them were simply incompetent and apparently unwilling to admit it. Some of these owners took an emotional approach to price; some failed to pay taxes; some had no knowledge of pricing conventions and financial requirements -- and more.

In short, no one owner should go it alone, unless he or she has to. By delegating work to trusted employees, you can cover your own weaknesses and create more time to study the market and make better decisions.

How to run a better franchise

Giving up control isnt easy, but franchise owners must learn to pick their battles to avoid getting overwhelmed. Follow these tips to create some distance from day-to-day operations without sacrificing quality:

1. Remember that brevity is key, but clarity is right there with it. Managers want to do well, but they often dont recognize where they go wrong. According to research published in the Harvard Business Review, 57 percent of U.S. workers surveyed said that ineffective leaders dont give clear directions, while 39 percent said they didn't offer constructive criticism.

So, in your own business, buck the trend by establishing reasonable goals and mentoring managers to meet those requirements.

Know who does what and when they do it; then check to ensure they did it. Alyssa Gregory, founder of the Small Business Bonfire and an expert consultant for business owners, advises entrepreneurs to create systems that dont require their personal input to function.

Related: The Secret Sauce to Great Franchise Leadership

Design workflows and reporting schedules to stay informed on the metrics that matter without losing sight of the big picture. Work with managers to optimize factors such as staff schedules and hiring processes and then step back and let data guide the next move. Create a deliberate layer of separation to free time that could be better spent on higher-level strategy.

Clearly communicate key performance indicators, such as staff turnover, and provide corrective direction as needed to ensure managers have the knowledge and resources they need to meet expectations.

2. Make sure your employees can wear many (if not all) hats. Encourage training at all levels to build a team that functions well, regardless of whos on-site. Dont let managers start thinking, If I train someone to do my job, she might take it from me. Teach managers to train their employees so if they have sick days or emergencies, other people can cover without needing owner assistance.

Additionally, consider hiring staff members whose only focus is on aiding franchisees. As an example, the company Solar Universe, which sells solar panels to franchisees, saw such a demand that owner Joe Bono realized a full-time employee was needed to man the order desk. Solar Universe also ended up hiring a trainer and a franchise advocate to answer any and all questions and qualms franchisees might have.

Make sure your eadership team is capable both in-house and in the field.

3. Delegate everything, then delegate some more. Once youve provided managers and team members with the tools and knowledge they need, step away. No one will get everything right on the first try, but through training and some trial and error, your employees will learn to handle things on their own.

Gregory, the small business expert, also warned owners against the dangers of micromanagement. Delegation with too much oversight is not true delegation -- just an extra layer of frustration for both parties. So, get out of the way and let people learn and grow. Consider Amazons CEO Jeff Bezos: He's frequently been described as a micromanager, and employees and certain product launches have suffered because of it: Whenever anyone asked why we were doing this, the answer was Because Jeff wants it,'" an Amazon insider said about the companys failed product, the Fire Phone.

Bottom line: Dont be that guy.

While I warn against micromanagement, Im still encouraging effective, constructive management. Discern specific steps you can take to support your employees -- always being one step ahead of knowing what theyll need and checking in regularly. What do they have going on in their personal and professional lives? Pay attention to any signs of growth or trepidation and address them. Connect and follow up.

Related: 5 Strategies for Franchise Leadership Development

By following these strategies, owners can give themselves breathing room to step away from daily operations. Occasionally, an owner might need to jump in to cover some work -- say that the general manager and assistant general manager take leave at the same time. But for the most part, owners who follow these strategies can trust their employees to run things themselves, letting the owners do what they should be doing: building the business.

Related:

As a Franchisee, You Can't Be the Investor AND the Manager and Still Be Successful

It's Not Micromanaging If You Do It Without Killing Morale

How to Avoid Micromanaging



Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com

NORWALK  Police are warning residents about a bill collector telephone scam.

Police in Norwalk say they have received several recent reports from residents in which a caller purports to be a bill collector from a local utility company.

The caller demands payment over the phone for a past due bill and threatens to terminate power to the home.

Police advise that if you receive such a call, simply hang up the phone and contact your utility company.

Do not provide anyone you dont know with personal information or credit card or banking information, police said.In 2016 alone, opioid-related deaths neared the number of American casualties in both the Vietnam War and Iraq campaigns, combined. Crazy numbers, somewhere around 63,000 men and women, depending on the source.

Prescription opioids, heroin and fentanyl continue to kill Americans at record pace. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 91 Americans die each day from opioid overdose. The loss of life and productivity represents a $78.5 billion economic impact.

Even entire cities are weighing in on the opioid crisis by going directly at its source. Theyre after the drug companies who ignited the opioid crisis in the first place. The cities of Everett and Tacoma, Washington have filed federal lawsuits against opiate drug companies, joining dozens of similar cases all lined-up at the U.S. District Court in Cleveland, Ohio.

91 Americans die from #opioid overdose each day. Understanding the Epidemic | Drug Overdose | CDC Injury Center https://t.co/3kVOimmBoS via @CDCgov pic.twitter.com/KGMDymiIQv  Andre F Bourque ? (@SocialMktgFella) January 23, 2018

Related: Doctors and Patients In Florida Are Embracing Medical Marijuana

Opportunity for the medical marijuana industry

Interestingly, the madness of the opioid crisis creates an auspicious opportunity for the cannabis industry. Heres how.

The Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found that states with medical cannabis are associated with a 25% reduction in average opioid overdose mortality rates. Secondarily, doctors in medical marijuana states prescribed 1,800 fewer painkiller prescriptions for patients a year.

Physicians and activists alike are using findings like these to highlight the cannabis plants powerful properties in the face of federal attempts to disrupt the legalization of it. The opioid crisis has, in fact, helped spotlight the role medical marijuana can play in reducing the spread of it.

Compared to opioids, cannabis is less addictive both physically and psychologically. Any drug which provides relief from pain may be habit-forming, but from a clinical standpoint, physical addiction to cannabis has not been proven, Zeyead Gharib, CEO of Harvest Direct Enterprises related to me in an email interview. His companys products, Weed Pillz (THC-Dominant) and Med Pillz (CBD-Dominant), are cannabis edibles offer an alternative to patients seeking to manage chronic pain, and preventing addiction and overdoses.

In addition to being less addictive and harmful than prescription opioids, cannabis causes less physical dependence and physical harm than alcohol, caffeine or tobacco; all of which are legal and enjoyed socially. Cannabis withdrawal is comparable to caffeine withdrawal; it is generally mild and short-lived. In summary, cannabis can be habit forming but is generally considered to be less addictive than most drugs consumed both medically and socially.

Cannabis has an addiction rate of around 9 percent, and while cannabis may be addictive, were certain no one has ever died from a cannabis overdose, unlike many pharmaceuticals, Jessie Gill, a registered nurse and founder of Marijuana Mommy told me in an interview. Before I was a medical marijuana patient, I needed valium and opiates every six hours, plus additional medications. That meant there were dozens of deadly pharmaceuticals in my home. Now, all I have is a non-lethal cannabis and as a parent, thats a relief.

Billboard in Indiana sees #MedicalMarijuana as the solution to #opioidcrisis proclaiming: States with Medical #Cannabis have 25% fewer opioid overdose deaths https://t.co/GO9xjQr5gO pic.twitter.com/l8XWF1p3vR  Doyen Elements (@DoyenElements) November 23, 2017

If marijuana can manage pain the same as or better than prescription drugs, it offers a less damaging solution with fewer short and long-term side effects on the liver, kidneys, heart and other bodily systems.

The debate over opiates often overlooks those with a legitimate need for pain management, Danny Sloat, founder of AlpinStash, a Colorado craft cannabis company told me. He began growing cannabis professionally after medical marijuana he purchased at a dispensary helped him overcome chronic stomach pains and debilitating illness, as well as complications from thoracic outlet syndrome and a non-cancerous brain tumor.

With medical marijuana, Sloat weaned himself off 19 prescription medications, including the opiate Fentanyl. He credits cannabis with saving his life.

Too often opiates have been tossed at patients and touted as the only prescription form of pain relief, and yet cannabis is truly a holistic approach to pain management. Cannabis is the complete opposite to opiates in almost every way -- its not addictive, has no overdose potential, helps relieve pain, decreases inflammation and inspires movement and activity, despite the stereotype to the opposite. Where opiates subtract from life, cannabis adds, Sloat asserted.

More medical and addiction specialists see marijuana as an aid to drug withdrawal. It provides another weapon for rehabilitation as it manages pain on its own and because it can resolve withdrawal symptoms quickly and effectively.

Experiments on lab mice have found that the animals lose interest in opioids once they have been administered THC. While this is not the final word, it begs for more research to show how medical marijuana can reduce cravings and forestall relapsing.

Related: The $5-Billion Challenge Medical Marijuana Poses to Big Pharma

Medical marijuana versus the opioid crisis.

As the opioid epidemic panics the nation, it only increases the market and justification for more research and application of medical marijuana as both a remedy and therapeutic solution for recovery.

We've seen a significant decline in opioid overdoses in states that have legal cannabis programs, said Emma Chasen, a cannabis ethnobotanist and Director of Education at Sativa Science Club, an organization that pools researchers and industry leaders to provide community education resources on a number of cannabis topics in Oregon. Voters there legalized medical marijuana in 1998 and in 2014 legalized recreational cannabis for adults

. Cannabis works, she continued. We just need more research to further prove it.

Research into medical uses of cannabis is effectively blocked federal law. Researchers at the Brookings Institution found that federal classification of cannabis as an addictive drug without medical use is part of this layered system that impedes legitimate medical research on the benefits -- and harms -- that marijuana can have for a variety of ailments.

I expect the coming year will show an increase in prescriptions for this affliction and more knowledge in its efficacy, Thomas Green, MD, medical advisor for culture and medical publisher, The Fresh Toast told me. My hope is that the DEA will change the schedule of the drug so that we can more easily study its use for opioid addiction.

Related: New Data Shows Medical Marijuana Consumers Far Outspend Recreational Users

Solidarity and shift.

Republicans and Democrats alike are opposing a return to a hardline federal stance against the cannabis industry and are increasingly open to viewing drug addiction as a health-related issue better handles outside the criminal justice system. Its one of the few issues both parties agree on.

92% of vets, including myself, support medical cannabis research. All we are asking for is VA research that is 100% legal right now under current law.@SecShulkin needs to stand up to AG Jeff Sessions & put in the hard work necessary to #DoTheResearch. https://t.co/eA0u4kM0Vh  Rep. Tim Walz (@RepTimWalz) January 24, 2018

At the same time, even some drug addiction professionals admit to the potential application of cannabis in delivering effective treatment. "Contrary to what other addiction treatment centers might think, we've seen first-hand accounts of Non-THC based CBD cannabis helping augment pain management in former addicts," said David Likens, CEO at California-based Ascension Treatment Centers. "We have been misled about the power of this plant for over 70 years, and the use of cannabis as a harm-reduction tool for opioid addicts is something we need to add to our existing arsenal of recovery tools."

As this thinking shifts, so too does funding allocation. With more solidarity and resources, 2018 may be a big year for the advancement of medical marijuana into every day, modern-day medicine.

Related:

The Opioid Crisis Is Forcing Open Minds About the Lifesaving Potential of Medical Marijuana

New Jersey's New Governor Is Moving Fast to Expand Access to Medical Marijuana

The Business of Cannabis (Infographic)



Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com